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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAir Quality Advisory Board - Minutes - 10/25/2005Y MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS AIR QUALITY ADVISORY BOARD REGULAR MEETING 200 WEST MOUNTAIN AVE October 25, 2005 For Reference: Eric Levine, Chair 493-6341 David Roy, Council Liaison 407-7393 Lucinda Smith, Staff Liaison 224-6085 Board Members Present Kip Carrico, Dave Dietrich, Bruce Macdonald, Gregory McMaster, Linda Stanley, Cherie Trine, Nancy York Board Members Absent Eric Levine Staff Present Natural Resources Department: Lucinda Smith, Liz Skelton Guests Dale Adamy The meeting was called to order at 5:35 p.m. Minutes With no changes, the minutes of the September 27, 2005 meeting were unanimously approved. Public Comment There were no public comments at this meeting. West Nile BFO Offer Tom Vosburg was present to answer the board's questions regarding the 'Budgeting for Outcomes' offer addressing West Nile Virus. • Vosburg: Eric had some questions about this issue and wanted it on the agenda. You've been provided with the basic information about the offer in your packet. There is not a lot of detail in the offer; it's just a price tag of what it would take to continue our status -quo program, which includes larviciding to identify Culex-family mosquito sites, doing public outreach, and monitoring mosquito levels and testing for infection on an ongoing basis. So there is a larviciding piece, public information piece and testing and data -monitoring piece. That all costs about $235,000. Right now we divide it up three ways. We apportion a certain amount to the Stormwater/Utilities program because some of the larviciding goes into the stormwater grates and catch -basins because that is one breeding site. We apportion another chunk to the Natural Areas program because an awful lot of the breeding sites are in natural areas. The remainder is picked up by the General Fund. The fundamental question confronting Council is "Do we continue this program, and do we continue funding it the way we've been funding it?". Right now we are proposing to fund it out of one-time monies as opposed Air Quality Advisory Board 10/25/2005 Page 2 of 24 to ongoing monies. That means it's funded with opportunistic money. From a staff perspective, we're not staked -out really one way or another. It's clear from the performance data from monitoring mosquito populations that the larviciding program definitely does reduce mosquito populations. If you compare the way our populations jumped around before we implemented the program in comparison to Loveland and now how they have stabilized and are much lower, consistent levels you can see that. What's not clear is whether that has any strong correlation to public health incidents. It's not clear whether or not the City should be in the role of doing public health controls; it's not clear if we gave this money to the County whether they would spend an additional $250,000 on mosquito control - would that be their top public health priority? So there is a lot of ambiguity around what is the City's role in this area. We have not framed it as a nuisance control program. We've organized it around public health and concern about West Nile virus. Only the Culex family of mosquitoes can spread West Nile, so we don't even bother controlling non-Culex-oriented mosquito sites. If we were trying to just reduce mosquitoes for the sake of being comfortable, we'd be controlling different places. There is undoubtedly some unavoidable nuisance control benefit derived to the population. People notice that there are fewer mosquitoes around and they comment that they like that. So, that's kind of where we are at. My own personal feeling in working on this for a couple of years is that the preferred way to deliver these services would be through some sort of special district at the County level. To do it right, there are wetlands outside of the city limits that ought to be controlled, so it makes sense to do it on a regional basis rather than municipality -by - municipality. One idea would be to go to the voters to expand the authority of what the weed control district is and take that on. There is a lot of intergovernmental coordination work that would need to be done to do that and we (Fort Collins) haven't made it a priority. Nobody's stepping up to the plate in Larimer County either. We've approached Loveland about going in on a regional program and they are pretty comfortable with the way their existing program is administered so they are not interested and don't feel the need to look at partnering with the County or anything like that. They are not trying to implement change. So that's where it boils down to is do we keep doing what we're doing, or do we just stop it altogether and say the threat of West Nile is nowhere near as great as it used to be and while we enjoy the nuisance control thing as a side -effect, are we in a position to afford that kind of thing? Even though it is just one-time money there are a lot of things that could be one-time money. That's where we are at. I think it just comes down to values and priorities; there is not as much to talk in terms of facts or data that would drive things one way or the other — it's should we be in this business or are there other things that are more important? • Stanley: Where is it in this budget process? • Vosburg: It is in the City Manager's recommendation, but it is recommended to be funded with one-time money. • Stanley: And when you say one-time, that means both 2006 and 2007? • Vosburg: Yes, but there are different colors of money at the City. There is a certain amount of money that we can count on based on revenue projections (as long we are being conservative enough with our projections) that will be reoccurring and then there is extra money like over -projections or stuff we did not spend that falls into a reserve account, but that is not self-perpetuating. It seems like we always have some money at the end of the year that falls into that account, but it bounces around a lot so you can't Air Quality Advisory Board 10/25/2005 Page 3 of 24 budget consistently. So we call that one-time money. Usually we use that type of money to fund a plan update or to buy some equipment or to do some other short-term policy things. Occasionally we use it to hire contractual employees if we know when their project begins and ends. In general, it is a bad idea to fund ongoing programs with one-time money. If we think it is ongoing, it should go in the ongoing budget and there is less of that available. Are we waiting to see how bad West Nile really is? Are we waiting to see if we can put together the intergovernmental cooperation to do a mosquito control district and hand it off to the district or County? • Stanley: A little bit of background for the newer members, and correct me if I'm wrong Tom, but the reason we got involved in this is because of the spraying that could occur and did occur in the past. There was a West Nile outbreak and so the County and the City started spraying. That's how the Air Quality Board got involved in this. There was a West Nile Task Force formed. • McMaster: This was the adulticide spraying we are talking about? • Stanley: Yes, adulticide spraying. Our recommendation at the time was for larviciding because it would cut down on the probability of having to do spraying which affects air quality. I know that Eric wanted it brought back to the Air Quality Board. Nancy, maybe you could speak for Eric? I'm just wondering about the air quality aspect of it. • McMaster: Just a little bit more information — I was on the West Nile Task Force. There was a West Nile Task Force that was formed, sponsored by this board and the Natural Resources Advisory Board. Linda started out on that and Nancy, Eric, and I were also on that task force. • York: And CSU scientists. • McMaster: Right, a bunch of folks. • Vosburg: The link to air quality is this thing about when and if adulticides are used — the aerial spraying. We do not provide for the use of adulticides in our current contract with Colorado Mosquito Control. Any use of adulticides would have to be separately contracted over and above the current baseline costs. You could say we're not budgeted to do the adulticides, but wh'at's happened in the past was that even that we didn't have it budgeted, County was recommending that we do it and it put us in this awkward position of whose judgment do you follow? Do you argue with the public health officer about the relative public health risk? We went ahead and found additional money and funded the adulticiding. Then there is set of policies that went forward to Council to adopt which we call the "Adulticide Trigger Criteria" and they