Climate Change Advisory Committee Meeting Old Ag Building

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Minutes

Climate Change Advisory Committee Meeting Old Ag Building

June 27, 2019

Attending: Mike Petruska, Jeff Gannon, Keith McLaurin, Ron Dameron, Becky Peer, Sonny Keisler, Sarah Justice, John Graybeal

Also: Diana Hales, Chatham County Board of Commissioners Kevin Lindley, Chatham County Department of Environment Members of public: Steve Bravy and Harvey Himberg

New member, Sarah Justice, was introduced. New member, Billy Cummings, was unable to attend.

The minutes of the April 25, 2019 meeting were approved.

20,000 Acres of Protected Land: The Comprehensive Plan refers to a “Big Idea” of 20,000 of new acres to be “protected.” Questions were raised about this provision. It was agreed that we should try to obtain clarification about where this land is located and how it is to be protected.

 Kevin agreed to identify who in the County might be available to update the Committee on the 20,000 acre goal

Triangle J meeting: Jeff and others attended this meeting of nonprofit groups (Dan Sargeant and Erika Brown) and the discussion involved mainly energy performance of homes, with a focus on low-income homes. One idea discussed was the need for periodic changes of home HVAC air filters. It was noted that we could set up a subcommittee that would work on this issue in the County. The possibility was also discussed that Jeff, working with a subcommittee, could take on a project to encourage Chatham citizens to install solar panels on their homes.

 The Jeff, Becky, and Sara C. will serve on a sub-committee on

energy performance of residential buildings, focused primarily

on lower income residents. The subcommittee scope may

include solar panels as well as simple solutions such as filters.

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Committee Annual Report to Board of Commissioners: This is a required report. CCAC is scheduled for 8/19 to present to the BOC.

 Mike will prepare a draft and circulate it for comment.

Visit to NC State: John told the group about the NCSU environmental class that studied issues related to climate change in Chatham County and

produced reports covering five topics. These papers are on the Committee website at

programs/environmental-quality/climate-change-advisory-committee/documents- and-recommendations. Mike, Keith, Martha and John attended the closing session of this class on May 7, 2019, when the papers were presented. (Kevin also attended as did Debbie Roos of the County Extension office.) John

produced a memo dated June 24, 2019, which contained notes about the student papers and summary points about the subjects presented. The papers

comprehensively covered five topics: (1) energy efficiency and expansion; (2) transportation; (3) agriculture and forestry; (4) wetlands; and (5) community engagement. The papers have much detailed information and are deserving of close reading.

 Kevin to also investigate putting John’s summary on the website to go with the school papers.

County flood maps: Becky used to do flood plain mapping. One issue is whether the County collects high water marks. While staff have been collecting some highwater data, they will now begin to be sent to County personnel

involved with flood plain maps. It was noted that the County prohibits building in the 100-year flood plain. Becky will try to develop more information.

Commissioner Hales expressed interest in this topic and in the idea that the Sheriff’s office could help with flood water mapping based on incident responses.

Electric Car Event: John described the history of the proposal for the

Committee to sponsor an afternoon electric car show in September. It had been suggested that the Committee schedule its car event at the same time as the Pepperfest event on September 22. One concern was that Pepperfest sells tickets for $30 and the Committee had not planned to charge for its EV event.

However, John learned in conversations with Tami Schwerin that Pepperfest had also planned to include an EV event and that it has historically sold tickets in order to cover the costs incurred.

 It was agreed that the Committee will work with Pepperfest to help stage and promote the event. A subcommittee consisting of Keith, Becky, Martha, Sarah and John will work on this project.

Solar Panels on County Buildings: Kevin said that SolSmart is working to determine which County buildings could support solar panels. Some buildings may have older roofs that would not be appropriate or have roof designs that would impede solar panels. Kevin is also working on an RFP that would seek to

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obtain bids from companies that would install solar panels. One the idea is that a company would lease the top of a building to install solar panels and it would then sell the electricity produced. Kevin mentioned that there are also some open spaces that might support panels and that schools had been discussed.

Commissioner Hales, however, said that although the School Board had refused to commit to allow solar panels on schools, new schools would use geothermal systems.

 Jeff, with help from Sarah J, will start with examining existing

County policy, and may develop some additional recommendations on these issues.

County climate webpage: The County currently does not have a sustainability or climate webpage. (Although none of us knew about it, the NCSU students discovered a County “Sustainability” webpage and they made suggestions for improving it.) Sarah said she has prepared webpages for the town of Cary and could help improve our webpage. We discussed the possibility of the Committee having a “working session” to develop ideas for the webpage.

Becky noted that we need to keep in mind that for a County page to be effective, we need to understand why residents would be going the County website in the first place, e.g., can “climate friendly thinking” be integrated into some of the existing pages?

 Sarah agreed to do a short presentation to the Committee showing the Cary page.

Public input. Members of the public provided some general remarks and inputs.

Meeting adjourned.