Video Description:
Water Board Meeting – February 28 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
Okay. With that, I’ll go ahead and call the February 28 2022. Water Board Meeting to order. Heather, can you start with a roll call?
Unknown Speaker 0:10
Sure. Todd Williams. Here. Allison gold here. Tom duster. Here. That hallway hear Roger Lang here. Can you sing Lowry Kevin Bowden. Nancy Jaffe with a call that she’s on. Yes. Okay there, Susan. Jason Elkins.
Unknown Speaker 0:48
Err. David, Bill.
Unknown Speaker 0:51
Your mother McIntyre is here turn you have a quorum. Great. Thank you, Heather. Item three is approval of the previous month’s minutes. Are there any questions, comments on the January 24 2022? Meeting Minutes? I’m not seeing any if there are none. We need a motion to approve those minutes. From Roger moves approval is there a second? So? Scott, I could barely hear you there. Okay, I think I heard that as a second by Scott. Any further discussion? I’m not seeing any all those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? All right. Those are approved. Item number four is the water status report.
Unknown Speaker 1:55
Yes, Chairman. The flow of the same brain at lions today, the 12 CFS, with 125 year historic average of 15 CFS. Calling the same grain Creek is Highland reservoir number two admin 11,006 42 with a priority date of November 15 1881. Calling the main stem of the South Platte River is Pruitt reservoir, admin 53,300 with the priority date of December 6 1995. Real Price reservoir is at an elevation of 6,371.9 feet, down 5500 acre feet and releasing 23 CFS union reservoirs and elevation of 25.5 feet down 2000 acre feet and releasing six CFS. Statewide snowpack is at 95%. South Platte River Basin snowpack is at 99% as is the Upper Colorado basin. And savoring basin snowpack is at 129% of average. Local reservoir storage is at 65% full, and CVT storage is at 70% full. And then additionally, I wanted to share with you that the 2021 water treatment plan demands were just under 17,000 acre feet and nearly equal to the 20 year average. So that’s all I have unless you have some questions.
Unknown Speaker 3:32
All right. Are there any questions for was on the status water status report? I’m not seeing any. Thank you, Wes. Heather, I asked you earlier but is there any public invited to be heard? Or I guess can any special presentations? You don’t have any public invited to be heard? Okay. Can Is there any agenda revisions or submission of documents?
Unknown Speaker 3:59
I have none. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 4:02
With Rhonda development activity was for you handling that today?
Unknown Speaker 4:07
Yes. The first item before you item seven a notch 66 by watermark final plat. That’s a 27.747 acre parcel located north of Highway 66 and west of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad. All historic water rights were transferred at time of annexation. The full 27.747 acres are 72 the full requirements and they’re all under policy. Notch 66 by watermark final plat will be in compliance with the raw water requirement policy upon satisfaction of the 40.4 to eight acre foot deficit, that type of final plat approval. Additionally, I would mention that this is slated for about a 336 multifamily unit development So includes about 23 buildings. And then there’s 10. Other, I think three storey buildings, and the plan is for that is going to be satisfied with cash in lieu. And that cash in lieu payment will be prior to the change in the fee expected on March 8.
Unknown Speaker 5:20
Okay, are there any questions on the notch 66? Proposal? putter requirement? If not worst, we need to get a recommendation for approval to the city council. Is that correct?
Unknown Speaker 5:41
That is correct. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 5:44
So unless there’s any questions, just one of the board members may want to make a recommendation of the not 66 project. Anyone moved? Yeah. So Tom made the recommendation. Ellison, you want to do the second? Yes, please. Okay. There’s a motion in a second. Any further discussion? I’m not seeing any. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed. Okay. That one is recommended for approval by the council. Wes, you want to go on to the next.
Unknown Speaker 6:29
Yes, the next item seven B. Bacon subdivision replat B, which is a point four four acre parcel located north of Donovan drive and west of Sunset street. There were no historic water rights a pertinent to this particular property. The full point four four acres are subject to the full requirements of the route water policy. Begin subdivision replat. B will be in compliance with the raw water requirement policy upon satisfaction of the 1.32 acre foot deficit at time of final plot or of planning. This is a subdivision of the existing lot into three lots. And in this one, also, we’re expecting to see payment for cash in lieu prior to March 8.
Unknown Speaker 7:22
Are there any questions on the bacon subdivision? replat? Be for Wes? Yeah, go ahead, Tom.
Unknown Speaker 7:30
Yeah, so this is more like a general question perhaps that maybe I should have asked it on the last one as well. But I’m just curious as to whether we’ve, or other the city’s had any interactions with kind of individuals or or, you know, entities of some variety that we know are kind of in the pipeline about the new the new cash or new policy and whether kind of what the reaction has been to that and whether people are kind of expediting their processes to try to get in before that March a deadline? Or or, or just kind of any any insights into that? Is it all?
