##VIDEO ID:a-mmNbjo7X4## e e e e did you hear anything from Suzanne or Catherine about attendance um D Ro council member D Ro will not be in attendance that's the only one I heard I Suzanne was out of town and I'm not sure if she still is okay so so what's our policy and moving forward are we well um I don't know the let me see we have three of five we have a we have a majority yeah we're cor okay perfect can I borrow your pen for absolutely or we have four rather um yeah we'd have a majority so we should be fine sounds good it's been a long time I might be a little rusty you want to keep it in case you need should we go yep it's 7 o'cl all right um I'll call the East bethl Eda meeting of December 16 16th to order first item we before we adopt the agenda we need to change the agenda to um edit it to make an approval for these new draft minutes from May 20th as you have before you so if you've had a chance chance to read through it I would take a motion to approve the minutes in front of us I offer one U correction yes 8.0 erl moved and I think I was the one that probably seconded okay Matt wouldn't I don't think you would have been me no that's that's a great Point yep any other changes Tom have you had a chance to I think really only the if you want to elaborate on the discussion that we had regarding the levy uh we had a discussion how it pertains uh to the city administrator's salary and how that is worked out in the city's budget um but that was part of the discussion we we need to elaborate on that I just remember us discussing that so you don't want any so we don't need to make any changes no got it okay so any other comments or changes can't see any if not then we want to make a i' move for approval as amended second all in favor I I opposed we have adopted our agenda item number three MCO yeah and then Madam chair if you can just uh adopt the minutes then with those changes and then that'll be for the record yes so we'll adopt the agend the amended minutes I'll take a motion again so moved second all in favor I opposed that that uh carries we've got we've adopted the minutes and the agenda all right okay Madam chair and uh Commissioners we um I wanted to give everyone just an update on the midco uh Broadband Grant agreement the city council on uh December 9th approved the acceptance of the Grant from Anoka County uh initially it was set up where Anoka County was going to uh do a RFP with providers in this case Medco for this area and then that changed to a grant um process with the provider and then they decided they don't want to do that either so we had a little sit down and chatted with the NOA County and said 'l why don't you grant the dollars to the city we'll take it from here and and work with our providers and um and so midco had submitted a an application for dollars um as indicated for the grant and the RFP uh that included the city of East bethl city of city of bethl and the township of Lynwood so it was a three-part kind of project and uh and so the county then uh agreed to the fact that they would Grant the the money to a city not all three cities but that one city would need to have to take the reins on um kind of project management and follow through and making sure was all done with a joint Powers agreement with the other two cities and that's precisely what happened we accepted those grants here on uh the um on the 9th and then that's that's gone through with the county those are arpa dollars and uh and then on the the 23rd the city council is going to be approving or uh reviewing to approve uh the uh joint Powers agreement and the cost share agreement with with midco now the the cost share agreement is essentially a million 9,800 from Anoka County and they're matching those dollars with $600 some, so essentially the three communities are receiving $1.6 million for Broadband expansion um and I have right here is the map uh this is bethl up in here and uh the red dots are the connection points for the new uh for the new Broadband expansion and so you see uh Lynwood gets a fair amount East bethl gets a fair amount uh bethl has a lesser amount because they're a smaller City but um there is a significant amount of connections that are happening in red here is the connections for the city of East bethl and Cedar and you'll see that there's a fair number of addresses there that um that had had service that was inadequate you might say uh no highspeed internet at that point and the number one question we get I think from a lot of developers is uh what type of connectivity do we have in that area because that's what their their customers are asking for so we consider this to be a win uh with the use of arpa dollars as you know arpa dollars coming from the federal government um are flexible you can use them for just about anything that falls within those categories and and the fact that in NOA County was able to work out a a project here for uh that will directly benefit the the citizens of East Belo I think is a win for for all the residents here uh so I just wanted to give you an update on that the um the dollars have to be accepted by the end of this year which they were already and then the project has to be completed by uh the end of 26 and so Medco is fairly confident that's well within the range of of being able to do that and um and quite honestly the amount of coverage that is happening for $1.6 million I'm impressed with I mean to to Lake um Broadband in the ground is is not inexpensive and the fact that they can connect these many people not only in East Bethal but everywhere else as well I think is is outstanding and the other two communities bethl and Lynwood have been have been great to work with they're excited about this as well and I think that they they're able to tell a good story on that side as well so just wanted to give you a quick update on that if there's any questions on that here's the Broadband Grant accepting those dollars so so does mid midco have a map of the expansion areas that they'll be serving was that the map that you you showed okay y so so with this with this work that's going to be I think I think the majority of you know of East bethl is covered there's probably still some spots that are underserved but a lot of those spots have wetlands and things that are natural areas that are difficult to get through right and would be difficult to service those areas uh at least feasibly service those areas uh but um but it's certainly um I think kind of covering an area that that's been long asking for these these these type of improvements but again the cost to do so is is enormous and uh we're very thankful for mido's participation in in the project cost on this so yeah any other questions or comments it's good news yeah okay so that's the update on that um moving to number four if you'd like yes item four uh we have some guests with us here this evening from the Met Council and I wanted to just kind of set it up here uh we last year we went before the legislature on a project where on Sims and 65 the schools that are the two elementary schools that are in there East betho Elementary and Cedar Creek Elementary are both um uh have failing septic systems and and their Wells are pumping water that is um questionable at this point uh there was a story that was told of someone that came in and they went into the lunchroom and they saw container of water and they said oh it's nice that they give lemonade to the kids and they said well that's not lemonade that's uh that's well water uh so the color and everything was just um um just not good and so uh we met with uh the school district they were very interested in hooking up to City uh water and and Sewer Service we of course don't have water service there and Sewer goes by on 65 but it isn't connected to them so we started out uh with the help of Representative Peggy Scott and senator calbar in putting a bill together last legislative session in which we're asking for $10.5 million we would put a well uh well and um and a a water tower and a treatment plant kind of um by the post office area city owns some land right there and then uh connect uh connect the two schools up and as we're going past the schools on Sims that's right there going south on 65 is the new Industrial Park um that uh that was just recently rezoned and so uh that'll