Office of Environmental Sustainability Update

-Submitted by Hilari Varnadore,
Frederick County Office of Environmental Sustainability

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Frederick County was recently awarded $659,800 for Green Building and Energy programs. The County will perform energy efficiency retrofits/upgrades to county buildings, initiate a solar water preheating (renewable energy) project at the Adult Detention Center, kick off a home energy audit pilot program, make building code amendments, and conduct a greenhouse gas emissions inventory, among others, as part of this Recovery Act based grant program. 

Lisa Orr, former Executive Director of Volunteer Frederick, Inc., has been hired as the County's new Sustainability Program Coordinator. Starting in January 2010, Lisa will coordinate the activities funded through this U.S. Dept of Energy – Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) award.

Kelli Goetz, a graduate student from Hood College’s Environmental Biology Program, has been hired as a Sustainability Intern to conduct an inventory of greenhouse gas emissions for both the county government operations and community-at-large. The inventory will be based on energy consumption and waste generation for a base year (e.g. 2007) and for a forecast year (e.g. 2024). The inventory and forecast provide another benchmark against which the county can measure progress in our reduction of non-renewable energy.

Visit Lisa and Kelli on the 2nd floor of Winchester Hall just off of the east wing stairwell (between Planning and the Attorney’s Office).

For more information about the Office of Environmental Sustainability, please visit this webpage.