Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Environmental Committee, Tuesday, May 14, 2024

Date: Tuesday, May 14, 2024
Place: Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 1h 18m (video)
Official meeting video (Fairfax County): https://video.fairfaxcounty.gov/player/clip/3350
Official Board of Supervisors page (Fairfax County): https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/boardofsupervisors/

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-11-01. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:02] Okay. All right. Good afternoon. Welcome to the May 14th, 2024 meeting of the board's environmental committee. Board members should have in their packets and was distributed the meeting summary of our last meeting. So if there are no changes to that, we'll jump in. And before we get into the agenda, just two notes. Number four, the fourth item on the agenda where we included the NIP on flood risk reduction policy. We don't need to spend any time on that here. We

[00:00:37] covered that in some detail earlier today. I did want to share, board members should have at their place, this climate action snapshot and some really exciting stuff in here. At our last environmental committee meeting, we shared the old data in terms of savings from energy reductions at county facilities, which I think I said had been $2 to $3 million per year. That was through FY 2022. We now have the up-to-date data through FY 2023, and we're now saving $5 million

[00:01:15] every year in avoided costs from the energy reduction improvements we've made across county facilities. So it doesn't show up in our budget presentations every year, and it doesn't show up because it's money that we're not spending, but it's still significant savings.

[00:01:32] Also an update here on some exciting solar projects, the Spring Hill Rec Center. We now have five county buildings equipped with solar in 2023, and a dozen planned this year. And finally, a plug for Green Business Partners. The program has been growing and very successful, but we do need board members to engage with businesses in your district and invite them to participate, some great benefits for those businesses that participate.

[00:02:00] So keep that in mind as you're talking to businesses in your respective districts. With that, we'll jump into the first presentation, Solid Waste Management Plan update. I'll turn it over to Mr. Adams. Good afternoon, everyone, Chairman, members of the Board.

[00:02:22] My name is Matthew Adams. I'm the division director in charge of the Engineering, Sustainability, and Environmental Compliance Group inside of the Solid Waste Management Program. With me today is Eric Forbes, the deputy director for the Solid Waste Management Program, as well as Chris Harrington, the director of DPWES.

[00:02:40] And today, what I wanted to bring to your guys' attention or wanted to talk about is the 20-year Solid Waste Management Plan update, and its associated zero waste management plan that's due this year or due next year to DEQ by April of 2025. So a couple of key points that I wanted to talk about is today I wanted to talk about the board's community, the CCAP goals, and kind of what that means for the community and for the county. Two, I wanted to talk about, you know, the waste streams that are associated to that and how we plan to address those streams.

[00:03:20] Three, I wanted to talk about the transformational strategies that we are currently considering when we're talking about how we move towards that goal for CCAP. And then finally, the third thing I wanted to talk about most importantly was some of the major infrastructure projects that are going to be necessary to meet that goal from a downstream end.

[00:03:39] And finally, I was going to close with the timeline for those deliverables. So some of the important notes that come with this plan delivery, interactions with the community as well as when drafts and things like that are going to be due and how I'm going to interact with the board with those plans.

[00:03:58] And then finally, we'll do questions. So first, the big thing I wanted to talk about is to do a quick recap. Currently, the CCAP goal for Fairfax County is 90% diversion of all waste from incineration by 2040.

[00:04:15] So, you know, that's moving all of the waste streams that are currently inside of Fairfax County out of the landfill and out of the incinerator. Where we are currently, our current waste diversion rate, as defined by DEQ, is 43.9%.

[00:04:33] So what does that mean? Currently, Fairfax County produces approximately 1.2 million tons of trash a year. Of that trash, of the waste that is generated, 630,000 tons of waste is processed as MSW that's sent to Covana every year.

[00:04:53] That's approximately 252,000 Ford F-150s, to put it, to give it some perspective. That's what's moved through Fairfax County every single year as municipal solid waste. Now, we recently completed in April a waste composition study inside of our transfer station for Fairfax County waste.

[00:05:13] Looking through that waste characterization study, we found that approximately 83% of the waste that is in our MSW or in the municipal solid waste that is sent out as trash every year is recoverable material. That is material that can be recovered, reduced, reused, finding a way to do source reduction to get rid of that waste.

[00:05:35] So 83 percent. Now, doing the math, you know, backwards to try to get to that 90 percent goal based on our current diversion rate plus the diversion that could be done. We are forecasting that we would have to catch 100 percent of the trash and municipal 100 percent of the recyclables that go into the trash have to be captured to reach the C-cap goal.

[00:05:59] So what that means is that approximately 500,000 tons of waste that is currently processed as MSW needs to find a new reuse or a new home as a recoverable material. The remaining 110,000 tons is, you know, things that aren't recoverable, things like diapers or things in the waste stream that we do not want, right, that have no secondary use.

[00:06:23] So what does that mean for Fairfax County residents? Right now, the average resident inside of Fairfax County generates about a ton of waste a year on average. As the population increases inside of Fairfax County, so does the waste it creates.

[00:06:45] And so does, as the county gets more economically stronger, the more waste it will create if we do not make substantial changes. We are looking at an estimated 1.4 million tons of waste by 2040 and 1.5 probably by 2060. This number continues to grow as the population grows. Now why that's important and what that means and what CCAP means to the county resident is that on average a county

[00:07:20] resident produces five pounds of trash a day. That's two of these laptops. If we were to move to CCAP and move into that direction, a Fairfax County resident could throw one cell phone away. That's the total weight. That's half a pound is what they can get rid of every day. Now, when we move to 2040, if, you know, we don't make substantial changes or investments to our infrastructure, the amount of waste a resident throws away or that will be disposed of is two of these laptops and this phone put together. So the waste continues to increase. Now, currently,

[00:07:59] Some of the strategies that we are looking at to kind of address this largest monumental task in front of us to reach 2040 and to reach 90% diversion is the zero waste strategies.

[00:08:15] They're transformational strategies that we're starting to outline. Now, I want to be clear, we are currently in the process of analyzing each one of these strategies to look at cost, potential diversion impact, milestones to be completed, equity impacts.

