From flooding to wildfires, communities across Colorado are contending with the impacts of climate change, according to many experts.
In Littleton, a group of volunteers recently presented a plan to the city council, highlighting what they think are good short- and long-term steps the city can take to address some of those impacts — and to better take care of the environment.
The seven-member Environmental Stewardship Board has brainstormed, listened to public comments, researched and developed the plan. About a year in the works, it was the first deliverable for the advisory board, which the city council created in 2023.
“Climate change is the defining crisis of my lifetime,” said Geoff Frazier, a member of the board. “Littleton is a beautiful community and there’s a lot we can do that, frankly, should have been done, or at least evaluated, long ago.”
The 19-page plan touches on practically every corner of Littleton. It recommends initiatives to address air quality and emissions. It looks at city buildings, waste diversion, open and natural spaces, water and the community’s awareness of the issues. The recommendations are diverse in effort and impact many levels of city life — ranging from suggestions to convert the city’s vehicles to electric energy to offering compost pickup services.
Now the city must decide which recommendations are the most feasible and how to implement them.
One of the plan’s highest-priority items is completing a greenhouse gas inventory, which would be used to inform a future climate action plan.
“We need to act and lower our emissions — and every city, state, county and country needs to be doing the same work, but we can only control what we can control,” Frazier said. “In order for us to do so and put a plan together, we have to know where we’re at.”
Conducting an inventory of emissions in Littleton would help the city set specific reduction goals, Frazier said.
Board member Hannah Kight said creating a climate action plan would then give the city more detailed direction, with insight from experts.
“This would be a really comprehensive deep-dive into how climate could impact the city, some of the detrimental impacts — such as flooding, wildfires, air quality, all of those things,” she said.
It would also analyze efforts being taken at the state level to see how Littleton could make the biggest impact locally, she said.
The board also recommended that the city hire a full-time sustainability coordinator. The city is already in the process of hiring for this role, which the council approved for the 2024 budget in 2023.
“I think that person is going to be key in really fleshing out the details and (working) both with city staff, council and the environmental stewardship board to really execute on a lot of these items and provide the expertise that a volunteer board that meets once or twice a month simply can’t,” Frazier said.
Mayor Pro Tem Stephen Barr, who helped push for the creation of the environmental stewardship board and serves as its council liaison, said he is excited about the plan’s suggestion to implement green infrastructure for stormwater management.
As opposed to traditional stormwater infrastructure that moves water away from the built environment with curbs, gutters and drains, green infrastructure is designed to mimic nature and capture rainwater where it falls, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This can involve using trees, rain gardens and more.
Noting a failure in the city’s traditional stormwater infrastructure last year when a culvert collapsed into a sinkhole, Barr said considering green infrastructure could be a great opportunity for Littleton.
“My background is in water; that’s what I’ve studied my whole life,” he said. “I’m really excited to see our city starting to take those first steps as we seek to turn our old stormwater infrastructure into almost a new paradigm of how stormwater is managed.”
He said the city is also in discussion with Englewood and Sheridan to see how they can work together, especially for improving waste management processes.
Currently, several different waste hauling companies operate in the city each week, sometimes meaning several trucks going down the same neighborhood street to pick up trash at different houses, Frazier said.
He said this process is both environmentally and economically inefficient. A consolidated waste hauling program, contracted by the city, would give “more leverage to work with one hauler and set specific measurable requirements” and would “lessen the amount of trucks causing noise (and) pollution up and down our streets,” he said.
The plan also involves ways the city can empower and allow residents to make changes at the household level. For example, it recommends teaching people how to compost at home, making it easier for people to use solar panels and offering a program for people to trade their lawns out for turf.
Barr said this individualized aspect is a strength of the document.
“It forces us to more individually connect with residents on an environmental basis to make quality of life improvements that have compounding effects.”
Kight said the plan requires collaboration.
“The plan, I think, fosters a special kind of community engagement and encourages everyone in the community to educate themselves and actively participate in the environmental stewardship and just general long-term sustainability of Littleton,” she said.
She encouraged interested residents to learn more about the city’s current programs at https://www.littletonco.gov/Government/City-Services/GreenEnvironmental-Programs.
Even beyond themselves, Frazier said people have a responsibility to do this work for future generations.
“I have two young kids, and I want them to inherit a livable planet where they can go outside in the summer and not worry about the air,” he said. “Climate change is the crisis of my lifetime, I believe, and I think we have a moral obligation to do everything we can to limit, reverse, or respond to it, or prevent it from getting worse.”
Moving forward, city staffers are evaluating the plan to determine which steps it can take next and how it can collaborate with other cities to approach some of the recommendations, Barr said.