By CECIL BOTHWELL

Asheville is rapidly gaining recognition as a national leader in energy and resource conservation, and it has everything to do with the attitudes and beliefs of our citizens. Signs of that personal dedication are everywhere. 

We have led the state in water conservation for many years, despite the fact that we have never faced the severity of drought conditions seen in the eastern part of the state. Our water customers simply choose to use water more wisely.

We have the highest per-capita ownership of hybrid electric vehicles in the entire region. That means people here are willing to pay a little (sometimes a lot) more in order to cut back on fossil fuel consumption. (Though there are significant savings in fuel costs, the payback period will remain quite long—at least until our federal government stops subsidizing oil and keeping prices artificially low.)

We have long enjoyed the highest participation rate in curbside recycling in the state, and that already strong showing has multiplied since introduction of our Big Blue, single-stream recycling program. As a recent press release from the City noted: “The big goal of Big Blue is to divert materials from the landfill, and over its first year, Zero Waste Asheville reduced the amount of material sent there by 1,526 tons, a decrease of 6.5 percent compared to the previous year.”

Viewed another way, that amounted to a 25 percent increase (by weight) in the quantity of material recycled. And in coming years we expect to implement a curbside composting system. Food waste is the largest component of our waste stream by weight, and diverting it will not only save taxpayer money on landfill tipping fees, but will feed into a local source of fertilizer for our gardens and farms.

Other changes I’ve mentioned in past columns include the switch to LED street lights that will save taxpayers $365,000 per year in electric costs, even including amortization of the cost of the new fixtures. We’ve tightened up City buildings, added hybrid electric buses that double the mpg of our transit vehicles, and added natural gas vehicles to the City fleet. We even have the first plug-in electric squad car in the state (and the second in the U.S.)

But we’ve only begun, and programs already in the works are going to ratchet our claim to green leadership.

I mentioned Solarize Asheville (a project of the Blue Ridge Sustainability Institute) in my June column. The effort is well underway, recruiting clusters of homeowners in various neighborhoods, who all sign up to install photovoltaic panels on their roofs. Contractors are able to offer steep discounts when they can work multiple jobs in the same few blocks. As the program expands we will see rapid deployment of sustainable energy generation in our city.

Meanwhile, Asheville Green Opportunities has begun to teach peer-to-peer energy efficiency classes in the East of the Riverway neighborhood, starting with 150 homes. Homeowners and renters will learn simple, low-cost steps they can take to reduce their energy costs. At the same time, they’ll learn how best to share their new knowledge with neighbors.

My piece of the community effort dubbed AMAZED (Asheille Metro Area Zero Energy District), is compiling a catalogue of best-practices for commercial users. Relying on research conducted by the Rocky Mountain Institute and the Research Triangle Regional Partnership, I’ll soon start contacting local businesses with cost effective ideas for cutting their energy bills, ideas tailored to fit specific types of users: retail, medical, manufacturing, offices and so forth.

All of these energy-saving plans (and more) are aimed at gradually reducing Asheville’s (and WNC’s) dependence on imported coal and oil. As we become more self-reliant, there is a good prospect of shutting down Duke Energy’s Lake Julian coal-fired power plant — the single biggest source of air pollution in our region.

When that day comes, we will all breathe easier, both figuratively and practically. Our children will be healthier, our mountain views will be longer, and we’ll know we are buying local in the very best sense of those words.

•

Cecil Bothwell, author of nine books, including “She Walks On Water: A novel” (Brave Ulysses Books, 2013), is a member of Asheville City Council.