Part Three Sierra Club: Pesticides, Bikes, Carbon Footprint Reduction

The Sierra Club Yolano Group recently posed a series of local environmental-related questions to the Davis City Council candidates.  Written responses are limited to 400 words for questions relating to the surface water project and 200 words for all other questions.

All responses are reported exactly as received from candidates with the exception that minor formatting changes were made to ensure consistency and to minimize space requirements. Responses were arranged alphabetically by last name for the first question and then rotated for each subsequent question.

Although some of the positions taken by some of the candidates may not be consistent with official Sierra Club policy, the Sierra Club Yolano Group has not endorsed any of the candidates, believing that all have respectable environmental credentials and intentions.

7. Pesticide Use Reduction – In the City of Davis, pesticide/herbicide use continues to be the primary method for control of insect and plant pests. Use of some of these chemicals has increased in recent years or plateaued. Currently, the City’s Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is only an advisory position. What administrative changes or changes in specific practices do you believe can be implemented to reduce overall pesticide/herbicide use by Davis and to encourage the use of least toxic controls by the City and its residents?

Sue Greenwald

I have always been a believer in and practitioner of a “least force necessary” approach to insects and weeds, and would like to see the city do the same.    Although I am a hard-liner when it comes to spiders in the house due to a serious spider bite allergy, I am quite tolerant when it comes to similar critters who reside outside.

I think we need to educate people, including city staff and contractors, and to adjust our aesthetic standards to embrace the variety of plants and animals that create a healthy ecosystem and provide food for birds and other animals.

Many problems will balance themselves out.   Some wanted to cut down their Hackberry trees during the annus horribilis of the Hackberry aphid infestation, but the problem self-corrected after a few years.   For other problems, mechanical methods or the introduction of natural predators can replace the use of toxic chemicals.

Brett Lee

IPM is an essential way to handle “pest” and plant control.  It often saves money and often “solves” the real problem.  It also minimizes potentially toxic exposures to our environment and us.

The part-time IPM employee position should be expanded to full time and be provided with the infrastructure to support having 2-3 UCD interns to work with him during the year.

I can foresee that within a short period of this expanded role, there could be some mandatory policies put in place that make IPM a permanent way of doing things here in Davis.

In 1996 the City Council approved the creation of an IPM Task Force and in 2007 a citywide Pesticide Use Policy was developed and the IPM specialist position was created. In 2009 the State Department of Pesticide Regulation awarded the City of Davis the IPM Innovator Award.

“The City’s pesticide use through 2010 decreased compared to previous years, in 2011 an increase of conventional herbicides and a reduction of the least toxic alternatives occurred. Both years were similar in precipitation and weed pressure.” Integrated Pest Management Program 2010-2011 Annual Report of Pesticide Use.

The City needs to continue and build on a very successful program. We need to encourage local landscape companies to adopt the GP Landscaping “green maintenance program” in the maintenance of large housing complexes and other commercial properties. We need to continue the City’s outreach efforts of: Our Water Our World (OWOW) Program, IPM Comic The Exterminator, City Partnership with the UC Davis Arboretum and Volunteers on the Central Park Demonstration Garden Project, City of Davis IPM Web Site, Pesticide Hotline and the City of Davis pesticide safety training meetings and seminars.

Education on IPM techniques is the key to reducing residential use of more toxic pesticides and herbicides.

As you know, I voted to restore the IPM position in the FY 2011-2012 budget.  I voted for it because I agree that we need to reduce the harmful chemicals in our community, particularly in areas where our children – including my children – play.  Effective, sensible IPM practices should not be advisory – they should be required.

We also need to realize that most pesticide/herbicide use is on residential private property and the IPM staff member should be focused on educational efforts to change our practices with respect to our own homes.

Lucas Frerichs

There is so much to be done in this area, some of it easy and some of it difficult.  For instance, when the City had a demonstration low water and pesticide free area in South Davis, there were daily complaints by residents about the weeds and dead plants.  Once city staff labeled the area, residents started complimenting the city on its demonstration area.