eventually then hook that up to City uh Water and Sewer Service as well and um and I just got off the phone with somebody today that said that if the land's worth $10,000 an acre today of water and sewer is there it's worth 50,000 overnight an acre so people recognize that uh the value goes up significantly and a lot of places won't even consider moving in unless there's those type of services so I think from an economic development standpoint this is the um Catalyst you might say to to to develop that area uh with higher density commercial Industrial Development than would otherwise um potentially go in there um but then um I was down meeting with the Met Council we were talking a little bit about the reserve capacity loan that we have we were talking about uh the the bonding requests that was last year that we're hoping to get back on the table this year and what what came up with was this discussion of a um uh resource recovery in terms of heat uh that comes off of the the plant um down uh the the Met Council um plant and what can be done with that heat and so that kind of started the Genesis so this conversation of um we need a little more information you know can you can you come in and maybe give us a presentation a little bit on what the uh best man management practice is for for this type of recovery and um and I can turn it over to them if You' like yes please okay right welcome thank you top here thank you for that introdu introduction a little bit of background as to the reason why we're here presenting uh to you tonight uh first of all my name is Kyle culvin I'm the manager of the Wastewater planning and Community programs group uh also uh here in the audience with me tonight is John klebeck he's the assistant manager of that same group waste water planning Community programs then we have Jennifer krusi who is the assistant manager for policy and planning policy and planning so we're all available here to answer questions if there's something I can't answer uh both uh John and Jennifer have worked on uh specifically a a grant that uh the council uh worked on with District energy for U thermal recovery uh project that um we didn't get the grant funding but we we learned a lot and spent a lot of time filling out that grand application so we're all here to answer any questions that you might have um so just a summary here of uh see if I can advance this it's not responsive it's not advancing slides might have fell asleep on me there we go all right so just an over rview what what I'll be uh covering here with you tonight um I'll be providing just a just a um a broad overview of the regional Wastewater system kind of who the council is what we do what assets we have uh also go into a little bit about the uh development guide that we are currently in the process of trying to wrap up uh touch on a little bit of the water policy plan which is the chapter of that development guide it does uh include uh some goals and objectives in terms of uh sustainability which does include um Wastewater reuse the water itself as long as well as energy conservation uh and other uh projects that we've been looking at to move uh to move uh progress in those areas uh also um we uh went through a process uh entertained a request uh in 2014 I believe it was uh where we had green leaf um companies come in they were opposing a project down by the um Huntington Bank uh Stadium the Gophers football stadium uh so there's some some things that we discovered during that process of uh trying to uh determine uh What U what could be done for thermal recovery and what obstacles from a regulatory standpoint uh such an operation um did pose as a challenge to us uh also we we do have one existing uh thermal recovery project in one of our treatment facilities so I'll just briefly go over that then also I went back and took a look at the regional system that exists in East bethl and provided uh some very high level uh things that uh would need would need to be considered in terms of where this thermal energy capture could occur within the regional system both uh whether this is located at our treatment facility down on Viking Drive uh or uh further to the north we've got two land application basins and uh there is a point in the line where it makes more sense where energy capture would or could be um accomplished uh uh along along uh Highway 65 and then also uh just kind of wrap up we did go through and update our regional uh policy water policy last go around in 2018 to specifically address uh the the um the limits of regional involvement uh tied to rate increases uh that policy was guided through input from a task force of community uh customers and uh even though that was specific to water reuse the actual reuse of the Wastewater itself I think the premise of the level of limit the limit of regional investment would also still apply on anything that would main thermal recovery as well so that's what I plan to talk about uh Metropolitan Council we're the regional Wastewater service provider in the 7 County area we provide service to 111 uh customers that's a wholesale uh service communities then pass the our costs down to the individual uh user users within the community we serve a little over 2.9 Million people it's pretty impressive when you consider that's nearly half of the entire state population of Minnesota so large uh large service area we own and operate nine wastewater treatment plants the smallest of which is located here in East bethl uh through the last 12 months the flow at the East bethl plant has uh averaged about 65 uh 75,000 gallons per day our largest plant of course is our Metropolitan Plant located in downtown St Paul that treats on average uh anywhere from um 170 to 180 million gallons per day so a wide range of assets that we have in our treatment uh we've got over 600 miles of pipe that conveys that flow to the nine plants uh to regionally uh we treat uh 250 million gallons per day uh our total Uh current value of our assets is $9 billion that's not replacement cost that's just if you just present worth all the Investments that we made since 1972 that comes out to about 9 billion it would it would cost far greater of an amount multiple times that to actually replace that system today um and uh we have an annual Capital program of about $150 million per year I mentioned that our imagine 2050 that's the new Regional development framework that the council is uh uh wrapping up uh it does include four core values you can see them there uh the core value of stewardship is the is the area in which uh climate um an adaptation uh falls under and with that that would include uh opportunities to uh conserve uh uh efforts to conserve water conserve energy uh uh build infrastructure that is sustainable um from a life cycle and also uh from minimizing environmental impact um during those uh those activities and then in the Water Resource Poli polic plan we do have uh a um an action plan which is basically to explore and support Community efforts to adapt technologies that increase the efficient use of water and reduce energy consumption and you can see there that uh we have a number of activities in our uh proposed policy plan which is scheduled for adoption in January February 12 February 12th um so we're coming down the home stretch there but you can see that there forth from the top Wastewater affluent and storm water oops um yeah Wastewater uh that's water reuse recovering heat the second bullet there uh is pertains to recovering heat from plant affluent uh as I talk here a little bit there are two uh uh two terms that we need to kind of keep in mind there's the influent flow that comes into the plant that's the untreated Wastewater and then once it goes through the treatment PL process then the the water that leaves the plant is is affluent and there are uh different challenges for extracting heat out of the incoming flow the uh influent versus extracting heat uh in the cleaner water as it uh as it uh exits the plant and there's also uh risk associated different levels of risk associated which with each one and also regulatory requirements uh related to each one so I'll I'll be covering those a little more in depth so again uh in response to the 2014 uh inquiry uh from Green Leaf uh companies for the um thermal capture uh the project was