Oct 05, 2020 Committee on the Environment on 2020-10-05 9:00 AM

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our Committee on the Environment. Today is Monday, October the 5th, and it is 9.03, and we will call the meeting to order. We do have a quorum, and so we will go ahead and begin with our first item, which is consider approval of the September 8th, 2020 minutes. Move approval. Okay, we have a motion, and I will second. All in favor? Aye. Say aye or raise your hand. Larry, Mr. Collister, do we need to do the individual votes when it's just the two of us? Do I need to call that on this meeting as well? You know what? You can do it by unanimous consent. Okay. All right. So minutes approved by unanimous consent. Welcome, Jesse. How's it going? Sorry, I have a little technical difficulty over here. That's okay. You're just in time. We are moving to our... Yeah, just because it's a good thing you joined, because if we had a split vote on the minutes, it would have had to roll to next meeting. I'm going to break the tie. We will move to items for consideration B, receive a report, and hold a discussion on 2019 greenhouse gas inventory. And I'll just go ahead and let you know, Jesse, we have to finish this meeting by 10.30 today. So we'll get through the presentation, and then we'll ask our questions. Okay. Thank you. Good morning, council members. James Douglas, conservation coordinator. I will pull up the screen here and we will get started. As you said, today's discussion, we're going to be talking about the results of the 2019 greenhouse gas inventory analysis. And so for today's focus, we will definitely be focused on those results. We'll also talk about the history and background for the greenhouse gas inventory. We'll talk about the individual changes and impacts associated with the 2019 results, and we'll hit on some current mitigation strategies and we will talk about some next steps. Just to kind of set the stage here, I did want to go over a few definitions. So you'll see throughout the presentation, we'll be referring to GHGs, which are the greenhouse gases, which are capable of trapping heat energy in the atmosphere. The three ones that we focus on as a part of our inventory are methane, nitrous oxide, and carbon dioxide. And you can see their abbreviations there. Every metric that you see as a part of the analysis is going to be presented in carbon dioxide equivalents, abbreviated CO2e. And that's basically the global warming potential of each one of these individual gases converted to that of CO2. And so those will be reported in metric tons, abbreviated MT. And we'll be talking, as I said, we'll be talking about mitigation, which is decreasing the flow of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by addressing that flux, by reducing sources and enhancing sinks. The greenhouse gas inventory, I believe everybody was there for the 2018 inventory, but just as a reminder, is broken into three scopes. Scope one emissions are those that are directly within either the geographic boundary or directly in operational control. Scope two emissions focus pretty exclusively on electricity consumption. And so that's not the generation of electricity as it would be in scope one, but that's when we turn on the light switches, the consumption of that electricity. And lastly, scope three, which is a little bit more challenging of a scope. Those are also consumption based, but that is outside of geographic scope and outside of operational control. And so those typically, when we talk about those, we're talking about things that are upstream and downstream and are a little bit more challenging to quantify. Just a little bit of inventory background before we get into the results. The greenhouse gas, the baseline inventory was done in the year 2006 and it's been conducted annually since 2015. When we talk today, we're going to talk about the municipal and the community analyses. Those analyses are run separately, but they are combined into one report. And so we'll just be looking for those differences there. They're done separately because the scale of the municipality and the scale of the community are a little bit different. In 2018, sustainability staff introduced the contribution analysis, which is a tool provided to us through ICLEI. And that just helps us better understand our inventories and the year to year change. And so if you remember the blue and red waterfall diagrams from a few months back now, it basically helps us understand what went well in any given year, what we need to improve and what's outside of our operational control. And lastly, the data collection analysis is going to change a little bit from year to year as things improve. And so ways that that can happen, we can get new data sets, we can get new methods of data collection and the process is always evolving and improving. And so we had a couple of those instances this year that we'll go over. Just a brief timeline. So the 2018 greenhouse gas inventory was presented in September 2019. We presented a little bit right on the topic of greenhouse gas mitigation, which is sort of all-encompassing and the inventory falls into that category. And so we had a couple meetings discussing the greenhouse gas forecasting and target setting between inventories. We wanted to present the results today of the 2019 inventory before going into the next meeting in November to revisit the target setting with some updated information. We wanted to make sure that we had one more year of solid data before going into some of that forecasting data. So that's what we're doing here today. So we're going to dive into some high-level results first. And so, as I said, there are two separate analyses that are done as a part of the inventory, the municipal inventory. We had almost a 15% increase compared to 2018 and a 32.44% increase compared to our 2006 baseline. And you can see on the right-hand side, that's the top graph that's presented there. The community inventory had an 18.32% decrease since 2018, last year's inventory, and a 36.48% decrease compared to our 2006 baseline year. Now, when we combine those two, we get a combined change there of a decrease of 14 and a half percent compared to 2018 and 30.14% compared to our 2006 baseline. And as you can see, those are decreases because the municipal inventory only makes up about 