HomeMy WebLinkAboutAir Quality Advisory Board - Minutes - 11/16/2004MINUTES
CITY OF FORT COLLINS
AIR QUALITY ADVISORY BOARD
REGULAR MEETING
281 N. COLLEGE AVE.
November 16, 2004
For Reference: Linda Stanley, Chair 493-7225
Eric Hamrick, Council Liaison 226-4824
Lucinda Smith, Staff Liaison 224-6085
Board Members Present
John Long, Ken Moore, Linda Stanley, Cherie Trine, Katie Walters, Nancy York
Board Members Absent
None
Staff Present
Natural Resources Department Lucinda Smith, Liz Skelton, Margit Hentschel
City Manager's Office: Tom Vosburg, Ann Tumquist
Guests
None
The meeting was called to order at 5:32 p.m.
Minutes
With the following changes, the minutes of the October 21, 2004 meeting were unanimously
approved:
• Stanley (BOB, Page 7, Bullet 7, Sentence 1): Add "cent is" after "'/4".
• Stanley (BOB, Page 8, Bullet 8, Sentence 1): Replace "What's" with "Where's".
• Stanley (BOB, Page 8, Bullet 12): Change name to "Stanley"
• York (BOB, Page 7, Bullet 4, Sentence 2): Delete sentence.
West Nile Virus
Tom Vosburg requested the board's input for the January 251h Study Session that will include
discussion on the options and alternatives for next year's
West Nile Virus plan. A 2004 Annual Report and State of Colorado Testing Summary were
handed out.
Trine: How many people got sick in the end? Nobody died, right?
Vosburg: Right, nobody died. We had 19 cases in Larimer; 18 were fever and one was
encephalitis. Here is a handout that summarizes some information from the Colorado
State website. This is a summary of the testing results for the State. Here is a copy of
the Colorado Mosquito Control Annual Report. Colorado Mosquito Control (CMC)
has been diligent about documenting what they did for us and what the outcomes were.
It was fundamentally a different kind of season. This graph on page four shows the
difference from the 2003 mosquito season and the 2004 mosquito season. That can be
attributed to a combination of weather and the mosquito control program. It is a good
Air Quality Advisory Board
11/16/2004
Page 2 of 13
report; it provides a lot of data and shows what a diligent contractor CMC is in terms of
keeping records. There a few decisions that need to be made: is this risk big enough for
us to spend money on it, and if so, what about the whole thing about adulticides, and
who decides? The hard thing about adulticides is that the experts disagree about the
risk. It will be hard to put together a plan that will bring resolution to either
perspectives satisfaction. It seems to be a saleable compromise to say we will do the
surveying and larviciding and not adulticide.
• Trine: I think it depends on how you portray this risk. If you portray it as not that great,
it will be easier for Council to consider options. But if it is "a horrible risk and people
will die" then they won't even think about it.
• Vosburg: The first year was freaky because people were getting really sick. It was
stunning that we, in a high desert region, were having mosquito problems. The press
going bonkers West Nile hysteria. Part of what it was is the County and City staff felt
we got burned; last year we got to say this was a crisis that took us by surprise, but this
year we have no excuse not to be decisive and fast. There was a sense of willingness to
overreact in year two. It was such a yawner this year, that you can't say anything about
a crisis mentality. A lot of fear and hype should be pushed aside. I'm on the Juvenile
Justice Planning Committee, and they are struggling to allocate $70,000 for the entire
community. I am just stunned at what we were willing to do with the drop of a hat -
$250,000 to $300,000 for mosquito control.
• Stanley: It's the same as any risk that is very salient for people. The press makes a big
deal out of it. The risks to an individual person are small, and we are pouring resources
into it. Decisions need to be based on a "cost per saved life".
• Trine: EPA is totally opposite of CDC. They don't support this massive spraying.
• Vosburg: With radon or smoking we talked to somebody where we asked for a cost -
benefit analysis of the public health value of the cost for intervention. In terms of
"decreased deaths per dollar invested" it looked like a good investment. There is some
methodology out there and benchmarks to measure against. The hard part with
mosquito spraying is no one can tell you what the expected reduction in human cases is
(associated with spraying). Even with some wild assumptions there, you could still
grind through that math to come up with a comparative benchmark statistic.
