Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, Transportation and Land Use Committee, Wednesday, January 17, 2024

Date: Wednesday, January 17, 2024
Place: Board Room, First Floor, Government Center, 1 Harrison Street SE, Leesburg, Virginia
Length: 1h 32m (video)
Official meeting video (county, Granicus): https://loudoun.granicus.com/player/clip/7577
Agenda (Granicus): https://loudoun.granicus.com/AgendaViewer.php?view_id=73&clip_id=7577

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 2026-10-21. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

[00:08:38] Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the January 17th Transportation and Land Use Committee meeting. I'll start with a little known but interesting fact, as I always do in these meetings. I'm reading, I just finished prequel by Rachel Maddow, which documents the American Nazi movement, which was actually quite widespread throughout the United States from the 1930 to 1941, 42.

[00:09:06] In, I want to say 1938, maybe 1939, she documents in some detail the crash of a DC-3 military designation with C-47 with 19 people on board between Lovettsville and Shorthill. And C-47, I probably cruised, is around 170, 180, and they think it hit the ground at about 300 knots, which means it was virtually pointed straight down.

[00:09:32] There were no survivors, obviously. It had 19 people on board. It was the worst air aviation disaster at that point in American history, at that point. On board was a Senator Lundin who was one of the key national figures supporting the American Nazi movement to the point where congressmen and senators were using their franking privileges to distribute hundreds of thousands of pamphlets paid for by the Nazi regime in Germany and distributing them using their franking privileges.

[00:10:05] And that was later uncovered by the FBI. It's a fascinating story, but our own John Flannery, who's been on the Soil and Water Commission for some time now, has made it, he's mentioned in the book, and he's made it his pet project to try and find out what caused the crash of Flight C-19. But it was right there in our own Loudoun County, and it was a little piece of history.

[00:10:24] So with that, please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[00:10:41] Thank you very much. It is within my authority as the chair of the Transportation and Land Use Committee to appoint a vice chair. And I would therefore like to appoint Supervisor Laura Tocroni, the Little River District Supervisor, as the vice chair of the Transportation and Land Use Committee.

[00:11:00] And this does not require a motion or a vote, but I will open up any comments about Laura being vice chair, if anybody has any concerns or questions. No concerns. I just want to congratulate Supervisor Tocroni becoming vice chair.

[00:11:17] I know she'll do a fantastic job. My apologies, everybody. And I'd just like to say Supervisor Tocroni, when she was Laura, before she was Supervisor Tocroni, worked for both Chair Randall and myself part-time and was an all-star.

[00:11:33] And so we are very, very happy to have her on the board. And I'm proud and happy to have her as my vice chair on the Transportation Land Use Committee. The proposed consent agenda is as follows. Item number two, agriculture and forestal district program annual report, countywide.

[00:11:51] And is there a motion, or I move to the adoption. I'd like to put that on the consent agenda, and I move to adopt that as a consent agenda. Is there a second? Second by Chair Randall. Any discussion on the consent agenda? Hearing none, all in favor, please say aye.

[00:12:08] Aye. Any opposed? That motion will pass unanimously, 5-0. And our first item is an information item on the Energy Environment and Energy Work Plan quarterly update.

[00:12:32] Good evening, Committee Chair Turner, Vice Chair Tricone, members of the Commission. My name is Mark Avani, Assistant Director with the Department of General Services. Happy to be here to provide an update for you. With me is Kara Moore, who is our Energy Program Manager. And I'd also like to introduce our new Energy Manager for the county, Mike Sandler.

[00:12:49] And you'll be seeing some pictures of him a little bit later. Welcome. So, our purpose this evening, as I said, is to provide a quarterly update to the Transportation and Land Use Committee. We're happy to show you how we're doing on our 21 different items in the board-approved 24 work plan and highlight a few successes.

[00:13:08] And then, as always, address any comments that you all may have. Just wanted to put this up there. We will be coming to you on a quarterly basis. This is obviously the first quarterly board update in January. and then we'll be coming back to you in April for Environmental Commission Awards to talk about possibly some budget impacts. We'll be seeing some of you hopefully at our public forum in May and then we'll be back here again in July with our annual report from our Environmental Commission.

[00:13:40] Let me also mention that our chair of the Environmental Commission, Ms. Jem Bingle, is here as well so we welcome her support and then we'll finish up in October with a quarterly board update. The initial work plan that was approved by this board in 22 is going very well.

[00:13:56] In FY24, this board established a baseline program for natural resources and energy sustainability in Loudoun County. We've been working very hard on that effort. As I've mentioned before, we involve and work with multiple departments, nonprofits in the community, and of course, we appreciate the support from the Environmental Commission and public input in our work plan. To just refresh the committee, we have five initiatives that you see there, which were developed back when we did our summit on the environment and energy. And they're great

[00:14:34] initiatives. All of the 21 work items are found within one of those five initiatives. So we're going to go through each initiative and highlight a few recent successes for the committee. So the first one is sustainable energy. And there's a nice picture of our new energy manager, Mike Sandler, And he is charging up one of the first electric vehicles that we have in Loudoun County.

[00:14:57] And that's actually in our metro garage. So there's a lot of things happening in that picture. That particular vehicle there is a hybrid, gas and electric. We also have two fully electric vehicles. And we'll be working those through our municipal fleet in the coming months.

[00:15:14] So we're happy to say we've got our energy manager on board. And we're starting to implement our energy strategy.

[00:15:35] I want to talk a little bit about power purchase agreements. If the committee remembers, a few months ago, we put out a request for proposal for vendors to put some solar energy on county-owned buildings. We have successfully selected two vendors, and we're working through some legal issues with that, and hopefully soon we'll have vendors putting solar panels on the roof of some county buildings, as well as perhaps some ground-mounted that will increase the amount of renewable energy that the county's using. We have started and are well underway with our feasibility study for the beneficial use of landfill gas.

[00:15:56] This takes that landfill gas, primarily methane, which is harmful from a greenhouse gas emission standpoint and looks to possibly use it in a beneficial way, such as providing a source of energy for a municipal building or some other positive use. And so we're studying the quantity and quality of that gas right now in hopes that we might be able to do something better than just flare the methane.

[00:16:19] We're also excited to announce that we've been working with the Department of Economic Development, DOE, Department of Energy Lab, called NREL Natural – I knew I was going to forget it – National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a part of DOE, on a potential data center partnership where we would study some clean energy ideas as well as a more accurate accounting of greenhouse gas emissions from data centers.

[00:16:46] And we've been in discussion with the data center coalition as well on this. And we hope to have more good news when we come back to the committee later on for our next quarterly report. And then finally, we have our energy equity consultant on board. And we've begun meeting with them to look at what energy equity might look like in Loudoun County.

[00:17:03] So all in all, Initiative 1, sustainable energy is well underway in Loudoun County. For the second initiative, which is equally important, natural resources, we have two things we'd like to highlight. One is we're going to be doing a new watershed management plan in the Bull Run Watershed.

[00:17:18] It's been a number of years since the county has done a watershed management plan. These watershed management plans are very beneficial to look at things like erosion, flood control, and other things that are important from a water quality standpoint as well as a community standpoint. So we'll be looking to work in the Bull Run Watershed.

