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Environmental Board Auto captions

Wednesday, April 10, 2024

6:30 PM · 1h 35m
Topic tracked across meetings:
Comprehensive Plan: Environment Element Update (I) [20 mins] ID 1583 14/14
Section
Topic
2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
2a
Minutes of February 26, 2024
packet pp.3–5
Staff report:
APPROVAL OF MINUTES a) 02-26-24 Park Board Minutes CITY OF ISSAQUAH Park Board 6:30 PM Tibbetts Manor, 750 17th Ave February 26, 2024 MINUTES NW, Issaquah
2b
Minutes of March 13, 2024
packet pp.7–9
Staff report:
CITY OF ISSAQUAH Environmental Board 6:00 PM Tibbetts Manor, 750 17th Ave. March 13, 2024 MINUTES NW, Issaquah
4. AGENDA ITEMS
4a
Energy Smart Eastside and Potential Electrification Program Expansion (I, D) [50 mins]
Sarah Phillips, ESE Program Manager Stacy Vynne McKinstry, Sustainability Manager · packet pp.11–24
Topics: ClimateArts & Culture
Staff report:
Office of Sustainability 130 E Sunset Way | P.O. Box 1307 Issaquah, WA 98027 issaquahwa.gov
4b
Comprehensive Plan: Environment Element Update (I) [20 mins]
Stephen Padua, Long Range Planner David Reedy, Sustainability Coordinator · packet pp.25–35
Topics: Land Use
Staff report:
Community Planning & Development 130 E Sunset Way | P.O. Box 1307 Issaquah, WA 98027 issaquahwa.gov
4c
Stormwater Plan Update
Information · [15 mins] Mike Vermeulen, Water Resources Program Specialist · packet pp.37–121
Topics: Water
Staff report:
Public Works P.O. Box 1307 Issaquah, WA 98027 issaquahwa.gov
6. OTHER BUSINESS / ANNOUNCEMENTS
6a
Update on Strategic Plan Taskforce (Jamie Finch)
6b
Recognition of Board Members (Jamie Finch and Don McQuilliams)
packet pp.123–127
Staff report:
APPROVED: 3/13/2024 REVISED: 4/3/2024
6c
2024 Workplan
0:04 all right uh welcome to the April 10th
0:07 meeting of the ISA environmental board
0:09 I'm Jamie pinch and I'll be your chair
0:10 tonight um due to the hybrid nature of
0:13 this meeting we'll have some members
0:14 attending in person and some remotely
0:16 for those remotely please uh say your
0:19 name for speaking uh mute your
0:21 microphone when you're not speaking and
0:23 then raise your hand if you'd like to
0:25 speak for those here please flip your
0:27 name tag um certain topics will
0:30 summarize agre around recommendations
0:32 and please let me know if there's
0:33 anything that I missed and we know that
0:35 there's any desent um that uh sty do you
0:41 mind running us through
0:43 attendance uh Tom Anderson here Nancy
0:47 [Music]
0:50 Davidson
0:52 here Jamie Finch here of hundy
1:01 hi P can you hear
1:07 us we're unable to hear
1:15 you okay
1:18 great um Raj is here Joy Lewis has an
1:23 excused absence ashon
1:26 Canam
1:27 here Don McWilliams
1:30 here an Nukem has an excused absence
1:34 Janet
1:35 wall Dixie bear has an excused absence
1:38 and Alex Lee
1:41 tigner is planning to join virtually I
1:44 don't she just popped on the timing Alex
1:47 we were just calling your
1:50 name here
1:53 great all
1:55 right thank you Stacy um do we have I
1:59 don't see any members the public did any
2:02 public comments to know no there was um
2:07 no public comment there was a email from
2:10 Connie uh regarding the comprehensive
2:12 plan and Wildlife she said to um it it
2:16 wasn't necessarily a comment it was just
2:18 a inquiry or to take it as
2:22 information um I think with that then we
2:25 will move into the minutes um are there
2:30 any comments on the minutes from
2:32 February 26
2:36 2024 none those are approved by
2:39 unanimous consent and then are there any
2:41 comments on the minutes from March 13
2:45 2024 hearing none those are approved by
2:47 unanimous
2:48 consent um and then with that we'll move
2:51 into our attend item the first one being
2:53 Energy Smart east side of potential
2:55 electrification program expansion
3:07 okay so um wanted to welcome Sarah
3:10 Phillips uh here tonight Sarah is a
3:13 shared staff person um she's shared
3:15 between five cities but is housed at the
3:18 city of BW and she manages the Energy
3:20 Smart East Side heat pump program
3:23 tonight we wanted to provide a deep dive
3:25 into that program it has been a pretty
3:27 substantial investment um
3:30 in terms of resources funding and staff
3:33 capacity but it's also helping to
3:35 address one of our biggest greenhouse
3:36 gas um emitters which is residential
3:39 energy use um so after Sarah provides
3:44 kind of a overview and then um Dives
3:46 deep into the data from the program at
3:48 the very end we'll talk very briefly
3:50 about some of the additional incentives
3:53 or programming that we might be
3:54 considering and the approach to further
3:56 develop that so I will hand it over
4:03 great thank you so um I appreciate being
4:06 here having with all of you today I've
4:09 never been to this particular Park in
4:11 this venue so that's really fun um and
4:14 this board of course uh you work on
4:17 environmental work all the time you're
4:19 really key to shaping um climate policy
4:22 at the city of isqua uh and this program
4:25 is really um at the heart of you know
4:27 one of our key strategies for trying try
4:29 to meet our climate goals so we go to
4:32 the kind of overview of what we hope to
4:33 do today kind of the next slide I really
4:35 kind of have a few goals for you today
4:38 is you walk away with a good
4:39 understanding of energy smart east side
4:42 and how it very very concretely relates
4:45 to achievement of your 2050 um climate
4:49 goals and specifically trying the path
4:51 to carbon
4:52 neutral um we're going to talk about the
4:55 different program tracks and how we're
4:57 designing them to really Foster and
4:59 Equitable energy
5:01 transition and we'll give you just for
5:03 an update on where are we at today you
5:06 know what was the results of what I
5:07 would call sort of the pilot phase in
5:09 2023 what are we really focused on to
5:12 expand impact in 2024 and how are we
5:14 thinking about scaling it and we'll kind
5:16 of then roll into the conversation on
5:19 what um different expansion
5:21 opportunities might
5:24 be uh so Energy Smart east side is
5:27 fundamentally uh a residential home
5:30 electrification program we connect
5:32 residents with uh education resources
5:35 and in some cases financial assistance
5:37 so that they can go electric and the
5:40 program today is really um focused
5:43 squarely on heat pumps that's kind of
5:45 where we're starting so sort of from a
5:46 branding perspective we think about
5:48 ourselves more broadly than that but
5:50 from a practical standpoint our
5:51 programming today is right around heat
5:53 pumps and as um Stacy mentioned this is
5:57 a joint initiative of the cities of
5:58 Belle is a Kirkland Redmond and merer
6:05 Island so I mentioned that we're
6:08 starting with heat pumps and I just kind
6:09 of want to give context or why are we
6:12 starting there um this is a a slide that
6:15 kind of represents your most recent
6:17 greenhouse gas inventories I know Stacy
6:19 has walked you through this previously
6:22 um but a quarter of emissions in isqua
6:25 are from the residential and you know
6:28 the good news on that is on the
6:29 electricity front that is going to get
6:32 cleaner over time so pisone energy has a
6:35 mandate based on state legislation that
6:37 they need to be moving off of oil and
6:40 gas of course and so over time the
6:43 emissions from just running electricity
6:45 are going to diminish um uh
6:48 significantly but at the same time 78%
6:52 of single family homes in particular in
6:54 isqua um have gas space Heating and as
6:57 we know space heating is one of the
6:58 biggest energy consumers in the home and
7:01 if you have a gas furnace you probably
7:03 also have a gas water heater you might
7:06 have other Gas Appliances as well and so
7:09 if we're going to hit that Target in
7:10 2050 of um achieving uh carbon
7:14 neutrality we really need to start
7:16 figuring out how do we move folks off of
7:18 gas and onto
7:23 electricity one of the interesting
7:25 things that I wanted to answer early on
7:27 is just what is the emission savings if
7:29 we we install a heat pump and if you
7:31 just look at it kind of from like year
7:33 one it's about one ton so if you take a
7:36 1500 SQ foot house and you move from a
7:39 gas furnace to a heat pump it's about
7:42 one ton of CO2 uh emissions uh averted
7:47 but if you think about that over time
7:49 and you think about the compounding fact
7:51 of um the grid getting cleaner over time
7:54 it really expands massively and so if
7:57 you were to go into a home and replace
7:59 it with a heat pump a gas furnace with a
8:01 heat pump today you're looking at 62k in
8:05 emissions um averted over the lifetime
8:09 of that Appliance and then if you think
8:11 about that well like what is that in
8:12 concrete terms look like a a car for the
8:15 lifetime a gas powered car for the
8:17 lifetime that you might have it and so
8:19 it's really really significant and if
8:21 you think about them stacking like
8:22 replacing a water heater on top to that
8:24 you're up to
8:25 86k uh in CO2 savings over the lifetimes
8:29 of those appliances so it really is in
8:31 terms of kind of like bang for the buck
8:33 and and and having a major impact um
8:36 starting to Foster this Behavior change
8:37 and making it possible and affordable
8:39 for people is super
8:43 important um this is a slide I show all
8:47 day long every day it's from rewiring
8:50 American some of you may have seen it
8:52 before um this is showing King County
8:54 data but what I can tell you is isqua
8:56 Maps roughly to what we see in King
8:58 County overall um so heat pumps the good
9:01 news is heat pumps are increasing as a
9:03 percentage of residential aax sales but
9:06 if you see that line on the bottom what
9:08 that's showing you is sort of a linear
9:10 projected growth what we call business's
9:12 usual growth in heat pump sales so it's
9:14 going to continue to go up but what the
9:17 orange line on top is trying to give a
9:20 is what it needs to go up in order to
9:22 hit your 250 uh goals and that's because
9:25 the lifespan of a furnace is about 20
9:27 years so we really want to replace all
9:31 gas
9:32 furnaces uh by 2050 and stop combustion
9:35 in the home you really not need to back
9:37 up to 2030 and think about um all
9:41 residential sales um primarily changing
9:44 to heat pumps and so that's the steeper
9:46 curve and the Catalyst in the market
9:47 that we really want to try and
9:52 Foster and you know the good news is
9:54 we're starting to see this change which
9:56 is exciting and we also have some
9:58 headwinds
10:00 um this is data from uh Bell's permit
10:02 data and we're working on getting isqua
10:06 but I think that this can kind of be
10:07 representative of the market as a whole
10:09 and when I talk to hbac contractors this
10:11 is what they're telling me as well um is
10:14 we are seeing a really steep increase um
10:17 year-over-year in heat pump sales the
10:19 bottom line there is really reflecting
10:21 that in 2023 for the very first time
10:24 heat pumps outpaced gas furnaces in
10:27 bellw in terms of installation we
10:29 finally kind of just nudged Beyond gas
10:33 furnaces but at the same time we've got
10:35 some economic headwinds he pumps
10:37 continue to rise in price the factors
10:40 underneath that have a lot to do with um
10:42 uh labor costs so we've got kind of an
10:44 inflationary thing going on and on top
10:47 of that the interest rates going up have
10:49 really really impacted the ability for
10:53 people to make these kinds of
10:54 Investments and so in q1 of 2024 we're
10:57 actually starting to see the reverse
11:00 right heat pumps are not on Pace
11:02 year-over-year relative to where they
11:04 were in 2023 and you can see that the
11:06 gas furnaces have started to PCH up a
11:08 little
11:11 bit and The Upfront costs are a
11:13 significant barrier to adoption um these
11:16 graphs are a little bit hard to read
11:18 they're a little small but I'll try to
11:19 kind of walk you through it um a heat
11:22 pump today uh in the Seattle
11:24 area you're replacing a gas furnace with
11:27 a heat pump is usually going to cost
11:28 somewhere between 20 and
11:31 $30,000 high efficiency gas furnace is
11:35 going to cost somewhere between 9 and
