FOR LEADERS IN GOVERNMENT, EDUCATION & HEALTHCARE.
SUSTAINABLE CITY NETWORK
4
VOLUME 19 APRIL 2016
PITTSBURGH SHAKES OFF THE RUST LEADERBOARD SERIES
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e City SustainaWbl ORK NET
SPONSORED BY: CRESCENT ELECTRIC SUPPLY CO.
10 REPURPOSING DECOMMISSIONED OFFICE FURNITURE & EQUIPMENT 12 2015 EARTH’S WARMEST YEAR BY WIDEST MARGIN ON RECORD 26 ACCOMMODATING PEDESTRIANS IN ACTIVE WORK ZONES
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9TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE OCTOBER 4-6 2016
PR ES ENT ED & H O S T ED B Y :
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A two-day sustainability conference for municipal and business professionals. Ideas, plans and best practices. S P O N S O R ED BY:
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contents
4
VOLUME 19 APRIL 2016
Repurposing Decommissioned Office Furniture & Equipment
10
2015 Earth’s Warmest Year by Widest Margin on Record
12
How Ice Storms May Shape the Future of Forests
14
Portland Works for Social Equity
16
Taking the Fuel Out of Wild Fires
20
How Philanthropy Funds Sustainability
22
Success of Community Choice Aggregation Leads to Expansion
24
Accommodating Pedestrians in Active Work Zones
26
cover story
PITTSBURGH SHAKES OFF THE RUST
20
Taking the Fuel Out of Wild Fires
[1]
Sustainable City Network Magazine
The Best of Sustainable City Network is a quarterly magazine highlighting the most popular articles posted on sCityNetwork.com, an online trade publication that serves government, education and healthcare institutions in all 50 U.S. states and the provinces of Canada. The magazine is available in print or as a digital download at www.sCityNetwork.com/bestof. The opinions expressed in the magazine are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sustainable City Network or WoodwardBizMedia. SUBSCRIPTIONS Contact 563.588.4492; info@scitynetwork.com www.sCityNetwork.com
For Leaders in Government, Education & Healthcare
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Sustainable City Network magazine is produced by WoodwardBizMedia, a division of Woodward Communications, Inc. GROUP PUBLISHER Karen Ruden PUBLISHER & EXECUTIVE EDITOR Randy Rodgers ASSOCIATE EDITORS Kathy Regan Michael Manning BUSINESS MANAGER Linda Flannery CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Jennifer Foden F. Alan Shirk Michelle Volkmann The Cary Institute for Ecological Studies CREATIVE DESIGN Eric Faramus Unless otherwise noted, all images used throughout © 2016 Ingimage, all rights reserved. Sustainable City Network 801 Bluff Street Dubuque, Iowa 52001 Visit Us On The Web sCityNetwork.com Printed on recycled paper
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Upcoming Online Courses Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment
Online Class – April 6-7, 2016 In this 4-hour online course, you’ll learn to assess the environmental, economic and social impacts of materials and processes across their entire life cycles to produce the most sustainable outcomes. This course will be presented live on April 6 and 7, and will be recorded for on-demand access for 30 days following the live sessions. Learn more at http://sCityNetwork.com/LifeCycle
Sustainability in the City of Pittsburgh
Free 1-Hour Webinar - April 28, 2016 Grant Ervin, chief resilience officer for the City of Pittsburgh will explain how the city reinvented itself in the 21st Century, after heavy industry in the 20th Century made it the most polluted city in the country and left its economy in ruins. Learn more at http://sCityNetwork.com/Pittsburgh
Using Urban Trees for Stormwater Management
Online Class – June 15-16, 2016 In this 4-hour online course, Peter MacDonagh, adjunct practice professor at the University of Minnesota and director of science & design at the Kestrel Design Group, will convey the latest developments in using urban trees for sustainable stormwater management, including new research results, policy, and case studies. Learn more at http://sCityNetwork.com/UrbanTrees
from the editor Welcome to Sustainable City Network Magazine – the Best of sCityNetwork.com! This quarterly magazine is a compilation of the most popular articles on our web site and in our email newsletter, the InBox, which is delivered to more than 40,000 leaders in government, education and healthcare across the U.S. and Canada. Sustainable City Network produces advertiser-supported, non-partisan articles, webinars, trade shows and white papers that provide local institutions with quality, organized and timely information about sustainability projects, plans and best practices. This magazine is another way we fulfill our mission.
Randy Rodgers Publisher & Executive Editor SUSTAINABLE CITY NETWORK www.sCityNetwork.com 801 Bluff Street Dubuque, IA 52001 563.588.3853 randy@scitynetwork.com
OUR MISSION “To make U.S. cities more sustainable through quality and well-organized information.”
In this issue, we continue our Leaderboard Series with a profile of Pittsburgh, Penn., a city that lost half its population in the 1980s when the steel and electronics industries collapsed, leaving behind multiple 100-acre brownfield sites where mills and factories once stood. Today, Pittsburgh has rebounded in a big way with new, high-tech employers like Google, Uber, Apple, Intel, IBM and others who represent a combined annual payroll of $20.7 billion, nearly 34 percent of the region’s wages. With dozens of colleges and universities, the Pittsburgh metro area attracts a young, educated workforce that is helping to drive tremendous economic growth and sustainable living. In our cover story, you’ll meet Pittsburgh’s Chief Resilience Officer Grant Ervin, who describes how the city has made such an amazing comeback, from one of the most polluted places on earth to a city often heralded as one of the “most livable” today. Ervin will also be featured in an upcoming free Sustainable City Network webinar (sign up for the live event or download the recording afterwards at http://sCityNetwork.com/Pittsburgh/). In other top stories: Learn how to repurpose decommissioned office furniture and equipment so it doesn’t end up in the landfill; find out how the city of Portland is integrating social equity into its policy making processes; and find out how philanthropy is helping to finance sustainability. Other articles in this issue focus on climate change; wild fire prevention; the effects ice storms have on forests; the latest on community choice aggregation; and best practices for accommodating pedestrians in active work zones. The articles in this magazine have been selected by our readers. We’ve packaged them together in this convenient magazine format, available as a digital download or in print at sCityNetwork.com/Bestof. We hope you find value inside.
The U.S. Leader in Sustainability News & Information Best Practices for Leaders in Government, Education and Healthcare [3]
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PITTSBURGH SHAKES OFF THE RUST CITY REBOUNDS WITH A NEW KIND OF STEEL BY RANDY RODGERS, PUBLISHER & EXECUTIVE EDITOR
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“One of the things we’ve been very successful at is pulling together networks of departments, agencies, universities, nonprofits and private-sector partners from across the city… to improve the resiliency and sustainability of the city itself.” -GRANT ERVIN
How does a city go from being one of the most polluted places on earth to becoming a shining example of economic resilience and ecological recovery?
GRANT ERVIN is chief resilience officer for the City of Pittsburgh
Well, for the city of Pittsburgh, it’s been complicated. While the city’s past stands as a testament to the iniquity of unbridled industrial exploitation, the course it has set for the future is decidedly more sustainable.
Unfortunately, along with Pittsburgh’s industrial heritage came a legacy of fouled air and water. “The legend goes that when oil was discovered in northern Pennsylvania they actually would float oil slicks down the river to refineries near town,” Ervin said. Whether that legend is true or not, historians at the Paleontological Research Institution acknowledge that soon after the first commercial oil well began production in 1859, the oil was transported by small flatboats to refineries in Pittsburgh and “the amount of oil lost to the river due to leaky barrels and boating accidents… has been estimated at more than 50 percent.”
Photo: Golden Triangle Bike
Once the nation’s eighth largest city with more than 600,000 people, Pittsburgh was a microcosm of America at the turn of the 20th Century, as described by author Stefan Lorant in his 1964 book Pittsburgh, the Story of an American City. Extracting oil, gas, coal, timber and iron ore at a feverish pace, Pittsburgh was an industrial juggernaut, at one time accounting for
nearly half of the country’s steel output and half of the world’s crude oil. The first oil well and the first commercial natural gas well in the United States were both located within 100 miles of Pittsburgh, said Grant Ervin, chief resilience officer for the city.
■■ Beginning in 1999, the local Pittsburgh group Riverlife began working on plans for the redevelopment of Pittsburgh’s downtown riverfronts. Today, more
than 80 percent of the 13-mile Three Rivers Park loop has been completed. Pittsburgh is also participating with the PeopleForBikes Green Lane Program, developing a number of protected bike lanes throughout the city. [5]
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The city’s steel industry reached its peak during World War II, when Pittsburgh area mills operated 24 hours a day to produce 95 million tons of steel for the war effort, according to Lorant’s book. That’s also when the city’s air quality reached its all-time low. It was said that the smog in Pittsburgh was so thick that it was not uncommon for the streetlights to be turned on during the day.
