Richardson City Council investigating “green” options

by Andrew Laska of Richardson Echo

At the Richardson City Council’s May 19 work session, the council was presented with a discussion of the City’s achievements and a partial path to its goals on the environmental front. Included in the presentation was an ordinance that would establish an environmental advisory committee for Richardson.

City staffers E.A. Hoppe and Tom Hatfield laid out Richardson’s history with environmental efforts, several items that they are exploring and some future items. These included everything from recycling, land use, air quality, green building, resource conservation, and outreach.

This effort is an extension of the council’s 2007-2009 initiative to create a comprehensive environmental plan. Specific items on those initiatives included creation of recycling efforts at city events, seeking designation for Tree City USA, continued grant funding for the city’s growing trail network, promoting resource conservation, reviewing residential incentives to encourage conservation, examining paper use reduction, and conducting a greenhouse gas inventory with reduction targets.

The staff identified the following environmental components: Education and outreach, land use, transportation/air quality, green building, energy efficiency, green power, water conservation, water quality, recycling and waste management. These components can take the form of internal city operations, education/outreach or community policy and ordinances.

At the end of the presentation, a draft ordinance that would establish an environmental advisory commission was presented to the council. From the discussion and nods it seemed near certain that the Council will adopt the ordinance forming a nine-member commission.

The current activities are numerous but some are worth mentioning specifically. This is a partial description.

Richardson has involved itself in partnerships with several groups. It is a member of the North Texas Clean Air Steering Committee, Texas Clean Air Working Group, US Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, and the Texas Clean Air Cities Coalition. It passed a resolution encouraging the state of Texas to pass legislation requiring that electronic manufacturers take back their own products for recycling.

During the recent Wildflower Festival, Richardson partnered with Clean and Green in Richardson and the Dallas Sierra Club to attend recycling stations at the festival and promote recycling throughout. This was a homegrown effort pushed by Clean and Green. Vendors and attendees produced over 5 tons of recyclable material at the festival.

Currently the city is updating its comprehensive plan. A highlight of the update will be to emphasize sustainability such as encouraging green building and designing for alternative transportation modes.

In 2007, Richardson began to support LEED certified city buildings. LEED is a program that certifies buildings on environmental aspects ranging from constructions, waste disposal, energy efficiency, land use, and many aspects of the design and building trade. Currently, Richardson’s Fire Station #2 is under reconstruction as a LEED project. The new Huffiness Recreation Center and the future redo of Fire Station #3 will be LEED projects.

Over the years Richardson has won numerous awards regarding transportation policy, which is directly connected to air quality efforts. For example, it has won the EPA's Best Workplace for Commuters award and it's won awards from the Dallas Regional Mobility Coalition for 12 years.

The city will investigate “Green Power” alternatives and where they should fit into city codes. Homeowner solar and wind generation is becoming more popular and the staff will investigate what might constitute appropriate uses of these technologies.

In the future, Richardson will begin an emissions inventory of its operations. It will study green power alternatives and renewable energy credits in city operations. It will seek out grant funding opportunities. The city will study regional green building regulations, review alternative energy production methods, and review residential incentives and fee structures to encourage resource conservation.