This energy saving (natural sunlight) photo shows  the current TriVillage Committee with, front row, Jill Robinson, Kim Lewis and Tara Sad and, back row, Fritze Till and Ben Daviss. Sue Bingaman photo.

12-07

Walpole’s TriVillage Energy Committee Seeks Energy, Emissions Savings

Town Committee Working on Many Fronts

By Chuck Bingaman, Contributing Writer

          Walpole’s TriVillage Energy Committee, appointed by the Selectmen following a town vote to create it last March, is seeking ways for the town to reduce carbon emissions and—not incidentally—to save serious money by pursuing its charge with high voltage energy.

          “We’re cranking”, laughs committee member Fritze Till of Drewsville.

          Currently consisting of Tara Sad, a State Representative for Cheshire County’s Second District and who sits on the House Environment and Agriculture Committee, former Washington DC attorney Jill Robinson, grant writer and Planning Board member Ben Daviss, Kim Lewis who has a Masters in Environmental Education from Antioch New England and who teaches science to 7th and 8th graders at Walpole School, nature educator Fritze Till, and Conservation Commission member Mary Lou Montgomery, the committee has been meeting often since June and sharing insights by email on a near daily basis. 

The “TriVillage” name was chosen early on to emphasize that participation in and benefits of the committee’s work are to be for the whole town: Drewsville, North Walpole and Walpole, as well as rural areas. So far, the committee has been stymied in its efforts to find active participants from North Walpole, and Fritze Till, a Drewsville resident, is the only non-Walpole village member.  “We’ve been reaching out to North Walpole,” notes Ms. Sad, “ and we’ve met with the North Walpole Board of Commissioners, but so far we’ve been unable to find a North Walpole resident to join the committee as a permanent member.”

The “First Big Push”

TVEC, as the committee calls itself, nearly completed its “first big push” as Kim Lewis called it in a meeting Saturday morning, “to get some needed scientific audit data on current energy usage and efficiency from two important and highly visible buildings in town: the historic Town Hall on the town common and the North Walpole Fire Department/Library Building.”  The Committee was awarded a $1,500 grant to fund the audits from the New England Grassroots Environmental Fund and worked with National Grid to analyze the buildings.  A Walpole Town Library audit awaits approval from the Library Board in January.

As stated in the grant application, “the data gathered in the initial energy audits will be used to assess and prioritize issues for short and long-range planning of energy conservation improvements in those two buildings and in our town… Through a series of tests and computer modeling, we will have scientifically generated data so that we may present to the public (in a number of ways), an educational, non-biased argument for making changes which result in financial savings as well as more environmentally sustainable practices.  This public dramatization can be the fuel for an awareness campaign to tell people at a basic level, ‘If we can save this much money by committing to energy efficiency at the Town Hall, how much can we save at home?’”  TVEC has arranged an electricity audit by National Grid for the Town Hall.  It suggested that the Town could save several hundred dollars annually simply by replacing inefficient fluorescent tubes and that National Grid may cover 80% of that cost.  That effort will be reflected on an energy scorecard the committee is devising that residents will be able to use for their own houses in the future.  A sample energy scorecard can be found at www.nhsea.org/download/Walk-the-Talk.pdf.

“The Selectmen have been very supportive so far,” according to Committee member Sad, “because they realize that our work is going to save the Town money beginning almost immediately.”  Sad also noted that National Grid will conduct free electrical energy audits in individual homes and may reimburse up to 80% of costs of making energy saving changes that they suggest.

Broader Initiatives Coming!

Pending recruiting additional committee members, the TVEC has an abundance of additional ideas for limiting Walpole’s dependence on non-renewable energy reserves and the size of its carbon footprint—the amount of carbon emissions it currently produces. 

“We’d like to create a local citizens leadership group to identify potential energy savings for individual houses and to offer infra-red photos to identify where energy is leaking from their homes, assist in facilitating Home Energy Assessments and to encourage use of National Grid’s Free Energy (electrical) audits for all electrical customers,” according to Lewis.  She also wants to initiate an “Energy Busters” recognition campaign to recognize citizens, businesses, churches, schools, and town officials for taking steps to conserve energy and cut carbon emissions.  Citizens interested in working of this project should call Kim Lewis at 756-9204 or email her at klouie4@verizon.net.

Committee member Ben Daviss hopes to find a group of Walpole residents that want to investigate and experiment with local energy production.  “We have streams and ponds to create small hydropower systems, hilltops to harvest wind energy, solar and geothermal possibilities for hot water and heating, and a new generation of photovoltaic materials is making solar generated electricity more efficient and more affordable,” notes Daviss. “We also could investigate possibilities for “distributed energy” systems that create heat in a central location and distribute it among many buildings, eliminating the need for every home and business to have its own furnace, boiler, and gas line or oil tank.”  Those interested in looking into these possibilities should contact Daviss directly at daviss@sover.net.

Till and Robinson are particularly interested in promoting food independence as a way of reducing dependence on non-renewable energy reserves and cutting carbon emissions.  According to the committee’s current working document, “conventional supermarket food travels, on average, between 1,500 and 3,000 miles before it reaches our tables….More than seven calories of fossil fuel are burned for every calorie of energy we get from such food.”  Till and Robinson argue that Walpoleans could achieve a greater degree of food security at a lower fossil fuel cost with more locally grown and preserved food.  “We hope to organize and promote community gardens and greenhouses, permaculture, composting, food preparation, gleaning, seed saving, heirloom animal husbandry, and community food storage facilities.”  Citizens that would like to get involved in these plans should contact Fritze Till at 445-5283 or Jill Robinson at jillrobin@gmail.com.

Tying all of the committee’s work together, the committee is seeking volunteers to assist in a comprehensive public communication effort within the town.  It needs someone to prepare a monthly or weekly information column for the Eagle Times,  The River Record and The Walpolean, and an interactive web site that could spread information of committee activities and receive feedback and participation by people from through the town. This group might also organize film series and even special events on Earth Day and annual town meeting day.  Interested persons should contact Jill Robinson at the email address above.

“We’d like to discuss with the Fire Department and the road agent converting our town trucks to biodiesel as the town of Keene already has,” noted Sad.  “That could reduce carbon emissions and reduce our dependence on foreign oil.”

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