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Raritan Valley Community College today became the first community college in the nation to join the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the fight to reduce its carbon footprint.
RVCC President Dr. Casey Crabill said the agreement builds on a movement that started several years ago and enhances the efforts of the college’s recycling, energy and water conservation programs.
Acknowledging the tree-lined campus landscape she said, “Today I think we’re making an unprecedented committment to preserve that and to protect that and to improve that environment for the students that are here now and the students that will follow them.”
The agreement commits the college to reducing its greenhouse gas production by 10 percent through adopting EPA regulated conservation policies and standards, including using recycled construction materials, low-sulfur diesel fuel for college vehicles, and eliminating herbicides in three weeks.
George Pavlou, acting regional administrator of the EPA, commended the college for initiating the partnership. “We need visionaries, we need institutions like RVCC to partner with the EPA, to join us to fight the greenhouse gases,” he said.
He recalled times in the 1970s when the rivers ran brown, the land oozed chemicals, and “the soils were the color of the rainbow.” Although those times were environmentally harmful he said greenhouse gases, because they are virtually undetectable, are a more insideous threat. He hopes the agreement will add one more defense to the arsenal of environmental accountability. “We are elevating the battle with the environment to another level and trying to essentially retard the negative effect we’ve had on the environment thus far,” he said.
Somerset County Freeholder Jack Ciattarelli commended the college for setting a positive example. “Right now, there’s very little government can do to force businesses and coporations to be environmentally conscious, but what we can do is demonstrate environmental leadership and that’s what RVCC is helping us do today,” he said noting that the county encourages hybrid cars as well as initiated its own energy audit program and energy council.
The Raritan Environmental Action League, a student organization at the college, has already eliminated plastic and styrofoam from the college’s cafeteria and is championing the maintenance of the recycling and composting program. “There are still going to be challenges ahead,” said Lindsay Troyer, president of REAL,”But we are able, ready and so so excited for the task.”
Crabill said the college had already taken steps to reduce its environmental impact by installing energy efficient lighting in classrooms, using solar powered scoreboards and traffic signs, composting food waste and encouraging the use of hybrid cars.
Crabill said injecting green ideals into the education system would benefit students not only environmentally, but also personally. “We are afterall a learning place,” she said. “So as we continue to grow and live together in a more sustainable way, we hope that this will impact our curriculum across the college so that our students learn what they come here to learn, but also the values of our community and the values of sustainability.”
In 2008, Montclair State University was the first educational institution to partner with the EPA. Since then, others including Monmouth University, have signed on.
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