Life at the Top

By the end of 2012 the black and gray rooftops of Syracuse will give way to green. As part of the movement that has brought attention to Syracuse as one of the greenest cities in America, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, Onondaga County and building owners have been working on transforming buildings’ roofs into fully vegetated gardens. 

With approximately 60,000 square feet—enough to cover a football field—and a million-dollar investment, the green roof at the Pirro Convention Center, 800 S. State St., is the largest in the city, the third largest in New York state, and the largest outside of New York City. It’s the biggest investment in green infrastructure the county has made so far, but the benefits are not directly evident.

“The toughest part of having something like a green roof on the OnCenter is that, really, the only time people can see it is if they’re above it or if they see a picture of it in the paper or on the Internet,” says B.J. Adigun, program coordinator at CH2MHILL Syracuse, a firm that is working as a partner with the county for these types of initiatives. “It’s not really something that is accessible for folks,” he says, even though “folks” paid for it. 

An initiative of the county’s Save the Rain program, the massive green roof is part of Onondaga County’s efforts to comply with a consent judgment order first issued by the District Court for the Northern District of New York in 1989 and amended for the fourth time in 2009 to include green infrastructure. Syracuse is one of more than 700 cities in the United States that use a combined sewer system, meaning that rainwater from the street and sewer water from homes and businesses are combined when heavy rains hit. This results in untreated, contaminated water flowing into Onondaga Creek and, ultimately, Onondaga Lake. A green roof helps retain water and prevents the sewers from overflowing.

Save the Rain’s projects aim to install green infrastructure throughout the city to capture as much rainwater as possible. The county has to be able to capture 250 million gallons of rainwater by 2018 to meet the goals that the court order mandates, says Madison Quinn, program coordinator for Save the Rain. The OnCenter’s green roof alone is expected to divert approximately 1 million gallons of rainwater each year.

Buildings such as the Jefferson Clinton Commons, 500 S. Clinton St.; the Monroe building, 333 E. Onondaga St.; and King King Architects, 358 W. Jefferson St., also feature green roofs. This year, the Erie Canal Museum, 318 Erie Blvd. E.; Hazard Branch Library, 1620 W. Genesee St.; and the upcoming SUNY Upstate Cancer Center being constructed along East Adams Street, will all have green roofs. Together, these six buildings will capture around 925,500 gallons a year, working toward the court-mandated goal.

Three mechanisms help fund these projects, Adigun says: short-term loans provided by the state of New York; obligation funds, which are part of the county’s budget dedicated to maintain all wastewater infrastructure such as sewers and treatment plants; and government grants.

“The state awarded the county a $3 million grant for work that we’re going to be doing at the Civic Strip {the Montgomery Street area where the Onondaga County Court House stands},” Adigun says. “So this actually is great for the taxpayers because it offsets the cost of a lot of these projects and allows us to do more in a lot of areas.” 

Besides environmental benefits, the OnCenter’s green roof will save taxpayers money, too. Green roofs help reduce the operational costs of the buildings, says Rick Kier, president and owner of Pro Scapes, the landscape design company that installed the vegetation on top of the OnCenter. The installation also “acts as an insulating barrier that holds the heat inside the building as well as helps reflect the summer heat so that air-conditioning costs are lower,” Kier says.

Since the OnCenter is a county-owned building, reducing energy costs is a benefit for taxpayers because, ultimately, they pay those bills. But where Kier finds the biggest financial benefit of the OnCenter’s green roof is in its durability. He says such roofs last around 40 years, two to three times longer than a regular roof.

Kier acknowledges that sometimes people don’t recognize longevity as a payback because it’s a long-term return on investment. However, in the case of the OnCenter and its large surface, replacing a traditional roof can become costly. “Especially when it’s the taxpayers that are going to be paying the bill for replacing that roof in another 20 years if it were a standard roof,” Kier says.

Of course, there are also the environmental benefits—and necessities—for the community, which has suffered with a polluted lake for far too long. “This million-dollar investment to create this green roof in some communities may not have the return on investment that we have benefited from here in Onondaga County because of the issues with Onondaga Lake,” says Richard Kampas, a member of the board of directors of GreeningUSA, an environmental group in Central New York. “I think it has already saved money.”

Green Roofs = Greenbacks

In fact, if the county hadn’t invested in the OnCenter’s green roof and other green infrastructure projects, it would have had to build an additional water treatment facility—which is even more expensive—or pay a fine to the New York state’s Department of Environmental Conservation for not complying with the court order, says Kampas. 

Originally, the county was supposed to build four regional wastewater treatment facilities for about $120 million, most notably one in Armory Square and one on the South Side. Instead, the county is spending $78 million to achieve the same goals using green infrastructure, says Khris Dodson, public education and outreach coordinator for Save the Rain. “We’re not building sewage treatment plants in people’s back yards anymore, so I think that’s the biggest benefit for the community,” he says.

While understanding the importance of and welcoming the many benefits of this initiative, Kampas disagrees with the county’s strategy for the OnCenter’s green roof. He believes that not making it open and available to the public was a mistake.

Accessibility is happening in other municipalities, according to Kat Harrold, a green-roof designer for Maryland-based Green Roof Service LLC, a firm specializing in these types of projects. “In urban areas it’s a way to provide a therapeutic environment for the people. It gives them something a bit nicer than just black tar to look at,” she says. 

