Environmental Quality Commission - Regular Meeting

I don't think these are on, though.

We're really impressed with Spokane, Washington too. Spokane, Washington? Yeah. Remind me of Northfield a little bit. They had nice little riverfront, splash pad for kids. It was yeah. It's very, very nice. Nice little town.

To the presentation.

About

Chair Bhavancha, we do have quorum, you can begin whenever you're ready. Good

evening. We have quorum tonight and we will get started first with a roll call. Commissioner Schmuruk? Present. Commissioner Anderson? Present. Commissioner Hanson?

Present.

Commissioner Petrie?

Present.

Commissioner Kinney?

Present.

Commissioner Jones. Present. And Mike Parmancha, the commissioner or the chair is present as well. Moving down then to the approval of the agenda. May I have a motion to approve the agenda as stated?

I'll move.

And second? Second. Seconded by Commissioner Petrie. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Moving on then to the approval of the minutes from the last meeting. Do we have a motion to approve the minutes from our June 18 meeting? So moved. And a second? Second. Seconded by Commissioner Hansen. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? The motion is approved. We will start tonight with a presentation from our city staff about a topic that commissioner Hansen had brought up regarding data centers and getting a little bit more information. And so, we look forward to hearing that tonight and we'll then pass it over to Mr. Riley.

You can present from there.

Did this get longer? Don't know. Hi. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here in front of you talking about something that's not the conference of plan all by itself And hopefully inform you a little bit about the city of Northfield's approach to data centers because they're sort of in the news all the time when other things aren't.

But the citywide plans that are reflective of why we're taking this approach, a little bit about the feedback and the feed into the citywide new conference plan that we took the climate action plan in order to feed it into it, and then the land development code and how those things interface. And this presentation is updated from the one that you received prior to this meeting. And that'll go back on the website afterwards. Cause it's a long list, thought it would be funny to give you a little joke. Lions and tigers and bears.

There you go. Aren't they cute? But honestly, that's it's important to think about the lions and the tigers and the bears when we're talking about data centers and energy use, etcetera. So I'm gonna cover the background and history, of conference planning land development code, which I'm trying to train everybody to retrain everybody to call it a zoning code again. It changed in 2011, because of the consultant that was being used.

And I just find it much shorter to write and say zoning code. The Northwest area specific planning, which is related then to strategic growth growth approach, to tax base, which is related to data centers and then some next steps and I'll be here for questions. The background then is in and it starts kind of in 2006 just for context of the whole complement of economic development in the city. In 2006, the economic development strategy identified a diversification of tax base or the economic base of the municipality in order to help support Northfield's growth while maintaining its sense of place, attracting and retaining talent and focusing on complimentary uses to industry already here. So things that are related to say education, medicine, and all the things that go with that, which was over time includes more and more enterprises.

Right? So the colleges both use energy. They've changed the way that they use energy. What are some industries that might be complementary to those changes in energy use, etcetera. Then in 2008, a comprehensive plan was adopted and that sort of carried that same concept forward, and also included policies for compact and fiscally responsible land use and development focusing on infill redevelopment projects while also identifying sufficient land area to develop for existing and future business uses.

And that policy direction actually started with the 1966 comprehensive plan and has continued throughout and is represented in the much shorter and graphically appealing, 20 if I do say so ourselves, 2045 comprehensive plan. So then the next thing that happened was those 528 acres in the Northwest area were annexed in order to facilitate more land for commercial industrial endeavors. But as you may remember, the bottom sort of fell out of the economy right about then, and nothing has happened for quite some time. I think the economy had something to do with it and the fact that it has remained agriculturally zoned for that entire period of time, also has a large part, to play there. Right in 2011, the land development code, was updated to be called the land development code, and didn't really address that Northwest area.

And so in 2011, there was a master plan effort for a business park, that was, sort of seen as offering too much risk related to downtown's continued economic success because that business park master plan kind of envisioned what's known as sort of a lifestyle center. It's got a mix of residents, businesses, and retail. And so I think that, kind of where we are today with a very strong downtown which has weathered the multiple storms economically over time, for a long time, is a testament to that that compact and fiscally responsible approach since 1966. So, then we get to kinda business planning. In 2017, Excel approached the city for approximately 80 acres owned by St.

Olaf at the time. Still owned by St. Olaf, but owned and managed by St. Olaf. And half of that site or three quarters of that site is that solar field that's out there by the hospital right now north of North Avenue. So then in 2019, there was an approach attempt to refresh and reframe the approach. And there's notes that you can read in the presentation that'll be online, but I'm not gonna belabor that point because it predates me. And so the more important thing I think then is where we are today, which is what started in 2022, with what's known as an alternative urban area wide review. This is a Minnesota specific environmental review process, that uses hang on. I've got the where's my right?

Here. And I'll get into what an AUAR is in another slide. So that twenty eighteen council committee found that the 500 acres in the Northwest area cannot be viewed in isolation. Again, same thing as I said before, support. Don't draw from downtown. And I think that the bullets here speak for themselves and continue to be reflected in our policy documents and in the strategic plan approach for the next four years. So we can then come to that certified site and the AAAR. So what is an Xcel Energy certified site? It's a facilitated program by Xcel Energy's real estate and community development teams, to help communities attract capital investment. Why is Xcel taking that approach?

Because they need large power users in order to pay them to generate to build more generation lines because they are a private utility. That is different from places like California that have public utilities. So they are evaluated and those projects are evaluated and sort of recommended by the Public Utilities Commission. But the private utility still needs someone to come in and pay for it. Just like you if you build a house, you need somebody to come in and pay for it.

You grow a lawn, you need somebody to come in and pay for it. Don't grow a lawn. So what is then an alternative urban area wide review? That's a process that the state in its infinite wisdom and actually I mean that in this case as an an alternative to an environmental impact statement. It answers those same exact questions, in the EAW form, which is a much shorter form, but to the level of detail as an EIS, and must be updated every five years.

That includes not only evaluating the existing scenarios but also any time you wanna add or subtract a scenario. There must always be two scenarios and it's a scenario planning tool. It's kind of like you are all old enough or maybe too old to have played SimCity. It's kinda like SimCity but written in a piece of paper, where you get to sort of envision what are all the positive and negative effects of x y z development and how will a proposer have to mitigate any of those negative effects. It really reduces uncertainty for a developer and helps, I think, frankly, communities recruit the kinds of development that they want because this process has happened.

And Excel helped us pay for it. And then the consultant that adopt that wrote it for us and it's available online is Stantec. And the, we actually got to have the it was the last AUAR done by the person who I think probably has done more AUARs than anybody else in the history of AUARs over the last twenty years. So I feel like we got the absolute best possible product and look forward to updating it, as we move forward. So I'm pretty pleased with the approach in the a way are.

So here's the area that we looked at. It goes outside of the city limits in order to, accommodate all of the potential negative effects, in an area that those might approach. The red area, therefore, is the study boundary. The yellow is the part within the city limits. And it gets a little weird because we also have the former purple priority growth area established in the 2008 plan, and that shifted a little bit in the 2020 2045 plan.

But this is the final this green area with the gray hatch marks is the final 400 acre industrial site as proposed in the EUAIR. And that's what we're sort of talking about when we're talking about a potential data center proposer. Trying to think What else? Oh, and then we do have pending an application for annexation of land owned by the Langer family and the Sorum family that squares off that square. And I let's see if I can show you.

We have a pending application for annexation here to square off the developed air. Oh, it's this piece here, actually. This other hatched mark that I added. Good job, Jake. Past Jake is it was smarter than current Jake. So that's the the new area that's gonna come in to sort of square it off. Go away. K. More history. So this is about the climate action and comprehensive plan and how they interact.

