City Council - Committee Of The Whole

okay I'll bring us back here uh we have had a request from our legal department to change the order of the agenda in order to discuss the second executive session item and that's potential litigation at the beginning of this meeting and to extend that item from 10 minutes to 15 minutes and ISO move second motion has been made by the chair and second by council member Huffman any discussion seeing none all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed extensions motion carries 70 uh we will now adjourn to Executive session for 15 minutes to discuss potential litigation we will return at uh 2 o' thank [Music] you [Music] I'll be back at uh 211 to uh either resume uh the meeting or to add more time thanks [Music] call us back to order here okay let's continue on our next uh committee meeting is committee of the whole uh we have a couple of items before us here this afternoon the first one is expectations of City advisory groups the mayor's office has initiated steps to manage advisory groups more consistently across the city create clear expectations about this important work and enhance the overall experience of volunteering for advisory committees first step is to establish and communicate clear expectations of All City advisory groups and their individual members especially regarding key expectations established by City Charter and state law this is intended to focus um of today's item for uh information and discussion and here to take us through as Janice ker interim Deputy

Administrator good afternoon as we stated in the agenda bill um we're this is our first step to create clear expectations as we um try to get our arms around boards and commissions and other named advisory groups across the city um the document included in the packet was just the first step to establish clear expectations both of the advisory groups and City staff Staffing The Advisory groups um I I wasn't intending to go through line by line but hoping for uh Council feedback we took the document to the mayor's neighborhood advisory commission for feedback and um got strong support from that group um I've checked in with a couple of you and we circulated among City staff who are responsible for advisory committees um on the whole I've gotten feedback that this will be a helpful document as um our staff work with groups on the next level of work which is fine-tuning bylaws and establishing um how these groups work together with City staff and the and the community to do the city's business um I put this together with the legal department and some other folks and so I invite um City attorney Alan Mariner to jump in as well and um I would say questions comments warmly welcomed ready questions counc member Anderson then list thank you um not so much questions but I'll have a a request but first thank you for putting this together um I have served on a city commission and um I think these are pretty clear guidelines I think um there's a lot of positive aspects to this I really

like that um you know the opening statement volunteer members of these groups um being varied perspectives and lived experiences for city leaders to consider while making decisions I think there's some really good highlights in there about um what our hope is um there was one thing that I kind of as I read through it multiple times there's one thing that I kind of felt was missing and I didn't know where best to put it and I'm not necessarily saying this is the verbiage uh but I took a a swing at it um one of the things that I enjoyed about being on the Planning Commission wasn't necessarily directing staff telling them what to do or developing policy but being able to have um some input where we would you know once a year we would say what are some of the things that we would like to look at or something would come up and we would make suggestions and staff um they could say we'll take a look at it resources and sometimes those things did come forward and so I would like that to still be the ability to be able to have that level of input so if you look at um bullet point number three I kind of thought that might be a good location for it to go in currently and I can email this to you so that you have it to really look at but number three states advisory groups issue recommendations not decisions and I agree with that then it says they should not provide direction to staff or create or administrate administer policy programs or Services could also agree with that but with a

slight modification I think we still get the intent but also leave the door open to be able to make suggestions that could be accepted or not so if we change that to um advisory groups issue recommendations not decisions while advisory groups may suggest to staff areas within the scope of the group's responsibility they would like to to explore they should not um direct staff to create or administer policies programs and services so it leaves it open that they can suggest it but also acknowledging that they're not directing um staff so I don't know if anybody else has that thought I can email that so people could look at it if staff and legal and the mayor thinks that the intent is worthy and that this might hit the mark I would love for that to be incorporated um and I had one other but I could wait in case somebody else wants to hit a spot could I could I speak briefly to that one I think that's an important point and I would appreciate it if you emailed it if you've got it written down I would say that we also tried to get at that sense in the I should have numbered these in the third bullet under expectations of the city Y which says work with group leaders to set and publish timely timely agendas work plans and meeting minutes and it's in the work planning that I think there is an opportunity for that kind of collaboration and and that that doesn't just have to be once a year um but but I think that's where advisory groups and and their staff kind of come together and

talk about what are we going to look at what are the important things that fit in with the purpose of a particular Advisory Group that together we decide to move forward and and I agree with that I just also thought it was kind of important under the expectation it's a green light yeah that uh committee or commission members can point to that it's an expectation that they could make suggestions but also on the staff side is that there's the consideration of those uh uh suggestions to would be an important balance between the two great thank you C member loquist Williams well first I only heard your suggestion once Lisa but I I I I if language isn't perfect it's pretty good um and the sentiment is especially good um I have want to talk about use of language but I can come back to that I want to talk about I think a more substantive point which is on the half having to do with the city um it didn't kind of it wasn't as positive or big or encouraging as I wanted to see the first bullet point Point gets the closest where it says the uh expectation of the city is to provide leadership Direction administrative support to help each advisor group achieve its established purpose purpose somehow was flatter than I wanted it I wanted something more like to support their success um I I just wanted to have stronger language in there that were invested not just that they you know do their job achieve their purpose but something a little bit stronger than that so if we could work in a

