Lancaster — The municipal buildings in Lancaster and Bolton are getting a lot “greener” thanks to a clean energy grant issued by the state.

The abutting towns were two of 59 municipalities selected to receive a grant from this year’s Commonwealth through the Green Communities Competitive Grant program. A total award of $7.9 million was issued to the grant recipients this year; of that, Lancaster received $35,300 and Bolton was issued $127,573. 

The grant is offered under the Green Communities Act of 2008. According to the act, municipalities in the Commonwealth have to be designated a “Green Community” by the state to receive funding. According to www.mass.gov, in order for a city or town to be designated “green,” the following five criteria must be met:

  1. Municipalities must adopt a local zoning bylaw or ordinance that allows “as-of-right-siting” for renewable and/or alternative energy generation, research & development, or manufacturing facilities
  2. Municipalities must adopt an expedited application and permit process for as-of-right energy facilities
  3. Municipalities must establish a municipal energy use baseline and develop a plan to reduce energy use by 20 percent within five years
  4. Municipalities must purchase only fuel-efficient vehicles for municipal use, whenever such vehicles are commercially available and practicable
  5. Municipalities must set requirements to minimize life-cycle energy costs for new construction; one way to meet these requirements is to adopt the Board of Building Regulations and Standards (BBRS) Stretch Code.

According to Orlando Pacheco, the town administrator of Lancaster, town officials plan on using this year’s grant to pay for two projects: (1) a new energy management system for the Prescott Building (which houses the town offices) and (2) a new energy efficient vehicle (specifically, a hybrid Ford Explorer) for the fire department.

Pacheco said the hybrid vehicle is expected to cost about $5,000 of the grant money, the remainder of the $35,300 will go toward the Prescott Building project. 

“It basically allows a computer to regulate the building,” Pacheco said of the Prescott project. “One of the big ways you lose energy is human behavior, people don’t shut off lights, people don’t necessarily turn down heat and thermostats, everything will be regulated through one centralized system and we are expecting that to have a big impact.”

Lancaster has been a “Green Community” since 2010. Pacheco said obtaining the designation has certainly paid off. 

“I think it’s one of the best decisions the town has made in terms of conditioning itself to be a more sustainable community one, and two, to pursue grant dollars that otherwise would be used through the operating budget,” he said. 

Pacheco said the town has used Green Communities Competitive Grant money won in prior years to retrofit the town’s buildings with LED lighting and weatherize them as well. 

In the future, Pacheco said town officials would like to add electric charging stations to the parking lots of Mary Rowlandson Elementary and Lancaster Middle School.

“It will incentivize teachers to buy electric vehicles because they will have a place to charge while they are working,” explained Pacheco. 

Meanwhile, Jonathan Keep, who is currently serving his second term on Bolton’s Select Board, said the $127,573 grant Bolton received will go toward the following:

  1. Weatherizing Town Hall, the DPW Building, and the Public Safety Building
  2. Installing unit heaters in the DPW
  3. Installing energy efficient lighting in Town Hall
  4. Installing a “demand-controlled ventilation” system in the gym at the Emerson School

“A big part of the grant is working on weatherization of three different buildings,” said Keep. Later adding, “This is our third green communities grant, we won the Green Community designation in 2018 and that was an effort of the most recent town planner Erica Uriarte.”

Keep added that both Lancaster and Bolton needed the grant money because the towns’ budgets have been squeezed by the cost of running Nashoba Regional High School (which serves Bolton, Lancaster and Stow). 

“Our budgets are really tight. Nashoba takes up the majority of each of our town’s budgets,” explained Keep.