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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAir Quality Advisory Board - Minutes - 09/18/2017Page 1 MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS AIR QUALITY ADVISORY BOARD Date: Monday, September 18, 2017 Location: Colorado River Room, 222 Laporte Ave. Time: 5:30–8:00pm For Reference Mark Houdashelt, Chair Ross Cunniff, Council Liaison 970-420-7398 Cassie Archuleta, Staff Liaison 970-416-2648 Board Members Present Board Members Absent Jim Dennison Harry Edwards Chris Wood Greg Clark Vara Vissa, Vice-Chair Arsineh Hecobian Mark Houdashelt, Chair Tom Griggs Gregory Miller Staff Present Cassie Archuleta, Staff Liaison Selina Lujan, Indoor Air Quality Program Coordinator Sean Carpenter, Climate Economy Advisor Jenna Channel, Associate Environmental Planner Guests Tabitha Callies, CSU Student Kienna Stephens, CSU Student Emily Ross, CSU Student Erica Cismoski, CSU Student Matt Tribby, Citizen Lori Feig-Sandoval, Citizen Call to order: 5:32 pm Public Comments ● Lori-Feig Sandoval recently moved to Fort Collins from Atlanta and wanted to thank AQAB for their work. She is concerned about regional ozone levels and hopes to see more public outreach regarding this, and other air quality issues. Page 2 Approval of Minutes Harry moved and Jim seconded a motion to approve the August minutes as amended. Motion passed, 7-0-0. AGENDA ITEM 1: City/PSD Idling Outreach Selina Lujan, Indoor Air Quality Program Coordinator, briefly highlighted the City’s efforts in partnership with Poudre School District to reduce idling at schools. Presentation ● Idling is a significant issue in the “kiss and go lanes” at Poudre School District schools. A parent and child approached the school with an idea for a rap video to address the issue. The video was produced in cooperation with the school board and City of Fort Collins. Selina presented “Be Idle Free” as part of the City’s Breathe Easy website (https://www.fcgov.com/breatheeasy/). ● Selina indicated that the City could provide anti-idling signs for any school or City property upon request. Discussion ● Where does most idling occur? ○ Most idling occurs at schools due to their layout, followed by train stops, based on the fact that the average train takes about 4 minutes to pass; drive-through lanes are another significant cause of idling. Coordination with PSD takes off during back to school season. ● A few other ways to decrease idling in addition to the efforts listed on the pamphlet were suggested, including staggering dropping children off at schools, remaining in a school parking lot until there is no line, and putting more thought into the issues like this at the time of construction. AGENDA ITEM 2: Climate Economy Plan Sean Carpenter, Climate Economy Advisor, provided an update regarding the City’s development of a Climate Economy Implementation Plan. The presentation included some initial strategic recommendations and proposed tactics. There will be a Council work session in October to discuss the development of a Climate Economy Implementation Plan. Sean would like AQAB feedback on key points of the presentation. Presentation ● The purpose of a Climate Economy Implementation Plan is to engage external enterprises in developing innovative Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) to support the achievement of CAP projects by fostering clean energy and sustainable jobs, advancing equity, promoting innovation and co-creation with the community and local business partners (City as a Platform), building upon existing relationships (Triple Helix Approach), and improving communication with businesses and citizens (CO Smart Cities Alliance). ● The cumulative private sector energy efficiency investments required to meet 2030 CAP goals are significant, and Fort Collins is a long way off from reaching the private investment goals necessary to reach CAP goals. ● The key focus is on: - energy efficiency in buildings - transportation - energy supply - waste reduction • Potential tools toward achieving Climate Economy Implementation Plan goals include: — C-PACE (Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy) loans - involves no money down finance for commercial businesses to perform energy upgrades on their properties. In Colorado, any licensed Page 3 banker can be a C-PACE lender. — CSU Green Revolving Fund (GRF) - CSU will use a portion of its endowment to create a self-funded revolving fund to pay for upgrades on campus buildings using their own capital and repaying themselves from savings. Calculations suggest that they should be able to outperform their current endowment and pay interest to themselves. — Efficiency Loan Programs - The Clean Energy Credit Union (CECU) is the first of its kind to provide loans solely for energy efficiency upgrades. — Crowd Funding - It is hoped that this will be more of a way to get people personally involved, rather than a significant source of income. — Environmental Impact