good afternoon everyone my name is dave costner i'm the general manager of the holland board of public works welcome to holland energy park i'm very excited to announce that in addition to all of you that are here in person we are actually live streaming this event on the city hall and facebook page so for all those in the community that are watching greetings as well it's very fitting that today this is the first day of public power week twenty seventeen it's a week that is dedicated to demonstrating the value that public power organizations bring to their community because of that and also because of how on earth the park it's a great day to celebrate in holland michigan our car our community and i say this our community has accomplished something really big in doubling our electric generation efficiency and switching to clean burning natural gas to supplement a solid portfolio of renewable resources we've cut our carbon emissions from our electric generation and half emissions like software dioxide and ni are reduced by more than ninety percent and we've virtually eliminated particularly missions like lead and others today we continue a long history of providing affordable reliable sources of power generation to serve our community and with counterpart now we're position to bring us well into the twenty first century we've taken a major step towards realizing holland's forty year community energy plan the communities vision today becomes a reality we have a world class energy efficient resource we have a beautifully enhanced eastern gateway to our community and we have a destination to connect our community to its utility provider in many ways this truly is a unique infrastructure project for a unique community community input was the driving factor every step of the way collectively we deployed  investment model for the first time ever in a power generation development project allowing us to consider not only the financial costs and benefits but the social economic and environmental impacts of each option we considered through this our community spoke clearly about what we needed and what we valued a special blue ribbon committee led the conversation about how an energy parks architecture and a site plan design and a community advisory panel provided valuable input into the wonderful visitor center that you'll get to visit this afternoon and w that connection to our community it's important to know that one hundred twenty two local companies from our community played a role in making  energies into making this something in which we can all take pride i also want to thank my assistant janet lamson for her persistence and diligence in helping to coordinate this event no small task to our electric production staff thank you these professionals have trained and worked hard to prepare for this next phase bringing how energy park to life and maximizing its value to our community hundreds of other people from across our community have their creativity and labor invested here with this dedication to how energy part becomes a living testament to what this community can accomplish when it sets a vision of any other power provider municipal or otherwise each one of our board members has given countless voluntary hours toward advancing the mission and vision of the hauen board of public works i would like each of the current members and frankly i'd also like to invite any past member of the hauen board of public works to please stand and be recognized in already strong board is made even stronger by its leader tim hemingway has presided over the holland b t w board for nearly a decade much longer than my tenure as general manager i wan good afternoon not quite as tall as day this is a momentous day for our community not just the b p w but really in the if you take a look at the life of our community of greater holland this dates back to elite eight thousand nine hundred which i'll talk about here in a minute but to see the culmination of this which is multiple years of effort by many people from many different parts of the community and also from different parts from around the world as david mention this took an enormous amount of planning and i want to compliment our staff and those that assisted our staff in bringing this project to fruition the role of the board at the holland board of public works is primarily in governance making sure we're we're defining that mission that vision and how we're going to conduct ourselves as a as a public entity and it's really that team led by dave that really brought this to fruition i'm behalf of the community as you move ahead ahead with this project a lot of people didn't realize that concurrently there were a number of other projects we're doing here in the community the same time i say we team was doing it when you take a look at concurrently the expansion of snow melt here in the community i know all of you that live here in the greater holland zealand area saw eight street and ninth street all torn up at different times but it was necessary to get the systems in place to be able to hook up to the new plant but at the same time if you're going on river avenue there's significant upgrade that has been done to our wastewater treatment facility was huge and that was also going on at the same time new substation if you take a look on pine avenue just  small things like that six or seven million dollars worth of new infrastructure and that's one of the key things that we as a community don't realize because we live with it day by day we have absolutely superb infrastructure highly reliable robust in his design and build and cost effective and that's one of the reasons that we thrive as a community because we have that infrastructure in place to be able to serve all of the members of our community industrial commercial and residential at the same time we also have done the wyoming interconnect in a lot of people and what's the wyoming interconnect him well one of the things we did was to connect our system with the city of wyoming to the