The City Council wants more information and input from businesses and advocates before adopting a Building Emissions Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance (BERDO).
The proposed ordinance is aimed at 150 of the largest buildings in the City, and it calls for the largest non-residential properties in Watertown to reach net-zero energy status by 2035, and all buildings to reach that status by 2050.
The Council’s Committee on Rules and Ordinances met twice to discuss the proposal that came from the Watertown Environment and Energy Efficiency Committee (WE3C). At Tuesday’s City Council meeting, Council President Mark Sideris said there were questions about the impact of BERDO, including on residential buildings.
“It appears that the Council and some others have some questions that we could get better clarification if we had the City staff perform a few things that I am going to lay out here,” Sideris said.
Some of the areas Sideris wants the City staff to look at are: the success metrics of BERDOs in other communities, economic development impacts, and the burden on the City staff to monitor the BERDO reporting and requirements.
Sending the ordinance to the City staff would allow more study than if it remained a topic of discussion at subcommittee meetings, Sideris said.
Advocates of the proposed ordinance said that Watertown’s BERDO is based on those of Boston and Cambridge. Ernesta Krazkiewicz, a member of the WE3C, said that was done so that the ordinance would be “familiar and convenient to carry out” for groups that do business in those communities. The metrics used to measure the progress are also the same as those in Boston and Cambridge.
Sideris requested that the City staff gather advocates and those impacted by the BERDO to gather information.
“I ask the administration to convene a summit of advocates, business leaders and community members that do business or live in Watertown to understand the environmental and economic benefits and impact of different options for the BERDO such as performance requirements, schedules, etc.,” Sideris said.
He also wants the staff to assess the cost and benefits of including residential properties, especially condominium buildings, in the BERDO, noting that most communities around Watertown have not done so.
“When (City staff) have completed all of these things with a very robust process, I want them to return to the City Council with an updated BREDO ordinance that we can consider,” Sideris said.
Councilor Lisa Feltner requested how the City will coordinate reporting of energy use by large buildings in the BERDO, and she added that she has seen different lists of the largest buildings in town.
The Council voted unanimously to send the building emission reduction and disclosure ordinance (BERDO) to the City staff for more study, and to report back with a new proposed ordinance.
If you haven’t watched the recent Council meeting on March 25, you may want to view it. The BERDO, aka energy and climate plans, that Watertown is putting forth were discussed. Fortunately President Mark Sideris suggested that no vote be taken and that it go back to various individuals and groups to gather more facts. If this is passed, large residential and businesses with older buildings will be forced to change their energy supplies to ALL ELECTRIC. Most people are not prepared to pay for those changes, especially seniors who are on fixed budgets.
We have many older large residential buildings that will be difficult, if not impossible, to convert to all electric. Some people who have converted to heat pumps find they need to keep their existing oil or gas heating systems as a backup in extreme cold weather. That doesn’t seem to be fair or practical to require people to make changes that are only going to cost them more money.
If someone puts in a new heating or AC system now or in the near future should not be forced to change it again to comply with these new much too strict rules. Systems are always changing with new inventions and technology. In Massachusetts and Watertown we always seem to WANT TO BE FIRST to do these things without considering all the ramifications and costs involved. We don’t put the people FIRST, which should be the priority.
You can view the Committee on Rules and Ordinances Meeting held by the City Council on February 18 to see the BERDO discussions to see how the members arrived at these steps. Not everyone agrees with their decisions, but there were no opposing members in the committee as the city wants this to go forward. Again, why would we push something 100% when things can change quickly and we will be stuck for a long time. (If our energy grid goes down due to overloads of all electric cities, all EVs charging needs, and lack of other energy sources, this will put everyone in jeopardy. CA has times when they shut down power in areas due to overloads, especially in the heat of summer.)
I realize that I don’t have all the answers on these technical subjects, but I read what I can to be informed and I have watched a few of these BERDO meetings. I recognize that the people on the committee are probably experts in their field, but are they totally aware of the ultimate costs to individuals? Is this one of their concerns? Maybe there should be other informed people on the committee too who would represent the peoples’ needs and not just be focusing on green energy for the sake of green energy.
https://watertownma.portal.civicclerk.com/event/7628/files/agenda/11099
Committee on Rules and Ordinances Meeting on BERDO (Building Emissions Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance)
on February 18, 2025
With energy costs increasing dramatically, with no signs of slowing, I would hope that our state and city leadership would revisit their decisions on these energy target dates. Technology is constantly changing, and locking us all into the technology of today and forcing people to get rid of gas stoves, gas heat and push us all to one choice, electric, seems to be rather shortsighted and not something that ALL people agree with.
