Ann Arbor Environmental Commission Meeting 5/23/24

001e e e welcome you to the May 23rd 2024 electronic meeting of the environmental commission um We are continuing to meet remotely um subsequent to changes made so according to uh covid distancing um we intend to conduct this meeting similar to an in-person meeting so I ask that you be patient if there are technical issues public comment is welcome and will be by telephone only to speak at public comment call this information is a available on the published agenda in the Public Notices section of the city website and on the broadcast of this meeting on CTN Channel 13 um and on AT&T channel 99 and online at a2gov.org org org slatch CN uh and that is the end of the opening statement um once again thanks everyone and um I would ask uh eron to

002um read Our Land Heritage statement thanksa I acknowledge that the land the city of an arra occupies is the ancestral traditional and cont temporary lands of the Anisha anishinabe uh including Odawa oju and bwam and W peoples I further acknowledge that our city stands like most 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 to work in our work to create a future that supports human flourishing and justice for all individuals thank you Ain um let's all respect the land as it has been in the past

003um uh would you now call the role please yes council member akman here an arbor Vice chair Brown is absent commissioner Cowart here commissioner Curtis here an arbor commissioner Dale and AR council member dish here Ann Arbor commissioner Graham here Ann Arbor commissioner guber here in an arbor commissioner Marson I'm here in an arbor commissioner Mery absent chairperson Mitchell here and an arbor commissioner NRI haror and commissioner weing absent here is commissioner msky coming in here all right good so at this point um I would like to ask for a motion to approve today's agenda let's see commissioner Curtis in a second commissioner Dale thank you very much is there any discussion of the agenda see no hands I'm going to ask all who approve to raise your hand say I indicate all right looks

004like approval thank you um I'd like to now ask for approval of our minutes from the April meeting that would be April 28th uh sorry motion to approve from commissioner guber thank you and a second from commissioner nedrick thank you uh any discussion of the minutes from last month seeing No Hands um all who approve the minutes from last month please raise your hand now and we are approved thank you um so let's now move into public commentary this is the first two um public commentary options for the environmental commission this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes please call 888 78899 and enter meeting ID 962 6453 thank you Arin um City staff will select callers that have raised their hand by calling on the LA out the last

005three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand please press star9 on your phone you'll hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak at that point press star six to unmute your phone when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds so that we may hear you clearly please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments so that's that part um eron do you see anyone who is here to make a public comment I do not all right and let's move on to our business which is um last month and actually the month prior we had discussions of the um resolution a resolution to support revising our public Street storm water management guidelines policy um we had a

006a first reading of it we had a discussion with staff in a small group outside of our uh main meeting here um and had many questions answered um and I'd like to now um just um see if there are any additional questions that um the commission would like to discuss among ourselves um and consider approving the U policy as written I see commissioner Dale uh not a question um so much as the one I was very thankful for some SP of time answering all of our questions I know that they're very busy so that was that was great and it did answer almost all of my questions the only thing that it didn't address was a concern that I have that in in removing the language that that is sort of specifically aimed at the

007nature-based Green Solutions on to storm water and I understand why they're removing it but but in removing that language I I think it might be creating a gap because I don't think the um the landscape ordinance or anything else that I'm aware of on the books it sort of fills that space for for encouraging requiring incentivizing um Greenery in in that right of way and I understand it's not always possible but I I worry that we in doing this without specifically calling that out that there might be overall we might accidentally create this trend where there's going to be less of that and I that there are other co- benefits of that Greenery like addressing the heat island effect and other things that that would be become an issue right we're losing those go benefits

008as well so um so I'm not want to throw a wrench in this but I I think I would I would like it if somehow our approval is also saying hey we think that this could be a gap and is that something that we could ask staff to look at and find a way to account for that somewhere else so just that's my two sents on this yeah great comment um I would appreciate I see that Jerry Hancock is here um and I wonder if Jerry is there a way that you can address that as an issue of how we can do that because is one that's actually um one that I have a concern about and thank you for voicing that on you yeah so H there's a couple a couple things that come

009to mind for one is we that with the wording in there about green infrastructure we felt like we weren't delivering what what it said in the in the um in the policy because we we weren't finding as many opportunities as we were for underground now from a practical standpoint it costs more to build underground detention than it does to build a green infrastructure so if you know our designers are going to tend towards designing something green if there's room for it because it will it will cost less to do that it will maybe create a little more maintenance cost in the future but the designer is going to want to fit the green infrastructure in over the over the underground stuff um you know while it doesn't say that in the policy that's just sort

010of the Practical end of it um and I and I appreciate that and I'm not Sugg when I say could we consider specifically asking if this is something staff could look like it I'm not necessarily saying storm water staff right just like collectively some somewhere in other ordinances in other programs like is is there something that can sort of maybe fill that Gap so I um I realized this might not necessarily be the specific spot for it but um so I hear what you're saying I understand that and appreciate that as well so thank you um M mki let's drop that but yeah thank you um yeah I've looked at the the the new policy or or guidelines and it seems to me that uh the changes are prudent I have one concern and that

011is as I understand it the old document that this is replacing is called a policy and I understand the policy to be something that sets out requirements you shall do this you shall do that the new document is called a guideline or a guidance or no a guideline and it also includes a section that's called notes and it seems to me that at least as I interpret we're moving from things that are mandated and are regulatory to something that is moving again from shall to May and I'm wondering if my understanding of the nomenclature that's used is indeed indicative of a change in how the policy quote unquote or the guideline will be applied so so that is not being changed that's the same wording that is the the existing policy starts out says policy

012statement and it uses the word guidelines in the title of the current the current policy so that's not proposed to be changed okay and so these notes so is everything is a guideline then it's not a policy policy um well if it were I mean yes it's a guideline it we would put it in code if it were uh a must but since city code doesn't necessarily apply to City projects this was our this was our tool for accomplishing that so I mean for the record these then are requirements yes that's that's how staff is views them and imp them and then this is the requirement City coun Once Council approves this you know city council has said staff you shall do this right okay good and just to understand one other thing that chair

013Mitchell said we're not approving this we are being asked to approve a resolution recommending that Council approve the new guideline is that correct correct good okay great thanks for answering my questions thanks John council member Amman yeah I just want to I don't quite understand uh what Ana said and I want to so I'm wondering if you and it's perhaps because I wasn't part of I wasn't at the last meeting and I wasn't part of the side conversation so could you just clarify what you're afraid is going to be missing and that you would like to see covered elsewhere so um so if I'm understanding correctly the part of the changes is to change the wording and take some of the emphasis off of making to be prioritized you just cut up there like yeah

014something's missing main point no you're good now all right fingers crossed okay so so from what I from what understanding part part of these changes is to you know like the name being green streets like there's there's language throughout that made it seem very much like this like what what is calling for specifically vegetative uh Solutions right um and that that is not NE that's not always feasible not always appropriate for the spot so I understand that but as as far as I'm aware like the Landscaping ordinance or other things that are out there there's not anything that specifically would encourage and I get that can't be required but encourage as much as possible to have more vegetation in those areas because there are other benefits totally aside from storm water right like resiliency biodiversity

015dealing with uh heat island effect and things like that so separate from what we're talking about storm water I do worry that if if there is nothing out there in other in other guidelines or ordinances or something that is encouraging that over time are we going to accident sort of accidentally start designing these out and I think that that could be at a detriment to community so it's I'm sort of zooming back seeing big pictures just one of those things where we might have an unintended uh negative consequence that could be addressed by just asking somebody outside the storm water team even maybe it's it's sort of a bigger picture back but like look at all of those guidelines ordinances all of that that um those things and to see if that is in fact

016Gap and if so could there be something that's created specifically to say as part of our community resiliency we do want to continue to look for those opportunities wherever possible and you know make them native and climate adaptive and all of those things than so it might belong somewhere else outside of this and that's fine but I just I don't want to lose track of that I guess thank you Mr Curtis so going back to the guidelines policy both documents say that's a policy statement at the top both documents say it's a guideline in the text the only difference is the file name the file name of the greenspace docu existing document calls it a policy and the file name of the new one calls it a guideline so if there's any lingering question we