north side of holland and that also was a major project that was being undertaken at the same time and i could be could stand to be corrected but i believe we were running somewhere around three hundred twenty million dollars worth of projects at the same time something closed in that neighborhood and everybody maintained their sanity it was amazing to be able to get that done let's take a look at the utility where you're sitting today used to be something different from many many decades dating back to the early one thousand nine hundred but in eight hundred eighty three the water commission was started to construct and direct public water supply for the nine the plant that is now been shut down the james de young plant was first constructed in one nine hundred thirty nine and then was added on to over the years the snow melt system that we have and we were the first here in the united states was started in one thousand nine hundred eighty eight so you can see a general progression of infrastructure improvements to be able to really support our community as we go along  it comes down to community it was done by the community for the community and it is something that is sustainable in the long term for all of us so today we can pause and celebrate all that's been accomplished in this unique facility and please do take the time to tour the parts are they going to be available to you today because tomorrow this plant will  sleeves and get right back to work again in a dental filing the services and infrastructure that we will need to have in place to carious into the next hundred years because that's what we have to be doing is always looking forward what you're seeing here today is something that hopefully will last fifty or more years but guess what we have to make sure we're ready for that next fifty that comes after that so without any further ado thank you for coming today thank you all of you because i see many faces of people the parts participated in the process of getting us here today and what it wonderful new asset we have for the community in fact i can see somebody out there from ann arbor came on and helped in the process greg good to see so without further ado i will turn it over to our mayor nancy de boer thank you thank you good afternoon what a good afternoon it is to finally have this party we've been watching this go up and we really well so looking forward to celebrating i do feel a little conflicted today because of what has happened in las vegas and we have this glorious celebration and they are facing i think it is fifty eight dead now and five hundred fifty fifteen wounded some very seriously and we realize that communities rise and fall and have reactions to situations that we cannot ever anticipate and i know that this community will work hard to reach out to people that are suffering and will figure out a way to support people that they know from that area but we're here to celebrate and we want to realize that this was a long time coming the better part of a decade since our community energy needs assessment the how and energy park represents planning for our community for the next fifty years and part of our broader community energy plan was having this ambitious sustainability road map for the community the community energy plan is an innovative forward looking guy that grew from the him put of a whole bunch of people all throughout this community the howland energy park is a critical part of that whole sustainability goal and we know holland is a can do city as a community we know something that needs to get done and we step forward to do it in the years after our founding i'm sure you're familiar that holland leaders recognize the need for a channel to lake michigan so they applied they had delay they finally realize no funding was going to come so did they walk away did they give it up did they decide something else better happen now they decided that they would step forward and dig the channel by themselves by hand and they did next sunday marks the hundred and fifty sixth anniversary of the great fire that virtually destroyed the city but before those ashes were even cooled the community began to rebuild as tim mentioned our downtown snow melt system was put in place when nobody else even thought about that kind of possibility we review revitalized our downtown and made it one of the great main streets in america and it's been recognized as such here in holland we really work to make things happen it's kind of in our d n a to get great things done we dared to take them on and we have the hard work and determination to make them succeed with the holland energy park our community has once again achieved a great thing we've secured our energy future we've become a more sustainable community we have changed for the better the landscape of the eastern gateway of our city looks much better we've created a model for a community own to power generation that's being studied by other cities in the u s and canada there is there are a lot of accomplishments that have taken a lot of work the better part of a decade but you know what it's been worth it that whole journey and we're really proud of our city and what we've accomplished we're really grateful to be able to be here at this point in time we're thankful for all those who came before us who have worked so hard to instill those values of being responsible in the community and of working hard and of working together we're we are also looking forward to those who are coming after us that we will transmit those same kind of values to be responsible in your choices for energy production to work together as a community to figure it out and all be willing to be a part of the solution instead of just the problem and i'm off script now but i really want to thank tim and the board the amazing work that they did and dave koster and dan and chris and ted and all of those you didn't see them as much as we did but you would have no idea that a third of a billion dollars of projects were happening here