Environmental Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

All right. Well, welcome everybody. I'd like to call to order the December 10th, 2025 EAC monthly meeting. I know everybody received uh certainly the agenda and the minutes from last uh from the November meeting. Are there any edits, objections, additions, subtractions? Okay. Can I have a motion to approve the minutes, please? I'll move to approve the minutes. Second. Second. Okay. All right. Public comments. Seeing there are none, we'll move on. Um, so, uh, the this is a time where we use a junior EAC. So, Melissa, I'll let you start there.

Okay. Do I guess who would like to go first with your updates? Go. I can go. I've been I got in contact with the um AP environmental science teacher. Should be interested in doing something to help out. We're not sure too sure. Um I don't know if you'd like me to pass anything on to her or specific, but she's happy that I'm doing this and she I'm be happy to help out with whatever. So if we have any ideas, I don't necessarily know anything specific, but I can obviously pass that on to her. You can help us with ideas, too.

Yes, I would love to. But I don't know if you all have anything specific in mind. You've been here longer, obviously. So, I saw uh a news piece about NA students doing plantings on the property. Yes. So, I don't know what group that was, but it would be lovely to connect with whoever that is. Is that the environmental sciences teacher? I'm not too sure. I could ask her. I know there's also I'm in a botney group there and we're planning to do some more planning on campus as well sometime in the spring. So, yeah, it's great. love to kind of hear more about what you all doing. And

yes, we're getting the budgeting and the approval for that all finalized, but we're hoping to do some native plants, some like rain absorption stuff because we don't have great drainage and it's a lot of concrete obviously on campus because there's the big student parking lot. Wonderful. Great.

And then you weren't here last month. Did you have a chance to do the brainstorm activity to figure out what you want your project to be based around? Yeah, I've thought about it. I I'm kind of going in between um doing some like education for like I I don't know. My school does like school newspapers and school announcements. So, I think it would be neat to do some research into maybe like I'm interested in the water quality. I've been looking at I don't know if this is specifically in Mckenless like township property, but right by Lar Ro that big um like waterhed. going to be interested in how that affects like water quality going in going out of that. Um or just North Park obviously uh and maybe go on their school newspaper or their school morning announcements like a video announcement thing and just talking about you know the importance of water quality and um how the EAC is working for that because I don't think most kids in my school even know that we have an environmental council. So I think

also about the stream that goes through wall park. Yes. You know, over at Lar Ro that's going to be mostly uh storm water retention ponds and stuff like that. Um not a natural not because you're at the very very very top of a of a stream there. Yeah. And you're a little you're a little more into an established stream if you get into Wall Park there or the little stream that comes into Potter Park, but that's pretty intermittent to

Okay, that'd be neat. And I can talk with the environmental science teacher as well cuz we did like water quality testing activities but we didn't actually go out into the field just because they wouldn't the school wouldn't approve like a field trip for that. So she just had to collect all the data herself and share it. So I think it would be neat to collect that data myself. So I would ask her about methodology for that and yeah and could you um just just write these words down because maybe it means something maybe you hear these things um that you know we are going to join Bird Tom PA

and so that will be sort of all-encompassing with um you know with water quality with with nature hikes with education I don't know if that's something that because eventually we'll partner with the schools I mean that's that's the piece of the puzzle that we this as a as a committee that we're hoping can you know can get us better access into schools because there's some type of collaboration between the autobond society and your type of club. So just you know just knowing that that that that mechanism is going to join that group. Um and then also you know the gold standard sustainability. I don't know if you guys use the word sustainability. I mean, you you probably do and maybe it means something and maybe it doesn't mean something, but maybe at some point that's something we can speak to your group on. Yeah.

And what it is and and and why we did it and why we are gold standard and uh you know what what it means in reality. So maybe just keep keep an eye for those two words. Maybe just have those sort of in your back pocket and you know maybe you can you bring those up to your instructor. Yeah, that we definitely talk about all of that in the environmental science classes when we're learning about it, but as just a general student population, not really. And the environmental science program is kind of small. Like I know I took the AP test uh and I was one of like maybe 50 kids who were in the room taking the environmental science test. So it's not that many people.

So I don't think that's something that's covered in like the required curriculum. We try for one. If we can get one person to recycle, if we can get one person to plant a tree, if we can get one person to carry on, then then that's that's the best we can do. So, we'll take any any number.

Second idea I also had which is bit of a departure from the water quality school uses a lot of um like singleuse polystyrene like for all of the lunch stuff is all done in single-use plastics, single- use polystyrene. We have a big industrial dishwasher. It takes up like an entire room. And I know a lot of the other schools use like reusable trays. I also know that we have those trays, but we're still using the polystyrene ones. So, I was I don't know how much of an impact we would be able to have on that, but like I would love to be able to move away from all of the polystyrene because I know that's really bad.

Those are both really nice ideas. Great idea. We can talk outside of this meeting a little bit more too. happy to chat with you about them and see through. Yeah, great ideas. Thank you. Jenna, do you have any updates to share this month?

Um, yeah. So, actually just this evening I had a phone call regarding so I mentioned last meeting that I'd like to work with the sidewalks and increasing connectivity specifically to North Park. And I don't know if you guys know, there's a stretch of road from like the bottom of Saratoga Drive, which like leads into my neighborhood um all along Ingamar Pass like North Park Church that comes all the way through towards Delin and then all the way through towards the park. So it's about like a one mile stretch of road almost exactly that uh just encompasses like that entire neighborhood back there. And if we could get a sidewalk from the end of that road just to North Park, so like one mile of sidewalk, it would increase connectivity, especially like during warm months for my entire neighborhood. So that's the area that I was looking at um getting that done in. And so I had a call tonight with my council person who is uh Mr. wall and we had a good conversation and I'm going to send him the proposal and he's planning to on the next council meeting read that in so that we can start to get the grant process approved for that stretch of sidewalk and he's going to sponsor that too through council. So, we're hoping to get that grant um as soon as he reads that at the next meeting.

That's really exciting. Great. Wonderful. I live up in that area as well and the sidewalks are pretty sparse and I would love to go on a walk because I could walk down park be difficult but the roads are so windy and so hilly it's really unsafe up there. Great. Well, thank you very much. Yeah, very good. Any other updates or questions for Jenna and Nia right now? Okay, in that case Okay. Well, we are going to turn this over then to Penn State. We'll let them in. What I'll do is I will, if it's okay, I'll just introduce everybody. We'll just do a quick intro, you know, everybody's name. Um, all of them want them in.

Um, yes. Yep. And is Peter up there, too? No. Stop talking. Yeah, I did that.

Hello, Brandy. Hello. How are all of you? Good. How are you doing? Good. Good. Thank you for having us tonight. Um I so we had Peter in early and we we um we told him we were going to let everybody in at 7:45 because we had some business to conduct, but one of the um one of our items of business got bumped because it wasn't voted on by council. So we are a little bit early. Can we let Peter know? Yeah. Yeah, I will text him right now. Okay, good. Thank you so much. No problem. Hope you guys are all staying warm, getting ready for the holidays. Well, we made it here without any accidents. I think we're getting sleet out there right now. We're not

Oh, really? Penn State sleet, but you know, we're you know, we're western Pennsylvania. No, no, I understand. Um, yeah, I I did my I did my undergrad um in Johnstown at Pit Johnstown. So, western western PA, uh, it it can get a little sketchy in the in the winter up there in the Crescent Crescent Summit area near where I was was pretty bad. But that's a um that's a pretty treacherous area.

Yeah. Yeah. But we we were supposed to get maybe three inches of snow in State College today and it really just flurried. um we kind of dodged it. So I was grateful for that. When I went to Penn State in the early, you know, mid mid70s, one winter, we had 120 ines of snow and we had minus 20 air temperatures and and minus 60 with the windchill. That was that was cancel class at all. Right.

No, we still there's a linear accelerator underneath the middle of campus that you can get from one end to the other if you know it's there. You know, I was just talking with someone the other day that when I came here for graduate school in the early 2000s, um they never cancelled class due to weather. That was just unheard of. And now we had a cancellation la well um a delay last week on Tuesday for just a little bit of snow. I was really I was really surprised. I'm glad they do it because plenty of our staff and faculty and even some of our students commute a fair distance to to get to campus and so, you know, we don't need people on the roads unnecessarily, but that has dramatically changed in the 20 years that I have been part of Penn State. It's interesting. You know, we don't have to wait for Peter.

