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Home > Blogs > West Chester News and Issues > Archives > 2008 > August > 07 > Entry
West Chester Twp. conservation plan
West Chester Twp. is undertaking an internal survey of how it uses natural resources. I wrote a story on it for this week’s Pulse-Journal, which you can read here.
While researching the story, I obtained a copy of a list the township assembled of things it’s doing and new steps it can look into to reduce its use of fuel and electricity. I’ve posted the list below; take a look at it, and post your thoughts: are there other things the township could do to be more energy-efficient? What do you think of the initial assessment of what the township’s doing?
WEST CHESTER TWP. CONSERVATION AND EFFICIENT USE OF NATURAL RESOURCES PLAN
All West Chester departments will strive to achieve in operations, at a minimum:
-Routine maintenance of all vehicles and equipment in Township’s fleet to ensure all are running efficiently;
-Township policy requires sensible and responsible driving; Good driving habits secure safety and promote better fuel efficiencies;
-Pre-plan, combine, and pool trips and people for field work, maintenance job assignments, meetings, mail pickups, deliveries to off- site departments, response to job sites, etc.
Current practices so far:
-Community Development - zoning finals, inspections, fieldwork
-Maintenance - bring all supplies, equipment, and materials instead of making several trips; takes extended cab trucks to transport all employees instead of multiple trucks
-Police - carpool to training, court appearances,
-Limit the number of vehicles in service to only essential and or most critical to perform work;
-Limit take home vehicles for only essential positions;
-Fuel vehicles in the early morning or late evening since fuel tanks are cooler and less susceptible to produce vapors when at all possible;
-Purchased AVL (all vehicle locators) technology to dispatch closest response vehicle - police or fire - increases response time and reduces fuel mileage;
-Dispatch emergency vehicles per protocol for safety and security of emergency personnel and care of caller in need, but police and fire command staff disregard additional units when determine safe to proceed;
-Avoid excessive idling of vehicles;
-Continue to purchase fuel efficient vehicles and reduce reliance on SUVs for non-critical roles.
Explorations where fiscally sound and financially feasible:
-Create venues for combined training and enhance audio visual centers to promote conference calls, webinars, and teleconferencing for internal and external meetings to reduce vehicular trips;
-Enhance technology to allow and promote in-field reporting; reduce trips back to office for data entry;
-Explore and perform cost benefit analyses on aftermarket vehicle modifications, hybrid vehicles, and alternative fuel vehicles to increase fuel mileage and reduce fuel consumption;
-Explore where feasibly practical and possibly implement with Board of Trustee approval ride sharing, car pooling, flex time schedules for non-critical positions; and,
-Continue proactive research to implement other energy saving programs, operations, and procedures.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: West Chester Twp. Government
Comments
By lloyd
August 7, 2008 12:29 PM | Link to this
People are already doing their part to conserve energy. But the energy companies keep on rewarding us with rate hike after rate hike. Tell these greedy Ceo’s and their ‘board’ to quit increasing our rates just so that they can take home millions ‘bonuses’.