https://otter.ai/s/taoNt8MbT0aEYsfs-xXj5w
0:00
Okay, I’d like to call the July 20 2020 Longmont Water Board meeting to order. Heather, can you please start with a roll call?
0:08
Sure. Todd Williams.
0:10
Here. JOHN Caldwell. Present.
0:15
Kathy Peterson
0:17
here. Roger Lange.
0:25
I see Roger. I think you’re muted though. And then city staff we have actually for Renee Davis. She’s out today. city staff we have Ken Houston. Doesn’t.
0:38
West Lowry.
0:42
Kevin Bowden, here.
0:46
Heather McIntyre’s here David Bell as it
0:50
creates you Jaffe here,
0:53
Jason Elkins
0:55
here
0:57
and Councilmember Martin.
1:03
She’s here somewhere.
1:05
I’m here.
1:06
Okay. Thank you. All right, Todd.
1:09
Okay. Thanks, Heather. The next item on the agenda is approval of the previous month’s minutes for July 15 of 2020. Or June 15, I should say sorry, of 2020. Were there any questions, comments on the previous month’s minutes? If not, we need a motion to approve the June 15 2020. Water Board meeting minutes.
1:36
So move although
1:38
we got a motion from john and i guess a second from Kathy. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye.
1:47
Aye.
1:50
Opposed. Okay. Those are approved. The next item is the water status report. Wes, is that you?
1:57
Yes. So the flow it lines This afternoon at 1:15pm was 127 CFS with the hundred and 24 years stork average of 240 CFS. The column the same brain is the James ditch with an admin 6756 are an appropriation date of June 30 1868. The call in the mainstem. The South Platte is the fort Morgan canal with an admin of 11,979 with an appropriation date of October 18 1882. buttoned rock is currently full and spilling in in reservoir is down approximately a half a foot the local reservoirs in the basin, as at the end of last month, were at approximately 90% of capacity, which is pretty much the average. We look back in the last two 12 years. And I think that’s all I have unless there’s some questions.
3:07
Any questions for Wes?
3:11
Scroll through here. I’m not seeing any.
3:15
Okay. Thank you, Wes.
3:17
The next item is public invited to be heard and special presentations. Heather, are there any requests of public invited to be heard?
3:26
We have none for today.
3:28
Okay. And I assume no special presentations, either.
3:32
None. Okay.
3:34
All right. Okay, moving. Next item. Is there any agenda revisions or submission of documents?
3:41
I have none.
3:43
Okay. Number seven is development activity West Are you gonna take that the Norse for filing one final plat?
3:51
Yes. So before the board today is development activity known as Northstar filing one final class. is a 34.768 acre parcel located northeast ippolito Road and North 90 79th Street and west of Renaissance drive south of clover basin drive. The historic water rights were transferred at time of annexation and applied proportionally over the annexation. Per the raw water requirement policy. Northstar filing one final plat will be in compliance with the city’s raw water requirement policy upon transfer, I’m sorry, upon satisfaction of the 69.466 acre foot deficit at time of final plat approval. So this is slated for 64 single family homes and is being proposed by the ridgeline development group. So just looking for emotion to that that’s the definite It had to be dissatisfy as part of this final plat.
5:04
Okay. Thank you. So is there any questions? Please speak up if there are I can’t. My screen there we go. Now I can see the rest of the board. Is there any questions for Wes on the on this norstar filing number one final plat
5:21
any idea how they’re going to meet their deficit?
5:24
So they have not said, um, but what I’ve been hearing by most folks is they’re going to pay cash in lieu, but I’ve not had a further conversation with him about that. Thank you.
5:40
Any other questions? If not, we need a, I guess a recommendation or a final, I guess determination on the raw water balance requirement, as specified in the write up Is there a motion for that? recommending that amount of deficit? JOHN or Roger, let’s go ahead and do Rogers the motion and Kathy is the second. Any further discussion?
6:17
Hearing none, all those in favor say aye.
6:20
Aye.
6:22
Opposed. Okay. That carries at all right. Yeah, go ahead. Just a suggestion when you’re calling for all those in favor.
6:33
You want to try us raising our hands?
6:36
Yeah, that’d be fine. Rather than a verbal. I’m sure. Yeah, that’s fine. Does that work? I guess, Heather, for you in terms of recording the,
6:47
I think if
6:48
we could do both the verbal and the hand that would be helpful.
6:51
All right. I’ll do both. Thank you. Thanks. Okay. So next item under general business is the Climate Action Task Force. recommendation, water conservation and it looks like francy are you going to be presenting this?
7:11
I will jump in for a little bit but Lisa Knobloch, she will be taking most of the presentation.
7:15
Great.
7:17
Okay, go ahead and please send francy
7:20
Hey, hi everyone. Lisa Knobloch sustainability Program Manager. I haven’t been to your your group for a while. So I see a couple new faces. Thank you all for giving us some time on your agenda this afternoon. I’m going to go through I’m actually going to run through all of the recommendations. I’m not going to go into depth on any of them. I just want you all to see kind of the breadth of what’s covered in the climate action recommendations report that came out from the Climate Action Task Force. And then the one that will spend the most time on is the water conservation one as I’ve mentioned, so, in feel free, as I’m running through these if you have any clarifying questions or anything Just hop in. So raise your hand and I’ll try to, if I can see you, I’ll call on you. If not, if somebody else sees a hand raise, please speak up because I can’t see everybody on the screen. Great. Okay, Heather, you can go on to the next one. So just to provide you all, some background, so the City Council passed the climate emergency resolution in October of last year. It called for the convening of a Climate Action Task Force, a group of folks to get together and put together recommendations on what the city can do to advance climate action. And we that was supposed to be completed within 120 days and because of COVID. The second half of the of the report really got delayed for a couple of months. But we completed all of our recommendations and brought them to city council over two sessions on June 30, and July 7. This is what the report covers. It’s pretty extensive in terms of Everything that it goes into, but what we’ll just cover today is really high level the recommendations. So whether you can go to the climate action taskforce identified six primary topic areas that they wanted to develop recommendations. And so adaptation and resilience, building energy is education and outreach and do some waste management, renewable energy and transportation. And then they also identified equity as a really important consideration and really wanting to make sure that as we’re taking on climate action in the city, that we’re doing that in a way, and we’re being really mindful of what potential impacts and here those policies or programs or decision making could have on our community and different members of our community. Next slide. So we did our best to go through somewhat of a community engagement process to try to get some of that information of what people thought were what current community interests are around climate action, and then What are some potential opportunities as well as concerns? And we did go through, we put out a community questionnaire, which we got about 350 responses back on that. We did a couple of presentations and tabling events, to get community feedback. And we had some kiosks that he community locations and some posters driving people to the questionnaire. But of course, right as we were in the midst of all of that COVID happened and shut down all of our community engagement efforts as cities as the city closed down, and we couldn’t do any in person engagement anymore. Next slide. But I did want to just share the key takeaways and the limitations that we had in that process. So in general, the folks that we were able to talk to were were pretty supportive of climate actions, and incentives and changes that would go along with that. There was strong support for increasing services and benefits for low income communities. It really addressing that affordability and equity issues and then And earlier. And then the flipside of that is, there’s definitely concerned about what the cost is. And the impact potential impact is on affordability, particularly as we’re looking at building code changes or land use changes and things like that. And then a lack of stakeholder engagement. I mentioned the limitations really, in that we only had 120 days to pull the report together. Sounds like it might be a long time, but really isn’t, especially from a community engagement standpoint. Obviously, the impacts from COVID. And the format of the question here just was set up in a way that it forced people to break certain things without giving them the option to say I don’t like any of the above that you’re suggesting. And then so we know through all of that, that we got limited representation. We just want to be mindful of that moving forward that we know there are a lot of voices and perspectives that weren’t heard in this process, and we want to
11:58
just be aware of that. Next slide.
12:03
So I’m going to jump into the recommendations. Go ahead and switch to the next slide. And this is what we’ve done for some of the other boards. Again, the main recommendation that we’ll be getting feedback from you on is the water conservation one. And we’ll just we’ll get into the details of that and then ask for the board’s agreement kind of from the thumbs up, thumbs up, thumbs down perspective. And we’ll chat a bit more about that in a minute and then just get your high level.
12:30
City Council. Next one.
12:34
So the first topic area is adaptation and resiliency. In the although the majority of the recommendations in the climate action recommendations report are focused on greenhouse gas reductions or what we call mitigation. This component around adaptation and resiliency is really important because we do know that impacts from climate change are coming and even if we are successful at reducing our emissions in Longmont by 100% by 2030. We know that changes are already underfoot, we’re already seeing some of those. And we want to make sure that that our community is prepared for those. So there’s three recommendations in this area. The first is focus on public health. And that’s really looking at what are the pension potential health impacts from changes from a warming climate. So things like increased days, poor air quality, potentially new diseases that might be introduced in understanding how we can prepare a water conservation one, which is I will get down into the details in a minute, expanding and creating new programs to achieve a reduction in water consumption, citywide reduction in water consumption 35 to 40% by 2025, which, as I’m sure you all are aware, is a pretty, pretty substantial goal in a pretty short timeframe. So we want to talk with you more about that. And then flooding mitigation and preparedness education and this His focus more on educating the public around issues around
14:05
flooding, mitigation and preparedness.
14:09
Fine.
14:14
So building energy use this one is pretty straightforward things that you can imagine. So looking at opportunities to increase energy efficiency and address issues like electrification, solar readiness up readiness in the next building code update, which will be in 2021. There’s, I do want to clarify, there’s been some confusion around this one that this is looking at, at pulling together a feasibility committee and developing a plan over the next 18 months that would help identify how long Longmont would be able to transition away from natural gas over the next 10 to 15 years or so. And then the remainder ones of these are focused on both commercial and residential energy efficiency opportunities. Look mostly through expanding our existing programs. And then the last one is, is developing a fund that would help specifically focus on low and middle income businesses and residents to help support that transition and any costs and expenses that come along with education and outreach. This is also pretty straightforward. The majority of these are focused on just that education and outreach opportunities to get folks more engaged and aware of climate issues and solutions. So through a lecture series, an article series on the one month museum teaching exhibit, so that’s expanding the Front Range rising exhibit to include issues of climate change and sustainability. The one big kind of outlier in this section is looking at concrete in a comprehensive Workforce Development Program. So we know if we want to achieve a lot of these goals that we need to focus on training up our workforce so that we can help you We can have folks that are well trained to do energy efficiency, solar installation, all of the things that would be associated with a number of these recommendations. Next slide. land use and waste management. There’s only three recommendations here focus on promoting and educating the public around home skill, food production, increasing recycling, and composting in both the commercial and residential sector. And then a downtown pay for parking policy that would be looking at changing downtown to a paid parking situation to try to encourage folks to take other alternative modes of travel into and out of downtown. On the caveat that I put on that one this right now is that this all came about before COVID started. This recommendation in particular would likely need to be put on hold for quite a while until we’re past the impacts of a pandemic on our downtown businesses. Next slide, please. Renewable energy. So this one’s also looking at accelerating, smart meter installation. And then a lot of different programs that are really supported by smart meters like Home Energy Management Systems, a broader energy savings program. So looking at how how we can incentivize residents to install smart technology so that we can better manage, and, and balance supply and demand, carbon intensity signaling. So that’s just providing information to the consumer, real time information about what the carbon intensity is at that moment in time so that people can make choices on when they want to run appliances or not. And then distributed energy resources. So that’s developing a plan and putting in place some pilot programs, which will help us get to 100% renewable energy by 2030 goal. Next slide, please. And then the last section is transportation. This is focus on probably what you can imagine so increasing the effectiveness of our transit system through what’s called a checkpoint, our flexible bus service. So that’s allowing kind of a fixed route service to make some small detours to pick up folks similar to kind of a call and ride situation, increasing electric vehicle infrastructure, a connected bikeways network, and then promoting alternative work schedules. So working with employers and employees to do things like telecommuting or changing work schedules to help reduce congestion during peak periods.
