# Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee - June 18, 2024 > Auto-transcribed civic record · June 18, 2024 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/6142 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/6142?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2024-06-18 - **Last revised**: June 18, 2024 - **Length**: 8,821 words - **Speakers**: Chair > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee met on June 18, 2024, at 1:00 PM in the Council Chamber of the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, with Chair Sheehan presiding. The committee addressed three agenda items, all informational in nature, focusing on environmental sustainability and waste management practices in Lexington. The meeting included a review of current recycling practices and an exploration of the city's sustainability options, along with consideration of items that had been referred to the committee for review. The committee took one vote during the session and heard no public comments. All three agenda items were handled as informational presentations, indicating the meeting served primarily as a briefing and discussion session rather than a decision-making forum. The focus on recycling and sustainability reflects the committee's ongoing work to evaluate and potentially improve Lexington's environmental programs and policies. ## Attendance **Present:** • Chair Sheehan • Council Member Legris • Council Member Gray • Vice Mayor Wu • Council Member Sevigny • Council Member Lynch **Absent:** • Commissioner Albright **Late:** • None Six members were present for the meeting, with one absence recorded. ## Votes and Decisions The committee took one recorded vote during the June 18, 2024 meeting. **Motion 0643-24: Approval of April 30, 2024 Committee Summary** [timestamp: 00:02] The committee voted to approve the summary from their April 30, 2024 meeting. The motion passed by voice vote, with no recorded opposition or abstentions. The names of the member who made the motion and the member who seconded it were not captured in the meeting record. ## Budget and Financial Actions The meeting addressed one significant financial item related to renewable energy initiatives for the community. The board discussed a $1,000,000 grant for the Solarize Lexington program, which is specifically designed to assist low to moderate income homeowners with solar energy installations. This substantial grant represents a major investment in making renewable energy more accessible to residents who might otherwise face financial barriers to adopting solar technology. The Solarize Lexington program grant would provide financial assistance to qualifying homeowners based on income criteria, helping to expand solar energy adoption across different economic segments of the community. This initiative aligns with broader sustainability goals while addressing equity concerns in renewable energy access. No specific vendor, recipient organization, or resolution number was identified in the available meeting materials for this grant allocation. The discussion focused on the program's structure and its target demographic of low to moderate income households within the community. This $1,000,000 commitment represents a significant budgetary allocation toward renewable energy infrastructure and community sustainability initiatives, demonstrating the municipality's investment in both environmental goals and economic equity for residents seeking to reduce their energy costs through solar installations. ## Review of Recycling Practices The committee reviewed current recycling practices during agenda item 0292-19, with Chair Sheehan leading the presentation [timestamp: 00:10]. The discussion focused on evaluating existing recycling procedures and identifying areas for potential improvement. Chair Sheehan presented information about current recycling practices to the committee members. This agenda item served as an informational presentation, providing committee members with an overview of the recycling program's current status. The review was designed to assess the effectiveness of existing practices and explore opportunities for enhancement. The presentation concluded without requiring formal action from the committee, as the item was designated for informational purposes only. The discussion provided a foundation for understanding current recycling operations and may inform future policy decisions or program modifications. ## Explore Lexington's Sustainability Options [timestamp: 00:20] Jada Grigs presented updates on Lexington's sustainability initiatives during agenda item 0499-21. The presentation focused on the town's ongoing environmental efforts, with particular emphasis on the Solarize Lexington program and broader climate action planning. Grigs provided information about the current status of sustainability programs within the community, highlighting progress made through the Solarize Lexington initiative, which aims to increase solar energy adoption among residents and businesses. The presentation also covered the development and implementation of climate action plans designed to address environmental challenges at the local level. The agenda item served as an informational update, allowing officials and the public to understand the scope and progress of Lexington's environmental initiatives. No specific decisions or votes were taken during this presentation, as it was designed to keep stakeholders informed about ongoing sustainability efforts and future planning considerations. This presentation represents part of Lexington's continued commitment to environmental stewardship and sustainable development practices within the community. ## Items Referred to Committee [timestamp: 01:50] Chair Sheehan presented agenda item 0646-24 regarding items that have been referred to the committee for consideration. This was an informational discussion item where the committee reviewed matters that had been forwarded to them from other bodies or processes. The session served as a procedural review of the committee's current workload and upcoming responsibilities. Chair Sheehan led the discussion, providing an overview of the items that required the committee's attention and consideration. This agenda item was informational in nature, with no specific action taken or decisions made during the discussion. The review allowed committee members to understand their current obligations and prepare for future deliberations on the referred matters. --- ## Decisions - **0643-24** — passed (0-0): Approval of April 30, 2024 Committee Summary --- ## Full transcript The Thank you. ¶¶ Welcome everyone. I will now call to order the June 18th, 2024 meeting of the Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee. Thank you all for being here. our first item on our agenda for today is the approval of the april 30th 2024 committee summary hold on i i want to um say thank you to my vice chair council member lagree for um holding for chairing the meeting last time because i was very ill so i appreciate that so thank you Are there any additions or corrections to the committee summary? Okay, I don't see any, so is there a motion to approve? So moved, second. Okay, I have a motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion? Okay, I don't see anyone logged in. