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HomeMy WebLinkAboutConservation Commission - 01/12/2010 APPROVED MINUTES CONSERVATION COMMISSION TUESDAY,JANUARY 12, 2010 7:00 PM, CITY CENTER Prairie Room 8080 Mitchell Road COMMISSION MEMBERS: Laura Jester(Chair), Dan Trebil (Vice-Chair), Sue Brown, Ray Daniels, Ravi Jaiswal, Geneva MacMillan, Greg Olson STAFF: Regina Herron, Staff Liaison Joyce Lorenz, Communications Manager Jan Curielli, Recording Secretary STUDENT REPRESENTATIVES: Gretchen Askew, Julia Wang, Michele Wu I. CALL TO ORDER/ROLL CALL Chair Jester called the meeting to order at 7:00 PM. Jaiswal, Trebil, Askew and Wang were absent. Daniels arrived late. Wu left early. Jester asked if all of the student representatives will be continuing for the spring semester. Herron said she believed they will all continue and we will add one more. II. APPROVAL OF AGENDA MOTION: MacMillan moved, seconded by Olson, to approve the agenda as published. Motion carried 4-0. III. SPEAKER A. Joyce Lorenz, Communications Manager Ms Lorenz gave an overview of the Communications Division. She said the Communications Division is responsible for marketing products and services, all internal and external communications, media relations and crisis communications, and City branding and image management. She said they started using Facebook in August as a means of getting information to the community, and they currently have 1300 fans. Olson asked if they manage the website. Ms Lorenz said they do. Olson then asked if the commission would work through her to put information on the website. Ms Lorenz said she and Ms Herron review the Conservation Communication information on the website. Daniels arrived at 7:10 PM. Conservation Commission Minutes January 12, 2010 Page 2 Jester asked about the envelope link on the website. Lorenz said clicking on the envelope allows someone to enter an email address to subscribe to many different topics. Daniels asked if we have the ability to send emails from the commission. Lorenz said we have to be judicious in terms of the number of emails that are sent out, and we would want to make sure it is thought out strategically. Herron thought we might be able to send out a quarterly email for articles like those Ms Jester contributed to the Environmental Times. Jester asked if the Environmental Times is still being published. Herron said she believes so. Olson asked if we would be able to measure the number of hits if we put a feature out on the website. Lorenz said we could. MacMillan asked if the public documents are available. Lorenz demonstrated use of the SIRE system which is used to store and retrieve electronic documents. Olson asked how long it takes to get the minutes out on the website. Herron said it is usually within the month after the meeting minutes are approved. Jester said community education is one of our big topics, and we have used the Environmental Times for that. Ms Stovring also uses Life in the Prairie. She thought it would be nice to get something out regularly with consistent messages. Lorenz said we are now doing an environmental corner in Life in the Prairie. The Environmental Times is a vehicle of the Conservation Commission managed by Ms Stovring. She said it would be possible for the commission to ramp up and have more involvement in that. Jester asked who writes the articles for Life in the Prairie. Lorenz said they are written by staff,but the Conservation Commission could submit ideas for that as a group. Jester asked what kind of timeline is involved. Lorenz said it is in the Eden Prairie News on the third Thursday, and the first week of the month is the deadline for content in the following month's issue. She said they are always happy to put events on the website home page under the heading, "What's Happening." She said they have a lot of subscribers who receive information on what is put out in that category. MacMillan asked if those events go on the calendar. Lorenz said they are working on updating the calendar to allow a search by category and to include a list of events. Daniels asked if the "Files" category on the commission page is restricted to four items at a time. Lorenz said it is almost unlimited,but we wouldn't want to make it too big. Daniels asked if that was also true for the "Links" category. Lorenz said it was. Daniels asked if there are restrictions on the links and who would okay those. Lorenz said they would make sure it was appropriate. Daniels asked if it is limited to one-line descriptions for the links. Lorenz said it wraps but the fewer characters the better. Daniels asked if everything must be submitted in PDF format. Lorenz said they prefer that because someone could alter a word document and redistribute it. Documents submitted would be converted to PDF format if they were not already in that format. Conservation Commission Minutes January 12, 2010 Page 3 Jester asked if residents are still receiving paper utility bills. Lorenz said the majority are. They are trying to move to electronic billing, but that probably will not take off for several years so we can continue to use the Environmental Times as a communications tool. Jester asked if it is published twice a year. Herron said she believes