So as many of you probably know, the, energy task force was established to publish that that that with hope, a resilient community that ultimately generated the climate action plan under which we are working today. The AUR took into consideration concepts within the climate action plan. And then through significant engagement and I think personal interest by members of the planning commission, we ensured that there were the, the portions of the climate action plan that were under direct control of the municipality were were incorporated as policy directions but with flexibility, to get them achieved knowing that technology, is ever changing. So these are some of the climate themes that we heard from engagement, around, the conference of plan which is to ensure that when we're looking at industrial development that we're recruiting environmentally sustainable users, that those solutions are that any solution that is related to climate and sustainability are affordable and accessible to all. So that relates to all portions of the comprehensive plan.

We heard very clearly a request to do quote unquote more to implement the climate action plan which is why we took those things under the municipalities control and inserted them into the comprehensive plan. Transit is insufficient. That is related to climate action that goes to reducing the number of miles traveled by personal vehicle and all the other spin off effects of that such as, you know, tires and all that stuff that happens. Right? And then stress with stress compact development, again, that allows people to walk to work instead of driving to work.

Now we just need more places for them to live. So there are the themes for you requiring that compact development addressing things like extreme heat and urban heat island effects, localized flooding, storm water management, tree canopy. I think it's fun that the land that the, compost, curbside compost folks are here, and the trash is the next conversation because we do address reducing landfill impact of solid waste in the comprehensive plan. And then seeking opportunities for new renewable energy generation, which kind of brings me full circle to why we need a large energy user user of some sort to locate in Northfield. And that's related to the rezoning, of the area to industrial.

So we've been marketing the site for users that meet or exceed Northfield's adopted climate goals and are complementary. However, we have been approached, by data center proposers, facilitated, I think, facilitated by Excel in part because as I mentioned before, a large energy user is needed in order for there to be more transmission lines to Northfield. Northfield needs more transmission lines in order to have more distribution lines which would allow for more people to put solar on their homes and net meter back to the grid. It's a very complicated thing but that's how I've gotten it distilled down to after talking to as many people as possible to make sure I get it right. So I'm not the person to ask questions about that, but Rishi and I can connect you to those people if you have more questions about that.

Then there's concerns also about what are the cost for the infrastructure investments and who will bear them. And so, public works direct director David Bennett has done cost estimates for that. And the intent would be that if, that any user that comes into the Northwest area would pay their way in some way, shape, or form for the initial capital expense of that infrastructure. The city would have to maintain it, but that would be built into a cost benefit analysis that we would do with that. The one thing to note is that we're guiding this area for really industry only because there's a 1.5% tax rate on commercial industrial properties whereas residential properties have an average tax rate of 1.1% when you look at how the state structures property taxes.

So we get more bang for our buck, more support for the community with commercial industrial properties. And as you may imagine, commercial properties and residential properties, certainly residential properties have more people, more cars, more importantly, more toilets, sinks and waste, but also more calls for service and retail tends to pay lower rate wages than industry. So if we're looking at our goals which is family sustaining wages focusing on industry is a higher value to the community. So industrial properties then tend to have fewer employees, pay higher wages and may may have fewer cars and trucks, use less water, and include more high value buildings. So that's for your estimated market value.

Commissioner Anderson has a question.

Yes. Sorry.

Yeah. Could I just ask a clarifying question? If I understood you correctly, you said the city has been approached by a data center. If that is correct, when was that approach made and and what is the status of that?

Yep. Can I can I I promise I'll get to that? Here's some of the examples of what the property value sheds in terms of taxes for what the use is. And you can see that commercial and industrial generates far more per acre than, say, a commercial solar installation, which we have quite a few of, and ag. So that's the Northwest area.

So these are the complementary industries we've been looking at. We've been evaluating the fiscal impact of sanitary sewer, potable water, property tax implications, service implications and that service as far as, NAFRS fire calls, police department, etcetera. Capacity, we have plenty of capacity in our infrastructure for sewer and water. And then what would it look like with sidewalks, roads, trails, etcetera. Mostly focusing on connectivity from the Northwest area into downtown and the highly populated area here in the center of the city.

So of the industries that we've talked to we've had conversations with site selectors for data centers. We had one when I got here that we don't know who the proposer was because when I got here we had signed an NDA. Then we have also talked to tracked is one of the data center developers that we've talked to. And the other one is the one we most recently talked to. Why I can't remember their name.

Linda, do you remember the name that I gave you? I'll I'll when I'm taking questions I'll make sure that I look it up. And we have have a slide that's specific to this. But we've also talked with a green fertilizer, producer, that would have produced fertilizer in Minnesota. 95% of the country's fertilizer comes from China.

And so there's a green fertilizer producer that was looking at citing a facility. They have one currently underway in the Pacific Northwest. They wanted to have one in the Midwest and then they also wanted to have one in the South. Unfortunately, because fertilizer is explosive, it can't be as close to the hospital as our site. But they also were able to they're building they will be building one in North Dakota.

So hopefully that will help the ag industry overall in The United States, especially given the approach to tariffs that is happening at the national level. And then also an ag innovator startup incubator the conversation was facilitated with us by DEED and the University of Minnesota, a wind turbine parts manufacturer, that needed bigger bigger things to turn things around in because of how big those parts are, and some r and d facilities that are local to local to Rice County. Nothing has come to fruition yet, but the rezoning only went through at the beginning of this year. Many of those conversations happened at the end of last year. Here's the background on what Dave's team did for reviewing the infrastructure and the costs.

Here's what water use is. So I know that that's a big concern when it comes to data centers. So a data center can use anywhere from 10,000 to 2,000,000 gallons per day. I don't know about you, but two millions gallons per day seems not just excessive but obscene when it comes to water use. But you can see that the our large water users, these are the top three shelved all post consumer brands or Multi Meal and All Flex, data center fits well within can can they are well within the same range of a data center.

So it all depends on what sort of data center you have coming in. Here's our grid as of May. This is why where I was referencing the large transmission line and the and the distribution lines and where we have capacity and where we don't and how to change that. And you can go and play with this map as well.

I do. Yeah. I I have this you know I check this fairly often. Yeah. Does everybody know what this is? I Any questions?

Yeah. Do you does everybody know what this is? Should I I can read the little summary of

What what that

So this map

was gonna ask you.

This map shows the high is a high level estimate of capacity for energy to be added back to the grid known as distributed energy. Hosting capacity, which is what this is is described as the amount of generation that can be accommodated at a point on the distribution system without requiring other things. So basically, this shows the blue areas are places where there is enough capacity on the distribution lines. So the lines that come in and out of people's houses for the energy to be used, that people could add their business or their residence with solar or other I suppose you could have a small wind turbine like they do in parts of Asia, to net meter back to the grid. So you are paying so that Excel basically pay gives you a credit for generating more energy that then goes back onto the grid that, like, your neighbor can use.

And we have two, substations, in our ecosystem that we are connected to. One is close to Dundas. That's the square that's close to Dundas. And one is closer to Northfield. And as you can see the one in the Southeast Southwest portion of our ecosystem has more capacity than the one in the northern part.

And the concept is if you bring in another big if you if Excel builds a transmission line, and to be clear, Excel would have to build that transmission line because it is a private utility, there'd be potentially more blue, so more solar opportunities for people. Does that help? Commissioner Pitchery, thank you very much for the question. And I I promise, commissioner Anderson, I will get to your your question. Well, I guess I did sort of.

I will I will talk more about how our approach is in another slide. So in our land development code updates most recently, we did a limited update to the existing industrial zone, in order to better consider the goals of the climate plan, recent changes in building materials and technology and best practices for all industrial users, especially around design because and also building design because we've had some tension with existing industrial enterprises and our need for so called high quality design. So we've done that and then addressed more guidelines and standards for potential industrial users interested in building Northfield just to make it more clear. This is a set was a setup, an interim sort of setup to this overhaul that starts this fall, assuming we continue to be on schedule for that. So here's some basic definitions that can help people kinda understand how we approached, the these different industrial uses.

