Water Board Meeting – August 2023

Video Description:
Water Board Meeting – August 2023

Read along below:

Unknown Speaker 0:02
Okay, let’s move on to approval previous ones minutes

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questions or comments about

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medium you

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segments from July June

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they were brutal

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The waters are sure

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the flow of the same rain this morning. They are more than 71 CFS, the historical average is 113 CFS

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columns and rain Creek is the power to ditch 1865

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columns

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sterling number one which is a

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rough brace reservoir is full on the spilling approximately two tentacle analysts

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and reservoir is at an elevation of

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26.6

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and which is proper housing

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three feet or no it’s 11,320 4000

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Releasing assistance question

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my bigger

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agenda revisions

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then report this once

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all right

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well, yeah, watch out

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for a Oh, yes. Sorry. Before we before you jump in Mr. Chair, if you will, I

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am Counsel of record for the persons petitioning for the water race. So I’d like to recuse myself so I’m not just painting a discussion or

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so is there a best place for you

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guys

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whatever

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I’ll be I’ll be located go sit in my office

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around this point.

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Thanks.

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Okay, thank you.

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Yeah, before I start the presentation, I’d like to introduce Mark Maclean.

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Representing the advocate.

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The police, we’d have a very free standard water supply agreement is in front of you.

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We actually have

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a year lease with LLVM wash out into 2008 2020.

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There’s five years left on that agreement.

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Stay state of Colorado when you have an augmentation of what you’re going for an augmentation.

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Already swells and they are on and somewhere else. They pull off South by Louisville aquifer just east of Greeley a little bit operated

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facility out there and

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facilities

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basically has to be on

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leashes from the wells are readmitted to the same South Platte River.

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The State of Colorado requires you to have

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water supply

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in aim for the term full term and the length completion of your augmentation planet. So in the case that about a five year live return impact on rivers so you

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Even though we start five years left on the original agreement, they’re not starting the next water year.

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They won’t be able to pull their wells, because then it would be five years after that would be outside the scope of our

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song, what they’re asking for basically is a five year expansion of the lease they have.

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We typically only do a 10 year, waterboard directed staff number of years ago, I sometimes go to

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the water supply years, 10 years for concern of how far out can you see 10 years long, always look out, we were doing 20 years leases like this.

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So we have pretty much

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limited leases tenure. So essentially, what this would do a will

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terminate the existing 20 year lease, remaining five years on will enter into a new 10 year lease. The effect is really just five more years

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past what we already had.

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It’s a very small amount of water. So

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we certainly have that. Right now. Water delivered would be the effluent for the first effort and the wastewater treatment plan. Secondly, water

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or water stored in Union reservoir. So we’ll get back on

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water

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says his

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staff is recommending that we approve it. marks here to answering questions. There’s already questions on the grid. What if waterboard, so chose to make recommendations to council approve the agreement would ask them to be done in some motion be in substantially the form for water court because we see stills in final review of our city attorney’s office? Make a few small changes. I don’t expect any because this is a foreigner template.

Unknown Speaker 7:18
Template. But we might have small nonsense chambers.

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Try it all out. Just recommending

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one nation

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sold on multiple senses a multi year event requires counsel.

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Any questions for Canada?

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No. issues with this

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agreement? reasonable question I have is the original cost operator was 258. We jump in at 640? What is it currently?

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  1. It’s 641. Today? Okay, and how often do you anticipate doing this cost analysis to me over a 10 year period, I suspect that every 10 years. It doesn’t happen every three, five years or

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it happens.

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About every other rate setting.

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The city does a full blown rate setting for all of our water rates. The water rate consultant is an ask, do a as part of your study do a rate setting? I think there’s a great setting coming up and I think we’ve got to 2024 is our current

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rates, water rates set by council and then we’ll do a rate study to 725 26

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minutes? Probably that will be looked at.

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I’m pretty sure it will be. So this rate we’ll see. This is the current rate they’re paying because the last time we

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said in justices for the one we’ll stay here for five years and then we’ll be whatever in two or three years or

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whatever that is

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for the purposes of education,

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probably agreement

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described this a little bit some of the assumptions that the state or whoever makes with respect to how somebody gets credit or groundwater recharge from from on.

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So like what are what are some of the mechanisms by which

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surely they do a they do an analysis on the well to the

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point is impacted in their cases, the South Platte River and then the

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You know, you pump in this month, so much water, it’s depletion lights out. And I don’t know, the first inflation is probably quite a while. Yeah, it’s fairly, fairly long. But most important thing is distance from the well to the river because the relationship is a square of the distance. So He’s doubled the distance, increase the timeout for, for example. So this one’s ways from where we’re far enough that it creates a five year completion, meaning that if you pump it in one month, the river won’t feel that total pumping effect until five years has gone by. And so the state wanting to make sure that the placement water is available when the weld gets shut off. And that doesn’t carry out injure somebody by creating shortage. The requirement that water be provided for those five years is that design analysis get updated periodically. That was set by decree by the court and the augmentation plan, actually, the minister older than myself, she became

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Fantastic, thank you.

