City of East Jordan, Lagoon Pump House was Awarded for the 2023 Michigan Battle of the Buildings Competition in the Other Category
This year we celebrated 10 years of the Michigan Energy Summit and 10 years of amazing projects and energy efficiency initiatives! Over the past 10 years, we have had a total of 149 winners from 75 different organizations, representing 264 Michigan cities. Since the program's inception in 2014, our competitors have redirected over $100 million of utility costs back to their bottom line and avoided almost 550,000 metric tons of CO2e. Over 272 million square feet of Michigan commercial real estate competed against each other in 2023 in this biggest loser-styled energy competition. The 2023 Michigan Battle of the Buildings competitors saved $7.4 million in energy costs and avoided 47,178 metric tons of CO2e which is equivalent to the carbon sequestered by 55,514 acres of US forests in one year! This year we had 11 industry-specific category winners. We are so excited to announce the City of East Jordan as the 2023 Michigan Battle of the Buildings winner in the Other Category!
The City of East Jordan was awarded at the 2023 Michigan Battle of the Building winner in the Other Category for their Lagoon Pump House project, which saw 5.50% reduction for the competition year. The Lagoon Pump House is located at the city’s former wastewater treatment
ponds just outside of East Jordan in Charlevoix county. In 2021, wastewater
treatment plant operators looked into the possibility of draining and winterizing
the Lagoon Pump House during the months that it wasn’t being used instead of
the past practice of keeping the building heated. That change was successful and
resulted in the building winning the Michigan Battle of the Buildings in 2021 in the Other Category.
Even with all the equipment powered down, the city was not seeing the zero use that
they expected to see during the winter. “Something was still consuming electricity
and we needed to find it,”said Kate Mowbray, Wastewater Plant Operator. “I like to call this project Slaying the Vampire.” The building was constructed in the 1970s, with new equipment added several times as needs changed. It was a lot like moving into an old house where only half of the breakers are labeled in the panel. Circuits were tested, wires were traced,
and lots of head shaking later, the energy vampire was found. What they found
was an unmarked 120 volt line running through a 480 volt MCC panel sending
power out to shore power stations along the lagoon banks. They were able to
complete the project using only in-house labor. An added bonus to the electricity
saved is eliminating a safety hazard for the operators. With everything identified,
proper lockout, tagout procedures can be followed.
The wastewater treatment plant’s mission is to lessen the impact that sewage has
on the environment. This can be done by operating efficiently, reducing
greenhouse gas emissions, and through the reuse of materials and equipment. A partnership
between the City of East Jordan and the Michigan DNR to utilize obsolete
infrastructure to raise fish is one of the wastewater plant’s projects. The Lagoon
Pump House regulates the water level in old treatment ponds that were rendered
obsolete when the new mechanical treatment plant came online in 2018. Since
2021, one pond has become a walleye rearing pond raising fish to be planted in
area lakes. Fathead minnows are also raised and in April 2024, 23,000 minnows were
collected and trucked to another rearing pond to feed their walleye.
With this project completed the wastewater treatment plant is able to better accomplish their mission of effectively and efficiently mitigating the impacts of sewage on the surrounding environment, and focus on projects such as the one mentioned above. We were excited to celebrate the City of East Jordan’s accomplishments in energy efficiency at our annual Michigan Energy Summit on May 8, 2024 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where they were awarded in the Other Category! This marks their 3rd award in the competition and their 2nd award for this location.