Good afternoon. We are going to call the December 4th, 2025 Scott County Board of Commissioners meeting to order. Uh please join me in the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you so very much. Uh, looking down at item number two, amendments to the agenda. I did not see any, but I'm just going to look around. Nope. So, they will stand as distributed. On item number three, approving the minutes of the November 18th, 2025 meeting, which were of course distributed with everything else. Is there any changes? >> Make a motion to approve the minutes. >> Second. >> We have a motion in the second. Any further discussion? Otherwise, all in favor say I. >> I. >> All right. Meetings uh minutes are approved. Item number four, recognition of interested citizens. Always a highlight. I would love to see more people take advantage of that. This is an opportunity to talk to the board about anything that may be on your mind that is not on the agenda. And we have a taker. Thank you. Welcome. Name rank serial number for the record. And make sure you go there. It went green. So you are live. You are live. Welcome. Good afternoon. Chair beer and Scotty count. Scott County commissioners. My name is Lloyd and I live in Prior Lake. As an organization, Scott County is focused on outcomes and results. Each day, many of you wake up to major changes and how decisions are being made. You work together to develop new ways to do more with less and to anticipate how the needs of our diverse families and visitors are changing. But what if the issues that faces our communities are about to change the realities that we all have experienced? How do you prepare for that? On October 23rd, our county attorney Ron Hosir was one of the early speakers at a community awareness forum held at Prair Lake High School dealing with sextortion. He shared the platform with school resource officers, police officers from several communities, and many organizations that [clears throat] focus on the proliferation of AI in the use of young girls and boys of all cultures and backgrounds. He was there to prepare children and families for the future. When he was introduced, he stood up and welcomed everyone to the meeting and was casual in his approach. His goal is to introduce the topic of sextortion, a form of child sexual exploration where children are threatened or blackmailed, most often with the possibility of sharing with the public nude or sexual images of them by a person who demands additional sexual content, sexual activity, [clears throat] or money from the child. This crime may happen when a child has shared an image with someone or when someone creates fax fake explic explicit content of the child. Some of the children and families may not know Ron. [snorts] He hopes to provide lots of specific information, share different approaches, how parents might be supportive of their kids, and empower children of all ages. Ron says, "Why don't we pretend that we are in law school and I am the teacher and you are the students? I will ask some questions and you tell me what you know." He approaches 11 or 12 year old girl who is with her parents and her best friend. Ron asks her what sexing means. She shares some ideas and seems to have a good response. Ron congratulates her and thanks her for sharing her point of view. He adds some comments and asks if other audience members have anything to add. After some comments, he asks a younger girl a question about AI and deep fakes. She has a hard time with the question and Ron thanks her for sharing and asks others in the audience to add their views. Several parents and children respond. Then he is on to the next question. As the conversation continues, Ron is wanting to make several key points. One, he wants boys and girls to know that they are all that they all will receive information on their phones that will be sexually explicit and that most of them will be pressured to share pictures of their own bodies. He provides data about the percentage of girls and boys of various ages who have shared pictures of their nude bodies or more explicit images. Minnesota Department of Health 2022 student survey over 4600 students in 9th and 11th grade reported trading sex acts for money or living needs like shelter or food. Rates are similar between male and female students and victims were from every region of Minnesota. Child [snorts] traffic recruitment increased 125% on Facebook and 95% on Instagram in 20120 and increasing annually ever since. In 2023, over 9,500 cases of online child sex exploration were reported to the Minnesota BCA in 2024. Over 12,000 cases were reported among 9 to 12 year olds. One in four said they had they are asked to send nude pictures online. One in seven said they have sent their own nude photo and one in three said they did not tell anyone when they realized they needed help. Ron wants parents and kids to know that it is so helpful to talk frequently as a family about this topic and to ask for help when they are not sure how to respond to some requests. Ron wants them to know that he and law enforcement can only stop people engaging in these crimes if they come forward with information about what happened and that youth victims of online exploitation are victims and will be supported. As the meeting continues, it is clear that our county attorney has been working for years with community leaders and organizations throughout the county and beyond to help families and children deal with AI and with the potential for more dangers in the future. Thank you, Ron, for all the ways you are helping all of us prepare for the future. Thank you very much. I know our county attorney has done a lot of those presentations and they are eyepopping and jarring to say the least. Um, thank you. Anyone else for interested citizen? Not seeing any. Um, we will move on to item number five. 5.1 looking at adopting resolution number 2025-289 proclaiming December 4th 2025 Deian Crowat Day in Scott County. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. >> Feel like we should have a parade in balloons or something. >> I know. Well, we had them, but the cold weather they all kind of shriveled up. But so >> yeah. Uh good morning, Mr. Chair and colleagues and uh guests. Um, and Deian, it's your day. So, come on up here and be with me as we talk about you. Thank you for coming. I was a little nervous. Wanted to make sure you [laughter] really were. >> All right. Well, I have a few things to say and and then I I think some others might too. So, um, the purpose, uh, of of this, uh, action is to adopt resolution number 2025-289, uh, proclaiming December [clears throat] 4th, 2025 Deian Crowit Day in Scott County, Minnesota. Deianne and her family have lived on a hobby farm near New Prague since 1978. In addition to being a longtime resident, Deianne has served the residents of Scott County for decades. Uh, it it just honors me to talk about Deianne today because she is a true public servant. if we had encyclopedias anymore and it under public servant her picture should be there. So Deian began her service to Scott County residents as the clerk of Helina Township and served in that role for 36 years. She decided she hadn't had enough of her friends at Helina Township and was recently elected as Helena Township supervisor. During her decades as the clerk, she tire tirelessly worked to keep the township current with law changes and helped implement policies that improved residents lives and experiences. In addition, she really worked as a as a role model and as a a mentor across the county with other clerks, with other supervisors as they learned their jobs. As supervisor, she works hard to make economically responsible decisions for the township, but also that are best for the residents. Deianne was appointed to serve on the Scott County Community Development Agency board of directors beginning January 1st of 1998. At that time, she represented Commissioner District 2, but during redistricting in 2002, Helina Township moved to commissioner district 1, which she has represented since then. She became chair of the CDA board in February of 2010, a position she has held since. During her tenure on the board, nine senior apartment buildings were constructed in the cities of Shakabe, Elco, New Market, Savage, Jordan, and New Prague. Recently, the CDA introduced community land trust home sales both for existing and new construction, which is an excellent way to make homes uh more affordable. Deianne has been through um all those years and renditions of the CDA growing, improving, and doing more to to help house people in Scott County. She is retiring from the Scott County Community Development Agency board effective December 31st of 2025. In 2024, Deianne was awarded the Conrad Rmer Commissioner Award by the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials. A well-deserved honor, but they didn't name a day for you. Um, >> Deian's dedication has made a profound impact on Scott County and making our community a better place. This recognition is a testament to her hard work and commitment. I just have a a quote from somebody else who I thought really nailed it. Um someone who has worked with Deianne said, "Deianne has no quit in her." I'm like, "Oh, I like that. I don't want to have any quit in me. She just keeps giving to her community and neighbors and looking for ways to provide extraordinary leadership and community support." So, Mr. and colleagues, I um am honored to uh move to that we adopt resolution number 2025-289 proclaiming December 4th, 2025 Dan Croet Day in Scott County. >> I'll second that then. >> All right, we have a motion and we have a second. Is there any further discussion? >> Yeah. I I've been honored to know Deian for the last I don't know five years or so. Um and attended the um monthly meetings of the CDA. Um she's always had a even um leadership to the even even keeled leadership to the organization. She always provides good advice to her her board members and to [clears throat] um she has a good vision for the community and I appreciate everything that you've done. >> Thank you. >> Great. >> And we'll give you a chance to talk in a minute but maybe we should >> Well, I was say do we want question because that could change how we No. How do you want to do that? >> Well, let's we've got a motion. We've got a second. Is there any discussion on this particular um otherwise let's vote and then we can have more people come up. So, all in favor say I. >> I. >> I. All right. Oh, you made it. You made it. It passed. It passed. >> And and we will end with a photo of you in the plaque, but I don't know if you have some words to say and introduce some of your fan club who joined us. >> Who surprisingly joined us. Um, I guess Julie knows this. I don't I don't think the focus should be on Deian Croat Day because it's the agency and all that they have done. Um when I look back over the last however many years it is and think about you know the uh first-time home buyers the community um land trust um our senior buildings um bringing in the business part of it which hasn't always had much focus. Julie has a great team um she's put together. Um, I also know that your job is appointing people to sit on these boards, um, agencies, committees, whatever. And I think that's no small task. I'm thinking that it might get easier because I'm hearing that companies are a little more um flexible with their work schedules to allow maybe not just us gray hairs to sit on committees, but welcome some bright young fresh minds to join these committees. So, good luck as you make your all of your appointments. Um thank you. your support over the years is um unwavering. Um and all my thanks goes to Julie. She gets she gets I should say all my credit goes to Julie. Her and her staff are incredible. And there when you work together, you do great things for living and working in Scott County. So, thank you very much. I didn't need a day, though. [laughter] >> I heard you wanted a week. So, yeah, that's what I heard. >> Well, you're not done. We're not saying you're done. You've, you know, moving out of that role, but um obviously there's still work to do in Molina Township and Scott County. >> So, thank you. Let's go have a picture. [clears throat] >> I don't think so. >> My friends are like this. I first met Dan producers. Nice. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> In the speech competition that we >> Oh, yes. >> judged in part one. Congratulations. [laughter] [clears throat] >> Yes. For many years. >> Congratulations. Why? Yeah. Where's Yeah, we need some Thank you. [applause] Nice. Nicely done. That's always fun. All right, we're going to uh let's go. Let's go to item number six, 6.1, consent agenda. These are items, 10 items that will pass in one motion uh and were also previously distributed. Adopt 6.1. Adopt resolution number 2025-248 authorizing entering an amendment to the property management agreement with the Scott County Agricultural Society. 6.2 adopt resolution number 2025-269 approving the 2026 conservation practice financial assistance program policy manual for the Scott Watershed Management Organization. 6.3 adopt resolution number 2025-271 approving a preliminary plat and final plat of Zach edition Nicholas G and Nicole Lzac applicant and property owners 6.4 adopt resolution number 2025-273 authorizing entering an amendment to attachment number three of the master agreement with Canvas Health Inc. 6.5 adopt resolution number 2025-274 authorizing expenditures of opioid settlement funds in the amount of 536,878 6.6 Six. Adopt resolution number 2025-276 approving the final 2026 levy and budget for the Scott watershed management organization special taxing district. 6.7 adopt resolution number 2025-279 supporting 2025 local road improvement program applications for Louisville, Lena, and Spring Lake townships and the city of Bell Plane and authorizing project sponsorship. 6.8. Adopt resolution number 2025-280 approving renewal applications for Scott County intoxicating liquor, wine, and 32 licenses for establishments within Bell Plain, Cedar Lake, Sand Creek, Louisville, New Market, Spring Lake, and St. Lawrence townships for 2026. 6.9 adopt resolution number 2025-281 authorizing entering a grant agreement with the Minnesota Department of Public Safety on behalf of the Southwest Metro Drug Task Force. 6.10 Approve payroll processing of personnel actions. Members, those are the 10 items on consent. >> What? I'll move approval. >> Motion. >> Second. >> And we have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Otherwise, all in favor say I. [clears throat] >> I. >> I. >> All right. Consent is approved. Now, we're going to move to item 7.1 to receive information on the Scott County delivers topic, natural resources and water quality. Welcome this fine afternoon. >> Yes. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair and commissioners. As you said, today we'll be discussing natural resources and water quality. This topic connects directly with the current Scott County strategic plan through the community design objective. Um there is a responsibility to balance the needs of protecting our natural resources for recreational uses but also to ensure safety through the protection of those resources and connected infrastructure as well. Scott County is home to many important natural resources. The Minnesota River, Sand Creek wershed, Credit River, just to start naming a few. It's important to note that this is a new topic for Scott County delivers and due to its importance and broad nature will be discussed further in upcoming Scott County discussions. With that, I will ask my co-f facilitators and then panelists to please introduce themselves and state uh where they work and what they do. >> Good afternoon. Julie Hansen, community services. I'm the property and customer service manager. >> Good afternoon. Barbd Doll, Health and Human Services Director. >> Jamie Marshall, income maintenance manager. [snorts] >> Hi, Case Logic, environmental services manager. >> I'm Vanessa Strong. I'm the water resources supervisor. >> Megan Taska. I'm the county's water resources engineer. >> Uh Ryan Hoser, I'm the water resources scientists. >> Melissa Bachmann Armor, senior water resources planner. >> Perfect. Thank you all so much and thank you for all of the work and effort that you put towards this packet. Before we begin with our conversation, I would like to ask Mr. Chair and the commissioners if they have any beginning questions they would like to ask. >> Any burning questions? Otherwise, we will let you fire away and I'm sure we'll pepper you as either as we go or at the end. >> Perfect. Thank you so much. All right, Julie with our first question. >> Wonderful. Thank you. Um, this is an area that most people I would wager to say are likely unfamiliar with. Um, as I am, even as a longtime county employee, if you had just a couple of minutes to tell a lay person about what you do and who the WO is, what would you say? >> Um, I would say that we do lots of many things. We have programs. We monitor our water resources to determine whether we um I would say the health of our waters, whether they're degrading or improving. We um do studies and assessments to be able to prepare ourselves to do projects on the land. Um we share with land owners and other entities to be able to do projects. Uh we do a lot of partnership and collaboration with other organizations and land owners. Um, I miss it. Oh, we provide education and outreach to our land owners as well. >> We also leverage [clears throat] a lot of grant funds uh to basically stretch our local dollars further that would relate to our cost share program, some of the CIPs that we're going to talk about here today. Um, just to kind of help that that local burden um as well. >> Uh, I am the technical person. So, I do design reviews and permitting for the county to ensure compliance with those management ordinances. [clears throat] >> You know, I always like to say if you drink it or you flush it, it's probably somebody else's. But if it falls from the sky or it's on the ground, that's pretty much what we take care of. So, we're responsible for your lakes, your rivers, your wetlands, the snow that melts, the rain that falls. And why a watershed? Because water follows topography. it runs downhill. So a waterershed is kind of like a bathtub. The outer boundary of the wershed is the outside of that bathtub and then the drain is kind of the end result which is usually a lake or a large river and that's why wersheds are managed on watershed boundaries and not political boundaries because water doesn't care about city township boundaries. That's just a human line. It likes to follow those. So that's why we do it at that watershed boundary and we take care of those, you know, lakes, rivers, and wetlands through a lot of different programs and activities to help keep them clean and help work with our citizens to make their lives better. >> Great. Thank you. >> I believe you've said that before many times. [laughter] >> That's great. No, that's very helpful. Thank you, Vanessa. Well, so maybe you could tell us a little bit. I going on to page three. I've got a couple questions related to the capital improvement projects or your SIP. And so, how do you go about selecting which projects you decide to include here? >> Yeah, it's a great question. So, like [clears throat] Melissa had mentioned, um you know, we we know we have problems in our waters for monitoring. Um we're driven by our watershed comprehensive uh plan which stakeholders um partners, residents all have an opportunity to kind of guide that that plan for us. So, we get input from other places, right, that that kind of help guide us. Um and once we kind of narrow down the areas that we want to focus on u monitoring can help us. So in one instance you know a lot of these CIPs that we installed came from we monitored in what's called the middle sand creek wershed um it's basically just the middle part of that that wershed um runs from like city of Jordan to New Prague roughly and did a study there because we knew from monitoring that that section was 10 to 15 times the amount of total suspended solids. uh than any other wershed in Sand Creek. So we knew that there was a lot of sediment coming from that wershed and sediment being an impairment to Sand Creek. So if you know that sediment's an issue and then you identify exactly where you know a large concentration of that issue is, then you can kind of narrow down and focus your your area that you're going to do a study. And so in 2015, we did a feasibility study knowing that that area um produces so much sediment and we had an idea, right? The Sand Creek goes through a bluff um through there. So it's real steep gradient to the stream. Um so it's not really a surprise that it's generating that much sediment, but we basically, you know, hired a consultant to help us then narrow down what are the biggest then sediment contributors within that watershed. and basically develop a list and you work through that list. Um so we work on a voluntary basis with land owners and you know just kind of going through where we prioritize sediment savings was our biggest thing and so basically working down that list from the highest sediment contributors to we kind of got through the whole list. Um and I can go into more detail of that but that kind of helps you know frame up or drive where we can kind of go with things. So, you know, we identify the problem, we then work to find that solution and then we actually go out and implement it. You know, we we put them on the ground to make a difference to actually reduce sediment and by some of the graphs you can see it it is working. You know, some of the things that we're doing are actually making an impact. So, I feel pretty confident in that. >> It looks like that. So does the if I were to so I I will say like I asked this question knowing that like in my world nothing is linear in health and human services. So like as I look at a as a chart here like I I'm just curious at like I look at the cost and then I look at the sediment like removed per ton and it looks like it varies based on so like what what's behind that variation? >> Yeah, good question. Um so a couple of the projects so the first two projects that are listed there um there's a road component to those. So um there was the sentiment savings but there's also you know a transportation uh trying to save you know county road 60 um also county road 6 was plugging up with sediment. So, there's that component, too. But then when you actually look at some of like the phase one, two, and I'll explain why we don't have a three, uh, four, five, and six, you kind of notice that it went from a little bit on the higher end to the lower end as we were working through them. So, we started off with some of the higher sediment contributors. The reason why Sand Creek Phase 5 is kind of um down the list is we knew that one was going to be expensive. um you know it came in at close to threequarters of a million dollars and it's the last one we