Kent Portney's "Our Green Cities" Blog

Boulder, Colorado, decides to municipalize its power grid

Boulder, Colorado has long been a national leader in trying to become more sustainable.  The latest entry in this effort is focused on electricity in the city.  The city's electricity is supplied by a private company, Xcel Energy, but over the last few years city leaders and residents have gotten increasingly frustrated with the company. From what I understand, the city has wanted Xcel to work with it to increase the city's portfolio of renewable energy to 40%, but the company has only been willing to go to 30%, what is required by state law. When Xcel embarked on a project to make Boulder the "SmarGridCity," apparently the city became very unhappy with the cost and design of the result. So last November, ballot questions passed that would allow the city to take control of the city's electric grid so that it can municipalize the delivery and possibly the generation of electricity.  It apparently intends to do this through condemnation proceedings.  Of course, Xcel is not taking this in stride, doing what it can to make this difficult or impossible.  This is certainly worth watching.  For more information, read the article here.

Tufts 2012 Energy Conference

The 2012 Energy Conference at Tufts will be held on April 20 and 21 in Medford.  I have agreed to be one of the judges for the "Energy Competition," where students can submit projects and ideas and win a $5,000 prize.  The deadline for entering the competition is March 1.  But the full conference promises to bring together a terrific array of experts about energy. Go to the conference web site for more information.

Tufts' 2012 Water Conference

The "Water Systems, Science, and Society" symposium is scheduled for April 27th in Medford, MA.  This year's conference is especially impressive because it will be co-sponsored by the Water Resources Research Center at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.  This is part of Tufts University's commitment to water-related education and research.  Check this year's conference program.

Local Benefits of Sustainable Cities Symposium at Florida State University

Thanks to Dr. Rick Feiock, public administration professor at Florida State, I was invited to participate in a really excellent symposium on the local benefits of sustainable cities held in Tallahassee on February 24 and 25.  He and his colleagues and staff brought together a terrific array of scholars from aroung the U.S. to present their research, and to set an agenda for improving that research well into the future.  There were a number of presentations on climate action (mitigation and adaptation) by Rachel Krause (University of Texas-El Paso), Elaine Sharp and Dorothy Daley (University of Kansas), Liz Gerber (University of Michigan), Jim Zvara and Tanya Watt (Arizona State), Chris Weible (University of Colorado -- Denver), and Phil Berke (University of North Carolina).  There were also papers presented on an array of economic issues, including mine, and papers by Greg Burge and Keith Ihlanfeldt on the use of impact fees, Sam Staley on the effectiveness of the sustainability program in Santa Monica, and the importance of public health components presented by Chris Coutts (Florida State).  To see a full list of the papers and their abstracts, go to the web site.

2012 Massachusetts Sustainable Communities and Campuses Conferences

For those of you who are in Eastern Massachusetts, you might be interested in attending this year's Sustainable Communities conference on April 20 and Sustainable Campuses conference on April 21. The conferences will be held at the campus of UMass Boston, and I will be serving on a panel the morning of the 20th.  Check out the full programs.

May 2011 Update on Findlay Ohio (Hancock County)

Michael Reed, from University of Findlay in Findlay, Ohio, sent along an update on the efforts to develop a sustainability program and plan for that city and its county (Hancock County).  The Hancock County Sustainability Coalition has made some impressive strides.  A presentation Download Findlay ohio.ppfinal050611 at a recent coalition meeting gives a pretty good sense of the progress that has been made.   This is not for quotation without atribution.

New National Rankings Posted

We have posted the latest rankings of U.S. cities on the OurGreenCities web site.  This is the most recent update since 2007.  This new set of rankings considers the 54 largest cities in the country plus Pittsburgh (currently the 59th largest city).  As before, the rankings are based on an assessment of how many of the 38 different specific policies and programs each city has enacted and implemented.  This is the only set of rankings that explicitly looks at local policies and programs, and is truly city-based (rather than metropolitan, county, or regionally based).  The cities of Portland, Denver, and Seattle are tied for first place.  Check the web site for more information, and let me know if you have any questions about the methodologies employed in these assessments.

New National Ranking to Be Released Soon

I'm finishing up my latest rankings of cities' sustainability programs, and I hoping to release them within the next two weeks.  This year's rankings will be different from those of the past.  This release will rank the 54 largest cities in the U.S. rather than just the cities that have announced that they have a sustainability program.  The newer set of rankings will include all cities in the U.S. from Santa Ana, with a population of 324,000 up to New York City.  The older rankings included many cities smaller than this, including cities that have very impressive sustainability programs such as Boulder, CO and Santa Monica, CA, Grand Rapids, and MI, Madison, WI, to name a few.  Keep checking the Our Green Cities web site (http://ourgreencities.com) for this update.

Sustainable Communities in Massachusetts

Massachusetts has not been a leader on issues of sustainable communities, although from time to time Boston, Cambridge, Brookline, and Newton, among others have at least stated to talk a good game.  For those who would like to advance the cause in MA, there is a Massachusetts Sustainable Communities conference on April 15, at the Holiday Inn in Marlborough.  For more information about the program, speakers, and registration, go to http://www.masustainablecommunities.com .

NRDC Report examines water quality and pollution in cities

Analysis reported by the Environmental Working Group entitled "Over 300 Pollutants in US Tap Water," assessed the quality of drinking water in 100 U.S. cities.  They tested for many different types of pollutants, far more than is required under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act.  What they found was that some cities have pretty decent drinking water, including the three best -- Fort Worth, TX, Providence, RI, and Arlington, TX, while other cities have very serious problems.  They found that Las Vegas was the 98th worst, Riverside, CA was the 99th, and Penscacola, FL was the worst.