six-thirty good evening everyone I didn't Colleen the Monday June first 2020 parts of Natural Resources Commission meeting to order at 6:30 p.m. as you know government agencies and organizations around our country are being asked to take extraordinary measures to prevent the spread of : 19 the city of Burnsville is committed to protecting the health of our residents and public officials current recommendations call for everyone to practice social distance E as much as possible so that means tonight's plan parks natural resource commission meeting will be held virtually using zoom as a chair I will be leading of the Commission medium and the public is welcome to participate when invited throughout the meeting additional instructions on how to participate are posted online and Burnsville MN gov in the public meeting calendar as usual tonight's meeting is also available for viewing on BC TV and on the city's website if you are unable to participate this evening and would like to submit public testimony I encourage you to send in your comments to city staff JJ Ryan is a representative and his email is JJ dot Ryan rya n at Burnsville MN gov or mail your comments via postal mail to 100 Student Center currently in Burnsville Minnesota five five three three seven you may also participate in the meeting tonight online by going to zoom us /join and typing in meeting ID nine six one eight seven eight zero three zero four nine that ID number is also on the screen in front of you once you are logged into the medium please use the chat feature just how the moderator which item you wish to speak to you and you can also call into the meeting at six five one three seven two eight two nine nine for the public hearing I will open up a time when colors may speak to that item and will give more instructions at that point your call will be muted until that time so now that we're done with all of those additional details which are you meet because we're in a virtual setting we're gonna move on to the normal kind of flow of the agenda so with that we're gonna move on to the adoption of the agenda would anybody like to motion gary i'm seeing you as a first i so move all right do I have a second I second thanks Tina JJ do you mind Colleen the role of votes mister Angora high commissioner arnold i Commissioner Bauer I mr. Cleveland all right Commissioner Donaldson i commissioner fidget I Commissioner McGuire mr. Newman I thank mr. Wolman I thank you motion passes Thank You JJ our second item on the agenda is the approval of the minutes from January 6 2020 and last time we were able to be the other in person has anyone reviewed the comments I would like to approve I make a motion to approve the minutes thanks commissioner I'll a second second all right thank you and with that JD do you want to call the roll of votes again yes again commissioner Angora I should are Arnold hi mr. Bauer aye mr. Cleveland aye mr. Donaldson aye mr. Fisher aye Fisher Maguire all right mr. Newman I fisherwoman hi again the motion passes thank you with that our third item on the agenda is citizen comments Megan are there anybody that wish wishes to comment online there is no one who has requested to come in Thank You Megan all right and with that I believe we have I guess we have to talk about the 2019 and 2020 D report and report and proposed strategies for 28 through 2021 all right Thank You chair Newman Thank You commissioners for having me can everyone hear me okay yep all right so my name is Caleb Aisling I'm a natural resources specialist for the city of Burnsville and I'm here to give our annual report on deer management next slide please so I know some commissioners are familiar with the program but for those who aren't the natural resources master plan in 1999 recommended that the city initiated year management program there was a deer management plan put together which was adopted by City Council in 2001 and among other things that set a population density goal for deer within the city next slide so the the program is intended to address a few different issues related to a high deer population in a suburban area like Burnsville one has increased deer car collisions and the related human health or economic concerns with that another issue is the negative impacts that deer can have on natural areas when there's a high deer population in their browsing or / browsing in our parks then landscaping depredation or deer damaging residential landscaping is also an issue at high deer populations and then disease risk in the deer population at high densities where you're more likely to get disease spread with an overpopulation next slide so what I'll be doing today is reporting on the 2019 2020 program year and then making some recommendations for the 2020 2021 program year and just so you know the program years aren't they don't run the calendar year they run from April 1st of one year to March 31st of the following year next slide so I'll be covering the program over a couple different categories the first is education related to educating the Burnsville residents on deer issues the second is the feeding Band related information or the next is our monitoring programs and then the last is the population control portion of the program so for education we try to get the word out to residents especially related to our deer feeding ban through a couple different ways so we have regular well we have information on our website that covers issues related to deer feeding and our management activities we also try to get information into the Burnsville bulletin regularly that discusses a deer feeding ban and then we also use social media as an outreach tool to get the word out and if you're not familiar it is against city ordinance to feed deer or otherwise even unintentionally you know putting food on the ground that deer can access so you can have bird feeders that's that's okay but bird feeders need to be at least 5 feet off the ground next slide so in this past program year we had to feeding violations that were reported to the city and in those instances city staff follow up on the reports and you know if necessary we'll send a warning letter to the residents just letting them know that it's against the ordinance and then we'll conduct a follow-up visit in a week or two just to make sure the feeders have been removed and that's almost always enough to take care of the issue so we recommend just continuing monitoring and these action letters as needed all right so moving on to the monitoring portion of our deer management program that breaks down into three different areas our aerial counts to monitor the population or monitoring forums for residents to submit issues and then our tracking of car deer collisions in the city so for our monitoring anter population management we look at the city not as a whole but we break it into six different zones so these are the zone the six zones that we