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HomeMy WebLinkAbout03/28/2012 Env Bd PacketCity of Lino Lakes Environmental Board Meeting March 28, 2012 6:30 p.m. AGENDA 1. Call to Order 2. Approval of Minutes February 28, 2012 3. Approval of Agenda 4. Open Mike 5. Action Items 6. Discussion Items IIIA. Recycling Program Discussion • Follow up with Waste Haulers • Commercial and Industrial Recycling /survey B. Earth Day — April 21st, 2012 C. Community Garden update D. Community Garden Club /Martha DeHaven 8. Adjourn • • • • ENVIRONMENTAL BOARD MEETING APPROVED CITY OF LINO LAKES DATE TIME STARTED TIME ENDED MEMBERS PRESENT MEMBERS ABSENT STAFF PRESENT February 28, 2012 : February 28, 2012 . 6:30 P.M. . 7:52 P.M. : Mary Jo O'Dea, Barbara Bor, Paula Andrzejewski, Martha DeHaven, Steve Heiskary, Theresa Klaman and Nancie Klebba : None : Environmental Coordinator Marty Asieson 1. CALL TO ORDER Ms. Bor called the meeting to order at 6:30 p.m. 2. SWEARING IN OF BOARD MEMBERS Mayor Jeff Reinert was present to administer the oath and swearing in of reappointed Environmental Board Members Theresa Klaman and Paula Andrzejewski. 3. APPROVAL OF MINUTES January 25, 2012 Environmental Board Minutes Approved with the following changes: Change Kelbba to Klebba. Change VonDuke to VonDyke. Mr. Heiskary made a motion to approve the January 25, 2012 Environmental Board Minutes. Ms. Klaman seconded the motion to approve. Motion carried unanimously. 4. APPROVAL OF AGENDA Postpone Item 7A until March 28, 2012 meeting. Add Item 7F: Cole Tar handout. Ms. DeHaven made a motion to approve the agenda with changes. Ms. Andrzejewski seconded the motion to approve the agenda. Motion carried unanimously. 5. OPEN MIKE Open mike closed at 6:37 p.m. DRAFT MINUTES 1 ENVIRONMENTAL BOARD MEETING February 28, 2012 6. ACTION ITEMS A. Wollan's Park Wetland Bank, Part B: Wetland Bank Supplement Marty Asleson presented his staff report on Wollan's Park, Minnesota Wetland Bank Plan Application, Part B: Wetland Bank Plan Supplement. Mr. Asleson's stated City staff has communicated to Critical Connections that we have a restricted deed for a park that the City would need to maintain the area as a park, with a trail either implied on the plan or the trail placed on the plan or both. Land would need to be subtracted from the bank figures to compensate for the trail use. Ms. Bor questioned when this will go to council. Mr. Asleson stated the March 12 council meeting. Mr. Asleson stated work cannot start until the document is signed. Mr. Bor questioned the discussion years ago regarding schools using the area as a living classroom. She stated the concept should be included. Mr. Asleson stated he would add this. Mr. Heiskary stated to try and not burden the language down. Ms. Bor stated for a council perspective it should be mentioned. Ms. O'Dea suggested when referencing the trail also reference school use. Ms. O'Dea inquired if board members had comments or additions to the plan. Ms. O'Dea stated she did not. Mr. Heiskary questioned if City staff will be taking on the 5 year plan as it will required a significant of work to be done. Mr. Asleson stated yes. Ms. O'Dea questioned the start date. Mr. Asleson stated maybe fall of 2012. The Board made a recommendation to forward the Wollan's Park Wetland Bank document on to City Council. Mr. Heiskary made a motion to forward the document. Ms. Bor seconded the motion to forward the document. Motion carried unanimously. 7. DISCUSSION ITEM A. Waste Reduction and the People- Power -Planet ( PPP) Program, Trish Curtis — Item postponed to the March meeting. Change the name Trish to Jessica. B. Recycling Program Discussion with Amy Ulbricht/Anoka County Commercial Waste Management Specialist DRAFT MINUTES 2 • • • • • ENVIRONMENTAL BOARD MEETING February 28, 2012 Mr. Asleson stated he and Mike Grochala, Community Development Director, met with all of the Lino Lakes waste haulers. One hauler stated in organized cities, such as Lino Lakes, they were able to jump into single sort sooner than other cities. Mr. Asleson stated the amount of recycling since single sort has been implemented has gone up. Ms. Bor questioned percentages of recycling. Mr. Asleson stated he was not sure what the totals are. All the garbage haulers are unanimously for a single hauler. Problem is all the haulers want to be the single hauler. Hauler's stated they would be willing to run lighter trucks on bad roads. Mr. Asleson stated that the City engineer had a map of the really bad roads. Ms. O'Dea questioned what a lighter truck is. Mr. Asleson stated a truck that is only half full. Recycling haulers stated they would pass along recycle information on how to minimize garbage to