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Approved Minutes - 2010-07-19 City of Lake Oswego Sustainability Advisory Board Minutes July 19, 2010 CALL TO ORDER / ROLL CALL Co-Chair Bruce Brown called the July 19, 2010 meeting of the Sustainability Advisory Board (SAB) to order at 6:30 p.m. in the Santiam Room of the West End Building, 4104 Kruse Way, Lake Oswego, Oregon. Members present: Co-Chairs Bruce Brown and Grant Watkinson, Dorothy Atwood, Matt Briggs, Ron Gronowski, Paul Lyons, and Gregory Monahan. Amin Wahab was not present. Council Liaison: Sally Moncrieff. Guests: Ray Phelps, Frank Lonergran and Craig Holmes, Allied Waste; Gary Bachofner; Vidya Kali; Daniel Gottlieb. Staff: Susan Millhauser, Sustainability Coordinator/Staff Liaison; and Justin Bates, AmeriCorps/Sustainability Outreach Specialist. MINUTES (None) ANNOUNCEMENTS Lake Oswego Sustainability Professionals planned to hold a networking event the following Wednesday. The first citywide garage sale had been a very successful event. Mr. Bates’ service in Lake Oswego was ending and he was headed to Boston. Ms. Millhauser and Mr. Brown were organizing an electric vehicle expo on August 22 in conjunction with the Oswego Heritage Council’s collectible car show. Mr. Brown had drafted a letter to the City Council regarding using ozone to treat water at the new water plant. Ms. Atwood moved for the SAB to send the letter. Mr. Lyons seconded the motion and it passed by unanimous vote. PUBLIC COMMENT (None) REGULAR BUSINESS Community Food Waste Pilot Ray Phelps, Craig Holmes and Frank Lonergran, from Allied Waste, presented Allied Waste Food Waste Collection Proposal 07-19-10. They recommended the pilot program focus on commercial and industrial waste because Portland had already started a residential pilot program that they were learning from. Mr. Phelps said Allied Waste was calculating what the new rate for food waste pickup should be and would be ready to begin the program and start soliciting individual business customers as soon as the City Council approved it. He explained that food waste containers were smaller than those typically required for general garbage and Metro currently applied reduced fees and excise taxes to disposal of food waste. But because food waste was sometimes hard to distinguish from regular garbage Allied Waste would employ people to sort through it to remove material that could not be composted in the 90-day turnaround time. He also advised that some customer’s sites might not be large enough to physically accommodate another container for food waste. During the discussion SAB members anticipated the food waste program would help reduce the amount of organic material that entered the sewer system. Allied Waste representatives observed that the program would also save the water that was used to flush it into the sewer system. Mr. Phelps anticipated that the results of both Portland’s and Lake Oswego’s programs would be reported in about a year. City of Lake Oswego Sustainability Advisory Board Minutes of July 19, 2010 Page 2 of 3 When asked if trucks would be powered by natural gas, he related that the lack of demand by haulers and the lack of a distribution system made it a challenge to implement wide-spread use of natural gas to power trucks. But Allied was talking with the City of Wilsonville about ways to do that. Mr. Phelps related that his firm was marketing the compost to local vineyards and nurseries. They were installing equipment to clean garbage trailers so they could make return trips with compost loads. He explained that the waste had to be put through three screening processes to get out small bits of plastic. Otherwise those bits would float to the top of the compost when it got very wet. The Board advised Allied to involve the schools and arrange for some businesses to endorse the program when they presented the program to the City Council. Mr. Watkinson saw the need for incentives to encourage food businesses to use compostable packaging. Mr. Phelps reported that Portland did not franchise commercial/industrial food disposal businesses and Metro staff had been involved in outreach, so tonnage of that kind of waste had been growing every year. It was a matter of reaching one customer at a time when they had a “container issue.” He advised it was important to train employees of customer businesses. Mr. Watkinson moved that the SAB endorse the efforts of Allied W aste to compost commercial food waste. Mr. Lyons seconded the motion and it passed by unanimous vote. Mr. Phelps distributed copies of the responses to the questionnaire that Allied had asked visitors to its Centennial booth to complete. Board Recruitment Status Ms. Millhauser announced the City had received five