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HomeMy WebLinkAboutNatural Resources Advisory Board - Minutes - 07/15/2015MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS NATURAL RESOURCES ADVISORY BOARD Date: Wednesday, July 15, 2015 Location: 215 N. Mason Conference Room 1A Time: 6:00–8:30pm For Reference Bob Overbeck, Council Liaison 970-988-9337 Susie Gordon, Staff Liaison 970-221-6265 Board Members Present Board Members Absent John Bartholow, chair Joe Halseth Kelly McDonnell Bob Mann Jeremy Sueltenfuss Harry Edwards Luke Caldwell Nancy DuTeau Staff Present Susie Gordon, Staff Liaison Dianne Tjalkens, Admin/Board Support Jackie Kozak-Thiel, Chief Sustainability Officer Renee Davis, Water Conservation Specialist Guests: David Tweedale, citizen Nick Shipanski, citizen/CDOT Call meeting to order: John called the meeting to order at 6:01pm Public Comments: David recommends viewing video project with Jeremy done by local high school senior. Impressed, and hope for future as young people want to look at nature. Jeremy will email link to board. Also available on Natural Areas Facebook page. Dave announced he will be board member of Land Conservation and Stewardship board as of next Tuesday. • John requested David provide updates as appropriate. Agenda Review: no changes Approval of Minutes: Harry moved and Jeremy seconded a motion to approve the June minutes as amended. Motion passed unanimously, 6-0-0. Kelly arrived after vote. Corrections: Nancy and Bob provided written corrections approved by board. AGENDA ITEM 1—New Chief Sustainability Officer Jacqueline Kozak-Thiel The board welcomed Jackie Kozak-Thiel and provided opportunity for brief introductions. 1 | Page Jackie thanked the board for their service. She is impressed with dedication and passion of boards and commissions. Started career in Hawaii as AmeriCorps volunteer. In the indigenous culture of Hawaii concern for natural resources is woven into all decisions. Her background is in natural resource management and conservation including work around community engagement and invasive species. As governor’s Sustainability Coordinator she helped Hawaii secure the IUCN World Conservation Congress for 2016, which has never been hosted by US before. She is excited to learn about the landscape of Fort Collins. Fort Collins is facing similar issues as Hawaii with water management, watershed, waste management, etc. Learning about local ecosystems will inform her work. Approach is to see natural resources as greatest teacher. Diversity is resilience, interconnectedness of species. Nature teaches us about human created systems. Discussion/Q & A: • What are 2-3 big issues you intend to focus on? o Already identified by CMO. CAP and implementation is number one communitywide initiative. Three departments in Sustainability Service Area. Social Sustainability focuses on homelessness and affordable housing. Economic Health on sustainability industries. Her focus will be on areas in each department that require interdepartmental and community engagement.  Met CSO from Denver. Island thinking is becoming more prevalent in sustainability field. Pacific islands experiencing forced migration from rising sea levels. Making commitment to mitigation and trying to adapt. Localized responsibility even if not major contributor. Need to work regionally. • Aspects identified that need help from this board or others? o Two areas: familiarizing with local issues to understand context and getting to know the people in the department. Would like help thinking about key community leaders and organizations we should be collaborating with on these issues. Making sure she has all information to properly balance and connect pieces among three departments. • This board has kept wide perspective about interests and what looking at. Work plan is broad and includes Poudre River health, stormwater, community sustainability, waste reduction, Master Trails Plan, transportation planning, local agriculture, Nature in the City, oil and gas, etc. Think of issues in focused way of how it impacts city. o Council meeting last night, emphasized there is a lot of overlap or opportunities to overlap that are not being leveraged. This board well positioned to collaborate with other boards.  Have had connections with Water Board, Land Conservation and Stewardship Board, Air Quality Advisory Board, and CAP CAC. o Come to agreement around top concerns in each area?  Subcategories in each area, but can change. Each board has annual work plan and is available online. o One challenge of all boards is overlap, but no one else looking at waste issues. That is exception. Boards are wonderful place to learn what is going on, but not as easy to act because of broad scope. Have wonderful staff at City, utilize community very little— sounding board rather than place of action. Come from place where staff wasn’t as good but community did the work. Have great resources here, opportunities for community engagement are greater than we are maximizing. CSO is the integrating piece. Collaboration to manage regional growth.  Excited about actualizing integration. In previous position started nonprofit to get help from community, jurisdictions, state, etc. Co-management approach based on goals. CAP implementation, putting together teams, once have strategic initiatives will look for who in City and community can do the work. Expertise of university town, great community engagement, etc. • Sustainability contrasted to Front Range unmanaged growth. 