Electrify Benson Tech

Last spring, Portland Public Schools passed an important climate policy making it a leader in the region and nation. But today, the integrity of the District is on the line as renovation began on Benson Polytechnic High School in August, with no plans to transition away from methane, a potent greenhouse gas 80 times more damaging than carbon dioxide.

For more details, we’re sharing an opinion piece written by former school board member Mike Rosen, which appeared in The Oregonian 9/7/22. Rosen has a doctorate in environmental science and engineering, and is a member of the Portland Public Schools Climate Justice Committee. In his piece, he asks how the Benson renovation team decided to stand by fossil gas after PPS “knocked it out of the park” with the 2021 Kellogg Middle School project — a net-zero-carbon-ready building in Southeast Portland. (See article below)

What can you do? Please encourage PPS walk its talk!

Send an email message to board chair, Andrew Scott and vice-chair, Gary Hollands, requesting that the Board direct district staff to evaluate extra costs and time delay to redesign and truly modernize the building for a fossil-free future. For best results, customize your subject line and send a sentence about why this matters to you and your family.

Mike Rosen’s September 7 Opinion article:

Earlier this year, Portland Public Schools passed a bold and nationally recognized policy on how the district should respond to climate crisis. Among other things, the policy calls for the district to reduce emissions, support resilience efforts and provide environmental and sustainability education. Already, PPS is facing its first test of whether it will walk its talk.

Benson High School, the largest high school building in Portland and the most expensive school modernization in the state, is slated to be rebuilt with methane heating, which is a type of fossil fuel infrastructure. This decision flies in the face of the policy, which strictly prohibits new structures to be built with fossil fuel infrastructure. When asked to redesign and retrofit the building as required, PPS offered up three deflections: A redesign will cost a significant amount of money and delay Benson’s reopening by a year; the building will be built with maximum energy efficiency; and PPS will still meet its target of reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2040.

If the district refuses to reverse course, the takeaway here is that PPS policy doesn’t matter, and honesty and transparency are secondary concerns for district leadership.

While planning for Benson’s redesign began long before the district officially adopted the climate policy, the policy – including a prohibition on new fossil-fuel infrastructure in our modernized schools – had been under discussion for three years. The district should have been planning electric-based heating to begin with.

Now, let’s examine the question of cost. The climate policy requires all PPS property to be retrofit before 2050 to remove fossil fuel infrastructure. Why construct a new building with fossil fuel infrastructure knowing it will have to be torn out and replaced? Should PPS really expect taxpayers to foot the bill for a future retrofit to address electric infrastructure they can put in place now? A building such as Benson High School, which undoubtedly will be the premier career and technical education facility in Oregon is designed with a lifetime of 100 years in mind, serving generations of students. Why not do it right on the front end?

Frankly, it is curious that this is even an issue. Kellogg Middle School, which recently was rebuilt and reopened, went through a community-wide design process from October 2017 through April 2018. Kellogg is now 100% electric and designed to be energy neutral. Benson began its design process in October 2018, well after the design work at Kellogg was completed. How did Benson’s team get it so wrong when Kellogg’s got it so right? Even more confusing is that another building on the Benson campus, slated to house the Multiple Pathways to Graduation program, was designed to be 100% electric. So why was Benson singled out to be the only building with fossil fuel infrastructure? When I asked PPS’ chief operating officer about the omission, his response was simply “I don’t know.”

That’s not a satisfactory answer. Buildings are a major contributor to carbon emissions in Multnomah County. The time to address this design error is now. PPS needs to immediately, through an independent assessor, determine the costs and timing impacts of changing the design for Benson to be energy neutral. The PPS School Board adopted this bold policy backed by strong community support. Now the community will see if PPS is going to live up to its commitments for climate justice, or if the policy was little more than a PR exercise.

Together we can make a difference!