Published October 2, 2008
SustainLane spoke with Dallas city officials in August of 2008. On the line with us was Laura Fiffick, now former director of the Office of Environmental Quality; Nicole Cooper, environmental coordinator for air quality; Eric Griffin, current interim director of the Office of Environmental Quality; and Meghna Tare of the sustainability office. Dallas is working to increase sustainability through many local and regional, and public and private partnerships, they said. These collaborations are crucial, as the city faces staggering air quality problems due to industry.
Read the full Q&A below:
SustainLane: How did the city of Dallas develop spatially?
Fiffick: In 1839, there was a gentleman who settled on the Trinity River, which transects the city of Dallas right at downtown, and he charged people who crossed the Trinity. The city started and grew up around from there. Dallas . If you look at a map, we are part of a large “metroplex,” where Dallas and Fort Worth are the two main cities. But there are also other cities that we share common boundaries with and common environmental issues and initiatives.
Cooper: After the Civil War, the railroad came through in 1872. That’s really when Dallas became a huge transportation hub to the west. Things really started to roll, literally, when the railroad came through.
Tare: Texas, in general, is one of the biggest transportation heads. It has the largest number of railroad miles of any state in the country. Texas, and particularly North Texas , became a crossroads for transportation and for goods & commerce in the United States . One example is the huge old Sears, Roebuck & Company warehouse here in Dallas once served the entire western half of the United States. That’s a pretty shining example of its value as a commercial and transportation hub
Dallas had a cotton economy first and then the oil came second in the 1920s and 30s, and then I think growing up around both of those industries, naturally became a banking and insurance industry center.
Cooper: The metro area didn’t grow at all until the 40s, and you could tie that to post-war expansion, like returning soldiers. Almost all the little towns around Dallas have been suburbs until very, very recently. If you go through the history of annexation in Dallas, and you look at the amount of annexation that went on, something like 70% or better all occurred right after WW II.
SustainLane: How has Dallas changed between WW II and the present day?
Tare: Annexations, and obviously Cotton declined earlier than that.
Griffin: In the early 70s we got our own technical port, and that has been the heartbeat of success up to today.
Tare: Even before the international airport at Love field, there was a municipally-owned airport, one of the busiest cargo hubs in the country. I would say transportation generally is what made Dallas move, from railroads to planes.
Griffin: Now we are actually working on an international trade center, like an inland port so that we can receive goods that can come into the United States but aren’t checked until they arrive into the Dallas area where they can be diverted to trains and planes.
Fiffick: The focus right now is on inner city living and on our DART [Dallas Area Rapid Transit] stations and transit oriented development.
Tare: Dallas is relatively late in coming to the game as far as developing a really good sustainable inter-urban transportation system. If you go to the other major cities of our size, like San Francisco or Washington D.C., they are going to have long century-old mass transit systems that work pretty effectively. Dallas has been very, very attached to personal automobiles for a long time.
Griffin : The reason is that we didn’t propose public transit until 1983, and it didn’t go into action until 1985 or 1986.
Fiffick: The transit system here has just exploded, especially in the past two years.
SustainLane: What are some challenges unique to Dallas because of its geography?
Tare: Well, let’s put it this way; IKEA for example, loves cities that have ports and we have two, in fact. I think that some people see that we have other ways of moving things, not necessarily by boat. Transportation, getting different services is a huge thing; of course we are also on one of the biggest interstates in the country, I35, which goes all the way up to Canada; so, it’s a challenge to meet the demands of the volume of transportation that is coming through this area. The potential construction that seems to be going on, on the interstate is just incredible, and I think that speaks volumes about the need for extremely good roads and reliability to move volumes of goods. I don’t know if that says anything about a challenge; and then also water is a big challenge.
Fiffick: There are a lot of lakes in the area. One of the interesting histories of Dallas is that in 1950’s, we actually ran out of water. There was a terrible drought, and the city officials said that it would never happen to us again. So Dallas has really done a lot with water planning and water conservation to make sure that we can meet our needs. We also provide water to a lot of the neighboring cities, so we act collectively when it comes to water conservation and water restrictions and so forth.
SustainLane: Between the water supply and the temperature, are there any other built- in limitations that Dallas might have for environmental sustainability?
Fiffick: I think the whole conversation about how we are a transportation center, which becomes a difficult challenge when you talk air quality.