just did. So we had to actually generate funds and leverage grants to actually make that project possible. Some of the other ones came in less and so we had the funds available to do them. Um but yeah, I mean we we tried to start with the highest ones first and work our way down um you know that that list there. If I could just add to that that um oh so in addition to that the the degree of the erosion and the actual situation um really determines how much sediment is you know proposed to be reduced. So it if it's a 80 foot high bluff and it's has mass wasting which we have a lot of areas of that along the Minnesota River you know those types of projects are um you know contributing a lot more sediment into the Minnesota River. So some of those projects just have a higher load um after the assessment and the study has been done that that's why you're seeing differences in the amounts. >> Yeah. Thank you, Moses. And and that's why uh Sand Creek phase 4 and phase six are a little bit lower as we work through that list. The bluffs that we were working on just weren't as tall. Um phase two was probably, you know, 80 plus feet tall as the bluff. Phase one was three separate projects, so it just accumulated to being a lot more sediment. And then the other ones um were just smaller. The the bluff itself wasn't as big. Good. >> I guess along those same lines, I was wondering um you know, you mentioned the sediment is being reduced significantly. Um could you explain a little bit how that happens and why it's important? >> Yeah, absolutely. Um so each of these situations varies a little bit. Um, so a lot of the times [clears throat] a ravine, so the Blakeley Trail Ravine, Cory Creek, um, part of phase one and phase 5 were all a ravine setting. So um, basically what we've got is a a younger landscape um, you know, dating back 10,000 years, you've got the draining of Lake Agassi um, through what we now know as the Minnesota River Valley. Um and as um so it was actually Glacial River Warren drained that lake, Lake Agassi, and then started to recede and all its tributaries started to do the same thing. And so even though it's 10,000 years ago, it's still in geological time, uh youngish, you know, so it's still trying to find its its exact, you know, angles of where it's supposed to be. So you've got these ravines that have been constantly insizing. And what that means is you've got your, you know, V-shaped ravine. It's cutting downward. And what ends up happening is when it cuts downward, your side slopes um start to fall away, right? So they're starting to lay themselves back. And they call it a angle of repose to where eventually it'll fall back far enough to where it actually will stabilize and vegetation will grow. Well, on a vertical setting or near, vegetation doesn't grow on that. Um so in those cases you know it's that ravine cutting down and then the side slopes caving in and that's where it's generating that sediment and then phosphorus is you know binding to the sediment as well and it just gets released. Um the streams it's actually these projects were all basically identified where a stream it [clears throat] normally does generate sediment and that's what it a stream is supposed to do. It has outside bends inside bends. it'll deposit it sediment on the inside bin and it cuts the outside bin. As long as it stays in the flood plane, you know, it's just generating kind of sediment within its natural kind of place. Um, what's happening with these is it actually cuts outside of its flood plane and hits these giant bluffs, you know, upwards of 100 feet tall, hundreds of feet long. So you can just imagine when you've got water constantly hitting that toe that basically that's the land and the water meeting um you're just getting that that erosion that's happening along the stream bank. And so when you have an unstable toe um it just leads to basically that whole upper bluff just kind of falling in. Um and so a lot of these projects you'll see there's a shelf that's built right at the base of that bluff. What that's intended to do is unless it's a really heavy rain and it's flooded, it's keeping flow away from that bluff toe. It so it doesn't have pressure up against it. Yeah. Evan kind of see. So the picture on top you can see if sediment dirt wants to just erode off of that bluff, it's going directly into the stream. But the after photo on the bottom, there's a shelf that's built where basically it it relieves that pressure of that water constantly hitting the bluff and it also allows for deposition of that upper bluff onto that shelf. So eventually you you actually kind of want it to lay itself back because that's how it's going to stabilize itself long term. >> I I like to use what's called the ice cream model. So, in a natural environment, um, a cup of ice cream is great. Like one ice cream cone sounds really delicious. And that's like a healthy stream or a healthy lake gets its healthy dose of ice cream. It gets the leaves and the natural sediment that should normally fall into it. It's coming off of a nicely vegetated landscape. And so, a lot of that stuff is really just not actually ending up in the lake or the river. So, it's getting its like happy, healthy dose of ice cream. But what we get are bathtubs full of ice cream. back to the bathtub thing, right? Like, so one ice cream cone's great. A bathtub full of ice cream, not so good. And so that's what's happening to a lot of our streams and lakes is they're getting bathtub levels of ice cream and bathtub levels of sediment, which makes them very unhappy and doesn't make them very healthy. So through the work that, you know, Ryan leads and that we do, it's helping to bring that dose of ice cream down to something healthier. >> Interesting. >> Yeah. Great analogies. >> Did that answer your question though? which I thought your question was a little bit different. >> Um I think that answers um why it's important um and how how it's done. Well, I just if Ryan if you could just quickly explain. Um, so you did a little bit of a how, but I always find it really interesting when you explain like how the pylons are put in, how you have to dam it up to stop the water. Can you go over that a little bit? I I would explain it, but I won't do it any He [clears throat] does it better. >> Yeah, happy to do so. Um, so a lot of these projects were all designed by the same consulting firm. It's it's kind of their niche. It's their specialty. this is what they do and they do it really well. Um they've had a lot of success and our projects with them have performed really well as well. Um but what we're looking at here it's it's I the the easiest way to describe it to somebody that is just looking at that picture is if you remember Lincoln logs Lincoln logs get stacked on top of each other and just keep building upwards. So these are a series of of log jams and a lot of the times we'll harvest the wood on site. So the land owners as part of their contribution to the project is we're going to take some of the trees that are on your property could be in the hundreds of trees um and we're going to harvest them and use them towards this project and that saves us some money. Um in other instances if we don't have the trees on site can haul them in. Um, but basically what they do, [clears throat] they're they're moving the stream away from the bluff. Um, and so you still have to keep the same profile of the stream. So if you move out from that bluff, you don't want to constrict the stream itself. So you're going to actually excavate on the inside portion of that stream. So the stream, if it was 20 ft wide before, it'll still be 20 ft wide afterwards. Um, but how they actually do it, we most of the time we'll do this in the winter because it's easier. Flows are lower. They'll um build a a burm basically around this structure and um they have to get it kind of as watertight as possible. Um that's impossible to get all the water out. So then they pump the water out. Uh so basically you get down below water level and they'll take um a vibratory hammer on an excavator. So this you know big giant excavator and they'll take the logs. So, you'll notice some of them are vertical. They'll take that hammer and they'll just vibrate it until it gets down several feet. Um, you know, could be four feet that it has to actually embed itself into the stream. They'll do a pullout test where they'll actually attach to it and make sure that it won't pop back out. Um, so that builds the base of this structure. So, now you've got these, let's say it's four structures to make a square. Um, four logs. And now what you do is with those Lincoln logs I was describing, you attach those to each other. You attach those to that vertical log that's um embedded in the ground. Wood floats, so we have to counteract its buoyancy. And so that's what we're doing is you're attaching it to something that's embedded and can't float. Um they'll also put boulders. So we've done it before where you'll cable boulders um to these logs. And it looks kind of weird because they'll to make sure that they're actually attached, they'll lift them up. So you've got this log and these boulders attached. And uh anyways, you wouldn't think a little hole like that, you know, with some epoxy and it can hold a giant boulder in place. But all that is basically just meant to counteract the buoyancy. You keep building these logs up until basic they're at an elevation that is going to take care of most of the flow that um that erosion is going to be reduced. But the key to it is the vegetation on top. So, you know, logs are only going to last for so long before they're going to break down. And especially when you got water, wind, sun, all that. So, the idea is you build these structures, they should last at least 25 years. But then we're planting trees on top of them, um planting native grasses in hopes that that vegetation will actually take hold and grow long term and and basically keep that in place. Um, it helps with the exposure of those logs too to have that vegetation there and that component cut down on sun on them as well a little bit. Um, so yeah. Does that kind of explain? >> Yes. >> It's it's I kind of get sciency nerdy at times with some of this stuff. So if I'm going way too far over heads, let me know. But it's I really enjoy doing them. So >> Ryan, is there is I'm sorry. Is there a material that um could be used or you think could be used in the future other than logs or boulders that maybe would last longer? [clears throat] >> Yeah, so you probably could you you could do um there there is more expensive um material out there that you could use. I've seen other structures where they could use steel or something along those lines. You could use rock, you know, like a granite type of rock. Um we've chosen to go a little bit more natural. So there are voids within those logs and what it's providing is actually some fish habitat or other aquatic organisms can actually make their way inside there and avoid predation. You know, a bigger fish trying to eat it. Um so we've gone the route of a more natural looking um project. If if you did rip wrap, it probably would be a little bit cheaper. Um and but it depends on what kind of rock you want to use. Some of them break down a lot sooner than others. And so I think we've kind of found this is a good happy [clears throat] medium of like there are some rock in there's some rock in there to cut down on cost but it's like a balancing act kind of make it a little bit bio-engineered little bit of the rock to save on