Faulconer: $127M for climate change projects

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In the latest effort to roll out San Diego’s nationally recognized blueprint for reducing greenhouse gases, Mayor Kevin Faulconer on Monday released the first detailed funding strategy for projects meant to help the city deal with climate change.

The mayor repeatedly stressed his belief that San Diego should balance its fight against global warming with financial responsibility so that businesses and ratepayers aren’t economically crippled.

The funding and implementation outline for the city’s Climate Action Plan will cost about $127 million, according to Faulconer’s proposed fiscal 2017 budget. The money would pay for dozens of projects including tree planting, striping of bike lanes, solar panel installations, sidewalk and road repairs, and stormwater and sewer upgrades.

“This over $100 million is just the down payment,” Faulconer said during a news conference next to the Mission Bay Aquatic Center. “It’s going to help us create the foundation we need as we build a better and cleaner future for all of San Diego.”

The mayor’s office and other city officials looked at department expenditures and identified funds that could count as direct or indirect efforts toward combating climate change.

“I went through and talked to all our departments and asked what are we doing to support the Climate Action Plan, and I tried to capture all those actions,” said Cody Hooven, sustainability manager for the city and co-author of the implementation plan.

Of the targeted funding, $32.7 million would cover projects or strategies that reduce greenhouse gases or are specifically required in the plan.

In addition, there’s more than $94 million for programs that indirectly support the plan because they have some association with climate change. That includes brush maintenance for fire prevention and measures to curb pollution from stormwater runoff.

The largest expense by far is $65.7 million for the city’s water recycling program, known as Pure Water.

That program, expected to cost a total of $3.5 billion over coming decades, was a negotiated alternative with environmentalists who wanted upgrades to the Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Facility so it would meet federal clean water standards.

“Not all the funding is directly correlated with greenhouse-gas reductions,” Hooven said. “There’s a lot of co-benefits for why we’re funding what we are. Pure Water is an example of a really high infrastructure cost program that even without the Climate Action Plan is still a good thing for us to do.”

The implementation strategy also calls for establishing new ways to evaluate progress, she said. In November, the city is scheduled to release its first annual report on the climate plan, complete with metrics for tracking greenhouse-gas emissions yearly.

During the news conference, Faulconer emphasized the possible financial benefits of being greener.

“This is a plan for creating economic opportunity for every San Diego family and community,” he said. “I believe that we have the opportunity to make San Diego one of the green energy and solar capitals of the world.”