Tumwater Green Team presents 2024 operations dashboard; calls for fleet electrification and building decarbonization

A city sustainability team presented Tumwater's 2024 Green Team annual report to the council, summarizing municipal progress and recommending steps to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from city operations.

Alyssa Jones Wood, who presented the report, said the city has adopted a purchasing policy favoring electric or hybrid replacements for light-duty city vehicles and has transitioned its diesel fleet to renewable diesel beginning October–November 2024. "On an average, each session of our fleet vehicles and the public or employees plugging into any of the charging stations that we have at our city facilities, it's about a buck 50," Jones Wood said, referring to average electricity cost per charging session.

The dashboard — now posted on the city's website — shows several operational highlights for 2024: gasoline remained the largest share of fuel consumed (about 74% of fuel use in the data presented), renewable diesel was used for diesel vehicles in the final months of 2024, the city is using reclaimed water at the golf course (in 2024 potable and reclaimed water usage were roughly equal for city irrigation and operations), and the city is diverting about 50% of its operational waste from landfill. Jones Wood also presented solar production increases after adding panels on city operations in 2023, and said the city completed a canopy assessment of city-owned properties.

The Green Team listed recommended actions for the council and staff, including implementing the fleet-electrification memo (with separate goals for police and non-police vehicles), adopting targets for fully decarbonizing city facilities, funding projects identified in an investment-grade audit through the Capital Facilities Plan and seeking grant funding to design solar-plus-storage for the library, city hall and both fire stations. Jones Wood also pointed to an employee commute-trip-reduction program with roughly 3% of employees currently participating.

Council members praised the dashboard format and presentation. Council member Leeta Dollhoff thanked Jones Wood for making the data accessible: "How do we know where we want to go if we don't know where we are at today?" she said, adding that the dashboard helps identify where the city is making progress and where additional work is required.

The presentation included operational clarifications: 2024 potable-water usage rose in 2023 and remained above the city's stated goal in 2024; some natural-gas consumption is driven by the golf course and leased restaurant operations; waste-diversion estimates are based on container collection and frequency data rather than a full waste audit; and tree-canopy targets are higher than current coverage and will fluctuate with development and replanting.

No formal council action was taken at the meeting. Staff said the Green Team's materials will be used in project planning and grant-seeking and that specific capital and operating requests would be considered through the usual budget and Capital Facilities Plan processes.

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