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HomeMy WebLinkAboutOrdinance No. 3119-2020)(? Sponsored by: Administration K~NAI CITY OF KENAI ORDINANCE NO. 3119-2020 AN ORDINANCE OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF KENAI, ALASKA, INCREASING GENERAL FUND ESTIMATED REVENUES AND APPROPRIATIONS BY $26 ,542 IN THE GENERAL FUND PARKS, RECREATION AND BEAUTIFICATION DEPARTMENT FOR AN INCREASE OF A GRANT FROM THE UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY PASSED THROUGH THE STATE OF ALASKA DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION FOR BACTERIA LEVEL MONITORING ON THE CITY'S BEACHES FROM MARCH 1, 2020 THROUGH JUNE 30, 2020. WHEREAS , the City of Kenai has a current Beach Grant Agreement in place with the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation for 2020 bacteria level monitoring; and, WHEREAS, the State of Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation is amending the grant amount to allow for additional sampling at the mouth of the Kenai river which is required to build an adequate database for future modeling efforts and will be provided through a cooperative agreement with the Kenai Watershed Forum; and, WHEREAS, bacteria levels during the testing period in the past have exceeded water recreation standards as established by the State of Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation in Register 226 that could pose a health risk to the fishery participants and City residents utilizing the beach; and, WHEREAS , it is in the best interest of the City to monitor the bacteria level on its beaches. NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT ORDAINED BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF KENAI, ALASKA, as follows: Section 1. That the City Manager is authorized to accept a grant from the United States Environmental Protection Agency passed through the State of Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation and to expend the funds to fulfill the purpose the grant and of this Ordinance. Section 2 . That FY2020 estimated revenues and appropriations be increased as follows : General Fund : Increase Estimated Revenues : Federal Grants -Other Increase Appropriations : Parks , Recreation & Beautification - Professional Services New Text Underlined; [DELETED TEXT BRACKETED] $26.542 $26,542 Ordinance No. 3119-2020 Page 2 of 2 Section 3. Severability: That if any part or provision of this ordinance or application thereof to any person or circumstances is adjudged invalid by any court of competent jurisd iction, such judgment shall be confined in its operation to the part, provision , or application directly involved in all controversy in which this judgment shall have been rendered , and shall not affect or impa ir the validity of the remainder of this title or application thereof to other persons or circumstances. The City Counc i l hereby declares that it would have enacted the remainder of th is ordinance even without such part, provision, or application. Section 4. Effective Date: That pursuant to KMC 1.15.0?0(f). Section 1 of this ordinance shall take effect upon adoption. ENACTED BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF KENAI, ALASKA, th is 6th day of May, 2020 . ATIEST: ~ Approved by Finance: ~ BRIAN GABRIEL SR., MAYOR Introduced: April 15, 2020 Enacted: May 6 , 2020 Effective: May 6, 2020 New Te xt Underlined; [DELETED TEXT BRACKETED] City of Kenai I 210 r=:idalgo Ave , Kenai, AK 99611-77941907.283.7535 I www.ken a i.cily MEMORANDUM TO: THROUGH: FROM: DATE: SUBJECT: Mayor Brian Gabriel and Kenai City Council Paul Ostrander, City Manager Robert J. Frates , Parks & Re c reation Director April 7, 2020 Ordinance No. 3119-2020 The purpose of this memorandum is to recommend passage of Ordinance No . 3119 -2020 requesting an increase to the estimated revenue and appropriations in the Parks, Recreation & Beautification Professional Services account to allow for additional water quality sampling on the City's beaches. The State of Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation wishes to amend the current Kenai Beach Monitoring and MST (Mi crobial Source Tracking) Grant to allow for additional sampling to be performed through June 30, 2020. The additional parameters have not been regularly collected in the past but are required for using predicative models developed by th e Environmental Protection Agency . Approval of Ordinance No . 