wordlike success ESS um because I'm thinking of of The Advisory Board that's sparked some of this um maybe they did their job you know in a narrow sense but I think they weren't as successful as they could have been there could have been more that came out of that group to us to policy makers but instead it was it stayed too internally focused and and didn't didn't progress far enough um and and that was sort of a sense a failure didn't achieve kind of escape velocity or you know take flight so I would like to either add another bullet point or look look at language for improving that to put a kind of a higher obligation on the city to make sure that there's not just meeting the purpose but doing something more like success great thank you for that feedback I I hear that uh council member Williams um Janice thank you for this I as I read it um I don't have any any concerns about the wording this um one one of the um as I read this I was really impressed that this is being addressed to all of the advisory boards not just one or two but all of them and um and it kind of lays the foundation for a successful experience as is said in the uh bottom of the of the top of page 176 to facilitate a successful volunteer experience I was um very impressed with the way it was laid out and I think it basically addresses the needs of the committee and each committee Works differently obviously or each board I know the ones that I meet with the staff and the board have a very collaborative

relationship and I believe that each board should have their own operating um operating standards and operating bylaws and figure out how they interact with their assigned staff people and that should be left up to each committee um so I was very very appreciative of the broad application for this now the following work is going to be by each committee to come up with their own set of rules and how how they're going to operate with their assigned staff people I don't have to regulate that from here at least that's how I feel I can I trust each committee will come up with their own operating procedures and that will be germine to their work yes so that's that's the intention so thank you thank you Stone then uh little Quist then Anderson then cotton so my first question is just with respect to the choice of the word impartial so I see it on both um in the expectations on the side of members as well as the city it states to be impartial professional and respectful um and so in just in thinking about the varied perspectives and lived experience and right the different perspectives that are coming to table on particular issues I was just curious I guess about the choice of the word impartial and what that meant to the to the city please um I think to answer your question council member Stone a little bit and it piggybacks on the sentiment of council member Williams not just the work that will follow after this will be an opportunity to redefine bylaws within each um Advisory

Group but I also think it's an opportunity for each Advisory Group to have the conversation within their group what words like that mean to them and we can provide facilitation for those conversations but each group can come together and say what does it mean to be respectful to one another and you know there are organizational development professionals and facilitators that lead that work all the time for groups um and organiz ganizations and I think we should facilitate those kinds of Rich conversations so that each group has that opportunity to have a shared understanding about what words like that mean as they engage with one another followup so just briefly and I completely agree and support the idea that there will be um I guess above and beyond we at the um top of the list yeah respectful dialogue and expecting that people will come from um different perspectives and I guess it was just specifically about um impartial in that if we're looking at um different issues coming forward to me impartial is when I don't know sometimes we're put in quasi judicial roles or other senses right it's like we can't be you can't have an opinion um or make a decision before seeing all of the right evidence or data or whatever that may be um and so to me and I understand what you're saying is that you know each individual group could look at that further I just don't want that to inhibit the richness of sort of the diversity and if people are bringing forward a perspective maybe in the

end they will change their mind I know it's been highlighted in some of the other groups I think it might have been with the Broadband work group right where it's like people may have came to the table sort of entrenched in their position and over time moved um but if you're asking people to come to the table initially um sort of with a blank slate to to begin that work I can see the importance of of that but just not wanting that to um to communicate to people that their um I guess individual perspective or diversity is going to be um inhibited in any way so thanks Council membera question um I want to talk about the language not to get too caught up into it but first of all I I appreciate you're flagging the word impartial impartial often means you kind of take yourself out of the picture but on Advisory Group we kind of want them to bring themselves in the picture so maybe another word in that place might be like open-minded open to other people's ideas is I think we're looking for that you don't come in with your point of view uninterested in other points of view so maybe open-minded or something like that um might capture it um I think we should even though it's not a legal document I think we should stick with should and shall because those are really clear what they mean there's language in here which may sound like it's a Prohibition may not but may is actually a funny word it's permissive and suggestive you may not want to order the special a day the butter chicken

is really good you see how may not isn't actually a Prohibition that isn't actually how we use that word a lot so I've gone through and I've changed all these to shs and shs and I can show it to you um we had a Community member bring that up because they they were worried that we had shells where they shouldn't be shells and I think in one or two cases they were right I think a few of these actually should be shoulds they're things we strive to and other things really should be shs you're really not there to self deal or benefit yourself with a special privilege that really you should we should have language like shall not in other P should have should so I have I've replaced all the other languages like must and may with shoulds and shs and I can share that with you um and I do that not cuz I'm trying to create a legal document but because I think we want some clarity and because should and shall have such recognized meanings I think we're on safe territory if we try to use one or the other of those when needed council member Anderson thank thank you I only have one other word so um under the the section for um these are the expectations of the city to facilitate uh bullet point one it says provide leadership Direction and administrative support um looking for that yin and yang between partnership Direction sometimes doesn't leave it to be directed is often being told what to do um I really like the word guidance that they're going to provide guidance so um perhaps provide

guidance and administrative support to help each Advisory Group leaves that a little bit open that it's a partnership um guidance is a good way to come in and say this is the things that we can do whereas direction is more like the must like I'm going to tell you what you're going to do and so to me I I tend to withdraw from the word um direction to be directed is uh more authoritative than I would want to necessarily see in a partnership so that's my only other flagged word that makes me think it could be changed and no more thank you super helpful um and you know you all know me you know me as someone who thinks that words matter a great deal so I appreciate your feedback um about the concepts and the words thank you for this really positive step and um and so my my one question might be about how we see this playing out or being used with her Advisory Board um so it be something people sign or or how how will this take on life in our organization um and then I also just want to flag that I think this is really good at establishing the container of what an Advisory Board is but doesn't necessarily maybe elaborate as strongly how we want them to impact City governance right how we want them to meaningfully um do their work and so um I don't know if this is an appropriate document to think about that but um so just that comment and question and thank you again council member cotton if you had specific um language suggestions about kind of codifying that especially in The

