Video Description:
Water Board Meeting – January 24, 2022
Note: The following is the output of transcribing from a video recording. Although the transcription, which was done with software, is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or [software] transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the meeting, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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Unknown Speaker 0:00
order to Tammy, can you go ahead and start with the Roll call, please?
Unknown Speaker 0:05
You betcha. So as I call your name if you could just say here present or something that’d be great. Ken Houston. Here, Thanks, Ken. What’s Lowry? Here? Kevin Bowden. Jason Elkins. Here. Nelson Tipton. Francy. Jackie. Francy Can you hear us?
Unknown Speaker 0:41
I had my mute on in the wrong spot, which I always fiddle with it. Here. I’m here. It’s hard being bad. Thank you. David Bell. Here. Todd Williams. Here. Scott hallway. You’re Tom Nestor. There. Allison goal. Here. Roger lane. Here. Marcia Martin. Here. Chair. I believe we have a quorum.
Unknown Speaker 1:11
Thank you, Tammy. The next item is approval of the previous month’s minutes for November 15 2021. There any comments questions on those meeting minutes? If not, we need a motion for approval. And move to approve. Mr. Chair. There’s a motion is there a second? Allison is the second. Any other further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay, looks like that. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. So the next item item four is the water status report. Wes, are you handling that? Nelson will do that for us? Okay, I’m sorry, Nelson. Go ahead. Yeah, sure. Good afternoon, everyone. So today, the Florida State brain Creek get the lion’s gauges 17. CFS the 124 year average is 15 CFS for this date. The call on the st. Bryan Creek is currently Highland number two reservoir admin number is 11,006 42 with a priority priority date of November 15 1881. Call the main stem of the South Platte River is Riverside reservoir admin number 21,006 98 with a priority date of May 29 1909. There’s no call below Riverside reservoir Hecate. So st brain basin storage beginning of the month is at approximately 67% of average. Rife Relph price reservoir but rock reserve is at 6,376.3 feet which is equipped to 11,450 acre feet. It’s down about 4700 acre feet from full and we are currently releasing 25 CFS. So union reservoir is down approximately 1000 acre feet and release in about seven CFS and it’s if you guys have anybody’s been out there seen it it’s it’s frozen over completely. So So that’s about it. I think most everybody saw that us. We had some snow events the on the the end of December 1 week of January which raised the snowpack for both the South Platte River Basin in the Colorado River Basin, which was good news for us. West. We’ll go ahead and he’ll go in detail that on another item it’s going to be wrote it down. It’ll be on nine D on our water supply update. That’s all I have. Is there any questions? Any questions for Nelson? Excellent. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Nelson. All right. I’m on Item five, which is public invited be heard and special presentations. Tammy? Do we have either of those? No, nothing today. Okay. All right. Um, keep moving. Item six. Can Are there any agenda revisions or submission of documents?
Unknown Speaker 4:36
We have none. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 4:40
Item Seven is development activity. Wes, there’s no development activity. Is that correct? That is correct. All right. Moving right along. Item eight, eight as a designation of posting place for board meeting notices. Wes, do you want to go over that real quick? Yes. So as the border recall, last year, the city attorney’s office recommended that waterboard designate the primary location of its official designated posting place on the city’s website. We’re recommending that again this year, and then also in accordance with kind of the Colorado Sunshine Law. And as a backup location in case an emergency like a power outage, recommending that waterboard designate the lobby area outside the service center as the location for posting the physical agenda. So it’ll be so everything would be exactly the same as last year. And that’s the recommendation. there any questions for Wes on on the designation of the posting place for the board meeting notices? not hearing any tonight, I’ve got the agenda up on my screen. I cannot see everybody. So feel free to chime in. If you do have a comment. If there are no comments, we need a motion to approve the recommended meeting notice locations on the city’s website as a primary and the bulletin board in the service centers a secondary location. So move Chairman. Okay. We have a motion by Allison, is there a second? A second, second by Tom. Any further discussion? Can see everybody now and I don’t see any further discussion. So all those in favor of the motion? please say aye. Aye. Aye. Go ahead and raise your hand if you can. Good. That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Item eight B is the union reservoir land acquisition program the killer her parcel Kim.
Unknown Speaker 7:03
Thank you, Mr. Chair. wanted to bring up the map on page 15 of your packet. It’s kind of easiest to see at this point where or the parcel is and how it fits in. Um, just a little bit of history about the union reservoir land acquisition program, um, city council initially directed staff to initiate a land acquisition program around union reservoir in the mid 1990s. So we’ve been working on this about 25 years now as you can see from this map, we’ve obtained a significant amount of the property around the reservoir. There’s there’s really multiple reasons this land acquisition has moved forward over the years. The first and obvious reason is to protect the area around the reservoir from development to ensure that in the future, when Loma wants to enlarge the reservoir that we’re we’re we don’t have large development around the reservoir that we have to address. It has been very successful at doing doing that very thing. The second thing we want wanted to do was you know, a lot of the reservoirs on the on the plains, the front range here, obviously, neatest place to live is right around on the shore of a reservoir. So, they tend to get fairly high development activities. And as a result, high nutrient loads from pollution loads from stormwater runoff, from developed areas into the into the reservoirs, which exacerbate water quality issues. As a result, or secondary goal here is to just simply protect the shoreline around the reservoir from immediate impacts from development. This program does both of those. They’re third thing we really wanted to do is to be able to buttress and expand upon a recreational activities out in the Union Reservoir area. And you need to kind of develop the area to do that, and I’ll talk about that one second. And then finally, the north side of the reservoir is operated a little bit. While we do allow boating on the surfaces of reservoir. There’s a lot of unique wildlife area up there as well. And so a lot of reasons that we’ve we’ve done the land acquisition program. Currently the city is city council, in fact, a few years ago, directed staff to proceed with a perimeter trail around the reservoir that’s been in the works really for about planned for about 20 years. It was even initially started
Unknown Speaker 10:34
scoping it out. And then it was kind of put on hold about four or five years ago, to give staff time to, to meet with some of the residents around the reservoir and try to address some concerns there. And more recently, it’s been determined, staffs had direction to continue to do that development. One of the things on the west side of County Line Road one spring Gulch number two trail system has been constructed, and actually goes down to the entrance area of union reservoir. And if you look on the map here on parcel l, on the southwest side of the reservoir, the trail goes right through the middle of parcel L. And so the there’s a short, just a short, spur off that trail and near to the, to the west shoreline union reservoir. And so the first phase of the Union reservoir trail will be from parcel L, up to parcel D, and then across the road to tie in Jim Pam pond with the spring Gulch number two trail and create that Western link on the west side. Again, if you look at this map, there’s only two parcels we do not own. That’s parcel E, Kalar, parcel, parcel J, which is owned by the Willis family. We do however, as part of a outside water tap, that was approved a number of years ago by waterboarding Council, we did obtain as part of that outside water tap, granting that outside water tap and easement across that property for the trail. So really, the last parcel of property that we need to get across is partially so acquisition of personally will not only further the union reservoir enlargement and the union protecting the shoreline of union reservoir, it’ll also create that last link for that eastern perimeter trail. Eventually, councils ask us to, you know, get a trail around the entirety of the reservoir. If you can, if you can think of the trail around Lake McIntosh. The citizens love it. I mean, that’s, that’s one of the jewels of the places between the three or four places really around town that, that the citizens really like those perimeter trails are one of them. So we will, that’s an added benefit for this parcel. The current owner, Mr. Keller, har, unfortunately, passed away, I believe, last summer sometime. And so the estate is putting the property on the market. We feel it would go quite quickly. It’s very desirable parcel, very nice, large house on it with direct frontage all the way down to the edge of the not the reservoir, but the union reservoir company property. But you know, fairly close to the shoreline. So very desirable parcel. Our our hope would be to select the executor for the estate, first approached the city and asked us Hey, do you have an interest in buying this before I put it on the market? And we said yes, it fits right in with the all the other parcels that we’ve purchased around the reservoir. So we’re at this point, staff is recommending that we proceed with an acquisition acquisition will be around $1.5 million, but the bulk of the value of the property is the actual house. And we would hope to do similar to what we have if you look right below it on parcel F, G, and H. We don’t own those houses. We just own the undeveloped property isa from eat just east of the houses down to the Union reservoir company property line. So that’s what we would probably eventually do with this particular property is split that sub divide that into two parcels. And then we could then dispose of sell or have another action, opportunity for managing the house and the remaining property. We, we have completed the Phase One environmental audit, we’ve completed the ultra survey, we have the appraisal, hopefully due about the end of this month. So most of the diligence work is done the
Unknown Speaker 15:34
VAR phase one environmental audit came back clean as their the Alta. So we’re pretty comfortable with the parcel property that we have. And so at this point, staff is recommending record that the waterboard forward a recommendation to City Council to approve the sales contract. Functionally, how we do it is the city and the state will enter into that sales contract, then that sales contract will go to city council. If they approve it, the sales contact contract becomes effective. And then we would then close a few weeks after the council meeting, currently hoping to close about the end of February on this personal property. So be happy to answer any questions more broadly about the union reservoir enlargement program, or specifically about this particular parcel of property.
Unknown Speaker 16:35
Thanks, Ken. Are there any questions on the proposed acquisition? Once again, I There we go. I consider buddy. Roger, we’ll start with you and then go to Scott. Okay. Can with purchase of this parcel? What other areas will prevent us from doing a path is like parcel J? Is that is that going to be obstructing any crazy math around?