[00:17:35] We have a consultant on board. This will involve the community extensively for input, and we're excited to bring that back to the committee here. soon. We also have some existing watershed management plans, and we have contracted with the Loudoun Soil and Water Conservation District to do an event on February 6th for landowners and HOAs where we might actually implement some of the recommended practices such as tree planting, buffer strips, and other things in HOAs, again, for the purpose of improving water quality both locally in the Potomac and in the Chesapeake Bay. And that's an example of a wetland that we have

[00:18:09] right here in Loudoun County. Our third initiative, environmental justice. We are developing a concept with some regional experts on exactly what environmental justice looks like here in Loudoun County. We've been in coordination with the county's equity officer, Carl Rush, and have begun discussions on what we might do for environmental justice. And again, we hope to have more for the committee when we come back to you later on this year. Public engagement. We have been very busy in this area. As we all know, if we don't engage the public in our efforts for energy sustainability and the environment, we don't have a lot of successes. We're happy to partner with

[00:18:49] our public affairs folks who've been very helpful in pushing out social media content, such as what you see up there in terms of energy upgrades, energy audits, how we're doing things at our landfill and other government facilities to lower greenhouse gas emissions. And so you'll be seeing lot more of these on social media for the county as well as as other outlets we have our environmental excellence awards will come before you in april to let you announce the winners those are actually out right now so if you know anyone that is deserving we would recommend that they go online and fill out that application i know many of you have put that in your um your individual district

[00:19:28] newsletters and we appreciate that and we look for a good a good amount of participation from the county in those awards. We have a public forum on the environment and energy, just as we did last year. We will pick an evening in May at the Academies of Loudoun, and we will engage with the public and invite them to come in and listen to some talks on energy topics, on sustainability topics, on natural resource topics, and also get their opinion, since the board has tasked the Environmental Commission with getting some public input before we come back to the board in july with our annual report we're also proud to have our environment and energy geohub online if

[00:20:05] you go on the county's website you will see that we now have an energy button and we now have a natural resource button thank you very much to public affairs and the office of mapping and geographic information systems who worked with kira mainly to get this online and we think it's going to be a great resource that we can add to it currently has the locations of electric vehicle chargers that are available to the public, as well as county facilities that are using solar and other renewable energy, some information on watersheds and so forth that we think is good information for the public to be able to access. And then, of course, as I mentioned,

[00:20:41] social media outreach to let the public know the good work that the commission and that this board is doing. Finally, government by example has been busy. We have been conducting energy audits at our existing county facilities. We have done 24, 21, I'm sorry, so far, and we're looking at things that we can do such as new windows, new insulation, etc., LED lights. This would be hopefully part of our CAP process, which the board is familiar with, and as we do these improvements to existing buildings, we make them more energy efficient, we reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and we make

[00:21:17] things generally better in terms of sustainability. So we're excited to be working through that process, and we hope to have more buildings done by the end of the year. We're working very well with our partners in the Department of Transportation and Capital Infrastructure. In particular, that funny-looking slide you see at the top, that is a geothermal well. That is the top of the geothermal well at the new Ashburn Recreation Center. I hope to have a better picture for you when I come back in a few months, but basically what that does is that puts pipes deep in the ground where the temperature stays the same year-round, and it puts water through those and uses it for heating and cooling. And that's what they're going to be doing at the new Ashburn

[00:21:56] Rec Center. So we're very excited to be working these kinds of renewable energy types of things into our new building construction, and we'll look to report more on that as construction goes on. We had our first employee energy conservation committee. We call it E2C2, And we were pleased to have Mr. Hemstreet there to welcome about 15 county employees who care enough about energy and the environment that they want to meet during the workday to talk about things that we might do to make energy conservation more common sense in the workplace.

[00:22:32] Employees have lots of good ideas on energy conservation, so we're looking to tap into that. And then finally, I mentioned the purchase of electric vehicles, but we're also purchasing some electric power equipment for our public works crew. And what you see there in the bottom corner is an electric chainsaw, and we purchased a couple of those that our staff is using rather than your typical gas-powered chainsaws.

[00:22:55] We've also purchased some gas-powered blowers and weed eaters as well, which are not only better for the environment but create less noise, and we're letting our crews try them out and see how they work. Again, all this reduces greenhouse gas emissions, is good for air quality, and generally makes things better in Loudoun County.

[00:23:16] So we're very excited about our progress on government by example. In conclusion, we just want to assure the board that all of our projects are being addressed with the funding that you provided as part of the FY24 budget. The Environmental Commission continues to exceed every expectation.

[00:23:35] They meet, as you know, three, four, five times a month, very active, have been very supportive of staff efforts. We have engaged with the public, and we believe that we are doing great things with the support of the board and the community. Chair Randall, that is my report.

[00:23:51] We're happy to answer any questions that you or the committee might have. Thank you very much. Oops. Questions for the panel. Super edged glass. Thank you, Chair Turner, and thank you, staff, for the presentation.

[00:24:09] It was very informative, a lot of good information that you've given us. And first, I'm going to ask a simple question because I think not everyone knows what it is. What is a hybrid vehicle? Is it a vehicle where you use gas first and you run out of gas and you can use electric, or is it the opposite, or how does that work?

[00:24:31] I'm going to let our energy manager handle that one. Hi, my name is Mike Sandler, the new energy program manager here at Loudoun County. Pleased to be here and my first time here behind the table. So let me explain a couple different things. there's a couple different types of hybrid as well so the toyota prius is one of the first hybrid vehicles out on the market and it has both a gas engine and a battery and the gas engine powers the battery and you never plug it in that's like a that's like a hybrid electric vehicle the newer plug-in hybrid vehicles all have a little bit larger battery so that you actually

[00:25:10] do need to plug it in so it has a lot of those will have both gas engine and battery and you can plug it in at night and recharge the battery you can also gas put put regular petroleum in it so you can a lot of times those have very long ranges and the one i was charging in that photo was a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle is a mitsubishi outlander phev is what it's called and then there's also a regular battery electric vehicle with no gas at all. And those are the larger

[00:25:44] batteries. And the battery ends up being most of the cost of the vehicle, actually. But they're getting better in the range. Those now have range of 200 and 300 miles before you have to charge it again. So they're getting more popular. Okay. And so how many do we have in use in our fleet right now? So currently we have two fully electric vehicles and we hope to make one available for board and motor pool usage as soon as we get a charger installed. And then we have five of the hybrids that Mike mentioned. So five, six, seven. And currently as part of our fleet replacement

[00:26:23] plan, we will be including more of those as well. So you'll be seeing them more. Okay. Oh, great. Great. So when you were also talking about improving the water quality, I just want to say that right now my staff is at a meeting with one of our HOAs in the Broadman District and what they're doing is that they are talking about what they're going to do in Ashburn Village at one of the lakes to, it's like they're damming it up,

[00:26:58] they're gonna improve the water quality because we have a lot of stuff coming in. So the community is very excited that we're getting this done.

[00:27:13] So just thank you for all the work that you were doing. Thank you. Thanks, everyone, for coming. Thanks for the presentation. Very informative. A couple questions to kind of follow up from your presentation.

[00:27:29] You talked about putting some solar panels in some of our county buildings. Is that what I understood? Do we have a number of county buildings we want to do this to? Have we identified the ones that are feasible? Do we have an objective as to how many county buildings we want to put these on. Can you speak to that briefly? So we're just now in the negotiation process, and we're looking at existing county buildings that could handle solar mount to begin with, so we're looking at that. We're also looking at where it might make sense for ground mount solar. There might be some places where we have land that it might be appropriate to do ground

[00:28:04] mount. Part of the PPA process is to produce renewable energy on a county building and then use it to power that building. So Supervisor Kirschner, when we come back to you next month or in three months, we'll have some more information on the actual buildings. We've come up with a general list and we're working through that list. Are schools on that list?

