This transcript features the Oakdale Environmental Management Commission (EMC) meeting from March 18, 2024. The meeting is led by Vice Chair Miller. [0:06] Vice Chair Miller: 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. [0:26] Vice Chair Miller: Well, good evening. Well, welcome to the March 18, 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 Doolittle is absent tonight. Commissioner Wilson? [0:55] Commissioner Wilson: Here. [0:57] Vice Chair Miller: Commissioner Yang? [0:59] Commissioner Yang: Present. [1:01] Vice Chair Miller: Great. Also joining us in this space are Oakdale's Community Development 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. [1:12] Vice Chair Miller: So if we'd all please rise together. [1:15] Group: 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. [1:41] Vice Chair Miller: 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. [2:05] Commissioner Wilson: So moved. [2:07] Vice Chair Miller: Awesome, great. All in favor of approving tonight's agenda for March 18, 2024, of the EMC say aye. [2:15] Commissioners: Aye. [2:17] Vice Chair Miller: Opposed? Great, wonderful, passed as written. Next up is our approval of our meeting minutes from last month's commission meeting from February 12. If commissioners would like to take just a couple of minutes to review the minutes that were sent to you from last month. [2:54] Commissioner Wilson: 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. [3:13] Vice Chair Miller: 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. [3:32] Commissioner Wilson: So moved. [3:34] Commissioner Yang: Second. [3:35] Vice Chair Miller: Great. All in favor with those amendments of approving the February 12, 2024, meeting minutes from the EMC say aye. [3:44] Commissioners: Aye. [3:46] Vice Chair Miller: Opposed? Great, motion 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. [4:07] Vice Chair Miller: Hearing none, we will close that session and move to elevating any old business of the commission for commissioners. [4:22] Vice Chair Miller: 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. [4:55] Hannah Keller: 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. I'm here tonight to discuss the food scraps pickup program. Ramsey and Washington counties are working together to launch a new food scraps recycling program called the food scraps pickup program. It is currently available in four communities: Newport, Cottage Grove in Washington County, and Maplewood and North St. Paul in Ramsey County. [5:26] Hannah Keller: And starting this April, we're excited to expand the program to five additional communities, one of which being Oakdale. So I'm here tonight just to talk about our plans for the roll out, what communication with residents will look like, and then field any questions you may have. [5:45] Hannah Keller: So just to give you some background of who will have access to the program: the goal is for all residents of Ramsey and Washington counties to have the program, which is 14% of the state's population. Obviously there's a diverse mix of communities between densely populated cities, rural, and then suburban communities. And then as the East Metro, Ramsey and Washington Counties have worked closely together since the 1980s to manage trash responsibly. And today we do that through Ramsey/Washington Recycling & Energy. [6:15] Hannah Keller: So I just wanted to mention that Ramsey/Washington Recycling & Energy, or R&E, is the organization that this program is essentially offered through. In collaboration with County staff and R&E staff is how this program is coming forth. [6:35] Hannah Keller: So the mission of the program is to collect food scraps because it's such a significant part of our waste stream. Approximately 20% of household trash by weight is food scraps. And then by separating this material from our trash, we're able to turn it back into compost, which is a valuable product which also reduces greenhouse gas emissions and conserves resources. Collecting food scraps also helps us move up the waste management hierarchy set forth by the MPCA, so it gets that material out from the landfill options up into organics recycling. [7:15] Hannah Keller: The counties have supported various ways to recycle food scraps including backyard composting. Of course, this requires people to have the space and the time to maintain a pile in their backyard, but that is something that the county of course supports. Recognizing the barriers to that, we also have collection programs. And these collection programs allow for an expanded accepted items list to be composted because these materials are going to a commercial composting site which are much larger and hotter piles of compost. So they can accept things like cooked foods, meats, bones, etc., that maybe a backyard composting pile could not. [7:55] Hannah Keller: So we have several drop-off sites located throughout the county. We have the Environmental Center in Woodbury, we have a site in Mahtomedi, and then the northern yard waste site in Hugo. So residents can collect food scraps at home and drive them and bring them to one of those sites. And then the food scraps pickup program will be the newest offering of the food scraps recycling options that we support. And this will be pick up directly from residents' households. [8:28] Hannah Keller: The program works using a durable compostable bag system. So you may be familiar with compostable bags that are offered at our current drop-off sites or you might find them in a retail market. And so they're BPI certified compostable, they meet compostable standards, but this program uses special compostable bags. They're much more durable than the ones you might find on the market, which allows this system to work. [8:55] Hannah Keller: So the food scraps pickup program operates within the existing trash system. 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. 