California
is leading the charge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. What is a
greenhouse gas? Gases like carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous
oxide. According to the California Air Resources Board,
California
is the world’s 12th largest producer of greenhouse gases.
In 2006, Governor Schwarzenegger signed into law AB 32
mandating that the state reduce its greenhouse emissions 25% by
2020. This reduction
will be phased in beginning in 2012.
Nationwide, city officials are also advancing
strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In 2006, Stockton’s
then Mayor Chavez signed the
US
Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. Mayor Chavez was one of the
first Mayors in the
San Joaquin
Valley, if not the first,
to sign this agreement. Cities that sign the agreement must commit
to reduce climate change.
As of December 10, 2008, 910
Mayors across the nation have signed the US Mayors Climate Protection
Agreement.
Why is
Stockton
so interested in going green?
-
Central Valley residents live in one of the most polluted air districts in the
nation. Stockton
wants better indoor and outdoor air quality for our residents.
-
Going green makes fiscal sense. Being more
energy and water efficient reduces utility and water costs in
the long term. It saves money for everyone—businesses,
government agencies, and residents alike.
-
Going green, attracting green companies, and
having a green collar work force can boost the economy and
create career track family wage jobs. Many renewable energy
providers are already in Stockton.
The Port of Stockton is one of the world’s
largest receivers of wind turbines. The Port is also home to
biodiesel and ethanol plants.
-
The city needs to set a
good example for our community. We can’t ask the community to go
green if we don’t do it ourselves.
General Plan 2035
In December 2007, Stockton
approved its General Plan 2035 which includes many greenhouse gas
reduction policies. The new General Plan encourages new subdivisions
to use wider sidewalks to create a pedestrian/bike friendly
environment. The General Plan’s Village concept reduces traffic to
other areas of town and encourages people to walk and ride their
bikes. Other policies include promoting high residential infill and
transit oriented development, and co-location of community
facilities. Implementation measures include providing incentives to
developers that will reduce the costs of infill development,
expediting permitting, and establishing city energy efficiency and
performance standards which exceed minimum standards mandated by the
State.
WORKING TOWARDS A GREEN MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT
Council Resolution on Municipal Green Buildings
In January 2008, Stockton
became the first city in the
San Joaquin Valley
to require all new city buildings over 10,000 square feet to achieve
at least LEED Silver certification.
All new buildings over 5,000 square feet will be required to
achieve at least LEED certification.
All new buildings under 5,000 square feet and all renovations
to existing buildings must incorporate as many LEED standards as
feasible.
The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)
Green Building Rating System™ developed by the United States Green
Building Council (USGBC)
encompasses five green design categories:
sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere,
materials and resources and indoor environmental quality. For more
information about LEED, go to
www.usgbc.org. Stockton also sponsored an Introduction to
LEED training conducted by Loren Aiton, a Boardmember of the USGBC
Central California chapter. The training can be viewed at
www.stocktongov.com/GoGreen.
Exploring Alternative Energy sources
Stockton
is currently working with Pacific Power Management on the placement
of solar photovoltaic systems on its city facilities.
A Greener New City Hall
The City purchased the former Washington Mutual in downtown late
2007 with the intention of converting part of the facility to City
Hall. This building is an energy star certified building.
The US EPA's ENERGY STAR program has developed energy performance rating
systems for commercial and institutional building types and
manufacturing facilities. These ratings, on a scale of 1 to 100,
provide a means for benchmarking the energy efficiency of specific
buildings and industrial plants against the energy performance of
similar facilities.
The current plan is to ultimately lease out the top 3 floors to
other entities. The first department to move in was the city’s
Information Technology Department. We have been told that the data
center we constructed is the most energy efficient data center in
the Valley. It also helps advance the city into the 21st
century. By using green technology, IT will consume less than ½ of
the power currently consumed. We believe the return on investment
for this data center will be less than 7 years through energy
savings.
Energy Audits of City Facilities
The city in partnership with PG&E conducted energy audits of 30 city
facilities. Of the 30 audits completed, 25 were conducted through
PG&E’s Stockton Energy Watch program at no cost to the city. As a
result of these audits, PG&E switched much of our lighting to more
energy efficient ones. The city saved 282,605 KWH over a 10 month
period.
Purchasing and Consuming Environmentally Friendly
Products
In January 2009, the city will be switching to less toxic, more
environmentally friendly janitorial cleaners and other products.
About one third of what our city currently purchases is made up of
recycled content products and we intend to continue the trend
upwards. The city also no longer purchases Styrofoam products which
are detrimental to the environment.
Biodiesel Fleet
In January 2008, the city began phasing in a
biodiesel blend into our diesel engines. Biodiesel is a
biodegradable, nontoxic alternative fuel, produced from resources like
vegetable oil. What are
the benefits of using biodiesel? Biodiesel reduces carbon emissions,
decreases our dependence on oil, contains no petroleum, can be
blended at any level with petroleum diesel to create a biodiesel
blend, and can be used in diesel engines with little or no
modifications.
Currently, two thirds of our city diesel engines are
currently using a B20 biodiesel blend (80% diesel and 20%
biodiesel). We have also put B20 into air compressors, brush
chippers, auxiliary engines, and some parks mowers. In
January 2009,
we will be phasing in biodiesel to the rest of the
diesel fleet.
