Shelter Tour - Noah's Ark Animal Foundation

Noah's Ark Builds Animal-Friendly / Eco-Friendly Shelter
By Carol Kline

Animal shelters have changed a lot over the last ten years. Gone are the days of bare concrete floors and chain-link enclosures. And good riddance! The noise, moisture, odor and disease problems of the old-style shelters made them miserable to live in for the animals and miserable to work in for the staff and volunteers. Potential adopters usually steered clear of the whole mess as well.

Shelters today emphasize animal friendly / adopter friendly designs with specially surfaced floors, noise-attenuating surfaces, disinfectable kennels and cages and most importantly, sophisticated zoned heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems that create frequent air changes. In fact, new standards require as many as 10-15 air changes per hour in animal areas. Unfortunately, meeting these new goals can often mean creating a building with enormous energy requirements.

Thinking outside the box and going green is nothing new in Fairfield, Iowa where Noah's Ark Animal Foundation is located. Determined to reduce the consumption of resources, both natural and financial, the Board of Directors of Noah's Ark set out to meet the highest standards of animal sheltering in an eco-friendly way in the design and construction of its new shelter building.

After spending months doing extensive research into energy-efficient design and visiting shelters all over the Midwest, Noah's Ark came up with a promising plan. The new Noah's Ark shelter building is a state-of-the-art indoor facility for both cats and dogs-designed for maximum health and comfort for the animals and efficiency for the staff and volunteers. Even better, the new shelter building will be kind to the earth as well as economical to operate.

The building is designed to maximize energy-efficiency, improve indoor air quality and minimize operational costs by utilizing many different kinds of green technologies:

Active solar panels to help heat the water that flows under the floors to keep the animals warm
Ground-source-aided heating and cooling
Super-insulated walls
A high-efficiency furnace
Non-toxic construction materials whenever possible
High-efficiency appliances: front loading washer and dryer, low-energy-use refrigerator and dishwasher
Increased number of windows and skylights to bring in natural light and reduce the need for artificial lighting
Super insulated slab for energy efficiency in heating
Low energy use lights: Fluorescent fixtures with electronic ballasts
Fly ash cement for the slab. Fly ash, a waste product from coal-fired power plants saves on the use of Portland cement. Production of Portland cement now accounts for more than 8% of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide, the primary greenhouse gas causing global warming.

The most unusual feature of Noah's Ark's new shelter is a unique septic system that includes a wetlands area on the grounds. When most people hear the word "wetland" they think of ponded water in drainage areas, but wetlands can be dry at the surface and still support wetland plant and animal habitats. Noah's Ark Animal Shelter has taken advantage of the subsurface wetland concept by constructing wetland cells to treat its wastewater.

The shelter's wastewater, both human and animal, flows to septic tanks where it is partially treated and filtered. The "effluent" from the tanks then enters gravel-filled wetland cells that are populated with various species of wetland plants. Wetland plants provide oxygen to the system, which enhances the treatment process. The wastewater becomes highly treated as it flows through the plant root zone in the cells.

The benefits of utilizing a subsurface constructed wetland are twofold. Noah's Ark is minimizing the risk of exposure to untreated wastewater and reducing the potential for mosquito breeding near the shelter, while adding texture and character to its landscape by creating a natural habitat for plants and wildlife.

Creating an eco-friendly shelter is a cutting-edge concept in the animal rescue field. Noah's Ark hopes to set a precedent for shelters all over the world to "go green" and incorporate earth-friendly design and materials in buildings where animals are housed.

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