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that motion passes. Thank you all. The next item on our agenda was going to be our recycling update, but for my colleagues and members of the public, Commissioner Albright was unable to be with us today. Our thoughts are with her and her family. But she has asked that this item be postponed to a future committee agenda. So right now we'll be looking at December for that. But you'll see it on the schedule when we are able to get that rescheduled. Our next presentation on the agenda will be our sustainability update. And we have Jada Griggs, the Sustainability Program Manager Senior, to provide this presentation for us. Thank you, Ms. Griggs. Thank you, Chair Sheehan. Thank you committee for the opportunity to be here today to discuss our sustainability program. I am Jada Walker-Griggs, program manager senior in the division of environmental services. And so we have a lot to cover and so I'm going to get started here. Just want to give you a brief background on Empire Lexington. The plan for a resilient community is our sustainability plan. It was initially done over a three-year period. You see there 2009 through 2012. It was facilitated by the program manager senior at the time through environmental services. This plan was supported by council in 2012. You see there the focus areas, but the main goal was to reduce energy efficiency. The five sectors there, residential, industrial, commercial, and institutional, land use, food, and agriculture, transportation, and waste were the focus at the time. This plan was meant to be flexible, to be updated as time goes by, voluntary measures. The goal was to reduce energy usage by at least 1%. We know now that that is not enough for what we need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and our footprint. So when I started just over two years ago, one of the first things that I did, because I had the pleasure of being part of the Empire Lexington Plan, the working group actually to assist the program manager senior at the time, And we do have some members here that were on that initial, were instrumental in the first Empire Lexington plan. But in 2023, actually 2022, I started looking for members who were previously involved in this because as a sustainability program manager, the sustainability plan, in my mind, is where you start. It is your foundation to where you do your work. And so I pursued updates. So when I was at summits, workshops, I was on a virtual training on the table. I would see some of the same members that were in Empire Lexington for the 2012. And so what I did is I reached out to them, asked them if they would be what we call the core team members of the group. They were the ones that are also co-chairs of the sectors. And we came together. One of the things that I wanted to do kind of off the bat was become a lead, leads for city certification. So that was work to increase sustainability, but also our climate resiliency. And so we did public engagement July through August of 2023. You will see that the plan has the same name. We have the purpose, and that is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and become more resilient. But the sector's changed. And that is because we elected to align the sustainability plan with Leeds for Cities. So even though some of the sectors are there, the names are a little different, but they are still there. But we did have two new ones, and that's water efficiency and quality of life, which includes justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. So speaking of Leeds for Cities, it's the leadership in energy and environmental design. Lexington was selected as one of 13 cities to participate in the leadership cohort program. It's sponsored by the U.S. Green Building Council. You'll see the other cities there. And so when you think of LEED, most people think of building design, but the U.S. Green Building Council is a global leader in green buildings, but also their vision is that the buildings in the communities will regenerate and sustain the health and the vitality of our life. And so participated this past year in a peer-to-peer networking group. There was technical assistance and then we also had access to educational resources. The fees for the U.S. Green Building Council membership were waived and so that was $5,000 that did did not come out of the city budget. So what we're doing now is, and we're very close to getting our certification. What we have to do is to submit all our documents and our narratives for preliminary review, which we expect to do by the end of the month. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Chrissy Balding, who is the environmental initiative specialist. When I first started the lead for City's Journey, my goal when I went to the Empire Lexington Group was just to get the certification. That was it. Chrissy says, oh, we can get gold. Yes, let's do it. I will say we're at 59 points. We need 60 to get gold, so we're really digging deep, trying to find more points. But we are working toward that and expect to celebrate that soon. Solarize Lexington program we partnered again this year this is the second year that we partnered with the Kentucky Solar Energy Society to provide a vetted process for our residents I'm sure many of you if not all of you have heard of some really players in this industry that are going about things the wrong way and scamming residents and that's something we did not want to happen so So through this program, we vetted the installers for the residents, and we are promoting solar and encouraging them to go through the Solarize Lexington program. It is open only to Lexington and Fayette County residents. Even though residential is our primary focus, it is open to small businesses, nonprofits, and also places of worship. I'd like to thank you again this year for approving a million dollar grant for low to moderate income homeowners, less than 80% of the area medium income. The program launched on March the 12th and the enrollment will end on August 9th. I'd like to thank the Dan Yellen Community and Resident Services for their part in this were going through the qualification process for income. So thank them for that. Here's some stats from 2023. We ended up with 76 installs. 