I don't think we need that as an yeah well I think I left mine in the car anyway we'll find out yeah oh here it is well good evening well welcome uh to the March 18th 2024 meeting of the Oakdale Environmental Management commission I'd like to call this meeting to order and we will begin with our roll call of commissioner members present Vice chair Miller present commissioner dittle is absent tonight commissioner Wilson here commissioner Yang present great also joining us in this space are oakdale's community devel vment liaison staff member Hannah Dunn and our Council liaison mayor zabel and I'd like to move to the next item which is our Pledge of Allegiance so if we'd all please rise together I PL aliance to the flag of the United States of America the for it stands Nation God indivisible liy and justice for all great thank you we would like to move towards the approval of the agenda I think everyone received a copy prior to the meeting so assuming no amendments or further discussion on what we're going to talk about tonight I'd like to ask for approval of tonight's agenda so moved awesome great all in favor of uh approving tonight's agenda for March 18th 2024 of the EMC say I I I opposed great wonderful passed as written next up is our approval of our meeting minutes from uh last month's commission meeting from February 12th if Commissioners would like to take a just a couple of minutes to review the minutes that were sent to you from last month any comments clarifications amendments from commissioners well at the very end it said the next meeting will be May 20th and right now it's not May 20th that's valid that's quite valid great any other changes or amendments suggestions all right hearing none others I'd like to ask for a motion to approve the meeting minutes with that suggested edit from commissioner Wilson so moved Sarah second second great all in favor with those Amendments of approving the February 12th 2024 meeting minutes from the EMC say I I I opposed great miss carries thank you as our process is open to public and Community we'll now move to the open Forum time of our agenda inviting any community members present to share hearing none we will move to we'll close that session and move to elevating any old business of the commission for Commissioners hearing none let's move to new business most exciting part of our agenda and first up we have a presentation from Washington County to discuss our evolving Washington County Organics and food scraps program and from the county we welcome Hannah Keller and analie garlets hi the floor is yours thank you all right well thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight my name is Hannah Keller I'm an environmental specialist with Washington County Department of Public Health and environment um I'm here tonight to discuss the food scraps pickup program um Ramsey and Washington counties are working together to launch a new food scraps recycling program um called the food scrafts um pickup program is currently available in four communities um at Newport Cottage Grove in Washington County and Maplewood in North St Paul and Ramsey County um and starting this April we're excited to expand the program to five additional communities one of which being Oakdale um so I'm here tonight just to talk about our plans for the roll out um what communication with residents will look like um and then field any questions you may have um so just to give you some background of who will have access to the program um the goal is for all residents of Ramsey and Washington counties to have the program um which is 14% of the state's population and obviously there's a diverse mix of communities between densely populated cities um Rural and then Suburban communities um and then then as the East Metro Ramsey and Washington Counties have worked closely together since the 1980s to manage trash responsibly um and today we do that through Ramsey Washington Recycling and energy um so I just wanted to mention that Ramsey Washington Recycling and energy or r& um is the organization that this program is essentially offered through or um and with um collaboration with County staff and R staff is um how this program is is coming forth um so the mission of the program is to collect food scraps because it's such a significant part of our waist stream um approximately 20% of household trash by weight is food scraps um and then by separating this material from our trash we're able to turn it back into compost um which is a valuable product which also reduces greenhouse gas emissions and conserves resources um collecting food scraps also helps us move up the waste management High hierarchy set forth by the mpca so it gets that material out from the landfill options up into Organics recycling so the counties have supported um various ways to recycle food scraps including backyard composting um of course this requires people to have the space and the time to maintain a pile in their backyard um but that is something that the county of course supports um recognizing the barriers to that we also have collection programs um and these collection programs um allow for an expanded um accepted items list to be composted um because these materials are going to a commercial composting site which are much larger and um hot hotter piles of compost so they can accept things like cooked Foods Meats bones Etc that may be a backyard composting pile could not um so we have several drop off sites located throughout the county we have the Environmental Center in Woodbury we have a site in mtoi and then the northern yard way site in Hugo so residents can collect food scraps at home and drive them and bring them to one of those sites um and then the food scraps pickup program will be the newest offering um of the food scraps recycling options that we support um and this will be pick up directly from residents households so the program works using a durable compostable bag system so you may be familiar with um compostable bag that are offered at our current drop off sites or you might find them in a retail Market um and so they're BPI certified compostable um they meet compostable standards um but this program uses special compostable bags um they're much more durable than the ones you might find on the market um which allows this system to work um so the food scraps pickup program operates within the existing trash system um so using our program bags residents can collect they tie off the bag once it's full and then they can put it in their regular trash cart or dumpster um and then the fact that these bags are more durable make it so they can withstand the trip in a trash truck to then be sorted out later which I'll touch on um in a little bit um and so residents receive our bags they have to sign up on our website Foods scraps pickup.com or call our customer service line and they create an account that's tied to their house address um basically we just need you know them to live in one of the eligible communities um and then they're able to place a bag order for um an annual Supply which is currently 60 bags and they can choose between our large bags which are 13 gallon um and then our smaller bags are six gallon bags so after food scrap bags are collected with regular trash that trash is being brought to the Ramsay um Washington Recycling and energy center or r& Center which is located in Newport um which if you haven't had a chance to tour that facility I highly recommend we have a great tour staff there um and they can also even tailor the tour experience to the food scraps pickup program so definitely recommend you can request that on the uh r& website um and so at that facility waste is being processed um fuel is produced from the waste to um which will eventually be