Unknown Speaker 17:05
Let us bring the map back up again. And I can kinda kind of go around the properties
Unknown Speaker 17:18
so parcel parcel J is the one owned by the Willis family, which we have a an easement across, so we won’t be prevented. The easement is right along the shoreline. So currently, we would have to construct a trail, we’d probably do it like a crusher fine, like on the west half of Lake Mackintosh. It would be fairly close to the shoreline, it may or you know, may or may not be where the final trail alignment, we don’t have a final trail alignment yet that that planning process will occur this spring and in summer so that that process is just starting as you go around the reservoir. There there really aren’t any other areas that you we couldn’t fit a trail in. We don’t own parcel A, the dashed parcels parcel A, or you are t if we wanted to, if the trail happened to fall on the north side of Weld County Road 28 I don’t think it will. But you know, I don’t want to presume where it’s going to be till the planning. More than likely it’ll be on the south side of road 28 there or maybe the shoulder who knows, you know, all those options will be looked at, but pretty much all the way around the reservoir. We there on the property or we can fit the trail on the union reservoir company property. One interesting part is that personal D The plan is to take the trail up to Weld County Road one. My thought is will probably jump across Weld County Road one to Jim Hamm Pon go north to 28 and then come back across the road at 28. We may not want to road crossings on that trail. There really isn’t a good way to go across parcel C, which is between B and D. Because of a very large wetland area that is probably one of the more critical wildlife areas out there. So if we don’t cross county line road one, I could see us probably going on that East side of one just basically paralleling kind of road one up to county road 28 And then back east that might require depending on How you the trail alignment will go, you might want to try to get slight small amount of additional right away, because it’s pretty tight on County Line Road one, you don’t want your trail too close to the road. That’s the only place I could see. But but the short answer is, if we get partially there is a way to design the trail, even if parts of it are temporary trail all the way around the reservoir and get that normally.
Unknown Speaker 20:27
Okay, thanks, Ken. Scott, thanks, Mr. Chair, I’m a new guy question can I can appreciate with the nexus to the Union enlargement project, where the water board would be weighing in but this is more of a Parks and Recreation element to me and I was just curious why why it’s before us specifically. Um
Unknown Speaker 20:56
yeah, that’s that’s the the property will actually be I mean, it’s going to be owned by the city along on all all the properties owned by the city, I you know, I get that. But the actual fund, though, will manage the property will be the water department, it will also be the funding will come from the water department. So because it’s for the enlargement of the reservoir. You know, I bring in the trail because this particular acquisition fits so well with a trail and also fits with the city’s overall kind of open space buffering the site Longmont, but the primary purpose of that acquisition is for the enlargement of union reservoir, it’ll be paid for by and whenever you want, whichever fund kind of pays for property that’s
Unknown Speaker 21:54
recording in progress settlements that were filed with the court. But those are other questions. Yeah. No, I generally supported I just didn’t understand the the funding elements that makes a lot more sense. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions? I do have a couple, or else around you. And Marcia go, and then I’ll I can go last? Go ahead, Allison. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I apologize. I don’t have a question on this specific matter. However, as I advised staff earlier, I have a previous commitment that I need to step away for. So I apologize, I’m gonna have to go. Um, so thank you all. Hope you have a great rest of your
Unknown Speaker 22:33
meeting. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 22:36
Go ahead, Marsha. Yeah, can can do you know, where the houses I’m thinking in terms of? Is it going to be easy or hard to subdivide the property and sell the house?
Unknown Speaker 22:51
It will the houses about 1/3 the way down the property from County Line Road one, it will be real easy to subdivide it almost. Well, we’ll go identically north of the other three parcels that are on the south side of it. So that part, that part will be really easy. That won’t be a problem at all.
Unknown Speaker 23:17
Thank you very much.
Unknown Speaker 23:19
Ken, I’ve got a related question to that. If I read the write up in the will the agreement purchase draft purchase agreement, it’s going to be subject to a lease. There’s sound like that house was going to be potentially leased back to someone in that family. And I guess where’s that, because that may impact the value may just wanna make sure it also fits within what you’re describing is, in terms of the long term use, it seems like that needed to be played out at the same time the contract is
Unknown Speaker 23:51
Yes, very good point, actually, as we will enter into so part of the negotiations for the acquisition of the property, the owner’s son was, was living in the house and continues to live in the house today. So part of the negotiation was to allow him to kind of have time to sort out his finances and acquire another parcel of property. Plus, we don’t want to buy it and then immediately have an empty house. So part of the negotiations is he’ll have for three year lease, and that lease will actually be entered in to coterminous Lee with this agreement, and the lease has already been negotiated. And so it’s ready to sign as soon as we sign the contract. It takes three, three about three years for us to run a subdivision process through the normal city subdivision process, and then get something, you know, a management decision made on what to do with the house. And then if we want to sell it, it would take some time to sell it. So we fail, actually, that doesn’t hurt at all, it keeps the house properly managed and attended in it. While we’re working through the legal parts of getting a subdivision done,
Unknown Speaker 25:25
okay, thank you that helps fill the gap that I had. If you go back to the map, can that the one I guess question going through my mind, there’s a few private entities and then is the green, or the blue, I’m sorry, kind of blue line, and then it’s gonna black dashed line on the south side of the property is that what the potential high water mark of the Union reservoir expansion would be in my scene that right?
Unknown Speaker 25:55
Yes, the, the black dashed line on the southwest side of the reservoir. And then the east side of the reservoir is the dam embankment for the highest res option. Or finally is 21 foot or when we look did the engineering 19 foot is physically kind of the best you could do out there. So that’s a 19 foot raise, and then the red dashed line is just where the 19 foot raise shoreline would be. And then the blue line, as part of the negotiations with the reservoir company going clear back into the 1980s, we’re putting we’re putting a reservoir on top of their reservoir and their property. So we have to dedicate this property, the enlarged reservoir property to the company, as well as replicate. Currently, they have, on average of 50 foot buffer high above the high water line to where their property line is. So we have to replicate that to the reservoir company. So on the north side of the reservoir, the blue line is simply where we would dedicate the extent of the dedication of the property to the reservoir company.
Unknown Speaker 27:19
Okay. The the one thing that’s kind of standing out to me is the far north end, it looks like there’s a bunch of parcels that potentially would be impacted. Is that right? And are those also areas that the city would ultimately need to acquire or get, you know, to be able to expand the reservoir to this level?
Unknown Speaker 27:45
It is yeah, there’s there’s three large parcels, parcel a, u and T. On the north side, that earlier the last kind of three well with Willis’s parcel J on the west, those four parcels really last for big ones. And then if you’re looking up up the Gulch to the north of A and Z, there’s a whole bunch of small parcels up there. And it’s not decided exactly how that how that’ll look will depend on the design of the dam. When it’s done. It’s possible that we’ll have an embankment through there for the relocated County Road 28. And we might not go up there with with the water might, you know, might might just having a bank but might put it in a bank, but in and leave water up there. We’ve We’ve told those those property owners have talked to us for years, about how that look. And you know, so that that part hasn’t been decided yet, whether we’ll need to acquire that or not. But the three big ones on the north side, yeah, that’s the last three of all the properties around the reservoir that we need to acquire and build them. A and T are owned by the same family, the dough CEF dairy. And we’ve had a number of conversations with them over the years.
Unknown Speaker 29:17
Okay. All right. That was those were the questions. I had any further questions for Ken on this? And I, once again, can’t see everybody here. There we go. Any other comments questions? I’m not seeing any so can you need a motion for the recommendation to council on the acquisition of the property? Is that correct? Yes. Okay. With that being said, Does someone want to make the motion for a recommendation to City Council for the acquisition of the Kelleher, personal union reservoir. Roger I second Rogers motion, Mr. Chair. Sorry, I so moved. I was muted for a while. We had the second jump the first but good job. God. I was liberating Roger second any further. I’m not seeing any. All those in favor say aye. And raise your hand. Aye. Aye. All right, so that passes unanimously. Thank you, Ken. So next item is eight C, which is the cash in lieu review, Ken?