42 of those were grant recipients. There was some funding left from 2023 that rose over to 2024. As of June 4, those are the numbers that we had. 21 grant approvals have been signed. I will say I now have 32. Of the $1,800,000 I've been marked 783,000. So I'm down to the last 305,000. So if you know any of your constituents in the area, if you please, we'll get the word out. We do have a few that are still going through the process but we do have funding available. I do have a quote there from one of our recipients that I thought you'd like to see and I will read it. I'd like to thank you and everyone else involved in Solarize Lexington program. What a wonderful gift. The staff I worked with at your end were great. Everything they said what happened did and was very timely. The crew from solar energies were professional and very easy to work with. I'm looking forward to getting my first electric bill. This program makes me proud of our great city. So the next thing I'd like to go over is our climate pollution reduction planning grant. When I started this process, knowing that we were getting our 2021 greenhouse gas emissions inventory. We were moving toward getting an emissions reduction plan so you know where you are, you know where you need to go, and that plan helps us get there. It's our roadmap. And the thing is, I was really interested in the implementation grant because I felt like we've got the inventory, we'll have a plan, we need funding, right? And so, but But I found out that in order to even apply for the grant, for the implementation grant, you had to go through the process for the planning grants. And so we did put in, and Lexington being the largest municipality in our metropolitan statistical area, you will see highlighted on the screen the other five counties that are part of our MSA. We did receive just under a million dollars for this plan and through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to create a priority and comprehensive climate action plans for that regional area. And again, this is to help reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and then also other harmful air pollutants. I will say that the funding for this was not competitive. They initially put this announcement out for states who were guaranteed to get $3 million. And then also the first 69 cities by population could get $1 million. Lexington and FED MSA was at 109th. So we had quite a bit of way to get there. So we, I did reach out to the state to see if they were going to apply for the funding. They opted not to, which meant then we had to pursue it, and we did. And so we had with the other cities and counties and started this process, and so we did receive the funding. First thing with this, timelines. I know anyone that worked on this process with us, we have great partnership with planning and we have other members on our team with environmental services, but we had to do a priority climate action plan. It was due March 1st of this year. We received our award notification in September. We did not receive the funding until November, and so we were running full speed ahead to get this plan done, which I'm happy to report that we did. It is on our website, on our sustainability website, so I invite you to check that plan out if you will. But we had to get simplified greenhouse gas emissions inventory for the MSA, had to put together some implementation ready measures, quantify those greenhouse gas emissions reductions, figure out who the authority to implement those implementation ready measures, also do a benefits analysis for low income to disadvantaged communities, and I will say that that is defined through EPA and do some stakeholder engagement. That's the first plan. The second plan is the comprehensive climate action plan. From that, you build on the simplified emissions inventory that was conducted in the priority plan, which they call the PCAP, and do a comprehensive inventory. And so we will then quantify the comprehensive greenhouse gas reductions targeted by sector. We'll do a benefits analysis. We will also do an analysis to include low income, the disadvantaged communities. Again, there will be pretty extensive stakeholder engagement and outreach. I know when we did the priority piece, we were really in rush mode and I'm very pleased with what we came up with with the short amount of time that we have. But this time you will have plenty of opportunities to get the word out with this input on the comprehensive piece. The authority to implement is also part of this and then to see what additional funding is out there as well. So, I mentioned the implementation grant. That application was due on April the 1st. I'm happy to report that with the help of the consultant, we were able to take those measures from the priority piece and submit an implementation grant. I am pleased with the grant and looking forward to hopefully getting some good news from EPA in July. This grant then will help us help provide funds for greenhouse gas emission reduction measures that will significantly reduce the accumulation of greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 and then beyond. Of course, this helps us meet what the to support the net zero that we have for 2050. And so part of this then will show us what areas are the most responsible for greenhouse gas emissions and how we go about the decarbonization process across those. I mentioned the ready measures that we use and here they are. So basically it was what are you already doing, what is already out there that you can pick up and move somewhere else. So we selected tree canopy. We know how important that is here. Is our time up? Yes, how much time? We had one presentation that dropped off today, so we do have a little bit more time. How much more time do you think you need for this one? Just a few minutes. I have one more slide and then times for questions. Okay, let's say three minutes to finish up and then we'll do questions after that. Okay. Thank you. And so we're already working really hard for our tree canopy. What we will be able to do is to help increase that tree canopy in our MSA. The Solarize Lexington program will be extended to homeowners in the other communities. The weatherization program, though, will be for homeowners and renters as well, or low to moderate income. We did put in support for LexTran, the electrical bus charge, charging canopy project to help provide cover and weatherization for their electrical fleet, charging infrastructure, parking stalls, and a generator to back up when power is out. And then, I have received over the past year several emails asking us about an EV study. And so you'll see here the help of planning, Chris from planning was like, let's take a look at this. This will give us a regional EV vehicle charging study. And so just some highlights for the last two years. Solarize Lexington for 2023 and 2024, we've had a million dollar grant for low to moderate income. Empire Lexington plan, which is our sustainability plan, not just for the urban county government, community-wide is in the update process. We will be before you on August the 20th to present Empire Lexington. The 2021 greenhouse gas emissions inventory community-wide in our municipal greenhouse gas inventory will be presented next by Mrs. Abby Terry, the lead for city certification. We have also undertaken the climate pollution reduction planning grants for the MSA, which includes the other five communities. We put in an application for implementation grant. We have our Green Trek Sustainability Business Program, where we have 13 new ones and 10 renewals. That's for our sustainability for our businesses. We have partnered with the Kentucky Pickleball Association to bring pickleball recycling to the city. And then I mentioned our environmental issue specialist has been on the job for six months. Actually, I believe her probation for their six months is up today. Yeah. So this concludes my portion of sustainability. You see our webpage there, but you know you can just type, go to our webpage and type in sustainability, and you'll see all the great work we've been doing for the last couple of years. And I'm ready for questions. Thank you, Ms. Griggs. If you want to sign in, colleagues, I will, if you have comments or questions, Councilwoman Gray. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for your presentation, as always. Very well done. As usual, that's what you do. I have a question regarding the Solarize Lexington program. As it relates from year to year, this time last year, do we have as many, how many, do you know how many applications we had for the Solarize program? Well, I will say last year, I'm not really certain how many we had today, but I will tell you that by the end of the program, we had over 600. Right now we have 80-something. Now, I will say with it being the first year for the program, I'm told that there's a lot of excitement around it. It actually got picked up by all the TV media, which I believe helped us. And so we don't have nearly as many as we did last year. That said, we still have 82, and they're kind of trickling in. So any help we can get to promote that, I would greatly appreciate it. We hear you. We will make sure we put it in our newsletters. Thank you. For sure. Also, could you tell me more about this pickleball recycling? I would like more info. Well, that was something that came out of the cohort program from the U.S. Green Building Council. One of the communities in Florida said, you know, I heard about this pickleball recycling. And, you know, I perked up. I was like, oh, wow, we're getting more and more pickleball. Of course, that's something that we can use here. So part of sustainability is if there's a way for us to keep something out of our waste stream, that's one of the initiatives that we take on. And so Chrissy actually was the lead on that and we worked with Parks and Recreation and have the partnership with the association for that. So they, we have containers at the Kirk Levington, Kirk Levington to start out. And so they are going to gather the pickleballs, get them ready to ship back off of that. There is some cost associated with that that I will be paying for out of my budget for it. So, yes. So any pickleballs that you have that are busted that you can't use, please take there. And then we will see about branching off to other locations. Gotcha. Thank you. And thank you, Chair. Vice Mayor Will. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Ms. Griggs, for your presentation. the pickleball recycling is right here with me. We've thrown a few of our crack balls over there in Kirk-Levington already. Question about the climate pollution reduction grant. Did you, in your presentation, did you say an amount of what that grant was? It was just under $1 million. Now, I didn't mention the cost for the, or what we put in for the implementation grant. Because if we get that funding, then that's money that we can spend on other measures that would save our budget. So we put in just under $50 million for that, which was Tier D. I wrote some numbers down here to just say that of the almost $50 million, the city of Lexington and Fayette County then would have $27,634,094.53 of that. But it does also include $11 million for LexTran. Thank you for that. In terms of the Solarize program, are we projected to use up all the money for the low-income recipients? Yes. We have, I think, five that's still going through the process. There's 305,000 remaining. And so I do not believe that we'll have any trouble. It's on a first-come, first-served basis, so I'm kind of letting them get through that process before I push it even more. But please go ahead and start with that. They could look on the website and see exactly what the income guidelines are. And then they would need to call community and resident services to go through the process. Thank you. And in one of the last slides you talked about sort of upcoming plans and ideas. One of them was expanding the Solarize program to other counties in our MSA. Can you talk to me a little bit about what that would look like and why we are sort of moving in that direction versus potentially expanding the program here in Fayette County? reason that it would be that is because the funding would get it would not just be for us it would be for the msa so uh... one of the goals for the kentucky solar energy society is to go into other communities to do uh... solarize the city of louisville the metro government has one and they have six or eight other cities uh... surrounding them that are in the years Frankfort has one in Danville, and so they have kind of branched out around them. This will give us an opportunity to branch off into the other MSAs, but we would be required to if we get the implementation grant because it includes them. We are the only one, actually, that is just focused on Lexington and Fayette County. And the reason I did that is because of all the other things that I was working on. I was like I can't really focus on anyone else. And so it's just because the implementation grant then will require work in the MSA. Gotcha. And my last question is about tree canopy. I think we're doing a lot of really great work towards that, and I know we have that grant program that we're putting out money for people to plant trees. Do you have any other thoughts or ideas about other strategies to increase tree canopy? Because every time I think about tree canopy, it feels like, at least on paper, the most simple way to combat climate change and work on sustainability. And so I just wonder if there are other ways that you've thought of that we can kind of expand that work. I haven't really thought of other ways to expand it because I defer to Heather Wilson, who's a program manager senior for our urban forestry program. and I know we have Lex Loves Trees. Gross Trees. I always say that wrong. That's why I turned. Lex Gross Trees that is actually working on, part of that is education. But if we get the implementation grant, we already have it set up that reflects the type of trees for our area. we know through our canopy program what areas are best to target and so we would be able then to possibly build on what the Lex grow trees initiative there you know they can't fund everything but they've had a significant interest but we would be able to take the funding from that and actually branch off from there so I think I feel