Healthy Durham, Healthy Environment

This is the second of four position papers that outline Carl’s policy platform for change in Durham. Other papers in this series will address shared economic prosperity, community safety, and affordable housing.

Summary:

Every resident in Durham deserves to lead a healthy life in a natural environment that is clean and sustainable, free from environmental racism, and resilient in the face of climate change. Durham can act now in the following ways to achieve this:

• Update Durham’s climate action plan to incorporate a green jobs focus and strategies for climate resilience
• Work with the North Carolina DEQ to address lead found in public parks, with a particular focus on creative solutions that allow the site to be returned to its intended use
• Continue to implement installation and upkeep of an equitable tree canopy
• Continue investments in sidewalks, bike lanes, streets and transit
• Protect bicyclists by committing all necessary resources to the Vision Zero Action Plan
• Continue to support fare-free buses to encourage more transit use, while also expanding routes and improving reliable service
• Prioritize bus rapid transit (BRT) over commuter rail
• Resist efforts from the state DOT to widen freeways in key transportation corridors, focusing instead on making these corridors higher priority for BRT.
• Approve a green and equitable infrastructure bond to fund safe and accessible bike and pedestrian infrastructure, and Durham parks.
• Reduce reliance on single-use plastic by enacting a plastic bag fee ordinance

Healthy Durham, healthy environment

Everyone in Durham deserves to live, work and play in an environment that supports their health and well-being. A healthy environment means that all residents should have access to clean air, safe drinking water, renewable energy, reliable transportation, open spaces, access to nourishing food, and a stable climate. At the same time, racial and ethnic disparities have resulted in gaps in access to these goods, including transportation, open spaces, housing and the benefits of a climate-resistant tree canopy. As a result, the negative impacts of pollution and climate change often disproportionately impact Black and brown communities. A healthy environment in Durham must include the notion that all residents in Durham can enjoy healthy lives and are free from environmental harms.

Why is this important for Durham?

Durham prides itself on its quality of life, which includes a moderate climate, 300+ miles of hiking and recreational trails, relatively short commute times, and clean drinking water that is routinely ranked the best in the state.* Residents consistently give the city high marks on greenways and trails. On the most recent survey of Durham City residents, Durham scored well above the national average on resident satisfaction with parks and recreation programs.** Durham has also been proactive at addressing the existential threat of climate change. In 2021, the city developed and approved a “Carbon Neutrality and Renewable Energy Action Plan”, the city’s climate action plan, which sets a goal of transitioning city operations to 80% renewable energy by 2030. To accomplish this, the city has entered into an innovative partnership with Duke Energy and Pine Gate Renewables to build a 35MW solar facility to generate clean, renewable energy for city operations and facilities.

Yet, Durham can do much more to create a healthy environment for all. Extreme heat threatens the safety of our residents. Storms chip away at the ageing tree canopy needed to keep residents cool, while inundating properties with flooding, especially low-income homes built in flood plains. Durham’s continued underinvestment in its park system has left the city ranked 89th among the top 100 metropolitan areas in the U.S. by the Trust for Public Land.*** The recent news of toxic lead in the soil in multiple city parks is just the latest episode of environmental harm in low-income communities in Durham and an awful reminder of the need to apologize for and appropriately remediate environmental injustices.

What can be done to create a healthier environment and healthier citizens in Durham?

Every resident in Durham deserves to lead a healthy life in a natural environment that is clean and sustainable, free from environmental racism, and resilient in the face of climate change. There are a number of strategies that Durham can pursue to achieve this:

Climate change:

• Update Durham’s climate action plan. Durham’s climate action plan is good and outlines clear goals for reducing carbon emissions and increasing the use of renewables. However, the plan should be updated to reflect the massive, new funding opportunities made available at the federal level via the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. Two specific areas of opportunities include:
• Developing a specific approach around the green jobs and workforce skills necessary to support potential large infrastructure investments funded by the federal government. Innovative cities, like Denver, have developed plans for equitable green workforce development and have engaged their economic development staff to create a green workforce strategy centered on measurable and fundable training outcomes, especially for women and people of color.
• Developing an approach to ensure that Durham is prepared to access significant funding made available via the Inflation Reduction Act to address environmental justice and support consumers in reducing carbon consumption. This includes: 1) EPA’s Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grants that will fund community-based organizations to make investments in low- and zero-emissions technologies in disadvantaged communities, and 2) $9 billion in DOE’s Home Energy Rebate Program to provide consumer rebates to reduce home energy fuel use and lower emissions.

In addition, as climate change risks rise, Durham’s climate action plan should also be updated to include specific strategies to strengthen climate resilience locally, such as making sure there are sufficient shelters available (with solar power and battery backup) for residents who will lose power when storms hit, keeping our storm water sewer system and drainage channels clear and well maintained, and maintaining our water supply system to minimize leakage, especially in the case of droughts.

Environmental racism:

• Work with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality to address lead found in public parks, with a particular focus on creative solutions to remediate the problem. For example, in a Greensboro park that faced a similar problem with lead from a former incinerator, local residents worked with city and state officials to develop a solution that will result in a better park for residents, once remediation is complete. At Bingham Park in Greensboro, residents were able to negotiate a solution that involved full waste removal and restoration of the site, rather than containing the toxic soil with a cover that could never accommodate any future trees or man-made structures.
• Continue to implement installation and upkeep of an equitable tree canopy throughout Durham to address the historically inequitable distribution of tree canopy in Durham

Transportation:

• Continue investments in sidewalks, bike lanes, streets and transit, but deliver on accountability. One way to assess Durham’s performance in making needed transportation investments would be to join the North Carolina Benchmarking 2.0 Project at the UNC School of Government, which compares service data and performance trends across a wide range of city services.
• Protect bicyclists by committing all necessary resources to the Vision Zero Action Plan, once finalized.
• Continue to support fare-free buses to encourage more transit use, while also expanding routes and improving reliable service.
• Prioritize bus rapid transit (BRT) over commuter rail, as federal support has shifted towards BRT and away from commuter rail.
• Resist efforts from the state DOT to widen freeways in key corridors, such as 15–501, U.S. 70 and 147 between I-40 and I-885, focusing instead on making these corridors higher priority for BRT.

Sustainability

• Approve an equitable green infrastructure bond to fund safe and accessible bike and pedestrian infrastructure, and Durham parks.
• Reduce reliance on single-use plastic by enacting a plastic bag fee ordinance aligned with the proposal from Don’t Waste Durham, while also investing in “Boomerang Bags” to allow low-income residents to avoid the fee altogether.

*City of Durham, “Durham Tap Water Ranked Best in State for Taste,” press release, Nov. 17, 2021, https://www.durhamnc.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=2998&ARC=4384#:~:text=Durham's%20tap%20water%E2%80%94specifically%20water,City's%20Department%20of%20Water%20Management.

**ETC Institute, “2022 City of Durham Resident Survey: Findings Report,” presented to the City of Durham, February 2023.

*** Trust for Public Land, “How Does Your City’s ParkScore Rating Stack Up?”, https://www.tpl.org/parkscore.