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Riverview School Celebrates New Solar Array

Raleigh Burleigh

The Roaring Fork School District on Tuesday, December 18 celebrated the installation of a new solar array that will power Riverview School. KDNK’s Raleigh Burleigh has more.

During a bilingual presentation, Roaring Fork Schools Superintendent Rob Stein spoke about the newly installed 340 kilowatt solar array that will power Riverview School.

Riverview School is a new dual-language, project-based Prekindergarten through 8th grade school located between Carbondale and Glenwood Springs along the Roaring Fork River.

This is the second project connecting a Roaring Fork Schools building directly to a solar array. Roaring Fork High School in Carbondale celebrated the installation of a 380 kilowatt solar array in January of 2016 and additional projects are being pursued to subscribe to solar gardens with Pivot Energy.

The new array was made possible with a $150,000 Garfield County Federal Mineral Lease District grant, $100,000 from the Community Office for Resource Efficiency's Randy Udall Energy Pioneer Grant and strong partnerships with other organizations like nonprofit Clean Energy Economy for the Region, utility companies Xcel Energy and Holy Cross Energy, and with installation and design by Sunsense Solar.

For the next 20 to 25 years, the expected lifespan of this particular system, Roaring Fork Schools can look forward to reducing carbon in the atmosphere while saving money having purchased their energy upfront.

Riverview students expressed their aspirations that the money could be reinvested toward outdoor fieldtrips.

For KDNK News, I’m Raleigh Burleigh

Raleigh Burleigh was raised in the historic floodplanes of Satank. The Carbondale Rotary Club sponsored him as a youth ambassador to Chile the year before his graduation from Roaring Fork High School. He studied International Affairs and Journalism at the University of Colorado, Boulder then applied those studies traveling throughout South America the following year. Returning to Carbondale thereafter, Raleigh acquired an internship with KDNK News which led to the opportunity to serve as News Director from 2017 to 2019. After another trip to South America in early 2019, Raleigh Burleigh drew deeper into the confluence as Program Director at KDNK. Raleigh now serves on KDNK's board of directors and as editor of Carbondale's weekly newspaper, The Sopris Sun.