[0:00] Good morning and call this for the district of DuPage County, commission meeting, agenda to order. Today, Tuesday, May 16th, 2023, right here at District Headquarters. You please rise and join me for the Pledge of Allegiance.

[0:11] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which

[0:20] it stands, one nation under our indivisible authority, justice, and all.

[0:29] And this morning, for invocation, we welcome Deacon Ron Yerkes from St. Petron, Perish,

[0:34] England out.

[0:35] Good morning.

[0:36] Good to be with you.

[0:37] It's always.

[0:39] There's an expression that he who sings grace twice, let me see if I can do this.

[0:44] We are called to act with justice, we are called to love tenderly, we are called to serve one another to walk humbly with us.

[0:59] So this morning I was thinking of all the changes that are going on in our lives.

[1:02] I think of Chicago yesterday with their big celebrations and stuff.

[1:05] There's a change. Change is part of our life.

[1:07] But we just pray that God is present with us here in this morning.

[1:10] We've all been called, as the song says, we have often called to do his will to do it and see his way.

[1:16] We have the gift of creation.

[1:18] Oh, I love to go out into the forest reserves and hear the birds singing, so that's what I was thinking and singing.

[1:22] So may God be with us today, may all of our decisions that we make in this room.

[1:27] They've made with wisdom, love, knowledge that we all are God's keepers.

[1:32] And this is our gift that has been given to us this property with all these wild animals.

[1:36] was trying to have so wild where the wild ones had blessed us all we asked for

[1:40] as blessings upon all of you through the father of the Son and Holy Spirit in the

[1:43] end.

[1:51] Will call please. Mr. Garris. Here. President Hebrard. Here.

[1:57] Mr. Al Murphy. Marsha Murphy. Here. Omira. Here. Painter. Here. Tyson Dunn.

[2:05] Here. Sixth President and one absent, Mr. President. Thank you. Spring is

[2:11] certainly sprung and right on time so as our popular native plant sale. While the

[2:16] presale tickets are sold out for this Thursday, both Friday and Saturday are

[2:21] open to the public and they can come out in person for native flowers,

[2:25] grasses, shrubs, and trees at May's Lake Peabody Estate in Oakbrook. There will be

[2:31] plant experts on site to answer your questions and make recommendations regarding

[2:34] over 160 species you can choose from. Be sure to come early if you want the best

[2:40] selection as plants are not restocked and when they are gone, they are gone.

[2:46] Also in conjunction with the sale, free wood chips will be available to the public on

[2:50] Saturday, May 20th, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Forest Reserve District's Native Plant

[2:55] Nursery at 29 West 220 Mac Road in West Chicago.

[3:00] More information is available on our website, DuPageForest.org.

[3:04] This morning, we have an informational on the District's Clean Energy Resiliency and Sustainability

[3:10] Plan.

[3:12] This initiative was identified in the District's approved 2019 Master Plan to study ways

[3:17] to support strategic plan priorities of increasing energy efficiencies and reducing the agency's

[3:23] carbon footprint.

[3:24] We are proud of the many steps we have taken to move forward over the past several years,

[3:29] but this will help accelerate our progress and keep us moving on the most viable options

[3:33] first. The entire plan can also be found on our website. Finally I am pulling our

[3:40] seven, our eight and our nine from our agenda today as they are not ready.

[3:52] We

[3:52] do have multiple public comments. I woke up this morning I just want to

[3:57] remind everybody it's a beautiful day so let's not make it too long because we

[4:02] have three minutes for our public comments and please be respectful of our

[4:06] one's time. Karen Rugg, you want to come up to the microphone?

[4:13] I'm trying to get the word out about getting in a proper retention pond or reservoir, whatever

[4:21] you want to call it. They're at Songbird Slu and I test it and I went to the county board of health

[4:30] last Thursday night for their public comment and I didn't know that they were having a huge meeting

[4:36] for retirement of Karen Isle, however, when I pulled into the parking lot in front of

[4:44] the public health building on County Farm Road, all of a sudden right in front of me was

[4:49] this big wall, this big, vast, old, black, macularly groomed deep, and I guess that's a reservoir

[4:58] were to keep.

[5:00] The county board of health building from flooding out, and also to protect county from road from flooding out. So the county absolutely cares about people in that campus. But I haven't heard a word from you. You keep on flooding out that building, that medical building. That's right up next to your property. I'm anxiously waiting for a phone call to hear when you're going to start.

[5:28] just like you said about your plants when they run out they run out it's

[5:34] important that you act on this is a team that humans in your community. Humans count

[5:42] too and those are sick and dying humans and they have to run their wheelchairs

[5:50] through your water and I haven't heard a word of what you're doing to correct it

[5:56] You've had seven years, Jim says, known about this.

[6:02] I put a film up just like I did with Mr. Jacobson on his back

[6:06] wooden porch of his office building.

[6:09] He's known about it.

[6:11] You've known about it for how long?

[6:15] And nobody's taking any action.

[6:18] And it's saddens me.

[6:20] So I hope I get to hear from you, from somebody.

[6:23] When you're going to start this project, you

[6:29] can't be flooding people out.

[6:32] Does somebody made a mistake years ago?

[6:35] Nobody's blaming you personally.

[6:38] But you're on the watch.

[6:39] No, it's your duty to correct it.

[6:42] I'll be back next week.

[6:47] Next we have Becky Simon with Naperville Preservation.

[6:51] Step forward to the microphone.

[7:00] Hi, I'm Becky Simon with Naperville Preservation.

[7:03] And I am here today to ask the Board to formally convene an ad hoc committee to study alternative

[7:11] uses for oak cottage.

[7:14] Oak cottage was recently identified as one of the most endangered historic sites in Illinois.

[7:21] We have found ourselves third parties who are willing to help fund signage for the site

[7:27] and people who are willing to serve on an ad hoc committee.

