Depending on the outcome of a Clean B.C. grant, the Nanaimo Aquatic Centre could see significant upgrades to reduce greenhouse gases in the future.
During the May 16 council meeting, the city’s manager of facility asset planning, Jennifer McAskill, spoke to council about the grant application for mechanical renewal. The project would see a proposed $4.1 million in funding from the grant, with the city providing $1.5 million as well as any cost overruns.
“The Nanaimo Aquatic Centre has been in service for about 20 years,” said McAskill. “That’s about the appropriate timeline to be looking at key mechanical systems and looking for opportunities where we can renew assets and ensure the long life of our facility.”
Upgrades to the centre would include the boilers and heating, ventilation and air conditioning system, which are all near end of life.
A city report noted that improved function of the HVAC system would also protect other assets of the facility, such as interior finishes and electrical systems. The upgrades would recover heat energy that would otherwise be lost into the atmosphere by redirecting it for use elsewhere in the pool.
McAskill also said upgrades would provide a “significant shift” from natural gas to electricity and reduce greenhouse gases by a wide margin.
The boilers being replaced will not be electrical, however, as McAskill said it was determined not be an appropriate use of funds.
“If we were to look at electrifying all of the mechanical systems, we are double the budget that we’re looking at right now, and increasing operational costs substantially,” she said. “We have other facilities in the portfolio and it would be really great to take that additional money and put them into a different facility and ultimately reduce our emissions more significantly than if we just put them into a single building.”
The city report added that the aquatic centre is the largest single producer of greenhouse gases – approximately 32 per cent of all corporately consumed natural gas and 12 per cent of all corporately consumed electricity.
At the council meeting, councillors voted 8-1 in favour of the grant application, with only Coun. Ben Geselbracht in opposition.
In an e-mail, Geselbracht stated that while he fully supports the upgrades to meet greenhouse gas reduction targets, he felt staff recommendations did not go far enough.
“Although we will be reducing the green house gas emissions from the HVAC system by 65 per cent with the upgrades, the recommendation chose not to deal with another 30 per cent reduction by deciding to replace the natural gas boilers with newer natural gas boilers instead of electric boilers,” he wrote. “This was a missed opportunity to go almost 100 per cent zero emission and get a provincial grant to cover a large portion of the cost. With most communities, including ours, that are not meeting their greenhouse gas emission reduction targets to keep our planet below 1.5 C warming, we need to be fully taking every opportunity to do our part.”
READ MORE: B.C. commits $282 million to CleanBC Industry Fund investment, applications now open
mandy.moraes@nanaimobulletin.com
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