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 in a little bit. [9:20] Hannah Keller: And so residents receive our bags—they have to sign up on our website foodscrapspickup.com or call our customer service line—and they create an account that's tied to their house address. Basically, we just need them to live in one of the eligible communities, and then they're able to place a bag order for an annual supply which is currently 60 bags. And they can choose between our large bags which are 13 gallon, and then our smaller bags are 6 gallon bags. [9:55] Hannah Keller: After food scrap bags are collected with regular trash, that trash is being brought to the Ramsey/Washington Recycling & Energy Center, or R&E Center, which is located in Newport. Which, if you haven't had a chance to tour that facility, I highly recommend; we have a great tour staff there. And they can also even tailor the tour experience to the food scraps pickup program, so definitely recommend you can request that on the R&E website. [10:25] Hannah Keller: And so at that facility waste is being processed. Fuel is produced from the waste which will eventually be used to create electricity. But because waste is going to this facility, we have new sorting technology which you can see on the screen—robots that use AI technology. They're scanning all the trash loads that are coming through on that conveyor belt 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 chute that's next to them, which is then collected in a dumpster full of the food scrap bags. [11:05] Hannah Keller: And then from there, similar to our collection programs, that food scrap dumpster is being delivered to a commercial composting site where it eventually will turn into compost in about 6 months. The counties also have plans in the future to bring this material to an anaerobic digestion facility, but for now it's being brought to a commercial composting site. [11:32] Hannah Keller: So as I mentioned, residents will create an account on our program website or by calling customer service and the bags will ship directly to residents' homes. It's completely free to sign up, the bag shipment is free, will be delivered directly to them, and then as soon as they get their bags they can start participating. And the program will be available to all residents regardless of their housing type or their hauler. So this applies to folks living in apartment buildings where they may have a dumpster for collection rather than a trash cart. So this will make food scrap recycling much more accessible to a larger audience. [12:15] Hannah Keller: As I mentioned earlier, the program is currently available in four communities indicated by the light green on the screen. And then starting April, it'll expand to all residents of Grey Cloud Island Township, Landfall, Oakdale, St. Paul Park, and Woodbury. So this is an additional 42,000 households. It's currently available to about 40,000 households, and so this is a good expansion to the number of households that will have the program available to them. [12:45] Hannah Keller: Communications with residents will start in early April. It'll start with a direct mailer to all households; it'll be a postcard, which is the lower image on the screen, that just says "Hey residents of Oakdale, the food scraps pickup program is available to you" and then directs them to our website or customer service. The county will also be promoting the program on our social media, through our newsletters, our website, through our various channels. And we've also been partnering closely with city staff like Hannah Dunn and Sarah Connell and the communications staff to use the city's channels as well. [13:18] Hannah Keller: So hopefully you'll see that in your newsletters, on your social media and things like that. So we really value that partnership and promotion so that residents are kind of hearing a consistent message. Later in April, we'll also launch a geotargeted ad campaign, so residents might see an ad on their social media or on their digital platforms pushing them to head towards our website to learn more. We're also going to do a heavy focus on community event presence. So this Saturday I'll actually be at the indoor market in Oakdale promoting the program and answering any questions that folks may have and getting them signed up a bit early if they're so interested. [14:10] Hannah Keller: So that's exciting, and if there are any opportunities this coming spring or summer that you can think of that would be a good opportunity, definitely let me know. So I just want to end with our resources: we have our website foodscrapspickup.com. It is separate from both of the County's sites. It is fairly robust; we have a lot of resources on there including videos, we have a long list of FAQs, instructions. And our website is available in six languages including English, Spanish, Hmong, Karen, Oromo, and Somali, which are the most commonly used languages in the two counties. [14:50] Hannah Keller: And then we also have our customer service line which does have interpretive services available for an even expanded list on top of those languages. So if there are any questions, highly recommend heading to the website. If you can't contact me, 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 answer any questions you may have. Thank you. [15:13] Vice Chair Miller: Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Commissioners, we have any questions or comments? [15:19] Commissioner Wilson: Well, I'm happy that the bags are more robust. I have been using the ones that we use and they do deteriorate pretty fast, I must say. [15:30] Hannah Keller: Yeah, compostable bags are designed to break down as well. So even though they're more durable, they will experience some—they will break down over time. So that will also be something new that folks that don't recycle food scraps will just have to get used to that. But yeah—and I should have mentioned, I didn't bring up the trial kits that are sitting in front of you. [15:58] Hannah Keller: But those, 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, we have these trial kits available that have both of our bag sizes so they can see which one they prefer, a program brochure, and then instructions for how to get started. And so we'll have those available. I gave some to Hannah [Dunn] earlier, so you guys have a stash. And then that's a good resource that we like to give out at events and talk to people with. [16:42] Commissioner Yang: Wait, I have a question just a really quick one. If you're going to events, right—I don't know which ones—but let's say you go to community-based events too where you get people of color attending, will there be translation