16% of that combined total. And on the right-hand side there is the lower graph represents the community inventory, so that second bullet point there. So we're going to dive a little bit deeper into the municipal analysis first. And so on the right-hand side, you can see the four sectors that we take a look at there and the individual change. The left-hand graphic is the 2018 comparison and the right-hand graphic is the baseline comparison. And so a few of the highlights, the Denton Energy Center did have its first full year of operation this year. If you remember in 2018, it was just a partial year of operation. And so this is the first full year and there was an increase associated with that. Denton Municipal Electric continues towards their renewable energy goal. And in 2019, that reached an average for the year of 85%. And by that, with that renewable portfolio increasing, emissions from energy consumption at the municipal level did decrease because we're using a more renewable portfolio there. Continuing in the municipal inventory with a focus on the landfill here, so the Denton landfill had an increase in methane capture measured prior to processing. And so we wanted to take a look at this diagram here. And so if you look at the top portion of the diagram, where this metric is measured is right there at the end of collection and right before processing. And so it's kind of right where that hash mark is between collection and processing is where we're pulling this data from for the purposes of the inventory. Waste from municipal facilities decreased 6% compared to 2018. And so that's the waste generated specifically at the municipal level. And methane increased at a lower rate in 2019 as compared to the previous year. So we did have an increase, but it wasn't as dramatic of a jump as it was in the previous inventory there. One more here for the municipal highlights. Our fleet services division improved data collection methods and continues to shift to alternative fuels as they become available. And so you can see that with a 3.58% decrease there compared to 2018 for the fleet. And natural gas consumption continues to increase as municipal operations grow to meet that demand. You know, since the baseline we've added more buildings and as the city grows, the municipality or the municipal operations grow with it in order to meet that demand. So we have that for the natural gas. Moving into community highlights, you can see the graphics on the right-hand side have changed to reflect the four scopes as they relate to the community analysis. As I mentioned previously, DME continues to increase their renewable electricity portfolio. And this is going to have a larger impact at the community scale because the scope to electricity consumption values are going to play a larger role in the community inventory than they are in the municipal. And so you can see that reflective there in the decrease of the electricity emissions. Along with that, the emissions from electricity have reached their lowest point to date since that 2006 baseline. Natural gas emissions continue an upward trend. This is influenced by both population growth and year-to-year temperature variation. We are going to follow this inventory up with a 2019 contribution analysis. And so the variability between those two things, that contribution analysis will point us in more of the correct direction and let us know which one of those is more likely to influence the year-to-year change. And we did have some updated data for transportation this year as it relates to efficiency of vehicles. And so the decrease from 2018, a lot of that variability is going to be encompassed in that updated data. And once again, the contribution analysis will take a little bit of a closer look at that. But we did get that updated data set on vehicle efficiency. And so that's going to play a bit of a role there. So we wanted to point that out. Some current mitigation strategies. These are ones that we already have in place and we're taking a look at. So we have Denton Municipal Electric looking at that 100% renewable electricity portfolio and looking to achieve that here in the next few years. Continued energy tracking and internal natural resource conservation efforts. So this is something that we already do internally, but it's something that we definitely want to take another look at. And we want to encompass recycling and waste reduction efforts and continue to encompass those into that. And on the community side, we're going to see anticipated improvements through the comprehensive solid waste management strategy. With regards to fleet, continued development of alternative transportation options and support of alternative fuels. And so this is both on the municipal fleet side and in the community. And one of the really big ones here is continued participation and collaboration with national, state and regional partners. And so we value those partnerships very highly and we get plenty of good ideas on what we can do in the future. And I think encompassed in all of these two is the education and outreach component of everything that we do with regards to conservation, electricity, water, and all of those things associated with the community inventory. With that, we have these next steps. As I said, the 2019 contribution analysis is going to be soon to follow. And when we have that, we will provide you with those results. Some of the data there lags about three months behind what we get for the greenhouse gas inventory. The next discussion, we're going to be focused on revisiting the greenhouse gas reduction target setting and that's currently scheduled for November 2020. And once we get that target setting conversation sort of completed, we can explore greenhouse gas mitigation planning. So when and if we get a target, we'll be able to address whatever that target is. Whatever it is, we will need a plan to address it. And so we'll be talking about that at a later date. And with that, I know that was a lot of information there very quickly, but I will open it up for any questions that you might have. Oh, do I have to pull down the screen? Yeah, can you pull down the screen please so we can see the numbers? Okay. Paul? Councilmember Carter? I think I want to get a shirt that just says unmute on it. Really, I should give that to everyone else. You