Environmental Services Division - Regular Meeting

it's 5 30. recall the order uh roll call um member lochelle uh member s player member c blair member barnes and uh member hampton uh member chandler and grow are absent is there any public comment for items not on the agenda There's no public, so no. Is everybody okay with the agenda? The agenda is approved unanimously. Does anybody have any corrections to the May minutes? May minutes approved unanimously. And with that, our first order of business, Open Meetings Act and Inspection of Public Records presentation. Ms. Troitz.

Good evening, Board.

My name is Katie Twaits. I'm the Deputy County Attorney. I think a few of you have already sat through this probably a couple of times. Chair Hampton can probably give it in his sleep. But we're here tonight to talk about the Open Meetings Act and a little bit about the Inspection of Public Records Act. So I do have some slides, and I think Angelica can provide those to you at the conclusion of the meeting. But it's going to be pretty legalese. Please feel free to interrupt me with questions. It makes it a little bit more interactive. But if not, we can just kind of breeze through this if there are no questions. So next slide. So we have the Open Meetings Act, which is sometimes referred to as OMA, and the Inspection of Public Records Act, which is sometimes referred to as IPRA. And those are the state's sunshine laws. I got tongue twisted. And every state has sunshine laws. They vary in some aspects, but they're common across all 50 states. And they generally require that all of public business of government be conducted in the public and for public view. that the public bodies are doing and taking action openly, and that the deliberations of those public bodies are done and open to the public. So our two, like I stated, are OMA and IPRA. And OMA, Open Meetings Act, is a state law that provides the statutory requirements for how to conduct our public meetings. IPRA is a state law regarding public records and allows the public and media to access all non-privileged public records, public access, open government. That's really what OMA and IPRA are about. Every time I say OMA and IPRA, I always think of the Oprah where it was Uma and Oprah. It was a David Letterman thing years ago. I age myself. All right, next slide. So the requirements for Open Meeting Act, there are four requirements. We have to have a quorum, we have to provide notice, and we have to have an agenda. And then after the meeting is conducted, we have to have minutes. So for a quorum, that's the majority of appointed members of the board. We have to provide notice of our meetings at least 10 days prior to the meeting. For the agenda, those have to be available at least 72 hours prior to the meeting and have enough specificity of the business or discussions that you're going to be talking about so that the public will know whether they want to attend or not. And then at the conclusion of the meeting, we have to create the minutes, they have to be drafted within 10 days of the meeting, and then they have to be presented to the board at the next publicly notice meeting for approval. Next slide. So what is public meeting? And when is the board conducting public business? So a public meeting or an open meeting is a public meeting, and that is defined by state statute. In New Mexico state statutes, it's Chapter 10, Section 15, Subsection 1. So all meetings of the quorum of members of any board are declared to be public meetings for the public to attend. So that's what an open meeting is. So whenever we have a quorum of members and we're going to meet, it has to be in the public. The other criteria is that it has to be about public business. Next slide. It's still part of the same statute, but in a different section. So when you do have a quorum of members, you have to be discussing public business or taking action within the authority that this board has taken. So anytime you have a quorum of, this board is seven, when you have a quorum and you have four and you're either discussing the public business of the ESB or you're taking action of the ESB, those are public meetings and everything has to be done in accordance with the Open Meetings Act. So what constitutes a quorum? Quorum is defined in our Code of Ordinances under Chapter 8, and it's a simple majority of the total appointed voting members of the board. So like I stated, this board has seven members, and you're fully appointed, I'm going to say staffed. But if you only had five members appointed of a seven board, Then a quorum would be a simple majority of the five. So you cannot, if you only had five, you can conduct a meeting with three. But now that you have seven, you have to conduct a meeting with four. So if three of you showed up here tonight and the rest were absent, we would have to call the meeting and say, you know, we can't conduct the meeting. We don't have a quorum. So there's a phrase called a rolling or a walking quorum. So like I stated, in order to conduct public business, to discuss public business of the ESB or to take action of the ESB, you have to have a quorum and you have to have a public meeting. The flip side of that is you can't have a quorum, so four or more people from ESB talking about public business outside of a public meeting. You can only do it in a publicly noticed public meeting, which sounds simple, except for the fact of normal business, right? So outside of county government, outside of county boards, most people do a lot of business through texting, through emails, through phone calls, and it's a lot easier and more efficient to get everybody on the same chat, the same text, the same email, saying this is what I want to talk about, and then everybody kind of chimes in all at once. That's how business is done generally outside of local government. That is prohibited because you're not doing it within the public view. So what a rolling or a walking quorum refers to is when you have, for this case, four members of the board talking about public business outside of a public meeting. And it could be at a coffee shop that you happen to be – three of you run into a fourth, and then you go, hey, we have a meeting tonight. What are we going to talk about? Oh, this is what I think about that. What do you guys think about that? Just something that simple of talking about ESB business when there is a quorum outside of a public meeting is prohibited. A lot of times you might see emails where it says don't – from the county or from maybe the chair that says, you know, what are you – What's your availability that we're going to be talking about this? Don't reply all to the email. That's to prohibit the rolling or walking quorum. Because once one email goes out to all of you, so you all have the same email, and then you reply all, now you're all talking about public business outside of a public meeting, outside of the public view. So it can also happen on a phone call. You have one member calling another member and then talking about that with a third member and then the third member talking about it with a fourth member outside of a public meeting. That could be considered an Open Meetings Act violation. So we want to make sure that when you are together or talking about public business that we really follow the Open Meetings Act and only talk about it if it's a quorum at public meeting. Chair Hampton, it looked like you were going to say something.

I have a question. Yeah. So one way that I've gotten around this or dealt with this in the past is if I have an email, just a piece of information that I want to go to the whole board, I will send that, but I will do it by address the book, put in the board address under BCC. Is that acceptable? Yes. Okay, great.

So the one way communication always is acceptable. So if they, here's a white paper, here's an article, here's something that I want to talk about at the meeting. I want you to do some homework before you get there. So you know what I'm talking about. The one way communications are always okay. Okay. It's when, Somebody says, oh, I can't see who was copied. I'm going to reply back to the board and tell everybody what I think, right? That's the reply back is where you have that communication. So the one way is okay. Great. But never reply all or if you can't reply all because they're blind copied, don't put the board back into it and then send it to everybody. But yeah, that is a great way to do it to be really intentional that if somebody tried to reply all, it's not going to work.

I guess the other question, if I do that, I mean, I believe that my emails to the board become public record, right? Correct. If there's, does BCC show up as part of that record or am I keeping that piece of information out of that record? You know what I'm saying? I don't know how email works.

I do know what you're saying, but I don't know if that, like the metadata would be there for if somebody was blind copied. I don't know the technological piece of that. Um, but that, that is a good kind of segue and we're not going to talk too much about IPRA, but, um, you know, about when you are talking about county business, public business as a board member, those records are public records and you have a duty to maintain them when you're on the board. And then if somebody were to request, um, put in a public records request and you have responsive records. So if they said, you know, I want all of the emails between the ESB board members, um, you have an obligation as a board member to provide those to the county so we can provide them to the requester.

And so let me kind of, so when someone gives us information like, um, counselor hand or, um, Mr. Brella, um, and I respond, thank you. I respond to all. And that's kind of tell everybody that we received it. That's the one. Thank you from on behalf of the board. And that's still okay. Unless someone responds to that, right?

Correct. Yes. It's, it's, an acknowledgement that we've received this, that you're not discussing it. It's more courtesy to say the board has received it. And that's the end of the communication, right?

Thank you.

Any other questions on that? And like I said, in real life, that's the way we get business done, right? We put everybody in the email that we want to know about it and we want to know feedback right away. So we get all, it's very efficient. We hear everybody and then we can get it done. The reason that we can't do that here is because the public is not part of that. And part of your job, all of your job is to be done in the public. So we need to make sure that we're not having these side conversations, even unintentionally outside of the public view.

So are you saying that if I send an email to ESB at LosAlmosNM.gov, I think that's our address now, that there's no place that those emails are archived, that it's on me to keep all of those emails?

We do. So if it's in the county system, we do have that.

Okay.

