 Good afternoon. I'd like to call the meeting of the Board of Public Utilities for the City of Santa Rosa to order May we have a roll call, please? Yes Board member right here board member Watts here board member Walsh is absent board member Barthelot here Board member bad and four is absent vice chair Arnone here and chair Galvin here Okay, let the record reflect that all board members are present with the exception of Board members bad and four and Walsh Thank you moved item two on the agenda statements of abstention Thank You board chair I am going to recuse myself from items five point two and five point three To avoid any actual or perceived conflicts of interest stemming from my employment at the Santa Sonoma County Farm Bureau The Farm Bureau advocates on behalf of its members and some of our members contract with Santa Rosa water for delivery of recycled water and because Santa Rosa Waters agriculture reclamation system Can potentially be very? Consequential to farmers more generally out and out of an abundance of caution I will be stepping down from the days and exiting council chambers when those two agenda items come up Thank You board member Barthelot I don't believe we have any other statements of abstention We have no study session. We'll move now to item four point one which is the approval of the minutes from April 20th 2023 We'll take public comments now on item four point one if you wish to make a comment via zoom Please raise your hand if you're dialing in via telephone, please dial star nine to raise your hand secretary Montoya So there's no one making their way to the podium and chamber There are no hands raised on zoom and no email or voicemail public comments were received very good The minutes will be approved and entered will now move to item five point one, which is the water supply update director Burke Thank You chair Galvin and members of the board our first staff briefing is the water supply update And Peter Martin deputy director of water resources will be making the presentation Right good afternoon chair Galvin members of the board very happy to provide you with a brief water supply update today And you know we're still getting some sprinkles, so definitely the water year is not over yet, so I'll start with Lake Pillsbury storage At my last water supply update I gave the update that PG&E had recently done some seismic evaluations and determined that they would have to keep the Stores low by no longer Rolling up their radial arm gates. This obviously limits their ability to store water Usually during this time of year in the spring they would be Rolling up those gates which will allow them to store additional water So what you'll see this year is that they will be holding Storage much lower than they have typically done so in the summer and in the spring, so From this point forward Maximum capacity will be at just under 74 percent of the capacity for Lake Pillsbury And so that's around 60,000 acre feet or just below So they'll be I guess in total that's about a difference of 20,000 acre feet Typically, which they'd be able to additionally store through the use of those temporary Operations with those gate radial arm gates, so you know, obviously has an impact on the ability to Continue to move water and to the Russian River watershed throughout the year Thankfully there is quite a bit of runoff continuing So there's no expected shortages this year, but just something to consider is that They are not expecting to Change their operations of future and there may be Some additional requests forthcoming for FERC to change their operations into the future In light of the seismic issues they've identified and then storage in Lake Mendocino is just under about a hundred thousand acre feet They are taking full advantage of the forecast informed reservoir operations additional storage pool right now They're matching the inflow and outflow at about a hundred and forty-five cubic feet per second And just something to note is that up until about a week ago The Army Corps was making all the decisions in terms of the releases related to the flood control pool as you can see from that graph they are now within the Normal operations and they handed the decision-making for releases back to Sonoma water as as last week So and then in terms of storage in Lake Sonoma things are looking very good To about two hundred and sixty three thousand seven hundred acre feet in storage This is about eighteen thousand acre feet above their normal water storage pool taking full advantage of their Excuse me their their forecast informed reservoir operations and also the Deviation the minor deviation that they had requested for this year. So Taking full advantage of the additional flows this year and storing more water than they normally would Obviously as a learning exercise to going forward for potential changes in operations Going forward so and Then just to note alternatively compared to Lake Minasino the Army Corps does continue to Operate and make decisions for those releases from Lake Sonoma right now. So and then I just want to note that on April 28th Sonoma water did file an upcoming temporary sea change petition Which they hope to have in place beginning on June 1st Alternatively to what has occurred over the last few years related to trying to preserve as much storage and the reservoirs They now are into the situation where water supply water year classification is normal Which based upon their in-stream flow requirements of their water rights Put some in a situation where they are out of compliance with the federal biological opinion issued in 2008 So they will be requesting relief from those in-stream flow requirements and reducing their minimum in-stream flow requirements or in the upper and Russian