By KIRSTEN LASKEY
Los Alamos Daily Post
kirsten@ladailypost.com

The world is getting hotter, the weather angrier and the fresh water scarcer. How to respond to this is daunting. Where to even begin? Locally, Los Alamos County Council decided its first step would be to adopt a plan.

The Climate Action Plan was approved 5-2 with Councilors Melanee Hand and David Reagor opposed, during the regular meeting Nov. 12.

Work on the plan started in the summer of 2023 with the objective of providing a roadmap for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing climate resilience. However, the community has worked to protect the environment well before 2023. County Sustainability Manager Angelica Gurule told the Los Alamos Daily Post Tuesday that the community has been taking climate actions for decades; it established programs such as recycling, Atomic City Transit bus system and others to care for the environment.

The plan is focused on providing a baseline inventory of greenhouse gas emissions and strategic targets and actions to reduce those emissions.

The plan contains six focus areas, each with their own set of strategies:

• Focus area: Building and energy.
  • Strategies: Increase building efficiency and decarbonization; increase renewable energy generation.
• Focus area: Transportation and land use.
  • Strategies: Expand electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure and adoption; expand and promote multi-modal connectivity and sustainable land use planning.
• Focus area: Materials and consumption.
  • Strategy: maximize waste diversion.
• Focus area: Natural systems and water.
  • Strategies: Increase urban green space; conserve water resources.
• Focus area: Community resilience, adoption and wellbeing.
  • Strategies: Enhance community understanding of climate change; prepare the community for climate impacts.
• Focus area: Cross-cutting.
  • Strategies: Encourage sustainable businesses; promote climate education outreach.

Gurule said in developing this plan, a month-long community feedback campaign was held July 9 through Aug. 9. She reported that 520 comments were collected from about 75 individuals.

The comments ranged from denouncing any mandates related to combating climate change to being completely in favor of the plan, she said. Others wondered what this would do to the County’s electric infrastructure as well as what the cost would be for homeowners.

“These sentiments in the document range from enthusiastic support to cautious approval and outright opposition,” Gurule said. “(They) reflect a broad spectrum of perspectives on how best to tackle climate change on the local level.”

The public’s mixed bag of opinions regarding climate change continued during the Nov. 12 meeting. Greg Weiss said to call climate change an “existential threat” was a lie. He added that any contribution Los Alamos County does toward combating climate change would be insignificant in addressing the world-wide problem.

“This climate action plan is a plan for government control of people’s choices,” Weiss said. “Meanwhile we are raising the cost of living for everyone.”

Sue Barns said she felt different.

“…the CAP (climate action plan) is an important step for reducing our pollution for our own wellbeing and that of our neighbors near and far and future generations,” she said. “We are responsible for emitting polluting greenhouse gases in our atmosphere and those are harming people, animals and environment. The CAP does more than curb emissions, it can create positive change across our community …”

Council’s response to the plan also was a mixed bag.

Council Vice Chair Theresa Cull made the motion to approve the plan.

“A plan guides you; it guides your decisions, it steers you in a certain direction,” she said. “I do think it’s easy to get hung up on dates, and some of the words, the word encourage, for example, how are we going to encourage? There are things that still need to be determined but we have some idea of what we need to do to move forward, and in my opinion, it is very important to move forward… to a better, safer, and potentially be more cost effective for the community in the long run.”

Hand said she felt the plan needed more work before it was approved, or County Council should receive annual updates on its progress.

“I support the overall intent of the plan, but many details still seem lofty or unreasonable to implement, in my opinion … as a County Councilor, I see difficulty to fully support implementation of this plan because the decisions that come before me on a daily basis can be in conflict with the plan as it currently stands,” she said. “I must weigh the cost versus the benefit of many other important priorities …”

Reagor said he doesn’t support the plan. Referencing a letter written by local resident, Richard Hanson, Reagor said the County’s CO2 “is so small or negligible that it’s not really an action at all.”

He added that turning off natural gas will hurt middle- and low-income residents “and since our County is negligible, I would ask people who want to do something, do it yourself. Do it in your own house. You’re negligible, the County’s negligible, you can express your moral(s) to do something by getting your solar panels, your electric car … you don’t have to bring this down on the heads of all the other people in town who have very limited resources …”

With the plan approved, Gurule said during her presentation the next steps will be to address the Board of Public Utilities’ goal to phase out natural gas by 2070. County staff recommend phasing out natural gas for residents and businesses by 2070 and accelerating the phase out of natural gas in County facilities by 2050.