Whidbey News-Times (Oak Harbor, WA): A year of progress on the environment

Posted February 5, 2010 by OneChange

I don’t recommend this if you’re driving a car but New Year’s is a great time to look back while you’re moving forward. As I look back over 2009 I can see we’ve made significant progress.

Oak Harbor powered City Hall with “green power.” Altogether, Whidbey Island customers exceeded PSE’s Green Power Challenge by adding 1,017 new green power customers. That’s a 58 percent increase which means that PSE will give us $25,000 for a new solar project.

Project Porchlight recruited over 100 volunteers who went door to door giving away 5,300 energy efficient CFL bulbs in Oak Harbor. Ace Hardware hosted one of PSE’s Rock the Bulb events where 1,260 Oak Harbor households traded incandescent bulbs for over 12,000 new CFLs for free. These bulbs will save over $21 million on energy bills, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions equal to taking over 10,595 cars off the road for a year.

The Puget Sound Starts Here campaign was perfectly timed with the new Oak Harbor Storm Water Ordinance which gives the city some authority to enforce storm water protection measures. A citywide public awareness effort was supported by regional TV, radio ads, and posters from the Puget Sound Partnership. A new street banner, placemats in local restaurants, displays at city hall and a survey included with utility bills conveyed the message. Rain barrels were given away for the top ten survey scores.

Each year, I schedule a new series of monthly Sustainable Living Seminars. This year we’ll offer them at City Hall on the second Tuesday of each month at from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. You can attend a workshop or see it broadcast Island-wide on channel 10. For more information call 279-4762.