18:37
Next slide.
18:39
So before we get back to the water conservation recommendation, I’m going to hand it to frequency for a few minutes to talk about the just transition plan committee and their equity recommendations.
18:49
Thank you, Lisa. So these recommendations as Lisa mentioned earlier, equity was identified as an important part by the Climate Action Task Force. One of the ways equity was addressed was through the just transition plan Committee, which worked with the uncommon Action Task Force and develop a series of recommendations. The Climate Action Task Force recommendations were more of like what different things you can do, why these are more of a how it’s more of a process of how you can apply these recommendations to make any of the Climate Action Task Force recommendations reach more members of our community. The just transition plan committee process actually started at an earlier resolution in 2018. With the transition to hundred percent renewable energy, which called for this city shall consider the needs of lower income residents which kicked off this process with the climate emergency resolution passing last October and calling for frontline communities or communities that are most likely to be negatively impacted by climate change but Maybe historically haven’t had their voices heard, must actively participate in the planning process. So it aligned with the creation of the just transition plan committee already. So we use the opportunity to have the just transition plan committee work towards focusing on the goals of the climate emergency resolution. Next slide. So the recommendations are in two different category. The first is the equity assessment recommendations. These are kind of the approach of like how you apply an equity assessment, and the importance of providing both the foundation on equity and climate action using an equity lens. And then again, focusing on those frontline communities. Next slide. And then the bulk of their recommendations were in these overarching recommendations. And these eight recommendations really focus on our approach of how you can make sure the Climate Action Task Force recommendations are reaching all members of the community they range from And outreach which highlights focusing on engaging cultural brokers and creating targeted culturally relevant messaging to using data and research to identify barriers. They also highlighted the importance for equal access to jobs and kind of these different components here. A lot of their recommendations are framed as questions that can set when implementing the climate action recommendations, you can apply those different questions.
21:34
So, next slide.
21:41
Great. All right, Heather, you can go ahead and move to the next slide.
21:46
So as I mentioned, the recommendation that we want to talk most with this group about is the water conservation recommendation. So there’s the description there and this recommendation really focuses on preparing the city for Potential sustained drought conditions and impacts to water availability due to climate change by promoting and incentivizing water conservation measures such as their scaping and the use of native vegetation. As you can imagine, it would require extensive financial resources and likely a significant redesign of parks and golf courses in order to meet this goal. And we think that research and analysis would be necessary in order to understand the full fiscal impact of this effort and identify a feasible path forward. And before before we get into asking your you to provide a thumbs up from side or thumbs down, I’m going to hand it to fancy so she was really involved in working with the Climate Action Task Force on crafting this recommendation, and she’d be able to better give you the details and some of the hinted Francey and then kind of just open it up for discussion. So first of all, would like to know what what do folks think about this recommendation? What are your
22:59
thoughts? Questions concerns, anything like that?
23:08
Kathy keeps me here on the board. I, I read the report and it was very impressive for the time you had to put it together. I am really concerned about this recommendation 35 to 40% reduction in water consumption. And I understand the thoughts behind it, but I’m worried about the cost to parks trees, both of which are microclimates within our city that help with coolness and, you know, I wouldn’t want to lose trees also re downstream moderates from return flows the agricultural community And just that short window of time, I think I’d like to look back a little bit on what happened in our last major drought, which was 2002. drought, and what kind of cuts in use on a short term basis were achieved. And anyway, it’s quite a complex thing. And I think that’s just a really big leap to try. I think our people already have been cutting their water use, and I think to try to go for 40% reduction in five years. That’s that’s a concern to me. And I consider myself an environmentalist. It’s not that but I think it’s a very complex issue.
24:58
Lisa, This is Todd This. I’ll go ahead, john.
25:05
Yeah, several things. One is, I guess,
25:10
some issues similar to what Kathy said, this is pretty dramatic. And I’d have to see where they got the numbers. I mean, it looks like they pulled these out of thin air. And it’s like, really what, how do you get there? And the other thing did they look at the drought? We’ve, we have all kinds of numbers for the drought 20 years ago, did they really look at those numbers to see what can really happen? And why didn’t this come to this question for Marsha, I guess is why didn’t this come to the waterboard before it went to council? I mean, to me, it just it doesn’t. You know, obviously, I’m biased but as a citizen, it doesn’t. It cuts into the credibility of this report.
25:58
Yeah, so I guess that’s it. That’s all I got to say right now.
26:02
I answer that, or I. First of all, I agree with you guys. I’m the I was on the Climate Action Task Force not associated with this
26:21
particular recommendation.
26:25
And, frankly, none of the engineering work or research that you are referring to was, was done, the person who led this particular recommendation was working from an ideological standpoint, talking to people like Gary Walker. Some of the assumptions that were made were that the windy gap project would would be thrown aside and that You know, the diversions would stop happening altogether. And so the Climate Action Task Force as a whole actually cut, Lisa, I’m not sure I remember, they cut they cut the they cut the goal significantly, but I don’t remember what what the original proposal was. Was it 50% instead of 35 to 40%?
27:28
I think it was that fancy would probably remember that better than me.
27:31
Yes, it was 50%. And it was also it was specifically 50% of just parks and golf courses. And they needed to be overall water consumption. But then cut the percentage down to 35 to 40%. But so it actually even though it got cut to 35 to 40% because it moved from just parks and golf courses to overall water consumption actually became a larger goal.
28:00
Yeah, I think that I think that the Committee of the Whole when approving it just did not realize that that had happened. I certainly did not.
28:10
But, um,
28:14
no, I don’t endorse this particular recommendation either. We were just hired. I know it doesn’t work.
28:24
One thing I wanted to This is Todd, I wanted to do. You know, I’m kind of sad that Renee Davis couldn’t be here for today’s meeting. I mean, she’s kind of an expert in water conservation and a huge asset to the waterboard in that regard. She did I tried to get ahold of her and she sent me an email that she asked me to read so if you guys are okay with it. All I’ll share you share a little bit of what Rene’s thoughts are on this and then I’ve got a few thoughts my own but I’ll go ahead and get started says first, I’m excited for the city to be taking on climate work. It is essential and city governments have an important role as a water conservationist. I’m also glad the city is interested in increasing conservation efforts. I do have a caution however, I am concerned that the stated goal is not attainable. Note that the 2015 Pacific Institute paper shows a 10% decline in water use between 2000 and 2010. These figures are typical for gallon per capita day. In utilities nationwide as well as Longmont easily achieve savings are part of the reduction in best available technology will not result in as much reduction to aim for 35 to 40% reduction in five years does not seem realistic to me. But if they can clarify how they do this, I would support it. I would like to urge fellow board members towards action items two or three and we’ll get into those here in terms of the options and actions here in a second. And I think acceptance of the subject recommendation with technical analysis to follow could work. A safer option could be to recommend a revised water conservation goal based on existing water conservation plan. So that was I just wanted to put that out there. I mean, Renee, working for Denver water and water conservation. She knows a lot more about this issue than than I do. But I think she’s kind of echoing what the general comment is of john and Kathy, as well as Marsha. And I have the same concern. I mean, I think we’ve had, as I understand it, we’ve had about 10% conservation that’s been kind of in the water supply demand analysis to date, and we’re assuming another 10% for new demand coming online in the future. That’s 10%. We’re talking three and a half to four times that amount. With this, this recommendation and without defining how we’re going to get there. I just don’t see how we could recommend that. And I agree with Kathy, I think the the concern of God is what does that do to the nature Longmont, it also has impacts to equity. There’s a lot of maybe the lower income, I think a lot of people are using water, maybe they don’t as much landscape, that sort of thing. If you have a 35 to 40% reduction, what does that do to water rates and to those lower income folks? So I think we really need a lot more analysis of this before we, you know, at least I can support it. And I’m also concerned with, you know, if this gets adopted, what does that do to our water supply planning? This seems like Oh, hey, we think we’re gonna get 35 to 40%. Yet we have no plan to do that, or No, we haven’t analyzed it at all. That That seems reckless to me with regards to what we do and we’ve got another idea. on the agenda today with regards to how we may meet part of long months future water needs, adopting a 35 to 40% reduction or assuming that that can be done. I would suggest that that isn’t needed yet. There’s no support whatsoever for that, that level of demand reduction. So I, I just can’t support that. And I’ve got, I have tried a little language on on the modified as potential options, but I’ll let I don’t know if any of the other board members will also chime in on this before we get into the potential options in terms of recommendations.
32:37
A comment nod to John’s point this is and I don’t know if Council has blessed this or not. In fact, they haven’t marshy jumped in on this. I’m trying to figure out what the purpose is of using our recommendations that this thing’s already a done deal further on down the line. I don’t quite understand that situation.
33:04
Marsha, you have a comment. Yeah,
33:05
Roger. It’s not a done deal. The the plan in Lisa could probably explain it better than I do. But the plan is to run it past the boards with each board in it making recommendations in its own specialty. And and then there will be a final blessing by the Council, which is to adopt most,
33:33
or
33:33
or, you know, the council has has options obviously, but the but the formal adoption by the Council, which would mean putting the adopted recommendations on the comprehensive plan and the council work plan hasn’t happened yet. Most of the other recommendations don’t set initial goals like this because they were Recognize that, you know, in less than six months a team of of volunteers really did not have the ability to do the math and figure out what what was aspirational what was really realistic and what was necessary. And so the first the first element of most of the recommendations is to do a Reese do some research, come out with pilots, and then have milestones over the next five to 15 years depending on what the recommendation is. This is really an outlier in that it didn’t do that.
