Green Island Ice Arena Negotiating Committee - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. It is 04:02PM. I'll call to order this meeting of the climate action plan steering committee on Monday, July 14. We have Andrew Erickson, myself, Steph Hanna in person, and Casey Meehan online. All others are excused. First order of business is the approval of the minutes. And if you could just voice your motion with the microphone on for making minutes easier. Andrew?

I make a motion to approve.

Motion to approve the minutes by Andrew Erickson. Second by?

I second, Douglas.

Second by Casey Meehan. Any discussion on the minutes? Alright. Seeing no discussion, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. That is unanimous. Next, we have notices and discussion. There are a number of items listed. Send it over first to Lewis.

Yeah. I had the youth climate action fund listed at first, but I'll be talking about that later in the agenda, so I'll skip over that. For the grow solar lacrosse, I have a couple signs remaining from the signs I gave away. So if you need one for your yard, please take one of the two. There is a solar power hour event tomorrow evening at Onalaska City Hall, and the last in person solar power hour will be at the Nature Place later this month, and there will be a few other ones.

So there's still a few opportunities to learn more. The sign ups are are promising. I I think we should have enough to reach the second tier of discounts, so that's good news. In terms of the energy innovation grant, there hasn't been very many, or the pace of assessments has not been a linear path. And, for a positive reason, actually, the, focus on energy started a program to do home energy assessments for low income families.

So it's kind of created a little bit of, I guess, competition. So we've reached out to the Public Service Commission about amending the program to extend the range to moderate and middle income households. So I think that'll help increase participation. We'll need about, 12 assess average 12 assessments per week for the rest of the year to stay on track. But, the, Green Homeowners United, when they worked with Milwaukee, have been able to get an extension if they needed.

So we I I think we should be good. And then lastly, I wanted to share an update from, Sammy on the parks program. She said they had a successful soak it up event with about 15 attendees and were able to give away eight rain barrels and two downspout diverters just before the rain rolled in. She's working on something more formal to bring in August and will likely have more tree code ordinance updates for that time as well. So, yeah, that's what I've got for notices and discussion.

Excellent. Louis, just a question on the GrowSolar. I had a number of people reach out with interest. Are are you able to provide committee members just, like, the names who've reached out yet just so that we can make sure the people that had reached out actually filled out the form?

Sure. Yeah. I I don't they don't go to me. They go directly to the contractor, Ethos Green Power Co op. Okay. But I can ask for that list.

Okay. Excellent. Any questions for Lewis? If not, any other items for notices and discussion? Andrew, go ahead.

Two items. One on Wednesday from 04:30 to six at the Black River Beach Neighborhood Center. The Wisconsin DOT is hosting a, public involvement meeting for US 53 and U or in US 1461 or 3rd And 4th Street in Rose, Copeland. I encourage everyone on the Climate Action Plan Steering Committee to go there as I think of this as a generational opportunity. The other exciting thing is Ride The Mayor is on July 31 at 9AM. We're meeting here at City Hall, and we will be talking about the those highways up there on the North Side. So hope you'll join. That's it.

Thank you, Andrew. Others for notices and discussion. Okay. With that, we'll move on then. We have the first item on our agenda is 25 dash 0800, presentation on our wastewater treatment plan energy upgrades with Jared Greeno. Come on up, Jared. Thank you so much for being here. Not yet. You can press that little person button. There you go.

Alright. Good afternoon, everybody. For those that don't know who I am, my name is Jared Greeno. I'm the wastewater superintendent for the City Of La Crosse. I've managed the wastewater treatment plant for eighteen years now. Prior to that, I worked for the village of Holman, ten years in water, wastewater, public works. And prior to that, I was a dairy farmer, owner operator, ten years out of high school. So I'm kinda dating myself now. But a lot of what we do at the wastewater plant is related to things that we did on the farm, right? We take care of the environment, we take care of our soil, and it all kind of relates, right?

So our journey with the wastewater plant has been incredible for eighteen years. And as we go through transitions and as we go through facility planning, we're always looking at how can we be more sustainable, how can we conserve electricity. Back in 2012, we did a project where we put in high speed turbine blowers. For those that don't know, utilities, wastewater and water, we move a lot of water, we pump a lot of water, and we use a lot of electricity, right, to make it all happen. So at the wastewater plant in 2012, we put in high speed turbine blowers where we're able to conserve our energy consumption and had a $250,000 focus on energy credit for doing that project.

As regulation changed, needs changed at the wastewater plant, we work with our consultants and come up with plans to update our wastewater treatment facility, right, that can be more environmentally friendly. But while we're doing that, we're always we don't necessarily do an energy audit or an energy study. Right? But when we do projects, whether it be wastewater treatment plant related or major lift stations because we have 27 sanitary lift stations that we maintain that pump a lot of sewage, and then we also manage on the storm water side of things, seven storm stations that pump a lot of water. When we're doing these projects and we're working with consulting firms, we look at, you know, how can we conserve energy.

So we install VFDs. We're an automated wastewater plant where we can turn things on or off. We don't have the luxury of where you have peak demand hours where we can turn the sewage pumps off during the day, right, and turn them on at night. It doesn't work quite that well because we have sewage backing up, right? But if you're pumping water, you have that opportunity to fill reservoirs at night when their energy costs are less, right?

So fast forward as we go into facility planning for the upgrade at the wastewater treatment plant currently. So it started out twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen or thereabouts as low level phosphorus removal, right? We talked about this for over almost twenty years now, how we're going to filter the effluent to remove almost all the phosphorus going to the river and and we're there. One of the issues with that, you know, is it costs money, right? And then who pays for it?

And we looked at that, and currently, we're we're filtering the water. And I joked in the beginning that our effluent water at the wastewater plant would be so clean that we could turn it back into drinking water, but I can't quite. I'm not that good at marketing. Right? But our we're looking at protecting the environment, which all relates to what we're doing or what we're trying to do with committees like this, right, is protect the environment. Sometimes I think as humans living on this earth, have we done the best we can? Probably not. Right? So the wastewater plant is built on an old landfill, right, and it's right on the edge of the Mississippi River. We looked at moving the wastewater plant.