[00:08:32] We're looking at these at a lot of different lenses. We're trying to keep one Fairfax and the strategic plan in mind while we are looking through these strategies. So we do not have the data on their diversion rate as of right now, but as we continue along this process, I'll update the board accordingly. All right. So the first strategy that we were going to talk about is the education engagement evaluation enforcement. All of the strategies below education engagement evaluation enforcement will require educating the population on any

[00:09:06] changes that we make. Educating the population in when residents move to Fairfax County, when we implement these new changes, they will produce waste in a different way. So they need to be instructed on how to do it, how we do it, how's the best way to mitigate that waste. So our outreach programs have to drastically improve to get into these communities and educate them on what we will be doing for waste and waste diversion and to meet our goals. Now with any good program, not only education, but there needs to be enforcement that goes along with that program. So as individuals

[00:09:43] that as we change our code or implement some of these changes individuals that uh there needs to be an enforcement to go along with that so that we continue to make sure that the community and the rest of those waste streams are enforced properly right so one of the big things that we are talking about uh at a transformational strategy level is moving to a unified sanitation districts that is you know contracting hauling for all Fairfax County residents residents that's

[00:10:22] a strategy that we're currently looking at and trying to weigh uh the benefits the pros and cons for that strategy and to see how much benefit it will provide to the county that's uh that's contracting out our municipal solid waste that recycling and yard waste as well as potentially some of our commercial activities. So two, the next thing is that one of the strategies that we're talking about is mandating recycling and composting for all Fairfax County residents.

[00:10:52] That is single-family homes, multi-family, commercial properties. Everyone moves to a three-bin system of some kind, whether it is municipal solid waste, recycling, single-stream recycling and yard waste while you know commercial has a commercial multifamily may have a different three bin system we're looking at several options on how's the best way to implement that to get the largest amount of diversion for our community all right so then the next thing we were we continue to talk about is mandatory like implementing a mandatory pay-as-you-throw system there are a lot

[00:11:31] of different options in which how to implement a pay-as-you-throw system whether it's by weight or by size of bin or size of bag that they purchased. There's several different ways to implement a pay-as-you-throw system, but we're currently evaluating which option works best for us inside of Fairfax County so that we can continue with the message and to promote source reduction inside of our community.

[00:11:58] The more people that generate waste, there has to be an increased cost for them if we are to meet these goals. Next, we're going to talk a little bit about comprehensive commercial and multifamily programs. Currently inside of Fairfax County, commercial and multifamily programs are recycling and composting.

[00:12:20] We have to expand those programs so that there is a requirement that every commercial business meets certain recycling goals inside of their business. I mean, commercial waste is about 60% of our waste stream.

[00:12:38] It's one of the biggest pieces of the pie that's currently not being addressed as efficiently, as effectively as possible. So we have to create a comprehensive program around that. And finally, one of the things that we wanted to talk about was zero waste centers, is the implementation of zero waste centers within each of the communities to begin to have an outlet for some of these harder to recycle materials, an education center for residents that need to understand where waste gets deposited, where they can throw things away, where the reuse is.

[00:13:15] It's a strategy at which to get the community involved with recycling and to make it a part of their everyday lives. So those are some of the big transformational strategies. Now, to implement those things, if we implement all of those, There is a substantial downstream end or downstream infrastructure investment that we are going to have to make.

[00:13:40] Some of those large infrastructure projects that are going to be necessary are facilities called material recovery facilities, or MRFs is what they're referred to as. But material recovery facilities, we would need a minimum of at least three different types to address the separate waste streams that we're currently trying to address.

[00:14:02] When waste is thrown away, the municipal solid waste, facilities will need to be constructed that go through and pick through the waste to target that 83% that we talked about previously. The 500,000 tons that have to be processed, municipal solid waste facilities are large-sized MRFs are the ones that are the type of facility that would need to be used to address those.

[00:14:28] The same thing with our materials recovery facilities. We would need one for construction demolition debris. That's approximately 110,000 to 130,000 tons a year of CDD that's processed specifically just through our MSW that needs to be taken out of the waste stream and processed separately.

[00:14:47] And finally, single stream recycling. The regional volume at which, well, the regional processing power for single stream, if we were to move all of our single stream or all of our potential recycling out and did source separation outside of the municipal solid waste stream, we do not have enough facilities to process that amount of material.

[00:15:13] The private industry does not have it. We don't have one. There's nowhere in the region that we could take this material that could process it. So there would need to be substantial investment in that. Again, community zero waste centers, I talked about it briefly, but these are facilities that we would have to invest in locally inside of each either supervisor district or across the county where individuals could go and make it convenient for them to participate in some of our solid waste programs without having, you know, to make it easier for them as opposed to being able to just throw it away, right?

[00:15:48] Another big infrastructure item that we have to talk about is a regional compost facility. Currently inside of, there are no compost facilities inside of Fairfax County. We're estimating that compost and food waste is roughly 250 to 300,000 tons of material a year.

[00:16:07] It is a substantial amount of material, and currently there is nowhere outside of two very small facilities in our local jurisdiction or in our region that can handle that waste that's not inside of Maryland. There would have to be a substantial amount of investment in both food waste processing and in our regional compost facilities to be able to handle the significant amount of waste that we would generate.

[00:16:34] All right, next. So now that we've kind of seen kind of some of our big strategies I've talked a little bit about and some of the big infrastructure I've talked about. Now, for the solid waste management plan, the timeline for delivery. On the slides, we are currently at the green dot.

[00:16:53] The solid waste management program has already started focus group interactions with some of the communities that will be highly impacted by this plan. We've reached out to HVI communities, the hauling community, commercial property owners to start focus group interactions so that we can start hearing some of their concerns, what the problems that they're going to have, what they feel like they can participate in, so that we can start addressing those challenges as we go to implement the plan.

[00:17:25] So that's our Tier 1 focus groups. That started this month. Tier 2 focus groups, we're going to start next month. That addresses, you know, some of our large players in schools. We're setting up focus groups in schools, non-vulnerable multifamily properties, as well as HOA.

[00:17:43] We're trying to get HOA representation so that we can hear from those communities as well to see what the impacts of this plan and what some of these large transformational strategies may have on them. The next thing is what I would believe is one of the most important things that we will do.

[00:18:00] We will start a public input campaign, a large open input campaign for all Fairfax County residents. We are scheduling that to start in July and run for 30 days. So it will start in July and end in August. And it will be an open public input survey out to everyone.

[00:18:20] And it will be a large outreach campaign so that everyone in the county will be able to participate. We are really pushing for input from the community so we can hear from them, see what they like, see what they don't like, see what's meaningful and what's beneficial to them, and how is the best way to implement some of our plans.

[00:18:39] Also on the timeline, there's consistent meetings. The board's environmental committee, we have listed those on the timeline. And as we get data or as we move through this plan, I'd like to bring consistent updates to the Environmental Board Committee so that we keep informed and stay on track for the inevitable public hearing that we're aiming to be in February of 2025.

[00:19:12] Finally, the last piece is the plan delivery timeline. So the first draft of our plan for the transformational strategies, our infrastructure investment, all of those initial plans will be drafted, ready to go, should be in July of 2024.

[00:19:32] A second draft will be in September. A final draft should arrive at the end of November with a submission to the board in December and a potential vote in March. And finally, ending in a April 16th, 2025, delivery to DEQ upon approval of the board.