[7:30] So, again, my request for all of you here today is to form an ad hoc committee while

[7:36] we have time to identify alternative uses for oak cottage.

[7:41] Thank you.

[7:41] Thank you for your public comment.

[7:46] And with that, we will move into the regular agenda.

[7:52] Mr. President, under R1, we have a motion approving and placing on file the open planning session

[7:57] meeting minutes from 425-23 and open commission meeting minutes from 522-23.

[8:03] Second.

[8:04] motion and a second. Is there any discussion?

[8:08] Both call please.

[8:10] Oh, Mira.

[8:11] Aye.

[8:11] Painter.

[8:12] Aye.

[8:13] Tyson Dunn.

[8:14] Aye.

[8:15] Gareth.

[8:15] Aye.

[8:16] Hebrew R.

[8:17] Aye.

[8:18] Al Murphy.

[8:19] Martian Murphy.

[8:20] Aye.

[8:20] Oh, aye.

[8:21] Mr. President.

[8:22] Motion passes.

[8:24] Mr. President, under R2.

[8:26] We have a resolution, number 23-095, authorizing the payment of goods and services for payment.

[8:32] 518-23.

[8:35] A motion and a second.

[8:37] Any discussion?

[8:39] We'll call please.

[8:41] Omira.

[8:42] Aye.

[8:42] Painter.

[8:43] Aye.

[8:44] Highson Dunn.

[8:45] Aye.

[8:45] Harris.

[8:46] Aye.

[8:47] Hebrard.

[8:47] Aye.

[8:48] Almerfi.

[8:49] Martian Murphy.

[8:50] Aye.

[8:51] Aye.

[8:52] Mr. President.

[8:52] Motion passes.

[8:54] Mr. President, under R3, we have resolution number 23-071, authorizing the execution of a contract

[9:01] for professional services between the Forest Reserve District of DuPage County and Equity Research

[9:08] and Insights Incorporated for Professional Services Countywide.

[9:12] Second.

[9:13] Motion and a second.

[9:15] Is there any discussion?

[9:17] Okay, please.

[9:19] Umira.

[9:20] Aye.

[9:21] Painter.

[9:22] Aye.

[9:22] Tyson Dunn.

[9:23] Aye.

[9:24] Harris.

[9:24] Aye.

[9:25] February Ard.

[9:26] Aye.

[9:27] Al Murphy.

[9:27] Marsha Murphy.

[9:28] Aye.

[9:31] Mr. President, under our four, we have an ordinance number 23-099, authorizing an extension

[9:39] to the license agreement between the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County and

[9:43] the Friends of Denata, Incorporated for their operation of the Denata House and Denata

[9:48] of Model Farm Complex.

[9:50] Second.

[9:51] I have a motion and a second.

[9:52] Is there any discussion?

[9:55] Oh, call, please.

[9:57] Oh, mirror.

[9:58] Aye, painter.

[10:00] Vice palope has an ểer. I, Tyson dan a virus, Zach, Al Murphy, Marshall Murphy,

[10:07] I, I ins.

[10:09] Motion passes.

[10:11] Mr. President under r5, we have a pozi various, we have a resolution number 23 – 05 – 075

[10:19] authorizing the execution of a contract for the purchase of liquid propane, auto gas fuel

[10:24] between the forest preserve district of Du please county and heritage F S and corporate

[10:28] it?

[10:29] Second of a motion and a second. Is there any discussion?

[10:33] Roll call, please.

[10:35] Omira. Aye. Painter. Aye.

[10:39] Heisen, Dan. Aye.

[10:41] Harris. Aye.

[10:42] Fabriard. Aye.

[10:43] Almurphy. Marshmurphy.

[10:45] Aye.

[10:46] Oh, aye. Mr. President.

[10:48] Motion passes.

[10:49] Mr. President, under R6, we have resolution number 23-090.

[10:56] authorizing the execution of an easement agreement between the Forest Preserve District

[11:00] of DuPage County and the county of DuPage for the operation and maintenance of a sanitary

[11:05] sewer force main in Green Valley Forest Preserve.

[11:08] Second.

[11:09] The motion in a second.

[11:11] Is there any discussion?

[11:13] Go call please.

[11:15] Omiro.

[11:16] Aye.

[11:16] Painter.

[11:17] Aye.

[11:18] Tyson Dunn.

[11:19] Aye.

[11:19] Harris.

[11:20] Aye.

[11:21] Hebrard.

[11:22] Aye.

[11:28] I am very happy to make a motion on our 10 Resolution 23-089 authorizing the execution of a contract for professional services between the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County and HW Lockhearing Company and Waterfall Glen Forest Preserve.

[11:48] Second, I have a motion or any second. Is there any discussion?

[11:53] Wrong cited for this to happen. Absolutely. Roll call please.

[11:59] Painter, aye. Tyson Dunn. Aye.

[12:02] Harris. Aye.

[12:03] Kibriard. Aye.

[12:05] Al Murphy.

[12:06] Martian Murphy. Aye.

[12:07] Omira. Aye.

[12:09] Oh, aye, Mr. President.

[12:11] Motion passes.

[12:12] I'm following up on it. Our 11.

[12:14] I would like to make a motion on resolution 23-103, authorizing the execution of a contract

[12:21] between the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County and MYS, Incorporated for Construction

[12:28] of the Sawmill Creek Pedustrian Bridge Replacement in Waterfall Glen Forest Preserve.

[12:33] Second.

[12:34] I have a motion and a second.

[12:36] Is there any discussion?

[12:38] Will you call please?

[12:40] Hainter, aye.

[12:42] Heisen Don, aye.

[12:44] Iris, aye.

[12:45] Kybriard, aye.

[12:46] Al Murphy, Marche Murphy, aye.

[12:49] O'Meara.

[12:50] Aye.

[12:52] Motion passes.

[12:55] Mr. President, under R12, we have a resolution number 23-102, authorizing the application

[13:03] for Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Public Museum Capital Grants program for

[13:09] We'll all break phase two master plan improvements.

