All right everyone welcome. Welcome to the Sustainability Framework Advisory
Committee. It is 1 o'clock. We will call our meeting to order Wednesday June 29th.
We do have a quorum and we are in the City Council Work Session Room. We will
begin with our first item for individual consideration. Consider approval of the
April 22nd, 2022 minutes. Did everybody have a chance to review those?
Yes I did and I just wondered if on the part of the minutes it talks about the
presentation of the gas wells. I think it would be appropriate, yeah I think
it would be appropriate if modern geosciences and Dr. Tram were included
in that because they actually gave the presentation. It's basically just a
staff now. Oh okay okay can we can we add and make that correction as to who it
was that gave the presentation to coincide with the actual presentation?
Yes. Okay. All right. All right so can I have approval with the added
correction? I'll move to approve. Second. Second? Okay all those in favor say aye.
All right minutes have been approved. We will go down to B, receive a report, hold
a discussion, and receive feedback on integrated pest management program and
pilot projects in Denton Parks. And we have Marshall Ms. Gee from Parks. Oh hello, welcome to the podium here.
Thank you. And we the mic above you is the one that is going to capture your
voice. Okay so this is just wanted to touch briefly on the integrated pest
management program, programs plural that we have ongoing in the city now. The
introductory program was at Deenia Park.
Say it again. The first program was at Deenia Park courtesy of a plan that was
devised for us by Howard Garrett and Associates. We've had some success with
that. We've had visual success in that we think that the fields are as green as
they were pre-treatment, meaning when we were using chemicals and fertilizers. The
weed population has increased though in the common areas. I think there's been
residual chemical activity that's still been available in the fields themselves.
Soccer fields and softball fields has helped keep some of the weed populations
at bay and that will leach out over a period of time. The soil at Deenia is just
miserable to begin with so it's tough to devise a soil program like we have, like
we were able to come up with Avondale and Mack Park, but we might be able to
transition to that. We have been working with Beyond Pesticides and Osborne
Organics. They work together. They helped us come up with the plan for
Avondale Park and Mack, but Mack specifically south of McKinney.
I'll back back up to Avondale, but Mack is actually comprised of both sides of
McKinney, north and south. We're just doing the IBM program on the south side,
the one that encompasses the soccer field and the baseball field. We are treating it
and Avondale, in the same method, we're using a
humate to feed the soil microbes. We're not applying any organic fertilizers right
now. We're just treating the soil with a food source for the microbes to feed off
of and produce the nitrogen, some mild fertilizer that way. It's so new, both the
program at Avondale and at Mack, that we don't have a comparison yet to
determine. In fact, we just put the humate down within the last two months. So, we'll
keep you apprised as when we do soil tests again this time next year, what
we're looking at and how they compare to the control samples. So, that's pretty much it.
I wish I had more information for you, but I am excited about the program with
Beyond Vesticides. It seems to fit a little more into what we're looking for
in the way of organics and what we're able to replicate throughout the city if this pans out.
It's a very simple, easy method. So, if anybody has any questions, please feel free to ask.
Yeah, I was just curious, is the pilot program for a year so that all
seasons are encompassed? That's our thought, that it'll be for a year. It
depends probably on the soil results we get or the visual results that we see as
well, but it'll be at least for a year. It may extend into a second year as well. And the
steps after that? That we'll continue consulting with Beyond
Vesticides and Osborne Organics. Specifically for Ravendale, is that what you're
asking about? Well, any of the pilot programs, I mean, is the point to be able to
continue it? Oh, entirely. To continue and to morph into any other location that we
have in the city. Great, thank you. Go ahead. Budget-wise, is there budget we're
operating under and then what are the cost goals or financial goals? Will this organic
material cost us less than pesticides or what's the goal over here? Right now, yes.
Yes, it's costing us less. The fume aid that we apply to Ravendale and Mack is fairly
inexpensive. I'd probably pay more in freight than for the product itself. It's
easy to apply, it's granular, but that is just a food source for the soil microbe.
So, next we have to have the discussion of do we want to continue putting the
pre-emergent out. There is no organic pre-emergent. I mean, there's corn gluten meal,
but I'm not sold on efficacy of that. But right now, the program is slightly less than any non-organic control programs.
And budget-wise, we have a budget we are okay with? We do. We are so far with this.
I have just a couple, oh, go ahead. I'll let you go and then I'll go.
Thanks, Marshall. So, this is just for applications to sports fields. So, there's no, there's,
you're not doing any tests on any areas off of, like, you mentioned common areas
and stuff, but this looks like it's just going on actual sports fields? No, this is common,
this is everything, common and athletic fields. Okay, so then like, and you remove, like,
Roundup spraying and everything else? Correct, correct. Okay. And that, and everything else
about it? That's actually correct. They are entirely organic. Just two different approaches.
Okay, so then like the edging and stuff and weeding is taking place for a while? Oh, yes, yes, yes.
Or cultural, the cultural methods are still being employed. Okay, thanks.
Oh, okay, go ahead. Is that all right? Yeah, sure. Can you give us a sense of the metrics
that you use for comparing the different methods? What counts as success? What are you looking at?
It sounds like you've got a few different factors. Right now, a lot of it is visual.
The, the, I have soil samples and I didn't bring them, I'm sorry, the soil samples from Denia,
from dating back to 2019 and 2021. We didn't do them in 2020 because of COVID. In fact,
our applications lacked a little bit during COVID, either for resource issues, we couldn't get the
product in, or staffing issues. But the metrics would be primarily soil sample results and visual.
That's not a scientific method, but it is easy if you've been in the industry to go out and say,
this looks a whole lot better than it did last year, or I'm not seeing much of a difference.
You kind of just touched on one of my questions, because I remember hearing that Denia was kind of
during COVID, and then there were some budget reductions and less staff that weren't able to
do everything you wanted to do for the organic part of it. So has that been taken into consideration
as you call it a pilot? Yes, to the extent that we did resume last year,
or in the middle of last year into now, we're currently back on track.
The one weak link in this chain is that I'm having trouble sourcing some of the product
from vendors that I can get on contract. So I'm in discussion with our purchasing department now,
I forgot how to remedy that, but it'll work out. But we are back on schedule for applications and
timing of them. Somebody, I think you mentioned Roundup, but just to confirm, we're not using
Roundup in any of the city parks, not just- I'll own an ounce of Roundup.
Right, yeah. Just for clarification on that, if somebody were to hear, it's not just in these-
It's not just Roundup, I'm sorry, it's any glyphosate product.
