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0:00
Okay, my watch says three o’clock. So the meeting going I’d like to call the December 21 2020. Water Board meeting to order. Heather, could you please start with a roll call?
0:14
Sure. Chair Williams. Here.
0:17
Alison gold.
0:20
Here.
0:22
Kathy Peterson.
0:23
Here.
0:25
Scott Horwich.
0:26
Here.
0:27
Roger Lang.
0:29
Here.
0:30
Can you send
0:32
your Nelson Tipton your
0:37
westlab Lowery.
0:39
Here,
0:40
Kevin Bowden. Here.
0:46
francy is not here yet. Jason
0:47
is coming in.
0:51
Councilmember Martin here. All right. Board will or chair Williams Do you have a quorum?
0:58
Great. Thank you. The item three on the agenda is approval of the previous month’s minutes, October 19 2020. Does anybody have any questions or comments on the meeting minutes?
1:20
I don’t see any. If there’s no comments, just someone want to make a motion for accepting the October 19 2020 meeting minutes. Cathy?
1:31
Cathy Peterson here I move that we accept the
1:36
October 19 2020 minutes is submitted.
1:41
Okay, there’s a motion is there a second? Second. Okay, sounds like Alison is the second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye.
1:55
Aye. Aye.
1:56
Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Okay. Next item on the agenda item four is the water status report. Is that Nelson are West Nelson.
2:08
Yeah, I’ll go ahead. The so the flow of the st brand cricket lions at ADM. Today was nine CFS and 124 year average historic average for this date is 17 CFS. The call on the same brain Creek is Pleasant Valley reservoir and the added number is 7822. And the priority date is eight 118 71. Calling the main stem of the South Platte River is the riverside canal. The ABA number is 21031. And the priority date is eight 119 oh seven. Ralph price reservoir button rock reserve is currently full and spilling. And due to the scheduled outlet repairs, that’s why it’s still full but this time of year, and it’s anticipated anticipated to be completed the other pairs by March of 2021. And based and we’ll go over that I believe in his update project update. So union reservoir is currently at 21.3 feet, oldest 28 feet. So it’s down approximately 4500 acre feet and currently release intensity assess. And I’ll just was going to touch base I think on more of the snowpack, but but the current snowpack for the South Platte River Basin is 76% of normal. And then the Upper Colorado snowpack is at 73%. Normal. And that completes my report on any questions. You’re muted. Any questions?
3:59
I’m sorry. Are there any questions for Nelson? I’m not seeing anybody with their hand up. Okay. All right, go ahead and move on. The next item. Item five is public invited to be heard and special presentations. And talking to Heather before the meeting. It does not sound like we have any public invited to be heard. Can Is there any special presentations for today?
4:24
Yes, we have. Sean Cronin and Jason Roudebush, with the same brain and left hand water Conservancy district. I’ll let Kevin introduce the item and then let Sean and Jason take over.
4:42
Go Hey, guys. So today we have Sean and Jason here to discuss the progress of the district’s efforts on the st. Brain lefthand water Conservancy district stream management plan for some of you, this is On all new item,
5:03
but the board last heard an update on this in July of 2017. So I will let Jason take it from here.
5:12
Mr. Chair.
5:15
Yeah, go ahead, Scott.
5:16
Yeah. Before Shawn and Jason kickoff, I wanted to disclose for the record for transparency sake that I’m General Counsel for the Conservancy district. This is not an action item that we’re entertaining here. So I’m not planning to recuse myself from participation, but just wanted people to, to know and understand. Thank you.
5:37
Thanks, Scott. So Heather, do you just note that the minutes And with that I’ll I’ll turn it over to Sean.
5:44
Sure. Well, thanks.
5:46
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m going to turn it over to Jason, our newest employee, and then I’ll I’ll pick up the back end. So Jason, you want to introduce yourself? Yeah, you bet.
5:57
Thank you all. My name is Jason Radha Bush, I’m a water resource specialist with the st. Rain and left hand water Conservancy district been with the district for about six months now. And I’m pleased to report that the SMP for both St. vrain and lefthand creeks was completed in October. This project was a phase one effort, which took nearly three years to complete and was formally accepted by our board of directors on October 12. Next slide, please. So phase one of the stream management plan was made possible with the generous support from the city of Longmont. And we certainly want to thank you for that. This is a list of partners. And as you can see, you know, support really came from a wide range of public, private and nonprofit entities, all with a common goal of improving our basin. And I think that is fairly unique to this area of Colorado. Next slide. So why did the the district take on this tree management plan? And what is it exactly? To answer the what of that question is, is that this is really a process driven by the CW cb. And it’s to engage stakeholders and identify the current and future water needs of the water users in the basin. And then through that stakeholder process, and that stakeholder engagement, you know, come a lot of conversations, a lot of actions and then some strategies for for implementing the stream management plan, and then eventually, we’ll fundraising. Back to the question of why it’s important. You know, for our major partners like Longmont, I think it’s important to understand how the CW CB builds the state’s funding priorities through planning efforts. So if you remember way back the first water planning efforts, the first that I can remember, at least, you know, started with the basin implementation plan, where projects and processes were identified and prioritized for funding. And as a part of that base and implementation plan, the the same right and left hand stream management plan was one of those processes. And because it was a major part of that stream management plan, it was eventually funded by the state. And then if, you know, the basin implementation plan was up and rolling for a few years. And that eventually led to the Colorado water plan, which resulted in some legislation construction fund. And the result of that was bringing millions of dollars to the basin or to the state for water projects. And our basin has received some of that. As we keep progressing, most recently, we have the passing of some new legislation, proposition DD, which is to collect proceeds from gambling, and that’s ready to hit this summer and to fund the water project. So really, as we’ve worked through the progression within our basin here, I believe that our timing is excellent with the completion of this plan. You know, our next step is to bring forward projects and other efforts to the state for for funding. And, you know, we anticipate a lot of that funding to start hitting in July, depending on you know, the impacts to the state budget from COVID. But from what we’re understanding that that money is going to start to be made available in July for projects. Next slide, please. So this SMP was a big bite compared to some of the other plans in Colorado. And in total, we addressed an entire watershed at about 500 square miles. And underneath that larger umbrella, the stakeholders established desired conditions and management goals. And what was different about our basin and this SNP is in some of the smaller stream management plans like the Upper Colorado, it really focused on you know, single elements of the base and more Mike trout, the cold water fishery in the Upper Colorado. Now, because our basin is more of a working river than, say the Upper Colorado, we took a more holistic approach to tackling the stream management plan. So for example, a desired condition for water management on the St. vrain is is and I can quote here to achieve a balance amongst the needs of the natural environment, non consumptive and consumptive users. So we we really left the door wide open for a number of different projects, from ag to municipal to conservation and wildlife. And then underneath those desired conditions, though, the water management goal for, say, the infrastructure component at least,
10:45
and I quote, work with water rights holders to ensure the water supply needs are met and not interrupted, explore issues and concerns and find opportunities for mutually beneficial management improvements. So we’ve really taken into account all the stakeholders in this basin. And we want to move forward holistically with this approach. So stepping off from the established desire conditions and management goals, our consultant completed a stream health evaluation, and then utilize that to determine opportunity areas. And this is really chapter five and the meat and potatoes of this report. And I’d encourage you to get into it. You know, that data was then used to come up with strategies for for implementation. Next slide, please. So if you’ve had a chance to flip through the report, I’m not sure if you have, you’ll notice that there were four central areas, focus areas, and that was flows habitat, water quality and water management slash infrastructure.
