It’s Hot! It’s Exciting!! Nobody’s heard of it!!!

What is it? GreenKeys! Yes, exclamation point. That’s how terrific it is. Terrific!

So what is GreenKeys!? It’s hard to say precisely. It seems to partially be an outreach effort by the expensive consultant hired by the county whose task it is to design how the Keys will implement its climate action plan and update sea level rise modeling (SLR).

Problem is, GreenKeys! didn’t do a particularly effective job at reaching out. It appears that only 23 or, to be generous, 27 people in the entire county responded to a survey distributed via Constant Contact. But the consultant only sent it to 89 people.

That consultant, Erin Deady, claims in an email that they had 27 responses to their survey. She goes on to say that the group’s database,

“… includes HOAs [Homeowners Associations], environmental organizations, the Climate Change Advisory Committee, Chamber Executive Directors, etc. The original constant contact announcement regarding the site went to 89 people, but there are also links to it through the Greenkeys.info website (the County would have to supply the number of “hits” to the County’s site). We sent it to 6 Chamber Executive Directors / VPs and now we have a 7th Chamber Executive Director in the database after the first was sent.  We are constantly updating our list.”

Curious. The Blue Paper contacted a couple of those chambers and the executive directors say they got nothing.

Craig G. Cope, executive director of the Key Largo Chamber of Commerce, replied, “We have not received anything.”

Daniel Samess, CEO of the Greater Marathon Chamber of Commerce responded, “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

The statistic of seven chambers is also odd because there aren’t seven chambers of commerce in the Keys; there are only five. Look it up.

Jose Jurado, president of The Homeowners Association of Coral Coast in the Upper Keys, said he didn’t recall getting the survey “and if I did probably did not pay any attention to it or it was sent to my spam folder.”

Dottie Moses is president of the Federation of Homeowners Associations, an umbrella organization in the Upper Keys that works with groups and also individuals. She reported that Deady contacted her group and was scheduled to deliver a presentation about the county’s sustainability efforts to the Federation’s board. On the scheduled date Deady had a conflict and Rhonda Haag, the Monroe County Sustainability Program Manager, made the presentation.

However, no mention was made then about distributing the GreenKeys! survey to Federation members so the effort went no further even though Moses says they have a “pretty good distribution list.”

What About Individuals?

The Blue Paper wrote to 20 people who have been directly involved in environmental issues for some time in the Keys and got 15 responses to the simple question: Did you get a survey from GreenKeys!? Of those 15, only two had received the survey and one of those didn’t realize it was a survey until she got the questionnaire from The Blue Paper.

Direct mail efforts, of which this was one, depend upon a good mailing list. The Blue Paper’s list was effective because it targeted interested people and they responded. GreenKeys! clearly had an inferior list and the lack of response illustrates that.

GreenKeys! also set up a website called Mindmixer .

Deady commented on it, saying that,

“The site has been active for approximately 5 weeks and we have 28 registered participants. We have had 119 interactions on the site meaning people have submitted an idea, photo, taken an instant poll or taken our first survey. We have had 652 hits to the site. We believe this is very good feedback and very active feedback for only being up for 5 weeks. Our most active postal code has been 33040 [Key West].”

Crowing about 28 registered participants doesn’t seem warranted. If one goes to the site, it appears that only 13 people are actually participating. Having registered ourselves, The Blue Paper received the results of the surveys that GreenKeys! published and it’s difficult to feel that the $ 200,000 that Deady will be paid is well spent.

For example, the site quotes what it considers the “Top Ideas” submitted by participants.

These include,

1) To be a leader in a green future

2) The Overseas Heritage Trail

3) Wider education throughout the community

4) Reuse of treated waste water

5) Reduce energy consumption

If these are the top ideas, one wonders what the non-top ones were. If any.

The site reports that 39 percent of those surveyed participated in this question or nine individuals. So 23 or 27 people responded to the survey but only nine thought enough of the question to even answer.

Here’s another survey question. Note that only three people responded to it and that the choices are odd.

QUESTION 1

In what area should we begin our efforts with implementing our Climate Action Plan?

1) Develop an implementation strategy for the Monroe County Community Climate Action Plan (2 votes)

2) Use improved inundation mapping to identify the sections of roadways, critical structures and natural areas that will be affected by sea level rise projections (1 vote)

3) Provide advocacy and leadership for adoption of climate change policies and legislation with local, state, and federal entities (no votes)

4) Incorporate Adaptation Action Area designation into local comprehensive plans and regional planning documents to identify those areas deemed most vulnerable to sea level rise and other climate change impacts (no votes)

5) Create policies for future development to incorporate sea level rise inundation vulnerabilities for the life expectancy of the infrastructure (no votes)

6) Revise Monroe County Comprehensive Plan to address strategic planning related to climate change mitigation and adaptation needs (no votes).

Anyone who has participated in the agonizing process of revising the Comp Plan knows how long this process would take so it’s not surprising that the idea received no votes.

Question four makes one wonder who designed this survey.

QUESTION 4

What forms of alternative energy do you think our community and the County should prioritize? Please pick the top two.

• Solar                    6
• Bio-fuels             2
• Co-generation   0
• Wind                   0

Well, duh. Co-generation is the use of heat from a power station to generate energy and since all the power in the Keys comes from the mainland, this is not exactly an option. At least the participants know that. And more than the consultant from Palm Beach. They also know that wind power is not possible here in the Keys where the wind doesn’t blow consistently. How about tidal power? Not an option provided.

Climate Change Committee Involvement

All of this is disheartening. The Climate Change Advisory Committee labored through several years of endless meetings and produced a Climate Action Plan. Even though the county appointed a sustainability program manager, it hired a consultant to implement what the board and the coordinator had come up with. For $ 200,000 of your tax dollars.

It’s not clear why the county felt they needed to hire an outside consultant to do work that a standing committee and county employee Rhonda Haag could do. Deady, who is a lawyer, has undertaken these kinds of responsibilities for other places including the city of Marathon.

Marathon received a grant to devise a sustainability effort a few years ago and did very little with the money. The new city hall that is in the planning stages has almost no energy saving elements so obviously the city council didn’t get the message. Nor did anyone know about the grant. The Blue Paper queried the Keynoter about the grant and the city’s alleged sustainability efforts and the editor knew nothing about it. Money wasted.

On her website Deady says,

“Our Firm has authored or co-authored numerous sustainability and climate plans and worked on innovative projects that have included green building features. Helping a client navigate this new industry and field is important because of the rapidly evolving nature of building codes, green building certifications and energy standards. We assist our clients in understanding how they will now need to consider new factors in their business model or meet new requirements in project approvals and planning.”

Deady also has been hired to study sea level rise. The Nature Conservancy [TNC] and others have already developed extensive sea level models so one wonders why the county decided to reinvent the wheel. However, when contacted, Chris Bergh of TNC said he believes that Deady and her team will take this farther and he favors additional study.

Deady’s description and the overall tenor of what the county plans points toward the goal of preparing the Keys for what is clearly inevitable: sea level rise inundating low lying areas, climate instability (heavy rains as they’ve had in the Northeast, Europe, and the Far East or drought), higher temperatures, more mosquitoes, more disease, and the list goes on.

After all this effort and outlay of cash, the biggest question is whether the county and the rather conservative Board of County Commissioners will implement any of the recommendations. More expensive studies have found their way to county shelves so it’s not a given that spending money means that the county will do a whole heck of a lot.