Posts Tagged ‘sustainability’

Madison Water Utility to Deliver Brown Water to Eastside Taps this Summer

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

Tuesday evening, 5/25/2010, the Water Utility Board will be meeting:

4:30 PM WATER UTILITY BOARD 119 E. OLIN AVE. ROOMS A & B (pdf of agenda here)

Though the topic is not on the agenda, eastsiders are concerned about the Utility’s plans to open the spigot on Well 8 this summer.

This is the well that sits atop the Olbrich sledding hill. It serves the near east side (Atwood & environs). It has:

a) high manganese levels (the element that causes dirty brown water around here), and,

b) high bacteria counts (given the drawdown of the aquifer, the aquifer is now likely supplied by lakewater rather than the natural order of things, aquifer-feeding-into-lake).

Given the routine summertime drawdown of our aquifer (generally caused by obsessions with green lawns in August), the Utility — spurred by the Fire Department — goes into desperation mode and opens this dirty well during peak-demand summer months.

Eastsiders are, shall we say, concerned. And rightly so. Several of our leading lights are submitting comment about the need for a better, safer policy with regard to our water supply.

The overarching point is: The Water Utility needs to follow the sustainability, conservation path rather than the business-as-usual consumption-at-all-costs path.

Below are some of the emails constituting public comment submissions on the idea of adding such a dangerous water source to our drinking water.

***

From fae dremock

Sent : Saturday, May 22, 2010 8:58 PM

To : Larson, Alan

Subject : Well 8: keep it offline

Hi, Al–

Well 8 has long been pumping water into taps used for drinking water by older residents, folks with heart conditions, pregnant women, and your children.

All of those groups are considered at risk at the high levels of manganese and iron reported in Well 8 water– which in fact led to citizen concern and to utility investigation into the need for filtration of Well 8.

The high iron levels are also correlated (perhaps also causative) of increased bacterial growth in the well.

The Madison water utility has already reported that Well 8 NEEDS filtration, and the well was turned off to avoid using that well’s water as drinking water.

If we had an adequate summer conservation program in place and well disseminated in the neighborhoods in that pressure zone, the Well would not need to be turned back on. We even have ways of doing this outlined in the utility’s standard operating procedure for citizen process– which was approved by the common council.

We should NOT being turning Well 8 back on– in its current unfiltered state. And the utility doesn’t need the added publicity of citizen blowback or independent epidemiological studies of high manganese and high iron health effects on at-risk populations in Madison, whether seniors or young children or pregnant mothers.

Either filter Well 8, or keep it shut down.

Please include this email under Public Comment on the May 25 Water Utility Board Agenda–in case I am unable to attend the May 25 Board meeting in person.

Sincerely,

Fae Dremock

Former member of the citizen water utility working group for Well 3 and a member of the citizen committee that worked with the water utility to create the SOP on citizen process.

Also, press card-carrying member of the National Science Writers Association.

***

From: Steven Klafka

Subject: City Well 8 Operating Schedule for 2010

To : “Larson, Alan”

Date : Thursday, May 20, 2010, 3:44 PM

Al Larson,

Probably because of my involvement on the Well 8 citizens advisory committee, I have seen recent emails regarding the operation of Well 8 this summer beginning in late June. As has been suggested, I think the Water Utility should seriously consider not operating Well 8 this summer, and not until a new filtration system is installed at Well 8 or in combination with other wells on the eastside.

As shown in the attachment to the January 2009 project scoping document, Well 8 iron levels are several times the taste threshold and twice the level at which laundry and plumbing staining occurs. Manganese levels are at the taste threshold, and exceed levels where it can coat water pipes and discolor water. Periodic variations above the average levels reported in the scoping document would be more noticeable. The manganese levels are well below the EPA lifetime health advisory value, but the potential for health effects merits more serious consideration of our options.

The neighborhood residents around Well 8 has shown to be great environmental advocates. If the water utility suggested that neighbors reduce excessive summertime water usage so Well 8 is not required, I think they will respond positively.

Thanks for considering my comments.