[13:12] Second.

[13:13] If a motion and a second, is there any discussion?

[13:16] Go call please.

[13:18] Omira.

[13:19] Aye.

[13:20] Painter.

[13:21] Aye.

[13:22] Tyson Dunn.

[13:23] Aye.

[13:23] Ferris.

[13:24] Aye.

[13:25] Fabriars.

[13:25] Aye.

[13:26] Al Murphy.

[13:27] Martian Murphy.

[13:28] Aye.

[13:29] All eyes, Mr. President.

[13:31] Motion passes.

[13:33] We do have informational agenda items today.

[13:35] I won is our Clean Energy Resiliency and Sustainability Plan, gaps, barriers, and opportunities

[13:41] report.

[13:42] Welcome, Jessica.

[13:43] Good

[13:53] morning, everyone.

[13:56] I'm Jessica Ritega, Manager of Strategic Plans and Initiatives, and here at present

[14:01] this item today, Clean Energy Resiliency Sustainability Plan.

[14:05] So as you recall, the 2019 Master Plan called for completing a Green Energy Study that would

[14:11] help identify ways to increase energy efficiencies and reduce the district's carbon footprint.

[14:17] And so to that end, the board approved a contract with Delta Institute to identify gaps, barriers

[14:22] and opportunities related to clean energy resiliency and sustainability.

[14:27] Delta Institute then worked with staff to assess the ecosystem services that the district currently

[14:32] provides, assess the feasibility of options for energy efficiency, renewable energy, and alternative

[14:39] fuel vehicles, explore green energy infrastructure opportunities, analyze the district's waste

[14:45] streams, assess transportation-related emissions, and explore options for carbon sequestration.

[14:52] I'll just note as well in addition to this work, the district contracted separately with SCS

[14:57] engineers to do analysis of clean energy.

[15:08] So today, Kevin Dick and his team from Delta Institute are here to share the findings from the report. And after they go through their presentation, I'll come back and talk about a few next steps. So at this point, I'm going to introduce Patrick Murphy, who from Delta Institute, who's going to start off their presentation.

[15:29] Thank you, Jessica. Good morning, everybody. It's a pleasure to be here today. My name is Patrick Murphy.

[15:34] I'm a senior lead at Delta Institute and in my role, I've largely been focused on the communications of this project.

[15:42] Much of my colleagues who are here with me are much more knowledgeable on all the ins and outs of this.

[15:47] But it's my pleasure to introduce us, talk about some of the background, about what brought us here and what the next steps are ahead for us.

[15:58] As Jessica introduced us, Delta Institute is a 5-1-C-3-profit organization that has a 25-year

[16:06] history of collaborating with communities across the Midwest to solve complex environmental

[16:10] challenges.

[16:11] In partnership with ECT, we responded to RFP to address the Clean Energy Resiliency and

[16:18] Sustainability Plan that's surfaced from the 2019 Master Plan, and it's been a pleasure

[16:24] to work on this everything up until today to talk about what we saw and what we see for

[16:30] opportunities going forward. But of course this work doesn't happen in a vacuum. This requires

[16:36] collaboration across board level, staff level, and we just wanted to take a brief moment

[16:44] to acknowledge the many people who have been participating with us throughout this, sharing,

[16:49] providing lots of feedback, reviews. There's been a lot of help not just by the people that

[16:53] you see here on the screen, but also people that make the district run on a daily basis.

[16:59] So we want to make sure that we acknowledge everybody here and everybody on the screen as

[17:03] well.

[17:06] So dipping into the results here, again, I won't take too much every time because we have

[17:10] a lot to cover and I'm just going to cover where we started off with and just a note saying

[17:17] that this does not cover any of the adjacent landfill operations as well.

[17:21] We did factor that into the equation, but this is not specifically covering any of that

[17:27] So looking as far as background where we've come from so far the great news is that we are starting off with a great

[17:33] footing so far and that's built upon the hundred years of

[17:38] Conservation and preservation that the district has been investing in but not just that also with many of the recent accomplishments that the district has

[17:47] for many years, all of which you see here, several, several, several more that are listed in the report itself and beyond.

[17:57] Things like investing in 100% renewable energy credits for the year 2023, already installing and designing green infrastructure sites

[18:06] throughout many of the preserves and developing and constructing trails throughout many of the preserves.

[18:11] What we find is that to achieve the district's next targeted goals of reducing its carbon footprint, increasing clean energy opportunities.

[18:22] And we find that the district is in a great position and only moving forward.

[18:29] If this opportunity, it's my pleasure to introduce the person who has been spearheading the entirety of this project team.

[18:36] He's a senior advisor at Delta Institute.

[18:39] My pleasure to introduce Kevin Dick.

[18:46] He's the ECT on the slide.

[18:50] They were part of this project.

[18:53] It's to talk as well.

[18:56] So one of the things we did in this project

[19:00] was to really look at the emissions that we were generating

[19:05] by the top of the sheets.

[19:07] And we've really done some on that.

[19:10] We're going to go into that a little bit.

[19:11] But before I do, I want to give Tom an opportunity to talk about the other aspects of this

[19:18] plan, the buoyancy side, which is what the forcemen of our district provides as it

[19:24] is.

[19:25] So their equally important, and actually offset a lot of the additions that the operations

[19:30] of the forcemen have as an operator.

[19:36] So we want to make sure that that's the other group really well.

[19:42] We'll get into a little deeper dive in a little bit, but the district is the largest

[19:49] holder of floodplain in the county, and most of that land is pervious area that's

[19:55] able to absorb runoff, cluster carbon is Kevin said and

[20:00] So that's been working well. The also been working with the county to how how's or sort of locate some of the flood control facilities that are helping countywide. And that's important because we've got some very patient increases that are predicted that's no surprise to you. And as we all sort of feel it, 100 year of answer just keep getting worse and our events are getting bigger. At the same time we're seeing reductions or greater drought as well.

