HomeMy WebLinkAbout01/14/2014 RegularMINUTES OF THE
JOINT ELECTED OFFICIALS MEETING OF
THE SPRINGFIELD CITY COUNCIL,
AND LANE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
TUESDAY, JANUARY 14, 2014
A joint elected officials meeting with the City of Springfield and Lane County was held in Harris Hall,
Lane County Public Service Building, 125 East 8 'b Avenue, Eugene, Oregon, on Tuesday, January 14,
2014 at 5:30pm with Board Chair Pat Farr presiding.
ATTENDANCE
Vice -Chair Farr reconvened the meeting of the Lane County Board of Commissioners.
Mayor Lundberg opened the meeting of the Springfield City Council.
Present from Lane County were Board Chair Farr and Commissioners Leiken, Stewart, Bozievich and
Sorenson. Lane County Planning Manager Matt Laird and other Lane County staff were also present.
Present from Springfield were Mayor Christine Lundberg and Councilors VanGordon, Wylie, Moore,
Ralston, Woodrow and Brew. Springfield City Manager Gino Grimaldi and other Springfield staff
were also present.
PUBLIC HEARING
1. Springfield Utility Board Drinking Water Amendments to the Lane County Rural Comprehensive
Plan (RCP).
[Mark Metzger] (60 Minutes)
LANE COUNTY ORDINANCE NO. PA -1307 — IN THE MATTER OF AMENDING THE
LANE COUNTY RURAL COMPREHENSIVE PLAN (RCP) TO REVISE THE GOAL 5
GROUNDWATER RESOURCES POLICIES AND ADD THE SPRINGFIELD WELLHEAD
PROTECTOIN AREA TO THE GOAL 5 INVENTORY OF SIGNIFICANT GROUNDWATER
RESOURCES AND ADOPITNG A SAVINGS AND SEVERABILITY CLAUSE (Dept. File No.
PA 13 -05273 ).
SPRINGFIELD RESOLUTION NO. I — A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE AMENDMENT
OF THE LANE COUNTY RURAL COMPREHENSIVE PLAN (RCP) TO REVISE THE GOAL
5 GROUNDWATER RESOURCES POLICIES AND ADD THE SPRINGFIELD WELLHEAD
PROTECTION AREA TO THE GOAL 5 INVENTORY OF SIGNIFICANT GROUNDWATER
RESOURCES
MOTION: ADOPT/NOT ADOPT RESOLUTION NO. 1.
Board Chair Fan said this was a second reading and public hearing of ORDINANCE PA 1307/ In the
Matter Amending the Lane County Rural Comprehensive Plan (RCP) to Revise the Goal 5
Groundwater Resources Policies and Add the Springfield Wellhead Protection Area to the Goal 5
Inventory of Significant Groundwater Resources and adopting a Savings and Severability Cause
(Dept. File No.: PA 13-05273).
January 14, 2014
Joint Elected Officials Meeting
Public Hearing
City of Springfield
Lane County
Page 2 of 7
Springfield Planner Mark Metzger said Springfield was considering a resolution amending the Rural
Comprehensive Plan to Revise Goal 5 Groundwater Resources Policies, and add the Springfield
Wellhead Protection Area to the Goals 5 Inventory of Significant Groundwater Resources.
Commissioner Farr noted that the public hearing for Lane County was already open from earlier today
Mayor Lundberg opened the public hearing for Springfield.
Lane County Senior Planner Keir Miller reviewed the topics to be covered this evening: Background;
Process — IGA; Amendment Request (applicant); Criteria; Public Comments; and Planning
Commission Recommendations.
Prior to the County's enactment of Ordinance PA -1281, the Metro Plan encompassed a larger area
than it currently covered. The area east of Interstate 5 used to be part of the Metro Plan, but through
the County's enactment of that ordinance, which was co- adopted by the City of Springfield, that
boundary shrunk. He referred to maps showing the Metro Plan boundary before and after the change.