11:48
You know,
11:52
from chapter four, the report on the report follows this organization. And so as you move on from chapter four, where the meat and potatoes of the plan, which we don’t have a ton of time to get into this afternoon, but I’d be happy to get into some side conversations are to come back for
12:07
a deeper dive.
12:10
Slide six, please. So chapter six, and seven of the report presented the strategies and potential projects for both near term and long term implementation. In the near term, we have a laundry list of specific items to focus on for each of the central themes. And as you can see, flow dominates nearly all of these items outlined here. So it’s important that Longmont, you know, have it Have a seat front and center at the table. So that we can continue this great partnership and really move into phase two. You know, we have just a laundry list of items here. All some of these are going to require a deeper dive, you know, with some focus groups, others, we think we have some projects that are ready to be funded here. So with the next slide, as we start to look to the next steps, I think it’s important to take a step back and survey the landscape with regard to partners in this basin. You know, many areas of Colorado struggle to bring folks to the table for big endeavors, big water projects like this, but that’s certainly not the case with our basin, we have highly motivated folks at the county with Trout Unlimited with left hand watershed center. And then of course with Longmont and then the district and amongst many others, and, you know, everybody wants to take control wants to write grants for implementation. And so we’re gonna have to be very strategic with how we approach implementation. And, you know, there’s going to be instances where the district is best suited to lead. And other instances where we’re, you know, we we have our best fit is in a supporting role. And this is certainly the case with everyone. So I’m excited to use this SNP as a launching point to go fundraise to, to bring money to our base and to really make a difference, and to bring us forward with, you know, not only modernization of a lot of our infrastructure, our aging infrastructure in the basin, but to continue that strong legacy of conservation in the same rate of left hand. Now with that, I’d be happy to answer some questions.
14:20
Great, thank you, Jason. Are there any questions? And please feel free to speak up. I can’t see everybody on the screen at one time.
14:37
Jason, I do have I guess I’ll start off with a question. You mentioned in terms of, you know, flow and trying to meet objectives and stream health and management and flow obviously, is key to that. Have you been working with Longmont staff in terms of button rock operations or is that going to be part of a future kind of phase in the project just kind of curious how that that fits Given how important that is to the river flows
15:03
Yeah, you bet. So, I came in at the the 11th hour of this process I was hired on in July, but I have had some conversations with Longmont staff and I know that it was a topic of discussion at a lot of the stakeholder meetings. It is it is touched on in the report, but just mentioned at a high level, that we would like to sit down with Longmont staff and try to develop some, you know, reservoir operation scenarios, if you will, that might be able to provide mutual benefit in the basin. So that it’s listed in the report. There aren’t a lot of specifics on that. And, and that was intentional. Shawn, do you have anything else you’d elaborate on there? Yeah,
15:47
if I could. Many on the board are either aware of this or no this but there was a time where Longmont was very active in in making releases, particularly in the wintertime, that provided mutual benefits. And that that was through long months leadership in the in the state of Colorado, through a variety of different policies and interpretation on on decrees and administration really challenged long months ability to continue to be able to do that. And it hasn’t been done for some years. And staff can certainly speak to the specifics around that. I think it was partly a motivating factor in Longmont participation to really sort of shed a light that the administration of the river oftentimes presents really collaborative, creative, multi benefit management of water supplies. And so through now the stream management plan having science to demonstrate what the needs of the river might be, we can utilize that to have conversations with the state about how much flexibility we might have and collective management of supplies not to just shed a light singularly on on Longmont, but you can look at a variety of different ways that we manage water supplies across the basin. And at least now we have a state sanctioned report that we could talk to the state and say, you know, something doesn’t square here.
17:18
Jefferson Williams, if I may, um, you mentioned some projects that are ready to be funded. Do you mind elaborating on that, please?
17:30
Yeah, so
17:31
I think that there are several areas that have been noted that are that were not restored after the 2013 flood event. So there, there are several key areas of stream restoration. There’s a lot of aging infrastructure in this basin, that, you know, could could use retrofit, could use replacement, could use upgrading altogether. You know, as it pertains to infrastructure, those are more complex conversations because of the the various ownership structures. And so we’ve already started to have some of those conversations, and Longmont has been a part of those as to how we best tackle these really important issues on the stream moving forward.
18:13
And if I could add to that sometimes projects is is used as a term of art with these kind of processes. And so the the management conversation on how we collectively as water users manage water supplies, and as I said earlier, creating those multiple benefits could couldn’t of itself be a project, quote, unquote. So that’s definitely something that’s described in the plant as well.
18:38
And on the water quality side of things, that it’s fairly well established some of our real problem areas, some of our legacy mines. And so those are ongoing projects that require more funding and require further development and so that they are established at this point.
18:55
I’ve got an additional question. I know, you know, in the last election, you guys were able to get some additional funding source through a increase in the mill levy. How does that play into kind of the future funding of, you know, the projects that you identify as part of the plan? And then I assume maybe that also gives you some leverage with the state on partnering or leveraging some funding to get projects done? Just if I don’t know if you’ve, it’s been pretty recent since you got that. I don’t know if you’ve given some thought as to how that all comes together.
19:28
I’m gonna take that, Jason.
19:29
Yeah, I think that Shawn was gonna present on that one a little bit as well. So maybe this is a good turning point.
19:35
Yeah. And I could I could give a little bit of that answer and then and then slides will touch on the rest of it. But it is early in the process. It just approved in November. We don’t start receiving the money until January and then periodically throughout the year. So the same brain left hand water Conservancy district board of directors are going through prioritization exercises to identify what opportunities might be out there to To best maximize those dollars, absolutely matching of grants is is one that’s going to be a top priority of the board and for every dollar that that the taxpayer is granted us, if we can leverage that with $1 from the state, that’s just better money spent here. So that that’ll certainly be in the mix. But the the stream management plan, as well as the district’s recently approved business plan will be the lenses at which the board of directors go through that prioritization exercise.
20:33
Thanks, Shawn. Any other questions? I don’t see any other Shawn where you you’re gonna give another?
