Climate Protection in Whatcom County

Christina Reeves moved to Bellingham from New England in 2001, drawn to the massive wildness of the Pacific Northwest. She received a master’s degree in sustainable business from Prescott College in 2006, the same year she began working on conservation issues for the Whatcom County government.

We seem to be surrounded by the debate over climate change. We hear about it at community events, we talk about it at our dinner tables and we find it as a cover story for every type of news media. The word “climate” itself has become divisive to an extent comparable with few other words in recent history. How can we be sure what’s real? Whom can we trust? What can we do to bring people together on this issue?

The bottom line is that the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), with its 1,200 authors and 2,500 peer-reviews,1 has said there is an “unequivocal” rise in temperature happening. And those scientists are over 90 percent certain that the most significant portion of this rise is due to human-caused factors.2

For those unfamiliar with IPCC, it is an international scientific organization that was set up by the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization. It was specifically created to assess current research on climate change causes, consequences and potential solutions.

No matter how many scientists agree that climate change is happening and that human causes play a key role, it should not be surprising that some dissent remains; the whole foundation of modern science is based on skepticism. Continuous fact checking is a vital part of the scientific method, and alternate theories help to keep science moving forward.

However, there comes a point when we need to leave that dissension and fact checking to the scientists, and look at what lies before us. If we stop arguing about whether or not climate change exists, I believe we will see a tremendous opportunity.

Almost every effort that can be undertaken to mitigate climate change in the United States has benefits above and beyond the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

• If we cut the amount of transportation fuel that we use, we will concurrently reduce our dependence on foreign oil, improve air quality in urban areas and save money in the process.

• If we reduce that fuel use by also cutting vehicle travel, we address issues of highway congestion and wasted time spent in traffic.

• Likewise, if we increase the use of alternative fuels such as biodiesel, we reduce foreign oil consumption and promote regional agriculture.

• If we take strides to be more energy efficient, we can save money while reducing air pollution.

• If we turn to increasingly renewable sources of electricity, we can take pride in the fact that the legacy we leave to our children and grandchildren does not include pollution and fuel scarcity.

The list goes on and on. If we stop arguing about the political ramifications of climate change, we can turn our focus to these broad-reaching solutions and begin to realize the incredible opportunity that is now upon us.

This is the foundation from which Whatcom County has begun its efforts.

Whatcom County government has been focused on energy efficiency for the past five years or more. During the energy shortage in 2001, Executive Kremen turned down the temperatures in county buildings and pulled almost half the light bulbs out of the County Courthouse.

Since then, the county’s facilities management division has invested in a comprehensive energy monitoring system, a proactive maintenance program and continuous equipment upgrades to improve our efficiency. The result is that in 2005, county buildings were saving over $75,000 per year in utility bills compared to what they used in 2000.

In the spring of 2006, that effort began to morph into something specifically focused on climate change issues. At that time, Whatcom County was approached by the Northwest Clean Air Agency, which offered funding for a greenhouse gas emissions inventory for both our community and our government operations. The Whatcom County Council responded by voting to accept the funding and to become members of ICLEI — Local Governments for Sustainability.3 ICLEI is an international organization that helps local governments develop and implement Climate Action Plans.

A few weeks later, I was brought into the Whatcom County offices to begin working on this project. Over the next three months, I collected information on energy and fuel use in government operations and in the community as a whole. I also began to compile data for a draft action plan that outlined ways we could reduce those emissions.

As it turned out, many of the recommendations for reducing our greenhouse gas emissions were related to efficiency, and would save the county money. The administration saw this opportunity for dual benefit and immediately began the process of appropriating funding for a full-time position based on energy savings and modest grants.

During that same period, the County Executive and members of the County Council had been considering the possibility of purchasing 100 percent green power for all county operations. A majority of the council voted “yes” to a resolution supporting the purchase of green power, on the same night that I presented to them the findings of the emissions inventory.4 By approving 100 percent of green power purchase for all county operations, the council effectively reduced the government’s greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent.

The measure went into effect in January of 2007, just a week before I interviewed and was hired for the full-time position that had been created. Those two measures together marked the beginning of Whatcom County’s comprehensive effort to reduce its contribution to climate change.

