By Alan Pryor –
By Alan Pryor – Climate Action Plan – The presumable final draft of the Climate Action Plan for the City of Davis was presented by the City’s Sustainability Manager, Mitch Sears. Mr. Sears initially reviewed the history of the plan and its development beginning in 2007. Indicating that many cities have a much greater head start than Davis in implementing a Climate Action Plan (e.g. Seattle, Portland, Berkeley, and San Francisco), Mr. Sears said that many of the elements of the Davis plan were drawn from the best features of those cities’ plans. He also acknowledged that he was delayed in completing this final report of the Davis plan which was otherwise approved by the Climate Action Team over a year ago because he has recently assumed many other responsibilities including assistance and preparation of a number of grants seeking funds for the City.
During public comments, this author directed his comments toward Councilmember Stephen Souza who was present as the Council’s liaison to the NRC. I stated that public support of the plan and confidence in its implementation timetable had waned substantially during the past year due to these avoidable delays in finalizing the Plan. I stated that everyone who had worked with Mitch Sears during the Plan’s development had the highest regards for his understanding of the problems. And most people understood that the near term actions proposed in the Plan were probably the best possible given the fact that no financial support at all has been offered by the City Council for implementation of any of the measures in the Plan. I further stated that unless the City Council changes its policies and provides the resources necessary for successful implementation of the Plan, however, specifically by allowing Mitch Sears to devote his full attentions to the Plan, that Davis will continue to fall further behind other cities in their efforts to reduce green house gas emissions.
Mr. Souza responded with a spirited defense of the Council’s support for the Climate Action Plan. He stated that the City’s financial support for the Plan would have been completely different had not the State stolen millions of dollars of monies that the City could otherwise have used to better support the Climate Action Plan initiative among many other service demands. I responded in turn saying that many cities have faced even greater financial reductions in their budgets than Davis but through astute management they nevertheless were able to allocate sufficient resources and muster senior staff management support to move their climate programs forward. Mr. Souza responded that Davis provides far more services with fewer employees at less cost to citizens than almost any other city. I immediately responded that many citizens of Davis would consider that highly debatable. The conversation ended when Councilmember Souza indicated that the NRC was not the proper forum for that ongoing debate.
After brief discussions of some specific elements of the plan, a motion to recommend approval of the Plan by the City Council was passed with the only request being that planning for implementation of the subsequent Phase II of the Plan be made during Phase I to ensure continuity.
This author otherwise stands by his statements to Councilmember Souza. I truly believe that Mitch Sears is a vital asset to the future implementation of the Plan because of his technical understanding and the willing acceptance of this expertise by the public. That said, the Davis Climate Action Plan will wither and not produce nearly the desired results if the City Council and staff management does not support it by allocation of the necessary personnel resources for it to succeed; including the full-time devotion of Mitch Sears time to implementation of the Plan. Given the Council’s earlier stipulations that the Plan could not commit to any capital expenditures improvements in the Plan, the least the current and future Council can do to support this plan is to provide for staff time critical for the outreach, public education, and coordination of the primarily private citizen initiatives called for in the Plan. However, given the priorities of the current Council and staff management’s past performance in this regard, I believe it is highly questionable that this will occur.
Integrated Pest Management Program Plan– The 2010 annual report on the City’s efforts to reduce pesticide use during 2009 was presented by the City’s Integrated Pest Management Specialist, Martin Guerena. The current IPM report, which will be posted online on the City’s website soon, reported on all pesticide usage levels in the city in 2009 and discussed plans and challenges to achieve further reductions in 2010. Based on the figures presented by Mr. Guerena, substantial progress was made in improving practices and reducing pesticide use in Davis during 2009. Previously, City pesticide usage had plateaued at relatively high levels during the 2004-2008 5-year period. Additionally, a number of environmentally persistent and toxic pesticides were used by the department of Parks and Recreation and highly questionable pesticides and practices were reported by the Public Works department. These uses and practices preceded Mr. Guerena’s tenure with the City who has yet to complete his 3rd full year of employment.
As previously reported, during Mr. Guerena’s first full year as the City’s IPM specialist, he had authored and published a delightfully entertaining and informative comic book describing least toxic pesticide usage practices for homeowners. The award-winning and professionally illustrated publication is entitled, “The Exterminator – Adventures in Urban Integrated Pest Management” and was primarily focused on reducing residential pesticide usage in the City. Readers are urged to visit the city website to download a copy of this educational comic at http://cityofdavis.org/pgs/ipm/exterminator.cfm. In addition, Mr. Guerena reported that an online pesticide usage map for some larger city parks had been partially implemented. Overall, however, pesticide usage had not been substantially reduced during Mr. Guerena’s first full year of employment.
During this last year, however, Mr. Guerena has overcome years of bureaucratic inertia in Davis and reported real and measurable strides in reducing overall pesticide usage. Of particular note is the fact that for the first time ever the City used no Class I pesticides in its operations. Class I pesticides are those shown to have the harshest environmental consequences to non-target species and/or the most severe adverse effects on human health and safety. Mr. Guerena stated to the NRC one year ago that it was his priority intent to reduce usage of these most toxic pesticides to the greatest extent possible. This author publicly expressed skepticism at that NRC meeting last year when these plans were announced saying that such reductions would not be possible without firmly established goals and objectives in place to measure progress on an ongoing basis.