20:42
Yeah, brother. If you could queue up some other slides. I just take a couple more minutes if we have it just to thank all of you as Longmont residents and voters on your recent approval of what the ballot called seven, eight Next slide. So this was put on the ballot as a result of the board of directors recently adopted business plan. That is, was adopted in February 2020. Next slide. So what seven eight, ask the voters for is a 1.25 mill increase as of in 2020. Our mill was point 156. So this was a 1.25 mill increase to that dedicated to what what we told the voters is a five point plan. That that is basically the business plan that the graphic showed here a little bit earlier, that at the time, we we believe that to generate about $3.3 million per year, with with this year’s assessed property values going in 2021, it looks more like 3.4 million. With some of the new properties coming online. We also told the voters that we’d have a 10 year sunset. So what we’re looking at in way of implementation timeline is something over the next are some things over the next 10 years. Next slide, please. So this was really a collaborative effort and working cooperatively with a variety of different partners and stakeholders. This is just all the logos of the folks that actually publicly endorsed seven a, and you’ll see here, quite a diversity and agricultural, nonprofit, commercial and enterprise folks all from this area in state national organizations. Next slide, please. There was also a great deal of folks who were aware of the five point plan and the business plan and the ballot question and for a variety of reasons. didn’t necessarily publicly endorse it. But we’re, we’re aware of what we’re doing and providing feedback through the whole process. Next slide, please. So the voters approved it nearly 70% 60 67.81% to be exact. Next slide, please. So where do we go from here? Next slide, please. Just go ahead. And Heather, if you could click through real quick. That’s it there. So the five point action plan is watershed protection and water security, improve our water IQ, strengthen agriculture, Creek improvement facilities and improve conservation. And what the business plan talks about is there’s programs, projects and services within each of those five categories are five points. So on the slide, it’s a little difficult to see. But underneath each of those five points within the color shaded box are programs, projects and services. And some may be of interest to you. But due to time, we don’t we can’t go into that. So we do have information online that you can read on our website, or as Jason alluded to earlier, we’re happy to come back and do a deeper dive if if the board chose but we’re really excited about all of these programs, projects and services. And as I mentioned earlier, the board is now going through a prioritization exercise to determine how to most efficiently start utilizing the 3.4 million this year, the three point whatever next year, and so on and so forth. And collectively over that 10 year period, really have what what I call a, a net positive impact to the basin with with multi use approaches. You’ll see in here stream management plan implementation, you’ll see in stream flows, you see education and so on. So we’re really excited about the diversity of ideas that come to the table and having a dedicated source of funding to really look at water issues on a watershed scale is really exciting for the basin. Next slide, please. So happy to answer any questions.
24:45
Are there any questions for Sean? All right, sorry, I’m cycling through the folks on the call here. You know, one question Shawn, or maybe just a comment would be, it sounds like you’re rolling the plan out. Now you’re trying to kind of put the dollars in place to start implementing it. I feel from my perspective, it’d be good to have you report back as you kind of formalize that plan and how you’re going to maybe allocate resources. And then, you know, as we talked earlier of Longmont operations may fit into that. Maybe that’s a good point, were coming back to us and given more specifics as to how the plan will roll out, and then maybe also specifics as to how long months operations potentially could fit into, you know, meeting some of the goals, I think, at least from my perspective, that’d be a good point maybe to report back to us on if anybody else has any other kind of comments or or questions on that. I don’t see. I
25:46
mean, this is Shawn, we’d be happy to and if if, if we want to put a placeholder in the the board expects to kind of get through its ideas and thinking around it around the maybe as late as February. So if if there was an opportunity to be on the agenda in maybe March or April, that might be a good, good timing.
26:09
I’d definitely be in favor of that. Is anybody else have a thought on that? I think that’d be great, just so we could track given, obviously, the importance of long run in the plan, and also the kind of overall, you know, impact potentially the long run system. I think that’s a good check in point. So I appreciate that. Anything else on Jason or Shawn, or any questions or comments from the board? No, thank
26:40
you for the opportunity to present to you. As Kevin said, some of this may be new to some of the board members. And as Jason alluded to earlier, if you want to take a conversation offline, we’re happy to talk to you and take as much time as you want to walk through any one of these elements, a stream management plan or the business plan, but happy to present it to you and looking forward to circling back with you in March or April and get further feedback.
27:07
Great. Well, thank you, Jason. And Shawn, thanks for the presentation today.
27:11
Thank you, and thank you for supporting the stream management plan those matching funds go a long ways when we’re writing grants.
27:19
Thank you.
27:21
Alright, with that all, I’ll keep moving on here and the agenda. I think we’re on item six, which is agenda revisions and in submission of documents can or Wes Nelson, anything there that we need to be aware of?
27:36
I have none.
27:37
I have none. Okay.
27:39
All right. We’ll keep moving. item seven is development activity and it doesn’t look West. There’s no development activity that we need to review today. Is that correct?
27:49
That is correct.
27:51
Okay. Eight general business. And one item we have there is for cash in lieu review.
28:01
Yeah, so I’m going to go through with the board, just a few of the highlights. So as you’ve all seen, we are looking at three primary criteria for this review. There was a few leg, Mackintosh and oligarchy did shares that were transacted in this last quarter at an average cost of $15,100 per acre foot, the cost for new water supplies. We looked at that, more specifically, we looked at the bureau reclamations construction cost index to make an adjustment for that we noticed that it was less than 1%. Point 7% actually, was the was the difference between quarters. And that was the only real information that we had that was a significant contribution towards this particular criteria. So what you’re seeing there is the same or essentially unchanged from the last quarter. On the CDT allocation, there was a total of 54 units that were transacted at an average cost of $73,209 per acre foot. That’s a little lower than we saw in the last quarter where it was just about just a little over 78,000 an acre foot. So it’s down about 5000 acre foot from last quarter, we had a couple initial transactions are not completed, but in December, there was about 60 units that transacted at around 74,000. So this, this number that we have here 73,209 is seems to be a pretty good finger on the pulse of where that’s at. I’ll remind waterboard that cash in lieu is currently at 17,000 $683. So pretty close to where we’re seeing that cost of new water supply. And then lastly, I’m going to go ahead and like, make note that of the 54 units that were transacted in this quarter 22, I’m sorry, 21 of those, the buyers were irrigation, with an average cost of just over 77,000. So what we’re seeing here is, you know, it used to be there was quite a difference between the buyers being developers or irrigators. And now, at least in this quarter, not so much. And so really, I guess the the overall theme of this is that there wasn’t a whole lot of change from the last quarter. So if there’s other questions, I’d be happy to try to answer those for you.
30:56
Thanks, Wes. Any questions? For Wes on this? Okay, I’m not seeing any. So Wes, if I understand, right? We’ve been setting it today, based on when you get firming project costs, which is $17,683 per acre foot, and you’re saying that’s the same as what it was the prior quarter when we sat? Is that correct?
31:25
That’s correct.
31:27
Okay, and then if we were to stay at that same price, do you need a motion to do so? Or what do you need from us in terms of setting or as parent keeping that same price?
31:40
I don’t I don’t need a motion if we could just reflect the minutes that that’s the board’s determination to leave it where it’s at now until the next quarterly review.
31:51
Okay. Any I guess I just opened that up for the waterboard any questions or comments on that, that’s the way we’ve set it, obviously. And I think we’re gonna get into this a little bit later in the windy gap. firming project update, there’s been some pretty major news in terms of ability to move that project forward. And that’s the project we’ve been pegging the cost of that projects, what we’ve been pegging our cash and loot to for a number of years now. So I don’t know if anybody has any other thoughts or would like to discuss different cash in lieu price. Otherwise, we’ll we’ll just leave it where it’s at. Feel free to chime in if you have any comments or questions on that.