Any glyphosate, yeah. Yeah, just to remind people out there. Thank you. And
so on the weeds that you said are kind of more prominent, are we mowing more than we expected
on that, or is it just kind of- Mowing is about our best cultural method
to take care of it, and we added two mowing cycles in the early spring and two in the late fall
to help mitigate, to help counter the lack of glyphosate. So we're not mowing weekly
at these locations, it's just through the growing season, we extended it by two cycles before,
it used to start in two cycles after. Okay, all right. And my last question is,
well just a comment, I want to thank you so much for this, and I know that we've had some
trouble with volunteers and communication, it's just hopefully next time more communication goes
out and the residents who are excited about this can show up and help. Sure, sure, and we'll advertise
it more heavily next time, we'll try to get the word out there. Okay, and just the last thing,
you said something earlier when you first started talking, you said "miserable soil,"
so I'm just kind of wondering what you mean by that. It's a lot of rock out of Denia,
there's not a whole lot of organic matter mixed in there, and it's not what you'd call a nice
friable workable soil, you wouldn't want to plant your garden directly into it, it's a lot of rock.
Okay, all right, well thank you so much, Marshall. Ed, you have anything to add?
Just to clarify something about what happened on the volunteer day,
speaking from my own neighborhood, a lot of people, majority of the people I will say,
did not have their own spreaders, and as a result they didn't go, so if there's some way in the
future if spreaders are required, I don't know what kind of, if you guys have any, but I don't
think people are willing to go out and buy a spreader just for one time use. Yeah, and I get it,
I guess I thought most people would have spreaders, and apparently not, that's absolutely fine,
we'll figure out a different way. You know, your offer was generous, and anything would have worked,
a spoon would have worked, but we'll see what spreaders we have, you might be able to bring.
Great. Everybody? Good, and before you let Marshall get away, I have to ask him to talk about how they
treat weeds with the backpack sprayer. In mulch areas? Playground areas? Oh, in playground areas?
How do you treat weeds in the playground areas? Weed. So we don't treat, we steam kill
weeds in the actual footprint of the playground itself. We don't use any pesticides or herbicides
in there at all. It's either hand pulling the weeds or weed eating, you know, there's some,
unfortunately some of the playgrounds have a little established areas of Bermuda grass,
and that's tough to kill because Bermuda can run its roots nine feet deep. So we weed eat,
but we also have this great machine, it's called the steam weed killer, and it is exactly that,
it just uses water that's heated to 230 degrees. It's not a complete kill, it kills the tops of the
weed, whichever it is, so it means we have to go back and continue treating. But it's safe,
you can use it in the rain, you can use it in any weather, you can use it with kids around,
with animals around, as long as we don't spray them. So it works really well. And I just wanted
Marshall to highlight that, because if somebody sees somebody else spraying, they may not know
that it's steam. Yeah, I would have wondered the same thing, so thank you for that. It's just
straightforward. Now the misconception that I've had is that the entire park is a playground,
and I guess it's semantics, but to us in the Parks Department, the playground is the dedicated
footprint with the engineered wood fiber unit and the plate structure. I have one more thing.
Okay. Just a little history for some of the folks who may not know, and a huge thanks to the current
Parks Department. This program was initially started almost 20 years ago, and allowed to
gently disappear. And what's it been? Three years ago? 2019? Yeah, it was brought back and
new people, new minds, new ideas, and great committee to work on it. And it's just really
very reassuring to see how important positive things like this are, and how they can be done.
Good. Thank you. It is a good program. We have never used chemicals that are skull and crossbones.
We've never used anything to that end. In fact, we have a pretty small arsenal of what we do use
on a frequent basis. We try to keep everything to the lowest signal where possible.
We try to adhere to the IPM program as much as possible, and it's a good thing.
I promised you I'd let you go here in just one second, but I had another question that kind of
popped into my head when we were talking about weeds and ants, because I know that that's kind
of an issue in some of our parks. You know, when I'm walking out to the community garden, I see,
you know, big kind of anthills is there. What do we use that fits into this program for insects
like that? First and foremost, we use an ant bait. It's a broadcast. It's granular. It's an ant bait.
It's labeled for forage. You can put it out in pastures where cattle are grazing. It's relatively
benign, and it seems to work. Compared to some of the old ant baits that were out there,
they've come a long way, and surprisingly, it does a good job. Otherwise, we moutreat.
If it's in a sensitive area, if it's in a high-use area, we'll moutreat with aciphate,
which is a good antidote for fire ants. If it's in a, you know, Class B or Class C or Class D park
that's not high in use, we'll probably let them go. All right. Well, that's great. Thank you so
much. You appreciate it. Sure. And this fits well into our sustainability framework committee. So
thank you for coming today. You can always reach me and get any questions. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate
it. All right. So we will move to item C, receive a report, hold a discussion, and receive feedback
on education, outreach, and training efforts for sustainability programs.
We're gonna have Kim and Julissa start this one, and I think I have some slides at the end.
All right. Good afternoon, everyone. So my name is Julissa Yamador. I'm one of the Waste
Productions coordinators that works inside of Environmental Services and Sustainability.
I will be presenting as well as Kim Jennings, who serves as the other Waste Reductions programs
coordinator. And we're going to be talking to you guys about the education and outreach update.
So this is a little bit of information on today's focus. So a little bit of background.
I specifically focus on the residential and multifamily recycling education. I was hired on
in January 2021, and the position was previously vacated for a bit. We also have the Denton
Sustainable Schools program, which is a big community favorite. And Kim Jennings came on
in October of 2021, and we're expecting to have a full relaunch of the program this upcoming fall.
We also included in Environmental Services and Sustainability is, of course, Sustainability
Education, which was launched in 2007 with DISD field trips to Clear Creek and has expanded over
the last 15 years. So I'm going to go into a little bit about what I do. So with COVID,
we had a lot of barriers from reaching people in regards to recycling education and in regards to
the contamination that we were seeing at the curb. So what we did is with the help of Solid Waste,
we did a lot of audits and we evaluated our contamination rate. So our audits were divvied
up. And the way that we looked at contamination, we took the two highest recycling contaminated
routes for commercial and then for residential. For commercial, we would actually divvy up those
properties by multifamily, by DISD property, and then other or commercial. And then three coordinators
are dedicating to auditing those containers. And what we do is when we're auditing a container,
we're evaluating the signage. We're looking at it. We're making sure that it's very distinguishable
that this is a recycling container and not a trash container. We're also looking at the location of
the container. Is there a lot of illegal dumping? Is it in an area where there is a lot of illegal
dumping? Another thing that we do is we look inside. We look at what's inside of that container.
Is it programmatic material? Is it material that could possibly alter some things at the
recycling facility or Murph Crat Industries? If the container is too contaminated to be collected,
then what we do is we put it on a do not collect list. So the next day when a driver is running
that route, they will not collect that container because it's too contaminated to be collected.
And that property owner needs to either clean the container by having a maintenance or grounds
keeper remove the items, or they can empty the container as trash. And that's a $75 fee.
So it does give them the, we do give them the option and it is up to that property owner.
And depending on the property type will depend on who runs, I guess, interference for that property.
So if it's multifamily, I'll be talking to them, seeing what they want to decide. Do they want to
clean the container or they want to empty it as trash? If it's a DISD, then it would be Kim,
for example, who would contact the property or the DISD groundskeeper and see what they decide about
that. So audits and contamination are a way that we see, all right, what are we seeing in the field?
