Nov 08, 2021 Public Utilities Board on 2021-11-08 9:00 AM

Okay good morning it's nine o'clock and we do have a quorum so we'll call to order the public utility board meeting for the city of Denton for Monday November 8th. The first item is any public comment. Does anybody in the audience wish to speak? How about on the phone? No there are no callers. All right thank you. So the first item is our consent agenda. Does any board member wish to pull it? Mr. Back, go ahead. Yes thank you chair. I'd like to pull item A and discuss if we can a little bit more detail about this extraordinary fine. Okay and I'm gonna pull item B and go ahead. Item E. And item E. All right and the other items. All right do we have a motion to approve item C, D, C and D? Benjump removed. Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? That carries. Item A. Who is here to speak to that item? This is Rachel Wood deputy director of Capital Projects. I've also got Tracy Beck on the line who's the project manager for this project and we're happy to answer any questions. Go ahead. You need you need to have your mic on Mr. Beck. There you go. Got it now. Okay I found this an extraordinary. You're telling me. You're absolutely telling me. Come on. Pardon me? Okay you can hear me okay? Yes. Okay. This is an item that evidently I found out that the PUB discussed at a previous time so I don't want to drag this out but I found it extraordinary that we were finding something like this in one of our projects and it looks like the city did its due diligence and all that. It's just that I hate to see this pass so quickly without a little bit of discussion go on the public record. I was interested to realize that this fine was considered I guess to be prehistoric since they found some parts up to be 5,000 years old and I understand there was let's say archaeologists involved in this along with the project manager and other people and decided to do this data recovery as opposed to working around it or preserving any part of it. So if you could just elaborate a little bit more on that was it that deep into the area where we're going to work that none of it could be preserved and it was determined it said that cost and time would be excessive on that too and it just seems like a rare find like this. I'm just curious to hear the a little bit of the reasoning behind the decision to just go with the data retrieval. Is that help? Is that that's not too confusing is it? And I'm sorry what was your name again? This is Tracy Beck. Tracy Beck good name okay okay did what I say make sense? Yes sir it did and I appreciate you asking the question. We had a project the Hickory Creek Interceptor project dates back numerous years of a high need for the wastewater department and for all the surrounding areas both existing and future development. The alignment was set years ago prior to my involvement and as one of the tasks that we're responsible to do when we go through a project evaluation is look at the archaeological findings. Typically that's never been a problem in the past. On this particular project we had a little special event where when we went through the initial phase we do what's called a survey. They take a look at the the surroundings and they say this might be a good area to look into. So we did that and that got one of our amendment changes to look a little bit deeper because the Texas Historical Commission came out and said we need to look a little deeper dig under the ground and take a look. So at that point they started finding some activity that showed that there was a past history of folks passing through the area. They had evidence of ovens earthen ovens and then mussel shells. So as they kept moving forward the Texas Historical Commission said we'd like to take a look a little bit further. So we're in what's called a phase three data recovery and what they're doing today is out there collecting all the data collecting the evidence the years sample soils everything that they need to recreate the story the best they can as to what they found. So as far as avoiding those areas the alignment in order to avoid the areas we looked at that option we looked at trying to bore under the areas. We looked at anything that we could do to avoid the archaeological expenses as well as the impact. But the reality is is that if we shifted it left or right the Texas Historical Commission said there's really not a way to find out if we could avoid them all together because it was a community that came through this area. So at that point we didn't have an option other than to start the project from scratch which based on the need for the line was not an option that we could see. So what they're doing today is collecting as much data, years data, taking pictures and everything. We'll end up getting a several hundred page report maybe even a thousand pages. I don't know they said it's gonna be huge. Showing all the evidence so that we can secure that history. Okay did the Texas Historical Commission is there something on record with them where we could kind of see in a little bit more detail their perception on this and something for the public record more or less other than what we got here? We have a scope that has been worked back and forth between the archaeologists and the Texas Historical Commission and that's where they negotiate back and forth discussing what are the needs for the project, excavation, data recovery and that is a part of what we're approving today is that scope. Okay as a private citizen though is there could I get access to those records? We don't have them public right now but I believe that we could add them to our Discover Denton pages. It's just going to document the scope of the services based on what the Texas Historical Commission and our archaeologists discussed. Okay if that can be done and is done Tracy would you email me and let me know and just give me you know how I can go about doing that otherwise I'm fine with this. Absolutely. Okay thank you so much. All right so do we have a motion to approve item A? Mr. Beck is motioning. Do we have a second? Mr. Cheek seconded. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Carries. Item B. I did not really have a question I just knew that Billy would have to recuse himself so I need a motion to approve item B. Thank you Mr. Jumper. Moved? Second? Mr. Beck seconded. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Carries. Item E. All right item E. Yes I guess do we have somebody here for that? Yeah we have some folks from Solid Waste here they can probably answer your questions if you want to ask your question Mr. Jumper. Sure okay so we're getting a new you want to get a new truck I was a little confused on the purpose of the of the truck is it it seems like it maybe it's like a backup or kind of a filler like fill-in for odds and ends needs if you could just elaborate on that a little more. Yes I love to answer that question it's really it really won't be a backup this will be our one of our primary vehicles the purpose of a few reasons for trying to acquire the vehicle now versus later but it'll it'll allow us to create a faster response time as we respond to our customer concerns and the complaints the smaller footprint is definitely a lot easier to maneuver through the communities one of the things that we're here we're here a very high standard to is taking care of customers in a short response time the the the the fuel savings versus sitting in a big large truck across town late and evening in traffic this truck will take care of that for us plus it'll serve as our you mentioned backup and I say no to that this will actually serve as our crew we have crew leaders on staff for each discipline that we have this truck will serve as an office so instead of us waiting the customer waiting for things to happen we're right in the field and we can take care of it right away okay and then you also in the in the documentation there referenced helping with spills so I was curious about all the spills happen a lot and then how does that happen and what if you got an administrative code we are required if there's a spillage we are required to take care of that spill within a certain amount of time does that happen often it doesn't happen often however when they do happen hydraulic spills things of that nature in this in this business as the temperatures get hotter and warmer lines sometimes are compromised right and you may have 20 to 30 gallons of hydraulic fluid on the ground and we've got a short window to respond this truck will have spill kits everything necessary right to take care of that spill to contain it until we can get it better under control sometimes getting the better under control is calling in some specialists and things like that before the containment initially this truck is already in the field it can respond immediately okay yes sir is this the first truck of its kind of this kind of more light-duty quick response vehicle absolutely not their trucks been an industry like this probably I'm aware I've been in the business 32 years I know they're been in the business about 15 years no I'm sorry I meant for the department is a few years ago we bought two we have two they're in a yard a configuration and they work fine for us in fact we service our downtown valley area with those trucks right now they work perfect for us this truck is a little larger 11 yard to for more capacity so our return time to the landfill is not as frequent great thank you I just was wondering if this was the only one and if that was enough but obviously it's the third of this particular type thank you if approved this would be our third vehicle of this kind to our fleet thank you yes ma'am do we have a motion to approve item E so moved then jumper seconds all in favor say aye motion carries next item is recommend approval of the October 25th meeting minutes do we have a motion to approve move approval mr. cheek moved approval mr. Beck seconds on favor say aye aye that carries consider the adoption of an ordinance with the city of Denton the Texas Home Rule Municipal Corporation authorizing the city manager to execute a contract with Southern ionics ink for the supply of emissions reagent for the deep Denton Energy Center yeah they're not on our monitors they don't come up on the monitor okay good enough everything look good yep good morning ladies and gentlemen Jason Brown plant manager of the Denton Energy Center first off I want to thank you all for allowing me time this morning to present this emissions reagent contract that we're seeking approval of this morning the reagent used at the Denton Energy Center is aqueous ammonia and is used as an additive in our exhaust stream for NOx control NOx control is a condition of our air permit therefore we have to have emissions reagent in order to operate the facility how we use aquia aqueous ammonia or the additive is we inject the additive into the exhaust stream where it mixes with exhaust gas and then flows through the SCR catalyst selective catalytic reduction catalyst on the exhaust system in there a chemical reaction takes place where the NOx deposits on to the SCR blocks and as we as we operate the facility we maintain the emissions life or the perimeters of that emissions catalyst with standard maintenance practices by monitoring the catalyst block differential across the catalyst blocks and clean or refurbish the catalyst catalytic blocks as we need the additive is a consumable that is injected into the into the exhaust stream at 14 and a half gallons per hour to 18 and a gap 18 and a half gallons per hour depending on exhaust load or equipment load and NOx control is a standard air permit condition to where we we need emissions reagent with us injecting aqueous ammonia into the exhaust stream at 14 and a half to 18 and a half gallons per hour we we have the need for bulk storage this picture here in front of you is is our storage location the big horizontal gray tank to the right is where we keep our aqueous ammonia and it's transferred via pumps to the north and south engine halls through a common header where it then is dosed by engine for the NOx control needs so our book our bulk storage capacity is about 29,000 to 30,000 gallons or 172 plant hours at full output our tank is designed to store aqueous ammonia and we receive deliveries via tanker at 6,500 gallons typically every week during the peak of summer to every three weeks during during the other shoulder months as you can see from that picture in the center there that's where we offload our our tankers they actually pull into a containment area if there was happen to be a spill or any of that that nature it would go down into the containment area that's designed to hold all that all that chemical capacity in that area so as our contract came up and expired earlier or late last month we went out for formal bids we went out with an