speak to a fairly data -driven formula for evaluating the relative risk of West Nile. But then there are some additional loophole clauses that say if there is any single human case, that the County Health Officer has authority to say we should start adulticiding. • McMaster: And didn't the County invoke that? • Vosburg: They invoked the exception in the second year, but not this past year. We did not spray this past year. • York: The second year they did limited spraying — just where they found the mosquitoes. • Vosburg: Yes, it was much more focused. • McMaster: So they didn't follow the data -driven formula, they used the exception? • Vosburg: Right, they used the exception. I could imagine it might be worthwhile to go back to Council with a request to remove some of those gapping loopholes in the Air Quality Advisory Board 10/25/2005 Page 4 of 24 Adulticiding Trigger Policy. We could say if we are going to do this, we are going to do it totally data -driven. There has been some question as to the validity of those measures and the amount of sampling that it takes to get some decent estimates of infection rates in the mosquito population. There is one line of thought that says if we continue to fund larviciding; it is our best insurance against there being a big outbreak to which the only response is adulticiding. So from an air quality perspective, it is a preventative measure to do the larviciding. And unfortunately, to do larviciding you can't wait to see what the environmental and weather conditions are. You have to start very early and keep a sustained effort because you have to have stuff in there before the mosquitoes start hatching. So you can't wait to see what the year is going to be like; you have to commit to doing it or not doing it. Whereas with the adulticiding you can be much more reactive. So is it worth having the "insurance policy", making the investment of larviciding, to help reduce the risk of ever having to adulticide or do we think the risk is just so minor now that we don't even need to do larviciding? • McMaster: Just for clarification — the crux of this is that the reason for larviciding is to ward off the greater probability of having to adulticide. But the problem even with resorting to adulticiding-only is that it can be too late also. So there are no guarantees on that. That doesn't necessarily get around the fundamental question. • Vosburg: On the one hand there is this policy question of would the City ever engage in adulticiding? You could address that question independent of whether we are doing anything with larviciding. But I guess in reality there is an interrelationship. That's where we are at. • McMaster: Could you go back to when you put the offer together? When you mentioned that staff doesn't have a clear position one way or another on this issue, I assume you got together with Darin and somehow this came to be decided that this was going to be proposed as an offer — I'm curious how that thinking went? How did you take that position — was it "punting to Council"? • Vosburg: It was literally punting to Council. We figured if we put it in there it would get people talking and asking questions about whether we still needed to do it. • McMaster: Was that clear to Council? • Vosburg: I think so. I tried to make it pretty clear in the previous study session. I know Kurt Kastein, who is supporter of both the larviciding and the adulticiding, has said "Yes, I've supported this in the past but in light of other priorities I may not support it now". On the other hand, Kelly said "remember, this is proactive and can help keep populations down and preempt the need to spray". Ben pointed out that he understood that we are doing this for public health but he noticed the mosquito populations were lower and he enjoyed that. Literally, it was almost "flip a coin", so what we said is let's put this in the one-time category instead of trying to fit it in the budget. • McMaster: But then in two years this process repeats? • Vosburg: Yes. My hope would be if we keep doing this for any length of time we've got to peel off the time to have some discussion around "should this be a mosquito district of the County?". It's just that this was a really bad year to try to do any of that work because BFO things consumed everybody. Rightfully that's something that should have been done this summer. I think you have to go to the voters to approve piggybacking on the existing County Noxious Weed District geographic boundary — that would work well for the mosquito control. But in order for them to put it in their budget they would have to increase funding. One idea would be to say to the voters Air Quality Advisory Board 10/25/2005 Page 5 of 24 that if you want to do this, put it on the ballot. That takes focused staff work to get that together and we didn't do it. • York: In speaking with Eric, he mentioned that there were only two of the Culex mosquitoes found in the trap last year? • Vosburg: Well, two infected Culex mosquitoes. More infected ones were found this year. • York: He also mentioned it was anticipated that California would have a big breakout, which failed to materialize. Eric's position is that the graph shows a distinct decline and the fact that it will be $500,000 over 2 years makes him concerned that it is a bad program that we are going to perpetuate. I'm wondering too if it could be scaled back, for instance to continue to test and map, but from my perspective Air Quality Programs got hit badly and that is a health issue also. Especially this year when we are seeing $60 barrels of oil that is causing people to take the bus more, to ride their bikes more and to telecommunicate and Transportation Demand Management has been wiped out. • Vosburg: I agree; I think we've seen some very dramatic program reductions in key areas. That's one reason why I wouldn't be fazed if this committee recommends discontinuation of the program. Staff is not fighting for it by any means. • Macdonald: There must be some information about how effective this is and as to what would happen if we didn't do it. • Vosburg: We could pull some graphs out that show how the mosquito levels have dropped down per the trap data, and they would probably spring back up. • Macdonald: Does anybody have an idea of how long that would take? Would it recover within one year? • Vosburg: It would probably recover pretty instantaneously. The year 2003 was primo mosquito -breeding weather. We went from a very wet spring immediately to a very hot summer so it was perfect for an explosive growth in mosquitoes. It was also the same time the virus came to this area. Those factors combined for an extra effect. • Stanley: If the mosquitoes rebounded, we don't know how many of those would be infected? • Vosburg: Correct. That was perfect timing for high infection mostly because the bird population had no resistance and the mosquitoes picked it up from birds. • Macdonald: That's part of my question too: besides the effect on humans, what is the effect on the rest of the ecology? • Vosburg: The larvicide is amazing stuff. It is very species -specific and it is a biological control. It is a bacterium that was isolated from a sample of mud found in Israel in 1966. It upsets the digestion system of mosquito larvae and is very targeted. • Macdonald: The bird population is of some value to us. The other question I have is the cost of adulticiding vs. larviciding? If we don't spend on larviciding is it cheaper to go after the adulticiding? • Vosburg: Any mosquito control program these days say to start with larviciding and layer on additional things as necessary. Adulticiding is knocking them out of air and they just hatch again. So you keep repeating it. I think it cost the City $15,000 for a single application. If you're doing that every few weeks... The second year we spent an additional $30,000 over and above the regular contract so that we could spray a couple of times. If you try to control the whole City that way all season — that's crazy. • McMaster: I can see how it would easily exceed just larviciding. Air Quality Advisory Board 10/25/2005 Page 6 of 24 • Carrico: You answered one of my questions as far as if the risk is really diminished. The virus is out there and the first year, the birds were not resistant. Even if we had the perfect conditions for the virus and didn't use any larvicide, you would project that it wouldn't be as extreme of a human cost as 2003? • Vosburg: Correct. The bird population is either dead or resistant. • Carrico: It started on the eastern half of the country; have any communities who have been around it longer started to scale back their programs? • Vosburg: Back east, the experience was they had a spike and then it dropped to low levels, except for Pennsylvania. In