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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAir Quality Advisory Board - Minutes - 04/24/2003MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS AIR QUALITY ADVISORY BOARD REGULAR MEETING 281 N. COLLEGE AVE. April 24, 2003 For Reference: Linda Stanley 493-7225 Eric Hamrick, Council Liaison 226-4824 Sarah Fox, Staff Liaison 221-6312 Board Members Present Nancy York, Mandar Sunthankar, Linda Stanley, Katie Walters, Cherie Trine, Ken Moore, John Long Board Members Absent Everett Bacon, Jim Dennison Staff Present Natural Resources Department: Sarah Fox, Terry Klahn, Margit Hentschel City Managers Office: Mark Radtke The meeting was called to order at 5:10 p.m. Minutes With the following changes, the minutes of the March 24, 2003 were unanimously approved with 7 votes in favor and 0 votes opposed. Page 5, P bullet: change "consider public health impacts of proposed policies" "consider public health impacts." Sustainability Indicators Report, Margit Hentschel Hentschel provided a brief background of the term sustainability. She said it's been hard for people to adopt the term. She said sustainability does a better job using a multi media approach, and is a more global, far reaching philosophy than Pollution Prevention. Sustainability focuses on protecting the environment and says that if you don't have a healthy environment you can't have a healthy social life. We've been at this for a year and half now. We have collected data and asked for input from citizens. What we're looking at now is how to get from policies, to initiatives, and routine. Trine: Where did the idea come from that you have to destroy the environment to help the economy? Showing examples might help. The radon project is a good way. If you have lower cancer rates the whole community benefits. And, your houses last longer. I think examples would help, you're countering a huge mis-information campaign by industry. Stanley: A lot of studies show that companies that do better environmentally do better in the long term profit wise. It's also fashionable to talk about economic sustainability. It has nothing to do with the environment. It has to be made clear, what does it mean to be economically sustainable. Hentschel: Sustainability is one of the four cornerstones of City Plan. Air Quality Advisory Board April 24, 2003 Page 2 of 5 • York: There are folks pushing for sustainable economic development. Look at New Belgium. Jeff, the founder, said they are still importing things from the outside, such as barley. We can grow barley here, but it has to be malt. Something that would perhaps be sustainable would be to grow the barley locally. • Hentschel: It's like curb side recycling. Why don't we teach folks to compost in their own yards? If we embrace sustainability, it's easy to think something's a good idea. People overall want the healthiest place to live. • Stanley: What we produce here creates more jobs, and keeps money flowing. We also don't have transportation bringing things in. It's real important from an environmental and economic standpoint. Being tied to the national economy is an old way of looking at things. If we're more self sufficient we don't suffer as bad during the rough times. • Long: Are there incentives? That would be a big step, incentives for reducing energy consumption, or for closing the loop on waste streams. We could give farmers incentives to practice sustainable farming techniques. • Hentschel: There should be a tax incentive, that's a great idea. • York: Ultimately sustainability is affordability. You eliminate waste and negative health impacts. • Trine: If the rates went up at the dump people would have a lot more incentive to recycle, or just not buy it. • Hentschel: Things change slowly. Eventually they'll adopt them, and they'll have to do these things. • Stanley: Europe taxes pollution. Clinton tried to do a carbon tax. It does work in Europe, maybe it will make its way over here. • Stanley: We need to educate people, and get them to think about natural resources in a different way. Air Quality Legislative Discussion Mark Radtke, Legislative Affairs Coordinator from the City Manager's Office, provided a summary of the air quality bills for this session. He said it hasn't been a momentous year for air quality bills. For the most part legislation show the trend that we've seen in the last few yeas, and reflects in large part the policies of the administration. The board briefly discussed the status of several different bills. Short Discussion Items • Agenda Planning: I-25 Subarea Plan, Transportation Master Plan Update Nancy York made the following motion: Move that the Air Quality Advisory board, as one of our goals and objectives of this board, focus on studies that impact air quality and health. The motion was seconded by Cherie Trine. • York: When we find stuff in the paper, or get stuff we could review it. I run into limitations when we talk about lung functions. It would be nice if we could find a human resource. Air Quality Advisory Board April 24, 2003 Page 3 of 5 • Stanley: How much time do you think this will take per meeting? Who would read the articles? • York: It could be a sub committee, or a better way is to send the articles out with the hopes of everyone reading them. It's by our getting educated that we'll be effective educating other people. Maybe in our advisory capacity, the articles that come to the top we could forward to City officials. • Stanley: Or maybe someone could write a short summary, so that it made it easy for those folks to read. • Walters: It might make sense to make sure to get a hard copy or summary, so that when issues come up again that we know