In 1962, nature writer Rachel Carson, a native of Springdale, Penn., just northeast of Pittsburgh, authored Silent Spring, a book that is widely considered to have inspired the modern environmental movement, ultimately resulting in the establishment of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the banning of the pesticide DDT, among other reforms.
After the war, the environmental toll resulting from decades of unrestrained industry and agriculture was not lost on the people of Pittsburgh, Ervin said. When David Lawrence was elected mayor in 1946, a position he held for four terms, he vowed to clean up the city. Lawrence, a Democrat, famously worked with Republican colleagues to develop one of the first urban renewal plans in America, dubbed the “Renaissance.” Elected governor of Pennsylvania in 1959, Lawrence took his passion for environmental protection to the statehouse and implemented many environmental reforms statewide.
“So, there’s a long history and ethos of environmental protection here in the city of Pittsburgh that goes back several generations,” Ervin said. “The concepts that (Carson) talked about in Silent Spring were really born here in the city of Pittsburgh and southwestern Pennsylvania.” The city launched its second major urban renewal project, Renaissance II, in 1977, but when the steel and electronics industries collapsed in the 1980s, Pittsburgh fell on hard times, losing nearly half its population. Where the iconic mills and factories once stood, now were numerous 100-acre brownfields, Ervin said. At the time, it was a trend seen repeatedly throughout the Great Lakes area, which was popularly referred to as America’s “Rust Belt.” Having no place to go but up, Pittsburgh had to reinvent itself in the 21st Century. It started by diversifying its economy. Over the past two decades, the city has shifted its economic base from heavy industry to technology, health care, advanced materials, life sciences, homeland security, tourism, education and financial services. According to the Pittsburgh Technology Council, the region’s technology industries, which include Google, Uber, Apple, Intel, IBM and others, have a combined payroll of $20.7 billion, representing nearly 34 percent of the region’s wages. With 25 public and private four-year colleges and universities, and dozens of other post-secondary schools, Pittsburgh has become a trendy city with a large population of young adults. The median age of a Pittsburgh resident is just under 34 (about seven years younger than the Pennsylvania average), according to City-Data.com.
Photo: Rivers of Steel
In 2006, the city of Pittsburgh assembled a Green Government Task Force that developed the community’s first sustainability plan and climate action plan. Its work resulted in hiring the city’s first sustainability coordinator and establishing the Pittsburgh Sustainability Commission. One of the founding members of that commission was Pittsburgh’s current mayor, Bill Peduto, then a city council member. When Peduto was elected mayor in 2014, he named Ervin the city’s first sustainability manager. ■■ Built in 1907, the Carrie Furnaces produced iron for the Homestead Works
from 1907 to 1978. During the 1920s, 1930s,and 1940s, furnaces six and seven consumed approximately four tons of raw materials comprised of iron ore, coke, and limestone for every ton of iron produced. During its peak, the site produced 1,000 to 1,250 tons of iron per day. The site is now being developed as a park. [6]
“The idea of my position was to focus not only on internal operations, our fleet, our facilities, as well as our employee engagement, but also to cross policy areas that influence land use, transportation, waste systems, water, etc.,” Ervin said. His title recently changed to chief resilience officer to reflect an expansion of his responsibilities after the city was selected as one of the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities in 2015. As part
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of that project, Ervin is leading the effort to create Pittsburgh’s first resiliency plan, along with developing the city’s third-generation climate action plan. Ervin attributes much of Pittsburgh’s progress to a strong network of collaborative partners. “One of the things we’ve been very successful at is pulling together networks of departments, agencies, universities, nonprofits and private-sector partners from across the city… to improve the resiliency and sustainability of the city itself,” Ervin said. “What started out with city departments and authorities has grown to include a host of non-governmental organizations and is now expanding to universities, researchers and other groups.” Some of the local groups include the following: • Pittsburgh’s Green Building Alliance, founded in 1993 with start-up funding from The Heinz Endowments, was the first nonprofit organization in the country to focus exclusively on the greening of a region’s commercial building sector. As a result, Pittsburgh has two 2030 districts where 70 percent of its commercial buildings are participating in the 2030 Challenge, with a goal to cut their energy and water consumption in half by the year 2030. • Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University are founding members of the MetroLab Network, a recently-launched network of more than 20 city-university partnerships focused on sustainability issues.
• The ReEnergize Pittsburgh Coalition (RPC) is a collaboration of several local groups dedicated to increasing access to and demand for energy efficiency and healthy homes throughout western Pennsylvania. • The Clean River Campaign is an education and advocacy program raising awareness of stormwater runoff and combined sewage overflow issues in Allegheny County. • The Climate & Urban Systems Partnership (CUSP) is a group of science educators, climate scientists, and learning scientists in four Northeast U.S. cities, including Pittsburgh. “So, that ability to pull together people to collaborate and come to a common, collective set of outcomes to enhance sustainability has resulted in some of the best things that we’ve been able to accomplish,” Ervin said. The results of Pittsburgh’s makeover have not gone unnoticed. The city has topped a “most livable city” list six times since 2000, including those of Forbes, the Economist and Rand McNally’s Places Rated Almanac. Selection criteria varies, but typically includes such categories as cost of living, transportation, jobs and education. The city is so proud of the designation that it added the phrase to its logo in recent years. Pittsburgh’s journey toward sustainability is an ongoing process, and no one is suggesting that it has reached its destination. In 2015, it
• The Higher Education Climate Consortium (HECC) has the mission to engage all of the Pittsburgh region’s colleges and universities to align with the Pittsburgh Climate Initiative, the city’s greenhouse gas reduction project.
• Sustainable Pittsburgh is a regional sustainability advocacy group funded by a variety of community foundations in the Pittsburgh area. • The Student Conservation Association (SCA) was founded in 2008 to place sustainability fellows into local governments, nonprofits, businesses and community organizations to provide manpower for sustainability initiatives.
Photo: Rivers of Steel
• PennFuture is a local group created by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Heinz Endowments in 1998 to advocate for strong environmental and public health policies.
■■ Located along the Monongahela River just across the Homestead Hi-Level Bridge in Homestead, Penn.,
these huge brick chimneys are the only remnant of the former Homestead steel mill, which was founded in 1881 and ceased operations in 1986. [7]
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Photo: Carnegie Museum of Art / VisitPittsburgh
put further strain on a system that is already inadequate. Currently, a shower producing as little as 1/10th of an inch of rain can overload Pittsburgh’s sewer system with excess stormwater and cause combined sewer overflows throughout the city.
■■ Pittsburgh’s steel, oil and food industries helped create a number of famously wealthy families, including
those of Andrew Carnegie and Henry J. Heinz, both of whom founded civic and philanthropic institutions in Pittsburgh. The Carnegie Museum of Art (pictured) is one of four Carnegie museums in the city.
still ranked among the American Lung Association’s list of the 25 U.S. metropolitan areas with the poorest air quality, thanks partly to the region’s continued reliance on coal-fired power plants. And, Ervin said, the city’s aging combined sewer system remains a major challenge.
Working against the status quo and changing some of Pittsburgh’s legacy systems and infrastructure have challenged Ervin the most. “We’re in the heart of coal country, in the heart of the Marcellus natural gas region, so these are long-standing historic components of our energy system, and the country’s energy system,” he said. “So in one regard, we’re battling the demons of our past but we also recognize that there’s a key transition to our future that deals with better managing those resources, but also transitioning to cleaner and more renewable fuel.”
“We’re introducing new ideas and new strategies and tactics that are trying to change mindsets that were established in some cases for good reason, given our regional makeup, and things like that don’t happen overnight,” Ervin said. n
“We’re really trying to advance the mitigation of combined sewer overflows as part of our consent decree through the Department of Environmental Protection, and that is really driving a lot of green infrastructure conversations within the city,” Ervin said. He said the primary impacts of climate change in the Pittsburgh area is expected to be stronger and more frequent storms, which will
Free webinar April 28: Sustainability and Resiliency in the City of Pittsburgh. Register at http://sCityNetwork.com/Pittsburgh. [8]
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Sustainable City Network Magazine
Repurposing Decommissioned Office Furniture & Equipment ‘Green Standards’ Finds Homes for Unwanted Assets BY F. ALAN SHIRK
Some nine million tons of used or out-of-fashion office furniture and equipment are dumped into America’s landfills each year, according to the EPA.
JARROD CLABAUGH is director of communications for the Office Furniture Dealers Alliance (OFDA).