• Hentschel: You would have to compare it too to how many asthma cases, cancer cases;
that's the hard part. I tried to get that number once — it is tough to get.
• Stanley: Yes, because that would be a true cost analysis of efficiency: is this an
efficient way to spend your money? What you are talking about is a welfare -analysis
than an overall cost -benefit. That one is much harder to get. This one is typically
relied on for measures because it is easier. But you're right; those things need to be
included in some sort of way. Usually they can do ranges, too.
• Trine: I don't think you can even equate spraying to saving anybody's life. You don't
kill all the mosquitoes; you just kill the ones in a tiny area. It is not a linear
relationship: "this much spraying equals this many lives saved". There isn't any way to
equate it.
• Stanley: Yes, but with science you can come up with some projections so there is some
sort of a benchmark.
• Trine: EPA scientists say doesn't do any good. And there are no studies that show it
does any good. I don't think you can even make the assumption that it does any good
whatsoever.
Air Quality Advisory Board
11/16/2004
Page 3 of 13
• York: It does kill bugs.
• Trine: It does, and that may be even worse because they come back stronger and faster.
• Walters: One thing that factors in to it is people not going outside, or making sure they
are covered with bug spray. After last year, where everyone was totally freaked out,
this year people are more calm but still protected properly.
• York: And eliminating standing water. That is a problem in my neighborhood.
• Trine: You should get "jigglers", they are mechanical and they disturb the water.
• Vosburg: I think where we go from here is we need to frame some alternatives and we
need to have some public process by which people understand what those alternatives
are.
• Trine: Can you start a public information campaign, where you talk about how great it
was last year and practically no one got sick?
• Vosburg: There is a weird paradox with public outreach, in that we want people to still
take precautionary measures, and to send a message that it is no big deal undermines it.
• Trine: Could you just say it worked last year?
• Vosburg: Personally, I wish there was a way to fund the larvicide program. It seems
like a good middle ground. The difference between Loveland and Fort Collins'
mosquito levels in 2004, can be attributed to larvicide.
• Trine: I think even just getting out the number of people sick last year. That is an
objective thing, there is no value -thing in there.
• Stanley: But you have to be careful, because if the City did do adulticiding and
larviciding, people will say just do what you did last year.
• York: You can reinforce people by saying the measure that they took for their own
personal responsibility; that's an affirmative thing and undoubtedly contributed.
• Trine: If you look at the numbers ... we didn't have the numbers before they started
spraying. There is a stark contrast just with larviciding. We can draw some inferences
just on the larviciding alone. You don't know that any of that adulticiding did anything
because the numbers are so low ... period.
• Vosburg: Yes, you don't see a big deflection in the graphs. One thing is we didn't
spray City-wide.
• Trine: Exactly; there wasn't that much area sprayed.
• Vosburg: And it was an administrative nightmare to do that whole targeted thing.
• Trine: We got three phone calls, and emails. It was like, wow!
• Stanley: What about also presenting the larviciding in terms of other benefits to City
residents.
• Vosburg: Like nuisance control?
• Stanley: Yes. There are a lot of positive things that go with it.
• Vosburg: One of the questions could be about the levels of service: Should the City
maintain a purely public health focus or should nuisance control also be considered part
of its objectives? We do have a consistent level nuisance. If people liked what we got,
that supports the idea of keeping that going. Loveland's program is organized as a
nuisance control program. They have objective triggers for adulticiding and it is fairly
low and the spraying is focused. The hard part about buying in to a nuisance control
Program concept is that a classic one includes adulticiding on the spot and is
coordinated with the traps. I could imagine us justifying larvicide only as a nuisance
control program. We could say it is both public health and nuisance but aduliticiding is
Air Quality Advisory Board
11/16/2004
Page 4 of 13
so controversial that we don't want to do it. Plus it is a variable cost and you can
predict it, whereas we can enter into a consist plan with larviciding.