River and That will last from the term of June 1st through October 31st Obviously, there's some considerations for the protection of federally and threatened listed endangered species This allows for the conditions for them to thrive and you may have seen many of the advertisements both electronic and also in print and elsewhere Over the past month or so the partnership and the city of Santa Rosa Santa Rosa water has been focused on a thank-you campaign for the customers thanking them for conserving throughout the drought letting them know that We are back in normal water conditions There's never any water to waste, but we are definitely appreciative of their efforts in helping us get through this drought So you'll continue to see this out in the community over the next month or two And then we'll move into our typical summer campaign for water use efficiency Just a reminder the go-friendly garden tours coming up on Saturday May 13th a lot of very exciting different garden locations throughout snowmen Moran counties five of those 17 gardens in total are Located here in Santa Rosa The water use efficiency team will be staffing a booth at a garden in Coffee Park as part of the fire rebuild so you can Interact with our staff if you go out to see these gardens throughout the community It is quite an effort Many of these gardens also you can learn more information online at the saving water partnership website where they've broken down each individual garden And within Santa Rosa the UC master gardeners California of plant society and Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation Will all be sponsoring different sites throughout Santa Rosa. So those are our partners here within Santa Rosa and Something's very exciting news on April 21st The Bureau of Reclamation Made the preliminary announcements regarding their Water efficiency and water and energy efficiency grant program through the water smart program in total they Are proposing a hundred forty million dollars in grants in 15 states for different 84 different projects one of those is an award to these no more in saving water partnership for a water use efficiency program Regional water use efficiency program totaling 4.4 million dollars They will be awarding two million dollars in grant funds The other agencies will have to come up with matching grant funds, but for Santa Rosa water. There is a carve-out of about Just a little bit less than a million dollars To fund the expansion of a direct install program. So Where we launched the funding through the funding from the state a direct install program This year we are looking to do that We will now be able to Increase that substantially so combined with that funding. We're looking at about 4,300, you know Right now it's very preliminary, but that's the good target Different direct installs throughout the city. So Obviously the economies of scale work out when you have Larger amounts of funding going into the program. So staff are very excited working very hard to get that up and running we're awaiting a Check from the state at some point here in the coming months. So look forward to that if The public wants to learn about the program they can go to srcity.org slash toilet And sign up for updates to on that program as well With that I'm happy to take any questions the board may have At this time Thank You deputy director Martin any questions or comments from the board What member Bartholome? So Thank you for the presentation They're always great You said that Lake Pillsbury the storage maximum now will be under seventy four percent Which totals about twenty thousand acre feet that will just continue to flow and not be behind the dam because of the seismic problems Um So pardon me if this is naive and the silly question, but does that water flow then down into Lake Mendocino and Remain captured there so It would continue down the ill river Van Arsdale is downstream of Lake Pillsbury where it does get diverted into the east fork of the Russian River so That water currently is bypassing it would impact for the ill river Potentially later year releases because the goal by raising those gates is to store water additional water in the spring and Allow them to continue to carry flow. So It's it could possibly impact later in the year as the Sidestream channel flows diminish the ability to make up that water later, so Yeah, yeah, it's it's just you know, it's an additional push that they they don't have and here's but yeah, so the diversion to The upper Russian River is downstream of Lake Pillsbury so the water can't okay. Thank you Any other board member check Alvin if I could just add So in terms of the twenty thousand acre feet only a very small portion is diverted through the overwhelming majority goes to the eel Thank you. Any other board member questions or comments board member right? Thank you for the presentation just once more to reiterate reiterate the congratulations on these grants for these toilets. That's fantastic 4,300 toilets, that's a lot of water that we will be saving and I'm sure customers will appreciate it So thank you for that Thank you All right, we'll now open it up for public comments on item 5.1 If you wish to make a comment via zoom, please raise your hand if you're dialing in via telephone Please dial star 9 to raise your hand Secretary Montoya There's no one in Chamber wishing to make a public comment no hands raised on zoom and no email or voicemail public comments were received Thank you that'll conclude item 5.1 will now move to item 5.2 our recycled water supply update director Burke Thank You chair Galvin and members of the board As you mentioned 5.2 is our recycle water supply update staff briefing and Mike Prince our deputy director regional water reuse Operations will be