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HomeMy WebLinkAboutNatural Resources Advisory Board - Minutes - 10/19/2022 NATURAL RESOURCES ADVISORY BOARD TYPE OF MEETING – REGULAR October 19, 2022 6:00 – 8:00 pm Via Zoom 0 8 /17 /2022 – MINUTES Page 1 CALL TO ORDER 6:04pm ROLL CALL • List of Board Members Present – − Barry Noon − Drew Derderian − Kevin Krause- Vice Chair − Danielle Buttke − Matt Zoccali − Kelly Stewart • List of Board Members Absent – Excused or Unexcused, if no contact with Chair has been made − Avneesh Kumar − Dawson Metcalf - Chair − Victoria McKennan • List of Staff Members Present − Honore Depew, Staff Liaison − Tessa Dieter, Acting Staff Liaison 1st half − Kirk Longstein, Senior Environmental Planner • List of Guests − Karen Artell, AQAB Member − Lisa Andrews, applying for open seat − John, CSU Student 1. AGENDA REVIEW a. Approval of minutes was moved to the end of the meeting. 2. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION a. None 3. APPROVAL OF MINUTES – AUGUST NATURAL RESOURCES ADVISORY BOARD TYPE OF MEETING – REGULAR 0 8 /1 7 /2022 – MINUTES Page 2 a. Danielle moved and Barry seconded a motion to approve the August minutes. Motion passed unanimously. 6-0 4. NEW BUSINESS a. 1041 Regulations – Kirk Longstein, Senior Environmental Planner, presented on draft 1041 Regulations. The City of Fort Collins is developing regulations of water and highway projects that are contextually appropriate to Fort Collins, provide predictability for developers and decision makers, and adequate guidance for review by City staff. The intent is to match or exceed state requirements to ensure the protection of public health, safety, welfare, the environment, and wildlife resources. Staff is seeking board feedback and a recommendation to City Council to adopt the draft 1041 regulations. If NRAB wishes to submit a memo to Council it would need to be submitted prior to November 15th First Reading of this item. (Action) − Discussion | Q + A − Barry – Q – I was part of the working group that was evaluating 1041 and I submitted comments to Kelly Smith and then did a review of the plan. I don’t know if they were shared with the rest, but I sent them to Dawson after last month’s meeting to be shared with the members of our board. Did anyone receive them? Kirk – A – I did, and we have it pretty well documented. Were you part of the technical working group? Barry – Comment – Yes. You might not have agreed with them, but I wanted to reiterate some of my concerns. Several years ago, I was involved in a review of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) evaluations. The review group except for me were all lawyers that worked on NEPA for a long time. This was less than ten years ago so I don’t remember exactly but the thing that sticks in my mind is that 95% of NEPA evaluations, historically up to that point in time, concluded no significant adverse impacts. Subsequently on other issues, I gave a congressional testimony on the failure of federal agencies to do defensible culminative effects analysis. One thing I didn’t see in your presentation is some discussion of culminative effects. It is not easy to do but it is absolutely essential. To access whether a proposed action has the significant adverse effect, that evaluation or decision cannot be made in isolation of all the actions that have occurred prior to that or concurrent with those actions. A good example and one I used in our congressional testimony was, the early stage of fracking in oil and gas development and the way in which evaluations were done. Whether there was significant adverse impacts was done on a project-by-project basis and that is why if you look in Weld County there are literally thousands of oil and gas developments. The cumulative effect of those are really affecting Larimer County and Fort Collins in terms of air quality and failing to meet those standards. That is just an example. I am NATURAL RESOURCES ADVISORY BOARD TYPE OF MEETING – REGULAR 0 8 /1 7 /2022 – MINUTES Page 3 disappointed to not see cumulative effects. I am a little disappointed on significant adverse effects and thresholds. To have any sort of defensible management practice you must have thresholds and trigger points. If all you do is collect data overtime and space, it is not connected to the decision- making process at all unless there are trigger points. That is absolutely essential, and people are going to argue over trigger points. You look at what data and evidence would suggest and support the logic you use to establish those trigger points. The issue is also significant adverse impacts. There is one simple criteria of whether something is significant and adverse and that is whether it is affectively irreversible over a meaningful timeframe. I used in my writings the example of Glade Reservoir. Glad and the effects of the river cannot be mitigated, it cannot be undone. Can you imagine building that dam and reservoir and then suddenly, the county and citizens of Fort Collins realized that the projected significant adverse impacts have been realized. It is irreversible. Something that is significant had two major components whether it is irreversible and whether it is significant. The context of pervious environmental impacts and proposed environmental impacts, that is cumulative effects. Kirk – Comment – I appreciate that, and I don’t think I was clear enough. When these draft regulations come