HomeMy WebLinkAboutAir Quality Advisory Board - Minutes - 02/27/2007MINUTES
CITY OF FORT COLLINS
AIR QUALITY ADVISORY BOARD
REGULAR MEETING
200 WEST MOUNTAIN AVE.
February 27,2007
_
For Reference: Eric Levine, Chair 41
449393--63341
David Roy, Council Liaison 07793
Brian Woodruff, Staff Liaison -
6604
Board Members Present McMaster, Kip Carrico, Dennis
Jeff Engell, Nancy York, Dale Adamy, Eric Levine, Gregory
Georg, Shane Armstrong, Dave Dietrich
Board Members Absent
None
Staff Present
Natural Resources Department: Brian Woodruff, Tara McGibben
Guests
None
The meeting was called to order at 5:40 pm.
Public Comment
• No public present.
Minutes
The minutes of December 19, 2006 meeting were unanimously approved.
With the following changes, the minutes of January 27, 2007 meeting were unanimously
approved:
Nancy York stated to correct the spelling of Marla Sitner to Marlys Sittner.
Eric Levine stated that pages 6 and 7 did not capture the Board's request for information on
emissions from the City fleet of vehicles. The Board discussed the matter at length, as follows.
Levine: This is an insert to the February minutes; I just wanted it on record. This request
should be sent to fleets. I don't think we're finished with the subject yet. Pending some
information I certainly think we should have a ... I certainly don't have a feel for where
the fleets have been air quality wise, where they are now and what policies are in place or
what policies are being considered and what that means to where we will be 3, 5, 10
years from now.
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• McMaster: We want to make sure the message is also conveyed we're not trying to
hassle them by adding lots of extra work but we would like to see if we can get this
•
information, it would help us as a board. Do you see a way of bringing us this?
Woodruff: It looks like a project for somebody. Because if I understand, I'm trying to
clarify what this request is and that's why I didn't respond to it before frankly. It was a
little unclear and it wasn't clear to me either whether other board members supported the
request. That would be good information for me to have when I take this to John Stokes
and say we need to do a project for the air quality board. To answer the question, we
would need to know the year and make of all the vehicles in fleet and the emissions
standards to which they were built at the time, manufacturing specs.
• Georg: That's the best you can do.
• Woodruff. The emissions standard to which they were built.
• Levine: When I first brought this up, listening to the meeting recording, the fleet people
thought that I was requesting that they monitor the actual vehicles for emissions which I
did not, that was not my intention. That would be way too much work.
• Georg: That's interesting because I wasn't at your meeting so I didn't hear your
comments. Thinking about what an action plan would be for this next year one of the
things that we sort of got to last meeting but we didn't say it exactly, we were pushing the
transportation people to tell us what their baseline was. I think what you were really
asking for, Eric, was what was the baseline say to data, where are we? I think there's
probably an action plan that builds on having that baseline. Which is, if we have that
baseline, we really wanted to have an impact, using the city as a model, you'd want to
know what the alternatives would be, over time, to reduce both vehicle miles and as well
as gas emissions.
• Levine: I'm thinking of future purchases to the city. That's my main goal is when you do
future purchases; here's the manufacture specs on these vehicles, here are the costs. Any
maintenance problems, okay look at all of that. But here's the emissions for the life of
this product versus the emissions for the life of this choice. And so definitely weigh in
those emissions. I'm not sure if fleet is doing that enough. I'm not concerned about the
little vehicles and every little vehicle. I'm concerned about the, more of a big picture, the
biggest vehicles like the full size buses that we've purchased.
• McMaster: There are two things in the minutes that I think, hopefully would make this
more palatable to them to do. One thing is the BFO coming up. This is the kind of
information that I think would be helpful to them to sell it in their program. And the other
thing that came out was the lack of a real policy that's driving their efforts. It's more `do
the best we can' approach. So this could be information that could be helpful in
generating policy such as we ought to include the emissions on these types of vehicles
and that should be part of the decision making perhaps. I'm trying to come with reasons
to make this more palatable.
• Levine: And if their greenhouse policy passes, which we think it will, that will provide in
the budgeting for outcomes. We'll hear if these vehicles have a better result and we're
fulfilling this policy that we've committed to.
• McMaster: Yes, that's part of the BFO.
• Dietrich: Specifically, what are you looking for, are you looking for a matrix?
• Georg: Per city vehicle mile what were and are the emissions based on manufacturer's
specs for 04, 05, 06, and 07. That ought to be a very straight forward modeling.