making the presentation oops Thanks, Martha Here to give you an update on recycle water conditions in the regional system Starting out with a couple of photos for context The photo on the left is actually a photo I have shown in a previous presentation that photo was taken in September of last year towards the end of the Season the irrigation season ultimately when we're really pulling water out of the ponds and the photo on the right was taken Yesterday or possibly the day before yesterday just to show conditions We're quite full that photo frankly leaves a little bit to be desired Because it doesn't look like the pond is completely full, but it is actually approaching the overflow riser Elevation of the pond and it's worth keeping in mind that that is just a portion of pond D And we have numerous ponds Pondy is one of our larger ponds Delta pond is about six miles away. It's also similarly similarly full But the point is we're at peak storage levels right now ultimately This is the recycle water storage curve, which I've shown many times before I think you're probably familiar with the general components of the graph The red line in the more or less the center the red trend shows the sawtooth Pattern that comes about when we discharge we have Discharged this season and I'll get into a little bit more detail about that later But ultimately I just wanted to point out that right now our storage levels are leveling off We are relatively high in storage. We're above average, but we are not at our upper limit And actually we are below Maximums for this time of year But ultimately Things are looking pretty good as far as storage is concerned This is a chart that we update every month and it shows our recycle water production The current year is the black line that has almost like an M shape in the middle of it The red dotted line is last year's trend And effectively what this shows you is January was a pretty high production month February was not and March has turned out to be actually a little higher than January This trend is it's one number per month It's the total volume produced in the month divided by the number of days in the month to get an average daily flow rate And then it is smoothed So flows through the plant and through the system don't necessarily follow such a smooth trend But it's done just to more or less communicate differences between months in the background all the spaghetti Charts or plots are historical individual year trends just to put things sort of visually in the context of the overall Trends that have occurred over 1986 to 2021 So as I mentioned, we have discharged. I think we're very unlikely to discharge anymore this season The window is actually closing rapidly So far this year we have discharged nearly 700 million gallons I Want to emphasize that due to our Great working relationship with Calpine Calpine has been willing to take extra flow rate which has reduced our discharge and Kept our storage curve from getting too high So Calpine in my opinion deserves a little bit of a kudos for their flexibility in terms of working with us And I think that's pretty characteristic for Calpine. They do coordinate with us very very well in terms of being flexible about taking flow rates to help us reduce discharge volumes and Keep our storage curve in as close to the sweet spot as possible So I want to draw some attention to that. Nonetheless, we have discharged 697 million gallons and as you all know that results in consumption of nutrient credits phosphorus credits specifically the 697 million gallon volume equates to Nearly 10,300 pounds of phosphorus, which is a one-to-one relationship with the credits that we use That Leaves us with about a third of the balance of credits that we started the discharge season with and to my knowledge we do have Project or two in the works to get more credits, but nonetheless we we Still have a third of the credits remaining that we started the season with Just to put this season's discharge into context I updated a chart that we have that shows discharged volumes from 2010 through 2023 And I want to draw your attention to a trend that you're probably already somewhat aware of but in many years We don't discharge at all Which I think is a great thing and I think everyone in the room probably agrees is a great thing It's a unique aspect of our system But this year is not the largest in the last Let's just say roughly ten years, but it is Maybe the I think it's the third largest discharge that we've had over that time frame With a few of the preceding years as zero discharge years so moving forward into an Outlook into the 2023 Irrigation season I wanted to talk a little bit about allotments for our agricultural customers We're currently planning on a 1.45 billion gallon allotment That's 28% higher than the use that all of our aggregate our Agricultural customers used in aggregate in 2022, which was 1.13 billion gallons So having a wet winter does give us the ability to allocate larger volumes to our agricultural customer base Allotments are going to be available through September 30th 2023 September 30th is it a typical end of the irrigation irrigation season Cut off after which point we would then work on Adjusting flow rates to the geysers to adjust our storage volume and storage levels To prepare for the oncoming winter So September 30th is a pretty key date as far as our allotment program is concerned And we are going to continue to allow transfers of allotments between customers if some customers don't think that they'll use all their allotments and other customers Need greater allotments. We are allowing that again this year But we do require a written request to be issued so that we can document who is transferring what allotment to to whom and Then we