might have said this in your comments, but I'm just not quite sure I got it. My concern is to understand the big increases on the municipal level in the last two years. And we've got the percent changes on each of the contributing components, but it's not like a stacked bar where I could see how big the contribution is of each of those elements. So can you tell me maybe in terms of metric tons of carbon or in absolute terms, what contributed the most to that big increment in the last two years? Definitely. I've got both of those. I can break it down in the four sectors first. I think that might be helpful. So on the municipal side, the electricity made up 52.9%, waste was 43%, transportation 3.6%, and natural gas 0.6%. Of the bar? Or are you telling me percent of the bar or percent of the increase? Percent of the total. So electricity made up 52% of the total bar. Correct. I'm sorry to interrupt you. Not a problem. I don't think I framed my question correctly. So if let's say you sliced off the last two years at exactly the height of three years back, what's the composition of the increment? You know, what's the biggest contributor to the increase? And you might not have it now. That might be the thing to cover. Yeah, I'm just trying to wrap my mind around the portion of the bar. I think I understand your question. And so you're talking about the percent above 2017 values. I think it's about, I forget exactly what the units are that slide, but it's like 100 roughly. Right. So you had of the four major components, some went up, maybe some went down, I don't know. But of the pluses, what would the composition of that be? So then we could really say like, oh, wow, it's really driven by, you know, it might be a small percentage, let's just for argument's sake, it could be a small percentage increase in a very big factor. You know, that's what percent increase, I don't know, it's what drove the quantity of carbon. Right. And to point out kind of an example of that. So natural gas emissions from 2018 to 2019 increased 6.29%, but only make up 0.6% of the entire large total of that. Yeah. So it could change a lot and not really be that much worth focus. Correct. And so the values previously that were, and I don't believe that this was included on the slide, but of that total 2019 municipal bar, electricity was about 53% and waste was about 43%. And so that's going to make up the vast majority of those. So whatever the changes were in those, that's what drove it. So it's kind of retelling me, mostly because it's 9% of it. Yes. Okay. And what drove the big increases in the last two years in electricity and waste? I don't feel like, you know, not happy about having presided over such a big increase in municipal carbon. So am I still, okay. I was making sure I wasn't on mute. So Keeley, you're sort of barreling through there with about 17 points out. Yep. So some of the larger contributors. So one of the highlights there was the Denton energy center did have its first full year of operation. And so that was at about 104,000 metric tons CO2e. And then you have the landfill as well at roughly about 97,000. So those are going to be your two components there that are making up a large bit of the, the electricity and the waste, which are those two higher percentages that we discussed. Okay. So don't get, keep kind of pressing to like in this direction. I realize I'm taking your time. Yeah. Yeah. If you have a question. Yeah, I think I'm, you know, I'm, I'm, it's just all one question and I'm trying to barrel down to the answer. So what is it about the landfill that, you know, I mean, well, we landed on two, a two part answer. So what is it about the landfill that is that is so dramatically increasing carbon and, or is that really, are we really talking about the deck and even though it's operating within TCEQ guidelines and so on, it's still a major contributor of carbon. Sure. So I'll take that in two parts and I'm actually going to defer to Brian here for, for the first part for the solid waste bit. Good morning, madam chair. I'm member of the committee, Brian Burner, director of solid waste. Appreciate the opportunity to talk a little bit about the methane generation at the city of Denton landfill. Part of what you have to remember in this data is it lags somewhat in the way that it's reported as 2019 data. Several things happened in 2019 that would allow us to capture more data or at this point. First of all, we did install additional landfill monitor wells at the facility. So going back to that landfill map that should that JT showed that, you know, you've got the, the generation or the capture, the processing, we're actually recovering more because we, we have more straws in the drink for lack of a better term. We're able to capture more that way. Also the regional growth in this area. We've, we've seen over 2018, 2019, additional trips by private parties, mom and pop generators, you know, city of Denton residents hauling material themselves to the landfill, as well as a slight increase due to the beginning of the closure of the DFW landfill in Louisville. So instead of taking it further into Dallas, people are hauling, you know, their individual waste here into Denton. So that's where, where we see a lot of this, this capture happening right now as a result of the methane generation. As we go into 2020 and we have a full year of, of additional growth, additional difference because of the, the DFW landfill closure, as well as our third party waste contracts, we may see some alterations alter alterations due to that, but we've also put additional wells in, in 2020. So we would anticipate being able to capture more and recover more methane as a result of that. Thank you. Okay. Thanks, Brian. And to the question about the, the Denton energy center. And so previously, obviously prior to 2018, that wasn't a part of the municipal inventory at all. And so, you know, we kind of go from, from nothing to something there. But there's the, the other side of that coin, which is the, the production there allows DME to have a little bit more of an aggressive stance on the renewable energy portfolio. And so the thinking there is some of the reductions from the consumption, the scope to emissions that we see in both the municipal inventory and the community inventory can be in part tied to those scope one