Environmental Control Advisory Board Meeting

ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL ADVISORY BOARD MINUTES OF September 21, 2022 Item No. 1 being: ROLL CALL The Environmental Control Advisory Board of the City of Norman, Cleveland County, State of Oklahoma, met in a Special Session at the City of Norman, in the Executive Conference Room, Norman Municipal Building, 201 West Gray Street on September 21, 2022, at 5:30 p.m. Notice and Agenda of the meeting were posted at the Norman Municipal Building at 201 West Gray, 24 hours prior to the beginning of the meeting. MEMBERS PRESENT Sara Bondy Deborah Cretsinger Courtney DeKalb-Myers (Vice Chair) Lainey Phillips Benjamin Baranowski Nathalie Rocher Bob Nairn (6:25) MEMBERS ABSENT Dane Heins (Chair) Thomas Fightmaster STAFF MEMBERS PRESENT Michele Loudenback, Enviro. & Sustainability Manager Rachel Croft, Utilities Staff Engineer Jerry Gates, Environmental Services Assistant Manager Item No. 2 being: INTRODUCE NEW MEMBERS & GUESTS Chris Ward, Cleveland County Conservation District Michelle Chao, Stormwater Program Specialist (via phone) Bob Nairn, Professor at OU who focuses on water quality and natural infrastructure. Item No. 3 being: APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES OF August 17, 2022 MEETING Bondy made a motion to approve the August 17, 2022 minutes. Phillips seconded. There being no further discussion, a vote was taken with the following result: YEAS Sara Bondy Deborah Cretsinger Page 1 of 5  Courtney DeKalb-Myers (Vice Chair) Lainey Phillips Benjamin Baranowski Nathalie Rocher NAYS None The motion passed by a vote of 6 to 0. Item No. 4 being: DISCUSSION OF YARD BY YARD PROGRAM WITH SPECIAL GUEST SPEAKER, CHRIS WARD, CLEVELAND COUNTY CONSERVATION DISTRICT Myers introduced Chris to the group. Chris started off with explaining to the group that the Cleveland County Conservation District is a Sate subsidized agency that is 100% funded by the State of Oklahoma. Chris’ district is Cleveland County. Their main job is to “take care of Oklahoma’s resources”. They started off in Norman as being mostly agricultural but are approximately 75% urban now. On the urban side they do a lot of outreach, workshops, and programs. They have 19 outdoor classrooms in Cleveland County, majority being in Norman with the Norman schools, the others being in Noble and Moore. They have a teacher training course called “Grassroots” where they educate the teachers to think outside the box; instead of taking the lesson and their books and taking the class outside, they educate them on how to take the lesson and use the objects in the outdoor classroom such as measuring the tree for Math. Background on the yard by yard program, it was developed by the conservation district association, the OACD. The OACD along with the state office, Oklahoma Conservation Commission, has funded the Yard by Yard program and they asked if Cleveland County would like to be involved and they said yes. The OACD informed her directors that unless they were willing to pay the Association dues then they could not be a part of the Yard by Yard program. The OCC told them that they could not afford that so they authorized Oklahoma County to come into Cleveland County and do the Yard by Yard program. The OCC board had no problem with it and allowed them to do it. On the legality of districts, they do not have the authorization to send one district into another district. The OCC did not protest because they were excited about Yard by Yard and wanted to see it take off. The state gave the OCC additional funding and told them that it would be their new allocation from now on so the first thing the board did was pay those dues so they could be Yard by Yard participants. Yard by Yard is Oklahoma based and currently serves 5 counties that are participating. They were told that there are rules to follow but other than that to make it their own. The Oklahoma County focused more on clean water and soil health. The OCC, being Conservation District, focus more on water conservation. Yard by Yard gives a way to promote and encourage and highlight the people who are doing what they can as well as educate and encourage others to think about what they are doing and how they can make changes in their own yards ultimately helping out ecosystem. Croft was about to ask about the pesticide free and Ward explained that they HAVE to be pesticide free. Cretsinger explained that the original concern is, will the program be held to the same standards? Ward questioned the standards and Cretsinger explained the 5 checks in the 3 categories. Ward said yes it will be, that is a requirement. Ward said that the more signs they get out there though the more interests that might get peaked. Ward explained that she has a meeting with the HOA who is interested in being a part of the Yard by Yard program. Cretsinger said that was great news since a lot of people are held back from participating because of the requirements that the HOA’s have, such as maintaining their yards which requires pesticides. Ward Page 2 of 5 explained that if they can get a few more volunteers she is hoping, eventually, if the applicants come from ECAB, she can essentially leave it in their hands because she has more areas to focus on since she serves the county. Cretsinger asked if the applications go through Ward and Ward said yes they will all have to go through her because that is one of the rules the OACD has, it has to go through the local district. Ward explained that she would like to see more water conservation so she has sent that request to the state coordinator for approval to add more water conservation and be stricter about water usage. Croft asked if they are promoting it. Ward said yes, they have a Facebook