have numerous city farms that we irrigate and we tend to use city farm irrigation volumes is a little bit of an adjustment factor if we need to to Make sure that we're doing our best to maximize allotments for agricultural customers and Based on the conditions that we're looking at right now in terms of geysers delivery and storage volumes We do anticipate and Irrigating city farms. We also are going to be taking another hard look at the numbers coming up pretty soon and maybe making some Adjustments in our allotment which would be an increase if we do make an adjustment But we're not ready to do that yet But the sooner we do it the better because our agricultural customers plan their seasons based on the allotments that we're Communicating to them so the earlier they know The more informed decisions they can make about purchasing hay and things like that So that's just a little bit of an update regarding recycle water And I would be more than happy to answer questions if you have any Thank You deputy director friends any board member questions or comments the vice chair Arnone Thank you. I have a couple questions first of all It appears we have like five thousand three hundred and some odd credits left Is there an expiration date on any of those credits? Jennifer Burke may need to answer that because it depends on the credits and I think some things have changed recently Sure, thank you vice chair Arnone. So some of our credits do have a certain life And so we are looking to spend those credits first so that we make sure they don't expire You also may recall we had brought forward in agreement to you all a couple of board meetings ago to be able to Sell credits to Windsor anything we look to sell to them would also be what expires first When we worked with the regional board to change the water quality trading framework There are now certain conditions on public properties were publicly owned properties Where there's environmental uplift where those credits actually would basically not expire until we use them and they're the perpetual I Can't remember the acronym, but they're the peeps is what we refer to them And so they actually have the long credit life that we can in essence freeze and use when we need to So we will always like to spend the ones that are expiring first to make sure we don't lose any credits and Keep the other ones until we need to use them Great. Thank you. I mean given the fact we use more than half of what we have this year I think it behooves us to To conserve all the credits we can and acquire more as soon as possible the second question I had had to do with the The cooperation received from Calpine to accept greater flows Does that give us a bank against which we can? you know Tap in later when we might need to decrease the flows to Calpine or is that a one-shot deal that doesn't go into the Calculus. Oh, no, it goes into the calculus that that volume counts and we're actually 28% ahead of schedule if you will That will allow us to make a forecast for the summer in terms of flows and we there are certain Operational conditions that Calpine would prefer to not go below a certain flow rate And so we just figure out a schedule more or less for the summer to show what flow rate and we'll be down to a You can call it a 40% flow rate Period during the summer and we may be able to extend that longer as a result of having effectively Overdelivered but that that volume does count towards the overall delivery I would expect based on the conditions that we're looking at right now and the potential for ag allotments to not be completely used we may Be delivering more than usual by the end of the year to Calpine Because after September 30th as I mentioned we we may increase flow rates to Calpine to Lower our storage curve to make room for the oncoming winter flows. So a lot remains to be seen But definitely that 28% excess delivery so far does Count towards the contract volume. Thank you. That's my question. Thank you Any other board member questions? We're member right Just one follow-up on board member Arnone's question. So We needed 10,000 credits this year and we only got 5,000 left and you know It's difficult to get projects built and all that sort of thing. So next year we have we need 10,000 again We're 5,000 short Do we just pay a fine for that or is there a grace period until we develop more credits or how does that work? Well, we are working on developing some credits right now, but in terms of some of those details director Burke would probably want to chime in Actually, I noticed that Sean McNeil is on so if we could promote him I'd let him answer directly But I will let you know as deputy director Prince mentioned. We are We've We Invigorated Sonoma RCD to look at projects for us. We've had an agreement with them to look at various projects And then we're also working with Sonoma water on another Restoration reach that should give us quite a bit of credits So I know that deputy director McNeil has been working very closely with Sonoma water on that And then I believe we have some averages that we are allowed to calculate in terms of compliance But I am gonna turn it over to the expert as Sean should be able to answer that question for you Great So that was a great question. Thank you Chair Galvin members of the board so We do have it as director Burke mentioned we have a number of projects lined up both for next year and for future years Where we're beginning that that development We are not able to average anymore With our credits, so we do need to have the credits in hand Also, we have approximately 700 credits Annually coming in from projects. We've already done That means you know, so 10,000 credits was kind of a large a larger size of our discharge We plan on about an average of 