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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAir Quality Advisory Board - Minutes - 06/20/2016MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS AIR QUALITY ADVISORY BOARD Date: Monday, June 20, 2016 Location: Community Room, 215 N. Mason Street Time: 5:30–8:00pm For Reference Mark Houdashelt, Chair Ross Cunniff, Council Liaison 970-420-7398 Lindsay Ex, Staff Liaison 970-224-6143 Board Members Present Board Members Absent Mark Houdashelt, Chair Rich Fisher John Shenot Gregory Miller Chris Wood (6:20) Jim Dennison Vara Vissa Robert Kirkpatrick Tom Griggs Staff Present Lindsay Ex, Staff Liaison/Environmental Program Manager Dianne Tjalkens, Admin/Board Support Lucinda Smith, Environmental Services Director Cassie Archuleta, Environmental Planner Amy Lewin, Senior Transportation Planner Susie Gordon, Senior Environmental Planner Councilmembers Present None Guests None Call to order: 5:33pm Agenda Review: No changes. Public Comments: None. Review and Approval of Minutes: Tom moved and John seconded a motion to approve the May 2016 AQAB minutes as amended. Motion passed unanimously, 6-0-0. Chris arrived after vote. Corrections: Chair is Mark Houdashelt (top and header) AGENDA ITEM 1: Staff Liaison Update Cassie Archuleta, Sr. Environmental Planner and new AQ team lead, will transition into the role of staff liaison for the Board beginning in July. Page 1 Lindsay will be full time Climate Action lead and Cassie will take over air quality. ESD is focused on a holistic climate action vision, including resiliency. Staff ensuring that work plans remain aligned and integrated. AGENDA ITEM 2: Community Recycling Ordinance City staff worked with Fort Collins’ trash haulers to create a mutually-agreeable package for the Community Recycling Ordinance. A consensus package, which will be discussed at the June 28 Work Session, was shared. Susie Gordon presented. History: Fort Collins has had Pay-As-You-Throw ordinance in place for 20 years. Don’t have municipal trash services. Have open market system. Hauler must have license to provide service in Fort Collins, must provide recycling at no additional charge to residential, and must have variable rates so pay less for a smaller sized trash container. Endorsed by EPA in 1990s. Now many communities with this structure. Gives people financial incentive to reduce trash and increase recycling. Ordinance has been amended multiple times over years. Critical tool. More challenging to implement this structure for multifamily and commercial. Facilities may not have space for recycling enclosure, differences in types of materials generated, differences in recycling needs, etc. In multifamily, result is that if landlord does not choose recycling, must self-haul or not recycle. 95% subscription rate to recycling in single family residential. Staff started this ordinance update in 2015, including comprehensive community engagement. However, in 2015 the recycling market declined as a result of international supply/demand commodity pricing issues. Haulers went from being paid for recyclables to having to pay to drop them at the recycling center. They would like to be able to charge a recycling fee to make up for this additional cost, but it is not allowed in our ordinance. Updates: Incline Rate: Single family residential incline rate (pricing) has been 100% (difference between can sizes). Haulers would like this to be lowered to 50%. Down to 80% differential positive impact on recycling remains, but as lower the differential recycling declines. Council would like consensus with haulers—having multiple Work Sessions; the proposal Council will review on June 28 is for a 75% incline rate. Organics: Requesting haulers all offer seasonal single family residential yard trimmings collection. All willing to do this, but requires another truck on the street. GHG emissions—woody material in landfill does not decay as quickly as food scraps. Will divert a lot of material, but not a large methane emission component. Multifamily and Commercial Recycling: Remain in the package. Grocer Composting: Many already have composting services for produce. Only stores not using them are Safeway, Albertsons, Target and Beavers. Possibility of setting a threshold to protect smaller groceries from financial hardship. Restaurant composting is more difficult—chain, non-chain, large, small. Could not give Council answer on economic impact of composting on restaurants. Organics collection in Boulder is combined food scraps and yard trimmings. Not many facilities take these blended materials. Eaton facility recently got permit expanded to include food scraps. Sole-source option for Fort Collins’ haulers. New biodigester in Kersey—methane is collected. If have clean stream of food scraps can go into biodigester, but can’t take yard trimmings. Will be more options for food scraps in the near future. Comments/Q&A • Air quality impacts? o Criteria pollutants not analyzed, but sensitive to putting more trucks on the road due to air quality and GHG impacts of additional vehicles. Trash, recycling, and seasonal yard waste collection use three different truck collection routes. Have information on emissions that could occur. o Two ways to look at GHG impacts—counted in inventory based on decomposing organic materials and methane from them. Lifecycle impacts analysis looks at production of materials including using recycled materials.  Using recycled material instead of virgin material—inventory goes to production facility. • Grass clippings in yard waste? o Encourage people to leave clippings on the lawn. • Recycled organics material is a beneficial product. Page 2 o True, many great benefits, just not GHG impact. o Does the ordinance specify where the materials go?  