HomeMy WebLinkAboutAgenda - 12-2 - Information Item - Orange County Sustainability and Environmental Responsibility Goal Update
P.O. Box 8181 * 131 West Margaret Lane, 3rd Floor * Hillsborough, North Carolina 27278
Telephone: 919 245-2625
April 17, 2018
To: Board of Orange County Commissioners
CC: Bonnie Hammersley, Orange County Manager
From: Brennan Bouma, Sustainability Coordinator, Asset Management Services
Brenda Bartholomew, Director, Human Resources
Craig Benedict, Director, Planning and Inspections
Jim Northrup, Director, Information Technologies
Blair Pollock, Planner, Solid Waste Management
David Stancil, Director, Department of Environment, Agriculture, Parks and Recreation
Jeff Thompson, Director, Asset Management Services
Robert Williams, Director, Solid Waste Management
RE: Orange County Sustainability and Environmental Responsibility Goal Update
BACKGROUND
Since it was adopted in 2005, Orange County’s Environmental Responsibility Goal (ERG) has guided the County’s
efforts to lower its negative environmental impacts. The ERG was drafted by the Department of Environment,
Agriculture, Parks and Recreation (“DEAPR”) with the input of several departments.
Following from this adopted goal, a group of County departments that were tasked with carrying out ERG
objectives have reported on their activities in October 2012, April 2014, June of 2015, January of 2017, and now
in April of 2018. Reporting departments are listed here:
• Asset Management Services (AMS)
• Human Resources (HR)
• Information Technologies (IT)
• Planning and Inspections
• Department of Environment, Agriculture,
Parks and Recreation (DEAPR)
• Solid Waste Management
SUMMARY
The Environmental Responsibility Goal and its associated objectives continue to direct the work of County staff
across several departments towards ever more sustainable operations and better support programs for County
residents. This work has been made possible through the leadership of the Board of Orange County
Commissioners as well as the collaboration, hard work, and open minds of many County staff.
UPDATE ON KEY SUSTAINABILITY INDICATORS AND ACTIVITIES
This report only covers a sample of the broad array of measurable sustainability activities of County
departments that are relevant to the work and the lives of County residents. This report provides the latest
updates on several ERG performance goals since our last report in January of 2017, including:
• Current and proposed sustainability initiatives across several departments;
• A final analysis of the County’s performance against its utilities reduction goals from 2010 to 2017.
This utilities reduction goal was established in 2011 to match the aggressive efficiency goals of the State at that
time. Now that the endpoint of those goals has been reached, in future years the County will shift to a new
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more comprehensive and standardized sustainability tracking and reporting framework. The STAR Communities
program sets a national standard and protocol for local government sustainability reporting and will be used in
the future to analyze and report on the state of sustainability in Orange County. Utilities reductions will continue
to be tracked in this framework, and they will be driven by climate change and renewable energy goals.
County Utilities Reduction Tracking – Final Results
• Energy
o The County has fallen short of our 30% energy reduction goal for FY17 achieving a 21.6%
reduction when compared to baseline year FY10. This is still notable progress.
Early investments in energy efficiency projects made significant gains followed by a
period of levelling off.
• Water
o The County greatly exceeded our final reduction goals in water achieving a 39% reduction in
FY17, though the savings have varied from year to year.
During this period, water-saving restroom fixtures and appliances have become more
available without losing efficacy, and our facilities have been updated to include them.
• Fuel
o The County did not meet our fuel reduction goals, though in recent years it has shown
improvement. Although FY17 shows a fleet-wide mpg above baseline by 7.6%, this is the best
performance since 2012.
o While the higher-than-standard average age of the County fleet is a contributing factor, the
most significant cause of this increased fuel usage has been increased service levels being
delivered by some of the County’s least efficient but most essential vehicles.
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FY 10 FY 11 FY 12 FY 13 FY 14 FY 15 FY 16 FY 17%
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County Utilities Reduction: Goal vs. Trends
% Energy Reduction Goal
% Energy Reduction Actual
% Water Reduction Goal
% Water Reduction Actual
% Fuel MPG Increase Goal
% Fuel MPG Increase Actual
Final Update
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Our ambulances have some of the lowest miles per gallon figures of any vehicle in our
fleet and over this period our ambulance fleet has doubled. These ambulances have also
been responding to significant increases in the volume of emergency calls.
Utilities Reduction Scorecard Summary – After 7 years of tracking the impact of the County’s efficiency efforts,
there is evidence of overall success even though only one of three main resources exceeded its reduction goal.
The cumulative impact of the reductions that were achieved in energy and water use intensity have resulted in
hundreds of thousands of dollars in avoided cost and have greatly reduced the negative impacts of our
operations on the local environment. Moving forward we also see room to make further gains as the County
employs new tracking tools, makes and implements plans to reach its ambitious climate and energy goals, and
makes further investments in efficiency, renewable energy and clean transportation.
