Committee on Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities 4/4/22

Good morning, welcome to the April 4th, 2023 meeting of the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee.

We'll come to order now.

The time is 9.32 a.m.

I'm Alex Peterson, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Herbold?

Here.

Council Member Morales?

Council Member Sawant?

Present.

Council Member Strauss?

Present.

Chair Peterson?

Present.

For present.

Thank you.

And I'll announce when the other council member joins us.

If there's no objection, today's proposed agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Just a quick chair's report.

Good morning, again.

Welcome to the Transportation Seattle Public Utilities Committee.

We have four items for voting on our agenda today.

First on the agenda, we have Council Bill 120539, which is a property acquisition from Seattle Public Utilities on 35th Avenue Northeast to help expand the Thornton Creek floodplain in order to increase climate resiliency.

Second, we have Council Bill 120538, which, if passed, would authorize Seattle Public Utilities to enter into an interlocal agreement with King County to allocate payments for disposal of residual waste.

Third, we've got Resolution 32082, which is the Seattle Public Utilities Solid Waste Plan back in our committee for a vote today.

A published on our agenda with Resolution 32082 is a friendly amendment from Council Member Herbold that adds language enhancing accountability for the plan's timelines and metrics.

And finally, we have Council Bill 120528 from the Seattle Department of Transportation, which authorizes a property easement along Route 44. At this time, we'll open the general public comment period for the Transportation Seattle Public Utilities Committee.

First, I'm going to check to see if we have any speakers.

One moment.

So, we have no online speakers and we have no in-person speakers present.

So, the public comment period is open.

There are no speakers online or in-person.

So, we will go ahead and close the public comment period.

Okay, moving on to the first item on our agenda.

One moment.

All right, will the clerk please read the short title of the first agenda item into the record.

Agenda Item 1, Council Bill 120539, an ordinance relating to the Department of Finance and Administrative Services on behalf of Seattle Public Utilities authorizing the acquisition of real property, authorizing the Director of Finance and Administrative Services or the Director's designee to complete the property's acquisition.

For briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

Colleagues, this council will authorize Seattle Public Utilities to acquire a property on 35th Avenue Northeast to help expand the Thornton Creek floodplain.

Before I turn it over to our presenters from SPU, I wanted to check with our Council Central staff.

Brian, good night.

In your review, did you identify any concerns with the land acquisition legislation from SPU, or do you have any preliminary comments for us?

Thank you, Chair.

Again, Brian, good night, Council Staff.

No, I did not identify any concerns and don't have any introductory remarks, so I'm happy to turn it over to staff.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Good morning to our General Manager, Andrew Lee.

Thank you very much, and thank you, Council Member Peterson, Chair Peterson, and the members of this committee.

This is the first of three SPU agenda items the committee will be considering.

This proposed legislation would authorize SPU to purchase a property located within the floodplain of SPU's Thornton Creek Confluence project in Northeast Seattle.

This would be a willing sale and purchase price and is just under $850,000.

With me this morning is Catherine Lynch, our Capital Projects Coordinator and Urban Creeks Biologist, who will brief you on the project.

And also with us is Robert Farrell from FAS, who negotiated the purchase.

At this point, I'll hand it off to Catherine.

Good morning.

Thank you.

Thank you, Andrew, and good morning to the chairman and to the committee.

So I will be providing some information on this property.

And so, first of all, this is a legislation that would authorize the acquisition of the property and it's at 10706 35th Avenue Northeast.

And it is the purpose of acquiring the property is to expand the footprint of the Thornton Creek Confluence floodplain project.

The property which is indicated in this red rectangle is actually nested within the Thornton Confluence floodplain project.

And that's indicated with the orange polygon.

So the property is located in Northeast Seattle on Thornton Creek and upstream of the property is Meadowbrook Community Center And downstream is Seattle Public Utilities Stormwater Detention Facility Meadowbrook Pond.

This is a property that has flooded quite a bit in the past, on average every year to year and a half.

And the map that is on the left-hand side shows the FEMA flood prone areas.

The dark blue is actually the floodway, and the turquoise is the 100-year floodplain, and the green is the 500-year floodplain.

If you look at the photographs on the right-hand side, the top one shows the property during a relatively small event, and this is seen from the perspective of the floodplain project.

And the photograph in the inset on the bottom That is prior to the construction of the floodplain project.

And this was during a much larger storm.

There were five homes there that flooded.

Acquiring this property is going to provide a lot of benefits.

And in particular, it expands the confluence floodplain footprint for both water and sediment storage.

And increasing the footprint for water storage also protects the immediate area from flooding and increases the area for climate change resilience.

