Sustainability, Energy, & Resiliency Committee

Meeting Minutes - Final October 24th, 2018 – 6:30PM City Hall – 98 Washington Street Attendance: Jeff Cohen, Rick Nye, Lisa Rosenthal, John Hayes, Gail Kubik, Phil Koch, Staff Contact: Jenna Ide, Brittany Dolan (Staff) Not in Attendance: Chris Cantone Public Attendance: Judith Reilly (League of Women Voters)Anna Gooding-Call, Mary Gooding-Call, Rick Haigis, Stan Franzeen (SAFE, CCL) 1. Introductions  Brittany Dolan, the new Sustainability and Resiliency Coordinator, was in attendance and gave a quick introduction. She recently graduated from Florida Gulf Coast University with an M.S. of Environmental Science. Her thesis focused on heat flux through green roofs on residential homes.  Isabelle Santoro, the high school intern, was not in attendance and therefore she did not present her ideas for outreach at the high school. Two of those ideas are: how climate change will have an impact in Salem on people that are similar in age to her, and climate change impacts on Forest River in 30-40 years, specifically looking at how sea level rise will impact the beaches and how large storms would impact the park. She will be in attendance at a future meeting. 2. Membership Updates  Jeff Barz-Snell stepped down from SERC but there has been interest in new members volunteering to join so SERC can continue. Jenna stated that the alternates have to be approved by the City Council. It will be presented at an upcoming meeting to allow two alternates.  Associate members can be nominated without updating the ordinance.  SERC was formed under energy committee legislation meaning that it has the right to authorize the use of monies. There is the potential for SERC to start to approve and use money for projects  Jeff Cohen stated that there may be potential for the city to implement carbon pricing in the future and SERC could then use those funds for projects.  Gail stated that she would like to find a member that is a grant writer that is willing to join SERC.  Jenna then brought up associate members again. They can be designated and can be acknowledged but they will not have voting rights as they are not the same as an alternate member.   John stated that in the past there has been discussion about increasing the number of members above seven but that it was voted down. This resulted in seven members and two alternates which can be used to get a quorum if needed. 3. Project Updates  Zero-net energy grant from DOER was received for $12,500 for Forest River. It will be used for zero-net energy analyses and integrated designs. Currently there is a draft design that will go out to the public within the next month or so.  Bertram zero-net energy project is still currently in schematic design.  Solar projects are done, some information is just being finalized.  Salerno: SOW was sent out for designers, we are just waiting to hear back. A grant was awarded for this project as well.  Artist’s Row is up and running and it is now open for 3 seasons.  Salem Willows Project has been started.  Lighting projects in Bates and Carlton Schools were given a grant.  EV charging station will be put in behind City Hall Annex for city vehicles.  Rick asked if it would be possible to have a list of all current projects. 4. Outreach  Potential to present to Neighborhood Associations about everything SERC is involved in to get the community more involved.  John stated that there was a Marblehead Sustainability Fair which could be something to look into.  Jeff was in attendance at the Marblehead Fair. There were about 25 booths with a wide variety of sustainability topics such as EVs. There were also speakers at the fair as well as various workshops run by different companies or organizations.  RETF used to have a fair with vendors but eventually the fair was stopped because it became vendor driven.  In the future if SERC were to hold sustainability fair, the focus would be more on outreach and education.  Anna Gooding-Call made a suggestion about the speakers being broadcast on TV or internet that way a wider audience could be reached. 5. Barbara Warren, Executive Director of Salem Sound Coast Watch  SSCW has been involved in many projects with the City of Salem over the past 10 years. Barbara provided a spreadsheet with these projects.  SSCW is involved with the watershed organization because the water all flows into Salem Sound. The organization was formed by the cities within the watershed and the companies that are responsible for polluting the sound. The goal of the organization is to improve the water quality.  SSCW is also involved in many educational outreach programs. o School to Sea is funded by NOAA and the main goal is to bring children to the ocean to do work outside and to educate kids on the environment. o Talking Trash for Clean Oceans involves high school students that develop their own education programs that are then used in elementary schools as workshops. The plastic bag ordinance in Salem was started by a teenager in this program.  