2 | Page o Surprising growth. Applaud Environmental Services for developing strategic plan. One area of focus is regional collaboration. Thinking about key items: waste, energy, growth, etc. Need regional forum. • Need process improvements around boards to maximize strengths and leverage local resources. o That question has been on table for many years. Process of continual improvement. AGENDA ITEM 2—Water Efficiency Plan Renee Davis, Water Conservation Specialist, provided information about an update to the City’s Water Efficiency Plan that will be reviewed by Council at their August 25 Work Session. Utilities covers about 80% of population, starts at core of city and moves out. Several other districts: East Larimer County, Fort Collins-Loveland Water District. Utilities has three pieces that govern water planning: water supply and demand management policy, water efficiency plan, and water supply shortage response plan (in case of drought, fire, etc.). Water Efficiency Plan is long-term approach to driving down use. Requirement from the state to have this plan, as of 2007. Currently developing 2017 revisions. Service area population includes commercial use (with exception of a couple large users). Fort Collins has a lot of commercial, including breweries that use a lot of water. Also have visitors/in-commuters using water that are not accounted for in service area population numbers. Per capita use is dropping: larger drops occurred when low flow toilets became available, during drought conditions (changed landscapes and behaviors), and when metering came online. Have attained 140 gallons/capita/day with weather normalization, which was goal of previous plan. Using Colorado Water Conservation Board guidance document to draft Plan. Five planning steps: profile existing water system and supply, demand forecasting and historical management, setting goals, selection of efficiency activities, and implementation and monitoring. Advanced meter infrastructure will help with tracking/monitoring. When complete will have public review and Council adoption. Community engagement includes boards, Northern Colorado Homebuilders Association, CSU forum, standing association meetings, etc., followed by Council Work Session. Will have public comment period and online survey is available. Have Water Efficiency Plan Advisory Group, with staff and Water Board members. Have had various presenters/input from stakeholders. Discussion/Q & A: • What is lowest per capita use possible? o Gallons per household per day for single family residential: with all Water Sense fixtures for indoor use, could get down to 40 gallon/capita/day. Fort Collins is at about 80 right now. There is also residential outdoor, commercial, etc. and need efficiency throughout. o City is not all covered by Water Sense fixtures.  Fort Collins is good with high efficiency washers. Many toilets still need to be changed out. This is why conservation has focused on rebates. As of 2016 will not be able to buy products not Water Sense labelled in Colorado. o Good sense of how yard water is used? Vision for reducing that?  Yes, and action in place. Series of conservation measures in place. Big tools have been rebates. Outdoor use for commercial and residential, encouraging smart watering, and reducing lawn, getting rid of leaks, etc. Have commercial programs including custom rebates. Just finished project with CSU on laundry.  Needed balance: Surveys, people love how Fort Collins looks now. Get nervous about conservation. Balance of parks and trees with xeriscaping. Have free sprinkler audit program (200 residential audits annually). Have xeriscape design assistance program with rebate. Also do hardware 3 | Page replacement. New construction requirements as well. Permitting process that inspects sprinkler design plans. Have estimate models of use and working to improve them. • Does vision include grey water? o Yes. Has been approved by state, but need plumbers trained and ordinances in the City. Not sure will ever do rebates on grey water. Residential, hard to make retrofitting cost effective as creating second plumbing system. New construction focused. Best for larger scale projects such as dorms.  Separate system for non-treated water for outdoor use. • Health issue. State health department regulations.  Reuse of treated water? • City has reuse in place already. Rawhide is reuse for City service area. • Goal of 140 gallons/capita/day is not an aspirational future goal since already attained. o Need to balance new goal with rates. In development. o At certain level of conservation putting utility at financial risk.  More you use, more you pay. But what Utility provides is pipes. Paying for the service. Those are fixed costs. Rates have to be adjusted to cover fixed costs. o Have someone to look at own system inefficiencies?  Yes. Water Loss Specialist. Looking for leaks, etc. Want AMIs in various locations to find leaks in system. Leakage is around 6-7% annually. Other communities are up to 50%. • Is water fairly valued? Too cheap, too expensive? If cost of rate is infrastructure, not so much for water, isn’t is harder to make market function properly. o New manger is an economist so will be determined. Many costs are fixed. Inclining locked rate structure. Economic signal to user about use. Study of inclining rate structures showed Fort Collins has shallow increase. Not a strong price signal. o Decline in per capita use, coming less from financial sense as from right thing to do. Have environmentally conscious citizenry, but at what point does that drop off.  Also cost effectiveness. Are people going to replace appliances if doesn’t make financial sense with water bill.  People do care, but don’t understand own use. • Suppose had goal of 120 gallons per capita per day. Would we still need to build Halligan? o Water supply and demand management policy sets two goals: 140 for conservation and 150 for supply goal. Try to get a supply that is more robust than what you need. Already have enough water rights for projected growth, but with climate change need storage. Water goes away. Having water when we need it versus timing of when can get water. Don’t need to buy more water rights. o Would you be able to identify ballpark number at which would not need more storage?  