HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - Futures Committee - 07/10/2017 -
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MINUTES
CITY OF FORT COLLINS
FUTURES COMMITTEE MEETING
Date: July 10, 2017
Location: CIC Room, City Hall, 300 Laporte Ave.
Time: 4:00–6:00pm
Committee Members Present:
Wade Troxell, Chair
Ray Martinez
Kristin Stevens
City Staff:
Jeff Mihelich, Deputy City Manager
Darin Atteberry – City Manager
Presenters:
Honore Depew, Environmental Planner
Jason Graham, Water Reclamation and Biosolids Manager
Additional Staff Present:
Kelly DiMartino – Assistant City Manager
Kevin Gertig – Utilities Executive Director
Lucinda Smith, Director – Environmental Services
Susie Gordon, Environmental Program Manager
Caroline Mitchell, Sr. Environmental Planner
Chris Johnson, Bike Fort Collins
Molly Saylor, Environmental Planner
Community Members:
Stephen Gillette, Director, Larimer County Solid Waste
Ron Gilkerson, Solid Waste Project Director - Larimer County Solid Waste
Terry Jones, Interim Chief of Police
Tyler Bandemer, Superintendent, Solid Waste Division - City of Loveland
Dee Dee Henry, guest
Kevin Jones, Fort Collins Chamber of Commerce
Dale Adamy, Fort Collins citizen
Meeting called to order at 4:04 pm
Approval of Minutes:
Kristin moved and Ray seconded a motion to approve the June 12 minutes as presented. Motion
passed unanimously, 3-0-0.
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Think Tank Item 3-2017:
Innovation Fort Collins of the Future: Becoming a Zero Waste
Community
Honore Depew, Environmental Planner, Environmental Services presented a high level
summary of current waste management conditions around waste reduction and recycling
as well as potential future options for materials management.
In 2013, the City established a community goal of zero waste by 2030 including:
improved access to recycling; compostable organics out of landfills; regional
cooperation; and education and outreach.
o Driving factors:
Larimer County Landfill is filling up and forecast to reach capacity in
2025.
Increasing population means more garbage.
Majority of items in landfill can be composted or recycled but currently is
not.
The U.S. is lagging in recycled and composted waste as a share of total
municipal waste world wide.
So how to move past where we are now to a successful zero waste future with landfill as
last resort:
o Create incentives and regulations for increased materials management.
o Provide effective education and community engagement to increase recycling.
o Create means for collection and processing waste materials including
infrastructure and technology, financial balance and partnerships and end
markets..
Need to be aware of Life Cycle Assessment of products (raw material manufacture
distribution use disposal) and measure impacts such as GHG emissions, water and
energy use, health effects, toxicity, etc.
o Most visible part is end of life (disposal and recycling and recovery)
o Most intensive resource use is design and production
o Challenge is to help people understand this
o Local example of Life Cycle Assessment was done by New Belgium Brewing on
Fat Tire beer analyzing its manufacture for impacts and emissions.
Highest impact was glass use as a resource and they are working with the
Glass Packaging Institute to reduce this.
Increasing leadership from the national and global business community to promote
Circular Economy approach to manufacturing.
The City of Fort Collins is participating in a regional wasteshed process for the future.
o Current regional collaboration with City of Fort Collins, Loveland, Estes Park,
Larimer County, and others
o Analyze how materials move through our community and get to places to be
composted/recycling.
o Research innovative material recovery facilities - i.e. resource recovery park.
o Inclusion of organics and construction and demolition debris in recycle stream
o Energy from waste facility
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o Need to think about how all systems work together.
Jason Graham, Water Reclamation and Biosolids Manager presented a summary of the
evolution and future of the City of Fort Collins Utilities water resource recovery facilities
As background: the Clean Water Act of 1972 requires restoration and maintenance of the
biological, chemical, and physical integrity of U.S. waterways.
