The
LookOut is a monthly digest of climate-related issues and events
taking place in Humboldt County.
Three months after
the Humboldt County Regional Climate Action Plan passed, climate
action on a county level has yet to take off. The first step is to
form a Regional Climate Action Committee and hire someone to
administer the many duties outlined in the RCAP. Many people involved
in passing the RCAP supported Humboldt County Association of
Governments [HCAOG] as the core of that committee, but now it looks
increasingly likely that Redwood Coast Energy Authority will play
that role. Both agencies are joint power authorities with strong
climate priorities. Beth Burks, the former executive director of
HCAOG at the end of last year is now executive director of RCEA.
A timeline for the
formation of the Regional Climate Committee was discussed at the
February RCEA board meeting and further details in this article were
taken from a reported conversation between Beth Burks and Colin Fiske
of Coalition for Responsible Transportation Priorities. The RCC will
consist of representatives from each jurisdiction already represented
on RCEA’s board, plus representatives from Humboldt Waste
Management Authority, Humboldt Transit Authority, and HCAOG. This
board will draw on staff-level support and perhaps a community
advisory committee as well.
MOUs from all the
jurisdictions’ city councils and from the Board of Supervisors are
required for their participation and commitment to contribute to
funding. They’re due by July, and funding lined up for the start of
the new fiscal year in August.
RCEA plans to create
a new staff level position as soon as possible that will oversee
elements of its own business plus climate planning. This new
position, the Director of Engagement and Regional Climate Planning,
will oversee the RCAP Administrator position, which will be funded by
the county. Recruitment for the RCAP Administrator will start in
August.
A group of climate
advocates are meeting to discuss ways to get started on promoting
some of the RCAP measures sooner than this fall. There’s a lot to
do before 2030, and time’s a wastin’!
»«
The roof of the
Arcata Community Center now features a hefty array of solar
panels. As a sports complex and community hub that could provide
essential services during an emergency, the location is doubly apt.
Fortunately, someone realized in the nick of time that the roof was
due to be replaced as well, so now it has a new metal roof to ward
off the rain and hold up the panels.
Being longer lasting
than shingles or other asphalt roofing, a metal roof should outlive the panels. That longevity balances out the higher cost of the
roofing itself. It’s also easier to install solar panels on metal
roofs, so that part is less expensive. Metal roofs save energy in the
summer because they reflect heat instead of absorbing it. Plus, metal
roofs can be made from recycled metal and can be recycled when they
finally start to deteriorate. They work well for rainwater harvesting too.
Redwood
Coast Energy Authority
provided no-cost assessments and reports for the project, which
include an energy-efficient LED lighting system. It’s
a great community improvement.
»«
Redwood
Coast Energy Authority signed a resolution last month to participate
in a promising long duration storage project that doesn’t use
batteries. Compressed Air Energy Storage uses excess energy to
compress air. Anyone who has used pneumatic tools knows that
compressed air packs a lot of energy, which can be used to turn a
turbine to make electricity when released.
The
energy company Hydrostor plans to excavate a deep cavern in
Kern County to serve as a receptacle for the air instead of using an
abandoned mine, borehole or other already existing geological cavity.
There’s probably a good reason for that, but it seems a shame to
waste a perfectly good abandoned mine. When it’s time to release
the air, water is poured into the cavity, displacing the air, which
has nowhere to go but up.
A
recent development improves the efficiency of Compressed Air Energy
Storage [CAES]. Compressing air creates heat, which has usually been
lost energy. Now they’ve discovered how to store that energy and
use it to reheat the air once it’s released. Hot air contains more
energy than cold air. This advance will be used in Kern county for
the Willow Rock project. Excess electricity from wind farms in the
Mojave will be utilized to compress the air.
With
construction slated to start this year, Hydrostar is first lining up
customers who promise to buy its electricity. RCEA is one of those
future customers for a 6.2% share of the 50 MW project. The company
hopes to be generating electricity sometime in 2030.
»«
Every jurisdiction
in Humboldt is required by the state to build a certain number of
housing units, and a certain percentage of those units must be
available for below-moderate rates. These numbers are decided by a
formula that balances different criteria. The decision-making
process, called Regional Housing Need Allotment, is enacted by
Humboldt County Association of Governments and approved by the
California Department of Housing and Community Development [DHC]. The
seventh cycle of RHNA was just completed several months ago, but
Eureka appealed the results to HCAOG at its March 19 meeting. The
issue was that Eureka’s share of low-income housing seemed unfairly
high.
Eureka’s city
planner Cristin Kenyon explained that city council thinks the
allocation process should use somewhat different criteria in the
future in order to better serve the goals of Affirmatively Furthering
Fair Housing, which is California’s commitment to combat housing
discrimination and segregation.
