Monday, March the 13, 2023. It is 6:30 p.m. So, I wanted to call to order this meeting of the Burnsville Planning Commission. Tonight's planning commission meeting is being held both virtually via Zoom and in person. As chair, I'll be leading the planning commission meeting, and the public is welcome to participate when invited throughout the meeting. Members of the public may attend the meeting. Uh, if attendees experience audio problems, we suggest you leave the meeting and rejoin. That usually fixes the problem. Additional information and how to participate are posted online at our city website which is at burnsvillemn.gov in the public meeting calendar. As usual, tonight's meeting is also available for viewing on BCTV and the city's website. If you are unable to participate this evening and would like to submit public testimonies, I encourage you email two responses. Excuse me. You may participate in the meeting tonight online by going to zoom. usjoin and typing in meeting ID 812-94374461. Once you're logged into the meeting, please use the chat feature chair to tell the moderator which item would choose to speak to. I'm talking too fast. I got to catch up. Slow down. You may also call the meeting um at 651-3728299. Again, the meeting ID is 812-9437-4461. Each public hearing, I will open up a time when callers may speak to that item and we'll give more instructions at that time. Your call will be muted until then and there might be a slight delay due to differences in technology. So, speaking by phone, please mute your uh listening or watching device. All that is also located on the um city website at burnsvillemn.gov. uh under the public meeting calendar if you want any more information on tonight's meeting, our agenda or a backup information. With that, we can move on to the agenda. Uh we have an agenda that was sent out on Thursday. Looks like we have uh discussion tonight. Any other Joe, you had to agenda commissioners? No addition. Any addition staff? None from staff. Seeing none, I would call for a motion to accept the agenda. Commissioner Timman move to approve the agenda. Motion made by Commissioner Timman, seconded by Commissioner Anderson. Yep. I second it. Outstanding. With that, uh, to a vote. All in favor, please signify by saying I. I. And no one opposes. That is unanimous. Uh, we also got in our packets the minutes from our previous meeting, which was February 27th, 2023. Great reading. All of us were here. No, not all of us. Not all of us. It was just a small three of us. to take action the mighty three of what we were calling ourselves. We were the power tribe discuss any additions to those minutes. Okay. No changes. No changes. With that, I call for a motion to accept the minutes. Commissioner Bradock. Pledge allegiance. Motion made by Commissioner Bradock. Do I have a second? Commissioner Wallace. I'll second. Second by Commissioner Wallace. All in favor, please signify by saying I. I. No one opposes. That is unanimous. That brings us to number three and it's a discussion of our federal, state, and local storm water regulations. Presenting today is our city engineer, Miss Jen Desertude. You want to introduce and we have a lot of storm water drainage things to talk about tonight. And the floor is yours, Miss Desert. Can everybody hear me? Planning Commissioner. So, so um the planning staff asked uh me myself and our um natural resources manager to give a overview of storm water regulations kind of highlighting some water district um topics actually took it to the next level and I said let's go all the way let's do federal let's do state and local so marketing manager Austin acronym rich presentation so if you have any questions supported what does that mean I try to use the acronym Um anyway, let's start at the highest level the federal regulations and those were established through the Clean Water Act and that's sets the stage for um all of the subsequent regulations that we have basic structure for regulating the discharge of pollutants into our storm water and the EP or United States Environmental Protection Agency has the national pollutant discharge system and we call that yes um and that whole program is administered by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency or the MPCA. They also require storm water pollution prevention plans. We call them SWIPS. Um, and in those SWIPS, you have an overall plan for how you will handle and maintain storm water citywide, but every construction site has to do one. If you're disturbing more than an acre of of land, you have to do a SWIP and get a MPDES construction site permit. So a lot of our developers have to get them and the city gets them when we do our construction projects. So moving to the state level, we have um the municipal separate storm sewer system called MS4. And those are permits that the MPCA issues and it's for any it doesn't have to be a city, but any entity that owns a conveyance of storm water system. So it could be pipes, it could be ditches, it could be a series of um streams, anywhere where storm water is running through and the entity owns the infrastructure. Um and for us, we have to get a permit because we have a population over 10,000, but there's different thresholds too. So some MS4s might be the U of M. They have their own infrastructure and they don't have this population criteria, but they have other criteria. But for the city, our criteria is a population and then the conveyance. And as you can see in this graphic, conveyance of storm water. So the reason that we care about it is run runs off over all sorts of surfaces. Um there