But I would recommend that you keep it as well for no other reason just to create a complete record right because sometimes maybe one board member would respond back to you or maybe it would have been a member of the public found your email and responded to you about board business and you had a communication with them that's not going to be on the county server but that could be a public record for public business as it relates to the board okay One thing that I do recommend, and I don't know how realistic this is for some people, but is to create a new email just for your board service. So that way it's not commingled with your others of, you know, your personal, your shopping, all of, you know, all the things. So, you know, be Katie or ESB at whatever domain. You know, that way that's what I sign up with. That's my public. And if there is a public records request, I know I just have to go to that. I don't have to go to my main account and filter through, I mean, all the junk that you get, all the normal stuff you get, all the personal stuff you get, and just have that. So that's one easy way. It's another email box that you have to manage. But from a segregation perspective, that's the easiest way to do it. Okay, so we talked about quorum, so that was the first requirement. Notice is the second requirement under the Open Meetings Act. And the state law doesn't dictate what we have to provide for notice, but it does say that the county has to create its own reasonable standards. So we do that through a resolution that's passed every year. It's the first resolution of the year for county council. It's the Open Meetings Act resolution that council passes And it determines all of our notice requirements. So this year's, every year it's going to be whatever the year is 01. This year it's 2601. Last year it was 2501. So if you ever wanted to look for that on the county website or on the clerk website, that's the easiest way to find it. It's going to be the first one of the year every year. So I took out some of the resolution here. It says all meetings of a quorum of all of our bodies have to follow the Open Meetings Act. And then it outlines specifically what boards are subject, bless you, to the Open Meetings Act. And here, clearly, ESB is one of those. Additionally, in the resolution, it talks about the different types of meetings that we call. So we have regular meetings. Those are your meetings that you have monthly. The board has the authority to call special meetings. And then we also have emergency meetings, but that generally doesn't fall within most of our board's purviews. But for regular meetings, like I said, we have to have notice within 10 days in advance of the meeting date. And we have to have the agenda available 72 hours prior to the meeting. How we do that, if you look at that and go, hey, we don't put our notices out 10 days, what we do for our boards is you guys adopt an annual calendar. And so we put that out well in advance of the 10 days and say, here's our regular meetings for the rest of the year. So we do that and then we put it on our website and we provide it to the media as well. Like I said, for special meetings, let's say like you guys are going to be talking about the plastic bag ban. And if you had a lot of business and wanted to talk more about that before your meeting next month, you could set a special meeting if you wanted to do that and come back in two weeks to further discussion. or whenever you wanted to. The only requirement for that is you have to have 72 hours notice. So you have to be able to comply with the agenda notice and 72 hours notice to set a meeting that's outside of your annual calendar. And then we also have to post it. So for regular meetings, we have to post them outside of the community building. So right as you walk in here, there's a little window outside and we put all of our postings out there. We put them on our website and we post them at the library. I'm trying to think where else. I think that's it. So our resolution requires all of that and same for a special meeting. We have to follow all of that. So we've gone through quorum, notice, now we have to have an agenda. So what does Open Meetings Act talk about the agenda? So we have to publish the agenda. We have to do no less than 72 hours. So again, that kind of tracks with the special meeting. So the least that you can do a meeting is 72 hours for a special meeting. And the same with the agenda. The agenda must consist of specific items of business to be discussed or transacted at the meeting. This requirement of specificity is not only in the law, but the purpose of it is to give the public reasonable notice to know about the topic that the body that they're interested is planning on, what they're planning on addressing. And so if you were to just say for tonight that you're going to get a training without the specifics, that wouldn't be specific enough for tonight for the public to say, do I want to tune in to see what that training is? Who knows what it is? Who's giving it? What's the topic? So it has to have enough specificity that the public can review it to understand and make a decision whether they want to attend or not. The flip side of that is, and I think you guys know this already, but just to kind of, you know, really drill at home is, so it has to have enough specificity of what you're talking about, but you can only, the flip side is you can only talk about things on the agenda that are published. And again, the same reason is Because if the public looks at it and goes, hey, these are the five things you want to talk about tonight, I'm not interested in that, and then they find out that you talked about a sixth or a seventh item that wasn't noticed but they had some interest in, they weren't put on notice that you were going to talk about that. So sometimes you might hear, especially for council meeting where we get a lot of public comment, Um, we'll get public comment for things that are not on the agenda and, um, the County council can't respond and have an interaction with them because that topic is not on the agenda. And it's not because our counselors are trying to be rude and say, yeah, that's great. Thanks. Walk out, right? Your three minutes are up. We don't care about it anymore, but it's because we, they can't engage in that conversation because the rest of the public didn't know that that was going to be happening that night. So sometimes if it is a topic, the chair will say that's, That's a great thing. We're going to put that on the next agenda and look for it on the agenda for our next meeting so that everybody can come and talk about it. But if you're not aware of that requirement, it might be kind of weird to come in and say, yeah, I want to talk to you guys about this. And then you say, well, we can't. Thank you. Bye. Right. But that's the reason is because we want the rest of the public to be part of that conversation and have the opportunity to come. And then the third requirement of the agenda is that it has to be specific. You can only talk about those things that are on the agenda, but they also have to be within your purview. So you couldn't put an item on your agenda that's the approval of a site plan that's supposed to be before the Planning and Zoning Commission, but is on your agenda. You don't have that authority. So Chapter 8, Section 233 outlines what the ESB's duties and responsibilities are. So everything that is on your agenda has to fall within these five criteria. And then this is just a sample agenda that's taken from our boards and commissions procedural rules, just to kind of outline. You guys adhere to this, but just to give you an idea. And then, so we have to have the agenda. It has to have some specificity, but we also have to post it so the public can see it. So we do that, again, outside of our Muni building. We put it on our website, and then we post it in the paper, and then we also post it at the library. And then after the meeting is conducted, we have to have enough specificity in our minutes so that the public, if they chose not to attend or weren't able to attend and wanted to find out what happened, they can go and look at the minutes and figure out who did what and when, right? So that's a requirement under the Open Meetings Act. The state law says at the minimum, the minutes must have the date, time, and place of the meeting, the members in attendance and those that were absent, the substance of the proposals, so your motions, the record of any decisions, and the votes of how each member voted. So if you took action tonight on the plastic bag ban recommendation, well, is it an action item? I didn't even check. Okay. And it was a three to two vote. We have to, in the minute, say who voted in favor in the three and who were the two for the no, so that the public will know what the motion was, what the action was, what the decision was, and who voted for what. And then, like I said, after the meeting, we have to draft those within 10 working days. It is a public document, and we have to bring it back to you at the next meeting for consideration. So what happens if you don't follow the Open Meetings Act? So if you took an action that was in violation of the Open Meetings Act, it's invalid. It's an interesting law because it is not the county that is responsible or held responsible, I should say. It's the actual board members. So that's why we provide the training to the board members so that you individually understand your obligations to the public. And the penalty, if found guilty of an Open Meetings Act violation, is a misdemeanor, punishable by not more than a $500 fine. Now, I've been with the county almost 14 years. I've never seen anybody get prosecuted for this from the county. There have been allegations of other entities doing things that are in violation of the Open Meetings Act. They took action behind closed doors, or they did prove something they shouldn't have done they should have approved at a public meeting, but they didn't. Um, but at the County, I have not seen that. And, um, I, you know, like to think that it's because we do train you guys up. We take it very seriously. We really want the public to be engaged and be part of this process. Um, but, but it is a really interesting law in the sense that it's not the County responsible for the violation that the action would be invalidated. So the County wouldn't be able to move forward. But if there was, um, any charges brought, it would be against the person that actually violated it. And then we have the Inspection of Public Records Act. I mentioned this briefly. I put the definition up here of what public records means under the law. And it's essentially everything, everything we do. It's all documents, papers, letters, books, maps, tapes, photographs, recordings, other materials, regardless of the form or characteristics that are used, created, received, maintained, or held by or on behalf of a public body and relate to public business. whether or not they're required by law to be created or maintained. So once we have it, it's a public record. Now, there are exceptions to IPRA, you know, for confidentiality, for medical records, for social security numbers, for date of birth. There's a whole list of things that we can't release, but the premise of the law is that everything that the government does is public. So every document is public, and it's only going to be withheld if there's a specific legal exception to withhold it or to redact it. So all of our agendas, the emails that go, you know, even the emails that say, hey, are you available? We're going to have a special meeting. Please tell us who's going to be available. That's a public record. So anything that we do is considered public. We kind of talked about that a little bit earlier, but do we have any questions on that? Okay, I feel like I was speed talking. So our office, the county attorney's office, is on the third floor of the municipal building. We're here to help you if you have any questions about this. The attorney general's office, which is now called the Department of Justice, I need to change my slides. They are the ones that enforce the Open Meetings Act and the IPRA. And so they, if there was a complaint, they would be the one to investigate it and make a decision. But they also provide some compliance guides. And you can find them on their website that gives some scenarios of if this happens, then what, is that a violation? So if you ever needed some reading to help you go to sleep, you know, definitely go to that. But it's also very helpful. With that, I'll stand for questions. And if there aren't any, I want to thank you for your time.

