 Good evening and welcome back to Byline. This is our public affairs show right here on Amherst Cable and it's done cooperatively with the Amherst League of Women Voters. We're bringing guests on from our town council and from committees that operate here in town trying to help our town government accomplish various things and also we bring staff in from time to time and that's what we're doing today. We have Stephanie Ciccarello who is our sustainability coordinator, is that your official title? Sustainability Coordinator, but Stephanie you're not new to town, you've been in town government for 23 years, yeah you started with wetlands? In total, yes I started inspecting silt fences five to ten hours a week. That was how I got my foot in the door. Interesting. What's a silt fence? So that's that sort of dark green fencing that you see around construction sites, it's to keep the soil and sediment from migrating, keeps it on the construction side. And then from there you morphed into some energy work? Yes, then I became the energy task force coordinator and worked with the energy task force that was a committee that was meeting for a period of time and then that morphed into eventually becoming sustainability coordinator. So the energy task force doesn't exist anymore, but remind us a little bit about what it did because it then led to other things. So tell us what their job was and maybe a highlight or two about various initiatives that they undertook that helped lay the groundwork for what we're doing today. So the energy task force came about as a result of the town participating in the IKLI Communities for Climate Protection program. Is that a government program or private? No, it's a private program. So IKLI is a non-profit, the acronym used to stand for something, now it's just kind of a weird name. Okay. But a wonderful organization with a very strange name. And so they launched a program called Communities for Climate Protection and it laid out a five-milestone process that communities could sign on. They would, at the time when it first started, when we were involved, they would provide an intern to do a baseline greenhouse gas emissions inventory and that would be milestone one. And then from there the next steps were to define a climate CO2 reduction goal, then to create a climate action plan, implement the measures in the plan and then sort of to start the process all over again was basically mile five. And so we had an intern from Hampshire College, Ariel Foster, who came in and put together the baseline inventory, but then she also assembled the energy task force. And the inventory was of our greenhouse gas emissions here in town. Right. And this is both in terms of commercial activity, transportation, residential. So what are we putting into the air? Right, exactly. Well, what is our contribution to CO2 emissions in the community? I'll always say this about inventories. What's good about inventories is they give you an idea of where you are, but it's hard to identify all of your emissions in terms of the transportation sector. So what you need is consistency in your data. So that was just to provide the groundwork and a framework for which we could try to track our community emissions. But she also put together the energy task force. She worked with the then department head of conservation, Pete Westover, and invited various stakeholders from different departments but also within the community to come to the table and talk about creating a climate action plan. So that was kind of the basis for moving the town towards these next goals, these next milestones. But Ariel was only with us for a summer to do the internship. Well, that was a lot of work for just one summer. She did a lot in one summer. But then she left, and I was working in conservation. And I had been teaching at Holyoke Community College, teaching environmental science classes in labs. And so I saw this opportunity to continue with this effort because we certainly laid the groundwork. We wanted to keep it moving forward. And so I stepped in and was able to work with the energy task force and became their coordinator. So what they were really tasked with at first was to create the climate action plan and create the target goal. Yeah. And then once that was established and the task force was operating, we moved into a more aggressive program around energy. And that was under the aegis of which town department. So, excuse me, so it really was the work that I've been doing has always been within the conservation department. Okay. What, how things sort of transformed over the years was that we sort of went from the ICLEI program, which really looked specifically at reducing CO2 emissions to then becoming aware of the state opportunity to become a green community, which was really an is about reducing CO2 emissions. It's just that it's done through energy efficiency. It's looking more at energy efficiency as a means with which to reduce CO2 emissions within communities. So it's when you're talking about energy efficiency, you're talking about reducing your energy usage and saving money and it's a more, it's an easier message to convey to municipalities than at the time saying you must reduce your CO2 levels, which we know is really important. Right. But how do I do that? But how do I do that? And people also, and I think this is still true and especially now when we know it's such literally kind of we're at that crisis point where I think it was easier for people for a time to digest energy efficiency versus CO2 reduction. So it was an easier sell to communities to get them on board and it's been an incredibly successful program. I think it's one of the best. And that was generated, that was a program generated at the state level. At the state level. We were the only state in the country at the time who