• Hentschel: People get so used to larviciding for nuisance; let's not forget that it's not
great for the environment and our health.
• Smith: The Natural Areas program has raised some concerns on larviciding in the
natural areas.
• Stanley: Do we know what the long term effects are of larviciding on the ecosystem?
• Vosburg: They've been doing it for a long time. Larvicide was isolated in the 60's
from a bacteria -founded mud sample is Israel. It is a natural occurring bacteria that just
happens to mess up mosquito's digestive system. In'our environment the conditions
aren't right for it to be self-sustaining. In Israel, they don't have mosquito problems.
• Hentschel: We have species that are dependent on the mosquito; that's where you start
messing with the system.
• York: Another consideration to look in to would be the studies done by Colorado State
University. If there is some contribution to science that we could be part of, that merits
looking in to.
• Stanley: Can you explain how we got into spraying, since the triggers weren't really
met?
• Vosburg: It can be confusing. They were met in that there were two classes of triggers:
the single human case and/or this risk index.
• Stanley: A single human case is a trigger?
• Vosburg: Yes, it's so sensitive, and we happened to have a human case of fever.
• Trine: Or single horse case; they were outrageously low triggers.
• Vosburg: We were talking at the City level, was that we had committed to a spot
spraying program, no City-wide. With a single human case, there was no way to tell
where that was contracted. That trigger is useless for guiding and decision making in a
targeted spray program. The risk index data is collected from individual traps so we
could guide spot spraying. We talked with County on testing procedures because in
order for the risk index to work we would have to get tests done quickly enough out of
every single trap to spot where the infected mosquitoes were and the volume of test
samples we were going to create was off the chart compared to other Counties. We
realized that there was a lab capacity problem. We independently contracted with Weld
County to process our high levels of samples. Then they said we are not catching
enough mosquitoes for it to be statistically accurate and for us to know whether or not
any are infected; but since a couple of people have gotten sick, let's just use straight
helix counts as a proxy for spraying. That's how we got there.
• Stanley: One of the things to me it seems needs to be put in the recommendation is that
tie has to be broken.
• Vosburg: Either the tie needs to be broken or trigger criteria needs to be revisited. The
argument for doing larviciding so that we don't have to adulticiding was a pretty strong
argument for getting people on board with larviciding. Now that we have broken that
deal, I can imagine people are upset. It isn't a guarantee that if we larvicide that we
still wouldn't do adulitciding in addition.
• Trine: Eighteen fevers and one case of encephalitis. That is an acceptable risk; that's
not a bad risk at all. Actually, even with more fevers it still wouldn't be a bad risk.
Au Quality Advisory Board
11/16/2004
Page 5 of 13
• Stanley: Especially when you look at other sorts of risk out there that we are all
subjected to every day.
• Trine: If you get the locations and the ages, then the City could analyze whether
spraying had anything to do with anything.
• Vosburg: I don't know that we can. There are HIPPA and privacy issues. We could
probably see it if identities were masked, but even once you get an address you could
find out who it was if you wanted to.
• Trine: Maybe not even an address, just a general location.
• Long: Did all 18 of those people go camping and were up in the woods, or...
• Vosburg: At the Health Department, they do an interview. They talk about where did
you go and do... there was somebody who died in Ohio and they concluded that they
contracted it in Larimer County. They do this interview and probably would get that
information. Although, you could get bit anywhere.
• Trine: If those cases were all over the City and they just sprayed this little area... I just
wonder if there is a correlation between that and if the spraying did any good. They
wouldn't give me that information though. I asked them to black out everything. I just
wanted location.
• Vosburg: I really think it will come down to values. I don't think data is the way to
sway this one way or another. The right data isn't available, and people can interpret it
in their own way. I'm not sure that data is the way. The hardcore stuff is budget and
environmental values.
• Stanley: You'll hear from Council that NO risk is acceptable. Then, it has to be put in
monetary terms.
• Vosburg: Once you get in to the economics of public health and what interventions are
we willing to fund, and what are the factors that go in to that...
• Trine: It puts it into perspective and then they can make that decision.
• Stanley: We should put this on either December or January's agenda to make a
recommendation; we should have options by then, correct?
