Ocean County sets the standard for ‘going green’

‘Going green” is a popular buzzword, and sometimes I wonder if the trend to become “green” will unfortunately become just that, a trend, and not a committed way to live our lives through this century.

When I think about “going green,” it’s turning away from fossil fuels and nuclear power and focusing on clean renewable energy: solar, wind, geothermal and wave technologies. These are cutting-edge green technologies that are safe, clean and will provide hundreds of thousands of jobs nationwide.

By tapping into the latest renewable energy technology and conservation measures in our lifestyles, and as elected officials, in the way we conduct government operations, we will cut costs and protect the environment.

But there is another component to “going green.” I think of it as looking at our heritage and the way our parents became, in the words of Tom Brokaw, “the greatest generation.”

So instead of thinking of “going green” as a flash in the pan, I prefer to think of it as a reaffirmation of our traditional values that emphasized the human spirit and initiative. That spirit was what our parents drew on in tough times to seek out opportunities to move our country forward to meet the challenges it faced.

While the economic and environmental crises looming before us are daunting, they also provide us with great opportunities for new invention and direction in how we arrive at solutions.

In our county government, we are weaving “going green” into the fabric of our operations. As freeholders, we have begun to take on the immense challenge of making all phases of the county’s operations “green” by implementing an Energy Master Plan that includes over 80 conservation measures.

Together, these initial improvements will save county taxpayers more than $2 million a year. Additionally, the changes include another $110,000 in energy rebates and could reduce green house gas emissions by almost 12 percent.

We’ve already installed solar panels and solar tubes at several county facilities, with more to come in 2009. So far, we’ve reduced the amount of carbon dioxide discharged into the atmosphere by more than 50 metric tons a year. We saved the equivalent of 5,500 gallons of gasoline and thousands of megawatts of electricity. The entire solar program will pay for itself in ten years.

We won’t ever say our goals have been reached because we have to keep raising the bar. Our solar program hit the ground running. But now we have to look beyond the sun toward wind for additional electrical output and continue to replace our fleet with hybrid vehicles.

All of these efforts cannot stop at the county level. At a recent meeting with Ocean County school superintendents, we set goals and came up with ways to reduce energy costs in our schools. What better example can we set for our children than to provide them with schools that operate with environmental protection at their core.

Recently, students at the Berkeley Township School District devoted six days to studying energy conservation. It culminated in an energy awareness day, and I will take the lessons I learned from my students and all the inspiration their enthusiasm gave me back to our county energy planning sessions.

There is still much to do. We have 33 municipalities in Ocean County and we need to help all of them find new, clean sources of energy. And we have to take our strategies to Trenton to make the Garden State the greenest state.

Buzzwords and trends won’t make Ocean County and New Jersey green. But a look back at our parents’ lifestyles and drawing inspiration from a child’s sincere effort to figure out ways to save energy in the classroom will go far in keeping us moving forward to a greener and more meaningful tomorrow.

Joseph H. Vicari Ocean County Freeholder

Director Toms River