they were like smooth no matter what happened they kept their eye to what had to get done they accomplished things we have never had in this community and they have put us on the map when we had the michigan municipal league in the michigan power companies coming here to holland it was very hard for them coming through this kind of a plant this doesn't happen everywhere anywhere and that award is the only one in the world for a power plant that happens because there are mazing people involved who have given up so much time and effort who have sacrificed themselves to come together to make this happen i will avar be in awe of the nobility of the people involved in this project and i'm so honored to be able to say thank you i'm behalf of the city and the community for all you have done for the future of power in this region thank you so much thank you mer you know another organization or entity that's had a lot on their plate and you know a lot going on has been the state of michigan as a relates to energy just this last year and over this past year some new energy legislation you know just went in place in the state i know there was a lot of effort associated with that very glad today to have a representative from the state of michigan here to talk with us too anderson is with the michigan agency for energy and i know that hopefully we show a little bit about what local control can do and that can be a shining star within the state so with that i'm pleased to have made to anderson come up to the podium here she's the deputy director of the michigan agency for energy  she's been there in that position sensed twenty six team and so mad i'll turn it over to you thank you so much good afternoon i'm thrilled to be part of this celebration for the completion of such an innovative project as you know governor rick snyder our governors worked hard to have a no regrets energy future for michigan hollins energy program is one of the most innovative in the country and a terrific model for all michigan communities this new park hits all the points governor snyder is laid out in his energy policy having a system that's reliable secure affordable and environmentally protective i also have to mention holland's on bill financing program for energy improvements it's another example of how holland is visionary incentives for offering on bill financing for a major utilities was included in the energy reform legislation passed last year which dave mentioned this is a pet program for our governor and a proponent of finding every way that we can reduce energy waste so on behalf of governor snyder the michigan agency for energy and myself congratulations holland for a job well done and especially for your leadership in michigan's energy future thank you the complex project as complex a project as the hollin energy park is finding the right partner is essential to bring a community vision to life and with a project like this there are bound to be challenges along the way what's key is how you respond to those challenges i'm very proud today to be able to reach out my hand and thinks to the barton mello team and the hundreds of men and women who have made how and their home over the last few years and they've worked tirelessly to make how an energy park a reality please join me in welcoming chuck been koski senior vice president for central region operations for barton mellow dave as as dave mentioned i'm the senior vice president for barton mela company and just really proud to be here in this great day today and the ribbon cutting for this project at the company we have  a statement and it was a commitment i made to you at the groundbreaking about us serving with the american spirit people projects and community as we take an adventure like this and i like to say and sincerely think the  public works for and trusting us with this project the unique build of this facility was really rewarding for the hundreds of men and women in total that it worked on here i did write down a few for you people that like stats out there want to share with you a few things that went into this building over the dirt or the duration of the construction one point five million man hours worked by the trades out on this job and that does not include the hours that were put in from our design partners with zachary and progressive on the engineering side there was construction man hours over nine hundred thousand linear feet of cable pulled through here twenty eight thousand cable terminations thirty thousand linea feet a small bore pipe with twenty thousand linear feet of large bore pipe two thousand one hundred and twenty tons of structural steel went in on top of fourteen thousand cubic yards of concrete there was over two thousand loop checks as we got the facility up and running and there was a facility in system working with ted and his team and dan to turn over fifty one turnover packages for this program not to mention in the piping under the facility roadways two hundred thousand linear foot of piping pex piping under that for the snow melt just a tremendous amount of work put in place i just wanted to share some of those but the reason i shared it is another and also like to thank the city of holland for walking this into your community while living in work while living and working in your community or project team members participated had many opportunities to participate around here tulip time was it was awesome to partake in and participate we had people that built houses with your local chapter of habitat for humanity assisted in outdoor discovery center and others who participated in your youth connection program and for that we are truly thankful the city of holland's a special community and we thank you for your hospitality and warmth over the past three years in fact i wanted to share with you your generosity and kindness made such an impact on our team that our senior project manager joe blanchett decided to relocate his family to holland it's joe will continue with martin melo but home base is now here