11:37 $12,000 that's a big gap and on the
11:40 right you can kind of see that how that
11:42 cost stack is is that dark blue line
11:44 would be okay if you take the full price
11:46 of say a
11:48 $222,000 heat PB the dark blue area on
11:51 the right is kind of saying okay that's
11:53 the equivalent cost of a furnus and then
11:55 you can stack onto that uh tax
11:58 incentives you can stack onto that
11:59 utility rebates and then the Orange is
12:02 really that left is that unfunded amount
12:05 that's still the Gap that people have to
12:06 come up
12:07 with um and you know it's significant a
12:10 lot of the times when people are making
12:12 the choice to replace their heating it's
12:15 in the winter when their furnace has
12:17 stopped working and they call a
12:19 contractor and they need to very very
12:21 quickly get a new system in place and
12:24 it's an unplanned expense that's a
12:26 little bit different than what happens
12:27 we see heat pump sales happen in August
12:29 that's when they Spike that's no
12:32 surprise right it's hot I can't stand
12:35 one more summer without AC uh and that's
12:37 when we see people suddenly start to
12:39 want to make that interest uh that
12:44 investment so when we look at the
12:46 demographics of isquat and start to kind
12:48 of break it down and think about okay
12:49 how are we going to get folks to
12:51 transition um you know you do have uh
12:55 just a little bit shy over the majority
12:57 that probably do have the resource to
12:59 make the transition and we can do things
13:02 like do Outreach education uh throwing
13:05 little goodies like a manufacturer
13:07 rebate do one-on-one coaching there's a
13:09 lot of things we can do at a relatively
13:10 low cost to help get them over the line
13:14 um fear of missing out also big your
13:16 neighbors are getting heat pums you
13:17 might want to get one too uh but 44% of
13:20 your homeowners are probably going to
13:22 need some sort of assistance to be able
13:24 to really consider the investment 60%
13:28 16% are um at or below 80% of area
13:32 median income and I think you have like
13:33 probably a lot of seniors in that
13:35 category in particular and then 28% are
13:38 what we call s a middle income and
13:39 that's between 80 and
13:41 150% um and you know they might be able
13:43 to make the investment but they're
13:45 making tradeoffs for sure um and
13:47 deciding like you know is it the kids
13:49 braces or a heat pop right you're you're
13:51 making those kind of
13:54 tradeoffs so as we think about kind of
13:56 the structure of the program uh we know
13:59 that we really want to like focus on
14:00 heat pumps as just sort of like um a
14:03 really impactful emission savings
14:06 strategy it's also a climate two for one
14:09 I like to say because you're not just
14:11 doing an emission savings strategy but
14:13 it's also a climate resilience strategy
14:15 particularly when you're talking about
14:17 um vul vulnerable residents uh like
14:20 seniors um for heat and Wildfire smoke
14:24 ducted systems actually provide um great
14:26 air filtration as well so it's kind of a
14:29 CL at two for one we know we want to
14:30 focus on heat pumps and so we've
14:32 designed to try to think about the
14:33 demographics of um our communities and
14:36 how can we have programming that reaches
14:38 all of them we have um a lowincome uh
14:42 track that's designed to reach those um
14:46 residents that are at 80% or below of
14:48 area meeting income and where we provide
14:50 100% cost coverage of a heat pump that
14:53 includes purchase
14:56 installation um any duct work repair
14:59 hairs that might need to have happen and
15:01 for it to operate correctly and any
15:03 electrical upgrades that might need to
15:04 happen for it to operate correctly and
15:06 that's not unusually get into older
15:07 homes they've got old panels and they
15:09 need to be
15:10 upgraded for middle-income residents we
15:13 offer a specific incentive to um switch
15:16 from a gas furnace to heat pump um we've
15:19 started that incentive at a $1,500
15:22 incentive and we're actually testing
15:23 next month bumping that up to $2500 and
15:26 seeing what that does um as we plann for
15:29 next year we're hoping to make that
15:31 permanently a $2,500
15:33 incentive and then kind of like for all
15:35 incomes for all residents we offer um uh
15:39 webinars every other month we do
15:40 in-person
15:41 workshops um we actually launched a
15:44 pilot for one-on-one coaching this um
15:47 just recently this soft launched it
15:49 literally put it on the website there's
15:51 a cly link you can sign up to talk to an
15:53 energy adviser which is basically me and
15:55 my my um Civic spark uh volunteer
15:59 and we just make ourselves available six
16:01 hours a week and with absolutely no
16:02 promotion those slots completely filled
16:04 up so and it really told me that
16:08 residents value this service and I talk
16:10 to residents of all Stripes they might
16:13 be um seniors on a fixed income uh I've
16:16 talked to people with 8,000 foot homes
16:19 with three furnaces to replace so it's
16:21 the gamut and uh they love having
16:24 somebody to call and just say help me
16:25 get started how do I find a contractor
16:27 how do I get going
16:29 uh and then we also have um a a a
16:33 partnership with jensco actually um
16:35 brokered through the city of isqua and
16:38 they offer a $500 rebate on Mitsubishi
16:41 equipment very similar kind of program
16:43 operates in Seattle as
16:46 well so where are we at today you know
16:49 2023 was kind of like a bootstrap year
16:52 um this program actually launched in
16:54 2022 but some of the major components of
16:57 the programming got started in
16:59 2023 and um on the left it kind of gives
17:02 you a sense of the funding each City put
17:05 in seed money for this isqua contributed
17:09 just a little shy of $400,000 for two
17:11 years 2023 and
17:14 2024 uh the other cities also put in um
17:18 similar amounts of money relative to
17:19 their population and they were really
17:22 successful in using that seed money to
17:24 bring in another 1.6 million in grant
17:27 funding and that has been fantastic what
17:29 I can tell you is we've actually upped
17:31 that number since I wrote the slide and
17:33 we have another 850,000 in grant funding
17:36 from pet sound energy that's going to be
17:38 announced here in just a couple weeks
17:40 they'll be naming us as a delivery
17:42 partner in their next UTC filing which
17:44 is great so we've really been successful
17:46 in taking um the investment from the
17:48 cities and really leveraging that to
17:50 bring benefits into the community um I
17:53 was the first um staff person hired and
17:55 I started in September so a lot of this
17:57 work was Stacey and the other
17:59 sustainability managers kind of gluing
18:01 this together with some vendors early
18:04 on um we managed last year to complete
18:07 our pilot of 22 lowincome installations
18:10 and we learned a lot from that exercise
18:13 that really helped us kind of fine-tune
18:15 the program for this year we put a
18:17 slightly different structure in place
18:19 and now we've kicked it off in 2024 and
18:21 it's going to be much more efficient and
18:22 also a little bit more cost effective
18:24 which was great so it was a really
18:25 really good
18:26 learnings um in our partnership with
18:28 King County we managed to um retrofit
18:31 137 affordable housing units we launched
18:34 that middle income fuel switch rebate
18:37 and I think kind of critically is a lot
18:39 of this is getting all Partnerships and
18:40 the structure in place so that you can
18:42 even operate the program so a lot of
18:43 last year was just kind of getting those
18:46 pieces in place um all of we managed to
18:49 install 205 um heat pumps across the
18:52 east side and about 28 of those were in
18:55 is a CLA
18:59 so as we think about this year there's
19:01 some specific kind of work plan that's
19:03 is a qua specific but I also want to
19:05 talk to you about the opportunities we
19:07 think are here to deepen impact not
19:09 opportunities that necessarily need more
19:11 funding but just
19:13 exploration um so the work plan for this
19:16 year is we'll fund another nine
19:18 low-income installs in isquad that'll be
19:20 a combination of a little bit of city
19:22 funding that you still have to spend
19:24 combined with that new pit Sound Energy
19:27 funding so they're going to I think do
19:28 another five installs on what what you
19:30 on top of what you already have
19:32 budgeted um really we're hoping to
19:35 influence at least 50 installs kind of
19:39 the market rate and middle income
19:40 installs across the community and we're
19:43 really excited we um just signed a
19:45 contract with uh we not signed a
19:47 contract we're close to signing a
19:49 contract with a marketing agency that
19:50 will start helping us in May and helping
19:53 us really get the word out um really
19:55 working to increase rebate adoption and
19:58 um we'll talk a little bit about our
20:00 strategies for that um scaling up the
20:03 coaching program that we just started uh
20:05 and you know continuing our Outreach
20:07 through
20:08 webinars and then foundations is a lot
20:11 of what we're doing is making sure that
20:13 we're taking advantage and beeting the
20:14 moment on Grant availability that's out
20:16 there um we have applied for
20:20 $6.2 million in funding through um
20:24 Department of Commerce here Grant um
20:27 that's an opportunity where we will
20:29 actually pull Ron is Renton in as a
20:32 potential partner as well and expand and
20:34 be able to get these heat pumps for
20:35 low-income folks out into the city of
20:38 Brenton as well so we're waiting to hear
20:40 back on what the award is going to be
20:42 there um but doing a lot of work to kind
20:44 of scale up our
20:46 programs um hbac for those of you that
20:50 are all kind of connected to that
20:52 industry at all and I think I saw you
20:54 had a connection through your company um
20:58 is is an interesting go to market and um
21:02 contractors often service a really
21:05 diverse um area we have 40 contractors
21:08 in our Network and what we've learned is
21:11 that having them relying on them to keep
21:14 straight exactly what incentives apply
21:17 in what particular scenario with what
21:21 particular demographic as they're going
21:23 out and talking to homeowners is tricky
21:26 and so a lot of what we're doing is
21:28 double down on our training um thinking
21:31 about how do we incentivize with leads
21:33 and get the um uh owners on board and
21:36 probably what we'll be doing this year
21:38 is really focus some of the top 10 um uh
21:42 contractors in the area and really
21:43 trying to drive traffic to them at the
21:45 same time we're looking at opportunities
21:47 to broaden distribution of rebates and
21:49 so we're doing kind of a little bit of
21:50 um it's sort of a funny word to talk
21:52 about in government but Business
21:53 Development basically to find out other
21:55 ways to get our rebates in Market um
21:59 and I think you know one of the things
22:00 we talked about was the headwinds on
22:02 financing right now so if you were to go
22:05 and finance a heat pump even at like uh
22:09 pesan um Cooperative Credit Union which
22:11 is a nonprofit it's going to be like
22:13 seven n seven to n% interest rate it's
22:16 pretty steep so um we're doing some
22:18 Exploration with that organization as
22:21 well as craft 3 and a rewiring America
22:24 Grant to see if there's any
22:25 opportunities to get some loan products
22:28 and work Market in our community that
22:29 are a little bit more
22:31 affordable and then um lastly isaka is
22:34 actually going to spearhead this this
22:35 summer and Stacy will walk you through
22:37 it but doing some Outreach to the
22:38 community to find out okay Beyond heat
22:40 pumps what are some of the
22:42 electrification um uh opportunities that
22:44 people would like us to help with and
22:47 then doing some um program design around
22:49 that so we could do a pilot next
22:55 year so I will I'll stop there
23:01 go ahead
23:02 Tom uh thank you Tom Anderson here uh so
23:05 I put in a heat Pop um February of last
