Posts tagged sustainability
City giving incentive rebates to high-tech company
Jan 5th
City Manager Jane S. Brautigam has approved a flexible rebate application for Boulder-based Tendril for up to $85,000 in rebates. The rebates were authorized for sales and use taxes, and permit-related fees.
The flexible rebate program is one of the city’s business incentives, covering a wide range of fees, equipment and construction use taxes. Under this program, the city manager may consider a specific incentive package for tax and fee rebates to meet a company’s specific needs. The company is then eligible for the rebate after it has made its investment and paid the taxes or fees to the city.
“The City of Boulder is pleased that Tendril, a company founded in Boulder, is growing and able to maintain operations in the city, in part, due to city-offered incentives,” said City Manager Jane S. Brautigam. “Tendril is at the forefront of energy technology and represents the future of the industry.”
Tendril is transforming the way the world interacts with energy. The company’s technology allows consumers to modify their behaviors to reduce both their costs and energy usage and allows the utility to speak with the consumer during peak periods in order to reduce demand. Tendril is expanding and recently renovated and moved into an approximately 52,000 square-foot space at 2560 55th St.
“We are proud to be a Boulder-based company. Boulder provides access to great talent, an unmatched quality of life for our employees and a vibrant technology community that is quickly becoming a center of clean tech innovation,” said David Rayner, chief financial officer at Tendril. “As a leader in clean technology, it is important to us that we ‘walk the walk’ on green initiatives and we’re thrilled to receive recognition from the City of Boulder for our sustainability efforts.”
The flexible rebate program uses social, community, and environmental sustainability guidelines. Companies choose the guidelines that best fit their circumstances, but must meet minimum requirements in order to receive the rebate. Tendril has exceeded the minimum community sustainability guidelines. Of note, Tendril participates in RTD’s Eco Pass program and has a Green Team responsible for managing environmental initiatives, including holding in-house educational sessions, purchasing energy-friendly appliances, and maintaining composting and recycling programs. The company will participate in energy efficiency programs such as receiving an energy assessment for its new facility and participating in the 10 for Change challenge.
Tendril’s flexible rebate application is one of six submitted to the city in late 2011. Five 2011 applications are pending. The city’s approved 2012 budget includes $350,000 in funding for 2012 flexible tax and fee rebates for primary employers.
No consensus for GMOs, pesticides, “experimental farming” in #Boulder County’s cropland policy
Dec 13th
Commissioners to consider Cropland Policy at Dec. 20 public meeting
Boulder County, Colo. – The Boulder County Commissioners will deliberate on public testimony and comments received concerning the Cropland Policy Advisory Group’s (CPAG) policy recommendations for Boulder County Open Space croplands on Dec. 20 from 1-3 p.m.
What: Public meeting for the Board of County Commissioners to consider the proposed Cropland Policy for Boulder County Open Space agricultural lands
When: Tuesday, Dec. 20 at 1 p.m.
Where: Commissioners’ Hearing Room, Boulder County Courthouse, third floor, 1325 Pearl St.
Alternative viewing: Watch the meeting live online the day of the deliberations
The meeting on Dec. 20 is open to the public, but no further public testimony will be taken. All comments submitted to the commissioners via regular mail, electronic mail, phone calls and in-person testimony leading up to the Dec. 20 meeting date will be taken into consideration.
The meeting will be Web streamed live on Dec. 20. Members of the public can view the meeting online at:www.bouldercounty.org/government/pages/hearings.aspx. A taped version of the meeting will also be posted on the website as part of the commissioners’ video archive.
Background
The CPAG, consisting of nine members appointed by the commissioners, held meetings over a nine-month period to create a comprehensive Cropland Policy for Boulder County Open Space agricultural lands. The policy recommendations address soil health, economic sustainability, pest management, program administration, water, livestock, recreation and natural resource protection on agricultural lands. Through a consensus process, CPAG developed more than 80 policy recommendations. Three areas failed to achieve consensus: genetically engineered crops, use of certain pesticides, and experimental farming practices.
On Dec. 8, the county commissioners held a public hearing attended by more than 500 people, many of whom signed up to speak. At the hearing, the commissioners and attendees received a staff presentation on the county’s existing practices and programs, an overview of CPAG’s recommendations and a summary of input from the Food and Agriculture Policy Council (FAPC), the Parks and Open Space Advisory Committee (POSAC), and Parks and Open Space staff. The presentation was followed by 8 ½ hours of open public comment.
Members of the public have been providing input over the nine-month period, and all comments have been recorded as part of the public record. In addition to the many open meetings and hearings held by CPAG as they formed their recommendations for the cropland policy, several subsequent public meetings have been held to consider the draft policy: a staff presentation and joint public hearing on Nov. 15 to FAPC and POSAC, FAPC deliberations on Nov. 16, POSAC deliberations on Nov. 17, and the public open comment hearing with the Board of County Commissioners on Dec. 8.
For a copy of the Cropland Policy provided to the commissioners and information about the policy, please visit the Cropland Policy website or contact Resource Planner Jesse Rounds at 303-678-6271 or croplandpolicy@bouldercounty.org.
CU scientists study high-Asian snowpack for GW clues
Dec 7th
WATER RESOURCES IN ASIA MOUNTAINS
A University of Colorado Boulder team is partnering with the United States Agency for International Development to assess snow and glacier contributions to water resources originating in the high mountains of Asia that straddle 10 countries.