Bonds - major financiers that are interested in certain performance outcomes will reduce the interest on bonds in exchange for meeting certain environmental metrics. Discussion ● What does the organization look like now? ○ The City is still building out tools, bylaws and determining best practices. He is hoping that it will be a significant revenue source, particularly the technology testing aspect of the plan. ● How much money was expected to come from taxpayers and what, specifically, would the money be invested in? ○ Ideally, the City (taxpayers) wouldn’t have to invest any money in this effort, but rather, funding would come from private businesses and organizations. Funding would go towards windows, insulation and other building efficiency upgrades such as LED lighting, electric car infrastructure, and other home/community improvements. These are things that may occur on their own, but the government has an enabling role to play by creating an environment that will allow the private sector to benefit and creating financial tools to help move the process along. ● It was noted that bigger businesses are already taking steps toward efficiency and sustainability and cited King Soopers’ disposal of organic waste. Interest was expressed in helping to facilitate such practices in small businesses that may not have the budget to consider their impact on the CAP. ○ That is precisely what this plan would help us to do. ● While the connection between money and climate change helps to incentivize the issue for people, what funding would go towards helping reach CAP goals? ○ The biggest emissions sources in Fort Collins include: heating/cooling in houses (largest source), transportation, and waste. This is why most of the instruments that are part of the Climate Economy Plan focus on these three first. AGENDA ITEM 3: Fugitive Dust Ordinance Implementation Jenna Channel, Associate Environmental Planner, presented an update regarding the implementation of the City’s Fugitive Dust Ordinance, which took effect in November 2016. The purpose of the presentation was to review the impacts of the Fugitive Dust Ordinance over the past year, present a draft of potential ordinance revisions, present a draft questionnaire which will be submitted for feedback to local businesses, and to solicit the AQAB’s unofficial feedback on each of these items. Presentation ● Implementation of the Fugitive Dust Act - The process for investigating fugitive dust is complaint driven. Dust complaints are routed to the City’s Environmental Services Department (to Jenna, specifically). Jenna then contacts the source directly to find a resolution. If a resolution cannot be reached in this manner, or if the complaint is too vague, then an inspector will be deployed to the source area. The inspection is conducted based on best management practices, and information is formally documented. ● How many complaints did the City receive during the first year? - 49 complaints since 2016 (2016 - 25, 2017 - 24) - All complaints were addressed through outreach and no written warnings or citations were issued. Page 4 ● Proposed Draft Revisions: - Under the current ordinance, sites less than 5 acres are not subject to the dust control manual until they have received 2 warnings; proposed revision would be to remove the structured warning process and leave the decision of whether to issue warnings to field staff based on their field observations and inspections. - Data analysis from the past year has revealed that 90% of permits related to fugitive dust activities were for sites less than 5 acres; these projects are scattered throughout the city in areas of dense population and cause the most impact. The other 10% is made up of sites 5 acres or larger, and many of these were outliers that tended to be more on the outskirts of town with fewer residents, causing less impact. There were almost as many complaints relating to sites less than 5 acres in size as for sites greater than 5 acres. Other projects or activities are difficult to measure in acres such as trackout, roads, and hauling truck activity. Based on this, the City would like to remove the 5 acre threshold from the ordinance to better address fugitive dust in Fort Collins and make all sites of all sizes subject to the same requirements at all times. ● A draft questionnaire was presented for Board feedback and is intended for businesses that must obtain a building permit from the City to gauge how the Fugitive Dust ordinance has affected them over the past year. Discussion ● There was discussion about the fact that sites that received dust complaints in the past year were only required to show that they had performed best management mitigation practices, regardless of whether they were effective or not. - Jenna indicated that there is no explicit language in the ordinance that specifies that practices have to be done effectively. From her experience, she believes that best management practices are too vague (for example, the