like they have a a great plan for that through that initiative and that there will be again people who were not able to obtain funding that we could potentially be able to fund if we get the implementation grant right thank you thank you chair council members thank you chair and thanks so much for the presentation i really appreciate it my questions kind of revolve a little bit around the these primary climate action plan the comprehensive climate action plan and the climate pollution reduction implementation grant and i i just um since um since carbon neutrality is important to me and it's in it's in our comprehensive plan i also realize that at 2050 if i'm lucky to be here i'll be 87 years old and i'll be lucky to celebrate that with whoever's left here. Just give me, I think quickly trying to understand it, the primary climate action plan is that's a simplified greenhouse gas inventory and that's done by just using common numbers for our geography for the way Kentucky utilities creates electricity or weigh the state of Kentucky as an overall entity? Because I know there's, when I've looked at that, it seems like it's very, it's so dependent on what the inputs that we're stuck with, basically. Is that kind of correct? That was for the priority piece. What really helped us to be able to pull this off, and Abby might be able to speak a little to that, is the fact that we went through the process to do a very detailed and comprehensive one for Lexington and Fayette County, so a community-wide one. When we move into the comprehensive piece, which we are in now because the priority piece is behind us, we have already sent correspondences out to the other communities, letting them know that we were going to reach out to the utilities. We're happy to do that on your behalf, but if you choose to do it on your own, let us know by a certain date. So we received some notices back saying we're happy for you to do it. So we will have more detailed numbers because we will be able to get that information from the utilities. So we basically are drilling down a little bit deeper, right? We are. In the comprehensive, and so that's funded and we're doing that? It is funded and we are doing that as part of this process. I will say also that this will allow us to be able to look at, because part of this is going to be, okay, how do you reduce this? How do you go about it? This will allow us through this grant that's being paid through EPA to have that roadmap that we can pull Lexington and Fayette County out. because we were in the process of creating an emissions reduction plan. So that would show us, here's what we have, here's what we need to do to reduce our usage. And we had to put that on hold because of the aggressiveness that we had to be to get the priority piece together. So we are now ready to work with the comprehensive side of things and we can drill down. And we will have those implementation measures for Lexington and Fayette County as well. Okay. And then the Climate Pollution Reduction Implementation Grant is a big, that's the bigger number. Yes. So that in general it sounds like, I mean, it's a large number that you can throw larger volume of dollars at specific things. Yes. Like when you said Lex Tran was about. 11 million. 11 million. It's probably to revamp their, the vehicles that they're using or whatever, right? It's for their canopy. This and Chris could speak to that more. And if you would allow, Chair, I'll let Chris speak to that. But then there's a big portion that's ours that I'm sure we would throw at it. Different big numbers to try to knock them down. But go on, Chris. Thank you. Right. So the Lex Tran project is really to increase their capability to accommodate additional battery electric vehicles. Because right now they have a limit to how many they can support, recharge. Part of this issue is providing shelter for the buses because in temperature extremes, their operations degrade whether it's really hot or really cold. And so this helps make sure that you have a consistent operation of those vehicles. This also gives us an opportunity to put a solar array there. It doesn't help with recharging, but it does help offset some of the electrical use for the administration maintenance facility there. Let me also mention that there is a hope sometime after the November elections that there is another pot of money that comes out from the federal government for implementation activities associated with the comprehensive plan. And I'm out of time, but that was my next question, if I could just ask it. Can you sign back in? I can. Thank you. Council Member LeGree. Sorry. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Chair. Sure, thank you Jada for this presentation and for all the work that you've done. I know that you haven't been in this position for that long, but you've generated a lot of momentum and we all know that this is urgent work and you and your staff and I know many partners who are here in the room- Yes. Have done a lot to move our city forward and we really, really appreciate that. I think in speaking to one of the earlier questions, you talked a little bit about regional connections. And I was just curious about whether or not you workshop ideas or work with other municipalities to learn more about what they're doing or the funding sources they're applying for or best practices or trends for climate action. Is that something that you're involved with? When I started the process for the Climate Pollution Reduction Planning Grant, I worked closely with Semeda in Louisville. And then also Bowling Green, because we were the only three MSAs to submit for that grant. And so we started from the beginning just bouncing ideas back and forth with each other. And I've looked at their website and seen some of the things that they have been doing. And also, Ollie in Cincinnati, which is really why I was like, okay, they both have leads for city certification, we need it. So that's why I started that. So I'm also involved in the regional US Sustainability Directors Group. And so I constantly listen. One of the things we do is report what we're doing and figure out, oh, they're doing that. Let's see how we might be able to do that as well. So that is part of the process. That's great to hear, and I know that you're building staff, but you've almost been an office of one. At the beginning of your time, and we really, really appreciate all of the ways in which you've re-energized some of the work that's been going on, And really made Lexington competitive to do what we need to do as a city to be more environmentally sustainable. And I know there are a lot more opportunities that you'll be engaging with initiatives like this. And I'm excited for the Empower in Lexington updates because I know that's a huge, huge deal. You talked a little bit about promotion and having council help get the word out about great programs like Solarize Lexington. Is there anything else that we can do to help support you and your work and