001e e e good evening everyone my name is Brooks Curtis and is chair of the environmental commission I'd like to call the meeting to order welcome to the September 26 2024 electronic meeting in the environmental commission we'll conduct this meeting like an in-person meeting so during roll call please indicate your location public comment is welcome and we'll be via telephone only to speak at public comment call 99 and our meeting ID 66543 this information is available on the published agenda in the Public Notices section on the city's website and broadcast of this meeting on CTN Channel 16 AT&T channel99 and online at a2gov.org CN Aon will you read the land Heritage statement yes share my screen as well I acknowledge that the land the city of an arbor occupies is the ancestral traditional and contemporary
002lands of the Anish shinig including the Odawa oju and bwami and W peoples I further acknowledge that our city stands like Mo almost all property in the United States on lands obtained generally in unconscionable ways from indigenous peoples The Taking of this land was formalized by the Treaty of Detroit in 1807 knowing where we live work study and recreate does not change the past but a thorough understanding of the ongoing consequences of this past can Empower us in our work to create a future that supports human flourishing and justice for all individuals thanks uh do you mind doing the um roll call now yes um council member Amman is absent today Vice chair Brown he was on for a second then he dropped off so okay let me just double check he's not sitting in
003the lobby okay not yet um chair Curtis here Ann Arbor commissioner Dale here an N Arbor council member dish you're in N Arbor uh commissioner Graham I'm here an arber commissioner grber be here a little later commissioner Marson I'm here in an arbor commissioner msky here in Seattle commissioner Mitchell here in an arper commissioner nedr she OHP there you are we can't hear you she's here uh commissioner peterswood here in Arbor commissioner Smith Kar an arbor and commissioner aing Here Comes Steve okay absent okay that is a quorum okay great um does anybody want to make changes to the agenda looks like uh Steve Brown is back on is there motion for approval of the agenda move second okay does anyone to make want to make changes to the minutes from last month's meeting I
004had a change okay I was listed as president at that meeting but I was not oh gosh maybe you were there in spirit definitely in spirit but not in person or online apologies for that no problem I will fix that any other changes I think I had the opposite problem last time yeah I marked to absent when you were there is there a motion for approval of the agenda or the um meeting minutes there's a first and a second so move so move okay uh next is public comment this is an opportunity for people to speak for up to three minutes please call 3 to raise your hand press nine to unmute press star six City staff will select callers who have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your
005phone number when speaking please move to a quiet area and state your name and address at the beginning of your comments there may a delay up to 30 seconds before connection is established Aaron do we have any callers no callers okay chair Curtis uh we took motions on both the minutes and the um minutes but we never took a vote to approve them so maybe we can do that to see in the interim while we're waiting for anybody else maybe to raise their hand okay sorry about that is there a do we want to approve the um agenda for a second thanks John and do we have an motion to approve the uh minutes so we we have motions for both we just IND take votes okay so votes all votes for the agendas okay
006now the minutes approved all right uh I don't think we have any old unfinished business so now it's new business and I think the first presentation up is from Sarah nedrich all right is my mic working now yes it is okay it's always my airpods that screw things up don't know why I even try all right let's see if I can share Ain you got me on backup see um telling me I don't have the security to share I just made you co-host post did that anything change no no I think it's in my security is it's like my Apple's not letting it you mind just sharing yeah fine okay sweet all right well um guess while she's getting that up I can kind of start um so the water quality work group was asked
007to pick a topic to present on or to have a speaker come talk about um there were like four different things I thought would be really useful and I talked to our water quality work group and they thought got sort of a regulatory overview um so discussion of what agencies are involved in decisions regarding water in the city um and sort of a discussion of those legal Frameworks would be really useful um and very insightful and help um not only the council members that are sitting on this commission um but also activists within the community that want to get things done around water um so the water quality workg group kind of worked as a team to put put this together um and I wanted to First make sure I say the disclaimer that I
008am not a lawyer I'm just a professional person who works in water um so I'm trying to share knowledge um from the water quality work group we had a lot of help from Kelly mccab from the Heron River Watershed Council um Ain helped work with us to put together slides on the city um Abigail Reed from a student from u ofm in our workg group um and Hank also help by getting one of his professors to review our presentation um Professor Devon judge Lord who um Works particularly on Environmental Policy um so hopefully this will be a good overview for you all go ahead and go to the next slide Ain all right oh um would it be possible well that's okay I yeah yeah I can I'll I'll switch to the PowerPoint I just
009pull that one up too okay sweet yeah that because I have animation so it'll make it less boring um yeah okay not that this is going to be boring guys this is going to be fun um so for our presentation outline again we're going to go over the governmental um I can follow along governmental agencies and the right various regulations and Regulatory authorities and then we're going to also include some other authorities important to the city um and their delegated entities um we're going to also go over some case studies and that's really the fun part uh where we get to look at all these different laws and how they apply to issues that the city is currently facing um so we're going to look at nutrient pollution pesticides regulation and posos in the hon
010River um and so our governmental agency outline is broken up by federal state county and City authorities um so we're going to start with Federal and work our way down to the city are you looking at the right slide well I think you're sharing yeah it's fine by me but I don't have any notes there's nothing to to see but yeah you can you can go to the next slide let me try one thing um see how I fix that okay how's that oh perfect yay okay five minutes we got it okay um okay if you want to go to the next slide okay so for our learning objectives um I hope that you all take away gaining familiarity with like at least one agency um with responsibility for water um I think hopefully you
011guys will learn something new um second um it's important to realize that multiple agencies on the state federal and local levels may be needed to achieve an optimal environmental outcome so these players work together on issues and then third participation by local activists and governments is essential to enhancing communication between those agencies and to align all their different priorities to come up with beneficial local outcomes all right next slide um so before we get into the various agencies a basic understanding of the hydrologic Cycles needed um agencies split up the water cycle um so the the bodies that are regulating groundwater are not the same bodies that are regulating surface water like Rivers wetlands and lakes um also the Great Lakes are um regulated by even a different Authority um then atmospheric water is regulated
012by Noah um so understanding that this water is partitioned um and that agencies maybe there's not always good communication between these different um intersections even though water is water next slide so some other limitations agencies have uh is that not all regulations or statutes have teeth and by teeth we mean um having sufficient um regulatory authority to enforce their laws so maybe in their statute it says you are to regulate nutrient pollution but then for someone discharging nutrients there's no fine right so teeth can be in terms of a fine or it can be in terms of you know some penalty to a bad actor um if that doesn't exists the regulatory Authority doesn't really have much to go from another really important point is that not all agencies are sufficiently funded and staffed um
013when I worked at the remediation division for the state I was managing all of Washton ey County which was like a thousand different contaminated sites and then when I worked for Water Resources Division at the state I was monitoring five Statewide programs um so any person that has that much workload can't be proactive what happens is you end up being reactive um so that can be really hard um for agencies to deal with okay next slide all right so we're going to get into the different agencies and I put alphabet soup as you'll see government folks like to uh have lots of acronyms um but they're important to know so I kind of left them in apologies and if you get confused or like forget what an acronym is feel free to like raise your