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Do we have

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a use for our

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other entities we do, we have a number of other leases similar to this lease. Our

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first use is for our own water rights cases, we have return flow obligations, we use water to change the water right. And we have to replicate the historical return to the stream. And so that becomes we use a lot of the data becomes real.

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And that made up a couple of different departments that gets lost.

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return flow from service. And

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all that makes up the obligation that Walmart has when we use our waterways. So the first thing we do is meet all of our return relations. Then we

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have a major exchange agreement with public service company in Colorado, where we deliver them fully consumable afterwards. They can use it and augmentation and change. We get a lot out there CVT one. So we get

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water out the wastewater treatment plant, quarter in

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quarter.

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So that’s our kind of our secondary use of it. And then if there’s anything surplus from that, and we can lease that surplus.

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It’s really primarily it helps raise revenue to stabilize water raise

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literally hundreds of 1000s a year. But it’s all in excess water to what we have downstream. One of the ways we notice,

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less is ordering different water plant. We want to CBD water. It’s not fully consumable. So we have to let it out the wastewater plants

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need a little bit more f of the offload to be fully consumable, and we can convert it into the dugout or we can use water storage

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resources. So we always go out and see how much the water out waste. Our plan is fully consumable, reusable,

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as well as water storage reservoir.

Unknown Speaker 13:44
Could you say that again, one more time for me to hear it. So CDT is not really consumable. It is not it’s a single use water. And that’s because the water Division of Water Rights is owned by the US government. They then contracted with Northern Water to distribute the water can’t so northern water districts in their distribution of the water and the allotment that everybody sides be able to get a lot better water CVD water. The

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federal government allowed rather than water to have the reuse rights because this translates Yes. So it’s fully consumable. The reuse portion of that was kept by Northern Water. And then that goes down to all water users in the South Platte basin that are in northern district back in 1937 when they went to a vote

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to convince everybody up and down the river. Some people are wells

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tation

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view our wells need to water others worn under this channel.

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Skip, and of course, downstream orders of water are so everybody is tagged as an intact since 1937.

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As part of that taxing authority, they were promised there’ll be greater water supply for everybody in the South Platte basin. Because the reuse of this water once it’s used will accrue back to the string. And anybody who’s in the district can use it. So when

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even though it’s in Port water

Unknown Speaker 15:33
it’s not fully consumable not to the logic to the long run, but it is to Northern and northern shares and amongst all its tax base, that’s exactly everybody. Really what it does, it goes down to the next diverting ditch the verge water in here VX land it’s in the district, they then can divert that

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so benefits everybody all the way

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through Yeah, that’s that’s a little bit harder. It’s I guess not interaction benefit to the lower part of the river it would literally take an act of Congress to Yeah, it was because that’s by US Commerce

Unknown Speaker 16:18
and in effect has some give some restriction to the La Mancha use a something like Denver Water does right, like reuse water it restricts online using that as a solution potentially in the future Correct? Yeah, so I mean, Denver Water has been very effective water use but that would only be an option for us on the waters and I don’t know how the account

Unknown Speaker 16:55
so it can it is done it can be done. Yeah. We’ll do that someday. Yeah, it will let you know

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how much we put out the wastewater plants pretty

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consistent all year round. It has been for three years this straight line, but we balance how much of that maybe

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over time we need more and more fully consumable effluent so we’ve increased the percentage of the gap and

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water

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okay

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I’m sorry did you make a motion? I don’t remember

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to improve the screen

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I remember the wording correctly i i So move in substantially this

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second

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second on there

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Yeah, I was a few minutes late

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I believe all these big guys

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Dan especially

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right.

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Agreement was passed so

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I’ll keep doing this

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33

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Yeah, just a quick update on the windy get for me project. We had a very successful tour. The

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future

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was good. We have time I don’t know my

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dissertation

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we talked about this

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No, it’s quite impressive.

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I’m sure you’re gonna get

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in there. i Yes. I’d be happy to do that. So this is a recent I just last Monday. So it’s the reason mixture of the reservoir site

Unknown Speaker 20:00
Yeah, we had a good chat today. Basically, this was taken from the overbought, or you look down on the project,

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and the tours, not everybody can make today’s tour, I have a number of tours, you can sign up directly with Northern. So if anybody is interested in doing

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this drill real briefly, you can see, this is the footprint for the nail. And it’s actually, you look right here, you can see the dam starting to come up. So there’s actually a investment there. Now.

Unknown Speaker 20:42
Last time, we’re out there, I don’t know, the dam was like 40 foot tall. And it wasn’t even up the ground level yet. So it didn’t, there’s nothing that looked like a dam. But now, now it’s there. So

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this is the main rockfill is rockfill dam with hydraulic asphalt core, you can now what was really neat today is you could really,

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hydraulic asphalt core is starting to get wide enough, long enough that you can Snow White at all, it’s only three and a half foot wide, long enough that you can really see you Oh, there you know, there’s that hydraulic asphalt core, vertically, the machine was right where it is on this picture when we were out there. So they were they were going along quite well.