One thing we do is work collaboratively with EPA as part of their Sustainable Skylines initiative. The EPA has another program where they are focusing on emissions reductions not only for trucks that are based here in Dallas, but ones that are licensed in other states. We are looking at air quality from a transportation perspective instead of a region perspective. We work with Los Angeles for stuff coming out of LA; if they do emissions reduction there, it benefits us too. Same thing with Houston.
One of the ideas with our inland port is [to enact policies that not only benefit Dallas, but other port cities as well]. For example, if I go to every state, and I have to stop and have my cargo checked in every state, then every place I stop, I idle my vehicle, and I waste gas, and I waste time. If I can do one check that passes me for the next four states to come, I save a lot of resources. That’s what the inland port is supposed to do.
SustainLane: When you are working with other cities and states, is that through lobbying efforts?
Fiffick: I think it’s more of a voluntary collaboration, and it is working. The EPA has a program called Blue Skyways Collaborative. Through Blue Skyways, we find partners that are interested in working across state lines. Wal-Mart is one of them. You try to collaborate with people that have a lot of cargo transiting through different states, and get them to make voluntary commitments to reduce their emissions and fuel usage.
SustainLane: Do you think that lowering emissions and fuel use and switching to renewables will eventually be regulated by law, or do you think it’s doing fine on a volunteer path?
Fiffick: I think you need both. You need the carrot and stick. In this region we need more federal measures to do more for our air quality issues. Volunteer measures work for lot of people but they don’t work for others.
SustainLane: What are your biggest air pollution problems?
Fiffick: The number one issue for Dallas is ozone because we are not in attainment for that pollutant. When we start looking at air quality initiatives. Our first concern is with NOX [nitrous oxides] and VOC [volatile organic compounds], but they are quickly followed up with carbon dioxide and particulate matter.
SustainLane: What are some changes Dallas is taking to become more sustainable?
Fiffick: We have a plan called Forward Dallas. It’s a comprehensive land use plan that [takes into account sustainable] initiatives, including transit-oriented development. We just got out of a meeting today about “form-based zoning,” which is planning based on how we want the city to look in years to come.
We just adopted our green building programs for residents and commercial buildings in Dallas. We have had green building programs for city buildings since about 2000, but our mayor just adopted green buildings for commercial and residential.
Dallas just went to 40 percent renewable purchase for our energy, and that makes us the largest purchaser of renewable power in the country.
SustainLane: Is the renewable energy being purchased through your local utilities?
Fiffick: Right. There are lots of local providers here in Dallas, mostly privately owned companies.
SustainLane: Are you purchasing mostly wind power?
Fiffick: Yes.
SustainLane: How close are you to the big wind farms in West Texas ?
Fiffick: We are probably a 3 or 4 hour drive. There is a huge amount of wind available in West Texas, and the problem has been transmission. We are really in a fight with the state office over those issues.
We are also getting ready to put our first small-scale wind on a city facility. We have a committee working on solar, and we have done a lot with our lights. Green purchasing, like the type of computers we buy, and the energy star programs are other examples. There is a whole list of energy conservation initiatives, but they basically roll up into a five percent [annual reduction]goal each year. Other than one year over the past seven years, we have met that five percent goal.
We just got ISO 14001-certified across all major city operations. We were the first city to do that in the country, which is basically just getting every city employee involved in environmental issues, and making every city employee conscious of what he/she is doing. It organizes and manages all of our environmental initiatives and makes sure that we are monitoring and measuring our progress, and reporting to council and the mayor on what and how well we are doing. It organizes everything into a system.
We just started a new initiative called “A New Throne for Your Home.”So, we have free upgrades for low-flow toilets.We bought our first natural gas vehicle in 19’93, and we just continued to grow that program. We have a bio-diesel program. We bought a lot of hybrids, and we are working on hydraulic hybrids for our sanitation truck fleet.
SustainLane: Can you explain what performance contracting is and how you’re using it?
Fiffick: We started with city hall and basically had a company come in, look at our building and create a quote to upgrade our building. For example they’d say, “For $10 million we can upgrade your building and save you this much in energy.” Then they do the upgrades at no cost to the city, but we sign an agreement where they get paid the savings over a contracted period of time. And after that, the dollar savings go the city. So, basically you get your building upgraded for free. We have done this with City Hall. We are in the process of doing the convention center, and we are doing the Love Field airport. And they are getting ready to go out to do some additional city facilities as well.
SustainLane: Explain your city’s sustainability structure.
