Energy and Natural Resources, Disaster Preparedness
The extraordinary quality of the physical environment of our region is critical to the quality of life we enjoy.
It also underpins various sectors of our local economy, particularly our tourism and recreation industries. Successful resiliency planning requires that we include our region’s energy and natural resources including awareness of threats and opportunities. The droughts and fires we have experienced in recent years highlight the need to use our natural resources in a manner that is sustainable in the long-term and to promote land use and management practices and building codes that minimize the impact of natural disasters. Moreover, based on the experience of Sonoma County in combination with the experience of Mendocino, Lake, and Napa Counties, it has become clear over the last several years that natural disasters have become a part of living in this region. This fact underscores the need for response, mitigation and preparedness for fires, floods, and earthquakes, and to address as ongoing efforts rather than one-off projects.
Minimizing Risk of Fires
Over the past decade, California has seen a significant increase in the frequency and intensity of wildfires. To help mitigate the risk locally, we support the implementation of the Wildfire Action Plan adopted by the Chamber’s Advocacy Council. The plan includes: vegetation management and fire safety; reduction of the volume of combustible materials in the forests and woodlands of Sonoma County; reduction of the impact of new development in WUI areas; and improvements to the electric distribution system.
Hardening of the electric distribution system is critical to lessen the likelihood of fires being initiated and the impact of Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) events. With losses in the millions of dollars per PSPS event, we support investments in hardening, microgrids, and other energy back-up solutions. Major upgrades to the electric utility transmission and distribution system undertaken over the past five years have helped reduce the likelihood that transmission and distribution lines will start fires and have also reduced the extent of PSPS events. These upgrades must continue until the entire system has been hardened.
Water and Environment
Our region suffers from repeated cycles of drought. Climate change appears to be aggravating the severity of droughts leading to significant strains on water supply after repeated drought years. The health of our region relies upon continuous availability of water resources. For this reason we need to increase the water resources available to our region and continue to promote recycling, efficiency, and the retention of water for future use. Protection of our natural resources, and adequate water supply, in Sonoma County is vital to numerous industries, including tourism, hospitality, recreation, and agriculture. The Chamber supports policies that help preserve these assets in partnership with the industries that rely on them and employ significant numbers of our community members.
It is important that Sonoma Water’s budgets and rates are aligned with the capital and operating expenses needed to prudently manage our water system. Repeatedly deferring maintenance of critical public infrastructure and putting off replacing aging equipment results in long-term costs that end up greatly outweighing the short-term savings. We encourage Sonoma Water and its contractors to develop budgets and rates in the coming years that accomplish this and to work together to educate the public as to the need for higher rates to properly fund the operation of our water system.
Clean Energy
We support incentives for investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency that engage the private sector to work toward California’s goal of net zero emissions. Support investments to modernize electric grid infrastructure and expand renewable energy supplies and delivery capacity. This investment and private sector innovation will be critical to create the needed systems, products, innovations, and infrastructure to reach our clean energy goals. The sunset of solar incentives based on Net Energy Metering has created a significant chilling in the rate of solar adoption. Federal, state, and local governments should provide financial incentives to individuals and businesses to support the widespread adoption of solar energy.
