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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCFE minutes 040819 Attachment 1 Orange County Commission for the Environment Meeting Summary April 8, 2019 Southern Human Services Center, 2501 Homestead Road, Chapel Hill Present: Bradley Saul (Chair), Jeremy Marzuola (Vice Chair), Bill Ward, Will Stanley, Kim Piracci, Matt Crook, Jody Eimers, Laura Doherty, Jim Eichel, Lynne Gronback Absent: Bill Newby, Alan Parry, Carrie Fletcher Staff: Tom Davis, Brennan Bouma 7:30 Call to Order— Saul called the meeting to order at 7:30. Additions or Changes to Agenda — Staff informed the group that Kim L. had accepted an employment offer and would be finished working for Orange County prior to the next scheduled CFE meeting. Approval of Draft Minutes from March 11, 2019. Bill W. made a motion to approve the minutes as written. Matt C. seconded. Approved unanimously. CFE Activities Update: The Chair discussed the recent BOCC work session for advisory board and commissions he attended at which he updated the BOCC on issues that the CFE is working on. The Chair also recently attended a Solid Waste Advisory Group (SWAG) meeting. Among other topics, the SWAG discussed forest management and tree policy issues. The Chair then led a discussion updating the list of Activities that the CFE members are interested in working on as compiled on page 2 of the CFE meeting agenda. This included some discussion of forest management policy in the area, including the collaborative conservation group that has been meeting, as well as other interested groups. Brennan B. provided an update on efforts related to the completion of a Greenhouse Gas (GG) inventory. Bill W, reported that he had received some GG info for the Co-Generation plant that is operated by UNC-CH. The two current draft resolutions that CFE members have been working on are not ready for the CFE to consider at this time. Brennan also updated the group about the anti-idling campaign: Brennan has delivered anti-idling signs to local schools as well as a draft letter he created after he updated the information in the Attachment 1 letter on health impacts, benefits of riding the bus, etc. Kim P. reported that Alan's wife is working with local school boards on Climate Change education efforts in local schools. Bradley provided a reminder about the upcoming Earth Eve event in Hillsborough on April 26th, as well as the on-going DEAPR photo contest. Jody E. reported on the forest management policy development effort which OWASA will embark upon in the near future initially through various public information events. Rights-of-Way Committee Bradley led a discussion of his draft memo to the BOCC requesting the support of the BOCC in creating a proposed Rights-of-Way Committee. This group would be composed of interested stakeholders and would be tasked with improving conditions for the growth of native species in right-of-way areas within Orange County. This effort was an outgrowth of the recent effort by the CFE to improve management of roadside wildflowers in the county. Bradley read the draft memo since public Wi-Fi is not operational this evening. Matt C. asked if there are other municipal governments that have attempted something like this. Bradley indicated that he was not aware of any other efforts that are similar to this one. Bradley reported that he recently met with others involved in the Collaborative Conservation Group, including staff from the NC Botanical Gardens. This group discussed possibly identifying a 5 or 10 mile stretch of road in Orange County to use as a model for the development and implementation of roadside Best Management Practices. Jeremy M. made a motion to approve the draft memo which was seconded by Kim P. and followed with unanimous approval by the CFE. State of the Environment 2019 (SOE 2019) Update Staff led a discussion of the ideas developed by the leadership committee for the group to work on this evening, and how the group should proceed. Drafts of almost all of the SOE issue pages have been uploaded. Some pages could be improved by the addition of timely, relevant data. It may be helpful for the authors of each issue page to compare their draft pages with the original template and determine if their page is missing any suggested information, or to see if there is something that may be missing, redundant or unneeded in their draft pages. Jeremy M. reminded the group to consider reviewing the 2014 version of the SOE for data that may pertain to the current draft pages, especially local data that potentially could be updated by our intern, Andrew. The original template for the SOE was for each issue to be two pages, with a maximum of 300 words for the body of the issue. Jody asked about graphs, maps and whether or not staff could help with developing these items for her page. Attachment 1 Bradley reiterated that it is important for each author to make sure their page reflects the message that they are trying to convey before the senior editorial committee starts to review each of the pages. 8:12 Committee Breakout Session The three Committees met to collectively review their draft issue pages and to consider if there was data from the 2014 SOE that could be updated and then included in the 2019 report to strengthen the draft issue pages. 9:17 Adjournment — Jim E. made a motion for the CFE to adjourn, which was seconded by Jody E and unanimously adopted.