I was very pleased when the City was notified recently that the Missouri Department of Natural Resources has awarded a $337,067 Wastewater and Water Treatment Efficiency Grant to the City of Rolla through the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) monies. The Rolla City Council, at the March 15 Council meeting, unanimously approved a motion to move forward with the submission of and future awarding of the grant monies from the DNR and U.S. Department of Energy.
The Energize Missouri Community Block Grant is part of a $456,862 project that staff is proposing for energy efficiency improvements at the Southeast Wastewater Treatment Plant where a more energy efficient blower system will be installed. This specific project includes $16,443 of in-kind costs with a cash match from the City of $103,352.
Steve Hargis, the City’s Public Works Director, is estimating that this project will help to save the City approximately $52,000 a year in electric costs, resulting in a simple payback of 8.7 years. This project is part of the larger energy audit project Mr. Hargis and the City has been working on with Siemens Building Technologies during the last several months. Mr. Hargis will bring details of this project, along with several others totaling about $2 million, to the Council for consideration in April.
The Wastewater and Water Treatment Efficiency grant application was prepared by Anne McClay, Project Coordinator in the Public Works Department. She and Mr. Hargis submitted the application and they are to be commended on the thorough package they submitted and the money they have subsequently help save the City of Rolla and our residents.
In another piece of very good news, the City was recently notified by David Kerr, Director of the Missouri Department of Economic Development, that the City’s application to establish an Enhanced Enterprise Zone (EZZ) within the City of Rolla and part of Phelps County has been approved! As a result of this, Rolla will be able to utilize this new program to support its economic development efforts. The EZZ committee, which was comprised of city and county officials, and representatives from the Meramec Regional Planning Commission, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Mo-Sci Corporation, and the Rolla Regional Economic Commission, worked diligently for many months on this important EZZ application. I commend and appreciate all of their hard work and efforts.
All of this good news is on the heels of Rolla being selected among only four other communities in the state as a DREAM (Downtown Revitalization Economic Assistance Missouri) Initiative community, and the creation of the new Rolla Arts and Entertainment District (approved in February 2010 by City Council), which will be anchored by the new Benton Square Development. For more information regarding the DREAM Initiative (www.modream.org), or the newly approved EZZ, please contact John Petersen, the City’s Director of Community Development, at 426-6970 or at jpetersen@rollacity.org.
In closing I’d like to remind everyone that the 2010 “Show Me Green Sales Tax Holiday” is just around the corner on April 19 through April 25. The Show Me Green Sales Tax Holiday encourages the purchase of certain qualifying energy efficient appliances by exempting them for sales tax, and thereby reducing the consumer’s cost for such appliances. By offering incentives that reward consumers for being energy efficient, it is hoped that consumer awareness will help reduce energy consumption across the state, and have the added benefit of promoting retail sales activity in the Rolla area. Qualifying appliances, which must be Energy Star certified, include clothes washers and dryers, water heaters, trash compactors, dishwashers, conventional ovens, ranges, stoves, air conditioners, furnaces, refrigerators and freezers. An Energy Star certified appliance is any appliance approved by both the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy.
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