Unknown Speaker 30:41
Yes. Thank you again, Mr. Chair. I think we’ve been looking at this with with waterboard for a little while now. As you may recall, the last time we forwarded a recommendation for setting the cash alluded to city council, we had increased the price of cash in lieu to account for in some small increases in the in the price, the costs of the windy gap firming project. And at that time, and currently, the cash in Lieu is set based primarily on the cost of the windy gap firming project. We’ve we’ve we’ve utilized a number of different metrics over the years. years, for a number of years from the late 1980s. Up until 2013, we use the price of CBT as the price as as a metrics for cash lieu, of course that quickly went out of went out of range for us, which is when we then started looking at other projects as alternatives to that and and settled on windy gap, Fermi project Council’s ask us to seriously reconsider that and look hard at what we do. We’ve had I believe enough conversations that staff the short answer right now is staff is recommending that we base cash in lieu upon a full wet acre foot of water basis. That’s similar to what a lot of other cities do. A lot of a lot of water providers use CBT which is in and of itself, a full project in that CBT has the underlying water right. It has the project that was constructed, it has robust storage in the project and what East slope delivery facilities which deliver the water to the consumers, including Love. So CBT while it is a good fault project basis, and in many, especially rural domestics use that as their sole source because that’s their only source of water. Luckily, Longmont has a number of alternatives and which makes our system more robust. As a result, at the current time staff is going to recommend water board that we use the windy gap project the entire project as the basis for that recommendation the windy gap, what I call the parent project or the diversion and and in public pupping project that was constructed in 1985. On the west slope there are a lot met contracts for that project, independent of the windy gap firming project. The only thing that project didn’t build when it was being constructed was the storage component of the overall windy gap project. So really the diversion and pumping project plus the windy gap firming project for storage created creates the combined full story full project delivers wet water to the citizens of Longmont the windy gap diversion and pumping project. While it originally only cost us well over six $7,000 An acre foot to construct. Its current value right now is about $30,000 An acre foot and then the windy gap firming project is We know from our recent cash lose settings about 18 and a half $1,000 An acre foot to firm up that parent project. So, between the two, the 30,000 for the Parent Project and the 18,500 for the Fermi project that forms the basis of our recommendation of going to $48,500 for the cash in lieu price utilizing when he got project as the metrics. If you go to page 28 of your packet, I’ll go real quickly through how we get to some of our, our numbers. The had probably the biggest is how do we get $30,000 really two ways we got there. The first was that
Unknown Speaker 35:58
if you if you look at some current sales of windy gap, apparently, the Platte River Power Authority, they originally acquired 160 units from Fort Collins Loveland in Estes Park. And of those 160 their board directed them to sell 60 of them and retain 100 Partially reflects the fact that they’re going to in the future more renewable sources that will use as much water, they still use a lot of water. So they still are keeping on 200 units. But the the units are able to dispose of they’re the most recent sales were a couple of years ago, December of 2020, they sold five units for two 2000 or 2,700,000 per unit which out 100 acre foot per unit that comes down to $27,000 a unit if you adjust that, based upon the bureau Reclamations construction cost index for dams and pumping facilities, which they have good data for. That made it $29,900. So right out 30,000. And then the second option is the Platte River Power Authority has 10 more units, they’ve sold 50 or 60, they have 10 more units that they’re going to put on the market. Five units that are going to put on the market this spring. And they are going to list they are going to take bids for but they’re going to list a minimum bed of $30,000 per unit. So we feel is real good between those two activities, we feel there’s real good justification for you utilizing $30,000 A unit for the parent project for the windy gap diversion and puppy project. And then the 80,500 We’re I believe we’re all familiar with that. That’s our actual sunk costs, our actual bid the bid cost and what we have forwarded funding up to northern water. There still, luckily some contingency funding left in that project. So we’re certainly hopeful that we’re doing well with that price, that will of course have to be looked at in the future. As we look at our quarterly The good news is I think you probably saw on the the firming project report that the foundation has been dug clean, grounded grouted and some of the plants at the bottom of the reservoir, dam footprint has already been constructed. You know, and during any reservoir project, dam construction, your biggest, most critical point is getting the foundation dug and not having surprises. So you know, there were there were a few there were some you know, obvious differences from what the geotechnical did and what it looked like when it was opened up. But nothing nothing big. So we’re still we’re still very optimistic about that project moving forward in going on. And then finally, we also have in your packet comparison of a lot of the Front Range water providers we have a spreadsheet that shows that Yeah, and I always caution everybody, everybody. everybody’s situation is different everybody’s um calc how they calculate And what they do with cash in Lieu is different. So I always suggest don’t don’t only you know, don’t don’t look at that as kind of a kind of compare it because it’s really apples and oranges when you compare. Although, you know, some of them, some of them have similar as we do, but it’s good information. Real quick update on the one of the things says part of this process waterboard had asked us to come back and report on is the P ESCO.
Unknown Speaker 40:40
Trade. As you as you may recall, a portion of our future water supply is based upon public service company trade, we have had additional meetings with public service, and phone calls and conversations are our most recent, we we actually sent public service company a written request for an either an extension or to make permanent part or all of the trade. They have taken that up kind of up their chain. And turns out, their company does not believe they can enter into a permanent exchange. Was was kind of the first really for that end for us to feel that so not that they certainly rear rear reiterated it was extremely important in their future water supply planning. And their planning, they’re very happy with the agreement, and they don’t intend on stepping out of it anytime soon, we will probably they do believe we might be able to extend the term and possibly extend the opt out provision provision a timing right now it’s a 15 year opt out, oh, it said we’ve never heard of anything that long. And I says what we don’t want it that chart. So you can you can see, you know, two different entities can look at the same thing a little bit differently. But that is that is something that is we believe, a safe and secure but does not appear at this point, that we’d be able to make it permanent, which we you know, thought so that probably makes our water supply planning even more important. And it probably makes the union reservoir pump back pipeline. More important to maintain diligence on that and think it through and get it right. And so one of the things we weren’t able to get all the information for today’s meeting, but we’ll try to commit for the March. The next quarterly review is March, we’ll try to commit to have better, more well developed robust numbers on that pump back pipeline for water board to review and look at at that time. So really the the biggest thing we’re asking waterboard to kind of consider now is whether or not you agree or what I would recommend to counsel that we shift our focus on cash in lieu to a full project basis, what water from water right to deliver water to the system. And if that is the case, then we believe right now the best metrics we have is when you got farming Project 48,500. So we still have a lot of information in the packet for you. One of the other things we included was the city of Fort Collins is they recently went ironically, for Collins, for years, probably three decades was lower than Longmont. They their cash flow was 6500. And we were we went from the 7000 up to about 18,500. They were still at 6500. And then for years and years. They essentially, you know, three, four or five years ago went to a project basis, like we’re looking at also. And when they looked at theirs, they went up into the they were in the $40,000 range. And then they and they’ve been looking at their Halligan reservoir and largement. They they of course they don’t own any windy gap. So they didn’t participate in the windy got firming project. They can’t encourage windy gap for PRP through their system but they don’t own any units themselves. So their future water supply was really kind of based upon the halligan project which
Unknown Speaker 45:01
You know, unfortunately for them is in the permitting process. And as they are going through that federal permitting process are finding some fairly significant cost drivers in their project as well. So when they looked at the at the, that cost plus some system improvements they needed, and some some bass, native bass and water rights, they kind of looked at all of that together. And then that’s how they came up. They recently went from the 40,000 range to the $60,000 range a little bit different for Fort Collins in that they include some of their system, which we don’t we have, we have that in our water, our tap fee and a windy gap surcharge so little, it doesn’t directly compare, but for Colin’s was a similar sized city that had a very good evaluation and good process that they were following. So anyway, that’s, that’s kind of information we have for you. We’re more than happy to try to get additional information, I guess, staff would suggest that we maybe look at setting a cash new fee. Today, recommendation to council, knowing that in March, we’ll have another quarter, leave a review. If there’s any additional information. We’d be happy to bring that and continue to move forward. So this point, I’ll also open into West West has been integrally involved in helping us put all this information together. Wes and Nelson both have spent a lot of time getting getting this information together. So if either you have any additional information you’d like to throw out right now? If not, I’ll open it up to waterboard for questions or or possible direction on moving forward with cash in lieu recommendation.
Unknown Speaker 47:06
I don’t have any additional just ready to take questions. Nelson, you have anything? Oh, I don’t have anything. Okay. I’ll open up to questions. Roger. Looks like you had your hand.
Unknown Speaker 47:21
Yeah. A couple of questions. Can the back to the public service thing, and I don’t want to belabor it. But can you refresh us on the current expiration dates on that agreement?
Unknown Speaker 47:39
It was Go ahead, Nelson.
Unknown Speaker 47:43
I was trying to think of the exact date 20 to 2080 75. Year,
Unknown Speaker 47:49
we entered in 2000 1009. So 2080 234, something like that.
Unknown Speaker 47:58
It’ll show your comment about talking to public servers about doing a permanent or an extension. Your thoughts were to extend it beyond 2080. Is that where you were going with that? Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 48:13
Yeah. At the least we had like to reinitiate a 75 year period. So that would that would put it about the turn of the century 2095 or 2100? We would we could even go longer if they would go longer. We do 100 year one. We really have we really settled on a 75 year that was that was when we did because that was the longest period that public service company had an appetite for at the time. And so yeah, that’s we had hoped we really what we’re really focusing in on is the 15 year opt out. We would like to extend that to 25 to 50 years.
Unknown Speaker 49:11
So are you what’s their what’s their reaction to an extension? Or do you know
Unknown Speaker 49:19
their water resources staff whose primary job is to get water for them? Definitely wants it Fortunately, you know, they’re a large corporation that answers to a board of directors in many Apalis Minnesota I think out of state who doesn’t quite have the appreciation for Western water. And and so that’s really their, their difficulty is is convincing the corporate Corporation out of state corporation
Unknown Speaker 50:00
Okay, all right. Well, thank you. Brother. Tom, go ahead.
