Tag Archives: Westport Net Zero 2050

Net Zero Goal: How Attainable Is Sustainability?

Posted on December 4, 2024 | 16 comments

In 2017, the Representative Town Meeting resolved that Westport would try its best to become a Net Zero community by 2050.

We were one of the first municipalities in the state to set that goal.

How achievable is it?

Last night, the RTM approved — by a vote of 23-8 — a request from the Parks & Recreation Department superintendent to spend $862,670 for a 4-year lease program for 12 pieces of maintenance equipment for the Longshore Golf Course.

The current equipment has been in service an average of 13 years, with approximately 240,000 miles each.

A look at a joint meeting last week of 2 RTM committees — Parks & Rec, and Finance — sheds light on the opportunities, and challenges, that town officials face.

Right now, the committees learned, up to 80% of Parks & Rec’s mechanic’s time is spent repairing equipment. That works out to $65,000, plus $27,000 in replacement parts. Nearly $100,000 is spent annually, keeping old equipment working.

The Longshore golf course needs constant maintenance. (Photo/Dave Dellinger)

The state bid process means we’d pay the lowest price available. Parks & Rec officials selected Toro. They’ve been using that company, and have maintenance equipment to service Toro specifically.

Some of the equipment sought is not available in electric models. Triplex mowers are — but cost $26,000 more apiece. Four mowers would add $104,000 to the price, plus charging stations.

In addition, there is a 1-2 year wait time for the electric versions. Perhaps, committee members said, it makes more sense to consider electric mowers at the next lease.

The cost of the new equipment will be recovered by raising golf fees. With 36,000 rounds played a year, raising fees by $2 to $5 a round would generate about $200,000 a year. Full recovery would take 4 years.

The 4-year leases include a $1 buyout. After that time, the town has rights to place them up for auction to recover full value of the machines.

The plan would be to embrace the leading technology then, with new equipment.

Golf is the number one revenue producer for Parks & Rec. Committee members noted the importance of maintaining the Longshore course at a “very high level.”

Officials noted that Parks & Rec is the department in town that has “most embraced electric machinery.”

One attendee said that the town should have a broader discussion about electric and automated mowers. They would reduce manpower and other costs, and place a greater focus on sustainability everywhere.

The RTM Finance Committee approved the proposal for new equipment 4-1, with 1 abstention. The RTM Parks & Recreation Committee also endorsed the prooposal, 5-1, with 1 abstention.

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Sustainable Westport was not pleased with the committees’ recommendations. They said:

Sustainable Westport supports all efforts to reduce community emissions.

Entering into a 4-year lease for 12 pieces of gas-powered golf course maintenance equipment will have deleterious effects on both human health and the environment. We encourage the town of Westport to be a leader in sustainability instead of quickly dismissing further investigation into electric alternatives.

Mike West, superintendent of the Parks & Recreation Department, reported to the RTM Parks and Recreation Committee that some, but not all of the equipment needing to be replaced, was available in an electric model.

Would the town consider purchasing some of the 12 pieces in an electric model? It does not need to be all or nothing.

Other towns are implementing electric maintenance equipment successfully (click here).

We understand that there is a premium to going electric, but in order to fully understand the cost and benefit, we should see an analysis that includes fuel and maintenance savings.

Sustainable Westport defines sustainability as the intersection of economically responsible, environmentally sound and socially just reduction of impact on resources.

In 2017 Westport town leadership, the RTM and Sustainable Westport overwhelmingly approved the town goal of being Net Zero by 2050. To achieve this goal, we need to move to reliable, resilient and renewable energy and electrifying our lawn and maintenance equipment, as well as cutting down on excessive and unnecessary use of gas-powered equipment is a move in the right direction.

Gas-powered maintenance equipment is a major source of carbon monoxide, which when inhaled cause fatigue, headaches, confusion, and dizziness due to inadequate oxygen delivery to the brain.

One hour of gas blower use creates as much pollution as driving a sedan 1,100 miles; small engines, like those found in gas leaf blowers, are a larger source of smog-forming emissions than passenger cars.

Westport and Fairfield County already has one of the highest ozone levels in the state. Gas leaf blowers are a major source of nitrogen oxide, which combines with VOCs and sunlight to form additional ground-level (“bad”) ozone. The EPA recommends any area with high ozone levels restrict gas leaf blower use.

Fuel spillage associated with gas-powered equipment contributes to groundwater pollution.

Encouraging the reduction in the use of gas powered lawn equipment is part of an overall goal to transition to zero emissions lawn equipment, which is a key component of moving closer to becoming a Net Zero community.

Westport needs to honor its commitment to using best efforts to get to Net Zero by 2050 and we do that, in part, by making small changes. Electrifying Longshore maintenance equipment is a great place to start.