[00:19:55] Okay. Thank you, Mr. Adams. Just one point and a couple questions, or actually rather a question that perhaps is a point. Obviously, this is a huge challenge. And you have been looking across the country at what other jurisdictions are doing. I wonder if you could just share with us From your research, how many other large jurisdictions are there that are legitimately on a path to being zero-waste jurisdictions in this timeline?

[00:20:29] So, sorry, this is Matthew Adams again. We have looked at our current diversion rate of 43.9. You know, it makes us a leader in the state of Virginia. It's one of the highest in the state of Virginia. But in the United States, several communities are pushing into the probably upper 60s, low 70s.

[00:20:53] Seattle, San Diego, some of these municipalities that have had a lot of run-up time have started their program significantly earlier, are at a significantly higher rate. Okay, thanks. One question, have we, obviously to achieve this goal, similar to our broader CCAP goals,

[00:21:14] You know, there's an element of it that we can control. Maybe here that element is larger than in other areas. But there are pieces where there are larger forces at work. And I'm just curious, have you analyzed, can we analyze the impact that legislative changes at the federal or state level would have?

[00:21:33] For example, if – I won't predict that this will happen, but if Congress or the General Assembly were to pass significant producer responsibility legislation, can we calculate or estimate how much that could potentially reduce our waste?

[00:21:54] Yes, this is Matthew Adams. As part of the deliverable for the solid waste management plan with the consultant, that is something that we are currently advising them and having them review so that if there is large legislation that would be very meaningful to Fairfax County, if there was something that changed, we would be able to see what that diversion rate looked like and would see how that would implement or how that would affect our community.

[00:22:22] Chairman Chris Arrington, Director of Public Works. So it would be huge if we had support from the federal government or even the state. And so we are shouldering this burden largely on our own. We do have a lot of authority in this area, so it is different than some of the other things. If we choose to use that authority, that would be extremely helpful.

[00:22:38] And so it is very important that we bring back to you and the legislative committee some suggestions for things that would make our lives much easier here in the county. Okay. And I think as part of this plan, those elements should be part of the plan, understanding that they may or may not happen and we'll have to proceed.

[00:22:55] But we need to have those numbers to the extent it's possible, the estimates of what the impacts could be of those legislative changes. Okay, let me open it up, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, I just want to follow up on the question that you started with because I'm not sure I made the full connection.

[00:23:11] The communities you mentioned that are in the 60s, are they largely implementing the things that are under the transformational zero-waste strategies you've listed here? or are they doing something different that for whatever reason we can't or are highly constrained doing here?

[00:23:30] Yes, this is Matt Adams. So the communities that are at a higher level or that are at a larger diversion rate, most of those communities have either state, well, most of them have state-driven diversion goals that are forcing them to meet these goals.

[00:23:50] So they are implementing a lot of the things that we are discussing. uh, that we are talking about as transformational goals. Um, some of the things they've, they've reached a barrier at the 70% mark. Um, but we're trying to implement some things that are very similar, but also going the extra mile to where they stop, we continue on. So to overcome those barriers. And, and related to that, the, the strategies that are in here are all things you've determined. We have the capacity, not the capacity. We have the ability to implement. In other words,

[00:24:26] There's not a contrarian state statute or code section or something that concerns us with what is listed in the zero waste strategies that were presented. There are strategies that with legislative assistance would be easier for us to implement. We've identified what those potential regulatory impediments to the strategies, and that would be included in our report, if that answers your question.

[00:24:48] Does that include some of the ones that are listed on page five, or are those in addition to these? No, sir. It would be inclusive of those. And so, you know, in California, where there's a state mandate, then you have an economy of scale that we failed to achieve because we would be going on our own, right? And so there are some strategies, as Matt mentioned, on the composting in particular, where we're all sort of in the same bucket as our near neighbors of being very, it's a highly, our systems mutually are highly vulnerable because we're dependent on two small facilities that are at near capacity or very far away and expensive for us to haul to.

[00:25:20] So we would be a leader in this in many, many ways. I think the Unified Sanitation District is a good example of the question that the chairman is asking. We can technically do it, but as we learned last year or the year before, the existing state statute makes it very difficult for us to do it.

[00:25:38] And my reason for asking this is to make sure we're clear when we go out for public comment, you know, what the existing constraints are and where we might need help beyond what the county could singularly accomplish here. Because I do think this is public input program, but also a public education program in and of itself. And I think it's an opportune time to share that information.

[00:26:03] And then my last question is, your public comment period, if I'm reading the timeline right, is one month, and it's in July, and I'm just wondering if we feel like that's sufficient time for public comment. I mean, obviously our backdrop is we're working down from a public hearing in February of 2025, but it seems like kind of a long time between August 1st, 2024, and February 20th of 2025 to have cut off the public comment period, and I'm sure there's a reason for it. I just don't understand that. Yes. So the timeline is set up so that we meet these goals. And I mean,

[00:26:43] I'm expecting there to be a significant amount of public input that we'd need time to process. But that timeline, we can probably move a little bit of that timeline to make sure that we hit those goals. And the DEQ requires there to be a 30-day comment period. So that's the bare minimum that we have to do. Yeah, and I think that's something that can be evaluated based on how things are going. I'm not suggesting we do that now, but I am suggesting that this is a pretty big change, a pretty significant thing we're asking the public to comment on. And the 30-day

[00:27:20] requirement, we probably exceed most communities in engagement, sophistication, opinion of our residents, and we may just need to be open to and flexible to potentially extending that if it needs to be. So I just appreciate that acknowledgement. Absolutely. And we do have the focus groups and other means for input. We're going as quickly as possible. And then the implementation of these strategies will unfurl over time once we kind of get the general plan put together. But we will maximize the time for public engagement. Yes, sir. Great. Thank you. All right. Have

[00:27:56] harity then probably just go right down the row here so i'm going to go back to the jurisdictions with the 60 to 70 percent recycle rate does that include glass most of those include glass so yeah we'll we'll have to get back to you okay and and the second question to that is do we know where the glass is actually going because we included in our recycle rate for years when it was single streamed even though it was going right back in the landfill so i think before we make those

[00:28:33] compare it because that's the heaviest thing obviously in the waste stream is glass one of the heaviest things in the waste stream so of that 83 that isn't getting recycled how much is glass we'll have to get back to you i don't have it in front of me right now all right because i think we're doing glass right now better than anybody else or better than most people because we're actually not only pulling it out and saying we're recycling it we're actually doing something with it and that's a credit to you all so i really have to thank you for kind of creating the market

