February 19th 2008 and we'll go ahead with our agenda which is first of all to have our report on the Loudon Avenue phase 1 the update and Mr. Bob Baird will do that. Thank you Bob. Loudon Avenue is under construction. They're working on the pipework. Storm sewers are in. Can you can you speak a little louder? The Loudon Avenue project is under construction. Storm sewer construction in particular. They've completed from Idlewild to Oak Hill and they're working on sanitary sewers as well. So we're underway on that one. Okay let's see if council members are logged in and have questions on the Loudon Avenue progress. Councilmember James. Thank you Madam Chair. I don't necessarily have a question but a statement which Bob Baird since he's at the mic can testify to I believe is that the contractor on this project on this phase has given themselves some pretty strict timeline and so in consideration of the community being inconvenienced by this area they've actually I guess incentivized themselves to say that we they will get this project completed in a shortened amount of time with the same good quality of work I'm sure and so I just wanted to make note of that that there is some sensitivity as to the length of time that it takes to complete road projects and this is a very highly traveled east-west connector. People use Loudon Avenue as opposed to using New Circle Road. So I'm excited to make that statement for the residents of that area that they will be inconvenienced and for the travelers in that area they'll be inconvenienced possibly for a shorter amount of time. Thank you Madam Chair. Good point. Councilmembers are there any other questions? If not thank you very much Mr. Baird and our next issue is constructed wetlands which was put into committee by a councilmember Vice Mayor Gray and I wanted to say before I give the mic to Vice Mayor Gray. Councilmembers I've put at your place a copy of an article which was in the January 08 American City and County magazine about it's called Rainmakers. It's basically about communities which have solved their water supply problems in a variety of ways one of which is constructed wetlands and so I thought that was apropos of our discussion today and so I'd like to give Vice Mayor Gray an opportunity to introduce the issue and I know we have Darrell Bennett here from Stormwater Engineering. We have David Gabbard. We have citizens and other folks who may want to speak so if you'll take over Vice Mayor Gray. Thank you Madam Chair. When the when the Shores came I guess it to the council meeting six weeks or more ago I think we were all we were all just a tad bit fascinated or maybe more than a tad bit fascinated with the proposal that that you all had presented and particularly at a time when we're when we are as a council and as a community addressing so many of these issues and I think it's worthwhile for for the council to for us to remember and recognize the how this issue really relates to our the six foundational pillars or the cornerstones that the council adopted this council adopted in this administration adopted a little over a year ago and the number one the number one pillar was our commitment to environmental sustainability so and and really the context in my introduction of of the Shores is to acknowledge that and also to the timing of this is fairly appropriate that in that I guess it was this morning's Herald-Leader which mentioned the story from or the ranking from popular mechanics well is that right popular science someone told me popular mechanics and I thought well that would be an interesting one for the environmentally friendly ranking but that certainly is appropriate that Lexington was named as a 25th highest or 25th most greenest city in the country so not sure I'd like to defer to my wife for just a moment the reason I am very interested in supporting this proposal excuse me Eastwood Shore 205 Catalpa Road I'm a retired school teacher of K and one with the Fayette County schools and many of my parents over the years could not afford their utility bills and when a water is turned off it has serious educational ramifications so that's why I'm interested in the most reasonable cost for our ratepayers and what she didn't tell you is that some days she would be involved in washing their clothes so that they would have clean clothes to work on Madam Chair members the committee my name is Dick Shore I live at 205 Catalpa Road here in Lexington and I want to thank you for this invitation to address you extended twice now first in general and second specifically to talk to us to talk to you about this really important thing that we have before us I want to talk to you about short pipe but first let me acknowledge that I do have professional experience with wetlands for several years when I was on the staff at Fort Knox engine the environmental engineering staff there I was involved in a constructed wetland project there I hold a doctorate in zoology I hold an MBA and operations analysis I have taught ecology I have taught economics I've taught business analytic tools and business management for all of the major universities and colleges that are in this area I have a presentation that I'd like to yes and we begin with a drop of water there am I yes there we are we believe that we have a drinking water supply shortage I think that belief is correct we also need to clean up our wastewater discharge we also believe that money is tight and that's the challenge that we have before us and I'd like to address that challenge I believe I can address all three of those in a nutshell the idea is that to get more water we lay a short pipe from where the water is to where we need it to get better water we build a constructed wetland let me focus let me focus on the constructed wetland first in that marvelous what pain you can cause other people when you use technology you don't understand hopefully the it'll clear up here people build constructed wetlands as part of a wastewater treatment system water improvement