Mulch or compost. • Have collection system at landfill for methane? o Basic collection. Gas is currently flared. Piping system was installed by another company and the gas belongs to them. Would like to make CNG. Large expense to install engines. Some landfills designed to speed up decomposition process in order to collect methane. • Difference with landfill is that don’t get organic materials like fertilizer. o City is engaged in wasteshed planning project. Landfill will close in 10 years. Will have public forums and surveys to decide what waste management system should include. Could landfill become a resource recovery center? Many would like County to site composting facility at landfill. • Important outcome of organics is generating compost. Powerful carbon sequestration. Helps provide nutrients and water holding properties, also sequesters carbon. o Included in part of inventory?  Lifecycle/bigger picture. Not included in inventory. • Being environmentally aggressive with single-family. All haulers have been pushing to lower fees on larger cans. Don’t understand their reasoning. If all compelled to offer recycling at no cost, all are just bidding against each other. Profit margin dictated by efficiency, charge, etc. More profitable to charge more for larger cans. o National hauler is willing. One hauler feels those with large families who may need larger cans should not have a cost burden. Other hauler wants to charge a recycling fee. Haulers used to be able to charge a small flat fee to cover fixed costs. In 2009 Council saw there were other fees being added and cost of trash was being obscured. Asked staff to amend ordinance to disallow any extra fees. In Fort Collins bill has one fee that includes trash and recycling. Suggesting allowing service charge/base fee, but having it locked at no more than 25% of lowest cost can. • With base fee and incline rate changes, it makes it cheaper to throw away more. Doesn’t affect businesses in a negative way. Want rate payers to subsidize recycling. We’re backing off of Pay-As-You- Throw and that is a bad idea. o NRAB came to same conclusion. o If you make it cheaper, do people generate more trash? Weak or strong correlation?  30 years of data show that when lower differential rate below 80% people start generating more trash and less recycling. Single digits percentage change. • In CAP, where is recycling? Economics? Landfill space? Lifecycle analysis? Culture of recycling itself is being questioned. What is it doing in behavior, economics, etc.? Is it making an impact? Recyclability of single-use containers and packaging encourages more consumption. Hear about contaminant issues. o Honoré is working on sustainable materials management. City has been working on knowing what emissions are for 15+ years, and inventorying. Recycling has played a large role in reductions. Have also adopted zero waste goals. As work on CAP, 25% of what we hope to accomplish in next 4 years has to do with reducing our waste. This ordinance, if adopted with all elements, would have huge emissions reduction potential. Dilemmas in the market are impacting ability to implement all elements. Commercial recycling will have large impact, though. • If this package is adopted will emissions go down from status quo? How far from goals in CAP? o Yes, will go down. Know how many tons will be diverted as result of each measure, and can calculate emissions. • Will adoption of this put on path to achieve goals or not? If have to do a lot right away and this only does a little, may not meet our goals. o Now 9% below 2005 levels. Inventory doesn’t always follow linear trajectory. Refining initiatives and numbers. Without organics component lose a lot of the GHG reductions of this initiative. • What happens on June 28 Council Work Session? o Third time at Work Session. Will learn whether they are prepared to take this to adoption. Council may decide to alter the package. Page 3 • Possible to use elasticity estimates rather than 50% incline rate to determine GHG emissions saved by staying at incline rate of 100% with no base fee? o Caroline has those details. Incline rate does not have a huge impact on GHG reductions. Commercial recycling is where big gains are to be had. • Organics are important to the public. • Heartland is operating. What is their feed stock? o Dairy manure, Leprino foods, meatpacking plant, and expired/damaged packaged foods. o Any organization with municipalities?  They need a consistent waste stream. Would like to create a transfer station to collect food scraps and manage transportation costs. Could collaborate with Larimer County and Loveland. Harder to make work than anticipated. Could fit on footprint of landfill, but traffic issues and other complications. ACTION ITEMS: Susie will provide more GHG reduction numbers. Board will take action at a future meeting. AGENDA ITEM 3: West Elizabeth Travel Corridor Amy Lewin, Senior Transportation Planner presented an update on the West Elizabeth Enhanced Travel Corridor Plan, including the latest Recommended Design for the corridor, as well as potential phasing and implementation. Feedback is requested to continue to help shape the corridor recommendations, which will be presented to City Council in their final form in August. Staff will also be requesting a recommendation from the board to share with City Council. Enhanced travel corridors (ETC) focus on transit, biking and walking. A number of them are identified in Transportation Master Plan. The study area encompasses the network around W. Elizabeth, and the Plan looks at how this area could better integrate into the