Its progress was the subject of a recent City Council study session.
The Mesa Climate Action Plan aims to achieve carbon neutrality, divert 90% of the city' waste from the landfill and achieve 100% renewable energy — all by 2050.
"We're proud of our Climate Action Plan," Mayor John Giles said at the Aug. 15 session. "I think we're all committed to making sure that it's not something that sits on a shelf and that every department in our city is looking for innovative ways to make progress on it."
Since the plan's adoption in 2021, Mesa has invested $15.4 million in climate projects to help reach its goals, according to an April city report.
The city has 19 more electric vehicles on order, Laura Hyneman, deputy director over Environmental and Sustainability said at the study session.
"There are significant environmental benefits of those vehicles and there are also financial benefits," Hyneman said. "There will be a reduced cost for fuel per vehicle per year."
The city will see a fuel cost savings of $1,800 per vehicle per year, according to Hyneman.
The city also is in process of upgrading lighting at city buildings with LEDs and there's a future lighting project at the sports fields, she added.
"There are significant financial savings for making this investment and there are also environmental benefits," Hyneman said. "We're reducing our energy usage and therefore there is carbon-pollution reduction."
In regards to its renewable energy goal, the city is close to seeing its Flare to Fuel Project — converting methane gas flared from the Northwest Water Reclamation Plant into renewable natural gas for its trash trucks — come to fruition.
"We're really anticipating the end of the year that we'll be cutting a ribbon and beginning the operation of the flare to fuel equipment," said Scott Bouchie, director of the Environmental Management and Sustainability Department. "It'll be about the third of the usage of natural gas that we have for our solid waste fleet," he said. "We are very excited and ready for that project to complete construction and begin producing renewable natural gas for the city."
The city also is working on developing and building facilities to process commercial food waste and incorporating the food waste into the water reclamation process to increase the renewable natural gas output.
It's anticipated that 10,000 tons of food waste would be diverted annually from the landfill.
Additionally, the city plans to begin in November solar projects at the main library and at the Sixth Street Service Center, which will "both generate renewable energy for the electric utility that the city owns but also create shade for our employees and for the patrons of the Mesa Public Library," according to Bouchie.
It's anticipated that the projects will be completed sometime in February or early March, he said.
Hyneman also detailed efforts to help residents participate and work alongside the city in protecting and preserving Mesa's environment and natural resources.
For instance, the city has increased its contributions to the Water Use It Wisely regional campaign that teaches people how to save water.
"They just exceeded 34 million impressions, which meant that people were aware of the campaign," she said. "They could take a look at the website, find great information and they could think about how they use water wisely."
The city also has launched its own campaign where customers can look at their estimated water use and are given tips on how to reduce waste, according to Hyneman.
And Mesa is doing xeriscape projects around selected city buildings.
"55 North Center we have an opportunity to remove that grass and show people how beautiful xeriscape can be," Hyneman said. "We will also use it as kind of a demonstration project — how do you protect trees during that conversion and make sure they remain."
District 6 Councilman Scott Somers said he's heard some concerns about xeriscape from the public and that people claim the city is trying to take away all the grass in the parks — which he said was not the case.
"We're just trying to get rid of the grass that doesn't serve a purpose," he said. "It's just ornamental. It just soaks up water."
Somers suggested the city conduct a demonstration project at a park in Districts 5 or 6 and invite the HOAs and anyone interested to see what the city means by xeriscape — removing excess grass that doesn't serve a purpose.
Hyneman responded that the city is working on such a project at a park.
She also noted that the city received funding from the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority of Arizona to remove turf from parks.
"Another very important initiative is the city has funded shade-tree events," Hyneman said.
Two were held in the spring and two are planned for the fall.
She also reminded residents to record their trees on the city's Trees are Cool website at mesalistens.com/trees-are-cool so "that we can meet our million tree goal by 2050."
"We've been getting some questions about how do you plant a million trees in the desert especially when water customers are concerned about water," she continued.
"That's a very important question that we have a good response for. And that is by planting desert trees those trees that thrive in our environment with natural rainfall with some supplemental irrigation, those are the trees we want to be planting.
"Areas that have no trees are hotter and drier than areas with trees so it's that messaging to people that this really affects the microclimate and the water that we have there."
District 5 Councilwoman Alicia Goforth said what would help alleviate the public's concern is perhaps turning the lost turf into functional space such as a bike trail.
"I really, really hope that we look at those kinds of things instead of just putting in rock," Goforth said.
Hyneman agreed, saying, "Some of Mesa's city parks are great examples of how you can turn our desert into just a beautiful playground."
Giles emphasized the importance of the city's work by pointing to Maricopa County's ozone increasingly exceeding the federal Environmental Protection Agency limits.
According to the Maricopa Association of Governments, ozone monitoring data from 2021-23 indicated that the Maricopa nonattainment area will not be able to meet the "moderate area attainment" date of Aug. 3, 2024. and that failure to do so will trigger a process for reclassification to "serious," which may occur between Feb 3 and Dec. 31, 2025.
"The recipe for ozone is vehicle emission and sunlight," Giles said. "Just addressing that — the health, the air quality in our community — this is an important goal to pursue."
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