Clean Energy Springfield

With the end of the holiday season, I’m trying to catch up with a backlog of environmental news items from around the country. I wanted to highlight two interesting news stories I ran across yesterday.

One article was published in Farmweek, a weekly publication for members of the Illinois Farm Bureau. It reported on the results of study that evaluated the impact of an Illinois wind farm on bird and bat populations. The study focused on collisions with turbine blades and loss of habitat during construction at the 33-turbine Crescent Ridge wind farm near Tiskilwa in Bureau County.

A national bird expert conducted bird studies from September through November 2005, and from March through May 2006. He studied the impact on bats and bird migration in August 2006. Ten birds were found dead at the wind farm, mostly song birds like the song sparrow. No ducks or geese were killed. The bird deaths were calculated to average 1.3 deaths per turbine per year. The scientist found 21 dead bats, which he calculated would average about 4.9 deaths per turbine per year.

This rate is supposed to be comparable with bat death rates at three other Midwestern wind farms. This sounds like good news to me, but it probably needs to be put in context in terms of the potential negative impacts from other sources of electricity. We also need to remember that the best way to avoid bird and bat deaths is to reduce our energy consumption both at home and work.

The other noteworthy article appeared in the December 28 edition of the Chicago Sun-Times. This story featured financial incentives that cities are offering to help motivate their residents to “go green.” In Parkland, FL, town officials plan to offer a variety of cash rebates, including $150 for a low-flow toilet, $100 to replace an old air conditioner with a more efficient one and $200 to purchase a hybrid vehicle.

San Francisco offers rebates of up to $5,000 for homeowners to install solar panels and pays residents $150 to replace older appliances. Baltimore offers at least $2,000 toward closing costs for people who buy new homes close to where they work to help reduce traffic congestion. In Albuquerque, builders and residents get fast-track permits if they agree to make their homes more energy-efficient. Many cities in Arizona pay residents to replace grass with indigenous plants that use less water.

What does this all mean? It appears the most interesting sustainability experiments are taking place at the municipal level. Let’s hope state and federal government officials are taking notes. Also, I found it interesting that many cities are focusing on water efficiency, along with energy consumption and renewables. This approach would seem to make sense for the city of Springfield, where you have a locally-owned municipal utility that provides both electricity and water to its residents.

I discovered an interesting web site at work today that provides a simple tool to help homeowners and others calculate the payback time and return on investment of dozens of energy-saving and other green products for residential buildings. I haven’t tried it yet, but thought I would pass the information along.

Known as GreenandSave.com, the web site was created by an architect with expertise in green home design and remodeling. This site makes it easy to see the up-front costs and long term savings for a variety of products, including programmable thermostats, low-flush toilets, high efficiency windows, greywater systems and even planting trees.

Perhaps CWLP could feature this resource or create something similar to help its customers make more informed choices about energy and water efficiency products that can help reduce utility bills and save money.

The City of Portland and Multnomah County have created a step-by-step resource guide to help local government agencies integrate sustainability into their policies, programs and operations. The guide is premised on the notion that local governments can be a role model for environmental stewardship and set a positive example for institutions, businesses and citizens within their communities.

The interesting part of the guide is that it doesn’t just focus on one or two environmental concepts. It takes a more systematic, coordinated approach and provides organizational tips on how to build support for sustainability, prioritize opportunities, create an action plan and evaluate results.

It seems like environmental activists in Springfield are working on different pieces of the sustainability puzzle, lobbying city officials to address climate change, make neighborhoods bike friendly, support green building design, improve waste collection services and protect wildlife habitat. This resource guide provides a template on how local officials can address a wide variety of environmental, economic and community equity issues simultaneously, using an open and inclusive decision-making process.

The sustainability resource guide has not only helped put sustainability on the map in Portland area government, but the City of Fort Collins also used the guide to develop a sustainability action plan for its operations. Given the growing interest in advancing different aspects of sustainability in Springfield, perhaps the time is right to try a more holistic environmental planning approach in our community.