Upfront kind of the little Preamble section if you sent that to us we'd be happy to consider that yeah Council M I'm going to acknowledge council member hman um go ahead thank you um also want to thank the administration and Janice in particular for this document um I've been a part of a lot of boards as we probably all have and um one of the things that I've notice makes a board successful or not as successful is a really strong Foundation of expectations and I think that this gets at the heart of that and is one one aspect uh I I really appreciate all the wordsmithing that's happened I think everybody's had a great suggestion I think also to um council member C council member Cotton's point is how this will be used and just a a broader question of onboarding our Advisory board members and again that making that Foundation really solid um that when we're onboarding um board members we are we're we're implementing this foundational work um so that those boards are successful as well Council mstone so one of the follow with respect to Staffing on the city Side I know that it's not clearly stated here it mentions provide members a designative staff contact within the city for questions and or concerns and I didn't see it highlighted anywhere whether attendance at meetings whether that staff member would be in attendance or whether staff member attendance was um in some way required right or whether the The Advisory Group was able to meet in the absence of a city staff member so

um that was one piece just to bring up and then also sometimes I see a difference between a city staff member who may just right handle the logistics and take minutes versus a point person at maybe another level within the um organization to help um yeah Foster that that worker relationships so yeah I I would recommend that a staff person to be there there may be variety reasons but just to keep the meeting moving there's a record that needs to be maintained uh I'm just not aware of us having Advisory board or commission meetings without staff supporting those meetings go I agree I agree and so I was just highlighting the fact that in those um the city responsibilities or expectations I just didn't see attendance um noted so here I would also add as a followup to one of the lines of inquiry that you had um the intention is that if you are serving as an advisory member you have a clear understanding if you have a question or a suggestion you know who on City staff to call who is your dedicated person um that you are able to reach out to for clarification or questions or concerns so we want to make sure that that's that's clearly defined and understood so as part of the rollout process we'll make sure everyone has that understanding Cil R Anderson I did think it was the last but it was the last of the word smithing but I did have a question um on the page uh 176 the B the bottom Point number 10 um members may not represent any Advisory Group unless give an Express direction to

do so by the majority vote of the group I'm assuming maybe in the bylaws it will help Define that a little bit better um my only concern would be is if it's a 10 Person Advisory Group and we're down to four members and then there's three who vote that somebody can go to Olympia and represent Bellingham or something that it may not be a a true uh majority based on available positions not filled so anyway I just wanted to make sure that that that question is addressed maybe here if it's appropriate or um through some clarification of what you mean by majority or that it'll be in the bylaws um because I want to avoid issues yes so I would expect that to be in the bylaws defining what is a quorum meaning what is a when can you have the meeting and when do you have decision when can the Border commission actually make decisions thank you okay committee for questions consc member soon last one I think sorry um so my last question was regarding so the last bullet under the members expectations it references the identified appointing authority with respect to appointments and I wasn't clear if there a reason why that didn't simply State mayor because I believe under the charter it was saying that appointments and removals were by the the mayor um but I know that also and it may be separate from this document you know we have appointments the appointment and a removal is by the mayor but sometimes it's the action is confirmed by Council and sometimes it's not and I've never been clear

on when and why and how that happens I know it's outlined in the establishing ordinance and that makes it so um but I was curious you know if the administration if that was something the administration may look at as well as at this time while we're reviewing sort of all boards and commissions um if there there's a Rhyme or Reason to when Council confirmation is required or not I've wondered about that myself but I think it's just a matter of when the ordinance comes forward creating you know that section of the code and creating that border commission um whether either the mayor or Council feels like the council wants to have confirmation uh Power on the appointments um so and I've never in we've created a number of boards and commissions uh since I've been here and there's never really been discussion of it it's just who's writing the ordinance and whether they think it's appropriate for Council confirmation C question early in my tenure we did actually uh go through this Mr Webster at the time tried to write down all the boards and figure out Rhyme or Reason and didn't find any and it just wasn't considered a heavy enough lift but frankly I would love to regularize that I think there's no reason not to have almost all of them be confirmed by the council it's not an arduous step um I think there's very few where Council involvement is not appropriate I maybe there are some that are more purely administrative but I think few um but I would put this down at the bottom of our

to-do list okay committee further discussion okay seeing none this item was for information discussion only uh mayor I just wanted to say thank you to all of you for this very helpful conversation will'll take and synthesize all the feedback that we've heard here we've received a few additional emails from members of the community we'll take all of that into consideration and really this is going to be a helpful tool for all of our advisory groups that um foundational believe that clear expectations we've heard it actually from some of you who have served on advisory boards or commissions here that that that Foundation of clear expectations creates the framework for success and I know that the um as we roll This Out across the city um it's going to be a helpful tool to the newly you know formed Water Resources Advisory Board this will be a helpful tool for Greenways um as we pick back up the IAB this will be a helpful tool it will be a helpful tool for sister cities I mean the list goes on so um I really appreciate your feedback so thank you thank you mayor okay seeing no further discussion I'll move on to the next item this is the post point in biosolids emerging Technologies on September 12th 2022 the city council affirmed the mayor's decision by motion to Halt further work on biodigestion for Waste solids handling uh being handled at the post Point sewage treatment plant recommendation of the mayor was based on affordability concerns greater protections of the Salish sea