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And

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they don’t have anything that this is the rock

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rock crushing operation here. And sorting. The quarry is over here.

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The

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pipe line and we’ll deliver water to the reservoir it comes right down here.

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So anyway, that’s that’s what it looks like right now.

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Looking pretty good, but

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wanted to kind of show you progress. Why? So you can remember the last picture. That’s where the

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dam embankment construction is right now. So that’s a little further in terms of the full width of the dam.

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Welcome got 130 40 feet right now this is this is really cut across section here. It looks like it’s well on its way.

Unknown Speaker 22:38
You know, because of how much has been placed, although this is original ground level right here. So you can see a lot of constructions, the foundation

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is now going up.

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We’ve hit this part right here. So it’s all of a sudden the hydraulic asphalt core placement is taken a lot longer. It’s kind of slow them down. Because they’re now literally trying to get this part done. The first part that really gets caught, it has to be hand applied, she can lay down. So the hand applied in the first layer all the way down here that kind of put them back a little and it’s take a little bit once once they get over to here, then the application

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they just kind of hit the spot, and the dam is much shorter.

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But

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that’s that’s just kind of shows where the construction is right now. One of the things I did want to talk about real quick, so is the schedule and

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performance on the contract.

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Right now we’re about two years into the four year construction period about halfway,

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quite half, almost halfway through, and

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generally are on target. But they stay on. I mean, they had to go to

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20 hours a day to day operations

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most 20 hours a day, six days a week.

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Six, there has to increase production a little bit to stay on track. So

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all in all, they’re going quite well

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in terms of the project,

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the original contract and balance 500 million 12 million and change orders.

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So the revised contract is five.

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Now, this does not include this figure here is not important the

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cost for the federal litigation. So that was pretty significant.

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And

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as in terms of the overall cost of the project will be, should be counted. As part of the overall costs. This is, this is just an amount that’s going to the contractor. So

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a contractor, there was a change order with a contractor for federal litigation

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costs, because of the federal.

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That’s not included in this.

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And the reason I wanted to highlight this month is we’re finally kind of getting the final numbers. And we’ll be setting our caption MOU in September, we’re going to be coming back in September with a lot more detail on the costs.

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Looking hard, not only the cost of the project, but what we expect it to be, because we believe

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we want to present waterboard the full picture. You know, this, this is the project that we’re using as part of our cash in lieu calculation. Cash will be up for review in September. So we’ll be looking much harder at all these numbers next month, and making some decisions on how does that impact or caching calculations? And that 529 or 530, that doesn’t include litigation does not include the conviction? bring all that back next month? So do you anticipate quarterly cash review?

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Or,

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I mean, we like to often do

Unknown Speaker 26:46
it will. We probably should look at it. Yeah, each quarterly one, but it won’t, it won’t change the number. I think it will in September, or December was one of those two reviews, I think it will probably want to look at it and decide what that impact might be or how much

Unknown Speaker 27:09
but and, you know, yeah, we’ll bring you that we bring that data as part of the, but we don’t change it until there’s actually

Unknown Speaker 27:19
this change order 21.8 You’ve already calculated in your cash flow. There was a contingency amount. I can’t remember the exact number but round numbers about $50 million

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for the project.

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And that was included in the original calculation. So as it says every quarter, even though every quarter we’ll bring the information in tell the changes, till we expand all the contingency funds.

Unknown Speaker 27:51
We won’t need to evolve effect caching once doing once we exceed the contingency which would then mean we’d have to come up with more money. It will other than that federal litigation we now kind of know all the costs of that and we may want to look at we will want to look at that and decide if we included or not included in cash loot and if we do how we do so all of that assessment have to be looked at

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but this this tells us as far as contingency

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but not not including

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Could you go back to

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something I learned to share

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this line here is is the

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flooring.

Unknown Speaker 28:41
They say they can put up to nine times to nine inches to twice they go through this in a day so they this thing raises the damn this part hold down race 18 inches a day. And the other thing correct me if I’m wrong can or hope they make the asshole up here today not in a truck it on down here. Go across these ramps

Unknown Speaker 29:08
and fill this little truck as needed but just got to

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it’s all all the stuff is made right there whether it’s asphalt bringing the rock and we have this kind of

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do it yourself right there in the backyard. So and one other thing is the people making the asphalt or the Swiss people

Unknown Speaker 29:30
which is poetry easily. Swiss Swiss are putting together their run all the mixing goes and this is something us doesn’t know very much about Europe. I know a lot of box so that’s what I learned today.

Unknown Speaker 29:48
My takeaway

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is very interesting, because this this lay down machine kind of unique because they put the hydraulic household in

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They’re, they also put the sand filter on each side. So it’s land three, slam

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layer layer of sand filter, the hydraulic gas all poured in the sand filter with layer three zones of the dam at one time. Santa filter was kind of a wolves achieve the asphalt. Yeah.