wastewater treatment the waters about two feet deep it flows less than a mile a day and there's reeds and rushes in clumps in it they and the bacteria do the work something's not happening I push the button it's not happening there we go it's moving two at a time here we go so construction with constructed wetlands finish the job that the wastewater treatment system starts it removes the last of the nutrients what they can't do is they can't handle primary sledge if you look at a slice through a constructed wetland you can see here yeah you can see the earth fill dams on either side you see there's a pipe that leads in on the one side and a pipe that leads out on the other side and maintain the water level between them you see the water does not go all the way to the top of the dike that leaves room if it were to rain there on that space and you see that there are reeds and rushes not planted continuously but in intermittently with with water in between looking down on the top for that same constructed wetland again you can see the earth fill dams around the side the pipes leading in and out and the clumps of reeds and rushes that move through there snaking in a curve across the landscape this is okay if you are in a constructed wetland this is what you'd see up front reeds and rushes in your face but in the background you see the buildings this is an urban constructed wetland okay does our technology person have an idea of what it turns out it's really not necessary we'll just we'll go on this shows a picture of a wetland in Ontario and there's snow on the side because it snows in Ontario okay the next one yes okay some wetlands are very large this and you can't see the buildings there behind you but you can see the open water and you can see the reeds and rushes that are there oh we are going to be in trouble here this is a picture of the cover of the manual on constructed wetlands for treatment of municipal wastewater it was written by the EPA this is the cover of that and it shows a beautiful wetlands with reeds and rushes and flowers and birds this in particular edition was updated in 2000 I've got a copy of it downloaded on my on my computer I'm sorry that the it's a gorgeous picture now let's see if we can look at okay in Kentucky urban water systems look like this there's a river we have a takeout point it's shown on the right hand side there where there's a filtration and treatment plant the waters distributed through the mains that are shown in light blue here schematically and then the sewer mains shown in brown here carry that to a wastewater treatment plant where after treatment it goes back into that same river if you add a constructed wetland to that system instead of discharging to the river you now just charge to a pipe which carries it to a constructed wetland shown here on the right hand side of the picture the long snaky green line and in this particular version it discharges into a holding pond before going back into the river if there's no constructed wetland when the water goes into the river it stays in the river for at least five miles by statute and then the next town takes it out looking at Lexington same thing water comes out on the right hand side from pool 9 at the RWE plant there right by the I-75 bridge it's treated distributed to us we have two wastewater treatment plants the Hickman which serves roughly the east half of the city discharges into pool 7 the town branch which discharges serving the west end side of the city roughly and it discharges to a long Creek that eventually gets down to pool 3 come on what am I not doing there we go there are some other specific details about Lexington that we need to have in mind and one is that at the Hickman plant we are spending an extra two and a half 2.4 million dollars a year to operate and dispose of the phosphate wastes that are cleared that are removed from that water we do that in order to meet discharge requirements for phosphate in the water the second thing that's specific to Lexington we need to be aware of is we have a constructed wetland already it's at the Senate as at the demolition and debris landfill and it's treating the the leachate from that and the third thing specific to Lexington it's important is that we have on file a concept proposal dating from 1999 that calls for a short pipe a constructed wetlands and a lake we have the authority it's our wastewater we own and operate the wastewater treatment plants we own and operate the wastewater mains and Eastern Water Law says you return water to the watershed from which you took it so we have the authority to treat our wastewater and return it to pool 9 where it came from we have the opportunity to do something about water quality let's talk source security for just a moment source security is part of homeland security it's part of making sure that you have the necessary stuff to operate a community you recall we had a whiskey warehouse fire not too long ago of course it was downstream from us they didn't discharge into pool 9 but my friends in neighboring towns took showers in whiskey for several days you recall the oil pipeline that ruptured it ruptured uphill from pool 9 and it took a long time for the oil to seep down to the edge of the river we stopped it we caught it before it got in there but oil pipelines do rupture in warmer weather trucks get into collisions on I-75 from time to time can you imagine what would happen if on the bridge that goes over pool 9 a diesel tank ruptured or a 40,000 gallon a gasoline tank ruptured do you recall the dam in the mountains that breached 310 million gallons of toxic slurry downhill Wolf Creek, Tug Creek, Big Sandy, the Ohio they closed the inlets at Ashland they closed the inlets at Cincinnati such impoundments are on the Kentucky River as well and when we must ask RWE to close the inlets to our water on pool 9 we have two days reserve that's all but we have the opportunity to pipe source quality water to a lake just upstream from that RWE intake and if that river