The Rev. Bob Wickizer climbed the stairs and wooden ladders yesterday inside the steeple of historic St. Anne's Episcopal Church to reach Annapolis' town clock.
Eighty feet above the center of downtown, he and Kirsten Chapman, head of the church's environmental ministry, gingerly stepped over loose wooden planks coated with dust and ducked under the four metal arms of the clock mechanism to get to the 16 incandescent bulbs that illuminate the clock. Chapman slipped in front of one of the four faces and carefully replaced the bulbs with compact fluorescent ones.
This is what it took, on Earth Day, to turn a 150-year-old landmark into a beacon for thinking green.
The new lights promise to keep an estimated 2.5 tons of carbon out of the atmosphere every year by using 75 percent less energy, and save energy and money by lasting 10 times longer. Wickizer hopes that the change will encourage the community to reduce its carbon footprint. Church officials say they believe this is part of God's will.
"Having dominion over [the Earth] doesn't mean trashing it," Wickizer said. "It may have taken the church a while to wake up to that."
The clock mechanism is owned and maintained by the city, while the lighting is the church's responsibility. Although the bulbs likely won't save much on the church's electric bill - which runs between $15,000 and $20,000 a year - the church wanted to make a statement.
"It's more symbolic than anything else," Wickizer said.
The congregation is taking baby steps to reduce energy use and waste. From January through March, members replaced 100 bulbs in its office and parish hall two blocks away, a project made time-consuming by the hall's high ceilings and chandeliers. Wickizer said it has the potential to reduce up to 7,000 watts of electricity a year, but he is waiting for the BGE bill to see how much power really was saved.
The ministry held an environmental fair Sunday and invited speakers from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation to offer their perspective about pollution in the bay. The ministry put out tables with information about different environmental groups, compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), rain barrels and composting.
In addition to paper and plastic recycling, the 15-member ministry has provided environmental tips in the church's monthly newsletter to congregants. Last year during Earth Day, the group planted flowers in the church yard.
