This article originally provided by The Charleston Gazette

March 30, 2008

Four W.Va. cities pledge to fight global warming

Fayetteville, Oak Hill, Shepherdstown, Morgantown agree to cut emissions

By Tara Tuckwiller
Staff writer

Four West Virginia cities have decided they can't wait for the federal government to stop global warming.

The mayors of Shepherdstown, Morgantown, Fayetteville and Oak Hill have joined more than 800 mayors across the country in adopting the Kyoto Protocol rejected by President Bush. The towns have pledged to cut their greenhouse gas emissions to 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

"If we're not good stewards now, what are we going to leave for our children?" Fayetteville city manager Bill Lanham said.

Shepherdstown was the first West Virginia town to sign the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement in 2006, when about 330 cities had signed on nationwide. Morgantown, Oak Hill and Fayetteville followed in 2007, along with the Fayette County Commission.

On Monday, the mayors are scheduled to meet in Fayetteville - the Shepherdstown and Morgantown mayors to join by energy-saving teleconference - at the first meeting of the Fayette County "Green Team," to come up with new ways to cut emissions. The public is invited to participate.

The towns have already made some changes, both tiny and huge. For example, Fayetteville has:

• Switched to energy-saving light bulbs in its town hall. For outdoor lights, the town is switching to super-efficient LEDs, Lanham said.
• Started an extensive recycling program for the city and surrounding communities. Recycling helps cut greenhouse gas emissions because it takes less energy to recycle products than it does to make new ones, and organic materials such as paper and cardboard aren't creating methane by rotting in landfills, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
• Cut back on its city vehicle use. "Maybe one truck takes guys to different job sites, instead of each one driving a separate vehicle," Mayor Jim Akers said. And city police no longer let their cruisers idle unnecessarily. "That's helped quite a bit on our fuel bills."
• Planted a children's garden downtown.
• Had a complete energy audit of all government buildings by the Fayetteville-based West Virginia Sustainable Communities Project, identifying ways they could be more energy-efficient.

Now, "we're working to get the towns involved at a deeper level," said Sue Plumley, an Oak Hill resident. For example, the towns could buy electricity from renewable sources - "but Appalachian Power in Fayette County doesn't do that," she said. "We've got to talk to them."

Bigger cities across the U.S. have tackled bigger projects. Chicago handed out 500,000 free compact fluorescent light bulbs to residents. Lexington, Ky., plans to capture methane from its sewage plant to power boilers. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has mandated that all of the city's 13,000 taxis must switch to hybrid cars.

Even so, only Portland, Ore., has come close to meeting the Kyoto Protocol, among 10 prominent "Kyoto cities" studied by the nonprofit group Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

The other cities that have signed the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement "will miss their goals unless they redouble their efforts," the report concludes.

But, Plumley said, some greenhouse gas reduction is better than no greenhouse gas reduction.

"We're just trying to make people more aware - to make it easier for us to live here without using up all of our resources."

To contact staff writer Tara Tuckwiller, use e-mail or call 348-5189.