Yet, much of that “waste” can be diverted and repurposed, according to Green Standards, a Torontobased company that specializes in the responsible and cost-effective redistribution of surplus and obsolete office furniture, fixtures, supplies and IT equipment.
Since its inception in 2009, Green Standards has worked on more than 1,000 projects, resulting in nearly $20 million worth of in-kind donations to non-profit organizations, offsetting 60,000 tons of greenhouse gases and diverting 20,000 tons of material from landfills — nearly 99 percent of the surplus equipment it repurposed. On a turnkey basis, Green Standards, “efficiently channels surplus office assets according to its clients’ priorities for charitable donations, recycling and resale… simplifying the process by taking responsibility for vendor selection, third-party valuations, title transfers and IRS-compliant documentation,” said CEO and cofounder Richard Beaumont. “We challenge organizations to reimagine the value of their excess furniture and equipment. Every usable item is an opportunity to help nonprofits improve their workspaces, and in turn their work, and simultaneously protect the planet from the negative impact of landfill waste. “Every step towards a circular economy counts,” Beaumont continued. “To achieve zero waste, to extract full value out of our products at their end-of-life, we need to see waste as the economic opportunity it is.” The private, for-profit Green Standards serves hundreds of clients including corporations, government agencies and large non-profits with an active sales force, remote project management and key partnerships including one with Herman Miller, one of the world’s largest furniture manufacturers. [ 10 ]
The company’s North America-wide networks of non-profits, office furniture resellers, specialized recyclers and commercial movers makes it possible for Green Standards to redistribute office furniture and equipment. Sixty percent of its business is done in the U.S., 40 percent in Canada and among its largest clients are Marathon Oil, Frost Bank, Adobe, TELUS, Canada Bell, Suncor, Great West Life and Edwards Wildman. Although work is concentrated in major cities, Green Standards routinely works in small cities and with businesses of all sizes. Green Standards works with registered non-profits of all types including charities, school boards, associations, cultural groups, food banks, museums, foundations and others. Any registered non-profit is eligible to join the Green Standards network and place requests. Donation recipients are then chosen based on a number of factors — client preference, distance from the project site, size of the request and overall need for items. Green Standards notifies non-profit members when items become available. Beaumont said Green Standards began by helping companies donate used office furniture to charities, a sliver of the current business model. “Beginning in 2010, we began to grow the concept, for example, adding services like project management. We demonstrated to companies how they could trust us to manage this process and go beyond simple donations.” Green Standards, according to Beaumont, offers a significant advantage over traditional ways to dispose of office furniture. “We are doing something radically different when it comes to dealing with this issue. People tend to always stick with the tried-and-true and that’s no different when it comes to disposing of office furniture. For example, most would call a well-known liquidator and most of the furniture would wind up in the dump. “Now, we are offering a cost-benefit to companies, especially Fortune 100 and multinational businesses through our North America-wide program that can not only serve a client in a single city, but also one with locations in many cities across the U.S. and Canada.” Jarrod Clabaugh, director of communications for the Office Furniture Dealers Alliance (OFDA) based in Baltimore, said Green Standards has developed what he believes is a cutting-edge solution to recycling office furniture.
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The OFDA is one of the largest North American associations in the office furniture industry and evolved from the National Association of Stationers and Manufacturers started in 1904. That association has grown into the Independent Office Products & Furniture Dealers Association, of which the OFDA is a core division. Alongside its sister association, the National Office Products Alliance, OFDA represents more than 1,200 members, including dealers, manufacturers, wholesalers, and industry service providers. Sustainability and green initiatives are a key focus of OFDA, said Clabaugh. “While we primarily support the manufacturing side by promoting best-in-class standards like LEED and ways to make production more efficient, we are just as concerned with what happens to our products at the end of their life cycle. “Environmental issues really impact our members, so we are committed to responsible behavior. Consumers are looking at our industry and want to know that we are doing what we need to do for sustainability,” Clabaugh said.
in your backyard and around the world, which lets them focus scarce funds on their mission. You immediately transfer title, which frees you of any liability. You might also be eligible for a tax credit for the fair market value of the items donated. Most important, the earth benefits from what it doesn’t get — waste that would otherwise clog its landfills.” Green Standards Marketing and Communications Manager Nick Buccheri said Frost Bank, one of the 50 largest U.S. banks, headquartered in San Antonio, commissioned the rePurpose Program to sell, recycle and donate more than 2,500 items when Frost vacated the downtown Rand Building last April to move to a new 450,000-square-foot complex in western San Antonio. Buccheri said as part of its ongoing community initiatives, Frost donated items valued at nearly $118,000 to the San Antonio Food
“We were able to scale up significantly and know that we could exist on that scale. Today we are a triple bottom line company with three important metrics: percentage diverted, tonnage diverted and the fair market value of donations,” Beaumont explained.
Photo: Ingimage
Beaumont said he knew Green Standards would succeed at the end of 2012. “We took a quantum leap forward in terms of stability by signing agreements with two major, multinational petroleum companies based in Houston. That told us that customers with millions of square feet of office space would trust us and have faith in our ability to manage their office furniture decommissioning.
■■ New Life for Old Stuff
Office furniture that has outlived its usefulness in one setting might be just the ticket for another. There are services available that will transport used furniture and equipment to charities, schools, associations, cultural groups, food banks, museums, or foundations throughout North America.
A good example of Green Standards’ unique business model is its “rePurpose Program” partnership with Herman Miller, Inc., a global provider of furnishings and related technologies and services. Headquartered in West Michigan, the company has been included in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index for the past 12 years. According to its website, “As Herman Miller continues its ‘Journey toward Sustainability,’ designing our products with consideration for their environmental impact remains a central corporate strategy.” The rePurpose program with Green Standards “helps you give new life to things your organization no longer needs. Your furniture — or whatever asset you need to dispose of — goes to deserving nonprofits
Bank, Habitat for Humanity of San Antonio, Haven for Hope and the Westside Development Corporation. “Frost was able to divert 239 tons of durable goods from the landfill and offset 770 metric tons of CO2e (greenhouse gases) — equal to the carbon-carrying capacity of 19,744 tree seedlings grown over 10 years,” said Buccheri. “Through Green Standards’ managed program of resale, recycling and donation, 67,000 square feet of furniture and non-computer equipment was redistributed over two weeks with 99 percent of Frost’s surplus inventory diverted away from landfill.” n
[ 11 ]
Sustainable City Network Magazine
2015 Earth’s Warmest Year by Widest Margin on Record NOAA: December Was Warmest Month Ever Recorded
NOAA Report Summary The globally averaged temperature over land and ocean surfaces for 2015 was the highest among all years since record keeping began in 1880. During the final month, the December combined global land and ocean average surface temperature was the highest on record for any month in the 136-year record. So reported the National Centers for Environmental Information at NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in its annual report released in January. Global highlights: Calendar Year 2015 The report for calendar year 2015 found the following: • During 2015, the average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.62°F (0.90°C) above the 20th century average. This was the highest among all 136 years in the 1880–2015 record, surpassing the previous record set in 2014 by 0.29°F (0.16°C) and marking the fourth time a global temperature record has been set
this century. This is also the largest margin by which the annual global temperature record has been broken. Ten months had record high temperatures for their respective months during the year. The five highest monthly departures from average for any month on record all occurred during 2015. • Record warmth was broadly spread around the world, including Central America, the northern half of South America, parts of northern, southern, and eastern Europe stretching into western Asia, a large section of east central Siberia, regions of eastern and southern Africa, large parts of the northeastern and equatorial Pacific, a large swath of the western North Atlantic, most of the Indian Ocean, and parts of the Arctic Ocean. • During 2015, the globally-averaged land surface temperature was 2.39°F (1.33°C) above the 20th century average. This was the highest among all years in the 1880–2015 record, surpassing the previous record of 2007 by 0.45°F (0.25°C). This is the largest margin by which the annual global land temperature has been broken. • During 2015, the globally-averaged sea surface temperature was 1.33°F (0.74°C) above the 20th century average. This was the highest among all years in the 1880–2015 record, surpassing the previous record of last in 2014 by 0.20°F (0.11°C). • Looking above Earth’s surface at certain layers of the atmosphere, several different analyses examined NOAA satellite-based data records for the lower and middle troposphere and the lower stratosphere.
Image: NOAA
■■ Red Hot
[ 12 ]
In 2015, record warmth was broadly spread around the world, including Central America, the northern half of South America, parts of northern, southern, and eastern Europe stretching into western Asia, a large section of east central Siberia, regions of eastern and southern Africa, large parts of the northeastern and equatorial Pacific, a large swath of the western North Atlantic, most of the Indian Ocean, and parts of the Arctic Ocean.