As the Parks & Recreation Department noted at the RTM committee meeting, “golf is the number one revenue producer for P&R.”

Longshore golf course is a highly visible and popular community asset that is frequented by Westport residents of all ages.

Let’s show Westport residents that Westport cares not only about providing a well-cared for and maintained public golf course, but that Westport also cares deeply about doing so in the most sustainable way feasible.

(“06880” covers the environment, town politics, recreation — separately, and when they intersect. Please click here to support our work. Thank you!)

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Posted in Environment, Local politics, Longshore

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[OPINION] Let’s Sustain Westport’s Environmental Efforts

Posted on October 29, 2024 | 44 comments

Pippa Bell Ader is a co-leader of Sustainable Westport’s Zero Food Waste Challenge. She is a frequent contributor to “06880,” on environmental issues.

Today’s piece is not one she wanted to write. She says:

What do the Connecticut towns of Bristol, Fairfield, Glastonbury, Old Saybrook and West Hartford have that Westport doesn’t?

They all have earned Gold Certification from Sustainable CT. Certification recognizes sustainability best practices in Connecticut municipalities.

Westport achieved Bronze in 2018 (the first year certification was awarded), and Silver in 2021.

But in 2023, when it was time to begin recertification (good for 3 years), our town administration chose not to.

Our Silver Certification expired. Westport has been sidelined in our pursuit of higher sustainability standards for our community.

As someone who dedicated time and energy to Westport’s prior 2 certification processes, I was deeply disappointed by the town’s decision. This is not the Westport I know and love.

The Westport I know is a climate leader, as evidenced by our town resolution to use best efforts to become a Net Zero Community by 2050. Without stronger advocacy by the town administration, I fear that this resolution will become meaningless.

Yes, achieving Sustainable CT certification is a lot of work. But the certification process can serve as a guide and impetus for the town.

The 13 action areas focus on the most impactful measures and steps a municipality can take toward sustainability, from ensuring well-stewarded natural resources and installing renewable and efficient energy infrastructure, to promoting the local economy, resilience and equity.

Composting is one key element of sustainability. (Photo/Scott Smith)

Westport is already doing a lot of good work. But there is more we must do if we want to ensure a sustainable Westport, and honor our town resolution. Right now, we are a far cry from using our best efforts.

Let’s recommit to our goals of becoming a Net Zero Community, and diligently work towards Gold Certification.

Even if we don’t complete all of the requirements for Gold Certification, we can meaningfully move the needle toward improved sustainability.

Non-profit groups such as Sustainable Westport cannot do it alone. The town must be a partner. Certification requires town administrative leadership, and support and engagement by residents, organizations and businesses.

Westport must not settle for watching from the sidelines as other towns surpass us. The Westport we love is a leader, not a non-participant.

To see the comprehensive list of the actions Westport could be taking toward certification — and in many cases, has already completed — click here.

It’s time to get in the game. Let our town leaders know that you want Westport on a level playing field with the other Connecticut Gold Certified towns.

Let’s go for gold!

(“06880” often covers the environment. And our “Opinion” pages are open to all readers. If you appreciate those missions — or any other part of this blog — please click here to support us. Thanks!) 

 

 

44 Comments

Posted in Environment, Local politics

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[OPINION] Westport Making Zero Progress Toward “Net Zero 2050”

Posted on October 11, 2024 | 18 comments

Clarence Hayes joined Westport’s Representative Town Meeting in 2023. He serves on its Long Range Planning, Environment, Transit and IT committees.

He recently retired from a career in information technology. His final position was senior vice president of global networks at Bank of America.

Clarence Hayes

Clarence has 2 daughters and 5 grandchildren (2 are at Kings Highway Elementary School). 

An avid amateur naturalist and walker, he is concerned about the future of the planet — and the environment’s effects on Westport.

In May, Clarence wrote an Opinion piece for “06880” on electric cars, hybrids and SUVs in Westport.

It was not very encouraging. Despite a small drop in emissions from 2018 to 2023, it was like trading in your Hummer for a Suburban – a little less polluting, but nothing to brag about.

Today, he addresses greenhouse gas emissions. Clarence writes:

As part of my volunteer work in support of the RTM Long Range Planning Committee, I am analyzing Westport’s greenhouse gas emissions.

This analysis is on emissions generated by home heating. Unfortunately this situation is worse than my previous one. If cars get a “D” on the NetZero report card, home heating gets an “F.” Emissions have gone up.

Even though there has been a strong movement from oil heat to gas, it has been overwhelmed by the massive increase in the size of house

From 2014 to 2024, the percentage of Westport’s total occupied building area heated by oil dropped from 64% to 50%, an encouraging transition of 3.5 million square feet. Oil heat generates roughly 39% more greenhouse gases than natural gas for the same heat energy result. So this represents sizable progress.