Is that an option? That cost is about $440,000,000 right? Which isn't popular for rate payers. But we look at those things while we're doing facility planning. It's kind of you're doing the work behind the scenes that others don't know that you're maybe doing.

So we get into this big wastewater plant and how we're gonna upgrade it. Started out as low level phosphorus compliance, but then needs change, right? 2016, 2017, 2018, I have a folder where it's wet weather, right? So we have 13,000,000 gallons of liquid bile solids that we reuse on farm fields, which relates to what I used to do where we inject it in the soil, crops use it as fertilizer, farmers get it as free fertilizer, and it does a good thing. It's a benefit for the plants there. It's biological activity, right? So the the earth likes it, the crops like it, and it works out pretty well. But as we know, climate's changed. Right? Weather's changed.

I'm trying to count how many FEMA events I've probably been through in eighteen years. Right? Three, four maybe? Prior managers, maybe one, two, I'm guessing? Something's changed, something's different, right? Me being a dairy farmer, brother still farms, weather conditions have changed, agricultural practices change. So we needed to dispose or reuse of biosolids before planting in the spring, right? And then after harvest in the fall because we no longer land apply on farm fields in the winter, right? Makes sense because your land apply on field snow melts or runs into the closest creek, right? So anyway, we looked at different ways of managing biosolids as part of this project.

And when the tanks are full, they're full. Farmers are planting faster than they ever did before, right? So they can plant 300 acres in a day. You know, we have some employees at the plant that farm on the side, not necessarily as a hobby, as a living too or a second income. And they can leave in an afternoon and plant 70 acres of corn, right? And then they come back the next day. Genetics of seed has changed, right? So the plant is more tolerant to cooler weather in the spring, right? So they can plant earlier, faster than ever. And our window to reuse biosolids closes, right?

So what used to be a two month window or a five week window is now a ten day window, a two week window where you have to haul, well, it's 2,400 semi loads a year annually. It's 1,200 in the spring, 1,200 in the fall. So we did facility planning. How can we reduce that? Because it's not only the reuse of bile solids, it's the fuel that you're burning in a truck. It's the tires that you're wearing out. It's labor to do it. And it went from a $500,000 project to a $1,300,000 project. So we had to do something different with biosolids. How can we manage that better?

But then one of our bottlenecks at the wastewater plant was anaerobic digestion. So we take in about 30,000 pounds of BOD, which is organic loading into the treatment plant on a daily basis. Those solids end up in anaerobic digesters. That was our bottleneck. We're pushing those at about twelve days sludge age. We wanna get up around twenty, thirty, 40 maybe, so we can have future growth because industries like QuickTrip, City Brewery are asking for more capacity. Right? So we wanna build that into the plan, which we did. Better mixing, more heating. Well, when you do that, we produce more methane gas.

So the wastewater plant was built in 1936. We still use two of those original anaerobic digesters. 1953, we upgraded and added two more anaerobic digesters. Guess what, those four digesters still work for us. They still produce methane gas. We have bottled solids reduction. We produce methane gas. And since 1936, we have flared extra methane off. 50% of it we'd use in boilers to heat the sludge to 95 degrees at all times. But this extra methane, what are we gonna do with it?

We've talked about it for twenty years or greater on what can we do with the extra methane. So as part of the enhancement, better mixing, better heating in the anaerobic digesters, we then build a building that can we have four boilers that can either burn methane or natural gas. So with that methane, we have the ability to create hot water. We have the ability to use that hot water to heat the entire campus right now. We have the ability to heat anaerobic digesters to 95 degrees, and we have the ability to dry bile solids to 99% dry.

So as part of this upgrade, we enhanced digestion, we're filtering the effluent water, We're creating more methane. We're using that methane as hot water, but then we're producing and have the ability to produce, hot water to dry bile solids. By drying bile solids, we reduce that footprint from 2,400 semi loads a year to three sixty five loads a year. The dried biosolids can be marketed as Class A fertilizer, maybe we'll call it Isle of Plume Wonder Bloom, we'll see. But we have a market for that as class a biosolids to the farmer that will use a 100% of that.

We've also trialed with partners of burning this as energy, it will and we have burned biosolids to produce hot water, create electricity, to heat campuses. So we have alternatives, right? So we're ready for the future as a sustainable wastewater treatment plant. As part of this project, we produce enough methane to burn it in a generator to become 100% electrically neutral. So that's installed as part of this project.

The generator is sitting there ready to go and we have enough methane to sustain the boilers and sustain the cogen unit. The cogen unit where we burn the methane to create electricity, we harvest or take the hot water off from that engine to put back into the hot water loop to heat campus, heat digesters, and dry bile solids. So we have a pretty amazing wastewater treatment plant here in the City Of La Crosse. It was a $65,000,000 upgrade. We're almost done.

It's been four years. It's been a long project. We've had our challenges along the way. We survived COVID and we're still treating sewage and we're more of a sustainable wastewater treatment plant. I knew going into it that it would not be easy. It has its challenges. We've had the luxury of adding positions to maintain cogen equipment. We know that operating cost to run a cogen goes up. We know operating disc filters is more expensive because we add chemicals. So we go from a biological wastewater plant, to a chemical treatment plant, but we're using biologic biology to remove it's kinda interesting.

So we can we can biologically remove phosphorus to point two milligrams per liter. Okay? Our limit is 0.1. But to go from 0.2 to 0.1, we add $15,000,000 worth of equipment and we add a million dollars worth of chemical cost annually. But it's driven by DNR and that's our limit and that's the only way that we know how to get there.

And we're there right now, we're right on that fringe of compliancy. We've looked at trading agreements, stream bank restorations. Potentially, we'll have to buy some phosphorus credits if we're right on that edge where we're point I think our July average so far is about a 0.11, So we're right there. But we can't make a mistake. We can't afford to make a mistake.

