"Going green" isn't just for hippies anymore.

Local retailers have started selling reusable shopping bags, and celebrities are driving trendy hybrid cars. But the cities of Bryan and College Station say they've been fostering environmental programs for years.

And an agency formed by the two cities is poised to launch a new environmentally friendly program, officials announced last week.

The Brazos Valley Solid Waste Management Agency, formed by Bryan and College Station in 1992, is contracting with Bryan Texas Utilities to build an engine that converts methane gas and carbon dioxide into energy, thus reducing emissions and other pollutants. The engines will be installed at the regional landfill on Rock Prairie Road.

"For years, we've been burning methane gas," said Bryan's public works director, Linda Huff. "It's negative in that it creates emissions and it's incredibly wasteful. So we're going to collect it and convert it to energy and sell it."

The emissions will be collected in 1.4-megawatt generators similar to car engines, explained BTU General Manager Dan Wilkerson.

"We're just going to put that electricity right back into our grid," he said. "This will be another small source of power."

The amount of the contract with BTU has not been disclosed because it is still being negotiated.

Once the contract is finalized, it will take six to nine months to build the generators, Wilkerson said. BTU said it's difficult to gauge how much money the new program will generate, because it will simply afford the utility company the opportunity to buy less electricity for customers.

The reduction in emissions provided by the new units would be equivalent to removing 23,000 vehicles from the roads or planting 33,400 acres of forest, said Gary Miller, a BTU group manager.

Several other environmentally friendly policies already are in place in Bryan and College Station.

For more than two decades, both cities have offered rebates to residents who upgrade their air-conditioning units so that they use less energy. College Station offers a curbside recycling program, while Bryan operates a recycling center.

Bryan uses reclaimed water for irrigation and pond maintenance at Traditions Country Club. In the past five years, the program has annually provided an average of 27 million gallons of recycled water for the golf course.

A few miles away in College Station, officials are building a city training facility that will feature local materials and natural light. Landscaping at the building will be done with drought-tolerant plants and "drip irrigation," said Water Resource Coordinator Jennifer Nations.

"Usually you see sprinklers spraying water up into the air," she said. "Drip irrigation is tubes that emit per hour. It's very water efficient."

College Station recently joined 22 other Texas municipalities in becoming a "cool city," which involves making a public commitment to environmental protection. The city's green initiatives involve plans to conserve water, preserve green space and foster energy-efficient programs. A task force of College Station residents was appointed at a recent council meeting to oversee the efforts.

"For this area, we're pretty forward-thinking," Nations said. "It's different now. It's not just, recycle because it's the right thing to do. It's because it's the future and it makes good economic sense."

On Friday, city officials from Bryan and College Station toured the regional landfill on Rock Prairie Road and discussed plans for the future. The Brazos Valley Solid Waste Management Agency is planning to open a landfill about 12 miles east of College Station in Grimes County in January 2010.

The footprint of the landfill will be about 200 acres, more than double the size of the facility on Rock Prairie Road. The current landfill, scheduled to reach capacity in August 2010, serves 19 counties and accepts about 1,000 tons of solid waste each day.

The landfill is separate from Bryan's compost facility, where brush and yard waste from Bryan, College Station, Texas A&M University and surrounding communities are processed into soil enhancement. In 2007, the compost facility diverted more than 17,000 tons of brush and biosolids from the landfill and sold more than 5,000 tons of compost.

The facility opened in 1993.

Green initiatives, Public Works Director Huff said, have been on the city's radar for a long time.

"We just haven't been talking about it," she said.

• April Avison's e-mail address is april.avison@theeagle.com.

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Posted by: andro On: 5/4/2008

Comment Title: Tee Hee
Going green in CS usually refers to all the realtor and developer money going to Gay, Scotti and Dictson!

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