Climate change adaptation

This is from Josh...

University of Oregon sponsors a Climate Leadership Initiative. Among other things, it facilitates workshops for communities to plan for and adapt to climate change. Some communities in Oregon have already done workshops and written reports. There may be useful information or beneficial suggestions in the reports.

http://climlead.uoregon.edu/programs/scenariosplanning.html

Notes from May 13 Task Force Meeting

Again - nothing official - just my notes - Pamela

My notes from May 13, 2009 SCTF Meeting

Here: Joanne/Molly/Jeff/Bill/Mike/Travis/Paula/Josh/Nabiel/David/Me/Dawn Feldhaus

Started off with a Blog tutorial - Thanks David!!

*Post next meeting date on blog* Next Meeting : June 10, 2009 5:30 pm

Jeff – Metrics Project – No sub-meeting has occurred yet. Still collecting raw data
Waiting for final report from Eva
Nabiel – Problem with methodology CDP vs ICLI - Josh and Jeff will review
There is a possibility that we will need to track both
Eva will be publishing our 2nd Annual Sustainability Newsletter – June sometime

The Whole pig – Organic Pig Farmers in Washougal – Jim and Lisa Kaiser

Green pages – links on City website

Transition Initiative - Presentation occurred May 6th – Moderate turn out – those who attended very much appreciated the material and how it was presented.

Will continue the speaker series – would like more lead time so we can invite more folks to these talks.
Mike will line up speakers for the following topics over the next few months:
Energy
Climate Change
Economic/Finance
Josh will look into finding a speaker for a Water discussion
Jeff will look into speakers for :
Architecture 2030
LEED

A wind technology for residential buildings presentation to City Council, Planning Commission and SCTF will occur on June 8, 2009 at 5:30 pm.

Pamela – Green Eye for the Sustainable Shy
• Molly will get recommendations of some Senior Citizens that could use an energy update for their home from a contact at Loaves and Fishes
• The participant will need to be willing to provide their energy cost data and allow us access into their home.
• Once we have a willing participant; a group of SCTF members will go into the home and determine what improvements can be made
• Acquisition of the necessary items – raid our garages, contact local retailers, etc.
• Return to the home and make improvements.
• Current members signed-on are Molly, Travis and Pamela
• Areas we would like to focus on are: Energy Conservation / Water Conservation an Trash/recycling

April Meeting Notes

These are not official minutes by any stretch of the imagination - just my notes - Pamela

My notes from 4/15 SCTF Meeting

Here: Bill/Travis/Paula/Molly/Mike/David/Jeff/Me/Nabiel/Steven/Josh

A professional will come and give a talk to City Council, Planning Commission and SCTF regarding wind technology for residential buildings soon – no date yet. The purpose is to educate decision makers. Jeff and Josh will review the presentation prior.

Waste Connections meeting – Molly met with some WM folks – All of Washougal will be going to the Big Blue Bins by this summer. They are open to working with us in community outreach type projects.

Travis London became the newest member of the SCTF to fill one of our two openings.

Transition Town – Presentation including a step by step process on how to get your town more sustainable – covers energy, climate and financial issues. Would like to have a presentation to the SCTF – Mike will set up.

Nabiel – Worms – many folks went to a worm presentation

At next meeting will start off with a blog tutorial

Jeff Cross – Project – Baseline Metrics
Measure Impacts
Quantify efforts to improve
Top 5 Metrics per Household: Water/Gas/Electric/recycle/solid waste/wastewater
Work with city and other entities to gather information
Intend to start 4/15 and end 6/30

Deliverables: Power Point presentation and calculations

Cost: Jeff, Josh, Dave, Pamela, Molly and Mike

All data needs to be from within the city limits

Nabiel – Use current #’s to publish City of Washougal Baseline performance metric 2009 report

Pamela brainstorm – Washougal home green-over – Green Eye for the Sustainable Shy
Idea was liked – need to type up a proposal….

Earth Day activity: Kerr Park 10-2 Tree planting, ivy removal, trail building – 4/18

Next Meeting : May 13th 5:30 pm
Adjourn: 7:25 pm

Mark your Calendars

The Sustainability Task Force Meeting will be June 10, 2009 at 5:30 pm.

See you all then!

Carbon Disclosure Report - Draft

From: Tom Carnac, Head of Public Sector, Carbon Disclosure Project

Link to the draft of the CDP Cities Report:

http://washougal.biz/cow/CDP_Cities_2008_draft.pdf

Please find attached the draft of the CDP Cities Report (link above). We are happy to present this for your review and comment and would ask that you provide feedback by the 24th April. We look forward to receiving your comments and incorporating them ahead of launching the document.

