Vermont Blends 'Green' Flush Toilets and a Greenhouse with Memorial

[Neil D]

SHARON, Vt. - It is a rare rest stop attraction, especially in Vermont, a humid greenhouse soon to be filled with orchids and other flora better suited to steamy jungles than snowy mountains.

But this exotic enticement is possible here because of the most mundane of rest stop features: flushing toilets.

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Jodi Hilton for The New York Times

The greenhouse at the Sharon, Vt., rest area mimics the shape of the surrounding mountains, said to be reminiscent of the landscape in Vietnam.

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Jodi Hilton for The New York Times

Two plumbers, Jeff Gaudet, left, and Kris Hayward, installed an overflow system that will serve as a backup for water purification in Sharon.

The State of Vermont has installed a system that uses plants and organisms to clean wastewater at a rebuilt rest stop on Interstate 89 here, 10 miles northwest of White River Junction, and then pumps the treated water back to the toilets for reuse.

State officials said the system, called a living machine, not only advanced so-called green construction, but also allowed the rest area to stay open and the country's first Vietnam veterans memorial, erected in 1982, to remain at the site.

"Its purpose is two-fold," Gov. Jim Douglas said. "We thought it was important to do something honoring our Vietnam veterans, and Vermont has a long tradition of environmental stewardship."

The rest stop, a $6.3 million complex that includes the toilets, the greenhouse, an array of Vermont tourism brochures and a newer, bigger Vietnam memorial, will open to the public in September.

But the project is not without skeptics, who say that while the spot should be preserved for the veterans memorial, the additional bells and whistles are a waste of taxpayer money.

"Is this going to be a rest stop or a Four Seasons resort?" Jim Kenyon of The Valley News of White River Junction wrote in a June 29 column critical of the cost.

Mr. Kenyon said politicians had been loath to question the cost because of potential political risks.

State officials and the state's builders trade association said rest areas were expensive because the construction had to be sturdy enough for high use and because many spots on Vermont highways had poor drainage. The state completed two rest areas from 1999 to 2002 at a total cost of $12 million. Much of the money, like that for the Sharon rest stop, was federal highway money.

Ed Von Turkovich, state director of buildings and environmental services, said the state was sensitive to cost, but thought the Sharon rest center would help promote Vermont's economy.

"We think it will be a destination stop for veterans from around the country to come and pay their respects and see the first Vietnam memorial on the Interstate system," Mr. Von Turkovich said.

The Sharon rest area was threatened with being shut down in the mid-1990's because of problems with sewage drainage. A coalition of veterans furiously lobbied Gov. Howard Dean and the legislature to spare the rest area, where the Vietnam memorial, a simple granite obelisk, had been placed for a particular reason.

"When it was put there in 1982, there were very specific reasons why," John Miner, president of the Vermont chapter of the Vietnam Veterans of America, said. "One was the proximity to the highway, which was used many times by people heading to Canada to flee the draft, and the area looks like Highway 1 in Vietnam." The legislature spared the rest area and committed to building a larger memorial, but officials were not sure how to remedy the drainage problem. The living machine, they said, was the perfect solution.

The technology is used by businesses, schools and some local governments to purify toilet water, industrial runoff and contaminated bodies of water. People familiar with the technology say this is the first time a state has built a permanent rest area whose toilets run exclusively on a living machine. A few years ago, Vermont installed a temporary system at another rest stop that has been shut down.

In a living machine, the contents of a flushed toiled are pumped into a filtration system to rid them of odor and then into six concrete cylinders holding vegetation. The various plants are South Asian natives, a good choice both because of the Vietnam memorial and because their roots are well suited to host the organisms that eat the waste, converting it into plant food.

After the water is clean for reuse, it is pumped back into the toilets, to resume the cycle. Just to be safe, signs hanging over toilets warn users that the water, dyed blue for good measure, is nonpotable wastewater.

In a wing of the building, in the glass greenhouse, visitors look down on the vegetation from a grated ledge. The room, which offers spectacular mountain views, smells like a combination of mulch and chlorine.

The building is heated and cooled by 24 geothermal wells. A similar system lies under the sidewalks to melt snow in the winter.

"This is a great idea," Virginia McCormack, 54, said as she stood in the women's restroom in mid-August shortly before a rededication of the Vietnam memorial. "It makes much more sense than sucking clean water out of here."

In the center of the 6,000-square-foot rest area structure is a glass monument with the names of all 7,230 Vermonters who served in Vietnam. A timeline detailing major events around the United States, in Vermont and in Vietnam in the 1960's and 70's is on a stone wall to its left.

Outside, beyond a small footbridge, the original memorial now stands in a small granite amphitheater. One hundred thirty-eight white slabs of marble protrude from its walls, representing Vermonters killed in the Vietnam era. Semicircles ringed in marble rise out of the ground, allowing visitors to sit.

"It's overwhelming," Chuck Delano, 58, a Vietnam veteran from Londonderry, N.H., said at the rededication. "It's beautiful. I wasn't expecting anything like this."

[Naomi]

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[Dr. Shane]

$6 million doesn't sound too out of line for an area with a unionized work force. Sounds like a good investment IF it is designed to last at least 100 years.