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HomeMy WebLinkAboutNatural Resources February 26 20021 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 DISCLAIMER: This document contains the Whatcom County Council or Committee minutes, as approved. However, unless an attested signature page is attached, they are not the final approved minutes. WHATCOM COUNTY COUNCIL Natural Resources Committee February 26, 2002 The meeting was called to order at 11:00 a.m. by Committee Chair Dan McShane in the Council Chambers, 311 Grand Avenue, Bellingham, Washington. Present: Set Fleetwood Sharon Roy Also Present: L. Ward Nelson Barbara Brenner Laurie Caskey- Schreiber Committee Discussion Absent: None 1. SPECIAL PRESENTATION BY GEORGE BOGGS, WHATCOM CONSERVATION DISTRICT, ON THE AGRICULTURE, FISH, AND WILDLIFE PROCESS (AB2002 -112) This item was withdrawn and will be rescheduled. 2. SPECIAL PRESENTATION ON THE CURRENT ACTIVITIES OF THE AGRICULTURAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE (AB2002 -132) This item was withdrawn. COMMITTEE DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATION TO COUNCIL 1. DISCUSSION AND DIRECTION ON WRIA MANAGEMENT PROJECT SCOPE OF WORK (AB2002 -085) Bruce Roll, Water Resources Division Manager, stated he would discuss this item, the Utah State University (USU) technical study scope of work, and the next item, the Parametrix scope of work, concurrently. He handed out the scopes -of- work at the previous water resources work session. These are the two major contracts that are left before the completion of the first iteration of the Watershed Management Plan. The USU technical study is the most difficult to understand. It is that portion of the plan regarding the best available science -based decision making Natural Resources Committee, 2/26/2002, Page 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 DISCLAIMER: This document contains the Whatcom County Council or Committee minutes, as approved. However, unless an attested signature page is attached, they are not the final approved minutes. system. It is a continuation of the work on water quantity, water quality, instream flows, and fisheries habitat. The outcome is the development of the decision support system (DSS), which is a computer -based modeling system that will help evaluate management options. The management options would be fed into the DSS for the watershed plan development. This is the science -based piece. It is the culmination of USU' s work. USU has been through two phases of work. This will bring that work to conclusion. The other piece is how they meld the science into the Watershed Management Plan. A request for proposals (RFP) went out to seek consultants for writing the plan, doing the associated environmental impact statement (EIS), doing a social economic analysis, and helping to facilitate and triage the many management options that need to be incorporated into the plan. This is the fifth version of the technical studies plan. Through the versions of the plan, the associated costs have escalated from the original estimates. The USU costs escalated anywhere from $200,000 to $300,000. The Parametrix plan escalated a similar amount from its original estimate. A two -day meeting with USU and Parametrix defined what exactly needed to be done between the two organizations to craft the plan. There was an enormous amount of work for a month or two. Staff met with USU and Parametrix, and the two scopes of work were developed. Both documents are going to the Planning Unit for approval tomorrow night. He needs Council direction on supporting or not supporting these documents. These are as close to final as it gets. They are still trying to resolve some comments in both scopes -of -work that will find their ways into the final documents. They would not be changes in scope. Nelson asked about decision - making planning processes. Utah State University identified many possible courses of actions. To do that, they need to have criteria that the decisions will be based upon that are important. He asked if the Planning Unit will identify high - priority criteria. Roll stated the Watershed Solutions Subcommittee is charged with doing that. He will provide copies of the criteria the subcommittee developed. It's an ongoing process. Nelson stated the criteria would be important as they apply this to the decision - making process. Roll stated all Planning Unit and staff team members are involved in refining those criteria. Sue Blake, Resources Planner, stated examples of criteria the subcommittee considered had to do with legal, technical, environmental, and economic /social considerations. Nelson asked how the criteria are weighted. Blake stated she is not sure that they are weighted. The group is in transition trying to use the criteria. They have learned that they need to run examples through the criteria to see if it really Natural Resources Committee, 2/26/2002, Page 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 DISCLAIMER: This document contains the Whatcom County Council or Committee minutes, as approved. However, unless an attested signature page is attached, they are not the final approved minutes. works. At last week's meeting, the group used possible management options and ran those options through the draft criteria. The group realized that it needs to do things in terms of phasing how they are used. Another version will illustrate that using the criteria will involve a multi - phased process as they take the universe of management options and narrow them down to see if they need more technical evaluation. Nelson asked if the Planning Unit could decide to weight the criteria. Blake stated the Planning Unit is given updates on the criteria. Brenner asked if there is a record of the Planning Unit and other meetings. She would like to receive those meeting minutes. Blake stated that will be easy for staff to provide. McShane asked where EDN13 is located. Blake stated EDN13 is water resource inventory area (WRIA) -wide to look at temperature, nutrients, pesticides, and other water quality parameters. USU said they will get a fuzzy answer to these issues WRIA -wide, because data is limited for many of the parameters. They are trying to focus on areas where they will get higher resolution, such as the south fork of the Nooksack River for temperature and the lower Nooksack River for fecal coliform. McShane asked for the rationale of nitrate modeling. The financial impact is huge. It's expensive. Blake stated the technical team supports moving forward with it, because nitrate is a key groundwater concern. The modeling will