Survival of the greenest: Green technology and design may be the best way to save your facility from the budgetary chopping block.(FROM THE EDITOR)(Editorial)

OK, full disclosure: I live in Portland, Ore., one of the most environmentally friendly cities in the nation. I recycle religiously. I take public transportation whenever I can. I was the chair of my university's Earth Day celebration. In short, I'm a tree hugger.

But I'm also a realist.

So when I started hearing about green design options for aquatics facilities, I was pretty excited. But it was a different kind of green that made me decide to devote an entire issue to environmentally conscious design and technology. That green is the kind we could all use a little more of sometimes: money.

Turns out, caring about Mother Earth also is the best way to take care of your bottom line. Anyone who's been to the gas station lately knows why. The cost of energy has skyrocketed in recent years. Since 2001, natural gas alone has leapt from 62 cents to 85 cents per therm, an increase of nearly 40 percent.

Those kinds of increases have had a serious effect on all businesses. But aquatics facilities, which one expert called "energy hogs," have been hit especially hard. Consider an indoor facility. Heating, cooling, circulating, lighting--they all take energy. Lots of it. That makes aquatics a big target for city councils and the like looking for ways to squeeze more out of shrinking budgets. And when they look to the list of essential services, like it or not, aquatics is not usually on it. As one designer put it, "We're going to have to get smart about how we design, especially when we're talking about what some people consider a luxury."

Getting smart about design is what this issue is all about. In it, ...