Beyond the Boom

The Rocky Mountain News did a series on the energy boom rocking parts of Colorado and how communities are enjoying, coping, and mitigating the impacts (or at least trying to). The series offers a a number of perspectives and the challenges involved in local-state-federal policy making and planning.

The day 1 article in the series, entitled “The billion dollar question: What if?”, is particularly interesting because two state legislators have taken seemingly opposite positions from the ones you would think they would take given their respective political ties. Their perspective is likely influenced by their location place in the state and the energy boom.

Representative Josh Penry, a Mesa County Republican, is witnessing the energy boom first hand and is a big supporter of creating a permanent trust fund from oil and gas severance taxes – similar to what Wyoming did a decade ago. Chris Romer, a Democratic Senator from the Denver Metro area, favors the more measured approach of analyzing how taxes are currently collected and allocated before the state tries to set up a permanent fund.

Who’s the conservative in this debate?

Read the entire series

Economies collide with nature

The natural resource based economy that dominated the Western Slope of Colorado for so many years is making a come back.

As Jason Blevins writes in the Sunday Denver Post, mining is coming back to a number of communities due to increasing demand and prices for precious minerals like molybdenum.

If the recent natural gas boom in Garfield County offers any crystal ball, more Western Slope communities are due increasing revenues, stressed infrastructure, a quick disappearance of affordable housing, and a shortage of workers.

The natural amenity and natural resource economy are colliding and the only thing they have in common is a reliance on nature.

Garfield County sees explosive growth

Garfield County received front page space in the Sunday Denver Post due to the energy boom driving the county’s economy.

Jason Blevins story captures the essence of life in Garfield County since the boom began five years ago. As New Castle Mayor Frank Breslin says, “It’s just all happening so fast out here. I just dart around like a bumblebee.”

The economic growth has been a boon to a county mired in a slump cause by the overnight departure of Exxon (Black Sunday) in 1982 and the county now has more jobs than it has workers. The challenge for the public sector is to try tokeep up and pay for the infrastructure to support the increases in traffic, homes, and wastewater while competing with the gas companies for workers.

Blevins quotes Christy Hamrick, the finance director for Garfield County’s 4,500-student school district, “We pay drivers $14 an hour, and they pay $22 an hour. We have to compete with that, and we’ve seen lots of turnover. ”

TOD can save the planet

Transit oriented development is gaining traction around the U.S. (it’s already popular in many other countries) because it can address many community issues — provide affordable housing, increase transit service, prevent loss of open space, create public places — at the same time.

And now, in case you needed another reason to support TOD, it can also save the planet. As San Mateo County Supervisior Adrienne Tissier writes,

The solutions to global warming are found in modern urban planning and zoning and three little words: Transit Oriented Development. Build well-designed, affordable housing within walking distance of efficient mass transit, and the air-fouling traffic jams will unclog themselves. Better yet, build well-designed, affordable housing within walking distance of jobs, schools and retail, and car use will plummet.

It is nice to know that something good for a community has a global benefit as well.

Green buildings get preference in Saanich

Saanich, BC wants residential builders to build “green” by cutting “red” tape. It is giving priority to applications for housing projects using energy-efficient components and provide those builders rebates of up to 30 per cent on building-permit fees.

Read the full article . . .

System versus Silo Thinking

Neal Peirce writes about the the “green revolution” happening in America’s cities and towns in the January, American Prospect. 

Peirce describes a number of cities (Chicago, Philadelphia, Seattle) that are re-connecting the commons (parks, roads, rivers, and everywhere there is public investment) through public infrastructure investments to create heatlhy places.  The projects are bold, exciting, and hold promise for state and national policy.  But, he points out, the work ahead requires a change it the way we think and approach problem solving.  He writes,

“[...] there’s the challenge to the professionals — the architects, planners, designers, engineers, builders, utility representatives, city and county housing officials, and others engaged on the front line of building and reshaping communities. Historically — and often, still today — they have worked sequentially, first doing the land planning, then the underground pipes, then roadways and buildings and so on.

In a smart 21st century, that won’t do. It costs too much and it misses opportunities for better aesthetics, energy efficiency, and quality of life. The time’s at hand to move from silos to systems [emphasis added]. It’s the right moment to ask the professionals to start thinking more broadly, to work closely with colleagues from the other disciplines from start to end of any project.”