Steve Klafka

508 Elmside Boulevard

Madison, WI 53704

(608) 249-0231

***

Subject : Re: Please filter or keep Well 8 turned off this summer

Date : Thu, 20 May 2010 16:31:33 -0500

From : Betty Chewning

Organization : University of Wisconsin – Madison

To: Grande, Joseph , Lawrence Lundy

Mr Grande:

Thank you for sharing my comments at the Water Board meeting.  Could you share these as well?

It looks like you intend to keep Well 8 with its elevated iron and manganese levels going this summer.  You didn’t say whether you would filter it. My neighbors and I would like to know if you are going to do this.

I’m very interested in moving forward a sustainability approach to water management. City government is constantly faced with tradeoffs, which I understand having been a member of the Madison Park Commission for the past 9 years. I don’t mean to oversimplify your challenge, but my question is why not work much more on the conservation side of the question rather than assuming you need to keep #8 in service?  Let’s work together to encourage a sustainable mode of water use by Madison’s fine residents and industryl/ businesses?  We (your agency and those of us interested in sustainability ) can ask people/ business to use less.  The sustainable Atwood effort is trying to think about this issue. For example, with city or university help we or the city could establish per capita goals.  Through their water bills we could give people feedback of whether they are below, above, or at average use on their bills? ( I have a prius and the feedback on my second by second mileage has been powerful in changing my driving behavior to conserve gas).   This could be augmented with public education on formulas that each household could use to determine their own goal based on number of people in the household.  People could be taught to read their own meters and given shared equipment for doing that if needed. How hard would it be to put up on the City Water Utility web the list of behaviors that can help households, businesses and industry conserve water in the summer ( in addition to the formulaes). We use a sustain dane rain barrel to collect water for all of our plants in the summer for example.What are the resources such as this that can build the city’s capacity to conserve water. Not keeping your water running when brushing your teeth is a small start that Dr.Gilbert White, a prominent international water management expert from Univ. of Chicago,  advocated years ago just to raise consciousness that water is a scarce commodity.  The use of gray water certainly deserves discussion. Sounds like a grad student or internship project to me.  What do you think?

The translation of what is known both about human behavior and sustainable water practice and behavior is very exciting. What do you think about engaging the community in a full fledged public, industry and business education campaign on priority behaviors we can engage in to minimize our water use in Madison?  I would be happy as well as many others to help you think about it. This could be an exciting time rather than the contentious time that I”m afraid has marked well water discussions in the past. Just know that you are not alone if you choose to move in the direction of conservation and sustainability.

By the way, don’t misunderstand my point re. the serious health issues concentrated on my block. We (you and I) are all being exposed to numerous small chemical risks.  There is actually little done to estimate the interactive effects of all these small risks.  I simply don’t want my family to have another small exposure when there is no need for it.  And that is the real issue here.  If sustainability, which should happen anyway, were a central theme of madison’s policy we wouldn’t need for any elevated levels from well #8.  I sincerely and respectfully ask for your leadership on this.

Betty Chewning

***[The following message is from Water Utility a staffer]

Grande, Joseph wrote:

Thank you, Ms. Chewning, for your message regarding the planned operation of Well 8 later this year.  I have requested that your message be entered during the public comment period at next Tuesday’s Water Board meeting.

A filter at Well 8, or other Madison wells, would improve the aesthetic quality of the water and reduce the staining of clothes, shower curtains, and plumbing fixtures.  Comprehensive testing at the residential tap has shown that, when Well 8 operates, iron and manganese levels are indeed above the aesthetic threshold (i.e. the national secondary drinking water level) but well below levels deemed potentially unhealthy.  The primary problem with groundwater minerals like calcium (hardness), iron, and manganese is that they produce visible residues that are a nuisance.  Iron and manganese accumulate in water mains over time and periodically lead to discolored water at the tap.  The Water Utility already limits the operation of Well 8 to reduce the likelihood of discolored water at the residential tap.  Our flushing program further helps to lessen the chance of colored water by removing the mineral sediment before it can become a problem.