could be fertilizer, leaves, dirt, and then it all goes into our storm water system eventually getting to our lakes and streams. So we're trying to contain that those pollutants and all of that before it gets into those downstream water bodies. As part of our MS4 general permit, we have MCMS, minimum control measures. I told you it would be um acronym rich. Um so we have six minimum control measures that we are required to meet and um and show the MPCA how we're going to meet them. So number one is public education and outreach. And how we do that, it's a lot in our natural resources group. We have workshops, we have um different, you know, rain garden workshops. And it's a lot of the work that the natural resources group puts up, the public participation or MCM2. Um we have an annual meeting and so that is typically held at the PNRC in the spring. Um it's an advertised public meeting. Um we put it in the newspaper. We get zero people to attend typically. Uh but it's an opportunity for the public to talk about our um program, our SWIP and our MS4 permit and if they had any feedback on how we're handling these u minimum control measures, it's a way to give us that feedback and then we can make changes in the following year. Number three is the elicit discharge detection and elimination and that is managed by our maintenance group and they are you know if something happens an an inadvertent spill it's an accident the maintenance group has to go out and they have to you know find the spill find the source and then try and contain it from getting any further. Uh, I think it was last year we had um a a a gas or oil spill on 35W and it started to head towards Crystal Lake and so we had to put up some baffles and there's um they were working on trying to contain that. In that case, it was a complete accident. So, it was an illicit discharge, but it wasn't on purpose. There are those cases where people are pouring their stuff down a drain that they shouldn't and that is another part, too. So, we're we're looking for those to be reported or if we witness something or if somebody sees something, you know, the storm drainage has a colorful tint to it, um they should let the city know and we can investigate. Uh minimum control measure four is construction site runoff and that's in the engineering group. So, we have one of our um technicians, he does all of the erosion control inspections for all of the projects. So, both city projects and our um development projects. So any project where you're disturbing any earth work, they have to put up things like silk fence or um in this picture, oh not in this picture, different picture. Uh there's um inlet protection and he goes out and make sure that it's all installed and being maintained. So if we have a heavy rain event, then it's going to push more of those sediment and debris towards our storm sewer system. If your silt fence is tipped over, it's not going to contain that. So that's his one of the things he does. And then he writes orders if they're not maintaining it properly. Number five is the post construction runoff. And as far as developerment goes and our city projects, this is how um developers when they're putting together their um projects, how they're going to maintain storm water after construction, do they have a pond? Do they have an underground system? Do they have rain gardens? And they have to meet city requirements. And that is minimum control measure five is after it's done, how are they handling their storm water runoff? And number six is also with our maintenance group. So I should say number five is something I review as how they're going to handle it after. Um and then we also require um an agreement for them to maintain that infrastructure going forward. So if they um build a pond, those fill up with sediment. They are responsible for their private ponds to clean out the sediment. We get agreements that they get recorded and that's part of number five. Um, number six is on city properties and city infrastructure. Are we um practicing pollution prevention and good housekeeping? And some of those examples would mostly in our maintenance group are how do we store our salt? Is it just in a pile or do we have it contained? Is it in the building? Is it covered? So those are some of our um good housekeeping measures. We also have fuel pumps in on our maintenance site. And so if there was a fuel spill, we have measures in place to contain that before it gets into the storm sewer system. And then not a minimum control measure, but part of the things that um the MS4 requires us to look at is total max total daily maximum load or TMDL. And that is looking at pollutant loads into our water bodies. So we are responsible for making sure that no more pollutants go into these water bodies than they can handle to stay um in the water quality standards. So, the MS4 permit, that permit that with all those minimum control measures that gets updated um fairly regularly and they just did it in September of 2021 where they issued a lot of it's the same but as the previous one, but they did do some updates and so that requires a trickle down effect so that whatever updates they made, we need to now comply. And so, a couple things that we're updating. Um, it's required that we have a city ordinance um, regarding animal waste. And so we have to make it a requirement that not picking up your animal waste is a city violation, a city code violation. I think people probably thought it was anyway, but now it's going into the city code with that overall citywide ordinance update that's happening um, kind of title by