32:42
Okay. I don’t see anybody objecting to that. So Wes, why don’t we go ahead and keep it at the the current rate. And then we can monitor that and see if we need to adjust it in future quarters going forward. So great, thank you. So with that, we’re on to item nine, and nine a is a monthly water supply up to eight, West.
33:11
Yeah, so we want to do is continue to follow up. Normally, we would start giving waterboard kind of monthly updates. This is the front end of the kind of the snowpack season. But as you recall, back in October, when we talked to the board, we were facing some fires and pretty dry conditions. So we decided that for this month and months upcoming, we would just continue to provide you some information on our overall water supply. And so I’ve got a short PowerPoint presentation. Basically, it’ll go along with the textual information we included in your in your packet where I wanted to just highlight a few key parts. And then towards the end of the presentation, Kendall speak a little bit on the fire impacts. And then there again, as always, if you have some questions or anything, we can address those at that at that time. So like to start with the the next slide. So as the board may recall, we continue to operate under the water supply and drought management plan, which is for us to be in a sustainable conservation level that was directed by city council back in July. So that’s where we’re at today. Next slide. stream flows from for almost all of 2020 water year, we’re below average. And this kind of indicates that the solid blue line is what we actually saw the green line above it was the the average There were certain periods of time where streamflow was third or even fourth normal. I think currently, we’re about half of what we normally would see that would be kind of that nine CFS of the 17 CFS average. So continuing to stay a little below, below normal. Next slide. Another slide is kind of hard to see. But what we wanted to speak to on this local storage is slightly below average. So in other words, the five year average, and we took about a dozen and a half reservoirs in our basin. Normally at the start of December, we would have those at about 66%. Full, we actually seen them to be about 62% full and so slightly below average, but not not anything overwhelmingly to concern ourselves. One point is the note. As Nelson mentioned, button rock is full, which we normally would have seen that being down, however, union is more down than it normally is. So there’s kind of a balancing of other reservoirs, but as a whole, we’re slightly below average. Next slide, please. So again, Ralph price reservoir being being full and spilling Nelson mentioned about 10 CFS, we’re hopeful that we can have our repairs done by the end of February, early March. And I’m not going to steal Jason’s Thunder when he talks about that more specifically on under our item 90. Next slide. Union reservoir again, as I mentioned, as Nelson did, we were down about 4500 acre feet. One thing that I’d like to speak to is to fill union reservoir it it takes a little bit longer union reservoirs and off channel reservoir that fills off the oligarchy ditch. And with just the Operational history of that it normally would take a month or two to fill union, regardless of how much flow is in the same brain Creek just from the standpoint of what the oligarchy can handle. And so it’s likely that early earlier this year, it could be as early as January it might be in March or April, but sometime earlier, it’s likely that we may be releasing some water out of button rock. The value of that is that button rock being an on Channel reservoir has the ability to store quicker, physically store quicker. We also have more decrees available to store in button rock than we do just in Union alone. And so we’re going to try to continue to do our best management practice and do some operational things that will hopefully at the end of
38:07
the run off season that we can realize union and button rock being full. Next slide, please. So the Longmont water treatment plants are on pace to produce about 104% of what we’ve seen in 2002. When we kind of use that as a monitor, or as a benchmark, that’s when we started doing our water supply and drought management plans. So interestingly, over that 19 year period, we’re just slightly over it even though our population has increased. And that’s a testament to some of the water conservation as things that the city has done. In comparison, if you can hard to see, I understand but in 2019, we did about 16,000 acre feet. So we were we’re gonna do about 2000 acre feet more than last year. But if you looked at the whole 19 year period, the average was about 17,000. So we’re nothing real surprising. I think we’re right on track to what we were expecting. Next slide, please. So the snowpack for the South Platte basin as Nelson mentioned, we were at 76% of normal, and then the Upper Colorado at about 73% of normal. Kind of bear in mind that the snowpack this early part of the season is probably barely a quarter percent of the snow that we would normally experience and so with each passing, waterboard review period, you know, it’ll become more and more important. I think one thing to note is you can see on that green line, how a single event can really make a difference. And so we’re hoping that we’ll have a couple significant snow packs and early on would be nice. But as always, it’s those spring storms that will really make or break our water supply. But as of right now, we’re we’re below average, but nothing to overly concern ourselves with at this point. Next slide, please. So, Pleasant Valley reservoir, if you were to look specifically at our local storage, you’ll know that Pleasant Valley reservoir is down. It’s about 25% of full, and it is the call on the river as Nelson mentioned, we are putting water in there, likely it will have realized its full decree by the end of this month. And in so doing, we’ll probably be somewhere around a third full. And then we’ll have to wait until either the call on the river changes so that it can fill under one of its enlargement decrees or we can put other water rights that are decreed to go in there. You’ll notice back in 2018, when we were doing some work there, we were actually less full than we are now. And in that given year. We ended up filling it to about 80%. So we’re thinking, even though it’s down quite a bit, that there’s everything indicates that we should be able to get it within three fourths or even full before the end of the run off. We’ll see how the snowpack does. Next slide please. So that’s kind of on the water supply piece. The other piece that we wanted to speak to was kind of some of the fire impacts. And we wanted to speak to that this month. Now going forward, there really won’t be a whole lot more to say. But we wanted to highlight five of the major fires that were in along the Front Range, all of which have now been contained. So when you look at him, you can see there’s there’s a fairly significant amount of acreage that was burned, there was a just under 450,000 acres represented by these five fires. So if you were to kind of rough that out, you’re talking an area from Longmont up to Fort Collins, and over to Greeley. So pretty big total area. Fortunately, most of these were outside of the the direct watershed. But I think at this point can I’m gonna let can go ahead and speak to the kind of the remaining slides and the few that actually may have some contribution in terms of water quality, for the sake of rain.
42:55
Thank you, I did want to kind of bring the board up to speed on where we are with the fires. You know, most people read the 100% containment and the fact that most of the fires are out and be hit and kind of it is really easy to kind of forget about it. Unfortunately, often three of the fires didn’t are going to impact us. But that impact will be felt really in the future. I’ll really start with the smallest fire, call it small. It’s the largest fire ever in Boulder County. But that’s the Cal wood fire at 10,000 acres is still a sizable fire. Next slide please. So the Cal wood fire. This slide is basically what we call an erosion readability map. This shows where the little bit larger concern of readability is. And there’s really two factors the two primary factors in erodibility are how hot the fire burned. And then how steep the terrain is where the fire burned. So this map shows if you if you kind of envision the larger area is about the eastern three fourths of it, you’ll see you’ll see a green area right and kind of just left west of the middle of that whole area is the gear Canyon area. From that you know from that marker there going east, that’s gear Canyon, so the bulk of the fire actually burnt in the left hand basically basin although the left hand Creek does come along mud and so it that will impact us eventually as as the ash laden and silt column down from that area, most of that area’s Boulder County open space and US Forest Service property. So the one thing I do have to do a little bit of a shout out to the Boulder County open space, they have done a really good job at working, looking at doing rehab. And they’ve already turned in a project to the Natural Resources Conservation Service through their emergency watershed protection program. And they will be doing a lot of work out there on putting you down aerial mulch and seeding and really doing a lot of the fire recover efforts in that area. The area on the west side of the map, basically from that green spot over that all areas is called the central Gulch area. The fire started, really on the far west side of this burn area, in the COVID Education Center, that’s where they got the name COVID fire, and then burnt burnt to the east. So that whole area on the west side is central goals. That’s all central goals, eventually drains down into the South st brain Creek, and then would that drainage would go on down south st rain through the tunnel I ns over over our diversion structures on the south a rain on into the main stem of the same rain Creek, or the north and south come together lions, and then we’ll come on East. So looking at this erodibility map you can see and primarily because of the steepness of the terrain. Some of the most erodible areas are on central goals were initially and and just for information sake, this is all these road building maps tend to be a little on the high side. Just just the way it works out. We are certainly hoping that especially the north part of Central Gold’s burnt very, the burn was much cooler at be mostly because it was coming down the canyon coming down the walls of the South st Grand Canyon, as the fire goes down, it doesn’t tend to flare up as much. So it didn’t burn quite as bad. In fact, go ahead and go to the next slide.
