Clean Energy Economy News | Online edition
Aug. 18, 2008 | Vol. 1, No. 7
In this issue:
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Garfield County convenes waste diversion and recycling effort
Garfield County officials have launched a solid waste planning effort aimed at diverting waste from the county’s landfills.
“We have a 55-year plan for our landfill. But looking at the last few years, the additional trash is just staggering,” said Garfield County Manager Ed Green.
“We were trying to have a cell last for three years, but we are filling a cell every year. That’s the dilemma — we’re going to run out of room,” he added.
County officials have begun assembling an ad hoc group of public works directors, landfill operators and public health officials to work together on a county-wide waste diversion plan.
The effort will benefit the county landfill near Rifle and the Glenwood Springs landfill in South Canyon, as well as the many residents and businesses that want to recycle and compost more of their wastes.
The group has met twice, and Garfield County has just hired Laurie Batchelder Adams and her company, LBA Associates of Denver, to identify waste diversion options and gauge the opportunity to cooperate with Pitkin and Eagle counties.
“We want to see what the potential is for waste diversion, how the parties want to play together and what our options are over a 10-year period,” Adams said. She is working with Garfield County Commissioner Tresi Houpt to plan a stakeholders’ meeting to be held in September.
“This is open to the entire community,” Green noted. (Watch the Clean Energy Economy News for a meeting announcement.)
Adams said the effort marks something of a revival of the defunct Valley Resource Management, a three-county organization that shared information and resources on solid waste, landfill management and recycling. Houpt served as the manager of that program until she was elected as a commissioner in 2002, and the effort fizzled after that.
Jim Rada, Garfield County environmental health manager, said the new waste diversion effort is already been well-received by officials in Carbondale, Glenwood Springs and Parachute, and he hopes to involve the county’s other communities and its three school districts.
Adams said the county will also run its preliminary ideas by landfill and public works officials in Pitkin and Eagle counties to see what economies of scale could be gained through a regional approach to recycling and waste handling.
Eagle County is building a materials recovery facility (MRF) to collect, sort and process recyclable materials and ship them to markets to the east and west. It’s expected to be running by next spring.
The Garfield County effort is being managed by Janey Dyke in the Garfield County Road and Bridge Department. She can be reached at 625-8601.
Rada said the effort will also include an opportunity for citizen involvement.
“There will have to be a chance for people to comment, because there is such interest in this subject,” he said.
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Pitkin County, Aspen consider demolition fee
to prolong life of landfill
Pitkin County and the City of Aspen are supporting a solid waste impact fee at the Pitkin County Landfill aimed at encouraging building contractors to salvage materials from demolition projects rather than hauling them to the landfill.
Pitkin County’s active construction industry contributes 64 percent of the waste received at the landfill, while the national average for construction waste is about 25 percent of the total waste stream.
The solid waste impact fee would be assessed during the building or demolition permit process, and could be as high as $1.14 per square foot for tear-downs and 27 cents per square foot for new construction.
Builders could avoid the fee if they deconstruct a building, salvaging usable materials and sorting the rest for recycling or to feed into the Pitkin County landfill’s huge grinder.
In the news
Aspen Times, Aug. 5, 2008
The price of destruction
With construction material filling landfill up, officials back waste impact fee
By Carolyn Sackariason
Aspen Daily News, Aug. 5, 2008
Landfill looks to crush waste
By Curtis Wackerle
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Garfield Work Group hones application
for New Energy Communities Initiative
The Garfield County Working Group that is assembling the application for the governor’s New Energy Communities Initiative is narrowing its project choices and gathering commitments for local match.
The group met Aug. 8 and 15, and will convene for a final meeting on Aug. 29. Work Group members and CLEER staff plan to take the grant proposal around to all the participating entities in early September to seek formal approval. The grant application is due Sept. 19.
To track the Working Group’s progress, refer to the NECI page on the CLEER website.
As the process moves forward, more organizations are actively participating. The Working Group now includes Garfield County, Parachute, Rifle, Silt, New Castle, Glenwood Springs, Carbondale, the Garfield Library District, Garfield Re-2, Holy Cross Energy and Xcel Energy.
The New Energy Communities Initiative offers a wide range of areas for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects, and the Garfield County Working Group plans to include project proposals for all sections except for small wind power.
“We want to make this beneficial to everybody,” said Glenwood Springs City Councilman David Sturges. “This is not just a physical project. It’s a learning experience.”