use north east north west west central east central south west and south east zones so you'll see those mentioned in the next few slides so every year if conditions warrant we have a deer survey conducted by helicopter we've been working with the Three Rivers Park District to have those surveys conducted by their their staff the past few years they fly deer surveys for a number of different cities in the metro area including Bloomington across the river and they also fly surveys in their own parks like Murphy Hanrahan part of which is in Burnsville so it works well to coordinate with them to have them also fly a survey in Burnsville and the the surveys focus on deer habitat in in the city and this photo here is taken from a helicopter so as you can see your deer are relatively visible especially if there's good conditions when you're conducting the survey so our aerial survey that was conducted this past winter counted 221 deer total throughout the city if you look at that by management zone the most deer were counted in Southwest Burnsville the second most year were counted in Northeast Burnsville and that is pretty typical in Southwest Burnsville we have a Murphy Hanrahan Park partially in in the city and also adjacent which is a really large Natural Area and then there's also a lot of large wooded Lots in that area then in Northeast Burnsville we have the Wildlife Refuge and a natural corridor along the river that has a lot of deer habitat as well so those were the two highest areas but in generally found decent numbers of deer and the other zones except the west central zone so on to the citizens submitted monitoring reports so we do have a website a section of our website where residents can submit either observations or landscaping issue reports that they're having with deer and then we also take these reports by phone call or email directly so we had in this past program here we had one just general observation in southeast the southeast zone and then we had six depredation reports and five of those were in the East Central Management zone especially kind of between City Hall and Terrace Oaks Park there's a decent sized deer herd that was causing some landscaping issues in that area and then one report from southeast Burnsville alright then the other component of the monitoring program is tracking deer car collisions and the way we do that is to combine a couple different data sources the first is our police records so we query the database for police records and attract those that come up with a deer car issue then we also get a report from our animal control contractor so they track where they pick up deer carcasses along the roadways and we get that report we combine it with the police records we remove any overlaps of you know the same same instance reported between the two and we use that for this our mapping and yearly tracking also this past program a year there were 55 total car crashes in town or minimum 55 based on our are tracking the largest number of those were in east-central Burnsville so that's terrace Oaks Park there were 17 in that area a terrace Oaks Park and kind of surrounding area and then the second largest was in southwest Burns where there were 14 and followed by a southeast Burnsville so although you know the east central and southeast Burnsville don't necessarily have the most deer in town when you do have decent numbers of deer in residential areas that can lead to more vehicle collisions and 55 deer was around what we had or 55 crashes was around what we had last year as well so we recommend just continuing with our annual monitoring methods to track the deer population all right then on to the population control portion of the the program so when needed we do conduct population control for for the deer population and we use two different strategies the first is archery hunting and the second is sharp shooting so for our archery program we encourage archery hunting on private property where possible there you are allowed to archery hunt according to city ordinance but you have to have a decent size a lot to do so so there is or the the main area where people archery hunt in Burnsville is in southwest Burnsville where there's some larger Lots and then we do operate archery hunts on public land where possible we work with the Metro bow hunters resource base which is a nonprofit organization that that helps cities conduct kind of more close quarters suburban archery hunts and the location where we've been holding hunt the past few years is Kelliher Park so through our public archery hunt we harvested 11 deer @killa hare Park which is fairly typical for the harvest in that area and then the Three Rivers Park District also hosts their own archery hunt which isn't the city you isn't involved in but they did harvest 37 deer in their hunt at Murphy Hanrahan Park and for our tracking purposes because Murphy Hanrahan is approximately 10% in Burnsville we consider about 10% of their harvest and our tracking so about four deer were counted towards our totals from their hunt and then the portions of Burnsville don't really allow for a public archery hunts because the parks are not really big enough or too busy for that so when needed we do conduct sharp shooting utilizing the Burnsville Police Department and we conducted a sharp shooting this past program year in the Northeast east central and southeast units and there were 20 deer harvested through that effort and through the archery hunting program we do donate the processer deer and donate the venison to local food shelves so there was over 900 pounds of venison donated through through this program this past program here so this table here looks at the removal goals that were laid out in last year's plan and then compares them to the actual removals that occurred and the goals are based on a fifteen to twenty five deer per square mile of preferred habitat so that's kind of our density goal that we're working off of so in the North West Zone we don't have any accessible property at this time so no work was done there in the west central zone there was a low low removal goal so we didn't focus on that area this past year in Southwest Burnsville we harvested 15 deer which was in the the range of the the goals and those were harvested through archery the northeast zone we harvested seven deer which was in the range of the goals there through sharp shooting then in east-central in southeast the harvested five and eight D respectively those areas are a little bit trickier it is a challenge you sharpshooting there's not always as many sites as we'd like to we have to make sure we have sites that are safe so that's kind of our top priority and so that can be a limiting factor in the number of areas where we're able to conduct sharp shooting so sometimes that limits the number of deer harvested and in some of the areas but total there were 35 deer harvested through