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From the Executive Summary:

Analysis & Recommendations

Overview

As requested by the City Council, this report analyzes the City’s operations and proposes ways that it can prepare to maintain municipal services in the event of increasing fossil fuel shortfalls or disruptions. Given the enormous negative impacts likely to occur without proactive responses, and with the current low level of national and state leadership, CAGE believes that it is prudent risk management for local municipalities, such as the City of Sebastopol, to prepare proactively for these changes.

Sebastopol has a number of projects in place to reduce energy usage, implement alternative energy sources, and prepare for energy disruptions. CAGE applauds this.

Nevertheless, the City (and our culture) still face significant risks from the dynamics described in this report. These are the five key types of vulnerabilities that the City faces:

1) Increased Direct Energy Costs. In FY 05-06, 3.4% of the City’s expenditures went to direct energy costs, to pay for energy for: Water Wells (31% of costs), Ives Pool (17%), Buildings (16%), Street Lighting (16%), Vehicles (14%), and Sewage Lift Stations (7%). At the possible future energy price points that CAGE examined, these expenses could rise to 12% of City expenditures. The tripling of the City’s natural gas costs in FY 05-06, because of Hurricane Katrina, demonstrates the City’s vulnerability to sudden and drastic price increases in fossil fuel prices as a result of external events.

2) Increased Indirect Energy Costs. Fossil fuel energy price increases are expected to ripple through into product and labor prices, risking increased costs and decreased availability for a wide variety of materials needed for the City’s functioning. Other government entities could also be impacted by these changes, and decrease their funding and services to the City, at a time when there is increased demand on City services.

3) Insufficient Energy Supplies and Outages. Energy supply shortages and outages of potentially unexpected and long duration could hinder City operations for extended periods of time, causing public health and safety issues. This could occur at a time of increased need for City services.

4) Global Economic Crises and Disruption. The City is also at risk from possible worldwide economic disruptions from these energy shortfalls and price increases. These secondary impacts could cause notable changes to businesses, employees, and governments, locally and beyond, which would significantly impact the City’s costs, income, operations, and ability to maintain services.

5) Insufficient/Late Transition Away From Fossil Fuels. One of the most notable risks to the City would be if it were to transition too slowly away from a dependency on fossil fuel energy sources. This would leave the City vulnerable to a variety of potentially drastic and sudden impacts, and in a hasty last-minute scramble to try to install alternatives when high demand will likely make them much more expensive and less available.

Summary of Recommendations

Fortunately, the City has the opportunity to anticipate these challenges before the situation becomes more difficult. We therefore encourage the City to reduce its exposure to these risks by increasing activities to reduce energy needs, prepare for serious energy shortages and price increases, and transition away from fossil fuel energy sources.

To serve the City, we have identified key actions that the City can do in this regard. Below is a summary of our recommendations; the body of this report describes our underlying analysis and important specifics about implementation.

First Steps

• Develop and pass an Energy Transition Resolution (Recommendation A-1).

• Appoint the City Council Energy and Sustainable Practices Subcommittee to implement this resolution and track the progress of these recommendations through the City Council process (Recommendation A-2).

• Establish a standing Citizens’ Technical Advisory Committee (CTAC) to assist the City in implementing this resolution and these recommendations (Recommendation A-3).

• Direct City departments to determine departmental vulnerabilities and propose implementation plans for this resolution, which the City Council Energy Subcommittee will then evaluate and prioritize, with CTAC’s assistance (Recommendation A-4).

• Explore potential partnerships and alliances with other organizations and government entities to share information and collaborate on accomplishing, and sharing the costs, of these activities (Recommendations A-5 and A-12).

Implementation Steps

• Develop procedures for easily tracking City energy use and costs, and reporting these annually to the City Council, to observe trends and adjust actions and priorities (Recommendation A-6).

• Seek permission to aggregate the City’s electrical loads, to apply credits from solar panels to other City locations (Recommendation A-7).

• Continue reducing City usage of fossil fuels and electricity, even in situations where costs can be passed through to users (Recommendation A-9). To do this, increase building energy efficiency, through implementing passive efficiency measures, using the City’s Green Building guidelines on City buildings, determining why the Garzot building has such a high energy cost per square foot, and hiring a green buildings consultant (Recommendations B-1 through B-6). Assess the City’s streetlighting plan and lighting types, and consider possible lighting system design changes (Recommendations B-13 thorough B-15). Consider energy costs when timing Ives Pool maintenance closures (Recommendation B-16). Explore replacing ornamental lawns with low-maintenance plants (Recommendation B-17) and buying more fuel-efficient vehicles (Recommendation C-1). Identify ways to continue reducing power usage by supporting water conservation — for example by assessing why water usage has increased, and adding requirements and incentives for conservation (Recommendations D-1 through D-6).