All right. Thank you, Ms. Choi. It's excellent and informative, like always.

Thank you so much. Have a good evening.

All right. Next item, single-use bag ban. And does the work group want to do a presentation or do we want to just discuss it?

Um, well, we can give you guys updates on what, what we should be doing, I guess today.

Does that work? Yeah.

Okay. Um, okay. So I think last time we talked, um, we had indicated that with the help of Eric, myself, um, Jack, and then, um, Jody Benson and then Helica had drafted up, um, I guess, uh, a very bare bones ordinance and then sent it over to, uh, the lawyer's office, um, for them to fill in more of the legalese stuff. Um, so what we would like to do is discuss the ordinance. Um, and then the idea would be that if, um, we recommend that we, uh, present the ordinance for public engagement, um, And comment that we would do that at the next meeting, right, Angelica? So our July meeting could serve as the public comment for that. And then at that point, council asked us to come back within 90 days. So we would have to present back to them in July or in August.

So we've moved that to, it's scheduled for August 4th.

Yeah. So we have the recommended. There's two recommended actions. Obviously, we can adjust those if we need to. But I suppose we should read through this. Yeah. Okay. Eric and I can just kind of go back and forth, I guess, if you want. Does that work? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. I can start. All right. So this will get assigned an ordinance number if it gets accepted. So this would be added to Chapter 18, Article 5, banning the distribution of single-use plastic carryout bags and encouraging retail establishments to charge a fee for recycled content paper carryout bags. Whereas single-use plastic carry-out bags do not biodegrade and instead persist in the environment for hundreds of years, slowly breaking down through abrasion, tearing, and photodegradation into toxic plastic bits that contaminate soil and water while entering the food web when animals inadvertently ingest these materials. And whereas the litter problem resulting from single-use plastic carry-out bags is becoming increasingly difficult to manage and has costly negative implications for tourism, wildlife, and aesthetics, It is the incorporated county of Los Alamos County desire to conserve resources, reduce waste, litter, pollution, and protect the public health, safety, and welfare. And whereas the single-use plastic carryout bag ordinance will eliminate the use of single-use plastic carryout bags by retail establishments within the jurisdiction of the county and encourage the use of reusable bags. I'll keep going. Do you want me to just finish the page?

Go for it. It's crazy.

Therefore, be ordained by the governing body of the incorporated county of Los Alamos as follows. So this is really the meat of this. So Section 1, Article 18, sorry, Chapter 18, Article 5 is hereby added to the Los Alamos County Code of Ordinances and shall stay as follows. So article 5 single-use plastic carryout bags section 2 purpose the purpose of this article is to protect and enhance the county's unique and precious environment wildlife and beauty through the reduction of single-use plastic carryout bags and to encourage the use of reusable and sustainable options the letter problem resulting from single-use plastic carryout bags is becoming increasingly difficult to manage and has costly negative implications for tourism wildlife and the waterways Due to such negative implications, single-use plastic carryout bags are injurious to public health, safety, and welfare of the citizens of the county and are therefore a public nuisance. Section 3 definitions. The following words, terms, and phrases when used in this article shall have the meanings ascribed to them in this section, except where the context clearly indicate a different meaning. Code official means the county official who is charged by the administration authority and enforcement of this code or any representative authorized by the county manager. Owner means any individual, partnership, limited, partnership, firm, company, corporation, association, joint stock company, trust, estate, or other legal entity that owns a retail establishment at their representative agent or assigns who are responsible for the daily operation of the store.

Eric. Plastic means a synthetic material made from linking manometer. My brain's not working. Thank you, monomers. I should know that. So monomers, through a chemical reaction, it's been a long day. That's not in the thing. Reaction to create a polymer chain that can be molded or extruded at high heat into various solid forms, including material derived from petroleum or a biologically based polymer, such as corn or other plant sources. Recyclable cardboard box means a box made of non-coated cardboard, corrugated paper, or paper. Recycled content carry-up paper bag means a carry-up bag that is made of paper and contains a minimum of 40% post-consumer recycled paper content and is 100% recyclable. Retail establishment means a retail business including, but not limited to, a convenience store, restaurant, grocery store, pharmacy, food truck, home improvement store, liquor store, gas station, seasonal or temporary business, farmer's market or farm stand, food or good delivery service provider, and seller of merchandise and dry goods to consumer. Reusable carry-out bag means a carry-out bag that is designed and manufactured for multiple uses, is made of cloth or hemp product, and has stitched handles either thread or ultrasonic. Single-use plastic carryout bag means a checkout or carryout bag made from plastic that is provided to a customer for the purpose of transporting groceries, food, or other goods. Section 4 is the policy. Retail establishments shall not provide or sell to a customer a single-use plastic carryout bag or any other bag or box that is not a reusable carryout bag, recycled content carryout paper bag, or recyclable cardboard box for the purpose of carrying groceries, food, or other goods. B, this section shall not apply to bags, provide to customers for use with loose or bulk products, produce, meat, or fish, or when provided for separating items to avoid contamination or prevent damage from moisture or for sanitary public health. or environmental protection purposes. Provided for prepared takeout food with potential for leakage as determined by the retail establishment that is not intended for consumption on the retail establishment's premises. Provided by healthcare providers or veterinarians to contain prescription drugs or medical necessities. Provided by laundry or dry cleaning establishments. Used to transport or contain live animals. Used to transport chemical pesticides or drain cleaning or other toxic chemicals sold at retail establishments. used to protect newspapers from inclement weather.

Distributed by manufacturers for packaging or preparing goods for display prior to sale or provided by food banks. Section 5, fee for recycled content. Content carryout paper bag. Retail establishments are encouraged to impose a fee for each recycled content carryout paper bag provided to customers in order to offset the retail establishment's cost of complying with this article and to encourage the use of reusable carryout bags. Section 6, responsibility of enforcement. The county code compliance officer and code officials are authorized to enforce the provisions of this article. Section seven, penalties. A, any owner of retail establishment who violates any of the provisions of this article shall be deemed guilty of a petty misdemeanor and upon conviction shall be subject to the following penalties. One, a fine of not more than $100 for the first violation. Two, a fine of not more than $200 for the second violation. Three, a fine of not more than $500 for the third violation. And four, a fine of not more than $500 or imprisonment for not more than five days or both for the fifth or subsequent violations. B, each day an owner of the retail establishment violates this article shall constitute a separate violation. C, nothing contained in this section shall prevent the county from taking other such lawful actions. action as may be necessary to prevent or remedy any violation or to bring an action to enjoin any violation of this article. Section 8, effective date. This ordinance shall become effective 180 days after the publication of the notice of adoption. Section 9, severability. Should any section, paragraph, clause, or provision of this ordinance for any reason be held to be invalid or unenforceable, the invalidity or unenforceability of such section, paragraph, clause, or provision shall not affect any of the remaining provisions of this ordinance. Section 10, repealer. All ordinances or resolutions or parts thereof inconsistent herewithin are hereby repealed only to the extent of such inconsistency. This repealer shall not be construed to revive any ordinance or resolution or part thereof heretofore repealed. And that's the end.

Excellent. Any questions or comments?

I'll just add a comment on our side. So some of the things that we were talking about internally were like a fee, whether to have a fee or not. We decided that at the current point in time, it's best to just let the retail establishments determine that fee.

Which is also kind of what council had asked us to do.

Yeah. And then stress that this is only at the point of sale. So it's the very end. So, you know, bags within the store, like if people are going to grab produce, et cetera, does not cover it. I know it says that in there, but just wanted to hit home that it is at the end point when the stuff's going out the door. So those are the two big things I just wanted to just hit home.

Two comments in section two purpose. where it says negative implications for tourism, wildlife, and the waterways. Did we want to add in recycling also, since when they get into the waste stream, they cause recycling problems?

That's a good point. In terms of contamination, the recycle, yeah. Because every time they have to stop, the baler costs us money. Or not the baler, but the sorting machine.

Yeah, I think that's a good call-out.

And the other one was under the definition of reusable carryout bag. It limited to cloth or hemp. And a lot of the plastic bags that were... Multi-use. Thank you. A lot of them are made from recycled plastic or stuff like that. So I'm not...

We can verify that one independently and then get back just if we need to expand the definition to what a recyclable bag is.

I think the purpose of why they just didn't say plastic was because we were concerned that the retailer would just offer a thicker mill plastic. That's right.

Like what Smith was doing already, kind of.

So it's...

Also, I guess it doesn't matter anyway since, I mean, you can bring whatever you want to carry something out. And this is regarding just, like you said, at the point of sale and what you walk out the door with. Okay. Any more?