increases, if that makes sense. Yeah, I heard that. Okay. I'll relinquish the mic for Council member Davis. Do you have any questions or follow ups? Sure. Thank you. I'm kind of toggling my screens back and forth here. So I have the numbers in front of me. I'm not sure if I quite understood the response to the municipal waste side, like things coming from the city, you know, are our trash cans more full at city hall? Are we not recycling as much like a city generated waste the increase in that? I wasn't quite sure I understood the answer to that. So the, I believe on that, that municipal slide, it was a reduction of 6.01% in municipal generated waste. And so that would be the waste that you're talking about in the dumpsters outside of city facilities in terms of the emissions themselves, scope one falls because it's municipal landfill, essentially. Got it. Thank you for clarifying for me. That wasn't making any kind of sense at all because we're doing a lot of good stuff at the city. Then I guess to Paul's question, I understood why he was asking the question earlier about breaking the bar into pieces and how to better understand some of these increases, because some of them are pretty concerning. Are we going to have a better insight into some of those when we have the contribution analysis? Because right now I'm having the same trouble wrapping my head around, you know, targeting the problem, how to actually go about crafting solutions without better understanding the contributing factors. We definitely will. And that's part of the reason that we introduced the tool. And the good thing about the contribution analysis tool is you can break it down in terms of granular data. You can break it down as granular as you have the inputs. And so an individual input that changes, if it's a dramatic change, it will be more highlighted in the contribution analysis in terms of that. And so if you remember those waterfall diagrams from a previous presentation, when we take a look at that, if we take a look at the more granular data, we can see those individual items. Okay. I'm going to probably hold off on some of my more pointed questions until we have that information. I do want to say though, I mean, to see the community moving in generally a good direction means that we've got a good base of support to keep building on. You know, we only have, we can move the numbers we can move from the city side, but to know that the community is moving in a good direction as well. I mean, that really empowers us to make some big strides from municipal perspective. So thank you. Okay. Jesse, I hope you come back. So I have a few questions. I know that we received, there you are, we received an email about the, using the equivalency calculator from the debt commissions. And it says that it's equal to 22,514 passenger vehicles driven for one year. And that's about 11,726,117 gallons of gasoline consumed. And I know that we've used this equivalency calculator before. Does that, is that, does that sound correct? And in our future discussions, are we going to talk about ways to offset, offset these emissions? So as we get into more of those discussions about the target setting and the greenhouse gas mitigation plans, that can definitely be a part of the conversation. And so when we talk about mitigation, it can be reduction, it can be increasing sinks, it can be offsets. Those are all things that are encompassed into that conversation. And so once we get to, to that planning process, that's definitely something that, that we can have the discussion about. Okay. And looking into the actual report, were the, I did see some emissions from street lights. Were the LEDs included in that or not yet? So they'll be reflected in 2020 and not 2019? Those will, those are reflected and will continue to be reflected as a part of that. Okay. So the ones that had been updated, so it's kind of a mix in 2019, but as we go, it will, okay. Correct. And you're going to see two different things there. So you're going to see the conversion to LEDs as an increase in efficiency, but we're also going to see as the renewable energy percentage increases as a part of the portfolio, that's going to impact those as well. Okay. And was that, I'm sorry, was that street lights or traffic signals that you're referring to? Well, well, there was a section for street lights that I was asking about, but I do realize that the traffic signals have already been converted for the most part. So it would be the street lights that would make the impact in the future, I believe. And then the next, when we're talking about landfill waste, I looked at the different breakdowns and the most waste besides paper at 22% is food waste at 13%. And then the other things kind of significantly decrease a little bit. When, and this may be a question for Brian, if we're looking at reducing those municipal landfill emissions, when we're going to address the food waste aspect of it. Yep, I will defer to Brian for that one. Okay. Good morning again. Good morning. With regard to food waste, we do anticipate that being a major segment of what we review as part of our comprehensive solid waste management strategy. I mean, currently there are, first and foremost, what we are going to be doing with this strategy is doing a waste characterization study in both our residential, multifamily and commercial sectors to find out exactly how much food waste and other waste is there for us to deal with. And then from that, back calculate best practices. We know there are cities out there that have curbside collection programs that may or may not be effective, both economically and environmentally. We have backyard composting programs that may be a better state. There are digester programs where the material is actually contained, methane is digested out, and then as part of a biosolids program, the material is covered. So what we're going to be doing is evaluating both how much we have versus what the technologies are available, couple that with environmental impacts and fiscal opportunities, and then from that roll out opportunities for the council to consider as we create that plan to move forward in that program. So we're a little bit down the road, but within a year, we should have a very, very good go-forward process on how we want to affect all organic diversion within the city of