We are presenting this as a draft in order that you can have a voice in the final publication. However I would stress that it would be impossible for us to incorporate multiple potentially conflicting views and would therefore ask that you focus on the following areas when you review the report:

1. How you as a municipality are presented.
2. Broad comments on the overall tone and style of the report.
   

We would also invite you to provide any quotes, perhaps from a Mayor or elected official, that you would like included.

In addition to what is being circulated here, there are a few additional sections to be added once we have received comments. These include the graphs of data generated, the introductions to each participating municipality,  the Executive Summary and general typesetting and lay out.

We have enjoyed working with you on this project very much and hope that you find the report useful. I would also like to acknowledge at this point the crucial role that has been played by ICLEI, and underline that without their support this project would not have been possible.

Link to the draft of the CDP Cities Report: http://washougal.biz/cow/CDP_Cities_2008_draft.pdf

Best regards

Tom

Tom Carnac
Head of Public Sector
Carbon Disclosure Project
tel: + 44 20 7415 7109
mob: + 44 7823770689
tom.carnac@cdproject.net
www.cdproject.net
40 Bowling Green Lane, London EC1R 0NE, United Kingdom 

Meeting Minutes - March 11, 2009

Prepared by Steven Clark

March 11, 2009

Minutes

1.) Present: Steven Clark, Tammy Mackey, Josh Seeds, Pamela Tuite, Paula Clark

2.) Discussed Earth Hour.  Will post announcement on website.  David Mackie suggested that we might be able to see how many people visited the Earth Hour posting.

3.) Members? report

a.) Steven, Pamela and Jeff Cross developed a ?project filter? that attempted to help the Task Force to focus our work and to give us a means by which we could have a degree of input into our various projects.  Steven presented the idea.

b.) Discussion ensued.

c.) Steven would address suggested changes and post the results on the blog and by email.  Members would give the revised filter a vote if yes or no.  If the filter was accepted, members could begin developing projects in advance of the next meeting.

4.) Non-members posting on the blog.  Steven agreed to contact members to survey their opinions

5.) John Eidman brought up an upcoming City Council/Planning Commission meeting in late MARCH.  It is open to the public.  An informational presentation on wind power will be made.

Meeting Adjourned

Next Meeting: April 15 

Vermicomposting Hands-On Class

We have room for four more people. Nabiel wanted to extend the class invite to the Sustainability committee. Individuals will need to contact Rose Jewell if they are interested.  
 
Rose Jewell
Email: rjewell@ci.washougal.wa.us
Phone: 360.835.8501 extension 17

 =====================


Vermicomposting Hands-On Class (Carpooling is encouraged)

When: Friday, April 10, 2009, 10:00 AM - 10:30 AM

Where: 806 NE 202 Avenue, Camas, WA

The class is located in the middle of Friberg st (NE 202 Ave is the same road). We are surrounded by a grove of fir trees just past (north side of) 8th st.

806 NE 202 Ave
Camas, WA 98607


Contact Vermicomposting: dougknippel@northwestredworms.com
Website: www.northwestredworms.com

Operation of the Washougal Sustainability Task Force

Operation of the Washougal Sustainability Task Force

Every project proposed to the Washougal Sustainable City Task Force will need to pass a three-part process to proceed. The first part is called the “Preliminary Filter” and the second part is the “Project Description Filter.” Finally, the Washougal Sustainable City Task Force votes on the final proposal (i.e. the Project Description). Below is a description of the steps involved from Preliminary Filter to Project Description to Vote.

Preliminary Filter: Categories and Staffing.
Once a project has satisfied one of the three categories (above) and gained staffing, then the project will have authorization to prepare a Project Description (below). The project description will be presented to the Sustainability Task Force for final approval to proceed.

1. Project Categories

a. Educate: Use our expertise to clarify issues related to sustainability
i. City Council and/or advisors
1. E.g. Presentation to City Council about cottage zoning
ii. Community
1. E.g. Guest speaker about solar power

b. Encourage: Begin a program that encourages people to think about or try a more sustainable way of doing something. The emphasis here is to open people’s minds to something new.
i. Encourage changes in behavior
1. E.g. One hour with no use of power
2. E.g. Recycling improvement

c. Improve: Whatever we do, it should be an improvement in sustainability.
i. Metrics based: we’d like our projects or activities to be measurable in some way. This will help us gauge the success of our projects. The better we can measure our impact the easier it will be to share our success, to duplicate, to request support etc.
1. E.g. Neighborhood recycling increased from 58% participation to 76% participation.
2. E.g. After a lecture, Pre and Post survey revealed that . . .

