On Monday, the Spokane City Council will take up an issue inspired by climate change. The council will hold a hearing and perhaps vote on a proposal to create a Sustainability Action Commission. Its job would be to review and update the city’s Sustainability Action Plan, approved in 2010. That included a provision to reduce the city’s greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2030. Last year, the city council put into law those emissions goals.
This new version would push the city farther. It would require a plan for the city of Spokane to run its operations exclusively on renewable energy sources by the year 2020, with the rest of the city meeting that target by 2030. The commission would also develop a climate plan that requires the city to meet or exceed the state’s greenhouse gas reduction targets.
The proposal is sponsored by councilmembers Ben Stuckart, Kate Burke and Breean Beggs.
“Everyone agrees we need to prepare for a different future and 100% renewable energy is on just about everyone’s radar. But the question is how do you get from A to B and do it in a practical manner that brings in the community and business interests and Avista,” Beggs said.
The 11-member commission would decide the next steps. It would include representatives from the city, business and Avista, but also from low-income people and environmental groups.
Beggs believes the city isn’t far from reaching the 2020 goal.
“We’re net positive on electricity at the city right now, if you take in our waste-to-energy and hydro,” Beggs said.
“If you look at the city as a whole, we’re not quite there," adds his council colleague, Kate Burke. "But that’s what great about this commission is that they can figure out ways to find solutions to help us get there.”
Burke and Beggs think Spokane will continue to lean heavily on conservation, but also to make bigger investments in solar and wind power.
Outside groups such as 350 Spokane helped draft the ordinance. Its co-chair, Brian Henning, says the evidence the climate is changing is becoming more compelling.
“As we saw this summer, there was an iceberg that broke off from Greenland that was four miles across. That would be iceberg from Sacred Heart Medical Center to Northtown Mall," Henning said. "In 2015, our fire season, which burned a million acres in Washington state, is expected to be a normal year for us by the middle of this century. So it’s urgent that we address the challenge as quickly as possible.”
Avista was part of the discussions as well. Jason Thackston is the utility’s senior vice president of energy resources. Its energy portfolio includes not only hydropower, but also wind and biomass. And it is investing in a solar project near Lind to provide energy for some of its larger customers. He says the utility supports the aspirational part of the ordinance, but the 2030 goal is too ambitious, especially at the customers’ peak demand time, 6 pm in January.
“If you think about how we would need to serve that customer in January at 6 pm with only renewable energy, that’s a challenge because renewable energy is hydroelectric generation, it’s biomass, it’s wind, it’s solar and we would have to supplement that with batteries so that, if the wind wasn’t blowing, and we already know the sun isn’t shining, and maybe there’s not enough water coming down the river to serve that peak usage by our customers, that we have enough stored in a battery to serve them," Thackston said. "Today, that’s not a cost-effective solution for our customers.”
Business interests have other concerns. Are we supposed to replace systems that now use natural gas, asks GSI’s Todd Mielke. For homeowners, he asks, will they be able to buy gasoline in the city or propane for their barbecues?
Mayor David Condon has questions too. He says he’s disappointed that, at a time when the council and mayor’s office have worked together on a strategic plan for the city, his office wasn’t asked to participate in this. He has questions about how this would affect the current budget.
“To develop a plan for us to implement, 2020 is the next 24 months, none of this is in our capital plan, our $800 million capital plan. These are over and above what our current sustainable implementation plan is. These would send the organization, financially, into a tailspin," Condon said.
With the city in the throes of a huge capital project to install huge tanks to catch stormwater and keep it separate from wastewater, and people paying more on utility bills to fund that, he worries than any additional costs related to renewable energy would put an extra burden on taxpayers.
Condon says he’ll wait to see how the council acts and if the ordinance is amended before deciding whether to veto it.
The council will take public testimony at its Monday evening meeting.