What is our recycling facility seeing in the field? Is it coming from just one particular property? Is
it coming from the multifamilies or is it everybody? Are we seeing plastic film? Are we seeing certain
things and where is it all coming from? So it gives us a little bit more information than what is just
coming to prep. We can actually see it in the field. So along with outreach and collaboration,
so of course community events, we table at places like Great American Cleanup. We also table at
places, you know, we've had Redbud, we have Green Fling, we're going to be having in August where
we'll be tabling and reaching out to more residents about recycling and education. And sometimes it's
us just having, you know, our pamphlets giving everybody the one-liner, you know, don't bag your
recyclables, keep it empty, clean, loose, and dry. But it's also a great time for residents to come
up and ask us questions. So if they have questions about some of those particular items that can be
tricky or items that they're a little confused about, they can always come there and ask us
questions about them. Another way that I reach out to residents is through HOA meetings and community
organizations. So there's some HOAs that because of the pandemic they weren't meeting. So some have
actually been able to, if I give them some education, for example, there was one HOA that they
don't meet anymore, but she was willing to work with me and they posted one of our flyers that
had some recycling education in their Facebook group, which of course I don't have access to
would just be that HOA. So just to remind the residents, you know, if we're seeing a lot of
plastic film from that area, it might be education directed towards, you know, removing flexible
plastic and not placing it in your curbside container. And then also print media. So recently
we started doing targeted mailers to the highest contaminated residential routes. So if you're
receiving a mailer anytime soon, you know why. But it's going to be a lot of the big heavy hitters,
you know, no styrofoam, no plastic film. We've seen a lot of textiles, clothing, things like that. So
that's what it's going to bring you, bring some awareness to. As well with print media, we also
include information about diversion or recycling education in the citizen connections, and then
also resident updates as well. So we're including information in print media also. Social media and
targeted messaging. So for social media, we're on all platforms, so our majority. We're on Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram, and then next door. So for social media, we take all of the information that
we get from our drivers. What are the drivers seeing in the field? We're seeing a lot of
styrofoam, or we're seeing a lot of wood, for example. And then we'll take that, we'll take
what we're seeing in the field, and then we'll also take what Pratt is seeing at their floor and be
able to craft a message according to that. So we're not just creating social media posts for the
willy-nilly of just creating them and generating posts. We're actually tailoring it to what we're
seeing at the Merck and what our Merck is having issues with, or a recycling facility. So for
example, batteries was a big thing. Sharps and needles have become a little bit more recent.
So it's where we're able to talk a little bit and craft a message on social media to be able to post
that. Just kind of remind residents what they can and can't put in for excitement. There are
other alternatives to diverting material. You don't just have to recycle it. You can donate it. You
can take it to home chemical collections and things like that. And then for targeted messaging,
we're also on next door. So I'll take the highest contaminated residential routes. We'll break them
up by neighborhood and next door, and then we'll post directly weekly on them, just reminding
residents what they can and can't put in their curbside part. If we're particularly seeing an
item, for example, bag recyclables, then we'll go ahead and post a message, and it'll be regarding
bag recyclables. If we start seeing wood, if the interns start seeing brush, then we can start
tailoring a message to that as well. And of course, UNT, or definitely wouldn't be the same
without UNT and TWA, which are the big universities that we have. I graduated from UNT, so it's really
cool to kind of do a close circle of going back there and tabling, which is really awesome.
So that's a picture of us at the UNT Recycle Resource Fair. We have a great relationship
with the We Mean Green Fund and the people that are involved in sustainability over there.
So we were even able to, on the far right, is a picture of their updated Big Belly signage on
campus. So the UNT We Mean Green Fund actually reached out to me and talked about, we got to
talking about some of the verbiage and the language that they wanted to use in their big bellies that
they have on campus so that they could keep it consistent within Denton and then also within the
region. So there are phrases like, "Do you know what to throw?" There's phrases like, "Empty,
clean, loose, and dry." Those are phrases that we use in our language and in our educational material,
so they were able to implement it as well on campus also. So you may see some of these
on UNT's campus. And then that middle picture is an example of our HCC battery drop-off collection,
where we were able to divert batteries from the landfill. Our Murph has been seeing a lot of
batteries, and batteries are a big issue because they can spark every night, specifically lithium
ion batteries. So we wanted to raise awareness that residents don't need to put them in their
curbside cart because batteries can be recycled just not in your curbside cart. You want to make
sure you take them to the HCC Home Chemical Collection, or if you're not a resident, there are
even some home improvement stores that can take it. So during that time, while we were looking at
audits and contamination, there were two commercial recycling routes that were on the highest
contaminated list for a while. And when Solid Waste looked at them, they found that they were
predominantly multi-family. So they were very multi-family heavy. And what they did was,
they ran a route with just multi-family properties on there for one week, and they found that the
contamination rate for just multi-families on those routes was 64%. So 64% of the material
wasn't able to be recycled because it had to be diverted to the landfill because it was basically
trash. So what they did was, for about two months, we ran a pilot where we had a chute lid and a
locking bar placed on these multi-family containers. That picture on the left is a picture of the old
model. So if you see more of an old or outdated container, it may look like the one on the left.
The one on the right is the updated one. So it has a place for you to place a lock right in the center.
And we have no issues collecting this container because it's a gravity-fed lock,
so you don't have to go out, property owners don't have to go out and unlock them before we
collect it. It can be collected as is. And what we saw was, it helped a lot with keeping a lot
of unnecessary material, debris, illegal dumping out of the containers. So we wanted to see if this
would help increase the quality of the recycling that was being entered into this stream versus the
quantity. And this is an example of the multi-family before and after. So of course, during the time
when we had these locks and chute lids on these containers, we wanted to make sure that the
properties were locking them down so that they could stay in place. I can go back to the picture
so you guys can see. We wanted to make sure that the lock stayed in place. We wanted to make sure
that they weren't touching them. They were having their residents actually empty their recycling
directly into the slots and not placing it right next to the container. So I was able to communicate,
you know, letting them know that they need to let their maintenance, their residents,
and Trash Ballet. So Trash Ballet also needs to know that they need to empty the recycling
directly into the container so it can be properly used. So during those two months, we were able to
see a change of it going from 64% contaminated to 39%, which is a really big change. And you can kind
of see that in these pictures. So this is a multi-family property that is actually near the
university, and for some reason, a lot of people like to donate things to it. It was filled to the
brim with clothing. I used to see a lot of people bringing canned food, like fully canned food,
thinking it was like a drop-off donation center. I even used to see like household items all the time
and people scavenging. So then we put the chute lid and the locking bar on it, and then that's what it
looks like on the right. So it looked a lot better. The product is a lot cleaner. You can see a lot of
it is loose. It's not perfect, of course, but it is a big improvement, especially for a container
that I've always seen was just filled to the top with basically trash. And all that material can be
diverted. You know, clothing can be diverted to a donation center. It can be diverted to, you know,
like any places on campus. I know that campus has some drop-off locations as well, but it doesn't
need to go into a recycling container where it contaminates or is not programmatic. All right,
so I'm going to turn this over to Kim Jennings.