I have several questions because I don't know what the process was that led to some of the language in this. Yeah. So I'm hoping that you can answer those questions. So... There's a bunch of language in here about litter and things becoming increasingly difficult to manage and having costly implications and so forth. How do we measure that and where do we have information on that? Because I haven't really seen anything in the way of tracking how much litter there is from plastic bags and how much impact it has. I'm curious where that came from. Those are statements that we are having this problem, but I don't know where that information came from. Can you address that?

I mean, for all intents and purposes, we don't have anything quantifiable in the sense of to back that up. It's purely just qualitative in the sense of what as a community we're seeing. So you're spot on. There's nothing that backs that up that we have evidence for other than just visual cues that we see maybe when you're at Smith's, et cetera. So a lot of this language is taken from Santa Fe or from other – entities around here or Colorado. That's where it was built on. So that's kind of our data point for how we progress with this. But we kept it highly qualitative, you know, in that regard.

I also think the county lawyers added some additional language as well. So I don't know where they got that from. I'm assuming... Yeah. I can't assume I shouldn't say that.

Yeah. Oh, okay. We're stating those things as facts and that they're injurious to the public health and they're a public nuisance. And to my knowledge, we haven't actually tracked any of that. So stating them here is a little problematic. I think there are good reasons to ban plastic bags that aren't mentioned in this, but these things are called out. And so I was wondering where this came from and how justifiable they are. Other question would be, again, back to the materials issues, just how much did you look into the total life cycle impacts of different bag materials to come to the conclusion that our best options are paper sacks and cloth sacks?

Those are the most commonly used product that we've seen on the market. So it's just basically the basis is what we see in the market that are most readily available that retail salons tend to sell to consumers.

okay in this community i would argue that mostly what we see sold to consumers are actually plastic and i understand the desire to get away from plastic that's kind of whole point but those those are what those are the bags that smiths that natural grocers that the co-op that everybody is offering to people and in some cases uh in in studies that i've read anyway they're much better alternative uh in terms of overall environmental impact than cloth bags or paper bags.

I think when Eric says that, he means like not Los Alamos as a county, but like when we look at places that have similar bands, that's what they typically use.

Okay. So you're hoping to shift the entire community away from using these types of bags based on what other communities have chosen to do. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. So again, without Okay. That's why you're doing that. And let's see. I guess it also comes down to enforcement. I mean, when you're talking about... Excuse me. So we didn't add any of that. Okay. I'm kind of curious. Maybe Angelica can address this, but... Our biggest problem here with respect to plastic bags is Smith's. And how do we enforce this against a national corporation?

We believe that Smith's will comply. I mean, it's one of their long-term goals anyway. And we had heard in the past that they don't have a problem complying with the local rules.

Okay. So we'll hope that this doesn't come to pass because... I don't see us throwing them in jail. Okay. I guess that covers my questions.

And we, I mean, just to speak to your second question. So we define what a reusable carryout bag would look like, because again, we don't want them just to offer, a thicker mill plastic bag and call it reusable. And so you see that, you know, I'm a reusable bag and it's just a thicker grocery bag. So in section four, item eight, it says, you know, retail establishments shall not provide or sell to a customer a single use plastic carryout bag, which is the traditional bag that we see or any other box that's not a reusable carryout bag. So it could be that or a recycled content paper bag. So trying to push a recycled content product versus a virgin product or recyclable cardboard box like what we see in natural grocers. They reuse the boxes they get for inventory and allow customers to take them out in that. for the purpose of carrying boxes. So we're trying to get ahead on local retailers just offering an alternative plastic bag and calling it reusable.

Yeah, it would be nice if we could come up with, to my way of thinking anyway, some language that would permit the provision and the selling of plastic bags that are more substantial, maybe that have stitched handles or whatever the criteria are, because those Those consistently come up in life cycle analyses as having lower impact environmentally than cloth or paper or these other things. And that's what our stores are providing. And they can even be made out of recycled plastic. And therefore, we're actually closing the loop and promoting circular economy.

It doesn't mean they can't sell them. Like if they sold a nice, like I'm thinking of the zero waste bags at Chamisa. made many years ago with the nice canyons on the outside and it's a zero waste on the bottom. They could sell a bag like that. There's nothing prohibiting them from that. They just can't give work. I mean, the way it's written, they just can't give that away.

Well, the language here to me under Section 4A says retail establishments shall not provide to or sell to a customer a single-use plastic carry-out bag. And under the definition of single-use plastic carry-out bag, it says it means a checkout or carry-out bag made from plastic. That's it, just plastic. It doesn't address the thickness or the intended use, multiple or single use or anything like that. It just says any plastic, any bag made of plastic shall not be sold.

It gets tricky. Yeah. And I think our main goal was just to avoid plastic. So if you have a better way to describe that? Maybe.

I think it would be worth looking into how the industry describes those.

We took that language from other ordinances, but I am trying to find... Because I think in that presentation that I gave, I had a more detailed definition, which I think is what you are looking for, Sue.

Yeah, I just feel like that's a... We're wanting to make this about increasing sustainability and reducing waste and reducing... And these plastic bags that are designed for multiple use that are sold at these stores address those things better in many cases with respect to many environmental parameters than paper bags do or than cloth bags do. And so to exclude them as a category, I think is not only... going to make it difficult for businesses to comply, but also we miss an opportunity to provide a more sustainable alternative. So it'd be nice if we didn't have to exclude them.

So I have specific HDPE single-use plastic bags.

Okay.

So that might be, but let me just make sure it doesn't. Yeah, so high-density polyethylene. We might need to see what that includes. It would go against what you're saying if more recyclable content would be included in that.

That language is pulled from a mix of what Colorado and California put down as their overall ban. So that's language we pulled. That's not necessarily that it hasn't evolved. Maybe it needs to evolve. So we could look into that too. But that was the basis for that specific language right there is from what Colorado and California put together.

Okay. I just, yes. If we're attempting to address sustainability goals, then I think that's important. I think it's important for us to consider what, what behavior and what materials we're trying to get our community to adopt, not just stop using plastic bags. And because we are the Environmental Sustainability Board after all. So I just would like to be sure that that is considered and included and not just because somebody else said it.

Yeah. I have another question for you. So do you... Are you uncomfortable with the penalties listed there? Because, I mean, like I said, we didn't add those, so I don't know.

No, I don't have any opinion on them at all. You're just very swear. I could not envision how we would make Smiths comply. Yeah, I got you. Okay.

I'm trying to find.

Yeah, I don't know. I'm not sure how we can adjust the definition.

So what I heard was you're concerned that we're missing an opportunity to allow for these plastic bags that we all know and love, like the truly reusable ones, not just the... I'm a thicker mill plastic, so now I'm reusable, right?

Yeah.

So how do we... Yeah, how do we phrase that so we don't then create a loophole that people use?

When you say, when you're referring to recycled, do you mean, because remember when Smith's had those like thicker ones? That's what I'm talking about. We don't want that to happen. No, that's not what I'm talking about. You are truly talking about like the, yeah, like the example Angelica gave with the Chimisib.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And Smith sells them and they have display as you walk into the store that's with their bags that they sell that are, I think they have stitch candles. They're meant to be multi-use and they say, help us reduce single use plastic waste by buying these bags.

Maybe we just say like, I mean, we might have to get, go back to the lawyers, but we could say something like single use plastic carry out black, blah, blah, blah. Excludes, um, and then just multi-use plastic bags with stitch handles such as X, Y, and Z.

There's probably an industry term for them that maybe AI could bring to you or something that would distinguish those types of bags or maybe some of the terminology done in the studies that have looked at these different types of bags would have different terminology as well. And that would be a true definition for those bags.

Yeah, they're like reinforced. Yeah, basically the same thing we're talking about. We might have to do a little research and see.

So we just need to expand our definition, not single-use plastic carry-out bag, but don't we need to just modify our definition of reusable carry-out bag?

Sounds like it.

Oh, to include that.

Yeah, because right now we just say it's made of cloth or hemp product and has stitch handles. But we need to include a plastic bag in there. We just need to give the parameters for the plastic bag. Sure. And a reusable bag.

Reusable bag, yeah. I might be outing myself as kind of dumb here, but I thought that those were canvas bags. So like a treated canvas. So that might be what some of the confusion I could see.

yeah some of them are a lot of some of the bag right is like a it's a certain kind of plastic like i'm thinking yeah i really didn't know that i thought yeah yeah and there's also the ones that are insulated yeah yeah and that sort of thing and those are clearly designed to be multiple use so like you said i bet there is a industry-wide standard or definition of not definition but title of what that is and we i think that's where we include is in the reasonable carryout bag instead of single-use plastic. We don't talk about single-use plastic, but it's a reusable carry-out bag. We just need to add that definition of what that type of, what it's made out of. Right. Be specific about that. The handle, like you said, is very specific on like that handle's super reinforced and what's the content of it. So that's the thing that we need to chuck in there. Okay.

