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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAir Quality Advisory Board - Minutes - 03/18/2004MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS AIR QUALITY ADVISORY BOARD REGULAR MEETING 281 N. COLLEGE AVE. March 18, 2004 For Reference: Linda Stanley, Chair 493-7225 Eric Hamrick, Council Liaison 226-4824 Sarah Fox, Staff Liaison 221-6312 Board Members Present Jim Dennison, Ken Moore, Linda Stanley, Cherie Trine, Katie Walters, Nancy York Board Members Absent Everett Bacon, Mandar Sunthankar, John Long Staff Present Natural Resources Department: Sarah Fox, Lucinda Smith, Terry Mahn City Managers Office: Tom Vosburg Guests Chet Moore Randy Fischer The meeting was called to order at 5:45 p.m. Minutes The minutes of the February 19, 2004 meeting were unanimously approved as written. Air Quality Plan • Stanley: I asked for the Air Quality Plan to be on the agenda because of concerns about things being taken out of the plan. It's not air quality staff taking it out. • Smith: It is a result of Council input on City Plan. Some changes to the wording were requested by Karen Weitkunat. It removes the vision of reducing vmt growth to population growth. It was accepted by other staff. This change has been accepted. The whole Council had a chance to weigh in, and no one did. I talked to John Stokes. He's willing to have it in the Air Quality Plan as a principal that the city retains the vision of reducing vmt to the growth rate. That doesn't mean it will stay in. We tried to have it in the first go around, and it got cut out. • Stanley: It may not be achievable, but I'm still concerned that it got removed. • York: It was shocking to read, and it is depressing that it was removed. I thought about resigning from the AQAB. It seems we're not going forward, but backwards. Maybe we as a board could agree to put out a recommendation. We can lobby our various council members, and maybe then they can have a full discussion. • Smith: To my knowledge they didn't discuss it in detail. With so many changes it's hard to imagine every council member was aware of every change. • Smith: Regarding the "Consistency with Air Quality Plan" policy, after discussing this with John Stokes and Advanced Planning, our department isn't supporting keeping it in as a policy. Air Quality Advisory Board 6/16/2004 Page 2 of 9 There's a practical recognition that its impossible to develop a comprehensive framework for dealing with this. Instead, we'll need to be proactive and raise any concerns we have about other plans not supporting air quality policies one by one. There's support for letting things take their course. That did not come from Council, that came from staff. • Stanley: We could make a recommendation on that too. City Plan is coming up April 6. Is that principal one that if we made a recommendation and Council liked it, would go into City Plan? • Smith: It has a better chance of being put into the Air Quality Plan. We thought it should be broader and it should apply to all plans. That's what we were talking to Advance Planning about. If you are interested in having it focus on air quality, the most success could be had in the Air Quality Plan. If you want Council to consider it, then City Plan would be the place to do it. • York: I like that idea. Air quality is affected by many things, the location of industry, residential proximity to busy roads. Everyone is ignoring the fact that people become critically ill. • Stanley: It's strange the City isn't interested in having the plans consistent. • Stanley: Let's talk about the vision piece. I would like to make a recommendation. Something about trying to reduce the vmt growth rate to the population growth rate. Whether or not it is achievable in the next couple years, it gives a bench mark. • York: hi this document that evaluates smart growth, one of the measures is vmt. There are actual measurements. That would be nice to have. • Stanley: Someone talked abut how it might be difficult to get comparable measures of vmt across communities. • Dennison: As a point of clarification. It says remove it from the vision statement. Are they talking about removing it as a principal as well? It could shorten the vision statement if you keep the principal. I wouldn't agree with that change. Even if we fail, it's good to know how you're doing. It might make an impact on plans and policies and approaches that might do some good. • Moore: You can't measure it. • Dennison: They used to measure it. At one point I heard the MPO decided to stop analyzing vmt, after we got bad reports. The decision was made to not keep track of it. Could we get a clarification on that? Is it reasonable measurable? • Moore: They make so many decisions based on Mobile 6. There was such a struggle in the numbers they used on the modeling versus what the MPO was coming up with. • Trine: They always