created this kind of a program which allowed communities to organize themselves around energy conservation and figure out what they could do for their own buildings, their municipal buildings, but then also to work with businesses, institutional settings such as we have the colleges and then even residential. So what were some of the milestones that you or highlights that you can recall from our green communities experience? Because we were one of the first if I remember correctly. One of the earlier communities. Certainly not the first but earlier. But very early. And how many years have we been in a green community? So we officially became a green community in 2012. Okay. And so that's seven years of work. So what are some of the accomplishments that we can look back and say, oh, well that was worth the effort. So one of the first, actually the very first project that we received funding for was to retrofit all of the town streetlights from high pressure sodium to LED technology. And that was a very significant project. The thing about the streetlights in town is that we don't own all of them. So the utility owns some. So not all of our streetlights are LED. So if you look closely, you know, if you pay attention and really look, you can see that some of them. That's still the case today. That's still the case today. Utility owned ones are not energy efficient. But we pay for the electricity. Correct. Correct. And we are polluting our environment. Hey, utility, get on the stick here. What's going on? Yes, well. Okay. So do you know what kind of savings was involved in that? Yes. Well, we've been tracking our data. We've had a little bit of trouble with the software recently that the state provided specifically with the LED streetlights. But we, at least in cost savings, at least it was estimated at the time on a magnitude of, you know, 24,000 or more per year of savings, of energy savings and cost savings. Great. So, you know, so we, you know, we were doing fairly well. And on a scale of 1 to 10 as a measure that we took, what's its impact? One very low, 10 extraordinarily high. Oh boy. You know, maybe, maybe a three, two, three. Three. Okay. So it's a low intensity initiative, but it's, it's useful and productive. But it's useful. And then we went on to do other initiatives with state funding. We've done, so there's other, other programs outside of green communities that we've been able to participate in. And one that actually involved residents was the Solarized Mass Amherst program that we participated in. And we were able to add one megawatt of renewable energy to the state portfolio with the installation of solar photovoltaics on private residences and businesses in town. So that was a significant contribution. So we contributed 1% over a particular period of time. Right. Which is not insignificant when you think about there are 360, 351 cities and towns and 1%, that's, that's not bad. Right. And we're a relatively small community. Yes. So we were very proud of that. There are other communities at this time that have surpassed us, but we sort of held the lead for several years. And are these installations mainly on residences or it's a combination of residential and commercial? A combination of both, but mainly residences. So that was a really significant program that we were able to coordinate and bring to the community that might not have happened otherwise. Great. Any other examples from earlier green community initiatives and grants? So some of the other things we've been able to do, and maybe not specifically through green communities, but certainly through collaborations, we've been able to create a regional bike share effort which was funded, that was actually funded through a federal grant. It's called CMAC, it's the Climate Mitigation Air Quality Grant funding. And the town of Amherst worked with the city of Northampton to sort of get the project idea going. And we brought in the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission and they assisted us. And with that effort, we reached out to other communities and there were in the end five communities that worked together with also the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, to create a regional bike share program. And are these the bikes we're seeing on the corners of downtowns and other places where you have six, eight, ten, twelve, fifteen of these motorized bikes that you can self-propell but you can also are aided and assisted by the little motor that you're generating power as you pedal, right? There's no fossil fuels attached to that. That's all your own energy, correct? It's your own energy. Well, there is some power, it depends on the community you're in and what the makeup of their electricity is, but they do charge at the stations when they're locked in to the stations they are powered. So there's a little motor in there. There's a little motor that gets powered and then you basically... Keep it going. Right, you keep the motor going. Excellent. And how many of those do we have situated here in Amherst right now? So Amherst has, I believe, a hundred bikes in town. So we have... And is it growing? Yes. We're actually about to launch another phase of expansion. The town of East Hampton has joined on. There are another, I should say East Hampton has joined on. And there's other communities that are interested in joining us as well. And so what do you do? You've been jointly for a certain number of units in each community, and then a developer comes in and says, we'll put X in your community. There's no cost to the town, right? There are some minor costs that are associated with the infrastructure. So putting down the concrete pads, the electricity hookup for where the kiosks are definitely are something that the towns need to continue. But that's modest. But that's modest compared