That criticism was not warranted, however, as Mr. Guerena not only eliminated use of Class I pesticides but significantly reduced use of Class II and II pesticides through a variety of innovative practices combined with experimental-based demonstrations. For instance, mulching with cardboard strips covered by organic mulch was shown to provide better weed control than use of pre-emergent herbicides. Use of contact herbicides was also reduced by about 25% by coextensive use of acetic acid and flaming broadleaf species (both of which practices are approved for organic use). These innovations not only reduced pesticide use but also allowed for labor savings because areas missed by initial spraying could often be spotted within 24 hours allowing for prompt reapplication and eliminating the need for later follow-up surveys.
The one area in which substantial decreases in herbicide use were not seen was at the wastewater treatment plant which seems to still employ a scorched earth weed control policy. It appears that this is the result of management of weed control at the plant by the wastewater plant operators themselves. One suggestion at the NRC that would seem to have merit and deserving of consideration would be to put all weed control activities throughout the entire city under the control of the IPM specialist rather than allowing individual departmental division heads to specify treatment options about which they often have little understanding of the nuances of modern IPM practices. Indeed, increased operational responsibility for the IPM specialist is a common feature to many cities’ IPM programs that are more advanced than in Davis. It will be interesting to see if Mr. Guerena can continue to reduce City pesticide use in the future given the current administrative hierarchy in the City and now that the obvious and most pressing pesticide reductions (i.e. the low hanging fruit) have already been made last year.
Author’s Note: I have not been normally known to sing the praises of the efforts of Davis City staff and have often been highly critical of some past environmental decisions and practices in the City. I have stated and written that Davis has lost its environmental lead compared to many other more progressive cities, including in our Integrated Pest Management Program and our Climate Action Plan. For the most part, however, I believe these shortcomings are due to actions or inactions by our Davis City Council and policies undertaken by staff senior management. This criticism does not extend to Mitch Sears and Martin Guerena. They have shown themselves to be exemplary examples of hard-working, dedicated, and knowledgeable civil servants. The City and citizens of Davis are lucky indeed to have these gentlemen in our service. They are truly making a difference in the sustainability of Davis and they should be commended for their efforts and the concrete results they have achieved. And I have no doubt that they would have done even better jobs if policies had been implemented by City Council or staff management that supported, rather than hindered, their efforts as discussed above.
Good reporting and thanks for the acknowledgment of the good work by civil servants, so often scapegoated these days. Perhaps the waste water treatment plant operators will be persuaded by the effectiveness of the more organic weed control, as I assume their main concern is keeping herbal matter out of their machinery.
I’m delighted to learn that the Climate Action Team actually created some sort of plan. I attended their big kick off meet in ’07 where public input was soliticited. The members of the public posted our ideas for both short and long term changes that could be implemented by both citiizens and City government
Having recently done a little personal research that led me to believe that I am spending approximately 48% of my driving time within the City of Davis sitting at stop lights waiting for traffic that frequently is not there, I posted a note suggesting that the Citycould immediately implement a plan to synchronize the street lights on Covell, Anderson Fifth and Polline Rd. at almost no cost, and imediatley reduce Davis’ carbon footprint. I noted that, in San Francisco, one can drive across the city on Geary Blvd at five mph. below the speed limit and, barring emergency vehicles, never hit a red light. Huge saving s of energy consumed from point A to point B.
Because the concept was larger than the space provided on note cards I followed up, as requested, with a detailed email explaining about how inefficient the internal combustion engine is at idle speed, etc. I never received an acknowledgment that my email had been received. In fact, (and I am out of town a lot and only recently learned about the Vanguard) I have never heard anythingregarding the Climate Action Team in the three years since that first meeting. Only last week did I finally hear a City Council candidate make mention of street light synchronization as something the City of Davis could do to reduce greenhouse gasses
Clearly the City places little value on carbon reduction beyond a public relations buzz or has done a remarkably poor job of keeping the citizens informed of the progress being made by the Climate Action Team. I was under the impression that Climate Action was just another fad for the City and had long since been disbanded. I hope that the new Council will have a change of priorities and give Mr. Sears the support needed to do his job in a timely manner. Global Warming does not wait for budgets to improve!
Natural Resources Commissioner Herman Boschkin has been pushing for traffic synchronization for a while. and he’s not the only one. Citizens like Mr. Bockrath here proposed it for the Climate Action Plan, and it’s in there. In April 2009 the City adopted priorities for future transportation investment which include smoothness of traffic flow to save fuel. (Other priorities including reducing car miles traveled and improving City fleet efficiency.) The Climate Action Plan medium term actions include “implement traffic light synchronization”, with “additional study required.”
I hope folks will make sure lights aren’t synchronized in a way that discourages bike traffic, making cyclists stop and dismount at each intersection. As a teenager I hated streets in LA that seemed to work well for cars but made me stop every block no matter how slow or fast I tried to bike. Santa Monica Blvd, on my path to my McDonald’s job, was the worst, tempting me sorely to accept my parents’ offer to use their car. Traffic smoothing will already make driving more attractive; let’s not compound the effect by dissuading bicycling.
Adrienne Kandel
Adrienne,
Thank you for the information re: Street light synchronization. Your suggestion regarding engineering to avoiding un-necessary stops for bicyclists is a good one that I had not considered. Very important! If the speed limit were 30 and 25mph gets you through every light, then a bicyclist traveling at 12.5 miles per hour would also coast right on through. I wonder if that is too fast for many bicyclists. We need a trafic engineer with good math skills…way better than mine! r.b.
“Climate Action Plan.” that’s cute! Nobody knows that cutting energy consumption will do a damned thing to change the climate, and nobody knows what that net effect it will have. All they know is carbon cutting makes us feel warm and fuzzy inside.
suppose every damned car in Davis California were to disappear tomorrow. What effect exactly would that give us? would temperatures suddenly drop? by how many degrees celsius? how would we know?