if the river were contaminated it's just a matter of a few dozen yards or a few hundred yards or a quarter of a mile from the lake to the water intake just avoid the contaminated river entirely and let the water go around for as long as the river is contaminated so we have several opportunities for saving money as well the Clay County Georgia Water Authority you know on their website says increasingly water districts around the country are finding constructed wetlands are proven to be more effective more efficient more cost-effective more environmentally sensitive than comparable treatment methods the wetlands allow the Clay County Authority to increase increase its wastewater treatment capacity while dropping the costs incurred in the process we have an opportunity to avoid some capital investments there are discharge limits coming at us for the water at Town Branch those discharge limits are called TMDLs will influence the amount of phosphate were allowed to dump into the stream we don't know exactly what those numbers are but the existing technology if we don't use a constructed wetland is to duplicate what we've got at Hickman for another 35 million and operated on Town Branch for another 2.4 million a year 2.4 plus 2.4 is 4.8 that's almost enough to float a bond issue for on the order of 50 to 60 million we biomonitor that is to say we take our effluent stream and run it past some little critters real interesting little critters and if they survive we know the water is good we're doing that at both our discharge points if we went through a single discharge point we would only do that once we could create a regional solution work with Winchester they have a similar problem they draw from the similar place in the river maybe we could work together and there are Homeland Security grants for water infrastructure that may be available to us but the concept is clear you want more water lay a short pipe you want better water build a constructed wetland and do it so it feeds pool 9 so I think I have offered you an opportunity to get more water better water and spend less money there are some other benefits some of which we've talked about a constructed wetland looks an awful lot like a wildlife preserve with a 15 10 or 15 acre lake in there it would be a beautiful place to go for picnicking birdwatching boating fishing there's a possibility of a regional solution is a possibility of water security obstacles real obstacles we know we'll have to treat for phosphate if we do build a wetland it will take lots of land and right now we don't know exactly where that will be or exactly what it will cost however because of the questions that you asked me as I dealt with for you individually I did some figuring here I am not I'm not a civil engineer and if I were I might not do this pro bono but here are some numbers that are and I'll talk about my assumptions if you want if you want more of this assumes and the bottom question is this 63 less than 200 the pipeline assumes three legs a six-mile leg and a 13 mile leg each one of which carry 15 million gallons in a 30 inch pipe and one leg of 12 miles in a 36 inch pipe that current pipe prices I called up the local pipe dealer I said how much he gave me a number I multiplied that by three and that's the cost of the pipe in the ground that's where that 36 million comes from for land area you got 30 million gallons a day seven day dwell time two feet deep it's really very straightforward geometry land costs we looked in the PVA rolls for Eastern Fayette County we couldn't find anything over 25 million dollars an acre to $25,000 an acre so we use 50,000 we couldn't find anything more than 25 so we use 50,000 an acre because we figure prices to go up grading for the Dykeson and dams $8 a cubic yard that's where those numbers come from I threw in 4% for design I think the estimate for the pumps is probably twice what it needs to be the 200 million comes from two places one Kentucky Americans proposal of 164 million for a long pipe and a plant and the 35 million which our ratepayers will have to absorb if we don't put in a construct in wetland because that's the cost of the capital for that additional phosphate treatment plant on on town branch where I'm suggesting someplace east of Kentucky because that's between us and Winchester and because that's where the shale is when I talk to some geologists they said you really don't want to try to build constructed wetland on karst it will collapse I'm not a construction geologist but the experts said someplace east of here and so that's where we looked okay I'm urging you to act within your authority to get a cost feasibility study that's based on the existing concept study that calls for a short pipe and a constructed wetland and a lake and I stand ready to assist you or the council in any way that I can thank you very much for your presentation and vice mayor gray is going to have to leave us for another meeting so do you have any comments before you I'm not sure I was just curious as whether or not in your in as you've evaluated this and looked at these the wetland alternatives technologies have we in the government have has a Lexington Fed County government done any work on this have you had any conversations with anyone and yes yes I have talked with Dave Gabbard he was the author of the concept study that I saw back in 99 when I made a similar proposal to council I thought I was going to have to convince somebody that this was a good idea and he handed me the draft of the document that he had prepared I've also talked with other people in the sewers and waters were on the agenda to talk with the Commissioner I believe it's Thursday we talked with her just briefly about that but the reason I'm asking is it or I'm curious about that is it being in a traditional engineering environment myself I know how edge technologies can sometime be viewed as hocus-pocus and Wizard of Oz sort of material and well there are reason that I'm the reason that I'm yeah this stay with me for