out, I encourage you to look at the definition of adverse impact. Cumulative is in there currently. I will also say the recent court opinion related to the Thornton Pipeline directly relates to regulating cumulative impacts outside the jurisdiction. In-between work session and the First Reading, we have case law pending that directly relates to the 1041 regulations and cumulative impacts. I think we are treading lightly in that space. I am not a lawyer so I will leave it up to them, but I think we when we do look at cumulative impacts or some type of impact analysis we need to be specific about the portion of the segment of the project that is specific to our jurisdiction and those cumulative impacts within our jurisdiction. That is the limits and bounds of the 1041 powers. That is a space now that is emerging that we need to think about more clearly. How do we capture cumulative and how do we capture cumulative impacts within our backyard. Activities that are happening upstream and outside of Fort Collins jurisdiction, we can’t regulate unfortunately. Barry – Q – One other comment is I recently joined the scientist advisory for the County Commissioners. I have been to two meetings, and I have revied their 1041 regulations. What kind of communication does the City have with the County Commissioners. Obviously, the City is imbedded within the county so decisions that are made should not be done independently. There must be some sort of coordination. Kirk – A – I will say we are coordinating with staff but what happens in the policy arena, I am not sure of. − Danielle – Q – The idea of not being able to regulate outside of the City NATURAL RESOURCES ADVISORY BOARD TYPE OF MEETING – REGULAR 0 8 /1 7 /2022 – MINUTES Page 4 jurisdiction makes a lot of sense but for example with methane regulations, they were supposed to incorporate carbon emissions and greenhouse gas emissions. What those regulations ended up dong was allowing companies to only calculate the emissions related to the construction of the pipelines and not incorporate the impacts of having the pipeline operate. Which is the lion’s share of emissions. We have a very similar situation here with the construction of Glade Reservoir where the construction may have limited impacts, but once constructed and in use, there are going to be significant impacts to natural resources in the City area. Is there a way of addressing that or thinking about overall impacts of allowing this to happen as opposed to just looking at the impacts of construction itself. Kirk – A – We must allow for a process for an application to come through for us to review an application. One way to think about this is alternative options. That is one thing we do a lot in development review. We work with applications to avoid impact to natural resources. If it is unavoidable, then we go to mitigation. We don’t go straight to mitigation as our recommendation as staff. We want to plan to avoid impacts, but again can only do that within our jurisdiction. I can’t tell an applicant that has a pipeline running through Larimer County and Fort Collins that they can’t do it in Larimer County. We often through development review coordinate and the County refers projects to us so we try to act as an advisory role so we can avoid potential impacts to natural resources. These powers don’t stop projects. Permitting regulations are not meant to stop projects, it is mean to improve outcomes. We want to have the best outcome for the community benefit. If our community values natural resources and the best benefit to our community is from the protection of natural resources in our own backyard, then these are what these powers are intended to do. I think the best way is how can we look at alternative routes for the pipeline for instance. How can we do other things that avoid these adverse impacts or cumulative irreversible impacts that Barry mentioned. − Danielle – Comment – One additional comment on the idea of redundancy with federal regulations. I can understand where that comment and concern is coming from. I would also state that those federal regulations are not intended to be the gold standard, they are intended to be the lowest bar possible. So having redundancy is warranted because there are a lot of different values locally and we are a different community than the federal average. As we have seen especially in the last six years, things can change interpretation of federal laws and regulations can change quite rapidly. We want to have safeguards in place as a community to ensure that community values are protected even when we have very rapid and often time pollical regulatory changes. Kirk – Comment – I think that would be helpful if that is something the Board wants to share with Council. I think that is probably a NATURAL RESOURCES ADVISORY BOARD TYPE OF MEETING – REGULAR 0 8 /1 7 /2022 – MINUTES Page 5 point of contention and not being totally aware of where that redundancy adds value. − Kevin – Comment – You mentioned in the prestation the idea of conformance to the City Plan and other strategic plans. I wonder in the actual language if those others are kind of called our specifically because I think that somewhat ties to Danielle’s Point. Why an additional layer, because we have all these other layering goals and outcomes that are documented, adopted and so forth. Kirk – Comment – (Refers to slide about impact analysis and review standards) These