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Conservation Commission - 03/08/2011 APPROVED MINUTES CONSERVATION COMMISSION TUESDAY, MARCH 8, 2011 7:00 PM, CITY CENTER Prairie Room 8080 Mitchell Road COMMISSION MEMBERS: Laura Jester(Chair), Greg Olson (Vice Chair), Sue Brown, Ray Daniels, Geneva MacMillan, Prashant Shrikhande STAFF: Regina Herron, Staff Liaison Jan Curielli, Recording Secretary Leslie Stovring, Environmental Coordinator STUDENT REPRESENTATIVES: Joshua Auerbach and Rachel Wood GUESTS: Carl Michaud, Hennepin County Environmental Svcs John Jaimez, Hennepin County Environmental Svcs I. CALL TO ORDER/ROLL CALL Chair Jester called the meeting to order at 7:00 PM. Olson arrived late. II. APPROVAL OF AGENDA Brown added Item VII.A. Non-reusable Bay Fees. Daniels added Item VII.B. Air Ouality Forum and Item IX.E.1. Websites for Kids. MacMillan added Item XII.E. Troubled Waters DVD. Stovring added Item V.D. Arts in the Park. MOTION: Daniels moved, seconded by MacMillan, to approve the agenda as amended. Motion carried 5-0. III. MINUTES A. Approval of Minutes for the February 8, 2011 Meeting MOTION: Brown moved, seconded by Jester, to approve the minutes of the February 8, 2011 meeting as published. Motion carried 5-0. Olson arrived at 7:10 PM. IV. SPEAKERS A. Improving Recycling in Hennepin County—Carl Michaud and John Jaimez Carl Michaud, Director of Environmental Services for Hennepin County, said he and John Jaimez gave a PowerPoint presentation on the county's plans for improving recycling in Hennepin County. He said the County Commissioners have asked that Conservation Commission March 8, 2011 Page 2 the way solid waste is managed in the entire county be revised and they are in the process of talking with citizens in the county to gather ideas and answer questions about the proposed changes. The concern is that currently they are recovering only 55% of the residential recyclables generated while the rest is going into the trash. They are planning aggressive recycling goals to increase the amount recycled and meet the State law requirements. He noted Hennepin County is responsible for managing the disposal of the solid waste but has no control over individual waste or recycling collection. Jester asked if they will propose minimum requirements for pickup. Jaimez said that is one of the possibilities. MacMillan asked if they know where the consistencies among the cities are. Jaimez said the county sets the floor or minimums in terms of what materials must be included in the curbside program. He said they are hoping to standardize what is collected, what terminal is used, and possibly the way it is collected. Stovring said there is a very basic list now for the materials required to be collected. Jester said she called all the haulers in Eden Prairie to ask about their plastic recycling program(such as l's and 2's) and found that all of the licensed haulers collect all l's and 2's (except for one, Dick's Sanitation)but that fact isn't advertised. Jaimez said the plastic market has changed a lot in the past few years and the market is quite strong. They are hearing that within a year the haulers will collect all plastics #1 through#6 curbside. He said they are also discussing centralizing educational materials through the County so cities would get materials from the County and distribute the materials to help provide consistent messages and standardize terminology throughout the county. Jester thought there would be an advantage to standardization because recycling somehow eludes people. She thought it is important to do everything possible to make it easier. Shrikhande asked what happens to the plastic bags collected in grocery stores. Jaimez said right now they go to a company that makes it into plastic lumber used at home improvement stores. Shrikhande asked about the organic waste collection and how they would encourage people to compost at home. Jaimez said they urge people to do backyard composting, but there are certain things that can't go into that, such as meat scraps or pizza boxes. They see the curbside organics collection as complimenting the backyard composting. Shrikhande asked if the County has considered providing red worm bins for composting. Michaud said ten years ago the County tried using the worms at their offices but it was not cost-effective and was difficult to maintain as a they are labor intensive. Jaimez also talked about the compost bin subsidy program and their past events where they would sell them at a discount. Jaimez said it was incredibly complex to organize and distribute the bins. Shrikhande asked if they had an opinion as to which type was better. Jaimez did not. He did note that the Recycling Association of Minnesota is offering a compost bin event this spring that residents Conservation Commission March 8, 2011 Page 3 can take advantage of. Jaimez said curbside organics would maximize the potential for organics recycling. Brown asked if it is better to use the garbage disposal for organics or to put it in the trash. Mr. Jaimez said composting is the best way because you can run into maintenance problems with a disposal. Stovring said the water system may not be designed to deal with some things that are put down the disposal, especially hormones, drugs or other chemicals. Mr. Jaimez said the phosphorous reduction process for