34:45
But again set
34:50
and it was was more based on on climate I ideology, in my opinion, this is my opinion. Now that Client science. Um, the other thing is that there are some other recommendations such as community gardening, not solar gardening, but gardening gardening, and incentives for xeriscape and soil conditioning. And a lot of those things are inconsistent with this app option because while some of them will end up reducing water consumption, they will, they will require more water consumption than this.
35:37
So,
35:39
you know, it’s my opinion that this needs work and y’all ought to step up and at least make some recommendations that this needs work.
35:49
Now, my only the only other thing I want to say is that when you’re going into something like this for me to you know, prove something like that, I need to I need to see calculations and how people are deciding that this this is feasible and what what they’re planning to do to make it feasible. So I’m sure a lot of that is not available, but it creates a lot of doubt in my mind of the feasibility of this goal. So I’ll just leave it at that.
36:19
I don’t think it was done, Roger.
36:21
I can jump in and I
36:27
worked with the group who worked on this more and the fact that I answered questions. My understanding from their work is that we did provide the water efficiency master plan, we did provide the raw water master plan from 2004. My understanding is that the group wanted to set a as Councilmember Martin said a very aspirational goal, but
36:58
there was no
37:00
There was no I don’t I do not believe there are any calculations or anything that went into the numbers that were chosen, from my understanding, because I was also asking them to be more clear about acknowledging how this would impact the budget. And my understanding is that they set a very aspirational goal and then have staff figure out
37:26
all the details. So this this, to pursue this would require extensive analysis to that that just hasn’t, I don’t think has been done by that group.
37:42
So let’s go ahead.
37:45
So this john, so john, on the back of a napkin, I can show you why this hurts economic development, it hurts social equity, and I can show you my garden that what it produces the amount of my water bill that It makes. Yeah. I believe in I believe in gardening because I’m doing it myself. But in terms of water consumption, it makes no sense at all to have have gardens. So anyway.
38:13
Well, and
38:16
from the
38:18
equity standpoint, I live across the street from one of the best parks. Roosevelt Park, in Longmont. And a lot of people use that park who don’t have their own lawns who don’t have their own homes. They live in apartments, hugely used by people who don’t have access to that and that is a community benefit for all of us. I just think that’s not to be diminished. I think that’s something that’s important to our community and I would hate to see the parks reduced and the greenery that grows They’re in pursuit of Gary Wagner’s vision, which honestly, I really don’t like to even hear that he had any say in this whatsoever.
39:13
I do have I guess one question I’ve got maybe for Canon francy. And I know you’re going to get into this later on, but can you remind us what is the Longmont has a water conservation plan, right? That’s been adopted, and it has a formal amount of conservation that we are kind of forecasting or including in our water demands currently correct. How much is that? In? I guess I look at it of saying we already have this as a established policy. You know, do we want to change from that? Or do we say this is our policy, and if the Climate Action Task Force wants to look into additional ways to increase conservation, fine, so be it, go ahead and analyze those and come back, but do the proper analysis. Look at the impacts of that. And then we can consider it at that point. But, you know, I think, at least from my perspective, we, I want to just kind of endorse what we already have in place. I don’t think, you know, changing to this without any background information just seems reckless. So, I mean, what what is the current conservation? plan?
40:21
Yeah, um, yep, I can answer that I first before I answer that, I do want to clarify the Climate Action Task Force is no longer meeting. So if this goal or similar goal is decided to pursue it be on staff to do that research since the Climate Action Task Force has kind of goals of what they’re doing. And then to answer your original, the first question. So the the goal that we have that was actually first our most recent water efficiency master plan was stated, it was in 2017. That’s still false. In a goal that was actually set in the 2004, water raw water master plan to reduce a raw water supply by 10%. Since then, we have mostly used metered water and the decrease in metered water supply to see if we’re reaching that goal with the acknowledgement that that’s not including all our raw water sources, but we have the best ability to track metered water usage. I actually have some graphs from the update I was going to give later in the meeting. But if we’re looking from a five year average from 25th 2004 to 2009, and then 2015 to 2019, we’ve actually had a 12% reduction in metered water consumption in that time period. So we have been working forward in meeting that goal or getting close to that goal of that we have set. So I could see if we’re already meeting our water conservation goal, I could see that there could be the proposal to update that goal in the future since we’re already meeting it. And not not to specifically support this goal in the Climate Action Task Force, but that is an option since we have been meeting that goal. Councilman Martin,
42:30
um, thank you for NC. I was going to suggest essentially the same thing, maybe if we wanted to honor the intent of the task force members to have an aspirational goal.
42:49
Excuse me. Um,
42:53
let’s think about what an aspirational goal really is. In terms of water, use reduction because This is an apocalyptic scenario. That’s that’s kind of been presented and, you know, we’ll we’ll know the apocalypse when we see it. But but but when you add a task to the front of the thing to figure out what it would take to do a couple more percent of water reduction beginner we know, without too much pain, a 10 to 12% reduction was achieved at least going on. So maybe pick a more reasonable aspirational goal and say, let’s have the water staff do a study and see whether this is possible and also set some criteria for when it would need to go into effect because you know, we have such diverse water supplies and and essentially, you know, reduction water supplies, that it’s hard to imagine that we would need to do that. And some of the other benefits to the city of continuing on the course that we’re on are probably greater both in terms of social equity and climate action. So it would be it would be sufficient, I think, to understand what a worst case scenario, aspirational goal could be. And hear that recommendation in a couple of years.
44:36
So I guess one thing Marsha was going to suggest are kind of in line with that but you know, we have these we have different levels. What what the committee what’s what, in the policy, what’s going to happen if we hit certain drought goals? And I guess if you want to add either, like Todd said, we can relook at those See if we want to tighten those up. Or we can add, I think we’ve got, correct me if I’m wrong, can I think we’ve got three levels right now? Is that correct? And if we want to add a fourth, almost apocalyptic, and then a fifth puppet pop the apocalyptic level attic at a couple more levels. And yeah, I mean, that I guess I would suggest that we maybe wrote it that way.
45:28
I think that’s a good idea.
45:30
And that’s in the context of the drought plan. I mean, we really have two pieces here we have the Conservation Plan, which is kind of ongoing, you know, trying to reduce annual demand and then we have the drought plan that under certain hydrologic conditions, then we you know, do additional conservation measures beyond that, and those go kind of hand in glove, right, you try to increase efficiency as you move forward, which I totally agree with. And then if the hydrologic conditions are extreme or apocalyptic, then you Gradually increase the severity of additional conservation measures to try to you know, address that. So I I’m fine with that. One thing I, I put together some language, I’ll read it and see what you guys think it may need to and I don’t have kind of we need to reword this. That’s fine. I said. So in relation to the Climate Action Task Force recommendation on water conservation goal, the water advisory board recommends the city council continue to use the current conservation level, as established within Longmont adopted water conservation plan or Francey however, you worded that that plan for demand planning until the technical analysis and public input analysis is performed on the Climate Action Task Force water conservation goal or something along those lines in terms of additional, you know, kind of different levels more severe whether it’s part of the drought contingency plan or whether it’s kind of on an ongoing basis. But what I’m concerned with is I want to, I want us to stick with our current water conservation master plan conservation level, that’s what we’re getting, we’re getting 10 to 12% savings. And that’s what we need to plan on in the near term. If we can get beyond that, and we can fold that into our plans, great. But I don’t want to start making you know, different supply decisions based on you know, something that’s beyond the 10 or 12% that we’ve seen. So I think, you know, I’m trying to encapsulate maybe, Marsha, what you’re saying, of, hey, let’s look at it, and maybe john, what you’re saying, we can analyze that that, hey, we have these aspirational goals, but it’s even hard to define those because we don’t know what the repercussions are. So it’s almost like we just need to say, hey, we’ll look at that as part of future analysis. But right now, I want to kind of reiterate that we’re using our current conservation plan in terms of the water supply and water demand, planning. For the city of Longmont, that’s what my recommendation is.
48:05
Any thoughts?
48:07
Okay, I think that’s good. I appreciate that. I would just maybe add also the both the conservation plan and the drought mitigation plan is ongoing planning documents.
48:21
That’s a good point, Kathy. I like that.
48:24
So does any other Rodriguez.
48:28
I know I’m uncomfortable with
48:31
your language. Todd. And Kathy’s add on to that, no, I don’t want to create something over and above what we have already that we think is working for us and I’m very comfortable what you suggested.
48:45
Marsha, your thoughts?
48:48
Um, yeah, I essentially agree.
48:55
I
49:00
I don’t want to
49:04
be unprepared in case of a high drought scenario. But I also to the, you know, to the extent that in the last two years, I’ve learned to understand our drought contingency plan, I think we would, you know, part of the, what’s built into it is if we have a series of, of years where we’re in, in the high contingency plans, and then we change our methodology, right, so then we go for for higher levels of conservation. Um, and then the other thing I would like to maybe think of is, is to do an impact analysis. Nobody is ever really talked in my presence and I you know, I could have gone and read the details of your plans, and maybe even should have been But what gets impacted, you know, like Lynette wanted to not have golf courses anymore, not watered them. And you know, things like that that would obviously cause an insurrection. I mean, people weren’t even willing to stay off the golf courses for social distancing for three months, you know. So it would it would be good and not to do this in advance to but to insert into the plan, some contingency analysis for what we would actually do in extreme sources that go beyond the existing drought contingency plan. Again, it would just be not attack that would be done but an acknowledgement that there potat there perhaps is an apocalyptic scenario out there.
50:57
Kathy, that’s kind of the way I feel about it too. You know, it’s more,
51:03
um
51:06
it’s in
51:10
the water, the water organization has really detailed contingency plans already. that are that are based on conditions on the ground. Am I correct in my assumption, by the way that if the windy gap firming project went away, we would still be able to carry out all the existing plans?
51:33
Because that’s what it seems like to me.
51:39
Can you want to speak to that?
51:40
Yeah. So, Kazmir marner are you referring to if we, if we didn’t participate in when they get firming or the other water supply projects still viable or on the table or?
51:56
Um, yeah, I am saying if if we continue doing what We have now and and say Wagner’s lawsuit was successful, you know, so they didn’t get to build that reservoir. I know that that’s not an outcome that anybody but the people who wrote those recommendation think is a good idea at this point in the history of Longmont. But
52:23
what,
52:24
what I guess I’m driving at is is how much redundancy do we have in our systems? I’m just trying to look at what a debate about this would look like in Council and people from the public are going to stand up and say the recommendation from this board is make no changes or or maybe make you know, add an a level of aspirational contingency plans. I would like to I’d like to Be able to argue for that position. And and one of the main arguments is, is an honest risk assessment associated with windy gap? Because it is being held up it’s behind the risk hasn’t dropped very much.