3,500 credits per year and then while we're low We're we're trying to build credits at a rate where about 5,000 credits per year so that we'll have some kind of a differential to Make us on the safe side so that we don't have to have Be in the unfortunate position to discharge more phosphorus than we have credits to cover So our compliance excuse me Our compliance is completely built on getting the credits in advance and then lining up projects That can be turned on within a year or two So that we can develop those credits. We are also going after projects that have Life lifetime Usage meaning that that the credits would be good until we use them So in perpetuity and those are so far have been Approved by the regional board and so we're continuing to develop those types of projects over others But we're lining up any in all projects that we could do to have those Available to get started Should we need additional credits beyond? What we're using on average Thank you. This is certainly a question. I wouldn't have asked last year or the year before Thank you for your response Any other board member questions or comments? If not, we'll open it up for public comment on item 5.2 if you wish to make a comment via zoom Please raise your hand if you're dialing in via telephone, please dial star 9 to raise your hand Secretary Montoya, okay, and there's no one in chamber wishing to make public comment No hands raised on zoom and no voicemail or email public comments were received very good That will conclude item 5.2 will now move to item 5.3, which is the Russian River Water Forum update And for that report, I will introduce director Burke All right. Thank you very much Been a while since I've been on this side of the table Good afternoon chair Galvin and members of the board I'm here today to give you an update on the Russian River Water Forum You may recall that in late 2022 and about October 2022 we came before the board and then ultimately went in front of the city council to provide an update on This action that was looking to take place led by Sonoma water to see if we could find some type of solution To the Potter Valley project, which PG&E decided not to re-license and ultimately They're going through a license surrender and decommissioning When we brought that forward we asked for some policy direction from both the board and the council as to how we would provide input on City of Santa Rosa's interests related to interviews that were occurring to see if there was interest in forming some type of work group or other type of Process where we could look to find solutions based on those initial interviews of various interests throughout both the Russian River and Eel River watersheds There was a decision made that there was enough interest to look at forming some type of group Which we are now calling the Russian River Water Forum to see if we could explore some solutions So I wanted to provide a very high-level overview I just by way of background and you probably all recall that the Potter Valley project does divert water from the Eel River Into the headwaters of the east fork of the Russian River and it used to divert quite a bit of water it is an over 100 year old project and in recent years due to a biological opinion on the Eel River that amount of water transfer has decreased significantly So that now on average instead of closer to a hundred and forty to a hundred and fifty thousand acre feet that used to be diverted in previous years On average at sixty thousand but with the recent Issues they've had not only with drought conditions and also the transformer bank no longer being in operation It's closer to maybe thirty thousand about half that thirty thousand acre feet per year As you all are very aware PG&E did Determined that they would not re-license the project and so we are about halfway through of their timeline for their proposal to surrender their license and put forward a decommissioning plan and Why is this important to Santa Rosa? Why is this important to our region? The importance is that that water that is transferred from the Eel River does provide water supply for Lake Mendocino and Ultimately the upper Russian River customers Without that transfer of water based on modeling done by Sonoma water eight out of ten years There is not enough water to meet the needs and in two out of those eight years Lake Mendocino is predicted to go dry So it is in all of our interest to see if we can find some type of solution Sonoma water has Been working on this by going out and they received a grant from the State Department of Water Resources To look at three different Aspects one of which is to look at potential solutions to the diversion which we're now Calling the Russian River Water Forum one of which is to look at resiliency solutions for Potter Valley Basin itself and then the third grant Project that they're working on is looking at the condition assessment of the facilities at the Potter Valley project today, I'm just going to focus on the Russian River Water Forum and What we're really looking to do through the water forum is to Answer some questions related to the Potter Valley project decommissioning if this project isn't in fact decommissioned Can we influence it in any way to save portions of it to keep the transfer going? So to that end who would own it? What facilities would we need to keep and would they need to be modified in some way to ensure water supply and fisheries protection? How will this be funded who will pay for not only the initial acquisition? But ongoing how is this going to be financed and what does it do to the water rights that are held as part of the FERC license? As well as the water rights that are along the Russian River when this water if this water is no longer available