[20:29] Also, we're getting maybe similar amounts of total rainfall, but the amounts are all

[20:35] occurring as part of events, and then we have these dry periods, and even still events

[20:39] are affected.

[20:40] So, but we'll get into some further details.

[20:43] And that's a good foundation because part of the reason we're looking at emissions is it's

[20:49] part of the mission, obviously, for this organization to, you know, be a steward of the environment.

[20:55] And as things get worse, the emissions of the course of the district does become a part

[21:02] of the issue and we want to make sure that you're aware of what those opportunities for

[21:08] reducing those are.

[21:10] So I'm going to give you a two sentence, hopefully review of what carbon accounting is.

[21:17] And you can think about this in your own terms as well.

[21:20] There's three scopes in carbon accounting.

[21:23] And what you do when you do a carbon accounting is you understand the boundary of the organization

[21:28] you're working with, whether it's a municipality or a company or even a household.

[21:31] What is in your herbivore?

[21:35] And so the scope one emissions are what is used on site, so natural gas that's used for

[21:42] the boilers and anything that's used on site, like a forklift or something like that.

[21:48] Let's go to emissions are your electricity use.

[21:52] It's emissions that are due to your operations,

[21:55] but happen elsewhere.

[21:56] So a coal plant emits it somewhere else,

[21:58] but it's because you guys are using electricity.

[22:01] And then scope three emissions,

[22:02] which is the largest usually about 40%

[22:04] or more of the emissions of an operation,

[22:07] is all of the supply chain emissions that you have.

[22:10] So everything you purchase because you purchase

[22:13] becomes a source of an emission.

[22:15] We didn't really look at scope 3 emissions.

[22:18] It's a very big undertaking and really is much bigger than scope 1 and scope 2 except for waste.

[22:26] We actually looked at your waste emissions as well because that is under scope 3.

[22:30] So when we look at the emissions of an organization or municipality,

[22:35] we also are taking into account where those are coming from.

[22:38] So not all of the greenhouse gas emissions are created equal.

[22:41] You may have heard that methane creates more emissions than CO2 and nitrous oxides are

[22:48] one of the bigger ones.

[22:49] So we did look at that as well.

[22:52] We look at your non-anfile operation.

[22:55] The bottom line is that boundary total or tons of CO2E is 8,000 tons a year.

[23:04] We included your visitors in that.

[23:06] As you can see, all of their driving to your to your force route of district sites are part of that.

[23:13] We want to include that because it is part of your operations.

[23:17] It's not necessary to keep it in and we'll show you how that works out when you're looking at just your direct operations.

[23:26] We also look at your carbon sequestration as well, so we'll get into that a little bit deeper.

[23:32] When we look at just your operations emissions on the right side, you have about 2,700 tons

[23:40] of operations emissions.

[23:42] And to put this in perspective for you guys, a typical DuPage County household uses about

[23:46] 18 tons for their household and their driving.

[23:51] So that will give you about 250 or so households is what your emissions kind of comes out to

[23:56] if you do that.

[23:58] So we'll get into that.

[23:59] And you can see your landfill emissions at the bottom left there, absolutely dwarf your operations emissions, and that's a separate issue.

[24:09] So scope one, as I mentioned, is what you use on site. This is all of the fleet and maintenance equipment.

[24:14] You guys do a lot of great work using ethanol, which reduces your E85, reduces your emissions because of gasoline, biodiesel, reduces emissions versus regular diesel,

[24:26] So, in compressed natural gas, it reduces emissions versus regular motor gasoline.

[24:31] This is one of the biggest portions of your emissions in one of the areas that we think

[24:36] there's opportunity.

[24:37] And as you can see, most of it is from vehicles, your cars and trucks.

[24:44] As Patrick mentioned, one of the things you've done recently is you started buying renewable

[24:49] energy credits for your electricity generation.

[24:51] When you're doing carbon accounting, you actually offset 100% of your emissions.

[24:58] That's wonderful. So you literally

[25:00] There's zero out your scope to emissions for this purpose. What you're doing is you're purchasing

[25:06] 100% wind credits and you're eliminating natural gas and coal and some bio biomass used

[25:16] from the emissions of the grid. So, congratulations on that. And this just so you know, this is the

[25:24] generation mix for where you get your electricity. This will continue to get more green as coal plants

[25:30] close by 2050. Most of them will be closed. They'll convert to natural gas and wind power is

[25:35] slated to double triple, quadruple by 2050 as we go on as well. So you're going to see a big greening

[25:42] of the grid.

[25:45] So just as I said earlier, here's the numbers. You have a huge gross carbon sequestration

[25:52] number. This is all of the the ecosystem services provided by your forest

[25:57] preserve district lands 7400 tons that's enormous and that gets your your

[26:03] gross emissions if you keep your visitor emissions in and you keep your scope

[26:08] two emissions in down to about 4,500 that's great. As we mentioned though you offset

[26:15] your scope two emissions and we can take the visitor emissions out when you're

[26:20] really considering just your operations and you actually operate at a deficit of $891.

[26:27] So you actually offset about 50 households of emissions.

[26:31] That's a wonderful bottom line for you guys.

[26:34] You are less than that zero.

[26:37] So that is great.

[26:40] You guys are doing awesome.

[26:41] There are opportunities, but and we'll get into those a little bit.

[26:44] But we did look at how we wanted to kind of talk about those opportunities.

[26:50] We looked at gaps.

[26:50] We looked at opportunities.

[26:51] We looked at what you were already doing well.

[26:53] And we kind of put them into scoring, if you read the plan, just little icons pop up.

[26:59] Where are you along a green continuum?

[27:01] Are you just exploring or are you actually performing and running a scale?

[27:04] So we wanted to do that for each area, each strategy area that we identified.

[27:10] And you had some wins.

[27:11] We were doing, as I mentioned before, you're using alternative fuels.