used to create electricity um but because waste is going to this facility we're able to we have new um uh which you can see on the screen new sorting technology um which are robots that use AI technology and they're scanning all the trash loads that are coming through on that conveyor belt in between them and they're scanning for those food scrap bags once they see them they move their arm and they go to pick them up and then they drop it into the choot that's next to them which is then collected in a dumpster full of the food scrap bags and then from there similar to our collection programs that that food scrap dumpster is being delivered to a commercial composting site um where it eventually will turn into compost in about 6 months um the counties also have plans um in the future to bring this material to an anobi digestion facility um but for now it's bringing to it's being brought to um a commercial composting site um so as I mentioned uh residents will create an account um on our program website or by calling customer service and the bags will ship directly to Residents homes um it's completely free to sign up the bag shipment is free um will be delivered directly to them and then as soon as they um get their bags they can start participating um and the program will be available to all residents regardless of their housing type their hauler so this applies to folks living in apartment buildings where they may have a dumpster for collection rather than a trash cart um so this will make food scrap recycling much more accessible and um yeah just new to a to a larger audience so as I mentioned earlier the program is currently available in four communities in the the communities that are indicated by the light green on the screen um and then starting April it'll expand to all residents of great Cloud Island Township landfall Oakdale St Paul Park and Woodbury so this is an additional 42,000 households um it's currently available to about 40,000 households and so this is um a good expansion um to the number of households that will have the program available to them so Communications with residents will start in early April um it'll start with a direct mailer to all households um it'll be a postcard which is the lower image on the screen that just says um hey residents of Oakdale um the food scraps pickup program is available to you and then direct them to our website or customer service um the county will also be promoting the program on our social media through our newsletters our website um through our various channels um and we've also been partnering closely with City staff like Hannah Dunn um and Sarah conell and the communications um staff um to use the city's channels as well so hopefully you'll see that in your newsletters on your social media and things like that so um we really value that that partnership and promotion so that residents are kind of hearing a consistent message um later in April we'll also launch a geot targeted ad campaign um so residents might see an ad on their social media or on their digital platforms um pushing them to head towards our website to learn more um we're also going to do a heavy focus on community invent Community event presence um so this Saturday I'll actually be at the indoor market um in Oakdale promoting the program and answering any questions that folks may have um and getting them signed up a bit early if they're so interested did so um that's exciting and if there are any opportunities um this coming spring or summer that you can think of that would be a good opportunity definitely um let me know so I just want to end with our resources we have our website food scraps pickup.com it is separate from both of the County's sites um it is fairly robust we have a lot of resources on there including videos we have a long list of FAQs um instructions um and that and our website is available in six languages including English Spanish M kin Oromo and smali which those are the most common commonly used languages in the two counties um and then we also have our customer service line which um does have interpretive Sur services available um for um in even expanded list on top of um those languages um so if there are any questions highly recommend heading to the website if you can't contact me or um and then we also have our live chat and our contact form on our website too as a customer service opportunity so with that that's all that I had to share but I'm happy to uh answer any questions you may have thank you yeah thank you thank you Commissioners we have any questions or comments well I'm happy that the bags are more robust I have been using the ones that uh we use with the that we have and they do deteriorate pretty fast I must say TR yeah so I'm really happy to hear that yeah yeah compostable bags are designed to break down as well so um even though they're more durable they you know will experience some uh they will break down over time so that will also be something new that folks that don't recycle food scraps will just have will have to get used to that that's something that that will occur but yeah and I should have mentioned I didn't bring up the trial kits that are sitting in front of you um but those um you know if a resident isn't interested in signing up or they want to learn more or try it out before they commit to an annual Supply um we have these trial kits available that have both of our bag sizes so they can see which one they prefer um a program brochure and then um instructions for how to get started um and so we'll have those available I gave some to Hannah earlier so um you guys have a stash um and then that's a good resource that we like to give out at events and and talk talk to people with so wait I have a question just a really quick one uh if you're going to events right I don't know which ones but let's say you go to uh Community Based events too where uh you get you know people of color attending will there be translation services available there to help people out and explain mhm so I think that will depend on the community and the event um something you know upcoming we have um we have some um events in landfall this summer where there's a high Spanish speaking population so we'll have an interpreter there with us for that event so I think it'll depend on the recommendation of who's hosting the event and what community is going to be there but certainly we'd be interested in attending yeah thank you what uh what may have been some learnings like as you brought on other cities in this program um that maybe Oakdale or this commission should be thinking about to help support the roll out yeah I think um well we I should mention that we first received a lot of positive feedback I think residents are very excited about this program um and but um this makes food scrap recycling available to people that maybe wouldn't have participated if it was a drop off so it'll be maybe a learning curve for a lot of folks so like we mentioned about the B bags um people who are used to using plastic trash bags they do function a little bit differently right they're they're not the same they're not plastic so um getting familiar with the bag I would say was one big learning um and then we're also learning a lot about how people choose to collect in their home so some people are only set up for trash or are only set up for trash and recycling so um this program currently doesn't offer a container to collect in um so um we get a lot of questions of what do you recommend for a container um where should I store it um we often recommend like if you have space to put it in your fridge or your freezer to to keep the prevent leakage as much as possible or prevent pests um so yeah we're learning a lot about like the resident experience