by Will Toor

Scientific evidence now incontrovertibly demonstrates that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere are currently impacting the Earth’s climate and will continue to have profound and devastating effects. At the same time, the transition to clean energy holds enormous opportunity for economic development and green jobs. To address the local impacts and embrace the opportunities presented by this critical issue, Boulder County has worked to create a countywide Sustainable Energy Plan.

This plan focuses on the major users of fossil fuel — electricity generation, energy use in homes and businesses, and energy use by cars and trucks — and lays out 20 strategies for improving efficiency and converting to renewable energy. Over the past two years we and our partners have made significant progress in many of these arenas — notably adopting new building codes ensuring that new construction will be far more efficient than existing buildings, and creating the ClimateSmart Loan Program to help homeowners and businesses add solar and efficiency improvements to existing buildings.

Boulder County voters have the opportunity to make another step forward this fall by voting for county Issue 1C. This will allow the county to make energy retrofits to many existing public buildings and add renewable energy, including biomass heating, solar water heating and solar electric generation.

Here’s how it works: Issue 1C will allow the county to take advantage of a new federal program — the Qualified Energy Conservation Bond program. These are low-interest loans, backed by the federal government, that can be used by local governments to pay for efficiency and renewable energy improvements to public buildings. Ballot issue 1C will allow the county to issue $6.1 million in bonds to improve buildings, allowing the public to reap the benefits of lower greenhouse-gas emissions and lower government utility bills.
There will be no tax increase. Instead, the county will use money we were spending on utility bills to make the bond payments. Once the bonds are paid off, the savings will flow into the general fund.

We have already made significant improvements to county buildings. In the last two years the county installed nearly 700 kilowatts of solar panels to nine buildings. As an example, 46 kilowatts of solar panels supply a full 35 percent of the electricity for the Addiction Recovery Center. All of these panels were paid for by a private-sector investor; the County then buys the power from this investor — and the county is paying less for electricity than we were paying to Xcel Energy. At the County Parks and Transportation complex in Longmont, we installed a biomass boiler which uses wood that needs to be thinned from open space lands — and this boiler provides the vast majority of heat for these buildings, avoiding the need to burn natural gas. And we have made lighting and boiler upgrades in many buildings. The results: county utility bills are going down — first by $156,000 last year, then by an additional $145,000 and we anticipate yet another cut of $100,000.

With the revenues from Issue 1C, we will be able to make much more progress. The jail is one of our two biggest energy users — having to provide heat, light, food and clean laundry to hundreds of people for 24 hours a day. Issue 1C will allow us to add a biomass boiler, solar hot water, efficient chillers and lighting, a reflective roof and a 100 kilowatt solar electric system, making this probably the greenest jail in the country. The Justice Center is the other biggie. Upgrades there have already reduced natural gas use by 50 percent and electricity use by 12 percent. Issue 1C will pay for further improvements. Other investments may include more than 250 kilowatts of solar at county buildings in Longmont, a retrofit to the sheriff administration building to reduce energy use, and the creation of a net-zero-energy transportation shop.

This is a perfect win-win-win for county residents, businesses and local government. Without a tax increase, the county will be able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel use, provide a productive use for wood that needs to be thinned from our forests, save tax dollars that would otherwise be spent on utility bills, and provide millions of dollars in investment that will go towards green jobs in our community.

Vote Yes on Issue 1C!

Will Toor is a Boulder County commissioner.