Goodfellow celebrates Earth Day Published April 17, 2009 By Jimmy Wilcher 17th Civil Engineer Squadron GOODFELLOW AIR FORCE BASE, Texas -- As the 40th anniversary of Earth Day approaches, controversy still surrounds this event. Why was April 22 selected? What about hidden agendas? The list goes on and on. Here at Goodfellow, we take a more simple approach. For us, this is a time to do something good for the environment and to recognize the stewardship of our natural resources. This year's Earth Day activity includes planting trees at the new wing chapel on April 29 at 10 a.m., which represents two significant events. First, the newly-opened chapel is the first in the Air Force in more than 15 years. Second, this year's tree planting is also part of our Arbor Day steps toward Goodfellow's 17th consecutive Tree City USA award next year. No other military base in Texas can claim more Tree City awards. In a recent interview, Lt. Col. Shawn Moore, 312th Training Squadron commander, told the Goodfellow story of water conservation in fire training. Simply put, the fire school's training process conserves more than 4.3 million gallons of water annually. Modest changes in the training process reduced the school's water demand by more than one million gallons each year, and cut the base's largest air emission by a whopping 58 percent. More efficient process changes are being planned that will result in even more reductions in the base carbon footprint without negatively impacting training. Earth Day is a good opportunity to tell the good news stories, but these positive impacts go on year round. In drought-stricken West Texas, these efforts to save water should be welcome news to all that depend on our dwindling water resources.