Okay. Okay, great. I texted him. He'll be here um whenever he can. But um thank you so much for having us. Um we really appreciate the opportunity to to share the work that Isabelle, Mackenzie, and Ellie have been doing for you this semester. They've been working really hard and I'm really proud of the work that they've done. And so um yeah, we have we have a presentation prepared. We will also be delivering to you um a full inventory report and the associated electronic files related to the emissions calculations and things like that. So yeah,

that's that's wonderful. So if I could, I'd like to take the liberty of just doing a quick introduction around the room, please. We would love and there's and there's plenty of room for, you know, for questions and everything. So we've left a lot of room on the agenda. So So So Bernie Lynch uh is a committee member, EAC committee member. Ken Ols House is also a committee member. Melissa Winston is the current vice chair of the committee. Um, let me get this right. So, um, Jenna Parker is our student representative and Nadia Yusco is another student representative. Fantastic. Yeah. How about that? And we have Joanna Cameron who's on say don't forget me.

No, no, no, no. She she's on on Zoom. And then we have Nick Georgetti who is a council member and who's a liazison for the EAC. Perfect. Well, it is our team.

That's a great team. I love that you have that you have student representation on on your EAC. That's really cool. Um, yeah. No, our students are all going to to introduce themselves, but you guys all all know me and um I'll let I'm Brandy Robinson. I'm one of the co-directors of of the LCAP program. I teach in the energy and sustainability policy program here at Penn State. I'll let Kelly and Peter quickly introduce themselves. Hi, I'm Kelly Vulkimer. I'm an adjunct instructor for the local climate action program.

Kelly is our technical wizard. She really undersold herself there on that. Kelly knows as much as there is to know about the the the ins and outs of completing the inventory work. She sure does. Uh and I'm Peter Buck. It's really great to see you all. Uh I'm one of the co-directors of the local climate action program and on the faculty in the department of energy and mineral engineering here and yeah just thank you guys so much for having us. I think without further ado well one further ado I see that Chris Nate has joined us. So Chris is our Oh yeah he has.

There he is. Chris Chris is our is our contact at the department of uh environmental protections energy programs office. Chris's office is responsible for the sponsorship of the program that makes it possible for us to use Clear Path software to provide the um the inventory calculations. And Chris has the the exciting job of asking the utility companies to provide data to us every year. So, we appreciate everything he does and we're glad he can join us tonight. Sure. Yeah. Thanks. I mean, she mostly just introduced me, so I don't have much more to say.

Well, I wasn't I'm sorry, Chris. I started talking because I wasn't sure since you were off camera and muted if maybe you were somewhere where you couldn't talk. And No, no, I'm not. But that's fine. It's nice to see you. And Chris, we really appreciate you you making this program available to communities and we're we appreciate being one of those communities, but you know, thank you for that. I'm glad glad that continues on. Sure. Um, you guys could also consider doing one of the other programs that we have when you're done with this to try to help implement the plan.

All right. Now, without further ado, students, you can take it away. Awesome. Thank you. I'll share my screen and then we can get started. Okay. Hello. Thank you for allowing us to join your environmental advisory board committee meeting today to present our 2024 communitywide greenhouse gas inventories for McCandless Township.

Hi, my name is Isabelle Rabbino and I'm a fourth year student at Penn State studying civil engineering. I'm McKenzie. I'm a fourth year at Penn State studying earth science and policy with a concentration in the climate.

Hello everyone. My name is Ellie Brown and I am a thirdyear student at Penn State majoring in geography and political science. The local climate action program is a course where we have worked on collecting these greenhouse gas inventories we will present alongside points of contact with energy programs office clear path and our partners right here in Macandless. Chris Na is with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and is our primary point of contact with the Energy Programs Office. The Energy Programs Office generously supports LCAP by paying for the Echley's Clear Path software licenses and technical assistance time that each community needs to complete the inventory. Chris also supports LCAP through recruitment of new communities into the program. Additionally, Chris submits the utility data requests to the electric and natural gas utility companies on our behalf each fall. Brandy Robinson and Peter Buck co-direct LCAP along with Kelly Vulkimer and they teach the two three credit courses that comprise the program. Brandy leads the fall course, Peter leads the spring, and Kelly provides technical assistance and student support throughout. Melanie Areola provides technical assistance and support with IKEA's Clear Path software program we're using to construct and display your inventories. Also, it's important for me to note that she's reviewed the inventories for accuracy before it is released. And finally, we couldn't do this without the work of our partners right here in Macandless. Jeff Petro, chair of the environmental advisory committee, Melissa Winston, vice president of the environmental advisory committee, and John Bojarski, public information officer for Macless Township. We are grateful for these partnerships so that this information can be presented tonight.

So before we begin our inventory in our inventory data, first I'll discuss why this data is important. So, as you can see, every year since 1980, it's been warmer than average for the 20th century, and the trend is rising steeply and strongly correlating with atmospheric CO2 concentrations. We understand that carbon dioxide is the primary greenhouse gas that is warming the atmosphere, and more CO2 is put into the atmosphere and it acts as a blanket. This allows the atmosphere to hold more of the sun's radiation. While greenhouse gases occur naturally, the extra CO2 we emitted through human activities causes the atmosphere to retain increasingly more heat. And this makes it imperative to act, which is why tonight we get to present Macandless's greenhouse gas inventories. The black dots on the map show roughly where Macandas Township's located. When we compare the historical baseline from 1971 to 2000s with the late century predictions projections for 2070 to 2099, we see major changes in both heat and precipitation. By the end of the century, McCandless is predicted to experience 87 to 112 days each year with temperatures above 90° F. That's 3 plus months of a minimum of 90° heat, which is a dramatic increase from the past. In addition, the number of very heavy precipitation days is expected to increase with projections showing 12 to 16 such days per year. These changes indicate a warmer and wetter climate locally with more frequently extreme heat and intense rainfall events. So with that in mind, we will now walk through the process we will use to account for those emissions and introduce the ichly clear path platform we used to inventory the greenhouse gas data we are presenting tonight.

So, as McKenzie mentioned, we created a greenhouse gas inventory report to um quantify the emissions that Macandlas produces through their activities that contribute to these activities that you may see in Macandas. So, we have a few guiding principles that I'm going to walk you through. First of all, our report is very thorough and transparent in the greenhouse gases and what causes them. This helps us to be consistent down the road as we address these activities and look for um methods to reduce these emissions. Um next our report is complete. So we gathered data from um McCandless's stationary energy waste and wastewater and transportation sectors and any data that we did not directly receive we estimated. So our uh report most closely reflects the emissions um generated in Macandas. And finally our report is accurate. So we've had multiple eyes look over our report both internally and externally to provide some quality control and ensure that um our report uh reflects Macandas's admissions as closely as possible. Moving on, the next thing we considered is the type of greenhouse gases that are produced within Macandas. So there are three main greenhouse gases that you may see from um various activities and those are carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. And each of these gases has a different heating potential and how they warm the atmosphere. meaning that currently by themselves they're not on the same scale where they can be measured um together and they have to be uh assigned a factor or a global warming potential number um that can be used to help put these emissions in the same scale where they can be quantified. And so for example, u methane has a global warming potential of 27 which means that one pound of methane methane would heat the atmosphere um 27 times more than one

pound of carbon dioxide. And uh once these factors are determined then we can put these uh emissions in a similar scale. And so what we use to calculate these emissions are metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent or MT CO2E. And this is the unit that you'll see through our report and um in the presentation today to explain the emission breakdown. And the next thing that we looked at in our report is the scope of emissions. So greenhouse gases can be classified in three different scopes. Scope one uh includes emissions from activities within Macan's boundaries. So that would include um stationary fuel combustion, inboundary transportation, inboundary waste and wastewater um industrial processes and agriculture, forestry and other land use. Um scope 2 emissions are emissions from the electric grid. And then we have scope 3 emissions um which are activities outside of McCandless's boundary that produces emissions. Um and in our report we only use scope one and scope two emissions. So here we have a pie chart breaking down uh the 2024 Macandless inventory results. So Macandlas generated in 2024 um a little over 174,000 MTCO2E and the largest sectors that contributed to these emissions were residential energy, commercial energy and transportation. Um so as we move through this presentation we'll get into a little bit of how we broke down these numbers and the data we received to help um gather the information for this report. So first of all we are starting with energy sector. So we have residential and commercial energy as the largest contributors. Um and this includes any energy that powers the residential and commercial buildings within Macandas. And so the fuel sources used for this

energy includes electricity, natural gas, heat pumps, fuel oil, and propane. And these fuels were used in activities such as heating, cooling, and air conditioning systems, um, electric and gas stoves, lighting, and additional appliances. And for the data that we used for electricity, we used data from First Energy and Dukane Lighting. For natural gas, we used um energy information administrations um energy estimates for their residential and commercial sectors. And then we also used data from the US Census Bureau to help estimate Macandas's population and the distribution of some of the fuel sources throughout um McCandless's boundaries. And then one data issue um I just wanted to bring to attention was that when Dukane Lighting provided their electricity data, they provided their data for um all the zip codes within Macandas, but that included the um locations including Macandas and also out of Macandas' boundaries. So we used the US Census Bureau's population data to help downscale this and only include the electricity data within MCAS's boundaries. Then we have industrial energy. So for emission sources from the industrial standpoint, we have electricity and natural gas. And again, we used first energy and Dukane lighting data for electricity. Um and then for natural gas, we also used the energy information administration's industrial sector um energy consumption estimates. And then we also used the EPA facility level information on greenhouse gases tool or their flight tool. And this was um very helpful in determining if there were any industrial facilities within Mckanas' boundaries that would contribute to um industrial emissions. And then um the same data issue with