But through all these projects that I talk about and through the upgrade of the wastewater plant, we've really looked at being more energy efficient, We've installed automation. We've installed VFDs, we've looked at where we can curve power consumption, we've put in lower horsepower motors, we've done better lighting. We've looked at a lot of those options and what's interesting is our power consumption is trending down. Lewis looking at our data from last year might look a little crazy because we had three different power services before we upgraded the plant and we moved that into one power grid, one power loop to feed the whole system. So now we'll have one electricity electric meter instead of three electric meters, which gets hard to kinda juggle that out, then we kinda break it down.

But we're seeing that we're using less electricity now here in 2025. The other part of this as we did facility planning, we knew that the methane was renewable. Right? We can make methane every day and we have since day one. You know, even when the wastewater plant was built in 1936 and we have pictures or photos of methane burning generators that produced electricity in '36, but then when power is so cheap and and parts and service and labor goes up, but we built that into the expenses of our budget so that it's all sustainable, explainable, right, to maintain it because I'm a mechanical guy.

And if you want the system to work, have to have the labor to do so. And you need to do the preventive maintenance to make sure the generator is available when needed. But through facility planning, we all also work with local utilities. Can we make compressed quality pipeline quality natural gas, right? Because we can do that.

At that time, there was an interest in pipeline quality methane converted to natural gas. We also looked at creating or put in a second generator to make more electricity and sell that back into the grid. At that time, the local utility wasn't buying the extra electricity. So we didn't put in the second generator. Along the way, we looked at turning the island into a micro grid, because we as the utility or city owned departments on the island, we could create our own power grid on the island, supply that the other departments, but the payback was not there.

It was a 37 to 40 year payback on that second generator. Whereas potentially if we would have built that into the facility plan originally, the payback might have looked a little bit better with the second generator upfront. Later on, we looked at battery backup at the plant where we have peaks and valleys where we have making a little bit extra electricity and we could bank that away in a battery system and then use it when the demand went up like if we're mixing sludge or pumping sludge or moving a lot of water during a high flow event. So in a nutshell, I feel the City of La Crosse and at the wastewater plant, we've done our part to be more sustainable and we'll continue to do so as we move forward. So in a nutshell, that's the wastewater plant.

You know, and along the way, we've had great support and pretty pleased to be where we're at, yet we have challenges yet to overcome and probably will no matter which department we work in. But is there any questions for me related to the wastewater plant?

Thank you, Jared. I always love listening to you talk about wastewater treatment plant. I've told you this before, but I was a convert, a lover of wastewater treatment plants when I took my first tour as a UWL student. And I'll never forget when you go into the plant and you see that machine that, like, gets hair out of the pipes. I was so horrified.

I couldn't believe that if you put your hair, like, you comb your hair and you put it in the toilet, it, like, totally screws up the wastewater treatment plant. And so now I'm, like, on this lifelong mission to get people to throw their hair in the trash Right. Because I'll never forget there was, like, this giant machete someone would use to cut through the machine. And I'm so glad that you could come here to to talk about the wastewater treatment plan because I think we have an amazing one. I'm sure there is questions I'd love to to ask the committee members. Any questions? Andrew, That go

was fascinating and fun and I appreciate it very much.

You're welcome.

You should start a podcast.

What's interesting when I was in high school and farming, I never thought of myself as a public speaker, but you can see I'm pretty passionate about what I do here for the city of La Crosse.

Yeah. Yeah. You had mentioned this in the, you know, the full breadth of of all you talked about, but that you had piloted burning biosolids to produce energy. Is that right? Can you say anything more about that?

I can a little bit. So it's available if need be. Right? So I have an established market with a farmer. So we're waiting for our approval from DNR that we produce class a biosolids.

At that point, regulation goes away and it goes out the door, and a farmer can use it as fertilizer. And we have experimented, you know, burning it at Gunderson Health System in the past, and it it does work there. At the time, they need to update their, let's call it, furnace. Right? We don't like to use the word incineration, but let's call it furnace to accommodate for the ash.

So when you burn biosolids, you have 35% ash left over, right? And the reason being is elements like phosphorus that won't burn up, right? That's a side effect of burning biosolids as ash. When you burn wood chips or other biomass, there's only one to 2% left of ash. But, you know, if regulations change, we have that option.

And then my vision is someday that within the city of La Crosse, we can build an incinerator and produce hot water and produce electricity by spinning a turbine would be a vision. One of the problems with that is we're supposed to be this sustainable world, right, where we can do these projects to be more energy efficient, right, but yet we're not the power company, are we? So I'm still working on that one.

No. That just it makes me wanna to think more as a I'm from UWL and we're always look always looking at

Sometimes I wish we could break those barriers, right?

Yeah.

Instead of the the power companies or the powerhouses of electric generators. Right?

Casey, online. Go ahead.

Alright. Jared, first of all, thank you so much for for the work that you've done for the city and with with wastewater. It is really it's both important and incredibly impressive what you've done. So thank you so much for your leadership over the years. So my I've I've got two questions that are that are unrelated and maybe unanswerable.

I'm not sure. The first one is what can we do as a as a committee here to help support your work with the caveats that we don't have much of a budget and we don't have much power? But what can we do to to help support all that, the work that you've done? And then my my second question, which is completely unrelated, but I'm reminded of it from from Andrew Erickson sitting there. This past spring, he hosted an author, Peter Anand, whose latest work is a book called Purified, which is all about basically taking sewage water and purifying it to to drinkable water standards and how that's actually technologically now possible in places like Orange County are doing it in in really sort of cutting edge ways.

Now I know that's another, like, you know, $500,000,000 project. So I'm not saying that that's, like, happening right now, but I'm curious if if has there been any talk about that, within your department?

So, first off, help. If it if there's any way to I don't wanna say this, not leverage, but work with utilities, to make more sustainable projects come to fruition. Right? So we can gap that bridge where, hey. I can produce electricity here by burning biosolids.