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• The 2015 temperature for the lower troposphere (roughly the lowest five miles of the atmosphere) was third highest in the 1979-2015 record, at 0.65°F (0.36°C) above the 1981–2010 average, as analyzed by the University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH). It was also third highest on record, at 0.47°F (0.26°C) above the 1981–2010 average, as analyzed by Remote Sensing Systems (RSS). Record warmth was observed during the September–November seasonal period as well as December. • The 2015 temperature for the mid-troposphere (roughly two miles to six miles above the surface) was third highest in the 1979–2015 record, at 0.49°F (0.27°C) above the 1981–2010 average, as analyzed by UAH, and fourth highest on record, at 0.40°F (0.22°C) above the 1981–2010 average, as analyzed by RSS. A routine University of Washington post-analysis found the UAH and RSS values to be 0.65°F (0.36°C) and 0.54°F (0.30°C), respectively, above the 1981–2010 average, both ranking third highest. Record warmth was observed during the September–November seasonal period as well as December. • An independent assessment of the mid-troposphere, derived from weather balloons, found the mid-troposphere departure to be 0.92°F (0.51°C) above the 1981–2010 average, the highest in the 58-year period of record. Record warmth was observed during the September–November seasonal period as well as December. • The temperature for the lower stratosphere (roughly 10 miles to 13 miles above the surface) was 13th lowest in the 1979–2015 record, at 0.56°F (0.31°C) below the 1981–2010 average, as analyzed by UAH, and 14th lowest on record, at 0.40°F (0.22°C) below the 1981– 2010 average, as analyzed by RSS. The stratospheric temperature is decreasing on average while the lower and middle troposphere temperatures are increasing on average, consistent with expectations in a greenhouse-warmed world. • According to data from NOAA analyzed by the Rutgers Global Snow Lab, the average annual Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent during 2015 was 9.5 million square miles. This was the 11th smallest annual snow cover extent since records began in 1968 and smallest since 2008. The first half of 2015 saw generally below-normal snow cover extent, with above-average coverage later in the year.
• Recent polar sea ice extent trends continued in 2015. The average annual sea ice extent in the Arctic was 4.25 million square miles, the sixth smallest annual value of the 37-year period of record. The annual Antarctic sea ice extent was the third largest on record, at 4.92 million square miles, behind 2013 and 2014. Global highlights: December 2015 • During December, the average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 2.00°F (1.11°C) above the 20th century average. This was the highest for December in the 1880–2015 record, surpassing the previous record of 2014 by 0.52°F (0.29°C). The December temperature departure from average was also the highest departure among all months in the historical record and the first time a monthly departure has reached +2°F from the 20th century average. • During December, the globally-averaged land surface temperature was 3.40°F (1.89°C) above the 20th century average. This was the highest for December in the 1880–2015 record, surpassing the previous record of 2006 by 0.86°F (0.48°C). • During December, the globally-averaged sea surface temperature was 1.49°F (0.83°C) above the 20th century average. This was also the highest for December in the 1880–2015 record, . surpassing the previous record of 2009 by 0.36°F (0.20°C) • The average Arctic sea ice extent for December was 300,000 square miles (6.0 percent) below the 1981–2010 average. This was the fourth smallest December extent since records began in 1979, according to analysis by the National Snow and Ice Data Center based on data from NOAA and NASA. • Antarctic sea ice during December was 100,000 square miles (0.9 percent) below the 1981–2010 average. • According to data from NOAA analyzed by the Rutgers Global Snow Lab, the Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent during December was 190,000 square miles below the 19812010 average. This was the 19th smallest December Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent in the 50-year period of record. n
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Sustainable City Network Magazine
How Ice Storms May Shape the Future of Forests Groups Collaborate on Long-Term Study BY THE CARY INSTITUTE OF ECOSYSTEM STUDIES
A team of scientists in New Hampshire recently succeeded in capturing one of nature’s most destructive forces - ice - and corralling it in two large research plots on the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest.
Large Ice storms disrupt lives and damage infrastructure in towns and cities in northern New England, resulting in billions of dollars in damage. Ice storms also literally reshape forests. Heavy ice loads break branches and topple whole trees, resulting in reduced tree
Photo: Joe Klementovich
Scientists from the USDA Forest Service, Syracuse University, the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Cornell University, University of Vermont, and the Hubbard Brook Research Foundation created an experimental ice storm that will improve understanding of short- and long-term effects of ice on northern forests.
Ice storms are a big deal in a changing world. Ice storms are expected to become more frequent and severe in the northeastern United States and eastern Canada as long term climate continues to warm while short term weather patterns still bring blasts of arctic air into the region.
■■ Experimental Ice Storm
In order to study the effects of an ice storm on tree growth, susceptibility to pests and pathogens, changes in habitat for wildlife, a team of researchers created an ice storm at Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire.
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growth in ensuing years, increased susceptibility to pests and pathogens, changes in habitat for wildlife, and alterations in how nutrients like carbon and nitrogen cycle in the forest.
“Science is critical to our understanding of how climate change may shape forests in the future.”
“Science is critical to our understanding of how climate change may shape forests in the future,” said Tony Ferguson, acting director of the Northern Research Station and the Forest Products Laboratory. “Creating an ice storm is a very unique experiment that would not be possible without all of our partners and funding from the National Science Foundation.”
While ice storms are a powerful force in forests, they are also inherently difficult to study because scientists, like citizens, have little lead time on when and where these storms are going to occur. Scientists at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest are changing that equation, and instead of waiting for the next big storm to hit, they are creating their own artificial ice storms using high-pressure firefighting pumps and hoses to spray water high up into the forest canopy during a cold snap. They are measuring the obvious and immediate downing of limbs and trees, as well as subtler longer term growth responses, interactions with invasive species, and impacts on forest nutrient cycling. “This research will provide the scientific community, land managers and the concerned public greater insight on the impacts of these powerful, frightening, and curiously aesthetic extreme winter weather events on ecosystem dynamics in northern hardwood forests,” said Lindsey Rustad, team leader at Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest and an investigator on the ice storm experiment.
The Hubbard Brook Ice Storm Experiment is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation (DEB-1457675 - Collaborative Research: Understanding the Impacts of Ice Storms on Forest Ecosystems of the Northeastern United States). The mission of the Forest Service’s Northern Research Station is to improve people’s lives and help sustain the natural resources in the Northeast and Midwest through leading-edge science and effective information delivery.
The mission of the Forest Service, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the Nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations. The agency manages 193 million acres of public land, provides assistance to state and private landowners, and maintains the largest forestry research organization in the world. Public lands the Forest Service manages contribute more than $13 billion to the economy each year through visitor spending alone. Those same lands provide 20 percent of the nation’s clean water supply, a value estimated at $7.2 billion per year. The agency has either a direct or indirect role in stewardship of about 80 percent of the 850 million forested acres within the U.S., of which 100 million acres are urban forests where most Americans live. n ■
“Ice storms are a great example of extreme weather events with complex outcomes. The experimental ice storm is part of a comprehensive study of ice storms and their effects at Hubbard Brook, which also includes examining forest recovery from a severe ice storm in 1998, developing and applying models to depict the climate conditions that result in ice storms and forest ecosystem effects, and associated outreach and education,” said Charles Driscoll, a professor at Syracuse University and investigator for the Hubbard Brook ice storm experiment. In addition to Rustad and Driscoll, investigators in the experiment include John Campbell and Paul Schaberg of the USDA Forest Service; Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University, and Sarah Garlick of the Hubbard Brook Research Foundation. Partners include Peter Groffman of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Timothy Fahey of Cornell University, and Robert Sanford and Joe Staples of the University of Southern Maine.
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Sustainable City Network Magazine
Portland Works for Social Equity Program Redefines ‘Community’ as More Than a Shared Geography BY F. ALAN SHIRK
JERI JIMENEZ is program coordinator for the City of Portland, Ore., Diversity and Civic Leadership program.
Portland, Ore., bills itself as “The city that works,” and, in the early 21st Century, is a city that is working in spite of some tough challenges.
Today, Portland’s elected officials and staff are advised by 95 neighborhood associations, more than 40 business district associations, the five DCL program organizations, the Youth Commission, Elders in Action, the Disability Commission, and many other groups.
A good example is the cutting-edge Diversity and Civic Leadership (DCL) program introduced in 2006 and operated by the city’s Office of Neighborhood Involvement (ONI). DCL’s goal is to support efforts to build the organizational and communication capacity of community organizations of color, immigrant/refugee organizations and other agencies underrepresented in government.