23:09 year and so one little point of feedback
23:12 that I would give to the program and it
23:14 sounds like you're addressing this you
23:15 talked about how it's important to get
23:19 the installers on board with the
23:22 training and communication that is
23:24 necessary to make all this work and make
23:27 sure people get the appropriate rebates
23:29 Etc so the little thing that I was
23:32 disappointed in was uh I was moving
23:35 forward in 2022 to do this I had signed
23:40 a deal to have it installed in December
23:43 2022 my installer gave me no clues
23:47 whatsoever about hey if you wait a month
23:51 you could benefit from rebates from the
23:53 IRA program and all that they were
23:56 completely silent about all that and
23:58 well I got into of it and and delayed
24:01 the install and they cooperated with all
24:05 that but I was disappointed in their
24:08 lack of guiding me in that it was it was
24:10 up to me to figure out that I was about
24:12 to you know forgo that that rebate that
24:16 is out there for a purpose and I should
24:19 be able to benefit from it and and all
24:21 worked out but I was
24:24 disappointed in their lack of uh ability
24:28 or interest you know it's they of course
24:30 want to keep busy so delaying is an
24:34 economic cost to them so that's right I
24:37 understand their their reason but U uh
24:41 if they're in this program they should
24:43 be serving the needs of the program yeah
24:46 and get people educated and aware of
24:49 what's available and all that so that
24:52 was one little Nuance process that I ran
24:56 into um
24:59 see I had some
25:02 other comment
25:04 about well so shifting gears a little
25:07 bit um I'm wondering
25:09 about incentives for non-owner occupied
25:13 single family
25:15 residences so I happen to be a landlord
25:19 a couple of single family residences and
25:21 when I'm is are the rules still the same
25:24 but I've looked into this last year uh
25:27 did that of the incentives apply to non
25:30 occup that's right so although I'm uh in
25:35 favor of moving forward of this okay I
25:38 have to make the economics work for my
25:40 rental properties and the economics are
25:43 is well if one of my gas furnaces were
25:46 to fail I would replace them with the
25:47 heat pump uh for sure but if they're not
25:50 failing I'm going to you know let them
25:53 right keep running that's right and I
25:55 think the other trick there is um
25:59 you know being cognizant of folks saying
26:01 well I'll make that investment but I'm
26:02 gon pass the cost on to the renters and
26:05 um we end up with um uh rents going up
26:09 so to answer your question do we don't
26:11 have any programs specifically around
26:13 that right now it is something that
26:14 we're considering um as we think about
26:17 program expansion one of the
26:19 opportunities is to really think about
26:21 rental properties both you know single
26:23 family housing that's just non-owner
26:25 occupied as well as um a multif family
26:29 housing um of various types
26:33 so it is tricky right you know renters
26:36 come to us and uh they don't have the
26:38 authority to put a heat pump in and many
26:43 uh landlords aren't incentivized to do
26:45 it you just had the perfect example I'm
26:47 not going to just proactively do it I'm
26:49 G to wait till the furnace dies so I
26:51 think the question is is how do we make
26:53 sure that okay when the furnace dies we
26:55 can meet um Property Owners regardless
26:57 of whether it's owner occupied or not
26:59 where they're at and help them make that
27:02 good next choice um so it is something
27:05 we're looking at I don't have an answer
27:06 to it just yet but thank you for
27:08 bringing it up
27:11 you s I had a couple questions and
27:13 probably comments um is I'm curious the
27:17 learnings that you had from the initial
27:19 22 low income is that is that coming in
27:23 the form of any sort of cap on the
27:25 amount of expenditure could you expand
27:26 on that a little bit how yeah because
27:28 like it seems like there's perverse
27:30 incentives both on the homeowner side to
27:31 get the best deal and the contractor to
27:33 provide deal situation so thank you for
27:36 asking that um first I need to give you
27:38 a little bit of a background on how that
27:39 aspect of our program is structured um
27:42 so the contracts are signed by the
27:45 homeowner with the contractor and funded
27:48 through coplink with a little bit of
27:50 guidance by somebody doing case
27:52 management so it's kind of like we all
27:53 agree we're moving forward that's sort
27:55 how it worked uh last year we opened it
27:58 up to anyone in our broad Network who
28:02 was a Mitsubishi Diamond dealer stff
28:04 like 40 dealers as long as they were
28:07 able to um and had the capacity to do
28:09 prevailing weight quotes which kind of
28:11 did narrow it down that narrowed it down
28:14 to about 15 different contractors who
28:17 did some of these installs and where it
28:18 got complicated was um specifically on
28:21 the unit economics so you would see
28:23 three different contractors come into a
28:25 home and have wildly different quotes
28:28 it could be $188,000 from one and like
28:31 $28,000 from another for very very
28:33 similar systems or even the same
28:35 equipment uh the second problem we saw
28:38 was that rebates we rely on rebates
28:41 because that especially the utility
28:43 rebates to be applied correctly because
28:44 that brings down the cost of the
28:46 installation so we want all of those
28:48 really assiduously applied and correctly
28:51 applied so we keep our cost down and it
28:54 was a lot of going back and forth with
28:55 the contractors and saying you forgot
28:56 this rebate you forgot that can you add
28:58 it um and then we saw um a lack of
29:02 consistency on um applying load
29:05 calculations to really properly size the
29:08 equipment and you could see that
29:09 reflected in the fact that three
29:10 contractors would go out out to a home
29:12 and come up with three different ideas
29:14 and what size heat pump you needed and
29:16 then you'd say well how did you
29:17 calculate that and they like I've been
29:19 doing this forever I know I know I know
29:22 so with that information in mind um last
29:25 year we had a unit cost of the Aver cost
29:28 was
29:29 26,200 now keep in mind that included
29:31 some electrical upgrades drove that up
29:34 we wanted to see if we could bring that
29:35 down uh we did an RFP we have now three
29:39 dedicated
29:40 contractors and um they are incentivized
29:42 to keep the price under
29:44 $225,000 because if they go out and they
29:47 do the lead and they're able to convert
29:49 that lead and it's like a $22,000 heat
29:52 pump that we don't have to send it out
29:53 for a second bid so they are
29:55 incentivized to to try and do that and
29:57 by only working with three I have
29:59 quality control they're required to do a
30:02 loan calculation they're required to
30:03 send that documentation to us so that we
30:05 feel confident in how they sized it and
30:08 because I've worked with them you know
30:10 they know that I'm going to be checking
30:11 those rebates and they just apply them
30:12 correctly up front so that was um a a
30:16 major Improvement to the program and and
30:19 those costs are a little high as there I
30:20 mentioned we are required to do
30:22 prevailing wage because of our grant
30:23 funding and City funds about a 10%
30:26 premium
30:28 and then you said the 6.2 million that
30:31 you as it applied for is that all going
30:33 to go to that program or is that GNA
30:36 also feed into the middle income project
30:39 about 80% of it's going to go into the
30:41 low income program and 20% would be into
30:44 the middle income
30:46 program yeah one one of my comments and
30:48 I have a couple other questions and
30:49 comments but um I applaud that we're
30:52 trying to incentivize equity in this
30:55 transition but when you look at like you
30:58 look at the graph where it was roughly
30:59 20% of a $22,000 install so roughly four
31:02 or 5,000 is the gap so if you were to
31:06 look at okay what do I need to do to
31:08 actually move the needle the most it's
31:09 how many people can you actually just
31:11 bridge that Gap and the fact that we're
31:14 overfunding certain people or at least
31:17 relative to that graph means that you
31:19 miss out on four or five with the same
31:21 amount of grant funding so that's
31:24 putting so much money into that we're
31:26 not necessarily prioritizing I think in
31:29 some ways it's like really drastically
31:31 not prioritizing carbon output or
31:33 outcomes so that's just something that
31:36 I'm sure you guys have all talked about
31:38 and discussed but that that is one
31:40 outcome of all the funding going into
31:42 that is that you're and there's another
31:44 point that I think is related to this
31:46 but yeah that that's just reducing with
31:49 the amount of funds we're not able to
31:51 drive as many installs no it's it's it's
31:53 a really good point I think when I first
31:55 started here I was thinking through a
31:57 lot of those kind of same math like how
32:00 do you want to think about this the the
32:02 the first thing I want to kind of just
32:03 clarify though is a lot of the grant
32:05 funding is specifically for low income
32:08 so we're applying for it and it needs to
32:10 go there so that's there's a direct tie
32:12 uh to that funding um the second
32:15 component is you'll see as as we as um
32:19 Stacy starts to put together um budgets
32:21 and so forth for the coming year what
32:22 we've tried to do is really break down
32:25 the the total Target and then break it
32:27 down by your demographics and try to
32:30 come up with a funding that's a
32:31 combination of grand city that helps you
32:34 try to have appropriate programing
32:36 against all of those numbers so um we're
32:40 we're g to see if we can try and do
32:43 all or come close to doing all um but
32:47 what we recognize is that if you don't
32:49 actually um prioritize at least as we go
32:53 trying to get some of these lower income
32:54 homes they just are never going to be
32:55 able to move over and there's a real
32:58 benefit it's not just a um a a carbon
33:02 reduction you know incentive it's like
33:04 there's a real benefit to getting
33:06 Cooling and um uh these benefits into
33:08 people's homes so we're trying to figure
33:10 out a way to manage that in aable
33:12 fashion yeah and I think um there's
33:14 limitations too on well Sarah mentioned
33:17 a lot of these grants are specifically
33:18 for low and mon income there's
33:20 limitations on who cities can provide
33:23 incentives and rebates to that was part
33:25 of our um partnership with jco is
33:28 they're able to offer a rebate to anyone
33:31 if we could increase that we would love
33:33 to see that um happen from the the
33:36 distributor um so we're a little bit
33:39 Bound by some of that I think we you
33:40 know we would love to be able to provide
33:42 an incentive or rebate to anyone that
33:44 was interested in the transition we're
33:45 just limited in terms of what the city
33:48 can do but what we are trying to do
33:50 Sarah mentioned is bring on this
33:52 marketing firm that hopefully can um
33:55 really help um increase the that we're
33:58 seeing that transition within our
33:59 residentials for those that don't
34:01 qualify for the income qualified reates
34:05 I think the second component to me
34:07 that's really important for um market
34:09 rate transition is the financing
34:11 component um and trying to get those
34:13 loans on Market um you know if you're in
34:16 the city of Seattle there's financing
34:18 down to
34:20 4.5% through a nonprofit and we don't
34:23 have that on the east side and so really
34:25 starting to think about how can we make
34:26 sure that there's financing options I
34:28 think is a really key component of
34:32 this and and just clar I'm pretty is it
34:36 just gen ccoi dealers that are eligible
34:40 does is that the only time that an inso
34:42 would be eligible for not just the L
34:44 like for any of the SM side yeah for our
34:48 for our two program specific rebates um
34:51 they are Mitsubishi products through the
