Today marked an important milestone for Washington County Peak Oil. We were invited to address a monthly City Managers Meeting -- a monthly event that brings the City Managers of all the municipalities in the County together into a collective meeting to discuss issues of mutual concern. We were allotted 15 minutes to present our "case". Prior to the meeting, we were invited to provide a briefing paper on the peak oil issue, which would be included in the meeting agenda papers prior to the meeting to enable the attendees to familiarize themselves with the issue beforehand. We sent this document. [Word doc]

I was introduced as the guest speaker. First, I presented the meeting with 15 copies of a reference book I had put together -- one for each municipality. This reference book contained copies of many of the most important reports and papers published over the past few years that address the peak oil issue. They included:

• A chart showing the most recent data on oil fields in decline around the world
• A chart showing oil price history and trend lines
• The Post Carbon Cities Executive Summary [pdf warning]
• The WASHINGTON COUNTY ACTION PROPOSAL that we presented to the County Board of Commissioners late last summer (2007)
• The PORTLAND PEAK OIL TASK FORCE BRIEFING BOOK
• The White Paper: FUTURE OIL SUPPLY UNCERTAINTY AND METRO
• The U.S. Department of Energy Report: PEAKING OF WORLD OIL PRODUCTION: IMPACTS, MITIGATION, & RISK MANAGEMENT - (aka THE “HIRSCH REPORT”)
• The U.S. GAO Report: UNCERTAINTY ABOUT FUTURE OIL SUPPLY MAKES IT IMPORTANT TO DEVELOP A STRATEGY FOR ADDRESSING A PEAK AND DECLINE IN OIL PRODUCTION
• The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Report: ENERGY TRENDS AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S. ARMY INSTALLATIONS
• The OIL SHOCKWAVE SIMULATION REPORT AND SUMMARY OF FINDINGS: OIL CRISIS EXECUTIVE SIMULATION
• The International Energy Agency's 2007 MEDIUM-TERM OIL MARKET REPORT
• The White Paper: IMPLEMENTING THE MOST EFFECTIVE TRANSPORTATION DEMAND MANAGEMENT (TDM) STRATEGIES TO QUICKLY REDUCE OIL CONSUMPTION
• The White Paper: TRANSITION INITIATIVES PRIMER (from Kinsale)
• The ICLEI Guidebook: PREPARING FOR CLIMATE CHANGE -- A GUIDEBOOK FOR LOCAL, REGIONAL, & STATE GOVERNMENTS, and,
• The White Paper: MAJOR US CITY PREPAREDNESS FOR AN OIL CRISIS

All together there were roughly 1,000 pages of relevant information which addressed projections, implications, challenges, and solutions.

I also provided them with almost two dozen Oil Age posters to take back to their offices and to post in City libraries. Then I presented the talk.

I introduced the presentation by saying, "Let's get right to the point -- We have an imminent and potentially devastating emergency to deal with."

The presentation itself was given extemporaneously from these notes, [Word doc] and followed them pretty closely.

Following the presentation the chair asked the meeting participants if they had any questions, and there were none. I was then thanked, and excused -- the meeting had a full agenda following my presentation.

So the bottom line is that we have now presented to all of the City Managers, and separately have provided copies of our Washington County Proposal to all the County Commissioners. We have also, separately, been e-mailing peak oil information and ideas on energy reduction strategies to all the Mayors fo the County for several months now. There should be no municipality in our County that is unaware of the peak oil issue. Whether they choose to act on this information remains to be seen, and of course we will both monitor that progress and continue to provide information.

I'll blog further about any feedback we receive, and we certainly welcome any feedback you, the reader, may have for us [use the "reply" link].

But today would be a very good time to sit down and jot a note to your City Manager and express your personal concern about the problem.

Peter

Some of you are aware that ASPO-USA will be holding their annual peak oil conference in Sacramento this year, from September 21st - 23rd. Last year's conference was really quite comprehensive. See last year's list of speakers on the ASPO-USA website.