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• Dietrich: So on one side of the matrix/table we have all the vehicles in the city, the spec
emission level for that vehicle, number of miles and then we have a totals column.
• Woodruff: So we'd need the number of miles put on.
• Georg: Per vehicle. It's important to ask for information that would motivate good
management practice.
• Levine: The best thing I heard from that presentation is they have that practice right now
by charging the departments by the mile. That's a great motivator.
• Georg: We have to be reticent asking for a lot because sometimes people are stressed.
When I listened to the presentation in our January meeting, I think you're being way to
kind at the end of the table. I thought they were at best ad -hoc. They were doing a lot of
experiments. If we we're to judge it on a scientific basis, it would be best ad -hoc.
• McMaster: Scientific, or to be honest, policy basis; they said there was no policy and
they're doing the best they can.
• Dietrich: How many years do you want on the spreadsheet? Just the last couple?
• Georg: If you were using the city as an example of what was possible, one of the largest
pollutants listed in one of the air quality reports, they would look at their fleet and
manage it so that the vehicle per miles were down and that the emissions per vehicle mile
were down and then we calculate the information a number of years out. If the city can't
do that where it has a lot of control, it's going to be really hard for private industry to do
it. The city has to set itself up as an example.
• Armstrong: You'd have to ask that of PSD and CSU to get the same information.
• Georg: You're right, you have to start someplace.
• Levine: We did as PSD and they gave us a presentation.
• Dietrich: Brian, do you think this is something that can be presented?
• Woodruff: Yes, I can ask the fleet staff to put this together. I presume that they have this
information. The emissions standards per each vehicle may be an issue they may struggle
with. They use a standardized driving cycle. I'll ask for this. We have 1000 vehicles,
including big trucks. You want only passenger vehicles?
• Georg: The whole thing.
• Dietrich: If they havel0 trucks of the same make you can bunch the 10. If they're just
doing it for us, then ... if there's some sort of tool that they can use for BFO or general
management then it has more value. I don't know how they'll take that. If they say that's
information they can use they'll probably do it. If it's just for us I don't know if they'll
find the time to do it.
• Levine: Obviously, I'm looking for some policy from the city and also to drive the
purchasing. I'm very concerned about the technology we have now from an air quality
standpoint and committing ourselves to another 20 years if we make every one of those
purchases. What we heard from fleets is the technology is changing very fast. I don't
know how wise it is to spend the big bucks for diesel technology and that big buck
purchase has committed us to 12 to 17 years.
• York: I thought they were using the cleanest technology possible, did I miss that?
• Levine: They said compressed natural gas because diesel fuel was high last year. I don't
think there's a policy there which is the problem.
• McMaster: Even if you use the cleanest now, what's going to happen over the next 17
years where there will be cleaner technology presumably.
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• Georg: The policy would be that you wouldn't buy technology you'd only lease it. The
policy suggestion is the city would not buy certain technology for the buses until its
proven and pay a premium to lease vehicles for a while until it gets sorted out.
• Levine: Does anyone know if that's possible?
• Dietrich: You can lease vehicles, anybody will lease you anything but you'd probably
pay for the whole vehicle in two years anyway.
• Georg: Not true for passenger cars or construction equipment.
• York: I heard Marlys say the buses are on order so they're waiting for buses. I don't think
buses are quite as available.
• McMaster: We're getting into specific details here. We've tried to clarify our request.
Let's get it to them, see what they say and go forward on a good faith effort on both
sides. We know why we're doing this, and hopefully they can benefit.
• Woodruff: Could we talk very briefly about the policy context or the recommendation to
city council about this issue? I'd like to walk through where it's going because I think
that's an important consideration for you as board members. Suppose you had the data,
then what?
• Levine: I welcome better suggestions than I have because I haven't really discussed them.
What I wanted was some kind of policy of all things being equal, purchasing the cleanest
vehicles that we can if the costs are within a certain percentage of other vehicles. If it's 3
times the cost that's a no-go. If it's within single digit percents or 15% or 20% maybe
that makes sense. Some kind of policy that this is considered if the economics are within
some kind of defined ball park.
• Adamy: Is there already a policy about that?
• Woodruff: There is. It's not a city council policy. There are a couple of them but they're
in the city manager's administrative policy book. These are things the city manager says
we should live by. It basically says to purchase the cleanest vehicle that's appropriate for
the job. It doesn't say we're going to help you pay for it. That's the sticking point with
departments. If they see they can buy an ultra -low emitting vehicle but it's going to cost
so many more dollars. Where's the motivation to sacrifice department funds for that.
