But thank you all for being here. I really appreciate it. We're excited about our agenda today. But the first thing is to approve the minutes from June, which seems forever ago. So has everybody had a chance to look them over? I think we got them sent out a week or plus ago from Denise. Any changes, comments, approvals? Look, I think that's a first and a second, a motion and a second between Scott and Ken, whichever you prefer. Any other suggestions, comments? There's a good comment. They're always very detailed. I'm always impressed with that. All right. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. Fantastic. All right. So next up, we have our friends at Third Rock Consultants. They're going to come up and talk to us about their proposed monitoring program updates. And there are two remotes, so you get to maybe each. Well, there's three of you. I don't know. I don't know. I'm not sure which is right, so that would be my guess. I'll figure it out. Let's see. This one kind of looks like the one I usually use. Oh, look at that. There you go. All right. You don't need to talk a lot. All right. Well, good morning, everybody. Thank you for letting us come and talk about. This is not our presentation, I don't think. Hold on. While Bailey is sorting that out. Thank you all for letting us come. Today, we're going to be talking about some of the proposed recommended changes to the water quality monitoring program that we have here in Lexington as part of the permit. There we go. Yeah. And so I'm Matt Call. I'm a professional engineer at Third Rock. I've had the opportunity to be in charge of quality assurance, quality control, and reporting on different elements from Third Rock's perspective. And then also today, we have Bert Remley. He's our senior biologist ecologist at Third Rock. He's in charge of a lot of the biological elements of the program and reporting on that. And we also have Casey Mattingly. He's a professional engineer at Third Rock, and he focuses in on stream design and nature-based solutions and how we usually apply those. So just to give you a little bit of background, a little bit of introduction, Third Rock has been involved with Lexington monitoring in one way or another since 1999 all the way up to the present. We're here today talking about it. And it's the Phase I MS-4 permit that currently was issued in May 1st of 2015. That became effective in June 1st and was on a five-year duration. It has since been administratively continued. But as part of that, in November 2019, Lexington sent a letter of intent to renew the permit. And in that, it stated that after the Watershed Focus Monitoring Program would be complete, that Lexington would take some time to look at that Watershed Focus Monitoring Program and look and make some recommendations on how we might make some changes to that program. So because of that, we were tasked in 2023 in June to take all the data that we've collected, that the volunteers have collected, and digest it. I think it died. Anybody miss any of that? Did you all hear me? Okay. So again, we're going to be hitting you with a lot of slides, a lot of information. In case you didn't hear it, we can go back and review it. But save all questions until the end because we want to be respectful of the other presenters' time and all of you all's time. But we do have time set aside at the end for questions. So if you didn't hear anything from the first part of that presentation, we can go back and cover that again. But usually I can project fairly well. Okay. So because of all that, because we were supposed to look at specific streams, Lexington said that they would do a Watershed Focus Monitoring approach, and that was in 2015 when that kicked off. And just to hit on some of the requirements for all the program, Table 8 from the permit outlines it here. So I know that some of you all in the back and maybe some of you all in the front row can't read this, but this is in the permit. But just real quickly going through and hitting on this, it mentions the dry and wet routine sampling that's done quarterly at major watershed sites, and that's the sites at the downstream end of each watershed where it crosses the urban service boundary. That, along with some biological assessments, some macroinvertebrate, habitat assessment, and fish sampling, and continuous USGS monitoring sites at each of the seven sites that the previous sampling's done. And then that main bottom bullet point there, that's the Watershed Focus Monitoring program that would select a watershed and then on a yearly basis screen, monitor, and report on that. And those rotated for seven years. And this is that schedule. So for the screening, monitoring, and reporting, it started in 2016, and we have just wrapped up with Wolf Run in 2024. You can see the different activities here along with the schedule and how long those tasks took, and just kind of all the different areas we covered, stream corridor characterization, biological components, water quality components, and then getting into some upland source assessments. And so all that's been done in 2024. Now we're here to talk about some of the recommendations we have for program updates. We had a lot of tools in our toolbox, a lot of data, 20-plus years to look through and a couple different programs, but these are the three, just three examples that we had. 20-plus years of chemical, physical, and biological that we looked at along with the Watershed Focus Monitoring program. Health grades, which were already a condensed version of several other parameters and results from volunteer monitoring. And then we also wanted to overlay that with the CADAL 2022-305B Impaired Waters, specifically within the MS4 urban areas. Again, you probably can't read that in the back or even up front, but this is just a quick synopsis of how we covered and condensed 20 years of data. It was several thousand rows of data and information, different parameters, different elements that were focused, and this goes through the different sites, the different locations, if it was a part of quarterly routine monitoring, historic monitoring, that was sites that dropped out in 2015 but were sampled prior to that, watershed focus monitoring, and then different elements of that, quarterly wet and dry sampling, fish sampling, macro sampling, continuous monitoring sampling. And we can kind of go through this and get an idea, also comparing it to the CADAL Impaired Reaches, to see what sites have a lot of data already for it, maybe some sites that are lacking some data that we want to capture, and then use this as just one of our tools to pick some sites to move forward. And, for example, on this screen, it's very difficult to see, but South Elkhorn, which is right here, goes across. You can see the different X's, check boxes for different methods and frequencies for which they're sampled, and that one was sampled for everything. It's currently an active quarterly site that gets wet and dry weather sampling, but it was also part of the watershed focus monitoring program. It's on an impaired reach, and furthermore, there's a USGS site there that collects active water quality and stage height information. So that would be one, for example, that we'd really want to focus in on. And then this is all the ones, all the watershed focus monitoring sites. There are several pages of this, but I think the total came to about 115 sites for all those that we just looked for in this part. Then we have the watershed focus monitoring program results, and these are the health grades, the color coding, and the percentages are based off of the percent exceedance of different parameters. So whatever it was sampled for, E. coli, total phosphorus, total