After five years of community input, planning, research, evaluation, and approvals, Cornell is constructing its Lake Source Cooling project one of the most significant environmental initiatives ever undertaken by an American university to promote a sustainable future. This publication proposes to describe the project and clarify issues raised during the long approval process.
By next spring, a 24,000-foot loop of buried chilled-water transmission pipe will connect the Cornell campus to a heat-exchange facility near the shore of Cayuga Lake. Clear, cold water from deep in the lake will be conveyed to the facility through 10,400 feet of intake pipe and returned to the lake through 500 feet of outfall pipe, providing a natural cooling source with major environmental benefits.
Lake source cooling needs one-fifth of the fossil-fuel-based energy required to run a conventional system, thus reducing emission of greenhouse gases that cause global warming. It also speeds elimination of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which deplete the earth's ozone layer. Warmth added to the lake in the process equal to four hours of sunlight a year is absorbed into the air each winter.
"In engineering terms it's a simple concept," utilities engineer W.S. (Lanny) Joyce said in 1994 when he suggested that Cornell take a serious look at lake source cooling. "What makes it a little unusual is its scale." Joyce and his colleagues are no strangers to innovative cooling concepts at Cornell. A 4.4 million-gallon thermal storage tank they conceived and brought on line in 1991 conserved energy and won state and international awards.
Not that lake source cooling was exactly a new idea. For more than three decades, engineers had discussed harnessing the lake's chill to cool the campus. It would be an environmental benefit, they agreed, but the high cost of constructing such a system made it impractical. Yet by 1994, circumstances had changed. Cornell's cooling system was due for replacement, and an international compact was about to mandate the phasing out of CFCs. If there ever was or would be a time for lake source cooling, this was it.
Cost remained a factor. Developing lake source cooling would be much more expensive than building a new, conventional cooling system without CFCs. And there was always the chance that, after several years of study and $3 million in research and engineering, an unforeseen hurdle would scuttle the $55 million project. Yet, few advances come without risk, and if lake source cooling did prove workable and safe there would be paybacks in economic as well as in environmental terms. And not just for Cornell. Over time, the university would recoup its investment in lower operating and replacement costs, but the project also offered attractive advantages for the larger community. The City of Ithaca, Town of Ithaca, Ithaca City School District, and Tompkins County all stood to gain from benefits associated with lake source cooling, such as infrastructure improvements, new waterfront parkland, and economic development.
Cornell engaged respected consultants to conduct initial studies of the plan's environmental and economic viability. In 1996, with all early reports favorable, the university submitted a formal proposal for further evaluation under the State Environmental Quality Review Act. New York's Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) was named lead agency in the environmental review process. Following a public hearing into the scope of the review, Cornell and its consultants prepared a draft environmental impact statement that was submitted to the DEC and 11 other government bodies in 1997. After a 60-day public review period, a final, 1,500-page environmental impact statement confirmed lake source cooling as the best available technology for cooling Cornell in the next century.
Ultimately, after four years of study and considerable design revision, lake source cooling passed muster across the board 17 separate permits and approvals were secured, covering everything from construction and operating issues regulated by the federal and state governments to an easement granted by the Village of Cayuga Heights.
The permitting and approval process paralleled a rigorous internal evaluation and a concerted effort to inform and involve the public. Internally, there were two major examinations. One, conducted by and for the university's trustees, investigated all aspects of the project. The other was undertaken by Cornell's prestigious Center for the Environment, which formed a committee of experts to evaluate scientific findings.
How demanding was the center's committee? When the project's principal independent scientific investigator, Dr. Elizabeth N. Moran, presented findings showing that lake source cooling would cause no noticeable change in algae level in the lake's shallow southern waters, she was challenged so sharply that Moran said the experience conjured memories of her doctoral dissertation defense. But there was a plus. She returned with such carefully detailed data that later, when critics raised questions about algae to state and federal agencies, Cornell's answers were definitive and convincing.
Throughout, Cornell sounded a consistent theme: if there was any indication that lake source cooling threatened to harm the lake, Cornell would abandon it. This was communicated in community newsletters and government forums, at meetings of environmental and service organizations and sportsmen's clubs, and in information provided to the general public via newspapers, radio, and television.
Now, after what may well be as long and rigorous a vetting process as any project has ever undergone here, Lake Source Cooling is a reality. Cornell and all of Ithaca have a right to feel proud.
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