Archive for the ‘Green’ Category

Riverscape

Sunday, April 22nd, 2012
Sean and Niall at Deming Park

Sean and his son Niall Walking at Deming Park

It’s Earth Day 2012, and gasoline prices across the valley are pushing the $4/gallon mark. For decades, Vigo County has ignored the importance of a vibrant multi-modal transportation infrastructure which includes sidewalks, bike trails and public transportation in addition to ordinary roads. Such infrastructure can reduce the number of cars on the road, reducing your out-of-pocket transportation costs when gas prices actually reflect supply and demand. Concerned citizens and politicians are now pushing for change, culminating in a grand vision for connecting the east, west, north and south with downtown and the river. A series of trails are in the works, the first of which will be along the original Dresser Drive. It will be the latest addition to the growing Terre Haute National Road Heritage Trail Greenway System.

The Dresser Drive trail will connect Fairbanks Park to the planned Wabash Riverfront Pedestrian Boardwalk, part of the Riverscape initiative. Riverscape is important, not only for its recreational and business development prospects, but for its potential to bring down the costs of our federally mandated combined sewer overflow (CSO) improvements. Green infrastructure implemented in and around the Riverscape area will reduce the amount of rainwater entering our sewer system.

For Riverscape to be successful, in addition to the full support of the community, we will need one or more businesses to anchor the boardwalk. This will expand upon the recreational aspect of Riverscape to bring in tourists and depending on the businesses’ hours, make the area safer. The non-profit behind Riverscape hopes for the businesses to focus on food and shopping. A great example of what is working elsewhere in the tri-state is Newport on the Levee, next to the Purple People Bridge connecting Northern Kentucky and Ohio. It’s a stop on the Northern Kentucky Riverfront Commons trail, which is a part of the greater trail and greenway network organized by the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments.

The Purple People Bridge and Newport on the Levee as shot by Jeff Kubina

The anchor business at Newport on the Levee is a state-of-the-art AMC theater with stadium-style, reclining seating. Also in the complex is a small indoor and outdoor shopping mall, a one million gallon aquarium showcasing exotic as well as Ohio River indigenous species, and several upscale restaurants and pubs. The project at the levee transformed this small town of less than 16,000 from its historical status of “Sin City” to the family-friendly destination in the Cincinnati metro area. Nearby businesses invested in improvements to their existing locations and new business development spurred for miles southward. Newport was no longer the butt of nearby city’s jokes, and instead a model to be emulated.

Riverscape is not out of our reach. Terre Haute has over 60,000 residents and our metro area has over 170,000. We just need political champions who can see this through, and who can get out there and explain Vigo County’s value proposition to businesses.

Posted in Business, Green, Parks, Sustainability |

Renewable Energy

Friday, April 22nd, 2011
Today is Earth Day, a day to reflect on our impact on the environment and propose ways to lessen that impact. The City Council of Berkeley, CA with the help of UC Berkeley has pioneered a unique way to solve the financial hurdle involved with getting homes and businesses to install solar panels on their property. They created an Energy Financing District which allows the city to finance the installation of solar panels by private property owners and businesses. The financing is repaid over a set number of years through a “special tax” or “assessment” on the property tax bill of only those property owners who choose to participate in the program. The financing is secured with a lien on the property. There is little or no up-front cost to the property owner, and if the property is sold before the end of the repayment period, the new owner inherits both the repayment obligation and the financed improvements. Over two decades, the special assessment would be the same or less than what property owners would save on their electric bill. The property owner would remain eligible for federal and state credits for installing these green technologies.When setting up our own Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program, we must be careful not to place the lien in a superior position to the mortgage on the property. The Federal Housing Finance Authority prevents us from doing so. We must also resolve the legality of the special assessment against our new constitutionally imposed property tax caps.

I propose that instead of bonds, we use the new taxes generated by the fossil fuel oil wells within the city limits to kick off our PACE program. The program once launched is self sustaining, and no city revenue would be lost in the long run. It would be an excellent way to encourage Vigo County residents to choose to live inside the city limits rather than continue to push out into the metro area, and we’d be helping out the environment as well as our pocket books.

Be sure to check out UC Berkeley’s Guide to Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy Financing Districts For Local Governments.

Posted in Energy, Green, Platform, Technology |

Supporting Science in Our Own Backyard

Saturday, April 16th, 2011
Many people don’t know it, but Terre Haute has an observatory. It’s owned by Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and sits just east of campus near the end of Heritage Trail. 

Rose doesn’t offer a major in astronomy but it does offer a minor in it. Those students brave enough to stay up for countless nights, often in the dead of winter without heat (as heat would affect the telescope glass), get papers published in major astronomical journals each year. Their work got even harder recently due to the new development on IN-46. You can see Wal-mart’s glow from miles away on I-70, so imagine how this affects these students’ studies of the night sky?

It’s called light pollution, and there are steps we can take as a city to curb it. Any new city lamp posts installed should utilize semi- or full cutoff lighting fixtures which direct light wholly downward instead of horizontally, and existing non-cutoff lamp posts should be surveyed to ensure that they are not overly consuming electricity or overly contributing to light pollution. In many cases, the most efficient design that balances these two concerns for the non-cutoff lamp posts where they are placed close together will be simply turning every other one off.

In addition to the design of the light post, we can switch to a different type of light bulb to help reduce light pollution. If we switch to low pressure sodium (LPS) light bulbs in all city light posts, we will not only help with the light pollution but also with our city electric bill as these light sources are 4x or more energy efficient than standard incandescent bulbs. The city of San Jose, CA has been using LPS bulbs since 1980 and many other cities throughout the country have since jumped on board.

New development is important for the growth of the city, but it need not overshadow existing qualities of the community. If we are to truly control light pollution, we need our businesses to adjust their lighting practices as well. I propose that we pass a city lighting ordinance which at a minimum requires the use of LPS bulbs in private parking lot lighting fixtures.

Posted in Energy, Green, Platform, Science, Technology |