sharp shooting and archery which was close to the lower Endor end of the goal that we were targeting then the next slide here looks at the recommended harvest for the upcoming program year and this slide is a little bit messy but the population goal column shows the actual number of deer that the program I would like to see in the different zones the projected fall population column takes the survey that was conducted this past winter factors in fond births and some natural mortality using a method similar to what the DNR uses and to give us a projected population for this upcoming fall and then we use that projection to set out our recommended harvest for the upcoming program year so the the harvest column is on the right here the areas that will intend to focus on are the southwest zone there's a minimum harvest goal of 49 deer there the Northeast so on minimum of 32 in that zone east central 6 and southeast 24 deer in that area that does give us a minimum harvest goal of 111 deer which is probably more deer than we'll be able to harvest based on the limited sites that we have so we're not necessarily going to be getting to that number but we can certainly do our best to try to get the deer population closer to that goal range so we're looking for so our recommendations are to continue with the killer hair Park archery hunt in the southwest unit and we have three proposed hunt periods for that hunt the hunt periods are September 17th through the 19th October 15th through the 17th and November 19th through the 21st and the park is essentially closed to the public during the those dates and then the Three Rivers Park District also plans on conducting archery hunts in Murphy Hanahan Park because those are the part of the park is in Burnsville those sons also need a recommendation for City Council approval the dates for those hunts are the October 16th through the 18th and November 20th through the 22nd then I did want to mention one new development in deer related issues in Dakota County so this past winter or early spring the DNR did find one deer that had chronic wasting disease chronic wasting disease is a neurological disease similar to to mad cow disease that affects deer elk and moose and it had not previously been seen or found in Dakota County so this is a new area for CWD and this is going to initiate some action steps for the DNR from their chronic wasting disease protocol for when a new spot is discovered so you know some of those action items that the DNR will likely initiate last I heard these were still proposed so I'm not sure if they're finalized yet but there will likely be a Dakota County feeding ban which were were positioned well for that because we already have a feeding ban in Burnsville but not all cities in Dakota County have that then there will be mandatory testing for chronic wasting disease both for archery hunted deer in Burnsville and also for deer harvested through our program then there will be carcass movement restrictions for harvested deer so deer will have to remain in the zone unless they're processed and quartered before leaving the zone so deer will have to remain within the zone after they're harvested until a negative test is received back and then the DNR would continue these action items for three years until well hopefully at that point if no further tests came back positive they would stop the testing if there were more positives then there could potentially be an extension of this testing period and with that so first I'd like to request that the commissioners consider those archery hunt dates and recommend them for City Council approval and then I'd also be happy to stand for any questions so with that commissioners do you have any questions for key loaders here you have a question you may be a mutant no I don't okay uh Commissioner Cleveland do you have a question for Caleb yeah I'm guessing that if the CW needs testing comes in you'd have a fairly easy way of tracking all deer that because you've got a few at Murphy and they would probably all be tested I'm guessing the same thing holds true for the archery work at Kelleher and then the sharp shooting so it doesn't sound like that's gonna be a big burden for the city would that be your take on it yeah definitely it's very doable to take testing you know it creates some issues with getting the deer process because the processor we've been using is outside of the zone that will likely be established so I'll have to figure out you know some new setups you know probably a new processor and some new steps like that but it all seems very doable to to do it will just be maybe some some news figuring out of how we make that portion of it work and distant as a follow-up did we get did you get any data from Department of Transportation in the 35w corridor the highway 13 corridor for deer kills by vehicle collision so we did not the state of Minnesota hasn't been able to provide us with transportation records the past few years they transition to a new database then we haven't been able to get all those records yet but hopefully down the road we will be able to in past years when we did have that data it was usually only a couple of deer so it didn't add a lot to our totals Caleb I have a question myself I noticed when they're talking about the 2019 there is a minimum number at 55 but then later it says 43 crashes reported by the city police so are some of those not necessarily reported by the city police are important instead for the people that are looking to pick up the carcasses is that what I understand yes yep so 43 were you know from the database the police record database then sometimes people may not report a deer collision for insurance purposes or whatever and so the other other deer reports were from that animal control contractor that the city uses excellent any other questions from anybody in the Commission right now with that caleb is looking for motion to recommend the dates to the City Council so I'm looking for somebody to motion a motion that we approve the proposal Thank You Commissioner Cleveland is there a second second all right thank you with that Gigi can I call the roll of votes thank you madam chair Christian Guerra aye mr. Arnold hi mr. Bauer I missioner Cleveland Barney Fisher Donaldson I sure fit I wish to McGuire hey Fisher Newman hi mr. Wolman hi thank you before she passes all right Thank You Caleb and I believe you have the next item on our agenda of the review of water quality conditions and Friends of the lakes relative to city goals and state of Minnesota standards is that right yep that is correct all right thank you Karen all right so this is kind of our annual update on where we are at with water quality and some of our our priority water bodies in town here this is intended as an informational update so there's no action item needed so just a quick review of kind of how the watersheds work here in Burnsville