to what the cost of the stations are. Right. And are those somewhat grant supported? So we... Putting in the towns part? We have... So we have been able to utilize some grant funding to sort of expand, to actually to start the program and then to expand the program. Mm-hmm. But it is owned by a company called Bowegan out of Canada. They actually have bike share programs worldwide. And so they technically, they own the system and they operate the system for us. Okay. So that's why the costs that we have are typically minor associated with the infrastructure. Mm-hmm. But the... We're assisting by getting a grant and expanding because we want the program to expand, but they actually double the size of the system initially. When we got the CMAC grant originally, we had 29 stations that were proposed for the region. And then Bowegan came in and they basically doubled it and provided all the additional bikes and stations. We like a lot of data around here. Is there any data points that you could share with us with regard to, I don't know, how many people are using it or how often they're using and how often there are no bikes available when you get to the kiosk? Right. Well, technically, there's always supposed to be at least one. Okay. Technically, at least one. Technically, there should be at least one. Actually, there are reports. There is data. I didn't look at it. I just... Okay. I know. I'm just throwing this out from the field. I didn't check on that one. But it's actually... It's doing well. So they're well-used. They're well-used and I can say that the two largest communities of users are Springfield and Amherst. Excellent. And are people of all ages using it or is it mainly students because we have such a large student population? It's a range. There's definitely a range of users, but the primary user tends to be a college age. Okay. And there's enough demand that we're going to expand. Yes. There's definitely enough demand. So that's good news. Same company or is it going to go out to bid for others to have an opportunity? That I'm not sure. But now I think we're still within the contract of our current existing company. So it may go out to bid in the future. So that's sort of like the past, which is bringing us up now to the present, which is now we have a new town council and one of the committees that they've created is a committee on energy and climate change. Energy Climate Action Committee. It's the Energy and Climate Action Committee. Energy and Climate Action Committee. The idea that the word action is in there. Yes. So it's not just about we're going to sit around and talk and use and plan and then hope that somebody does something. No, we're going to do something. Right. So where is that effort? You're staffing that, correct? Yes. So I'm the staff liaison. So I'm working with them. It's been great. They are really engaged and currently they've been working on community outreach to identify where the sort of get a sense and gauge where the community is in terms of understanding about climate change and where we are and to gauge where people are in terms of being ready to really make a change. I think when you brought this up earlier, one point I wanted to say when you were talking about just sustainability in general, I think what's important is that people make decisions every day. And I think we don't often, when I do the work that I do, I'm mostly focused on the municipal buildings and that's what we as a town have control over. But we don't often have as much of an ability to reach to the community. So this committee is really looking outwards rather than inwards. Exactly. Because the town itself, our municipal operations, we've done a fairly good job at reducing our emissions in terms of our buildings and building energy use. But it's really the broader community and transportation that really sort of serve as sectors. And most of the energy that's consumed is actually consumed not by the town government. It's consumed by us as consumers, as in our homes and our businesses and our jobs. So every little decision we make from turning on and off lights using devices like Nest or having those things installed where when you enter a room the light goes on and when you leave it goes off. All of those decisions and all of those things add up when a lot of us are doing it. And so that's what they're focused on is trying to think about how to work with the institutions, how to work with retail, commercial, et cetera. Great. And so I'm assuming there's going to be a lot of public engagement in this process so that people both learn and help plan and then hopefully we'll have some stake in it because they were part of creating it and then they'll try to do it. Exactly. And that's definitely when you ask what the next steps are. Definitely those are the next steps. And what they'll be looking to do is to create a climate action plan that will identify specific goals, targets, objectives and ways of achieving their larger goal and they'll set whatever that larger goal is and then the plan will sort of help provide the pathway to get there. They'll certainly be looking at things like community choice, energy aggregation as one of their proposals. They'll be looking into that more in depth. Yeah, could you explain, so the viewers will understand what energy aggregation is and I should disclose that when we worked on the utility deregulation bill I was a key player in that as a legislator and put in their language that gave communities and counties the opportunity to aggregate energy demand and create their own systems to be able to meet the needs of their community. So with that, explain how we do this and what we're doing. Right, so it really, in the simplified version of this it really gives communities an opportunity to have more direct involvement in getting their