Environmental News
Environmental News from Boulder, Colorado
Boulder County Recognized for its Leadership on Reducing Carbon Pollution and Addressing Climate Change
Feb 28th
Boulder County awarded a 2013 Organizational Leadership Award as part of the annual the Climate Leadership Awards sponsored by EPA and other leading climate change organizations
Boulder County, Colo. – Boulder County is pleased to be among fewer than a handful of local governments recognized for its leadership and innovation around the issue of climate change and clean energy.
Today it was announced by the EPA’s Climate Protection Partnerships Division and its co-sponsors, The Climate Registry (The Registry), the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES), and the Association of Climate Change Officers (ACCO), that Boulder County is a winner of the 2013 Organizational Leadership Award as part of the annual the Climate Leadership Awards (CLA).
The CLA is a national awards program that recognizes and encourages exemplary corporate, organizational, and individual leadership in reducing carbon pollution and addressing climate change. Award winners must demonstrate leadership in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in internal operations and throughout the supply chain, as well as integrating climate resilience into their operating strategies.
“We are thrilled to be recognized for the work of our staff and our partners throughout the community who have made it their tireless priority to engage residents of Boulder County in activities and actions that have led to real change on behalf of the environment and reducing our carbon footprint countywide,” said Cindy Domenico, Chair of the Boulder County Commissioners. “Whether it be in the realm of energy efficiency, transportation, Zero Waste, residential and commercial building retrofits, or significant investments in renewable energy options, we’re proud to be on the leading edge of innovation in these areas.”
This year’s awards mark a noteworthy increase in public-sector city and county engagement, a priority effort that Boulder County has championed in collaboration with its municipal partners since the creation of the county’s Sustainability Initiative in 2005.
“It is an honor to receive recognition for the commitment that our past and present County Commissioners and sustainability staff have made to a healthier and more environmentally sustainable place to live,” said Boulder County Sustainability Coordinator, Susie Strife. “This award is a reflection of the hard work, progressive decision making and leadership of Boulder County and the collaborative partnership with all of our municipalities, in particular the Cities of Boulder and Longmont.”
Programs like EnergySmart, Boulder County’s Energy Efficiency service, are helping Boulder County reduce greenhouse gas emissions from existing buildings. EnergySmart has helped over 8,600 homes and 2,400 businesses with energy efficiency upgrades.
In addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, EnergySmart is stimulating the local economy with over $16 million in energy efficiency upgrades and advancing the state’s energy independence. EnergySmart is a collaborative partnership throughout Boulder County, and is funded by seed funding from the Department of Energy’s BetterBuildings Program, combined with contributions from the City of Boulder’s Climate Action Plan tax and the City of Longmont.
Other demonstrations of the county’s forward thinking actions include the development of the Climate Change Preparedness Plan, blueprints for action around sustainability and energy efficiency, and the county’s recently completed Transportation Master Plan which identifies programs, services, and facilities that Boulder County will implement to help people get where they need to go in the future in a safe, efficient, and environmentally sensitive manner.
The CLA awards will be presented tonight at the Climate Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C.
More information about the awards and award winners is available at epa.gov/climateleadership/awards/ or through the EPA’s news release.
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Boulder releases findings related to possible creation of a municipal electric utility
Feb 21st
The results show that there are several forms a new utility could take that don’t require trade-offs among the community’s core values. The Boulder community has said it wants cleaner and greener energy with rates and reliability comparable to or better than those provided by Xcel Energy. The community is also seeking more local control and a voice in decision-making, as well as an opportunity to enhance economic vitality by providing a test bed for emerging technology and a low-cost, high-reliability environment in which businesses can thrive.
When Boulder voters approved the continued exploration of a municipal utility in November 2011, they set limiting requirements in the Charter that must be met before City Council could proceed. These included provisions related to rates, revenue sufficiency and reliability, as well as plans to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and increase renewable sources of energy.
Specific Findings
Under some of the options analyzed, a municipal electric utility would meet the Charter metrics and have a high likelihood of being able to:
· Offer all three major customer classes (residential, commercial and industrial) lower rates than what they would pay Xcel, not just on day one, as required by the Charter, but on average over 20 years;
· Maintain or exceed current levels of system reliability and emergency response, and, if the community chose to, use future investments to enhance dependability;
· Reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions by more than 50 percent from current levels and exceed the Kyoto Protocol target in year one;
· Obtain 54 percent or more of its electricity from renewable resources; and
· Create a model public electric utility with leading-edge innovations in reliability, energy efficiency, renewable energy, related economic development and customer service.