it is quarterly. Jester asked if Ms Stovring is doing it on her own now. Lorenz said she is,but that could change. She thought email service can be timelier than a quarterly newsletter. Jester said Ms Stovring hasn't requested input from her for a long time and asked Ms Herron to check with Ms Stovring to see if she wants input. Olson said he has the impression that the website is an underutilized resource for the Conservation Commission. He wondered if we should review what we have on the website now and determine what we would like to have. He thought that might be a topic for February. Brown said that is a tactic,but we haven't determined what our strategies are. She thought the first thing we need to do is to work out our strategies and what our plan is for the year. She didn't think we can start to know what we want to talk about if we don't have a goal for where we are going. Jester said she agreed it is one of the tools to use once we decide what we are working on next, and she also agreed the website is underutilized. She asked if there are other avenues with which to educate the public in addition to the Environmental Times and the website. Lorenz said we can pitch the media. Her division meets with both the Eden Prairie News and the Sun Current every week to do police reporting and to pitch story ideas. Jester asked how the City Facebook fan page works. Lorenz said it is a potpourri, for instance we have asked people to submit photos of the recent snowfalls. She said we want to get some serious topics,but the goal is to promote two-way communications. She said any member of the Conservation Commission could become a member of the City's Facebook fan page and could post things there. Jester said she thought the commission members would have to be careful what they post. Jester asked Ms Lorenz if she had specific recommendations as to how to proceed or what to use. Lorenz said once the commission has come up with a plan as to what to do, they can help. Jester said we need to keep all tools in mind as part of our communication strategy. IV. MINUTES Jester noted there is again a lack of a quorum of members who were present at the November meeting. The consensus was to go ahead with the approval of the minutes and to have Ms Herron check with Ms Porta on the issue. A. Minutes for the November 10, 2009 meeting MOTION: Brown moved, seconded by Olson, to approve the minutes of the November 10, 2009 meeting. Motion carried 3-0-2, with Jester and MacMillan abstaining. Conservation Commission Minutes January 12, 2010 Page 4 B. Minutes for the December 8, 2009 meeting MOTION: MacMillan moved, seconded by Daniels, to approve the minutes of the December 8, 2009 meeting. Motion carried 4-0-1, with Brown abstaining. V. REPORTS FROM STAFF A. 2010 Work Plan Jester said she worked with Ms Herron on the draft document and suggested looking at the 2009 Annual Report first. Jester said she liked the addition of the pictures,but she was not sure where some of the items should go. MacMillan thought it was very well written and suggested items related to education only should go under the heading, Education. Brown thought it could be titled Outreach or Community Involvement rather than Education. That would help to keep education items under the other headings and would reduce the overlap. Jester noted the education items include events where we were educated and others where we educated, so it goes both ways. Brown thought education is one of our objectives and the rest of the headings are topics. Herron asked how those events that commission members attended would be addressed. MacMillan suggested using Other for those. A discussion followed regarding outreach and community involvement. Brown said not all commission members attended events such as the Pax Christi environmental day, so she questioned whether that should be under a category of personal development. Herron noted the Pax Christi event was reported back so that did educate the commission. Jester suggested adding a heading called Commission Development that would include events commission members attended during the year such as Earth Day. Jester suggested putting the presentation by SRF Consulting and the water treatment plant report under Water Quality, not Other. She said she will email the proposed changes to Ms Herron. Jester said she and Ms Herron worked on the 2010 work plan, and Ms Herron got input from City Manager Neal as well. She thought it is a little ambitious, and there will be a lot of homework required to research topics. She thought it is missing some real goals. She would like to add some measurable goals and objectives and figure out how to get there. We have moved away from our discussion about focusing on one or two topics, and she thought there are too many things to look at over the course of the year. Daniels asked if there was any money included in the budget for energy rebates. Herron said there was none specified for the Conservation Commission but she would look into that. Daniels said we should get that into the work plan if we have any money. Conservation Commission Minutes January 12, 2010 Page 5 Brown thought the work plan is a tactics calendar rather than goals and a work plan. She thought we