water treatment requires some amount of food waste as they provide the "food" for the bacteria that they use. Shrikhande thought the disposal may use more energy. Michaud said they believe a certain number of people will separate out organics if it is easy to do, and they are trying to figure out ways to get it collected. Jester asked if they could require the big haulers to pick it up. Michaud said their facilities are outside Hennepin County, and they can't legally transport yard waste out of the County. By allowing residents to comingle yard waste and organics this may limit where the materials could go for processing. Jaimez said most people like using wheeled carts for automated collection. He said 25-30% of household waste is organics that could be recycled, including items such as food waste, napkins, pizza boxes, cotton balls, q-tips, etc. Stovring thought it would have to build over time, as people become accustomed to it and learn that it is not"smelly". Brown asked if they could find a test neighborhood to see what happens. Jaimez said they have organics collection going on in parts of nine cities now, and they have had pretty good results. Jaimez said they are considering comingling organics and yard waste. Brown thought it was important to make it as simple as possible. Jaimez said they are asking cities if their councils would consider amending their ordinance and licensing requirements to allow trash collection every two weeks in order to reduce costs. This would work as most of what would be left as "trash" after organics is separated out would not have any smell. The organics collection would then be weekly. A discussion followed about collecting trash every two weeks. Jester asked where the benefit was because the trucks go through the neighborhood every week. Jaimez said the customer would get a price break for trash service as there would be less trash. Michaud said they are considering changes to volume based pricing and incentives so that they would charge less for a smaller container. He said right now there is only a $2.00 or so difference. Jaimez said when this has been done in other places they provide unlimited amounts of recycling and organics while charging significantly more for garbage which will drive people to recycle more. Olson asked how sustainable that strategy would be. Jaimez said the haulers and the cities work together to determine the pool of money needed. People with large carts pay quite a bit more and thereby subsidize the small carts. Jester thought this would be the best incentive, in general. Conservation Commission March 8, 2011 Page 4 Michaud said they don't have very good data on multi-family recycling. Stovring said multi-family units in Eden Prairie are required to provide recycling services to their tenants. She said she checks annually to make sure the multi-family units have recycling dumpsters. Michaud asked if the City would support including small businesses in the curbside collection. Stovring said we get a lot of calls from small businesses, and she thought it would help if we made it easier for them to do as not all have a place inside for large recycling containers or dumpsters. Jester said we just changed the ordinance last year to require businesses to provide recycling,but it applies only to new businesses. Shrikhande asked if there are any cities that do it now. Michaud said some have added small businesses. Shrikhande asked about adding larger businesses. Michaud said they have more recyclables so it means less garbage for the haulers. Michaud asked if businesses would be motivated by a certification program. Brown asked about building that into the GreenStep Cities program. Olson thought it might be a way to get the business's name into the limelight, and the local Chamber might buy into it if there is a good recognition program. Jaimez said it would be a coordinated program with multiple things to qualify for the certification. Stovring thought the ordinance we have would support that. Jester asked how the coupon program for"Recycle Bank" is going. Jaimez said he hasn't heard what the final numbers are as to whether recycling increased,but he thought there may be an issue because for the most part Allied Waste introduced single sort recycling and the "Recycle Bank" program at the same time. Brown asked if there is a requirement to have so many in the neighborhood who are participating to get a percentage value from the program. Stovring said that they typically average out the rewards based on the route and the tonnage per route as well as tracking which households recycled on that date. Jaimez said many cities in Hennepin County have organized collection and contract with one hauler; there are only a handful of cities where individuals contract by household. By adding organics this could increase the number of trucks in a neighborhood each week. Jester said this commission is really behind recycling, and right now our City Council seems to be open to new ideas. Daniels thought the most important thing is that the goal they are setting is great, and he was surprised they want to do this by 2015. Jester thought it would take a lot of marketing strategy and education. Shrikhande said deciding what goes where is very confusing now. Michaud said many places are going to three carts, which would include one for