Mountain Biking: Rubber side down- Time for a TurnaroundWell, my friends, things are finally looking up, and good timing, too, since I’m sure you’re all sick of me bitching. Recent bike build, including wheels… fun! In what feels like a fairly short time, I’ve come from sitting around … Continue reading → […]
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Boulder County Issue 1C would halve jail’s utility bill
Inmate Kevin Halfen loads a massive washing machine with towels while doing laundry Wednesday at the Boulder County Jail. With laundry going 16 hours a day, among other needs, the jail burns through a lot of electricity. But Boulder County officials hope voters will pass a ballot measure to allow energy-efficiency upgrades at several public buildings. Photo by Mark Leffingwell.
The Boulder County jail does a lot of laundry.
If it’s not uniforms, it’s bed sheets or underwear, meaning that the industrial-sized washers and dryers are often running 16 hours a day, greedily sucking electricity off the grid.
About 500 people live at the jail, so when you add the laundry to a flood of hot showers and countless burning light bulbs, the facility racks up a pretty hefty utility bill: $250,000 a year.
The Boulder County commissioners want to slash that bill, and if voters give them the thumbs-up at the ballot box in November, they say they can cut the amount of money spent on jail utilities in half.
This November, the county commissioners are asking voters for permission to make major energy-efficiency upgrades to the jail with the ultimate goal of cutting its $250,000 annual utility bill in half. Boulder County Ballot Issue 1C would allow the county to take advantage of new federally backed, zero-interest loans to make $6.1 million worth of improvements to county buildings, including the jail, the justice center and the sheriff’s headquarters.
The new loan program is part of the federal stimulus bill, and the money must be used for public buildings.
“Any building that you do this in, you must save at least 20 percent of the energy use in the building,” Commissioner Will Toor said. “What we would be looking at with the jail is a pretty comprehensive set of projects.”
If the issue passes, the jail would get a 100-kilowatt photovoltaic system; a new, insulated and reflective roof; efficiency upgrades to the lighting and cooling systems; and a biomass burner that would heat the building with beetle-killed wood cleared from the county’s open space lands.
Read the full story at DailyCamera.com.
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[...] we posted on a Boulder ballot issue over a loan that would help make the Boulder County jail more energy efficient. That got us thinking about other jails. Did you know that a weekend at Bernie's would be a [...]
[...] Boulder County Ballot Issue 1C, which targeted energy efficiency in Boulder County jail, passed. Read more on all of the Boulder County Ballot Issues results at the Camera or for the raw numbers, visit the Boulder County Clerk & Recorder’s Office Web site. [...]
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