Dukane Lighting data we had to downscale um using Mckanas' population data. So another sector in inventoried was transportation. In total, McCandless's transportation emissions were 93,058 metric tonses of carbon dioxide equivalent. The emission sources consisted of on-road, waterborne transportation, and off-road. And additionally, the water consump the energy consumption was diesel, biodiesel, natural gas, gasoline, electricity, and liqufied petroleum gas. The data used for our on-road and off-road were from two different sources. for on-road which is personal transportation and trucks aka road freight which is what we called when call it when we inventory it was collected with pendot from the Pennsylvania department of transportation and off-road data was collected through the use of the 2020 US environmental protection ay's national emissions inventory data retrieval tool we also did downscaling which was used for population to localize the data from a canless and the and the geography was downscaled for railways and waterways in order to collect McCandless's specific data for this sector. The first image on the top shows a map of Macandas when collecting road emission data and the bottom one shows the categories of the emissions inventoried for transportation. Okay, so let's move on to the solid waste and wastewater emissions which measures the pollution created every time we throw something away or when water flows down our drains. While this category only makes about 2% of our total emissions, it's still significant. To put it in to perspective, it's roughly equivalent to burning 593,000 gallons of gasoline, or the emissions from driving an average car around the country 25,000 times. Most of these emissions include things like waste sent

to landfill, septic tanks, and the biological process used to treat waste water. A lot of our landfill waste is transported outside mechanis. So the emissions from decomposition happen elsewhere. Therefore what we do count here are the emissions generated from producing the waste and treating it locally. Next is agriculture forestry and other land use or a fu. This category measures emissions from land use changes like when forests are cleared for grassland or new development. In Macanas, AF lu accounts for less than 1% of total emissions. So, it's also a very small contributor. Even though the number is small, force play a critical role in keeping our air clean and balancing carbon in the atmosphere. That's why it's important to continue protecting them to help maintain a healthier environment for everyone in the community. So now that we've looked at different sources of emissions within Macccan, it's helpful to see how our community stacks up compared to others. To do this, we can look at Doylestown Township, a previous LCAP community partner with similar population and regional characteristics and then compare both to the broader state of Pennsylvania. When we look at emissions, Macandas is pretty similar to Doylestown, but what really stands out is our per capita emissions. Each person in Macanas produces about 6.1 tons of carbon dioxide per year compared to 8.9 tons per person in Doyletown. Zooming out to the state level, Pennsylvania's per capita emissions are much higher around 19.5 tons per person. And that's because state numbers include industrial industrial emissions and electricity production which we don't have on a large scale in mechanis. Overall, this comparison shows that Mechanist is doing well in terms of emissions per person. And it helps us identify areas like residential energy, commercial energy, and transportation where we can focus efforts to make an even bigger impact. So, looking ahead to the spring

semester, this is really where our work shifts from analysis to action. Our main focus will be collaborating with the township with the help of Peter Buck to develop a climate action plan. Depending on needs, this plan can take many different forms. For example, it could support initiatives like renewing the township's gold certification through sustainable Pennsylvania's municipal certification program or guide other local sustainability priorities. The goal is to create a plan that's flexible, practical, and tailored to what the community needs most. So, that concludes our presentation on McCainless Township's greenhouse gas emissions inventory. I want to thank you all again for inviting us to your meeting and I will now open the floor for questions.

Thank you very much. That that was wonderful. Was wonderful.

So I have a question. Um so do you think the reason we fared so well I mean you stated we lack the industrial um component in our land mass but is it because we are so forested when we have the north park and a lot of green or is it the combination of both? Did anyone do some analysis as to why we look so good there stacked up to say Doylestown which I think is you said it's comparable u but isn't it closer to the city. Um but I'm just curious like analytically what you think we can do to both improve and uh because compared to what you showed us we look pretty darn good. So but how do we make the case for doing better and what would you believe we could do to do that? Thank you for first of all, thank you for your question. I'm actually from the Doylestown area, so I can speak a little bit about that with Doylestown. I know um that a lot of people who live there um they work in Philly and so there's a lot more I guess um

yeah, driving when it comes to that um for those emissions. Um, also I would say with the forest analysis, we noticed that McCandless doesn't really have that much. There's not a lot of forests that are being cut down. Um, part of that. Um, so that is like one thing that I think is a great thing that we should continue. We should continue to keep protecting this forest and stuff. Um, if anyone else wants to add anything,

I'll just add one thing because this this often comes up and is is not always clear. So, with the the forestry component that that Ellie talked about here, um, the only the only way that factors into the inventory numbers is is for change in what's there. So, in other words, your inventory isn't um you're not getting like credit for offsetting carbon from the forests that have been there and continue to be there, right? It would only be you would if you added a bunch of new forested land that would go in. And if you take forested land away, that gets accounted as well. but kind of what's there as as sort of your baseline that's just that's that's not considered to be like an additional carbon um sink and so that's not pulling your per capita number down right now. I think that it it is it is one of the lower ones that we see like like Doylestown. I think that um I think part of that has to do with, you know, what makes Pennsylvania so high is is our industrial sector and all of our electricity production. And those are things that are not happening within your jurisdictional boundary. And so your emissions per capita are lower because it's really mostly due to, you know, passenger vehicles, pass through traffic for freight, and you know, energy consumption in the buildings of the community. So Brandy, if somebody proposed to do a data center in Macanas, how would that impact our our numbers then badly?

I mean, when you do when you do the numbers on a per capita basis, have you also looked at them doing it on a per unit an area basis? meaning um you you know the when you had that very high number for the state of Pennsylvania on a per capita there's an awful lot of area. So if you did it on um the amount of emissions per square mile or or whatever unit um I would be interested in seeing how those things compare. Mhm.

Yeah. I you know, honestly, I've never I've never seen it done by by per square mile or, you know, an an aerial unit like that. But yeah, that would be that that would certainly change the calculus a bit. But the the energyintensive data centers, you know, that if there was one that was built within McCandless's jurisdiction, the energy consumption at that facility would go in this inventory. And so that would that would, you know, spike things considerably. And that's certainly something that we're looking at throughout the state. You know, there are what is it, Peter? I think 60

60 D centers proposed throughout Pennsylvania right now.

Yeah. Right now, um there are about 60 that are in some phase. So, uh 20ish of them have been built. um I believe and then there are 27 that are in the queue and they are they range in size from pretty small just a um you know a few handfuls of megawatts of power draw up to these really massive data centers. Um, Amazon Web Services has one um, a data center complex uh, proposed um, at the Talon um, campus that's across from the Saskcoan nuclear power plant and they have an agreement that they know they're going to go up to 480 megawws in a phased way uh, and eventually up to 960 megawws. And just for comparison, Penn State has a solar power purchase agreement with Light Source for 70 megawatts of installed capacity and that gives Penn State's entire campus system 25% of its purchased electricity. So the these some of these data centers dwarf the Penn State system in terms of their energy demand. The last question and then I'll open it. Um, I know you only do it for the footprint of McCandless, but I have concerns about what is west of us uh with say prevailing winds and other and I know you're taking but you know I look at the um the valley the uh that is due west of us um the river valley. So, you know, the old mill towns in addition to

the chemical and the plastic plants and the uh the western winds that we get. Um so if you have a heavy chemical load um in your air quality that's coming into your region is there any impact to you know the measurements you're taking if there is a yeah I I I think generally I know the answer is no but uh but I'm just curious how you would evaluate that or factor it into your considerations. Yeah, that's a good question and obviously in many ways that's a that's a more tangible real concern, you know, in terms of environmental quality for your community. And so I I understand that it's not it's related but separate from what we're doing. So the certainly the emissions and the activities that cause the emissions that we are looking at in your greenhouse gas inventory do have localized impacts but we tend to look at them on a bigger scale of the atmosphere mixing and not really adhering to these political boundaries. The students did do some analysis that we could share with you in more detail earlier in the semester related to some of these air quality concerns. Looking at and around the communities that we were working in, specifically looking for environmental justice concerns, right? Looking at where is it that we put our power plants to begin with, where do our highways go? Because all of those things have, you know, air quality concerns. So um it doesn't factor into these numbers that you are seeing in this emissions inventory but it is you know obviously um a concern you.