provide better guidance on appropriate management options. All modeling efforts are an attempt to identify management options that will provide the most improvements by targeting the correct activity. McShane asked if the fate and transport nitrate modeling is essential in what they are trying to achieve in the WRIA. He is unsure about supporting that activity. He questioned whether it is that essential. They certainly don't want to have nitrate contaminated groundwater anymore. He questioned whether it is something the State Department of Ecology (DOE) should do, along with the farmers who have to make decisions based on dealing with the application of manure in their fields. Those who are across the border are also dealing with it. Blake stated the DOE isn't currently proposing to do any kind of modeling. They are represented on the water quality technical team and have supported moving forward with it in the WRIA process. There is work in British Columbia related to this nitrate modeling, but it's not quite the same. The key difference is that this is not just developing a model for fate and transport. It is also integrated into the decision support system (DSS). Public water systems have expressed concerns because nitrate is tough to treat. Concentrations are high for a number of the systems, and the public water systems deals with it from a public health perspective. It is definitely an issue for them. The idea was that it would feed into the DSS and enable them to look at the kinds of management activities that a Natural Resources Committee, 2/26/2002, Page 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 DISCLAIMER: This document contains the Whatcom County Council or Committee minutes, as approved. However, unless an attested signature page is attached, they are not the final approved minutes. farmer may do to result in the most improvements in nitrate concentration in groundwater. They will talk to folks in British Columbia to coordinate activities. Brenner stated the documents that she's receiving are too technical. She can't support something if she doesn't understand it. Staff could bring forward a summary of each section in layman's terms. She wants to know what she's supporting. Roll stated there is no executive summary of this stuff. At this point, the document has been written for the project team, which will use it to go forward. Others have expressed this concern. This is extremely complicated and complex. It is difficult to break down into smaller pieces. Even he is relying on the counsel from his staff to know whether this is going to meet the needs of the March 2000 scope of work. Brenner stated the Council has no business approving what it doesn't understand. Put together some process to let the Council know what is going on. Nelson stated the process is confusing. This is going back to the Planning Unit. He wants to hear what the Planning Unit thinks about this. The Council is in the position of having the dollars to make this happen and is also a participant in this process. He's looking at whether this is the type of thing they need to have as part of the WRIA process. They could have discussion on that issue. Then they have to look at whether they want to spend money toward understanding nitrogen loading in groundwater at this time. There may be information the community may have that is not in there. He's hopeful that they've covered most of it. The other part of the process is that, once it goes through all that, it will come to the Council as part of the process. He asked how they measure the effectiveness of these. He needs to weigh the results against the criteria. Roy agreed with Councilmember Brenner. She questioned whether there are issues that the councilmembers are not getting because they don't understand it. It makes her uncomfortable to approve something she doesn't understand. She asked about the peer review panel, and whether the members have technical backgrounds. Roll stated they do. They are reviewing this scope of work. The products that come out of this process will go through the independent peer review process. It is a peer review group made up of technical people who will explain to the Planning Unit what their opinion is. The Planning Unit will share that information with the County Council. It will be technical information. The current peer review members were selected by the Planning Unit and mutually approved by the initiating governments. Fleetwood stated he kind of understands what the documents mean, but there must be some way to give the Council a basic primer without putting an enormous burden on the staff. Roll stated he doesn't know that they can put together a summary soon. Caskey- Schreiber stated the Planning Department staff, for example, will go over what is being asked for, give their opinion, and discuss the reason for their Natural Resources Committee, 2/26/2002, Page 4 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 DISCLAIMER: This document contains the Whatcom County Council or Committee minutes, as approved. However, unless an attested signature page is attached, they are not the final approved minutes. recommendation on an issue. Something like that will be a tremendous help. Staff could provide its perspective. She has no background knowledge to interpret this information. McShane stated there are many issues the Council will face that it doesn't understand. It comes down to how they make their decisions, and if the Council trusts its staff. The Council has put a lot of faith in its staff so far. Roll stated the staff role so far is to facilitate this process going through all the entities, and to make sure that process is maintained. The meetings are occurring consistently, and the summaries are there. The question is where the staff would step back to draft clear briefings for the Council. Brenner stated this is the first thing in her 10 Y2 years on the Council that she is completely out of the loop on. She's concerned that they are focusing so much on the process that the concepts are being left out. She has a hard time believing that this is so complicated that it can't be translated for the Council. The County should financially pace itself better, especially if the County is that far ahead of everyone else. It is also difficult for her to get past the $700,000 overrun. If there is not buyoff on this because people don't understand it, there won't be support to make it work. Staff will have to figure out a way to make it uncomplicated. Roll stated the issue is whether or not they can do that now, in a timely fashion. He agreed that this has to be broken