Committee members, my name is Kim Jennings, and as Jelisa said, I am the second Waste Reductions
Program Coordinator with the Environmental Services and Sustainability Department, and I work primarily
with the Denton Independent School District and the Denton Sustainable Schools Program. Today we're
going to talk a little bit about the background of Denton Sustainable Schools. We're going to touch
on some of the audits, the contamination that we were seeing on the campuses, the outreach
collaboration, and some of the exciting details about the program's relaunch coming this fall.
So initially, the program has been around for quite some time. It was launched in 2004
in collaboration with the City of Denton Solid Waste Department, Keep Denton Beautiful, and UNT.
This has been 18 years of a very strong partnership that we're looking forward to growing
in the future. The mission of the Denton Sustainable Schools Program is to encourage students,
families, faculty, and staff to improve our environment and support the Denton community
by implementing a comprehensive sustainability education program. So what this means is that
we use environmental education that is mirroring the sustainability framework, and we do this
through classroom programs. This is an example of one, and this is at the Dean of the Wright Center
after school program. We did some recycling relays with the kids. Who would have thought that dumping
a big pile of recyclable trash and non-recyclable items in the middle of the room and having them
go through them would have created so much excitement, but it did. You can also see here's a picture
of our careers on wheels where we come and visit the schools and we bring out our solid waste
vehicle and talk to the kids about recycling and about the different jobs that are available to them.
We also have education that helps explain by having people come out, schools do visits for
field trips to Pratt, the landfill, water treatment plants, some of the additional programs that we
also do on wheels. And this is like something that is with multi-city departments. It's not just solid
waste. The fire department comes out, the police department comes out, the library comes out,
everyone. It's a very much a team-oriented effort where people come out and the kids just
just love it. A lot of the times since COVID, the schools have been restricted on having visitors,
so being able to come back into the school system has been very rewarding and very welcome for the
teachers and the students alike. We've also do continue education credits. We had a Denton
Sustainable Schools teacher training earlier this month. We went with the teachers and talked about
the program. And we also have STEM kids that we loan out to the school district. Originally,
the program was tracked using recycling weights at each school campus and awards were given based on
these recycling weights. But now, and there's a tracking, a points tracking system. So there's a
teacher involved as the point of contact for each campus and they kept track of all the points and
they submitted at the end of the year different activities that they did in order to earn points.
So moving forward though, we're going to move away from monetary awards. Basically the points
were used and points were awarded for primary, secondary, and private. And they had money that
were given to them, but we're moving away from that since COVID. And now we're going to be
awarding schools with different items such as garden supplies, STEM kits, recycling bins,
pizza parties, really anything that's going to encourage participation and be motivating
for those students. So like we said, you know, the COVID shutdown and different school restrictions
has limited the program's implementation, but we're excited to say we're back in the education
game once more. So I came into the position in October of 2021. Prior to that, I worked for the
city of Waco. I was a park ranger for 20 years. I came back here to be with my family and finally
get back to recycling with the city of Denton. And it's been, it's been quite the ride. I've really
enjoyed all of my co-workers. And I'm just saying that because my boss is sitting right here, but
this is a fantastic group of people. I've really enjoyed coming back to Denton and working with
everybody here. So, but during this whole time of COVID, it's sort of been like a sort of a free
for all. The schools were recycling containers, didn't have much monitoring. To be honest, there
wasn't a whole lot of education that was going on. There wasn't much enforcement from contamination
that was happening on the school campuses either. So my first week here, I'm on board, kind of
excited. I'm sitting in a meeting with Brian Warren, director of Solid Ways, and he was doing a
presentation on contamination. All right. And he comes to the slide where he's talking about
Denton ISD. I said, okay, all right, these are my people. Let's see what he has to say.
And basically they did a route for one week and they collected nine times. Normally Denton ISD is
not on its own specific route. It's normally dispersed with other commercial routes. So it's
very hard to tell kind of who's doing what, but they did one week of nothing but the ISD and they
came back and they said, drum roll please. And we're at 90%. And I jumped up and I was like 90%,
we're winning. And I thought about it for a minute. I was like, no, 90%, that's 90% contamination.
So what we were seeing, unfortunately, is that there's extremely high levels of contamination
in the DISD campuses. So what now? Well, I'm heading back to Wakefield. Thanks guys. It's been
fun. Not really. This is a challenge. I love a challenge and trying to figure out why is this
happening? How is this happening? Who's doing it? And how can we make this better? Because obviously
we definitely, we can do better. There's room for improvement. So we try to find patterns for high
contamination schools. So this starts with with audits. So since I started, I've done, I think,
964 audits. So what that means is I roll up in a super sweet minivan, it says solid waste
recycling on the side. I hop out and I'll go over and I'll look in the container. I'll open the lid,
I'll look inside and I'll document what sort of things are we seeing on your campus? Are we seeing
a lot of plastic film? Are we seeing a lot of books? Are we seeing a lot of illegal dumping?
Is there community dumping going on? What is causing these high contamination rates? So basically
I did a lot of research to come up with some metrics to figure out who we need to try to fix
first. So I met with some of the schools that were doing it right to find out why is your contamination
so low? It wasn't like they were all at 90%. Some were very, very low while others were obviously
they had some struggles. So I met with principals, I met with kitchen staff, janitorial staff,
individually, basically learning how their system works. Who takes the recycling? Who's responsible
for it? Is it contracted staff? Is it staff that you have on board for many years? What are the
consistencies that we're seeing to make them successful? We also offered solutions and suggestions
like some of them they have revetments but they weren't blocking them. So one of the ways I
really wanted to know was like who's doing this? So there was one campus in particular during the
holiday break, I went and hit them hot and heavy. I went to almost every single one of them multiple
times and I wanted to see who's making the mess because there was no students, there was no staff,
there's no one there to make the mess, right? So I should be cleaning. Oh my goodness, it was not.
Some of the worst contamination that we saw was during that holiday break. It was like everybody
was making room for all the new toys and all the new furniture that they were going to get over
the holiday break and it was a massive amount. If you need a steam cleaner, a couch, a washer dryer,
great, come to DISD, take your pick. There's all kinds of things that were left there for wishful
recycling. So some of the solutions that we offer, you know, let's maybe move the donation bins. Some
of these donation bins were right next to where the recycling bins and the trash bins are and so
people that just can't seem to part with some of their items that they hope could be recycled,
like this bed frame is made out of wood, right? You can recycle wood. They, it might be broken,
but it's recyclable so you would find these things kind of pushed up against the recycling
container, you know, which makes it unfortunately contamination. Other things that were also
motivated, motivating that we were doing, that we consistently do with properties that have high
levels of contamination is a $75 do not collect charge. So basically if a campus had, it was
either be by an audit that I performed or if the drivers come out and they see that the can is
unserviceable due to high levels of contamination, you know, there's a $75 charge fee. So, you know,
we give, we always give the customer the ability to, hey, would you like to clean it up? Just like
everywhere else, DSD, especially with their maintenance, is shortstop. For them to jump in
the container and take out a mattress with the amount of stuff that they have is, is quite a
stretch. So here's an example of one of the campus businesses that we've grown and this is mostly,
you know, this is stuff that isn't being generated, one with the duct, from the school. This is a lot
of, a lot of construction you have, a lot of plywood, you have pieces of pallets, you know,
ceiling tiles, all kinds of things that are non-programmatic for, for the program. So following
on the success of the multi-family program, we decided, hey, let's lock them up. Let's, you know,
let's, let's save by the lid. Let's put some locking sheet lids on and let's see what happens.