[27:16] That's already great.

[27:17] You used gas, landfill gas to energy.

[27:20] We did some ash ray audits.

[27:21] There's a lot of wonderful efficiency going on.

[27:24] There's some opportunities there as well, and you're tracking all this information on

[27:28] a regular basis.

[27:29] So there's a good amount of work already done on all the buildings that you currently manage.

[27:37] There's some gaps.

[27:38] We think that there's opportunity around space utilization.

[27:41] There are spaces that are heated when they're on occupied, especially during the winter there are ways to reduce that.

[27:48] Building controls, remote sensing, there's opportunities there.

[27:51] One of the big ones I found was in some of the ash ray audits, there's more efficient motors for places like the Urban Stream Research Center.

[28:00] It has an opportunity to lower its footprint that way as well.

[28:06] And as I mentioned, electrification is a growing opportunity.

[28:11] We mentioned in the plan.

[28:12] It's not a recommendation right now.

[28:14] Your natural gas is very cheap.

[28:16] It's a month of paper.

[28:18] And I

[28:24] want to pass it to Tom.

[28:26] Great.

[28:27] So some of the things that are already doing,

[28:29] again, most of your land is natural area or pervious surfaces.

[28:34] We say not impervious roofs or parking lots.

[28:37] And so that's great.

[28:38] and you're restoring a lot of land, in fact, in the next few years, you're scheduled to

[28:43] store 470 acres of crop land to natural land, which will do this runoff by nearly 22 million

[28:52] gallons of water per year. And to put that in perspective, that's about the equivalent

[28:59] of 50 feet of water over the area of a football field. So it's a lot of water. And as I mentioned

[29:06] before you're working a lot to do some cooperative efforts to reduce the runoff from the county

[29:12] as a whole, through flight control and such, but also doing some things on your own,

[29:16] and through green infrastructure and just right out here in your parking lot in this facility

[29:20] is a good example of a lot of the green infrastructure, green stormwater infrastructure things

[29:25] that you're doing on your restored waterways, your home to more than 5,000 species of plants

[29:32] and you continue to acquire and protect natural areas and even at some of your

[29:37] sort of blast sustainable if you will or what some people might say is golf

[29:42] courses you're doing a lot of work to reduce the impact of those. So you've got

[29:48] some great winds so far.

[29:51] It turns out some with gaps, you know all of these things require maintenance and

[29:56] green infrastructure is one of those and sometimes we think of if we

[30:00] Just naturalize areas that means we can kind of walk away from them. And as the district, you know, that better than pretty much anybody that, you know, there's still a stewardship component. And that's no less with the stormwater features and just using a lot of nature-based solutions can just continue down that road. Funding is always an issue. And so working on securing additional funding to grant and other sources. And I'm looking at some of the agricultural lands.

[30:29] how can, you know, doing some good things already, but how can we get that better?

[30:33] And then how is water used and looking at, you know, again, looking at rather than

[30:40] using portable water, you're not doing that, but even as we draw it out of our local streams

[30:45] and such, there's opportunities to just use it more efficiently and only irrigate where necessary.

[30:50] And then snow and ice control is definitely an issue, and again, you're using some natural

[30:56] materials there, but looking at, you know, what areas actually get, um,

[31:00] snow and ice control may be some areas that don't need it, uh,

[31:04] cause they're not used heavily and being more targeted in terms of the types of

[31:08] materials that you use for deicing and traction, uh, to the specific resources

[31:14] that are nearby would be affected by that. So. And then just generally,

[31:19] there's some limited data on carbon sequestration as it varies by landscape.

[31:23] that's not specific to you, but just is a sort of an industry.

[31:29] And some opportunities, you know, as we work into the future and design future facilities,

[31:35] stormwater and other facilities, just looking at what we project rainfall is going to be,

[31:40] rather than just using the numbers today.

[31:43] And that's always a challenge and how do you actually do that?

[31:46] City of Madison, for example, uses the 200-year event instead of the 100-year event for design purposes

[31:51] with really sort of just a way to adjust for the fact that the 100-year event is going to be that big.

[31:59] Looking for grants, as I mentioned before.

[32:02] And then you do have some exemptions in terms of where you have required to provide stormwater.

[32:08] And I think that's certainly appropriate for a lot of your linear trails and other sorts of things

[32:13] where really does just run off in the landscape.

[32:15] In other areas where there's concentrated impervious areas such as parking lots and things

[32:20] like that, roofs that go directly into the system, even though you may be exempt, you

[32:26] know, consider looking at still provided management for those areas required.

[32:32] And continuing restoration activities, looking at operations at your golf courses and some

[32:38] of your agricultural areas.

[32:43] And, right, I'll introduce Claire Costello from Delta Institute to talk about the sustainability

[32:49] gaps and wins and opportunities that are available for waste.

[32:56] Yeah, thank you, Kevin.

[32:57] And, you know, with this sustainability, we really focused on two things, waste management

[33:01] and transportation.

[33:02] Though as we've been before, this not include activities happening between the landfills.

[33:08] The Forest Reserve District is already doing a lot of work in both areas, which is great

[33:17] here, but there are multiple efforts already dedicated towards being materials out of

[33:22] plantha, all of the recycling, composting, collections for end-of-life materials, and also being

[33:32] a leader in trail development.

[33:41] We found that some of the waste management aren't mostly trashed.

[33:48] We know that things are happening, but we can't always readily answer questions like how

[33:53] much material is actually being recycled. And with any waste management activity or program,

[34:02] people don't always behave the way that we really want to, you know, this can

[34:07] range from a visitor putting items in the incorrect bin at a preserve, but it can

[34:14] also go as far as I'm thinking, of course, just plan.

[34:22] Yeah, and then in terms of

[34:23] opportunities increase data tracking and collection around safe, opens a ton

[34:30] the possibilities, target setting and really having a highly accurate understanding of

[34:36] things.