were revisited and ignored we could pull it out and give them the summary again. • Moore: We don't want to send a lot of stuff to Council. They're not ignorant. We don't want to act like we're trying to educate them. When you inundate people, they de -sensitize. • York: We haven't inundated them. • Walters: I don't know if we need to give Council every study, unless they ask for more information. • York: I'm not suggesting every study, but the pertinent ones. What we're doing impacts the transportation plan, or should. It should impact home construction, the building code. We should send them to other boards too. • Long: I don't think we need another subcommittee. We should keep our eyes open, and if we come across something print it out. • Trine: How would we bring in experts? • York: We could periodically bring in someone to discuss the studies. The motion was approved unanimously (7/0). Linda Stanley left the meeting. Radon Discussion Cherie Trine said she met with Brian Woodruff. He made a statement that at this point the City is looking at passive mitigation radon systems in new construction, and maybe sometime in the future they would look at active systems. Cherie suggested to Brian that active should be included in the cost/benefits. He said the City will include active systems in the costibenefit. Brian did not say the City would propose active, he thinks this is a balanced proposition. But he did say, it this doesn't work, they will propose it. • Sunthankar: What is the status of the radon mitigation? • Fox: There's a study session on May 13. • Sunthankar: Will they discuss implementation of new construction? • Fox: I don't know. • Trine: I'd like a motion to have staff reveal their position. I'd be asking City Council to direct staff to have a County representative at the table, and for staff to come out with a position the public can comment on. • Walters: I don't understand staff revealing their position. • Trine: It's hard to argue if you don't know their position. • Walters: We're going to make decisions based on information, and make a recommendation. I understand wanting to state a position, but it's the City's responsibility to give facts to the Air Quality Advisory Board April 24, 2003 Page 4 of 5 public and get the feedback. We shouldn't even be concerned with the City's position. I feel like our job is to advise Council, and it has no bearing on what the City's going to say. • Trine: I'm trying to do a cost/benefit analysis. It's helpful to know what staff is going on, it's not necessarily adversarial. • Fox: This is a study session. There won't be an opportunity for public comment, and Council can't make motions, it's just discussion. It won't go right to first reading, it will go in the building code revisions. • Trine: I'd like to see direction for staff to take a position. • York: When you say staff, do you mean NRD, or do you mean John Fischbach? • Fox: Maybe we could ask that Brian forward anything he has before the study session your way? • Trine: He hasn't added active to it. • York: That would not be his recommendation. It sounds like his recommendation is for passive. In my time on the AQAB, the AQAB has always wanted a bigger action than the staff takes. We've talked about radon for years, we've always wanted a more mandatory position. • Walters: On many of the issues, City staff doesn't tell Council what to do, they're just informing them, providing information. • York: The truth of the matter is it doesn't matter if they want to tell City Council or not. We've taken baby steps up to this point. It's a little frustrating if we do believe the facts. People are becoming ill because of our lack of action. • Walters: All that we can do is inform Council that we are of the opinion that this health effect if large enough that we need to take action. To have Council pass something that included a passive system would be acceptable to me because we haven't had action in the past. To get to that point would be a big step. I agree it should bean active system, but at the same time, there are so many different numbers. • Trine: Staff looked at passive, the info they pass on will be about passive, City Council is going to hear about passive. I'm asking staff to give them the whole picture. Staff can make your recommendation, but give them the whole picture. That's what we should fight for every time. • York: It sounds like Brian has agreed to do that. • Fox: I can ask Brian and get a response. Cherie Trine made the following motion: Recommend City Council direct City staff to conduct a full analysis of passive and active radon mitigation to present for the May 13 study session. The motion was seconded by Nancy York, and passed unanimously (6/0). Cherie Trine made the following motion: City Council should consider inviting a representative of Larimer County Building Department to be present at the table of the May 13 study session. Mandar Sunthankar seconded the motion. Air Quality Advisory Board April 24, 2003 Page 5 of 5 • Trine: The City has not talked to the County. They should coordinate, the developers would like that. If they're going to somewhat match it would be important to have the County there. • Fox: We talked at length. It was in the radon study. The County requires testing and passive mitigation. • York: John Fischbach and Ron Phillips have mitigated their radon. David Roy found it preposterous that we don't have a more complete program. The motion was passed unanimously (6/0). • York: Who in the PHD did the cost benefit? • Fox: Dr. Cooper. • York: I'm wondering if we could ask him to do one for the active system. • Walter: Call Dr. Cooper and talk about it. Adjourn The meeting was adjourned at 7:40.