Unknown Speaker 50:09
Thank Thanks, Mr. Chair. So I’m I’m going to ask a question that seems kind of flippant, maybe I just am trying to kind of get my head around some of these things. So the, the sale, the upcoming sale of windy gap project allotment contracts. Are we were are we in the market for any of that? Or are we that’s just going to happen. And we’re not participating in
Unknown Speaker 50:37
that right. We certainly would have. In fact, we actually have the second right of refusal. If we wanted to purchase those, the the original first right of refusal, pump, climber Power Authority has to ask for Collins, Loveland, and Estes Park, if they would like to buy him back, that’s where they got him. And so we you know, and that’s where it should be. All three of those entities have said no, they don’t want it, they then have to ask Longmont, if Longmont wants to purchase it. And then if we don’t want to purchase it, which we won’t, then it will go on to the sort of quasi open market it you know, it has to be within the northern boundaries, it has to be within the municipal sub district boundaries. You know, it can’t just go anywhere, but but it can go we would probably would not be in the market for primarily because we have excess Parent Project water that we did not firm as part of the firming project, and is not really considered part of our put our firm yield of our or system. And so before we would buy more Parent Project water, we would want to do something like the union reservoir enlargement or other projects to firm are unconfirmed portion of the project. So
Unknown Speaker 52:18
So I guess maybe Oh, sorry, I can I mean,
Unknown Speaker 52:21
as I say we’re the last full, one six participant in the project, we’re the only participant is still has all of our original windy gap. allotments units. Okay,
Unknown Speaker 52:37
so I guess I mean, I’ve probably brought this up maybe a few too many times, maybe I’m not sure. But I guess what I’m trying to wrap my head around is this concept of like next incremental cost, right, in that in that that’s like the basis or the foundation for our cash in lieu? And I’m just wondering, like, if we are not going to be in the market for this for these contracts, right. Are that is that really our next incremental cost? Or is the next incremental cost a more realistic project? Like, I don’t know, something like the union pump back or something? I mean, I could kind of justify, at least in my mind, this concept of like, the the next incremental cost being kind of associated with this project that is being built, right, like the firming, the firming part of this, right? I’m having a harder time maybe thinking about basing our next incremental cost on a project on chairs and a project that was built 30 years ago now, that that perhaps we were not necessarily is not a nest is not a realistic solution for our future, I guess. Right, like, so. I don’t know. Any, any, maybe, maybe it’s a comment. But maybe any thoughts about that in my just not wrapping my head around this concept? Or maybe I’m being too, kind of, maybe I’m holding on to this concept of next incremental costs too much, perhaps? I don’t know.
Unknown Speaker 54:09
Yeah, no, I think that’s a really good point. And that’s really why what we’re trying to do is be clear that we’re not using the windy gap project as as the quote next project we’re gonna do or the incremental cost but really, we’re using as a metrics for that project. Primarily because CBT is too expensive to use as a metrics. Wendy gap is a project that is part of it’s being built now the part of it’s being sold, so it’s real dependable numbers. We do believe we can get better numbers for the like, unit reservoir enlargement and the pump back. We just don’t have those yet. And as soon as we do, waterboard may choose to either use that totally or partially, or at, you know, average it with windy gap. You know, other other projects certainly could. In the past, we’ve put a little weight on water conservation. But our problem is, again, that’s, that’s certainly not why we can calculate theoretical yield of certain product components, if that gets a little more difficult to do. But certainly could. We just felt when the gap project is kind of also in the middle of the road, you know, much less than CBD, but a little bit more than union and pump back will come out or water conservation, those things. So if you kind of, kind of look at the whole picture all the way from water conservation to CBT, you’re still going to fall somewhere in the middle, which is where windy gap is. So that’s, that’s why we tried to put, you know, think of it as a metrics to compare to, rather than the project that we would spend money on.
Unknown Speaker 56:30
Okay, yeah, so it’s just a more of a proxy for, for what we expect the future data to look like. It’s just a project
Unknown Speaker 56:40
to cost. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 56:45
Marsha, did you have a comment or question?
Unknown Speaker 56:55
Yes, and I apologize, I was forced to take emergency call in the middle of this discussion. So if I’m running over old ground, I’m sorry. But I have to ask, sounds like your discussion is trying to keep the price as low as possible. And or as low as can be justified. And I don’t understand why that is, especially since the rest of the policy makers are tending to push things you know, and I don’t mean, the policy makers like the city council, although I do mean that, but also city planning, the people that are revising the comprehensive plan, are looking at increasing the density of population, in in Longmont in, you know, doing doing infill development that is much more dense than what the last planning was. And so I, it seems to me that we should be have our thumbs on the scales in in favor of people bringing actual water rights and into the city. And if they’re not, then I’m having to pay a lot for it so that we can go out and buy it somewhere else. So I hate to upset the whole discussion by asking that question, but I just did.
Unknown Speaker 58:38
No, I actually, that’s, that’s a that’s a very good point. And, and certainly starts to, for at least for staff, we feel it starts to fall a little bit in the policy realm. But certainly we have, you know, we have a will have soon, the data. The as you may remember, back when we were setting, previously, setting the cache new price, the lowest of all the prices was water conservation. You know, it’s coming in around $10,000 An acre foot. Certainly, if we wanted to derive more of our water supply, from water conservation, that price is going to go up quite a bit. Because we’re right now we’re kind of picking all the low hanging fruit the, you know, it only makes sense. Do the water conservation programs that are the most effective and least cost per acre foot. But to go further and further, it gets increasingly more expensive. We certainly can bring that information back. I guess what I was trying to describe was that we feel we certainly weren’t trying to go to the Lord, you know, the least cost would be something like a button rock enlargement, which has the water, right has the enlargement and has the capability to deliver it directly to our system. That price is going to be in the 20 1000s dollar per acre foot range. But we haven’t done a federal permitting for that. And a federal permitting process could greatly change that price, as for Collins found out with Halligan, you know, are another good, you know, value valuable project would be the union reservoir and large button pump back pipeline, which again is is that’s going to come in high 20s, low 30s. still well below the 40,000. We’re talking now. That’s why we propose a project that was cut in the middle. And the only other project that I could think of that would come in higher would be the CBT. And there’s absolutely, as a policy certainly could say, I want to use CBT as a metric. And then you’re talking 70 to $80,000 an acre foot for it, which again, I have no problem with that policy made either level less defendable. Between mostly because in our past planning documents, we’ve said CBT is so expensive. We probably don’t, we did not. We firmly said in our raw water master planning processes, that we weren’t going to go get CBT because of its high cost. And and so it gets, you know, my only caution is, we’d have to, I believe we’d have to talk with our legal department to make sure that’s defendable. I believe it is, because I believe it’s within the context of a fee. We really believe we’re telling you, you know, the lower range and the upper range of what is a legally defensible fee? And so, yeah, if if we were to recommend 48,000 Now, and counsel, you know, wanted us to use either another metric or or maybe a combination of all them, you know, both winning GAAP and CBT. You know, that that would put you in the 60s? And that might be very good. policy decision, too. So, yeah, we’re not trying to kind of oh,
Unknown Speaker 1:02:49
okay, no, well, then that’s fine. And like I said, I was I was missing a chunk of the discussion. And I didn’t want to force you to recap any more than you had to, just to get me lined up. I based on what you said, Can I think it would that the council would be very interested in the costs of the various options, whether it’s used as a Price metric or not. So for example, you know, if you asked, if you made me take a test on it, I wouldn’t have thought about button rock enlargement. But it’s a really good idea, because it’s good, clean water, you know. So, but that doesn’t mean it has to be our cash in lieu metric. Right. It’s just something that’s available to Longmont. And I don’t know, I hope the staff would be collaborating on what of all of our options are when we do the density planning for the next comp plan. Right? I hope so. But, yeah, yeah. I want the council to know to
Unknown Speaker 1:03:58
Yeah, we absolutely need to be part of that, because we need to understand what it means for our water supply. If we’re going to plan it, you know, we have always held the position that the community can, should be able to plan what it wants, and we have a responsibility as a water department to fit that plan. Unless we can’t and then we have an obligation to tell the planning department we can’t. So you’re absolutely right. Good point that we we will be involved in that planning process to make sure we don’t overstep our or future ability to deliver.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:39
Yeah, okay, great. I’m all caught up and thank you. Cool, thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:45
there any other questions? I’ve got a few but zoom I also want to go I guess I’ll ask mine number one can if I remember the the city attorney when his his presentation to us? I thought one of the things that he told us is we could not charge twice for the same service. And I guess what I’m wondering is we have this windy gap surcharge fee that’s applied to new development. How can we charge that and then turn around and I know, you know, when the gap water plus the firming project may just be a matrix sort of proxy, so to speak in terms of the price. But aren’t doesn’t that surcharge fee applied towards acquisition of raw water? I mean, when we weren’t including the raw water component of windy gap, we’re just including the firming project that made maybe a little more sense to me. But have you talked to the city attorney’s office about that?