Richard Armstrong and Mark Williams, the two faculty members leading the four-year study, said the aim is to provide a comprehensive and systematic assessment of freshwater resources in the so-called “High Asia” region, which encompasses five mountain ranges and watersheds totaling roughly 1 million square miles. The area under study is roughly equal to one-third of the contiguous United States.
This assessment will be crucial in helping to forecast the future availability and vulnerability of water resources in the region, beginning with accurate assessments of the distinct, separate contributions to river discharge from melting glacier ice and seasonal snow. Such data ultimately will provide a better understanding of the timing and volume of runoff in the face of climate change, said the CU-Boulder researchers.
The High Asia mountains funnel water into such major river basins as the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Indus, Amu Darya and Syr Darya. The High Asian mountain ranges under study include the Himalaya, Karkoram, Hindu Kush, Pamir and Tien Shan. The mountain ranges straddle Bhutan, Nepal, China, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
Through the partnership, scientists and students within the 10 countries will carry out collaborative research with CU-Boulder scientists. The project also will support satellite data processing by CU-Boulder staff and trainings for local institutions and observers within the study area to collect water and precipitation samples for the project.
While about one-third of the world’s population depends to some degree on fresh water within the High Asia hydrological system, not enough data exists on river and stream flows and the contribution of seasonal snow and glacier melt to paint an accurate picture of the water resources there, said Armstrong, a senior research scientist at CU-Boulder’s National Snow and Ice Data Center, or NSIDC. ”
The team requires an accurate quantitative portrait of each major river basin and sub-basin in High Asia. The Indus River, for example, which is fed by waterways from the Himalaya, Karakorum and Hindu Kush mountain ranges, comes together at the city of Besham, Pakistan, “where it immediately turns into the largest irrigation system in the world,” said Williams. “The sources of water in High Asia feeding the major foothill regions where most of the people live are really the crux of this study.”
Armstrong said there is a lot of misinformation in the public arena regarding glaciers, including reports that glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than anywhere else in the world and, if this rapid melting continues, rivers are on track to first flood and then dry up. “Those reports simply are not true,” Armstrong said.
USAID is an independent United States government agency that provides economic, development and humanitarian assistance around the world in support of the foreign policy goals of the United States.
“USAID wants to know how the High Asia water resources affect local populations,” said Armstrong, also a fellow at the CU-headquartered Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. “They are looking at this challenge from a sustainability perspective, including what is going to happen to rivers like the Indus and the Brahmaputra in the next 20 years.”
The researchers will use remote-sensing satellite data from NASA, the European Space Agency and the Japanese Space Agency to develop time-series maps of seasonal snowfall amounts and recent changes in glacier extent, said Williams, a fellow at CU-Boulder’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research and a CU-Boulder geography professor. They also will use local meteorological and river discharge data from throughout the High Asia study area.
“What’s really driving this study are questions about water security,” said Williams. “There is a lot of international interest in accurate water resource data from the High Asia region and what the water security consequences are, since water conflicts between countries can escalate rapidly. This study should provide answers as to what is real and what is false.”
“Once we have a picture of recent and current conditions, we can go forward and run computer ‘melt models’ based on the temperatures at various elevations, giving us trends in snowmelt and glacier melt by region and time,” said Armstrong. “That’s when we start to come up with water volumes for individual rivers and streams from both melting snow and ice.”
The modeling results will be verified using geochemical and water isotope “tracer” techniques developed at CU that allow researchers to follow water as it courses through mountain landscapes. Previous studies by Williams and his research group showed high mountain groundwater in Colorado dominated by snowmelt can be locked underground for decades before emerging into downstream waterways. “These isotopic and geochemical measurements provide unique fingerprints, allowing a CSI-like approach to tracing water sources,” said Williams.
Critical to the project is the university’s expertise in remote sensing research through NSIDC — including assessing changes in Earth’s snow and ice cover — and INSTAAR’s research on the physical, chemical and biological processes in “critical zones,” which are the areas between treetops and groundwater. INSTAAR administers both the Long-Term Ecological Research site at Niwot Ridge west of Boulder and the Critical Zone Observatory project in the Boulder Creek watershed for the National Science Foundation.
One of the biggest project challenges will be to obtain data from some of the most remote regions on Earth, said Williams. The water, rain and snow samples collected by collaborators within the study area will be sent back to CU-Boulder for analysis.
The research will bring together scientists and government officials in the countries of High Asia to coordinate and compare results on what part of river flows come from glaciers and seasonal snow. This sharing of information is important because the rivers of Asia can cross several country borders. USAID support will contribute to the research and coordination and CU-Boulder will make its archived and new data on snow and ice easily available to all the countries and their citizens.
The CU team will hire Asian project managers and collaborate with research scientists affiliated with various Asian institutes. “We already have some good scientific contacts in the region, people we know who are reliable and who can deliver,” said Armstrong.
A number of CU undergraduate and graduate students will be involved in the study and support will be available to Asian students by way of the funding provided to Asian project partners.
“One of the main project goals is to transfer scientific understanding to people in the region who can continue these measurements and analysis once the USAID project is finished,” said Armstrong. “The idea is to provide the local population with the information they need to make decisions that will increase sustainability as land use and climate change.