City of Arlington gets green grants

ARLINGTON — City buildings in Arlington will be getting more green.

The City Council approved Monday, April 5, two grants worth more than $163,000 to upgrade lighting, HVAC systems and improve energy efficiency in seven city facilities.

The larger of the two grants — a $135,000 grant from the Washington state Department of Commerce — originally came from the federal government’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. States divvied up those funds to specific projects aimed at conserving energy, said Paul Ellis, assistant city administrator for the city of Arlington.

The grant Arlington received was for cities of less than 20,000 people.

“We had already been working anyway with energy assessment, and we had some good projects that were ready to go,” Ellis said about the city wanting to apply for the grant.

In that same vein, the city also applied for and received a $28,000 grant from Snohomish County Public Utility District as incentive money to supplement the projects, Ellis said.

The largest part of the grant will pay for changing out light fixtures in city buildings, most notably Arlington City Hall. Many of the city-run buildings have fluorescent lighting systems, but Ellis said officials have been slowly upgrading and replacing that inefficient lighting as funds become available.

The other part of the grants will cover new HVAC systems at the cemetery office, Fire Station 47 and the city’s maintenance and operations administration building.

Ellis said combined, the projects will save the city $11,200 annually in power consumption.

“That’s $11,000 more than we can use for other projects,” Ellis said.

The Council unanimously approved the measure with a 6-0 vote. Council member Chris Raezer was absent.

Contact Arlington Times Reporter Adam Rudnick at arudnick@arlingtontimes.com or 360-659-1300 Ext. 5056.

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