[00:28:24] Schools are not on that list. No, sir. Is that because of a hazard issue or? No, that's because the schools have done a great job. They're actually leading the way with, as you would, yeah. Yeah. So ours are just on existing county facilities. Okay. On the, I was, for lack of a better term, co-sponsored this with Supervisor Sains, but the landfill gas study. Can you tell me when we expect that study to come back? Yes, I will get an actual date to you. We've had a few issues and hiccups along the way, but we're trying to get the most accurate information we can on the amount and quantity of that gas, quality of that gas. So we hope to have it by the end of this year,

[00:29:01] this calendar year. Okay. You talked about partnering with the data centers and looking for renewables and stuff like that. Has there been discussion as far as that's concerned in terms of alternatives like nuclear and that sort of thing, or is that not really what's being concentrated on in terms of it?

[00:29:17] I would say that everything is general conversations now. Everything is on the table, and we're actually having someone come up from Richmond to talk to the Environmental Commission, I believe in March, on the governor's initiative on small modular reactors. So that is one of the things that the commission is looking at And we'll be a public meeting at one of the Environmental Commission meetings.

[00:29:38] So, yes, we are looking at all options for clean energy. Okay. I think that would be of great interest, obviously, with the power lines and that sort of thing. The more we can find solutions as part of even the clean energy aspect for our data centers would be obviously incredible.

[00:29:54] One last question, and I've got 30 seconds left. I noticed there was a slide here, and you may have talked about it, and I missed it, talking about our upgrade. I think this might be a link to loudon.gov. weatherization, and then it has a federal tax credit. Have I ever had the federal tax credits changed at all for some of the solar and whatnot? Are you aware of that? I can look into that and get you more specific information. We know there are a lot of tax credits that are available. It's a little overwhelming, the amount that are, so we can look into that specifically and get back to your supervisor. All right, that'd be great. Thanks. Chair Randall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[00:30:28] Mr. Sandler, where are you from? I am originally from California, and I moved to Virginia about 10 years ago, and I live a little ways away, and I live in Springfield right now, but I live in Fairfax County, Fairfax County, but I come here quite a bit, sorry, I shouldn't have said that, you, you, you were, you were batting a thousand, that's okay, that's okay, we're gonna, we're gonna work on that part too though, right, there we go, all right, well thank you all for both being here, so just a couple things, I love this, the whole discussion on environmental justice, I have two

[00:31:07] questions about that. Maybe a question and a comment. One, we know that oftentimes in communities where we may have a lower income, they're fairly well built out already. How do you kind of infuse environmental justice in places where it might be built out? So how do you put green spaces in there, dog parks or green areas in there if they're already built out? That's my first question on that. The second question on that, sometimes when we think about environmental justice, we almost always think about either race or class, and we don't think about people with differing abilities are the elderly and what we we had talked about before is that it's sometimes really hard for

[00:31:43] people with different abilities are the elderly to enjoy the environment as much as hard for them to get around if they're in a wheelchair or a walker they don't have they have they may not work well on a gravel path or a gravel road there may not be um trails and paths that either have you know i don't i don't like to see a lot of asphalt but somewhere for them to get around so environmental justice also speaks to our elderly population and our differing abilities population and what are we doing for those to make sure that they can also have the same kind of quality of of enjoying our our outdoor amenities so um my second question is under the entire government

[00:32:23] by example which i absolutely continue to love that term and this whole area um two questions One, are we making sure that we're not putting invasive species in when we're building new areas?

[00:32:39] We mentioned the Ashburn Rec Center. Are we making sure that we're not putting invasive species in, that the county is not doing that? And is the county doing anything to take invasive species out where it already exists, because it's real important to do that? And is there any effort, because we did not task the Environmental Committee to do anything on the invasive species issue.

[00:33:01] It really wasn't an issue I was even aware of until fairly recently. It's a very, very valid issue. But is the Environmental Commission, do they believe that any parts or anywhere on your subcommittees would be a good place to maybe address invasive species? That may be a question for Ms. Bingle.

[00:33:17] But can anyone talk about that and how that may be a new lift? And I know I'm presenting something new that's not there before, but can that be incorporated at all into what we're doing already? So I would say that invasive species, there is a list that is recommended when building and development occurs of things to plant.

[00:33:40] I believe invasive species are definitely off of that list. So as new buildings occur, the recommended plants that are put in should not be invasive species. To your second question, it's interesting because when we came up with our original list of initiatives to work on, I think invasive species was on the list but didn't make the final vote.

[00:33:57] But it appears it may be coming back around. And I know there's been some discussions with the Environmental Commission about invasive species, and there's been some action to work with homeowners associations on that. And so if I could, maybe I could talk a little more with the Environmental Commission about that and come back to Chair Randall with some more information.

[00:34:17] That would be fine. I'll have a follow-up. We're going to do a second round of questions. Yeah. Okay. And then my other question on, okay. Okay. Yeah. Madam Vice Chair, you just turned off your mic.

[00:34:32] I did. Thank you, Chair, and I want to thank my colleagues for electing me, Vice Chair. I really appreciate it. And thank you, Mark. And I just wanted to also say I did attend that public forum at the Academies of Loudoun in May last year. It was amazing. So I thought all the information was wonderful to distribute to the public, and I think it was well attended.

[00:34:54] I thought that was excellent. So I just wanted to give you a shout out. So the data center partnership. I see that you're focusing on more sustainability and greenhouse gases. I'm wondering if you could also look at the grid, at the power infrastructure, because with data centers, you know, we're having a huge issue with that.

[00:35:18] And I know with Mike, as an expert, as an energy manager, maybe he could help with that. I mean, something that I'm looking towards is requiring an energy impact study or an energy impact analysis by either the applicant or if we bring somebody in-house who can help with that.

[00:35:35] But I wonder if that's something you could expand on with your data center partnerships. We're happy to consider all things. Let us talk about that a little more and maybe refine exactly what we mean. Obviously, where it's appropriate for the commission, you know, to get involved, we'd be happy to look at that, yes.

[00:35:54] Okay, wonderful. And then I know you did the Western Hills and Upper Broad Run watershed management plans, and I'm wondering what short-term, what you implemented short-term with that, besides working with soil and water.

[00:36:10] I think the intent was, and we're having a meeting coming up, I believe, February 6th, There was a number of recommendations in both of those plans, and in particular, they talked about implementing certain easy-to-do things, such as buffer strips, working with HOAs where there's green space and putting trees in there, putting in petway stations along trails, along creeks and waterways.

[00:36:35] And so I think the initial effort from the work plan was to get some of that, get some of those projects in place, and then maybe look at how we might do larger projects. I think Supervisor Glass mentioned one of the larger projects we're doing in her district on a four bay.

[00:36:50] So there's, we're trying to do a combination of larger projects and smaller projects. Most of these that are being done as a result of that plan will be smaller kind of HOA-based projects. But we're happy to look at larger things. Yeah, and I'm glad you're doing the bull run. So thank you. That's actually in the Little River District. So thank you for doing that.

[00:37:07] Regarding solar, when I did door-to-door for the campaign, a lot of people were overwhelmed. They wanted to get solar on their rooftops, but they're overwhelmed with how to do it, how to do it cost-effectively. And I think there is an equity issue with that, accessibility.

[00:37:25] But most people wanted to do the right thing for the planet and to get solar on the roof. They just didn't know how. So I'm wondering if we could do some kind of education program on tax credits, on rebates, on grants that can make it more affordable for the homeowner. Absolutely. So at our forum this May, which we hope we'll see you at, we're going to do things a little different than last year.

