four o'clock i think we will go ahead and get started can everyone hear me i've been knocking it um all right i'm calling this meeting to order uh today's meeting of the environmental advisory board is called to order on november 12 2025. welcome everyone uh this is my uh first time chairing this committee so i hope you all bear with me uh the members of the environmental advisory board were appointed by the city council we serve voluntarily the board's objective is to provide citizen insight to the city council and staff on environmental activities within and affecting clearwater agendas of today's meeting are on the wall at the entrance to the chambers please remember to turn off your cell phones and electronic devices to ensure a complete record of the board's actions we ask each individual wishing to speak to clearly state your name and spell your last name for the clerk we'll take roll call will members of the board and staff please introduce yourselves we'll start on our far left cassie cassie cordova sustainability manager tim hughes cali dobbin michael rubino glenna wentworth chair and i don't know anybody heard from jason i haven't heard i assume he's he's always coming from work so i'm assuming he'll be here but we do have a quorum so we can proceed thank you um the minutes our first order of business is uh to review and approve the minutes of the board's last meeting everyone i hope had a chance to read the minutes are there any changes or corrections now seeing there's none may have a motion to approve the minutes motion approved have a motion second second all those in favor say aye aye thank you minutes are approved um all right citizens to be heard um items on the agenda is there anyone here to speak to items not on the agenda please step to the podium and state your name for the public record and please spell your name for the clerk you have three minutes to speak on the subject that is not on today's agenda there will be no dialogue between you and from the podium and board members until you have completed your comments brian beckman b-e-c-k-m-a-n and that's not fair that you're not going to talk back in here so uh you're doing a great job so far glenna so i'm just doing fantastic um so i send emails about once a quarter uh before i don't know maybe two or three months ago i sent an email on what sierra club put out there on a new solar dashboard for the county of ready for 100 cities where we took what we've done in clearwater now for a few years and exploded that across four other cities st petersburg safety harbor largo in dunedin and i hope you've got it had a chance to go out there and look at that but i did want to highlight it again for you all here and anybody else that might be watching this and it tells a great story um city by city so you can you can see the numbers associated with each individual city but then you can also see it accumulatively and especially accumulatively uh cumulatively that's i guess the right word is uh you see the impact so you see the impact on saving money across the community you see the impact of reducing pollution emissions and then energy independence for each one of those installations they are more energy dependent than what they were uh prior to getting solar and the other thing that you people might not think of is that cumulatively it has a significant positive impact on the grid that during energy peak times this additional energy is supplied out there to the grid that reduces the need to create new generating infrastructure within our service area and that's exactly what's going on you're not seeing new generation stations that are being proposed or propping up because of this energy that's being provided from within the county largely on rooftops and just to give you an example of what that looks like there's about 10 000 solar permits which is as of the middle of this year across those five cities there's more if you if we were to do it across the entire county about 27 million dollars a year that's saved on energy bills and almost 13 million gallons of gas that's not burned every year when you look at it from a pollution perspective those are huge numbers and i expect we haven't done the numbers yet of course the year hasn't ended but we'll do them through the end of the year and provide updates out there and i expect to see a big increase because of the change in the solar incentive laws but the other thing that we'll look at incorporating going forward is energy efficiency information the city does such a wonderful job there we'd like to show that across the those different communities as well thank you any questions questions thank you brian yeah thank you excellent information are there other citizens to be heard i think everyone's here to hear the vulnerability study results um and that's next on the agenda agenda so is it melody hi good afternoon uh i'm melody in sustainability specialist in the public works department so we're excited to present the results of the vulnerability assessment um and um a few months ago our consultant that worked with us on this uh study actually presented it at the city council meeting um but this time around uh we've internally cassie and i have um digested the study and made it um into a much simpler um to understand format and you know one in terms of an info sheet that will be published on the website as well as a presentation to you right now um so this is an effort that started back in 2022 and we finally concluded it early this year um and uh this is the agenda oh two laptops a little confused there sorry and uh so we'll move along um in this manner um this project was funded through the florida department of environmental protections resilient florida program it meets the state's statutory requirements for vulnerability assessments uh for municipalities ensuring that the city is aligned with florida's resilience planning standards so by completing this assessment the city also becomes eligible for future adaptation and resilience funding opportunities and this assessment identifies risks from flooding and extreme heat through the year 2100 helping the city plan for both near-term and long-term climate challenges um so the vulnerability assessment enables the city to plan for long-term growth while identifying potential future vulnerabilities associated with climate stressors such as increased rainfall sea level rise stronger tropical systems and extreme heat uh this project involved worked with consultants uh namely akins realis a project action team uh which is made up of internal city staff from various departments and a technical advisory committee tac in short comprised of both internal city staff as well as external partners um this assessment utilized the consultants geospatial resilience modeling tool uh it's now called simulator instead of the old name city simulator which was used to create a digital twin of the city that included building buildings parcels and transportation infrastructure the tool was used to model the city from 20 to 20 20 to 2100 simulating both its growth and activity and relevant climate hazards the study focused on tidal flooding riverine flooding which is inland rivers overtopping their banks pluvial flooding which is from heavy rainfall as well as storm surge while sea level rise was a core concern of the grant scope clearwater was also elected also elected to include heat stress impacts as a proactive step towards comprehensive resilience planning major findings uh major findings show significant increases in storm intensity flood depth and temperature through 2100 um which we'll touch on more melody can we ask questions or do you want us to wait till the end uh sure uh well first of all i was wondering what is the definition of heat stress um in simple terms um so that just means that how with increasing temperature and also increasing temperature in multiple locations in increased locations in clear water impact how people live go to work and play okay so i can add a little bit to that so the the model when it didn't just look at buildings it actually looked at demographic information about those buildings so it was able to determine are they residential buildings are they like what the function of the building was and that function of the building determined if the occupants would be spending time outside so if it's just general office space people generally don't go outside very often but if it was a school they would know that the kids are going to go outside so the the modeling actually was able to show how many people based on the function of the building would be going outside and therefore how vulnerable they would be at that particular location oh that's pretty in depth and with the simulated city growth what kind of growth are