The best example of this is the largest green roof in New York: the U.S. Postal Service’s vegetated roof at the Morgan Processing and Distribution Center in New York City. Its 109,000 square feet feature benches and paths along the gardens, transforming this installation into a people-friendly space with great view of the city.

Opening the OnCenter’s green roof to public visitation would have made it easier for the county to connect this investment with the community in a more direct way. But the decision wasn’t that simple; installing green roofs demands certain specifications. The building has to be either designed to accommodate a green roof, or certified by an engineer as capable of supporting the weight of a green roof, says Kier. 

As for any living plant, vegetation on green roofs needs soil and water to survive. By itself, the plants and soil add extra weight to the building, and when it rains, they become even heavier by absorbing water. “You have to make sure that the building is built to withstand that extra weight,” says Kier. “Otherwise, the building could collapse.” 

Also, and particularly in Syracuse, snow weight needs to be taken into consideration when studying the viability of a green roof. To all that new weight being added that wasn’t part of the initial building plans, you’d have to add visitors’ weight. 

Not that visitors can even get up there in the first place; the OnCenter’s roof “is standard of buildings of its age where there’s limited access,” says Dodson. Built in 1992, the OnCenter provides roof access just for mechanical and maintenance reasons, which means climbing up an open side ladder, where a fall could be dangerous. 

Taking these factors into account, opening up the OnCenter’s green roof to the public presents logistical and functional difficulties. However, Adigun acknowledges the need for the community to feel part of these types of projects and takes it as a learning experience for future projects. “We found some real value in being able to put it on a facility like the OnCenter that is patronized by hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of visitors a year,” he says. “But I think moving forward, we are going to try to have some touch points.”   

Making Green Roofs Work

Simply put, a green roof is a garden on top of a building. Since roofs don’t have the necessary conditions for plants to survive, they need to be created. Once the installation is completed, the green roof starts to work.

When it rains, the water that falls onto rooftops has nowhere to go but directly to the sewers. Syracuse has a combined sewer system, which means that “our sewer system and our storm sewer both drain into the same pipe,” says Richard Kampas, a member of the board of directors of GreeningUSA, an environmental group in Central New York.

“During a large rainstorm, we are forcing way too much water through the sewage treatment plant, overburdening the capacity to treat sewage and therefore they’re bypassing it and dumping the raw sewage into the lake,” he says.

Much of the water that falls onto a green roof is absorbed and used by the plants that now live there—just like a regular garden—instead of going to the sewers. The OnCenter’s green roof will absorb 1 million gallons of water a year, a substantial amount.

Of course, plants don’t absorb water that fast. That’s why many layers are installed in a green roof to help store water that can be used later by the plants, or be evaporated back into the atmosphere, according to Khris Dodson, public education and outreach coordinator for Onondaga County’s Save the Rain campaign.

“The water that doesn’t get absorbed by the plants or doesn’t evaporate back into the atmosphere slowly drains down to the soil, where there’s a moisture retention barrier—think of a thick blanket—that holds the water,” Dodson says. “Below that there’s a drainage system, so whatever the roof doesn’t drink up, evaporate or hold, it drains through and then it runs down to the sewer.”

By the time this water hits the sewers, it has probably already stopped raining and the sewers aren’t overwhelmed. So this water can go directly to the Hiawatha Boulevard treatment plant.

—Veronica Magan

Building a Green Roof

Installing a green roof combines the teamwork of engineers, roofing contractors and landscape specialists. Engineers must make sure the building is strong enough to resist the weight a green roof creates. Once the design gets approved, a roofing contractor starts applying a waterproof roofing membrane that protects the roof from any leaks and humidity that could damage and weaken the structure. 

Then come the landscapers. “When they were done with that, that’s when we came in and we took over and we did the entire green roof from there up,” says Rick Kier, president and owner of Pro Scapes, the Syracuse landscaping company in charge of installing the green roof at the OnCenter.

Kier and his team placed a fabric on top of the roofing membrane to hold moisture and protect the membrane from the plants’ roots that might be able to reach that point. “If anything happens to that membrane,” he says, “you’re going to have a leak inside the building.”  

Then, a layer of insulation protects even more of the roofing membrane and helps retain heat inside the building. Next, there’s a layer that “allows aeration, water storage and serves as the first root barrier,” says Madison Quinn, program coordinator for Onondaga County’s Save the Rain campaign.

The soil used for green roofs is not like the one you use for your plants or garden; it’s a special “lightweight soil product in which the vegetation grows,” Quinn says. This layer is about three inches thick.

Finally, the vegetation is applied. For the OnCenter’s green roof, workers planted a variety of sedum cuttings, “low-growing succulent plants that require very little maintenance,” says Quinn. 

Then a last extra layer is placed: the temporary wind blanket. “{It} is made out of coconut,” Kier says. This fabric protects the cuttings from high-speed winds and helps retain the moisture necessary for them to grow. “{It}helps them get started,” he says. The plants will grow right through the blanket, which will be gradually absorbed. Thus, there is no need to “mow the lawn” or dedicate much time to an installation like this, making it convenient and with low maintenance costs. 

—Veronica Magan