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HomeMy WebLinkAboutConservation Commission - 10/11/2011 APPROVED MINUTES CONSERVATION COMMISSION TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2011 7:00 P.M., CITY CENTER Prairie Room 8080 Mitchell Road COMMISSION MEMBERS: Laura Jester(Chair), Greg Olson (Vice Chair), Sue Brown, Ray Daniels, Prashant Shrikhande, Anthony Pini, Kurt Lawton COMMISSION STAFF: Regina Rojas, Planning Division Jan Curielli, Recording Secretary STUDENT MEMBERS: McKenna Campbell-Potter, Rebecca Ebert Kelly Hallowell I. CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL Chair Jester called the meeting to order at 7:02 p.m. Hallowell was absent. II. APPROVAL OF AGENDA Pini added Item VI.A. Update on West Metro Water Alliance. Shrikhande added Item IX.F. Water Sustainability Goals. MOTION: Brown moved, seconded by Lawton, to approve the agenda as amended. Motion carried 7-0. III. MINUTES A. Approval of Minutes for the September 13, 2011 Regular Meeting Jester said Sentence 4, Paragraph 1, Item VHl should be changed to "Brown noted Suburban Waste Services ...." MOTION: Brown moved, seconded by Olson, to approve the minutes of the September 13, 2011 meeting as amended. Motion carried 7-0. IV. REPORTS FROM STAFF V. REPORTS FROM CHAIR CONSERVATION COMMISSION October 11, 2011 Page 2 VI. REPORTS FROM COMMISSION A. Update on West Metro Water Alliance--Anthony Pini Pini said he attended the last of a series of four seminars on protecting our water resources. The keynote speaker talked about sustaining the socio-economic values of lakes. The speaker noted the market rewards poor best management practices (BMPs) for lakeshore property, which means the correlation between the water quality in lakes and property values is at odds. Olson asked if the City has BMPs in place for lakeshore properties. Rojas said we have a shoreline management section in City code that states how close the structures can be the shoreline and how vegetation near the shoreline can be altered. Olson asked if this Commission has looked at our BMPs to see if the primary thrust is consistent aesthetics or water quality. Rojas said the ordinance was modeled after the DNR standards,but the BMPs have not been recently reviewed by the Commission. Jester said to her knowledge the Commission hasn't looked at our ordinances regarding lakeshore. She said this would be in partnership with the Watershed Districts because storm water from a wide area has an impact on our lakes. She thought this is something we could look into for our 2012 work plan. Olson thought this might dovetail with our interests in GreenStep cities. Lawton asked if we have done any education about this. Rojas said it is in the code, and we have a handout at the Planning Department counter. Jester said we have grant money from the City for rainwater gardens. The Lake Mitchell Association received an award for a project several years ago. Shrikhande asked who institutes conservation easements. Rojas said if there is development proposed on a property the City often works with property owners to place a portion of the property into a conservation easement or dedication of land near a lakeshore. VII. REPORTS FROM STUDENTS Jester congratulated Ms Ebert on the article in the Eden Prairie News that described her efforts for recycling at the High School. She asked her to let us know if there is anything the Commission can do to help with that. Ebert said the recycling rate at the High School is about 23%,but it should be at 100%. Ebert said this Friday will be the first meeting of the Tree Huggers. They will be focusing on recycling at the High School this year. Daniels suggested they submit a question at the upcoming debate for School Board candidates asking how the candidates would encourage recycling at the High School. CONSERVATION COMMISSION October 11, 2011 Page 3 VIII. NEW BUSINESS A. City Council Workshop Preparation Jester distributed a draft of items for discussion at the November 15 workshop. She noted the Commission previously discussed starting with a review of the charter and the Commission's activities for 2011. She suggested adding an item regarding communications to the list of activities. Rojas displayed the Step One wooden block we received from the GreenStep Cities program. Olson asked if we have a goal as to how many blocks we will get per year. Rojas said right now there are three levels, and we are at Step One, so we received the first block. She contacted Philipp Muessig at the MPCA and asked if he had looked at the information she has been inputting. He said he hasn't looked at it since June but will take a look at it in the next few weeks. At that time we will know if the input has enough information to qualify. Olson asked how many steps there are. Rojas said so far there are only three. Jester said the 2012 work plan will have items we decide to work on; however,right now we are just inputting what we have done so far. She suggested we bring the Step One block with us to the workshop. Jester asked Ms Brown if she planned to give a PowerPoint presentation on non- reusable bag fees. Brown said we discussed having a one-page document available but she could also do a PowerPoint. Brown presented the information she put together. Olson thought it would be good to condense it somewhat and asked if there are any cities near Eden Prairie that have implemented a ban or fee on non- reusable