A Metro CERT affiliate since 2008, the City of White Bear Lake is committed to environmental stewardship and sustainability, which permeates all facets of its operations. The City of White Bear Lake signed on as a GreenStep City in December of 2011 as a way to provide structure to the planning process and assists city staff and the Environmental Advisory Commission in its development and articulation of goals.
White Bear Lake has tackled energy efficiency projects in a variety of sectors of the city: municipal buildings, residential homes and local businesses. They completed energy audits through Xcel Energy and used the Center for Energy and Environment’s One-Stop Efficiency Shop to do lighting retrofits and installed motion sensors in a number of their public buildings. The City’s Rambler Revolution project was a demonstration for how to retrofit the rambler-style housing stock that is common in White Bear Lake in a sustainable and energy efficient manner.
With assistance from Metro CERT, White Bear Lake got connected with the Food Service Energy Leadership Program (FSELP) to provide an energy efficiency technical assistance pilot for local restaurants. In collaboration with the Food Service Energy Leadership Program (now housed at Eureka Recycling) the city applied for and received a competitively selected Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant to fund the program. Over the course of 2 years they worked with 20 restaurants in White Bear Lake to identify energy savings opportunities and assist in implementing recommended energy improvements.
As a follow-up to the energy efficiency work done with restaurants in White Bear Lake, Metro CERT offered a workshop on solar resources and opportunities for businesses. The workshop, held in May of 2012, began with an overview of the energy savings opportunities in the food service industry, which was followed by a solar 101 presentation by Todd Fink of Century College, and wrapped up with local business owner Dave Roeser of Garden Fresh Farms speaking about the solar array at his aquaponics facility. Read more about the event here.
