President Obama’s $820 billion economic stimulus package, including its green infrastructure component, cleared the House January 28 and headed to the Senate for debate. Obama’s plan attempts to create jobs quickly through a mix of tax cuts and spending on health care, education and construction on the one hand and, on the other hand, to invest wisely in more energy-efficient buildings, mass transit and renewable energy sources. Hence, local environmentalists and eco-companies hope to see some of their goals finally met, while Charlottesville and Albemarle County prepare to begin some much-needed work, green or less so.
Charlottesville whittled down a list of 80 potential projects to 24 that it could begin within 90 days if $65 million in federal money comes its way, and sustainability was one criterion guiding the decision. The city’s biggest projects revolve around bridge repairs, replacing Smith Pool and overhauling the city’s stormwater and sewage system to improve water quality. Other projects would create trails and update HVAC equipment in schools and municipal buildings, which could potentially save 5 to 30 percent on energy costs.
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Though environmental groups have green hopes for the stimulus package, some locally requested projects, like extra lanes on 29 North, are a far cry from their vision. |
Meanwhile, Bill Letteri, Albemarle’s director of facilities development, finds green infrastructure a little harder to square with Albemarle’s pressing needs. The county “hopes that some of that stimulus package could be used just to fund basic services because that’s where we’re having trouble,” particularly as job cuts demand more of social services and police. Nonetheless, the county also identified around 40 projects totaling $164 million it could launch within six months. Those projects include many sidewalks and some trails and stormwater drainage systems, plus renovating schools or constructing new municipal buildings and another recycling center. Less green, however, is the possibility of widening Route 29 between the bypass and Hydraulic Road and adding a third lane in each direction from the South Fork Rivanna River to north of Hollymead Drive.
More pavement worries the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC). Communications Manager Cathryn McCue says a national frenzy of road building could divert resources from specifically green infrastructure “to overly expensive, environmentally damaging, and unnecessarily sprawl-inducing projects” that actually entrench oil-based business as usual. Hence, the SELC lobby campaign “Fix It First” would repair crumbling roads and bridges, such as the Jordan Bridge in the Chesapeake, rather than add highways, and calls for emphasizing bikes, trains, buses, and pedestrians in transportation.
Environment Virginia, an environmental lobbying group, agrees. Its report, “Clean Energy, Bright Future: Rebuilding America Through Green Infrastructure,” argues $150 billion should go toward—among other things—450 bike and pedestrian paths, solar panels on 10 million buildings, and funding the Green Jobs Act, which trains workers for careers in green construction. Environment Virginia is gathering petitions and donations to take its cause to Congress.
In contrast, the Sierra Club already took its cause there. Virginia chapter director, Glen Besa, explains that when the bill was being drafted, “the Sierra Club and a large number of environmental organizations were invited to submit suggestions, and we did.” It offered advice from energy and climate change to labor-intensive maintenance in national parks and forests. Hence, Besa has been generally pleased with the package. As negotiations continue to get the bill through the Senate, the Sierra Club “will be doing our best to get the greenest bill we can with regard to creating jobs.”
Tom Cormons of Appalachian Voices agrees the stimulus package “could be a really great opportunity to shift the nation’s energy infrastructure in the right direction,” generally away from coal, but his organization has focused its fight in Virginia’s General Assembly. Appalachian Voices supports a bill that would cut electricity consumption in Virginia by 19 percent through conservation alone by 2025. After all, Cormons hopes “it’s not just the federal government, but that states step up to the plate and make similar kinds of changes.”
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