Also, overwatering contributes to weed growth and thus potential pesticide use.  The city could easily install meters to not water when the soil is wet, this is an effective way in either your home or in the city plantings to reduce water and pesticide use. This is a simple but effective change.  I believe that the city also reports to the NRC the volume of pesticide used each year.  This report should be published/reported on in The Enterprise and other media.  Using fewer pesticides is sometimes more labor intensive and when city budgets are under scrutiny, programs like IPM can be easily overlooked.

The basic point is: we need to be much more innovative with how we deal with all these issues, including IPM. Other cities in CA have used various methods to not increase labor and costs and have interesting, innovative IPM programs.  We can look to the City of Arcata, which has converted its plantings to low water plants.  In addition they trained city staff on removal of weeds from cracks using blowtorches and trowels.  Also, they have a city shepherd (with a herd of goats) and use probation crews for more labor-intensive tasks.   As a city council member, I would be interested in having the NRC compile a list of recommendations that keep costs the same, or save them an have dual benefits as those I have described.  Once this list is created, I would push city staff to implement. The real key in getting all the new changes implemented in Arcata? All the long time city staff (that was resistant to innovative changes), retired. New city staff was much more amenable to trying out new ideas.

Our IPM staffer, Martin, is great, and if given adequate resources to actually do his job, we could see the City of Davis moving in the right direction.

8. Bicycle Use and Safety – Davis prides itself on being a bicycle-oriented city with miles of bike lanes throughout the community to facilitate bike use as an alternative form of transportation.  Yet, the bicycle mode-share in Davis has dropped in recent years.  If you are elected, what specifically would you propose to make the bicycle a more viable and safe transportation mode in Davis?

Brett Lee

I have been a long time advocate of the 5th Street redesign.  I believe that it will make that section of town more pedestrian and bike friendly and I believe (based upon the traffic consultant studies) East-West/West-East auto traffic flow will be improved.

I believe we should hire more police officers that will be involved in traffic control and citations.  I believe we must enforce the speed limits in our community.  When the average speed of cars on the streets keeps going up, understandably parents are more reluctant to let their children ride bikes and even adults feel less safe while riding.  We must slow the traffic down to the posted speed limits, which will improve the overall car, bike and pedestrian safety of our town.

I also support additional signage that identifies bike corridors and “safe routes to school” that help people know which routes are most bike friendly.

I would also like to see improved bicycle parking made available in downtown (often the racks are full) in addition I would like to see some bike lockers in places in addition to the Amtrak station.  Bike lockers allow people with very expensive bikes to ride them to work, etc. and feel like they will be safe from theft and the elements.

I share the Davis Downtown Business Association’s curiosity about the possibility of closing off a portion of the downtown to auto traffic.  They have not come up with a design that is acceptable to them yet, but I know they are still investigating the idea.

I would like to see a bike rental kiosk at the Amtrak station, which could serve day-trippers to our town.

Provide opportunities for all residents to own bicycles.

Encourage bicycle commuting.

Encourage students, faculty and staff to bicycle to area schools.

Share information and resources with UC Davis regarding bicycle activities.

Ensure that bicycle facilities are an integral part of street design so that lanes and pathways form an integrated network.

Provide a complete and safe bicycle network.

Build on Davis’ cycling past by experimenting or piloting new technology or programs for bicycles.

Consider bicycles in all transportation projects and treat as an equal roadway user in planning, engineering, policy or funding.

Ensure that bicycling as a viable transportation mode is available to all sectors of the community, and that bicycling is integrated into the local and regional transit network

As someone who bicycles to and from the train station nearly everyday as part of my commute, not to mention recreationally on the weekends, I am well aware of challenges to bicycling in our community.  Although we are a very strong bicycling community, we have strayed somewhat from our bicycling past.  We need to recommit ourselves to bicycling.

I suggest five actions we need to take: (1) make the downtown – the cultural and economic hub of our community – more bicycling friendly; (2) add more bicycle parking; (3) continue to pursue the Fifth Street Road diet; (4) implement a policy of green waste containerization; and (5) ensure the U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame has a stable and thriving downtown home and is widely promoted outside of Davis.

