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HomeMy WebLinkAboutConservation Commission - 10/08/2013 APPROVED MINUTES CONSERVATION COMMISSION TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2013 7:00 P.M., CITY CENTER Prairie Room 8080 Mitchell Road COMMISSION MEMBERS: Greg Olson (Chair), Kurt Lawton (Vice Chair), Stacy Bettison, Laura Jester, Prashant Shrikhande STAFF: Regina Rojas, Planning Division Jan Curielli, Recording Secretary Leslie Stovring, Environmental Coordinator Hagen Kaczmarek, Environmental Tech STUDENT REPRESENTATIVES: Sonja McPherson, Alyssa Minder, Olivia Urbanski GUEST: Diane Spector, Wenck Engineering I. CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL All Commission members were present. Olson arrived late. Vice Chair Lawton called the meeting to order at 7:00 PM. II. APPROVAL OF AGENDA Rojas added Item V.C. Recyclins!in the Parks Update. MOTION: Jester moved, seconded by Shrikhande, to approve the agenda as amended. Motion carried 4-0. III. MINUTES A. Approval of the Minutes for the June 25, 2013 Meeting Shrikhande said Page 3, Paragraph 4, should be changed because he said monthly billing might not be needed once the data is available online. MOTION: Jester moved, seconded by Shrikhande, to approve the minutes of the June 25, 2013 meeting as amended. Motion carried 4-0. B. Approval of the Meeting Notes for the September 10, 2013 Meeting Rojas said the title should be "Unapproved Meeting Notes." CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES October 8, 2013 Page 2 MOTION: Jester moved, seconded by Bettison, to approve the meeting notes of the September 10 meeting as amended. Motion carried 4-0. Olson arrived at 7:10 PM. IV. PRESENTATION A. Local Water Management Plan--Wenck Associates Stovring said this is the kickoff meeting for our Local Water Management Plan (LWMP) update. There will be an official public meeting later. She noted we have two years to complete our update after the three Watershed Districts have finished their water management plans. We will not be finished by the December deadline;however, we were waiting for the stormwater permit update to be completed and the Riley-Purgatory Watershed District is currently undergoing a major plan amendment. She introduced Diane Spector from Wenck Engineering, the firm that is working on the LWMP update. Diane Spector said the current plan was updated in 2008. She distributed an overview of the plan and a table comparing the standards of the various agencies. She noted the plan has three major sections: an inventory, goals and policies, and an implementation plan. The City has been doing an inventory of lakes, streams, stormwater ponds and wetlands in Eden Prairie that will be put into a holistic plan dealing with all the waters in the City. The stormwater modeling was updated to reflect changes in the community and new information about the water in the City. In addition, they have incorporated information from other studies or reports such as the TMDLs, use attainability analyses, watershed requirements, NPDES stormwater permit requirements, the City's wellhead protection plan and others. She explained that the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) is calculated by a study to determine where nutrients are coming from and how much phosphorus a lake can absorb and still meet water quality standards. It identifies steps that can be taken to achieve load reduction.. They plan to incorporate actions that can be done to reduce the load. Ms Spector said they will establish goals and policies for holistic water management of stormwater, lakes and streams, wetlands and groundwater in the City and will develop Creek and Wetland Management Plans. They will also develop an implementation plan that will include programs, capital projects, maintenance actions, ordinance revisions and an assessment of the adequacy of funding. She said they would like input from the Commission on the end goals for the management plan. They will bring back some of the interim components of the plan to the Commission. Olson asked if there would be comparative data for other communities and agencies when the Commission receives the additional information. Ms Spector said they could do that. She noted that we are looking at the regulatory CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES October 8, 2013 Page 3 requirements tonight as we compare what the City does now to what the adjoining watersheds require. Bettison asked where we are in the process. Ms Spector said they are winding up the first step to develop the inventory and are getting ready to move forward on steps two and three. Bettison asked about funding. Stovring replied the approved budget runs about$1,600,000 per year for 2013-2020. She said there have been a number of big projects this year so the budget has been increased. Bettison asked if the budget will drive the discussion of steps two and three of the plan. Ms Spector said the stormwater utility brings in a fixed amount of revenue,but the Council might consider increasing the rates in order to get through high priority items in steps two and three of the plan. Bettison asked if the rates are the only source of revenue. Jester noted there are grant opportunities for high priority projects. Stovring said the $1,600,000 budgeted is based on known projects and estimates of what those would cost. Bettison asked if they plan to review the rate structure. Stovring said we are starting to do at that now. Ms Spector reviewed the table providing comparisons of the City's standards with those of the watershed districts and the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System(NPDES). She said the NPDES general permit allows the City to discharge stormwater into the waters of the State and provides standards to which the City must adhere. The NPDES construction permit must be obtained by developers planning construction projects that would need to discharge runoff from their site. The