Conditional uses tend to be those uses that may have more of an impact on neighbors and would very much benefit from local to that site input. For example, if I know that every day at 03:00, 700 kids on buses come back through my neighborhood, But the planners don't know that and the and the business owner trying to propose the thing doesn't know that. They might wanna change their mind. So we wanna make sure that, you know, you condition these so that you don't have, I don't know, no box trucks in front of the building from at the time school arrives and leaves. Right?

Then performance standards are something that, zoning has sort of recently adopted. So this is the first time our code has had that. Those are technical rules that address measurable potentially negative aspects of a building or use. Permitted uses are those that are allowed if they meet all express standards. That means they have to they have to prove to us that they meet those standards.

And principal uses are the main activity and site development guidelines help site a proposer understand how all the other stuff can be arranged on and around the property. If you watch the Loon project as you're driving around or walking around or biking around, a lot of the things here, are that is a conditional use. It's also a principal use, the distillery, and then you can sort of see how the site development guidelines are being applied on that site, as far as traffic and other things. So it's kind of a good infill site to evaluate how the zoning code is working. Someday we'll get a greenfield one.

So we added the data processing facility definition to the as a industrial use because there's so much demand for cold places in order to put them. Also cannabis and help hemp cultivation and, both outdoor and indoor and manufacture. We had to do that in order to address the changes in state law, that allow recreational adult use cannabis. And then also added a manufacturing processing or packaging of products using raw materials that partly addresses cannabis but more importantly addresses any agricultural industry. We didn't have the ability to do that in the past and so now we could potentially have, you know, someone who freezes carrots for example.

Research and development facilities also weren't a standalone establishment and because we land live in the land of 10,000 innovators, it seemed wise to add that, as a as a category. And then of course, renewable energy technology production and processing, which would include things like, you know, battery component recapture and other recycling concepts related to renewable energy. I think about, you know, the hospital, the city, the school district, the two colleges as generating lots and lots of e waste. Would it make sense to have an e waste recycler in Northfield? That'd be an industrial user.

It might have it's a good complementary use. So looking into that too. Here are the performance standards and design guidelines. So we refined some of those existing standards to be more clear. And then the city also, this is, I think, on my next slide, but also adopted finally adopted the dark skies ordinance and that would apply to all users citywide.

And that's that ref that is reflected in the exterior lighting bullet here. And then we added some new performance standards in the areas where we could associate with industry. So that's primarily on the cannabis and the, data center or data processing facility, definition. And so for cannabis, that's air quality and odors and use of solvents mostly, but also significantly water use, and energy use, although it's quite an efficient enterprise. And then for data centers, things like heat and humidity are really important as far as what the building is off is shedding.

So not all standards apply to all uses, and we'll be improving upon all of these things in the code update. And why we did that is because we heard concerns as we were doing the AUAR public, communication about, not just data processing facilities, but also just generally industrial users having too much noise or offering too much vibration, from just the business of of doing whatever it is doing. We address those with measurable standard tied to known industry terms associated with noise and vibration. Here's the dark skies ordinance. And then, water use looking at preferring, passive cooling or closed system.

So closed system would be like your house's radiate radiant heat system. You fill it once and unless there's something really wrong, like when my radiator all started emitting a smell like a dead rat, that was fun. That was the only time I've ever had to empty that out, and refill it. Similarly, that's how a closed system at a data center would work. You can also use other kinds of coolants.

And then we do require an offset for the energy if you're using Excel generated power. And then renewables are preferred. And I had it just to be clear, the iteration that this went through was I started with an off grid power supply preferred and then was told actually by a data center developer, well, then you're gonna end up with a natural gas one and that would be worse. And I was like, oh, yeah. Good point. So renewables are are are preferred. Dinosaurs are not the way to get at our energy use anymore.

Mister Anderson had a question.

Yeah. One more clarifying question. When you say offset is required, does that mean that a data center, if it used x number of megawatt hours per year, it would need to purchase renewable energy Correct. Of that at that magnitude?

Correct.

Okay.

They'd have to document why they couldn't cover all of it. The code says as much as possible and they'd have to provide documentation of how much that is, why it's not if it's not a 100%, why it's not possible for it be a 100%. But yes, they're required to offset it. And again, this will be refined and because of the time frame, I think we have time to make sure that it is a 100% and get the language right so that we get it right. Right.

Right. If that makes sense. And I started by look using, you know, using the infotech industry, and what they've done over time and how people have so there's a community outside of in Northern Virginia, that kinda went all in on data centers about twenty years ago and have since kind of not regretted it exactly, but have reframed their approach. So that's kinda where I started with how did they reframe that approach? What's their new approach?

The American Planning Association has done a bunch of work on data centers because they are kind of a growth industry. But then there's a bunch of industry evaluations and papers that have been published in journals like Science, where they looked at data center operations in Northern Europe. And then I based on I based some of our standards on what is possible, and none of those things that are possible have yet been achieved in The United States. So the goal is if there's a data center project in Northfield, it would be, I think, sort of the gold standard for The United States because it'd be based on how Northern Europe has approached data centers and they have approached it very differently, much like they approached solar installations very differently. You probably are aware of that Germany and Minnesota are not that different in terms of where we are.

And yet, they are almost entirely running their residential power on solar and we are not, but we could be. So that was kind of the if we since it can be done, let's set it up so that we can maybe achieve it. So with the next step on data centers, like I said, we have had those conversations with a couple of them after I got here and discovered that we had signed an an NDA with a project proposer and that it was, you know, an unknown entity. So but likely Amazon or Meta. Right?

I said we're not gonna that's clearly not what this community is interested in. So we're not gonna sign non disclosure agreements. Those are for private entities. Those are not for government. And so personally and professionally, I think that's an ethical hill that I am willing to die on.

And then ask brokers only to bring forward hyperscalers. So people who rent their spaces which means they can be more quick and more thoughtful about how they do things and are using closed or non water or passive cooled systems, have a renewable energy generation potential and a documented plan for e waste recycling and reuse. And that was in part related to concerns that we heard from the public as we were talking through the AUER and talking to members of the planning commission at the time. Sort of like, if technology is a necessary evil, how can we make it as thoughtful an approach as possible? So the next tapes which are associated with tax base and I think the more the more diverse our tax base is and the more support we have from commercial and industrial entities, the easier it will be to get done the things that are enumerated in the two in the climate action plan that maybe right now we can't do because they're not in our control.

But if we had enough money or other ways to approach things we could. So to that end, the tax base approach is also a climate action approach. So updating the zoning code entirely, marketing available land for housing and for commercial industrial users, focusing that commercial industrial use on complementary industries. And I think now relying on the state's approach to green jobs and green infrastructure, since there's really no there's no federal influence anymore. Full stop.

And all of our renewable energy is now cost going to cost far more than it did a month ago. Even more important, I think, for getting a large industrial user that brings a new transmission line to the Northfield ecosystem so that individual property owners can reduce their reliance on private utilities. So on that very sobering and quiet note, I'll take questions. And commissioner Anderson, if I did not answer your question appropriately, I I can get back to it. But I will also, I'll when, I provided the PDF of this presentation to receive us to share with you, after and we'll go online.

But I can also send a link to the data center. The one remaining data center project proposal that we're still talking to. But even if they were to come forward, it would be probably six to twelve months before we even see an application to evaluate whether they're appropriate for Northfield.

Director Riley, I had a question about fire suppression with the data center. Well, I guess it's kind of twofold. Would there be additional training for our firefighters here in Northfield in regards to putting out a fire at a data center? And would on-site would there already be certain measures in place that would try to neutralize that as soon as possible since the fumes would be quite noxious or something like that?