suspended solids, whatever it was, it got a health grade for a percent exceedance. So if you went and sampled and an E. coli was high 100% of the time, it exceeded 100% of the time and got a red or an F grade. And so comparing this with the previous table, just one of the tools in our toolbox, we could then look at the sites that we are heavily considering and then see what kind of water quality was present at those sites to further inform our recommendations. And if you've been to any of the SSAC meetings and you come for usually the June SSA meeting, you're no stranger to these, but this is just our color coding for, this is now all of the watersheds for the watershed focus monitoring program, all in one table. And at the bottom there you can see the letter grade with the percent and the color coding that's associated with that. So that's the second. And then finally we wanted to look at the KDAL impaired reaches, and these are all the ones in Fayette County. But then we wanted to look at the ones that were just in the MS4 area, and then after that look at the ones that KDAL identified potential stormwater source for their impairments. On the main right of that you can see all the different designated use and also the parameters for what's potentially impairing that, whether it's fecal, coliform, sediment, it's all listed there. And so we went through and made sure to include these sites in, and I think at the end of the day it was about a dozen or two dozen sites that were identified, impaired, and also contributing from stormwater sources. So there's a lot to take in right there, but that's not all the data, but that's just three really good examples of some of the tools we had in our toolbox where we had to take 20 years of data, sit it down in front of us, condense it down, because especially that last slide, this is from us, but when you go and look at the impaired reaches from KDAL, it spits out a spreadsheet that's way too wide for your screen and way too long for your screen. So we took that and just tried and squeezed it down into something that made sense and had all the elements and all the impairments and locations of these reaches. So that was just step one, and then we got to digest, make decisions, and recommendations off of all that information. We looked at over 100 small sub-watershed scale sites, and that's what we originally recommended. But after discussing with Lexington, that was a huge effort, and there's a cost-benefit analysis for getting good scientifically-based data, but also more importantly, we wanted to continue volunteer engagement. That's a huge thing that Lexington prides itself for in its water quality monitoring. And there are other programs out there, but there's no other program out there like Lexington's where it engages citizens and utilizes citizen science. And 115 sites for volunteers to go to and hit, it was just a huge effort. It would be a huge undertaking, but we were able to condense it down to 59 sites that we are recommending for future monitoring sites. And these on the left are all the 115 sites. You can see the red boundary there is the Fayette County boundary. These pink shaded areas represent the urban service areas and urban areas, which includes urban service boundaries, some of the satellite sites like the airport. And then all these little yellow dots are the monitoring sites for in-stream sites. On the left are all the ones that we originally considered, and then on the right we have the 59 sites that we are recommending going forward into the proposed monitoring program. This is not watershed-specific. This is countywide. And so I'm going to hit real quick on the proposed methods and the frequencies, and then in some following slides we're going to digest each of these bullet points a little bit further to kind of explain some of the parameters and the methodologies behind it. So what we're recommending is quarterly water quality grab sampling by trained volunteers, and that's going to be regularly scheduled and sampled regardless of the weather throughout the entire county for all the 59 sites. Annual wet weather grab sampling by qualified sub-consultants, and that will be one wet weather sample gathered across all sites once a year. Every other year we are recommending macroinverter sampling and ID by a qualified sub-consultant. Every other year doing a geomorphic and erosion assessment by qualified sub-consultants. Every other year fish sampling by qualified sub-consultants, and then continuing the continuous monitoring for USGS at the seven sites that it's currently at. So that's hitting the bullet points real quick, and now breaking it down a little bit. For the quarterly water quality grab sampling, this will be done by trained volunteers, and it's regularly scheduled because this is a lot of in-stream sites, and we want to make sure that the volunteers get it on their schedule, and regardless of the weather, that they're able to attend and get those samples. In-situ parameters will include DO, pH, temperature, and conductivity. Flow will be estimated by a stage discharge curve relationship, so reading a height on a staff gauge and then correlating that with a flow estimation. That makes it real quick and easy for volunteers to get out and get the flow reading. And then for the grab sampling, we're going to be looking at TSS, E. coli, total phosphorus, dissolved phosphorus, ammonia, TKN, nitrate, and nitrite. So the annual wet weather sampling we propose will be done by a qualified sub-consultant. I don't know how many of you all have had the opportunity to do wet weather sampling, but to hit the antecedent and then do the wet weather sampling, it could come at any time. We've been out in the field at 3 in the morning grabbing grab samples in Lexington, because sometimes you only get three days of dry weather sampling, which that's the dry weather antecedent, less than 0.1 inch of rainfall, followed by a storm event of greater than 0.1 inch. So it's very specific antecedent, and so it's very hard to schedule that out. It's going to be kind of just on a, well, it looks like we're going to be getting it this Thursday. Can everybody get out here? It was not very feasible for volunteers, so we recommend that a sub-consultant handle that. It's all the same in-situ and grab sampling parameters. The only thing that's different is it's during wet weather and not just regularly scheduled regardless. Now I'm going to hand this over to Bert Remley, who's going to be covering some of the biological elements of the proposed monitoring. So as Mack mentioned, we're going to be proposed to do the macro sampling every other year. Oh, sorry. Thanks. So we propose following Kentucky Division water protocols, which involves collection of two samples at each site, a riffle kick sample and a multi-habitat sample. And from these samples, we can take a look at seven core metrics to calculate what's called a macro bio-assessment index, which gives a biological health rating of excellent, good, fair, poor for the stream. While we're collecting that, we also collect in-situ measurements and do a habitat assessment. The reason macrobiotics are good for determining biological health is they're relatively sedentary organisms. They live most, if not all, of their life cycle within the stream. They require multiple habitat types to exist, and they occupy multiple trophic levels. We also propose that fish sampling be conducted every other year, but only at the seven major watershed sites, which are located at the downstream section of the watersheds. Fish are more mobile and longer-lived than macrobiotics, so they can provide some additional information as far as the biological integrity of the streams. Fish