Pennsylvania, their levels have not dropped, which is odd. The other thing is there is a real mixture about how mosquito control is viewed. In the Midwest like Michigan and Chicago, they spray every month. A lot of places have vigorous mosquito nuisance control programs. There aren't that many places that have adopted public -health -specific mosquito control; that's been something more out West. You wouldn't think of anywhere out West that would need to do it for nuisance control. The programs out West are more of a public health perspective. It's my understanding that Windsor and other smaller Northern Colorado towns are trying to continue it for a nuisance control benefit. I'm not sure about Boulder. I know that there is a Boulder Valley Mosquito Control Program that's been going for years that is larvicide -only. BFO has been so time consuming I really haven't focused much on West Nile. I'm sorry I can't quote what other programs are doing. • Dietrich: I have a question about Nancy's comment: she said "continuation of a bad program"; it is bad in terms of what? • York: There is a question about the ongoing need for the program because the results have been so good. There hasn't been a big assault, I should say. • Dietrich: So you don't think the larviciding application is bad? • York: Environmentally, no. I think the adulticiding is very bad. • Dietrich: The benefit of the spraying, in addition to West Nile and nuisance control, is that it's the best mosquito summer I've ever had. If the total is $200,000, then with the larvicide approach you wouldn't have a rough sell to the community. • Vosburg: No, it's just the price tag. • Stanley: What about that price tag? The Natural Areas money can't be freed up to be used for the air quality. That's coming out of the natural areas fund, so that would be used for natural areas. • Vosburg: Yes, we're framing it as land management. • Dietrich: So if there is no issue with this committee with larviciding, what is the issue? • Stanley: It's about can this money be used for other air quality programs? • Vosburg: And it would be just the General Fund money. The Stormwater/Utilities and Natural Areas money would not be included, so in total we are talking about an extra $124,000/yr of general fund money that could be used elsewhere. • McMaster: The fundamental problem is this is a health -safety issue and any time you would argue for reduction of efforts to control it and one person gets seriously ill, how do you equate that? There are three main components to what's being proposed in the budget: one is the education and outreach, which as it turns out is the most effective way of dealing with it and that always gets lost in the discussion; the other part is the database development so that we recognize the breeding areas, which Loveland has done a very good job in doing that; and both those components are a very small part of Air Quality Advisory Board 10/25/2005 Page 7 of 24 this proposed budget and all the rest comes with larviciding. When we first got hit in 2003 there was a public out -roar to address it and that was by far the most environmentally and health -conservative approach to dealing with it. At the same time, the numbers came down, especially in the case of serious cases and with a few exceptions, the pattern that we've seen since 2003 was seen almost universally across the country. The question is, at what point do we keep putting that amount of money into larviciding when even on a human health issue there is so many other areas that are lacking? Is that the best bang for the buck? • Dietrich: So then we would recommend to Council to put the money to other things rather than this? That really has nothing to do with air quality. • Stanley: Well... that deal with air quality. I think that is where it relates to air quality, because we would recommend particular air quality things. • Dietrich: I could give 50 examples of other programs to spend the money on, rather than this! • Smith: I wanted to share that when I talked to Eric, it was that issue that he brought up that seemed to link it to air quality — it was the discussion that you had about the budget last time and the issue that if you are going to recommend adding funding, what would you take away? I know you talked about that aspect of it quite a bit. I think he also wondered would it be possible to even evaluate the program and the need for larviciding, if not right now, at least before the 2007 budget? That might be one thing you could consider in terms of whatever you want to communicate to Council. • Macdonald: From a public health perspective, we are not making that kind of recommendation about whether this is good program. I think our focus on air quality is do we think that this might be a better program than adulticiding. From my perspective it's clear — there is just no comparison. If we are to look at it as the AQAB, then I think that the larviciding is vastly preferred to spraying and preferred to the idea that the cost - risk could get out of hand very quickly with adulticiding. • York: It could be that the money isn't being utilized efficiently. This budget, what has happened is that so many things have been cut that are important to the community, and unfortunately I've been going through the budget trying to figure out where less - important things could be cut. Given the last couple years, that there hasn't been an alarm and one of the very sad things is that people don't understand the health impact that vehicular emissions are causing. They are so subtle. It's like the frog being boiled in lukewarm water. That's how we are. Other than local studies to bring it home, I don't know how we are going to get the point across. But we know from other studies that there is an increase in mortality and a greater rate of heart attacks as a result of polluted air. • Macdonald: But we're not really talking about cars for this issue. • York: But what I'm talking about is if this is the best way to spend $500,000 or would we get more health protection if we were to fund Transportation Demand Management or work on efforts to reduce vehicular emissions? • Macdonald: I don't think that's the question we're being asked. The question we're being asked has to do with air quality. • Stanley: To be honest, we haven't been asked any question. • Macdonald: We're being asked whether we support this program. • Stanley: Well, this was brought by Eric. Air Quality Advisory Board 10/25/2005 Page 8 of 24 • Macdonald: The agenda says "possible recommendation". • Stanley: Right, but we're not being asked by Council. They didn't initiate this. • Macdonald: Oh! • Smith: That is an important clarification. • Stanley: This was brought by Eric because of his reading of the budget and saying this is not a program that I think we need and here is a place that we can cut and we said restore funding for certain things so we could give them a specific place where they can get the funds to restore whatever it happens to be that was on this budget memo that went to Council. • York: Eric's decision was also based on going into the data that's in the past. He is the one that pulled this graph up. I personally think I would like to see that money used for Transportation Demand Management. • Vosburg: Did Eric do a draft of specific recommendation language? • Stanley: No. • McMaster: I think verbally he would say to keep the education/outreach and the database component going. And based on what you said tonight, he would add to get rid of the loopholes in the Adulticiding Trigger Criteria. • Stanley: But you know, I think that's another discussion. • Macdonald: Well you know if Eric has point to make, he should be here to make it. • Stanley: Yes. He had a work conflict and to be perfectly honest we talked for just a few minutes on the phone because I had to run off to a meeting. I don't have a whole lot — he put together the agenda — and I'm giving you everything I know. • York: Greg said it exactly. Nancy York made the following recommendation: I move that we recommend that Council keep the education/outreach and the database components and utilize the remainder of the funds for another air-oualitv-health program. The motion was seconded by Greg McMaster. • Carrico: Maybe there is another alternative because it is a two year outlook; if we don't have the information to judge whether the larviciding should be continued indefinitely, or for whatever timeframe, is there potentially a way to continue it for next year and try to gather the data to determine if it is an effective program and make a decision for 2007? • York: Would we get more data than from the last couple of years? Would we learn more if we do it another year than what we already have? • Macdonald: Are we having discussion now? You