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HomeMy WebLinkAboutConservation Commission - 08/11/2015 APPROVED MINUTES CONSERVATION COMMISSION TUESDAY,AUGUST 11, 2015 7:00 P.M., CITY CENTER Prairie Room 8080 Mitchell Road COMMISSION MEMBERS: Greg Olson (Chair), Laura Jester(Vice Chair), Prashant Shrikhande, Lori Tritz, Amanda Anderson, Gena Gerard STAFF: Leslie Stovring, Environmental Coordinator Tania Mahtani, Planning Division Jan Curielli, Recording Secretary GUESTS: Ben Knudson, Hennepin County Environment& Energy Department John Fedora L CALL TO ORDER/ROLL CALL Chair Olson called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. Shrikhande and Stovring arrived late. John Fedora, Eden Prairie resident, said he was here tonight because he is interested in having curbside organic recycling and wanted to hear Mr. Knudson's presentation. II. APPROVAL OF AGENDA MOTION: Jester moved, seconded by Gerard, to approve the agenda as published. Motion carried 5-0. III. MINUTES A. Approval of the Minutes for the July 14, 2015 Meeting MOTION: Jester moved, seconded by Tritz, to approve the minutes of the July 14, 2015 meeting as published. Motion carried 5-0. IV. PRESENTER A. Ben Knudson - Hennepin County Environment & Energy Department Ben Knudson gave a PowerPoint presentation reviewing the Minnesota State goals for recycling and organics and Hennepin County's plan to implement the goals. He noted the State goals for recycling started at 44% of the total trash for 2014 and increases incrementally each year up to 75%in 2030. CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES August 11, 2015 Page 2 Jester asked if there are incentives or disincentives for counties to meet the State goals. Mr. Knudson said the counties receive funds from the State, and if they don't meet the goals there is a potential that funding would be taken away. He said Hennepin County is interested in making a good faith effort to meet the State goals and is making good progress. He said about 1/3 of what is left in trash is organics, so that presents a huge opportunity. He reviewed a slide with a definition of organics and a list of compostable items. The County has contracts with two compost sites: Full Circle Organics in Becker; and Specialized Environmental Technology (SET)in Rosemount. He reviewed the processing that is done at the compost sites and the uses for the product, such as landscaping, road construction and soil amendment projects. Shrikhande arrived at 7:07 p.m. Knudson said Minneapolis rolled out their organics program on August 10. Thus far 32,000 residents have signed up for the program which provides participants with a separate organics cart. Jester asked if sign-up is voluntary. Knudson replied it is; however, everyone pays for it even if they don't sign up. The cost is added to the utility bills at the beginning of the year. Mr. Fedora asked if they have retained their drop-off sites. Mr. Knudson replied they have about seven drop-off sites now, and those will be reviewed once the rollout of the program is completed. Stovring arrived at 7:10 p.m. Knudson said the program in St. Louis Park is subscription based and costs $40 per year. A yard waste cart is provided, and organics are co-collected with the yard waste. Anderson asked if the organics collected are just food. Mr. Knudson said all of the programs include those items he reviewed on the previous slide. Anderson asked if the organics are set out in the yard waste bags. Mr. Knudson replied they do separate yard waste and organics. He noted St. Louis Park has about 12% participation. Anderson asked if there is a difference between the number who sign up and the number who participate. Mr. Knudson said when people sign up voluntarily the participation is always very high. Mr. Knudson said several cities including Medina, Loretto, and Wayzata use Randy's Blue Bag organics. In that program residents sign up and get a year's supply of blue compostable bags which they put out for collection on top of the trash carts. Olson asked if cities that organize for organics collection contract with haulers to provide service to residents and businesses. Mr. Knudson said it is just for residents who have curbside service. Olson asked if a company could just come in and provide the service. Ms Stovring said when Eden Prairie tried that there was not enough use of the service, so the company stopped offering it. Mr. Knudson said Medina and Wayzata organized their programs for everything and charge $5.00 per month. Every resident pays that rate, but they must call to get organics bags. Orono and Minnetonka have open hauling for trash and CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES August 11, 2015 Page 3 organics so their participation rate is very low. Gerard asked if they have haulers who provide the service. Mr. Knudson replied they have two haulers who will collect it. Anderson asked how organics collection could be financially viable if collection is not organized. Mr. Knudson said haulers can make money if the City is organized. A discussion followed regarding the costs and benefits of organics collection by haulers and composting facilities. Mr. Knudson said the economics of trash is very complicated, but if a city can organize and contract for organics it can become economical. Olson asked if the County has helped in the organizing process for individual communities. Mr. Knudson said State statute No. 115A.94 outlines the process a city needs to go through. He noted the City of Bloomington recently followed that process to organize collections. Anderson asked if there are cases of a city or county helping negotiate a planned community