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HomeMy WebLinkAboutNatural Resources Advisory Board - Minutes - 12/07/2005MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS NATURAL RESOURCES ADVISORY BOARD Regular Meeting 200 W. Mountain, Suite A December 07, 2005 For Reference: Nate Donovan, NRAB Chair - 472-1599 Ben Manvel, Council Liaison - 217-1932 John Stokes, Staff Liaison - 221-6263 Board Members Present Linda Knowlton, Glen Colton, Clint Skutchan Randy Fischer, Ryan Staychock, Rob Petterson, Nate Donovan Joann Thomas Board Members Absent Gerry Hart Staff Present Natural Resources Dent: John Stokes, Mark Sears, Liz Skelton Utilities: Kevin McBride Engineering: John Lang, Kyle Lambrecht, Patrick Rowe Guests Ann Hutchinson The meeting was called to order at 6:04 p.m. Minutes With the following changes, the minutes of the Nov 02, 2005 meeting were unanimously approved: • Skutchan (Page 3, 1" Bullet, 2"a sentence, Legislative Policy Agenda): add "where it is appropriate" to the end of the sentence. • Skutchan (Page 7, 10`h Bullet, 5th sentence, NRAB Workplan): Replace "the road" with "roads" • Skutchan (Page 7, 10`h Bullet, 6th sentence, NRAB Workplan): Change "There will be opportunities in the next couple of years" To "There will be opportunities upcoming in the next couple of years". Public Comment There were no public comments at this meeting. Stormwater Quality Update Kevin McBride, Senior Stormwater Engineer from the Utilities Department, presented an update to the board on the Stormwater Quality program. Natural Resources Advisory Board December 07, 2005 Page 2 of 18 A video of the Oak Street runoff into the Udall Natural Area was played for the board. Mr. McBride handed out a copy of his PowerPoint slides to the board. • McBride: The Oak Street outfall drains about a square mile in Old Town. This is just the size of storm that was intense enough to wash everything off, but not enough water to get any dilution. So it is a worst -case scenario from a water quality standpoint. Visually, you can see the color; of course it's made up of road wear which is black and tire which is black. From storm to storm the parameters really vary as far as their concentration, but there have been times when there has been an E. coli count. • Donovan: CSU has a committee and they only meet once a year. Is that part of their stormwater runoff incidence? • McBride: That's part of their permit. They are big enough that they need their own discharge permit for campus. What I'll show you today are some of the same things they have to do to meet their permit requirements, although obviously it's a little bit different in that setting. • Donovan: Will you go over how Udall is constructed to do the various levels of treatments and whether what is coming out of the pipe has been pretreated to some extent by the settling pond? • McBride: I can talk about that briefly. What I want to do here is give you a broad -level overview of what the Stormwater Quality program is. In the past, there's been a lot of connection between the Stormwater Quality program and the Natural Resources Department and that's why I'm here. Actually, the real reason I'm here is you'll see that there are six parts to a stormwater drainage permit. In the stormwater permit, the cities argue effectively against having any kind of effluent limit because it is so costly and difficult to sample stormwater. We're always asked about that, but imagine having a group that is ready to go out and work on a moment's notice in any kind of weather, and you have the Fire Department. The City just doesn't have the kind of resources to go out and sample stormwater that way. This first slide is a picture that shows the difference between what comes out of the Oak Street outfall in dry weather and what happens when it rains. Obviously there is an extreme difference in those. • Skutchan (re: WaterSHED Education program & contact hours with students in Poudre School District): How do you go about interacting with the schools? Is that through Eco-weeks? • McBride: No, this is actually Eco-week here in the picture, and we do Eco-week with over half the schools that do Eco-week. Part of the program actually started by going to the schools, getting in with the principal and going to the staff meetings and describing what we are doing. We didn't want access to talk to them about some governmental topic; we wanted to help them do their science education. We developed a rapport over the years with the teachers, which is why our contact hours are so high. In many cities, they just print brochures and throw them out there. They are a good captive audience for our message and then the teachers are inviting us back because we are helping them teach their science classes. Natural Resources Advisory Board December 07, 2005 Page 3 of 18 • Fischer (re: Spring Creek at Drake Road picture): The nice stream your showing, at the bottom part there was a beaver there who cleaned out that channel. The way you have it now, as water flows through the channel the vegetation creates roughness and you can only flow so much through. The beaver had been cleaning up that roughness. I thought beaver ponds were great water quality ponds. Why did you have to kill the beaver? • McBride: Well, that was not the Stormwater Quality program. I actually was not consulted in that decision. There were concerns about debris from the beaver dam and what would happen to it when it washed downstream. The beaver dam wasn't modeled in when they did flood modeling for this. Seriously, you could actually do that. In fact, as Randy says, there was additional work done to make sure the designated channel would work there. One of the problems that we will actually face in trying to do restorations in other parts of town is if we take a channel like that (before picture) and make it like that (after picture), it'll be remodeled and we'll actually have to get flood control mapping and that will be problematic. All those things could be modeled and in an urban environment they make us do some of that now. As Randy probably remembers, at one point we had actually envisioned that our Stormwater Master Plans were going to be complete rehabilitation plans for the creeks as well. • Staychock: Who made the decision? • McBride: I think it would probably was made from the maintenance people to the higher levels of the organization. • Staychock: Of