I have done some preliminary checking on pricing and came up with the following:

Amtrak service: Portland to Sacramento (cheaper, and more energy-efficient than flying)

DEP: Portland 20 Sept. 2:25PM
ARR: Sacramento 21 Sept. 6:15AM
DEP: Sacramento 23 Sept. 11:59PM
ARR: Portland 24 Sept. 3:30PM
Seat only $128.00 RT
Private Compartment for 2 (Ttl fare $307.00/pp RT) [includes meals/shower/bed]

Hyatt Regency – Sacramento (conference venue)

CheckIn: 21 Sept.
CheckOut: 23 Sept
$200 per person for 2 nights

2007 ASPO Conference fee

Early registration = about $300.00pp (2007 conference fee included 2 lunches, 2 breakfasts and 2 receptions)

Total cost

(train + hotel + conference) = ±$800.00pp + incidentals [about $200/day]

All the above costs are, or course, subject to revision, either up or down. If enough people want to go (10 or more) then we could potentially negotiate group rates to obtain discounts.

Let us know your interest in attending. Indicate your interest level in the poll here on our website entitled "ASPO Conference - 2008". This doesn't commit or identify anyone, but it helps provide some visibility into how many might attend and the potential for travel discounts.

In January of 2007 the Vision Action Network of Washington County, OR, organized a Sustainability Summit, hosted by the Washington County government. The summit was addressed by County Commissioner Tom Brian, Alan Durning of Sightline Seattle, and Ed Jahn of Oregon Field Guide.

Community Experts from a wide range of disciplines attended the summit. Their responsibility was, through break-out sessions on a variety of topics, to generate priority actions for that topic. The goal was to identify shared priorities, and identify a shared vision and community agenda for sustainability in Washington County.

* Note: Four of the seven break-out sessions included a recommendation that Washington County should have a Sustainability organization to coordinate local sustainability efforts. In response, VAN and its local government partners have commissioned a feasibility study. The study is designed to analyze the area's need for a sustainability organization, determine what services such an organization could provide, identify best practices of similar functional government offices around the country, and review various organizational and funding options.

Here are the results of the summit's breakout sessions:

Agriculture/Food

• Education Campaign to schools, neighborhoods, businesses and consumers on nutrition, buying, cooking, and composting

• Increase the number of school and community gardens, and farm to school programs
• Create a Food Policy Council to address economic and government incentives and action
• Establish a food cooperate to oversee implementation of actions

Forestry

• Legislate meaningful change in forestland protection (in cooperation with the Oregon Conservation Strategy and Community Forestry Initiative)

• County act to minimize effects of Ballot Measure 37 on forests
• School (HS/college) curriculum on sustainable renewable forests -- meld, expand existing prorams.
• Prioritize forest lands in Washington County so as to maintain viable social/economic/environmental forest benefits.
• Explore/exploit funding sources to develop community strategies re: stakeholder collaboration
• Series of naturally sponsored community forums/discussions on forests
• Strategies/incentives/marketing tools to sustain/support small woodland ownership -- family help
• More emphasis on non-timber forest products/values -- water, wildlife, recreation
• Bus connections to forest lands, e.g., Stubb Steward State Park
• Forest education center at Stubb Steward State Park
• Use Stubb Steward State Park opening celebration as a forest education opportunity

Green Building/Development

• Establish an Office of Sustainability with a level of visibility to ensure citizens, developers, public officials and elected officials can come together to support green building

• Elected officials accountable to set an example by ensuring green public structures
• Well organized public education system
• Incentives for: Corporate, Public, Smaller-Housing
• Code development to contain new materials and processes (expedited permitting for green building)

Green Spaces

• Connect green space issues to economic and health benefits

• Multi-Media marketing campaign. Develop outreach strategy.
• Create community involvement partnerships on green spaces issues and projects with government, corporate, broad segment of community.
• Provide economic incentives. Dedicated funding for local operations, maintenance, capital.
• Develop equitable taxing, fees and charges between all parts of county for green spaces.
• Green Spaces master plan for Washington County.