Fiffick: I am with the Office of Environmental Quality, and we have been around since 2004. We are a part of the city manager’s office, and we report to them. Our office has 22 environmental professionals who are here to help consult and guide whatever we need to do to move forward on the city’s environmental issues and initiatives. The departments have their own environmental staff, and they have initiatives in place. Some have new initiatives, and we go in there and help them move it to the next level and help find grants for the. It’s really a collaboration between Office of Environmental Quality and departmental environmental staff.
In the past, the city departments were silos. They did their own initiatives, and they wouldn’t talk to anybody else. One department might be doing a lot with water conservation and another with energy, and surely we can learn from each other. That’s why the Office of Environmental Quality was brought in: to help partner those relationships, help drive environmental programs further, and report our progress consistently to the manager’s office.
SustainLane: What are the best transportation options for Dallas residents right now?
Fiffick: Freeways. Obviously we are trying to get people off the freeways. We have a partnership with DART, to try to get more people off of the road and onto the train. DART has a lot of expansion plans. Actually, we have a new line coming in this year. DART is greatly expanding, and then we are trying to get people to live closer to the DART stations. There is also the bus system.
Griffin: Right now our transit systems are mainly the spokes. We have to start doing the hub, and that’s what we intend to do over the next several years. With transit-oriented development becoming the common vernacular to the council, we’ve started to see a lot more that. If you have a chance to look at Mockingbird Station online you would see what steps are there. We are trying another one in another neighborhood just north of that. With the price of fuel right now, we have seen a huge increase in ridership on trains, so maybe people will start to get familiar with the fact that it is easy to do, and it doesn’t cost very much.
Fiffick: We have also got another initiative with bike lanes. We have twice as many bike lanes as any city in the state. But there was a philosophy that the bike lane shouldn’t be marked because average bike riders don’t want to ride in a bike lane that has a lot of gravel in it or sand or debris, and so cars driving in and out of the lane would actually help with that. But what we find is that unless you are an avid bike rider, people are afraid to ride on a street unless the lane is marked. We have got a new initiative to go out and mark bike lane so that the average rider will feel more comfortable riding in a bike lane.
SustainLane: How do you move people closer to transportation corridors?
Fiffick: A number of different ways. One is working with developers to build high-rise living areas near the DART stations, and then focus on getting the retail there, and getting the commercial businesses there, so you can work, bike, play and live all in the same area. So that’s what our “Forward Dallas” program is really about. And then it’s education. For example, we are going to have an event with DART, where we have all of the developers along the DART stations open up their condominiums, townhouses and apartments for tours. DART is going to provide free passage, and we are going to have an event at every station related to an environmental initiative like energy or air quality. We’ll also have free stuff for the kids and bands just to get people comfortable riding in DART, to learn how to buy the tickets, and know how to get on the train, and also to show them what’s available for them if they live near a DART station.
SustainLane: How do you work these public private partnerships, engaging developers and retail?
Fiffick: We have an office of economic development, and they work collaboratively with them. I think they offer financial incentives. They court businesses to come in, so it’s a partnership between the city and the private sector to get those things through.
SustainLane: Are people living in Mockingbird Station already, or did it just open?
Fiffick: Oh no, it’s been there since I have been in the city. So its been at least 7- 9 years. You go down there and you can get off the train and walk to a hotel, theatres, restaurants. There are businesses operating there now and lots of high rise residential.
When I moved here five years ago, downtown was dead after 5:00 pm. But now, around a lot of the stations there, we are seeing our residential numbers growing exponentially. In the past, supermarkets just wouldn’t operate downtown. We got a grocery store to open in downtown, and the city subsidized it. Like I said, the public private partnership helped get the services that people need to want to live there… around these stations.
SustainLane: As for water, I understand that most of it comes from reservoirs. Are these primarily fed by rainwater?
Fiffick: It all comes from surface water, sourced from upstream rivers and from other lakes. Another interesting issue going on here in environmental sustainability is how much water we send downstream. You look at the Trinity and it goes into Galveston Bay. The city of Dallas provides lot of water to that river. Our initiative was to conserve water and then to reuse water. We are working on finding out how much water we need to send downstream so that Galveston Bay and some of the other estuaries flourish in this state while balancing our need to conserve.
SustainLane: How many years has Dallas been in a drought?
Fiffick: Last summer we were in a deep drought. Cities were really starting to struggle, and our lake levels were down so much that one of them almost disappeared. Then last July, the rain came – and it rained and rained – then our lakes were all full and over-flowing. So far this summer, we’re ok. If we keep on having 105-degree days and no winds, I think towards September, or October we may be hurting. It’s been a hot and dry summer.