DCL Program Coordinator Jeri Jimenez said her program is unique to Portland and two other Oregon communities. “DCL is one of the ways in which we are developing culturally appropriate models for how underrepresented community-based organizations can safely and successfully interact in city processes in meaningful ways that adds value to both their communities and Portland,” Jimenez said.
The revolutionary DCL program is a marked departure from how Portland and other American cities have traditionally organized and served neighborhoods.
PAUL LEISTNER Ph.D. is neighborhood program coordinator for the City of Portland, Ore., Office of Neighborhood Involvement.
Following a major 2005 policy review, known as Community Connect, city officials and key leaders “determined that not everyone defines their community by their physical surroundings,” according to an article written by Portland officials and published in the National Civic Review.
“Many people find their primary community by joining with people with a common identity (cultural or ethnic-based groups) or common interest (churches, PTAs, social justice groups, etc.) An engagement system that relies solely on geographic neighborhood associations likely will miss engaging many people in the community. Viewing the neighborhood association system as an important foundation, but not the full structure needed has been a major shift for many neighborhood leaders in Portland,” the authors concluded. [ 16 ]
She added that for Portland to work effectively with communities of color, immigrants, refugees and others, “we must create new pathways for participation, new efforts to strengthen people’s ability to participate and new levels of cultural awareness and responsiveness by city staff and elected officials.” Equally important, said Jimenez, is that social equity is often ignored as one of the three tenets of sustainability, along with environmental and economic viability. “There is a lot of hope that we can come together and create change through the relationships we develop. To keep building on relationships for their livability. I believe if it’s not equitable, it’s not sustainable,” Jimenez said. According to its first report issued early last year, DCL has helped equip people with leadership and organizational skills through a specially created Leadership Academy and has provided highly effective minigrants to groups that include people of color, immigrants, refugees, senior citizens, the disabled, youth and LGBTQ groups. The mission of DCL is to: 1) Increase the number and diversity of people involved in their communities through: Increasing the power and voice of the under-engaged; Overcoming common barriers to participation; and Providing effective communications to keep the community informed about issues and opportunities for involvement.
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Photo: Portland, Ore., Office of Neighborhood Involvement
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■■ Connections
Portland’s Diversity and Civic Leadership Organizing Project helped grantees develop culturally appropriate means to build community identity and maintain strong communication among community members and public agencies.
2) Strengthen community capacity through: Fostering social ties and sense of community identity; Supporting the community’s capacity to take action to move forward its priorities; and Fostering networking and collaboration between DCL organizing project groups, neighborhood and other community-based organizations. 3) Increasing community public decision impact through making public decision-making more responsive and accountable to community input. “Engaging for Equity: A Report on Portland’s Diversity and Civic Leadership Program 2007-2013” published in 2015, celebrates “the amazing community engagement successes that have been accomplished,” and invites readers to provide their thoughts on “the successes, challenges and future of the program,” said Jimenez.
DCL has received more than $3 million from Portland for its various programs since 2006. Funding has increased to about $890,000 a year. Some 700 people have graduated from the DCL Academy. Today, DCL includes the Latino Network, Center for Intercultural Organizing (CIO), Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization (IRCO), the Urban League and the Native American Youth Association (NAYA). “With the report, we too are looking for answers to some key questions for the future,” continued Jimenez. “Are the goals and objectives of the DCL program meeting the needs of the intended communities? What structural changes could take place to support expansion of he program? What range of non-geographic communities should we consider serving beyond those funded currently (renters, the houseless, LGBTQ community, etc.)? and What ONI support services are most important for the program?” While Portland’s neighborhood system has been celebrated nationwide for its progressive approach to public involvement since the 1970s, it has faced some considerable obstacles. [ 17 ]
Sustainable City Network Magazine
“We are the voice of the people of Portland. I am a member of the Klamath Tribe so I understand what the people we help are going through. When it comes to Native Americans, there is a lot of historical trauma. We have a wonderful place here because we have elders who were connected and will share.”
First, Oregon has experienced its share of racial discrimination since it was granted statehood in 1859 with a constitution that forbade blacks from moving to, living in or working in the state.
But, things are changing in Portland, said Jimenez, who noted that the city’s population today is about 75 percent white. “Portland actually began changing in the 1970s, when more minorities started coming to the city. That exploded in the early 21st Century. Immigrants from Latin America became the city’s fastest growing group,” and the number of African-Americans and Asians also increased,” she said. “Today, roughly a quarter of Portland’s residents are Latino; about nine percent are African-Americans. While Native Americans are less than two percent of city residents, they number about 40,000 and represent 400 different tribes,” Jimenez said. ONI Neighborhood Program Coordinator Paul Leistner, Ph.D., confirmed that social equity is increasing significantly in Portland. “Twenty years ago no one really acknowledged these problems. Many people thought Portland was a very progressive city. We didn’t understand that while things were getting better for white people, they were getting worse for people of color in Portland. Some people were shocked to find that out. But this realization has led to a big cultural shift in the city. Many more people now understand what needs to be done and are trying to do something about it,” Leistner said.
In the 1920s, the state had an estimated 14,000 members of the Ku Klux Klan, including 9,000 in Portland. During the 1950s, some Portland restaurants displayed “White Only” signs. Over the years, gentrification has displaced many African-Americans from the neighborhoods where they lived for generations, particularly in Northeast Portland.
Leistner stressed that Portland’s shift from thinking that people primarily identify their sense of community through a shared geography (their “neighborhood”) to understanding that many people identify their community through a sense of shared identity has dramatically shifted how the City of Portland reaches out to, supports, and engages the community.
According to the 2015 report, “The broader context for the DCL program is a history of racism and exclusion in Portland and throughout Oregon. The legacy of discrimination has left its imprint on Portland’s modern era of land use planning, urban development, infrastructure investment and public policymaking. While it is uncomfortable for many of today’s Portlanders to see their city in this light, the enduring impact of our shared past is still felt by many in the community and is well documented.”
“Numerous studies on disparities in Portland have been conducted by organizations like the Urban League of Portland and institutions like Portland State University. The city has implemented numerous initiatives including Community Connect, the Portland Plan and others that have produced recommendations approved and funded by City Council. Jeri’s program is extremely effective and making good progress; it has brought much more awareness and visibility to the value of participatory government,” said Leistner.
The report continued, “From the standpoint of public involvement in policymaking, city staff and elected officials have had limited experience and mixed success engaging diverse communities. There are understandable reasons why communities of color, immigrants and refugees might mistrust government and question the value of engaging with city officials.”
Portland and Multnomah County began funding civic engagement programming beyond neighborhood-based efforts in the 1970s and 1980s with Elders in Action and the Disability Program. The city also created an immigrant and refugee coordinator position. By the 1990s, Portland commissioners were urging neighborhood associations to become more diverse in their representation.
Adding to this mistrust of government and further short-circuiting civic participation for not only Portland, but also other American communities is the increasing dissatisfaction with democracy. According to a Pew Research study, in 1958, 77 percent of Americans said they trusted the government all or most of the time. Today, that figure is 19 percent.
A major force for increasing city participation is ONI, which was actually founded as the Office of Neighborhood Associations (ONA) in 1974. Portland currently has 95 neighborhoods organized into seven districts.
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“One of the problems with this structure,” said Leistner, “was that the association leaders were only volunteers and didn’t have the resources
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and skills — and sometimes interest — in engaging the full diversity of their community. At the same time that city government officials were criticizing neighborhoods for not being diverse, city government itself — with all its staff and resources — wasn’t doing a good job of engaging the full diversity of the community either. One of the early efforts to broaden the city’s focus was the 1995 renaming of the Office of Neighborhood Associations to be the Office of Neighborhood Involvement.” Leistner explained that ONI serves as a vital communication link between community members, neighborhoods, and city of Portland bureaus. It works in partnership with many organizations including neighborhood associations, district coalitions, business district associations, city agencies, and a wide range of community organizations to involve community members in the civic life of the city and to give them a voice in decisions that affect their communities. In addition, he said, ONI manages a number of programs that affect neighborhood livability, including the city/county information and referral service, noise control, liquor licensing, and Portland’s new Marijuana Program. ONI’s programs are funded through a combination of city general funds and inter-governmental agreements with other city, county, state and federal agencies. According to Leistner, the paradigm shift in growing community engagement resulted from the election of former Mayor Tom Potter in 2005. Potter, a former police chief and the father of community policing in Portland, had a deep commitment to social justice and ran on a platform of created a “shared governance” culture in Portland in which government and the community worked as partners. Potter initiated the major review of Portland’s neighborhood and community engagement system, Community Connect, which led to major reforms of the system. Community Connect involved a diverse, 18-member volunteer group that worked for more than two years identifying and recommending ways to engage “under represented” groups. In January 2008, Community Connect gave the Portland City Council the “Five-Year Plan to Increase Community Involvement” with 30 different strategies in under three goals: Increase the number and diversity of people involved in their communities; Strengthen community capacity; and Increase community impact on public decisions. In April 2012, under Mayor Sam Adams, City Council adopted the long-range Portland Plan, the first in 30 years and one that imagines a “prosperous, educated, healthy and equitable” Portland in 2035 and the roadmap to get there.