Unknown Speaker 1:05:41
Yes, that that really get gets to where, you know, the caution about using windy gap as a metrics rather than portraying it as where the money’s actually going to go. Because you’re absolutely right, we have have already paid for the pumping, diversion and pumping project. So the money obviously won’t be going there. And the windy gap surcharge. That surcharge is directly going to pay for the windy gap firming project, all the funding from that. I mean, you can kind of say well goes into the water fund. But but it’s it’s pretty well, you know, that funding is is specifically directed to pay off the bonds for the and, and surcharges scheduled to end on the same year that the last bond payment is made. So it’s a, you know, short term surcharge, to pay for that. And that’s why we believe it’s, it is reasonable to use a metrics. As long as the windy gap is a metrics, as long as we’re Claire, that is not where the money is going. It’s going, it’s going it’s going to pay for future projects.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:15
But if you have a surcharge, and it’s going towards whether it’s windy gap or something else, isn’t that partially a payment for their is that not considered part of their payment for raw water to the city is that that’s considered separate. I mean, I’m just stuck on this, you know, there’s a surcharge coming in for the new development, they’re paying for part of let’s say the when you get firming project, it’s adding yield to the city’s water system. So and then we’re having a metric or a proxy with windy gap that includes water plus storage, aren’t they paying, you know, at least a component of that twice.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:56
They they are not. Because air respective. Again, cash in Lieu is to bring everybody up to three acre feet per acre. On on the raw water dedication fee, the surcharge is applied equally. Whether you have if you have no water and you pay 100% cash in lieu, or you have three acre feet per acre, that doesn’t matter that brings everybody to this to the level playing field a three acre fee per acre, and then everybody who takes out a tap pays for the surcharge. So the surcharge basically is on top of the three acre feet, you’re not you’re not trying to use that to pay any of the of the raw water requirement policy. So it is specifically to pay for directly water while you know water coming to the tap, which really is is you know that fee pays for that next incremental the incremental water delivered to that path.
Unknown Speaker 1:09:26
Okay. That helps everybody’s kind of treated the same whether they have the three acre foot per acre in Whitewater or they get to pay cash in lieu that that helps me a couple other I guess things that strike me as during this conversation number one on TRPA. I know we’re talking about well, instead of maybe 15 years, you try to push it to a 25 year on opt out, extend the term of the lease from 75 to 100 years. The bottom line to me is it’s not a permanent water supply. So to sit there and well. Big goes from 15 to 25 on the opt out and 75 to 100, let’s call it a permanent water supply. In my mind, that’s not a permanent water supply. It’s some point and the anecdotal uses look at the town of Craig, Craig has a power plant, they have a coal mine. And if you would ask them 10 or 20 years ago, I’m sure they thought that those two were going to be around in perpetuity, they’re both going away, they just there was an article about it, I read in the paper today, you know, by 2030, those the power plant and I believe the coal mine are both going to be shut down. So I just feel like we’re kind of deceiving ourselves, if we sit there and kind of paper around the fact that it’s not a permanent water supply. And if we can make that decision, it will help us with our planning. Because if we wait 25 years to start developing those water supplies, good luck, it’s going to be a heck of a lot more difficult at that point, then, knowing that, hey, we need to be ready that in 25 years, those supplies could be gone. And we better have our ducks in a row before that occurs. So that that’s my first point. The second point is is in the context of these costs of these projects, you know, you brought up button rock in, you know, I think union reservoir enlargement plays into this, I think we need to understand what does or does not have major federal permit. implications. I just look at when you get firming was off channel reservoir, or in my mind, it’s
Unknown Speaker 1:11:36
simple is probably not the right term to use. But you know, it didn’t wasn’t on channel. And that took over 20 years to get permitted. And during that 20 year period, the cost of that project went up, you know, by an order of magnitude. So I think we need to be really careful about trying to hitch the wagon to costs that are tied to a project that takes a federal permit. In you know whether or not that’s viable, at a minimum, it’s going to take, you know, decades to do and things only get more difficult as things go into the future. At least that’s what the track record has been. So I think we need to be real careful about that. That component of it on unit as a union reservoir pump back the one one thing that would be interesting to me is how much yield can we generate without having to do the enlargement of the reservoir? And what’s the cost of that? Because those would be projects that I think we do without having to get into the federal permitting, and the the cost and the risk associated with it. So that just a couple of comments, in terms of how we look at this going forward on those proxies or the you know, trying to compare cost estimates and how we set cash in lieu. So anyway, just a couple of points based on the previous discussion we had. I mean, I guess the way I look at this is if we set it now based on windy gap is a proxy with a thought that, you know, in tom, to your point, we’re going to have updated costs for the pump back project coming in 2022 Number one, number two, and I know I brought this up previously, I think there’s there’s risks, and we may want to adjust the safety factor on supplies I know in the right up to Ken, did they talk about you know, they’re gonna be talking to Northern, we’re gonna be looking at modeling, how does the yield of the wind get from firming project to change in the future. And that may need to be built into those those costs as we go into the future too. So in my mind, we’re kind of setting it as a proxy today, with if we agree with it, there’s going to be other information that comes as we move into the future, and we can reevaluate that as that information comes. So anyway, um, I guess, personally, I’m okay with using windy gap both in terms of the water and the project, firming project as the proxy with knowing that there’s going to be additional bites of Apple as we find out additional information in the future. But I would like this PR PA or not PRP, but I’m sorry, public service. I would like that kind of coupled with this discussion, maybe with the council just so everybody understands that, you know, how much water do we need to develop? And how does that relate to the projects that we’re going to be looking at in the costs as we move into the future? So I’m sorry to take so much time but just a few things as we go through this that are sticking out to me so I don’t know. I’ll open it up. Anybody else have any want to respond to that can or Wes or if there’s any other questions?
Unknown Speaker 1:14:37
Just just one real quick response. You know, I think all the points you’re making are really so excellent. That we actually we’re not planning on taking directly to council, the the, the car pricing Great. I’ll get the recommendation on the cash new price. We actually have scheduled to go to the February study session of council to bring this information to them. Because I mean, points are so well taken, we felt this is the kind of stuff that it takes a little bit of, you know, take a study session to get this information to counsel, because it’s a big thing. Yeah, it’s a it’s a big area. And so we’ll do that study session, and then follow up with an actual resolution for the caching of change. And that that will be a great time to get more input, you know, back from Council. And all that will happen at the end of February. Hopefully, we get a scheduled right, that then in March, council may ask us to tweak it a little bit more at the March quarterly setting. So I think there’s real good opportunity to take all of that information, continued update our numbers and continue to, to do that. So that’s that’s a really good point.
Unknown Speaker 1:16:11
Scott, yeah, I was just gonna piggyback on the conversation with a question to Ken, because I know we’ve talked about it. But is there a projected time by which we’ll have union pump back costs in 2022? And the reason I’m asking is because this seems like a, a push to put in place a slightly elevated cost in lieu price, first quarter of 2022. And I’m not sure it’s the best metric at the end of the day, and depending on when Additional information is available. It’s a policy question as to when to raise it. But if the informations available relatively soon. It seems like that would be more helpful, though, or a better basis, or at least a portion of information which we can make a better recommendation upon.
Unknown Speaker 1:17:01
Yeah, I don’t know. Jason. Jason has been talking to Darrin all about getting some of that information to us. I don’t know. Jason, do you have any kind of commitment yet from, from those folks about when they might have that information to us?
Unknown Speaker 1:17:20
I said, I was working with Dewberry to provide updates on that. And I’m still working with them to get us a proposal. They do have some of that background information. They thought it wouldn’t take very long. But you know, that kind of like everybody else had been really busy at the moment not not yet received the proposal, but it’s due here in the next week or two. The proposal Correct. To give us the updated on some of those projects,
Unknown Speaker 1:17:49
probably wouldn’t be reasonable to think we’d have it for the March water March, quarterly report. But we could try to push them a little bit to have it for the June you know, which which may, was that’s the case, it may make sense to set a fee now, recommendation now. And I plan on updating that and at the June quarterly review.
Unknown Speaker 1:18:17
And I’m I’m not opposed to the to the proposal can I just wanted to understand the timing element to that. I think there’s another component to the proposal, which is the possibility of stepping it so that it’s not a you know, three time multiplier, you know, immediately. And I again, I think that it’s likely that we’ll have better information upon which to make a better recommendation in the calendar year. So the extent that there’s a step, you know, process that probably makes more sense to people that have been trying to come in and bring a proposal to you. And all of a sudden, they’ve got a bigger number, immediately. But I don’t have a proposal that either other than it seems like it’s about a multiplier of three. So if you went up 50 or 100%, and then another, you know, you go halfway and another halfway over a period of time, that probably makes more sense to me. Okay. Tom?
Unknown Speaker 1:19:17
Yeah, I mean, I, I agree with Scott in the sense that it seems like something that would have to be phased in. And that that gives us a little bit of additional time perhaps to get additional information. So for example, I mean, I would suggest something like picking a year or a number of years, so whether you said well, we’re we’re gonna phase it in in a year or two years time well, then now that’s you take the additional increment increase and you divide it by either four or eight and add that to each quarter. And and then that that enables you to then have with some caveat in there of, you know, pending additional information or something that could kind of disrupt that? That that, what that that, that? I don’t know, process or math or whatever I guess. Right. So. So it just kind of enables us to have a little bit more time maybe to get some additional information perhaps. So if we kind of agreed on some kind of phasing period, and then it’s just a little not nearly the large steps are that large kind of increase that that might surprise some I suppose, I don’t know.
Unknown Speaker 1:20:41
Roger, I guess I’ll take a contrarian view, I don’t think the increase, it’s a significant increase. But I think considering where we are now, I’ve always felt were so low compared to the others that we were underpricing. And I’m very comfortable with with taking it to this level. At the present time. I’m just giving you my opinion. I I still think we’re just considerably lower than the rest of the communities. And I think that kind of gives us a little bit of a disadvantage when we’re, you know, going about any type of proposals, I just think it’s out of the ballpark. And I’m, I guess, I’m saying I think these are the best numbers we have right now, I’d be comfortable with proceeding with these numbers and the price they came out with. So I’m just, I’m just voicing my opinion.
