MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IWAKUNI, Japan -- Energy Conservation month is here, and station residents should be aware of their energy consumption, not only for the month of October but for the whole year.
The reason for energy conservation month is to make people aware of saving all types of energy, such as fuel, water, or the biggest one, electricity.
“It’s hard to change an adult’s behavior because they’ve done it for so long that at least if we can start with the younger children — if we can start with the younger children and educate them about turning stuff off that doesn’t need to be left on then it helps save energy,” said Mark R. Lahey, station energy manager. “Not only does (conservation) help children, but it helps them in the long run to save money, and also save the nation.”
There are many benefits to saving energy, not only the obvious reasons such as saving money or even saving the planet.
“Not only does it help them as individuals, but it helps the station because not only will we be saving them money, but we will be saving money for the station so we can add things in the barracks or the buildings, which really need that fresh paint or new furniture,” said Lahey.
Energy conservation not only helps the station now, but will help it in the future.
We probably won’t see these changes on this base but it’s not for us, it’s for the next generation and the following Marines and sailors, who take our place on this station, said Lahey.
To help reach children, Marine Corps Community Services is getting in touch with the schools to get children involved.
“We are doing an energy conservation/awareness poster contest,” said Lahey.
Contestants’ posters are scheduled to be due Monday and are slated to be judged Wednesday. There will be a total of 12 winners, 3 from each category.
The four groups will be made up of kindergartners through 2nd-graders, 3rd through 5th-graders, 6th through 8th-graders, and 9th through 12th-graders.
“The posters will be distributed around some high traffic areas all around the station,” said Lahey.
This will allow children to view their success in the competition and also educate the entire station of energy awareness month.
“Just because this month is the ‘official’ energy awareness month, we should be aware all year long, every day at home and at work,” said Lahey. “You should always try to think if you are saving energy.”
Everyone knows the basics about saving energy, like turning off lights and closing windows, but it’s the little things which are costing this station.
Facilities, alongside of utilities, will be installing new monitoring systems for each individual facility on station.
“We are going to put a meter on each facility; it’s like a normal meter on a house but (better),” said Cmdr. Jason D. Zeda, station facilities officer. “These meters will be able to track energy consumption in real time and send the information back to a centralized location so we may continuously monitor each facility.”
The new meters are scheduled to be installed within the new fiscal year and in a two phase project.
Jack Whittle, station utilities director and facilities operations officer, has his own perspective on energy conservation. Whittle says everyone must do their part in order to save the entire station’s energy, much like the story of the child throwing starfish back into the ocean.
In the story, A woman comes along a child throwing starfish back into the ocean and she says, “There are millions of starfish in the ocean. How much of a difference are you really going to make?”
The young boy then replies, “Well, I made a difference for that one.”
Energy conservation is a big problem and everyone needs to do their part to not only save our station for the future but also to save our starfish.