President Announces Clean Power Plan

Today President Obama announced the Clean Power Plan rule. The Clean Power Plan, proposed by Environmental Protection Agency, is a plan to cut carbon emissions from existing power plants. This plan will maintain an affordable, reliable energy system, while cutting pollution and protecting our health and environment. There were previously no national limits on carbon pollution from existing power plants, which account for forty percent of U.S. carbon emissions and are the largest source of carbon pollution in the U.S. These EPA-proposed standards are the first-ever national limits on this type of pollution. Nationwide, the Clean Power Plan will help cut carbon pollution from the power sector by 30 percent below 2005 levels. (1) According to a recent survey by Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, “A large majority of Americans support setting strict emission limits on coal-fired power plants.” (2)

Mayor Becker gave the following remarks:

“I applaud President Obama and the United States Environmental Protection Agency for announcing the Clean Power Plan today. The Plan is a forward-looking and common sense policy to address one of the most critical issues facing local communities: climate change.

Like many other cities across the Nation, Salt Lake City is actively working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions responsible for contributing to climate change. In particular, Salt Lake City continues to be a leader through many initiatives, including increasing energy efficiency of our existing municipal facilities, requiring all new municipal facilities to achieve “net zero” status, and promoting and investing in clean distributed solar energy. These investments not only cut pollution, and save money on our energy bills, but they make Salt Lake City an energy-smart and more livable city.

Over the coming days and weeks, I look forward to learning about the full scope and the long-term benefits that the Clean Power Plan will have on our communities.”

In addition to his work with the City, Mayor Becker is serving as the president of the National League of Cities, which advocates on behalf of over 19,000 member cities, villages, and towns from across the country. Mayor Becker has asked the National League of Cities to act as “an army of advocates” to encourage better climate change policy and work with the administration to assist state, local, and tribal work on this critical issue. #ActOnClimate.

Sources:

Environmental Protection Agency, http://www2.epa.gov/cleanpowerplan, July 31, 2015.
Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, http://environment.yale.edu/poe/v2014/?&est=CO2limits, August 3, 2015.

Ride with Hive

By Blake Perez, Transportation

You may start to see fellow Hive Pass holders on various buses and Trax around town. The “I Ride with Hive” campaign has kicked off to promote and raise awareness about the Hive Pass. Current Hive Pass holders volunteered their time to be Hive Brand Ambassadors and are the focal point of the “I Ride with Hive” campaign. Six Hive Brand Ambassadors, from all walks of life, are being featured on various print ads. The idea behind the ambassador concept is to show the deeply discounted transit pass is for everyone. One of the Hive Brand Ambassadors, Liz, said “I am a full time rider for over a year now and I am loving it!”. Gary, who is one of the biggest Hive Pass enthusiasts and users, says he only has to fill up his car every two or three months because he uses the Hive Pass so much. Lastly, Karen bought a Hive Pass for her son to “teach him about being responsible to the environment by taking public transportation”. Hive Pass holders are using their discounted transit pass to meet their varying transportation needs. Whether you use it 2-3 times a week or exclusively use it as your main mode of transportation, the Hive Pass can help you meet your transportation needs. So why not Ride with Hive?

Hive Passes are available now to all Salt Lake City residents. For only $42 a month, your Hive Pass includes unlimited rides on all buses, Trax, and Sugarhouse streetcar. There are discounts for Frontrunner fares as well. To obtain a Hive Pass you must bring an ID and two pieces of mail, to prove SLC residency, to one of the 3 sales locations. At that time you may purchase as many consecutive months as you would like. If you pre-purchase an entire year, an additional $29 discount is applied. After the initial in-person visit you can pay for your monthly pass over the phone, web, or still make payment in person. You may even set up automatic payments.

To learn more about the Hive Pass, determine your eligibility and learn how to get your pass, visit www.ridewithhive.com, e-mail ridewithhive@slcgov.com or call (801) 596-RIDE (7433).

Master Recycler Fall Session

By Josh Lipman, SLCgreen Intern

After the first successful round of training members of our community to be experts in recycling, SLCgreen and the Department of Sanitation are opening up applications for the second round of the Master Recycler training program.

Participants in the Master Recycler program take a hands on approach to learning about sustainable waste management in Salt Lake City by studying and experiencing the most up to date recycling techniques through classroom sessions and visits to the different waste management and recycling facilities in our city. Master Recyclers then can educate and engage the community, creating a network of environmentally consciousness Salt Lake City residents.