Fort Collins Utilities Water Resource Recovery facilities originally focused on organics
and solids removal. Now, they are developing processes for waste-to-energy and new
business opportunities with public and private entities, plus equipment replacement and
energy efficiency.
o Harvesting biodegradables - with possibility to process food waste and brewery
waste
o Extracting phosphorous as a revenue-generating product to agriculture to go back
to the environment and that meets regulatory compliance
o A Co-Gen system could help reduce high energy use by the facility by taking
methane collected in the process and converting it to energy to help power
facility.
o Future possible project opportunities include: water top solar; grease processing;
and water reuse at Rawhide
Are researching a new way of looking at a waste water facility as a factory
o Energy factory –burn biogas for heat and power and put back on grid
o Nutrient factory – side stream treatment to recover phosphorous and sell on the
open market
o Water factory – water reuse
Challenges
o Regulatory compliance, sustainability, and third party accreditation
o Staff issues: turnover; knowledge transfer; paradigm shift to more scientific
based jobs
o How to blend aging facilities with new facilities
o Budget: – how to balance benefits for community innovation, regulatory
compliance, money, and time
Important discussions for future
o How can the City encourage a zero waste future?
o What role should wastewater treatment have?
Discussion
Much progress has been made with both areas: wasteshed and wastewater
Can well water and grey water use be included in our building codes?
o There is infrastructure for that but may need to include land use implementation.
o Could be managed in residential use including putting more down the garbage
disposal and removal of phosphorous containing detergents..
o Industrial use would need pre-treatment. Could be a good fit.
o Decentralizing treatment is a benefit but odor is an inherent problem.
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o Grey water usage is a challenge mainly because Colorado
water law prohibits some of these opportunities. We might
have to work to change the law especially as water
resources become constrained.
o Working regionally is a challenge to get other communities to share this vision of
the future.
o Be sure there are no disincentives to allow production and use of raw water.
How do we improve trash diversion rates?
o Overall, our community-wide diversion rate ranges between 50% - 70%;
residential/commercial rate hovering in the 30% – 35% range. Increasing these
numbers substantially would require including a broad organics recycling
program. Some trash haulers offer yard waste recycling, but subscription to it has
been slow. Messaging is important.
Program is named Road to Zero Waste. It will not get us to absolute zero waste. Suggest
including Circular Economy and Sustainable Materials Management messaging in the
discussion, rather than just Zero Waste to educate about the benefits of a process rather
than linear journey somewhere.
The future of waste water infrastructure for the next 20 – 30 years will require substantial
capital improvement funds in the BFO process. How can process be shortened and be
more economical?
o Perhaps repurpose a brewery system and use it for ourselves.
o Suggest making short, middle and long term goals here and also partnering with
other regional stakeholders to get a facility in place before the landfill closes.
o From a wastewater aspect, would need additional anaerobic digester and co-gen
system to handle all the additional food waste going down the drain.
o Some of the new facilities would generate revenue
o Keep in mind we will need to comply with current regulations.
Explain status of fluctuating recycling market
o Different factors affect the recycling market. Prices were very low for a while but
are moving up to around a break-even point. Another factor helping pricing is
better materials management to have materials go directly to market.
Regionally, there is a new cardboard sorter at the transfer station so
cardboard goes directly to market instead of sending it to Denver as
before.
We are also getting a plastic bag baler at the Timberline Recycle Center
that will enable us to send them directly to market.
What is status of Heartland Biogas facility.
o They are still shut down and litigation is pending.
o Would be nice if someone bought it and kept it in Colorado.
What is status of the landfill and wasteshed initiative?
o Ron Gilkerson – Project Director for the Wasteshed Initiative reported there are
some “low-hanging fruit” items currently being put in the landfill that can be
diverted from the landfill: yard waste; food waste; construction and demolition
materials
o There are very constructive discussions among the regional stakeholders on how
to move forward with diverting these items from the landfill.
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Mayor Troxell congratulated Susie Gordon for her recent Lifetime
Achievement award from the Colorado Association for Recycling.
Citizen input: Consider constructing a “green park” at the new
landfill and a transfer station with a rail line running to it.
DO: Next Steps
Look at annual building code updates, especially as they pertain to gray water use
options. Also legislation for grey water use, relative to Colorado Water Law
Pre-treatment policy for residential waste water
Continue with concept of “green factory” water treatment plant
Marketing and education for waste diversion
Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative
Mayor Wade Troxell reported that he, City Manager Darin Atteberry and Assistant City
Manager, Kelly DiMartino will be attending various meetings and on-line conversations
sponsored by this initiative in the next week or two. They will attend and report back to
the group
Among the topics discussed will be:
o Seeing the big picture
o Culture of innovation
o Exercising public leadership
Citizen input: Also report this in the City Manager’s Report for the public to read.
Meeting adjourned at 5:25 pm