MyRye.com is entering the podcasting business with a new weekly podcast hosted by former Rye Mayor Doug French. Available on all major podcasting platforms, MyRye.com Conversations with Doug French will tackle the larger and sometimes intractable issues impacting the City of Rye through interviews with local, county and state officials and business leaders.
In Episode 12 of Season 1, French speaks to Rye City Councilmember James Ward about the city’s current sustainability initiatives, practical tips for residents, and future plans to make Rye even greener. Discover how community efforts, technology, and policy are shaping a more sustainable Rye for generations to come.
This episode of MyRye.com Conversations with Doug French was produced by MyRye.com. Feedback and story ideas are welcome.
Main Topics Covered:
- The definition and evolving meaning of sustainability, referencing the 1987 Brundtland report
- Rye’s municipal sustainability milestones, including achieving bronze status as a climate-smart community
- Key initiatives like comprehensive planning, natural resource inventories, and green event programs
- The role of community partnerships with the Rye Nature Center and Sustainable Westchester in advancing green projects
- Practical advice for residents: solar power, electric tools, waste reduction, and energy audits
- The importance of innovation in education, youth involvement, and supporting local sustainability startups
- How Rye balances investments in sustainability with other municipal priorities
- The future of renewable energy in Rye: electrification, battery storage, and regional grid decarbonization
- Resources for residents: NYSERDA, local foundations, and community involvement opportunities
Timestamps:
00:00 – Welcome and podcast overview
01:27 – How do you define sustainability for communities?
02:53 – Rye’s sustainability milestones and municipal initiatives
04:47 – Community programs, green events, and education efforts
05:46 – Solar programs and environmental partnerships
07:14 – Homeowner tips: electric tools, waste habits, and energy audits
09:18 – Balancing sustainability goals with city investments
11:18 – The shift towards electric tools and reducing noise and fumes
13:26 – Energy-efficient home upgrades and resource apps
14:09 – Waste reduction strategies including food scrap recycling
15:09 – The role of capital investments and government support
16:38 – The connection between the comprehensive plan and sustainability
18:23 – Building sustainable communities and regional energy projects
19:54 – Regional grid decarbonization and electric vehicle adoption
22:31 – Integrating sustainability into future planning and flood resilience
23:58 – Lightning round: biggest wins, challenges, and priorities
25:54 – Key resources and how to get involved in Rye’s sustainability efforts
26:16 – Personal sustainability habits and favorite local coffee spots
27:40 – Suggested future guests and closing remarks
28:38 – Contact information for James Ward and closing thoughts
Watch:
Full Transcript:
Speakers
- MyRye.com (Doug French)
- Rye City Councilmember James Ward
Doug French:
Welcome to the MyRye.com Podcast, Conversations with Doug French. I am your host, Doug French, former mayor of the City of Rye. And this podcast is about the people and the issues that impact Rye and the surrounding region. Today’s topic is sustainability, and in conversation is James Ward, current Rye City Councilmember and former chair of the Rye Sustainability Committee. James, welcome to MyRye.com
James Ward:
Hey Doug, thanks for having me on. I’m really pleased to be on it. And let me say that you’re doing a bang up job with this. I listened to the previous ones and they’re really good. And you have a voice for radio, for podcasting, whatever medium we are in now.
Doug French:
Well, yeah, and again the goal is really to have a longer conversation and narrative, and we’re building that. So thanks for the comments. In this particular conversation, we really want the listeners to take away three things. The first is: what are the sustainability initiatives happening right now in the city and the surrounding area? The second would be: is there any practical advice that you, as an average person or homeowner, can use to be more sustainable in your own daily life?
James Ward:
Love it.
Doug French:
And then third, the future. As we look forward, as communities look to become more sustainable, I know the city is doing this comprehensive plan. What are the things that we should be thinking about as a community to become more sustainable? So that’s kind of the takeaways we want to come away with. And I think we’ll start with an icebreaker question. As sustainability as a term has kind of changed over the last number of years, how would you define the term sustainability with respect to communities?