Land Stewardship

• Fix measure 37

• Education
• Sustainability Office
• Plug into Oregon Business Plan
• Incentives: Federal, State
• Establish County sustainability goals
• Demonstration projects
• Annual summit
• Keep functional habitat
• Information Resource Center
• Develop BMPs

Transportation

• Better transit amenities (e.g. bus stops)

• Improved use of existing transportation options: arterials, North/South connections, busses, bike/pedestrian, smaller connecting streets, build up not out, non-vehicular routes, consistent street names on a grid
• Expanded use of technology: intelligent transportation systems (ITS), shop on the internet
• Economic/Development strategy
• Education/behavior management (drive less/save more, carpool)
• Incentives. Example: If employers receive tax break, include conditions that provide employee incentives (bus passes, carpool, bike, etc).
• Understand link between land use and transportation: Including policy makers, staff, publc

Water Quality / Quantity

• Establish incentive programs for consumers -- region wide

• Engage and inform key stakeholders (CPO's & citizens) on challenges/actions.
• Develop goals for quality/quantity
• Measure/performance targets
• Educate at multiple levels (e.g. sustainability of the resources, own the problem)
• How to live in a watershed sustainably

Comments on this summit, the above priorities, and a sustainability organization can be directed to the Vision Action Network of Washington County.

I had lunch with Washington County Commissioner Dick Schouten on Wednesday, October 17th. During lunch I presented Dick with a copy of Daniel Lerch's new book, "Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty". We discussed the operational environment of the Board of Commissioners to help better understand how they work and what their passions are.

A few days later I was copied on the following email from Dick Schouten to Sia Langstrom, the Director of the Vision Action Network; the Washington County Group group focusing on County sustainability:

Sia:
Could you kindly forward the following info on to those who attended the sustainability focus group with me yesterday, it concerns the book I referenced several times during the discussions:
"Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty - A guidebook on Peal Oil and Global Warming for local Governments" (2007) by Daniel Lerch of the Post Carbon Institute.
This book will be out very soon. Peter Lunsford of Washington County Peak Oil was kind enough to give me an advance copy just two days ago. The pertinent web sites about the Post Carbon Institute is: www.postcarbonpress.com ; and the above book: www.postcarboncities.net
Btw, among those contributing to the book are our own Michael Jordan, Metro COO, PSU's Ethan Seltzer and Brendan Finn, Chief of staff for Portland Commissioner Saltzman, along with a long list of academics from places like Rutgers, U. of British Columbia, etc, etc.

He also sent me a personal email that read,

Peter, Thanks. I think the book is excellent. Its well centered, reasonable and the author clearly understands local government.

On October 22nd, I sent the following email to the following elected officials:
Commissioner Tom Brian - mailto:tom.brian@verizon.net
Commissioner Andy Duyck - mailto:andy@duyckmachine.com
Commissioner Dick Schouten - mailto:dick_schouten@co.washington.or.us
Commissioner Desari Strader - mailto:cao@co.washington.or.us
Commissioner Roy Rogers - mailto:royr@rascpas.com
Mayor Bill Bash - mailto:bbash@ci.cornelius.or.us
Mayor Cheri Olson - mailto:info@northplains.org
Mayor Craig Dirksen - mailto:craigd@tigard-or.gov
Mayor Keith Mays - mailto:maysk@ci.sherwood.or.us
Mayor Lou Ogden - mailto:lou.ogden@juno.com
Mayor Richard Kidd - mailto:mayor@groveweb.net
Governor Ted Kulongoski - http://www.governor.state.or.us/Gov/contact_us.shtml
Legislator Chuck Riley - mailto:chuck@chuckriley.org
Congressman David Wu - http://www.house.gov/wu/email.shtml
Senator Gordon Smith - http://gsmith.senate.gov/webform.htm
Senator Ron Wyden - http://wyden.senate.gov/contact.html

This past week, the largest global conference on peak oil was held in Houston, by ASPO-USA. Over 525 people attended this year’s conference, a record for what was already the world’s largest annual conference on peak oil. Some 60 speakers addressed attendees who came from 18 countries and 35 US states. Attendees included an even mix of corporate senior-level management, academic / NGO, students, and general public. Over 25 members of the accredited press attended including AP, New York Times, Bloomberg News, the Houston Chronicle, World Oil magazine, the Oil & Gas Journal, and many others. (You can learn more about ASPO-USA here: www.aspo-usa.com .)

---> The conference discussed global petroleum supplies and production versus demand with the primary concensus being that petroleum supplies would no longer be capable of meeting demand much past 2009 or 2010, causing catastrophic economic consequences across the world.

---> What contingency plans are in place for responding to this crisis in Washington County and its Municipalities? What are you doing about it? How will your solutions mitigate the risks?

Now that you've read my note, why not take a moment and write one yourself? Use your own words, but let them know you want information and think this is an important issue.