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Transition from raw gas fired sandwiches to a

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small rock lends to the actual rock field

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useful

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finally, this is just for informational purposes. This is an actual hydraulic basketball court placement. And because it did that

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said, That’s long, straight pod. Plus

Unknown Speaker 31:01
they’re trying to grabbers route companies in gravity is trying to keep ahead of the last draw castle on core placement there. They’re a little behind schedule on the hydraulic asphalt court. And there’s a lot of concern about it gotta get done on time, it all gets hauled before going otherwise, you’re gonna be behind schedule. You know, that’s the first thing that goes down. So

Unknown Speaker 31:27
that doesn’t stay on schedule. And the whole project is the hydraulic asphalt for affected by

Unknown Speaker 31:34
me can they work through? They can, they actually can do better in winter, they actually had to shut down a couple of weeks ago when it was hot.

Unknown Speaker 31:46
Because they put it down at 353 60, which is like 70 degrees hotter, you put down asphalt on a really hot asphalt for placement. And it has to cool down enough that they can put another man on top of the tank. And so they actually

Unknown Speaker 32:05
you look at those pictures. And you can see every week, you look at some of the snow pictures, there’s no snow and

Unknown Speaker 32:14
so yeah, it’s really now you know, the one of our famous blizzards is like four inches deep, and you can’t get the workers up there. And you can’t get around out there. But by and large, it’s really though 95 to 100 degree plus days that slows him down.

Unknown Speaker 32:35
Which I learned that today.

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Almost a liquid form

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of trucking was sloshing around and was bringing it down.

Unknown Speaker 32:48
Asphalt Windows kind of

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material, but this is kind of

Unknown Speaker 32:54
well, it’s it’s a hydraulic asphalt as basically double asphaltic concrete,

Unknown Speaker 33:03
street asphalt, that’s and then you put it at three to 50 degrees. So So anyway, that’s that’s the only

Unknown Speaker 33:15
so that’s why we important media. So it’s still going well, the Colorado River connectivity channel portion of the project is going well as well. They

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pretty much

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go through remember we were talking about last spring during the run up. We have bigger runoff on the west slope and

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we thought anybody thought we weren’t because of higher snowpack. And that actually inundated the cough the coffer dam was keeping the main dam construction dry and comfortable.

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So some bad

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government a month. That’s all cleaned up now. They’re back now they’ve raised the dam new dam embankment high enough

Unknown Speaker 34:07
we will have

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to happen in construction. Such

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are you going to go over the

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letter?

Unknown Speaker 34:22
Yeah, I just put that in the packet for mostly for informational purposes for the board.

Unknown Speaker 34:29
And then also give me a chance to editorialize.

Unknown Speaker 34:34
If you if you read those letters, I really I really did appreciate the letter especially the Colorado letter, even though for Colorado, your commission letter they really were focusing on hey, we need to look at how we do the

Unknown Speaker 34:55
operating criteria for the Federal reservoirs on the Colorado River.

Unknown Speaker 35:00
because it’s not working,

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hydrology is not the same, we need to take, we need to agree to that you take that into account, we need to operate the project.

Unknown Speaker 35:14
More on

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the lower river has been over drafting the Colorado River forever. And that that actually is contained in the

Unknown Speaker 35:31
operating the federal operating guidelines and rules allow that to happen. And in fact, that almost encouraged it because you have what’s called an equalization protocol that made those down in Hollis waters released out of bail to bring me back up. And so the more you overuse me more, you realize that until both of them reach crisis level here last year, and went into a tier one.

Unknown Speaker 36:01
What was crazy to me is these letters went out to you if you read them really clear that, Hey, you can’t operate a car the way you’ve been doing it. Literally days after that came out, because of a little bit better water supply this year, federal government lifted tier one lottery. I

Unknown Speaker 36:29
beat my head against the wall. I when I heard that, I mean, literally after these letters come out, saying don’t do that.

Unknown Speaker 36:37
And I don’t believe that federal regulators do that, because they’re bound by the 2000.

Unknown Speaker 36:45
Operating criteria that

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technically, that’s what those numbers say, just what we were supposed to do. But

Unknown Speaker 36:54
really, you know, did you have to? Did you have to lift them right now? Right after those letters went out. So I think I like like, the fact that the state of Colorado

Unknown Speaker 37:10
Water Commission is starting to say, hey, you know, we’ve got a problem, but really what we have is overuse.

Unknown Speaker 37:19
Hopefully, that will be heard, and as new operating criteria as drafted.

Unknown Speaker 37:26
It’s going to have to be absolutely have to be taken into account. I can’t imagine the states or states allowing probably,

Unknown Speaker 37:37
like two years ago, so

Unknown Speaker 37:44
not much that we can do I get it, that’s a federal level that we all just kind of have to sit back and watch.

Unknown Speaker 37:58
Okay, and you have a question was just formulated quite quite yet. But I mean, one month, discussion, quite a bit of discussion about, you know, months.

