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Conservation Commission - 08/02/2010 APPROVED MINUTES CONSERVATION COMMISSION MONDAY,AUGUST 2, 2010 8:00 PM, CITY CENTER Prairie Room 8080 Mitchell Road COMMISSION MEMBERS: Laura Jester(Chair), Greg Olson (Vice Chair), Sue Brown, Ray Daniels, Ravi Jaiswal, Geneva MacMillan, Prashant Shrikhande STAFF: Regina Herron, Staff Liaison Jan Curielli, Recording Secretary I. CALL TO ORDER/ROLL CALL Chair Jester called the meeting to order at 8:23 PM. Brown and Jalswal were absent. II. APPROVAL OF AGENDA Daniels added Item VII.A. Fourth of July Event. Jester added Item IX.B. Nine-Mile Creek Watershed District Headquarters. Shrikhande added Item VIII.E. Inflow and Infiltration. MOTION: Olson moved, seconded by Daniels, to approve the agenda as amended. Motion carried 5-0. III. MINUTES A. Minutes for the June 28, 2010 Joint Workshop MOTION: Olson moved, seconded by MacMillan, to approve the minutes of the June 28, 2010 Joint Workshop as published. Motion carried 4-0-1, with Shrikhande abstaining. B. Minutes for the June 28, 2010 Meeting MOTION: Olson moved, seconded by MacMillan, to approve the minutes of the June 28, 2010 meeting as published. Motion carried 3-0-2, with Jester and Shrikhande abstaining. V. DISCUSSION A. Recap on Joint Workshop with Parks, Recreation & Natural Resources Commission MacMillan thought the Parks Commission has come quite a ways compared to the last time we met with them. She did talk to Mr. Lotthammer about not Conservation Commission Minutes August 2, 2010 Page 2 having recycle bins at the Community Center. Jester thought they have done a lot with recycling, and it was good to meet with them again and see the presentations. Shrikhande asked why we switched to paying for recycling versus getting paid for it. Jester thought it was the economy. Olson thought the speaker from Three Rivers was interesting and asked if there is a state mandate driving the creation of rain gardens and other infiltration projects. Jester was not sure that was true as some cities and watershed districts have stricter mandates than others. Olson said he was interested in finding out what is driving the need for better storm water management. Herron said additional development or additional impervious surfaces are the trigger for more storm water treatment. Olson asked if there is an over-arching need for the City to reduce its overall storm water runoff. Jester said that requirements only come when there is new development or redevelopment. Olson asked if there is an organization that regulates storm water runoff. Jester said there some requirements under the MS4 permits. She didn't think they can require us to go back and infiltrate storm water in a current development. There are non-degradation rules and TMDL projects with studies done to determine where pollution is coming from and plans to abate the pollution. MacMillan said it sounded like staff had initiated some of these in the past. Olson asked what the reward would be if the City made a concerted effort to reduce storm water runoff in the next ten years. Jester said it would be better water quality. A discussion followed regarding how storm water and sanitary sewer is paid for. Herron said Sue Kotchevar, the City Finance Director, would like to give us a presentation on the water rate structure in September. Olson thought it serves us well to know that information and would help us to come up with policy for the City. Jester noted Ms Stovring usually gives us a PowerPoint presentation on MS4 and storm water management but she didn't do that this year. V. REPORTS FROM STAFF VI. REPORTS FROM CHAIR VII. REPORTS FROM COMMISSION A. Fourth of July Event—Daniels Daniels said he met a few people and he thought our booth was in the wrong location. He would prefer to be where the Police are located in order to be up where the kids are. Herron asked if there were any other education-type booths. Daniels Conservation Commission Minutes August 2, 2010 Page 3 said there were a couple of places giving away things and the political booths. He thought we should rethink what we are doing for the event, and we might focus on having a packet for kids next year. VIII. CONTINUING BUSINESS A. Porous Paver Discussion Olson said we talked about the Commission offering some kind of language for an ordinance. He was a little lost with that idea and suggested we start by looking at the language offered by the Planning Commission in March 2009, which seemed to open the door to the use of porous pavers. Jester thought we should look at some of the surrounding cities' ordinances, and we also talked about regulating maintenance of porous pavers. Olson said the University of New Hampshire has done a lot of research on pervious surfaces, and there is a lot of information for an engineer to use. The Storm Water Pollution Prevention Program(SWPPP) document Ms Stovring prepared mentions the need for more infiltration and reducing storm water runoff. He said the Landscape Arboretum has a lot of information on the use of porous surfaces in combination with landscaping and raingardens. He asked if we should be driving towards encouraging the use of porous pavers or should we be helping the City to come up with an overall strategy with porous pavers as part of it. Jester said she thought the first thing in the process is to amend the ordinance so porous pavers are allowed, then we can go down the road of encouraging their use. Herron said at the last Planning Commission meeting they asked for something in the next two months as they want to move this along. She said they seemed very positive about it at the workshop, and there didn't seem to be anyone against the use of porous materials as an approved surface. She thought it will come down to the education component. Every city has its own strategy. Some require permits. Some say it can be used as part of storm water management while others say you can't do that. There was not one specific standard among any of the cities. She said our City code allows the use of Portland cement or bituminous asphalt and does not specify whether it can be porous or not. It also does not specify whether you can use pavers. We determined that porous concrete pavers would be allowed under the code. If another material was used and there was a complaint, zoning enforcement would be done to determine if it was in violation. Jester noted there were several sections of code affected with the recycling code changes and asked if that is the case with this. Herron said it would be in Chapter 11 on zoning districts. Daniels asked if opening this up and using inclusive language could create a problem for contractors whose clients want to do this. Herron said we want to encourage use of porous pavers in redevelopment projects,but those are not allowed under