IFB specified what need to be needed to be quality of our aqueous ammonia and we're seeking approval for a five-year total contract three years with two one-year extensions it was sent to 54 perspective bidders one we got one response which happened to be our previous contract supplier and we are recommending awarding southern ionics for our emissions reagent aqueous ammonia questions yes mr. Beck thank you Jason for your report and I appreciate your informative tour you gave a couple of us this weekend yes would you and you mentioned during that tour and if you would restate what is the EPA level of emissions that's allowed and where does the DEC stand the EPA TCEQ has limitations based on your standard air permit and the equipment type which basically boils down to eight tons per year requirement I can't pull off top my head what the requirement is for NOx or or CEO but I can definitely give you that information as well on the share site we do put up our emissions values each month and and that permit limit is is on that that spreadsheet as well you said something about it couldn't exceed 60% no during during the tour what we have experienced thus far in operation is we we've only been achieving about 60% capacity of our total air permit limit which is well under one tons per year yeah okay thank you yes sir yes sir I have a question on the dollar amounts are fixed over the five-year period is that a not to exceed dollar amount for the supply as required that's a great question so it is a not to exceed amount additionally within that not to exceed amount our previous operating history we've been spending about a hundred and nine thousand a year over the last four or five months we've seen a 32% increase in the cost of that that aqueous ammonia or that product in general so the way that we build our budget for this consumable since it is a variable based on the operation is we budget it to the to the max value and this contract is built to that max value also we're fully expecting the cost of our aqueous ammonia to be more down around the five hundred thousand range this year well that was a curiosity my question was increasing costs in all areas I said well this is fixed so I was wondering how you're gonna manage that so thank you yes sir mr. chief does this take into account for the possible increase in production at the DEC yes sir it does and remind me deep when we think the new giant computer system will be online the Bitcoin place or whatever it is phase one I want to say was online January February February sir okay sorry no worries thank you other questions oh yes go ahead good morning good morning I was so we have 172 hours of storage on site and it looks like one tanker truck it would probably take five or six tanker trucks to fill the on-site tank there so are you getting I guess deliveries every few days or weekly during during peak season so so midsummer and and also there's a peak during the winter time typically we're receiving about a tanker every week to two weeks fluctuates with with engine operation whether if we run a lot we're gonna need more and it's been about a week and it's the supply are they relatively local like in case of transportation disruptions a snowstorm something like that the product is manufactured in Houston and then our our shipping time is is usually two to three days we don't keep the storage tank at max capacity unless they give us a notice that the times are gonna be a little bit longer than we'll double up and bring it to max capacity in case there is a shortage we typically reorder about 60 60 to 70 percent tank level okay so those trucks are it's from Houston a truck comes up takes him a day or two to place the order fill the order and then get arrives two days later yes sir from the from the minute that we place the order it's typically 24-hour turn around there is there is some expedited fees in this contract if we did need it faster and and they can't get it to us within the normal time frame three days and we can expedite it we've we've had to expedite once during storm URI so we typically don't really need to expedite thank you yes sir you took my next question did this happen during storm URI perfect I'm glad I got to you first Mr. Beck go ahead thank you just one other question just so I'm clear the waste product is essentially what is emitted the the aqueous ammonia mixed in with the toxic elements there's no physical or liquid waste product from all this is there there there is a little bit of water during the during the chemical process it evaporates within the SCR blocks with the heat okay most of the byproduct is going to be attached to the SCR blocks where you actually go in the lance and take out take out the material and dispose of and that wastewater evaporates we don't send it all somewhere no sir thank you no no accumulation like that mm-hmm okay any further questions okay seeing none do we have a motion to approve mr. epic was motioned second mr. cheek second all in favor say aye aye opposed okay carries management reports madam chair members of the PB appreciate your time today it's on your management reports we did send you a memo with some legislative information certainly if you have any questions we'll be happy to answer those today we have a number of staff people here and also on the phone that can address any of any of those bills that are impacting our utilities certainly there's other questions about the attachment and some additional bills we can certainly try to respond to those this morning but before I go to that I just wanted to go quickly to the new business action matrix with having wrapped up hopefully this legislative update today we've also completed the emergency preparedness you know we also gave a tour to a couple a couple of members last week and kind of showed them a little bit more kind of there on site some of the things that we've done that leaves us certainly we have the solid waste pilot program on on composting I think Brian will probably address sometime probably today and part of his presentation and then we have one additional item on the solar insulation and how they impact the grid and that'll be forthcoming to you with a much broader presentation on distributed generation and kind of what we're doing with some of our solar programs but with that happy to answer any questions like I said we do have a number of staff people available if you have questions on the memo mr. Ratback go ahead my question is kind of an overview is there's somebody available could give us kind of a overview or summary of what all of this information in this memo about the legislative session and all the various updates yeah certainly I'll see if Terry Nolte even come up here he can the bulk of these had to do with what electric utilities certainly there's other bills that have impacted our other utilities I will mention one before Terry goes forward and that's that's HB 1520 that's related to gas utilities obviously we don't have a gas utility but but we do have regular authority regulatory authority over some of these utilities when it comes to rate setting and so the city did intervene as part of a larger coalition with this gas securitization bill which is very similar to what happened on the electric side and think think that that is now pushing forward we'll just mention that's about three point three and a half billion dollars that gas utilities are going to be securitizing and in passing back through to customers coaster of gas that's one of our providers here at at most energy is the other provider which is a much larger provider but coaster of gas did opt out of that securitization they're gonna do their own financing and they're gonna set that at their own you know whatever their own rate is and and they'll be passing that forward all of this will probably be about a two and a half dollar to four dollar regulatory fee per use per your per your volume your MMBT you or I think it's a different measure on your gas bill that you'll be seeing here probably in the next few months it's just a pass through to to customers the utilities will collect it and then forward that on to this securitization agency that's been set up very similar to what we saw on the electric side but Terry I'll turn it over to Terry assistant general manager DME so a lot of the legislation as you can imagine was a result of what happened in February with winter storm URI and I guess just from a very high level the two biggest bills impacting our utilities here in Denton were Senate bill 2 and Senate bill 3 Senate bill 2 was a bill that basically is PCT public utility Commission of Texas and ERCOT governance bill change the governance structure of those organizations be glad to answer any specific questions you have about those there are now two new board members of ERCOT the ERCOT board has those two members have solicited a proposal for a recruiting company to come in and help find additional board members for ERCOT and of course ERCOT is the organization that controls the electric grid in Texas yes sir so does that mean there are currently only two members of the board that is correct they all step down as the prior board was made up of about 18 people various segments of the industry had representation on the board for instance the public power sector had two representatives on that board that board has been dissolved pursuant to Senate bill 2 and so these these two new board members will be heading up the the search to find additional board members one of the new requirements is that the board members must live in Texas and that they have to have expertise in finance energy management natural gas it's pretty specific and prescriptive and in the bill well thank you I didn't realize the board had been completely yeah thank you Senate bill 3 was probably the biggest is the omnibus bill and it dealt with both electric and water systems everything from mapping the natural gas infrastructure across Texas to each generating facility to identify critical resources critical loads along the system part of the problem during Yuri was that a number of compressor stations that were not deemed critical were lost power and couldn't pressurize gas in the pipelines there were a number of gas processing facilities that also were not critical that shut down couldn't process natural gas so that exacerbated the the shortage of natural gas that we saw during that week in February under Senate bill 3 the Texas Railroad Commission is to establish weatherization standards for the the natural gas pipeline system that effort is under underway all critical loads are being registered now with their with their respective utilities and then next winter by next winter we hope to see weather standards that will be imposed across all of the natural gas pipeline systems for this winter unfortunately there will not be reliability standards imposed weatherize weatherization or reliability standards imposed because there wasn't sufficient time to get those regulations in place or through the public process on the electric side much much different story we do have new weatherization standards we provided a report to you last month on that we've done our weatherization efforts out at the Denton Energy Center there is additional efforts that we will be taking over time the Senate bill 3 also directed the Public Utility Commission of Texas to establish new reliability regulations for ERCOT those are ongoing today I think on December 8 December 19th we anticipate that the Public Utility Commission will issue their roadmap for new market changes reliability changes to try to avoid the the issues that we experienced in in February as well as to better situate the the grid for the coming intermittency of generation we have we have 20,000 megawatts of new solar patents solar projects that will be coming online in the next three to four years we've got another ten to fifteen thousand megawatts of wind and while it wasn't the primary cause of winter storm URI the intermittency of the grid does pose a big risk and so these new rules are intended to address that this new direction from the Public Utility Commission I don't expect that we'll see any definitive rules out on that probably for a year or so because it'll take some time to get it through the stakeholder on the water side water systems were adversely impacted during URI we had wool water advisories throughout the state a number of water systems were shut down for weeks and so the water systems were required to submit like the natural gas facilities a list of their critical infrastructure to their local utilities so that they would not lose power if there were rolling back rolling outages again also the water utilities are in the midst of developing and submitting to TCEQ emergency plans that will be reviewed by the agency to ensure that they've got adequate procedures in place in the event of a