Benjamin Weil speaking at the Aug. 15 City Council meeting.
Photo credit: Northampton Open Media
NORTHAMPTON — After spending the last three-plus months as the interim director of the city’s Climate Action and Project Administration department, Ben Weil is a couple of meetings away from becoming the department’s permanent director.
“I am appointing interim Climate Action and Project Administration Director Dr. Benjamin Weil as the full-time director of the CAPA Department in recognition of his expert leadership since May,” said Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra in a memorandum to the City Council on Aug. 15.
According to Sciarra, Weil has made significant progress on CAPA projects when it comes to energy efficiencies in municipal operations. He has simplified energy accounting in the city, including identifying stranded net-metering credits and then leveraging utility incentives to use the credits to upgrade lighting at Forbes Library and to convert the entire Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School campus to LED lighting.
Sciarra said that this work is designed to lower electric costs for city operations.
In her memorandum, Sciarra also noted how Weil is currently working on efforts to reduce fossil fuel use in the city’s municipal buildings and building an electric infrastructure to support the city’s growing electric and hybrid-electric vehicle inventory. According to Sciarra, he is also seeking to save energy and reduce costs using modern technologies to heat and power for homes.
The city officially announced Weil as CAPA’s interim director in early spring after former CAPA Director Carole Collins left to return to her Energy and Sustainability director position in Greenfield in April.
In an interview with Reminder Publishing at the time, Weil said he pursued this position because he has already had extensive involvement in supporting the city’s various climate goals, particularly as a member of the city’s Energy and Sustainability Commission, which he has served on since 2018. He also felt that, with Collins leaving, a long vacancy at the position would be detrimental to the city’s future climate change resiliency goals.
“I realized that if we waited a long time to fill the position, the CAPA department would flounder and not be a success,” Weil said.
Weil named several goals he hopes to either accomplish or jumpstart for the future, like finding ways in which certain city-owned buildings can be more energy efficient. He specifically mentioned assessing the high school and looking at larger retrofitting plans for the other schools.
“I want to look at what are things that need to be replaced in city-owned properties, and how can we replace them with decarbonized systems,” Weil said.
He also said one of his other major goals is to support the future installation of a shared geothermal heat exchange field that connects Forbes Library and the incoming Community Resilience Hub at 298 Main St.
As an extension assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Weil led projects focused on reducing energy consumption and carbon footprint in buildings.
“His work demonstrates a profound understanding of the complexities of creating sustainable urban environments,” Sciarra said. “Dr. Weil’s approach perfectly aligns with Northampton’s vision for a sustainable future, making him the ideal leader for CAPA, as he has already demonstrated in just a few short months of working with the city.”
Weil has earned degrees in history from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Syracuse University before pursuing an engineering-focused Ph.D. in environmental studies from University of California Santa Cruz.
He is currently spearheading the replacement of existing steam boilers at Leeds Elementary School with two modern modulating condensing boilers that will increase efficiency to 92% and 97%.
The two boilers that will be implemented were part of the 33 King St. property when the state sold the property to the city of Northampton for $1. According to an order placed in front of the City Council at its Aug. 15 meeting, the boilers will provide many benefits like reducing annual operating costs, lower fossil gas consumption, improved system redundancy and significant reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from current levels.
The City Council approved the appropriation of $354,250 from the General Stabilization Fund for this project, which must be completed by Oct. 15.
The appointment of Weil as full-time CAPA director will be taken up at the City Council’s City Services committee meeting on Sept. 4 at 5 p.m. and then at the full council meeting on Sept. 5.