bullets are prescriptive in the code language right now and for some of them we have some metrics, but not for all. Like recreation opportunities or experiences impact. So, for example, does your project reduce the number of days the public has access to a park or natural area. Is it a temporary impact, is it irreversible? It’s not prescriptive within the code but these review standards are. We will review these things. Kevin – Q – So is it fair to say it could be any adopted plan that could be considered applicable? Kirk – A – Yes, so prescriptive of the House Bill is conformance with the City Plan, but we do put in the code other plans and policies. Our Climate Future is not a comprehensive plan, but it is an adopted plan. − Barry – Comment – I am in favor of us working on a memo to City Council but there is one other component that I think is missing and that is monitoring. You make a decision, and that decision is something in the future of what is going to happen or what is the outcome. You don’t know whether you have made an appropriate decision or not unless you monitor how the system responds. If you decide to believe the Glad Reservoir should be built and maintaining the minimum flows throughout the summer is going to sustain fisheries and recreational opportunities, you don’t know unless you go out and measure and monitor the system. There is no monitoring in there. The Climate Smart Program has two components, it has mitigation and adaptation. Can you mitigate potential adverse effects or are they inevitable and you must adapt to them? Whether you are successful with mitigation or adaptation is unknow unless you go monitor the system. There is no mention when I reviewed the draft plan. I don’t think I ever say the word monitoring and it is a fundamental component of adaptive management to monitor system response. Kirk – Comment – (Refers to slide showing different between draft version one and two) Ahead of the work session make sure you go in there and hold us accountable for that because I agree. Monitoring is more related to mitigation so ecological restoration projects that would be associated with the project. A pipeline or major water project blows through a natural habitat feature is a direct impact to that habitat feature. The requirement will be mitigation. Our assurance is through a financial security. We will hold in escrow through a bond that value associated with mitigation NATURAL RESOURCES ADVISORY BOARD TYPE OF MEETING – REGULAR 0 8 /1 7 /2022 – MINUTES Page 6 including labor and material costs. There is a performance period that is associated with that financial assurance. We won’t be able to hold the applicant accountable for monitoring into perpetuity, but we will hold them to a timeline for reestablishment of whatever mitigation is required. We require mitigation plans as part of any project whether it is wetlands, tree, or another habitat feature. It is in there in the updated language. We wanted to be more specific regarding inspections and monitoring. That is part of the implementation of this program and those costs will be born by the applicant, not the City. − Matt – Q – What I hear you talk about Barry is adaptive management and I could have sworn in the past there were discussions about adaptive management and monitoring as part of these kinds of projects. You spoke specifically of NISP. Do you know if some of those things are built into your mitigation plans? I think my question was related to Larimer County has 1041 Regs and processes, correct? Kirk – A – Yes. Matt – Q – Is there potential for how you will coordinate for a project that is going through the City, County and NEPA? How do those things line up? Have you talked about how to play in the sandbox with those entities together? Kirk – A – So their 1041 powers only cover unincorporated Larimer County and ours is within the jurisdiction of Fort Collins. Within the GMA that would be Larimer County until we annex it into our jurisdiction but as a part of the preapplication process and the completeness review we are going to require all multijurisdictional documentation. My assumption is that the application has already gone through, for example, they have collected NEPA documentation that then we would review and bring that into the fold. Part of our role is assuring they are in compliance with multijurisdictional agencies. We have that specifically in our code and then when it comes to the financial assurances or inspection pieces to it, we are going to have an inspection protocol where you are out there every day. For example, if they have a dewatering bag that is discharging into a river, that is going to be a problem and will shutdown the project. Inspection requirements and conditions of the security is going to be daily to inspect for compliance. Whether they met the conditions of the mitigation plan, that is the assurances we will give back their money, if met. − Matt – Q – A grammar question on negligible adverse impacts. Negligible for the purpose of this discussion is something that is insignificant, small, or negligible, so there are small or no adverse impacts that analysis gives you the green light but then you said no negligible adverse impacts and that is what messed up my mind. I couldn’t wrap my head around that grammar. I just wanted to make sure there is a red light and green light with analysis. Kirk – A – It is late, I am going to tongue tie myself