Its not often that a municipal wastewater engineer, responsible for a city?s sewage treatment plants, makes the national news. But Sudbury?s own chief plants engineer, Paul Graham, was featured in the May edition of Canadian Living, and the Earth Summit section of the Aug. 27 issue or The Globe and Mail. Graham also hit front page of Northern Life, April 21, Earth Day.
Graham was praised in all media for his ambitious energy retrofit of 30 of the largest municipal facilities in Sudbury.
In 1995 Graham convinced city council to invest $1 million a year from the public works budget over seven years into a municipal energy efficiency program.
According to Graham?s energy section in Earthcare Sudbury?s Local Action Plan, ?The initiative began with a detailed energy audit of 30 municipal facilities representing more than 85 per cent of the municipality?s total energy consumption. The audit identified 86 possible retrofit projects and projected the cost savings and carbon dioxide emissions reductions that could be attained through their implementation. Through retrofitting, municipal energy expenditures could be reduced by $1.03 million or 32 per cent annually from $3.4 million.?
Besides cutting CO2 emissions by 26 per cent, the financial payback was projected at slightly more than seven years.
Since the expansion of the city?s boundaries, Graham?s plan is moving into Phase Two where additional savings of $800,000 per year are projected from retrofitting additional libraries, swimming pools and fire halls.
While tinkering with his sewage treatment plants, Graham moved into renewable energy. The Globe article features a photo of his innovative solar-heating panels doing double duty as the building?s outside cladding.
Graham is the founding ?father? of Earthcare Sudbury, a public/private and community partnership of more than 40 major players. It has now moved further into renewable energy such wind, biomass and geothermal. Of these the wind farm and turbine manufacturing plant are most developed.