services available there to help people out and explain? [17:05] Hannah Keller: So I think that will depend on the community and the event. Something upcoming, we have some 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. [17:22] Commissioner Yang: Yeah, thank you. [17:25] Vice Chair Miller: What may have been some learnings as you brought on other cities in this program that maybe Oakdale or this commission should be thinking about to help support the roll out? [17:39] Hannah Keller: Yeah, I think—well, we first received a lot of positive feedback, I think residents are very excited about this program. But this makes food scrap recycling available to people that maybe wouldn't have participated if it was a drop-off, so it'll be a learning curve for a lot of folks. Like we mentioned about the bags, people who are used to using plastic trash bags—they do function a little bit differently, right? They're not the same, they're not plastic. So getting familiar with the bag, I would say, was one big learning. [18:22] Hannah Keller: And then we're also learning a lot about how people choose to collect in their home. Some people are only set up for trash or are only set up for trash and recycling. So this program currently doesn't offer a container to collect in. So we get a lot of questions of "what do you recommend for a container? Where should I store it?" We often recommend like if you have space to put it in your fridge or your freezer to prevent leakage as much as possible or prevent pests. So yeah, we're learning a lot about the resident experience and what they want to see out of our offering and our recommendations. But we're still learning a lot. [18:57] Stan Karwaski: Good job presenting. Stan Karwaski, I'm the County Commissioner representing Oakdale. I'm in my eighth year as commissioner. Just before I start—great job presenting—I want to describe just a few loose ends. 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 commissioner. It's great having Mayor Zabel here. [19:42] Stan Karwaski: What I wanted to point out is the County's really committed to this program. It's great collaboration with Ramsey County. And I think I've heard the figure that 25% of the state's garbage is within Washington County and Ramsey County. That is amazing. So the success of this, and to keep the cost to the taxpayers and 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. [20:30] Stan Karwaski: To get there, that's why we're going into organics. And I know the presentation doesn't allude to this, but we have committed 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. 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. [21:10] Stan Karwaski: 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 seen with landfills going down in use and recycling going up, the cost hasn't been much of a cost burden when you really track the cost to your trash bill. [21:45] Stan Karwaski: So we encourage if you, as an Environmental Management Commission, can promote this, or perhaps where appropriate if the city council can appropriate whether it's in your newsletter—we'll put it in our newsletter—I know you're going to be at the Oakdale indoor market, maybe Summerfest. We'll promote it at the county, but really its success will be based on participation. [22:05] Stan Karwaski: And one last comment: I know this bag and where to put it in your home is going to be a nuisance. But I think where it's best is on an office-sized trash 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. Hopefully people will find what works, whether it's in their garage and it's colder in the winter, but it's going to be a learning curve. There'll be some frustrated citizens, but 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. [22:51] Vice Chair Miller: Yeah, thank you. Thank you, County Commissioner Karwaski. We're—I want to speak for all of us—we're grateful for your advocacy from this commission and for the city and for your work. And I know that personally as an organics household, our son looks forward to dumping the scraps into something bigger so he can open the garage door and throw it out. So yeah, we're grateful for the evolution of this and curbside is a huge barrier breaker. [23:25] Stan Karwaski: We got a great staff working on this daily, so thank you. [23:29] Vice Chair Miller: Thank you. Any other comments or questions for Hannah? [23:33] Commissioner Yang: I have a couple more questions, sorry, I was just thinking about it. You said this program starts in April of this year, right? So my first question is: can people start throwing out their scraps right on April 1st? [23:55] Hannah Keller: Yes, so it'll be available to residents of Oakdale starting April. As soon as they receive their bag. So there's that period of time where they place their order and have to receive the shipment, but as soon as they get their bags they can start participating. [24:12] Commissioner Yang: Okay, then the follow-up question to that is: is there any way the residents of Oakdale can pre-order their bag ahead of time? [24:23] Hannah Keller: Yeah, well, since our website will be live maybe a few days in advance of people receiving the postcard, if they catch wind of that slightly before their postcard lands, they can certainly sign up. So as soon as the website allows them to, they can create an account and sign up. But there is no pre-order function at this point. [24:45] Commissioner Yang: Right. I'm just saying, get the bags ahead of April is what I'm trying to say. [24:50] Hannah Keller: So for example, with these trial kits, people can start using a trial kit if they have access to the bags. [24:58] Commissioner Yang: Okay, thank you. [25:00] Vice Chair Miller: That's a great question, Commissioner Yang. I think one of the things that we've done is just go online and get the same type of bags that the Woodbury 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. [25:10] Hannah Keller: Right. Yeah, so actually these bags are the only bags that can be used for our program because they're slightly thicker like we talked about. Regular compostable bags that you can buy online or you can buy at stores cannot be used for this program. It needs to be bags that are ordered through our website. [25:35] Vice Chair Miller: Okay, yeah. Good clarification. [25:38] Hannah