the current ordinance. Conservation Commission Minutes August 2, 2010 Page 4 Herron said we could make a recommendation to the Planning Commission. MacMillan asked if we would consider the plastic pavers that Ms Brown displayed at the last meeting. Jester said it didn't specify what kind of pavers, so we may want to leave it as is. Shrikhande asked if there would be concern about the use of unknown synthetic materials in the plastic pavers. Jester thought we should not mention what type. We could take the language drafted in March of 2009 and add the words "or infiltrate"in each of the sections. Herron said staff would then write a report to the Planning Commission stating the recommendation and including background materials for Planning Commission members. MacMillan thought we could include some of the information that Mr. Olson has found. MOTION: Olson moved, seconded by MacMillan, to change the code amendment proposed by the Planning Commission in March 2009 as follows: "...to dispose of or infiltrate all area surface water...." Motion carried 5-0. B. Landfill Public Meeting Preparation—Fall Herron said she talked briefly with Mr. Neal about this but she needs to talk to him again to get a better outline and more information on what he is thinking of. When she gets that information she will discuss it with Ms Jester. C. Ideas for Life in the Prairie Newsletter Herron said she has not seen anything published with regard to any of the ideas we have passed along. Daniels thought we could do an article on recycling in the parks in response to the article in the newspaper. MacMillan thought we are talking about changing habits and that is very difficult to do. She thought we might develop a campaign to reuse water bottles and start with an article about it in the newsletter. She asked if we might get money for this from Ms Stovring since it concerns water. Jester thought we might hand out water bottles at one of our functions. Olson thought it would be an interesting experiment because we need to get people's attention and give them some kind of a reason for why they should change. Jester thought it is a great idea, and we might keep it on the agenda for next time to get some ideas together. She thought we might want to make a recommendation to change the policy in City buildings. D. Website Content Olson said it was interesting to find the presentation material on our SWPPP and best management practices listed on our website. He would like to have a talk by Ms Stovring on the material and how this is affecting City policy going forward. Jester said it would be good to hear how many any new people signed up to receive updates. Conservation Commission Minutes August 2, 2010 Page 5 Shrikhande asked about rainwater collection to even out water usage in the summer. Jester said that was information in the newsletter, but it makes sense to have the article from the newsletter on our website. Daniels thought we could have something about the various rain gardens. Herron said we could add a PDF link on the left side with a slideshow or document. Jester thought we could add a couple sentences to go along with the rain garden pictures. Jester asked Mr. Daniels to talk to Stu Fox about getting the PowerPoint and then adding text to it. Daniels thought it would be nice to have pictures of recycling in the parks and add information on porous pavers when we get them added. Daniels said he has an 88-page PDF file put out by the EPA that explains why climate change exists. Jester thought we could have a links section on the website for such information. E. Inflow and Infiltration Shrikhande said the article in the newspaper stated that 40 different cities feed into the treatment plant for the area, and we are trying to inspect properties to see if they have illegally connected their sump pumps to the sanitary sewer. Jester said she remembered hearing about it, and we were required to do it by the Metropolitan Council. Shrikhande asked if we could bring this onto the agenda and do some more study on it. Jester thought Ms Stovring would be the best person to answer questions about this. Herron noted it is managed through the Public Works Department. Shrikhande said he would like more information on this because there is a lot of money involved in the inspection process. Olson thought Mr. Shrikhande might get time one-on-one with Mr. Dietz or Ms Stovring to get answers, and then help the rest of the Commission members determine what we are interested in hearing about. IX. NEW BUSINESS A. Upcoming City Projects and Development—Project Profile Olson asked about the William Small property on Page 3 of the Project Profile. Herron said this is a 2006 project, and right now we are just waiting to see when the developer wants to move forward with the project. First reading was approved and we are waiting for them to sign the development agreement. She said if they want to make any changes they would have to go through the process again. Daniels asked if it will go back before the Planning Commission. Herron said it will not unless the developer wants to change the approved plan. B. Nine-Mile Creek Watershed District Headquarters Jester said there was an article in the newspaper about a resident who wants to donate property to the Watershed District for a headquarters building. Herron said that project is in but not scheduled. We needed more information on some items. Once it is complete it can be scheduled for a Planning Commission meeting. Conservation Commission Minutes August 2, 2010 Page 6 Jester said she was very much in favor of the zoning change and the use of this property as a headquarters. They plan to build in a lot of educational features. She thought we may want to recommend that the Planning Commission support it. Olson thought we could do that at the right time. He didn't think anything would stop us from discussing it with the members of the Planning Commission. Jester said she thought it might get completed and go to the Planning Commission before we meet again. Herron said that could happen because we don't meet again until September 14. Daniels thought any action would be premature because we don't know about the plans. Herron said the plans are available for review. Olson thought we could make it an item on the next agenda. X. INFORMATIONAL MATERIALS/HANDOUTS Herron noted the Commission members might be interested in a presentation by Embrace Open Space scheduled for August 4. XI. UPCOMING EVENTS Daniels asked if we could set up recycling at Sunbonnet Days. Jester said they have recycling at the Riley-Jacques Farm, and that is the location for the event. XII. NEXT MEETING A. September 14, 2010 XIII. ADJOURNMENT MOTION: MacMillan moved, seconded by Shrikhande, to adjourn the meeting. Motion carried 5-0. Chair Jester adjourned the meeting at 9:35 PM.