the reason I'm saying that is that the conventional conventional thinking is often resistant to edge technologies and in innovative and imaginative technologies we have said as a council that we want to explore those especially as it relates to environmental sustainability so you had mentioned that there you had mentioned I think in your presentation some benchmark installations and there there are 19 constructed wetlands in Kentucky now there are 28 in Florida that they list on their website those are just examples I visited the wetlands constructed wetlands that's being used for tertiary treatment for the city of Orlando it's been in operation since the mid 80s there are others around the country that were in operation in the 70s I I wish I could ask you to be leaders it turns out this is not new technology this has been it's out there it is not what we are used to thinking about but it is it's not new technology it's been out there for a long time one of the engineers who resides locally was involved in the design and installation of a constructed wetland in Arizona recently for the city of Phoenix where the water after treatment in the constructed wetland is pumped down into an underground aquifer from which they pump the water for their water treatment plants so I understand that it's not what civil engineers usually think about but it's not new technology thank you thank you Dr. Schor thank you madam chairman thank you vice mayor councilmember Beard has questions or comments thank you madam chair I'm sure we talked about this some length I think maybe three weeks ago or so yes I still wonder if this is the solution to our water supply problem I can understand from an environmental point of view where it has some positives but the subject we're struggling with now is water supply and I don't see this being able to handle the quantities of water we need and if we are to pipe it to the Kentucky River back to the same pool it will have to be treated along with the water that isn't and so we don't save any pressures on expansion of a water treatment plant or whatever because they're still going to have to run X number of water through whether it's the wetland water or whether it's the original river water co-mingled there are there are a couple of things that that need to be emphasized I think that may help to clarify that one is the major job that a filtration plant does is take out suspended solids and water that is in the Kentucky River has a lot of suspended solids it has a lot of sediment in it that comes from erosion upstream water coming from a constructed wetland would have none of that load in it and in fact it would run through the filters faster and because the filters wouldn't clog up so it have the effect of increasing the throughput even if there were no expansion of the facilities and you're right I did not in this presentation address the question of expanded filtration I just have a hard time believing that a small increment to a filtration plant placed locally is going to be and pumping the water a short distance 510 miles is going to be that doesn't look to me like that would be more expensive than waiting until that water gets 40 miles away taking it out of the river with the sediment load filtering it and then pumping it back 40 miles in a 42 inch pipe and my second question is how do we pay for this because there is no rate structure that relates to this at all it would have to be a general obligation bond that would pay for this and this is beyond our bonding capacity and we have no way of going to the public and asking them to help us in this endeavor well I appreciate your concern I think that because we're talking about wastewater treatment either through a 35 million dollar phosphate removal plant or through a 50 or 60 million pipe and constructed wetland that it would make sense to have wastewater fees identified to amortize a bond so that that capital is is capital spending is spread out over a longer period of time if that were the case then you would in fact be looking at a revenue bond not a general obligation exactly and once you put the revenue bond in place then as soon as the facility is operational you can shut down the phosphate removal plant on Hickman and that gives you two and a half million and you have avoided two and a half million at town branch and with that five million you might be able to service the bond and lower the rates back down I'm not sure exactly whether we can service the bond with money we don't spend we have to have a defined stream of income not savings because the savings would be general fund savings in that case then the revenue bond and we'd spend the money on something else like stormwaters I understand they don't issue bonds on that basis I don't believe and that's the hang-up I have with this whole concept from an environmental point of view it makes a whole lot of sense as I told you before maybe we ought to be doing some of this anyway and let's leave the whole question of pipelines out of it that from an environmental point of view we should be doing something like this so I'm not opposed to the concept of having wetlands I just don't think that it solves the specific problem at hand that we have to struggling we're struggling with right now yeah if we were to put a pipeline from a town branch around to the east side of town it would go right past Hamburg which is a purchaser of large quantities of irrigation water the water in the pipeline would be irrigation quality we might consider selling it to Hamburg and the golf course I'm I don't know that that's a real revenue stream I mean they have they have parallel systems in Florida I know graywater systems that they use for their their parks and their golf courses and things of that sort but they are two separate distinct systems that's right parallel to the normal drinking water systems I'm again not opposed to either to doing a study I just don't think this is the panacea that we we've been looking for in this short haul and with