When people think about fire stations, most think red.
In Pleasanton, they think green.
The brand new $4.1-million Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Station No. 4 currently being built near Bernal and Valley avenues is tentatively scheduled to open sometime in mid-July -- and when it does it will become the city's first green building.
The city approved its green building ordinance in 2002 that requires new civic and many new commercial projects to incorporate certain green building measures. The ordinance makes use of the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system to make sure buildings reach certain criteria such as energy efficiency, the use of recycled building materials in construction and specific interior finishes.
"This is the first city building to (be built) since the green ordinance was passed," said Scott Baker, the city's acting director of public works. "And we wanted to set the bar high with this."
Baker said some of the features of the city's first green building include landscaping technique that uses a minimum amount of water and fertilizer -- called xeriscape -- and solar panels that are expected to generate about a quarter to a third of the station's power.
The site also will include vegetative swales -- or ditches -- that will collect and filter storm water that runs off the new facility. In this system, pollutants are collected in the ditches and cleaner rain water is taken in by the ground.
While energy efficiency is always nice, the fire folks said it's also practical.
The new 7,500-square-foot station sits on 3.5 acres on the city-owned Bernal property. Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Chief Stewart Gary said the decision was made to move Fire Station 4 -- which now is on Railroad Avenue -- due to a "small" response time gap in service to the Valley Trails neighborhood. With the new station, that gap should be eliminated.
Gary added that staffing levels will stay the same at station compared to its predecessor on Railroad Avenue, with four firefighters, one structure fire engine and one brush fire engine.
Distributed by the Associated Press