47:38
This is the bottom and of Central gold. This is about three quarters of a mile up stream of the intersection of St vrain Creek, South Siberian Creek, the fire didn’t quite make it down to this point. And the point of this picture was just to kind of show you, you can kind of see the the damage from the 2013 flood. The bottom of this valley is fairly open and and large, large rock and cobble from the flood. And but but there’s good, there’s good timber on the sides, there is good downfall logs. You go about another quarter of a mile and you hit the fire. And luckily at this part of the fire, you actually if you could have a prescribed burn and have a perfect fire. That’s what we had there and actually burned the understory, but didn’t even get up into the crown of the trees. So you go about another half a mile before you really get into to where the trees were burnt up in the crown. So the good news for us, we were originally very concerned about what was going to happen with central Gulch still concern, we’re still gonna watch it, we’re still going to work with the county in the US Forest Service to try to get some work done in the upper parts of it. But it appears that at least from a woody debris, and hopefully from a sediment load this the effect of the 2013 flood will help keep some of that woody debris or most of it up there. And hopefully a good portion of the granulated debris. So really, we will have ash because it will be suspended in the water and it’ll be coming down. So we’ll have some pretty good ash flows come out of here. But we’ll put in we’ll be working with the county and the US Forest Service to get in some rain gauges to get us some advanced warning and we can shut off water intakes during the worst of the rainstorm events that would bring that down. So that’s pretty much kind of right now where we are with a coward fire bat that says that bird into our baby And that that will have the greatest impact. Luckily, it won’t have an impact all winter because there won’t be major runoff events. It’ll really be next late May, June, July, or early August when the big rains, thunderstorm type events come in, and really flush that Canyon out. So go ahead and go to the next slide. This is the East troublesome fire. It’s probably the most problematic fire we have it burnt, really a good portion of the CBT collection system. And so that’s going to be one of the things that we’ll have to be watching very, very closely. The thing is we’ve already had one good meeting with northern staff on post fire recovery efforts. And again, I’ll add it to Northern, they are taking this seriously. They’ve set up an entire interdisciplinary team is working on fire recovery, they’ve set up some operational planning that that will help. The good thing about this fire is that it has it hasn’t impacted any water quality yet. And all winter long we’ll be bringing over the CVT water so we’ll have the West East slope Carter and worse to completely full of clean water before any of the thunders summer thunderstorms yet of the of the of the fire itself. The big part of the fire really was in the willow creek. Worst part of the fire was in the willow creek basin. But the willow creek basin only makes up 13% of the CBD system. So that’s probably an area where we’ll be able to do some shutting of some of the water to keep it out of the system. 25% of the watershed is the Colorado River area and that’s really west and north of Grand Lake and then East going up into the Rocky Mountain National Park.
52:26
The fire that went up straight north of Grand Lake up into the Konishi Valley part of the park didn’t burn too hot. That’s mostly open metal. And, and I, I really am cautiously optimistic, a lot of that will green up before that some of the big thunderstorms. The more problematic part is Northern Light Creek, which is kind of West or northeast and east of Grand Lake and then troublesome Creek, which is the north part of that burn in Rocky Mountain National Park. Those are pretty big fires, pretty hot fires and those unfortunately, drained directly into grand lakes. So their impacts will will be felt right into Grand Lake and there’s not much we can do about that. Can’t can’t really change that. And so the good part of the Trump part about the troublesome drainage is that about half of that burned in around 2012 in that last drought, so the upper part of that had already burned and so it would it would not have burned very hot in this fire and should green up and and really not create too big of a problem. And another good part of it’s an area called big metal, which again, that will not burn but that will green up quickly to still a lot of area up there. But it’s the Northern Light Creek that’ll probably be the biggest impact. So that will really impact us a year from now, as as that impacts that westslope water. And a year from now, when we bring in over that water, we might we might have some concerns. It did it did jump the Continental Divide and burn down into the marine park area. But in talking with northern water staff, they’re fairly confident that that won’t impact the CVT system too bad part of that had already burned in the cub Creek Fire marine park fire about eight or nine years ago. And part of it didn’t burn too hot because it was fairly high elevation. The higher your elevation, the less heat you get on your fire generally. So while that did burn, a good area northern feels less concerned about that and I’ll go ahead and the next slide. This is just a blow up of that marine park area and the troublesome Gulch area. So that’s really the kind of the biggest part. A lot of people working on that at Northern water and a lot of people working on it with the Bureau of Reclamation, grand County, it’s amazing that people have come together to start helping out already on the west slope. So we’ll, we’ll keep you updated on that. And that’s more of a long term issue for us. Next slide, please. Yeah, I think that was it. So we are keeping an eye on these fires, we’ll keep an eye on them. It’s it was a little scary when you think the cow would Firebird to within a mile and a half of the North St. Green basin on the south side had it gone. Less than less than one quarter mile more when I hit the side of the South savoring Canyon going up north and it would climb right up that Canyon and then in the north pretty quick. So that’s how close it was to our north drainage on the south. East troublesome fire once it burned over in the Marine Park area, it actually burned to within three miles of sts cone. And the estus cone is kind of the north side drains into the big tops and the South Side drains in to the north st drain. So we were within a mile and a half of total coward fire three miles to the east troublesome fire. And then the coward fire when it made us run down south into the Big Thompson was only 10 miles away from us. So we really had all three of those big fires, literally within miles of the North st rain basin. So we’re very fortunate it did not burn into this North same rain at all. And so for a long month, the best best news is we should have good clean water supply from the north base and even if some of these other basins are impacted a little bit. So that’s really all I have right now on the fires but wanted to give you a quick update on them and let you know we will continue to track them and continue to give you input on that.
57:12
Thanks, Ken. Does the board have any questions or comments for Westar can on the reports Roger I see your hand up?
57:19
Yeah, I
57:22
can I don’t want to belabor too long but two things are on my mind. I didn’t hear the causes of the starts of these fires were they natural or were they manmade? Or do you know off the top of your head?
57:35
They if they know they haven’t said yet they have not on any all three of the fires they haven’t called posted a reason I it’s possible that they’re investigating or it’s possible. They got so big they couldn’t figure it out. But it hasn’t been a cause that I’m aware of yet on any of them.