Later in the week Dick and I had a brief exchange about a Pacific University student who had been in an email exchange with the Board of Commissioners, trying repeatedly to persuade the Board to sign the Cool Counties Initiative. This is essentially a parallel to our own path with the Board. On October 25th, I met with that college student, Nick Engelfried, and we spent about four hours together discussing the issue. Nick is a passionate young man who is alarmed about global warming. He is actively engaged in tryin gto save the world and is currently working extensively with the Environment Club at Pacific University. We discussed colluding to spread the word about fossil fuel depletion and implications going forward. This is a bright young man that has outstanding writing capabilities, seems very intelligent, and his heart is in the right place. He was personally instrumental in getting the City of Hillsboro to sign onto ICLEI. I think we'll be hearing more from him.

That's it for today.

Peter

A few updates are in order in terms of WCPO's actions with Washington County elected officials and government offices.

Previous updates:
Initial entry here.
Updates 2-5 here.

In June, we requested a meeting with the Public Information Officer (PIO) of Washington County to determine what information the County had regarding the peak oil issue, and what was currently being done or planned to mitigate the risks. That meeting was scheduled and held in August, and Donna Maebori and I attended.

The PIO also invited the Director of Washington County's VAN (Vision Action Network), Sia Lindstrom to attend. The Vision Action Network is a "private non-profit organization committed to the promotion and support of collaborative community-based problem solving in Washington County" and was established and is largely funded by the County "to promote and support community-based problem solving through relationship building, planning and implementation processes that coordinate and optimize public, private and individual actions and resources."

The PIO spent half the meeting discussing his role with Washington County. We learned that the peak oil information that the County had on file was largely the information we had shared with them to date, and that while the information was informative, specific actions were not being taken that he was aware of. Our query into what actions Washington County was taking toward mitigating risk was met with being given a copy of the "discussion draft" of the 2020 Strategic Plan for the County, along with an invitation to make comments on that Strategic Plan.

Another quarter of the meeting was devoted to Sia Lindstrom telling us what VAN was all about. We were also invited to take a seat on VAN's Sustainability Summit Planning Team, which we accepted. Their next meeting was scheduled for September.

VAN had sponsored the Washington County Sustainability Summit in January of 2007. More than 100 business, community, government, religious, and citizens attended with the goal of developing a shared vision and identify common ground among existing sustainability plans, and to identify and prioritize community-wide strategies to address environmental sustainability. The result was to be the creation of a "shared vision and community agenda" for sustainability in Washington County. The specific areas of focus were,

• Agriculture/Food
• Forestry
• Green Building Development
• Green Spaces
• Land Stewardship
• Transportation, and
• Water Quality/Quantity.

I attended the Summit Planning Team Meeting with high hopes of being able to present the problems of peak oil to the Team, with the intent of having the team then take this information back to the individual strategy teams. Unfortunately, that wasn't what was on their agenda. Instead, I learned that the strategy teams had all put together reports on their findings, actions, and priorities, that these were being finalized, and that "although peak oil may be an important issue, we really don't have time to get into that here today. If peak peak oil turns out to be real and does occur at some point, that may be the time we can address it". This position was typical, and not so unexpected, but completely naive. I was informed by the Team Chair that if I wanted to present information on the issue that perhaps interested parties could stay behind after the meeting to listen. Two people stayed for five minutes. It was a terrible disappointment.

Donna Maebori plans to attend the next meeting to see if there is a consistent attitude, and perhaps to network some more, but it appears that that the Planning Team already has their agenda and action items and are not open to receiving further information which could change those items.

Moving on, I have continued to send small tidbits of information to the County Board of Commissioners. Commissioner Dick Schouten is becoming somewhat of a champion for us. He has become peak oil aware and agrees we are headed for trouble. The other Commissioners are not responding to my notes at all.

An example of one such recent exchange was a copy of an article from the Columbus Dispatch, the newspaper in Columbus, OH. The Article, entitled, Higher prices for gasoline could hurt Ohio road projects, said,


"The Ohio Department of Transportation estimates that it may face a $1.5 billion deficit by 2013, partly because the high cost of fuel has Ohioans driving less and buying vehicles that are more fuel efficient. Those choices mean less gas-tax revenue for the state.

Earlier this year, incoming ODOT Director James Beasley wrote that the department is inundated with projects that can't be funded in the foreseeable future. Officials haven't said how they'll decide which ones take priority.

