The new Old Faithful Visitor Education Center in Yellowstone National Park Photo: Beth PrattAbove the park ranger information desk, where construction workers were still putting the finishing touches on the rockwork, an exhibit sign announces the significance of Yellowstone’s geothermal features: “The largest collection of geysers and hot springs on Earth is preserved at Yellowstone National Park for the benefit and inspiration of people around the world.”

Linda Young, Yellowstone’s Chief of Interpretation, hopes this and other state-of-the-art interactive exhibits at the new Old Faithful Visitor Education Center will be inspiring to visitors and “help people understand attractions like Old Faithful. This visitor center isn’t meant to replace the park experience, but to get people more excited about exploring the park.”

The spacious exhibit area includes a “Young Scientist” room with a simulated geyser. Young commented, “the room is intended for kids, but we know we’ll get a lot of adults having fun there as well.” Other interactive displays—including a beautiful diorama—help visitors understand the mud pots, geysers, hot springs and other geothermal features fueled by Yellowstone’s unique volcanic underworld.

Next week the doors will open to the new center, a $27 million building that has been under construction for the last two and a half years. The Yellowstone Park Foundation—Yellowstone’s official non-profit fundraising partner—raised $15 million of the total budget with major gifts from ConocoPhillips, Shalin Liu, Unilever, Cheng Wu, The Coca-Cola Foundation, Toyota, and the National Science Foundation. Karen Kress, President of the Yellowstone Park Foundation, is pleased with the results, “The park asked us to get involved to make this a special place instead of just a typical visitor center. And we were able to do that in two ways—with the incredible educational experience that the center offers and the attention to sustainability in the building’s construction.”

The new facility has been awarded Gold Level LEED designation, the first building in Yellowstone National Park to do so and one of the few to achieve that distinction in the entire National Park System. Over 99% of the construction waste was diverted from the landfill, many building materials contain a high percentage of recycled material, and the building itself will use about a third less energy than a similar traditional structure.

Project manager Theodore Conover with the design firm CTA Architects highlighted the care the designers took in being sustainable and in protecting the surrounding hydrothermal system, “We raised the foundation up on a crawl space because concrete can absorb heat. We didn’t want another Old Faithful in the middle of the visitor center.” Josh Mullaney with general contractor Swank Enterprises, talked about the benefits of working on a LEED project, “My enlightenment was learning how much we could divert with minimal effort—which both helped the environment and saved money.”

The National Park Service is holding a public opening ceremony for the center next Wednesday at 11:00 am.

Vice President Biden in Yellowstone with park ranger (Photo by Beth Pratt)As the crowd of park employees awaited the Vice President’s arrival in Yellowstone, the excitement shifted temporality to a bull moose foraging along the banks of the Madison River. Moose sightings are rare in this area and park staff quickly began snapping photographs.

Yet when the Vice President appeared he had the full attention of the group as he spoke about his love for Yellowstone amidst a backdrop of the spectacular Madison River Canyon and National Park Mountain. Biden called Yellowstone a “majestic place,” and told of how the park had helped him and his sons heal after the death of his wife and daughters. “I want my granddaughter to come back with her granddaughters and to have nothing changed.”

Watch a video of Vice President Biden talking about his love for Yellowstone:

Biden, accompanied by Director of the National Park Service Jonathan Jarvis, Yellowstone Superintendent Suzanne Lewis, and Vice President of Dick Anderson Construction, Ed Bennet, detailed the stimulus projects underway in Yellowstone and other national parks as part of the ‘Summer of Recovery.’ Yellowstone received over $12 million in stimulus funds. “We are investing today in something that has long lasting consequences that will benefit future generations,” Biden told the audience.

The investment in parks—budgeted at almost a billion dollars—also benefits the economy. Yellowstone alone contributes $340 million to the local economy and employs over 5,000 workers in the region.

A local company, Dick Anderson Construction of Montana, began construction on one of the largest of Yellowstone’s Recovery Act projects, the replacement of the Madison Wastewater Treatment Plant. Another upcoming project involves the installation of a new Micro Hydroelectric Generation Facility in Mammoth Hot Springs (replacing an old facility run by the U.S. Amy over a century ago) that will reduce greenhouse gas emission by 695 tons a year.

Biden remained after his presentation and spent time talking with the park staff and their families, willingly posing for photographs and signing autographs for those in attendance. He and his granddaughter left after the event to tour the Old Faithful Area, where President Obama and his family visited last year. Biden will visit the Grand Canyon on Tuesday.

The American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA) honored Yellowstone National Park concessioner Xanterra Parks & Resorts with its Good Earthkeeping award for the company’s new “For Future Generations” educational campaign and retail store.

The AH&LA Stars of the Industry awards program was created more than 40 years ago to recognize outstanding accomplishments in the lodging industry. The Good Earthkeeping Award recognizes lodging properties that have developed a culture toward integrating superior environmental management practices and that show the organization's commitment to achieving superior environmental success.