James Ward:
So it’s interesting you say that. I’m not sure in what degrees it’s changed, but I still use the same definition that I used ten years ago. It’s from—and it will resonate with you because it’s a Norwegian prime minister said it in like I think 1987—which is sustainable development is about providing for the current generation without sacrificing the needs of the future generation. I think it was Brundtland, I’m probably not saying that correctly, in Norwegian, but she said that in 1987, and you wrote that in the sustainable playbook for Rye or our sustainable plan for Rye in I think it was 2013. I don’t think anything’s changed. Certainly technology is changing. Things are becoming less of like let’s do this for the environment, let’s just do it because this is cheaper to do.
Doug French:
Exactly. A long time ago. That’s excellent, yeah.
James Ward:
I think the urgency around climate is unfortunately changing, but I think those general principles still stand today.
Doug French:
That’s great. And just by way of background, when I was mayor it was the residents that came forward and said we really want to become more sustainable. Can we create a committee? Which we did, which was at the time a temporary committee called the Rye Sustainability Committee, and it has been sustained, which is excellent. So let’s kind of go through the different blocks of our initiatives here. So when you look at Rye, what are some of the initiatives that are happening in place right now that you can walk us through?
James Ward:
So I would think the way, maybe one way to think about the general topology is to divide it into what is the municipal government doing and then what is the community doing. And there’s an intersect and there’s a lot of overlap in those two things, but it’s not a bad mental framework. A couple of years ago we became a climate smart community, bronze status, an awesome achievement. It opens up funding, means we’re doing things in a sustainable fashion and meeting what the state has outlined as important things for municipalities to do. And right now, together under Brian Shea, we’re pushing forward to silver status, which is a whole bunch of things that need to be accomplished to do that.
One of the main things that’s actually the talk of the town now is the comprehensive plan and revising that. The funding that we got for the comprehensive plan was through Climate Smarts. That’s a climate smart directed initiative. So it’s comprehensive planning with sustainable elements. And really it’s going to, among a lot of things, define how the city goes for the next ten to fifteen years on a lot of things, and a lot of those things have sustainable attributes.
And then more active right now, for the last three months last year, we got a grant to do the natural resource inventory, and that inventory hadn’t been updated since 1979. And so we’re updating that as a precursor to the comprehensive plan. Again, money that the Rye Sustainability Foundation got through New York Sea Grant and now has the city doing that. And so that’s kind of what’s going on on the municipal level.
Then on the community side, we’re continuing to innovate and reach out. Some of the main things are sustainable lawn practices, planting trees, solar programs, and making sure the community is aware of what those things are. A month ago in May we had our green cocktails, which has just blossomed into a wonderful event where people go and talk about sustainable things and just getting that education. We recognized Paul Hicks and his wife Barbara, we recognized the Blood Center for their sustainably focused buildout of the Avon property, and high school students that had done great work. We want to keep going on that and keep pushing those things.
Obviously solar is one of those things that’s now very affordable. If you’re mad about your Con Ed bills and your house has enough sunlight to get solar, get solar, because you’re talking about an investment that pretty much pays itself back in four years. Yeah, I think that’s the thing.
Doug French:
Okay. And you may go ahead. You mentioned the Rye Sustainability Foundation. Can you talk about some of the partnerships across the community, whether it’s the Rye Nature Center, the foundation you mentioned, other groups?
James Ward:
Yeah, yeah. I mean, again, kind of blossoming. I’ll use that word twice. I guess that’s it. I hit my limit on blossoming. Blossoming out of the Rye Sustainable Committee was really a need like most communities have set up some kind of 501(c)(3) arm that’s able to raise money and do things. Really not that ambitious from a fundraising standpoint, but more of community education.
But forming partnerships, the Rye Nature Center with Christine Siller has been really a great partner helping us advance 250 oaks and our heritage tree inventory, which we’re going to hear more about in the coming months. It’s been a great initiative for people to plant oaks.
We’re working with Sustainable Westchester to get the Solarize It program out locally, a great program that allows you to tap into a totally free assessment of your property, whether it can hold solar, and then bids it out to five well known and verified solar companies. I did it last year and I couldn’t be happier.
Working with NYSERDA obviously to get people to do off-hours charging and grid programs. In fact today there’s a grid alert on from I think it’s two to ten PM. If you cut your electricity back during that period, at the end of the year Con Ed and/or NYSERDA sends you a check for some money because you’re trying to balance out the grid.
So all those things and others, just working with them to bring sustainability broadly to the community.
Doug French:
And do the schools participate?