African-American business district in Portland, and also significantly accelerated gentrification. Recently the Portland City Council declared an ‘affordable housing emergency.’ Today, people are talking about a wide range of strategies and tools, including a right-of-return strategy to help people move back to the neighborhoods they were forced out of,” noted Leistner. He added that Portlanders are more aware and accepting of what happened. “That’s why the city is putting money into building leaders and strong community organizations. People from historically underrepresented and underserved communities are getting a place at the table and the skill they need to have an impact. “We’re working to create a true participatory democracy, in which we no longer have an adult-child relationship where government is the decider. We’re working toward a culture in which government acts more as a convener. Rather than the traditional public administration model of “design, declare, defend and deploy,” Leistner said city leaders and staff slowly are learning to work with the community as a partner. “Really, nobody knows the needs of the community better than the community itself,” he said. For Jimenez, who like Leistner has an accomplished background as a social activist and organizer, it’s obvious what programs like DCL have to accomplish in Portland. “For example, gentrification has created many pockets of poverty in Portland. DCL has empowered people to fight against the developers and others who are trying to create wealthy areas by displacing the residents who have lived here for generations. We want to give everyone a place where his or her voice can be heard. “We are the voice of the people of Portland. I am a member of the Klamath Tribe so I understand what the people we help are going through. When it comes to Native Americans, there is a lot of historical trauma. We have a wonderful place here because we have elders who were connected and will share,” Jimenez said. “When scientists speak and you don’t understand, you have to ask them what it means. You have to understand it in your realm. We encourage people to push back with government. When you don’t understand or know the risk, you can’t live as you should.” Jimenez is pleased with the response to the 2015 DCL report, but the bottom line for her is, “Does government know how to put its trust and invest funds in these communities historically under-heard, underrepresented and under-engaged? Some people think it’s a really big risk, but the rewards are immeasurable. We’re proving that in Portland.”n
“Attitudes are changing. You have to own your past. We now recognized that past urban renewal projects destroyed Portland’s thriving
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Sustainable City Network Magazine
Taking the Fuel Out of Wild Fires AmeriCorps Helps Oregon Prep Forests for Fire Prevention BY MICHELLE VOLKMANN
“We have annual targets of the number of acres that we need to treat each year. Based on that and the fuel threat, we prioritize the people we have for what we need to do. We don’t have unlimited staff so we chip away at it,” Lair said.
“A lot of people and a lot of analysis goes into one prescribed burn,” said Patrick Lair, public affairs officer with the U.S. Forest Service in Prineville, Ore.
Heart of Oregon Corps is a nonprofit organization that hopes to “inspire and empower positive change in the lives of young people through jobs, education, and stewardship,” according to its website. Heart of Oregon Corps is a member of the Deschutes Children’s Forest and the 21st Century Service Conservation Corps.
Since the Forest Service doesn’t always have the staff to support prescribed burns, the agency partners with AmeriCorps to get the fire fuel reduction acres treated in a timely manner. Through this partnership at-risk youth learn the technical skills required to do this work. One of those partners is the Heart of Oregon Corps.
Photo: Heart of Oregon Corps
PATRICK LAIR is public affairs officer with the U.S. Forest Service in Prineville, Ore.
Springtime is the right time for federal fire managers to conduct prescribed burns to reduce the threat of summer wildfires at Oregon’s Ochoco National Forest and Crooked River National Grassland. The schedule for these burns depends on weather conditions, air quality, moisture tests of fire fuel and the staff to do the prep work for the prescribed burns.
■■ Fuel Reduction Work
Heart of Oregon Corps members remove brush to reduce the risk of a future forest fire.
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In 2009, Heart of Oregon Corps received a $119,172 grant from the Forest Service to hire youth to work on fuel reduction projects. In 2014, Heart of Oregon Corps received a $394,955 grant and was able to expand the part-time program into a full-time, yearround program.
Photo: U.S. Forest Service
“Through the program they learn a lot of technical skills about conservation management. They also learn soft job skills like showing up for work on time or calling in when they are sick. They learn what it means to have a fulltime job,” Shadron said. ■■ Prescribed Burning
The U.S. Forest Service conducts a prescribed “thinning” burn to selectively reduce fuel sources for potential forest fires in an Oregon forest.
AmeriCorps’ primary outcomes include improving at-risk ecosystems on public lands, while providing opportunities for primarily economically disadvantaged young people to earn a GED or diploma, complete college courses, and secure future employment, according to this 2014 article on KTVZ.com in Bend, Ore. The AmeriCorps program currently consists of 60 people who are working on natural resource conservation projects. These crews, made up of seven to eight people, work 8-hour shifts five days a week. Besides working with the Forest Service, the AmeriCorps crew also works with Bureau of Land Management, the city of Prineville, the city of Bend and the Kiwanis Club of Prineville. Through this vocational program, they learn how to use a chainsaw, build a fence, maintain hiking and biking trails and are able to become CPR certified, said Carly Shadron, development coordinator with Heart of Oregon Corps.
There are similar federally funded partnerships, like this one in Nevada, Utah, Arizona and California.
There are three different types of fire fuel reduction: broadcast burns, thinning and jackpot burning. In broadcast burns, you burn across the landscape at a low and intense heat. In thinning, you walk through the area and selectively reduce the fuel source. Jackpot burning is part of a hazardous fuels reduction program that addresses high concentrations of naturally-occurring or thinningrelated downed woody debris, Lair explained. That debris is piled up and dried for several years before it is burned. Lair said federal fire managers analyze a given area and use the type of prescribed burn based on that information. “The department does different burns at different times of year depending on the purpose and the need,” Lair said. “We do a lot in the spring and fall because that’s when it’s cooler and wetter.” n
“They do it year-round, but there’s a greater need for fire fuel reduction in the fall and spring before the wildfire season,” Shadron said. But it wasn’t always a year-round program.
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Sustainable City Network Magazine
How Philanthropy Funds Sustainability Funders are Increasingly Supporting Change BY JENNIFER FODEN
DARRYL YOUNG is director of Sustainable Cities at the Summit Foundation in Washington, D.C.
JILL FUGLISTER is healthy environment portfolio director at Meyer Memorial Trust, based in Portland, Ore.
TOM WOIWODE is director of the GreenWays Initiative at Community Foundation for Southeastern Michigan in Detroit.
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The world of funding and philanthropy is changing. So is the environment around us. Consequently, there is an opportunity to engage funders in conversations about smart growth and sustainability. So, how do we better understand philanthropic roles in smart growth? And, what opportunities (and challenges) are there at a national and local level? “Funders are increasingly interested in supporting work for change, and in some cases, being active change agents themselves,” said Jill Fuglister, healthy environment portfolio director at Meyer Memorial Trust, based in Portland, Ore. “In the context of smart growth and sustainability, this means seeding and supporting innovation in the field, advocacy, community organizing and movement building. It also means being an advocate and working collaboratively with other funders and other sectors.” Fuglister added that to better understand philanthropic roles in smart growth, funders need to find opportunities for advancement, beyond just grant making. This may include loans, investments, research and more. This type of investment can have significant impact. For example, the Neptis Foundation, founded in the 1990s, has become a leading funder in scholarly research in public policy issues on land use, transportation and environmental issues. The foundation has funded more than 30 original research reports on growth management and policy issues in the Toronto region. According
to the Funders Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities, “the government has created an ‘extraordinary apparatus’ to manage regional issues including a 30-year growth plan, a greenbelt and a regional transport corporation called Metrolinx.” Partnerships and collaboration appear to be the trend in successfully funding sustainable projects through philanthropic means. “Increasingly, at least in this region, we’re seeing a much more collaborative relationship between philanthropy and municipal leadership,” said Tom Woiwode, director of the GreenWays Initiative at Community Foundation for Southeastern Michigan in Detroit. “That reflects a recognition of the economic challenges that municipalities face. It also acknowledges that cities need to rethink their design and the services they provide as the demographics of people who live and work in cities change.” Darryl Young, director of Sustainable Cities at the Summit Foundation in Washington, D.C., agreed. “Successful public and private institutions can integrate their work in a collaborative, trust-based manner that is not siloed or singularly for the purpose of promoting the individual institution,” Young said. Some of these partnerships — between government, organizations, funders, the public and beyond — are obvious in the work Fuglister, Woiwode and Young’s organizations do. “Examples of work we have supported in the past and anticipate supporting going forward include collaborative initiatives that support job opportunities for low-income and displaced forest workers in the growing restoration economy,” said Fuglister. “And efforts to ensure that communities experiencing disparities have the opportunity to shape key environmental policy decisions affecting them.” Young noted the Urban Sustainability Directors Network “is a peerto-peer network of local government professionals from cities across the United States and Canada dedicated to creating a healthier environment, economic prosperity and increased social equity. This dynamic network enables sustainability directors and staff to share best practices and accelerate the application of good ideas across North America.” Young also referred to the STAR Community Rating System, which was built by and for local governments. “Local leaders use STAR to assess their sustainability, set targets for moving forward and measure progress along the way…the rating system’s measures collectively define communityscale sustainability, and present a vision of how communities can become more healthy, inclusive and prosperous across seven areas.”