We need to stop thinking of the bicycle as a mode of “alternative transportation”, and start treating the bike as THE mode of transportation. It shouldn’t take a back seat to the car. Bicycle mode share is actually on the rise, according to the latest 2010 US Census data, as well as according to Davis Bicycles!, and the City’s new bike/ped coordinator, Dave “DK” Kemp. There are numerous things I would do to help make the bicycle the premier transportation mode in Davis.

I am committed to seeing changes along 5th street. I think we need to do a serious test run to show people how the road diet will work, and make it safer for bikes/pedestrians to use that thoroughfare, both north/south and east/west.

I would also start by ensuring that all city streetlights are repaired in a timely manner. It is already a dark town at night, and there are SO MANY streetlights out- all across the city, which make for dangerous biking and driving conditions. We need safe, convenient places to park bikes -I often search for bike parking downtown, and the bike parking next to the car parking downtown is a good start- we need to do more of that.

I think we’re on to something with the several bike fix it stations located around town, including at the Food Co-op and on campus, but we could use one at the train station, one at every shopping center, and at parks/greenbelts and schools. I also applaud the creation of Bike Forth/Davis Bike Collective, the Davis Pedicab Co. and the Pepper Peddler coffee roaster…all super cool innovative ideas/businesses based on the bicycle!!

We need to think regionally, including additional safe linkages to other communities, including Woodland. I’d love to see a Yolo Bike Loop, as an addition to our successful Davis Bike Loop. Sunset Magazine recently featured the Davis Bike Loop, and we can expect more tourism as a result, and that is a good thing for biking in Davis, and for the local economy.

Also, we should work on instituting “bikepools” (think carpool with bikes) for kids to ride to school. I would also work on instituting a permit system for the parking lot between the high school and the Vets Center. I didn’t drive to Davis High… I rode my bike, everyday, or got a ride when it was truly inclement weather.

We have a bicycle advisory commission and an active citizen bicycle community.  I have followed their advice on most issues, and have made some very difficult votes which have favored the bicyclist (even though half of my friends, campaign committee and family are skeptical) such as the 5th Street road diet experiment which I hope that everyone will agree in hindsight  was a good idea, as it is similar to the configuration on B Street that I traverse daily.   I have suggested allotting some automobile spaces downtown for bicycle racks, and have supported all funding efforts to increase bicycle parking.   I support expanding our bicycle facilities as we develop the multi-model capabilities of our AMTRAK station, including better facilities for long-term bicycle parking and repair.   Our collaboration with the school district on Safe Routes to School is a critical component.

If we want to keep the town more bicycle friendly, we must renew our commitment to limit urban sprawl and to keep our growth in check in order to maintain our general plan prohibition against expanding our arterials to six auto lanes.

Being a committed pedestrian myself, I want to make sure that we make our town more walkable as well as well as more bikeable.

9. Carbon Footprint Reduction – Davis is entering a series of well-publicized inter-city challenges to reduce the City’s carbon footprint.  What will you do, if elected, to accelerate the adoption of some meaningful sustainability practices in Davis? What elements of the city’s Climate Action Plan do you believe would be most effective in reducing the city’s carbon footprint and environmental impacts?

Stephen Souza

The path that both the City and Davisites need to go is: first go after low hanging carbon reduction fruit and then after the high hanging fruit. The City needs to: continue to replace street light with LED’s (so far 10% are done), replace auto fleet with hybrids, install energy-efficient furnaces and air conditioners, expand upon the 2 megawatts of PV’s already installed and support and encourage financial means for Davisites to pay for high hanging carbon fruit.

Here are some of the easy ways to reduce ones carbon footprint: composting food waste, reduce shower times to 5 minutes, set thermostat to 65-68° when people are home and active; 55-58° at night & when no one is home, replace or clean AC filter, raise your A/C thermostat 4 degrees, install whole house fans, effective use of window coverings, reduce miles driven in a car or truck by 20%,  implemented fuel efficient driving practices, carpool or carshare, switch from meat to vegetarian meals one or more days a week, buy locally produced/organic food, grow food at home, set temperature of your water heater to 120 degrees, insulate your water heater, install more than five compact fluorescent or LED bulbs, thoroughly sealing air leaks in your home, sealing & insulating warm air heating ducts, insulating your walls & attic and get auto engine tune-up and maintaining air pressure in your tires.