raised two issues and that is to use the money for education/outreach for transportation? • York: No it's education and outreach with mosquito control and West Nile virus. • Dietrich: Is that in this budget already? • Stanley: But that is not part of this $250,000? • Vosburg: It is. It is one of the three components. • Stanley: OK. So what actually becomes `spendable', non -dedicated money? Like non - Natural Areas money. • Vosburg: There is $124,000 of general fund money. Air Quality Advisory Board 10/25/2005 Page 9 of 24 • Stanley: OK. So some of that is going to outreach and some to the database part, what is left over? • Vosburg: I would say approximately 75% of the program budget is the larvicide. It is fairly labor intensive. • Stanley: So maybe about $93,000 is larviciding. • York: If the larvicide program was discontinued and just the other two components were in place, how would that affect the money that is coming from Natural Areas and Utilities? • Vosburg: I'm not sure. We're prorating -out based on land area and some other factors about the costs to physically go out to the physical sites to do the larviciding on Natural Areas and Stormwater/Utilities stuff. We just prorate and consider the information systems and outreach as overhead which is divvied up in the same shares. I don't know whether we would say that if you are not physically going out and touching land or stormwater sewers whether or not you would still prorate outreach and education costs to Natural Areas and Stormwater/Utilities. Probably not — we would probably look at that as strictly general fund. That would be a decision by the City Manager and I can't say on the spot how they would handle that. • York: Well they would still be involved in education. • Vosburg: Right now, we do some of the education ourselves, County does some and then the Colorado Mosquito Control staff does a lot of education just by answering the phones and doing presentations. I suppose we could still pay for them to answer the phones and respond to citizen's questions about mosquitoes and test and map the sites. But the way they map is they are constantly out there doing larviciding and they discover new sites. My sense is that if we weren't going to actually do larvae control ourselves we would look to the County or State to maintain a few sentinel traps, but nowhere near how many we have now. We have more traps here in Fort Collins than in the entire State of Nebraska, in terms of density. We were trying to get a really detailed sense of what's going on by neighborhood so that we could zero -in on hot spots. • York: Tom, do you think the money could be better spent? • Vosburg: It's such a difficult thing to say what is better? I could say, heck give it to me to do IT systems. I could certainly use $250,000/yr to do some cool IT systems! Would I love to see some of the cuts in transportation and TDM restored? Absolutely. • Dietrich: The other thing you said Tom is that just because it is $250,000 now, doesn't mean we will have $250,000 if it is cut. So we don't know the details of that. The other thing that we haven't done is to look at the entire budget of the City of Fort Collins and prioritize this against other kinds of adjustments. Like I said, I bet we could find higher -priority things to cut; I don't know if we could or not. We don't know enough details to really evaluate this. And just two years data — especially when I know that data are not good data in terms of the health issues. This is what the County reports, but in the first year there was a hell of a lot more people that had West Nile Virus than what is on this chart. By the way, one woman in our office who is permanently disabled from West Nile virus still does not fall on this chart because it took them eight months to figure out it was West Nile virus. Two years of data is nothing. West Nile is still spreading throughout the country and we have very little data on it. Just that one case — this $250,000 wouldn't even begin to pay for her lifetime health benefits. I think we are gathering information and doing this community a service by larviciding. Air Quality Advisory Board 10/25/2005 Page 10 of 24 • York: Do you think we should ask them to revaluate for 2007? • Dietrich: I think it should be looked at every year. There will come a time when we don't need it anymore. • McMaster: That's unlikely though, is the problem. There very easily could be a case or two in the County and then it really comes down to the tragedy of one person getting it — that is the dilemma. But you could even make easy extrapolations with the flu; the flu kills... I mean there are so many things you could put in to it... • Dietrich: There could be other medical advances too. You may not need it three years from now because there will be a vaccine or cure. • McMaster: The problem is that there are so many things that confound this. I think at the very least maybe we say instead of putting it in to the two-year budget and assume we're doing it for both years, just do it for another year and get more data. • York: So the budget is a two-year budget. Is there a possibility that they will reevaluate for 2007? • Vosburg: Oh yes, there will definitely be a 2007 exceptions process. So it is a two-year budget but they will be making adjustments; particularly with this budget cycle. • Stanley: We should vote on your motion. • Macdonald: Could we restate the motion? The motion was repeated. • York: Maybe we could amend that to say Transportation Demand Management. • Skelton: Instead of "other air -quality -health programs"? • York: Yes. No, nevermind. Leave it as -is. • McMaster: Could I offer a friendly amendment that at the least we would like the program evaluated each year? • Stanley: I think we need to come back to that. We need to vote on this and come back to that as a second motion. • McMaster: OK, I see. • Stanley: I have to say that I'm torn on this. I'm a data -driven person, but I may not have enough data to say that larvicide should be cut off because if we were to just get a couple of cases next year I'm afraid that will put the County and the City into the spray mode. To me, that is much worse and we have much higher consequences there than with the TDM program cuts. I agree that maybe we could use that money in a better way, but there are also some other things that I would like to see done that's not air quality —just like Dave said. • Macdonald: I just want to say that you really emphasized my point there — that there is a future to look at and this could end up costing a lot more. The City of New Orleans used to not think about its dikes — we make very short-term decisions on something that could explode to a major issue and we need to keep that in perspective. • York: Right but we can always go "if, if, if...". The United States has a low West Nile situation. • Stanley: I'd like to find out more about that. I don't know why that is. I'm not sure anyone knows but I do know it has kicked back up in some places. I'd like to see it reevaluated next year. Air Quality Advisory Board 10/25/2005 Page 11 of 24 • McMaster: I would like to make one comment. The West Nile Task Force did look extensively into this subject and there is a lot more information and also a lot of unknowns. There is a lot more reasoning that can go into supporting this and if you have to make a call one way or another, there are a number of scientific reasons that could be used to justify not spending on larviciding given these other tradeoffs. But it is a gamble though. • Dietrich: Is the West Nile Task Force still meeting? • McMaster: Not really. • Stanley: They should get back together and study this. I would feel much more comfortable making a recommendation to Council if I had those data and I knew there were scientists on that panel who were saying we shouldn't larvicide anymore. I don't feel comfortable saying that myself because I don't have enough information. The motion failed to pass with a vote of 2-4-1 (Nay: Dietrich, Stanley, Macdonald, Carrico; Abstain: Trine) • Stanley: We should look into reevaluating this in one year's time and possibly reconvening the Task Force to gather more information. • Macdonald: So do we make a countermotion then and vote on that as to supporting the funding of larviciding for this year and reevaluating this on an annual basis? • York: I wouldn't think we would. • Stanley: That's up to you folks. • Vosburg: You also have the option of remaining neutral and not saying anything. • Macdonald: My point is from an air quality perspective, which is what we're charged with, the larviciding issue is so much less burdensome than adulticiding. That there is a clear distinction that I prefer larviciding. • York: The money is for larviciding and it doesn't mention the