Phila. Dept. of Parks and Recreation Gets Incentive Payment For Trimming Energy Usage
By Pat Loeb
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Philadelphia's Department of Parks and Recreation got a check today for $28,000, the first incentive payment in a pilot program to get city departments to reduce energy use.
The Parks and Rec Department cut its energy use by two million kilowatts.
Today, Waring Elementary School students helped celebrate by dancing at Clemente Recreation Center, where deputy mayor Mike DiBerardinis (at left in photo) said that kids like them were his chief motivation to cut his department's carbon footprint.
"This government and this city need to save energy in order to secure the future of the planet for these young people," he said.
The local government is the city's largest energy user, spending about $100 million a year on power.
Katherine Gayewski, head of the city's Office of Sustainability, says that's why it was target #1 for greening the city.
It took most of Mayor Nutter's two terms in office to launch this pilot project, in which departments get to keep half of what they save in energy. But Gayewski says she believes the results are beginning to speak for themselves.
"We think we've made the case and really have some great numbers that we can show a next administration why a focus on energy conservation is essential," she said today.