James Ward:
The schools are participating. In fact, I was at a conference and Sustainable Westchester was there and they said, well, we really like a contact in the Rye City School District because we just had a case study where we got something like seventy to a hundred K of refunds for the school in New Rochelle for doing grid pricing, that thing that I’m talking about where when demand is high, lowering your air conditioning. Tricia Murray and others on the board were really receptive of that and had a meeting with us with Sustainable Westchester. I don’t know exactly where they are, but definitely want to make those connections. They were at the green cocktails, so I think they’re getting there. Tricia is finding her feet and she’s got a lot on her plate, but we hope to work with them more.
Doug French:
I also think on the education side, at the event you mentioned, there were three students that won the sustainability award and they created eco-friendly or environmentally friendly fertilizer, right?
James Ward:
Yeah, and it was taking an issue, looking at fertilizer, which we all get. People want really green lawns, but it’s a matter of trying to get the amount of raw fertilizer runoff that goes back into the sound and creates algae blooms that aren’t good for wildlife, and trying to curb that by using better blends and getting companies like Scotts to produce ones that are more eco friendly and getting people to use that. I think that’s what we’re all about, getting people in the community, including the future generations that we talked about at the beginning of the show, to be involved. It’s going to be your future and take care of it.
Doug French:
And on the council side, how do you balance the sustainability goals with investments and getting resident buy-in? There really is educating the residents and there’s also investing. And city staff time is also very limited, getting them to focus. So how do you balance all those things as a council member?
James Ward:
I think the last thing you said is the most important. We have limited staff and we have limited time to do everything we want to do, so we have to be balanced. To use that phrase, potholes have to be fixed and there’s a lot of other projects that aren’t exactly sustainable projects. But Brian Shea has been very focused on sustainability.
Now we’re in a different period where before it was like you’re sacrificing something to do it, but now it’s like, going back to my rooftop solar, I’m paying my 25-year average price for electricity is now fixed to ten cents a kilowatt. If you’re using Con Ed you’re currently paying thirty cents a kilowatt. Con Ed is going to go up four percent a year, people are going to be irate. I want energy independence for the city. Let’s talk about where we can put in solar, for instance.
The HVAC project, we didn’t call it a sustainability project, but a lot of money going out the door to heat and cool that place. So looking at our buildings and figuring out where we can save money by doing quote unquote sustainable projects, I think everybody would agree that’s a good thing to do.
The library, the Rye Free Reading Room, was at City Hall last night giving a presentation. One of the things they said is, how can we get our energy bills down? Like, of course we want things to look great as everything does in Rye, but we also recognize we don’t want to—we want some energy independence. We want things cheaper. It’s a balance. It’s listening to people and making sure we’re moving, we’re taking in the right technologies and moving the right way.
Doug French:
Right, right. Well and now pivoting to the homeowner, I know the leaf blower law was very controversial, but in practice, I just bought a leaf blower. It’s pretty powerful, it’s pretty easy. Even with the lawnmowers, it’s unbelievable how great these lawnmowers are, their battery power.
James Ward:
I mean, let me, again, I don’t have my city hall hat on. I don’t have my mayor, deputy mayor hat on or whatever hat, city council member hat on, but just someone who works in their yard and someone who knows technology. Electric engines are far, far superior to gas engines. It’s just a fact. It’s not like something that’s one side saying this. There’s a reason why you have an electric car; you have no maintenance up for tires and like there’s maybe an air filter over its life. It operates at a very low budget and it’s much more efficient use of energy.
That’s because regular combustion engines have what’s called a Carnot cycle, and Carnot cycles mean you’re dumping a lot of heat. You’re converting all of that energy, only getting thirty percent out into actual movement, where an electric car you’re getting like ninety. The engines are superior.
I have an electric lawn mower and I really abuse it and it takes it all and it just works. And my neighbor’s like, I can’t even hear it, I didn’t even know you were cutting your lawn. I’m like, yeah, I was cutting my lawn.
Going back to leaf blowers, I think I get it. It’s hard to switch technologies. I think the “electric leaf blowers don’t work” comment was more saying it’s a hassle to change. If you’ve already invested in gas equipment and your equipment is also, you have gas cans and you know how to operate your crews, now if you’re asking me to now do electric and gas, that’s a hassle and I totally, totally get it.
