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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAIR QUALITY ADVISORY BOARD - MINUTES - 04/29/2025 Air Quality Advisory Board SPECIAL MEETING Tuesday, April 29, 2025 – 12:30 PM 300 Laporte Ave, CIC Room 1. CALL TO ORDER: 12:34 PM 2. ROLL CALL a. Board Members Present – ● Dan Welsh (Chair) ● Michael Johnson ● Michael Cheeseman ● Howard Gebhart ● Christina Swope b. Board Members Absent – ● Mark Houdashelt (Vice Chair) ● Adam Schmidt ● Maria Moore ● Matt Ayres c. Staff Members Present – ● Selina Lujan de Albers, Staff Liaison ● Micah Warners d. Guest(s) – ● Vara Vissa ● Uday Vissa 3. AGENDA REVIEW No changes. 4. CITIZEN PARTICIPATION Vara Vissa identified herself as a former AQAB member. She stated she lives on Taft Hill and Trilby and that she is concerned about several things, including: the nearby location of the new behavioral health center that is not accessible by public transportation, the location and activities of the County landfill that cause dust and high levels of methane in residential neighborhoods and natural areas, lack of City accountability and communication with residents, and that the new residential recycling and trash program has caused more garbage truck traffic and greenhouse gas emissions, not less. Vara also said that it is difficult to access the board agenda to find where the meeting will be held. Additionally, she has had trouble joining board meetings virtually through Teams. Chairman Welsh thanked Vara for coming to the meeting and expressing her concerns. Lujan de Albers invited Vara to email her directly for the agenda if she has trouble finding it in the future. Vara emphasized that the agenda should be easily accessible online to everyone. Vara and Uday Vissa left the meeting. Lujan de Albers clarified for the board that since it is at the landfill, the source of the fugitive dust is outside of City limits and outside of City jurisdiction. Chairman Welsh asked if the landfill itself monitors the dust. Lujan de Albers said she is unsure, but the board can get more information from Cassie Archuleta, if they choose to pursue it. Gebhart stated the landfill would be subjected to state regulations. Chairman Welsh said his job is to monitor fugitive dust and that local monitors may not be ideally situated. He said he would know if satellite monitoring picked up fugitive dust that exceeded EPA standards. He does not want to invalidate Vara’s concerns, but he does not think there is any regulatory recourse that could come from direct monitoring of PM10. Swope asked for clarification on what PM10 is and other board members explained it is particulate matter that is 10 micrometers or smaller, which is what is federally regulated, along with PM2.5. Gebhart said due to her proximity to the landfill, Vara probably experiences a lot of dust in high wind events. Cheeseman agreed with Chairman Welsh that there is likely no regulatory recourse. Chairman Welsh acknowledged the board values Vara’s insights and complaints, but there is not much they can do, other than perhaps following up with the landfill and monitoring agencies. He said they would set aside the conversation for now in order to get to the planned content of the special meeting. 5. APPROVAL OF MINUTES None to approve. 6. UNFINISHED BUSINESS None covered. 7. NEW BUSINESS Micah Warners, Outreach & Education Specialist from the Environmental Services Department (ESD) stated the intention of the meeting to select a topic to collaborate on and strategize about. The results from a survey Warners had previously sent to the board show that there was a tie between interest in air quality index (AQI) awareness and indoor burning/winter air quality. Warners and Albers de Lujan stated that AQI is coming up sooner in ESD education and outreach strategy. Chairman Welsh Indicated a preference in focusing on AQI awareness since indoor burning and winter air quality are essentially subtopics of AQI, and since the winter season has just ended. Lujan de Albers highlighted the potential for covering both topics by starting with AQI and later covering indoor burning and winter air quality as the season approaches. In response to Swope’s question of if the board always does an outreach and education effort, Chairman Welsh said no, but the board would like to see more education and outreach regarding air quality. Due to restrictions, board members cannot claim to represent AQAB or the City. However, individuals can engage in outreach efforts and acknowledge they are on the board. AQAB would like to do more direct outreach and education efforts. Albers de Lujan clarified specific information about why code does not allow board members to represent the City in this way. There are alignment opportunities with ESD to contribute to the department’s existing efforts so the board can play a bigger part without having to update code. Warners said the two