in front of Council so thank you for calling me out. It would be helpful if you could stay engaged NATURAL RESOURCES ADVISORY BOARD TYPE OF MEETING – REGULAR 0 8 /1 7 /2022 – MINUTES Page 7 ahead of the first reading and if there are any future touchpoints, please let me know. − Danielle – Q – I have a quick logistical question. If the Board were to issue a memo of support and recommendations, when are we looking at a deadline to get it in the Council packet? Kirk – A – Right before Thanksgiving. − Kevin – Comment – We did give some helpful feedback here in terms of opportunities that could still use addressing. One thought is we could take this offline and have the opportunity to review draft two and then have an agenda item to discuss the possibility of some sort of communication or action in the next board meeting. Barry – Comment – I assume I have reviewed version one because I sent Kelly Smith my comments on July 29th. It may well be that several concerns I expressed have been addressed in version two. I don’t know what the status of our working group is looking at 1041. Reality is we had one zoom meeting and I don’t know if other people wrote formal comments like I did. − Kirk – Comment – Version two will be available ahead of the work session. It is not public yet. (Refers to slide about differences between versions) I can offer this crosswalk on this slide, and I think it is in your packet as well. This gives a high-level overview of what legal reviews. Kevin – Q – Could you clarify that, Kirk; version two is not available? Kirk – A – Version two is currently in the City Attorney’s Office, and this is the only level of detail I can share until it has gone through them. Kevin – Q – Do you have any indication of when that can be completed? Kirk – A – I am anticipating it will be in the Council Packet for the November 8th work session. So, the Thursday before November 8th. Kevin – Q – So a couple of weeks out from now that could be something we could be looking at to? Kirk – A – Yes. − Matt – Q – I am a regulatory guy so I like tools in the toolbox before this kind of thing, but I also understand the amount of work that it could mean for staff. I am supportive in general of you having something like this that we can add benefit to the community. If this goes forward, are you staffed up to handle the potential project that comes through. Does this Board need to say we support this, and we need to ensure that environmental planning has the people to execute it? Kirk – A – Implementation will be larger than anything development review has done before. The scale of the program is extremely large and would likely shop that out to a third party. I don’t even think one full time employee would cover what needs to happen here to give you a scale. We will have an RFI out on the street this fall to understand a range of implementation but again those costs would be passed onto the applicant. In terms of resourcing, it is a pass-through clause. NATURAL RESOURCES ADVISORY BOARD TYPE OF MEETING – REGULAR 0 8 /1 7 /2022 – MINUTES Page 8 − Kevin – Comment – We could get notified when the packet is available in some sort of form to have that as an item in our November meeting to decide if we want to act. Barry – Comment – That makes sense. b. Our Climate Future – Honore Depew, Climate Program Manager, shared the content from an October 11 Work Session item in which City Council considered a roadmap of actions and decisions to achieve 2030 waste, energy, and climate goals that embed resilience and equity. Staff also received guidance on an interim greenhouse gas target for a resolution to be considered on October 25. Staff is seeking to familiarize NRAB members with the Our Climate Future (OCF) framework for action and seek feedback on 2023 priorities. (Discussion) − Discussion | Q + A − Kevin – Comment – There is so much, and I have to say, I am sure Council was the same, but the way this was put together, the specificity around what it looks like now and actions needed, was really next level. − Barry – Q – That was great, Honore. I just had a question on some of your graphs and the difference between forecast and pathway. Forecast is from you projection model but often the forecast was considerably less optimistic outcome in the future than the pathway. Can you tell me the difference between those two? Honore – A – Let me go back to the slide. Basically, what I showed you first, which I called a forecast was the do nothing more forecast which was continuing with our ongoing investments that we’re working on now that basically can compensate for our population growth but won’t make significant progress in other areas. Then we get to the projections that include the pathways. This is still work that must be done. These are not strategies that are implemented at this point but that’s the difference – this would still be a forecast essentially or a projection, but it includes these colorful pathways that are actually representative of numerous strategies that stack up together. Kevin – Q – the number at the top, the finer dotted line, noted as forecast is the “don’t do any of these things” current forecast being pulled from the other slide correct? Honore – A – That is right. The 21% shows where we would be if we didn’t do anything more and that’s the difference here, all these strategies. Barry – Comment – This isn’t a criticism but in forecasting models, typically you have an