• Dietrich: How does this spreadsheet, jumping from numbers on emissions, relate to
monetary policy? This spreadsheet that we've asked for, you can total it down and say
that total emissions for the city for 2005 were so many tons. And the total emissions for
2006 were so many tons so that shows an increase or reduction of so many percent. What
is our goal for 07? We want to reduce emissions by 10% let's say. So you go back to the
spreadsheet and say if we added this/this/and this to the vehicles and got rid of
this/this/this/and this we could meet that goal. You can do something like that with this
spreadsheet. The next step after that would be the economics of making that spreadsheet
true. We don't have the economic figures in here, we didn't ask for that but that's
something you could do. Your goal could be reduce emissions by a certain percentage per
year, no matter what size your fleet is; let's reduce emissions. They can make some
judgments on that spreadsheet on how that can be done. That can be walked in front of
the city and said, here's our goal. There isn't a goal right now like that. So the policy
would first to be have a goal and the next step would be how much would it cost to
achieve that goal.
• Georg: The policy would be basically to invest for clean vehicle buy -offs.
• Armstrong: So you're saying the percentage based on the size of the fleet?
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• Dietrich: Regardless in relation to the size of the fleet, in order to get better air quality
you must reduce emissions.
• Armstrong: So the percentage has nothing to do with the size of the fleet?
• Dietrich: That's correct. The percentage should have nothing to do with the size of the
fleet. Your goal is to reduce emissions.
• McMaster: Brian raised a great question. What do we do with this in terms of policy? I
see this as information that might help us give some policy guidance and it would help
fleet.
• Dietrich: I can see how we can suggest a policy to reducing emissions, after we get these
done to see what's realistic. Let's say reduce emissions by city fleet by 8% per year.
• Engell: Absolutely. I think that's exactly the way you go about proposing that and don't
try to dictate monetary policy through whatever that data that shows because I'm afraid
that we'd be tying our own hands. If we do it on overall emissions or something that's
measurable, we're achieving what our board's goal is and leaving the monetary policy to
somewhere else. Or, add some monetary policy as a second step.
• Georg: It motivates the monetary policy.
• Woodruff. This is a budget year and I can see this kind of information being used in a
BFO offer. Maybe a funding pot that would be invested to pay the incremental cost of a
low emitting vehicle so that departments can be left whole. That's something that the
council can put in the mix of environmental goods that they want to buy.
• York: Are we also requesting VMT on these vehicles?
• McMaster: That's by the number of miles that we pul on.
• Woodruff: One year mileage is what I wrote down.
• Georg: The city being an example for others, be it PDS or whomever, to adopt such a
policy. Air quality isn't just what the city does; this shouldn't be viewed as picking on the
city, and city employees and how they do their job. This should be viewed as an example
that others could potentially model.
• Dietrich: If we had a couple years of data, we'd know if VMT was going up or down; and
whether the emissions are going up or down and we would know about how much.
• Engell: I can't imagine that being an unreasonable request. It seems from a management
standpoint those data should be there on one nice spreadsheet.
• Dietrich: That's not easy with 1000 vehicles. They could enter every vehicle in the
computer already with the amount of miles.
• Georg: It's one of the best policy recommendations we can make is establishing good
practice.
• McMaster: I agree that we create a general policy like emission reductions. I was
thinking about trying to avoid micro -manage how they get there.
• Dietrich: There's different ways to get to that.
• Woodruff: If we go back; remember what they said about applying it per mile fee for
cars. They maintain the cars for free but they charge by mile. That has the effect of
suppressing VMT. You would also pick that up in this chart if we had 2 years of suitable
data, but they only started that in 2006.
• Dietrich: It seems to me this spreadsheet would be a good management tool to access all
of their activities so they might buy off on doing something regularly.
• Levine: Not only fleet though, our air quality staff; when we do the air quality modeling
to have this information of the city fleets is very valuable.
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• Adamy: We should wait on a policy to see what the spreadsheet data say.
• Georg: Is there some ability to research in terns of what other cities are doing?
• McMaster: The mobility management report lists information.
• Dietrich: Brian, does the mobility management report bring up what we're asking here?
Has this been done by other groups?
• Woodruff: Yes, you hear about fleet management. It's not an unusual thing others are
trying to do.
• Dietrich: Do we have enough Brian?
• Woodruff. Yes, I have a sketch of the table that's desired and I will consult with the fleets
department and find out whether this information is available and encourage them to see
if there's a management benefit and a BFO opportunity and I'll report that next month.
• Engell: I think it's important to put the budget piece in there; it's an expense item.