We plan to operate the well during the summer months (late June through early September) when water demands are higher due to outdoor water use.  Last year the well pumped 43 million gallons or about 1 million gallons per day and we anticipate similar operations this year. Seasonal wells, including Well 8, are important supply points to meet often unpredictable summer water demand.  They also serve as important backup supply during system problems (power outage, unplanned maintenance need, etc.) or major fire that could require additional supply.  As in previous years, we will monitor manganese and iron levels at the residential tap during the time when the well operates.  Test results from 2007-2009 are available on our website, www.madisonwater.org.

The Water Utility is committed to improving water quality throughout the water system and particularly at Well 8.  A Citizen Advisory Panel (CAP) was formed last year to allow citizen input into how the water quality concerns at Well 8 are addressed.  In addition, a consultant was recently hired to evaluate a host of treatment and operation alternatives not only for Well 8 but the entire near eastside.  The study should be completed by next summer, at which point a preferred alternative will be selected.  I encourage you to contact Al Larson (copied on this message) to become part of the CAP so that your concerns and preferences are incorporated into the planning process for improved water quality.

Finally, I am saddened to hear about the coincidental adverse health of several neighbors.  However, to my knowledge, the minerals impurities and the levels typically found in water pumped from Well 8 are not associated with these specific health conditions.  I believe Public Health Madison Dane County can more appropriately address your health-related concerns.  Jeff Lafferty (242-6491) is a good resource at Public Health.

Please feel free to contact me directly (266-4654) if you have any other water quality questions.

Sincerely,

Joseph Grande

Water Quality Manager

Madison Water Utility

608-266-4654

***

From : Foxcroft, Melanie A – DHS

Sent : Monday, May 24, 2010 3:32 PM

Subject : PUBLIC COMMENT for May 25 Board Agenda

To : Greg Harrington Water Utility Board Chair

Please include my comment below under the PUBLIC COMMENT portion of the May 25 Board Agenda, thanks!

I request that the Madison Water Utility educate and support efforts by residents in the Well #8 area to conserve water this summer, including: collect “grey” water from their households to re-use on their gardens; plant more drought-resistant lawns and garden plants (including seed & plant suggestions); reduce watering lawns (be proud of your brown lawn!); collect rain water from downspouts to use on gardens; and similar measures.

While there may be a perception that Madison has water to waste, I contend that simple water re-use and conservation measures by individuals may have a major impact on water use, limiting drawdown from wells and aquifers that have challenged water quality/quantity including well #8.  The Madison Water utility can support this by including conservation information in their bills; by initiating a concerted public announcement/education campaign; by delivering downspout collection devices free to ALL households much as trash collection bins were delivered free; offering neighborhood workshops on how to connect the devices and conserve water; limiting certain types of fertilizers; and similar measures.

A little education and awareness can go a long way!

Keeping farm phosphorous out of our lakes is a Dane County issue, but we can start locally.  THANK YOU

***

Consider sending your own message about keeping our water clean to the folks at the Water Utility Board here:

ARobb – at – madisonwater.org

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Posted in Environment, Health, Madison Politics | No Comments »

Pick Up an Isthmus! Then read more about Jevons Paradox here….

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

If you are coming here because of my article in the Isthmus, and for the first time, welcome!

[Regular readers: Please pick up an Isthmus Thursday, because I'll have an Op-Ed in there. I'll try to post the direct link once it is up there. Update: here's the link. If you like it, please consider clicking the "recommend" box, just to the right of the article. ]

The Op-Ed deals with entropy & ethics* as it has been playing out in the political arena here in Madison. For reasons of space constraints and unity of theme, I kept it pretty narrowly focused on the issue of over-paving, the resultant forced car use and the resulting increased overall energy use citywide, despite all the hoopla surrounding the mayor’s groovey-green gizmos sprouting atop fire stations around the city.

I make the case that the big environmental issue facing us all is the issue of Jevons Paradox,

the proposition that technological progress that increases the efficiency with which a resource is used, tends to increase (rather than decrease) the rate of consumption of that resource.

In other words, as we get more efficient, we end up burning even more. Wants, now easily attainable through efficiencies, become needs.