Stormwater? • McBride: Of Utilities. • Stokes: Kevin, tell me if I'm wrong, but one of the issues with the beaver dam was that they were worried about was debris piling up against bridge and holding back water and then having a surge. It's tricky in these little urban streams. One of the things we have to manage for is getting water downstream, but that may sometimes conflict with having beavers or even vegetation like this (after picture). There is a tension between moving water out and allowing things to be heavily vegetated or having beavers live there. Randy's right that beaver ponds are great water quality ponds, if you have a big place that's not so impacted by humans. The ranchers I worked with when I worked at TNC, we would really work hard to get these guys to leave the beaver ponds. They raise the groundwater levels and put more water in wells, they clean up your streams, and provide better vegetation and grazing for wildlife... they create incredible centers of diversity. • McBride: We haven't had a lot of luck with having them in an urban environment though. I like the beavers, personally. I think if we can move to these kinds of models — I ask you not to focus on one problem that went on — but the whole stream corridor as it is and the things that we can do together to make that happen. Beavers in urban environments create real flooding problems. Natural Resources Advisory Board December 07, 2005 Page 4 of 18 • Stokes: Kevin came in and we talked about this idea of having a wetland mitigation bank that would be comprehensive in nature. In other words we would look at all the streams corridors in the City and do mitigation projects that were systemic. In other words, we wouldn't be looking at doing a one-off small mitigation project here, or here, or here, as compensation for some project elsewhere in the City, but we would try to look at the system comprehensively and do restoration in a more holistic way. That would do a couple of things for us; we would have a wetland bank, but we could also be doing a job that is much more universally addressing stream health. Right now, a lot of what we do is we take mitigation projects and do them piecemeal without thinking about how they all integrate or don't integrate and how they contribute to the overall health of a stream corridor. There is an enormous amount of complexity in trying to create a wetland bank like that, but it's intriguing because instead of doing things on a one-off basis we would think about the whole system. • Skutchan: In the context of that, obviously this is an isolated incident. But you are talking about doing more, and would that be considered as well into that process? Basically, you put out a welcome mat to a beaver and it came in. • Stokes: We have to factor in all kinds of things. • Skutchan: But it wasn't modeled here, so I guess 1 want to know if it will be in future projects? • Stokes: We haven't thought that far ahead. That's a question we have to ask ourselves. The Natural Resources Department's restoration work has really cranked up over the last two years. Rick Bachand is our restoration ecologist and he has made a master plan for restoration on all of our properties. It's very impressive and we should have him come in to present. In our long-range plan, we're planning to spend $500,000 a year on restoration over the next ten years. It sounds like a lot of money, but some of the sites we have to restore are enormously degraded. It's not a huge amount of money and it goes fast. I wanted to share this with you because we are doing some really interesting stuff on Poudre and also some upland restoration as well. That program is really maturing and starting to take off and it's cutting edge work. • Donovan: Not to focus on the beaver, but to use it as example, if things are restored so that it creates more of a potential for obstructions like that, are you saying that in the future things like beaver dams wouldn't be allowed to exist after they're constructed because it's too expensive to map what the effect would be and to calculate the potential impact of that? Is it just kind of a no tolerance that we don't want to deal with it because one, we don't want the event to occur, but two, it's too expensive to try to factor those in to the future? • McBride: Let me answer that question by talking about rehabilitation vs. restoration. My professional opinion is there were beavers in the streams before our ancestors got here. A pure `restorationist' would say unless you have beavers in here doing their thing, it's not really a restored system. So maybe the right term is rehabilitated. Maybe if we can go to the point where if we had to say yes to beavers, are they going to be problematic in an urban system, so we're probably not going to get beaver, but there's many other species that can Natural Resources Advisory Board December 07, 2005 Page 5 of 18 be supported in something like this, better so than the before picture and that's realistically what we can do at this point. Some people didn't like the beaver and how much they really cleaned it out. They cut down all the cottonwoods and I know that Natural Areas used a lot of paint on the trees to try to prevent the beavers from taking them all down, but the willows came back like gangbusters. As much as I would like to see beavers, realistically that would be shooting for the moon. We need a lot more open space in order to have them. We have many examples: Rigden Farm, Sage Creek Harvest Park, Fossil Creek, other different streams, of the work that we've done to restore these creeks to a better functioning system. That will be a different project than the stormwater permit. That's going to be a different thing. Public involvement is what we need for all these things. • Donovan: My last question is with respect to your stormwater control ordinance, can you describe that at a fairly general level? Is it pretty basic in terms of what you're required to do for your federal permit, like things that you prohibit? • McBride: The short answer for what we're required to do under the permit is all on slide #5. We have to have a Public Education program, a Public Involvement program, an Illicit Discharge program, and there are a lot of components to each one of those. I tried to keep this fairly short and not bore you with the details. However, the two most visible are the construction site permit and a post -construction permit. Basically you have to have an ordinance to require the design criteria that you have, plan review, construction review, and enforcement. That's what we track with databases and the kind of information we turn in to the State and Feds. • Donovan: So it's not just limited to the illicit discharge portion? In other words there is a lot more... • McBride: No, it's very comprehensive and it's affecting all development in town, in terms of preventing pollutant discharges to the maximum preventable. Which frankly the State is trying to figure out... • Donovan: What that means or what that requires... • McBride: Exactly. We get pulled back and forth from "sample every storm" to making sure the BMP is in place. • Staychock: This is a general question. Does snow drainage have any effects on stormwater quality? • McBride: I had read a couple of papers that said that snowmelt, liter per liter, is slightly more polluted than rainwater, simply because it hangs around the road longer. What's polluting stormwater — I don't think illicit discharge is it — maybe some unintended connections from old infrastructure, but I don't think people are dumping a lot of stuff in inlets; it's basically urban life: automobiles, and one new area that is building is architects like to use copper. Copper happens to be the heavy metal that most frequently is elevated. It's in brake linings; it's from copper roofs, etc. But that's why with green building, people are just starting to do leach tests on roofing materials. So, we have a long way to go before tracking where things are coming from. Natural Resources Advisory Board December 07, 2005 Page 6 of 18 • Staychock: So you said that statistic was snow... • McBride: Is somewhat more polluted, liter per liter, simply because it hangs around longer. Now, I don't know if that really makes sense because what's on the ground gets washed off anyways. But that leads to a lot of other post - development design. Like, in the planning end you see more and more people talking about LID, which is Low Impact Development and the EPA is really pushing this topic. I wonder about it sometimes. They are pushing things called rain gardens, which is really a poorly -drained hole in your yard. They have other fancy names for it. If you put one in and landscape it nice, it looks nice, but with West Nile Virus is that really something you want? The Center for Disease control is opposed to those, yet the stormwater people from EPA are talking these up in a big way. • Skutchan: What do you see as the biggest challenges and what changes do you see in the future? • McBride: Our program has a great head start because the City of Fort Collins has been after this for the better part of a decade. We had a policy that said that we prevent pollution, treat what we couldn't prevent before it was discharged, and to protect and restore habitats in the stream. Frankly, since the flood in 1997, a vast majority of the Utilities' resources has moved toward flood prevention. I think that for the citizens who aren't going to sit through a presentation like this, the stream corridors are the thing they would notice the most as far as the Stormwater Quality program. That's a policy question for you all to be figuring out. • Skutchan: My question is, you're going through these processes and might be attaining goals, but is there anything that you're trying to build on? • McBride: It takes a lot of work just to maintain the six minimum measures. We can talk about doing better and more, and the way to do that is through studying what is going on, what other people are doing, what successes are happening, and working with other government agencies and that type of thing. We are trying to be innovative with things like the Udall area. Post -development controls are only required in new development. Well, that would mean a lot of development before Old Town was treated. So the City of Fort Collins, with the help of Natural Resources, did something like Udall and now a square mile of downtown is getting treated that normally wouldn't be. We're also looking at doing that for the Mason Street outfall. And we're looking at doing another regional treatment facility. That will treat more of the area and we won't be putting out perfect water but it would certainly be better. And we'll allow redevelopment of the central core of Fort Collins, which is a Council directive, without having to go over stonmwater quality on -site, which is very problematic. So if we can do things like that we can have win -win situations. I think that's one of the bigger areas that we are getting out beyond regulations to treat areas that are already developed. • Donovan: So that Mason Street outfall project, what phase is that in? • McBride: Conceptual design. • Donovan: I think this board would like to be involved in that. Natural Resources Advisory Board December 07, 2005 Page 7 of 18 • Colton: Isn't there already some wetland areas that are already doing some of that? Is some of that happening almost naturally? • McBride: Yes. There is a small structure there — it's probably about 5% maybe of the volume, if we were to take the same requirements that went into development and were used for the Udall site — it is an infinitesimal, small amount. • Colton: So it won't handle a big storm? • McBride: The whole design criteria is based upon a curve and the question is money vs. tradeoff. But you're right; the rest of that old oxbow is providing some natural treatment. In theory, what we'd like to do is not to have the natural areas provide the treatment, but to have the treatment upstream in a storm -sewer system so that by the time the water reaches the natural system it is already treated. That's why when we talk about beavers and ponds and those kinds of things filtering — those are all things from the habitat standpoint, but once the pollution is out in the natural environment it is extremely hard to control. We'd like to do that control before it gets there. East Prospect Road Project • Lang: This is the final design; there are no changes to the project. Our plan to partner with Natural Resources right from the beginning turned out to be a great process. Mark and his staff have been involved from the beginning and we think we've gotten close to a win -win situation here. We've done our best to not impact the natural areas, but to enhance them in ways that are