This transcript is from the **Lake Elmo City Council Workshop** held on **May 14, 2024**. **Note on Speaker Identification:** While several names were provided in your context list, the transcript explicitly mentions **Clark Schroeder** (acting as City Administrator/Consultant) and **Jason Swenson** (Planning Director) as the primary staff leads for these sections. I have included them for accuracy. *** [00:00:00] **Mayor Charles Cadenhead:** We're going to get going. Is Matt coming? No, you didn't see him? All right, I'm going to call the City Council Workshop to order this May 14th, 2024. The first item on the agenda is the MPCA update on PFAS in Lake Elmo. [00:00:20] **Clark Schroeder (City Administrator):** For the Council, Mayor, and citizens, this is basically an overview of the MPCA plume and what's happening with PFAS in the city. Everybody should know they’re utilizing and coordinating the 3M settlement grant fund, which is $850 million. Right now, we have nine grants that we're managing within the city, mostly with neighborhood city water hookups. But we're also using a couple of other grants for studying Well Number Two and a treatment plant for a well down by 10th Street with Well Number Six. These are issues the MPCA is helping us with. In addition, we have the contractor AECOM, which provides the technical expertise and management for the SAFF system at Tami Park, stripping out the PFAS out of the water. They’re working with different technologies to destroy the PFAS in a concentrated form. Who wants to go first? [00:01:25] **Hannah Tami (AECOM):** I’m Hannah Tami, I’m with AECOM. I’ve been helping out with the investigation and the staff at Tami Park. This shows the plume maps we have developed for Lake Elmo, Oakdale, and West Lakeland. These maps show the PFAS extent in the Prairie du Chien on the left and the Jordan aquifer on the right. You can see how extensive those impacts are. Anything blue and above would be above the MDH current drinking water standards. These are results from the groundwater model AECOM put together. It shows where the groundwater is going from key spots where PFAS is originating, like the Oakdale Disposal Site (ODS) or the Washington County Landfill (WCL), as well as Raleigh Creek and Eagle Point Lake. [00:03:00] **Hannah Tami:** This particle tracking shows where a particle would go in the next 50 to 100 years. Areas most important for Lake Elmo include impacts infiltrating from Raleigh Creek and Eagle Point Lake moving southward. From the Washington County Landfill, impacts primarily move east. The plume was likely drawn more toward Lake Elmo historically because of pumping at Lake Elmo Well 1. Changing the pumping by adding new wells will change this migration, which we want to be aware of. [00:04:10] **Hannah Tami:** One of the options in the feasibility study is this "multi-benefit well array." The blue wells are injection and the black wells are extraction wells. The purpose is for extraction wells to pump enough water to supply the 2040 demand for Lake Elmo and Oakdale. The injection wells provide a barrier to keep PFAS from migrating south. This well array would provide enough drinking water for Lake Elmo’s 2040 demands. The costs would be about $230 to $350 million. This includes hooking up residents currently on private wells. [00:05:45] **Council Member Jeff Holtz:** Question on that. In that multi-benefit well situation, some wells are outside of Oakdale and Lake Elmo—like new injection ones in Woodbury or pumping in West Lakeland. How does that work in terms of who owns that infrastructure, since both cities are independent systems? [00:06:10] **Andrew Dalme (MPCA):** I'm Andrew Dalme from the Minnesota Pollution Control agency, supervisor of the East Metro unit. That is something the cities would have to come to an agreement on. We can assist, but the communities have to reach their own agreement. [00:06:30] **Council Member Jeff Holtz:** Does the MPCA have authority to say, assist with Woodbury? If they didn't want to cooperate, does the MPCA have the authority to force that? [00:06:40] **Andrew Dalme:** As far as I understand, we do not have the authority to force any of that to happen. But if that’s what made sense for the ultimate remedy, we’d try to assist. [00:06:55] **Hannah Tami:** To the Woodbury note, these injection wells greatly help their water supply by keeping impacts from migrating. [00:07:05] **Council Member Jeff Holtz:** So when you’re pumping 10,800 gallons per minute and reinjecting 7,000, you’re leaving roughly 3,000 gallons per minute for drinking water? [00:07:15] **Hannah Tami:** Yes. [00:07:20] **Council Member Jeff Holtz:** 3,000 gallons a minute is the equivalent of two of our bigger wells, right? Would that be split between Lake Elmo and Oakdale? [00:07:35] **Hannah Tami:** Yes. [00:07:40] **Council Member Jeff Holtz:** And Woodbury wouldn't get any of that? [00:07:45] **Hannah Tami:** None of this would be distributed to Woodbury. [00:07:50] **Mayor Charles Cadenhead:** Would this money be coming from the 3M settlement funds? [00:08:00] **Andrew Dalme:** That is something we’d have to look into. We have a presentation tomorrow at our work group meeting talking about future funding. This is quite a bit of money, more than was initially allotted in the drinking water protection allotment, so we’d have to find another source. [00:08:25] **Mayor Charles Cadenhead:** How does this interplay with the White Bear Lake comprehensive water plan? [00:08:35] **Andrew Dalme:** They