014hand and stop me um all right Erin you're G to have to get click happy all right so okay they stop EPA okay so for the EPA um they are the major regulatory Authority for water um at the Federal level so they regulate under the Clean Water Act um they have the office of drinking water or office of water which has drinking water and infrastructure oversight um surface water monitoring and impairment listings so that means if a water body is really contaminated it gets on their impaired list and then that sends extra funding and resources to that impaired water body um they also have the office of land and Emergency Management which does groundwater remediation and programs under that are Superfund uh which is relevant to galman which was just listed as a Superfund Site
015um areas of concern cira uh which is for industrial facilities that are no longer operating and might have contamination and then rra which is active industrial facilities um that have known groundwater contamination and then the office of pesticide programs also does pesticide labeling and approvals which has a downstream impact on uh water quality all right then next is USDA uh which is the US Department of agricultural natural resources conservation service um these guys are maybe a little less known for what they do um but they're regulated under the water Bank act and Farms of the future act um so they have a few voluntary programs so these are programs that farmers can sort of opt into and they get subsidies if they're involved in them so one is the conservation restoration program the Wetland Protection
016Program and then they have a myriad of other Soil and Water Conservation programs um and you see I have my little icons of the teeth so it's really important to note here that EPA has a lot stronger regulatory authorities and the cap capability to do enforcement actions whereas an agency like USDA NR CS is more of a voluntary program so farmers opt into these programs and they're not really penal penalized if they're not compliant okay and then the last on this sheet is the US Army Corps of Engineers um they come into play Whenever you have any type of dredging or river based work uh where you're really impacting the flood plane so you won't probably interact with them as much but all right four more federal agencies think Seven's enough um okay so next
017we have the US fish and wildlife service so they really are the primary um agency that deals with um species in water so the migratory bird act which has protections for water foul and The Endangered Species Act which protects threaten endangered species like our local uh endangered and threatened muscle species that live in our River uh they also um will evaluate new species to add to the threat and endangered species list um so they're constantly reviewing that and adding species as they become more or less rare um we'll go to USGS um so USGS is the US Geological Survey um they're actually the oldest of the agencies uh created with the organic act in 1879 and they were originally created to survey the land so they were the first um group that actually made Maps
018um for people so they knew you know where Rivers were and where to put their cities and all those things um but still today they do surveying um of rivers um and they also do hydrological monitoring so if you have your summer house up North and you're wondering if your Dock's underwater uh you're probably using a USGS stream gauge to check that out um and they are really good at research too um so a lot of the really cutting edge work on contaminantes of emerging concern are done by USGS all right we'll move on to no National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration um like I said at the beginning they deal with a lot of the atmospheric water um they do Great Lakes monitoring as well as hydrological monitoring to determine what Great Lakes water levels
019will look like for the year um and they have an an arbor actually research branch called glol um which is located just down on State Street uh they have the office of response and restoration which helps follow up after oil spills all right and lastly Coast Guard last but not least um they work on oil spill response so that's all seven federal agencies that have a foot in water um now we'll go into the state agencies so a lot of the state agencies actually get delegated authority from the EPA um Erin if you just kind of want to go through these a little quickly so we have water resources which does surface water monitoring throughout the state they also monitor our point source discharges so that's like our wastewater treatment plant in the city they'll
020help draft our permit for that um also have non-point Source funding and evaluation so for instance like runoff of phosphorus from Farm Fields um they would look at that uh for the office of drinking water um they are regulating under the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Le and copper rule so they do inspections of all drinking water facilities type one facilities in the State uh which includes our waste our drinking water plant in the city they set maximum contaminant levels um so they're actually telling how much of a certain chemical can be in our drinking water and they also do permitting REM remediation Redevelopment we actually had them here um like a few months ago to present on some of the work that they're doing um so I feel like you guys maybe have
021a good understanding of that uh but their regulatory authorities are part 2011 and 213 super fun and the Brownfield Redevelopment um fund so they regulate groundwater contamination hazardous materials and um do spill response as well as cleanups materials management is our landfill uh is the landfill organization under Part 111 and part 115 um they also look at beneficial reuse of recycled materials um they evaluate whether you can stockpile soil here or there um they oversee hazardous waste disposal as well um and for the cities landfill they do permitting for that so that's uh the state Eagle Department um then in the state we have a few other agencies that touch water um so I'll start with uh Michigan Department of Health and Human Services they're regulated under the public health code uh the main way
022that the city probably interacts with them is they have fish advisories um so as you know in the hod River we now have a fish advisory do not eat because of posos so that's the agency that did that evaluation and determined that was the case um they also have a water assistance program for low-income people or residents who can't afford their water bill uh the department of a and roll development uh is probably the closest agency to having any type of regulatory authority over p pesticides um they do pesticide applicator training um that's required by the state um they have the ability to monitor pesticide use um so they have a two-year window where they can back claw and ask for that data from Farmers um they do special use authorizations for really nasty uh
023pesticides um that are used for really special issues or problems that farmers are having and then they develop guidance for new agricultural Ventures right now I know they're working really hard to come up with guidance for how to do marijuana growing um which creates a lot of water waste product um okay and then the last state one I have here is the Department of Natural Resources um they do fish and game licenses so if you want to fish or hunt um you have to get a license through them they do a lot of stream and Wetland restoration for the state State um they manage our state parks and in addition to the ferally listed threaten endangered species we also have state listed species um so if there's a species that the state feels really particularly
024strongly about protecting and the feds aren't going to list it we can also list it within our state um to get extra protections for that organism and then they also do some aquatic monitoring particularly for fish so they're monitoring where game fish are increasing or decreasing and they also do stocking of fish um certain game species all right so we can move to the next one which is the county so we're getting we're getting close to the city guys all right so the health department um is a major agency within the county um that regulates groundw so they they um can issue groundwater use permits outside of the city within the city we have like a Prohibition zone for drilling new wells but outside the city they do work on that um they also do
025private well sampling um there are relatively few private Wells within the city limits but they are the ones that go out and would do that sampling um next on here we have the water commissioner's office they do a lot of work um I uh was actually surprised when I looked at their website to see how much they do um they are the permit holder for our ms4 permits so that ms4 is just the sort of storm water runoff um uh limits for like how much storm water you can you can put into our system um and sort of what levels of contaminants or runoff contaminants can be in there um they also oversee the natural a preservation group um they do permits for soil erosion and drain use so that's you know if there's a
