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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAir Quality Advisory Board - Minutes - 08/28/2001MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS AIR QUALITY ADVISORY BOARD REGULAR MEETING 281 N. COLLEGE AVE. August 28, 2001 For Reference: Eric Levine, Chair 229-5225 Eric Hamrick, Council Liaison 225-2343 Brian Woodruff, Staff Liaison 221-6604 Board Members Present Nancy York, John Schroeer, Eric Levine, Jim Dennison, Mandar Sunthankar, Linda Stanley, Harry Edwards Board Members Absent None Staff Present Natural Resources Department: Brian Woodruff, Terry Klahn Transportation Plannine: Mark Jackson Guests R.A. Plummer, Project Manager, PBS&J The meeting was called to order at 4:35 Minutes The minutes of the July 24, 2001 meeting were unanimously approved as written. Review Action Los 1. When the radon program is reviewed by City Council, put a copy of their packet materials in the Board's packet — When available 2. Information on I-25 Corridor traffic data and assumptions — Mark Jackson 3. Information on the Denver study of health and nearby highways — Done 4. P&Z Board, NRAB and Transportation Board comments regarding I-25 Subarea Plan. (Any letters to Council, or meeting minutes) — Terry 5. Arrange for chair to receive the full Transportation Board packet on a regular basis — Done 6. Municipal Action Plan on Greenhouse Gasses (final version) — September packets Northern Colorado Truck Mobility Study — Mark Jackson and R.A. Plummer Jackson provided a brief background of the project. This study is driven by a 1999 ballot initiative, and has 3 mandates. 1) Non -route based strategies, 2) alternate routes, and 3) funding and next steps. A council study session is scheduled for September 25, 2001. Hoping to wrap up the project in December. Air Quality Advisory Board August 28, 2001 Page 2 of 4 Discussion • Dennison: Is the project going to ultimately end up with a recommendation as to whether an alternate route should be built? We're identifying the most feasible route in the study area. There are a lot of things that would have to happen before something would be built. • Plummer: It's important to know how the study is structured. There are 3 committees, a project management team that meets every three to four weeks, a policy advisory committee that meets every other month, and a stakeholders committee that has been meeting since November or December on a monthly basis. We built that group large on purpose, and tried to be inclusive. • Dennison: What percentage, of the 600 total, makes it to College Avenue? • Levine: 600 trucks over a 24-hour period are equivalent to 25 trucks per hour. At 2020, it's less than one truck a minute. • Schroeer: That's not realistic, that's a truck every other minute. I work three blocks north of there, at any given time there are three trucks in my view. I understand about local delivery, but that's still extremely low. The findings are inline with the previous study. • Levine: If these numbers were off by a factor of two, how would that change the study? It would change the cost per truck removed from the system. • Dennison: I'm still wondering if there's some way to get some information on trucks that go through at different points. There's a report that documents the methodology. We can get a copy. It's also on the web site that is listed at the bottom of the handout. • Edwards: Address, directly, the air quality impacts of the alternatives. The non -route strategies focus on the interstate. The problem is, it's seventeen miles longer. The way the trucking industry works, drivers are paid the by mile. If they go a longer route, it's at their own expense. Wyoming has no plans of building anything there. • Levine: What's the basic cost estimate? It's from the upper fifty millions, to the lower seventy millions. • Plummer: Air quality is one of the issues that we've been trying to look at. This is not a full environmental evaluation. We're looking at defining the difference between one route and another. We're looking at a regional model. We looked at CO and diesel emissions. What is the reduction on traffic on those routes, how much transferred to the new routes. The County Road 58 options were the most attractive from the perspective of traffic. The benefit got less and less as we moved to the north. The southern routes had more benefit in terms of moving traffic to the different locations. • Levine: We should have been more specific. We're looking at the human health base. That's why the air quality regulations exist. We can see tangible benefits for the City of Fort Collins. But, it's a different animal if you are the folks who live up there. The whale issue is a fairness issue. • Levine: Keep the trucks on I-25 and I-80. If there's one thing people agree upon, that's it. • Levine: Make the corridor "no through trucks". We didn't receive an enthusiastic reception from CDOT and the people in trucking industry on that. Mark Jackson will return to the board in October or November. Nancy York said the Hydrogen Task Force work has been completed. A fine, comprehensive report was completed and sent to John Fischbach. Air Quality Advisory Board August 28, 2001 Page 3 of 4 November Ballot issue Linda Stanley made the following motion: The Air Quality Advisory Board recommends to City Council that the Mason Street Corridor be allowed to stand on its own as a ballot issue, or be funded from the general