those are the questions that we're looking to answer through this forum process and What's been created is a structure a lot of the feedback that was received Through the interviews that were conducted is that the initial effort? To try to form a partnership and a two-basin solution partnership to relicense the project Felt that it wasn't transparent and wasn't open to the public So this is really looking at a very open process Where all of those interests that were interviewed? That analysis was looked at and then made a determination to try and form a couple different groups to work on identifying solutions One was a recommendation to have a planning group Which is at the technical level staff with the limited number of seats although? We do typically say it's 30 plus because there are opportunities for any tribal Participation that would like to participate, so we have that open A second group is a leadership council which would be made up of elected officials and then The way that the we anticipate that this is going to work is that the planning group will be meeting in an open process Underneath the planning group will be for working groups focusing on those questions. I outlined before They would propose various options Those would go up to the planning group to see if we can come up with some suggested solutions And then the planning group will provide that information to the leadership council the leadership council would then if they come to some type of Idea that they can all support or that a majority that could support they will go back to their various elected bodies whether it's city county tribe A water district etc Determine if they want to participate and then eventually those that want to participate would form whatever that new entity would be that would Keep a portion of the project going There's also a future piece Which is the Russian River resiliency subcommittee and that is intended that after we hopefully can come to some type of Path forward for a solution that we will eventually circle back and look at additional Russian River resiliency options So sort of based on this structure. I was going to explain each group So the leadership council as I mentioned will be elected officials and the leadership council has no limit on participation the only exception is They would like one Representative one elected official from each body. So for example if Santa Rosa wanted to participate They didn't want three four five council members, but only one to participate that way We don't have any issues with Brown Act, but other than that. There's no limitations So if every city and snowmen Mendocino County and Humboldt County wanted to participate, it's open The leadership council again will be mostly made of elected officials But there is also the hope that state and federal elected officials will participate and the anticipation is they will likely send their Staff as their delegate. So that will be the only exception for a staff perspective The leadership council is going to consider the options from the planning group and then hopefully as I mentioned see if they can come together on a potential Solution that they could support and then go back to their various Governments to make a decision if they want to participate in particular at the Water Advisory Committee meeting on Monday the whack did Recommend and approve having the chair which is Mike Healy from Petaluma is a council member with Petaluma and the vice chair Which is mayor Natalie Rogers from Santa Rosa Participate on the leadership council representing all of the contractors. So they will be on the leadership council The planning group is limited. So it's roughly 30 But open to include any tribal governments that would like to have staff participate It is Anticipated and directed to be made up of technical staff We will have staff from county governments tribal governments particular water suppliers in Sonoma County and I'll talk about that in one second But we have six seats for Sonoma County water suppliers environmental representatives agricultural interests Resource conservation districts, and then we also have recreation and fisheries interests. So it's a pretty big group these meetings will be open to the public and Encouraging public participation in these meetings going forward Specifically for Sonoma County as I mentioned we have six seats to represent water suppliers and water supply interests So we've identified those six seats. We'll have a member from North County so North County the city of Healdsburg is going to be the Representative and the alternate is going to be city of Cloverdale For West County the representative is going to be Camp Meeker and the alternate is going to be Sweetwater Springs water district for Sonoma water They'll have specific staff Mike Thompson is going to be the member and David Manning is going to be the alternate and then for the water Contractors we all got together and made a decision on the three representatives and the alternates. So for the water contractors It will be North Marin water district That'll be Tony Williams the general manager with Moran water as his alternate Paul Celia. He's a director of water resources We'll have Shannon Catoola who is the public works director from Town of Windsor as a member His alternate will be Dan Herrera from City of Petaluma and then Sienna Rosa with myself being the Representative and then Mary Grace Possen with City of Roaner Park will be the alternate So as these representatives on the planning group, we are also meeting together With all interests all water supply interests in Sonoma County in a caucus group And so we're planning those meetings to happen monthly and to talk through with all of the water supply interests to determine Are there