34:54 diamond dealer Network um I think we
34:57 need to product um Mitsubishi is a
35:00 top-of-the-line product it's a great
35:01 product I feel great about offering it
35:03 to Residents because I know it's going
35:05 to work well and be an awesome product
35:07 it's going to be quiet there are other
35:09 products out there that have good
35:11 efficiency ratings that are um cold
35:14 climate heat pumps they do qualify for
35:15 tax rebates and they're a little less
35:17 expensive and so one of the things we're
35:19 looking at this year is how to broaden
35:21 our distribution of our rebates so that
35:23 we can hit a bigger part of the market
35:26 and that's I think important as well
35:29 yeah I think that ties into my second
35:31 point which is I think right now we're
35:33 asking people to proactively go out
35:35 install teat pumps primarily because
35:37 we're like relying on Outreach because
35:38 we don't have a big base of contractors
35:40 out there that are eligible so if you
35:43 get more eligible contractors you don't
35:45 have to like the time to Tom's point the
35:48 best time to upgrade to a heat pump the
35:50 most cost ofit and for some background
35:52 I've spent six months like heavily
35:53 researching yeah saw so this is this is
35:57 a topic I'm probably going to go a
35:58 little B longer than I normally would in
36:00 the comments but um the best time is
36:03 getting the people that have to change
36:05 because it's they they already have the
36:06 opportunity cost like they're going to
36:08 have to they're gonna have to pay for
36:09 something and so it might as well be if
36:12 you can incentivize at the right time
36:13 heat pump and so because we're asking
36:16 people to proactively do it in a lot of
36:18 cases and we're not getting a lot of the
36:19 people that are reactively upgrading um
36:23 we're having to pay more to get those
36:24 people to do that and so that I I don't
36:27 know that's relating to why I don't NE
36:29 think that that it's a problem that it's
36:31 low income the problem I think is that
36:34 we're like potentially overfunding a
36:37 smaller group than we could even if it's
36:39 within low income because we're covering
36:40 that full cost if you can incentivize a
36:43 portion of it to just get it on parody
36:45 where they're going to have to do
36:46 something anyways I just it seems like
36:48 you're going to have a better bang for
36:50 the buck and I do think looking into how
36:52 we could expand a network um I love
36:55 mitsubichi I got a mitsub
37:00 hyper it's not about it's the fact
37:03 you're only hitting a certain group
37:04 contractor and I think the way that you
37:07 look at some of the programs down in
37:09 California through Bayon through like I
37:13 think this whole area I don't know if
37:15 this progr I think probably psse and
37:17 other people need to be involved but
37:19 like the way that you ultimately need to
37:22 sell these through is through the
37:23 contractor incentivizing absolutely
37:26 absolutely and you know one of the
37:28 things about like Bayon is um you know
37:30 their rate payer funded so they've had
37:32 the ability and they've been around for
37:34 over 10 years they've had the ability to
37:35 kind of build and expand and really have
37:37 stable funding for for that program um
37:41 we're you know we're head of an
37:42 incubator stage so we started with the
37:44 relationship with jensco Mitsubishi
37:47 Diamond dealer neor gave us 40 high
37:49 quality contractors so I think it was a
37:50 good place to start but yeah we need to
37:53 start thinking about how do we get them
37:55 more effectively through contractors
37:58 I do have one more thing and then we'll
37:59 hop other thing I've also heavily
38:02 researched Keat pump pricing and how
38:04 quotes are related to certain attributes
38:06 and one thing just to keep in mind is
38:08 there's generally a positive
38:10 relationship between size of the
38:12 contractor and the cost votes that you
38:15 see from them
38:16 so the one the comment you made about we
38:19 might go to the top 10 contractors you
38:21 might then get that average price might
38:24 go up so just something to keep in mind
38:25 is that and it's often I mean there are
38:27 there's trade-offs either way but that's
38:29 just they there I mean my quotes were
38:31 wildly different and and there was very
38:34 not just I was basing that comment on a
38:37 much broader data set but my my direct
38:41 experience I think I got seven or eight
38:42 quotes and for that out was like there
38:44 was a direct relationship between the
38:46 size of the contractor and the quote
38:50 there's other other things but just
38:51 something to keep in mind is that I
38:53 wouldn't necessarily just go to the
38:54 biggest contractors like um because
38:57 they're not necessarily it's going to be
38:58 the ones that will have best person
39:01 great feedback thank you Raj go
39:05 ahead okay thanks Jamie um so first I
39:09 just wanted to say I agree with Tom my
39:11 experience was the same when I'm looking
39:13 at heat pump transition transition to
39:15 heat pump um couple of contract two out
39:18 of the three contractors I spoke with
39:21 had no idea or did not give me any
39:24 information on the savings through the
39:26 program or anything um I was really
39:29 surprised so the contractor training
39:30 will definitely help um then I have a
39:33 question for Sarah um so the 22,000 you
39:37 know around the cost around 22,000 you
39:40 said for the unit um is it can I ask
39:44 what size is the house and is it
39:46 necessarily a high efficiency zero noise
39:50 type of uh you know unit because the
39:52 quotes I got that this seems higher than
39:55 that um so I would just CU is yeah um
40:00 that was a quote that was about 22,000
40:02 or 20 to 30,000 is the range um Seattle
40:05 Times has also been um they did some
40:08 research and also came up with the same
40:09 range and that reflected what I saw last
40:11 year um and that is anywhere from a 1500
40:15 foot house to a 3,000 square foot house
40:17 um the pricing when it's on the higher
40:19 end again often has to do with um uh
40:23 needing electrical upgrades so a main
40:25 panel upgrade could be $8,000 of that
40:28 $68,000 um and some homes do require
40:32 that and I think the the other component
40:35 is that's kind of assuming the scenario
40:38 which is a replacement of a gas furnace
40:42 with a ducted heat pump um and
40:45 it's sometimes um you know if you're in
40:48 a town home a condo a smaller unit
40:50 you've got maybe electric resistance
40:53 heating sometimes you don't have to
40:55 replace the heating alog together to put
40:56 in a mini split and that's generally a
40:58 much lower cost right um so just you
41:02 know just from um homeowner point of
41:06 view who wants to go to a heat pump and
41:09 who doesn't necessarily qualify for low
41:11 income or lot of rebates basically what
41:15 I had hurdles with was you know if I
41:17 want to I really would have loved to go
41:20 to complete electric you know to
41:22 actually reduce the carbon footprint but
41:24 when I look at that then I need to have
41:28 a generator you know so that like they
41:31 were telling me that I need to have a
41:33 backup generator for the whole house so
41:35 that you know in the event in winter
41:38 when there is no power there needs to be
41:40 something which will still run the heat
41:43 pump or something like that so there
41:45 were a lot of other issues so my
41:47 question was and I I really appreciate
41:49 you know how much the program is putting
41:51 in to increase you know the number of
41:53 heat pumps used or sold I was just
41:56 wondering if there there was a way you
41:58 know to
41:59 provide um some kind of incentives for
42:02 everybody as you said is through Jens
42:04 sco or you know so that other people who
42:07 don't get necessarily much cost benefit
42:11 from switching will still be you know
42:13 motivated just besides the
42:15 sustainability goals to move in the
42:17 right direction I was just curious if
42:19 there is anything which can be done for
42:21 that yeah well the good news is is
42:23 there's at the moment there's some
42:25 really great utility in set up so um
42:28 just to kind of break your question down
42:30 into a few different pieces um number
42:33 one even those folks that don't um
42:35 qualify for lower middle income can
42:38 receive up to $5,500 in incentives right
42:41 now and that's between the $2,000 tax
42:43 credit the $3,000 go El electric utility
42:46 rebate and the $500 jensco rebate so
42:49 there is like a nice um stacking and
42:51 that's what we really try to help
42:53 educate folks on and really understand
42:54 how they can stack these things together
42:57 efficiently so so that's good I think
43:00 where we see motivation um for folks to
43:03 proactively make this move and and where
43:05 you'll see is doing a lot of marketing
43:07 is when it's hot out um a lot of folks
43:10 don't still have central air
43:11 conditioning and that is a great time to
43:13 get people motivated um to think
43:16 proactively about um putting in a heat
43:18 pump so so that's you know pretty useful
43:22 as well and then we do hear the um the
43:25 comment about am I going to need a
43:26 generator and and all of that um you
43:29 know gas furnaces actually generally
43:31 speaking require some electricity to be
43:33 able to function so even if the power
43:36 went out today and you didn't have a
43:37 generator and you had a gas furnace you
43:39 would still not have heat so it's often
43:42 kind of a a little bit of a false
43:44 narrative so a lot of the things we do
43:46 in our workshops for example is kind of
43:47 walk people through that's that's one of
43:49 the questions we always we always take
43:51 and and
43:54 discuss and I think a dynamic a dynamic
43:57 may have experienced um is that
44:00 contractors will sell what they know and
44:02 if they're comfortable with gas vertices
44:05 they'll sell gas
44:08 pures yeah thank you
44:14 absolutely go
44:16 ahead U yes so one other little
44:18 anecdotal thing that ties in with that
44:21 the approach different contractors you
44:23 so one of the bids that I got the
44:25 contractor was recommending that um I do
44:29 the install with the heat pump ducted
44:31 system but also replace my gas f with a
44:34 little bit scholar gas fir for backup
44:36 purposes cor and I thought well this is
44:39 weird I mean he's part of this program
44:41 that is specifically focused on on
44:44 electrifying and he's recommending that
44:46 I'm
44:47 stilling I I had the exact same
44:49 experience when I got a keep pump this
44:51 fall one of the contractors recommended
44:53 that um that's not uncommon so there's
44:55 really three configurations for a heat
44:57 pump there's a cool climate heat
44:59 pump a standard heat pump with a gas
45:02 furnace backup basically it'll kick into
45:04 the gas furnace when it's at 30 or 40
45:06 degrees or a heat pump with a what they
45:09 call an electric heat strip backups
45:11 electric resistance heat um one of the
45:15 things I do is is when we're talking to
45:17 Residents I try not to be too judgmental
45:19 about these kind of things we just sort
45:20 of talk about
45:22 them one at a time there are times
45:25 sometimes when it makes sense for
45:26 somebody have a gas furnace backup um
45:29 but most of the time once you kind of
45:30 explain that a coold climate heat pump
45:32 is just an all-in-one solution uh
45:34 they'll look at that as the preferred
45:36 option but if they don't know it and
45:39 again this kind of comes back to
45:40 contractor education and having the
45:42 folks in your network that are really
45:43 kind of bought in on the mission um they
45:46 might not mention that and they'll put
45:48 that as like the preferred solution so
45:51 uh that is very much a dynamic and I
45:53 hear that a lot people will often get
45:57 like
45:59 that that ties in I think the education
46:02 and like the coaching piece like that's
46:04 cool that you guys are S I know that
46:05 there's there some town in Connecticut
46:07 that's like the leader in like coaching
46:09 their residents and it's been like I was
46:11 looking at their program was really
