For marinas, being green makes business sense

RAY OF LIGHT: Conanicut Marine Services began operating a solar array at its Taylor Point boatyard in Jamestown this fall. / COURTESY EDWARD GODFREY
RAY OF LIGHT: Conanicut Marine Services began operating a solar array at its Taylor Point boatyard in Jamestown this fall. / COURTESY EDWARD GODFREY

“Green” and “clean” are adjectives being used increasingly to describe Rhode Island marinas, as well as the boats that take harbor there.
Conanicut Marine Services in Jamestown was recently recognized not only with a Clean Marina designation from the Coastal Resources Management Council for sound environmental practices that go beyond regulatory requirements, but also by Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee for its new solar array, which powers Conanicut’s 10-acre Taylor Point boatyard.
The $600,000 photovoltaic system also will provide excess energy to National Grid for the next 15 years, said Bill Munger, Conanicut’s president and founder, in a recent interview.
“We make our living around clean water, clean air,” Munger said, explaining why he undertook the project. “The boating public wants to be around facilities that are clean. They are very much aware of the environment. It just makes good business sense, as well as environmental sense.”
Representatives of Conanicut, other marinas, and business owners who specialize in “green” and “clean” technologies attended a lecture on Nov. 4 by Bruce Corliss, dean of the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island entitled “Green Boats and Marinas.”
The talk, which focused on green boating fleets, was part of a larger, daylong program held at the school’s Coastal Institute in Narragansett entitled “Innovation in Oceanography, Ocean Engineering, Defense and Marine Trades.” The annual meeting of the Bristol-based Rhode Island Marine Trades Association followed.
Corliss is planning to include a focus not only on green boats and ports, but on marinas, at a workshop he is planning for this coming spring. Green practices at marinas are “going to be increasingly important in the future,” he said. “There are a lot of individual state or regional efforts out there and it’d be good to take a look at what people are doing throughout the country and get an assessment of best practices.”
E2Sol, a U.S. government-registered contractor and developer of technologies designed to maximize efficient consumption of energy, designed the solar system that now sits atop two south-facing sheds at Conanicut. The company is based in both East Greenwich and Bristol.
Anthony Baro, who with his partner, Manuel Vargas, founded E2Sol more than three years ago, asked Corliss for a private meeting to discuss the subject of environmentally friendly technologies and said he plans on participating in the upcoming workshop because he sees a market for this.
“We’re interested in getting more involved,” Baro said. “We’d like to find an opportunity to collaborate with URI in research and development of renewable energy.”
The emergence of this market is partly the result of greater public awareness, said Rob Sheldon, co-owner and vice president of sales and marketing for the Aquas Group, which also does business as Environmental Control Systems Inc., in East Providence. His company sells, among other products, a “Clean Marina Series” of systems designed to treat and manage or recycle wastewater.
Sheldon has three clients in Rhode Island, and nine others in Massachusetts, Florida and Virginia, he said.
As of this year, the R.I. Department of Environmental Management has updated its regulations to more stringently enforce proper handling of the runoff from power-washing boats and their hulls, said Sheldon and Ron Gagnon, chief of the agency’s Office of Customer and Technical Assistance. DEM has always had regulations in place but a period allowing for enforcement discretion has ended, Gagnon said, and as of this fall all the marinas are expected to be in compliance.
The Point Judith Marina in Wakefield received a Clean Marina designation in 2008, said Don Vivenzio, the marina’s general manager. It took more than a year to get to that point, he said.
“You have to have a system that prevents water and paint from going into the waterways or the ground,” explained Vivenzio. “You need a system to capture runoff, filter and recycle it or put it into a drum and dispose of it. We filter it and reuse it; when it’s too dirty to reuse, about once a year, we get rid of it in drums.”
Besides focusing on environmentally clean measures, Vivenzio is exploring the possibility of installing solar panels to help cut costs for the use of showers at his marina. He has already installed a solar panel to heat a swimming pool. That initial cost paid for itself in two years and he now saves the $8,000 a year he was spending on propane, he said.
Despite the potential for some cost savings, environmentally friendly clean and green measures are not inexpensive. Munger did obtain a federal grant to cover 30 percent of his costs for the solar project, but even with that and the money coming in from his contract with National Grid for supplying excess energy, he does not expect to break even for another 12 years, he said.
“The electrical costs in Rhode Island are considerable and [the solar array] makes an impact,” Munger said, “so it makes sense to make an investment to at least minimize those costs.” •

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