[00:37:44] We're going to have a number of kind of small 15-minute talks. And one of the ones we're going to do is how to put solar on your house, how to apply for these tax credits. Because as you identified, there's a great need for this kind of information. And we're hoping to get a good group of homeowners out there to listen to these. So, yes, we'll be doing that in May at the Academies of Loudoun.

[00:38:02] Okay, thank you. Yeah, go ahead. There's also a program called Solarize, which is consumer-oriented and supposed to help streamline that process because it is overwhelming for people who have other things on their mind, not just this.

[00:38:17] And the market has been changing over the years, and solar panel prices have come down, but some of the installation costs are still pretty high, and there's permits involved sometimes. there's a lot of questions so solar eyes is supposed to help with that and we're hoping to link up with the solar eyes program and that's done at a regional level the nvrc regional commission is helping that so we'll be involved with that as well um thank you all very much as as usual the environmental commissions like an all-star of our advisory commissions

[00:38:52] are just doing a fantastic job great leadership by ms bingle and everyone else um is your budget request in the upcoming budget going to be the same as it was last year? You think you're going to need more, less, because I noted in the item you expect to spend everything you have by the end of the fiscal year? Yes, sir, we do. Let me defer on that, if I could, because we're still kind of working through some things, and we'll be prepared when we come back to you in April with better information. Don't be shy. We'd like to feed success, and clearly the committee's got some success to duly noted back it up um go ahead oh okay sorry um you mentioned the bull run watershed

[00:39:31] that you're gonna the study you're gonna do that could be pretty significantly impacted by the digital gateway and prince william couldn't it yes and we have been in some initial conversations with prince william about whether they'd be interested because as you know that watershed crosses county lines whether they'd be interested in in working with us in some way so we are in some discussions with prince william staff about that okay um the environmental justice initiative That's terrific. I want to say it was DTCI that developed the equity lens to look at their access to trails. I can't remember which staff it was, but that was a fantastic tool. We actually

[00:40:07] took it down to NACO and presented it at NACO. It's such a good tool. There might be some really nice crossover there on objective measures of environmental justice measurements, so you might want to talk with them. Thank you. What are the criteria for the environmental awards?

[00:40:23] uh the criteria are um do you want to take that care testing me i don't know them off the top of my head um the application has a few different questions and it's based on i think innovation and transferability and i think there's those are two of the main ones um mostly innovation transferability and they're available to students businesses employees lifetime achievement um food

[00:40:59] for thought going forward i just had my first transportation planning board meeting today and they did a long presentation on um uh having all the regional organizations update their greenhouse gas goals and i will tell you just me personally goal discussions drive me out of my mind they never talk about the mechanisms to actually achieve those goals and they never talk about the repercussions or the punitive actions if you don't achieve those goals they just set goals and We did the same thing today, and TPB was great.

[00:41:31] I really enjoyed it. But I would be interested in scalability, so if programs are scalable so they have a bigger impact, and then also in what are the metrics? How do you measure success of what you're doing? It can sound great, but how do you measure objectively what that success is?

[00:41:49] That's just Mike Turner's suggestions, and I am out of time. We'll do a second round. I just had one follow-up question. Is it Mike Sandler? Is it Sandler?

[00:42:05] Okay. You had mentioned that one of the solar panels have come down, and it triggered a thought in my mind. They've come down, but like processing and the permit process, have we reviewed our, how much of that is county process and permitting and whatnot?

[00:42:22] And have we reviewed that here in the county to ensure that we are as reasonable as possible in that permitting process? And is that something that ultimately will be brought to the board if indeed it is? I think it would be fair to say we're happy to work with B&D to look at that in terms of the permitting process.

[00:42:39] We're trying to encourage clean aspects, so if it's something the county can do, certainly we'd like to see that as a board. Absolutely. Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you. So is, when you talked about the new Ashburn Rec Center and the geothermal heating and cooling, will that be the first heating and cooling system in the county that we have?

[00:43:05] No, we have a few geothermal heating and cooling systems already. It's actually on our GeoHub. I think that might be the 4th or the 5th. So the county has actively been looking to put in geothermal heating and cooling where appropriate because of soil conditions and so forth. I'd be happy to provide your office a list if you'd like to see that, Supervisor Glass.

[00:43:22] Yeah, that would be great. Thanks. We were pleased when we got to go out to that site. We spoke to some of the people that were designing that system, and they said Loudoun County is a really good place to do it. And there's some parts of the country where it doesn't work out as well, but they were saying it is pretty good around here.

[00:43:38] Thank you. Thank you. I think we're going to call you Mr. Sandler from Fairfax County. You fixed that. So I just want to just wrap back around to the two things, the invasive species conversation.

[00:43:58] So we did talk about whether or not we did talk about, and I appreciate that we're going to make sure that as we build new buildings and do plantings, We will not have any invasive species there. Under the government, by example, will there be any effort to make sure that there's already not a invasive species there and pull it up if it needs to be pulled up?

[00:44:17] And if that is the case, going back to Mr. Turner's question, would there be any funding required to remove and then do replantings for any county government buildings that have invasive species already? So that's just something for you all to take back. You don't know the answer to that, but I just take it back and look at that.

[00:44:34] And then if you said it, I may have missed it, sorry, I apologize, but the discussion on environmental justice of what do you do in neighborhoods where they already may be built out, how do you infuse some green spaces and things in those neighborhoods?

[00:44:53] And then, Mr. Turner, I don't remember what we did with NDTCI as far as having discussions about the elderly and differently able to be able to enjoy our parks and trails and spaces.

[00:45:10] I'm sorry, I don't remember that. Can you refresh my memory on those? Because I don't remember what we did. They developed a model that allows them to grade individual programs that they have and individual facilities that they have from an equity lens so that becomes they can rate it and say this gets whatever the rating is, and therefore it's adequate for this neighborhood or it's not adequate for this neighborhood and needs more attention.

[00:45:35] So what they developed was an algorithm to measure equity in their programs. Well, I was more, first of all, thank you for, I honestly don't remember that, So thank you for that. But I was more thinking, you're walking through Algonquian Park, right? And if you want to walk on the trails of Algonquian Park, they are gravel.

[00:45:54] You cannot, you just can't, you can't, there's, it would be hard for somebody in a wheelchair to do that. It would be hard for somebody who's pushing a walker to do that. Is there ever a time where you can put an overpass somewhere so somebody can walk at the overpass and maybe they can't walk the trail, but they can be out there and enjoy the, enjoy whatever it is.

[00:46:15] So things like that. I'm actually talking about for our open spaces that exist already, for people who have different abilities, how do we help them enjoy those open spaces? And I think that does fall under environmental justice. Absolutely, absolutely. And so I think the timing is good because we're just starting to meet with our consultant on energy equity, but we're certainly looking at environmental justice as well.

[00:46:38] And I think, to your point, in built-out areas where we can do things like perhaps increase tree canopy, plant more trees, make access to paths more available, bike shares, you know, things like that that you can do in built environments, I think, are certainly possible and something we need to be looking at.

[00:46:55] So, again, I'm going to take note of your concern there and look to give you a better report when we come back in April on what we can do in that regard. I really do appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you both. I appreciate it. Thank all three of you. I appreciate it. Thanks. Madam Vice Chair. Okay, thank you. This might be a question more for the Environmental Commission. Jim might be able to answer this question.