or to get the word out there at this point? Well, I just want to say if we can get the implementation grant, be significant funding that we will be able to use and again we'll free up funding to do other implementation measures to get to our goal so I will say that I appreciate the support of administration and also counsel for the sustainability program but I have no idea of knowing exactly how much the implementation measures will cost but it will be significant and so those are some things that we can think of as we move forward and as we work and then my colleague James Bush who's our energy manager I know he's been working hard on on some ways to reduce some things internally so the support you know as we come to you with potential numbers for consideration. We would appreciate your support for that. If there's a way for us to make things happen, we most definitely need to, because as you mentioned at this point, it's critical. Thank you. Again, thank you for all of your work on this and to everybody in the room who's been involved really appreciate it and thank you chair that's it from me councilmember lynch thank you chair thank you for your presentation and the work that you have already done and are currently doing and will do and my question is regarding the solarized lexington program i just took a glance at the 2023 impact report it looked like i only had one installation in my council district for 2023 and i was just curious has that number improved for 2024 and i know the application window still open we haven't actually looked by council district we have so you review the map that was on there yes um i have not looked at that yet it's really something that we uh typically do at the did at the end okay um but i certainly want to i know and i actually have seen in some newsletters reports and online so if you could just continue to to push that potential out there for us because renewable energy source it also even if for the grants we're taking we're taking care of the grants of 100% but it is something that even though it's costly upfront it will pay for itself and continue to pay for itself for years to come 20 30 40 years thank you I will continue to to remind my neighbors about the opportunity so thank you I was just curious I want us to improve. So thank you so much. Thank you. And Councilmember Savigny. Yeah, thank you. And thank you again. My follow-up was just, is there an award, like, I would imagine there's an award kind of date or range for the implementation grant. When is? They say July. Okay. All right. That's what they say. But I will let you know that they have continued to push back awards because they had so many grants out there and so much work they're also moving pretty quickly to get through those I will the start the kickoff for it is October so hopefully July will know and you know assuming that there's more and more opportunities like this do you feel like you have enough support to kind of do all the applications and do everything that needs to get done? Because it's a fair amount of money. It's not insignificant. It is a fair amount of money. And, you know, I will need to rely on consultants as we have through this planning process. We, the environmental services team is phenomenal. So I have significant support. that said they are very stretched thinly i believe so we're we're doing significant work with the noun two people with chrissy and so if there is an opportunity to get additional staff or someone else i would definitely welcome that thank you thanks so much i appreciate chair thank you miss griggs i don't see anyone else signed in so i i do want to um commend you for the list of accomplishments that you have you know achieved in just the last two years there's a lot there and i appreciate your persistence on following up with these grant programs working with these other communities we've been working a lot on regionalism within economic development and this is another way that we can all work together to kind of accomplish goals for our Bluegrass region. So thank you for that. And I'm hopeful that we get the implementation grant. But someone said, well, you just have all these plans. Well, yes, but you have to have a plan. And so when someone comes to us and says, do you have a plan? We can say yes, and here it is. And we will have our own plan and then we also will have the regional msa plan so we're ready yeah and i think that really helps make us competitive later like when we saw the arpa funding come through and we had the parks master plan to rely on we had very clear objectives that we could apply funding to that had already been part of a strategy that was created so i appreciate this work thank you my pleasure and so at this time i will introduce to you abby terry she is a professional engineer with the city's consultant tetra tech and she is going to present for you our 2021 community-wide and municipal greenhouse gas emissions inventory so abby welcome thank you so it's just obviously Thank you, Jada. I'd also like to thank the chair and the committee for having me here today. I'm excited to present the results of the 2021 community wide and municipal greenhouse gas inventories. There are three key takeaways. Number one, Lexington's per capita or per person emissions have declined by approximately 26% since the city's first greenhouse gas inventory. Number two, energy emissions comprise almost 70% of the community-wide inventory. And number three, LFUCG operations contribute about 1.5% to the inventory. So the following slides will summarize the methodologies and details of the inventory. As Jada previously mentioned, the Empower Lexington plan was developed from 2009 to 2012 and included the city's first greenhouse gas inventory. was for calendar year 2007. it was updated several times after that but prior to this last update the most recent inventory was for calendar year 2013. it was important to the empower lexington committee to have a current inventory to include in the updated plan so they selected calendar year 2021 and they wanted to look at both community-wide emissions meaning all of fayette county and those that lfucg were responsible for So before we get into the results, we need to do some groundwork. What is a greenhouse gas? Greenhouse gases trap heat in the Earth's atmosphere, and some of this activity is necessary for Earth to be livable, but the increased concentration of these gases, primarily due to human activities, contributes to climate change, which results in sea level rise, rising temperatures, shifting weather patterns, and other environmental impacts. When we talk about efforts to mitigate climate change, it's often associated with the reduction of these greenhouse gases. So now we know what a greenhouse gas is, we can talk about what a greenhouse gas inventory is. And it's a systematic and comprehensive accounting of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with human activities for a specific geographic area, sector, or