Sustainability Plan - A roadmap to where?

 

Creating a Sustainability Office and Commission acknowledged the increasing environmental challenges we are facing in Prince William County. Their role in identifying a path forward could support the quality of life for all PW residents, now and in the future. Touted as a roadmap for the county to meet Climate Mitigation and Resiliency goals, the draft Community Energy and Sustainability Master Plan (CESMP) document unfortunately falls short. While streamlining rooftop solar in residential areas and reforestation programs (read our comments in support here) are important, it is not sufficient. Any headway we make will be negated if we do not address Data Center proliferation and land use planning that promotes sprawl rather than smart growth.  Protecting the open space and natural areas that we have is critical not only to meeting these goals but to ensuring that while we make improvements in other areas, we keep what makes Prince William unique. Below isn't an exhaustive list of the plan's shortcomings, but rather identifies some gaps. Conservation is a key tool to achieve sustainability.   Water and Source Water Protection Ensuring reliable access to clean drinking water should be a fundamental aspect of any sustainability plan. In Prince William County, this involves safeguarding the Occoquan Reservoir and groundwater resources. A cost-effective approach to protecting our waterways is by making land-use decisions that decrease development pressure and limit impervious surfaces within the reservoir's watershed. In areas already developed, retrofitting improved stormwater BMPs and increasing the number of stormwater inspectors is key.  Rural Crescent The Rural Crescent has been our defacto climate change plan since its adoption in 1998. Even with the adoption of the recent Comprehensive Plan, Prince William still has a designated rural area that aids in meeting these goals by: reducing development pressure in the Occoquan Reservoir Watershed protecting groundwater recharge encouraging infrastructure development in a cost-effective and more energy-efficient way protecting open space and particularly natural open space, which are important carbon sinks.  Data Centers We face a clear choice: build data centers or meet climate change goals, but not both. To meet the power demand driven by data center growth, Dominion plans to add transmission lines. The source of this power is primarily coal and natural gas, for approved data centers. PW Digital Gateway could double the amount the data centers we currently have and have already approved.  The Sustainability plan boosts that many data centers "are already procuring 100% clean energy for their operations." To date, there is no way to substantiate this claim, to include it as part of the Sustainability Plan weakens the validity of the plan.   As backup power, data centers rely on diesel generators. We have already seen a proposal from DEQ that would allow data centers to run generators despite air quality concerns.    Learn more! Watch our latest program What's the Cloud? Data Center 101 Trees and Natural Open Space Natural landscapes tend to be carbon sinks i.e. they take in more carbon than they emit. This has prompted more and more discussion on the importance of Land use, Land use Change and Forest (or LULUCF). While reforestation is a critical tool in our toolkit, protecting the wooded areas we have is a more efficient way to sequester carbon. The county has conducted a preliminary tree inventory, which may serve as a basis to better understand how much carbon is being taken up by these areas and what happens when we pave over them.  Traffic and Transit Reducing cars and car trips on the road even if every car was electric would be a good thing for our roads and for our well-being - no one wants to sit in traffic. By linking transit to land use, we can incentivize denser development near mass transit which provides better service to the community and supports projected population increases while limiting Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT).  If you've ever traveled to places like Eugene, Oregon, or the Netherlands, you may have noticed that we could do a lot more to support biking in the burbs. Investing in bike-specific infrastructure in the development area supports the multi-modal user experience and encourages more biking and walking, especially for those short trips. Bikes are currently relegated to either sharing the road with cars or with pedestrians, neither is optimal for the driver, the biker, or the walker.  Learn more Transit and communities How to Green Our Transportation Network Renewable energy and energy efficiency Increasing renewable energy needs to be coupled with energy efficency. No energy source, even solar, is free from environmental consequences. Still, we could do more to decarbonize the grid. Imagine a world where every home, shopping mall, data center, and parking lot is adorned with solar panels. By implementing forward-thinking programs and policies that promote solar adoption, we can transform this vision into a tangible reality. Furthermore, enhancing the energy and water efficiency of existing buildings, especially among economically disadvantaged individuals who stand to gain the most from cost savings, could yield substantial benefits.