[00:47:16] So in the FY 2023 Environmental Commission Annual Report, one thing that I noticed is that the Commission recommended a different organizational structure for the environment and energy, and that's actually something that I would support, some kind of department or division that really focuses on environment and energy. We have the largest concentration of data centers in the U.S., and we have significant issues, as you know, with power grid, with greenhouse gas emissions. So I don't know, Jem, if maybe you could answer this question, but they had put that out there as an opportunity

[00:47:53] to look at, and I know, you know, we've been using a lot of consultants. I don't know that you have a lot of internal staff, but I know to achieve the desired environment and energy goals it's going to take lots of resources. So that's kind of, I don't know, Jim, if you could maybe answer kind of the thoughts of what the Environmental Commission was looking at when you did the annual report.

[00:48:19] Thank you. Yeah, so I will try to answer your question. We did talk about looking at any recommendations that we might have to improve communications and elevate the environment.

[00:48:38] Right. And we're working on it. Okay. So I don't have an answer for you yet. Our goal was to be able to have something when we provide the annual report to the board. Okay, in July. In July.

[00:48:53] Okay, that sounds good. Yeah, I'm a supporter of that, just so you know, of a dedicated department for the environment and energy. So I just want to throw that out there. And then I have something that's really cool. So I got a call from a nonprofit called Sustainability Matters, And they pitched the idea of making trash bloom, which is where you plant native pollinator and wildlife habitat at landfills.

[00:49:22] So I think that's an awesome idea. I think Fairfax County is doing it, and I would encourage us to look into it. It's basically using your local dump for pollinator and wildlife habitats. I mean, I just think that's a really cool idea.

[00:49:40] And I know we're doing some things at the landfill, but maybe we could look at this, too. We certainly will. Thank you. Okay, thank you. And we would have a smelly deer, which might save their lives when Caleb Kirshner goes hunting. Really quickly, I know we're doing solar PPAs.

[00:50:04] We're mounting solar on county facilities, and we're also doing solar PPAs for county facilities? We are looking at the – yes, sir. Yes, that's the plan. Yes. And just so everybody knows, solar PPA is where you hire a third party to access sustainable energy to feed that particular building. It's not necessarily mounting solar on the building itself.

[00:50:21] Correct. I bought a 2012 plug-in Prius when it first came off the line. Interesting feature, because I had to rent a Prius, and it was a normal hybrid Prius, not a plug-in. So it had a battery, but it didn't have the extra battery for the plug-in.

[00:50:40] The regular Prius got about 50 miles to the gallon, maybe even a little bit more. My plug-in Prius gets 40 miles to the gallon. The reason is I can't plug it in at night, and I can't plug it in where I work. If I plug it in at both ends, I get about 30 to 40 miles a day on the charge, and my mileage goes up to 60, 65, 70 miles on the charge.

[00:51:05] But if I can't plug it in, hauling around that extra battery weight really drives down my miles per gallon. So if you get a plug-in hybrid, make sure you've got access to a plug at the start of the overnight and then at where you're working. Otherwise, you're going to lose all the value.

[00:51:22] Small modular reactors. We had a gentleman come here and pitch us. He was at the company. I can't remember the name of it. Clean Nuclear, I think. And he talked, myself and Delegate Reed, for a couple hours one day. And their company was building the first small modular reactor and was involved in the project.

[00:51:40] I think it was in Idaho. And it's based on the new nuclear technology is based on molten salt pits underneath the ground. They require 35 acres, and it requires a separate steam turbine in order to translate the power generated into usable power.

[00:52:01] And I said, how many, about how many data centers do you think you can power? Because they were talking about co-locating one of the data centers. He said, well, certainly two. And he said, how many do you have here in Loudoun? I said, 175, and I said, each one of your SMRs requires 35 acres, and he said yes.

[00:52:20] A week after we had that meeting, the Idaho Project shut down because they could not find enough subscribers because it was so risky. It was such new technology, and it was so risky. SMRs, it really took me aback at how far away we are from functional SMRs, so just be aware of the fact there's some real limitations of that.

[00:52:40] Along those lines, I did a slide presentation down to the Virginia Association of Counties back in November. At some point, it's not urgent, but I would like to present it to the Environmental Commission. It basically captures the evolution of energy use in Loudoun County, the dependence on data centers, and ties in also some pretty stark green-out global climate change facts and figures.

[00:53:09] It took me a couple of weeks to put it together. I gave it down there. It was very well received. My chief of staff gave it to MITRE Corporation when they had a bunch of engineers in the room together, and they really liked it a lot. I would like to present it to the Environmental Commission at your best. It doesn't represent the board. It's just Mike Turner's slideshow.

[00:53:29] And transmission lines, well, I'm out of time, but really quickly, I'll take a little piece of personal privilege. Transmission lines are clearly the hot button right now in the county. I don't know how, as Vice Chair Tricroni touched on it, I don't know how we can roll in the Environmental Commission, but transmission lines, data center energy usage, incentives to use less energy, incentives to convert to clean energy, alternatives to overhead transmission lines, all of those subjects kind of wrap in, and that is a hot-button issue becoming hotter by the hour, so you might want to consider that in your agendas.

[00:54:07] any other questions concerns number of questions and the types of questions you're getting the reflection of the great work you're doing so thank you all very much that's it thank you thank you all right the next item on the agenda is two pump and haul applications and the first one is the permanent pump and haul request from Titan Virginia ready mix if we can have staff forward for that one

[00:54:38] thank you all very much and if I can set the stage just a bit because we have two virtually identical conversations in front of us right now at least I think they are I saw a lot of commonality and issues and a lot of commonality and the likely discussion and the questions we're going to ask I just want to frame this this is I think the third or fourth pump and haul request I've seen as a supervisor they tend to take the same frame we got a pump and haul request

[00:55:15] because water can't be on site for 12 months that the director of the health department is going to say well that's we're not going to approve it because it's less it's it's more than 12 months staff says we can't approve it either because it's more than 12 months board will you approve it they never say board will you approve it but we approve them you're a figure that you had in there which I think is 22 of the 40 something's 46 47% are that Dr. Goodfriend says well no we don't want to do this and we do it anyway right I don't like that

[00:55:52] paradigm at all that really bothers me a lot I feel like it puts the board in an awkward position so in this discussion if we can kind of speak to is the system broken do we need to fine-tune the system what's going on because if we keep ending up with the board having to make a difficult decision when everybody said don't do that setting that frame please feel free to make your presentation good evening chair good evening member of the board all in attendance my name is george khan i'm the assistant director for the loudon county health department i am from loudon

[00:56:26] County. With me on my left, with me on my left is Dr. Goodfriend from the Director of the Health Department, and we have Mark Jeffries, who is a representative from the applicant for the first Pumpernel item. I'm from Ashburn. Thank you. Thank you. That's what I'm talking about, right on my brother. So we'll dive into the item first, and then we can address some of your concerns, because there have been conversations ongoing you know now that the health department's been locally

[00:57:00] administered there are updates coming to the general plan because that's also part that plays into the decision where our own staff recommendation so the first item we have in front of you is a request from oakmill llc to consider their request to obtain permanent more than 12 months pump and haul for a proposed ready-mix concrete facility located at 42 450 cochran mill road the property in question spans about five acres. It's an underdeveloped lot, and the owner is seeking approval for the construction of a commercial ready-mix concrete facility. As you mentioned,

[00:57:37] presently, central water services is unavailable. Lot-on-Water is working on extending central water to this facility or to this area with a time frame of about two to four years. As an interim solution, the site was also evaluated to see whether or not an onsite system was viable.

[00:58:02] The evaluation came back that that was not an option, and hence we're here to look for whether or not you would grant them the ability to use pump and haul until Loudon Water is able to bring services to this facility. Since Chair Randall.