bags. Brown said there is nothing in Minnesota,but she will continue to check if there are others in the Midwest. There are a lot of cities doing this in California and also on the East Coast. Shrikhande suggested putting what we are proposing first and then why. Pini asked what the fee revenue involves. Brown said Washington, D.C. has a fee program, not a ban. Consumers can purchase a non-reusable bag for five cents if they don't have one, with two cents of the fee going to the store, and three cents going into a city fund earmarked for conservation purposes. Pini noted it would involve some type of bookkeeping. Brown said she has the model from D.C. that shows the details. Pini asked if it would require time from City staff. Brown said it would be minimal, and the stores'bookkeepers would report revenue. Lawton asked if we have anything from the local grocery stores that support this. Brown said SuperValu has approved going ahead with something along this line. Brown said the information is meant to give the Council a snapshot to get them interested. We could have the details ready if they want them. We haven't worked out what the money would be used for. Olson thought we don't need to spend CONSERVATION COMMISSION October 11, 2011 Page 4 quite so much time on why we need to do this but should play up what other cities are doing about it. The Council will want to know that this is working in other places. Brown noted D.C. is the only one imposing fees. The other cities are using bans. Lawton thought we could have two or three bullet points on why SuperValu is willing to make this work. Brown said a lot of retailers are already moving in this direction. We might want to consider a limitation as to the size of retailers included. Rojas thought we need to approach it as a big picture and then ask if we have their support to go further and present a model ordinance or program. Daniels thought we might push this as a way to get revenue that is blessed by the business community. It could be used for education about energy and areas other than water. Jester offered to help Ms Brown refine the presentation. Olson said he prepared some notes about the Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) legislation,but he was also open to suggestions as to what to prepare for the presentation at the workshop. Jester said we will tell the Council we are considering the program so they will need just the very basic information. We should tell them what it is, that we had a presentation on it, and the City of Edina is considering the program. Rojas said Edina doesn't have an ordinance, but they are putting forward a program that touches on the requirements by the State legislature to bring back to their city council. Jester asked if Edina has somebody working through the process. Rojas said they have two or three local businesses that are ready to go,but they don't have the program in place yet. Pini asked if she had a sense that Edina is serious about the program. Rojas said they are,but it is a matter of putting the actual program language together. There are 11 requirements spelled out in the program, and they are working towards those. Olson said we need to explain what it is,how we found out about it, who is in it, and what the benefits are. Jester thought we could spend four or five minutes explaining it and then say the Commission and staff are continuing to look at it. The consensus was that a PowerPoint item was not necessary. Daniels said he talked to Suburban Waste about recycling to get a feel for the whole thing. He said Suburban Waste is already collecting plastics #147 and will announce it in a newsletter in the bills and also with an email. Jester said she recently switched to Suburban Waste and she thought their information is confusing. Daniels said he talked with them about recycling in the parks and what could be done about it. Pini said he understood that City employees pick up recycling in our parks. Daniels said the main problem is how to keep contamination out of the recycling bins. Jester said she struggles with how to ask the Council for guidance without pointing fingers at other groups in the City. Our CONSERVATION COMMISSION October 11, 2011 Page 5 parks are wonderful but we need recycling in them. She thought we might ask for suggestions on encouraging recycling, and we might also ask for a budget line item to put recycling in all parks. She asked Mr. Daniels and Mr. Pini to prepare a handout on the subject. Jester said we will have the agenda distributed to the Council ahead of time and will pass out handouts on recycling, non-reusable bags and the PACE program at the meeting. B. Begin Annual Report and Work Plan Development Rojas said she included the 2010 Annual Report and 2011 goals in the packet. She noted last year we changed things by listing the goals under each quarter. She thought we stayed on task for the most part and suggested we keep the same model and add new items. Olson asked what the deadline is. Rojas said it will be the December meeting. She noted the Council may have some additions after the workshop, so we will know more after that. Jester said we need to look at what we did and didn't do this year, so this should be the major agenda item in November. IX. CONTINUING BUSINESS A. GreenStep Cities Program Covered under Item VIILA. B. PACE Legislation Olson reviewed the handout he prepared, noting he got information