MANKATO — An estimated 795,955 metric tons of carbon dioxide were generated within Mankato’s borders in 2023, and reducing the greenhouse gas emissions will take a comprehensive effort by city leaders and city residents, according to a Mankato Climate Action Plan that’s nearing completion.
Suggestions in the draft plan are as big as an electric transit bus and as small as a backyard chicken, as proactive as tree-planting and as reactive as identifying public cooling stations during heat waves.
The plan would make environmental sustainability a key consideration across city operations and in budget-setting by the council each fall. At the same time, many elements of the plan would be targeted at educating and encouraging residents to do their part in making Mankato less of a contributor to global climate change.
Like Mankato’s overall strategic plan, it will also be reexamined and renewed twice each decade.
“Every five years we’re going to look at it, rethink it, take more comments and create it again,” Mankato Environmental Sustainability Coordinator Rick Baird told a half-dozen residents who showed up for a preview of the draft plan at an open house Monday night.
The plan would be an ongoing navigation aid as the city works to decrease local emissions — both to improve air quality and reduce contributions to the causes of climate change, according to city officials. But the plan also aims to make the city and its residents more resilient in dealing with the impacts of the hotter temperatures, torrential rains, more extreme storms and other volatile weather associated with an ever-rising global thermometer.
Monday’s open house provided the final in-person opportunity to weigh in, but online comments will be taken for 10 more days on the city’s public engagement webpage, and members of the City Council will have a chance to express their thoughts at a meeting next Tuesday.
The various comments will then be incorporated into a final plan by consultant SEH Inc. for adoption by the council, probably in June.
The $50,000 effort was financed through a $3 million state grant fund created by the 2023 Minnesota Legislature to help cities, counties and other local jurisdictions create individual action plans.
Many components of Mankato’s plan echo traditional climate-change initiatives. It calls for seeking opportunities to enhance the municipal fleet with alternative energy vehicles; improving energy efficiencies of existing buildings and operations; developing a “sustainable materials procurement plan;” and looking for ways to make the city’s transit service more climate friendly.
But the plan suggests a multitude of smaller initiatives, as well.
Ideas that could be explored include developing a permanent Farmers’ Market location, possibly a four-season market; promoting local food production; partnering with community groups to provide classes on gardening, pollinator friendly vegetation, cooking and composting; and re-evaluating the city code to allow urban chickens.
Conservation measures in the draft plant include considering further limitations on new development in natural areas; seeking opportunities to restore wetlands, floodplains and forests; increasing urban tree and prairie planting to capture carbon and reduce heat island effects; adding buffer strips along streams; and expanding stormwater retention areas.
The plan would require climate issues to be considered in construction projects, including incorporating more trees and other vegetation when designing roads, parking lots and bus stops.
Making it easier to walk and bike in Mankato would be a goal, possibly by adding more on-street bike lanes, developing a plan to make commercial areas more walkable and “centralizing economic development along high-use corridors such as Madison Avenue, Riverfront Drive and Stadium Road … .”
Some of the elements focus on assisting vulnerable populations during and following severe weather. The suggestions range from ensuring that “critical facilities continue to provide vital services during and after extreme weather events” to identifying locations to serve as emergency shelters, “including cooling and heating shelters.”
A communication plan for weather-related emergencies should have strategies for reaching vulnerable populations that have language barriers, disabilities or limited access to the internet.
The plan calls for expanding efforts to boost community recycling; to educate residents about the negative effects of using single-use plastic bags and Styrofoam; to evaluate additional options for community composting programs; and to build out the local EV charging network.
Lou Schwartzkopf, a retired Minnesota State University physics professor, applauded the decision to organize the plan around the various municipal divisions, saying that will result in accountability when the plan is being implemented.
“Approaching it from city functions instead of ‘What is the problem,’ I like that,” Schwartzkopf said after Monday’s presentation. “You can find the department and the person in the department that’s responsible for each one of these recommendations.”
The plan includes numerous suggestions for ways to keep stormwater on the landscape after torrential rains, something that would reduce pollution and downstream flooding. Longtime local environmentalist Katy Wortel suggested another approach that would dramatically change how urban streets are designed.
“I always felt we never should have gone to the curb and gutter system,” Wortel said, asking the city to consider a return to the old-style approach of slightly raised streets with shallow swales on each side to hold runoff.
Schwartzkopf and Wortel were part of the Southcentral Minnesota Clean Energy Council that asked the council to pursue a climate action plan in the summer of 2023, and members of the group were well-represented in the small crowd at the open house. Others who would like to share comments can do so through May 29 at everyvoice.mankatomn.gov, where the full draft plan is expected to be posted sometime Tuesday.