and what they want to see out of um our offering and our recommendations but um we're still we're still learning a lot so cool great any other questions oh okay yeah good job presenting Stan carasi I'm the county commissioner representing Oakdale um I'm my eighth year as commissioner I just before I start great job presenting want to describe just a few loose ends uh but I wanted to point out in the mid 90s I started out on the park and Planning Commission so watch out what you get involved in then I was on city council from 2000 to 2014 mayor of Oakdale from 14 to 16 and 16 to currently uh commissioner it's great having meor zabble here um hey uh what I wanted to point out is uh County's really committed to this program it's great collaboration with Ramsay County and I think I've heard the figure that 25% of the states garbage within Washington County and Ramsey County that is amazing so the success of this and to keep the cost to the taxpayers keep the cost of the trash haulers and the residents down is participation so we are mandated by 2030 to do 75% of all trash has to be recycled or made into energy so to get there that's why we're going into Organics and I know the presentation doesn't allude to this so we have committed uh many millions of dollars in our Newport facility and robot technology to separate out this organic bag from the other bags that's part of what this bag is very special for um so then all that Organics will be converted into biofuel or perhaps fertilizer that's in the works so we're really breaking through with technology so even though it's a mandate by 2030 that 75% of all trash has to be converted to energy or recycled we think it's the right thing to do but yet it's a mandate so taxpayers are wondering but we've also with landfalls going down in use and recycling going up the the cost is it hasn't been much of a cost burden when you really track the cost to your trash bill so we encourage if you as a Environmental Management commission can promote this or perhaps we're appropriate if the city council can appropriate whether it's in your newsletter we'll put it in our newsletter uh I know you're going to be at the uh Oakdale indoor market maybe Summerfest um we'll promote it at the county but really it success will be based on participation and one last comment I know this bag on where to put it in your home is going to be a nuisance uh but I think where it's best is um kind of on a office size we um fresh can you know that are yay tall yay wide I know we've got one in our home it pulls out from the cupboard something of that size would probably work so hopefully people will find what works whether it's in their garage you know and it's colder in the winter but um it's going to be a learning curve there'll be some frustrated citizens but we're we're getting a lot of excitement by and large from citizens that really want to do this so I could take a few questions but I wanted to touch on a few things that maybe weren't covered in the presentation yeah thank you yeah thank you County Commissioner kosi we're um I want to speak for all of us we're we're grateful for your advocacy from this commission and for the city and for your work and I know that personally as uh Organics household our son looks forward to dumping the scraps into something bigger so he can open the garage door and throw it out um so yeah we're grateful for the evolution of this and curbside is is a huge barrier breaker y we got a great staff working on this uh daily so thank you thank you yeah thank you any other comments or questions for Hannah I have a couple more questions sry I was just thinking about it um you said this program started in April of this year right uh so my first question [Music] is can people start throwing out their scraps right on April 1st yes so it's um it'll be available to residents of Oakdale starting April um as soon as they receive their bag so there's you know that period of time where they Place their order have to receive the shipment um but as soon as they get their bags they can start participating okay uh then the follow-up question of that is related is um is there any way this the residents of Oakdale can preorder their bag ahead of time yeah well since um our website might it'll be a li it'll be live maybe a few days in advance of you know people receiving the postcard so if they catch wind of that slightly before their postcard lands they can certainly sign up um so as soon as you know the website allows them to they can create an account and and sign up but there is no pre-order function at this point right you know I'm just saying get the bags ahead of April is I'm trying to exp so for example with these trial kits um people can start using a trial kit if they have access to the bags okay thank you yeah that's a great question commissioner Ying I think one of the things that we've done is just go online and get the same type of bags that the the Woodberry collection site has and just buy them in bulk so that might be an option or a resource that we could share with others I'm not sure how much you want to direct traffic away from County for accessing bags if they're going through a lot of them right right yeah so actually like these bags are the only bags that can be used for our program because they're slightly thicker like we talked about um we they regular composable bags that you can buy online or you can buy at stores cannot be used for this program it it needs to be bags that are ordered through our website okay yeah good clarification yeah yeah so um the bags um these are the bags and they come in a 60 bag Supply um which is intended to last about a year um so these are 13 gallon bags it's about the the standard kitchen size trash bag um and then we have our six gallon bags sorry was there something else okay and again with as with analie garlets with the food scrap pickup program thank you um I just wanted to add that like Hannah noted these are the only bags that are recognized by the robotic system and the the AI so if you did go to the store and purchase some bags and happen to throw those in the trash they proba we want we want people's efforts and and work in collecting all of their food scraps to be collected and get through the system and make its way to be composted so if you did happen to use something that was left over like like you said you were currently collecting them and they're kind of disintegrating that won't make its way through the system and it won't be recognized by the robotics so um we do recommend you need to sign up receive your supply and only use these bags um if you're putting them in the trash you certainly still can use your supply of bags and take them to the drop off site if that's what you had been doing and you want to make sure that you use up your supply that you have so just wanted to yeah sure you know I think that's a great idea right we we want everyone to use the proper bags my my question uh my next question has to do with accessibility right because we know not everybody is uh technology you know uh technology Savvy enough to get on the website and recycle is there any uh other way they can get the back for example Le you know one of the ideas was well could the could City Hall hold some bags and then people could come pick it up yeah so at this point um we do have a customer service line available um so it's 651 661 9393 um so if folks don't want to go to the website or if they don't have an email um or they don't want their phone number associated with their account they can still um get or get a bag order that way um at this point having an account in and ordering through our system is the only way to get bags Beyond these trial kits um and that's really just to make sure that um