2015-08-25_PWETC_Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Mr. Culver advised that staff tries to be diligent in determining which customers were receiving services and had paid for them versus those taking advantage of the service and not paying the annual fee for pickup. However, Mr. Culver agreed that he expected to find a situation with some leaves still placed curbside for pickup by the City due to lack of attention or simply out of habit. Chair Stenlund noted this would be a great opportunity to provide related information on why no seeds or lawn clippings should be considered debris in discharge locations, no matter a resident's opinion of government, in an effort to protect and/or improve water quality for all. Chair Stenlund noted this review could serve as a quantifiable in the City's MS4 annual report as well. Mr. Culver advised that staff would incorporated this additional educational material and/or links on the City's website. Mr. Culver reported that he expected this to be an annual educational effort in the September newsletters starting in 2016. Member Thumau suggested starting the educational efforts earlier in the spring and throughout summer/fall to address lawn care basics and how that affected the environment with practices on our private property as much as public properties (e.g. streets). Member Cihacek concurred, suggesting the educational component may prove interesting; and asked if there were capacity concerns at available lawn waste sites. Mr. Culver advised that, historically the City dropped leaves picked up curbside to those sites, while other times they were delivered to other locations, depending on the time of the year and their volume. Mr. Culver noted that one problem was with contractors sometimes bringing their leaves to a site and ongoing challenges in verifying Roseville leaves are going into the Roseville compost site. With the demand for compost throughout the year, Mr. Culver advised that using it was not problematic, but allowing time for processing it and room to move and turn the piles often became a challenge in some years. Due to those issues, Mr. Culver advised that the City had found some partnership opportunities with other firms using that material for some of their own soil blending for organics. Mr. Culver noted that there was more contamination in yard waste compost than in the City's leaf pickup program, with some timing issues for marketing the compost. Mr. Culver opined that staff didn't anticipate a lot more leaves coming to the sites when discontinuing the pickup program; but noted it would prove interesting to see where contractor leaves showed up, which would create a challenge for them as well. At the request of Chair Stenlund, Mr. Culver reviewed current Ramsey County Yard Waste sites (Highway 96, Dale Street, Pierce Butler, etc.) and offered to provide a map online of their locations similar to that of Ramsey County's hazardous waste sites. Chair Stenlund stated, from his perspective, it may be more problematic for a resident — if not mulching or composting — to transport the leaves without having Page 5 of 13