[34:39] Otherwise, just continuing to be a leader in this space, which is already really

[34:43] happening whether it's exploring green purchasing, doing more sustainability outreach and education

[34:51] or continuing to be an active group.

[34:54] Anybody want that in mind?

[35:01] So, obviously, this plan was really focused on the baseline operations and getting the data. We see a couple of things that pop out, and there's more than just this. With my top three, the teams top three seem to fall into these areas. We think that there's opportunity around electrifying your transportation. So, a lot of your your fleet vehicles do have existing and developing opportunities around the D, as well as maintenance equipment.

[35:33] that are readily usable.

[35:36] So that's a huge opportunity to eliminate over the time period you would implement it.

[35:41] Probably about half, almost half of your operations emissions.

[35:47] We think that there's an opportunity around a continued increase in natural area restoration,

[35:51] as has been mentioned in the past, just looking at the numbers.

[35:55] it doesn't look enormous when you look at just tonnage on a hundred acre per year area,

[36:03] but that is permanent. So there's no emissions associated with that. As well as Tom mentioned,

[36:10] there's an enormous amount of stormwater opportunity around converting conventional agriculture,

[36:19] culture converting things, areas back to people. So there's there are opportunities there as

[36:25] well. And then SCS covers this pretty well in the their report around landfill opportunity with

[36:33] solar. There's also solar, some solar opportunity and existing, existing land. And there's of course

[36:41] EV infrastructure. We mentioned your emissions from your, your visitors. They are going to be electrifying

[36:48] their vehicles and currently there isn't a lot of infrastructure available within the

[36:52] charges to get here so that's an opportunity as well and you can see that there's a decent

[36:56] amount of reductions. So even though the district is currently not zero because of its resiliency,

[37:03] its ecosystem services, there is an opportunity to continue to build on that and serve your

[37:10] population as visitors to help them reduce their foot prints as well.

[37:17] And I did want to thank the

[37:18] team, we did a lot of work on this, and it was very heavily done by the team you see here

[37:26] as well as some other individuals, the ECTNF Delta Institute.

[37:32] And with that, it gets the questions.

[37:36] I'd like to thank everybody for the presentation and the work on this project.

[37:40] Obviously, it is one of the identified master plan initiatives, so we were excited to see

[37:45] this come forward.

[37:45] and obviously I'm excited to hear that we're doing well and have opportunities to do even better.

[37:52] I just wanted to talk quickly about a couple of next steps that staff's been thinking about.

[37:56] So with all this information, a lot of information today,

[38:00] staff's going to start thinking about different goals and objectives around these different areas.

[38:04] You know, what are these different things that are right for our organization?

[38:08] We're going to also look at outlining potential policies that the board might want to consider

[38:13] around these three areas, and while we're working on that, Stas can also look at some of

[38:20] these larger opportunities, you know, about reducing greenhouse gas emissions through solar

[38:25] installations, reducing greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles by making it easier to use electric

[38:31] vehicles in our preserves. And generating renewable energy through renewable natural gas or

[38:37] gas to energy at the landfills, and we'll talk more about that when SCS comes back, or when

[38:41] And we bring back that report, generating renewable energy through targeted deployment of solar

[38:47] panels and increasing energy efficiency or reducing energy consumption.

[38:53] So we'll be working on some of those things and bring those back to you.

[38:56] And happy to answer any questions about what you've heard today.

[39:03] Well, anyway, this is particularly exciting for me.

[39:07] This is kind of a dream to be working with an organization that's actually attempting

[39:11] this.

[39:11] And I could see how we could establish a goal, say in 20 years, who would be net zero.

[39:16] And I think the one chart really intrigued me that there was a massive emission reduction

[39:22] caused by restoration work.

[39:25] And then there was a remark, and I noticed that also in the literature that's published,

[39:29] there's not a whole lot of information out there, so I'm wondering how you came up with

[39:32] that number?

[39:33] Was that just a scientific guess, or?

[39:43] Yeah, that's right.

[39:44] Okay, there is information, there's research that does back those up.

[39:50] I think there's a table 17 that lists the utilization types.

[39:55] What is complicated about, especially carbon sequestration, is it's not-

[40:00] It's not linear. It is very weather dependence, very site dependent. So we've done a lot of work. Delta has around conservation tillage and regenerative agriculture. And you see the numbers go up and down. So you're looking at averages over many years. What is true is that certain types of restoration initiatives will have a larger carbon sequestration opportunity. I think wetland.

[40:28] And, you know, forestry has, depending on the mix and

[40:33] prairie have different, different sequestration numbers.

[40:36] So, what is clear though is the more you do it, the more

[40:41] positive the carbon sequestration is, because the

[40:44] natural processes for when plants grow, they, especially

[40:48] with nitrogen, which is the greenhouse gases,

[40:53] one of the

[40:56] It stays in the soil, it doesn't off-guess, it's used by those plants, so that's what usually is happening.

[41:03] Yeah, because I was thinking, sort of remarked from staff that we get out of bang for our buck out of the

[41:09] prairies, as opposed to people think of trees all the time, but that may not be the best way just planting trees, but

[41:14] you recommend even thinning trees, so we're often removing trees.

[41:19] Yeah, that would be offset by other growth that occurs.

[41:21] nature responds to that, because what is happening is new growth is taking up a lot of that nitrogen

[41:29] and mixing it in the soil as opposed to being off-gassed. And then you especially has a big

[41:35] effect on that. Of course, we remove lots of buckthorn and honeysuckle every day. Right,

[41:40] volunteers and staff alike, and that's an enormous amount of mass there that's been

[41:45] that we have to manage, that we're moving, that has carbon, and we typically burn it.

[41:50] Right. I know that staff has looked at the idea of biochar and what our freedom is looking at that. Yes biochar would be a good opportunity there as well. I guess one point I'm leading up to is we could be spending a lot of time talking about this.

