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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAIR QUALITY ADVISORY BOARD - MINUTES - 01/22/20241 1/22/2024 - Minutes Air Quality Advisory Board REGULAR MEETING Monday, January 22, 2024 – 5:30 PM 222 Laporte Avenue, Colorado River Room 1. CALL TO ORDER: 5:30 PM 2. ROLL CALL  Board Members Present – • Mark Houdashelt (Chair) • Greg Clark (Vice Chair) • Dan Welsh • Maria Moore • Matt Ayres  Board Members Absent – • None  Staff Members Present – • Selina Lujan de Albers, Staff Liaison • Emily Olivo, Sr. Specialist • Heidi O’Mara, Program Assistant • Amy King, Environmental Services Director  Guest(s) – • None 3. AGENDA REVIEW Mark noted Maria will be late; therefore, items requiring a vote will be considered after her arrival. 4. CITIZEN PARTICIPATION None. 5. APPROVAL OF MINUTES – NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER 2023 Matt made a motion, seconded by Maria, to approve the November 2023 minutes as amended. The motion was adopted unanimously. Dan made a motion, seconded by Maria, to approve the December 2023 minutes as amended. The motion was adopted unanimously with Greg abstaining. 2 1/22/2024 - Minutes 6. PREVIOUS BUSINESS Mark:  Noted the Board received five applications, including two current members.  Dan is representative to the Air Quality Monitoring Advisory Committee (AQMAC). Do we need an alternate? Selina:  Found another location for April meeting – CIC Room, or consider another date. Mark:  Prefer to leave April date the same and change location.  Some concern from members who have left that meetings were becoming less civil. Please let him know if current members have similar concerns. Dan:  Attended first AQMAC meeting – led by Emily Fisher from CSU Atmospheric Science Department. Topics included grant specifications, which are fairly broad; approach for the monitoring, including continuous canister sampling and plume sampling, and some possibility for mobile monitoring; and general committee conduct information. The grant proposal also specifies a minimum of five outreach activities per year.  Many aspects of air quality and monitoring will not be addressed by the committee or the grant as its focus is exclusively on VOCs. Ozone was noted to not be the specific focus of the committee.  Will not be able to attend the next meeting though meetings are recorded and DeAngelo will attend and can provide a summary. Selina:  Discussed existing ozone monitoring sites, including visibility monitors at New Belgium and the Museum of Discovery. Greg:  Can public attend AQMAC meetings? Dan:  Meetings are third Thursday of the month. Members of the public are likely not excluded; however, public comment is not accepted. Greg:  Is resigning from the Board but will stay on through March meeting so the Board will have enough members to function until new members are appointed.  The mission of the Board is pivoting, and he is oriented more toward external air quality issues. Additionally, he has been on the Board for seven years and it is time for a change. When are new members anticipated to start? Selina: 3 1/22/2024 - Minutes  Thanked Greg for serving and being willing to remain until new members are seated.  Five applications, including Maria and Matt, were received, and new members will begin in April. Mark:  RMI is doing a webinar called “The Future of Indoor Air Policy Solutions for Clean and Healthy Buildings” on March 6th at 9:00 AM.  Fort Collins Transportation Projects Fair on February 22nd at the Atzlan Center beginning at 4:30 PM.  Article in The Guardian regarding utility companies paying builders to continue fitting homes with gas appliances.  Study indicating windmills have no significant impact on bird counts, but fracking reduces bird counts by about 15% and reduces species diversity.  Information session about indoor air quality in schools on January 25th.  Local legislators had a listening session on Saturday and a group will be formed to look at potential legislative action to improve air quality in the region. Dan:  Tried to do some more research on rule-making for gas powered lawn equipment by the ECMC (Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission), formerly the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. Re-vote will occur in February.  Had agreed to reach out to the Regional Air Quality Council (RAC) to invite them to present; however, that was largely based on the ECMC rule-making, which remains in limbo. Would there be another topic the Board would like to have covered by the RAC, perhaps in the spring? Mark:  Two bills went into effect at the beginning of the year, one of which has a component that gives registered retailers the ability to take a third of the purchase price off for electric powered lawn equipment in 2024-2026 and claim a tax credit for the stated amount. Amy King:  Introduced herself as the new Environmental Sustainability Director.  Formerly worked as an entrepreneur; launched and opened a shared work space for entrepreneurs for social impact organizations with a sustainability lens.  Experience in community engagement.  Board members briefly introduced themselves. (**Secretary’s Note: The Board considered the approval of minutes at this point in the meeting.) 