[00:29:05] and making it work so good stuff um so my next question really is for all the other stuff that we're recycling because i haven't been to a murph in a while how much is actually going into products and getting recycled and how much is just being landfilled do we know that supervisor here is a good question pardon me i've been quiet i've lost my voice over the weekend i'm eric orbs uh deputy director of solid waste yep that's a great question um we have contamination rate in recycling stream

[00:29:41] uh wishful recycling that's been present and it fluctuates um as a microcosm we collect 10 percent of the county and sanitary districts um we've updated our contract we have a new contract that we've been utilizing for about a year now maybe not that long um but in that contract we've wrote in specific requirements for additional screening to see how we're doing with our waste stream our service providers very happy with the amount of contamination so it's getting better. Glass is one of the main things that is not in there anymore that used to be in there and used to contaminate and gunk up the equipment so your point is valid but we know the bales that they're

[00:30:18] making they are able to move in sale so at these material recovery facilities they take like materials like all the water bottles that we see in front of us they bail them up and then they do find markets for them because we get a rebate based on that sale on our bill and what we pay for processing um so and that's indicative for what's going on in the community so and again i'm dated since it's been probably five years since i've been there when i went some of the stuff like cardboard clearly was there was some stuff that clearly was but even stuff that was bailed up not always was can we just get a number for after it leaves the merce how much actually

[00:30:55] goes into actually gets recycled versus goes elsewhere yes we can definitely ask for that that would be good and is there a is there a market for all that stuff is there a market for everything that we i know glass there wasn't and you again did a great job there but um your knowledge is showing um no there's not markets for every material that's currently in the waste stream a good example are hard to recycle plastics um there's emerging technology we actually have a ppea which is a public private educational opportunity act proposal unsolicited proposal for a facility to build a mixed-waste sorting facility in Fairfax County.

[00:31:34] It's available online. If you go to DPMM, Department of Procurement and Material Management's website, you can go right to that PPEA. Essentially, that company is building a pyrolysis facility to take hard-to-recycle plastics. Those are plastics that we don't list in our recycling information that we put out as a county.

[00:31:55] We say bottles, narrow-necked bottles and jars is the plastic items you put in your recycle bin. So think about films and all those other items. Stores do have film take-back programs, for instance, and that material goes to Trex and Winchester for recycling, which is great for our community. But those other hard-to-recycle plastics don't have a home.

[00:32:14] But markets are emerging for that, so we're optimistic that over the next 15 or so years, as we implement the programming and all the strategies that Matt talked about, more markets will emerge to help us with those hard-to-recycle items. Glass is a great example.

[00:32:29] We started glass by building what we call Big Blue to process glass. We knew that glass could find a better home than the landfill. Once we piled that glass and had a big enough pile, we actually had companies approach us, the county, and say, you know, you have a nice pile there.

[00:32:47] We're now getting true glass-to-glass recycling to the point where we're not processing glass with Big Blue anymore. We are going full bottle-to-bottle, essentially. And that was a market that we stood up here. So we're hopeful that we'll have the same experience as we start diverting material.

[00:33:03] Some items that we find in our waste stream are just really hard to recycle. Think about lithium-ion batteries. There are programs for that. We don't have anything locally that's really stood up other than drop-off locations at our facility and some battery take back programming that we have but it's not the scale for the community imagine how many batteries are on this table right now um and if you you know extrapolate that out through all our residents and all the businesses there's there's going to be really hard challenges as we work through this and very specific materials that are technically recyclable we just don't have the maybe the means to collect them or process them here regionally um but that's

[00:33:40] part of what we do and what we're working on and glass is an example of how we can be I've really got to move on here. Yeah, but I've got one last quick one, and then the comment that I'll echo the chairman that 30 days in July is not going to be good enough for this.

[00:33:56] But when was the last time we did an RFI to look at creative? Because I know one of the things that came forward then is actually being put in production down in the Tidewater area, which would be single stream, everything, with very little byproduct.

[00:34:12] When was the last time we did an RFI on recycled technology? That's another good question. We have not done an RFI in a number of years. We were on about a three- to five-year cycle. We received the PPEA, the unsolicited proposal, for this latest and greatest technology, which prevented us from moving on with that at the time.

[00:34:32] Seeing what's going on nationally, we see the trends in what communities are doing. So we can understand the strategies that we can implement here and learn from lessons. We visited California recently to see how they were processing the material, and that's what Matt was alluding to, that we see these facilities that are pulling the MSW, the trash, and separating it out and pulling out material for recycling or for organics, for composting, and play.

[00:34:58] They're just not at the level that's going to hit our goal. There's some that are processing it all together. We've got to move on. Yes. All right. Thank you. The Waste Characterization Study, I'd love to see a copy of that. I don't know if that could be distributed to board members.

[00:35:14] That usually is a great roadmap for what's in there, at least, and how much fantastic data. And then the only other thing is a comment. So I very much appreciate the presentation. I recognize for most residents in Fairfax County, we're the only local government.

[00:35:34] So it probably does call for us as local government to step up and take the lead on this rather than waiting for others to do it. So, you know, however it gets financed, however the operations turn out, you know, I think this is critical.

[00:35:52] So thank you. Supervisor Stork? I have probably ten questions, but I'm going to ask one, and we'll maybe take the others. One of the key things that we did as part of our JET process, Joint Environmental Task Force, is we set a 2030 date of 90%.

[00:36:10] And I think we all thought of that as the opportunity to model some of what we're going to need to do by 2040 for CCAP overall. How do you see this connected to that, and are we on track for that?

[00:36:25] Because I realize this is a bigger conversation, but why not start with what we have a little bit more control over, the schools and parks and housing authority, et cetera? Let me do this one. So at the scale that we're talking about countywide, we're in a whole other universe in terms of order of magnitude of what the county and public schools generate in terms of their waste that would be covered by the operational energy strategy directives.

[00:36:52] jet. I think that would be a good thing for Leanne Pender to come and provide an update on where we are on the county's operational zero waste strategy. And so there is a multi-departmental team working on that. Our focus is, we participate, but our focus is really on the county-wide.

[00:37:09] I understand that, but I guess we can't figure out the way to do that with those segments of the county that we control. Why wouldn't that, and we figure that out, why wouldn't those be at least replicable at some level, even if it's not at the vast scale we're talking about. So that's where I'm going to come back to. And I understand they're different. Don't misunderstand me. But I also understand that we have huge challenges just getting to that 90%. And it's a lot of the same questions that you've been raising about other kinds of materials. So I think those need

[00:37:45] to be discussed hand in glove with this as well. And we completely agree. And the strategies, You know, as Eric was mentioning, we would be creating markets, basically, for some of the things for which we don't have markets available to us here in Fairfax County. So there were things that we would be operating at an economy of scale that would be achievable that we wouldn't be able to achieve on our own just in terms of county operations.