026construction project going on they will review that permit and make sure that that's being done so that there's not erosion into the drains um they have a storm water grant so to help improve storm water issues in different places and they have a rain Garden program as well um Brooks do you have a question just a quick comment on the um Natural Area preservation the county it's na with two PS it's pronounced the same as the city one but they have a diff different acronym oh thank you I didn't know that and the health department regulates septic systems which is a big deal for them okay Anya um not to detract too much but do we I'm curious what the difference is between the ms4 permit versus like mpds like what what what what do
027each yeah so mpds is for Point sources um so that would be like where you have water literally coming out of a pipe into a Waterway with ms4 it's more storm so you think of like ownership of a whole plot of land it's all that water when it rains that might run off and it's not necessarily a point discharge it's more diffuse okay um all right Erin I think you're up okay sorry this is very text heavy and I should have probably done cooler stuff with Graphics um so I um wanted to just provide a quick snapshot of a few compliance programs that the city follows I just wanted to underscore that this is just um scratching the surface of you know what our different um departments are responsible for as as far as meeting
028compliance with regulatory programs um so an arbor water of course is uh drinking water Water Reclamation and storm water uh so the water treatment plant the Safe Drinking Water Act of course is a huge regulatory driver there so that covers things like water quality standards making sure that folks are drinking Safe Water um monitoring and Reporting um if you guys don't read the the yearly consumer reports for an arbor water I would recommend it there's lots of good info in there um they also do Source water assessment and protection um so the the the water treatment plant has a Wellhead Protection Program and a source water intake protection plan and they do you know sampling and Barton Pond um to to you know monitor that that Source water um which all of you know the
029majority of which comes from the hon River um they also uh operate and run a laboratory there so there's a lot that goes into that certification and being able to to run their own samples there they also have um a point source discharge permit for a ledge Pond there and um actually when I heard Sarah talking mention the Army Corps of Engineers we also have uh you know a whole um the water treatment plant operates and maintains four dams located on the hon river which kind of is its own thing so you know Barton Argo Gettys and Superior two of which are Hydro dams so there's a ton of um regulatory issues that come in with with that as well uh Water Reclamation um the nip permit um is a huge regulatory driver there um
030so the water uh effluent water quality so that's the water that's treated and then returned to the hon River that's what is um has regulatory authority over over that um and then operation monitoring and Reporting um then it also oversees the residuals management so that includes uh biosolids there um and then systems planning houses our storm water group um the city ALS has our own ms4 permit um there's I know there's count both County drain and City drain within the city which is confusing um so the city maintains their own ms4 permit as well um so they're doing things like tmdl uh total maximum daily load implementation for impairments on the hon U best management practices for storm water yeah the ms4 is a pretty complex permit with um you know six different program areas
031so the storm OT folks are managing all of all of those um there's a big education component with that too uh and then the flood flood plane management is um uh meeting compliance with the the FEMA flat insurance program and I'll talk more about that in a second and then Public Works is on here because they are responsible for the distribution and conveyance of all those other systems so they're like the infrastructure and the pipes for all of those different Water Systems we do have a our storm water is separate so some cities have combined storm water and and wh water stars are separate so there's you know three separate systems so there's a lot of asset management that goes along with that um they uh get involved when there's things like a sanitary sewer
032overflow and preventing that um they do a lot of cross contamin or cross uh connection work um between because you don't want to mix your Wastewater with your storm and Etc um and they're also doing a lot right now with our the under the leaden copper rule um um so they're replacing all galvanized water service lines in the city right now um that were once connected to lead components the lead components are all gone now but they're doing a huge inventory and replacement of all those galvanized lines and there's a really cool dashboard uh you can find online to see kind of where they are with that uh process if folks are interested uh and then we have a landfill that uh the solid waste kind of falls under public works so landfill management um
033kind of falls under public works as well um so that last slide was kind of like the city is part of the regulated Community but this slide I kind of wanted to highlight um that we're also we also serve as the regulator in some cases so these I included a couple examples um of you know regulatory programs that help us meet our larger compliance program so for example the wastewater treatment plant has an industrial pre-treatment program um where industrial users send their discharge the Water Reclamation for treatment so those those will have permit limits um and they sometimes require pre-treatment so uh the landfill um Purge water gets sent to the the wastewater treatment plant and there's a part they have an IP industrial pre-treatment program permit for that uh storm water erosion and sediment
034control permits know if anyone's going to be doing any soil disturbance that's that permits to make sure that none of that leaves the site um and that's something that we um inspect and enforce on um and then we do site plans um for new developments to ensure you know appropriate storm water controls among other things um and then we also have a bunch of just voluntary Water Resources protection programs um that aren't mandatory but we're doing because they help us meet our objectives City objectives and of course everyone's very familiar with our storm water infation guidelines um formerly the green streets um guidelines of policy um we also um do What's called the community rating system is another really good example um so that's kind of in our flood plane management and so that program
035the city par participates in to help reduce flood risk and decrease um flood insurance premium rates so lots of lots of work on the compliance side and then um lots of work on the kind of regulator and then voluntary program side and then I'll hand it back over to Sarah thank you all right so we just wanted to wrap up with some other authorities and advocates for water within our city um so we have some universities that really are quite good at doing research and advocacy work um we have cigler which boy don't ask me what that stands for Great Lakes research something like that uh Michigan seant Institute of water research so those are all sort of housed here um and include other um universities as well within Michigan um also U ofm has
036its own environmental health and safety program um so handling of hazardous materials on site are all regulated like within their um their purview um we have uh also a number of environmental non-governmental and nonprofit orgs um like the hon River Watershed Council which you're all likely familiar with um we also have the southeast Michigan Council of governments um um and we have um Regional and National groups as well the alliance for the Great Lakes Nature Conservancy Trot unlimited so all these groups kind of are are uh available to help um brainstorm and address issues relating to water in the city all right and then I think we can move into our case studies um so I wanted to kind of go through some specific before go to that has her hand up hand up oh
037I'm so sorry Rita yeah go ahead okay this is just a quick uh comment just in in terms of um the ms4 programs just I wanted to mention that there is a ms4 permit H held by the county that addresses the Allen Creek drain that flows through West Park specifically so as differentiated from the the city's ms4 permit and we have a a status of notice of violation um for infiltration in that drain that I'm hoping it's being followed up on that's it thanks well okay um so I'll kind of go into our case study here um so I kind of wanted to outline how peos came to be regulated um because Michigan really was one of the first states to start regulating it um it was even prior to EPA starting to look at
