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Consultant recommends resilience plan and water-meter replacement after town sustainability review
Summary
Lotus presented a sustainability framework for Taos that prioritized water-meter replacement, water infrastructure upgrades, low-impact development and affordable housing; the consultant recommended expanding the framework into a resilience plan with a climate risk assessment and more community engagement.
Grace Sullivan, managing director for Lotus Engineering and Sustainability Communications, presented the firm’s year-long engagement with Taos on April 28, describing a municipal greenhouse gas inventory, a baseline analysis and community engagement outputs. Sullivan said the municipal inventory showed the bulk of emissions came from building energy use (about 55% of municipal emissions) and fleet/fuel use (about 38%); wastewater contributed about 7%.
Key priorities: Lotus recommended the town prioritize replacing aging water meters in a phased approach and fixing and replacing municipal water infrastructure to create an accurate baseline for water use and set targets. Other top focus areas identified from community engagement included water conservation, low-impact development (acequia protection, nature-based stormwater management) and affordable housing strategies to lower housing costs.
Resilience over plan: Sullivan recommended the town pursue a resilience plan rather than a narrower sustainability plan. She said a resilience plan would include a climate risk and vulnerability assessment to map municipal assets and help prioritize mitigation and adaptation actions. Sullivan noted the engagement included interviews, roundtables, youth focus groups and a public survey (not statistically significant) and recommended more data collection and partner engagement for a full plan.
Council response and local context: Council members welcomed the framework, noting ongoing opportunities such as award of a grant for solar lighting and a planned town water-meter project (which aligns with Lotus’s recommendations). Youth and council members emphasized mobility and low-cost transportation options and urged tailored transportation strategies for Taos’s dispersed geography.
Quote: “One of the most critical strategies we identified is seeking funding to replace water meters in a phased approach and then moving forward to fix and replace and maintain aging municipal water infrastructure,” Sullivan said.