cost too. >> Yeah. I just was going to add that, you know, there's so many areas um in that middle creek and along the block that there's such high erosion going on. We have a very erosive um geologic setting here that it was quite a few years ago when we got done with the Sand Creek study that it was decided to just address the toe and build those structures instead of trying to lay back all of these, you know, almost vertical slopes that would be way too cost prohibitive. So, we're going with a more natural solution. >> Yeah. That way we can do more of them. If we wanted to do Melissa's approach of lay that slow back. >> That's not my approach. >> Well, [laughter] the approach Melissa is saying, I should say there would be like one on this list, you know, that because it would be that expensive to do that much earth moving material and all that. So, >> sure. [snorts] >> Uh, since we're on page three, under development and permitting, it talks about the WMO in the process of updating the plan within the next year. Can you talk about how you'll use data to inform your decisions and what are some main considerations of that? >> Um well, we gather lots of different types of data in order to inform the next plan. So, we look at water quality trends, which we put a um a [snorts] table in here, too, where we're looking at are certain pollutants improving or are they getting worse? And so we need to think about how to change the plan or programs in [snorts] order to um reduce those pollutants coming into our water bodies. Uh another thing that we started many years ago back in 2011 is um looking at the the social side of um watershed management. you know, it's really our our water resources are a reflection of our land users and so what they do on the on the landscape really impacts our water resources. So, um you know, surveying uh our residents to find out what what motivates them to maybe want to do stewardship, what uh what are their beliefs, what are their values. Uh we need to really integrate um that social side of um of what our residents do and what they believe and and to help us achieve some of our water quality goals because trying to fix everything in our watershed with the limited amount of staff and the limited amount of financial resources we have is just never going to happen um you know through levy or even through grants. So, we're um in this current plan, we've developed a system to help um enable more land owners and businesses and communities to try to help us reach our goals, you know, in improving water bodies. But we use studies. Um right now we've done um several subwaterershed assessments to figure out which projects on in certain wersheds will help improve water quality. kind of like CIPs, but they're more of on a uh agricultural conservation practice level. Um what other studies have we done? >> We might add that the studies that we do are also often on behalf of a lot of the LGUs in the county. It's not just us. So it prevents the cities or the townships or from having to undertake these really expensive studies themselves. we do that heavy lift and then they can use that data to help them determine where is maybe best to develop, what's best to preserve, you know, help them with their decisions locally. So, um you could talk I mean that's a lot of what we do. >> Yeah. Uh so right now we're in the middle of uh working on a study on um county ditch 4 to determine, you know, in the future if the city of Credit River would help us protect that river because right now that river has a state and EPA pro protection plan over it. Um and we want to keep the river that way. So, we're doing a study to determine moving into the future in um where in that landscape would be best to place certain best management practices to protect the water quality and then the city can use that in their local water plans and then we can help them get [snorts] funding for those projects. >> Yeah, a lot of our studies uh also enable legosside funding. So, if a city wants to do a project, it usually needs some sort of study to back it up to get that grant funding. So they can use our studies to get themselves funding to get their projects in the ground, which is really helpful. A few of the studies we're currently doing right now is we're having a consultant update our Cedar Lake total maximum daily load model which tells us how much phosphorus we need, how much phosphorus load we need to reduce into Cedar Lake and updating a whole Sand Creek wershed model to determine what BMPs would be best to place and where on the landscape and how much that would reduce sediment and phosphorus so that we can help improve Sand Creek and the Minnesota River. So, >> and some of our existing data too, just like the graph that's up there for Cedar Lake, you know, you got your phosphorus is is trending downward. >> Um, stuff like that is helpful when going through the new planning cycle, right? If if it was trending the opposite way and it was increasing, we would have to adapt, adjust, right? Um, same thing with some of the water quality monitoring you're seeing in here, you know, those are the improvements are um it's getting better. And so some of these methods we're using, we're finding are working. So, but we're always still wanting to adapt and adjust as well, right? Because what's working today might not be working, you know, in the future. >> Maybe related to that, but kind of switching to groundwater quality a little bit on um pages 17 and 18. Uh we maybe tell us a little bit about um those those watching at home like how how does the water kit um how does that work? How what's our role with that? And then um what do as we're looking at like maybe the lead and the arsenic levels like what do we as we see those come up like what do we do to help support the community or educate around that? >> Well, why don't I take this one? I'll kind of get it kicked off. What what we do here at the county. So what we do is um at the county we offer uh well test kits where homeowners can um purchase the kit at the county, go home, grab the sample, come back um and then there's um you can see here a variety of things they can test for arsenic, nitrate, fluoride, maganesees, etc. They then test for that and then uh the lab will send the results to the county and then we will then send those results uh to the homeowner. But there's a couple other things that are happening. Those that information we then collect it and since surface water and groundwater are connected, we share that information with this group so that they have that and they can see okay what's going on um in the groundwater and they can be sharing that with um interest interested folks as they're going through their plan update. We also once we get that data and we see or we get the results, excuse me, we see the results and if there's something that is concerning, we then let the homeowner know. Um because they get the results and it's they they're like, I don't I don't know what's the limit for arsenic. >> So, we would then call them and say, oh, you exceeded and here's what you can do. You can get a treatment unit to to help bring that down. And then we'd also um refer them to the department of health and talk to them about retesting and so on. But this information that the county collects um very helpful and then used this group will then use that in helping them inform those that they're working with in their plan update or just what's going on in groundwater. We we're very fortunate we are um in most of our areas low in nitrate but if we were high in nitrate um this group would be very interested to know where that nitrate is coming from. Is that coming from septic systems? Is that coming from fertilizer? Where is that coming from? Um and those um um practices that they're putting on the land are helping prevent your [clears throat] surface water like your nitrates from getting in into into wells and then into groundwater. So that's how that surface water groundwater connection is and what we're doing here at the county on that groundwater level. >> Yeah. Megan, maybe you can talk about how when you get a development plan in that has a lot of storm water basins, how you review it and how that interacts with groundwater. >> Um, so I deal with our storm water ordinance here at the county mainly. And part of our ordinance requires infiltration for large developments, which means storm water that hits the ground and runs off is collected in a holding pond and is allowed to infiltrate into the ground and eventually recharge the groundwater. Um so part of that is reviewing areas of high sensitivity um with drinking water supply areas. We have some down in Jordan and Shakabe I believe rightos. Um making sure that we're not in areas that actually infiltrate too fast actually. Um super you know we have a lot of areas with a lot of sand. Um too fast is not too slow is not good and too fast is not good. Um you want to slow it down to the point where it does get a chance to filter. there is a chance if something got into there that wasn't in there, you could stop it before it gets into the groundwater. So, those are all things that we look at when we're reviewing developments within the county to protect groundwater. Kind of related to that on page 17, um it does talk about the water test totals. Um, and as someone just looking at this chart, um, and reading the details about it, 2019 saw a huge, um, jump, I guess, in test kits. And can you tell us what that means? >> I'm glad you brought that up because that was a a lesson that we learned that year. [laughter] So, um, in 2018 2019, um, Department of Health, um, was reaching out to the counties that arsenic was, um, a contaminant of concern. Now, it's naturally occurring, but they were like, it might be, um, more prevalent in groundwater and in in folks drinking water than we think. So, um, two things happened that year. We we thought, okay, well, this is this is good to know and we should reach out to our um homeowners on wells and let them know and and we should see if this is an issue in Scott County. So, we um sent out a postcard to all the homes on wells. And that was the first time we sent a postcard, a d a targeted um request to homeowners. Normally, we had just done seen articles like if you're on a well, you should be testing um once a year. just just a very light reminder to folks when we did that targeted directly to homes. Well, they responded and then the other other thing that we were like, "Okay, we need to make sure how we phrase this." We said, "Arsenic might be a concern in your well. We know it was naturally occurring. Folks know what arsenic is and they were just they responded, I don't want to drink arsenic." So that year we got a a a a very good [snorts] response and people wanting to test their well and what we learned from that is one the mailers the postcards work but we can't just send them all out at one time. I think maybe customer service was inundated with people that you're trying to drop off. So we don't do it all at once anymore. We now um send those postcards staggered throughout the year. And then we make sure um how we phrase things so that we don't alarm people that some they might be drinking something scary in their their water. We say natural occurring arsenic and there's treatment and we've rephrased that. So I'm glad you pointed out to 2019. >> If I could just piggyback on that. So how that came about was when the WL was updating its current watershed plan, we were meeting with different departments in our technical