know which roads are going to fail and when. • Fox: VMT is being measured by SmartTrips. They have to, to receive federal funding. • Stanley: So, principal or vision. It makes more sense to be a principal. That's what you're going to implement. It should be a policy or a principal. • Stanley: I would like to see it put in to the Air Quality Plan. Not necessarily as part of the vision, but as a policy or principal. • Smith: That is what John Stokes is supporting us to do. He's willing to discuss it as a policy in the Air Quality Plan. • Stanley: Could you say something in the Air Quality Plan vision about vmt growing faster than the population, and the long term vision is to reduce the vmt growth to the population growth. Air Quality Advisory Board 6/ 16/2004 Page 3 of 9 • Smith: It wouldn't be workable. The vision we have in the Air Quality Plan needs to be the same exact vision as is in City Plan. If you want it in the vision then City Plan would be the right avenue. Having it as a principal in the Air Quality Plan would work fine. • Fox: Is there any other way to measure vmt other than what is done by Smart Trips? • Smith: Measuring it, no. Transportation will take up the process with City Council. The mobility measurement index will consider vmt. They also look at things like delay and access. They will consider vmt as a measure of transportation in this process. • Stanley: Does the board want to make a recommendation about having that principal, about vmt being equal to population growth in City Plan, as opposed to the Air Quality Plan? • Smith: hi T9.1 regarding vmt reduction it says strive to meet or exceed the performance of similar programs in comparable cities. That's already adopted in the TMP. They have a clause that would make any changes that occur in City Plan to carry over on to the Transportation Master Plan. • Moore: What's the hierarchy and definitions for vision, goal, principle, policy? • Smith: In City Plan I couldn't find a specific definition of vision. I believe its assumed people understand vision. But everything else is specifically defined in City Plan. • Smith: I had not thought about principal versus policy. It might be more appropriate as a principal. I might have to get the policy gurus to weigh in. Ken Moore made the following motion: Move that we support a principal (on vmt growth reduced to population growth )in the Air Quality Plan. The motion was seconded by Cherie Trine. • Moore: Will it be more palatable to the political forces to put it in the Air Quality Plan? • Trine: We could do both. (recommend it in the Air Quality Plan and in City Plan.) The motion passed unanimously. • Smith: You might consider making this recommendation to Council when you are making all your recommendations to Council on the Air Quality Plan. I assume you might have other things when we talk about the whole plan next month. Council needs to hear Board input by the April 27 study session. • York: What if we have a recommendation on City Plan? • York: In the first Air Quality Plan policy, it would be nice to mention ozone precursors. Smith: Although that policy doesn't specifically mention ozone precursors, as you pointed out, we have a policy in the plan that identifies high and medium pollutant priorities, including ozone as a high priority pollutant. My sense is Council will have so many things to discuss, it would be hard to focus on this one. But, it's up to you. Cherie Tine made the following motion: Move that we recommend there be in City Plan a policy or principal that the City reduce the vmt growth rate to the population growth rate. Air Quality Advisory Board 6/ 16/2004 Page 4 of 9 • Dennison: It would be better to be a policy in City Plan. It doesn't belong in a vision statement. There's more impact if it's a policy or actionable item. • Smith: When we discussed that with Transportation, there wasn't comfort with a policy having vmt match the population growth rate because it's not considered achievable in a five year timeframe. You might run into problems with Council on that. The motion was seconded by Nancy York and passed unanimously. • Stanley: At the next meeting we'll look at the whole Air Quality Plan and be making a recommendation. West Nile Task Force, Tom Vosburg Vosburg said the board had received a summary of the AIS that was taken to Council. Included as an attachment was a letter of recommendation regarding the City's program on WNV. Council was supportive of the recommendation to establish an aggressive larvicide program. Toward the end of the discussion we did pose the question of how will the City respond if the County declares a public health emergengy. Do we stay course and do as we did last year, or look to someone else to take the lead and cooperate with what they do. Two Council members were clear about the staff recommendation, but then I heard a majority of Council not embracing either