are missing the key element to list things that can be measured and checked off. She thought if we are broadening our approach each commission member should take responsibility for a particular area and report back each month on what we are doing for that area. Jester said that would be one way to handle it. She thought some people have more time to put into the commission than others do. She said we need to take a close look at some of the topics and come up with strategies. Herron said Paul Sticha is unavailable for February so his presentation on the 20-40- 15 program will be moved to March. She suggested moving the presentation on commercial recycling to the March meeting as well. Jester noted we don't have a workshop with the City Council until October. She also noted we don't have the spring Parks and Recreation class workshop development on the tonight's agenda. Herron said information for the brochure was due in November or December for the spring classes but we could do something separately from the brochure. Jester thought what happens at the Expo might take the place of our workshop. She suggested moving the spring Parks and Recreation class workshop development to the February agenda. MacMillan asked about the porous pavers research. Herron said this has been on the Planning Division's agenda and would involve researching what other communities are doing. It is something the Planning Commission would like to have the Conservation Commission put on the agenda. Jester thought that is something we could do. Jester asked about the item regarding best practices review of conservation practices listed as a topic for February. Olson asked if it would have to be created. Herron said it would. Olson said he would expect a topic like that to involve a year's worth of study. Herron suggested changing it to "Begin Best Practices Review." Daniels noted we have talked about that before because of various developments and water quality issues. Jester suggested moving porous pavers research to February to replace the presentation by Paul Sticha. Herron asked if we would also move the presentation from the solid waste management companies to February. Jester thought we could if the companies are available. Herron said she will target February or May for that item. Jester said that might also lend itself to a workshop. Brown asked if the new curbside compost pickup is on track. Herron said yard waste bags have to be biodegradable,but she didn't think compost pickup was a requirement. Brown said there are a lot of people waiting for the opportunity to compost. Herron said we may be able to have a vendor come in and speak about that. Jester thought we could schedule that for April, May or June. Jester asked about the Lake Monitoring Report scheduled for August. Herron said she believed that would be for 2009. A discussion followed about the lake Conservation Commission Minutes January 12, 2010 Page 6 monitoring project. Jester said the 2010 sampling season hasn't started, and the 2009 report should be close to being done. She asked Ms Herron to check on whether Blue Water Science is set up for this year, or if they are looking for recommendations from us. Brown noted there is nothing here about presentations to the City Council or recommendations on proposed regulations and asked if that is something we want to backfill. Jester thought we will know that once we take on some of these topics. She thought our research on items such as porous pavers could lead to developing ordinance changes. Jester said the August schedule looks very ambitious. Herron said some of the documents are available for comment. Olson asked to what extent the City could affect the Three Rivers Parks District master plan. Herron said they are within the City boundaries, and we have the opportunity to comment on their plan. Olson thought the update on the parks boundary surveying would have more impact on the City itself. Herron said the boundary survey is a long range survey that will take years to complete. A lot of residents whose property backs up against conservation areas or park boundaries have encroached on the boundaries, so the Parks and Recreation Department is defining the boundaries. Jester asked if the Three Rivers Parks District master plan is open for review in August. Herron said it is. Olson said he would prefer to focus on something that bears on the City's policy making, and he wanted to prioritize items in terms of what is going to have the most direct impact on the community and its quality of life. MacMillan thought the whole list is ambitious and it might be good to have the groups present to us and then have a month or so to decide on our response. Herron said the reports will be available on the website, and we can choose whether to comment as a commission. MacMillan thought we should review something if we have been asked to,but we need to prioritize. Jester suggested we leave August as is, realizing that we might take on only one thing. Jester said she would like to revisit recycling in the parks on the May agenda. We have a joint meeting with the Parks Commission in August, and it may take some media attention at the beginning of the season to get them to try it again. Daniels asked