Increasing the storage for sediment protects Meadowbrook Pond from sediment pulses.

So the sediment gets stored on the floodplain and it actually meters out and decreases the frequency that we need to dredge metaprocons, and that saves on maintenance costs.

Purchasing this property, it also has a driveway along the south perimeter of the property, which would provide an access point to the floodplain confluence site.

This provides access for our crews to do maintenance, maintain vegetation, And that helps to reduce, it reduces maintenance costs and decreases lifecycle costs.

But it also would provide public access to the floodplain and create a community stewardship space for school and outreach activities.

On the downstream end of this property, it would also provide an opportunity to widen the channel and slow erosive storm flows.

And this is where we have both county and city infrastructure, there's a pump station and two sewer lines that cross the creek at that location.

And so that helps to reduce the risk and also life cycle costs for that infrastructure.

And then the property itself provides an opportunity to plant the area with trees and this provides valuable habitat, but it also provides shade for the creek which is a water quality benefit, because this is an area that already has issues with summer temperatures that can affect salmon.

The Seattle Public Utilities entered into a purchase and sale agreement with the property owners last July, and it was for the purchase price of just under 850,000.

The property closing date is coming up on April 28th.

The Thornton Confluence Project, this is more of a kind of a fun fact, was featured in Scientific American in last April's issue.

And it was included because it is an example of what cities can do to increase their resilience to climate change and to improve stream water quality.

And they selected this project because it had project performance results that demonstrated success.

And so the picture shows a group of people, some or many of the regional researchers that were involved with collecting the performance information from the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service, NOAA Fisheries, the University of Washington, Colorado School of Mines, and King County.

And then in addition, the design, construction, and results are captured in a documentary film that was selected by the Seattle International Film Festival in 2019. And this is open to questions.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

Excellent presentation and property acquisition to benefit the city and rate payers.

Colleagues, any questions?

And Brian Goodnight already noted no issues from his review.

Okay.

Good.

I did check with the council president's office.

This is in district five, no issues from that standpoint either.

So I think we're ready to go ahead and approve this, which is important considering the closing date.

Okay, I'll go ahead and do the parliamentary procedure to move this forward.

I now move that the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 120539. Is there a second?

Did we get a second?

Thank you.

I'll take that, Council Member Herbold.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of Council Bill.

Any final comments before we vote?

Okay, great.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 120539, item one on our agenda?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Excellent.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 120539 will be sent to the April 11th City Council meeting.

Thank you everybody who presented on that.

I'm gonna go watch a documentary.

Go ahead.

I was just going to ask if someone could stop my slides, stop my sharing, please.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Will the clerk please read the short title of the second agenda item?

Agenda item two, council bill 120538, an ordinance relating to Seattle Public Utilities authorizing the general manager and chief executive officer of Seattle Public Utilities or designee to execute an interlocal agreement with King County to receive payments for the disposal of residual waste from material recovery facilities in the city of Seattle for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you.

Colleagues, Council Bill 120538 would allow Seattle Public Utilities to enter into an interlocal agreement with King County government to receive appropriately proportional payments for the valuable residuals left over after the recycling process.

Before I turn it over to our presenters at Seattle Public Utilities, just wanted to check with our council central staff.

Brian, good night.

Brian, any initial comments or do you want to Let us know if you had any issues with this.

Thank you, Chair.

Yeah, I think SPU's presentation is quite full, so I will hand it to them.

But just my only comment would be that just note that in addition to approving the interlocal agreement, the bill before the council or the committee would also increase appropriations for 2023 for SPU's solid waste fund.

So assuming the committee does recommend passage of the bill, it would require support by three quarters of the full council rather than just a simple majority.

So that's all I wanted to know.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And just to clarify, it's to receive additional appropriations.

That's correct.

Okay, that's good news.

All right.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Again, General Manager Lee, and I think you've got Jeff Fowler with you.

Yes.

Yeah.

So this ordinance deals with a somewhat arcane issue related to the handling of solid waste within King County.

And so King County has jurisdiction over solid waste outside of the city of Seattle, including recyclable materials collected within unincorporated King County and the 37 cities outside of Seattle.

Some of the recyclable material collected within King County's jurisdiction is sent to recycling facilities inside Seattle.

And after sorting, there is what's called a residual volume of material that typically cannot be recycled, but must be disposed of in a landfill.

And so several years ago, a dispute arose between Seattle and King County about where that residual garbage should go.

And this legislation would authorize an interlocal agreement to resolve that issue.

And with me today to brief you are Jeff Fowler, who leads our Solid Waste line of business, as well as Andy Eberle from the city attorney's office, who helped to negotiate the agreement.