termed a sewer thermal energy recovery or also known as stir uh with an E so if I refer to stir it was specific to that project and that project was proposing to draw or gather the thermal energy out of the Interceptor uh facility that we owned by the goer stadium so it was an extraction of thermal energy from the raw Wastewater itself and through through uh the review of the potential Concepts um we determined or identified that uh there was two approaches that uh one could take one was building uh heat exchangers for each individual building uh this wasn't specific disturb but this was basically a model that we were investigating going forward on future projects and so that first graphic there is this concept of building individual heat extractions or thermal uh recovery for each individual uh units and um one of the things that was that was identified a challenge was um was was from a regulatory standpoint uh the uh PCA which is our regulatory uh agency that uh that issues our permits uh determined that the the uh permits related to the raw Wastewater stays with us so we were obligated uh or responsible for the safety and health of and Welfare and the environment for that Wastewater even if it were to leave uh our facilities and go through a private entity or private partnership heat extraction so that was a challenge uh from our standpoint and in fact uh it uh it was determined or it was stated conveyed To Us by the uh PCA that that those facilities would also have to be permitted and controlled by by the council because of that regulatory risk so because of that uh we took a look at looking at heat recovery at our treatment plants uh themselves that would be a situation where we're actually controlling the flow uh from coming from the pipe going through a heat exchanger uh uh heat U heat recovery facility and then utilizing that heat uh for our own purposes to augment electricity and gas uh heating within the plant it also uh can be used to help the treatment process Itself by by including a temperature to that enhances the uh bacterial process uh that's involved in treat the treatment of Wastewater service um and then the other uh opportunity for capturing thermal energy is through the effluent that part of the pipe that exits the plant uh that's cleaner water uh it's e it's um the heat exchangers uh are less susceptible to problems plugging fowling uh when when the uh effluent is the means or the source of the heat capture and so uh that has a lower risk it's already treated to some level so in terms of pathogens and and uh other detrimental uh qualities in the effluent that stuff has been removed so it's it's safer uh from from the public health standpoint um I think I covered everything here um yeah this is really just a simple just a simple diagram that we developed uh under the stir project it basically just shows where the Wastewater on the left hand side of the on the diagram there you can here where Wastewater is diverted out of uh out of our Interceptor pipe this is raw waste water that was being proposed in stir that particular project was uh proposing uh to need about 2.6 million gallons per day of Wastewater in order to meet the heating needs um of the uh complex I believe it was one or two uh 14 story buildings so to give you kind of a magnitude of scale two 14 story buildings they were at the time in 20 in 2014 was proposing that they would need 2.6 million gallons of flow in order to capture enough heat to to make this uh this work from from there it gets pumped to the heat exchanger uh where the heat gets extracted through a closed loop uh system which is that blue line uh and then that blue line serves as a distribution system and in some cases around the country this distribution center uh this distribution Loop can actually provide opportunities for multiple heat exchange uh for different buildings uh in this particular case I believe it was just two specific buildings but uh it does offer another distribution um opportunity and source for heat uh for multiple uh for multiple uses and then from there uh you can see after the heat exchanger uh the E the raw Wastewater in this case gets uh returned back into the sewer outfall uh [Music] um uh one of the things that we recently discovered with I believe it was with the district energy project was in that project uh where the heat would be extracted at our Metropolitan Plant in St Paul they were uh proposing to use affluent and in order to keep the heat exchangers uh from fowling they needed to uh um include an additive to keep it from scaling and probably uh uh slime will buildup and and stuff like that and the the material that they were proposing uh was uh was a sulfate based material which we are looking at possible new regul regulatory requirements for sulfate so that U would be problematic in the usage of that particular material so um but this in general is kind of a schematic of what we were looking at on the stir project uh this project here was estimated to cost about 14 million give a kind of a scale in the cost that was back in 2018 so you could probably figure it's well over 20 million in in today's dollars uh also the one thing that this that cost in this diagram doesn't really include is the need to pre-treat the Wastewater before it goes to the heat exchangers because the Wastewater would U it contains foreign material uh that would follow that so there would have to be at a minimum some kind of a screening in order to get the flow to the point where where they it wouldn't follow the uh heat exchangers so uh again we uh when we were looking at the the stir project we we had conversation and Communications with our regul regulator the PCA um the this was a concept that was new to the PCA in 2018 so they themselves had to do some research nationally to see what other agencies in the what other areas in the country was was utilizing this um again as I indicated uh for an influent this is an influent heat recovery uh they were they were going to require that the thermal uh recovery the heat exchangers everything in that process would have to be permitted by us so that prohibited the ability to do a partnership a private property partnership where where one entity would own part of the equipment uh and the council uh would either just provide the Wastewater or provide the mechanism or utilities to get to heat to get the flow to the heat exchanger so uh this was a pretty large challenge for us so basically would require that the council own and operate everything related to the to the heat um thermal recovery uh process um again I I mentioned that uh the council would be responsible for uh retaining control and the responsibility of the Wastewater uh at all times throughout the process and uh the Wastewater one of the ideas or uh suggestions was could the council just simply transfer the permit and the regulatory requirements to a third party to a private partnership and the PCA said uh basically said no that the council being the being the regular uh would that that that responsibility would have to stay with with the council so um the conclusion of that was um really uh from an influent thermal recovery uh private partnership wasn't very conducive uh based on what we were we were learning and what we were being told by our by the PCA however uh what we did uh discover and learn was that uh the effluent uh had fewer fewer hurdles um it was cleaner material uh we were still the council was still required to deliver the effluent at the uh level of treatment that was necessary uh for whatever the intended end use was and that level is dependent on what that end use is um we had a project um in when was intercome 2014 17 uh it was a municipal waste to energy uh where they was requesting us look at delivering um water uh reuse and um uh with some with some heat um well it was for water reuse and through that project uh we learned that that the level the quality of the waste water has to meet different levels depending on where how that's going to be used so for instance uh if the water is treated the Wastewater is treated released to the river that has one set of Standards if it's uh treated to a higher standard that could be used for industrial use per se but if it's in a closed loop and the risk of exposing uh people to that flow is low then that