Arlington Environmental Summit - Sep 25th, 2024

Meeting held at 27 Maple Street. I don't think it was technically a "public meeting", but I'll treat is as though it was. The event consisted of short, five-minute presentations by town committees and private groups, including some from high school students.

Introductions

(David Morgan, Planning Department) Mr. Morgan introduces the event. He says we'll talk about removing barriers and achieving shared aspirations. He'd like to see a whole-of-government approach to addressing environmental pressures in our community.

(Brucie Moulton, Sustainable Arlington) Ms. Moulton hopes that people working together can figure out our shared trajectory.

Arlington MA Invasives

(Elaine Crowder) Ms. Crowder is representing Arlington Mass Invasives, or ArMI. She says that invasives are thugs that push out native species. ArMI currently has three initiatives. The first is to befriend open spaces. They removed black swallow root from Hill's Hill and two years later, it's still gone. One of the challenges is navigating the different jurisdictions that govern Arlington's open spaces. She'd like to streamline the permission process for clearing invasives. Different invasives need to be cleared at different times, and some jobs are too big for volunteers.

The second initiatives involved clearing woody invasives like bittersweet from McClennan Park, and planting shrubs in their place. The third initiative is pink plants, which is being done under the land steward program. They dye invasive plants pink to identify them. They've done this on public lands and would like to extend it into neighborhoods. Ms. Crowder would like to have a way to report large infestations.

Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness 2.0

(Bianca Allen) Ms. Allen says that MVP 2.0 is an effort to understand how climate change affects low-income communities, immigrants, and seniors.

(Tim O'Leary) Mr. O'Leary says there are 123 tenants in Winslow Towers and over 1100 in Arlington public housing. He'd like tenants to have more of a voice in town affairs, and that includes forming tenant associations. Climate change initiatives involve keeping people in the loop and advising them.

(David Morgan) Mr. Morgan says the town is trying to involve historically excluded communities in the MVP process.

Reservoir Committee/Friends of Arlington Great Meadows

(David White) Mr. White says that the Arlington Reservoir and Great Meadows were built during the last century in order to acquire a water supply. They've developed in natural ways since then. Twenty-seven years ago the reservoir was used as a dump and the state declared it a high-hazard dam. The hazard was mitigated in 2005 by adding a spillway. Years ago, we created the beach area, and a path around the reservoir.

(?) Future plans for the reservoir include more planting and maintenance, an amphitheater in the woods, water learning tables, a floating science center, and green infrastructure. We'd also like to establish a bird observatory and bird nesting area.

Arlington Land Trust

(Ann LeRoyer) Ms. LeRoyer says the Arlington Land Trust was established in 1999 to protect open spaces. The owner of Elizabeth Island (in Spy Pond) announced their intention to sell the property in 2008, and the Land Trust purchased it in 2010. The island currently has a conservation restriction, and the Land Trust monitors the water quality of the pond.

The Land Trust was involved with the acquisition of the Symmes property in 2012 and got permanent protection of eight acres of the site, including two public parks. They pay for annual monitoring to protect the land. Ms. LeRoyer says the Mugar property is the last open space in town and the Land Trust is advocating for the permanent protection of the site. The owners would like to construct senior housing there, and the project is being reviewed by the Conservation Commission. Twelve acres would be preserved if the project goes forward, but they'd prefer to see all seventeen acres conserved.

Electrify Arlington

(Talia Fox) Ms. Fox says that Arlington must shift from fossil fuels to clean electricity, in order to meet net zero goals. Eighty percent of Arlington's emissions come from residential dwellings and vehicles. Our priorities are education, outreach to landlords, and preparing the ground for electrification.

(Lori Kenschaft) Ms. Kenschaft says the first step is outreach, and helping people find the next steps they can take. She says that rental properties tend to use more fossil fuels than owner-occupied ones. Arlington has lots of small landlords, and a few large ones. Electrify Arlington is coaching homeowners on how to electrify. They're currently trying to identify blocks that don't have natural gas available, and encouraging those property owners to electrify. She says there are 12,000 buildings in Arlington, and we need to electrify 460/year in order to get there. That's a little over one building per day.

Tree Committee

(Keith Schnebly) Mr. Schnebly says the Tree Committee conducted a tree inventory in 2017, and cataloged 10,000 trees. 38% were norway maples and 9% were ash, indicating that Arlington has something of a monoculture. The town has planted 1760 trees since then, and that's reduced the monoculture from 48% to 40%. They also participate in active tree maintenance.

