Navigator News

Issue date: 5/1/09 Section: News

Lake Land College should receive $1.3 million in earmark funding this year.

Every year Lake Land spends an estimated $1 million dollars on modeling projects. This year an additional $1.3 million dollars was requested from U.S. Representative Tim Johnson's office. The request for the money has been granted, and plans have been laid for using the money.

"As far as we know, this is the first earmark money we have ever received," stated Lensink.

According to Phil Bloomer, press secretary for Representative Johnson, "several requests are made for money from several schools for all different reasons." In order for money to get earmarked, a request has to be submitted to the representative's office. The requests are reviewed and money is designated for projects as seen fit.

Rep. Johnson said of the Lake Land initiative: "Lake Land has been at the forefront in the sustainability movement and I'm happy we could help in directing some federal funds to support local funding in helping make Lake Land College a model in energy use and energy independence."

The project of converting the campus to geothermal began last summer. It is set to continue this summer. The next building to be overhauled is the Northwest building. Along with the geothermal changes there will be new carpet and a new ceiling.

As for the money requested during the meeting Lensink had in Washington D.C., "We are still waiting to hear," said Lensink, "We haven't heard yay or nay."

If that money had come through, the Northeast building would also be getting remodeled this summer. "When we first started talking about the stimulus, they wanted projects that were ready to go. We looked at campus to find the projects that would be the easiest to start on. The Northeast building is an exact replica of the Northwest, so all the engineering was already done."

However, since there has been no word on the stimulus money, remodeling of the Northeast building has been postponed because of the interest in getting the library remodeled.

Lucky for Lake Land, going green is a trend that is just starting to take off when it comes to the construction of college campuses. When the project was started, it was planned to be completed over a six-year period of time. However, with more money becoming available, the project may be completed sooner than expected.

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