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Image courtesy of Summit Foundation
and three counties that make up the metro area,” she said. “Many of the nonprofits we have supported have taken advantage of Metro’s convening role and decision-making processes to address issues such as transportation choices, green space acquisition and a regional approach to affordable housing.”
The Urban Sustainability Directors Network “is a peer-to-peer network of local government professionals from cities across the United States and Canada dedicated to creating a healthier environment, economic prosperity and increased social equity.
There are many challenges and opportunities for smart growth funding at the national, regional and local level. When it comes to challenges and setbacks, common language appears to be at the top of the list. “It remains a challenge to navigate the minefield of terms, phrases and mental mindsets that can slow and derail the progress towards achieving livable, sustainable communities,” said Young. “Even the word ‘sustainable’ is loaded in some circles.” Woiwode agreed: “smart growth principles for the philanthropic community may be different than the understanding of the community leadership. Making sure that everyone understands the objective of such projects, and how a project will create opportunities, is essential, and critical to be addressed at the outset, as the project is in the planning and development stage.”
Woiwode noted the importance of leveraging. “The GreenWays Initiative was our first foray into projects that involved what are typically municipal investments and services,” he said. “We found a great receptivity to the idea of using private funds (CFSEM investment) to leverage public resources. That has become an increasingly common practice, both for CFSEM and for the philanthropic community in Detroit generally. We have used that to support and encourage demonstration projects, for things like green infrastructure and stormwater management that — we hope, with their success — will encourage increased public investment in such projects.” Also, some communities offer match funding that encourages projects to seek both public and private funding. At the end of the day, sustainability funders want impact. Funders “increasingly recognize the need to support the organizations working for the change over a longer period of time,” said Fuglister. “These funders understand the need to provide significant investments in the operations and capacity of organizations, to give them breathing room to innovate, adapt and grow so that they can achieve institutional and systems change.” n
The amount of resources to go around is another, yet obvious, challenge. “But it’s one that can’t be ignored,” said Woiwode. “National funders are limited in the resources they have to bring about change,” he said. “They invest in projects, programs and institutions that can demonstrate scalable, measurable, replicable theories of change. Not every proposal has to be successful, but the lessons of failure must advance the state of the practice as a whole.” This is where collaboration on funding comes into play. Other challenges include time. “Infrastructure projects take a lot of time,” Woiwode said. “And when you’re trying to demonstrate both the benefits of and the viability of such projects, having to wait five or seven years before such projects go live makes it difficult for the public (and the community leadership) to fully appreciate their benefits.” However, despite the challenges, there are many opportunities to not only overcome these setbacks, but to thrive, through committees, collaboration and innovation. Fuglister cited Metro, the Portland metro area’s directly elected regional government. “Its charge is to coordinate and manage growth, infrastructure and development issues that cut across the boundaries of the 24 cities
■■ STAR Communities
The STAR Community Rating System defines community-scale sustainability and presents a vision of how communities can become more healthy, inclusive and prosperous across seven areas.
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Sustainable City Network Magazine
Success of Community Choice Aggregation Leads to Expansion New York Becomes 7th State to Enact CCA BY MICHELLE VOLKMANN
SHAWN MARSHALL is executive director of LEAN Energy US, the vice chair of the Marin Energy Authority, and a member of the Mill Valley, Calif., City Council. She is also a former mayor of Mill Valley.
In the last three years, successful implementation of Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) in the San Francisco Bay Area has led to “tremendous growth and interest” throughout the state of California, an advocate of CCA told Sustainable City Network.
“This is exciting news for New York,” Marshall said.
“This is the progress we’ve been working on,” said Shawn Marshall, cofounder and executive director of LEAN (Local Energy Aggregation Network) Energy US.
Besides lower rates, another goal of CCA is to provide cleaner and greener electricity to customers. Marshall said more cities are looking at the long-term environmental benefits of CCA instead of a short-term focus on utility rates.
LEAN Energy is a non-profit, membership organization dedicated to the accelerated expansion and competitive success of clean energy CCA nationwide, according to its website. Through Community Choice Aggregation, also known as community choice energy, public agencies are able to purchase electricity in bulk on behalf of customers. It allows residential, commercial and industrial utility customers to have a say in their energy rates. This option is available in seven states (California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Rhode Island).
Community Choice Aggregation may or may not lead to lower utility prices, even though one of its goals is to reduce energy costs. LEAN Energy reports that non-profit municipal utilities, or munis, “provide highly reliable electricity supply at rates averaging 15 to 20 percent below the rates of traditional investor-owned utilities.”
Sonoma Clean Power (SCP), the not-for-profit pubic agency and official electricity provider for Sonoma County, Calif., released the following statistics in its 2014 progress report: • Greenhouse gas emissions were 48% below (Pacific Gas & Electric’s) last published data from 2013. The total estimated savings is 53,579 metric tons of carbon dioxide, which will be confirmed once PG&E publishes its actual 2014 emissions data in early 2016
While other states, including Utah, have studied and considered community choice energy legislation, New York is the only state to approve it since 2012. The development and exploration to allow CCA in New York was approved in 2014. Sustainable Westchester is New York’s first CCA program. Since being approved in February, CCA has been enacted in 25 municipalities throughout Westchester County, with roughly 150,000 homes and nearly all of the small businesses in these communities participating, according to a Sustainable Westchester press release. In October the Sullivan Alliance for Sustainable Development submitted a petition to the New York Public Service Commission seeking approval to establish a countywide Community Choice Aggregation program.
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■■ Non-Profit Helps Communities Form CCAs
Based in the San Francisco Bay area, home to California’s first Community Choice Aggregation, LEAN Energy works in partnership with a range of organizations to actively support the formation and success of new CCAs around the country.
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“We’ve seen some acceleration in terms of adoption rates,” Marshall said. “We have had tremendous growth and interest in CCA now that we have proof of its success.” • $13.6 million in total bill savings for customers • Energy mix is 36% renewable plus an additional 44% hydropower. The agency is already meeting the 2020 mandates for all California utilities to be at least 33% renewable. By comparison, PG&E’s mix was 27% renewable and 8% hydropower. “We knew the agency was doing great things from the beginning,” said SCP Board Chair and Cotati City Councilman, Mark Landman in a press release. “But benefiting customers and the environment at the same time is really something to be proud of.” In the last year, 20 counties in California have adopted Community Choice Aggregation, Marshall said.
Marin Clean Energy, which began providing electricity to its initial customers in 2010, is serving 174,000 customers, according to a recent article in the Marin Independent Journal. Last year, 56 percent of its electricity came from renewable sources, compared with PG&E’s electricity, which was 27 percent renewable. MCE is a joint California powers authority consisting of all of Marin County, unincorporated Napa County and the cities of Benicia, El Cerrito, San Pablo and Richmond. Marshall explained that as more and more counties and cities adopt Community Choice Aggregation, more cities are aware of the option. The “stability and success of the CCA” is leading to expansion of CCA throughout the state of California, Marshall said. Currently CCA is available within all of the Bay Area. In the next five years, Marshall anticipates that its growth will migrate south within California. For the next five to 10 years, Marshall said, LEAN Energy’s goals remain the same. The nonprofit organization will continue to “advocate and share best practices and information” on Community Choice Aggregation. “We will continue to expand in California and remain supportive of new states’ efforts to enact state legislation,” Marshall said n
“We’ve seen some acceleration in terms of adoption rates,” Marshall said. “We have had tremendous growth and interest in CCA now that we have proof of its success.”