community network, and how campus can become less of a barrier to travel, particularly for transit, biking, and walking. Have had community engagement throughout, including public and stakeholder meetings. Community desire is safe, comfortable system for all users. Issues trying to solve: • Cannot accommodate demand for busses on W. Elizabeth • Have many bikers with high numbers of crashes—addressing existing conditions (driveways, ending bike lanes, etc.) • Pedestrian network is not complete/not all ADA compliant Key elements: • High-frequency transit—Service that encourages new transit riders and moves along W. Elizabeth, Plum, and into downtown. Connections to Max. Foothills campus internal shuttle route, enhanced stops. Changes phased in. • Biking—Improving intersection treatments, protected intersection at City Park/Elizabeth, improvements to low-stress bike network, bike share locations, passing lanes at bus stop islands, etc. • Walking—Completing and enhancing sidewalk network, detached sidewalks, etc. • Driving—Maintaining four travel lanes in busiest areas, center turn lanes with medians in select locations for traffic calming, access management, roundabout at Overland Trail. Guiding principles: • Work within existing right-of-way • Incorporate phasing—Address major deficiencies first (gaps in sidewalks and bike networks), things that can be tweaked now to make improvements, transit amenity improvements, completion of sidewalks to minimum standards; later: high frequency transit, buffered/protected bike lanes, detached sidewalks, etc. Campus West may redevelop and want to be ready with BRT service and other changes. • Understand trade-offs of design decisions. Page 4 Had planned on using the Transportation Air Quality Impact Manual for this project, but not ready yet. Congestion and mode shift are main impacts on air quality from this project. Not a lot of congestion change with improvements if assume the same vehicular demand. Lower confidence in estimates of mode shift impacts. 18k+ vehicles/day highest use in this corridor. Comments/Q&A • Redevelopment of Campus West—private or CSU? o Starting to see development on private properties, which go through development review process. Campus West area allows some of highest densities in the city. o Is it related to the underpass at Shields and Elizabeth?  Redevelopment independent of that discussion. Developers are capitalizing on City improvements. • Congestion change is better or worse? o Roundabout could slightly decrease congestion; some of the other proposed changes may increase congestion slightly. Predicted operations would not go below the minimum level of service allowed. Ex: Special signal phase for bikes would create too much delay for vehicles, so did not include that element. • How do you measure congestion? o Level of service is average delay (seconds) per vehicle at an intersection. o More emissions because on road longer?  Yes. This project hasn’t estimated emissions yet; have estimated delays. • If CSU keeps building parking garages, that will encourage driving instead of bussing. More college students arrive with vehicles. Is the student population going to increase over the next 20 years? If these aren’t factored in, conclusions may be off. Heard presentation from Transfort that losing money. Not clear how much money for service comes from CSU compared to the percentage use of CSU. Talking about investing in mass transit in this corridor. Suggest calculating how much it will be used by CSU students, faculty, staff, etc. Are they putting in 1% of the money and getting half the benefit? o CSU contributes to funding for Transfort, which is negotiated in a separate, specific contract. Have not predicted new ridership that will be from CSU. Trying to improve service that would benefit community. o With infill, population growth, etc. can’t get a feeling for the changes in demand. Any changes you make now might get nullified by changes in population.  CAP incorporates population growth. o This ETC meets a lot of CSU’s needs. They are a player in using these resources. Should estimate how much the university is contributing.  Cameron Gloss has a community growth road show that could come to this group. o Budget offer for Transportation Master Plan update will be for system-wide updates. Hoping that will have comprehensive analysis tools for that update. • Have mode shift estimates; have you done new congestion estimates? o Congestion analysis is done intersection by intersection, so difficult to correlate. Assumed maximum congestion and minimum benefits of mode shift. Don’t want to overstate, but think recommended design will help shift modes and bring benefits to the corridor. • Transportation Air Quality Impacts Manual will have case studies of various sizes. High priority. • Overall plan with phases is going to Council for adoption? o The plan does not come with funding, but will come to Council with options and funding ideas. Also have budget offers submitted for projects. Some items can be covered with existing budget. May be eligible for federal grants as well. • Would like a recommendation to include language about using the Transportation Air Quality Impacts Manual in implementation. o Would like more time to review materials. Generally support the plan. Mark can draft a recommendation for vote at the July meeting. • If Campus West will have more multifamily, etc., will need more walking and biking options. Proportion depends on moving parts. Demographics, time frame, how do all of these interact? Don’t want throw Page 5 away costs. What are projections of CSU, neighborhood, and business needs? How much flexibility is in recommended design? o Concept