GREEN THINKING AT BLUE CANYON

The Operations and Maintenance Building at Blue Canyon

Our idea of renewable doesn’t stop at how we make electricity. We’re also thinking about greener methods of construction and maintenance. While it’s true that cost will always be a factor in any business’s development plans, we believe that making choices to help the environment and to help the people working at our wind farms, sometimes despite cost, will have a positive effect on any business endeavor—especially a renewable venture. We try to balance our idealism with our pragmatism—not always easy, but always worth the effort.

Research: Local Influence

We like the idea of fitting our operations and maintenance buildings into the surrounding landscape. And we feel this effort towards harmony underlines what we love about wind energy: it helps the environment. So it’s important that our buildings help, too. In the past, we’ve borrowed the local architecture—literally—by recycling it; for example, the operations and maintenance (O&M) building at the Top of Iowa wind farm is a hip roof barn we moved from another location in Iowa and restored.

Looking around at our neighbors in Oklahoma inspired us when considering how to relate our O&M structures with the local ranch styles. To the south of Blue Canyon, we found a great example of Oklahoma-specific architecture: the very quaint and well-preserved Medicine Park, a spa and resort from the turn of the century. Those cobble stones are really wonderful, and they are exclusive to this part of the country. But they’re also quite rare--and expensive. So we kept searching.

Many of the local ranch buildings have been constructed using wood framing and rock walls. Because we admired the look, we were happy to find a local source of limestone. One of our neighbors down the road, both a rancher and a supporter of wind energy, sold us the same rock quaried from his property that he used to build his house.

Research: Materials

Sourcing green building materials can challenge the construction director of a project. Most building development is ultimately decided by cost—and, of course, aesthetics when design is important, as it is to us—and green materials are not always inexpensive materials. Often builders will pay a premium for materials not brought down in price by economies of scale. But surprisingly, many green decisions can be made by purchasing local goods and services. For instance, using local rock not only establishes a relationship between a new building and the community’s history, it also saves natural resources because it doesn’t have to be shipped from anywhere; the rock is right here. So that’s a tremendous green benefit: less gasoline and associated pollution.

What Color Green?

Many green choices don’t look green at all; in fact, done right, sometimes they’re invisible. You can’t see that the interior paint at the Blue Canyon O&M building isn’t releasing toxins into the air Horizon employees will breathe, but the interior air quality is improved by our choice of low-fume paint.

And the idea of green goes a long way outdoors, too. We chose local plants that thrive in the weather conditions specific to the locale. That way we’re not watering plants that can’t survive the Oklahoma summer’s dry spells. And we’re not introducing foreign plants to change the local eco-system.

Landowner Relationships

We consider the choices we make an important part of maintaining our relationship with our landowners and our customers. And taking the time to construct beautiful buildings is not only a priority, it's a pleasure.