Unknown Speaker 1:21:42
Someone Mayer looks at it, Roger.
Unknown Speaker 1:21:47
Well, you know, I’m not uncomfortable that number. Because I think we’ve just been too far on the ballpark. And it’s based on good information. So that’s just how I feel about it. Any other comments? Scott? I won’t take issue with Rogers opinion, because I recognize that that’s an appealing way to view it. I would just echo Ken’s thoughts, which is, there’s absolutely, there’s very little reason to look at communities surrounding us and what they do, and apply that to what we do. It really ought to be a technical and objective analysis, what it costs for long month to provide water, not what Fort Collins does not what Firestone does. And the fact that it’s a differential differential rate, frankly, is a credit to the way that we’ve planned historically. Now, the people that are out there charging a hell of a lot more people that didn’t think about having a water system in full five years ago, and now are struggling to catch up. And their real cost to add an additional acre for water is exponentially higher than ours. So that’s that’s just you know, I, Roger, I’m not disagree with the way you look at I’m just saying that that’s, I would, I would hope that there’s no comments on the record from anybody saying, we need to do this because Firestone is right. I mean, because it’s just, it’s just not the right basis, legally upon which to, to make a policy decision, in my opinion. But yeah, we can go, we can go full freight, I’m fine. I just, I just think that that it is a fairly big sticker shock. And now there probably are people that have been in the queue waiting. That will be surprised, but, uh, well, I, that’s Council’s decision, not mine. And Tom, you had your hand up, and then Roger, you can go after
Unknown Speaker 1:23:32
Roger, go ahead and maybe respond to why, you know,
Unknown Speaker 1:23:35
I’m not trying to put a lot on comparison or the community. But I think Ken did, and his staff did a good job of trying to put solid numbers together. And that’s what we’re basing this on. And I’m I’m not leaning towards how we are. You know, I’m just making that a comment. But I’m comfortable with the numbers that can put together and I think they’re solid. And I don’t think there’s any problem with submitting them. And yeah, numbers may change down the road. But I would prefer to, to go with the numbers that were believed or correct now, and we want to do some adjustments down the road by
Unknown Speaker 1:24:17
Sure. And pick up there and then. So yeah, I mean, a couple of things by my instinct is still that we still don’t necessarily have a really good understanding of that next project. Right. I feel like we’re still kind of using proxy data from past projects to influence or to inform the future. And, and so I’d, I’d still really like to see what what we think the next project for us looks like. Right. I will kind of pick up with what Scott said as well, that we’re very much the beneficiaries of these wonderful decisions that were made in the past. Right and And I think that thing that has to the extent that I’ve been, I don’t know, disappointed is too strong a word, but to the extent that I’ve been a little disheartened by the, by the conversation is that I wonder what would happen if we kind of shift the the thought process to saying, Okay, well, we have these relatively lower costs relative to these other communities, right? And is there a way to kind of use that that benefit, right, that our kind of predecessors have kind of provided to us to our advantage as a community, right, so these low relatively lower water costs, at least into the future? Right? At least as previously calculated? Right? Could Could we somehow use that as a springboard to kind of create some kind of tangible benefit for the community? And I don’t know that we’ve, we’ve really kind of like, had that discussion, because we’re a little bit kind of bogged down in, in having the discussion about, well, what should the cost of water be? And I just, I kind of wonder whether whether something more could have come out of that. And so that’s something that I might kind of think about a little bit more into the future, whether or not those or more so as city council, right, what what some of their thoughts might be about kind of how to use those relatively low water costs relative to all of our surrounding communities to enable, like I said, tangible benefits right for the community. So So Okay, thanks, Tom. For sure,
Unknown Speaker 1:26:44
Marsha, you can go.
Unknown Speaker 1:26:48
My spacebar isn’t working. Sorry. I don’t want to interject a full policy viewpoint into this because, you know, that’s for the council to do next month, a little bit. But, um, I have a hard time thinking about this. In terms, not in terms of, how much is it going to provide now? But how much is it going to cost the city to provide in the future, when we have a very uncertain future? So I guess, if we’re going to look at, you know, what advantage a low price brings? Maybe, you know, I missed it, when I was on my call, but what’s what’s the what’s the advantage that we would expect to have by having low costs? Because it is not, that we’re having a hard time attracting people who want to develop our land?
Unknown Speaker 1:27:52
Yeah, so maybe I’ll respond. I think two things. First of all, I mean, I, I do feel like, you know, there, there is a potentially a tangible benefit with respect to affordable housing, I know that water is only a small component of that. So, of course, that may not be nearly the kind of bang for the buck, if you will, that that you would, that you would really be able to point to and see, see what Look what we did. However, I do think that if we reframed the discussion that planning for the future is a tangible benefit, right, that like that, that some kind of, you know, like I said, like, I’ve been kind of saying a bit, you know, some kind of rainy day fund, right, that we are better prepared for for a future. Right, that that is that is drier and lower uncertain, potentially. Right. And, and I feel like that, even that discussion, if that’s where it went, that’s, that’s fine with me. But But, but kind of calling it a little bit more what it is, which is kind of contingency planning, etc. I’m just, I’m just not quite sure that I see what our real costs are yet. Right? What are kind of what what the real costs look like, even within a pseudo certain future, that then we can put a 10% or 20% buffer on top of that? I can justify those things, at least within my own mind. Right now. I feel like I’m still kind of using past data as kind of prologue to the to the future in a way that maybe isn’t, isn’t quite what I’m understanding to be the kind of the next incremental costs perhaps, right.
Unknown Speaker 1:29:43
Yeah, there was just a thing on the radio this morning that that talked about how little the past is predicting the future right now. In terms of weather and so yeah, I’m not sure that we should be using backward looking Net metrics at this point, and we shouldn’t have a big uncertainty factor. But
Unknown Speaker 1:30:09
well, on one note there, I think I mentioned earlier, that’s part of what you know, with the windy gap project, for example, I think the modeling is gonna be updated. And we’re gonna try to take that into account as we move forward, at least in the context of when you gap and we’ll have to do the same with, you know, the universal, we’re pumped back, we’re just going to have to evolve as this thing kind of moves down the road. In my mind, we’d like to say, we just don’t have the data at this point. But in my mind, we’re setting a point today, what we think may be a kind of quote unquote, reasonable cost, while we’re getting additional information on Union reservoir, reservoir pump back with other projects that we are actually pursuing. And we can update those costs as we get that information. So in my mind, I think we’re setting up hopefully the right format that as we get an additional information, whether it’s, you know, the impacts of climate change, whether it’s, you know, construction costs on Union reservoir, we can, you know, update that cash in lieu price accordingly. So, anyway, so, Ken, in terms of what you need today, you’re saying, you’re going to have kind of a policy discussion, or you’re going to bring this concept? And I guess maybe that’s a question for today of, you know, is the Water Board, okay, with bringing this concept to the council next month? And then you’ll come back to us with a resolution at that point for further consideration. Is that where you’re headed here?
Unknown Speaker 1:31:36
Yeah, well, what we would, I guess, ideally, like, is, is exactly what you’re describing, recommending that we use a policy of a full provision of a full acre foot of water, wastewater from entire project basis. And if that is the case, then at the very least, we should increase the cash in lieu 48. Five, as part of this review process, knowing that we’ll have quarterly reviews, March, June, September and December, you know, we can we’ll certainly continue this discussion. At each quarterly review, we’ll be able to fine tune this. But that if if, if it is this policy, you know, since we just we adjusted every quarter, I don’t say a real big problem, and go ahead and go into 45. Now, and then it might go up or down as we continue to refine it, but we’ll certainly be closer kind of the to the benchmark of a project basis evaluation, if we if we do it now. So it’s really a two step, approve that policy, and then set the cash in lieu out this as of this setting at 45.
Unknown Speaker 1:33:15
Okay, any comments on that? Have going there. And I guess the other point that was brought up is this phasing seems to me that’s maybe back to the council discussion of, you know, do they want to look at that in a phasing plan, but I guess I’m uncomfortable with go into the 48. Five. Now, I know, you know, we need more information as we move in the future. And there may be some kind of some other information coming. But I think to just using it as a proxy to make sure we’re in the ballpark of a full project. I mean, today, we’ve been looking at what’s the incremental cost with when you get firming, if we’re going to change that mindset to a full project water rights plus the, you know, firming project, I think that’s a good proxy for now to go ahead and set it while we’re waiting on this additional information to revisit that as we move forward. So that’s, that’s where I’m at. I’ll let the rest of the board kind of weigh in if we’re okay, bringing that to council next month. I got a thumbs up from Scott Rogers a thumbs up and Tom is as well. So, Ken, it looks like you have your marching orders on that. And then you’ll bring it back after the work session with counsel. And then we’ll we’ll look at putting a resolution in place or something more definitive at that point. Is that where we’re headed?
Unknown Speaker 1:34:58
Yeah, well, we’ll look at We’ll review this again at the March Quarterly Review.
Unknown Speaker 1:35:06
Okay, sounds good. With that, I think we’re on to the next item. So we’re on to nine and nine as a monthly legislative report can.