So we installed, our solid waste installed locking sheet lids on 20 different campuses
and same campus, this is a locking sheet lid on there. So it's a huge difference. Those lids
that are on there, there's a hole this big. If it doesn't fit through that hole, it's not going
open and what's great is that there's, I call it the key to the city. I usually have it around my
neck, but each DISD campus has the same lock and so it's not like there's this, this key that everyone
has. So you can just leave it open. If it's not locked, it doesn't do any good. People will just
flip open the lid and they'll throw their mattress in there. So having these, having these locked has
made a huge, huge difference on contamination and you're not able to put in items that aren't
recyclable. So what we've seen since, since last year, the city has done overall contamination
rate, it's much, it's much more under control. In 2021, they're averaging 59% contamination rate
and so far for year 2022, our current year, we're averaging around 47. So, you know, another reason
for the success is our outreach and collaboration. We talk about recycling until the cows come home.
We talk about recycling and contamination every single, every single week. We have contamination
meetings with Solid Waste. We have meetings amongst ourselves. We even have monthly outreach
meetings. We're in constant communication with Solid Waste and the drivers have the opportunity
to provide pictures and feedback on certain, certain areas, different campuses. If I see the
driver and say, hey, they've tagged a certain campus and they take a picture, they're sort of
seeing these campuses at like four, like early earlier. They're some of their first stops that
they make. They might be there five, six in the morning. It might be dark. So the picture might
not be that clear. So I'll go out and I'll take a look and I'll see what it is and I contact DIC
directly. I send them a picture and I'll let them know, hey, this is what we found. You know, this
is where this should go. This should go to a whole chemical collection, you know, a bunch of light
bulbs or batteries, whatever it is that we're seeing, fire extinguishers, certain things like
that. So there's an education component and that's one of the reasons why we have seen,
you know, a drop in contamination is because of these outreach and collaboration efforts.
So like I said, like when I'm going out and driving around the minivan, I try not to be too
intimidating. I usually pop out and wear my safety vest and, you know, I really try to, I'll help
them. Like if, you know, you've got kitchen staffer out there, they have a little cart and they usually
have cardboards and cans. Those are the two most popular items that are recyclable from the kitchen.
Yeah, I'll just talk with them. Hey, how's it going? How's your day? Can I help you with this?
You know, we learn real fast, like those cans, you got to put them in one way, try and put them
in sideways. No, not that. So running home square peg is kind of figuring out the new system. Hey,
how do you like these? How do you like the chute lutes? Or just saying, hey, did you see this is
in here? And they'll take a peek. Oh, no, that wasn't us. I got you. I know it's not y'all,
but just, just so that you're aware, like when somebody knows that you're being watched, your
actions will, will change. As a park ranger, I can guarantee that because we had staff when we
visit places and talk with people and the fact that people knew that we were there, we were making
contact makes all the difference in the world. And I'm seeing the same thing happen, happen here.
Going into, going to the schools and teaching the students. This is one of the best ways to teach
recycling. I'm really encouraged the way Denton has been handling all their sustainability goals.
When I grew up, we didn't talk about recycling. No one really sat us down and said,
hey, this is how you do recycling. Recycling really wasn't a thing until we came a little bit
older. I want to tell you how old I am. But the fact that these kids are being introduced to this
at such a young age is, is phenomenal and a great opportunity to teach them how we do recycling.
Just because you can recycle something doesn't mean that that's the way that Denton recycles.
So that's why it gets so confusing sometimes when people say, well, I don't know what to recycle.
I thought you could do this and now it's this. Well, it's based off of what items that our,
our recovery, our materials recovery facility can handle. So that's why it gets, it gets confusing.
But you know, going in into the schools, these are pictures of, of Geyer High Schools,
their advanced placement, environmental sciences and statistics class, believe it or not,
did a full-blown like week-long recycling initiative. And these students, I didn't tell
them to jump in there, but they went in and they went to one of the, they have two different
containers, one that's behind the school where you see everyone standing and then one that's more
closer to the front. And that one usually has more of the illegal dumping. A lot of times that's
with access. If you can go in and out really quick and you can do a quick dump, that's where you're
going to see a lot of the illegal dumping and higher contamination numbers. But these students,
they went in, they pulled everything out, they did a grid and they, they made it, they made it,
you know, a science, mathematic exercise. So it's, it's great. You know, the students are excited
about it. You know, they want to make a difference and they want to see it done right. Here's another,
you know, after school kids. I didn't make these kids like be happy. They were just like happy that
someone was there to talk to them. Someone was there to play with them. You know, we jumped all
that in the middle of the room and their first inclination is, hey, can I jump and climb in the
pile? And my first thought is, well, yeah, but wait, you can't. But, you know, just meeting with these
kids and having them sort through these items. So basically what we did is this huge pile of trash,
we break them up into teams and then they come one in, one in, one at a time and they pick up one piece
of, of, of a piece of trash and they either put it in their recycling or their, or their trash.
And then afterwards we take their recycling and we go through each team literally item by item and
whoever has the least amount helps. So we'll go through literally hundreds of items and by the time
we're finished, the kids get it. Like they may not be great to start with, but they see the pattern
and the fact that they have physically touched an item, it makes a huge, huge difference in that repetition
and that connection is just making it lasting. And these kids like, they'll go home like, oh yeah,
I tell my mom all the time, you can't just talk about that or you should be doing this. So they're
great ambassadors for the message that we're trying to send out. You know, this is a picture
from Denton's Explorium and we've also gone to the libraries. These kids all getting in these trucks.
Not gonna be biased, but usually the trash truck is like the kids' favorite time, especially during
COVID. It was kind of like one of the highlights of their days to come see the big truck come and
pick up their trash and their recycling every day. Our drivers do a great job. They connect with the
community well and the joy in these kids' faces to see trash truck is really, really satisfying.
This is a, one of the career days that we went to at Rivera Elementary. So another thing, you know,
people think, oh gosh, you know, trash, no one wants to be the trash guy, right?
There's so much more to this profession than just trash. There's science behind this and there's
technology and these kids need to understand that this is a service that is far, it's not simple.
It gets actually quite, you know, quite complex. So we have a smart routing system called Rubicon
and, you know, when the kids go inside the cab, they get to see we have an iPad. We use technology.