we anticipating or did we project do you know um i'm not entirely sure but their model uses um data from it could be from university it could be from um some sort of federal government's um data but it's but it's definitely something that i can look up and get back to you i'm just curious because i think in the last five years we've had like sort of an abnormal amount of growth haven't we with all the migration from other states yeah i think it used census data census as well yeah yeah okay there's a portion in the study that mentions in-depth methodology which we are not really going into detail in this presentation but happy to send that portion to you that's fine i was just curious of how much projection we were anticipating what is a node stormwater nodes 8 000 are those dots that we're looking yeah think of it as points on the map right now uh because it's highly gis based model modeling so those are just points of interest where there is a stormwater connection system okay um so moving in into a little bit of the methodology behind the study relied on scientifically grounded projections and high resolution modeling using this simulator the study combined local historical data with global climate models for sea level rise projections NOAA's 2017 intermediate low and high uh was used and as well as the 2022 2022 update were used as well and these were satisfying the fdep requirements flood exposure was modeled for planning horizon 2040 2070 and 2100 the study focused on quantifying the depth and location of flooding and heat that will potentially impact the community in the future um it also used gis based analysis of 52 000 parcels and thousands of critical infrastructure points it also evaluated exposure under three planning horizon which i've mentioned before it also accessed days flooded death and also heat intensity per uh per structure um so a little bit of the result from the modeling um it x the study estimated a 24 percent increase in 100 year 24 hour rainstorms by 2100 it also showed upward trend in sea level uh right future sea level um there's also a 300 percent increase in days per year where temperature is a 90 degrees fahrenheit or more in clearwater um so as for key findings and we're breaking it down to the various different types of findings here clearwater will experience various flooding scenarios include tidal rainfall and storm surge the floods will impact various infrastructure buildings including both residential and commercial roads and stormwater systems the study analyzed stormwater and transportation assets and projected increased increase disrupt disrupt disruptions for residents and businesses as they try to navigate the city's transportation network so for tidal flooding by 2100 using the intermediate high sea level rise projection 3000 plus parcels may flood 300 plus years 300 plus days per year this represents close to 10 percent of parcels in the city coastal areas are especially vulnerable including the berry islands and also downtown area as you can see on the map here and as for flooding that involves large rainfall events by 2100 using the intermediate high sea level rise projection 3000 parcels may flood 300 plus years i think it's the same amount of data here sorry i'm moving into the rainfall part um the maximum expected flood depth above ground for a hundred year rainfall event increases from 13.75 feet um in the 20 2040 planning horizon to 14.34 feet in the 2100 planning horizon and for a 500 year rainfall event that increases from 15.32 feet to 20.38 feet and just a little bit of background on what it means for uh to to be considered a 100 year or a 500 year event right so a 100 year rainfall event refers to a rainstorm that has a one percent chance of occurring in any given year similarly a 500 year event has a 0.2 percent chance of occurring in any given year these terms describe statistical probabilities not guaranteed schedules so like a 100 year event can happen more than once in a century and in some cases even multiple times in a few years so these events are used by engineers and planners to design infrastructures like stormwater systems and flood protection that can withstand extreme weather question so when you say 100 year rainfall event you're talking about the amount of rain the most amount of rain that has fallen within that 100 years no it's a it's really it's complicated to explain but it's a it's basically a it's a statistical guess on an event that would rain approximately based on historical data we would get this large rainfall event once every 100 years but as we now know we can't necessarily base future projections on historical rainfall because things are changing but it's just saying that based on previous data this event happens approximately once every 100 years or once every 500 years so it's just like a estimate but it is in by no means in by no means the guarantee that you're only going to get an event with let's just say 20 inches of rainfall in in 24 hours i don't know what it is exactly in our case but it's just saying statistically historically that's only happened once every about 100 years but now you know we just got three storms last year so and think about it you don't know when this will occur in the next 100 year it could be this year it could be 50 years later but the chances of it happening is uh one percent or 0.2 percent for 100 year and 500 did they give any indication of why they think that is that's just a standard way of of measuring yeah stormwater it's like a normal term 100 year storm yeah no no i know that but it's like i'm just wondering like our chances are going up right well by by design the chances are always the same 100 year storm has a one percent chance every year of occurring and a 500 that's how you get the percentage because i was going to say that is it once in a hundred years one percent yes yeah yes okay the the rainfall depth is going up okay yeah i think i saw you you had data there that showed a hundred year storm will increase the amount will go up 24 percent in the year uh in the previous slide yes yes can you show that slide again please yeah see that helps to explain okay yeah are they are these normally occurring during hurricanes for us i mean would this be this study doesn't really yeah okay yeah didn't clarify that yeah it's so important that uh civil engineers use this data to design stormwater systems retention bonds and detention yeah to make sure the capacity will hold for those events it's like when they're building this long-term infrastructure right when you're building infrastructure like bridges and stormwater the life cycle of these is 50 years 100 years so they're building them based off of what they think a likelihood of these storms are going to be based on this data thanks for the question okay so for flooding that relates to storm search events maximum projector search depth increases from 17.1 feet in the 2040 planning horizon uh 222.7 feet in the 2100 planning horizon according to the intermediate high 2017 projections so um this heavily affects coastal areas and also low-lying neighborhoods um that are shown in the map here and um that little um arrow sort of signifies the search depth increase there so stevenson's creek yeah and the and there yep watershed areas and then also is that is that our lakes in morningside down there off of belcher it looks a little bit yeah kind of or maybe that area but i don't know if it's our lakes or it looks just like our lakes and as well as bay shore yeah um so moving on to heat exposure and that would be as a result of storm surge that means that because the water is backed up our lakes can't flow into the bay into broker creek okay can you identify specific communities that will be most vulnerable like stevenson creek like sand key island are there others uh for this scenario uh for this scenario you mean overall or per scenario yeah like what the what the modeling says in the next you know about 2100 well i mean if we look at all the scenarios obviously the beach is very vulnerable in almost every one of them but yeah yeah and then and then later on we go into talking about the scenarios that the study picked out to do some sort of adaptation strategies and i think you will sort of hear more on like specific areas one other question does your is your tool interactive in other words can you zoom in and like a gis map that's that's a very static map right there a great question it is supposedly built to be interactive um the city has not gained uh access to it but we're hoping to have that conversation with a consultant to work that out a valuable tool yeah it is one of those features that's forthcoming well the the vulnerability assessment itself was simply to do the information atkins chose to do it by