This came across my email desk today. I belong to a discussion group for residents of West Jordan. An elected city official belongs to the group and passed this on, in response to his desire to make West Jordan the cleanest city in Utah.
This comes from Readers Digest and the top five cleanest cities:
America’s Top 5 Cleanest Cities
From air to water to trash, Reader’s Digest ran the numbers. The results
will surprise you.
By Derek Burnett
What Is a Clean City?
What’s the cleanest big city in America? How about the dirtiest? And what
about the place where you live — did it make the list?
Reader’s Digest compared data on our 50 most populous metropolitan areas to
come up with a ranking of America’s cleanest cities. You might be able to
guess some of the winners — and losers. But get ready for plenty of
surprises.
First, though, what is a clean city? Ideally, it’s a place where the air
quality is good, the water is safe to drink, and factories aren’t dumping
harmful chemical waste into the environment. It’s also a place where you
look up and down streets that are free of garbage, and stroll through parks
without wading through litter. To gauge these things, we used several
databases as yardsticks for measuring cleanliness. That data pertained not
just to the cities themselves, but to their Metropolitan Statistical Areas
(MSAs), which include the surrounding suburbs and counties.
We also wanted to dig beneath the data to find out just what our
highest-scoring cities were doing right. So we talked with policymakers,
economists, activists and government workers in the top five cities. As
you’ll see, these places have earned their rankings — and their success
holds some lessons for the rest of us.
#5 San Francisco
(Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco and San Mateo counties)
Background: Once a prominent shipping and manufacturing center, San
Francisco now has booming financial and business sectors. Since 1980, the
city’s population has increased by more than a third and its per capita
income ranks among the nation’s highest. Few places have a citizenry that is
more environmentally conscious.
Problems: Like nearly every traffic-clogged urban California area, San
Francisco has struggled with high emissions of greenhouse gases and carbon
monoxide. Its Hunter’s Point area is home to two polluting power plants and
a highly contaminated Naval Shipyard, now defunct. In 2002, a national
report found that while San Francisco’s source water was safe, its tap water
contained high levels of a cancer-causing contaminant known as total
trihalomethanes, or TTHM, a byproduct of chlorinating water.
Solutions: San Francisco has benefited from the state of California’s bold
and controversial air-quality regulations. The city’s Environment Department
— something many municipalities lack — is seeking to close the power
plants at Hunter’s Point, and the federal EPA is overseeing a massive
cleanup of the shipyard there. Meanwhile, San Francisco is in the forefront
of efforts to promote the use of clean-air vehicles, with its public transit
leading the way. The city’s bus fleet includes over 700 electric-drive
vehicles, with plans to convert all the buses to this clean-air technology
by 2020. As for concerns about its drinking water, San Francisco responded
by modifying its water treatment process, which brought the TTHM levels back
down into the safe zone. Finally, the local government is finding ways to
push energy savings, including a program that encourages residents to
exchange their old strings of holiday lights for a free set of more
efficient LED bulbs, courtesy of the city and Pacific Gas and Electric.
#4 Columbus, Ohio
(Delaware, Fairfield, Franklin, Licking, Madison, Morrow, Pickaway and Union
counties)
Background: Ohio’s capital, according to the latest census, was the only
major city in the state to grow in population. And Columbus’s geographical
expansion continues. Its economy is light on industry — less than 12% of
its job force works in the manufacturing sector. The big growth has been in
financial and insurance businesses, as well as retail. Meanwhile, per capita
income here is slightly below our 50-city average.
Problems: Columbus’s steady development has made it tough to keep the city’s
watersheds clean. Also, an aging storm water and sewage system has caused
overflows and backups in recent years. Litter has been a manageable problem,
although Columbus has a recycling rate of just 4%, which Mayor Michael
Coleman calls “pitiful.” And finally, the late 1990s were marked by a sudden
increase in ugly graffiti on both public and private property.
Solutions: Mayor Coleman supports a moratorium on development of sensitive
watershed land, but has also pushed for redevelopment of brownfields
(contaminated land kept vacant until sites can be cleaned up). The mayor
recently unveiled a new initiative, “Get Green Columbus,” which established
an Office of Environmental Stewardship. Also underway is a program to update
the sewage and storm water systems. To spruce up unsightly areas, Columbus
has committed to removing graffiti within two days of its appearance.
Through the city’s Neighborhood Pride program, a handful of communities each
year get a solid week of concentrated cleanup, including tree trimming,
hydrant painting, graffiti abatement, bulk trash pickup and litter removal.
#3 Buffalo, New York
(Erie and Niagara counties)
Background: Long known as a Rust Belt city where steel was king, Buffalo was
hit hard when that industry went into steep decline more than two decades
ago. As steel plants shut down, Buffalo was forced to rebuild its economy
from the ground up. But by leveraging its assets, including a low cost of
living and cheap, clean hydroelectric energy generated by nearby Niagara
Falls, Buffalo has begun luring new, nonmanufacturing businesses to the
area.