So I sent an email to the Washington County Board of Commissioners and all the Washington County Mayors, attaching a copy of the article, and asking what affect this phenomenon (lowered gas tax revenues due to higher gas prices and demand destruction) would have on Washington County. I received one response -- from Dick Schouten. But he copied everyone in my original email, and this is what he said....

Peter:

Gas taxes are, and I expect will continue to be a relatively declining source of local revenue to pay for this County's transportation. We already rely on property taxes and development fees for a significant part of our collective County transportation funding, and I think the property tax share of such funding will increase over time. This also means that we should (for reasons of equity and efficiency) use non-gas taxes and in particular property taxes expended for transportation to pay for "alternative" transportation and land use policies that reduce demand with respect to motorized vehicles, not just spend such taxes to increase the supply of (and demand for) roads and fuel.

I agree with you, we are entering a very different world: much, much stronger competition on world markets from resource hungry India and China; a world with much higher oil/gasoline costs; oil supply interruptions of a very serious nature will happen; ever growing political instability in parts of the world with most of the remaining oil resources ( e.g., Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Venezuela among other places); and increasing costs and burdens will inevitably be placed on all world carbon resources (related to regulating green house gases such as carbon dioxide, etc., per Kyoto and post-Kyoto treaty regulations, emerging carbon trading markets, etc.).

Dick

So, the rest of the Commissioners and all the Mayors received this response. Will anything happen as a result? We'll see.

Peter

This afternoon I received a call from Bob Davis, the Washington County Administrator, to discuss our approaching the County on energy depletion issues. The call lasted nearly a half an hour (this is goodness!)

Initially he asked where we wanted to go with this and what kinds of interaction with the County did we seek? I explained that we wanted to partner with the County in 1) raising awareness of the the citizens and industrial groups about energy depletion problems, the implications and risks, and urge them to start preparations now; 2) defining some specific and measurable risk mitigation strategies at the County government level; 3) to support the County in stepping up to the task of being a central sustainability coordinating point for the incorporated and unincorporated municipalities (city governments) throughout the County; 4) to assist the County in taking a public position on an energy constrained future.

Initially, the conversation was guarded, with each of us trying to mentally figure out what the other was up to. He asked if I thought the County wasn't aware of energy problems and I replied that, quite frankly, it didn't appear so, given our inquiry with the County Public Information Officer who stated that he was unaware of the peak oil or energy depletion issue itself, or of any actions or information at the County level addressing the issue (see my blog from 07/01.)

Bob assured me that the County and the Board of Commissioners were very well aware of energy depletion problems (although they weren't categorized under the label of "peak oil", per se) and that several energy reduction measures were in progress. He cited commuter rail, light rail, and the new design of the town of Bethany as examples. He also indicated that the County had internally discussed the idea of establishing an Office of Sustainability (this is goodness), but that at the current time they didn't have any idea how, when, or what that office would really look like (badness). He also emphasized that the County simply doesn't have the staff and resources to address the effort right now. He reported that the County works regularly with Metro which serves as the regional coordinating body on transportation and sustainability issues.

We then had a discussion about some of the implications facing the County and its residents in the event of an energy shoock (a sudden drop in fuel availability or sudden price surge.) I gave examples: The enormous number of homes and businesses that depended upon natural gas for heat, and that if natural gas prices tripled due to geo-political actions or other sudden supply disruptions (likely within the next few years) that customers would simply be unable to pay the utility bills and this posed a serious risk to survival (in wintertime for example). The impacts of $5-7, or even $8-10 motor fuel on the general populace, including the basics of getting to work and back. The impacts on the marginalized populations of the County, particularly the high number of immigrants in the agricultural sector, who might be severely impacted by significant inflation. The impacts on the County agriculture industry if fertilizers became unavailable or too costly to use.

I asked if there was an "energy shock" mitigation plan on file with the County Emergency Management Office. Bob clarified that he wasn't aware of any. We discussed that this might be a good idea and I was given contact information for the guy in charge of the EMO, Scott Porter. He asked if we thought the Federal Government had a plan to take action. I summarized the report and audit from the GAO that finds the US Gov't has no plans and that this is a big problem. I suggested that it appears at present that mitigation strategies will be left to local govenments and citizens to handle. I directed him to our relocalize.net website to view that, and other relevant government reports.