people are getting their annual Supply and they don't constantly have to go somewhere to pick some up they're also getting bags that are new they haven't they're not you know old so um but that's not to say that in the future that we wouldn't explore having them um at other locations I'm curious about what happens to the trash that's in the pickup locations as opposed to this program the drop off locations yeah so they're actually all similarly going to the same place so through the food scraps drop off sites you bring your food scraps to a dumpster that dumpster is hauled to a commercial composting facility with our program it's collected with the trash separated from the trash and then brought to so there's a couple more steps in between but they're ultimately both going to a commercial composting site um and with this program it's going to um the midw walkin and Su site in chapi um it's called their Organics recovery facility and where does that compost go can people utilize it yeah so um the midw in Sue Organics recovery facility actually has products for sale for purchase um but that the product is most typically used in like construction bedding or Highway bedding um and things like that any other comments or questions well I know we're we are this o oakal management Emer wow we're not emergency well maybe Environmental Management commission has uh a pretty amazing editorial content calendar so we are very excited to um support the County's um Communications and marketing initiatives we have for the month of April which we'll talk talk about later in our agenda an entire um strategy planned around food scraps um the program pickup so we're excited to support this and roll out and again I can't wait for what my son's going to say so well thank you yeah thank you Hannah thank you [Music] any all right great well next up on our agenda is uh we welcome Monica sigit and we here to provide some status updates on 3m's pasas um settlement I believe the floor is yours Miss diglet well thank you very much appreciate the opportunity to chat with you again I was here a few months ago uh letting you know about this opportunity for some funding that was available so I'm going to have Hannah Drive the slides for me because it was I don't like to try to hook up technology I'm too old Okay so we're talking about that 3M water settlement priority to again just a a quick outline of what I'm going to talk about just a quick refresher on the language of the settlement that we're concerned about today and then uh how we're going to deal with the project proposals the funding allocations and what the whole process is going to look like as far as we know uh so we'll continue on on with that priority settlement language um I didn't include the precise language but there's actually about $20 million out of the 850 million in the original settlement from six years ago six years already um but 20 million was uh designated for this priority to which was specifically because when you looked at the set the first page of that legal settlement it said the settlement was about natural resource damage oh and by the way it affected drinking water so Priority One was the drinking water there's been all kinds of work about that um we finally have some activity going here in the city dealing with that but priority two again was specifically focused on funding for some projects and they were listed in the settlement language however when we finally got our work groups working on this we go to the next slide we kind of revised those goals a little bit um basically we said yeah okay it's going to be the natural resource thing but the first goal you know restore protect enhance aquatic terrestrial resources the second one was about the fish tissue part of it because again we knew the PES were being absorbed by fish that were being caught by people and consumed and we know about fish advisories and then the third goal was about improving and enhancing outdoor recreational opportunities again slight rewarding of the original settlement language okay so moving on to the next slide so we had our work group that was providing a lot of advice uh they actually combined we had two work groups on Priority One it was important to separate what citizens were saying from what like the city managers the government the actual government people were saying because the conversations were very different I went to all those meetings they wanted a lay is on so I I offered that in the case of priority to there wasn't going to be that different a conversation so we said right up front just to have one meeting and it worked out really well so we provide a lot of input and again that revision of the goals to to state them in a little bit similar but a little bit different language from the original settlement um was really to get to the point of okay let's try and get this you know what was so unique about this um if you folks have the the uh mailings from the DNR and mpca there's a lot of money to be had in this state um DNR just I think I saw three or four emails already since the beginning of the year we've got funds we've got funds here putting in a proposal this one though is very specific to this lawsuit so there was some restrictions on what geographic areas and again what type of projects could be impacting so we're going to go on to the next slide which talks about funding allocation principles what it came down to remember those three revised goals they're going to line up with those three goals I'm not sure exactly what their plan is right now they aren't telling us a whole lot and part of it is because they have to have this Dome of secrecy on proposals that go into the state and they can't divulge anything until you know things are approved and the monies are actually assigned out but um they wanted to make sure that they would get some funding in each one of those three goal areas they were trying to spread it out we had a lot of discussion about oh by the way just one city shouldn't get all the money so they they're very mindful of that um you know you didn't want all of it going to the Newport wanted to have new boat docks down on the river and you know which is which is you know a fine thing on that recreational door recreational opportunity scheme but you know we don't want to send all 20 million down to Newport nothing against Newport so anyways you know there there was a lot of discussion about hey let's make sure you know this is spread out amongst you know all of these communities that were impacted so we want to make sure the three goals as restated were addressed um and then there was kind of going to be allocation bins basically how they were going to assess all these proposals that came in so if we go to the next slide kind of continuing on those funding priority principles you know if it arises if they think they're going to like just you know divide it evenly however they're splitting up into the three goals if there's money left over they'll figure out if they can put it into another bin and you know it's going to be up to to the the stewards of the money who are basically the DNR and mpca to really make the call on that so that's that's what they're going to be working through interestingly we had quite a discussion in the work group about funding caps either high or more importantly low and there was one lady who had previous um experience with uh project dispersement of funds and so forth and she said well you know we really like to see really large projects because then the administrative costs you know get spread out and I and I put my hand up and said yeah but if somebody's got a great idea for 500 bucks worth of signage to advise people hey we've got contaminated Waters here don't fish or you know