Unknown Speaker 1:35:19
Yes. Be fairly brief this month, the legislation legislature convened on January 12. And will adjourn on May 11. As you know, every member just introduced to meant to bills at the start of the session. So the initial kind of rush of bills came in. There actually aren’t a lot of water bills right now. sitting out there, there’s only been three water bills. In one joint resolution. The three water bills were the first one, they’re all in the interest in the Senate. The first one was the groundwater compact fund. So that doesn’t affect long with that’s fine to help meet the interstate compacts on the South Platte in the Republican rivers, you know, important legislation but doesn’t directly impact long month. The second is a bill to further try to crack down on water speculation. Senate Bill 22 dash O 29. Again, that probably doesn’t directly impact long term. We weren’t at this point ready to take a position on it. But they try every legislature to to try to crack down a little bit more on otter speculation. That’s that’s pretty tough to do, though. And finally, Senate Bill 30 was to expand the Water Resources review committee to include a specific seat for Colorado Agriculture. I’m fine with that. But again, it doesn’t directly impact long run. So we’re are asking for any recommendations if none of these bills go forward, right away at the start of the legislature. So we’ll come back in February with more information on all of the oh, all of the water bills at that point. Probably have more interest is the wildfire bills. Actually, even those three water bills were five wildfire bills already introduced. And wildfire, both because of the East troublesome in the Cameron peak fires. And then the recent fires in Superior muscle is really have gotten more of a focus of the legislature this year. And probably the one bill that’s of most importance to us right now is House Bill 22 1011, which is wildfire mitigation incentives for local government. So the state is looking to set up. Additional funding for wildfire mitigation, again, tell you Longmont has taken wildfire, planning and forest stewardship, very serious for many years. In fact, we came up with originally over 20 years, about 20 years ago, we developed the button rock preserve forest health, forest stewardship plan to do forest health up in that area. And we’ve been working, doing that for now 20 years. So we’ve got a really good start well ahead of other people, we were the first in the area, really do a larger effort on that. But additional money and multi jurisdictional activities are important. Those are going on. So it looks like there’s gonna be a little bit of money and effort. And then there’s gonna be a lot of focus on that in the next couple of years. Certainly protecting our watershed is extremely important to us. And as those bills start fleshing out, again, we’ll bring We’ll even bring some of those back to you to February, we haven’t had a chance to really go through and look at those wildfire bills, too in depth yet but we will do that and bring those back in February. So don’t have any action today. But just a quick summary of the legislation. Worse calling in this as every year this time of year. It started off. So that’s all I Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Unknown Speaker 1:40:02
Okay, any questions for Ken on on just the general topics? Sounds like we’ll get into it a lot more detail in future months. not hearing any comments. All right, with that, we’ll move on to nine B, which is water resources engineering projects update, Jason. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to give you guys a quick update on a couple of big projects. So the cell membrane pipeline rehab project, we have finished lining the first half of the pipeline, that’s going to get us basically from the diversion structure in the creek, just east to the fire station lions. So that’ll get us through the tunnel lions. So that’s been completely lined, we’re currently in the process of tidying up the project, setting stuff up, and D mobilizing all the heavy equipment, so that our new contractor who we’re about to award, the pump station project to can mobilize into that same spot. And so I’m currently in the process of awarding the contract for the construction services for the same brain, the South St brain pipeline, Pump Station project, which is a separate project, but again, ties into the South St. Green pipeline, which basically puts an interconnect between the South and the North pipeline. And so we’re expecting construction to probably kick off here in the next two months based on the time it takes to award and to route the contract and everything. And actually get that executed. So I anticipate probably the end of February, if we’re early to be doing the pre construction meeting with the new contractor. So anyway, that’s pretty exciting. We came in under budget well under our engineers estimate. And so that’s, we’re excited about that. quick announcement that engineering services, engineering administrator, Larry Wayne, is retiring at the end of the month. And so I’ll be taking over a couple of his projects, notably WT R 112, which is the North St. Vrain pipeline replacement project. That’s a CIP project that’s been going on for some time. And so I’ll be taking over that. Currently, we are at 60% design for Phase, Phase nine, which is 1600. It’s about 1600 linear feet of the pipeline that’s within highway 66, just east of town of Lyons. So anyway, I’ll be taking that over at the end of this month. And we’ll be taking those 60% design plans and moving them to 90. And then after that, the plan is to roll that in to construction, which we’ll do later this summer. So having said that, those are some of the big fish that I got going on, there’s a bunch of little stuff going but that’s that’s really the the big major projects that we have going on. Any questions on those? Any questions for Jason? No, thank you for the update. Jason, appreciate it. Was there anything else? Or was that the that was all? That’s really it. You know, I could give you a quick update on button rock outlet. You know, we’re working on a plan to do some permanent repairs on that replace the bronze seat. The bronze seat that’s currently in there is the same that was originally installed and it’s not wasn’t installed to be serviceable. So we’re looking at a plan to to try to remove that and to put in a serviceable run seat for the future. Other than that, I don’t have too many details. We’re still looking at multiple options. It’s it’s that one is a pretty complicated project. It’s it’s, it’s, uh, looking at it on paper, it looks easy, but actually doing it getting it in there without having to tear apart the gate and do major construction. That’s the hard part. How can we piece this back in that the demolition part is the easy part. It’s reassembling, that’s the heart and to do that in under two weeks. That’s, that’s also the challenge. So anyway, we’re working on that. In future waterboard meetings. I’ll hopefully have a plan that I can I can show you, but right now it’s Yeah. working out the details. Okay, great. Thank you for the update. No problem. Thank you. Any questions for Jason? Not seeing any keep moving. Next item is a water conservation update. Francine, are you out there?
Unknown Speaker 1:44:32
Yes, and hopefully I didn’t switch my headphones this time. So two updates. Oh, one I believe I let the water board know last year that the water conservation budget was supporting the sugar mill in steam revitalization update specifically to support that there is a focus on storm drainage and sustainable infrastructure and really looking into how water conservation and low impact development can be a key part of that other parts of that project focus on transportation, land use and urban design. That effort is underway. The project team is currently working with property owners area developers, there is a engage Longmont web page, where there’s a survey that residents can fill out. There was also an update recently to city council, that that can be shared. At that I can I can send a Tammy to share out to the water board along with that engage long month link. There is some upcoming engagement opportunities. So the project manager, one of the project managers recently asked if there any specific Converse questions about water conservation, or other topics around water that could be asked about kind of in this development area. So I also wanted to put that out to the water board. In case you all had any questions along the I don’t I forgot to bring grab a map but the steam, I can quickly share it if folks are not familiar with the steam and Sugar Mill development area but wanted to ask if there any questions about this. This upcoming sub area planning process that why the project managers are engaging the public that waterboard may want to add or include and kind of that discussion? My understanding is that they’re really trying to take this as an opportunity in the sub area planning to really explore different sustainability concepts and opportunities.
Unknown Speaker 1:47:05
I don’t know about the rest of board it would help me to see a map I’m not up to speed on exactly what was proposed there and see
Unknown Speaker 1:47:14
no problem let me find one quickly. And here I believe this is from so I, I am only I would if there are any detailed questions, I would probably I would direct water board members to go watch the city council presentation. But I just wanted to pull this up as this is the area here and highlighted in pink. That is where they are doing the sub area plan. So this is Main Street here. And that’s third. So at the focus is a lot along kind of understanding opportunities and challenges and creating the infrastructure in this area. And I wanted to the why I have this pulled up here is actually also the engaged logline overview that goes into more depth and then again, also has that highlighted area with the survey. So when creating this, this plan for currently they are looking for if we’re developing this area, are there opportunities that we can be more ambitious and how we develop around pursuing water conservation, stormwater drainage, low impact development, so that that’s where there could be opportunities when engaging the public that if there’s a specific question that the water board may be interested in hearing from the public. I just wanted to kind of open that up to to the group to see if there anything but I know this is just kind of a quick, a quick update and overview. And there could be an opportunity if after watching the video or kind of looking through in this in more depth that you could also reach out to me over email and I can pass that along to the project managers as well.
Unknown Speaker 1:49:49
Thank you for NC I don’t see kin maybe was her Nelson. I assume all the raw water obligations are satisfied for that area. So it’s just purely reading developments, whatever comes on, there’ll be a new kind of water demand without additional water supplies coming into the city, is that correct? I don’t know, I’d have to look at each. It’s a pretty big parcel, I, I, I’m not sure if 100% of that area within the boundaries of that area have been fully annex, I’m fairly certain if they, if at all, if they’ve been annexed, they’ve not been planted, and that’s where the proverbial rubber will hit the road on satisfying devastates. So that’ll be part of this conversation. Marsha, did you maybe have some insight?
Unknown Speaker 1:50:47
Yes, I’m at the eastern end. Two of the three parcels that that are the sugarmill area are in fact outside the Longmont city limits and would need would require an annexation. So and and I do not believe that the third has been planted either. All three of them are under contract by develop developers, but two of them are not inside Longmont yet. So that probably tells you some of it.
Unknown Speaker 1:51:24
Thank you. prancy. Did you have some? Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 1:51:27
I I’m not as familiar with that component of it. But this partnership to for water resources to provide funding to planning for the development of this sub area plan came out of a joint departmental effort focused on growing Water Smart, trying to continue to integrate the water use and land use nexus with I think I’ve mentioned to the board before. So we’re really trying to use this as an opportunity of how can it Are there ways we can be really innovative of developing land in a way that minimizes water usage to really kind of promote? How like, if there’s other redevelopment areas, can we use this point to this, this property and say here are actually very innovative ways you can really reduce your water usage. So it’s also serving, we’re hoping to serve in kind of a demonstration site as like that, trying to embody that growing Water Smart mentality.