The proposed projects include:
- Rifle’s Deerfield Park: installing a solar PV system to power the lighted ballfields, lighted parking lots and irrigation pumps; designing a highly energy efficient parks maintenance facility, and installing a Powerhouse dwelling as an educational walk-through for park visitors.
- New Castle solar trail: installing a solar PV system to power lighting for a trail system connecting Castle Valley Ranch with old town New Castle.
- Solar photovoltaic installations in every community: Lauren Martindale of Energy Partners Inc. is running the numbers to compare the costs of installing 50 kW systems and using third-party financing versus 30 kW systems using the state grant and local match. The installations would be on public buildings, such as a town hall, library or senior housing.
- Garfield Public Libraries: Design assistance to make the new libraries and library additions highly energy efficient and to use different forms of renewable energy in each community’s library. Check out Library Director Amelia Shelley’s memo on integrating clean energy with the library district’s mission.
- Garfield County office building: Design assistance to make the new elected officials office highly energy efficient, and installation of a solar PV array.
- Downtown commercial energy audit and retrofit: As a demonstration, work with commercial building owners on a single block in one town’s downtown area to conduct audits and install efficiency retrofits and renewable energy.
- LED streetlights: Join together to make a bulk purchase of LED streetlights.
- Model codes: Provide training and technical assistance for building inspectors, developers and builders to meet green building codes that achieve high levels of energy efficiency.
- Clean Energy Financing: Track progress in Boulder County (see related story) and aim for establishing a clean energy financing district in Garfield County.
- Residential energy audit and retrofit: Use clean energy financing and an aggressive marketing campaign to help homeowners throughout the county make energy efficiency improvements.
The grant could bring as much as $2 million in funding to the region to encourage measurable energy savings, renewable energy and long term energy improvements. The initiative focuses on greening downtowns, homes, and public facilities. The initiative also has a strong emphasis on encouraging regional collaboration and livability.
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RFTA to apply for “Very Small Starts” federal grant
for Bus Rapid Transit
The Roaring Fork Transit Authority plans to submit a request for $21.3 million in federal funding for its Bus Rapid Transit project by the Sept. 5 deadline.
Based on recommendations from Federal Transit Administration officials who visited the valley on Aug. 1, RFTA plans to submit its request under the “Very Small Starts” grant program. The program offers up to $25 million for projects that meet its requirements, and moves the funding into the federal pipeline quickly, said Dan Blankenship, RFTA’s CEO.
“The Aug. 1 visit went well, and the federal agency representatives got a better sense of what our project is,” Blankenship said. “They gave us some good pointers on how we should package it and present it to the FTA headquarters.”
“To go with a Very Small Starts grant, you have to meet five or six requirements, and then it’s a given that you qualify. One requirement is that you have 3,000 passengers per day benefiting from the investment. We have, on average, over 5,000 passengers per day in the corridor, and some days we have 7,000 or more.”
The fine point here, however, is that the BRT plan would use the federal money for improvements at 10 stations, and FTA is looking for the number of passengers that would be boarding or alighting at those particular stations.
“We need to show that people who get on at intermittent stations will probably be transferring at a BRT station,” Blankenship, so they’ll still be benefiting from the streamlined system.
The overall BRT project calls for $61.2 million in improvements to serve communities from Rifle to Aspen with a streamlined system of express buses that can make the trip in close to the same time as a car. RFTA will seek voter approval in communities from Aspen to New Castle for a 0.4 percent sales tax increase to fund $39.9 million of the plan, with the remainder coming from the FTA grant.
A campaign organization, Affordable Transportation Solutions, has been formed to promote the BRT ballot question.
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Planeteers promote clotheslines and statewide ‘Right to Dry’
The Basalt High School Planeteers are hanging out at fairs this summer, encouraging people to ditch their energy-consuming clothes dryers in favor of simple clotheslines and indoor drying racks.
 “Using a clothesline is a really easy way to save money and energy,” said Lyss Rousseve of El Jebel, a Planeteer and clothesline convert. “We get over 300 days of sunshine here, and it’s such a dry climate. It’s unfortunate we are not taking advantage of it."
The group gave away 50 free clotheslines at the Carbondale Mountain Fair, and distributed flyers at Dandelion Day and Basalt River Days.
The flyer loudly proclaims, “Solar Energy is Legal,” and urges everyone to “Use Your Right To Dry!”
The Planeteers started their pro-clothesline mission last winter, after successfully launching a recycling program at BHS and publishing the valley wide Green Map.