sampling will be conducted with fish shocking in combination with seining, and also the in-situ measurements and the habitat assessments will be conducted because they can provide insight into some of the results that we are seeing. And with that, Casey, we'll cover the physical. All right, so Mike and Bert discussed the chemical parameters, proposed monitoring, and the biological monitoring. I want to quickly touch on the physical monitoring of the stream. The physical monitoring we're proposing consists of two subcategories. It's basically geomorphic survey assessment and erosion assessment. The geomorphic survey is a way to tell what the stream is doing over a given period of time. It's going to include cross-section surveys, longitudinal profiles, and what we call pebble counts. We're going to create permanent monument stations so this data can be replicated year after year after year so we can get an idea and understand the story of how the stream's evolving. And then the second part of that is the erosion assessment. It consists of doing what we call a BEHI model, or a Banks model, which stands for Bank Assessment for Nonpoint Consequences of Sediment. But it's basically taking BEHI, which is Bank Erosion Hazard Index, relating it to the near-bank stress of the stream and creating a prediction curve of how much sediment these cross-sections are contributing to the watershed. This is an example of the geomorphic survey cross-section. You can see we can easily tell over time if the stream's widening, eroding, and it's a good way to tell how much the stream is changing. In addition to that, we're doing the longitudinal profiles. That tells us the slope of the stream and how it's changing. Are the riffles getting steeper? Are they getting shorter? How it's evolving over time, along with the pebble count, which is a way for us to tell what the substrate of the stream is, how big it is. Is it getting smaller? Is it getting bigger? Is it getting washed away? And all of that parameters relate back to the microinvertebrate data, as well as with the volunteer stream sampling, we can recalibrate that flow duration curve for the staff gauges every two years by doing this geomorphic assessment. The Bank Erosion Hazard Index looks at other parameters while we're out there doing the geomorphic assessment. How tall is the bank? What angle is the bank? What is the vegetation cover of the bank? How deep are those roots? You collect all those variables and you put it into what's known as the BEHOT model, and it gives you a rating of how susceptible the stream is to erosion. And ultimately, it gives you a number down here, and then it relates to if that stream has a very low susceptibility to erosion or an extreme susceptibility to erosion. You couple that with the near-bank stress. Now you know how susceptible the stream is to erosion. Now you need to look at the forces and the magnitude of those forces that may create that erosion. And it's kind of the same situation. You go through the process. It gives you a number, and that number relates it to is it extremely high near-bank stress, very low near-bank stress. And ultimately, the point of that is you relate the BEHOT and the near-bank stress together, and you can create what's known as a predictability curve and actually quantify how many tons of sediment this cross-section is putting into the stream per year, per lit in your foot. So not only are we able to quantify visually and geomorphically, we can predict how much sediment's going to be going into that stream for these given watersheds. And with that, I'll turn it back over to Matt. Thank you, Casey. So just to summarize the recommendations that we're proposing for the monitoring program, again, it's going to be chemical, biological, and physical monitoring with methods at varied frequencies. Throughout the entire county, there are 59 stream sites that we are recommending for monitoring. Again, we want to continue to engage with volunteers at the maximum amount or the maximum extent feasible or practical. One thing is that we are recommending expanding on the physical monitoring to assess stream geomorphology and erosion rates with the banks model that Casey just presented on. So we hit you with a lot of slides, a lot of information, and at this point, we're going to open it up for questions and discussion. So any questions? Rez. We don't have a red light. Are there any streams that have a potential for delisting off the 303B list, or have you all identified any potential streams that might be able to go that direction? So that was the primary motivation for us to select the reaches and the stream sites that were on an impaired reach was to collect the data necessary for down the road to do that. And that previous slide that had about a dozen or so stream sites, those were all unidentified segments. And if there were redundant ones, we only included one, but we made sure they hit all of the impaired reaches throughout the county. So were there some specific reaches you could share with us that you thought would be worth looking into? At this moment, I can't say specifically if there's one that we've identified to really focus in on, and that's part of this effort here. One was right there on South Elkhorn. That main major watershed site on South Elkhorn is on an impaired reach. But no, at this time, we don't have one that we're really focusing on, and so we're trying to collect data to make those decisions in the future. Thank you, Russ. Ken, it looks like you're dying to ask something. I mean, there's so much to discuss in this. There's a lot to discuss in what you just presented here. Are there going to be other opportunities for what I would call a more detailed discussion than the eight minutes we have here to devote to that? Yeah. Looking at the assistant director of the Division of Water Quality. I'm glad you brought that up, and I neglected to mention this at the beginning. We have not shown this to KDAL yet. We wanted to show it to our stakeholders here and the volunteers and everybody who's had a hand in this program for further discussion and recommendations. This is the first of many drafts of what we're recommending, and so we welcome feedback from stakeholders and volunteers, especially you, Ken. The volunteer part is interesting. I think that will be discussed in terms of how you all manage that. I am of the opinion that LFECG can manage it on its own. It doesn't necessarily need third parties like Kentucky River Watershed Watch or that kind of stuff. It's the capacity within LFECG to coordinate that part of the program. It is interesting that you mentioned it. You've been discussing this, I think, for a year and a half now, and we have asked to be involved in those discussions, but essentially it's a wait until September and you'll get to hear it. So I'm just wondering what kind of conversations and what kind of opportunities we'll have to go through what you just presented and then provide feedback to the program planners and managers. Well, when we were discussing this, the idea was to present it to you all here in September. That gives us September, October, November, basically. And didn't we discuss having some, I'll call them breakout discussions with smaller subsets of this group? Not everybody is necessarily really interested in it, but this gives you something to start digesting. We can have further conversation before we make a formal presentation to KDAL before the end of the year. Can I continue here? First is just immediately what I find exciting about this is the banks survey, the geomorphological survey. Was that done in the last round? Did you all do that in the focus watershed monitoring or have you done that already? I