53:21
Yeah, yeah. So, so yeah as in any project, there is a risk that it may not go forward, especially when it includes federal permitting. Right. I get that and understand. And yes, we have maintained our diligence in a number of different projects.
53:37
We certainly
53:41
are continuing to maintain our diligence in the Union reservoir enlargement. We have possibility in your resort pump back. We have an enlargement of Ralph price reservoir. On the books. We also have a long standing nearly As long as the history of Longmont has greatly benefited the community, and that is we don’t go out and purchase agricultural water rights and dry up the valley. And certainly you could you know, we have dominant eminent domain over the county on open space so we could take their water, there’s Yeah, there’s lots of different areas, I would not suggest. We go in, of course, any of those directions. But there’s lots of options. We just think we have the best, most near term lease cost option in front of us right now. But we also buttress that with our water efficiency master plan and our water conservation efforts. And, and we would be more than happy to look at all of those plans update. Those are draft contingency plans. Yeah, we can certainly do that. Yeah, what will never leave our community in a situation where we’re dependent on any one thing or any one project where we believe it’s our responsibility to make sure that we’re always protecting the community? And I believe we’ve done that very
55:18
well? Well, I believe I believe that too. And so my suggestion is not that you go Do you know redo all that work or anything because I have strong confidence. Again, after listening to y’all for two years or more on that, that you have done that. What I was suggesting was, let’s add as an add a paragraph about just how resilient our water supply already is to be submitted with Todd’s language.
55:51
I like that. That’s good. Marsha.
55:57
JOHN, you got some thoughts?
56:01
Just a quick, quick story. So 20 years ago during the drought
56:07
we I forget now Ken could probably I forget what level we went to but we we went we came through Longmont came through and pretty well we came through in really good shape because of our margin are wide diversity of our portfolio of water. And while we were at level one or two, some of these other communities that were we’re really short of water and the Denver media Television media, which back 20 years ago, everybody in Longmont watch that. So we had people voluntarily doing what the television told them to do, but the television was actually talking to a different municipality than in Longmont. But we had questions about well, we got this drought why aren’t we doing this and this because people were still able to You know, keep their lawn green or water their garden or whatever, because we had the resources. And I guess it’s kind of oversimplification. But if you know if we don’t if we have fewer resources like windy gap or whatever, when the apocalypse come, we’re just we’re going to run out of water that faster than if we had it. I mean, that’s the bottom. That’s kind of the bottom line. It’s pretty simple. So, anyway, let’s
57:25
jump in quickly. So if you all don’t mind,
57:32
I’d like to share my screen I try to kind of summarize what Todd said. And then just for consistency, we’re asking all boards do Thumbs up, thumbs sideways, thumbs down, just so we can have a guide that counsel can use for generally do boards love the recommendation? Do they like the concept of but want to make suggestions or do they just flat out you know, on them, prove it so we can add more content From the discussion into this, but let me share my screen and then maybe we can just have that. That quick vote so we can at least get for consistency, the thumbs up thumbs side, thumbs down. So the main comment I have is in relation to the Climate Action Task Force, the water advisory board can fix this language to continue to use the current water efficiency master plan, Drought Mitigation plan, until the a technical analysis and public input analysis has been performed on the Climate Action Task Force pool before accepting a more ambitious goal. And then I wrote paragraph to highlight how resilient our water supply already is. Does that seem to I know there’s some spelling errors here. But with that main comment, do we want to just have a quick vote of thumbs up thumbs down thumbs side and we can still adjust this comment is
59:02
so fancy is, is what you have up here. That’s the sideways because that’s the change of the recommendation that we’re coming back with. So we’re, we’re saying Yeah, okay, you have these aspirational goals, but this is the recommended change to that. So is that what I’m just wondering what are we voting here?
59:20
Yeah, absolutely. Just a jump. And that’s yet just to clarify that Yeah. The thumbs up would essentially be approved as written. We’re good to go. Some side would be to approve in concept with the following consideration and that would be in the comments or the thumbs down is no, we don’t want to approve this at all.
59:42
I have a question about interpretation. Lisa.
59:47
If some sideways of ads the kind of comments that we have we’re or alternative process, but leaves 35 to 45. percents in place across the board, then I would go for a thumbs down under those circumstances. If, if we could, if if the aspirational goal would be a smaller reduction. That’s that’s more realistic considering how well fixed we are for water at the present time, then a thumb sideways would be a more appropriate vote, and I don’t get a vote. So I’m just asking for an interpretation by what would the interpretation be?
1:00:39
So what what I would suggest and this is just my interpretation, but I think how it would help to clarify would be for you all to specify in those comments. If you think that that goal needs to be revised or there needs to be additional language, just say, initial amount analysis needs to be done. To confirm, go confirm the goal or to revise the goal, if you want to keep it as a thumbs side, so we approve it. With the following consideration, I would make sure that if you want to adjust that goal that that’d be done in those comments in some fashion. Or alternatively, you all could vote the thumbs down to say we don’t approve this because we think this goal is is not feasible. However, we would approve a recommendation that showed either additional analysis before setting the goal or a low lower goal with the additional analysis. So physicists
1:01:39
if I can quickly weigh in, I think that’s what I’m hearing from the board is we’re willing to continue to work on these kinds of things, but the goal is written. I’m not getting a warm, fuzzy feeling from anybody that it’s a great goal. So I think the last way you discuss that would be I’m hearing to reflect what the board is saying.
1:02:04
I agree with Dale, I think, because otherwise we’re, we’re framing it in the context of the 35 to 40%, which I’m a big thumbs down on that number. So I think we say no, and we’re willing to look and analyze and say what is realistic, but we know that, you know, in my mind 35 to 40%, it’s not so I think it’s a thumbs down. And then here’s how we reframe it. We’re willing to look at additional conservation, additional drought contingency plans, but, you know, we need to do the technical analysis before we can come up to uh, you know, come up to a number. So I’m kinda that’s where I’m leaning as to a thumbs down and then use that language.
1:02:48
So one thing, Todd, in you, I agree with the technical analysis, but I think we’ve mentioned there’s a whole lot of issues other than technical issues. I mean, Kathy referred to A couple of them. I talked about economic development I talked about I mean, there’s a there’s a whole basket, pardon the pun of downstream effects of this thing. So yeah, technical analysis, a huge piece of it. But there’s a whole bunch of social and quality of life and whole, there’s a, there’s a lot of other questions that can be have ramifications to this.
1:03:24
I agree with the gentleman. It sounds like the study was trying to incorporate some of those. So I think we need to add that in as far as what is considered in the analysis.
1:03:35
Yeah, so I think we can broaden that term analysis and then listed a number of things, technical, social impacts, quality of life, impact, whatever you all want to include in that analysis.
1:03:47
Anything else? Otherwise, do we want to go ahead and I guess we’ll make the vote as you’re asking. If that’s what you want, Lisa? So that you can record that and then we’ll have written response, it’ll go to Council. Is that what you’re looking for?
1:04:04
Yes. And I think francy took a stab at rewriting it based on the comments just provided. So I’ll have her read through that and then we can take a vote. Okay,
1:04:13
great.
1:04:14
I’m gonna just say, do we want volunteers because I know
1:04:21
john talked about the equity and quality of life and and economic implications. And I was a paragraph and Ken’s book a pretty good paragraph about the existing supplies. So I’m not sure it’s necessary timewise to to have fritzi have to capture it all out of these comments. Maybe a couple of people would like to volunteer as, as Todd has already done to for her reincorporate.
1:04:57
I guess my question on that would be to Heather about how we would go about approving that final language, if that’s done outside of the meeting. Oh,
1:05:09
yeah, I think if they were going to vote on it, it would need to be brought back at the next Water Board meeting in August.
1:05:21
I am quickly I was taking notes here. I am trying to drop them in here. I probably should have done this in here.
1:05:33
But
1:05:35
so I have been trying to drop some of those equity concerns and concerns about impact to the water supply here. I would definitely probably meet up at least Ken to fill out this paragraph. But what I have in the comment that I added before this one was that do not think the goal is realistic. You’ll make this a little bigger, are willing to look at more water conservation analysis before committing With a new number then need to analyze the social, economic and environmental analyses. And then I tried to drop some of the equity concerns and I can pull up these notes because there’s also concerns about microclimates with coolness, and so I can pull some more of these into here as well.
1:06:33
So from a process standpoint, can we
1:06:37
Is it okay for us to come up with to do a thumbs down? I’m hearing from everybody on the particular recommendation, and then bring this language back in August does that throw a wrench in the plan in any way?
1:06:55
Think it throws a wrench in the timeline, but since it’s a thumbs down anyway,
1:07:01
That may not be a problem. The other thing I would like to ask is, is there a precedent for this board approving stuff by email? The process for that would be that the final language gets sent out and applying only to Todd replying only to Todd. The other members say yes or no to that language, which would allow it to come to come before Council on the plans night. Or,
1:07:30
at this point in time, we have no precedent for email voting, and nothing in our bylaws, it states that we’re able to do that.
1:07:39
Okay, so the other boards do do that was the reason I am.
1:07:50
One, I guess the only concern I’ve got with just a pure thumbs down and not a response, is it? I mean, I think we’re saying we’re willing to look at additional conservation. And, you know, during droughts, but we want it to be, you know, the more analysis needs to go into on what’s realistic. So I’m a little nervous about just saying thumbs down and that’s all that goes to Council in the near term. So I’m wondering if we go ahead and try to you know, word it I’m almost wondering if so we need to add the supply paragraph, wondering if we could even you know, postpone the voting on this until later in the meeting in Canada. I don’t know if if you have you’re on most of these but if you had a little bit you could type up a little something to add into that. And whenever we could come up with language that we could go ahead and approve today. So they would go to Council and we’re not, you know, just given up your thumbs down. We’re putting it in context.
1:08:52
Yeah, I can I can get with Francey. Although I have the next item when you get firming, but I can get with francy right after that. See if we can get some
1:09:01
here.
1:09:02
I’m wondering if we do that. I mean, we’re all in agreement on how we do it. We just want the proper language in there. So it captures, you know, the correct message going to Council and maybe if we can get we can go through when the gap and then if you want to maybe even even if we need to take us short break in the middle of the meeting for 510 minutes, get that added in, we all read it, and then we can take the official, you know, action at that point is that? Does that sound like something that would work?
1:09:31
Yeah, I think we could do that.
1:09:34
So, Heather, here’s what can we give? Can we give Todd the authority to approve the language and do it, take a little take a dare to take a little more time to get it right and give Todd the authority to approve it?
1:09:50
I think so. I don’t know why that would be an issue.
1:09:54
I would suggest we do that.
1:09:56
I think that makes more sense than trying to You need it Marsha at the Council.
1:10:05
So we’re having council August 25. So sometime before it goes back to Council, but we wouldn’t have enough time to bring it to the August meeting. So if we could get it, I would say, you know, by the end of July at the latest, I think that we’d be fine on time.