advisory committee. We met with the department of health and we were trying to figure out what groundwater activities we can put in our current plan and through that the department of health recommended that we start um monitoring for arsenic. So I actually one of my projects was to randomly select um multiple land owners in the WMO. I went out to their house, took a water sample, and then we got the results of arsenic. Um, and then we worked with environmental health to have them do that postcard and stuff. So, it was really trying to bring awareness to everyone that there is something in our groundwater that we never really sampled for before. >> And I want to jump in on that because I wrote something down there, too, for that 19. Was it just messaging or was there I'm trying to remember. Was that a wetter year? Did that was it strictly that we mailed a bunch of postcards and they hit and they were on point? Um wasn't wet, wasn't dry? I >> I mean 2019 is one of the wetest years on record in recent history. >> But I don't know if that >> both both are true but not connected. [laughter] >> I I'm just it be I mean is this something where you almost need to put a little asterisk in there for future? >> Yeah, we do in our notes. of like what what happened in 2019 and it it yes that happened to be 2020 was is it 19 and 20 that was one of the wetest years. >> Well that that that's where I'm >> but it was both things happened. >> Yes. Um but the the response was mostly the messaging >> and again maybe it's major maybe it's minor but if it were a dry year because that's in my mind I thought it was I don't remember was the [snorts] 1920 20 you know um had it been a dry year >> and you sent those postcards >> maybe >> and it's naturally occurring right maybe >> right maybe I I I think really what caught them was just how that was. We didn't give them enough information that it's naturally occurring and we it just came out there might be arsenic in your water and that just everyone's concerned about what's in their drinking water and I think that alone >> um kind of created a little bit sense of >> and it was sincere. It wasn't just clickbait. It was sincere. It was >> and I guess I would add and you know we had 25% of testers who their results exceeded drinking water you know the the levels. So it it was it right? Is that correct [clears throat] or am I reading that wrong? >> That's correct. We have high arsenic in Scott County. So that's the good thing that came out of it is that we we heeded the the warning that Melissa and the Department [clears throat] of Health were letting us know. put that information out on the flyer and we Scott County as we are learning is is high in arsenic and we are starting to learn. We thought it was going to be just like a certain uh certain area and we're finding it throughout the whole county >> um all depths of wells. So we strongly encourage people to test for arsenic and now arsenic is one of the items that must be tested when a new well is drilled. So it's prevalent throughout Minnesota. I live in New Market Township and I tested our well and we have arsenic. It some I have a follow-up question if you don't mind. What What do you do then? So, you have high levels of arsenic in your water. What's the response? What does the homeowner do? >> There's a treatment unit that they can put on that will lower the levels of arsenic to a to a safe safe amount. And um we're finding that the treatment units um can help with a variety of things. So just um back to um the nitrate as an indicator of um fertilizer. We were just contacted by department of agriculture that there's areas in Scott County, Jackson, is it Jackson or just Jackson that have um high >> cyanazine >> shaky >> shakipede. And so um department of a has reached out to those folks said can we test for cyanazine they did and they came up high and now we're doing the mitigation where department of a is reaching out and offering treatment units that can treat cyanazine. So there's treatment [clears throat] units out there that can help with a variety of contaminants that might be in the water. >> Yeah. So, we have a joint grant with Dakota and Washington County that is mostly it's it's 100% funded and sponsored by the Department of Bank, but we help facilitate it and get it to those residents. So, it's like about on average $2,500 for an RO system for your primary drinking faucet. Uh, and then that covers, you know, their ability to treat their drinking water for that. Um, >> I don't want anybody to watch this later and panic. >> Yeah. [laughter] >> So, is that the is that So, I on in the middle of like page four, it talks about um residents being very concerned about their their drinking water and protecting and restoring it with 84% I think being very concerned. So, is that it? Is that the outreach and kind of the communication, the education? Is that what's behind this number or would you say there's other things behind this 84%. >> So this these numbers came from our uh phase one outreach to for our watershed plan update that we're still in the process of full. So these percentages came out of questions that we were asking the public during that input phase. >> Yes. So, it's more generalized, not quite that targeted. >> Okay. >> And we also do offer for our cost share program um well decommissions. So, you know, any wells that are not being used, you can decommission them so that they're no longer a conduit, you know, to groundwater. So, that that is something to play back to our Kasha program that we also address some groundwater as well. on page three towards the bottom. Sorry this is a busy page it talks about the development review starts with an optional development routine meeting. Can you talk more like explain what this is and talk more about this process improvement and outcomes connected to it? >> Sure. >> That's that's me. Um, so when somebody is wants to develop in Scott County, they want to they want to plant, they want to split a piece of land, they want to build an industrial park, they want to do something big, they have the option to do what we call a development review team meeting, a dirt meeting. And it's a chance to get all the departments of the county that are going to review, comment, approve a development in a room together with the applicant. Um, we invite the townships, we invite Mindot, we invite other water um, organizations that are involved, the DNR. Um, it's a really good chance to have somebody present like, hey, this is what I'm thinking of doing. What do you see here that might be an issue or does this look good? Should I keep going? Um, so it's a really good chance before an official application is made and that timeline starts ticking and people have spent a lot of money on a design to get feedback. um be aware of issues, know what our county standards are um and stuff like that. So, it's been a very um you know, developers really appreciate it. Land owners like it. It's a good chance to really get feedback before people get too far down a process that can't is hard to turn around. >> You don't charge for those. >> There's a small fee, but [clears throat] compared to like the full development review process. So, um, it's it's well worth the the few hundred dollars it costs to to have one of these meetings. And very few things will slow down a project more than something wet on your property that you weren't expecting to be there. And there are a lot more wetlands and ravines and things out there that people probably didn't realize, I mean, were there. So, um, it can really, really slow down a process if we don't get ahead of it. So, really helps. you referred to um LGUs earlier and um one of the things that I'm most proud of in my role is the partnerships with my local partners. Um so on page six also it speaks to your relationships. So, can you tell us about some of the partnerships that you have with the local municipalities and and how you all work together? >> Yeah, I'll let Melissa take that because she generally leads a lot of our partnership work, but I mean, we're it. This is it. We don't have more staff hiding somewhere. So, if it's water, it's us or our partners and the work we do with our partners. So, um Melissa's done a lot with that. >> So, on page six, there's quite a list there. Um so let's start with the aquatic invasive species prevention program. So I partner with um Parlake Spring Lake Wershed District. We get a grant from the state currently to address aquatic invasive species prevention. Um we give them some of those some of that funding so that they can do surveys, they can treat for curly leaf. Um I also work with the lake association. So there's um it's one, two, three. There's four lakes that I work with that we also provide funding and survey work um as part of that program. Um and then I work with the DNR quite a bit with that program as well. um the Scott Clean Water Education Program. It's really a partnership of multiple different um organizations in the county. several cities, Savage, Shakape, um, Prior Lake, uh, Vermillion, um, our SWCD really administers it for us, but, uh, a couple of the townships are on there because if they're an MS4 township, um, we really developed that program in order to meet the educational requirements of the municipal separate storm sewer system permit. Um, trying to think of who else is in there. Um, I'll skip erosion sediment control because that's not really my program to [clears throat] talk about tax program. Stream monitoring. Um, I really work a lot with our SWCD. We hire them to do the monitoring for us on that. Um, the community assisted lake monitoring program. So, I find volunteers on our lakes. Um, I work with them. I give them a kit and throughout the um, growing season, they take samples every two weeks. Um, and I go out and collect their samples a couple times a month or I should say every couple months I collect their samples and then I work with Met Council. They pick up the samples and and take them and analyze them over the over the winter. Um, those are kind of the main ones that I work on. And I won't speak to all of them. I'll let share the talk here with some of the others. >> Um yeah, [clears throat] the Kashir program. So there's actually a couple examples in your packet um where we worked with the city of Savage and city of Shakipi on projects. So it actually touches on our um techn uh technical assistance and cost share program and also the second to last one, the watershed based implementation funding. So um at those meetings, you know, Vanessa will be at them and basically getting all the LGUs in a room and figuring out what projects are out there. And that's how these two kind of came about where um both [clears throat] the cities identified these areas of um development that they actually wanted to enhance um and actually go above and beyond the standards and it was an opportunity for us to partner with them. Um so City of Savage um redeveloped a storm water pond um and included iron enhanced sand filters uh to basically you know bind to the dissolved phosphorus um better capture that. And then the um city of Shakipi one is actually um it was a street reconstruction job right down by basically Malards if you know where that restaurant is towards the river. Um so they um installed saffle baffles. Um basically it's just um as storm water gets into the storm drain it reduces the turbulence or the vortex of those suspended solids and it actually allows them to better drop out. So that way you can come back and clean those