City of Powell River Council has voted to allocate $81,464 from the climate action reserve fund to cover the city’s additional portion of the Powell River Recreation Complex ice plant heat recovery project costs.
At the December 3 city council meeting, councillors also voted to direct staff to apply for the spring intake of Powell River Community Forest grants for $81,464 to cover the city’s additional portion of the project.
Councillor CaroleAnn Leishman said council had recently approved an application to the CleanBC Communities Fund for the project.
“It’s a big project at the recreation complex and it has an amazing rate of return and if we get the grant funding it will actually be money in the bank down the road,” said Leishman. “There will be a huge reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from our recreation complex.”
According to a report from city sustainability planner Ana Lukyanova, at the November 5 council meeting, following the community forest board recommendation, council allocated $483,000 from the community forest reserve fund to cover the city’s portion of the heat recovery project. She stated that amount was based on the original estimate provided in the recreation complex thermal energy study engineer report.
Lukyanova stated that since the completion of the report, the engineering company conducted additional site assessments as part of the current heating system upgrade work. She stated that engineers identified additional aging equipment that will need to be replaced as part of the project, leading to a total budget increase of 17 per cent.
“There’s a few other upgrades that are included, so that’s why we need that extra $81,000,” said Leishman.
Councillor Jim Palm said he wanted to make note of the additional contribution from the community forest and pass on thanks to the board for the funding.
“A lot of these projects would not be possible without the fine work of the volunteer board,” said Palm. “It’s on top of a sizable donation already.”
Councillor Cindy Elliott said when the matter was at the committee of the whole, it was mentioned that some of the increased funding was to cover pieces of old equipment in need of replacement within the next five years, and was part of the city’s maintenance schedule.
“They are being replaced a bit earlier because they need to be in order to support the upgrades,” said Elliott. “It’s money we would have had to spend anyway.”