Mayor Pave’s glorified solar panel sitting atop a “green” building, set in the energy intensive carscapes of suburbia, is just one example of Jevons at work. Some might call it cognitive dissonance. Some might call it greenwashing. Others hypocrisy. I’ll just blame Jevons. (For now.)

Other examples….Take for instance the US car fleet and the Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFE) standards. From 1970-1990 we doubled the average MPG of the “fleet.” Guess what we did in the meantime? We drove more than twice as much on a per capita basis. Same with houses. In 1970 the average house size was 1200 square feet. And they were seives; energy hogs in the extreme. At least on a per square foot basis. By 1990 the average new home was twice as efficient, on a per square foot basis. But guess what happened? The average home not only got twice as big, there were fewer people living in each house! In both cases we actually moved backward in terms of total per capita energy expenditure despite having gotten more efficient in a technological sense.

Now we’ve got mainstream enviros telling us that we’ll be just fine if we just get more solar panels on roofs, if we just all bought Toyota Piouses. But we’ve seen that movie before…double efficiency…more consumption…double efficiency again…more consumption….

That we have made such technological progress and are relentlessly consuming ever more, More, MORE! tells me that something is missing from the dialogue — ethics.

I would suggest that a radical overhaul of our ethic — personal, professional, community — is in order. We will have to start with a big, heaping helping  of plain, old self-control. [Gasp!] Thus, at the personal level, when we make an investment in, say, an energy efficient furnace, we shouldn’t then use the savings to buy a giant professional-grade refrigerator, add onto the house, pump out a second or third kid, or go jetting off somewhere. At the policy level, when our politicians vote to build green buildings, they shouldn’t site them in car-only neighborhoods. Hell, they shouldn’t create car-only neighborhoods at all.

We’ll also have to agree that there are no silver bullets, no messianic miracle fuels (no, not even solar, nor switchgrass), no groovey-green fixes (no, not even windpower; and here) that will get us all the way back down to 350 (ppm CO2 in the atmosphere). Every form of concentrated energy has its limitations and drawbacks.

Even if we were to discover a messianic miracle fuel that was cheap, easy to produce, burned nothing and created no pollution, think about what we would do with all that energy. First think of all the wasteful ways we use the limited energy we do have. Now imagine that it is unlimited. I reckon we’d pave the world. Why? Because we could.

Thus, self-control will be the key ingredient in getting us down from our current 387 ppm — on a trajectory to 700 — to 350 and cleaning up the other environmental messes we’ve already made….

I also think that part of the ethic will include good, old fashioned shaming. Polite Midwesterners will be horrified at the prospect, no doubt. Polite (though direct) Midwesterner Hans Noeldner has written extensively about the element of shaming in fashioning a new consciousness, and my buddy Tim Wong has been practicing it regularly on local listservs for years (Bikies, SASYNA-discussions@yahoogroups.com). And I’m not exactly quiet, either. Making it real, bringing it down from the policy level to the personal, Hans hammered the point home on the Madison Area Bus Advocates listserv:

We need to tell people that their choices and behaviors really matter.  And that all of us have much to learn.  Thus the most important thing is to challenge people to just get out there and begin occupying their communities as HUMAN BEINGS again.  So long as well-meaning people remain behind that damned windshield, they will not learn the first thing about what we/collectively must do to create – not “walkable communities” – but “communities that walk”…and bike…and have enough people walking and biking to make transit viable.
Perhaps our message should be in-your-face: “Stop passing the buck!  Habitat follows behavior.”

We need to tell people that their choices and behaviors really matter.  And that all of us have much to learn.  Thus the most important thing is to challenge people to just get out there and begin occupying their communities as HUMAN BEINGS again.  So long as well-meaning people remain behind that damned windshield, they will not learn the first thing about what we/collectively must do to create – not “walkable communities” – but “communities that walk”…and bike…and have enough people walking and biking to make transit viable.

Perhaps our message should be in-your-face: “Stop passing the buck!  Habitat follows behavior.”

Amen, Brother Hans.

And finally, those who end up getting shamed need to learn how to disassociate their person from their machinery. You are not your deathmobile, no matter how tightly you grip that steering wheel.

