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HomeMy WebLinkAboutConservation Commission - 05/08/2012 APPROVED MINUTES CONSERVATION COMMISSION TUESDAY, MAY 8, 2012 7:00 P.M., CITY CENTER Prairie Room 8080 Mitchell Road COMMISSION MEMBERS: Laura Jester(Chair), Greg Olson (Vice Chair), Stacy Bettison, Sue Brown, Kurt Lawton, Anthony Pini, Prashant Shrikhande STAFF: Regina Rojas, Planning Division Leslie Stovring, Environmental Coordinator Jan Curielli, Recording Secretary I. CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL Chair Jester called the meeting to order at 7:02 P.M. All Commission members were present. II. APPROVAL OF AGENDA Stovring added Item IV.E. Local Water Management Plan. MOTION: Bettison moved, seconded by Lawton, to approve the agenda as amended. Motion carried 7-0. III. MINUTES A. Approval of Minutes for the April 10, 2012 Meeting Lawton said the first sentence of Item X.C. was not accurate. The consensus was to strike the sentence. MOTION: Olson moved, seconded by Shrikhande, to approve the minutes of the April 10, 2012 meeting as amended. Motion carried 7-0. IV. REPORTS FROM STAFF A. Internship and GreenCorps Application Stovring said she is hiring an intern for the summer and a temporary employee who will have a one-year tenure as an environmental technician. She distributed CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES May 8, 2012 Page 2 copies of the position profile for the intern position. She said Andrew, the intern, will work with the Conservation Commission over the summer and will look into the Blue Star award program. He will also help track the watercraft inspection program, analyze how it is going, and make recommendations for next year. Pini asked if he is a student. Stovring replied Andrew just graduated in December with an Environmental Studies major and is currently working for the Parks Department. He will attend the June Commission meeting. Rojas said the City applied to have a member of the GreenCorps posted here. If it is approved, the individual would work from September 2012 to November 2013 through the Parks and Recreation Department. The individual will help develop the energy crawl, will be responsible for coordinating recycling in the parks, and will input B3 data into the State database that monitors energy saving in our City buildings. We hope to get approval for that position soon. Jester asked if the technician has been hired. Stovring said Katie will serve as her assistant and will do stormwater management work. Shrikhande asked about the Blue Star award program. Stovring said it is an award for lakes. A friend of hers suggested we apply for the award. B. Water Craft Inspection Program Stovring distributed copies of a letter from the Riley Purgatory Bluff Creek Watershed District outlining their assistance to Eden Prairie and Chanhassen for the inspections at public lake accesses. She said a lawsuit was brought by the City of Chanhassen to ensure water craft inspection by closing and locking boat landing accesses and having one station where all boats would go to be washed before going onto the lakes. The lawsuit failed, so the City of Chanhassen then pushed for partnering with Eden Prairie to start a water craft inspection program. Both Eden Prairie and Chanhassen received $25,000 grants to start the program. The Parks Department also put in money in lieu of having a parking attendant at Lake Riley. Stovring passed out a spreadsheet showing a proposed 2012 watercraft inspection schedule for Volt Workforce Solutions inspectors. She said the Environmental Intern will be heading up and managing the program for Eden Prairie. There will be a total of$31,000 for the program, and the focus will be on Lake Riley. The DNR has agreed the inspectors can attend the Level 1 inspection training. In return we agree to educate our police officers and to provide staff and educational materials. We will work with the DNR to see what is working and what isn't. Jester asked if we could do our own City water craft inspections. Stovring said we could,but the inspectors would need to be qualified by the State. Jester asked if Volt Workforce is acting as a consultant. Stovring said they are a temporary agency. Jester asked if the inspections are for plants and zebra mussels. Stovring CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES May 8, 2012 Page 3 said that was correct; however, if the boater tries to enter the lake without an inspection or after something is found that is wrong, the inspectors cannot stop them so they will have to call 911 for police assistance. Jester asked what kind of education will be provided along with the inspections. Stovring said the watercraft inspectors do talk to and educate the boaters. In addition, the DNR is in charge of developing new signs and brochures for the landings;but things are moving slowly because this is so new. Jester said it will be a good opportunity to educate boat owners so she hoped the DNR gets the program going. Lawton asked if this program is going on anywhere else. Stovring said it is going on in Carver County, the Minnehaha Watershed District and in Chanhassen that she is aware of. C. Ordinance Updates Stovring distributed copies of an ordinance that was