option. On March 11, 2004, there were a number of people talking about the public health isseus related to WNV. There was discussion about the leading indicators. The bottom line, there seems to be a consensus that regionally they want to send a different message. The public health folks say the statistics about WNV are more significant than what people were talking about. One of the messages is West Nile fever is not a couple of days of flu -like symptoms. For a lot of people the fever was significantly more destructive than reported in the media. There was a lot of talk about mosquito control. A lot of the municipalities are ok with embracing adulticide. I'm trying to communicate the City's posture so it doesn't seem that we're dissident with the other municipalities. I think we can deal with this in terms of being thoughtful. Everyone says of course you larvicide, that's a given. But how many jurisdictions have committed? Loveland has done it for a long time, and Weld County will do their program over again this year. Wellington, Berthoud and unincorporated Larimer County still do not have a definitive plan. Vosburg said there was quite a bit of data collected last summer. There was a lag in terms of getting the raw data, and making sense of it. This year a lot more effort will be put on turn around time. The CDC is working on a statistical formula that will provide an estimate of the percentage of the entire mosquito population infected. The number of mosquitoes is not a big deal if none are infected. One of the dynamics of last year was that we had extremely high infection rates. • Dennison: If you get bit, what is the chance you'll get infected? • C. Moore: Not all of the mosquitoes are the species that are important. Others are less important, or irrelevant. • Vosburg: There's an emerging recognition that there needs to be a simple indicator of what's going on. It will probably be something like culex mosquitoes and their infection rate. That's a risk index. I would hope to be able to send an update to Council every week. This year we can take it one step further and look at our risk index last year. Hopefully we can reconstruct last years data and use it as a measuring stick. • Trine: Is there data available for after spraying? Air Quality Advisory Board 6/ 16/2004 Page 5 of 9 • Vosburg: After we sprayed we have data that we killed a lot of bugs. It's pretty clear, spray that stuff, and the bugs die. There was some contention about if what was done changed the infection rates. From a hard scientific perspective it can't be proven. Given our small number of cases it is suggestive that what was done contributed, media coverage, spraying and larvicide. • Vosburg: Public behavior may explain the difference in the infection rates between Loveland and Fort Collins. Maybe the public outreach and the media attention made a difference. For me, that reinforces our strategy of larvicide and public information. • Trine: But, you don't know about people like me who never report it. • Vosburg: We're only comparing the serious cases, encephalitis and meningitis. • York: I think maybe the controversy about the numbers of people who didn't want spraying wasn't a public information thing. I'm a little concerned that our neighboring officials are so blase about spraying. Did you say the spraying is not detectable in the blood supply, only if they're spraying their own yards? • C. Moore: Homeowner used products are used at many times the rate that is used in mosquito control. • Trine: I know people who had asthma attacks, or suffered other problems. There's no documentation. It needs to be covered. We if we're causing more harm than we're preventing? • C. Moore: It's difficult to separate those kinds of things, to distinguish those between pesticides or some other stimulus for the asthma attack. In a few studies, New York in 1999, it showed that it does not appear to be a major cause of asthma, or other reported problems. • Trine: The City needs to take things that are known side effects and have some method to record them. • Vosburg: We are not geared up to be a public health agency. The County is, they're the experts. I don't know if the questions you're asking are answerable. The official agencies will look at the studies. It's easy to say there are no studies that are perfect. This is a policy and value issue for the City. I think we're in pretty good shape. • Dennison: Last year we sprayed after 90% of the risk was over. What if Council thinks about doing adult spraying at the wrong time again? • Vosburg: We're much better equipped with data. Last year the contractor would get the data to us in a funky report, we couldn't make much sense of it. We've got the data from last year. We'll know how our overall population is trending. • Dennison: The question is why don't we spray early? It says here the mosquito season is April. Are we already