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HomeMy WebLinkAboutNatural Resources Advisory Board - Minutes - 04/19/2006n . 1; a7- MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS NATURAL RESOURCES ADVISORY BOARD Regular Meeting 200 W. Mountain, Suite A April 19, 2006 For Reference: Linda Knowlton, NRAB Chair - 223-9328 Ben Manvel, Council Liaison - 217-1932 John Stokes, Staff Liaison - 221-6263 Board Members Present Linda Knowlton, Jerry Hart, Clint Skutchan, Ryan Staychock, Nate Donovan, Glen Colton, Alan Apt Board Members Absent Joann Thomas,Rob Petterson Staff Present Natural Resources Dent: John Stokes, Terry Klahn Water Resources & Treatment: Cliff Hoelscher Council Liaison: Ben Manvel Guests Ann Hutchinson Agenda Review Ben Manvel asked to be added to the NRAB email distribution list. Nate Donovan will have a Solid Waste Reduction committee report. Public Comments None Review and Approval of Minutes: March 15, 2006: The minutes of the March 2006 were unanimously approved as written. April 5. 2006: With the following changes the minutes of the April 5, 2006 special meeting were unanimously approved : -remove duplicates from prioritization exercise Halligan — Seaman Reservoir Update Cliff Hoelscher provided background and details of the proposed project using a power point presentation. • Donovan: Who is the Tri-Distrct? • Hoelscher: E Larimer Co. Water, South Fort Collins/Loveland Water, NWCWD Natural Resources Advisory Board April 19, 2006 Page 2 of 11 • Donovan: Do the rate payers elect the board of directors? • Hoelscher: They're appointed I believe. • Colton: They have elections, but no one ever runs. • Manvel: We're not talking about the agricultural users in area, it's the treated water? What would a graph with ag look like? • Hoelscher: I don't know. It would have much bigger numbers. The City of Fort Collins typically uses around 30,000 acre feet a year out of the river. Half of that comes from Horsetooth. • Donovan: 15,000 acre feet is CBT. • Donovan: Can we talk about the names of the ditch companies that divert off the Poudre? • Hoelscher: CBT is all owned by Northern. Various municipalities and water districts own units. • Hoelscher: The City owns water rights in several irrigation companies. • Donovan: And those directors are elected by? • Hoelscher: The ditch companies tend to appoint and not elect. I know that for a fact for North Poudre irrigation. They're also a partner in the Halligan Reservoir enlargement. They take nominations from share holders. • Staychock: Doesn't' Fort Collins have a dedicated board member? • Hoelscher: Dennis Bode serves on the North Irrigation board, but he doesn't serve on all of the boards of the ditches we own water in. Its not a requirement of the Utility that we have a representative on the board. We own about 35% of North Poudre irrigation. • Donovan: For example, for North Poudre, we have board members making decisions about water supply and where it goes. • Hoelscher It's a mutual ditch company. We own shares in the ditch company, not shares of the water they own. The ditch company makes decisions about the water they own. It gets complicated. • Donovan: I'm trying to make sure we're on the same page. As far as decisions are made about supply and delivery, and the City's interests, what is the role, or lack of role of the elected officials and city staff to affect decisions that are made? • Hoelscher: Because they are mutual ditch companies, and we own shares we've been given our share. Our philosophy is to let them continue to function as mutual ditch companies for the benefit of agriculture. The shares in the Poudre River have not been converted to municipal and industrial uses. They continue to operate as mutual ditch companies and we don't have an influence in how they run their business. • Hoelscher: As part of the water supply and demand policy we're encouraged to keep in agriculture as much as we can. When we have excess water we lease that back to the farmers and ranchers. • Staychock: Where do the profits go when you lease the water back? • Hoelscher: The Water Fund. When there's a profit. When water is plentiful its $40 per acre foot. In a dry year its $400 per acre foot. It's market driven. • Manvel: That's why we want to store it? • Hoelscher: Yes, that's why we want to store it. Natural Resources Advisory Board April 19, 2006 Page 3 of 11 • Knowlton: What's the use in Fort Collins? • Hoelscher: It's 160 gpcd. The goal is 185. We're below the goal because of weather and tiered rates. • Manvel: If this weather keeps up this Spring it could go up. • Hoelscher: If people haven't learned the conservation ethic it could go back up. Its hard to get a handle on what conservation has done for us. We have a conservation group and do education. There are regulatory components and rebate programs. • Manvel: And the water police. • Hoelscher: We're working with other city departments to get them to be more conscious of their watering and how they do it. It's hard to ask citizens to be diligent on their watering and see city facilities where that's not happening. • Donovan: I'm trying to recall, it seems that when I saw a list of gpcd of front range cities that Fort Collins at 185 seemed to be on the high end. How can we demonstrate to the Corp of Engineers that we're in a conservation mode if our goal is on the high end of the front range, and number 2, how can we demonstrate that we have a real conservation rate