fund, but not be included as part of the roads ballot issue. The motion passed with 6 votes in favor and one member abstention (John Schroeer). CO Redesignation Dennison provided brief background of the redesignation process. He said he would encourage not debating which tailpipe emissions model is better, but that the model parameters are a different story. Some parameters include population and traffic growth. Parameters can be selected that are optimistic, pessimistic, or somewhere in between. Some of the numbers they've used would lead to lower projections; they used a population growth rate of 2.2. They're using an older traffic analysis that doesn't reflect known population and VMT growth. They use fleet composition numbers that don't reflect the high proportion of SUV's and cars that are high emitters. These assumptions are optimistic — I can't think of any that use a pessimistic view. The legislature wants to get rid of some of air quality programs, and then see what happens. While the City policy is continual air quality improvement, they're setting us up so we can have maximum allowable degradation. We need to think about some of those issues, and what actions we might take, as well as what actions City Council might be able to take. Discussion • Sunthankar: Why does the new model, Mobile 6, predict tailpipe emissions will be 40-50% lower? We need to understand more about model inputs, too. • Levine: Mobile 6 shows lower emissions. The earlier Mobile 5 had to made simplifications about the gas emissions. Apparently the EPA feels Mobile 6 does a better representation. • Dennison: In Mobile 5 you had limited inputs, but there are extras in Mobile 6. You can't compare the two because the old model didn't require input for some items. I'm concerned about some of the input assumptions. In some cases we're using the wrong numbers. I'd be interested in seeing what values they use for basic parameters, and for the state to defend them if they don't seem reasonable. Or, run the model with a range of input assumptions (both optimistic and pessimistic). • Schroeer: I'd like to see the worse case, best case, and best guess. Brian Woodruff distributed a handout outlining three issues and two scenarios regarding CO Redesignation. • ISSUES: 1) State and local policy are in conflict; 2) Analysis should use the most recent & most accurate data; 3) The City's Air Quality Action Plan should include strong CO controls • SCENARIOS: A) Emissions increasing, or flat — Work to find additional CO controls and keep existing ones; B) Emissions falling — Work to prevent the state from removing existing controls, and work to strengthen controls locally. • Woodruff: In scenario B we would first argue to delay the SIP decision until traffic projections were updated. This would mean taking on unfunded modeling work. Air Quality Advisory Board August 28, 2001 Page 4 of 4 • Dennison: Tied in with the first strategy is the idea it makes our life simpler if they just hold off, so that not only we get the other data for the inputs, maybe we can use the final version of Mobile 6. • Woodruff: We may need to challenge the "expeditious" mandate contained in state legislation. That may mean recruiting Council members to address AQ Commission or area legislators. If a delay is not agreed to, then we would argue for a commitment to re -analysis once traffic data are updated. That would mean we would plan to amend our SIP submittal once better data are available. We'd hope to do this prior to the actual day when the UM and oxy fuels are removed. If that were rejected we'd argue for the City to have authority to go it alone for an UM program. It's not likely feasible — there are legal and financial questions. • Stanley: Do we need to make a recommendation that we'd like to see a sensitivity analysis, best case, worse case, and best estimate? • Woodruff: We can pass that along through staff channels. They're likely to say we don't have the time, or there's no way we can update the SLTV data in this time frame. • Stanley: What information are we using? • Woodruff: They're using traffic data from the previous version of the regional transportation plan, which was just updated this year. There's widespread concern the Population and VMT estimates are low. • Dennison: I'm reluctant to see the Colorado State AIR program go away. • Schroeer: Every year the high -emitter program degrades in value, but we still have older vehicles that benefit from both high emitter and oxy fuels. • Dennison: I'm reluctant to see those programs eliminated from the federal SIP, and only reluctantly accepting of the idea of keeping them as state -only (non -federally -enforceable) programs. Anything less and I'd be very concerned. • York: Can we give the North Front Range Regional Planning Council a heads -up? Yes. • Stanley: What would be the best way to do that, a memo? • Edwards: These numbers are alarming. It's hard to see how the Commission could give the green light on the basis of these data. • Woodruff: The Commission is eager to complete this process. Your voice goes to the ear of the City Council and the MPO Council. Any letter you write can be shared with the AQ Control Commission technical secretary, and with the Air Pollution Control Division. • Edwards: We need to express our reservations and concerns. Woodruff will draft a memo and email it to all members who will send any comments to Eric Levine. Adjournment The meeting adjoumed at 7:30p.m.