EPA to Present Special Award to City of Springfield and City Utilities for Environmental Projects

Springfield, Mo., residents will be able to breathe easier thanks to two projects undertaken by the City Utilities of Springfield and the city. These entities will receive a special award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 7, for their efforts to protect the air quality of the Springfield region as part of the Blue Skyways Collaborative.

EPA representative Amy Bhesania will present the Blue Skyways Collaborative partnership award to Springfield Mayor Thomas J. Carlson during the seventh Annual Springfield/Greene County Choose Environmental Excellence luncheon at noon Friday, April 21, 2007, at the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce as a part of Springfield’s Earth Day festivities.

The city has partnered with the City Utilities to completely replace all incandescent traffic signal lights with LED lamps. This project began in 2004 and will be completed in 2008. The replacement will save an estimated 1.77 gigawatt hours of electricity annually, lengthen the time between lamp change-outs, and enhance the visibility of signal lights, helping reduce crashes at intersections. Cuts in annual air emissions from this project will be approximately 4 tons of nitrogen oxides, 5 tons of sulfur oxides and 1,725 tons of carbon dioxide. Estimates show that City Utilities will save $88,500 annually and that the project will pay for itself in six years.

The Noble Hill Landfill Renewable Energy Center, run by City Utilities of Springfield, is a landfill gas recovery and electric generating facility. The system uses landfill gas (methane) to produce electricity through two 1.6 megawatt engine generators. The system produces enough electricity to power more than 2,000 Springfield homes. This project offsets about 21,600 megawatts of energy annually that otherwise would be produced from coal. The resulting annual emissions reductions are 40 tons of nitrogen oxides, 50 tons of sulfur oxides, and 22,800 tons of carbon dioxide. This project was completed in May 2006.