All right, I would like to call to order the city council study session of August 19th, 2025.

Clerk, will you please call the role?

Councilmember Bushnell.

Present.

Deputy Mayor Daniels.

Here.

Councilmember Diaz.

Councilmember Hines.

Absent.

Councilmember Rumba.

Councilmember Sidalgay, absent.

Councilmember Scott.

Absent Councilmember Walker.

Here.

Mayor Woodards.

Absent the study session material sent yet 11.

Thank you.

Our first agenda item today is the South Tacoma Groundwater Protection District Code update.

Public hearing debrief.

Debrief.

That was a mobile.

For that, I would like to call on the Planning and Development Services Senior Planner, Maryam Moinian to begin the presentation.

Good afternoon.

My name is Mary Amwinion.

I am a senior planner with Planning and Development Services Department.

And I'm here today with Scott Hallenberg with Tacoma Water.

Esther Boumier with Tacoma Pierce County Health Department.

And Dana Dana DeLeon with Environmental Services.

She's somewhere in the room.

And we are here to provide a presentation on the South Tacoma Groundwater Protection District Code update.

Oh, it's not working.

I can't change the slides.

Oh, there you go.

The purpose of uh today's meeting is to debrief the public comments you've you've heard during the public hearing last week, um, as well as those you've received in writing.

Uh, we'll also identify potential amendments for your consideration.

Uh today's discussion will cover uh a brief background on the CGPD, uh summary of the public input and key themes from uh testimony, uh responses to questions uh raised during um last week's study session, uh potential edits to the draft code, and finally uh next steps.

Um CGPD is an overlay zone established in 1988 to protect the South Tacoma aquifer from contamination.

The code applies to commercial and industrial uses and sets standards for hazardous substance storage, some weather infiltration, uh, smooth prevention and enforcement.

Lead agencies involved in the CGBD code update are Tacoma Pierce County Health Department, Tacoma Water Environmental Services, and Planning and Development Services.

Uh to inform the public about the hearing, about 25,000 notices were sent to property owners and residents within the CGPD boundary.

Uh in addition, citywide notifications were shared through social media, the city's website, local newspaper, city press release, and TV Tacoma.

Uh notifications were also sent directly to key partners and um stakeholders.

Uh we received uh a total of 21 comments, seven written and 14 in person.

The main takeaways were uh strong support for strengthening groundwater protections, um, concerns that the proposed amendments may not go far enough to protect the aquifer, uh, and concerns that restricting certain uses could impact um local jobs.

Um this slide uh you can see some of uh the issues raised by the public.

Uh I will cover the first section on um high impact use standards, and then my colleagues will speak to the other topics as they um they relate to their areas of um expertise.

In regards to high impact use standards, uh one of the major themes we heard was to expand a list of prohibited uses to include other uses such as fertilizers and and pesticides.

Um we also heard concerns about how these changes may affect uh existing businesses and local jobs.

Um, as I mentioned before, uh businesses that are already legally established will be allowed to continue operating under the city's non-conforming use provisions.

Um that means they retain the right to continue operations, conduct routine maintenance, and even make uh limited expansions as long as their activities don't contaminate groundwater or violate um health or environmental regulations.

However, proposals for significant expansion or change of use may trigger additional review or mitigation requirements to ensure that the proposed changes do not increase risk to the aquifer.

Another concern raised was that prohibiting certain uses could threaten Tacoma's green economy and local jobs to address that.

Instead of imposing a blanket prohibition across all industrial zones, the proposed code uses a more targeted approach.

Restrictions are tied to the time of travel zones and the vulnerability of the aquifer.

This way, industrial areas can continue functioning while the most vulnerable areas receive stronger protections.

So the goal here is to balance protecting the drinking water while also supporting the city's economy.

So two comments that we got on storm stormwater and oh, sorry, thank you very much.

So we got two comments based on stormwater infiltration and then the impervious surface standards.

And the concerns with the stormwater infiltration were to treat all hard surfaces as pollution generating, unclear on water quality standards for infiltrated stormwater, and that there was thought to be an ambiguity regarding when stormwater infiltration must be treated.

And to answer all of these, we are following Washington State Ecology's guidelines on exactly what is pollution generating and what is not, and that is in a Tacoma Municipal Code 1208, and also in our stormwater management stormwater management manual that has strict design requirements for stormwater infiltration.