PORT ANGELES — The City Council has approved a one-page policy to limit greenhouse gases as a requirement for a $12.5 million state loan application for design and construction of phase 2 of the city’s combined sewer overflow project, the building of which is scheduled to begin this summer.
The $41 million project is intended to transport and store, in a large tank on the former Rayonier pulp mill property, an estimated 32 million gallons of untreated sewage and stormwater that otherwise overflow annually into the sewage system and Port Angeles Harbor.
The Port Angeles City Council will consider approval of a contract for the sewer overflow project in July, with construction to start soon after the bid is awarded, interim City Manager Dan McKeen said Wednesday.
The five council members at the monthly work session Tuesday voted 4-1, with Max Mania dissenting, to approve a one-page policy as part of a state Public Works Trust Fund loan application for the sewer overflow project.
Mayor Cherie Kidd was absent from the work session. Councilwoman Brooke Nelson, who attended part of the work session, was absent from the discussion and vote on the greenhouse gas resolution.
“I do not want to feel like we are giving lip service to something,” Mania said.
“I’d be thrilled to revisit this and put some teeth in it in terms of actual policy and approaches.”
The approved resolution says that “where possible and feasible,” the city will adopt the “guiding principles” of maintaining and improving air and water quality, reducing air toxics and greenhouse gases, protecting and enhancing the environment when providing services and constructing facilities and ensuring “local land use, housing and transportation plans are aligned with any regional plans that have been developed consistent with state guidance to achieve reductions in GHG emissions.”
The more extensive four-page policy rejected by the council did not include the caveat “where possible and feasible” on the first page and called for establishing guiding principles “and/or policies” for reducing the impacts of transportation on climate change.
The approved resolution largely copied the first page of the longer version but left out any references to climate change.
The resolution that was rejected also called for reducing vehicle miles, conducting energy audits of publicly owned buildings, expanding traffic signal timing programs, reducing pollutants from transportation activities, reducing road-width standards “wherever feasible to calm traffic,” increasing public awareness of “climate change and climate protection challenges,” and promoting and expanding recycling programs.
McKeen said Kidd had expressed concerns about “unintended consequences in having a policy with so much specificity in it,” adding that the shorter version “met the spirit and intent of the longer version.”
The city has been doing a good job of addressing issues outlined in the longer resolution, McKeen said.
“Either one of the resolutions shows the community is being a good steward of the environment,” he said.
The policy appears to meet the loan requirements of the state Department of Commerce’s Public Works Board, which administers the Public Works Trust Fund, said Dawn Eychaner, the board’s program and policy development coordinator.
“The board has accepted more abbreviated policies from other jurisdictions that certainly aren’t as extensive as what we send out as a suggested template,” Eychaner said.
“The letter of the law says that they have a policy in place that they have adopted, and how they go about it is a local decision,” she said.
“If the document is adopted by the city, and it is an effort to reduce greenhouse gases, it sounds like it would meet our threshold requirement.”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