two NPDES permits were just redone and were reissued on August 1. Stovring noted the Nine Mile Creek watershed has the most restrictive standards. Ms Spector said it is common for cities in multiple watersheds to adopt the most restrictive standards. She noted the new NPDES general permit has caused concern regarding the water quality requirements for new development and redevelopment projects. Shrikhande asked who evaluates the requirements and what the baseline was. Ms Spector said the regulatory authority does the evaluation, and those requirements are often defined in different ways. For new development they assume that runoff occurs at a particular rate with a concentration of phosphorus at a certain rate. There are different models to estimate what the load is for redevelopment. Redevelopment projects would start adding in practices to reduce the load to get to a lower number. Jester noted we still have open land and space in the City, and there would have been some sort of stormwater control when building occurred in the past. Stovring said we have a lot of redevelopment areas that have little or no stormwater treatment, such as the Eden Prairie Center, the Town Center area, and the Golden Triangle. Ms Spector noted there are technologies to help in those situations but they are very expensive. Jester asked if the Riley-Purgatory watershed plan is in draft form and if the City would adopt their standards if those are more strict than Nine Mile's. Ms Spector CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES October 8, 2013 Page 4 said it is a big issue, and we would need to see how it has an impact, especially on redevelopment. Stovring noted most of the City is in the Riley-Purgatory watershed,but we would have to compare the standards of the three watersheds and the NPDES. Bettison asked about the pressure we receive from the Met Council about development. Stovring said they have a population estimate. Rojas said our Comprehensive Guide Plan shows additional redevelopment near the Town Center Area. The Golden Triangle would be a large redevelopment area with additional office buildings, housing and commercial buildings to tie into the plans to construct light rail there. Ms Spector said the new NPDES permit requires no net increase of the annual volume of runoff. The MPCA has a separate study process for minimum impact design standards. One of the standards recommended is that cities and watersheds require development and redevelopment to infiltrate 1.1 inches of rain. Stovring noted it also looks at reuse and gives more options than just infiltration. Lawton asked how climate change and increased volume from rain events is factored into these standards. Ms Spector replied we are seeing a change in the type of rain events but not necessarily increased volumes. Shrikhande noted the average has not changed that much. Ms Spector said they look at lowering the volume of water running off the site but also at removing the potential for nutrients to be carried off the site to help reduce the potential pollutants. She noted not every site has soils that infiltrate well. There are high contamination sites, and there are conflicts between agencies about these issues. Ms Spector noted all of the agencies have different standards regarding wetland buffers and not all of them have bluff requirements. She said linear projects deal with impervious surface projects. Stovring said we currently model stormwater volume on TP-40 standards from 1961. Over the years we have added a lot more data, so Atlas 14 is a new modeling standard based on new data. Ms Spector said we know we have been underestimating the effect of climate change because of new data we have available to us. We were underestimating how big the big storms could get. Stovring said the Atlas 14 model is based on 75-year storm events rather than 100-year events. Ms Spector noted the agencies are in different places regarding the adoption of Atlas 14 standards. Stovring said we are waiting for Riley-Purgatory watershed to finish their rules and go out for public comment. She recommended the Commission members look at those rules when they are posted. Once those are done, we can look at more detail of how everything compares and determine what revisions will need to be made to our ordinances. Jester asked if that is a discussion she plans to have with the Commission. Stovring said it is. Bettison asked when Riley-Purgatory's plan CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES October 8, 2013 Page 5 will be done. Stovring said there will be public comment taken in January. Olson asked staff to inform the Commission when the Riley-Purgatory plan is available. Jester asked if Riley-Purgatory watershed will be permitting groundwater. Stovring said they are looking to fill the gap in what the DNR permit covers. Shrikhande asked if a resident needs a permit to put a well on their property. Stovring said a permit is required, but no one would deny them permission for the well. Bettison asked if the first section of the plan is done. Ms Spector said it is close to being done. Bettison asked if the impaired water inventory is done. Stovring said that has not changed much, except that we are trying to get Red Rock Lake delisted because it meets water quality standards. Jester asked why the water quality has improved. Stovring said we don't know for sure,but it may be partly due to the type of vegetation that is growing there. Ms Spector said they will finish the inventory and begin to identify goals and actions. Stovring said the DNR also asked us to incorporate a creek inventory into our plan. Ms Spector said we have been walking the creeks to inventory and evaluate them. Stovring noted we put in a grant application for Purgatory Creek. Stovring asked the Commission members to look through the old LWMP to see what the goals and policies were before and to see if something should be added or changed. Shrikhande said there is some mention