So chat GPT calls it a woven polypropylene WPP reusable shopping bag or laminated woven polypropylene. polypropylene tote bag. These bags are made from woven plastic fibers and are designed to be durable, water resistant, and reusable.

Okay. I think that's a good idea to add that.

I second that. Yeah, I think that's a really good idea. Okay.

So it would say then reusable carryout bag means a carryout bag that is designed and manufactured for multiple uses is made of cloth or hemp or woven polypropylene or laminated woven polypropylene? OK. Yeah.

I think that covers it.

I don't know my plastics. And it has stitched handles, right? We want to leave that there.

Yeah, I think that's important. I think that's what they mostly do. I should have brought in my collection so we could look at them and see what they're made of. But that's probably correct.

OK.

And then I have one other comment. Okay. So sort of circling back to my questions about the language in the purpose of this, which we don't particularly seem to have data. I think what's missing from this are some of the things that we do know actually are things that we're trying to focus on that are a little more substantiatable. One being the increase in cost in recycling due to recycling contamination, which is probably about 3K a year across. We have a stated desire in our climate action plan and other sustainability plans to reduce waste overall. and single-use plastics in particular. And we don't address that here. We also have language in our climate action plan to support a circular economy. That's not mentioned here. We are also trying to reduce fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions. All of these things can be addressed by reducing single-use plastics in general. And I'm wondering why that type of language was excluded and why these other things, which

know which we don't have any quantitation for are included i there wasn't a re we just didn't think about that okay yeah and uh and since we were given direction to to um copy other state ordinances that was mostly why but i don't i think i mean your point is good we have a climate action plan at the county level we should try and call it out as

supporting it as much as possible so i'm fully on board with yeah i don't modifying this removing the the qualitative elements and putting in what you have in there because it doesn't like you said it aligns with the county's sustainability core goals goals yeah so yeah i i think that that's i mean that's that's those are the reasons i i can point to that we should do this not that i think this is a they're a public nuisance because i don't and i don't think they're injuring injuring

And they're having costly negative implications. We don't track that.

So I will say, and we don't have to do this, but the Santa Fe County or city ordinance, I can't remember which one, it might be both of them, but they specifically call out tourism.

Okay.

Do they have data? I didn't see any, but I don't know if, you know.

To me, this needs to be data-driven. Data-driven, or at least not just hand-waving.

Yeah.

Because then we're putting this out as a statement of why we think this is important. And to say that we think this is important because Santa Fe thinks it's important doesn't make it important for me.

So we could say the litter problem resulting from single-use plastic carryout bags is becoming increasingly difficult to manage and has costly negative implications for our waste stream and recycling contamination? Do we know that it's becoming increasingly difficult to manage?

I don't know.

I mean, we did hear from Friedman that it is, I mean, it is causing damage to their equipment. And it is the recycle bags and other tanglers.

What if we just said, is difficult to manage?

That, yes, because we don't track it, so we don't know if it's increasing or decreasing or

Are you tracking those changes, Shannon?

To the best of my abilities, yes. Yes, I've got. Okay, so the litter problem resulting from single-use plastic carry-out bags is difficult to manage and has costly negative implications for... Again, if we're saying that it's costly, that means that we know that there is a cost. With the recycling contamination, we know.

That's fine, yes, but for tourism, wildlife, and aesthetics... We don't have a cost. We don't have those numbers. And y'all can have your own opinion on this. This is just how I read this. Well, I think we did ask Director Styron

Didn't we ask him or something?

Yeah, the big one was just whether it was impacting, and that language got removed. We had language that was impacting or blocking the sewers. Because in some communities that is an issue, but not in our community.

So we took that out, yeah.

Okay. Yeah, I actually haven't heard of single-use plastic bags. being a problem in this community so it's kind of ironic because who was it your presentation that was the pictures of all the plastic bags I provided four or five plastic bag photos to Shannon for her presentation and those took me years to accomplish to compile um my my personal experience hiking and walking around the community and picking up trash is that it's actually a very minor component of our plastic trash issue. There's much more in the way of single-use plastic bottles, cups, straws, lids, condiment packages, energy bar wrappers, and then random stuff that blows out of people's yards. But I rarely see a plastic sack in the environment. Yeah. And this is, I realize it is ironic. I provided those photos, but it was, you know, I've got a lot more pictures of other kinds of plastic waste, if you'd like.

I mean, the hill slope below Smiths into L.A. Canyon is quite contaminated. Absolutely. So if we want to get pictures of that, we can get it from that perspective. So L.A. Canyon below there is not good. And probably. And the public doesn't get to go in there. That's right.

absolutely so i can't attest to that yeah it's close it's just so windy whenever you got the smith's parking lot you got ravens going in there so they're yeah there's lots of stuff that blows over that fence and it's unfortunate that we cannot seem to get smiths to clean up their own mess on public land okay so how do we want to how do we want to finalize this section um

So what I have right now, and we can workshop it, the litter problem resulting from single-use plastic carryout bags is difficult to manage and has classically negative implications for, I guess, the county's waste stream and recycling contamination rates. And then we could add something further... eliminating i don't know if that's a word we want to use but single use plastic bag in the county um direct or supports the climate action plan um specifically i wrote circular economy greenhouse gas emissions i know you said something else sue that i missed of reducing fossil fuel use

Do we want to go ahead and just get rid of the sentence that starts with the litter problem and substitute with basically the three core elements that she has in there? Which is that we want to remove waste from the dump. We want to remove waste from our trash going out, right? And that's a serious, that's something that we can, that's contamination into the, that's just further waste into our system. Trash going down to, you know, down to Freeman, et cetera. Not Freeman, but like, and then the other one is the impact to our, the contamination in our recycling. Something to do with that element. And then what was the third one again? I always forget that one. So it's the recycle cost or the impact to our ability to recycle and the contamination in that recycle. We want to remove waste from the dump and plastic bags tend to make up a chunk of that.

And then I think your last one was climate related or greenhouse gas usage and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Yeah. So then I would align those three things, then align it with the climate action plan. And then we got rid of the far more quantitative, qualitative, sorry, element of tourism, wildlife and waterways and trying to say that's costly. I think I'd be fine with using that because then we're pulling language from something that we already have a basis for, like you're saying.

Okay.

I mean, it still is impacting the canyons and stuff, so it is impacting the wildlife and whatever is right below that canyon. I don't know. I think it's okay to leave maybe some of it and Add the other pieces that Sue mentioned.

It would have negative impacts on wildlife. Since nobody can go in LA Canyon, it doesn't impact tourism or aesthetics. But it could impact wildlife, water quality. Definitely could do that.

Okay. Okay.

And I think the last sentence there, we have a desire to conserve resources, reduce waste, litter, pollution, and protect public health, safety, and welfare. Those are all very good things. And I think that those are true.

Sorry, Shannon.

Yeah, I don't know how to.

Believe that. The sentence we're going to tweak modifies the literal sentence.

I'm sorry to make chaos out of this. And you all can blow me off and say this is fine and just vote for what you have. It's fine. I'm all about it. But I won't vote for it.

Yeah, I'm all about aligning it with CAP.

Yeah, I think that's a good idea.

Then it has a basis. Then when it goes to county council, it already has something in there that pulls from that language. And I also agree that the tourism element, that really can't be in there. I mean, there's nothing to back that one up. Wildlife and waterways, we can include that if we still want to include that in there because we do see downstream impacts from plastic bags. We might not necessarily see them in our sewer, but it does inevitably end up down there. So we could... No, we have to get the language now. I was going to say we could come back, workshop it, and then put it in for next month.

I could try to open a Word document. Um, or at least an email. Sorry. It's, uh, let's see. Okay. Let's open this and play with it here.

Email to myself.

So we have...

So this is just... We're just looking at section two, purpose.

Yes.

And then we also changed one of the definitions. Well, let's do this first.

So the litter... Let me make this much larger. Why make it bigger?

You might have to control plus.

Control plus. Oh. All our people online... We do have public now chair. So the litter problem resulting from single use plastic carry out bags is. Sorry.

Yeah. Were we going to reword that to just the is difficult to manage?

Or could we do single-use plastic bags, increase recycle costs due to contamination, add additional waste to the dump, or dump slash our whatever. Landfill? Our landfill. Not our landfill, but to that landfill.

And then you guys can tweak it.

Okay. I was trying to rewrite the sentence.

Yeah, try to think about that. Give me one minute.

Yeah.

I think we're going to make a few changes here, right?

