Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
>>DARRYL RAMSEY: If you think about it, it's like throwing money out the window
and you wouldn't do that with your home and were responsible for
the taxpayers money.
>>NARRATION: If you think your utility bills are high
meet Gilmer County Commissioner Darryl Ramsey. >>RAMSEY: You;re talking, in a year it's
about thirty some thousand just for the electric for the court house.
You think
five days a week, eight hours a day
that's a lot of money. >>NARRATION: It's a problem facing many West Virginia
county governments...
rising costs from older buildings that are just not energy-efficient.
>>MICKEY METZ: It's unbelievable. One minute minute your hot, the next minute you're cold.
The jurors are constantly complaining about it being either to hot
or too cold. You can't get the temperature regulated.
It's terrible. >>NARRATION: The courthouse is heated with steam from a
boiler and on this winter day, a team from West Virginia University's
Assessment Center is checking it for heat loss.
>>BHASKARAN GOPALAKRISNAN: Get a good image of
all these piping that shows the
temprature profile.
>>NARRATION: The team uses high tech tools to check everything from electrical load
to air leaks. Inside and out,
top to bottom - it's a thorough check.
These assessments are part of the E3: Economy, Energy and the Environment
Initiative that's part of the West Virginia Department of Environmental
Protection's
Sustainable West Virginia program.
Its aim:
to help local governments and participating industrial facilities reduce
energy use and cost,
minimize waste and increase overall efficiency
while reducing the facility's carbon footprint.
Currently seven counties participate in the program which provides the audits
along with recommendations for improvements at no cost to the
participants.
A price that's hard to beat.
RAMSEY: We only have x_ amount of dollars
that we work with with the tax and ah...
this is where I see that we can
maximize that tax dollar by cutting an expense.
Participants have to come up with the cash to pay for the improvements
but many of those improvements can quickly pay for themselves.
>>BHASKARAN GOPALAKRISNAN: The cost savings would
justify the investment because
most of these recommendations will have a return on investment
in terms of pay back - less than a year, sometimes less than
two years.
>>NARRATION: And saving green isn't just helping the budget,
it's helping the planet.
>>ED CROWE: The environmental impact is
important because some of the
secondary energy like electricity
goes back to the power plant
and if you look at the losses to regeneration and distribution
there's a larger impact. So for every kilowatt hour you save here
you're effectively saving the equivalent energy amount that's three times that.
>>BHASKARAN GOPALAKRISNAN: Energy resources are finite and costs are going to increase, they're not going to decrease
and we're got to leave a better world for our children and grandchildren.
>>NARRATION: Commissioner Ramsey says that if this pans out and they can see the savings at the courthouse,
the county has four other properties that could benefit from an energy
assessment.
He says they're moving in the right direction. >>RAMSEY: Whatever we've come out of
this and wherever we go from
this forward,
we have the plan set - that this is what you need to do, even if we can't do it
right now and get money right now we have the plan that
our next step is let's start
saving some tax dollars here to make this happen so that we will get the windfall
back eventually. >>NARRATION: Money that instead of going out the window
will be going to serve the taxpayers of Gilmer County.
In Glenwood, West Virginia, I'm Greg Adolphson for Environment Matters.