• Carrico: Are we looking for over the cities fleet of vehicles this type of vehicle emits this
much grams per mile, CO plus CO2, hydrocarbons, NOX, particulate matter and then
total that over the fleet as a whole based on the specs per vehicle?
• Levine: For emissions those would be it.
• Georg: The vehicle manufacturers list that information on line.
• Carrico: That might be helpful for future vehicle procurement too. There might be a way
to value a difference in emissions factors; whether you put a dollar value on that or just to
quantify more that saying just the best we can.
Aeenda Item 1
Work Planning for 2007
• Woodruff: I prepared the chart and the numbering to take you through a multi -voting
exercise with the purpose of narrowing it down to a list of 3 to 4 major issues that you
want to work on during 2007. I would recommend that you do that, because this is such
a long list. The list will not go away, because it is your officially adopted work plan that
I downloaded it from the city clerk's website. It's still there. This would just help you
to focus and multi -voting is my suggestion. I am available for that purpose. With your
consent we'll get started. The first step is to combine any that seem to be the same.
We're combing 1,2,3 and 19 with climate resolution.
• Adamy: I have a recommendation to combine diesel and trash trucks and smoking
vehicles and emissions and I wrote up my recommendation.
• Georg: Some of these are hows. I really struggled with this list because there are hows
on the list and whats and some are more activity oriented versus results oriented. So
what would be a result?
• Adamy: I like that idea. That's the goal at the end is to have a policy.
• Dietrich: So are we trying to consolidate a vehicle emission reduction action plan?
• Adamy: Maybe just say emission reduction.
• Carrico: Radon isn't an emission.
• Adamy: We can keep it simple, this needs word-smithing.
• Woodruff: It appears to me that diesel and trash trucks are very similar. Smoking
vehicles is different because it doesn't do any good to report trucks but we can report
passenger vehicles.
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• Georg: Seems like all these fit into the general category of reducing priority air
pollutants. If you looked at priority air pollutant program you would include most of
this list.
• Dietrich: We can have mobile source emission reductions and stationary source
emission reductions.
• Woodruff. You don't gain a whole lot by consolidating too much. You've gone through
a lot of trouble already to create the initial listing. What do you want to really make an
impact on in 2007?
• Levine: If we do work on Ozone, #13, diesel is a pre -cursor of addressing that.
• Woodruff: Too much consolidating and you won't get your hands around the topic.
Consolidate similar items. #8 and #9 are consolidated to Diesel so we no longer have
#9 to vote for.
• Carrico: Would FC Moves fit with Mobility Management?
• Woodruff: They are related.
• Levine: Seems reasonable to combine those.
• Woodruff: Combine #20 Chemical Sensitivity and #22 WNV? No, OK. Are there other
things that you want to add to the list at this point?
• Georg: What about the program where we focus on the priority air pollutants which
would include a lot of the things we're taking about, is that on there?
• Woodruff: Indirectly.
• Georg: That's one of the big opportunities in the city. It's not just mobility; it's getting
at a lot of the other sources too. Don't we have a baseline measurement on the priority
pollutants?
• Woodruff: Yes, we measure Carbon Monoxide, Ozone, fine particles, and visibility.
• Georg: We have programs and goals to reduce those things, right?
• Woodruff: Not really.
• Georg: So the question is, should we have such goals, and should that be a focus that
we really adopt? Or should we have policy on those particles?
• Dietrich: There are goals in terms that you can't violate certain standards. There are no
goals to reduce.
• Georg: There's no measurable goal in place or program with the city?
• Levine: We have an over arching goal that as the city grows the air will get better.
• Georg: That's wishful thinking.
• Dietrich: The measurements track some things. We have goals to reduce the diesel and
trash trucks if you carry that out you will reduce particulates.
• Woodruff: A traditional air quality plan would go pollutant by pollutant and inventory
what are all the sources of, e.g., carbon monoxide and then figure out how to reduce the
various components in order to meet an outdoor air objective. We haven't gone that
direction except when we're required to under the Federal Clean Air Act. We had a
formal air quality plan for carbon monoxide and we still do, it's called the Air Quality
Maintenance Plan. We've taken the approach of hitting multiple pollutants at once. If
we reduce VMT, we know that hits carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, carbon dioxide,
and NOX all at the same time. We don't work on commercial or industrial emissions
except through Climate Wise. Residential emissions through wood -smoke and lawn
mowers. We take opportunities but we're not oriented towards one pollutant at a time.
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• Levine: This is our air quality plan and city policy. This is just some of our work plan
prioritization to do in the next year. That kind of takes the pressure off. This decision
we're making is just choosing what we can focus on.