The report also examines the impact that a variety of stranded cost and acquisition cost rulings could have on rates and revenue requirements over 20 years.
The full memo, with all attachments, is available at www.boulderenergyfuture.com.
Process and Participation
“We are excited to share the results of this detailed analysis with City Council and our community. We believe the findings demonstrate that a municipal utility could be good for consumers, good for Boulder businesses and good for our planet,” said Heather Bailey, executive director of Energy Strategy and Electric Utility Development. “We look forward to an informed conversation over the next couple of month about how best to proceed.”
Bailey said she is especially grateful for the participation of more than 50 community members, many of whom have industry expertise, who donated their time to serve on working groups. These groups helped to ensure that a variety of perspectives was included and that all modeling was based on reasonable assumptions and data.
“This has been a community-wide review process, and this has greatly enhanced the quality and integrity of our report,” Bailey said. “I wish to thank everyone who has played a role in this direct way, as well as the countless members of the public who have shared their thoughts and concerns with me over the past year.”
An Xcel Energy Partnership Alternative?
While the city is committed to exploring ways to achieve “the electric utility of the future,” it has acknowledged that there might be ways to do so short of creating its own utility – in the form of a new partnership with the existing electric provider, Xcel Energy.
In December, the city released a paper that outlined a variety of ideas that could achieve the community’s goals if Xcel Energy is interested. The city has since spoken with officials from the current utility several times, asking them to identify which of the suggestions they would be willing to consider, as well as any innovative approaches the company might like to propose. Xcel officials have said they are open to a dialogue but have not yet come forward with specifics about what ideas they would like to discuss.
The framework for considering how the city should proceed includes the possibility of modeling an Xcel partnership option, when and if additional details become available. There are, in the analysis released today, also at least two options that might be achievable with the participation of a collaborative and willing energy partner.
“What we are looking to do is move beyond a 19th century approach to providing energy and create a forward-looking, innovative and consumer-friendly utility model that reduces our reliance on fossil fuels,” Bailey said. “Xcel Energy has served us for decades, and in many ways, done an admirable job. It is possible they could help us meet our objectives. We would welcome their involvement in a meaningful, timely and transparent discussion.”
What’s Next
Boulder City Council is scheduled to hear a presentation based on this memo and ask questions at a Study Session on Tuesday, Feb. 26. The session will be broadcast live on Comcast Channel 8 for Boulder viewers and online at www.boulderchannel8.com. A recording will also be available at the above website for later viewing. There is no opportunity for public comment at study sessions, but they are an excellent way to learn more about a topic and the staff’s work.
City Council will discuss this issue again – and decide whether to move forward with the next steps related to the potential creation of a city electric utility – on April 16. This meeting will begin at 6 p.m. in Council Chambers at 1777 Broadway and will include a public hearing.
Opportunities for Public Feedback
Between now and council’s April 16 decision, the city is providing multiple ways for the community to provide input about the analysis and how council might move forward.
As always, council accepts correspondence on any issue of community interest. In addition, there is a comment form available for this specific initiative on the project website.
In addition, the city is offering the following unique opportunities:
· An online questionnaire that will be available at www.bouldercolorado.gov between Feb. 27 and March 27;
· A conference telephone call designed to focus on rates and reliability, two key concerns for the business community, from noon to 1 p.m. on Tuesday, March 12 (please register in advance at www.bouldercolorado.gov/energyfuture/businesscall);
· A community open house exploring the pros and cons of each of the modeled options from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 13, at the West Senior Center, 909 W. Arapahoe Ave.;
· Focused questions and examination of the options on the city’s new digital town hall platform, Inspire Boulder; and
· Presentations, by invitation, from Bailey or other members of the staff team to interested organizations and associations.
All input collected during the next couple of months will be shared with council in advance of the April 16 meeting.
CU scientists seek solution to the mystery of ever-increasing frog deformities
Feb 14th
CU-Boulder amphibian study shows how
biodiversity can protect against disease
The richer the assortment of amphibian species living in a pond, the more protection that community of frogs, toads and salamanders has against a parasitic infection that can cause severe deformities, including the growth of extra legs, according to a new study by the University of Colorado Boulder.
The findings, published Feb. 14 in the journal Nature, support the idea that greater biodiversity in larger-scale ecosystems, such as forests or grasslands, may also provide greater protection against diseases, including those that attack humans. For example, a larger number of mammal species in an area may curb cases of Lyme disease, while a larger number of bird species may slow the spread of West Nile virus.