• Proactively invest in additional energy technologies that transition away from fossil fuels. To do this, explore creative funding mechanisms (Recommendation A-8) and the use of other alternative energy sources, such as wind and solar thermal (Recommendation B-7). Consider solar thermal pool heaters for Ives Pool (Recommendation B-8), additional alternative vehicles (Recommendation C-1), added use of motorized bicycles (Recommendation C-2), biofuels for vehicles (Recommendations C-3, C-4, and F-1), solar PV at wellheads (Recommendation D-7), and alternatives to petroleumbased asphalt (Recommendation B-9).

• Prepare for longer-term outages and emergencies. To do this, prepare plans for more drastic energy-limited situations (Recommendations B-10 through B-12, and F-2 through F-6), including determining the basic electrical consumption level needed for each department, how long current backup options would last, if this should be increased for longer outages, and other backup technology that might be useful. Assess how long water supplies will last, and determine if the City wants to extend that time (Recommendation D-8). Identify what it would take to make wells more self-reliant during outages (Recommendation D-9). Assess the EMS system, including the dependency on the AMR contractor (Recommendations F-5 and F-6) and the high use of fire vehicles for EMS events (Recommendation F-2). Assess the Laguna Treatment Plant’s emergency measures for longer-term outages, especially to avoid sewage pollution (Recommendation E-2). Encourage all citizens to have backup sources of drinking water (Recommendation D-10). Consider reducing the City’s dependency on the Laguna Plant (Recommendation E-3). For more extreme circumstances, consider re-examining the water system design (Recommendation D-11).

• Plan future City revenues in the face of these dynamics. To do this, add energy vulnerability scenarios to the current revenue development planning process (Recommendation H-1) and to area “Buy Local” campaigns (Recommendation H-3). Encourage local businesses that serve key needs now met by Santa Rosa merchants, to encourage more local shopping (Recommendation H-4). Establish a policy and methods for supporting local green businesses, especially those which nurture and benefit from a transition away from fossil fuels (Recommendation H-5). Consider setting aside added financial reserves to cover increased risks (Recommendation H-2).

• Reduce risks of impacts on employee availability by assessing how sustained and serious fuel shortages or price increases might impact the availability of commuting employees (Recommendations C-5 and F-4 ) and establishing incentives to use alternatives to single occupancy vehicles (Recommendation C-6).

• Reduce risks from trash collection cost increases and pickup failures, by encouraging WMI’s use of non-fossil fuel and reducing the City’s total trash amount, with the goal of becoming a Zero Waste city (Recommendations G-1 and G-2).

Making Broader Connections

Because the City’s activities are interdependent with those of the community and other levels of government, it is vital that the City also keep an eye on the larger community picture as it evolves – both to consider how this could impact the City’s ability to maintain appropriate levels of service, and to explore how the City can constructively influence activities in other spheres. Larger potential impacts of these dynamics include harm to transportation systems, food supplies, other government entities, and the overall economy. The ripple effects of these unprecedented challenges and events will require both anticipation and flexibility in response.

To support constructive proactive action in the larger community, we advise the City to:

• Establish a Community Outreach Committee to make recommendations to the greater Sebastopol community about appropriate measures which could be taken to adapt to future uncertainties regarding energy supplies (Recommendation A-10).

• Identify ways that the City can encourage actions at other levels of government to reduce energy use and transition away from fossil fuel energy sources (Recommendations A-11 and E-1).

• Consider joining with other cities to implement Community Choice Aggregation (CCA), in order to buy and support local green power (Recommendation A-13). In the future, consider becoming a municipal utility, to better access local energy sources and control rates (Recommendation A-14).

• Expand citizen conservation and adoption of alternatives (Recommendations I-1 through I-5). Educate users on the energy component in the costs of City services, including water, sewer, Ives Pool, etc. (Recommendation A-9).

Conclusion

The future challenges to our energy supplies are significant, and so too are the opportunities for us all to make a positive difference now in how these events unfold in the future. We hope that this report is of service to the City of Sebastopol as it plans its part in our culture’s transition to our new energy future.