Special Committee on Environment & Resiliency-Wednesday, December 11, 2024-5:30 PM
Item 1: Ordinance on Gas-Powered Lawn Equipment
The committee received presentations from city departments and the state Office of Energy Resources regarding electric lawn equipment pilots and rebate programs. Members reviewed phase-out timelines and technology constraints before voting to continue the ordinance to a future public hearing.
Department Update: Sustainability Department and ProvPort Master Plan
Sustainability staff provided updates on municipal building energy reporting, decarbonization initiatives, and the ProvPort master planning process. Committee members and staff discussed the management and intended community use of port sustainability revenue funds.
Item 3: Ordinance Regarding Utility Road Excavation Permits
The committee discussed proposed regulations governing utility road excavation permits, resident notification requirements, and penalties for incomplete street repairs. Following discussion regarding enforcement and coordination with the Department of Public Works, members voted to continue the item.
Item 4: Resolution on Downtown Central Bus Hub Rehabilitation
The committee took up a resolution regarding the rehabilitation of the downtown central bus hub that had been superseded by an alternate version. Members moved to continue the resolution indefinitely.
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Please absent. Counselor Boyes? Present. We have four present and one absent. We have one.
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Awesome. Thank you so much. We have several guests tonight to talk about the first agenda item. So I'd like us to read agenda item number one to the record, please. An ordinance and amendment of chapter 12 of the code of ordinances of insidia province entitled health and sanitation as amended to add article seven gas powered lawn equipment.
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Presentation by Lindsey Nelson, superintendent of parks, Priscilla Dale Cruz, director of sustainability, and Danielle Jameson, RI Office of Aggregate Resources. Awesome. So before we talk about the ordinance itself, I just wanted to say and get the presentation. I wanted to say two quick things. One is for this, and when we get to agenda and brief, they'll be they'll have a public hearing, so I should vote on those tonight.
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But just so folks know, will be a public hearing for scheduling for after the New Year. And for and we'll talk about all the details, and we'll have a conversation. But I wanna respect our guests who are here who are gonna present about leaf blowers in general, about the pilot that Park since the Saint Juliet done, and then we have guests from the offices no. Sorry. From the energy office in the city of Rhode Island to talk about their new program to incentivize switching from a gas to electric leaf blowers.
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But I also wanted to recognize on the screen of Juliana Elton. Juliana has been interning with me through a group called Run On Climate, and she is amazing. She was doing at UVM and has been doing some really great research, including a lot of the research that went behind the gas equipment, ordinance. So I just wanted to give her a shout out. She can hear us, on the screen.
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She's amazing. So thank you, Juliana.
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Thank you. Thank you, Juliana.
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She has a. Good luck. But she's been so awesome. So wanted to get her a special chef. Do you think we could have Wendy Rachelle's already at the table and Danielle come to the table to discuss the programs?
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We just. Okay. Yeah. We have. Yeah.
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You can see Brandon for just a second.
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Oh, can we actually also swear in Kevin if you're okay? He actually worked on. And if you have any questions Thank you. And the department updates.
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Awesome. Thank you guys so much. We're just gonna do a quick screen situation here. We just want us to move on. But, yeah, think it'll work.
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Yeah. Then we can see. Yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, I think it's.
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Awesome. Thank you both so much for being here. Do you think we could start with Randy and Priscilla sharing a little bit about the pilot is where I'm looking for? Sorry. It's been a long day, The pilot and Kevin, thank you for being here
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as well, that you guys
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have been doing with Parks and Sustainability on electric equipment? Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm looking for it.
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Okay. So Parks loves electric equipment with the exception of gloves. Yeah. So we've had success with pruners, with rewrapers, did lawn mowers, and what have you. The back half gloves are just not there yet in terms of the the battery life.
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The noise seems to be as loud, if not louder, and we've tried a few different iterations of it as the regular ones. And he has had significant staff fatigue from the excess weight from the the batteries. What we've had success with them is at the mechanical center because that's easy charging. It's right there. It can be they can do a a short scan to recharge them the light band.
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But our nuclear part that is going to our 123 parts and has to have enough batteries on the trucks to last them pretty much six to eight hours, that's that's a long enough challenge to do. So everything else that we've demoed, we really, really disliked and have seen the benefits from that. You'll see exceptions being. So I I did prepare a presentation. I've reported a memo.