“How biodiversity affects the risk of infectious diseases, including those of humans and wildlife, has become an increasingly important question,” said Pieter Johnson, an assistant professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and lead author of the study. “But as it turns out, solidly testing these linkages with realistic experiments has proven very challenging in most systems.”
Researchers have struggled to design comprehensive studies that could illuminate the possible connection between disease transmission and the number of species living in complex ecosystems. Part of the problem is simply the enormous number of organisms that may need to be sampled and the vast areas over which those organisms may roam.
The new CU-Boulder study overcomes that problem by studying smaller, easier-to-sample ecosystems. Johnson and his team visited hundreds of ponds in California, recording the types of amphibians living there as well as the number of snails infected by the pathogen Ribeiroia ondatrae. Snails are an intermediate host used by the parasite during part of its life cycle.
“One of the great challenges in studying the diversity-disease link has been collecting data from enough replicate systems to differentiate the influence of diversity from background ‘noise,’ ” Johnson said. “By collecting data from hundreds of ponds and thousands of amphibian hosts, our group was able to provide a rigorous test of this hypothesis, which has relevance to a wide range of disease systems.”
Johnson’s team buttressed its field observations both with laboratory tests designed to measure how prone to infection each amphibian species is and by creating pond replicas outside using large plastic tubs stocked with tadpoles that were exposed to a known number of parasites. All of the experiments told the same story, Johnson said. Greater biodiversity reduced the number of successful amphibian infections and the number of deformed frogs.
In all, the CU-Boulder researchers spent three years sampling 345 wetlands and recording malformations — which include missing, misshapen or extra sets of hind legs — caused by parasitic infections in 24,215 amphibians. They also cataloged 17,516 snails. The results showed that ponds with half a dozen amphibian species had a 78 percent reduction in parasite transmission compared to ponds with just one amphibian species. The research team also set up experiments in the lab and outdoors using 40 artificial ponds, each stocked with 60 amphibians and 5,000 parasites.
The reason for the decline in parasitic infections as biodiversity increases is likely related to the fact that ponds add amphibian species in a predictable pattern, with the first species to appear being the most prone to infection and the later species to appear being the least prone. For example, the research team found that in a pond with just one type of amphibian, that amphibian was almost always the Pacific chorus frog, a creature that is able to rapidly reproduce and quickly colonize wetland habitats, but which is also especially vulnerable to infection and parasite-induced deformities.
On the other hand, the California tiger salamander was typically one of the last species to be added to a pond community and also one of the most resistant to parasitic infection. Therefore, in a pond with greater biodiversity, parasites have a higher chance of encountering an amphibian that is resistant to infection, lowering the overall success rate of transmission between infected snails and amphibians.
This same pattern — of less diverse communities being made up of species that are more susceptible to disease infection — may well play out in more complex ecosystems as well, Johnson said. That’s because species that disperse quickly across ecosystems appear to trade off the ability to quickly reproduce with the ability to develop disease resistance.
“This research reaches the surprising conclusion that the entire set of species in a community affects the susceptibility to disease,” said Doug Levey, program director in the National Science Foundation’s Division of Environmental Biology, which helped fund the research. “Biodiversity matters.”
The sheer magnitude of the recent study also reinforces the connection between deformed frogs and parasitic infection, Johnson said. Beginning in the mid-1990s reports of frogs with extra, missing or misshapen legs skyrocketed, attracting widespread attention in the media and motivating scientists to try to figure out the cause. Johnson was among the researchers who found evidence of a link between infection with Ribeiroia and frog deformities, though the apparent rise in reports of deformations, and its underlying cause, remains controversial.
While the new study has implications beyond parasitic infections in amphibians, it does not mean that an increase in biodiversity always results in a decrease in disease, Johnson cautioned. Other factors also affect rates of disease transmission. For example, a large number of mosquitoes hatching in a particular year will increase the risk of contracting West Nile virus, even if there has been an increase in the biodiversity of the bird population. Birds act as “reservoir hosts” for West Nile virus, harboring the pathogen indefinitely with no ill effects and passing the pathogen onto mosquitoes.
“Our results indicate that higher diversity reduces the success of pathogens in moving between hosts,” Johnson said. “Nonetheless, if infection pressure is high, for instance in a year with high abundance of vectors, there will still be a significant risk of disease; biodiversity will simply function to dampen transmission success.”
CU-Boulder graduate students Dan Preston and Katie Richgels co-authored the study along with Jason Hoverman, a former postdoctoral researcher in Johnson’s lab who is now an assistant professor at Purdue. The research was funded by NSF, the National Geographic Society and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
To view photos and a video about the research, visit http://freshwatersillustrated.org/link/AmphibianDeformities.
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