By the time Lyss and other Planeteers were asking the Basalt Town Council to lift the ban on clotheslines imposed by many Homeowners Associations, they learned that a bill to do the same thing statewide had just passed the legislature. The students joined the statewide effort in time to urge Gov. Ritter to sign the bill.
“Which he did, on April 24,” Lyss noted.
House Bill 1270 amended an earlier law that already prevented HOAs from banning the use of solar electric and hot water systems in subdivisions. The 2008 amendment also makes it illegal for HOAs to ban energy efficiency devices such as wind-electric generators, shade structures, shutters, fans, swamp coolers, energy-efficient outdoor lighting and retractable clotheslines.
Now the students and their sponsors, which include Sustaining Tomorrow Today, CORE, the BKS Foundation and the Sopris Foundation, are presenting to town councils and promoting the “Right to Dry” message in the Roaring Fork Valley.
That message includes some big numbers:
- The Roaring Fork Valley has an estimated 28,885 clothes dryers, based on one per household
- Total energy use of running all those dryers for a full year is equivalent to burning 3.6 million gallons of gasoline
- Total energy cost for running all those dryers for a full year is $4.3 million, or about $150 per household
- Total greenhouse gas emissions resulting from that energy use is 34,000 tons of CO2
Lyss noted that visitors from France and Australia report that most people in those countries air-dry their clothes and linens. “They thought it was ridiculous that we would have to promote the use of clotheslines,” she said.
Ridiculous or not, Lyss and the Planeteers are continuing their campaign, and they say people are usually receptive to the idea. They also plan on calling the people who accepted the free clotheslines at Mountain Fair to make sure they are using them.
Resources
The Governor’s Energy Office has posted a detailed set of pages on its website explaining HB 1270 and its effects on homeowners, commercial property owners, HOAs and building contractors.
www.colorado.gov/energy/policy/hoa-bill-hb-08-1270.asp
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Boulder County offers voters
a clean energy financing option
Berkeley, Calif., to roll out similar financing this fall
Boulder County voters will have a chance to approve the state’s first Clean Energy Financing District in the Nov. 4 election.
“We had no trouble getting the measure referred to the ballot, it has polled very well and we are seeing a lot of excitement in the community,” said Ann Livingston, Boulder County sustainability coordinator.
Boulder officials and clean energy advocates have been working for more than a year on the concept, and Boulder’s statehouse representative, House Majority Leader Alice Madden, carried HB 1350 in the 2008 session to clear the way in state law for the energy district concept.
The next steps are for the county’s municipalities to opt in to the district, by resolution or ordinance, and for the county’s voters to approve a $40 million bond issue.
Boulder County expects to issue about $10 million a year in clean energy bonds over a four or five-year period, in a mix of taxable and tax-exempt bonds.
At the same time, the city of Berkeley, Calif., is poised to roll out a similar Sustainable Energy Financing District this fall. After Berkeley voters approved greenhouse gas reduction targets in 2007, the Berkeley City Council approved the financing district concept in November 2007.
Financing district nuts and bolts
An energy financing district starts with a local government getting authority to issue bonds. In Colorado, the TABOR amendment requires voter approval.
The bond money creates a loan program for property owners, who can choose to borrow money to cover all or part of the cost of energy efficiency improvements and renewable energy installations. The debt and interest is added to the owner’s property tax bill to be paid back over time.
The annual tax payment should be less than the amount the property owner or their tenants are saving on energy bills, yielding a net financial gain. In addition, the repayment obligation stays with the property, even if it changes hands. That overcomes the reluctance to make energy improvements for elderly property owners or those who expect to sell their property before reaching the payback point.
Borrowing from an energy financing district is strictly voluntary, and the owners of property inside the district who do not take out a loan will see no impact on their property tax bill.
Energy savings for older buildings
Existing homes and commercial buildings are the source of about half of Boulder County’s greenhouse gas emissions, Livingston said. Unless owners undertake a remodel that requires a building permit, there’s no requirement to make efficiency upgrades.
Higher energy costs will put pressure on property owners, but the cost of upgrades may still prevent people from seeking wanted upgrades.
“This low-interest loan program is largely geared at reducing emissions from existing buildings, where property owners are interested in making improvements but have a financial barrier,” Livingston said.
“Residential and commercial energy audits are great, but an audit saves no energy. You need to get that step of implementation, and providing financing in a way that’s affordable can get you there,” she said.