level of treatment is a little bit higher and if it's uh for infiltration like we have in E bethyl through land application Bas since that's even a higher level of treatment if there's any chance for this flow to be uh to uh uh for the public to be exposed to but that's an even higher level so for instance uh spray irrigation because of that the process of basically making the water and aerosol public could breathe it in so that's even a higher level and then of course you have direct portable reuse which is the highest level and that's for direct consumption so uh this like I said this project here really uh was a learning experience for us that really showed that that there are these different levels uh that needed uh that need to be met and even the Department of Health which governs uh water quality standards in the PCA uh related to and looking at California standards for reuse because that that part of the country is kind of the leader and so I would say that I would characterize that The Learning Experience here uh was both for the council and the PCA uh in this in the ReUse but it did what we did conclude was that there are greater opportunities for for effluent uh reuse direct reuse and also for thermal uh recovery and so we did in 2004 uh in order to uh meet goals on our sustainability uh objectives in our policy plan we installed a heat Recovery Unit on our effluent at our Eagles Point plant uh this is a a fairly small system uh I think we learned that it circulates I think it's 80 75 75 gallons per minute I believe it helps augment and heat uh our administration building uh at the time that it was designed and built we were anticipating being able to provide all of the heat to that to that building however uh we have uh subsequently had to add some additional Heating in there so at 85 gallons per or 75 gallons per minute it doesn't quite deliver all of the heating needs for the admin building and I'm not certain what the size of the of the uh Eagles Point administration building is but I would guess it's probably somewhere between 15,000 square feet in size to kind of give you a scale I can I can confirm that uh to put that in perspective that was 75 gallons per minute East bethl currently on average is about 35 gallons per minute uh throughout the day there's Peaks and lows but if you take the average it's about 35 gallons per day and also right now the the uh East bethl plant we operate that that plant through uh storing flow in the system and then processing it in slugs because of the slow because the flow is so low right now it doesn't uh the plant doesn't quite operate as efficient and from a hydraulic uh standpoint it doesn't quite there's not enough flow there in order to to flow through the process as it needs to to get to get the treatment that it needs to so we basically we shut the plant down or we throttle the flow down to the point build it up and then we release it over time so that 35 gallons per minute there are times during certain certain parts of the day where that 35 is is significantly less than that value in fact it might even be close to zero so that uh again um we uh we're we're currently in the process this the plan was to produce some monitoring equipment to determine what the Energy savings are uh we have not uh I don't know if that has been completed we're still trying to look to see if that project has been uh if the Energy savings report has been completed yet and then getting to just kind of the East bethle here um this is the diagram you can see our treatment plant located down there near Viking Drive uh if you if you take the just a straight line distance along Highway 65 to where Sims Road is I believe that's uh where the the industrial complex was being looked at yep uh the total distance is about 20,000 fet uh to get from the plant to Sims Road we've got uh an Interceptor pipe that runs actually I'm sorry the plant is located south of Viking Drive our Interceptor pipe that comes that collects flow and drive and brings it to the city uh starts basically in Viking Drive then the city has a line that was installed when the Castle Towers facility uh was phased out so there is a there is a local sewer that conveys slow South down 65 until it gets to the V Boulevard where we pick it up but the point of this map here is that if if in fluent heat thermal recovery was being looked at and I've already indicated that there's a number of problems associated with that the distance to get that back up to Sims Road would be about three and 3/4 of a mile so it is it is quite a distance uh however if we take a look at uh capturing thermal energy uh through the influent I'm sorry the effluent line that comes out of the plant that pipe uh the flow gets pumped uh North along Highway 65 there's two land application basins that's the lab there's one I'm sorry I I don't know what road zuls are on but there's one that's South The Sims Road that's about 15 uh a little over 15 and a half thousand feet from the plant uh and then uh from that land application Bas number one that's another 4400 feet to get to Sims Road the importance with the location of uh the land application number one is that we currently operate those those application basins one at a time and we switch them off so we'll operate one for a period of time shut that one off and direct the flow to the other one and give the give the original one time to rest so the importance is um in order to get a a dedicated source of effluent the closest uh or yeah the closest the furthest North uh along 65 where that where that thermal energy could be drawn off would be down around that uh land application Bas in number one otherwise During certain if it was north of there there would be certain times uh um where flow uh would not be going through that uh distribution pipe north of land application one so that that's that's um uh consideration uh if if we look you know continue to look at the thermal capture is the location would have to be somewhere uh at or south of U Lab One any questions on that and then I think this is the last slide here um I talked a little bit about the uh the regional benefit the cost of service um we currently don't have any third uh thermal energy recovery that's implemented through a private partnership uh Green Leaf in in 2014 uh was the first uh Corporation or private entity that approached us uh just last uh earlier this year we did apply for a Federal grant uh to investigate and further uh further the consideration of thermal energy out of our Metro plant for district energy that was to help augment uh their operations downtown St Paul which is a um a waste of energy facility provides heat to the downtown St Paul St Paul area um we did take a look at um or the water policies as I indicated both the current policy the 20 240 water policy plan and the proposed 2050 does include this limit for regional benefiting Investments That Again is is the level that's been determined by our customer communities back in 2018 of what the appetite was for uh rate increases that would help uh support uh Financial uh Financial programs to help offset some of the cost for Wastewater reuse the ReUse of water itself um uh it does that limit does base uh a rate increase of 7 75% or 34 of a percent in our rates uh in today's dollars in in at the rates that we currently have in 2024 uh if you um depreciate out a 20-year loan that is about a $30 million present value that a 3/4% rate increase would actually generate um and that 30 million uh would be available uh for uh um one or multiple projects I think in concept I think what we're looking at here for thermal energy uh we're probably looking at some kind of a model where it uh where the limit the council's uh Financial involvement would be tied to some kind of a uh maximum rate increase uh it's not to say that the that state funds could be pursued and other sources of revenue to help offset these costs but from the council's standpoint uh we we based our our level of financial um capacity based on based on the rate I will say that uh there have been a number of conversations about that limit uh the need and interest for Wastewater reuse uh we're getting more uh thermal recovery inquiries and so uh I would uh I would suggest that you know it may be uh it might be a good idea for the council to