rate so that a neighborhood might organize. She believed there is a need for a groundswell for organics collection, so we may need to go to the neighborhood associations. Mr. Knudson said Hennepin County has been reluctant to get involved in any organized collection. Ms Stovring said the City of Eden Prairie cannot be seen as recommending or promoting one particular hauler over another, but we do provide a list of haulers to residents. Olson asked if Eden Prairie could take a serious look at this process. Ms Stovring replied we did that in 2005, and there is really no momentum for that now. Shrikhande asked if we could pick all the haulers and then have people sign up. Ms Stovring said, according to the State statute, you need to sit down with the haulers and try to negotiate a market share for each hauler. If that process breaks down, you can work on something else. Shrikhande asked if there is an exception for organics. Ms Stovring said if we were to organize for recycling we would include organics. Olson suggested this could be a question to ask City Manager Getschow. Ms Stovring said the County is in the process of updating the master plan, so she suggested we wait until that is done to see what comes from that and then look at it next year. Mr. Knudson said the County has $3.7 million to be distributed to cities through the end of 2016, at which time they will come up with a revision for 2017-2020. The revision will most likely include two pots of money: one for recycling, and one for organics. Jester asked what the money is being distributed for now. Mr. Knudson said the money is for recycling; however, a city does not receive any funds when the city is not organized. In that case the money goes directly to the consumers. Jester asked if it would be a good source of money for use in our parks. Mr. Knudson said the money is for residential recycling, but they have public space recycling grants available. Ms Stovring said organics recycling must be provided if it is requested, according to City code. Jester asked if that means all the haulers are currently in breach of the code. She did not recall the City asking CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES August 11, 2015 Page 4 her about organics recycling. Ms Stovring said we would not pull everybody's licenses, so that requirement is put on the haulers. Anderson asked if we have a way to estimate what the actual demand is for organics collection. Ms Stovring said it would not be that much and noted Minnetonka is only at 3%. Anderson thought Minnetonka's rate is low because it is not organized, and asked about other barriers to providing organics collection. Mr. Knudson said there is not any one particular reason. Olson thought the public should know about the ordinance requiring haulers to provide organics service, and it would be part of the Commission's role to educate the community about the ordinance. Ms Stovring said the haulers are not set up for organics collection. Mr. Knudson suggested it would be possible to have a fine or something similar rather than requiring an all or none situation. Anderson commented the haulers in the City are not set up for organics collection, but they have no motivation to do so. Ms Stovring said the ordinance was updated to allow organics recycling so that we have the code in place when organics collection becomes mandatory. We are doing things such as starting organics recycling at City Hall and hope that will open a market share for haulers to move in and provide single family organics recycling. The City is divided into zones so everything is picked up on one day in each zone, which makes it difficult for small companies to get started. Gerard asked if we would have only one hauler if we were organized. Ms Stovring said that would be correct if we include all recycling. Mr. Knudson reviewed the Foth study on emissions that looked at the impact of each method of collection. He said the study found that any method of organics collection is better than doing nothing as long as the collection is organized. In addition, the specific collection method makes little difference compared to open versus organized collection and how the garbage is managed in landfills or in resource recovery facilities. Mr. Fedora asked if we could have drop-off locations as a bridge before going to organized organics collection. Mr. Knudson said that is a good option and is one way to improve visibility about organics. More people would have an opportunity to do organics drop offs, but it would require some sort of partnership with a facility such as City parks. Jester asked if the City has considered that. Ms Stovring said we would need to have the locations staffed and gated as we would not want people bringing trash to a City facility without some security. Ms Jester asked how the drop-offs worked in Minneapolis. Mr. Knudson said Minneapolis had volunteers to begin with but then decided not to staff the facilities. Shrikhande said the idea of phasing in the organics collection is good and would let people know what it is. Jester asked how the collection is set up for City Hall. Ms Stovring said the employees at City Hall are volunteering. Jester asked if the employees or the public could bring in organics. Ms Stovring said employees could, but they want CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES August 11, 2015 Page 5 to roll out the program before offering it to the public. Gerard suggested we explore the possibility of drop-off sites. Shrikhande suggested we open up the collection to the public as well. Olson noted there is a process here to go through to make sure it is done right, but it would