overall is fixed as guidance to next level of design. When get site-specific information, may need to make adjustments. Staff developed diagram showing how the buildings could change with redevelopment. The whole area will change, but land use code and design guidelines will help. • As specific projects come up, would recommend the manual is used to weigh alternatives. • Feedback on phasing, etc. is good for staff to have now. For Council recommendation, general support with highlights of positive air quality impacts would be helpful. • Can provide draft plan document before next AQAB meeting. Open for public review in July. All open house materials are available online at fcgov.com/westelizabeth. ACTION ITEMS: Mark will draft motion for vote at next meeting. Amy can provide draft W. Elizabeth ETC Plan to members before next meeting. AGENDA ITEM 4: Discussion and Agenda Planning Debrief of Superboard Meeting Dark Skies Initiative is to redirect lighting to where it is supposed to go. Implications for energy use and GHG emissions. Looking at types of lighting, designs, color temperatures, etc. • Haze implications as well. Opportunities for AQAB to plug into that element more. CAP Plan Basic description from Travis. No new information BFO Website has focus areas with base budget of existing programs and enhancement offers. When click on one offer for more info, get full list; hard to navigate. Does AQAB want to make recommendations on air quality related BFO offers? • 98 offers related to climate. New CAP driven offers, CAP accelerated offers (increasing existing programs), and CAP beneficial offers including ongoing offers. 30 offers have direct impact on GHG reduction. Can identify list of air quality offers. • Some previous enhancement air quality offers have moved to ongoing. Also have new enhancements. • Best place for boards to make recommendations is after City Manager’s Recommended Budget goes to Council. • Staff can provide summary of AQAB-related offers. Will be summary of BFO feedback and can provide memo of support in that packet as well. • Air quality manual was funded in an offer. Must prioritize from existing offers. • Useful for board to put time into this, it’s in the board work plan. Two years ago the board made recommendations before and after the City Manager’s Recommended Budget. One item that the board pushed for was moved above the line during the BFO process. Has to be done at a high level, based on priorities, and requires homework. • Want to see air quality implications or GHG reductions. o Did not have numbers last time, except dollar amounts. • CAP community advisory committee got offers in advance, asked clarifying questions in the meeting, did a dot exercise for support/concerns. Could provide a summary table of offers related to air quality. • Read all offers related to air quality and CAP, each person brings list of top 5-10 offers. Come to consensus from there. o Suggest doing this quantitatively without discussion of the merits of individual offers. HazMat Discussion Does HazMat team have external review? Does AQAB want to pursue? Staff provided list of review processes and certification. Page 6 • No follow-up needed. Asbestos Discussion State regulations that asbestos is mitigated during demolition and remodeling. However, there is only follow- up on demolition projects. Should it be more consistent? City goes above and beyond state code for demolition projects. Does AQAB want to ask the City to do more? Jim can present state regulations at another meeting. • Regulatory context—Have to know this and what Fort Collins and other municipalities are doing before making a decision. • Response from staff if out of context. Radon Discussion Should the City do more with landlords/homeowners about radon disclosure? When homeowner sells, only have to provide buyer with a pamphlet on radon. Should the City have regulations/ordinances to ensure people buying or renting get specific radon level information? • Low percentage of homes in Fort Collins are mitigated. Can the State give numbers of cases of cancer predicted due to lack of mitigation? ACTION ITEMS: Will discuss how to pursue asbestos and radon items at the next meeting. Lindsay will follow up on radon/cancer statistics. AGENDA ITEM 5: Updates and Announcements CAP • Going to Council for next appropriation for a municipal composting site at Streets facility. Green waste to stay out of landfill and allow reuse on own sites. • Using other underutilized funds to continue solar rebates. • Energy efficiency funding—significant challenges in light and power fund for infrastructure needs and CAP goals. Holding off for 60-90 days to better vet all energy efficiency projects. All rebates have been committed—unprecedented uptake, but have to waitlist everyone else. • Municipal 2020 goals to lead by example. Fugitive Dust • Cassie is taking over this project. Moving into enforcement phase. Holding trainings for code officers. Then will reach out to commercial developers. Will have soft enforcement, collecting information on complaints and enforcement, and will make adjustments as necessary. AGENDA ITEM 6: Futures Actions and Agenda Items Council Six-Month Agenda Planning Calendar • Healthy Homes—5 min. staff update • Managing traffic congestion Announcements Regional Air Quality Commission completing SIP (2008 ozone standard) • Council is very interested in ozone. Mayor sits on RAQC. Cassie can get board up to speed on this issue. • Have informational session on this topic in unscheduled agenda items. • May have to do work plan earlier this year than last. Leave flexibility in work plan to be proactive. Meeting Adjourned: 8:10pm Next Meeting: July 18 Page 7