By combining incentives from utility companies and the low-interest financing, Boulder County and Berkeley hope to see a rapid jump in the number of residential and commercial property owners who make efficiency upgrades and install renewable energy.
In the news
Boulder Daily Camera, Aug. 6, 2008
Loans for renewable energy to make fall ballot
By Laura Snider
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Xcel Energy announces money-saving
gas and electric energy efficiency plans
Xcel Energy filed a two-year, $138 million energy conservation plan, offering 35 programs to help its customers reduce their use of electricity and natural gas.
“This is the next step in the implementation of the new energy economy in Colorado through conservation and efficiency programs. The goal is to reduce the amount of electricity and natural gas that is consumed for lighting, heating, cooking, manufacturing and many other uses,” said Fred Stoffel, vice president of marketing for Xcel Energy.
Xcel serves Carbondale, New Castle, Silt, Rifle and Parachute.
The programs include rebates for purchases of Energy Star appliances, televisions, furnaces and water heaters, for removing second refrigerators, for following the recommendations in a home energy audit, and a giveaway of low-flow showerheads.
Xcel will also offer school education kits, with free lesson plans for teachers on energy efficiency, and an energy efficiency kit for each student that includes educational materials and low-cost measures to take home and read with their parents.
A second, more aggressive set of programs is aimed at low-income customers.
“We will direct more help towards low-income customers to get though the second half of this winter, when heating bills are projected to be 30 to 50 percent higher than last year,” Stoffel said.
If the Colorado Public Utilities Commission approves the plan, the cost will be passed on to customers by raising the utility’s demand side management charge. It’s expected to increase residential electric bills by $1.16 a month and small business electric bills by $2 a month. Natural gas bills could rise by 78 cents a month for residential customers and $1.26 a month for small commercial customers.
Xcel Energy press release, Aug. 12, 2008
(Recommended for all Xcel customers)
In the news
Denver Post, Aug. 12, 2008
Xcel proposes ambitious energy-efficiency plan
By Andy Vuong
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GEO to develop energy rating program for schools
The Governor’s Energy Office K-12 High Performance Design Program has begun working with a technical advisory committee to create a high performance building rating program specifically for Colorado K-12 schools.
The program is a set of criteria called the Colorado Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CO-CHPS) and it will serve as a tool to help school districts design and certify schools that save energy and water, reduce operating costs, provide healthy indoor environments and improve student and teacher satisfaction.
The advisory committee is made up of members of the K-12 design and construction community including school district officials, district energy managers, architects, engineers, contractors, landscape designers, state environmental and health officials and others.
CO-CHPS is being developed to address the challenges and opportunities for Colorado school districts including our climate, regulations and the state's energy and climate goals. The CO-CHPS criteria is expected to be released for its first public review period in late September.
For information, contact Tim Guiterman at tim.guiterman@state.co.us or 303-866-3965.
— Megan Castle, Governor’s Energy Office
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High-speed rail study launched
for I-70 and I-25 corridors
The Rocky Mountain Rail Authority has hired a Maryland consulting company to conduct a $1.5 million study of the feasibility of high-speed rail from Grand Junction to Denver and along the Front Range I-25 corridor.
The study will investigate whether the routes have enough potential ridership to support the costs of operating a rail system and offer estimates for the cost of building a rail system.
Transportation Economics and Management Systems Inc. is expected to make a report by mid-2009.
In the news
The Daily Sentinel, Aug. 12, 2008
GJ to DIA at speeds of 90 mph
By Gary Harmon
Glenwood Springs Post Independent, Aug. 13, 2008
Study approved for high-speed rail
By John Gardner
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Aspen turns to solar for water plant,
trash cans and farmer’s market
Aspen is tapping into solar energy for its water treatment facility, public trash cans and the farmer’s market.
At the end of June, Carbondale-based SõL Energy began installing a 20.7 kW solar photovoltaic system at the city’s water treatment facility. The system will meet about 20 percent of the treatment facility’s electricity demands. It’s expected to be up and running by September, said city utilities engineer John Hines.
The installation cuts the water plant’s carbon footprint by 2.3 million pounds over the 40-year life of the PV system – the equivalent carbon emissions of flying around the world 237 times.
PV units have been installed to power trash compactors located near McDonald’s on the Cooper Avenue pedestrian mall. Prior to using the sun-powered compactors, Parks Department crews emptied these bins as many as eight times per day. The compactors will cut those trips significantly, saving fuel and reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, said Aspen environmental health director Lee Cassin.