Now where can we put the incinerator that's cost effective and utilize that power? Is it other utilities where you place the generator somewhere else to make that happen. But to kind of bridge that gap, maybe it's better communication. Maybe it's getting out front of this. I feel we've done a lot of that, but I feel like there's still some barriers there because we still have a hurdle with Xcel Energy where we need a direct transfer switch to create our own power, at the wastewater plant.

So we went through the application process three years ago, and then we went to flip the switch on a year ago. They said, oh, by the way, we need a direct transfer switch with a local substation to cut power at the wastewater plant. So if we have a power outage at a substation or line power that goes down, that we don't back feed electricity. I felt we had that. Our consultants felt we had that.

And in the end, they said no. So then we paid a fee of 300,000 well, $230,000 a year ago to get that on track, and now the local power utility is asking for another $100,000 to make that happen. The cogen's sitting there. It's ready to go. It's ready to run, but I don't have, permission to run it at this time other than exercising it once a month. But bridging those types of gaps, trying to understand what we missed along the way because we felt that we did everything we were supposed to along the way. Right? And I have record of 40 meetings over a three year period. I'm not don't work for the electric utility. Right?

I'm not an electrical engineer. I'm a wastewater superintendent. If I know and I had to ask for some extra monies for a direct transfer switch, I would have done so. So maybe that's something that can be helped because that's more communication. Right?

It doesn't really cost anything, but how can we improve and ask the right questions? On the other side of things, you know, absolutely, effluent water is being cleaned to a higher quality, cleaner than what the Mississippi River is, remove nutrients or filtering the effluent or reusing the bile solids that are or the solids, I should say, that are filtered out. And we're this close. Right? So you could do reverse osmosis of super chlorinated, and you're almost back to drinking water.

True fact is we can measure phosphorus, total phosphorus in our drinking water, and it's about point zero nine. Our limit is point one. So we have the ability to make pretty high quality effluent. I joked in the beginning, and I'm not making this up, as we're going through facility planning, and this is before other potential contaminants come around is, hey. We're gonna sell this back to the water utility, and they don't know it yet. Right? Because you have 17 wells that you have online, but it is happening in other parts of the world. It's just a matter of how do you wanna get there. And when I started in this industry twenty eight years ago, real water talked about water conservation. Right?

And that here in Wisconsin, we'd have to conserve water someday, and you're like, no way. We have the Mississippi right behind us. We have the Great Lakes surrounding us. There's no way we have to conserve water. Well, what is the definition of quality water? Right? And what is the definition of what you wanna drink? Right? So you have to really look at that a little bit closer. Right? And years ago, when I was a young child growing up on the farm, you always thought that spring water was the best thing. Right? Do you realize that you spread the load of manure up on the hill the the week prior. Right? So, anyway, those are great questions and fascinating because I know in other parts of the world, they're doing this sort of thing.

Jared, one of the things that we were working on with the performance contract was getting our direct pay incentives. Do you know if there were any of the direct pay incentives for any of the wastewater treatment plan, and is that something we can help you out with?

Yeah. Absolutely. So we ended up, got a $300,000 focus on energy credit as part of the upgrade. One of the things that I have to follow-up on, there used to be tax incentive for this type of project, and we started the process with Rupert Rupert Milky. Right? And it kinda got dropped at the end of the year last year, and I've kinda picked that up. And I'm hoping it's not too late because there was some substantial money there, possibly a million dollars worth of money there. And I have to kinda work on that one again.

Yeah. Lewis' direct pay from your vantage point, that that's totally a possibility still. Right? Or potentially.

Yeah. I mean, 2024, yes. 2025, most likely. Maybe. 2026, no. Probably not.

Yeah. But excellent timing in terms of energy efficiency projects that we could potentially have money funnel back. So sounds like that's something maybe Lewis and us can can help with. That'd be excellent.

Yep. I would appreciate that.

Yeah. Other questions? Steph?

Just very, very fascinating. Thank you so much.

You're

welcome. And thanks for everything that you do. And can we get a tour?

Yeah. Absolutely.

How do

we do that?

Just email me. I'd happily do a tour, anytime. I'm looking at hopefully, I wanted to August, September, do some sort of grand opening. I had this vision where I wanted everything kinda seated, everything mostly working, and and would appreciate doing something like that.

That would be fantastic. One thought I had, Lewis, you know, we have the ability to write blog posts and get some media out, so maybe there's some potential to collaborate on that. I think that it's always the right time to talk about where the water that goes down our pipes and our toilets to go, and it's something that people find really interesting, fortunately, because I think it's good to always have reminders. Right? It's so easy to turn on the tap or flush the toilet until the power goes out, and there's just so much more that that goes into, this thing that is very much a a privilege that we take advantage of.

So I'd love that opportunity to talk more. You do definitely have a podcast podcast voice, so that is that is a definite potential. Thank you. Yeah. Any other questions or comments for Jared?

Alright. I don't see any. Thank you so much for coming. I really appreciate all you do.

Thank you and you're welcome. Have a good evening.

Thank you so much. Take care. All right. Let's bring my agenda back up.

Chairperson Mendel, I

Yes.

Since Tina is not here, I was asked or curious if we could bump up the fleet electrification

workshop next. Absolutely.

Since Paul's patiently waiting online.

Paul is very patient. Look at him being patient right there. If there's no objection, I'm going to move item number 25Dash0801 up above 25Dash0803. Is there any objection? Okay. That item is moved. So we're gonna take up 25Dash0801 proposal to host a fleet electrification workshop. And Paul Nicholas is here online. Lewis, do you wanna introduce it first?

Yeah. In our implementation plan, one of our top actions was to help small businesses with electrifying their fleet, through, like, qualifying for incentives, etcetera. I don't have I am not the expert on that, but I'm sure with the number of fleets in the area, we can find people to share information and do that. So I had, reached out to Paul to think about putting together a workshop where, different organizations in the area have already invested in electric vehicles and share, like, you know, what sort of incentives they found or who they worked with and and that kind of information. So, yeah, I brought on Paul to just talk about the sort of an outline of of what we were thinking and, take any suggestions.