• Vosburg: I think so. We probably should do it again in December. In between now
and then, we need to have those initial options flushed out and some kind of outreach
and probably some sort of general public event.
• Hentschel: A good PR campaign will helpful. At least get a positive image of the
situation out there.
• Vosburg: We could get out there and champion how well our program worked.
The numbers clearly show we closed the gap with Loveland fairly fast. We could play
up the effectiveness of the larviciding program and point to the absence of any
noticeable change in the City-wide graph line for when we introduced the adulticiding.
• York: I still want to emphasize the personal responsibility.
• Long: What was the total cost of the program?
• Vosburg: The base program that covered the testing, trapping, administrative costs,
mapping and application of larvicide was $227,000. The adulticiding was another
$30,000-$40,000 on top of that.
City Action Plan for Sustainability
Margit Hentschel presented on the current status of the City Action Plan for Sustainability
and also handed out a copy of the plan.
Air Quality Advisory Board
11/16/2004
Page 6 of 13
• York: Has it been approved by the Executive Lead Team (ELT)?
• Hentschel: Yes, it had been approved. It has a new team that will be proposed.
Funding is always an issue and we don't know where it will be housed, as far as which
department. We hope it is still Natural Resources because we have an established team.
• Smith: It could also be the City's Manager Office or the Energy Management team.
• Hentschel: The ELT wanted to start a whole new team to gain some creative energy and
I thought that was a good idea so that we properly represent the social, economic, and
environmental focus.
• Stanley: What is the timeline?
• Hentschel: It is through 2010. I wanted to go further with that. The city of Calgary has
a 100 year plan. I hope that we can be more ambitious.
• York: That's six years; that's hardly anything.
• Smith: But, I think that's for achieving specific targets; the concrete things. From that
perspective, that's a long time out.
• York: My suggestion is to recommend that all the City buildings compete against each
other for energy reduction. The savings would considerable and they should do it for a
minimum of 30 days. In return, give the winning building something to make up for
their frozen salaries.
• Long: How would you measure it? The buildings are different sizes.
• York: I'm not sure. Percentage decrease, or maybe off of a scale. Every building
knows its consumption.
• Smith: It could be a per person energy consumption in the building too.
• Stanley: Speaking of incentives, if you look at sustainable purchasing, they are
publishing a purchasing guideline by December 2004. Are there any incentives to
make sure the guidelines are more than just guidelines?
• Hentschel: We really want to encourage the implementation team to make that happen.
It falls short of the implementation piece and making things happen. That was one of
the big arguments in the ELT: are you going to make people do this; I guess
`encourage' would be a kinder, gentler word, but we want to check off all of these by
the target date.
• York: One of the things mentioned is the personal satisfaction of the employee by
doing the right thing; that could be significant. I hope that we apply these very
principles in choosing our BOB projects.
• Stanley: Also the trying to internalize the external cost, or at least take it into account.
Last time Doug Swartz came and talked about the New Home Stakeholder Group
Report; I was a little concerned that we are not going to do any certification. I noticed
it's also not in here. I realize that this is talking about the City's buildings, but we were
talking about LEED. I'm not that familiar with it.
• Hentschel: It is state of the art.
• Stanley: So it deals with all aspects of the green building.
• Hentschel: Yes, it's phenomenal: indoor, outdoor, landscape, materials and location.
Green Building was a tough one for us. Lucinda and her team worked really hard on
that because there are a lot of air impacts. To even get them to commit to "will pursue"
was difficult. LEED certification is so expensive that they didn't want to commit to it
based on the state of the economy. They follow as many of criteria as they can and we
worked with them on the design plan.
Air Quality Advisory Board
11/16/2004
Page 7 of 13
• Stanley: Does LEED apply to commercial buildings only?
• Walters: There is a program they are putting together for residential homes. It is still in
development.
• Hentschel: We did invite 6-7 Operation Services employees to go to the LEED
certification workshop.
• Smith: That was a one -day workshop where we learned about the program. It is a
bigger deal to actually be certified. Sandy Hicks and Joan Greg in Utilities are
certified.