Keller: Yeah, so these are the bags and they come in a 60 bag supply which is intended to last about a year. These are 13 gallon bags, it's about the standard kitchen size trash bag, and then we have our 6 gallon bags. [26:02] Analie Garlets: Thank you. I just wanted to add that like Hannah noted, these are the only bags that are recognized by the robotic system and the AI. So if you did go to the store and purchase some bags and happen to throw those in the trash, they probably won't—we want people's efforts and work in collecting all of their food scraps to be collected and get through the system and make its way to be composted. [26:35] Analie Garlets: So if you did happen to use something that was left over, 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 we do recommend you need to sign up, receive your supply, and only use these bags 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 share. [27:08] Commissioner Yang: Sure. You know, I think that's a great idea, right? We want everyone to use the proper bags. My next question has to do with accessibility, right? Because we know not everybody is technology savvy enough to get on the website and recycle. Is there any other way they can get the bag? For example, could City Hall hold some bags and then people could come pick it up? [27:40] Hannah Keller: Yeah, so at this point we do have a customer service line available. So it's 651-661-9393. So if folks don't want to go to the website, or if they don't have an email or don't want their phone number associated with their account, they can still get a bag order that way. At this point, having an account and ordering through our system is the only way to get bags beyond these trial kits. And that's really just to make sure that 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. But that's not to say that in the future that we wouldn't explore having them at other locations. [28:22] Commissioner Wilson: I'm curious about what happens to the trash that's in the pickup locations as opposed to this program, the drop-off locations? [28:35] Hannah Keller: Yeah, so they're actually all similarly going to the same place. 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. And with this program, it's going to the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux site in Shakopee. It's called their Organics Recovery Facility. [29:13] Commissioner Wilson: And where does that compost go? Can people utilize it? [29:18] Hannah Keller: Yeah, so the Organics Recovery Facility actually has products for sale for purchase, but that product is most typically used in like construction bedding or highway bedding and things like that. [29:35] Vice Chair Miller: Any other comments or questions? Well, I know we—this Oakdale Environmental Management Commission—has a pretty amazing editorial content calendar, so we are very excited to support the County's communications and marketing initiatives. We have for the month of April an entire strategy planned around food scraps and the program pickup. So we're excited to support this roll out, and again, I can't wait for what my son's going to say. [30:13] Hannah Keller: Well, thank you. [30:15] Vice Chair Miller: Yeah, thank you, Hannah. Great. Well, next up on our agenda, we welcome Monica Stiggell and we are here to provide some status updates on 3M's PFAS settlement. I believe the floor is yours, Ms. Stiggell. [30:35] Monica Stiggell: Well, thank you very much. Appreciate the opportunity to chat with you again. I was here a few months ago letting you know about this opportunity for some funding that was available. So I'm going to have Hannah [Dunn] drive the slides for me because 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 2. Just 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 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. [31:35] Monica Stiggell: So we'll continue on with that Priority 2 settlement language. 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! But 20 million was designated for this Priority 2, which was specifically because when you looked at 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. [31:53] Monica Stiggell: Priority 1 was the drinking water; there's been all kinds of work about that. We finally have some activity going here in the city dealing with that. But Priority 2 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. Basically, we said yeah okay, it's going to be the natural resource thing, but the first goal was restore, protect, enhance aquatic/terrestrial resources. [32:39] Monica Stiggell: The second one was about the fish tissue part of it, because again we knew the PFAS 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 rewording of the original settlement language. [33:10] Monica Stiggell: So we had our work group that was providing a lot of advice. They actually combined—we had two work groups on Priority 1; it was important to separate what citizens were saying from what like the city managers and actual government people were saying because the conversations were very different. I went to all those meetings. In the case of Priority 2, 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. [33:55] Monica Stiggell: So we provided a lot of input. And again, that revision of the goals to state them in a little bit similar but a little bit different language from the original settlement was really to get to the point of "okay, let's try and get this." What was so unique about this: there's a lot of money to be had in this state—the DNR just put out three or four emails already since the beginning of the year: "we've got funds here, putting in a proposal." This one, though, is very specific to this lawsuit. So there were some restrictions on what geographic areas and again what type of projects could be impacting. [34:55] Monica Stiggell: 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 things are approved and the monies are actually assigned out. [35:35] Monica Stiggell: But 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." They are very mindful of that. You didn't want all of it going to Newport—if Newport wanted to have new boat docks down on the river, which is a fine thing on that outdoor recreational opportunity scheme, but you know we don't want to send all 20 million down to Newport, nothing against Newport. [36:10] Monica Stiggell: So anyways, there was a lot of discussion about "hey, let's make sure this is spread out amongst all of these communities that were impacted." So we want to make sure the three goals as restated were addressed, and then there was kind of going to be allocation bins: basically how they were going to assess all these proposals that came in. [36:35] Monica Stiggell: So if we go to the next slide, continuing on those funding priority principles: if it arises, they'll figure out if they can put it into another bin. It's going to be up to the stewards of the money, who are basically the DNR and MPCA, to really make the call on that. 