So sustainability, resiliency, green living — whatever buzzword you choose — is going to require extreme responsibility at all levels of government, all types of business enterprises, for-profits, non-profits, and yes, each and every individual in their daily lives whether at home, in their community or at work.

Maybe start by  learning how to make your community more sustainable…like at the upcoming Sustainable Atwood “Big Picture” event on January 28, 2010, 7-9 PM at the United Way Building, 2059 Atwood Avenue.

And consider walking, biking or taking the bus there (bus lines #3 & 4 run within a block of this address).

It’s a start.

*I’d like to thank the Brothers Noeldner, Paul and Hans, for generating insight into these issues and how they relate to our current environmental dilemmas.

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Posted in Architecture, Energy Efficiency, Energy Efficient Places, Greenwashers & Greenwashing, Madison Politics, Society, Urban Design/Planning/Geography | No Comments »

Sustainable Sheep Herding

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

The city has held a series of “Sustainable Madison Community Forums.” I went to the first one on Thursday, October 22, 2009.

It wasn’t promising.

The foremost problem: we got talked at. The entire meeting was structured to shut up and shut out thoughtful community input. And in the Atwood neighborhood, where you’ve got the highest concentration of environmental activists & practitioners in the country (enviro organization EDs, the Geo/Enviro Professoriate, sustainable design professionals, enviro rabble rousers of every stripe, etc.), shutting up & shutting out is just bad public policy. The city has a lot to learn from these folks. To shut them up is just unacceptable.

Madison’s environmental brain trust turned out in droves to this meeting. We had the leading lights of Sustainable Architecture, Alt-trans, Hydrogeology, Renewable energy, etc., et cetera, et cetera. Unfortunately, not only was the forum designed to minimize citizen input, when people tried to break through the input-stifling format, the Chair of the Sustainable Design and Energy Committee actually shouted them down. Sherrie Gruder is a problem. More on that in a moment.

At least 2/3 of the meeting time was scheduled for dog & pony shows.  City staff & the UW Planning Dept’s Doogie Howsers laid out state of the art sustainability, ca. 1979. That is to say, the “presentations” consisted of nibbling-around-the-edges sustainability initiatives undertaken by the city to date. It was a laundry list of 1970s-era ideas such as solar panels & LEED design criteria. (There was no mention of what level of LEED was attained; my guess is that they are all at the Silver Level, something that you can attain by just following the state building code plus a green gew-gaw here & there. In other words, nothing to brag about here.)

The URPL students regurgitated their planning 101 textbooks. Again, nothing new for the brains getting talked at.

The people doing the talking at were in their little boxes and had little in the way of imaginative, low/no-cost green measures that could get right to the heart of sustainability. And the heart of the sustainability issue is energy. 80% of sustainability is energy. There simply is no getting around it. Energy use is entropy.* That is to say, our energy gluttony is the root cause of the vast majority of our environmental destruction, lack of sustainability.

And the sustainability issue at the heart of the matter: Paving for the Deathmobile.

Practically every aspect of sustainability comes back to this.

Water quality? Guess what caps off aquifer recharge more than any other impervious surface? Paving for the deathmobile.

Guess what the #1 use of land in Madison is? Paving for the deathmobile.

Guess what the #1 use of paving is? Moving & storing deathmobiles (roads, storage, a.k.a. parking).

Urban heat island effect’s #1 contributor? Paving for the deathmobile. (See the above #1 use of land.)

Energy use city wide? #1 consumer of energy is transportation. The #1 consumer of transportation energy? The deathmobile.

Guess what the # 1 mode of transportation in Madison is? The most inefficient form of transportation ever devised: the deathmobile.

CO2 emissions? #1 source in Madison: deathmobile.

Madison risks becoming an EPA designated dirty air zone (‘non-attainment’ as they say in bureau-speak). Where are these smog forming compounds coming from? #1 source: deathmobile. (Yes, including that deathmobile that you ‘never’ drive. How so? Fuel evaporating from fuel injectors & the fuel line creates volatile organic compounds (precursors to smog); this process is responsible for upwards of 20% of smog forming compounds.)