The criteria for
deciding the ratio of low-income housing includes “opportunity
scores” and vehicle miles traveled among other considerations to be
balanced. Minimizing Vehicle Miles Traveled [VMT] is very important
for the climate while the opportunity score considers the
availability of schools, green spaces and other amenities to
low-income people. The RHNA weighted Opportunity at 30% and VMT at
70%. That strikes Eureka as an imbalance that doesn’t do enough to
achieve the goal of economically diverse neighborhoods.
Colin Fiske,
Director of Coalition for Responsible Transportation Priorities,
pointed out that Eureka is one of the few areas in the county with
sufficient population density to operate effective mass transit,
which lower-income people are more likely to need. Eureka is also a
more walkable and bikeable community—features much to its credit.
HCAOG’s Regional Transportation Plan calls for 80% of new housing
stock—whether developed for low-income, moderate or high-income
levels–to be built in areas that aren’t dependent on cars for
transportation. When that is the overall goal, providing opportunity
to a low income population and reducing VMT overlaps to a large
extent.
At
any rate
it would be exceedingly difficult to redo RHNA at this point, so
Eureka
simply highlighted its concerns that the goals of fair housing would
be better served
with a different balance of criteria. In eight years the new RHNA
cycle will be re-considered, and the HCAOG board promised to
“memorialize” a
future consideration of
achieving those
goals
in a different way.
Check this out and
spread the word. A new state program provides free complete
home electrification if you meet the low income qualification and if
you use natural gas or propane as the primary fuel for either space
heating or water heating. The upgrade can include a heat pump, heat
pump water heater, heat pump clothes dryer and induction stove.
If you qualify for
CARE or FERA discount programs for electricity, or Medi-Cal, WIC, SSI
or other low-income programs, you qualify for this fantastic deal.
And
just in case you PG&E customers missed this, you might be able to
get a rebate for a household battery for power backup.
(Okay, you can also get the rebate for qualifying generators, but
please go for the battery instead.) This site will give you all the
information you need to see if you qualify and what products qualify.
I got a free Eco-Flow battery from PG&E several years ago, which
is easily the best free thing I’ve ever received.
350 Humboldt
Happenings
Our
general meeting will take place April 4 at Carson Park in
Eureka at 1:00. If the weather looks rainy or cold, you’ll receive
an invitation with zoom link for the following Wednesday at 6pm as
usual. Plus here it is now. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89783524801?pwd=ZE52L3NpeTJsanZaMG1NNnZWQTdtUT09
The legislative
committee meets on April 2 and April 16 at noon.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83448345568?pwd=6Wd3zBU7uz7bIsOnM6H1YIag0mBsAi.1
The
letter writing group meets every Sunday night at 7PM. Everyone
welcome.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84177018986?pwd=eiP6sJ9eENmfh2ozYDOZSjPpbZngGK.1
Dan’s Party
Only
one more article to go
It turns out that
God didn’t create corporations after all. Nor does the Supreme
Court define what rights they have. Somehow we all forgot that states
define corporate rights. If California were to amend its corporations
code, any business that incorporated in California must go by the new
rules. So how about we the Californians decide that corporations
cannot donate money to political candidates or causes? AB 1984,
introduced by Assemblymember Chris Rogers proposes exactly that.
Going back two
hundred years, the Supreme Court has recognized that corporations are
entirely creations of state law. As recently as 2014 in the Burwell v
Hobby Lobby, a notorious case which decided that corporations can
discriminate on the basis of religious beliefs, Justice Alito
referred to “the companies in these cases are governed by the laws
of the States in which they were incorporated.”
Is a business that
was incorporated in a different state able to donate money to support
or defeat a state bill in California? Not according to Center for
American Progress. Corporations that do business in states
other than the state they were incorporated in are considered
“foreign” in those states and are barred from getting involved in
its politics. Nor is it a simple matter to simply transfer one’s
charter to a different state. Such a process is complicated and
expensive.
What about federal
legislation? I would guess that corporations couldn’t be prevented
from getting financially involved in federal politics. So the
influence of each state would be limited to corporations legally
chartered in its own state. Suppose a lot of states assert their
rights to trim corporate power to meddle in politics—that sounds
like a movement that could only improve the political landscape.
The good news is
that five states are currently working on bills to restrain their
corporations from meddling in its politics. Montana’s legislature
has provided the model that inspired Rogers. The best news is that
these pushes towards trimming corporate rights are strongly
bipartisan. 80% of the American people agree that unlimited spending
to influence elections has been a force towards corruption.
Click
here if you’d like to hear the Eco-News Report
talk with Chris Rogers about AB 1984 and other matters.