038the issue um so really what keyed our government into to doing this um was that some advocacy groups convinced The Drinking Water Division in the state to pass mcls mcls are maximum contaminant limits um so I actually um passed the quantity of posos that is known to be toxic in drinking water um and it because it became an MCL then they had to go and monitor in all the drinking water facilities um so and then around that time when they started sampling they did see posos detections in the city's water and Arbor water facility um next we had um underwater Resources Division rule 57 values were developed and what that allowed to happen um was then if we had detections in surface water that gave the Water Resources Division the regulatory authority to go after
039Point discharges of posos um so when posos was first detected in the city's drinking water they sampled in the hon River and found it there then they linked that to um to triar as a point source um so if you want to go to the next bullet yeah um so what really sped it along was the formation of a group called empart um so like I Illustrated earlier Within there's four different branches of government remediation Water Resources drinking water and landfills right so those four in order to communicate on posos what they did was form this m partk group and it had points of contact from each division working collaboratively together so that sped up the process for getting posos taken care of within the state um and um they were able to identify the
040source in triar um they were able to take a compliance action against Tri to get them to um turn off the spigot of posos into the hon um Water Resources conducted fish sampling and found really high levels of pfos in fish um living in the hon River and then worked with Michigan Department of Health and Human Services to set a fish advisory limit in the do not eat order um so the question is future action where can we go with the agency um to get our posos issue taken care of in the hon because we'd like to eat the fish again someday wouldn't we um so some ideas um there is potential through use fish and wildlife service to go through a natural resource damage assessment um so that's when there's been um an impact
041to natural resources in this case it's our fishery um and it's also all the work the city had to do to get us on um carbon filters for our drinking water there's this huge cost to the city um so us fish and wildlife service actually has a statute where you can get damages back um for that effect to Natural Resources um so that's one future action that could be taken um but yeah something maybe we can brainstorm about um we can go to the next case study now all right so we also wanted to talk about nutrient pollution in the p and Beville Lakes um so historically there had been harmful Alo blooms um so you see that top bright picture um the threat of harmful alal blooms is one it can create a cytotoxin
042um that can be toxic to you know Wildlife as well as dogs swimming in the lake um it also creates very large dead zones when all that plant matter dies um it decreases the oxygen loading and crashes The Fishery um so in 1994 um both Ford and Belleville Lakes were listed as impaired for phosphorus so that would have been Eagle Water Resources Division that did that in 2004 Eagle set a limit for phosphorus of 005 mg of phosphorus per liter and the City kind of worked um with a lot of their upgradient ms4 Partners um as well as npdes partners um anyone responsible for phosphorus getting into the river joined this middle Heron Partners group um to work collaboratively to reduce phosphorus to the river um so they developed an implementation plan which I think
043most recently was put out in 2023 um in 2007 the city of Ann Arbor developed a phosphor ordinance uh and lawn fertilizers if you want to go to the next one and in 2012 uh the Michigan fertilizer law was passed um so that sort of helped prevent fertilizer from being used directly adjacent to water bodies um and then in 2019 Eagle updated their tmdl so they lowered it um from 05 milligrams to 03 um um all right and then lastly yeah if you want to see the current implementation plan for phosphorus in our water shed that's the length for it you want yeah all right so at present we're continuing to reduce phosphorus um outputs to the river and to monitor so that's nutrients can I add something I don't know where yeah yes please
044do um I just wanted to add that so recently the city signed a um anou memorandum of understanding with uman Township to do um to share data in Ford Lake um and we added some additional water quality sensors in Ford Lake to kind of understand the issue a little bit better um so looking at maybe alternative ways to reduce phosphorus um in the lake other than you know um Upstream sources thanks well okay so I wanted to include a slide on pesticide regulations for my uh my pollinators working group ladies um and fellows um so I wanted to look specifically at neonicotinoid pesticides and those are the pesticides that are um known to be associated with the B colony collapse disorder um which has caused um B populations to crash in certain parts of the
045states so um in 1994 neonic were originally registered um registration is conducted by EPA office of pesticide programs um and they also do the labeling for pesticides so when you go to the store and buy them you see the label on there that's the EPA that approves uh and reviews that um so if you want to go next okay so um following that um you know within I don't know I have to do my mental math 10 years of it 12 years of it being um out on the market we started to see the first Publications on colony collapse disorder um so this is when um these uh their behavior would change and they wouldn't be able to get back to the colony to make honey um around this uh and then you know within
046about 10 years of that the USGS us Geological Survey started doing surface water monitoring for neonix um and then very recently Eagle's Water Resources Division started to set water limits so surface water limits for neonicotinoids just recently the EPA um did their 15-year revieww um for neonicotinoid pesticides um and it was still allowed to be used um but they did reduce the limits a little bit um within the state as far as um what we're seeing of neonicotinoids there are certain areas um where they're starting to monitor surface water and finding it exceeding um you know chronic levels for effects to um aquatic organisms so it might be having an impact within the state um on Aquatic Life however because it's a non-point Source pollutant associated with agriculture there's very limited Authority on what we
047can do um assuming farmers are applying it according to label um so for the Michigan Department of a and rural development again they have really limited Authority um they can request we records to see where it's being applied U but that's set at a twoyear time limit time window so they couldn't go back say 10 years to figure out who's applying it every year for the past 10 years um uh natural resource conservation service um can help to promote conservation practices and integrated Pest Management uh but again they don't really have much enforcement capacity um within our County we have the washing County Conservation District that can provide conservation education um and currently I think kind of what's been done on this issue is surface water monitoring throughout the state uh which will lead to
048impairment listings for water bodies um with really high concentrations of these pesticides um so yeah that's the story on that um so I hope in our presentation today you gained some familiarity with uh some agencies that you maybe didn't know existed before um uh I hope that we took away from this that the multiple agencies uh all kind of work together to achieve environmental outcomes and that our participation as local as activists and within our government is essential to helping those different agencies align their priorities toward good outcomes for the city oh and um so when we met with Professor judge Lord he had this really great recommendation of putting together a Huda contact and their contact info um within all these agencies but I ran out of time so um that should be coming
049as part of our workg group that's all thank you very good thank you so I'll ask a question um the city has a few Lakes a couple at DOL nature area and one at Olen does anybody is anybody responsible for water quality monitoring in The Lakes that's a really good question um I don't think there is an appointed Authority uh within the city um I know I personally have monitored uh first and second Sister Lakes um as part of a state level program that's voluntary um we got a grant from washna County um their clean streams program had an $1,000 grant that I applied for and got money to monitor the Lakes um but yeah we we just have like first and sis second Sister Lakes are only natural lakes um in Ann Arbor and
050other Lakes are impoundments are creat ated um it would be good to have a program to monitor those regularly um they also have a huge ability to store phosphorus so that's important for our tmdl but excellent question Rita thanks nice presentation thanks Sarah um I just have a couple of comments on neonix um they they are systemic pesticides and and um very often the application is on agricultural seeds and when those are planted there is um dust nichoid dust that's um spreads around um and also um runoff from fields and that might be part of what's being picked up I am so glad to hear about the water mon monitoring I hadn't known about that um but what is a real concern is that um the seed coating that is used is is the the