So so I noticed you use some 2020 numbers for transportation and that was during shutdown lockdown. Um, if you did this same inventory in two years and used 2025, would everybody's numbers go up?

That's a good question. I I might ask Kelly to jump in on this. That that NEI uh 2020 data retrieval tool, I don't know if if the most recent update was in 2020 and therefore might be 2019 data. you I I don't know that which time period. Sometimes these things are labeled with the date they came out. Sometimes they're labeled with the date of the the data they include. And I don't know off the top of my head. Kelly, are you I can't see you on my screen.

I'm I'm here. Um unfortunately, like I can't speak to that without looking closely to get you the correct answer. Um, it is the 2020 version, but like Brandy said, it could be the 2019 data. Um, just iterations of those things, but but the data that it's analyzing like that we have analyzed. We use that for downscaling. I'm trying to like look this up on the fly which is probably

I'm not it's it's it's too technical for this and it doesn't matter at this point. I'm just thinking at some point if we say well we want to be platinum um and you know our numbers um you know are this now and it's 6.19 or whatever that was per per resident and all of a sudden just because of the year that we took it we're we're going to go up even if we go down even if more people buy hybrid and electric or or the or the fleet of the the department of public works goes hybrid or something like that we might still because of because of demographics because of what happened.

I would say that your off-road transportation emissions are a very small part of your transportation emissions overall. Far and away, it's the vehicle miles on the on roads. So, your passenger cars and your freight vehicles. Um, and that is the the biggest chunk and that's your pendot data and it's more recent. Um, so although your your concern is very valid and it very well could be that there is a slight increase depending on the year or a decrease. Um, overall I don't think it's going to have a huge impact, but we can absolutely get you the answer to that question if you'd like. Yeah, the pen dot data is from 2024 for all of your on-road transportation. That's a

Okay, that's a good detail. Yeah, I was going to to build upon that. I was going to ask for a little bit more information in general about the transportation data. It so the majority of that is coming from just vehicles that are driving through Macanas, which means there's really nothing we could do to improve upon that. Is that correct? It's not just vehicles that are driving through Macandas. It's also things that are happening entirely within Macandas. So, so there is some control over that. It it data is which data is

is used to determine what's happening within the township. I guess as far as well all of that data comes from from PennDOT. All vehicle miles traveled data comes from PennDOT at the county level. Um, and then we imported into ArcGIS to isolate just your township. Okay. Thank you.

Yeah. And it I I don't think it was like immediately. Um in a couple instances with communities we've worked with um Laura Mccanji Township, Sealins Grove, they've had like a very large interstate or state highway that that you know cuts through their community and they're like we have no control over the the 1115 traffic passing through here. And so we've actually been able to extract that to show them the difference of okay, here's what your vehicle miles are with that included and without recognizing that there's very little jurisdictional control over that. Um

do we are you taking into account like idling at red lights and things like that? Is that accounted for at all or not part not for part of this? Because we have more than our fair share of red lights. No, the pendot data is just vehicle counts. Okay. And then yeah, thank you.

So, can they also confirm the mileage of the vehicles traveling or just like how are they calculating the number of how far each vehicle is going? Is that something they're doing or is just how many vehicles there are? It's counts on specific segments that they aggregate. Does does that answer your question? Yeah. I'm just curious how accurate it is for the mileage of each car travel. Do you mean like for fuel efficiency of the different cars? Yeah, like that as well.

Okay. So, we use um state defaults. Um the pendot data gives us the breakdown of like passenger vehicles versus freight vehicles. And then from that point, you use state default registration to be able to further break down those two large categories. So if there's um a specific number of passenger vehicles versus motorcycles versus electric cars with registration data at the state level, um that's what's used to refine that onroad number.

Oh, thanks. I had a quick question about just like you mentioned downscaling the data. Was that all all of the downscaling done like specific to just filteringless's data out or did some of it have to do with like adjusting numbers to like fit the average population?

Do you mean for a specific sector? I'm sorry. Can you

Yeah, just specifically like how did the downscaling of the data work? Was it just like taking Mckan like taking all of that aggregate data and then removing Macandless's data and just analyzing that or was there other things that went into that? So every different sector has a different way to downscale. So um your electricity data for example some one of the electricity um providers gave us jurisdictional boundary electricity. It did not need downscaled. another one gave it for all of the zip codes that touch Mandalas. And then we had to look at um populations of the different um zip codes versus Mandalysis's population to be able to downscale that. Um commercial and industrial uses job counts um that are within the different um boundaries and again like transportation uses different things like the pendot data to downscale um with ArcGIS or it can use population to downscale some of those off-road categories. So the downscaling is really different depending on which category you're looking at.

The Canas is a township of 30,000 people and 30,000 where we are would look obviously looks different than what 30,000 is in town and 30,000 in central PA. uh which would probably be as Ken mentioned um it would be geographically way different to get 30,000 people in in one area and it would probably you know probably span over several townships to to get that number but do we you know based on western Pennsylvania because I think I think that's a pretty good example um do we look do we look good compared to people in our area um or do we have do two questions do we have anything like it's glaring to you that's a it's an inefficiency that says well this is your biggest growth area this is where you can grow uh you know again we are fixed I'm not sure we can find a room for another thousand people in this community um and and we are large North Park is 80 Melinda 80% of North Park is in M I mean that's not going anywhere and we are actually we actually have a tree preservation and expansion program going on in our community. So, we expect to, you know, to reduce this number through through that. Um, but where where do we lack? Where where are we um where is our biggest growth area?

So, I love that you guys are thinking about that already. That's fantastic. I think that that your inventory, there was nothing glaring or surprising to me about it. We we often see I mean most of the communities that we work with many of the communities we work with anyway are similar in composition and size to to you all and it's pretty common you you can go into it guessing that building energy and transportation are going to be your two biggest pieces of emissions pie right those are it's not the solid waste it's not the waste water It's not the AFOLU, it's it's buildings and transport. And so as you think about what you want to do to try to reduce emissions overall and and what sort of leverage that you have as a township to to pull on those numbers, you're thinking about, you know, um mobility that isn't just us all being in one car in a car by ourselves all the time, right? encouraging people to not make um single occupancy trips for things. Um you're thinking about energy efficiency and you're thinking about renewable energy. I would say those are sort of our our three big buckets that have the potential for levers to pull to pull your emissions curve down. And part of what we are going to, you know, work on in the spring is looking at different scenarios for for what that looks like. So if you know if you had 2% of the households every year adopt you know a residential rooftop array that offset their own use. What does that look like from now until 2050? Does that how far down does that pull your curve? What happens as more people adopt

electric cars? You have to account for the fact that yes then your gasoline goes down, electricity is going to go up a bit. what's going to happen with the the carbon intensity of the grid and all of those sorts of pieces. But as you start to think about what you want to, you know, work on and you all will be working with Peter, you know, really closely in the spring on this, I think building energy and transportation are going to be, you know, that's that's where your emissions reduction um opportunities really are. And Jeff, if if I can um it was you Jeff, right, who was speaking. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Um so one of the the things that is really great about having uh this team of students who kudos again to you guys for the for your for your presentation which was so clear um has generated such good questions. Um you don't get good questions like this unless you've given a thorough inventory um delivery. uh is is that we can they can do comparisons to to similar communities um in you know similar climate types, similar makeup, similar size and investigate some of what they have say in an inventory if they've done an inventory or how they're trying to take action in different policy areas uh public education programs um incentive programs changes in zoning. I mean there are a lot of different ways that that we could do that and um part of it so Ellie had said well we could we could make you a a plan and we can we can make you a a plan obviously with you but we'll want to know what you really want in it. And so what I would say is over the next couple of months and we'll get uh our our meetings on the books here soon so that we can hash out what it is you want the students to do is that I would really encourage you when you get the report um to look at it and say hm what do we think our community can do in the first say you know the what are the first maybe five things that you could do they begin with something really easy to do out to something that would be not impossible that's a waste of time but something that you think we might be able to get there if we push or pull or cajul or you know really work with the right people

and you're going to know that way better than we are because you know your community way better than we do um and I think that's pretty exciting that we're going to get to do that together. So, Peter, I I know you have Chris on the line. Um, uh, when I first joined this group, which was, uh, I don't know, a year and a half ago, maybe two years ago, I, one of the people I interviewed was Secretary of D, Secretary Shirley. Shirley, and she had recommended that one of the things we should look at is the Pennsylvania climate action plan. So when you say what could we do the question is

uh I felt at that time it was a big leap but having this resource it doesn't feel so big anymore.