title. And then uh we're also putting in some language some and it's pretty much the language that they gave us from the MPCA. They said this is the language you need to put into your code. So prohibiting illicit connection to storm drain systems. And so that would be you know if you're going to connect um I don't know we it it's worded so that you just can't connect. I think it's worded exactly that way. So I can't think of an example right now but I think probably people already thought that was prohibited as well. So it wasn't something that we were doing that seems out outside the box. Um salt use regulations that has to do with how it's stored. So on public property, but also now we have to regulate on private property. So um properties that are doing their own deicing, they can't just leave a big stockpile of salt in their parking lots. They need to keep it covered. And so there's now going to be with this city code update um requirements for that. And then each of those minimum control measures has sub points in the permit. And now we have to go through each one and make sure that we're going to comply. And that's in our MS4 policy. So we have a city policy 5.155. We also call that our SWIP. And it's showing how our MS4 permit is going to be complied with. If we were to get audited, we would just show them here's how we're complying. And it's simple like that. But I think they want to see all the documentation in that per in that policy. It shows here's the, you know, the form you fill out when there's an elicit discharge. Here's the form you're going to fill out when you do your erosion control inspections. It's a checklist. So, we're making sure through this process that we're covering all of those points that are listed in the permit. So moving on to watershed districts. Um this watershed um Minnesota watershed act was enacted in 1955 and it was set up because wersheds as we know aren't just following a city boundary or a county boundary. Uh it crosses multiple boundaries and so it gives those boundaries uh sort of their own political control. They're they can adopt rules um and regulations. they can collect taxes um and they are overseen by a board of managers with advisory committees and on that board of managers they're selected by the counties that are um in the watershed. So um they also have a typically some sort of a paid staff and some technical assistance. So, in the lower Minnesota River Water District, which I'll talk about next, they have an paid administrator. They have paid engineers who are consultants, and they have um legal staff that are through a consulting firm. So, here's the boundary of the lower Minnesota River Wershed District, and it crosses multiple cities and multiple counties, but in the the black um area, that's the boundary that is draining directly to the lower Minnesota River. for that particular watershed district. All of them have rules and all of them have different time frames from when they adopt the rules. The wershed management plan was adopted in October of 2018. And then in February of 2020, the rules that went with that wershed plan um were adopted and they govern erosion, flood plane, storm water management, and um steep slopes. So here's kind of the list of rules. They have some reserved sections. Um, some things to note, they established steep slopes areas and they have them on a map and they also have high value resource areas that they've determined and they have different requirements in those different areas. So to implement their rules, the lower Minnesota River wershed district has requested that municipalities apply for their mun municipal permit as a local government unit. We do all of the zoning control. We have the permitting expertise for our city and they just said if we want you to apply for our permit and then just follow all our rules, push out our rules on the people who are in within the district. So, we applied for that permit in August of 2022, and we don't have it yet because we still have some work to do, but we requested a few exceptions. So, the flood plane exception, they their rules went above and beyond the state requirements. So, we said we we want to stick with the state requirements. It would take a lot of effort to change our rules to match theirs that are more um they're more stringent. So, we said we we won't be part of that permit. We asked for an exception. And we're not the only city to do that. A lot of cities along the river had also said, "We'll we'll get your permit, but we don't want to include the flood plane rules." And then this rule F, section 6.2b, very specific, is a requirement in the steep slopes area that a permit be required for any net increase in impervious surface. And we said that's a hardship for cities because if we aren't permitting it already, we aren't going to find out if someone puts in a little 10t x 10 foot slab in their backyard. So, we asked for an exception for both of those, but said we could comply with all the other rules. Um, so in order to comply, we need to update some ordinances in our plans. Until we get that permit, every development that's within the wershed district has to apply directly to the watershed district to get an individual permit. So, that's what they've been doing for a couple of years until we get our municipal permit. So the main update is to and then I'm coming before you I think in a month or some short amount of time is uh the city code section 10-8-8 changing the requirement for a grading permit from 90 cubic yards of disturbance to 50 cubic yards of disturbance. And rather than just having