beneficial to both of us. We are still building the interim section, which is pretty much right at the ballot language. We tried in this past budget process to get a little money to build the four -lane section, but that was turned down. So we are building exactly what the ballot language calls for. It will have two travel lanes, one in each direction. We've installed medians with turn bays. There are only two places to turn which are both natural areas so they will have dedicated turn bays. We'll have an off -road trail sidewalk and we'll have the on -street bike. So you've seen it before. We're going out to bid in mid -January and the process we're trying to accomplish tonight is a recommendation for the right-of-way and area disturbance or easements. Since Mark has been involved he will actually do the presenting tonight. • Donovan: Are we talking about temporary construction easements over the natural area or permanent easements? Or both? • Sears: We are talking about both. There is not a lot of need for additional right of ways. The additional right-of-way is fairly minimal and that is shown by solid red line. Wherever there is a solid red line, that's where the additional right-of-way is being required. The thick black line is the temporary construction easement. That basically also demarks the area of disturbance. There are also a couple of places where they're going to be requiring drainage easements. All that is summed up in the table that was in your package. The Natural Resources Advisory Board December 07, 2005 Page 8 of 18 total comes to almost $91,000 compensation for the right-of-way and drainage easements and temporary construction easements. • Fischer: I'm curious why Natural Areas is responsible for the restoration of the parts in between the red and black lines? • Sears: They are going to do the initial seeding on all the disturbed areas, but then everything outside of the right-of-way line, we will do the follow up work, ongoing weed control, mowing, and whatever is necessary to keep the vegetation reestablished. • Fischer: Why? • Sears: There again, this is a partnered thing; they are doing a lot of favors for us and this is a way to return the favor. They are building the parking lot for us and managing that, they are taking out some big stockpiles for us, so we're agreeing to do the restoration management. • Lang: Randy, it basically came down to expertise. We knew how to build a parking lot and design it and all the project management, and once we seed, the Natural Areas program knows best how to maintain and mow and weed and that kind of thing so it made sense to do it that way. • Sears: There is one additional item that I forgot to put in the agenda item summary. Right at the bridge area there is an Anheuser-Busch forced sewer main that comes from the Anheuser-Busch plant down to the sewage treatment plant and when they build that bridge they are actually going to relocate that line. The current easement is this teal line, and they are going to relocate to this easement that is the black line. We will allow them to do that and won't charge them for the easement because they are going to vacate the existing easement. It's kind of a wash area -wise. They will be restoring this stretch of this stream which right now is a channel, much like that before picture of Spring Creek that you just saw. When it's done it will look like the after picture. • Staychock: Is that where they transport their used seeds and stuff? Isn't that what that trench is for? Doesn't that go down to Timberline — the sanitation district? • Lang: It goes to the wastewater treatment plant. I believe they suck fresh water up and yeast -filled water down. • Staychock: Yeast, that's right. When does construction start? • Lang: If we have good bids, we hope to be out there by mid -March. We plan to wrap it up and go out to bid mid -January, we will solicit bids for one month, and then we partner with the contractor, check references and get a new schedule and basically get to work two months after we went out to bid. • Staychock: When will it be finished? • Lang: We're shooting to be finished in the year 2006. It's a lot of work and a short ways to get there. Asphalt pretty much runs out in October. We really have an aggressive schedule to get all this work done. • Staychock: Approximately how much money are we looking at? • Lang: The Building Community Choices Project was a $5.8 million project. Certain funds were used upfront for rehabilitating the road initially, for aerial Natural Resources Advisory Board December 07, 2005 Page 9 of 18 mapping, endangered species searches, preliminary design, all the design products, right-of-way, and we'll be down to a construction cost of between $3- $4 million. • Knowlton: I assume that there will continue to be efforts to get the six lanes out there? • Lang: To be very honest, I don't think there's very much effort to get six lanes. That's been pretty much bagged. • Knowlton: So the four lanes? • Lang: Four lanes is still a goal. It can be done without further impacts to the natural areas. We've designed it that way. We just don't have the money to do it. Some development to the East is probably going to trigger that someday in the future. Whether it's in two years or five years or eight years, I'm not sure; it probably won't be much longer than that. But when the State decides they're going to improve the Prospect interchange and when development improves the section between Summit View and the frontage road, I think this section will be looked at as a bottleneck. • Knowlton: So if/when that happens there wouldn't be impact on the natural areas outside those black lines on this map? • Lang: There wouldn't be impact hardly beyond the red lines. • Donovan: When you build within that right-of-way you're going to... • Lang: That's our plan. • Sears: They're going to do all the embankment work so when they come in and widen they just need to lay down the asphalt. • Lang: We would cut a foot of asphalt and add the parkway and sidewalk and extra lanes. It's pretty much set up so it's a one -impact on businesses and community and the natural areas. • Staychock: I know that this bridge up here is ready for four lanes. • Lang: Yes. • Staychock: So is that bridge there going to be built for four lanes? • Lang: Absolutely. It will actually be a slight -bit larger. The existing Poudre bridge does have four lanes