3 119-202 0 will add an additional $26 ,542 to t he existing ACWA-19- B11 grant and the new amended grant total will be $87,319 . Council's support and approval is respectfully requested . KENAI 'C_ WATERSHED -, FORUM 44129 Sterling Highway I Soldotna , AK 99669 1907-260-5449 1 www.kenaiwatershed .org Workin g Togeth er for Healthy Watersheds 0 11 th e Kenai P eninsula Amending ACWA-19-Bll Grant: Kenai Beach Monitoring and MST Assessment Prepared for: Kenai City Council members Prepared by: Maggie Harings and Branden Bornemann, Kenai Watershed Forum Summary The Kenai Waters hed Forum (KWF) w as contracted b y the City of Kenai in 2019 to sample for bacteria and microbial s ource tracking (MST) throughout the lower Kenai River and its beaches. It was recently brought to light that DEC seeks a continuation of sampling through 2020 which would require the following: • Pa ssing an ordinance at the City Council meeting on May 6 , 2020 to amend this grant, thereby accepting an additional $26,542 from DEC for FY20 . The amended grant total would then be $87,319. • Passing an additional ordinance at a later date, thereby accepting funds from DEC fo r FY2 l to cover sampling throughout the s econd half of the summer. o KWF will work with DEC to include a budget line item in the FY21 amendment for administrative costs incurred while facilitating this grant Intended outcome of 2020 Sampling DEC reportedly intends to phase out of intensive summer sampling following 2020 data collected. In the future , predictive modeling will replace previous sampling schedules and will only require occas ional sampling "spot checks" to confirm that the model is working correctly. Background • Bacteria monitoring was initiated in Kenai in 2010 • Bacteria grab samples describe "health" of ri ver, providing snapshosts of bacteria concentrations at a s ingle moment in time once/week at each s ampling location • Bacteria is present in the lower Kenai River + its beaches throughout the summer due to the presence of gulls o North, South Kenai Beaches generally see their highest bacteria concentrations of the summer during the dipnet PUF o Warren Ames Memorial Bridge sampling site serves as the "control" and results in few- to-no bacteria exceedances each s ummer • Illness has never been linked publically to exposure from participating in the dipnet PUF Positive outcomes of sampling • 2010-2014 sampling results Jed to cooperative efforts between City of Kenai, DEC and KWF resulting in: o drastically improved best management practices (dumpsters, raking). o thou sands of fi shermen educated about the importance of implementing proper wa s hing, filleting, storage techniques for their catch. • Ability to us e predictive modeling in future years. • Higher bacteria spikes during dipnet PUF could be used to argue reduction or elimination of PUF (should the city ever need to do so). Sh ould members of the Kenai City Council wish to seek more information regarding this topic, th ey m ay access DEC reports p ublish ed online her e: https://dec.alaska.govl waterl water-qualityl beach-programl or reach out to Sarah Apsens of DEC. Page lll Kenai BEACH Monitoring Program Frequently Asked Questions Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation • What is the BEACH Program? The Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health (BEACH) Act was passed by the U.S. Congress in 2002 in response to increased occurrences of water-borne illnesses. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administers grant fund s to states, tribes and territories under the Act to establish monitoring and public notification programs. The BEACH program has established national marine water quality monitoring and reporting standards for fecal waste contamination and notifies the public when levels exceed state standards. The Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has been implementing the BEACH program since 2002 , and at Kenai Beaches since 2010. • What Services Does the BEACH Program provide? o DEC works with local partners to conduct sanitary surveys and water quality sampling o DEC provides weekly updates on water quality to key stakeholders and members of the public o DEC conducts outreach to inform beach users on how they can minimize bacteria level by keeping the beach clean and how to keep themselves healthy while recreating • Where does the funding come from? The State of Alaska BEACH program receives funding from the EPA. The 2020 BEACH sampling will be funded by two amendments, one for State Fiscal Year 2020 and one for State Fiscal Year 2021 (the State Fiscal Year starts on July 1st ). Ideally, we'd approve the two amendments together, but the SFY21 BEACH funding is not yet available. Unlike other DEC grants, no funding match is required for BEACH program grants. • What is the plan for the 2020 recreation season? In 2020 DEC plans to: 1) Continue to monitor bacteria at the north and so uth Kenai beaches, the gull rookery sites, and the Warren Ames Memorial Bridge 2) Issue a general notification (press release) at the start of the recreation season 3) Provide weekly updates to stakeholders via listserv during the recreation season , and update the Alaska Beach Monitoring webpage with monitoring results Notifications are posted on the Alaska BEACH Monitoring webpage. Weekly res ults are distributed to stakeholders. 