New Grant for MDIBL Makes it Easier to be Green
SALISBURY COVE – The Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory has received a $55,000 grant from the Kresge Foundation’s Green Building Initiative to help MDIBL plan environmentally friendly features for its new laboratory building. The Lab will soon begin construction on a 15,000 square foot building providing year-round laboratory space for six research groups, a teaching lab, and a library.
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A rendering of MDIBL's new "green" lab building
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A “green” or “environmentally sustainable” building is designed, constructed, and operated to use as few non-renewable resources as possible and to respect its physical environment. According to the Kresge Foundation, based in Michigan, planning grants are made to “encourage new models” for building green, “both in terms of the kind of organizations that seriously consider building green and the projects which will advance our knowledge of sustainable design.”
Dr. Patricia Hand, administrative director of MDIBL, says, “We are delighted to receive this grant from the Kresge Foundation and pleased that they recognize the possibilities for innovative design in Maine. Our new building will be the first environmentally friendly research laboratory built in the state, and it will honor our beautiful location in Salisbury Cove.”
The Kresge grant helped fund an “Energy Efficiency Design Charrette” held at MDIBL on November 9. This was an opportunity for the architects and engineers from WBRC in Bangor who are designing the building, MDIBL staff, volunteer consultants experienced in green design, and representatives from The Jackson Laboratory and Labs21 to spend a day exchanging ideas about the nuts and bolts of designing efficient mechanical systems for the building and creating an efficient, healthy work place. Labs21 is a voluntary partnership program of the EPA and U.S. Department of Energy dedicated to improving the environmental performance of U.S. Laboratories.
MDIBL held a ceremonial ground breaking for the building in July. The project has been approved by the Bar Harbor planning board, and construction will begin this winter. Occupancy is planned for June 2008.
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