At the annual Town Meeting on May 11, Deerfield residents will have an opportunity to adopt two measures that will allow the town to become a Climate Leader Community. Such communities are eligible to apply to the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER) for grants of up to $1.15 million each for projects that reduce municipal emissions and for technical support related to those projects.
To date, 35 communities have achieved Climate Leader status, and DOER has awarded close to $1.16 million in technical support grants to those communities. Ashfield was the first town in Franklin County to achieve Climate Leader status, and it has been awarded $870,872 to install solar systems at the wastewater treatment plant and at the highway garage. These projects are estimated to save the town nearly $100,000 annually in energy costs and approximately $2 million over 25 years. Several other local communities have achieved Climate Leader status and can apply for grants, including Amherst, Easthampton, Northampton, Shutesbury and Warwick.
As someone pointed out at the last town meeting, DOER funding comes from taxes that residents have paid to the commonwealth. The Climate Leader Communities program returns some taxpayer money to communities. Much of the funding has gone to towns in the eastern part of the commonwealth: DOER has recently awarded grants ranging from $119,000 to $150,000 to Aquinnah, Carlisle, Harvard, Melrose, Natick, Stow, Truro and West Tisbury.
In order to bring some of that money home to Deerfield, voters should vote “yes” on the Zero-Emission-Vehicle First Policy and the Specialized Energy Code at the Annual Town Meeting on May 11.
Judith Kundl
South Deerfield