Mr. Schnebly says that trees are a public good, and people like them. He sees the need for a public/private collaborative. The town owns 9% of the land in Arlington and the other 91% is privately owned. The Tree Committee's goals are to maintain and increase the tree canopy. We lose lots of new trees in hot summers. The town measures the tree canopy each year. He thinks we should consider tree planting in all policy areas, and increase the private tree canopy.

Spy Pond Committee

(Brad Barber) Mr. Barber says there are three groups active in the care of Spy Pond: the Friends of Spy Pond Park, the Spy Pond Committee, and the Arlington Land Trust. Spy Pond's issues include invasive species, glass and metal objects in shallow water, algae blooms, and shore erosion. The Spy Pond Committee tries to take care of the pond. They'd like to make the pond swimmable again. Large parts of the pond are muck, especially between Elizabeth Island and Route 2. The muck attracts vegetation.

Save the Alewife Brook

(Kristin Anderson) Ms. Anderson says that Save the Alewife Brook's main concerns involve water quality and the combined sewage overflows that discharge into the brook. The area used to be referred to as the great swamp it area floods during large rain events. The group is working to eliminate combined sewage outflows. Cambridge and Somerville have old sewer systems that were built in the 1800s, and these mix stormwater and sanitary systems. The brook floods into the surrounding Alewife Greenway, and it's been a problem for 100 years. The group will march in Somerville's Honk Parade next month.

School Board Climate Resolutions

(Aly Lay, AHS Student) Ms. Lay is part of the Arlington Public Schools Climate Resilient School Coalition. Their goals are climate education, sustainable infrastructure, and climate resilience. They're researching what a resolution might look like. The next steps will be drafting the resolution, building support, and getting it passed.

Project Zero

(Amethyst Stencik, AHS Student) Ms. Stencik says that Project Zero helps run a reuse and recycling center. They provide compostable materials for town events and work with interested parties to supply compostables and reusables. They also help organize trash streams in the schools.

SAVE Club

(Annika Ziegler, AHS Student) Ms. Ziegler says the SAVE Club's goals are to educate students on recycling, and to reduce waste from the schools. One of the main challenges is to prevent recycling contamination.

(Mahima Karthik, AHS Student) Ms. Karthik says they're trying to build student interest, and to get more education on environmentalism and recycling. They'd like the whole school to know about these things.

Slash the Trash

(Sophie Chen, AHS Student) Ms. Chen works with Slash the Trash at Arlington High School, which means literally getting your hands dirty. Their work has resulted in a a 25% reduction in lunchroom waste by volume. That's about 538 bags/year -- just by sorting waste. They partner with Black Earth Compost. She'd like to use public education as a way to learn about sustainability. Slash the Trash's future plans include expanding their volunteer base, and working to discontinue the use of single-use items in the cafeteria.

Full Circle Compost

(Elena Zaganjori, AHS Student) Ms. Zaganjori says that Full Circle Compost is a student-run composting service.

(?) The service picks up compost from clients, and puts it into town bins.

(Elena Zaganjori) Ms. Zaganjori says they provide bio bags and bins to clients. They're asking for volunteers to help with their efforts.

Young Arlington Collaborative

(Jo Almond) Ms. Almond says that the more she learns about the climate, the more she realizes that "too late" is rapidly approaching. She thinks that places with the capacity to do something should do all that they can, and that we need a mass decarbonization effort. She'd like to see more town employees working on climate issues, to protect our right to a thriving future. This includes more EV chargers, bike lanes, and car shares, in order to reduce vehicle emissions. The world is something we make, and we can make it differently.

Zero Waste Arlington

(?) Zero Waste Arlington works to reduce waste at the state and local level. They're mainly focused on reducing single-use plastics and piloting reusable programs. Arlington on Tap is an effort to increase the availability of public drinking resources. They're also assisting with a restaurant composting pilot, and encouraging low-waste practices.

(Amy Speare) Ms. Speare says the group has a number of ideas, including a "skip the stuff" bylaw, like the one New York City recently adopted. This law prohibits restaurants from including single-use utensils with take-out orders, unless the customer asks for them. They provide reusable cups for town events, like the beer gardens at Arlington Reservoir. They'd like the town to lead by example with things like comprehensive hauler regulations, wider-scale composting programs, and containerized trash collection.