creating a digital twin but you don't have to create a digital twin to do a vulnerability assessment there's dozens of other firms that are doing vulnerability assessments by just looking at the data so this tool is kind of above and beyond so uh the what the federal what the state grant paid for was for the vulnerability assessment not necessarily for us to have access to this tool indefinitely so that's something we have to work out um so for heat exposure both the number of days per year with high temperatures as well as the number of locations with high temperatures will increase days above 90 degrees fahrenheit increases from one to 25 days in 2040 to 176 days to 200 days in 2100 in many areas don't we have over 25 days do you have over 25 days 90 degrees can you clarify that that specific data because i think we're up to about 80 days a year 90 plus degree temperatures does that say one to 25 days more than the current 90 or more days above 90 degrees or more um so there might be a different so it really depends on i think it might be average as well of like the whole city so i don't as far as i mean i grew up here i don't think we're at 80 days over 90 degrees a year at all you guys are that's what you think we have i did an ai google search i find that hard to believe um depends on what type of temperature they report a lot of it is like it feels like more than 90 or whether is it the recorded high um so i i would check that as well yeah just to make sure if you could clarify that that would be great and um yeah we'll we'll make notes to do that um so the study is saying you know there's a strong correlation uh between uh the increasing temperature uh areas of high temperature with low tree coverage which we'll talk about later as well it seems i mean if um the reading that i've done about uh the a vulnerability to climate change and the heat would be the probably the biggest killer um and you know would be probably the most effect and most effect on our lifestyle our life quality quality of life so heat's really a big factor yes to be tracking agree um so the this map uh shows the areas with limited tree courage um which also uh which we noticeably see higher heat intensity uh in this study by 2100 uh 17 000 study locations face heightened exposure and this next map over here would also show the location spread which increased over time so the color difference is the lighter the color it means the more number of days that experience higher temperatures okay so we have reached the adaptation scenarios portion of the presentation the development of adaptation scenarios in the vulnerability assessment was guided by three core principles maximizing return on investment for mitigation and adaptation actions reducing flood and heat risk and prioritizing equity using the simulator 10 initial scenarios targeting areas with high exposure to flooding heat and critical infrastructure vulnerabilities were created and model each scenario represented a different adaptation strategy or location focus including structural elevation property acquisition increased tree canopy and stormwater system improvements uh as shown in the icon in this page to support decision making a cost benefit framework was applied to each scenario assessing the upfront investment against long-term avoided damage um avoided damage um so a notice these scenarios are in support of high level planning exercise to begin evaluating the complexities of future hazard conditions the scenarios are not meant to imply that the city is going to perform these actions and more internal analysis will need to be done to make that decision uh and then later on additional five scenarios um chosen out of the 10 will be uh looked at uh further um and then a note on the roi formula uh so it is damage avoided divided by cost of adaptation strategies that gives the ratio um so scenario one is the stevenson creek area this focus on elevating roads and acquiring structures to improve drainage in a flat chrome watershed the scenario showed strong ri from targeted acquisitions and infrastructure improvements examples are culverts outfalls the ri was maximized when 200 million dollars is spent on 79 projects that includes eight road elevation 71 building acquisitions which is estimated to avoid 297 million in damages and the ratio is 1.485 and a little bit of additional info here we have the city is currently undergoing the lower spring branch project the flat control project proposal back in 2016 includes and focuses on completing the second component of the project at douglas avenue springtime avenue and overbrook avenue canales county is also part of the project uh and the city is taking care of um the second portion i guess phase two of the project as well um and plans will be finalized and brought to the council sometimes and then we also have the stevenson creek management plan that is upcoming um these last summer did the project for swift mud appropriated funding and um we're waiting for the funding results to be released next year um and scenario two is increased tree coverage uh for citywide so at the study ss citywide benefits of increasing urban tree canopies to reduce heat impacts uh the scenario offers insights into where shade may be most beneficial based on local demographic data the results show that tree planting has high ri especially when targeted in tree deserts and disadvantaged communities the ri was maximized when 3.62 million is spent at um 7200 planning locations which is estimated to avoid about 5.1 million in damages the ri ratio is 1.41 and the note here is recommended tree planting locations will need to be further looked at before implementation as some sites might be unsuitable due to physical constraints or professional guidance limitations so there's tremendous social well-being benefits including human health air quality shading cooling habitat and biodiversity improvements that relates to this scenario does clearwater have a um a tree canopy canopy goal like you know i just i can't think if the clearwater has that but i don't know like um i think gulfport has a 30 percent goal they have reached a 30 percent goal tree cover uh canopy coverage in their city we are at the starting phase of assessing our tree canopy um in fact because of this study um cassie and i in our division we have just recently submitted a grant to afdacs um for doing a urban tree management plan that will include a tree canopy component in there um and then we'll we'll eventually have some recommendation out of that um project yeah we're also waiting to hear back on the results of the grant there will be a goal it would be an urban forestry management plan okay and inside of that would include a canopy assessment and goals yes so in my review of the overall vulnerability report i find that just in my opinion that a tree this tree plan that you're referring to is the best bang for the buck it's the most cost effective and it could have many tangible as well as intangible benefits that you couldn't even measure so that's why we applied for the grant yeah i appreciate the comment yeah big fan of the we're excited for for this project um so coming to the third scenario it's elevating seawalls uh specifically for the area of north beach to island estates um this modeled elevation of seawalls in this area provided moderate roi in reducing tidal flooding impacts for coastal properties with varying benefits by location segment cost estimates are highly variable um and a note here is most of the seawalls are private and not owned or maintained by the city therefore making a large-scale use of seawall modification difficult to implement um however just a little bit of additional info here too the city is undertaking a seawall repair study and project there was an inspection from our consultant of 48 seawalls throughout the city out of 48 33 required maintenance repair and 10 required rehab or replacement six locations were identified in clearwater beach out of the six five needed maintenance erosion on the back side of the wall and one required full replacement so this will be a priority yes do any of these future projects include removing seawalls and replacing them with living living shorelines very good question um not certain at this point however i think you guys will be interested to hear that we're also working on a very exciting project um that is uh the first in clearwater uh this is called the living seawall project so instead of leaving shorelines i know you know people will very much honestly prefer that if we're all environmental conservationists but leaving seawall is also a good alternative uh it's adding panels onto the seawall that helps promote uh you know juvenile marine animals uh growth around that that that area and also