This week, Express reporter Erin Fawcett has asked Mayor Morris Flewwelling questions regarding environmental issues to the City and what Red Deer is currently doing to help better protect it.
"Environmental issues are crucial because council and administration are trying to lead in sustainability," said Flewwelling. "One of the pillars of sustainability is environmental sustainability. If you mess up your environment, you are not sustainable. We are looking at two parts of that. We are looking to go forward with environmental sustainability and we're looking backwards to see what we have to clean up and change in order to move forward."
He said council has developed a sustainability plan for the City and they are currently in the process of doing the consultations with the community regarding an environmental master plan.
"We're going to bring together all the issues surrounding the environment in a master plan and it will be the master plan that will be the 'go forward'," said Flewwelling. "This is how we're going to care for our land, our water, our land use and everything within the environment."
"I think the issue is to make sure that we are good going forward," said Flewwelling. "Red Deer has a very high environmental standard within the public realm. People in Red Deer have an unusually high sensitivity to the environment. You touch a park and it's worth your life.
"We have very high standards of water treatment and very high standards of sewage treatments and very high standards of solid waste."
"We've changed all of our traffic lights to LEDs (light-emitting diode) and we're in the process of testing street lights and we'll get the public's response for what they prefer on that," said Flewwelling. "We'll change all 11,000 of those lights in the next little while. We have tested a dandelion and weed control program in the park here. We have the rain barrel initiative and the water conservation initiatives with the rebates on low flow toilets. The anti-idling initiative with the City is another one. And the education that goes with all of that.
"There are so many initiatives and I'm so proud of them all. We're using education and good sense as opposed to bylaws and legislation."
