Parks and Sustainability Committee Meeting - February 23, 2023
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Parks and Sustainability Committee Meeting - February 23, 2023
The Parks and Sustainability Committee met on Thursday, February 23, 2023, at 3:05 PM in Council Chambers. The primary agenda item was a presentation and discussion with the Louisville Water Company regarding the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment and its impact on the Ohio River. Resolution R-014-23, opposing a natural gas pipeline through Bernheim Forest, was held in committee and not discussed.
Discussion Items
- Louisville Water Update: Vince Guenthner (CEO), Kelley Dearing Smith (VP of Marketing and Communications), and Chris Bobay (Manager of Water Quality) presented.
- Guenthner provided an overview: Louisville Water was founded in 1860, employs 420 people, maintains over 4,000 miles of water main, delivers an average of 120 million gallons per day, and meets or exceeds all EPA standards with 100% compliance. The lab runs over 200 water quality tests daily.
- Bobay detailed the response to the East Palestine derailment (February 3). The first detection of butylacrylate occurred at Weirton, West Virginia on February 6, at levels of 1-4 parts per billion (health screening level: 560 ppb). No chemicals were detected past Huntington, West Virginia. The plume passed Louisville on February 20 around 10 AM. He explained the Organics Detection System (ODS) network of 17 utilities and the use of activated carbon treatment (three stages, each providing >90% removal).
- Dearing Smith reviewed communications: The first customer question via social media was on February 10; the first media briefing was on February 13. She noted misinformation on social media and emphasized the need for proactive transparency in future incidents.
- Committee members raised questions:
- Chair Arthur asked about the list of chemicals tested and data transparency. Bobay referred to the EPA manifest and explained the ODS instruments screen for a family of volatile chemicals, calibrated for 30-35 compounds.
- Committee Member Hudson expressed concern about long-term sediment contamination from future dredging operations upstream. Bobay noted that Orsanco (Ohio River Valley Sanitation Commission) notifies utilities of dredging permits. Hudson requested a formal notification loop for extra monitoring.
- Vice Chair Parker asked about the current status of the spill and carbon filtration. Bobay confirmed the spill has passed, but monitoring continues indefinitely. Carbon is filtered out through normal treatment and does not remain in finished drinking water.
- Committee Member Baker requested a layman's explanation and whether the city dodged a bullet. Bobay clarified that the incident was manageable because of existing carbon treatment capabilities, and emphasized the utility's preparedness for any spill.
- Chair Arthur critiqued the communication delay (10 days until first briefing) and urged more proactive outreach. Dearing Smith acknowledged the lesson learned and offered to conduct community education sessions.
Key Outcomes
- Resolution R-014-23 was held in committee; no action taken.
- No formal votes were conducted.
- The meeting adjourned at 3:50 PM.
- Louisville Water Company committed to conducting an internal debrief and improving proactive communication in future emergencies.
Meeting Transcript
Organizations around accessory dwelling units. Um, you know, in recognizing the benefits of accessory dwelling units for all people within Woodville. A to use can increase the availability of accessible and affordable housing. And everybody wins in the end. It's a win-win situation. This is the Fern Creek area. We're in the Adams neighborhood. Oh, the neighbors are very nice. We've been here for twenty-six years of my whole life. He's next watch football movies. We try to enjoy our time around each other as much as we can. The original idea for this project was to build a little extension so we could have an outside sitting area for year round. But contractor kind of dashed those hopes. When we started to kind of question him on that, he started to no show, we started to not answer calls, texts. Um, and that's when we knew something was wrong. We need to know all the window sizes. And he told us exactly what we need to do here. When we first visited this, it looked like the whole roof was going to have to come off. Deep inside, I didn't trust any of them. Then we contacted Mark. Yeah, it was pretty scary. When I opened it, the whole window just bowed out. He just had a couple of nails on each side of the window, even holding the a double window in. We do see this quite often. I hate it for the homeowner because it just costs them more. Contractor was able to save some of the material because they had a lot of money invested in this. If you're suspicious or whiffleball and pickleball leagues are back at Barrett Urban Sports Park. I'm Kelly. Good to see you. Yeah, you know. I think we're friends on social media. And you know, we have just we have just a few slides we'll share. We'll get started in sixty seconds. Welcome to the Parks and Sustainability Committee. Today is Thursday, February the twenty-third, twenty twenty-three. The time is currently three oh five PM. I'm Chairman Jacori Arthur. We also have Vice Chair Marilyn Parker with committee members Philip Baker, Betsy Rui, Jeff Hudson, Khalil Batshaw, Committee Members Cindy Fowler and Pat Mulville have excuse absences. This meeting is being held pursuant to KRS six one point eight two six and council rule five A. We have two items on our agenda, but we will hold item number two until the next meeting and focus on our discussion with the Louisville Water Company. Ohio. And then with me today also we have Chris Bobet, who's our manager of water quality, and Kelly Daring Smith, who's the vice president of marketing and communications. So I'm gonna give a quick overview of the water company, just very, very high level. Chris will talk about what our response to the incident was, and Kelly will share some of our communication efforts related to this uh emergency. So we have this presentation here. I'm not just click on four committee members and the public. The presentation is attached to the agenda. Okay. Louisville water began in 1860 as Kentucky's first public drinking water provider. Uh our structures are part of the National His Historic Landmarks, and most importantly, we are the site of where we did the original water filtration experiments, and those experiments resulted in greatly improving water quality, not only here in Louisville, but that was quickly duplicated across the United States.
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