February 16, 2008 - 10:45PM
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is the first of a three-part
series on efforts to make communities more environmentally
friendly by reducing carbon emissions.
ALTON — The Sierra Club is knocking on Alton’s door.
Since 2005, 25 Illinois municipalities have signed the U.S.
Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement. If the city of
Altontook up the cause to hold itself to a green standard, it
would become the first to do so in Metro East.
The term greening, as in “greening a city,” refers to
efforts to implement ecologically friendly practices.
The Climate Protection Agreement gave rise to an initiative
called “Cool Cities,” a national grass-roots movement
to help solve global warming by reducing carbon emissions at the
local level, begun in February 2005 by the Sierra Club. The aim
is to get municipal leaders to commit to making municipalities
eco-friendly by focusing on three categories:
Implementing energy efficiency solutions through better
technology;
Converting city fleets to green vehicles, such as hybrid sedans;
and
Using natural energy, such as wind and solar power.
“We know others look to Alton as leaders on new policy,”
said Christine Favilla, Three Rivers Project coordinator with the
Sierra Club’s Piasa Palisades Group. “We hope that
Alton sees climate protection as a current issue they want to
work on.”
Cool Cities are cities that have made a commitment to stopping
global warming by signing the U.S. Mayors’ Climate
Protection Agreement. Since last year, 500 cities have signed the
agreement, making the total signed on 780.
In Southwest Illinois, Carbondale is believed to be the only city
that has signed the agreement. The Sierra Club is hoping to get
Alton, then Edwardsville and Collinsville to follow suit, Favilla
said. Across the Mississippi River, St. Louis, Clayton and
University City mayors have signed the agreement, as well as
Chicago’s mayor and several surrounding communities in that
metro area.
Considering alternative energy sources is nothing new to Alton’s
administration. Mayor Don Sandidge said the City Council had
meetings a few years ago to talk about going solar.
“I recommended putting solar panels in City Hall during
remodeling, but it didn’t happen, because the architects
kind of pooh-poohed the idea,” Sandidge said.
But outrageous energy costs have prompted the city, on its own,
to do an energy cost audit. Since the Ameren electric rate
increase of last year, the city of Alton’s energy costs have
increased by an estimated $750,000 per year.
Favilla said Alton already is working to reduce its emissions
significantly.
Joel Schwaab, superintendent of the Alton Wastewater Treatment
Plant, started the internal energy audit last year. Streetlights
and the sewer plant are the top two energy users.
Since the rate increase, bills have ranged from $20,000 per month
to $50,000 per month for streetlight energy usage, Schwaab said.
The wastewater plant, which treats and collects domestic and
commercial sewage, went from a monthly cost of $12,000 to $34,000.
“We were scrambling. The mayor said go out and get whatever
you can,” Schwaab said at a workshop Feb. 9 at the National
GreatRivers Museum at the Melvin Price Locks and Dam 26 in Alton.
“We’ve secured some money with grants to reduce
electricity use.”
Alton Aldermen Jim Ryan, 1st Ward, and Charles Brake, 5th Ward,
as well as state Sen. William Haine, D-Alton, and his wife, Anna,
attended the workshop, which was called Caring for Creation By
Going Green. The event was sponsored by the United Congregations
of Metro East Alton Cluster.
Five Alton churches have joined the Sierra Club in seeking
Sandidge’s signature on the mayoral agreement, as well as
“greening” of their congregations and buildings.
The city of Alton received a $4,000 grant from the Illinois Clean
Energy Community Foundation to use in reducing ball diamond light
usage in Gordon Moore Park. The foundation also gave the Public
Works Department $20,000 to upgrade street lighting by installing
low-emitting diodes lighting and gave $22,000 to the Alton Fire
Department to make its lighting more energy-efficient.
City officials have met with a solar power company to provide
power for the city’s sewer treatment plant. The city
considered solar, wind or a combination thereof to power the
plant. Through its investigation of alternative energy sources,
the city found the Alton riverfront and Gordon Moore Park to be
good wind-source areas, but other areas had too many wind
barriers.
And Schwaab found solar would cost $550,000 to install at the
Public Works building and cover only 10 percent of electrical
needs with a 16-year payback period, he said.
“Hopefully, the government will supply enough grants in
order to make the payback less than seven years,” he said.
This year, the city is taking baby steps toward energy efficiency.
“The U.S. Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement is a
means to completing a plan to reduce global warming by pulling
all the different people in the correct departments together to
formulate this plan,” Favilla said. “It’s not just
doing an energy audit, but laying out the possible choices the
city can take to reduce global warming and also reduce their
energy costs.”
There are no fees attached to signing the Cool Cities agreement.
“We’re trying to stabilize the (energy) costs,”
Schwaab said. “So this year, we’re going to keep
seeking grants and rebates, continue to monitor the results and
continue education of our employees to reduce lighting, heating
and cooling costs through the behavior.”
Another action the city has taken to reduce carbon emissions is
to discourage residents from burning leaves. If anyone has leaves
in a bag, the city will pick up the bags, or if residents rake
leaves to the curb, the city will vacuum up the leaves. Allied
Waste collects recycling from blue bins for Madison County and
now includes plastics No. 1 through 5 and No. 7 through its
“Greening Starts with the Government” program.
And Sandidge said the city fleet has downsized from V-8 engines,
with the exception of firetrucks and police squad cars, to V-6
engines, which is what the mayor drives, and some city vehicles
are four-cylinder models.
“We have to start small and work up,” Schwaab said.
“I think the economics are going to dictate the lowering of
global greenhouse gas emissions.”
Sandidge said the city is looking at everything possible.
Anyone interested in joining a Cool Cities committee may call the
Piasa Palisades Group of the Sierra Club at (618) 462-6802.