energy, so specifically electricity. So we should say that this is very much focused on electricity. So one of the options would be enable the communities to actually have more green energy as part of their energy portfolio package. So we are hoping that if we can become a community choice aggregation we can sort of green up our grid but also it will provide an opportunity for people to have more direct involvement in where their energy comes from but also we're hoping to sort of expand this more to the basic level, I guess I should just say that the basic level is just basically people being able to sort of have more direct say in where they purchased their power from and that they can purchase a greener product. That's kind of the baseline. Where our committee would like to see this go is that we can expand that so that we can even have more generation, so more renewable energy generated within the community. So for instance, community solar, maybe a community solar project where the solar is actually in town here in Amherst and may even directly support nearby facilities. So we have more direct connection to how our energy is being distributed. I don't think people understand that even when people have solar on their homes that the solar energy feeds the grid, it doesn't go directly into their house. Most people, even people sometimes with PV systems don't really understand this. Some day when we have battery storage people may store some of the energy generated on their roofs and now it goes into the grid and that means we're all sharing in it which is why we all share in the cost of it. So this is an initiative that would definitely certainly make a difference on green power supply and in terms of total emissions, obviously that would have a very large impact. It's not the only thing, as you say, sustainability is about so much more and I think their climate action plan would sort of lay out other things as well in terms of land use. And this aggregation project is not just Amherst. Again, this is another one where you're talking with and potentially working with other communities because the larger the pool, the greater the savings for the consumers which is an incentive to become part of that program and then the greater the energy reduction especially if we combine it with conservation and with green energy. Well, our specific goal is certainly not as much cost savings most traditional programs look at cost savings. The effort that the city of Northampton, the town of Amherst and the town of Pelham are working together to promote is to look at an aggregation that would actually focus on reducing CO2 emissions and greenhouse gas emissions. That's really the primary objective of what we're trying to pursue. Looking at all of these decisions and plans through that lens. Correct. And that's the most important priority and so if you have a choice between investing in project A and project B, one saves more money than the other but saves less CO2, you'll gravitate to the one that, okay, that's really interesting. Right. And speaking of solar, did I hear that the solar project over in East Amherst near the old landfill is taking some steps forward at this point? Yes. So the North landfill is being proposed to be developed for solar. They're proposing Cypress Creek Renewables as the company that we're working with and they're proposing a 3.8 megawatt solar array on the North landfill location. What's unique about this project is when at first, in 2015 when we sort of revived the solar landfill idea, it was proposed for both landfills and because there's a threatened species on both sites, we were told that we could develop one site if we put the other site under a conservation restriction to maintain it as habitat. To create a balance. So it's right. So the species that utilizes both the North and South would at least have the South landfill. I got it. So it's been through some of its permitting already. It's gone through natural heritage. It's still got to go through the Department of Environmental Protection, the state, at the state level. But next week, next Thursday, October 24th, it will be in front of the Zoning Board of Appeals. So we encourage people to come and sort of get more details about the project, especially about ours. So we're really excited about the fact that it's moving forward in the permitting phase. It's been quite a journey to get there. How does the community benefit by doing this? Obviously, it fits into the reduction of CO2. But on the money side, how does that work? Is the town going to gain revenue from it? And is that revenue here marked and focused on particular purposes? Right. So there's two ways the town will benefit financially. One is through the municipal electricity will be provided at a reduced rate. This will be under the SMART program. So under the SMART program, it'll be one cent below the basic utility rate. So that we know is essentially what we can look to for savings. But then also the company, because they will own the array, will be leasing the land. And so instead of a tax payment to the town, they'll be making a regular payment under what's called a pilot payment. And so that will actually generate revenue for the town. And annually with the energy savings, cost savings, and the reduced electricity rate and the pilot payment, we're looking at about a little over $100,000 annually for years one through 20. And then from years 20 through 30, it would be roughly $70,000. And where do those dollars go? The town treasury or the consumer's pocket? The town treasury. The town treasury, which affects property taxes. That's the last word. So thank you for joining us. And we thank you for the good work that you're doing. And keep it up. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. And we'll hopefully see you on another show.