58:00
One other question then, how much was the the burn was helped I guess by the amount of dry timber up there like pine beetle kill was that a big factor though? I know on Grand Lake there seem to be a lot of that available to burn but I don’t know. You know, I
58:22
the the dry timber made it easy for it to burn. But quite honestly, the drought this summer, how dried it was the low, extremely low soil moisture and extremely low humidity creating extremely dry timber, even even the live timber. extremely dry. And then unfortunately, pretty thick timber everywhere and the winds. It was really the wind. Some really terrible wind conditions. Every time they came close to getting it corralled, the wind took it off and made a run. And so, you know, we had similar big fires in 2012. The last drought, bigger drought, as well as 2002. If you go back to, you know, the well, it’s usually during these drought periods that we have the big fires.
59:31
Okay, thanks, Kim.
59:36
Any other Ellison, you have a question or comment? Yes, thank
59:39
you. I had two questions. One is involving snowpack and soil moisture. Is the snowpack to some degree going to replenish the soil moisture such that we’re going to realize even less down here.
59:57
Yeah, in fact, I would, I would say with soil moisture conditions we’re looking at right now. They’re they’re extremely, were extremely dry before it started to snow. It would even if we had 100% snowpack, we’d be lucky to have a 75% runoff. A lot less elaborate, but it will impact it.
1:00:26
Yeah, I think and that’s where sometimes these early snows help a little bit in that they come out slower if we have just those late spring snows, they’re just it’s melting so fast that the ground can only absorb so much. And so it’s going to be a combination of things, we can hit it on the head, that’s it’s going to take an above average snowpack to be able to realize an average runoff, I think.
1:00:57
Thank you. And second question was kind of circling back to your presentation was, I was wondering, this is kind of a elementary question. But what actually happens to the water post treatment plant?
1:01:10
Say that, again, I’m sorry,
1:01:12
what happens to the effluence once it’s fully treated.
1:01:17
So what we do is, there’s really two types of water that the water treatment takes either fully consumable or single use for the single use water that goes into the plants that is just returned down to St. Rain Creek at the wastewater treatment plant, and it’d be available for the next users in priority for the fully consumable effluent that goes through the water treatment plant. We lease that either through long term or short, short term leases. And so there’s approximately a dozen entities that we have lease arrangements with. And so we use nearly 100% of the wastewater treatment effluent. And we find that, in most cases, that’s insufficient to satisfy the full lease requirements, thus, why we’ve been making releases out of union reservoir to make up the difference. So in the wintertime, we usually have closer to 90 to 100% of the effluent that’s available to us is fully consumable. And that’s because we’re taking water out of storage out of button rock, that would have already been fully consumable water that was stored. And so we’re able to make more complete use of the water in in the wintertime. But nonetheless, that total amount that’s being released from the wastewater treatment plant effluent, is normally again, not sufficient to meet our full lease obligations. And so there’s always some that we’re either releasing as industry and credits through st. reign creek or out of union to fully satisfy those obligations.
1:03:16
Thank you. And one follow up question, what kind of percentages does it shake out in terms of like consumable versus single use and the irrigation season?
1:03:26
So, um, it varies by month. But if we were to look at the irrigation season, I would say during the irrigation season, we’re probably a third or a half that would be available as reusable effluent, it really again, it really depends on the call in the river and what water rights we have available to us. It also depends upon what the water treatment plant is using, we we CVT being single use, but windy, windy gap being fully consumable. And so we’re, we usually try to manage those trans basin supplies that we take into the water treatment plant, the CBT and the windy gap. We like to run windy gaps when we have a higher return flow credit factor. So oftentimes we’ll run that windy gap earlier in the season to get more full and complete use. We do have the ability though, if there ever becomes a time when the wastewater treatment plant effluent is above and beyond what our needs are. We can put that excess into union reservoir, we can pump that into union and sometimes we have done that.
1:04:42
Thank you.
1:04:45
there any other questions or comments for Connor was I do have one can you had mentioned that under the Cal wood fire? You guys are looking to put maybe rain monitors up To look and see if there’s ash flows coming down, I assume then you, you know, turn off the diversion from the south St. Brain. I know Fort Collins has done something similar where they look at turbidity or that in the puter river, I guess, is the attempt that you’d have more you can be monitoring the rain gauges and then looking in the river? Or is there a lead to put some sort of gauge, you know, in the river to kind of monitor to better it and then turn off your diversions based upon you know, if it gets too high, and may cause more of an issue to the treatment plant. Just kind of curious how you’re going to handle that going into this year?
1:05:38
Yes, that’s, that’s correct, Todd, we, we really want the rain gauges to give us the maximum for warning. But really all that does is say, hey, it rained up here. And then we would have to use both visual and turbidity monitoring to determine when we had shut off, you know, if it gets to be a very significant rainstorm event, it will just automatically shut it off, because we know what it’s going to do. But if it’s a quarter inch or a half inch, then then we’d probably do it with turbidity monitoring. But our power plants will they do real time turbidity monitoring of all their sources.
1:06:29
Okay, thanks, Ken. Any other questions, comments? Scott.
1:06:38
Thank you. Just a quick one. And I don’t know if anybody has a definitive answer. But I think at a recent meeting where Brad wind was speaking, he mentioned that the northern board may not issue their quota for the 2021 season at its April meeting, which is when we’ve historically seen that information that might be postponed into later in the summer, maybe May or June, and I didn’t know if that affects our ability to to project our water supply, water demand considerations or if that’s going to inconvenience us a fair amount?
1:07:16
Yeah, I haven’t. I haven’t heard definitively that they were going to postpone it. I did hear they were considering. Or they just didn’t mention they said we’re not sure when we’ll we’ll do that. I’d be surprised if they went clear into June because that really has more of an impact, big impact on the irrigation companies. They need to know how much water they’re going to have. But yeah, for us, it would it would be less than convenient if it were too late.
1:07:48
But And I might add that or will you really use that information is when we put together our in all the next year’s water supply and drought management plan. What it would probably require us to then make some assumptions instead of the facts. One of the tools that one of the primary reasons they’ve always tried to get it out when they normally do is so that people can make some decisions in regards to taking any the carry over water. I think Longmont as we as water resources, staff is have already kind of come to a conclusion that we’re going to take our full entitlement of our carryover. So with that in mind, it’s not going to be probably as much so that we have to wait for the final determination. And our decision to take that carryover. You know, there’s a lot of factors that’s going to go into that some of that being the uncertainty of the water quality that we may or may not experience here in the native bass and water rights and to some of what I talked about some of the storage that we have, where we’ve always tried to have a play it on the safe side, if you will, and to be be as much certain as possible that we have enough water. And so I think with those things in mind, it would be a it would be more helpful if they could get it out. But if they were to wait a month or so, I think Longmont would still be able to come up with a reasonable assumption and a and still be able to put its water supply drought management plan together at about the same time that we normally would have otherwise.