It had been a County initiated request to remove that area from the Metro Plan.
During the proceedings to move that boundary, the Springfield Utility Board (SUB) expressed concern
about that area being removed from the Metro Plan Boundary. If it were removed, the City of
Springfield would no longer be a decision maker on plan amendments in that area and would lose
some level of control for their sensitive groundwater time of travel zones. A significant portion (about
40 %) of the SUB time of travel zones lay within the area outside of the city limits but within the old
Metro Plan boundary. The solution to this issue was an IGA the City and County entered into which
would allow the City of Springfield to be at the table with the Board of Commissioners, reviewing an
application. The IGA stated that whenever a plan amendment came in for that area, the city would be a
decision maker.
Tonight, SUB was requesting two policy amendments to the Rural Comprehensive Plan. The first was
that those areas would be adopted by Lane County into the Rural Comprehensive Plan as significant
Goal 5 groundwater resources. He referred to a map identifying those sites. That afforded SUB
recognition under the Plan and set the stage for future protection of those resources. Statewide
Planning Goal 5 was a two -part goal that pertained to groundwater, riparian resources, mining
resources, etc. The two goals were to identify the significant resources and adopt a'protection measure
to protect those resources. Tonight they were addressing the first phase of recognizing and adopting
those time of travel zones. SUB had a hydro - geologist on staff who would define that terminology and
walk through how the areas were established and certified by the State.
The second component of the proposal was more of a housekeeping item. It memorialized the IGA
between the City and the County and put the language into the Rural Comprehensive Plan. Mr. Miller
noted the policy language that would be added:
Goal 5 — Water Resources, Policy 6:
The significant groundwater resource inventory for Lane County shall consist of those
wellhead protection areas meeting the requirements of OAR 660 - 023- 01400(5)(a) that have
been delineated and certified by the Oregon Public Health Division. The certified wellhead
protection areas shall be adopted into the Goal 5 Inventory by Board Ordinance. The adopted
January 14, 2014
Joint Elected Officials Meeting
Public Hearing
City of Springfield
Lane County
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areas boundaries shall form the basis for development of wellhead protection plans in
accordance with OAR 340 - 040 -0180.
Mr. Miller referred to the applicable criteria and noted that staff was recommending approval of this
application request. Notice was sent to all affected land owners within those time of travel zones as
well as properties abutting those time of travel zones. Over 850 notices were mailed out, a legal ad
was put in the paper, a website was developed that received over 173 hits up through December 31.
2013, and work sessions and public hearings were held with the Planning Commissions. Very little
public comment was received. The majority of the questions and comments were related to what
would happen on the ground with the protection measures and if future regulations might regulate
septic systems. SUB addressed this by explaining that their main concerns were in hazardous
materials, large industrial sites and mining operations. Other questions included whether or not
adoption of these protection areas would influence the City's decision making when expanding the
urban growth boundary (UGB), and how measures would affect farm and forest practices. It was
explained that this was not part of the criteria the city used during the UGB expansion process. One
person expressed concern over equity of landowners within the county being subjected to a plan or
different measures to protect a resource that benefitted resident within the city. Staff explained that if
protection plans were put into place, it would not only protect the city's wellhead area, but also private
well owners.
Both the city and county Planning Commissions unanimously recommended that the elected officials
adopt the proposal.
Tom Lamphere spoke on behalf of the City of Springfield and SUB. He noted that Phil Brown from
GI Water Resources, Amy Chinitz, Drinking Water Source Protection Coordinator from SUB, and
Greg Miller, Water Superintendent from SUB were in attendance and available to answer questions.
Statewide Planning Goal 5 required jurisdictions to inventory and protect natural resources, including
groundwater resources. This was the inventory step. No measures were being presented at this time.