Yeah. So my unders I can get more information but my basic understanding is that the state building code addresses fire suppression in data centers and we manage all those code enforcement things and so we'd be working with the fire chief to that everyone's safe. But that's a great question and I can follow-up with Tom Nelson, the fire chief as well.

Thank you. Any others? Yes. Commissioner Anderson. Given that data centers need to dispense with massive amounts of waste heat, has there been any examination of a data center being the possible hub of a district heating system for commercial and other industrial and residential development in the Northwestern Quadrant?

That's a great suggestion. And so far, I haven't gotten any traction on that from the one data center proposer. We do have, however, requirements in performance standards of the amount of heat can that can be dissipated and also the humidity and that's a measurable standard. So I think that that beg that your question means, I think, a more thoughtful approach to that component in the zoning code update. And so if you have any resources you'd like to share, I'd love to have them. But I think that's a great idea.

I don't have any specific resources to share offhand, but I know in general, since you mentioned looking at Northern Europe as a source of best practices for data centers, know, there's a lot of district heating that's been done in Scandinavia in the last several decades of of various sorts. I've got to believe that this has been done somewhere in Northern Europe and and there could be a model or multiple models that we could look at. And that it just seems like terrible waste to say, you know, we've got this massive amount of heat that we need to dissipate and we're gonna use lots of water to do it and lots of electricity when instead it could be a resource.

Right. That's great. I have five enterprising young econ major well, four econ majors who I can task with fighting that, but I did not find anything like that in my research. But I wasn't focused on that, but I will do that.

Commissioner Jones and then Commissioner Kenny.

Yeah. Thanks, Jake. I have three questions. First, you kind of build on each other and then anyways. You made the comment when you're giving your presentation in the graph there that shows that a data center would use 10,000 to 2,000,000 gallons per water per day.

You used the word obscene. Would agree with, but what makes it even worse is that if you look at the AUAR itself that we reviewed on page 34, it says that in fact, scenario a which includes evaluated a data center would use 4,000,000 gallons of water per day. So if 2,000,000 is obscene, four is twice as obscene. And I would just suggest to you going forward since you're going to be presenting this to the public probably quite a bit. We need to get our numbers straight so that they understand what the potential water use is.

My second question then there and I'm sorry, I don't really know the status of this other project I want to talk about. Does anybody know what the status is of the proposed sand mine in the area? And the reason I bring that up is will we be looking at potential cumulative impact on the aquifer for drawing 4,000,000 gallons of water a day for the data center while we are simultaneously drawing the aquifer down through the use of the sand operation. I'll give you a moment to comment and then I'm gonna come back to my third question.

Sure. So the data center use number here is the most current information we have on data centers and the AUAR is now two years old so that might that's a great point so thank you for that. Also just to be clear, a data center that was to use that much water would not be able to site in Northfield because we have a limit of 700,000 gallons per day per our permit. Right? That's our limit per Dave, is that right?

That's what my chart says. Wastewater permit limit daily average is 700,000, which is still I think too much. Yeah. So that's why the code has been structured to sort of really narrow the framework of potential data center proposals. As for the sand mine in Waterford Township, I don't have an update on that. I believe it's still being evaluated by the DNR, but I don't know. So but yes, I mean, certainly there would, know, maybe it's obvious, but a cumulative impact.

So again following up on presenting this information to the public in a way that they can process it and understand it better. What was the number? 700,000 gallons of water per day. Do you know offhand how many households does that is that an equivalent to roughly?

I don't know, but the public works director might.

Let me do the math. I think the average house in Northfield we're below the the averages. I so I think the average is is, like, 90 or 100, but we're down in Northfield around 75 gallons per person per day. So if you did used two and a half people in a house, two twenty five. So I have to do the math, but, know

It's a lot of households.

Yeah. Mean, it's it's two it's two shell dolls or two cereal factories. Right? That's the Yeah. Yeah.

And then my last question for you, Jake. Can you talk a little bit I I I have a pretty good handle on the potential water needs. What sort of power are we talking about? Because I know data centers are hungry and they're thirsty. They use a lot of water and they need a lot of power. What sort of transmission will it be? Just ballpark it. I know nobody knows for sure right now.

I wanna say the number in my brain is 30 megawatts but I could be wrong. That's peak.

And the data center would be using the lion's share of that?

Well, no. I think the transmission line would be would be bigger than would we've been told by Excel that the the power line would be sufficient to both sort of start to solve some of our net metering issues as well as powering the data center. And but again, not all data centers are equal. And so if we're taking what I'm calling the Northern European approach to data centers, then we're looking at a more efficient data center altogether than what has commonly been cited in The United States. If still an if.

I don't have an application. I just have people I'm talking to and trying to get to the best solution for Northfield when it comes to the tax base and the water and power use, which hopefully, I guess, from a personal standpoint, might not be a data center. But also we do need something that's gonna use a lot of power to create that transmission line Without an additional transmission line, Excel has told us that there's pretty much no way to address, the net metering issue.

Commissioner Kinney? Yeah. I'm actually gonna pick up a little bit more on the water just because. My question is data centers do generate a lot of heat. I would assume that some of that water would be quite warm when it leaves because I'm assuming that's part of why they're doing. So, is it going into some kind of a giant swimming pool and being reused as much as possible? I mean, at least if nothing else to harvest the heat.

So my understanding which is, you know, I'm not a data center expert is that there's a couple of different models that they follow for water use if they're using water. One is basically a a loop, that is just hot water, as it goes through, you know, all the servers. Right? Mhmm. And then that's discharged in back end just like it would be if you were running hot water through your house.

Then there's the catastrophic failure scenario, which is the one that I think we're kind of is if if unless something changes with kinds of data centers proposed in The United States, what we would be looking at something more like in your house where you fill it once, it gets hot, it gets it's it sort of just stays there. It cool it cools off because the system, the energy being used to cool it, cools it and it goes back through cooled all on-site. And the only time that hot water has to ends up back into our system is if there's a catastrophic failure of the whole system and the whole thing sort of goes. That's a worst case scenario. And if you think about nuclear as having a similar scenario, there's been three major nuclear disasters in The United States since 1950.

I would imagine it's the same scenario with data centers. Highly unlikely, but not impossible.

I mean, otherwise otherwise, it's a cooling tower and nobody wants to build a cooling cooling tower.

Correct.

So, okay. I'm

I mean, and then there's a non water system, right, which would also potentially have a catastrophic failure, which would relieve would would result in the non water thing, usually glycol going into our wastewater treatment system. And we'd have to make sure that we could do that before we were to permit anything like that.

Commissioner Anderson.

I just like to discuss the alleviation of the hosting capacity issue aspect of this, because it doesn't intuitively make sense to me that adding a major energy user, even if you're adding transmission capacity, is going to necessarily address the hosting capacity issue, because the transmission and distribution systems are two separate critters. And if you're a resident or a small business or even an industrial facility in Northfield that wants to add rooftop solar, the limiting capacity is what's going on between you and the substation. And I I just don't I don't really understand how adding a a big energy user, even if you add transmission capacity, is going to address that issue. Engineer. I'm I'm not an expert on these issues, but I I do know energy systems fairly well.

So, again, not an expert on this either, but the the essential nexus, I guess, between, a large energy user and a transmission line is without someone to pay for the, essentially, the transmission line, we won't get one.

No. I I understand that.

That I mean, that that's ultimately Again,

I I I just don't understand how the addition of a transmission line is going to resolve what's essentially a distribution issue between the point of use and the substation.

Because if you're not getting another so it's essentially, if you can bring in more energy, then your distributions network can accept more. So let's say, right now, we have two substations. Right? So a new transmission line would potentially add another substation. So all the red and again, we can have someone come and probably have this real this conversation for real with you.

That'd be a good idea. But let's say all this red here suddenly goes away and it's blue and now all these people are no longer all these people are no longer feeding into this substation. So I would imagine, right, by sort of process then now these people can use more of that distribution system since there's a new substation. Yeah. That's that's my understanding.