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Oh, by the way, findings and our recommendations. And I do wanna say that I think it's also really important to note that at the department, we we try to use the most sustainable practices in urban lawn care, brown speaking, and what have you. And we actually advocate for we reduce our global use by half because we don't blow leaves in the way that we used to. The exception to that is off sidewalks where they might become slippery, but, generally, we, practices where we leave the leaves.
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I agree. We mulch
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the leaves. Yeah. We turn the leaves into compost or other such things so that critters can overwinter. We have it it finds that it stabilizes, particularly with climate resiliency issues and stuff that's happening now. If there weren't any leaves or most leaves right now, a lot of our hills and things like that would be eroding.
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But you can see some of that particularly in Park when we used to pretty much scalp. You know? You know? In those areas where we have been able to leave the leaves, that is you know, those those ecosystems are declining. And, you know, we're we're seeing an increase in wildlife.
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We're seeing an increase in tree health and all those kinds of things. So that is we just wanna we are we are doing this, that I just wanna make sure that we're getting some messaging out there around education and partnerships that Yeah. The best practices is to use them minimally. You don't have to use them and think there are other ways that you you can do that.
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Mhmm. Great. And I'll just quickly if Kevin could just talk about our role in, like, a minute, which is really just funding the pilot. Oh, and, yeah, I'm super grateful to
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the sustainability. This is the partnership with them. And, you know, my partner on this, Brian here tonight, but he's he's really the expert in our operations, and I'm just speaking to the bigger picture of things. But I did do it as a memo that outlines pretty much everything in a little more detail on what we did. So that's impressive.
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Oh, that'd be good to see. Yeah. Yeah.
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The so the elect the electric long haired pilot was back to we have Amber, I think, and Emily who started budgeting for this.
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It's a small amount of money.
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We do about $10,000 a year, and we've done it at least for three or four years now that I I know of. And it's collaborative with Parks. We budgeted for it. We worked typically with Brian Burns, the deputy director of Parks. Ask him, you know, what he needs and and what's out there
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in the
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market. And he and and his laborers kinda put together a a wish list, and and we purchase those once a year. And then his guys like to use those out in the field and and understand what's working, what's not. I think it's been really valuable. It's really inexpensive, and I think that the outcomes have been, like, really positive.
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It gives us, you know, that context around a conversation like this that we never like to add. And, like, we have learned that a lot of people is ready. And I think that, like, when Brian is buying So I think that this is valuable, and it is valuable going forward. This year, we might be kind of expanding beyond parts to get some of the put the message working for Brian's team in the hands of some of the VPW and public property people. So he had noticed he's in the middle.
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So that could be for them. So yeah. So it's been it's been a good program. It's been a good collaboration. Like, they they keep doing it.
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One one thing that I really like to do eventually is I don't know if it's misbudget here, but budget a little bit more money for one year and see if we can get a, like, 42 or 48 inch mower, which is kind of the green crop of where where, like, most used mower for Wendy's heating. That's, what they really need if
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they wanted to, like, convert their mower to the mower.
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But they're more expensive and for $10,000. So maybe budgeting more than one year for that that, you know, we're getting one of those big motors test that was out to see how they do as well.
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And then we're blessing it out. Right? So we can speak
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Yeah.
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To it from experience. Yeah. Oh, no. They love the Moa.
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They wanna keep it, but it's a child. Oh,
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like, oh,
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Oh, you need a.
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Oh, yeah.
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Yeah. That's a product.
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I got very confused. That's really good. And the
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MOA's are really great. They're lighter than other ones, and but we didn't but right now, we only have a 25 inch MOA's, which is about 10% of our normal needs. Also noting that we do low mo or no mow and that's also, which is also a good one for the piece that I've talked about earlier in the car to the mowers.
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Yeah. But but the parts is really, like, 21 inch mowers, but the parts that they do use in this in a lighter and and easy to use and don't really drop off in terms of performance. So, yeah, so I think it's
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just, like, just getting
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that kind of day on an annual basis and and slowly understanding where the market is, what things cost, how they perform. So I think it's been a success.