Worcestor Makes The Leap to Green
GREEN
Worcester Telegram & Gazette
Sarah Gantz
Boston University Washington News Service
04/21/09
WASHINGTON—Worcester was once a bustling mill town, a star of the industrial revolution. Then the biotech boom hit and the city, along with the rest of central Massachusetts, clamored to cater to the surge of university research and new business. After that came a lull, as the biotech hype settled and the science students left for bigger things.
Now, Worcester officials say, it is the time for a new revolution: time to change the city’s centuries-old infrastructure, roads and reputation, and turn Worcester green.
It is a catchphrase tossed around by idealists and political candidates—“going green.” And it is an idea with a sparkling emerald appeal that often masks a cloudy definition. Going green can mean a lot of things—energy-efficient buildings constructed with environment-friendly materials, better recycling, less waste, more trees, broader public transit.
In Worcester, the vision is ambitious. City officials want to transform it into a model city of energy efficiency, a hub of green businesses, a magnet for cutting-edge research of conservation technology.
“Do you remember the Emerald City from the Wizard of Oz? That’s what we’re looking for,” said John Odell, Worcester’s energy efficiency and conservation manager, who was appointed in February to lead the way down the yellow brick road.
This will take years, a decade, even, but it is doable, officials say. The city has already begun to take small steps. Two years ago, officials designed the Climate Action Plan, which outlines 17 strategies for reducing energy use and the emission of greenhouse gases in Worcester. But only recently has the budding plan begun to take shape. Now that its roots are firmly planted, the Energy Task Force, which was disbanded after writing the climate plan but reestablished this spring, is ready to promote its work among the people of Worcester, the conservation-minded in New England and forward-looking businesses and researchers across the nation.
“We’ve started the ball bouncing,” Mr. Odell said. “We’re starting to pick up a little speed, a little momentum. And I hope we’re going to be an example—this is what you can do in a city like ours.”
City leaders have set three green goals to work toward over the next two years—the amount of time $482 million will be available in Massachusetts from the federal stimulus legislation for clean energy and environment initiatives. They hope to make the city’s energy plan more efficient, to create jobs in green industries (anything from home weatherization to biofuel research) and to develop a science plan that keeps Worcester-based researchers ahead of the curve of newfangled green technology.
The Energy Task Force began as a partnership between Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Clark University to create green jobs in the area. Mayor Konstantina B. Lukes and Rep. James P. McGovern, D-Worcester, soon joined the effort to make it a city-wide initiative with a much broader mission than job creation and with a chance at picking up some federal funds.
The initiative follows Worcester’s entry three years ago into Local Governments for Sustainability, an international green city organization with a commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, according to Missy Stults, a senior program officer with the organization, which helps cities make the leap from industrial brown and gray to green.
The city has already invested in LED stoplights and more-efficient lighting in municipal buildings. And a contract signed earlier this year with Honeywell International will allow the company to conduct energy audits in Worcester’s public schools and municipal buildings next month to evaluate where the delivery of energy can be further streamlined.
What is important, Ms. Stults said, is to make sure each city tailors its energy plan to make the most difference. West Coast cities, like Portland and Seattle, have emphasized green construction.
In Seattle (coincidentally nicknamed the Emerald City for its evergreen trees), 90 percent of electricity comes from hydropower, a renewable energy that depends on water flow.
But Worcester—which was about 200 years old when Seattle was born—is better off focusing on installing better heating, lighting and recycling systems in existing buildings, according to David Angel, a Clark University professor who is part of the city’s green task force.
The question, he says, is this: “How do you improve energy efficiency in a place that is already built up?” His answer: “retrofitting residential space rather than focusing on new construction.”
Which means taking a stab at the outdated apartment buildings and older homes that are without a doubt wasting energy, in addition to revamping the city’s energy patterns, he said. That means weatherization.
Massachusetts received $122 million from the economic stimulus legislation to be put toward weatherizing homes. A properly weatherized home can save homeowners as much as $350 a year, according to the U.S. Energy Department.
Last year Worcester spent $16.1 million on energy for schools and municipal buildings. Once Honeywell completes its audits of energy use in all municipal buildings and schools, the city could save a significant amount of money, Mr. Odell said, though he could not give an estimate of savings, he noted, until the audits are completed.
The idea is to not only save taxpayers money and reduce energy consumption, but also to create jobs in the process. Someone has to lay down the insulation. Someone needs to provide the insulation (made without harm to the environment). And someone else has to develop and manufacture the environmentally friendly insulation.
“We’re doing all this as a municipality,” assistant city manager Julie Jacobson said. But practicing green attracts green, she said. “Not only are they a green company,” she said of the businesses Worcester hopes to attract, “but they’re located in a green city.”
Another hoped-for effect of going green: retaining some of the university brainpower that tends to leave town after graduation. If Worcester can be the center of innovative green research, maybe it can convince the fresh science minds from places like WPI to stick around and help develop the next biofuel or energy source.
A hydrogen-fueled car, for example, is an idea that has been talked about before. But creating affordable hydrogen fuel—that’s where Worcester can get ahead of the game, Mr. Angel said.
All the plans in the world are useless without the money to implement them. Last year, the energy initiatives were tacked on to planning director Joel J. Fontane Jr.’s list of responsibilities. The task force did not exist at the time and therefore was not allotted a portion of the budget. The 2010 city budget has not been completed, but Ms. Jacobson said she thinks the task force will have more to work with this year. Worcester will receive a portion of the $219 million carved out of the Department of Energy’s stimulus funds for Massachusetts, plus whatever grant money from that law that the city can secure on its own.
But Mr. Fontane sees the increased spending on green projects, along with a new media campaign set for this summer, as signs that the task force is truly back in business.
He said he hoped that, with time, “this becomes more of a standard way of business, as opposed to a special project.” The talent, the drive and the resources are all there, he said. “I think we can get there.”
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