46:12 impressive yeah but the complexity of
46:15 getting a heat pump versus a furnace is
46:18 really significant and we interviewed a
46:21 ton of people that had gotten heat pumps
46:23 and so many people didn't understand
46:25 nuances of what they were getting
46:27 sizing low calculations so I do think
46:30 the other thing you if you expand me on
46:32 Mitsubishi Mitsubishi is some of the
46:34 best cold climate there's a lot of stuff
46:35 that falls off more at low temps when
46:37 you get outside of Mitsubishi as the
46:40 manufacturer so people are going to have
46:41 to be making harder decisions I think on
46:44 the on between those configurations so I
46:46 do think a good investment of the
46:48 program would be how do we make sure
46:51 that we have people getting good
46:52 outcomes as well like being confident
46:54 through the process and and getting a
46:57 good outcome because I know that for my
46:59 house if I didn't already know a lot
47:01 about heat pumps I probably would not
47:03 have had a good outcome and I think
47:05 there I had friends and people that we
47:06 interviewed that had bad outcomes like
47:09 under siiz they didn't understand sizing
47:12 all those types of things that they
47:14 should questions they could or should
47:16 have been asking that that there's no
47:17 guide right now to heat pump so I think
47:20 what coaching is one thing but also
47:22 guide the questions you should be asking
47:24 resources for people in the program
47:26 would be super helpful because it's not
47:28 as straightforward as like okay I want a
47:30 furnace and it needs to be picking up
47:32 just put the same one I had siid I had
47:34 in like it's a lot more complicated so
47:38 definitely would would would encourage
47:40 efforts to whether static well education
47:43 as well as resources like you being
47:46 sounds
47:50 like great lots of good feedback thank
47:53 you um I'm just going to take one minute
47:55 to kind of talk about what's next which
47:57 Shar Sarah already talked a bit about so
48:00 we are um planning to continue with the
48:04 energy smart program our 5c partnership
48:06 it's now
48:07 expanding um and uh along with that we a
48:13 number of the cities are really
48:14 interested in looking at other
48:16 electrification incentives as you heard
48:18 and you know key pumps are very
48:20 expensive in many cases it's not going
48:22 to be the first piece of equipment
48:24 that's on um advances to Electrify their
48:27 home just because of that cost barrier
48:30 um so we're interested in seeing what
48:32 else folks want and what kind of
48:34 incentive or rebate level would help
48:37 them make that transition um is it going
48:40 to be the water heater would it be a
48:42 induction stove um for all the other
48:44 benefits that induction stoves offer as
48:47 well as the
48:48 electrification um or something else so
48:52 um with some Commerce funding um and in
48:56 partnership with a couple other cities
48:57 we're planning to start doing some
48:59 community outreach this summer and
49:02 really hear from the community what
49:04 they're interested in um and what those
49:06 programs and get information that would
49:08 help shape what those programs look like
49:11 um hoping to put together a very um
49:14 simple pilot that we could use then to
49:16 possibly grow the Energy Smart brand and
49:19 expand um across the multi-city
49:21 partnership in the future um so more to
49:24 come on that but that's kind of our next
49:26 purle step is really to go out and hear
49:28 what community members want to help them
49:30 make that next um transition to
49:33 Electrify their
49:35 homes one other uh so one other
49:38 consideration or one like obviously
49:40 Community feedback will be a great
49:41 element think the other thing you guys
49:43 may want to consider looking at is the
49:46 economic case for because like water
49:49 heaing to me seems like that that's the
49:52 one that is borderline already in
49:54 someone's favor to get a a keep pum
49:56 water heater so if you can incentivize
49:59 that it's lower
50:00 dollars it's like really easy to make
50:03 the economic case with relatively low
50:05 incentives so like that one to me seems
50:07 like so I hope that it's not just
50:09 Community feedback I think that's
50:10 probably the feedback you'll get anyways
50:12 but like the other part of it I think
50:14 would would be just what is the economic
50:16 case and how do we make sure that we
50:17 could move over as many people basically
50:19 doing the calculation of what your
50:21 dollars to carbon would be so um no that
50:25 uh will be interesting see what the is
50:30 yes right that's it thank you very much
50:34 thanks Sarah than for having
50:40 me all right I think with that then we
50:43 will move on to our next um next item
50:46 which is the comprehensive plan
50:48 environmental environment element update
50:52 um and Stacey are you g to give a
50:54 preamble or isck preamble um so thank
50:57 you I sent a bit of a long explanation
51:01 over email about this but originally we
51:04 had planned to bring the full
51:06 environment element with all of the
51:08 input from the board incorporated into
51:10 it as well as other elements of the comp
51:13 plan for review this month that was the
51:15 original schedule um the environment
51:19 element as well as the rest of the
51:20 element are still undergoing staff
51:23 review um it's also been out to a number
51:25 of partner organizations s to get
51:28 feedback and staff are working through
51:30 all that feedback um and so Stephen will
51:33 talk in a little bit more depth about
51:34 the um anticipated schedule but at this
51:38 point we're looking to bring those um
51:40 final draft materials to you this summer
51:44 um but we it's been two three months
51:47 since we talked to you and took your
51:49 feedback um on the environment element
51:51 and so we didn't want to wait another
51:53 couple months before um updating you on
51:56 where we are are um so tonight we wanted
51:58 just to walk through kind of where we
52:00 are in terms of incorporating the
52:02 environmental board feedback into the
52:04 environment element um and then how
52:07 staff are planning to address uh the the
52:09 comments and revisions that we
52:13 received so with that um I think Nancy
52:16 has a question and then I'll hand it
52:18 over to Stephen and David to walk
52:20 through
52:22 materials so I guess the question that I
52:24 have is related to since some of us may
52:28 not be on the environmental board
52:30 starting next month and provided input
52:32 because there is a
52:33 transition
52:35 and myself I'm very interested in how
52:38 this all plays out and may not be on the
52:40 board next month so how do we get our
52:43 input and find out what's happening and
52:45 continue to you know effectively
52:48 communicate our interest in this yeah
52:52 thanks Nancy that was um One
52:55 Reason show um yeah we were originally
52:58 really hoping to bring this content to
53:00 the board um this month um it's just not
53:05 ready um so what you will see tonight is
53:09 a summary of how staff are planning to
53:13 address um all the comments received
53:16 from the environmental board and then um
53:20 and that was sent out in the meeting
53:21 packet and then we can share also with
53:24 the board the full schedule so they know
53:27 how to engage going
53:30 forward so sharing the full
53:33 schedule is that happening tonight or is
53:37 that gonna happen in the future just
53:38 trying to track
53:40 timing yeah I think Stephen will be uh
53:43 talking through maybe that's a good time
53:45 for me to jump in and and kind of talk
53:47 through timeline and why the schedule
53:49 changed um thank you Stacy and thank you
53:53 board members for having me tonight so
53:55 just wanted to talk through some of the
53:58 changes that we had to the project
53:59 schedule to update the comprehensive
54:00 plan a big reason why we had to change
54:02 of schedule is because um our
54:04 Consultants needed more time to work
54:06 through the Eis that we were doing for
54:08 the comence plan many of you probably
54:10 remember when we had the discussion
54:12 introducing the comprehensive Plan
54:14 update um for this periodic update that
54:18 we were completely redoing our
54:20 environmental impact statement for the
54:21 comp plan which was last done in 1995 so
54:25 we had a lot to cover in terms of
54:27 reading all previous sea documents and
54:30 that is what's actually taking a little
54:32 more time with our consultant and staff
54:33 in terms of back and forth of covering
54:35 making sure everything's being covered
54:37 for this comprehensive Plan update uh
54:39 the other component of a lot of this is
54:41 making sure that we're doing a thorough
54:44 job in reviewing all of the draft
54:46 elements and going across the board in
54:48 terms of um with this new element that
54:52 the language and the new policies and
54:53 the goals are consistent with what we've
54:55 introduced in um some of the other
54:58 elements that are being updated some of
55:00 the other elements are being updated
55:02 with new functional plans or updated
55:04 functional plans and we want to make
55:06 sure the cons language is consistent
55:08 across not just the comprehensive plan
55:10 but also with those new functional plan
55:12 updates as well and so that is now we're
55:15 aiming for probably a July release of
55:18 all the elements to all the boards
55:20 commissions as well as a broader
55:22 community outreach of here's draft um
55:25 here's the process for the periodic
55:27 update and here's all the draft language
55:29 for all the elements as well as the
55:31 draft e which we're hoping to release at
55:33 the same time we're with this updated
55:36 schedule we're aiming to um get Council
55:40 adoption of the of the periodic uptake
55:44 December does that help answer your
55:50 question sorry Stephen I turned my pH my
55:53 mic off uh it did thank you very much
55:58 and I will turn it over to David to kind
56:01 of walk through uh updates and I'm
56:03 available for
56:05 questions yeah so um thanks to everyone
56:09 for first off for for your detailed
56:11 review um earlier this year um we really
56:15 wanted to make sure we had this uh this
56:17 Matrix so that we could really capture
56:20 all of the board's feedback and
56:22 suggestions track changes and input um
56:25 into the environment element and so um
56:28 recognizing that you do not have a full
56:31 uh full narrative in front of you with
56:35 the policies um we wanted to kind of go
56:37 through and and touch on some of the the
56:40 um bigger changes and uh highlight just
56:44 some of the the bigger efforts that uh
56:46 are kind of happening behind the scenes
56:47 right now to incorporate um all of your
56:50 y'all's uh
56:51 feedback so uh the way this is split up
56:54 I'm going to start kind of with some
56:56 General comments that were Incorporated
56:58 we'll go into some of the new and
57:00 existing policies uh updates and then uh
57:04 with Stephen here we can take any
57:06 questions kind of on our update process
57:10 so far right now or or any clarifying
57:12 questions on um efforts that have been
57:14 done so
57:16 far so uh just kind of broadly speaking
57:19 about the environment element one of the
57:21 the major things that we heard from the
57:22 board um back in January was uh related
57:26 to The Narrative the introductory
57:28 narrative and uh making sure that that
57:31 um both aligned more with our title
57:33 making sure that uh that introductory
57:35 narrative really aligned with everything
57:37 that was going to be incorporated within
57:39 the environment element um so we've done
57:42 some rearranging we've updated uh that
57:45 introductory narrative so now it begins
57:47 with um the natural environment uh uh
57:51 narrative around the natural environment
57:52 we've Incorporated some quick facts
57:54 related to the natural environment
57:56 before going into um climate change
58:00 aspects mitigation adaptation um and um
58:05 Exposition around uh climate change and
58:08 then the uh the policies and goals
58:10 within the environment element were also
58:12 switched around to uh match that uh that