1:10:23
I’m good with that, if there is the board is so we could go ahead and I guess what we do is officially do the downvote subject to the language. I would get the wording and then subject to my approval, then it goes to council at that point. Does that sound workable?
1:10:41
The other piece of that is if you guys did want to officially approve it in the August meeting, you would be welcome to do that because that meeting would be August the 17th. So we could still be able to get that information to counsel as a pending but then put the final approval maybe in on that Tuesday morning the 18th Why don’t
1:11:02
we do that? Then that makes sense. Let’s that makes sense.
1:11:10
So I would we go ahead and try to get the language I’d go over with staff, we get it approved that goes to Council, but it would say it would be pending. Go to the next board meeting with that language in the packet. Everybody can officially bless it at that point so that when staff goes in front of council, they can say that the water board is officially approved that or if there’s any slight modifications that can be brought up at that point. That’s where we’re at.
1:11:36
You know, just one comment, Todd, I think we all agree the numbers that they propose, as far as percent reduction are a non starter. I don’t know exactly how those numbers get changed or modified. But as they are, I think we all feel strongly those numbers are not I don’t feel they’re doable. All. So I’m just I don’t know what somebody’s gonna do with the numbers, but I think they ought to be looked at?
1:12:06
Well, I think what we’re doing is is doing the downvote, Roger, and then saying, you know, here’s how we’re qualifying it, we’re willing to consider additional conservation through the the, you know, additional measures through the drought, or the conservation master plan, as well as the drought contingency plan. But we’re not adopting. We’re saying those numbers are unrealistic. So we’re voting down on that. That’s what there’s response. Okay. All right. So I guess with that, do we want let’s go ahead and do the vote. We can do that right now. I’ll get language from staff, I will approve it that will go to Council, and then at the next board meeting will bring back that language and get official, you know, vote by the waterboard on the official language at that point. Does that sound good? All right, let’s go ahead and take the vote on the climate act. taskforce recommendation on water conservation.
1:13:05
Roger, there we go. Okay.
1:13:12
All right. Do we need anything else on that item? We were good there then.
1:13:18
Yeah, just unless you all had any other follow up comments on on any of the climate action or the just transition plan recommendations that you wanted to add otherwise, that’s what we needed from you.
1:13:30
Or the GM. I’m good anything else from other board members? Okay. All right. Next item is a B which is the windy get firming project update, Ken.
1:13:44
Thank you, Todd.
1:13:46
Yeah, for you today is is really a combined update on the windy gap firming project, as well as request for a recommendation to City Council on moving forward. With the final allotment contract today, we’ve been using interim allotment contracts. Kind of some of them more by period and some of them are yearly. But now once a year once every other year we came in with the new interim allotment contract. So we have before you today is a final allotment contract will actually be for participation in the project and moving forward. Before I get into that, I’d like to give you a quick update on the current status of the project. Probably the most significant thing that’s happened most recently is the State Water court filing for the project. And it’s probably as significant as the federal lawsuit. The federal case is kind of a Almost a yes or no type suit. But the state court is really the water court filing is really what we needed to be able to continue moving forward with the project. As you may recall, they’re the original filing of the windy gap. Water right and the original planning for the project, or back in the 1960s and 1970s. included the construction of a reservoir on the west slope of Colorado.
1:15:35
More specifically,
1:15:39
he west of Lake Granby over by Willow Creek Reservoir, that reservoir would have been we would have pumped into that reservoir and then pumped into Granby. About 21 years ago, we launched the effort to complete the second For the windy gap project, which is the firming project, half of it. And one of the first things we had to do was to look at that reservoir site, the reservoir site actually had some critical wetland areas called fans, which were almost impossible to replace. I had also had a few other site difficulties with it. And as part of the environmental impact statement process, and you have to study all the reservoir sites and so that’s really where we got to the chimney hollow reservoir site was through studying over 100 different reservoir sites to figure out the best site because we actually changed the location. We didn’t change the fact that we’re ever going to store the windy gap water that was always contemplated part of the project and was always going to be part of the project. We needed to change the location of that storage. Also, there were a number of things over the years that have we now understand that even the parent project better we needed to go back into the State Water court and and basically take what we have, and make sure that it’s it’s legal that it fits within the confines of the original decree. Also, one of the one of the long standing agreements we have with western slope is that we’ll include most of the permitting most of the agreements that we’ve done with the western slope, inherently include them in the water right decree. So that that it’s not just an agreement we’ve signed with them and what happens if we don’t if you know that agreement, Doesn’t isn’t followed, it actually becomes part and parcel of the underlying decree that allows us to pull water so, so everything that that’s been committed to, you know, over the years is included
1:18:15
in that state water court filing, so
1:18:19
law, a lot of eyes on that water court case on the western slope, and we’re able to get through the water court case, essentially unscathed. And the referee has on July 6, entered that decree. So that was huge. There is a 21 day period. Protest period where for actual opposers actual participants in the case could come in and oppose the form of the decree. But that’s not expected because everybody signed off on the form of the degree. So it would be precedent if they if they filed but it could happen. But after that 21 day period, then the water judge on the Colorado River would sign the decree and it would be a final decree. So all of that will happen before we move forward to the allotment contract. That’s great news to have that timing done. That’s actually extremely significant. It also in that decree was the Kree for the conductivity channel around the windy gap reservoir, which was really the biggest mitigation issue for the West slope, to get connectivity on the Colorado River around the windy gap reservoir aren’t being planned. And we needed to make sure that how that was going to operate would comply also comply with State Water law. And that’s been looked at it’s gone through and that’s included in that filing, so, so we’re really good on that. As far as The allotment contract. You have that before he in the board packet. It’s it’s a fairly lengthy one. But because there’s two different financing options, either cash financing or a bond financing long will participate in the project on a cash financing basis but it’s set up so you can do either. The final design of the project is completed the state engineer’s office has signed off on it. In fact, they’re working with the contractor on some of the submittal reviews. There’s lots of equipment things like pipelines valves, mix design for the asphalt, hydraulic asphalt core placement, design for the rock fail those kind of things. That has to have to be looked at, in the state of Colorado stage in our offices, working with a project participants to look up That the windy gap reservoir conductivity channel is just completed is 30% design phase. That’s, that’s significant because that 30% design will now go out to bed. And the final design in the construction will be a design build. So the 30% design is really if you want to think about it in terms of more conventional project, it’s done. I mean that the design is done at that standpoint. The design build is because it’s such a unique project and such a unique construction that it will help to have a contractor onboard during the design phase to help with that design. Biggest outstanding course is federal suit erotically the final briefs for that case were filed on July 25, of 2019. So we’re rapidly approaching within a few days a one year anniversary of the final arguments in that case. So the court, the court has had waiting on a decision by the judge for about a year now, typically, it’s anywhere. A lot of these types of cases is anywhere between a year to year and a half. So Excuse me. So from that standpoint, we at least are very hopeful that we’ll be getting a final decision on that case sooner than later. The current director, as you may recall, is Barnard construction, large firm out of Montana. They’re on board. they’ve submitted almost all of their projects. submittals that’s what really holds you up early on on a project. So by getting them on board, getting them on site getting the contract submittals in 75% of those have been approved through both the project
1:23:17
review board as well as the state engineer’s office, about 25% of them still to be reviewed, and those are actually kind of being held up a little bit right now at the Bureau of Reclamation, because in addition to state engineer’s office and project participants, the Bureau of Reclamation since many of the facilities touch their CVT system, which is a Federal Bureau project. The Bureau of Reclamation has to approve those. So they’re they’re still a little bit. They’re still working on that, but it’s pretty good. We’ve got the 75% down and I believe we have most of the long lead items already done. So and a couple of the really super long Lead items like a couple of vowels were already being acquired because they come from any one of the valves come from Germany. So we want to make sure you have that. There’s a power line for local service pooter Valley RTA has designed it. There’s a unfortunate rightaway issue delaying the installation right now. Not a big issue well, right away that was going across the short part of the line goes across private property and the family that owns the land was all set up to get the rightaway signed and then the family came down with Colin 19. Unfortunately, put put that all on hold but I think we’re probably past that now. And I think we’ll, they’ll be able to move on. And then of course there’s the Whopper power line relocation and that’s still being held. wapa is not going to has indicated they’re not going to do that work until after the federal suit. It’s unfortunate because that has nothing to do with the federal suit federal suits on the reservoir, not the power line, but they want to wait on
1:25:15
that. So
1:25:18
that’s really the status of the project. And so the project’s really, really well primed to be able to start moving forward once the federal lawsuit
1:25:33
is resolved.
1:25:36
That’s one of the reasons is really to over overriding reasons that were that the windy gap firming project enterprise is recommending we move forward with a final allotment contract at this time. The first is, you know, we’re really down to the wire and feel like we need to be ready to move quickly. We’re finally ready. And the second is part of the funding for those who are participating in the pooled bond financing is the is a subordinate loan through the Colorado Water Conservation Board $90 million. It was actually money that they had loaned out previously. Two, I believe was Aurora for the prairies water project. That money was paid back a little early, as well as some other funding that CFC, they assembled that $90 million and committed it to this project. But right now with the state’s budgeting processors concerned that it’s possible, it’s unlikely but it’s possible that might get clawed back. And, and so the project firming project would like to get that money tied up a little tighter than it is right now. In the forums. Have an actual loan and execute that loan. But you can’t do that until all the contracts are signed. So the intent right now, better The goal is to have a llama contract signed by October 1, which will allow the windy out firming project to enter into negotiations with the Colorado Water Conservation Board. During the month of October, I’m sorry, did I say August 1, I met on October 1. And what the allotment contracts by October 1 so that during the month of October, they can do that negotiation with the Colorado Water Conservation Board and and hopefully be closing on that in early November or mid November at the latest. So that’s kind of why we are where we are. But because of that when our we’re really at a point where we’re going to ask waterboard to make a recommendation. Our intent is in the July meeting to get input from waterboard on on the allotment contract escrow agreement, our participation level, give you some information on that. And then we will give that to city council. Right now we’re tentatively scheduled for August 4, floor study session, we’ll take that to city council get City Council’s input and recommendation from that. We would then be able to take all of that back to your August Water Board meeting on August 17. And get a final recommendation from waterboard to actually whether to enter into the contract or not. And we’ll base that upon the input we get today. And then what we get on August 4, will be the form of that agreement that you will see in August. And then finally, in September, we will take all of that to city council with your recommendation which point We would hope to be able to get a final vote on entering into a llama contract. So a little, you know, a much bigger deal. Now of course since it’s the final contract, once we sign it, we are committed to participate in the project at whatever, whatever level we have. So really, you know, I think everybody, all counsel all water boards for 21 years, I’ve been on board and supportive of this project. And our biggest question right now is the final capacity recommendation. There’s really a couple couple different ways we we can do that. You know, we’ve in the past, based upon all existing conditions, we we know we can participate at 6300 acre feet will be enough to get us to build out well. planning horizon for the long term planning area, there’s an kind of an intermediate
1:30:05
level,
1:30:07
which is 7500 acre feet and 7500 acre feet, we’ve been looking really, really strongly at our funding capacity at this point for the project, and without making major draconian cuts in other water projects and needed infrastructure for our water system. 7500 acre feet is what we can support from a financial standpoint, and that’s a little bit new. We haven’t had that in the past kind of being part of the consideration, but it really is now for a number of reasons. The third option is to stick out the current our current council direction is 8000 acre feet. That’s where we actually prepared the contract with that’s where we’re working. The project with other participants, and can certainly do that. And but it would require a little more additional input. And then finally, you know, other you know, we can’t ignore, you know, some of the climate action, climate change Task Force recommendations that can other options, there’s things such as if we can move forward with a final agreement. Yes, going that were to go away, we actually might, you know, it would drive us to a higher amount. If we can get additional water savings, you might be able to reduce them out. But we’re not recommending any of those right now. Because none of that you can really put your finger on and say, we know for sure that’s what the future is. So at this point, you know, I’d like to kind of, I would make a recommendation that we, we look fairly strongly hit that 7500 acre foot because that’s really where we can find it. actually move forward with the project. So we’re doing that 75 a 30 508,000 acre feet, I think it’s a good area to be in. And if the board would like a little more information on that financial aspects of both Barbara green and Becky Doyle are, were invited are on the on the water board meeting today. So if you’d like a little more information, I’d invite either one of those to add additional financial information if you need some. Other than that, I’d be happy to answer any questions on the project or where we are. And certainly would would invite your advice and recommendation to all staff in the city council as we move forward.