Problems: After the shuttering of its steel plants and oil refineries, the
region was left with the residue of its industrial past: A heavily polluted
Buffalo River and acres of brownfields and Superfund sites, including the
notorious Love Canal. By the 1990s, Buffalo’s dwindling population,
shrinking tax base and fiscal problems meant drastic cuts in city services
— including sanitation. As a result, huge trash piles often accumulated in
front of homes, sometimes going uncollected for days on end. At the same
time, Buffalo was struggling with a sizable rat infestation.
Solutions: With the help of environmental quality bonds and Superfund
dollars, Buffalo has made great strides in containing and cleaning up
brownfields and contaminated sites. Meanwhile, plans are underway to turn
part of the former Bethlehem Steel site — an 1,100-acre brownfield on the
shores of Lake Erie — into a wind farm that will generate clean power for
businesses and residents. The state is also overseeing a Buffalo River
cleanup, already successful enough to draw boaters and fishermen back to the
waterway. As for the trash problems, Buffalo undertook an award-winning
restructuring of its garbage collection system. A fleet of 13 high-tech
street sweepers, deployed 24 hours a day during non-winter months, now helps
keep the streets clear of debris. And the city has dramatically curbed the
rat problem by distributing large, securely covered garbage bins to every
residence in the city.
#2 San Jose, California
(San Benito and Santa Clara counties)
Background: This area’s booming high-tech business during the 1980s and
1990s earned it the name Silicon Valley. Numerous semiconductor and computer
chip manufacturers brought in huge numbers of highly educated workers,
driving up house values and living costs. Then the dot-com bust hit, and San
Jose suddenly lost 200,000 jobs. Now the city is seeking to reinvent itself
as a center for innovation and research in such diverse fields as
pharmaceuticals and automotives.
Problems: In the early 1980s, a leaking underground storage tank filled with
trichloroethane, a solvent suspected of causing reproductive and
developmental problems, was found to be contaminating the drinking water of
65,000 people near a semiconductor plant. Over the next few years Silicon
Valley became dotted with Superfund sites; at one time, Santa Clara County
had more such sites than any other county in the country. Besides the
high-tech contamination, the Valley’s rapid growth resulted in extensive
sprawl, which means traffic, and air pollution — trapped by surrounding
mountains.
Solutions: The widespread pollution gave rise to a strong grass-roots
environmental movement that pressured industry to clean up its mess.
Industry responded by going the extra mile, setting higher standards for
itself than required. The EPA, meanwhile, is overseeing the containment and
cleanup of the Superfund sites. Because so much groundwater had been
contaminated, the Santa Clara Valley Water District became a national leader
in testing and protecting drinking water. As for its traffic woes, San Jose
can thank the state of California for stricter regulations that have helped
reduce the carbon monoxide and diesel particulates in the air. The bottom
line for San Jose: It’s a city now known nationwide for its clean streets,
fresh air, and healthy lifestyle.
#1 Portland, Oregon
(Clackamas, Columbia, Multnomah, Washington and Yamhill counties, Oregon;
Clark and Skamania counties, Washington)
Background: Portland, long an important port and shipbuilding center, now
also has a burgeoning high-tech sector, and a robust manufacturing base in
paper, metal products and sportswear. Nonetheless, the per capita income is
below the average for the 50 cities in our analysis.
Problems: A six-to-nine-mile stretch of the Willamette River’s Portland
Harbor was declared a Superfund site in 2000. The sewer system is ancient
and poorly designed, combining storm water runoff with sewage in the same
piping system. Industries in Multnomah County, Portland’s home, continue to
spew an estimated 1.85 million pounds of toxics into the air, water and
land.
Solutions: Portland belongs to the country’s only elected regional
government, which means the city coordinates its planning and growth
decisions with its neighbors. This arrangement has allowed Portland to make
far-ranging decisions, such as the establishment of a growth boundary around
its urban center. Land inside this invisible circle is fair game for
development; outside the circle there’s only open space and farmland. The
result is not only a well-preserved agricultural region just outside the
city, but also a vibrant, livable urban area where public transportation
rules. To attract even more riders, the bus and light rail system has turned
a section of downtown into a fare-free zone. The city did another smart
thing when it was looking into a green building ordinance: It met with 200
developers to find out exactly what regulatory or financial hurdles were
preventing them from using “sustainable” principles, and then laid out a
plan. To resolve the sewage problem, Portland has invested over a billion
dollars in the “Big Pipe Project,” which will lay massive pipes alongside
the Willamette to carry waste to a treatment plant. In 1974, the city
removed an entire freeway running alongside the Willamette’s banks and
converted the space into parkland.
What is your city’s background, problems and solutions? Can you help make your city amongst the top five cleanest cities in America?
Deanna Dee-Dee Taylor 