DEC announces new funding for the city of Batavia

BATAVIA, N.Y. (WROC) — Today, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation met with state and local officials to announce the newest round of funding awarded through the Climate Smart Communities Program. The event highlighted the city of Batavia for taking effective actions to adapt to climate change.

“The Climate Smart Communities Program was started by the state to address climate change in the region and essentially what the program does is it has a series of actions all aimed at different climate mitigation or adaptation strategies,” says Rachel Scudder, who is the Climate Smart Communities Coordinator for the Genesee/Finger Lakes Regional Planning Council.

The city of Batavia applied for funding for the Daniel McCarthy Memorial Ice Arena, specifically for the chiller system.

“As part of this investment that we are making, Batavia is receiving 1.18 million dollars for an upgrade to their ice rink facility here,” says Sean Mahar, who is the interim commissioner of the NYS DEC. “They are decarbonizing their chiller system here, they are making other energy efficient upgrades and really becoming a shining example of what we want other communities to do with their ice rinks like this.”

The old chiller system was about 46 years old so they knew that a new one was needed. And now, it will be safer for the environment.

“The number one thing is going to be better reliability. It will also feature a lower electricity bill,” says Matthew Gray, who is the operator of the Daniel McCarthy Memorial Ice Arena. “It’ll use CO2 instead of R22, which is much safer for the environment and it also do it in a way which it uses considerably less water.”

Click here to learn more about this funding through the DEC.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to RochesterFirst.