Citizen's Environmental Quality Committee

April 3, 2023 Citizens Environmental Quality Committee Winona, Minnesota 55987 Dear Committee Members: The next meeting of the Citizens Environmental Quality Committee meeting will be held on Thursday, April 6th, 2023 at 4:30 p.m. in the City Council Chambers at City Hall. 1. Call to Order 2. Review of March Meeting Minutes 3. Community Garden Update (5 minutes) 4. Boulevard and Park Tree Data (20 minutes) 5. Earth and Arbor Day Events (5 minutes) 6. Other Business (5 minutes) 7. Adjournment Sincerely, John Howard Natural Resources Sustainability Coordinator CITIZENS ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY COMMITTEE MEETING NOTES DATE: Thursday March 2, 2023 TIME: Scheduled for 4:30 pm in the City Hall Council Chambers PRESENT: Sadie Neuman, Madalyn Bollig, and Dan Hall GUESTS: STAFF: John Howard 1. Call to Order: Call to order at 4:38 PM by Dan Hall (Chair). 2. Review and Approval of Jan. 2023 Meeting Minutes: Motion by Sadie, 2nd by Madalyn. Approved unanimously. 3. Community Garden Update: John stated the East Rec Garden is registering gardeners and scheduled to be open for use on April 1st. The preliminary plan for the West side gardens is to split them between West Lake Park and Madison Park in raised planters to trial the idea. There is still a plan to have a public meeting to discuss the West gardens. 4. Air Monitoring Information: Dan attended an EPA webinar session on community multi-scale air monitoring stations. Their system is a model based on data collected at monitoring site, and is rather complex. Parameters evaluated are ozone, acidification, and pollution among others. A fun fact is that lightning is a large source of NOx. Trees and plants produce isoprene and terpenes that can impact air quality negatively. The model is applicable to almost any area. Industrial emissions and accidents are a major source of some air pollutants. Sadie has looked into industrial releases, and some are serious in the Winona area, and would like to see the public notified when this occurs. Dan said sometimes the community can observe a release before the company even knows. Sadie has a number of other resources on air quality. Sadie wondered about community sampling, and if that was part of the session? Dan did not recall that coming up. Dan got the impression that it is more a general forecast rather than understanding the direct conditions at a local point. Dan said the webinar recording is online if others wanted to watch it, and see if it would be applicable to Winona. He found it to be a worthwhile presentation. 5. Other Business: The City will be participating in an EV Smart program about electric vehicles. The CEQC is welcome to attend in interested. Sadie asked about the focus of the trainings. John said the specifics need to be determined, but generally it is about how a City can be involved in electric vehicles. Dan asked how the City is doing with EV fleet vehicles? John stated that many City vehicles appear suitable to be replaced with EVs, but none have been. Sadie asked how the City evaluated EV suitability. John explained that using data trackers in the data port, they got data on 20 vehicles. Generally total miles traveled was low, so well within the EV range. However, police cars are probably not a good fit since they  are always in use, so lack the downtime to recharge. Sadie wondered if the Police Dept. would use hybrids? John said hybrids can be a 30% increase in miles per gallon. 6. Watershed Game: The members and staff participated in a watershed game practice round with Sadie facilitating for the duration of the meeting. 7. Adjournment: Motion to adjourn by Dan, accepted by acclamation. Adjourned at 5:38. Notes prepared by John Howard.  CITIZENS ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY COMMITTEE AGENDA ITEM: 4. Boulevard and Park Tree Data PREPARED BY: John Howard DATE: April 6, 2023 The Community Forestry Corps member, Abby W, will be presenting a summary of the urban tree canopy and ecological value of City trees. .  CITIZENS ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY COMMITTEE AGENDA ITEM: 5. Earth and Arbor Day Events PREPARED BY: John Howard DATE: April 6, 2023 On April 15th, there will be an environmental board game session hosted by local Climate Action Corps AmeriCorps members at Jimmy Jam’s beginning at 5 pm. This will include the watershed game. The City will be hosting a booth at an Earth Day event sponsored by the Winona Arts Center and Bluff Country Co-op on April 22nd. Any and all are welcome to attend. A flyer of the event is attached. 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