go back and re rethink uh reinvestigate what what our customer community's uh appetite would be to uh uh to renew or revise that uh uh that limit of U involvement uh that rate increase there may be more appetite to uh to raise that higher then I think that that was it um lot of information in kind of a short period of time I've heard you use the term councel Metropolitan Council that yeah okay so that's I wanted to have a clarification that you were talking about met counil not yes East bethl thank you correct yeah Metropolitan Council so bringing it down to Layman's language so we're in effect talking about creating our own mini District energy our our our own mini energy District that would be distributed along those those lines and then to make it cost effective would there be a minimal percentage of users along the line that would need to hook up yeah that that's a that's that's a concept that we would have to we'd have to talk to the city a little bit further like I indicated earlier this thermal recovery is kind of a New Concept you know to the council we haven't we haven't entered into any Community or private partnership so uh there uh the experience uh that we learned in talking with green leaf was there's a there's a lot of regulatory um uh details that would have to be worked out along with the legal uh details as well um but certainly you know if um if there is a if there's a regional again the level involvement for the count for the Metropolitan council's involvement financially is based on a a determined Regional benefit and usually historically that has been on the Wastewater uh side of things so if if if there's a project that shows that an investment uh has a regional Wastewater benefit then then the coun that would allow the council to further investigate you know Partnerships with either communities or private entities I will say that you know the regional Wastewater benefit can be broadly interpreted and one of those interpretations for the Wastewater reuse was that um if if a community was challenged with water supply issues to the point where it could potentially hinder the ability to grow the council reli on that growth to to repay those Investments so one could argue that by offering reclaimed water that helps offset water Appropriations in a community then a city could a community could continue to grow and therefore there would be a a regional benefit so the the interpretation in terms of regional benefit I think is kind of evolving and we're thinking a little bit out the box it doesn't maybe it might not specifically have to be related to a Wastewater benefit but if some way we can make a tie that indirectly it could be benefiting that that would be something that would allow the council to to further uh Entertain Entertain ideas um thank you for coming tonight this was very informative um what I kept hearing through the presentation was this requires a good deal of scale to make it work to make it effective I'm kind of lost as to how this would benefit the city uh considering our size there would be much more investment needed uh in many different sectors to make this area of effluent large enough in order to power even a 15,000 15,000 s foot building so can you just kind of explain a couple of those bullet points because I was kind of lost in that this is going to require investment in part of the city which we need to scale up even just to meet these kind of minimum benefit guidelines yes yes thank you uh for that question um yeah the economy of scale is an important factor in in uh the thermal energy recovery projects that we've looked at all of the projects the smallest project we looked at was uh 2.6 uh MGD of flow um and that was for two buildings at a cost of about $14 million in for 2014 or 2017 sorry um so it it's it's hard uh it's an expensive uh um Capital intensive project uh these thermal recoveries and you need you need the you need the flow uh in order to capture enough to to make it pencil out to make it economically feasible and uh honestly you know at 30 35 gall of intermittent flow that that the city is seeing right now it would be difficult uh in my opinion to really come up with a project that would help support you know the uh thermal heating uh heat uh augmentation to um business now that's not to say that sometime in the future when when the flows get to the point and we're seeing we're seeing more thermal energy arriving at the plant exiting the plant through the affluent that it might not be you know more uh economic to do that uh but now's the time to plan for those those P those possibilities um we've uh right now we've uh looking at building a new wastewater treatment facility up uh up in Rogers On The Crow River and we're actually looking at ways to set aside property set aside our internal uh processes and mechanisms and piping so that if the day ever does come where waste water reuse does become an option viable we can we've already planned for it and some of those Investments uh will be will have already been made so I think you know in my opinion I think right now uh you know East bethl is um isn't quite at the point where there's enough flow uh Wastewater flow to really get enough energy to make that investment uh worthwhile um but uh someday you will be and and Now's the Time to really plan for those uh possibilities like you know maybe it's maybe it's a distribution pipe that the developer puts in uh along with the water main okay thank you yeah Madam chair I um what intrigued me a little bit about this discussion having come from an hpac background is the whole concept I think we're very familiar with um the uh a geothermal type of heat capture and you're dealing generally with about 50° groundwater type of temperature this is more in the 80° as I understand so it's a it's you know significantly warmer than um than than groundwater but you essentially have a heat producer and it's kind of being squandered right now in terms of where that heat is going so wanted to have them come in so we could talk a little bit about um you know is there a possib we could use that heat to attract businesses to come for example some businesses use let's say that they uh change oil on vehicles they'll use the waste oil to to heat uh uh their Shop with a waste oil burner um may not be the best in terms of what it's discharging but they definitely use the uh the warmth from that um as a as a fuel to um to to heat that but um similarly then how would this possibly um be used as a an economic development tool I think um one area if I can switch out here um one area that there's this is not cooperating one area that has been kind of on the Forefront of every one's mind a little bit [Music] um is right in here this is Osborne's property he has commercial real estate down there that he's looking to develop and then also in here is his property for housing potentially at some point his goal was to develop the commercial first to be able to then fund the the the residential and I'm just kind of giving a a a large kind of swath of it there um but this is um significantly this is a lot shorter maybe half a mile in terms of distance there so can you start on a small scale type of a deal as opposed to bringing it all the way up to Sims you know a three mile and significantly more expense can you start on a smaller scale for some of these projects maybe I mean that's um uh that's a possibility uh but again the the flow rate today is I think arguably not the flow low rate of Tomorrow given the fact that we're we're actively pursuing you know hookups for whether it's a school or the industrial park or there's going to be um uh 250 homes coming on with Capstone you know that'll be contributing as well so as time goes on will be I I think development somewhat been a little difficult given the fact that you know the marketplace hasn't really been supportive of it um but we're we're looking at you know I draw on the experience of Highway 10 we we invested $300 million into Highway 10 and uh and before it's even done you'll you'd be surprised the amount of development that's that's already coming because they're they're trying to catch the wave ahead of the completion of that of that Highway and very similarly on Highway 65 you have um 100 some million dollars was granted by the legislature two sessions