1:32:45
Thanks, Ken. Marsha, it looks like I know we’re gonna have quite a few comments here. Why don’t why don’t you start us off?
1:32:51
Thanks, Todd. I just wanted to ask and I should notice I was on the phone but
1:32:58
has has PRP a made a decision and they’ve they’ve announced us firm closure date on Raw height of 2030. Did they decide what they were going to do with their extra water or hang on to it? Let’s
1:33:15
so they haven’t indicated to me what they what they do, they do know that they do believe they have a little bit higher water need than they thought in the past. I mean it doesn’t. Even when they shut down the rawhide, they still have water needs.
1:33:33
And I can I can weigh in on this. Marcia what I understand from Platte River is that they are holding at their current participation level. They’re seeing this both for their water needs, as well as an investment in a major asset that they own. And they understand the value of a firm when the gap unit versus a unfirm So that’s what I believe they are standing at. And I think that’s where the board is at this point.
1:34:08
Could I just second that? I absolutely think I absolutely think we that’s, that’s the way we should look at it if we have to scrape money together to get 8000 acre feet. You know, why would you pass on buying something at $25,000 when it’s automatically worth $100,000 if we decide we don’t need it, the city can get a vote the city they can we can sell some of it and use that money. I mean, it’s just this this is an investment that investment people I mean, dreaming drool over. I’ve never seen an investment where it was worth four times. What you invest in it, the minute it’s finished, it’s it’s crazy to give up on anything, give up on any of it.
1:34:56
And if I could just real quickly on that. I know that That is certainly in the West. That’s what how most people look at it right. You rarely get criticized for having too much water.
1:35:12
And so I understand that I think the staff understands that.
1:35:16
I do believe we’re sort of in a situation maybe similar to what we were when the city was building button rock reservoir. They could have also built that dam and other 50 feet higher for what today would be a fraction of the price. But they didn’t think they could afford it. And so they went for the amount that they thought they really needed for the short term and the long term of their community. And so and when I when I look at the sort of the complexity of the overall utility, and the financing and trying to go to a vote this fall, hoping that the city council decides to put that on the ballot. We’re trying to weigh everything on this And I think a 500 acre foot shift in this particular project is rather insignificant when it comes to water supply. It is however more significant when it comes to the balancing of the overall utility needs. And so that’s how we have come down, john. And so I, I absolutely understand what you’re saying. And but that’s, that’s where we have come to with our overall analysis of everything.
1:36:34
Roger, go ahead.
1:36:37
I’m unclear exactly. What kind of financial pain moving from 80 to 7500 is in pneumonia comment with this. I hate to change at this thing was bought at around 6000 10,000 8000 back and forth, back and forth and I think everybody’s comfortable with the 8000 number but is there I can’t conceptualize how much pain is involved if we stay at eight versus 7500. Can I don’t know if you can enlighten later on or Dale,
1:37:09
I think Becky can probably inform us on that as well as anyone.
1:37:14
Sure. So one thing I’ll mention is that, you know, when when we had arrived at that $8,000, or excuse me, 8000 acre foot figure, everything is dollars for me.
1:37:24
Previously, you know, there has been a per unit cost increase since then.
1:37:30
And so what we found when looking at our overall capital plan, particularly this year, as we went through the cipc process for, you know, the 2021 to 2025 period, we found that the trade offs for the overall capital plan were very challenging, and that we weren’t able to do all of the asset management projects needed for others
1:37:49
projects in the system, you know, replacing treated water storage and things like that.
1:37:54
And those those choices and trade offs and kind of getting everything into the final Your plan became
1:38:02
much simpler when
1:38:04
when we reduced participation to 7500
1:38:06
acre feet just as a sort of a test.
1:38:12
So I would say that there are significant impacts to asset management in other parts of this system in order to stay at that 8000 acre foot level.
1:38:24
I’ve got a couple of questions. One is, you know, we’ve had quite a few development projects come in that it looks like there may be moving towards a cash in lieu of water. And I know that, I guess, at this point isn’t guaranteed they could buy Macintosh shares or stuff and dedicate those but to the extent they go on if they do dedicate cash in lieu, is that I assume you had a projection in there for how much cash and we would come in. And I don’t know if you guys have looked at those projects that are kind of on the may be coming in, in the relatively near term. How much additional time cash in lieu would come in and how that compares against the capital needs of the, you know, the 7500 versus 1000.
1:39:09
Yeah, we
1:39:11
can, I don’t know, if you want to jump in there, too. We did have we did have a cash in lieu projection for this year specifically. And we’re still, you know, collecting to get up to that level. And the other thing is, we would use future cash in lieu to pay against the bonds that will issue to finance a large portion of the project.
1:39:32
Well, I guess one other question there is and, you know, we’ve allowed non historic, let’s say Macintosh shares to come in, I mean, is there if we wanted to go at 8000? Would there be the possibility of not allowing, you know, doing a change in that policy of Macintosh shares, you know, to a cash in lieu only option, I guess I’m just thinking you know, if that would be a way to help finance that 500 acre foot difference? I mean, the hard part, I guess is you don’t know exactly when that’s coming in and you’re having to potentially raise rates or you’re issuing bonds. So maybe that’s the reason you can’t do that. But once again, if there’s, you know, if you could move towards the development paying the cash in lieu, does that change your, you know, kind of financial calculation, you know, I just hate the bunch of cash to come in cash and Lou to come in. We’d let the 500 acre foot go, and then we got the cash, but we don’t have the, you know, we’ve reduced our participation at that point.
1:40:34
So so
1:40:35
as Becky just said, we actually did this just this year, significantly increase our projection for cash in lieu, what we’re finding is there just isn’t as much Macintosh out there for people to pick up. And developers are starting to just our cash in lieu is you know, compared to other cities is lower. So it’s not carrying them at all to come in and pay our cash in lieu fee. So, and then Becky, you can please correct me, but I think we were before we were in the 200 to $250,000 a year range on projections of future cash in lieu, we’ve opted to close to a million or so or half a million.
1:41:20
I did just look it up, which is why I was facing that way. But
1:41:23
so it’s actually in 2019, we had budgeted that we were going to receive $750,000 in cash in lieu, and we only received 73. So we’re sort of still making up that that that projection and it’s you’re exactly right, Todd when we are counting on certain revenues for repayment of the bonds, we it’s got to be something really secure. And something that we we know is going to be there to make those payments. And cash in lieu unfortunately is not quite predictable enough.
1:41:56
Okay. But the other question I have is in the cutting gets into the final rep capacity recommendation right up. The first point there says, you know that Longmont could make ends meet essentially with 6300 acre feet of firming storage. Can that and I hate I’m a broken record on this slide. Does that include the PS co trade as part of one month’s water supply? When you say that, it could meet it with the it does include that, does it not? It does. Yes. So I guess a couple points there. One is, you know, we just got done discussing kind of the Climate Action Task Force. And, you know, last month’s goal of becoming getting on 100% renewable power sources was that by 2030, I guess I just bring up keep in mind that that trade of water with pesco is tied to natural gas fired power plant. So to the extent you know, and also I think everybody’s seen what’s happened to the value of CBT. Water. To the extent that water goes away, you know that 6300 is not correct. So, you know, that’s kind of where, you know, like I said, I’m kind of a broken record on this, but that’s 6300 in my mind, especially if this goes to the public or goes to council needs to be qualified, that that is including the PS go trade and that if that goes away, you need, you know, you know, it, we’re saying, if we’re going to 870 500 or 1000, we’re gonna need that or more, which would be the windy gap firming project at 7500 to 1000. And then you’re having to do the union reservoir pump back at some level to probably make up the balance to meet long month build up demands. But what I don’t want to lose sight of here is if we go down to 6000, if that gets put on the table, then we’re back to you know, having to do a huge effort with the union reservoir pump back and I know talk to Dale about this. It mailed me results. And having to try to pump it back to Nelson Flanders. And keep in mind, it’s also kind of ironic because then you got more pump, you know, you got electricity demands within the city to use those supplies and how does that fit into your sustainability? You know, the Climate Action Task Force. So, I mean, all this stuff is kind of, you know, kind of connected in that regard, but I just want to make sure that 6300 acre feet, everybody understands that’s with the Pisco included. If that isn’t there in perpetuity for the city of Longmont. The demand isn’t 6300 it’s, you know, increase that it’s probably 1000 acre feet or more that you would need affirming to make ends meet. So anyway, I just want to make sure everybody understands that as we look at this.