passed regulating the use of coal tar-based sealer products. The ordinance is effective as of May 10. The largest producer of coal tar-based sealants is Jet Black, and they are phasing out their production of those products by July. Jester asked if Jet Black has been informed about the new ordinance. Stovring said they have been. Lawton asked how the ordinance gets enforced. Stovring said it will be complaint driven,but most companies do not sell it anymore. For example,both Menards and Home Depot no longer have it for sale in their stores. She noted coal tar sealants are one of the main sources of pollutants in the stormwater system. The MPCA set up a grant program to help fund the cleanup and disposal of pollutants, but we needed the ordinance in place to qualify for a grant. Jester asked if all the asphalt companies are being contacted about the new ordinance. Stovring said they are contacting the local ones; however, Jet Black makes 90% of the sealants. Bettison asked if Jet Black will continue to produce and sell those sealants from May 10 until July. Stovring said she thought they will continue as planned for phasing out in June as only a few cities have such an ordinance and it would be difficult to shift production for just a few cities. Jester asked what the alternative product is. Stovring said asphalt based sealants are a much more stable alternative. The City uses asphalt-based sealants on our streets. Jester asked if there has been any press about this. Stovring said she is working on the annual drinking water report and plans to include something in that and may call the Eden Prairie News to run a story. CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES May 8, 2012 Page 4 Stovring distributed copies of a draft ordinance relating to stormwater illicit discharge and connections. She said the ordinance is required in order to be in compliance for our stormwater permit. She noted there are quite a few exemptions that were taken directly from our stormwater permit. The biggest exemption is swimming pool water. She said the ordinance allows us to close off access to the stormwater system if a property owner does not allow us access for inspection. Bettison asked how pool owners would know about this. Stovring said we have to get word out about this so we will have some education. Her department receives a lot of calls about this. Jester asked if they would be able to take residential car washing off the list of exemptions. Stovring said they don't want to do that as it is already part of the stormwater permit as an exemption,plus this would result in a lot of complaints for such a minor problem plus so many residents do this in the summer. Lawton said his street was refinished last summer and the machine they used was rinsed off into the storm sewer. Stovring said that would not be legal under the new ordinance. Bettison suggested they have a FAQ component,possibly sent out with the utility bills. Stovring thought this might be a good one to put on the web page. D. Recyclins!Updates Jester said at the last meeting we got copies of the recycling report and were a little confused by it because it looked like the recycling rates had gone down. Stovring said the rates did go down. Staff is puzzled by it too. We expected the rates would go up when we went to single sort. She noted we are not the only city to see a decline. We have no idea why it dropped off as much as it did; however, all of rates for the various materials collected have gone down and not just paper or glass which is expected due to decreases in newspaper production and switching from glass to plastic. Jester thought there is a place for some education on recycling considering this data and the fact that the haulers are all taking plastics 1-5. Shrikhande asked if we track other waste which would give us a better sense of the total amount of waste. Stovring said we don't. The trucks go to more than one city on one route so it is difficult to track by city. In the past the city tried to collect this data,but it was difficult and was often just a guess so it is no longer required. Shrikhande said he attended a Sustainable Cities workshop at the University of Minnesota. At the workshop the Mayor of Falcon Heights presented information on a project where they are tracking usage of electricity, gas, water and waste for residential and industrial users. Jester noted some cities use just one hauler which would make it a lot easier to track. CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES May 8, 2012 Page 5 Stovring distributed copies of a residential recycling grant agreement and a residential recycling funding policy. Stovring said this is a new agreement that the City has to sign. We also must have a residential recycling funding policy in place. We can only use 10% of the grant funding to cover administrative expenses. Jester said she would like to see the Communications Department ask Eden Prairie News and the Sun Current to pick up the story on the reduced recycling rates and the fact that haulers now take all plastics 1-5. Brown noted there is not a lot of market for the plastics so it is not a profitable area for them. Jester asked what made them take the additional plastics. Stovring said