ago and they'll be work going on the Blaine area which is largely developed already moving then up into Ham Lake which is not necessarily supportive of high density development so in a way it'll somewhat Leap Frog um to East bethl which is next in line and I think we'll be seeing significantly more pressure for development as a result of that as highways flow more freely development follows uh they can get their goods and services to Market easier and employees and and everything to work faster and that's a that's an incentive for them so um um yeah the flow rate I think is is um not impressive today but certainly will be something that everyone's working on trying to get to a higher rate that's going to be going to and that that was part of the discussion with the me council is how can we how can we work together here to um you know we have a we have a bill that we're supporting for 10 and a half million they have a project they're possibly looking at doing how can we work together here to uh to get this across uh a bonding Bill and at the legislature and start facilitating some of this development which will help the help the flow rate help the efficiency of the plant and everybody uh help the tax bace help the uh you know the jobs in the community and everything else I think it's a win-win win uh for everyone in that regard so um again it's it's really kind of um you know as Kyle indicated kind of um thinking outside that box right now because once everything's developed out trying to tear it all up and do this later is cost prohibitive I mean you just can't do that right so and the cost is high now too I mean I I don't want to I don't want to say the 30 million is is inexpensive but um but perhaps uh there's a you know some more cost-effective ways of doing it and that would be I think part of what um uh the administrator for the Met Council was kind of thinking in terms of how can we kind of do some study and some planning on this and figure out um what would make sense if if we were to implement something like that and use it as an economic tool if we could if we could say you know Mr businessmen coming in with you know a large facility it's going to bring 100 jobs we'll Supply you a a line of of um heat to your facility and help reduce your overall cost your capital or your operational cost to heat that facility I think they'd probably line up for that they'd be interested in that especially companies that are looking more and more towards sustainability efforts that's that's very interesting yeah yeah can I ask one super basic question too so as the so say we're going up to Sims you've got a pipe is there heat loss is the further away you go the yeah the further that it travels yes you do lose some thermal energy through that or the pipe is buried below the frost line so it never it's never really susceptible to freeze um but the further you go away from the source the the the lower that temperature in that pipe does Dr okay thank you madam chair Commissioners my name is Jen kki I also have the honor of working with Kyle at the Metropolitan Council um I wanted to be clear because sometimes these things get muddled um that we're talking about two different components that are complimentary so there is the district Energy System Loop that connects to Industry and there's the energy source in this case we were talking about the East Betha wastewater treatment plan uh John and I spent a trip to Denmark in this last fall because the Danes are actually world leaders in thinking about using District energy and District heating systems for their residential all the way through industry so if you go to Denmark and I am now apparently becoming an advocate for people to go it's an amazing country um you can see that as they are building developments they are making sure the first thing they think about working with their developers are is to ensure that a district energy Loop is put in place the one thing that I learned because I also was just getting wrapped around how can we attach our treatment plant affluent heat recovery to these systems and uh one of the uh our hosts in Denmark told me if you are doing the district energy heating Loop right you don't ever really think about what the energy source is you try to make it agnostic to energy sources so for instance currently right now District energy in downtown St Paul is powered by a uh biofuel uh incinerator it's powered by a natural gas incinerator and at times they also try to augment with you know thinking about outside of the box additional energy sources they have a maintained level of energy that runs through their District energy but they're using multiple sources of that energy to keep that system running and so what I would challenge you to challenge us to work together on is that I I don't know about the policies or where the council can help to offset the cost of the energy Loop but that's worth exploring because the loop itself is the investment that opens the door to bringing in new industry to your city and so that's just something I want to make sure that we're we are talking about two different things and yes right now maybe Wastewater affluent heat recovery isn't feasible but it's that Loop that's the important part to think about now thank you that that's very helpful thank you interesting anyways other comments or thoughts thank you so much that was really interesting and very educational so we just keep this in mind going down the road something to start thinking about as future development makes its way and yeah Madam chair I think we'll continue to work with the Met Council here on pursuing um uh the initial Bond was for 10 and a half million uh I think the discussion was going to go to 15 million uh 10 and a half for the city project um and then 2 million for a reserve capacity loan and then 2.5 million for possibly studying this or you know whatever uh was in mind of of um you know the next steps for trying to determine if this can be a reality for maybe maybe here maybe elsewhere but at least from a study standpoint um uh what reality is um and uh and so then you know that's kind of the the road we were planning to go down was to to raise that to a $15 million ask and then um and then try and kill three birds with one stone essentially so yeah I guess my reaction is this is kind of it looks like it's kind of a a quasi pilot project to a certain degree and I to be honest with you and I'm a real straight up person I'm not sure I want to see the city sign on to a $10 million Bond and I don't have a vote on it for a pilot project you know and I I have worked in some of your facilities at one point in time in my career in construction I've seen him do some pretty amazing things if if you go down to Phoenix Arizona and you you know where I'm going with this you had West on I 10 and there's a nuclear plant out in the middle of the desert that they cool that reactor that plant with influent from the Valley of the Sun but I look at the amount of money that's involved and it's a fairly new technology I was GNA I mean one of my questions would be because again I have worked in nukes and condensers are nothing more than heat exchangers and there's nothing worse there's no worse job I never really had to do it but there's no worse job than going down inside the condensers at monacello and when they first open them up I mean it's just gross and if you're putting a a a regional a district heating plant in operation you can't shut it off because you have to service your heat exchangers you you almost have to have two heat exchangers you know you have to build redundancy into your into your systems it just seems like it's uh it's brand new stuff so to speak and uh it's interesting I'm going to enjoy watching it I think you know I'm I'm big on the idea of conservation and Etc but $10 million is pretty serious money for a city of the size of East bethl if the state wants to get involved if the if the school district wanted to get involved because of benefit for the two schools over there I think then you get you get more um stakeholders in the game but I don't have a vote yeah M Madam chair just to clarify the $10.5 million bond is a state bond that would be going to legislature and asking them for 10 and a half Millions for the hooking the schools up to the city sewer