Burnsville is a part of three major watersheds the first is the Credit River watershed so in Southwest Burnsville especially around Kelleher Park that area drains to the Credit River we're also a part of the Bur billion River watershed and that's a relatively small area around Lake element so that will drain east over to the Vermillion River and the major watershed that we're a part of is the Minnesota River watershed so all of the areas in tan on this map drain to the Minnesota River and the arrows on the map indicate kind of the connection or direction of flow through our storm sewer system and through our lakes towards the river so in the upper part of the watershed you have Lac LaVon and Keller Lake and then it follows the arrows through twin early over to Sunset pond down through Kramer Nature Preserve down to the river so that's kind of the the process or flow of water around Burnsville so we have so the water flows through a pretty impressive system of storm sewer pipes so there are approximately 185 miles of storm sewer pipes in Burnsville there's 6500 storm drains that feeds those storm sewer pipes and the storm sewer system runs through our ponds lakes wetlands and on to the river and we have nearly 300 ponds and lakes and the majority of those are apart or receive stormwater runoff and are kind of part of our water management system so this system does a great job of helping us get water off the landscape and prevent flooding and property damage but it does also you know transport you know pollution potentially from streets and lawns into our lakes and ponds as well all right so we're gonna I'm going to talk about the cities or track our water quality progress through a couple different standards the first is the city's standards or goals that we set out in our water resources management plan so the city has its own goals for clarity all of which are are more strict or stringent than the state standards which I'll cover next so this this table here shows clarity goal in in meters clarity is measured by volunteers who are part of a program that goes out every other week from April through October and they lower a sucky disc that's the black and white disc on the right side of the slide here they lower that into the water and when they can no longer see it they mark that depth and we track that as the clarity reading for that visit and then we average all the visits throughout the season and that becomes none of our average for the season so I won't go over every Lake here but I will highlight the best lake for water clarity in Burnsville is Lac LaVon Lac LaVon has a goal of 3.6 meters and has a three-year average of what we've been actually seeing about four point three meters so that's really really good clarity for a metro area lake so that's good to see and then we have four other water bodies that are meeting the city water resources plan clarity goal and then we have three water bodies that are not meeting the goal those are the ala magnet L may not like Keller Lake and then a wood pond which I'll hit on in future slides here so then the other way or the next way will be looking at some of our lakes and their water quality is through the state water quality standards and the primary one that we look at is the standards for nutrients which includes phosphorus chlorophyll a which is an indicator of algae and then clarity which also generally indicates algae and the state has different standards for shallow lakes versus deep lakes shallow lakes are naturally a little more nutrient rich so the standards are less strict for shallow more strict for deeper lakes the state does have an impaired waters list a lake or water body gets on the impaired waters list if it fails to meet two or more of these standards over a 10-year period Burnsville does have two impaired waters the first is El magnate Lake and the second is Keller Lake and what it means to have an impaired water is that it's not meeting those state standards over the 10-year period then studies are conducted to determine what's going on in the lake where where the excessive nutrients are coming from a plan has developed amongst the agencies that manage land in the watershed and reduction goals for nutrient inflow is divvied up amongst those agencies and then the agencies go about installing projects that will reduce the amount of a nutrient inflow to the lake so that's kind of what it means to have an impaired waters it is kind of a long long process but Burnsville does have two lakes that have been removed from the impaired waters list most recently Crystal Lake was removed from the impaired waters list in 2018 which means conditions had improved significant significantly enough over a 10-year period to now meet those standards which is great and then early lake was also removed in 2012 so great to see there's a lot of metro area that lakes on the impaired waters list not a lot of them are coming off so nice to have a few that have come off in Burnsville so the the remaining slides here will kind of hit on each lake and compare them to the relevant state standards so Lake alum magnet Lake is one of our impaired waters it's a very shallow lake max depth of I believe eight feet but mostly a lot shallower than that and it's a pretty nutrient-rich system so in 2019 it did not meet the phosphorous and chlorophyll standards it did have a good year you know met the clarity goals or standards for for a one-year period and we did have some recent watershed projects an alum treatment in adjacent storm ponds and some other projects that reduce nutrient inflow and we're hopeful that some of those clarity improvements were related to the work that we've been doing in the watershed and hopefully we'll continue to see those lack LaVon is the next Lake here as you can see the the clarity go for a deep lake like Lake LaVon would be 1.4 meters and black LaVon has a clarity goal of 4.2 so well well above what the standards are for the state lack LaVon is an old gravel pit so it's not a very old or nutrient-rich system and it also has a really small watershed so it has a lot of good things going for its water quality our Keller Lake Keller Lake is another shallow water body this is our other Lake that's on the state impaired waters list killer Lake received an alum treatment in the spring of 2019 and that led to a really good year for clarity and phosphorous and chlorophyll in the lake so we had a good year where we're meeting the state standards a lot of that was due to the alum treatment which I'll talk about in the next slide here so an alum treatment is an aluminum sulfate application alum is added to the water column the alum binds with phosphorus that's available in the water column and also settles to the bottom and when phosphorus is released from the sediments it binds that as well and makes it unavailable to algae or plants and alum is kind of an important step in the well