but it's tight in terms of having bike lanes or sidewalks. We're widening the new bridge a little bit so we can have dedicated lanes for all modes. Plus a trail. • Donovan: You said new bridge... I just want to make sure... • Lang: This is the new bridge... • Donovan: You're not going to reconstruct this one as part of it — you wouldn't need to? • Lang: No, sir. We would have to someday take a look at how to get pedestrians across. Pedestrians and bicyclists. It just wasn't built to have both, separately. • Staychock: There's a big bridge on Mulberry you could take down and put over there! • Lang: Being a State bridge, and that being over 50 years old, it is so dangerous for somebody to try to get across the Mulberry bridge. That is a pedestrian and bicycle bridge, because it's just impossible for somebody to try to walk across Natural Resources Advisory Board December 07, 2005 Page 10 of 18 that bridge. There is no room, there is a concrete jersey barrier in the middle and it's four lanes. The state actually paid for that through their CMAQ fund to enhance pedestrian access there. • Fischer: I recall that when we saw this before there was a plan to widen this roadway and we recommended against that. What's the final decision on that? Also, these look like shadows of utility poles? • Lang: They are utility poles currently, they are currently going to be underground, and so we've removed that. To be very honest, my gut says there are not going to be lights here. If we get good bids, and have good construction and very low contingency, that has been the requested first alternative. I personally think that we will not be able to afford lights along this roadway. From a safety -point we're going to probably have to have a couple along the bridge, but just the bridge. • Donovan: That reminds me; we also previously discussed this idea of a hedge or bushes in a raised median and the issue that might have with attracting wildlife. The lanes are going to be separated by a center median. Is there a plan to put vegetation on center median? • Lang: In the old configuration, there was a Prospect Road Streetscape plan that called for hedged roads and more of a natural landscape instead of the urban landscape. That is in the four -lane, ultimate scenario. Right now we are building the medians, but they are not going to be raised medians, they are going to be at -grade medians. • Skutchan: Could you sketch that out, how it would work out from the level of the road? • Donovan: So, at -grade means like a curb? • Lang: At -grade is a six inch curb and then there will be a dirt area. We are going to try to put it in level so it settles ever -so -slightly in the center to absorb moisture. The plan is to dry -land seed the medians. I've looked for more money and I can't find it. I can't irrigate it; I can't put any more plantings in. So, I'm not sure how that will play out when we actually build it. There are very few medians in town that have dry -land seed and nothing else. I believe that may be an issue later on. It will definitely not look like Taft -Hill -Drake -to - Trilby: 44 trees, grass, plantings. This will be a natural -looking area and it's meant to fit in to the natural environment here. • Donovan: There are some opinions that that project is great, but in the middle of the drought is when we got that done and we had to irrigate it and plant trees. People were saying why are we doing that; why are we planting trees that will probably die in five years? • Lang: Luckily, it came out well. • Donovan: Is it the temporary construction easement that goes back here? I realize that's not City property, but how far back does it go and is that mainly a staging area? • Lang: It basically comes back until it has a place for the sewer to get out and the channel to work its way through. We have an area of disturbance along this Natural Resources Advisory Board December 07, 2005 Page 11 of 18 drainage, which nothing really more than a ditch, but there are several large piles of gravel along there. We wanted to get in there and make sure we had that area in the area of disturbance so we can get a contractor to get it, pick it up and get it out of there. • Sears: That's where the stream restoration is going to take place. • Lang: One of Mark's key goals upfront was he didn't want a straight ditch; he wanted it to meander back and forth and to look like he could be proud of it. • Sears: The thing that's nice is this is an unnatural area in our natural area. This parking lot and mountain of dirt will go away and that whole area will be restored to look much more natural. • Donovan: Another question was the temporary construction easement on this portion — it seems like its disturbing more area than on the western side, and I'm wondering what the reason is for that? Does it have something to do with the... • Lang: Trail? • Donovan: ... trail coming along — oh, that's right. • Lang: Yes. This will be used as a temporary staging area for us and quite possibly the contractor. The asphalt will be picked up. The permanent trail comes through, goes under, works its way back up towards road, parallels the road around this pond, joins there to the parking lot, and continues on in this green fashion. It was just easier to pick more land than less in terms of an area of disturbance. Since it was all non -natural and any area we remove is one step closer to getting it restored, it made sense. • Donovan: As far as the Transportation Planning mind, the ultimate build -out — if the right-of-way limit is right here and the trail tracks it right there, what is the sense of if it goes to four lanes, how the trail will need to move or will it need to move? • Lang: The trail will not need to move. It is in its ultimate location. In areas where we could move it farther away from the road, we did. Where it gets to a driveway or the entrance to Riverbend Ponds, it's right up on front because that is the safest place. We don't want people coming out of the bushes. Where we had to impact waters of the United States through a 404 permit, the goal is to mitigate the disturbance. So that's why in that particular area it is up close to the road. As we get further down in the Running Deer area, it makes no sense to have it jammed up next to the road because people will have a better experience if they are a ways off. Since it was all Natural Area's land, it wasn't like we had to buy