I think we're going to do it all in one sentence.

Sorry, lost my spot. Implications.

Just scrap the whole first sentence and say it is the incorporated County of Los Alamos' desire to conserve resources, reduce waste, litter, pollution, and protect public health.

See, that's why I like voice to text, because it's just so much faster than I can type. We all get narrow link. I'll just think it, and it'll be on the screen already. Just kidding. I don't want to know. Public new sense. OK. All right. So I think that was it. So tell me where we're starting. Who wants to go?

See, I have it down section two purpose, but we do need to tweak it up high, don't we?

And whereas in the second, whereas.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, let's do this first.

This is under purpose. This is what I got from purpose.

Yeah. But it uses the same language twice. So we'll have to adjust it up top too. Okay. But we can do this first.

Okay, what do you have? So whereas single-use plastic bags increase recycling costs due to contamination. Feel free to add supplement language in there. Add additional waste to...

So are you saying this is the exact same language in the whereas?

This is, yeah, this is removing the litter problem sentence.

Can we focus on purpose first? And then I'll go back.

Sure.

Okay. Go ahead.

I think it's the same, but... That is for the whereas. This was the one, the second whereas. The whereas, the litter problem.

Okay.

I thought we were... And then that will then allow us to go in and we can use that same language and swap it out under purpose because they're verbatim.

Got it. Okay.

Oh, they're not verbatim, but they're darn close.

All right. This is... I have a paste feature. Okay. OK, so this is whereas. Yeah. Whereas the litter problem.

Or single-use plastic bags increase recycling costs. OK. Due to the, we could elaborate it, due to the need for the removal of that contamination or something like that. This feels very wordy.

I mean, this thing is wordy, so it's OK. That's true.

Whereas the litter problem resulting is difficult. Is that where we wanted to do? Delete this?

What I want to say is that the cost comes from having to remove the plastic bag contamination from our recycling.

Okay. So we're going to delete that.

Yeah. Just say that. Whereas the litter problem resulting or it wouldn't be litter, but whereas the disposal problem or something. resulting from single-use plastic carryout bag results in contamination for the counties.

For the contamination of single-use plastic bags in the recycling. Let me try this and see if it's what you... Where's my computer and chat GPT to help me?

Pull out your phone.

Yeah, that's true.

Difficult to manage and has costly negative impacts for wildlife. Waterways, right? And the recycle system. I don't... Okay. And our recycle program. That's what I had first heard. And then we also added the cost burden.

I mean, I don't... I kind of... Agree with Sue. I don't think we need wildlife or waterways, but I guess if other people disagree.

I'm just here. I'll be your typing finger, so.

I would say it is an issue or is likely to be an issue in one canyon in town, and that's L.A. Canyon, which is behind Smith's and also is north of the Eco Station. So things that blow out of the Eco Station, not that that happens much or at all that I know of, but that also goes into L.A. Canyon. But we're not allowed to see what's down there, so we don't really know. but the rest of the community, I don't think is that I don't see a lot of plastic bags out there. You all hike and stuff too. Do you see a lot of plastic bags?

I mean, I, I did see a bunch when I was biking this weekend, but it's also been crazy windy. Right. So, and where were they? They're near the golf course. Okay. I almost took a photo, but Seth was like miles ahead of me.

So I was like, I have to keep going. Um,

It's difficult to manage and has costly negative implications for... Our environment.

Yeah, I was just saying that. Our environment. Yeah. And has negative implications. We don't know that it's costing.

Yeah, we could say negative implications and... And costs. And costs to our recycling program, yeah. So...

And cost implications?

Yeah, sure.

As negative for our environment and cost implications for our recycle program?

Okay. It has negative impacts on our environment and costly implications, actually. Okay. and increased costs for a recycle program.

Yeah. Increased implications is OK. OK. You had mentioned the cost burden of contaminating the recycle system. Yes.

And then, Angelica, the whereas, the second sentence is different. So I would just delete what you have. Just delete that. Because I think we want to leave that sentence.

Okay.

Great. Okay.

And, again, do we know that it's becoming increasingly difficult to manage? Or is it the same as it was ten years ago?

I think it's... We just know that it's a problem. I mean, we heard it for the recycle presentation.

So taking out, becoming increasingly.

So I think what we do is copy this.

This is difficult.

Copy this and move it as the first sentence and the second. And then the second sentence, we can call out the cap stuff.

Yeah. Yeah.

Does that make sense? Okay.

And then you can include contributes to the county's total waste to the landfill.

Where do you want to put that?

You can put it in line with that. Otherwise it'll be the longest sentence ever. Okay. Or you can also just say single-use plastic.

Contributes to the county's?

Total waste to the landfill. Because that's one of the cap. We're trying to reduce our waste going to the landfill. And that is a factor. And then the last one that we have in there is the?

Reduce fossil fuel usage and greenhouse gas emissions.

Yes. I know that still needs to be tweaked further. also just it also contributes to the county's total.

And contributes to circular economy. Yeah, and supports Yeah, in support of circular. So this needs quite a bit of tweaking. Yes. And then you mentioned the climate action plan. So.

So I think we just say reduces greenhouse gas emissions, blah, blah, blah supports a circular economy. And is in line with the county's climate action plan goals.

Okay.

So take out that last sentence. Do two.

Well, we have to have something that it's a public nuisance or then it's not enforceable.

So, I mean... What constitutes a public nuisance? I don't know the definition of it. Does this fit that definition?

I don't know, but Jack had asked for it to be removed as well, and it can't be removed or else it's not like... It's... So the way it's drafted right now, it's to allow for civil remedies in addition to the criminal penalties. The statement declaring plastic bags a nuisance will be important if filing a civil action. The deletion of that language is not recommended if the county would like to pursue civil remedies.

Okay. I guess in discussions with the county attorneys, they felt that this fit the definition of a nuisance? Is that why this went in?

I mean, I guess so. They didn't, we didn't, yeah.

They helped draft the purpose. Yeah.

So they added that. We didn't add that there.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Do you want to ask me to see if we can better align it with what we just wrote in the sentence before, the two sentences before that? If there's anything we can do to tweak it to kind of better align with those first two sentences?

The last sentence?

Yeah. Or does it have to be in that format?

And isn't the basis for the climate action plan that if we don't do something, it'll affect public health, safety, and welfare? So if we invoke the climate action plan, that leads into this.

Okay. That makes sense to me. Yeah. Okay. So we need to work on that second sentence.

Yes.

So single-use plastic bag usage. contributes to the county's... Oh, single-use plastic bag?

Yeah. Total waste or total... Let's see if I can steal something from the right bag or report.

Plastic bag usage contributes to the county's total waste or trash to the landfill. Oh. And then we need to somehow phrase this, the second part differently. We could say period there.

This ordinance?

Yeah. Yeah.

That better feeds into that last sentence.

Yeah. Part circular economy and... And supports?

Well, you could say the ordinance reduces greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel usage, supports a circular economy, and is in line with the county's climate action plan. Yeah.

Could be supports the circular economy?

Supports a circular economy. Okay.

Ordinance, this ordinance. Okay. And then I think, Angelica, the second sentence should say single-use plastic carry-out bags, because that's how we have it defined. Bag usage, yeah.

Okay.

single use plastic carryout bag usage contributes to the county's total waste generation yeah that sounds cleaner because it's well we landfill it we're generating it and then we're shipping it and then we're landfilling it so it's like um you could generation and disposal Transportation and disposal? I don't know. Yeah, I think it's good to call it out. I don't know. You want to call it out? Yeah. Transportation. See what you're supposed to do.

seems funny you know what would be an awesome number to have would be like how many plastic bags um smiths like goes through in a year we have we do have that not not to say they all get there but if you take that value versus the quantity that end up in their actual recycle their own little recycle system you know there's an insane delta there yes you know

I don't have that second, but we do have an estimate of how many they use.

Okay. That's handy.

Yeah.

But the next sentence, I don't think we know a priority that this ordinance will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but I would say this ordinance may reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel usage. I don't think we can predict that it will.

Well, if you have less waste going to the dump, that inevitably means less shipments down there. It might not be now, but over the course of a period of time, it could be one less shipment down there.

It could be. It may reduce. I think it's more complicated than that as well because the emissions associated with transport and disposal are probably considerably less than those emissions associated with production of whatever bag we ask them to use instead of these. That's variable depending on the material.

Any other changes?

I'm not sure the last sentence is in alignment with the things that we talk about above it. It states that these bags are injurious to the public health, safety, and welfare. And those aren't really the things that we're talking about above.

Could we say that being incompatible with the climate action plan, single-use plastic bags are injurious? Or is that going too far?