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Sustainable City Network Magazine
Accommodating Pedestrians in Active Work Zones City of Raleigh Makes ‘Great Strides’ with New Guidebook The city of Raleigh, N.C., has developed a 36-page guidebook to help developers and construction crews comply with regulations and best practices for accommodating pedestrians in work zones.
The document lays out the planning and approval process, provides design examples and resources, and provides examples for the safety and convenience of pedestrians.
“With the increase in construction projects and overall population growth, especially in downtown Raleigh, it is imperative that work sites comply with local, state, and federal guidelines to allow for pedestrian mobility, especially older people and people with disabilities,” the guidebook notes.
Below are some excerpts from the guidebook:
City officials said the document serves as a translation from technical documents, such as the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), to real world applications for engineers, contractors and citizens.
Planning & Design All projects requiring the use of the public right-of-way for construction or maintenance must be reviewed and approved by city staff. This includes closing the sidewalk for repairs and building maintenance, small projects like a downtown storefront alteration which is adjacent to a public right-of-way, or a major construction project requiring the closure of lanes or sidewalks. During the planning phase, all ADA and MUTCD requirements must be reviewed and taken into account. It is important to plan for the safety and convenience of pedestrians in any work zone area. This means creating a travel path that reasonably accommodates all pedestrians throughout any project. To achieve this, consider the following:
Photo: City of Raleigh, N.C.
• Determine the level of accessibility needed for pedestrians in the Temporary Traffic Control (TTC) zone through observing existing pedestrian travel patterns, and make accommodations prior to the start of work.
■■ Providing for Pedestrian Safety
Temporary sidewalks sometimes need to be constructed to route pedestrians safely around construction sites.
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• Determine the TTC impact on pedestrians, including significant generators such as schools, community centers, transit stops, and shopping areas. • Consider meeting with local community organizations (i.e., National Federation of the Blind, city ADA coordinator, etc.) through open houses to address specific concerns and needs.
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• Avoid creating pedestrian paths that lead pedestrians into direct conflicts with work site vehicles, equipment, operations, and vehicular traffic moving through or around the work zone. • Provide a safe, convenient travel path for pedestrians, that replicates the most desirable characteristics of the existing sidewalks or footpaths throughout all phases of construction. • Ensure that the temporary footpath meets all accessibility features and reasonably accommodates all pedestrians. • Develop outreach materials that are appropriate for those with specials needs. • Provide notifications to adjacent property owners and businesses. • Assess the TTC impact on existing pedestrian flow, and make changes as needed in the field.
rather than mid-block locations. It also separates pedestrians from vehicular traffic and avoids mid-block crossings. Temporary routes should be about the same as the original route and provide clear language to delineate the temporary route. They should also provide continuous access to transit stops and/or relocate transit stops. By maintaining a continuous, accessible path of travel around or through the construction site during all phases of construction, pedestrians are ensured access to businesses, residences, and transit stops. It will also help ensure compliance with the ADA. The Great Strides guidebook provides some additional methods of doing so. Process Plans are submitted for review and approval with the city of Raleigh to the Right-of-Way Services Coordinator.
Design
The Right-of-Way Services Coordinator serves as the liaison between the client and other city staff for meetings, reviews, coordination, and approvals of any project affecting the right-of-way.
Any client that proposes work that affects the sidewalk for longer than 48 hours must provide a Pedestrian Routing Plan. Such a plan can be hand drawn, but must be legible and contain all information requested.
Multiple city departments are involved in the review and approval process for right-of-way permits and each has a different role in the approval process. These include Transportation, Building, Parking and Special Events departments.
A Traffic Control and Detour Plan as well as a Pedestrian Routing Plan per MUTCD standards and ADA guidelines must be submitted. The guidebook outlines the minimum criteria for the contents of these plans. Any TTC pedestrian accommodations that utilize a temporary route should clearly define detoured routes and provide advanced signage at intersections
Photo: City of Raleigh, N.C.
Larger construction projects that affect the sidewalk, parking lanes, and travel lanes will require a Traffic Control Plan that shows all items and accommodations throughout the phasing of the project. An engineered plan is preferred for such projects.
■■ Shipping Containers Make Good Walkways
Shipping containers have proven to be a convenient option for sidewalk detours in construction sites. They provide protection while accommodating longer, continuous sections of routing. Containers can be placed directly on the pavement or behind the curb.
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Sustainable City Network Magazine
Detour Options
Off-site Detour
Sidewalk • Existing or adjacent sidewalks may be used to achieve pedestrian accommodation.
• Pedestrians may be rerouted away from work zones using an alternative route; typically at intersections. This accommodation may be considered based on available facilities, short-term duration, and minimum impact to the pedestrian flow of the corridor.
Parking Area
Auxiliary Location
• If a sidewalk cannot be utilized, the on-street or off-street parking area may be an option for pedestrian accommodation. The city does require reimbursement for metered parking spaces at a set rate per day per spot.
• A temporary path may be constructed for pedestrian accommodations. The accommodations are for pedestrian use only. Construction logistics will be coordinated to maintain pedestrian travel.
• Consider a constructed boardwalk, that routes pedestrians from the sidewalk into the existing on-street parking area and then back onto the sidewalk beyond the limit of operation. The city does require reimbursement for parking spaces and boardwalk protected with a suitable barrier.
• Another example of a pedestrian routing solution is the temporary path. It allows a safe detour around the work zone during road widening.
Travel Lane
• Scaffolding, tunnels, and containers can provide a separately constructed walkway for pedestrians to get around a site. This is important when construction occurs midblock or at corners, and access to other businesses will be required.
• If no other option exists, the bus lane or travel lane can be utilized for pedestrian accommodations. • The path may be shifted or restricted from the existing condition while maintaining a parallel route along the project’s limits. This is required where pedestrian activity is heavy and a detour is not a viable option. On-site routing can be accommodated several ways, but is generally operationally driven. • Routing can be open or structurally covered, on or adjacent to an existing sidewalk, where available.
Temporary Construction of Accessible Paths
Protective Barriers Channelizing Devices The purpose of channelizing devices is to guide traffic and warn drivers of conditions created by work activities in or near the roadway. Examples of channelizing devices include cones, tubular markers, vertical panels, drums, barricades, and longitudinal devices.
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Channelizing devices provide for smooth and gradual vehicular traffic flow from one lane to another, onto a bypass or detour, or into a narrower path. They are also used to channelize vehicular traffic away from the work space, pavement drop-offs, pedestrian or shared-use paths, or opposing directions of vehicular traffic.
Beveled Surfaces
The guidebook provides several examples of common channelizing devices.
Guidance Signage
Shipping Containers Shipping containers have proven to be a convenient alternative; they provide protection while accommodating longer, continuous sections of routing. Containers can be placed directly on the pavement or behind the curb. The guidebook provides a number of considerations when utilizing shipping containers for this purpose. Screening
Beveled surfaces are smooth connections between joints or separations. The photos depict best practices for minimizing trip hazards
Signs alert pedestrians that adjacent businesses are still open and where they may be located. Handrails Tap rails and handrails are an easy attachment and meet the ADA code. Lighting
Construction fencing provides screening that protects the work site from trespassing, and protects pedestrians from dangerous debris.
Well lit containers and pedestrian tunnels provide safety. The electrical code specifies when lighting is required with the use of tunnels or scaffolding
Overhead Scaffolding
Utility and Pedestrian Considerations
Overhead protection, such as a scaffolding system, is a common method for routing pedestrians. Customizable and relatively quick to put in place and remove, these are ideal for short sections of protection and operations that are short in duration. They provide for easy maintenance of adjacent street signals, and protection for situations where there is overhead construction.
Construction/Maintenance/Utility
Temporary overhead lighting may be required with the use of scaffolding or tunnels. The electrical code will dictate further specifications.
Unimpeded accessibility must be maintained with regard to pedestrian signals, red-light camera boxes and emergency access points.
Safety Measures Tap Rails Tap rails and handrails are an easy attachment and must meet the ADA code. They must be between 2� and 8� in height and help guide the visually impaired along the accessible path. Non-Slip Surfaces Ramps leading pedestrians into and out of the containers should be well delineated, treated with a non-slip surface, and well-lit.
Pedestrian accessibility must be achieved during all phases of construction. To ensure this, the guidebook provides a variety of consideration and best practices. Accessibility to Utilities
Public Art The city of Raleigh believes public art can occur everywhere, and encourages organizations, contractors, and individuals to consider the display of public art as a part of their maintenance or construction project. Pedestrian walkways and fencing, among other things, become non-traditional canvases for murals that add vibrancy and enliven work zones. Public art that will be used as a part of a work zone which falls into the right-of-way requires that the art design be approved by the city’s Arts Commission. n
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