Saint Joseph's Hospital Earns Groundwater Award

By practicing good groundwater and environmental stewardship, Saint Joseph’s Hospital was recently designated as a 2009 Groundwater Guardian Green Site by the Groundwater Foundation.

Some of Saint Joseph’s Hospital groundwater-friendly practices that earned it the honor include applying fertilizer based on nutrient needs (no fertilizer was applied in 2009), selecting plants, flowers and shrubs adapted to the region’s climate and that require less water and having a spill containment plan.

“For the last several years, Saint Joseph’s Hospital has initiated many programs and policies that are friendly to the environment,” said Randy Wagner, director, Facilities Management. “These include recycling and waste management programs, environmentally preferable purchasing, and resource conservation. This designation exemplifies another way that we can take action to leave a better environment for future generations.”

Wegner commended Julie Rodda, Patient Financial Services; Ed Genett and Dick Lange, Facilities Management, and Julie Schafer, Environmental Services, for their key roles in applying for and receiving designation.

Groundwater Green Sites are essentially places that implement groundwater and surface water-friendly practices to maintain the site. Saint Joseph’s Hospital completed an application to evaluate and document its groundwater-friendly practices to earn the exclusive designation. It is the third site in Marshfield to receive designation, following Marshfield Clinic and Marshfield Utilities.

Groundwater Guardian Green Sites is a program of The Groundwater Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Lincoln, Neb., with a mission to educate and motivate the public to care about and for groundwater. The program began in 2007 to recognize good stewards of groundwater by encouraging managers of highly-managed green spaces to implement, measure and document their groundwater-friendly practices.