whatever the case may be you know that 500 bucks there's not going to be that big an administrative cost so we had quite a discussion about you know minimums and maximums on these and my point was I don't think you need to turn anything away you need to look at all of it and see what really is going to make sense and and and meet what the essence of this this whole lawsuit was about so when we go to the next part I think Hannah you already knew about this because you looked on the website but it's actually they came up with this two-part application process the left column is kind of the the first part which they're actually asking for a letter of intent and this is going to give them a sense for what kind of projects you know kind of a blue sky at least you know here's our estimate of of the funding that we need for the for the project then they're going to have something to work with and they'll know you know are we going to meet all three goals you know are we going to use up all 20 million you know how's that going to work out so that's just the letter of intent they're saying that they want to have this out I'll show that later the timing on it but they're going to have this part of it only open for about 30 days and it was pointed out to them well okay say this environmental commission has a great idea they want to turn around and tell the mayor and the councel you know so they kind of get that buyin all the way around and so just that whole thing I mean they wanted to have it open for 10 days we said that's crazy you know so again if you've got ideas coming and so forth it'd probably be good to get those hustled over to the to the council in advance of actually the letter of intent part of it but again this whole thing was feasibility you can see the the criteria here public health and safety consistency unlikely to be completed without priority to funding item six here located outside high-risk contamination areas I'm going to talk about that a little bit more but located within the geographic project area which again that lawsuit basically said past contamination affected areas from the Oakdale was site Washington County and The Cottage Grove manufacturing site so it was kind of you know Oakdale on down to the rivers was kind of that the affected community so again in my previous presentation I know I showed you the big long list that uh of of of organizations and communities they felt were really going to be impacted second part of the process is the actual proposal for projects and that's where you know the rubber kind of hits the road with more detail you know a little tighter on what the what the budget needs are that's going to be open for two months so again uh that's that's going to be spring to summer so that's why I'm here now because a lot of times things slow down in the summer there's other competing needs going on so again if we do have projects that come to mind you know as soon as we can get those put into good shape the better okay so next slide I want to talk about this high-risk screening area we had a lot of debate a lot of debate just because you're in the geographic area was P the cause for you know some recreational facility not being put into use uh some exposure to people why they couldn't use certain areas and so forth so it was interesting because again the whole point of that lawsuit was past natural resource damage so I mean that had to come in there somehow and we we went around and cir we circled around that five or six times s to figure out what they came up with finally though was there are certain areas that we know are high risk as far as past contamination and they're listed here on this slide obviously the disposal sites H there's a big fence around the one in Oakdale I live just south of there know that fence real well um but from that site see this thing it's called Raleigh Creek I know the Raleigh family they they were the farmsteaders in that area but there's a creek that comes through and if you ever go on the website for the 3M settlement they've got a lot of maps and they'll show a map and the creek starts kind of to the west and a bit north of the Oakdale site comes across the site goes down past Menard's and quick trip under the freeway I think it's along the railroad track and then it goes down to tablin park in Lake Elmo and then it joins up with the watery came down from the Washington County landfill okay so this is the Raleigh Creek Downstream from the Oakdale site they're saying no we had a lot of talk about no we aren't going to try and do remediation remediation T costs bucket loads of money so we aren't going to try and do remediation but we're going to try and step away from those places that we know we had that contamination this was surface water coming off of the Oakdale site basically from the Washington County site and then the third area was the Mississippi River at Cottage Grove production facility because again they had their issues from the production area getting to the river so that was the big deal no projects in those specific areas okay so next slide we're getting close to the end um again the estimated timeline now for all of this stuff stuff you can see late spring 2024 letter of intent well let's see spring starts is it this weeky close with snow on Thursday yeah um they they didn't you know it's one of those things we always do our best job trying to guesstimate the timing on stuff um they are going to have a Q&A opportunity I'm not sure if that's going to be an online situation or if they're going to try and do a a you know letters into the priority to mailbox or if they're actually going to have like a zoom meeting people can join I they were still kind of working through some of those things you see late summer 2024 right below that that's when the full request for proposal opens up and there will be a workshop we said that you know there's a lot of folks that have good ideas in the community they want to do something and it's like many of them have no idea how they have to process these types of proposals to put in for funding from the government so they they they knew that they wanted to have a workshop at least at that point so people had a better idea how to deal with things okay so then again remember the the letter intent thing was open for 30 days the timeline for the the project proposal submitted was 60 days so they're saying fall of 2024 full Grant application due and again without specific dates but that was kind of their their framework for it in the winter you know they have they have to take some amount of time to go through all the applications and and sort out what's going to get funding in the winter people would be notified and then a year from now would be when the projects could actually start up because the funding would be available okay so that's pretty much what we know right now a little bit more information than I had last time because they inserted that letter intent which I think is a really good idea you know get let's get our thoughts together let's try and you know what is it we're trying to to Target in on for this uh Project funding um give it some some body some uh description to to see how we're doing with it so that's what's that's what uh I can offer you tonight but my last real slide I went out last Wednesday morning before I had to send my presentation to Hannah he said cuz it's right on the corner from my house I took a couple pictures they're working on the public work site yay thank goodness I mean that was a good use of the postcard by the way I was really glad to hear them say using the postcard approach to tell people about the food scrap I think there's been some publicity already about it but we got the funding for the new Public Works building