• Hentschel: The problem is once you start going down your design road and you haven't
incorporated these principles, it's too late. Now we are two years late because of the
Brownfields property and Poudre River cleanup. There are some additional costs
upfront in good design and some expenses in better materials.
• Stanley: It is always hard for organizations like the City to get past that upfront cost.
• Stanley: Would it help if we send a memo to Council?
• Hentschel: Yes, and ask for strengthening where you think it needs it.
• Smith: There is an update for this on the January study session.
• York: What is the Environmental Leadership Team (ELT)?
• Hentschel: Oh, the Executive Leadership Team, that must be a mistake. Thanks for
catching that. On page 1-2 it should be `Executive'.
• Stanley: Do we want to make some recommendation or encouragement tonight?
• Walters: I don't want to do it too early. At the same time, we do have a quorum right
now.
• Smith: I wonder if you could do it in January. The study session content will be more
clear, and the board could shape the recommendation around that. It will be a tight
timeframe.
• Stanley: That's a good idea. I would like to have more of an idea about what will
happen at the study session.
• York: I have a question as far as excesses in operations and maintenance; it says "the
281 North College delamping retrofit was a success". What is delamping?
• Hentschel: Was that Sandy Hicks' attempts to get green lightbulbs put in?
• Smith: It was probably just changing the lighting.
• York: What is this "Energy for Everyone"?
• Smith: Sandy put together training with a presentation and information about how
employees can save energy. It is listed in the employee training catalog.
• York: I think it would be really exciting with competition between the buildings. That
would encourage that kind of training. On B-10, as far as the Air Quality Plan, there is
a whole thing with the `proposed' changes.
• Smith: Those weren't adopted when this part was written, so it was written as
`proposed'. That was back in the Spring. They were adopted by the time the plan was
finished.
• York: Just pointing it out.
BOB - Building on Basics
Linda Stanley handed out a Transportation Board's memo and Transportation Board
Finance Committee priority list. Linda met with members of the Transportation Board, and
shared the information she was provided.
Air Quality Advisory Board
11/16/2004
Page 8 of 13
• York: They wanted Timberline from Drake to Prospect to be a special improvement
district?
• Stanley: It is going to be, they said Lemay and Vine. That would be #26.
• York: And North college too?
• Stanley: I'm not sure; they have it as #12. They have that on their list if more than $50
million is allocated.
• York (Re:#7, Mason Street Sidewalks): Aren't they already doing it to
Prospect?
• Tumquist: To Prospect, this will be going under Prospect.
• York: So wouldn't that be #9 that was done already?
• Stanley: No, #9 is the underpass.
• Walters (Re: Recreation Center and Parks): Only thing that I had about that recreation
center was it was so much money to spend on something that people will be driving
their cars to. The City's time would be better spent on finding alternative modes of
transportation for people. I highlighted things with bike lanes, pedestrians, etc so that I
could see which ones didn't have any of that in it. As a board, we need to focus on that
and I think the City should focus on that too, rather than putting so much of the tax into
one project.
• Tumquist: Can I make a comment about Transportation Board list? It is not the same
as list that we have been working with and I want to explain why. It doesn't match up
for a couple of reasons: the main reason is Transportation staff felt that so many of
these projects were so small in terms of dollar amounts that we would be better off
asking for a pool of money rather than specifically name out each individual project.
The list that you see says here is a pool of money ($7.1 million) for bike projects. It
doesn't list out individual bike lanes, whereas the Transportation Board list does.
• York: Is it the same way with intersections?
• Tumquist: Yes. Under the Raods/Multimodal section it says Intersection Improvement
and Traffic Signals: $16 million dollars. That's what they did to simplify. The other
thing was Council chose to eliminate project # 8, which was Mulberry Park and Ride.
• Long: What does MTC stand for?
• Tumquist: Mason Transportation Corridor.
• Walters: I just quickly went through and highlighted anything to do with bike and
pedestrian additions. So the Harmony one was on there, which I'm assuming will
connect to the Harmony/Seneca/College, Obviously replacement of buses, pedestrian
plan and ADA improvements, improvements in traffic signals, and I think that had to
do with cameras and adding crosswalks and making it safer for people to ride their
bikes through, new vehicles for transit, bike/ped trail...