• York: Survey and marketing have to be up there because we are advising on that. RTA
could be included in Mobility Management?
• McMaster: Maybe.
• Adamy: Did 17 get pulled into 14? Should #15 and #16 be included in that?
• McMaster: The survey is a specific thing, if you combine it we may loose it.
• York: RTA could easily fit under Mobility Management, do others agree?
• Dietrich: I'm just reading closely — #4 is to select a limited number of
recommendations in the mobility management best practices report for further study
and prepare recommendations for council. #6 is track the efforts.
• York: That should stand by itself.
• McMaster: Is #18 really needed? The idea is anything we're doing we're keeping this
in mind with the 08/09 budget. #18 is real critical.
• Engell: It's obvious.
• Woodruff. You may want to consider that this is the year that the budget is prepared for
the next two. There is budget activity going on this year that you may want to advise
the Council on.
• McMaster: We can keep that in mind in terns of the BFO process.
• Dietrich: Isn't #18 to actually get a proposed budget, review it and say whether or not
we agree?
• McMaster: In that respect I would agree and it's important to keep it.
• Woodruff: I gather that we're ready to vote.
• Georg: I'm still concerned that we still don't have something that specifically focuses
on reducing priority air pollutants as a single program.
• Adamy: That's what I was looking at too, I really like that suggestion.
• McMaster: Should we add a #23 that more specifically says that?
• Georg: That's an encompassing `what' that those `hows' can address.
• Woodruff: Some of what you're asking for I think you'll find in the city's air quality
plan. It's not organized the way you would probably prefer, however.
• Levine: If you're going to address particulates certainly diesel would be relatively high
on the list.
• Georg: It's a how. Again, if we're talking about hows versus whats, if you look at the
what, what is reducing the higher priority pollutants as it was outlined in the city's air
quality plan. If you're going to attack that as an issue, you wouldn't go at the list of
hows, you'd take a look at the big what and see what you can afford to do to that has
the big impact. Make it more of an investment. I'm concerned that we're going to hone
off in a set of hows and it's hard to evaluate them as investments.
• Adamy: And how to measure it.
• Georg: And how to measure it. How to manage it as a holistic thing.
• Adamy: Did we accomplish it.
• Georg: Exactly. And who's accountable, accountability is important.
• McMaster: I agree the goal is we want to look at how to reduce air pollutants. We have
identified certain aspects on what we might focus on.
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• Georg: What's the plan to then address that report holistically? Our job is air quality
and to look at that plan holistically. The bigger picture should be our focus.
• Levine: I'm not sure about that. If you addressed it from a health standpoint, which is
always my goal, the main health problem in the city as far as an air pollutant is
particulates, lets say — wouldn't that lead you to addressing diesel? You've got the
policy which is almost holistic, and then we have very specific implementations.
• Georg: So, can you tell me what the measurement goals we'll achieve by the end of this
year? That's my problem.
• McMaster: We combined 1-3. So what we wish to do is make recommendations to
council on measures to, in this case, reduce greenhouse gasses. That's the measurable,
we're working on that. If #4 was selected: "Make recommendations on what we think
are some of the key parts of the Mobility Management plan" we'd try to get the city to
move on that because they're not moving on that.
• York: I'm sympathetic about it. If you look at it as outcome based, our list doesn't lend
itself to that much clarity. Metrics would be needed to identify sources.
• Levine: The climate plan was nothing but metrics. We'll be doing that again.
• York: I like the idea of looking at outcomes and what we'd like to accomplish and this
list doesn't lend itself to that much.
• Georg: Here's a compromise. If you think about it, every one of these has a lot of
impact on reducing priority air pollutants. My concern is if we want to be effective in
delivering say three high quality recommendations to the city council that council can
take action on and make a difference in our air quality; because we're about policy,
we're about helping them adopt policy and ideas. If we can group them together that
relate to the priority air pollutants, I think we're more likely to get their attention.
• Dietrich: Give an example of a recommendation.
• Georg: A recommendation might be that the city formally adopt the following
policies/goals/mechanisms to achieve priority air pollutant reduction by this much.
There are some goals in here but there's not policies in place in the city to achieve those
goals. If we want to have a higher quality air as we grow larger then the city has to
adopt policies that will allow for those high priority air pollutants to be reduced.
• Dietrich: I still didn't get anything specific there. The trash truck initiative, I can see a
very strong specific; which is we would recommend that only one trash truck per street
per week in the City of Fort Collins. That's something specific that we can say.