[00:38:07] But I think there are concerns about achieving the operational energy strategy timelines, but I can't speak to those. Well, that stair step is the core of that, because I heard you say that organic recycling is one of the big, so maybe that's part of that stair step. All right, thank you.

[00:38:23] Okay, Supervisor Palachuk. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to the team. So, I mean, I think really exciting conversation and a couple of follow-up questions. Clearly, we're all grappling with what it means and the scope of this. So, number one, when we talk about successes, Glass was mentioned.

[00:38:42] Another one that I don't think was mentioned was the plastic bag fee and, right, like the reduction piece of this, starting higher upstream, pun intended. um are there is that something that will be included in our recommendations for things like a plastic bottle fee or bottle fees uh for legislation uh supervisor pal check yes um as part of that enabling legislation uh that will be part of the the plan and and what is um packaged up essentially for approval um will be those recommendations bottle bill type um legislation um exactly that's because as you mentioned markets right where we have to build the markets

[00:39:22] um and and i'm pretty sure i don't know if you have if you could share with us the latest on the plastic bag fee might not be under you um but i think if we can show that it really makes a difference um we can't speak on the fee itself um but on plastic bags this board did elect to remove plastic bags from our yard waste stream when we were in california they're still accepting plastic bags and they are they have contamination issues with the the compost that they're generating So we are very successful, so I can give an update on that.

[00:39:49] That's another win for us in our community is our compost that is being generated from the yard waste that's collected in our community today is pretty much free of plastic. That's an amazing feat, and our residents are really, you know, deserve a round of applause for that. So I can give that update, but not on the bag tax.

[00:40:05] That's excellent. No, thank you, Eric. I appreciate that. And then knowing that there are one, two, three, four, five, six strategies on slide five and as you're looking at the sort of strategic implementation of these and how we move forward one that really does stand out and having lived in a multi-family program is are we are we pretty close to being able to say look we can pilot really bringing in and doing the the recycling and the other services that maybe sometimes you don't know where they're ending up in in some of these building, making it easy, not just the education piece, but being for the first time

[00:40:44] on county services, I can tell you it's so much easier, excellent work compared to anything else I've ever done. So is that part of the strategy while we await additional legislation? Yes, that's why I specifically called out. That's a great question. We know multifamily and the redevelopment that will occur in the county is going to be a challenge and it is a challenge today. So how do we improve that experience for the residents that live in those buildings is definitely, it's in our mind's eye, and we're working on that currently.

[00:41:13] But as far as this plan and zero waste implementation, it's even more important and will be part of the plan. Okay, excellent. And I guess when you do that, just curious on timing on that, because it's a big rollout how far we would be from pilot to full implementation.

[00:41:29] But excellent work. It's a lot ahead of us. Thank you. Supervisor Lesk. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll go quickly. I just appreciate the presentation, and I'll say on the major facilities that are necessary in the infrastructure, I'm imagining that's going to have a pretty big price tag associated with it.

[00:41:51] So I guess the question I'm going to ask is, I know you probably don't know the answer now, but at some point, having the ability to show what our costs would be to reach this kind of 90% reduction, and then can we show what savings we'll have as a result?

[00:42:08] So obviously on the side of the ledger where we're spending on landfill operations, we're spending on the incinerator management, those costs are going to go down. So what I'm trying to see here is like what's that relationship between the two because I think that might be helpful for people to understand that and it might help us kind of tell the story in a different way.

[00:42:30] And then I just want to lift up to the point that you made about 60%. I think it was 60% of the waste stream comes from commercial businesses. obviously we've got to get to a place where we're getting them more engaged and involved in this process because we're not going to get to our goal. This is a pretty clear indicator that we're not going to be successful unless we get them on board. So we're going to have to work that angle and be able to, you know, show the opportunities for them to get engaged and then show them the return on the investment as well. So just wanted to acknowledge the work that you're doing and

[00:43:05] good luck. Keep it up. Supervisor Jimenez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for your presentation. Very exciting things going on here in Fairfax County and once again demonstrating what kind of leaders we are throughout Virginia and in the United States. So that's great. I'm glad you guys got a chance to go visit California and kind of see what else is happening because I think it's always important to kind of see what other counties or municipalities are doing because sometimes it's working, but it's also good to see what's not working, right? It's not just about what's working. Real quick, two questions. One is, can you talk a little bit about regional collaborations and how that plays into this, if at all.

[00:43:44] And second, you mentioned at the very beginning, Eric, about the need to expand on the educational piece to our constituents. Can you kind of go through a little bit kind of what your vision is when it comes to furthering that education piece? Thank you. Yes, great question.

[00:44:07] For regional collaboration, that's Eric Forbes. We work with our regional partners. We all are faced with the same challenges. So we participate on a number of groups. We actually have a landfill committee, which is maybe not heard of, but it's through the Council of Governments, and we meet routinely with our regional partners.

[00:44:25] The I-95 landfill complex is actually a regional facility, you know, built and designed that way. D.C., Washington, D.C., brings their waste there. So we continually collaborate with our partners. We're working right now a little more closely with some of the partners that have zero-waste plans, like Arlington County.

[00:44:44] to talk about strategies and how we have regional messaging for implementation we are working on our plan though so we're still at the beginning of that process and once the board has adoption further along in the timeline and you know we'll see some of that come to fruition but things like recycling we meet routinely to talk about challenges that we face with how we do our education and outreach as a region right because and that's part of the glass program i'll go back to that example where we teamed up with our regional partners to implement glass so you can go anywhere and recycle any purple can whether you're in arlington alexandra prince william or

[00:45:21] fairfax yeah i think that that regional messaging is really critical especially you know sometimes from our some of our more senior residents i'll still hear kind of what happened to the glass no one's picking up my glass so we got to tell them you know here's here's where you can go Look at the purple can, like you just mentioned, but, again, messaging is really important.

[00:45:41] Okay, great. Well, thank you, guys. We will see this again at our July 23rd meeting, which will be after the public input period has started. So we'll certainly have time to determine when that public input should end at that point.

[00:46:03] And I think I'll just say, having spent some time talking to Mr. Adams and thinking about this, it is clear that a ton of waste that is reduced or prevented is much cheaper than a ton of waste that we have to recycle or compost or dispose of.

[00:46:26] So focusing on making sure we focus on those elements of education and engagement and ways to incentivize our community and our businesses to reduce the amount of waste that they're producing is going to be key to helping us get to this goal.

[00:46:44] Thank you guys for your work, and we'll change over to our second agenda item on residential clean energy programming.

[00:47:02] Okay, Mr. Morrill, take it away.