recycling, one for garbage and one for organics with yard waste. Shrikhande thought it would be good to call them landfill, compostable and recyclable containers. Michaud said they will have a better idea of what they will recommend to the County Commissioners later on this summer. Conservation Commission March 8, 2011 Page 5 V. REPORTS FROM STAFF A. Southwest Metro Ma,-azine Herron said she forwarded an email from the Communications Department asking for material for an article in Southwest Metro Magazine. The deadline is in the next couple of weeks. She said Ms Brown had forwarded some information on businesses. Stovring said she had sent an idea for a local rain garden project that was completed in 2010. Jester asked if the entire issue is "green." Herron said it is. Shrikhande asked how the magazine is delivered. MacMillan said it is within the southwest paper. Jester asked Ms Herron to resend the email along with information on the distribution of the magazine. B. Commission Appointments Herron said the Council appointed Laura Jester as Chair and Greg Olson as Vice Chair. Mr. Daniels was appointed to serve a one-year term. There will be two new Commission members, Anthony Pini and Kurt Lawton. Jester asked if they have given any more thought to changing the policy regarding appointing a chair and vice chair. Herron said you can indicate if you are interested in leadership when you fill out the application for a commission. Jester said she thought it is much more appropriate that a commission elects the chair rather than having the Council appoint the chair. She thanked Ms MacMillan for her service on the Commission and noted she will be sincerely missed. C. Minnesota GreenStep Cities Update Herron said she doesn't have a report to bring back. After the last commission meeting she talked with Jay Lotthammer and Janet Jeremiah to get guidance from them on the best route to take. Mr. Lotthammer suggested that he would talk with the Mayor and gauge if she thought this was a good idea. He thought she would be comfortable with someone from the Commission giving a presentation to the City Council in order to give background information on the program. Ms Jeremiah wanted to see a breakdown of staff time and budget constraints in the report. Jester said we would need to get on the Council agenda,put a presentation together with a draft resolution and give the presentation. She said someone on staff would also have to make a presentation on the staffing breakdown. Olson asked if we are considering presenting in a workshop format and then at a Council meeting. Herron said the suggestion was to take the presentation to a City Council meeting. Olson said it would be nice to go through it with Council members to get feedback and questions and then come back to a meeting. Stovring said the Council is working with a reduced number of workshops and meetings. Jester said she thought we could do a presentation at a meeting and see if they like it. Conservation Commission March 8, 2011 Page 6 Jester asked if it would be on the April 19 agenda. Herron said she would try. Brown and Olson volunteered to help Ms Jester with the presentation. Jester said we need to coordinate on getting the staffing part worked out. She noted our April meeting will be held before the Council meeting, so we should have a draft available for our April 12 meeting. D. Arts In The Park Stovring said Laurie Obiazor and Lindsey Danhauser have asked us to participate in the Arts in the Park event which will be held Saturday, May 14 at Purgatory Creek Park. She said they are going to make an effort to have recycling and would like the Commission to have a booth at the event. They would also like the Commission to monitor the recycling along with their volunteer crew. They are planning something regarding recycling or water quality at the kids' booth. She noted last year they had 800 people at the event. Stovring said the subject of making recycling mandatory at events was broached. Jester said we could borrow recycling things from Hennepin County. Stovring said Suburban provides free recycling for any event, and Ms Obiazor has been talking with Allied Waste to see if they would provide recycling for the event. Jester asked if it would be similar to the Expo. Stovring said the Commission would have one table. VI. REPORTS FROM CHAIR VII. REPORTS FROM COMMISSION A. Non-reusable Bay Fees—Sue Brown Brown said she was asked to get more information on a city where non-reusable bags are banned so she contacted Brownsville, TX, which is approximately the same size as Eden Prairie. The main difference between the bag fee in Washington D.C. and a bag ban is the language that says they do not support the use of plastic bags at checkout and will charge you $1.00 if you need one. Jester asked who receives the $1.00 fee. Brown said the city gets the $1.00, less 5% to the store. She got information on the collection from Brownsville along with a list of Frequently Asked Questions. The fee proceeds are used to help with their recycling programs. Jester asked when the program was started. Brown said it was just started January 1 of this year. Brown said she will forward the information she got to the Commission members. She said they worked with grocery stores for a couple of years before they implemented the ban, so the community was prepared for