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HomeMy WebLinkAboutNatural Resources Advisory Board - Minutes - 11/19/2014NATURAL RESOURCES ADVISORY BOARD REGULAR MEETING WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2014 DATE: Wednesday, November 19, 2014 LOCATION: 215 N. Mason Conference Room 1-A TIME: 6:00–8:30pm For Reference: Joe Piesman, Chair 970-691-6697 Bob Overbeck, Council Liaison 970-988-9337 Susie Gordon, Staff Liaison 970-221-6265 Present: Joseph Piesman, Chair Harry Edwards Robert Mann Joe Halseth John Bartholow Liz Pruessner Absent: Alexa Barratt Rob Cagen Staff Present: Susie Gordon, Staff Liaison Dianne Tjalkens, Admin/Board Support Susan Strong, Environmental Regulatory Affairs Specialist Lucinda Smith, Environmental Services Director Guests: David Tweedale, citizen Sarah Coler, citizen/CSU student Chris Ray, citizen/Troop 96 Call meeting to order: Joe Piesman called the meeting to order at 6:00pm. Agenda Review: None Public Comments: None. Member Comments: None. Review and Approval of October 15, 2014 minutes Harry moved and Liz seconded a motion to approve the October 15, 2014 NRAB minutes as presented. Motion passed unanimously, 6-0-0. AGENDA ITEM 1—City Stormwater Permit Susan Strong, Environmental Regulatory Affairs Specialist, discussed the City’s annual application for an MS4 water quality permit. Susan described how visiting boards for feedback is one element of the public outreach required for permitting. The permit lasts for five years, with updates annually; however the last permit has been extended administratively as it expired in March of 2013. The MS4 permit refers to water that moves through the stormwater system. Anything washed down the gutter does not go through the wastewater treatment plant, and therefore must have requirements and monitoring around what goes down the storm drains. The state is looking at getting more prescriptive in how municipalities implement programs. Programs include public education and outreach. The WaterSHED program presents at schools and studies macro-invertebrates with students. Businesses, apartment complexes and property management companies are contacted each year and provided spill kits and information. This year the program is identifying businesses to educate about pet waste pollution in the storm drains. There is also a spill cleanup program; citations can be issued to polluters, and 200 storm drains are marked each year. Staff is required to monitor construction sites for runoff. In 2015 there were 1,700 inspections of construction sites. Post-construction management includes inspection for maintenance of drainage channels. There are municipal operations that have the potential to affect stormwater as well, and mitigation strategies in place where spills could occur. Some facilities have been certified with environmental management systems, which has been helpful. These programs are all required by the permit. Regulatory updates include changes to federal definitions and individual site detention. The federal government has proposed changes to the definition of “waters of the U.S.” A major change is the potential to include water quality detention ponds, which would then be regulated under the “dredge and fill” regulations. In 2011 the state engineer’s office circulated a memo allowing urban runoff detention and infiltration for individual sites. However, our water rights say that water cannot be held for more than 72 hours. In 2013 the city of Aspen was challenged in taking longer than 72 hours, though it had been previously overlooked. The UDFCD task force has recommended regional and individual site detention. The state issued a draft of the MS4 permit in December 2013 and received over 6,000 comments because it was much more prescriptive than the previous permit. The second draft is yet to be made public. Staff expects to receive the City’s draft permit in April. Program challenges include proposed regulatory changes. The state has become stricter on de-watering at construction sites. New permit requirements include nutrient outreach and pollution prevention. Another challenge to the Low Impact Development project is that timing is critical. Staff is looking at implementing grading sediment and erosion control permit fees. They do not currently charge for inspections, which causes staffing challenges. Discussion/Q & A: • Joe Piesman asked if there have been studies around pet waste water pollution. Susan said there have been many studies regarding bacterial pollution from pets versus wild animals. Pet waste can also carry viruses and parasites. There are water quality standards for e. coli and some of our streams have had high seasonal counts, which could lead to increased regulation. • Joe Piesman said many view this as an aesthetic issue, but the health impacts need more education. Susan said staff is working on a well-rounded approach. 2 • Joe asked if developments pay for maintenance of drainage channels. Susan said yes, it is their responsibility. • John said there are grey areas around waters of the U.S., when a detention pond may affect a river. How far do you go out in the regulatory “tree”? Not all environmental programs agree on this. • Susie said it used to be “navigable waters.” Susan said this definition was nebulous as well. • Joe Halseth asked if they are looking at tacking a fee onto an existing development fee. Susan said this is in the discussion phase and would ask development to pay its way. This change would go through a public outreach process and be approved by Council. • John said at one point the City had a philosophy about doing over and above what is required by regulations. Where do we stand now? Susan said in general we are over and above. She collaborates with other MS4 communities and has heard that we do more than others, although there is still room for improvement. • Joe Piesman said the City is going live with new retention ponds at Arapahoe Bend. When and what will it accomplish? John said they are for return flows and are not