down so the constituency can understand it. They are not there yet. Brenner stated maybe this is a good time to slow things down and reevaluate things. They are getting fixated on the process. Somehow, they need to pause and come at it a different way. McShane moved to recommend approval of both scopes -of -work, with the exception of the groundwater quality section, to the full Council. Brenner stated another option is to advise the Planning Unit to pause to learn to understand this. She won't be able to support this at this point. Postpone this until the councilmembers get a better conceptual idea of what they are moving ahead with. Fleetwood asked if it is conceivable that the other caucuses could vote to approve the scope -of -work if the County Council caucus abstains from expressing its opinion. Roll stated there are two venues for approval. One venue is as part of the Planning Unit, which is exclusive of the tribes. Another venue is the Joint Board, from which the County Executive seeks approval with County Council direction. This decision deals with the Planning Unit meeting tomorrow night and also a Joint Board meeting scheduled for the day after tomorrow. Historically, the process is that an item goes through the Planning Unit. If there is Planning Unit concurrence, it goes to the Joint Board for their concurrence. Then, the administration would create the contracts and administer the project. Unanimous Natural Resources Committee, 2/26/2002, Page 5 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 DISCLAIMER: This document contains the Whatcom County Council or Committee minutes, as approved. However, unless an attested signature page is attached, they are not the final approved minutes. support of the Joint Board would direct the County Executive to execute the contracts. Roy asked how a delay in this would affect the schedule. Roll stated they have a mutually- adopted goal to be done by June 2003. That schedule would be affected. A delay is not usually for a few days, but is a week's or month's delay because of meeting schedules. Brenner asked what would happen if they delay for a few months. (Clerk's Note: End of tape one, side A.) Blake stated the Planning Unit has to adopt the management plan to meet the June 2003 timeline. Otherwise, there are State funding issues. They have received $600,000 at this stage to assist with the project. The State has been clear that June 2003 is when it expects a finished plan. The dilemma is that both of the consultants have backtracked from that date and identified all the things that are tightly scheduled now. Brenner stated she has been told that Whatcom County is ahead of every other county. She asked how other counties would meet that deadline. Blake stated the other counties have the same deadline. Brenner stated the other counties would have to request a good faith extension. Meeting that deadline is not a good enough reason for Council to give approval on something it doesn't understand. Caskey- Schreiber suggested moving forward today, with a synopsis of this material and its goal. Nelson stated the Council doesn't have to be afraid of these scopes -of -work. The Council needs information before it makes decisions. The councilmembers have to find the information necessary to make their decisions. It's hard to make decisions without the criteria. The Council will come back and look at those criteria later. Those criteria will be more important for policy- making than any of this. When he went through the section on nitrogen, he asked if this is information to use to better understand the effects on pollutant loading, particularly in Portage Bay. He asked if there is a correlation of data with nitrogen loading and fecal coliform. If the information helps him to understand the impacts to Portage Bay shellfish protection, which can be correlated to all of the natural environment protection, then it might be something worthy of doing. Blake stated she is not a modeler, so she asks questions and USU provides the answers. The surface water quality modeling is supposed to provide insight into these questions. One of the goals of the technical effort is to take a look at things and ask questions that will help them understand those things. Natural Resources Committee, 2/26/2002, Page 6 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 DISCLAIMER: This document contains the Whatcom County Council or Committee minutes, as approved. However, unless an attested signature page is attached, they are not the final approved minutes. She will see about what happens with the nitrate modeling. One option is that the scope of work is written so they will have a check point in June to see if they got where they need to go at that point, and make any necessary modifications to the scope. There are some unanswered questions, and they need to use the scope in working with Parametrix. They have built in a stopping point to see if it is getting them to where they need to be. That would be another place where the Council can be involved to see if this is making sense. McShane restated his motion to recommend approval of both scopes -of- work, except the groundwater modeling for fate and transport of nitrate in the USU scope -of -work. Roy stated she wanted to vote no based on the principal of having a clearer summary. In terms of respecting the staff's work and seeing the process move forward, she wanted to vote yes. Fleetwood agreed with Councilmember Roy. He's inclined to be supportive, but he has the same concerns about understanding the information. He doesn't have any reason to be concerned about Councilmember McShane's concern. He doesn't have the substance to know to be concerned about that issue. He moved to amend the motion to approve the scopes as they are presented. McShane accepted as a friendly amendment Councilmember Fleetwood's motion to withdraw the exception. Roy suggested a friendly amendment to move forward to the full Council with no recommendation. McShane did not accept Councilmember Roy's friendly amendment. Motion carried 2 -1 with Roy opposed. OTHER BUSINESS There was no other business. ADJOURN The meeting adjourned at 12:05 p.m. Jill Nixon, Minutes Transcription Natural Resources Committee, 2/26/2002, Page 7 DISCLAIMER: This document contains the Whatcom County Council or Committee minutes, as approved. However, unless an attested signature page is attached, they are not the final approved minutes. 1 ATTEST: WHATCOM COUNTY COUNCIL 2 WHATCOM COUNTY, WASHINGTON 3 4 5 6 7 Dana Brown - Davis, Council Clerk Dan McShane, Committee Chair Natural Resources Committee, 2/26/2002, Page 8