Arlington Nature Futures

(Kate Davies) Ms. Davies is a Tufts lecturer who's working on a project in conjunction with the town. She's trying to develop strategies for thinking about the future for both humans and nature. That includes looking at what people value now, and how to think about human/nature relationships. She's using frameworks like IPBES and the Nature Framework. Ms. Davies says these can be applied to strategic thinking. She's doing a survey, and trying to get different groups involved.

Save Arlington Wildlife

(Laura Kiesel) Ms. Kiesel says that Save Arlington Wildlife started in 2022 with the goal of banning rodenticides use on public land. There are over 20 other "save wildlife" groups is Massachusetts. She'd like to subsidize a campaign to educate the public about rodent reduction without the use of rodenticides. She'd like to get people to think about waste, and how it attracts rodents. Ms. Kiesel says she's also created a network of care for orphaned and injured wildlife and she'd like to educate people about the importance of dead trees for bird habitat.

Open Space Committee

(Elisabeth Carr-Jones) Ms. Carr-Jones says the Open Space Committee is responsible for preparing and implementing the town's Open Space and Recreation Plan. They have four goals: protecting the natural environment, ensuring that recreational spaces meet local needs, supporting the regional capacity for recreational opportunities, and building environmental stewardship.

Sustainable Arlington

(Brucie Moulton) Ms. Moulton says that Sustainable Arlington was founded 25 years ago. They've been focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, advocating for adoption of the enhanced stretch building code, and getting Arlington to participate in the state's pilot fossil fuel ban. The group is also interested in reducing the use of private jets. She says that lots of personal and town decisions have climate impacts, and we can keep the big picture in mind when making local decisions.

Town Environmental Planning

(David Morgan) Mr. Morgan has been trying to identify which aspects of town government can help meet our environmental goals. The first goal is biodiversity. Massachusetts executive order 618 focuses attention on biodiversity, dam removal, and ecological restoration. He'd like to establish biodiversity goals and integrate them into town planning. The second goal is urbanism. How we use space affects the environment. We can address flood and heat hazards and develop standards to improve microclimates. The third goal is adaption. Adaption addresses the various hazards we face, and these strategies will change over time.

Discussion

Mr. Morgan opens the public discussion portion of the meeting.

(Steve Revilak) Buildings are Arlington's largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, and Mr. Revilak says the town has been taking steps to address this. Our second largest source of emissions is transportation. While transportation is number two in Arlington, it's the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Massachusetts, and the largest source of emissions in the United States. Mr. Revilak says that Arlington has done less well in the transportation area. We rely too much on private vehicles. He thinks we'll need to reduce vehicle miles traveled and shift away from automobile use in order to reduce transportation emissions.

(?) High school students have all of these environmental programs. They should start earlier, like in elementary school.

(Sophie Chen) Slash the Trash has given presentations at elementary schools, to teach those students about environmental capacity.

(?) Arlington's fastest-growing demographic is 40-ish year old parents.

(Susan Stamps) Ms. Stamps would like to see measures in anticipation of Arlington becoming a denser community with more housing. We can build sustainability into zoning changes. She's in favor of allowing two-family housing everywhere, but is concerned about second driveways and having more impervious surfaces.

(Jennifer Litowski) Ms. Litowski works with Everywhere Arlington Livable Streets, whose focus is safe infrastructure and safe streets. She thinks Arlington needs more bike parking. When giving directions to town events, Ms. Litowski suggests giving walking and biking directions first, and driving directions last. There are climate and housing challenges we need to address -- we'll need to build more, and we'll need to build well. She says that policies can't be so complicated that no one can figure them out.

(?) The commenter suggests that we consider how to incentivize the behaviors we want, and disincentivize the behaviors we don't want.

(Jo Almond) Ms. Almond attended the Mountain School in Vermont. She sees climate education as a way to shift culture and to help people see more possibilities. There is a humanities piece to all of this.

(?) Education is a big piece, and climate education isn't integrated into many school programs.

(?) Could we overlay a biodiversity map with a map of gas leaks? The town should have a holistic energy strategy.

(?) In the future, we hope to get blocks of people transitioning their homes to electricity. Like the networked geothermal pilot being planned near the Thompson School.

(?) Arlington has awesome biodiversity for an urbanized area. Parks are a good entry point to learning about nature.

(?) Around 2600 different species of plants, animals, and insects have been identified in Arlington, according to iNaturalist.

(?) It's easy to feel overwhelmed when looking at the challenges of climate change. It's great to see so many groups addressing different pieces of the puzzle.

Meeting adjourned.