about the Flying Cloud Landfill meeting in September. Herron said Mr. Neal mentioned a public informational meeting to let residents know what is going on. We would bring in experts and have them be the lead,but we would facilitate the meeting. It would be similar to what was done for the Flying Cloud Airport informational meeting. Daniels asked if September would be too late. Olson thought that would be timely, and said the MPCA is about to purchase the landfill from the people who own it now. They are proposing to put a new cover over the top. There are questions around the seepage of groundwater into the river. He thought it would still be timely in September despite the publicity it has received to date. Herron said we would notice the residents of the public meeting and have press releases publicizing it. There is a time commitment from staff's standpoint to make Conservation Commission Minutes January 12, 2010 Page 7 sure we have enough lead time. Jester suggested we keep the bullet in September but add begin planning for it in June or July. Jester said we need to get changes to Ms Herron for the 2009 Annual Report and suggested posting it on the commission's web page. MOTION: MacMillan moved, seconded by Olson, to accept the 2009 Annual Report and the 2010 Work Plan as amended. Motion carried 5-0. B. Commercial Recyclins! Initiative Code Amendment--Update Herron said this item went to the Planning Commission where Ms Stovring presented information on recycling practices. She said the Planning Commission was only looking at the items for Chapter 11,but we gave them an overview of all of the changes. The ordinance changes will now go to the City Attorney for review. Olson asked if we have a chance for input. Ms Herron said we could do that concurrently with the Planning Commission. Daniels noted he watched the presentation at the Planning Commission and saw there was some enthusiasm for the changes. Olson asked if there has been a first reading for the Planning Commission. Herron explained the Planning Commission directs staff to make changes to the ordinance, staff makes the proposed changes with the help of the City Attorney, and then it is brought back to the Planning Commission for a public hearing. The Planning Commission then gives a recommendation that goes to the City Council for first and second reading at the Council meetings. There is another public hearing at the City Council at the time of first reading. Olson asked if there has been a public hearing. Herron said there has not. Jester thought it might make sense to see it before the first public meeting at the Planning Commission, even if it is only by email. She doubted there will be an issue about it because it doesn't seem controversial. VI. REPORTS FROM CHAIR A. Lower Minnesota River Watershed District Board Meeting Jester said she did attend the Board meeting on December 16. A consultant gave a presentation, and his conclusion shows there is no safety risk to homes in the area. Wenck recommends moving the bank and installing a series of rock weirs to move the current. The price is over$1,000,000, and they are looking for bonding money from the legislature. Wenck will submit the final report by mid-January. The Board members are still concerned that the black ooze from the river bank may be leachate from the landfill. They have put some money forward to analyze the black ooze. She said she has concerns about groundwater coming through the riverbank and making the soil unstable there, and she was not sure the rock weirs would not just move the energy elsewhere. Olson said he has information from press reports and an extensive conversation with Leslie Stovring. He said the consultants seem to believe the erosion is a problem but is not an immediate threat to residents or the public infrastructure. The walking trails have been cordoned off but people walk over them. He said it appears the Lower Conservation Commission Minutes January 12, 2010 Page 8 Minnesota Watershed District is supervising this, and they are the ones retaining the engineers who will put out a report. He thought it would be worthwhile for this commission to review the report. He thought MPCA's most immediate concern is the storm water retention ponds where the soil has been eroded by the river causing the storm water to be a source of pollution in the river. The MPCA wants the City to do something about it. Overriding the whole thing is what is going on with Lake Pepin and the Clean Water Act administered by the EPA. They want cities between Lake Pepin and the source of the Mississippi to talk about how much can be discharged into the river. According to Ms Stovring, once that gets resolved then it becomes easier for things like the erosion matter to get resolved. There is a question of the landfill's impact on the Minnesota River. The MPCA is in the process of acquiring the landfill from the private party. They have various monitoring wells on the landfill, and they see that the volatile organic components (VOC's) are there but are at a manageable level. He said there is no liner under the landfill so seepage does get to the Minnesota River eventually. The MPCA believes the black ooze is just decayed vegetative matter. Jester noted it