By Mark Squibb | Vol. 7 No. 4 (February 28 2019)
The City of Mount Pearl is rolling in the green after receiving over $145,000 to support economic, environmentally friendly development.
The City was awarded $20,400 from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities' (FCM) Green Municipal Fund to support a feasibility study on the proposed A1Next Innovation Park, to be built on the site of the old Mount Pearl Swimming Pool.
FCM also awarded $125,000 from its Climate Change Staff Grant initiative. Mount Pearl applied in partnership with nine other municipalities including Bauline, Logy Bay-Middle Cove-Outer Cove, Bay Bulls, Burin, Marystown, Eastport, Dover, Centreville-Wareham-Trinity and Indian Bay.
Mount Pearl Mayor Dave Aker says the money is to be split amongst the 10 municipalities, with each municipality drafting its own plan, focusing on issues that are most important to it.
For the City of Mount Pearl, Aker says that issue is reducing energy consumption and costs.
Aker says the City will look to studying energy consumption at municipal facilities, including City Hall, the Neil Windsor Public Works Depot, the public library, Summit Centre and the Glacier, as well as City vehicles, and then have discussions on reducing energy costs and consumption.
He said the City would also look at doing a greenhouse gas inventory.
"How much of an impact are we having on the environment, and, again, tied to energy consumption, is there a way as well of reducing our greenhouse gas emissions?" Aker said, posing questions the City would like to look at. "It's all about green gas emissions."