• McMaster: And it addresses the high priority pollutants of particulates, fugitive dust.
• Levine: And it puts a good measurable metric on it. We can predict how much that will
help.
• Dietrich: It results in something that the city has the power to do. I'm afraid we get too
far out, we get into county and state regulations. The city does not have an air quality
department. We have no regulatory authority over a lot of these things. We can accept
or deny permits, that's what the state does.
• Engell: I understand where you're going. You want something that's measurable and
some metrics and that sort of thing. We all want that because if you can't measure it,
it's difficult to tell how effective you are. We can use the work plan to develop topics
that we're going to discuss, gather data on and then make recommendations to council
more specific that involve metrics. I don't know that we need to put them on this work
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plan at this time. I think that's a good goal for us to have, that we're going to make
specific recommendations with metrics that are measurable.
• Georg: A simple metric that we just talked about. I'm not trying to put off your
suggestion, I think it's the right question to ask — what's the specific outcome. A
specific outcome is where you achieve an 8% reduction like what we were talking
about before, in priority air pollutants for years. That's a specific reduction. It's not as
aggressive as I might like. But to do that you'd have to do a bunch of these things.
• Dietrich: If we come up with a policy statement like that, which would be a general
policy statement, and underneath it would be a whole series of bullets on how we were
going to do that. The only line we have up here is that the air quality needs to get better
every year but we don't have it by how much.
• Georg: It's important to make the recommendations viable and consumable by the
people who have to get elected. For example, I read the mobility management report. I
can see why a lot of elected people and some of the city staff don't think too much
about the plan. It had nothing to do with what's in the plan, it's the presumptuous
nature of how the plan was pulled together and articulated. You can take the same
information and make it much more consumable. Part of it is how you sell it; some of
this quantification isn't just for me, it's to help us sell the plan more holistically and to
make it more consumable realizing there will be limits.
• Woodruff: Let me draw your attention back to the list. Is there a line item that will
address your concern? I'm not sure if this is it, but it might be just reviewing the city's
air quality plan and seeing if the Plan provides an adequate way of structuring goals and
policies. It contains goals and objectives and policies. I'm not saying that the city
implements everything in the Plan.
• Dietrich: So you would write "review the city's air quality policy plan?"
• Woodruff: Just review it and see if it's still working and suggest changes. For the first
vote, there are 17 items, so you can vote for 6.
#1 Climate cluster = 9
94 Mobility Management = 6
#5 Collaboration = 2.
#6 Regional Transit Authority =
#7 Hi emitter bill =
#8= 4
#10GSC=3
#11 Smoking Vehicle Hotline=2
#13 Ozone = 2
#14 Education and Report to the public = 6
# 15 Survey/Marketing =3
#18 Budget Input =3
#20 West Nile Virus =3
422 Fugitive Dust/Chemical sensitivity in pesticide = 2
#23 Review Air Quality Action Plan and recommend changes =5
• Woodruff: Now we can eliminate some that are no longer in contention and vote again.
Let's eliminate the ones with two votes and vote again, therefore removing: #s 5, 6, 7,
11, 13, 16, 17, 19 and 21. There are nine left so you can vote for three. If you don't like
the results you can do something else, this is just a way of narrowing things down. I'm
hearing a suggestion that it's too hard to narrow it down to three so we can go with four.
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423 review air quality action plan = 5
420 WNV = 1
# 18 Budget input = 2
#15 Survey = 1
#14 Education and report to the public = 6
#10GSC=2
#8 Diesel/trash = 3
#4 MM/FC moves = 4
#1 Sustainability/climate=9
• Woodruff: So the top winners are the climate cluster, review action plan,
education/report to public, and mobility management. That's four. Are you happy with
this? #1, #14, #23, #4. The general rule is to narrow it down between 3-5. You've got 4
that I would suggest that would be guidance to the chair and me for putting agendas
together.
• York: Then shall we take up my motion? #6 is how air quality conditions are reported to
the community? The Coloradoan has an index report that has been NA, NA, and NA for
many weeks.
• Woodruff: What has happened is the city stopped providing those data due to the
Coloradoan newspaper due to our computer that did that burnt out. The state health
department agreed they would report to the Coloradoan and publish the CO, Ozone and
visibility. They've been slow in putting that together. The state health dept has this listed
on CDPHE website. It's the states network and that's the appropriate place for it to be.
For a decade we published it in the paper because we took the trouble to record it.
• Carrico: Who can we contact in the state to have them post to the Coloradoan?
• Woodruff: Gordon Pierce.
• Carrico: I know Gordon.