1:44:43
And, Todd, if I could just chime in on that. I, we, we certainly have analyzed that as well. And I know Ken is working right now with the folks at PS code to determine whether or not we can make all or some portion of that Trade one in perpetuity. So that’s yet to be seen that that certainly could come about. I think the other caveat for all of us to also keep in mind is that the demands that we’re looking at are presumptive of going through a 100 year drought without any reduction in demand, which I think we would all agree. The city would certainly step back on its demands as we head into that kind of the drought. And so sort of like this last discussion, we had lots of complexities in the whole thing. I think what we’re trying to do is, we’re really down to a finessing level of participation. I think the other unknown that we are still faced with somewhat is the final cost of the project. I think we’re much closer, you know, having a contractor on board now, but we all know there could continue to be somebody increases, I think the staff is ready to. Frankly, I would say we would forego other projects to hold at the 7500 foot level. Frankly, once you sign a contract, you’re done. You got to figure out how you’re gonna pay for it. I’m trying to not get a set up where we not only stay at that, that higher level, but then we have an additional say cost increase that hits us and so you know, we’ve ran poor Becky, I feel sorry for I don’t know how many scenarios I’ve had to run. It was almost daily at times. And so yeah, I, we get it. We think staying very close to that 8000, which was sort of the Grand count compromise right? between the eight and the six and Lord knows, the last thing I wanted to do was to look at changing that number. You
1:47:01
But
1:47:03
we’re very close now and we’re very close to moving this thing forward. I think we’ll maintain both a level of participation that will serve this city well into the future as
1:47:17
I still think a bit of a conservative side.
1:47:21
And as Ken said, there’s no way we would ever want to leave Longmont in anything other than a good position water wise and so
1:47:31
it is it isn’t.
1:47:34
It’s never the easiest thing to try to make that sort of a recommendation but SAF absolutely also appreciates our relationship with the water board. And we certainly certainly want to maintain that going forward as well.
1:47:55
I just like to add that I
1:48:00
I would think that going down to 7500. If staff is confident that it’s financially conservative, and that it still meets a conservative goal, I would be totally open to that. And I also think it shows a willingness to be both conservative in a financial sense. And let’s face it, we’re all going to be hit with big costs from COVID. coming down the pike, we don’t know how that’s gonna hit us. But also, it’s something we can say we just went through this whole sustainability report and say, Well, you know, we’re willing to pull back a little bit on this. You know, this aspirational goal of having 1000 feet I think 500 acre feet is not going to sink our boat. So from my standpoint, I could accept 7500
1:49:00
I agree with Kathy yet. But the one message I got from counsel is, you know, if it comes back and there’s additional cost, they’re going to be asking what does that mean in terms of work, that’s not going to get done. And to the extent that, you know, that 500 acre feet is the runway, so to speak, to make sure that the necessary work gets done and that you’ve got enough to get this project to the finish line. I’m okay with that. I, I want to make sure we’re responsive to the, you know, I’ll be it. I think the the cost of the windigo firming in the context of the overall rate increase is relatively small, it all adds up. So I get it, and I’m okay. I hear John’s comments and I concur with those as well. But I think, you know, being kind of here in the council and what the concerns are, and I know what the discussion is going to be to stay at that 7500 i. I’m okay with that from my perspective. So, anyway, just my two cents Marsha, go ahead.
1:50:05
Marsha, did you want to say some?
1:50:08
Yes, my spacebar doesn’t mute me. Or when it’s supposed to, sometimes it doesn’t sometimes it doesn’t. Sorry. Um, I just wanted to say this council member doesn’t want to let go of that 500 acre fee anymore if you want to talk about over the last three years, but you know, and as I say, as Dale was saying, or somebody was saying was that that’s four times its value as soon as you pay seems like a hard thing to let go of. And so I’d want to ask, you know, what would be a best case scenario where there was enough without sacrificing anything major, to keep it at 8000 a week. So for example, is I think it was Todd, you suggested, what what if we did really well on our cash in lieu, you know, find some things like that, you know, I will not defeat the entire budget over 500 acre feet of water, but at the same time
1:51:19
I’d like to look real hard.
1:51:22
You know, I like I like having that cushion. I believe that we have a lot of room for additional Converse conservation in the way we use water now.
1:51:34
But it’s just so valuable. So
1:51:39
I’d be interested in hearing
1:51:42
alternative plans when it comes before Council.
1:51:47
And Councilmember Martin We will be happy to have that discussion.
1:51:55
And again, I
1:51:57
we’re trying to obviously look at the totality Of all things related to water utility as well as climate change, as well as the recommendations coming from various task forces. And, quite frankly, the the amount of input that we’re getting is is greater than what we can probably even analyze with any sort of certainty or, or level of diligence. I, you know, when you look at 500 acre feet and you look at the the firming ratio, you know that that gets you down to about 200 some acre feet of water. I don’t believe that our analysis in engineering or otherwise, can even get us that close to to knowing that are over a seven year drought that we’re going to be within 200 acre feet of getting a ride. I like thinking engineers are good, but I don’t think we’re that good. And I also think we have a number of other water supply options in our portfolio. And I for one, do still envision the day that we have the union pump back project because I think it is, even though it takes power, we’re also moving to renewable energy to move that water. And so I think Longmont has a very bright future. I also think I’m a strong supporter that when you get firming project, I think it is the best regional project in front of the city. We need to stay in it to the end, and be part of it. And so
1:53:36
we’re going to get
1:53:36
criticized, I think, no matter how we go on this, and we can’t really base our decisions on that. We have to base it on, you know, the data and the information in front of us at the time and I know staff has done a ton of work on this. And, again, we’re more than happy to be more explicit with regards to the consequences and You know, at the end of the day, I’m also and I know we all are, I’m concerned about the ratepayers and our ability to maintain trust with them, especially during the pandemic and everything that’s going on, I think, I think for them to hear from us that we’re really sharpening our pencils and being as cautious as we can. But still trying to do the best for the long term at the city. I think it’s something that they would would hope that we’re doing. And I appreciate, Todd, I know you feel very strongly about this has this john, and you guys know I absolutely respect everything you do and what you’re about. JOHN, you’ve always been sort of a mentor to me and
1:54:48
so help us get through this.
1:54:52
We’ll figure it out. But it is going to take all of us together by the way to get through this To get through a bond election this fall, and I, I think we all need to those of us in the water industry need to really stay. Stay focused on that long term.
1:55:19
Thanks, Dale. Anybody else? Any other comments?
1:55:23
I’ll just say that it’s not going to be end of the world to me to go from 1070 500. If in fact there’s a lot of comfort at that level. I hate to bounce a number around too much. But if, if you’re quite confident, that’s not going to be a liability with long my I don’t have a problem with going down to 7500.
1:55:52
Thanks, Roger, anybody else?
1:55:55
I guess with that, we’re down to making a recommendation. So Ken, we’re going to have to Sorry, I muted myself. We have the allotment contract, but that’s coming back. Is that right in final form? So I guess the question you have is if there’s any comments right now on it,
1:56:18
yeah. If there’s anything in it right now, and I apologize for its length, and
1:56:26
it’s, it’s primarily pretty standard. So you have, if
1:56:32
either any comments from the alumni contract, or just the general concept of, you know, we’re going forward right now. So, but I would say though, that this Islamic contracts a bit about six months working on it with 13 different participants, so there’s a lot into this to get it to where it is now. And we don’t have a huge window to do much change to it. But if there if there was something in there that anybody really had heartburn with, let us know. And we’ll try to work on that. But I do think it’s, it’s pretty well, it’s in good fun, good final form. Okay.
1:57:18
So you may have any comments on that document.
1:57:21
Okay. And then I guess the other recommendation that you’re looking for, is it as I understand it’s going in early August in front of council, is that right on the participation level? That is
1:57:33
right. So,
1:57:34
so I guess we need a recommendation from the waterboard to city council as to what participation level Longmont should be in with regards to the firming project. Is that correct? Okay, so, I mean, I think the obviously the discussion is, it looks like 8000 or 7500 acre feet does it You may want to make a motion as to the Go ahead, Roger.
1:58:04
I move we recommend 7500 is our participation level.
1:58:10
All right, Roger makes a recommendation 7500 Is there a second? Second Kathy? Kathy, second stat. Any further discussion?
1:58:22
Speak now or hold your peace, john, come on.
1:58:25
Man, I think you know, I mean, I’ve said how I feel and you know, I know where it’s going and and so, you know, I could be you know, they’ve, you know, we already been already been called water buffalo I really I you know, I agree with that. And, you know, you know what I think but I guess I’ve thought I’ve always been a team player. And yeah, so I’m, yeah, I’m, I’m gonna support the I’ll be with I’ll be I’ll be on the team.
1:58:56
Okay, so hearing anything Hearing none All those in favor of recommending 7500 acre feet when you get for me storage to city council say aye. Aye raised your hand, Aye. Opposed. Okay. Motion carries. Thank you. Now I
1:59:18
just gotta find my
1:59:21
itinerary here. Next item is eight C is cash in lieu review. Wes.
1:59:29
Yeah. So
1:59:31
for the board is the cash in lieu valuation information. So what I wanted to do is just speak a little bit to what’s what’s different than the last quarter of your review. We have received some late Macintosh and all oligarchy digit transaction data, those are reflected in those neighbors. Basic water rates, transaction costs that are there. And the average was just over 15,000 an acre foot for those. And those, by the way, were acquisitions for people that are going to be transferring as non historic to Longmont, so those kind of reflect municipal costs there. As we look down on the second bullet there, the cost for new water supplies, water conservation, we still have at 10,600. That’s a number that we’re working to refine. We’re going to we’re going to have a presentation following this. We’re going to talk about water conservation, and hopefully with some time yet this year, we can update that. There’s a lot that goes into that, as we talked about earlier this afternoon. And depending on your amount of water conservation, those costs go up but for now we were we’ve left that at the 10,000 600 when the gap firming project cost, those are still the same as they were before. We don’t have any revised numbers or anything that suggests any, any different costs at this point in time. What has changed though, is the value that we’ve put for union enlargement at pump back pipeline, as well as the bedrock enlargement. For those two items, we look at some additional costs that weren’t originally in there and got some updates for things such as property acquisition, planning, and permitting design and mitigation. And so we’ve brought those up those are relative to what we would see it windy gap for me, and we think that those are a better estimate. And so when you Take those collectively, the average of the cost for those is at $17,788. Or the weighted average, which reflects the based upon a dry yield would be 16,660. And just to remind everybody, we’re currently at 17,006 83, which is the windy gap firming project. And so all those, all those things come into play. Then lastly, the CBT allotment unit transfer cost. There was a little over 300 total units that were transacted in the last quarter, the majority of which were to the northern North weld County, district or to developer and those come from irrigators. So those the those costs average $1,549 per acre foot so and then there was no data for May, is COVID related. So those are the real numbers that I think are important to look at and those and we tried to hear waterboard and update our union enlargement, back pipeline and button rock enlargement cost. And so those are now reflected in that in that grid. So that’s really all that I had unless there’s some questions.
2:03:34
there any questions for Wes on the numbers?
2:03:39
Please speak up if you need and there you go. Now consider me any questions? So if not, right now, the windy gap. project cost estimates the same on a per acre foot basis as our last cation lose that right was
2:03:55
that is close.