it from an outside developer, to minimize costs we just called it an area of disturbance, we'll build trail, Natural Areas will pay for it, and everybody's happy. • Skutchan: How large is parking lot area -wise? • Sears: I think it's enough for 10 cars and a school bus — maybe a couple handicapped spaces. • Staychock: I thought the standard was 35 cars and 2 buses? • Sears: We don't really have a standard size. We try to size it as best we can anticipate. Natural Resources Advisory Board December 07, 2005 Page 12 of 18 • Lang: When we first met with CSU, who owns this property, we were trying to deal with accesses. We couldn't have an access that was real close to a bridge because that just isn't safe. Their biggest problem was they get school buses in there and they can't turn them around and get them out. So this new parking lot is an oval -shaped parking lot. We'll have several car slots and bus slots. Looks like 14 spots, some are handicapped. So you were right on, Mark. • Donovan: Will there be access to the Environmental Learning Center and Running Deer Natural Area eventually? • Sears: Yes, that will be available immediately. • Lang: There are trails that currently head south out of here — it does circle around to here. • Staychock: My only main concern is that avian bird that's there. I don't know if I saw him last year. • Sears: The osprey? • Staychock: Yes. • Sears: We moved the nest back far enough so that it wouldn't be hampered by construction. I don't believe they successfully nested last year. They started nesting two years ago. They were trying to nest on top of some transformers so we decided to build them a nest site. • Donovan: So you successfully disturbed them? • Sears: Well, what was happening was the male was nesting in one spot and the female was across the street. Linda Knowlton made the following motion: I move that the NRAB, having reviewed the plans for the East Prospect Road Improvements project, that we recommend to Council that the temporary construction alignments, drainage alignments, and the right-of-way alignments needed across the natural areas be granted to Transportation Services for the total compensation of $90,833.20 • Sears: Linda, can I ask you to add in to that the Anheuser-Busch Forced main utility easement? • Knowlton: OK. So after right-of-way alignments, then add "Anheuser-Busch Forced Main Utility Easement". The motion was seconded by Randy Fischer • Donovan: It seems that we want to be recommending easements instead of alignments. Or is that intentional? • Lang: It's intentional because the City can't grant itself easements, but we can grant ourselves alignments. • Donovan: So with that one addition, is there any discussion? • Skutchan: I'd just like to say, throughout working on this, from where we started to where we are now I think I've seen more of the ideas that we passed along on this project integrated in and more adhered to than any other project. Natural Resources Advisory Board December 07, 2005 Page 13 of 18 I'm thankful for that. From where we started is a far cry from where we ended up. The motion passed unanimously. Updates • Stokes: I just wanted to announce that we were awarded a $216,000 grant from Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) for the Southwick conservation easement that is right on County Road 15, right as you approach Soapstone. You had made a recommendation on that and we got that. We split that into two phases; so we have the first phase's funding and we will go back in the spring for another grant to tie up the second phase and we just have to match 25% of the cost of the easement. We were potentially going to have to find a conservation buyer for the underlying fee interest in the property, but the current landowner has now indicated that he might be interested in staying there. We'd be delighted if he wanted to stay there; it would make our lives a lot easier. We are negotiating with him on that now. • Sears: We also closed on another 25-acre conservation easement in the Tinmath separator area. That brings us up to 300 acres. Committee Updates • Donovan: If Randy, Ryan and Rob could update us on the Solid Waste Subcommittee meeting that would be much appreciated. • Petterson: What's going on is the City is working on the five-year strategic plan for trying to achieve the 50 % recycling goal that the Council set some years ago. In order to do that, they've hired a consultant to help analyze different strategies to achieve that goal. The consultant has modeled different programs that can be used to help achieve parts of that goal and then put together the information about those different possibilities. As part of a Public Outreach meeting on December lst, the consultant and the City staff presented various sample packages containing some of those different possibilities to achieve the goal and got feedback from the public at that meeting. I believe those are now available on the website through the Talking Trash website and the public has been giving feedback through that channel also. So at our Solid Waste meeting earlier this evening, we basically went through the different programs that the consultant modeled and gave our suggestion for a package, basically, of those possible programs for the consultant to be able to do a consolidated modeling of. You take different point elements, different things you could do to increase recycling, put together a package of them, and you get a total increase of recycling, total cost and whatnot. We gave a slightly different take on which of the different possible programs ought to be modeled together in a package like that. We also discussed at some length strategies for presenting these materials to the City Council when staff goes to City Council in February to get their blessing, understanding, direction, and whatnot at the work meeting. Our plan is to meet again in January to discuss this. At that time the City's consultant's contract will have expired and she will have delivered the deliverables for Natural Resources Advisory Board December 07, 2005 Page 14 of 18 which she is responsible and City staff will be beginning to take those deliverables and more concretely determine how they are going to present this to City Council and we're going to be a part of that discussion and strategizing and reviewing and whatnot. • Stokes: I just found out today — it looks like the 6-month calendar was