And the “it doesn’t work” line was a kind of general catch-all phrase because I look around and all of the landscapers that are in my neighborhood are now using electric leaf blowers and nothing looks different, but the sound has gone way down. And to be frank, the operators, those often young immigrants who are kind of getting a leg up in society and wanting to earn some money, are now not ruining their hearing and not breathing in noxious fumes. I think that’s a huge win for those operators and I think the landscapers have been doing an excellent job.
It’s like sometimes government has to give that push.
Doug French:
Right. I also see a lot of my neighbors now just cutting their own lawns because it’s so simple when you use these battery powered lawnmowers. It’s light, it’s easy, charge it up, you’re good to go. So are there other things that homeowners should be looking at in terms of energy audits or yard choices or waste habits that you can speak to?
James Ward:
All of the above. I guess waste habits is a tough one. I’m a big proponent of food scrap. If you think about it, waste food is in the best of cases like twenty to thirty percent of all trash and a lot of waste food is water. So you’re literally paying for twenty to forty percent of your trash to be hauled up to Peekskill to be then incinerated, which is like a lose-lose, right? We’re carting water around.
So I’m a proponent of food scrap recycling. I think we can make it work as a community and I think there’s a lot of citizens, community members I should say, that would like to have that.
It was effective. I mean, I don’t want to rehash decisions that the council made, people did what they did, but I would say that on its surface, for a proof of concept plan on a limited amount of people, it was quite successful.
What did we leave out? I think there was—did we—
Doug French:
I mean conserving water, home energy audits.
James Ward:
Home energy audits, NYSERDA, all completely free. The tough part about getting these technologies is not that they’re more efficient or don’t make your life a lot better, it’s just that they tend to be capital outlays.
And that’s important: making sure that people have thought about, hey, I have a water heater downstairs. Personally, it’s gas. I’ve got two to three years probably left in it. It’s important to me, when that time comes, I’ll switch over to a heat pump. But I’m not going to go out and just get a new water heater just to do it. I don’t think anyone’s asking anyone to behave irrationally. Just think about how much life your air conditioner has.
Air conditioners get, if they’re old school, progressively more expensive to charge up with a new freon because the older ones are phased out by the government. I had a service call on mine a year and a half ago where it wasn’t working. They said it needed to be charged. I was like, charge it up and I’m thinking it’s going to be like a hundred, two hundred bucks in labor. It was twelve hundred bucks.
Because it’s old and it’s like, all right, can I get a heat pump in? That’s the awareness that the foundation wants to do and that’s the awareness we want in the public. You don’t have to kill yourself. You don’t have to do something crazy. Just know when you’re switching whether you can switch to one of those things that’s more in line with the efficiency we get in these new products and benefit from that.
Doug French:
Is there any specific resource or app that people can use? You talk about NYSERDA and the grid programming, other—what’s your source for information that would be good for people to know?
James Ward:
I think it varies. I like to think that the sustainability committee and the foundation are great sources. We’re always happy to talk to people about things and from time to time we get letters. NYSERDA is a great one for energy, for energy audits, for heat pumps.
We live in an age where basically you can go on the internet, ChatGPT, it lines it up for you pretty well. So there’s a lot of resources and if you have some ideas or something I think either myself, Hilary Garland, Donna Providenti, we’re happy to take those things in and see if we can move them forward, with respect to forums, symposiums, etc.
Doug French:
Yeah, absolutely. We are in the answer engine economy for sure. That’s really how I switched to my electric leaf blower, battery powered leaf blower was yes. Great. It’s much more powerful than I expected. Same with the lawnmower, and it’s easy to do and it’s actually kind of fun to do also.
Let’s talk about communities now in the future. You look at the surrounding regions and the communities in the area—
James Ward:
How’s your experience been?
Doug French:
Yeah.
James Ward:
Yeah.
Doug French:
Collectively, what are some of the forward-looking investments that have to be made or how do we make the communities more sustainable in the future?
James Ward:
I think we have to obviously push electrification. If anything, what’s going on in Iran and the Straits of Hormuz is telling us that energy independence is a great thing and we as a country certainly produce a lot of energy. I’m not saying otherwise, but prices go up because they’re global prices. Electrification and solar and other things.