the County and State goals required it in order to increase the recycling rate. Jester asked if the grant requires an annual application. Stovring said the grant agreement is through 2015. She noted there are some new educational requirements and asked Commission members to give her ideas for that. She can use recycling grant money for some educational materials. Lawton asked if there is a lot of dual sort in Eden Prairie. Stovring said she didn't think any of them do that anymore. Jester asked about recycling in the parks. Rojas said there was talk about doing a pilot program in some of the parks,possibly with grants available through Hennepin County. Stovring thought the grant applications were due at the end of April;however, if all the money isn't given out, they usually reopen it. Jester asked about the new concrete structures planned for Round Lake park. Rojas said that was part of the project to improve the play equipment at Round Lake. Jester asked if they are adding those without using grant money. Rojas said they are. Jester asked if the water at the splash pad will be groundwater from the aquifer and if the waste will go into the lake. Stovring said it is chlorinated water that is recycled and filtered. The backwash from the filter goes into the lake after going through an infiltration basin. Shrikhande noted backwashing the filter causes some materials that plug the filter to be dropped into the outflow. Jester asked if Round Lake will be the only park with recycling. She thought there would be an advantage to having recycling at every park so residents aren't confused. Stovring said we have been trying to get that for many years,but there are significant problems with contamination issues. She said the Parks Department is willing to try it again at Round Lake and at special events. Jester asked what kind of containers will be used at the events because some of the containers don't work well. It sounds like the ones planned for Round Lake will have small holes so only cans or bottles can be put in them. Stovring said this might be a good project for the new intern who is coming over from the Parks CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES May 8, 2012 Page 6 Department. He might be able to find out the kind of containers and where we will be storing them. Jester asked if recycling has been added to the event application. Rojas said she communicated with the Parks and Recreation staff responsible for facility rentals and they are open to making a change on the parks agreements once recycling containers are in place. Olson asked if other communities have recycling in the parks. Stovring said some do, although many of them have a lot of problems with it. Our staff comes through one time to pick up the garbage and then returns for the recycling. If the recycling has trash in it they may have to come back a third time. Jester noted this is the first time we have heard it may take three trips in order to do this. Rojas said the Community Center staff person told her they are open to making the change on the form but it makes more sense to add that at the same time they have a recycling container on site. Jester noted other cities have agreements stating the user is responsible to bring containers and to dispose of the trash. Olson asked why the City doesn't contract the parks recycling out to the solid waste haulers. Stovring said we have our own trucks and a small staff to do this. Bettison asked if other cities use their own staff members for this. Stovring said many of them do. Bettison asked how they manage the contamination issues. Stovring said they have to take more time and effort to sort the waste. Even when the containers have small round holes some people stuff other trash through the hole. It is important to have the garbage and recycling containers close together along with really good signage. Olson said other communities are having problems but they continue to do the recycling. He asked why others don't discontinue it if it is so problematic. Stovring said once you start it, there will be pressure to keep it going. Lawton thought we could work on the issue of making three trips by having a vehicle that could do both trips at once. Shrikhande thought we should outsource it if the fleet isn't suited to it. Stovring noted recycling has been on the bottom of the list due to the cost and amount of work required to include recycling. Jester thought there may be other grants for recycling in addition to the Hennepin County one. Eureka Recycling in St. Paul is a recycling and zero waste advocate, and they may have some resources. Stovring didn't know about Eureka,but Suburban Waste would love to do more events. Jester asked if there is a way to change the rental agreement even though the recycling containers are not in place. She thought we might look at rental agreements in other cities. Stovring thought Bloomington changed theirs a couple of years ago. Jester asked that we keep communication going on this. Stovring CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES May 8, 2012 Page 7 said she has regularly brought up the subject of doing recycling at events with the Parks Department. E. Local Water Management Plan Stovring distributed copies