and focusing climate Ambitions on achieving CommunityWide carbon reductions during the August uh 29th 2022 and September 12th 2022 meetings preceding this decision staff shared that efforts would be refocused on rehabilitating existing facilities and improving air emission controls staff also uh committed to considering or the consideration of emerging Technologies and the potential for on-site pilot projects staff issued a request for proposals late summer 2023 and we'll report on the current status and next steps related to potential emerging solids uh handling Technologies and here to take us through is Eric Johnson from public works thank you Mr Hamill Eric johnon Public Works uh as you are all aware before we start on this agenda ball agenda Bill uh the city did receive a notice of violation last week from the Northwest clean air agency uh we are working with our Rel this is related to the incinerators uh we are working with our legal team and Regulatory experts to understand exactly what that means for us and what our best course of action is from here we will continue to keep you all updated as more information becomes available in this matter we take it very seriously uh very seriously we are evaluating it carefully and we will act as necessary to uh do what we need to do presentation that you're going to hear today is talking about solid handling uh and in parallel to this uh we are continuing to work to argument our existing infrastructure including the incinerators

so with that we're going to talk a little bit today about the emergency technologies that we talked about with the idea of pilot projects down a postp point and we'll kind maybe put this a little bit into context when the decision was made to bring the previous project to a close staff interpreted the the direction was to a couple of things one was find solutions that do not reintroduce pfas back into the environment so the way that we hear that is destroy pfas so solutions that do not destroy the pfas were not much of interest to our community and that's so we that's been at the Forefront of our of our thinking as we were thinking about these potential for Technologies the other the other takeaway that the staff had is was that we are not going to consider digestion in this part of a process for solid sand L and I would hope that there's an opportunity to have a conversation about that at some point uh staff's position has been for many years that digestion will be beneficial to regardless of the solution on on how we deal with uh the end and result of those solids whether it's whatever that solution might be that digestion will likely be beneficial in some form to that process so uh the solutions that we're talking about today uh some of them do deal with pfas in terms of destroying them or Le the that's their that's their that's their perspective as the as the vendors uh none of these Solutions include digestion we have continued to hear proposals or ideas or or or

concepts from other other uh entities if you will or or project proponents that would uh report that digestion might be a beneficial thing to consider uh but at this point staff is under the direction to to not consider digestion to not consider digestors and to find solutions that do El eliminate PFA so as Mr oler goes through our presentation today just want to have that in the mindset of where staff is thinking is that digestors are not on the table and we want to find solutions that in fact remove pfas from the waist stream so with that Mr oler thank you good afternoon Council Mike Olinger assistant director of Public Works operations on can you hear me okay uh briefly today we'll we'll cover a history of incineration and biosolids at post point we'll talk about the hand the solid handling pilot program talk about the RFP overview the submittals that we reviewed and and how we scored them and next steps as we as we look at this uh emerging Technologies so brief history 1973 primary treatment was established at the plant uh in as well as incinerator 1 was constructed during that that initial project 1990 to 1993 we added secondary treatment at the plant and also added incinerator number two 2014 we had a secondary upgrade and the liquid stream upgrade was completed but we did not do anything to improve the solids handling portion of the plant at that time deferring those costs and trying to keep costs as low as we could Mike hang on I I failed to mention that that the

presentation that Mike's going through is different than the presentation that's included in the council packet uh we did provide a copy to the council earlier we did provide a Cy to the clerk so that will be in the minutes as it comes out but there'll be differences if you're watching from home or or in the audience that this presentation is different than the one that's in the packet thank you Eric uh 2017 we began a 5-year planning process to replace that that was focused on four four areas replace the incinerators focus on resource recovery support the climate action goals that had been established and advanced an Anor robic digestion based solution then came the major question where will bile solids ultimately end up at as well uh in 2022 we we looked at affordability in September of 2022 mayor Fleetwood with concurrence with the council stopped the digestor project due to multiple factors that included affordability and pfas and the emerging contaminants of concern through our process of developing this over the 5 years we were considering a triple bottom line plus criteria guided decision-making all equally weighted amongst the four areas this process resulted in the selection of temperature activated digestion producing a Class A biosolid as as the selected technology to meet our long-term solids handling needs around the same time we started looking at and we started receiving information about nutrient reduction that was going to be coming from Department of ecology

uh these competing regulations with nutrient removal requirements that were not known at the initial planning during the triple bottom line digestor process increased nutrients which would increase the cost of the nutrient removal project as part of the larger solids handling project and when we look at those cost we were we were looking at about $200 million to do the nutrient removal project if we were still doing incineration if we moved away from incineration to digestion we were estimating those costs to be around 400 plus million doll and and just to remember that as we looked at that the the digesters were just a small portion of the overall replacement of the entire solids handling system which includes all the thickening and piping and transportation of the solids throughout the plant then emerged pasas or per and polyfloral alcohol alcohol substances why do we care as you'll see on the slide here it says there are over 5,000 compounds actually today we know that they're over 15,000 compounds and that number grows every day uh both the community and Council expressed to staff that they do not want us to reintroduce pfas into the environment this desire directly affects the ability of to to land apply biosolids so if if they're in the waist stream and we we put them into a Class A biosolid they stay in the Stream and they're reintroduced into the environment there's some indications that that temperature above 1200° will break down Pas fases but there's still a lot of