You tell me you tell me is it a big leap from this group to kind of take its work and apply it to the Pennsylvania climate action plan. No, actually I think that that shows a level of attention that you've already paid that is really good for your community because you're understanding what the priorities are within. And I don't know if that was the comprehensive climate action plan or the priority climate action plan, but part of what the students can can do and I mean I'll be there, you'll be there. What we can work on is trying to al align where you think there is the most potential with how the comprehensive or priority climate action plans work because when those alignments happen, you may have a better chance of say, well, we want to do X project. Um, I'll just throw out an example. Even though Ellie said, you know, wastewater doesn't have a whole lot uh in it from those emissions, it does impact your commercial electricity. So, doing a solar um or a micro grid, a solar and battery unit with a storm with a uh a sewer plant that can knock out a bunch of emissions that creates resilience. there may be public funding available for that and that kind of planning on a project like that also lines up really well with a priority climate action plan. Does that make sense? does

and you know I like the forest and land use uh I know your team probably doesn't know but we're planning on launching a 50,000 tree canopy challenge to put 50,000 trees replanted

we have lost about 4 to 500 acres of trees over the last 10 years. So it's not a small number uh even though we look so good because of the park. It's the residential communities that have lost it. So to me those are the kind of scenarios that would be really interesting to run you know with you on the climate action plan uh up to and including I think uh you know what it would look like for say our municipal systems to have more resilient planning for you know EV renewables solar um so sure

so so um just on that that point there about sort of nature-based solutions and aforestation reforestation dealing with, you know, the fact that housing developments can can actually do way more to add to your greenhouse gas emissions than just about anything else. Um, Kelly did a um an eco system services assessment for lower MCUI on the other side of the state. And so there are ways too that we already have experience with and um to to look at how you could quantify the way that you could avoid more emissions that you may be able to sink more carbon in certain places. But I mean we're getting very deep into the weeds already just from this. And you know I think that's great because like we're in I'm going to call it imagination land. I don't mean that in a sort of cartoonish way uh at all. You know you're effectively using your imagination. We're using our imaginations. Um, I hope that McKenzie is smiling because she thinks that this is exciting. But I see her smiling. I see Ellie smiling. I mean, this is very exciting to be able to work on having a partner who's informed and willing to, you know, in incite their own creativity so that so that we can help you is uh that's one of the that's that is a way to create a successful project for everybody.

Yeah. So I I hope we do that. Again, I I'm I'm very curious as to how Macanas compares to other communities.

So that's a very very valid thing to to understand where we are if we're, you know, at the bottom end or the at the top end. And that just gives us a basis to to to be able to measure where we are and such. So, so what what I think we ought to do is um we'll put in the hopper for one of the deliverables. For now, we'll just say uh let's consider having the students do some case studies of comparable communities for you so that you can have an idea of where you fit right now, give or take a little bit. Does that sound good? That sounds good. Awesome. And we uh

and I mean there's Chris.

We have a list. So I I've actually been spending a lot of time sending them over to Brandy. We have a list of uh of uh former of communities that have already participated in the program over the past six years that may be some of them are definitely uh similar to you in terms of proximity, in terms of size. uh it still may not be an exact apples to apples comparison because we're talking about um you know like greenhouse gas inventories from previous years and there are a lot of factors that can alter those over time but um there are some completed ones that you could potentially look at as a you know a rough comparable. Yeah. And we certainly have our repository of the ones that have been done the previous three years of of LCAP under, you know, since Penn State's been doing it. But yeah, so we we can take a look at that. And I think that um like I said, so so far I think we see in yours what we would expect to see. There's there's nothing glaring at me that suggests that you guys have some sort of, you know, big emissions culprit there to tackle. I think it's all very very predictable things related to to energy. And the the good news about that honestly is that reducing energy related emissions is it can be can be a very compelling cell to your to your friends and neighbors in Macanas because reducing the consumption means you're reducing the expenditure people have on those those things. So, everybody likes to save money and if you save energy in the process, that's just an an added win. So, really focusing, I think, on energy efficiency is a great place to start. Um, and and it's it's voluntary. It's

about saving something, not sacrificing something. So, it has a lot of the the good bones of of early climate action um steps to take. So, but yeah, what Peter said about having the students really dig in and do do like a thorough case study for you with some some comparable communities, we can definitely dig into that for the spring. Yeah. And I I feel like um just my

I keep saying my final thought um uh so as important it is to do comparative analysis, I mean to me improvement is really what we're always after wherever we are, right? we want to kind of see the improvement in each of those directions. So even though I care deeply about the comparative analysis, I care more about, you know, our situation of where we are and what the future could look like and then how we could essentially make our plan surrounding the work we're doing on this committee support the kind of uh analytics and numbers, the measurements of what we could do to improve even if we had, as you said, just modest gains annually over the next 10 to 20 years, you know, what could those offsets start looking like for our community?

We also know that we want to be working toward platinum sustainability and toward town USA. So, it's more important to be working towards plans that will help us achieve thoseations as well. But we'll talk about all of that offline in the follow-up meetings. So, when do we get the report so we can all sort of play with it? Yeah, you will have the report by the end of next week. I have to finish editing all the reports that the students are submitting and double-checking that all the numbers have landed from clear path accurately. So, we will be sending that over to you before um winter break happens for for P. Great.

Well, Ellie, Isabelle and McKenzie, we we applaud you. Your your work was spectacular. It was uh you educated us and um and and we loved it. So, thank you. It was a great presentation and the leadership of of of Brandy and Kelly and Peter and and and Chris making this possible for us. We really appreciate this and we we want to continue to be a good partner with you. So, you are great partners. Thank you for everything you're doing. The experience you are giving students by letting them help you with this work is remarkable. So, thank you. Thank you. All right. All right. We appreciate it.

See a lot more of you in the new year. Good, good. We'll look forward to it. Thank you for joining us. Uh team, can we jump into my Zoom room here for just a couple minutes? I'll send it in an email. Okay, Chris, you can come too. Take care everyone. Thanks everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, we're back on. How about that? Huh? Yeah, couple of comments. Um, when you get into measurement of things like with satellites, we started measuring temperature and what it does, you know, around 1979, which is when we were coming out of the period that we were calling the coming new ice age in the in the in the 70s and similar things like that. you have to be very careful when you look at graphs and things of where they chose to start from because you can greatly bias what you're looking at by by those things. So, just be aware of those things when you look at at some of this data.

That's true of all data. I know. Well, it's people want to present data that fits their story. Yeah. And it's like with electric vehicles, BMW when they they studied their their electric vehicles, you have to drive them for 60 to 80,000 miles until they're admitted less carbon dioxide than if it were a gasoline BMW. So there there's there's pros and cons to everything to look at. Okay, let's let's fly through the rest of the agenda. See if we can push on. So can um deer control

deer control the the uh white tail suburban white tail hunter uh had a very good November. Um we actually had harvested 65 deer at this this time last year. The total um was 60. So we still have the month of December and January um to go um in the green space which we have opened up to the general public. like by green space I mean ball park uh vestal um potter park um they've harvest there's been four deer reported harvested there uh when we look at one of the ways we can that I'm thinking is the best way to measure how well we're progressing with the deer management um is that people report when they have an accident with the deer and then we have a company that actually goes out and picks up the dead deer so they're not laying on the side of the road and our numbers there, you know, aren't aren't improving. Um, so we need to more than just the archery program. Um, and council is looking at some uh enhanced management things that uh u are pretty well progressed, but they're not fully done at this point. So, so that's that's really and and when we talk about putting native plants back in and everything, the reason all the native plants and things are gone is because of the deer and we don't have any forest regeneration until we get that back. And just as a as a note from at my house with the bird feeder with the weather that we've had, normally I would have to fill my bird feeder every day if you go back 101 15 years ago. And I'm to the point now where it's every three or four days, meaning the bird population has significantly declined

because of the decline in the overall environment because of the excess deer. Okay, that makes sense. Any questions for Ken? Do we have numbers like how many deer we have just in Macless? That's really an it's if you talk with Janine Flegel the the wildlife biologist for the game commission on on whitetail um that's something you can do but it's really an illrelevant number um because deer can move in I mean if you if you reduce all of them here they can move in from Pine Township so to speak.