part of the stormwater program. ( Donnie Dustin is the person to speak with.) • Joe Piesman said the Woodward project is huge. It has potential to cause erosion into the river. What is being done? Susan said Woodward has a stormwater construction permit. She attended a state inspection of the site. That inspection went really well. Our inspector also inspects as oversight. Joe asked when the City is going to start plantings; until then, when there are storms there will be erosion. Susan said they are required to implement erosion control best practices in the meantime and are being inspected. The goal is to re-vegetate. • Susie said what may not be apparent to the public is that any time there is a spill Susan and her team and Poudre Fire Authority (PFA) respond. Susan added that they have 24-hour on call personnel and work closely with hazmat. The partnership with PFA has been great. They are the first responders, and will mitigate the spills to make sure we are protecting resources. Then the City takes over the cleanup. • Joe Halseth asked if Woodward got water rights so they could do all this re-vegetation. John said it is part of the Coy ditch, but that will not go to Woodward anymore. He is unsure where they will get their untreated water. Joe Halseth said the golf course had ditch rights and that ditch is now gone. John added that cottonwood trees are coming up in areas that were scoured by the flood, which is beneficial. AGENDA ITEM 2— NRAB 2015 Work Plan Joe Piesman said the board goes through this exercise each year and there are generally no big changes. He would like to change some phrasing in the descriptive paragraph to align the plan with the seven key outcome areas. Joe agreed to make all minor/obvious edits. It is clear that our main focus is in the outcome area of environmental health, with secondary in recreation, and tertiary in transportation. Joe requested feedback from the board. He noted changes to the boards and committees that NRAB collaborates with. Discussion/Q & A: • Liz said the West Nile Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) should have started meeting already. She gets the sense something else is happening. She was serving on that, but is rotating off this 3 board. Greg McMasters is still on the TAC even though he is no longer on the Air Quality Advisory Board. The panel has been eliminated. • Joe Halseth said he thinks the committee composition may change to include more experts. • Joe Piesman said the other focus areas are all still applicable. • Liz said the section of monitoring progress of the Mason Corridor now includes the Max and getting more east-west connections. • John asked if the Trails Master Plan should fall into the transportation category. Joe agreed. • Joe Piesman suggested changing the whitewater park language to reflect the new Poudre River Master Plan. • John mentioned that John Stokes has been getting negative feedback from irrigation companies regarding the whitewater park, as they are afraid of losing water rights to keep the whitewater park functioning. • Bob said Trails Master Plan updates will not come from the Transportation department and is important enough to stand alone. The board agreed. • Joe Piesman added the Bicycle Master Plan to the Transportation section. He agreed to revise according to comments and email to the board for additional input. He suggested referring to this document in agenda planning. • John said that prospective members can view this document online. • Liz added that when the board is reviewed every four years, Council looks at this document. She mentioned that a mid-year review can be done of the work plan. • Joe Piesman said local agriculture was a big emphasis in the work plan this year, but we did not make much movement on it. • Liz said that the BOB2.0 and DDA are supporting a Marketplace. • Bob asked to call out the Local Food Cluster in the local agriculture section. He will email his edits to Joe. • Joe Piesman said Lucinda told the board the City has requested a report on how to collect baseline data on fracking. Lucinda said it would not be useful to brief the board until the report is in. Susie asked if this should be called out in the work plan if the report comes out in 2015. Members agreed to add this topic. • Harry added that it is oil and gas related waste product we are really concerned with. The oversight is from the state and lawsuits requesting oversight by cities have failed. • Joe Piesman added that in January the board must file an annual report that lists the actions taken by the board throughout the year. He will send all the memos to Harry to compile the report. AGENDA ITEM 3— Road to Zero Waste - Resolution Susie Gordon, Sr. Environmental Planner, briefed the board on a newly adopted resolution that lists a variety of priorities for City planning and actions to achieve zero waste. The plastic bag ordinance was repealed, but Council passed a resolution to underscore commitment to the adopted Road to Zero Waste plan. Many citizens who were against the disposable bag ordinance stated they are not against zero waste. It represents a significant amount of challenging work ahead. The ordinance shows that staff will have to work diligently in the next year, and Council approved a .5 FTE in reference to 4 the work outlined in the resolution. Section 2A highlights the importance of regional planning. The landfill has 10 years left on it, which is at the heart of the matter. She, Joe Piesman and Bob Mann met with Lucinda to discuss regional planning and concluded that holding more community conversations will be a good approach. Joe Piesman said outreach to other local government entities can be done to request assistance, or you can do something more dynamic on public outreach to get fun, out-of-the-box ideas that will be more productive. Bob added that they discussed the wisdom of bringing the consultant Gary Liss back in to help with prioritizing work, and the steering committee, which had a nice cross section of the business