LAST WEEK WAS AN EVENTFUL ONE HERE IN BENICIA for all things related to sustainability. The first important event was held on Tuesday, when the City Council heard from a panel of experts about clean energy, and specifically Marin Clean Energy (MCE) and whether Benicia should join. They covered a range of topics from what it’s all about, price comparisons and the kind of considerations any city must make.

Having spent a 30-year career in network/telecommunications, I can tell from experience that the industry took off after divestiture and with a healthy dose of competition. Should Benicia join MCE, Pacific Gas & Electric as a regulated utility would continue to provide the transmission and wiring to homes along with the billing for a clean energy option, and remaining with them would continue to be an option.

In essence, clean energy and community choice aggregation (CCA) offer us, for the first time as consumers, an option in selecting our energy provider. If the City Council, after its due diligence review, votes to join Marin Clean Energy (a CCA provider), we as a city would take our biggest step forward to both reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and lower costs to all consumers at the “Light Green” option of 51 percent renewable energy. PG&E is currently at 22 percent renewable.

One thing I learned at our Community Sustainability Commission panel discussion in March was that the energy that’s actually delivered into our homes and businesses is a mix of energy electrons managed by the Independent Systems Operator (ISO). In their own words: “The California ISO is uncompromising in maintaining reliability and accessibility to one of the largest and most modern power grids in the world. We work every minute of every day in our control center to ‘keep the lights on’ while meeting the electricity needs of Californians through a competitive market.”

My own analogy is that as a vegetarian, I would be getting my “vegetables” with a bit of bacon grease on them — that is, the CCA adds more clean energy/renewables to the energy pool, thereby reducing GHG, but the energy pool distributed throughout Northern California is a mix of energy sources including nuclear, natural gas and coal among others.

I had hoped to have a link to the special meeting video; as of my writing it isn’t available but may be by the time you read this article, by following the link below to the Sept. 9 City Council special meeting.

Farm2Family Expo 2014

The second big event on the sustainability calendar last week was the Farm2Family Expo this past Saturday, Sept. 13, sponsored by our fabulous Benicia Community Gardens (BCG), now in its 14th or 15th year as a vital community organization. I know we’ve all seen their work in the two wonderful community gardens. The oldest garden is at the Heritage Presbyterian Church at Military and E Second Street. Their newest garden is Avant Garden on First Street across from the Union Hotel.

The Expo brought together booths and demonstrations from organic food providers like Terra Firma Farms out of Winters, a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) enterprise, and Tara Firma Farms out of Petaluma, which produces organic meat. Benicia Community Chickens provided information on the wonderful benefits of raising chickens (allowed in Benicia — but no roosters!). BCG had lots of information, too, including Rick Stierwalt’s innovative underground composting system (see photo, above) that fits into your raised vegetable beds. I finally got around to making four systems for my own raised beds and with my spinach, kale and Brussels sprouts seeds freshly in the ground, I’m hoping a couple thousand worms will be enticed to enrich my garden and enjoy the bounty of my organic scraps.

I shot a video of the Expo and you can hear and see Rick describe his easy-to-make system for yourself.

There were other inspiring speakers, a totally fun play area for children (and I saw a lot of adults partaking in the obstacle course as well), and more.

The big news was the launch of the permaculture and food forest program that is part of Benicia Community Gardens’ recent Community Sustainability Grant program. As the details are announced, I’ll keep you posted as to how yours might be one of the 10 gardens selected for this food sustainability project.

Good for you Benicia!

Learn more

• City Council Special Meeting (Sep 9) handouts: benicia.siretechnologies.com/sirepub/mtgviewer.aspx?meetid=551&doctype=AGENDA

• California ISO: this is a link to monitoring real time power grid conditions: caiso.com/Pages/ISOToday.aspx

• Farm2Family Expo video: youtu.be/KIxxRV6JF1E?list=PL4CEB0F984F43D37D

Constance Beutel is the chair of Benicia’s Community Sustainability Commission. She is a university professor and videographer and holds a doctorate from the University of San Francisco.