So take out the due to such negative implications and instead say being incompatible with the climate action plan, single-use. I don't. I mean, I'm fine with that, but I don't know if that's some weird legalese thing that we have to leave in there.

Does it have to be injurious to the public health, safety, and welfare of the citizens to be a public nuisance? Is that the definition of a public nuisance?

Ask.

Yeah, I did look that up. It says a public nuisance is unreasonable, unwarranted, or unlawful act that injures or interferes with the health, safety, welfare, or property rights.

Okay. Then it has to have that language.

Would it be better to make it two paragraphs and just have one paragraph due to such negative implications? So it stands apart slightly from... Our basis.

Or just take out, due to such negative implications, just say single-use plastic carry-out bags are injurious.

I think that's better.

Yeah. Yeah. And you're still keeping the core content that causes it to be a public nuisance.

Okay.

Okay, and then the other change we made was the definition to reusable carry-out bag.

And I have that.

Okay.

I have it as, I mean, I could type it if you like, but.

Yeah, let's display it just so we're all on the same page.

All right.

Mother.

How do my letters do that?

Mentals. Either.

I lost my spot.

Either thread or ultrasonic.

Thank you.

Thread or ultrasonic.

And I think we need to say is made of Cloth or hemp product or woven or lamp. Yeah.

Yeah. Or just some commas.

Yeah.

I don't know. Cloth, comma, hemp. Or, yeah. Comma, woven polypropylene or laminated woven polypropylene.

Cloth or hemp.

Cloth, comma, hemp. Take out product. Put it in a comma. Mama after polypropylene. Beautiful. Okay. That makes more sense.

Polypropylene. Polypropylene.

And then we may need to amend the definition of a single-use plastic carryout bag because that includes language that says just it's a carryout bag made from plastic, but we've already specified that some kind of plastics are okay. So is there a way to define a single-use plastic carryout bag as opposed to other types of plastic carryout bags?

What if we said all of that with the intention of Of being used once or something. They're designed for, you probably can't use single use in the definition of single use. Right.

To be, to dispose, to be disposed of after single use. Again, there's probably a industry definition of them.

We can give that to the attorney though.

Okay. Okay.

You're saying which part, Sue, are you saying?

So the very last thing is the definition of a single-use plastic carry-out bag. At the moment, it says a check-out or carry-out bag that's made from plastic. Right. And that, we just in the previous paragraph said that some plastics are okay.

Revised to allow for the woven polypropylene or laminated.

Right, right.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay. So I think that we can ask them to do that piece.

Yeah.

But NRDC says blah, blah, blah, and are meant to be disposed of right after use. Okay.

Kind of like what you were saying. Yeah. So single use are bags that are meant to be disposed of after a single use.

Yeah. Yeah. Single-use plastic carry-out bag means any carry-out bag that is made from plastic that is designed and suitable only to be used once and disposed. That's from Washington State.

Discarded or recycled.

Yeah. And then people would argue that they reuse their bags all the time.

But they're not intended to. That's not the intent behind them.

Yeah, but... That's what we'll get. If you're okay with it, we'll give it back to the attorney and let them figure that out.

I think our get-out-of-jails, again, it's at the point of sale for that one. For the use of it. Yeah.

Unless you have a definition you're comfortable with, Shannon.

I mean, yeah, those are some from... That's from the ban in Washington State. Any other changes? Carla, you got nothing? Okay.

Is there any public comment? If there is, raise your hand.

Let's see. Let me stop sharing. Oh. Is there any, Jody has her hand raised, okay.

Go ahead, Jody, speak your name. Hello, this is Jody Benson, 3547 Pueblo Drive. And I have a lot of information about the single-use plastic shopping bags, of course. And let me see if I can open this email I was going to send you. Something that we had been talking about was having a little more information, as Sue asked, about what, put in a definition of single-use plastic shopping bags. And from the EPA, it says a checkout or carry-on carry-out bag made from plastic with weights between 0.3 mil and 5 mil. that's provided to a customer at the point of sale for the purpose of transporting groceries, food, or other goods, and is not specifically designed and manufactured for multiple uses. And then about data, Randy Reidy had some data that Randy reported that the Los Alamos location dispenses 2.1 million plastic bags a year, while the White Rock location distributes 800,000 a year. And while these locations offer recycle bins for plastic bags, there's a question of whether it actually happens, what happens to them once they're recycled. And you also asked about, Sue, you asked about plastic bags blowing all over the place. Yeah, they pretty much are. In many cases, however, I noticed they're from... I guess, I don't know who said this, but... ravens, crows getting into bins and throwing the plastic bags all over the place. So I don't know if that's, I don't know what that entails, if those plastic bags have been in anything or had they been used for disposal or if they were just thrown in the trash. But anyway, we do have some data. I think Randy's is the most updated. I had some data from a few years ago. But, and that was, hold on, got it. The data from a few years ago is, was that Los Alamos County residents, give me a second, 330,000 plastic bags or about three quarters of a ton a month that we must pay to dispose of. I don't know if that's still accurate. I think we should go with Randy's. but these are some numbers if you want to, if you want any numbers.

Those sound like the numbers we got from Smith's for your presentation, Shen.

Thank you, Ms. Benson.

Thank you.

Would someone like to make a motion?

We don't need to talk about anything else. Okay.

Talk about next steps, I guess. Like what would happen next?

Sure. So I assume the motion will be to incorporate those things, which we wrote down. I know that if you do that, it's going to have to go back to legal. And then it would come back to us in July for final recommendation.

I mean, if you would like to recommend this as there's a motion to recommend it as proposed with the changes that we would make tonight with some leeway to do the final changes on the single-use plastic bag definition.

So we could still have a public meeting or public comment meeting next in July, even with the changes, if they get accepted.

Okay.

Okay. Okay. Well, I'll make a motion then. I move that the Environmental Sustainability Board recommend the proposed single-use plastic bag ordinance be presented for public engagement and comment with the following changes that were discussed in today's meeting, including to... The second whereas listed, Section 2 purpose, Section 3 definition specifically single-use plastic carry-out bag as well as reusable carry-out bag.

Second that. Any further discussion? All right, all in favor, raise your hand and say aye. Aye. Motion passes 5-0.

Forward that to myself so I don't lose it. Do you imagine all our hard work?

Good thing it's recorded.

Oh, could you imagine having to go back and listen to that?

Thank you for your input, everybody.

Yeah, much appreciated. And thank you for the work you guys did on getting this together. It's not easy.

Yeah, it was a lot.

Again, thank you, Super. I think it's a better product now. Yes, definitely. I think it's a vastly better product. Okay, well, thank you. In terms of aligning it with the climate action goals, which is where inevitably we should have baselined anyways. So thank you.

Okay, you're welcome. Thank you for entertaining my concerns.

All right, there's no chair's report. Is there a BPU report?

Okay, so for the BPU working session on June 3rd, There was a presentation from the New Mexico Environment Department. It was an update on the hexavalent chromium plume. Some notes from that presentation. The plume is not contained within LANL property. There are disagreements between state and LANL about injections from LANL and whether they should continue. They are working on corrective actions between LANL and the state. There are improvements needed for the pump and treat system, and currently they're at a standstill. The next presentation was the on-bill financing overview from Angelica. I think you all heard that here right, so I don't need to summarize that, okay? There was an approval to execute a power purchase agreement and an amount not to exceed $4,725,000 plus applicable gross receipts tax to supply power and energy to the Los Alamos Power Pool for the month of July, 2026. There was an approval to add $2,632,746 for the FEMA grant to fund the Jemez Mountain Fire Protection Project. Okay, that's all I have for June 3rd. And then last night's meeting... There was a presentation on the gas rate ordinance. So they discussed usage and costs of gas in New Mexico and future price increases, and they approved a one-year gas rate increase. There was a presentation on burying all Los Alamos electrical lines, and they just discussed the advantages and disadvantages of doing so and the costs. And there was a review of the 10-year budget plan and reserve guidelines, and then there were some wildfire updates. Bless you. And that's all the notes I have.

Does anybody have questions? I have a question. Yeah. I thought the county, I thought council voted down a gas price increase. Was that the same? Was it related to?

I think they voted down a two-year gas rate increase. Yeah, they wanted to bring it back, and then they presented again on why they should have an increase. So they just wanted to do it in one-year increments rather than two-year increments, yeah. Thank you. Yeah.

Great summary, Carly. Yeah, good job.

All right, the last next one is Transportation Board. And at our last board meeting, we had a presentation from staff about what they're doing at North and Urban, which they actually, they were going to propose it, but they actually just jumped ahead and installed the four-way stop sign with signage and some minor paint infrastructure. And that's about it. Any questions?