changed and that date has been pushed to March. • Petterson: That will give us more time. You're welcome to review the material on the website and any of us can chat with you about it. • Skutchan: Did you guys attend the meeting last Thursday? • Fischer: There was a good turnout. • Colton: Lots of questions, suggestions, and good ideas. My biggest concern was that the financials were very unclear as to what the impact would be on city ratepayers for their garbage vs. recycling cost. They showed a cost for diversion but they didn't compare that to the cost of sending it to the landfill. So they didn't really understand what the impact would be. I think the first thing a lot of people will ask is, what is cost to me as a ratepayer going to be? • Donovan: Some did ask that question. They asked, "if I divert everything, are my costs going to go up?" It's the scenario that diverts the most and shows the most cost to the consumer. • Colton: My suggestions was when we do impact fees for the City you have different rates based on commercial, vehicle miles traveled, residential — that they model four or five different — you know for a 20,000 foot commercial, for a typical residential home, for a 200,000 big box and they show what the net impact is. • Petterson: Randy brought that concern up and we did talk about the need to show more concretely what it's going to look like for a real user of the system. That's an important piece. • Donovan: Since most of us weren't there, can you tell the board what the format of the meeting was? Was there a period to mill around and look at the charts, and she did presentation took questions and then what happened? • Colton: More milling. • Skutchan: What's the timeline on that? Where does it go from there? • Petterson: The Steering Committee will meet again December 20`h and around that time the deliverables are due from the consultant and then the City staff will take that and work on their presentation for City Council which is now in March and then City Council will presumably say whether they are supportive of things and give some direction I guess. • Skutchan: Will the board get a look at it before it goes to Council? • Donovan: Yes, perhaps January 18th. • Stoke: Yes, we'll be in here before we go to Council probably in February. • Petterson: Yes, I would expect we'll have the Steering Committee look at it in January and then we'll come to the board here at the next convenient meeting. • Sears: The Trails committee will not have a formal meeting this month, but we will be reviewing the trail line at Bobcat Ridge for phase 3 — the northern route. Natural Resources Advisory Board December 07, 2005 Page 15 of 18 Theoretically, we're supposed to go up Friday. We'll make a final decision by about 2:OOPM tomorrow afternoon. It depends on how much snow is up there. Some of the staff has already walked it and said that it looked good. Phase 1 is all done and looks good. This is phase 3. • Stokes: It's an extremely pleasant, super nice walking experience. • Sears: I didn't have anything for the Natural Areas committee, so I'm proposing to cancel that meeting. I don't have any agenda items. Agenda Planning • Donovan: Just a reminder that the December 21s` worksession is canceled. And then, John and I have been talking about the first meeting in January — possibly pushing that off to the third Wednesday, so January 18`h? • Stokes: We don't have anything scheduled for the 4th right now. We do have several items scheduled for the 18`h having to do with I-25 and also State Highway 392. So, both of those CDOT teams will be in here making presentations about the EIS on I-25 and the environmental assessment, or whatever they are calling it, on the State highway 392. What I've also heard from the City Clerk's Office is that Council will be making its appointments to the new board and I'll know who is on the new board at least by the 20`' of this month. I've gone ahead and scheduled them arbitrarily for January 11w to have their first board meeting. Your meeting would be on the 18`h. I'm interested of exploring the idea with you of having one meeting a month with this board instead of two, and I would like to pose the same thing to the new land board that they meet once and month and see how that goes. If we need more we can always schedule more. I'd really like to have one of the boards meet the first week on Wednesday, and have the other board meet on the third week on Wednesday. If you're supportive of that, I'd like to know, do you have a preference for the first or third week of the month? We don't have to decide that now. • Petterson: My preference is for the third week. • Donovan: That's mine as well. I just want to make sure that we don't get locked in to only having one meeting a month in case things come up. • Stokes: Well, we wouldn't change the charter or the bylaws which say that we can have two meetings a month. That's up to the board. It's up to you guys to make that call. • Skutchan: Randy, does having two meetings a month create an additional stress for you as the committee chair? The rest of us just show up. • Donovan: No. • Stokes: And we would make every meeting a regular meeting so that you could take action. • Donovan: Does it make it easier for you to have the separation so that one is the first and one is the third week instead of second and third week? Natural Resources Advisory Board December 07, 2005 Page 16 of 18 • Stokes: Yes, definitely. We're getting ready for Council meetings a lot too. So we're trying to juggle getting ready for meetings. It's really helpful to have that separation between the first and third week. • Skutchan: What about for Terry? • Stokes: She is going to be the person handling both meetings. Keep in mind though, that for the most par[ NRAB has usually met twice a month. If we go down to once a month and the land board meets once a month, she's not increasing her workload. If we start meeting more than that we might have to adopt a different approach. • Staychock: Is there any word on the reappointments of both Joann and/or I? • Stokes: I haven't heard a word. • Knowlton: That will be handled on the 20th • Donovan: By Friday morning or Thursday afternoon before the 20th the agenda will be printed and we'll be able to see the names. • Staychock: Do I have to lobby to stay on? • Stokes: There were a handful of good applicants for this board. Maybe six? There were