out um later um and so then they wouldn't actually be going down into the river. So just two examples of you know collaboration um that we do you know with our partners. >> So I would say the bulk of the work that we do you don't see it because we're usually doing it through our partners. We do it because obviously we're a small staff and it's the best way to get the work done but it's also the most costefficient way to do it the most effective for our residents and it's the best choice for our resources. Again lakes like anything else don't care about political boundaries. So when we can get everybody together as a group and say, "Okay, everybody who has some little foot in this one, what do we want to prioritize for this lake together?" We're all on the same page and we could do things together, right? We will oftentimes decide what's best for us to do on behalf of everybody. Like Schwep is a good example. We contribute roughly about a hundred,000 to $60,000 a year towards that clean water education partnership budget. And then that provides outdoor education and environmental education and water resource education for the whole county, not just our little corner of it. And by doing that, that saves all those cities and townships from basically duplicating the same work. And then we also utilize things like that to come up with consistent messaging and rules and regulations so that you know people don't care. Again, I live in the city, but I don't if I go to the next city over, like if the rules are different, that's just awkward and confusing. So, we use that partnership together to come up with consistent rules and regulations as best we can and try to have consistent language to make it again easier for residents to do the right thing, the things that they have to do. And then again, that saves everybody time and money. Um, so oftentimes you don't actually see us through the things that we do. Uh but oftentimes we're one of the bigger drivers behind it. Um and then again, as these guys have mentioned, one of the biggest things we actually do is go after grants for everybody. And then um based upon what everybody gets together in Scott County, what does everybody want to really focus on, we'll help everybody get that funding. >> So I got that right. Like this is the first time you've done a Scott County delivers exactly like this. And so as you put these packets together, sometimes it gives you a chance to kind of step back and look at kind of your programming and your measures. And so were there things that kind of either surprised you or that you were like, "Boy, I wish we'd measure this differently or have this or um like gaps within programming >> or were you just like?" >> Yeah, I mean I can I can touch base on that. Um, so yeah, sometimes it doesn't always tell the story in some of these metrics like Melissa was alluding to before, you know, creating community capacity and getting people to um do projects on their own. So, you know, we're obviously doing a lot of work and that's hopefully contributing to the improvements in water quality, but we're not the only ones. You know, there are people out there that are doing things on their own. Um, one example that we recently had was where a land owner in a development converted over some of their turf grass into native grasses. So, that goes down in our books as like one project, right? We get to count that one. But then what that that person did is they actually got their whole neighborhood to do that same thing. Well, that doesn't necessarily count towards our project because they didn't use our funding, but it's still an improvement. it's still they're building upon, you know, what we're hoping to get to. You know, we can't financially get ourselves out of everything. So, we are kind of working on some, you know, side key performance indicators that, you know, hopefully can tell a broader story as well about, you know, other things that maybe aren't always being captured in some of these metrics, but are still contributing factors. And that's really significant because since 2011, that's what we've set out to do was to change people's perspective and behaviors to start doing these things by themselves without our help. And now we're starting to see that. >> So that was really exciting to see. >> I I'm really biased. I love the way we do stuff here in Scott County. There are only two counties in the entire state of Minnesota that operate a watershed agency. Us and Carver. Rest of the state, no other county deals with what you guys get to deal with. But it's amazing because really the reality is is water is the epitome of systems thinking. It touches everything and it works on everything. So there is no real linear approach to water. But that also creates those challenges like how do we talk about this kind of stuff when it's everywhere. So I think having to do like doing this again um maybe instead of trying to capture everything we might just pick one topic. Um but we get so excited. We love what we do. Um but because it's a really it's a real systems thinking approach. >> It's hard to keep it contained. I think you have taken this though from a very scientific if you will as a lay person um process or you know the way it's laid out here and just hearing the passion and the um the way you're able to translate it into things that I as someone who knows very little about what you do if nothing um you make it exciting for us too. I mean, this really has been something that I've learned a lot just in the last hour. So, thank you. >> These guys do really great work. They work really hard. Even if you don't see them, they're working really hard. >> With respect to time, do does anybody have any final burning questions or anything from the panelists that you didn't feel like you wanted to say or you didn't get to say and you wanted to? >> I do. I want to touch base on our CIPs. Um I it it kind of follows the theme of like going unseen, but we might get the credit for doing this project, but our survey department, our you know, highway department, um all these different departments help us out and they do it at the drop of a hat. They they don't like ask questions or whatever. They're just willing to help out. So, you know, you approach them, the surveyors, hey, I need some help with the easements, you know, generating those for this project. Not a problem, right? And they're willing to do that. And so, I want to make sure that they get recognized as well that there's so many more people that go into these large scale projects that don't their names aren't on any of this stuff, but they're there. They're doing the work. They're helping us out with construction inspections or, you know, land records or recording those easements for us. it just there's so many more people that go into it. So I want to make sure that they get credit for this stuff as well. >> And that sharing of resources again is unique to us because if we were a freestanding agency, we wouldn't be able to do that. So we get to leverage and share because we have that. >> Thank you. Thank you all for educating us today and for your work on this packet. With that, I'll turn it back to Mr. Chair and the rest of the commissioners. >> Great. Thank you so much. There was a lot to learn and I think we might have a few questions. I see a reach for a button. >> Well, I I just want to I've been going to the WPC meetings for the last year and appreciate um getting to know all of you better, but also the volunteers that are so integral in the work that you do. So, um but I want have do have question. We didn't really talk about invasive species, but I think I heard that zebra muscles and are are found in all of our lakes. Now, is that true? Not all of our lakes. No. Um, unfortunately, we recently found zebra muzzles that were confirmed in Cedar Lake this year, and we've been trying really hard to protect Cedar Lake. [snorts] Um, they've ne they haven't been found in McMahon or Odow or Thol. Um, that's what I know of the WO lakes. I know that um Spring and Prior Lakes have them and Pike Lake. So that's in Lake Spring Lake wershed district. Um I think those are the only lakes. There might be one more. Oh, Jeffers [clears throat] Pond. I don't know how they got in there, but they were found in there as well. So, um, you know, some of the grant funding that we get from the aquatic invasive species prevention grant, we use a large portion of that towards watercraft inspections to try to prevent this. You know, we don't have enough of that money to have inspectors on there seven days a week, you know. So, somehow Cedar Lake got infected and it's it's well established, we've discovered this year. So, um, so not all of our lakes have it. Cross our fingers, they won't get it. >> Okay. >> But it really, uh, what we found is watercraft inspections, um, are really a key component to helping educate land owners at the location that you want them to change their behavior. You know, we want them to come to the access with the plug out so that they don't have any water in their boats that came from another lake. They we want them to come with nothing, no plants, no mud, nothing that can be seen stuck to their trailer or their boat. Um, so those inspectors teach them that in three minutes. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions? >> Probably not a question. Thank you. A lot of information. I think this is probably because we had a a similar conversation with the townships last night about code enforcement. So, I really was interested. We talked about the the warnings and the citations, especially with erosion control and and building and um and talked about some really true barriers. I understand, you know, that sometimes that's not going to be done when the project's done, landscapes are involved. So, I I think I'd like to know more about that in the future and and I'm sure you have some ideas about how how we can do better because I think we've learned from our other activities it it doesn't just solve it if we give citations um because we can't charge enough to make it worth it. >> [laughter] >> But yeah, so I'm interested in that and and I don't know if you have any any short comments about it, but that might be something that that as as we have future future conversations to keep brainstorming and talking about how how we can be sure that people um comply with what they're supposed to comply to in those circumstances. >> Um so I'll take that one. Um actually we we just had a meeting earlier today to work on refining um a new permitting process to try and address some of these issues that we've been having with our erosion and sediment control permits. Um they're tough because the the ones that are going to cause problems are always going to cause problems and it's not an easy um problem to solve but yes we are working on it. And then the water resource scale committee this year as priority is coming up with again streamlined consistent language across the county that we can all use whether you're in Savage, Shakipi, the WMO, Elgo New Market and that you know it's kind of a one-stop okay this is what I need to do this is where I need to go and trying to again educate and get ahead of the game but then also trying to be more consistent and streamlined just trying to [snorts] make it easier trying to make it universal. So, it's not like, oh, I thought it was this because it was over here or this was over there. >> Thank you. I appreciate that. >> So, I've got a question. Ryan, you talked about how we collaborate. And there's