Recommendation to adopt resolution authorizing City Manager, or designee, to submit a grant application to California Department of Parks and Recreation’s Office of Grants and Local Services for the Land and Water Conservation Fund Program for the El Dorado Duck Pond Restoration Project; if awarded, accept an amount up to $3,000,000 for completion of the El Dorado Duck Pond Restoration Project; and, execute all documents necessary to accept the funds and implement the project.  (District 4)
Motion carries. Thank you. Number 23, please. Report from Parks, Recreation and Marine and Public Works recommendation to adopt a resolution to submit a grant application for the Land and Water Conservation Fund program for the El Dorado Duck Pond Restoration Project. It follows the motion in second. Any public comment? No public comment. Members, please. Councilman Mongo. Did we have a staff report on this? We have one, if you'd like one. Maybe a short staff report. This is a pretty big project and we're really, really proud of the work that Public works and Parks and Rec have done. The escalating costs due to inflation have really burdened this program. But I want to appreciate both Parks and Rec director Dennis and Eric Lopez for their continued commitment to the wildlife rest, the wildlife preservation at the center, and the additional resourcefulness that they have had to find to make this a reality. I look forward to the presentation. Thank you. Eric, if you can briefly go through the report. Thank you, Tom. Uh, vice mayor, members of the city council where we are here. To provide a brief update of the Duck Pond project. The project will include a lot of different improvements to improve water quality, ecological function and end the habitat by restoring the pond liner, enlarging the wetlands and four bay, removing invasive species and replanting with California natives. The scope of work includes draining down the pond, removal of sediments. Some are a lot of size demolition, a lot of old concrete that needs to be replaced. Utility relocations. Construction of the new for being wetlands areas. Replacement of pumping and filtration systems. And we will do the landscaping and a lot of accessibility improvements in the area as well. We have a partner at the Long Beach Water Department that's providing funding, support and support with pursuing additional grant opportunities, and we want to thank them for that support as well. The big one of our one of the big parts of our project is to be able to take water from the pond, treat it, filter it, and then re-use it to help irrigate the adjacent golf course. That will also help reduce our dependance on potable water for irrigation purposes, which is another huge benefit of the project. The the the actual construction will be impactful. We will have we will need to relocate existing wildlife, both native and non-native. There will be temporary impacts, but the long term benefits will outweigh those temporary impacts. And we are working closely with our team biologists, with our community partners, with our different department partners to ensure we do this as carefully as possible, and also in coordination with our folks at Fish and Wildlife who are permitting the project. Our did permit the project and who will be part of the process as we go through this. Our funding, our total project costs are estimated at 9 million. We are currently seeking authorization to pursue another grant for a total of $3 million. The different funding sources that are contributing to the project include Missouri Measure W grant funding, general capital funds and a water department contribution. Our timeline. We are on pause right now because of nesting. We were trying to get a head start, but we noticed nesting activities on site. So we stopped. We paused. We worked with our regulatory agency partners and we are waiting to be able to continue construction later this year. The target to restart is September and our target to complete the project is November of 2023. And that concludes the presentation. Thank you. Councilman Schubert on. Thank you. So I don't know if you covered it. So the construction will likely start this September and take just over a year to complete. Okay. Thank you. All right, Councilman Mongo. Thank you. I think this is a really important time to show our our appreciation for staff. This is this just isn't a replacement project. When I was elected, we talked about the pond needs to be fixed. And fixing the pond as it is is one thing. We're substantially changing the way that the pond functions and serves the residents and the ability for it to be a real environmental impact to our community by restoring reclaimed water during the day. I also think it's a great opportunity to plug. As a kid, I've always gone to the duck pond and now here I am in my forties and we're finally restoring it. But as a kid, I didn't know that you shouldn't feed bread to the ducks, because when you do that, you're really ruining the liner and all the components of the pond. And so no matter what pond, you're out within the city of Long Beach. And I see Councilman Austin looking at me. He's really passionate about pond pumps as I am. We have to keep those pond pumps functioning and we need to ensure that parents know not to feed the ducks anything but duck food. So thank you for everyone for their participation in this project. We're really excited to get it started and I look forward to it being followed through to completion by the new council member over the Duck Pond Councilmember Supernova. But I'll be standing there and supporting all the way along. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Sabrina. Thank you. As we were speaking, just got an email from Jill Brennan, who I know from years ago on the Sustainable City Commission. And she's asking questions of an article that just appeared in the grunion. And her question is, what is public works expertize on bird issues and whatnot? So I think I'd like to mention. That oversight. Is being provided here by the State Department of Fish and Wildlife. So if you'd like to comment and I add to that, I think that's an important issue we need to put out there. Absolutely, Councilman. And we also have a project biologist from Alassane Associates as part of the team that has relationships with the state agencies and that will help with some of that coordination. So our team does have expertize with wildlife and bird management through the project biologists from LSA Associates. And Mr. Lopez, what person what amount of money is being spent for wildlife preservation and support? I don't think people know how expensive it is to preserve the wildlife and how much the city of Long Beach cares about the birds and ducks. Swans? Yeah, Councilwoman, it's actually substantial. I don't have the exact figure, but a big part of the budget involves wildlife. Not just monitoring, but also the relocation cause. I would need to get that to you. I remember being surprised it was such a large number, but relocating turtles and ducks and swans and fish and all of that is very, very expensive. So people often come to the council and say, you don't do enough for the animals and the birds. This is a huge amount of money that we're spending to support the wildlife. And I appreciate the number of advocates that have come forward and appreciated that. And I think it's important for the community to know. Thank you. Councilman Austin. Thank you. And I'd like to just say I'm thrilled to see this this item come forward as chair of the Budget Oversight Committee. The duck pond issue seems to come up year after year. And I applaud my colleague, council member Mungo, now superstar, for their advocacy on this. Obviously, I have a duck pond in a great District eight chair park. But that kind of begs the question in terms of, you know, how many times do we really have in the city and what are we learning from El Dorado that we can apply in other areas of the city and other scenarios? Council And that's a great question. Not to duck the essence of the question, but we do have a number of bodies of water in our parks and we really see this project as a tremendous opportunity. Once the duck pond, as it's known reopens, is to reeducate our community. We're also in discussions with a lot of neighbors who care about the duck pond to create a friends of the Duck Pond organization and have docents that would be scheduled, particularly on weekends, to give guided tours, point out the different wildlife that does inhabit the area. And I know Animal Care Services has been working with public works to help address the relocation of there's quite a number of water turtles in the duck pond, I think over 500. So we'll be relocating some of those into other bodies of water in Eldorado Park. But there's also the opportunity for individuals that might want to adopt a turtle. So that will be available also. And Councilman, if I may, to just add to that, we do consider this an innovative project. It is something new and different, and we are looking forward to learning from it so that we can use this as a model potentially for other areas of the city where we have similar issues. So Measure W and other grant funding out there is available to do these types of creative, creative projects. So I just wanted to highlight that as well. Thank you. And I have been a councilmember in the district for, you know, almost ten years. I can tell you that the maintenance a lot of folks don't don't know what it requires to to maintain a pond and keep it, I would say, clean or even the algae levels, you know, maintain. But the pumps, it's the maintenance is ongoing. And then some of the things that you find inside of those those ponds at some point are can be quite alarming. And so, you know, it's almost like I feel like we almost need need to have somebody, you know, monitoring these ponds, you know, 24 seven to ensure that, you know, the ducks are being, you know, not being fed things that they shouldn't be fed, which I know is not realistic. But signage and more public education around how we manage these ponds, I think is very, very important. But happy to see this this item come forward and look forward to the restoration. Thank you. Thank you. Any public comment on this item? No public comment on this. All right. Members, please cast your vote. Motion is carried. All right. So now we have our ending public comment. Any member of the public like to address the council? We have one. Dave Shukla. Please make your way to the front. Yeah. Good evening. Good to see you all again after our annual ritual of exotic fossil fuel machines driving around in circles. Um, I have some comments on agenda item number 21, which I can email you, but specific to last week's, uh, meeting. It was kind of disheartening to hear that we'd need yet another study session on surf after the first one was so uninformative. Uh, it read more like a, uh, like an argument for for why, uh, the city should try and lobby against the A.B., uh, 1873, I think it is. Rather than dealing with the realities of not only organics diversion, but the fact that a lot of cities may just not kind of pursue the credits since they have other obligations to their own population. So the economics of the facility, in addition to the fact that it's aging, creaky, um, and less toxic sludge, is good for us . I mean, I don't know why we want to breathe in things like dioxins, um, along with all the other cumulative impacts in that site, uh, on the air as well as on the soil and water. Um, you know, facilities kind of, uh, kind of like a white elephant, you know, it's, it's something that had made sense and does make sense from a certain point of view for a certain group of people, but not for the entire city, let alone for how to deal with waste, especially nutritive. Nutritive, waste. Uh, used in compost. I'd like to see a realistic plan now that there are green beans in certain, you know, for certain restaurants already, I'd like to see a realistic plan for green beans. Uh, for for residents. Um, you know, I'd like to see more soil, not oil myself. Thank you. Thank you. That satisfies public comment. Thank you for attending. This meeting is adjourned.