are separate efforts, but we have MPCA folks attending those meetings to see if this option could be included. [00:08:45] **Mayor Charles Cadenhead:** What effect would these array wells have on White Bear Lake levels? Would the DNR even permit them if they draw down the lake? [00:09:00] **Randall Doneen (DNR):** I’m Randall Doneen with the DNR. Until standing commitments from the district court order are complete, we can’t authorize water that will additionally draw down the lake. When the MPCA gets to a certain point, we can run this through the model. The benefit is you’d no longer be pumping your current annual allocation. The goal of the 2027 water supply plan is to authorize additional water without impacting the lake. [00:10:00] **Mayor Charles Cadenhead:** It seems like there are two different models? [00:10:05] **Hannah Tami:** Yes, the Project 1007 model has a different domain and takes into account integrated surface water and groundwater because of the PFAS impacts. [00:10:30] **Council Member Katrina Backstrom:** Are there two models or three? Is there also the settlement work group model? [00:10:45] **Andrew Dalme:** That’s a third one. They have similar information, but the AECOM model for us includes surface water and gets into more detail. The one Wood did for the settlement was a much bigger, less detailed area. [00:11:15] **Council Member Katrina Backstrom:** My concern is, which one is the District Court going to pay attention to? It makes it very difficult for us to make informed decisions when there are three different ways to model it. [00:11:45] **Clark Schroeder:** Project 1007 started in 1987 for water movement but has turned into a "superhighway" of PFAS contamination. What is the plan for cleaning the water and the decades of sediment in these waterways? [00:12:05] **Andrew Dalme:** That will be part of the feasibility study. There are a series of alternatives being evaluated. [00:12:15] **Clark Schroeder:** Lake Elmo itself is very polluted with PFAS. Does this well array help stop the migration into the lake? [00:12:30] **Hannah Tami:** Yes. Especially the connection from the Washington County Landfill. Cleaning up the groundwater would stop that migration as it enters the lake. [00:12:50] **Mayor Charles Cadenhead:** Should citizens be concerned about swimming in the lakes? [00:13:00] **Hannah Tami:** The water in Lake Elmo is not above the surface water criteria for swimming. Further upstream in Raleigh Creek, there are exceedances. Surface water criteria is often based on fish impacts, whereas drinking water is for humans. [00:13:30] **Mayor Charles Cadenhead:** What do you do with the PFAS as extracted by your process? [00:13:40] **Hannah Tami:** That segues into the SAFF system (Surface Active Foam Fractionation). It injects air to cause the PFAS to foam, and that foam is removed. We've piloted this at Tami Park. We're able to get PFOA down below detection limits. We don't think SAFF can be used exclusively for drinking water, but it could be pre-treatment to reduce the cost of granular activated carbon. For Raleigh Creek, we saw a 99% reduction in PFAS. We’ve produced about ten 55-gallon drums of concentrate. [00:16:30] **Mayor Charles Cadenhead:** What methodologies are used to "destroy" forever chemicals? [00:16:40] **Hannah Tami:** Electrochemical oxidation, supercritical water oxidation, plasma treatment, and UV light. They are essentially breaking it down into shorter chains that may not bio-accumulate the same way. [00:17:30] **Clark Schroeder:** We’re expecting a ruling from Judge Libman regarding the allocation level for White Bear Lake. Randall, thank you for coming out. Do you have updates? [00:18:00] **Randall Doneen (DNR):** The date for the order is tomorrow. There is a process where the DNR can submit exceptions. We have settled in concept with a handful of cities, like Stillwater and North St. Paul. [00:19:15] **Council Member Katrina Backstrom:** Lawyers for Stillwater were asking for an exception so they didn't have to move their well outside the 5-mile limit. Has anything happened there? [00:19:30] **Randall Doneen:** The parties agreed to the hardship case for Stillwater. We'll see what the judge says. Stillwater's argument was that moving the well a matter of feet wouldn't change the impact on the lake. [00:20:10] **Council Member Katrina Backstrom:** Has that same analysis been done for our wells? [00:20:15] **Randall Doneen:** We’ve analyzed your wells. Moving further away from the lake does help. [00:20:30] **Mayor Charles Cadenhead:** Our engineer testified that our well draw-down was one-tenth of one inch over a 20-year period. [00:20:45] **Randall Doneen:** I forget where Lake Elmo was on the list, maybe 9th? You were less than Woodbury. [00:21:00] **Mayor Charles Cadenhead:** Have the golf courses settled? If the lake is below 923.5, would they have the same irrigation ban as residents? [00:21:15] **Randall Doneen:** We have a settlement proposal from them. It’s not the same; they have a series of conditions where their water use ramps down based on lake elevation and soil moisture. [00:22:15] **Council Member Katrina Backstrom:** Would the DNR support us approving 6,000 apartments, which use less water per day, to build our way down to the 75-90 gallon per capita goal? [00:22:45] **Randall Doneen:** We’re not land-use planners, but smaller lot sizes are obviously going to be easier to get to that goal than larger lot sizes. [00:23:05] **Council Member Katrina Backstrom:** Can residents