page. Loudenback told everyone if they wanted to volunteer they could let her know and she will let Ward know and connect them. Myers asked how many applications she had for Norman that are incomplete. Ward said none. She would like to do another big push on Facebook and if ECAB is on board and would like to co-sponsor the Yard by Yard program, she would encourage them to do a big push as well. Loudenback said if that was something they would want to do it would be like the inserts that they have done in the past. Ward hopes to eventually certify churches and businesses. Item No. 5 being: DISCUSSION OF MONARCHS IN THE PARK AND ANY POTENTIAL INVOLVEMENT Loudenback explained that they have plenty of vendors and do not need ECAB as a vendor but if they want to they are more than welcome to come. She told them that she could desperately use for volunteers to assist the vendors as well as Loudenback. She explains that Sara Dykman who did Butter-Biking will be speaking at the event Loudenback explained to everyone that Butter biking is where you ride your bike with migrating butterflies. Sara rode her bicycle all the way from Mexico to Canada back to Mexico with the Monarchs. Loudenback listed all the vendors as well as what they are doing. Bondy volunteered. Group decided that they will not do a booth for this year’s event. They will consider participation for next year. Item No. 6 being: DISCUSSION OF MAYOR’S CLIMATE PROTECTION AGREEMENT SUBCOMMITTEE FORMATION Myers asked if anybody had any updates. Cretsinger said that she went to the bicycle advisory meeting. She said that there are huge improvements with lots of stuff happening. They are doing a bike trail from Jenkins to Classen. They will be doing another one all along Flood from Robinson to Tecumseh. They also have bike lane recommendations that they are making to planning and transportation. Cretsinger asked them what they would like for ECAB to recommend to the mayor and their response was that they need more staff to work on alternative transportation, education, opportunities, that kind of stuff. They need more people because they can’t get as much done as they would like to get done. Cretsinger asked them what the status was on the Highway 9 trail and he told her that was ODOT and couldn’t give a status update on it since it has nothing to do with Norman. She has not gotten in touch with ODOT to ask. The other thing they wanted was some improvement on alternative transportation on game days. It was asked if they had any ideas and Cretsinger said she wasn’t sure but maybe make more busses available. Loudenback stated that in regards to the bus thing, they have a great transit manager and is working to make bus routes more efficient and to get more space covered and they are seeing it happen. Cretsinger is going to the tree board meeting as well. Phillips said that her main thing was the recycling and she thinks they have addressed it. They will have more options when they get the new company to be able to hopefully recycle more material and to potentially get businesses involved as well as schools. Page 3 of 5 Rocher is meeting with someone from the NADC in a couple weeks. She also contacted planning and will resend her an email. She also contacted the chamber of commerce and has not heard back from them. Phillip told Rocher that she knows a ton of people from the Chamber so if she needs her to make that connection she is more than happy to do so. Baranowski reached out about Greenhouse Gas Emissions inventory and his best bet is to use the OU intern. Loudenback let everyone know that the intern is too busy and cannot do it so she reached out to the OU Geospatial leader and asked if they might have someone that would be interested and she said yes, she believes that she does have some that might be interested. Item 1: Inventory Greenhouse Gas Emissions Ben, Courtney Item 2: Adopt and enforce land use policies Nathalie, Sara, Bob Item 3: Promote alternative transportation Deb, Courtney Item 4: Renewable energy and energy efficiency Nathalie, Sara Item 5: Sustainable building practices Ben, Sara Item 6: Municipal fleet vehicles Dane Item 7: Efficiencies at water and wastewater plants Tom, Bob Item 8: recycling in city operations and community Sara, Deb, Laney Item 9: Maintain healthy urban forests Nathalie, Deb, Laney Item 10: public education of environmental disciplines Dane, Courtney Cretsinger asked about Plan Norman and Loudenback told her it still has not been accepted. Cretsinger then asked if it was still out there and Loudenback said yes. Cretsinger asked if it was in anyone’s radar or is it just tabled. Loudenback said it is tabled. Item No. 7 being: DISCUSS OF UPCOMING EVENTS  October 1st they will be planting the William Morgan Pollinator/Rain Water plants from ten to noon at the William Morgan Pollinator/Rain Water Garden as well as a clean-up.  October 2nd is the Monarch festival from noon to four at Andrew’s Park.  October 30th Lake Thunderbird workshop and clean-up event from one to four at the state park.  November 12th foam collection event with the Churches caring for Creations at the HHW facility from ten to noon. Loudenback stated that they finally have a recreation coordinator at the lake which is huge because they can partner with them and do more activities at the lake. Loudenback believes that they will collect the glass at the clean-up event and in November try to do a glass ornament workshop with them. Item No. 8 being: MISCELLANEOUS DISCUSSION None Page 4 of 5 Item No. 9 being: QUESTIONS FROM THE PUBLIC None Item No. 10 being: ADJOURNMENT There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 6:30 p.m. Passed and approved this _____ day of ______2022. _____________________________________ Chair, Dain Heins Page 5 of 5