[00:47:28] Thank you, and good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the Board of Supervisors. I'm John Morrill, Director of the Office of Environmental and Energy Coordination. I'm joined by John Silcox, our public information officer, who will co-present this discussion.

[00:47:43] We are presenting for your consideration a new emphasis on residential programming as we pursue clean energy to reduce emissions that cause climate change. For context, the three broad strategies that are essential to achieving the goal of carbon neutrality in Fairfax County are increased use of renewable energy, such as solar power, widespread use of electric vehicles by individuals, businesses, and in public transit, and increased energy efficiency in existing buildings, especially homes.

[00:48:21] Fairfax already promotes regional group purchasing programs, such as the Solarize effort that has led to over 400 rooftop solar installations in the county since 2015. This program is managed by the Virginia nonprofit Local Energy Alliance Program, or LEAP.

[00:48:40] We are now promoting a second group purchasing program, Solar Switch, which is increasing awareness of the solar opportunities to residents throughout the region. This program is run by the nonprofit Solar United Neighbors organization and operates in the capital region.

[00:48:59] These nonprofits running these programs can provide technical assistance to prospective customers, and that has been a positive that informs our recommendation today.

[00:49:14] The county is electrifying its fleet of transit vehicles, and we offer information, its overall fleet, that is, and we offer information and incentives to homeowner associations to assist in the installation of electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

[00:49:33] Generous federal incentives are available not only for new vehicles, but also for used electric vehicles. In the case of used EVs, the incentives are subject to income qualification to encourage more widespread use of EVs among less advantaged drivers.

[00:49:52] We make available a lot of information on our website, but continue to field many inquiries about EVs and charging. And last, OEEC provides information and resources about incentives and information to residents on home energy efficiency, partnering with several other agencies and community groups to reach households with guidance to lower energy costs and improve home comfort.

[00:50:22] There are new federal tax credits for the use of high-efficiency equipment, and even for switching to electric heat pumps, and additional rebate programs will be rolling out statewide by 2025. Of course, we've learned a few things in the course of administering these programs.

[00:50:45] First and foremost, the reality is the untapped market for clean energy retrofits in Fairfax County and the whole northern Virginia region remains substantial. Consumers and businesses are curious, often excited, about opportunities to take climate action themselves, but wrestling with many questions about solar installations, energy efficiency equipment, and the logistics of EV charging.

[00:51:11] People are curious about the costs, but affordability isn't always the issue. There is simply reluctance to move forward without confidence in the answers to some of their technical questions. For example, residents want to know where to find qualified contractors who are knowledgeable about conducting energy audits, installing high-efficiency heating and cooling systems, and converting to heat pumps.

[00:51:41] While we don't have a formal system to quantify the demand, we do hear similar feedback from our colleagues in other localities throughout the metro region. There is growing interest in creating a regional energy help desk, or energy concierge, if you will.

[00:52:02] among our peers and neighboring jurisdictions as well. Such a help desk could provide practical technical guidance to the public and also verify and pre-qualify credible contractors for these projects. Such a concierge service is part of a Council of Governments-led regional application to the U.S. EPA for climate pollution reduction grant funding, and our office played a role in shaping that application for Fairfax interests.

[00:52:34] This kind of market development and assistance to residents and businesses was an essential part of the staff proposal for a green bank last year. We had noted that in our conversations with established green banks in the region, staff repeatedly emphasized the need to create viable projects in the community.

[00:52:58] What we see today is an interested public often challenged by the complexity of some of these decisions and unfamiliar with reputable contractors to perform their work. So we've discussed finance-first approaches in the past.

[00:53:14] Today we are proposing shifting to a strategy emphasizing clarity of technical information and guidance in the market. As you may be aware, significant federal funding has been recently issued to existing green banks and coalitions of credit unions, community development finance institutions, and coalitions of other community agencies nationwide. As program details become more defined, that federal funding may still be accessible for significant projects locally as suitable projects are identified.

[00:53:52] I'll turn it over to John Silcox to share more details about our proposal going forward. Thanks, John. John Silcox with the Office of Environmental and Energy Coordination. What we want to propose today is really to expand our existing efforts with real emphasis on increasing awareness of the opportunities for clean energy improvements in homes with boosted outreach and informational campaigns that will engage our community on that issue.

[00:54:26] Also engaging additional third-party referral services that can help us provide that type of in-depth guidance that consumers are looking for, to help them identify those contractors, to point them to those lenders who can offer that financial options and loan abilities that they're looking for.

[00:54:46] And as John said, to increase the promotion of those federal, county, and energy utility incentives that we know are out there. In addition to that, this effort is really to help prepare the local market for some of those significant statewide incentives that are coming in 2025.

[00:55:03] As we previously noted, the state energy office has new federally funded programs that are coming for energy efficiency retrofits and discounted solar installations for low-income households next year. And so really having an enhanced marketing effort to include some new outreach campaigns, we would suggest doing some outreach and some targeted campaigns both in the fall of 2024 and again in the spring of 2025, actually using some paid media advertising to really help saturate the market and let our community and consumers know about these resources.

[00:55:42] At the same time, we want to continue the efforts that we've discussed in the past about pursuing a web-based application for information sharing within our communities and to encourage some competition amongst our organizations, neighborhoods, businesses, to help them track their climate actions and share their successes, and also find access to the information about some of these resources and incentives. You know, I think our positive experience with Solarize and Solar Switch, as John mentioned earlier, gives us a lot of confidence that engaging in additional

[00:56:21] third-party home energy solutions can help us deliver some technical guidance to residents in a more effective manner than what we can do with staff outreach alone. You know, as John alluded to, our office is getting increasing number of direct inquiries from people who are seeking specific guidance about how to do these types of projects in their homes. And of course, by law, county staff are unable to provide specific vendor referrals. It's also impractical for staff to provide some concierge style guidance to each resident who has questions right it's it's it's

[00:56:59] there's not the bandwidth available to do that but we propose you know that if we can contract with some of these home energy solution operations that are out there provide some of that guidance and they're already third-party firms that are doing similar services in the district of columbia and elsewhere these information referral services can help us promote those those federal county and utility incentives that are available also help us lay the groundwork for residents to take advantage of the $188 million federal home energy efficiency and home electrification rebates

[00:57:36] that are coming from the Virginia Energy Office in 2025. In addition, staff and our information partners will help us identify local prospects for the forthcoming $146 million solar for all program in Virginia. And that federally funded program specifically targets low and moderate income households. So doing that kind of proactive groundwork is going to help us maximize the use of those resources in Fairfax affordable housing. To summarize, our office proposes to redirect the

[00:58:13] funds previously allocated to the startup of Green Bank to really strengthen that engagement with and guidance to residents on those clean energy opportunities, hiring one or more qualified home energy solution vendors to help us with that concierge and technical assistance that people are seeking. And along with that, staff will continue to monitor activities regarding those green banks and the prospects for certain large projects to pursue financing through that means with another entity. We'll continue to discuss regional collaboration on outreach and marketing

[00:58:51] to make sure our messaging is consistent across jurisdictional borders in our area, And continue to pursue federal grant opportunities in collaboration with other agencies, such as the U.S. Department of Energy, EPA, and Housing and Urban Development. And with that, we'll turn it over for any questions or comments.