The Administrative Rules establish criteria for determining a significant groundwater resource. There
were basically two criteria that applied: 1) the wellhead protection area is deemed significant if it was
delineated and certified by the Oregon Public Health Division; and 2) it is a primary source of
drinking water serving over 10,000 persons as their primary source of water. In this case, SUB and
the Rainbow Water District were serving 64,000 people. The area shown on the map had been
certified by the State as recently as July 2008. It met the two criteria for designation as a significant
groundwater resource. The maps being presented were in County Ordinance PA1290 and PA1206
which were used in the adoption of Springfield Drinking Water Protection Plan which was currently
applicable within city limits and the Springfield UGB. Tonight's proposal was only addressing the
wellhead protection area east of Interstate 5. The portion on the west side needed to be reviewed with
the City of Eugene.
The second part of this was adoption of the two new policies to be added to the Rural Comprehensive
Plan. These policies were designed to identify the existence of the inventory, identify how
groundwater resources were adopted into the inventory, and their relationship to future plans for
groundwater protection. The second policy identified the process for review of post - acknowledgement
plan amendments for the areas that were formerly in the Metro Plan that required the joint process
with the city and county. With the addition of those policies into the plan, people looking to address
groundwater resources in Lane County would be directed to the correct processes and jurisdictional
January 14, 2014
Joint Elected Officials Meeting
Public Hearing
City of Springfield
Lane County
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governance. The review of this application went beyond the normal notice for a legislative action and
was treated as a quasi-judicial notice. Every land owner in the affected area was notified, and notice
also went 750 feet around the boundaries of the delineated area. They had contact with representatives
of the gravel industry, 1000 Friends of Oregon, Land Watch Lane County, the Nature Conservatory,
and several farmers in the area. Additional information was provided to the farmers to address their
concerns. The farmers' main concerns were how future protection measures would affect their
property. At this time there were no protections proposed. They were assured their concerns would be
addressed when protection measures were developed. There was a limitation on what could be done to
protect the water in terns of farming practices. The Department of Agriculture had jurisdiction over
those regulations; therefore, any development of a future protection plan would need to be coordinated
with the Department of Agriculture.
Phil Brown, professional hydro geologist, spoke on behalf of SUB. It was a requirement of any
drinking water protection plan to develop a wellhead protection area. A wellhead protection area was
an area where groundwater flowed through an aquifer and was captured by the well. There was a
formal process to develop these areas that was described in State regulations including being prepared
by a licensed hydro geologist, then reviewed and certified by the State. The size of a well head
protection area depended on the pumping rate of the wells or wellfield and the aquifer characteristics.
Most of the areas were elongated because of the direction the water was flowing and where it would
be collected. The delineations could run hundreds or thousands of feet or miles from a well.
Springfield's wellhead protection areas were typically defined by a 99 year time of travel. That
referred to the amount of time it would take for a molecule of water to travel from the most distant
upgradiant to where it was captured by the well. It was common to delineate other time of travel areas
within the wellfield areas ranging from six months, one year, five years, etc. The purpose was to
identify zones of differing risk in the event of a groundwater contamination event. The shorter the
time frame, the higher the risk.
Mr. Brown said the Oregon requirements for this delineation work were variable depending on the size
of the population served by the water utility. For systems serving more than 50,000 people, it was
necessary to use a numerical model so the aquifer could be represented realistically enough so the
wellhead protection areas were meaningful and realistic. Springfield used a three - dimensional
numerical groundwater flow model. These models were chosen and specified because they were able
to simulate much more complex aquifer characteristics and situations. He described some of those
situations that could be simulated. Those situations, as well as characteristics could be built and
calibrated into this model. The tool SUB used was Mod -flow and its associated software which was
developed by United State Geological Survey (USGS) and has been used for decades. It was one of
the most widely used and defensible tools for this kind of work. SUB simulated the wellfields
pumping at about 125% of the average daily demand to make them viable into the future.
Councilor Moore asked if the depth of the well had any influence on the time of travel. She asked what
the average depth of a well was.
Mr. Brown said in this area they tended to be fairly shallow and about 100 -200 feet in range. Deeper
wells tended to have a higher degree of containment, didn't interact as much with surface water, had
lower permeability of layers, and their wellhead protection areas tended to be larger and more
extensive.