• York: The underpass?
• Walters: Both of them. The underpass and the Spring Creek/Laurel, and then East
Drake onto Stover and of course the bicycle plan and implementation. Those were the
main ones that I saw that encouraged alternative modes.
• York: The Drake Road Grade separation?
• Walters: No, East Drake Road onto Stover.
• Tumquist: Any road proj ect will have to meet the standards. Any of the roads will have
to come up to standards which mean bike lanes and sidewalks. That's why that are
listed as Road & Multimodal projects.
Air Quality Advisory Board
11/16/2004
Page 9 of 13
• Stanley: I know personally I would hate to see, and it would make me vote against it, if
the Lemay Ave to Conifer was on there. That is not a place where most residents in the
City are having problems.
• Tumquist: I disagree; I drive up there up there every day.
• Stanley: People may have a problem with it, but the main reason for doing that is to
open up the Northeast to development. We should first address existing intersection
problems in the core of the City.
• Turnquist: Thing about Lemay is it is a $23 million project. There will be development
paying for a majority of that. But there is an existing deficiency, and that's what this
would be asking to pay for. The road projects have money from development share,
but if no more development happens, those deficiencies would still exist.
• Stanley: It's just that it's $10 million dollars we are spending because the County
created subdivisions up there. Those folks didn't pay into the impact fees for that. I
assume that is partially an underpass and overpass?
• Turnquist: Yes, because of the railroad tracks. Probably an overpass and would
probably swing behind the neighborhood because they are so close together.
• Stanley: I'm thinking in terms of having a limited amount of money and how do we get
the most bang for the buck.
• Walters: That's why I was steering clear anything that wasn't clearly main intersections
where there is lots of businesses, shopping, and people in the area. Those are key areas
that need to be improved upon so that the core of Fort Collins is covered by transit, by
pedestrian, the lights timed correctly, and nobody's idling.
• York: The list that you reeled off comes to $55 million. I checked other things than
transportation — I included the Grade separation on Drake and Harmony -Seneca to
College and I yielded on Timberline -Drake to Prospect. That was a compromise. I put
the entire $1.5 million for transit. The bike and pedestrian thing, I did the Mason Street
Corridor parts. I also considered other things. I gave police what they wanted and
Poudre restoration and the Senior Center. I know our job is air quality, but we are also
citizens and this package has to be palatable. I think in our memo, we should have that
as life -cycle costs, because if we just keep adding asphalt ... it is an end of the road ... I
don't know what will happen to it. I guess I gave to transportation issues a little over
half. I had $17 million for transportation.
• Stanley: We've already been accused of overstepping our bounds. I agree that we are
citizens and we can give input as citizens, it would be hard to get agreement amongst
this group for the `other' things. I would like to stick with air quality issues and you
can input on other things as a citizen.
• York: Well, we do have $50 million dollars to allot.
• Stanley: We don't have to say "all of it", we could say a certain percentage.
• Walters: Or we could say "when you are allotted the $50 million dollars, we want you
to consider these factors when talking about the transportation projects: they must
include concentration on alternative modes...". I don't think we need to narrow it down
to specific projects. The other portion in these projects is to say when you are thinking
of which projects to fund, always keep in mind transit availability and alternative
modes to get them to these places. That was my main concern for the recreation center.
Everyone south of Drake will drive there. I would much rather see other things. I think
that needs to be brought up rather than pinpointing projects.
Air Quality Advisory Board
11/16/2004
Page 10 of 13
• Long: And tie it into air quality. If we make recommendations about transit and
multimodal, those affect air quality. The overview is $55 mullion, and there is $150
proposed?
• Tumquist: Yes.
• Long: So the job is to whittle it down?
• Tumquist: Yes.
• Smith: Do you think it would be helpful to Council if the board did recommend certain
transportation projects that affect air quality or just raise certain conceptual issues?
• Tumquist: I think mentioning a specific project is important, but the other comments
are valuable as well.
