Okay, so the Middlebury Selectboard has unambiguously chosen to move ahead with a gas-fired system for drying the sludge in our rebuilt wastewater treatment plant. It will cost quite a bit less to build and (it is argued) operate than the electric heating option but will produce a lot more greenhouse gas pollution. This means that the Selectboard’s existing goal of an 80% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from the 2019 value by the year 2030 cannot be met.

It will take a couple of years for the new plant to get a final design, be built and go into production. In the meantime, the administration of our municipal government could get serious about still achieving an 80% reduction in GHG from all other sources combined by 2030.

This would mean, in my humble opinion, the Selectboard holding the Town Manager responsible, through his performance planning and evaluation process, with making steady, year-by-year progress. The department heads who are supervised by the Town Manager in turn can be held responsible for making progress in their departments. Achieving such progress can be built into their performance planning process.

I fear that over the past several years we on the Energy Committee were not assertive enough about advocating for such processes in our town’s administration. And the leadership of the Selectboard was, in any case, skeptical about the wisdom and practicality of working toward our GHG reduction goal. Note that I am a former member of the Middlebury Energy Committee who left about a year ago.

The Energy Committee would continue to prepare an annual report on progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and work closely with the Infrastructure Committee and the department heads on identifying steps that can be taken to realistically achieve those goals.

Richard Hopkins
Middlebury