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Our Resources

Residents and visitors are attracted to Jamestown's natural beauty, and protecting natural resources is important to the town’s economic vitality. One of Jamestown’s great resource opportunities is its natural lands, which offer opportunities to be active and “escape” from technology, busy streets, and everyday stress. Several important resource challenges for Jamestown include energy consumption, waste disposal (trash), and development practices. How we manage these issues is critical to the current and future health of our resources.

Our Resources Fact Sheet

Issues (Learn More):

Energy Use
Environmental Resources
Solid Waste
Green Construction
Narragansett Bay

Interested in water supply and wastewater disposal? Visit the Our Infrastructure section.

How are we doing? Click Here to track our progress.

Goals:

Significantly decrease overall community consumption of non-local goods, non-renewable energy and fuels, and materials that are non-recyclable/non-recycled.
Encourage the use of local, non-polluting, renewable, and recycled resources (water, energy, and material resources).
Encourage residents and business owners to reduce the amount of pollutants entering the air, soil, and water.

Actions:

Evaluate the potential reuse of collected and treated rain water at municipal facilities for innovative applications (irrigation, fire prevention, etc.).
Develop a long-range strategy to become a “zero waste” community.
Develop a municipal Energy Management Plan for Town-owned buildings and fleets, including the following: a) Overall statement about the Town’s energy policy; b) Baseline energy usage; c) Energy reduction goal; d) Greenhouse gas emissions reduction goal; e) Renewable energy use goal; f) Action Plan compiling all strategies and supporting actions.
Consider renewable energy for town facilities and operations.
Research incentives for a LEED™ certification standard or its equivalent in new non-residential and multi-family buildings.
Encourage and support local non-government initiatives that further the Town’s goals and/or actions related to resource protection, which may include those that improve water quality, reduce waste, or improve energy efficiency of private homes or businesses.
Develop an outreach program that educates residents and businesses about the benefits of making individual environment-friendly choices that support resource protection. Partner with local, regional, and state organizations that have existing resources and programming. Outreach can include distribution of informational materials, demonstrations, and guest speakers. Topics of interest are ways to reduce waste and increase recycling, environment-friendly gardening and landscaping techniques, and taking action to improve the quality of local waterbodies, among others.
Develop a town landscaping policy for municipally-owned and managed properties that strongly encourages the use of native plant species and environment-friendly landscaping techniques and maintenance methods.