We’ve all heard the saying, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Many people were saying this about the labs that were being encouraged here as the next great industry for cities to have. Now we have many labs that are sitting empty and the expected taxes are not coming. That may change in a few years, but for now maybe we could encourage a variety of business types to come to Watertown to provide jobs for a myriad of people looking for jobs and not just buildings and industries that need more energy.
I fear that putting our focus only on electricity as the end all and be all of our energy needs is also shortsighted. Many people feel for the security of our country we need energy from fossil fuels, electric, and possibly nuclear power, which is much safer than it was years ago. Even wind turbines need diesel for their generators.
What little ole MA and four-square mile Watertown do to address ‘climate change threats’ won’t amount to a hill of beans when other countries continue to build coal powered plants, like China and India, when there are numerous wild fires and the associated drifting smoke from many places, when volcanoes erupt, when other states don’t have the same liberal views as MA or demands on their people or cities that we do, and there are other national disasters that we can’t control, how can we feel that we can make a big difference in our environment here? Maybe we should put laws in place that are more realistic and sympathetic to our people’s needs.
Let’s look at the Energy Choices that are being proposed and contact our Governor, our state representatives and our local leaders and encourage them to put our people ahead of all these plans. People are having difficulty paying all of their current bills and MA is one of the most expensive places to live in the country. Many people are moving out of MA for a variety of reasons, including high taxes, housing, lack of different types of jobs, and adding higher energy prices to their budgets might be just the impetus to force many others to move out. Affordable energy is a MUST HAVE to survive. Healey and others have stated that MA has the Saudi Arabia of wind off its coast. Let’s hope they are right and it keeps blowing and the wind turbines don’t break down and pollute our waters with their broken blades. Personally I wouldn’t put all my chips on one box!
https://watertownma.portal.civicclerk.com/event/7628/files/agenda/11099
Committee on Rules and Ordinances Meeting on BERDO (Building Emissions Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance)
on February 18, 2025
If you’ve kept up with recent news, you probably heard that many of the Offshore Wind projects are in trouble. The Institute for Energy Research published an article on February 5 and enumerated a number of reasons for this. There conclusion stated, “Offshore wind energy is expensive and is getting even more expensive due to supply chain issues and high interest rates. Wind development companies are canceling projects not only in the United States but also around the world. President Trump is not enamored with offshore wind energy due to its cost and unreliability, as it produces energy only when the wind blows. The refrain of intermittent renewable energy supporters that wind facilities are cheaper ignores that they are usually unavailable, requiring backup power to be built and paid for by consumers to accommodate their intermittency. The result is higher prices for consumers and businesses trying to compete globally.”
They went on to say, “Concerns are also raised as China has become a dominant force in manufacturing wind energy components, which leads to energy security and national security concerns for nations that rely on it. China does not have the oil and gas resource base that the United States has, so it has used the green energy transition to become dominant in supplying the energy needs of Western countries that want to stop using fossil fuels because they supposedly cause climate change.”
China is not our friend, and if we are forced to buy equipment, including solar panels and replacement parts from them, we are putting ourselves at risk and our costs can only go up. Also, the article mentioned the UK’s dependence on China for offshore wind supplies has become a growing national security concern for their country. Rare earth permanent magnets are a critical component in offshore wind turbine generators. These rare earth magnets are predominantly produced in China, putting Europe’s energy infrastructure and national security at risk. Europe’s energy future will be beholden to China. Think about what risks we are taking with dependence on wind power.
In our Watertown Comprehensive Plan our city has signed on to be one of the first in the state to be sure to comply with the state plan to:
By 2050, 100% of electricity is sourced from renewables
By 2050, Watertown’s buildings are efficient, resilient, and carbon neutral.
By 2050, 100% of ALL vehicles in Watertown are ELECTRIC.
(I wonder how that last option will be achievable with hateful, illogical, and vengeful people sabotaging Tesla dealerships and charging stations and cars of current owners of Teslas with no regard for people’s personal property and the safety of people in those businesses because they feel their opinions matter more.)
I’d like to put the brakes on for these target dates for Watertown and Massachusetts until this can be reviewed in more depth. We have a different Administration in Washington, DC who wants people to be able to keep their gas stoves and their gas and oil heating systems if they want, and there are many people and businesses who also want this. If we make forced changes on our people and businesses, we may find ourselves in difficulties that we could avoid and that could be even more costly to rectify.