LINCOLN CITY, Ore. — Mayor Lori Hollingsworth knows that this coastal community is a tiny player in the complex drama of global climate change.
But she is pushing to make Lincoln City the state’s first to negate its greenhouse emissions, ahead of municipalities with greener profiles or more progressive personalities. From simple energy savings to a trailblazing partnership with a carbon cooperative, the town is taking the lead among sustainable municipalities — in its own way.
There is no widespread community support — or opposition, for that matter. Just a handful of city officials and community activists, working without a blueprint to make this town of almost 8,000 residents as kind to the environment as possible.
Their passion is practical.
Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse emissions heighten climate change.
Climate change influences oceans.
Lincoln City sits 11 feet above sea level.
“We could ignore it, let federal government deal with it,” Hollingsworth says. “We’re not willing to do that.”
Lincoln City’s work has been praised by sustainability advocates, but it also illustrates the challenges such a small town faces: For example, can a town’s “carbon neutrality” be effective without strong national leadership and regulations? And without established models, can efforts be organized and efficient enough to make a difference?
“It’s an admirable goal,” says Harold Christiansen, who runs a food cooperative in Lincoln City and is a member of the city’s sustainability committee. “But there are huge, huge things that need to be done.”
In Lincoln City, the green campaign started a decade ago with higher rates for curbside recycling and a voter-approved $3 million levy to purchase green space. The land — more than 217 acres purchased so far — is left mostly wild.
Now, Lincoln City is poised to offset its municipal greenhouse emissions through a creative mix of carbon credits, aggressive purchase of renewable energy and systemwide energy savings.
Officials hope to include businesses and residents — and even the tourists who feed the local economy — by the end of March. Hollingsworth, elected mayor in 2002, and city manager David Hawker have backed programs to cut environmental impact.
In 2007, Lincoln City joined Pacific Power’s Blue Sky program, setting a goal of signing up 5 percent of homes and businesses to buy the program’s renewable energy. The city surpassed the goal in weeks and became the first Environmental Protection Agency “Green Power Community” on Oregon’s coast.
“It helps to have a green mayor,” says public works director Lila Bradley. “When you have that direction from the top, it really helps.”
It also helps that one of the town’s biggest energy users turned its neon green.
Chinook Winds Casino Resort, owned and operated by the Confederated Tribes of the Siletz Indians of Oregon, became the Blue Sky program’s biggest client after buying 750 blocks of renewable wind energy and reducing its carbon emissions by 900 tons annually. The resort, Lincoln County’s largest employer, has also put in place other energy-saving programs.
“The tribe has always had a great deal of respect for the environment, for Mother Nature,” says Jim Kikumoto, the resort’s general manager. The tribe needs to step up to the plate — to walk the walk, not just talk it, he said.
At City Hall, sustainability program manager Riki Lanegan is mapping the community’s carbon footprint.
Using data from 2006, before the city joined Blue Sky, Lanegan fed figures such as fleet mileage, computer use and electrical use into a software program from the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives. The preliminary findings show city government produced 2,355 metric tons of greenhouse emissions in 2006.
She will expand the analysis to residents and businesses.
“It’s a big guesstimation,” Lanegan acknowledges. “We’re all trying the best we can. We know there will be some things that aren’t true to life because it’s all so new.”
More challenging, she says, is City Hall shrinking carbon emissions through “better planning and purchasing, greening up buildings and the fleet to make them more efficient. Electric hybrids, biodiesel.”
The city may also buy into the Otis Carbon Co-op, which sets aside, conserves and restores natural areas in watersheds near Lincoln City.
With participation in Blue Sky now at 7.5 percent, city officials have a new goal: 20 percent. That would be Oregon’s highest.
Hollingsworth is confident it will happen.
Compared to the global challenge of climate change, she said the efforts might seem small. “But we’re a little town and I’m really proud of what we are doing.”
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