017could probably just change the file name without changing any text in the document and make that go away um so yeah that sounds good to me um who can answer that question is that Jerry or Aaron I mean that's that's easil easily done that's just changing the name of the file we can do that and that doesn't even require a vote or anything right it's just the content is what's the important thing yeah okay all right um that that may that may help because the file will be loaded up into legistar and to for to city council and people will see it as a as a policy it is a policy so a better title okay all right um so I do um very much appreciate commissioner Dale's comments about the green uh components and

018I want to just call out something that I believe has happened as an example of reduction of opportunities for vegetation and it's the um it's called something use buffer combined use buffer what is the c the C use buffer yeah that's it yeah didn't the dimensions of that spacing get reduced recently within the last six months or so miss your dish you know so the conflicting land use buffer legislation or ordinance in the code was changed because currently we require buffers between land uses that are the same that do not conflict so the code was requiring land use buffer between say a multif family residential and a single family residential and what that was doing was actually um in in some cases it could increase the space between um structures by uh well I cannot

019remember off the top of my head but by I think up to 20 feet which goes in the opposite direction of our sustainability goals because um our sustainability goals are asking us to make more efficient use of space and allow for greater density on Lots the setbacks are still required tree replacement is still required um in almost anytime you have a new development anywhere in the city you are going to get storm water management where there was none and so that could be detention ponds that could be bioses it would be bioses as often as you could find it um so the conflicting land use buffer and this question of um vegetation it's really not the same thing and um the modifications to that conflicting Landy buffer were um motivated by the a20 goals you

020give to encourage the density specifically to to not create space between like uses which doesn't need to be there I mean there's no reason I mean there's every reason to have a conflicting land use buffer between a primarily commercial use and a residential use there is not a need to buffer between residential uses even if they are um of different you know even if you're doing multif family and single family residential there's there's no reason to buffer those uses from each other so yeah I I was just asking more the the goals of the um a20 program and so that goal the intent there was to increase density is that correct well I mean I wouldn't just put it that way I would say that the goal is excuse me because well I would say

021that the goal simply is to use our land to not have gaping holes that become unusable because they're too small to build anything but they're not necessary to have between buildings so I don't think it's simply increased because you might not get a very big increase in density out of this but you won't be wasting space okay I can add a little bit to that I was actually the staff person that was asked to write that the section that has now been rescinded um it was uh a request of Planning Commission about 15 years ago was not recommended by staff because it in some cases it required two conflic any land use buffers right next to each other so instead of 15 feet you had 30 feet um and from a staff perspective we were

022like is not a really great idea but it was pushed ahead anyways and so now a different group has taken it out years later okay all right um so I guess my thank you for that explanation um one of the interpretations that I have or concerns that I ways I see this um proposal that we're talking about is that allows staff flexibility to adjust or maybe select from a range of opportunities for storm water management um according to what's available in the land meaning that if the um soil is sand versus clay there's a different method used for the management is is that does that part of what this change was intended to do or to reflect how things are really done on the ground no pun the the majority of the changes are to

023reflect how we've been implementing it you know so we wrote the code and without implementing or not I'm sorry not the code the policy wrote the policy and now we've implemented for 10 years and have discussed with the Consultants that that we've used you know how how do how are they experiencing the use of it and plus other CI staff that do Road design um so we're not we're not changing any of the parameters of it the so we we have some soil uh infiltration thresholds those all stay the same um so basically we're kind of just rewriting it to reflect how it is actually functioned for for staff and part of that is we weren't able to get as much green as as we had hoped and when you say green in that context

024you mean do you mean vegetation or do you mean I mean a result of I mean vegetation okay yeah okay yeah we we were able to do more underground infiltration just because of the conflicts of um all of the stuff that's in the right away all right thanks um so I've got one other question if this um is passed I assume it likely will be um by us in with Council um would it when would it go into effect would that be an immediate yeah I I believe it would work just like a like a code it would go into effect 10 days after it's published which is happens like a week after Council approval okay but being that this is not an ordinance I mean this this is referenced in our Public Services standard

025specifications and so we'll we will just swap out the new version for the old old version which no long is no longer a book it's uh it lives online all right great um and is there um so with that kind of um effective I guess it's we can assume that the approaches that are being that are reflected in the document would be used right now in projects that are ongoing like today okay yeah and there's there's two specific things I should point out there are expansion of of this it it may it may be difficult if you're not a storm water manager but we we specifically say in there that we are going to use the full rightaway width for the calculation and previously we were only using the Disturbed area so one of the

026results of this is the volume of infiltration that will be required on each project will increase um and the other change is in the note section it specifically says for um utility projects that that um take out at least half width of a road that at the time of CIP we are going to consider whether or not that Ro that um utility project is a good candidate for uh meeting this policy as far for um for storm water management so that's something that's not happening now so those two things are an expansion of the policy that sounds good um and there was okay here's my last one um there was a reference to a letter of map provision for Allen Creek did that happen was supposed to happen in April I think um so that's

027a different topic but I happen to be person doing that so answer that yes we we have applied to FEMA for a letter of map revision for the entire Allen Creek Watershed and this is related to the um Allen Creek burm project the openings that we put under the railroad when we had applied to FEMA to change just theow lower reach the area that we actually changed with the project they said Oh no you're you have a different model and the way these things match up that you're going to have to modify all of Allen Creek well we didn't have the budget for that we had to had to find the money it caused a year delay but we have finally got our con contractor on board and we've we've finished the application the application

028went in into FEMA about a month ago um so it's being reviewed by them they have three months to do their first review we'll see what happens um but even though I won't be here um we have hired my replacement and she will um finish this project up she and she has a lot of experience in plane mapping so I you'll still be in good hands to finish that project okay um well we've been in your good hands for a long time and thank you thank you Jerry for for this um are there any other questions from the commission on this topic I see no hands so I would um appreciate a motion in support of the um resolution resolution in support of revising the public Street storm water management guidelines policy I see Chris

029Graham and seconded by Sarah edric thank you very much um so all in favor of the policy change hi right any opposed all right it passes thank you Jerry you did it again thank you and congrats on your next move whatever it is right thanks um all right thank you everyone we're going to move on to new business and this is um a different uh kind of approach or topic that um I appreciate the assistance that we're getting tonight and um presentation by uh Christy mcgil who's the political and legislative director of the Sierra Club Michigan chapter um she will talk with us tonight about Kos concentrated animal feeding operations and there I haven't seen her join yet oh Well I see her I see her picture oh she's here yeah oh she made it

030apologies continue that's okay um thanks and hi Christie um I just wanted to be uh welcome you to our meeting and I want to just say that um I appreciate the work that you are doing for um the state and all communities um involved with many um serious issues that we're dealing with and um with that I will just uh allow you to to uh proceed and everyone please be ready with questions because this will be really interesting thanks Rita and Rita um the presentation you turned my PowerPoint into a PDF are you GNA be sharing that or should I share that um if you can share it it would be great or perhaps Erin can help I don't know we are with that yeah happy to do whatever works best for you if you

031could share it eron that would be fantastic sure yep thank you um and uh folks I appreciate your patience I did not put this presentation together strictly for this meeting this is a presentation that I gave recently at the um mdp rural Summit on Sierra club's agricultural priorities but it covers Kos so I am repurposing it and I appreciate that um so thanks Aaron um and I I'm assuming that most folks on this call are familiar with Kos um stands for concentrated animal feeding operations um we have quite a few in Michigan and I think actually I will uh skip the conversation about posos in agriculture unless I'm happy to go through this are folks interested in the posos and agriculture conversation I don't know how much time we have um we I think we

032are in a good place Christie um in terms of our time so um I I think it is a very important issue and we have discussed posos it's really too bad that Steve Brown isn't here tonight because he's our posos expert but you know we we're happy to have you great I mean well uh Steve is very well aware of all of this so um I am happy to go over pasos and agriculture there there is overlap um with Kos and pasos and agriculture so it's not a wholly unrelated topic um but it's uh it is a a priority for Sierra Club so we can get into it um all right so uh next slide um so for folks that are not aware uh most of our sludge from wastewater treatment plants they're it's called

033Uh they're called biosolids in the um in the industry um most of the sludge from human waste uh actually winds up on land and the photo there on the right uh Morganite that is a product that you can buy in most um most hardware stores if you see it says uh there's the little eco-friendly label down on the bottom uh it's actually that wastewater treatment sludge from a wastewater treatment plant in Milwaukee so it is actually trademarked and sold and folks are not aware that they are buying uh heat treated human waste and there's a lot of stuff in there um it's you know when we when our waste goes through a wastewater treatment plant it's not just human waste there's everything else in there and there's a lot of really concerning materials uh that

