This week, the Sierra Club's Green Fleet Tour comes to town to celebrate Providence's passage of an ordinance I introduced a couple of years ago requiring the city to buy fuel-efficient vehicles as its fleet turns over.
Since that ordinance's passage, Providence has purchased a handful of gas-electric hybrid cars, with many more to come.
The Sierra Club's tour is an affirmation of the fact that environmental policy, even at the city level, is about much more than planting street trees.
This summer, I co-sponsored an ordinance requiring Providence's city and school operations to start using renewable energy, with a commitment that by 2010, at least 20 percent of energy consumed will come from renewable sources. With the ordinance's passage in July, Providence became the largest city in the North, and the nation's first state capital, to make such a commitment. As we transition toward the 20 percent requirement, in the coming weeks, we'll be establishing an Energy Task Force charged with implementing the requirement. This task force will decide where to purchase renewable energy and look at opportunities for the City to start producing wind, solar and hydroelectric power.
Rhode Island's air quality is currently far below federal standards. With respect to our ozone levels, the American Lung Association's State of the Air Report for 2003, 2004 and 2005 gave Rhode Island an F for all counties profiled.
Ideally, the city will help to change all of this by purchasing power from local renewable energy projects like the wind turbine that Portsmouth Abbey is set to install by year's end, the potential Royal Mills redevelopment of on-site hydropower and the many Rhode Island homes and businesses that generate solar power.
As convential energy prices skyrocket, there are financial benefits to leaning more heavily on renewables, and becoming more independent from fossil fuels. The cost of renewables is predictable, and declining. In time, the city could start to realize thousands - perhaps millions - of dollars in savings.
We can reduce pollution, and eventually costs, by using clean energy. But we can also achieve those ends by improving energy efficiency. Later this month, the city is set to award a contract to a national firm that runs a behavorial-based energy efficiency program. Through better monitoring and management of our utility usage, the city is projected to save more than $1 million a year.
By leveraging various federal and state grants and credits, Providence could put solar panels on its school buildings at a minimal cost, or even for free. We could, on our own, produce some or all of the 30 megawatt hours of energy we use each year, and save our cash-strapped school system millions of dollars anually.
Later this fall, a solar panel demonstration project will go up at Vartan Gregorian Elementary on Wickenden Street. Early next year, I hope we'll see a bond issue that pays for panels citywide.
As the federal government abdicates responsibility for environmental protections, environmental stewardship is increasingly a duty of local governments. I would welcome any support from from students who would like to collaborate with my environmental work here in Providence.
David Segal is Ward 1's city councilman.