uncertainty envelope around those forecasts and the width of that envelope, the degree of uncertainty increases as you go out in time. I’m just thinking about forecasting models that I’ve done myself and review. There is always an uncertainty envelope and its like an inverted “V”. The uncertainty increases rapidly as your forecasting further and further into the future. Honore – Comment – That is a NATURAL RESOURCES ADVISORY BOARD TYPE OF MEETING – REGULAR 0 8 /1 7 /2022 – MINUTES Page 9 great point. We are trying to capture that a bit here on slide eight. − Danielle – Q – You mentioned that there’s some significant data improvements. I remember when there was a notion of missed commuters in a lot of the carbon emission calculations. In other words, people that live in gateway communities that drive in, we were not capturing them and their emissions. The other big emission source I’m finding we’re needing to deal with more in the Parks Service is loss of tree canopy because of drought, wildfire, higher temperatures, etc. I know from our forestry reports, that’s a big issue for us that we are losing a lot of tree canopy here in Fort Collins, both because of climate changes as well as the emerald ash borer. Are those two sources factored into these models? Honore – A – I know there has been some really good improvement in the transportation data, working closely with the North Front Range Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO). I know we have a lot higher confidence in the transportation data that has been included in the models. I don’t know how much of the urban forest impact and changes are factored in. I can circle back on that. We have some awesome data people. − Danielle – Q – I was surprised to see only 4% from transportation. Maybe that’s in part because the active transit plan hasn’t yet incorporated that Natural Resources Advisory Board-recommended goal of 50% active transit, but do you see more opportunities for improvements there or larger gains? Is that part of the community leadership? Probably part of that question is if you were King of Fort Collins, where would you see that 10% community leadership coming into play? Honore – A – I am looking back at the notes on the transportation section here to see if there is anything. I don’t think we went into as much detail on that. We highlighted the buildings and the electricity sector in more detail. I am not clear on why the transportation change is not more significant. I know one of the things I am excited about is the Shift Your Ride options that I mentioned. It is a travel demand management program. What that does is looks at all the different mode shares and how to help drive changes in the way that people are getting around in a more systematic and comprehensive way. I just found out today, they’re going to be adding a consideration of our Downtown parking fee structure into that analysis over the next year, which comes up every few years. Our parking price structure is sort of upside down in that it costs something to park in the garages and it’s free to park on the streets, so we get people circling the downtown core, contributing to congestion and air pollution. There is a lot of opportunity to improve in transit and I think that’s another spot that I can ask our data analysis team to look at and help explain more. I think this is an ongoing conversation with NRAB. I would love to have folks from the OCF team come with some regularity to check in with you all to NATURAL RESOURCES ADVISORY BOARD TYPE OF MEETING – REGULAR 0 8 /1 7 /2022 – MINUTES Page 10 answer these kinds of questions and to get your wealth of knowledge and suggestions now that you have this baseline. We will be diving in piece by piece and being able to use you all as a strategic sound boarding would be splendid. Your second question was if I had a magic wand around the 10%, I am really excited about the opportunities for the City using its resources to support, advance, and accelerate community leadership through capacity building and highlight stuff that is already going on. We don’t know yet exactly where that looks like long term, but one recent example is the work to reimagine our sustainable business program, which was previously called Climate Wise. In the last year we partnered with a local non-profit to reimagine that program as a co-led initiative and there was funding in the City budget this year to continue that pilot project into the next two years with a competitively selected partner. I am really excited to see where that goes. Another example of co-led is in the Natural Areas Department, they have been doing some amazing work with land that they provide in one-acre plots as incubators for local farmers. And they are partnering with one of the many food centered non profits here in town. It’s helping farmers practice and learn how to work in the land in a sustainable and regenerative way. There’s just so many cool opportunities out there for us to stop gatekeeping and figure out how to transfer power and resources into the hands of the community. Its not just people coming to Council and saying “you have to set targets,” or “what is the City going to do?” It’s a new model asking – what are we all going to do together? − Kevin – Q – With respect to recent federal legislation and things happening at other levels potentially staying in the county, I would expect that some of the dollars there and focus