Sustainability and Resiliency Committee Minutes - May 11, 2021

The Sustainability and Resiliency Committee meeting was held in the City Commission Chambers at Fargo City Hall at 3:00 o'clock p.m., Tuesday, May 11, 2021.

Present:
John Strand (chairman), Fargo City Commissioner
Tim Mahoney, Fargo Mayor
Bruce Grubb, Fargo City Administrator
Mark Williams, Fargo Assistant Director of Planning and Development
Brenda Derrig, Fargo City Engineer
Bruce Taralson, City of Fargo Inspections Director
Brock Morrison, City of Fargo Director of Facilities Management
Jennifer Sweatman (At-Large)
Casey Steele (At-Large)
Greta Gramig (At-Large)
Shawn Paschke, Xcel Energy Representative (Ex-officio)
Paul Matthys, Cass County Electric Cooperative Representative (Ex-officio)
Dave Leker, Fargo Park District Representative (Ex-officio)

Absent:
Ben Dow, City of Fargo Director of Public Works
Blake Mikesell, Fargo School District Representative (Ex-officio)

Chairman John Strand called the meeting to order. He reviewed the current agenda and the minutes from the April 13, 2021 meeting. Both were approved unanimously.

Fargo Recycling Program Presentation:
Recycling Supervisor Jen Pickett said the City started its drop-site recycling program in 1990 where residents can recycle newsprint, magazines, metal cans, plastics, glass and cardboard. She said the City currently has 20 drop-sites where in 2020 it collected more than 3,500 tons of recyclables. She said a voluntary curbside recycling pilot program started in 2000 with small blue crates for sorted recyclables. The all-in-one curbside recycling started in 2017, she said, and is an opt-in program that does not require recyclables to be sorted. She said during the pilot program, about 1,200 tons of recyclables were collected annually. The all-in-one recycling program was implemented in 2017 and in 2020, 4,525 tons was collected, she said, and there has been a 315 percent yearly increase in recycling collected since 2017. She said the list of items that are recyclable include food and beverage cans, newspaper, magazines, office paper and mail, cardboard, food and beverage boxes, glass bottles and jars, plastic bottles and cartons. More importantly, she said, the items that cannot be recycled include shredded paper, “tanglers” such as hoses, extension cords and holiday lights, plastic bags, diapers, pet waste, Styrofoam and hazardous materials such as sharps, motor oil and propane tanks. To put things in perspective, she said, drop-site recycling saved 3,500 tons of garbage going into the landfill, the same weight as three-and-a-half Eiffel Towers. Curbside recycling saved an additional 4,525 tons from the landfill in 2020, she said, the same weight as four-and-a-half Eiffel Towers. She said the City contracts with Minnkota in Fargo for recycling where the material is baled then shipped to the Minneapolis area where it is sorted and sent to various sites. Another way the City recycles, she said, is through its Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) site, which accepts items at no charge such as paints and stains, poisons, automotive fluids, fluorescent light bulbs and electronics such as computers, televisions and other accessories. The HHW site opened in 1999, she said, and since that time, more than 13,000 residents have used the facility. She said the facility has a reuse room, where residents can pick up items at no charge. In 2020, she said, the HHW site recycled more than 88,000 pounds of materials and 66,000 pounds were reused. She said the City recently opened a Residential Transfer Station, which is open year round and is free for Fargo residents. Since opening, she said, 1,973 residents have used the station and more than 262 tons of debris has been collected. She said there are various dumpsters in the station where items are sorted and items accepted include non-Freon appliances, cardboard, anything scrap metal, cardboard, large items such as a mattress or couch or extra bags of household garbage. She said the idea behind this service was to keep metals and cardboard out of the landfill due to the fact that both are easily recycled and precious space for actual garbage in the landfill can be saved. She said the City has a 7-acre composting site, which consists of a mixture of carbon (leaves) and nitrogen (grass). She said the finished compost is available to Fargo residents, is used in City projects and as cover for landfill cells. In 1990, she said, the City banned yard waste from the landfill and in 2020, 235,548 tons of yard waste was diverted from the landfill. She said there have been efforts in the past to compost food waste; however, the challenges included high costs, odor and animal issues. Food waste in the landfill actually aids in the breakdown of garbage into gases, she said, which are captured and used as a heat source. She said landfill gas is also used to produce electricity.
In response to a question from Ms. Steele asking about Minnkota’s fees for recycling, Ms. Pickett said the material the City collects from drop sites is separated at Minnkota, which pays the City based on market price. She said the curbside all-in-one recycling is bundled at Minnkota for a fee and shipped to Minneapolis for processing.
In response to a question from Mayor Mahoney regarding the pandemic, online ordering and did the City’s cardboard count go up, Ms. Pickett said there is more cardboard and the prices for cardboard are slowly coming back up.
In response to a question from Ms. Steele asking about the lifespan of the City’s current landfill, Utility Director Terry Ludlum said the current landfill has about another three to five years. He said his department is working on a reclamation project for the old landfill on the east side of 45th Street, which will include digging up the old garbage, adding liners and a well system, which will add another 20 to 25 years of landfill space. He said long term, with the public perception it will be difficult to site a landfill. He said he is hoping the State will get involved with regionalization of landfills. Incinerators are where the City could probably offset the cost of tipping fees, he said, which could also utilize renewable energy markets such as steam and electricity, which are produced from burning waste. There are several issues with regionalization, he said, including the fact that North Dakota and Minnesota are in different Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) zones. He said the City also has an Ordinance that states any waste generated in Fargo must remain in Fargo, due in part to pollution liability. The same rules apply in Minnesota, he said, where Clay County waste has to go to a Clay County landfill. Another example, he said, is when Perham, Minnesota put in an incinerator several years ago, the State helped pay for it and as part of it, they put laws into place that any waste within the Perham area first must go to the incinerator, then could go to a landfill. He said tipping fees for the incinerator at Perham is at $120.00 a ton and Perham is losing money due to the fact that smaller communities have a difficult time paying the fee. He said the bottom line is there are a number of county laws, state laws and EPA standards that will be difficult to overcome. He said Fargo does have an agreement with Becker County, Minnesota, to bring its waste to Fargo; however, there is really no sharing of waste back and forth between borders.
