Residents are once again calling for the city of Durango to invest more resources into its sustainability office in order to meet greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets.
“We are in a climate emergency and our community is not immune,” Emelie Frojen, community climate manager for San Juan Citizens Alliance, said at a City Council meeting last month.
She said the city needs to evaluate its climate goals and recommit to reducing greenhouse gases in line with its mid- and long-term goals.
The SJCA’s climate study group sent a letter signed by members of 18 organizations and 56 individual residents to Durango City Council last month requesting it take two steps to refocus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions: 1) elevate the authority of the city sustainability office; 2) increase the sustainability office’s funding by changing the sustainability fee on utility bills from a flat rate to a percentage-based rate.
“The Sustainability Department must shift from an advisory role to one with clear authority and enforceable standards across city departments,” the letter said. “Climate goals must be embedded in all decision-making and implementation processes.”
The climate study group also requested the city allocate a portion or all of the La Plata Electric Association franchise fee – 4.67% of all energy charge revenues – to sustainability actions, citing “a direct correlation between that fee and GHG output.”
The city currently charges a flat $2.30 per month sustainability fee, which generates $215,000 annually, according to the climate study group. A percentage-based fee of 1.5% would increase funding by $23,250 per month, or $279,000 annually (a 30% increase to the sustainability budget), incentivize utility customers to reduce their water use and bill customers more equitably by charging higher-use customers more.
Several residents raised the climate study group’s request at an Aug. 5 City Council meeting. Resident and Fort Lewis College student Bode Wolin was among those who provided public comments.
He said he’s always been interested in “the fabric of a strong community” and “an equitable and renewable future,” and environmental conservation and holistic land management are key to the equation.
Durango needs to build upon the resilience it’s already established amid climate-caused severe rising temperatures and water scarcity in the Four Corners.
“Steer our wonderful city in the right direction for the future of existing and younger generations,” he said. “We must build with a lens of optimistic realism, work for effective and genuine change, and break the script to lay a path forward.”
In 2021, City Council approved a more aggressive approach to addressing climate change with the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions compared with 2016 levels by 50% by 2030 and by 100% by 2050. But since 2016, the city has only reduced emissions by 10%, according to a 2024 city emissions inventory report.
The city has made some strides – such as hybridizing about half the police department’s vehicle fleet – toward reducing emissions that contribute to global warming. But residents said it needs to do more, and faster.
At a press conference on Friday featuring U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, solar energy stakeholders and city officials, speakers praised the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 as an important investment in renewable energy.
Marty Pool, city sustainability manager, said the IRA contained critical components for addressing climate change and encouraging renewable energy, including the clean energy investment tax credit, which opened avenues for municipalities to pay for solar energy installations.
“For the first time, the city of Durango as a local government could directly benefit financially on this kind of project,” he said.
He said the city expects to receive over $1 million in investment tax credit reimbursements for an energy performance contract that facilitated the installation of over 600 kilowatts of solar energy across five city sites last year – which was the largest single solar installation project within Durango until Durango School District installed over 1,000 kilowatts of solar several months later.
But Durango still has work to do to meet its 50% greenhouse gas emission reduction goals by 2030. He said a combination of site projects and utility-scale solar infrastructure through LPEA are needed to be successful, and added like work is needed across Colorado and the country.
Hickenlooper criticized the Trump administration and Republican Party for rolling back federal funding for renewable energy projects made available through the IRA.
The Democrat from Colorado said in an interview with The Durango Herald it will be difficult for the city of Durango to meet its climate goals without the federal government’s support.
He said the federal government has become “pendular” in how its policies keep swinging dramatically back and forth depending on the administration.
“When it swings back so far in the other direction, you end up victimizing thousands of small businesses, and that’s cruel,” he said. “… People have been in some ivory tower making decisions ... they don’t care about that stuff. But for people that have been at the ground level and been involved in small business, there’s nothing worse you can do than to make commitments to people and then pull the rug out.”
Councilors will consider Councilor Kip Koso’s request for a public hearing about modifying the city’s sustainability fee at its regular meeting Wednesday. If councilors approve a public hearing, it will be scheduled for a future meeting.
cburney@durangoherald.com