that be in one watershed district, we're saying that's a citywide thing. We're just going to take their rule and then just put it across the city. It's not um when I was in Bloomington that was a standard was 50 cubic yards. So it's not too ownorous and other cities have already adopted that as the threshold. We also have to update our water resources management plan development standards to comply with their rules. Do not read this flowchart. It's just illustrative. So what one of the things that we did with our consultant is we created storm water management flowcharts so that we could make it easier for developers to understand follow the path like if my property that I'm developing is in the lower Minnesota river wershed district follow this line if it's disturbing this much follow this line. So we have that for erosion and uh sediment control volume control and water quality. And although those um flowcharts look complicated, we're hoping it makes it easier to follow kind of a pathway and give the individual projects a little bit more guidance for how to meet those requirements. So, I'm going to turn it over to Daryl who's going to talk about WOS. Thank you. Uh my name is Daryl Jacobson. I'm the natural resource manager here at the city. And I think on the next slide you'll find out I am also the administrator for the Black Dog Watershed Management Organization. Um so as Jen said wershed districts have been around for a long time. I think it was the mid-50s when they started that. But then as things developed and the the sevenount metro started to become a lot different than the rest of the state. And so, as it says here, in 1982, there was another act passed where essentially when you're looking at water management and wersheds, um there's kind of the outstate area and then there's the metro area and they're managed a little bit differently. And so, Black Dog was one of the wershed management organizations that was created in 1982 as part of this act. And you can see she's got the map up here um kind of outline where there's watershed districts. Those are in blue. um where the wershed management organizations are. Those are in red. And then you do have some areas where the county essentially is uh managing the wershed. And so that's like Carver County, Scott County. Um Vermillion River is managed by Dakota County. Um but it is also it's kind of a a mix of having some joint powers uh agreements in it as well. So this is uh this is kind of how it looks. You can see a lot of the uh watershed districts are kind of in the the center, you know, Minneapolis, St. Paul, some of the more highly populated areas. As you start moving away from that center, you see more of the water management organizations or the county handling um the water management. And so this is kind of a zoomed in look at Burnsville itself. Um, you can see Jen already talked about the lower Minnesota River watershed district on the north end of the city. We've got uh the Vermillion River, which is a very small piece. It's uh basically the area that drains to Alamagnet Lake is in the Vermillion. And then the rest of the city, about 75% of Burnsville is in the Black Dog Watershed Management Organization. And so when you look at this, there's, you know, from like a resident standpoint or, you know, your average person, there isn't really a big difference between a watershed district and a watershed management organization. Um, they do a lot of the same things. But if you're a developer um or one of the impacts might be if they're taxing you because a lot of wershed management organizations uh they have the ability to set up a taxing district um but they don't. Uh the Black Dog WO for example is set up um with a funding formula where the member cities pay the budget for the Black Dog WO. And so Burnsville, Egan, Apple Valley, and Lakeville are the four cities that are members of the Black Dog WO. And so then our board sets our annual budget. And then there is a formula set up based on 50% land area and 50% land valuation that we run through um to see what each member city's contribution will be for that budget. And then we obviously send the invoices out and the member cities pay. And I believe all the cities use their storm water utility fee to pay those membership dues. And so that is one difference. Whereas like the lower Minnesota River wershed district, they have their own taxing authority. And if you live in that watershed, then on your yearly or by-early tax statement, there will be an amount that is paid to the the wershed and that's how they get their funding for their projects and staff and things like that. Um, some of the other big differences is permitting. Uh, like our Black Dog WO, we delegate all permitting to the member cities. And so if you are a developer coming in the Black Dog, um, you don't need to get a permit directly from the WO. You would you would be getting all your permits through the city. Um, and that is the way it operates um, for Vermillion and and generally had operated for lower Minnesota until this most recent update where now they've taken on some of the permitting until cities um, kind of get that municipal permit from them. And so that's some of the differences. you know, if you're like the some of the major wersheds like uh up in Minneapolis with, you know, Riley Purgatory and some of those, they have full-on staff and have full permitting programs and they really do operate fully as their own government entity. And really all the watersheds are their own separate government entity, but some of them, you know, take it to a different level