lake improvement process so usually you focus on the watershed reduction projects first so rain gardens and storm ponds and making sure that you're you've done significant work to reduce the amount of phosphorus that's coming in the lake but because there's a legacy of a lot of phosphorus coming into the lake you also have to look at how to reduce that phosphorus that's already cycling every year within the lake and an alum treatment is a good way to do that so this photo here shows the applicator out there and then also the semi-trucks that would come and refill the tanks for for the alum treatment on Keller Lake this was the first round of treatment and we're expecting another round of treatment to hopefully further the gains of the alum treatment and then it next application is planned for 2021 or 2022 then another new project we have going on in Keller Lake is a native plant reintroduction so we've been working on curly-leaf pondweed control for a few years in Keller Lake curly-leaf pondweed is invasive plant species that's been basically a monoculture and Keller Lake in past years it dies off in early summer and can release nutrients that lead to algae blooms so we've been working on control of curly-leaf pondweed but we've seen a low response for than the native plant community so we're pending our approval of our DNR permit we're gonna be reintroducing some native plant species into the lake from a local nearby source lake that will help hopefully provide us some diversity and some competition against curly pond weed coming back in the future then we're also going to be working hopefully this is still pending but we're working with the University of Minnesota on putting together a seed bank study so they're gonna test the lake sediment to determine what plants may still be present in the seed bank but not growing and that can help inform our work towards trying to restore the lake plant community in the lake health in general so that's a couple new projects on Keller Lake moving on to Crystal Lake Crystal Lake as I mentioned has been improving and this was another good year for for Crystal Lake with all of the parameters within the the state standards so things are looking good out on Crystal then another lake that receives run off directly from Crystal Lake or the next lake in the chain is twin lakes there's a twin lake south and a twin Lake North we monitor the water quality in the South Lake but they're pretty similar conditions also twin Lake is another shallow lake but it actually has really good conditions for for a shallow lake so we've been easily meeting the the state standards out there this year and in past years as well then the next water body is wood pond a wood pond is another relatively shallow shallow water body and as I mentioned in one of my early slides it has not been meeting the the city goal for clarity which is more stringent than the state goals but it has been meeting the state goals for the state the state clarity or nutrient goals and we did conduct an alum treatment in wood pond in fall of 2018 and so 2019 was the first growing season after that alum treatment and we had a really positive response from clarity and phosphorus and chlorophyll where those numbers were well within the the state standards this year and that's a significant improvement from past years and on the the chain of lakes through the Minnesota River Watershed is early lake early lake is another shallow water body but water quality conditions are pretty good out there or meeting the phosphorous and chlorophyll and clarity standards and we have a pretty diverse native plant community out there then the last lake or pond on the list is a sunset pond sunset pond is a shallow water body most of it is just a few feet deep so it's a fairly nutrient-rich system it has been meeting the state standards so you can see below the phosphorous chlorophyll and clarity goals there but it does have some seasonal issues with filamentous algae blooms some years are worse than others but that's one of the primary concerns that at sunset pond is these periodic algae blooms well then I did want to just hit on aquatic plant diversity in general so for a lot of folks aquatic plants can be something that they don't necessarily enjoy as part of their lake or pond experience and I can definitely understand that do you like to remind residents that plants are an important part of the natural system of the lake so they help stabilize sediments they help compete with algae for resources so if you have plants you're likely going to have less algae unless algae blooms and you would otherwise and then they do provide a refuge for fish and a lot of other ecosystem benefits so in general we recommend if you live on a lake that you manage the plants as needed to for your enjoyment of the lake in your use of the lake but it's not necessarily something that is good to kind of wage an all-out battle with and try to eradicate and the graph here on the right or table shows aquatic plant diversity throughout our system so we do have a plant survey conducted by a consultant on our lakes most years crystal lake is the most diverse for aquatic plants that's also in one of our healthier lakes in town so that as 21 different plant species in it early lake is up there with 20 species our two impaired waters are a magnet Lake and Keller Lake those lakes have eight and six plant species present respectively so there is definitely a tie and you know the health of a lake system and the quality of a lake system and the aquatic plants and the diversity of aquatic plants so they are providing a lot of benefits for us then I always want to let commissioners and residents in general know that there are ways for them to get involved with improving local water quality so we have a great a workshop opportunity for residents called the landscaping for clean water workshop this is run by the Dakota County Soil and Water Conservation District this year there are virtual workshops and I believe you can sign up through July to participate in those and if you participate in the workshops you'll be eligible to apply for grant for $250 from the Soil and Water Conservation District and then the city also has its own grant program separate from the Soil and Water Conservation District which also will fund water quality improvement projects for up to a thousand dollars and the projects that are especially focused on for the landscaping for clean water workshops and these grants in general are rain gardens or small garden basins that capture a rooftop or driveway or lawn runoff and then also shoreline restorations so if you live on a pond or a lake restoring a nice native buffer that helps provide habitat and filter runoff water so those workshops that's a really great opportunity for residents and then we also have a storm drain stenciling program where resident groups or individuals can go out