of groundwater but was concerned how we incorporate that into the water management. Ms Spector said this doesn't really address water supply, although there are actions in the wellhead protection plan to protect the integrity of the aquifer. Stovring said we have a requirement to report annually on groundwater quality, and we can reference that. Shrikhande asked if the groundwater plan doesn't come within the LWMP. Ms Spector said it is addressed peripherally in this plan. Shrikhande thought we need to look holistically at how the water supply plan works into redevelopment areas. Stovring said one of her goals is that water conservation is important to incorporate into the plan, especially in regard to lawn watering. Jester asked when they will return to the Commission with more information. Stovring said she would like to get ideas from the Commission before they return. Jester said she would prefer it to be an exercise at a meeting with a template like this available for the discussion. Jester asked what the requirements are for citizen input on the LWMP. Ms Spector said there is no specific requirement,just to have the input. Jester asked if we are to be the ones to provide input. Stovring said that was correct,but they will also put a notice in the paper so the public could come to the meeting. Olson suggested the Commission have the template to review 10 days to two weeks before the meeting and then have an informal discussion at the November meeting. The Commission could then provide ideas for the December meeting. CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES October 8, 2013 Page 6 Stovring said she might be able to have an intern work on the data on comparable cities in time for the November meeting. V. REPORTS FROM STAFF A. Green Crawl Update Rojas distributed copies of the draft call for participants for "Ecopalooza," the Green Crawl event to be held Saturday, May 17. She said staff has been meeting to formulate ideas and plan the event. The date was chosen after we were approached by MRES to partner with them for their solar regatta on Lake Riley. The event will be modeled on the Art Crawl the City holds every year. Businesses or residences would show off sustainable features on their site. The Conservation Commission and staff will select the participants from the applications submitted. Staff will create marketing pieces to publicize the event. They plan to have a map of the various locations with the nearby trails marked for the convenience of bikers or walkers. The date is the same as the Purgatory Park Arts in the Park event, and staff will highlight exhibits there that have a sustainability theme. Olson asked how the call for participants will be distributed. Rojas said it will be on the website, Facebook and in the newspapers. We will also distribute it to businesses and residences that have applied for rebates or grants for sustainability-related improvements. Jester suggested the water sustainability initiative be listed as rain barrels,rain gardens and water conservation, and that native landscaping be added as an initiative. She asked if the water treatment plant will be open for tours that day. Rojas said she would check. Jester suggested increasing the amount of text about what we are looking for in the Opportunity section. Shrikhande said he noted a Fix-It Clinic will be part of the event. Rojas said we have been working with Hennepin County to host it at Lake Riley but they wanted to see how the clinic at the Senior Center went before committing. Shrikhande asked what a sustainable products initiative would be. Jester said that could be use of products like bamboo flooring. B. Green Step Cities Update Rojas said she has met with various department staff about the major best practices. She did another inventory and input more initiatives and is waiting for feedback about the input from the MPCA. We need to complete 16 out of the 28 best practices in order to achieve a Step 3 block. There are two large best practices we need to complete, one of which is B3 database entry. She formed a team with the Finance and Facilities Departments to determine what how extensive an effort would be involved in entering data. The B3 database is managed by the State. Cities input their energy consumption based on utility bills CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES October 8, 2013 Page 7 for the city. The data must be input every month so it would be a large task to compile. Olson asked if the data must be by building. Rojas said it does and we have about 60 buildings. She said she is going to invite a representative from the MPCA to explain the purpose of the B3 database and how to enter data and someone from Edina who is currently doing this. Shrikhande asked if we could capture the top 10% or so, thereby getting 90% of the usage. Rojas said the MPCA person is familiar with the State program so they would be able to inform us of the requirements. Olson asked about the timeline. Rojas said we are meeting with the State in October and someone from Edina after that. We will see where it goes from there. Olson asked for a progress report in November and December. Rojas said the other large best practice is the PACE program. She explained the PACE program and noted Mr. Olson did a lot of work on it a couple of years ago. Staff and the Council struggled with the administrative burden and funding for the program. There was not enough support to start the program in Eden Prairie, and Hennepin County was not interested in taking over the program. The St. Paul Port Authority said they would have the ability to deal with different loan programs and could provide bonding up to $10,000,000 for the program through a joint powers agreement. She said staff would be in support of doing the program that way. She noted we have heard of a potential property owner who is interested in the program. Jester asked if the agreement would be per property. Rojas said it would. Olson said