Add add a new substation, get more ability to cause then there's more people. It's kind of like the difference, right, between DSL and cable. A DSL system is, you've got a cable system has yeah. It's like a it feels like a shell game, doesn't it? But really, it's if you add I think it's if you add a substation, the red part to the north becomes blue for that substation. It relieves the pressure on the Northfield Substation, allowing for there to be more blue closer to that Northfield Substation.

Commissioner Petrie. This is

Micah. Thank you. Anyway, this is a change of topic and it's not, you know, it's not as sort of concretely important, relevant and so on. But I am somebody who spends a fair amount of time on the trails at St. Olaf.

And I have heard people say what will happen, if that area is industrialized, if there's a data center, what does that do to the animals and so on? How close would it be to the natural areas and how would it affect them? And also in terms of water, would it affect them? And how would it affect our views too, that's another factor.

Yeah. So the code is written in order to minimize views and then the impact, I guess, of the visual impact of of the structure. There's a minimum lot size requirement which basically means it's a set of buildings that are far far away from any road. And in the scenario where let's see if I can find the picture of the so basically, if you take this picture where the word so in between the the yellow city of Northfield and what is the there's a farm there to the south that you can sort of see. If if you were a data center, you'd got you'd have to go kinda right there in the middle and so you'd be as far away from all of the other things that you're mentioning.

So the Greenway Corridor to the West, the St. Olaf property with the solar array on it to the east, etcetera, you'd be quite far away from those things. Mhmm. And then the I didn't bring a copy of the AUAR, but in the AUAR, it does outline the potential impacts to flora and fauna as well. Thanks.

Any others? Seeing none. No. Treasurer Schumerich.

I have two questions. The closed loop system that you mentioned, I guess I'm a little confused why we're all talking about so much water use if that would be privileged.

Because I think that there's a rational fear of the use of water, but we've structured I mean, that's I guess that's the point that I've tried to make is that we have structured the code to minimize that water use as much as possible by prioritizing, as you say, a closed loop system. So with But the model in The United States is use as much water as possible to cool all the hot stuff. This is new. No one's heard of anybody doing this before, and there's a lot of fear out in, you know, Rosemont, Farmington about the data centers that are proposed there because they are proposing to use that much water.

So when we get a bit like, what are the parameters for controls? What you're saying we'd prefer a closed loop system, but are you saying that that we will make efforts to make that happen? Yes. Okay.

I mean, I'd prefer not to not to I'm trying to get industrial development. If the only developer I can get is a data center, then it will be a data center that uses a little pot of energy, as little energy and as little water as absolutely possible. Possible being demonstrated in Europe, not ever demonstrated in The United States, and certainly not demonstrated with the projects underway in Minnesota today.

Okay. But my second question is related to that. Have there been additional interested parties that aren't data centers that are being considered?

Nothing that's gone to the point of actually getting an application. So I mentioned some of the r and d, the fertilizer, the so yeah. Nothing's really

Nothing that's happened.

Nothing's, you know, turned into anything, including a data center. None of those things have turned into anything. And I'll note that part of that is related to most industrial users need more energy than we have capacity for. And so any industrial project is likely to have to go through the Public Utility Commission's very long and currently, their queue is is is congested. So even the Public Utilities Commission and Excel are having trouble getting their through their own process.

And so that's been a component of a delay for any industrial development up there as well because we need you know, Northville doesn't just need a distribution line or a power generation line for a data center. It really just needs it for any additional industrial users in that area. So primarily what we're focusing on is recruiting industry in the areas that are already built and already powered along Highway 3 and and Highways 19. So smaller scale industrial users that can use the land more efficiently and use our existing systems more efficiently.

Mister Anderson.

This this isn't a critical question and I I understand that the primary attraction of a data center is a potentially large increase of tax funds, which is very laudable and obviously necessary. But another long time goal has been to increase employment. Do you know what kind of employment is there at data centers? And my sense is that it's pretty modest.

Yeah. That's the other sort of drawback to a data center is you can run one with very few employees. They do not have to be on-site. However, that's also a bit of a benefit because then you don't have people driving to a site. So it's one of those trade offs.

They do at least pay, you know, quite well as an IT enterprise. And I think one of the ways I'm thinking about this is if we can relieve the tax burden on the residential portions of the city, is, you know, two thirds of it, then we can start to have homes for the people who already work here but can't live here. So there's more people driving into Northfield every day to work than there is driving out because they can't or don't they don't or can't live here. Many of them would like to. So if we can facilitate housing development by having a more balanced tax base, we can house more of those people who are already kind of our neighbors but not our full time neighbors.

And if it that's a trade off of a 50 or $60 an hour job that's done by someone remotely, it's better than the current situation.

Any other questions? Seeing none, thank you so much Director Reilly for your time and your very succinct presentation tonight. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Now we move on to the open public comment portion of the meeting. Persons may take one opportunity to address the board commission for two minutes, not including the interpreter's time on any topic even if on the agenda with the condition that they may not speak on the same item later in the meeting. No notification of the chair is required. However, are asked to complete a sign up card. Persons wanting response to a question must submit that question in writing to the recording secretary.

Questions must include name and information on how to contact you. You may use the backside of the common cards available in the meeting room and you may not give your two minute speaking time to other members of the public. So, I would ask members of the public that want to make comments to please come forward now for for for those items that are not on the agenda. It's a little confusing. Yes.

I do have two cards up here for two individuals that wanna speak on agenda items, and I'll call you once we bring those agenda items forth. Seeing none, I will then go to the board member and commissioner reports. Do any board members or commissioners have items to report at this time not listed on the agenda? Seeing none, I will then move on to the regular agenda. First time with the item of the agenda is to discuss services related to expiring residential waste hauling contract with DSI and the upcoming proposal request.

And then at this time, I will call a member of the public, not yet, to discuss on that. Okay. Excuse me. Sorry about that, Director Bennett. We will have you present. Please go ahead.

Chair members of the commission, I'm Dave Bennett. I'm a Public Works Director, City Engineer with the City of Northfield. So I'm just gonna just kinda give a high level overview of our contract that we have currently with DSI. It's been in place since 2012. So they've been providing that service previously. I think it was waste management providing those services. So we'll just we've had a couple changes through the years when their contracts have been renewed. So I'll just touch on a few of those things too. Timeline. So really here this evening to kinda talk about the services they have, hear any thoughts input from the commission and the service that are provided or things that we may wanna consider changing.

We'll discuss this at council in August. We'll have a public hearing on our service contract and then we'll issue the RFP for the services in September, October, really with the goal to kind of have a new contract in place with the service provider by the end of the year. Currently, we have the weekly garbage service, biweekly recycling. We do have in our contract that has really not exercised. We do have the ability to go organic citywide.

I think, Rishi, was the survey when you were here or was it when Beth was here when we did the city? So we did a citywide survey, to see if we should consider, expanding the service. The the feedback really from the public was not at this time. They just like the option that was available through Northfield curbside compost just to sign up and have that be the option versus rolling it out citywide to all the residents. In the last update, we did, we did add the 20 gallon size container.

So we do have a smaller bin that is available for residents. In addition to that yard waste, collection was added. We had to have certain amount of residents, sign up before that service actually was provided. I think it was 200, originally, and I think I think now we're up around 500. It could be a little bit higher in terms of weekly residential yard waste.

And then in addition to that, we added instead of we still have biweekly recycling for those residents. We haven't moved to weekly recycling, but we what we did is offer the option to go up to the 96 gallon, the larger container, instead of rolling it out as a weekly type service. Now, one thing with with our hauling contract is the the hauler still gets paid by Rice County for the recycling service pickup. So even though they're kinda lumped in with our contract, the funding does kinda come through the county to pay for the recycling services. Other things in our contract that we have Christmas tree pickup, we have we have the voluntary yard waste service like a like I said, April mid April through November.