the pressures I don't see that this will stop the 160 million dollars spent by Kentucky American Water Company or any monies that might be spent by the local water company this is a third alternative for something in the future and again I would favor studying it but it just let's keep it separate and apart from the whole issue of our water supply in the quantities that we need it I was simply under the impression that a fee for a service could be identified as a revenue stream and one could issue a bond against that but I'm not a banker I don't know well the public may be a little wary of fees by the time we get there with all our EPA problems thank you you're welcome to other council members have questions I wanted to tag on to what councilmember Beard said I think this does have potential for future discussion and possibly implementation I know that when quite a few years ago when Southland Christian Church was expanding we discussed whether a constructed wetland could go out there to take some of the pressure off of that facility and so I think what you hit on councilmember beard is the is where we might want to focus and that is is there something for the future 30 40 years out where this might be something we could implement to help with phosphate removal and other other concerns so I'm kind of wondering David Gabbard if you have any comment and after if you do Darryl Bennett I wonder if you have any comments since you're our stormwater and engineering folks do you have any comment madam chair thank you very much when the report when I was asked or charged with putting together the concept what I was looking to do was various cities around the United States were looking at decentralization of their wastewater treatment and David you Cotter had asked we knew that as the city continued to grow we had two sewer treatment plants and the more we kept running high-pressure lines to those two street sewer treatment plants to keep all that expansion that was occurring and keep routing it to only two plants that that that's very expensive and it also can cause if we ever had a forced main blow we'd have some problems and so other cities had said okay we want to we'll go with some smaller treatment plants but when you go in to start putting in for five six small treatment plants in a city like Lexington which sits on a hill and then all of those will discharge into small headwater streams you will degrade or potentially degrade those streams Jim buckles at Commonwealth technology at the time now Tetra Tech have been working with the city of Phoenix Arizona to treat holistically their wastewater take that and inject that down into their aquifer as their way of the holistic recycling of water the other cities in Florida councilmember Baird you mentioned that you know you've got those two parallel systems that's one of the ways they are dealing with their water supply issue is you know here in Lexington our big problem is when we get into the irrigation months and we have to use irrigation water and if you had two parallel systems that were available that allowed for irrigation water but because of the comprehensive nature of this now granted 1999 was when I first looked at this there were numerous grants that were available for something that could be so innovative this is more than just sanitary sewer treatment this is more than just water supply this is community health and then if you throw in the possibility of working with Winchester which is facing the exact same problem that we are one treatment plant on a small headwater stream and look at a regional solution that opens up the possibilities of even more grants so those are the kinds of things if a feasibility study were done all of these different elements can be brought to the table and then have a better idea and a better understanding and interestingly enough the figures that Dr. Shore presented of 63 million Darrell David you caught her and I did a rough calculation in 1999 and estimated around 75 million do you know how much a feasibility study would cost I am not familiar with something of that scope we we have no idea what that would cost again Mr. buckles when when we started talking with him about the whole concept was you know very anxious to work with us even would have arranged for a for a trip out to Phoenix to show us exactly how their system is working so perhaps you know a request through Mr. Martin under our existing contract with Tetra Tech if it should we have any cash that they could give us a proposal of how much something of that would cost or at least an estimate of what they feel what it would cost of course it would be enough they would have to go out for open for open proposal but at least they could give us some idea what would it cost for them to give us an idea I would say Mr. buckles do you probably do that pro bono because they would be so excited at the opportunity to to present that so if you make that request to Mr. Martin I'm sure you'd be glad to do okay all right councilmember McCord has comments and then I want to also hear from Daryl Bennett if you have any comments no no comments okay thanks David okay again I want to echo what councilmember beard had said that I think take the the water the water supply element out of it and start talking about this is something that we incorporate into into our city and all of a sudden you really that's where we need to be these are the types of things that are like you say are innovative unfortunately can't be leaders but we can be good followers in doing what what has already been proven to be a good thing here's my problem though is I hear all the time about all this money that is out there and and it comes from different places and as someone who tracks that money down and in other places and has had had a decent track record of finding it in other other places I'm curious as to the homeland security money that you spoke of where it is what it exactly is who you know how do you go get that that type of thing because