Yeah. Um, and it's really a matter of what if if we removed all the if we removed all deer for 5 years and things recovered, we could then have a thousand deer in McCandless and it would be fine. But right now, because of the devastation the deer have done, you can probably only hold say 500. So the actual number really isn't um important. It's whether it's increasing or decreasing. Okay. Are our neighboring townships doing anything to combat that?

Fox Chapel has been doing uh calls for a number of years. Ross is talking about doing it. The city has been doing it. Um some of the like when you go north of here, there's more hunting pressure. So they their control is more through through hunting. were very with when you have houses of plans of houses, it's really hard to uh to find a way to hunt in those areas. So, it's it's um each each one and and then we also have North Park in there and North Park is only uh is doing archery hunting and nothing more. And so, uh you run into a lot of variables and the actual number is actually somewhat irrelevant. It really depends on the what the range is, what the environment is that the deer are in.

Thank you. Okay. So, um, sustainability, um, we just heard this. I think we ought to, you know, not discuss what we just heard quite yet until we, uh, have a larger block of time to do that. Um, but as I said, they they'll deliver the report um, next week and then I will upload that and then we will be gold certified. So we we are that close. All right, that's the last piece. Yep. Yeah. A lot of work. Thank you. Yep. Absolutely. Uh Bernie, anything new on tree program? Um I intentionally didn't do a report. Um that's it.

Yeah. Because of the meeting, but I had reached out to Judy uh Bishop about who we used for the speaker series at the library. So she gave me the name of Katie Coleman. So I reached out to Katie and Katie said she'd be delighted to work with us for the speaker series up to and including like you know hosting events there. So, I don't know what all we have on the agenda, but that's what they usually do was promote, you know, they could host um they do a very very good job of publicizing it. Like when we did the deer program um back during COVID, we had 250 spots on Zoom and we had all of them full.

Yeah. So, I do think, you know, she's on that March 5th date that I told her we wanted to do the first program. we actually have something um already planned on that date, but she said there's a different room we could feasibly use. So, I just asked her, you know, what the volume size of that room, and I have not heard back. So, I'll work it out with her on how that could work.

You can use them to publicize it and then we can use Heritage Center or our or our office over here. I had Lar Ro actually scheduled for March 5th and so that's why I don't know that we needed the location but since we're teaming back up with them you know I was looking at their availability as well but yeah but you don't you don't need to they don't expect you to use their facility. No, not always like I but I think it'd be nice after construction to kind of get back there again and start doing some programs out of there. Um that was I think the original thing. We didn't ever really do them there.

Oh, really? All right. Um so, so we'll kind of work things through with her and I know Jeff um you know, whatever other speaker series speakers are plans, you know, we can kind of coordinate with uh Katie now that we and I'll start copying you guys on emails with her so you can see who she is. Um, so I did get a meeting finally to meet with the staff of McCandless on January 8th at 8:30 a.m. So Jeeoff I know will be inviting you. I just got that yesterday. So um, um, so yeah, I, you know, plan on putting together our agenda, which is really the entire year, any kind of, you know, budget for the annual plan. And then I know you sent the 175th agenda and that's kind of my discontent is like I would love to see the tree calendar integrated with their calendar right for all of those events and then see them you know the remarkable tree you know um the the speaker series you know all the things planned just kind of a nice little seamless thing so hopefully that's what

will Abby be at your meeting on the 8th uh Diane I think is going to join you know invite her yeah I would and she's inviting um I don't know five or six staff members. Okay. Up to and including public works. Okay.

That meeting. So I'm happy that you know and I think the the disconnect with McCandless is thinking that you know they wanted to wait until after the budget after this after this. And my discontent with that is no we should have been included in all of those. We shouldn't be an afterthought. After all that work's done, then we'll put you in. It's like no, that should have been integrated. So my hope in the future is

that can whole calendar I mean the whole reason I went and developed the calendar by was to be on their calendar and so those are the things that didn't happen. So again, patience and new staff turnover. You know, the last two years have been that way. But I also said I don't want to miss the March grant deadlines this year. Um there's a lot of conservation grants, tree plant going to happen. So that's pretty much it. We had a meeting Archie and I did um you know did some planning on kind of a whole host of details. Um so anyway that's it.

Okay good. Um anything for Bernie? Any other questions? Okay. Community outreach um winter fetch recap. What do you think? I do have very strong thoughts. Yeah. And and Joanna too, right? I'm here too. Actually, Melinda, do you see a second name for me that popped up to try to sign in? Um, I'm trying to switch computers cuz I'm having technology issues. So, you know, it's funny while they're doing that is But let's see. In the beginning, I would have totally agreed with you that no

Melissa trying to bring educational material seemed to be putting a square peg in a round hole. Like nobody really cared about it that that much that and then the second half of it after you left then people started coming and talking to us. That wasn't going to be what I was going to play. Okay. Okay. But I thought at the beginning I'm thinking we shouldn't even be doing this. It should just be kids games or something like that. It's good to have both. But yeah, the sound situation at our space for an hour and a half of that time is absolutely unworkable. I would say um

being that close to a location where a concert is happening and we can't hear, we have to yell, it is very unal. I missed that. Yes, you did. And after that it got much better. And before that it was fine too. It it just it was about an hour of time where people were clustered around to watch the children who are very talented but the speakers are very very very loud and just with the placement of that happening right next to all these booths that that makes very little sense. So it would be fantastic if their placement could relocate

so that everybody can speak and interact and not go death during it. Um but the children we had so so many kids and I I think Joe and I can speak to it more as well, but I I think that the leaf uh activity is a fantastic one for that space. It's really fun to fill in tree like that. really great to get everybody involved, give them an artistic outlet where they're also thinking about ways to help their community. Yeah, it worked again.

But not only to it because I I I'm holding currently you and you can't see it because my webcam's not working, but um I h I brought a bunch of the really thoughtful leaves uh back so I could display them when I thought I was going to be there in person today. Um, and so I can bring them to the next meeting. I can take a couple pictures of them. But there were some really wellthoughtout leaves. And it was cool to see the kids. I felt like this year had a better grasp a little bit on things they could do, things that made sense where last year I felt like I was really having to coach a lot of them over what it even meant, what was the environment, what how do you help anything like that. I felt like this year was a little bit better with that. Um, and yeah, I totally agree with the concert next to us. Oh my gosh.

Nadia, do you have anything you'd like to share? You were there as well. Yeah, it was enjoyable. A lot of kids definitely had fun. I saw some great ideas, some good drawings. I had some kids set up shop for like 10 minutes and just draw himself planting a garden and write all about it. It was very cute. Um, definitely agree about the concert. It was yeah very low. But other than that, I mean I also what I think Joanna said about the tables uh like the order being switched a bit because it felt like theformational thing was just kind of like put in a corner and out of the way. And what about you? Any feedback from the time you were there?

No, I was basically playing with adults. That's great. And you Jeff and I were trying to get people signed up and and chatting with them and and uh there was one young man that was uh you know basically a forestry degree from Penn State, you know, from a couple years ago. So we we chatted for a while and stuff, but it's uh I was playing mostly with the adults. Did you get him signed up? Yeah. Yeah, we did. Yeah. And he I also got him to he he's doing work with storm storm water damage and stuff. So I suggested he get in contact with Jason to uh look at some things. So

well how about me too on the tree program. He's he's working in storm water. So Oh, I see. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. How about the rain garden? He might be a good uh candidate to help out with some of the ring guard stuff. We have his information sign up list. He'll get invited to anything. Yeah. Well, I just need to enter. So, how many total people signed up? Six or something. Yeah, it was like six or eight or something. He sent me a picture. Yeah.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Yeah. Eight. Fantastic. Okay. Yeah. All right. Um, let me go through these open initiatives pretty fast. They'll go fast. So, um, the November 15th adopt the highway date for the EAC. We had four people. We picked up nine bags. Um, Birdton PA update. So, we are a bird town. We are the 96 Birdton community. Um, we have been accepted by the Autobond Society. They have accepted our resolution, our township resolution, and our application. We are coming in at green which is what they want people to come in at. We could probably come in higher but there'd be really no reason to do that. You come in initially

the first year for everybody.

Is that right? Okay. I Okay. Um so so we are coming in and um at this point we are we are one thing away and we are um I'm going to share that screen. Um we are uh we are at this point um going to be see. So share. Um, okay. We are going to at council meeting. We are going to How did I do screen share? It says

is that your screen? No. Um, you were screen sharing. So, you are screen sharing. Um, you want me to get rid of this and see if it pops?