Another project that SSCW is involved in is sampling beaches and streams because pathogen levels are too high in Salem Sound and in other coastal areas. The high levels of pathogens prevent shell fishing.  In Manchester, bacteria levels in one of the salt marshes were extremely high due to widespread septic system failures. SSCW helped with the replacement of all of the septic systems however, the bacteria levels did not decrease. Now they are doing DNA tracking of the bacteria to figure out what can be done to reduce the levels.  Greenscapes promotes beautiful landscapes for clean and plentiful water. Greenscapes promotes ways to improve water quality like their campaign for dog owners to always clean up after their dogs. Greenscapes also promotes water conservation projects.  Coastal Pollution Remediation-Raingardens were built on Commercial St. next to the North River. They capture and clean the water where it falls. The salt marsh grasses that grow there help collect the pollutants from the water before it is filtered out into the North River.  The South River Watershed includes 2/3 of Salem’s landmass. The flooding can be extreme in some areas like Canal St. There is a project to construct water holding tanks under the O’Keefe Center parking lot to try to reduce this flooding but it has not been finished yet.  Winter Island has stormwater issues and lots of coastal erosion. SSCW received a Coastal Pollution Remediation Grant and New England Civil Engineering will construct 2 raingardens there to try to reduce coastal pollution.  Is the City of Salem Climate Change Resilient? o The 2014 vulnerability assessment in Salem was done by a small group and without public input. It focuses on 5 sectors but at times can be vague. o Jenna stated that she is beginning to work on developing a capital plan for the next 5-10 years to identify high priority projects in Salem that are related to climate change. Those high priority projects would then be put on the capital project list.  Coastal Zone Management (CZM) Coastal Resilience Grant o 10 sites were studied and 3 sites were chosen to become more resilient. The 3 sites were Collins Cove, Juniper Cove, and Furlong Park. Out of those 3 sites, Collins Cove was chosen to for the grant with construction starting in 2019. o Part of the project is to restore the salt marsh there. Initially there was resistance because it might not have been a salt marsh but a map from 1875 was found that proved it was a salt marsh at one point so the restoration project is able to proceed.  Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) o Pipe Beach-Fire in 1914 destroyed plans and now sewer pipe is up in air going across beach. Given $345,000 to study it. o Resilientma.org  Build resiliency to climate change  Climate Change Impacts o Increased precipitation, potential for drought and fires. o Showed map of half-tide risk of storm surge in 2014 that did not have climate change impacts included- much of the downtown area and other coastal areas were flooded. o When does an area become uninhabitable?  We have to look at critical assets and assess climate change impacts.  o Infrastructural- buildings o Societal- people o Environmental- natural resources  Barbara proposed doing workshops to try to figure out the critical assets.  Gail stated that it should be brought to the public to decide where we should prioritize. 6. Public Comment  Rick Haigis lives in Collins Cove and last January was the first time water had come up to his steps. He has seen storms become more critical over the years. Because of this he wants to become more involved with SERC and is happy to volunteer his time for projects.  Anna Gooding-Call would like to see more aggressive action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Salem. She suggested maybe closing down a street to cars and making it a pedestrian walkway.  John mentioned the Salem State University Earth Day Planning Committee and how they always do events so maybe SERC could become involved with that in the spring.  Jeff mentioned that in his neighborhood there are 24 condos being built on wetlands that would not only harm the wetlands but also be potentially dangerous because they would be located in the storm surge zone. What can be done to stop this type of development in the future?  Barbara stated that some communities are taking a public safety approach in order to deter development in these storm surge zones.  John brought up the topic of capitalism vs. public safety and whether or not the government should be responsible for protecting the public from rising sea-level when they live in highly vulnerable areas. At what point does the city become liable for people that live in unsafe areas during storms if they are responsible at all? 7. Meeting minutes. Jeff motioned to approve minutes for September with revisions. Rick seconded.  The committee voted to approve the September board minutes with 5 yeas and 1 abstention. Meeting adjourned at 8:12pm. Minutes respectfully submitted by Brittany Dolan.