We have active trackers, routers that have notes. So our drivers show these kids like, you know,
these are the reasons why you need to, you know, to learn this stuff in school. This is actually
applicable in real life. And then too, if you could see in that picture, like they're holding like
this little green sheet. This is like a list of questions that they ask. Like some of these
questions, like they make you blush. Like, so they're wanting to know, a lot of these kids,
they're already civic minded. They already like, their number one thing is, I want to make a
difference in my community. I want to help. What can I do? In these career days, you know,
they're quite helpful in making these connections and letting these kids know, yeah, hey, there is
a job in sustainability. Moving forward, this generation will have ample opportunities to use
metrics, science, everything that can be useful to help you regarding sustainability.
Okay. So we've also, we've also started up, I did a teacher survey. I wanted to know,
it's been a while since we've had the Dentist Center for Schools program, it's been inactive.
And I wanted to know, teachers, since COVID, what does your life look like now? And how can this
program be useful for you? And what can we do for the city of Dent to make this program something
that you're excited about and you want to participate in? So we got a lot of great feedback
from these teachers. We saw a lot of, a lot of similar themes, like they want, you know, their
students to make, to have personal accountability. They want them to make responsible choices.
They're heavily involved with wanting to make a difference in the community and the environment.
Basically involvement, which is, which is what this program was designed to do. You know, we
met one-on-one with these teachers just so I could, you know, get their reactions. I wanted to know
that what we're going to be doing is going to be useful and helpful for them. And here's a picture
that we had from our teacher training earlier this month. So this is like circle trust, I'm
just kidding. It's actually like an electricity circle. So it's not just, the program isn't just
about recycling. It is recycling focused, but it touches on different areas of the framework,
of the framework, so that these kids will get a well-rounded vision of what they can do for
environmental stewardship and sustainability in their life. Our tours are back online. We're able
to go into Pratt. We're going to be doing one of our first landfill tours here next month. So this
is, this is exciting. It's a good, it's a good time. One of the things, you all have to use your
imagination here, because there's no sound. But when, as part of that week-long recycling initiative
that Guyer High School students did, their teachers required them to come up with a
recycle PSA. Now there's no sound on this. This is one of the top ones. They submitted, it was close
to a little over 40 different videos that these groups did. And we selected some of our favorite
ones. And this is one of the favorite ones. It has a real dramatic theme to it. But these students,
they did this themselves. And what's really, really, really interesting and really cool is that these
kids listened. They didn't just like Google some of these statistics. They pulled these from the
presentation. These came from things that we're learning, you know, from our, from our management
plan, from our department, from the city. These are real metrics. And for these kids to understand
and grasp the severity of their actions, and to know like, this is what we're doing as students,
here's what we can do to make it better, was really, really cool. So I just wanted to share
this with you guys to show you that this program is useful. It makes a difference. And we're super
excited to have it come back online. And that, that's what I've got. But without further ado,
let me introduce our special guest, long time listener, first time caller. I have one question.
Well, before you go, does anybody have a question about the sustainable schools?
Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, a couple questions. The headline would be, I believe that there's a
great opportunity to continue educating our children. First, let me commend you and your team
for working with me as you are to get this message out there. However, I still believe there's great
opportunity to continue the education and expand the education to our children. So one of my
questions would be, are we visiting every elementary school? And are we doing it on a consistent
basis? As I process this in my mind, obviously turnover, second grade to become third grade. Are
we revisiting the second grade each year, each school to continue to set up those high school
students to be as effective as they are? I also believe that the greatest
influencer in the household as it relates to behaviors are children. And so we want to change
the behaviors of the adults. We might want to put a lot of emphasis in the children. So that would be
number one, if you could speak to that, how consistently are we impacting the schools?
And then number two, from a partnership perspective, I see you and T as a partner, if you would,
but I think I mentioned this in April. I do know, I have some experience and worked with the
St. Louis County School Board and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers implementing a program very
similar to this and did it in the form of a six-week summer boot camp where they brought even
models of a community and they poured oil at the top of the hill and so that the kids could see
where that motor oil was dumped on the street or on the curb can end up in the lakes and the streams.
When I look at information such as the trash pile in our oceans, it's twice the size of the
state of Texas, of which we're contributing to that. Certainly we can't control what's
going on in the ocean, but we can impact it by educating and getting behavior change in
our local communities. So from a partnership perspective, we consider the Army Corps of Engineers
to have a tremendous program available to help educate, I believe it's third grade through high
school with regards to impact on, with regards to recycling and contamination and so forth. So
that would be the two areas I'd like to get some more information or address if you would.
Absolutely. So in terms of how often we're visiting all of the schools, so for the audits
each month Solid Waste comes up and they pull a record of the highest contamination routes.
So there might be, let's say one route, like 436 has 29% DISD campuses. I'll make note of
which campuses are involved in contamination for that route and for that month we'll concentrate
on that to find out is it the DISD customers on these campuses, is it the students, is it the
teachers, is it the campuses here that are contributing to this higher contamination rate.
Now the Denton Sustainable Schools program, it has not been officially launched. So these programs
and things that you've been seeing, if someone has reached out to us, we've made contact and we've
gone out to do those types of programs. Once the program launches again in the fall, they'll have
access to basically almost every city service. So I'll serve as a liaison. So if they want to talk
about forestry, I'm going to go with Parks and Rec and see what they need. One of the things that
is that's great about this program, we want it to be programs and topics that are of interest for
the teachers and students. We don't want it to be so broad or just use broad strokes. They don't
really get a lot out of it. The teachers can request programs that are specific for different
teats that they might be needing for a specific topic or certain things that they want to focus on
that their kids have shown an interest in. So we want it to be able to build programs that are for
these teachers. So once they have signed up and are part of this program, they have access to us
to provide for them the education components that we need. And having these partnerships to be able
to access these our coordinators, that is not something currently that I'm aware of that we
have done yet, but absolutely that sounds like that's a resource that we should definitely
be looking into, to form some additional partnerships.
What, what? Absolutely.
Well, okay, I'll talk about something.
No, it's, it's, I'm good. I get my answer. I'll follow up.
Yes.
Anybody else?
Okay. All right, thank you.
And I'll just add, pre-COVID, we probably had about 75% of the schools participating.
It was higher on the elementary side than middle and high school. So it's interesting that the
high schools are the ones who've reached out now and are interested in participating. But with the
relaunch, Kim has been able to go in pre, kind of get the tail end of COVID and pre-relaunching
the program and build these relationships with the principals, with the janitorial staff. And
that was something that we were missing before. We had good relationships with the teachers,
but we didn't have the relationship on the back end, which is what was really going in the container
at the end of the day. So we're able to cover both sides of the house now. And I think that as the
schools, it may take a little bit of time to recover and get each school built back up with
a green team. They didn't have green teams this year. Just the capacity wasn't there. So I think
as they reintroduce green teams and the teachers feel like they can take that on without being
overwhelmed and you have a teacher sponsor for the green team, I think that we'll be building back.
And it's just going to generate buzz. The more schools that are participating and the other
teachers are hearing about great programs that are coming into the schools and helping
teach their TEKS lessons, then it's just going to start to grow organically again. We do have a
watershed model that we take out and we have one that we can loan out to the school if they want
to keep it for a few weeks. Very similar to what you're talking about with the oil, so they can see
how that looks and how it all goes down into our watershed. I have a question about the green team.
