City of Bellingham takes first steps to meet its climate-change goals
Bellingham City Council members have started looking at ways that the city can meet its goal of using 100% renewable energy in the next 10 to 15 years.
In addition, the city has hired a climate and energy manager for issues related to the Climate Action Task Force recommendations presented in December and the city’s efforts to meet goals set in its 2018 Climate Action Plan.
And, council members are now focusing on climate change as they decide how to build a new wastewater treatment plant to replace an aging one at Post Point.
Bellingham officials realize that they’re among the first cities in the nation to address their impact on the environment and lower their carbon footprint.
It’s Bellingham’s intention to set an example for other cities nationwide, joining places such as Spokane; Bend, Oregon; Burlington, Vermont; Boise, Idaho; and Boulder, Colorado, in local efforts to address the global climate crisis, according to the task force report.
Eric Johnston, interim Public Works Department director, has called it the city’s “moon shot.”
All seven members of the City Council attended the new Climate Action Committee’s first meeting Jan. 13, even though only Hannah Stone, Dan Hammill and Pinky Vargas serve on that panel.
At that meeting, Stone said the committee was setting priorities and she encouraged residents to stay informed.
“It may seem impossible until it’s done,” she said. “Nothing has been formally adopted, although we do have the Climate Action Plan in place.”
First steps
First steps taken were to compare current city policy with recommendations that the Climate Action Task Force submitted in December.
“Across the board, they’re apples and oranges,” Renee LaCroix, assistant director of the Public Works Department’s Natural Resources Division, in a Jan. 13 presentation to the council’s new Climate Action Committee.
In several cases, there is no city policy that addresses the task force suggestions, including:
▪ Requiring energy-efficiency changes for homes and rentals and commercial properties.
▪ Requiring electric furnaces and water heaters.
▪ Requiring on-site or community solar energy.
▪ Urging a statewide ban on internal-combustion engines.
▪ Adding physical separation for bike lanes.
▪ Increasing parking fees and fines.
▪ Creating taxation districts to fund clean-energy upgrades.
Moving ahead slowly
“Our next step is what do we do with that information,” Johnston said at the committee’s Jan. 13 meeting.
He said that the task force recommendations must be weighed in terms of cost, practicality and whether the city has the power to act.
“Which of those items need a more thorough, or greater attention, or greater look at from a feasibility standpoint, from a financial standpoint, from a public policy standpoint — whether we have the authority to do that under the law. We need need to do more of that process,” he told the council’s Climate Action Committee.
He urged the council to consider the recommendations deliberately and carefully.
“There’s a bit of a risk that we get perceived as not moving fast enough. We understand that,” Johnston said.
‘Green’ wastewater treatment
On Monday, Jan. 27, the council’s Climate Action Committee examined ways to make a planned $196 million wastewater treatment plant carbon neutral.
At a presentation, representatives of the environmental engineering firm Brown and Caldwell discussed ways that the city could use ”biogas” or methane created in wastewater treatment to:
▪ Run a co-generation plant that would create heat and electricity.
▪ Sell that “green” gas to the natural-gas pipeline system for cash or renewable energy credits.
New climate boss
On Thursday, the city hired Seth Vidaña as its first climate and energy manager.
Vidaña has been director of the Office of Sustainability at Western Washington University
At WWU, Vidaña helped blend ideals of environmental sustainability, carbon emissions reductions, energy conservation and waste reduction campus-wide the city said in a statement.
City going greener
Amy Cloud, spokeswoman for the Public Works Department, said the city has recently bought five electric vehicles and 15 hybrid vehicles with more on the way.
In addition, city workers have electric bikes to use for getting around downtown.
Cloud said further environmental reductions include:
▪ Reducing emissions by about 30% through the Post Point Resource Recovery project.
▪ Buying renewable wind power for municipal operations under Puget Sound Energy’s Green Direct program.
▪ Developing transportation policies that accommodate cars, bikes, buses and pedestrians.
▪ Adding bike lanes throughout the city.
▪ Planting an average of 50,000 trees year.