034can be found in leftover wastewater treatment sludge including posos because of the ubiquity of pasas compounds in um all of our consumer products so next slide um so this kind of goes through the the cycle um we treat for heavy metals and uh viruses and pathogens uh but we don't treat for any of the the huge numbers of synthetic chemicals that are in so many different products um we really don't have a good disposal option it's not possible to stop producing human waste for example um so the real core solution with how we deal with human waste is Upstream Solutions and making sure that we are using as many non-toxic materials as possible that's the the primary solution um the actual treatment of it on the back end is almost impossible so I think it

035points to the Upstream solution as an absolute must okay next slide so as this slide shows um most of it is land applied and this is where we get the over with uh Kos because human waste is can actually be applied on land that is used for animal agriculture that is not uh always the first uh use for wastewater treatment Sledge um but it does happen and it leads to the bioaccumulation of persistent organic pollutants up the food chain right next slide so I think folks are probably familiar with uh grostic farms uh Jason gr sticks beef Farm um outside of uh it's in Brighton outside of Brighton was contaminated with uh wastewater treatment plant sludge coming from the Wixom wastewater treatment plant and I think folks in in Arbor are very familiar with the

036Wixom wastewater treatment plant because that is the source of pasas contamination in the hiron river which has definitely affected an arbor so Jason gti's Farm um was shut down by the state um he allowed the state to come in and test the beef from his cattle and the levels of posos that were found in the beef that had grazed on the land where he had wastewater treatment sludge applied for years um it had it had built up in his herd and it had contaminated his herd I do want to note that Jason grostic was not running a kfo um however he's the only Farmer in the state that allowed the state to actually test his cows and that was the that was the result um it's really it's really a tragedy and pretty upsetting um

037and it it points to the to make sure that we're holding the companies that are profiting from the production of posos accountable for the financial Fallout and we need to make folks like Jason gratic hole um next slide um we've seen this in Maine as well it's popping up around the entire State um and this is a a story uh about Adam Nell's farm and for folks that are interested Adam Nordell from uh from Maine is actually going to be at the University of Michigan I forget exactly when but there's a National posos Conference that this year is going to be at U ofm and um Adam Nordell is going to be there talking about the work that he's doing now to keep Farmers from um experiencing financial hardship when they find out that their

038land is contaminated with posos because of Legacy wastewater treatment sledge that was uh spread next slide um it's happening all over the country um it's not just uh a Michigan problem it's uh truly Nationwide so this is just an example of of all the different states that are starting to test and find pasas because of our history of spreading Wastewater Sledge on agricultural land next slide um this was a study that sier club did with Ecology Center uh so I highly encourage if folks haven't read it yet uh we did some independent testing of um of fertilizers that you could buy just in regular Hardware Stores um and we found uh posos in all of them so it's uh pretty alarming next slide so uh this is where the the wastewater treatment sludge and uh

039Kos overlap so this is a timeline of a hog Kayo that is um right on the border between oceanana and noo counties in Michigan and the history of this particular uh parcel of land um it's quite a big farm so multiple Parcels is is that a a leather company a Tannery bought the land um and in the 1990s they started applying their Tannery waste as compost to this land um at some point in the early 2000s they they were primarily just growing corn on on the land where they were spreading Tanner waste in the early 2000s a hog Keo opened up it dramatically expanded and now it is one of the largest hog Kos in the state and the oil and the groundwater in that area are heavily contaminated with posos as well as some

040other really alarming heavy metals because of the um content of the Tanner waste and um at the time it was trademarked and sold as beneficial soil conditioner under the bu3 program through the state um and it points to this uh overlap between waste management and agricultural policy that has unintended consequences that are generational and we often really are able to track and quantify uh after the fact when the damages already been done so for example in at uh Valley View pork this uh this the hog farm where they were spreading Tannery waste um the well water on the property was severely contaminated and it was deemed unfit for human consumption however uh there were migrant workers that were drinking out of that contaminated water um for decades up until M parts stepped in and um

041really work to mitigate the problem so it wasn't until Empire tracked this site down as a legacy contamination site that anyone who is drinking from those contaminated Wells was properly protected um so it's not a great history it's not totally resolved yet and there are other sites around the state where there are there's a legacy of Farmland that was contaminated through the beneficial reuse program and um probably more so next slide um you can skip through these this just describes how it it all operated so there was an on-site wastewater treatment plant where the leather waste went um then it was actually trucked to noo Farms where they composted it um and then it was spread on land and crops were grown on that land uh water groundwater irrigated the land animals ate the food

042and then the mortality to the dead animals were actually composted back into the leather waste itself so there were these uh Decades of buildup of pasas on that particular farm and uh that farm is still operating so they are controlling for the groundwater contamination because that's what empart has authority over but they are not testing any of the agricultural products on that land um and it is now it was purchased by jackpine Holdings which interestingly enough used to be a coal company but now they're getting into the agricultural business which we'll get into um and uh the the animals on that farm have not been tested to see how uh posos might be um impacting them next slide so this kind of goes through how that worked um we can skip through it I think

043I already described it um this is definitely not the farmer's fault um we should make sure that we are not actually growing crops on contaminated land um that ideally we would limit any sort of livestock exposure to posos avoid the repeated exposure um we are not testing livestock or agricultural products right now for pasas although it is highly highly likely I would say a definite you could pretty much just say definitely that our agricultural system is much more impacted by posos than we are aware of because we are not systematically testing AG agricultural products on land that we know was historically contaminated by pasas okay next slide um so now um I want to get into the link between um climate and the expansion of Kos um so in our state legislature and part of

044the reason um we took some time to include this in our presentation on agricultural priorities um our state legislature is considering a state B like a Michigan State lowc carbon fuel standard and um what that refers to is a an attempt to set up a market-based policy that would incentivize um ideally the idea is that you'd incentivize lower carbon fuels um and the the money that would be generated on a extra cost on higher carbon fuels is supposed to go towards the electrification of Transportation so it's like this mix of like Transportation policy and agricultural policy um but what's happened since the low the lowc carbon fuel standard was originally passed in California in 2006 um and now we have a federal Renewable Fuel standard they both kind of do the same thing they provide

045tax dollars to incentivize quote unquote lower carbon um fuels and that's supposed to go towards the electrification of Transport um but what's happened is that we've set up that these these different policy schemes have been functionally captured by industry and we've wound up incentivizing um the practices of anerobic digestion on Kos and also crop-based biofuels and the accounting that they do to claim that these have a lower carbon intensity is fake math and I'll get into that so I think there's a there's a serious issue with biofuels that come from any sort of like plant-based um feed stock but I'm going to talk about uh kog gas and digesters here because they are a very serious problem in Michigan um on Earth Day I don't know if folks saw some of the reporting um but

046like book ending Earth Day there were report of uh decreasing water quality especially in southeast Michigan and decreasing air quality and this is like a you know multi-year Trend and a large part of that is due to an expansion that we've seen of Kos actually here in Michigan um because of the perverse incentives from California and from the federal government through the Renewable Fuel standard so we certainly don't need to like pile on and add more tax dollars to Michigan for that because what the incentives are doing with low car carbon fuel standards and other states is actually incentivizing the buildout of Kos um and corn-based fuels here in Michigan um so how that works with the kfo expansion um what uh actually oil companies are doing and it it really is oil there's a

047fantastic uh report that I really encourage everyone to look into it's by food and water watch and it tracks the financial ties between Big Oil and agriculture in specifically this this policy um what they do is they set up anerobic digestors on Kos for the purpose of producing as much methane as possible so in an anerobic digestor it's an oxygen free environment material breaks down it produces methane and that can be injected into current gas infrastructure you can build out more gas infrastructure and it can be piped across hundred hundreds of miles and burned um anerobic digesters are not inherently bad on small operations or small anerobic digestors for example on restaurants that are going to help process food waste that's fine um if they are operating properly on wastewater treatment plants that's great because