[00:59:12] Okay. Thank you, John and John. And I will just say, you know, I think one of our challenges as we move through our CCAP process toward our goal is identifying the areas where we are uniquely positioned to play a role that other levels of government and other entities are not.

[00:59:37] and meeting our community where they are with the support and assistance they need at any given time. And that's going to change over time. Right now, what we are hearing from the community is people are calling saying, I want to convert my gas furnace to a whole house heat pump, and I don't know how to do it.

[00:59:59] Or I've called four contractors, and they've said, you can't do it because it's too cold here, which was true maybe in the 1980s, but no longer true. Heat pumps can handle any climate now, similar with gas water heaters and all that.

[01:00:14] This is the information that people need. So I think we have an opportunity, a moment in time here, where we can help our residents make these transitions to save money and reduce emissions. We aren't hearing so much from people that they want to do these things, but they're lacking financing to do it.

[01:00:34] We know that's a challenge that's out there and exists, but what we're hearing from people is a very immediate technical challenge and connection to contractors who are enthusiastic about doing this work, not just capable of it, but enthusiastic about doing this work.

[01:00:51] So let me open it up. Start with Chairman McKay. Yeah, I just want to reinforce what you said. I mean, it is disappointing, I think, to all of us that there wasn't a simpler path to establishing a green bank. I would just say that the second bullet is important here, which is continuing to monitor this, because just as we talked about federal grant programs for other things that are in here, I do think there's a future to secure federal funds to help with a Green Bank-type activity, and maybe it's with one of our regional partners or someone else, because I do agree that that's not predominantly what we're hearing at this point.

[01:01:30] But I do also think as people adopt these new technologies, just like we're seeing with EVs now, we're at a place now where affordability was an issue. We're trying to figure an affordable way for people to adopt EVs. We're going to get to that point with some of these other technologies, too.

[01:01:46] And so that being said, I think it would be a mistake. This money is just sitting there now, and we need to put it to work because the race is on. I mean, we just heard a presentation of some of the other challenges that we have environmentally. And so I support this, but I want to make sure that we're continuing to aggressively monitor if there's an entry point for us on the Green Bank piece as well.

[01:02:10] And then lastly, you know, this kind of reminds me, and I was sharing this with Supervisor Walkinshaw yesterday, you know, when many years ago when we had slope failures in marine clay areas in the county, we could not. people ask questions there's a narrow band of contractors who will work on foundations people were afraid their houses were going to fall down they didn't have any technical guidance they were looking to the county to get that and at that time we had people who could answer some questions for people who called in about that but they couldn't go as far as the referral for legal reasons and

[01:02:46] I think that's hard for our residents to understand why can't you just tell me the contractors that have licenses in the county. We can't do that without the implication that we are somehow endorsing their services. And so I think this three-party arrangement is absolutely necessary so that we can keep that arm's length. But the goal we have is making sure that our residents get the right information that they need to make the decisions that they need to make. So we can do as many frequently asked questions. We can set up things on our webpage about things to look out for, Maybe questions you should ask, things you should research on your own.

[01:03:22] But we can't get to the point of, but John Marl's company is good at doing this. And we need to get to that point, and we can't do it as county government. So I endorse this approach moving forward, and let's keep our eye on the Green Bank opportunities ahead, too.

[01:03:39] Okay, Supervisor Bierman? I have Bierman, Alcorn, Stork. I love this. This is great. Last environmental committee meeting, I think I was asking about other ways in which we could help individuals tap into certain opportunities.

[01:03:55] And this is exactly the kind of thing that I was thinking about. Obviously, it wasn't my idea, but I'm just saying I really like this. But what I what I also really like about this is the idea. I know that you say that financing is not always the main barrier.

[01:04:12] But the fact of the matter is that when people do start, say, solarizing their house, there are tax credits out there. There are opportunities out there. And so this is a classic case of something actually was Chairman McKay who talked about in our budget. We had positions for affordable housing that was leveraging dollars from somewhere else to help our economy here.

[01:04:33] So this is this is really great stuff. I also love the point about friendly competition, not to endorse a company, but my wife used to work for Opower, which was all about friendly competition between, you know, you and your neighbors and who was saving more money or less money.

[01:04:50] So I know that part of this, so I guess my question is in some ways also about money. I know that part of this is utilizing funds that are already out there, but the question is, um, for, uh, my, my question, and this is a long way away since we literally just passed one budget, but is whether or not we need expanded staffing or something like that down the line, uh, whether this would be the kind of targeted investment that we would do in the future on the staff side. Uh, maybe this year it was five additional for affordable housing.

[01:05:27] Are there any opportunities that you could think, for instance, next year that would be necessary or useful? Yeah, I think, and I'll let Mr. Morrill jump in if he likes, the idea is to engage a third party. So I don't believe we expect any internal staff needs, and at least initially, we would utilize money that the board set aside, probably the previous board set aside for the Green Bank.

[01:05:57] So there's no additional budgetary impact at this point. If it's successful and we want to continue and there's value, then we can make that decision. Yeah, and let me be clear. I understand the third-party concept, but sometimes you even need maybe it's one or two full-time equivalents to help you identify what those third parties would be.

[01:06:15] That's all I meant. But that sounds good. Thank you. Okay, and Supervisor Alcorn. Thank you. I support this approach. Thank you for laying it out. I do have a quick question about another program that is focused primarily on technical support, Charge Up Fairfax.

[01:06:34] When will we be seeing a report on the pilot communities I know that have been underway for a while? What's the timeline roughly on that? We could present or prepare a knot in packet this summer.

[01:06:50] I think we've got our first contract signed for installation. We'll certainly be promoting that when that is completed so we can give you an update this summer. Okay, that would be good. And just for the board's awareness, I know there are at least a couple communities in our pilot list that have decided not to move forward with the EV charging station.

[01:07:15] So I think it's really important for us to understand why communities are choosing not to do that as much as applauding those that are moving forward. And related to that, if I would also ask, once we have that report, there is a law in Virginia, the Charge Up, what is it called, Charge Up, Charge Up Virginia?

[01:07:42] It's basically a law that relates to common interest associations and common interest communities and charging. It's a right to charge law in Virginia. I think it was 2020. So that might be something to review as well. in context with what we're learning from the pilot to see if there might need to be any tweaks to that legislation. So, thank you. Great. We'll flag that. Supervisor Stork?