repeat of the URI event so that give you a high level enough overview of those two bills there were there were many other bills obviously there's a long list I'm not those are the two that I'm saying that would affect the city of Denton's utilities most directly well thank you very much that's what I was looking for just a overview there was way too much here to digest over the weekend mr. Beck go ahead oh your mics on there you go sorry about that was there in this legislation was there any consideration to since ERCOT is a self-imposed confined system in the event we run into another extreme weather condition that creates its problem again in the methods we put out there don't don't suffice was there any consider is it consideration to link up to the neighboring grids that could supply was that even a consideration there was discussions at the legislature during the session of that issue it never made it into the bill it is not one of the mandates under Senate bill 3 or Senate bill 2 for the Commission to look at so I'm not aware I've been very I've been monitoring all the developments of the Public Utility Commission and so far I haven't seen any effort on their part to reach out to any surrounding grids to discuss interconnection okay thank you and I see that the violation penalties are similar to the NERC finds that that's correct see so we're getting more in alignment there so yeah we we actually have a our first certification for the weather ization efforts will go in on December 1st to the PUCT yeah all right other questions thank you I guess that's it isn't it okay concluding items does any board member wish to have something added to a future agenda item or making public comments no all right then we'll go on to work session the first one is to receive a report hold a discussion and give staff direction regarding the options related to the completion and implementation of the comprehensive solid waste management strategy what we've been waiting for exactly pins and needles here so good morning madam chair members of the board I'm Brian burner I'm the solid waste director for the city of Denton and I appreciate you being here and listening to our discussion with me today I have several members of the of the leadership of the solid waste department as well as our consultant Scott Pasternak with Burns and McDonald what we hope to do today is to provide a status update and receive comment direction on the development of the city's comprehensive solid waste management strategy as envisioned the strategy is to be a comprehensive forward and future-looking document that will help the city in making sustainable decisions regarding its solid waste management stream it's agnostic with regard to programs we're in the in terms of sustainability we're not looking at products we're not looking at programs but we're looking at process taking materials from point A to point B how to efficiently do it how to economically do it and most importantly how to environmentally do it or how to do it in an environmentally friendly manner you know in short this document is not is about leading it's not about following it's doing what's right for the city of Denton and its citizens we don't want to operate inside or outside a box that has been divide defined by somebody else or some other organization we want to create our own box and in that box create or think much larger with regard to our solid waste management program you know we want to support maximum diversion of our waste stream while minimizing cost environmental impacts and as part of this process we're looking where no one's looking before we're thinking where people aren't thinking about right now we're believing where people haven't been believing in the past and as such we're trying to make our program sustainable as possible over this past year we've been looking and working to evaluate our waste characteristic characteristics excuse me reviewing existing programs both locally and nationally reviewing state and federal laws to identify strategic points of synergy and in today's discussion we're going to be discussing those six strategies that we've identified and really where we want to focus our efforts as well as the metrics to help drive future programs what we'd like to do this morning is really run as part of the presentation is run through the entire presentation look at all six strategies and how they relate to one another and then we'll back up and then as a as a as a board look at each strategy individually so that we can understand you know we don't want to ask a question now that may be addressed you know in one of the later strategies so get it you know look at it holistically and then go back and look at it individually so with that before we go into our presentation I know that we have several new members on the board and again welcome and thank you for your service but I know many of you have not been out to the landfill here recently we've just finished the construction of our new landfill cell we've got our exciting public disposal facility under construction if anybody would like to come out take a look discuss garbage with us a little bit more we would be glad to have you and receive you just get with Kim we'll get a appointment set up and we'll give you the 50 cent tour so with that I would like to bring Scott Pasternak to the the podium here and talk he'll go through the presentation on the the the strategy good morning madam chair and board members again my name is Scott Pasternak and I'm with Burns and McDonald's I've had the opportunity to continue collaborating with the city of Denton on this strategy development I say continue as I have worked while at Burns and Mack and then with my prior firm with the city of Denton since about 2005 so I've had the great opportunity to be a part of some of the tremendous efforts that have been made in the past and continue to this day we also work pretty extensively with other cities and in the Council of Governments and in this region so there definitely are a lot of very exciting things that are happening from in the world of solid waste management and recycling composting and some of which the city of Denton is really at the leading edge of and then we'll talk about those this morning it's really what I want to do with you all this morning is to focus on three items first would be just to provide you with a broad overview of the project overall how we've gotten to this point we are definitely at the stage to where we are pretty far along in in the strategy development but but nothing is finalized whatsoever so that the timing of this meeting today as well as tomorrow we have a presentation before the City Council hopefully is pretty close to perfect in terms of we can hopefully answer your key questions and then any direction that you want to provide to us you know this is definitely a timely point for that as well so then after we provide the overview of where we are with the project we have engaged in some very meaningful stakeholder engagement efforts so I'll provide an overview of that and then as Brian mentioned then we'll jump into the six strategies that we are in the process of developing and then after that be happy to answer any questions that you may may have for us so this slide gives you a sense of the overview of the work that we have have undertaken so going from from left to right I won't go through each of the details in these boxes but just to hit the highlights we started off with an evaluation of the existing system that did include a characterization study of the solid waste and recycling materials in the city from residents residence apartment complexes and businesses and that that's exactly what you may think that it is it's it's actually sorting through all of that trash and recycling to understand what that is really comprised of and I'll tell you in a few minutes how that that's really so important but then also getting into the details of the current system and understanding other issues such as the extensive growth that is occurring and expected to continue happening not only here in Denton but in the surrounding communities as as well so then where we've been focusing our efforts through the summer and in fall it's been to work with the city to develop a number of strategies and options which we will talk through with you all today which are based on various goals and objectives that we have worked to establish with the city so ultimately what we will be developing is the solid waste management strategy which will include the six strategies that that again Brian referred to as well as what are the specific steps that can be taken now and into the future to implement those strategies the the bottom of this slide communicates that we have undertaken extensive stakeholder engagement in public outreach efforts as a part of this so let me walk through what some of those key aspects of have been we started off with a citywide survey of residents across the community and very pleased to report that almost 900 city of Denton residents did participate in that survey which we thought was a great turnout and then we did conduct a series of workshops with with the public that was really focused on helping them to understand not only where where the city of Denton is now with respect to solid waste management but more importantly where did the city of Denton want to go and into the future and so I'm going to share the results of that on the next slide but before I do that all the information as far as the results of the survey and then this this effort which was titled as a as a think tank summit are summarized in on a web page and in a report of which the website for that is listed at at the bottom of this slide it's not showing up super well but but it is there if you want to access that so in terms of the the stakeholder engagement outcomes a key part of that effort was to work with city of Denton residents and community members to ask them where do they want the city of Denton to be what's their vision for the future and what what we found as a part of that process was that in terms of the trajectory or the direction of that was that there was a strong preference for what the group described as has changed the future now so the context of that is we asked them to envision a future with different scenarios in terms of what would be the role of technology and policies as well as the importance of recycling reuse and reduction and there was a very clear direction that that there was a strong interest in change and so of the different categories of a future scenario the one that they picked was the one that was was the most progressive in terms of changing that the future and then the second bullet on that left-hand side communicates the the velocity in terms of how how quickly versus how far out in the future does the community want that to occur and based on the the responses from the survey there is definitely significant support for near-term action hence the change the future now perspective also we did talk with them about a number of solid waste management trends the top three ones are communicated here and you'll see those themes reflected in the various strategies that we'll talk about in just a few minutes in terms of recycling education the population growth that is occurring again not only here in the city but in surrounding communities and the impacts that that has not only on the landfill side but hopefully opportunities for for recycling and we're gonna hold off on questions until they get through the whole presentation this time because they're gonna get deeper dive is that yes yes if that would be okay and then the last trend identified here is is with regard to landfill capacity so the city had didn't as Brian just mentioned as has undergone recently efforts to increase the capacity of the landfill which from an infrastructure perspective is is very important but it still is a finite resource and so looking at how that should be effectively managed into the future is a key part of the strategy development effort so what I'll do now is is to walk through each of these strategies and individually and one of the key reasons for the request to to please hold the questions to the end is that a lot of these strategies are very much interrelated to each other so that some of the recommendations and one strategy will kind of rise up again under some of the other strategies so that you can see how they are interrelated so I'm going to go through each one of these individually at this point and so each of these next six slides are organized in the same manner it's where the the top of it just gives the background on what the strategy is and why it's important and then what we have identified as shown in the the green numbered items are the specific recommendations that are under consideration and at this point so again we are