SustainLane: Do you have any programs to capture rainwater when the storms do happen?
Fiffick: That’s a good question for Dallas water utilities. They do a lot of water planning. We have some rainwater harvesting projects that we are doing that’s small scale compared to our reservoirs. The last one we did was in a community garden on city property. We partnered a rainwater harvesting vendor with the community and got one installed for free. But we have some going on in city properties associated with our green building initiatives. Dallas water utilities are working on a rebate program for residences.
SustainLane: Since Katrina, has Dallas done any long-term planning for environmental refugees?
Fiffick: Yes. We have an Office of Emergency Management, and I felt like it went smoothly in the Katrina issue. But when Rita was coming in right after that, meaning that if we had responded to two significant Hurricanes right in a row, it would have been straining and difficult. It’s a cost issue too. It’s a lot of money over a short period of time. Right after that, they had a task force working on that with plans in place for Dallas to respond to all different kinds of scenarios that could happen on the coast. This task force is not just for Dallas, but for all the cities in the area.
SustainLane: From your comments, it sounds like there is a lot of cooperation at the local and regional levels.
Fiffick: Yes, absolutely. More and more cities are getting sustainability officers or someone assigned to the environmental tasks, and we get together fairly frequently. In fact, last year—I don’t know if you followed the TXU power plant debate in Texas —but our Mayor formed a task force to address it, and we had 36 cities, counties, and school districts coming together on that one issue. And this task force is still functioning today. We just signed an agreement with one power plant where we negotiated lower emissions from the plant, and we are still working together. It’s great when you have neighboring cities and you can partner on different environmental initiatives.
SustainLane: Are residents of Dallas are supportive of sustainability initiatives?
Fiffick: Yes. We launched our website, GreenDallas.net in January. We did this for two reason: one was to say what the city of Dallas is doing on environmental initiatives, and the other was to help our residents pick up environmental stuff themselves. We need each person here in the city to do his/her part if we are going to make this area sustainable. We had 100,000 hits a month for the first 6 months. We get a ton of emails with questions like, “I want a solar panel, I want to do small scale wind,” and also with recycling questions.
The last initiative we did with residents was about a month ago. If they brought in their old gas-powered lawn mower, we gave them a rebate for an electric mower. So, instead of buying an electric mower for 450 bucks, they could buy it for 250. We had 400 mowers, and I think we had a waiting list of 200 to 300 people on our waiting list. So, every initiative that we offer just really seems to take off.
SustainLane: Is there a growing conservation culture in Dallas?
Fiffick: You know, Dallas has been known for being big and over-consuming– big trucks and SUVs and that kind of stuff. It just seems like in the last year or so what has taken off here is a love of the trees and love of the lakes. As people become more educated, they are making different decisions. We just see a huge difference in interest and participation just through our website and even through our 311 line: people are calling in with environmental questions or complaints or whatever it might be. People are just more aware.
SustainLane: Does Dallas support a technology incubator for green technologies, like Austin does?
Fiffick: There are different forums that go on around the city. We are not involved in it like Austin is. One of the other things we are working on is green-collar jobs. We saw what Oakland did, and we thought that it was really great. That’s not exactly what you are talking about, but just the idea of having our universities here focused on sustainability and advancing technologies as well as providing the work force here to support these increases in request for energy efficiency audits and solar panels.
SustainLane: What are the biggest challenges Dallas faces in the next 50 years?
Fiffick: Air quality. We are growing, we are trying to encourage people to ride DART and turn off their vehicles and drive smaller vehicles and all that, but its just a struggle. And when you consider the fact that we are a transportation hub, and we have a lot of people that just drive through here, it makes air quality difficult. We need cleaner fuels and cleaner engines now.
Water quantity is another. The city of Dallas as well as its surrounding communities have the same issue: how are we going to continue to reduce our consumption and maintain growth.
From an environmental perspective, those are the two things that worry me the most. When I say air quality, it’s not just ozone. Climate change opens up a whole host of other things. When hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans , the impact on the city of Dallas was huge. I think we got 100,000 evacuees, and we are continuing to provide support to our cities on the coast. It’s something that we think about a lot.
Learn More:
- "In Many Communities, It's Not Easy Going Green", February 7, 2008, New York Times
- SustainLane Ranking of Dallas' Sustainability
- Green Restaurants, Grocery Stores and more in Dallas
- Green Dallas - Official city site
Photo Caption: Laura Fiffick is former director of Dallas' office of environmental quality (Photo by Mark Graham for The New York Times).