Denton. Okay. Yeah. Thank you for that. It's going to be important as we continue our discussions on ways to reduce the emissions and waste at the landfill as well for this committee and also for the full council. Councilmember Meltzer, do you have a question? Yeah. I know that tomorrow we're going to be looking at beneficial reuse alternatives related to the methane, and should we understand compost collection as one of the alternatives in that set of options? Like in other words, if we did end up doing curbside compost and I heard you about the kind of economic and environmental assessment, but if we did end up doing that, is that instead then of generating methane? Is that where the methane comes from, I guess is what I'm really asking. And that's something we're looking at. What we found and what the data that's available is telling us is that in the short term, there would be no impact to the rate of generation at the city of Denton landfill. Secondarily, if we were to affect that growth curve long term, we would have to significantly divert the amount of organic material that is being put into the landfill. But what state of California and some of their recent studies are showing us these massive centralized composting programs have much greater fugitive emissions, methane emissions from them than the landfills do themselves. So right now what we're seeing, because again, they're closed cells, the amount of times they're turning, the piles actually go anaerobic, even though that they're being turned on a regular basis. So we have significant fugitive methane emissions from those processes. So what we're looking at is how do we capture the methane, keep it from going in the environment, be able to process it, manage it appropriately without emitting it into the atmosphere. And that's one of the things that we will be looking at. But right now we're still looking at potential cost benefit in composting as a result of adoration processes. You need to unmute, sir. Paul you're on mute. Yeah, I got to give you that shirt that says on mute. So I understand that analysis is to come. You're kind of opening up a possibility in my own thinking now, is it possible for those two go together that, you know, if composting were were to pencil out, you know, could it be complementary and go with methane collection? In other words, you're collecting all the compost, now you're putting it in one place, you capture it there and you do the beneficial reuse? Currently, you know, our beneficial reuse program is complementary to what we're doing at the City of Denton landfill. We, all of the organic yard waste that we collect goes to that process. So, you know, once we are able to get, you know, if we're lucky, if we're, if we're fortunate enough to get our expansion permit, which would actually allow us to do a source separated organics program, such as we're discussing now, then, you know, there may be some additional beneficial diversion that could be done. But right now, you know, it's steps that we have to undertake and evaluate to determine, you know, the cost benefit of those. Yeah, I get that. I just want to understand conceptually if they were complementary, potentially complementary in the future rather than competing. It sounds like maybe so. The potential exists, but it will have to be evaluated. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Davis, do you have any follow-ups to that conversation? No, no, I was just, while Brian was talking, looking over some of our stuff for tomorrow, deciding what's on posting now and what's on posting for tomorrow. So, I'll, I'll hold off for that. Okay. I do, Brian, thank you so much. You're welcome. I do have a follow-up question back to Jesse's comment earlier about the waste emissions. So I think seeing where he had that question, it says 2019 baseline comparison, and it says an increase of 50.73% on waste emissions with a little trash can beside it under municipal highlights. And so I think that's where just by reading that chart, it looks like we've increased our municipal waste significantly. So, and you're saying that it's decreased. So can you explain that just a little bit? Sure. So those, those four images that are on the right-hand side there in that graphic, those are representative of the entire sector of those emissions. And so those waste emissions include waste from municipal facilities, but it also includes any emissions from the landfill itself, which when we're talking about that is all of the waste that the landfill collects. But because it is a municipally run landfill, that's why those emissions would fall under the municipal analysis and the municipal scope one emissions, if that makes a little bit more sense. So those are, those are two different sources of emissions, but we put them together under the waste category when we break it out into those four sectors. Okay. Okay. So what we're seeing the increase in mostly is, is the landfill and the municipal aspect of it, like the trash from city facilities is the one that... The trash from city facilities has decreased 6.01% correct from, from the previous year. Okay. All right. Um, I think that is, is that all for now on this item? Everybody okay? I believe that a lot of the more in-depth conversations on, um, ways to control things that we can discuss to reduce, will come in our next reduction carbon reduction, uh, presentation. I agree. And, uh, we definitely, we wanted to give you one more sort of known data point before diving back into that conversation. So we wanted to make sure that we got this analysis and this presentation done prior to that conversation. Perfect. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you. So we'll go ahead and move on to item C. Receive a report, hold a discussion and give staff direction regarding the following certification processes. National Wildlife Federation's Community Wildlife Habitat Certification lead for cities and communities and Bird City, Texas. Good afternoon council or committee on the environment. How's everyone doing today? Good. Good. Good morning. Welcome. My name is Sarah Luxon. I am the sustainability coordinator for the city of Denton. So I'll be in the interest of time trying to go over these three programs with you rather quickly. So that way, if there is any discussion, we'll have time for that. So, all right. So we'll be discussing three different certification processes that the city of Denton could pursue should you guys wish. So, uh, I will be seeking y'all's feedback regarding these three programs. I believe that we are capable of meeting any of these programs. The city of Denton is already doing many of the things that are required in each of these certification processes. And so we would like y'all's direction on whether or not to move forward. The first is the national wildlife foundations community certification. So this program is hosted by the National Wildlife Federation, which is a large conservation minded nonprofit. So they've been hosting this program since 1997 and there are over 200 different communities nationwide that are already signed on. We're proposing to move forward with the certification process. Cities like Austin, Houston, and White Springs in Texas have already completed the certification process. I do want to note that it will take some time. Typically after you sign on to pursue this certification, it takes about two years to complete. And part of that is because you have to accumulate points at the community level. So this is something that wouldn't just be require the city to take initiative. It's going to require community to take initiative as well, because we can certify certain wildlife habitats here at the city, but individuals within our community are also going to have to certify their gardens or habitats that they have, as well as schools and businesses. So at our population, we will need about 400 community points. Currently, we already have 87 points. That means that there's already 71 National Wildlife Federation registered wildlife habitats here in the city, 65 homes, four common areas, and two schools. So we will need about 313 more points. As you can see in the slide, homes account for one point, common areas and universities and other businesses will count as three, and then schools. So actually you get five points for every school or nature center that signs up. So there is a $100 registration fee that's a one time fee. But one of the benefits of this program is National Wildlife Federation will help support in providing different outreach material. They'll provide staff support to help you meet that certification. And so they're going to you're going to get a lot of support from their, their program to meet this certification requirement. Ah, next we have lead for cities and communities. So in 2018 lead for cities and communities, it actually replaced the star communities certification process city, the city of Denton was already a star community. And so we were adopted into that silver membership for lead for cities. But since then, we have not re registered for that program and or that certification process. And so we are looking at re registering and recertifying as a lead for cities community. And the other cities that in Texas that have done so are Houston, Austin, Corinth, and Plano. One of the areas we'd like to pursue is is pursue why we would like to pursue this is because it is a great way to measure sustainability against other communities in Texas. So by using their program, we can see what practices we're doing and how those look compared to other communities in our area. So this is the dashboard, they use a dashboard called arc. It's a software that allows you to track. And then once you input your information, they will actually rank that information and we'll be able to get a score based on our inputs. Now, they do offer a grant that covers the cost of recertification. And that is something that we would like to pursue the the grant will typically open up in December and close in January. And if we are able to pursue that grant that will cover the cost as well as offer different training for recertifying. And just just to know if that grant lead for cities can be a little bit costly in the sense that it's ranges from about 10 to $15,000 to register your community. So if we are able to receive that community's grant, it's pretty substantial. Bird City, Texas. So this is a program that is handled by Texas Parks and Wildlife. It's a relatively new program. It was developed in the last three years. And it's become pretty popular here in Texas already. So you have communities like Bashrup, Dallas, Houston, and Port of Kansas, and as well as many others. I think they this last year, they were added a substantial number of new communities as well. But it basically is a community focused certification process to help protect birds, as well as the habitats in communities. So the city of Denton is already doing a lot of the measures that are required to meet the certification process. There's just a few things that we would need to do to complete the requirements for this certification. And to but if we are pursuing this program, it will definitely help support those habitats and educate our community about what they can do to support not just native birds, but also migratory birds. Now, there are two different types of certification. You have the basic and the high flyer. We would be interested in pursuing the basic, which is again, a lot of the requirements were already meeting when because those measured in community engagement, they measure habitat enhancement and protection as well as creating safe spaces for birds. The high flyer takes it a step further, and that will require some substantial changes to the city. However, in a couple of years, we may be able to meet those requirements as well. So again, the the certification we're recommending is the basic bird, and it'll take about a year to complete because you have to already meet all of the requirements before you can submit your application, which is typically due in December. That certification will last for three years, and then you'll need to recertify. So we would like to get y'all's feedback and direction on each of these certification processes. And please let me know if you have any questions. We can pull the slides down. Thank you. Yes, Councilmember Davis. Thank you. So for a couple of those, first off, those all are very interesting for the city to pursue, especially because we might be part of the part of the way there on a lot of those requirements you're talking about. You mentioned recertification for a couple of them specifically, but the the wildlife certification, I'm