Would need to change how use water seasonally. Conservation does not eliminate need for this particular reservoir. It is about timing and ability to store, not volume.  Someone should know that number. Should not split conservation from water storage planning.  Hard to compare to other cities as what is included in numbers differs from place to place. Also, Fort Collins is drive-in community. Number shows that our use is going down, but hard to compare to other communities. • Would like to change goals for breweries water use as well. o Economies of scale. Industry that has made Fort Collins famous, but exporting our water. Ex: California drought, can still buy Sierra Nevada beer. Hard balance 4 | Page between encouraging industry that brings revenue and employment, but exports water.  Does it make sense environmentally? Breweries want our water as it is top of water shed. Doing more targeted outreach to breweries.  Want to develop better metrics and benchmarks for commercial and residential. ACTION ITEM: Renee will return late fall with more complete draft. AGENDA ITEM 3— Northern Integrated Supply Project Update The Board considered a spectrum of options for a recommendation to Council regarding the Northern Integrated Supply Project (NISP). The recommendation, focused on the natural resource values in and along the Cache la Poudre River through Fort Collins, will be finalized in August. John explained that NISP has started moving quickly. July 28 Work Session; decision in September. Staff has been requested to visit boards. Draft recommendation provided in meeting packet. Discussion/Q & A: • If want to raise questions for Work Session this meeting is time to generate them. • Struggling with how to approach from board perspective versus job perspective. Impacts on flood plains and wetland across Colorado. Job focuses on ecological impacts of pulling water out of river and drying up lands. However, learning that we need more storage. This will have serious consequences on our system, but will happen anyway. Do we ask Council to oppose at all cost, or do we ask to mitigate more effectively? o Is there another option?  Would encourage them to find compromise that is more in interest of natural resources than what is currently proposed. Easier to disregard straight opposition. Ask Council to push harder for mitigation. Can we identify other mitigation/action items? • Staff will provide that. o Live in growing community and agriculture is important. Those interests must be considered. Complex system.  Would like to see the project not built. But what are alternatives? • Make it financially difficult to build new houses. Ex: higher tap fees. • But city is constructing new housing project to make more affordable. Population will not stop growing if stop building. o Change demographics of who gets to live here. o Already doing this. Realtors complaining about cost. • Concerned about impact on Fort Collins, but want to look at other communities that have greater issues with water. Can be more specific about consequences and support with suggestions about mitigation for Council. Case studies. Think regionally as well. 14 or 15 towns and water districts partnering in NISP. o Fort Collins is not short on water rights.  Utilities is not short on water rights. FCLWD is member of NISP. Utilities is short on storage. Halligan is 1/10 size of Glade, but Glade being looked at by a conservancy district that provides water to Fort Collins. o Communication to Council should be specific about consequences with alternative plan whereby future water needs can still be met.  Level above what we can do.??  Other organizations have offered alternatives, but Army Corps of Engineers has not seen them as meeting the “purpose and need”. 5 | Page o Project should not go through, but Council will dismiss this answer. Agree that looking at other communities is beneficial. • If non-senior water rights holder, impacts if not able to draw water would be very little. Potential to have it sitting nearly empty with evaporation. o Would not be filled in one year. Wet years get connectivity in flood plains, get rejuvenated and have processes that they need. If big reservoirs are built, will take water off high flows, and reduce necessary floodplain processes. o Flood events, where is biggest impact?  Cottonwood and willow regeneration. Both need bare soil that remains moist. Have even aged stands because floods have not occurred in a long time.  Is recommendation for mitigation to have simulated floods?  Ecological response model: have models for high flow, peak, etc. Staff will be prepared with some of that information. • Don’t want to see NISP happen. Bad idea, have been using this model for 95 years and it is not working. Willing to say no, regardless of politics. But still would like better idea. Don’t have enough expertise though. In terms of Council, the amount of money that this community has expended and has projected to expend on that river. If there is a resource we are heavily invested in, doesn’t that tell us that we have to be extraordinarily present in any action that impacts that resource? Isn’t that a role of Council? They aren’t the experts. They are the community. We chose them to protect our resources and values. Community and Council have supported huge budgets to protect and broaden availability of river to the community. Experienced benefits of investment during 2013 flooding. Other communities had greater impact. Looks like the Corps has not dealt with mitigation in a meaningful way; they have had 7 years to do this. Angry that have funding and time and come forward with plan that does not incorporate reasonable mitigations suggested to them by opponents of first draft plan. o This is the way the Corps always does it. They don’t officially look at mitigation until draft is done.  