entity. Governments and businesses often create greenhouse gas inventories to assess their contribution to climate change, emission reduction targets and track progress in mitigating climate impacts. Just a few more definitions to cover here. Global warming potential is simply a measure of how potent a greenhouse gas is in relation to carbon dioxide, which has a global warming potential of one. So if another greenhouse gas has a global warming potential of 28, that means it's 28 times as potent as carbon dioxide. Next we have metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents or metric tons of co2e and this is just the units that we measure greenhouse gas emissions in but it's a standardized unit that allows us to aggregate various greenhouse gases into one number the next two are really different ways we look at or categorize emissions and scopes is really about where emissions take place which we'll break down here in a few slides sectors and subsectors is dependent upon which methodology you're using and in our case sectors would include energy waste transportation industry and agriculture and then you can even further break down those categories into subsectors such as commercial residential industrial so on and so forth finally sources are those granular activities that are actually producing the greenhouse gas emissions so with all that in mind we are able to talk about how emissions are calculated and it's really as simple as taking activity data such as kilowatt hours of electricity usage or vehicle miles traveled, multiplying it by an emission factor which is just a conversion factor that tells us how much greenhouse gas is emitted per unit of activity times that global warming potential we previously defined to get our total and metric tons of CO2E. So before we look at the 2021 results, we'll take a look at the results from the first greenhouse gas inventory conducted in 2007. It was conducted using a popular software at the time known as Clean Air and Climate Protection Software. It included scope one and two emissions and totaled 6,777,136 metric tons of CO2e. One thing we like to do when conducting greenhouse gas inventories is normalize it with population. So when you do that for 2007, it equals about 23.4 metric tons of CO2e generated per capita or per person. And then one thing of note, at the time municipal emissions totaled approximately 2% of the inventory. And you can see how emissions broke out by sector there on the right hand side of the screen. If you're interested in additional detail on the 2007 inventory, there is a section on it in the 2012 Empower Lexington plan. For this inventory, we use the global protocol for community scale greenhouse gas inventories. a globally recognized protocol that ensures consistent reporting between cities and allows for the aggregation of inventories. It includes the sectors listed here on the screen as well as scope one, two, and three emissions which we'll break down now. So if you look at the figure on the right hand side of the screen in the green box, the green box is the geographic city boundary, so in our case Lexington. So scope one emissions are emissions occurring in the boundary or in Lexington. Scope two emissions are strictly related to electricity consumption. And scope three emissions are called indirect or out of boundary emissions. So they occur outside of Lexington, but are a result or consequence of our activities and behaviors in Lexington. So as we've previously stated, we used calendar year 2021 for both the community wide and municipal inventories. The Fayette County border was used for the community wide inventory. Then activities and sources attributed to LFUCG operations were included in the community wide inventory and then also pulled out as a subset so we could see directly what LFUCG was responsible for. Okay, there's a lot of data on this slide, but I'll just reiterate the three key takeaways. Number one, our per capita or per person emissions have declined about 26% since that first inventory in 2007. So for 2021, it was 18.1 metric tons of CO2e per capita. Number two, you can see energy taking up that giant piece of the pie on the left hand side. So energy accounted for 70% of the inventory. And number three, consistent with the 2007 inventory, LFUCG attributed about 1.5% to the community wide total. So now we have summaries for the municipal operations inventory. and the vast majority of emissions were from electricity and natural gas usage. So now we'll take a look at the highlights for each sector. First, we have the stationary energy sector. As a reminder, it comprised about 70% of the inventory. The sources we looked at are included here on the screen, but electricity and natural gas usage were the largest contributors by far. We did take a look at electricity and natural gas usage by subsector, which you can see how that was broken out there on the right hand side of the screen. The commercial subsector used the largest percentage of electricity and natural gas, and this was also true in the 2007 inventory. One of the possible reasons for the decline in emissions is due to the coal contribution to Kentucky's electricity generation resource mix. So in 2007, coal accounted for almost 93% of Kentucky's electricity, And in 2021, it was down to 68%. This results in a lower emission factor, which as we discussed earlier, is that intensity multiplier that helps us calculate emissions. Moving on to transportation, this comprised approximately 23% of the inventory total. Coincidentally, it was also 23% of the 2007 inventory. these emissions are calculated using vehicle miles traveled fuel types vehicle types and we did see a one percent reduction in vehicle miles traveled from the first inventory but there could be some lingering effects from the pandemic at play in this sector moving on to waste it comprised approximately 3.4 percent of the inventory total there are no active landfills in fayette county All of our municipal solid waste, or MSW, is hauled outside of the county, but these are those indirect or out-of-boundary emissions. We did take a look at the total waste generated in 2021, and when you normalize that with the population, it came out to about 0.91 metric tons of waste generated per person. And this is just slightly higher than the national average, which EPA's most recent numbers show is about 0.81 metric tons of waste per person. While we were collecting all of this data, we did take a look at the waste streams that were diverted, and while they do not result in a direct subtraction from the inventory or credit, these are materials that would have otherwise been in a landfill producing emissions. The final two sectors of the inventory apply only to the community-wide inventory, and the first one we have here is industrial products and product use. While it can be said that Lexington does have some industry, the protocol we used is very prescriptive in what it considers industry, and those are listed on the screen. So we