In response to a question from Ms. Gramig asking about markets for plastics and why does the City collect materials where there is no market, Ms. Pickett said all of the materials Fargo collects goes to Minnkota Recycling, which does the processing and marketing of those materials. She said markets change often and there is always a higher demand for plastic numbers one and two and sometimes five; however, there is not much demand for three, four, six and seven. She said markets change frequently; therefore, if Minnkota does not have a market for threes and fours, for example, they hold that material until they do.
In response to a question from Ms. Steele asking if there are plans with the reclaimed site on 45th Street to do methane capture and all the other things done at the current landfill, Mr. Ludlum said that program will continue and current gas studies show that as soon as solid waste is in place, covered and goes anaerobic, the landfill can get about 30 to 40 years of gas production. He said it is a renewable energy source and a revenue source for the City.
In response to a question from Ms. Steele regarding food waste composting, Mr. Ludlum said he was concerned if the food waste is removed and kept out of the landfill, the landfill would lose the breakdown of MSW that creates methane. He said from a greenhouse gas standpoint, that is 25 times more potent than Methane, when food waste is composted, the Co2 escapes into the atmosphere rather than being captured. He said if all the food waste goes into the landfill, the City is able to capture 100 percent of the Co2, destroy it and make a better overall green footprint. Also, he said, most food waste compost sites have difficulties in the cold months. He said Fargo could certainly figure out how to compost food waste in June and July; however, the question is what to do with all the debris in the winter months. He said Solid Waste is always evolving and looking for new technology. He said it may be time to team with an engineering firm again and see if there are new technologies on composting food waste.
In response to a question from Ms. Gramig regarding recycling at apartment complexes, Ms. Pickett said the City has about 200 multi-family dwellings and condo associations that have recycling; however, there are challenges with enough space to put a container, the willingness of someone to pay for the service and accountability.
Mayor Mahoney said Ms. Pickett does education sessions with children at the schools to get them to start thinking about recycling and it is a fantastic program. He said he has seen the posters the children make and the enthusiasm. He is pleased with the 90 percent participation in the City, he said, as he was not sure how the acceptance would be when all-in-one recycling started. It has been a remarkable response from the citizens, he said.
Chairman Strand said he served on the Plastic Bag Task Force and there have been local efforts to educate people about reusing, recycling and repurposing plastic bags; however, the Legislature pre-empted the Task Force from acting and plastic bags cannot be banned in North Dakota.
Ms. Pickett said many big box and grocery stores have takeback programs for plastic bags. She tries whenever she can to encourage people to use reusable bags and there is always more room for education. The City does not have a recycling facility for plastic bags, she said. The City did look into plastic bag recycling; however, finding a container to keep them in with the weather and wind was difficult, then figuring out a system for collection, storage, bailing and shipping them to somebody that wants them. She said there are two companies, including Trex, that makes composite lumber from plastic bags and milk jugs, and Earth911 has containers at some of the grocery stores. She said recycling is different in every region across the country and something that is recyclable on the West Coast might not be acceptable in Fargo or Minnesota.
Asked what recycling will look like in the future, Mr. Ludlum said, he hopes it will keep increasing, new outlets are found and programs such as the City is already doing at the landfill continue and the City keeps increasing awareness and educating people. He said he would also like to see a material recovery facility in the Fargo area rather than having to ship materials to Minneapolis, which would make it a lot easier for small towns to recycle due to the fact that now it is not worth the cost. He said there are technologies now to dissolve plastics, and with Amazon in Fargo, his hope is there could be some groups that could take recycled cardboard and reprocess it. He said western North Dakota constantly calls Fargo and asks what they can do with their glass and plastic, they are having to ship it to the same facility in the Minneapolis area, which doubles their costs which have to be passed on to the customer. He said that is why so many people do not have a desire to recycle due to all the costs. The City is fortunate it is on the financial fringe, he said, were it can get some of the money back.
In response to a question from Ms. Gramig regarding unwanted items in recycling and is that a problem, Ms. Picket said the statistics for contamination is about 30 percent nationwide and in Fargo it is between 9 and 11 percent. She said there is always room for education and letting people know the laundry sink does not go in the plastic bin.
Ms. Steele said she was thankful for the information about food composting and it is good to know her food waste is doing good and being captured for energy use.
Mr. Ludlum said there is a company in Grand Forks that utilizes beet tailings and pulp for ethanol. He said they have visited Fargo to look at some sites for producing byproduct biomass.