know you did the pebble counts and I know you did the habitat assessments, but in terms of the profiles, the bank profiles? There were only very cursory ones done to make those stage discharge curves to get flow with the staff gauges that the volunteers were measuring, but there was not a detailed geomorphic or erosion assessment done. In the stream corridor characterization, there was some substrate, like stream bed substrate characterization, but that was only for characterizing. That wasn't to keep track of for erosion reasons. But I'd like to go publicly on record saying that's a fabulous addition, and I think that Division of Water will pretty much accept whatever you guys say because you're so far advanced beyond other programs that they have to regulate. They're going to let you do whatever you want to do probably. Greg? To add on to that, when Lindsey was still here, she had been in contact with Bob Hawley and Sustainable Streams, and they looked at a number of sites at this Q-Critical. Well, since Bailey is now getting her feet under her in this program, we have a site in Shillitoe Park where we've got a couple of cross sections established and some before measurements, and we're working on getting the outlet of a basin reconfigured to Hawley's recommendations. And so I think that kind of fits in with this, that we do have a study reach to start looking at anyway. Just to add on that, so if that Q-Critical in the future, if they want to calibrate that locally for Lexington, we've already got a jump start on the data they would need to use that. It's not specifically for Q-Critical. It's specifically to look at erosion rates and to calibrate the flow data every two years that the volunteers are taking. But thinking ahead, it can be used for that so they don't have to reinvent the wheel later down the road. One thing I'm curious about is since a lot of the watershed, the sampling points are within the urban service boundary, and at present there's been discussions and motions to expand our urban service boundary, has there been discussions about would it be in the city's interest or would it not be in the city's interest to establish some baseline data in these areas that are about to be introduced into the urban service boundary? I'm assuming that increased impervious area is going to degrade creek quality. Gregor Bailey, do you all want to speak on that? Well, it's been in my mind that, okay, we probably need to start looking at this when this expansion gets, I guess, fully defined and where it is, what it is. One thing that we've done is that with the USGS continuous monitoring, this fiscal year the continuous water quality is out at the North Elkhorn Russell Cave Road site, which is downstream of one of the areas that I presume is going to be in this. So we'll have a little bit of data farther out on North Elkhorn. Yeah, I think this all probably gets tied into whatever all the regulations and whatever that come about with the expansion areas. I'm sure we'll be looking at all the engineering manuals and everything else when this happens to update the program. So, yeah, we do have some baseline conditions, and even if it expands it's probably going to be a few years until anything actually happens, so we'll have some time to get ahead of it a little bit. All right, I think we have time for one more question. So with the data that you're collecting on the geomorphology in the Beehive, have you looked at what other aspects of that baseline could then be applied to, such as tree canopy coverage and changes in the runoff coefficients of those watersheds? Is that part of the mix going forward? The short answer is not currently. I mean, obviously we could expand this pie in the sky, right? So we had to put some parameters on ourselves to keep it what we think we can accomplish. And the Banks model and the Beehive and the geomorphic, that's a new addition to the monitoring program going forward. So as much as some of us would like to get there, we kind of have to take baby steps to get there and can't do it all, you know, the first iteration of it. So I think everybody knows it will be an evolving program, as it always will be. And going forward, we can look at that. We're just not there yet. All right. Thank you, everybody, for your time. Thank you all very much. I'm glad to hear that Ken thinks that Lexington is the best in the whole state, is what I heard from what you said there. Because I'm here, I get to say whatever I want. And so I just wanted to say that over the last few months when the Olympics were going on, one of the things that I really noticed was how much the Seine was in the news and water quality and data from the, you know, wanting to swim in the Seine. And the idea that when it rained, we all know this, but when it rained that water quality wasn't as great as it was prior to that. And so I think it's really a neat concept that the community is now hearing and the world is hearing that a lot more as it relates to swimming in the Seine. Anyway, next is Stan Harvey with Lord Ex Sargent, who is going to talk about our Greenway Master Plan. Good morning. As mentioned, my name is Stan Harvey. I'm an architect and urban designer with a firm here in Lexington called Lord Ex Sargent. But I'm actually here on behalf of a pretty diverse and broad team that starts with the Division of Environmental Services and Demetria Kimball-Mahorn, who is the project manager, but multiple folks from the division as well as a cross-departmental group that includes planning, parks, and others have been working for the last six months at least kind of to get us to the point where we are. We also are working under the auspices of the Green Space Trust, which I know some of the members are here today. And so we'll be having much more probably detailed conversations with them over the upcoming three months. So I think both these presentations today are kind of related, but we're really going to challenge your brains because that was a pretty detailed discussion and I'm going to pull you way back out to talk about a master plan. This is a master plan update, technically, to an existing plan. And I would say for all intents and purposes, it has two primary objectives. One is that we want to raise awareness and create an action plan for the ecologically sensitive areas of Fayette County. Those are both rural and urban. And I'll talk a little bit more about what some of those steps might be. And the second is to use some of those public open spaces and ecologically sensitive areas as the backbone of a citywide greenway and trail system. Greenways in this case meaning ecologically defined conservation greenways and more manmade greening of the city that also provides some mobility. So in that sense, we are also looking at kind of augmenting and building off of the bike pad master plan that the city has as well. So what I wanted to do is I think you all will likely have a lot of questions and input that we're not quite at yet. We wanted to give you all an update so you're aware of the effort and its schedule and its focus. But we're still at a relatively high level and we're now moving into an important part that I know you all will be interested in, which is the action plan. So I'll give you a little bit of overview of the work done to date and then maybe talk importantly about the next steps. So one thing just to touch on is this effort has a lot of community interest. We did an online survey back in the spring for about a month. We asked folks in the public to weigh in online and through a forum we conducted in March about this system and about greenways and ecology within Lexington. We got a very robust response. I think there is a little bit of