Requesting Sacramento County Greenhouse Gas Report

General Plan Annual Report: GHG Measures

On February 20, 2020, the Environmental Council of Sacramento, 350 Sacramento and the Sierra Club Sacramento Group submitted a request to the County of Sacramento for a report on greenhouse gases as part of their general plan.

CA Government Code §65400 requires the County to report by April 1 of each year the status of the general plan and progress in its implementation. We expect the Board of Supervisors to review the pending report at a March 2020 hearing.
General Plan Policy LU-115, adopted November 2011, states a goal of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020, and presents four implementation measures:
• Adopt by resolution a first-phase Climate Action Plan.
• Complete a GHG emissions inventory every three years.
• Prepare a second-phase Climate Action Plan within three years.
• Enact and fund a Sustainability Program to provide ongoing oversight, monitoring and maintenance of the Climate Action Plan.

Click here to read the letter in full.

Image by kuanish Sarsenov from Pixabay

Regional Transit: Fare-Free Program for Youth is a Success!

February 12, 2020
Sacramento Regional Transit

SACRAMENTO, CA – The Sacramento Regional Transit District (SacRT) announced today that student ridership has doubled since implementing the fare-free program for youth/students in grades transitional kindergarten (TK) to 12th. SacRT launched the RydeFreeRT program in October 2019, which offers youth/students access to the entire SacRT network, including buses, light rail and SmaRT Ride on-demand microtransit service, for free.
Last month, SacRT experienced record ridership increases with 176,500 student trips taken on bus, which is a 106% increase from January 2019 student ridership.
“One of our top priorities at the City of Sacramento is offering more opportunities for young people,” said City of Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg. “Having a free transit pass makes it easier to get to that paid internship, to that sports practice or that afterschool program. It’s amazing to see so many students take advantage of their new freedom to move around the Sacramento region and take advantage of all the opportunities it offers.”
The City of Sacramento provided SacRT with $1 million, as well as additional funds from other cities and school districts to counter revenue loss for the year-long RydeFreeRT program.
“Young people have told us the number one reason for chronic absence is lack of transportation. By eliminating transportation barriers, we’re increasing chances for more young people to succeed in school, career and in life,” said SacRT Board Director and City Council Member Jay Schenirer.
“SacRT is setting a new standard that will be emulated across the nation.”
“This program is the first in the nation to offer students free transit seven days a week, anywhere, any time,” said SacRT Board Chair and City Council Member Steve Hansen. “We are seeing a spike in students riding SacRT after school and on weekends, which confirms that there is a strong need for students to get to jobs, internships and extracurricular activities – Exactly what we hoped would happen with the implementation of this program.”
“Free fares for youth not only opens the door to opportunity, it creates lifelong public transit riders by instilling the habit at a young age,” said SacRT General Manager/CEO Henry Li. “Research shows that people who ride public transportation at a young age are more likely to use it as adults, which could have a tremendous impact on traffic congestion and air quality.”
Researchers at University of Texas, Austin who recently completed a study with three Sacramento City Unified School District schools to assess the barriers students face in traveling to school and other activities, are conducting a study on the impact of fare-free transportation on these students’ lives in areas including, but not limited to, school attendance, engagement in out-of-school time enrichment activities, participation in work-based learning, and attitudes towards SacRT in general. The study is expected to be complete this summer.
More than 300 schools in the Sacramento region are enrolled in the program. Most students automatically received a RydeFreeRT sticker with their student ID. For students and youth not attending a participating school, stickers and cards are available for free at local Sacramento County public libraries and SacRT’s Customer Service and Sales Center.
Partners and participating school districts include Sacramento Public Library, Center Unified School District, Elk Grove Unified School District, Folsom Cordova Unified School District, Natomas Unified School District, Robla School District, Sacramento City Unified School District, Sacramento County Office of Education, San Juan Unified School District, Twin Rivers Unified School District, City of Citrus Heights, City of Folsom and City of Rancho Cordova. The RydeFreeRT program runs until September 30, 2020. SacRT is working to secure funding to continue the program in future years.
Within fiscal year 2020, SacRT has seen an estimated 6% increase in ridership system-wide. More information on the program is available at RydeFreeRT.com. Watch a student testimonial about the RydeFreeRT program here.

Unforgettable Photos of Invisible Methane Leaks

December 12, 2019
By Jonah M. Kessel and Hiroko Tabuchi
The New York Times

To the naked eye, there is nothing out of the ordinary at the DCP Pegasus gas processing plant in West Texas, one of the thousands of installations in the vast Permian Basin that have transformed America into the largest oil and gas producer in the world.
But a highly specialized camera sees what the human eye cannot: a major release of methane, the main component of natural gas and a potent greenhouse gas that is helping to warm the planet at an alarming rate.
Two New York Times journalists detected this from a tiny plane, crammed with scientific equipment, circling above the oil and gas sites that dot the Permian, an oil field bigger than Kansas. In just a few hours, the plane’s instruments identified six sites with unusually high methane emissions.

