The money has been appropriated for a multi-million dollar project at Crowder College, but a sluggish agency response in doling out the funds has put it on hold.
Plans for the Missouri Alternative and Renewable Energy Technology (MARET) building were in place in 2005 when Crowder received their first Congressional appropriation followed by others in 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2010 toward the building’s construction. Funding has not exactly been forthcoming.
Crowder has seen roughly $600,000 of the money, which was put toward engineering expenses and a prototype building. The approval process, overseen by the U.S. Department of Energy, screeched to a halt in the spring of 2008 and Crowder has received no money in more than a year. This month, college officials received notice from the DOE that the 2005 money earmarked for the building would be canceled if they did not proceed, but they cannot move forward with the project because they still need DOE approval.
The frustrations of the past five years spilled into the college’s board meeting on Thursday morning. Crowder College President Alan Marble announced the school was exploring the option of legal action to get the MARET center built.
“I don’t know where it’s held up,” Marble said. “We’re going to do what we have to do to get that money.”
Longtime board member Jim Tatum noted that both administrations had approved the appropriations with President George W. Bush signing three and President Barack Obama signing two, and said the process had been stymied by the Department of Energy. “There’s some gap in communication,” Tatum said. “This administration is verbally big on alternative energy and verbally big on spade-ready.”
The Crowder project is both.
Two other construction projects have begun on Crowder’s campus since the initial MARET award. Construction began on the Arnold Farber building in 2006 and finished in 2008. Just 75-feet away from the proposed MARET site, the school’s new health and science building is under construction. The two-story building was partially funded as a Federal Emergency Management Agency shelter.
MARET plans
Plans for the MARET center call for it to be built in two phases, with a total of 25,000-square-feet. The vision is for a platinum Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification with a zero energy footprint.
The structure will have solar panels placed on a saw-tooth roof design to better catch the sun’s rays. It will use a #ground source heating and cooling system. The 124-foot wind turbine will help power the building. The school hopes to generate energy to sell back to the electric company.
“We’ve used the time to refine the design, make it more energy efficient and more cost effective,” Marble said. “It’s going to be a showpiece.”
Classrooms and energy systems for phase I are estimated to cost $5 million, but board members pointed out the cost of construction may have risen since original estimates. Phase II will add more classroom space and a demonstration room, but as concerns mounted about phase I funding engineering was suspended on the second part of the project.
“We just have a concern that we could spend all this money on architectural fees and engineering fees and all this and not be reimbursed for those things,” Granger said. “Then we’d be stuck with all these drawings and not have a building.”
MARET programs were intended to grow with the building, but have taken on a life of their own. Currently classes are dotted around campus and labs are held outdoors at the solar house or wind turbine. Biofuel labs are held in a couple locations. Alternative energy classes at the school are growing. In the spring of 2008 the program had only one full and one part-time instructor. In the past year instructors were hired for the wind, solar and biofuels programs. Part of the MARET plan is to become an incubator site for alternative energy-related small businesses, which is not possible in their current space.
“We’ve had to make do with what we’ve had and that’s not enough,” Marble said. “We need this building to actually accomplish the things we know we can do. The sad part is that we could have already done a lot of these things.”
Funding
The five Congressional appropriations total $ 5,389,500. Crowder also has more than $2 million in private funds waiting for construction approval. The school itself has pledged $2,562,500 in matching funds for the appropriations. Communication has been constant between the college and the department. Documents obtained by the Daily News detail submissions and resubmissions of reports and changes in contacts at the DOE. In his three years as dean of business and support services Ron Granger has dealt with six different individuals at the departments Golden, Colo. office. In November the Missouri Department of Natural Resources determined that the building posed no environmental danger to the area, including the endangered Ozark cavefish. Crowder officials say they were told the building would actually be an environmental positive. DOE told Crowder at the time they were short-staffed and would review the information after the holidays, but it has not been approved.
Problems started when the college wanted to core drill to check soils. DOE told them no and Crowder officials maintain they were told if they even turned a shovel of dirt funding for the entire project would be lost.
“We’re trying,” Granger said. “We’re doing everything we can to get this going. We think it’s important to Crowder, we think it’s important to Neosho and to the state of Missouri. If we can ever get it going we think it will be a great project.”
Because he introduced the appropriations the school has reached out to Congressman Roy Blunt (R-Mo) for help. Dan Wadlington, public information officer for Blunt said Blunt wants to help clear the hurdles that have cropped up and supports the school’s effort to expand MARET efforts.
“We think MARET is a project that should be built. We think it will make Crowder a national voice on alternative energy research and development of technologies in that area,” Wadlington said. “The congressman has been very helpful in what we thought was moving that project toward a construction date.”
The Department of Energy did not respond to a request seeking their comment.
