Energy grant applied for again schools

McKinstry, a company that had helped Grand Coulee Dam School District with an energy conservation grant that was finally tanked, is trying again.

This time, district Superintendent Dennis Carlson told board members, would be for a $714,000 grant for energy conservation and upgrading for the present Lake Roosevelt High School gymnasium and industrial arts building.

The previous energy conservation grant, which was approved, was turned back because it had been granted for Center Elementary and the Grand Coulee Dam Middle School, as well as parts of Lake Roosevelt, but the district will combine those schools into one in 2014. The grant was applied for before the district knew for sure that it would receive funding for the new school.

The new grant, which the board asked Carlson to pursue with McKinstry, would equip the gym with a modern digital control system that allows for enhanced equipment scheduling and energy savings controls. The grant would also make necessary light improvements in the gym.

Almost half of the grant would go toward updating the heating, ventilating and air conditioning system in the industrial arts building.

The current HVAC system was installed when the arts building was constructed, and suffers from hot and cold air dumping into the shop as the electric heating coil doesn’t modulate. Equipment is visibly in a state of deterioration.

The industrial arts building would also get a lighting upgrade. Cost for the Industrial arts upgrade would be $394,000, the estimate shows.

The estimate for the gym upgrade would be about $275,000.

The district would have to provide a 50-percent match of a project that it planned to do as part of the building project.

Carlson is supposed to report back to the board on the energy grant.