Fantastic. Take it away, Paul. The floor is yours.

Thank you. Can everybody hear me okay?

Yes. We can.

Fantastic. Okay. Well, I'm gonna share my screen and, just go through a little PowerPoint presentation of the concept of what we're we're thinking about doing just, and then open it up for questions.

So let me

I just sent a request showing. There we go. Alright. Can you see it? Yes.

Fantastic. Okay. So so, basically, we're we're looking at doing a workshop for electrifying electrifying the the fleets in for companies around the La Crosse area. The what we're here we go. So the objective of the workshop is to educate local businesses and organizations on the benefits, you know, provide information about incentives, what the logistics are involved with transitioning to electric vehicle fleets, and who we're hoping to to generate interest from are the fleet our fleet managers at at some of the larger companies, business owners that might have smaller fleets but still should be considering it, and also just community stakeholders.

So we're targeting September for this. We don't have a location identified yet. Casey, I might be reaching out to you about that. And, the potential partners we're we're looking at here are utilities. I apologize for the formatting here here.

Utilities, local dealerships, companies that install or provide charging stations involving organizations that already have EV fleets, one is one that has been doing it for a while is Dairyland. So I'll be reaching out to them to see if they'd be interested in participating. And then community partners, like Focus on Energy, Wisconsin Clean Cities, the Sustainability Institute. The agenda would basically be a a a short welcome and introduction. There would be present presenting the again, I apologize again for the formatting here. I slapped this together fifteen minutes before before we the meeting started.

So I didn't No worries, Paul.

I apologize for this. The business case for EV fleets and a panel discussion. I I think give and take on this from people who are are either providing the service or already experiencing is is gonna be key for answering questions. Incentives and funding opportunities, which is a a moving target right now. So I think that's gonna be a key conversation. And then how do you implement an EV charging infrastructure? Then we finish up with a q and a and closing remarks. And the idea is that we'd have this we do this all in about two hours. So we don't keep people too long. The concept we're thinking of is we talked about doing, like, a larger event and inviting all sorts of people.

But what but as we discussed it, Lewis and I were thinking that it might be more beneficial. This is a really a more narrow audience than a lot than the other workshops that we've done, that we were thinking about doing it as more of an invitation only event with limited availability. So we would actually reach out to I downloaded a list of the largest employers in the La Crosse area. Lewis took a view of took a a quick scan of them, highlighted I don't know. What do you think, Lewis? About two or three dozen companies you thought would be good candidates?

Yeah.

And we would actually go and personally invite them to be part of this workshop that making it seem kind of a little bit more of an exclusive type of opportunity for them to to participate. So there's the concept where it's at right now. There's a lot of work to do on this next two months, but but we think we have a pretty good outline of where we're gonna be going. So quick overview and open for questions.

Excellent. Thank you, Paul. I love the idea. I love the invite only thought. I think that that could be a good strategy. Andrew. Yeah. Andrew feels like it's very exclusive. It it does maybe help people get engaged, though. Whereas if it's just like a general invite, people might be like, if I have time, I will. But if someone personally invites them, that that might definitely incentivize them for for joining.

I thought about, I thought I suggested charging a thousand dollars a ticket, but Lewis didn't think that would work.

Lewis is laughing. Input from the body. Sounds like this is maybe a few months down the line. I apologize if I missed it. Timeline

Yes. Month? It's September.

September. Okay. Steph?

Yeah. I have a question. Is Trane Technologies one of the businesses that would be invited? Can I ask that question?

It is. Absolutely. We actually yeah. We'd be actually probably inviting them to be one of the people to share their experiences and talk about what they've done, if that makes sense.

They have done something already? Yep. Excellent.

That's that's our impression anyway.

Yeah. And hospitals as well are another are the other

and Mayo.

Also on the list?

Yep. Gunderson and Mayo. Thanks. Actually, if you if you'd like, I've got a more detailed document here. It's in it's in Word format, but I can share it. You can see some of the more detail of what what we're talking about. Sure. Can you see this okay?

We can. Yes.

Okay. So if you go back up here so and some of this, I I'm gonna change. So for instance, local dealerships, I've had I've had a conversation with one already, and they're basically saying they can't give electric vehicles away right now. So he he wasn't overly interested in being a a partner on this, but I haven't talking spoken to the other two yet. So here yeah.

So current EV organizations, we've got Dairyland. They currently have a fleet that includes a a couple of Ford Cmax plug in hybrid vehicles, a 2014 Chevy Volt, 2021 Nissan Leaf, and a Ford etransit cargo van. And so they they are doing it already. Train, I've got Charlie Dillon down as a contact there, that they've been doing a lot of work for their fleet to reduce GHG emissions. And so I that's why I'm gonna talk to them, get more details.

They have a they have a commitment called EV 100 that they're trying to add 745 hybrid and fully electric vehicles to their fleet. And so you get some of the details there. So they are absolutely doing that. Interesting. I I talked. I was really excited about including MTU. Lewis, is it okay if I talk about that conversation? Yeah. Okay. So I talked to MTU because they've got the two electric buses.

And I thought, well, that'd be great. You know, we could have a bus drive up outside electric bus drive up outside and, you know, whatever. And I talked to the guy there, and his name is Tim. I can't remember his last name right now, but he's the operations manager. And both electric buses are in the shop just sitting idle because the company they bought the buses from was went bankrupt and was sold.

And the new company that's taken it over has dedicated all parts to new builds. So they can't get any parts to repair the electric buses right now that the MTU has, which is unfortunate. But there, I have Gunderson, Health and Mayo. We have contacts there. Community partners I was talking about was focused on energy, Wisconsin Clean Cities, Sustainability Institute.