Promoting solar power.  We must look to every level of government to find programs to promote solar energy, and where these programs do not exist, we must create them.  We should implement our own commercial and residential PACE program.  We should also push for the formation of a CCA (see below) and the adoption of SB 843, which would allow us to purchase off-site solar power.

Starting our own municipal utility.  We should create an energy system more in line with the values of our community. Wherever possible, we should source our energy renewably. A number of communities have already successfully started their own public utilities, or employed Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) to choose the source from which they draw power. What they did, we can do as well.

Focusing on low hanging fruit. While we transition to a more sustainable energy model, increasing energy efficiency through simple, relatively inexpensive changes to homes is low hanging fruit we can pick now. We can do a better job of getting the word out so that homeowners reach up and pick this fruit, taking advantage of state and federal programs in the process.

My family was one of the first 150 Davis households to participate in the low carbon diet, we intentionally don’t have a yard, and we live in sustainably-built, environmentally-friendly infill project in Central Davis. We’re trying to put words into action, and living a life that treads lightly as lightly as possible on the environment.

I enjoyed hearing David Gershon speak when he visited Davis, and am excited to participate in the Cool California Challenge. In my professional life, I work on environmental legislation in Sacramento, and I work with many state agencies and organizations that are working on helping cities reduce their carbon footprints. California is at the forefront of working on these issues, and I’ve worked firsthand on some of these key bills, including California’s landmark AB 32.

The key is to bring the best ideas back to Davis and create linkages between state agencies and action here locally, in Davis.  Now that we have a climate action plan and a goal to be carbon neutral by 2050, I would give priority to sustainability portion of the City’s Department of Community Development and Sustainability. We have 1 city staff person working on sustainability, and I would work to ensure that sustainability becomes a priority throughout  ALL city departments.  I would also work to further collaborate with our world class institution, UC Davis, on innovative ways to be cost effective in reaching our goal but also be creative and forward thinking when pursuing sustainability.

Additionally, I think we need to further look for grants and incentives related to sustainability, and engage with other people and communities which are making this happen already in their own communities, and ask how Davis can continue to reduce barriers to our future success.

I will continue to control urban sprawl, thus preserving both habitat and ag land.   We should promote buying locally,  focusing on locally grown food to  cut energy usage, provide local jobs  and assure that our ag land is preserved.

I will pursue the building of a large transit-oriented development near the AMTRAK station and downtown, such as the PG&E lot and perhaps our nearby city yard.   Either site could provide a many units, enabling  more Davisites to have the option of moving within walking distance of downtown and the AMTRAK station.

I would like to explore a municipally-owned solar farm on our city-owned land outside of town, and charging for garbage according to size of container to reduce solid waste.

Finally, I want to focus on making sure that living in Davis is so nice and so interesting that we don’t feel the need to get into our cars every weekend and board the plane on holidays or buy vacation homes that we need to drive to.

This includes maintaining the visual character and human scale of downtown, bringing more arts, entertainment and unique locally-owned restaurants and making sure that our new neighborhoods and our new housing is aesthetically pleasing both in terms of interior architecture and in neighborhood design.

I support working with Cool Davis to identify and prioritize our carbon footprint reduction paths.  They are currently working on several innovative ideas that will benefit our community.

The climate action team (2009) came up with fairly comprehensive list of proposals and the role the city council needed to play in implementing them.  I am supportive of the vast majority of the suggestions (some need additional specifics, but in concept I am supportive). These ideas were incorporated into the Climate Action Plan.  I support the general ideas and also the general time frames and reduction goals set in the CAP.

If elected, I will work to support the work that Cool Davis and the Climate Action Team have done.

10. Other Environmental Related Issues – What are other environmental or climate change-related issues facing Davis and how would you propose the City address these issues?

Dan Wolk

There are too many areas to discuss except briefly.

We need to do a better job of environmental education in our city.  It needs to be as much a part of our community as bike lanes and soccer.

Renewal of Tree Davis and urban forestry efforts including park vegetation that is drought resistant and native.

We need to recognize our place in the Delta, including supporting the county’s efforts with respect to the Yolo Bypass and supporting the Yolo Wildlife Area.

Support regional environmental designation efforts like the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Conservation Area.

