The Kootenays are in the lead province-wide with their initiative to develop and initiate a carbon neutral program.

During the Union of British Columbia Municipalities conference, the Regional Districts of Central Kootenay, Kootenay Boundary and East Kootenay were awarded the 2009 UBCM Community Excellence Award for their project titled the Carbon Neutral Kootenays Project.

The project is a collaborative effort which is bringing together three regional districts, encompassing 29 municipalities and six First Nations groups in the Kootenays. The project is enabling these groups to begin working together on long-term goals of reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from municipal, regional and First Nations operations.

The ceremonies took place on Oct. 1, when Hemmera, the environmental service consultants who sponsor the award, presented trophies to each of the three regional districts for their award-winning project in the category of ‘Leadership & Innovation, Regional District.’

“I’m really excited about the award,” says RDCK chair Gary Wright. “It recognized the work that our CAO Jim Gustafson did in helping get this started and all of our staff, and the staff and boards of the other regional districts, too. It’s a good first step. We’re in the planning stages and we’ll be looking at what actions to take to reduce our corporate footprint throughout the Kootenays in the year to come.”

The project came together as a response from local governments across the Kootenay region who signed onto the Premier’s Climate Action Charter, which is not a legally binding agreement, but is currently supported by 174 communities across the province.

The program was originally drafted in December, 2008, when the RDCK allocated over $100,000 in funds to support the initiative and also when the RDCK, along with Area K municipalities of Nakusp and New Denver signed onto the provincial Climate Action Charter.

The first two years of the Carbon Neutral Kootenays Project will focus on planning, while the last two years, leading up to 2012, will focus on putting projects into place and monitoring to ensure carbon neutrality by 2012.

The village of Nakusp is working on different strategies to lower their carbon footprint as part of this project, with the requesting of village staff being asked not to leave village owned vehicles idling along with an anti-idling bylaw. Nakusp village CAO Bob Lafleur says new lights have been installed at the Nakusp & Arrow Lakes Community Complex which provide more light with less wattage, and other projects at the arena such as the upgrading of the heat system will supplement heating costs as will the new solar panels.

“The sewer treatment plant will incorporate recovered waste water for irrigation that will eliminate the need to pump from the well, thus saving power and water,” he says. “The water treatment plant will incorporate a ‘micro-generating system’ that uses the water pressure to generate power that will be returned to the hydro grid.”

He adds the Nakusp Hot Springs has also recently installed a heat-recovery system which pre-heats the boiler water for showers and floor heat which will save approximately 60 per cent of the costs used for oil.