And then, of course, we'd reach out to the the media. So then more detail on the agenda here. We're thinking, hopefully, mayor, Washington Spivey would attend or a representative from, from council, talking about why it involves climate action plan, then having the speaker case for, the business case for EV fleets. So it would be that's where we would have the current EV fleet companies like Trane, Berryland, not MTU, but maybe somebody else. Then we talk and then we have focus on energy, Excel, and Dairyland from an experience standpoint could talk about the incentives and funding opportunities. So does that help a little bit? So you want more detail like that?

Yes. Fantastic. Thank you, Paul. What were you hoping to so I'm trying to think of, like, community partners. Obviously, if it's a two hour, workshop, we wanna be mindful of partners traveling.

But I I did wonder about inviting the WEDC, inviting, you know, other folks working a lot on electrification, like Renew Wisconsin, was another org we could think about inviting that might have subject expert subject matter expertise. Yeah. So maybe either Lewis or Paul. Do you have, like, specific is it specifically about suggestions. Oh, just suggestions.

Okay. Yeah. I think if we're thinking about fleet electrification specifically for any size of fleet in particular too, sounds like?

Yeah. It could be any size. It could be somebody who has you know, it could be a a potentially a plumber that has one, you know, transit van that he uses for work or he she. And, you know, that small. We would hope it would be organizations that would have at least a a few vehicles that they use that they would consider part of their fleet.

Mhmm. Yeah. And then, obviously, you know, it's always great to leverage the data we have on vehicle miles traveled. If there's any way we could sort of segment out, you know, it'd be I don't know how we would do this, Lewis, but it'd be kind of interesting out, like, fleet vehicles or, like, company owned vehicles versus, like, residential vehicles. I'm not sure if that's possible.

If it's not, it would still be really interesting to leverage the vehicle miles traveled, the emissions as it relates to that, maybe year after year. And and, you know, the the whole point of trying to go after fleets, right, is because it's many instead of just residential owner by owner.

Right. Well and I I think too one of the things we have to talk about is or we'll have to address is the economic case. I think for Dairyland Power, it makes sense to have electric vehicles because they can lead by example there, and that's their own product. But or even electricians too would could consider electric vehicles. But I think from, like, even a city standpoint, when you've got, say, a parking utility truck that is making frequent stops, is idling, is is has a lot of wear and tear.

For an electric vehicle, they don't idle. And when they break, they regenerate the battery, so, they don't need oil changes. So I think from a from a certain standpoint, there's definitely an economic case for why, an electric vehicle would be handy.

You just reminded me that we must invite the post office and all of their right? Or is there some bad news that I'm about to hear?

No. It's I mean, it's a federal agency, so it's not Sure. I don't have, like, a local contact there.

Yeah. Sure.

But, yeah, their their parking lot is quite impressive.

It is very impressive. Yes. Any other suggestions for Paul Lewis? Yes. Andrew.

I was I was gonna say the post office is probably the most exemplary example of a fleet electrification in the community. One of us could walk over there and be like, who can tell me more? And we'll see how they respond to that. I one thing to consider, and I'm trying to get this on my computer as we speak, but we have been working at the state level to just create some resources on our own. And one of the tools we found, if I can find it, it's it's called, I believe, Atlas.

And it's a this, like, beautifully made Excel file where you can input data on what your current vehicle is and an EV equivalent, and it will kind of push out a a graph for you to look at life cycle cost analysis for a vehicle. So one of the things you could do is you could, you know, walk these folks through it so that, you know, yeah, they're there to learn, but afterwards they're able to, you know, take a a greater look. Now at UWL, we went ahead and did an entire study with Excel. But with this tool, you you can kind

of avoid some of it. Oh. And and fine tune it to your own rates just in case your assumptions change, like, such as how much the cost of gas is.

Yeah. That would be excellent. And then, obviously, having a subject matter expert on the incentives who is up to date on the ever changing incentive land, would be excellent to invite. I personally have contacts with WEDC and Renew Wisconsin, as well as potentially some others. But I think Wisconsin Clean Cities would be excellent too and the other local ones that you had mentioned.

Okay. Anything else on this item?

Well, I

Yeah. It's

One thing I wanted to make sure that I did is, you know, I mentioned I was talking to Paul about this, but I think I really need a just kind of go ahead from the committee. So if you wanna vote of approval would be helpful just to say that this is okay to pursue.

Absolutely. Thank you, Lewis. So we need a vote of approval. Can be just a motion to approve the proposal.

I make a motion to approve the proposal to have this event move forward?

That was a motion to approve the proposal before us by Casey Meehan. Do we have a second? Yes. Second by Andrew Ericsson. Any discussion?

Okay. I see no discussion. Input can continue to be, directed toward Lewis, and he will make sure that goes to Paul. Thank you, Paul, for being here and for putting in the work on this. We appreciate it.

Well, thank you for having me.

Absolutely. If there's no last, discussion then, I need a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. That is approved unanimously. Okay. We're going to let's see. Should we also have Caitlyn move up? Okay. If, there's no objection, I'm going to also move 25Dash0802, pave the way fundraiser with Caitlyn up above 25Dash0803.

If there's no objection I see in here no objections. The item is moved. We have 25Dash0802 Pave the Way fundraiser. Caitlin Weehy is here at the podium. You may introduce the item. Thank you.

Hello, friends. I'm here today to talk about the Pave the Way fundraiser that we're hosting for Renew the Block. It is absolutely spectacular because you get to put your own name on your very own permeable paver, which will help prevent over 500 the gallon 500,000 gallons of stormwater runoff every single year in addition to all of the other things on the block that we're doing, not just the permeable papers. To kind of kick off and advertise this fundraiser, we are having an event on August 6 at Logan Middle School from five to 8PM. The lacrosse confluence will be playing, and some of our favorite food trucks will be there.