051nunex are are potent and can actually kill birds so um when birds are attracted to those seeds that's that's another issue it's not just the insects um but of course when the insects disappear the Beards birds don't have any food it the the combination of things that happen when we apply pesticides is just amazing um and so you know better would be to not use it but it's it's a big regulatory issue and I know it has to do with with um Agriculture and uh if only we could start moving away from that that would be my My Wish yeah yeah one of the really tough things about the coings too is like a lot of Studies have shown they're not even effective at preventing pests so it's like they're just doing it for funsies
052putting it on there right except the the um the pesticide actually becomes part of the cells of the plant and so then when the when the um insects eat the plant that's when they get affected by the pesticide itself it's really the it's just an awful thing and yeah prohibition would be my preference Aon did you have your hand up oh no you put it down okay I was I was just going to offer another comment on the water quality sampling um we contract with the Watershed Council to do a lot of our um kind of tmdl implementation water quality sampling so I can't speak specifically if they um if we're looking at those areas um but it'd be worth checking out their um water quality site um they have um a nice graphic to
053show all their different um sampling locations and then I also was going to offer um the state might do some sampling there as well um to check for when they're doing their sampling for um uh stream impairments or fresh or water body impairments yeah that's a good point John thank you thanks for really a an informative presentation that's quite a matrix of regulatory agencies and we didn't even see the all the regulations but it's mind-boggling um I've got a number of questions um I don't know if I should throw them all out there and then you can decide what to or reply to um maybe that's what I'll do um some of these may may not be appropriate for today's discussion the first is um within I guess the last year or so um the
054Supreme Court of the United States has handed down a couple of decisions that um seem to me are are potentially very very consequential um the first is um socket versus EPA that basically said that um there has to be as I understand it you know running water um in order for the the uh uh um Clean Water Act to apply meaning marshes and uh bogs F Etc are are no longer covered and then you had the reversal of the Chevron Doctrine and I wondering what is likely to be changed or challenged as a result of that and you know do we see any time frames for when that's going to come and what might be the implications um for Ann Arbor um the other question that I have is uh we talked about endangered species
055and threatened species but I'm wondering who has regulatory control if any over invasive species in the monitoring and control of them um and then um this is probably a topic for a different day but what is the regulatory hierarchy for all this you know who who is following whose regulations and in what cases does say the city or the county or the state uh have the uh the uh ability to overrule uh let's say a Federal Regulation or set a higher standard um and when is it restricted and I can imagine that varies a lot from one uh area to another so those are those are sort of the top level things and then I guess maybe at sometime for a future meeting is um it'd be really interesting for us to hear from the
056water group what should we in an arbor be worried about and what should we be proactively or maybe reactively um addressing that we haven't been addressing up until now so uh I'll just put all those out there and either tonight or at some future time I'd be interested in hearing uh responses to those thanks very much okay awesome yeah that was a lot um I mean your legal questions are kind of outside my scope of knowledge um I have to say when the Chevron Defence decision was made I was a little terrified at first um but then I think I after talking to some folks I realized it it will impact existing court cases if they get relitigated um so it's not one of those things where all of a sudden this state will lose
057its rulemaking Authority it's more like it's more likely to get challenged um if they come up with a rule that people don't like um but I'm not a lawyer um things said um for invasive species I know the Department of Natural Resources does a lot of work um as well as us fish and wildlife service on the federal level um the state of Michigan's Water Resources Division does a lot for aquatic invasives um they're monitoring that pretty closely um so maybe that answers that question partially um and I think what you said about you know coming back and giving an overview of what we should be worried about as a city from a water quality perspective that's a great idea um yes let's follow up on that okay Steve you want to go ahead yeah
058thanks Sarah I'm sorry I wasn't able to help with this presentation uh it was a great presentation it'll be a great reference document for me you know going forward to try to see where you could start and I was just wondering I mean how does the city staff navigate you know through this like Maze of agencies I really have no idea but um it seems like it seems like there's a large delay you know you can see how it takes decades to actually try to resolve any kind of emerging problem so I'm wondering what you know um what the city can do to at least release the its delay in responding to incidents because um I'm sure a lot of it's money but you know I just want to remind people I know you nobody
059here could probably answer that question but I know I've heard from several sources Statewide you know through my work with several environmental groups that um um and actually this came up in a conversation with um Brian stets that Aaron was present for earlier this year that uh you know actually a major problem is that the Clean Water Act is not enforced adequately to prevent taxpayers like the city of an arbor paying through the Safe Drinking Water Act to clean up its polluted input intake water for drinking water so there needs to be much more enforcement at the federal level and at the state level because my understanding is that the state is responsible for some enforcement through the Clean Water Act just like they're responsible for showing npdes permits and I just want to remind
060people that they're there used to be a law in Michigan that made polluters accountable more accountable but uh that law was um that law was neutered by in 1994 by Governor angler and so there is a bill that was been drafted that's uh was submitted to the state legislature this year to you know to uh to regain uh or to uh you know Grant eago The Authority that they used to have to try to regulate you know emissions um you know contamination pollutions um under the Clean Water Act and this this called the PO polluter accountability act and there is still no political will in the state legislature to get this passed this year it may have to happen in Lane duck is the only way it's going to happen so um I just want
061people to be aware of that and be reminded of this and to contact you know their state representatives and see and you know and um Express whatever urgency they may feel about you know getting more enforcement about actually contaminating The Source waters for all of our drinking water so uh I just I'm sorry I just wanted to make that statement thanks Steve uh Chris was a great fan of and friend of Lana po who was behind the original blue to Pay Act in the late 80s I think and I fully support it um but the way that was implemented back then just made companies who had to deal with it Furious and it's not because they didn't want to do the cleanup it's that um the process of cleaning up is a learning exercise and
062a constantly shifting um [Music] uh problem to solve in terms of its costs and the companies were going absolutely nuts they wanted a set agreement let's do act and we can budget for it and six months later the game would change so it's a very difficult um thing to actually Implement and uh so just so you know the other side of the coin and why it under Engler it disappeared so fast when he had the um majority in both houses and and all the industrial folks saying barking barking thank you yeah well thanks for that remark Chris yeah Lop poock was behind us but um originally but um you know one of the major problem I think the fundamental problem is just that we have you know we industry is allowed to release metric tons
063of anything and just without proper testing and to call it you know generally regarded as safe when there's absolutely no data to back that up and um and we should the the federal government needs to focus more on what the Europeans are starting to do where they they call it the precautionary principle where you're only allowed you're only given a permit to produce something in release it into the environment once you've proven that it's safe you know just like the drug Industries um you know the drug Industries regulated like this and these costs are not very high they're in the 10 they're in A10 million or less as opposed to cost to clean everything up after it's already happened both these things can happen at the same time legislatively because I completely agree with you