actively working on developing these at this point so again to the extent that you have questions or comments directions for us that would definitely be appreciated and then as shown with the blue magnifying glass that indicates what are going to be that the key performance indicators there will be some overlap amongst the different strategies whereas others will have their own unique key performance indicators or KPIs so as far as this this strategy here it's it's really all about efforts to enhance education outreach and and compliance the city of Denton does already have a very robust education and outreach efforts but from a strategy development perspective this is really critical because it there it gets just really so confusing out there in terms of what materials should go into what what places from a trash recycling and composting perspective and so to really focus in on that now and into the future is it's really going to be important to minimize the stuff that should not go into recycling carts which we call contamination as well as to increase sustainability efforts so the three key recommendations here are for the city to continue to collaborate with its recycling processor to understand how much of the material that can be recycled is is actually being recycled so if you think about aluminum cans plastic bottles paper that should be recycled how much of that is truly getting recycled as well as on the contamination side how much of the bad stuff is ending up in the in the wrong places and so by getting more robust in terms of that information the city can continue to target its education and outreach efforts in a data-driven manner to those audience that really need that information most effectively and then the third item is is to over time to look to incorporate incentives and into various compliance programs so I think the city very much wants to lead with with the carrot type of an approach but to the extent that after you have exhausted extensive education and outreach efforts there may be a need to look into compliance activities as well so the next strategy focuses on implementing innovative organics management so one of the things that we learned when we did the characterization work was how much organic material is is going into the city's landfill from really across all three of the different sectors that we evaluated so single-family and multifamily households as well as the the commercial sector so we talk about the city of Denton being very innovative I would say that these efforts on the organic side definitely speak to that so the first one is is an effort to pilot commercial organics composting or a co-digestion program at the Pecan Creek wastewater treatment plant so this this is a program that's looking to bring in material predominantly food waste from the commercial sector and to divert that so that it does not go into to the landfill with it being a new program that's being done on a pilot basis and then the second one is is to optimize a program that's already in place that accepts predominantly yard waste but there is an opportunity for residents to divert food scraps as as a part of that and so to optimize that that program as well so essentially on the organic side the city is looking at the continuation of a program that's already in place residentially but then recognizing that there is a very significant amount of material commercially out there and figuring out what's going to be the best way over time to divert that material on on the landfill side here the strategy is is to efficiently utilize utilize that landfill capacity and I think the the city is is really wise here to recognize that there are a number of benefits for the city to provide the use of the facility to neighboring communities but also a recognition that that there is a finite amount of capacity and then these issues to some extent are are somewhat magnified because some of the other landfills in the region are reaching capacity and so that's going to create further pressure on the Denton landfill in the future and so what we're recommending here is to continue to to utilize disposal contracts with third parties that want to utilize the the Denton landfill but this is probably the first time I think that anybody's ever thought of this idea but to offer somewhat better rates on disposal to the extent that those entities would participate more so in recycling and composting programs so that they really start to partner in to buy in with the city's broader efforts to divert materials and then the city does definitely benefit financially from these third-party times that come in to the landfill and is doing an effective job to pay off existing debt with that additional revenue but after that debt is retired the recommendation here is to establish a disposal contract revenue specialized fund that you utilize to stabilize your residential rates as well as to continue to fund diversion programs and then because landfill pricing is so dynamic the third aspect is is to conduct routine market studies to track landfill market pricing and to set rates accordingly again we have mentioned how much growth is is happening and so that's really important to think about with regard to planning for infrastructure it's it's been really interesting as we've had an opportunity to take a deeper dive to understand the potential development that's happening a little bit out out to the west with the Hunter Cole area because that's going to require some some very significant infrastructure planning not just for for solid waste but but across the city and so we are recommending that the idea of a transfer station which is a facility where trucks would go to drop off their material be considered and then that material is then aggregated into bigger trucks that then would go to either the landfill and or diversion facilities for organics and or or recycling but we are we also are saying this should only be constructed when certain minimum tonnage thresholds are achieved so that the facility can be operationally and cost-effective there's also under item number two a trend and we're seeing this not only in Denton but but really cities all across Texas and that is for single family housing units to be built differently today and in the future than now they have been historically in terms of you know typically smaller lot sizes so more compact development yeah exactly yeah which which on one hand is is great but our point here is that you just got to make sure that city policies allow for those new home styles to be properly serviced by the city and in the future and then recognizing under number three how important not only the the single family sector is but also on the multifamily commercial and as it is more construction occurs C&D stands for construction demolition materials to look to further customize diversion incentives for those different sectors as well so optimizing recycling processing is going to be a really important strategy so the city of Denton does have just like many communities and in Texas challenges with the wrong type of stuff making its way into the recycling system and so based on the results of the characterization study that I mentioned because we looked at not only the the trash side but also recycling and so we have an understanding of what's the the bad stuff that's going into the recycling stream and then also conduct talking with staff as well as the the recycling company that processes the city's material is to make a very concerted efforts to identify what those materials are and what is the more appropriate way for that material to be diverted so believe it or not a lot of clothing or textiles can make their way into a recycling system so there's lots of great opportunities to otherwise divert that material and so here it's connecting those those points to be able to communicate that as part of those education and outreach efforts that I mentioned earlier the city does have you know when when Brian mentioned coming out for the 50 cent tour may cost you a buck if you also check out that the recycling facility that's out there but it is co located out at the out of the landfill complex and that was an innovative approach that the city put in place with the recycling company and so that that agreement does have about five years left on that and so we are working with the city in terms of developing what the strategy could be for the next five years and and beyond we think that there is on one hand a lot of value to see the extent to which that facility or the city could continue that relationship with that company but also as we talk about the need to look at servicing the community on a broader perspective there may be a need to expand that facility as well and there are several other cities and kind of in the northern part of the north central Texas planning region that are also very much focused on increasing recycling and and want to be innovative in terms of having the right types of processing facilities and so city of Denton may be in a good position in the next couple years to either look to expand the existing facility and or partner with other communities in the area so then the the last strategy that that we're talking about this morning is is the need to support combination of new markets and and to leverage partnerships the really good news here is so much of this or efforts that are already underway but from a long-term strategy development perspective it's really important to keep the focus on these efforts so this starts with continued coordination with other city departments in the areas of sustainable procurement in terms of green purchasing efforts requirements that will be put in place possibly initially for city buildings in terms of green building requirements but that could look to be expanded beyond that if the city chooses to do so and then just recognizing that people should hopefully have an opportunity to recycle material not only at their homes and businesses but also when they're out in the Denton community from a public space recycling perspective there there's already extensive efforts with the school district but coming out of the challenges with with Kovac there's also a number of opportunities to really specifically get back into the classrooms and to better leverage those those partnerships with DISD as well as other local nonprofits for additional diversion and community benefits such as food donations and then we talked earlier about the idea of contracting with other local governments and to create incentives on the programs that they put in place if they want to bring their their landfill material to the city and to create incentives for them to also do more from a recycling and composting perspective but City of Denton also serves a really important need and not only for it for the city but also the kind of the Denton County region and that is to provide services for the management of household chemicals and that's a pretty unique service the City of Denton is the only one in Denton County that offers that and so we think that's a really good opportunity for the city to coordinate with those other local governments to expand those efforts and not to limit that to the household chemical collection but also on the landfill and other diversion aspects so I appreciate your your patience and letting me go through the the presentation but with that we'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have for us. Thank you all right we'll start on that and Mr. Beck you go first well I'm sure everybody has a question. Thank you for your presentation one of the things that struck me and there's studies and commentary out there about that are objective and some subjective about recycling plastics is that going to be a problem for us I mean the use of plastics is extensive I would hate to see us not be able to recycle those things but right are you running into particular problems about this and could you kind of sure no that's that's a great question and thank you for bringing that up yeah so with plastics there's there's all different types of plastics right and so some plastics are very easy to recycle and recycling facilities have been constructed to process those materials and those materials are actually extremely valuable so that would include your water and soda bottles as well as detergent and milk containers as well but where things get have gotten a little bit more challenging is so many other types of plastics that have become so much more common in packaging over the last few years so yogurt cups kind of the black plastic that you see so often and to-go food containers so those those are the plastics that are that are really challenging and in the ones that when you see things and in the news that that are out there but there are some some technology developments that are occurring that will hopefully allow for