[00:58:20] Oh, no, I didn't mean that. Supervisor Christian. All right. So can we put, are there, is there an option to put any limits? So the general plan basically says, listen, we don't want these happening only in emergency situations.

[00:58:36] We don't want them happening more than 12 months. And the difference between that and this is that this is new construction, essentially, versus a system that has failed. Do I have that correct? Correct. Okay. So these are called permanent pump and haul requests.

[00:58:53] What is permanent under this definition? So they're permanent because they're more than 12 months. No, I get that. But does it mean that when we approve this, it can go forever? In theory, correct. But part of the agreement is, hey, when it's available, that is, public water, sewer, you've got to hook up.

[00:59:13] What if it never becomes available? I'm just talking theoretically here. So in theory, when you approve this, if public water never becomes available, this is a permanent pump and haul forever. And there's no other restrictions that we can put on that. And the reason I say that is one of the things I was thinking was, okay, this is the third, fourth, fifth.

[00:59:29] I mean, the next application is much more applicable than this one. I like it. But if we say to a developer, listen, we'll give you a permit for 12 months, but you better, because I think the NICS application is much more pertinent.

[00:59:46] I mean, they're part of the ones building the infrastructure here. And so it gives some incentive for them before they get it to know they're within 12 months of getting to that eventual point. I just want to know if that's even an option that we have. I think a lot of that depends on a lot of water. Part of this process is we communicate to a lot of water and we ask for a timeline.

[01:00:06] And a lot of times the timeline we get from a lot of water is either vague or way out. And that's true in this application, the number three here in our packet. And I get that, and it's a smaller application. But the other one is more dependent on the builder itself. Am I correct? Correct. We really do.

[01:00:21] There are differences in these two applications from that perspective. Correct. A lot of water was not able to communicate a timeline on the second pump and haul because it's all dependent on the builder. Right. And so I feel like putting a little more pressure on them to – Because, I mean, I think we approved that application, what, a year and a half ago, two years ago?

[01:00:38] That was a rezone, if I recollect. And this was not foreseen, certainly in our application, to be an issue. And that one's going to have to be emptied, what, three times? I'm sorry, Chair, to be mixing these, like you said. Whereas with this one, it's much smaller.

[01:00:54] It won't have to be emptied as often. Every time you empty it, I'm assuming it's when the greater risks come when you're moving sewage and whatnot around. Is that correct? That's one of it. The primary risk is, you know, this is a holding tank, and it's sitting in an area where no one's really looking at it. There's an alarm there.

[01:01:10] People that are using these facilities, they may not be aware that it's just a holding tank. You leave a faucet open, and you can overflow your tank. It's fair to say that the smaller facility is far less risk than the larger facility. Correct. You're talking about, you know. Smaller tank, larger tank, less often dumped, more often dumped.

[01:01:26] Correct. Vice Chair. Chair, Chair. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, if I may. think if i if i may i i'm not sure uh mr khan you answered supervisor kirschner's question can the board legally place a term on a pump and haul permanent pump and haul agreement so is it is it literally once they sign it it runs as a right with the land or can they revoke it that

[01:02:03] i'm not sure um the way that the agreement is written it's an agreement that's based on the county's general plan right so what you're saying is you don't know yes and so that's a question we'll have to take to the county attorney to ask that question i mean because neither joe nor mr crowbath ride know the answer to that question i've got a i've got a twist to that same question too that i'll add when i ask my question yeah excellent um so how big is this tank so that comes after the fact right now they're just asking permission to um submit for the design specs Sometimes we get the design specs up front, other times it comes after the fact.

[01:02:42] Typically, the smallest size you will see is about 750 gallon. The largest I've seen is about, you know, 10,000 gallons. So they can vary in between. Okay, and the environmental impact is just that it could leak? It could leak sewage? Potentially. Okay.

[01:03:00] How many, so I know you said that 47%, do you know how many we have approved? How many the board has approved, like the total number? Or how many do we have out there in Loudoun County, pumping halls? We have a lot. Permanent, less than 100.

[01:03:18] Wow. Okay. I can get a specific number for you. Wow. Yeah, and I guess one idea, so for the applicant, Loudoun Water was the only solution. The town of Leesburg couldn't provide these utilities for you. You weren't close to that?

[01:03:35] Because you were in the JLMA, I believe. That's right. Yeah. So Loudon Water is the purveyor, and we've been in touch with them. They're actively pursuing extending water and sanitary sewer service to this property.

[01:03:52] This applicant is currently operating on Cochran Mill Road. They have a ready-mix concrete plant where they lost their lease, and they're on a month-to-month basis right now. They have a site plan to locate on this property that's conditionally approved, subject to the approval of this pump and haul application.

[01:04:17] And we're talking about office space that will be occupied by two people and another space that will be occupied by drivers who come to the site in the morning, get in their trucks, they're gone all day, and they come back at night.

[01:04:37] So they're there briefly, twice a day. So the scale of this tank is 1,000 gallons, and we estimate it has to be pumped once every two weeks.

[01:04:55] So we're talking about a very small occupancy rate, a very low generation of wastewater. The system has an alarm on it. Titan currently has a pump and haul in Fairfax County that they're operating at another ready-mix plant.

[01:05:17] So they're familiar with the whole process. And they have a contract with a septic tank hauler in order to make sure that the facilities are properly maintained. The bathroom facilities on this site are limited to a bathroom and a sink.

[01:05:40] That's it. No kitchen, nothing else but bathrooms occupied or used by staff. So we're talking about a situation, very small scale.

[01:05:58] Loudon Water projects that they'll have sewer to us in maybe two years. And the applicant is ready, willing, and able to connect to the central water system and the sewer system.

[01:06:15] They've drilled a well on-site for use by their staff and also for their product, making concrete. And so to me, this is an entirely different situation than the other application that you're going to consider this evening.

[01:06:34] This is an existing operating business in Loudoun County. They've lost their lease on their current location. They had a very difficult time finding another site properly zoned. This is MRHI.

[01:06:51] The manager tells me this site and one in Percival someplace were the only options. And it's located near the quarry, so that's their raw materials. I think this is an ideal situation to allow this company to continue to make concrete in Loudoun County.

[01:07:16] Thank you very much. Welcome back. Dr. Goodfriend, is it Virginia code that restricts your approval to less than 12 months? Yeah, so it's by law under 12 months, you can get a temporary pump and haul.

[01:07:35] But I think, as George had said, that we need to have something definitive saying it's going to be done within 12 months. Okay. And I don't want to put you on the spot here, but I guess I will.

[01:07:51] How do we determine 12 months? Is there some inherent health risks that increases exponentially after 12 months? Is there any correlation between an increased health risk if it goes over 12 months, or is it just that's what Virginia code is? To my understanding, no. It's just that that was how it was defined. Okay.

[01:08:06] And so for a lot of our permanent pump and hauls, they really are intended to be time limited of several years until the expected central sewer would be coming in. Okay. But eight challenges you don't know for sure.

[01:08:23] So one of the things that we look at, and we agree with your thoughts of how best to present this, is to what extent is there sort of a good faith information that sewer is coming along, and also that in the interim that the owner of the property is going to maintain that system.

[01:08:45] because it becomes a lot more difficult once operation has started on new construction to then tell someone that, no, you can't have pump and haul any longer. Yeah, and that's where I was headed with my next question. Just real quickly, though, how close are you to Goose Creek?

[01:09:02] Pretty far away, aren't you, if you're on Cockrum Mill Road or even Sickland Creek? Yeah, we're pretty close to Goose Creek. Okay, all right. Doctor, is there any inherent increased hazard near a major water source like that? From our position with a pump and haul, we wouldn't be concerned with it being adjacent to a water source.