get designated an area by city staff we have kits that you can put in your wagon or in your car or carry along with you and paint messages on the storm drains in your neighborhood that remind people that those storm drains drain directly to their local pond or their local lake and hopefully get the message out there that you know what happens on your your property whether it's fertilizing or pesticides or whatever it might be I can really have an impact on local local water bodies so that's a program that's out there and that I think I mentioned we have 6,000 drains so there's a lot of volunteer opportunity to get involved there oh and with that you know as I mentioned this is an informational meeting or presentation so there's no action items needed but I'd certainly be happy to answer any questions commissioners or the public may have Thank You Caleb for the great presentation I see that there's a couple of questions for kylo I'm Commissioner Arnold I think you had a question is that right I do Caleb um I was wondering when you do the ohm treatments did you have a % reduction goal and did we meet it in the lakes that we did treat there was not a specific percent reduction goal so it's not based on I guess you know goal of reducing clarity by one meter it's more based on an engineering estimate of how much alum treatment is needed to or how much Allen treatment elite can hold basically so you alum can change the pH you know like so there's only a certain amount you can safely apply without changing the pH so basically we'll add what we can safely apply and then you know where we can track the the changes through clarity in the future but we don't necessarily set out an exact target goal but it's it's pretty well established that there is a very direct impact er or improvement after an alum treatment do you also follow the phosphorus concentration see how it's working yes yep so we we have data collected for phosphorus nitrogen chlorophyll a and then cleared water clarity okay and then just one more question on the um treatment when you add the arm doesn't it it binds with the phosphorus correct yeah and then is it like just bind with that phosphorus that's in the column right then or as stuff comes through the rest of the summer will it also grab onto that or is there a maximum that each molecule will hold and that's what you base like you're gonna do it in every two years or how does that work yeah so the there is kind of a maximum what once all the alum bonds or particles are bound with phosphorus then it's not going to be effective beyond that so there is kind of a maximum amount that it combined it primarily works not necessarily to buy and phosphorus in the water column when it's applied though it does do that but it also works throughout the season at phosphorus that's released from the sediments maybe not necessarily the inflow but within a lake there's always a lot of breakdown of organic material and phosphorus that's kind of released at the sediment level so the alum helps bind up that phosphorus that's released throughout the season at the sediment level and prevent it from being you know accessed by algae okay Thank You Commissioner Donaldson did you have a question as well yeah I did gills is there a fairly high cost associated with the home treatment yes they are expensive I don't have the numbers in front of me right now but they are significantly expensive so it's not something that you'll necessarily do every year they're more likely to be targeted for a cycle you know of every ten years something like that and you know since they are expensive that's you know one of the reasons why they're they're not done I guess haphazardly you really want to work on managing the watershed inflow as a phosphorus first because if you can slow that down you're going to get a lot more benefit and longevity out of the of an alum treatment see ya there they are expensive and that does definitely go into planning how they're used alright thanks for that excellent any other questions from any other commissioners I do have one question myself you mentioned some of the native plant species that your reign in tribution into a couple of the water areas you know you there was a pretty big difference between some of our more healthy water features versus some of the more impaired is there a threshold that you look at to say that it is likely in a situation where it has a decent amount of species it seems like the 2221 kind of category seem significant I don't know what that also is influenced just by the type of kind of water body that might be I don't know if you have anything to add there yeah I haven't heard of a threshold specifically I think you know 20 to 21 is definitely pretty good shape I think it seems like you know 14 or 15 above that above that it seems like you have a pretty stable native plant community and below that it seems like the community is less stable more likely to fluctuate between you know algae blooms and in plants from year to year but it's it's an area that is under studied so it's relatively a newer area of study where people are working on restoring lake plant communities there's been a lot of work done to restore upland habitats like prairies or wetlands but I think there's just starting to be more focused on working on the the in lake aquatic plant system awesome it seems like a way that yes just in talking about the weeds I'm just wondering what the state is with a Eurasian milfoil and some of the lakes and if we're gonna be doing any treatment for those yes so most of our water bodies I'm trying to think through the lakes I think all of them have Eurasian water milfoil and so it's pretty widespread through our water system most of our lakes are connected through pipes so that kind of makes sense and in general it's relatively under control in most of our water bodies so we did have we do have a consultant who does surveys and they did a survey on Crystal Lake this spring and found that the densities were relatively low so it didn't seem to warrant any treatment so that's something we kind of track year by year and determine whether potential treatment might be needed okay thank you any final questions for Hilo awesome thank you so much Caleb for presenting I think this is an informational only so with that on to the next agenda item which is a public hearing a review of Burnsville stormwater pollution prevention program the 2018 annual report and I believe Emily Jennings is our presenter good evening commissioners thank you for having me back again this year to talk on the City of Boerne that Burnsville 2019 annual report for their NPDES ms4 permit as mentioned I'm Emily Jennings a water resources engineer with seh I'm just so a quick look at what we're going to be talking about this evening of a brief overview of the NPDES program we'll talk a little bit about what the ms4 permit is and why the city has it