areas would push somebody there fast. More specifically, do you know how that may or may not overlap or have been considered? Honore – A – There’s some huge opportunities right now and there is some major momentum going. Personally, I wish we were at this point twenty years ago. Obviously, there are some windows that have closed and we’re needing to focus ever more on resilience and adaptation. At the same time there’s great momentum. You mentioned federal legislation. The big one right now is the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and it is going to bring forth some really significant funding opportunities. We haven’t factored that into these projections and that is one of those potential accelerants. When we have strategies in place, we have shovel ready projects, we say this is where we need to be moving faster and quicker, and we set ourselves up to be grant ready, we can strategically leverage those funds. Kevin – Comment – One level is being grant ready and looking at the City level project or budget and funds. I guess I would be curious on awareness of the program. There are dollars in play that are significant around for example increasing capacity, NATURAL RESOURCES ADVISORY BOARD TYPE OF MEETING – REGULAR 0 8 /1 7 /2022 – MINUTES Page 11 getting new main service panels, heat pumps etc. I almost wonder if there is a really great ongoing campaign that marries up the components of these and say all this stuff is out here so its less waiting for the new development to be that electrified development. Its more look there is funding out there if you want to take that step as a community member. I think that’s a great thing that is not factored in. I hope that the other percentage that needs to make up on that front could be really getting our community to adopt more of the other communities or just the extent any community can possibly adopt what’s out there in terms of program and implementation. Honore – Comment – Yes that is going to be huge. You’re putting your finger on a really key element of progress needed – that is existing building stock because our building codes are getting better every three years, but they only impact new construction and major renovations. And the new buildings being constructed are really highly efficient. It’s the tens of thousands of existing buildings that are going to really need some major investments. There are some great examples out there, even regionally in Denver with their Climate Protection Fund that voters approved a couple years ago, where they are incentivizing and subsidizing the cost of some of those upgrades and installations. We’ve looked into something like three million dollars a year for the next ten years to support the upgrade of electrification panels across the community so that people can start to move towards being able to capture and utilize the increasingly renewable energy that’s part of our electricity grid and move away from natural gas. Kevin – Comment – I guess my point is to be really clear that funding is already there at the federal level. We could be doing it or piggy backing it to say our community is going to hit this sprinting. Honore- Right, those strategies are in the OCF plan as part of the Next Moves description. It is needing to get them underway. Some other things around aligning regionally and federally, Larimer County is only really getting their act in gear when it comes to Climate Action. You (Kevin) have been giving some updates to this group and Phase 3 of their Climate Smart and Future Ready planning work is kicking off next week with a big event at the Ranch in Loveland for invited leaders across the region in some specific focus areas. That’s an 18-month process. They’ve got a consultant on board. They’re going to be doing a county-wide carbon inventory like what I showed you for the first time ever and they also have a consumption-based inventory built into the scope of work for the consultant which is something Fort Collins hasn’t even done. So, I am really excited about the opportunities for County leadership and especially we need them on resilience and adaptation because a lot of that work needs to be led at a regional level. At state level there has been a lot of legislation moving forward over the last couple sessions. We are highly engaged through our Colorado Communities for Climate Action (CC4CA) membership. That organization has been around for NATURAL RESOURCES ADVISORY BOARD TYPE OF MEETING – REGULAR 0 8 /1 7 /2022 – MINUTES Page 12 six to seven years and Fort Collins was a founding member. Membership has gone from 15 to 40 communities. They have a part time lobbyist and executive director on staff and have been highly impactful. Kevin – Comment – Obviously like you said, we expect to continue to have this as a regular check in as all the opportunities move forward in various ways. This is just the beginning of the next phase of things so if we are not getting into something tonight, we will be. − Danielle – Q – One clarifying question related to commercial yard trimming, composting, and commercial composting. Has there been any discussion of incorporating food waste, restaurant waste composting as part of commercial regulation? What about the schools? Honore – A – There have absolutely been conversations about that because we have examples around the county and around the world. What seems to be the best practice is having a facility that can