improves water quality in that area of the water that touches the seawall um and it's it's going to be a really exciting project where we have invited a bunch of external partners to come together and put our heads together and see what we can come up with um and i'm sure you'll hear more i don't want to get we don't want to give out too much yeah exactly that's great um could that incorporate mangroves you know with the living seawall it's to be discussed but definitely that we're looking at oysters um corals even or uh reef falls and et cetera these are just like an exploration stage though so um yeah more to come definitely we'll have like a big press release when that so could you repeat the number of seawalls that are in existence right now and in this map did you say 48 um so this the study um so the study that i mentioned the seawall repair study this is a separate study outside of the vulnerability assessment okay it's just additional info that was relevant to this slide um that public works department is working on um it said 40 they studied 48 seawalls throughout the city and those are all city seawalls so just i i don't know if she mentioned it but the majority of our seawalls are privately owned i was going to say these are these are just these are city seawalls that are not private seawalls yeah that's the note on the bottom of this slide is that majority of our on the beach they're privately owned although the study did include all the seawalls just because it's you know a community study private and public yes so so the numbers that you indicated of what needs to be repaired or possibly first included private no those are city owned okay that we have control over okay when she said the study just now she meant this study not the other study yeah it's confused i know i was confused too and then i so the other this is the vulnerability study looked at all of the seawalls the one that we're mentioning that public works working on with a consultant separately that is just city owned seawalls and that's something they do on a semi-regular basis i think every few years does it include edgewater park living shoreline i think that's a project in the works or is it an edgewater park in dunedin pardon it's an edgewater park in dunedin we have a portion of edgewater yeah it's a city park um to be shared i don't think so in the leaving seawall the leaving seawalls project but you know who knows if this gets traction we might expand the original selected sites um it's indefinite at this time so coming into scenario four this study is coastal zone three that includes the bayshore full of our area so modeling elevation in that area near the old tampa bay coastline it showed reduced flooding and high roi and these roi was maximized when 70 million is spent on 14 road elevation projects which is estimated to avoid 213 million in damages so three priority projects with the greatest roi were highlighted at the 25 percent budget scenario um and the roi ratio is 3.74 in fact that's a pretty high ratio we are yes we are actually the city is actually taking steps into applying for various grants um for this area um i shall not go into detail because we're we're just applying for a lot of grants right now um and then scenario five is the elevate uh elevate structures on berry islands scenario uh this assesses uh elevating residential structures on the beach berry islands high benefit in terms of avoided flood damage especially with phased or budgeted budget limited approaches so the roi ratio is about 2.73 uh and it's maximized when 88 million is spent on 602 projects which will uh avoid 240 million in damages and then the big biggest takeaway from this initial result is probably the location of the projects so the image is the 25 scenario budget scenario meaning if only 21 million of the estimated 88 million budget uh is used to elevate structures the largest benefit of the to the cost for these are um 90 properties along clearwater harbor north and south of uh state road 60. how are these uh projects chosen are they private or all public owned the simulator the simulator gives that result and so you might be wondering why there are no orange dots in the north part of the beach um yeah so the results are mostly in this region because this area has a high percentage of commercial structures versus residential commercial properties have a higher replacement cost on average than the primarily residential structures on the north side of the berry island so the metric our consultants use to judge projects is roi which is uh like mentioned losses avoided divided by cost of elevating so as the losses avoided is directly influenced by replacement cost of the building it makes sense that the roi would be higher for higher replacement cost properties therefore the simulator chose those projects um okay so scenario six is acquisition of structure citywide so this model the citywide buyout program based on roi of individual properties and found the study found this to be one of the most effective long-term strategies for reducing overall flood exposure um and the ratio is 1.63 um the roi is maximized when 1.5 billion is spent on a thousand 282 projects which is you know estimated to avoid 2.45 billion in damages and of course again a notice the city has to assess whether these would make sense does each one of those 1282 projects represent acquisition of property yes for this scenario okay yeah thank you that's private and public but private that would be private private acquisitions of course that's pretty that's really crazy expensive yeah and of course yeah this was you know the map was showing the hundred percent budget oh i mean the roi here and mentioning a thousand projects is showing a hundred percent budget and i think each of the scenarios if possible the they will give a 25 budget scenario looking at what are the priority acquisition projects um but then again acquisition is really a challenging task so yeah just because something has a beneficial roi doesn't mean it's palatable politically yeah so there's other considerations clearwater beach there's going to be a lot of unhappy people a caveat right there yeah yeah it's a lot on the barrier islands so scenario seven is the area of hercules and u.s 19 corridors this focus on acquiring structures and economic development corridors prone to flooding uh the scenario showed strong ri from targeted acquisitions as well property acquisitions on a cost to benefit curve it's maximized when 26.35 million is spent on eight acquisition projects which is estimated to avoid 43.17 million in damages um yes this one's short and sweet um and then the next scenario is coastal zone one as well as the central which is downtown clearwater and also north greenwood the scenario evaluated these three areas as a combined geography where reinvestment is ongoing and social vulnerabilities have been identified evaluated evaluated estimated cost and benefit if flood exposed structures were acquired and additional trees were planted to reduce heat exposure this result showed that mixed use adaptation had high potential return especially in vulnerable census tracts and then scenario nine is the state road 60 drew street in south misery which is u.s 19 alternative this scenario was intended to evaluate some water improvements density changes and tree coverage for future investment corridors the model was not able to accurately evaluate the mix of soft and hard mitigation strategies however flooding exposure and tree planting benefit analysis were demonstrated separately and of course because of the limitation of the simulator uh this scenario was not selected for refined scenario analysis uh and then moving on to scenario 10 uh this is to evaluate structures uh elevate structures citywide and a broad scenario assessing the benefits of elevating all vulnerable uh buildings results show that approach is costly but impactful with the best ri in the high exposure zones of the beach stevenson creek and also near the old tampa bay coast the ri is maximized when 141 1.1 million dollars is spent on 837 elevation projects which is estimated to avoid 389.3 billion dollars in damages um racial being 2.76 there are some dot orange dots on the beach as well as inland as well i think the map is a little small for you guys to see that i just wanted to point out it's not just the beach but there are some in the old tampa bay area as well as stevenson creek um so we selected five uh refined scenarios um and uh incorporated more localized intervention examples include bridge upgrades targeted acquisition tree planting and that um uh and then going into the first refined scenario which is the stevenson creek with bridges um we updated scenario one from before to assess bridge vulnerability