048they can capture methane that would otherwise be released um but what's happening with Kos is that we're seeing an absolute explosion of Kos for the purpose of producing gas and there's a entrenched um perception that anerobic digestors on Kos are capturing gas that would otherwise be emitted so therefore even though we don't like Kos well at least we're capturing gas that's on them but what the amazing work of food and water watch and srap and Friends of the Earth has shown especially in recent years is that we are not seeing anerobic digestors deployed on existing Farms to capture methane and that's it what we're seeing is a massive influx of taxpayer subsidies going to build new Kos and increase her her size for the explicit purpose of producing more methane which is a really serious

049problem so this is all based on modeling and not measuring and my Mantra over and over again is that we have to just measure and not rely on modeling and that's because any data that skews the model that would give anerobic digestors on Kos a lower carbon intensity score is excluded so what that means is that they exclude any data from anic fermentations they exclude any data from digest dat emissions they exclude data from the stored methane and the increased herd side herd size they exclude data um from the CO2 and nitrous oxide that's associated from livestock feed there's no accounting for fugitive methane associated with the transportation of methane that comes from anerobic digestors and so there's constant industry claims that these are at least capturing emissions that would otherwise be being emitted when

050the actual reality if we were accounting for the full scope of emissions that are associated with the expansion of kfo we' be talking about a massive increase in emissions and the increase is obviously a serious problem because it's pretty clear from global data that we are past 1.5 degrees warming um it's incredibly important that we draw taxpayer dollars back from this really perverse incentive um and I want to point out too that the nitrous oxide emissions are a really really serious problem nitrous oxide is actually a more important greenhouse gas than methane even and there's absolutely no counting for the warming associated with nitrous oxide and the dramatic expansion of industrial agriculture um I do have here highlighted the urif of lakes um and the urif foration of lakes actually increases methane too and the

051urif of lakes is directly related to the expansion of Kos um and there's some absolutely fantastic research being done by environmentally concerned citizens of Southeast Michigan where they're working with a researcher at Wayne State to actually sequence DNA from both the sagona Bay harmful alal Bloom and Lake Erie in order to prove the connection between the expansion of these harmful alal blooms and um Kos so there's going to be a DNA Trail and I'm really excited to see that when it when it um is published so I want to have encourage everyone to keep their eyes on that all right next slide so I you know I mentioned it offhand um that the the ties between uh big Agriculture and Big Oil um and this has this this relationship has really exploded since around 2015

0522016 um and it's dramatically stepped up since the passage of the IRA because of the amount of federal money that is on the table because of the IRA section 8848 investment tax credit that's really what's driving it which is a serious problem and it was a huge flaw on the IRA um so really important information that folks should know um shell and BP invested over $6 billion alone here in Michigan the oil company that's investing in anerobic D dors is breit Mark which is Chevron so when we are talking about Kos and we're talking about anerobic digestors we are talking about Chevron um they're they've got multiple Kayo manure gas operations in Michigan and they are spending billions in order to continue to build out the operation and that's because this industrial scale agriculture fits

053very well with their existing fossil fuel infrastructure because it's the same thing methane is methane um I think it's really important for the commission to know as well that DTE is heavily investing in Dairy Kayo gas um they have multiple anerobic digestors operating on massive Kos in Wisconsin and that operates under a corporate subsidiary of DTE that is not subject to the Michigan Public Service Commission so there's not any oversight it's called DTE Vantage and you can go check that out um it is public tax dollars that are driving all of this the math on how expensive it is to install anerobic digestors does not work in an actual competitive Marketplace the market solution that was supposed to be proposed by a lowc carbon fuel standard has wound up leading to a total market failure

054in which it's tax dollars propping up a business that would otherwise not actually be financially viable so the last thing that we need to do is pile on and give more Michigan tax dollars to this kind of scheme um and I really encourage uh the commission to pay close attention to energy providers and where they are getting their energy because if it is coming from kog gas it is not decreasing emissions it is increasing emissions and it's a really serious problem next slide um so this is a list of our our agricultural priorities uh broadly for you know the rest of this legislation and in the future we want to make sure that we uh include as many Upstream Solutions as possible to um uh get P off the market and I I don't have

055to explain why that's important to folks an arbor um we want to make sure that we get kfo gas incentivization out of the farm bille we're work that's a a conversation with Senator stabenau we should have a Kao moratorium um we're all again water quality is dramatically decreasing in Michigan the last thing that we need to do is be expanding Kos um we need kfo operator accountability from Eagle we have uh an actual law in Michigan that requires Kos to get nipy permits which means point source source pollution permits um and the agricultural industry has been litigating that for years and we we really don't functionally regulate Kos you know I've been focusing a lot on Kayo gas and the emissions that are associated with the expansion of this industrial kind of Agriculture but it's

056really important to note that just today uh there was a story on MPR about bird flu hopping to humans and it was in a Dairy Capo worker so there are a myriad of serious Public Health implications with this industrial size um agricultural operations and it's pretty alarming to see bird flu jumping to humans in Dairy Kos um it's not good so we we have a snow FR band which we've been working on for years and pushing that would ban the application of kfo manure waste on Frozen Ground um and one of my personal favorites we need to deal with our waste disposal loopholes and the beneficial reuse program that I mentioned um so on that note uh that's really the suite of Sierra Club agricultural issues right now in the state I would love to

057answer any questions that folks have thank you Christie that was amazing and even though I've been exposed to a lot of this it's like amazing to hear it in that one um concentrated discussion no T pun intended every time you talk about this Farm stuff it's like you cannot get away from some kind of thing um so um well I have questions but I really love it when others would start um are there things that come to mind to you all commissioner Mery thank you chair Mitchell and thank you Christie uh I want to uh push you on one point that's um maybe a little bit academic but um I I'll start out by first saying I I agree entirely with all of the concerns that you raise and the solutions that you propose but

058the way I understood the thrust of your presentation is that it it seems that Kos the primary product of Kos is methane and it seems to me the primary product of Kos are are animals primarily for human consumption and those animals produce waste which produces methane which is captured and then by capturing that methane through and and producing it through anerobic digestors that the revenue from selling that basically reduces the operating costs the net operating costs of the Kos so it's it's it's not really a direct it's it's like a a how do you call it like a um were we underwriting if you will or we providing a uh a a an additional Revenue stream to Kos but isn't the real problem our consumption excessive consumption unfortunately growing globally consumption of animal Meats isn't

059that big problem I am really really thankful that you asked that question John um and I think it it uh it's an incredibly important question so um the the first point that I would I would point to the sustain it's SRP the S uh socially responsible Agricultural Product uh uh what is it project that's it they recently put out a report and I will send it to all of you I highly recommend reading it that tracks the increase in herd size and buildout of Kos directly associated with the establishment of the federal Renewable Fuel standard and um the expansion of low carbon fuel standards in other states and what this report demonstrates pretty unequivocally is that tax dollars are underwriting agricultural products not for the human consumption of food but for the explicit production of

060gas and there's even some amazing information that's come out of Senator Cory Booker's office which is wonderful he it's actually I've actually been quite surprised by Senator Cory Booker's leadership on this I did not expect to be reading so much good stuff from him recently but anyway um he has uh demonstrated that farmers are now expanding herd size for the production of methane so this is not about producing food for human consumption it is about using animals to produce gas that is then captured and I there's some some numbers that are really important here so Anor robic digestors only capture about onethird of the methane that is associated with the large um the the lagoons of the I mean it's basically like sewage right so anerobic digestors captur only that they do not capture anic

061F anic fermentation which is I mean basically like the cowps right and cow burps actually account for three fours of the emissions of methane emissions from Agricultural and they don't account for the emissions associated with nitrous oxide um from agriculture that is primarily associated actually with like the uh growing corn for um feed stock for Kos so we're not producing all of this corn for human consumtion we're producing it for either ethanol or feed stock for Kos and the massive expansion of Kos is not to produce food for human consumption it's actually to produce gas and that has happened very recently it's not a it's not a that was not the case in 2006 when California passed its lowc carbon fueled standard it is the case over the past like five years um so it

062is all driven by the massive influx of taxpayer dollars and um I really recommend reading this report I'll make sure that um you know I share it with all of you and you can go through it does that help address the your question do so yeah that that is astounding Ian it it is it really I was like I was shocked when I read this report and I think they they even underestimated a lot of their claims that there's another researcher at the University of Tennessee um her name is uh Sarah Dono and she was digging into some of the actual permitting data and thinks that their claims are even underestimate at so I will happily share all of that it's just a wild read um and yeah I hope that is helpful if if