adulticiding. • McMaster: But it is to ward off the adulticiding. To me, the other connection back to this issue on the AQAB is they were one of the sponsors of this West Nile Task Force in addition to the NRAB. We're just coming back from that standpoint and evaluating what was proposed. From that Task Force and other things, we would like to see other cuts that have happened to air quality issues be reconsidered. • Stanley: We will entertain any motions... Greg McMaster made the_following motion: I motion that we recommend that the program be reevaluated thoroughly before implementing it in the 2007 budget and the West Nile Task Force is reconvened to help address that issue. The motion was seconded by Bruce Macdonald. • Vosburg: So you recommend to Council to reconvene the West Nile Task Force in order to reevaluate the program prior to the 2007 budget exceptions process. • Stanley: Does anybody want to discuss this? • Carrico: I was going to bring up — do we need to do it this meeting since Eric was the one who spurred the whole investigation; does it make sense to wait till next meeting? • Stanley: The budget is passed on what date? Air Quality Advisory Board 10/25/2005 Page 12 of 24 • Vosburg: November 7`h. • Stanley: So it's now or never. The motion passed unanimously. • Stanley: If we were to vote that we want money used somewhere else, for example Transportation Demand Management, there is a very small chance that it would be used there. This money would be used somewhere else and it could be something that I wouldn't feel good about or was not a priority for me. I don't want to give them a reason to not spend it there and put it in programs that possibly have nothing to do with air quality. • McMaster: How about making a motion of we just urge Council to carefully evaluate even the 2006 budget in light of tradeoffs. I don't think that they have specifically addressed it. • Stanley: In light of tradeoffs as far as air quality? • McMaster: Just in terms of spending money. • Stanley: Let me tell you they are specifically addressing it. Tonight on TV you'll see a lot of fighting it out! • McMaster: OK. • Stanley: I do think they are taking it very seriously in terms of looking at the tradeoffs. • Smith: You can also get a sense of that if you look on the City's website and look at the Council Agenda Item Summary for this study session — there are several different points identified with questions asked and responses embedded and then the City Manager's recommendation and issues they have brought up before — it's actually a good way to get a sense of issues they are going to talk over. Ozone Season Summary Lucinda Smith provided the board with an update of current ozone issues, a summary of this summer's ozone levels and discussed the state and local control programs. • Stanley (re: Ozone Alerts): So one alert is one day? You can't get two alerts on one day, right? • Smith: Correct. The alerts actually run from 4:00 PM on the first day to 4:00 PM on the next day. Ozone is typically highest in the midday. • McMaster (re: Gas Cap Replacement Program): How do you test for gas cap failure? • Smith: It's really simple. You remove the gas cap and depending on the type of gas cap there are adapters for the device, but you screw on the gas cap to the adapter and give it two pumps to apply pressure and push a button. It puts a vacuum on the gas cap and it measures whether the cap can hold that vacuum pressure or not. It will show Pass or Fail according to the EPA standards. It's fairly foolproof for the tester. • McMaster: But if the cap itself is faulty, and the seal, how would you catch that? • Smith: Well we only test the cap. It's the cap that you screw in to the testing device. • McMaster: Oh, OK. I got it. • Smith: Dave Dietrich forwarded an interesting article to me talking about bias that some types of ozone monitors can introduce under certain weather conditions. The old type of monitors used to be a chemiluminescent technology. There is a newer type now that has the bias. The EPA knows about it and it beginning to look into it but this article documents it in more detail. Dave was pointing out that if anything it leads Air Quality Advisory Board 10/25/2005 Page 13 of24 society to be more conservative. If it overestimates ozone that would mean that we implement control measures that we might not have needed but that is better that going the other way. Can you add anything? • Dietrich: Well except the cost is substantial and you put in a lot of unnecessary actions. The analyzers that are in question are the ones used by everyone. The maximum level of error was 35 ppb, but 20 ppb is not unusual. • Trine: What causes the bias? • Dietrich: They are looking into it. It is caused by interference with certain types of VOCs or mercury. The instrument thinks it sees ozone, but it is not ozone. The bias is in the data. They are still investigating all this. Forest fires can trigger it. • Smith: Were there fires in 2002? 1 thought 2002 was the major fire year. • Dietrich: They threw out some data in 2002 because of this. Other cities are involved in this. These studies were generally out of the Northeast. The numbers are only a couple of ppb different. • Macdonald: That's enough when you are at the threshold. • Dietrich: It is. • Trine: There is something that is causing the bias, so it depends on the area as well? • Dietrich: It does, it depends on moisture conditions. Hot/humid conditions tend to cause more bias. But locally, if you had an analyzer sitting in this room and you painted to room or dropped a mercury thermometer it would go off, but that is not ozone. They think forest fires could be releasing mercury. The article goes into detail about the different compounds. • Trine: I thought it was interesting that Greeley was so high — it that because of the gas flares? • Smith: I think that is a good reason why. They have a much higher concentration and density of the natural gas wells closer to the monitor than we do. • Dietrich: It's also down the river. If you have VOCs released in Denver they cook as they go down the river. • Macdonald: They sit downwind of the Denver brown cloud. • Dietrich: The longer that stuff cooks the more it turns to ozone. • Stanley: Were the flash emissions controls instituted by this summer? • Smith: Yes, 37.5%. • Stanley: But there were still quite a few problems with ozone. Is that discouraging? 37.5% seems like a pretty big reduction. • Smith: Well, you'll notice that they didn't require 100% reduction. I think that they found a level of reduction that according to the models would bring the area into compliance by 2007. I'm inclined to think that it is working and I would think that if you reduce them more still you would see lower ozone levels still. • Stanley: So is 47.5% the max? • Smith: Yes, that would be the goal for next summer and they have to have the technology in place by the end of this year but since the main ozone season is the summer that is when we are going to see it. • Macdonald: It's a fairly complicated program. If you are big producer, then you are in for all units that are above a certain size and you have to come up with a reduction plan. Plus, they do another program too, which is leak detection and repair. That's a big source that we don't know much about and they are required to repair those. Air Quality Advisory Board 10/25/2005 Page 14 of 24 • Trine: Do you think spraying pesticides might also increase readings? Possibly? • Macdonald: How many tons of pesticides do they spray every year? • Trine: I don't know. I'm thinking of home use too. They are volatile organic chemicals. • Smith: I could look back at the VOC emissions inventory and see for the region what percentage pesticides were. I'm not thinking it's a large percentage. • Trine: I'm wondering too if HP workers are richer and have newer cars. • Smith: I actually wondered that as well. There might be some bias because it was a select group. • Dietrich: It was still a high number of failures. • Macdonald: If you went to Walmart, you'd see something different. • Smith: And in Denver, they covered a much broader area. • Macdonald: HP employees are paid higher -than -average salaries. • Smith: Brian Woodruff had some interesting ideas about doing something at the Larimer County Events Center. When people drove in for a show we could hand them a permission slip that they could put in their windshield. While they are in the performance we could walk around that giant parking lot. There are a lot of other things we could do. • York: You could also drop off a few caps at gas stations. I've driven off without my gas cap a few times. • Smith: I remember there were at least three cars that did not have a gas cap — so they truly failed! • McMaster: Was the maximum bias 2 