we will talk through the compliance of the city of Burnsville permit for the 2019 year as well as some 2019 highlights and then briefly look forward into the future of the anaphor permit so some background the NPDES program stands for national pollutant discharge elimination system this is a federal program that was founded as part of the Clean Water Act as I mentioned it's federal so it is under the United States Environmental Protection Agency but the administration is handled on a local level here in the state of Minnesota that's the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency the city of Burnsville is a phase two small MS four and what that means is that they share general permit coverage with most other MS forests in the state of Minnesota there's only two phase ones in the state so Burnsville and a lot of the other neighboring communities have the same requirements so the ms4 permit itself ms4 stands for a municipal separate storm sewer system and what that means is the city owns and operates a storm sewer system to convey storm water as part of the ms4 permit the city is required to have a stormwater pollution prevention plan or a swip and the swip is comprised of minimum control measures and best management practices or BMPs there's a lot of acronyms with this whole program so if I say something in the acronym form and it just doesn't make sense jot it down and we can talk about it at the end so like I mentioned there are minimum control measures this is a really large the majority of the storm water pollution prevention plan and the six of them include public education and outreach public participation and involvement illicit discharge detection and elimination construction site runoff control post construction runoff control and pollution and prevention and good housekeeping permanence cooperations so another component of the Swift is the reporting process which is a big reason why we are all here this evening the the city is required to submit an annual report each year by June 30th to cover the previous calendar year so the annual report that the city will be submitting shortly covers January 1 of 2019 to December 31st if you'd like to view what that annual report will look like there is a draft copy on the city's website at Burnsville Minnesota gov /sw PPP in addition to the annual report the city is required to do a self-assessment and a review on a program and how they're doing the city ops to do this side-by-side with their annual reporting process and based on the information gathered from the self-assessment as well as the annual report preparation the city has met its requirements for the 2019 year it's also important to add that the MPCA does audit ms fors and their programs they say it happens approximately on a seven-year cycle subject to change the city of Burnsville was audited previously in 2016 and that audit report came back that the city was in compliance and their program was was working as the permit intended intended to so now we're gonna just run through some highlights 2019 highlights by a minimum control measure so minimum control measure one public education and outreach the city uses a variety of different methods to share information related to stormwater and the city's stormwater pollution prevention plan including brochures newsletters cable TV presentations events and trainings meetings and the city's website all these different avenues really help the city to reach a broad audience and if you'd like any more information on the circulation of any of these different methods please see that draft annual report minimum control measure to public participation and involvement this this minimum control measure requires the study to give the public at least one opportunity annually to comment on the city's stormwater pollution prevention plan and the city receives those comments they consider them they will respond and then if changes are needed to the swip they will go through an amendment process so I just have included on this slide some past meetings and then on the far right side in parentheses the number of comments the city's has received um there has been very few in the past few years which is totally okay but in addition this year there's a slight change and that there's a new comment form on the city's website which I'll share a little bit more information about towards the end of the presentation but this is just another opportunity for the public to ask some questions about the stormwater pollution prevention plan minimum control measure three is illicit discharge detection and elimination this portion album os4 program requires the city to be vigilant in inspecting for orlistat discharges but also be aware and how to detect and eliminate them so the city is trained in illicit discharge detection and elimination and they look for illicit discharges during day-to-day operations including outfall inspections and inspections of priority areas but they don't can't always have all eyes on everything and because of that there is an illicit discharge hotline but the city also maintains in the 2019 year there was one illicit discharge that was reported and the duty officer was involved this illicit discharge although you never want them to occur this was a great example of how the city is trained and they know what to do the police were notified by a resident and the police officer involved - city staff members who were able to detect the cause of the illicit discharge and able to prepare the proper documentation and the illicit discharge was taken care of from that point so just a good example of how the city knows how to respond to these things minimum control measure four is construction sites or matter runoff control so although the city has their own set of requirements that may be more stringent than the MPCA the NPC a really only wants you to report on projects that meet their thresholds so for this minimum control measure we only report on sites that are greater than one acre so in the in 2019 there were 15 construction projects that were greater than an acre within the city of Burnsville and at those sites there were 114 inspections that occurred with varied frequency frequency depends on a few different things including the stage of construction and the receiving waters for example and from those inspections there were 32 notices of violation and 33 correction notices so those numbers might look a little high I think that they're reassuring that the inspections are being done thoroughly and there were no more severe response as needed so those took care of everything minimum control measure 5 is post-construction stormwater management so again the NPC is really only concerned with sites greater than one acre and in 2019 there were six potential projects reviewed that met that threshold they were reviewed to see if they meet the city's requirements which are at least as