Unknown Speaker 8:13
So? Yes, we’ve had, I’ve had a lot of conversations with a lot of different developers that are in the development process. I’ve had conversations with developers that aren’t yet even in the development process that are thinking about getting into the process. So as you may recall, the raw water requirement policy affords any land that was annexed to satisfy all remaining deficits pertinent to that annexation at any time following annexation. So for example, you might have 100 acre, annexation. And then maybe you’ve had three separate 10 acre plantings, which gives a remaining 70 acres. And even though there may not be a plat, as part of the existing 70 acres somewhat anyone can go in there and satisfy that full remaining 70 acres. That doesn’t normally occur. But we’re seeing that occur. Now as a result of the upcoming increase for fee for cash in lieu, sometimes historic water rights are nearly sufficient to satisfy the full three acre fee per acre deficit. And I’ve had experience where the owner of the property has satisfied the full three acre feet just to be done with it and made it easier for him to market to know that it was all done and he locked in his cash in lieu so. So basically, the reaction has been very supportive. They’ve been appreciative that we’ve been reached, doing our best to try to let them know above and beyond what’s already been out there in the public eye The we’re seeing quite a bit of, as you mentioned, expedited satisfaction. I think in the last two weeks, I’ve processed about $830,000 in cash in lieu payments. There’s, we’re expecting more to be coming in in the next week. And so none of that’s really that’s surprising. But overall, I think it’s been people that have, I guess, waiting. So typically what developers we find, one of the last things they’ll do as part of their subdivision or planning process is to satisfy raw water deficits. And that’s, that happens for a number of reasons. One is if they were to transfer a non historic water rights as allowed by the policy, they, if they get transferred to Longmont, they can’t be transferred back out. They can’t be sold without a vote of the people. And so it’s just naturally where most people want to be sure. It’s the last thing that they do. And so sometimes people will have their plat nearly finished. But for whatever reason, they haven’t. They’re not ready to make that final step. And it can sit in the DRC process for months, if not years. And I think there’s about a two year maximum limit. But we’re finding that there are some of those individuals as well that are coming through right now and satisfying their deficits. They were identified last year by waterboard as their deficit and and now with the knowledge they’ve been given, they’re coming in and satisfying their their deficits. So hopefully that answers your question.
Unknown Speaker 11:47
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 11:51
Are there any other questions for Wes on the the bacon water analysis? And welcome, Marcia, welcome to the meeting. So if there are no other questions, we need a recommendation of approval of the bacon subdivision replat be water calculation to the council. Does someone want to make that motion looks like Alison is going to make the motion? Is there a second? Rogers the second? Any further discussion? I’m not seeing any all those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Great. It carries. So is that all was that was the end of the development activity?
Unknown Speaker 12:40
Now it was all okay.
Unknown Speaker 12:42
Thank you. On the is there anything under item eight the general business can shaking his head so no. On item nine, nine A is the annual button rock preserve update. Welcome price. Good to see ya. I assume you’ll be the one who’s going to walk us through this.
Unknown Speaker 13:04
Yep. And Heather, are you going to be running the PowerPoint for me or do I think you are great. Welcome, everybody. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to update you all on happenings at button rock Preserve. My name is Bryce Hadley. For those of you who haven’t met me for I’m the senior watershed ranger at button rock. We recently got satellite internet. So can everybody hear me? Okay? All right, good. That’s a huge improvement. So next slide. So today, I just want to give you a quick overview of the past year at button rock, talk to you about the kind of the new normal that we’re experiencing in the latter days of COVID give you an update on Ranger activity at the Preserve. And then talk about forestry projects, infrastructure and maintenance backlog that we’ve been working on. Talk a little bit about visitor safety and give you a preview of some outreach and education efforts that we’re planning for the new year. Next slide. So, unsurprisingly, COVID has continued to impact our management and our experience up here at button rock. As with the last, really the last 20 months or so COVID has impacted the types of programs and activities you’ve been able to offer at button rock the Boulder County Youth Corps season was canceled for the second year in a row. We’ve had infrastructure projects delayed due to supply chain issues, just like everything else. every other aspect of city government we’ve felt that pinch as well, which has required us to use and creative problem solving and luckily we’ve found a way to get most of what we set out to do done in 20 going on. In the last year, we hosted over 58,000 visitors, which was 19% lower than 2020. But still busier than any year prior to COVID. On the chart, on the right side of the slide, you can see there’s uh, colors aren’t great, but the Brown Line is our average from 2019 to 2021. And the gray line is 2021. So you can see that even in 2021, we still outpaced the prior average, we only exceeded visitation of 2020 in the fall, because in 2020, fall 2020, we obviously were experiencing the campfire and had a closure. So Rome had less crowding in reserve, which is nice. That’s also led to fewer parking issues, fewer complaints from our residents in the Longmont dam neighborhood, which is always a good sign. And generally, pretty good compliance. Next slide. So part of that equation has definitely been an increase in Ranger presence. We currently have two full time Rangers stationed at button rock, and one seasonal Ranger can see some photos of us in action on the right side of the slide. Overall, we’ve had good compliance relative to visitation. As I said, we had about 60,000 visitors. Rangers patrol the preserve every day, we issued and we had more than 330 enforcement contacts. Anytime we’re talking to somebody about a rules violation, gathering their information, that kind of thing. We’re overall very educationally focused, we issued 310 warnings. We issued one summons 20 parking tickets, which were really pretty much all took place for it in the span of a couple weeks, and then we were able to dial in some signage issues down at the parking lot and I’ve had very few issues since which is great. We checked over 195 fishing permits with fantastic plants for anglers. We made dozens of citizen assists resident contacts and naturalist kind of educational context types of data that we track.
Unknown Speaker 17:18
Next slide. In addition to
Unknown Speaker 17:22
all that Rangers responded to 18 emergencies in button rock area. So notable calls included stranded hikers that we assisted across the river with help from lions fire in April during high water. In June, we had a ranger assist search and rescue in the sheriff’s office with evacuation of a injured equestrian and Collison Gulch for a service property to our west. We’ve had multiple search and rescues, including one where three missing hikers were found by Ranger. You can see the photo on the right from the small wildfire that myself and our seasonal ranger to Connor Riley, were able to contain that we are located in Coulson Gulch, again just outside our West boundary, and we conducted a park evacuation of public visitors during the crude Iraq fire.
Unknown Speaker 18:15
Next slide.
Unknown Speaker 18:18
So in 2021, despite COVID We were able to make some headway on a number of projects including forestry work, maintenance infrastructure, visitor safety initiatives and outreach in education efforts.