I went to a talk given by NYPA, the New York Power Authority, who Justin Driscoll was actually giving, and he was a Rye resident. He was talking about putting in ninety miles, I think it is, of cable to decarbonize Westchester, to help decarbonize the Westchester grid. So it’s wind energy coming off Long Island, bringing that into Westchester and points north.
And we should all look to—I’ve had an electric car for four years now and I just love it. It’s quiet, it runs really well. I just got the new Tesla and the driving function is unbelievable. I went and dropped my son off at school and I didn’t actually drive the car. So I think a lot of good things are in there. It’s easy, it’s quiet, it’s predictable. I never go to a gas station. I charge it up at my house. And with solar I’m paying almost—I’m paying like ten dollars a month to charge it.
Doug French:
Right.
And so battery storage is the key also then, right? And the safety of battery storage, can you—you have any expertise in that area?
James Ward:
Yes. Yes. I wouldn’t call it expertise, but I have some thoughts in that area.
One is it’s very important that we start to think about battery energy storage systems. People have a lot of them at the residential level. It’s great. You have solar, it basically allows you to load balance. It becomes a place where, if Con Ed ever went to demand pricing, which I think there’s a high likelihood they would do that, they do it at a commercial level already, which is if you’re using energy at peak times, you’re getting charged for what was your highest during that peak time.
It’s a somewhat complicated calculation, but on the residential area it would even be good to take electricity off the grid at night and then use it during the day.
At the commercial level we have a moratorium on it. I voted for that moratorium, so I’m not talking out of both sides of my mouth. I think we have to understand safety first. I’d like to move the community to thinking about it on the municipal level. Obviously we’re not going to do anything that endangers the community. That’s our covenant with everybody. We don’t go into things like that, but there’s a lot of research out there and it’s just getting the guidance, having Mike Kopy and his guys understand what the suppressants are that you need in place and what are the conditions where people are doing it.
I think in some ways the commercial side is probably safer than the residential side. I have no evidence at all to back that up except the obvious: if you’re talking about a bigger system that’s run commercially, they probably have more fire suppressants and redundant systems to make sure that it doesn’t go out of control, which I don’t think the residential ones are dangerous either. I would have gotten one except when I put in solar there was none left, meaning it’s so popular now.
But it’s necessary for load balancing. It’s necessary for storage so that you have it to even out that sometimes it’s sunny, sometimes it’s not sunny. But you could put in a battery energy storage system without any solar and make money for it because NYSERDA or Con Ed would pay you to take it, fill it up at night, and then release it during the day.
Doug French:
Gotcha. So the final thing in this section is the comprehensive plan. I’m sure sustainability is going to run through all that as we look at our green space, we look at flooding, we look at housing development, right? How is sustainability going to connect across all of those areas?
James Ward:
I think it is when I—we know, it’s again our definition, making sure we provide for the current generation without sacrificing what our future generations need. In fact, planning by definition is planning for the future generation. So sustainability is a good thing.
We’re talking about how everything that we enjoy about Rye will be here decades to come. As to how it plays out, I’m actually kind of interested as well in what pieces we’ll see more of and what pieces we’ll see maybe not as much as we thought. But flooding, resiliency, making it favorable to put in solar, making it favorable for battery energy storage systems, how we think about greenways and being able to ride instead of or walk instead of drive a car.
I think we all enjoy being outside. We enjoy being able to walk, ride and run. People are out all the time. We want to make those greenways that allow us to do that and allow Rye to be the—you know, we already think it’s the best place on earth, but to make it even that much better.
Doug French:
The leadership. No. All right, that’s excellent. So before we go to our lightning round, I just want to remind our viewers if you have a topic or a person that you’d like to hear on the MyRye.com Podcast, Conversations with Doug French, just email me at French at MyRye.com or just let me know around town. So we’ll move to our lightning round. And these are just one-word answers or very short answers. And you could say pass if there’s one that stumps you. Number one is the biggest sustainability win in Rye so far.
James Ward:
Our bronze climate smart community status definitely.
Doug French:
Most important individual action a resident can take.
James Ward:
Electrify.
Doug French:
Biggest challenge facing local sustainability efforts.
James Ward:
Momentum.