No modifications have been made to any of our engines. We reviewed
the fuel usage for a random sampling of the city's diesel powered
trucks and found that the biodiesel fuel (B20) is improving mileage
by about .5 miles per gallon or about 11%.
GREEN DEVELOPMENTS IN OUR COMMUNITY
New Residential Buildings
All developments agreements approved this year require developers to
build residential units to GreenPoint rated standards developed by
the nonprofit Build It Green organization.
A GreenPoint Rated home is
graded on five categories: energy efficiency, resource conservation,
indoor air quality, water conservation, and community.
If a home meets minimum point
requirements in each category and scores at least 50 points as
verified by a Certified GreenPoint Rater, it has the right to bear
the GreenPoint Rated label.
Standards have been developed for newly constructed
single-family homes and multifamily homes in California. GreenPoint
Rated for remodeling and existing homes recently was rolled out in
the third quarter of 2008. For more information, go to
www.builditgreen.org.
New Commercial Buildings
All developments agreements approved this year
require that all commercial development over 5,000 sq ft must be
built to LEED Silver certified levels.
Working Towards Greening Existing Homes
The city will be receiving $12.1M through the
Housing and Economic Recovery Act to assist the City in purchasing
and rehabilitating foreclosed properties to sell/rent to lower
income households. The city will incorporate as many green
principles as possible into the rehabilitation of these foreclosed
homes.
The city is currently working on requiring
GreenPoint Rated standards for affordable multifamily housing
projects that receive funds from the City/Redevelopment Agency.
The city is also working on requiring green features
for single family residential units that receive rehabilitation
loans from the city.
Diverting Waste from the Landfill
The state requires that all cities divert 50% of
their waste material from landfills. For calendar year 2006, the
city’s diversion rate was up to 67%, which is a very high diversion
rate in comparison to other
California
cities. The state, however, will be mandating diversion rates of 75%
in the near future. To continue to increase our diversion rates, the
city needed to look at the recycling of construction and demolition
debris.
Construction and demolition accounts for
approximately 20% to 30% of all waste disposed of in the landfills.
In 2007, Stockton began to require that all persons
seeking a new building or demolition permit must identify all debris
material at the time of the permit application.[1]
All new building construction projects and complete demolitions are
also required to recycle at least 50% of materials generated.
The Solid Waste and Recycling Division of Public
Works has a dedicated Project Manager that works with contractors to
provide information on recycling locations for materials such as
asphalt, brick, cardboard, concrete, dirt, drywall and sheetrock,
glass, lumber, plastic, roofing materials, metals, mixed recyclable
materials, yard trimmings and salvaged items such as fixtures.
For more information, go to
http://www.stocktongov.com/recycle/pages/CDprogram.cfm.
Non-potable water system for new development
The city requires that all new development must
construct a non-potable water system. Non-potable water is water
that has not been treated to drinking water levels such as water
recycled from a wastewater treatment plant. This reduces demand on
drinking water, and reduces wastewater discharge.
The non-potable water can be
used for irrigation purposes.
Warm-Mix Asphalt Paving Demonstration Project
In September 2007, the city sponsored a
demonstration of warm-mix asphalt paving along
Fox Creek Drive from Morada to Chelmsford Way and Kirby Lane from Saffron Way to Chelmsford Way. The immediate benefit to
producing warm-mix asphalt is the reduction in energy consumption
required by burning fuels to heat traditional hot mix asphalt to
temperatures over 300 degrees.
European countries have already been using this technology
for some time as a method to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Continued use of this technology could have a significant
impact on transportation construction projects in the
San Joaquin
Valley where air quality
is very poor.
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
Measuring Stockton’s Carbon Footprint
In January 2008, Stockton became the first city in the San Joaquin Valley to join International Council for
Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI). ICLEI is an international
association of local, national and regional government organizations
that have made a commitment to sustainable development.
About 1,027 cities, towns, counties and their
associations in 66 countries
have joined ICLEI. 500 cities
in the United
States
have joined. Area cities that have become members include Sacramento, San Joaquin County,
West Sacramento, Oakland, San Jose, San Diego, Riverside, Livermore and Pleasanton.
By joining ICLEI, Stockton
has committed to:
o
measure its carbon footprint,
o
adopt an emissions target,
o
develop and implement an action plan,
o
evaluate progress, and
o
update the plan.
Stockton
has completed its inventory of the community and is currently
working on the inventory of our city operations.
Settlement Agreement with the Attorney General and Sierra Club
Sierra Club sued Stockton over their General Plan that was
approved December 2007. Sierra Club challenged the adequacy of the EIR for the General Plan under CEQA. In February
2008, the Attorney General considered intervening in the lawsuit. By
September 2008, the Settlement Agreement was approved by the City,
Attorney General and Sierra Club.
The Agreement has created timelines that the city
must abide by.
•
A transit gap study must be completed by October
2009 (increase transit usage).
•
The General Plan must be amended to ensure infill
development by October 2009.
•
Green Building Ordinances must be drafted by October
2009.
•
A Climate Action Plan must be due by October 2010.
Climate Action Plan Advisory Committee
The City has also established a Climate Action Plan Advisory
Committee consisting of representatives from the nonprofit, labor,
business, development and environmental communities. The first
meeting will take place at the end of January 2009. These meetings
will be publicly noticed.
