Assessing Climate Vulnerability in Erie County

By P. Josh Wilson, Director of Sustainability, Erie County Department of Environment and Planning

As the impacts from climate change take over headlines, local governments are on the front lines protecting their communities and responding to the consequences. These impacts disproportionately affect our most vulnerable residents, and New York State counties, with their important emergency, public health, planning, and social services roles, are the lynch pins for integrating climate resilience into our communities’ plans and operations.

Western New York, the region that is home to Erie County, is in some ways in an enviable position – with temperate weather moderated by the Great Lakes, abundant fresh water, and long distance from the ocean, we are better known for snow storms than heat waves, droughts or hurricanes. But this narrative of our region as a ‘climate oasis’ can also be a trap. For example, one respected climate model has shown a potential for seventeen 100-degree days per year in Buffalo by 2070. We are a community that has never recorded a single 100-degree day, many of our buildings lack air conditioning, and in many ways, we are more vulnerable to heat events than communities that regularly deal with high heat. Our older building stock and high proportion of seniors and low-income residents magnify this threat.

Erie County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz has overseen a broad effort to take action on climate change and in 2019 the county began work on a Climate Vulnerability Assessment (CVA). This effort, led by the Department of Environment and Planning, focuses on the county’s role in addressing climate threats. The work is being supported by the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation’s Climate Smart Communities program, which has provided a grant that is allowing the county to work with a team from University at Buffalo that includes Dr. Susan Clark, Dr. Christian Renschler, Jonathan Townsend and Samantha Horne. The CVA has been conducted with input and oversight from our Community Climate Change Task Force, which is made up of expert and community stakeholders, and advises the county on our climate action initiatives. The project is nearing completion, and will wrap up later this year.

The CVA effort is using a three-phase approach:

• Assess the upcoming threats from climate change, such as extreme weather events and vector borne disease;

• Investigate the sensitivity of the community to these climate threats; and

• Determine the adaptive capacity of the county to address the identified threats and sensitivities.

The first phase of the project involved a review and prioritization of various potential climate change threats. Based on this assessment, we determined that the following threats merited further investigation for the remainder of the project: increasing heat events, precipitation events and flooding, and biological threats from vector borne disease, invasive species and harmful algal blooms. Later, we added some emphasis on extreme wind and lake seiche events (which lead to shoreline erosion and stability issues).

In the next phase, we developed a sensitivity analysis for the identified threats. Climate sensitivity refers to the degree to which our community is impacted by the anticipated climate related hazards. For each particular hazard we conducted mapping of three facets of sensitivity: landscape attributes, socioeconomic attributes, and mobility. Using this approach, we developed a series of maps that estimate sensitivity to the particular climate hazards.

We are currently wrapping up the third and final phase of the project, which includes a series of interviews with key community stakeholders and county departments, including Homeland Security and Emergency Services, Health, Social Services, Senior Services, and Public Works to better understand our operational and community capacity to protect the community.

The CVA process has helped the county work across silos to address threats that demand a coordinated response. The results have been informative. For example, while we already have identified cooling centers for heat waves, many of them lack backup generation to provide cooling if power is interrupted. Issues like this are now contextualized in terms of climate threats and sensitivities in a way that lets us prioritize our response. And, over and over during this effort one thing has become clear: there is a large economic and social benefit to getting in front of this issue now versus later.

As a next step, we are building climate resilience into an equityfocused community climate action planning effort that will wrap up in 2022. The resilience section of that plan will build on the CVA and will include laying out a series of strategies and actions Erie County will take to make our communities less vulnerable. We recognize the challenge in front of us and that our work will make our community stronger as we enter an uncertain future.

For more information about Erie County’s climate work, visit: www.erie.gov/climateaction.

Creating a ‘Just Transition’ for Communities Impacted by Power Plant Closures

By Stephen J. Acquario, NYSAC Executive Director

As many of you know, New York recently enacted the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. This is among the most ambitious climate laws in the world and requires New York State to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent by 2030 and 85 percent by 2050. This aggressive plan is important for combating climate change, but it could have financial consequences for our counties. Specifically, the transition to renewable energy means that jobs in many of our communities as well as the tax revenues associated with existing fossil fuel-fired power plants may be lost.

A new grant program established by the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA), may be of interest to your county. The program, titled the “Just Transition Site Reuse Planning Program” was developed to assist communities who will in the future or are currently experiencing negative economic impacts of fossil fuel power plant closures.

The program provides communities with planning and assistance for the closure of a fossil fuel-fired power plant and the attendant loss of tax revenue and most unfortunately, job losses. Under this program, NYSERDA will provide communities with 100% of the site reuse planning costs, with no cost share required.

In addition, among the goals of the program are converting former power plant sites into productive alternate uses consistent with the needs of the community. Working with the affected community, NYSERDA and its contractors will develop a comprehensive plan, which will include the following:

• A detailed site evaluation

• Economic analyses and tax impacts

• Community engagement

• Alternative reuse plans

• Evaluation of demolition costs, and Further assistance can be provided to achieve more advanced community revitalization goals, which may include infrastructure assessments, environmental investigations, development of marketing material, labor strategies, community revitalization strategies, public engagement methods, and other studies or plans as identified through the initial baseline planning process.

Each participant is eligible for up to $150,000 in grant funding, dependent on the scope of work identified in the application and determined in conjunction with NYSERDA and their selected contractor. Applicants who have a Disadvantaged Community (DAC) within their municipality may be eligible for additional funding.

Applicants must be a county, city, town, or village that is home to a fossil-fuel power plant that has been decommissioned within the last five (5) years, is currently being decommissioned, or has confirmed its plans to retire and deactivate by a certain date in the future.

Applicants that are home to other operating fossil fuel facilities that commenced operations prior to 1990 will also be considered.

Once selected, the program participant is responsible for identifying and committing a qualified staff resource to serve as the project liaison for the duration of the planning process.

The project liaison is responsible for identifying and soliciting members to participate on a steering committee and facilitating routine meetings. In addition, the project liaison will coordinate site activities related to the power plant site.

If this program applies to your county or a city, town, or village within your county, I urge you to take advantage of the grant. Specific questions regarding the program should be directed to NYSERDA at jtplanning@nyserda.ny.gov.

The application can be found at the below link: https://www. nyserda.ny.gov/All-Programs/Programs/Just-Transition-SiteReuse-Planning