community. The recycling center is scheduled to be complete by the end of 2016, but the City is not committed to a site yet. The universal recycling portion will happen with Pay As You Throw ordinance changes. Lucinda said there is a lot in the resolution and it is great to get resources through the budget process, and agreed that it is important to prioritize and to engage regional partners. Joe asked Susie to continue coming before the board for advice and input. He asked the board’s input on the resolution. Discussion/Q & A: • John asked who drafted the resolution. Susie said staff drafted it and Council revised. • Joe Piesman asked about funding. Susie said there was a walk-on item in addition to the .5 FTE and recycling center. Lucinda added that a study was funded for a regional compost transfer station, as well money for exploring options for waste-to-energy at the Drake Wastewater Treatment Facility. • Bob asked if it would be helpful to draft a memo to Council applauding their resolution and suggesting that prioritization is the next step. Some of what they ask for in the resolution has already been done. • Joe Piesman asked Bob to draft the memo and bring it to the December meeting. • Liz added that right after the bag ordinance was pulled, she went shopping in DC and had to pay five cents for bags. Her relatives said the ordinance has made a huge difference in the amount of bag litter in the streets. • Joe Piesman added that about a dozen other cities have rescinded bag ordinances. • Harry asked if it is still possible to pursue the issue of recycling shopping bags within staff. The resolution says Council has adopted a waste diversion policy. It could include a continuing effort. Susie said staff thinks more collection will be able to be provided in the near future. • Bob asked for an update on the Larimer County Recycling Center. Susie said the County only received one response to their RFP for operations of the facility. The result is that Waste Management, as the only respondent, was selected to continue to be the operator. The proposal they made to the County means WM will not necessarily be obliged to pay for recycling, depending on market prices, and may elect in the future to charge to drop off recycling. • Joe Piesman asked if haulers could come to the city to negotiate. • Joe Halseth asked if consumers will be hit with the cost. • Susie said that is a possibility, and we may have an issue with universal recycling. • Harry asked about how Loveland does this. Susie said the municipality takes care of trash. These are line items on the utility bill and they charge an additional $7.50 per month for recycling and other environmental programs. • Bob said as recycling is increased, if you do pay-as-you-throw, recycling must be subsidized. • Harry said some things need to be subsidized. • Joe Piesman asked about quality of single-stream recycling and the impact of glass. Susie said glass becomes a contaminant in single-stream recycling. The haulers would like to see glass as no longer 5 accepted in the single-stream, which would increase the value of the remaining items. After January 1 staff will see how this works out. Glass is one of the most recyclable materials, though and can be recycled over and over again. AGENDA ITEM 4— Climate Action Plan Lucinda Smith, Environmental Services Department Director, reviewed work that has been done to date for the Climate Action Plan (CAP) update, which is on Council’s agenda for a worksession on December 9. Lucinda explained that the good news is that the community GHG emissions are still below the 2005 baseline, but the bad news is that emissions are increasing again. In 2011 there was more hydro-electric power purchased by Platte River Power Authority then there is now. In 2012 and 2013 we have bounced back from the recession and population has continued to grow. There are lots of challenges and opportunities are around climate adaptation. The Geos Institute down-scaled the climate models to our region, which found high likelihood of up to 6 degrees warmer summers by 2040, earlier runoff, changes in snowmelt, etc. Our electric supply is still predominately coal, so there are risks of cost increases due to carbon taxation. There is also risk in having a single dominant source. Reports show that addressing climate goals quickly will reduce costs. RMI’s Stepping Up report shows that it is feasible to adopt 80% reduction by 2050 with current technologies, with best-in-class adoption. Council elected to advance this goal to 80% GHG reduction by 2030. They requested the development of a Citizen Advisory Committee (CAC) for input as well. RMI, Brendle Group, and Platte River are all collaborating. Council has looked at the framework and strategies of the CAP update and will begin looking at scenarios soon. Lucinda showed the business-as-usual and adjusted forecasts compared to the goals. With adjustment for climate change, fuel efficiency standard changes, and Platte River’s integrated resource planning there remains a large gap between the goal and forecast. The CAC is looking at strategies to close that gap. Strategy areas include curbing future emissions growth, reducing energy use in existing buildings, reducing transportation demand, increasing renewables, reducing emissions from waste, and community engagement. Strategies for curbing future emissions are to increase green building requirements for construction and redevelopment, increase mixed use and density in new development, focus on infill, retrofit streets to serve all modes, reduce off-street parking, etc. Increasing efficiency in all sectors includes working with upstream vendors, having an integrated utility services model, retooling ClimateWise, and targeting the biggest users. Fuel efficiency strategies include incentivizing changes to personal vehicles, aggregating commercial fleet vehicle purchases, and reducing the amount of driving through transportation apps, bike and car shares, and other tactics. It will be important to work with large