another question, line of questioning about how we partner and which I think at the county, I feel like we're kind of known for that, trying to, you know, how do we regionalize, how do we think outside the box? I know cliche, I get it, but how do we lower the cost of government, improve better outcomes? So this line of questioning really one question comes from that and it goes to Megan. You ready for this? And it's a little little strange especially on a cold day today and not that strange but catch basins. So Shako just did the baffles some sort of baffles that minimize the vortex whatever so you're not washing stuff out in the river. Couple of us sit on the mosquito control board and there's talk about catch basins that harbor certain types of vectors as they like to call them that um tend to be a little more disease laden than other vectors or other types of mosquitoes. Are there catch basins that are less wet or or that are don't promote mosquito larvae and and that process to keep disease control down? um that doesn't cost an arm and a leg and is effective. >> Yeah, you're right. It's one of these you try and solve one problem and you just create another problem kind of thing. >> Yeah. >> Um not every catch basin has standing water in it. Um these ones that Ryan were talking about do have what is called a sump in the bottom which is you know stand you know four to six feet of standing water to allow the sediment to um disperse. Um, I haven't really heard of people treating those individual catchmasons, but it's not that large of a volume, and they probably could be treated with mosquito pellets or something like that. Um, it really depends also on how much how much rain we get, how fast water's moving through there, how long it's sitting there. You know, there's a lot that goes into it. >> And those are all the things we hear about in those on those meetings. And and and for some areas of the city, they they do treat them. Um, but you start extrapolating from the metropolitan [snorts] era, you know, with things. >> I mean, yeah, you can't treat every single one. >> It's a it's a it's a large number. So, I was just curious about that. Not that we're going to go and retrofit, you know. Um, I was just curious since we had you here. >> Um, >> Mr. Chair, I can I used to work for Mosquito Control back in the day. And so I can tell you that was actually a day that you look forward to work because you'd have your treatment out the window and you just dump it right right into the [laughter] >> Yeah. >> So it wasn't a lot of uh a lot of heavy lifting that day. So but it was um you'd identify ones that actually held water and ones that didn't. So you weren't >> wasting material down ones that are dry. So >> yeah. Yeah. Then you got [clears throat] that whole question which people ask that of course all the time. Um, yeah, the invasive species. That's another one I That is That's a tough one. That's a really really tough one. Um, and I don't know what the answer is. I know when I sat on the one of the wersheds, they talked about, well, maybe the state is looking at and and maybe you can check me on this. Well, maybe we permit every dock and we're already permitting watercrafts for the most part, but every dock and lift that's, you know, moving around. And I was like, "Holy cow, that seems um the things that actually move are, you know, jet skiis, boats, pontoons are already licensed, but it sound like it was a next level like now we're I'm not saying they're putting a tracker on there, but some tracking type system like holy cow." Um, has that gone anywhere? Is there any chatter in your fun little groups that you get to meet with? So, I I was a few weeks ago on a um meeting with the DNR and other AIS coordinators across the state. Um they are starting to have discussions on options on how we can fund the prevention program. Again, um I haven't heard any solutions yet, but you know, it is in my work plan in 2027 to get the, you know, some of the local organizations in Scott County that maybe we can come up with some ideas ourselves on what to do. >> Yeah. So, I was just I was just curious where that was because, yeah, you don't want them in water bodies where they're not there, but it's like, wow, that is a tall tall order >> and it's duck season. You got decoys coming and going and like, you know, um >> Yeah. >> Oh, yeah. They can. So I mean I happen to know a few duck hunters and try to clean those things really really good so they're not going in and out of different lakes and breathing stuff but >> yeah Mr. Chair commissioners it aquatic invasive species again it's one of those that doesn't follow political boundaries right so even trying to keep it in a count a county level management honestly doesn't really make a lot of sense. It really is a statewide problem and we can help but without it being stateled, it's going to be a very uphill battle. So, so what you're saying is the the lakes in the blue districts versus the lakes and streams and rivers in the red districts, you're not seeing any difference in >> it is proximity related, but I mean, you know, if you're going to take your boat to Prior Lake and then you want to go up north, what are the chances are you're going to bring your own boat if you already have the boat? >> What can we do in Scott County to help you right to coordinate? We're now coordinating across the state. Yep. [clears throat] Fun stuff on a cold afternoon. Any other questions? Otherwise, thank you so much for this uh information. I hope we got a few viewers. We're going we're going to check the trend on that YouTube channel and see when you got real nerdy. Did that did that go up or did [laughter] that immediate sign off right there? This guy's boring me. [laughter] >> No, it was good stuff. It was good stuff. So, thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Okay, we are going to move on to item number eight, committee reports and commissioner updates. Look down to my right, Commissioner Wetland Brekie. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, let's see. Since our last board meeting, uh, November 18th and 19th, um, the county administrator and I headed to Seattle for about 28 hours, um, uh, to be part of a panel at the National Congress for American Indians with, um, some of our scale partners. That was good. a lot of different perspectives there. Had several um tribal chairpeople and executive committees from around Minnesota who had some comments about just intergovernmental relations. So, good thing to do. November 20th was our board workshop. 21st scale exec committee. >> Um also on the 21st I had the Minnesota Community Supervision Advisory Committee meeting. Um November 24th had the ICS steering committee meeting. I don't even can remember what that means anymore, but it's the the group of human services committees right now working on long-term supports, SNAP, and and Medicaid um with county folks on DHS. November 26 had a meeting with Jen Schultz and Jake Gruine. I had some some just questions and ideas about um volunteers, specifically library volunteers I wanted to talk with them about. December 1st was AMC Executive Committee meeting. Um, also December 1st had mentally ill and dangerous civil commitment reform task force, county member check-in. I just want to spend a minute there. Um, you know, we have these state committees and they're usually made up of folks from all over and and in this one in particular, there's county folks, there's county attorney people, there's DHS people, but we've we've kind of come to a little bit harder place here at the end in developing our report and and it's me and some of the other county representatives have had to kind of come back and say that we're not agreeing with some things and we won't sign on to that report. Um, just to say that this matters. We don't just go to these things and say, "Yep, yep, yep." But we're trying to really really work to make sure that that the perspective that if you're not in the county world, you don't know on on paying for costs, on um acceptance of folks at St. Peter and and all that. So, just I feel like I need to say that. Um December 1st, uh spoke at um the CAPS class downstairs, the kids who are here for human services academy. Um and I told Mr. Stone. I was was just really impressed, you know, over the years that that class has been going, just the professionalism of the students in there, the questions they've asked. Um, that's they're really developing great programs there. And they talked to me a little bit about some of the projects they were doing, you know, with with county staff and on behalf of the county, it was good. December 1st, Minnesota Transportation Alliance board meeting. Um December 2nd, I had a meeting with Amanda Shu, Jordan City Council member, just to touch base on some things. December 3rd, um, our county law library board meeting. December 3rd was also the every other week right now SNAP implementation meeting to hear how other states are dealing with with the changes in SNAP rules. Um, yesterday, this was yesterday. Yeah, December 3rd, um, I went to the ribbon cutting grand opening at GN, a new business in Chaki. Commissioner Brendan went also. I'm sure she'll talk about it too, but wow, what an amazing business. Um, it's a Danish company. uh their US headquarters are here but the the building you know they have their US headquarters but they also have some manufacturing and they have their warehousing all combined probably about 550 jobs I think they said with a hundred more in that facility coming um really really great great to see um fun to fun to be there um last night had quarterly township chair meeting um and then today I had a meeting with some NO folks about the human services and education committee talking about transition because um the the chair of that committee who was appointed in July did not win his reelection and so they've asked me to step in and chair that committee starting January 1st um until the annual meeting. So trying to get ready to do that >> in your spare time. >> Yeah. And in my report >> is that the um what was that place? Was that the old shutter flag building? Is that what I'm thinking? >> Yes. Yep. And it was it's amazing in there and lots of lots of people working on good to have that full >> Commissioner Wolf. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. On the 18th, I met uh with one of our staff uh Katie Mlea talk about a few things. On the 19th, the insurance committee met um a lot of talk about the FMLA policy and uh how that's going to affect everything. Uh on the 20th, the county planning meeting. Um, and then on the 21st, the SWAC, that's the solid waste advisory committee. Talked about some of the fees that may be coming up and some of the changes and uh, you know, garbage is constantly changing. You know, nobody wants it, but any cost a lot to get rid of. On the 25th, met with the county administrator. On the first, Credit River and uh, Cedar Lake Township uh, had their monthly meetings. Uh on the second, New Market Township met. Uh on the third, AMC uh had a Zoom meeting. Three things they talked about there uh were waste and making taxing districts so they couldn't like that either. Anyhow, um sounds like a power grab. Uh they also want to they talked about reforming property tax, the property tax system. there's so many different uh categories of property and uh I don't know yeah anyhow and then uh the one big thing that I agree with is removing the nuclear moratorum and we should talk about that and uh >> possibly look at nuclear power at some point again here then uh this afternoon uh Vermillion River Joint Powers had their uh end of the year meeting and uh budgeting and uh that I'll pass through and uh we're I think at about as almost a 0% increase and then the workshop uh before this on FMLA leave. That's my report. >> Thank you very much, Commissioner Brennan. >> Thank you. Uh November 18th was the Prior Lake Spring Lake watershed district meeting. Um and then after that I went to the Shakpi City Council meeting. November 19th was the AMC legislation meeting. Um, number 19th, I also u went to the ribbon kitting for the boardwalk kitchen and bar that's in Canterbury. Um, it's the >> Okay, it's right up against the um racetrack and it's it was a great place. Um, November 19th was the lower Minnesota River Watershed District meeting. November 20th was our workshop. November 21st was the Scott County Solid Waste Advisory Board meeting that uh you already spoke on. >> Um November 24th, I had a meeting with Kate Perry um and I met with Trista Martinson uh with Ramsey Washington Recycling and Energy and we discussed um the proposed changes that they're bringing about um to Minnesota statute 115A.62 62 that would support having discussions around two or more counties joining together to form waste districts. November 24th I had a meeting with Jen Schultz. November 24th um was the Scott County Watershed Planning Comm Planning Commission who was just here. Commissioner reviewed the 2025 SWMO 2026 budget and levy. Well, that didn't make sense. They also met with uh in workshop with the SWACD to discuss the technical um assistance assistance and cost sharing program. Excuse [clears throat] me. November 25th, the mental health um LAC had a presentation on children's mental health support in in schools. Susan Wangan from Sweeney Elementary School um in Chaki presented November 26. I had a meeting with Leslie Vermillion. Um December 1st I had a meeting with Brad Davis. Um December 1st um Leslie Brad and I met with Will Lidle who is the lower Minnesota River wershed district administrator. >> Um he provided um um the current status of the watershed um and provided a very long-term vision for the Minnesota Minnesota River. um very very long vision for the Minnesota River. Um December 1st um was the intergovernmental working group. The SM SMSC presented on their healing center that is under construction in Shakpi as well as establishing a sec second holding area for bison. um so they can do work um in their larger area like prescribed burns and so they can move the animals off the site. Um prior lake and Shakipi talked about projects that were happening in their areas. December 1st um was the city of Shakpi city council meeting. Um the council held their 2025 budget meeting. Um they also had a resident um who showed up um to discuss the Marshall Road County Road 17 project um and they had hoped that um our county engineer was available to talk to them, but he was not. So, um I think that I would recommend that we maybe have a workshop on transportation and highway um and maybe discuss um things like communications and projects and and that type of thing. So, I would like to talk to Leslie. Oh, oh my gosh, Lizzie. When she about that. So, I think that would be very good um to get a clear understanding of of that. Um December 3rd was the ribbon cutting for GN resounded North America headquarters located in Deeds Lake and um Barb discussed that already. December 3rd um the Three Rivers Park District and Scott County staff provided a recap of the 2025 um work that was done on the at the parks advisory board. Um and it was Mark Ewart's last board meeting. Um he served on the board for 12 years. So he did a lot of great work um for the parks. Um that's it. >> All right. [clears throat] Thank you very much, >> Commissioner Alrich. >> On the 19th, I attended the U TAB policymaker working group. I've reported on that many times, the dynamics there. later that same day, the TAB, the 28th, our planning uh workshop, the 21st scale executive committee, uh 24th STA uh priorities, legislative priorities. I think one of the main things are going to be on the defensive uh you know, some want to eliminate the opt outs. So, that be that'll be one thing. And then making sure they get their fair funding. Um they did get a major um federal grant for hybrid buses and so forth. There was like I think it was $10 million. >> So 25th chair did I don't know if I said chair vice chair uh the second uh meeting with Michael Bergstrom just to kind of get to know him better and about some ideas of uh related to fish. Uh when I scheduled the meeting there was no new news about fish that I would you know but there was by the time we met. Uh Bethany uh fish director has taken another position. So her last day with fish is the 12th December. Uh fish executive committee met that same day. We're talking about where we want to go from here and we are headed towards a interim director. I'm hoping it's not a, you know, really short interim. I would like to see an interim director be there almost a year. Uh, so that we can work on things to strengthen things, get some things in place before a new director gets in there. Um, just to shore up some of the principles and job descriptions and get some get the second Thursday meeting much more vibrant than it is. Uh, we do have a a candidate. Um the board the executive committee has reviewed the candidate and um the board has not yet. So we will be working on that. We'll have a special meeting. Um the third um Zoom meeting I guess we all had uh AMC uh Zoom meetings. This was on transportation amendments. One of the big ones was they want to see that when Northstar is liquidated that the assets are distributed to people that have paid a lot in and are still on the hook for some money there so that when they sell the trains and all that stuff they want to they want to get a share of that those dollars. Uh meeting with Leslie Vermillion that same day and then the fish board meeting. Uh we had a little Christmas party at uh Bongs on the third. That's the end of my report. >> All right. Thank you very much. Uh November 19th, I had a constituent meeting. I know we all often all do that, but I'm bringing this up because the topic was flock cameras. Um so spent a lot of time, great conversation. Um so I just think that that's something that's going to be coming uh maybe on more and more of our radar screens. this was a a position or or a location I should say that wasn't pointed towards a park or because I've heard that you know monitoring cars reading plates in and out of parks or you know areas that this was just happened on a city limits corner so just catching plates as they come and go. So um just had a very good very um reasonable discussion with those folks. So it was that was good. Um fish board later that day uh also went to the F FRC. Representative Aaji was there for the Minnesota African-American Family Preservation and Child Welfare Disproportionality Act. Uh she's one of the chief authors, co-authors, so just talked about F FRC and what we're doing there. And I please please please fund this program. Uh to which said, hey, just keep what you're doing. You guys pay for it. Find other revenue streams. But you know, it was a good dialogue. Um but you know where I'm at on that. Uh 20th board planning workshop. 24th billboard campaign with the Scott County Prevention Coalition. The theme would be cannabis. Um sure it might be legal but not safe and just having messaging around that concept. Still going through proofs on that. 25th chair vice chair later that night city council and then I had my zoom with AMC the public safety amendment review. Wasn't voting just looking at some amendments with jail and healthcare. And one of my questions with Amelia was um okay, I I get this. Is this going to help clarify things or is this potentially going to muddy some waters? Not that it was a bad ask or a bad bad uh amendment. It's just, you know, how are did these things get interpreted every time we ask for something like we sort of know and what we're wanting, but how is it interpreted? So that was just and then I had to cut that short for the 124 workshop that we had before this. So, that concludes my report. Missed a few days there. I missed the IWG, which I I'm I'm bummed to have missed that on the city council as well, but I'll look down to my left. County administrator. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a couple items here. Um, one is you probably will see um our name mentioned they're talking about fund balances right now with counties on uh I think it was KSTP news is called all seven of us based on a Ramsey County uh presentation I think it was last night um we sit right at about 32% at the end of the year which is about four months and putes puts us at 5% in May which is the low point of our balance. So, we answered all their questions. Danny did a really, really nice job um responding to that email. So, you will see that mentioned. Um from what all the administrators said, they've all been contacted in the metro area. I also, you know, I usually try to recognize a staff person or so. Um we talk sometimes about going above and beyond and I was walking out to a meeting yesterday. Um and we had a a young Tikeke. You can see his hands there. I can't put him in the picture, but he wouldn't cooperate for his passport picture. And here is Laura Kavisnika, one of our employees down there, um, down on her hands and knees, a staff behind with the puppy, getting this young man to cooperate. And I I just think it goes and shows the above and beyond our folks do to try to treat people with respect and kindness and and do the best they can. And so I snapped a picture. She didn't even know I was taking it, but she'll get a spirit of Scott from Leslie. It was just above and beyond. And kudos to Laura. Um, one other recognition before our six o'clock budget. I want to congratulate our >> our new grandma here, Suzanne Arnston, with her twins that she got to meet yesterday. So, that's another pretty big deal here at Scott County and recognizing family and and how important that is. So, congratulations to Suzanne. Well, and I'm gonna interrupt because this looks like it is a sticker. So, we should this should be on the Outlook system for everyone to use for [laughter] >> So, perfect. Perfect. [sighs] >> Sorry. I >> So, no. Anyway, and then finally, of course, at 6 o'clock in about 45 minutes, we have our annual um public budget meeting. So, thank you. >> Thank you. Looking down to my right, county attorney's office. Any >> Mr. Chair, commissioners, nothing to discuss today? >> All right. As was mentioned, six o'clock budget presentation. As always, the workshop before this meeting, this meeting, the uh presentation coming always open to the public. So, we have one non-staffer here. So, thank you for coming. And yes, >> thank you, Mr. Chair. Just want to, you know, remind everybody AMC conference starting Sunday evening going through Wednesday morning. Um we have several staff members with um workshops there. I think um Molly Bruner and Tier Webster have one on our um transformation houses. Jake Gruine and Julie Hansen have one on elections. Obviously, policy committee meetings are really important Monday morning um to to see where that all goes. So, looking forward to seeing everybody there. >> Great. Motion to adjurnn. >> All right, we have a motion. >> Second. >> We have a second. Any further discussion? Otherwise, all in favor say I. >> I. We are a