be a benefit to the public. Jester asked when the program will start. Mahtani replied it will start in September. Anderson asked about business recycling. Mr. Knudson said the County has over $500,000 available every year to help businesses implement recycling. They offer small starter grants and larger ones for bigger projects. He noted the awareness of the program has skyrocketed, and there is a lot of interest from businesses. Gerard was concerned if businesses know that there is a metro-wide business recycling mandate as of January 1, and wondered if that is why they are seeing a lot of interest. Mr. Knudson said they try to pair enforcement with assistance and do recognize businesses for their efforts so they can market themselves. V. REPORTS FROM STAFF A. Eden Gardens Mahtani said questions were raised in an email from Ms Tritz about the Eden Garden project and the landscaping features in their plan. She noted the developer reviewed the project and the sustainable features planned at a Commission meeting in April 2014. The Commission recommended that the project be approved with a list of specific conditions regarding the project's sustainable features. She said Ms Tritz's email referred to the City-approved plans regarding the landscaping features. She noted there are always minor tweaks that occur between the approved plan and final landscape plan. As to the native plant ordinance, that ordinance gets at low maintenance and low input to establish plantings. Ms Stovring said the native plant ordinance requires native plants or plants naturalized to the State of Minnesota. That was done for a variety of reasons including the fact that many naturalized species are not native but provide diversity and color choices. Mahtani said staff reviewed the plans submitted and determined that approximately 90% of the shrubs and trees met the native plant ordinance. Olson asked if the vegetation being planned contains neonicotinoids. Mahtani said it does not. Jester asked when the native plant ordinance was written. Stovring said the original Environmental Commission wrote it. Jester asked if it is something we should review now there is more information available about native species. Ms Stovring said going to all native species would still limit some of the color palette and species, so we would need to be careful not to limit it too much. Jester asked how often the native plant ordinance is used. Ms Stovring said it is used fairly often because we evaluate sites every year. A lot of home owners convert their lots to native landscaping. Sometimes they let the city know, and sometimes we CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES August 11, 2015 Page 6 know because the neighbors complain. Residents can apply for rebates or Watershed District grants which require more native plantings. Jester asked if we could move to requiring the ordinance for new or redeveloped properties. Mahtani said when the City reviews landscape plans they consider a number of factors, and native plantings are one thing that can be reviewed. Jester suggested it might be important to review the ordinance because of the crash in the pollinator population. Mahtani said they have more leverage if the developer is asking for waivers. Tritz said there was a broad definition of what constitutes native plantings and naturalized species. Ms Stovring said there is a specific exclusion for invasive species. Tritz believed there would be a benefit in tightening up the definition, and there is help out there to incorporate color while still using native plantings. She asked what would be the barriers we would need to overcome. Ms Stovring said we could modify the definition of native plant landscaping area and add a percentage of Minnesota native plantings. There is also a definition of naturalized areas that allows turf, so there are a couple of things that could be tweaked. Jester asked if we could look at code in other cities. Ms Stovring said she looked at everybody's code when she started the process, but she would say the definition could stand some tweaking. Gerard asked if it is too late to ask the Eden Gardens developers and landscapers to replace the invasive species with something that similarly priced. MOTION: Gerard moved, seconded by Jester, to request the City use best efforts to encourage the Eden Gardens developers and landscapers to remove invasive species and replace them with native species. Motion carried 6-0. Shrikhande suggested we include the specific species. Tritz said she could ask Marilyn Torkelson and Heather for their recommendations for replacement species. B. Eden Prairie City Center Organics Recycling Mahtani said the City is looking to incorporate organics in the entire City Center building, including the Garden Room, SuperValu's area and the area leased by the School District. They have targeted sites for bins and will have educational information posted. Jester asked if the Commission could get a report on the program in a few months. Gerard said it would be good to provide pictures of the recyclable items. Ms Stovring said they could get stickers or other items for the bins. She noted they have done an internal inventory of all the bins because they want to standardize the colors. They are in the process of determining what is needed. She said they are trying to find a way to get a large enough customer base in the City so the haulers will offer the service. CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES August 11, 2015 Page 7 Jester said she liked Ms Anderson's suggestion about trying to find out the potential market for organics. Ms Stovring said it is difficult to have organics