Discussion – SRC Purpose/Mission:
Mr. Grubb said several years ago a former City Commissioner helped create the Renewable Energy and Conservation Committee, whose purpose was to make recommendations to the City Commission for increasing energy conservation and the use of renewable energy. He said some of those recommendations were hybrid buses, hybrid vehicles in the City fleet and the use of biodiesel in heavy equipment. He said the question has now been raised as to what is the purpose of this committee and is it just to look at the types of things the City is already doing and to tweak and improve those things in the effort to further reduce emissions, increase efficiency and the use of renewables or to think of bigger pictures such as a complete retooling of systems. He said there are two elected officials on the Committee and it would be interesting to hear ideas from the group due to the fact that many years from now, systems will change and should this Committee be having those discussions now.
Ms. Gramig asked what this Committee’s purpose and after hearing the presentations, it seems like things in Fargo are being done well. She said she as read many articles conjecturing what 2050 might look like and almost every single article mentioned water. She said enormous amounts of fresh water are wasted with sanitary systems, which are fantastic and have solved a lot of problems for modern societies and she is grateful to have them; however, going into the future where extreme water shortages are envisioned, will residents be able to justify the way sewage is handled. She said the Committee should discuss that topic and is an example of how the Committee might look at a system and say the whole system needs to change instead of making incremental improvements.
Chairman Strand said this Committee needs to think big, ask if some systems should be reinvented and think about things like fresh water and how will the community anticipate those changes. He said a critical question is how to locally prioritize the preservation of fresh water.
Ms. Gramig said she has spent a lot of time on committees hashing through a problem but then got to the end and the committee did not have any power to change anything; therefore, it was a waste of time. She said she is interested in understanding what is actionable from the discussions in this committee and what kind of power does it have to implement change.
Mr. Grubb said the Committee does not have any power other than making recommendations to the two elected officials on the Committee, who can make the recommendation to the City Commission. He said Fargo pulls an average of 14 million gallons of water per day out of the Red and Sheyenne rivers and not all of it is consumed. He said when a toilet is flushed, it goes in the sanitary sewer and then goes to the Wastewater Treatment Plant where it is cleaned and put back in the river. He said not quite all 14 million gallons a day; however, the water is pulled out of the river on the south end of town and put back in the river on the north end. He said the problem is what if those sources go dry. When he was working on the Red River Valley Water Supply Project, he said, the concept of toilet to tap came up and it is something 20 years ago people could not even think about; however, it is possible. He said some water is lost each time; however, it takes some of the pressure off a fresh water source in a really big way.
Ms. Steele asked with Fargo’s growing population, is there more water pulled and will the City always be able to return the same amount back to the water source, Mr. Grubb said the amount of water utilized in Fargo is surprisingly small, most of it is showers and toilets, which gets returned to the wastewater collection system, is cleaned to Clean Water Act Standards and what the Water Treatment Plant does is actually better than river water quality. He said the City could go a long way under drought and restricted conditions.
Ms. Steele said it upsets her that people use clean water to flush toilets so there should also be a conversation about incentivizing gray water usage. She said when speaking of a plastic bag ban, which was shut down, the idea of more education and incentives could be impactful.