areas where we're all in agreement and we can support a Certain process or solution going forward are there areas where we may not be in agreement But we don't need to stand in the way of the others interests and then are there areas where we do not agree and our interests Divert and so how are we going to represent that so in between each planning group meeting? We're meeting every month through the caucus process to try and align where we can and identify where we don't There will also be the four working group members and the planning group members will be Appointing those working group members We anticipate At least in Santa Rosa. I've suggested that we have Peter Martin Participate water supply and fisheries that we have Morgan bigger staff participate on the governance Working group and that we have Nick Harvey participate on the finance working group So we're trying to be very well represented on all these working groups We also know there's other water suppliers that have suggested membership as well And we're looking to finalize that so as I mentioned we were in front of both the board and the council late fall of last year and The board recommended and the council did support the following policy direction, which We will be using to direct our participation in the Russian River Water Forum and the caucus Or the planning groups and the caucus and so that is we are going to continue to support the transfer of the water in particular not only for water supply reliability, but recognizing the investments that we've made in the fisheries that were generally supportive of some type of Regional entity to acquire what's needed to keep that diversion going That we are receptive to some type of funding But we strongly believe it needs to be proportional to the benefit received and we have heard from other water contractors that this is a strong Desire and interest of the other water contractors as well Any decisions? Regarding this are consistent with the restructured agreement for water supply and that we want to continue to have a Seat at the table to voice our interests and make sure that we're part of the evaluation of any water supply resiliency So this will be our guiding principles as we go through and participate both on the planning group and As the mayor participates on the leadership council in terms of next steps the first meeting is Six-hour meeting on May 17th in Ukaia and then we will have a second planning group meeting That should hopefully be shorter in June and then anticipate July is going to be another roughly six hour or so meeting So those are the three that are so far tentatively planned The working groups they're looking to have those start in June And then as I mentioned we are caucusing as Sonoma County water suppliers We are meeting every month the fourth Thursday of every month We are also having discussions of whether or not we want to meet with the Agricultural caucus of Sonoma County and or also the Mendocino County water suppliers So we're looking to see if we may have some mutual interest there and then the leadership council is just getting Started in terms of establishment and so they're looking for various boards and councils To decide if they want to participate to provide that information before too long And then they're hoping to start that group in probably July, maybe August Once we have some information to provide them from the planning group So pretty aggressive schedule But with the looming deadline of the the license surrender and decommissioning There is a focus to try and get something going quickly if we can To to hopefully preserve any needed facilities in the Potter Valley project And with that wanted to let you know that there is a dedicated website It's Russian River water forum dot work, and I'm happy to answer any questions that the board may have Thank You director Burke. I'll open it up for any board member questions or comments Hearing none. We'll open it up for public comment on item 5.3 if you wish to make a comment via zoom Please raise your hand if you're dialing in via telephone, please dial star 9 to raise your hand Secretary Montoya, okay, and there's no one in council chambers wishing to make public comment No hands raised on zoom and no email or voicemail public comments were received. Thank you. Thank you again director Burke It's a very ambitious schedule, and we hope things go smooth Next we have two items on the consent calendar item 6.1 and 6.2 I'll entertain a motion I'll move adoption of the consent calendar second We have a motion and a second to adopt the consent calendar. Welcome back board member Bartholome We'll now open it up for public comment on items 6.1 and 6.2 if you wish to make a comment via zoom Please raise your hand if you're dialing in via telephone, please dial star 9 to raise your hand Secretary Montoya, okay There's no one in chamber wishing to make public comment No hands raised on zoom and no voicemail or email public comments what were received All right, may we have a roll call vote, please Board member right. Hi Board member Watts. Hi Board member Bartholome. Hi Vice chair Anoni. Hi and chair Galvin. Hi, okay, and that passes with five affirmative votes with board members battenfort and Walsh absent Thank you We have no report items, so we will move to item number eight, which is public comments on non-agenda matters If you wish to make a comment via zoom, please raise your hand if you're dialing in via telephone Please dial star 9 to raise your hand secretary Montoya Okay, and there's no one in chamber wishing to make public comment No hands raised on zoom and no voicemail or email public comments were received All right, that'll conclude that matter will now move forward We have no referrals no written