applications for the five open SAB positions. Interviews had been scheduled. The City could decide to reopen the application period to solicit more applicants to fill all the open positions, plus two alternate positions. The student member would be appointed in a separate process to appoint students to each board and commission. Election of Officers Mr. Monahan moved that Mr. Brown and Mr. Watkinson continue to serve as Co-chairs. Mr. Lyons seconded the motion and it passed by unanimous vote. Comprehensive Plan Citizen Advisory Committee Councilor Moncrieff was to chair the committee. She stressed that the SAB representative would perform the important functions of helping people understand what sustainability meant and what the Natural Step framework was. Mr. Lyons announced he was unable to serve on the committee. Ms. Atwood tentatively agreed to serve as the SAB representative and Mr. Watkinson volunteered to serve as backup. Centennial Celebration Review The event organizer had announced that around 7,000 people attended the Centennial Event at Luscher Farm. Ms. Millhauser thanked all who had volunteered. She reported there had been high interest in the water conservation kits and the information on how to make your own household cleaners. She confirmed that the Planning Department was hoping to hold a green home tour in October. Sustainability Policy and Decision Tool City of Lake Oswego Sustainability Advisory Board Minutes of July 19, 2010 Page 3 of 3 Ms. Millhauser distributed, “Guidance for Developing a Sustainability Screening Tool,” for the Board to consider. SAB members advised that after the tool was developed, it would have to be maintained and “morphed” to apply to each different project. Someone should be made responsible for overseeing that. They anticipated the tool could be utilized for a range of decisions related to the CIP program, budgeting, Foothills planning, the Comprehensive Plan update, and the water project. They said the City did not need to reinvent the wheel, but could look at existing models developed by Shore Bank and the City of Vancouver and work with the Clackamas Natural Step group and other jurisdictions. Ms. Millhauser suggested that if the tool were ready by October it could be presented at the Comprehensive Plan update open house as the tool the City would use to help evaluate policies. Ms. Atwood suggested the tool should call for a review of its own effectiveness. Councilor Moncrieff was interested in having a tool to help the Council decide which city facilities plan was the most sustainable. Mr. Gronowski suggested the tool would not require a deep enough analysis of real costs to evaluate something like a city facilities plan. He advised that would require intensive studies. Mr. Briggs suggested locating all City facilities in the same place. That might be done in phases. Mr. Watkinson urged the Councilors to think about the possibility of creating an eco-district in the area around the West End Building if City facilities were to be consolidated there. The group acknowledged that it would take time to develop a tool and a process to implement it. Ms. Atwood suggested Lake Oswego use the Vancouver tool as a pilot project for a year. Ms. Millhauser offered to arrange to talk to someone who had utilized the Vancouver tool to find out what had worked and what had not worked for that city. Higher Performance Green Building Policy Approach Ms. Millhauser was going to draft a policy statement for the SAB to examine. The Board advised that the design of a “green building” could have a positive effect on the health and productivity of the people inside. They saw a need to ensure a building was actually constructed and operated the way it was designed by measuring its performance and training its occupants. Use of Proceeds from the Grow and Gather Dinner Ms. Atwood recalled it had been the SAB’s recommendation to use the proceeds from the Grow and Gather Dinner for teacher sustainability training. She was concerned that the City would simply give the money to the School District without knowing how the District would use it or asking the District to account for it. Councilor Moncrieff reported that School District had done a good job using the Clean Streams educational money the City had given it. She suggested Ms. Atwood discuss training with the Principal of Hallinan School who had been instrumental in making the watershed program successful. ADJOURNMENT The next meeting was scheduled on August 16, 2010. There being no other business, Co-Chair Brown adjourned the meeting at 8:35 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Susan Millhauser Sustainability Coordinator L:\Boards & Commissions\SAB\Minutes\2010\LO SAB2010 07-19 APPROVED.doc