Unknown Speaker 18:31
Next slide.
Unknown Speaker 18:36
So forestry, obviously, a big part of our job as watershed Rangers is implementing the 2017 Forest Stewardship plan. In 2021, we wrapped up the logjam project, which was a forest restoration and fuels reduction cut on the west side of the property. We removed about 500 trees through a contractor. I was able to give 300 of those trees to Boulder County to use in the aerial mulching efforts on Palin burn scar, which was kind of a cool way to use that carbon close to us for a good restoration purpose. We followed up that project with volunteer seed collection on the preserve collect native seeds, and then we spread those seeds in disturbed areas in the log jam area. are currently in the planning phase for another grant funded forestry project like logjam. We secured a firm grant from the state and currently working with Boulder County on a cross boundary forestry treatment that will take place in Sleepy lion trail area. Climate the antelope Park project. So in order to do that cross boundary work, we have to get a formal access agreement in place, do the RFP process to secure contractor. So I’m currently working through the kind of intergovernmental planning that’s required to pull something off like that. Related to All this is the city’s continued involvement in the st. green forest health partnership, which is an inter governmental, interdisciplinary coalition of agencies, nonprofits, community groups citizens, that to help protect the same frame watershed and improve Forest Hill. The city recently contributed $134,000 to CAL FIRE recovery efforts, which was the matching amount with the safety of the st brain lefthand Water Conservancy districts we each contribute equal parts to pay for that effort protecting and improving the burned area. Button rock also was the set of a field trip from the st. green forest health partnership where they toured our property and basically discussed forestry best management practices and desired future outcomes. And all that is super valuable as it informs planning for projects like the animal park cut. You can see the picture on the right is the log jam cut. That was last spring, you can see some piles there and what the area looks like after it’s been in our financial table. There you go. There’s the picture. And on the financial table, you can see that we continue to effectively leverage grant funding to complete forestry work on the preserve. Since forestry efforts were starting since they were tracked in 2004, we’ve treated about 1/3, the land mass of button rock. And we’ve done that with about 50% of the cost being covered by grant dollars. So very effective leveraging of grants. And we’re continuing that into the future with the antelope Park grant and additional grants being considered. Next slide. So antelope Park project, you can see on this map or on our planning map, here, we’ve got four units, there’s three turquoise polygons and yellow polygon on there. Just to give you a visual where we’ll be working in the new year, this cut is going to be focused on producing Metro encouragement around sleeping lion trail, reducing the basal area the thickness of the forest on our boundary with Paul ranch to really get to the point where it’s a more natural distribution of age classes, trees, and also come forest composition that will hopefully keep fire on the ground if the wildfire did come through the area, as opposed to you know the catastrophic crown fires that you’ve seen in the media or in person. And we’re working closely with our partners at Boulder County Parks and Open Space to accomplish that as well as with left hand watershed center, we’ll be conducting an outreach and education campaign taking off in about a month to really front load and educate our visitors about why we’re doing this thing and how it helps protect the forest and most importantly, protect our drinking water.
Unknown Speaker 23:18
Next slide. So we’ve been dealing with a bit of a maintenance backlog button around COVID hasn’t really helped that but luckily, we’ve had a lot of support from the city and increased staffing to preserve, we’ve been able to the next headway. I was able to apply funds that had been intended for Boulder County Youth Corps when that season was cancelled to address some of these maintenance issues. If you click once it should switch this is the this is bedrock dam before our backlog of maintenance was addressed. And this is what it looks like after a haircut obviously, we you know, tried to keep our infrastructure you know clear woody vegetation prevent any damage to it. So that was one large project that we worked on was clearing all woody vegetation from the dam face. To protect that structure. We also treated invasive species along our main fire road, removed, hazmat that we’d found in different different structures on the preserve. We’ve worked to establish defensible space around preserve facilities and drafted a facilities management plan to make sure that a lot of these issues don’t end up on the backburner and continuing to be practical and taking care of them. And lastly, just point out that we did we recently towed and removed the debris boom from roof press reservoir that for those of you who are involved in water board, or remember that that was placed there after the 2013 flood, so that was a small effort, but we’ve got that debris boom off the water and we’ve salvaged it and stored it at Nelson Flanders. So if we need to redeploy it in the future, we can next slide As part of our maintenance backlog we work to maintain and protect our infrastructure so that they’re sustainable. Going forward. We address a variety of unsafe conditions in the Ranger residence and learn ranger station including radon, asbestos and both structures and a lack of water and feet in the range of residence which we’ve now corrected and much more lovable. Ranger miles Churchill is living currently at the Preserve. We converted the lower injury residents which some of you may be familiar with down here by the spillway to a functioning ranger stations we now have access to bathroom heat, you know internet those basic necessities for doing our work on site. We upgraded radio tower on the property replace the outlet tunnel vent fan which had failed as original as the 1960s connection to risk review with our risk department and signed confined spaces and we also the Raiders operated pumps 24/7 During less CVT shut down in 2021 in order to provide drinking water to the public, excellent. In addition to have the structure of the built environment, we also worked on improving visitor safety. We published the New button rock dam EAP emergency action plan, we upgraded our public safety radio system for the Rangers so now Rangers for the first time are able to talk to Longmont dispatch directly, which is a huge asset to us. We improved our safety signage, including some signage around or outlet pool with water comes out the base of the dam we dramatically improved our parking compliance with some additional signage. installed some pop up parking signage when we’ve got high traffic days, removed hazard cheat trees worked with volunteers to close some social trails. You’ll see the bucking rail fence in the upper right that people were going down this gully and getting stuck exit Creek resulting in probably about a half dozen search and rescue missions over a span of a year and we’ve not had a single issue since we built that fence. And we also think investigate improved wildfire training and equipment for the Ranger crew.