• Dietrich: We can write a letter to Gordon to report this to the Coloradoan.
• York: The Coloradoan can find this information from the website too.
• Woodruff: Except visibility. There's some technical issues here. Ozone and Carbon
Monoxide has a data logger that the state calls up. The visibility website does not at the
present time. There is a logger there but it's not a part of the state's network. The ARS
had agreed to pull the data from the visibility website and spit it to the state where they
could process it. Just getting that setup is what's apparently taking them a while.
• McMaster: From the data logger to the reporting station?
• Dietrich: The whole thing is trivial, it's just the state's cooperation and lack of interest. A
letter might help Gordon to encourage you to post the data. It's the state's responsibility.
• Adamy: Could they list the website in the Coloradoan?
• Woodruff: We could suggest that to them.
• Dietrich: Are we allowed to send a letter?
• Woodruff: I think so, yes.
• Levine: I think we can.
• Dietrich: I'll motion to send a letter to Gordon Pierce to get the data from the Fort
Collins Air Quality monitoring sites to the Coloradoan.
• Carrico: Seconded. Eric are you going to write it?
Air Quality Advisory Board
2/27/2007
Page 12 of 15
Dave Dietrich motioned the AQAB draft a letter and send to Gordon Pierce requesting data from
the Fort Collins Air Quality Monitoring sites be sent to the Coloradoan.
• Levine: Sure, I'll write it. All in favor.
• McMaster: Can we have a draft of the letter? I would assume there would be very little
word-smithing and can do that in email and a quick agenda item.
• Carrico: Is that copy to city council?
• Levine: What do you think Brian?
• Woodruff: I don't think I would trouble the council members with it. I appreciate the
suggestion.
• Dietrich: When do you think you'll have the letter? We'll call Gordon and suggest ways
to help.
• Levine: Within the week. Brian can send it out on city letterhead.
• York: I move that the AQAB hold a public meeting with two major purposes: Gather
input on air quality issues and answers and report to the community the state of Ft.
Collins air.
Nancy York moved that the AQAB hold a public meeting with two major purposes: Gather input
on air quality issues and answers and report to the community the state of Ft. Collins air. Motion
carries with an amendment stating this topic will be a topic on next month's agenda.
• Adamy: What's your recommended timeframe, a year, or six months?
• York: I think sooner than that. I was thinking within the next three months.
• McMaster: Wouldn't this help us in some of our recommendations as we move forward
on these things. For example, the 08/09 budget, if we've gotten citizen input and a state
of the state then we're a little more prepared as we move forward on things? And
justifying making some of these recommendations if we've got input from the public.
• York: Is there a second?
• McMaster: I'll second.
• Engell: What do you envision this to look like and what resources are we using?
• York: I think it can happen in city council chambers. We would explain the issues and I
left that flexible. I think we need to explain the vehicle emission testing changes. The
ozone study should have a public hearing, and part of the greenhouse gas emissions: this
is where we're at and this is where we want to go.
• Engell: So these would be short presentations of sorts?
• York: Yes. I'm concerned that there's too many issues and not enough time. One thing
that I'd like to do is give people information on how they can track their own carbon
footprint in the form of a handout and websites. That's my thoughts, is that enough?
• Engell: Yes, that is.
• York: And also to invite the community to share their interests. I would imagine wood
smoke would be one. We could convey those issues and have some information and the
NRD staff would be there and information can be handed out.
• McMaster: You envisioned board and council being there possibly?
• York: I would like us to invite prior board members to attend.
• Adamy: What participation level of board members did you expect?
Air Quality Advisory Board
2/27/2007
Page 13 of 15
• York: To attend, to listen.
• Adamy: Are you coordinating this? Are you looking for some volunteers?
• York: If we lay out the itinerary and what we want to cover, it would be nice if we had a
good MC, that wouldn't be me.
• McMaster: If we accept this, we'd have to have this as an agenda item and plan on how
to go forward and organize it. You're going to want staff input into this. It's like
organizing a symposium.
• Engell: This falls under #14. I think this is a good idea. Could we pass it without the
specifics and put it on as an agenda item for next month?
• Levine: What city regular cable shows does the city have that this can latch on to? What
opportunities do we have?
• Woodruff: I don't know but I can find out.
• Engell: There's a new web based outlet for FC news and a dedicated space for it. FC
Weekly has the website.
• Levine: We can use the website to advertise for people to tune in.
• York: It would cost money for the city to televise it but it would be really good.
• Levine: Is there a regular show, what is the city running as a regular series? We can
piggyback on that. We'd have a moderator, some production, we'd have some invited
guests and it can be Q&A from the attendees too.
