City of El Centro making strides to better the environment
The city of El Centro is one step closer to wasting less energy. Schneider Electric secured a 1.6 million dollar grant to upgrade the El Centro Waste Water treatment plant. All thanks to a strong collaboration with the energy group and the city.
Valerie Houchin, the program manager at Schneider Electric, says “it’s not something that you do in one day. You have to have a shared commitment and buy in that you’re going to achieve a goal at the end.”
The city can now make energy efficient improvements at their waste water plants. El Centro City Council member, Alex Cardenas say, “the fact that we’re replacing emergency generators that were dependent of diesel and now are moving to natural gas is significant and groundbreaking.”
By reducing energy consumption, they’re saving rate payers money. Abraham Campos, the city’s Interim Public Works Director believes, “it allows us to control our long term operation by making some efficiencies happen today. This will help rate payers in the long run.”
Cheryl Viegas Walker, the Mayor of El Centro says this also helps improve the environment. “It really helps us meet as a city council a couple of our core principles and policies. And that is to save money for our rate payers and to be environmentally aware and conscious.”
El Centro officials also plan on improving the city by doing road repairs, creating parking lots and planting more trees. The waste water project will be completed by next summer.