to assess bridge vulnerability to inundation the scenario identified three bridges that would be good candidates for upgrades with further analysis including planning design and cost information um and coordination with the county state and federal agencies if needed and these are uh bellevue boulevard stevenson creek bridge bell air road and rice lake douglas avenue and stevenson creek um these are the three bridges um these are the three bridges for this area um so second refined scenario goes into the north greenwood um which was the scenario number eight um so this targeted this targeted acquisition uh properties and also tree planting in the social socially vulnerable neighborhood um the ri is maximized when uh 76 million dollars is spent on a thousand over projects uh that includes a thousand tree planting projects as well as 43 building acquisitions and then the third refined scenario is downtown uh clearwater so this focus on tree planting as well and a few critical acquisitions um this has found to improve walkability and reduce urban heat while offering modest flood mitigation benefits with a 25 budget scenario it highlighted 919 tree planting building locations as well as 33 building acquisitions that returns the highest roi um and then this is the fourth refined scenario which is in the mainland um west coast um so this focus on tree planting and a few critical acquisitions as well not going into too much detail here uh the last one being um tree identifying tree deserts and um opportunities for tree planting uh this is the uh further analyzed scenario two which uh developed the tree planting benefit index based on city's parcel fabric and demographics to estimate relative benefits to tree planting locations this has identified priority areas shown on the map for tree planting with the highest cooling potential which targets the heat stress that we've talked about um okay moving on to the technical advisory committees meet recommendation uh members made several recommendations during our final get together for the study assessment and they mentioned the use of potential use of st petersburg rain tight station for regional consistency um and uh integrating surface water models for water quality and including groundwater modeling as well and they also emphasize public opportunities like rain gardens and individual property protection actions as well as regional solutions um it um you know we also included like acquisition for stormwater retention um and they wanted us to consider including um and pursuing grant funding to expand upon visualization of the study as well as educational outreach opportunities that communicate vulnerabilities this slide is a portfolio of actions that could be considered to minimize flooding and heat vulnerabilities and some of these green action items could be potentially performed by the public residents as well and then the next steps so the city of clear water uh vulnerability project successfully met its primary goal of assessing the city's vulnerabilities and evaluating potential climate adaptation strategies by creating a digital twin of the city and utilizing the simulator project provided detailed simulation of future climate scenarios including flooding and rising temperatures the simulation gave the city valuable insights into the expected impacts of climate change on critical infrastructures and communities enabling the city to make informed decisions regarding adaptation planning so based on the findings that we have shown previously the city will consider the following strategies to increase the city's resilience to climate hazards and ensure long-term sustainability as well so first being prioritizing high roi adaptation projects such as stevenson creek or coastal zones so the va laid the foundation for high impact adaptation measures such as elevating seawall structure acquiring at risk properties and upgrading infrastructure to protect the most vulnerable populations in the city as well as assets in the area most affected by frequent flooding secondly being we are looking to expand tree canopy in vulnerable areas as well including north greenwood in downtown this would not only mean social benefits and reduced heat exposure but also improve the air and water quality and increase community well-being as well and then thirdly we're looking to enhance data collection for future modeling and fourth we're hoping to engage community and resiliency planning as well continue engaging on community members uh especially in vulnerable areas will help prioritize actions and ensure that the benefits of adaptation measures are broadly shared across the city and we're also looking at pursuing grant fundings for implementation like mentioned we have already pursued resilient florida uh implementation grant and waiting for the results as well as some other federal funding as well what is it called again resilience the fdp resilience florida for the implementation funding and many other federal funding grants um and then lastly we are also looking into integrating the findings into city planning documents uh like the comp plan great print uh capital improvement could you back up to the um the um the um the slide before that under um we're just looking at the green bowl it was in green bowl what what citizens can be doing and yes so some of these some of these um actions for example under general infrastructure improvements um adding rain gardens if possible in private properties right be commercial or residential and um adding native plants to your yard that helps as well and um leaving shorelines if a private property would like to partake in that we highly recommend um as well as permeable pavements in your residence um rooftop runoff storage um like the rain barrels um and then there are also other physical countermeasures like the um racing seawall for the private properties uh flat proofing uh flat proofing your homes uh tree planting in your own residence your own property uh we would love that as well um and elevating if people choose to advocate elevate their own uh homes and their property that would be good for the future could we add an item to that list that's a great list i was thinking of uh riparian buffers along streams planting trees along streams like it's for yeah great great one thank you i apply green print 2.0 is that um yeah oh there's there's that applying green print 2.0 because there were a few strategies in green print 2.0 that mentions what individuals can do at home at play at work to be sustainable and resilient as well and many of these actions actually are mentioned in green right as well as encouraging and purchasing flat insurance for your homes this is the end of our presentation we do have a website that includes this study result and a summary of the study as well it's myclearwater.com slash va va stands for vulnerability assessment and if anyone has any specific questions that you would like to get in touch this is our email sustainability at myclearwater.com and if anything that we can't answer we'll be happy to redirect them to our consultant thank you melody are there uh comments from the board do you anticipate or have you anticipated how much in grant money you'll get from projects like these let me open my spreadsheet it's very uh it's complicated we can tell you for a lot the amount of grants i guess grant monies that we have applied for we don't have them all back but it's a big number and some of some of the projects are you know related to vulnerability assessment and the vulnerability assessment informs some of these projects and positions so right now we've applied for 79 million dollars worth of grants those are all pending so it does not mean we will get i guess you're not going for the multi-billion dollar plan on that a step at a time thank you thank you oh any more questions yeah um i mean i guess the uh uh i mean this would not be a part of the vulnerability study we'd be talking about um climate change mitigation but that is part of green print 2.0 i just like um this is all about the effects of mitigation of the effects of climate change um so you know i just want i just want to be always mindful of the things that we can be doing in the next 80 years to try to change these projectories projectories as much as possible you know including our clean energy goals i know they're part of green print 2.0 i know i sound like a broken record on that but um i don't think we can be too mindful to always be mindful about what we can be doing to try to try to change these trajectories try to mitigate um and keep some of this some of this stuff from being so bad i can go very deep does it make sense can we pass a motion in support of this well i don't even know that that is a part of a vulnerability study