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. There was one lady who had previous experience with project disbursement of funds, and she said, "Well, we'd really like to see really large projects because then the administrative costs get spread out." [37:35] Monica Stiggell: 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,'" that 500 bucks—there's not going to be that big an administrative cost. So we had quite a discussion about 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 meet what the essence of this whole lawsuit was about. [38:15] Monica Stiggell: When we go to the next part, they came up with this two-part application process. The left column is the first part, which they're actually asking for a Letter of Intent. This is going to give them a sense for what kind of projects—kind of a "Blue Sky"—at least "here's our estimate of the funding that we need for the project." Then they're going to have something to work with and they'll know if we're going to meet all three goals and how that's going to work out. [38:55] Monica Stiggell: That's just the Letter of Intent. They're saying that they want to have this out—I'll show the timing on it later—but they're going to have this part of it only open for about 30 days. It was pointed out to them, well, say this environmental commission has a great idea; they want to turn around and tell the mayor and the council so they get that buy-in. They wanted to have it open for 10 days; we said that's crazy. So if you've got ideas coming, it'd probably be good to get those hustled over to the council in advance of the Letter of Intent. [39:35] Monica Stiggell: Again, this whole thing was feasibility. You can see the criteria here: public health and safety, consistency, unlikely to be completed without Priority 2 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 PFAS contamination affected areas from the Oakdale disposal site, Washington County landfill, and the Cottage Grove manufacturing site. So it was kind of Oakdale on down to the rivers. [40:35] Monica Stiggell: Second part of the process is the actual proposal for projects, and that's where the rubber kind of hits the road with more detail and tighter budget needs. That's going to be open for two months—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. So again, if we do have projects that come to mind, the sooner we can get those put into good shape the better. [41:10] Monica Stiggell: Okay, so next slide: I want to talk about this high-risk screening area. We had a lot of debate. Just because you're in the geographic area, was PFAS the cause for some recreational facility not being put into use or some exposure to people? 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. [41:50] Monica Stiggell: We circled around that five or six times to figure out what they came up with. Finally, though, there are certain areas that we know are high risk as far as past contamination, and they're listed here. Obviously the disposal sites—there's a big fence around the one in Oakdale, I live just south of there and know that fence real well. But from that site—this thing called Raleigh Creek. I know the Raleigh family; they were the farmsteaders in that area. But there's a creek that comes through. 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 Menards and Kwik Trip under the freeway, and then it goes down to Tanners Lake in Lake Elmo and joins up with the water coming down from the Washington County landfill. [42:50] Monica Stiggell: 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 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 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. Those were the big deal: no projects in those specific areas. [43:40] Monica Stiggell: Okay, so next slide: estimated timeline now. You can see late spring 2024 Letter of Intent. Well, spring starts this week. They didn't—it's one of those things we always do our best job trying to guesstimate the timing on stuff. 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 mailbox or a Zoom meeting. They were still working through some of those things. [44:25] Monica Stiggell: You see late summer 2024: that's when the full Request for Proposal opens up. And there will be a workshop. We said that there's a lot of folks that have good ideas in the community, they want to do something, and 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 wanted to have a workshop at least at that point so people had a better idea how to deal with things. [44:55] Monica Stiggell: So then again: the Letter of Intent thing was open for 30 days, the timeline for the project proposal submitted was 60 days. So they're saying fall of 2024, full grant application due. In the winter, they have to take some amount of time to go through all the applications. 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. [45:30] Monica Stiggell: 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 of Intent, which I think is a really good idea. Get our thoughts together—what is it we're trying to target in on for this project funding? Give it some description to see how we're doing with it. [45:55] Monica Stiggell: So that's what 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 because it's right on the corner from my house—I took a couple pictures. They're working on the public works 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. We got the funding for the new Public Works building because that postcard was sent out, people went and voted for it. That is an effective way to get to people. 