Key County Sustainability Activities and Indicators by Department
Asset Management Services (AMS, highlights by division):
• Administration - Paperless Work Order System: In collaboration with the Information Technologies
Department and TMA Systems, AMS administrative staff has established a paperless work order system
to increase efficiency, limit storage space needed, facilitate transparency, and reduce paper waste.
• Capital Projects – Commissioning and Green Building Standards Update:
In partnership with the Sustainability Program, the Capital Projects Manager is in the process of
reviewing and updating the BOCC-adopted “High Performance Building Guidelines” to reflect updates to
technology and practices, including a focus on building commissioning. Commissioning has been shown
by the NC Department of Environmental Quality to reduce annual energy costs for a building by 15-
30%1. Staff is also planning to incorporate advanced energy systems into upcoming initiatives such as:
solar photovoltaics/battery storage, geothermal, cool roofs, and performance contracting.
• Custodial Services – Green Cleaning Solutions in Bulk:
The County’s cleaning products have been carefully selected to protect human health and the
environment without decreasing effectiveness or increasing costs. These products are delivered in bulk
quantities to reduce packaging waste and bulk dispensers are used to measure out exact quantities.
• Facilities Maintenance – Emphasizing accessibility in preventive maintenance activities:
Since the final Comprehensive Facilities Accessibility Self-Assessment report was delivered in May of
2017, AMS Facilities Maintenance staff has been working to address the action items identified in
maintain a high level of accessibility for County facilities. To date, 22 items have been addressed (e.g.-
ADA parking signs, sidewalk expansion joints, etc), including all of the highest priority items identified. In
addition, 8 further areas of concern (e.g. - entrance mats, stall door closers, etc) have been investigated
and adjusted across all facilities when necessary.
• Fleet Maintenance – Grant Supported Labor Expansion: Enabled by a grant written by Orange County
Public Transportation, the Fleet Maintenance Team will be adding a new technician to focus on the
upkeep of the County’s growing transit fleet. This in turn will free up other technicians to focus on repair
and maintenance of the County’s first response and administrative vehicles.
1 NC DEQ, Utility Savings Initiative, “Existing Building Commissioning” December 7, 2015.
https://files.nc.gov/ncdeq/Environmental%20Assistance%20and%20Customer%20Service/Utility%20Savings%20Initiative/
RetroCx%20LowTech%20Dec%207-2015.pdf
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• Sustainability Program:
o Triangle Regional Resilience Partnership: The Triangle Region Resilience Partnership (TRRP) is a
cooperative partnership between Orange County, the Town of Chapel Hill, the City of Durham,
Durham County, the Town of Cary, and the City of Raleigh, with administration assistance from
Triangle J Council of Governments. The Sustainability Coordinator and the Emergency
Management Coordinator have pulled together a core team of staff from the departments of
Aging, Social Services, and Planning to join them in representing Orange County in the creation
of a regional resiliency assessment over the past year. The project team is using a five-step
process guided by UNC Asheville’s National Environmental Modeling and Analysis Center
(NEMAC). Once complete, this assessment will identify stressors, both climate-related (e.g.
storm events, extreme heat) and non-climate related (e.g. population growth, affordable
housing), and the vulnerabilities of certain regional assets to those stressors. This will inform
local planning and action to increase Orange County’s resilience in a time of rapid change.
o Orange County Commuter Options (OCCO) Program: The Sustainability Program is directing the
work of the County’s first Transportation Demand Management (TDM) Coordinator in
partnership with Orange County Public Transportation, based on an annually renewable grant
from the Triangle J Council of Governments. The TDM Coordinator’s full time role is to reduce
traffic congestion and improve local air quality in Hillsborough and at all County facilities. The
TDM Coordinator manages the County telework program, a carpool ride-matching service, a
GoPerks incentive program, and the planned subsidized bus pass program.
o Accessibility Barrier Reduction: Managing the implementation of action items identified in a
comprehensive accessibility assessment of County facilities and sidewalks in partnership with
the County’s Human Rights Specialist and disability support groups. Presented as the keynote
speaker at the Disability Awareness Council’s 2017 ADA Anniversary celebration.
o New No-cost EV Charging Stations: The County has installed 2 additional electric vehicle
charging plugs at the Seymour Senior Center in Chapel Hill to relieve high-demand for two
existing stations. This was done at no cost to the County as the result of a successful $10,000
grant application from Duke Energy. Since their installation, these new plugs have been used
133 times, enabling Orange County residents and visitors to displace more than 3000 gasoline
miles. This charging capacity was added to the County’s award-winning network of 16 Level 2 EV
chargers and 2 DC Fast Chargers that the County provides to further support the adoption of
clean-driving electric vehicles in Orange County.