063the this line of logic makes sense so we're taking more and more land to produce animal feed and the animal feed is contaminated by these products like P and things like that that you talked about right there's that too fertilizing it with petrochemicals and we're um then taking the feed from those crops sending it to Kos and the primary purpose of those Kos is to capture and digest and uh create the methane that is then sold to these companies and really the animal products are secondary and we're only we're we're not even taking into account um at least in the case of beef um the burps and the methane exhaust that way so if you go all the way back to to taking land and putting it into production for all of this I mean

064this just seems insane I fully agree of course um and I think this is a really important Point too um beef cattle are actually um they are mostly grazed and if if cattle are grazing there's not nearly as much um impacts uh and usually they're only on those kfo feed Lots at the very end of their life when they're fattened up the real issue um with Anor obic digestors and livestock is dairy Kos so it's less beef and more Dairy that's the real problem here okay what about Hogs and chickens they're trying to get anerobic digestors to work as well um I think North Carolina has some serious issues with hog Kos and anerobic digestors chickens are a lot harder to just make it work um and I think the the srap report goes into

065why it's just I mean it's just an absolute nightmare trying to do it with chickens but what I most familiar with is the the dairy industry for two reasons one it's huge here in Michigan two in California there's been a massive explosion specifically of dairy kayos because that's actually the best way to produce absolutely massive amounts of uh sewage that is required to make the anobi digestors work at scale so that's why dairy in particular is really the problem here um and um yeah I think looking at what's actually happened to um I forget which part of California I'm gonna get it wrong and I don't want to get it wrong but um again this is very recently exploded as a problem with within the past five or six years and it's because of the

066the perverse Financial incentives that are propping up these operations my God okay thank you very much for clearing that up yeah no problem thanks a lot Mr Graham well it's it's a disappointing commentary on the back room uh wickedness I'm going to say of our federal government and it's a just a new extension of what began with ethanol and corn yeah is a croc from the very beginning Y and I'm I'm just dumbfound that this happened do we have one of these dairy cafos in Wasa County I am not totally sure but I do want to flag that there is discussion of um opening up a a pretty big co- digestor somewhere in Washton Vita I don't know you might know more about it and what co- digestors do is they take waste from lots

067of different sources because you can't really make anerobic digestion work unless you have a massive amount of uh organic material to like you know capture and break down in an oxygen-free environment right um and I think that the co- digestor in Wasau county is going to be taking Capa waste human waste food waste grease slaughterhouse waste I mean just like everything under the sun I think it will be not great and I strongly folks strongly encourage folks to look into the details of that proposed facility um and you know any tax incentives they might be getting what they'd want to do with the gas what are we talking about here um and I think it points to the importance of zeroing in on phasing out all forms of gas there is no such thing as

068a bridge fuel if you are building gas infrastructure the intent is to use gas and burn it it's not a bridge situation we have to Electrify and make sure that we're generating electricity from actual renewable sources so keep an eye out for that code digestor um Rita are you do you know more about it you know I'm just thinking it's Western was but I don't have the absolute um I think I can find out yeah um and I think it would be it would be good to watch on my to-do list is to go check that out but there's been some other stuff happening in Lancing that was a little distracting so so apart from a failure to regulate of the Department of Agriculture are there tax dollars from Michigan funding these facilities well the

069Renewable Fuel standard yes so there's Ira money and a renewable fuel standard and there are incentives in the farm bill so our federal tax dollars that have gone to DC yes um but when it comes to our own State based low carbon fuel standard that hasn't passed yet and we're working really hard to make sure that we either completely exclude manure gas and ethanol from the definition of a lowc carbon fuel standard but um if we can't do that then we need to just maintain strong opposition because that would create like a sixth pot of money that and remember when we're talking about these industrial agricultural operations we're talking about oil companies right so we're talking about BP Chevron and shell they are getting their hands on taxpayer dollars from a variety of different sources

070in order to build out more gas infrastructure that is powered by livestock so we really got to make sure that we either strip all those definitions from this Michigan bill or kill it lastly you said um that all the fertilizers at the Garden Centers have p in them I understand mil luuy sewage sludge but is when you mean oh do you mean synthetic fertilizers do you mean just the organic things that are there or what if I said all I misspoke that is not necessarily true um any sort of fertilizers that are primarily composed of biosolids from wastewater treatment plants are highly likely to be contaminated the issue is that fertilizers aren't required to be labeled that information so they don't say oh this is from the Milwaukee wastewater treatment plant or this is from

071Detroit wastewater treatment plant that's the problem another shortcoming of the Department of agriculture's regulatory framework thank you yep Mr nric hi thank you Christie that was such an interesting presentation um I just wanted to ask I have like three questions too easy and the last one will be a little bit harder um so I was wondering if you've met um Molly ripkey at the State of Michigan um Water Resources Department um maybe okay I highly recommend um you have a conversation with her um so she currently is doing all of the ukoli monitoring um and particularly focuses on like Southeast michig Michigan so she's doing a lot um to regulate and find Kos and find where they're applying biosolids um but I think a conversation with her would be really um great yeah provoking for

072both of you yeah um and I can send you her email if you like um please do if if you know her I would really love an introduction that'd be great I'd really appreciate it awesome um she's awesome so um my other question was um I'm terrible at keeping up to date with M Michigan laws um you mentioned the posos package do you know which bill that is like the number I can look up you know I do not off the top of my head but wait there hold on let me open up my shared drive and Erica Bloom from the Ecology Center I'm sure that you guys are familiar with the Ecology Center um she is tracking all of that um okay so it looks like there's um there's an introduced uh Senate Bill

073327 which addresses posos and food packaging and oh my God uh let's see there's oh this isn't introduced yet some are introduced and some are not I know you know what follow up with me and I will give you the list of what has been introduced and has but there's um there's a there's a bill to codify M part there's a household product band which is really exciting and there's a bill that addresses uh insurance coverage so I will make sure that I get this to you or if you know Erica you could reach out to her I'm sure she can rattle them off the top of her head okay sounds good um okay my last question um so I know obviously you would never want to operate a k-o but say you had to

074um what would be your preferred way to manage the waste they should have on-site wastewater treatment um so Kos produce um waste like orders of like more sewage than human beings I think it's like I I will I'll get the number wrong so I won't cite it but it is orders of magnitude more waste than like entire cities and it is you know Unthinkable at this point to suggest that cities should just like directly discharge untreated human waste into our lakes rivers and stre dreams right but that is functionally what Kos do the solution is for Kos to install on-site wastewater treatment in order to deal with the volume of waste they produce okay so I mean just thinking of that like we have you know we have byproducts associated with wastewater treatment plant that

075in the past have been you know applied as biosolid so you still have to do something with those you know the sled that is left over from the treatment plant so I mean right now we're looking at land filling that because of the posos issue in an arbor so are you then recommending that they landfill we do not have enough landfill space this is why the Upstream solution is so important right so like ideally use as few toxic products as possible um if your wastewater treatment Sledge isn't inherently toxic it's the waste that goes into the system that is contaminated with sorts of persistent organic pollutants that's the problem so the on-site wastewater treatment and then as much Upstream control for any sort of bioaccumulative um contaminants is ideally what we would be doing um

076and like to your point I I we should move as much away from Kos as much as possible but if they're there they should be doing onsite wastewater treatment plants okay thank you Christy I want to ask about um a little bit on about what you um your really hot topic now um and that has to do with data centers and potential for um those data centers that are um under discussion for and being incentivized for the state um to also contribute to an increase in in Kos is that something that we should think about so I'm not sure if the commission has been tracking this at all uh but when we're talking about data centers we're talking about the massive server Farms that tech companies need in order to I mean they're they're exploding

077because of the buildout of AI um and they use an absolutely massive amount of electricity um so for example the concentration of data centers in Northern Virginia uses the equivalent amount of electricity required by six million homes so we will not be able the the pace that they are building out data centers is not going to be matched by the current amount of electricity that we are we have and we are continuing to uh increase so I think that the it is likely that if there is a big buildout of data centers in Michigan that is not associated with a requirement for them to seriously invest a lot of money in uh building out utility scale Renewables that they will get as much um energy as they can from all sources including but not limited