to 3 ppb and we are at 80 ppb? • Dietrich: The maximum bias that they found was in the 30s. • Smith: It was as much as 20-40 ppb bias. That's a lot. • McMaster: That's what I'm trying to get a handle on. 2006 AQAB Workplan The board discussed the workplan for the upcoming year. • Stanley: We can look at our old work plan and decide what we want to take off, what we've done, what we need to keep in and what we should add on. So the discussion is open. => Assist in development of Mobility Index o Stanley: I was looking at the miscellaneous issues side and the "Assist in development of Mobility Index" — that's off the table right now, that's not in the budget and it doesn't sound like that's going to happen at all. => Wood Smoke o Stanley: The next one is about the wood smoke committee but I've never been contacted. o York: That's one of those things that is going up. Even environmentally - conscious people are talking about getting wood stoves and fireplaces. o Stanley: We need to have that meeting. I can call folks. I'm on it and Nancy, Eric and Cherie are on it. Anybody is welcome. o Carrico: Put me on the list. o Stanley: OK, great! o Smith: Eric said he would like wood smoke on the agenda in November. Air Quality Advisory Board 10/25/2005 Page 15 of 24 => Public Health Advisory Board o Smith: The Public Health Advisory Board was discussed in February and April and I think that is just on -hold right now. => Continue to investigate and evaluate health impacts of poor air quality and encourage programs that protect public health in Fort Collins o Smith: I guess that your discussions about the CWD research facility and West Nile Virus relate to that. Would you agree? You discussed CWD in June and July. => West Nile recommendation o Smith: The recommendation for mosquito control was made last year. There was not a recommendation for WNV this year. => Marketing plan o Smith: In February I believe you had an Air Quality Survey Summary by Melissa and there was a discussion in May and Melissa was also here in September to talk about the "Track to Win" campaign. You discussed the radon program in April and Brian does plan to provide information maybe just in the form of a memo of how things are going once they begin the testing program. That will begin very soon; the grant is in, Robin's hired and it's just a matter of getting out there and doing it. Ensuring Enforcement of Air Quality Municipal Codes o Smith: Nothing has been done on that yet. Last year the way that was handled — it may not have been satisfactory to the board — but I put together a memo summarizing how the air -quality -related codes were being enforced. Action Plan for Sustainability o Smith: Margit came in January and until recently there has been no work on. I can say that a large group of City employees met a few weeks ago to begin discussing it and this effort is rolling again. In January I would be able to report to you on exactly what actions in the plan will be implemented. o York: Did I read somewhere, maybe in our minutes, that there were no funds for it? o Smith: The Action Plan for Sustainability, which focuses only on municipal operations, was put in round one of the BFO process as a separate offer by itself with a .5 FTE and that was not funded. So, we included parts of it in the Air Quality offer and that's why it would very much potentially relate to your workplan next year. Our Air Quality offer says to implement some key targets within the Action Plan for Sustainability. It was our hope that that would provide enough of a springboard to not only implement a few actions, but to keep the whole thing going and moving forward; which appears to be happening. I want to say again that the City Manager is really in support of seeing Fort Collins be a leader in sustainability and supporting that effort as much a possible. Emissions Reductions o Smith: The Greenhouse Gas Plan was in March, and Kathy and Sandy came and talked about ClimateWise. And in August I think I came in and provided an update on the Climate Plan. We are just about to release the final plan with a press release. Continue Working on Appropriate Emissions Testing Programs Air Quality Advisory Board 10/25/2005 Page 16 of 24 o Smith: You talked about that in January, February, April, May and several times since then that I haven't documented. o Stanley: When does the High Emitter program start? o Smith: For the High Emitter Pilot, the background planning will start next month but we won't actually begin soliciting cars for repair until about April of next year. It will be a very short window; it will be April through July that we're actually seeking cars to repair. => Alternative Fuels o Smith: Next month we have scheduled a presentation by Tracy Ochsner of the Fleets program and Gary Schroeder of the Utilities program to talk about the hydrogen program. You'll have a chance to hear more details about that. => Ozone Precursor Reductions o Smith: We talked about that in May and October. => Anti -idling Campaign o Smith: Melissa came in February and when she talked about the marketing campaign she also talked about the anti -idling concept, which really has evolved into this "Track -to -Win" campaign for this year. => Price Mechanisms o Smith: Brian came and talked to you in June. => Toxic Emissions in Fort Collins o Smith: That was actually taken off of my workplan for this year. I know that the board is interested in this and that I haven't been able to bring something forward to you. Continue Working on VMT Reduction o Smith: You might have addressed that through the budget; I can't right off the top of my head think of any other specific ways, but Linda Dowlen was here last month. Additional Items o In addition, you also provided some recommendations on the budget back in March, just conceptual recommendations, and you provided some input on the board consolidation issue too. Those things came up that weren't on your workplan. That's a summary of work -to -date. • Macdonald: Last time we talked things such as the CSU funding. • Stanley: Is that something that you'd want to have on next year's workplan to at least check back in about that? Or evaluate it? Macdonald: I'm not sure. • York: I would like us to attempt ourselves to find the market costs of transportation. Like what we wanted in the budget? But maybe we could do it as a committee? • Stanley: And what would you do with that number? Is it to communicate it to the general public? • York: Since that's not our function, we could communicate it to Council. • Smith: You're within bylaws — it includes "to promote citizen participation and public education on citywide air quality issues." It's just having the resources to do it... • York: I think that would be great. I think it would be a way to move them towards an initiative. For instance, for TransFort, the Central Parkway or Mason Street Corridor, whatever that is. Au Quality Advisory Board 10/25/2005 Page 18 of 24 • York: Long time. I used to harp about it. But now it doesn't do anything. • Smith: Truthfully, you brought up this issue before, and that was a different issue, but it prompted me to learn about what was going on with the data then. This is a different thing now: why isn't the data being reported? I'll start out by asking Brian and the Coloradoan if there could be any problem with their computers on either end. • Dietrich: Maybe during the transition... • Smith: Yes, we moved recently. • York: It's been going on long before that. It's been going on for months. • Stanley: Lucinda, I see that you have written some things down? • Smith: I wrote down some suggestions from our offer. Next year we'll have the results from the VMT best practices study. This was the outcome of the Council changing the policy. It no longer says "reduce VMT growth rate to population growth rate", it says "strives to meet or exceed VMT reductions of peer cities". So you, the board, said how are we going to know this? We thought we'll have to look and see what other peer cities are doing. We have $20,000 and we're just about to hire a consultant that is a combination of Todd Littman from the Victoria Transport Policy Institute and the Brendle Group, which is a local pollution prevention consulting firm, to do this study and the results will be ready in March of next year. Similarly, the radon study looking at the effectiveness of radon testing in mitigated homes will be available mid -year next year. There could definitely be some board action related to whatever the results are. There will be the High Emitter pilot project that we'll be using to test the use of remote sensing to identify high emitters and our ability to do a whole program and that will be completed by September. In the fall there will be information on that and it relates to any