have the mineral, chemical, and metal industries, non-energy products from fuels and solvent use, the electronics industry, and the substitution of fluorinated substances for ozone-depleting substances. So these are processes that inherently generate greenhouse gases. Any industry associated with boilers, generators, electricity usage, all of that would be contained in the stationary energy sector. Lexington does have a few asphalt plants, and those fall in the non-energy products from fuels and solvent use category, so those were included. And then the last item there, the substitution of fluorinated substances for ozone-depleting substances is related to consequences of the Montreal Protocol, which sought to eliminate harmful refrigerants that harm the ozone layer. However, many of the replacement products have very high global warming potential. So we did include the effects of those as well. Finally, we have the agriculture sector. It comprised less than 1% of the inventory total. And the largest contributor was enteric fermentation, which is related to the digestive process of livestock. This was also a sector where we were able to take away some emissions. So we used the 2022 urban tree canopy assessment to estimate that the urban tree canopy provided about 42,339 metric tons of CO2e and carbon sequestration or emissions reductions. Once we had the results, we were able to do a little bit of trend analysis. So the graphs here on the screen show historical total emissions, emissions per capita or per person, and emissions per gross domestic product or GDP over time. And we do see a decrease across all three metrics. Interestingly enough, even though GDP has increased, emissions per GDP have decreased. And this generally indicates a positive trend in terms of sustainability and indicates that the economy is becoming more carbon efficient and decoupled from greenhouse gas emissions. as we saw earlier in the presentation electricity was one of the major components of the lfucg operations inventory the division of environmental services tracks electricity and natural gas usage so we were able to take a look at the top 10 electricity users for 2021 and those are shown here on the screen the west hickman and town branch wastewater treatment plants use the most electricity but that's typical for a wastewater treatment plant with the processes that they use And then you see the detention center there in number three, but it's still using only half as much as the next highest. Once we knew where Lexington stood, we were able to do a little comparison to our peers. So we looked at four other cities, the state and the country. And while our per capita emissions are generally lower than some of our peers, Lexington has committed to net zero by 2050. So there is still significant effort remaining. With the baseline inventory in hand, we were able to forecast emissions for 2025, 2030, and 2050. These forecasts are what are known as business as usual forecasts. So they use population forecasts and occupational outlooks to project emissions and assume that there are no major changes in operations or emission factors. We know that this is not what happens usually in reality, but they are good benchmarks to measure the effectiveness of emissions reduction measures, reductions measures, which will be important as we strive to meet the net zero goal. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. Colleagues, log in if you have questions or comments. Council Member Savigny. Thank you. Thank you, Jane. Thanks so much for the presentation. It was good to talk to you two, I guess, a month or two ago when you were kind of putting this together. Do communities generally, will we be using the same methodology every, like is there a methodology that you should always use so that you know that you're making progress? Does that make sense? Yes, thank you for your question. It doesn't matter which methodology you use as long as you're consistent over time. So the best way to do comparisons is to yourself over time using the same methodology. Thank you. That's really, that's all I had. Great, appreciate the presentation. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Ms. Cherry, for your presentation. On one of the charts you had on waste highlights, there was an acronym I didn't know on there, C plus DD. That is construction and demolition debris. Okay. And also just more of a comment, it kind of surprised me that plastic wasn't a bigger proportion of that pie chart. Do you have any insight into that? I do not. The city commissioned this study separately, and we just used the results of it for the inventory. So I'm sure somebody from waste management would be able to speak more to that. And then the last page of the presentation, the idea of the emissions increases if we are business as usual, do we have something to kind of compare that to in terms of a projection based on all the different steps that we're taking within PowerLex and other measures? We do not at this time, but part of the comprehensive climate action plan will be creating a climate view dashboard where we're able to pull different levers and see how different actions or different pieces of legislation will affect our emissions inventory. So that would be a great tool to look into those outcomes. Yeah, and that's definitely something I'm a visual learner, so it would be really helpful to see kind of what our plans and ideas and how it can really impact going forward versus business as usual. So thanks for the presentation. Thank you, Chair. i also want to draw everyone's attention in your packet you actually have a flyer or like a one page kind of document that you could give out to the community or distribute to highlight some of these findings so i appreciate the environmental services for also including that for our packet today so thank you and thank you miss terry um the complete report and the fact sheet has been posted to jada's sustainability website so that so we can go there to find out more and that website is lexingtonky.gov slash sustainability yes thank you i don't see anyone else signed in for a question so thank you for this presentation and thank you to everyone from environmental services who has joined us today we appreciate your work thank you we don't have any other presentations on our agenda today so i do want to call everyone's attention to our items referred to committee if anyone has has any updates they would like to share about an item or if you would like to request it for an item to be removed, now would be the time. I don't see anyone signed in. So moving on, just to highlight our next meeting will be August 20th. We currently on our agenda for that meeting will have the annual stormwater priority list. We have the Chapter 8 Code of Ordinances related to blasting presentation and the Empower Lexington update at that time. That concludes our business today. If there are no objections, I will call this meeting adjourned. Thank you, everyone. Thank you.