Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOUNCIL - AGENDA ITEM - 09/04/2007 - RESOLUTION 2007-078 AUTHORIZING A REVOCABLE PERMIT ITEM NUMBER: 22 AGENDA ITEM SUMMARY DATE: September 4, 2007 FORT COLLINS CITY COUNCIL STAFF: Lindsay Kuntz SUBJECT Resolution 2007-078 Authorizing A Revocable Permit to the Colorado Department of Agriculture for the Urban Front Range Monitoring Network Project for Monitoring Pesticides and Nitrates/Nitrites in Groundwater. RECOMMENDATION Staff recommends adoption of the Resolution. The Land Conservation and Stewardship Board and the Water Board recommend adoption of the Resolution. FINANCIAL IMPACT The City is not charging for the Revocable Permits because the monitoring well locations will not interfere with the use of the City-owned property and the periodic groundwater testing will be conducted only every two to three years. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Colorado Department of Agriculture is developing the Urban Front Range Monitoring Network which will cover urban areas from Fort Collins to Pueblo as part of the Colorado Agricultural Chemicals and Groundwater Protection Program. The Colorado Department of Agriculture has ?p' eP gr' requested that the City of Fort Collins grant permission to enter various parcels owned by the City to install monitoring wells and conduct periodic groundwater testing as part of their Urban Area Monitoring Well Project. BACKGROUND State Senate Bill 90-126(C.R.S.25-8-205.5)mandates that the Colorado Department of Agriculture be responsible for the monitoring of groundwater to assess its quality with respect to agricultural chemicals. The Program has effectively established well networks in nearly all the major agricultural regions of Colorado to help achieve this goal. With the increase in use of pesticides and fertilizers in urban areas by a variety of user types, a Program goal for 2007 is to establish a long-term monitoring well network which will effectively work to provide baseline data for all major urbanized September 4, 2007 -2- Item No. 22 areas along the Front Range corridor. The Project will involve the installation, maintaining, and sampling of monitoring wells on various City properties owned by the Natural Areas and Parks departments. Each monitoring well will have flush mounts with lids bolted down which should not inhibit grounds maintenance but yet would provide needed security. Utility locates will be scheduled prior to any installations. Sampling will be performed every two to three years and a complimentary copy of the lab results will be made available to the City of Fort Collins. All data will be studied and used for preparation of Annual Reports and uploaded to the Agricultural Chemicals and Groundwater Protection Program and Groundwater Quality Database System. City staff from both the Parks and Natural Areas departments have met with Department of Agriculture staff to review the proposal. Both departments have agreed to the Colorado Department of Agriculture's request. ATTACHMENTS 1. Location Map 2. Minutes from the August 2007 meeting of the Land Conservation and Stewardship Board. 3. Minutes from August 2007 meeting of the Water Board. Mill -I II��F�Illllllilll IIII ` L IIIII 111 N— ■II�NL'�V:���I� ' i'Ii 1111 Him 1:�—Elllllllllli■1 1111 ■ 11 WE EMS I1111�11��11:111111s■NIIIIII�II�11 �� 1111111::IIIII■1111�1�1yiy1�1� — I'� I Ill — II:1:111110 L�1 � i =■1�1��=i� �■ 11 � ��s�—.III1 1■ � � �l�INIIIIIIL'JI■ �1 � INlWill r +�1Mn, i ■ ti+1:1 L . 1 � i ■ M � II � ■ ■ 1115 ME ■ F Land Conservation & Stewardship Board ATTACHMENT 2 August 8, 2007 Department of Agriculture Monitoring Well Request • Sears: My memo may be going to Council on August 21, 2007. The memo is regarding a resolution that Council will approve to allow the Department of Agriculture to install several ground water monitoring wells at various local natural areas and parks. At the moment they are looking at three different natural areas and I'm not sure how many park sites. Monitoring wells would be placed in a situation that we would approve, probably close to a trail, road or a parking lot to limit the disturbance and to make them easy to access for installation and monitoring. The purpose of the monitoring wells is to monitor levels of pesticide in the water over a 30 year period. The monitoring lids would be flush with the ground and have a locked lid, which would almost be totally innocuous. The current natural areas sites would be NIX, Redtail and Ross. • Grooms: Is this purely a monitoring site? • Sears: Yes. They are trying to understand the effects of pesticides on urban agricultural setting. • Eckert: These are not many wells,but it will give them an early indicator/ warning. • Haines: Are there several areas that they are looking for and it just happens to be natural areas that were selected? • Sears: They are looking for areas along the drainages, and taking the easy route by coming to the City of Fort Collins instead of a dozen different private land owners. Their goal is to get it all done by the end of October. I feel this is an environmentally good thing to be monitoring. Haines motioned to recommend to Council that they approve the Colorado Department of Agriculture's request to install monitoring wells. Grooms second, and it was unanimously approved. ATTACHMENT Water Board Meeting-August 23, 2007 Ground Water Monitorine Proiect—Department of Aericulture Regulatory and