potential future emissions testing program here. ClimateWise and the Local Action Plan to Reduce Greenhouse Gases is something that always has been on your workplan and work is going to continue here on that definitely. We added into the Air Quality offer some work on sustainability. I think there are air quality aspects of sustainability and that would be an option to consider. We also added into our Air Quality offer — since we were asked to cut way down on the diesel work — support for green building and sustainable design within the community. It does not mean that we are going to come forward with a green building certification program. But it does mean that we'll pull together a stakeholder group and we'll try to work with others who are already working to increase consumer awareness and just "ramp up" sustainable design and green building. Those are some things that may not be on your workplan so far. • Stanley: Should we go through these bullets piece -by -piece and also talk about other possibilities? Just to see if they stay, change, whatever? • Macdonald: So our purpose here is to just lay out the workplan for next year? • McMaster: At least a draft. • Stanley: I think we'll have to continue next month, right? • Smith: Right, but the reason Eric wanted you to begin talking about it tonight is that next month if there is wood smoke and the alternative fuels presentation, there won't be a lot of time next month and it's due to the Clerk on November 301h which is right after your meeting. • Stanley: OK, we can all make a draft and we can send it out. => Continue to encourage and evaluate existing programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and support the local action plan Air Quality Advisory Board 10/25/2005 Page 19 of 24 o Stanley: That's the ClimateWise, etc. We'll keep that in? o All: Yes. => Continue working on an appropriate emissions testing program that cost-effectively identifies and repairs high -emitting vehicles o Stanley: I assume that's in but the wording could change there a little bit because you would be evaluating the high emitter program. o Dietrich: So evaluate the results of the high emitter project? o Smith Yes. Continue to encourage the City to purchase alternative fuels, low emissions vehicles for the City, as well as TransFort buses; encourage clean fuels citywide o Stanley: Just keep it in? o All: Yes => Ozone o Stanley: I assume the ozone one stays in? o All: Yes. => Anti -idling Campaign o Stanley: I assume that we want to evaluate it, at least in light of the results of the "Track to Win" campaign? o MacDonald: In general I think we should evaluate the results of that study. Explore price mechanisms to reduce VMT and single -occupancy trips o Stanley: That's not in the City budget. I do like your idea about looking at the actual costs of roads. o Dietrich: So how do you want to say that? o Macdonald: So we're making people aware of the actual costs? Is that correct? o York: Yes. o Stanley: Or at least beginning to calculate those. I assume that we can get some economic calculations — I'm sure they're out there — of actual costs, but I think we would then have to spend some time talking about how we want to use that data. o MacDonald: I think you can word it like that in the draft. o York: It's public information and education. Toxic Emissions o Stanley: You guys don't have staff time, really. o Smith: We have a little bit. There is something in our plan that says to "partner with Northern Colorado Clean Cities to reduce diesel emissions", so it's focused on diesel and not just broadly air toxins. So we have a little bit of funding and staff time. o Stanley: It's been something I'd like to see. o Macdonald: Toxic emissions also includes some of the semiconductor work that being conducted at HP. o Stanley: We'll keep it in. Vehicular Miles Traveled o Stanley: Because it sounds like there will be a best practices study we can evaluate that and make recommendations. I'll word that. • Stanley: Those were all emissions reduction issues. Are there other emission reduction issues? • McMaster: I think this is all good stuff. Bruce brought up the item of TransFort and CSU — I look back and after last month's meeting we learned about cuts and even Air Quality Advisory Board 10/25/2005 Page 20 of 24 though there are other boards involved, I think we have to figure out what to do with our TransFort system and alternative modes. I would argue that TransFort has now become a non -vital system and that's as big an issue as anything for this board to address • Stanley: Ok. I'll put it in as a bullet. That's something that we've looked at before. • York: The way TransFort is being treated in the budget is absolutely abominable. They got rid of the top guy, although he's around for consultations. They knocked off two routes that they were going to expand to that would only cost — one down Prospect and one on East Harmony — and almost assured Federal funding, that would have cost them on the budget only $182,000. They declassified the bus drivers. I think they should declassify the Lead Team. Put that in! • MacDonald: They declassified the drivers? • York: To an hourly wage, with lower benefits. • Stanley: OK, so that will go into our workplan. • Macdonald: I think we need to have a broad review of TransFort. • Stanley: We might want to spend a whole meeting on it. It's a pretty important piece and it's a lot of budget. • York: Some of that can happen in the exposing the cost of transportation. Maybe we could say something about effectiveness too. • Stanley: In terms of the green building, it's probably not an emissions reduction issue, but I could put it under miscellaneous. It needs to go in there somewhere. • York: It could be under the greenhouse gases bullet. • Stanley: That's true. One thing that has begun is the new Energy Code, so that may come together with this green building and sustainable design. I'd like to see what the results are of that new energy code. • Smith: I'm trying to think whether an evaluation is planned for it; I'm not sure but I will find out. • Stanley: OK. Well we can put it on the workplan and see what we have. • Smith: And by the way, Council gets a draft of your workplan and reviews it and gives comments back or says OK. • Stanley: Are there any other emissions reduction issue topics? • York: We mentioned TransFort, but what about the commuter pool and the carpooling? It would be at least interesting to track what that increase is. In today's Coloradoan they talked about the increase in computer telecommuting. • Dietrich: We could certainly get an update on that. • Smith: So, alternative modes? • Stanley: Alternatives modes and things like carpooling. • Smith: OK, and TDM. • Stanley: And probably an update on the TDM program and its impact on these things besides just what's happening with these particular things. • Smith: And that might relate to the budget's 2007 exceptions process. • York: Is that separate from TransFort? • Stanley: Yes. • York: Good. • Stanley: And of course, I can put together a draft of this, but we have a month so keep thinking of other things too. Air Quality Advisory Board 10/25/2005 Page 21 of 24 • York: In today's paper they talked about the kickoff to the bicycle and pedestrian on Mason Street. We should keep our fingers on the pulse of that. Mobility Index o Stanley: That's off. => Woodsmoke emissions o Stanley: We're keeping that. => Public Health Advisory Board o Stanley: On or off? o Trine: It doesn't look like it's going anywhere, does it? o York: I think we need to do more to reveal the health effects of our transportation. o Macdonald: If I might, on this one it seems like it is backwards. If we had a Public Health Advisory Board would we be helping them with air quality issues? o Stanley: We were hoping that they would provide input to us and to the City Council. We don't really have the public health know-how. So that was our feeling at the time. o Trine: That just gets ignored. o Stanley: My feeling is it goes on the backburner right now because I just don't think it has a snowball's chance in hell of getting anywhere. o Dietrich: The next bullet covers it. o Stanley: Ok, and the next bullet, we leave it, right? � Mosquito Control o Stanley: That gets replaced with that we're going to evaluate the WNV program and make a recommend for the 2007 budget review. Air Quality Marketing Plan o Stanley: I assume that we'll still look at that. Radon program o Stanley: That will be reworded that we're going to evaluate and look at results. o Trine: Isn't it though that you're seeing that it's working by testing it? o Stanley: Yes. So we'll have those results to look at. � Air Quality Municipal Codes o Stanley: We can always see if we want to deal with it differently than we have. o