from Bob Hanson at Edina. He said Los Angeles has a strong program that is working well. The concept of the program is that the property owner can use this to retrofit solar or geothermal or something else that is usually quite expensive and has a long payback time. He said many property owners don't see themselves owning their property that far out. This program allows them to get financing to pay for the technology through the local government as a special assessment over a period of time. The special assessment runs with the land as a priority lien; however, the mortgage companies may not be willing to do that. He said the City of Edina started with commercial/industrial property, and the city is involved with underwriting. There is a lot of potential in Eden Prairie because there are plenty of buildings here that it would work well with. It would be a way to encourage growth and create jobs. He said we would need to find out how to get lenders more interested in approving these. He would like to see a presentation from the City of Edina and have a tour of Grandview Tire and Auto. Jester said it will be interesting to see what kind of direction we receive on this. Rojas said she spoke CONSERVATION COMMISSION October 11, 2011 Page 6 with City Manager Scott Neal at Edina who said the same thing as far as the program requirements. Edina is set to adopt it in November, so we can get the actual documents from them and possible use it as a model. C. Non-Reusable Bay Research Covered under Item VIILA. D. Communication Strategies--Website,Life in the Prairie, Facebook, etc. Jester asked if we submitted an article to the Environmental Times. Lawton said he did not have time to put one together. Rojas said Ms Stovring put one together and also has communicated with Mr. Lawton about doing an insert in the Eden Prairie News that will focus on "green" information. Jester noted Suburban Waste was disappointed that the recent Star/Tribune article didn't mention other haulers who already accept more plastics. She thought it would be good if Ms Stovring could get information about other haulers. Pini said this is the time of year it would be good to build awareness of leaves in storm drains. Rojas said we have done some public service items about that. Lawton said he will follow up with Ms Lorenz as to where we are with the website and other issues. Jester said the Chamber of Commerce was looking for somebody to do a talk on green issues. Rojas said they do that every October. She recommended GE capital and their work at the Eco Experience Center to the Chamber. Jester thought we should put this event on the 2012 calendar for October. E. Upcoming City Projects and Development--Project Profile Olson asked what is going on with the United Health Group project. Rojas said they have submitted all their plans and are currently working with staff on the development agreement. F. Water Sustainability Goals--Prashant Shrikhande Shrikhande said last year the Commission reviewed the utility rate plan with the Budget Advisory Council and advised them that we agreed with the tiered rate structure but recommended a closer look at the levels in the tiers. He thought it might be helpful to do some tracking and comparisons this year to see how the tiers are working. We might also have a presentation from the DNR about the use of rainwater, and we might develop some educational material. Jester asked if this is something we could discuss as we talk about the 2012 goals. Shrikhande said he CONSERVATION COMMISSION October 11, 2011 Page 7 was not prepared with any educational materials tonight,but he thought it would be beneficial to put in a summary of the drivers for conserving water and what some of the surrounding cities are doing. He said the difficult part is to determine what we propose in terms of targets. He said he would try to put something together for the next meeting. Olson thought the Commission has an interest in water consumption and how rates impact people's behavior. He asked if the new utility rates were targeted at people's behavior or were meant just to pay for the infrastructure. He said we could get a baseline and see what insights we can draw from it, and then look at what communities around us are doing and what their rate structures are. We could then develop a rate structure that would encourage the right kind of behaviors. Jester said we would have to be careful with interpreting the data because of the wet spring. Rojas said she will follow up with Ms Kotchevar, the Public Works Director, and Rick Wahlen in the Water Department. Jester thought this is something we should keep on the radar for 2012. X. INFORMATIONAL MATERIALS/HANDOUTS XI. UPCOMING EVENTS City Council Workshop--November 15, 2011 Home and Garden Expo--March 17, 2012--9:00 AM to 3:00 PM Jester said we need to know what we are going to be doing in the two booths at the Expo. She suggested having a Recycling 101 for residents and also getting ideas from Minnetonka's environmental fair. Shrikhande thought we could have something on composting. Pini said Peggy Knapp with the Freshwater Society gives talks for kids and adults. Shrikhande suggested an educational item on infiltrating snow melt rather than sending it off in drain tile. XII. NEXT MEETING November 15, 2011 XIV. ADJOURNMENT MOTION: Olson moved, seconded by Shrikhande. Motion carried 7-0. Chair Jester adjourned the meeting at 8:50 PM.