And we will also get the chance to tour the site, learn more about the different adjustments that we've been making on the block, and also hear from homeowners who have been personally impacted by the critical home repair side and also just the overall improvements we've been making. And so I would like to invite you all to come. All are welcome. Please do. And, also, I will be sending out some materials so that you can share them with friends, family, colleagues, coworkers, that kind of thing, to help bring people and really even if they're not buying a paver, but just to see how they can do this stuff in their own backyard. It doesn't need to be expensive. It doesn't need to be big. But every little bit that we can do helps, and it's super duper awesome.

Thank you, Caitlin. Questions from the committee. You know everybody here loves this.

Yes.

Our council president who's also online did share this with the council during notices and discussions last week. I always was it last week? I think it was last week. Yes. It was last week. It's only July 14. But if you could, go ahead and email that to the whole council as well. It would be great to get that out to the whole community and have the entire council go and see what's happening on this block, which I hope will one day be replicated across the city.

Oh, most definitely. Thanks, Tam Tam. Can I ask you guys another separate question? Sure. I wanted to know how much remained in the budget for this year. I am not sure.

I would look to Lewis to see if that is available.

I'd say off the top of my head, it's probably around $50,000.

And your fundraiser is kicking off August 6? It's already underway. It's already underway.

August 6 is just a really big day to kind of get it going. You know? Mhmm. And it'll run all the way through March next year because we won't install the pavers until next fall Okay. Because of the engraving schedule and things.

Excellent. But the reason I asked

for the budget is because, as Lewis reported from Sammy, we have some things in the works and quite a few wonderful ideas about how to spend the money if people should be interested when it comes to the floor.

Thank you, Caitlin. We will definitely keep that in mind as we prioritize that pot of funds. Thank you. Thank you. Alright. Let's see. Okay. There is nothing else on that item. Thank you again, Caitlin, for being here and being patient. We will now move to 25Dash0803, which is a follow-up on suggested revision of the stormwater credits.

We invited the utility manager. I don't think it's that. I think it's, like, the finance manager of the utility, something like that. Tina Erickson tonight, but she had a previously scheduled meeting. She did talk to Lewis, and I also talked to her as well.

I believe we're all mostly familiar with the memo. I believe most of us were here when our very own Caitlin in the audience, had suggested these stormwater revisions. After the stormwater, utility rate increase, I had asked Tina, some questions on where this memo had gone and also asked Lewis just to bring it back to the agenda so we could ask a couple questions. Lewis, did you want me to overview it, what you talked, or would you like to to overview what you talked to Tina about?

You can take it away.

Okay. So if you open up the memo, you can see suggested stormwater credit policy changes, hoping to enable greater participation. Timely, we talked to to Jared tonight. I think we all are aware at, the importance of decreasing runoff, and it's been a very wet year with lots of runoff. So thinking about how we can work upstream to incentivize, people to do more in terms of getting the water to slow stop and sink.

Andrew.

I just wanted to give an appreciation for your upstream comments.

Thank you.

Was that was that intentional? Pun intended. Pun was intended. It flowed right through it. Oh, wow. Look at that. I said, flowed right through

it. Incredible. We have too much fun here, don't we? So a couple of the and we can certainly ask questions to to Caitlin since she wrote these in 2024. I mostly wanted to know if they had been enacted and the process of enacting stormwater credit updates.

My understanding is that the existing stormwater credit policy was put forward and approved by the board of public works quite some time ago, and it was the only policy. There wasn't, like, amendments to that policy. It was just one time, and Caitlin had put forward these policy changes to make it easier, for people to participate. So in that third paragraph, talks about stormwater credits for rain barrels and rain barrels ranging from 48 to 80%, extending those credits, and then including this 30% credit for 61 to 91 cubic feet and so on and so on. Tina was very supportive of that.

I think even if we gave her time to suggest her own stormwater credit changes, she would make those likely and present them to this body. She did say during the rate increase conversation that she, thinks there's more we could do there as well, so I'd like to give her that that time. With regard to the trees, she did mention that the difficulty with trees is that they don't have the tools to measure necessarily at this time the stormwater retention potential of trees. Obviously, we know that, but there's some challenges on their end, with enforcing that at this time. But that they could certainly continue to look into that.

Public awareness campaign, I know that they had they're working on building in more public outreach, but that is currently a staffing barrier. So that is potentially something our body could help with as well. I see Caitlin making her way up here. Caitlin, did you wanna add anything answer questions?

Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you. I was just making my way up

here so I could be a part of the conversation. I hope that's okay.

Absolutely. As we all know, La Crosse Area Waters is commissioned by the city to do public outreach, and this falls under our jurisdiction of things. I also know that one of the barriers for these stormwater credits is that there isn't really the capacity on the utility side to be able to manage and keep up with all of these things. So something that we've been talking about internally, and this is a very informal proposition, but due to the connection with La Crosse Area Waters and the lack of capacity on the utility side, we would be open to taking on the responsibility of managing the stormwater credits for an additional fee, obviously. But if the utility was open to something like that, we would be more than happy to manage that for them to ease the process.

I would also like to comment that I'm glad this is coming back around, but it has been a year, and the storm water fees have increased. And I know that we were aiming I mean, the idea was to implement this before it was increased because we knew it would be increasing. So I would politely like to extend a little bit of pressure to move on some of these topics. But I'm glad that you guys talked to her.

Okay. Can answer questions as well. Caitlin. And we can relay that back to Tina and see if there there's some opportunity for collaboration there. Since Caitlin's up at the podium, do you have any questions about the memo?

Okay. There are no questions. Thank you, Caitlin. So the next Lewis, did you wanna add anything?

Yeah. Just one thing I would say is, ultimately, I think I believe the deciding body for any changes to the stormwater credits would likely be the board of public works.

That is correct. So if we want to move forward, well, obviously, we want to move forward. I guess my recommendation after speaking with Tina would be to bring back this conversation, ask if there are any policy changes she would like to see, especially after going through the rate increase in the conversation with the consultants. We could bring it back for discussion next month before going to the board of public works if this body prefers that. Otherwise, the next step would be for her to write up the policy change within the utility, bring it to the board of public works for final approval.