[01:09:25] So while there is risk with pump and haul, in general, these are maintained well. And we haven't seen issues, but I'll defer to George if he's aware of any in these situations. I think the bigger concern is if the owner is not getting them pumped out on a regular basis.

[01:09:45] Well, and that takes me to my next one. What would be the implications, and Mr. Hemstreet, you might want to roll this into the question you brought up before, to approve this but require the applicant to come back to the board every 12 months with an update and a report on how the maintenance of the pump and haul went for the prior 12 months and then reapply.

[01:10:07] is it prohibitively expensive for them to do that at least that gives oversight to the board to with these pumping halls because i think if loud water is going to be here in two years that's maybe two cycles and and i agree with you i think this is a very reasonable request but i'm also not comfortable saying yes and then if things go south and suddenly it's a permanent pumping hall yes mr hamstring yeah thank you chair so just to provide a little more background to this we're communicating with the county attorney's office so our understanding is There is somebody upstairs looking up the regulation to answer the question as to what the board's latitude is in approving a permanent pump and haul.

[01:10:46] Just to elaborate a little bit on what Dr. Goodfriend and Mr. Kahn have said, generally speaking, we want everybody who is in a commercial application or even a residential application to have a viable wastewater system, right?

[01:11:04] whether that's a septic field or whether that is some other type of treatment facility or to be hooked up to a municipal or public system. Traditionally, and this goes back to the middle of 2000s, where there was a significant push by the board to end what we refer to as privies, because when we talk about pump and haul, what this is, is a fancy privy, okay? So the board traditionally will not, so the administrative authority is limited to 12 months. The Board of

[01:11:40] Supervisors can improve a pump and haul for a period longer than once it gets beyond 12 months. A common application is, say, on a construction site where the construction duration of the construction project is, say, several years. It'll be a few years before we have some type of permanent water and sewer, so the construction trailers and whatnot we may want to have connected to permanent pump and haul, even though the duration is less than a couple years, say.

[01:12:09] Traditionally, the board has only approved a pump and haul when there is either a hardship presence, meaning that we have somebody who has lived in a house or on a property for many, many years, had a functioning septic system or something of that nature, but for whatever reason, septic system failed, septic field failed, whatever the issue is.

[01:12:31] So now we have a hardship with somebody who has to move if we don't approve a pump and haul. So that is one traditional place where the board has approved a permanent pump and haul. The other situation is what is being articulated here, where we have an individual or we have a company where we are fairly certain that public water and sewer is on its way, and so we have a timing issue.

[01:13:00] And so what's being articulated here is a timing issue where that timing issue goes beyond a year, but it is within the time frame that the board is willing to grant for them to do essentially a pump and haul, but we know it's coming.

[01:13:16] The board has not typically, at least I don't recall any, and maybe Dr. Goodfriend or Mr. Kahn, you do, a time when the board has approved a pump and haul when public water and sewer is not imminent or within a foreseeable time frame. And we know that there are written commitments for that public sewer to come.

[01:13:35] So I just want to provide a little bit of that background. So typically, we would not have a term on the pump and haul because we are requiring the person, in order to be compliant with their pump and haul agreement, to connect as soon as the public sewer is available.

[01:13:51] If they don't, then we would prosecute that agreement to compel them to connect to water and sewer because it is now within the distance parameters of what's in the pump and haul agreement. So as opposed to a term, the health department is going to monitor the pump and haul as part of the agreement, which is in the agreement, correct?

[01:14:12] And then if they do not comply with the agreement, we will then go to the county attorney and say, you now have to connect. So that's how those things get enforced. Let me dig a little deeper on did not comply. Let's say 18 months from now, Loudon Water is still not available.

[01:14:30] They're still operating on a pump and haul, and we require a report from or an inspection from the health department or someone to give us an update on how the pump and haul operation is going. And if somehow there's been a breach of the proper use of the pump and haul, do we have the authority to withdraw the approval of the pump and haul?

[01:14:51] Well, I think we would shut them down until they come back into compliance. Until they comply. Correct. So the code requires the health department to conduct an annual inspection. So that's when we would verify with Loudon Water if we observed at sewers within the vicinity and they haven't made any attempt to connect.

[01:15:10] So then we can then take administrative actions. Okay, so that may have been a breakthrough comment. So if we approve the pump and haul as written in the motion, and that contractually requires the applicant to sign up for Loudon Water when Loudon Water becomes available, you will still do an annual inspection of that pump and haul operation to make sure they're in compliance with all the normal pump and haul procedures?

[01:15:32] Yes. So as long as that pump and hall exists, the health department will conduct an annual inspection. I'm good with that. Okay. Any other questions? Thank you very much. I appreciate it. With that, I think I'm going to go to a motion. I move that the Transportation Lane Use Committee recommend to the board that the application for permanent pump and hall services be approved, and thereby entering into a contractual agreement, Oak Mill OILC and the Virginia Department of Health to allow permanent pump and haul services to serve the proposed facility located at 42450 Cochran Mill Road, Leesburg, Virginia, 20175.

[01:16:12] Upon the condition that, one, the permanent pump and haul permit will be active only until the sewer connection to the property has been established. Two, all costs associated with the pump and haul operation and ultimately the approved connection to the public sewer shall be borne by Oak Mill OILLC.

[01:16:30] Three, the applicant shall also be responsible for ensuring that the pump and haul providers submits all required reports, records, and receipts through the Loudoun County Health Department's online tracking system, and four, that this pump and haul approval shall only be for the ready-mixed concrete manufacturing facility and its uses, and must be abandoned when public central sewer is available to the properties, pursuant to the properties mentioned, at which time all pump and haul tanks and appurtenances must be properly abandoned by the owner at that time by permit.

[01:16:58] Do I have a second? Second by Vice Chair to Crony. I have no opening statement. Any discussion on the motion? I do have a question for Steph, if that's to the Chair. So the difference between the two draft motions, one is just basically saying what Supervisor Turner has currently read. Never mind. The other one's a denial. My apologies. I read it wrong. I'll have any questions.

[01:17:25] Oh, great. Ms. Schindler. Yes. So, good evening. So, the question was posed whether or not you can something like condition a permanent pump and haul upon the applicant or the property you're connecting to public service within a period of time, and then if you can revoke the permit if they don't meet that.

[01:17:59] so i believe the answer is yes i mean my quickly looking at the virgin administrative code which governs this is that a permanent pump and haul is essentially anything for more than 12 months and so then you have to go through the process under the vac and what that process outlines is that one of the things they have to have is a contract with a with a hauler and that contract must be for a duration or contract for a period of time sufficient to complete the construction necessary to alleviate the need for pump and haul.

[01:18:34] So what that tells to me is that you can put into your condition or into your permanent condition as to the amount of time that it will be allowed to continue. Thank you very much. I appreciate the research on the fly. That was good. I think the answer that the health department gets regular reports on the condition of the pump and haul probably answers the concerns.

[01:18:56] Okay. Thank you very much. All right, sure. I appreciate it. Any other discussion on the motion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion will pass 5-0. Thank you very much. And are we up for the second one?

[01:19:16] Go for it. Thank you. All right, so we'll just dive into the second one. I think we already started some of the conversation around the second item. So, again, this is a request for the board to consider permanent pump and haul.

[01:19:34] This now is for a distribution warehouse facility located at 2200 Sicklin Road. The difference here is that this facility is currently under construction, and Loudon Water cannot commit to a time frame. And as we discussed earlier, that's because the extension is being done by a private entity that Loudon Water does not have control over.