twenty-seven for the Land board, which is a really big number and is unusually high. Ben Manvel and Doug Hutchinson are the Council members who are nominating applicants for the new board. • Donovan: Do you know who is interviewing for this board? • Stokes: I don't know who is interviewing, but I know who applied. • Donovan: So those two are doing interviews for the new board, what about this board? • Stokes: I don't know who did the NRAB. • Knowlton: Did we decide we're not meeting on the 4th, we're meeting on 18th? • Donovan: On the 18th. • Stokes: The 21" is canceled, the 41h has no agenda items and is kind of a bad day, and the 18th is good to go. • Skutchan: I wouldn't mind addressing some of the wildlife corridors in concentrated areas where animals are located and interacting with humans (i.e. foxes running through cul-de-sacs). It looks like there will be more expansion. Can we get an update on that? • Stokes: Yes, it might be fun to have Donna Dees come in and talk to you about our wildlife management. • Skutchan: I know there are some concerns with the trail over Mason. We've not had an update in a while. • Stokes: Donna knows a lot about where the critters are and their travel corridors. • Skutchan: The other thing is I went to that meeting with the newly formed Citizens' Bike Advocate group and they might be somebody we could work with on the Trails Committee. I was amazed, there were about 200 people there the other night. • Knowlton: Citizens' for what? Natural Resources Advisory Board December 07, 2005 Page 17 of 18 • Skutchan: I forget the full name. Rick Price came here and addressed us. It's the Citizens' Initiative committee that helped push through the bike coordinator position. They're continuing on with several ideas. They had some questions the other night about trails and connections. They might be a good resource. • Donovan: There were several things that Randy wanted the board to consider, and some of the things we got done by this year and some of them are yet to be done. One of them was the future role of the Natural Resources Department. Do you have an idea on when we could talk about that? • Stokes: Jan 18th, or February if the CDOT guys need a lot of time. I'll talk to Mark Jackson to see how long those guys are going to take. • Fischer: I was interested on getting an update from Doug Moore on the implementation and enforcement of the buffer standards, and some examples of recent projects. • Knowlton: We talked about a meeting in January or February — because I really do see an unclear line right now between this board and the new board. I can think of issues that would be a question in my mind of is it theirs or ours? I think we're going to have to sort things out. • Stokes: It's going to be hard to draw a bright line. I think as things come up we can talk about it. • Knowlton: For example, what came up tonight with the alignments, which was about natural areas, it was about road construction, so where would that fall? • Stokes: In my mind, that would have fallen to the Land Conservation Stewardship Board. • Skutchan: Do you foresee areas where there will be overlap? • Stokers: Yes. I'd be surprised if there aren't issues that overlap. I can't think of one off the top of my head. We'd go to both boards. We'll learn along the way. As issues come up that the board wants to talk about, we should talk about whether that is an NRAB issue or Land board issue and figure it out. • Staychock: Maybe we can schedule an hour into an agenda to have a discussion about what the natural resource implications are in the City of Fort Collins. We could think outside the box; things that we haven't done in the past. I see this as a new opportunity to discuss some things; especially that relate to the Sustainability Plan in Fort Collins, business, some economics... • Colton: Are you reading my mind? That's what I was thinking. I was going to suggest an offsite or something to get a couple hours or a half day to have a good brainstorming session. • Donovan: I would be about time to do that again as we transition. • Stokes: That agenda item is better sooner than later. That would be a good one to try to squeeze into the 18th and that will be helpful for the board and staff. We can bring ideas to the table and help you bring issues to the table that you'd like to know more about. • Staychock: I think that's a great idea, especially with budget cuts. Maybe now the board can offer a lot of direction and take a more proactive role. Natural Resources Advisory Board December 07, 2005 Page 18 of 18 • Stokes: Now that you don't have natural areas to consider, you have some more time to consider some other interesting stuff. • Skutchan: If we're going to address some interesting, intriguing topics, I'd rather come here for 3-4 hours rather than 1 hour out of my night. I'd rather be here longer and get some business done. • Donovan: I mentioned when I started in 1998 and the board had just gone to two meetings a month and part of that was driven by the fact that we were all here from 1 1pm-12 for the one meeting. • Stokes: It may be like that again. • Skutchan: I had some 6-month agenda planning stuff. Does anyone know what the ad -hoc health and safety committee is? • Hutchinson: It's to keep Council more updated on police and fire services. It will be a Council committee. • Skutchan: January the 10`h — the water rates. I seem to recall that there were several questions that we left up in the air after we last talked to them. Obviously there will be more that's coming out of this worksession so we may want to follow up on that. The same thing with the Northwest Subarea plan, we just need a good update on that. I would suggest that we look into this: the Convention and Visitors Bureau Services will be at a worksession January 24`h and that's something outside the box that's on the economics side. • Colton: They were going to have three meetings for public input this month. Do you know when the next one is? • Skutchan: There's one tomorrow at the Visitor's Bureau. And then, looking at March 28"' — the Transit Master Plan update; is that something we could see ahead of time? I think that was something we had asked about at the last meeting. Meeting adjourned 8:22 PM Submitted by Liz Skelton Administrative Secretary I Approved by the Board on , 2005 Signed amara Courtney dministrative Secretary I Extension: 6600 of /18 / Ou Date