here's what I see inside our own government and this is where we trip over ourselves all the time is we know that there's monies out here and we talk about them a lot but we're not set up to handle that I mean we're not we have one grant writer we have a choke point within our own system we don't use the bluegrass ad to expand that we don't hire outside grant writers so while there may be all of this out there and we can talk all day long about you know we can just go get this money and so forth it's a whole lot harder to do that and so I think that the big thing is wherever that money is to identify it when it comes due where it is and for for the administration to to begin to look at internally and I think the management is probably going to point this out in a couple of weeks but but to look internally at the fact that we really don't have the ability we're not set up or we're not thinking very creatively along these lines the other thing that we we are not really good at in this government is is that when we do get grants and I've had this is a personal experience to go out and get grants that we didn't sit on for long periods of time in particular there's there's a grant that this government has sat on since 1997 it's 11 years of re-upping a grant for for something that should have been done again 11 years ago now other factors are playing in and you can't get that money out so I think that while as we're talking about these types of things these are the types of elements we need to be planning into our city definitely but if we're going to talk about well there's this money and we can just do it this way there's two elements of that one somebody's got to be able to go out and get it and identify it and go after it very hard and number two we have to take a very serious approach about implementation and we're not good at either one of those right now and so I think that just to be very brutally frank with you and with the people watching that if you know where some of these dollars are my encouragement would be to again inform this body inform the administration as far as the timing and that type of thing we have obviously friends in in Washington and friends in Frankfurt there be delighted to to help funnel money but I think secondarily that our divisions inside of government have to recognize that when this money comes they've got to be able to put this stuff into the ground because costs do go up every single year and and what we got a grant for last year may not be able to handle it this year so I think these are very practical problems that as the public listens and says well why don't you do with that gentleman said it seems so logical there are reasons why it's very difficult to get that done and in a body that's made up of part-time people that really want to see this stuff done or reliant on full-time staff to get this stuff done and at some point in time we have to just realize that we're not doing a good job of that so I guess my question back to you is on the slide that you showed Homeland Security grant question mark what is it in particular and and I'm very curious about that yes I have a citation for that the public health security and bioterrorism preparedness and response act of 2002 provided 89 million dollars to the US EPA for the improvement of the security of the nation's water supplies by reducing water system vulnerability to terrorist attacks and to enhance enhancing water infrastructure security that came to me as a citation from a 19 from a 2003 international conference on pipeline engineering and construction and I can give you the citation for that I recognize that that's out of date but that's what my citation was well and I thought my thinking my thought my thought process was if it was in the 2002 act there may very well be additional funding that has followed that and I think that again go ahead let's let's talk about this on camera because I think it's an educational process that the the people of Lexington need to understand is that there's 89 million dollars in the US so you split that 50 states it's just a you know 1.5 million when you call Homeland Security in Frankfurt one of their their chief areas of spending the monies that they control is in the area of communication devices for first responders that is the number one thing across the US because of what happened in 9-11 you have a situation here where after after 9-11 if those who remember a Kentucky American water there was always a police car parked right in front of the gate because of this situation of trying to make sure nobody poisoned the water and things like that I would be very curious as to see if that money is still there number one number two how we as a government would write that grant based on this how we can how we prove that this is securing our water and so forth now it's doing something that we need to do and David I'd be happy for you to speak to that but I think that that's something that again hey there's money out here we can go get that well we have to be a whole lot more creative and innovative and how we ask for that money especially when it has to do with water security okay to address your first point about government and how we hang on to our money sometimes and I'm guilty of that one project the city of Arcadia California has addressed that I believe I don't know if that was their particular reason for doing it but they set up the Arcadia Marsh as a 501 c3 and that organization received the wastewater from the city of Arcadia cleaned it up and then discharged it to the ocean they weren't using it as a recycle but that was one of the earlier constructed wetlands for municipal waste treatment that I investigated and so by using a 501 c3 organization and quasi-governmental organization they can move a little quicker in relation to homeland security I believe it was January of 1999 there was a oil pipeline break and that oil went a few miles down lower Howard's Creek there was snow on the ground I've still got the pictures on file