because that postcard was sent out people went and voted for it so that that is an effective way to get to people again you know we encourage people to go online look at the websites and everything else but fact of the matter is when it shows up on their website H what's that you know and they get it they get it uh hopefully people do watch these TV broadcasts so they know that this stuff is going on too but um you know this stuff for the back on the drinking water part of this settlement is underway so that's just great news so any questions that's my last slide is questions comment a question thank thank you first off for sharing the status updates and you had talked a little bit about the minimums and maximums and basically busting the framework and say let's not think about that um much in the same context can you here's the question can you share a little bit more about um uh looks like on the two-part application process the evaluation criteria do we know what we mean by environmental justice and what does that feel like in the context of this I should be asking you that question you're the en you know it's back to that the people from Woodbury are always using the word equity and it's back to hey you know we all need to be able to use the food scrap system and I think they're trying their darnest to figure that out I mean it's back again to are we putting people you know in the middle of Raleigh Creek or something you know trying to build buildings there and here we've got you know this bad situation that that could be a serious health hazard to some people um environmental justice to me comes down to not necessarily just hugging trees but really paying attention to to all the chemistries that we live with every day plastic is not evil we're going to collect our food scraps in a plastic bag it's probably going to be in a plastic you know waste basket you know all the all these kinds of things start adding up so the environmental justice thing is you know let's not purpose uh put people at some kind of a disadvantage you know next to something that that could really impact number one their health you know and and their safety thank you so that that's to me the big deal okay any other questions yeah I have questions but I going to account by actually that was what I went to school for so you're going to get a bunch of I'm not going to say math questions but a lot of funding questions uh this is going to go what sounds like the co-administrator is mpch and then DN uh and then DNR right right so that means it's going to go through the state procurement system for these RFP for the RFP you know I don't know the answer to that I don't know the answer I know the DNR administers a goodly number of funding project proposals I I don't know the answer to that question right in question I was asking because they're going to decide you know who gets the money right but I'm not sure exactly the whole mechanism that they go through for it right and right my question was thinking was well was it going to go through the state system or was it going to be like each city was going to get their portion and they would do the RFB it's okay if you can't we okay right at the beginning of this whole water settlement work group meetings way back on the priority One drinking water thing there were a number of cities that will remain unnamed not ours that said well why don't we just divvy it out based on population NOC you know it was because everybody had a different situation you know Oakdale again the foresight of our previous administrations most of us are on City Water MH and so we're we're able to put a large carbon treatment plan in and deal with a lot of water that way we were the only ones they were all looking at Brian BM for advice about how the heck do you manage a carbon water treatment system you know he was he was just the Crown Jewel for us to have available for that stuff but you couldn't divvy it out just based on population you couldn't divvy it out based on water usage I mean look at the growth in in Le ELO right now and even we've got a lot of growth right now there's there's a lot more residential coming into Oakdale so it was never going to be a you know take the population divide it out that way and even on the priority too we Nix that right off the bat that wasn't that wasn't going to be viable let's get real projects that meet the intent of that water settlement wording natural resource damage that we can hopefully do something about okay anything else maybe this is another question you can't answer but was is there any discussions about uh part of this funding going going towards targeted businesses or uh keeping the some of the businesses that get the contracts local to the area to the I'm not I'm not sure what I completely understand well targeted businesses are is is defined as or at least for state funded programs or part of like uh vet owned businesses or um you know women-owned businesses right just having not all of the funding at least some of the funding dedicated towards making sure that the funds are goes Equitable right and then on top of that uh the additional question this isn't uh a requirement is I was wondering was any of this funding um was it being discussed about possibly keeping some of these fund uh some of this funded toward local businesses we never talked about businesses per se we were talking mostly in terms of general pro General Public public access to Parks Public Access you know to you know people with disabilities you know all you know all that that so that type of equity so that again uh it was more public because we actually had a little discussion about hey could a homeowner put in for a Project funding and we didn't think so we you know we were we were trying to come up with and we even slept on in a couple meetings you know we we we weren't imagining anything like that the business impact as far as I can tell so far on this has been the water sources for their business you know like Lake Elmo's run into issues about getting more Wells due to the White Bear Lake situation you know so they've had trouble they had a huge thing to do about a school they've had businesses they've had you know a lot more demands for water supply and right now you know they're trying to catch up to Oakdale as far as having City Water Systems yeah just to clarify so it's it's it wasn't yeah we didn't we didn't really foresee where it was going to be again in the spirit of the settlement where the the you know the drinking water part was the biggest thing that was affecting business probably this natural resource part of it that this 20 million we we didn't really have really much discussion about businesses per se other than who was the contractor you were going to hire if you needed to have some work done right that that that could be you know something that could get worked in um yes I'm sorry to clarify that actually what I was talking about was for the procurement process of these contracts was there any discussions about the type of uh contractor that would be picked not that they were affected Oakdale right okay okay sorry I should have clar okay that's good clarification okay I think they were going to probably have the wording somewhere in there if you were going to if you could foresee that a contractor was be doing work they would have to meet the guidance of whatever the the the state of Minnesota has for hiring of contractors I think I think I remember hearing that in one of the meetings Okay so that would sort out some of the thing about minority contractors you know women businesses all that sort of thing again we were trying to imagine what types of projects and you could you you can hear the gears grinding in a lot of people's heads for you