Click here to keep reading and to view these astonishing images.

Image used for this post courtesy of Jeffrey Phillips via Flickr.

Metropolitan Transportation Plan Update

On November 7, 2019, the Environmental Council of Sacramento (ECOS) submitted comments on the recently proposed update to our region’s Metropolitan Transportation Plan/Sustainable Communities Strategy (MTP/SCS). These comments were submitted via one letter solely from ECOS, and a joint letter from both ECOS and 350 Sacramento. Below is an excerpt from our comments, followed by links to PDFs of both letters.

The Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG) has put forth a sophisticated Metropolitan Transportation Plan/Sustainable Communities Strategy (MTP/SCS), a regional plan that the region’s jurisdictions should follow. While this regional plan is not a strong as we feel it could be, the 2020 MTP/SCS is a viable strategy for the region to meet its regional greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets mandated by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) per Senate Bill 375 (2008).
The plan represents a reasonable compromise between what the region could accomplish if the political will existed, and the reality of much more expansive car-oriented, low-density growth that is actually being actively pursued by some of the region’s jurisdictions on the ground. ECOS would prefer a greater percentage of transportation investment to non-auto modes, and a much more compact land use footprint than proposed. The Sacramento region is not meeting its mandated GHG reduction targets because local jurisdictions are not complying with the strategy that SACOG has laid out for them, and the State must do more to ensure compliance of local authorities to our Sustainable Community Strategies, as well as to ensure the State’s own investments are aligned with its climate laws.

Click here to read the comment letter by ECOS on the MTP/SCS.

Click here to read the comment letter by ECOS and 350 Sacramento on the Climate Change section of the MTP/SCS, which was submitted separately.

Jackson Township DEIR Comments

On October 31, 2019, Environmental Council of Sacramento (ECOS), Habitat 2020, 350 Sacramento, and Sierra Club provided comments on the Jackson Township Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR). Below are some excerpts from the letter, followed by a link to the letter in full.

Agricultural Resources

There is insufficient mitigation for farmland lost in the Jackson Township Specific Plan DEIR [Draft Environmental Impact Report]. By converting all this farmland to urban/suburban uses, the GHG emissions will increase due to the increased number of motor vehicle trips (more vehicle miles traveled). Moreover, loss of agricultural resources will reduce the potential for carbon sequestration in the soil by application of compost or regenerative agriculture methods, in addition to the natural processes of plant growth and soil microbial action from farming. There needs to be better mitigation measures to ensure carbon soil sequestration occurs at least as much as it would if the agricultural resources were preserved.

Biological Resources

Use of the South Sacramento Habitat Conservation Plan (SSHCP) was offered as one of the options for dealing with California Endangered Species Act (CESA) and Federal Endangered Species Act (FESA) impacts, and it was clearly stated that the hardline preserves identified in the SSHCP conservation strategy would be provided. Since the SSHCP now has its permits and is in the implementation phase, we are assuming that the Jackson Township will be affected by and compliant with the SSHCP.

Climate Change

We appreciate the opportunity to comment on Chapter 9, “Climate Change”, of the County’s Jackson Township Specific Plan Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR). Our greenhouse gas (GHG)-related comments are presented in the following seven sections. We first discuss the County’s past GHG-reduction commitments, because the DEIR:
I. does not accurately describe County climate planning;
II. uses inappropriate baseline data based on past planning;
III. applies inappropriate thresholds of significance; and
IV. is inconsistent with the County’s 2011 General Plan Update, associated Final Environmental Report (GP/FEIR), and Phase 1 CAP.
We also present,
V. other DEIR-related concerns.
We conclude:
VI. the DEIR is legally insufficient
VII. the County’s failure to provide promised mitigation is contrary to the General Plan.

Click here to read the letter in full
Attachment 1
Attachment 2
Attachment 3
Attachment 4
Attachment 5

Get involved in plans for I-80 and Hwy 65 Transportation Corridors

Posted October 15, 2019

Get involved in the future of the I-80 / Business 80 corridor from downtown Sacramento to Auburn and the Highway 65 corridor from Lincoln to I-80. The effort will result in a multi-modal plan that considers improvements to vehicle, truck, rail, bus, pedestrian, and bicycle travel along the corridor, with an emphasis on increasing travel choices to reduce congestion.

Learn more and join the conversation on Monday, October 28 from 5:00 – 6:30 p.m. for the second Placer Sacramento Gateway Plan Community Workshop. A brief presentation will begin at 5:45 p.m. Stop by anytime between 5:00 and 6:30 p.m. to hear a project update!

Can’t make it to the workshop? Go to http://bit.ly/more80choices for a livestream of the presentation.

Click here to RSVP.