BROADCASTS.com

b'"Abita Springs is nestled in the piney woods of St. Tammany Parish, just east of Covington and north of Mandeville. The town has a well-earned reputation for clean are and sparkling clean artesian well water. St. Tammany has a reputation for being one of the most conservative parishes in Louisiana, yet in Abita Springs the Republican mayor and town aldermen have committed to move their town to 100 percent renewable energy by 2030.\\n\\nThe town is one of just over 100 U.S. municipalities who have signed onto the Sierra Club\\u2019s \\u201cReady for 100\\u201d pledge to pursue full renewable energy for their communities. The group made a splash at the recent U.S. Conference of Mayors\\u2019 meeting in Miami, where tidal flooding has become a reality even while some political leaders profess to be climate change skeptics.\\n\\nLeAnn Magee, founder of Abita Committee for Energy Sustainability, attended the Mayors\\u2019 Miami meeting with a small delegation of her co-horts. Abita Springs Mayor Greg Lemons is, it turns out, a long-time Sierra Club member and, MaGee says in the interview, enthusiastically embraced the idea of the town making the commitment to sustainable energy.\\n\\nSome of the town aldermen were skeptical but were won over when they learned that one of elements of the program was conducting an audit of public building energy usage. Helping the town reduce its cost of operating by reducing what it spends on energy had great appeal and the town was off and running.\\n\\nMagee comes by her environmentalism honestly (she\\u2019s originally from Oregon but has been a St. Tammany resident for all of this century). Others came to the cause as a result of the anti-fracking fight in St. Tammany that flared over a three-year period when Helis Oil sought to frack in the parish.\\n\\nAs a result of that long fight (no fracking occurred after a test well was drilled), some in the St. Tammany anti-fracking movement were looking for something positive to get behind. They found it in the Sierra Club\\u2019s Ready for 100 movement. Abita Springs is the first Louisiana municipality to sign up for the program.\\n\\nFor the naysayers out there, it\\u2019s worth noting that having a goal does not mean you\\u2019ve accomplished it, but having a goal is essential to accomplishing it. Abita has aimed high, setting a standard that other Louisiana municipalities in this climate change threatened state would do well to emulate.\\n\\nWe talk about Abita\\u2019s commitment and the thrill of environmentalists advocating for positive change."'