Philadelphia Eagles are the leading Green Team

By Colleen Meehan, Pennsylvania Program Organizer On December 18^th, Clean Water Action staff served as the Community Partner for the Philadelphia Eagles home game against the New York Jets. The Eagles recognized our work raising public awareness about threats to public health and the importance of our person-to-person approach to public education. So, we wondered, what could we do that would both advance our goals and make a fun, quick way of interacting with Eagles fans on game day. When in doubt, resort to arts and crafts. We wanted to give Eagles fans a chance to stand up for a public resource that everyone cares about in Pennsylvania: state parks and state forests. So we made two huge signs that looked like trees for fans to hold up in photos and show their support for keeping public lands public. Most Pennsylvanians agree that all the effort the Commonwealth has put into restoring forests lost to the timber industry 100 years ago shouldn’t be squandered to turn a quick buck for the state. The average person wants to keep our public lands public. Hikers, hunters and day trippers enjoy our parks and state forests, and they also provide real environmental services. Forests help to control air pollution and they filter rain water. Sadly, the state has already leased off too much state forest and park land for eventual use by natural gas drillers. The good news is, though, that Governor Corbett has not (so far) lifted the moratorium on further leasing. We sent him the photos of Eagles fans holding up these signs in order to encourage him to keep the moratorium on. Giving Clean Water Action this opportunity to interact with fans on game day is just the latest move by the Philadelphia Eagles to go green.  Eagles’ owner Jeff Lurie and his wife Christina are dedicated to making the entire Eagles franchise environmentally sustainable. The Eagles have approached greening on all levels from recycling, to energy use, to planting forests.   Since 2003, the stadium has been composting and recycling materials, diverting over three million pounds of waste from going into landfills.  The stadium also serves beverages in not plastic cups, but ones made from corn that disintegrate in landfills within 45 days.  All Eagles print publications, in the stadium and behind the scenes, are printed on post-consumer recycled paper that has saved nearly 6,000 trees since 2003. Lincoln Financial Field, the Eagles stadium, is completely “off the grid,” meaning that 100% of its operations power is generated by sun and wind energy.  In 2010 alone, the environmental benefit of sourcing its power with renewable energy is equivalent to removing 2,184 cars from the road.  The team takes it a step further for their road games.  All travel for the entire Eagles squad in 2010 was carbon neutral.  They fulfilled this by planting trees in Louisiana’s Lake Ophelia National Wildlife Refuge in the Mississippi River valley to offset their travels carbon footprint. The day we visited Lincoln Financial Field, the Eagles victoriously beat out the New York Jets 45 to 19and, Clean Water Action had the opportunity to mingle in the tailgate with Eagles fans from all the state.  We talked to hunters, students, retirees, and the great majority of the fans we talked to were strong supporters in upholding the moratorium on drilling in our state forests.  Even NY fans expressed their support for protecting valuable public lands here in PA. Thanks so much to the Philadelphia Eagles for letting us be a part of Game Day and to all the fans who grabbed one of our signs and stood up for forests. You can see a bunch of them holding up our signs proudly here.