will be tested at the expense of the Watershed District. Jester asked about the commission joining in on the joint meeting with the City Council and the Lower Minnesota Watershed District scheduled for March 9. Herron said we would have to notice such a meeting,but two commission members could attend the meeting and report back. Olson said he would touch base with Mr. Tiffany at the MPCA. Jester said she will be at the next Watershed District meeting. She thought it would be good for Mr. Olson and her to be at the March 9 joint meeting, and also for Mr. Olson to look into the two issues. She thought we may also have the results from testing of the black ooze then. VII. REPORTS FROM COMMISSION MEMBERS 1. Rainwater Gardens--Olson Olson said part of his conversation with Ms Stovring had to do with storm water runoff problems. He said part of the reading materials he received have to do with what other cities in the area have done with rain gardens. He described the curbside rain gardens used by the City of Burnsville, noting these take the load off the retention ponds. Eden Prairie has an interest in some kind of comparable approach and would like to encourage rain gardens and other methods of infiltration. He noted the City of Plymouth is doing a number of things Eden Prairie would like to be doing, such as going around to various property owners and presenting several different established plans or templates for doing rain gardens on their property. This would help accomplish the City's overall objective of abating the burden on the storm water system. He suggested we invite Derek Ash from Plymouth to present what they are doing. He thought that might give us some momentum and ideas for what we might want here. MacMillan thought that was an excellent idea, and she asked if there would be a way to advertise his presentation to the public. Herron said it could be a potential workshop for residents. Jester said we could advertise that somehow if he came to Conservation Commission Minutes January 12, 2010 Page 9 speak at our commission meeting. Olson thought it would be something to put on the website. Jester thought it requires a strategy with Ms Stovring along with our input. Olson asked what we want to follow up on. He said there is a need on the part of the City to take the pressure off the storm water system, and rain gardens are a simple way to do that. He thought we need to see what other communities have done. Jester asked Ms Herron to see how Ms Stovring sees this commission helping her with rain gardens. Olson asked if it would be an item on the February agenda. Jester thought it should also be on the work plan. VIII. REPORTS FROM STUDENTS Regarding the question from Ms Wang last month about the Tree Huggers Club planting trees, Daniels said he went out to the DNR site to look at the state forest. He noted they sell trees in bulk there, and he would recommend they go to that site. IX. CONTINUING BUSINESS A. Eden Prairie Home, Landscape and Garden Expo Herron said she passed on information about the topics and speakers to Ms Stovring. She hasn't received word if any of them have been scheduled. She said one booth will have someone from Prevent Harm Minnesota, and that individual may also be a speaker. Jester said she can help set up the booth on March 20 and man it until 2:30 PM. Daniels said he researched composting buckets and showed pictures of the buckets. The prices ranged from $30 to $50. X. NEW BUSINESS A. Upcoming City Projects and Development—Project Profile Herron said there are no new items on the Project Profile, but she did include a copy in the packet. Wu left at 9:10 PM. MacMillan asked about the item on the Smith Douglas More House. Herron said there is a lease on that historic property, and they are required to have a conditional use permit. Jester asked about the footage numbers for the shoreland setback variance item on the "In But Not Scheduled" section. Herron said it is an incomplete project from October, and she believes those numbers are probably incorrect. XI. UPCOMING EVENTS Conservation Commission Minutes January 12, 2010 Page 10 A. March 20, 2010—Eden Prairie Home, Landscape and Garden Expo Jester said she and Mr. Daniels will be at the Expo and asked if anyone else was planning to attend. MacMillan and Brown said they would be there. Olson said he got a phone call from Donna Murphy at Pax Christi. Ms Murphy said the Conservation Commission has done their environmental event in the past and asked if anyone from the commission would be interested in being part of this year's event. Jester noted Mr. Chacko was the one who participated in the past. MacMillan said she has attended it a couple of times. Olson said she also expressed an interest in having someone from our commission attend their committee meetings. He thought we might want to invite them to come to one of our meetings. Daniels said he could call Ms Murphy back and talk to her about it. B. March 9, 2010—City Council Joint Meeting with Lower Minnesota Watershed District: Riverbank Erosion XII. NEXT MEETING A. Tuesday, February 9, 2010 XIII. ADJOURNMENT MOTION: Olson moved, seconded by Daniels, to adjourn the meeting. Motion carried 5- 0. Chair Jester adjourned the meeting at 9:20 PM.