PENNTAP helps Creekside Mushrooms upgrade environmental efficiency

University Park, Pa. -- With help from Penn State's Pennsylvania Technical Assistance Program (PENNTAP), Creekside Mushrooms, a mushroom grower located in Worthington, Armstrong County,, is demonstrating that being both environmentally and energy efficient can help a company's bottom line.

Creekside Mushrooms is the leading mushroom grower on the East Coast and home to Moonlight brand mushrooms. Moonlight is recognized around the world for its high-quality white agaricus mushrooms for distribution to supermarket retailers and foodservice/wholesale operators since 1937.

During 2003, Roger Price, senior PENNTAP technical specialist based at Penn State's McKeesport campus, conducted a pollution prevention/energy efficiency (P2E2) site assessment at Creekside. P2E2 specialists from the Electrotechnology Applications Center (ETAC) at Northampton Community College also participated. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Pollution Prevention/Energy Efficiency Grant Program subsidized the costs of the assessments.

"The purpose of the project was to have objective external assessment professionals come on-site at Creekside to evaluate operations and suggest ways to prevent pollution and to increase energy efficiency," Price said.

Within three months of implementing some of the recommendations from the December 2003 P2E2 assessment report, Creekside has reduced its water consumption rate by 30 million gallons per year; lowered electric energy consumption by 350,000 hWh per year; and cut natural gas use by 4,400 MCF per year. The economic benefits from implementing these recommendations are approximately $47,000 per year in savings.

Randy Lasko, director of maintenance and safety for Creekside Mushrooms, said the company intends to implement several additional P2E2 report recommendations. These additional steps will further reduce electric energy consumption by 330,000 kWh per year; reduce natural gas use by an additional 2,700 MCF per year; and reduce the quantity of water treatment chemical requirements by 400 gallons per year. An additional $34,000 per year savings is expected, for a combined total expected economic benefit of $81,000 per year.

In addition to making possible the annual, recurring economic benefits, the results of the P2E2 assessment also helped Creekside identify options that will produce one-time initial savings of $600,000 in the cost of purchasing and installing new equipment for a couple of P2E2 related projects that already were in the process of being evaluated by the company.

PENNTAP is a statewide network of technical specialists who help Pennsylvania businesses improve their competitiveness by providing a limited amount of technology assistance and information to help resolve specific technical questions or needs. Serving Pennsylvania business and industry since 1965, PENNTAP is a federal-state-university partnership for economic development and one of the nation's first technical assistance programs.

Roger Price has more than 25 years of experience as a practicing professional engineer. He has performed more than 250 industrial facility assessments for pollution prevention, environment management system performance and environmental compliance. He is founder and co-chairman of the Industry Pollution Prevention Roundtable for Southwest Pennsylvania.

For more information about PENNTAP, visit the Web site at http://www.penntap.psu.edu and for more information about Creekside, go to http://www.creeksidemushrooms.com