GAMBIER — Gambier Mayor Leeman Kessler visited Washington, D.C. for the 92nd Winter Meeting of the United States Conference of Mayors on Jan. 17.
The climate-focused meeting was anchored by the Ambassador to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Climate Mayors, Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative, Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative.
Its purpose was to celebrate the work completed by local levels to tackle environmental issues.
The current chair of Climate Mayors is Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, who spoke about how cities have the “opportunity and responsibility to be drivers of change,” Kessler recalled.
“Throughout the event, I was able to directly speak with mayors and organizations about some of the challenges Gambier faces when it comes to water, particularly being dependent on other municipalities for water and managing a legacy system that has seen unfortunate rates of water loss,” Kessler wrote in his mayor’s report.
Further explaining in an interview with Knox Pages, Kessler said Gambier gets its water from Mount Vernon, and that council has asked if the village could source its own water. However, it’s expected to be too expensive or beyond the village’s capacity to complete that project.
“Water loss has been a big problem for a while,” Kessler said. “We have old infrastructure and we know that more water comes into the village than is then accounted for, which tells us that water’s being lost.
“We’ve been able to find certain leaks and stop them and we’re definitely doing better now than we were a couple years ago,” he continued. “But there’s still a lot of work to be done in trying to find technologies that can help us better pinpoint where these leaks are or where these breakdowns in our system are.”
Gambier council continues to pursue cost-effective methods of replacing the current water network, Kessler said.
“From these conversations, I’ve been put in touch with others tacking similar issues and hope to be able to link arms and make use of their experience to help improve our own infrastructure and become better stewards of our resources,” he said.
With Gambier being one of the smaller communities represented, Kessler said there was “great interest” in how the village addresses transportation, emission reduction and other related issues, even with the constraints and limited resources of a small community.
Kessler said he has been part of the Climate Mayors Organization since first elected.
“They do a lot of work letting communities know about grants and practices other communities are employing to deal with emissions reduction and carbon neutrality,” he said.
In 2017, the village installed roof-mounted solar panels at the community center, and through 2021-2023, 96 panels were installed on the wastewater treatment plant — providing supplemental power at both locations, village administrator R.C. Wise said.
The panels are expected to generate 10-15% of the energy load, saving about $5,000 to $7,500 a year on the electric bill.
Panels purchased for the sewer plant were $180,000 paid via American Rescue Plan Act funds and $35,000 in village sewer funds, Wise said.
“We’re hopeful putting in solar panels can drastically cut some of our energy costs,” Kessler said.