064we got to put the proof on the other side of the coin here as far as what we're doing yeah and it applies to so many categories how many plastic compounds are there now 10,000 or something isn't that I mean you say well there's 14,000 posos compounds yeah posos alone and we only got then things it's not just one okay how does that perform what happens when you put a bunch of them together yeah and only this year did the EPA declare the the the Legacy ones pfos and pfoa as ha hazardous substances so it's taken um it's taken 75 years after these compounds were released you know tons of them were released into the environment it's taken 75 years for them to be declared hazardous substances and that's only two of the 14,000 oh
065that's only true of two of the 14,000 yeah any other questions well thanks Sarah it was very interesting I won't remember all the terms but that's good we'll look it up you just had to learn one thing that's all yeah yeah that's cool thank you yeah so the next is I think Anya are you doing the resolution first reading Sarah you're going to stop off stop out for this is I don't know if we need to just actually present it and have people read through it or look at it or just sort of give a background of why we're interested in bringing this resolution forward okay and and I don't think I have do I have oh steep go ahead oh uh traditionally we have at least posted it so people can read it uh
066that are watching on you know CTN um I mean a more a better a better thing is to read it out but I'm not sure if we have the time for that probably do but you I would start with why are we doing this and then we can see how it goes so I I'll start with the why reading the whole thing sounds daunting but I'm happy to do it but I'll start with the why so um so we wanted to put forward this resolution in support of uh Senate Bill 228 so that bill has been introduced by um by Senator shank and Irwin and others um and the idea is really to repeal um uh the law from 2016 uh PA 389 which that that was the ban on banss right so the um
067the law that was set essentially to stop washingon County and other Mich Michigan communities from enacting local legislation that could reduce single use Plastics like plastic bags and take up containers um so the you know the general sentiment is that that PA 389 is very Broad and very restrictive um and essentially it's sort of undercuts any local um local communities actions that they might be able to take to try to curve the issues of single Plastics um and so there is uh so there's this the Senate bill to revoke that um and there's been a few different communities including Detroit that have been passing resolutions uh in support of the Senate Bill 228 um so there's there's you know other folks in U Michigan are doing it there's also a lot of examples of other
068states who you know have have done things like um having having votes and having legal action so that they can require for example a small fee if somebody wanted a plastic bag um or otherwise have sort of disallowed plastic bags or required that uh that some um businesses if they do have plastic bag bags also have to alter offer alternative uh options like reusable bags or something like that um so there's over uh um I guess that's that's that's the biggest part uh so the idea for this resolution is to offer support um to the Senate Bill 228 and just trying to help that uh get through do we have is there any questions that we need to do or should we just really go through and and read it out do you want to
069say something no Rita um can you just give us an idea of where it is in the legislative process do you expect it to be addressed by the Senate and House this year this legislative Year John do you know more about that I don't know sorry I do not know that off hand where it is right now if anybody else does they could go ahead and speak up apparently not I I just had a brief comment um typically with resolutions like this we have a first and a second reading um so we may not need to read through every word here this has now been posted a legisl hopefully everyone has had a chance to look at it and we could talk about any concerns or proposed modifications which we could then uh address between
070now in the next meeting and then hopefully take the and if it passes um uh hand it off to uh to city council if if they're so inclined to to deal with the issue that's all I wanted to say richet do you have something um I don't know if we're doing this yet but I just have a comment about one of the where as statements this is great by the way thank you for those of you that put this together I think I'm excited to push this through my only comment is the where statement that says can I do that now is now a good time to be specific yeah okay that says um where did it go I'm looking at this screen but maybe I'll pull it up on mine okay if you can
071stop there whereas while allowing local governments to restrict plastic bags and single-use containers um all the way to simple and Common Sense Solutions such as requiring stores to provide reusable bags for sale or providing containers made of more sustainable material for us Fe um recently I've been hearing about California's ban that now they're seeing it didn't work like they had hoped because they were called they had there was a loophole that there could these bags could be called reusable and they didn't Define that well and so plastic companies made thick plastic bags and they were called reusable and they did have a fee I think people had to pay a small fee but now they're seeing that the plastic pollution has something like doubled because essentially they're using twice as much plastic to make the
072bags and they're not really being reused so I think my only statement here is maybe that example should just be taken out or we could think a little bit more about it but I don't know that that is um yeah and common sense I think it's more complex now that we're seeing what's happening in California and they're having to rewrite that law and think more about that loophole yeah I I'm I'm glad you brought that up I also so the the basis for for this resolution was taking language from what Detroit past um and I I also I had sort of second thoughts about that section as well for that and then also the beginning of the the whole while the allowing local governments blah blah blah we create more of a burden on businesses
073and cons consumers like I I don't know that that's necessarily always true you know so um so that part was giving me pause too so I I I personally don't find removing that hole whereas Lisa do you have something I mean is this something so this is where I'm still sort of learning all the processes um if this is a first reading I can go into the draft document and make that note for us to have you know comments on separately um and then that can be something would that just be a resolved between meetings you like comments in the draft Lisa did did you have you're the next one that I see what to hand up yeah I did but I wasn't sure if you were done um so this is great I'm really
074really glad to see this I think this is definitely something that we've had on our lobbying agenda for a while the city council has um and so just in terms of the process that you went through to put this together have you um consulted with with any staff members yes I well I I shared it I did share it with um Sarah Mason and Jenny patasi just asking for for their um they they made some small uh changes but not anything substantial to the content so they they've looked at it and said that they are generally supportive of it okay um typically we would also want to have it reviewed by the city attorney's office and that's probably that's something that Erica and I could do after this body approves it if you want to
075um that it probably I don't know I guess it probably makes more sense for us to run it by the city attorneys and then I would definitely check in with um I'm really glad you talked to Miss Mason and miss paski and I can check in with them as well but that's a really good a good stop there's just sometimes you don't know if there's legal stuff and there is a lot of language in this like biodegradable you know all there's a lot of language in this that I am not you that that I think we would need our lawyers to make sure that we weren't like you say sort of opening doors for something worse but um and also sometimes we we take the language from the from the Senate bill so Detroit might
076done that but have you compared this your language here with the Senate Bill's language I've read the Senate bill but I haven't sort of gone side by side to to really do a thorough comparison of that um so I definitely could I could I could spend some time on that this weekend actually thank you for doing this work I I think I'm next um I I'm in full support of uh this resolution I was just um a little bit surprised that there was no language in here about um uh just the principle of allowing local control um by um City governments to um be able to solve problems in their own jurisdiction um without having um you know whatever the forces were at state level dictating down so um you know I don't have any