cynicism, I guess I might say, in the public that they want a more defined implementation. I think everybody's down with the goals because they're pretty important goals, but I think they're looking for implementation, both of the ecological values that we're all moving towards, but also specifically we did get a lot of comments about the trail system in particular as a citywide effort. So these are just a few of the things. lot of interest in tree canopy and we'll talk a little bit about that as well. We asked about priorities and the bottom line as you can see from the bars, I know this is a little small, we just said how important are these issues, anything that's over towards five is very important, so almost everything is important in terms of water access, in terms of tree canopy, in terms of educating folks about these issues, about that trail network which was very heavy, that we have natural habitats that maybe get overlooked and have been damaged and so we need to look at those as well. Also we talked about kind of what improvements need to happen in these kinds of spaces, there's a wide range of things, but a lot of it was just kind of passive open space and the things that kind of go with that and trails and places to hang out and just natural protection. We asked about folks' favorite space or green space and I did this word cloud just to show the larger were the ones that got mentioned most, but I think what's remarkable about Lexington is how many different green spaces are really valuable to folks in the city, so this shows it wasn't like just a couple of things, we got a lot of different answers. And then we did, it does skew a little bit towards a little bit older demographic like most surveys, we did have some help from Henry Clay to at least get some input from their survey that we kind of built off of in terms of a citywide high school survey. And then we asked for comments and I think we got 280, so I didn't list all of them, but I hit some of the highlights there in terms of, you know, there was actually I don't do a lot of surveys where I get multiple comments that say keep going, we're really excited about this, thank you for doing this, there was definitely questions, I'm not saying that, but it really does seem to have something, it does seem to have importance to a lot of people. So we are very fortunate in this effort to be working with a firm called Biohabitats, so I'm going to play someone on TV and try to explain their work and you may have questions and I'd be glad to ask them follow-up questions if you do, but what their role, what their focus is, is twofold. One is we ask them to help develop a digitized and research-oriented assessment of Fayette County, building off assessments and work that's already been done, of course, but to try to help us develop a way to think about and show ecologically sensitive areas in Fayette County, but more importantly also they're going to help with the second point, which is when we develop an action plan, both for public action and for private action, what are the best practices of maintenance and stewardship and action that could occur. So they developed, and this is admittedly a little hard to read, but it is the entire county, which is always difficult when you do maps, we do have blow-ins, so basically there is, sorry, I meant to, what we were just talking about, there's nine watersheds within Fayette County and that's a big determinant of the conservation greenway system and of this ecological assessment, sorry I keep going forward, I don't know if there's a way to go back, sorry, do you know if there's, is it the other button, back button, all right. Sorry about that. So basically overlaying, they did a rank system, it's five classifications, it is generally based on existing natural vegetative cover, existing forestation, natural features, the presence of natural features, primarily and including heavily water features both wetlands and floodplains and creeks and rivers, and then an assessment about how conducive and important it is to support future habitats and or ecological systems, best practices. So the gradations there are from low to high, they're just meant, and I think that will be more important and helpful as we start talking about parcel acquisitions and priorities and things, but you kind of get a flavor of that overlaid with other definitions that have already occurred including aquifers and other special protection areas, particularly there's a lot of that in the rural service area, and then they looked at tree canopy. Some of that tree canopy, a lot of that tree canopy that they think is important is likewise on many of those waterways and features. So in terms of where we are now, we have gotten to a point where at least we feel like the system and the assessment and the GIS and the other information is kind of all present, and now we're coordinating and working through getting reviews by a lot of different parties and stakeholders, and then also just turning towards an action plan. So for the overall greenway system map for each of the nine watersheds, there is a specific focus on the corridors, there's multiple corridors in each watershed that are conservation greenways. There is a mapping of where those sensitive that ecological assessment occurs, particularly as you see medium to high, and the reforestation areas, which may have a different strategy. There's a certain level of action we could take on public lands, but there may be other ways we're trying to promote the reforestation will also happen a ton on private property. So it's just trying to figure out how to elevate that awareness. So for each of the nine, there is kind of an explanation. We also overlaid that to try to show how those open space networks connect to parks and schools and other kind of city facilities and public facilities. And then secondarily, we've been working with a firm called Alta that is a national trails and greenway planner, and we have defined a system of 27 corridors that cross the city. Some of them are parallels to our hub-and-spoke transportation system, and the majority are actually either fully or partially in those conservation greenways that I was just touching on. So to do a comprehensive trails network in Lexington, we think, starts with those conservation greenways and the opportunity to get a shared-use trail in many locations off-road. And we have examples, obviously, Legacy Trail and parts of Town Branch Trail and others, so that kind of attitude to look. Lexington is both blessed and cursed to not have a lot of fallow land sitting around or old utility railroad corridors that are abandoned. So a lot of cities have been able to reclaim those types of things. We don't have as many. So really, the greenway network is really important. And then, like I said, to actually make a connection, inevitably, some of these will be what is called side paths, which is really a shared-use trail that is adjacent to a road. We'd still like to aim for a separated system. We think that's an 8-80 user group that really is looking for this kind of safe mobility and recreational and open-space opportunity. So really, we're focused on the trails that are within those conservation greenways, on side paths, and then there will inevitably, just to make connections, it's never going to be perfect that we can get this entire system off-road. So there inevitably might be cycle tracks or other things where at least they're protected. I think we've heard a lot and there's been a lot of focus about pedestrian and bicycle safety in Lexington lately. And so I think that's a really important consideration as we merge into the mobility system. There are, of course, and a lot of our