i mean that you know this is this is a study of the effects of climate change and how to how to um how to yeah adapt to it basically or you know i would i would just like to comment how much i think community outreach and education is going to be so important and uh we want to be a part of that especially with the board going forward the future board yeah i think that was identified that community outreach is going to be key for that future board i want to support that i would have you know i would hope that are you going to support it and i mean that in the form of a motion i don't think we have any control over the next board of the coming board but i do hope that we would include that in some of this this is a scary scenario these are scary scenarios and there are things that individuals can be doing we can be doing in our own homes in our choices of energy usage um you know and energy efficiencies and those things maybe i don't know when we're doing these reports um if that would even make sense to build those in at all because that's sort of a different topic but um i just don't want to lose sight of prevention mitigation of the thing that you know if if climate change is the is the fault is the water that's filling the bathtub and overflowing then um then we need to also make efforts to turn off the faucet instead of clean up just to clean up the water anyway i i would like to say how much we want to support our sustainability director and her staff and this is a very important report and it looks like a city arborists are going to be very important when it comes to these tree planting projects you'll be partnering with the city arbors we have several arborists on staff other comments i'm just wondering too do you share this data with like the building department and and all the other agencies that could be impacted by this yeah we're planning to launch uh social media posts as well as uh news release um to mention that we have the summary document ready which is easy to read and digest compared to the full study so that will be uh hopefully a bridge to get other departments to be part of and also the public general public to be interested in learning more about the study and what the city is planning to do well that's extremely important because if it's presented in a format that yeah it's too complicated or has a lot of words they don't understand it could just you know glossed over and sat down so that's really important totally i appreciate you guys i'm reading the full study it's not easy but um hopefully this helped explain a little bit thank you thank you thank you it's been a long time coming once since 2022 impressive um oh were there comments from the floor regarding the study chairman uh members of the board i'm william joneson 2694 redford court plus i haven't filled out a form i can do that um i i am am handicapped in some ways in that my hearing is not normal even though i have hearing aids and the loop in the room apparently isn't working so i missed some of this um but i have a lot of questions about this that may be better answered if i was able to sit down one and one but just some some some highlights for instance when you talk about upgrading the city-owned seawalls that's not going to be doing any good if you don't elevate the private seawall that's next door am i missing something uh that's one of my questions um i don't understand the roi cost avoidance how do you determine that cost avoidance benefit i is it the total current value of the property is it the the damage i i is it uh taking care of something that the property owner should have done long long ago i was kind of um the is the concept here that if there's damage particularly in an area like north beach where people are living in a risky area for the benefit of living in that risky area is the expectation that the city would mitigate the private property or is the study designed to mitigate only the city properties in that area is our our taxpayers in all the high parts of the city to be funding the cost of those residents in the risky areas the private i i understand the city city resources um bill are you saying that is the city planning on like paying for things at the people who live in the north shore like if something happens to their private property yeah for instance are we gonna are we gonna pay for every every every home on north shore north beach to be elevated is that what is the outcome of this project um i mean some people out there are doing it already the other option is to acquire the property so that's that may be the preferred option rather than if you acquire the property is that a municipal purpose now i can see that if the city sources can i continue or my time's up but i don't mean to a few other questions that like we can go another minute or two just just let me explain this if the if the city's sanitary sewer has a break and a collapse and homes get uh back up into the clearly that's something that the the the the taxpayers as a whole should compensate for because it's something that it could have been avoided by maintenance but if you have a home located at ground level on north beach and the because of the rising sea level or or storms that uh home is damaged i mean last year homes were damaged the city didn't pay for for fixing those homes so if we're trying to avoid a damage coming up next year or five years from now should we pay for mitigating those homes i i these are the things i'm i'm kind of struggling with but but the bottom line and i'll sit down is what specifically are we going to do in the next six months what i this is the the the thing that i'm most interested in from the vulnerability study perhaps it's raising some roads so that or or reinforcing the roads so that they don't get washed out there's some of the other things that were in here is i was difficult to determine the the keys what was red what was green what was what was blue and for instance on one of the pages a hundred year rainfall depth of 13.7 feet to eight to 14.3 feet that's a lot of rain in one storm is that what that meant i don't understand i'm i'm struggling with understanding this and i'm i'm sorry to burden you with that but i'm having trouble getting my head around well i don't think you'll you're the only one with those questions bill and i think that we'll probably be getting as as you make presentations to i mean have you have you presented this to the council already so the consultants present it to the council okay and our attempt here today was to try and break it down to be a little more digestible it's obviously a very very technical report um it's you know almost a 200 page report based on a lot of different data i think have you been on our myclearwater.com slash va or slash vulnerability website like this last week i have not okay so what melody was speaking to was that we did create a document and i forget how many pages it ended up being in the end about maybe eight or nine pages but it basically went through what she said today um but i think if you were to be able to read it and kind of look at it you'd be able to understand a lot better um and it's on the website as of today broken up into different sections but it will also be a pdf um that we were hoping to have printed by today but we we didn't get to it um but we are attempting to make this more understandable because we understand that it's very complex um and we will be presenting this to cnc in january so i've written down your questions and we'll definitely work on getting some of those prepared for january um i can take a stab at a couple of them um well mostly the one that you said what we're going to do in the next six months in the director's report which i'll be doing next i'll and melody kind of mentioned a few but i can reiterate some of the projects that are essentially a direct result of this report um and then um a couple of the other questions i mean they're good points but we'll prepare for them on in january i think it's better because i can i i don't want to say anything off the top of my head without you know having something to back it up i mean i i'd be happy to sit down with you if you want to if i can understand it i think anybody can understand it but right now i'm well i think some of your comments are going to be you know be shared by you know this is giving an example of what uh i think citizen input maybe you know what it's going to look like uh as people look at the vulnerability study and what was the uh what was the website again it says mikeleywater.com slash you can either put va or vulnerability and it'll take you to the website and that's the same website we've been using for the the last probably close to two years it has the presentation to city council it had we've been