Unknown Speaker 27:30
Next slide. Finally, just
Unknown Speaker 27:33
want to give you a little bit info on some outreach and volunteer efforts that we’ve been doing at the Preserve. City recently hired volunteer coordinator to help us stay organized and recruit volunteers. Even before she was hired Taylor Gifford as our new volunteer coordinator. She’s great. We had 12 volunteer workdays at the Preserve, which accomplished social trail closure that I mentioned earlier, pulling fencing, collecting native seeds and picking up trash and call lake. I worked with a translator and with our branding and marketing department to produce Spanish English brochures that are stocked at the Preserve include a hiking map, as well as historical and natural history information about the button rock area and regulation information. And we are working with left hand watershed center to plan the forest health education campaign that I mentioned earlier. Next slide.
Unknown Speaker 28:37
So here’s my requisite slide of critters from 2021 highlights. We’ve got our I think technically this bobcats are 2022, but a bobcat that I encountered a distance about 15 feet at the button rec trailhead, who was eating a roadkill deer. That was definitely top wildlife experience of my time as a ranger, and then a black bear from the Chimney Rock area. continues to be an excellent hidden gem up here at button rock despite some a little bit more popularity. Next slide. See if you have any questions, I’m happy to speak to anything in the presentation or answer any questions you might have.
Unknown Speaker 29:21
Great, thank you price. Looks like Ellison has a question. Go
Unknown Speaker 29:25
ahead. Yeah, thanks. First. I really love the pictures as always, um, was that mountain lion also up there?
Unknown Speaker 29:34
The mountain lion was that photo was taken by a regular visitor to button rock was a wildlife photographer, but that line was actually a rabbit mountain. I was looking for a nearby lion photo for our pamphlet, where it talks about the different animal species you may encounter and Jane was was kind enough to offer rescue to that photo. But yeah, she encountered that lion Eagle wind trail over in Boulder County Open Space
Unknown Speaker 30:00
That’s awesome. Thank you. Um, one topical question Where were those 300 Trees processed?
Unknown Speaker 30:09
So the 300 trees that were hauled off of the logjam cut were trucked to Heil, Heil Valley Ranch and gear Canyon Road and county had a contractor there that was processing the wood on site turning it into mulch wood mulch wood straw, and then they would load it into the helicopters and follow GPS and drop it on various prioritize units and then burn scare and burn scar.
Unknown Speaker 30:35
Cool. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 30:40
Are there other questions? For price? I do have one price in terms of the I guess the overall drainage how much I know you’re working on a lot of private lands is there a bit a public Forest Service lands as well that are ultimately would have be within the drainage of real price.
Unknown Speaker 31:03
Um, so that during expanding up to Allen’s Park and wild basin and really you’re you’re kind of encapsulating everything from Rocky Mountain National Park through some limited private holdings up up in the Island Park area as you cross highway seven. But I mean, it’s fairly limited what’s upstream of us in terms of private property and then with the Park Service and then a very large swath of Forest Service property in a Boulder Canyon roadless area, as you come in from Larimer draining into Ralph price. In the Preserve, you know, it’s 3000 acres of city land surrounded by many 1000s of acres of the wrapover is built national forests were too large holdings from Boulder County Parks in space, primarily haul ranch and Riverside hoping space, as well as many other smaller parcels. And we’ve got about I think, nine private properties. So it’s predominantly public land, which is definitely an asset to us when we look at landscape scale planning for forestry and watershed protection.
Unknown Speaker 32:12
Because the reason I asked prices, I know the northern district is doing work on these troublesome fire. And there has been the Forest Service has been getting funds to do more, I think forest management as well as obviously kind of mitigation from these troublesome fires. So I you guys have done an amazing job on the grants, I just didn’t know if there’d be a way to maybe leverage some of that money coming to the Forest Service for maybe management projects. If there’s areas of concern, so just was those kinds of reasons go in there.
Unknown Speaker 32:49
And there’s a pot of money called I think it’s adjacent lands, treatments or something along those lines that is open to local government. And I was talking recently with the State Forest Service about so any of our parcels, which is, you know, any of our parcels that border forest service land that we’re doing forestry work on, could be eligible for the spawns, which is virtually everything. And then there’s also a large amount of state funding in CO swap the Colorado’s its strategic wildfire. I’m not sure the full acronym is but CoastWatch. Is, is distributing funds, maybe can can speak to the full acronym, but we’re, we have that on our radar, both in terms of additional work we can do with Youth Corps. I’ve got a partnership that I’m working on with Larimer County Conservation Corps. Sawyer crew, it’s a young adult, so there’s 20s college age, there’s some state funding that I can get to offset those costs, as well as some larger grant dollars that we’re looking at with in conjunction with partner agencies.
Unknown Speaker 33:56
Great. Well, you guys go amazing. So bows impressed on how much you’re able to raise in terms of grant funding. So thanks for that. Any other questions or comments? I guess maybe the only the last question I’ve got is on I know, we had discussions. I know you mentioned violations that assume that’s going better. Since you guys first enacted it, can you give us an update on that?
Unknown Speaker 34:26
Key. So in general code violations or
Unknown Speaker 34:30
Yeah, I think it was notable dogs and they were off leash and resulting in waist issues and other problems.
Unknown Speaker 34:38
I mean, I would say based on you know, I’ve been a ranger for seven and a half years and based on my experience in in my previous park system, our compliance is much better here, much more polite and easy to work with population, and also say, knowing that blue county averages about an 80% compliance rate I’d say that we’re at least something along those lines, which is great. You know, we have really good clients with the one dog per visitor regulation that was implemented several years ago, you know, we have pretty good could be better compliance with our leash law that said it has, has improved in the time that I’ve been here with greater Ranger presence. And, you know, we can further improve it through the use of ticketing if we have to, but I think that overall plants is very good compared to other you know, open space or Nature Preserve type, you know, the lands that you encounter throughout the state are efficient experiences. Excellent.