existing trails in Lexington are paved trails that are in parks or natural trails like Raven Run or other places. So that's all part of the system too. That's not our exact focus right now. We're kind of focused on that big-picture overall system. For each of those 27, we've done a blow-in to try to illustrate conceptual alignment. So the one other cautionary tale I'd give is this is a master plan. I know there's a lot of, I think we're going to get a lot of interest in nuance and specifics and we want that input. But at some level, this is the beginning of, we hope, an action plan and steps that will have to follow, including feasibility studies and design and engineering and parcel acquisition and things like capital improvements budgeting and city budgeting. There's a lot that will have to go that will be about the implementation and action plan. So this isn't meant to be the final answer. It's just meant to illustrate, particularly for the public, okay, if we went ahead and built this, in this case, this is a side path, this is Citation Boulevard. If we built a shared-use trail as a side path on most of the north part of Citation and the new extension over to Russell Cave, what would that connect? How many, and it's multiple locations of both destinations but also public facilities like schools and parks. And then we're also showing in a lighter color where the connecting or nearby trails and greenway system is. So these are all systems, of course. This just happens to be one corridor. And then even in those, we're trying to define kind of environmental actions that would be best practice in more urban conditions and more roadway conditions and then specifically when they're in an ecological condition. As part of that illustration, we have worked to look at three priority areas. One, connecting Masterson Station Park to Legacy Trail and Cold Stream. One, connecting along Wolf Run Creek and in that watershed. And then one, connecting Veterans Park to the Arboretum. So those are kind of the general areas we're looking at in terms of where there's both city action right now and there's some projects and plans or there's been interest or previous work to build on. And we're trying to kind of zoom in and show how both the trail and greenway system itself might connect things. And also, I think it's, you look at maps and it's really hard for the public, but we're trying to overlay and use aerials on purpose, and I know that makes it a pretty busy map, but to show where these things are. I think part of it is people just aren't aware where they are because a lot of them, unfortunately, are in people's backyards. And so these are some of those sheets looking at kind of alignments and zooming in. This happens to be the Masterson to Cold Stream section and how that works in a little bit more detail. So our next steps are after the Green Space Trust work session on September 18th, we're going to hold a forum about everything I've just talked about for the public. So we'd love it if you would help publicize that. It's at the Lexington Senior Center at 530 on the 18th. And then subsequently to that, we're going to launch a public survey where all this information will be online and anybody can comment on the draft systems and the draft project sheets. I showed you examples. There is 40 project sheets that would be commented on in terms of the system. I think we're cranking along here. We've been churning like the water under the iceberg, I guess, a little bit for the last few months, but I think now we're really turning into an active part, which is why it's important to engage all these stakeholder groups. The goal of the city is to develop kind of an action plan that's based on public action on parcels already owned by the public, private action both by good stewards and interested parties. We hope to meet with the Rural Land Management Board and others, talk about PDR and other things. But also just to generally, in that same vein, private interest, homeowners associations or others. So we'll be developing a maintenance guide that's aimed at both public action and at private action. And then priorities for public action, of course, will be important, particularly acquisition or improvement. We also are working with the Division of Planning. They're an integral part of this for two reasons. One, we are looking at the Code of Ordinances and regulations and anything that needs to be updated to reflect this idea. So that's its own effort we're beginning. It was mentioned there is a small little thing like the expansionary master plans going on. We're extremely excited that those are the opportunity to really set a new model because nothing's on the ground for the most part yet. We can protect some of these resources from the beginning. In our opinion, we're going to advocate to make them the focus of public activity and development frontage, not in the back. We're going to look for those connections that would ideally be safe and not in dangerous ped bike situations. So we're excited about the opportunities in the expansion areas to kind of define that system up front. And then we'll be kind of packaging this up into an action plan that we hope would go to the Planning Commission and to Council early first quarter next year. So that is a very quick overview of a lot, but I would be glad to either defer to Demetria or others who have been involved or if they wanted to add anything or to take questions. Thanks for a really good presentation. On the environmentally sensitive areas, in the past sink holes and karst features had been included. I didn't see those listed on the slides. I didn't know if some of the underground features were included in that. Yeah, and I think they were in some of the overlays, but to your point that there's a lot more than that. And like, for instance, I know in expansion area one, that's a significant issue that they're looking at where those are. So I appreciate that. I really just have a series of observations, and I wonder if you might have comments on some of them. I've noticed that when you're trying to create routes for bike pad, it's two things that especially hinder them, three things actually. The barriers are major roads, and there's this particular problem with state collaboration. If you're trying to put a bike path, that would be really neat if you could work out something with the state that is more welcoming. So for the routes you choose, they tend to be streams or along right-of-ways, because those are the continuous unbuilt or privately owned or something. And I think people have a concern that you shouldn't build a path in the stream buffer. So the question is, how much land and where could you site a constructed, say, bike path, if what you're trying to do is follow a stream because it avoids, you know, crossing roads and things, or it's just a long, continuous path? There are concerns about the safety of travelers and also a whole lot of concerns from private property owners when a public right-of-way is not, that is to say, a path of some kind, is not along a public right-of-way. There's the sense that people could sneak in and do vicious things. I personally think it would be wonderful if you could have a working committee of very local representatives because I think there are neighbors in every area that know these areas and have special concerns. And also they say, I think a great detour or a great opportunity would be exactly here. And I do think for bike and ped, especially bike, one's inclination is to find a secondary route, a somewhat, a byway, rather than battling with a major traffic artery. Just to mention some barriers, you showed the Sandersville Railroad and how close it is to try and wiggle