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.