Which creates short time frame for creating mitigation plan. Have to stop process and keep making them go back until have mitigation plan that community can live with. Don’t want to allow them to have control over mitigation. They have history of poor mitigation. • “Can’t mitigate a murder.” • Will have staff here next time for this topic. Will continue to work on memo to Council. • Questions for Council on July 28? o Will have information from staff by July 24, can develop questions then. Western Resource Advocates wrote alternatives; John will share with board via email. Not up to Fort Collins to come up with alternatives, except for how to serve all citizens. o Climate Action Plan was complex issue. Instructive to look at how that evolved. Started with general concern about environmental quality. Defined specific Greenhouse Gas goals. Is it possible to define quantitative goals that we consider our bottom line? Ex: flow in December cannot go below a certain level.  Already way below those goals all year long. Anything we do to take more water out of the river is going the wrong way. Poudre Runs Through It is working on that.  Report shows already lower than should be, so they think it’s not a big deal to make it worse, but it really is.  Possible to take water out when river is high? • Not enough to supply 40K acre feet. • Would have stronger position with more of this information. o Like framing to Council as value of Poudre and being voice of community. Put it into concrete terms. Do citizens want to lose trees along the river? 6 | Page  Also, it is their investment. Through years have supported river.  CAP: Council voted unanimously on first reading. Quantification was there. o After July 24 staff materials being available, could board create list of questions that want Council to ask of staff as part of process? (John and Jeremy can draft) ACTION ITEM: John will share Western Resource Advocates alternatives via email. ACTION ITEM: John and Jeremy draft questions for Council to ask staff at Work Session. AGENDA ITEM 4— Status of Community Recycling Center Susie Gordon, Senior Environmental Planner, reviewed outcomes of Council’s June 23 Work Session, when a discussion about the ongoing costs of operating and maintaining a new Community Recycling Center (CRC) led to a request for staff to halt further work on the project and to investigate other actions. Council reviewed recommendations staff had made about providing O&M budget, with several options for reducing cost and charging for certain materials. Council was split on supporting alternatives. Susie was instructed to create another list of options, but not clear if was doing this for mid-cycle funding. Waiting to learn more about expectations. Will that include revised CRC? Message is that project is on hold indefinitely; however, conversations happening at Council about moving needle on waste. No silver bullet, short of ban on organics in the landfill. Do we have appetite for that, let alone resources to manage that without a composting facility? Will share more information as it becomes available. Discussion/Q & A: • Did board’s input have any impact on Council decision? o Unsure. Confusing that three Council members were supportive but still moved off table. • If work done will not bear fruit soon, can it be archived for future use? o Hope so. At last step in permitting process. If put it on shelf, if permitting is completed then will have better package when readdressed. Small fee for final part of permitting. • What dollars are freed by that decision? o $1.5M  Where did that come from? • BFO. o Is there another way to use that money?  Perceive that a portion will be available for different project, but not full amount. Request to find another project that will meet the goals very challenging. The project would not have yielded huge waste diversion, but would have given community a way to participate in diversion. Community education/engagement. Recycling is incremental progress. • Changing landscape in recyclables and value; hope to improve with glass washing facility coming in. Will it take more dramatic change from outside to take this off hold? o Global market for materials. Still bad, but cyclical. o Newspaper article: perception in Council of not wanting operational costs. Not just amount of cost, but type of cost. That is learning curve. If private industry could do this and make a profit, would already be happening. • Recycling Ordinance revisions, potential for ideas to come from that? o Yes. o Waste Shed group has been meeting every two weeks. Landfill will close in 10 years. Stakeholders’ forum to be held this fall. Will be followed up with event for public in the spring. 7 | Page ACTION ITEM: none. AGENDA ITEM 5—Other Business Review City Council’s 6-Month Planning Calendar/Agenda Planning • August: Water Efficiency Plan (possibly postponed) • September: Energy Policy Update and Environmental Services Strategic Plan • October: Dust Prevention and Control ACTION ITEM: Susie will tentatively schedule dust control presentation. Announcements/Open Board Discussion • Does work plan include waste water from fracking? o Have oil and gas category. o Will move this toward top of list. • Not much feedback on fieldtrips, such as Meadow Springs. o Members want to attend. John will schedule. ACTION ITEM: John will schedule tours. Meeting Adjourned: 8:16pm Next Meeting: August 19 8 | Page