manual suggests the use of water to help manage dust, but does not state how much must be used for a certain surface area to be effective). ● What about post-complaint follow-up? - Complaints are always followed up to inform the party that submitted the complaint of the actions taken toward resolution. ● What is the nature of the source sites that received complaints over the past year? - Complaints were received for a variety of sources, but most of them were construction sites. The City has trained almost 100 local contractors on best management practices. ● It was pointed out that the AQAB previously made recommendations regarding the 5-acre clause, but they were not considered when the ordinance was passed a year ago. - Jenna explained that, at the time, it was thought that it would be over-burdensome to small businesses. After a year, there is little evidence that it will overburden small businesses. ● A discussion followed on the complicated nature of jurisdiction with regards to dust complaints. - Jenna stated that the City’s jurisdiction only covered sources within City limits, excluding agricultural sources and a few others, which are covered by state regulations. It was noted that while a source may not be within City limits, its dust can certainly affect residents. Jenna explained that she has developed good working relationships with both the county and state and will continue to work with them on mitigation. ● What about public outreach, since it’s likely that many citizens are unaware of their own contributions to the fugitive dust issue? - Jenna responded that public outreach will be included in the plan to address fugitive dust in Fort Collins; however, since the dust ordinance is still new to the City, it is her goal to get industry in line first, then get citizens on board. In addition to enforcement, she’s been working with construction management classes at CSU and hopes to increase the presence of the Fugitive Dust website to improve public awareness. ● The Environmental Service Department needs to provide a report on the effects of the Fugitive Dust Ordinance to City Council (as prescribed upon the implementation of the ordinance a year ago). The department would like to get the thoughts of Board members prior to writing a formal memo to Council. Page 5 - While no formal vote was made or formal action taken by the AQAB, Board members generally agreed on removing the 5-acre threshold. The individual opinions of the members present suggest that they support the direction that the Environmental Service Department is moving with regards to the proposed recommendations related to the ordinance. Staff Follow-Up: Cassie will collect unofficial feedback from Board members on the questionnaire by Friday, 9/29/17. ● Mark requests to extend the meeting until 8:30 and the Board agrees. Board Updates ● Vara volunteered with the Poudre Valley Rural Electric Association, Inc. to help install solar panels at the new Coyote Ridge Community Solar Farm, which will generate electricity for low-cost housing, non- profits and co-op members. Private citizens, instructors from CMC and CSU students all volunteered to help with the installation. ● Arsineh recently travelled to Carlsbad to analyze methane emissions from natural gas and found that pipelines are a significant source of emissions. She feels that the Board should consider pipelines as an emission source in future discussions. ● Mark attended Transportation Board, Energy Board and Zoning Board meetings last month and informed them of AQAB’s desire to coordinate with them. He plans to attend the Natural Resources Board this week with the same intent. ● Mark attended a workshop on 8/31/17 which demonstrated the EPA’s Energy Star Portfolio Manager Tool for benchmarking building energy use. ● Salud Family Health purchased the old Forney Industries building on Laporte and wants to make it into a community health hub. They’ve had 2 work sessions to decide what to do with the site; they are considering everything from a basic health center to a community health/education center. Mark plans to go to the final workshop to make suggestions about radon education and a few other significant items discussed during AQAB meetings. ● Mark and Chris attended an AWMA meeting on 9/12/17 at which Cassie presented an overview of the City’s air quality program and Bryan Bibeau from Air Resource Specialists highlighted a new ozone monitoring site coming online in Fort Collins in late 2017, and a Sky Quality Monitor system, which will support the City's Dark Sky program initiatives. ● Mark has asked for suggestions on how to keep the time in check during meetings, as the Board frequently runs over time. He suggests presenters sending out their slides in advance. Staff Updates ● Cassie is coordinating with Larimer County to discuss the NCAR FRAPPE study. She will keep the Board updated. Meeting Adjourned: 8:28 pm Next Meeting: October 16, 2017 ______________________________ Signed by Chair