opportunities for the board are to meet and help strategize for the department’s efforts and for individual members to provide expert information or assist at an event. Gebhart agreed that AQI is the bigger topic and added that AQI education is more likely to have an impact. There may be opportunities to align with other efforts as well. Cheeseman agreed that AQI is the overarching topic that covers fleet electrification, wildfires, and the impact of transported smoke from non-local fires that residents may not be aware of. Therefore, focusing on how to weigh risk and reward on low air quality days. Chairman Welsh mentioned the EPA app called Air Now, which shows the current local AQI and can be leveraged by community members. CDPHE posts on the state website as more of a regulatory process and reports 8-hour ozone events after the fact. Cheeseman mentioned Purple Air as another low-cost resource and the board noted that it only monitors smoke and not ozone; another goal of AQI education is that people know the difference and know that both contribute to bad air quality. Warners transitioned to outlining his draft plans for the AQI education topic. He defined target outcome for if the education is completely successful, all community members utilize appropriate tools to know when AQI is high and appropriately assess the risk of engaging in outdoor activities. He defined audience as general residential, time of year as primarily in the summer, and tactics used would include website, newsletter, events, and social media. Evaluation method is currently undefined. Warners asked the board for feedback. Gebhart noted an additional outcome would be the public taking actions to reduce the potential of a bad air quality day, particularly on high ozone days. He suggested amplifying the work the CDPHE is trying to do to minimize bad air quality. He noted this outcome as most important, with people minimizing their personal risk as secondary. Chairman Welsh suggested starting more broadly with an initial goal of even 50% members of the public being able to identify what the term AQI means and how to find the current AQI. Then, the goals can progress to understanding what it means and how to leverage the information to protect personal health and take action to minimize pollution. Gebhart agreed that basic education is priority, including what ozone alerts mean and how that relates to AQI. Cheeseman suggested using targeted messages based on audience. Warners asked if the type of impact they want to have would be by targeting the biggest polluters or by general basic education. Johnson suggested referencing what other cities and jurisdictions are doing and what type of tools and websites they are using. Gebhart listed a few organizations already working on air quality education and agreed that directing people to existing resources may be more efficient. Johnson and Cheeseman said California has good resources. Cheeseman said academic research shows that partnering with local community groups has a high impact. Swope said she supported targeted education toward the biggest polluters over general public education. Chairman Welsh said educating the public is going to have biggest effect in catalyzing the large-scale changes in things like our reliance on oil and gas, rather than industry education. Gebhart said educating the public helps them understand their own contributions to precursor emissions and bad air quality. The board agreed that AQI education helps the public protect their own personal wellbeing, as well as reducing individual contributions to bad air quality and drive societal change. Warners solicited additional feedback on tactics and evaluation methods. Chairman Welsh noted that relying on community-based organizations (CMOs) can be tough because those organizations are often polarizing. Gebhart suggested being selective about not leaning on organizations that don’t rely heavily on activism. He also thinks we can use the organizations in a constructive manner as a vehicle to spread messaging rather than to fully engage. The board agreed that boundaries and communication need to be set with CMOs so roles and support expectations are clearly established. Board members suggested working with HOAs, Spanish-speaking groups, landscaping companies, Poudre School District, athletic groups, and groups that show interest. Lujan de Albers emphasized the importance of knowing what success looks like. She suggested providing ideas for evaluation criteria in future meetings. Warmers outlined next steps as synthesizing board input in ESD and then bringing the work back to the board for further advisement. Chairman Welsh expressed satisfaction with the work done in the meeting and looks forward to working on it more in future meetings. 8. OTHER BUSINESS 9. ADJOURNMENT ● 2:01pm Minutes approved by the Chair and a vote of the Board/Commission on 06/16/2025 4/29/25– MINUTES Page 1