l Encourage green building practices.

l Promote bike trails, carpooling and public transit.

l Increase recycling.

l Buy more renewable energy.

l Enforce land-use policies to reduce sprawl and preserve open space.

l Create more walkable communities.

-

PARK CITY - It's not easy being green - even in the rarefied atmosphere of Utah's top ski town.

For example, Park City Transit is spectacularly successful - the 27-bus fleet will carry almost 2 million riders this year - and yet the town still faces messy traffic snarls and resulting air pollution.

And while the area boasts more than 300 miles of hiking and biking trails, many parts of Park City, as well as the suburbs stretching to Kimball Junction, remain frighteningly less than pedestrian friendly.

Even simple environmental initiatives can seem difficult. Summit County's curbside recycling is free, but fewer than half of Park City residents use it.

Those and other realizations have led Park City leaders to adopt wide-ranging environmental goals. Their notion: Being green brings greenbacks - from eco-conscious tourists to business investors.

But the area has a long way to go, laments Insa Riepen, director of Recycle Utah, Park City's 24-hour drop-off center.

"On a scale of one to 10, Park City wants to be a 9.5," she says. "We are definitely a 6, but we could do a lot more."

To illustrate, Riepen says most Parkites won't recycle unless they get pinched in the pocketbook.

"We need a significant increase in [landfill] tipping fees. Without that, recycling doesn't make sense to some people," she explains. "Sixty percent of what you throw away is recyclable. Thirty percent is compostable. But there are very few people getting that message."

Mayor Dana Williams gives Park City a better grade, but acknowledges it's still well short of an A.

Because the eco-push is seen as essential to the tourist economy, the City Council recently adopted a passel of green goals, including the purchase of renewable energy, improvement of watersheds, promotion of bike trails and encouragement of environmentally friendly building practices.

Some initiatives will succeed more easily than others, the mayor says, adding that greening should be seen as an ongoing process.

Park City is on the right track with policies such as its anti-idling ordinance, which forbids drivers from parking their cars with the engine running, as some do in winter months.

But the statute, the mayor acknowledges, is rarely enforced.

Because water is seen as a future choke point for Park City's growth, the town is instituting conservation measures, including a new system at the municipal golf course that keeps sprinklers off until the ground is parched. At the same time, Williams says, some absentee Deer Valley mansion owners run sprinklers on 24-hour timers no matter what.

"When the town is full in winter, we have 28,000 people and use less water than we do in the summer when we're only 8,000," he explains. "We're looking at giving breaks on impact fees for xeriscaping, and we're working to get rid of as much Kentucky bluegrass as we can." Park City also wants to do its part to reduce greenhouse gases.

The municipality plans to spend an extra $30,000 this year to purchase electricity through Utah Power's wind-generated Blue Sky program. Some 600 households have signed on to Blue Sky, too, even though it's a bit more expensive.

And this ski season, Park City Transit introduced a bio-diesel pilot program on its Main Street Trolley and hopes to expand it fleetwide.

The city's recent adoption of the "Colorado Built Green" guidelines could save a lot of energy - up to 50 percent in heating costs if builders are willing to pay the upfront investment.

At Park City's Building Department, contractors can pick up a "Built Green Checklist" that outlines energy-efficient strategies for everything from insulation to landscaping.

Town officials point to Talisker Corp.'s huge hotel and condominium projects at Empire Pass near Deer Valley as examples of eco-friendly buildings. They meet all of the city's "build green" guidelines.

"This is not a mandatory program," says Ron Ivie, Park City's chief building official. "Talisker is doing it because they want to be good citizens. The idea is, we'll encourage folks to do it and some will."

But looking around at existing projects in Park City, Ivie concedes, it's hard to identify a lot of built-in green efficiencies, particularly amid Deer Valley's castles and condos. "You won't see a lot of green building. We're a little bit green but we aren't green-green."

The good news, says City Councilman Joe Kernan, is that Park City is taking on the challenges.

Kernan, who operates a curbside-recycling company, says he would give an A to any entity or resident who is willing to spend an extra 10 percent on green initiatives.

"People are willing to spend a little more to do these things. But we have to sell the nobility of it."

csmart@sltrib.com