• Smith: Some of both; OK.
• Moore: I tend to have a different outlook than everyone else. Most folks think "if you
build it they will come". Well, they are already here. Nancy brought up an article that
cars run most efficiently at 35 miles per hour. When they are stuck in traffic idling at
Lemay, that is not efficient. They should have it so they could maintain 35 mph around
the railroad track. There are a lot of people that live in the City limits out there. I think
if we can maintain speed in that section of the road would also help air quality
• Stanley: We have different philosophies, and we won't resolve it tonight. It is good to
have all that input.
• Walters: I think also, it is where people live. I hardly drive Fort Collins except for the
weekends. I don't see the rush hour traffic that a lot of people see. My main concern is
the shopping access and movement of traffic on weekends. I'm focused on College
running smoothly. It is a huge road compared to other ones. Everyone's personal
experiences factors into what projects they pinpoint on.
• Stanley: The point about the economy is a good one: how on Harmony and College, it
is good to have good access there and intersections because of businesses and shopping.
We want to make sure shopping stays in Fort Collins.
• Walters: Yesterday there was a drag race at 7:00 at night and they got in a horrible
accident. Who wants to walk anywhere near that? That is a main issue: there is so
much commerce going to that artery.
• York: Can we not agree to promote the alternative and multimodal, and transit? That
will be $19 million right there.
• Stanley: My concern is that the bikes get a decent percentage; that we give it a chance
to succeed. I'm not saying I want the whole thing to go to that. If there is some sort of
way to put in some specifics, without going into specific road projects?
• York: Do you think we could endorse the concept of Mason Street Corridor planning?
• Stanley: In our recommendation back in February, we did talk about enhancing
multimodal transportation choices of the City, and it dealt with Mason Street, building a
grade separation, increased funding for implementation of bike and pedestrian plans,
improvements to Harmony Road Mason to Seneca, and improving existing deficiencies
within the City. That's just like what we are talking about now.
• York: When we say multimodal, I think we should spell out the bus replacement and
new vehicles.
• Moore: I wish we just had more of them. Where there is less time to get from one place
to another.
Air Quality Advisory Board
11/16/2004
Page 11 of 13
• Tumquist: That's really what the second project is about, the new buses; it is about not
just new buses, but new routes.
• Stanley: It sounds like we are all still in agreement with what we wrote in February.
We had "improve downtown vitality", and that is not on this list.
• Tumquist: That's where the deficiencies are, in older areas.
Ken Moore made the following motion:
I motion that we support the items that have been presented that go along with our
February statement, and reiterate our position on that.
-is...c ovu,u even say specmcatly, Mason Street Corridor, transit, scheduling and
expansion and the Drake Road grade separation.
• Moore: I'm OK with that amendment.
• Walters: I second.
• York: Are we going to send our old memo?
• Stanley: We will attach it. I will write a new one. Some of the things are off the list
now.
• Long: We should highlight the ones we want to emphasize when we attach it.
• Stanley: We'll have to change it to the new buses.
• Walters: In our statement in the new memo we should say that we are still keeping with
the same values, and reiterate those values in the new memo.
• Long: Maybe congratulate them on their move to biodiesel. It could be part of this
memo.
• Stanley: Probably not.
• York: You would have to leave the room.
• Long: To congratulate them on a move they've already made?
• Walters: Yes.
• Stanley: It's very narrow. We will leave it out of this memo
• York: Do we want to include anything on energy dependence and life -cycle costs?
• Stanley: I like the idea of multimodal and life -cycle costs. I'm trying to be political
here and not turn some people off.
• York: Anybody who isn't aware of the fact that we need to use less energy is...
• Walters: I think certainly our values, focusing on alternative modes, have an energy
consumption tied to it.
• York: The thing is that we are concerned with climate change and the byproduct of
fossil fuel combustion is a health thing too. I think we ought to talk about the three
bottom lines: social, environmental and economic.
• Smith: You could possibly ask Council to run these projects through sustainability
filter. I don't know if it is too late for that.
• Stanley: Does anybody have a problem with John's amendment?
The motion passed unanimously.