Last year, Xanterra launched an innovative "For Future Generations" gift store accompanied by a campaign aimed at raising the awareness of park guests and employees about climate change. The store is dedicated to interpreting climate change in parks featuring educational displays and product sustainability scorecards, which provides information on the impact each item has on the environment.

The campaign also includes an innovative educational display in guest rooms with a plush animal toy, an educational brochure, and website on being a green guest in national parks. An extensive training program also was developed and required for all 2,800 employees. Xanterra is now expanding the store and campaign to its other locations, including its operations at Grand Canyon and Crater Lake.  

Xanterra’s environmental program, called Ecologix, is extensive. Last year in Yellowstone the company diverted 73 percent of its solid waste from landfills into other areas such as recycling, reusing and composting. Over the past nine years the company has reduced its overall energy use by 14 percent and its water usage by 25 percent. The Yellowstone operation also recently completed a project that uses recycled vegetable oil to power boilers to heat the park’s historic hotels. Xanterra also uses amenities such as cruelty-free shampoo and conditioner bottles made of corn starch that are compostable. This single initiative will divert more than 280,000 plastic bottles – or nine tons – annually from the waste stream. 

For more information on Xanterra’s environmental initiatives in Yellowstone, visit the For Future Generations website.

Yellowstone's boreal chorus frog inspires research on vaccine transport (Photo courtesy Georgia Tech)What do frogs and vaccine transportation have in common? Or bighorn sheep and automobile safety?

Professor Jeannette Yen, Director of the Center for Biologically Inspired Design at Georgia Tech, described the relationships between these seemingly unrelated things during a presentation today in Yellowstone National Park.

“Imagine what Yellowstone can inspire,” Yen told the audience. She teaches a course on biologically inspired design and this spring tasked her freshman class in developing innovative products and techniques based on Yellowstone’s unique living world—one of the largest intact wild ecosystems on earth.

“Yellowstone has such a richness of organisms and a range of challenges—like extreme cold or thermal activity—that all animals and plants address successfully. The diversity of this place has blown me away,” said Yen.

Life in the first national park has already been the impetus for a number of research and design projects. For example, the intrepid Boreal chorus frog survives Yellowstone’s harsh winters in a frozen hibernation.  To accomplish this, the animal raises its blood sugar levels to prevent tissue damage—the water outside the tissues freeze, the water inside the tissues is protected by the blood sugar “antifreeze.” Scientists are studying this amazing process to improve techniques for transporting and preserving vaccines.

During their annual rut, bighorn sheep engage in horn-to-horn combat as they establish dominance. Some of these contests can last up to 24 hours and the animals can collide at speeds of over 40 mph. The honeycomb structure of its horn base and its perfectly aligned spine create a highly effective shock system that helps it resist injury. This natural system is helping researchers design better collision resistant material for automobiles.

Professor Yen hopes designs inspired from life in Yellowstone will not only provide practical technological solutions, but will also help motivate the protection of its ecosystem. “I hope the designs will remind us of the organisms that inspired it and as a result help us promote the conservation of biodiversity in the world.”

Courtesy Institute at the Golden GateLeaders in sustainability from across the globe will gather this week on April 14-16 at the second annual Turning the Tide Conference to forge solutions to today’s most pressing environmental issues—from climate change and the health of the oceans to water conservation, waste management and wildlife preservation.

The conference unites eco-innovators from a wide variety of backgrounds and disciplines to create an unparalleled atmosphere of creative energy, channeled into action for environmental change. Speakers at the event include national health guru Dr. Andrew Weil, sustainable food leader Alice Waters; Nobel Laureate and climate scientist Stephen Schneider; Activist and actor Peter Coyote; Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Kennedy; Ocean Voyages Institute president Mary Crowley, and many others.

In an effort to reach a broad global audience, the Institute will webcast several conference keynotes and breakout sessions during Turning the Tide, and will engage the public in real-time discussions via Twitter and Facebook feeds.  All interactive components can be accessed through the Institute’s home page at www.instituteatgoldengate.org.

Turning the Tide will again be held at Cavallo Point–the Lodge at the Golden Gate, at Fort Baker in Sausalito. Over the past year, the partnership behind the transformation of Fort Baker from a former U.S. military base into the nation’s newest and most stunning national park lodge has been recognized with a bevy of sustainability awards, including the Preservation Honor Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation; the 2009 Governor’s Environmental and Economic Leadership Award (GEELA) from the State of California; and, most recently, LEED® Gold Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.

For those not participating in the full conference, the Institute is featuring two community events open to the public. A screening of Garbage Dreams, preceded by a discussion with the filmmaker Mai Iskander and Goldman Environmental Prize recipient Laila Iskandar, will be held on Wednesday, April 14. On Friday, April 16 tickets are available for a special advance showing of the new Disneynature film Oceans, opening on Earth Day.

The Institute at the Golden Gate is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting dialogue, collaboration, and action for a sustainable world. The Institute is a program of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, in partnership with the National Park Service.

Visit the Institute at the Golden Gate’s website or call (415) 561-3560 for more information or to register for Turning the Tide.