Macdonald: Has somebody made a review of the codes to see if there are all these holes? o Smith: I have to say that it is a little time consuming for me even to put together a very basic memo. And last time I just did that so that the board could say that you've done something with it. That's not on staff's workplan. I think that there was an expectation that the smoking ban was supposed to be evaluated for Council at some point and I can check and see if there is something there. I think the background is that we have these codes on the books, but they are not always being enforced. And that's true. Smoking vehicles is one example. o Stanley: To me it sounds like those are just individual things that we need to deal with as opposed to taking this as one big chunk and making Lucinda write a memo on all the code. Like smoking vehicles — we need to deal with that individually and say how we're going to fix it. o Macdonald: As opposed to going through the code and searching for... o Stanley: Yeah, did we do it or didn't we do it... o Macdonald: I think the way this is worded, it is a monstrosity. Air Quality Advisory Board 10/25/2005 Page 22 of 24 o Stanley: Well and Lucinda gets to do it. o Smith: And I can't do it to the extent that it would be really meaningful. o Stanley: I think we need to identify certain specific ones that we want to deal with then. o York: The smoking vehicles should go on. o Macdonald: I believe that we had that somewhere. o Stanley: Ok. We can ask for an update and evaluation and whether it's working. That can be its own bullet. o York: There's things like radon, that's an ordinance, the no smoking ordinance, the energy conservation code... o Stanley: Let's just take it out and if you guys have some specifics... because we have the smoking in there, we have radon, we have smoking vehicles now... o York: What does it harm leaving it in? o Stanley: Because Lucinda has to go through the code and the take time... o Smith: You can put in whatever you want — it's your workplan. But it's sort of a problem if its mismatch between the staffs workplan in that I don't have a lot of time to do justice to this — to really uncover the root problems and the extent to which they are or aren't being enforced. o Stanley: It's like we're asking you to go identify where there is problems instead of identifying specific issues that we're interested in. o Trine: Why don't we just reword it to "identify specific air -quality -related municipal codes that are being adequately enforced."? o Stanley: Where we are doing more of the work? o Trine: And then if we identify some ... well, we already did. o Stanley: And those are specifically going in to workplan. o York: I guess it's all right; we can take it out. o Macdonald: Frankly, I think it's too broad. o Stanley: I'll make sure that we get those things in the draft that we want to look at. So be sure to email me with municipal codes you want looked at. o York: Are we taking it out? o Stanley: Yes. We're taking the entire bullet out, and just putting in the specific things we want to look at as separate bullets. o York: Oh, OK. Sustainability Action Plan o Stanley: That stays in there. Green Building and Sustainable Design and Energy Conservation Code o Stanley: Those all go under other miscellaneous issues. • Stanley: Are there other miscellaneous issues? • Carrico: Would it be worth talking to someone in Utilities or Excel Energy about incentive programs they have going on for green building? Maybe Doug Swartz. • Stanley: We had him come in once and do that for us. It was actually quite interesting. There might be updates. I think that would be very worthwhile. • Trine: What about Chronic Wasting Disease? • Stanley: Right, we might want to check in on that. We made a recommendation on that. Air Quality Advisory Board 10/25/2005 Page 23 of 24 • Smith: You also have to remember that you have 12 meetings, and usually 2 big items per meeting is about it. And we don't know that some things might come along that we didn't plan for. • Macdonald: Maybe then we should clarify the status of these comments. Are these things we will think about for some of our meetings, and may bring it up or do we have a commitment to study any one of them? • Stanley: I don't think so. And I think some of it, like CWD, we might just ask for a quick update. • York: Would that not be taken into consideration with the "continue to investigate and evaluate health impacts?" • Smith: It could be, as an example. • Stanley: But you know; I like to put in real specifics. I know when I made the agenda this actually gave me something to work off of for planning. • Macdonald: One other thing to consider would be that peer city study. • Stanley: Yes, the VMT Best Practices study. • York: I wish that we could work out a coalition with the health department or maybe CSU around the health impacts. • Stanley: Well maybe under that "continue to investigate and evaluate" I could add something about exploring partnerships or other avenues to get that information to us. • Trine: They have access to all those medical studies that we don't have access to. It would be nice to have them help us. • York: How about something about study evaluations or something. There needs to be a study along I-25 on the impacts that are happening, like the Water Glenn housing. All along 1-25 they're building residences. • Stanley: Ok. So that's under the investigating and evaluating health impacts of poor air quality and we need to remember to get Eric to put it on the agenda. I'll put the responsibility on Nancy. • Carrico: To do a study like that — we're talking a multi -million dollar evaluation. • York: Didn't we talk about the boy scouts or elementary or junior -high kids doing something like that? They use a piece of equipment to test ambient air. • Smith: I think you're thinking of our nonfunctioning portable monitor that is available for checkout to high school classrooms. We need to get that repaired. • York: Yes, that's it. • Smith: That's small and more for criteria pollutants and not air toxins. Update on the Multi -Jurisdictional I/M Committee Lucinda Smith provided the board with an update on the current events of the Multi - jurisdictional IIM Committee. • Smith: The only thing that has changed since we last talked is there is now a table with specific recommended actions for follow-up. But conceptually, things have not changed. We're still going to partner with the Pike's Peak MPO to coordinate ozone outreach. We have a plan to investigate further this issue of stage 1 vapor recovery. We're not recommending as a committee any statewide mandatory program, but that doesn't prevent any local communities from doing one. We'll also be working jointly to seek lower revapor pressure fuel in the outlying areas and this regional group that will meet on ozone outreach could be fairly competitive to compete for grant dollars Air Quality Advisory Board 1 /20/2005 Page 24 of 24 and that would help some of the other communities like Greeley or Loveland who actually don't have budgets for ozone outreach to do more outreach to their communities if we have the same message and we could put in a grant together. We're looking at an expanded smoking vehicle hotline, which isn't increased enforcement, it's just increased public awareness and sending of letters and using one toll -free number and hopefully encouraging other communities to promote this as well. Those are the recommendations and we'll be presenting those. • Stanley: Is this a draft? • Smith: It is still a draft. Thursday is the last day for us to get comments to the lead author who is Rich Muzzy of the Pikes Peak Area Council of Governments. It has to go in commission's packet on the 28`' which is this Friday. If you have comments... • York: I have two. One about the OBS: general public education, so that people understand, because right now people ignore their light. I don't know how concerned people should be and what the consequences are. And the other was on the anti -idling program. One of my thoughts for public outreach is to hit the childcare centers. People with little children warm their damn cars up. • Stanley: I wonder if you could work with the mechanics about the education for OBD? • Smith: We have done that in Fort Collins. We used a grant and developed a flyer for the public for OBD and sent them to the repair shops. Whether it got out there, I don't know. Could make that available to other communities. That's zero cost. Agenda Planning • The Nov 22"a meeting was moved to Nov 15`h • The Dec 27`h meeting was moved to Dec 20'h Meeting adjourned 8:05 PM Submitted by Liz Skelton Administrative Secretary I Approved by the Board on December 20, 2005 Signed 2 Liz Sk ]t Administrative Secretary I Extension: 6600 12/20/05 Date