And at this point, I'll pass it off to Jeff Fowler.

Thank you, Andrew.

And good morning, council members.

We are presenting on a proposed interlocal agreement between the city and King County related to the disposal of waste that is generated at recycling facilities in Seattle.

The purpose today is to secure council approval of an ordinance authorizing SPU to enter into the interlocal agreement with King County.

The city and the county send recyclables to material recovery facilities located in Seattle.

These facilities are often referred to as MRFs.

Two main facilities are owned by Recology and Republic Services.

Approximately 9 to 10% of the materials sent to these facilities ends up as waste because it is not recyclable.

This material is known as residuals or contaminants, as shown in red in the image on the right.

The MRFs must pay to dispose of this material and therefore it results in revenue for the jurisdiction that disposes it.

Approximately three years ago, King County directed these facilities to send the residuals associated with the recyclables collected in King County to the King County landfill as directed by their code.

The city reached out to the county to discuss this because the city believes the residuals are created in Seattle as part of the sorting process and should go to the city's disposal system.

And we are bound by our code to dispose of them in Seattle.

The city and the county worked collaboratively to try and resolve the issue of where the residuals should ultimately be disposed.

At the beginning of these discussions, the city and the county agreed to split the portion of residuals associated with the county 50-50 until the issue could be resolved.

Through multiple discussions, the city and the county were unable to agree.

and the city initiated a lawsuit with the knowledge of the county to obtain a declaratory judgment from King County Superior Court.

Following the filing, the city and the county came together again to continue discussions of a possible agreement that would satisfy both parties.

The agreement that has been worked out is the interlocal agreement before you today.

The main points of the agreement are as follows.

All residual materials from the facilities located in Seattle will be disposed of through the city's disposal system.

The city will make a program support payment of $30 per ton to the county for the portion of materials that came from the county.

This payment is essentially what remains after the cost of disposal are accounted for.

The difference between the current 50-50 split and the ILA agreement is an additional $200,000 per year to the city for program support.

This slide shows the next steps in the process.

King County is also in the process of seeking approval from their council.

Again, the passing of this ordinance allows us to enter into the interlocal agreement, which will resolve the dispute between the city and King County.

there any questions?

Thank you.

I really appreciate the pre briefing that we received.

Um, so I feel very comfortable with this interlocal agreement, and it's my understanding.

We expect King County to approve it as well.

Is that your understanding, Jeff?

Yes, that's our current understanding.

Excellent colleagues.

Any comments or questions about this agreement?

Great.

Just checking, checking.

Okay, Terrific.

Well, I'll go ahead and do the parliamentary procedure to move this forward.

Council members, I now move that the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 120538. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the Council Bill.

Any final comments or questions before we vote?

Waiting for that ad joke.

Thank you.

Yes.

Well, you know, this will enable us to prevent future trash talk with our friends at King County.

So we look forward to disposing of this matter today.

Councilmember Peterson, point of personal privilege.

I believe that that joke was recycled.

Well said.

I'll try not to reuse it anymore.

All right.

Anything else, colleagues?

All right.

I'm sure SPU has plenty of these in their back pocket when needed.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of this Council Bill 120538. Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 120538, item two on our agenda.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries, and the committee recommendation to pass Council 50538 will be sent to the April 11th City Council meeting.

Thank you.

All right, we'll go ahead and move to agenda item three.

Will the clerk please read the short title of the third agenda item?

Agenda item three, resolution 32082, a resolution adopting Seattle's 2022 solid waste plan update, moving upstream to zero waste, for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

Colleagues, we first heard this resolution at our February 21st committee meeting and then again on March 7, and it's back today for a vote.

We have the presenters from the previous meeting here with us in case there are any final questions, but we're not going to go through the PowerPoint again, but that is posted online.

Brian Goodnight from our City Council Central staff wrote an excellent memo last month analyzing the proposed solid waste plan.

And as I mentioned before, we have a friendly amendment from Councilmember Herbold, enhancing accountability.

But any comments or questions about the base resolution, and then we can move to the amendment.

Yeah, Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you so much and want to thank Seattle Public Utilities for answering some additional questions that I had between the last committee meeting and today.

sort of the cobwebs of my mind from when I used to chair this committee needed a little decluttering to help me remember some of the things that we had previously been working on.

And also we've received some late questions from a zero waste advocate and just wanted to sort of highlight some of that if I could, Mr. Chair.

Yes, please.

Thank you so much.