behind? Will they be ready to larvicide? • Vosburg: We have all of the spots identified, we've done the RFP, we know the vendor. They're surveying and mapping. Even if all of the sudden it gets hot and there isn't one more snow storm, we're not late. • York: Will there be a dead bird hotline? • Vosburg: Yes, there will continue to be. The USDA is studying swallows as a sentinel species for WNV. The nests are easy to find. The swallow bell curve is a leading indicator. They've already mapped the location of swallow colonies. • Vosburg: Could the data indicate, and could there be a political discussion about early spraying? It could happen. The County is talking about having clearer standards, and more sensitive triggers. They've already recommended including adulticide with our base IPM. ] Air Quality Advisory Board 6/16/2004 Page 6 of 9 don't know if the triggers are considered a public health emergency, or a more routine recommendation. • Trine: I would expect they use the CDC guidelines. • Vosburg: What we have to do is pay close attention to evolving work. There's an ongoing conversation with the County that we need to monitor. • Trine: The experts take over the public process. The decisions should be made by the public, maybe the City should let the people decide. • Walters: That's why we were so concerned last year. All of sudden there was so much spraying. We didn't even get a presentation. There's an air quality issue, let alone public health. • Vosburg: We were caught flat footed last year. Between the swallow and the bugs we'll have a clear sense of what's going on. • Dennison: By when? City Council will want to decide at their next meeting. There won't be much time for public input. They'll wind up deciding to spray. The alternative is to say, give us those triggers, and lets decide now what we're going to do if we reach certain levels. • Trine: Last year we had an "opt out". They can't force that on our property. • Dennison: You could raise the suggestion that they consider contingency plans ahead of time. • Vosburg: That is one thing we could do. When the County announces what their new leading indicators are there needs to be a conversation as a community and decide how we want to respond. Those are additional things we need to talk about if the task force folks are willing to hang together and continue to meet. • York: The County isn't going to do anything until there's a public health emergency? • Vosburg: They haven't ruled it out. There's no commitment to larvicide or adulticide. • Dennison: Is it cheaper to adulticide or larvicide? • C. Moore: Generally, it's more effective to larvicide. • Dennison: Does the CDC make a recommendation for Colorado? • Vosburg: I'm not aware of a federal or state recommendation. It's really expensive, and not in everyone's mission statement. • Walters: It's hard for the state to tell counties what to do. • Vosburg: In Boulder there's a mosquito control district. They spend $26 per household per year. • Vosburg: Last year was an extraordinary situation. People didn't know what was going on. Decisions were made on the best information available. • Dennison: I would point out to the County that Fort Collins is looking at $200,000. The economic cost of one fatality is how much? $200,000 is not a lot of money. I'm surprised there isn't a statewide plan. I'm surprised the state hasn't been more involved in developing a helpful plan. • Dennison: You said you thought we'd have a clearer sense of if/when we hit the triggers? • Vosburg: With 20/20 hindsight, the best time to spray was mid -July. • York: When did the swallow data indicate there was a problem? • Vosburg: hi retrospect it peaks two to three weeks ahead of the mosquito population. I would think in June we should know if the virus is active in birds the same as it was last year. • Trine: We won't have the same thing every year. How long before enough people and birds are immune? Air Quality Advisory Board 6/16/2004 Page 7 of 9 • C. Moore: Different viruses behave differently. With the ecology of some of these viruses we see epidemics every ten or fifteen years, and it disappears and isn't a problem. It's the people who are permanently disabled from this that we have to worry about. • Trine: There's a certain tiny amount of the population that is affected. Are there better ways to target those people for protection? • Dennison: We can't predict who will get bitten. • Trine: It's elderly people who are affected. • C. Moore: That's not true. • Trine: I don't think this works. • Vosburg: If you reduce the number of infected bugs flying around it's got to reduce your risk of being infected. • Vosburg: We have to make a decision based on the limited information we have. City staff aren't in a position to crack a fundamental health issue that's confronting the CDC and major institutions. • Trine: The public process would take the place of doing