Through Measure O, our community has committed itself to permanently protecting open space.  We need to make sure we’re also good stewards of the land by farming sustainably, reducing nitrate uses, and conserving water.

Lucas Freirichs

Climate change adaptation is a huge future issue facing California, and for Davis, as well.  The San Francisco Chronicle just reported that California is top of the heap in climate change preparedness.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/04/06/MN9U1NV5FK.DTL

Only nine states have developed comprehensive strategies to deal with climate change.

We need to remain at the front of the pack, when it comes to climate change/adaptation preparedness.

Transportation is the biggest contributor to the GHG emissions in the City. We need to work proactively to reduce transportation emissions, and there are numerous ways to do this. I would really like to begin a dialogue with Unitrans about establishing a bus hub in downtown Davis, so that many more of the bus lines run downtown, in an effort to entice more residents to ride Unitrans more often.

One of my biggest pet peeves, is when people don’t recycle. We need a better system for recycling in Davis. For example, in our city parks, we don’t offer recycling bins. We have standard 55 gallon garbage drums, and everything gets comingled. I watch city employees collect these drums filled with garbage and recyclables from the park, and it all heads to the landfill.

I’d consider setting up a program, where non-profits could volunteer to be responsible for recycling at various parks, and the CA redemption value money could go to the non-profit, as an incentive for recycling.

I’d also like to examine setting up a city owned composting facility… numerous cities across the country have done similar things, and the compost/mulch, etc is then sold for a profit….we can take our compost/ grass clipping, etc and turn it into revenue for the city.

Please see the following re Hutchinson, Minnesota’s facility ” Creekside Organics”

http://www.ci.hutchinson.mn.us/composting.html; http://www.creeksidesoils.com/

With our focus on importing surface water, I am afraid that we have neglected the water re-use and groundwater recharge components of sustainable water policy.   I recognize that, to a certain extent, we will probably have to choose which route to go, since reuse and recharge will require major capital investments and, given the cost our the capital costs of our required new wastewater treatment plant, it will be difficult to afford the surface water project along with a robust re-use and recharge program.

Our Water Advisory Committee now includes a number of remarkably qualified experts from the University, public sector and private sector who have quite differing views on the relative importance of the surface water project as compared to reuse, recharge and conservation and differing leanings on the risk/benefit analyses.   I hope that they will be able to help us formulate the optimum allocation of our resources.

I would also like to remind people that we are continuing to proceed quietly but surely with our open space acquisition program; I was instrumental in procuring funding for this program during my first term.   A map of the open space in our region which has been permanently preserved by the City of Davis is surprising and impressive.

I believe that Davis should commit to not exceed its current potable water footprint.  Much as we focus on measuring and reducing our carbon footprint, we need to have the same attention placed on our usage of water.

In addition, I believe we need to work with homeowners to provide them with the information and assistance on how they can greatly reduce the amount of salt discharged into the sewer system by some simple, inexpensive adjustments to their salt based water softeners.

I also believe that we must start requiring that parking lot surfaces be designed to minimize rainwater runoff.

From the Climate Action Center:

The city must work with its energy utility, PG&E, to get finely detailed end-use data that shows time variations in energy demand and the location of the energy-use “hot spots.” These “hot spots” are where there is the greatest opportunity to displace carbon-based energy.

Every building in Davis should have its own step-by-step long-range master plan for zero carbon. The city should be a dynamic source of information for property owners about best available technologies, incentives and innovative financing opportunities, reliable local contractors, and purchasing cooperatives for volume discounts.

The city should work with the private sector to upgrade local industry capacity and jobs while bringing innovative clean energy products and services to Davis residents and businesses.

The city should conduct surveys to determine what individual households and property owners are willing to do to help the city achieve its climate action goals.

With 51 percent of its dwelling units rented, the city must overcome a split incentive hurdle, in which tenants often pay the utility bills, but landlords must make the investments in energy improvements.

Link plug-in electric vehicles to solar or other renewable energy systems so that recharging vehicles doesn’t add to peak utility loads or the city’s carbon footprint.

Develop an economic optimization model to identify the best mix of local renewable energy resources for Davis.

All of these can be achieved by working with our partners.

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