Nancy York made the following motion:
I move that we add these other values; meaning asking Council to put it through a
sustainability filter and consider the three bottom/top lines of environment, economic and
social. I would also like them to consider life -cycle costs and favoring plans that would
reduce consumption of fossil fuels.
Air Quality Advisory Board
11/16/2004
Page 12 of 13
• Walters: I'll second.
• Moore: What is life -cycle costs?
• Stanley: It just means considering total costs all the way through life -cycle of the
product. For roads it would include the costs to repave, and some people include
external costs.
• Moore: How is that air quality?
• York: It's sustainability.
• Walters: Costs could also be considered increased traffic; it's not just monetary.
• Moore: As long as it has something to do with air quality.
• Stanley: There is an opportunity cost as well. Or air quality because of the rubber that
goes into the air from tires. There is more money spent in future to maintain these
products, so you have less money to go to other things.
• York: It's insufficient.
• Walters: I'm concerned about the length of the memo. I want something concise.
• York: That's only a paragraph.
• Stanley: I can do that.
The motion passed unanimously.
• York (re: South East Library): That's a project that will save people from driving.
Maybe we should mention that; there is no other project on here that saves people from
driving a 10 mile round trip.
• Walters: Where will this be?
• Stanley: Ziegler and Harmony. Way out south east by HP.
• Walters: What is the other one on Harmony?
• Stanley: South west branch.
• Walters: That is where I see everybody going. That is not much of a drive, compared to
the Main Library.
• York: I'll skip it then.
• Tumquist: They've done research on where people are coming from. They are getting
a lot of traffic they could cut down on, and they need the space.
2005 Air Quality Board Work Plan
Linda Stanley discussed the changes she made to the AQAB BOOS Work Plan.
• Stanley: We had that conversation about radon and doing a sample to see if people were
doing the measurement with an active system.
• Smith: It will be good to know. We will be encouraging people to test.
• York: How will you encourage them to test?
• Smith: We have radon ads for November and December.
• York: I think that is where we failed with radon: is because testing isn't mandatory. I
like the idea that we evaluate the effectiveness of the radon mitigation.
• Walters: It'll show that that project was beneficial. That's an important piece to keep in
there even if we reword it to "investigate" or "look into" the effectiveness.
• York: "Assess the effectiveness".
• Stanley: If you were to change the wording...
• Walters: It seems like it should be looser. Even removing "provide recommendations"
would help.
Air Quality Advisory Board
11/16/2004
Page 13 of 13
• Stanley: "Investigate means of evaluating..."
• York: "Assess the effectiveness"
• Long: "Compare results of evaluations"
• Stanley: There won't be any evaluations.
• Smith: That's the thing I should point out: our work plan for next year isn't set yet.
This is written such that it suggests you will be getting information, and I'm just not
sure what information yet. My only suggestion might be to broaden it so it doesn't only
look at radon mitigation in new construction. Aren't you interested in the whole radon
program effectiveness?
• York: "Consider methods of investigation"?
• Smith: "Recommend and encourage implementation of methods of investigation for
assessment of the radon program." Are you OK with that?
• Stanley: Yes, it makes more sense.
• York: I'd like to suggest a wording change, on the fourth bullet on the right side:
change to "continue to investigate and evaluate".
• Stanley: Just change the order?
• York: Yes; I like a little more action. Same on the left side, "continue to encourage and
evaluate". I like the positive word first.
• York: Wood smoke concerns me because natural gas is going through the roof.
• Stanley: I could replace this with the language in the Air Quality Plan.
• Smith: I was going to mention the Air Quality Plan made some reference to the fact that
we are going to be doing the Air Quality Survey survey, and it will include a new data
point on wood smoke emissions in the City. If they continue to go up, it will trigger the
City to work on it. Maybe if you include both wording.
• Long: I was thinking of broadening the wood smoke by ending the sentence "by
providing incentives for upgrades to low pollution equipment".
• York: Have we covered health issues enough?
• Stanley: We have the board and the one below it.
Meeting adjourned 8:10 PM
Submitted by Liz Skelton
Administrative Secretary I