in something for bikes and peds. North Broadway Railroad, that's a big construction project. I think they're addressing that on that. We're looking at wherever Sales Road meets New Circle because if you could bridge that, you could have bike-ped access from the poorer areas of town, from the Versailles Road corridor, into the new park. The access they've actually got a project for is going quite a ways down Parker's Mill and wiggling through there. So I think just a global consideration of how can we use these less impeded routes like streams without injuring them. And frankly, I don't know what the solution is to people's worries about strangers running through their, along their backyards or something, but I know it's something that always comes up. I think those are all great points, a few responses. One, I should have mentioned that it's a really good time in the city right now with the focus on complete streets. There's a definite overlap between this effort and the opportunity with KYTC and other parties to define, particularly the side path system is essentially a complete, it's part of a complete street attitude on many of these corridors. So that's a unique opportunity that hopefully can advance through the complete street studies and implementation. You're right, we have tried to, on these sheets you will see there's a list of annotated constraints on all of them, on each trail and greenway, particularly on the trails, I mean, where there's constraints, to your point. Back to my preface, we won't resolve all those. I won't necessarily resolve neighbor concerns or whatever, and that's why we want to keep stressing. I think it's important for the public to understand there's a whole effort to look at these in a little bit more micro detail and finalize an alignment and look at the design engineering cost. There will be tweaks of alignments and things that will happen based on both public input and technical and economic feasibility. I was trying to think if there was anything else you mentioned, but I do think the distance out of the floodplains, I mean, out of impacting any of the creeks is something we are trying to be very sensitive about. And it's nice because biohazards and stream buffers and ALTA have worked together in that similar way, so we're trying to look at it at least conceptually. Once again, there will be a level of detail. I will admit that that is aspirational. So it is likely to have constraints and issues and there may be pieces, but we think it's important to aim as high as possible towards the objective and then you can back off as you do detailed studies if you feel like it's necessary. I'll just add that the idea that there will be points where you're not going to make that connection or you'll have to do something that's less than welcome. If there are very few and you just know, okay, this is a get-off-and-walk place, and if it's like a crossing rather than a whole block or three, you know, and I do think especially in the very central city, the older part where roads were narrower anyway and crammed with traffic, that's just so challenging. And yet, if you live in the central city, you want to be able to use your bike to get out to some of these better ones. To me, it always seems silly to put your bike on your car to go and have a bike ride. Well, it's one of the good things about working with planning in particular on this. Somebody said early on that one of the most important things about a master plan is it stops bad things from happening sometimes because it's already on paper and you can go ahead and make sure an obstacle doesn't get newly created. So I think that's the hopeful intent and benefit of getting a master plan defined is it allows the city to look, as it implements its own projects and oversees private development, on how that system could work. And just the last thing, in terms of the local committee's idea, you're thinking that belongs in the complete streets endeavor? I don't want to presuppose how the action plan of those two efforts, we are starting that conversation with, I'm just saying in my professional opinion, there's a lot of overlap and there may be ways that collectively, it would seem to me, those subjects would be very interrelated and there would be public interest in both. And there will be implementation by default that will happen in both. I just have a quick question. Can you talk about the consideration you gave for low-income or economically disadvantaged people for either completing the survey or your prioritization process? Yeah, that's a really good question. You'll see we did look at, there's a social needs assessment that the city has, that's one of the background studies that we'll kind of highlight and we'll show the overlay of where some of the systems are. We haven't done the prioritization yet, but I think, to your point, it would surprise me if that's not part of the prioritization effort. Where should we start? We'll have a variety of inputs, but I think one of them is where might this have an impact significantly. But we haven't yet factored that into, because we don't have a prioritization plan yet. But we'd welcome anybody's input. I think we'll have more conversations about that. Thanks for another question. I think that looking at this as far as the greenway management system and kind of looking at it comprehensively is a great way to pull in some of the information we just had from our previous presenters, like where are impacted waterways and streams and how we can develop connective corridors that are also improving our waterways. I think those can be hand-in-hand. Is the scope of your work looking at these greenway systems as entirely within the property ownership and operations of LFUCG, or is there any consideration for a third party? We've got examples of other entities here in Lexington doing greenway connectivity things. I'll help answer that. This is a huge effort, and we have a lot of stakeholders that we have brought in. And one of the things they're going to be looking at is potential for easement acquisitions and where the HOA already has open space and maybe we can work with them. That's kind of the next steps that we're working on. The biggest thing was to get some stuff on paper and to make sure that everybody had a good sense of this is not only conservation greenway but a secondary step to the bike-ped plan of off-road. We've had a lot of moving parts, but that is something that we're going to be looking at as that general overlay. And as we get into the priority areas, what are the constraints, what can we do to move forward? I mean, an easement is a great option. You didn't mention it. It may have been a part of this, but I don't think it was the way you presented it. Was there any consideration or just a very broad overlook of cultural resources and how they overlap or known cultural resources and how they overlap the system as either just informing future development and what would be involved in trying to transgress those or as additional destinations? Obviously, we're concerned with ecological sensitivity of it, but in my business, they go hand in hand. If you're talking about a corridor where there's been very little development, nine times out of ten you're going to run into cultural resources that may or may not have ever been surveyed previously, but they will definitely affect the long-term plans you have if you're going to build anything through there. Yeah, that's a great question. So all of the circles on this particular map, now this is the rural area, are all identified cultural or historic resources in the rural area, and you see how many of them fall in these greenway corridors, to your point. It is admittedly more