No Parks and Rec? I actually attended. Actually, can you update that? That's something I boobooed on. I should have had updated. So I'm now the new Joe Chandler for Parks and Rec. I didn't attend in person, but I watched it on the internet machine. So... They presented on the – as you know, there's these beautiful Jersey bears in front of Ashley Pond right now. So they're going to update those. They've been working with the landscapers, so they're going to do crash-rated bollards. You can also sit on them, and they're going to be painted black. Also, another option, option two is planners, planners with the bollards. So a dual, dual combination. And the third was rocks rated that could like big enough rocks that a car could ram into them and they won't go anywhere with native plants. So that was one thing they were talking about there. And then Eric Peterson from the county presented, did an open space presentation, went over the volunteer events that they have to do a lot of trail maintenance, adopted trails. So they're working on School Canyon in that area there. And that School Canyon Rim Trail is actually in pretty good shape, but there's a lot of graffiti in the canyon, so they cleaned up the graffiti area. The projects that have been going on are with a contractor that the county keeps on for maintenance. They added a new bridge over at Doc Grant Trail that is rated so horses could go over as well. Operational projects, they updated the Kinnickinick Park to make it ADD compliant. ADD? A-D. A compliant? Wow. and so uh they resurfaced that sucker so it's it's rocking right now and then we're going out with the ycc um just to build like stormwater controls in the canyons keep those maintained that's kind of the big gist of what what was talked about the short and sweet they did like sub hour it was pretty amazing i think you can still vote on the type of

Jersey barriers you would want at Ashland.

Yeah. So they've been handing out pamphlets. Starting last Friday, they handed out a bunch of pamphlets that were there. So as a community, you could vote on the three options.

Yeah. Go to the county's main page, and then it's under Have Your Say. And you can pick your favorite option.

And as of when they had the meeting, the most popular option was option number three, which was the big boulders with native veg around it.

It was my favorite, too. I like that.

And also something I forgot is we're having a special meeting of T board on Monday to host a public meeting on that and make a final recommendation to council. So, all right. Um, counselor hand liaison report.

Good evening, everybody. Um, I, uh, I don't have a whole lot for environmental sustainability board, but I thought I would mention some things that we discussed on June 9th. I won't go into the gas rate increase and the fact that it was voted down in that meeting since you discussed that it's coming back to council with one year instead of two year. But some of the other things that we had on our agenda, it was a very long agenda. We did have a presentation on the Wildlife Assessment Project by representatives from the Environmental Solutions and Innovations Organization. And basically they were talking about the phases that they're proposing to, you know, first they would organize and assemble some information regarding the wildlife conditions and concerns. regarding our vehicle collisions, wildlife related complaints, any other existing reports, policies, and public facing materials that are related to wildlife management and education, and then any other documented concerns related to deer, large wildlife, and human wildlife interactions. The second phase, they would go through risk and priority assessment, where they would build on the information that was synthesized in phase one, evaluate and prioritize the wildlife-related issues using a transparent multi-criteria framework, and then Issues would be assessed and ranked based on public safety, feasibility, and public acceptance. The last phase is management policy options, where they would identify a range of practical strategies, which include regulatory, educational, infrastructure related, and coordination based approaches. They would describe benefits, limitations, and trade-offs associated with each of the options. including potential costs, expected effectiveness, implementation challenges, and lastly, identify implementation responsibility, talking about actions within county control and actions requiring state agency or partner coordination. They gave a timeline for this project. Basically, they would start doing the information review this month through September. Then they would basically have the draft report by April 2027, a final report by May, end of May 2027, and brief county council by June, basically a year from now. So other than that, let's see, I really didn't see that many things on the agenda that would be specifically of interest to the ESB, unless you have any questions about some of the other things that were covered. But it was just extremely long, hours and hours long. I think we met until after it was like 1020 or something when we finally ended our meeting that night. So that's all I have.

You can cancel hand any questions. All right, next item be city.

Britain is not here with us tonight.

All right, sustainability lines.

We didn't meet this month. However, we had a very nice table this morning at the farmer's market, which included participation by some of our sustainability Alliance members, as well as members of environmental services and Angelica and our excellent interns. And it was slow, but I think it was just because it was hot and there will be ongoing farmer's market tables on the, on the, the before each of these meetings each month. So, on the third Thursdays of each month. And it's a great opportunity to come out and meet the community and talk to them about the things that we care about and get their input. So I encourage you to join us if you can. David was there too.

Thank you. Staff report.

Can I ask a question? Sure. What date is this rain barrel workshop that's listed here? Do you know?

I don't know, I'm afraid. I can check online and see if I know off the top of your head. No, I wish I did know because I'd like to go.

I think it's now in July and Abby and Peak are hosting that.

Okay. Thank you. Look on the Peak calendar on their website. It should be on there.

Okay.

My update. Okay. Let's see. Okay. So this past month, our newsletter focused on climate anxiety. If you haven't subscribed, subscribe now for the newsletter. And Angel Meng, our student intern, will be writing the newsletter for the next year. So you may be contacted by her for information. electrical vehicle charging infrastructure. So we're installing two DC fast chargers at Mesa Public Library. And the recent hurdles we've encountered is the panel we need is like a four, it's like four months out. So we have to complete the project no later than October. So we're hoping to receive that sooner. We We'll receive the equipment by June 23rd. So that's in transit. And if you've been to the library, they're currently working on like the trenching and all of the infrastructure. So when we get the different pieces, everything will kind of, it'll be like plug in place. So excited for that project. And then after that project, the next focus will be for chargers for the county's fleet because we have quite a few electric vehicles and we don't have enough infrastructure for them right now. So they're using these. And, of course, they're welcome to use the ones here at municipal, but sometimes it's just not convenient. The municipal food composting program, so we've pivoted. And what we're currently working on is the solicitation process. I've drafted the RFP and it's with the environmental services manager. And the thought is to hire a contractor that would be able to provide the collection and composting services and help us to effectively manage our food scraps from commercial businesses and the yard trimmings that we're getting from all of our residents and businesses. So it would be a two in one and we've encountered obstacle after obstacle of trying to build something at our own site. So the next best option is to hire a contractor that could help us manage it externally. Yeah, so that's where we're at. With that, I'm really excited for that because it's been challenging. Like you all heard the on-bill financing. Thank you so much for all of your comments and your questions. That really helped, I think, to BPU to feel comfortable. They received the questions very well. They were grateful for those. And then I think I sent you the answers to all your questions. And I also was able to share those with BPU. So we did receive approval to go forward and explore and start the building of the program phase. But the final details will still have to go back to BPU for review and approval. And we're also working through some of the legal challenges of that program. So that'll take some time. Upcoming, so we have, like Sue mentioned, the farmers markets Thursday of every month from now till September. If you're interested in joining us, if you could pop in even an hour, that's really helpful. I think June and July we mostly have covered with our student interns, but the rest of the months would be really helpful. And then we have Science Fest coming up in September, Clean Up LA Day coming up in September. And then the May residential sustainability report. Looks like everything's, we had a 30% diversion rate, which is excellent, but things were down, slightly down this year compared to last year. I don't have a good reasoning for that. And we're still hauling our waste to Valencia landfill, which is 120 miles away, which is, a big financial burden and environmental impacts as well associated with that. That's all.

Thank you. Questions or comments?

Are we also having a table at the rodeo festival or no? In August? I'm not sure yet. Okay.

Do we want to have Angel introduce herself?

If you just come to the podium.

Hello. My name is Angel. I'm the summer student intern for the sustainability department. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.

And she handled the cooling station part of the ESB table in today. So thank you.

She's a recent Topper graduate. She was a Kiwanis member and helped organize an amazing book drive of a thousand books, right, that were shipped to Africa. And she's on her way to UC Davis in the fall. So we're really pleased to have her.

All right. Preview of coming attractions. So Josh is going to tell us about an update on the composting.

The biosolid composting, which I'll probably move that out to maybe August. Just being that next month will probably be a big meeting.

All right. Yeah, we get. Yeah. And then we'll go through our quarterly update or how we're doing.

Well, this is mostly so I present to council. every quarter on climate action plan. So I'd like to just present it to you all first and.

Okay.

Your eyes on it.

And Corey is someday going to show up and tell us about the integrated pest management plan.

Maybe so.

Maybe so. All right.

Lock down the date.

I have a question before you wrap with the gavel. So the procedure then on the plastic bag ordinance is that we'll have a public meeting on this final version at our July meeting and invite the public to comment. Will we be voting again on it after that? Okay. So then we will be voting whether or not it goes forward to council based on with public input. Okay. Thank you.

All right. And with that, we're adjourned.