Unknown Speaker 38:11
pretty blessed with water plus, perhaps onward, because we take very active role in securing water rights, etc. But

Unknown Speaker 38:21
the situation that you talked about with respect to kind of, you know, one day they say we can’t do this, the next day, we did actually a rainstorm, and it’s like, I mean for a long period of rainstorms. It’s like, oh, nevermind, we’re good. And,

Unknown Speaker 38:36
I mean, we don’t necessarily live and die by every rainstorm,

Unknown Speaker 38:40
or even even given season, you know, prolonged rain or not, right, or prolonged death or prolonged drought, but just curious about like, whether our peers you know, like other I mean, I’m asking you to talk about underwater, but essentially, whether other

Unknown Speaker 38:59
other kinds of contemporaries of ours kind of operate in that kind of blinders on when, when the

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when rains falling, and crisis

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went on waters out, for example, and so you don’t necessarily need to name names, but is that a more pervasive attitude within the wider community? Or is Do you feel like the kind of proactiveness associated with long term planning has been thinking?

Unknown Speaker 39:30
I think it’s taking a much greater hold. I’m seeing more and more

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other water providers, really starting to take water conservation series really learning to

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talk about

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storm it is our they are

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our storage component, sufficient.

Unknown Speaker 39:54
I know a number of other ducks on the Waterbenders

Unknown Speaker 39:58
we really don’t have less storage

Unknown Speaker 40:00
You guys are pretty

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good. You feel like the Feds in that respect or behind the curve? Or do you feel like they are?

Unknown Speaker 40:13
They are getting?

Unknown Speaker 40:17
Well, I think they understand I don’t know, I believe it’s going to be pretty difficult for the feds to come out with new operating criteria. And the Colorado River. I think I personally think it should

Unknown Speaker 40:37
live with him

Unknown Speaker 40:39
Carver.

Unknown Speaker 40:44
Way over there, they get some point 5 million every use 1011 12 million a year.

Unknown Speaker 40:53
You can’t? Yeah, I get it. There’s a lot of benefit because I eat strawberries and

Unknown Speaker 41:02
almonds and yeah, like, I get that.

Unknown Speaker 41:08
has, I think there’s going to be more recognition.

Unknown Speaker 41:14
But I don’t know, I

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It’s hard for me today. I do. I just do know that.

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More and more and more.

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And he’s really, truly taken conservation.

Unknown Speaker 41:31
You, you know, in Colorado really has

Unknown Speaker 41:38
the Continental Divide and the rainfall that can get stopped there.

Unknown Speaker 41:45
As its sole water source, not just the Colorado, you know, there’s the Arkansas.

Unknown Speaker 41:51
But that’s it. We don’t have any other water sources. California has an ocean? And

Unknown Speaker 41:59
do you know anything about what the timeline is for investing in developing other water sources like desalinization?

Unknown Speaker 42:10
How long is it going to take them to do you know, what’s sort of equivalent to

Unknown Speaker 42:18
the energy transition that we’re going through? Now? Because there are other sources of clutter in California, they just want to develop because it was cheaper used to call

Unknown Speaker 42:29
them it’s true. I

Unknown Speaker 42:32
you know, if it’s, if it’s a major water storage project,

Unknown Speaker 42:39
to me all it took us 22 years to get a permit.

Unknown Speaker 42:43
If I can use that for an example. I hope we won’t have to use that, for example.

Unknown Speaker 42:52
There are, you know, there are some projects they can do out there. I think they’re looking a little harder, even more groundwater.

Unknown Speaker 43:03
Objective use a

Unknown Speaker 43:07
lot of their water goes out into the, into the ocean. Without that being reused and doing more of that.

Unknown Speaker 43:17
They’ve got some unique struggles. There’s a lot of pushback on utilizing more like water. So that’s been used since early 30s.

Unknown Speaker 43:28
So they have some struggles with actually losing some of their supplies potential. That’ll happen. There is a lot of water up north and Northern California, Central California projects,

Unknown Speaker 43:44
how efficiently they can bring it down.

Unknown Speaker 43:48
And ultimately, though, I think, you know, in Colorado,

Unknown Speaker 43:54
we are in the politan ditch right now today, and half of our dishes are priority today.

Unknown Speaker 44:02
The water going down with inches or less they have CVP.

Unknown Speaker 44:08
But yeah, I mean, in Colorado, we’ll think of a thing about call an inch out they shut the digit off. And that doesn’t happen in lower bases things

Unknown Speaker 44:24
happen if you set up all American males can go out for a week.

Unknown Speaker 44:30
desalinization is really just an energy matter.

Unknown Speaker 44:34
Well, there’s plenty to be built pretty quick. Yeah, there’s energy love but there’s also I don’t know Do you sell very well, but there’s also like

Unknown Speaker 44:43
there’s effluent that comes out and do you sell it it’s not great.

Unknown Speaker 44:50
Are ya? So the DSL is not

Unknown Speaker 44:57
it should be a last resort this year. Say

Unknown Speaker 45:01
But they had just don’t do it.