when we backed down from the conservation rate we had? • Hoelscher: The gpcd is figured differently from city to city. Different cities calculate that number using different criteria. The COE looks and takes all factors into consideration, there's no set number that is the right number. It's based on community and climatic conditions in the community. • Donovan: In the debates at Council one member said his number one goal was to not jeopardize the Halligan -Seaman project. The conservation rate is a big part of that. Council voted to collapse that tier. I don't know how the City of Fort Collins can go forward and say we have a conservation rate. • Hoelscher: There's no set criteria by the COE. You don't get points for this or points for that. The use is based on the community and community values and standards. We might be at 185 and someone else might be at 200, but if that fits in the climatic conditions and what the community is looking for, then the COE can accept that. If its completely outrageous they say that. If the COE issues a permit they can put conditions on it. • Manvel: There's not necessarily a formula or checklist. • Skutchan: Will they look at pricing structures? • Hoelscher: Yes, they will look at rates. They will look to see if by building the reservoir we have to raise our rates. We don't. We're using developers money to enlarge the reservoir. The developers have to provide the City with a certain amount of water. If they cant provide water they pay us money in lieu of That's the money we'll use for our portion of the enlargement. • Skutchan: For the assessment do they look at the tiered system? How do they determine if your rates are set at a conservation level? Is it flat versus tiered? • Hoelscher: Yes. With a flat rate there's no real incentive to not use water, it costs the same. In tiered rates, the cost goes up. They deem that to be a conservation rate. They look at the system as a whole. Budget billing is based on winter quarter use and they say that's what you need in the home. And they will take in account weather conditions. There's a formula. They also consider that as conservation. Natural Resources Advisory Board April 19, 2006 Page 4 of 11 • Donovan: Its water budgeting as opposed to average billing? • Hoelscher: That's right. • Apt: If the developers are paying for the expansion and there's no more capacity expansion at the water treatment plant, will the rates go down? • Hoelscher: The rate will remain constant. Its based upon the cost for treating and delivering the water to the community. It's capital and operational. That's what the water rate is. Every year they take a look and decide if we're making enough money to cover expenses or not. Water rates change fairly frequently. Its hard to figure out. • Staychock: In your professional opinion do you see the COE denying the expansion for any reason? • Hoelscher: Yes, I do. The COE's real charge is to find the least environmentally damaging practical alternative. There could be some ecological reason. We will be looking at alternative projects, there are probably 300 alternative projects that have been identified. They will have to evaluate all of those against what's known as our purpose and need. We're in the process of developing the purpose and need because we are the project proponent. We'll have to say we've looked at other things and said this is what we think we need to meet our purpose and need. The COE looks at it outside of us. • Colton: There are people who contend that we wouldn't have to build at all if we did some creative conservation measures. Better irrigation for farmers could easily replace the need without having to do storage and keep some water in the river. I wonder what your thoughts are on that. • Hoelscher: You can get only so far with conservation. Our criteria is a one in fifty year drought. If you conserve yourself way down, when you reach a critical drought you've got no where to go. You've taken the slack away. • Stokes: That's because there are other users who have grabbed that water over time. • Hoelscher: The water's not available. The rights have gone away. • Stokes: That's true even though there's 250,000 acre feet of water left in the Poudre. • Hoelscher: It's over -appropriated. There are a few years when there will be more water the appropriated. That's when Glade will grab their water. In a dry year some irrigation companies, because of their water rights, will get all or a portion of the water they need. Others will get none. Its based on the priority filing of their right. • Stokes: In dry year leasing you can go to the farms and say we want to lease your water. Cant you go to the senior water right users who are agricultural and get it? • Hoelscher: If they'll lease it, and the cost goes way up. • Colton: It may be less than the dam. • Hoelscher: We're looking at a 1:50 year drought. We have a little over 100 years of flow history. • Stokes: Another thing is climate change. They're saying the most likely model shows most of the precipitation will be falling as water instead of snow. There wont be reservoirs sitting on top of the mountains. We need the ability to catch water in the storage system. • Hoelscher: That's a good point. We have a huge reservoir that sits up there as snow. In a few months it will come down. With global warming if the snow pack doesn't Natural Resources Advisory Board April 19, 2006 Page 5ofII build up there wont be the flow. If