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—what's that? [46:45] Monica Stiggell: Hopefully people do watch these TV broadcasts so they know that this stuff is going on too. But this stuff for the drinking water part of this settlement is underway, so that's just great news. Any questions? That's my last slide. [47:05] Vice Chair Miller: Thank you first off for sharing the status updates. You had talked a little bit about the minimums and maximums and basically busting the framework. Much in the same context, can you share a little bit more about the evaluation criteria? Do we know what we mean by "environmental justice" and what does that feel like in the context of this? [47:35] Monica Stiggell: I should be asking you that question! You're the Environmental Commission. It's back to—the people from Woodbury are always using the word "equity," and I think they're trying their darnedest to figure that out. I mean, it's back again to: are we putting people in the middle of Raleigh Creek or something trying to build buildings there, and here we've got this bad situation that could be a serious health hazard to some people? Environmental justice to me comes down to not necessarily just hugging trees, but really paying attention 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. So the environmental justice thing is: let's not purpose-put people at some kind of a disadvantage next to something that could really impact their health and their safety. So that's to me the big deal. [48:50] Commissioner Yang: Any other questions? Yeah, I have questions, but I was an accountant by trade, actually that was what I went to school for, so you're going to get a bunch of funding questions. This is going to go—what sounds like—the co-administrator is MPCA and then DNR, right? So that means it's going to go through the state procurement system for the RFP? [49:25] Monica Stiggell: You know, I don't know the answer to that. I know the DNR administers a goodly number of funding project proposals, but I don't know the answer to that question. [49:40] Commissioner Yang: Right. The question I was asking was because they're going to decide who gets the money, but I'm not sure exactly the whole mechanism that they go through for it. My question was thinking was: 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 RFP? [50:00] Monica Stiggell: Okay. Right at the beginning of this whole water settlement work group meeting way back on the Priority 1 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?" No. It was because everybody had a different situation. Oakdale, again—the foresight of our previous administrations—most of us are on city water. And so we're able to put a large carbon treatment plant in and deal with a lot of water that way. They were all looking at Brian Bernhoft for advice about how the heck do you manage a carbon water treatment system—he was just the crown jewel for us to have available. [50:50] Monica Stiggell: 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 Lake Elmo right now, and even we've got a lot of growth right now. So it was never going to be a "take the population, divide it out" that way. And even on Priority 2, we nixed that right off the bat. 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. [51:15] Commissioner Yang: Okay. Anything else? Maybe this is another question you can't answer, but was there any discussions about part of this funding going towards targeted businesses, or keeping some of the businesses that get the contracts local to the area? Targeted businesses as defined as—or at least for state-funded programs—vet-owned businesses or women-owned businesses, right? Just making sure that at least some of the funding is dedicated towards making sure the funds are equitable. And then the additional question: was any of this funding being discussed about possibly keeping some of this funded toward local businesses? [52:05] Monica Stiggell: We never talked about businesses per se. We were talking mostly in terms of general public access to parks, public access to people with disabilities—all that type of equity. So again, it was more public because we actually had a little discussion about "Hey, could a homeowner put in for project funding?" and we didn't think so. We weren't imagining anything like that. [52:45] Monica Stiggell: The business impact, as far as I can tell so far, has been the water sources for their business. Like Lake Elmo's run into issues about getting more wells due to the White Bear Lake situation. So they've had businesses and a lot more demands for water supply, and right now they're trying to catch up to Oakdale as far as having city water systems. [53:45] Commissioner Yang: Yeah, just to clarify. [53:50] Monica Stiggell: So it wasn't—yeah, we didn't really foresee where it was going to be. Again, in the spirit of the settlement, where the drinking water part was the biggest thing that was affecting business. Probably this natural resource part of it, this 20 million, we didn't really have 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? That could be something that could get worked in. [54:20] Commissioner Yang: 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 contractor that would be picked? [55:00] Monica Stiggell: Okay, that's good clarification. I think they were going to probably have the wording somewhere in there that if you could foresee that a contractor would be doing work, they would have to meet the guidance of whatever the State of Minnesota has for hiring of contractors. So that would sort out some of the thing about minority contractors, women businesses, all that sort of thing. Again, we were trying to imagine what types of projects, and you can hear the gears grinding in a lot of people's heads for what the possibilities could be on this. [55:35] Commissioner Yang: And that's what I'm thinking too, because the more input you have from a diverse community, the more ideas that are out there. [55:46] Monica Stiggell: Oh yeah. Well, that was part of why the original settlement wording had this business about having work groups. And specifically, 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 represented for Oakdale to get that input. I would stand in the aisle at Cub getting my distilled water and have discussions with people—what were their inputs and what were their concerns? There were a bunch of people that said, "Well, I'm buying this