One of the things that we had discussed a few years ago was that SPU was working with SDCI.

to implement a specific recommendation regarding adopting collection infrastructure requirements and new multifamily construction to ensure that tenants have sufficient solid waste services in convenient Access to solid waste containers and this is a question I raised at the last committee meeting and got some great information back.

The recommendation was that there should be containers for all 3 way streams on every floor.

in multifamily buildings to make sure that tenants had a way to separate their waste and have that available on every floor rather than having either a single container on each floor, which would actually create a bit of an incentive to mix waste, or having all three containers on maybe the ground floor or something.

I understand that SPU is no longer pursuing legislation, and I just want to say, for the record, I'm disappointed.

I understand that there's concern about the impact on saving a maximum number of square footage for housing units, but the proposal at the time was to allow for additional additional space to make up for the space that might be lost with containers.

So I'm really hoping that SPU considers working with SDCI to reevaluate the need for a regulation like this.

But I do want to thank SPU for using the design review process to encourage building developers to voluntarily include containers for all three way streams on multifamily buildings.

And it sounds that at least for buildings that are greater than five stories, SPU is seeing some good results from that advocacy using the design review process.

And I think of buildings with five or more, of course, of about 55% of buildings are including on-floor solid waste storage for all three waste streams.

I just wanted to close the loop on that question that I asked last week and let the public know what's happening with that.

And then, secondly, another issue that we had sort of kicked the tires on, if you will, was looking at creating ways to incentivize consumers to produce less waste and awarding.

those who do with using a every other week trash collection pilot.

And I know the city has tried that before.

A lot has changed since that pilot was rolled out and I think is really something that is worthy of consideration moving forward.

A constituent wrote about a Bellingham program where the rate payer can fill a 32 gallon cash can every two weeks and enjoy every other week cash collection For which they pay less than every week collection for just wanting wanting to lift up hope that we can another look at that approach.

And then lastly, want to lift up.

as it relates to policies to reduce waste before waste reaches consumers' waste.

And I had the pleasure of participating in a press conference with SPU and Zero Waste Washington at the Seattle Aquarium to announce the WRAP Act, which is an extended user responsibility law that was proposed at the state level Unfortunately, it did not move forward this session and hoping that we can continue our advocacy on that in future legislative sessions.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Herbold.

Well, I'll go ahead and move the resolution and we can talk about the amendment number one.

And then we can have further discussion on the whole thing.

Council members, I now move resolution 32082 as presented on the committee's agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to resolution 32082. Now for amendment one.

I'll go ahead and move it, and then you can speak to it, Council Member Herbold, and we can also have Brian Goodnight walk through it.

So I'll go ahead and move Amendment 1 from Council Member Herbold as shown on today's agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

Amendment 1 is now before us for discussion.

Council Member Herbold, as sponsor of the amendment, do you have any additional opening remarks or should we turn it over to Brian Goodnight to walk us through the specifics?

I'll just keep it super short.

Again, extending my thanks to SPU and their commitment to updating the metrics for solid waste reduction to address the life cycle of materials.

In voting to approve the solid waste plan, a timeline for when metrics will be developed to quantify waste reduction, I think is really important and is the basis for proposing this amendment.

Thank you.

Thank you Council Member Herbold.

I agree and I'm really happy that you proposed this.

Brian Goodnight from our Council Central staff, could you share with us the amendment, walk us through it?

Absolutely.

Hopefully you can see it on your screen now.

Yes.

As Council Member Herbold said, just very briefly, so in addition to approving the the 2022 Solid Waste Plan, the resolution as proposed would have superseded the recycling goals from a 2007 resolution, Resolution 30990, related to 70% of construction and demolition waste and recycling 70% of municipal solid waste.

So in recognition of the shift towards waste prevention, SPU is proposing to get rid of those goals and replace them with waste generation and capture rates, so things to measure waste prevention.

As shown in amendment number one, it would retain the recycling goals from resolution 30990 until SPU is able to create those new waste reduction and diversion metrics and provide a report to council identifying those.

The amendment would require a report by December 31st of 2024. And then upon receipt of that report, those new metrics would supersede the recycling goals from the 2007 resolution.

I think that sums it up.

Excellent, excellent.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any comments or questions about Council Member Herbold's amendment?

Okay, again, thank you, Council Member Herbold for putting this amendment forward for us.

It really does make this plan much better, more accountable for us.

And thanks to SPU for the years of hard work, putting together this update to the plan as well.

Any final comments or questions before we vote on amendment one?

Council Member Herbal, did you want to make any remaining remarks?

Okay.

Let's vote on Amendment 1 and get it incorporated into the resolution.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 1 to Resolution 32082?

Council Member Herbal?

Yes.

Council Member Swant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Excellent, the motion carries and Amendment 1 is adopted.