We still have our compost site that's open. There is available for brush pickup. It's, not used tremendously, but you can, bundle sticks and brush and and let them know and they'll pick them up. And then we also have if you're not signed up for the the weekly yard waste service, you still can purchase tags, let them know, and they'll schedule a pickup, for you for that service. Other pickup services is your white goods, electronics, appliances.

So all those items can be arranged for pickup, and it just follows the fee schedule that's established, through our contract. It's on our website with what those charges are, for each of the residents. And those those also are the same fees that would be paid if you go to the to the, spring cleanup days in May. So the two Saturdays that are provided, those are the same charges that you'd pay if you just called to have it picked up at your home. Some of the kinda add on additional things that's in our contract with with DSI.

So, you know, every certain amount of tons recycled, they do donate a tree to the city. They have some scholarship type, for $500 for businesses, individuals. They share a portion of their reimbursements, from the recycling. And then they also give back, to youth organizations for the recycling monies that they do receive from the pickups that are at Cub and at Family Fair here in town. In our comprehensive plan and certainly in goals is to to look at, really, how do we look at waste reduction, limiting use, more recycling.

I know in in our contract too with, in this last time in 2020, we did, there's provision in there to to look at trying to quantify how much organics are in the the waste. So they did dump a truck, and they tried to it was a a very challenging endeavor. I think they found there was, 3% maybe they estimated roughly was the organics potentially in in a pickup. So they identified an area. They had that truck.

They tried to do a measuring of it. It wasn't as easy as what you had thought in terms of trying to do some estimation. So we want to look at reducing waste, increasing recycling. I think it all goes to lengthening the life of the landfill at Rice County. So how do we extend that life and get as much that we can out of it before it would have to become like a transfer site. So how do we limit our waste, here in in the community? So with that, I'll turn it back to the chair to answer any questions that you may have.

You had said only 3% of organics in the analyzed waste? That seems really low.

There there might have been some stuff that was bagged and was unable to collect. But the percent that they roughly measured, I could get the weights. I might be able to find them, but it was a pretty small percentage is what they actually found. I mean, it's definitely under under the 5%. They said they measured roughly 3%. I think it was like 400 pounds of the I think it was like an 11,000 pound or 12,000 pound load.

Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Schmurich?

I was wondering the slide that had the strategies and yeah that one. Thank you. I'm not sure when the goal was put in place but I was wondering if you have any updates on how we're doing since 2030 is five years away.

That's a very good question. I I I don't know if I could I think that'd be something that we'd have to pay closer attention in terms of measuring on how we're doing. I don't know if I have a good answer for that at this time.

Is that something we could find out more about? Because 2030 is five years away. Be

really nice

to have have something more if those are goals.

Commissioner Hansen and then commissioner Kinney.

Thank you very much, director Bennett. At the end, you you made reference to extending the life of the Rice County Landfill. Do we know the expected remaining lifetime?

Chair the last study was probably about fifteen to twenty years. I think they are looking at updating that study just to see. I know they're they did have a pilot grant related to, I think, construction debris, like and I don't know if it's to to reuse or how to try to segregate it from in within the landfill. So there's I don't know if they have it exactly pinned down, but fifteen to twenty years is the light, the latest information from Rice County.

Thank you. Commissioner Kenny?

And I think I think you're right. I think what they were trying to do is talk about pulling some of the stuff out of the demo fill and actually reusing that. But being that they're not aligned landfill, they don't have to go through quite as much to change that across. But, yeah, I'm interested in some of this about the amount of, well, first of all, I think we've talked with the folks at Northfield Compost a few times and I know that they're in the process of working through with the Pollution Control Agency to build their own compost site. And that's probably going to take a few years.

So, I'm just wondering if we could get to citywide composting at some time with the DSI contract and then using North Hill Compost as as their as their operation. And I'm just wondering what what you have I mean, I'm sure you folks have talked about that too.

Chairman and commission. I mean, I think any hauler would be happy to haul and truck the stuff away, I mean, and pay for that service. I think locally, we've had really a good start up business that's put a lot of sweat equity into growing that business. When we met earlier this year, I think they're working through the development of that organic composting site. I don't know, even with the first phase, And they they get that they would even be able to scale to like a city of our size. But certainly

And and it and it is a matter of stepping. Yeah. Mean, initially, it's just actually getting it on the ground and getting the clay base packed and that sort of thing and working up from there. So, it probably will be a three step process before they actually are at something like that. But, on the other hand, it is something to be kind of excited about in the way that it has grown over the years from when it first started.

Commissioner Schmuck?

So one thing that's not in the presentation that I'm curious about are the costs and also incentivizing less waste. Last time I looked and I apologize those of you who've heard me talk about this for over fifteen years now, the difference between the bin sizes was just a couple bucks a month. Other places tried to use the power of the purse to get people to throw less in the trash. That would be another way to extend the life of the landfill.

Great comment. I think that's something that we can we can look at with with our rates now. Just the hauling is a portion we directly pay per ton to Rice County. So, like, that's not included in the hauling contract. We direct pay when we do that. But certainly, our overall rates, that's something that we could look at establishing and incentivizing going to a smaller container.

Any others? Seeing none. Thank you very much, director Bennett, for your time. We appreciate it. Alright. Thank you. Rishi.

Oh, yeah.

Definitely. Thank you. I will then bring it to mister Cliff Martin. If you would come to the microphone, we can give you two minutes of your time to speak with us.

Hello. Good to see you all. I haven't seen some of you in a long time. My name is Cliff Martin. I live at 306 Sinolith Avenue, and I'm one of the worker owners with Curbside Compost Cooperative, as are two of my colleagues over there. Yeah. I think the the the two minute version of this, for us oops. Let me find my notes here. I think, you may be not surprised here. We love collecting compost in Norfield.

We think this is the perfect city to do this kind of stuff. You're kind of uniquely perfect. And we love that we've been able to do that for about eight years now. We currently you've probably gotten this report to some extent. We currently serve about 800 households, about 20 institutions, of varying volumes for what those institutions output, which off the top of my head, I wanna say that's, like, 12 or 13% of households in Norfield. I could be getting that math wrong. Apologies. If anyone wants to check me, please do. Yes. So you've also probably heard that we are developing a local processing site, and we have broken ground on that.

It has taken a long time to get there, a couple years of changing ordinances and permits. And literally just this week, Rice County said, okay. Yep. Go ahead and apply for your building permit because you've met all the conditions of your site permit, which for us currently, if construction goes well for the next couple months, we expect to be able to start to that site in the fall, kind of like August to fall timeline. So that's exciting.

That's huge. The other things I think we want to just kind of float here is that as far as this contract goes, the the things we really want to put in your mind is that we would just like the opportunity to be able to put a proposal in for this contract. That means a couple things. One is, currently to my knowledge, the the nature of the waste contract is that one company does it. And in our context, what we'd be asking for is, you know, the opportunity for a company could to bid one piece of the contract, in our case, just organics. That was my two. So I'll leave it there. Thank you. We'll maybe send our comments or if you have questions. I don't know if that's something we can do, but I'll pause it there for now. Thanks.

Thank you very much, mister Martin. Next, I'll bring it to mister Malcolm Watt.

Hello. My name is Malcolm Watt. I live in Dundas. That was a fast two minutes.

You're resetting?

At 415 3rd Street North in Dundas. I have a company called Junk Truck MN. We are a junk hauler, MSW hauler, e waste recycler, upcycler, and recycler. We have been doing this for fifteen years now starting in Norfield. There's a few things that I've seen that Norfield doesn't have that they might want to look at. There's a moratorium on transfer stations. Rice County will not let anyone privately build a transfer station in Rice County. The e waste side of that is having a license drop off spot, which is something that I think should be considered maybe by the city of Norfield. I'm a licensed recycler and I report to the MPCA. And I'm in the landfill every day.