with their staffing and permits and things like that where they're where like Black Dog, um, we have myself and one other administrative staff person and are delegating a lot of the permitting and those type of things to the cities. And the way the state kind of allows that is all of these wersheds, as Jen mentioned, Lowerman just did theirs, Black Dog actually just updated our 10-year plan uh at the end of last year. And so once the watershed updates their 10-year plan and has the different standards in it, then typically the the member cities or if you're in that wershed, you have one year from the adoption of that plan to take like your so for Burnsville, it's our water resource master plan. You make any updates that may potentially be necessary. You give that to the wershed organization. They review it for compliance and then if they determine that yes everything in our plan is reflected in your plan uh sufficiently then they approve your plan and that basically then gives the city the authority to run the program manage projects and kind of leave the WO out of that aspect of it because we have confirmed yes your standards are in line with ours and so we don't um you know need to be involved in in that level of permitting and things like that. And so that's why I'm saying from a resident standpoint, a lot of the stuff is administrative in the differences between the two. Um, and because wershed districts are not formed through a joint powers agreement, um, the state has a few more regulations that they put on the wershed districts where the state then is kind of overseeing to make sure that they're doing things properly. uh essentially they have to uh you know have public hearings for the budget process. The uh RWO Blackdog doesn't have to do that because everything that we do budget-wise is already agreed to by the four cities and outlined in that joint powers agreement. And so that joint powers agreement is kind of the oversight for our WMO within these watershed districts. uh the state is providing kind of that first level of oversight where ours it's the joint powers agreement then the state kind of comes after that and so that's uh that's some of the differences but like Jen said whether it's lower men whether it would be black dog or vermilion if something came about that was a regulation that was put into that watershed plan they can require the cities to adopt that rule and if they don't then there is the option then of the WMO or the watershed uh taking the permitting on themselves, but there really isn't an option where the city can just say we're not going to do that, you know, without I suppose if you went through some legal process to try and change it and get it, but there really isn't uh a way to set for the city to just be like, "No, we think that standard is uh not appropriate. We're not going to uh we're not going to implement it." either they will implement it or the city can, but that standard essentially is going to be there for either developers or residents or whatever the case may be. So that's uh that's a quick rundown. I'd be happy to answer any questions if you have about the watershed districts or WMOs. And uh as Jen laid out a little bit, there's a lot of different things happening with storm water. And so you'll be seeing the title 10 updates at the next planning commission meeting next month. And then PNRC will be that um annual public meeting for our stormwater permit, the updates that she talked about related to some of the standards that are new to that permit. Uh because of that, we'll have some changes to our water resource management plan and then the policy updates for the SWIP. And then once the advisory committees and commissions look at all those things, it'll be going to city council on May 2nd. And then hopefully we will be done updating storm water regulations for at least a little while. And for that I think Jen and I will stand for any questions that you may have. Good deal. Thank you so much. Uh a lot of information there. Any questions you guys have? Commissioners? I see a lot of hands. I'm looking at these pictures. Where are these pictures from? So, this is a Willow Creek restoration we did a couple of years ago. Okay. And we used our storm utility fees to pay for um the work. So, the one on the left was obviously bad and the one on the right is the completed project, but it's still that that picture was done in the spring before all the restoration. So, nice. That's just curious. Thanks. Any other questions? commissioners. Uh, one thing I was I was wondering with the storm water drainage, is there a is there some sort of system in place to clean the water before it hits the main water source? Anything of those natures or is it just a complete flow of water? So, there's a lot of systems in place to to do some water quality treatment along the way. So we have numerous public and private storm water ponds and those primary functions are to clean it before it keeps going. And then we have different um we call them BMPPS best management practices another acronym um where we put like a in a structure we'll make the structure deeper than it needs to be and then sediment and debris collects in the bottom and we go clean those out periodically. So, there's a bunch of different ways to do that pre-treatment before it gets into the the like rivers and and whatnot. And then when it is in those storm water ponds, we have budget to clean out those storm water ponds periodically. So, um we are inspecting all of the storm water ponds on a regular basis. All of those different BMPPS are inspected on a