those materials to be recycled in the future but they have had several challenges with their recyclability challenging how well okay one of the biggest sectors also that that nobody across the nation right now is looking at is plastic film you know you buy a case of water at Sam's and basically it's just water bottles companies plastic around it you bring home that t-shirt bag from the grocery store and the state law will not allow us to ban those from state of Texas so you know or for our use you know everything comes in some has some sort of plastic film on it and and because of the the characteristic of the film it's not recyclable it basically tears the plant apart so I think that that's a wonderful opportunity somewhere we've got to again you know we're trying to think inside that the Denton box how do we go about managing that sector of plastic also into something that can be beneficially reused so not only the plastics that we see as containers yogurt cups water bottles things of that nature but the things that that are technically plastic that we don't consider plastic right now as far as recycling program so it's a much broader question than what we originally consider is this recyclable yes it is okay we would prefer that it be clean dry and empty and the cap beyond when you drop it in your container keep the cap on and the reason being is when the cap is off and we compact it in the in the trash compact or in the in the truck basically becomes flat and so as it's going through the Murph the the machinery in there reads it as a piece of paper or cardboard because it's so flat by keeping the the cap on it it creates a third dimension on it and we're able to pull that out as plastic as opposed to contaminating the bale of paper that has been a little confusing for some people trust me thank you all right mr. right back your turn yes I had a question earlier on you had mentioned a survey early on in your presentation I may have missed the framing of that survey who was surveyed where it came from when it was done that sort of thing could you give us a little background sure yeah no no of course happy to do that so that was a survey that was focused on getting an understanding of how important did city of Denton residents consider 18 different drivers of change that focused on a variety of landfill and other recycling types of topics and so that was publicized through various city city channels and like I did mention city got what I what we thought was a very strong and positive response rate to that and show this as as a slide but it's one that we could certainly get to if you want to see it but one of the most interesting things that we saw about that was the distribution in terms of ages was relatively evenly distributed across the different age groups within the city so that was very indicative to us that it was a very positive response rate and it lined up also perfectly in terms of the interest in changing efforts was what was more pronounced the younger the people are here in the city of Denton and so that you know I think that also speaks to you know future generations that are you know really come in coming into play now in terms of you know raising families and working here in Denton you know really to some extent leading the charge in terms of that whole change the future now perspective how many respondents were there to the service just short of eight short of nine hundred I think was eight eighty three okay thank you all right mr. jumper okay so you had one of the points was talking about organics management and diverting it sounded like mostly food waste to be processed differently I was curious how will that be processed what does that mean exactly so on the there's a couple of different potential options for that will be considered as a part of the pilot program is for that material to be taken to the pecan Creek wastewater treatment plant and then there actually will be a piece of equipment that the city's in the process of purchasing it's called a macerator yeah macerator so kind of like a huge garbage disposal right so it'll it'll really tear up that material so that it can then go into the anaerobic digestion processing so that's that's one one one option that is being considered and then the other is that as a part of its recent permitting efforts on the landfill side the city could also if it would have an interest in doing so also include food scraps as a part of future composting efforts you know in addition to the back end manager of this I think we're also be focusing on the front end management of this I mean guy walks into the doctor's office and says doctor doctor it hurts when I do this and the answer is don't do that you know part of it is we have to figure out how not to make food waste are we purchasing the right amounts are we cooking the right amount so your mom always said clean your plate so we want to make sure none of that's going in you know if we if we can figure out how to manage that on the front end that we don't have to make compost on the back end and again you know the really good way about managing this potentially through the anaerobic digesters again many of y'all weren't on the the board when we started this process a year ago but you know we we we generate landfill gas at the at the city of landfill what we want to do is go ahead and couple that with the gas that's created the anaerobic digester we're in the final phases of looking at a contract and hiring a company that actually grab that gas create pipeline grade quality and pay us for it to the tune of considerable amounts of money that way you know we can you know put that into the as green renewable gas you know into that the utmost pipeline and then on the back end manage that in our existing beneficial reuse program so again one we're using existing infrastructure to we're using existing program how much does it cost for us to spin up that program zero dollars but again we're we've got that synergy that's into a fact in effect so again you know doing things just a little bit different but again at the end of the day you know meeting our sustainability goes but making it cost-effective and environmentally friendly for the citizens of city of Denton all right mr. cheek your turn okay I got a couple of categories here and I will admit that I didn't hit every backup link that you put in here so it may be in here did you address in this your your pavement recycling asphalt and concrete at all we have not and the reason being is there's significant third-party opportunities out there city of Denton doesn't need to be in a third-party business so if we can find you know recyclers out there that have you know operations that can manage that material then as part of our program it's education and outreach you've got brick you got asphalt you've got concrete that needs to be these are the people you want to go with not city of Denton you don't have contracts anymore to crush concrete we do not we have not crushed in probably three years and so you refuse to take it as we refuse to take it at this you know we do accept some small amounts of millings and such into our landfill to help us with the interior roads but again we're not doing it for profit we're not you know investing that effort and then turning around we were losing close to a million and a half dollars a year as a result of that process and that didn't make any sense whatsoever you know that it's in the news right now that there's trouble having permits for third parties to even make this process correct you know and so as part of this you know we may end up you know contracting with somebody that you know we help them with permitting or something along the way but I think that that's the bigger thought that we have to look at from for regionalization standpoint that's a great idea if you can get that sold yeah difficult to get that sold though thank you next next question I had I know I've brought this up before is part of the study going to come out with maybe at least one line item that says if we were to refuse third parties waste into our landfills what would that cost the current the existing Denton ratepayers it may not be that overt but there will be a significant discussion about what the value of that material is coming in and what it means as we look at funding programs in the future I mean none of this is free City of Denton right now enjoys one of the lowest rates in the entire city in the entire state of Texas with regard to its fairly robust delivery and as we start adding stuff on we got to find ways to pay for it comes from one or two places either from the residents pockets or some innovative third party and if we can figure out that that management way I mean back in the olden days you know you're a sustenance farmer you grew for yourself you had seed corn and then you grew just a little bit extra that you could barter with the guy down at the store sell to a neighbor this or that and that's kind of what we're looking for that little bit extra that will help contain those costs helps ensure some some financial security and reliability but then also you know control the rates that were that were charging right and I know you know what why I'm talking about that because what is the cost now versus when we lose our landfill exactly so exactly but again you know if as Scott was saying you know bigger picture if we can you know have some third-party contracts but provide some financial operational incentives to give them just a little bit lower rate to divert a little bit more than at the end of the day our six-year facility may become an 80 85 100 year facility you know everybody in this room will be gone by then but they'll be thanking us for being as innovative and thought forward thinking trying to ensure that that's that will happen yeah and I like the fact that again that you're working with other city departments because obviously they're they're all be affected and and then they can contribute to especially on the the paving products recycling so okay thank you thank you madam chair so this is a big shift from the last comprehensive solid waste plan I I'm I was trying to align the previous one to the current one and I don't know I'm having trouble even just even their entire sections that don't that don't no longer exist I guess would be how to say it the the survey overwhelmingly returned that we want to use technology to ease transition I think there was a fair amount of interest in zero waste which I believe the city of Denton landfill had been looking toward and was was actually part of like the zero waste alliance maybe ten years ago and that's all gone completely removed there was you know previously there were a focus on third party partnerships at the landfill it was to to inset you know improve the recycling services fine you know the biodiesel facility it's no longer there the waste landfill ELR to waste gas to electric generation that we paid about two hundred sixty thousand dollars to a company to remove a few months ago you know there was also talk of other other forms of diversion the construction demolition waste you know that that entire program was canceled and it was it was costing money at the time but in the in place of that you know we'll we'll give you the card we'll give you the phone number of a company that takes construction waste well I can't show up with a pickup truckload of lumber and shingles to the place down off you know on 35 they won't accept it you know I have to be I have to be a construction scale customer to use those facilities so if we go to the landfill on any given Thursday afternoon a quarter to a third of the vehicles are small construction waste you know there's a lot of two by fours and sheetrock and maybe some concrete and other just building materials we're we're and that decreases our diversion rate we're land filling that stuff instead of selling the scrap wood for cement kiln fuel or other kind of you know perhaps composting those scrap that scrap wood if it's not treated of course it could go in our in our yard waste composting we're no longer taking oil private companies are taking oil but then a lot more oil ends up like vegetable oil like food oil so we are currently taking vegetable oh you are okay we've never stopped taking that but where does that where does that it goes to our home chemical collection facility and then it goes to a biodiesel recycler okay all right that's good to hear because I hadn't heard anything about that and so I worry that our stated goal from our citizens and our you know focus group is technology which is efficiency and ease of use which the goal is to reduce the friction to do the right thing to make it where recycling is automatic you don't have to think hard about it you don't have to do a lot of work to do the right thing you don't have to you know more having more recycling drop-off