Unknown Speaker 45:04
Like, I mean, honestly, the point kid was making is, maybe turn something off,

Unknown Speaker 45:11
you know, and say, Hey, is this really the priority? Right, you know? Yeah. And I understand I did not know that they let clean water flow into saltwater.

Unknown Speaker 45:23
Because they’ve been temperature is such a complicated thing. I mean,

Unknown Speaker 45:27
Orange County has one of the biggest reclamation, water reclamation plant, I’ve actually had an opportunity to tour here about five years ago. So they are starting to do that. And then they’re using it to replenish aquifers. So but when you think of the effort of that one plant versus company water cap, millions and millions acre because it’s an awful bucket, but I think it’s a good it’s a good start.

Unknown Speaker 45:59
And there they are, they are doing their I believe they’re now talking about statewide

Unknown Speaker 46:07
water conservation men and AIDS.

Unknown Speaker 46:11
Agriculture.

Unknown Speaker 46:15
I mean, as well, from an agricultural perspective on the buying the farmers literally to not produce so

Unknown Speaker 46:25
may that that’s seem to be that is happening, crazy option. Also, you know, where water conservation is probably the one maybe

Unknown Speaker 46:36
we talked about three shortages and all this other stuff in our pain from

Unknown Speaker 46:43
where

Unknown Speaker 46:45
I would vote not to produce.

Unknown Speaker 46:48
It’s shipped over to China.

Unknown Speaker 46:51
But yeah, I wanted to produce almonds and strawberries because I go to work every day and buy those things. But

Unknown Speaker 47:03
it’s a tough, it’s not an easy issue. We could produce less version crops

Unknown Speaker 47:10
and change our eating habits.

Unknown Speaker 47:13
Or we could

Unknown Speaker 47:15
put out growers to continue

Unknown Speaker 47:21
working on art here.

Unknown Speaker 47:25
All right, I could find out.

Unknown Speaker 47:28
So yeah, we could probably kill these

Unknown Speaker 47:35
rivers, and what California is doing, but but just I was encouraged with the state’s letter, and I hope there’s some real believed really need are bought from the federal government, as they go forward

Unknown Speaker 47:52
to say, hey, gotta do that.

Unknown Speaker 47:54
Well, politically, yeah, that’s what their problem is. Okay. I know. I know, do a board review of water board bylaws, Ken, what are your thoughts?

Unknown Speaker 48:08
We just you’re not looking at changes or you. We’re not proposing any changes. We want to we’re just reviews it about annually by any lawyer. So

Unknown Speaker 48:20
it’s been a year now

Unknown Speaker 48:28
organizationally, that August would be a good time to see seeing a new member and look in your Bibles. So

Unknown Speaker 48:37
we’ll only a Water Board has anything they would like to see change.

Unknown Speaker 48:43
Anybody want to go through?

Unknown Speaker 48:48
Again, the point that I as I’m reading through it, it’s all kinds of things except for the notifications. Whereas at one point in time, you have to notify

Unknown Speaker 49:00
the minutes or the agenda need to be out to us within four days, then no section there’s a need to be out in five days who just makes sense that

Unknown Speaker 49:12
consistency and easy for someone just make it all four days or whatever that might be I

Unknown Speaker 49:20
knew the guy

Unknown Speaker 49:23
but

Unknown Speaker 49:26
I had delivered a piece I think is what Yeah, I think one to four days or

Unknown Speaker 49:33
five days to some and then once the

Unknown Speaker 49:37
the resolutions by mail by days.

Unknown Speaker 49:41
Electronic

Unknown Speaker 49:45
I wouldn’t suggest the change would suggest that staff maybe looked at that to see if there’s a change that could be suggested that we could erase this line.

Unknown Speaker 49:55
Again, so

Unknown Speaker 49:58
we’ll we’ll look at that in

Unknown Speaker 50:00
because

Unknown Speaker 50:03
it’s about the Water Board bylaws.

Unknown Speaker 50:10
All right.

Unknown Speaker 50:12
Major project listing.

Unknown Speaker 50:14
We’ll be working

Unknown Speaker 50:17
on chapter 11. Calendar of Events

Unknown Speaker 50:27
no

Unknown Speaker 50:30
broken record. We left the

Unknown Speaker 50:41
we’re gonna think about our moving water

Unknown Speaker 50:47
reservoir reservoir. Is that

Unknown Speaker 50:51
Is that something that was kind of thinking about or?

Unknown Speaker 50:56
I don’t know if that’s something that’s going to happen in the future, we think we need to do it or where that is actually. Okay. Yeah, we’ll we’re gonna include that as part of the Union reservoir. Obviously, a lot of work which I think that’s clinically

Unknown Speaker 51:13
valid sketch Scandaleyes vault, where we’re gonna do, we’re gonna like, how we attack copper up here, talking about Copper River today, but

Unknown Speaker 51:22
we’re gonna do the carver presentation, and then the universe will. Alright. That’s where that is coming soon, sooner than later.

Unknown Speaker 51:34
Anybody have any comments about our scheduled

Unknown Speaker 51:39
items going up?