because of the viscosity of that oil was so low that oil did not I mean it made it to the mouth of lower Howard's Creek but they were able to stop it from going into the Kentucky River should that have occurred during warmer months it is highly likely that that oil would have gotten into the Kentucky River and it is highly probable that Kentucky American would have had to have with withdrawn much less water if not shut down water a recirculation idea where all water from the true treatment plants or three or four treatment plants that was what I didn't get to mention them to go there there are lots of elements to this and it is covered in that concept report if that water goes to a final polishing pond a final effluent pond and then is discharged the Kentucky River if the Kentucky River becomes contaminated through whatever means you can 21st century we can flip a switch and that water be diverted over to the headwaters of or into the Jacobson reservoir and be used in an emergency situation as a recirculation in Lexington and yeah it's kind of mind-boggling to think that well you know a couple days ago or a few days ago that was my toilet water that's tough to think about but it's either that or in two days we were potentially run out of water and so it's a very it's a very serious situation and so I think from that angle alone that is where the homeland security the source water protection that is where that can be very very valid again these are all things that could be encompassed and incorporated into a feasibility study and to look at these things there are there are lots of elements here I think madam chair my point is is that obviously we need it that it should be incorporated into our planning that it is innovative that it is it is something that that we can model after places that do it I don't think that it necessarily comes in it doesn't have to mix with the water supply issue I think it is it's just common sense type things but I think that the other point I would make is for people watching that that we have to step up to the plate and implement we're getting ready to take on the challenge of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of fixes and and we have projects that have languished because we can't implement we don't seem to be able to do that and so I think that at the end of the day when a citizen takes the time that you have and I appreciate the time that you have taken to do this that we need to take that very seriously we need to try and find every creative way we can do it but I think that it is a challenge upon our staff here at LFU CG and the administration to recognize that we've got some things that are broke that are that don't allow us to do that and I think that this conversation allows us to call that out in the open and we can do a whole lot better and I would love to see us really focus on some of those areas so I appreciate madam chair you allow me to kind of talk through that but I think that folks watching I have become very concerned about water and in all facets and with anything else we we know that over the last number of years but I appreciate your time and bring this forward and allowing us to talk through some of these things councilmember Crosby thanks madam chair I'd like to make a motion for mr. buckles to give us a cost of what it would of what it would cost us to do a feasibility study by our next meeting thank you okay I have a motion and a second to ask mr. buckles what what it would cost for us to do a feasibility study who would ask him Charlie Martin okay we'll get that to Charlie Martin are there any comments about the motion questions all those in favor mr. beer did you want to speak to the motion or do you want to speak after the motion okay after the motion will those in favor please do your electronic vote make your electronic vote okay it looks like we have approval to ask mr. buckles to do to come tell us how much it would cost to do a feasibility study for this and so that motion passes mr. beard thank you again madam chair I want to expand a little bit on what councilmember McCord said and it will take some some process internally to get this done does it make any sense for us to form links like groups within the Planning Commission Planning Commission planning committee to actually go on site and see some of these innovative things that are happening elsewhere we count a lot on going to the Chamber of Commerce annual trip but that's pretty much set the agenda pretty much by Commerce Lexington as to what we see and why we're there and there are many places that we could go and and find out firsthand and we need to create some kind of budget maybe to do that and keep that in our mind as we go into the budget cycle in my in my opinion thank you I think there was some excitement at one end of the horseshoe about going to Florida to look at the wetlands but that's a really good point perhaps be for August of course perhaps once we have the idea of how much the feasibility study will cost maybe we can look at that I think that's a good idea and there are several in Kentucky so we wouldn't have to go as far as Florida so any other comments from council members or the public is there anyone in the chamber who would like to comment on the issue Dr. Shore and Mrs. Shore I thank you for coming with your presentation and Mr. Gabbard thank you for your comments council members our last issue is to and just for your information before you leave what will happen to this is next week this motion will get reported out to the full council for approval or for a vote and so it'll kind of progress through that way to the full council council members if you'll turn to the back page of your packet please this is our list of pending issues in the committee and is there any change or motion to take anything out of committee or anything at all in reference to our list of issues if not I'll entertain a motion to adjourn do I hear a second all those in favor say aye thank you very much meeting is adjourned