Dalton Green Committee Navigates Adding Fire District to Green Communities Division
DALTON, Mass. — The Green Committee considering including the Fire District under the town’s Green Communities Division.
During the Green Committee's last week, member Thomas Irwin broached the subject with his fellow members.
The town is part of the state Green Communities Division, which aids local municipalities in lowering lower energy use, through clean energy projects in buildings, facilities, and schools, by providing grants, technical assistance.
Irwin and Committee Chair David Wasielewski will look into this information to determine if incorporating the district is possible.
The Fire District and town are two separate governing bodies. The Fire and Water departments are the Fire District's responsibility. The Board of Water Commissioners and the Prudential Committee govern the district.
There are a number of steps that would have to be undertaken. One easy step is having the district approve a zero emission vehicle policy for the Fire Department, Irwin said.
Irwin informed the committee that Fire Chief Christian Tobin said he sees no barriers in approving a policy and that they are in the process of getting a policy approved.
There are vehicles in the station that need to be replaced, such as the fire chief's vehicle. He added that firefighters are excited about getting a hybrid vehicle, Irwin said.
As for the other steps, it is unclear how much will it cost and how long will it take to incorporate the district under the town’s Green Communities, Irwin said.
To include the fire department the town would have to get National Emissions Inventory information and a checklist from Green Communities. The town would also have to make sure they would not get penalized for adding the district’s information.
One of these steps is developing an energy plan for the fire district to decease its energy consumption by 20 percent and integrating that into the National Emissions Inventory report.
The town gave its information to the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission to be included in the state NEI report, Town Planner Janko Tomasic said. The district’s fire station and water department are not included in this.
There is a lot of information in the report and it is up to the committee what information is useful, he said. He invited the members to come to his office and review the system.
Moving forward with integrating the district into the town’s Green Communites would be difficult without Chris Mason, green communities division Western Mass regional coordinator, Wasielewski said.
Wasielewski reached out to Mason to confirm the required steps to incorporate the district in the town’s green communities.
A conversation between the green committee, Town Manager Tom Hutcheson, and Tobin needs to be held to determine who is responsible for grant management and demonstrating the amount of work incorporating the district would require, Wasielewski said.
According to Mason the town will only needs to add the fire station and the water department to into its calculations, he said.
If they did this however, the town is "immediate in violation of the Green Communities requirement that we reduce [the town’s] energy consumption by 20 percent," Wasielewski said.
This is one thing that everyone needs to navigate and resolve, whether its by putting the district on a separate calendar, add the accounts that are associated with buildings, or put all the energy consumption from the Dalton Fire District in there, he said.
In other news:
The town will have to start updating its municipal vulnerability plan. There are some grant funding they can apply for through the Green Communities that can help fund that.