Unknown Speaker 51:44
Very good.

Unknown Speaker 51:48
informational items and waterboard correspondence? That’s right. Attached. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 51:56
One other thing. He’s coming on the water treatment plant.

Unknown Speaker 52:04
There won’t be modifications or upgrades or something a year or two are, is that still pending? That’s still pending. Did you want or do you want me to?

Unknown Speaker 52:15
So

Unknown Speaker 52:17
actually, the preliminary design was put together, and then it was going to be a design build. And so it was put out to bid for this design bill, it came in way higher than I had originally

Unknown Speaker 52:33
projected. So the actual timing of that has been pushed back.

Unknown Speaker 52:40
Concurrently, our water demand has not gone up any. And

Unknown Speaker 52:45
so it doesn’t look like we’re trending up. Absolutely need that.

Unknown Speaker 52:51
Large right away. So we believe we have a few years

Unknown Speaker 52:56
to plan for it. That is our, you know, next big project,

Unknown Speaker 53:04
I believe is gonna look really hard.

Unknown Speaker 53:09
The next rate setting the cost of that project and what that means for rates where the money comes from the party part will be bought as part of this expansion of capacity, our little be

Unknown Speaker 53:23
existing rates because it’s placement with one when it gets enlarge. And the way it gets watered.

Unknown Speaker 53:33
decommissioned. So

Unknown Speaker 53:37
essentially, it’s about half of its new capacity applicants, replacement system. So we can run that as for any risks, or a period of time. Yeah, we’re doing okay. Especially this summer we had until the water.

Unknown Speaker 53:55
It was all the rain.

Unknown Speaker 53:57
We really

Unknown Speaker 53:59
think our peak day was around 2728 MGD Day,

Unknown Speaker 54:06
which we should have, you know, a few weeks in.

Unknown Speaker 54:13
That’s it.

Unknown Speaker 54:18
Yeah, we’re

Unknown Speaker 54:21
definitely still looking at that.

Unknown Speaker 54:23
Actually, we’re, you know,

Unknown Speaker 54:27
our engineer.

Unknown Speaker 54:31
I think peeking is a huge piece that we have to understand really well, to

Unknown Speaker 54:37
the best because PE is

Unknown Speaker 54:40
manageable.

Unknown Speaker 54:42
We get that figured out.

Unknown Speaker 54:45
We talked about

Unknown Speaker 54:48
the conservation didn’t actually speed things pretty well. And so we can, we can. That’s one of those places where I think conservation really could maybe ease us away from a big project or project

Unknown Speaker 55:00
is the size of a project?

Unknown Speaker 55:03
even possible?

Unknown Speaker 55:08
You can postpone it because there’s gonna be new treatment regulations. Right? Well, that’s, that’s.

Unknown Speaker 55:16
But But certainly, you know, sizing classes can do a chamber to be great.

Unknown Speaker 55:25
I knew

Unknown Speaker 55:28
there was a while there were we were really about a year or two years,

Unknown Speaker 55:35
where we were really talking quite a bit about like, what this next kind of like, reasonably foreseeable project was because we were trying to figure out like, exactly how to set

Unknown Speaker 55:45
the cache. And I think what what was decided was, of course, that we would go backward in time, rather than kind of like forward in time to go backwards, like, Okay, well, how much did it

Unknown Speaker 55:56
cost? Right? Instead of looking forward? And in forward, it seemed like we were talking quite a bit about like, like Union, you know, the back?

Unknown Speaker 56:08
And then, of course, I haven’t we haven’t heard much about that at all, since, probably, because it’s quite a ways out there. But we were talking about it just from the perspective of like, should we think about that project, or something to

Unknown Speaker 56:24
that sort of cash and records or something? So, I mean, there’s is that type of project like a type of project? Because that is that’s so far out that it’s really not something that we’re talking about very extensively at the moment? Or is that something that is included in this, like, reservoir discussion?

Unknown Speaker 56:45
Yeah, it’s part of the whole union resin or enlargement discussion.

Unknown Speaker 56:51
Although it’s weighted more heavily on the new supply perspective of that, but yeah, that’s really just a matter of, we might need to re review the cost estimates for the project and compare that

Unknown Speaker 57:10
that can certainly be something that we look at,

Unknown Speaker 57:13
compared to the cost of media for other things.

Unknown Speaker 57:24
We could certainly committed to bring in additional.

Unknown Speaker 57:29
Okay.

Unknown Speaker 57:31
Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 57:33
Sorry, invisible back here, behind the line, somebody who see your hand as to what can see.

Unknown Speaker 57:43
The

Unknown Speaker 57:44
this is almost a cost plus kind of a discussion about where the fees and in lieu should be? And

Unknown Speaker 57:53
what about market discussion? Because if they didn’t, you know, if they had to get water from somewhere else, they’ve been paying a lot more. So is should should. A year ago, the public raised that point. This is, you know, why? Why are we giving her water away for free? You know?