know what the possibilities could be on this right and that's what I'm thinking too when I'm uh facing that question because the more I would say the more um input you have right from a from a diverse Community the the the more ideas that are out there oh yeah yeah well that was part of why the original settlement we me wording had this business about having work groups and specifically you know the DNR and mpca said and by the way there's going to be a citizen resident type function in here which is what I representative for Oakdale to get that input I would stand in the aisle at Cub getting my distilled water and have discussions with people you know what were their inputs and what were their concerns and there were a bunch of people that said well I'm buying this water cuz I think the water here is poison and it's like I don't think so I think I'd be dead I've been living here for 50 years 50 years this summer I've been living in Oakdale so I think I'd be dead it's not it's not acute poison it's more one of these systemic things and again those categories of health effects are are uh I had to study that before I retired heith knows what I mean and uh you know it's it's a Broadway you know it's you know life is just a miracle that we walk talk and chew gum and I gave up gum uh you know with the variety of foods we eat the air we breathe all the rest of it okay any other questions I think I took more than my lot of time Keith you're grinning big time I I do have a question or a comment uh for you um first off thanks for the update Monica I appreciate the your all your work you've done on this um and as I look at the focus um on screening criteria here I'm trying to think about as you mentioned what type of project might this cover with this criteria and the restrictions around this as well and um one thing that came to mind as a potential example would be Tanner Lake where I agree there's a potential public health and safety threat there as well as to Wildlife right in that area right and I'm wondering um I don't think there's ever been testing of fish in P lake or has there you know what I asked that question I really did because I said hey you know what what is the map of fish advisories for this whole area cuz you know there used to be a lot of publicity about the Mississippi River and so on and I asked specifically because Tanner lake is kind of our Lake in Oakdale yeah you know and there are people that fish there I mean there's a little dock over there on the landfall side and there's people fishing there you know back in the day I think my sons fished in there um yeah I asked about it and they didn't they didn't designate that as an advisory and I was really surprised I was really cuz that's kind of like right on that flow path yeah down yeah yeah well um and supposedly they you know Department of Health you know they got sidetracked a lot with Co I mean that kind of chewed up their resources for two years I mean they still had people that were doing the drinking water stuff but when we started asking about the fishing advisories and all that stuff um you know I didn't I you know Lake Elmo has it I think Eagle Point Lake has it but I I said how can Tanner Lake not have it and I never got a good answer but that that would be something that would be could be a followup because there that one goal was all about the fishing thing yeah the second goal had you know increase understanding of fish tissue contamination yeah and so on so that that might be something that that could be a viable option again I would suggest that couple calls into the DNR Andor the health department you know for any clarification on that yeah but I I couldn't get it out of them and and what they showed on the maps didn't show Tanner's Lake okay great because I know there' been I mean you guys have done a lot of work on Tanner Lake cleaning up a lot of that Shoreline over the years there was a lot of really good work done there yeah and you know the north of Tanner Lake there's those wetlands areas in there too where there's a lot of wildlife um there is I've been back there picking up scrap yeah and yeah so I I think that uh yeah we should investigate that regarding if there is any data with DNR on uh fish and if they've tested there or not and if not that would be a project in itself to get the data it would be very good okay anything else I might take a stab at one quick question does the project have to be on public land it seemed like that was kind of the consensus that it needed to be on public land like I said because uh somebody said well could a homeowner put in for some kind of funding I was thinking like a business like there's a used to be a wetland over by Pins bowling alley and I'm pretty sure they probably own that property but if you decided to have like a little nature walk around it or some something like that well you know what that's right next to the Raleigh Creek area that Raleigh Creek comes in behind there okay well any other yeah project that you thought might be educational or benefit a certain group of people it should be on public land it would be more likely to be feasible on a public land mhm so I'll have to look at all those PL and see what's public okay that's pretty much it I appreciate your time thank you again thank you yeah thank you very much and Hannah if I hear anything I'm gonna direct it at you okay sounds good okay thanks a lot thank you thank you great all right we're moving into the last section of our meeting agenda tonight we'll begin with updates from Hannah yes our staff Lea on I think the first item is our monthly and look ahead at our editorial calendar yes so I'll briefly review the Ed editorial calendar for the next three months so um looking ahead the theme for April is food scraps pickup program um our communication staff has done a really wonderful job planning the launch and working with County communications staff so um there's going to be lots of promotion and marketing um on various social media um so hopefully that gets a lot of residents to sign up and then looking at May the theme is biking and walking um I haven't worked with Communications yet on specific content but the posts will align with this theme and then June is renewable energy um so I think pushing the IRA rebates and resources that um the clean energy resource teams um or searchs you know they have a lot of res resources on their website that will help residents understand um the different tax credits and rebates for electric vehicles for energy efficient heat pump solar so um I think that might be a good um thing to dial in on um do Commissioners have any other suggestions that aren't on the editorial calendar for potential content anything that you've come across just a quick question on April because of the excitement surrounding our food scraps how much social media real estate do we have or do you and the city have to work with because I imagine a bulk of messaging and copy will be surrounding food scraps roll out um think so the the day that it launches we've got um content plan for Facebook Twitter um I think it'll be promoted in the mayor's Monday Morning Minute um then I think Communications has a mid April push again for the program and then another push of content at the end of April so there's kind of three different pushes throughout the month for this content and then I believe it will also be published little article will be published in the Oakdale update but that won't be uh I think that hits mailboxes sometime in May um but that's also planned and then there's more content planned for the rest of Summer and into of the fall but just for April we've got three beginning middle end okay so would would there be room outside of the food scraps scraps scrap