Since that time, our conservation program has grown to include a variety of initiatives. The first and largest of these is our pursuit of LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for the County Courthouse. While this project was made possible mainly through previous energy efficiency efforts, as well as the green power purchase, we also worked to improve various aspects of our operation to make them LEED-compatible.

To reach the LEED standard, we stepped up our recycling efforts, improved our Commute Trip Reduction program and began purchasing “greener” items like recycled-content toilet paper and ultra-low-mercury lighting.

We also began the rigorous measurement of our current practices, by verifying and carefully managing things like our water consumption, energy use and purchasing parameters. We expect to receive the U.S. Green Building Council’s stamp of approval for LEED certification by early 2008.

Beyond our efforts related to LEED certification, Whatcom County has also moved forward on a number of other projects. We’ve continued improving our energy efficiency by installing occupancy sensors on our vending machines, performing additional energy monitoring and mandating that all computers are turned off at night. With a simple wattage calculation, we discovered that the difference between our 1,000 computers being turned off at night versus left on was close to $60,000 per year in electricity costs!

Also in the past year, we began to incorporate biodiesel use into our fleet vehicle operations. This began with a pilot project in which we used B20 (20 percent biodiesel and 80 percent petro-diesel) in a few of our older parks and recreation vehicles, to give us a gauge for how biodiesel would work for the rest of the diesel fleet. After a successful pilot, the county decided to transition to B20 for the entire equipment fleet except the Lummi Island Ferry.

However, in order to switch to the higher-solvency biodiesel, Whatcom County needed to purchase a new type of fuel tank for its storage and maintenance facility. Because of the large expense of such a tank, we applied to the Northwest Clean Air Agency for funding assistance.

They approved $75,000 in funding, or half the estimated cost of the new tank setup, at their October 2007 board meeting. Whatcom County is currently in the bid process for the new tank, and we plan to have it in place and start using B20 by early spring of 2008.

In addition, Whatcom County has recently taken a step forward that is specific to its climate protection efforts. We updated the Climate Plan that was drafted in 2006, and Executive Kremen presented it to the council where it was formally adopted in September of 2007. Though we were already pursuing many of the measures that had been listed in the draft, this gave us cohesive, measurable goals and parameters for our efforts.

But we had also discovered an un-anticipated need for that type of formal document. I had begun to receive regular phone calls from other communities, asking for information on our efforts and the way we were approaching the issue of climate change. In fact, in one four-week period this past fall, I was asked to present our story at two separate conferences; one in Boise, Idaho, and one in Washington, D.C. We had emerged as local government leaders in this movement, after just one year of earnest effort.

Naturally, I am proud of Whatcom County’s efforts and the things that we’ve accomplished, and I relay this information in my public presentations. However, there is another part of the story that I am even more excited to tell others, which is that our governmental efforts are just a part of the tapestry of great things that are going on in our community.

So I tell the story of Sustainable Connections and Puget Sound Energy and their Green Power Community Challenge, and how Western Washington University, the city of Bellingham and so many businesses and residents signed on to purchase green power at the same time as Whatcom County. I then note how our combined efforts helped bring down the price of green power to the community by 40 percent in just a few months.

After that, I tell the story of Sanitary Service Company and how they have been leading the way with a community composting program that is the envy of many. And finally, I tell the story of Whole Energy Biofuels, the company that is rapidly bringing biodiesel into the mainstream in our community.

And when I tell those stories along with our own, the result is that the audience is floored by all that we have accomplished in our community in such a short time. Although for some people, it may be difficult to keep a positive perspective during a time that seems so urgent to many of us, the truth is that we are making great progress here in Whatcom County.

And I personally believe that our community improves each time one of us decides to focus on opportunities and solutions to the issue of climate change, instead of engaging in negative debate and conflict.

Of course, there is no doubt that many challenges lie ahead. We are certainly moving forward, but we have a great distance yet to go and not all of it will come easily. On the other hand, there is no shortage of either brainpower or will in our community.

Therefore, I know that we can successfully meet these challenges if we focus on the positive and use our considerable resources and community strength to further the goals we set before us. And I believe we will find that true sustainability lies in the relationships that we foster, as we work toward repairing and enhancing the small piece of our planet that is Whatcom County, the place that we call home. §