City sets aside $38,000 for energy study

The city of Watertown will spend up to $38,000 to determine whether geothermal energy can be used to heat and cool five of its largest municipal buildings, including City Hall and the neighboring Roswell P. Flower Memorial Library.

"We need to take a look at geothermal to see if it's a good long-term alternative for this organization," City Manager Mary M. Corriveau said. "If it's not the way to go, under this contract, the engineers will provide us a direction that we should be going in, even if that's a more traditional type of system."

The library, 229 Washington St., is in need of heat pumps, which regularly break down and need to be replaced. City Hall, 245 Washington St., is being cooled by rooftop chillers that are "on their last legs," Mrs. Corriveau told council members Tuesday night.

Mrs. Corriveau said a geothermal system would cause the city to spend more on pumps to move the system's water but less on natural gas.

"Those numbers are something the engineers would be looking at," Mrs. Corriveau said.

The study also will determine the feasibility of using geothermal wells to heat and cool the Alex T. Duffy Fairgrounds municipal arena and the sewage and water treatment plants.

"This could be a cost savings to the city, but we need to take a hard look at this and unless we move forward with this, we won't know that," Councilman Jeffrey M. Smith said.

The evaluation performed by Sack & Associates Consulting Engineers PLLC, Syracuse, will provide an evaluation of the city's current heating and air conditioning systems within each building and determine whether a conventional system or geothermal system would best serve the building's needs.

Mayor Jeffrey E. Graham and Councilwoman Teresa R. Macaluso voted against the resolution.

"I don't want to dump a lot of money into these studies," Ms. Macaluso said. "I just don't think this is the best solution."

The city already has $235,000 included in the current budget to replace the cooling towers at City Hall.

"We're always replacing the heat pumps in the library," Mrs. Corriveau said. "And the air conditioning system here is on its last legs, so both need to be looked at."