City votes for aggressive greenhouse gas reduction plan

At the Sonoma city council meeting on Feb 21, council members unanimously chose the second most aggressive plan among five options for achieving Sonoma’s greenhouse gas reduction goal. The options, laid out in the City of Sonoma Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Action Plan Analysis, a report prepared by Sam Pierce, Senior Engineer, Climate Protection Campaign, offered five choices, from A through E. “Plan D,” said council member Steve Barbose, “allows us substantial greenhouse gas reduction, and if we need to tweak it in the future, we’ll still be below our 20 percent reduction goal.”
Plan D, as written, would lower emissions by 37.2 percent. The benefits to the community over the 25-year life of the plan are estimated to be $992,228 in avoided utility payments, $2,025,116 in avoided fuel purchases, and $1,643,870 invested locally in greenhouse gas projects. The plan would include 12 measures, including building efficiency projects, a “much more aggressive fleet replacement strategy and pump replacement measure,” and a streetlight measure.
According to the report, the city’s current “footprint” consists of wastewater (7 percent), streetlights (15 percent), building efficiency (17 percent), commute (20 percent) and fleet (41 percent). Council member Stanley Cohen explained how each of the five options would work toward achieving the desired emissions reduction goal. “Each of the action plan alternatives addresses the question of how the city might work toward achieving the goal of 20 percent reduction,” he said, “and describes and evaluates these measures in terms of how effective they would be, and how much they would cost and would pay back in terms of savings.” The task before the council was to determine how far the city would go toward achieving its greenhouse gas reduction goals.
When the public was invited to comment, Laurie Gallian, referring to a recent presentation by Tim Anderson of the Sonoma Valley Water Agency and Fourth District Supervisor Paul Kelley, said, “Time is of the essence. They are talking of new windows of a possibly six-year timeline.” She encouraged the council to proceed with Plan D.
Council member Barbose said, “Even with Measure D, I thought, the fuel costs they’re using here are low. Therefore, the payback on the savings we’re going to get on some of these things is going to be bigger than projected.” City Manager Linda Kelly put the specifics of the document in perspective. “This is as much a philosophical document as a model,” she said. “Some of the technologies are still in development. And so a lot of this relies upon changing our fuel use and changing our employee commute. What’s important for us to know is how aggressive do you want us to be in reducing our greenhouse gas?”
August Sebastiani said, “At the risk of committing political suicide, I’m a bit of a global warming skeptic. The dinosaurs went extinct and I don’t think it’s because they didn’t convert to bio-fuel. But if there’s a chance of saving some dough, I’d do it. So I’d support Plan B and Plan D as well.” The vote was unanimous in favor of Plan D.