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EPA honors Grand Canyon National Park for cutting carbon pollution, saving money

Release Date: 06/17/2014
Contact Information: Margot Perez-Sullivan, (415) 947-4149, [email protected]

SAN FRANCISCO – Today, at a meeting of federal agencies in Phoenix, Ariz. the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recognized Grand Canyon National Park for its efforts to reduce energy use with its prestigious Federal Green Challenge Award. EPA’s Regional Administrator for the Pacific Southwest, Jared Blumenfeld, presented the award to Tim Jarrell, Chief of the Park’s Facilities Management Division.

“At the Grand Canyon National Park, greenhouse gas emissions were slashed when energy consumption was cut by 32 percent,” said Regional Administrator Blumenfeld. “Federal agencies participating in the Pacific Southwest program saved over $31.8 million by reducing waste, water, and energy use over the past two years.”

Using less electricity reduces demand on power plants and helps meet the President’s Climate Action Plan. While a portion of the reduction in energy could be attributed to an unseasonably warm winter, which reduced the need for heating oil, the Park also practiced energy conservation and consolidated its facilities by closing a large warehouse/office building.

Federal Green Challenge participants were judged on a variety of factors including overall environmental results and outcomes. As participants, agencies pledge to reduce their resource use by 5 percent or more per year in at least two of six target areas: waste, water, energy, transportation, electronics and purchasing.

Over the past two years, EPA’s Pacific Southwest Region federal participants have:

- conserved over 355 million gallons of water;

- conserved over 9 million kilowatt hours of electricity and over 2 billion cubic feet of natural gas.

- prevented over 93,000 tons of waste from reaching landfills, through composting and recycling, resulting in reduced greenhouse gas emissions by over 248,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (the equivalent of conserving over 11 million gallons of gasoline);

- purchased over 48 million sheets of 100% postconsumer recycled copy paper.

For more information on the Federal Green Challenge, please visit:
https://www.epa.gov/fgc/awards/pacificswawards/index.html