the precipitation comes as rain it will come more quickly than when it melts through the system. Reservoirs are only designed to hold so much, water would be spilling out of them. Snow melts more gradually. That allows water to come in and go out in a ore uniform way. • Skutchan: Is there a concern that more of the precipitation would be dropped at lower elevations? • Hoelscher: Yes, that is a consideration. • Hart: What's our average annual consumption in Fort Collins? • Hoelscher: 30,000, half of that is from Horsetooth. • Apt: Are any of the of 300 alternatives plains reservoirs? • Hoelscher: Yes and ground water wells. • Knowlton: You're serious that there are 300 alternatives? • Hoelscher: Yes. • Donovan: There are these alternatives and they're evaluated against the purpose and need. Some of those would be reflected in a scoping document. When will the scoping document be completed? • Hoelscher: Within the month I hope. We saw a draft of the scoping comments last week. • Donovan: And those comments were from the COE? • Hoelscher: No, people had the opportunity to comment directly to the COE office. • Donovan: Is that period closed? • Hoelscher: Yes, it was February 1 through March 17. • Donovan: There wasn't much publicity. • Hoelscher: It was in the utility bill and announced in the papers. • Apt: I've heard there enough plains reservoirs that if they were dredged they would equal Halligan. • Hoelscher: The problem is the water quality. If we go to less quality there are capital improvements that would have to be made to treat the lower quality water. The water stored in Halligan is not water we can get to our water treatment plan. It's water we use to exchange with other irrigation companies so we can get higher quality water. • Hoelscher: It is possible at the existing dam site to get an additional 40,000 acre feet. It's larger and cost more money. The middle dam site is 1000 feet downstream. The dam height goes up 75' over the existing dam. It would be a roller compacted dam. It would cost about $40 million for the new dam. Its much easier to build and wont interfere with water stored in the reservoir. When the new dam is completed the old dam would be breached. • Hoelscher: That's our preferred alternative. There's also the no action or null alternative. In the end those 300 will get boiled down to four or six. One of which will be ours, and one will be the null alternative. • Hart: No action — that means you're not going to expand the reservoir. It doesn't mean no non-structural solution. • Hoelscher: That would be acquiring more water rights. That would be evaluated as to the environmental consequences of taking water off land that is currently irrigated. • Hart: What will we need to acquire? Natural Resources Advisory Board April 19, 2006 Page 6 of 11 • Hoelscher: They'll acquire what they inundate. • Hart: What is the height of the dam on Seaman? • Hoelscher: I don't know what is. Any new dam will be in the 240-260 foot range. • Donovan: The dam on Milton Seaman will be downstream. How visible will it be? • Hoelscher: It's visible from Gateway Park. • Donovan: How does the Halligan -Seaman project affect the ability of the City to perfect its recreational water right on the Poudre? • Hoelscher: No effect. The only recreation right on the Poudre river is at the bridge at Vine, and that wont be affected. • Donovan: What about flows? • Hoelscher: We will shave some water off in the spring and some in the fall, and will release in the winter. We'll 12,000 acre feet we intend to keep • Hoelscher: Our forefathers did a great job in providing water rights for the City of Fort Collins. • Hart: We're taking 12,000 acre foot. Our hunk of the pie is real small. • Hoelscher: We looked at what it would cost to expand for our needs and we compared it to if we expanded to 40,000. The City saves $12 million by building to 40,000. • Hoelscher: People think the taxpayers will put out some money. Its not the ratepayers, or taxpayers. Its funds from developers. • Colton: Are we using all of those funds? • Hoelscher: No. There are other projects that need to be done in the future. Every year something has to be done. • Staychock: Does it have to be used for water related projects? • Hoelscher: Yes. • Donovan: When the developer gives water, or money in lieu of did they have to give market rate for CBT. • Hoelscher: Payment is based upon CBT. We tagged our "in lieu of payments to the cost of CBT water. • Skuthcan: How long have the development fees been collected. • Hoelscher: In the early 70's when the city started purchasing shares of CBT. We cant buy any more shares ourselves, but we can receive them from developers. • Staychock: When will this be done? • Hoelscher: We're hoping to have our dam done in 2010. • Staychock: As far as the prebles? What is the latest? Greeley entered into a lawsuit. • Hoelscher: They're trying to sort out studies. Our anticipation is it wont change. • Skutchan: How much of an impact on Halligan is there? • Hoelscher: The 1000' downstream is considered critical habitat at the point. We did 27,000 trap nights, no mice there. But we did catch three above the dam. • Donovan: Is there land that is a possible mitigation site? • Hoelscher: We can use a mitigation site if it meets the criteria. 