078to probably manure gas um and one of the serious shortcomings in our renewable energy legislation was the inclusion of manure gas in Senate bille 271 as um a source of renewable energy uh we fought that um we did not win and it's a problem because as I said during the presentation the buildout of Kos is an increase overall in greenhouse gas emissions it is not cutting greenhouse gas emissions um so I think it's a little bit difficult to say that there is going to be like a direct onetoone relationship between kog gas and data centers but I think that the overall demand of data centers is going to be really difficult for absolutely everyone to meet so we have to make sure that we're mandating that if they're coming to Michigan they are building out

079themselves as much renewable energy as possible and um this might seem really simplistic but could you be more specific about your um comment about upstream and avoiding Upstream yeah yeah I think part of the reason why I'm so interested in the fate of was wastewater treatment sludge is because the only real policy solution is making sure that we are putting as few toxic products on the market as possible because it is actually imp it's it's not from an engineering perspective Ive from a policy perspective it is actually impossible to make our waste not toxic if everything that has gone into it is toxic so there is no good solution for what to do with wastewater treatment plant sludge once it is contaminated we actually can't break down posos um there's you know been some a

080few interesting things happening in Laboratories but they are not at scale and um it's just not a viable solution because of all sorts of production issues of pasos but so uh we we l filling it is not an option we're going to run out of space incinerating it nightmare obviously we don't want to dump it in the ocean uh the I mean seriously those are the options so we have to make it as non-toxic as possible so that when we do land apply it it is not contaminating groundwater in the food supply you sure just I want to thank you very much for this incredibly informative present presentation and I'm really glad that Rita AR chair Mitchell arranged this for us um I do want to make sure to get the report you mentioned yeah

081um and uh I you've you have what I've learned this evening has given me a number of questions that I will want to be asking about um the use of methane gas as a transition fuel yeah I really I'm really glad that you're excited to ask those questions and I I really encourage them um I think in particular the exclusion of data that uh the the models don't like right is really alarming and I really encourage um I really encourage you guys to ask some really tough questions about the actual quantifiable measurable emissions that are associated with this kind of Agriculture right and I guess one of the things that I noticed was that um I mean it's like calling something carbon negative is really problematic because it just adits what you're saying right right

082and I you know I I I actually didn't even cover that but um I because I just like talking about all of the uh emissions that they just leave out that make the model not work right because I feel like that says enough but on top of all the emissions that they just don't bother to quantify they actually give kog gas a positive well not positive it's a negative score because they're trying to get a negative CI but they throw in a madeup number associated with quote unquote avoided emissions so they like give the entire operation props assuming that it would be built without the taxpayer dollars I mean it would be like saying oh we are going to call the gas that is produced by this BP Refinery opening up um we're going to

083give them an extra score because they are avoiding emissions by by capturing them on site or something like that instead of saying this never should have been built in the first place we don't need this source of greenhouse gas emissions adding to our problems um it's pretty wild it's a pretty wild um way to do fake math I mean it's fake math they're making up numbers it's crazy um well uh looking for anyone else it's a great opportunity to talk with someone who really knows what's going on um and I'll just pause for a second and Christie just um thank you so much for this information and also for your tireless work for us in the state to keep our air water and land clean and to help protect our Public Health it's really really

084important and you're a great leader thank you thanks Rita I appreciate it and I appreciate the work that everyone here is doing um I will make sure to get those reports toita and she can share them all with you and um one of the really key authors is actually from Michigan um Lyn Henning and I she will happily come take you around lenway County and talk to you about her 30 years of advocacy against industrial agriculture in her backyard um and if anyone on the commission is interested in coming and talking to Lyn Henning I really recommend it she's a little bit of a a national treasur in my opinion yes she is um all right well thanks again thanks I'll leave you guys for now thank you appreciate the invite have a good evening

085and you we'll see you bye bye bye all right thanks everyone um I hope that you uh appreciated that dense bit of information it brings to the four in my mind the great importance not only of you know another piece of Upstream that we didn't mention here is like what are the choices we make in food right we've been talking about a more veget ve ve vegetable-based um diet um this is yet another reason to help avoid some Upstream to not put pressure for um KOB based food uh into the system as well and to not give cover to an operation that that it doesn't it it does not deserve um there also animal rights issues worker issues um emission of gas in local um environment neighbors around um some of these Farms that are

086really serious but anyway thank you for your time and attention on this um so I'm G to move now to our next item on our agenda which is um the reports from our um committees and commissions Etc um so I'm going to start with uh biodiversity and to commissioner Curtis okay um a few things to talk about we finished up the um pollinator wear yard care website information and we also finished up the information for Sean for the pator corner topic so they can start doing a monthly blurb going out in different newsletters and we started discussion of a couple of new topics uh biodiversity event for large Property Owners this you can get something like that set up and um also natural features in the comp plan comp plan what do we want there

087so just some new topics we're starting to work on there that's it great thanks um the next group is circular economy and um does that be it would be you John Cowart possibly all right thank you sure uh not much to report uh the working group kind of wrapped up our current phase of work around construction and demolition um currently City staff Sarah Mason and Jenny py are working on compiling that into a presentation that they first want to uh take around uh other City staff and get their input on it and eventually perhaps sometime the summer would bring it back to the environmental commission for input on kind of what we learned and what we think some next steps are uh Lisa anything to add to that I have a question John is is

088this your last meeting yes oh my gosh well uh I just want to be sure that everyone knows because some of you have been some of you have been on this commission a long time but others not just what a driving force John Cowart you have been and so in my four years you predate me but in my four years you have you have MO the what we are now calling the circular economy working group Thank you Lisa um it's been such a pleasure and um I think that you know just go to the web I mean there's so many things that we accomplished with John including working with a great team of se's students um on circular economy in Ann Arbor so it's laying the groundwork for a new strategy piece of a20 and

089I couldn't be more grateful and sorry for you to go thank you it's it's been it was a good covid project right we started this in terms of deep Co and weekly meetings and doing what we could and um yeah glad to have been able to contribute to it thanks I want to add my thanks too John and thank you very much for for being here as long as I've been on this commission as well um it's it's been great to have a a solid um person available we appreciate your work um right water um Steve is not here I don't know Sarah if you want to comment on anything um I'll just say that uh the G plume is still moving forward right um and the comment period for um the EPA um uh

090National priorities listing has been closed um there is a a an npdes permit review coming up I believe with a hearing soon um trying to think of the date it's coming up cannot remember but I can June 20th ah thanks just what I need I knew there was a 20 um uh yeah so that's something that you all may be interested in joining in on um all right I'm going to move to uh other commissions and I'll start with an oh I'm sorry Lisa did you have a a comment actually I did now I don't remember if we remembered to say this or possibly you didn't completely know this but did did everybody know that the city reopened or the city took legal action related to the settlement agreement with Gman that was reached in

0912006 and that part of that settlement agreement was um it included some monitoring Wells that Gman never put in the ground um for one thing because these monitoring Wells if enough dioxine is is detected in them will trigger a cash payment from Gman so they somehow didn't get around to uh installing them so the city took legal action and Gman has installed I think a couple not all three yet but a couple of those Wells which is another step it's one of the things as we wait for the EPA to approve taking up the site and then taking over the cleanup of the site it's just another step that we can have locally in a way to hold Gman accountable so that was a really pleasing result from the leg uh from the um from

092the litigation pathway which is mostly now moot because of epa's action which is of course um welcome yeah great thank you um and I okay I'll move now to um energy with John mki yes U first of all I want to also add my thanks to John um I've worked with John on solid waste and circular economy activities for quite some time and um we're going to miss you John and I hope you're not just quote unquote retiring but moving on to something bigger and better than the environmental commission with a bigger impact so let's we hope to hear about that someday um as far as the energy commission is concerned uh two major uh activities first of all we began but did not complete discussions um and uh commission uh reactions and input on

093the city administrator memo with recommendations for incentivizing uh energy efficient and all electric all electric um building construction so once we have some uh conclusions on that I'll be happy to share those but we're not at that point yet that hopefully be in our next meeting or maybe the one after that and the other thing is that um we elected a new chair replacing K CLA mcdna who's stepping down to concentrate on our PhD studies um and that is um Gabriel or Gabe herp and some of you might know him in his professional capacity at the University of Michigan he's the director of research and creation practice development at telman college um College of uh architecture so um we have a new chair so those are the two main topics that we covered at our