077proposed language or anything like that but uh and I'm not necessarily requesting that anything be changed here but I just wanted to point out that um um for me personally uh in addition to all the environmental reasons here I think the power of Ann Arbor and ground you know from a solving things from the ground up um to solve big environmental problems like this um is important so thank you yeah I agree thank you and thanks Erin for capturing all these comments in the document for us to get back to R you have a comment now just um I think you really addressed it in in your um thought to look at the state bill as well because I think we do want to have something that's congruent with that and the um issue that
078that commissioner grou raised about um kind of potential avoiding potential unintended consequences is you know if we can learn from what happened in California that's a a good thing um but great to move forward on this I would love to see it thank you John yes thanks I just have a very brief uh comment to council member Dish's question about the legal review um it's my experience that we haven't taken resolutions like this uh and too legal until such time that the resolution passes the commission otherwise we're sending a whole lot of different uh possible resolutions to legal and expending resources on something that might not even make it out of uh commission so I I my suggestion would be unless we hear otherwise um maybe from um our two Council daans that in this
079case we address some of the questions that come up already this evening and possibly in the future um and include that in the resolution and um only at that point uh uh provide it uh to council and then they can provide it then to Legal if they think there's even a chance that Council would even take take this up otherwise like I said we're just using resources at various levels that may not be um justified in in being expended thanks great well I I think the comments the I I think everybody's comments are really good ones and ones I think are fairly easy for us to adjust by going back and looking through that so if this is if that's something that we will do in the document between meetings I can take a first
080run at it in the next couple days and we can just go from there cool thank you I also think there might be um there might be a legal review um kind of built into the approval process but I can double check that too call a question are there other questions or comments on this I need to send you a rules of Robert's Rules of Order when someone calls a question you got to take a vote yeah do we need a a a resolution to table this for further review or sorry a motion to table that would probably supersede but you still need a vote to even do that hey do we have a we need to have a motion to have a vote Chris I think she made a motion to table you need
081a second and then you need to vote whether to table or not okay that Steve second it and then we have a vote yep I have a show of hands for the vote those voting in favor are table a second reading next week or next month so that's really great brid do you have a comment yeah I just can you clarify for me since I'm still kind of a newbie what we're voting to on motion to table means to to read have a second reading at next meeting or what does that mean yeah no not usually I mean motion to table no I do we need a motion to table just because we want to have a second reading I don't think so thank you Rita I didn't think we did it that way last
082time but yeah you don't have a second so you don't have to do it but I think that we move to pass first reading yeah and then move to the next meeting that's what I think tabling to me I think means really setting it on the side with not much action where does this first and second reading at the environmental commission come from don't think we've ever been doing that uh yes we have Chris since I've been on we've only done a couple but well okay sorry so I assume the tabling motion failed because there's no second so I move the motion I mve the resolution there's a second for that we can vote Yes or no right now or if you want me to move let's do a second reading next meeting I'll do
083that instead I second that okay all right can we take a vote then Brooks yeah let's take a vote on that then move it to Second reading next meeting hi hi hi I I would like to see this resolution shorter maybe one page somehow it's just a bit too long for my taste I think we could take a look at that and see if there's some other ones that we could pull out but okay um I think we're on to the next item on the agenda which is reports from uh committees and Aon can you um bring Sarah NRI back as a panelist and we could probably just change the screen back to or stop sharing whoever is sharing so the um first work group was biodiversity um we had a few different meetings uh
084last month um and so I'm just going to kind of summarize the notes from all of them into one um there's a l turf grass initiative which we are working with City staff to get a proposal in for ummc's to have a student Project work on an idea of figuring how how we can start reducing turf grass across the city I think that'll be going in tomorrow or this weekend um we also adjusted the dates of the O meeting our work group meetings in October and November to miss um City holidays we don't want to ask uh Sean Reynolds to come to meetings on City holidays seems poor form um we also discussed with sha Reynolds the idea to educate homeowners on invasive species and he offered to follow up with OSI to see if
085that would be something OSI be willing to support uh we talked about the sustainable Landscaping Workshop that is being planned with Mai uh just partially to make sure Shawn was aware what's going on there um we also had a brainstorming session about what if Ann Arbor is going to have a biodiversity plan and what topics should be uh included in that and that's just more of a there's a brainstorming um exercise at this point so there's still lots more to do before we decide if we're going to do something like that or not um and also we had a meeting myself re and Chris on a proposed program called go Beyond Beauty which is spinning up as a Southeast Michigan type initiative to encourage um nurseries to sell less invasive plants and also encourage landscaping
086companies to use less invasive plants um that'll still be a ways out before that gets uh anything happens with that but we might bring it back and next month or so just to bring everybody up to speed on what's going on on and and talk about what city staff would fit within that type of program and that's it unless I miss something anybody else have anything they want to add you're good Brooks uh circular economy Steve was there anything to report out you know I've been out of it for the last two months so um I'm sorry I didn't really schedule a meeting I don't know if the meeting was held in September but um we're up for um the October meeting yeah yeah so okay um water quality I don't know sir if you
087have anything else you want to add well we' put together a pretty bang up presentation um other than that um we did have one other meeting where we went over our goals um and started delegating a little bit um we also increased our memberships so we have you know not just our three commission members now we have um uh rep from the here on River Watershed Council and three U ofm students that are focusing on water quality um so we're we're gaining strength um to get our goals done so it's pretty exciting but yeah that's all okay uh energy yes the September energy commission was devoted to A2 strategy 3 action 8 which is the green rental housing program uh that's a program um that uh is designed to um encourage um landlords to well
088actually essentially require landlords to upgrade the sustainability of their properties um in order to get a certificate of occupancy um permit renewal um that was first presented to the Commission in March of 2022 um in the plan was supposed to be passed in 2021 and go into effect in 2022 um the review was good um a lot of progress has been made um there were a lot of both minor and major uh comments that were provided I think all the minor ones um will be um included um some maor concerns were that there are thresholds with one of the pathways um that are unlikely to result in significant um decarbonization activities so that's going to be a reassess um there was never an intent to um vote on a resolution of support for the program
089although it was presented um the idea is is that the OSI is going to go back and look at the program and bring it back to the commission hopefully in the next uh month or two so that it can then be uh passed on to council and hopefully enacted that that was the sole topic of the meeting okay uh thanks John uh planning we don't really have a planning rep uh Parks an hi yeah we met uh last week we had a presentation we had a couple presentations one was from Ann Arbor Public Schools um they are um rebuilding a couple of uh schools that are adjacent to parks and so that's why they presented to us um it's kind of interesting there was an article then today about loton elementary which was one of