wondering, especially because it's points based on homes and schools and things that are outside of our control. Do we just have to keep up the education outreach or do we have to maintain a certain number of points to be recertified over time? Kind of what are we getting ourselves into as far as keeping track of people's yards and school stuff? Great question. So typically, sometimes whenever you register, you're registered for about 10 years. I think schools, it's about that certification for them. The habitat lasts about three years. And so for a lot of these, we would not be going after these individuals to recertify or remit those certifications. National Wildlife Foundation, they will actually communicate with those individuals and make sure that they're keeping up. But my understanding is that once you meet those community level points, you you are no longer. That's no longer the focus. The focus is maintaining the education because there are different educational components to it, to where you have to be have, you know, a group that you're meeting with. You have to be doing so many workshops. You have to be doing so many things in areas which I would like to note that we're pretty much doing all of those requirements already. The thing that we need to do for this program is basically get that community buy in. But it shouldn't be an on taking of once we sign up, now we're going to have to continually be on citizens to maintain their certifications since those certifications last so long. It wouldn't necessarily hurt for us to send a email or a flyer or something to our folks who have contributed to our score every so often to make sure they're keeping up. But you're saying we don't take on any additional responsibility for maintaining a score over time. No. And my understanding too is once you meet that level, it should be the amount of education that you're doing and should help you maintain that community score. But I don't believe and I will double check with them. But after you have obtained that community score, you're then trying to maintain the amount of education. Got it. Thank you. Councilman Meltzer, do you have any guidance? You got it. So thanks for bringing these forward. There's definitely pluses in getting recognized for what we're already doing. I see positives and almost kind of from an economic development point of view, like just to brand that these are things that we do. And they're positives from an education point of view and awareness. I'm interested to know what would lead to actual improvements in these areas as part of participating. There's a little irony in if we seek recognition from the National Wildlife Foundation while we're destroying habitat at a great clip. So I mean, that's just sort of that was one that sort of jumped out at me like, you know, it would almost be ironic. So my question to you is for each of the areas, could you describe where by participating we would make actual improvements in wildlife habitat, energy conservation, or energy efficiency and bird habitat? Yeah. So I can go through some of the advantages of each of these programs. For instance, lead for cities, a lot of the advantage is going to be in the improvements in measuring and benchmarking. So that is really the purpose of that program is to measure your sustainable actions. And so we'll have more benchmarking capabilities through that program. And those that's also beneficial because those benchmarks we can then compare not just to our community, but also to other communities that are participating in that program. For National Wildlife Federation, that community that program, it'll allow us to have better support for wildlife habitats in our communities. So instead of just focusing on what we're doing at the municipal level, we'll also be able to get buy-in and have citizens in their own homes that are meeting certain requirements to create habitats. So to become a certified habitat, you have to, there's three different areas that you'll have to meet with that program. So, and that's based on, are you providing housing for animals? Are you providing food? Are you providing water? Are you using organic practices? So citizens will have to meet those requirements or schools or whomever signing up for that program. Those are the requirements for those habitats. And by getting more members to sign up, we are ensuring that we're having more local habitats for animals within our community. And then for Bird City, Texas, that does have requirements that make sure that you are creating habitats for birds. So I've got the requirements pulled up here. So some easy things that we could is, it requires that we develop areas that are specifically designed for migratory birds. Now we could enhance areas that the city already has, or we could decide to take a habitat that we have and update that so that it's for migratory birds, but it requires us to maintain those areas and habitats that are safe for birds. So both the National Wildlife Federation, as well as the Bird City, Texas, have requirements that we maintain habitats for animals and pollinators and basically any living organism, organism in Denton. That's a great response. I have two other brief questions, Kiwi, if I could keep going. Sure. We're going to hit them pretty quick. Yep. Okay. Is there a cost from, is there any reason why we wouldn't just say, sure, do all three? Or is there some kind of a cost in terms of staff time? You know, should we, or do you have any suggestions like pick one? Definitely. Cost is pretty minimal for both the National Wildlife Federation program, as well as Bird City, Texas, they're pretty much application fees, which are both under $500. Again, the National Wildlife Federation is $100. I can't remember what the Bird City one is, but it's pretty low cost in the scheme of things. It will require some staff time, but again, a lot of these things are practices we're already doing or could easily implement into the things. And they may even be things that we're already working towards. So for both of those programs, I would say the amount of staff time required as well as cost is pretty, pretty low on the spectrum. But with Lead for Cities and Communities, if we did not receive that grant, I could understand why that cost can be fairly high in the scheme of things since it does run