The New Conservation Chic

Portland blazes trails in the battle to cut fuel costs

Two years ago, Portland, Ore., Physician Donald Trelstad and his wife Cindy, put a $450 wood-burning stove in the kitchen of their rambling turn-of-the-century home. Last March they spent $2,400 on storm windows. After the installation of a second wood stove this winter, they expect to shut down their old oil furnace for good. Boasts Cindy: "We could afford the oil bills. It's just that we'd rather not give the money to the Arab cartel. We're sort of proud of the fact that we won't burn any oil."

Conservation has become both chic and controversial in Portland, which has perhaps the most far-reaching municipal energy-saving programs in the U.S. The city government has tried to fight fuel waste by discouraging the use of automobiles and by encouraging citizens to weatherize their homes and businesses. The goal is to reduce the city's total energy use by one-third by 1995.

To get cars off the streets, the city has built an efficient new bus system. The centerpiece is the $15 million, twelve-block-long Portland Mall. Every bus route in the city begins and ends on this spacious thoroughfare, where travelers conveniently change from one coach to another. Since the mall's opening, bus ridership has risen 35%. In 1984 the city will complete a $100 million trolley line between Portland and its eastern suburbs.

Weatherization, though, has been highly contested. In August of 1979 the city council decreed that all homes and shops had to be insulated by 1984 or they could not be put up for sale. But many residents claimed that the action violated their property rights. In a special referendum last month, voters shelved the measure for the time being.

For Portland residents who are weatherizing their homes voluntarily, the city has put together an $18 million fund to provide low-interest loans. Local utility companies, which have discovered that it is more economical for them to finance home insulation than to build new power plants to meet higher energy demand, also provide no-interest loans for fuel-saving projects.

Some Portlanders are experimenting with solar energy, despite the city's often rainy climate. Michael Roach, a clothing importer, has installed a sun-powered water-heating system that has cut his natural gas bill in half. The city council has another innovative proposal to encourage the use of solar power: Roach and others will be permitted to buy air rights so that no tall buildings or trees will ever be able to throw a shadow over their place in the sun.

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