It's about ten years till it turns into a transfer station. They're on their last cell now. In regards to organics, I disagree with the 3% because I've been there when DSI dumps an entire dump truck full of lettuce from Cub Foods. Plus, we unload organics from semis that are refused loads in town. I think Norfield should look at also having a hauler's license not just for DSI waste management, but for the smaller haulers, junk removal such as ourselves.

A lot of other cities are doing that. And they're looking at the fact that there's a lot of these Facebook people that are, say, then dumping the trash out on the dirt roads, and then the townships are calling me to come pick it up. But with no licensing, you can't coordinate or look over that at all. I would like to see if there's some way we could start a discussion within the city, both encompassing Norfield and Dundas about other options for disposal reuse. We have a 12,000 square foot thrift store in Dundas that we're an upcycler, and we also try and donate recircuit free cycle and then have, like, e waste.

We probably get rid of over a third of our e waste to people looking for repairs of, like, repairable things, vacuums.

Thank you. Thank you very much, mister Mott. Next up, have Mr. Matt Rohn. Matt, please.

Hi. Matt Rohn. When I was on ETC and we last did the contract, we put in that DSI should measure periodically. They have not done it periodically. The first time they did it, they had us come out, the sustainability coordinator and two volunteers, to do the job for them. So the city does need to start tracking how much we are putting into the landfill. And we had a mechanism to do what the DSI has not been following through on. We in the Zero Waste Plan said we would have composting seriously done by now. That was because we knew the contract would be coming up at this date. It needs to be followed through.

We could incentivize curbside who's saving us money by taking stuff out of the landfill, put that money in to them, and set goals for how we're going to expand composting, for example. One of the things that's coming up here is this needs a lot more looking, serious looking into by a variety of people, especially EQC. And that hasn't been done, and now we're rushing through a contract that you're not even looking at, which last time with EQC, spent two years going over the contract with DSI and the city staff to make for a better reduction on waste. So I'm really glad what you're doing now with single waste plastics. I'm just thrilled.

I thought the agenda said compost. We're not hearing about expanding compost from the city. So let's get on.

Thank you, mister Rome. Any comments from commissioners at this time? Seeing none, I will then move on to the next agenda item, the draft carryout bag ordinance and community engagement efforts.

Commissioners, I wanted to provide you with an update on the carryout bag ordinance and some of the efforts community engagement efforts we've been doing surrounding this topic. Attached to the packet tonight, you'll see a draft of the language for a carryout bag ordinance as has been approved and reviewed by our city attorney. The draft of the ordinance is attached to the packet and it's also available on the city website on the Rethink the Bag single use carryout page for the public to have access to also review and comment. The ordinance has been shared with the chambers and has been shared with businesses. I, along with Chair Pravancha, have been working very closely with the chambers and also through various community engagement efforts to get eyes on the ordinance also and to get more responses to the survey.

To

date, well as of this survey when I wrote the staff report, was about 500 responses to the survey, to the residential survey. As of this morning, there's about 900 responses to that survey, and we've got about 30 responses from the business surveys only. Commissioner Pravancha and I do have some meetings set up with the chambers this month and next month just to have some of those one on one with business members because we have been getting a lot of questions. A lot of people want to know who keeps the fees, merchants keep the will be keeping the fee, and just some nuances that are going on with that. So I'm hoping having the draft of the ordinance out available to the public so everyone can have eyes on it and see the provisions, also fines and also the goals and the purpose of why we're even asking the community of this question of should we move forward with this?

What does the community think about single bag ordinances? We do see other communities have passed ordinances like this similar, not Norfield size, but we have seen some cities that have climate action plans, zero waste plans like Norfield pass ordinances like this. There is no motion or action for the commission to take tonight, but I am asking for feedback as at this point commissioners should have had time to review the ordinance and to provide any feedback and as well as just to highlight some further opportunities for the public to also engage. We've got two open houses scheduled in August and September for residents to come in and speak with commissioners and share their thoughts about the ordinance and also with staff. Those two dates happening Wednesday, August 13.

And then a second opportunity happening Wednesday, September 10, again inviting the public to come in, speak a little bit more with staff and the commissioners about the ordinance, the purpose, why we're asking the community to share their feedback and thoughts, and why we are hoping to move forward with council to consider the commission's request. At this point I just do want to highlight to everyone that at this point that this is a community engagement process. What the EQC is doing now is carrying out that process. The commissioners have been at various community engagement, various community events including Earth Day, Pride, tabling, also plan to be attending craze days. We'll be tabling at the city's table to again get more people to provide feedback, take that survey, whether it's residents and business.

I know there's also some opportunities for commissioners that will be doing some door knocking with business owners to also get them to share their input. We know that this is going to heavily impact businesses. And so trying to get as much businesses to, one, acknowledge that this conversation is happening and provide their feedback, and hopefully being able to share this with counsel so they can take this all into consideration if and when they decide to move forward with an ordinance such as this. I'm happy to answer or address any questions or also take back any feedback about the ordinances or questions especially to our city attorney as he was the primary drafter of this ordinance so if there are any issues or something that is missing or provisions, this would be a great opportunity to share that. If not now, also in writing, this won't be the last opportunity.

This will come back to the EQC in October where I'll share the survey results and of that nature, and then we can talk about next steps.

Thank you, Racy. Any comments so far on the ordinance or language or no? Pretty straightforward. Okay. Thank you.

And it is posted on the city website and available for the public to review and comment as well.

Next then, we'll move on to our work plan updates for 2025. Initiative number one, the zero waste plan implementation. Basically, we just kind of Gracie just went through as far as the zero waste ordinance or the ordinance for the bag fee. So then I'll move on to initiative number two since there weren't any comments recently on that. Community engagement campaign for energy efficiency HVAC contractor and homeowner education. Points of leads on that, commissioners Petrie, Hansen or Anderson, would you like to make any updates or give us any updates on that? Mr. Anderson?

Yeah. Janet, Rob and I have met twice with RISI virtually. The second of the two meetings just a few days ago included representatives from the Rotary Climate Action Team and Rice County Habitat for Humanity. And we are planning a November 5 event. And this is the long awaited event where we were going to be rolling out how people could apply for IRA rebates and tax credits which unfortunately are going to be or have gone away.

Although, there may be some state rebates that will survive that were attached to eligibility for federal rebates. We still don't know, but we decided that we just really need to do a community engagement and education event highlighting for homeowners and small businesses, you know, what kinds of tax credits still are available, what kinds of rebates are available through Excel and the city, if not through the federal government anymore and possibly through the state of Minnesota. And we have a draft agenda so far and and we're hoping to get HVAC contractors involved. It's also possible that there may be an HVAC contractor training session between now and then done by the Minnesota Air Source Heat Pump Collaborative. They've been invited to do a training in Northfield for contractors in Southern Minnesota.

But we don't yet know whether or not that will happen before November. But in any case, we hope to have one or several HVAC contractors involved. We also intend to have examples of homeowners who've gone through retrofits of their homes, electrification of their homes, and we're also going to be having some discussion of electric vehicles, even though again, unfortunately, the EV tax credit is going to go away September 30, sadly. But the planning is well underway and we'll be doing everything we can to get good turnout for that event and hope to have some good success stories to share at that as well as just some good basic information.

The event is tentatively scheduled for November 5. Six to I believe we said six to 07:30 at the NCRC Building, but we'll follow-up with more specifics at the next EQC meeting.

Great. Commissioner Petrie.

And and commissioner Anderson did a very nice job setting up the agenda providing a draft to the agenda, which we can pretty much take with just a few few suggestions. So so that that was really good. And we had a good conversation with nice input from from Brian Novak and David Wagman. So, with some suggestions from their point of view. So, that was that was a nice nice discussion.