2. Staffing
a. Each project will require at least two Sustainability Task Force (STF) participants to proceed to the Project Description stage.

i. This means a Task Force member may make a brief presentation about a prospective project and then someone else in the group must agree to join the original presenter in developing the project. If the presentation doesn’t generate an affiliate, the project is in effect, moribund.


Project Description Filter: The nascent project group will prepare a description of the activity. This description will be shared with the full Task Force for improvements, ideas and ultimately, endorsement.

1. Project Description Components

a. Project Title

b. Cost
i. Detail how many STF members will be working on the project and for how long.
ii. List any additional personnel from outside the STF.
iii. Describe any financing that will be required.

c. Scope
i. Describe what will be involved in the project; what is the breadth of the project.
ii. If necessary, describe what the end of the project will be (Does is last a week? Is it a one time event? Will it stop when a certain number of people are involved? Etc.).
iii. Endorsement Accountability: If there is any place in this project where the project seems to represent or speak for the entire task force, this must be noted in the project description. It is understood that prior to representing the views of the STF, those views must be explicitly vetted and approved by the STF.
1. We anticipate that many of the projects may invite people to join some new activity or idea. Or they may listen to a presentation of some sort. Those situations are not troublesome. But if an activity comes with a recommendation or sanction or a “signature” from the STF, then the sponsoring members need to get permission from the group beforehand.
2. NOTE: The idea of getting permission before members “sanction” something is a value we’d like to maintain wherever it might come up in the course of Sustainability Task Force work.

d. Include metrics
i. How will the project be measured; if we did the same project again later, how would we know if we were doing it better?

e. Schedule and dates.

Vote on the Project Description: The members pursuing the project share the completed Project Description with the STF. The STF votes on whether or not to proceed.


Sample Procedure for a Hypothetical Project:

a) First someone (the sponsor) gets an idea.
b) The sponsor assesses the project to see if it fits one of the three categories. The sponsor decides it fits both educate and improve, to the sponsor proceeds.
c) The sponsor of the idea makes a rough (revisable) plan of the project to share at the next meeting.
d) Pitch the plan to the group and have a discussion.
e) The sponsor asks if any members are interested in joining the project. If so . . .
f) Make a detailed Project Description including Title, Cost, Scope, Metrics and Schedule.
g) At our next meeting, the proposed project will be an agenda item. Discussion ensues; the group votes. The project begins.

From Steven Clark--Our "Mission Statement/Work Plan"

Hi Folks,

At our last meeting Pamela and I (and Jeff Cross in absentia) shared a framework wherein the Task Force could get work done and stay on task. It's a kind of hybrid between Mission and Work Plan. But, the group liked it and offered a few revisions. We then suggested I add the suggested edits and post the plan for our approval.

I've called the plan the Operation of the Washougal Sustainability Task Force and I sent it to all of you as an email attachment.

My understanding is that we should look at it and the give it a thumbs up or down on this blog. If we all vote it up, then we can hit the ground running at our next meeting. If the feedback reveals that we need more discussion, then we'll do that.

So, check your email then give your feedback here.
[FYI--David Mackie may try to post the proposal here with some of the formatting retained]

Have a Great Week!

Steven Clark

From Nabiel

Here is the community gardening event I mentioned last night. If any of you wish to carpool to it let me know.

 

PLEASE RSVP TO:

Kathy LaFon 397- 8000 Ext 7318

or Kathy.LaFon@Clark.Wa.Gov

By April 3rd


For more information:

Tricia Mortell 397- 8000 Ext 7211


Community Sponsors:

Clark County Public Health

Clark County Sustainability

Vancouver-Clark Parks and Recreation

WSU Clark County Extension

Clark County Solid Waste


Join other leaders from neighborhoods, churches, schools

and community groups to participate in...

Panel discussions

“community grown—What Clark County is doing”

“What’s Fresh—new ideas”

"Table top Discussions"

“growing successful Clark County Programs”


♥ Refreshments provided


Clark County Food System Council Presents:

COMMUNITY GROWN

A community Forum About Creating

Successful food Garden Programs

In Clark County

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

3:00–7:00 PM

First Presbyterian Church

4300 Main St., Vancouver, WA

Welcome

Welcome to the Washougal Sustainability Task Force Blog.