By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
St. Joseph city council members have approved a resolution calling on the city to reduce greenhouse emissions and encourage others to do likewise.
St. Joseph City Manager Bryan Carter says the first part of the resolution calls on the city to pursue cost-effective measures to reduce the city carbon footprint.
“So, on that side, we’ll be looking to identify ways that we can have that incremental impact without incurring a level of expense that, frankly, we just don’t have the funding to support right now,” Carter says.
The resolution also calls on city government to lobby for businesses and groups to switch to more environmentally friendly energy sources.
“That really kind of gets the conversation going; just puts it in mind of something we start to think about,” Carter says.
Carter says City Hall has already implemented some cost-saving measures, such as switching to LED lights and installing low-flow water faucets. Carter says the steps aren’t just about being green. They also save the city money.
The city council adopted the recommendations of an advisory committee to take steps to reduce the overall greenhouse emissions.
Carter says he plans to take the simply steps first.
“There are always different levels of effort you can take and some of them are pretty easy,” says Carter. “It’s just adding maybe an evaluation criteria or something of that nature. Then, of course, you have the extreme which would be maybe go through and completely rehab a building to make it more energy efficient. Obviously, that takes a lot of years of planning to get to the point to have the financial ability to do that.”
Carter notes the city has been involved in turning the methane from the city landfill into energy for the past 10 years.