on White Bear Lake Avenue draw water directly from the lake for their yards? [00:23:15] **Randall Doneen:** If they have riparian rights, they can. If they use less than 10,000 gallons a day, they don’t need DNR authorization. So yes, they could continue to have green lawns during a residential ban that affects city water users. [00:24:45] **Council Member Jeff Holtz:** For MPCA—we only have one engineer. Can we get "administrative grants" to cover the labor costs of actually writing these grant applications? [00:25:20] **Andrew Dalme:** Yes, we’ve had success with administrative grants for other communities. You could seek an amendment to include Grant application writing time. [00:26:50] **Clark Schroeder:** I’ll try to figure that out. We have two neighborhoods scheduled for city water next summer. I’ll add the grant writing time to the administrative grant. [00:28:15] **Mayor Charles Cadenhead:** Next on the agenda: Open Space Planned Unit Development (PUD) ordinance review. Director Swenson. [00:28:30] **Jason Swenson (Planning Director):** We’re talking about the Open Space PUD. We have two applicants seeking to build these, and the question was: can we do more to promote them? Currently, it requires rural zoning, a 20-acre minimum, and 50% open space. We have 18 existing open space developments in Lake Elmo, like Fields of St. Croix. [00:29:50] **Jason Swenson:** I wanted to show other examples, like Jackson Meadow in Marine on St. Croix, which has 70% open space and much smaller lots. Or Serenbe outside of Atlanta—it’s a cluster development with 70% open space and mixed-use. They saved 60% on infrastructure costs by clustering. Should we consider "cluster" versus "traditional" Open Space? [00:32:00] **Jason Swenson:** Regarding buffers, currently, they are 200 feet. We are proposing 100-foot buffers from all adjacent properties and 200 feet from existing residential dwellings. Also, we’re recommending 28-foot wide streets with parking on one side. A developer asked to remove curb and gutter to save costs, but we recommend retaining it. [00:35:15] **Council Member Katrina Backstrom:** Are we changing our Open Space PUD for developers, or because our community wants it? I'm concerned we are bending over backwards for developers and ignoring our guiding documents. [00:35:45] **Jason Swenson:** I’m taking developer comments into consideration regarding what is driving up costs, but I don't think this is "driven" by them. This is about creating a better product. Our current code is 20 years old. [00:36:15] **Mayor Charles Cadenhead:** Our last Comp Plan had very little community input. I asked to look at this because I want something that makes sense without needing variance after variance. Our community septics in places like Fields of St. Croix aren't working out. [00:37:30] **Council Member Katrina Backstrom:** I personally like the Open Space PUD, but my concern is changing things because the market today is dictating one thing. Are we trying to adjust just for these two specific developers? [00:38:00] **Jason Swenson:** Definitely not. I’m looking at how to create a $500,000 to $600,000 product for families. If lot sizes decrease, open space increases. [00:39:45] **Council Member Jeff Holtz:** Regarding sidewalks and trails—is there a planning value to having both? [00:40:15] **Jason Swenson:** Public Works and Engineering recommend concrete sidewalks for winter maintenance, so people aren't walking in the street. I would not eliminate the trails; they are a key feature. [00:43:00] **Council Member Katrina Backstrom:** I fear that by creating smaller lots, we lose "Lake Elmo." I want to ensure we still have opportunities for larger lots. If we allow smaller lots, will every developer just go that direction to make more money? [00:45:00] **Council Member Nick Dragisich:** I think there’s a middle ground. We could allow cluster developments strategically, like closer to I-94, while keeping the bigger lots in other areas. [00:46:15] **Jason Swenson:** I have enough guidance. I’ll come back with a proposal that includes maps for potential cluster areas and draft language. [00:47:30] **Clark Schroeder:** Next item: Community Room policy. Currently, we let HOAs use the old City Hall, but it’s not a great space. Some have asked to use this new community room. We need to decide who can rent it and if we want deposits or fees. [00:48:45] **Council Member Katrina Backstrom:** This room was paid for by the community. I want to be careful about keeping people out. I think we should have a deposit and expectations for cleaning, but it should be for the community. [00:50:00] **Council Member Jeff Holtz:** Can the key cards be programmed to expire after 24 hours? [00:50:15] **Julie Johnson (City Clerk):** Yes. [00:51:30] **Council Member Jeff Holtz:** I’d be curious what Woodbury or Cottage Grove does for waivers and security deposits. Even a Boy Scout troop could spill pop and stain the carpet, which costs more than $50 to clean. [00:52:15] **Clark Schroeder:** I’ll come back with a proposed policy and some sample policies from other cities. The general consensus seems to be to open it up to the community. [00:53:30] **Mayor Charles Cadenhead:** Future work session items include the Parks Master Plan and Lake Association Grants. Anything else? [00:53:45] **Clark Schroeder:** Clarissa needs to know if you'll be here on August 27th for the initial budget meeting. [00:54:10] **Mayor Charles Cadenhead:** We’ll adjourn this meeting at 8:24 PM. [Gavel sounds]