Unknown Speaker 35:43
Good. Okay. Anything else for price? I’m not saying anything. Thank you very much for the update, it’s, it was fun to hear about all the work you guys are doing, you got a lot on your plate. So thank you. So with that, we’ll go on to Item nine B, which is a water resource engineering projects update, Jason.
Unknown Speaker 36:04
Hey, thank you. Yeah, I’d like to give everybody a update on some of our major capital projects. So the South San Fran pipeline rehab project, I know I’ve been talking about that one and a lot of meetings lately. So we’re, we’ve issued substantial completion for that we’ve just got some punch list items that we have to do. But basically, you know, the South St. Green pipeline is going to be full of capable of delivering water to the Highland ditch. By the end of this week, we just have to remove some sediment deposits on the east end of the pipeline. But by Friday, we should be able to actually deliver water if we needed to. Having said that, we probably won’t be doing that, because we’re starting to kick off the Celsius rain pipeline, Pump Station project. And so I just issued notice to proceed to Glacier construction on that project last week. And they’re currently starting to get prepared to mobilize they’ve called in for locates, they’re doing some preliminary surveying work. And they’re planning on being on site at the end of this week. And there’ll be, they’ll be kicking that off, and they actually anticipate being able to finish construction a few weeks ahead of what we had estimated. So, so working out some of the details on the construction schedule. But overall, we’re fairly confident that we’re going to have this pipeline up and running by by summer, June, June, July, it depends on a lot of things. But assuming everything goes according to plan, and no unforeseen supply chain issues and stuff like that knock on wood, which we don’t anticipate, but we’re anticipating having that pump station online, you know, in June, June, July timeframe. So the North St. Rain pipeline, feasibility study that we’re doing with Dewberry engineers, we’ve done the SCS evaluation, that’s the sustainability evaluation system. And so we had seven or eight participants in that from all different departments. We even had a lot of auditors, just people just kind of viewing watching us go through the evaluation process. And so Francine Jaffe, actually, she was the facilitator for that one. And she led the team in that. And so we’ve finalized the report on that, and that, that SCS tool will be are the results of that SCS to be incorporated into the study. And so we’re anticipating having that study finalized in the next couple months. You know, we’ve, we’re getting pretty into the weeds now into the study. And so things are dragging out a little bit longer than anticipated. Having said that, we’ve, uh, you know, quality over quantity, I’d rather you know, spend a couple extra weeks going over some of these details of the fine tooth comb as opposed to trying to rush them so. So anyway, we we hope to have that ready, probably the spring in soon as I do have that. in draft form, I’ll forward it to Florida to the board for review and for comment as well. And then, one of the projects that I inherited from Larry bueno. He recently retired from engineering services as part of our 1041 permitted Boulder County on the North St. Vrain. Pipeline replacement project along Apple Valley Road is there’s two abandoned segments of North St. Green pipeline still in the creek. It’s not actually in the creek. It’s below the creek, but they’re they’re crossing the creek and as part of our 1041 permit, we’re required to remove those two pieces of pipeline. And so anyway, I’m working with an excavating construction and working with the adjacent property owners out there because access To those two abandoned pipes to abandon to two sections of abandoned pipe are from private residents. And so working with them to get access working with the county to get a stormwater permit, floodplain permit and stuff like that. So just kind of jumping through some of the hoops now to get the permitting in place. But we’re hoping to have that done before spring runoff. And to minimize the impact of those residents, the town of Lyons also has their water line that runs adjacent to ours. And they’re also required to remove their so being good neighbors and good stewards, just trying to help everybody out, we’re going to remove the town of lions pipeline as well as part of our project so that the town doesn’t have to come back in, you know, at a later date and disrupt you know, those residents and damage their property. So it’s double the workload, but it’s not really a big deal. It’s just a little bit more paperwork and a little bit more oversight. But the town of Lyons is participating financially, while the city of Longmont leads in the construction and design. But that’s what I have for the board. Is there any questions?
Unknown Speaker 41:12
Great. Thank you, Jason. Any questions for Jason? I’m not seeing any. Thank you very much. Good update. All right, we’re on to Item nine c, which is an update on the council initiatives can
Unknown Speaker 41:27
thank you, Mr. Chair, now we just have a few items that will affect overtime, the waterboard that I wanted to talk about. The first one is that counsel is still meeting remotely, but they’re having conversations about when they’ll go back to in person and Marcia may be able to tell me better, but I believe like late March timeframe, early April at the latest
Unknown Speaker 42:01
thing, so Kenya, I am at a little bit of a disadvantage because we’re not getting the case rates, you know, what we sort of voted on last time was was, we’d like to see it get down below the the red level again, remember those old levels that we used to have, and we’ve been so far above those. So I don’t know where we are with respect to those old lines. But I think once we get down below them, we’ll definitely go back in person, if the council is even willing to wait that long. Yeah. Could be early March.
Unknown Speaker 42:37
Okay. So in that vein, we didn’t want to just arbitrarily say okay, you know, we’re going back in person on the the water board just wanted to see if the board is interested in having a conversation today about either the March meeting or the April meeting if you want to go back in person or continue remote. Just really kind of wanted to hear from the board on what your your thoughts are.
Unknown Speaker 43:08
Any comments from the board? I guess go ahead Roger.
