Desert golf resort turns a climate corner

By Noaki Schwartz

updated 4:44 p.m. ET July 27, 2007

PALM DESERT, Calif. - In many ways, Palm Desert is the epitome of environmental excess.

Tourists and homeowners live in air-conditioned comfort in this desert golf resort where the mercury can climb past 110 degrees for days on end. And though the city gets no more than a trace of rain per year, it has lush green fairways, turquoise swimming pools, manmade waterfalls, and an artificial lagoon so big that hotel guests are taken across it in gondolas.

But Palm Desert is changing its profligate ways. In fact, it is on is way to becoming a model for other California cities in how to deal with the changes global warming could bring.

Rising utility costs and dwindling water supplies are prompting this city of 42,000 to start conserving resources and reducing greenhouse gases.

Among other things, the city is using stingier irrigation systems and requiring homes to have more energy-efficient construction and drought-resistant landscaping.

It has banned drive-through windows at fast-food restaurants to reduce pollution from idling cars. Public buses run on fuel cells. And residents are encouraged to commute in electric golf carts along designated lanes.

Also, the City Council is considering a plan to take advantage of the area's 350 days of sunshine per year by providing rebates and low-interest loans to businesses and homeowners who install solar panels. (Already, solar panels have been installed at City Hall.)

Goal to curb by third
Altogether, the city is seeking to reduce energy use by 30 percent over the next five years.

California regulators have committed $14 million to an energy-saving demonstration project, on top of more than $50 million the city already receives from the state for various efficiency projects. In return, regulators are asking that Palm Desert devise a model that can be applied to communities across the state.

"It's a pretty progressive move," California Public Utilities Commission President Michael Peevey said of the city's drive to become more efficient. "This is not exactly Berkeley or Santa Monica with tofu-eating environmentalists."

Palm Desert, famous for its celebrity golf tournaments, is a well-to-do, politically conservative community with a large number of retirees.

Chris Carlson / AP The Desert Willow golf course in Palm Desert, Calif., was designed with drought tolerant plants to save water.

City officials recognize that energy and water — and the rising expenses associated with them — will remain among their most pressing concerns if temperatures continue to climb and water shortages in the Southwest persist, as expected.

"The high cost of energy is a wonderful motivator — it's called pain," said Patrick Conlon, who heads Palm Desert's newly created Office of Energy Management.

Plan drafted in Baltics
The story of how Palm Desert wound up at the forefront of California's energy-efficiency push had an unlikely beginning: Palm Desert officials made the pitch to state regulators while steaming across the Baltic Sea from Estonia to Sweden after a 2005 energy conference.

Some scoffed at the idea because desert cities are notorious electricity hogs. Undeterred, city officials drafted what they called the Estonia Protocol, which sounds more like a spy novel than an energy-efficiency plan.

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