concern about this assumption as we look at the the cost comparison for for moving forward with resource recovery and digestion at the same time you'll see on the slide here um staff presented this cost comparison to council and and the resource recovery project with nutrient removal compared to maintaining the incinerators over the 15year life of the of the incinerators was nearly double so we were looking at about $1 billion cost if we move forward with resource recovery to to implement neutral removal as well whereas if we stayed and maintained the incinerators we estimated that cost to be around 540 million versus the 1 billion pathway forward catch up on on correct deferred maintenance needs um at council's Direction in September 2022 the New Path forward was taken extend the life of the current incinerator process investigate future solids handling processes by conducting smallscale pilot tests and research of emerging Technologies this included us visiting multiple sites and attending numerous uh conferences all focused around biosolids handling and and what pfas are doing in our biosolids why pilot the pilot test RP was released worldwide on August 3rd 2023 when the RFP was released we notified all technology providers that we are aware of that this was being released to seek input from these technology providers RF RFP closed on November 2nd we want to be clear so we've had a lot of input from from some of the Technologies we want to be clear that if you did not

respond to the RFP that does not preclude you from participating in whatever project the city selects in the future there there's been a lot of concern from some of our um some of the technology de developers that that we didn't extend the RFP for another six months we put it out for months in the first place some of them needed more time to get permits and to get copyright information so that they could bring their technology from Australia or from Europe to America and not lose those that that institutional knowledge or that that creative knowledge the RFP asked four things the type of processing and the proposed technology the ability for that pilot technology to be used at postp point and the types of V beneficial products that could be created from the process as well as the the cost associated with that and through all of this staff's presumption in all these Technologies is that if pfas are not removed or destroyed we are not pursuing those Technologies so four responses from the the RFP one from 374 water one from bioforce tech one from canell soil farms and one from sedron Technologies although we reached out to multiple gasification providers none of them subm submitted on the proposal or interested in having conversations with us um again I want to stress that any technology that does not show potential for removal or elimination of past has not been pursued first off 374 water super critical water oxidization traditionally there are three states of water solid

vapor and liquid super critical water oxidization is the fourth state at Super critical conditions in the Pres the presence of oxygen organic are rapidly converted to water inert solids gases and reusable heat what comes out of the process is water carbon dioxide and minerals they do claim to destroy chemicals of concern but there is more studying being conducted industrywide on the effects on past at high temps while many believe pasts are destroyed increasing concerns from the industry is that pfas are not destroyed but they are converted to a new different forever chemical that we do not have the ability to test for at this time currently there are no active plants utilizing 374 water they do have one system that's being installed in the United States but it is not operational yet next sub midle we had was from bioforce Tech biof Force tech is paralysis paralysis uses a form of thermal conversion where it Heats or burns the sludge without allowing oxygen to come into contact this leaves behind a high carbon biochar they also claim to destroy chemicals of concern but again I want to stress that there is a lot of um concern in the industry as to whether this is true or not bioforce Tech has one plant in Silicon Valley that the planning team has visited and this plant is also a pilot test that is only treating a small portion of the plant's uh flow next the middle was from conell soil Farms conell soil Farms uses a uh aligned Lagoon technology what conell solil Farms proposed

was that they would uh truck our 6% sludge to Eastern Washington uh place it in lagoons and then ultimately land apply it to uh row even know what it is it's like a fibrous bamboo that is converted into paper um so again conell soil farms land applied bi solids we have not entertained this as a viable technology lastly sedron Technologies best described as a thin film dryer they have a plant in suar Washington that the planning team has visited they expect to produce a Class A biosolids but do not treat for p pasas so the pasas and the Sledge will remain in the solid product coming out and primarily they are land applying that product currently so therefore we are not considering sedron Technologies as a viable technology all the evaluation team the the evaluation team evaluated all four submitt the process were different and in the way they treat the sludge and the product that are left after treatment so we we tried to establish a fair way of evaluating all four submittals because they are very distinct and very different um costs were also evaluated in this process and and range from about 570,000 to about 9 million the costs were not exactly Apple to Apples to Apples so the team evaluated the the test as a six-month pilot so even though a respondent said we're only going to do this for a month but it costs us $10 million we extrapolated those costs out to to come up with the average cost if we were to do the pilot for 6 months next steps so staff is recommending engaging

in discussions with continuing to have discussions with water with 374 water for the 202 6 and 2027 pilot test um continue con conversations with biof Force tech um even in biof force text response to the RFP they recommended to us that we don't do an on-site pilot that we actually come to their existing pilot and they said if we want to have someone there for 6 months to watch it run and do whatever um it's extremely expensive for that technology to be deployed as a pilot so so even they are recommending not to to do our own pilot so we continue those conversations with biof force and continue to look at the viability of that technology and then continue to investigate emerging technologies that do actually destroy past and continue to monitor that science as it develops the team will continue communicating with Edmunds as they are still in commissioning of their new gasifier once commissioned they will be the only Municipal sewage treatment with a gasifier online in the US they were expected to have their gas of fire online by February of 2020 2022 but as of today they are still working on completing commissioning and the plant is not operating continued next steps plan for funding and 2526 budget for pilot testing of the 374 Waters application uh continue to in uh involve Council and also reach out to the Water Resource Advisory Board in the future we're hoping to bring this to that board by the end of this year or early next year to start having the those conversations