updating it but like i said it just we just updated it this week to have it's it's like in drop down menus basically meli's powerpoint but then we will have and it's got the full vulnerability assessment that you can click on that 196 page report as a pdf but hopefully by tomorrow or certainly by the um by next week we'll have that pdf and it's it's very like graphically pleasing and kind of has everything so i think it'll be more visually digestible thank you bill um let's see we oh we do not have old business we don't have um so what we have next uh is the director's report so i have a few things um first and foremost i'm very excited i don't know if you guys watched city council last week but um the congressional directed spending award that i've been talking about literally since i got here um has been officially accepted um so that is that 949 500 federal funds that will require a match uh same match so approximately two million dollars worth of solar projects that will be um continuing on our last four solar projects so as you know we completed this year we put solar on morningside rec clearwater gas our solid waste transfer station and our general services facility so now with this next two million dollars we will be putting solar on our upcoming new city hall our long center our north greenwood rec center and our countryside library so those will all be very public facing um buildings and we just were discussing today as we had with morningside rec um that solar was going up there and there was kind of a lot of confusion about it so we ended up putting a poster that um so we'll be doing the same with these next facilities but we'll be doing that proactively um so really excited about that so that'll bring the total to nine city facilities with solar on it which i think is pretty excellent i think we may be ahead of every other city yeah that's great yeah nine within a span of really three or four years yeah yeah so it's awesome congratulations yeah well done thanks um and then just a a lot of another update that's kind of been ongoing that our ee cbg grant that's the energy efficiency community block grant um that we ordered our evs with we are still waiting on that final fourth ev the one we had ordered had some issues so they had to cancel that so we are expecting our final ev next month and then we'll be closing out that grant um and then as was mentioned in the presentation we did apply for an urban forestry grant um so that is to do a canopy assessment as well as an urban forestry management plan um so very hopeful on that one and you know if for whatever reason we don't happen to win that grant we've got that narrative written we've got a plan in place so the next time you know these kind of grants come up we'll be able to apply again if we don't get it this time um we have successfully pre-filed for our 2025 elective pay projects so just a refresher on that elective pay is the federal government irs allowing for tax exempt entities to get a percentage cash back for clean energy projects so we did that we've so far we've applied the last two years so we applied so just like your regular taxes you apply for the previous year so coachman park the solar and the evs we applied the following year after that were installed so in 2024 we applied for those which went in place in 2023 and then this year we applied for the solar parking meters that we replaced some of them from the storms last year and then now for this year we're applying for well we're getting ready to apply for 2025 we've pre-filed it's a it's a kind of a complicated process obviously it's the irs um so we've pre-filed and that'll be the remaining solar parking meters that were destroyed during the storms as well as those four solar projects that we completed this year so um the first year we got about a hundred thousand dollars back for the solar and the ev chargers at country park last year we got back um 25 000 for those solar parking meters but now that we're talking about four major solar installations um we're looking we don't have the exact number yet but i will say it is more than half a million dollars so we're very hopeful on getting that and then that will be part of the federal tax credit yes that's the federal tax credit um and then another thing i wanted to mention was we did uh receive the grant to the tampa bay regional planning council stormwater education grant um i told you i think last time we had applied for two grants for our adopt a drain program and we did officially receive that award um we haven't heard back from the tampa bay estuary program grant yet that'll be announced probably i think in december um but either way we'll be moving forward with the program now that we've secured the first grant so um we will be kicking that project off we've got to work with the um it's an organization a non-profit that we're working with adopted drain.org so we'll be we've got a kickoff meeting with them coming up to get all of our marketing ready and all of uh they they basically host the platform for us and um so that'll be upcoming in january so we're looking forward to that project launch and then um in addition to that as you know we typically do a outreach kind of campaign every quarter ish um so right now we're in the middle or towards the end of pollinator power we've been talking about that we did several events um we made the web page my clearwater.com slash pollinators um we've got the seed libraries at countryside and clearwater east library we've they've got book displays um we planted some pots is that yesterday last week um i wasn't there um so that is our current campaign um before that we had our beat the heat campaign over the summer before that we had our climate friendly commuting so just a a preview for our next upcoming campaign um i just wanted to mention it because of our topic today but we're going to have a ongoing campaign about resiliency so um we're calling it resilient clearwater and then colon and then blank so this will be ongoing for the next year or so so we're going to start with resilient clearwater dot dot water and we're going to focus on you know stormwater education well there's a lot with water so we'll probably end up doing water a few times um but then that'll that campaign will continue probably all next year so it'll go resilient florida or sorry resilient clearwater then we'll probably look at heat or or green infrastructure and so forth and so on so that's going to be kind of a long-term campaign so i just kind of wanted to mention it because we were talking about how important it is to have community engagement so that's um what we want to be working on for sure and then the last thing i was going to mention um i'm sure you all are are aware that city council has voted to go ahead and consolidate um the eab with the parks and rec advisory board and the library advisory board so they they voted last week um so it's gone through the first reading so it'll have to go to a second reading on november 20th um and so if that is to move forward this will likely be lap be our last eab meeting however you will have the opportunity and you will have the uh first dibs at joining the consolidated board and that board i'm happy to say is going to be called the community resiliency and leisure services advisory board so it will have seven members it will meet bi-monthly meaning every other month um and so you sorry um you will have first dibs at that so the application will be the same application that you've used to get onto the environmental advisory board it has not been updated yet to have that option but once it it has or if you know assuming everything goes forward i will go i will send you a reminder email and say here's your link and so i hope that you all you know are still interested in serving and then you'll you'll be able to apply to be on that so there's gonna be seven members seven members there's five there's five currently yes two other boards how many there's two other boards um i don't know off the top of my head i think they both may have seven on them already okay um so there yes yes not everybody will get on there is some thought that because it will be meeting bi-monthly all the boards right now currently meet quarterly so it might be that that might deter some of the current uh board members maybe they they won't have availability to meet more frequently um so and oh it's gonna meet what's that what day of the week i don't have details on the date or the time um but i did also just remember that there will be a preference on that board and is it for two or three i can't remember of the seven three it might be three yeah three of the seven members there will be a preference for uh environmental background and education so you have an edge