10/11/07- As seen in The Key west Citicen
City to measure its carbon footprint
BY MANDY BOLEN
KEY WEST — Green is the new black, at least in terms of Key West's environment, and city officials want to know how much effect the 2-by-4-mile island has on global warming.
City commissioners in August agreed to participate in a program called Cities for Climate Change in which municipalities, for $600 per year, use the organization's software to evaluate their greenhouse gas emissions, pollution and fuel usage to come up with their "carbon footprint," or the size of the mark the city leaves on the planet that can lead to climate change.
The city has hired environmental activist Jody Smith Williams, vice president of the Green Living and Energy Education organization, to conduct the tests and research required to measure the island's carbon footprint, which should take about three months, she said.
Knowing how much of a problem exists is the first of five steps for cities enrolled in Cities for Climate Change. Setting a reduction goal, mapping out a plan for that reduction, enacting the plan and monitoring the results will follow in the coming year.
"Conducting an assessment of how the city currently uses and produces energy is an essential first step before any specific initiatives should be implemented," Smith Williams said in an April guest column for The Citizen. "We're going to measure the community as a whole, including residential, commercial and industrial, and then look more specifically at city government and its energy uses and efficiency," she said Wednesday.
Much of her research will include collecting data from Keys Energy Services to determine electricity use; analyzing records from the Florida Department of Transportation that record the amount of fuel sold in Key West, and the average number of vehicle miles traveled in an area; and determining how much waste is hauled out of the Florida Keys as garbage, compared with the amount that is recycled.
Smith Williams does not expect to conduct resident surveys of energy consumption, but hopes to collect as much hard data as possible through past records.
She acknowledged that extrapolation of the information will be necessary in some cases when exact figures are not available. She said she is unsure about how to best find the information she needs, but emphasized that many cities have completed the baseline emissions inventory and have resources to help others.
"I think we're very unique and we do have an opportunity to bicycle rather than drive, and a lot of people do," she said. "But it's no secret that some of the city buildings are very old and are not retrofitted for energy efficiency."
Annalise Mannix-Lachner, deputy assistant city manager who handles environmental issues, added that the city owns 70 buildings that will be analyzed for efficiency and cost of operations.
"Once we find out what we use, we can also find out our largest dirty energy use, like outboard motors," she said, "and there are probably things we can do as a community to address them."
Mannix-Lachner said the emissions inventory will include any production of methane gas from the closed landfill known as Mount Trashmore, as well as a study of the use of propane and natural gas within homes and businesses.
Smith Williams said the budget for the first phase of the program, the emissions inventory, is $8,000.
mbolen@keysnews.com