Unknown Speaker 43:17
Can Is there any criteria along with what Mark marker was talking about as far as levels of activity or an activity that would lead us one direction or another that our decision to make by ourselves
Unknown Speaker 43:33
well, at this point it really is Water Board’s to choose decision because the if you think about it, the real just real statistical kind of crunch point was when Boulder County removed the mask mandate for indoors so that was kind of the last little thread out there hanging but we didn’t want to take that and run with it in February even though it is now lifted. And so yeah, you could certainly follow similar to what councils doing. You know, there was a low transmission level we’ll call it a medium yellow transmission level. And then there was a red transmission level. And last I looked we were just kind of bout to break below the top of the red transmission level. But I have to admit I haven’t looked the last week but you know, that could be another criteria. But I would say technically it was when Boulder County lifted the mass mandate and so either of those would be good, good criteria to use
Unknown Speaker 44:48
one last comment and you know it’s these work out pretty well remote but I do miss getting together as a group live so I I would be in favor of it. doing? Maybe we aren’t mark. But anyway, that’s just my opinion.
Unknown Speaker 45:07
Thanks, Roger. Any other comments? I’m in line with Roger is now that the mask main mandate by blur County has been pulled, if we can get back in person, that’d be my preference. So that’s just where I’m at. I don’t know. Well, Senator Tom, if you guys want to weigh in on it, or Scott, if you can hear us
Unknown Speaker 45:26
now, Mr. Chair, this
Unknown Speaker 45:27
is Scott, I can hear you fine. And I’m in favor of meeting live in person and possible.
Unknown Speaker 45:36
I’m good. Oh, sorry. I’m also a bad opinion. Um, at some point, we had discussed the ability to participate virtually, if possible, I would like that to still be an option. If, for example, someone’s feeling a little under the weather, and they don’t want to expose anyone, or if someone in their family is feeling under the weather. I think that that would be great to have that option.
Unknown Speaker 46:07
Yes, as you may recall, we did the board did change your role your board rules to allow that so that wouldn’t be a problem.
Unknown Speaker 46:18
Perfect, then I am in favor of going back in March.
Unknown Speaker 46:25
Yeah, and I would also be in favor of going back in March. Seems like things are opening up a little bit. And so it makes sense. I will continue the mass square. So if everybody can put up with that. That’s okay. But so, but other than that, yeah, I’d be I’d be happy to see you all in person again. So
Unknown Speaker 46:49
thanks, everybody. Does that get you what you need? Kim?
Unknown Speaker 46:52
Yes, it does. Thank you very much. And then again, if you can indulge staff, if something comes up, you none of us know, someone does come up, we know we may, on a case by case basis, switch back to a remote and we’ll let the board know that. But right now, we’ll plan on in person beginning in March. So thank you very much. Um, the second subject and and I’m only bringing this up to inform the board that we’ll start this process. But because we have not had a chance to, it’s going to take a little bit of work for for staff to be ready to bring this forward to waterboard, but when we were taking some of our earlier cash in lieu information to council, the council had asked us to work with waterboard about the attainable housing, the possibility of having some attainable housing. Incentives relative to cash in lieu similar to what we have for affordable housing, and commercial in incentive. So right now, we have in the code language for commercial development incentive, and we have language in the code for affordable housing incentive. And Council has been working more recently on attainable housing, which, which is a great area to look at as well. And so we’ve been asked to kind of look at how we do the other two programs, and see if it fits in the attainable housing program and how we might implement it now it might, you know, impact other programs and all those kinds of things. So we have reached out to the planning department. And and, of course, the first thing I asked them is, give me a good definition of attainable housing. And, and they’re, they’re working on that I think there is some language in the code. But as I understand they’re, they’re working on that to better define what we want. And then of course, I would presume that’s what we would use if we were to, to look at it from a water supply standpoint, but so yeah, Marsha, if you can add anything, that’d be great.
Unknown Speaker 49:30
Yeah, well, the Housing and Urban Development definition of attainable housing is, is that if if a person or a family owning or earning between 80% and 120% of the area, median income, can afford the mortgage can qualify for the mortgage, it’s attainable, which means essentially that there’s none in in in Longmont right now. But, you know, that doesn’t tell you a lot, because the complication, the definition of area, median income is also complicated. But, you know, in terms of, if you just think of that, as average for a household, that depends on the size of the household, then you’re close. So
Unknown Speaker 50:24
as you can see, for us, a sweater folks were, well, that’s really getting getting out of our arena. But now we want to, you know, we want to start bringing that forward and start talking about that. And I will, we’ll be able in the future, to be able to bring you more information exactly like that and start talking it through. And, and honestly, this is a slightly bigger area to wrap our hands around and figure out policy, and it certainly will require probably review and, and recommendations by waterboard, but then going to council and talking some of the policy issues and coming back and, you know, I would expect we would refine it a number of times, to get to wherever we’re going to be so haven’t even we haven’t even started working on it. So, so don’t didn’t want to, you know, overly complicate anything at this point, but just did want to, you know, throw it out there, let you think about it, it’ll, it’ll probably be something we’ll be working at, in the future, although not immediate future, because we want to work with our planning department to make sure we’re compatible and understand where they’re going with that as well. So, just a heads up.
