---

$135 Million of Your Money Wasted on ‘Green Wall’ In Oregon

-By Warner Todd Huston

About $135 million of our tax dollars in federal stimulus is being wasted on an upgrade for the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building in Portland, Oregon, one aspect of which is the so-called “green wall.” Why wasted? Because no one even knows if this “green wall” will even work and no engineering solutions have been found to make it work. Many say the whole thing is impracticable.

The Associated Press starts its report on this project with a skeptical tone and if Obama’s stimulus project has lost the AP, he’s in deep trouble. “They haven’t figured out yet how to get the pruning done,” the AP begins, “but architects and federal officials plan one of the world’s most extensive vertical gardens in downtown Portland — what amounts to a series of 250-foot-tall trellises designed to shade the west side of an 18-story office building.”

The idea is to have the entire western wall of this building affixed with a trellis that will have planters for greenery in them. These “vegetated fins” are supposed to help the building better regulate its internal environment and use less energy to heat and cool.

The big problem is, though, no one has any idea if the concept will actually work as advertised. Not only that, but no one knows if all this vegetation will even stay alive. On top of it all, there is no real certainty that building operators will be able to even water all these thousands of yards of plants.

But despite the pure speculation of the viability of the project, the thing is being touted as a “landmark high-performance building” by the U.S. General Services Administration.

So, the upshot here is that we’re about to pay out some $135 million of the taxpayer’s money for a project that is little else but a greenie’s pipe-dream as it seems that most of the engineering and architectural challenges of this project are based on conjecture. Will these “vegetative fins” be able to be properly watered and cared for by the building caretakers? Will all this vegetation even stay alive at 200 feet in the air? Will it save energy as claimed? No one knows.

One has to wonder if this is the time for government money to be thrown away on flights of fantasy? In tough times such as this a federal building project might be thought of as a jobs producer, but instead of relying on tried and true building methods the hare-brained schemes being envisioned here could easily turn this thing into an expensive boondoggle. In fact, knowing how dysfunctional our government it, that outcome is more likely than any.

Of course, this doesn’t even ask the question of whether the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building even needs this expensive upgrade, or whether this is simply just another unnecessary government pork project.

Regardless, Obama is going to throw $135 million at this thing. Isn’t it great to see our government at work?
____________
“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson

Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, TheRealityCheck.org, RedState.com, Human Events Magazine, AmericanDailyReview.com, and the New Media Journal, among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. Warner is also the editor of the Cook County Page for RedCounty.com.

He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of PubliusForum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston

Fair Use: This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material available in my efforts to advance understanding of political, human rights, economic, democracy, and social justice issues, etc. I believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research, educational, or satirical purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site/blog for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.