You brought that up. I remember when my son was in elementary way back when, and they did have a
green team and they would go and monitor all the recycling and you know each grade level had one kid
that would go in and like take the recycling or look in it and there were other things that they did
in the school. But do we have a budget or is there a way once this gets started back up to
have like t-shirts for those kids so that they are recognizable and people can and other kids can be
like whoa you know what are you how do you get to do that kind of thing. And that's what we're moving
to with the survey that Kim did. You know they found out that the gardens were just so neglected
during COVID and didn't really need a lot of help so they asked for garden help so we're going to
work with that the first year. But yeah green team t-shirts that could be a great prize as they work
forward and and they earn points for sustainable schools. So I think that's a completely doable
option and i think that you know that's something to work towards. Hello I'm sorry. Yeah go ahead.
In addition to that the AHAs that I heard her mention before the schools that are doing a great
job, can that be published to other schools, teachers even, to include you know recognition
reward for children are those AHAs if you were that's what we call them. Are those is that
information available because somebody might look at I know my behavior has changed since the April
meeting even and really talking about this and my household has changed as a result of how we treat
recyclables at this point. I'm even having conversations with some people in the neighborhood
you know the point when you go on your walk you see exactly so so the point I'm making you can
give that good information out there you know here's some simple things you can do that's going to
encourage our children that we can implement at the at the home level and primarily my big focus
is educating children that they are our future. So that's what those AHAs are available and more.
And we're sharing some of the school AHA moments on our sustainable schools page so in that and we
have a newsletter that we'll be launching so they'll share all of that between all of the schools so
it's like hey this school's doing a great job and this is how they're doing it and Kim has been able
to have those conversations out in the field just with cafeteria staff or with the contract staff
saying hey this is how they're doing it at this other school and it's working out really well.
Maybe that's a way that you could think about doing it and then even talking to Denton ISD
facilities about what bags if they have to bag something what bag can be accepted at Pratt and
still be opened up with recyclables in it and so they've changed purchasing practices you know the
operational changes are a step that you know we wouldn't have thought of before because we were
in the classroom so it it was a unique opportunity to let us take that deeper dive into the
operational side of it. Not one that we wished for. So just sustainability education in general.
It's all right go ahead with your presentation. I know my question will probably make more sense
after this. Okay all right so we're excited this past fall we got to return to the in-person
education. We have a little heat map here it kind of shows where all we were around Denton. We have
learned to conserve water and energy education, air quality, we had some food classes and some
nature-based classes that took place. Through all of our events we reached 6802 people
if the clickers and the sign-ups are correct. So that covers you know meetings, presentations,
tabling events, activities and then the tours. So not bad for for getting started again with our
education and outreach efforts and some of the things that that we were participating in during
that time frame national night out stream clean we did a senior lunch and learn the after school
programs. Some of the usual suspects Red Bud Day, Great American Cleanup, String Clean, a movie in
the park which was fun and then you know back to Explorium. That was that was great in the career
days. So just look to see more of that coming up. We have some classes coming up soon reducing
kitchen waste, bulletproof plants, composting and all bargaining. Those will be on the website
and Facebook event soon. We're finalizing those with the rooted in group right now.
So just some pictures of the fun times that we had with stamps and stickers.
The kids love Arlo the armadillo when we talk about air quality
our air armadillo excuse me. We'll be at Twilight Toons tomorrow night, is that correct?
Yes thumbs up. Twilight Toons tomorrow night will have recycling and sustainability air quality
education there. We have the Denton Police summer youth program tumor of the landfall and crack
coming up, library programs and then the composting, gardening and clean waste classes.
And then we are all available for questions. Yes. Well I think it's wonderful that
departments like Solid Waste are partnering with the sustainability
area because it's that's been in the past a problem that everybody's been in their
individual silos. Things are now really starting to work people starting to work together and along
that line a lot of the schools or many of the schools like new schools like Nettie Schultz
have considerable renewable energy installations and just thinking out of the box a little bit I
don't know if DME has any outreach programs of the scale that Solid Waste does but perhaps at
some point in the future there could be discussion with DME about presenting programs on renewable
energy and tying that in with the actual installations on the schools in which the kids are
which kids are attending. And JT who's heading back in the corner over there he does our
conservation programs and he does the energy education at the school so that's something that
he could plug in and there is a new person at DME and I'm not sure what her scope is but we can
find out if that's something that we can partner on. Oh that'd be great. Yeah we work closely with
DME too. Good thank you. Katherine I have a question. Parks is here. Do we have a environmental
services person or sustainability who monitors contamination in parks trash? I mean we talked
about it here a little bit before but they have like a blue bin and agreement but generally it's
all just trash. I mean do we have anyone that monitors that? Parks staff does some monitoring
of just what they're pulling from the containers and making sure that it's going to the appropriate
location so if it's so highly contaminated that it shouldn't go to crap then it's going to go to
the landfill but with the new containers that Parks has on order I believe through the grant
200 units of side-by-side trash and recycling we're working with them for signage if they're
going to be along the paved sidewalk and looking at some of the sidewalk stickers that can provide
some education about what's going to go in the different containers so there's going to be an
education campaign that goes along with those new containers so hopefully we won't just have the
open top thrums in all of our parks and we can start getting away from that. Like the containers
at Avondale? Yes. Okay exactly like those are fantastic. I'm sure they probably help you guys
too and solid waste. So there's 200 of those coming did you say? 200 sets coming. Yeah that's
good thank you. Yeah that's their grant. Okay yeah thank you. So you guys have a couple different
presentations about the percentage of contamination and it sounds like there's that high number and
I've heard it around 40 percent being kind of what we're starting to achieve like how does that
compare to other cities is one question I mean you guys know what if they're running and then
like is that normal and then two like do we expect to hover around 40 contamination rates
or is the goal to actually try to get below that? How do you do that? Can I ask Matt are you talking
about specifically DISD or multi-family? With both because DISD got down to 39 percent and then we
heard two months ago it was the city had dropped to like 40 40-ish percent. If you want to come
back up and answer the question if you know and I can kind of jump in on that. Okay okay. As we've
audited the different sectors so the schools and multi-family it's narrowed down where contamination
might be so while we may be making great gains at the school and at the multi-family sites
they're still combined with a route that picks up at other locations so that's where another
one of our auditors comes in and she's with the solid waste team so looking at those sites so it's
starting to make deeper dives now into those and Pratt has gotten more proactive with trying to
give us route numbers and the day that contamination comes in for example sharps we're kind of having
to be detectives right now and looking at all of the stops on the routes and you know we've got
multi-family but we also have assisted living and we have one business that may use sharps so where
could that be coming from so it's a lot they all have to feed together to try to get that contamination
down below where we are now but we're still working. But is that like a stamp it's like 40
like have you heard of other cities has anybody else talked about like contamination rates have
been like we've reached zero percent contaminants? I've never heard zero um was there isn't there a
I don't know like a graph or something of other cities comparable to
Denton at some point but I don't think it's schools it's it's not specific to multi-family
or school it's just no it's just overall and that is in the comprehensive solid waste management
strategy and I would have to go back and pull that um but I will say not all recycling programs are
equal so what's problematic material here may not be the same some of them may have gone to all
paper and cardboard and then they have a much lower contamination rate. Isn't it at one point
I remember hearing like 30 percent or is like kind of general I remember hearing 30 something
between the yeah 30-ish but we're still high. Go ahead Ed.