[42:02] I guess we need to and if the public is involved, I'd like the fact that you have a public education component, or at least we can reach out to stakeholders and say like our neighbors and whether it's this kind of issue or flooding.

[42:17] you know how we you know what can neighbors be doing to because they tend to want to say well

[42:22] we'll just send the water to the forest preserve. You know your lawns and plants. I think there's

[42:28] a lot we could be doing with the public and other you know external stakeholders and so I'm excited

[42:33] about this. Yeah. Yeah. It's these this this plan gave you numbers. Yeah. I think it and what that

[42:41] What does is it gives you the ability to set targets and to look at what your limited

[42:47] resources and efforts can go toward actually making a difference in things.

[42:52] And you guys are already doing such great work.

[42:55] So, at least we know that we got some ideas for how to start, because this is massive,

[43:00] potentially, so we just obviously have to prioritize.

[43:03] Thank you.

[43:03] Yeah.

[43:06] Quick question.

[43:07] So thank you very much for doing this.

[43:09] This is fantastic study.

[43:10] One thing I was kind of honed in on was the public transport side of things.

[43:15] Do we have anything that tells people, can tell direct people on what are the best ways

[43:21] to get to our preserve, each preserve using public transport, or is that something that staff

[43:27] can look at and identify, or how did you actually grade us on that?

[43:32] Yeah, I mean, I'll rely on Delta for the details here, but just in general, there isn't really

[43:38] great transport access to our preserves. So maybe I'll let them elaborate on that, but in general

[43:45] that's kind of the answer.

[43:49] Yeah, so we did take a look at all of these routes, both metro and

[43:58] forest rivers. I'm running through to Page County, and there are limited nodes for

[44:06] So many times trying, so much time trying to figure out how to take this into a log line,

[44:14] other difficult, and the other thing we did look at was the community survey that was

[44:22] painful, and one thing that did stick out to is not only were there other challenges that

[44:28] come with connectivity, but also at the site, I think we're interested even in taking

[44:38] public transit.

[44:39] So I think we wanted to engage with the first person.

[44:46] Do you have any suggestions of how to gauge, like, what, how much we want to invest in that?

[44:53] Because I think it's something very important.

[44:54] We have a lot of people that don't have cars.

[44:56] they don't have bikes yet or preserves and I think it's important to have

[45:00] That opportunity, but how much do you direct towards that, showing only that two percent interest?

[45:07] Members will always not talk about my house if it's been in the city.

[45:12] Do you have, have you had experience with other counties that have been in the situation of, do they work with PACE?

[45:20] obviously metric and real line their stops, but with pace would that be

[45:25] something that we work on with them to just maybe highlight one or two of our

[45:28] larger preserves and try to see if they can put a stop if they're going by

[45:33] already. Is the sample if that?

[45:36] Yeah, so I can't speak to what other times are doing it in here, but I think I've been working

[45:43] collaborating a little bit, where there would be opportunities.

[45:52] Great, thank you.

[45:54] Just to feed off of that, we've talked a little bit about it with some of the master plans that we've just gone through

[46:03] is to make entry points to make it more accessible to neighborhoods so that they don't have to

[46:13] drive to the parking lot. They can walk to the preserve. I'm very blessed in this part of the

[46:21] reason I moved where I moved is because there's an accessible block and a half for my house.

[46:26] So I can go there and walk or ride a bike and I don't have to drive to the forest preserve. If I didn't

[46:32] have that entrance at that point, I'd have to drive to parking lot and go from there.

[46:39] So I think entry points is something that we could look at, and we should be with our

[46:45] big master plan that we're supposed to be looking at, is that we should have easier access

[46:50] points to the residents. That's one thing. And then on page 80, I don't know which one

[46:57] And it does talk about that we have over twice as much negative emissions based on our

[47:09] forests than our prairies.

[47:12] So I'm a big proponent that, and you can wreck me if I'm wrong, that trees are very important

[47:20] to our net emissions versus prairies.

[47:28] You know,

[47:30] when

[47:36] you're looking at, you know, kind of the sequestration numbers, you have

[47:40] to look at both the sequestration rate and the area of that particular cover.

[47:47] And so anything that's got the most cover amount, even if it's got a lower rate, it's going

[47:52] to look like a really big number.

[47:53] So absolutely, your forests are essential.

[47:55] You won't do you, it's not like you want to get rid of those.

[47:58] But I also think that, you know, forests get, or maybe I'll put it in other ways,

[48:06] curries and wetlands probably get a less credit than they deserve in terms of sequestration.

[48:11] They actually sequester a carbon at a greater rate.

[48:14] Most of that carbon in those, in that plant material is actually below ground,

[48:19] gets incorporated as a soil, makes the soil healthier.

[48:21] You're most of the organic matter with trees is actually above ground and so eventually

[48:28] tree dyes at that carbon goes back in the atmosphere.

[48:32] So it's not sort of permanently sequestered.

[48:33] So not to say that forests aren't amazing and do a great job, it's just fairies and wetlands

[48:39] also do a really good job and actually have a higher.

[48:46] Thanks Tom.

[48:46] I did want to add one thing to that as well.

[48:48] Well, one of the things that prairies and wetlands also provide is a little bit more biodiversity

[48:54] than a forest which has pretty, you know, natural standards tend to see more biodiversity

[49:00] and edge communities on the edge of a forest or in a prairie than you would even go on a

[49:07] forest as well.

[49:08] And while you're talking about the edges of the forest for sure, I did read through your

[49:14] report, very interesting, very comprehensive. The edges are where a lot of, I raised mine

[49:25] our butterflies, so I read about your pollinators. And my concern is that we use too much herbicides

[49:35] around that and that that ranges on the growth of how to keep you know where

[49:41] there's grass meeting meeting edge barrier something like that well yeah long

[49:45] and and read around the big heads and things like that that maybe we shouldn't

[49:51] be using as many herbicides there because that's where the milk we threw one

[49:57] and other pollinators.