regular basis and then we're maintaining them so that wherever is collected in there instead of it like rising up then it just kind of bypasses and kind of pushes through. This then helps to like collect it and then it's you know sediment debris gets put into a landfill or there's other ways to to deal with it too. So you probably get a lot of garbage um leaves all sorts of different things I suppose. One of our mechanisms is to do street sweeping, which is to handle the leaves in the in the spring and the fall. So, that's one way to get it off off the streets and into out of the storm sewer system. We do that twice a year, I think, along Crystal Lake, we do it three times. Yeah. All the the lakes, the direct drainage to the lakes gets street swept a little more often. And uh I mean we didn't talk about it tonight, but obviously in that MPDS permit that we get and we talked about the standards that wershed districts and WMO have a big piece of those is the storm water standards that developers have to meet. And so there is regulations when you come in if you're disturbing a certain area or uh putting in a certain amount of imperous surface, you have to remove a certain amount of the sediment that's coming off your site and the phosphorus. And so obviously these different practices we're talking about developers have to put in on their own site to keep that storm water clean for when it leaves the site. And so that you know we don't have any discrepancies between the city standards and the watershed district standards as it relates to that. But that is a big a big piece of those plans is um making sure that the water is to a certain standard when it leaves those sites. Wow. And so if we're we're constantly cleaning, is there anything that would pull out oil or uh pesticides or anything else that would come off the rain from the grass, fertilizers, things of that nature, or is that handled in the storm water ponds? There is I mean there's nothing that's that's where you get to that illicit discharge detection system. if there was gas or oil that would be on the surface of the water. Um, and so that's where you would have to do cleanup essentially if you had like she talked about like an a car accident or something on 35 or where gas is pouring out or you have oil um then it would be a cleanup situation. The the ponds themselves would not filter that out because it's floating on the surface. Right. Okay. And uh kind of the same thing with fertilizer, but uh this the state the city had a had a ban on phosphorus in fertilizers. The state has that ban now. And so it's a statewide. And so you don't want to be overfertilizing and you definitely don't want those granules to be on a hard surface where they're not doing any good and just get washed into the storm sewer system. Um but hopefully people aren't using fertilizers that have phosphorus in it. Um which makes it a little bit better. Okay. Commissioner Anderson. So, uh, did you say was was the phosphorus banned throughout the state? Yes. Uh, for for most situations, there is. It's So, it's one of those things where it's not illegal to sell fertilizer with phosphorus in it. It is technically illegal to use it outside of certain situations. They have uh like if you're starting a lawn, you can use fertilizer with phosphorus in it. Um, I believe they set up a system where you could actually like if you cared enough, I guess you could take soil samples from your property and have it tested for the levels of phosphorus in it. And I don't know what the standard is offhand, but if your soil was shown to be very low in phosphorus, then you could kind of get I don't know if it's an exemption or a permit or what it would require to then be able to use some phosphorus on your lawn. Um, typically in Burnsville, the soils we have, you don't need phosphorus in your fertilizer. And so, it's one of those imperfect things. I remember when, uh, when it first started, you could go to Home Depot and it's like, well, geez, there's still all kinds of fertilizers in here with phosphorus in it. Um, and so it really is a public education. We do try to do something every year to educate people to say you really shouldn't be using fertilizers that have phosphorus in it. So, you got those three numbers. The middle number should be a zero. Um, and your lawn really will will do just fine without it. Um, but yeah, it's not uh it's not perfect where they, you know, banned banned it from being produced or sold, just the use. Just in case you want to pretend. Yeah, that's what I was wondering because I was thinking like I go to Home Depot, get fertilizer or something. Is are we breaking the law? Don't even know it. Yeah, it's really on the consumer to know, I guess, or to be aware. I was going to say, do we need to check your lawn, Commissioner Anderson? Actually, I don't use fertilizer on my own. I have chickens in the backyard. They can fertilize on their own. So, dogs that help with that, right? Yeah. So, what is the dangers of phosphorus getting into the water? Uh, so blue green algae uh that gets in the water, it's limiting nutrient as phosphorus. And so the lower the phosphorus is in the lake or the water body, the more difficult it is for algae to to proliferate. And so that's why when it comes to the different chemicals that we see in the water that we have running off, when it comes to water clarity, um you know, when you stand there and look down, having nice clear water that you can see several feet down or having it look green and kind of soupy, that uh is directly related to the amount of phosphorus that's in the