090them um and uh a meeting that they did with their uh neighborhood and um yeah so just might be interesting for some of you you're um into the impact kind of the part like sort of the um the way that Parks needs to work with other organizations within the city um this is an interesting one because um the schools rebuilding are putting up new buildings does have an impact on Parks and um I think that was it for for things that were of Interest potential interest for this group thanks uh Council wasn't even thinking about what have we [Music] done I think there's uh there's going to be a revision to the home energy um ordinance the the review thing um but I think we're that is paused to do a little bit more Outreach
091to Realtors so that is I suppose of interest to us um I can't uh I'm sorry I should have thought systematically about this um in terms of planning um to which I am the liazal um for Council although not to this body so that is a different thing um the comprehensive plan there's a draft of the comprehensive plan now going around and I think that that would be interesting for environmental commission members to look at um the slides are available on legistar from the planning commission's meeting uh from the it was this past Tuesday's meeting of the uh comprehensive plan subcommittee of the Planning Commission if you can get through all those little layers of bureaucracy um and yeah you may want to look at it um mostly that presentation focused on the land use
092aspect of the comprehensive plan and not on some of the other things that are being updated as part of this update but it may be interesting to people for people to look at the questions that the consultant is asking us now because um there are there are interesting questions to think about um where there are heavily trafficked roads for example like Liberty Street um which run mostly through residential neighborhoods but they are heavily trafficked are those places where we would think that additional density is appropriate and if so what you know what kind of additional density um so we brief discussion of of invest any of the issues that Sarah oh you froze so that means I must have frozen so the the kinds of Investments that the city may need to make in infrastructure
093to man and sewer water are going to be considerable if we actually want to bring L of money so you all might be interested in and thinking about some of that but um anyway it's still a draft plan um and there are Chris did you have your hand up I did back to an um the school property the schools do not have to follow City zoning and planning procedures correct you know that did that question did not come up so I don't know the answer to that I think it's true University doesn't either it's a separate governmental entity um but the school board's certainly subject to public opinion right so I've seen some complaints about what's going on at thirston as well and yeah um uh has the it what have there been plans put
094on a table somewhere so we at least can see in fact what is being proposed we did not receive a copy of the presentation that they made um uh at least on the day of the meeting we didn't have access to that in advance um so um I can go back to legis and see if it was attached to the agenda after the fact um other than that you can obviously review the meeting to see what they presented um um but yeah I don't I don't know what they've made available to the public and if they are obligated to make their plans public they did say that the plans were provisional um you know they weren't they weren't showing us like detailed drawings they were showing us um sort of conceptual drawings um and uh
095but they did say that I think um they they are planning to break ground in like 2025 2026 time frame so I'm not sure how quickly they'll move through their design process okay thank [Music] you uh so next is a report from chair um on the comprehensive plan I was officially invited to be part of the natural features focus group the meetings have not been scheduled yet so there'll probably be two of them at some point in I would assume in the near future but I I don't know when they're going to be scheduled um I was invited to go to the Washton County Environmental council meeting they have faced inperson meetings once a year and they had a it was this week and they had a little hour mixer beforehand so I went to
096that just to chat with some of them um they had Phil ruse there who was the director of Eagle give a presentation it was a nice overview presentation of what what eal does I didn't NE get anything actionable from this group out of the presentation um he was asked their opinion on the Chevon decision and they're basically waiting to see what the impact is they don't know either so I'd say Sarah nailed that answer um and I think that's it for so next I think is a report from staff sure yeah I have a attacher written report as well um few updates from OSI um they won a big Grant um almost 2.8 million to help expand the EV charging across the community um and I think Missy will have more details on that in
097the next couple weeks um there's a sustainable Lawn Care session upcoming on October 21st um kind of targeted at homeowners or lawn care service providers or property managers um there's information how to RSP for that on there um and applications for the city's commercial EV charger program um are now live and there's a link taking folks to that as far as public Ser Services Public Works is having their openhouse on October 5th um and there's a link for that it's going to be 10: a.m. to 1 pm um very kind of familyfriendly event um you can vote for a name for some snow Pils which is going to be pretty cool um they the city of an arbor I think we've talked about it in this group officially accepted the the $1 million Grant from
098American Forest to advance uh tree Equity so expand um additional money to help with the tree canopy um updating the tree canopy assessment um and then um let's see there was a a big update from Tiffany so the city of vanan Arbor in in collaboration with Urban ashes has launched the city's first urban wood recycling program I understand it that's been kind of 17 years in in in the work um so it's meant to ensure that logs coming out of the urban Forest are put to their highest and best use uh and I believe they're working on a press release for that as if it hasn't been um released yet um and then the last update is the National citizen survey is complete um and you can go there's a digital dashboard you can go
099play around with um but they have overall ratings um National Benchmark and percentiles and and demographic breakdowns you can go kind of explore that's it for me I had a quick question if I may yes thanks uh for Ana Anya do you know if the University of Michigan has any kind of formal or informal uh arrangement with Urban ashes um I met with the head of urban Ashes about two years ago and gave him some contact information at U ofm um I don't know um if that led to anything or not do you are you aware of uh any operative work relationship I I don't know that we've done anything with Urban ashes specifically although I can find out but um we actually are in the middle of a project that I think it's been
100coordinated by our ground Services team and Joe trumpy so is a a faculty member um to actually get a a mill on on our campus so that if we are if we do have to take down a tree um that has Good Wood still um which we try not to obviously um but to be able to actually like mill that and process it on site and have that turned into Furniture so it's sort of like a collaboration between them and and I think the art school actually interesting it might be interesting just to to involve Urban ashes maybe there's a win-win win uh as opposed to just a win-win uh so maybe that's something you can introduce thanks yeah Rita you have a question just uh just another um comment on the urban ashes kind
101of thing I saw something recently that used um turned wood um from down to trees that I thought was interesting because I think most of the things I've seen from Urban ashes is straight Lumber um straight S L Lumber and this was an effort to kind of take it into a different an AR artistic Direction um and just a a thought to pass along to all who are working in that area um that it could be bigger um and there could be more things that are kept out of the carbon emission stream that any other comments so I think next are there any future agenda items people would like to request if you come up with some items just let us know whenever our next meeting is on October 24th and now we're on to
102our second um public commentary comment time um this is opportunity for people to speak for up to three minutes please call 888 78899 inter meeting ID 66543 to raise your hand press 9 to unmute press star six City staff will collect select callers who have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number when speaking please move to a quiet area and state your name and address at the beginning of your comments there may be a delay up to 30 seconds before connection is established Aon do we have any call callers we do not okay is there a motion to adjourn the meeting and there's one a second we have a second okay I guess we're all done see you next month thanks everyone thank you bye