Unknown Speaker 51:54
Can I have a question? So sure, uh, first of all, thank you for the update, I think this goes away is at least towards addressing some of the some of the things that I brought up in the past about maybe hopefully being able to use kind of, you know, our, our, our standing in terms of, you know, a pretty good water portfolio and a good standing, you know, to be able to do kind of positive change, you know, some kind of positive change here in the, in the community. So, I’m happy to kind of engage with this particular one, I think this is good. One piece of information that I may want in request very early on to so you know, in the initial planning phases here, it would be helpful to know, is it maybe if you could, I don’t know, somehow, I’m just thinking perhaps you could reach out to a developer or somebody that you that, you know, that you could ask a question to basically say, Okay, well, you know, what percentage of a house or the housing, let’s say housing is kind of the water costs in some way that we could make a difference? Right. So in other words, you know, can we, can we help bring the cost of the house down by 1%? Or can we help bring the cost of the house down by point? 0000 1%? Right, those are two big differences. So and then, you know, and then kind of, we can start brainstorming about ways that maybe we could, we could help in that fashion, I guess, but
Unknown Speaker 53:29
okay, yeah, we’d be happy to bring that. I appreciate you letting us know, you want that information. Because certainly we understand the density, you know, we are developing slightly more densely, which, which is good. But that means the actual when you spread the water over more units, it’s less of an impact per unit. So yeah, well, we’ll try to get that information. As part of this.
Unknown Speaker 54:01
there any other questions or comments on that? I do have a comment can but I’m gonna wait until we get to the informational items. Just on the write up. Overall, that was presented to council and just a couple of comments there. So we can keep moving along. And then I’ll,
Unknown Speaker 54:19
I’ll give you a few thoughts at that point. Okay. And then I think Allison had her hand up.
Unknown Speaker 54:23
Oh, I’m sorry. Ellison. Do you want to do the FCM? Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 54:27
Kind of a similar to Tom’s that. What do you think that we had discussed, and I apologize if this has been already kind of resolved is how much area is actually still subject to this process? Um, you know, is it five acres to 250 acres? I mean, it would help us kind of understand what type of a spread we’re looking at. So that would be one of the threshold questions that I would like to think about. As a part of this question, and then as kind of a subset of that question, which one of if any of these acres are actually zoned for residential and would be subject to the attainable housing? categorization, so it would help kind of understand the scope of the issue as far as kind of what we’re looking at, and then get into Tom’s questions as far as like, what would actually make an appreciable difference?
Unknown Speaker 55:32
Sure, absolutely. Yeah. We had similar, a little bit similar information and the capitalist information. So we’ll certainly plan on including that as well. That’s a good point. We’ll do.
Unknown Speaker 55:46
Thank you. Anything else?
Unknown Speaker 55:48
Yes. Um, the third thing I wanted to talk about real quickly was our schedule, waterboard meetings. Currently were scheduled the fourth Tuesday, or fourth Monday of June, January and February. And then the third Monday, the remainder of the year. I believe counsel is taking up the possibility of having Juneteenth as a holiday, and I’m not sure if that’ll be actually on Juneteenth day, or if it’s going to be the third, it might be a third play on the federal calendars. The third Monday, usually gets in is up on the on the Monday because then people have a three day weekend. So I don’t know Marsha, I might Sorry to keep bugging you. But do you know our council is on? I thought that might even be voted on next Tuesday? or is that coming up?
Unknown Speaker 57:00
Tuesday is a study session and we voted on it isn’t a first reading already. I can’t remember. There was no dissent. So whenever the vote happens, I’m pretty sure it’ll be passed. And and it’ll be a Monday Holiday. But it’s not this coming Tuesday, cuz that’s a study session.
Unknown Speaker 57:25
Yes. It’s scheduled to come to you on the regular session of March. Thank you, Heather. So basically, what what we were wondering is, you know, do you want to continue to kind of keep chipping away and having different Mondays? You know, would you like us to look at maybe just go into the fourth Monday around? What is easiest and best for water board? And there there is no, you know, we don’t need to make a decision today. But we will need to, you know, or we may want to consider before for June. And or we may want to consider in the next couple of months, resetting the June meeting till the fourth meeting, as we do in January and February. So, staff, his staff is open to whatever what waterboard wants to do. I just wanted to let you know that that, you know, might affect how you want to schedule your board meetings.
Unknown Speaker 58:31
Are there any kind of thoughts on that? It seems to me if we if he adjusted to the fourth, there’s going to be conflicts there too. So at some point, maybe you stay with a third and then adjust as necessary, would be kind of what my guts telling me but the females has another idea. That’s I’m open to that as well.
Unknown Speaker 58:51
Marsha, go ahead. Yeah, I’ll just say that. The fourth Monday for me is, is beneficial electrification for quite a few months. So I don’t know. Think anybody else’s on that, but you know, I’m a secondary consideration, but I thought I’d let you know.
Unknown Speaker 59:17
Okay. Any other comments? Roger?
Unknown Speaker 59:22
I’ve kind of worked in on a third Monday schedule and my preference would be to stay with it unless there’s a reason to have an exemption during any one month, so that’s just my preference.
Unknown Speaker 59:36
Yeah, and I’m on the same page. Everybody else is out okay. For no for buddy. Okay, yes, Todd, this is Scott and I’m in the same place as Roger.
Unknown Speaker 59:44
I got this baked into my calendar, the third Monday.
Unknown Speaker 59:49
I prefer to keep the dirt to sounds good. Alright, we’ll go that direction then. I might anything else.
Unknown Speaker 59:57
I was just gonna say I might add that that would be consistent with that. board’s bylaws. That’s what you have stated in your regular meeting section of your bylaws, that it’d be the third Monday. But in the event you can’t meet on the third Monday, you’ll, it would then go to the fourth Monday. So everything you guys have said be consistent with your current bylaws.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:16
Great. Thanks was. Okay. Can anything else?