We also talked about bio-fuels. Bob asked what I thought of them. I responded that they were certainly a bridge to our future energy model, but that we were actually trading food for fuel, and that was a moral dilemma that needed to be addressed. I mentioned the riots in Mexico caused by the price of tortillas skyrocketing because the US was buying so much of their corn to make ethanol.

I told Bob about our film screening on the 10th and infomred him that we had invited the Mayors and City Councils of all the cities in the County. He asked me to notify Noreen Lee with the Board to extend an invitation to them as well (which I will do today.)

We left the conversation on a positive note -- Bob promised to bring up the issue to the Commissioners to see if they 1) wanted to take a public position, and 2) what the next steps would be. I assured him that Washington County Peak Oil would do what it could to assist the County in raising public awareness, coordinating with other municiple entities in the region, and in helping define effective mitigation strategy and policy at the County level.

More later....

One of the mission statements of Washington County Peak Oil is to influence policies of local governments for constructive and sustainable solutions. This blog will highlight news and events that occur regarding this issue with our group.

Washington County is a big place, and there are several municipalities here: Hillsboro, Beaverton, Tigard, Tualatin, Aloha, Gaston, Cornelius...well, you get my point. While several municipalities in the United States have begun the process of addressing energy depletion, the task of working individually with all the member cities in Washington County is enormous.

Many cities begin their process by passing a Peak Oil Resolution that essentially officially recognizes the issue as a challenge for the future of their city, and which states some organizational objectives about how the city should begin approaching the issue.

Portland passed such a resolution last year, established a citizens task force, and waited approximately nine months for its recommendations. San Francisco passed a peak oil resolution last year but hasn't yet formed the required citizens committee to research and report on the implications. The City of Oakland's ad hoc energy Task Force, established by resolution last October, began meeting monthly in April of this year "to develop an action plan (by Decmber of this year) for Oakland to become oil independent by 2020." The city of Bloomington, IN, passed a peak oil resolution last year recognizing that the City of Bloomington must prepare for the inevitability of oil peak, and encourages the community to become better informed on energy-related matters. New York has approached the energy situation in a different way, by approaching various issues of energy depletion with suggested sustainability programs. The city of Austin, TX, just passed an Energy Depletion resolution last month after a year-long campaign by the local peak oil group there, Crude Awakening. They want to form a citizens task force to report to the city by the end of the calendar year.

As you can see, this approach takes an enormous amount of valuable time...time that just may not be available any longer. If we were to approach each city in Washington County and campaign for a peak oil resolution, then work with various task forces to reach recommendations, then work with the city's to implement the recommendations it might be sometime in the year 2010 that results would begin to appear. That's just not soon enough. So instead of approaching the cities and working from the bottom up, we decided to start work at the County level and ask the County to become a central coordinator for the city municipalities, and Metro at the regional level.

Here's what we've done so far:

• We went to the offices of the Washington County board of Commissioners to determine how we could best engage the Board in a dialog about energy depletion.  They asked us to send them a letter with some information on the issue, and a description of our intent.  We contacted the Commissioners office with just such a letter of interest, including a four-page description of the peak oil issue and a description of our groups purpose and interest.  In the letter we indicated that we wanted to partner with them on the implications and issues affecting the city in regards to energy depletion.  We received a response from the County, on  June 28th, indicating that the City Administrator, Robert Davis, would be contacting us within a week to discuss our interest. The 4-page memo we sent is attached to this blog.
• We contacted the County Public Information Officer, Philip Brasford, and requested that his office provide us with a summary of the information they have on peak oil, energy depletion, and the implications of the issue. He said he didn't know of any action on this issue and didn't know much about it and would be interested in talking. His first available appointment time would be the week of August 6-10! Well, we'll keep on this one.
• We have invited the Mayors of every city in the County to attend our group's official launch on July 10th and join us in the viewing of the film, A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash.  We also asked them to further extend the invitation to every member of their City Council. We have not, as yet, received any replies and we will wait to see how many actually attend.
• We will be meeting this week with a representative of METRO, to discuss, among other things, how best we can team them up with the municipal authorities in Washington County, and work together on a region-wide approach to peak oil.

As developments materialize, I'll report them in this blog. I hope you will join me in encouraging your local officials to partner with us, and to proactively address this serious issue.