of the latest SECCHI disc readings for five area lakes. She noted 2011 was a really good year for water quality. She said our local water management and wetland protection plans are outdated, but we were waiting for the Lower Minnesota River Watershed District to finish their plan. Their plan is now completed so we are required to update our plan. She distributed emails with Wenck Associates about updating our plan. As part of the effort we will be updating our infiltration ordinance. She will have a first draft of our new stormwater permit out next week, and that will have to be incorporated into the plan when it is finished, which will take a few months. Rojas asked when the plan would come to the Conservation Commission. Stovring said the earliest would be sometime in August or September. Jester asked what the City is doing about the TMDL going through the coalition. Stovring said we have not been involved very much and are relying on the Minnesota Cities Stormwater Coalition through the League of Minnesota Cities to stay on top of it for us. Jester noted there needs to be a 25% reduction from 2004, and the coalition has been really involved. Stovring said Wenck is going through the model for the non-degradation report to see if we need to do the reduction or if we possibly already meet it. Jester said the Commission would like to be involved with that. Shrikhande asked what makes the SECCHI disc reading for Staring Lake so bad. Stovring said it is the carp. The Watershed District tried to net carp in the lake last winter but were not very successful. The contractor snagged a sunken sail boat and the net tipped and almost all the carp they had trapped were released. This spring they put a carp barrier in Purgatory Creek between the marsh in Purgatory Creek Park and Staring Lake, and they think they may be able to get a good handle on the carp problem with that barrier. The carp come up the creek to spawn and then go back. Dr. Sorenson from the University of Minnesota said Staring/Purgatory Creek/Marsh Lake is the most carp infested water he has ever seen. At this point the Commission discussed Item VIII.D. Communication Strategies out of sequence. VIII. D. Communication Strategies--Website, Life in the Prairie, Facebook, etc. Jester said Mr. Lawton has asked about the possibility of having an environmental blog. Rojas said she brought it up with the City Manager who noted the City already has four blogs. CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES May 8, 2012 Page 8 Lawton said we could put together a plan on how it could be done;however the new home page has a section for news in the center. Rojas said there is a link to Living Green with a list of news items on the right. Stovring said she can post articles on the page. Bettison asked if the articles are written by City staff. Stovring said they are now,but she could post an article written by a Commission member after the Communications Department reviewed it. Jester asked if Ms Stovring would prefer to receive fully written articles or just ideas. Stovring said she would take either one. Jester suggested Commission members send them to Ms Stovring with a copy to Ms Rojas. Stovring noted she would want just a paragraph for articles that would be posted on the web page. Shrikhande asked if we have had any communication about fat, oil and grease disposal. Stovring said that is a big problem because it can cause clogs in drainage pipes. Bettison asked if it would impact water quality. Stovring said the treatment plants have to deal with it. Shrikhande said providing some information about how to deal with it might with help the problem. Lawton asked where the blogs are located on the new website. Rojas said they can be accessed by an icon on the home page. Lawton suggested putting a name under each of the icon symbols to help people understand what those are. He said there seem to be a lot of opportunities to post stories now so perhaps an environmental blog isn't needed;however people would sign up for a blog and that would help to build a database of people interested in environmental issues. Bettison asked if people can sign up for a feed on the news page. Stovring said they can sign up for updates to the Living Green page. Rojas said people can sign up for different information categories and can subscribe on the Living Green page. Lawton thought we might want to have another meeting with the Communications Department. Stovring noted they now have better ways to track data and that would be another thing to think about. Jester suggested Mr. Lawton meet with the Communications Department and report back on what their thoughts are. Lawton said the deadline for the July/August Life in the Prairie is May 25. It might be a good time to hit on the best management practices for irrigating lawns. Stovring said she has an article on lawn watering with the water report, but she would like a new article. Jester noted Life in the Prairie goes to every resident so that publication is a very valuable way to get information out. She asked Mr. Lawton to get in touch with Ms Lorenz and give her ideas on an irrigation article. V. REPORTS FROM CHAIR VI. REPORTS FROM COMMISSION A. LRT Community Advisory Committee (CAC) Update (Pini) CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES May 8, 2012 Page 9 Pini said the CAC meetings are scheduled for the second Thursday of each month. Three of the nine Eden Prairie appointees to the LRT CAC attended the April meeting. It was primarily an introductory meeting to discuss the purpose of the committee which is to bring back community concerns and issues to the CAC and to advise on planning, construction and land use for the LRT line and the stations. He said he brought the list of comments from Commission members to the CAC meeting. He asked Commission members to let him know of other concerns as time goes on. Jester asked about the status of the funding. Lawton said it is not approved yet. Jester asked if the CAC will disband if funding is not approved. Rojas said the goal is to have State funding support,but the County has funds available that can carry us through for a while. Pini said he saw an article that sounded like there are people who are concerned with light rail as it relates to Eden Prairie, so he was wondering what people think about the LRT. Jester noted his representation on the CAC is for the conservation end of things regarding the LRT. Pini said the committee will get into more detailed discussion as time goes on. Shrikhande said he understood we want to connect our local public transportation to the main city more efficiently. He asked if there has been a proposal for better connectivity in the southwest metro area. Rojas said Southwest Transit has a local circulator route. She noted the LRT has been part of the Metropolitan Council's regional transit-way framework for 25-30 years. They looked at alternative alignments and are now planning the route to go through the business community rather than residential areas. There are a lot of reverse commuters who would use the LRT. Shrikhande asked if there are local loop expansions in the plan. Rojas said local transit is run by Southwest Transit. Pini noted Southwest Transit is providing excellent service, but they are now looking at a major competitor with the LRT. B. Environmental Education (Brown) Brown said her presentation would take a chunk of time so it was probably best to save it for another meeting. The consensus was to postpone the presentation to another meeting. C. Edina Go Green Event (Brown) Brown said the event was attended by 250-300 people from Edina and the surrounding suburbs. Dr. Jonathon Foley, Director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, presented what is going on with agriculture and water usage. There was an interactive forum after Dr. Foley's presentation. There were booths set up for organizations such as the MPCA and CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES May 8, 2012 Page 10 Xcel to give out information. She thought we might want to offer a similar program here in Eden Prairie, perhaps in place of the energy crawl. Bettison asked about Dr. Foley's area of expertise. Brown said he is Professor of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior. Brown said they learned what the Project Earth group at Edina High School received funding to put in hydration stations for refillable water bottles. She thought that might be something to discuss with our student representatives next fall. In addition, Xcel Energy would like to talk to us about their community outreach program and helping us with educational opportunities. Jester asked who was on the panel of experts. Brown said the head of the Environmental Commission, the Edina Community Foundation, the Edina Go Green and others were on the panel. Bettison asked if the event was city sponsored. Brown said it was. Lawton asked if they have done this before. Brown said they have this event twice a year. VII. NEW BUSINESS VIII. CONTINUING BUSINESS A. Water Conservation Rate Structure Shrikhande gave a PowerPoint presentation on his proposed water conservation rate strategy. He reviewed the three goals for the proposal: • Establish water conservation goals with the DNR based on an understanding of groundwater sustainability in Eden Prairie aquifers • Understand how pricing impacts water usage • Establish milestones and inputs towards a 2013 rate plan He reviewed a graph of single family customer usage under the current water rate tiers that showed tiers beyond Tier 1 are barely used under the existing rate structure. He said the plan would be to monitor the usage over the next couple of years in order to allow time for people to react to the new rates put into effect in 2011. He said Mr. Ellis agreed to propose a drop in the minimum usage, in part because the revenue would only be impacted by about $15,000. He said he used the data for 2011 to project usage under an inclining block rate structure. That structure would produce a more equitable distribution of users among the four tiers and would be revenue neutral. Shrikhande said Mr. Ellis asked questions about the distribution among the tiers and what the role of our Commission is. Mr. Ellis suggested we consider a motion to adopt a rate structure that follows this guideline to promote conservation beyond the irrigation only users. CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES May 8, 2012 Page 11 Olson asked