education or experience yes education or experience three out of seven yeah it's not that's not a mandatory thing but it's a preference so i think that most everybody you've got you know you've been getting educated on environmental issues uh for the last year or two at least so um but yeah so we the i mean also i think that we have our objective um incorporated into you know our same objective to present provide citizen insight to the council and staff um is it also include environmental activities within an affecting communities do you know if that language is in there i didn't that's our key objective and i believe in this we wanted to incorporate it into at least the citizen input i mean this is going to be one of the now um few forums in which citizens are going to be able can be heard on items that are not on the agenda so where citizens can bring issues of concern and uh or suggestions to to a board who can also then bring it to council so one i've got it up now but before i get into that one other thing that i did request of the new board is that we'd be able to bring grant applications to this new board as you may be aware when you're applying for a grant before you even get the grant there's typically a section wanting to know is there citizen support for this type of project so we would want to be able to come to this board before we finalize the grant application which is another benefit of this board meeting bi-monthly because grants sometimes pop up real quick and but if we have more access to this to doing that um to this board to to get some information about whether or not there's community support um i have a question yeah um and we actually talked about this just briefly before the meeting um we have a hard time coordinating because the boards do uh traditionally because there's no work session prior to a meeting and so we get we get the agenda but we're not able to talk because of sunshine law so my suggestion is would it be possible we could get a work session with this board prior to an official meeting well the work session i think would still have to be public a public meeting well yes absolutely but yeah we can i can certainly pass that that on to city clerk's office great um i don't know if you did watch the city council last week but that was one of the things that the mayor said that he um thinks that you know citizens could have be more effective if they had their own essentially private organizations non-profits um to to kind of gather public input and support because of the sunshine laws and how it limits capacity of these types of boards then also the um the objectives are going to include education and outreach yeah i've got it open now here okay so it says the community resiliency and leisure services advisory board shall provide feedback and guidance to the city council on endeavors that enhance sustainable recreation parks athletic fields library services and cultural programs at city facilities and foster community interest and events and initiatives that promote community well-being and environmental stewardship advise on the establishment of rules or regulations governing governing the library system as requested review challenges from a citizen who questions the inclusion of any item in the library collection as requested by the library director hold public hearings for requests to rename a city park or portion of recreation facility and provide the city council with a recommendation for a final decision prioritize recreational needs for inclusion in the parks and recreation master plan seek public sentiment on prospective grant applications as requested by the parks and recreation director and sustainability and environmental division manager provide insight to city council on environmental activities within and affecting the the city identify educational opportunities and community outreach sessions on topics or initiatives supporting the city's community well-being and environmental stewardship objectives identified in the strategic plan engage residents to build and strengthen community support and feedback on existing and future projects that's just the powers and duties but there's several other sections it gives you an idea of the scope of this committee it's it's quite extensive it won't just be environmental issue yeah so it does say three members with environmental science professional background preferred so background that could be education experience volunteer work and these are four-year terms and yeah it sounds like there would be you know this committee might be um it's going to have i've been promised a lot of resources staff staff staff resources but we're going to be helping yeah four-year staggered terms out too with input so yeah you know it sounds like it sounds like it's an interesting board um do you have any questions for uh regarding the director's report questions comments bravo thank you all i can say bravo yeah this is very very exciting and you i have one question what about the for the 2020 um okay so you think that we are going to get a 30 percent um on the pro the last four projects we will get the 30 percent on these last four they those are locked in the next four we are on a very tight timeline to get them if we can get them started by december 31st of this year okay um we will lock those in with the 30 percent if we don't get them started by december 31st but we do get them started by july 4th of next year right we can still get the 30 percent back with a little more paperwork involved okay um so you have a but you have a little grace period in the 2026 yes so i'm not guaranteeing that we're getting the 30 percent back for the next four but for these last four that we that have been online since what august um those will definitely definitely happen that will definitely happen awesome okay any other comments all right um we'll um we'll finish out with any comments from the board um board members to be heard so we'll start real quick sure uh jeremy brown jeremy brown i'm the deputy city engine city engineer with public works department i just want to take a quick moment thank you all for your participation but from my perspective i'd like to just thank cassie and melody they've put a ton of effort not only into this vulnerability assessment but into all the initiatives you've seen her speak about i mean the list is long and there's probably a bunch that we still that we forgot to mention so just from from me to you you know i hope you all make it to the next board but if you know you think there's only three on the board you got a couple of people who are really fighting for the same issues that you support every day every day when they come to work so i just want to say thank you to both of them yeah awesome thank you yeah thank you good comments um so we'll start to the left uh do you have i mentioned first and last meeting but it puts you in the running for the other boards so yes um yeah so i i would like to concur what the gentleman just said uh great work a lot of work that was it's been accomplished awesome um i do recall the city clerk saying that if the next board wants to have extra meetings she would be open to it and that's where my idea for work sessions kind of comes in um it's just an idea going forward so but uh yeah thank you i've enjoyed my first meeting here i didn't trip over my tongue in my first time on the dais so thank you yes thank you cassie i've enjoyed sitting on this board and working through the different new members we've had and kind of the flow of how it's gone this is a subject i'm passionate about too so i really love to see where we've gone and the things we've done but i echo what you say it's been very difficult in not having the extra time or being able to really talk about things and work through things and kind of even brainstorm together because we don't really get any kind of session where we can have dialogue and really debate things or fully hatch them out so i would really suggest that that happen as well kelly yeah uh having the pleasure of serving on the board for about a year now actually i think it's like a year almost to the day and um i've been impressed with with how much you guys have been able to get done in this city um it's really been impressive over this past year to see all the amazing change and all the things that have been presented here and so no i definitely wanted to echo that sentiment that you know really appreciate what you guys do for the city uh so thank you i think my last comments will be down that line too um i just want to basically i want to thank cassie melody um our madam secretaries um and uh and everyone on this board thank you for your service to the ab and to the the community of clearwater and with that we're finally adjourned