58:16 format so again when when uh you'll see
58:18 the full uh version of this later this
58:21 summer it will begin with environment uh
58:23 natural environment goals before going
58:25 into climate
58:28 goals
58:29 um there was some updates to uh all of
58:33 the numbers and um some uh some updates
58:37 to the vision uh vision's statements uh
58:41 for the the um to make sure that the
58:45 vision also Incorporated both natural
58:48 systems natural environment as well as
58:50 climate goals um as
58:52 well so there's details uh Within what
58:56 was attached to the packet there's some
58:58 detailed um explanations of what some of
59:00 the changes were made related to
59:03 different uh specific comments um from
59:06 board members on the the version
59:08 provided in
59:11 January um diving more into um uh One
59:18 Last Thing Before diving into the The
59:20 Narrative the policies themselves um
59:22 there were a few items that we talked
59:25 about including more in the broad
59:27 language versus in policies themselves
59:29 and uh so that included things like um
59:32 some broad overarching Equity language
59:34 some broad overarching language related
59:37 to um Community engagement education
59:40 incentives things like that and really
59:42 what we tried to do throughout the the
59:45 um environment element was continue to
59:49 infuse uh language related to supporting
59:52 education supporting um incentives
59:55 inspir Hing community members um and
59:58 then also making sure that there was
59:59 Equity language really embedded within
1:00:02 uh policies throughout the environment
1:00:04 element and one of the feedback that
1:00:06 we've gotten from uh Department of
1:00:08 Commerce was that that really especially
1:00:10 related to the equity language um that
1:00:13 was really in line with the the recent
1:00:15 uh state law passed uh House Bill 1181
1:00:19 which was kind of the impetus for uh
1:00:22 starting or putting together an
1:00:24 environment element um
1:00:26 as well and that that house bill really
1:00:29 or that law was spe is specifically
1:00:31 asking for some of that Equity language
1:00:32 infused into the policies
1:00:35 themselves do you want me to I think my
1:00:38 computer's back up do you want me to
1:00:40 show oh um I think I'm good for now um
1:00:45 we might help help me jump around a
1:00:48 little bit as well within the uh uh
1:00:51 document shared as well there are some
1:00:53 items highlighted in yellow um and
1:00:55 that's just recognize that um we talked
1:00:58 about a lot of changes we'd like to see
1:01:00 and although some of those changes we
1:01:02 felt like we could incorporate into the
1:01:04 comprehensive plan um now there are
1:01:07 definitely some items that we felt like
1:01:10 we couldn't really address until we did
1:01:12 the uh climate Action Plan update in
1:01:14 2025 and
1:01:16 2026 so that's a a little segue into
1:01:19 kind of the existing policy suggestions
1:01:22 related to existing policies there was
1:01:24 definitely interest both uh on the
1:01:26 environmental board um and then also
1:01:28 within city council about uh increasing
1:01:31 our ability to speak to um the uh
1:01:35 percent of emissions reduction that
1:01:37 needs to come from our local action um
1:01:40 and I so and staff generally felt like
1:01:43 with the the greenhouse gas inventory we
1:01:45 did in 2022 and with the information we
1:01:48 have from our previous wedge analyses
1:01:50 not having been updated since 2019 we
1:01:54 did not feel like we could really update
1:01:57 that within um this comprehensive Plan
1:02:00 update at this point but that um it is
1:02:02 highlighted to make sure that we do talk
1:02:04 about that within um the uh climate
1:02:07 Action Plan update process in 2025 and
1:02:11 2026 um that's something that we uh are
1:02:14 going to make sure that we address at
1:02:15 that time da a question on that yes um
1:02:20 is our is our next um our next inventory
1:02:24 this year is 202 2025 the next carbon
1:02:27 inventory so the next car the next
1:02:29 inventory is expected to be for the 2024
1:02:33 year which means that we won't be able
1:02:35 to start until 2025 and the hope and
1:02:39 plan is to really uh be ready and get
1:02:42 going with that early so that it can we
1:02:44 can get a wedge analysis and have that
1:02:46 inform the IAP update process in I don't
1:02:49 want to drill it just would be curious
1:02:51 if there is any methodology changes that
1:02:54 we need to make to that to enable the
1:02:56 local I'm assuming that that will be
1:02:59 incorporated into the process if there's
1:03:02 anything in the methodology for doing
1:03:05 calculation for the wedge analysis in
1:03:07 the next greenhouse gas inventory Bas it
1:03:10 sounds like there was some concerns that
1:03:12 the way that we've been doing
1:03:14 our inventories in the past is would
1:03:17 make it difficult to apply it what's
1:03:19 local versus not so I'm wondering is
1:03:21 there anything in method in the
1:03:22 methodology how we do the next analysis
1:03:24 that would would make it easier to do
1:03:26 that and so is that being incorporated
1:03:28 into how we might run it for this
1:03:31 year next year gotcha yeah so generally
1:03:35 the way um and and this is based on my
1:03:38 understanding of kind of how we've
1:03:39 Incorporated the wedge analyses in the
1:03:41 past um it's not
1:03:44 necessarily that we the methodology
1:03:47 needs to change too much it's more of an
1:03:50 additional uh expense and effort on top
1:03:54 of the what we're already doing with the
1:03:56 greenhouse gas inventory and generally
1:03:59 what uh cities uh and others have found
1:04:03 is that kind of updating that wedge on
1:04:06 say a yearly basis or something doesn't
1:04:08 provide much change in in understanding
1:04:13 um and so it shouldn't require any
1:04:16 update to the greenhouse gas inventory
1:04:18 methodology it'll just be kind of an add
1:04:20 on that we have to pay more for
1:04:22 essentially next next round thank you
1:04:26 um so with existing policies I've talked
1:04:29 about this first one that's kind of that
1:04:30 that local
1:04:32 goal uh thinking about what percent of
1:04:34 our greenhouse gas emissions we can
1:04:36 address via
1:04:37 local
1:04:38 um and then uh a number of the other
1:04:42 changes made we've really tried to um
1:04:46 incorporate language where feasible
1:04:50 either within the the um policies
1:04:52 recommended or if it didn't fit within
1:04:54 that policy into other uh into other
1:04:57 policies as well additionally some of
1:05:00 the policies recommended we didn't end
1:05:01 up making changes to because they
1:05:03 aligned with regional goals and efforts
1:05:06 such as uh the k4c K County uh cities
1:05:10 climate collaborative um agreed upon
1:05:13 goals that that we are a signatory of so
1:05:15 some of our goals kind of remain the
1:05:17 same because we wanted to make sure
1:05:18 we're aligned
1:05:22 regionally um diving into new goals and
1:05:25 policies um again I just wanted to
1:05:28 mention that we did not include any new
1:05:31 a new goal area around inspiration or
1:05:34 education but instead what we wanted to
1:05:36 make sure is that that language was
1:05:38 incorporated throughout all of the other
1:05:41 goal areas so you will see um in the
1:05:44 summer that there is language related to
1:05:46 education incentives inspiration Etc
1:05:49 into say the building section into the
1:05:53 um waste reduction section
1:05:57 Etc another highlight is that we are
1:05:59 going to have a new um Wildlife policy
1:06:05 um a wildlife goal excuse me um and that
1:06:08 goal area is going to really be uh have
1:06:12 uh policies pulled out um from the the
1:06:17 land use policies the land use goals um
1:06:20 in previous comprehensive plans um and
1:06:23 Stephen can speak to that a little bit
1:06:25 more if folks have other
1:06:27 questions and then there are also there
1:06:29 were also some goals suggested suggested
1:06:33 that um we're exploring opportunities to
1:06:35 incorporate them actually within uh the
1:06:37 land use uh the existing land use
1:06:40 elements um so a big part of what kind
1:06:43 of uh what happened with the uh new
1:06:47 policy suggestions was a little bit of a
1:06:49 a jigsaw kind of figuring out um what
1:06:52 what is is a new policy what can be
1:06:55 incorporated into an existing policy
1:06:57 what needs to go to the land use element
1:06:59 because it doesn't quite fit within the
1:07:01 environment element um and that's really
1:07:03 what staff have been working on behind
1:07:05 the scenes over the last few
1:07:09 months uh finally jumping down towards
1:07:13 the end um I want to note that staff
1:07:16 have were able to agree with or agreed
1:07:19 with board input around uh uh making
1:07:23 revisions to language to really
1:07:24 strengthen that language um and so some
1:07:27 of those additions and edits were made
1:07:29 throughout the the
1:07:31 element um and then um we have been
1:07:37 reviewing and Steven's team has been
1:07:38 doing a ton of work on this making sure
1:07:41 that there is
1:07:42 consistency um between the environment
1:07:45 element the land use element the
1:07:46 transportation element and making sure
1:07:48 that all of these different elements are
1:07:49 speaking to each other and in alignment
1:07:52 with each
1:07:53 other so I know that's kind of the the
1:07:56 almost 10,000 foot overview even of this
1:07:59 document of uh how we've Incorporated
1:08:02 changes um but we did want to make sure
1:08:04 that we provided uh that we looped back
1:08:07 in with the environment board since uh
1:08:09 yall provided such good uh and thorough
1:08:12 comments back in January to make sure
1:08:13 that uh it wasn't too long before you
1:08:15 heard how we were were dealing with this
1:08:17 behind the
1:08:18 scenes at this point are there any
1:08:21 questions on anything you saw in the
1:08:23 board packet or anything that I talked
1:08:25 about to
1:08:38 well thank you all very much um this is
1:08:41 not the last time you'll hear about the
1:08:42 comp plan update um and I'm sure Stephen
1:08:45 myself and and others will be happy to
1:08:48 continue to work with yall on this yeah
1:08:51 we'll be back this summer um on this
1:08:53 topic and plan on i' say probably a
1:08:56 minimum of 10day review options with
1:08:59 some guided um input on
1:09:02 review um but we'll aim for even greater
1:09:05 time for review given the amount of
1:09:06 content we'll be looking
1:09:09 at okay thank you for joining us Stephen
1:09:11 and thank you David um I think with that
1:09:14 we'll move on to our next agenda item
1:09:17 which is the storm water plan dat thanks
1:09:22 Stephen great um great we have and Evan
1:09:25 join us tonight last time I tried to
1:09:27 share my screen it crashed my computer
1:09:30 so let me see if I could bring it up my
1:09:32 just give
1:09:35 [Music]
1:09:37 me right it's working it's
1:09:40 [Music]
1:09:42 working all right go ahead Mike all
1:09:45 right well good evening everyone as
1:09:47 Stacy mentioned my name is Mike um I'm
1:09:50 the Water Resources program specialist
1:09:52 for the city of isqua I'm over in public
1:09:54 works environment mental um and part of
1:09:57 my position is coordinating the city's
1:09:59 storm water permit which you'll also
1:10:01 hear uh referred to as the npds permit
1:10:04 as well um yeah excited to be here
1:10:07 tonight it's first time talking to the
1:10:09 environmental board um always excited to
1:10:11 get a talk to folks who care about
1:10:12 sustainability and the environment so
1:10:15 looking forward to this all right thank
1:10:18 you all right so just real quick
1:10:21 overview of what I'll be talking about
1:10:23 tonight um just giving a quick
1:10:24 background to the npds permit or the
1:10:26 storm water permit um going over a few
1:10:30 updates from our 2023 annual report
1:10:33 which we just submitted to uh the
1:10:35 department of ecology and then giving
1:10:38 some up or uh highlighting some of our
1:10:42 2024 storm water management program plan
1:10:44 as well which is always released around
1:10:47 the same time and then if there's any
1:10:49 time um open to questions and um also
1:10:52 open to questions as we're going through