and water building a water tower building the water treatment plant and then stubbing that off so that it can feed the uh the newly created Industrial Park okay 2 million is a reserve capacity loan that we owe them at council at this point they they're interested in getting that money as soon as possible so that would be included in this but 2 and a half million the balance of the $15 million ask from the state the two and a half would be used for the study purposes and and whatever however best that could be spent to study that I don't Matt I don't have a problem with with the with the study and yeah Etc it's not the city it's not the city taking a bond out okay yeah just to clarify that we're requesting that yeah this new state bonding cycle thank you y yeah it's kind of a failure to launch when we already have you know $15 million outstanding of a $20 million bond to add another 10 to it you know I think uh I don't think there would be any votes for that but um um you know that's a pretty large Debt Service for a for a community this size the other thing is from a pro fora standpoint how many BTU use I mean not looking at your Maxim maximum effluent flow how many BTUs can you extract and I'm not I mean I'm a I'm not a mechanical Tradesman I was a superintendent Carpenter but I know that you know it takes so many BTUs and someone runs the calculations on what a building eats for lack of a better term and it just doesn't it seems like you need a lot of water going on yeah you are testing my memory but we're GNA try and do this together um I was the project manager for the project that was looking to partner with District energy in uh St Paul that Kyle alluded to uh we discharge 2 m million gallons 180 sorry this is where again like my numbers this is why this is why Kyle's here to keep me honest uh so we discharge uh about 170 million gallons per day from the Metropolitan wastewater treatment plant that water year round is around 60 to 70 degrees and so like you know Matt was alluding to the fact that it's that temperature difference between the air temp so in the winter there's a lot more bang for our buck in that effluent than in the summer however District energy engineers and their counterpart Consultants Evergreen energy that was who was with working with us on this project um said that our affluent from the Metropolitan uh from the metrop plant could cover the energy needs of all of District Energy's customer base which was all of downtown St Paul Region's hospital and across the river so uh that was all of the buildings in downtown St Paul ining the capital complex and so if we scale again that's 170 and I'm sorry I don't I can't I don't remember the btu conversion um but I think this is where again it's its orders of scale of whether or not effluent is the right energy source for this Loop now or whether there's alternative energy sources to your point of having redundancies um that was also addressed in the district energy project we were trying to have our our Wastewater flows around around 247 365 luckily everyone uses toilets all the time so we have a a consistent um product to sell however we still knew we had to build in redundancies so even though we would have been um offsetting the need for natural gas for the district energy uh bi or the energy creation center uh they still would have kept it on standby in case for whatever reason we had to shut down the heat recovery connection to our waste water whether it was for uh cleaning or any sort of Maintenance so there was an A A expectation of having some sort of built-in redundancies the part that we were able to build off of from that project is that the city of St Paul has had that District energy Loop in place since the 80s and so the technology has been proven they also have moved from multiple power sources and so it's it's where heat exchangers and Wastewater is a pretty new technology for the US it also has been in place in Europe for quite some time so it's not as new as we think it's new to us but it has been in practice uh in other countries so don't a to answer your questions I hope yeah Madam chair it's definitely an equation of flow right yeah okay so again I I think all that study work that needs to be done generally you know would be contracting with you know some firm to do that and and that would be you know probably where some of the cost is is associated and then you would know when it's efficient at what rate and and that sort of thing and and again I you know it's not that we necessarily would hook the entire city up it's that we'd pick you know that lwh hanging fruit of this area could could develop this or that area could develop with it too and then uh try and try and use that as a catalyst for businesses to say you know um you know working with u Minnesota partnership or I forget the the um the name of the Business Partnership and and say hey this would be a benefit to potential people that want to relocate into our state you know here's an area to consider and um kind of those site selectors are always looking for some reason right you know to to stand above you know someone else and you know of course it's all bottom line for them and um and any sort of Energy savings they're going to be able to translate that into 20 years of you know run a calculation on that pretty easily but at any rate it's just a it's an idea that I think we you know can consider potentially and um if we're successful at the legislature we may be able to um head down this road and see if it's something that that that benefits us interesting thank you thanks for all the information any last questions or [Music] comments thanks again thank you uh then we can move on to item number five city council report yep Mr Mayor go ahead well um City council's kind of getting to a point of uh wrapping things up here for this year um and uh we you know one of the topics of discussion I think we want to go into for the next year is kind of setting a list of priorities uh Eda priorities we had a a um gentleman who was running for Council uh came in and it just you know during the approval of the budget kind of wondering um you know how will the budget get spent for Eda and somewhat I think they discussed the last time kind of transfers a majority of it to staff for staff time um but there is some dollars left over and and um and he had indicated there were businesses that that he spoke to that were having challenges and I think we did a business uh study uh that a lot of the challenges had to do with you know Workforce and things that the city can't really Aid necessarily on um you know if it has to do with taxes tax abatement isn't something in the county is is very favorable on although their first one was in Blain here uh not too long ago first one ever I believe uh and so um trying to understand somewhat you know is it is it um is it the the city code that's restricting them is it um uh you know do there need to be changes to ordinances to allow more flexibility trying to understand some of that I think is is what I'm we're hoping to get to the bottom of as possibly a prior uh but then also their city- owned land and and what should that land how should we dispose of that land try and get it back on a tax base do you try and reach out to um uh potential businesses that could possibly locate there and then there's the discussion of um you know uh does the city take a more proactive approach to buying Parcels that they know are going to be key to um uh development along that corridor um say there's a corner lot that's beautiful that you could you know purchase clean up and sell it to a um an Aldi type of a project that would come in you know just kind of brainstorming are those are there those type of opportunities and um and I think that's that's a bigger discussion that um maybe the Eda can have at some point um and try and chart a course for next year in terms of determining what uh what would be best for the Eda to work on and focus on and and the best return on investment for this committee um for the city so agreed I'd love to set some goals and priorities with everyone's input yeah that's great with those um uh surveys that you have been doing with businesses I know when we last met we were talking about that and you mentioned that you have received some responses is