Win-Win transportation solutions

Todd Litman of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute has just released a report on transportation programs and policy reforms that can support environmental, social, and economic goals – a triple bottom line. As he comments in the introduction,

People often assume that environmental, social and economic goals conflict. For example, policies to reduce climate change emissions and programs to improve accessibility for disadvantaged people are often opposed on grounds that they are costly and harmful to the economy. But such conflicts can be avoided. Some strategies that support environmental and social objectives also benefit the economy.

This paper identifies more than a dozen such strategies, which we call Win-Win Transportation Solutions. These are cost-effective, technically feasible policy reforms and programs that help solve transport problems by improving transport options and correcting market distortions that result in economically excessive motor vehicle travel. These are considered “no regrets” strategies because they are justified even if the severity of environmental and social risks is uncertain.

Read the full report . . .

Carbondale aims to be renewable energy Mecca

While the western portion of Garfield County is booming with oil and gas development, and the associated environmental impacts, the eastern end of the county is looking in a different direction for energy production.

Carbondale Question 2F on the Nov. 7 ballot will ask voters to allow the town of Carbondale to issue up to $1.8 million in Clean Renewable Energy Bonds (CREBs) to construct and operate two large-scale solar systems.

The proposed systems would provide about 250 kilowatts (KW) of power. One of the systems would be the largest solar system in western Colorado.

Voting “yes” on 2F will increase the town’s debt, but will not raise local taxes. Revenue from the solar systems will pay off the bonds over the next 20 years. And, under a provision of the 2005 Energy Incentives Tax Act, the interest on the CREBs will be paid by the U.S. Government.

Carbondale trustees unanimously decided to pursue the CREBs after the town’s advisory environmental board produced the Carbondale Energy Plan earlier this year. The plan outlines specific ways Carbondale can reduce its contribution to global warming.

The CREBs will fund two separate solar projects, one for 50 kilowatts (KW) and one for 200 KW. The 50 KW system will be located at the Carbondale Elementary School (the town is in negotiations with the school district to purchase the property) or the new recreation center and the larger system will be located either at Colorado Rocky Mountain School or at the town’s Roaring Fork water plant.

Read full article by Gina Guarascio . . .

Meanwhile Boulder considers a Carbon Tax . . .

Trees for the urban environment and community equity

Trees in an arid environment such as Denver cannot be taken for granted. But it is not only rain fall that determines the type and number of trees – commuity income plays a factor as well.

A 2003 Denver park study showed lower-income neighborhoods have less than 5 percent canopy cover while higher-income neighborhoods had more than 15 percent cover.

“It’s pretty remarkable when you see the disparity,” said Patrick Hayes, director of the Park People, which plants more than 1,000 trees a year in poorer neighborhoods.

Adding trees to a semi-arid steppe ecosystem isn’t natural, but neither are concrete, asphalt or Kentucky bluegrass, said Dan Binkley, a professor in Colorado State University’s department of forestry, rangeland and watershed stewardship.

“The trees will use water,” he said. “It’s similar to the amount of water on lawns. But there is more of a cooling effect and more noise abatement.”

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper wants to raise the metro area’s shade coverage to 18 percent in 20 years by planting 1 million trees over the next 20 years.

That comes to 137 trees being planted every day – 50,000 new trees every year.

“It’s a question, like anything, of who, where and when,” Hickenlooper said about the proposal announced in July as part of his Greenprint Denver plan.

Read the full article in the Denver Post . . .

Oil shale looms over region

If the economy of the the Western Slope weren’t already hot enough, the promise (or spector depending on your perspective) looms over discussions about what the future might hold for the area.

Since the Colorado State Demographer already forecasts significant population and job growth for Eagle, Pitkin, and Garfield Counties over the next 20-30 years (and that’s “without considering oil shale” goes the common rejoinder), what happens with oil shale research and development hoovers over the region’s collective imagination.

The region’s oil shale deposits hold enough potential “oil” (three times the reserves of Saudi Arabia) to attract a lot of national attention. Unfortunately, as an article in the San Francisco Chronicle reports, “the energy value of the oil produced would be about 3.5 times greater than the energy in the electricity used to produce it.”

Even if the technology evolves enough to extract oil from oil shale, we’ve centainly entered a would of diminishing energy returns.