New school in Mills River, N.C., receives LEED certification

From The Asheville Citizen-Times: The 80,000-square-foot, $14.4 million Mills River Elementary School in the Henderson County (N.C.) district has received LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. Solar tubes in the roof channel sunlight into ceiling tiles filled with magnifying glass-like bulbs that enable students to work without using electricity. Fluorescent lights, when they are needed, come on when someone walks into a classroom and go off when the room is empty. Water is heated by an array of 20 solar panels. The toilets offer two ways to flush — one for solid waste and one for liquid waste. Those toilets, along with motion detector faucets, will cut water usage by 40 percent.