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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2007-11-20-CAPAH-minLexington Climate Action Plan Ad Hoc Committee Meeting DRAFT Minutes November 20, 2007 Room 111, Town Hall Present: Marilyn Campbell John Huchra Dan Jones JJ Krawczyk Jeanne Krieger Andy McClaine Charles Moore Adam Sacks Toby Sackton 1) Minutes from the October meeting were approved unanimously. 2) Conceptual ideas about questions to ask / frameworks. Major categories: HCLP (heat, cooling, lighting, power) transportation waste Heating, cooling, lighting (major utilities): In the reports from other towns, the majority of CO2 comes from these sources. Hanscom What do we include in our inventory? We only have control over certain aspects, but it may be useful to document the data we can get that doesn't get included in the official inventory. Hanscom has an energy management plan. We should contact them, see what they have, what they are doing, and find out if they will participate / cooperate with us. Note: Jeanne will talk to Carl Valente before any committee members start contacting town staff and vendors for data. Requests to meet with utilities must come from town staff. NSTAR Commercial and municipal numbers are probably combined - we may have to get additional info from the town to separate these. If we can get data at intervals (e.g., 1995, 2000, 2005) we could first look for a trend, which might be more illustrative than a single baseline year. We need transmission data from NSTAR - whether or not they are the source of the energy (want to include electricity purchased from e.g. Dominion). Electrically heated homes purchase all of their electricity at a different (lower) rate. Many of us didn't know that. Keyspan /National Grid Same issues as NSTAR Heating oil Assessor's database contains furnace type for each house Meet with local companies and Mass Fuel Dealers. Will they share aggregate data? Could they share their estimating formulas for oil use? We might need to estimate usage based on square footage & heating degree days. Recent Lexington list discussion named several dealers. Arlex has a decent share of the Lexington market. Poll / survey homeowners? Maybe 100 or so to get a representative sample? Would be an outreach opportunity. How do we measure improvement / meeting targets if we estimate the initial usage for the inventory? Commercial electric, gas, oil: all of the same issues as above for residential use. Transportation - auto Central Transportation Planning Staff (CTPS) data. Believe they have a Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) database by community. Old data, but we should look at it anyway. Will be skewed by routes 2 and 128. Auto excise data gives breakdown of vehicles. ICLEI also recommends getting Person Miles Travelled. DMV should have mileage data from inspections. Do they keep it? Would that share it? Look at other towns to see what they did. Gas sales figures in Lexington? Transportation - air Would have to survey / poll. Might be able to use socio- economic data to get average number of air trips for an estimate. Waste Can get volumes for residential. Town doesn't handle commercial. All Lexington trash is incinerated in N. Andover. Food Tough one to estimate. Probably will just have to make this an education thing. Things to consider: energy used for red meat production; average miles traveled to your table (1600 miles); promotion of Farmers Market. Manufactured goods Tough to estimate energy to manufacture and transport goods. Assessor's data Need residential & commercial aggregates for type of heating system and average square footage for each system type. If it is easier, we'd take a spreadsheet with detail and then manipulate the data ourselves (probably a better option in the long run). Need to find out what they can give us. Auto excise data (vehicle make, model, year). 2) Outreach / Public meeting Once we have our estimate of a carbon footprint, we have to figure out how to effectively convey that information to Lexington residents. Ideas include articles in the Minuteman and Colonial Times plus a public meeting. There was a bit of discussion on how to convey the information so that people will act. Will scaring people work? We must have realistic solutions / actions / responses. Some "PR" expertise is needed. 3) MCAN meeting A sense of urgency missing. The IPCC report shows we are at the far end of projections. A 20 -or -so page document is available (already sent to the list). 4) Action items: Jeanne will talk to Carl Valente regarding contacts with town staff and vendors. Andy will post the intern job description to the email list by the end of the month. (DONE) Charlie and John have volunteered to meet with NSTAR and Keyspan. Toby will contact ARLEX and Mass Fuel Dealers. Toby will talk to Dick Canale for pointers on auto travel data. Dan will contact the DMV to see what data they have and can share. Marilyn will contact Robert Beaudoin (related to waste - I don't remember what his connection is). John & Andy will do a literature search on how manufactured goods may have been addressed by others.