• McMaster: It's something to look into.
• Dietrich: Are we putting this off or are you moving actually to get that agenda item that
we already listed as a high priority items on the next agenda. Are you moving forward?
• York: I'd like us to commit to it and work on it and make it happen.
• Carrico: The cities' environmental series are really well attended. This would be a nice
fit with that but it would be next year. That would be a great way to make this happen.
• Woodruff: The only catch there is the organizers want those sessions to be actual hands
on things that people can actually do. That's their stock and trade, that's why people go
to those. We'd have to modify that a bit with, tips like the carbon footprint. It might not
be a fit for the environmental program series but it's a consideration.
• York: I would hope that we would do it annually.
• Georg: There's two parts to this. There's an outreach and input. Outreach/input is a
regular process on an advisory board. If you specifically focus on bringing in experts to
share where we're at it may help us and shape our agenda in future years. It may
motivate interests from people outside this community working in this area.
• York: It would give people the opportunity to voice their air quality concerns.
• Georg: The motion, as I understand this, is to make this a priority on next month's
agenda. What are the alternatives in terms of the where and when and what are the
alternatives in terms of content? And what will that content alternative result in terms of
an agenda?
• McMaster: We'll support this as a general thing. The goal would be to have planning for
this organized by say 3 months from now. We'd know what we'd want to do but we'd
have to figure out when this will happen. We'd put it on each month's agenda so we're
working to meet that goal. What it is that we want, such as programs, we'd still need to
schedule it time wise and we want it soon.
• York: We want it while the students are still in Ft. Collins. May 15 they're gone.
• McMaster: Do you think that can be done?
Air Quality Advisory Board
2/27/2007
Page 14 of 15
• Woodruff. From staff perspective I don't think this is a bad idea. We've discussed
something kind of like this educational outreach. Survey results are coming out in April.
That would be a way to minor to the community. It's not on our work plan and we'll
discuss with John Stokes especially about the television angle. The board could do it on
its own. There's nothing stopping you from convening a panel in the community room
and saying we're taking all and want to hear what you have to say about air quality in
your community. You can always do that and we can advertise and arrange the room.
• Levine: This will be on next month's agenda. Some of the questions are bandwidth,
television cable opportunity this year or next.
• York: I wasn't even thinking about television, it's a good idea. There are other channels
to use just not Cable 14 but I know that's costly. But mostly I want to report to the
community and get their input.
• McMaster: Brian, sounds like you need to talk to staff and John Stokes.
• Levine: And as you said Brian, we can do as much or as little as we want on our own but
let's see what staff says. We can email some of these issues and ways to present.
• McMaster: We should start to collate all the questions that we have.
• York: Are we going to vote on it?
• Levine: I don't think we need to.
• Woodruff: It's a motion that's been amended to say it's an agenda item.
• McMaster: Nancy, if the goal is early May, you may want to think about what it's going
to take to get there. We have background work to do because we have two board
meetings before that.
• Adamy: It's my understanding based on this selection process here, we've got four items
that we're going to decide on in the agenda every time now anyway. The education and
recording should be on next month's agenda for this to be a part of it. How does this
affect next months' agenda having these four items now?
• Levine: That's going to be number one. I'm going to request the mobility management,
transportation and NRAB output.
• Woodruff: I have the output in an excerpt from transportation and NRAB board's
minutes.
• Levine: Discussion on that will be at the next meeting.
• McMaster: The chair and liaison discuss the agenda items based on priorities. When the
agenda is sent we can assist you with the items.
• Woodruff: It would help me the most by knowing what you want in your agenda. The
staff liaison prepares the agenda in consultation with the chair but input from everyone is
valuable.
• Adamy: On the back page of the handout, there lists some opportunity to hear how the
BFO works. Is this board interested in having a similar discussion?
• Woodruff: I can request a briefing on how BFO works and how the board can be
involved.
Announcements
Woodruff: A couple of announcements: The city clerk has organized training for new board
members. You each got a letter inviting you to the training so please RSVP for training by the
first of March. I encourage you to go. Other announcement is a reminder that elections for board
Air Quality Advisory Board
2/27/2007
Page 15 of 15
officers are coming up. By laws call for it in April or May. But the board and commission
manual calls for it in February or March.
Meeting adjourned 8.11 PM
Submitted by Tara McGibben
Administrative Secretary I p
Approved by the Board on � / l /�%� i711,1! h i , 2007
Si ed �
Tara McGibben Y ` L U Date
Administrative Secretary I
Extension: 6600