The fall Master Recycler class runs eight Thursdays from September 3^rd to October 22^nd. Applications are rolling and through August 28^th (dates subject to change), and the class is free of charge. All community members are encouraged to register and come learn about these key systems in the city by emailing John Boulanger at john.boulanger@slcgov.com.

Community Gardens

By Nicole Muehle, SLCgreen Intern

Community gardens are starting to play a more vital role in the lives of those that live in Salt Lake City. The City has eight City-owned or managed sites with the appropriate sun exposure, waterlines, and conditions to create sustainable community gardens. A high demand of community gardens downtown highlights their importance to a strong, local food system and healthy food access. Growing food in a community garden gives those with little to no land the ability to have fresh organic produce.

One of the newest gardens, Off Broadway Community Garden, is located at 337 South 400 East. What is now a flourishing garden used to be a vacant lot! The history of Plot 337 is unique in that it was temporarily an art exhibit, created with the knowledge that demolition would ensue. From one art form to another, the parking lot has transformed into a vibrant and flourishing community garden. Some of the SLCgreen interns had the privilege of getting a tour of the garden.

If you are interested in learning more or having your own plot at one of the community gardens around the city, visit our webpage.

Here are some before and after photos of the Off Broadway Community Garden.

Buildings are Key to Salt Lake City’s Clean Air Future

Buildings represent a large and growing part of our local air quality problem. A new infographic, released at the Mayor’s Project Skyline Awards Ceremony, presents statistics on building energy efficiency and economic benefits. For example, buildings contribute nearly 40% of pollutants on a typical winter day. By making buildings more energy efficient, we can conserve enough resources to power up to 37,000 homes every year. If Salt Lake City were to adopt energy savings best practices, building owners across the city could save up to $48 million dollars annually.

As many know, Salt Lake City has significantly poor air quality, especially during the winter months; however, fewer know how dramatically we can improve our air quality by improving the energy efficiency of our buildings. By making large buildings in Salt Lake City more energy efficient, we could remove one million pounds of pollutants, which equates to taking 32,000 vehicles off the road for one year. Additionally, we would prevent 650 million pounds of CO₂ from entering the atmosphere each year! View the complete infographic for additional facts.

Join us and become a part of Project Skyline to save money, improve property values, and clean our air.

Salt Lake City Announces Project Skyline Challenge Award Winners

Today, Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker, Kathleen Hogan, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency for the U.S. Department of Energy, and Matthew Dalbey, Director of the Office of Sustainable Communities for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, joined City leaders and building owners in honoring the winners of the Project Skyline Mayor’s Challenge 2015 Awards. Project Skyline, a multi-year challenge to reduce building energy use in buildings across the city, was launched in May 2014. The goal is to challenge building owners across Salt Lake City to proactively meet – and exceed – the air quality and energy-saving targets of the Sustainable Salt Lake – Plan 2015 by 15 percent by 2020. Throughout its first year, Project Skyline has been overwhelmingly successful, hosting educational and networking workshops, providing resources for evaluating the building’s energy use, and helping establish energy-saving goals for each business involved.

At the 2015 Project Skyline Awards Luncheon, five winners were recognized for their leadership in Challenge efforts over the past year.

This year, the Energy Innovator Award goes to Basic Research. Basic Research has improved the efficiency of their 230,000-square-foot facility by improving the lighting, HVAC systems, and installing the largest privately owned solar photovoltaic project in the state of Utah. By making these improvements, Basic Research has improved their ENERGY STAR score from 10 to 99.

The Sustained Excellence Award goes to Fidelity Investments. Across the country, Fidelity Investments is working to obtain LEED certification in 65 percent of their buildings and their location on 49 N 400 W is no exception. The building falls under LEED Silver certification, and recently, they added LED lighting and lighting controls and photovoltaic panels to improve the building’s ENERGYSTAR score to 96.

The McGillis School, a private co-ed school located on the Northeast bench of the Salt Lake Valley, has earned the Most-Improved EnergyStar Score Award. In 2014, the school reported an ENERYSTAR score of 97, which marks a 17 point improvement from 2013.

The Energy Efficiency Leadership Award goes to Newmark Grubb ACRES. Throughout the past year, Newmark Grubb ACRES has helped tremendously attending and presenting at multiple workshops. Company leadership also participates on BOMA Utah’s Energy and Sustainability committee and helped launch the BOMA Utah Kilowatt Crackdown. Additionally, the company is working on energy efficiency in several of its properties and are continuing to improve their ENERGYSTAR scores.