1 • What do these advi sories look like? Who can view advisories and monitoring results? Past advisories can be found here: https://d ec .al as ka.gov/beac hes/ DEC wi ll post a general advisory at the sta rt of the recreation season. Week ly monitoring res ults w ill be posted on the Alaska Beach Program website https://de c.ala ska.gov/bea ches/. Weekly updates w ill be forward w ee kly to Bea ch listserv participants and posted on DEC social media. The City and Borough may post an advisory sign at the affected beach. The Alaska Bea ch Program website also will have a new interactive map showing advisories at specific beaches , monitoring reports, press rel eases , and other project resources . • How was the current sampling plan designed? The monitoring locations on the north and south Kenai River bea ches are used for recreation during the perso nal use fishery season. The Warren Ames bridge location is a reference location, upstream of the area most likely to be impacted by human activities on the Kenai Beaches. The monitoring locations by the gull rookery serve as referen ce location s to determine fecal contamination close to area w here the gulls are nesting. • What are the water quality criteria for Kenai Beaches? DEC re v ised the water quality standards for bacteria for all state w ate rs in 2016. DEC adopted revised numeric va lues (i.e ., criteria) based on EPA-r eco mmended recreational criteria issued on a national ba sis in 2012. Exceedances are dete rmined in two ways: statist ica l threshold value (STV ) and geometric me an. The STV value is use d to determin e if an indiv idual sa mple exce ed s criteria. The geometric mean is used to determine if average bacteria levels over a 30-day period exceeds criteria. These recr ea tional water quality criteria were determined by the EPA to protect the public from ex posure to harmful leve ls of pathoge ns. Water recreation , contact Water recreation, seco nd ary Harvest for consumption of raw mollusks or other raw seafood In a 30-day period, the geometric mean of sam p les may not exceed 35 enterococci co lony form ing units (CFU) /100 ml, and not more than 10% of the sam ples may exceed a statist ical threshold value of 130 CFU/100 ml. In a 30-day period , the geometric mean of samples may not exceed 200 feca l coliform/100 ml, and not more than 10% of the samples may exceed 400 fecal coliform/100 ml. The geometric mean of samples may not exceed 14 feca l coliform/100 ml; and not more than 10% of the samples may exceed 31 CFU per 100 ml for a membrane fi ltration test. Figure 1. Water quality standards for bacteria i n recreational waters. 2 • What are the bacteria levels on our beaches? You can see past results on the DEC Beach Webpage: https://dec.ala ska .gov/water/water-g uality/beach - program / A final report for the 2019 season is available on the BEACH webpage. • What are the sources of bacteria on Kenai Beaches? Seagu lls and other birds are a significant source of fecal waste on Kena i River beaches. We know this because of Microbial Source Tracking (MST) used during the 2011, 2014, and 2019 seasons . DEC's key message to the public is to reduce attractants to birds by properly disposing offish waste and picking up trash off the beach. MST sampling from past yea rs indicated that dogs, an ungulate, and some human source bacteria were also present. Beachgoers are highly encouraged to use provided outhouses and pick up after their pets. • What is the plan for future seasons? DEC intends to phase out active monitoring starting in 2021. Instead of weekly sampling events, DEC will use predictive modeling to forecast bacteria level s. Occasional sampling will take place to spot check the model. Data co llected during the 2020 season will be essential in developing a robust predictive modeling tool. DEC updated the Kenai BEACH co mmunication plan for 2020. The BEACH Prog ram webpage is being updated as well, and will include an interactive map of sampl ing sites and recent bacteria levels. • Where else does BEACH Monitoring occur? There is an active beach program in Ketchikan Alaska. Communities with past programs include: Anchor Point, Anchorage, Dillingham, Douglas Island, Haines, Homer, Juneau, Kasilof, King Salmon, Naknek, Nome, Petersburg, and Wrangell. Outside of Alaska, there are beach programs in Wisconsin, Washington, Florida, and other coasta l and Great Lakes states. The websites for some of these programs are provided below: o The State of Washington Beach webpage: https://ecology.wa.gov/Water-Sho r elines/Water-gual ity/Saltwater/BEAC H-program o The State of Wisconsin Beach Hea lth webpage: https://ww w .w ibeache s.us/apex/f?p=BEAC H:HOME o The State of California Beach Report Card: https://bea c hreportcard .org/33 .9 1029999999999 /- 118.51929100000001/11 3