Budget constraints preventing implementation of green ideas? Guess what the #1 single item on the city budget is? Supporting the deathmobile. From road paving, repair, maintenance, street sweeping & snow plowing to police & fire & ambulance services dedicated to cleaning up after car crashes, there is no other single item in the city budget that costs more than, yup, the deathmobile. Furthermore, every budget during the green mayor’s tenure has included double digit increases in paving budgets.

Why not boost alternatives to the deathmobile? Well, the most obvious transportation alternative is transit. Rail transit is 8X more efficient than the deathmobile. Bus service is 4X more efficient. When you factor in the land use efficiencies of transit-oriented-development (i.e., density, mixed-use, all scaled to walking & biking), the efficiencies become incalculably large. Priceless as it were. But this mayor has repeatedly slashed bus service and jacked fares to the point that he is leaving people — literally — at the bus stop. His pro-sprawl policies undermine any hope for a transit/walking/biking future.

The budget squeeze brought on by the deathmobile. The 2009 budget included a whopping 60% increase in paving. Mayor Pave calls paving his “capital” budget, and claims that it is distinct from the operating budget (from which transit draws the funds it needs to run). But every year, as the mayor piles on debt to build bigger highways, the service on that “capital” debt becomes more & more burdensome on the operating budget. Yes, debt service on capital expenditures is put onto the operating budget. So yes, he commingles capital and operating funds. The effect: When the mayor was elected, debt service was in the single digits as a percentage of the operating budget; by 2009, that had risen to 11%. The recently passed 2010 budget is 12%. The comptroller predicts that by 2013 it will be 17%. That means a squeezed operating budget for decades. That means more cuts & fare jackings to the bus system forevermore.

Paving. Deathmobility. The Siamese twin elephants in the room the Sustainable Design and Energy Committee fails to look at.

Instead, all we get is braggadocio for all that nibbling around the edges.

Those nibbled edges.

Every ounce of carbon prevented by each solar panel ever installed by the mayor has been cancelled out by orders of magnitude thanks to his decision to jack up bus fares to pay for his paving debt service. Why? Because, in his years of jacking fares and cutting bus service he has decimated bus ridership. That ridership often shifts to cars.

Furthermore, it is likely that every watt generated by his groovey-green gizmo solar panels has been canceled out by the increase demands for air conditioning thanks to the increased ‘heat island’ effect of the paved area of Madison he has increased. And whatever emissions reductions are achieved by those groovey-green hot water panels will have been canceled out by the increase in smog forming compounds emitted from parked cars on hot paved parking lots baking in the sun. (Yes, Virginia, some 20% of volatile organic compounds — i.e., smog forming compounds — come from parked cars.)

So until the city takes the paving/deathmobile complex seriously, there will be no sustainability.

Yet in all of the city’s discussion of sustainability, there is no mention of the paving/deathmobile complex as a root problem.

City’s spending on sustainability, is being overwhelmed by the negative effects of paving & other deathmobile promotion. Instead of spending more on complicated technical solutions toward sustainability, the city could be spending less while promoting sustainability to a much greater degree. Indeed SDEC, the mayor, our alders, are all missing the obvious, Occam’s Razor-esque approach: Obviate the need for yet more energy.

The Great Energy Obviation: A Kyoto Paving Protocol.

The idea: Set the city on a glide path down from automobility and upward toward cool place making. That is, immediately set the city on a paving limit which, on a per capita basis would amount to the same paving per capita as Madison had as of 1990, then subtract 10%. That should be the goal of the next budget or two. Then, set city policies to achieve the same numbers for driving: per capita ‘vehicle miles traveled” (VMT) as of 1990, minus 10%. For budgets 3-5 years out, subtract another 25%. Continue on that trajectory until we are on target to reduce carbon emissions to achieve an atmospheric CO2 composition of 350 ppm.