collection until we manage to go to organized collection or Hennepin County changes their policy. Shrikhande asked if the main barrier is that the City isn't able to recommend a particular company. Ms Stovring said the original State statute made it very difficult to organize trash collection, but the change in the statute to add in the market share piece helped somewhat. There are some residents who are very attached to their haulers. Gerard noted Minnesota is unusual in that many communities are not organized, and she hoped there are corrective measures we can take. C. Community Center Solar Panels Mahtani said as part of the 20-40-15 program solar panels were installed on the Community Center roof. That project is near completion, and they plan to install an educational kiosk with more information on solar panels. D. Spirit of Eden Prairie Award Volunteers Mahtani said the City is looking for residents to volunteer to judge the Spirit of Eden Prairie award. There are various categories included in the award, such as sustainability. The award will be judged on Wednesday, October 6. Gerard said she was interested in helping with that. VI. REPORTS FROM CHAIR VIL REPORTS FROM COMMISSION Shrikhande said he will be out of the country in September and also was unsure about his attendance for the next six months. VIII. CONTINUING BUSINESS A. Educational Outreach Materials Ms Stovring noted she was wearing one of the new Living Green Team shirts. The shirts are available for Commission Members to wear at Commission events. Tritz reviewed the display she produced on the topic, "Ensuring Water for the Future." She asked Commission Members to review the display and make any suggestions sometime this week. She reviewed the material on the panels and noted we will be able to coordinate brochures with the various numbers on the graphic. She asked what the next step will be once the suggestions are incorporated. Mahtani said Ms Stovring and Mr. Whalen would review the draft, and the Communications Department would review it for branding. After that it could be mocked up and then printed. Mahtani said she will send out the graphic CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES August 11, 2015 Page 8 and asked Commission Members to send their comments back to her so she can forward them to Ms Tritz. Shrikhande asked about the size of the display. Tritz said it is designed to fit on the tri-fold display panel the Commission uses at events. Gerard left at 8:48 p.m. IX. INFORMATIONAL MATERIALS/HANDOUTS A. Upcoming City Projects and Development--Proiect Profile Anderson asked about the Amendment to Development Agreement in Item 4 on Page 4. Ms Stovring said the City is starting to build West 70th Street in that area and the roadway will eliminate some parking for Liberty Plaza. The amendment will accommodate redoing the parking lot. Olson asked about the reduction of the buffer in Item 1 on Page 1. Mahtani said this deals with the taking of the right-of-way for Shady Oak Road. Anderson asked if the Eden Prairie Retail project on Page 6 will be adding on to the existing building. Mahtani said it will be a new retail building near Eden Prairie Center. Anderson was concerned that tearing down buildings will not reduce the carbon footprint. Ms Stovring said she did not think it is a complete tear down. Anderson asked about the Attachment/Detachment PID on Page 7. Mahtani said this is a parcel just north of the BP station that is actually in the City of Minnetonka. The developer would like to build a retail building that would be partially in Minnetonka and is requesting the parcel be detached from Minnetonka and attached to Eden Prairie. Anderson asked about the possible environmental impact from the BP station. Ms Stovring said the proj ect's bank would require a Phase II soil analysis for a gas station site. X. UPCOMING EVENTS XI. NEXT MEETING-September 8, 2015 A. Welcome to Students on Commission B. Next 20-40-15 Program--City Manager Rick Getschow Olson asked about the points the Commission plans to cover with City Manager Getschow. Mahtani said she discussed this with Mr. Getschow, and he plans to review the overall strategic plan and visioning goals for Eden Prairie. He will also present the draft program for the successor to the 20-40-15 program and will ask for the Commission's feedback on that. CONSERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES August 11, 2015 Page 9 Anderson asked if the Commission would be able to get the materials ahead of time in order to formulate questions. Mahtani said she will check with Mr. Getschow on that. Anderson said she reviewed the Commission's Charter, and it has powerful language regarding the responsibilities of the Commission. She was concerned that the Commission live up to our part of the agreement and thought Mr. Getschow might have some suggestions. Olson said we all struggle with what is the model and what does it look like. It is always a work in progress. To some extent the Commission determines what work will be done and what topics will be pursued. Jester said over the years the Commission has had an impact on certain policies, such as the recycling programs, the PACE program and water conservation policies. Anderson suggested the Commission could get more traction if we align our agenda to what Mr. Getschow envisions. Shrikhande commented we sometimes do get notice of a project ahead of time, but other times we just review an item and wonder if we should have been involved in the first place. XIL ADJOURNMENT MOTION: Jester moved, seconded by Tritz, to adjourn the meeting. Motion carried 5- 0. Chair Olson adjourned the meeting at 9:05p.m.