January 14, 2014
Joint Elected Officials Meeting
Public Hearing
City of Springfield
Lane County
Page 5 of 7
Amy Chinitz, Drinking Water Source Protection Coordinator, spoke on behalf of SUB. The proposed
amendment was the first in a two -step process: The first step was the inventory and the second was to
adopt protection provisions. They anticipated the second step would involve a process of technical
analysis and review, and public involvement had yet to begin. It was premature to speculate what
those future provisions would be. She provided an example of when Springfield went through this in
the late 1990's when Springfield began developing its Drinking Water Protection Plan. Delineating the
wellhead protection area and obtaining certification from the State was the first step in that process.
The delineation identified the land area that directly lay over the part of the aquifer that supplied
groundwater to the wells. These areas were identified as sensitive areas because the consequences of a
chemical spill or other such event were great. The next step after the delineation was to identify an
inventory of potential sources of groundwater contaminants. This analysis included identifying all
activities, facilities or land uses whether current or historic, that had the potential to be a source of
groundwater contamination. Springfield made use of guidance provided by the Oregon Department of
Environmental Quality (DEQ) on potential sources of groundwater contamination. She explained
some of the possible sources of contamination. Springfield's analysis based on information gathered
by using public databases and on the ground surveys, resulted in a map of potential contaminant
sources shown and their respective time of travel zones. Together the delineation of the wellhead
protection area and the identification of potential contaminant sources formed the basis for developing
risk reduction strategies, A citizen task force made up of community members and representatives
from agriculture, industry and commercial worked together over a four month period with assistance
from a technical advisory group to develop ten strategies for managing potential sources of
contamination. These strategies, which directly addressed risks identified in the potential contaminant
risk inventory, were the cornerstone of Springfield's Drinking Water Protection (DWP) Plan.
Springfield adopted the DWP Plan in May of 1999, and one year later adopted the implementing
ordinance which was the Drinking Water Protection Plan Overlay setting standards for the
management of hazardous materials within the 20 year time of travel zone. In addition to the Overlay,
the DWP Plan also includes a variety of voluntary and education based projects designed to reduce the
risk of contamination. She provided some examples of those programs.
Board Chair Farr asked if livestock was included in potential contamination sources.
Ms. Chinitz said something on the list could include a confined feeding operation where there is high
density of livestock in an area
Commissioner Leiken said when Springfield's Drinking Water Protection Plan was adopted, he and
Mayor Lundberg were both city councilors. He spoke regarding the citizen outreach and that he and
late councilor Hatfield, along with John Tamulonis (Community Development Manager of
Springfield), went out to speak to businesses who were originally fearful of the plan because they
thought it would be detrimental to the business community. The number of permits issued in
Springfield over the last decade would indicate that fear was unfounded. When this was first adopted,
it was groundbreaking. The discussion about the Metro Plan boundary started in 2009 and he felt the
current discussion about the groundwater was positive because it would protect those citizens who
were between Springfield's UGB and the Metro Plan Boundary. This added tremendous value to all of
those property owners and was a good step. He thanked the staffs from Lane County, the City of
Springfield and the Springfield Utility Board for working together and taking the time needed to do
this well. This was good work from all the staff and sent a very good message.
