Green Bay's best air in 20 years

In today’s Press Gazette there was a front page headline that read “Pollution problem still hovers over Green Bay.” Anyone who lives downtown, like I do, realizes this is true. It is definitely an issue that has to be dealt with.

These headlines are bad for business and bad for Green Bay’s image. I am worried that some of our leaders may want to solve the problem by eliminating the headlines and not by eliminating the pollution. At times, they seem to be more worried about image than about our quality of life.

In a very positive step for Green Bay, Mayor Schmitt recently formed a Sustainable Green Bay Task Force. One of the working subcommittees is going to be dealing with air and water issues. Hopefully, as difficult a challenge as it may be, they will be dealing with this issue. If Green Bay is truly to be a sustainable community that cares about the environment and has people living and working in an exciting downtown, our air quality has to be a major concern.

If you read between the lines of the article, the major source of the problem is still coming from the burning of coal for energy at several factories. Energy use is at the heart of our air problems. We have to start producing clean and renewable energy. Still, there is no excuse for the non-energy toxic load being dumped into our air, and there is definitely no excuse for the problems described at Western Lime Corporation.

The article also mentions that the city struggles to comply with state standards for particulate and ozone production caused by cars and trucks. From what I see as I walk around town, pollution from vehicles is a MAJOR problem.

The city and state should not wait for the federal government to solve our air problems. That would take forever, especially with our current federal government. We can address our air quality with locally produced solutions.

So how DO we solve our air pollution problem? The article seemed to leave this out. I have some ideas.

Conserve energy.
Use clean and renewable energy supplies.
Make sure all local factories are not breaking any current air pollution laws and continue to make examples of the ones who are.
Make our sate and local laws the toughest in the country.
Work with local companies to find and attract the engineers they need to solve their waste problems.
Make every effort to attract sustainable and non-polluting businesses to our downtown.
Continue the effort to revitalize downtown to make it a place where people want to live and work so that they can walk to work and walk for services.
Make Green Bay more walkable and bikeable so that people don’t have to drive every day.

Austin, TX, cleaned up its air by forming a municipal energy utility and focusing on energy efficiency and renewable energy sources. Seattle slashed its particulate pollution by focusing on reducing pollution from its own fleet of heavy-duty diesel vehicles and creating “urban villages” that cluster offices, stores, and homes in walkable villages. Green Bay could do the same thing.

The news is not all bad. The article did point out that our air is much cleaner than it was twenty years ago. Maybe that should have been the headline. However, we can’t stop focusing on this issue. Our quality of life, health, and economy depend on it.

eddy out,
rich