Lastly, the Benchmarking Champion Award goes to the Salt Lake City School District. Since 2009, the Salt Lake City School District has begun benchmarking to monitor energy consumption in over 40 buildings. Not only are 72 percent of the district’s schools benchmarked, but they are also certified ENERGY STAR buildings. They have seen an an 18 percent improvement in ENERGY STAR scores in all of their buildings.

Congratulations to these businesses. For more information on Project Skyline and the Mayor’s Challenge, visit our website.

Double Up Food Bucks

SLCgreen is excited to highlight the Double Up Food Bucks program, which began July 1^st, 2015 and is available at 19 different farmers’ markets around the state.

Back for its second year, this program helps low income families who participate in SNAP (supplemental nutrition assistance program) stretch their food dollars by matching dollar for dollar on farmers’ market and farm stand purchases. This win-win-win program helps families afford fresh, healthy produce, while also supporting local farmers, and keeping food dollars within the local economy.

“According to a study completed by Sustainable Seattle, every dollar spent at a farmers’ market generates $2.80 of local economic activity. The benefit of Salt Lake City’s portion of the grant has potential to contribute as much as $336,000 to our local, Salt Lake City economy while increasing access to healthy food among our food insecure residents.”

Salt Lake City is committed to developing a more accessible, healthy, and equitable local food system. Food Security is one of the twelve core areas in the City’s Livability agenda. Therefore, Salt Lake City has committed $60,000 to the Double Up Food Bucks program. This funding will support the program in conjunction with additional Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentive (FINI) grant funding awarded to Utahns Against Hunger.

So far this season there have already been 500 SNAP/ food stamp transactions at local farmers’ markets. With nearly 32,000 individuals participating in SNAP in Salt Lake City, the Double Up Food Bucks program will help even more families put fresh fruits and vegetables on the table.

For more information about how the program works, and where you can find a farmers’ market near you that supports this program, click here and visit the Utahns Against Hunger website.

Cottonwood Canyons Foundation Mountain Clean-up at Alta Ski Area, July 11th

By Nicole Muehle, SLCgreen Intern

Come out to Alta on Saturday, July 11^th from 8:00am to noon, and help clean-up Albion Basin. Volunteers will be able to ride the ski lift up to the top, and then hike down while picking up the winter’s trash. All volunteers are required to register by calling either (801) 466-6411 or emailing volunteer@cottonwoodcanyons.org.

For more information on events that Cottonwood Canyons Foundation will be holding, see the flyer below.

City Continues Efforts to Reduce Emissions with New Electric Vehicles

With ongoing air quality problems, the City continues efforts to reduce its overall emissions. Seven new, all-electric vehicles are being added to the City’s fleet this year, replacing older, fossil fuel-burning vehicles and helping to achieve aggressive emission reduction goals set by Mayor Becker. Salt Lake City has a total of 224 clean vehicles as part of its fleet, including clean diesel, CNG, all-electric and hybrid-electric options. Since 2009, the percentage of clean fleet vehicles operated by the City has grown from just over 2% to more than 15% of the total fleet. The City has historically focused on integrating hybrid-electric vehicles, with 120 of these in the current fleet, but new all-electric sedans represent an even greater air quality benefit due to zero tailpipe emissions.

“Our program to carefully assess emissions and local air pollutant impacts, as part of the cost-to-own analysis for fleet purchases, is paying dividends,” said Mayor Becker. “We weigh these factors to produce outcomes that mitigate climate and air quality impacts and save taxpayer resources.”

Salt Lake City currently operates public EV charging stations at six separate locations. The City recently received a $200,000 grant from the Utah Division of Air Quality to expand public charging options and will use these funds to install 25 new charging ports throughout the City.

Residents can review, and weigh-in on, the City’s work to reduce its overall carbon footprint via the Sustainable City Dashboard tool, here.

Idle Free City Celebration

An Idle Free City celebration took place at Liberty Park Tuesday morning. This media event included speeches by Mayor Becker, UCAIR Director, Ted Wilson, and Youth City students. High pollution levels are affecting air quality this summer. Join the Clear the Air Challenge, which starts today, and remember, turn your key, be idle free!

slcGreen Blog

Updates and musings from the Salt Lake City Sustainability Department