0 Donovan: Is there a hydro plant proposed? Natural Resources Advisory Board April19,2006 Page 7ofII • Hoelscher: No, by the recommendation of the COE. Since we intend to keep most of our water up there, there's not much flow and the payback is way out there. • Knowlton: Is there anyone on the board who will take the lead in setting up a tour? • Stokes: Terry and I will find some dates with Cliff. • Staychock: Does anyone have any interest in a learning component to understand water law. • Knowlton: That might be a good thing to do, but not at a board meeting. • Skutchan: It might be good to know ahead of any decision making process. • Donovan: After the scoping document is issued and when the EIS process is close to the public process period might be the place where we could plug back in to advise Council. • Stokes: Is there any interest in hearing from the District? • Donovan: It might be helpful. • Knowlton: We do want a briefing on NISP. • Apt: Stream flow is one angle we want to look at. • Hart: Everyone on the board needs to be brought up to one level.. • Stokes: We'll ask the district. • Knowlton: The public is welcome to come. • Donovan: And comment. Follow Up to the April 5 Planning Meeting • Donovan: We need to develop a parking lot, or list that we keep. • Knowlton: Downtown River District, Halligan -Seaman, NISP, NW Subarea Plan. • Apt: Energy area, Climate Wise • Donovan: Sustainability • Stokes: You need a report from Lucinda. A big part of what we're doing is coordination for the Sustainability Action Plan. It's really relevant and important for this group. We'll have Kathy come in and do a Climate Wise presentation. • Knowlton: There was the EnviroVation thing, the Rawhide plant is likely to be expanded. • Apt: I'm not sure that's true. But if it's a possibility we should look at it. • Stokes: Why don't I check? Would you like a presentation from the Utility folks? • Staychock: I don't know a lot about what you're talking about. If I'm going to make any kind of educated opinion I would like to know overall, broad scale. • Apt: We didn't mention transportation. RTA is raising its ugly head. • Donovan: We have a list of things that are general topics that aren't necessarily driven by Council's agenda or other factors that may influence Council agenda. And we have one that's responding to the 6 Month Planning Calendar. • Knowlton: We need to have a list of things we want to stay on top of so that we're always up to speed as to what's happening on the issues. • Apt: As I recall we looked at Council's agenda and they had the Foothills Plan with CSU. I thought we were going to put that at the top of the stack. It may be too late. Natural Resources Advisory Board April 19, 2006 Page 8 of 11 • Stokes: That's really slowed down, the annexation has really slowed down. I'm not sure why. There may not be too much to say about that. We've talked repeatedly to CSU about their land. We've been knocking on the door. • Hart: CSU land and natural areas land are one thing. There are also air quality issues from CSU and the CDC. If we're interested in those issues we need to know what's going on beyond the natural area. We've had presentations and said thank you very much and done nothing with it. If something is worthwhile for people to present we should have some kind of follow up mechanism. • Knowlton: I don't necessarily agree. Part of it is staying up to speed. Our purpose is to advise Council. When they'll be considering it we need to give them our advice. Some projects are so big, they change, and we need to stay up to speed and know what's happening, even if we don't take action. • Hart: Not necessarily take action. • Apt: For example, tonight. Is there anything we're going to do with Halligan? • Hart: We need to look at the area, and what's going to happen on the Poudre. And get a copy of the scoping document. I think we should follow up. • Donovan: We need a mechanism. Where's the repository for these lists. We need to be taking more responsibility for the stuff we're working on. • Knowlton: I'm prepared to do that when I work with John on agendas. Every meeting I want you to throw out ideas of things you want to hear about. • Stokes: It's not a problem for us to help get people here. • Skutchan: Its simple to designate action versus information. • Colton: I want to talk about process. I want to have a discussion on how we can have broader perspectives. I want to be educated by a broad range, I want to try to figure out how we can get a broad scope. I would like to drive something instead of being reactive. • Skutchan: I don't have a problem with that, but I don't want it just opinion based. I want scientific data. • Donovan: Part of the issue on who comes and who we invite is there's relatively little knowledge among people who aren't plugged in about what's on our agenda. It is incumbent on us to communicate as a board to others about what's on the agenda. We can bitch about there not being environmental perspectives, but anyone who comes to the meetings can give their perspective on things. There don't have to be shouting matches. • Stokes: You have your public comment time at the beginning of the meeting. But I think if you want to have a presentation by different patties on a particular issue you should do that in a formal way. Invite Brian from the District or members of that citizen group. Have them come in and make a 30 minutes presentation, but do it in a formal way. • Hart: Regarding the water issue, if we're interested we could have a task force, not a standing committee. • Skutchan: I have no problem with public comments. But when we invite