Ideas from the Federal Realm

Here is some information from a federal environmental conference I went to earlier this month. While a lot pertained to federal governmental agencies, much can be applied at the local level as well.

• Financing – there are many different ways to finance clean energy, energy efficiency, etc. projects. One interesting point that came up was to use savings from one program as a finance stream for another. For example, imagine a town wants to put in a solar installation but is coming up short on financing. Suppose the town recently implemented a PC power management system costing $25,000 but resulting in annual savings of $45,000. After the relatively short pay-back period of the PC system (less than one year), the $45,000 annual savings can be treated as a finance stream for the solar project.
• A charrette is an intense brainstorming design session. The USDA held one to come up with a sustainable redesign of the grounds of their headquarters near the Washington Monument. It was very successful. Here is a write-up (pdf, 2.7 Mb) of it in Landscape Architect Magazine With all of the potential redevelopment on the table in NL, and the impact it will have on citizens, charrettes should be a key part of the process.
• An interesting point made by one of the USDA speakers was how they worked with their existing landscape contractor who did not initially know how to do some of the green modifications, such as a green roof. But the contractor learned along the way and now markets its ability to do green roofs. The same could hold here.
• EPA WasteWise website – this provides tools to help businesses, towns, etc. manage their solid waste. It includes a section on waste reduction with guides and success stories.
• The nationwide recycling rate is 32.5% according to an EPA official. What is New London’s rate? Update: Some data that came into my hands recently indicates NL’s rate is around 26% for 2006-2007.
• A few talks dealt with computers and PC power management. There are programs out there (EZSave, EZ GPO, Verdiem Surveyor, …) that run over networks to ensure PC’s go into power-save mode when not in use. There is also a federal government environmental computer purchasing standard known as EPEAT. So the city of NL’s computers could be a target of these kinds of programs.
• Another talk compared two green building certification standards: LEED and Green Globes. The latter sounded more focused on energy use, and so could also be relevant to NL’s buildings. There was also a talk about a LEED building performance study. The results were generally positive, with LEED buildings using 25-30% less energy than non-LEED buildings. The study was commissioned by the USGBC (of LEED fame) and completed by the New Building Institute. It is available here.
• Finally, the EPA has some clean diesel engine retrofits programs, one of which is called CleanSchoolBusUSA program. I have a contact a EPA who works on this. The EPA is also part of the Northeast Diesel Collaborative (NEDC) which runs a number of programs in this part of the country.

–IDF

Getting People to Recycle

RecycleBank is a recycling program for towns that rewards residents based on the amount they recycle. Recycling bins are weighed automatically when picked up and points redeemable for discounts at places like Starbucks and Regal Cinemas are awarded based on the weight of the bin contents. It sounds like it has been pretty effective, according to a recent article in E Magazine (Relearning to Recycle, July/Aug ‘08):

• Wilmington, DE saved $500,000 in one year by diverting trash from landfill to recycling
• Cherry Hill, NJ recycling rates went from 9 lbs per week to 17

More locally it is being used in Hartford and parts of Groton, Stonington, Norwich and Montville. It often starts off as a pilot project in part of a town, then expands. See this day article to read about the local towns. I have a copy if you don’t have access. Could be worth exploring in NL. -IDF

Transit Hub and Stakeholders

There was a little piece in today’s Day about a NL transit hub study that’s about to begin. One possible outcome is that some transit be centered on Fort Trumbull. The Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments is administering the study, which is being executed by a Kansas City, MO company. Will local stakeholders will be involved in the process?

PBS Program

Interesting program aired last week about sustainability efforts in Cambridge, MA: Save Energy, Save Money, Save the Planet. It described a significant apparatus built up around helping small businesses finance energy efficiency improvements that would normally require a large capital outlay. This is the kind of thing NLSC could work on with local businesses, possibly through NL Local First.

Sustainability Fair

North Stonington is holding a clean energy fair on April 5 at North Stonington Elementary School, 311 Norwich-Westerly Road (Route 2), from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Here’s a story in the Day about it (the link may not work after a few days). Originally intended to draw sign-ups for the CTCleanEnergyOptions program, it was expanded to include vendors and government agency representatives:

The fair will have vendors with solar and wind power systems, outdoor wood-burning furnaces, energy-efficient light bulbs and other ways to save money and fuel. Representatives of federal and state agencies will be on hand to answer questions. For those who want to save money at the gas pump, Valenti Toyota of Westerly and Cardinal Honda of Groton are bringing examples of their hybrid cars.

Seems like another thing we might want to emulate not to mention attend. Some of the same vendors and government representatives might be interested in doing more than one such fair. If NLEDO and/or the school sustainability group is interested, we could join forces. — IDF

Cape Wind…Sustainable energy for our neighbors to the north

Greetings, this is my first post as a blog contributing author. Roaming about the library to get out of the rain Saturday I picked up the new “Cape Wind” by Wendy Williams and Robert Whitcomb. I couldn’t put it down and finished the easy to read 300 pages by Sunday night. It gives a down to earth, and easy to follow, albeit scary, picture of the politics surrounding the cape wind project. With so many of the issues and players having potential links to New London due to the proximity I think it is a must read! The story is an excellent one for anyone interested in renewable energy, current politics, or just a good drama. If nothing else it gives me great hope for the impact our little committee may have. Wendy Williams will be speaking at Brown University next Tuesday (free and open to the public). Four more public hearings are being held this week for the cape wind project. The final hearing will be Thursday night from 6pm-midnight at UMASS Boston. -MJP

http://capewindbook.typepad.com/blog/

Guerrilla Gardening

Guerrilla Gardening – planting in neglected urban spots.

Bike Sharing Programs

Article from the site carectomy.com on bike sharing programs in various cities. Maybe this could be tried in New London?

Update: Mystic is looking into this. There was an article about it in the March 9, 2008 issue of the Day. A group called Mystic Community Bikes was created by Tim Evers to get the program started.

Retail Biodiesel Pump in CT

in West Cornwall in Litchfield County. See this page.

Update: Greenwich is planning on switching its vehicle fleet over to biodiesel. See this article. It refers to Keene, NH, the town highlighted at the ICLEI conference.

There are some biodiesel retailers in our region like this one in Branford.

Biodiesel often uses soybean oil so there is concern about diverting food crops to fuel.

Ecological Design

Here is some information about an interesting book I read recently (and wrote about on the greenOR site) called Ecological Design by S. Van der Ryn and S. Cowan:

A chief concern of this book is to bring ecological concerns into the world of design. Ecological design as defined by the authors is “any form of design that minimizes environmentally destructive impacts by integrating itself with living processes.” The first part of the book makes the case for a new kind of design and introduces concepts that appear throughout the rest of the text, such as appealing to nature for design inspiration. In the second part, the authors lay out their five principles of ecological design, which are roughly:
1) solutions in a place can arise from the nature of the place
2) undertake ecological accounting
3) design with nature
4) involve the community in design and planning
5) make nature visible in people’s lives.

The book contains a number of interesting examples such as the tracking of a tomato and its packaging from their origins to the consumer, an accounting of resources and wastes in the San Francisco area, a number of university resource flow accountings, and the use of plants whose roots filter heavy metals out of soil or factory runoff.

Ecological Design discusses community sustainability indicators such as energy usage, water usage, bike-ability, etc., and lists four sustainability indicator criteria (from Sustainable Seattle):
1) bellwether tests of sustainability
2) can be understood and accepted by the community
3) have interest / appeal for local media
4) are statistically measurable
This would seem to have particular relevance to the NLSCIC’s work.