resident's in their newsletters. Ms. O'Dea also questioned if the haulers had numbers of their percentages of recycling. Mr. Asleson stated no. Ms. O'Dea questioned if he could get the numbers. He stated he would try. Amy Ulbricht was present from Anoka County who is a Commercial Waste Management Specialist. Mr. Asleson has been giving updates on the City's Solid Waste Master Plan process to the County. Ms. Ulbricht stated when board members question the numbers for residential v. commercial recycling it is a hard number to get at. The County sends out recycling survey requests to businesses each year. The survey covers such things as how recycle containers are emptied, how big are containers, what type of product is being recycled, etc. She stated there are four haulers in Lino Lakes that she requests recycling information from. Ms. O'Dea questioned if haulers are required to give recycle information to the County. She stated no. She reviewed the Solid Waste Management fee that is a charge from the County and informed the board of the incentive program for businesses based on a recycling credit they can get. She stated there is a Solid Waste Management charge assessed on all properties that have improvements. The charge assessed is based on the value of a building. Businesses are eligible for a recycle credit by recycling 15% of their waste. Schools and municipalities receive a different type of credit. Schools do their best to recycle 50% as well as purchase environmentally friendly products. Schools and businesses are different. There are provisions for non generating waste facilities such as water towers, etc. They are not required to pay the Solid Waste fee. Ms. Ulbricht presented a copy of the County's survey to board members. She would like to send out a recycle survey to all business in the City using Surveymonkey.com. Ms. O'Dea stated the need here is to focus to increase recycling. Mr. Asleson stated Mary Divine, Economic Development, was thinking about getting North Area Chamber of Commerce involved. Ms. Bor stated we need to identify what we are trying to do. It was stated to increase the number of people/businesses who and recycle would DRAFT MINUTES 3 ENVIRONMENTAL BOARD MEETING February 28, 2012 be our first step. Mr. Asleson stated one of the points made to the haulers was we would like to see what is being recycle in Lino Lakes. Ms. Ulbricht stated she will send out the County survey to board members to look at. Ms. Bor stated we need to prioritize what we want to accomplish and chip away a little at a time. Mr. Asleson stated he would contact Mary Divine regarding sending out a recycling survey to businesses. Ms. O'Dea stated she would like Mr. Asleson to follow up with haulers and see where they are at. Mr. Heiskary stated he would like Mr. Asleson to follow up with a letter to the haulers thanking them and outline specific questions we would like them to respond to. C. Peltier Island Heron Maintenance Day Summary. Mr. Asleson stated on February 23, 2012 a group of volunteers went out onto Peltier Island to flash trees. He stated 30 trees were flashed and they were more to be done but they ran out of flashing. The group fixed about 15 trees. He stated there are an incredible number of nests on the island. Ms. Bor questioned if there has been bridging between trees. Mr. Asleson stated yes. The group that went did creative things to break this up. D. Earth Day — April 21 St, 2012 Mr. Asleson stated the first meeting at Wargo Nature Center was Friday, February 24, 2012. The Environmental Board will be responsible for making popcorn and for a display table. The Board discussed ideas to present at the table. It was mentioned to make a call to Excel Energy to see if they can donate energy saving kits. Amy Ulbricht from Anoka County stated the County is involved with Earth Day. They had a display up at Wargo Nature Center last year. Ms. Ulbricht will have a display for us to use for the upcoming 2012 recycling day event. E. Community Garden update Information on the community gardens went out in the Spring/Summer Lino Lakes Newsletter. The garden plots will be $15.00 each this year. DRAFT MINUTES 4 • • • ENVIRONMENTAL BOARD MEETING February 28, 2012 • It was reported there has been much interest in the gardens. • • F. Coal Tar: Mr. Heiskary presented information on coal tar to the Board. He stated he believes industries /applicators discontinued selling these products. Individual businesses may still be using coal tar containing PAHs. Mr. Asleson stated currently businesses do not need to talk to the City when they put sealant on their driveways. Mr. Heiskary stated he would make a few calls to find out if the harmful products