2:03:56
So if we were to stay with the same methodology, we would leave The cash in lieu the same at this point. So I guess I would just ask, does anybody want to discuss changing that? Or? If not, if we leave it the same, you still want to recommendation Wes? Or do we just want to go ahead and leave it up for correction? Okay. Anybody want to discuss changing the cash in lieu from the current price, which is tied to the when you get firming project costs? I don’t see any. So I guess Wes will just go ahead and leave it at at that number for now. Okay, thank you. Hey, thanks for updating those costs, especially like that helps us as we look at those other projects as well. So thanks for doing that.
2:04:43
You’re welcome.
2:04:44
Okay, so next item is item nine, which is the water conservation update, and francy are you gonna handle this one?
2:04:57
And my videos are not my audio Yes. And I also want to I know we are over. So I wanted to, I just had four short sides that can go through quickly or I can just email them out based on the board’s preference.
2:05:15
You’re sorry, I muted myself again, do we? I say we just keep going. Does anybody have any problem with that? Let’s just go ahead and go through your slides, Francine. So
2:05:25
thanks, Heather, can you share those?
2:05:33
Great, so I’m just gonna start with kind of two graphs to give you an update. These are both graphs that are in the water efficiency master plan that I extended out through 2019. That line at the top is treated water production effluent, and then the bar graphs are metered water supply. Probably the main takeaway is I created a trend line for that. Total treated water production effluent since 2007. And you can see, kind of, we have had that consistent decrease. And I mentioned earlier in the meeting of kind of the different percentages and reduction, I do want to highlight there that there is that drop in 2019. And my guess that’s perfectly because of how much water we got last summer. We didn’t have like a huge increase in water conservation program. So that would be my assumption. So it’ll be very interesting to see what 2020 water usage looks like, um, since this year has been much hotter. Next slide. So we can also use look at water use per capita per day. This uses our service population, which is our city population, plus we estimate the amount of people that are outside the city it’s a very small percentage, so we don’t think our estimation is too off. And you can again see I think This even highlights even more because our water consumption has been going down as our population has been rising. So if we do that five year average since 2007, we actually see an 18% reduction in the water use per capita per day. Next slide. I just wanted to give a little update about how we did in 2019. As well as kind of going through since we’re halfway through the year in 2020. What’s highlighted in green on 2020 are things we’re still working on. Buy what’s Bolden black? Done? So we did have a few fewer garden and box sold this year in Longmont, but I was told that our the supply actually ran out and they think more would have been sold. Our waterwise seminars got moved to be webinars and that actually we had more folks attend and we actually did a new waterwise weather In our This year, we’re focused on rain barrels that was really well attended. So we’ll probably continue to focus on that topic area. Already this year, we’re close to the amount of slow the flow that we did in total last year. Again, I think that’s due to it being a little bit drier this year. Our toilet program has changed. So we used to have our own toilet rebate program, and then the flush for the future. So we had about 144 toilets last year. This year we’ve only seen three actually rebated and with an 18 folks being denied those kind of pie a couple reasons for that, that drop. Well, one, we’re only halfway through the year. We’ve been focusing on irrigation rebates, and these are new rebates that have started with efficiency works and you can see we had 70 there, but much stricter, totally rebate we are only rebuilding toilets that are 1.1 gallons per flush or below. So that also may be why a reason that less folks are aware Fine. And again, both of these rebates have been moved over to efficiency works.
2:09:05
We had paces the Boulder County program for businesses. I don’t have an update so far this year, but you can see the numbers from last year. I efficiency works. We have been doing the multifamily program. We had low participation so far this year due to COVID. But we did have some good participation last year. And we also added a commercial multifamily toilet rebate this year, which has also had low participation and that’s mostly probably due to COVID and minimizing our outreach there. We have a couple pilot projects between last year and this year last year, because we hadn’t launched our irrigation rebates yet an HOA had wanted to participate in it last year. So we did a special pilot program from them which I’m going to see the impact of transitioning to the MP Rotator heads over the next few years. This year. We’re transitioning on 1.25 acres to waterwise turf. We’re in the process of doing that Right now, we’re expecting to save about 50% of water on those sites. We are also working with the St. vrain Valley School District to do an indoor upgrade to see the impact of transitioning a large number of toilets in a school, which we could apply to any large building. Um, so we’re working through the details with them now. Then the last thing that we’re coming up this year that I forgot to mention is that we are attending Water Resources engineers, planners are attending our growing water smart workshop to talk about water efficiency and land use planning at the end of August and September. So that’s also coming up later this year. So that’s my update. Any any questions on the water conservation program?
2:10:44
Thanks, kranti. Any questions?
2:10:48
Thank you, I think it kind of shows I you know, there’s a lot going on and as the use is dropping, I think it really shows the value of all the programs as well as just kind of the efficiency of New fixtures and developments. So thank you. I think it really shows water is being used more and more efficiently. So thanks. Okay. Next item is we’ve got items from the board review of major project listings and items tentatively scheduled for future board meetings. Any questions, comments there?
2:11:23
Go ahead, Roger.
2:11:25
I was wondering if we can see the details of what the language or what’s involved in the bond issue that needs about $80 million bond issue? Is there a way we can get some information on that? I’m just kind of curious how that gonna impact rates, passes or doesn’t pass, things like that. So I don’t know. Ken has that information available?
2:11:51
Yeah, well, well, we have some information on it. We’ll be happy to send that out. And also, we’ll be bringing it into the August water board meeting. Great. All right. ration both for August as soon enough otherwise, we have some preliminary information we can send you right now. You’re happy to do either.
2:12:09
Good. You do both.
2:12:11
I can do both. Absolutely. Yeah. We’ll send out. We did a PowerPoint to council not too long ago so we can send that to you. Thanks.
2:12:21
Do that.
2:12:23
JOHN, did you have some?
2:12:24
Yeah. Can assuming that our 7500 goes through who is likely to pick up our 500 feet and I can’t remember when we gave up our 2000 and PRP a picked it up, they deal directly with us, or does it go through the how does how will that work?
2:12:46
Yeah, so we’re dealing directly with us we sold the 2000 acre feet a capacity to PRP a for the cost we had put in the project to that point. And we’ll do the same with the five hundred acre feet. So the 2000 acre feet when we went from 10 days went to PRP all 2000. And then trpa turned around and resold about 100 or 150 acre feet to Loveland who wants to go up. We’ll we’ll have a Oh, I’ll have a conversation probably with Loveland first. They they may very well want to go up, I don’t know that they’ll want the whole 500. If not, there’s a couple other entities will probably want to pick it up. We’ll have to do that pretty quickly. After the August 4 meeting with counsel may end up we may end up having to actually sign up for a little some of that if we can’t sell it all and then resell it then but we’re we’ll be trying to balance that how that will work versus quickly we can move it. Yeah. Well sell it directly to another participant. And then they’ll they’ll, they’ll sign in love and contract with that much more water.
2:14:10
You don’t anticipate a bidding war?
2:14:13
I don’t I wait. I
2:14:15
Yeah, I do. Yeah. There are actually a number out there that wanted. But
2:14:22
we have our water supply reviews on that kind of limits the prospective
2:14:29
purchasers. So, there’s just a few out there.
2:14:35
Anything else? Okay.
2:14:40
Next item, I guess we have informational items and waterboard correspondence. One note is I want to say thank you to john for continuing his tour of duty here on waterboard. Thank you, john. And I’m glad for this meeting in particular that you were able to be part of it. So thank you for your continued involvement until I guess the city council starts putting new board members in place. But thank you for your continued involvement. JOHN, appreciate it.
2:15:11
So that raised the question I was going to ask Marsha Marsha. Marsha, excuse me, is by next are they going to have a replacement? Are you or do you want to, again be a pain in the butt again next month or what?
2:15:25
what’s the what’s Is there a plan?
2:15:29
Yeah,
2:15:30
this this Saturday, we are interviewing applicants, john. Okay.
2:15:36
So you won’t you won’t need to do this. hate to see you go though.
2:15:42
Well, thank you. So I just wanted to say you know, obviously, it’s you know, it’s been 45 years 45 years ish. And I, you know, I’ve I’ve learned so much and gotten so much out of this. A lot more than, than I’ve contributed. But, you know, I appreciate serving with everybody that I’ve served with you know, the various I mean, actually, so when I got on it was it was heard this story was, you know, Todd’s grandfather was my was mentor, you know, and then staff, you know, as Jim Senia and Pete Moore and then you know, Dale and Ken and so on and on and on, and it’s, you know, it’s, it’s, they’re great people, and they’ve done a great job and Longmont is done. Over the years has done a fantastic. Long before I was on the water board done a fantastic job planning. That’s why, you know, we’re really fortunate to have the water resources we do. So thank you very much. I really appreciate it and I’ll miss it. So anyway, thank you very much
2:16:57
in just one note there. We’re still working JOHN, we do want to have a reception for you just to say thank you for your your time. So thank you for for all that. And we’ll, if you’re not here next month, we’ll be in touch with regards to that reception.
2:17:12
So thanks. Well, like I told Heather, I, you know, I don’t I don’t want to cause on you work to the staff and also a potential for health issues. So I know I’d rather pass and tell you know,
2:17:29
tell this the CO isn’t that distant. Anyway, so, I’m so thankful
2:17:35
they were, I appreciate it some thought. Okay, well, there’s some thoughts, maybe doing it with distancing, but we’ll we’ll run that by make sure everybody’s comfortable with it, and then we can get it in place when it’s the appropriate time comes up. So anyway, with that, that’s all I had anything else for the good of the order? I don’t say any. So thank you guys. I know it was a long meeting but a lot of good stuff today. So I appreciate all your participation and staying in there. So thank you guys.
2:18:04
Thanks, everybody for putting
2:18:05
up with a long debate on the Climate Action Task.
2:18:10
No problem. Dale, did you want to say something?
2:18:12
I do? Because I don’t know. I hope I get invited to John’s reception whenever that is, and I’m ready to have a bear with you, john, whenever we can have a chance.
2:18:24
You are.
2:18:26
Let me see. We all owe you a great, great, great amount of gratitude for all of your service. And the pay wasn’t the best. But your work john made a foundational difference to this community. And
2:18:46
thank you.
2:18:47
Yeah, well, thank you I’m, I’m all always available. As long as the weather stays nice. We stay outside. I’m always available for a beer physically distance so that’s that’s not a nation. Anybody wants to have a beer physically distance? I’m ready. Roger knows
2:19:08
that right right. Let me do it all at night enjoying the works well I agree.
2:19:15
As long as you know thank you guys
2:19:16
while you’re not drinking Corona beer that’s, that’s it
2:19:22
sounds good. Well thank you guys have a good day bye bye
Transcribed by https://otter.ai