Yeah, let's see if it comes back. Let's see. There we go. Okay, there we go. So, this is this was pine officially recognized as a bird bird tone. And I showed you guys this before. Uh they will come to a council meeting. They will give us our certificate. They will give us bird town signs to put different places wherever we deem them to to go. Uh we will stand there as an EAC and as a council and they'll take this and then the tribune review or or the or the the local trib will put in a paper. So, we're going to coordinate this thing probably for late February at a at a council meeting and then we'll be recognized and then that will go out and that will be a formal announcement that we are a bird tub. What do we have to do to be with bird?

Uh, so it's going to be a lot of things that we already do, but they're going to help us with um uh you know recognizing um opportunities to to interface with schools. They're going to help us with speakers because one of the things we did say is we want to have a tree speaker, we want to have a bee speaker, we want to have a burnt tone speaker. So the Autobon Society will will help us um you know with a speaker series and also an invasive

it it basically overall when you join Bird Town, it it has you follow a list of different activities. You get points for different ones that you do, but it's all about being a sustainable community who's based around conservation and education and communities. So really everything we are doing like Jeff is saying um but they the goal is to create they say a healthier more sustainable environment for birds, wildlife and people. We do deer. Well that's likely part of it.

Yeah. So uh so this was a big deal for for for John Sherend al also. Um and he wants us to be tree city USA. He wants us to be a bird tone. I mean he is supporting all this supported this all the way. It was greenlighted the whole way. So uh this will be a recognition and I will work with everybody. But the one thing is is that there will be an orientation session. It's an hourlong call with the autobond society and I just need to know if anybody wants to join that call. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Good.

Wonderful. Wonderful. Wonderful. Wonder. Okay. Um next is um I would like to discuss and very briefly an EAC dedicated website. So there I'm going to show right now this is Pine's uh website. So you know you go you go on to Township of Mandless you see the EAC and it has all of our names and it pretty much ends there. There's a couple of links. Well, what they have is they have a bird town second page and it talks about the program. What I would like to do is I'd like to I'm gonna eventually talk to John and Diane and John Bearski about having a there's Joanne. um about having a web page that would be bird tone um um

bird tone um whatever not about the program but things that we're doing with bird tone how we're advancing tree our tree program and then in general other things that we're working on so I would love to if everybody thinks that is a good idea pursue this other page for the EAC that would talk about the tree program the bird tone interface and other projects we're working on. Yeah, that's what we were trying to do when Merc was here as well. We brought that up back in January that we need a better presence. We need to be talking about our programs, the rain garden, the roads open up, everything, but we just didn't make it. Yeah. Any of the new members possibly. We'll have to wait and see.

Communication. We'll have to wait and see. Yeah, that was that was what Mark's main I know. That's why I'm asking uh cuz we skipped over that on the agenda. going back to it with the number 11. Yeah. Okay. Yep. All right. So, um which I skipped over achievement which I skip over just happened to the new members. Oh, well yeah because Okay. Okay. Well, new member discussion very briefly is that um and I was going to wait until Nick with this because I'll I'll and I and I will wait with Nick with this. This is a council issue.

Yeah. So, so this dedicated web page um achievement announcements is sort of in the same thing where as we're going to announce the achievement of Birdtown, PA through the trip. Um I would imagine I'm going to talk to John Schwind again. We'll probably also announce the fact that we are certified gold and truly certified gold. Not just not just we used to be gold and you know we're just going to ride that. We're truly gold. So, you know, there might be another announcement that goes into the trip that and I don't know if it's a dual announcement or if it's a singular announcement. So, I'll talk to him about that. We had a communication plan. You would do one a month. Right. You're right. Exactly. The kickoff. Exactly. Right.

Because I saw the 175th is in March. So, it's like, yeah, there's got to be a way to communicate. Mhm. Where's John when you need?

Okay. So, we'll put a vote on two two announcements. Okay. Good. In another vein of like that same thing, I have yet to like talk to John in detail about social media, but I kind of want to pursue that at least within this next month. I have some more free time coming up with like break and everything. So, I have some opportunities to be able to talk to him about that. And I'd also really like to use that as a platform to push out all of these things because I think that that's like the a huge thing for us to be able to like not only involve young people but involve people who are not necessarily paying attention to like the news and get a majority of like information from social media

not right who's not like going on the trip and reading like through every single piece of daily news. So I'd really like to like get that kicked off. So I'll um get that situ Yeah. Okay, good. So So So I'll get that situated with him. That's great. Yeah. So you you'll you'll piggyback off of these things that we're doing in the general paper and use it and and and parlay bad word into into social media.

Yeah. So, just like the same type of things that we'd be doing with, you know, like a press release or, you know, if we have a Winterfest event, like get some pictures with everybody together with the tree and like get that out on the social media or like announce things so that we can bring more awareness about events and I'd really like to get that kicked off when it comes into the new year ideally. It's a great goal. Yeah, that's great. That's awesome. Um, okay. Uh then in the miscellaneous um I I just sent over the 175th. There's really nothing else to say say there. I mean people think see what's going on. We're fully I don't know that I have much to say about that.

Yeah. It's just it's a whole year of activities. Yes. And I just hope that we could integrate all of our activities, not this tree, but all of our stuff too into that calendar because it's a pretty rigorous calendar that they've got planned and feel like we should be inserting, you know, our series dates are, you know, um just be and we'll talk about that on the ETH, right? Uh yes. Yeah. Okay, good. Yeah. Okay. All right. Um, January McMill tip. Do we have any suggestions for that? And the last one was was great, by the way. Oh, well, thank you. Very interesting. You want January?

Yeah, I can take January and I'll do like some like new year themed environmental tips. If anybody has any ideas for like things that you want on there or else I can just kind of brainstorm that and get those ideas out to you. Yeah, I can do that and just just copy the whole group so we can all have input. Of course, you could do also just suggestion like New Year's resolutions like Yeah. Tell us like environmental resolution of like you know use less power. Yep. Energy

and in the McMail tip. So we had you know Argie is doing a whole year of the what I had requested like you know 150 words on trees each month. So um so what he and Julie are doing is he's written them all out for the whole year in my calendar. Last month I presented which topics they would be in that will be embedded in each of them. So you can click to the link and I'll be doing kind of mechanless uh free YouTube videos on precare. So,

the EAC has a YouTube account. Um, no. This would be more um focused. Well, I don't know. This is where coordinating with John would make a difference. Do we have YouTube? That would be more John. I'm not sure what he We do. Yeah. I mean, we're a little behind on

Yeah. Had I coordinated in September, October, November with the township, we would have like figured this out more. But I mean that's been on our planning calendar to do our McMail tips, you know, each. So they'll be small small tips, you know. So I think we're given what do you know? I think it's 4 to 500 words a month. So what I had negotiated was like half being like that to be like 200 words. So we already have that done for for the New Year's resolutions. Yeah. 200 words. Okay. That's good cuz I don't want to make it like too

talk to John about term paper, right? Exactly. Yeah. No, just like a little like resolution themed list. Yeah. Like maybe low hanging fruit. Yes. Like maybe recycle one thing they haven't been doing or you know. Did you know that the the Christmas lights are recycled at the municipal building? That type of thing. Flags and flags. I just saw the flags are recycled here. Simple things like that. Yeah. Yeah. Keep it simple. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Jenn. And then, um,

so Nick, um, Bernie, to answer your question, uh, our all all committee new member um, acceptances or approvals were tabled. because last Monday's meeting went so long. There were so many um residents that that um that spoke. Uh and the basic premise was it was about signs, electronic signs. Oh, that's

um so that is a that is a a hot point. And so it went on uh and at about 910 um they finally said we're not going to get to these until until next Monday. So, next Monday the 15th, which is the last meeting of the of the of the year, um the new members will be approved then. So, what happened to the sign vote? Yeah. The what? The signed vote. Was there a vote on the sign? Nick, you want to talk about that now? I was actually um on Zoom and I don't know what ended up happening because I had to drop off. I still need to follow up on that myself to be quite honest. Well, what it is is that um so they wanted to put a sign uh this

I know the topic. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, but what Michael came back was was alternatives to where they wanted to put the sign that would be the least impact to residents because you can't not permit them to have signs, you know, during Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the Pennsylvania law is it that, you know, there are they they're allowed to have signs. Now we can put restrictions around where the signs are and where Yeah. billboards and where No, I'm Well, no. Mike Deita worked on this for years. The answer is no. You don't have to.

