Environmental Sustainability Council

Falls Church Environmental Services Council Thursday, March 15, 2012 7:30 - 9:30 pm Magnolia Room (Level G), City Hall MEETING AGENDA 1. Call to Order 2. Public Comments 3. Approval of Minutes (February 2012) 4. New Business Members may propose topics for discussion 5. Old Business, Discussion items LEED Silver and TJ Addition LEED Silver as City Standard Update on Watershed Management Plan Update on Legislative Agenda 6. Informational Items 7. Other Business 8. Set Next Meeting 9. Adjournment  ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES COUNCIL Meeting minutes for March 15, 2012 ESC Council members: Bill Schellstede (Chair), Peter Adriance, Sarah Bayldon, Tim Stevens, Ray Arnaudo, Peter Oppenheimer (three positions currently vacant). All members were present. Allison Lohrenz is the City Liaison, and was present. Meeting called to order at 7:35 (adjourned at 9:05). Minutes from the February 16, 2012 meeting were reviewed and accepted. New Business: We discussed a number of initiatives to improve our knowledge of local environmental issues of interest to us. Two “Green Home Awards” were made at the March 12 City Council meeting by Doug Fraser. Given our lack of knowledge about this program, Tim volunteered to invite the architect for these two homes (Andrew Moore of Arlington Designer Homes) to our next ESC meeting to enable us to understand what is involved in meeting the City’s criteria for this award. Peter volunteered to obtain information about a program in Vienna (VA) called “Watt Watcher.” Ray will pursue more information about how neighboring jurisdictions inform their citizens via water bills on relative home water use. Peter agreed to collect and share information about a website called “DSIRE” which lists applicable credits and rebates for various energy saving appliances, etc. Peter Oppenheimer has agreed to find web resources on energy efficiency and compile a list of these resources. Old Business: Re LEED for new buildings. Bill updated the group. This issue is on a fast track, as Council requested guidance at the March 12 meeting on implementing a policy specifying LEED certification for new municipal and commercial buildings. Regarding the TJ addition, there is much we do not know regarding whether LEED certification is possible, and if so, what it will cost to achieve LEED or LEED Silver. ESC members continue to support a policy that all new municipal buildings achieve LEED Silver, and that all new commercial development be encouraged to achieve at least LEED Silver. Having a known policy will avoid having LEED come into focus late in a project’s development cycle. Bill will coordinate a working group involving ESC, Planning Commission, and Economic Development Authority to work on a policy for submission to Council. Re Watershed Management Plan: Bill explained that Council adopted the plan proposed by City staff. In effect, it is a vision, and funding for individual projects will still need to be adopted. There is continued uncertainty regarding TMDL requirements for our City, how they will be enforced, and how proposed watershed expenditures will satisfy them. Re Legislative agenda: Tim reviewed ESC involvement this past year. We provided Council last year a list of environmental topics for which we favored adoption of state legislation. For this year, we discussed developing a much shorter list involving perhaps two or three items of legislation. We will attempt to coordinate support for these items with neighboring jurisdictions (individual ESC members can select a jurisdiction with which to communicate). Informational items: Allison described a meeting scheduled for Monday March 19 where members from the EPA will discuss an idea they have for developing a smartphone application for educating people about watershed issues. Virginia Tech and the Virginia Dept. of Forestry are working on a program for mapping tree canopy in jurisdictions including ours. Legislation was passed recently that would eliminate the mandatory requirement for developing and submitting Municipal Solid Waste plans to DEQ. Minutes submitted by: Tim Stevens