Energyminutes12_06_07.pdf
Dec 6, 2007
Energy Committee minutes taken by: Chinloo Lama
Energy Committee Present: Chinloo Lama
Martha Broad
Michael Gorr
William Darden
Non-voting members: John Balco
Daphne Monie
The Energy Committee met at 7:30 p.m. at the Town Hall.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:00 p.m.
Discussion:
Agenda
· Go over action items
· Proposed Budget
· CFL Recycling
· Low Carbon Diet - Book and Event Hosting
· Energy audit
· Mailing cost and eNewsletter idea
· Providing consistent presence and voice at the Public Safety meetings
John’s action items:
Talking with Harold Brown
There will be a Hazmat day. One was budgeted for this year. There was talk of a possible regional collective recycle-everything day. Who will pay for this service and how this combined service will be distributed among the regional interested parties are questions still to be answered. There is recycling for electronics routinely.
Press Release for the Magnificent 7
John is still waiting for the card/brochure with the necessary information. Martha will provide this. We will wait after the holidays to promote it. We will have to find a less cluttered place to post it than the library foyer.
Design of Infrastructure and Culvert Size
There has been a marked increase in intensity. There is a traditional model to calculate the intensity of the weather. Our current is insufficient.
Daphne’s Action Items
Conservation Center in Leominster
The open hours are M-F 9am-5pm. They might be open in October for the Green Building tour. Waiting to October to visit might be too late. We would like town officials to experience this while we are still deep in the design stages of our town building renovation plans. Perhaps we can set up a tour event schedule and have the key people from the library and pub safety to go. Perhaps we can provide a presentation if there is not one offered by the center to the key people if they are unable to attend the tours. We can go and learn as well as take the tour and put together a presentation. Have our recommendations outlined.
An added option is to get someone from Mass Electric to come present energy conservation to the key town committees (library and public safety). Margaret suggests contacting Michael Macateer at National Grid. He can give a presentation about new green building in Concord.
Daphne checked the library and found that there is not a Low Carbon Diet book in our library, there is however, one copy in the entire Central/Western Massachusetts Library system (Central/Western Automated Resource Sharing (C/W MARS)) of which Bolton Library is a member.~ She did not check the Boston Libraries in this search. She will suggest to Kelly to get some local copies in the library. A suggestion was made to possible set up an open house at the library on a climate awareness day, also on Earth day. We should start planning this now if we are serious about it.
Daphne also has gotten a list of Library committee members. Perhaps with this we can better plan a tour green buildings event.
Margaret Campbell joined our meeting today. She has brought some great experiences and case studies to share with us regarding the High school and Sawyer School renovation projects. She was responsible for the energy efficiency portion of the Sawyer School project design. She is LEED certified. She mentioned that the engineers that are hired for the project are the key people. Geothermal was always an option. There was word that there might be interest in a shared system between the Library and the Public Safety(PS) Building. Some questions she had: Will be worth it to try to get the PS group to concur with the Library to get the action proceeded. Can we suggest one of the selectmen to be part of the building process early? Is it possible to coordinate the two sets of engineers (Lib vs. PS) to get the geothermal
set up.
She suggested that we try to get the selectmen to appoint one of the energy committee members to be part of the PS committee. We should find out if there is an architect chosen already and if there was a quote for a geothermal/HVAC system.
We will eventually need to assign a committee member to be the liaison.
Martha’s Update
She followed up on the energy audit. The report was not ready. There was not formal communication back from the auditors, Prism Consulting. John had communicated with Harold. He was impressed with their thoroughness and what they found. All the town buildings were reviewed in the audit. They gave short term improvement suggestions. There was some misunderstanding on what exactly was said to Harold by the auditors. Our understanding is that they will provide recommendations and we will have the choise of hiring someone to do the improvement work. If we hire Prism, then we can pay them with the savings we get from the first year after the improvements. Martha will follow up with the report and recommendations. The heating audit still should be done. We can’t afford the audit right now so we will be putting meters for
heating calculation (oil/heating equipment). First step is free. We’re not sure what is included in the free estimate: consumption measurement on pumps, fans for furnaces, or the boiler. They might possibly sample the exhaust to see how efficient the combustion is. Martha believes that only the meters on fuel consumption is free. Maintenance and measurement might be included. Need to have this checked out and see if it is regularly maintained by the town’s fuel provider.
EPA program (Communities Energy Challenge)
This is an online portal with calculators. This is directed at town employees that upload data and keep track of it. Lancaster does it. Data and information will have to be regularly maintained to get the best results. This tool has been used to get town selectmen to sign up for a reduction in a set amount of time. We don’t need to do this right now since we have already started a fairly organized excel book. Perhaps later when we have more data and a volunteer to maintain the data, we will try this out. The bonus is that the site does provide some guidance on how to collect the data.
Mailing
The group is in consensus that we should think about having a mailing (if not annual). This would be a great way of introducing the committee to the residents and to broadcast efforts being taken to better the energy use in our town. This can even be a vehicle for us to communicate to the residents about events coming up and ways they can help. We can point them to our online site and provide the ability to subscribe to an eNewsletter.
Chinloo has been tasked to put on our google website a list of potential topics to present in the mailing such as: reduction goals, mission statement, announce that the solar pathfinder is available in the library for signing out, LCD in the school.
Library
Paula suggested that we look into reserving a carousel at the library for specific Green/Energy efficiency education material including the solar pathfinder and the Low Carbon Diet book.
High School
Margaret suggested some interesting activities that we can involve our school-age children – walk to school day and rally for a Crosswalk/bridge in front of the high school.
CFL Recycling
· DPW is willing to house it. Just need to make sure the handlers are careful. Promote this at the hazmat event and our first mailing.
· ATM Calendar and our budget/funding potential need for the future (This is a proposal for the town money)
10 copies of the Low Carbon Diet book (MCAN $12 ea) - $120
Purchase CFL Recycling boxes - $320
Local Bolton Energy Day event - $1000
Heating Audit Cost ($1300 - $2600)
Annual Mailings (2x a year) - $520
Advertising - $100
Energy efficiency conferences for committee members - $500
Bolton Fair space and supplies - $500
Agenda for Next Meeting
· Plan for mailing
· Plan for energy day – pick a day
· Electricity audit follow-up
· Application for heating audit~
· Volunteer for speaking with the Selectmen to appoint a liaison from our group to the Public Safety building planning board.
Action Item
Chinloo:
· Submit budget proposal to Jodi.
· Google page on a list of topics to cover in the mailing. Energy day
· Find out from Board of Health who else is doing geothermal.
· Make next week’s agenda.
· Get cost estimate of heating audit from Martha’s document.
Martha:
· Clarify metering meaning on the heating audits.
· What’s being done in terms of maintenance on the heating equipment
· Get a copy of the electricity audit report
Mike:
· Find out from Jodi who’s on the Public Safety committee and initiate communication with that person about providing energy efficiency help. We can help provide energy efficiency research efforts.
· Cards for John. Green-up
John:
· Continue to speak with Harold about audit efforts.
· Press release for the Magnificent 7
Paula:
· Talk to Kelly about our own space in the Library.
· Crosswalk in front of high school and a walking Bolton.
| 