facilities I know they're they're challenging for the pickup aspect around Christmas they get or any major shopping season they get overfilled you know and they kind of create litter but when we begin to remove those now that that stuff ends up in trash cans or it ends up you know dumped alongside of the road or things like that so we have this we need to there might be things that are laborious but that decrease the friction for citizens and companies and so forth to to do the right thing it might be easier to landfill the small construction waste that hits that reaches the landfill but that uses airspace that shortens the life of the landfill there isn't really any other diversion choice for somebody with a pickup truckload of you know small construction waste you know that other examples glass textiles home furnishings at one point there was like a lot of that stuff ends up at the landfill just because you know there the friction to getting it somewhere else is high and I really feel like we're missing the opportunity in this plan to to implement that vision of a low friction ease of use high technology partnerships with third parties for perhaps glass recycling or home furnishing textile diversion there's a lot of land at the landfill and it'd be pretty easy to do a 20 year lease with a facility or a 10 year lease or a five year lease kind of like with Pratt our recycling facility to allow to lower the cost of maybe a glass recycler or home furnishing you know reuse center or something along those lines and I don't I don't see even where it fits like we even when we talk about efficiently using our landfill we're talking about like making it where Louisville has to recycle all that helps but I really want us to more holistically look at all of the diversion possibilities and you know the the friction and the friction points that prevent diversion from happening well and I think you've hit the nail right on the head and I agree with every single point you said yeah we've had you know solid waste management plans in the past and we were going towards solid zero waste the issue with that is they're very static and the minute we start diverting markets change this you know something external happens to it we start forcing it it becomes expensive it becomes you know under responsive and as a result we're spending a lot of money for very little result what we're proposing here is a solid waste management strategy not a plan so what allows us to do is be a little more limber a little more nimble to be able to affect exactly what you're talking about much smaller scale much smaller programs to affect not only the large community in general but really the mom and pop who may have that sofa that's still good we don't want to throw it into into the trash so we create some sort of third-party your opportunity that allows us to get that out of the waste stream so again that's what you what you succinctly tried to identify there is that is the very reason we're going with the strategy versus a plan I just spent four days in Florida with a thousand of the the top solid waste directors across the nation at the solid at waste con basically it's you know all garbage all the time in four days I heard the term zero waste one time and it was in a negative capacity only because everybody who's had zero waste goals which in reality are 50 60 70 percent diversion talk about really having to push those goals out because they won't meet them they're arbitrary and there's really only one number they're trying to chase if you noticed in each of our KPIs we had our key performance indicators we had five or six different things that we're going to be monitoring one may go up one may go down but all these things to find the goal the term that we were using was circular economy linear injunctions you know exclusions things of that nature and that's really what the concept is behind the strategy so that we can look much bigger and be able to more efficiently manage the health and the direction in a much quicker manner than than what traditional solid waste management plans and zero waste plans have in fact so again I appreciate you you picking up on that but you know that's where we're going to be going again you know and again that the first part of that you know you're sort of seeing it here four or five months before before it in so we appreciate you're bringing up those things but these are the strategies so that that when we get this final document first part of next year it will include some of those key points and programs that we may want to be considering first and foremost from a sustainability standpoint but from a cost and environmental impact standpoint also thank you thank you my turn I first a couple comments I love the KPIs I can't prove what you can't measure and the conversation around reduce don't create in the first time then reuse it give that sofa to the college student who's moving into an apartment and you know and your blender and your margarita machine whatever you know every college kid needs one of those yeah and then start recycling the things that are recycling and that goes right back to that whole education piece the food waste I'm really interested in that like how much of that food waste that restaurants are creating is gonna go into organics and how much can go to our daily bread to feed the people who need to be fed well you know and I know that's in your strategy so I'm applauding you on part of the strategy on that is not a solid waste discussion at all it's a risk management discussion you know taking food that the hotel may have had left over from a banquet and giving it to our daily bread you know there is a risk piece to that there is and until we get over that hill that will never happen if we can cross that hill and all of a sudden we've we've eliminated a huge sector of waste and it's been done I can tell you the community has been done it but and then last plastics have a huge BTU content is there any way we could use that somehow to create energy electricity you know there probably is and and you know whether it's sending it to cement kiln for heat or you know setting up some sort of waste energy plant here but you know Terry and his and Tony and his crew they do a wonderful job with our renewable portfolio so I'm not sure if they want to spin up another facility but again you know that they do you know it does have a large you know BTU value but at the end of the day there's still ash and other components of that that has to go to a landfill so you know just burning it doesn't get rid of it yep absolutely question from mr. Beck in terms of those will value plastics so like the the film example or the because it's just it's combination of just like I mean just start to collect all the various film that that you generated in your household and it's a lot of it and so part of what we'll be addressing in this strategy is you know first and foremost is you can just take that material right back to the grocery store for that to be recycled but to the extent that that does end up in the recycling system and can be diverted there's actually our efforts underway that that's been termed quote advanced recycling it was initially chemical recycling but the whole idea there is to take low-value recyclable materials to put those through nada not an incineration process but a heating process where you change the the structure of those plastics and to turn those into into new plastics so that that's something that our understanding is that there are at least a couple of facilities that are in the development and or construction phase right now so we may see some of those coming online in the next few years and I like the strategy because it's a strategy it's fluid correct you know and just springboarding off what Scott just said you know therein lies the economic development piece of the environmental strategy or the solid waste strategy if we can regionalize and get enough of that type of plastic here then now we want now one of the firms that is doing this type of pyrolysis or chemical plastic conversion they want to be in Denton and they're gonna come here and they're gonna buy property and they're gonna pay tax and they're gonna create jobs and then we're gonna have firms come in that want that plastic or that that intermediate to produce material so again it's a whole circular economy built around just thinking strategically about what we do with our trash did somebody have another hand up no just okay go ahead well it seems like this discussion about film there's quite a bit of it and I think in this era of having everything shipped to your home everything is wrapped in some form of thin light plastic even if it's a bag inside of an envelope or the envelope is a bag of thin plastic film so it seems like we are creating more of this than ever and yet it I didn't realize it was causing a problem at the at the other end so is there any effort afoot to for these companies like Amazon and others who are shipping virtually everything to us as consumers is there anything afoot for them to change how they're packaging those deliveries you know there are nationwide discussions going on right now but the extent of those discussions I'm not sure where we are on that but again that that is a concern that's being communicated across the entire supply chain thank you all right do you have what you need from us I do thank you very much we appreciate your time very much good stuff all right the last item is receive a report hold a discussion and provide suggestions or recommending recommendations regarding the updates to the city criteria manuals good morning madam chair members of the public utilities board my name is Ron Megida I am with the development services department I am a principal planner with the city bear with me as I pull up my presentation there are a number of folks that are included in this presentation that are helping with this effort so I will soon as I get this up do an introduction there we go again as introduced by the chair this is regarding the city's criteria manual updates that we are currently in efforts to update with us today our members of development services myself also capital projects engineering Becky Davini sideways Brian George and then water utilities will be presented by Steven Moore so just a quick update or agenda for today's quick presentation is really talk about the history and the introduction of what we're doing and then we'll get into the different specific criteria manuals again we have solid waste stormwater transportation water wastewater as well as I'm sorry and then we'll have questions and answers at the end of the presentations just a way of introduction we try to update our criteria manuals annually we try to start those early in the year starting with the staff review we'll have some recommendations based on those reviews then we'll schedule a public meeting or work session that is with the planning zoning Commission it was recommended that we take it to the pub as well I think it's a great idea we don't normally do that I think that's something that we will start to incorporate as we continue these efforts we also try to publish these criteria manual drafts up on our website for the public to view and comment as well and they have an opportunity to do that obviously on their time and then provide comments directly on the website we also hold other meetings you know we had a developer town hall not too long ago about two weeks ago this Friday we'll be meeting with some key stakeholder engineering groups to discuss these criteria manual updates so it's an opportunity to you know it's not just our document it's everyone's document we want to make sure that those documents are updated and reflect what is going on in today's world effective the date of that criteria manual is we want to set it for January 1st so if an application comes in prior to January 1st then they would obviously comply with the criteria manners at the time however if an application comes in after January 1st then obviously they would have to comply with the criteria manuals after that again the goal here is to create one document or one formatted document so that someone that's looking at the criteria manuals they're not looking at multiple criteria manners they're all within one document hopefully they're formatted correctly and they look the same and so it's searchable and there's no conflicts we want to make sure we eliminate any conflicts and we want to make sure it's streamlined as much as possible so that is what our goal is for today and the illustration that you see here you see that we did updates of the criteria manuals in the past once more recent 2018 which is really gosh that's almost three almost four years ago so we really want to get back into updating these and then the solid waste one the last other one was in April of 2009 so it