1:09:38
I guess one comment, there has not been any definitive discussion or direction on that other than Brad’s saying it may need to be considered from the board level just so everybody’s aware of that. So I think that’ll be a discussion as we get further into the spring. Just so there hasn’t been anything definitively decided there. Any other questions, comments from the board? I don’t see any. Okay. With that, we’ll go on to item nine B, which is a windy gap firming project update, Ken.
1:10:18
Thank you, Chairman. Just a real quick update today on windy gap. Hopefully everybody received their email the good news that the federal lawsuit was finally got it got a an order out and was great news, we won every single point in the in the case, and the judge upheld the issuance of the permit by the federal agencies, that really, really helps the project start to feel like it can move forward. Obviously, there’s a potential for an appeal that that is not all that uncommon. In a federal lawsuit like this. plaintiffs have, I believe, 60 days from the time that the order was out, so that that time will run won’t run out till February, about February 10. But so will we a little bit of a waiting pattern here still yet. That being said, it did one of the things the project needs to move forward with is relocation of the wapa power lines by the western area Power Administration, and they can actually, they are actually going to start working on that they were waiting for a ruling. And they don’t appear to be, you know, needing to wait to see if it’s appealed or not, they’re they’re going to start working on that project. Hopefully right away. Of course, it is the middle of winter. So we’ll see we’ll see how that works. But that does allow that to start moving forward. So as a result, the project is actually calling for a special participants meeting this Wednesday, to talk with all of the participants and let everyone weigh in on their their opinion of if anything was forward, or if if we wait until the end of the appeal period. And really where we go with the project right now. Still, I mean, we’re not the project isn’t ready to kick off anyway, because still need to get all the funding in place before it can kick off. But the timing of that funding, the timing, and sales of bonds and things like that will really, really try to work that out in the next month or two. As far as the project itself. The Colorado River conductivity channel design is now at a 40% design state. So that’s good, getting getting that project moving forward. The firming project itself, they’ve done an inspection on the Bald Mountain tunnel and the potential here connect to the reservoir from the CVT system. And that all looked good. So that that news is good. For Valley RTA, we’ll start putting in Project power lines. They actually should have started by now. And then the draft air air quality permit from the state of Colorado should be coming to us within a few weeks. So that was one of the last permits that needed. It’s not that it won’t happen is just what it says that that should be coming fairly quickly. So just a little bit more of a wait, I guess on appeal period, but I think the project had a great milestone and should be starting to move forward. So I’m happy to answer any questions on that if there were any.
1:14:20
Thanks, Ken. Any questions for Ken on when you get up update? I’m not seeing any. With that. We’ll move on to item nine see the monthly legislative report. Can I have you down again?
1:14:37
Yeah, and honestly, I don’t have a report this month yet. Obviously this legislative session will start till next month. And I don’t have the information from the interim legislative committee yet. I apologize for not being able to get that to you yet today. But we’ll we’ll cover all that next month at the January meeting.
1:15:01
That sounds good yet it’s on the items for tentatively scheduled future board board meeting so we can revisit that in January. So with that, we’ll move on to item nine D, the water resource engineering project update. Looks like we have an elf here named Jason that can fill us in. Go ahead.
1:15:19
Hey, Merry Christmas, everyone.
1:15:20
Yeah, so I’m Jason Elkins, water resource engineer and
1:15:24
project engineer for all our capital projects.
1:15:27
I got three big projects I want to update you on. But real quick, I just wanted to add to kind of, you had asked about the turbidity testing, we’ve actually started taking some turbidity, some water quality samples, and doing some analysis to try to figure out what the baseline turbidity and total suspended solids is in the south St. vrain. c, Dodds got a project that’s coming up this summer. And they think that, you know, they might impact that. And with the cow woodfire, we just thought we take it upon ourselves, let’s just go ahead and just start doing some water quality analysis.
1:16:03
So our water quality lab and our
1:16:06
Nelson planter water treatment, plant
1:16:08
operators are doing water quality analysis on that so we can get, we can get a good baseline prior to spring runoff and in all the debris coming down
1:16:19
our way.
1:16:22
Let’s talk about
1:16:23
button rock repairs. So as you might recall, we sprung a leak over the summer of a button rock and we currently have the emergency gate closed. And we have the regulating gate completely torn apart.
1:16:41
We’re currently actively
1:16:46
trying to get these repairs done so that we can put this all back together and have it up and operating come in the middle of February.
1:16:54
There’s
1:16:55
quite a quite a bit of repairs, it’s pretty extensive. But it’s fully achievable with we’re totally confident that we can do it. You know, there’s just a couple things that add some time to it. lead based paint, you know, so it’s like we got to properly dispose of that, that takes time. But I think we’re gonna have button rock put back together and back into service. The second week of February. That’s what we’re tentatively scheduled scheduled for
1:17:27
the South St. vrain. pipeline pump
1:17:28
station. So I’m actually meeting with the town of lions tonight to try to secure our permanent easement to install the pump station, just south of the lions fire protection district if you’re familiar with the town of lions, right, right, just south of the fire protection district is a vacant lot where our south St. vrain pipeline runs through. So working with them to get an easement big enough for us to install that. And I fully anticipate that they’re going to approve it tonight. The design for that
1:18:11
we’re currently getting ready to
1:18:13
advertise an RFP, request for proposal for a pump station manufacturer. So we’re looking to we already have burns and McDonnell on board as our engineer consultants, but we’re going to have
1:18:28
a prefabricated manufacturer
1:18:32
come on board to start, you know, start the design and the design in the fabrication of that to have that delivered come June. So anyway, that’s should be going out to bid by the end of this week. And hopefully by the end of January, we’ll know
1:18:50
who’s going to be making the
1:18:53
pump station. As for the South St.
1:18:56
vrain pipeline
1:18:57
rehab project.
1:19:01
Unfortunately, that’s
1:19:01
hit
1:19:02
a bit of a delay.
1:19:04
I don’t know
1:19:05
if you guys recall a couple weeks ago that there was a couple up in Gilpin county that had died from carbon monoxide poisoning was I don’t know the details, but it sounds like it was some sort of accident or something. So anyway, one of those two people was the project manager at CNL water solutions, who is in charge of our project and so she passed away. She was what she I mean, she’s one of their founding project managers. So it’s been pretty hard for CNL. I told them take as much time as they need I get it you lost a family member just as much as you did. A co worker so I’m anticipating that’s going to put about a one month delay on that
1:19:55
but with the pump station
1:19:57
project starting construction in June It’s really inconsequential. It would be nice to get the South Korean pipeline up and running prior to the pump station. So
1:20:07
we can, you know,
1:20:09
put it back into service and at least you know, do some testing, some flow testing and stuff on that. But if we don’t make that, it just, it’s just going to end up delaying it, you know, months,
1:20:19
a few months. So
1:20:20
it’s,
1:20:21
it’s unfortunate and it’s sad. But it’s, you know, we’ll we’ll work through it and we’ll make up the last time and we’ll get the South st ring. Fully plan on having that thing back up and running 100% by the end of next year.
1:20:38
Any questions?
1:20:42
Any questions for Jason? I am not seeing any. Great thank you for the report Jason. Okay, we’re on the nine E which is a water conservation sustainability update is francy other.