o Orange County Car Share Shared Vehicle System: Developed a low-cost method to reserve,
track, and maintain a new shared County vehicle pool, leveraging existing technology.
o Sustainability Internships: Successfully recruited and managed the work of two additional UNC
interns, providing green job training for young professionals. To date, 5 sustainability interns
have added more than 800 free staff hours to amplify the work of the Orange County
Sustainability Program.
o Fuel-Saving Technology Grant Projects: County staff has collaborated on 2 grant projects
piloting innovative propane bi-fuel systems and idle-reduction battery backup units, increasing
the resilience and decreasing the emissions of 7 ambulances, 10 Sheriff's vehicles and 5
Environmental Health Inspector vehicles. Each year these projects save approximately 65 tons of
CO2 and other emissions.
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Department of Environment, Agriculture, Parks, and Recreation:
• Lands Legacy Action Plan Update: Updated the County’s Lands Legacy Action Plan for 2018-2021 which
prioritizes conservation of lands for protection of natural areas and wildlife habitat, prime and
threatened farmland, watershed riparian buffers (water quality), parks and nature preserves, and
historic and cultural/archaeological resources. This updates was then adopted by the Board of Orange
County Commissioners.
• Eno River Hydrilla Management Task Force: This two year pilot study was continued for another two
years based on the substantial progress made during the initial study. The aim of the study is to evaluate
management of invasive aquatic plant Hydrilla Verticillata in a section of the Eno River.
• Stormwater Best Management Practices (BMP): Maintenance was completed on all existing BMPs (e.g.
– retention ponds, engineered infiltration zones, etc), and an additional BMP was put into use at
Fairview. DEAPR staff also worked with design teams concerning upgraded provisions for stormwater
management at three major County facilities projects: 1.) The renovation of the Southern Human
Services Center; 2.) The expansion of the Seymour Center; and 3.) The Sportsplex Field House
construction.
• Commission for the Environment (CFE) Support: Supported the enthusiastic civic participation of
County residents in providing guidance and information to the BOCC on Orange County environmental
issues in collaboration with the Sustainability Program. County staff has connected the CFE with a team
of UNC students to analyze and improve upon the environmental indicators racked in the Orange
County State of the Environment report ahead of the planned 2019 update. The CFE has also reviewed
or created several resolutions for the BOCC to consider concerning a move to 100% renewable energy,
divestment from fossil fuel companies, and supporting a federal carbon fee and dividend program.
Human Resources:
• Collaboration on telework and subsidized bus passes: Collaborated with the Sustainability Program,
Information Technologies, Risk Management, and the County Attorney’s Office to create a new
administrative Telework Policy, application process, and training program. Over 100 County employees
have received telework training since the program began in late 2016. HR staff is currently collaborating
with the Sustainability Program and Orange County Public Transportation to establish a subsidized bus
pass program for County staff to promote the bus as a commute option and improve air quality.
Information Technologies-Updates:
• Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) Systems: IT staff is supporting several AVL projects across the County
including those in Emergency Services, the Sheriff’s Office, Orange County Public Transportation, and
Asset Management. AVL technology feeds vehicle location data into specific departmental applications
that can then be used to optimize vehicle routes saving fuel and staff time and assist with incident
response.
• County Surplus Computer Re-use Program: Regularly diverts hundreds of surplus county computers for
re-use by an Orange County student training program in partnership with the Chapel Hill Carrboro City
Schools system and Orange County Sustainability Program, under the guidance of Solid Waste
Management.
• Electronic Content Management Projects: Increasing resilience and efficiency of accessing County data,
while decreasing the need to maintain on-site paper-based archives by establishing electronic content
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management projects that fit the needs of several County departments. Participating in a joint project
with AMS and other departments to formalize and modernize a records management and retention
program driven by the Space Study Workgroup charge.
• Energy efficient computer fleet: Continued replacement of older less-efficient machines with Energy
Star or equivalent desktop computers and laptops for County staff.
• Virtualization: Continued virtualization and hyper-convergence efforts will soon allow the County to
reduce the number of physical servers it uses by nearly 50%. This practice decreases energy use and
increases the storage space available in County buildings.
Planning and Inspections-
• SolSmart Silver Award: Planning and Inspections staff provided critical technical guidance in the
completion of Orange County’s application to the SolSmart program, in collaboration with the
Sustainability Program. SolSmart is a national recognition and technical support program to help
governments lower the costs for businesses and residents to build solar energy systems. The
Sustainability Program joined sustainability staff from Chapel Hill and Carrboro in a successful
application for 6 months of no-cost, full-time, “SolSmart” technical assistance from the NC Clean Energy
Technology Center. This broad collaboration resulted in reduced barriers to solar development in
Orange County and a silver-level designation in the 2017 SolSmart Communities program.