was a little bit further away I won't spend too much on this slide here but just want to illustrate how the criteria manuals fit within all of our documents that we do through the development review process we have the development code document which holds our policies our procedures in how we know developers are supposed to go through the process our criteria mounts are more design technical information they help implement or help enforce what the code development code states that we need and then we also have specification and standard details and I won't go into that Becky will talk more about that but that's just another document that has this the materials the the construction specs the cross-sections the things that you typically would like to see in our development or need to have in our documents so just to kind of give you an idea of where the criteria manuals fit within the development review process so that we so that with this I'm gonna bring up Brian George and he's gonna present the solid waste criteria manual update just kind of highlight some of the changes that we're proposing with the ground as planning come up good morning madam chair board members like I said I'm Brian George field services supervisor for the solid waste department and I'm here today to speak to you about the solid waste and recycling criteria manual updates specifically enclosure I'm sorry lost some train thought container closure details and the input implementation of an alleyway criteria for solid waste due to the ever-changing designs and improvements to solid waste collection vehicles it is necessary that new container enclosures meet a specific design design model therefore all single enclosures will need to be widened about 12 inches and dual enclosures by 24 inches in the picture we provided there you'll see the hydraulic hoses on the outside of the arms in the past we've had those installed inside the arms and being aware item when they go out the truck goes down because you have to take that arm apart so now we're putting them on the outside make it a little easier for the mechanics to work on them a little speedy operation at that point or even I could take it off take it to a hose company fix it and then we're down 30 minutes instead of a half a day or couple of days so with that in addition to improving the enclosures the implementation of a solid waste alleyway criteria is needed to enhance the maneuverability accessibility and to ensure the proper turning radius for solid waste vehicles in the alleyway also the alleyway must be designed and built specifically to support solid waste vehicles performing a weekly service and things get pretty heavy and with an alleyway design now it's not thick enough to support the weight so we're hoping we can update that so see that that is final note so that concludes my portion if there's any questions anything yes sir our developers actually including alleyways and developments again our developers actually including alleyways in their developments now I I mean I was raised with them I think it's a good idea but I don't see many new developments with alleyways anymore for collecting trash well there's a there's a demand now for alleyways but the new new developments coming in really yes sir and typically we the service that we provide the customer brings their cart to the curb right and the trucks go service them at the curb but the alleyways are wanting us to come in through the alleyway and with all those parts we it's hard to make them make the drive-through or make the okay the turns so we're just asking to widen and and better support I was just surprised I seem to be coming back that's good good to hear all right thank you yes and so on the oh go ahead go ahead thank you probably gonna ask the same question go ahead I think the geometric changes you're talking about makes sense you know being able to get the trucks I said the geometric changes you're talking about makes sense being able to get the trucks you know into the places where they need to be to pick up the the trash you know get get to the refuse containers and this might be more a question for mr. Mangida is there a redline version of this available because it's it's hard to tell what's changed versus you know what what already existed in in the criteria manuals currently we don't have a redline version we can certainly put that together what we do have is the existing criteria manual that was approved back in 2009 and then we have the proposed version where much of that information is just carried over to the new version but we don't have a redline version version to present to you all today and and I have not looked at the solid waste and recycling criteria manual probably ever before this I noticed there's only one mention of commercial carts and I think it's sometimes it's called the valet service like the downtown service is that handled in a different document or like for for the small commercial accounts downtown yeah those those are specifically on I'll see the downtown as a special area and so we try to consolidate our dumpsters and you know the one on Hickory Street for example there's there's one consolidate commercial you know trash enclosure and you've seen several of those dumpsters removed from the street and located there so I can't speak to you know where where one can be done but I know that the solid waste department works very closely in these special areas I don't think Fry Street would be another area that we see those dumpsters that have now been relocated and I think they're on a sycamore I think it is so just depending on the special areas I don't think we have you know an availability for a development to to propose something that but obviously it's it's part of the discussions when they're developing the site if they choose to do something we can certainly accommodate accordingly and is there a commercial cart option in certain areas of town like a smaller I thought I swear I thought I've seen them in the downtown area like maybe I'm good morning Adrian Hill solid waste operations manager I think what you're getting at is if a resident needs help getting their container back to the curb is that what you're asking no this for alternative like for downtown areas the very dense areas where there isn't room for a dumpster you don't want to take out 20 feet of prime curb with the dumpster yeah there's many small businesses printed shops business that we do have residential carts for commercial carts they just pay a different rates couple bucks more but yeah there's several and we service those with the regular residential route truck a rear load truck we run one ways with the rear load that pick up from the rear so they're able to take that that truck in those small areas and and collect rather than being an automated truck and those are not covered in this criteria manual there they're just kind of a case by case case by case yes okay thank you yeah and the site criteria manual also outlines if a building is this size it needs a size of dumpster thank you yes my question was about this criteria manual overall so these eight pages is this all that's being changed or is this the entire manual was eight pages and now it's another eight pages there's these are the two major things that were changing there's some wording that's being changed it's not really changing like criteria this the wording is being updated but these two are the major things that we wanted to look at but this is the manual this eight pages is the whole manual this isn't a portion of a larger that's really my question yes sir that for solid waste it's just the eight pages there there are there was some information that we're moving to the standard detail so that's that's where some of them went but for solid waste yes just the eight pages is what's proposed for the new update okay so this is the whole thing I thought this was like a small part of something much larger but the more you talked about it I realized this might just be yet for solid waste crime okay thank you thank you thank you well madam chair so before before we go on to the next time just to clarify so there was a request I guess for a red line of the changes is that something that that still would like you would like to have or considering it's eight pages is that sufficient that you can just compare the two documents or so I make sure that we follow up on that request I think that was your request wasn't it yeah I was actually having trouble finding the old version on the website the website just recently changed so I don't know how to use it so if it's if it's available I'd love a red line of all of them if that's if that can be done pretty quickly and I don't think I don't know if anybody else wants to see it and I did notice some of the other ones were redlined so I'm good without it anyone else awesome thank you for the question so I'm gonna touch on a couple of questions that have already been asked so specifically you're related to I'm sorry I can't see specifically related to the redlined versions I will make mention too that we're still receiving quite a few comments so our red line versions are changing if not daily but weekly so I would challenge you to evaluate some of the documents that you have in front of you if you need copies of the old document so that you can compare them screen by screen and happy to do so my red line version of the stormwater criteria manual in the transportation criteria manual is very red and so I will also mention that we've received quite a few comments from the Planning and Zoning Commission and then internally and I forgot to introduce myself but I just assumed it was I'm Becky Davini the City Engineering Director of Capital Project so it's thank you for having me today so just to touch on that I will also mention to you that we are working with the Solid Waste Department as alleys were a question that was asked and there are developments that are coming through with alleys the transportation criteria manual also has a section of alley so we want to make sure we're not duplicating efforts my least favorite thing is to show something in more than one place so that when we change it in one and we forget to change it in the other we have conflicting information so that's very important that we work through that so we are looking at with working with our friends in solid waste as to where that should land and then our team is also working to help solid waste with their standard details so I'm gonna go through the stormwater criteria manual and then also some of the updates in the transportation that I'm going to give you a couple of other things just for you to be thinking about so specifically on the stormwater criteria manual we are making quite a few updates to definitions that includes basically deleting some of the terms that are no longer necessary and then adding some terms that we feel like that are necessary throughout the document we have changed the hundred-year frequency to the one percent chance when you see that when you're talking about the different flooding chances so that's something that we want to change kind of that terminology one of the bigger changes is we've updated the driveway culvert inspection to be the responsibility of actually the public works staff versus the building inspection staff the public works inspection team is a part of my department and so we already are doing some of that work and our hopes are that we are inspecting everything that is from the right-of-way line within the two boundaries of the right-of-way line and then behind the right-of-way line of the building inspection team handles that most of the driveway culverts are within that right-of-way line so that's a change and then we are also updating the criteria manual to have all reinforced concrete pipe required for the culverts the driveway inspection culverts and then culverts in general so that's it that's a change so then the next thing on the transportation criteria manual I will tell you there are still quite a few comments that are coming in Ron had those hosted on the website I guess it's been about a week Ron week and a half and so we still are receiving quite a few comments so my goal is to take all of those comments collect them and see what updates need to be made to the documents it doesn't work in progress though and we are working to also present the same presentation at the City Council meeting on December 7th similar to the stormwater criteria manual we are updating definitions and deleting some of the terms that we no longer feel necessary and we're updating the geometric street standards to incorporate bicycle and pedestrian components as applicable I think you may all know this but part of our team's goal is to make sure that we're looking at all modes of transportation not just cars bicycles and pedestrian making sure that our street sections and