series to do the adopt a wetland or adop a drain or something surrounding the Earth Day theme yes I think uh we were hoping to promote this around Earth Day um I know April's a really busy month for communications with some with the arbor Arbor Day tree giveaway some other other things so I can talk to Communications about you know if if they're low on content for a day we could go outside the food scraps pickup program to to promote some other mother things regarding May and uh the biking um another resource uh would be bik Minnesota they have have a lot of information about uh bicycle safety education have that as a resource I think for that month yep I will I will add that anything else well I do have um around for June renewable energy but I I'm gonna talk about some of those in my update so sounds good okay then moving on to a few Community Development updates um first the city is bringing back its fall cleanup event so uh the last one hosted by the city was in 2010 um so this year's event will be held on September Saturday September 21st um City staff was at last week's Council work sh meeting um to get more Direction on what the event will look like um so it's very exciting that we'll again be able to offer this to Residents next an update about the development bus tour uh the date of April sorry Tuesday May 7th has been set um so you should be getting an invit invitation shortly hopefully within the next week or two um but May 7th is is locked in um so you can get this on your calendar and then lastly just a quick update about the environmental Affair um at council's Workshop meeting last week council members had a discussion about the dinner that they had with EMC on February 12th and also discussed the work plan um so right now the consensus is that um push to push back the environmental affir to 20125 just because the calendar the events calendar is quite full um and we just want a little bit more time to kind of flesh out the idea and and think um um strategically about how to draw a draw an audience so um we're going to punt this to 2025 just to have a little bit more time to plan just because there's a lot of events especially with that fall cleanup event um being scheduled in the fall so those are all the updates I have are there any questions thank you Hannah um next we always like to have time for um commissioner updates Commissioners anything you'd like to Elevate yes I guess I have a few um first is that I uh on a webinar uh put on by Minnesota po control Agency on uh Gold Leaf Challenge and it was put on related to their green step program and the gold leaf challenge is um kind of a follow-up program there um and the gold leaf challenge is around taking action on uh on climate so it's there's a focus on climate action and similar to Green step where I think there were 49 um actions that you could take for becoming a green step City uh they have 44 high impact climate actions that cities can take and uh you can see their website um uh for the gold leaf challenge for more information on that and you know the urging cities to fill out a form to join especially greenstep cities as a kind of a next thing regarding climate action so I think that's something we could consider in the future here joining that um and then uh I also uh attended a spring into solar webinar uh and again this was put on by the mpca um again related somewhat to the um green step cities program at least some of the Personnel were there uh and the one of the presenters was um Sydney tury from uh Great Plains Institute who we've worked with um that organization and particularly about she talked about the soul smart program and so she pointed out resources to help uh cities in that program and you know if we want to advance from bronze to a higher level they have resources there they help us uh talk about what we can do they've got technical assistance available and they've got uh they have a a wonderful Tool uh where they demonstrated it and I I downloaded the tool myself and focused on my house and saw that I'm at like 83% um Sun coverage which is good for solar and I went on the rooftop of City Hall and it's also 83% and the payback is eight years or less um and that's without any um additional uh grants or funding and so it's uh it looked pretty good um and the second part of it was um of that webinar was uh from CZ and Peter Lindstrom talked about uh solar grants available and how Sears can help and uh there's a lot of ways that uh um I've talked to Peter in the past and he's really a great resource and they have other people that can help uh get through this solar Grant uh programs and uh the one thing is that there's a state of Minnesota Master contract that cities can use there's also uh they help with site selection they have model rfps and they also help review proposals uh to select a contractor and one example that he gave was uh the city of moris Minnesota and they currently have four sites with solar in the city uh City Hall and three other sites uh a park and I forget a couple other um public buildings so uh great opportunity I think with uh that sear program and um there was also a a reference to uh solar on public buildings and this is uh information from the Commerce Department uh in Minnesota and there's not only um State funding uh there's you can stack the state funding with federal tax credit cities can so the uh inflation reduction act AR um uh gives clean energy tax credits and we can you know um stack that with the also Minnesota solar tax credits here so um I'll leave this information and there's information online on that as well as uh further information on local climate action grants and I think we talked about those maybe last uh month but um those have an application deadline of April 30th but again um looking at Cs and uh great PLS Institute as resources I think there's resources out there to help us great any other commissioner updates yeah I'd like to mention the landscape Revival event that'll be June 1st at the rockpoint church which is just along Highway 36 in the past Oakdale has hosted a landscape Revival um it's kind of like a fair in other words you get to visit with local conservation and restoration groups plus you get to buy native plants so it's a really win-win situation you learn more about native plants and you can buy them if you wish so I recommend um people check it out um it's again June 1st a Saturday 9 to1 in the afternoon 9 in the morning to 1 in the afternoon and there is a food truck it says so it it could be fun great any other updates from some Commissioners all right well hearing none lastly we'd like to invite um the Environmental Management commission's um city council liaison updates to the floor mayor zabel it is yours good evening Commissioners um I don't have anything uh the city council only had one meeting since the last time you all met so um and our agenda was pretty lackluster we'll say I mean just standard stuff you know moving this uh Improvement project along couple development applications nothing out of the ordinary from what we've seen you know in recent recent months and years so um nothing really new to share but happy to answer any questions nothing all righty well I will hang around after the meeting if any May wants to chat thanks great thank you mayor thank you oh brings us to the end of the agenda for the evening um our next meeting I believe will be on Monday May 20th at 7 p.m in council chambers there's no further discussion I will call for a motion to adjourn the March 18th um meeting of Oakdale Environmental Management commission so moved great is there a second second okay all in favor of adjournment of tonight's March 18th EMC meeting say I opposed all right thank you meeting is adjourned thanks everyone