However, accompanying this was a total net addition of 3 million more square feet to be heated. So even though all the new living area uses natural gas, the total net new emissions are greater than the reduction from the drop in oil heating.

This 7-bedroom, 8 1/2-bathroom home near Compo Beach is 10,061 square feet. It was built in 2014. 

Additionally, there has been only a trivial increase in electric, geothermal or solar assisted heating in the same 10 years, moving from 3.7% of the town total to a mere 4%.

How can we be going backwards?

The answer is obvious. Look around at the enormous white boxes with black windows, popping up all over town. Every renovation or teardown replacement results in a new structure which has at least doubled the living area of the one it replaced.

In the past 3 years, there were 179 teardowns, with an average increase of 222% in size. The average living area went from 2,567 square feet per property to 5,704.

Although the new structures are generally better insulated and sealed than those they replace, the improvements would have to cut energy consumption in half just to get back to the status quo ante.

Efficiency reductions of 30% or more are possible with new structures. Let’s say I have a house with 139 units of GHG emissions using oil to start with. I convert to gas and go down to 100 units.

Now I build bigger and increase the size 222%; we get 222 units of GHG. Then assume a 30% reduction in energy required due to improved seal/insulation in new structures. We drop back to 155 units of GHG – which is more than the 139 units of GHG we started with.

These results are based on the Westport Grand List at the end of 2014, and as of February 2024.

 Westport is making zero progress on its “NetZero 2050” objective.

The people with the largest GHG emissions in the world are those who can most easily make a meaningful contribution. It is much less impactful on one’s quality of life to make a 3 tons per person reduction, if your starting point is 28 (like Westport, -10.7%), as opposed to say 15 (like Bridgeport, -20%), or 7 (like China, -43%).

Much of Westport energy consumption is for show – a big, largely unoccupied house; big, impressive cars; large properties manicured by small armies of landscapers, etc.

If any town can afford to do something for the greater good of the global climate, it is Westport.

(Please contact me at chayes@westportct.gov with any questions on the analysis, or for access to the data.)

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18 Comments

Posted in Environment, Real estate

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Sustainable Westport Directors Chart Net Zero Path

Posted on June 1, 2023 | 13 comments

Everyone talks about sustainability. We all want our planet — and town — to continue existing, without depleting our natural resources.

There’s even an organization — Sustainable Westport — with the word in its name.

But not many of us know exactly what that is, or what it does.

Johanna Martell and Gately Ross do.

Johanna Martell and Gately Ross.

They’re co-directors of the organization. After its formation in 2006, when 1st Selectman Gordon Joseloff appointed a Green Task Force, the volunteer group proposed and helped enact policies to help reduce Westport’s carbon footprint.

In 2017, the Representative Town Meeting passed its recommendation for the town to become Net Zero by 2050. 

To expands its reach, the Green Task Force separated from the town, and was rebranded as Sustainable Westport in 2020.

While remaining financially and operationally independent, the organization moved under the umbrella of Earthplace, a non-profit committed to building passion and respect for the natural world.

This year, Sustainable Westport separated from Earthplace to become a 501(c)3 itself, with its own board of directors and staff.

But the mission of Sustainable Westport has not changed. The goal is to inspire, support and connect residents, organizations, and the town of Westport to use best efforts to become a Net Zero community by 2050.

Martell joined Sustainable Westport after a career largely in commercial real estate. A local resident since 2013, she realized during COVID that she wanted work with more meaning. Her friend Nico Eisenberger suggested Sustainable Westport.

Martell had taken environmental law in college. And though she had never worked for a non-profit — “and for no money,” she says — the fit seemed perfect.

Ross — whose career was in veterinary medicine, but had a marine conservation background, and who moved to Westport in 2007 with the first of her 3 children — was also looking to get back in the work force, and knew she’d work well with Martell.

At that point, Sustainable Westport was best known for its Zero Food Waste Challenge. Ross’ involvement began with the first composting class, at Greens Farms Elementary School.

In 2019, Greens Farms Elementary School students avidly joined the compost effort.

But there is a whole new group of Westporters — parents with school-age children — who know little about Sustainable Westport. Ross and Martell were eager to tap into that network.

It’s been harder than they thought. Though the schools have been champions for sustainability since before the two got involved, efforts have been siloed.

In their first year as directors, Martell and Ross tried to go through PTAs. But they realized that’s only one approach.

“We needed both top-down and bottom-up,” Ross says.

They’ve begun meeting with personnel throughout the Westport Public Schools. They’ve expanded their reach to other stakeholders: Wakeman Town Farm, the Westport Farmers Market, RTM Environment Committee, town departments and more — including 1st Selectwoman Jen Tooker and operations director Tom Kiely.