January 14, 2014
Joint Elected Officials Meeting
Public Hearing
City of Springfield
Lane County
Page 6 of 7
Commissioner Bozievich said when Springfield adopted the DWP Plan, he was working in Springfield
at Branch Engineering. He was then employed by Eugene Water and Electric Board (EWEB) in their
water division where they were looking at the possibility of developing a confluence wellfield on the
other side of 1 -5. During that process, they looked to the Springfield DWP Plan as a model for a
wellhead protection plan. From that experience, he had read a finite element model of a groundwater
resource and understood the impacts of the aquifer underlaying Eugene and Springfield which was a
very open aquifer and open to the ground. That was why it was really important it be protected. What
fell on the ground in Eugene and Springfield went into our drinking water. This was an important first
step. He had seen the analysis of these areas and felt they were an accurate depiction of the areas that
needed protection and deserved Goal 5 designation. This was the second action the Board had taken in
the last six months to protect wellheads. On Sept 17, 2013 the Board adopted an ordinance to protect
the City of Florence's dunal aquifer and some of their riparian and wetland areas. This Board had been
actively working to protect drinking water. Lane County and the city had worked together with SUB
to resolve several issues in order to get the protections in place that were important to the City of
Springfield through an IGA. This type of cooperation was a great model. He noted other times when
this type of cooperation had been used recently in the City of Florence.
Commissioner Sorenson said the protection of drinking water was something most people didn't spend
a lot of time on so it was nice to see the professionals here talking about this program. He noted that
the governor of West Virginia announced that there would be a state of emergency in 9 counties after a
chemical spill contaminated the Elk River. That contamination affected and caused a ban on water use
for 200,000 customers. A chemical spill could really affect drinking water very quickly in both surface
and ground waters. He was glad they were moving forward with this and was trusting they were taking
enough action to be pro- active.
Board Chair Farr said this did have a direct parallel to what was going on in Virginia so he appreciated
Commissioner Sorenson bringing that up. The action being discussed this evening was the type that
precluded that type of emergency. It would seem that our aquifer may be more susceptible to
contamination than that in the Appalachians.
Commissioner Bozievich noted that the incident in Virginia was surface water contamination rather
than ground water contamination. When surface water _was involved, intakes could be turned off to
keep contaminants from getting through. That was not the case with ground water. It was even more
serious in our area to establish these protections.
Board Chair Farr referred to the map and noted that several of the wells were on both the Springfield
and Eugene side of 1 -5. He asked how that was addressed.
Mr. Miller said in those situations, SUB would work directly with the City of Eugene. It would likely
be worked into their Envision Eugene process to adopt water protection plans in that process. That
would be addressed at that time.
Board Chair Farr said this had been a lengthy process on the Springfield side. He asked if it would be
an equally long process on the Eugene side.
Mr. Miller said it was likely to take a long time in Eugene as well. With the model in place that has
been used on the Springfield side, it should be smoother.
January 14, 2014
Joint Elected Officials Meeting
Public Hearing
City of Springfield
Lane County
Page 7 of 7
Mayor Lundberg said that when they were approached by the county with this idea, there was some
disagreement as to why they needed to do this. The city and county were not in agreement about many
issues when they first started, but the Drinking Water Protection Plan was essential to the citizens in
Springfield. She was very pleased that things had been worked out and SUB was satisfied. They had
been able to work out a satisfactory resolution by working together. She thanked staff for their hard
work and said she was happy to be at this point.
Board Chair Farr asked if there was anyone who would like to speak on this topic.
No one appeared to speak.
Board Chair Farr closed the public hearing and the record for the Lane County Board of
Commissioners.
Mayor Lundberg closed the public hearing and the record for the Springfield City Council.
IT WAS MOVED BY COMMISSIONER LEIKEN WITH A SECOND BY COMMISSIONER
STEWART TO ADOPT ORDINANCE NO. PA -1307. THE MOTION PASSED BY A VOTE
OF 5 FOR AND 0 AGAINST.
IT WAS MOVED BY COUNCILOR WYLIE WITH A SECOND BY COUNCILOR
WOODROW TO ADOPT RESOLUTION NO. 2014-02. THE MOTION PASSED BY A VOTE
OF 6 FOR AND 0 AGAINST.
ADJOURNMENT
Mayor Lundberg adjourned the Springfield City Council at 6:17 p.m.
Commissioner Farr adjourned the Lane County Commissioners at 6:17 p.m.
Minutes Recorder
Amy Sowa
City Recorder
o-ah ristine L. Lundber
Mayor
Attest:
City Reco ler