Omega’s Big Green Wonder
by Sheila Buff

Back in 2003, the aging septic system at the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies in Rhinebeck was starting to fail; expensive repairs would soon be needed. CEO Skip Backus realized the moment was right for an entirely different approach: replace the traditional waste system with a radical new idea.

The end result was the new Omega Center for Sustainable Living (OCSL), a state-of-the-art (to put it mildly) water reclamation facility and environmental education center. The OCSL is an astonishing piece of green architecture. It’s carbon-neutral, provides all its own energy needs, and is made entirely from sustainable materials and construction techniques.

Many Parts, One Whole
At any given time when the Omega Institute is in full swing during the summer months, some 700 people are in residence: about 23,000 visitors pass through every year. All those people use about five million gallons of water a year as they create a huge quantity of effluent (the polite term for sewage). A traditional septic system would collect the effluent into a large anaerobic (oxygen-free) tank, where bacteria would begin the process of breaking down the waste. From there, it would be pumped into a large septic field, where bacteria would break down the effluent further and the water would gradually trickle back into the soil—along with any harmful waste that bacteria can’t handle. All septic fields eventually fail, slowly clogging with inorganic waste and sludge. As they do, unprocessed effluent can leak into nearby water sources and aquifers, creating pollution.

The OCSL way of handling effluent also starts with anaerobic treatment in two large septic tanks. After that, however, the process takes a very different approach. Effluent from the tank drains by gravity into four constructed wetlands. From there, the water trickles down to two more wetlands. In both wetland areas, the roots of some 8,000 thriving plants, mostly reeds such as cattails and bulrushes along with other native wetland plants, provide a habitat particularly hospitable to the kind of bacteria needed to effectively decompose sewage. As the effluent slowly moves through the wetlands, the bacteria break down the waste matter and clean the water, without any odor or the need for added chemicals. The plants absorb the released nutrients and grow robustly, even in cold weather.

The water, already fairly clean, is pumped into the heart of the OCSL: the Eco Machine™. Located in a 4,500-square-foot greenhouse, the Eco Machine is a living system that uses a series of lagoons filled with hydroponic plants, bacteria, algae, snails, fungi, and fish to further filter the water and remove any remaining wastes. By the time the water leaves the Eco Machine, it is very clean. In fact, it’s so clean that after it passes through a final sand filter, it’s pumped into two large underground dispersal fields, where it slowly recharges the aquifer that lies under the Omega property. From start to finish, the treatment process takes about 36 hours.

As in the wetlands, the roots of the plants in the hydroponic tanks provide a habitat for the organisms that remove waste from the effluent. The plants themselves also take up waste products. Because these plants are safely contained indoors, they don’t have to be native species, and many originate in tropical rain forests. Every plant has a purpose here—they’re selected for their particular abilities to take up specific sorts of wastes, including harmful drug residues, and sequester them safely.

The Eco Machine is the work of John Todd of John Todd Ecological Design. A pioneer in the field of ecological architecture, Todd developed the system to mimic the water-cleansing ecosystems of the natural world. The natural world isn’t quite the same as the world at Omega, however. When the Eco Machine was originally designed, the assumption was that equal numbers of men and women would be providing the effluent. In reality, about 75 percent of Omega’s visitors are women, which means the system had to cope with a somewhat different type of effluent than expected. The suite of plants needed to be adjusted to compensate for the extra load of beauty products—a change that was actually quite simple to make. Today the plants in the Eco Machine greenhouse look like a carefully managed jungle, which is exactly what they are.

The final piece of the OCSL is the classroom attached to the greenhouse. Omega’s primary mission is education, and the classroom is used for environmental education.

The Challenge of Green Construction
Omega’s Center for Sustainable Living was designed by BNIM Architects of Kansas City, a firm renowned for systems that are completely self-sustaining in terms of water and energy use. The greenhouse is heated and cooled using a geothermal system. Solar photovoltaic panels on the roof provide electric power for the pumps, lighting, and other needs. (The arrays are so efficient, and the energy needs of the system are so low, that much of the power gets sent back into the Central Hudson grid for credit.) Skylights in the Eco Machine area are equipped with mirrored solar trackers that follow the sun as it moves across the sky, continuously aiming sunlight at the plants in the lagoons. Even the toilets in the greenhouse building are flushed using captured rainwater from the roof. The system uses no chemicals and requires very little human input. The effluent flow is computer controlled; a single staff member spends only one to two hours a day maintaining the system and the greenhouse building.

One of the most intriguing aspects of the Green Machine concept is that it is entirely scalable. In theory, a single homeowner could replace a traditional septic system with a small-scale Green Machine, and a large municipality could replace its sewage treatment plant with a much larger Green Machine. Even a large Green Machine isn’t that big, however. The entire OCSL covers only about 4.5 acres, most of it the artificial wetlands.

The OCSL meets the highest green building standards of the construction trade, and is expected to be the first (or possibly second) structure in the United States to meet the Living Building Challenge™, a program of the Cascadia Region Green Building Council. The complex requirements of the Living Building Challenge set a very high standard: the structure must generate all of its own energy using renewable resources, capture and treat all of its wastewater, and operate efficiently. To meet these criteria, Omega had to source most of the building materials and products used in the structure from a radius of under a thousand miles; in fact, the concrete used for the greenhouse building had to come from within 250 miles. A long list of materials that couldn’t be used had to be followed, one that included any material that contained cadmium, lead, or mercury, added formaldehyde, polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and phthalates. All the wood in the structure had to come from either certified forest sources or be reclaimed. The interior doors, window frames, and toilet stalls, for instance, were reclaimed from other buildings. The recycled components give the greenhouse, made largely from poured concrete, a slightly eccentric touch that adds needed warmth. All construction materials and other debris had to be recycled or reused so that it would not create new waste. Even the food scraps from construction workers’ lunches had to be composted.

A final requirement for the Living Building Challenge is that the building must be both beautiful and inspirational. Those are very subjective criteria, of course, but the greenhouse is certainly an attractive design that blends nicely into the surrounding landscape. And if wastewater treatment can ever be inspiring, this is the building to do it. Omega expects to learn in 2010 whether their Center has been awarded the Living Building Challenge certification.

Visiting the Omega Center for Sustainable Living

Guided tours of the OCSL are regularly offered on Wednesday and Saturday from 1 to 2 pm. To make an appointment, email OCSL@eOmega.org or call (845) 266-4444. To lean more about the Living Building Challenge, visit www.ilbi.org.