State awards grant to town of Crested Butte for green projects

$31,000 toward historic buildings

The town of Crested Butte received some confirmation from the state that it is heading in the right direction in terms of energy efficiency measures.

A $31,000 grant was awarded to the town from the Governor’s Energy Office for energy efficiency upgrades to the Town Hall and the Old Rock Library. The money will fund a variety of projects in the two buildings, including improving insulation, installing thermal blinds on all the windows and upgrading the lighting at both locations.
Crested Butte Sustainability Coordinator Phillip Supino wrote the grant with help from Andris Zobs and Maya Silver of the Office for Resource Efficiency.
“This was truly a collaborative effort and wouldn’t have happened without Phillip and the town Building Department,” said Zobs. “This award represents a significant step forward for the town working with the Energy Action Plan and taking a leadership role in the sustainability effort.”
Supino agreed that the grant award shows the town is seen as a leader in the state in terms of energy sustainability. “The grant application is part of a larger effort by the town to push energy efficiency and sustainability issues,” he said. “It started last year with the adoption of the Energy Action Plan in June. I use that document to determine what issues to pursue for the town.”
“The town is finalizing details of a pilot or test residential energy efficiency program that will provide free home energy audits to a select number of residents in town,” Supino continued. “The information and experience gathered from this program will inform future programs. ORE’s role as the community energy coordinator is important to these wider efforts as well. They coordinate all of the various jurisdictions in our area, acting as an information exchange and technical consultant for things like this grant application.”
“This grant is a great indication that the work being done in the valley is paying off,” said Zobs. “The work done to complete the energy inventory and Energy Action Plan is showing dividends. The work we did is carrying forward. The town is making concrete progress toward implementing the Energy Action Plan.”
Specifically, this grant is meant to focus on historic buildings. “The project will demonstrate that it is possible to dramatically improve efficiency of historic buildings without undermining the historic quality and integrity of the building,” explained Supino. “I hope this will have a big impact on public perception of historic preservation in town. The governor’s Energy Office created the grant with money from the Obama Administration’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and the State Energy Program, which seems to be having an impact. We proposed a full line-up of cost-effective efficiency measures for Town Hall and the Old Rock Library, including improved insulation, thermal blinds on all windows, occupancy sensors on light switches, boiler and furnace tune-ups, a new super-efficient hot water heater and air-sealing around windows and doors.”
The town and ORE felt it was important to keep the grant money in the area. “In developing the project, ORE and the town worked to keep the money in the valley,” said Zobs. “We identified local contractors that could do the work, thus keeping the money local.”
Overall, Supino sees this grant as a stepping stone. “The grant award is great, but we really are working on a much bigger scale and longer timeline than this one grant.”