Findings Community Resilience Building Workshop

Having more discussion that leads to developing a strategic plan for achieving an emissions reduction goal and improve outreach and messaging on climate change for a variety of audiences emerged as two of the top priorities during the three-hour community resilience building workshop held online using Zoom on April 28. 

A group of 25 people including members of the Ferguson Township Board of Supervisors, Township Manager, local, regional and county government staff members, police, and emergency responders, elected and appointed officials, environmental and agricultural advocates and members of the business community and state college area school district participated in the workshop. It was sponsored by a collaborative partnership between the Pennsylvania Municipal League, Sustainable Pittsburgh, and the Nature Conservancy. 

Ferguson Township Assistant Township Manager Centrice Martin worked closely with the Director of Science of the Nature Conservancy Dr. Adam Whelchel, to coordinate with the core team established for the workshop. The core team included Ferguson Township Township Manager David Pribulka, Ferguson Township Planning Director Jenna Wargo, Ferguson Township Public Works Director Dave Modricker, Emergency Management Coordinator Shawn Kauffman, Assistant Teaching Professor at Penn State's Department of Geography Brandi Robinsonand Centre Region Sustainable Coordinator Pam Adams, Centre Region Emergency Management Coordinator. "Community-driven planning processes create strong hazards and climate resilience solutions especially with a multi and inter-disciplinary team. Workshop participants represented diverse fields of study with the added value of inclusiveness of divergent viewpoints which strengthen the workshop conversations."

The participants broke into three working groups. The groups, facilitated by Nature Conservancy personnel, identified vulnerabilities and strengths as a well as priority actions to address problems presented by climate change. In Ferguson Township, the problems generally manifest with highly disruptive and damaging weather events including the August 2011 floods, Super Storm Sandy back in October 2012, Tropical Storm Andrea in October 2012, and the major winter storm in December 2016, and othe rless impactful but more frequent events. 

A common theme among workshop participants was the need to continue community-based planning efforts focused on developing adaptive measures to reduce the Township of Ferguson's vulnerability to extreme weather, climate change and other common concerns raised. To that end, the workshop participants reached agreement on several key topics requiring more immediate and/or ongoing attention including: Long-term vision and growth, Infrastructure improvements, Quality of life improvements, and Emergency management.

The Township maintains a continuity of operations plan (COOP) that prepares staff to respond to unforeseen hazard emergencies ranging natural and climate-related impacts to cyber-attacks that pose great threat to the Township and consequently the local community. Staff will conduct a tabletop exercise and engage in training simulations to test the implementation of the plan and train on its use. 

CRB Workshop Summary of Findings Report which was received by the Board of Supervisors on June 21 during their regular meeting. Click below to view the report