water. Um, there's a famous study that was done out in Washington in the the mid 80s where they had a lake and they hung a curtain through the middle of the lake that reached down to the bottom so the water couldn't mix between the sides and they added phosphorus to one half the lake and didn't to the other and then after several weeks uh they had an aerial photo that they took and you could see the a direct line where that curtain was. This half the lake was green. this half the lake was clear and that kind of started, you know, the the ball rolling on when we were seeing these lakes getting impaired, especially in metro areas. Um, it really is tied to the increased phosphorus input that they're receiving through the impervious surfaces and the storm water that's carrying it there. And so that's why all the things that we're designing for the the best management practices really is looking at trying to get the sediment out of the water before it goes downstream because those phosphorus particles are attached to the sediment. And so if you can get the sediment out, you're getting the phosphorus out and then uh improving the water clarity quality in the water bodies. Is there a health issue for humans with phosphorus or fish or anything those lines? uh not directly with phosphorus but the blue green algae uh there is some of those that can be harmful um specific particularly to dogs um I suppose there you know I don't think humans are generally ingesting a lot of lake water hopefully where you know dogs different case um but they do call them harmful algo blooms and if you get really hot summers and you get these algae blooms that almost look like paint. Uh I actually have uh not recently, but there's been a couple times where we've had phone calls from residents and they think there's paint in the water and then you go take a look and it's actually algae. When you get those type of intense blooms, there is the potential for the byproduct that they're producing uh to get in a high enough level that it could be harmful. Um and you'll see those periodically, especially last summer, there was some that the MPCA put out because we didn't get a lot of rain. And so when you get that stagnant water, because that's really what it is, they're they're producing uh low very low levels of toxic chemicals when they're uh reproducing and dying and doing those life cycle things. But generally, it's not harmful because the volume of water is diluting it to a point where it's it's not an issue or it's getting mixed around. You know, you get rain or wind and you get the mixing happening. Um but in certain situations, it can be especially for pets. So wow. Commissioner Timberman. Um, as you've been talking, I think this is fascinating and I think about the the ponds that we have in Burnsville as well as the lakes that people recreate on and live on. Um, but I mean I think a big part of the watershed district is our rivers too. And so I I want to make sure we talk a bit about the Minnesota River. Um, so as I guess from your perspective, well, from my perspective, I'll start. Humans traditionally over many, many centuries have been terrible to the environment. And I think that the Minnesota River is a great example of that. And now we're in this process of continuous harm reduction where we're, you know, changing over power plants from coal to natural gas or we're um moving a a huge garbage dump, a football field away from the river further than it was before. Is the Minnesota River safe to swim in? Is the Minnesota River a safe river? Have we done enough to protect the river that runs through our city? Uh, well, the Minnesota River is impaired for several things. I'm not sure there I'm not sure about the swimming aspect of it. I don't know if there is I'm not aware of a swimming standard. So, like for our swimming beach in Burnsville, we test for E.coli. That's the that's the item of concern when it comes to swimming. And the state does have guidelines of when you would close your beach um based on the results you're getting from that ecoli testing. Now, rivers are a lot different because what if I took a sample right here and tested it, by the time I got the results, that sample area is now miles miles away. And so, I'm not sure about the swimming aspect of it. But I will say that when it comes to uh oxygen um some muscles biotics they talk about like organisms and and different things uh you know phosphorus certainly sediment it is impaired for a lot of those things and it's important to remember that because of the way a river system works if the water is impaired as it's flowing by Burnsville it is not because Burnsville put or created that situation. situation. That situation was created far upstream. Um, and so that's what makes rivers very difficult to manage. The uh, honestly lakes are difficult to manage and understand the biology and how all the different factors play in and how you can try to manipulate those to improve things. Uh, but rivers are much more difficult. Uh because I mean that where the the water that flows by Burnsville starts a long long ways away from here and you've got all those counties and townships and farms and businesses and and so that is one of those things where really this that's something that needs to be managed at the state level, right? Um well, I think that having these districts in place, you know, help get to that and I think it's good foresight by the state to have done that. Um what about fishing? I mean, I love going down along Black Dog Road and I see people fishing all the time and I know they're catching meals. I