By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

staying course

City of Red Deer not shifting focus on environmental targets

Jul 8, 2019 | 6:35 PM

A review of The City of Red Deer’s 25-year Environmental Master Plan (EMP) is finished, and as city council heard Monday night, city staff feels there’s no reason for much of a shift from its current direction.

Adopted in 2011, the EMP focuses on six key areas – air, community design, ecology, energy, waste and water.

“This plan is addressing climate change in a very broad way. There are some specific targets in the plan for community greenhouse gas emissions reductions, as well as for corporations,” says Environmental Initiatives Supervisor Nancy Hackett. “In terms of actions, there are many throughout the plan that may contribute to the mitigation of climate impacts.”

Hackett says The City and its citizens have excelled in the area of water conservation.

Nancy Hackett, City of Red Deer Environmental Initiatives Supervisor (rdnewsNOW file photo)

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“We’ve surpassed our goals set in 2011,” she says noting that as of 2017, potable water consumption has gone down 22 per cent, past the 15 per cent target.

“Water is a scarce resource. We’ve had a lot of rain this year, but some years we have a very dry year and then that links into ecology and impacts on our river system and into our watershed,” she explains.

“Also, it costs a lot of effort and energy to treat water and create potable water through the water treatment. If we can conserve that, we’re reducing our greenhouse gas emissions as well.”

Red Deerians have done well to take advantage of City rebates on rain barrels and low flow toilets, Hackett adds, and waste management objectives are trending positively since the introduction of green carts for organics.

Other areas of focus where more work will be done include air quality, and adapting to the many changes in the energy sector.

“We’ve seen very large solar installations, such as at Red Deer College, so we can see the community is ready to start installing renewable energy,” she says. “So how can we start using more of that and at the same time be conserving energy? Alberta uses more energy per household than any other province.”

Air quality is also a high priority.

At the end of the day, the Environmental Master Plan, which is titled ‘Our Environment, Our Future’ sets out 20 actions, down from the 120 the plan previously prescribed.

The full updated EMP can be viewed at RedDeer.ca.