Government Affairs Manager Carol Webb introduced Troy Bauder from Colorado State University who is representing the Colorado Department of Agriculture at the meeting. The reason for making the presentation is that they are asking the Water Board to make a recommendation to City Council to grant the Colorado Department of Agriculture access to a number of parcels owned by the City of Fort Collins. This would be four natural areas, eight city parks and one City golf course where monitoring wells would be installed to conduct ground water testing for a long-term ground water testing program the Colorado Department of Agriculture is working on. Mr. Bauder gave brief overview of the Agriculture Chemicals and Groundwater Protection Act. The Agriculture Groundwater Protection Act is a legislative program which has been around since 1990. There are three agencies that cooperate in the implementation of this program: Colorado Department of Agriculture (CDA), Colorado State University Cooperative Extension (CSUCE) and Colorado do Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE). Colorado State University's roll is mainly training and education and applied research on practices that prevent groundwater contamination by pesticides and fertilizers. The Act defines agricultural chemicals as all pesticides and commercial fertilizers used in both urban and rural settings. Mr. Bauder's roll is mainly education and training of the general public of agricultural chemical users to prevent contamination. He also interacts with CDA on their monitoring program and helping them to design and interpret data. His title is Water Quality Specialist. The primary focus of the program is on more of the irrigated agricultural of the state. The Act does specify, and they have a mandate, that they are to work with the urban area as well and that does include the average homeowner using a pesticide or fertilizer. They have done some monitoring up and down the Front Range. The CDA is responsible for monitoring groundwater to detect the presence of agricultural chemicals. They are trying to develop what they call a dedicated, monitoring well network either of their own wells or someone's existing well. For example, in the City and County of Denver, they are going to use thirty of their existing wells mostly in parks and golf courses. Well samples are analyzed for selected pesticides and basic inorganic elements including nitrate. The pesticides are selected based on the frequency of use in an area and the physical and chemical properties of the pesticide. The groundwater monitoring program provides a baseline upon which to gauge trends in groundwater quality. The CDOHE is responsible for analysis and interpretation of the groundwater sample data. The proposal that Mr. Bauder was bringing before the Water Board is to develop a network in Fort Collins because there does not seem to be an existing system of monitoring wells in the public owned areas of Fort Collins. Colorado Department of Agriculture is proposing to drill up to twelve wells. Mr. Bauder's colleague, Karl Mauch of CDA was not able to be at the Water Board meeting, has worked with City staff to come up with the agree upon locations. There are two reasons they would like to work 1 ATTACHMENT with the City or another public entity and install monitoring wells on their property. The primary one is government owned land or publicly owned land is not turned over much. They do install monitoring wells on private land, but then you have keep track of the land if the property sells and work with new owners and make sure you still have access. The other reason is the City tends to own a lot of land along creeks and shallow ground water in areas that intersect domestic use of agricultural chemicals as well as use b the City gn Y Y itself or other entities. Board Member Mike Connor asked what course of action CDA pursues if the levels are beyond the threshold. The first time they collect data on a well, they do a routine screen of inorganic chemicals or things you find in the water all the time. These are not their primary interest. The primary interest in analyzing data is in nitrate nitrogen and a sweet of about 100 pesticides. They have taken about 2,000 samples out of about 1,200 wells in the State of Colorado though out the state, and so far they have only found three hits above the drinking water standard for pesticides. About one-third of the wells have had some pesticides detected at a very low level. To answer the question as to what would be the course of action at that point, if they found a pesticide above the drinking water standard, which is very rare, the Commissioner of Agriculture would have to notify the manufacturer of that pesticide that it's been found above the drinking water standard. CDA would certainly inform the City of Fort Collins of their find. Beyond that, they would work with the City to see if education was needed,but the CDA does not have any enforcement policy. The point of notifying the manufacturing of the product is that it is required by law. Chairperson Doug Yadon asked if the data collected would be public information. Mr. Bauder stated that by its nature the information collected has to be public information since it is collected with public money. It would be in their annual report, data reports and they would make a fact sheet out of the data collected. There is an on-line water quality data base where the information could be found. There is no cost to the City. Staff Recommendation Carol Webb Regulatory and Government Affairs Manager recommended that we allow the CDA to monitor the wells for testing. The Land Conservation Board has already approved this and is recommending the well testing in the City of Fort Collins to the City Council Board Member Mike Connor moved that the Water Board lend support to the proposal to approve the monitoring of wells in the City of Fort Collins to City Council. Board Member John Bartholow seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. 