For the Chris Jensen nursing home in Duluth, funding is already being cut, and the threat of closing is real.

St. Louis County has been working to save money in the hopes of keeping the facility open.

But the effort is seeing some environmental dividends as well... as Shannon Murphy explains in "Your Green Life."

Becoming more energy efficient can do more than just help the environment.

To accomplish both goals the Chris Jensen Nursing Home has turned to St. Louis County property management for help.

"The county is a big significant energy user and has a responsibility to our citizens to do the best job with our resources that we can."

St. Louis County has already helped Chris Jensen by reducing water consumption and retrofitting the facility lighting. By switching to fluorescent lights and capitalizing on natural light Chris Jensen has reduced the lighting load by 54%.

They've also updated kitchen appliances, and upgraded to more efficient laundry equipment.

One of the larger projects was the installation of a new roof.

"When you are talking about a summer day of about 85 degrees, a black roof gets about 175 in temperature about 36 inches above the roof."

The green decision was to go with white, where there is only a 5 degrees temperature difference.

"It reflects that heat in the summer thus reducing our cooling costs significantly and actually letting snow act as a natural insolent in the winter."

Another major investment was to replace the old steam boiler in the laundry facility with a more efficient condensation boiler.

"It does not have to take the extra energy to convert water to steam. It just converts it to hot water."

"The boilers will save an estimated eighty to eighty five thousand dollars per year, which means it will still take 7 years to see the payback, but with the rising fuel prices, that payback may come even quicker."

In Duluth, meteorologist Shannon Murphy, the Northlands NewsCenter.

Future plans for the Chris Jensen home also include replacing the last section of roof, more window upgrades, and improving landscape to add shade in the summer and wind blocks in the winter.