Thank you, Commissioner Petrie. If there's no more on that, we'll move on to the next initiative. Number three, native planting ordinance, the tree planting and vegetation. Commissioners Kenny, Shmurich, and Jones. Any updates?

Yeah. Well, there's just two main things going on with the one and they're both sort of well, one is where we had agreed with to review the land development code language when it's available regarding native native plantings along Parkway just so we can have some input on that. We'll we'll comment on that when it's available. The other thing I'd like to bring up is another issue that just sort of got dropped, so to speak, even though we should probably circle back and finish it off, and that's the existing 2014 Hema Hema'anga urban forest management plan. I think we had agreed that well, what I would like to do is just coordinate with commissioners Kinney and Schmerrock, and I think what we would aim to do is draft up an advisory memo to bring to EQC and then eventually send a council encouraging implementation of that plan if it's not already being implemented and then also some suggested revisions to it or minor revisions at least in practice, an acceptable tree list and there's also some language to be tweaked regarding the applicability of the plan to the native communities along the river.

So I will coordinate with them and we'll bring something back to EQC hopefully by the next meeting.

Fantastic. Thank you, commissioner Jones. There's no others on that. We will move on then to water quality and conservation. Commissioner Schmerich, Jones and Buderaki.

I'm sorry. I was traveling the last three weeks and don't have any update. But I had mentioned getting on the agenda a possibility of discussing how best to promote things that the city puts out. If we can put that maybe on next month's agenda, where you have all those nice, PSAs that most of us aren't quite sure how and where to share them. If we can have a discussion about that, that'd be very helpful.

Any others? So, I'll add that to the agenda item for next month. Okay, moving on to initiative number five, research level three charger use in need. Myself, Commissioners Hansen and Kenny, we already went through that last time I believe that is put to bed and it's completed. And then the last item of the agenda then would be staff updates. Commissioner Anderson.

I think I have a parking lot item.

Okay.

As part of our discussion of the agenda for the November 5 meeting, I had thrown out for consideration the possibility of discussing very briefly, since we're basically going to be presenting this as a way for homeowners and small businesses to save energy costs and reduce their carbon footprint, to also consider talking a little bit about transportation alternatives and food related issues. And while everybody thought that the transportation related issues could be covered briefly, I got a very strong sense of discomfort with talking about food and greenhouse gas emissions and dietary choices and what those, the greenhouse gas emission implications of those. But there was agreement that it was an important issue. Providing factual information to local residents about the greenhouse gas emissions associated with one's dietary choices. Emissions associated with beef production, poultry production, dairy, as opposed to legumes, seeds and other vegetable sources of protein.

So, tentatively agreed and I think Rishi agreed as well that it might make sense to hold a spring community education event talking specifically about food related issues and local agriculture and the local food economy, where we got input from people in the local agricultural community on their production methods. And also, I would strongly advocate for getting some expert opinion and information on greenhouse gas emissions associated with various diets, because it's real. I mean, the emissions associated with, especially beef, dairy, and to a somewhat lesser extent poultry and eggs, the emissions are much greater than they are for vegetable sources of protein. So, I think we can put that in the parking lot for now, but it's kind of on the table as a possible community education event for sometime in the spring.

Thank you, commissioner Anderson. And I move on to staff updates.

I do have a few updates for the commission. First, starting out with our residential energy efficiency rebate. Applications for the residential energy efficiency rebate have closed for the year. We have actually gone over budget. We have processed all the applications for the year. For our residents that we still encourage residents to continue to make those upgrades and do those projects. Their projects are valid for one year. So even though the applications are closed and we're no longer looking at that, they do reopen in January 2026. So this is now July. Applications is closed.

Let's say you do a project in August and receive a rebate, you can still apply for a rebate up until August 2026. So when it opens back up in January, I highly recommend residents that have done a project later in the year but weren't able to apply this year because we ran out of funding, which is a good thing because this is the first year the no, actually last year, I think we did use the full but this is the first year we've actually had to close out the application so early on. So it just means that community members are making good use of the program, but still encourage residents to continue on with those programs because they can submit their application January 2026. But I will say the program still operates first come, first served. So if you did complete an application August 2020 this year, August 2025, but you maybe wait until March 2026 to apply, Hopefully there's still funding available but if there's not or you wait until August 2026, you run that risk of, again, the program running out of funding and you only get one it's only for one year, so you have the option to apply the year that you do the project in.

And then you additionally get a one full calendar year. So there are two opportunities. But after that, I will not accept applications for the program after that one year mark. But it is closing and will open in January 2026. We also did increase the budget for the residential energy efficiency rebate this year.

Last year it was $10,000 this year it was $15,000 We did go a little bit over budget, but again, the program is fully utilized. But would like to ask that we start the commission, we start focusing our attention on the Climate Champion rebate program that's available for businesses. That has not been utilized yet. And there is still quite a bit amount of funds available for that program. As we all know, there was the last week the big beautiful bill passed, and there was a lot of big changes, especially when it comes to clean energy transportation.

And a lot of that will impact Minnesota City. So I did want to highlight some of the changes that will be coming to us. A lot of them immediate, some of them not so immediate, but still want to highlight that to the community so they can know how to best approach some of this. And if they've got projects underway, we're really racing against time. It is sooner rather than later.

First, the new clean vehicle credit for new EV vehicles. You used to get 7,500 in tax credits for individuals or businesses that got a new EV vehicle. That is going away as of September 30. The energy efficient home improvement credit, which was for homeowners to make improvements to save energy. That credit will be terminated at the end of this year, 12/31/2025.

That is changing from the previous deadline, which was supposed to be in 2032. The resident clean energy credit will also be terminated 12/31/2025 instead of February. The new energy efficient home credit, which incentivize builders to construct energy efficient homes and apartments, that credit will be terminated 06/30/2026. The alternate fuel vehicle refueling property credit, which also provided tax credits to businesses and individuals for installing EV chargers, that will expire on 06/30/2026. So it's very important for residents and business owners who had previously had plans of taking credit, taking advantage of some of these credits and incentives that timelines have changed, dates have changed, time is of the essence.

And so if you've done any of these projects this year or have any of these things, please make sure to look specifically at the credit you're going at. Most of the dates have changed. I'm also asking commissioners to also spread the words to residents and family members who may have been looking at some of these opportunities and credits that a lot has changed and timelines are very quickly approaching it. Even on the city side, we've got some projects that we've got to go ahead and streamline if we want to be able to take advantage of any of these credits while still they around. And my last update, Riverwalk tabling.

The commission is scheduled for August 2 at Riverwalk. We've got from nine to eleven, Commissioner Provancha and Hansen, and from eleven to one, Commissioner Provancha and Kinney. And that concludes my staff report.

Thank you, Rishi. Any questions on Rishi's staff report? Yes. Commissioner Hanson.

Rishi, are there any updates on the solar array on top of NCRC?

I there was a delay with panels. I have the panels. Construction starts on Monday for sure this time.

Roger that. Thank you.

Fantastic. Nice. Good work. One question as far as Dave had already left, if there are things that we want to reach out to him or as commissioners we're able to reach out to him regarding

the DSI

contract? And then when is the DSI contract going to be approved? Or what does that process look like?

So the current DSI contract that we have right now expires at the end of this year. He did have a timeline. I believe he said November is when he is planning on coming into council. I will resend the presentation and the DSI contract to the commission tomorrow for everyone to and you all are also welcome to individually email our Dave Bennett, who is our public works director slash engineering, dave. Bennettnorthvillemn dot gov with specific questions you all may have. But I will send out an email and reiterate this for the Commission.

Thank you, Rishi. If there's nothing else, I would entertain a motion to adjourn. Move adjournment. A second.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion is passed, we adjourn.

Okay.

Yes.