water because 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 acute poison; it's more one of these systemic things. Life is just a miracle that we walk, talk, and chew gum—and I gave up gum! [56:45] Vice Chair Miller: Any other questions? Keith, you're grinning big time. [56:52] Commissioner Wilson: I do have a question or a comment for you. First off, thanks for the update, Monica. I appreciate all your work you've done on this. And as I look at the focus 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 one thing that came to mind as a potential example would be Tanners Lake, where I agree there's a potential public health and safety threat there as well as to wildlife in that area. And I'm wondering—I don't think there's ever been testing of fish in Tanners Lake, or has there? [57:50] Monica Stiggell: You know what, I asked that question. I really did. Because I said, "Hey, what is the map of fish advisories for this whole area?" because there used to be a lot of publicity about the Mississippi River and so on. And I asked specifically because Tanners Lake is kind of "our" lake in Oakdale. 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. Back in the day, I think my sons fished in there. Yeah, I asked about it and they didn't designate that as an advisory. I was really surprised, because that's kind of right on that flow path. [58:45] Monica Stiggell: And supposedly the Department of Health got sidetracked a lot with COVID—that kind of chewed up their resources for two years. When we started asking about the fishing advisories and all that stuff, Lake Elmo has it, I think Eagle Point Lake has it, but I said how can Tanners Lake not have it? I never got a good answer. But that would be something that could be a follow-up because that one goal was all about the fishing thing: "increase understanding of fish tissue contamination." So that might be something that could be a viable option. Again, I would suggest a couple calls into the DNR and/or the Health Department for any clarification on that. But I couldn't get it out of them and what they showed on the maps didn't show Tanners Lake. [59:45] Commissioner Wilson: Okay, great. Because I know you guys have done a lot of work on Tanners Lake cleaning up a lot of that shoreline over the years. North of Tanners Lake there's those wetlands areas in there too where there's a lot of wildlife. I've been back there picking up scrap. And yeah, so I think that we should investigate that regarding if there is any data with DNR on fish, and if they've tested there or not. And if not, that would be a project in itself to get the data. [1:00:23] Monica Stiggell: It would be very good. Okay, anything else? [1:00:32] Vice Chair Miller: I might take a stab at one quick question. Does the project have to be on public land? [1:00:40] Monica Stiggell: It seemed like that was kind of the consensus—that it needed to be on public land. Like I said, because somebody said "Could a homeowner put in for some kind of funding?" I was thinking like a business—like there used to be a wetland over by PINZ bowling alley and I'm pretty sure they probably own that property, but if you decided to have a little nature walk around it or something like that... Well, you know what, that's right next to the Raleigh Creek area. Any other 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 public land. [1:01:25] Vice Chair Miller: Okay, I'll have to look at all those plans and see what's public. [1:01:30] Monica Stiggell: Okay, that's pretty much it. I appreciate your time. Thank you again. [1:01:40] Vice Chair Miller: Thank you. Thank you very much. And Hannah [Dunn], if I hear anything, I'm going to direct it at you. [1:01:45] Hannah Dunn: Sounds good. [1:01:47] Monica Stiggell: Okay, thanks a lot. [1:01:50] Vice Chair Miller: Great. All right, we're moving into the last section of our meeting agenda tonight. We'll begin with updates from Hannah Dunn, our staff liaison. I think the first item is our monthly and look ahead at our editorial calendar. [1:02:10] Hannah Dunn: Yes, so I'll briefly review the editorial calendar for the next three months. Looking ahead, the theme for April is the food scraps pickup program. Our communication staff has done a really wonderful job planning the launch and working with County communications staff. So there's going to be lots of promotion and marketing on various social media, so hopefully that gets a lot of residents to sign up. [1:02:40] Hannah Dunn: And then looking at May, the theme is biking and walking. I haven't worked with communications yet on specific content, but the posts will align with this theme. And then June is renewable energy. I think pushing the IRA [Inflation Reduction Act] rebates and resources that the Clean Energy Resource Teams, or CERTs—they have a lot of resources on their website that will help residents understand the different tax credits and rebates for electric vehicles, for energy efficient heat pumps, solar. So I think that might be a good thing to dial in on. Do commissioners have any other suggestions that aren't on the editorial calendar for potential content? [1:03:15] Vice Chair Miller: Just a quick question on April: because of the excitement surrounding our food scraps, how much social media "real estate" do we have? Because I imagine a bulk of messaging will be surrounding the food scraps roll out. [1:03:35] Hannah Dunn: So the day that it launches, we've got content planned for Facebook, Twitter. I think it'll be promoted in the Mayor's Monday Morning Minute. 