[01:08:08] I absolutely support this. I think there's a lot of needs and limited resources, and this is, I think, the way that we can move one thing along. I think the Green Bank only is something that could be of importance, but it's not the most important thing that we should be working on now so i think this using third parties as well as and i've raised this issue before with our own land use staff that we can identify we're not we're not judging but we're identifying

[01:08:39] certain builders or certain other contractors who are who are at least are doing certain kinds of energy savings work we're not we're just saying they meet some threshold so we identify minimum threshold. They meet that threshold. They get three. It's not unlike what the federal government does right now with their Energy Star program. We absolutely should be doing that. We have a lot of local contractors we work with regularly. We kind of know who they are. And as long as we set a standard and anybody who meets that standard can be labeled energy, whatever, I think that's a key way that we can further enhance and get people in the community to get

[01:09:18] a better idea of who's more likely to be able to address their needs and do it honestly with integrity, et cetera. And then the final point, and I think this, and I know I'm a broken record on this, and I'll continue to be a broken record on this, and I know that there's a lot of general support for this, but we have to make it happen. We have to find a way to make it happen. We need sector champions. Sector champions are crucial to us meeting our goals, whether it's with HOAs and pilot issues that they have and finding ones who work through those issues and are, in fact, now making it work and helping other HOAs see, well, here's some that didn't do it, here's some that did do it,

[01:09:56] but talk to the champions, and then we realize, okay, we could do something like that. But it's across the board. Obviously, the Faith Alliance is an example that I've used consistently, but there are others out there that we can identify. The hotel industry, I believe, is ripe for that.

[01:10:11] There are already some hotel-leading companies that I think are focused on that, and we could help them become more of a leader by paying attention to them. At least along Richmond Highway, we have a lot of smaller-owned hotels and motels.

[01:10:30] Those folks don't necessarily know what to do, but if there's a champion out there that's already done these three things and that information is more readily available and they know that the source is credible, those can also make a big difference. So I'm going to come back to that, and I would say these two, in my mind, have to be married for us to really achieve and realize the potential that I think is there.

[01:10:52] Thank you. Supervisor Smith? Thank you. I think this is a much better route to go through to educate people and get them the information they need. I had concerns with the Green Bank, and I just don't think that is the right focus for us now, so I appreciate that.

[01:11:12] On slide five, I mean, you know I'm a little skeptical about competition, I guess. I'm just curious with creating this website, do you have any idea of like how many users you would find? And is there any information from anybody else that's done a project like this that really shows a change of impact of achieving more energy efficiency and goals like that?

[01:11:41] John Morrill from OEEC. This is a relatively new area for this type of locality engagement in this. We have been very impressed by one firm, and we think that if we could get a few thousand participants, that would be a very, very robust success in terms of, and that would be countywide.

[01:12:13] What people would be doing is identifying what they have done in their homes, and so I think just from that, we could then estimate what their actions mean. This is primarily a visibility, get people talking type of campaign. And so it continues the conversation. It's not going to solve the energy use in the community by itself, but it's a way of raising the visibility and engaging people.

[01:12:53] We've spoken with a couple other jurisdictions who have adopted this, and they say that it's proven to be popular by those who catch on to it, but how well it is, how much the participation is, will require a little bit of county marketing, but that's part of our plan for the fall and spring campaigns.

[01:13:21] So we will be actively pointing people to it. And again, it's not a heavy thing.

[01:13:38] It's a light effort. And, you know, I think one of the other concerns we have is how do you attract and get to the people that this isn't on their radar, right? And so you guys are continuing. You still have, like, your webinars and reaching out to the public.

[01:13:56] Are you tracking when you do that work when you're getting new people in, or is it like the same group of people that are using those services? And I don't need an answer today if you don't have it. Yeah, we can get something in terms of overall engagement and what kind of numbers we're seeing.

[01:14:15] Yeah, absolutely. Good. Okay, Supervisor Palchuk. And then, Bierman, did you have something on this point? You're going to give us a second-hand account? I did actually have something on this point. So there was a company called Opower. It was bought by Oracle. What they used to do, and I believe that they still actually do this in some places, they worked with public utilities.

[01:14:36] And I used to live in a house that got O-Powers public utilities information. They would send it out, and it would show your energy usage versus your neighbor's energy usage. And it would show where you were in the neighborhood. And they were able to show, and the public utilities like this because they wanted people to be using less energy, they were able to show that by doing that, you could actually get people to start turning off their lights a little bit more. So the friendly competition actually has been shown to get people to conserve energy in the past. Okay. All right. Supervisor Patrick. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I

[01:15:12] thank you to the Johns before we had the, Kathy's now we had the Johns. So in theory, I agree with, I think you had the three goals and the approach. My only caveat, and I think we heard this a little bit from my colleagues is we want to set it up for success, right? I think we all want to make sure that happens. And so if the third party vendor works, great. If for some reason it doesn't, you know, I do, I think it was brought up, housing has the preservation partner pool. Clearly, they're using that leverage to partner with them on these projects. But if you come to the

[01:15:51] realization that without additional staff time or the appropriate support that it really won't be successful then let's re-evaluate that because we are a huge county and I think there could be uh there potentially a lot of benefit to this um and so that that's my one caveat there so I want to make sure that's set up and then uh secondly and I think that's been addressed a little bit is our focus on some of this and and if you're partnering with faith lions and ncs and other agencies understanding right especially when we talk about the equity piece for everyone right

[01:16:29] their their wallet is their bottom line all of us right and so well we are we know our goals are very much around the clean energy and the environment as we do with other areas like mental health, let's really focus about what is the best way to share this information, to have people really understand how it could help them, their neighbors, their community, rather than this big lofty, yay, Fairfax school, right? What does it really mean to people? So I hope that's something we're thinking through. And I see John writing down as our PIO,

[01:17:06] would love to see more of that. Thank you. Yeah. And I think to that point, I mean, one of the things we should ask for from this third party is for them to really track the engagement that they have with residents and presumably they can also, you know, track what the outcomes are, right? So if they engage with someone who then they're able to help through the process, refer to a contractor and install a clean energy appliance in their home, they can track that or not and at the end of the pilot we'll be able to to analyze what kind of progress is being

[01:17:45] made in a pretty tangible way in a way that's harder to do with with some of our other work okay all right anyone else if not it sounds like it sounds like we have interest in moving forward our plan will be chairman mckay and i have discussed a board matter coming to our june meeting to authorize this program to move forward, and we'll be off to the races.

[01:18:13] Mr. Morrill, anything else before we adjourn? All right. Thank you, everyone.

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