Where does where does is the solid waste does the solid waste have an end zero program yet?
Is this or is that coming with the uh
will that be part of the that is a comprehensive solid waste management strategy and that may be
something in concluding items we can ask for him to come back and talk to us about because I think
we have a lot of solid wastey questions yeah good thank you all right good thank you so much
we will move on to D staff reports anybody have any questions on on the staff reports
there were some really good ones in there lots of information I just wanted to
I had a couple of questions about if you have anyone else yeah I have some questions
Adam go ahead okay so on the climate action plan I see that scheduled to come before council on
july 26 yes and I'm wondering if it's appropriate for this committee as a body or individual members
to reach out to city council members or the public at large in an effort to help with this
or is that not appropriate if it is appropriate do we have like talking points that I have the same
I have the same question and I'm wondering if we needed to like come up with some kind of like
letter signed by the committee like asking them to approve I don't I don't know maybe that's a
city attorney question if we're allowed to do that or if if you think it's even needed at this point
is there something we can do I'll take that a little bit okay to summarize Michael Gagne,
director of environmental services sustainability since the work plan went before council and council
recommended we go forward with the climate action plan as part of that work plan there's probably
nothing additional you need to do at this point they're very clear and aware of y'all support for
that but if you wanted to reach out or let people know that's coming up for action that would not be
a bad thing but that's just the first step to award that contract then once we start doing the
work and getting into that overall climate action plan where we'll need more and more community input
and support to build that plan to then bring it back to council next year for adoption of the actual
plan just to get the contract in place is just one step that's all it's going to happen in July
just actually get a vendor on board they will be voting at this meeting they will they will take
action to possibly award that contract to that vendor to start that process okay
are you at liberty to tell us who the person the company will not yet we're still finalizing all
contract negotiations to make that happen once that can be public we'll make sure you're aware
of who that will be that'd be great thank you did anyone else have questions on any of these
three stop reports before we talk about the matrix
yes i had a question about the gas well unplugging okay and go ahead
i was just curious the last time when we had the presentation from modern geosciences
at the end of it dr tram said that he would take the numbers leak numbers to his engineers
saying that they could give us a ballpark figure of the amount of methane that was leaking
or it had leaked out of out of the out of the wells and i just wondered if there's been any
development from dr tramp in regards to that
michael again no there has not been any development that from talking with modern
geosciences they do have information on what the leaks are right that leak information says
what was happening then it doesn't actually have a rate associated with it so one of the
challenges to build that as far as how much methane is they might not have the flow
of the leak they know where it was so they said they would look at that that's one thing they're
interested in doing trying to follow back up with dr tram as well to see where they stand on that
information provided to us okay that'd be great follow-up thank you just on this i wanted to thank
you for this uh data and seeing that 32 wells have been plugged since 2015 um that that's pretty
significant i mean not i mean in relation to the total amount but that's it's pretty good amount
that has been plugged so thank you for that could could you just remind us again what what are the
current regulations about what happens above ground or around those plug wells is there
i mean is there any restrictions or is it just like we can now put a house on top of it i'm
gonna say here just with this was just the amount of wells that it's not an item for discussion it's
just a staff report that in the items coming up you can ask for a gas well presentation okay like
the well presentation or just another staff report on that issue i think is that can i ask a couple
of them yeah let's go see what adam adam and then we'll come back to you ed all right uh a comment it
was interesting on the map that a lot of those look like they're not bar net shale wells i would
guess they may be really old wells off the shale but i'm not sure but my question is on the solar
generation that was interesting but there's it's interesting how literally they took the uh the
quest they gave us two numbers that i don't have any context to understand those numbers so i don't
know so 3.8 million kilowatt hours sounds like a lot but do we have any sense of percentage wise
what is that like you know the average person might look at this and say oh our city is entirely run
by people's rooftops but maybe it's like three trillion kilowatt hours and this is like a drop
in the bucket i just don't know if it does anybody know yeah how to read these numbers i thought that
was interesting too especially compared to the amount of generation that was installed how much
more percentage we're getting off of those well the installed is kilowatts and this is kilowatt
hours so that's like so that much i think i can kind of understand but i don't know i just i guess
i wonder how many kilowatt hours total in that time period did we there's no context so if we
could just have more clarification yeah just to help us understand what that data is me okay
and then i guess ed go ahead i'd like to know what the status of the greenhouse gas inventory is
so is that on our matrix i don't i don't think so i
at last i heard they it was said it was coming out in june or july that was just a
communication and i just wondered how close we are now did you have anything on the stack reports
are you going to move to the matrix matrix okay all right so we'll move on to the matrix and ask
do you have anything about the greenhouse gas the 20 2020 you want to come on up yeah
because i think it's listed in the matrix but
community members james divas conservation programs coordinator so we got an updated
timeline on the regional greenhouse gas inventory and so they will be having all of the final data
to us in july what we are waiting for is the off-road transportation data specifically
once we get that we will start pulling all of those numbers together and get the report
completed for the 2019 updated version as soon as possible for the regional inventory they are
looking at a timeline of december for that for collecting all of the data right december december
for the for the regional publication so that is what i have on that and then you plan to bring that
back to to this body yes okay thank you i have something else okay go ahead uh in the dallas
morning news on june 26 there was a really interesting article about the current drought
in the state and if i may read a short paragraph here it says the most recent plan of the texas
water development board is simply laughable despite all the evidence to the contrary the agency is
planning for a 1950s precedent to be the worst case and it doesn't mention two words that are
verboten in austin which is climate change the agency says publicly it doesn't even model
climate change and then though some municipal water authorities quietly do so i would like to know if
our water folks
are taking climate change and of course growth into consideration and what sort of plan they have
else out to 2050 or whatever whatever the time frame is just to know how how dentin is going to
deal with water issues in the next decades okay let me make sure that i have this correct for the
matrix so we're going to ask the water department if they're factoring climate change and growth
into any of their modeling um out to 2050 yeah i guess i can't hear you that clearly
uh modeling the for climate change climate change out did they basically have their own
climate action plan for dealing with with the impacts of drought and growth within up you know
within 2050 i remember dr banks giving a presentation on that but it's probably
changed so maybe we can have that good back today in a different presentation
all right yeah so i guess we will close the matrix and go to concluding items does anybody
have any concluding items you want to add here i mean i see that on the matrix it says
policies and procedures post-production for pad sites and well heads okay so it just seems like
adding you know well heads and plug well heads could we get that added to that section would be
great thank you thanks anybody else
you're good
everybody okay all right we will conclude the meeting at 2 24 today thank you everyone
for your time i appreciate it