employers to reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT). One of the biggest needs is expansion of the transit system. Advancing renewables will include opportunities for increasing rooftop solar and utility scale renewables in collaboration with Platte River. It will make sense to shift toward electrification of heating as the electric supply becomes cleaner. There are also opportunities for geothermal, biogas, etc. The final category is about recognizing the role of engagement and will include Nature in the City, local food systems, reducing urban heat islands, and carbon offsets. Becoming carbon neutral by 2050 may require carbon offsets, perhaps in the form of over-generation of renewables, and/or investments into the Poudre River watershed, which could become a certified carbon credit program. Looking at financing approaches and engagement are critical areas. There is a range of approaches for financing. Three public engagement forums are planned, and there will be stakeholder group presentations, and other public outreach. More information and opportunity to comment is available at fcgov.com/climateprotection. 6 Discussion/Q & A: • Bob asked if there is per capita data on GHG emissions. Lucinda said that information is available, but not in this presentation. We are making progress in per capita emissions. • John noted that the slope of the line of increase in GHG over the last three years is greater than the slope of the population growth on the chart. • Joe Piesman asked why hydro was such a good year in 2011. Lucinda is unsure. • Joe Piesman asked if there is data about how much the Max app is being used. Lucinda will find out. • Joe Piesman asked about the format of the public forums. Lucinda said staff will be working with the CSU Center for Public Deliberation on the structure. • John said it is important to include how this affects the public and how they can help in the forums. Lucinda said scenarios include potential impacts on individuals, businesses, etc. Staff will do their best to provide this information to the public. There is a lot needed to build community support for a climate action plan. • Joe Piesman asked when the CAC reports, in relation to the Council deadline. Lucinda said there are three more meetings of the CAC. At the next meeting the modelling will be presented, followed by alternate scenarios. In January the CAC will develop a recommendation on presented scenarios. The public engagement is planned for after the CAC meeting, and she anticipates what is presented to the public will be what is recommended by the CAC. • Harry said the presentation was excellent and thanked Lucinda for presenting to the board. He added that he hoped Lucinda would give the presentation at the next CAC meeting. Lucinda said the presentation will be on the model and she is not versed enough in the complexity of the model to present it, but she will take Harry’s comments into consideration in planning the presentation. Harry added that the group is very large, with many interested City staff attending in addition to the committee members. • Bob said there is a level at which we must get to the bigger picture. Almost all the things recommended are just good long-term sustainable business planning measures. We have changes in our energy resources, costs will go up, and we should focus on helping people not get too wrapped up in what the temperature will be, but what the individual citizen can do to make the changes. They are going to have to ride the bus. Ultimately they will have to. How are we working on the positivity? Lucinda said staff could use another year on citizen engagement to help them understand the need and value and how they can participate. We don’t have the luxury of building the community partnership yet. At Council we intend to present them with options and timeframes. • Joe Piesman said in February the Council could adopt a new five-year plan. Lucinda said the plan is intended to include how to get to the interim goals. However it is a strategic plan, not an implementation plan. • Bob said one thing that makes Fort Collins great is that we like to model best practices. RMI’s work shows technologically we can achieve these goals with community adoption. • Harry said a critical piece is what Platte River decides to do. Joe Piesman said their deadline for big changes is 2030. Bob said their goals are not as aggressive as ours. Harry added that our achievement of our goals is highly dependent on Platte River’s changes. • Joe Piesman asked if Platte River would be willing to participate. Lucinda said they are not under any time constraints for their integrated resource plan, but we are sharing information and they are interested in sharing their initial modelling results with Council. The mayor and Gerry Horak are on Platte River’s board. 7 • Joe Piesman asked if the NRAB will have an opportunity for input. Lucinda said she would like to present an update at the January meeting. AGENDA ITEM 5—Other Business Review City Council’s 6-Month Planning Calendar • December: Bicycle Master Plan • January: BOB2.0 Ballot Language o John noted that sequencing of the projects may be important for the Poudre River. o Susie added that staff determines sequencing. Susie will ask Ginny if she is planning another round of presentations. • January: West Nile • February: Climate Action Plan • February: Nature in the City Strategic Plan • March: Water Supply Reliability and Storage Update Agenda Planning • January: Climate Action Plan Announcements • Lindsay Ex would like a board member to sit on the Nature in the City committee which meets quarterly. o Bob Mann volunteered and John will act as alternate. • John said he would like to plan an after-meeting celebration for departing members (Joe Piesman and Liz Pruessner) in December. Adjournment: Harry moved to adjourn. Meeting adjourned at 8:32pm. Approved by the Board on December 17, 2014 Signed ____________________________________ 12/31/2014 Dianne Tjalkens, Administrative Clerk II Date 8