Agenda - Council - 01/24/2017 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Metropolitan Agencies • Decisions about the zoning or land use designations, either within or outside a public park, nature preserve or other protected area are, and should remain, the responsibility of local units of government. Metro Cities supports the Metropolitan Council's efforts to compile and maintain an inventory and assessment of regionally significant natural resources for the purpose of providing local communities with additional information and technical assistance. The Metropolitan Council's role with respect to climate change, as identified in the 2040 regional development guide, should be focused on the stewardship of its internal operations (wastewater, transit) and working collaboratively with local governments to provide information, best practices, technical assistance and incentives around responses to climate change. Metro Cities urges the Legislature and/or the Metropolitan Council to provide financial assistance for the preservation of regionally significant natural resources. 4-M Inflow and Infiltration (1/1) The Metropolitan Council has identified nearly half of all sewered communities in the metropolitan region to be contributing excessive inflow and infiltration into the regional wastewater system. Inflow and infiltration are terms for the ways that clear water(ground and storm) makes its way into sanitary sewer pipes and gets treated, unnecessarily, at regional wastewater plants. The number of identified communities is subject to change, depending on rain events, and any city in the metropolitan area can be affected. Another 19 cities have been identified as being near the threshold, or at risk, for contributing excessive I/I into the system. The Metropolitan Council establishes a surcharge on cities determined to be contributing unacceptable amounts of I/I into the wastewater system. The charge is waived when cities meet certain parameters through local mitigation efforts. Metro Cities recognizes the importance of controlling I/I because of its potential environmental and public health impacts, because it affects the size, and therefore the cost, of wastewater treatment systems and because excessive I/I in one city can affect development capacity of another. However, there is the potential for cities to incur increasingly exorbitant costs in their ongoing efforts to mitigate excessive I/I. Metro Cities continues to monitor the surcharge program and supports continued reviews of the methodology used to measure excess UI to ensure that the methodology appropriately normalizes for precipitation variability and the Council's work with cities on community specific issues around UI. Metro Cities supports state financial assistance for Metro Area LI mitigation through future Clean Water Legacy Act appropriations or similar legislation and 2017 Legislative Policies 47