Mr. Grubb said Fargo has a drought management plan and it would be a tough call to make if it happens; however, the reason Fargo is looking at the Missouri River as a drought-proof water supply is all the modeling done says the Missouri River is the only reliable source of water in the State. Fargo does have a drought management plan that has four phases, he said, with each phase based on the various metrics and if Fargo needs to go to a more severe phase, the City is ready. He said within each of those phases are ratcheted-up restrictions, then it goes to the City Commission who would have to make the call based on his recommendations of what is an essential use versus non-essential and that is where it gets tough; however, Fargo is ready to go there if it has to. He said in the not too distant future, public transit could operate different with autonomy and door-to-door service and sometimes circumstances force change. He said sometimes a Committee does not want to make decisions out of ignorance; therefore, education is important. Mr. Matthys with Cass County Electric said he would like to show what Cass County Electric is doing in regard to sustainable renewable fuels.
Chairman Strand said other cities have created similar groups and perhaps this Committee’s discussions could be modeled with others. He said he always likes to learn from other people, see what they have done that works and does not. He said at least Fargo does have to apologize for being behind.
Mayor Mahoney said it would be nice to hear what the schools and Park District are doing. He said the Park District has a lot of real estate, buildings and equipment and what commitments have been made regarding electric vehicles and other significant investments.
Mr. Leker said the Park District is adding native plantings that require less mowing, maintenance, watering and fertilizing and sports fields are using high-end turf. He said the golf courses are tough to do a lot with and the schools are looking at artificial turf for maintenance reasons and rainouts.
Mr. Morrison said Fargo City Hall has the top of the line, best technology and there are many energy savings in place as far as scheduling air handlers, cooling, heating and lights. He said there are older buildings in the City that need attention, similar to what was done with energy savings at the libraries and installing LED lights. He said it is a matter of what the City wants to do; however, there are plenty of opportunities for efficiencies.
Chairman Strand said everyone has been through a disruptive shift with the pandemic and to think about the change that evolved just in the last year in the way the City does business; therefore, if this Committee can anticipate and prepared for resiliency for flood protection and droughts and anything in between, these are things to think about. He asked what would the disruptions be, how prepared is the City and what will be different on the other side. He said perhaps if the Committee can get ahead of some of those anticipated or required changes, the Committee would have contributed some value to going forward. He said what to think about what happened recently with the cyberattack on the pipeline and he wondered about the vulnerability of Fargo’s utilities and facilities.
Mr. Matthys said it is amazing how many people are working in Bismarck to protect the State against cyberattacks.
Chairman Strand asked what the City’s protection is if there were a bad blizzard, considering what happened in Texas, who was did not have the power grid to handle it. He said the City has generators at pump stations; however, what would the preparedness be if there were a brown out or black out and how quickly could Fargo come back. He said another example would be children who have reached out and wanted to know if the City ad money for them to have an art contest to design a reusable bag that promotes the messaging of the community. He said those types of things might be what the Committee does for a while, some projects that are demonstrations of what the Committee’s intentions are. He said the Committee does not have to resolve the big questions now; however, the Committee can do small things that make a difference in the schools and neighborhoods. He said eventually the Committee will land somewhere and start showing some actionable items and meanwhile perhaps learn a lot about what the Committee is doing in the community.

Next Meeting:
June 8, 2021 at 3:00 p.m.
The time at adjournment was 4:20 o’clock p.m.