communications. No subcommittee reports. Do we have any board member reports? Very none. We will move then to the directors report director Burke Thank You chair Galvin and members of the board. I just have a couple items to update the board on first I am wanting to let you all know that On April 25th the city council did unanimously pass approving the preliminary regional budget and the partner agency allocations for fiscal year 23 24 finance department is working on notifying our partner agencies and We will be Presenting that budget with the rest of the water and sewer budget to council and study session next week And then it will go for formal adoption on June 20th But I did want to again think the board and especially the budget subcommittee for all of their work It was a great easy item at council and Nic Harvey did a great job. So thank you again for all your work on that. I Also wanted to give an update on our 14th annual Earth Day event We were back in Fully in-person since the onset of the pandemic and we anticipate we estimated sorry That we had a little over 2,500 residents attend. There were 58 booths and vendors With a range of items from eco-friendly products to food and services There were also five different workshops held throughout the event and as a number of stage performances So it was a great event It was made possible through the support of 18 sponsors who contributed a total of $14,000 in sponsorships and in-kind services and we had over 40 volunteers make the event run smoothly So we got a lot of great feedback from the community as well as council members who were able to attend And I did just really want to thank the team And especially Alicia Kulichi it was her first year managing Earth Day, and she did a fabulous job and Then last I did want to let the board know of a recent ruling from the California Air Resources Board on April 28th the California Air Resources Board or CARB unanimously adopted the Advanced Clean Fleets Regulation and This requires California's fleet owners and operators to start purchasing medium and heavy-duty zero emission vehicles beginning in 2024 with the objective to move California's truck fleets to zero emissions where feasible by 2045 and We starting in 2024 we will be required to ensure 50% of our vehicle purchases going forward our zero emission and 100% are zero emission by 2027 there are some limited Exemptions But in general this is going to be an impact that we are going to be having to address not only in the water department, but citywide We did have a lot of participation in this rulemaking Not only through our participation through the Association of California water agencies or aqua But also staff was highly engaged through this effort CARB did acknowledge that they will need to be open to feedback Because there could be a limited availability and supply chain issues And so they are going to their staff is going to discuss how they can Keep the board informed about how this is going and whether or not they would need to get additional feedback And or need to make some changes going forward So I just want to let the board know that we are we've been following this and we are watching this very closely In addition working together with the transportation and public works department city manager's office We're also working on a master plan for a fleet electrification For the city's fleet so that will include all of all of our vehicles and that we hope to Get out on the streets through an RFP process in next month or so and then bring something back for the council to Likely for the council to consider. I think it's going to be a pretty hefty lift And we'll definitely keep the board informed as that goes forward as well And that is my report and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have Thank you director Burke any questions for the director? Yes remember Watts Not a question, but a comment I was able to attend Earth Day with my daughter It was the first time got to see it through like an eyes of a child And she was very upset when I dragged her away, but she was lawn overdue for her nap and being very fussy So but it was just a great event and to be back in person and and see all the camaraderie with staff and the Volunteers it was it was really fun. So I just wanted to thank staff for a really nice afternoon. We'll spend Thank you and the other board member. What's your name? Right so zero emissions by 2027 and does that mean pretty much for us electric vehicles and how does and is the cutoff for like large trucks and backhoes and Things like that So the Purchases going forward the purchase is starting in 2027 are supposed to be all all 100% zero emission There are some limited Exceptions and exemptions exemptions especially for utilities And so there are going to be some heavy machinery where if it's just not available We would have an exemption Because I just don't make that but otherwise. Yeah, that this is it It's something that's been watched very closely because it is going to have a significant impact and significant changes on our fleet going forward and and also the The structure that will need the infrastructure to make sure we have charging capacity for all these vehicles as well Yeah, I see a large CIP project building EV support infrastructure Thank you Any other board member questions or comments We'll now open it up for public comment on item number 13 if you wish to make a comment via zoom Please raise your hand if you're dialing in via telephone, please dial star 9 to raise your hand Secretary Montoya Okay, there's no one in chamber wishing to make public comment No hands raised on zoom and no voicemail or email public comments were received Very good. That concludes our agenda. So we are adjourned. Have a nice afternoon