Van Pools Blog

We recently interviewed Kim Coble, who is the Executive Director for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation on her views of sustainable transportation. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation is a non-profit environmental advocacy organization with the sole mission of restoring and protecting the Chesapeake Bay. Read more on Kim’s thoughts and answers to our questions:

1. Does anyone in your organization belong to a vanpool or carpool to work because of the recent gas prices?

Yes, several staff have formed their own carpools due to the recent gas prices but a number of staff have been in carpools for awhile due to the environmental benefits of car pooling.  Additionally, CBF staff use alternative methods to get to work including, biking, boating and kayaking. We also have a number of staff with hybrid vehicles and provide a special parking stop for those with hybrids!

2.  What makes the “Green Building” ( Merrill Center)  the “greenest” building on earth?  Is there anything specific that makes the building different than other “Green” Buildings?

The Merrill Center was the first Platinum LEED certified building in the world.  We are pleased to say that since we moved in in 2000, there are about 50 other Platinum certified buildings.  The Merrill center is a unique building in that, it sits on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, functions as an office building and a conference center and is very green.  Some environmental highlights of the building include, composting toilets, geo-thermal wells, collecting and reusing all the water from our roofs, sustainable building materials and maximizing the use of the sun. The Center uses 10 % of the water and 40% of the electricity that a normal building this size would use.

3. What are your views on sustainable transportation and efforts we can do as a whole to cut down on carbon emissions?

I believe sustainable transportation is critical to our environmental future. The United States has created and subsidized a very unsustainable transportation system and this needs to change.  The high gas prices have really helped to push us in the right direction and it is encouraging to hear so much discussion about transportation choices.What can we do – as individuals there are the obvious choices regarding the type of vehicles we drive, how fast we drive, and how much we drive.These are very important choices however, I also believe that we must get our businesses and corporations to make different choices.  This is where a company such as VPSI plays an important role.  Business leaders need to create incentives for their employees to drive less.  There area number of actions that can be taken and I believe a lot of room for some creative thinking to encourage employees to drive less with regards to their commute.

4. What are your main objectives at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation?

CBF is a non-profit environmental advocacy organization with the sole mission of restoring and protecting the Chesapeake Bay.  We have been around for about 40 years, have offices in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia and in Washington DC.  We work at the state and federal levels on policies that will help restore and protect the Bay.  Additionally,we have a nationally recognized education department that each yeartakes over 40,000 students, teachers and decision makers out on the Bay and on the rivers and streams.  The idea behind this program is to get folks outside and teach them about the Bay and its watershed.  If someone experiences our natural resources, they will learn to love them and if they love them, they will take better care of them.

5. Was the Merrill Center built from donations?

The Merrill Center was built with donations, the largest from Phil and Eleanor Merrill whom the building was named after. We also sold two of our downtown offices and obtained funding for placing the property inconservation easement.

6. How does the vehicle exhaust in the Baltimore area  contribute to the destruction of the Chesapeake Bay?

There are two primary ways vehicle exhaust harms the bay and onesecondary way. The two primary ways is that cars emit a pollutant called nitrous oxide. Believing that what goes up must come down, the nitrousoxides are emitted from the cars, go into the air and ultimately land or the water or on the land and are washed into the water. In short,nitrous oxides are a form of nitrogen, which is the leading pollutant to the Bay.  Currently there is a tremendous amount of effort and resources going to reducing nitrogen loadings to the Bay.  Our goal is to cap the nitrogen loads at 170 million pounds per year.  Currently we are at about 320 million pounds per year across the entire watershed. Obviously, we need to do everything we can to reduce the nitrogen loads,including driving less and driving LEV vehicles.  (As an aside, the population in the Bay watershed is at about 15 million and projected to grow to about 19 million in the next 20 years.  This will mean more carson the road and really creates a sense of urgency to transition ourselves to cleaner and fewer cars.)  The other primary way vehicles impact the Bay is that they emit greenhouse gases in general and contribute to global warming.  The Bay is very shallow and therefore, very susceptible to sea level rise. The secondary concern related to cars has to do with sprawl development.  One way to drive less is tolive closer to where you work.  If we keep converting land and developing in a sprawling fashion, we will continue to have long, polluting commutes.  The way we develop our land is directly related tohow much impact cars have on our environment.

7. Can you tell us a bit about your background and passion for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation?

My academic background is in toxicology and worked for a number of yearson projects related to the interface between human health and the environment.  Fifteen years ago, I started with CBF as a scientist. Ididn’t have much ecological background however, the foundation recognized that protecting human health and protecting the environment are very linked. Five years ago, I became the Maryland ExecutiveDirector for CBF and oversee our policy work in Maryland. Thank you for acknowledging my passion because I am definitely passionate about mywork and the opportunity we all have to improve the environment.

8. What is the CBF doing to combat increasing surface runoff from major urban (Washington, DC and Baltimore) and agricultural areas that cause pollution of the Chesapeake Bay?

CBF has been working in all three states as well as, at the federal level to obtain funds to assist our local governments and farmers in implementing environmental practices.  Over the last, 8 years we have obtained over $3 billion.  This money will go a long way in helping get practices and programs in place that will help reduce runoff. We also work very hard to ensure the state regulatory programs are aggressive and targeted.  Most recently in Maryland, we have been working with the Maryland Department of the Environment on the Montgomery County Storm water permit and the state wide stormwater regulations to ensure these regulatory programs will result in less runoff getting into our rivers and the Bay.

9. Does CBF support raising states’ gas taxes to further encourage fuel conservation and investment in and the use of sustainable transportation?

I can not say we have a blanket support of increasing the state’s gas taxes because how they are constructed and what they are used for varies by state. However, conceptually, we do support programs that will discourage driving and encourage investments in sustainable transportation.  We have been looking at ways to encourage the state toreduce its VMT (vehicle miles traveled).

10. What is CBF’s position on off-shore drilling off the coast of Virginia and Maryland?  What alternative sustainable energy sources does CBF support?

We are opposed to off-shore drilling off the coast of VA and MD. Instead of drilling off our sensitive shorelines, we believe it is time to embrace real energy solutions – energy efficiency, renewable resources like solar and wind power, and improved miles per gallon. We don’t need to sacrifice our shorelines and coastal waters, national treasures like the Chesapeake Bay, and our local economies to meet America’s energy needs.