Unknown Speaker 1:52:31
That’s great. Well, thanks for the update. Any other questions or
Unknown Speaker 1:52:38
respond real quickly to you more specifically, your question on some of the deficits. There is a large portion of that property on the east side, that is the former Sugar Mill property. And you may recall, in the 1970s, when the Sugar Company who Western Sugar Company was divesting itself and selling out, they sold the water rights off of that. So there’s a good little chunk of property out there. An X and X will have no historical water right on it. So it’ll Oh, the full three acre feet per acre deficit. So yeah, the cash in lieu settings gonna be interesting for that project.
Unknown Speaker 1:53:30
Great. Okay. Thank you Francy. Appreciate your erupted. That’s neat project. Did you have something else?
Unknown Speaker 1:53:35
Yes, I have one other, hopefully also in neat project. Starting this past fall, we started to get the data coming in from our automated meter readers for our new meters with water. So the over I’m working with two other staff members, and I’ve been looking through the continuous water usage data. And this year, we’re hoping to develop a year looking at their continuous water usage, which we now are getting multiple reads per day, instead of one read a month to identify leaks. So we haven’t fully established the program. So far, but and most things that I’m finding are I would say maybe one gallon, one gallon per hour, very minor. But during our testing process, we came across a a a leak that looked like it was 90 to 120 gallons of water per hour, and that it sounded like it actually was from a leaking toilet. So hopefully, as we continue to do this testing process, we’ll continue to identify and figure out a process of notifying residents when they have leaks that are, I would say above that 50 gallons of water usage per hour so that we can notify them within a couple of days instead of a month later when they receive a really high water bill. So we’re just starting this process, it’ll probably be it later in the second half of the year. Until we’ve we have a kind of a more robust program, but just wanted to let the water board know that that’s a project that we’re working on developing this year and have gotten started. And then my last update is that we have released the water efficiency specialist position. And that is open till February 1.
Unknown Speaker 1:55:31
Great, thank you, friends. Any questions, comments on the board? I don’t say anything. Thank you very much. So now we’re on to nine D, which is the monthly water supply update. Wes? Yeah, in light of the time, I’ll I’ll go really quick on this. Included in the packet as we always do, four to five different pertinent pieces of information on the current water supply. The first one, Tammy, if you could go to page 55 of our packet, we always try to include the end of month reservoir storage information. Nelson had mentioned, we had around 66 67% At the start of the month school. By virtue of this being a later meeting, we’ll have a new read coming out next week. But I can tell you that’s very close in alignment to where we are the five year averages. And so last year, you may recall button rock was full at this time, but we had union down this year button rocks down and unions only slightly down so but near similar numbers. So we feel like we’re in a pretty similar and decent spot. As we move through the packet on the on the next section there will always include the Colorado water supply outlet report. And that report is put out at the at the beginning of each month. Again, since we’re 24 days into this month that that information is a little bit dated, but especially wanted to kind of share with folks, if we go to the next page, kind of the Colorado statewide water supply condition and wanted to basically say that, as of right now, and as was shown and January 1, that we’re I’m just gonna say near average. As we continue to kind of move through the packet, I’m going to go ahead and jump to Page 66. That’s where we have the South Platte River Basin snowpack summary. And then that graph, you’ll see where you have a pretty good stagger, or we’re now above average 127% That was of January 10. This month, or I’m sorry, today, we were closer to 100. And somewhere around 120 117%, something like that. And that was similar for the next page on the Upper Colorado River Basin. And so what you can find when looking at these grasses, you see, we’re single storm events definitely impact the snowpack. And so I think we’re forecasted for up to about a half a foot and the Rocky Mountain National Park overnight tomorrow. And so we’re going to continue to see those bumps. But my point is, in the next two months, the months of February and March, we usually see about a third of our snow water equivalent coming in. So we’re going to be paying close attention from this point forward. But at least we have a good starting point now that we’re above average. The last thing that I wanted to just point on was on page 69, the US Drought Monitor, I’m going to start including that just to kind of give a general sense of overall the way we are the status, you’ll see that right now the state of Colorado is in in the classification between abnormally dry and extreme drought. Boulder County itself is kind of in the moderate to severe drought. And these these Outlook reports come out a couple times a week, I believe it may actually even be just once a week. And so they’ll change a little bit. But we’re not in an exceptional drought. And we don’t have anywhere that doesn’t have any drought. But so we’re kind of kind of where we expect it to be. But certainly we’ll be tracking very closely in the months to come. But we think we’re in a reasonably good position as we stand right now. That’s all I have unless there’s some questions. Any questions for Wes on the water supply update? I’m not seeing any. Thank you. Okay. So we’re on to item 10, which is review of project listings and items tentatively scheduled for future board mate meetings or anything on that item in the packet or just anything else that the board wants to bring up today.
Unknown Speaker 2:00:08
You know, I will mention one thing. On Jason’s report, I don’t know if you guys have seen in the papers, but Northwell water district had an issue with getting a permits and a pipeline through Fort Collins, and they’ve actually issued a moratorium on taps for the town of severance that only come and I bring up there is I just think it, anybody, any entity that has a water supply system that goes through another jurisdiction, the more you can do to, you know, kind of stay ahead of making sure your facilities are in good shape. And, you know, operating well, I mean, obviously provides flexibility, but also just surety for the city. And I know, it’s tough for Northwell and some of the folks that are the cities that are under their system. So just kind of highlight maybe Jason’s work and the the city’s work in that regard. So Scott, you had a comment? Yeah, just to make it. Crystal clear. north north, well didn’t just put a moratorium on the town of severance taps it put a moratorium on all taps. And Severns is getting all the press because they’ve been put a moratorium on their building permits, and they have no money coming in the door, based upon no building permits. So others up there are similarly situated just more physically, more visibly public than others, because they got a lot more on the funding docket than the others do. Thanks for that clarification, you’re right. I just highlight the, you know, importance of making sure the infrastructure on has is in good working condition. And, you know, obviously, with the flood, there was a lot of work that came out of that. Just want to commend Jason in staying on top of it and making sure it’s, it’s working as it should. So, did you have another comments go? Yeah, I was just gonna say the other the other element up there. That’s, you know, just for context, it’s not really so much the the status of how their existing infrastructure is being kept. It’s the fact that they need to add additional infrastructure. And As Todd mentioned, being a multi jurisdictional governmental entity having to deal with City of Fort Collins Larimer County, Weld County, they can’t build fast enough under the permitting situation, to deal with the growth that’s occurring up in 10 myth and Windsor and severance and all that. So fortunately, we don’t have the same the same variables. But I’m always grateful for living in Longmont as a water consumer, believe me. Right. You’re right, different conditions. But in my mind, it kind of highlights you know, make sure you take care of what you got, because it can be hard to replace down the road. So thank you, Scott. Hmm. Anyway, do males have any other comments? I’m not seeing any. So we’ll we’ll keep moving on. Item 11. Is informational items in response. Hey, I’m sorry, Nelson. Nelson had an item and so I just want to comment. I’m sorry, go ahead. When Scott brought up Northwell. So in your in that cash into comparison table that we have Northwell is in there. And I actually did identify before this whole news broke out with severance. It’s identified in there that they had a moratorium. I put a date in there. I think I believe I have a date in there too. So just wanted to let you guys know that we are. I did put that in there. And that she already Okay, thank you, Nelson. was did you have some? Yeah, I just wanted one last thing on that. We always include on the Water Board project status report Water Board terms. And this year, Todd’s term is up. Wanted to let remind water board back in December City Council met I think it was on the 14th. And we can send you a link to that. At that meeting. Councilman helped me out kin waters county Councilman waters, made a recommendation for boards in the future. So starting this mid year, to have boards more engaged in the applicant selection process. So generally, and no final details have been made. We’re just beginning this with the some of the direction of the city clerk’s office. But what we’re hearing is that what might be coming forward is where each board would have a maybe two board member along with possibly a staff member
Unknown Speaker 2:04:54
doing interviews, so it’d be different it wouldn’t be City Council doing the interviews for like Three minutes in trying to go through 22 boards, you know, this is a chance for water board, active members to be part of the review process. So in the in the months to come, we’re going to provide some more information as we as we receive it, but wanted to kind of let that so that all board members can reach out to any of your constituents or people that you know that there’s going to be a new position opened up because as it is right now, Todd, I think you’ve been with us now for 10 years if you can believe that or not. And I think I’m waterboard there’s a two term limit. So the way it sets up right now, after two year or after two terms, a member would need to take, you know, a year off and then they would be eligible to reapply, but just kind of wanted to bring that up for everyone. Central nation. Thank you, us. Any questions? Comments? I’m not seeing any. Okay. Thank you. Next item, the informational items, waterboard correspondence, there are some items in the packet. Any questions, comments on those? I’m not seeing any. Okay, we’ll move on. Item 12. Items tentatively scheduled for future board meetings, cash in lieu, we talked about that. We’ll revisit it in March. And any future waterboard agenda issues? I’m not seeing any comments. All right. Our next meeting date is February 28 2022. It’s the week after Presidents Day. So mark your calendars for that. So anyway, with that, is there anything else anybody wants to add? Not seeing any so I’ll go ahead and adjourn the meeting. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 2:07:04
Thank you. We’ll see y’all later. You guys
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