City Of Tulsa Plans $3.8 Million In Energy Initiatives

By Christ Wright, The News On 6

TULSA, OK -- Tulsa will spend millions on projects it says will make areas of the city more energy efficient. Mayor Dewey Bartlett announced his energy initiatives at a news conference Wednesday evening.

The City of Tulsa will use nearly $4 million in mostly stimulus money for these projects. Officials believe the savings in the long run will be much more than that.

In a room crowded with area oil and gas executives, Mayor Dewey Bartlett - an oilman himself - announced an ambitious new energy green policy. He says the goal is spend some money to save some money on energy costs.

"It's that type of thinking and that type of management that again is going to allow us to get through this financial problem we're having, again without raising taxes," said Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett.

Federal grant money in the amount of $3.8 million will go towards a number of projects.

Among them:

• $1.4 million to increase energy efficiency at the OSU Medical Center.
• $900,000 will go towards the Brady Village Geothermal Project.
• $350,000 will be spent on energy audits for city buildings to find ways to make them more efficient.

"He's not yet been in office 100 days, and already he is putting forward the most comprehensive energy program in the history of the city of Tulsa," said Terry Simonson, Bartlett's Chief of Staff.

City leaders also have plans to turn the highway lights back on. The City has turned off 4,000 of Tulsa's 6,000 lights,but many will be replaced with more efficient LED lights.

The city also has plans to switch part of the city fleet to run on CNG, or Compressed Natural Gas.

Monitoring all of this spending will be the new Office of Sustainability, which Bartlett created with an executive order Wednesday.

He told The News On 6 that the almost $4 million in federal grants will get a lot of projects started.

Brett Fidler will be in charge of ensuring that the effort to become more efficient remains efficient itself.

"There's a lot of transparency and a lot of accountability involved with this grant. Everything we say we're going to do with it is going to be public knowledge," Fidler said.

The project was set in motion by former mayor Kathy Taylor.

To give you an idea of how much the city spends on energy, its electric bills topped $12 million last year.