about what that might look like and continue participation in state and National PFA testing part of why we in guest investigating the pilot testing opportunities is that technology is changing very rapidly and the available science on biosolid processing is changing nearly daily and with that we will take questions ready counc M hman then list thank you um so in all of our conversations about pfas um certainly one of the the things that comes up is eliminating pfas from our environment and that perhaps eliminating pfas from the source is the most effective way um to eliminate them from our environment in our considerations in our plans moving forward do we have an estimate of if and when um there will be regulations to eliminate pfas from the source and in other words how long will we be dealing with these waste water forever they are called Forever chemicals and they will be present forever to be to be blunt um I'm not seeing any motion by the federal government to take a class ban of the chemicals you know like like was done with pcbs and led at various points in time right the the way to remove pcbs from the environment was to ban them as a class of chemical and we are choosing not to do that when it comes to pfas so the the EPA will be regulating in the near future uh limits in our drinking water for pfas which prevents an interesting question right so if we're continuing to produce pfas and use them in consumers and having them in products and our things that we all

have here right now uh those PFA compounds will be present in the environment and now as a waste a water provider not simply a Wastewater provider will be obligated to control and manage and remove the pfas from our drinking water so I I'm not it's not a very positive message to deliver but I'm not seeing I personally am not seeing a lot of movement at the federal level uh to to result in a band of the pfas nor but I we are seeing regulations that require us to deal with that increasingly at a municipal level squ um thank you very much Mike for the presentation um couple things well first I want to join you as a downer on this Eric the public I think needs to understand the reason why there's pfas in our sumage treatment is it's passing through our bodies that's how it gets there we are the source the approximate source of it getting in our Wastewater it passes through us to get in there so that's the nature of the problem um it's not like someone's dumping past in the sewer it's us um I appreciate going forward with a pilot approach um Mr Johnson you and I talked about this several months ago I'm in faor of the both and approach I don't think we have any reason to pick a pilot technology at this point I appreciate the idea of continuing to talk with the two highly rated ones um I'd like to understand why no one in the gasification industry responded are they busy are they uncertain um are is their technology uh also in flux uh or are they just uh beveled by uncertainty with

regard to the PFA compounds and the question about the so why is why is that not part of the both and formula right now I don't know if you could speculate on that for me yeah so we are in conversation with with plants that are attempting to Pilot gasification and I think that as a technology they've hit some walls and they've hit some barriers that that that they have not been able to over overcome so we are talking to some plants in Georgia and some plants uh abroad that are trying to get operational but but it goes in spurts so Steve Bradshaw our superintendent will have regular communication with the plant for a little while and then all of a sudden they don't want to talk to us anymore so a few months will go by we'll continue to reach out to them and try to engage with them and then all a sudden yeah we want to talk do you want to come look at what we're doing and then oh maybe not now so we're we're continuing to engage with with that technology but it's it's not really moving forward at this point in time and and we're not alone I mean this is as as Mr ler talks about going to some of the national conferences we we are sending our staff to those conferences and this is the topic of those conferences to the point where the water environment Federation which is one of the leading research entities in the country on this topic has created a new conference specifically to talk about this very narrow issue as it's dominating the entirety of that convers is what do we do

with our Wastewater and our Wastewater solids uh with pfas because the other thread that's out there is that the potential is that municipalities will be responsible as from a pollution perspective for those materials that we are discharging to the environment there's an element into the into the legislature to try to to give coverage to municipalities as a pass through entity right we didn't create them we're dealing with them on the backside does does the federal government give uh release of liability for the cities for dealing with those so that's also a top of conversation that's covering the Wastewater industry quite heavily these days ccil member Williams yeah just uh a point of in information that maybe you could uh give me um and maybe I just missed it you had said Edmunds was was going down a path and they're still not functioning could you give me some detail about a little bit or some well we don't be careful we don't want to you know blame EDS they have their challenge so Edmund's had an waste water incinerator let me ask it another way challenges what were certainly challenges and early adopters always face challenges right so Edmond made a decision to move away from their incinerator and and he invested heavily into a gasification system uh and and it's very complex system retrofit into existing footprint and a very very confined underground facility right and so as they've been working through those challenges what was anticipated to be online and operational

several years ago is not fully operational yet Edmunds has the luxury of diverting their solids to King County metros plant right so they're a little bit different than Bellingham but you know all projects kind of go south on everybody at some point and Edmunds is is is it will eventually make it work uh but the the idea that that a gasifier would be an quick and easy solution is proving not to be the case in edman edman situation uh and we we bring that one up particular because that has been a conversation in the past in Bellingham as to just do what Edmunds did and we don't want to do what Edmunds did okay thank you council member Anderson thank you um thank you for the presentation I know um this is going to be quite the process for all of us a comment was made and all of a sudden like red flags went off but as far as looking at our drinking water and the potential for uh limitations on how much p and knowing that what comes through US goes off to um our our treatment facility is there a way to remove past from water that um is economical and of it's what we're not doing correct the that's a very very many dollar question that's a million dollar question right we and and and in some of these cases there is a presumptive technology to do something and that those presumptions are based on testing for one type of compound okay of the 15 ,000 PFA compounds if the presumptive testing removed one does it remove the other 14,999 what do you do with the material once you have