Unknown Speaker 1:00:20
Yeah, the last item is, as you may remember, we staff in our parks department has been working on a button rock preserve master plan, a little more focused on the recreational and wildlife issues up there. They’re still working on that plan. And they still plan on bringing back a an actual master plan. And they had hoped to have it either for the February today or for the March meeting. Unfortunately, the they don’t have the actual master plan, the written document done yet by the consultant. And so they they’ve asked to postpone the meeting my babble habit at the March meeting, but I they can’t guarantee us so they were wondering if the waterboard would be amenable to having a special meeting called just for the purpose of looking at that master plan. And if if it couldn’t make it to the March meeting, it would probably be around the first week of April, when that would happen. If if they don’t get it fairly soon, it’ll probably be the actual April meeting, which actually turns out to be one day before they planned. They’re scheduled to take it to city council. They were just hoping to get it maybe a week before that. So they could get any input back from the board and report that but so I told him I all I do is ask the board to see if you were had any interest in and having, you know, a special meeting in between the two regular meetings of March and April? Or if you want to just wait and do that at the April board meeting.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:27
Okay, any thoughts? I guess, Ken, my, my guess told me if we obviously they get it done before the March meeting? Would that be plenty of time? And even if they get it done in April, you’d still have a week before you’d have to go, you may not be able to include it in your write up. But he seems like it could be part of the staff presentation. Good. Yeah, it
Unknown Speaker 1:02:47
could we we’ve done that before we’ve had action taken on Monday. And then the next day at Council, you know, verbally report the board’s action and input.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:59
That’d be my preference to just include it with one of the board meetings unless somebody wants to have a special meeting to discuss it. Alright, I don’t see anybody want to chime in beyond that. So I would just go that route. Again, hopefully they get it done. We can talk about in March and have plenty of time. Otherwise, we’ll visit about it in April.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:21
And they do know, I mean, even though the report isn’t written, they do know the code changes that they’re going to propose to council. And they we do plan on bringing those code changes. So it’s almost like we know the answer. We don’t have the report, but we know the answers. And so I think we can still bring those to waterboard at the March meeting. So you have a feel for what those will look like. We just won’t have the document to back it up. It will tell you about it what the backup is, though.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:55
Okay. Great.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:57
Thank you. That’s all I have. All right.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:00
So we’re done with nine are on the item 10 items from the board. We have the review of the major project listings and items tentatively scheduled for future board meetings, any comments by the board on any of those items? I don’t see any item 11 which is the information items and waterboard correspondence, any comments there? As I mentioned earlier, I do have one comment on the write up that was in the packet related to the cash in lieu. First off, I thought you guys did a really good job of it. It was very thorough, and I thought you did a good job. The comment I’d make though is in the write up, it’s still written as if the pspo trade whether or not that can be made permanent or not is a question. And can I believe that at our last meeting, you said that they cannot do that they cannot make that a permanent trade. Is that correct?
Unknown Speaker 1:04:57
That is correct. Yeah. And if If we weren’t clear on that we Yeah, I apologize for that it.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:03
No, but you are clear. It’s just not in the council communication, it’s still in there as a question. Okay. And I think it needs to be clear that that’s not going to be permanent agreement with the input you got from Pesco. And the reason I bring that up is I think that kind of frames, you know, part of the question, how much water does Longmont need to develop if, if we’re, if that’s not going to be permanent, in my mind, that should not be part of long months, you know, firm yield analysis as a water supply, because I don’t think you can rely on that permanently. So in the where that leads me to is, then in the write up, you talk about union reservoir, pump back updates, when you get project from yield analysis, I think that’s all really good information that in the right episode, that’ll come back in 2022, I’m just kind of framing it that is we compare supply and demand, I think you need to, you know, take maybe P ESCO. Yield out. And then we need to look at the Union reservoir pump back project and the two forms, as well as the windy gap firming project and any update you get from Northern on yield into account as we’re comparing supply and demand. And then the last item that I’m going to tie in to Tom’s comment is, you know, whether it’s affordable housing and commercial, you know, incentives or attainable housing, anything we’re doing in in, in terms of incentives is going to impact that supply side. So I just want to frame it is as this analysis comes back, we’re gonna have to look at both supply and demand and compare all those to make sure we’re, you know, understanding the overall impact in terms of making sure we have adequate supply to the for the build out of the city of Longmont. So, anyway, the big picture is you guys did a good job on it, it just raises some questions that I know we’re gonna have to be answered. And I just want to give a little bit of feedback on a few of the items, I think really need to be kind of focused on as we try to answer that question. So anyway,
Unknown Speaker 1:07:04
yeah, I think it’s very good point, Todd. And I appreciate that, because we can continue. We are Jason is looking at working on some cost estimates for the pump back pipeline. But we can look at all of that and make sure maybe even as part of the attainable housing, all of that can be part of that conversation and should be so clear on all of that.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:27
Okay. Any other comments on that item? I don’t see any. So it looks like we’re on item 12 items tentatively scheduled for future board meetings, cash in lieu. So we’ll officially review that next month. Is that correct? Can
Unknown Speaker 1:07:45
Yeah, we probably won’t suggest any changes because we’re taking the cash in lieu resolution on the eighth. So okay, I doubt we’ll change it one week later, but But Lee still want to provide any additional new information we have. Especially CBD.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:03
That sounds good. And then we have also in March, we’re gonna have the Water Board annual report. Is that right? Okay. And then any other it says discuss future waterboarded agendas, any items that any board members have for consideration on a future agenda? And I’m not seeing any so with that, unless anybody else has a mean whales have anything for the good of the order. Roger. You’re muted, Roger.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:37
Sorry about that. Anyway, just echo your comments. I can’t I thought you did a good job on that study session. Very thorough and I thought it was well understood. No, I want to Marsha your comments. were helpful to me appreciated those. So I’m glad it went away and in. It’s all
Unknown Speaker 1:08:59
great, thank you. Anything else for the good of the order here? I am not seeing any. So with that. I am going to adjourn the Water Board meeting. Thank you all