1:10:54 this if anyone has them this say come
1:10:56 up all right so what is the npds permit
1:11:00 uh it is a long acronym to start that
1:11:03 not everyone's familiar with so it
1:11:05 stands with national pollution discharge
1:11:07 elimination system um this is basically
1:11:13 it boils down to um it's a permit that
1:11:15 we get from the Washington State
1:11:17 Department of ecology uh and it
1:11:20 regulates storm Waters discharge to our
1:11:22 surface waters or Waters of the state um
1:11:26 you can go ahead and go to the next
1:11:30 slide perfect um all right
1:11:35 so the storm water permit is uh broken
1:11:39 down into 10 different sections um but
1:11:43 overall the overarching goal of the npds
1:11:46 permit is to reduce pollution from the
1:11:49 city storm water system to surface
1:11:51 waters as I mentioned a second ago um
1:11:54 just to protect water quality right do
1:11:55 our part um so there's 10 different
1:11:58 sections in the permit I'll be talking
1:12:00 about a good number of these tonight but
1:12:02 not all of them uh each section uh has
1:12:06 different levels of change over years as
1:12:09 we provide these updates so I'll be
1:12:11 highlighting some of the main changes
1:12:12 that we saw from 2022 to
1:12:15 2023 um the 10 different sections are
1:12:17 storm water planning public education
1:12:20 and Outreach public involvement and
1:12:22 participation mapping and documentation
1:12:25 elicit discharge detection and
1:12:26 elimination controlling runoff from new
1:12:29 development Redevelopment and
1:12:30 construction sites operations and
1:12:32 maintenance Source control program for
1:12:34 existing development total maximum daily
1:12:37 loads or tmdls you may have been uh you
1:12:39 may have heard them called before and
1:12:40 then monitoring and
1:12:43 assessment next
1:12:47 one all right um as I mentioned I'll be
1:12:50 covering updates uh from the 2023 annual
1:12:53 report and briefly touching on the 2024
1:12:56 storm water plan uh every year we
1:12:58 required to submit an annual report by
1:13:00 March 31st um along with our management
1:13:04 uh program plan as well uh outlining how
1:13:06 we met permit requirements and then how
1:13:08 we plan to be meeting those same or
1:13:11 additional requirements in the upcoming
1:13:13 year as well um so that's the annual
1:13:16 reports where you'll be seeing those
1:13:17 metrics I'm showing tonight um where
1:13:18 they came
1:13:19 from uh in
1:13:23 2024 thanks uh 2024 let's see here um
1:13:27 there were no major changes or items
1:13:30 that had policy implications um really
1:13:34 this year is the last year for the
1:13:36 current permit term that we're in right
1:13:37 now so there were a couple or a few uh
1:13:40 new requirements but we're really
1:13:42 looking at most of um future
1:13:46 requirements coming in a permit that
1:13:47 we've yet to see the final form of this
1:13:50 summer um so those will be reflected in
1:13:55 our upcoming management uh program plan
1:13:59 2025 all right and I see a hand raised
1:14:04 yeah p p go
1:14:05 ahead yeah hi hi Mike uh this is paj and
1:14:10 so the question I have is this permit
1:14:13 I'm guessing it covers only all the city
1:14:17 projects and basically runoffs and you
1:14:21 know discharges from the city projects
1:14:23 and City properties city office acquire
1:14:25 properties right not
1:14:28 every residential or other businesses or
1:14:31 anything in the city of pH equal limits
1:14:35 so this does include all of like the
1:14:38 city projects it also includes like
1:14:41 everything on the right of way and it
1:14:42 does include um businesses as well so
1:14:47 I'll be going a little bit more into
1:14:48 that but this this does cover a large
1:14:51 Swatch of you know the city of isqua and
1:14:53 not not just like our cap capit
1:14:55 Improvement
1:14:56 projects so um then the next question I
1:14:59 had was I'm guessing for the city of
1:15:02 isaka any construction projects or you
1:15:05 know development projects which are
1:15:06 coming up I think that will get tied
1:15:10 into the npds updates but um do the
1:15:14 businesses if they have any you know um
1:15:18 reconstruction or any kind of
1:15:20 Redevelopment projects does that get
1:15:23 updated in the uh npds permit as well um
1:15:27 you'll see that we have some numbers
1:15:29 like highlighting how many different um
1:15:32 site plans or construction plans that we
1:15:34 reviewed and how many different
1:15:36 inspections of construction sites as
1:15:38 well so um we we update how many of
1:15:41 these we've been to how many you know
1:15:43 like formal warnings have been issued
1:15:45 and that sort of stuff as well okay
1:15:48 thank you yeah of
1:15:51 course all right so I'm going to jump
1:15:54 into the more notable sections uh from
1:15:57 2023 and
1:16:00 um and you'll see just this general form
1:16:03 here where I highlight the year so 2023
1:16:05 is the annual report 2024 is the
1:16:08 management uh plan you're going to see a
1:16:10 lot of the same stuff for the 2024
1:16:12 section saying where we continue to meet
1:16:14 our permit
1:16:15 requirements um but storm water planning
1:16:18 this program is all about informing and
1:16:20 assisting in the development of policies
1:16:22 and strategies as water quality
1:16:23 management tools to protect receiving
1:16:25 Waters so this last year the city
1:16:27 adopted the storm and surface water
1:16:29 master plan which is a 20-year plan
1:16:31 focused on managing runoff and flooding
1:16:33 in the city um in improving surface
1:16:35 water quality and stream habitat in the
1:16:37 city as well uh there was a uh npds
1:16:42 requirement to develop a storm water
1:16:44 management action plan and this was
1:16:46 rolled into the storm and surface water
1:16:49 plan uh seeing as their very similar
1:16:52 planning documents they were they were
1:16:54 put out together at the same time in
1:16:56 2024 we continue will continue to uh
1:16:59 coordinate across departments and keep
1:17:01 on implementing the new uh storm surface
1:17:04 water
1:17:05 plant go to the next
1:17:07 [Music]
1:17:08 slide great education and Outreach uh
1:17:12 this program aims to Target residences
1:17:15 uh or residence businesses so again not
1:17:18 just like city employees which this uh
1:17:21 we definitely are educating and doing
1:17:22 Outreach to city employees as well um
1:17:25 Industries planning staff in the city
1:17:27 with the goal to change behaviors and
1:17:30 practices uh that contribute to adverse
1:17:32 storm water impacts uh in 2023 we saw
1:17:36 some really awesome numbers coming
1:17:38 especially out of green isqua Parks uh
1:17:41 we there are over 21,000 trees planted
1:17:43 73 stewardship events uh over 3,000
1:17:46 volunteer hours Cascade water Alliance
1:17:49 doeses a lot of or does outreach to
1:17:52 students and uh other individuals Within
1:17:54 theity City and they reached uh over 400
1:17:57 people uh we joined the adopted drain
1:17:59 program um which is a great example of
1:18:02 trying or looking at changing behavior
1:18:05 um with residents in the city and then
1:18:07 on the business side of things we uh
1:18:11 strategically launched the dumpster
1:18:13 Behavior change program and evaluated
1:18:15 the effectiveness of that program as
1:18:17 well in a targeted
1:18:19 area um and in 2024 we're going to
1:18:22 continue prioritizing these existing
1:18:24 programs
1:18:25 and uh there's a lot of coordination we
1:18:27 do with other cities other permit
1:18:29 holding cities as well municipalities so
1:18:31 we'll continue that go to the next
1:18:37 slide all right mapping and
1:18:39 documentation this one is pretty
1:18:41 straightforward we need to map and
1:18:43 document our ms4 or our storm water
1:18:45 system this year we were required to map
1:18:48 all known ms4 connections or storm water
1:18:51 uh infrastructure connections to
1:18:53 privately owned storm water systems we
1:18:55 completed on time for the permit and
1:18:57 we'll continue maintaining um this
1:19:01 system right next slide so idde or
1:19:05 elicit discharge detection and
1:19:07 elimination uh this program is designed
1:19:09 to prevent detect characterize and Trace
1:19:12 um and then eliminate illicit
1:19:13 connections and discharges to our storm
1:19:15 water system so a lot of this is our
1:19:17 spill response and then also making sure
1:19:19 that we're screening our storm water
1:19:21 system to make sure there are no illicit
1:19:23 connections to it
1:19:25 uh in 2023 we responded to 85 water
1:19:27 quality Reports most of these were
1:19:29 spills within the city uh we had 123
1:19:33 pollution prevention assistant visits to
1:19:36 different businesses across the city and
1:19:39 we screened um just over 12 and a half%
1:19:42 of our storm water system for illicit
1:19:47 connections similar we'll keep this keep
1:19:50 this moving through
1:19:52 2024 Mak sure we're responding to all
1:19:54 our spills in a timely way and looking
1:19:56 at our system all right and this is what
1:19:59 we were just discussing a moment before
1:20:02 so a lot of the controlling runoff from
1:20:05 Development and Construction sites lives
1:20:07 in our CPD
1:20:08 Department
1:20:10 um so the city implements and enforces a
1:20:13 program to reduce pollutants in storm
1:20:15 water from new development Redevelopment
1:20:17 and construction site activities and
1:20:19 this applies to private and public
1:20:21 development so the both uh and includes
1:20:23 Transportation project projects so in
1:20:26 2023 we had 124 sites that um were the
1:20:31 permits and plans were reviewed for and
1:20:34 then we had 148 cons uh 48 construction
1:20:37 inspections as well in 2024 we'll
1:20:40 continue to review and visit all these
1:20:43 sites and that includes um erosion and
1:20:46 sediment control inspections as
1:20:49 well go to the next
1:20:53 slide all right operations and
1:20:55 maintenance is really focused in on the
1:20:58 city's operations and making sure that
1:21:01 we're not introducing pollutants into
1:21:02 storm water um so this is in really
1:21:05 focus on public works and operations
1:21:08 parks department and then also
1:21:10 facilities in 2023 we inspected 99% of
1:21:14 City Home stormed water facilities so
1:21:16 this would be things like uh catch
1:21:18 basins or you know like storm water
1:21:20 drains that I think of those when I
1:21:22 think of storm water facilities uh we
1:21:24 inspected 99% of private storm water
1:21:26 facilities on permanent sites and M we
1:21:29 maintained o just about 200,000 square
1:21:32 feet of perious surfaces so um perious
1:21:35 asphalt and that type of thing and 2024
1:21:39 will continue to do that and a large
1:21:40 component of this program is training
1:21:42 City uh staff Citywide as
1:21:48 well all right so Source control for
1:21:51 existing development is another uh part
1:21:54 of the PDS permit really focused on
1:21:56 businesses within the city the focus of
1:21:59 this though is not responding to spills
1:22:01 that have happened but it's addressing
1:22:03 pollutants from daily businesses before
1:22:05 they become a problem enter the storm
1:22:07 water system so this was introduced in
1:22:10 this current permit term so in The Last
1:22:12 5 Years um in 2023 we had a number of
1:22:16 inspections uh equal to 39% of our
1:22:18 source control inventory which was just
1:22:21 about double the required 20% of the
1:22:23 inventory um and we inspected 100% of
1:22:26 the sites that were identified through
1:22:28 credible
1:22:29 complaints um and then in 2024 we're
1:22:32 going to continue to meet that 20% of
1:22:34 inventory requirement uh we're going to
1:22:36 inspect all Sites identified through
1:22:37 complaints we're going to update our
1:22:39 inventory as well and provide all of the
1:22:42 sites within our source control
1:22:43 inventory with educational information
1:22:45 on this new program that the city has
1:22:49 now go to the next
1:22:53 slide and that's it so if anyone has any
1:22:57 questions um and if we have any time
1:23:00 Stacy for it I'm I'm open to field
1:23:04 some 10
1:23:07 minutes I'm
1:23:09 good Tom Anderson here I'm wondering do
1:23:12 you have any electronic monitoring in