Well, I mean, so so again, it's not in my scope. This is what I learned on Monday. So, what they were trying to do is they were trying to reduce the impact to the residents and also the impact to drivers because it changes every 8 seconds. I'm not going to get all this stuff right. Every 8 seconds. And then also the impact of you know no vaping, no you know you know no whatevers type of thing. So nothing that is that is you know of that type of nature. Um cigarettes, liquor, you know different things like that. So um so what they did is they came up with they thought was a good alternative. Um and people were still sort of talking about it and complaining about it and so forth and so on and rightfully so. Do you know how

and this was a hearing too. So like there was no vote made on it and vote. It was just Yeah, it was just a public hearing. So like to my understanding what Jeff said is like you do have to allow these in the town somewhere based on how our zoning districts are. This was one of the more least offensive options. This company, I believe, initially wanted to put multiple of these in the town and throughout months upon months of this process, we've been able to talk them down to like one or two spots and not a bunch. And I believe it's on Mcnite Road.

Yeah, the two spots are it's so it's going to be um Mcnite Road South um like where the LA Fitness is was. So, it's going to be there. Um, and then there's going to be one up where the Gecko is up on the flats. Uh, there was a corner of Reichold and 19. And that is actually municipal property. And there's actually like a little walkway there and they're going to put a sign. It's like municipality. This isn't even privately owned property. This is going on municipal property. I I don't I don't know. I mean, again, you're asking me I mean, you'd have to go to the meeting. You'd have to ask your You're right. I'm not involved. I don't want to Yeah. I don't like It's just Yeah. Yeah. I mean, but Mike Dwidita, if you remember him, he was a

my parents were were wholly supportive of Mike Dwidita. Yeah. But that's what he did in his his after, you know, public service. He worked on this issue for a long time. And by the way, it is a beautifification environmental issue and that was kind of I don't know if he's still working on it or not, but has a whole organization. They tried to they tried to to lower the impact as much as possible. Um, and I think at this point you can't say no. You cannot just say no. They can't have them. It's like with Marcelis drilling sites, they can't say no. They can just by ordinances and zoning, they can put them where they're not going to do them.

Make it harder and make it more as beneficial as beneficial to the town as we can. Mhm. Was it just like general opposition to like the meeting? Just general opposition to these signs? Oh, absolutely. And is it just like billboards like electronic billboard signage? Uh yes, they are two electronic billboard signs. And it it goes I mean if you've ever been to a uh a council meeting, it's more than general opposition. It's also making sure every detail has been Yeah. tended to with regard to notification, dates, statuates, ordinances. Melinda, you you know. Mhm. Yeah. Um, and so, uh, you know, so there there was a lot of that. Okay. A lot of that.

So, Mike did start a group called Scenic Pittsburgh. And I mean, the last thing I can see was a story done in February about it and studies about these electronic billboards and from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. So again, I I don't know if as a committee we should be involved in this kind of stuff, but um but you can go to the council meeting and and speak there. Really? They never seem to be at good times, but yeah. Um interesting. We can we can put that on the agenda next time. Call Mike Dao. I

mean, he's become an expert at this topic. I mean he and I looking at an article from February of this year in the trip where he's speaking on the topic and he's the ex executive director of scenic Pittsburgh and he's looked into all the legal issues and what communities and townships can do. Yeah. So is already one of those on Mc Road. It's very distract there. The big one is as big as it could possibly get is out crossing. That one's crossing is as large as I can get. These two are much smaller than that. Is that who owns that? Is that mean? No, it's it's privately owned.

Privately owned right at Cumberland and Mcnite that was much bigger. Um, there's that one. That didn't happen. Is the municipality seeing this as a way to make money? Is that It's It's insignificant. Well, then why would they do it? I'm pretty sure, to my understanding, we're required by state law to allow them somewhere in our town. That's what that's what was said at the meeting. All right. But that would still be private property. You're not obligated as a public municipality to give them land to put a It's probably private property. I mean, I don't know the details. Again, you know, this is I fitness

and if it's and if it's zoned to allow something like this, we can't deny them that specific usage. It's not fun. This is not something that any of us really want, but we are obliged. There's not there wasn't a council member who who wanted this. None of us do. Yeah. Um, anything else, Nick?

That was the biggest thing going on um this month other than the wrapping up of the budget. This is usually a pretty slow month. I will say this might be the last meeting that I am at because we will all have new committee assignments come the reorg meeting on January 5th. So, and you will not be on this committee then? It is likely that I am not. So, you will have a new member if it is one of the new council members elect. I have already met with them and I have hyped the EAC up as much as I could. Question. Did the uh your program get funded? Yes.

Yes, there is money in the budget for it. Send me some detail on that. Okay. Yep. Okay. Um so topics for next month's meeting. Um and I have the February McMill tip. I have um uh we will discuss the signs more and maybe we'll Bernie and I will talk about reaching out to Mike Dita. I'm doing it as we speak. So you want the signs on the agenda? You want signs on the agenda? Uh well if we can if we can have a an you know conversation about it if we get

that really part of our really we would only be educated but or or maybe what I'm thinking of is the education comes before the meeting like yes they have been doing this and you know I don't know I don't know that we have a part we we have I don't know if we have a dog in this this race but um you know we can learn about For what? For what? The signs. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's above our pay grade. Yeah, it might be, but we can we can learn about. So, I'm not sure.

I mean, I think light pollution, we used to have somebody on this committee who cared about it and we don't have anyone anymore who's really the advocate for light pollution. I mean, I don't know if anyone here would want to take that on, but I and members are interested in really because we have people coming and we we want them to be able to choose what they're interested in. So, so we still don't know who they are. We don't know who will accept just because town council says they're fine. We still need to send out official communication and make sure they accept. If they applied, we have to presume they wanted to do it. Unless they interviewed with us and don't like us. Oh, really?

They've had other things coming up. Yeah, they can have a job offer somewhere else and right it's been a while. So, um since since we interviewed them. So, that's another thing we'll put on introduction new members. So, hopefully we'll certainly have two new members. We hope it's the two that we have agreed to move forward on. Um and I'll also discuss um a little bit further um regional EAC reboot which is put that on there because I'll have made contact with everybody and start to think about dates for that. Are we hosting that? Do we decide on what that Yeah. We'll host that. Okay. I'll put that together here or like like in

probably in the spring at defin. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Whenever whenever it's a little bit dark. That's the way we did it before. Yeah. Yep. First quarter. Any other topics for next week? We might want to take time to discuss what we want for the LCAP topic just as a as a group for some of those options. What's the LCAP for the program that just presented to us as students? That was for the climate action. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm fine to share. Um I most of you weren't on the committee when I first started and started interviewing um a lot of folks about things we could do and Secretary V secretary Shirley um you know I asked her what the state could do to support and she was the one who was guiding me to grant program initiative which is kind of why I was appointed. Um, so but then she also mentioned this climate action plan that other municipalities do and and again we had big fish to fry, but that was something she really thought it would be great if we could participate and I think the state has some funding to support communities that kind of do those.

So that group I think that was on is accustomed to doing them especially because they had a staff member from D there. So I think um you know it's an exercise in you know in the same way your sustainability plan B bird town tree city these are guidance plans for what communities can do for kind of an improvement. Um so and this is the state's work uh for what states would love to have municipalities do to comply.

Yeah. I'm hoping that when we get the report next week and I share it with everybody that we can, you know, there there's some things that we can do like you said, some things that are easy to do, some, you know, five things and we'll we'll focus them as a group. We'll we'll talk about that and we'll focus them on things um you know to you give us information in this area. I would love I mean just as an agenda item on that topic you know if you could take the stack of say five metrics that we're now going to participate in and see how many of them are actually the same and by that I mean you know to be a bird town you know you start green but they're going to have these metrics that's part of what I was thinking the students could start doing for us because

but I'm saying like so there's bird town there's the sustainability plan is this what you're talking out is staffing all of them. That way we have one climate action plan for the town of Mccandas that aligns with all of the programs we're part of. But I I'm putting this on the agenda for next month because it's 9:15 right now. Yeah. Yeah. But that's exactly what I I I would find that too. I think they align right now. Good. You'll bring you'll bring that. That's what I Yeah, we'll talk after. Okay. We're going to have that meeting. So Okay. I'd be happy to join that group, too. I don't know when and how often you meet with the students, but very often. Yeah.

But I would like to participate when that occurs. Hopefully they're just video calls. Okay, we we need to move on here. So um with that, um anything else? Keep way too long. Um then I'd like to make a motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? Okay, very good. Thank you everybody. Thanks for Linda. Thank you so much. Thanks guys. Have a good night. Thank you everybody knowing you Nick. I know it's living in the cycle. They just forget.