Standing Rock Episcopal Initiatives

Recreating spaces to be sustainable for holistic community use.

(1) Enrolled tribal members make up the membership of the Episcopal Church on Standing Rock.  They have family gatherings, community events, feeds and celebrations of various kinds that need a public space.  This part of the world can be extremely cold or very hot which makes public spaces costly to heat or cool.  Most all of our members don't have financial resources that can be given to provide for the utilities to heat or cool the buildings.  At our 3500 sq ft facility in Cannon Ball we have a combination of a 10kw solar panel electric system and a geo-thermal heating/cooling system.  During our costliest month of the year our congregation pays $165.00 for all lights and heat.  The same building size is costing us more than $1,200.00 for the same month in Ft. Yates.  

(2) Our first preference to retrofit the property in Ft. Yates is to install a geo-thermal system and install a modest solar panel system to operate the system. If this system proves too costly, there is another stand alone system that would create a hot water system heat source for some areas of the building.  This project is to retrofit a building with a sustainable and renewable energy source as a pilot project in Indian Country.  This is one of the aspects of creating affordable solutions on Standing Rock and other reservations.  

There are some rare opportunities of building from scratch that integrates renewable energy sources.  There are scores of buildings that could accommodate renewable sources of energy such as geo thermal or solar.  Geo thermal will cost more than $50,000 to install.  There are solar units that cost $10,000 or less to install.  The benefit to Geo thermal is that it heats or cools and does that 24 hours a day.  Solar units work when the sun is out only.  Heat would need to build up during the day and be held in the building for evening use.

There are many churches that can serve as community buildings throughout the reservations in the Dakotas, Minnesota and Montana if they were more affordable for use during fall, winter and spring months of the year.  Once in place, we can offer this project to Interfaith Power and Light an organization that we have been doing some work with in the past year and a half.

(3) Ft. Yates is rural and isolated.  It lacks buildings for smaller groups of people (5 - 100) that are affordably heated in our coldest weather.  Such facilities would be used for alcohol and drug free feeding programs, youth programs, movies, wrestling practice, culture classes and programs that include language retention, group counseling, AA and Al-Anon 12 Step Groups and family gatherings.  The project of making a facility sustainable through the use of renewable energy provides our community with these good things.  

The technology of using solar panels to heat liquid and force it through a solar equipped fan forced extractor is an application using existing buildings. The cost of starting over with new buildings is too great.  We need to take modest steps that provide a substantial impact on the cost of providing heat for use of our existing buildings for the benefit of the community.

Solar panels will heat a liquid that will be stored and run through a hot water tank.  That liquid will be forced through a radiator with a fan blowing through the heating unit.  That fan and pump will be run by electric solar panels as well.  The whole of the unit will be "off grid" and supplement other heating sources.  It will not need renovation of the building in order to install.

The project's goal is to make our building more available for use by people in Ft. Yates.  The gatherings will be alcohol and drug free and multi-generational.  The availability of the building needs to be affordable for the congregation to sustain.  We presently use propane and electricity to heat the building.  This new technology will provide renewable and affordable heat to meet our objectives.

In the years ahead we will be able to demonstrate the reliability and affordability of this prototype.  Through grants, fundraisers and property repair funds this system will become available to several other properties in Indian Country in this region.  It will be tested in the harshest of winter conditions to measure its effectiveness.  The square foot size of the room to be heated, the capacity of the water heater tank and the hours of daylight are variables that will effect the project's effectiveness.

Our church in Cannon Ball is the best example of use of renewable energy sources.  It has a 10 well geo-thermal heating/cooling system that keeps a 3500 square foot building at 70 degrees 24/7.  It's electric bill for all was $165 in February.  In November it was $20.  The electric is being provided by a 10Kw solar panel system.  This was a new building designed around the use of geo-thermal with sipp wall and ceiling construction.

We are planning for the installation of this solar heating system in another of our congregations in Dunseith, North Dakota.

Yes it will.  

In Cannon Ball we have a weekly youth group of 65 teens plus 10 adults.  There are several other activities in that building each month.  

In Ft. Yates we have a few weekly activities of less than 35 people.  We would offer more if we are able to afford to keep the building heated beyond 60.

In Ft. Yates we will be able to serve 100 people each week for a total of 3000 people throughout the school year for scheduled activities.

The use of renewable solar energy is the revenue model.  It will increase usability of our building without increasing the cost of heating the facility.

We are at the heart of the Oceti Sakowin stand on Standing Rock.  Our church stood clearly with Standing Rock during the months long stand off with the Dakota Access Pipeline.  We wish to model sustainability that does not contribute to further global climate change.

the cost of the project.