handle combined food and yard waste because it is inefficient to pick those up separately. Even in multifamily, residential collection of food scraps tends to be “comingled” with yard trimmings because you just don’t create a large amount of food waste and your yard waste tends to be very seasonal. In the communities that have been doing this a long time like Portland, OR or Austin, TX, they’ll have curbside yard trimming bins that allow for the combined collection of yard and food scraps. The key is having industrial scale infrastructure that is close enough proximity that it can be efficient and cost effective for the waste haulers. That is where we have been stuck for years and years. We put a lot of our efforts behind the County leadership and the Regional Wasteshed project. I know you all had presentations from Caroline Mitchell and others. That is actually a project I worked on for a number of years before I took my new role. It still hasn’t come to fruition for several different challenging reasons. We’re kind of at a point now where I think we will be having some hard conversations with Council about whether we want to continue to try to put all our eggs in that basket or if we need to look at the possibility of a different type of direct investment either as a standalone for our city or potentially in conjunction with another community like Longmont. They are pretty close to being ready to invest in a compost facility. At that point, yes, commercial customers, schools, it would all be up for discussion. We see this in other communities. It is like signing up for your recycling collection service for single stream or trash services. Composing of organic material could then be hauled to a composting facility as another service offered. 5. OTHER BUSINESS a. Board Member Reports NATURAL RESOURCES ADVISORY BOARD TYPE OF MEETING – REGULAR 0 8 /1 7 /2022 – MINUTES Page 13 − Danielle – I just want to give a shoutout to the City of Fort Collins Environmental Services staff. There was a really great conference going on in Fort Collins this week, the Shift Conference. It was all about the connection between outdoor spaces, human health, and the importance of recreation. Honore was part of a panel that it thought was really fantastic. There’s been a lot of discussion about how incredible the City of Fort Collins is in setting the bar in terms of environmental services, natural spaces, etc. Kevin – Q – That is awesome. Who was hosting? Danielle – A – It is an annual conference hosted by GP RED, which is a nonprofit organization aimed at connecting people with nature. City of Fort Collins did a panel that focused on or highlighted how the City had done a great job of this. − Kevin – I was not able to make the Bicycle Advisory Committee, but there has been a focus on the Vision Zero Action Plan which I believe is back at our meeting Monday as well. So, I am excited about that. I think we talked a little about that in the past on getting into those actions that will make our streets and transportation safer for everyone. North College Maxline will be another discussion. If you haven’t heard about it or been out there the East Pitkin Street bike lane opened which is a big deal because it is a new pattern of street for our City. It’s not common anywhere; there are other instances. If you recall this is where there is a bike lane and then cars, if there are two of them, one car will have to drop back. Basically, it is a shared car lane. It is not as wide as two lanes but wider than one lane. We must work together to navigate this stretch of road. I heard some feedback from both, and they are saying it wasn’t crazy, everyone survived, and this is what happened when there were multiple. I am excited. While there is a learning process, hopefully it goes great. It is an opportunity to see what did or didn’t work, are people adapting right away, does it feel safer for our users, etc. I think its between 15th and Remington. Honore – Comment – Between College and Stover. It shows on the website. b. Six Month Calendar Review − Honore stated the upcoming work session and adjourned meeting was going to be important because the interim greenhouse goal target will be considered and likely adopted. They will also talk about oil and gas regulations, which the Board discussed over the summer. Council will also be talking about the 15-minute City Concept which ties into OCF’s big move around live, work, play nearby. Honore thought the NRAB memo about a suggestion for an increased mode share target would come up in their discussion. − Honore listed other upcoming Council Agenda items and what might apply to the Board if they wanted to get it on their own agenda. He also discussed the NATURAL RESOURCES ADVISORY BOARD TYPE OF MEETING – REGULAR 0 8 /1 7 /2022 – MINUTES Page 14 December meeting falling the week of Christmas and recommended either moving it to the 14th or canceling it. November 16th is the next NRAB meeting − Possible agenda items for NRAB − November - Sustainable Funding Update - 2023 Workplan - OCF Climate Equity Committee - Xeriscape Regulations - North College Projects - 1041 Memo Finalizing − Dec - FC Urban Lakes Water Quality Management Policy with a Cameron Peak Wildfire Water Impact Update - End of Year Report - Aligning Disposable Bag Ordinance with State Bag Bill - North College Project - Regional Water Update and Water Resource Matters Study Result 6. ADJOURN - 8:19 pm