the joint power would administer the program, and the City would be a conduit for the loan. Rojas said Eagan just passed a joint powers agreement with the Port Authority for a specific project. Olson said it would be helpful if the Commission could review one of the joint powers agreements. Rojas said she could email a copy of Edina's agreement, although they administer their own program and have a third party agreement with someone in California. Shrikhande asked if we could look at the one from Eagan. C. Recyclins!in the Parks Update Kaczmarek said he talked with Matt Bourne today who said to date they have collected 337 bags (about 2.5 tons) of recycled materials in the parks. The material was collected at Round Lake, Riley Lake and Staring Lake. They hope to expand the program next year and are requesting a grant from Hennepin County to add more containers and to beef up signage in the parks. He said Matt reported over 50% of the material was un-salvageable,but they have a single-sort recycling process at the maintenance facility. He said they should have a final report at the December meeting, although there is no basis for comparison this year. CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES October 8, 2013 Page 8 Jester thought the 5000 lbs. is a great start and deserves a newspaper article. Kaczmarek said the fact we have containers at the three lakes is posted on Facebook. They plan to make the containers more appealing. Rojas noted Mr. Bourne said the giant bottles had less contamination than other containers, and they are working on better communication with the sports associations. Shrikhande asked if they counted the amount of trash collected at the same location for comparison purposes. Kaczmarek said they did not,but he could try to get that information. Shrikhande asked how many months were included in the data. Kaczmarek said the recycling containers were put out in April. VI. REPORTS FROM CHAIR VII. REPORTS FROM COMMISSION Shrikhande said he volunteered at the Fix-It Clinic at the Senior Center. He thought the Senior Center was an out-of-the-way place for the clinic, and the clinic should be put some place where there is more traffic. He was not sure the barn at Riley Lake would draw more people. Jester asked how many people attended. Shrikhande said there were over 50 who attended but he thought a change of venue could draw more people. Jester asked what kinds of things people brought to the clinic. Shrikhande said there were all kinds of mechanical and electrical devices. A. LRT Community Advisory Commission (CAC) Update Rojas suggested Commission members watch the Met Council website for upcoming meeting dates because there is a lot in motion now. The latest recommendation from the project office staff was to eliminate the Mitchell Road station and end the line at SouthWest Station. Council Member Nelson serves on the Corridor Management Committee, and they have said they would like there to be an opportunity for the line to extend to the west to Mitchell Road. VIII. REPORTS FROM STUDENTS Urbanski said they had their first Tree Huggers meeting. They now have ten recycling bins at the stadium, and crowds at the football games are starting to use them. Olson asked how much recycling was picked up. Urbanski said they don't have any data yet. IX. NEW BUSINESS X. CONTINUING BUSINESS A. Communication Topics--Website,Life in the Prairie, Facebook, etc. XI. INFORMATIONAL MATERIALS/HANDOUTS A. Upcoming City Projects and Development--Project Profile CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES October 8, 2013 Page 9 Rojas said there is not much new compared to the last meeting. Bettison asked about the Great Plains Restaurant request. Rojas said that is the IHOP restaurant, and the request was submitted last April. They have not withdrawn the request nor have they provided the information requested so it remains on the list as an incomplete project. XII. UPCOMING CITY EVENTS Rojas said there will be a Green Mid-Market Open House on October 29 at Cedar Ridge School from 6:15 to 8:30 PM. The City would purchase the property on Scenic Heights Road from MnDOT and then sell it to a developer with the requirement that sustainable features be implemented and housing prices be in the mid-market range. Olson said all the parties involved would be at the closing on the property so the City would not be out- of-pocket for the purchase price. He asked if the Council understands the mechanics of the purchase. Rojas replied they have had workshops and neighborhood meetings about it. Bettison asked why the City would have to buy the property. Rojas said we have the right of first refusal for the property so that we could buy it and place the requirements for development. A developer buying it directly from MnDOT would most likely build to the minimum requirements. XIII. NEXT MEETING-- October 29, 2013 Rojas noted the Commission will have a special meeting on Tuesday, October 29 in addition to the scheduled November meeting. Jester asked what the agenda for the November meeting will be. Rojas said the LWMP discussion and possibly a update on the 20-40-15 program. Bettison asked if the October 29 meeting will just be a discussion. Rojas said the Finance Department and the Public Works Departments want feedback from the Commission to incorporate into recommendations to the Council on the water utility. Shrikhande asked about the timing. Rojas said it will go before the Council by the end of the year. Olson asked if we will need to vote on something. Rojas said the commission could take action in order to state an official position. Shrikhande asked about the discussion about the water plant. Rojas said the water plant manager is working on that. She will find out more information on the open house coming up in the next couple of weeks. XIV. ADJOURNMENT MOTION: Bettison moved, seconded by Lawton, to adjourn the meeting. Motion carried 5-0. Chair Olson adjourned the meeting at 9:00 PM.