that. • Trine: My son had cancer. My experience with the health people is they don't try to figure that stuff out. • Vosburg: As far as public outreach, the calls were 50150. Why are you spraying/Why aren't you spraying, my neighborhood. The thing about taking this issue to a public process is the community is pretty mixed. We have a fairly educated, involved task force looking at this issue. They've made good recommendations. • York: We need to make it a public and personal responsibility. We need to encourage people to report dead birds. Encourage full reporting of all symptoms. Make a big show of gathering the data, and hopefully we won't have to spray. Make it a bigger deal. Make people aware to get rid of standing water, wear long sleeves, shut your windows. • Vosburg: The whole thing about deet is, if you don't need protection for hours, there are other repellants, they just don't last as long. • Walters: I would encourage you to to push council to make a decision on what the options will be. I'm disappointed they'll say we'll wait and see. There needs to be a decision that is not made under stress. • Vosburg: The Board of Health needs to articulate what they're talking about. When they can say that more clearly it makes sense to have talked through a contingency plan ahead of time. • Dennison: How much does larvicide reduce the overall population? • C. Moore: Anywhere from a few percent if it's not done right to 95%-99%. Anything over 85% is a good kill. • Dennison: Have you seen the contract? Is it in enough detail we know they'll go far enough? Are we limiting them in terms of how much? Are the right people involved in instructing them? • Vosburg: We're asking them to do their best. We have the breeding site hot line, they'll give us phone logs, there's detailed GIS mapping. It's a lump sum contact. • Dennison: No performance criteria? • Vosburg: Staff will be randomly auditing their work. • Stanley: If people have standing water do they have an option to say, no, we don't want larvicide. • Vosburg: That's a grey area. In Loveland they always ask permission. They say it's about one out of 500 people who say no. They haven't had a problem in Loveland. Maybe people Air Quality Advisory Board 6/16/2004 Page 8 of 9 are different in Fort Collins, I don't know. The City Attorney is doing some research in taking a look at if mosquito breeding sites are a nuisance. • Stanley: Could we have a neighborhood ambassador type of thing? • Vosburg: Using neighborhood resources will be critical this year to get the message out. • Dennison: A large percentage of the risk is from what's in people's back yards. • Stanley: We need to find ways to educate them, put signage up at mail box kiosks, try to get people to voluntarily do some things. • Stanley: Is there a long term negative effect on water from larvicide? • C.Moore: If they're used the way they ought to be there won't be any long term impact. If you overdose consistently over a large area you might see some resistance. If you over -apply you'll see impacts on non -target organisms. • Stanley: Randy, are you comfortable with the larviciding? • Fischer: I don't have any major concerns, except that the County won't be doing it. • York: Are we trying to lower the commercial costs of larvicide to give the public a break. • Vosburg: The larvicide is not expensive, it's the labor. I'm nervous about telling everyone to go apply your own pesticide. • Stanley: Did the NRAB take action? • Fischer: The NRAB isn't terribly interested in this issue. I tried to get them interested. It's a different board now. • Fischer: On the task force one of the fears we discussed is that there's a tremendous opportunity for the policy makers to grandstand on this issue. Some of the policy makers will want to make it clear that they're acting in behalf of the public interest. We have to be careful that we have reliable leading indicators, even if a public health emergency is declared. This board should make a strong recommendation. The City of Boulder resisted all pressure from the County to spray in the city. There aren't 100% reliable indicators. Our recommendation as a task force was pretty strong. Katie Walters made the following recommendation: Move that the board recommend to Council that they adopt the recommendation from the West Nile task force, and we encourage them to come up with a contingency plan if, in fact, there is a public health emergency, and to consult all people involved, including the Air Quality Advisory Board. The motion was seconded by Ken Moore and passed unanimously. • Walters: We should do outreach on our own. • Stanley: I'd like to thank the task force. They've worked hard and intensely. Updates Include the work plan in the next packet. Agenda Planning • Air Quality Plan Meeting adjourned 7.35PM Air Quality Advisory Board 6/16/2004 Page 9 of 9 Submitted by Terry Mahn Admin Support Supervisor