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Thursday, May 17, 2012
Feature: May 2008
Waiting to Exhale
Clean air gets a place in the sun
Story by Wes Sander
To Jane Hagedorn, entries for her organization’s clean-air awards nearly doubling this year seem a sign of the times.
Hagedorn directs the Sacramento-Emigrant Trails chapter of Breathe California. For 22 years, the CEO has run the nonprofit with its yearly awards — to be handed out this month — cheerfully conducting an uphill campaign against an adversary that always seems to grow. The region has only accelerated its residential sprawl, feeding the collective car exhaust of a commuting lifestyle. And the American Lung Association, in its annual State of the Air report, routinely places the city and county at the bottom of the national clean-air heap — an F in 2007.
“We have a lot of land, a lot of air-quality issues, a lot of economic issues,” Hagedorn says. “The money tends to flow to other areas. The Central Valley really has to fight for its place in the sun.”
But Sacramento’s vigorous pursuit of green industry and policy is making this a new and exciting time in Hagedorn’s line of work. It was 1971 when she came to Sacramento, during the first clean-tech wave. It’s said that this time, the trend toward clean tech is more sustainable, riding technologies that are more economically attractive. And news like the surging popularity of Breathe California’s awards reflects plenty of public support for going green, which is feeding product markets.
There’s still the poor air-quality grade to contend with as Sacramento strives to be a clean-tech hub. Hagedorn understands that perspective, so in the past few years, she has taken part in some of the region’s attention-getting efforts at correcting its air problem. And that’s helping her see clearer days ahead.
Among her endeavors is a leadership role in the Cleaner Air Partnership, a gathering of regional leaders who call their collective efforts unique. They say you’d be hard-pressed to find another organization that so balances the interests of business, government and nonprofit stakeholders in crafting regional clean-air strategies and advising lawmakers and regulators.
“I speak to groups across the state, and their jaws always drop,” Hagedorn says. “They say, ‘partnership with business?’” CAP was formed two decades ago from an idea that Hagedorn says originated in her offices at Breathe California. The group pursues policy in a way that’s attractive to all sides, thus improving the business atmosphere as well as the overall quality of life — two factors that can attract industry.
So far, dirty air doesn’t seem to be keeping companies away. European solar firms are locating their headquarters here; local startups are bringing to market green technology created by UC Davis research; there’s support from groups like the Sacramento Area Regional Technology Alliance and its offshoot, CleanStart. The presence of state government is often cited as an attraction, as is office space at competitive prices. And there’s the fact that seed money is growing among local investors.
But there’s also a region’s general quality-of-life reputation, which can suffer under bad air, possibly making it difficult to draw companies in more significant numbers. So, the region is now addressing the land-use aspect of air pollution, specifically how the region can attack transportation as a source.
Transportation accounts for about a third of air pollution nationally; that third breaks down to three categories, known as the three-legged stool of clean-air policy: vehicle fuel efficiency, carbon content of fuel and vehicle miles traveled.
The latter directly relates to how close a person’s job is to a home, a major issue since the Capital Region is a land of commuters. Because the Sacramento Area Council of Governments developed its Sacramento Region Blueprint Transportation and Land-Use Study in 2002, the region is now widely recognized for attacking its sprawl problem.
Organizers started with a development scenario projected from existing patterns by working through a series of workshops at the neighborhood, county and regional levels. When the process wrapped up in 2005, SACOG agreed upon a layout that increases housing density and urban infill, thus decreasing vehicle mileage. Local governments are now using the Blueprint as a guideline to review and approve new developments.
A study published in October by the Urban Land Institute called the Blueprint one of the best examples nationwide of a “visioning exercise,” a program that pulls the public into the process. And the initiative has inspired state legislation: Sen. Darrell Steinberg and Assemblyman Dave Jones, both representing Sacramento, have introduced bills — Senate Bill 375 and Assembly Bill 842, respectively — that nudge the rest of the state toward Blueprint-style efforts. Both bills would use transportation funding to persuade local agencies to write sprawl-management plans and to amend those plans if they fail to meet smog-reducing goals. Sponsors emphasize that the funding wouldn’t be tied to smog reduction, but only to engagement in the process.
Hagedorn took a leadership role in the Blueprint effort as well, along with her colleague in CAP, Tom Stallard. Stallard is an attorney and former Yolo County supervisor who runs a legislative research firm in Woodland. He currently chairs CAP, and likewise chaired the Blueprint project. He says he became involved with regional clean-air policies for their importance in the awarding of state transportation funding.
Now, with public office behind him, a sense of personal investment keeps Stallard involved. And when it comes to the land-use issue, he feels he’s done his work. With regard to policy action, Stallard groups the Blueprint effort with the region’s “low-hanging fruit.” Since completing it in 2005, the Cleaner Air Partnership and SACOG have moved on to the many smaller issues that contribute to bad air.
There’s the issue of how local governments are meeting the requirements of Assembly Bill 32, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s clean-air bill passed in 2006. There is lobbying of Washington, including an annual trip by several members grouped into the Cap-to-Cap Air Quality Team and the Clean Energy Technology Action Team. When he chairs the quarterly lunch meetings that gather roughly two dozen CAP members, Stallard moves the conversation briskly from one subject to the next, reflecting the complex picture created by myriad approaches to cleaning the air.
“We all recognize the need for action, but we all have a different emphasis,” Stallard says. “When we talk about these things, we don’t act unless all three key partners are in agreement. Facts tend to make decisions for us.”
The region is a booming area for attention to air-quality management, says Bonnie Holmes-Gen, senior policy director with the Lung Association’s California division. “So many communities have been growing without using these kinds of smart principals, and we just can’t grow that way anymore,” she says.
Projects and efforts have been showing up in greater numbers around the region. In the summer of 2006, Advanced Cleanup Technologies Inc. of Rancho Dominguez worked with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to test its Advanced Locomotive Emission Control System at the Roseville railyards; having proven itself here, the project was tested this year on ship engines at the Port of Long Beach.
In March, the locally headquartered Raley’s supermarket chain publicly unveiled an exhaust-treatment system that neutralizes most emissions from its truck fleet. The Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District road tested the system, which Raley’s says has produced the world’s cleanest-burning class 8 diesel trucks.
And aspects of this movement are showing up again in Breathe California’s local awards. The winner in this year’s business category is Gary Federico, the third-generation owner of Federico Beauty Institute in Sacramento. Federico installed a solar-powered system that he says supplies about half the school’s energy needs. It should take 13 years to pay off the investment, he says, but the motivation was more personal than financial. “You can feel the movement in the air about going green,” he says. “Being an educational institution, we’re also spreading the word to our student population. I’m touching a lot of people, and you know what? I’ve got a soapbox, and I’m going to use it.”
Jane Hagedorn added a smart-growth prize to Breathe’s program two years ago, and only urban-infill projects have won it so far. But it shouldn’t be long before new suburban layouts show up, she says — layouts that fit the Blueprint criteria of high density, nearby employment and infrastructure that supports alternative transportation.
“It took us 150 years to get here, and we’re not going to turn around overnight,” Hagedorn says. “There are going to be some hits and misses, but I think it’s energizing.”