Westporters flock to the Farmers’ Market. They do their share to educate shoppers about sustainability.

The goal is to get “all the different groups talking with each other.”

“Planning and Zoning, Public Works — everyone needs to think about sustainability,” Martell notes.

“We know it’s hard to add more to people’s plates. But we can provide them with information and resources, to help in any way we can.”

“We want to engage more people — especially young families,” adds Ross. “They’ve got kids who are growing up. We want them to think about what their town and planet will look like in the future.

“We know people can be disinterested or, on the other hand, can feel overwhelmed. But the first step inspires the second, and the third. Then you can see, you’re making a difference.”

So are Sustainable Westport’s (unpaid) co-directors optimistic or pessimistic that their organization is making an impact?

“It depends on the day,” Ross admits. “Some things are frustrating. Naively, we thought the process would be easier and faster.”

“Things can be controversial,” says Martell. “This is a very engaged town. People have opinions about everything.”

Still, Westport — the first municipality east of the Mississippi River to enact a plastic bag ban, which followed up with a plastic straw ban — is seen as a sustainable leader, despite the difficulties of enforcement.

“Other towns look to us,” Ross says.

So Sustainable Westport keeps moving forward.

In January, they launched “Refill Not Landfill.”

The program encourages residents to use reusable mugs at coffee shops to reduce waste, combat climate change, and help support small businesses.

At checkout,  participants scan a QR code to enter their name and email. Five refills (at any location) qualifies for a monthly raffle.

“We all carry water bottles. Why not coffee cups too?” Martell asks.

 

“Coffee cups are not recyclable. That’s a huge generator of trash that we’re addressing.”

Participation is “fantastic” by 15 local coffee shops, cafés, markets and restaurants.

But not enough residents have joined in.

Gately Ross and Johanna Martell keep plugging forward — one coffee cup, compost pile and paper bag at a time.

They’re in it for the long haul. And they’ve got their sights set on that Net Zero town target: 2050.

(To learn more about Sustainable Westport, click here.)

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Participants in Sustainable Westport’s “Refill Not Landfill” program

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Posted in Environment, Restaurants

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Dawn Henry’s Cross-Country Ride To Environmental Activism

Posted on May 15, 2018 | 19 comments

Two years ago, Dawn Henry bought a Tesla.

It was not to save the planet. “I just thought it looked cool,” she admits.

The Westporter was a successful marketing executive. She’d spent 12 years working with Diageo. Now she was a sought-after consultant.

Environmental concerns were off her radar. “I vaguely knew about climate change,” she says. “But I wasn’t paying much attention.”

Dawn Henry

She flew to California to pick up the electric car, then drove it home. At nearly every charging station along the way, she chatted with people who were interested in renewable energy.

There were, for example, 2 solar installers from Germany. They talked for 45 minutes. Dawn learned a lot.

Back home, she watched documentaries and read about climate change. She realized that the effects will not be “300 years from now. It’s happening today.”

The 2016 election galvanized her. “What Scott Pruitt is doing to the EPA, the fossil fuel money that’s going into politics — our government is moving backwards,” she says.

She joined national organizations. She went to conferences, and got trained as an advocate.

She lobbied Senators Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal, and Congressman Jim Himes. “They’re great on the environment,” she says. “But I realized there’s not a lot that’s going to happen nationally. It’s more on the local level.”

Dawn Henry and her son Charles at the Climate March in Washington, DC, in April 2017.

She took the Climate Reality Project course in Seattle. The brainchild of Al Gore, it was “amazing,” she says. Back home, she made presentations at the United Methodist Church, the Fairfield Senior Center and Fairfield University. Soon, she’ll speak at the Westport Senior Center and Bartlett Arboretum.

Dawn joined the board of the Connecticut Fund for the Environment, Westport’s Green Task Force and the Electric Car Club.

“It’s hands-on. You can see results,” she says of the community organizations. “Energy, waste, water, conservation — they’re all important.”

So how does Dawn assess our town’s awareness of and commitment to environmental concerns?

“We’ve got good history and momentum,” she says. “There’s Net Zero” — the goal is to be fully sustainable by 2050. “The plastic bag ban. And we’re expanding our EV charging stations.”

Dawn Henry presenting at Indivisible’s ICT4 “Evening of Action” at the Unitarian Church last month.

Through her involvement in environmental issues, Dawn says, she has met “so many great people, in Town Hall and around town, I’d never have known.”

But, she notes, she and her fellow activists have “way more ideas and ambitions than we have hands to do them.” She invites anyone interested in helping to contact her (dawn@henrystrategy.com).

If you want, she’ll show you her Tesla.

It is pretty cool.

19 Comments

Posted in Environment, Organizations, People, Transportation

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