Doug French:
See, you’re actually very good at this. Some of our guests go on forever. I’m like, this is the lightning round. Yeah, that’s what it’s… this is great. Momentum is an awesome word. You’ve got to tap into that. Top priority for the next few years.
James Ward:
Delight, definitionally I’m just giving you what’s on the top of my head.
Alright, having said that, I still think that our climate action plan, like how we think about decarbonization and bringing those efficient energy systems to Rye. That’s not one answer one word answer, but—
Doug French:
No, no, no, but this is part of that local operations climate plan, right?
James Ward:
Yep. That’s our really municipal climate action plan and then one for the community which is more aspirational than we will do this. It’s like, we want to make Rye a better place and I think these technologies and these things that we’re thinking of make it a better place. I don’t think it’s at all controversial or will come at the sacrifice of anything else. We haven’t spent any money on these things. They’ve come in the form of grants and I think we should keep pushing.
Doug French:
Now you kind of answered this earlier, but the one resource or person that people should follow will obviously go to the sustainability, Rye Sustainability Committee page. But also just ask AI, right?
James Ward:
Ask AI, and we at the foundation would love to hear from you if you’ve got an idea or an unmet need or you want to get involved. There’s no one secret sauce. Everybody’s welcome. If you made it to the green cocktails, you’ll get a sense of that. There’s just a diversity of ideas and people and things that people want to do, and I think be part of that.
Doug French:
What’s your personal favorite sustainability habit?
James Ward:
My personal favorite sustainability habit is I love to ride my e-bike. I use it. I go to the train station at odd times and I don’t want to pay for a parking spot. I couldn’t even if I could pay for a parking spot, there are none. So it gets me there when I need to get there and it’s fun and cool and even if I’m wearing a suit, because you can modulate your effort, it’s just great.
Doug French:
Well parking is another episode and I’ll take that up with the city manager. What is—another listener wrote in about this—what’s your favorite Rye coffee?
James Ward:
Wow. That is now you stop me. I’m a huge coffee fan and one of my many hats is meeting people for coffee, and I like them all. On the new scale, I think Winfield Coffee Roasters is just—what a place that is. And now it’s so popular, you used to have the place to yourself, but that’s my favorite one. I love Milton Point. People there are so nice, coffee’s great. Sunshine is great. Occasionally I’ll go to Starbucks, but I think Starbucks is probably lower on the list. Then I can’t even remember the name of it, but what’s the one next to Sunrise? Not the coffee place, the pizza place. They have great pastries and they’re also really good. But if I had to give you one, I’d say Winfield is my favorite.
Doug French:
Yeah, it’s the bagel shop.
James Ward:
Yeah, no. Good, good, good. All right. And do you have a suggested guest or topic that we should ask for the podcast?
James Ward:
I think so. I’m biased, so I think it would be great to get one or two people from the comprehensive plan steering committee on the show. Justin Driscoll, who is the NYPA head, I saw him speak, he’s amazing. I think he’d be a great one. What he’s doing is less local, but wow, his presentation was just awesome. Who else?
Doug French:
Right.
James Ward:
Yeah, and I was at the conference as well and I also think that they set a lot of the policies people have to follow or at least they put in motion what people need to consider. That’s a great one.
I think he would be really good. Maybe, for instance, Nick Everett on the planning side. It’s going to be fun to see that. I hope a lot of people are going to get involved in that and it’s just going to be challenging but a lot of fun.
Doug French:
Well that’s good.
James Ward:
Sure.
Doug French:
I’m going to have Nick on, I think.
James Ward:
Yeah, Nick and Christian are on the list to invite. All right, any final thoughts on sustainability efforts and how could people best reach you or the committee?
James Ward:
Yeah, they can reach me. You send me an email, jward at RyeSustainability dot com. You can get a hold of me. I’m happy to receive emails. Obviously I might address it to the city. Just do one thing, you know, just think of like one less car ride or whatever.
Doug French:
That’s great. Well, James, thank you, Mr. Deputy Mayor. It was great to speak with you and get your insights. And thank you for your service to the community in the many hats that you wear. And thank you to all of our listeners for listening to the MyRye.com podcast. You can find the full episode of this transcript and other transcripts as well as your local news at MyRye.com If you enjoyed this episode or other episodes, please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And with that, James, thank you very much.
James Ward:
Thank you very much, Doug. Appreciated. Had fun.
