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GREENBURGH, N.Y. In tough economic times, conserving energy and saving the environment have become priorities. Therefore, green infrastructure is a common trend in communities from Greenburgh to Tarrytown to Ardsley.
With this popularity, some may be left in the dark about how these earth friendly projects work. Groundwork Hudson Valley set out to change that by holding a Green Infrastructure Bus Tour across Westchester County Wednesday evening.
The tour highlighted and described many new earth-friendly initiatives in our area.
"We wanted to do this because we always mention or talk about some of these projects at exhibits we hold, but today we wanted to actually show the people what they are and how they work," said David Kvinge, director of environmental planning for Westchester County and one of three tour guides.
The other two tour guides were Loraine Kuhn, stormwater management coordinator for the Village of Ardsley and Thomas Madden, commissioner of community development and conservation in Greenburgh.
The tour began at Stormwater Park in the County Center parking lot in White Plains before traveling to the Greenburgh Nature Center, the Landmark at Eastview in Tarrytown and various locations in Ardsley.
Admission to the bus tour was free on a first come first serve basis. Those in attendance were encouraged to ask questions throughout the various stops. Some of the more modern exhibits included porous asphalt that allows rain seepage to avoid flooding and green roofs, which act like a blanket of vegetation over a building to keep it cool and conserve energy.
Kvinge noted that it is always important to consider the price of the project and the current status of the infrastructure before installing. Even though the final outcome may be conservative, the cost of the project may be too high for what it is worth.
"Whenever we're installing infrastructure like this we try to preserve as much as we can," he said. "You don't want to have to alter too much or remove things like land or trees in order to install."
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