mean, that's what I am really concerned about because I'm not going swimming in the Minnesota River, but is it safe to eat fish out of the river? Uh, yes. And so there's standards like and honestly, Lac Leavon and Crystal Lake are have mercury impairments. Um, and again, mercury is atmospheric deposition and so it's not something that Burnsville as a city can control. And so when the when there was a study on potentially how to mitigate um mercury that was done at the state level and really even that is a smaller level than could be because the particles that are in the atmosphere uh are coming from potentially even other countries and and then getting deposited you know coming falling out of the atmosphere uh here and so that's a tougher issue but there is those fish consumption warnings such is, you know, three meals a week is considered safe out of out of those lakes. If you're pregnant, there's different standards. Um, and they are all recommendations. There's there is nothing that's like it's illegal to eat more fish out of there than so they're all recommendations and the river has those same types of recommendations. Um, so in general, eating fish out of the river is safe. Now, there may be a recommendation not to eat seven or 10 meals a week out of there over extended period of time because there may be some dangers with that, but that's uh a lot of our water bodies in the state have those concerns with the the mercury. So, great. Thank you. That's fascinating. Planning Commission doesn't get to talk about parks and natural resource topics very often, so this is really nice. Thank you. Yeah, a wealth of information, like I said. Any other questions, commissioners? Commissioner Anderson, I'm actually kind of curious. Um, in the winter, I obviously love driving on roads that are don't have ice on them, but I I I imagine a lot of salt and chemicals get added to, you know, the roads to make sure that they're not covered in ice. Is that ever uh a worry for the city about like salinization of the water sources and stuff like that? It's the emerging pollutant of concern. Um, you know, like I talked about phosphorus in the early 2000s and late 90s, that's when that kind of got on the scene of of, hey, this is really the driving factor behind some of these nutrient impairments in the lakes. Um, and now the new hot one is is chlorides. And there are a few water bodies that are listed on the state impaired list for chloride contamination. Uh, we don't have any in Burnsville. Uh, and there isn't a lot statewide. There's just a few. Um, but as Jen mentioned in the presentation, obviously that's one of the new standards in that storm water permit. Uh, and I think they will grow. I think the regulation when it comes to chloride use is going to increase and this is kind of the first step of trying to get some regulations in on how salt is stored. Um but overall yes I think people should be concerned about the use and that and that at least the minimum amount necessary is being applied uh because once you do get salt or chlorides in the water you cannot get them out and so there isn't uh a mechanism to depolute those waters after they are polluted uh and even if that polluted water right so it's in there crystal lake or the river we know when you get rain events the water is changing over. New water's coming in and the other water is going out. But that water wherever it's going is going to be um polluted for chlorides because there is no way to run it through a filter or run it through something and get the chloride out of it. And so, uh, that's why I think you're seeing a lot more trainings and thing on operators and cities having technology and the trucks that they're using so that you can still make the road safe without oversulting or or using extra chemical. And I think one of the ways we're doing that is by using a brine, which is kind of newer in the last I don't know how many years, but um, spraying the salt solution is less. I mean, it's still a problem if it washes, but it's not those, you know, crystals that then gets swept away. Thank you. I think we also try and limit it on our sidewalks, too, which is a problematic because people are worried about slipping and falling, but I think that's one of the it's a necessary evil to try and balance. I know that's tough on dogs, paws, and stuff, too. Great question. Any other questions, commissioners? I will say that driving up in the Ele area where they don't use salt, the roads are treacherous. I mean, their weather is different, too. Um, but it it's treacherous. So, to your point about the balance, I think is is really important because we have to consider safety and also the impact to the environment. Yeah. Etc. Well, I appreciate the uh conversation. Very, very informative. I really enjoyed this type of direction. So, thank you so much for bringing it to our attention and uh discussing with us today. Thank you. Thanks. With that, it will move us to our next item on the agenda and that is announcements. Any announcements, commissioners? Any announcements, staff? Um, no major ones today. just that your next planning commission meeting is on March 27th and we'll be back to our normal scheduling of public hearings for development review. That's all. Oh, good deal. All right, with that it is to the bottom. Commissioner Wallace. I'll make a motion to adjurnn. Motion made by Commissioner Wallace. I have a second. Commissioner Anderson, I'll second. Second by Commissioner Anderson. All in favor, please signify by saying I. I. And no one opposes. So that's it. Thanks for joining us. Have a great night.