between $10,000 to $15,000. However, there is staff time. It would be pretty low on staff time. There would be some training. So I would have to get back to you on an estimate of how much actual staff time we would have to utilize to maintain that process. But I do think that if we were to receive the grant, it would be well worth it. Thank you. And then my last point is just a comment that if we have people participating in the habitats, wildlife and/or bird, rather just as a sort of communication spin, rather than a follow up to say, are you still doing it? If we had the resources to communicate with those people, I would think positive reinforcement would do the trick. Continuing to thank them for doing it and giving them tips. Here's what to do at this time of year. So I think the positive reinforcement would keep them engaged. But thanks, that's all I have. Okay. So it looks like the committee is, from what I can gather, in favor of going forward with all these three. I just want to have a few comments and a question. So the National Wildlife Federation was brought forth to us by a community member a while ago. And so I'm really glad that we're going forward with that. And I wanted to say, you know, we have TWU and UNT when it says schools, we have universities that are already committed to doing these things, I think would make really great partnerships. And then we have our sustainable schools program with the ISD, which can also help with the school aspect of it. My question would be, is there any code changes that we would need to make to allow homeowners to do this, to provide this type of habitat in their yards? I think we need to look at that and see, you know, if we need to have a little asterisk, you know, if you're doing this and maintaining this or have the certification you're allowed to, you know, not mow or... At this point there, earlier in the presentation, there was, I mentioned there was already 71 habitats in our community. So there, technically you would not need to change the code for people to create habitats in their yard. This is already something that the code allows for. Okay, perfect. The next comment would be for Bird City. I think that's great. And I know, I noticed lately there's been a campaign for Lights Out. Is that part of this? And is that for like the high flyers that we're not looking towards? Or would that be something that we could look into? I know that I put in a request after I saw it that Dallas was participating. Is that part of this? That's a great question. And yes, there it can be. So in each of those sections, there's criteria that you must meet. However, they give you about like 10 to 15 options and you have to choose four or five of them. Lights Out is one of the options and one of those criteria. So that is something we could opt into through this program. However, it's not a requirement that we have to opt into it. Okay. And so I guess as this comes back to us, we'll be looking at things to opt in, opt out, how we want to participate. Okay, perfect. And then the last thing I wanted to talk about was the LEED certification. If we do that and we're recertified, is that public information? Can someone come onto a website and look and see how we're doing as a city? Yes. They can go on to the LEED for cities and communities and we should be able to make our dashboard public and they can see where our numbers are and then compare us to other cities. Because I had a similar comment to Councilmember Metzler on economic development that goes along with our sustainability strategy. And if somebody is looking to move to Denton and can research that and see how, you know, really good we're doing, that could be a benefit to us to have that. So I would, I would like to see us go forward with, with all of these things. All right. All right. Well, thank you for that. And so we will go ahead and move down to the D management reports. Dr. Banks? Yes, that is me. Good morning, everyone. We have two very quick items. I'm sorry. Sorry. I know. I just saw apologies. Yeah, I'm still getting used to it. I need Paul's shirt. Good morning, everyone. I just have two very brief items. The first is a brief report from Catherine Barnett and Elizabeth Ruiz concerning Soul Smart. We were designated under this program under bronze. We've now moved up to silver. And so just want to bring that to everyone's attention. We also received a special recognition for the permitting side because of the number of points that we had increased in that particular area. So kind of two awards there and one, so to speak. Catherine's here if anyone has any questions on that. And then just want to point out very briefly our matrix. We have finished the item number three, which is the Soul Smart report that we just provided to you. And I did want to point out that the Sustainable Advisory Committee is slotted for October 13th at the full council. So that will be going forward next week. And that's all I have. Okay. Yes, sir. Yeah, I thought we could go ahead and take two and three off. Those were mine and they're doing just fine. Did anybody have any questions about either of those two? I just want to know if the beard is because you're a short timer. No, sir. I had it before it was a short timer. Thanks for asking though. Well, while you're here, Dr. Banks, I do want to say thank you for your service and let you know that we appreciate all you've done for our city and all the information that you have brought to us when requested. You've been very beneficial and we've appreciated you very much and wish you well on your next journey. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate it. I don't know where we're going to find 10 people together would know as much as you know. Thanks. That's very kind of you to say. All the knowledge that you had. Yes. So stay near a phone for a while. I plan on doing that. I will. Thank you so much. And so we will move to our concluding items really. Well, we're actually ahead of schedule. Good job, everybody. Does anybody have any concluding items? No, no, I just I would like to have an update on our green business program sometime going forward. Other than that, I think we're good. We're good. All right. So if there's no other questions and we can adjourn at 1003, everyone, thank you so much for the presentations and join us today. Thank you.