removed that through some sort of filtering system where does that go now there are treatment plants under being constructed right now that have very high levels of past in groundwater and they are installing various filter systems a granular activated carbon type system a very very large Brit filters if you will that will remove those types of components um but that is expensive and where does that material go once you've removed it from the drinking water but I think we should remember that those plants are being built on the drinking water on the clean water side of things we're not seeing those plants built on the Wastewater side of things in order to make that work on the Wastewater side you'd have to go through some sort of tertiary treatment where you almost have drinking water coming out the back end and then put it through this this type of treatment facility thank you I was just wondering because I remember reading at some point you know ferndell having that goes into the river could almost be drank and I was like if we got to that point and then removed it but it sounds like it might even be more financially challenging than just dealing with the actual waste yeah and when we don't want to be the sky is falling here when it comes to pfas right I mean this is but we're trying to communicate that we're not unique in this situation and those those locations that have had to put PFA removal onto their drinking water have been in very very high concentrated locations so

in areas that were PFA generating operations such as a uh a military base that used firefighting foam for training purposes or Downstream of a 3M P facility right millingham is not in that situation our source of pfas in our community is coming from us as consumers and the products that we're using from our cortex jackets and our Teflon pants to our uh whatever products we're using uh that's The Source in Bellingham we don't have that same point source generation that's causing some of those locations to have to install those filtering systems but we also don't know what regulations they're going to set what that comes out to or a little question uh first a comment on moving pasas in water it's just a simpler problem to solve and there's a lot more optimism and a lot more technological options um so I think that that will be cracked first um I want to ask at the beginning you Eric seem to reopen the door or suggest we maybe should relook at biodigestion um as I understand it biodigestion has at least two positive at least two negatives uh first of all biodigestion can actually generate renewable energy that's a good thing uh biodigestion can actually reduce the the mass of energy needed for a next step if you're going to take those solids and do something good with them you've actually reduced the the mass the energy needed to do that next step uh the bad part is that um you can't just take it and land apply it so the easiest thing to do with it if it's a Class A biosolid all

wonderful nutrient it's just like a fertilizer put on your land that doesn't work that's the negative that's the one we've avoided and then but the main thing that that really sealed the deal for us is that it exacerbates the nutrient load so the biodigestion the way it recirculates the fluids some of those wonderful nutrients which if your plant might be nice but if you're dumping it into the the bay it's it's it's bad um and we are going to be required to stop dumping nutrients into the bay that final one the exacerbation of the nutrient load that's still a killer isn't it if we were to try to revisit biodigestion for those other positive needs isn't the nutrient loading problem still a deal killer for us or is there some other way of dealing with it that I that you haven't yet told me about that might might work so Mike and I will we'll tag team on this a little bit so decisions we make in in face of information that's presented to us at the time right um you know had I thrown on Third and long I might have won the game so when we as as the nutrient conversation occurs within the state of Washington and College says this is what's going to come we're seeing now that they're going to temper the expectation as to when those requirements would come into place so the cost will still need to be born at some point for nutrient removal from our Wastewater stream but the concern one of the concerns when we talked about the billion dollar number was that that was going to occur on

day number one so by putting digesters in at the type of digestors that we're proposing at the type of process we're proposing was going to trigger us to exceed a level that ecology was saying was going to come and that has now been tempered and that time frame will not be coming IM immediately but over a longer period of time so while the cost may still be there that would be amortized over many many years but we still have to deal with that increased nutrient loading whether that's coming from digestors or from whatever but digestors will inherently cause an increase in nutrient loading to the to the liquid stream of the plant that we'll have to deal with some at some point but it may not need to occur on day number one depending on what type of digestion we chose to put in the ground I still don't think that's good enough I mean all that says is that it's a billion dollar problem over 20 years as opposed to a billion dollar problem over 10 years is still a billion dollar problem it still seems like a killer to me it's going to be very very expensive to deal with our Wastewater and have the environmental responsibility that we want to have yes thank you any further questions okay thank you for the presentation appreciate it thanks dror Johnson we will now move into old and new business committee council member list yeah one of the things that we're asked to do now and again is just kind of report on some of our assignments um the mayor and Skip are on the WTA board with me

I'm passing around a one sheet that's based on uh watom Transportation Authority's sustainability report uh compiled over last year I thought you all might want to look at that uh this so the longer version are available on wta's website if uh the public is interested in it um I think it would be nice if the city could do something like this it won't be as easy for us WTA H is a simpler organization and uh has been able to Def find only a small handful of things to keep track of and measure uh much more difficult I think for the city and the fact that we also track the community as a whole not just municipal operations um but anyway I thought that uh both the public and the city council members who are not on the dbta board would like to take a look at the sustainability report so that's just an FYI uh for uh you and the community thanks council member um did you say that this is on their website I'm almost positive but I wouldn't I'm not sure if it's one pagers is available if a longer report is thank you other items for old new okay we're almost on time here um I've got a couple items just real real quick here one is I wanted to ask the mayor um regarding the executive order uh it's it's been getting some press and getting some inquiries and and such and um been talking to downtown business owners and employees and I just wanted to see if there's um any time in the future where there might be a way to measure responses and and um you know from BPD and fire alternate

response uh if that's kind of in the works maybe later this year um well we have weekly check-ins with both the chief and uh director Johnson so we're meeting weekly to talk about how are things going and measuring both qualitatively and quantitative what we're hearing right now and ultimately where that will lead is um to a formalization of what are the metrics how are we going to know what impact our actions are having and so what should we be measuring um is the active conversation that we're having right now so I expect to roll that out in a more public facing way here in the months ahead okay thank we're about 50 days in right now yeah yeah thanks mayor uh and then the other item I met with a leadership from um our local 106 which is our firefighters Union and um that person indicated to to me that the average amount of PF pfas since we're discussing that in firefighter bunker gear is about a pound which is astounding to me that our our Public Safety uh Frontline responders are that's what they have to work with because there's really not much in the way of PFA free bunker gear apparently there's some in Australia for some reason but I'm not sure what that's looking like so I'd love to get to the point where we vote on a purchase order to buy all new bunker gear for our our uh First Responders and in our uh beloved Fire Department chief I saw you come up to the table you want to if you have any words on that sure uh Bill hu with the fire department and yes as you were