7. NEW BUSINESS  Healthy Homes Presentation Emily Olivo, Environmental Sustainability Senior Specialist, discussed the mission 4 1/22/2024 - Minutes of the Healthy Homes (HH) program and stated that their current grant from the EPA allowed for the HH program to think through an environmental justice and equity lens and to incorporate resiliency when thinking about climate change impacts. She outlined the objectives of the grant: to identify the needs for improved air quality and reduced energy use, to identify gaps and opportunities, and to update the HH program accordingly. Olivo outlined the groups emphasized in terms of environmental justice, - the populations that are disproportionately impacted by the effects of climate change and poor air quality, including underserved and historically marginalized communities, low- to moderate-income households, older adults, and homes wherein an individual has a respiratory ailment. Heidi O’Mara, Environmental Sustainability Coordinator, provided more detail on the outreach efforts, which involved focus groups and a survey of items that could be included in the Healthy Homes assessment. In terms of program design, O’Mara commented on the holistic assessment process, including home comfort and home resiliency components. She discussed the working group involved in the program design and commented on the state’s enviro-screen tool that was used to identify census tracts that were focused upon. O’Mara discussed the ‘Keep It Safe’ workshops that are a partnership between the program and Poudre Fire Authority and further detailed the timeline of the program implementation. Additionally, she commented on other programs that Healthy Homes works with, including the Colorado Affordable Residential Energy Program and Larimer County Conservation Corps. Olivo discussed the training of seventeen educators and five neighborhood connectors who were all key to the success of the program. She discussed the 58 home inspections and noted the grant allowed for assistance with furnace repair and replacement for some of the homes. Olivo discussed the weatherization work completed as part of the program and provided additional details on the populations served as part of the grant program. Members and staff discussed the ways in which tenants can get assistance. Maria asked if there is data on the number of people with asthma who were served. Selina replied there is a community survey every five years, and historically, about 25% of respondents report a family member has a respiratory ailment. She stated that number is about 18-25% for participants in the Healthy Homes program. Greg asked if there is national or state comparative data on the 25% number. Selina replied there is county-level data that shows slightly lower numbers and noted many people who were opting into assessments were choosing to participate due to having a respiratory ailment. Olivo discussed the results of post-assessment surveys and noted the program generally provides between three and five recommendations per household. She noted 100% of respondents indicated they would recommend the program to others. She also commented on the department hiring a bilingual program assistant to provide support. Additionally, she discussed the ways in which the program pivoted throughout the year to best provide service, including utilizing various partners to complete work. 5 1/22/2024 - Minutes Olivo outlined the next steps for the Heathy Homes program, noting it currently has enough funding to cover 25 more homes. She stated the program has applied for CDPHE’s environmental justice grant, which would provide $250,000 to continue and expand the work. Additionally, the new climate tax in the city will provide about $5 million in revenue each year for AQ and climate-related projects, starting this year, and a mini budgeting process for 2024 funding is currently ongoing and may include additional HH program funding. Olivo requested feedback from the Board regarding the services and resources that should be prioritized by the program when considering health, safety, and resiliency to climate change impacts. She noted examples could be radon mitigation, appliance electrification, carpet cleaning, and air conditioning. Maria stated she would like to see an expansion of the on-line assessment, as well as electrification. Dan stated HVAC, radon, and weatherization would seem to be good places to focus. Matt stated, as a renter, having a rental program could be helpful. Maria noted renters have a large issue with mold. Mark suggested leveraging the funding available as part of the Inflation Reduction Act for weatherization and other expenses. Greg suggested broader resiliency strategies would be a good program focus, noting outdoor air quality becomes indoor air quality.  Finalize Memo to Council Regarding 2024-2025 Council Priorities Mark:  Memo has yet to be finalized because of the lack of quorum needed to take a vote.  Tomorrow’s Council meeting is interesting in that it is an educational session for members on the goals of all current City plans and programs so the information can be used to help Council set its priorities.  The February 13th Council work session is titled “Council priority setting 2.”  Thoughts on whether it should be stated the items in the memo are not in priority order – members concurred on a statement. Greg noted it is not clear the AQMAC is going to be focused on ozone and suggested some type of wording regarding ozone non-attainment be included. Maria suggested clearer language related to implementing programs. Dan made a motion, seconded by Matt, to approve the overall wording of the document and to allow Mark to wordsmith the document. The motion was adopted unanimously. Mark:  Council is officially making its Boards and Commissions liaison appointments in February.  Agenda Planning (**Secretary’s Note: The board ran over time and did not discuss this topic.) 6 1/22/2024 - Minutes 8. BOARD MEMBER REPORTS 9. STAFF REPORTS 10. OTHER BUSINESS 11. ADJOURNMENT  8:05 pm Minutes approved by a vote of the Board on 03/18/2024