are still being used. 8. ADJOURN It was noted that the next meeting of the Environmental Board will be on Wednesday, March 28, 201 lat 6:30 p.m. There being no further business, Ms. Andrzejewski moved to adjourn at 7:52 p.m. Mr. Heiskary seconded the motion. Motion carried unanimously. Transcribed by: Lisa Hogstad Community Development Secretary DRAFT MINUTES 5 • Dear Marty, Thank you for opening the door to work with the garbage and recycling service providers in Lino Lakes. Competition provides great opportunities for residents and businesses to benefit from the innovation and cost - effectiveness the marketplace can provide. We look forward to finding ways to make the system better. Today I am providing you with some background information that may not answer all the questions, but can hopefully provide a starting point for further discussion. Road wear and tear is a fact of life and we work with all the communities we serve to minimize impacts. ACE runs lighter loads during spring road restrictions and we will attempt to re -route trucks throughout the year to keep full trucks off your most vulnerable streets. In addition, we are driven to increase density in the communities we service thereby reducing the number of trucks on any street. Attached is the most recent education we did with our drivers at our monthly safety meeting. In 2011, we commissioned a professional engineer to help us better • understand the road cost differences in Cities. Specifically he looked at market driven garbage and recycling systems versus government run collection systems. Attached is a summary of the review. It seems to me the challenge is translating reductions in truck traffic to true cost savings, given the overriding influence of the freeze /thaw cycle and sub - surface soil conditions. Commercial recycling is happening in Lino Lakes. I have attached two reports to get the ball rolling. Recognize I have marked these reports confidential. I asked our folks to give me some data on the commercial accounts we haul in Lino Lakes and attached is what they produced. My goal is to give you some sense of what is going on in the community. Please do not distribute the confidential reports, but feel to summarize for discussion with the committee. We have not taken the time to audit the data so some of the coding may need further explanation. The biggest challenge with commercial recycling is space. A secondary issue is cost. We can provide economical solutions for businesses when they have enough volume to make it worth it for everybody. The idea of "cans for athletes" as proposed by a council- member is a good one and we are supportive of the effort. Recognize it will probably have an impact on our • residential program also and we would be concerned if the program "got too big." • Lastly I want to comment on the residential program in Lino Lakes. We should all be proud of the effort. I have reviewed the reporting ACE provides to you and I assume it is meeting your needs. As you know, in addition to the standard monthly tonnage report, ACE also provides Lino Lakes with a special materials collection report. I have attached the February reports for review. I have also attached a graph showing the growth of ACE recycling in Lino Lakes. As you know we converted to single sort recycling in 2006. The graph shows the impact has been dramatic. As you are also aware, the conversion to single sort happened because of the competitive marketplace. Lino Lakes did not have to pass a government mandate to make it happen. We saw single sort as a competitive advantage in 2006 and jumped at the opportunity to show Lino Lakes customers the ACE Difference. It worked, we have more customers, resident satisfaction is up and the community is recycling more. In contrast, The City of Fridley has a city contract for resident recycling. Finally, in 2012 they are converting to single sort. What a missed opportunity! Lino Lakes is a great story and we look forward to more improvements. See you on the 28t "1 Mike Berkopec General Manager ACE Solid Waste 763 - 398 -1821 • • • • (7 Jan -05 Apr -05 Jul-05 Oct -05 Jan -06 Apr -06 Jul-06 Oct -06 Jan -07 Apr -07 Jul -07 Oct -07 Jan -08 Apr -08 Jul -O8 Oct -08 Jan -09 Apr -09 Jul-09 Oct -09 Jan -10 Apr -10 Jul -10 Oct -10 Jan -11 Apr -11 Jul -11 Oct -11 Jan -12 J * Decrease from 06 is due to Economy, but the trend is still positive ... _... F.-- ,. • .. ...._ iii F ..., J /, '3N1 `31SVM anos Pounds per Service- Lino Lakes J • • • �. . ACE SOUO WASTE, INC. Road Restrictions • Watch for city load limit signs • 30 -35Ibs per residential trash stop (now) • Split your loads • Use Tag Axle ACE SOLID WASTE, INC. • Flip switch • Check Air Pressure Tag Axle