Wapakoneta, Ohio

On July 20, 1969, at 10:56 p.m., Neil Armstrong uttered one of the most famous sentences in human history and the City of Wapakoneta forever became the home of the first man on the moon.

Since that day, a lot has changed in Wapakoneta, but one thing that has not changed is the city’s celebration of their most famous son. This year marks the 50^th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing, and the city’s celebrations are expected to continue throughout the year. The largest part of those celebrations begin in July when the Summer Moon Festival kicks off.

Community
While the city’s population has stayed relatively stable, slowly inching toward the 10,000 mark since 1990, the local economy has continued to grow and the Electric Department has kept busy.

Pratt Industries, a Georgia-based company that operates recycling centers and 100 percent recycled paper mills, recently selected Wapakoneta as the site for its newest location. It is expected to create as many as 325 new jobs, adding to the city’s growing list of commercial and industrial electric customers.

Energy
Though the city’s Electric Department is only a nine-man crew, it is successfully juggling multiple major projects. The department was already working on the deployment of a new AMI system when it learned that Pratt was interested in moving their start-date up by as much as two years. The department has largely been able to keep their AMI deployment on track while also installing a new electric substation for the Pratt facility, well ahead of schedule.

The City of Wapakoneta was founded in 1782 and incorporated in 1849. The City has 5,436 electric meters, 79 miles of electric line and requires the purchase of approximately 199,531,156 kWh per year. Wapakoneta also participates in a number of AMP projects including:

• AMP Fremont Energy Center, a natural gas combined cycle facility that provides energy and capacity.
• Meldahl/Greenup Hydro Project, which includes the run-of-the-river hydroelectric generating facility at the Captain Anthony Meldahl Dam on the Ohio River and the existing generating facility at the Greenup Dam, also on the Ohio River.
• Phase 1 Hydro, which includes the run-of-the-river generating facilities at the Cannelton, Smithland and Willow Island dams on the Ohio River.
• The Prairie State Energy Campus, in southern Illinois, is a 1,600-MW state-of-the-art supercritical mine-mouth plant and adjacent coal mine.

For more information on the City of Wapakoneta, please visit www.wapakoneta.net.