094last meeting thanks great thanks and John the um the um Energy Efficiency um incentive program is one that we had discussed here as well right cor as I recall and I think that we didn't probably spend as much time on it as you all have and it's I'll be very interested in hearing what the energy Commission says sure uh council member dish question are you talking about the memo that we received from City administrator Deone in either late December or early January or are you talking about M mid January yes that memo okay well it might be a good idea to focus instead or at least in addition to on John forer's memo uh it's one of I know also you Council passed four resolutions that cover part of that and uh I submitted a

095number of questions and they were not answered and that's why we didn't finish the discussion on the topic so yes we recognize that okay so you recognize that the four Economic Development memos are actually more comprehensive and when further than my mom okay great thank you y uh next we have parks and Ann I'm glad to see that you're still here I know that you have a new role in Parks as well um as chair and so I'm happy to see you but I have this feeling that perhaps we may be seeing a change so we ask you that question nothing nothing imminent yet um okay still need to um encourage en some folks to step forward and from Parks but um yeah we just met on Tuesday um we at the big piece of

096business was the millage the parks millage so we voted to recommend that city council um recommend putting a or agree to putting a um renewal for the parks millage at 1.1 Mills for 20 years on the November ballot um and then we had a few other items just uh an update on West Park and the Band Shell over um apparently there's a lot of um neighborhood and community support for the band shell and so um the Consultants will be looking into you know how to um move it or build a new Band Shell or you know whatever their whatever the recommendations are going to be um we accepted a fair food networks Grant uh for the farmers market to support um low-income folks um to be able to buy produce there and uh we recommended

097approving a an easement for uh d for some overhead power lines in Mary Beth Doyle Park and that is it looks like I got questions Mr mki thank you yep thanks um the millage uh renewal is that at the same millage rate as the current rate or was there a discussion of any decision on raising that millage rate yeah they um what staff recommended was um maintaining the current millage rate so no change there 1.1 Mills what they recommended was going from uh the last three millages have been for six years this time around we decided to go for 20 years um because it provides a little more stability and planning over that period of time um knowing that we're going to have that funding available um my understanding is that there's not a lot

098of room uh within the millage allotments but and I don't know a ton about this topic but um I know there are some limits on how many mills different bodies can they have to work with and um so my understanding is there's not a lot of wiggle room in the within the city to raise that millage rate that's also my understanding is that we're bumping up against the ceiling maybe one of the council members can talk to that but the concern that I have is that it's at least my perception that there is a significant amount of um deferred maintenance if you will um on public parks um that was somewhat mitigated um by some Reconstruction Act funds for example the um the bridge at Gallup Park um was replaced with that although I guess

099that's maybe Capital um Improvement project uh funding but but then we also have the structural issue that the green belt can um is generating additional funds and onethird of those funds have to be used for the purchase of new Parkland so um while the acreage of that new park Parkland is probably not that significant just because it's getting more and more in excuse me expensive um and there's less and less to buy never us we adding Park land um we see inflation that's hitting costs also for parks and wreck um and we basically have a scissors effect where unless the millage generates a lot more uh Revenue because property values are going way up or cumulative property values are going up we're in a situation where we're going to be doing less and less with

100our parks and I think one examp example of that is something we've talked about here and that is um nap now is only actively managing about 400 um Acres of its land and um we've talked also about the frequency of um controlled Burns and those have dropped from about 150 acres a year down to um roughly 60 Acres a year there was a there's been a little bit of a bump up again this year but um nevertheless it's still substantially lower than what it had been in the past so I'm wondering if by recommending a millage increase that is flat that we're just not going to see a bigger and bigger problem in terms of our ability to maintain um our our parks and to put on the kinds of programs that people in ant

101Arbor would expect yeah no I um I agree with your concerns that that there are a lot of maintenance issues in on the horizon um within the parks I think um part of the um reason for going for a 20-year millage um it allows us the stability um to go after some other types of funding that require things like matching funds um it's going to provide us the possibility for doing um for issuing bonds against the millage and I don't know a ton about that topic either but my understanding is that it just it with the stability of the millage and the fact that we don't have a lot of wiggle room to increase that millage significantly it does provide us with um the stability we might need in order to um attract other types

102of Grant fundings State dollars federal dollars and that sort of thing so I think going forward the parks department is is looking at you know what are other options for paying for the kinds of amenities that we'd like to have within the city of annor I can understand the 20 years because that's uh an enabler when it comes to attracting those funds I guess I'm questioning locking ourselves in to a milliter rate effectively locking ourselves in I suppose there could be a proposal to um increase the millage at some future point in time um but it seems to me it's most likely the Practical effect will be likely that we lock ourselves in for 20 years and if we don't attract those funds then we're really stuck because as I said you know Parkland and

103facilities are continuing to increase with the green belt funds and we have mounting issues with invasives we have um expectations in terms of maintaining the kinds of services um you know the kinds of programs the deliveries and things like that uh you know we saw even just with um the golf carts and things like that those kinds of costs the way we'd like to do it with electric golf carts are are higher and their operating costs are apparently also higher so I I just wonder about the Prudence of of doing that yeah no we did we did bring that topic that that issue up that you know over 20 years now you're kind of locking yourself into a to a rate but um I think the um yeah the decision was that this was the

104way to go forward for the time being but I certainly am happy to to bring your concerns back to to the parks department yeah think Council Council needs to consider that then finally when when they they vote on on on whether or not to continue the millage at the current rate yeah absolutely you know a lot of other things that we've talked about like deer call and things like that that potentially could be um covered under under um the parks and wreck department I would think um so I I don't know I I I'm I'm concerned about um what we're what we're locking ourselves into for the next 20 years thank you um commissioner Graham John you're a treasure and I share your concerns as you very well know and thanks for your Parks Commission

105leadership I it's really been great to have a durable uh friend on the environmental commission from Parks it's not you of course uh it's the structural deficit of the city that's behind all of this and I it's not really environmental commission business but when something like the park budget seems to be well perhaps I say low man on the totem pole as far as funding is concerned I think the effect of inflation these last few years has been obvious uh it certainly has been for the nap program it seems to me that the city needs to address the structural funding problem and this is much more than a Parks issue I'm I'm just going to put this on the table maybe maybe we can make it a subject of an environmental Commission meeting where we

106get uh really well informed so that we can inform our neighbors and friends um maybe it's time for some proposals clearly we're building big buildings and that's helping our tax income um I don't know if it's going to work out in the end but uh um I Mr Headley got a law passed in the state that Capp the rate at which properties can be taxed relative to their market value and until it until the property sells and um that's very beneficial to all of us who have lived here a long time and have owned property for a long time it's fairly tough on City budgets I'm I'm thinking of iilani where they have a much smaller tax base and really are closed in by these problems we're more um and we're we have a growing

107body of land in the city that's not on the tax base uh whatever every couple weeks we hear about something being sold to the university yep [Music] somehow not too long in the future we really need to all come together and do something about this Anan it's not you it's a much bigger problem um so I have just one quick question and my concern I guess with the um 20y year time period for the millage doesn't the millage rate decrease over the years so that by the time we get to 20 um years that the actual millage amount um is decreased because of this headl design is that correct no he ISS nodding okay that makes me a little worried too um because if perhaps it may be better to renew it more frequently so

108that it doesn't get down really low I don't know what the projections are for the 20th year compared to the um first um but that would be a concern I have if that's true then I'm really GNA stand up and object to this course of action never mind the grants and programs we can apply for we get hurt in that deal we Parks well every village gets hurt so right affable housing hurt gotta do something about this yeah right well um thanks an um and thanks for continuing to be here with us um all right uh Planning Commission report from planning Lisa I'm sorry to look at you again I know that we're on seeking a a person sit I'm trying to think if we've done anything that would be interesting um I don't think

109so um yeah I mean the only thing that that we did the other night was we talked about a new project it's a prep PUD conference for um a project that's going to make uh an improvement on an Street and an court or sorry Mary Street and Mary Street and Mary court all these streets named after women and it's going to involve taking down four um single family homes and doubling the number of units number of of you know residential units but doing a a sort of an attached town home structure it's going to be all one building but there'll be town homes with porches and stuff and we are um the circular economy working group is working on connecting this developer with someone who might be able to salvage some of the materials in