1:23:15 place at various key junctures in the
1:23:17 system to detect um illicit things in
1:23:21 the in the flow
1:23:25 not that I'm aware of so we do go out
1:23:28 and Screen the um ms4 system so what
1:23:32 that looks like is um we'll have staff
1:23:34 going out typically in a time of year
1:23:36 where you're able to detect if there's
1:23:38 any of those illicit connections and run
1:23:41 you know like uh test to see if there's
1:23:43 you know FAL coliforms coming through it
1:23:45 or other pollutants and then if
1:23:46 anything's identified in those key
1:23:48 locations by staff you trace up the
1:23:50 system up the storm water system to see
1:23:53 where the elicit connection is and
1:23:54 eliminate it I we have any electron
1:23:58 manual manual taking of samples Tes yeah
1:24:03 exactly y thank you of
1:24:06 course go
1:24:09 ahead hi Mike Don mcquilliams um on your
1:24:12 Source control program your education
1:24:15 Outreach portion of it are you have you
1:24:17 considered providing spill kits to some
1:24:20 of the
1:24:20 businesses um in combination with just
1:24:23 an educ
1:24:26 fire I don't know that we've
1:24:27 specifically thought of it for the
1:24:29 source control program I know that is a
1:24:31 large component of our uh pollution
1:24:33 prevention assistance program and we've
1:24:35 been pairing the two together so we've
1:24:37 been going out to a number of businesses
1:24:39 and providing them information on
1:24:41 pollution prevention which is really
1:24:43 focused on the providing folks with
1:24:45 maybe materials or assistance that they
1:24:47 need and then talking to them about how
1:24:49 they can reduce storm water pollution
1:24:51 which is more of the source control side
1:24:53 of things so um that's a great idea and
1:24:57 I will talk to the folks doing that and
1:24:59 see if that's something we could offer
1:25:00 up at the same time okay are you guys
1:25:02 part of the King County pollution
1:25:04 prevention program yes that where that
1:25:07 came from okay thank
1:25:17 you I'm not seeing any other questions
1:25:20 for you Mike great thank you all so much
1:25:23 for the time tonight Mike one thing
1:25:26 before you leave if I could put you on
1:25:28 the spot to talk a little bit about
1:25:29 timeline for the next permit I know we
1:25:31 had talked a bit about probably some
1:25:33 more engagement with the board um that
1:25:36 process leading up to next
1:25:40 spring so what the timeline looks like
1:25:43 at uh right now
1:25:46 is uh folks have provided comment on the
1:25:49 draft storm water permit that came from
1:25:51 ecology already they are put together
1:25:54 their response to comments and we'll be
1:25:56 hearing back on those I I'm a little
1:25:59 iffy on the timeline for this but I
1:26:00 believe sometime uh early summer they'll
1:26:04 be providing us somewhere around July
1:26:07 1st with the formal draft of the new
1:26:09 storm water permit this year and then
1:26:11 it'll go into effect August 1st so we
1:26:15 won't know for certain what all of the
1:26:18 new requirements are until around July
1:26:21 1st but if there is interest and
1:26:24 engaging more around this process I'm
1:26:26 happy to talk about and explore what
1:26:28 that could look like at this point in
1:26:30 time great yeah I was thinking maybe at
1:26:33 least we could provide a written update
1:26:35 to the board in the fall and then talk
1:26:37 about what any engagement might look
1:26:40 like leading up to the spring in our
1:26:41 next um report deadline absolutely okay
1:26:45 more more looking at just giving an
1:26:47 overview of what's in the new permit and
1:26:49 what will be coming uh you know our way
1:26:52 in the next five years not so much as
1:26:54 trying to influence the course of the
1:26:57 permit
1:26:59 yeah unless others have
1:27:05 thoughts right well thank you Mike thank
1:27:08 you for joining us I think Evan you're
1:27:09 on there as well thank you to for
1:27:10 joining us tonight I think with that
1:27:13 we'll wrap up unless there's anything
1:27:14 else that you had for us Mike that's it
1:27:17 thank you all have a good night awesome
1:27:19 thank you um uh next up we'll move into
1:27:22 reports I think Stacy has a couple
1:27:24 things for us uh sure I can do brief um
1:27:28 Council
1:27:29 reports um and then maybe hand it back
1:27:32 over to you um just really quick some
1:27:35 things that are upcoming for city
1:27:37 council uh next week they will be doing
1:27:40 the board appointments I'll share that
1:27:43 information once it's made
1:27:45 public um April 25th there's going to be
1:27:48 a joint meeting between city council and
1:27:51 the School District board um as I think
1:27:54 you all saw the the letter um from Don
1:27:57 was passed on to city council city
1:27:59 council um submitted a letter to the
1:28:02 board uh which also included or sorry
1:28:06 our our um message to city council was
1:28:09 to uh continue that engagement around
1:28:12 sustainability environmental issues
1:28:14 between the school district board and
1:28:16 the city um so hoping that that will
1:28:19 influence uh the agenda um between the
1:28:22 two on the 25th
1:28:24 um in May there are a number of other
1:28:27 potential um topics of Interest coming
1:28:30 to council they'll be talking about the
1:28:31 State Building Code local amendments for
1:28:33 Wildfire and the Wildland Urban
1:28:36 interface code um one of wash dots
1:28:39 culbert relocation AG uh projects
1:28:42 there'll be a discussion around
1:28:44 agreement for that I can provide more
1:28:47 information to the board because I know
1:28:48 there's um some
1:28:50 interest um the tip will be coming to
1:28:53 account
1:28:54 and then also an update on Metroflex so
1:28:56 happy to report out to the board on any
1:28:59 of those
1:29:01 topics um I have a few other just real
1:29:03 quick updates and then PLS for upcoming
1:29:06 topics on the board but I can do those
1:29:07 at the end if you wan to no go ahead
1:29:09 okay um just some real quick updates uh
1:29:13 um last Friday we submitted a grant to
1:29:18 Department of Commerce um about a
1:29:20 million do million and a half dollar
1:29:23 request for a solar system and battery
1:29:25 backup at the senior center um it's one
1:29:29 of the outputs of the resilience Hub
1:29:32 project that um David has been running
1:29:35 so we're hoping to hear from that um on
1:29:37 that Grant about the next month but
1:29:39 really excited about the potential for
1:29:41 that site um and then as Sarah mentioned
1:29:45 too we're also waiting to hear from
1:29:46 Commerce on here which is the home
1:29:49 electrification and Appliance rebates um
1:29:53 these are are actually um somewhat of a
1:29:56 alloc in between a grant and an
1:29:58 allocation um where it's very likely
1:30:00 we're going to get some portion of the
1:30:03 six $6 million request for the easts
1:30:06 cities um for isqua we're looking to
1:30:09 take not all of um what we are able to
1:30:13 secure for heat pumps but possibly to
1:30:15 take a small amount of that to Pilot our
1:30:18 additional electrification program um so
1:30:21 we'll keep you updated on those amounts
1:30:23 and that
1:30:25 like um and then just coming up for the
1:30:28 board um next month we will um
1:30:33 potentially have some new board members
1:30:35 uh do a bit more of a a kind of
1:30:38 welcoming um intro for the year meeting
1:30:41 and then um our big topic for next month
1:30:44 is we're going to do a deep dive into
1:30:47 the climate action plan as a preview for
1:30:50 a presentation that will go to council
1:30:52 likely in June so we'll be looking for
1:30:55 feedback from you all um on our report
1:30:58 out on progress and challenges and um
1:31:02 success with the IAP we'll also plan to
1:31:05 bring um kind of a preview of a budget
1:31:08 presentation to that
1:31:10 meeting um other thing about next month
1:31:12 I forgot to mention was uh we'll be
1:31:14 looking for anyone that's interested in
1:31:17 the chair or vice chair position so
1:31:19 please let me know if that's something
1:31:21 of interest to you
1:31:25 all right
1:31:26 Stacey um next up I was going to provide
1:31:29 a a brief update on strategic plan task
1:31:34 force which um it's a fairly large group
1:31:37 that actually meets here um discussing
1:31:40 the Strategic plan and for those that
1:31:42 aren't familiar with strategic plan
1:31:45 that's like where the comp plan is kind
1:31:46 of at the 20 year time Horizon the
1:31:49 Strategic plan is is more like a
1:31:51 fiveyear horizon and I think this might
1:31:54 was that the last strap plan wasn't that
1:31:57 our first that we had done is that um
1:32:01 yeah I think that's correct yeah so it's
1:32:02 relatively new process within the city
1:32:05 um and it like I I think the last one
1:32:08 was in 2019 or 2018 something around
1:32:10 that so we're going about and updating
1:32:12 that and that one ties a lot more
1:32:14 directly with what's going on within um
1:32:17 the different functional plan so one of
1:32:18 the things that is new that's that
1:32:21 wasn't in place at the time that the
1:32:23 last strap plan was put was put in place
1:32:25 was the climate action plan so that's
1:32:27 obviously something that want to make
1:32:29 sure that going forward that the new
1:32:32 strategic plan has that incorporated and
1:32:35 so I think that's something that as that
1:32:38 process gets further along that that
1:32:39 might be an opportunity for the board to
1:32:41 engage because obviously I'm one voice
1:32:44 on that on that task force but um
1:32:46 depending on how things turn out that
1:32:48 might be something that um other board
1:32:50 members might want to get involved on to
1:32:52 ensure that that there's kind of a
1:32:53 strong enough uh kind of support for IAT
1:32:57 measures within that program as well as
1:32:58 everything else I mean we've also had a
1:33:00 land use um update so there's other
1:33:02 things that have happened in that in
1:33:04 that thing in that time so um it's still
1:33:07 ongoing and I actually missed the last
1:33:09 meeting because I was away but uh that's
1:33:12 something I'll have more to report on um
1:33:14 kind of May June that wraps up in in May
1:33:17 I believe so um we'll have more to to
1:33:20 more of an update to provide there so um
1:33:23 please let me any questions on on that
1:33:26 process Str strategic plan which is
1:33:28 really hard for me to say um but uh yeah
1:33:33 that's uh that's a process that uh
1:33:34 continue to work through so um and then
1:33:37 I think the the last item was just kind
1:33:41 of like Chinese New Year and other New
1:33:43 Years don't always land on January 1 I
1:33:46 think like board new years's are kind of
1:33:49 this is like the end of our board cycle
1:33:52 um this is our last meeting with this
1:33:54 with this kind of group or this vintage
1:33:57 of of members so I want to thank
1:33:59 everyone for all all the service and
1:34:01 time that that you put in um know that
1:34:04 there's especially I think the last
1:34:06 couple months have been
1:34:08 particularly uh particularly intense and
1:34:10 had a lot of meetings which kind of
1:34:12 seems to be often the case in in
1:34:15 springtime for us but thank you to
1:34:17 everyone that has taken the time and all
1:34:19 the impacts that you've made for for the
1:34:21 city and for uh the environment so Donna
1:34:24 anything to
1:34:27 add now I would Echo thank you for your
1:34:30 efforts thank you for your time um it's
1:34:32 been a lot of work this last year but
1:34:35 we've got a lot accomplished
1:34:37 um and um I look forward to our new
1:34:40 board coming together and and seeing
1:34:42 where we go from there yeah definitely I
1:34:45 think this was a unique year for us
1:34:46 because we had the retreat and some
1:34:48 things like us starting to think about
1:34:50 uh the board growing up so it was this
1:34:53 was really great year for a lot of
1:34:54 different reasons so thanks to everyone
1:34:57 um I think without any other business
1:34:59 from anyone
1:35:05 else all right well I think with that
1:35:07 then we are adjourned thank you
1:35:10 everyone good night thank
1:35:15 you thank
1:35:17 you good night