all discussing the p and our waist stream here um it um as we were talking about you know how it gets into there part of that is every time I wash my uniform um the our daily uniforms all contain P in them to um as they're required by the state law to meet a certain standard at the national level our bunker gear every time we wash that we're you're getting past that comes out of um all the different Linings in our bunker gear um we have for the most part eliminated the use of the firefighting Foams that do that but uh yeah the bunker gear and the and our uniforms are still uh still an issue last year uh council did approve us uh to purchase some new Rescue gear that um we were looking at using on calls that weren't active structural firefighting um that were supposed to be past free but as you just heard from director Johnson I think um it is very hard to truly get to past free and so we've been uh we've had a lot of conversation going on um looking at um in fact we we yeah we were looking at that rescue gear as kind of an alternative while all the bunker gear manufacturers in North America try to find a way to produce gear that meets our national standards there is some gear in Europe and Australia I believe yet as you mentioned that that doesn't quite meet our national standards but looks like it's working and so we're we're hoping for something and as soon as we you know as soon as we have an alternative that we can all agree on that is um is that P free then you'll be

hearing back from all of us I'm sure um um that's the big problem right now though is that our and it's pretty complicated because there's a National Standard out there that's not a law but then our state law points to that National Standard and makes it a law uh for lack of a better term um and so we're just we're we're navigating that both on the uniforms and the bunker gear um and we yeah as soon as as soon as we have something more substantial where we can point to and say yes here's a product that we can buy that meets the state law and and roll out we'll be certainly coming back to talk more C for liist on Anderson first of all Dan I really appreciate your staying on this issue you're right to be concerned about it and I think you're right I'd love to be able to order past free uh bunker gear you said something very interesting though that it's not actually a federal law but there's a state law which points to a federal standard that is a window of opportunity it means that actually there is a potential cure which doesn't require Washington DC to respond but does require to Olympia to perhaps set some flexibility to achieve um if not absolute past free far lower past free and also still safe and effective as bunker gear am I right is there a possibility that if the latest stature rewrote that and set up an equivalency standard still a high standard but not the Federal standard and allowed local jurisdictions in Washington state to meet it could we have a local solution

that that um goes a little sooner than a national solution it it's definitely a possibility I I think there's a lot of attention and lobbying going on at the federal level though to get the National Standard just changed because I I mean this is clearly not a just a Washington problem um and and the fact that you know the both the International Association of Fire Chiefs and the International Association of firefighters so the the two biggest lobbyists for both the Chiefs and the unions uh are together on this trying to find a solution I think um I think it's coming I it's just really been a man a matter of trying to get the manufacturers here to Pivot I mean they other countries have already kind of shown us the way we just got to figure out how do we pivot that here well I guess I'm wondering is is it worth our time to actually work with our state legislature to create this allative pathway because as soon as one or two states has found a way to start ordering European on Australian gear I think we'll get movement and save firefighter lives across the country I I I'm a fan of little steps forward rather than waiting for the big solution do you think Olympia would be receptive to this is there some educ self-education going on in Olympia that you know of I would well I I know there's a lot of discussion at the State Chiefs and the state Council of firefighters which is the union version and so I'm sure um I'm sure there's been conversation I think they neither the group had

sought a change in the state legislation because they were hoping to get the federal standard changed um but it's probably a good question and in May I'll be meeting with our state Chiefs group and we can talk about that um yeah what what their plan is for lobbying for the next uh next session Council Merson thank you thank you for bringing this up it kind of ties into um a couple well I sparked a question when you um mentioned something I'll come to in a minute but I think that importance of us looking at L and and how we fund that because I've always been concerned about what our um litigation fund would look like if we start having more and more firefighters coming up with cancer um because tying that back to the P I think is just going to be something that potentially and unfortunately could open up um but when you mentioned that um you know their clothing and you know taking it home or not taking it home but washing it and then that's how it comes through the water system do they wash their stuff at the station or are they able to take their daily wear home because I imagine there's more past in that than um what's in your average gortex jacket and then I'm kind of concerned about that kind of weekly or bi-weekly wash and then other laundry going through there and that level of exposure that could be happening so if they are taking it home is it possible to look at a policy that they wash their gear at the stations so there's not co-mingling with um household laundry

where there could be an increased exposure so we do encourage that and we we have washing machines at every station and we encourage folks to wash their uniforms in the station um we haven't necessarily reach the point of making it a policy to ban them taking it home but we've we have encourage them and actually the noax manufacturers um regardless of the P thing encourage you to wash NX with other NX um and so so that's been a longstanding policy for us and again we have facilities at every station to allow Crews and we provide enough uniforms that they can um be able to launder those at the station while they're on shift and still have uniforms available so thanks Chief any other items for old new okay seeing none we're little a little bit over in time here but not too bad uh we have an executive session we have one item remaining this is potential property acquisition with crem for approximately 5 minutes and we'll go ahead um I'll come back in at uh 3:20 3:30 to uh uh CL close us out thank you