someone I want an organized presentation with factual data. • Knowlton: Do we want to do that with the NISP meeting we have coming up? Natural Resources Advisory Board April 19, 2006 Page 9 of 11 • Hart: From my perspective I would like to know more about the project from the people proposing the project and as we move down the road have people come in with other points of view. • Knowlton: So a little education first, and then advocacy. • Hart: Opposing points of view on the issues. • Apt: For the sake of time if we have the water district we should have SWIG at the same time. Like you've said, these people are educated. • Donovan: We're not morons. We know perspectives and goals. We wont take what anyone has to say hook, line and sinker. • Stokes: If the board is going to outside of government and contacting SWIG I would be more comfortable with the board doing that. • Hart: We're in the process of learning abut a project and learning how we want to conduct our review. Some will work and some will not. • Colton: We will give them both the opportunity on the same night. • Staychock: I don't even how who SWIG are. • Skutchan: Can we get a profile? • Staychock: We need ground rules for the presentations. And if there are packets from these people we need to receive them before the meeting. • Stokes: If we're going to have people with divergent points of view we're going to have to have a formal system for hearing them out so they feel safe. Ryan Staychock will draft some ground rules. Clint Skutchan will assist. Committees • Solid Waste Reduction — Nate Donovan is the chair • Knowlton: Based on the dots we should have a committee focused on energy issues. • Knowlton: We used to have a Growth Management Committee. It's a good idea to have such a committee. We can not look at individual development projects but we should look at sub -area plans and annexation plans. We should look at the overarching ways in which the city is growing and the environmental impacts of those actions. I'm not talking about pro/no growth. I'm thinking about the environmental aspects of land use planning. • Hart: And code changes. • Staychock: It doesn't sound like growth, maybe Land Use Planning Committee? • Donovan: I agree. • Knowlton: Ryan mentioned organizational design and structure. We used to have a budget committee who worked with the department on its budget and was an advocate for the budget. • Stokes: That committee hasn't met since I've been here. • Skutchan: Could we be effective? • Stoeks: When BFO starts up again. That's when the board should crank up its involvement. In the next go around the City will try to get more public involvement in the process and would probably welcome your comments. • Skutchan: Maybe that's better listed as a task force. Natural Resources Advisory Board April 19, 2006 Page 10 of 11 • Stokes: The board could have an important role. It probably doesn't need to kick off until Spring, 07. • Donovan: What happens if the Transportation Maintenance Fee is not put on the ballot? • Stokes: Council is having a work session on May 9 to discuss the City's budget situation. The budget was written with a $2.7 million hole for 2007. The TMF was supposed to fill that hole. That could result in additional budget cuts that could impact Natural Resources and other departments. • Knowlton: Transportation and Water Supply/Demand and Storage. Do they warrant committees? • Donovan: I think we can just handle Transportation. • Knowlton: One of the functions is keeping our ear to what is going on and alert the Board. To be the eyes and ears of the NRAB in a particular area. • Staychock: On the environmental economy thing the focus is to look at business, retaining businesses and understanding the relationship between the economy and natural resources. It could be interesting. • Skutchan: Environmental economics. I would be happy to chair that. (unanimous agreement from the board) • Apt: I will chair the Energy Committee. (unanimous agreement from the board) • Staychock: Trails Committee — how many times did that meet? • Kowiton: It met every single month for a long time. It fell apart when P&R took it over. Trails and Natural Areas met every month. • Skutchan: Should Energy and Sustainability be rolled into one? • Colton: We need to define the charter of the committees. • Stokes: I feel like we're losing energy and wandering. Let's take what we've learned and put it in a memo and hold it over for the next meeting. • Hart: We need to arbitrarily pick a number of committees: Energy, Solid Waste, Environmental Economics • Stokes: The board is trying to carve out a new role. And like all strategic planning its really messy. • Knowlton: Are we going to do something on NISP next month? • Stokes: Yes, if I can get him here. • Colton: Should I talk to someone at SWIG? Solid Waste Committee Report Nate Donovan said that the SWR committee recommended to the board that we support the strategic plan with its 16 items and recommend to council they give direction to staff to focus on requiring haulers to provide optional curbside yard waste collection, and remove electronics from the Fort Collins collection system, and that we should plug in before the next council work session on the Solid Waste Strategic Plan which is set for August 8. We'll want to discuss it at the July meeting. Natural Resources Advisory Board April 19, 2006 Page 11 of I 1 Adjourn Submitted by John Stokes Natural Resources Director