1:21:06
hope everyone’s doing well. Today, I’m gonna have an update on four different water conservation items. From this past fall. on the board may remember that this past summer, you all provided feedback on the Climate Action Task Force, water conservation recommendation. city staff reviewed board feedback combined with a analysis process to provide a implementation timeline and modifications on all Climate Action Task Force recommendations. They were passed earlier in December. So the water conservation recommendation, which originally had the goal of 35 to 40% reduction by 2025. Staff modified that goal to instead similar to what waterboard recommended. Continue with current water conservation and drought management plans until the net the 2024 Water Efficiency master plan update, where a more extensive analysis of a more of the benefits of a more more ambitious water conservation goals should be analyzed and returned to city council at that time. So that effort essentially has been put on kind of well now put on hold because we’ll still continue water conservation and drought management efforts. But this analysis were more ambitious water conservation goal probably won’t begin until sometime in 2023. Another update is that this past September staff from a number of different divisions cluding planning parks Water Resources attended the water smart growing water. Sorry, growing water smart workshop from this Sonoran Institute. From that we created an action plan focused on how to better integrate water efficiency and land use planning to meet the goals of our water efficiency master plan and and envision Longmont so that one year act, it’s a one year action plan. staff is currently in the process of presenting it to different leadership among the city. But the primary goal was to figure out how the city staff can further integrate water efficiency into the development process. So staff will be meeting monthly to kind of update and make sure that water conservation is continue to be integrated into other parts of the city, more so than it has in the past. I do want to highlight that we did find we’re going to that workshop. Longmont actually is a little bit ahead of other communities and kind of connecting planning and water resources primarily because our water utility and planning are within the city. But we did identify areas that we can continue to improve. The another opportunity that we actually just applied to is the water now accelerator. It’s a project accelerator we just applied earlier this month. And we applied to get some best practices research support, because we will a lot of our EMR data will be coming in, hopefully by the end of the first quarter next year, because we’ll have a lot of the the system set up to receive that data. So we wanted to have some best practice research from experts in the water conservation field of how to best use that data. So we will hopefully find out I think next month whether we received that project stellarator support so update the board if that is the case. And then lastly, we partner with resource central every year for a number of water conservation programs. And next year we will be the first community to launch a income qualified garden in a box program. So if you’re familiar with garden, a box cities you Usually partner to provide a $25 discount. We had been hearing that for not that’s not accessible for all of our residents. So those who are participate in long like cares, which is a income qualify program can now also participate in a 30% discount on a garden a box. And we’re hoping that will help reach more members of our community with those waterways gardens. So those are four very different updates on things happening with water conservation. But are there any questions?
1:25:35
Thanks for answering any questions that the board has on the updates to the conservation plans. For Anthea, I, I do have one that I think it’d be the growing watersmart I don’t know if at some point in the future, if it makes sense to make a another kind of specific presentation on that I’d be kind of interested in seeing how you’re integrating kind of water resource water conservation with future development. And part of that may be as we look to the future water demands and the build out for the city of Longmont, you know, maybe we can get some more indication as to, you know, what is that appropriate or achievable level of conservation so that we can, you know, kind of look at water supply and demand and kind of get a better idea of, you know, where are we with in terms of meeting that future demand? Anyway, I know, Northern was kind of help facilitating some of those presentations. I think that’s a great program and glad to see that long lat participated. But is that something you could report back to us on at a future meeting?
1:26:46
Yes, that is something we could report back. I also, it also sounds like a lot of I just want to make sure I heard your requests correctly, besides understanding maybe the different components of the action plan, and how we’re trying to better a lot of the efforts, we found, we’re on how we better educate developers, but also kind of bring back how we’re meeting water demand and water supply, which I assume would be more of a conversation presented by Ken
1:27:22
Franti, I guess what I’m curious of is, you know, one of the things as I understand it would be, there may be ways to, you know, do you know, less bluegrass more Zurich, you know, really reduce those future landscape demands in certain areas that would have a corresponding reduction in future water demands. So and I don’t know, if you guys got into that, or how that kind of the, you know, with the cost of water, what I’m seeing is a lot of developers are trying to figure out ways they can reduce their cost of development. And one way to do that is to do more, kind of low water use plants or landscaping. And I don’t know, that’s kind of what I was curious, I don’t know if that’s being integrated into the planning documents. And then that would have a corresponding impact on, you know, the future water demand. So it may be one that may take a little bit of time before that all kind of flushes out of how it would be integrated into the future kind of planning documents. And then what those changes would mean in terms of future reductions in water demand, if that makes sense that that’s kind of what I’m kind of curious of going forward.
1:28:34
I have Yes, that does help clarify, I in the time we had, we didn’t get into that level of detail. I think a lot of the initial conversations were around engagement. That being said, I think that’s where we’ll start to move towards. So as you mentioned, it might be a little bit longer for us to return with that presentation. But I think we’ll start to move in that direction. And I also know, we don’t have a set timeline yet, but hopefully in the next, probably starting next fall, but maybe a little and then over the next two years, the sustainability plan vision, Longmont will begin their update. So we’ll also be looking into how we can set up this growing water smart effort to kind of maybe more strongly integrate into those plans. So I think later in the year, we should have some more information that we can return and present to the board.
1:29:35
That sounds great. No rush. I just think it’d be something that would be important for us to pay attention to and like you say then we could maybe integrated into the sustainability goals that the city has, you know, long term, just make sure we’re tracking with the water supply planning. So thank you for that. Appreciate it. Any other questions? Comments for France ear Scott,
1:29:57
you have one Sorry, I missed It’s not for fancy, I apologize for any inconvenience, but I had a four to 30 appointment schedule upon me. So I’m going to have to excuse myself and check back with you all next month.
1:30:11
Sounds good. Well, Merry Christmas.
1:30:13
Merry Christmas, everybody. Happy Holidays. Thank you
1:30:17
don’t see.
1:30:19
Okay with that. We’re through the items from staff. We’re on to the items from board. Item 10. A is a review of major project listings and items tentatively scheduled for future board meetings. The only one I really saw in there for January is once again to discuss the water legislation in more detail. Is there anything else can that you see coming up that we need to be thinking about?
1:30:46
Nothing that we really haven’t already been discussing.
1:30:50
Okay. All right. With that we’re on to informational items and waterboard correspondence. Is there anything that the board wants to bring up at this point for the consideration or discussion? And I’m not seeing anything. So with that, we’re on to items tentatively scheduled for future board meetings. Once again, the legislative update, and then in March, we’ll revisit the cash in lieu. And I think that that is it. Is there anything anybody else wants to add for the last board meeting of the year here? I don’t see anything. So with that, I just, I’ll go ahead and adjourn the meeting and wish everybody a Merry Christmas and look forward to 2021. Hopefully we can see everybody in person and get back to more of a normal meeting. Yeah, it’d be good to meet Allison and other board members in person beyonds. So I look forward to that.
1:31:52
Just one item of note our next meeting will be January the 25th. So we’re gonna delay it one week due to the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in January. So we’ll see you on January 25, y’all
1:32:06
Happy Holidays
1:32:09
everybody.
1:32:11
Thank you.