it. Conservation Commission March 8, 2011 Page 7 Jester asked what our next step is. Brown said she thought we might want to table this until we see where the GreenStep Cities program goes. We might bring it up to the City Council and see how they feel about it. Olson thought it could be an item for our fall workshop. Brown thought we could start to prepare the City Council and the merchants and continue to move forward on it. Jester thanked Ms Brown for all the research. B. Air Ouality Forum—Ray Daniels Daniels said he and Ms MacMillan went to a forum on air quality put on by the League of Women Voters at Plymouth Congregational Church. Someone talked about where we are with air quality. They also talked about air quality in the home and its impact on health. The point was made that a lot of it is not regulated. Shrikhande asked if there were any points made about what homeowners or businesses should be doing to improve air quality. Daniels said there was nothing specific mentioned. There are no actions in the State legislature that would move us forward on this. VIII. REPORTS FROM STUDENTS IX. CONTINUING BUSINESS A. Chamber of Commerce Home and Garden Expo Herron said she forwarded the request for volunteer information to the students and listed Ms Brown and Mr. Shrikhande as the contacts. Jester said the three of them will have the recycling and water half of the event covered. She said it would be nice to have two people at the booth all the times,but she can only be there for an hour. Shrikhande said he will be there in the morning. Brown will be there in the afternoon. Daniels said he will be there all day. Herron said she could pick up the display on Thursday or Friday and transport it to Grace Church. Daniels noted set up is from 1:00 to 5:00 PM. The Commission then discussed which posters to use on the display. Stovring said she can provide rebate brochures. Jester said she was concerned that everyone knows how to use the interactive display and understands the messages we are going to use at the event. Shrikhande said he got a report back from the Minnesota Sustainability framework and there are a lot of contacts there. Jester asked if we could get Steve McComas to give a report at the April meeting. Stovring said Mr. McComas is meeting with the Parks Department next week and should have all the data by April, so we could schedule him whenever the Commission wants. Jester asked about a speaker on groundwater. Stovring suggested Kevin Miller with St. Croix Environmental as he is currently updating the city's Wellhead Protection Plan and is very knowledgeable about our local groundwater. Conservation Commission March 8, 2011 Page 8 B. Pond Management Research and Framework Discussion Herron said she has nothing to discuss tonight. Stovring said there was an article in the paper about Bloomington changing the rules about pond aeration, in relation to tracking equipment to ensure when it can be placed in the pond, when it has to be removed,how it is to be maintained, etc. Jester suggested Bloomington would be a good city with which to start the research. C. Upcoming City projects and Development—Project Profile Herron said there is nothing new on the Project Profile. D. Ideas for Life in the Prairie Newsletter Brown said she forgot to send the information from the last meeting but will try to do that tomorrow. She said she wanted to make sure she had the proper references. Jester noted we can reuse things too. E. Website Content 1. Websites for Kids—Ray Daniels Daniels showed a web page he had set up with links to the EPA Climate Change for Kids site and Energy Kids on the U.S. Energy Information Administration site. He suggested we add the links to our Commission page as well. Stovring asked him to send her the links to put on the website. Jester thought we might do an article for Life in the Prairie focusing on getting kids involved in environmental issues. Daniels said he will keep looking for more sites. X. NEW BUSINESS XI. INFORMATIONAL MATERIALS/HANDOUTS XII. UPCOMING EVENTS A. Saturday, March 19—Chamber of Commerce Expo (Grace Church) B. Tuesday,April 12—NPDES Permit Public Meetin! Stovring said this will be held from 5:30 to 6:45 PM prior to the Commission meeting. C. Saturday-Sunday, May 7-8—Living Green Expo (MN State Fairsrounds) D. Wednesday, May 11—Annual Boards and Commissions Banquet Conservation Commission March 8, 2011 Page 9 E. Troubled Waters DVD—Geneva MacMillan MacMillan said this will be shown on Wednesday, April 6 at 7:00 to 9:00 PM at Northwestern Health Sciences in Bloomington. It is sponsored by the League of Women Voters. She said there was an article in the Star Tribune some time ago critiquing the DVD, and she will forward that information to the Commission members. Jester noted the film was controversial and it is not perfect. Daniels said it raises some basic questions, and he thought it is a balanced film. MacMillan said it gives two sides of the story. XIII. NEXT MEETING A. Tuesday,April 12, 2011 Jester said she just noticed she will not be in town for the April 19 City Council meeting so we will have to push off the presentation on the GreenStep Cities until the May meeting of the Council. XIV. ADJOURNMENT MOTION: Olson moved, seconded by Shrikhande, to adjourn the meeting. Motion carried 6-0. Chair Jester adjourned the meeting at 9:15 PM.