Colleagues, any final comments or questions before we move to a vote on the amended resolution?

Okay.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to adopt Resolution 32082 as amended, Item 3 on our agenda.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation to adopt resolution 32082 as amended will be sent to the April 11th City Council meeting.

Everybody.

Okay, now we've got the fourth and final item on our April 4th agenda.

Will the clerk please read the short title of the fourth agenda item?

Agenda item four, Council Bill 120528, an ordinance relating to the Route 44 Transit Plus Multimodal Corridor Project, authorizing the Director of the Seattle Department of Transportation to acquire, accept, and record on behalf of the City of Seattle a deed for street purposes for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

Colleagues, Council Bill 120528 from the Seattle Department of Transportation would approve a small property easement on First Avenue Northwest and Northwest Market Street to facilitate transit reliability for King County Metro's Route 44 bus corridor.

Before I turn it over to our presenters from SDOT, I wanted to check in with our City Council Central staff.

Calvin Chow, thank you for your memo on this council bill.

And do you have any comments or concerns about the legislation?

No, Council Member.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

Good morning to SDOT.

Good morning.

Thank you for the opportunity to present.

We are here today to request that the City Council pass this proposed legislation to accept a deed for street purposes to construct the route 44 transit multimodal corridor project.

This legislation will also place the property under SDOT's jurisdiction and incorporates it into city right away.

Next screen.

I think I got ahead of myself.

All right.

Next screen.

Metro's bus route 44 serves over 9,300 passengers daily and is one of the highest ridership routes in Seattle.

This 10.7 east-west trolley bus route in North Seattle serves the Ballard, Wallingford, and University District neighborhoods.

And it connects with Sound Transit's Sioux District and University of Washington League Light Rail Stations.

and King County Metro's top two rapid right routes, the E line and the D line.

It also connects with several other major North-South transit routes now and in the future.

The city partnered with King County to construct the route 44 transit plus multimodal quarter project between Ballard and the district to improve transit reliability, reduce travel times, and enhanced pedestrian safety and access along this transit corridor.

At this time, I'm going to pass the presentation along to Janet Rees, the project manager, to discuss more about the project details.

And next slide, please.

Good morning.

The Route 44 Transit Plus Multimodal Corridor Project has scope that includes dedicated bus lanes, signal upgrades and optimizations, channelization changes and turn restrictions, safety improvements, pedestrian access improvements, intersection improvements, and sidewalk upgrades.

Next slide, please.

And the project area spans the length of the Route 44 corridor, which is from the University of Washington Link Station.

um, all the way through to Ballard, uh, near the Ballard blocks.

I'll pass it back over to Gretchen.

So the acquired property totals approximately 45 square feet, and the impacted intersection abuts First Avenue Northwest, Northwest 47th Street, and Market Street.

Next slide, please.

The exhibit to the left shows the acquisition portion of the whole parcel that you see highlighted in the map to your right.

Next slide, please.

This slide shows a picture of the before view of the impacted parcel.

And this slide shows a picture of the impacted parcel after a substantial amount of the work at the intersection has been completed.

Next slide.

Acceptance of this property is necessary to successfully construct the project as planned, specifically to widen the sidewalk and add an ADA ramp that is required for the successful completion of the project.

Next slide, please.

This concludes our presentation.

Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you, and I believe I misspoke earlier when I referred to it as an easement when it's actually an acquisition, but it's just the acquisition of the very tip of that diagram you showed us earlier.

I think Calvin Chow and our central staff reiterated that point, that it's just that sliver to enable you to do that sidewalk treatment that you showed.

Yeah, so of that triangle, it's just the very top part of that triangle.

Yeah, okay, good.

Thank you.

Colleagues any comments or questions about this item which again Calvin Chow and his memo said it's Almost ministerial in in its nature in terms of not being substantive in this case All right, just checking to see if there are any comments or questions real quick then we will take a vote on it and All right, Council Members, I now move that the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 120528. Is there a second?

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the Council Bill.

Any final comments or questions before we vote?

All right, will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 120528, item four on our agenda?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council member Sawant?

Yes.

Council member Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Peterson?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The bill, the motion carries and the council, the committee recommendation is to pass this council bill 120528 at the April 11th city council meeting.

Well, colleagues, that was the last item on our agenda.

We appreciate y'all being here for this meeting.

The time is 10, 11 a.m.

and this concludes the April 4th, 2023 meeting of the Transportation Seattle Public Utilities Committee.

The next committee meeting of the Transportation Seattle Public Utilities Committee will be Tuesday, April 18th.

Thank you, we are adjourned, bye.