[50:00] I want to need that area to grow so that the pollinators have something to pollinate on. And my concern about the monarch caterpillars is that they're eating the milkweed. And in the past, I mean, where I have my home, I don't put any herbicides, pesticides, anytime because when I started raising monarchs, I had a lot

[50:29] of caterpillars that just shriveled out. So I really went all natural, didn't put anything

[50:38] on my lawns or in the way of pesticides or herbicides. Now I have a, last day, 65 and

[50:47] probably very healthy. So I don't know if we're going to address that. I think it was part

[50:56] part of the, there's a little bit of part, it wasn't a major part of the, I think you're

[51:00] out your spawn, if you don't need to be used, if you use your pesticide or an herbicide

[51:04] or plant control, certainly not in a prairie or even in the edge, but you might get wind

[51:12] blowing off from, you know, trying to control weeds and you know, so I think that's a consideration

[51:17] as well. Is the lawn really what's the utilization on? It's really sick. So there are opportunities,

[51:25] you know, we kind of reviewed this a little bit in the solar to be putting solar panels

[51:33] where you could possibly have a ferry, even if there's potential for that to not be

[51:39] that.

[51:40] So.

[51:41] And this is, that wasn't in your report, but I just wondering if it's been in my mind.

[51:47] I read a study that the tires of cars produce more emissions than the gasoline does.

[51:54] Do you know anything about that?

[51:55] You mean, well, possibly.

[51:57] Well, no, when you're driving,

[52:01] the emissions that come off the tires are really fine.

[52:11] Yeah, there's particulates, too.

[52:13] Yeah, you're right.

[52:14] And it was the particulates, I think.

[52:19] Yeah.

[52:20] And I mean, EV's.

[52:21] I was just wondering if you had any information.

[52:23] I don't like that.

[52:24] But I agree with Tom.

[52:25] It sounds.

[52:25] I've never heard of that.

[52:26] and it sounds to me like it might be particularly important.

[52:30] Yeah, I think it was the latent.

[52:32] Not hard to take care of.

[52:34] But EVs have their own environmental issues as well.

[52:36] So the part of the things that, you know,

[52:39] when we look at this, it's kind of a whole, it's holistic.

[52:41] So it's a good point, you know, kind of trying to look at you.

[52:45] And Argonne, because I live by Argonne National Lab,

[52:48] and they're looking at how to recycle,

[52:50] if they have a big environment on how to recycle electric vehicle batteries.

[52:55] Yeah, that's a very, very interesting department.

[53:00] We're going to get that figured out.

[53:01] I'm sure I have a lot of faith in our gun.

[53:04] Further questions or discussion?

[53:07] Well, again, thank you so much.

[53:09] I know we have 166 miles of trail that connects

[53:12] with nearly 250 miles throughout the county.

[53:15] So that connects.

[53:16] But we can absolutely keep connecting.

[53:17] And we are actually have a couple of trail openings

[53:20] right here at the NATO-1 and down in Springbrook Korea.

[53:22] Another one to connect more neighborhoods.

[53:23] So look forward to keep pushing on all

[53:25] of these environmental issues.

[53:26] So, thank you again for the presentation.

[53:30] We do have a second informational agenda item.

[53:33] We have I-2 excellence in financial reporting fiscal year 2021,

[53:38] and we welcome Andrew Brown.

[53:40] Good morning, President Hebrard, Board of Commissioners, Director Freyling.

[53:44] I'm here to report that we have been recognized by the Government

[53:47] Finance Officer Association for the 35th time for excellence

[53:52] in financial reporting for our comprehensive financial report

[53:56] which also doubles as our audit. It is a more transparent version of the

[54:00] statutorily required audit that we provide on an annual basis, and again

[54:06] something that speaks to the transparency that the force preserves provides in

[54:10] those financial documents, as well as our commitment to excellence in providing

[54:14] those records and data to the public. I'm also pleased to announce that the

[54:23] a board for the popular annual financial report from the Government Finance Office Association.

[54:29] This is a summary version of the comprehensive report that is provided in a manner that

[54:35] someone without a financial acumen can understand what our financial performance was for the

[54:40] year.

[54:41] I need to thank my staff, specifically Brian Kaczewski and Carrie Murders for helping me put

[54:46] this together.

[54:47] In our CR team, Jane Banner did a wonderful job helping me bring finance down to a level

[54:52] that folks can understand. Both of these documents are available on our website and have been since June of last year.

[55:00] I'm happy to take any questions if there are. Congratulations, very exciting, and I do like the new one. It is very, very friendly on the ice. Yeah, did oh, congratulations. And I think finance more understandable on a basic level is great for everybody, not all of them, not everybody loves finances.

[55:22] Yeah, I want to echo previous comments. I think finance is looking good for us and it's well-managed and I appreciate the efforts

[55:29] to communicate. In the presentation by Adeltence to a

[55:34] dimension we're buying green credits. I was a little confused on that because I

[55:39] know we're talking about how we want to acquire electricity and where it

[55:43] comes from. And that's part of the financial aspect. I mean, we do

[55:49] environmental stuff that appreciate efforts to communicate what we're doing with

[55:53] our money and how we're spending it. Thank you.

[56:02] I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

[56:04] Motion to adjourn?

[56:05] Second.

[56:05] I have a motion.

[56:06] Second to adjourn.

[56:06] Roll call, please.

[56:08] Hi, Sundan.

[56:09] Hi.

[56:10] Gareth.

[56:11] Hi.

[56:12] He, we are.

[56:13] Hi.

[56:15] Al Murphy.

[56:16] Martian Murphy.

[56:17] Hi.

[56:18] Omiro.

[56:19] Hi.

[56:19] Painter.

[56:20] Hi.

[56:21] All eyes, Mr. President.

[56:22] We are adjourned.

Commission Meeting 5/16/23

Agenda

Transcript