if we would be recommending that we adopt a more conservation oriented structure or that we would prescribe a specific formula. Shrikhande thought the proposed formula would be Exhibit A of a conservation oriented rate structure. Olson asked if Mr. Shrikhande would like the Commission to say that we need a more conservation oriented rate structure but not go so far as to prescribe a specific formula. Shrikhande said the goal would be to go beyond an irrigation only concept. Jester asked if Mr. Ellis has seen the calculations in the report. Shrikhande said he sent the presentation to Mr. Ellis and discussed it with him in a meeting. Jester noted the City won't be changing the rate structure for a couple of years. She thought it might make more sense to take a look at data collected in the City, look at other case studies and then re-evaluate this in a couple of years. Shrikhande didn't think there is a disadvantage to taking the step now. Jester said she would like to see a copy of our last recommendation on the rate structure. Olson suggested we organize some kind of effort to garner more information, perhaps with a task force. He was not sure the City Council recognizes there is a problem. The work of a task force would be to identify an opportunity for the City to reap some benefits by virtue of a more conservation oriented rate structure. It will be a couple of years before the City looks seriously at this issue again, so we have time to make a case for a change to a different rate structure. Jester asked what a task force would do beyond what Mr. Shrikhande has already done. Shrikhande said we could provide information on what the benefits to the City would be in terms of plans to upgrade the system and to add more wells. Olson asked if we have seen consumption data that shows a change before or after the multi-rate structure. Shrikhande said we are trying to adjust the tier structure and pricing to have the right incentive for conservation. Olson asked if we have any actual case data where it has actually happened. Shrikhande said there are many areas in the western part of the country where this happens. Bettison said it seems there would be value in understanding how water scarce communities and states like Atlanta, Arizona and California deal with pricing. She thought it would be great to make a case with some examples and something to compare it to. Shrikhande said one of the challenges is the difficulty to assess the impact of just this rate structure. There are studies that have been done for cities that have implemented the rate structure. It all comes down to an economic behavior that involves the demand elasticity of price change. Lawton said what struck him was the current rate structure was changed to charge more for heavy usage and those users are now paying more for their usage. That CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES May 8, 2012 Page 12 was a big step in the right direction. To him the challenge to further conservation is that we don't have a water shortage in this area of the country. Olson asked how much we should be conserving. Shrikhande said there is a water appropriate goal to meet and people see their utility bills go up. We are gathering more reserves so the City can maintain and expand the system,but instead we could reduce usage and reduce the need to expand the system. Jester said she appreciated Mr. Shrikhande's work on this. She didn't think we will come to a conclusion tonight,but she would like to review the previous Commission action on this at a future meeting. We might also come up with a list of things a task force could take a look at over the next few months. Shrikhande said Mr. Ellis commented if we get too aggressive there is a potential for an increase in private irrigation-only wells. Olson asked how much we should conserve through this. Jester thought those are future questions to consider. Shrikhande said we need more clarity about groundwater usage from the DNR and we also need to know how wells are permitted on the State level. He asked that this remain an agenda item for the Commission's next meeting. Jester said Ms Rojas will get a copy of our previous recommendation and we can develop a list of other items to consider. B. PACE Legislation C. GreenStep Cities Program Rojas said we will be recommended as a GreenStep 2 city at the annual conference of League of Minnesota Cities. She noted there were a lot of broken links to repair after the website was updated. D. Communication Stratesies--Website, Life in the Prairie, Facebook, etc. (Previously discussed.) IX. INFORMATIONAL MATERIALS/HANDOUTS A. Project Profile--City Projects and Development Jester noted Mr. Lawton was appointed to the Nine Mile Creek Watershed District Citizen Advisory Commission. X. UPCOMING EVENTS A. Commission Banquet--May 9, 2012--6:00 PM CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES May 8, 2012 Page 13 B. GE Eco Experience Grand Opening--May 31, 2012 at 11:00 AM Jester said the Commission may have another opportunity to tour the facility. XI. NEXT MEETING--June 12, 2012 XIV. ADJOURNMENT MOTION: Olson moved, seconded by Shrikhande, to adjourn the meeting. Motion carried 7-0. Chair Jester adjourned the meeting at 9:23 P.M.