in holland where he is very active in everything in a community i know joe loves coaching and youth football league his  his wife jamie is a nurse at caledonia school district's plug in there and their boys are just really enjoying summers in holland because who wouldn't and they've made this their home so i just want to thank you for welcoming our team members in that regard the generation and distribution water wastewater treatment and broadband utility services to nearly twenty eight thousand businesses and residential customers in the area in a socially conscious and environmentally responsible manner is it my or a bull and it's definitely extraordinary so on behalf of our congratulations on this alternate project milestone and thank you for including us in this project well when you walk around the plant today you might see a particular name on a lot of equipment another key part partner in this project worked very hard to ensure that they provided cost effective solutions to meet our needs for world class technology that partner is siemens you'll see their name on all three of the turbines the substation equipment the plant control system and the plant electric letter distribution equipment i probably missed a few things they also provided us with amazing imagery video content and physical exhibits for the visitor center w siemens equipment how energy parks efficiency has surpassed the high contract will guarantees placed on it please help me welcome barry nichols vice president for siemens u the first thing i want to do is to the city and the b p w and the state and local officials involved the other project participants w this is a project that the fifty thousand people of siemens in the united states are as proud to be a part of as any project that we've ever done you know i did hear a rumor that someone behind me said this really wasn't a power plant it's a snow melt system that happens to produce electricity now on the one hand i work tie that matches the snow melt piping on the other hand you can't hurt my feelings so you know we were here on this property a little bit more than two years ago to do the groundbreaking ceremony and at that time i compared the vision of this project compared to power plants of old as the difference between an  phone and an old underwood typewriter and i said what you're doing here is is pretty cool so i decided not to put together any prepared remarks i wanted to walk around the facility i got here a little bit early took a tour with dan saw all the equipment saule of all of our nameplates that was exciting and i went to the venice visitor center and i got to tell you this is why a cooler than a phone and there's two reasons for that and i'll tell you why the first one was the the people who you interested in doing this project took every possible consideration to be as friendly to the environment and to their neighbors as they possibly could whether was visual impact air impact noise impact you may have had a measurement for smell i'm not sure but it's unbelievable the extent to which they went to make sure that you were please not just with the output but the way this place looked and saw when you drove and then you thanks for that the second thing is when you get a chance after this to go to the visitor center that's a virtual disney world of power generation all the exhibits that were just mentioned what i'd like is for every high school science class in the country to walk through that visitor center and get really excited about science and technology and math what we can do in the world of electricity and perhaps we'll create a few more engineers and a few more electricity and power plant people to build projects like this in the future so again thanks for being here and welcome to a beautiful facility at this time hard like to introduce mr john stanton john is currently the c e o and president of the institute for sustainable infrastructure johnson noted a leader in environmental law is also an experienced executive in both public and private sector organizations environmental experience extended to clean air and water issues hazardous waste solar and other clean energy sources  john holds a bachelor of arts from tulane and a j d from georgetown university law center he's had been admitted to the bar in both new jersey and the district of columbia hello everyone now as the fun part i'll keep it brief john stanton i'm with the institute for sustainable infrastructure or the institute for sustainable infrastructure endeavors to  help the infrastructure development community figure out new more environmentally friendly sustainable ways to develop infrastructure that could be a bridge it could be a tunnel it could be a transit system or it could be a power plant  i'm here today to present the invision award invision is a proprietary system that was developed by i s i with other partners and what it attempts to encourage is what we call the triple bottom line financial environmental and social progress what this plant represents is the culmination of tremendous community participation and community input to develop a more sustainable more environmentally friendly more socially beneficial and financially stable product and that type of achievement is rare and for that purpose the board of public works in conjunction with h d r and environmental resources management and seamen and all the other important partners in this project received the platinum award so congratulations to everyone involved just briefly the accomplishments that lead to the award were many notably this was really a ten year community effort that level of community input is something that should be recognized and that holland and the board of public works and the mayor should be proud of the reduction in pollutants both fifty percent in carbon air toxic you know conventional air pollutants like soul for nitrogen all of those things convey tremendous benefits to the economy locally and then more regionally additionally you know when you have this combined