110those single family homes because it's just you know not it's not typical when when we rip down a really really old broken down um multif Family apartment building there's not much in there worth saling but there might be things in these houses that that someone could reuse so we're just doing a little sort of informal construction and demolition pilot and it may come to nothing because we may not be able to find someone to help Salvage but that's something that I think you all would be interested in and um uh we looked at our work plan and it's ridiculous and yeah so um I'll keep you posted when work on those Economic Development amendments which has sustainability work in them I'll keep you posted on when that gets scheduled and move forward by planning thanks

111and you know that um I um watched and commented on the recent um project that was approved for an amendment um that includes some um methane from agriculture in its plan for um energy and that's for me is still as a concern based on the information we heard tonight so I hope that gets a little more discussion um yeah thanks okay um transportation I think that I need to look to council member Amman well I'm no longer on Transportation but what I can't tell you is that uh something that city council passed several months ago calling on MD do to work with the ride on a different option for us23 stretch instead of adding a lane that's uh they announced today that they will not be adding a lane and they will be looking at

112improving it uh the bridge um that actually kind of connects neighborhoods at better bike infrastructure they're also going to be looking at increasing the shoulder so that the bus could use the shoulder as a high spe speed unobstructed lane state law would need to change to make that happen but anyway yay a lot of activ went on around that so just happy to see it and then while you have me I'll just give remind people that our leaf blower gas powered leaf blower um phas in starts on June 1st meaning June 1st to October 1st days out gas powered leaf blower phase out that's what I said isn't that what I said said phase in PH out sorry anyway yes pH out um so folks should not be using gas powered leaf blower starting uh

113June 1st until the fall and that goes until 2028 at which point no gas powerered leaf blowers so hopefully your neighborhoods will be a little bit quieter and we also at our council meeting I think since the last time we met passed um a resolution to put the seu ballot language on for November 2024 I think that was between the last meeting and this so that's moving forward too great um uh cons commissioner Graham just a little feedback the um most powerful gas backpack blowers cost about $800 the most powerful electric backpack leaf blower costs about $2,000 including batteries and chargers and believe me you go through a lot of batteries in a day um the most powerful backpack leaf blower currently pushes about 70% of the amount of air that the most powerful gas

114one does um we haven't gotten to the point yet where the technology meets the um standard standard being the performance of a gas powered leaf blower hopefully by 2028 when that power is needed for false leaves we're okay uh out in the field uh there are almost no contractors with electric machines I have them um and the Mery is beginning to take them on even lawnmowers and spin trimmers and uh a lot more of these appliances we really need to change um uh the other problem about electric stuff is you have to have a covered vehicle uh you can't go out in the rain with this stuff and not have troubles needless to save so it's not all Wine and Roses yet um I wish you all done more than just leaf blowers because that

115kind of smacks of we don't like the noise rather than really doing what we can do which is pays out a lot of this stuff um uh the big lawnmowers the big riding lawnmowers being the toughest one but in any case for a homeowner such as myself by myself I'm all electric um I've completely made the shift the homeowner size um materials work great still not good in the fall if you live in a wooded part of the city just some feedback I just want to add a pitch to leave the leaves as much as possible especially on non-m mode areas um because they are very good for pollinators um and other Wildlife so um the these things can fit together I hope in the future um and I think that we will also um

116one of the other outcomes for this um will be cleaner air it's very specifically um okay uh is there any other report that council members would like to make our on thisa or um Dharma and if not okay thank you um so I just want to um acknowledge that um and thank Council for um the budget that you passed with the um phase two study for the Anor for Public Power um study of electrification or um looking for an alternate method of managing uh electricity for a city in the future um and I also want to say that um I've uh appreciated um being chair and I look forward to our next item after the report from Ain um um election of our next chair um Erin do you want to comment on anything from

117your staff report and thank you for providing it and writing sure yeah there's there's a few links in there um regarding some upcoming um activities around so 820 Z week um is going to be June 9th through 15th so there's a link to check that out um this one's a little dated but we did launch um more life less stuff on earthday so there's a link to check that out as well um and then I posted the link Rita you mentioned this about Gman um the um public comment for the npl listing um I did also not on my report I wanted to mention that the um the wastewater treatment plant um actually timely just completed um a phase 2 feasibility study on an anerobic digestor um and I think they're tentatively scheduled to present

118to the energy Commission in June so I was going to forward that along to this commission if anyone's interested in attending um that there's some um you know uh some um potential environmental benefits from the anerobic digestor but there is a large Capital cost and so the consultant will be presenting on those issues at that thank you I think after our presentation that we heard tonight it would be interesting to kind of explore some of the issues that were raised as well and I know it's a different kind of thing and I um but we we need to know all of it right as we move forward um yes and I did just want to confirm the city's not land applying biosolids anymore I don't know if there was a question about that but just

119to confirm so yeah but we did for a while right I know our history yeah yes correct yeah okay um all right I would like to now um call our attention to um election of officers for the next uh year starting in June um oh and also to acknowledge and thank um reappointments for um Commissioners Dale uh we hang and Graham thank you for continuing to serve and I'm pleased that that you're remaining on the commission it's really good um uh okay so Erin if you could help just uh announce the um any candidates um for chair let's start with chair sure we had H commissioner Curtis um step up to volunteer to be chair for next year right yay um so I think we have to have a motion um and first off an

120acceptance um so Mr Curtis do accept um the potential to be elected into your position yes I do okay thanks um and so I'd like a motion to um elect um commissioner Curtis as chair of the environmental commission commissioner mki thank you and a second from commissioner Dale thank you um and so any discussion of this probably is when I should have asked if you accept um uh and all in favor well maybe quickly um are there any other nominations sent out uh a request for people um to to submit names to nomination but we should probably also open the floor for additional nominations just in case you're correct is there anyone else who would like to serve as chair of the environmental commission talk you through about it all right I see no hands

121um I would like to proceed with the motion thank you for raising the issue um okay all in favor of commissioner Kurtis as our chair for the next year raise your hand I see oh okay any okay good this looks like unanimous thank you good job Brook good J you were just getting really terrific at your job Rita now I'm gonna be not terrific you you just grown Leaps and Bounds in this last year or two well thanks it's um youall are the best to work with and um I appreciate it um so uh we need a vice chair and um I believe that eron has heard from one person at least um and Ain our potential candidate I've heard from um that commissioner Brown um is interested in the vice chair position okay is

122anyone else present um also interested in serving as Vice chair we could have a runoff all right um would anyone like to move um Vice chair Brown to continue as Vice chair commission mki second and by commissioner Dale thank you all in favor of commissioner Brown returning as Vice chair raise your hand I see unanimous thank you everyone um I appreciate this we've got three minutes we're gonna squeak by perhaps um with our meeting um we are now and um oh so uh commissioner Curtis I assume that you will proceed with taking over over at the next meeting in which case I'll send you yeah all of the information on how to introduce and everything like that okay thanks um okay so this is our chance now for our second public commentary um people can

123speak for up to three minutes please call 888 78899 and enter meeting ID 962 0336 6453 um City staff will select callers that have raised their hand by calling out the last three digits of their phone number in order to electronically raise your hand please press star n on your phone you'll hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak please at that point press star six to unmute your phone in speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background not sounds so that you may we may hear you clearly please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments and eron do we have any hands raised uh no callers tonight no callers all right um I'd like to entertain a mve a motion to

124adjourn from commissioner Mery do you have a comment commiss mki I have a quick question I think we're supposed to talk about agenda items for the next agenda you're you're right oh geez okay I think you go over that and I just wanted to request that um in light of the solid waste uh budget that was posted to legistar for this meeting um for for the first nine months of this year that we make sure that we get a review of that budget um when the budget year is up I just want to point out that we're nine months in or 75% um expenses um are coming in only at 49% % of budget whereas revenue is coming in at 78% of budget and the Delta is a net positive of over $6 million year

125to date which um would presumably go to the solid waste fund um and that would be the third year in a row where you've had a large Surplus and I think it would be really important to talk about um solid waste and the budgeting and what we do with the salid waste fund etc etc that's all thanks sounds good great thank you um any other uh suggestions for future agenda items see none right um is there a motion to adjourn mki second commissioner weing um all in favor of a joury again all right thank you all thank you good night it's been fun I'll be here