Ron Hardy for Oshkosh Common Council

Oshkosh Northwestern Nov 28, 2009
City works to reduce greenhouse emissions

By Jeff Bollier
of the Northwestern

The city of Oshkosh will install energy-efficient lighting, new steam traps and high-efficiency motors in city-owned buildings over the next year in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and take a step toward greater energy efficiency.

Projects at the Oshkosh Public Museum, City Hall, Senior Center, fire stations, the Oshkosh Public Library and Oshkosh Public Safety Building will be funded by a $634,000 Energy Efficiency Community Development Block Grant the city was awarded in June 2009, Oshkosh Director of Planning Services Darryn Burich said. The effort is expected to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions attributable to municipal energy consumption by 534 tons, or about 1.2 percent of the 44,196 tons of carbon-dioxide attributed to city operations in 2008.

Also during 2010, the community development department will likely be tasked with completing a review of city operations to determine more ways to approach sustainable operation.

Oshkosh Sustainability Advisory Board Chairman Ron Hardy said the committee has been at work on sustainability and energy conservation ideas for close to 18 months now and these projects represent the first quantifiable steps the city will take toward using less energy.

“The federal government looks at decreasing emissions by about 2 percent each year, so this is a very good start. It’s a fiscally-smart move to go with these projects because they will have a quicker rate of financial return, too,” Hardy said.

The retrofitting projects will use about $615,000 of the city’s grant. The remaining $18,000 will be used to continue to audit greenhouse gas emissions—carbon dioxide, methane and other gasses that get trapped in Earth’s atmosphere—going forward. City documents indicate the upgrades will save the city $86,770 in energy costs per year.

Burich said the biggest hurdle to not doing more sooner is the projects’ cost.

“It takes money to put in energy-saving devices and such. It doesn’t cost to turn off lights and computers to save energy, but a lot of the major energy-efficiency activities require an initial investment and installation of equipment,” Burich said.

Oshkosh Common Councilor Jessica King said costs will ultimately determine how much support sustainability initiatives receive. In the meantime, though, King said she hopes city staff takes the effort seriously.

“I want to have some patience right now because we have human resources issues to address (with vacant senior staff positions). But as soon as the staffing is there, I hope they take it seriously,” she said.

Hardy said a review of municipal operations’ emissions is just the first step. Once city government is on the path to meeting its goals, the committee plans to look at ways to reduce the entire city’s greenhouse gas emissions.

“With a municipal operation, the city can make the decisions to limit emissions,” he said. “On the community level, it’s more complicated because you don’t want to force people to make changes. With the community, we’d have to use more incentives and make programs more widely-known.”

— Jeff Bollier: (920) 426-6688 or jbollier@thenorthwestern.com.
Additional Facts
On the Web

http://www.ci.oshkosh.wi.us/SustainableOshkosh/index.htm