cycle technology you use far less fuel fifty percent less fuel for the energy you produce you know anything is small is taking a former industrial property that was a brown conjunction with providing local jobs ridding the city of invasive species when you look at all of the other wonderful things that they did with respect to community access and integration of nearby  public service facilities what you really see is a culmination of a lot of different types of effort that result in something that the community should be very proud of and is worthy of a great recognition and for that we've awarded sward validates how holland approaches significant community decisions and will serve to reinforce that process the igbo and here are people so nigeria believe it takes a whole village to raise a child this nigerian proverb conveys the african worldview that emphasizes the values of family relationships parental care self sacrificing concern for others sharing and even hospitality i would suggest that it took more than a village in fact a city to raise this child this project as we've said earlier has been in the making for over ten years during that time there have been many organizations and individuals that have contributed to the successful completion of this project i do not want to turn this into an oscar s moment but i would like to take a moment to acknowledge and thank those people my abject apologies for anyone that i might inadvertently miss first i'd like to thank city council and the h b p w board for allowing me the privilege of leading the effort to actualise the communities vision additionally i want to thank all of the individuals of the cities and the h p p w staff who have contributed in so many ways many times on very little notice to bring this project to completion achieving the submission awarding completing the project would not have been possible without the excellent guidance of h d r anyon ram i want to call out jim connell am almost done i want to give a heartfelt thanks to my project team these individuals have worked tirelessly with little fanfare to keep things between the ditches christian doctrine for all the mounds of paper you organized for the invision submittal the planning the attention to detail taking on tasks that were certainly beyond your job description and the herding  cats that you did every day don steele for postponing retirement to take on the challenge of building the natural gas pipeline and one thirty eight k v interconnect line and all of those other odds and ends that needed to be done thanks carol for allowing me to use his skill set for an additional two years olivia swartz fisher our intrepid engineering in turn from hope college now an engineer working for h d r it was a pleasure enjoy to watch you grow throughout your time with us three very good friends who each came out of retirement to provide the guidance and technical expertise i needed on a daily basis douglas floor rick coppins and phil lewis to one individual that i could not have done this without my wife she has stood beside me through all the physical and mental challenges that have i had to deal with over the past decade while trying to keep this project in my health on track in the heat of the moment we saw them are conscious of the mama stress that we put upon our families when we go out to do big things thank you well we've come to the point that we've all been waiting for it's time to cut the ribbon and officially open house and energy park before we do just have a couple of additional thank yous and some instructions so we need to take care of a few odds and ends here once the ribbon is cut you'll be able to take a walking tour through the plant as you leave the room there will be safety glasses available to you also walking maps available we have some staff at various points around there to help you move through the entire facility they can also provide answers to any questions if you have them as you reach those particular points when you're done with the walking tour please join us in the lobby where we have refreshments including the release of a special commemorative brew from new holland brewing how an energy park amber you may have had an i p a but now you get to have an e p a so we would like to thank boyle communications management as our beverage sponsor for the event starting at six pm tonight if you so desire how the park amber will be on tap and how a new home brewing you are free to enjoy the refreshments in the lobby area or immediately outside the east end of the facility however couple areas we'd ask you not to bring those type of beverages and snacks into the visitor center we'd like to keep those on the lower level and also inside the gate please do not go outside the gate as you leave tonight please make sure you take your gift bag with you we'd like to thank our project partners throughout the development and the construction h d r incorporated for sponsoring the gift bags this evening buses will be running continuously from the east end of the red spine finally the conclusion of this event will open the trail around the facility again tonight no bruce out there but feel free after the event or any time the remaining fall or as we go forward to enjoy the trails as you'd providing engineering services to outdoor discovery center mactel a greenway for the engineering associated with a new pedestrian tunnel underneath the sea a six railway and also like to thank barton mallow for their past and future efforts associated with developing parts of the trail that are formerly the inner urban trail that connected grand rapids to how and if you like more information about that trail please see travis williams from the outdoor discovery center or any of us we can help you with that as well our website how an energy park dot com is updated with information about how to schedule group visits to our visitor center now without any further ado i'd like to invite all of our speakers to join me in opening how an energy park so please gather around