2 RESOLUTION 2007-078 OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF FORT COLLINS AUTHORIZING A REVOCABLE PERMIT TO THE COLORADO DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOR THE URBAN FRONT RANGE MONITORING NETWORK PROJECT FOR MONITORING PESTICIDES AND NITRATES/NITRITES IN GROUNDWATER WHEREAS,the Colorado General Assembly has declared that the public policy of the State of Colorado is to protect groundwater and the environment from impairment or degradation due to the improper use of agricultural chemicals,while allowing for the proper use of such chemicals;and WHEREAS, in furtherance of that purpose, the Colorado Commissioner of Agriculture is charged with identi 'n agricultural management areas of th g fyi g gn estate and conducting monitoring g g g programs to determine the presence of any agricultural chemicals in groundwater and the likelihood that an agricultural chemical will enter the groundwater based on predictions of its behavior; and WHEREAS, as part of the Colorado Agricultural Chemicals and Groundwater Protection Program established under that authority, the Colorado Department of Agriculture (the "Department")is developing the Urban Front Range Monitoring Network(the"Project")to develop groundwater monitoring data in urban areas from Fort Collins to Pueblo; and WHEREAS, the Department has requested that the City of Fort Collins cooperate with the Project by allowing the Department to install, maintain and sample monitoring wells on various properties owned by the City,and in particular on certain Cityparks and natural areas properties;and WHEREAS, City Parks and Natural Areas staffs have worked with Department staff to identify mutually acceptable locations for the installation and operation of groundwater monitoring wells; and WHEREAS, the Department has agreed that each monitoring well will be flush-mounted with a bolted lid to prevent interference with ground maintenance or risks to public safety, and in order to secure the monitoring well; and WHEREAS, the frequency of sampling from the monitoring wells will most likely be once every two to three years, although sampling frequency could vary; and WHEREAS, the Department will bear all costs of installation and maintenance of the monitoring wells, and will provide all lab results from groundwater sampling from the monitoring wells to the City at no cost to the City; and WHEREAS, upon revocation of the permission authorized hereunder,the Department will remove or relinquish to the City any monitoring wells remaining in place at the City's request; and WHEREAS,based on these agreed upon conditions, the Department has requested that the City grant to it a permit or license for the installation of 14 groundwater monitoring wells on City property,at or in the vicinity of the specific locations described on Exhibit"A",attached hereto and incorporated herein by this reference (the"Permitted Wells"); and WHEREAS, in light of the public purposes to be served and the benefits to the City of the preservation of groundwater and environmental quality,the potential benefit to the City of obtaining regular monitoring data about its properties, and the fact that the monitoring wells will have little or no impact on City operations, City staff recommends that no compensation be required for the rights granted hereunder; and WHEREAS, the Land Conservation and Stewardship Board considered the installation, operation and maintenance of the proposed Permitted Wells at its regular meeting in August, and recommended that the City Council authorize the issuance of a permit to allow the Department to proceed as proposed; and WHEREAS,the Water Board considered the installation, operation and maintenance of the proposed Permitted Wells at its regular meeting in August, and recommended that the City Council authorize the issuance of a permit to allow the Department to proceed as proposed; and WHEREAS,Article XI, Section 10,of the Charter of the City of Fort Collins authorizes the Council to permit the use or occupation of any street, alley, or public place, provided that such permit shall be revocable by the Council at its pleasure, whether or not such right to revoke is expressly reserved in such permit. NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF FORT COLLINS that the Mayor is hereby authorized to execute such documents as are necessary to grant a revocable permit consistent with the terms of this Resolution, to the Department as described herein,together with such additional terms and conditions as the City Manager,in consultation with the City Attorney, deems necessary or appropriate to protect the interests of the City or effectuate the purposes of this Resolution. Passed and adopted at a regular meeting of the Council of the City of Fort Collins this 4th day of September, A.D. 2007. Mayor ATTEST: City Clerk