Aspen’s Saturday farmer’s market also is tapping into solar. The city purchased three 1.5 kW solar generators for the market to use as a back-up power supply. The solar panels will power the coffee cart, popcorn vendor and cooking demonstration, said Aspen Chief Deputy Clerk Kathy Strickland.
— Marta Darby, Canary Initiative
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American Renewable Day brings top climate,
energy and green economy experts to Aspen
Dates: Thursday, Aug. 21 through Saturday, Aug. 23
Place: Paepcke Auditorium, Wheeler Opera House and Cooper Avenue Mall, Aspen
Admission: all events are free except for the Saturday evening presentation
The 5th annual American Renewable Energy Day runs Aug. 21 to 23 in Aspen, and features local and national speakers on renewable energy, energy efficiency and the clean energy economy.
 The schedule is jam-packed with speakers, panel discussions, creative presentations, two films, an event for children and live music. For the complete agenda (6-page PDF, 44 KB), click here.
May we call your attention to five items on the agenda that relate to the clean energy economy and to local and state clean energy efforts:
Friday, Aug. 22, 9 to 10:30 a.m., Paepcke Audit.: Creating the Renewable Energy Economy, featuring Jerome Ringo, president of the Apollo Alliance, the national group that is calling for an Apollo-scale mission to move to clean energy, along with Michael Potts, CEO of the Rocky Mountain Institute.
Friday, Aug. 22, 3:30 to 4:20 p.m., Paepcke Audit.: CO2: 390 - 350 ppm: From Here to There — How Far? How Fast?, featuring Bill Becker, director of the Presidential Climate Action Project, which is developing a plan for the next president to pursue, along with Kim Peterson of the Aspen Canary Initiative and Rick Heede, climate number-cruncher and analyst.
Saturday, Aug. 23, 10:30 a.m. to 12:20 p.m., Wheeler Opera House: Innovations from Europe: Danish Women Bike in High Heels and No Sprawl in Helsinki, featuring Piper Foster of the Sopris Foundation, state Sen. Gail Schwartz, Joani Matranga of the Governor’s Energy Office and RFTA CEO Dan Blankenship.
Saturday afternoon, the events move out to the Cooper Avenue Mall for an energy fair, with displays, booths, music, ice cream and activities.
The capstone event is Saturday evening, 7-10 p.m. at the Wheeler Opera House, featuring a discussion between media mogul Ted Turner and Pat Mitchell, former president of PBS. Tickets are $20, available in advance from the Wheeler Box Office, 920-5770.
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CMC offers Sustainable Living classes this fall
Colorado Mountain College is offering a new Sustainable Living Series of five noncredit classes from Sept. 18 through Nov. 13.
The classes cover residential energy savings, gardening, composting and recycling, and are taught by local experts in each area. They’ll be held at CMC’s Glenwood Springs Center.
- Thursday, Sept. 18, 7-9 p.m.: Residential energy savings, taught by Craig Tate and Eileen Wysocki of Holy Cross Energy
- Monday, Sept. 22, 6-9 p.m.: Biodynamic gardening, taught by Lynn Ruoff, owner of Eco-Goddess
- Monday, Oct. 6, 6-9 p.m.: Organic gardening, taught by Lynn Ruoff
- Thursday, Nov. 6, 6-8 p.m.: Composting, taught by Jim Duke, owner of CacaLoco Composting
- Thursday, Nov. 13, 6-8 p.m.: Recycling, taught by Jim Duke.
Each class is $24, or students can register for all five for $96. To register, call 947-8438 or go to www.coloradomtn.edu/register
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Clean Energy Bits ‘n Bobs
Aspen’s Canary Initiative is looking for a global warming project coordinator. The full-time position is based in Aspen. Applications are due by Aug. 22 . . . Eagle Valley Alliance for Sustainability is looking for a manager for the Recon Yard just north of Wolcott. It’s a building materials salvage and sales operation. Apply by Aug. 29 . . . Garfield County Commissioner John Martin has been appointed to represent Colorado local government officials on the Western Renewable Energy Zones project, hosted by the Western Governor’s Association . . . The City of Aspen Environmental Health Department, 130 S. Galena, is giving away free tire gauges to city residents through the end of August. Correct tire pressure (consult the label on the driver’s door) is essential for safety and improving gas mileage . . . Save the date: The Governor’s Energy Office is hosting the second annual "Colorado's New Energy Economy: The Path Forward - A Local Focus" conference on Tuesday, Oct. 14, in Denver. Click here to register or reserve exhibit space.
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