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CommunityGreener, healthier
Save money, save the earth, save yourself is multiple message of sustainable building forum
Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2008
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by REID SILVERMAN
Sandy Neville, owner of Building Connections, a green building consulting firm in Lexington Park, talks about her personal conversion to the green movement, a change brought on by devastating health problems.
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As the owner of Building Connections, a green building consulting firm in Lexington Park, Neville can talk about systems that use less energy, designs that make better use of solar energy and things like floor coverings or upholstery that are easy on the environment and the earth’s resources.
But really, Neville didn’t get into the ‘‘green” business to save the environment ... at least, not at first. It was all about saving herself.
As one of the presenters and participating vendors in the Go Green, Save Gr$$n sustainable building forum scheduled for this Saturday, Feb. 23, at the St. Mary’s County Regional Airport, Neville will tell participants how ‘‘going green” can be as much of a health issue as it is a responsible way to treat the environment. It’s not just about taking care of the earth and its resources. It’s about taking care of the humans who live there.
About 20 years ago, ‘‘I got really sick from pesticide exposure,” Neville said. Her struggle to figure out what was wrong and how to fix it caused her to change careers and change the way she saw the safety of her environment and the food she ate.
‘‘It was a tough road,” she said, sitting in her office Friday morning.
Two decades ago, Neville was fresh out of college at her first job in interior design. She landed a position as a kitchen and bath designer in South Carolina. The owner of the company where she worked was married to a man with an exterminating business. The chemicals for that business were stored throughout the office where Neville worked.
That exposure along with chemicals in her newly renovated apartment turned Neville from an athletic young adult who was being groomed for a design showroom manager position to a woman who seemed perpetually ill and eventually incapable of work, she said.
‘‘I thought I had strep,” she said, emotional even two decades later, talking about that period in her life. ‘‘I had a sore throat for two years straight.”
She was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. She had her tonsils removed in the hope that her condition would improve. It didn’t. She moved back to her parents’ home in Western Pennsylvania and, essentially, became housebound due to fatigue and pain.
‘‘I got very sick, and my immune system shut down,” she said. ‘‘I spent years trying to get healthy and get back on track.”
As she researched and studied and learned about environmental effects on health, she wasn’t thinking that she had discovered a new career. ‘‘I just wanted to survive,” she said.
But she did both.
‘‘I got into what was healthy for me,” Neville said, changing what she ate and lived. ‘‘As I got healthier ... I started to think about how other people could be healthy.” While not everyone reacts to chemicals in the environment like Neville, she sees people like herself as a ‘‘canary in the coal mine” for the general population. ‘‘I think certain people don’t ... process all the chemicals in the environment,” she said.
If it affected her to that degree, Neville believes, people should wonder if chemicals are affecting everyone, just in a less apparent manner.
‘‘I think there are a lot of people affected ... in a fog, the walking wounded,” she said.
One thing Neville learned was how difficult it was to find truly environmentally safe products. For instance, home owners innocently trying to fix up their homes can introduce toxic chemicals to that environment through carpeting, adhesives, vinyl products, cabinet materials, upholstery and wall paint. Neville gradually got in to the business of selling Safecoat, an environmentally sound paint made in the state of California.
‘‘It was just sort of a passion. I just sort of immersed myself,” Neville said.
She did research online. She took classes. She did the work to become a LEED-accredited professional. That stands for Leadership Energy and Environment Design, a designation given by the U.S. Green Building Council.
Now, Neville consults with both large organizations like government agencies and small groups like home owners. She warns against such everyday items as air fresheners, permanent markers, scented garbage bags, most new carpets and many building supplies. ‘‘I’m against vinyl,” she said.
Neville will give a workshop on Good Green Kitchens at the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons in April. She is one of the presenters at this weekend’s Go Green, Save Gr$$n sustainable building forum.
Neville’s message is one that members of the St. Mary’s Commission on the Environment hope area residents hear.
‘‘The COE’s mission in sponsoring this event is to raise citizen awareness of the need to conserve energy and resources,” said Susan Blake, who, like Neville, is a commission member. ‘‘We would like to show that in some instances going green saves money and can even provide health benefits. It’s also our mission to raise awareness for the importance of individual and community environmental stewardship.”
In addition to presentations like Neville’s, the forum will feature displays from environmental organizations and businesses that will provide information on conserving resources while saving money. ‘‘Part of our mission is community outreach ... letting the public know what’s out there,” Blake said.
The forum will also feature raffles throughout the event for prizes including home energy audits from SMECO, gift certificates for native shrubs from The Greenery, tickets to a Nationals game and green cleaning products.
Neville said she particularly hoped that area builders and developers would participate in this year’s forum.
‘‘Everybody” can benefit, Blake said. ‘‘But we are more focused on home owners ... so they can be green in their home and save money in the long run.”
