Friday, July 24, 2009

Using Stimulus Dollars to Green Miami


The City of Miami is on its way to using stimulus dollars to green our city and become more energy efficient.
Our City is slated to receive $4.7 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) from the Energy Efficiency Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) to “green” all 29 municipal buildings, which the City will leverage with private financing.
This week, the City Commission has approved the process to choose a contractor to perform energy audits and retrofits of many of our larger buildings.
The City will now have the ability to look at specific ways that we can save electricity and water usage. Once the buildings are “greened”, we will save up to 25% of in electric consumption. This will not only help our budget, but will also have an impact on our environment by reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.
Our first phase of building retrofits is set to begin in the next few weeks, using the guidelines of the Clinton Climate Initiative, eventually making many of our buildings Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified.

Read more about how ARRA funds are being used in our city on Recoverymiami.com

- Manny