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 a little article will be published in the Oakdale Update, but that hits mailboxes sometime in May. And then there's more content planned for the rest of summer and into the fall. But just for April, we've got three: beginning, middle, end. [1:04:20] Vice Chair Miller: Okay. So would there be room outside of the food scraps series to do the Adopt-a-Drain or something surrounding the Earth Day theme? [1:04:35] Hannah Dunn: Yes, I think we were hoping to promote this around Earth Day. I know April's a really busy month for Communications with the Arbor Day tree giveaway and some other things. So I can talk to Communications about if they're low on content for a day, we could go outside the food scraps pickup program to promote some other things. [1:05:14] Commissioner Wilson: Regarding May and the biking: another resource would be Bike Minnesota. They have a lot of information about bicycle safety education. Have that as a resource for that month. [1:05:45] Hannah Dunn: Yep, I will add that. Anything else? [1:05:50] Vice Chair Miller: Well, I do have around for June renewable energy, but I'm going to talk about some of those in my update. [1:06:05] Hannah Dunn: Sounds good. Okay, then moving on to a few Community Development updates. First, the city is bringing back its Fall Cleanup event. The last one hosted by the city was in 2010. So this year's event will be held on Saturday, September 21. City staff was at last week's Council workshop meeting to get more direction on what the event will look like. So it's very exciting that we'll again be able to offer this to residents. [1:06:40] Hannah Dunn: Next, an update about the development bus tour. The date of Tuesday, May 7, has been set. So you should be getting an invitation shortly, hopefully within the next week or two. But May 7 is locked in, so you can get this on your calendar. [1:07:05] Hannah Dunn: And then lastly, just a quick update about the Environmental Fair. At Council's workshop meeting last week, council members had a discussion about the dinner that they had with EMC on February 12 and also discussed the work plan. So right now, the consensus is to push back the Environmental Fair to 2025 just because the events calendar is quite full. We just want a little bit more time to kind of flesh out the idea and think strategically about how to draw an audience. So we're going to punt this to 2025 to have a little bit more time to plan. Those are all the updates I have. Are there any questions? [1:07:44] Vice Chair Miller: Thank you, Hannah. Next, we always like to have time for commissioner updates. Commissioners, anything you'd like to elevate? [1:07:55] Commissioner Wilson: I guess I have a few. First is that I was on a webinar put on by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency on the Gold Leaf Challenge. It was put on related to their GreenStep program. The Gold Leaf Challenge is around taking action on climate. There's a focus on climate action, and similar to GreenStep where I think there were 49 actions that you could take for becoming a GreenStep City, they have 44 high-impact climate actions that cities can take. And you can see their website for more information on that. They are urging cities to join, especially GreenStep cities, as a next thing regarding climate action. So I think that's something we could consider in the future. [1:09:25] Commissioner Wilson: And then I also attended a "Spring into Solar" webinar. Again, this was put on by the MPCA. One of the presenters was Sydney Turetsky from Great Plains Institute who we've worked with. She talked about the SolSmart program. She pointed out resources to help cities in that program. If we want to advance from Bronze to a higher level, they have resources there. They've got technical assistance available. And they have a wonderful tool where they demonstrated it—I downloaded the tool myself and focused on my house and saw that I'm at like 83% sun coverage, which is good for solar. I went on the rooftop of City Hall and it's also 83%. The payback is eight years or less, and that's without any additional grants or funding. So it looked pretty good. [1:11:05] Commissioner Wilson: The second part of that webinar was from CERTs, and Peter Lindstrom talked about solar grants available and how CERTs can help. Peter is really a great resource. There's a State of Minnesota Master Contract that cities can use. They also help with site selection, they have model RFPs, and they also help review proposals to select a contractor. One example that he gave was the City of Morris, Minnesota, and they currently have four sites with solar in the city: City Hall and three other sites. [1:12:35] Commissioner Wilson: So, great opportunity I think with that CERTs program. And there was also a reference to solar on public buildings. This is information from the Commerce Department in Minnesota. There's not only state funding—you can stack the state funding with federal tax credits. The Inflation Reduction Act gives clean energy tax credits and we can stack that with the Minnesota solar tax credits. I'll leave this information here. Further information on local climate action grants: those have an application deadline of April 30th. Looking at CERTs and Great Plains Institute as resources, I think there's resources out there to help us. [1:14:00] Commissioner Yang: 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. 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 people check it out. Again, June 1st, a Saturday, 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM. And there is a food truck, it says! So it could be fun. [1:14:55] Vice Chair Miller: Great. Any other updates from commissioners? All right, well hearing none, lastly we'd like to invite the Environmental Management Commission's City Council Liaison updates to the floor. Mayor Zabel, it is yours. [1:15:15] Mayor Zabel: Good evening, Commissioners. I don't have anything. The City Council only had one meeting since the last time you all met. Our agenda was pretty lackluster—we'll say just standard stuff: moving this improvement project along, a couple development applications. Nothing out of the ordinary from what we've seen in recent months and years. So nothing really new to share, but happy to answer any questions. [1:15:55] Vice Chair Miller: Nothing? All righty. Well, I will hang around after the meeting if anyone wants to chat. That brings us to the end of the agenda for the evening. Our next meeting I believe will be on Monday, May 20, at 7:00 PM in Council Chambers. If there's no further discussion, I will call for a motion to adjourn the March 18 meeting of the Oakdale Environmental Management Commission. [1:16:15] Commissioner Wilson: So moved. [1:16:17] Vice Chair Miller: Great. Is there a second? [1:16:19] Commissioner Yang: Second. [1:16:21] Vice Chair Miller: Okay, all in favor of adjournment of tonight's March 18 EMC meeting say aye. [1:16:28] Commissioners: Aye. [1:16:30] Vice Chair Miller: Opposed? All right, thank you. Meeting is adjourned. Thanks, everyone.