that some information that we'll be able to see and kind of so can guide our own discussions on how to set priorities I believe yeah I believe uh Madam chair and uh Commissioners I believe we have we've gone over that that um that study already we can certainly bring it back U by way of a refresh or two um you know part of the challenge is um not everyone usually responds to that and if you get a you know 10% referring to the business Recruitment and Retention survey which is what 8 years old s no just the recent we had a recent survey yeah you the city staff decided to do instead of inv when we're going to do something more locally yeah I'm trying to recall I'm trying to recall back on um on what some of those challenges were I'm not sure they again that they were something the city can impact um you know if um you know if you can't find people to to fill jobs it's to the extent it's related to internet access that ought to be improving that was a huge one that was that was that was that was a huge one the businesses that were the most affected by that and I was very involved with that those surveys the businesses that were most affected by that had gone out and they had straightened their internet access out by either running a um I can't think of the the term that you know wasn't fiber optic but they or something like that yeah yeah they ran their own they had ran Their Own Line back to a node and things along those lines or they hook they had a microwave star link or something y yeah yeah I mean we looked at uh we looked at a number of different things and back when we did that that survey that business retention and Expansion Project starlink was wasn't around back then that was wasn't even a gleam in elon's eye yeah okay Elon Musk wasn't making electric cars but it was uh I think that the the internet access has been put to bed in my mind in so far as along the Highway 65 Corridor I mean if someone is trying to locate a uh high tech engineering firm down on the west or the east side of the city uh there might be a problem then unless midco wants to help them out but it uh I don't I think the biggest thing we did was we we were able to educate some of the businesses um the uh structural steel manufacturer in town or fabricator guess you don't manufacture it you fabricate it and that is something that's a little bit more in my wheelhouse he told me that he had a problem finding qualified help and put him in touch with the inoa county tech school I'm assuming that things worked out for him you talking about Paul no aggressive not Paul Johnson no no um I think the other thing was to advertise East bethl consciously deliberately as a business destination to to to project that image for us I mean I look not just a bedroom community but we're business oriented I look at all the all the um trade shows that Julie has gone to that's what we're doing there yeah Anoka County was there at the Minar Expo there were a lot of other individual cities you know maybe next year we send a representative to talk to the Brokers I think you know yeah those the the sort of bigger things that reach developers Brokers Etc um I think there's a lot of issues and I know we went round and round on the cost and how we're going to execute this but that's a big number one goal for me is to try to figure out how to Comm I mean it's it's a communication tool and it's it's talking to our businesses and figuring out how we can help I mean we did it eight years ago we improved a lot of things but there's new there's new issues and there's new there's new businesses there's a lot that wasn't in place back then so I think I think the highway improvements and you brought that up I think the the highway improvements are a huge Advantage for us right and as they eliminate as they speed up the traffic flow by as they move forward with the rest of the Highway 65 plan I mean if you're sending a truck down the highway to deliver something or bring a crew somewhere and they're sitting at a stoplight down in H Lake they're not making any money down there then so for the company they're making money but you don't you know windshield time doesn't help the uh business's bottom line no but agree I'd love to set a list of priorities okay look forward to that um the other thing I'll comment on is that the uh Levy was approved here in December uh they started off with a about a 3% but now that sub three so 2.9 Mr Mayor I don't know if you recall 2.95 I think um uh was what they landed on 294 to be exact 2.94 and um and that's uh the fifth lowest city in the county that's great 21 cities right so so when you talk about when you talk about perspective businesses looking to locate somewhere where taxes are reasonable oh yeah right um I always tell the story I had a a friend who was in the uh he made Cabinetry or whatever and um and he had I'm just going to use rough numbers he had a 6,000 foot facility and he had a friend that was located in hennipen county that had a 3,000 squ foot facility did the same thing and the henpen county 3,000 foot facility was twice the taxes of the 6,000 ft facility in inoka county and so when businesses see this and they think man we need to grow and taxes are going to be obscene somewhere else they consider then moving to anoa County and inoka county is was the second fastest growing county in the state so um I think uh I think As Cities some are higher tax than others obviously but as cities are resp you know more reasonable in their taxes uh that will be U certainly an attractant to for businesses to come in so that's a good thing and the other thing I'll comment on is on the 23rd here we're going to um actually uh the Planning and Zoning planning is going to be uh dealing with this tomorrow and that's going to come to the Council on the 23rd and this is the Cannabis ordinance that cities are being forced to get on the books right away before uh before licenses are given out um and uh you know that's going to be new businesses in town whether you whether you like that topic or not it's going to be it's not something you can deny it's something you can control and so that's what this ordinance is going to be uh dealing with is where can you put it how close to schools how close to you know um uh daycares you know um how many can there be what how large a sign you know that sort of thing a lot of trying to trying to get our arms around some of that um undefined area right now and um there's smells and everything else to go with it that that they're trying to control so that'll be coming forward and then you'll you'll probably see some businesses popping up you know selling that product h i don't received any inquiries about starting those business yes yeah generally it's people that are already selling Edibles or they're selling you know they're in the um tobacco business or something like that they have a natural you know segue into that um and and you know all cities are struggling right now because the state was supposed to out with rules on that and they didn't uh and yet um and it was kind of um it's a great idea that's do it and everyone's kind of left going wait a minute um there's no rules the law enforcement has Pro I mean there's just issues with this that um that was not well thought through in my opinion but anyways we're trying to get our arms around that um before the horse is out of the barn shall we say so anyways I don't know Mr Mar you have anything else you want to add I'm good okay I think that's all we have well before we adjourn I'd like to thank mayor Lewis it's been a pleasure working with you thanks for your contributions to the Eda yeah we've appreciated it good luck well it's been very interesting to work with you guys yeah thank you appreciate it and Madam chair if I can just indicate you have a time sheet at your desks there um that will need to be signed uh from what I understand some people um deny taking payment um so that's an option for you but um for those that um uh want compensation you just need to sign that and we'll submit it for for payment and um and that pretty much takes care of the responsibilities for the year great thank you I'll make a motion that we adjourn I'll second that with a uh Merry Christmas to everybody there you go thank you all in favor I I opposed we're adjourned thank you up 13 zip too e