Some salient measures to achieve these goals:

  • Increase bus service, decrease fares.
  • Plan for the grid for all new developments. The only pattern of development which has been conclusively shown to actually increase walking and biking is grid-patterned development. Transit also needs the grid to be effective. The grid. Boring? If you let it be (take a trip to Manhattan or the fun ‘hoods of Chicago for examples of a non-boring grid development!). Effective at providing access for all, regardless of mode of transportation? Definitely.
  • TWLTLs. Convert all 4-lane city highways to two-way-left-turn roads (one lane each direction, center turn lane) with bike lanes.
  • Bus transit lanes. Convert one lane to dedicated bus lanes on all existing 6+ lane highways in the city.
  • The high cost of free parking. Expand smart parking meters to more parts of the city, and implement yield-managment algorithms to increase prices at peak times and reduce prices at off-peak times, and reduce, overall car usage.
  • Pro-neighborhood business districts. Return all neighborhood arterials (such as Williamson St., Gorham, Johnson, Monroe St. etc.) to neighborhood business use at all times (i.e., end the rush hour parking restrictions).
  • Bicycle Boulevards. Begin designing key streets for reduced through-automobile traffic, and optimize for convenient and enjoyable bicycle traffic.
  • Emphasize Placemaking. Use the savings from reduced paving to create places people want to be a part of. Why placemaking instead of paving for speed? If we begin to create places people don’t want to run away from, then there will be less inducement to run away. As fast as possible. Preferably sealed up in a speeding steel & glass cage. Because right now, we are creating urban spaces so ugly, so scary, that all anyone can think to do is get away. Instead, make places that are cool, fun, interesting, beautiful and people will be more likely to relax where they are, rather than constantly running away from one ugly place to another.
  • Rein in the Engineers. The first step in the placemaking process would be to put competent, committed (to creating cool places) design professionals (place planners, architects, landscape architects, etc.) in charge of the engineers. Portland, OR never got anywhere in terms of sustainable transportation until they did this. For too long this city has been dominated by engineers lording over design professionals. That must be reversed. Places must be for people first. The machinery (cars) so fetishized by engineers must be made subservient to this prime directive: People first.

The Problem with Sustainability in the Public Process.

Prior rounds of input have been largely ignored by SDEC as well as city government at large. In 2003-4 there was a similar sustainability public process. Input from the general public was openly disdained by the chair of SDEC  (again, Sherrie Gruder).

Then, when the city opened the public process for the City Comprehensive Plan (2005?), staff’s boilerplate language predominated, and public input was largely shunted aside. This was a major opportunity to codify sustainability into every aspect of city policy — from transportation to planning to water & sewer policy. Many of us submitted detailed comment that, if implemented would have set us on a sustainability path.

This round of ‘public participation’ is looking to be similarly pro-forma. Indeed, it was so clear that the chair of the SDEC, Sherrie Gruder was so adamant about excluding public input, that I decided early on to submit my comment online, as suggested by the coversheet handed out at the October 22 forum. Here is what it said:

“To partake in providing input if you can’t attend in person and to learn more about Sustainability[sic], go to www.cityofmadison/sustainability/community “

I did. There is no medium for providing input. None. Once again, public input faces a dead end.

At some point, city leadership should mature into “idea input machines.” Even criticism should be seriously considered. If, under scrutiny of a rigorous energy/sustainability cost-benefit analysis, it proves beneficial, then it should be assimilated into policy. Neither the personality of the messenger, nor the personality of the receiver of the message nor the style of delivery of the message should have any bearing on the validity of any idea in the final analysis.

To understand how successful this new attitude toward governing could be, consider this quote from Bill Gates: “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” Plug that quote into Google and you’ll find a million & one management gurus riffing off of it. The City of Madison in its quest to become more “customer friendly” might take a hint here.

*Entropy, for those who forgot their 7th grade earth science, is destruction of matter. E = MC2. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. Or, as the Talking Heads put it, “Things fall apart, it’s scientific.”

Note: I have more sustainability ideas that I will post on this blog as time permits.

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Posted in Energy Efficiency, Energy Efficient Places, Environment, Greenwashers & Greenwashing, Madison Politics, Perspectives on American Gluttony, Places That Don't Suck, Places that Suck, Public Transit, Society, Urban Design/Planning/Geography, bicycle/bicycling/bicyclist | No Comments »