complicated in the urban service area. We are trying to show destinations and features, like I showed that Citation Trail example, but just call them out and list what resources are there. I think that's a good point just to make sure we're capturing that layer in the urban area. Coming at it from two angles, like you said, what could we get to from one of these systems to look at or learn from versus what may we need to avoid? All right. I know we're taking a lot of time. Any other questions? Just kind of a footnote to what Demetria was talking about. I'm wondering if you're looking at incorporating the schools and routes to school, and I'm also wondering if parents would trust their kids on such a route, which I hope they would. Schools are definitely on there as destinations. As Stan had said, this is a master plan. I'm looking at a 50,000 foot, and a lot of the things that you have concern about, like individuals very much feasibility dive, and that's not part of this particular plan, but that is all part of what we do when we move forward with these potential projects. Thank you all very much. All right. Thank you very much to our speakers. That concludes our pre-programmed part of the agenda, and now is the time for conversations about new topics for future meetings. Also, I want to give you all a round of applause for using your microphones. Everybody has used their microphone today, which is great for Denise, I'm sure, and Chris over there, too. So topics for next meetings. Do you want to use your microphone since I just said that? I think we need to invite the Kentucky Division of Water to make a presentation on when we're going to get our next permit. I think they would come to the December meeting and discuss that with us. We could tell them there's donuts. That always helps. There you go. It's worth an ask. Yes. This isn't exactly stormwater, but could we hear an update of the remedial measures plan for sanitary sewers and their construction pollution control program and their post-construction planning for those particular projects since they're in ecologically sensitive areas? I think as long as it's not odor, they'd be happy to talk about it because I think that's been getting a lot of conversation. Yeah. This may be a little ricochet, but possibly Tracy can help with it. There was a bill passed last year. It's part of the planning and zoning that is mandating that we have objective standards in the zoning ordinance for plans, subdivision plans, and development plans. So all the standards are to be or become objective so that it can be like a building permit. It's just a staff sign-off. It's a check if I have that straight. And there is provision if the developer wants flexibility, they can ask for it, and then something about if it's a sales public safety or something, the commission can ask for it. To me, that's huge. For example, it might eliminate options for hearings or at least public participation in plans. Anyway, what I wonder is in what degree does this impact environmental services and especially storm things because we get a lot of concerns on those plans about stormwater and management. So is that a feasible topic or is it just kind of too picky? So I'm here for Jim Duncan for the Division of Planning, Tracy Wade right here. I don't normally attend. Tom Martin has been attending for, I don't know, maybe a decade for us, and he retired last week, so here I am. But I would say that that topic, I think, is being addressed by the Division of Engineering with their annual construction, I don't know the exact name, but construction workshop, and we're going to be presenting to that group in December. And that's a little bit broader of a group than this particular committee, which I believe is focused on just stormwater. So I think the topic you're mentioning, obviously the Planning Commission is going to have to work through and then those broader groups that I think maybe that's the most appropriate group to work through as opposed to this one. Thanks, that does sound like a more coherent scope for it, and maybe if we could just get meeting notices for SSAC participants. I will share that with Director Burton. Thank you. Of course. Yeah. If there are particular things you're concerned about, if you'd let us know. We've all been looking at this and kind of looking at the manuals and the zoning ordinance and subdivision regulations to see what kind of things we see on plans that maybe aren't specifically addressed. We may not see them all, but if there are some specific things you think may or may not be covered in an ordinance or a manual, let us know so we know to look at it. Thanks, Greg, and I think the biggest concern I have is if there's a range, if what's acceptable is a range of, you know, measurements, widths or something, or a range of uses, it seems as though if it's objective, it means that anything a developer would request, if it's within that range, it has to be allowed. And I'm worried about a sort of least common denominator, race to the bottom, if our standards have any range. But I know you're looking for really specific stuff. You know, in engineering in general, a lot of times things fall in a range because you try to get to a specific number, you're going to argue with people over whether you use .02 or .03 in a calculation. So some things, a range is appropriate, but we're just trying to see, are there things that we're seeing and dealing with that aren't really addressed anywhere? So if anybody in this group knows of any, we by no means are the sole experts on this, and you may know something or be aware of something a little more than we are. We'd love to hear about it. Okay, any more topic ideas? All right, then I think we have announcements. Bailey, do you want to talk about these? Okay. We have the Kentucky Tennessee Water Professionals Conference coming up September 8th through 11th, and then the Art by Nature submissions are due September 13th. We have the Household Hazardous Waste Collection on the 14th, and then the Wolf Run Watershed Council Meeting is being held at the Fayette County Extension Office on September 16th. The Water Resources Annual Symposium is the 27th. October 11th through 20th is Tree Week, and then the Art by Nature Gallery opens on the 18th. The 19th, there's a tree evangelist tree planting training, and then also on the 19th is Arbor Day celebration at the Arboretum. The 26th, there's a cold stream planting party, and on November 15th, Lexington is having the Arts Hop. After Thanksgiving is the Gobble Grease Toss, and December 6th is our last SSAC meeting of 2024, and then December 13th, where we're having the discussion on HB443, is the workshop with engineering development and construction industry. So those are all our announcements for today. You can take all your turkey grease, and we collect it so you don't put it in the storm. But thank you all for coming today. I have a question in terms of membership on the Stormwater Stakeholders Advisory Council meeting. Is there anyone here from the Chamber of Commerce? They have six seats on this body, and I don't see them here today. Is anybody here from the Building Industry Association? So my point is I think we need to make a dedicated outreach to those groups, primarily the regulated community. I see excellent representation from LFCG, from the consulting groups, and from environmental groups. But one of the values of this is getting to be in the same room with those folks that work and live within the regulations that we advocate and we work. Do we have any thoughts on that? We can definitely reach out and invite them back to the December meeting and see what turnout we get. Anybody else? All righty. Thank you all.