Unknown Speaker 58:18
So

Unknown Speaker 58:21
I’m just asking,

Unknown Speaker 58:24
Why are why don’t why do we only seem to consider the costs and the economic needs as opposed to? You know, it’s not like we’re a cash heavy in his palace? Is it because of the enterprise organization or the waterworks? Or what is what’s the reason?

Unknown Speaker 58:48
You know, I think we’ve simply included that information occasionally. Which we, which I agree with you, Marcia, that included that information when we hit brought up, yes, and move change forward. And that’s, that that did get the discussion going about, you know,

Unknown Speaker 59:07
how do we reevaluate? That’s when we

Unknown Speaker 59:12
set the current fee, and we did kind of split the difference on that adjustment, as I recall.

Unknown Speaker 59:20
I mean, I, I, I feel like looking at the next project or the or the current project, is I think the next project may be quite far out because of conservation, and flax demands, but looking at the current project costs, I think, align with variable cost of service principles that are recommended for rate setting, and in this case, system development charge setting. And so he said, This is what it’s costing and this is what you pay

Unknown Speaker 59:46
at market is lovely. But sometimes market can be driven by things that aren’t exactly cost of service and cost of services highly defensible. And it’s there’s an element of fairness and

Unknown Speaker 1:00:00
Want to be clear? I’m, I’m not pro developer. I’m not anti developer, I think developers should pay their fair portion of new demands onto the system. And so you look at, okay, what’s this new or current project doing in terms of new demands, and that’s where your cost comes from. When you’re looking at market, you can be looking at things that aren’t actually reflected on the cost of the utility that this utility

Unknown Speaker 1:00:25
fares to. Yeah, that exactly is the question, right? Is market is different than cost for us? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:35
And,

Unknown Speaker 1:00:37
and yet, we’re talking about, well, we can’t afford to stick to the original plan on water treatment replacement.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:47
So should we be

Unknown Speaker 1:00:50
making up? And I would say, that would be one thing I would love to have this group know more about is there’s the system development charges. And then there’s walwater requirements. And those are, those are fees that run parallel. So there should be a system development charge that is looking at costs of water treatment, and getting that money. And whatever water treatment element is expensive. That should be attributed to the system development charges. But the cash in Lieu is really about the walwater component. And so

Unknown Speaker 1:01:23
cash solution, be supporting no treatment plant by that thought, because it’s a raw water fee, system development charge free.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:33
And I did kind of conflate those terms in my earlier statement about cost.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:38
So that’s why but and I freely admit that I’m not that slow. Or that fair? It’s like, our city needs this stuff. Let’s make sure we can get it. Let’s get it from the system development charges, but not the caching. I’m all forgetting.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:55
To be clear. And I’m also very much in line with what I think you’re the thrust of your point is the rate payer shouldn’t be paying for expansion.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:05
development should be paying for expansion, growth page growth.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:10
Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:14
You don’t think you don’t think?

Unknown Speaker 1:02:17
To the extent it? I do? I do. Okay, I want to be clear, I’m not throwing stones at system development. I would just love to know more. And I think it is, I do think I do trust the city’s analysis of that, that system development charges are capturing, particularly between cash flow and System Development Charges, we are capturing growth, pains growth.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:38
But it’s always worth checking. And I believe you guys check every what five years you do a rate study.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:44
And then the next great study we’ll look at

Unknown Speaker 1:02:50
for that, although the rate payer should pay for the depreciation and replacement on

Unknown Speaker 1:02:59
the existing facilities, so the developers obviously can’t put can’t pay for the new plant all by themselves, because they’re not there only a little piece of the reason we’re going to replace it.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:15
I was just gonna say that our system development fees were reviewed three years ago. So we have disconnected rates in system over fees in cycle

Unknown Speaker 1:03:24
two, so no fees would come up the other two years. Great, fabulous rates. And when I say I would love to know more about this in development, because I just put I think this group would be well informed to understand System Development Charges and cash flow and how they work together.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:43
are seeing both of those things economically things have changed significantly over the last few years so so much so our system development fees are based upon estimates that were done five years ago

Unknown Speaker 1:04:01
know

Unknown Speaker 1:04:02
it is but I think

Unknown Speaker 1:04:05
a lot we don’t understand united to understand more thoroughly but

Unknown Speaker 1:04:11
we’ll learn

Unknown Speaker 1:04:14
you’re

Unknown Speaker 1:04:16
like me, do you feel like staff as well and

Unknown Speaker 1:04:21
we’re just there first.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:30
Time

Unknown Speaker 1:04:32
September is cancer. We’ll start with

Unknown Speaker 1:04:36
taxes.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:39
Discuss future waterboard agendas

Unknown Speaker 1:04:44
on waterboard has additional lines.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:50
Need

Unknown Speaker 1:04:52
a little bit here to mull over

Unknown Speaker 1:05:05
What else is gonna cause

Unknown Speaker 1:05:11
I was hoping to

Unknown Speaker 1:05:14
bring more of the meeting next time

Unknown Speaker 1:05:20
snacks

Transcribed by https://otter.ai