the different geometric standards that are located within the documents show those different standards we also are update updating the turn lane standards some of the on-street parking some of the diagrams and amenities that include the movement of certain information that's actually being removed from the criteria manual and put in the code so I think Ron kind of went through the difference between the criteria in the manual and the code my goal for the criteria manual is if an engineer wants to design or come into town and understands here's the criteria of the city of Denton the criteria says you know the dumpster enclosure shall be made of whatever material and be whatever size the code says you shall have a enclosure right so those are kind of the differences and it gives you a little bit more detailed information we're also working through updating the signs and markings diagrams within the document and there's going to be some other changes from the multimodal perspective you may not be aware of this but in July we actually hired a senior planner bicycle ADA pedestrian coordinator and that's a hard title to get on one business card but I will mention that he has had an opportunity to review the documents we were already quite a ways down the process of doing the review so we're working to incorporate his comments as we can as they make sense from the geometric standards standpoint knowing that this is something that we do annually we may not catch everything this year so and I'll give my my plug this is why it's important so I know Ron mentioned the difference between the code the criteria and the specifications and standard details and my friend Steven Moore will present next on water wastewater but the reason why this is so important and I want to make sure you all understand is when a capital project or a development project comes through the city they need clear expectations of what the requirements are to build within the city so that criteria gives you those examples from the engineering perspective the code tells you thou shalt build X of course there's variance processes that you can go through we are also working on updating our specifications and standard details that we do annually and last year in January I'm sorry this year in January I don't know why I think it's last year in January we actually updated the specifications and standard details and those went into play in January for all of the capital projects that our team is delivering the important thing about us working through this process is now we will be using those specifications and standard details for the development projects let me tell you why this is important it's important for one of many reasons but number one is the public works inspectors who are out in the field actually inspecting the projects they need one source of truth they need to understand no matter if it's a development project or a capital project this is the way the city of Denton does business and so that's a very helpful measure a sanitary sir clean out is always going to be X feet behind the curb a sidewalk is always going to be built in this manner a transition of a ramp is always going to be built in this manner those are a few examples the other reason why it's so important which helps our team right so they don't have to remember each project has a different specification a different standard detail that it goes along with that particular project so that's very important and I really like that we're looking at using that single source of truth and it will definitely help our inspection department but the other reason why is because anyone who comes with to work within the city of Denton and build anything within the city of Denton is going to understand what the expectations are and the requirements so at 2 a.m. when we have a waterline break or at 4 a.m. when a live station stops working and we now have an overflow our crews and the men and women that are out there every day making sure that we're preparing and providing all the essential services including the electric department solid waste etc but they all know yes this is the manhole cover that we're going to use this is the replacement our warehouse can also stock those particular pieces of equipment so at the end of the day really the goal is to provide that consistency so hopefully that helps you all and gives you a little bit wider and broader perspective it's really a goal of mine and has been for a number of months and a little over a year to help make this effort come together and Ron's done a fantastic job of really leading the charge on this from a planning perspective but just wanted to try to kind of close that loop and let you understand why this is so important are there any questions for me before I turn it over to mr. Moore just go ahead I just have one comment regarding the bicycle amenities I noticed that if the in the initial section where you road types include minimum widths with the sidewalk and so forth bike lanes are included as referenced in the mobility plan which requires a new road you might have a development where we said it only all arterials and collectors form connections to other neighborhoods sure and they often are the only things that have bridges across across rivers underpasses and overcrowded passes across highways and so they are critical transportation infrastructure we know that every bike every arterial and collector needs some kind of bike lane of like amenity so I would and you the the criteria manual discusses that down in the bike section but we could also go ahead and put it I think in that dimensional section at the top just indicating that arterials and collectors need need these you know facilities no I appreciate that comment and if you look in those different geometric standards you're gonna see that it says this detail to be updated a lot of it is the nomenclature and I want to have a variety of different ways that the roadway cross-section can actually look so if it's a primary arterial here's the standard but if we need to make some modifications due to the right-of-way width or the the need or actually matching maybe what was built prior to that we're providing that seamless flow of traffic so I appreciate that comment and we're currently working through quite a few of those geometric standards right now also I would say that the geometric standards are kind of the guide you'll also then see standard details that are going to be in a different document that are really going to clarify a primary arterial looks like X here's a modified primary arterial it looks like Y those types of things so we're in the process of updating those but I do appreciate that comment anyone else no thank you all right thank you good morning I'm Stephen Moore senior engineer for the Department of Water utilities and I want to start off by by saying I pretty much would repeat everything that Becky just told you this is this is I don't want to repeat it but this has been a huge effort and we are working very closely with the city engineer with public inspection with planning with development services so we've had two really big challenges that we're trying to do with our manuals one is to update them with what's going on you know the old manual or the current manual says thou shalt do X well we really don't want you to do X anymore or doing X causes Y problem so we're trying to adjust to that and the second thing is to put it all the information in one place so a lot of our changes have been removing information because it's going into another document or adding a short blurb because it's not found anywhere else so I'm not going to really get into specifics because if you take the old version the new version laying one on top of the other there are it doesn't look the same in fact there's many sentences that were just rewritten to clarify them to make them easier to read or easier to understand so I'm going to kind of go under go through our different sections and what we're looking at different and what's become different we do have as Becky said there's a lot of comments coming up and there are issues where a developer absolutely wants us to do something and our field crews actually don't want us to do it so we're trying to work out the is it is it is it a true issue for somebody is it just they don't want to do it is it just our guys don't want to do it and how and and that's we're trying to fix all those conflicts and make it a much easier thing to work with so for the water we've added several sections addressing meters underground utility crossings fences and fence and wall crossings we really never addressed that in the past as well as pressure regulators we've revised the section on the water main replacement because there are some issues that were not addressed in the past we're addressing them now on every time it comes up so we're putting into the criteria manual to just spell it out in front in many cases just make sure that developer doesn't forget about this because they will have to address this as part of their project terms of wastewater we've revised the how you estimate the wastewater flows separation between water wastewater we're more closely matching what TCEQ tells us to do and actually clarifying because some of the previous language there was some wiggle room there that we really can't allow add in a little section of highway crossings a lot of other roads in the city of Denton don't belong to us so we've put a note in there that if you cross a text that road you got to get your permit from text on and we talked about abandonment of sewer mains again this is an issue that comes up we just never really address so we put some some language in there to make sure it is part of our planning of the developers planning process we've removed several sections preliminary design has been moved to another document rights away and easements are not part of criteria that's this part of the city's work how to deal with the Denda plan revision change orders we've fallen in line with the city's process we don't have our own spelled out here same with submittals there is a city process for doing that we don't we're taking it out of ours we don't want to conflict with what the city is doing so that's pretty much the end of again there's a ton of minor changes all we're doing is updating what we're we've already started doing trying to spell it out make it clear for everyone else but do you have any any can answer any questions about water waste water just quick what where y'all going I've been watching the city criteria has changed for over 30 years so where are you going with the water and sewer now are you still staying under the edge of the street well there was years ago when we put them in the in the yards you know if I were to get my crews up here he'd tell you we keep it in the street they don't want it there anywhere anyway at all we're trying to we prefer it in the street we have the right of way it's easier for us to find we had the right away another sidewalk and we're trying to put it out because when you put it on the sidewalk it's harder and more expensive for us to fix because we're not sidewalk repair specialists I did I'm sorry did I answer the question you answer my question I just disagree with it with the answer I think the problem is you have to deal with more citizens when you go in the yards that's that's the biggest difficulty but to me to dig it up a street and digging up grass is digging up grass is a lot cheaper to replace water in Syria so my opinion humble opinion other questions thank you thank you thank you I appreciate the the time I just just want to end that we we have the draft materials that you have on our website and we will make sure that the old versions that are you know existing today are also on that new website I know we can't we just transition to a new website platform so maybe it was relocated or not included I'll make sure that it's included so anybody else that's watching or that wants to see the old version they can and then also compare it to the new version it's gonna be on the website until November 25th so kind of gives us some time between November 25th and the next meeting that we're scheduled to have this with City Council so gives us some time to kind of look through what comments we have and then present it to them at that time so again we're looking at a December 7th City Council meeting to bring this forward and then hopefully an effective date of January 1st and madam and madam Charo just so the DME is not left out I would just point out that there is no DME criteria manual but we are working on electrical service standards that will be coming to you along with a line extension policy as well that that'll be forthcoming here in the next couple you know couple couple weeks thank you all right then that concludes the agenda do we have a motion to adjourn