stringent as the construction stormwater permit and they include the requirement to match pre development runoff rates and volume management as set forth in the minimal impact design standards minimum control measure six is pollution prevention and Good Housekeeping this particular minimum control measure really focuses on the city's infrastructure and inspecting it and maintaining it and a big part of that is the structural stormwater BMPs out Falls and ponds that are part of the MS 4 system the there are different frequency that inspections are required of structural stormwater BMPs are 100 percent annually and outfalls and ponds are required to be inspected within the term of the permit so it's approximately 20% annually assuming you have a 5-year permit term in 2019 100 percent of the structural stormwater BMPs were inspected 124 or 9 percent of the outfalls were inspected and 82 or 17 percent of the stormwater ponds were inspected so although those outfalls and ponds numbers are slightly below the 20 percent mark the numbers have been higher in the past and as long as you get 100 percent within that permit term however it is important to note that the MPCA has opted to modify that with that with that frequency with the future permit to set a requirement of 20% annually so it's just some thing to keep in mind moving forward that the city is aware of already so now I'm gonna go through some 2019 project highlights last year when we have this meeting we shared the same schematic that you can see on this slide preparing for a slope stabilization study project there were three different sites that you can see here that had some slopes that were causing some erosion and scour and I needed some stabilization so now we can see that that project was completed so we can come full circle on this here you can see the Rupp Drive site before and after here is another image of the Rupp Drive site before and after the slope stabilization project here we have the church site before and after Heys drive site before and after the haze drive sight before and after if you have any other questions about the slope stabilization project I encourage you to reach out to Jen desert city engineer so now just a brief look forward you know I've been mentioning this for a couple years now but they there is a new permit in the near future the current ms4 permit that the city is operating under is currently expired and that is because the MPCA is a little bit behind on reissuing that tentatively we had planned for the new permit to be issued summer of this year however I believe there's some delays to that due to the Cova 19 situation but the the new news is potentially in the fall or or may be sooner and when that new permit does does get issued the city will be required to complete what's called a part 2 reauthorization application which is essentially a very detailed self-assessment and annual report so the city can determine what they need to do to meet the intent of the new permit as every time the MPCA issues a new permit there's always some slight changes sometimes more than slight and then following that application the city will complete program updates to kind of meet to the intent of that new permit there's also talks of potential new permit fees for all water permits through the MPCA there they're really in preliminary discussions of this right now but currently the city pays a four hundred dollar fee every time they apply for the permit which is once about every five years however the MPCA is looking at changing that fee cycle to the annually and it would be population based there's a pretty large change in the amount of money that the permit fees would cost and they're really just in the early stages of this right now and I had mentioned previously that there is a new comment form so this is a screenshot of the city's website again Burnsville Minnesota gov /sw PPP and you can see at the bottom there there is a link to a comment form so if people aren't able to make comments this evening they can also utilize the website and with that journeymen will you please open the meeting for public comment absolutely so just a point of clarification for myself should be open for questions from our Commission first and then public comment you're at the other way around whatever you would prefer to sign with me okay so maybe you'll open it up to Commission questions and then we can open it up to the public comment if that's okay any questions from our commission all right and Meagan are there any people wishing to comment publicly from the public no one from the public has asked to speak madam chair alright and I believe we need a motion on this one is that accurate Emily a motion to adopt I'm assuming um I don't believe so I think we just needed to have that public comment opportunity okay um Jen maybe you can add to that I do believe we need if you have any recommendations for the swip that would be the recommendation if you have no recommendations I think we need a motion that you have no recommendations to proceed as we've been going perfect so with that maybe I'll open it up to the commissioners are there any recommendations we would suggest on this presentation or report out all right hearing none then I'm looking for a motion to proceed with no recommendations can I get some money to motion Commissioner Donaldson appears to be a Jomo all right thank you I second all right Thank You commissioner and then JJ can you do a call the roll of votes yes Fisher Angora hi for sure Arnold hi sure Bower aye mr. Cleveland all right Fisher Donaldson I was sure fidget I wish mere McGuire hey Fisher Newman I fisherwoman hi may commissioners recommendations no recommendations passes all right thank you very much thank you with that I believe we're moving on to miscellaneous the only thing I currently have noted is our next weenie which is July 6 GJ any additional items that we want to cover from staff yes Thank You chair Newman I would just like to point out that this is Commissioner Bauer's last meeting with us he is a student representative that has served his his term his one-year term with us and he's moving on so Thank You Commissioner Bauer for your one-year service with our parks and Natural Resources Commission yeah thank you awesome thank you all right so with that I believe we can move to adjourn do I have a motion i motion to adjourn all right Thank You commissioner Arnold Drive a second sir all right Thank You Commissioner fidget all right so JJ don't you do a call of the rola votes well one last time commissioner and ara hi mr. Arnold I sure Bauer aye mr. Cleveland I assured Donaldson hi mr. fitchett hi mr. McGuire hey mr. Newman hi mr. Wolman hi Thank You commissioners motion to adjourn the meeting is passed thank you all right have a great night everyone and Stacy this is the end of our parks natural recess Resources Commission meeting for June 1st thank you