K. Any questions on that? Would you like to have it come back before this body next month?

The, committee can decide, but I don't I mean

Administrative?

For me, it doesn't make sense to have her come here to ask what she should do if she already has an idea of what she wants to do. If she needs if she wants feedback on her direction, like, I mean, it seems like a it seems more like an economic proposition than a than anything else.

Sure. That sounds good to me. Alright. So this does not have this is just a discussion, so there's no vote that needs to happen. If Tina wishes to bring it to the body for feedback, you will see that on the agenda. Otherwise, hopefully, you all can speak on it at Board of Public Works. We can let you know when that's on the agenda. Alright. We are now moving around. Last two items. The next is 25Dash0427, youth climate action fund grant application review and selection. Lewis.

I just wanted to fill you in on how the breakdown of awards went since last meeting. Let's see. There were one, two, three, four, five. Five grantees that got either or got a reduction, or, I guess, four grantees that got a reduction. So one that you were aware of at the meeting was the planting our story, MOOB youth garden pilot project with Minan Yang, and that was was.

So they just offered to cover the cost of the honoraria. The other one was scraps to scraps to soil. There was, like, a 100 expert fee, which was kind of like an honorarium. But, so that was that was a reduction just because of limited funds. And same thing with the school garden accessibility, growing future for all with that was with Grow Lacrosse.

That was a bit of a blanket reduction on my part. I meant I I reduced it by $660, which was what was in their other category. I 600 of it was for expert assistance. 60 was for equipment that was just put in that category as opposed to the equipment category. So I said they could shuffle around their budget however they want.

They don't they don't have to not fund that equipment. And then lastly, just because we ran out of funds with the farmers market, $693.47 lower than what they requested. But probably the biggest surprise and change was that, our previous awardee after, this was with Grant Matthew's project with the crosswalk painting. After discuss discussing that possibility with, Public Works and and considering alternatives, had decided that he didn't really have the capacity to do or wasn't really gonna be able to fulfill, what the intent of the grant was. So in a last minute scramble to get the money out the door, I picked, something that I thought was ready to go.

And I you know, from our the discussion at the last meeting, I know it it wasn't ideal. But since, the Viterbo Drift Cycle Station was something that there could be could hit the ground running, I I I I needed to give the funds to somebody, so that's what I went with. Otherwise, with the, Christina's two projects that she had with the MTU, the MTU is funding both of those. So those so her projects will be fund will get funding from another source. And then with the disc with the reduction from the farmer's market, one of the costs that they they had listed was giveaway prizes, including, I think, Drift Cycle passes.

And I'm I feel like Jacob's very generous with giving those out, so I told her to to reach out to to him about that. So that was that reduced that cost. And then she also included MTU passes. Unfortunately, those aren't available, but I had reached out to the parks department about pool and kayak passes earlier when we were talking about the carbon free challenge. So I think that's gonna be though that'll be an incentive for them.

Yeah. And then for the there was one that was a mural, the Spanish language translation and mural for the Viterbo Garden, and I recommended they speak with the arts board about that project as a potential. The arts board does have a grant project. It didn't perfectly fit in there, but they could potentially modify it to do so.

Thank you, Lewis, for doing all of that. I know that was quite the shuffle over the last few months. Questions for Lewis. And so, my only question would be, we had a celebration event, last time. Do you kind of roughly guess the month that we can anticipate that again?

Good question.

Could I could I could I contribute here?

Yeah. Of

course. Oh,

yeah. Casey, go ahead. Yeah.

So Carrie Thompson and I, the sustainability institute, we're just starting to talk about that, Lewis. We haven't brought you in yet because we're just trying to get it straight in our own heads.

Lewis is relieved.

We were thinking about doing something in projects have to be completed by when? Is it

Good question. I can't either either the September or the October. Right? One of those two.

We were thinking about running an event having a very sort of informal celebration slash networking event slash maybe informal panel discussion with the with the people who are who are doing the projects sometime in, I believe, mid to late October Okay. If that would if that

Yeah. I think that should

Yep. I

think that should be good.

Sounds like

And we so we'll Sustainabilty Institute will start sort of planning for something like that.

And, Caitlin, did you say October 21? Sounds like the deadline is October 21, maybe.

Okay. Yeah. We can I mean, yeah, I will work with Casey on Excellent? Nailing down a nailing down a deadline. Cool.

Perfect. Event.

That was fantastic last time. I sincerely look forward to that again. Thanks, Casey. Okay. Anything else on Youth climate action fund? Alright. Then we have 25Dash0735. Graduate capstone project, City Of La Crosse green space expansion by the UW Lippaulet School of Public Affairs.

So you'll remember this from two years ago. The reason it's on the agenda today is is just kind of a procedural thing just to kind of receive and file it. If you have any questions, you can feel free to ask. But, I just wanted to make sure that there's documentation that this work was done. It is approved or it is accepted by the city. And, you know, I I think one of the other things too is that there is technical assistance out there through with students and other organizations that we can work with when we need help on this kind of work.

Thank you, Lewis. This was excellent. I do remember this. It is very impressive. Before I have that motion to receive and file, we should make sure the parks department has this since they are working now on the tree preservation ordinance. So the mapping in the full report is certainly maybe something relevant to to them. Alright. If there's no questions, then I'll have a motion to receive and file.

I make a motion to receive and file.

Motion to receive and file by Andrew Erickson. Second by?

I will second that motion.

Second by Steph. Hannah, is there any discussion? Alright. Motion on the floor is to receive and file. If there's no further discussion, please say aye if you are in favor.

Aye. Aye.

Any nos? Seeing no. Nos, that is unanimously approved. As always, send agenda items to Lewis. The next meeting is Monday, August 11 at 4PM, and we are at the end of our agenda. If there is no objection, I will adjourn the meeting. Seeing and hearing no objection, we are adjourned. Thank you all. We'll see you next month.