[01:20:00] Okay, questions on this application? Supervisor Kirshner. Is the private entity the applicant or the actual builder in this case, or are they completely separate? As far as I'm aware from Loud and Water, it appears that they're separate. All right, so the reason Loud and Water is they just don't know how quickly their contractor essentially is going to get the necessary line to the facility, and thus the request.

[01:20:26] Yes. So it is beyond the applicant's control in large part, and when I say those applying for the pump and haul. It would seem that way. Okay. So I want you to know, and this is no joke, this item will not come up on my computer, on my iPad.

[01:20:48] Every item, every single item, every part of Granicus comes up but this. I think my iPad is just like, we're not doing this. My iPad is just like, we're just not doing this. We're just not doing this.

[01:21:05] My iPad is just not. No, no, no, no. Did that happen to me? It's it's there are two pieces to the item and one of them has is all maps. No, listen, whatever. My iPad. I'm not asking you all to help me. I'm fine. I don't need any help about Pump and Hall. My whole point is just that no, really, I don't want Pump and Hall maps.

[01:21:27] My only question is, what is this? What is a Pump and Hall distribution facility? What happens there? What are you distributing there or bringing there? What is it? It's a FedEx distribution. It's a distribution facility.

[01:21:43] It's a warehouse. There's nothing to do with the pump and hall. There's nothing to do with the pump and hall. Oh. So the pump and hall is there to serve this facility. This is a larger distribution facility with about 190 employees. The pump and hall is there to serve? Really? Because that would be a lot that you're pumping and hauling from a facility that large.

[01:22:01] Correct. They are proposing pumping three times a week. Thank you very much, and God bless you and whoever does these jobs. Vice Chair Turcroni. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. So this one, is this going to be a much bigger tank because of how many employees there are, or is it a small tank and they just have to pump it three times a week?

[01:22:23] They haven't specced the size of the tank yet. I haven't seen the actual size yet, but they can go up to 15,000 gallons. Okay, so it can be pretty big. I thought I saw that Loudon Water estimated 2025. Did I not see that correct in this application?

[01:22:43] That I'm not sure because, so, in the general plan, Solano Water referenced the 2019 general plan, which uses that 2025 timeline. But they couldn't commit to one because of the private sector individual who was in charge of this. Okay, because I thought I saw it.

[01:23:02] Okay. Okay, thank you. I may be wrong. I walked this site. I think it's right up the road from the Compass Data Center complex and Loudon Water right on Goose Creek.

[01:23:18] Is that correct? I think so. Do we know if there is Loudon Water extended already to the Compass Data Center campus? That I don't know. Okay. All right. But basically, while it's a bigger operation, it's essentially the same that we were just talking about.

[01:23:34] We're going to prove it. It's going to go beyond 12 months. Contractually, the motion has them sign out for Loudon Water when Loudon Water is available. We'll get a report every year. And if they're noncompliant, we'll shut them down until they're compliant. That's correct. Okay. Any other questions?

[01:23:51] I'll make a motion. Mr. Chairman? Yeah. I would just comment that this application is, although it has some characteristics that are similar to the one that you just acted on, the volume of wastewater that will be created or generated on a daily basis, if my memory is correct, around 3,700 gallons a day.

[01:24:15] That's correct. Yeah, as compared to the previous one that was just a couple hundred gallons a day. So this is a significant facility. I just want to make sure that we're not thinking apples and apples here.

[01:24:32] No, and I appreciate that. But the point is it's basically the same operation on a much, much larger scale. Correct. Wait, wait. Mr. Hemstreet, you're shaking your head no. It's not the same operation on a much, much larger scale.

[01:24:47] Well, process-wise, it's the same. Whereas the first application was a tank of, I think it was 1,000 gallons. This tank will be more like 15,000 gallons. If you're going to pump it every day or every three days, that's essentially 12,000 gallons generated every three days.

[01:25:08] So that's the comparison that I'm talking about. It might take a month for the first application to fill their tank, whereas this is going to fill their tank in three days. Well, then the implication of the question, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it sounds like the implication of the question is that it's not a linear scale, that somehow there's an implied greater risk because of the exponentially larger operation.

[01:25:35] Is that correct? Is that true? I mean, obviously, if you break a tank that's 1,000 gallons and it leaks, you've got a 1,000-gallon problem. If you break a 50,000-gallon tank, you've got a 50,000-gallon problem. And it seems to me this site is right on a water source. Is it Sickling Creek that runs down the bottom of the hill there?

[01:25:53] It's fairly close. So is there an inherently greater risk because of the size of the operation that is attributed entirely to the larger operation? I'm really putting you on the spot here.

[01:26:09] You are. I mean, describing it the way you have, you know, you could perceive that there could be an inherent increased risk just based on the size of it. I mean, put it in a nutshell. That's a lot of poop. That's a lot of stuff going on there. And I take, yeah, go ahead.

[01:26:25] Do we have any other facility like this? I mean, is this the largest, would this be the largest pump and haul in Loudoun? It could be. One of the higher volume. The fairground, there's a fairly large tank at the fairground, but that one is not used all the time.

[01:26:44] Yeah, that one's, so this is just going to be a very active, three times a week, huge, huge system. Correct. Okay, well. Chair Turner. Supervisor Glass.

[01:26:59] Yeah, so then my question is, if we do not approve it, then. That was my question. what would they be able to do? Because this facility is being built. I do remember this application.

[01:27:15] So what would happen? They still, the facility will still be built. They will not be able to get an occupancy. Can we, is there a timeframe on this?

[01:27:32] I'm sorry, Jerry. Is there a timeframe on this? I mean, I know what's in front of us today, but if we tabled this to get more information and put a little fire under them to try to move is it will will we be able to get more information between now and say the next meeting i mean that's not your discretion um no but i'm telling you well can we get more information in other words because what i'm hearing is they want to pump and haul because they can't commit and loud and water doesn't know but maybe working between the applicant and loud or and when i say the applicant those requesting the permit and loud and water they will have a

[01:28:11] little better idea and maybe this is not needed because this is incredibly large what i could share is that you're not really so you're not permitting it today you're just taking you're allowing us to take this to the board so this will come back to the full board if we pass today it'll go to the full board and it'll go to the full board what's the date i think probably march february 6th february so and we could we could table it then too i just feel like we don't necessarily i i'm i feel like that maybe we need more information and when is when are they when

[01:28:50] is the requested occupancy do we know when they want occupancy and how much lead time they need on it no i'm not um i'm not aware of where they're at exactly in their construction phase yeah see those are some of the questions i think would be helpful for us to know yeah and along those lines are you done well along those lines um i'm going to make the motion uh to send it to the board with a recommendation approval pending um information back from staff of any pump and operation in Loudoun County of comparable size and any complications that have

[01:29:24] occurred as that comparable size pump and hole okay okay mr. chair yeah we would recommend that you keep it in committee to get that information and so that you can the committee can forward a complete recommendation to the board okay then I'll make that's that's a good suggestion I'll make that motion so I move that we table this item until the next madam chair I'm sorry mr. chairman I Never mind never mind. It's fine. Yeah, it's fine. I move that we table this item until the next until the February tea like me

[01:30:04] So I think that's probably reasonable with an eye towards getting the information that I asked for if we could do that Is there second supervisor glass seconds any discussion on the motion the table is till the February tea like me Hearing none All those in favor, please say aye. All right any post that item is tabled till the February tea like me Thank you all very much. I appreciate it. It's harder than that

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Coraggio Consulting · aguyonx.com