• Telemeet: Various departments, especially the planning department, are conferencing in to meetings in
other counties instead of driving, resulting in less pollution, decreased costs and more productive staff
time. This ‘telemeet’ is still taking shape since features will need to be added on both ends to include
web-sharing and video and other interactive tools.
• Land Management Central Permitting Software (LMCPS): This advanced software is being developed to
manage Building, Planning, Erosion Control, Environmental Health, Fire Marshall and Solid Waste
permitting and inspection. Once established, it will decrease paper (electronic records), allow more
interaction via the internet and phone thereby decreasing office traffic and parking limitations, and
create a better GIS interface to make field inspections more efficient with time and travel costs.
• Greene Tract Environmental and Cultural Analysis: Orange County worked with Chapel Hill, Carrboro
and the Rogers Road community environmental and cultural experts to analyze the value of the Greene
Tract for preservation of flora, fauna, streams and wetlands and corridors.
Solid Waste Management:
• Waste Reduction Performance: For FY 16-17 Orange County once again achieved an overall 62% waste
reduction rate, meaning that the waste landfilled per capita was 0.52 tons per person last year
compared to 1.36 tons/capita per person in base year 1991.
o This was the 4th best in NC and the other counties are smaller and more rural.
o This surpassed for the fourth year in a row, our goal set in 1997 of 61% reduction in waste per
person landfilled.
• Completion and opening of renovated Waste and Recycling Center on Eubanks Road: The improved
center opened in April 2018. The new site is fully paved, using compactors and two-tiered loading for
large and bulky materials to facilitate more efficient and safer operations. New recycling services at the
site include food scraps, cooking oil, textiles and plastic bags. The Hazardous Household Waste
collection point was integrated into the site and hours increased from 44 to 59 commensurate with
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Center hours. The solid waste facility's weigh station is being upgraded and moved to the north side of
Eubanks Road, ending the need for users to have to cross over Eubanks Road for each transaction. The
weigh station move is anticipated to be completed and available for use in May 2018.
• Waste Composition Study: In FY 2016-17 the County completed its fifth waste composition study,
professionally analyzing 101 samples of municipal solid waste disposed throughout the County. Overall
findings showed that about 20% are cans, bottles and paper that could be recycled curbside or at drop
off sites, 10% are other recyclables including scrap metal, textiles and electronics, 45% is compostable
material that includes food scraps, wet paper and yard waste while about 25% is not recoverable using
current technologies and markets.
• Solid Waste Plan: At the Solid Waste Advisory Group’s (SWAG's) direction, County staff has continued to
develop analyses and components of a County-wide solid waste plan. Work in the past year includes a
Departmental financial analysis, evaluation of feasibility of an integrated materials management facility,
background research with major stakeholders to assess their interests and concerns about solid waste
and, recently, issuance of a RFP for long-term, food scrap collection and processing services.
• Providing universal residential curbside recycling service: All 41,500 homes throughout urban and rural
Orange County are now eligible for curbside recycling. Rural curbside recycling tonnage increased in FY
2016-17 by 26% over FY 15-16 due at least in part to universal access. Urban curbside tonnage went up
4% and overall recycling tonnage increased 2%.
• Recycling Services: The Orange County Solid Waste Management Department continues to provide and
expand recycling collection to all County government buildings and facilities as well as those of Chapel
Hill, Carrboro, and Hillsborough. The ‘government buildings program’ includes not only those buildings
but also over 100 sites at all government-operated parks, park and ride lots, downtown pedestrian
containers in all three Towns including 12 new ones added this year in downtown Chapel Hill and over
half the convenience stores' gas islands throughout the County. A total of 237 tons was collected last
fiscal year at these locations. The schools added another 236 tons to the recycling effort.
• Waste Audits: Staff completed waste audits of major local government buildings in all jurisdictions that
evaluated the amount of recyclable material still being thrown away at 18% in Carrboro, Chapel Hill and
Orange County and 39% in Hillsborough. Follow-up surveys were conducted with each Department in
each government (Hillsborough pending) to identify means for improving the governments’ internal
waste reduction performance. Follow-up audits will occur in Fall 2018.
Thank you. Please contact us with any feedback or questions.
Brennan Bouma, AMS, 919-245-2626
Brenda Bartholomew, HR, 919-245-2552
Craig Benedict, Planning, 919-245-2592
Jim Northrup, IT, 919-245-2276
Blair Pollock, Solid Waste, 919-968-2788 x206
David Stancil, DEAPR, 919-245-2522
Jeff Thompson, AMS, 919-245-2658
Robert Williams, Solid Waste, 919-968-2885 x106
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