 All right, good morning. I'd like to call the meeting of the Water Conservation Subcommittee for the City of Santa Rosa's Water Department to order. If we may have a roll call, please. Board Member Rae. Here. Board Member Walsh. Here. And Chair Galvin. Here. So just a reminder, only three microphones work at once. So if you're not speaking, go ahead and mute your microphone. I will now move to item two, which is public comments on non-agenda matters. So 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, do we have anyone? We have no one in the room wishing to make public comment. No hands raised on Zoom and no email or voicemail comments were received. Thank you. We'll now move to item three, which is approval of the minutes from the April 12th, 2023 meeting of the subcommittee. So we'll take public comments on item three. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you're going to dial in via telephone, please dial star nine to raise your hand. Secretary Montoya. There are no hands raised on Zoom. No one in the room wishing to make public comment and no voicemail or email public comments were received. Very good. Then the minutes will be approved and entered. We'll now move to item number 4.1. And ask Deputy Director Martin to introduce the item. Yeah. Good morning, Chair Galvan. Item 4.1 is a presentation on discontinuation of the recirculating hot water pump rebate. Presenting today is Claire Nordley. What are you's efficiency coordinator? Great. Welcome, Miss Nordley. I switch it. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Good morning. I am going to be talking about the discontinuation of our recirculating hot water pump and providing that recommendation. Yeah. I am pushing the arrow key. There we go. All right. Thanks for your patience. Technical difficulties. So before I start talking about discontinuing the hot, recirculating hot water pump rebate, I just wanted to give an overview of what actually is a recirculating hot water pump. It's a small device that goes underneath a sink and it basically recirculates hot water throughout or to that device more quickly so that people don't have to turn on their faucet, let the cooler water run before the water becomes hot. We do currently have a recirculating hot water pump rebate. We provide $250 per pump, and we limit that to one pump per house. The rebate program started 10 years ago. So in August of 2013, and we've rebated 82 pumps in the last 10 years. So it's not a high volume program. We have a ton of pumps that we rebate. One notable feature, and I'll be talking about this throughout the presentation, is that we do require that the pump be an on-demand operation, which means that the customer actually has to physically push a button in order for the pump to begin the recirculating process as opposed to it being on a timer or for motion detection. And that's to save energy. We'll talk about that shortly. So the main reasons why we recommend that this rebate be discontinued is because it's very difficult for the customer to actually meet the program requirements as we have it in place, specifically about the on-demand pump feature, which I'll talk about in the next slide. It's also very difficult in the manufacturing, in the packaging, and for installers to select the correct pump. The packaging is often unclear about whether it's an on-demand pump, or it's on a timer, and installers, plumbers, contractors don't seem to be able to select the correct pump and actually successfully meet the program environments. We also have very unclear water savings. We don't actually know if these pumps save water, and I'll get into that as well. And then the fourth reason is that we really want to devote time to programs and projects and rebates that save the most water for the limited amount of staff time that we have. So I said I would talk about the on-demand pump operation. Basically, the timer and the motion detection style pumps have extremely high energy use. They're not recommended by Sonoma Clean Power. They're actually banned for use for multifamily applications per the California Energy Code. They're not banned for single-family residential new construction. They're penalized for their use, and that is because of their extremely high energy use. However, it's difficult to find these on-demand pumps, which are much less energy use. And then again, there's a lack of installer expertise to find and install the correct pumps. Secondly, there's also very unclear water savings with this rebate. There's actually no industry studies that have been on the potential water savings for recirculating hot water pumps, and we have a too small of a sample size, only 82 pumps that we've ever rebated, for us to evaluate the savings. And oftentimes customers are participating in both this rebate and in other rebates or in other programs that we have, so we would have to eliminate those from the sample size, decreasing the sample size even further. It's also to further muddy the water savings or water savings. So for example, the length of piping from the heater to the point of use, the number of times that a customer is actually turning on their water per day, the age and the type of water heater insulation or lack thereof on pipes, and the air temperature. So all of those things affect the water savings, which means that it's very difficult for us to quantify and understand the savings. So the bottom line is that some customers may want to participate in their energy use. So again, just to summarize, it's difficult for our customers to meet these program requirements. So we've denied quite a few rebate applications that have come our way, which makes it very frustrating for customers to want to participate in our program. That's due to really confusing packaging that's out there on these pumps and lack of installer expertise. It's also unclear what these water savings are. So we can't really see them. I think that were a lot of other staff times availability to other programs that were sure save water. So if you're thinking about this in the state of California, it's pretty uncommon for utilities to offer this rebate. Only two of the 13 snowmobren saving water partnership agencies also have this rebate, and there are a few in central and southern California. The majority also have restrictions on pump types, so they require an on-demand versus the timer feature, and then the majority have very low participation, just like we do in this rebate. So with that, it's recommended by the Water Department that the Board of Public Utilities Water Conservation Subcommittee approve the discontinuation of the recirculating hot water pump rebate. I'm going to stop sharing my screen. Thank you for the presentation. It's kind of ironic that this is my first meeting with the subcommittee and I looked into this program about a year ago and because it takes a long time for the water to get hot in my bathroom because it's the farthest spot from the water heater. I talked to my plumber who was also a client of mine about it and he said, I wouldn't do it because the city requires you to have to push a button every time to turn the damn thing on. He said, it's a pain to put in. It's a pain to maintain. And so he basically said, don't do it. So I'm glad to see based on the numbers that we have here that this is a program that we should discontinue and spend our staff time elsewhere. I'm supportive of your recommendation. I'll open up for other comments by the committee. I just want to say I appreciate the informative discussion. I'm going to rethink the circulator circulating pump that I put in. I was so happy that I got a thumb. Now, I think it's going to go on next door or something like that. So thanks very much. Thank you. Distinction of being the first person to receive the rebates on that chili pepper 10 years ago. And so I know a lot about that product and since then I've been gone through all sorts of variations of different recirculating pumps. The pump I did have did fail spill water all over the place bearings blew out and stuff after one year they did repair it. It is true you have to push a button. They do now have one with the remote, which is really convenient because what happened to me was you put the pump in the farthest place from your water heater. But you want the hot water in your kitchen to and so you have to theoretically run up to push the button which don't be ever dead. So now they have this remote which is pretty good. Eventually I went to different systems of recirculating water because our same problem Dan has is our water heater is just a million miles from our bedroom faucet. Anyway, but I will say that there is one application for this pump and there is no other product that I'm aware of that can do it and that is on demand water heaters. And my daughter put in these on demand water heaters at her house and it you wait. I mean, I don't know, five minutes, eight minutes for hot water to come while they heat up and then once you get it, you have endless hot water. But with the chili pepper, you push the button, and then it fires up on demand. And, and then you get water instantaneously once it's done pumping. So that is the only application I think this thing is really, I mean it's the only product that I'm aware of that will work with a on demand system. But regardless, I support it. It's, it's not something. I mean you got to bring an electrical you got to do plumbing you got to do all this kind of raspberries you know if you're a handy guy, you can do it but if you're not most. Most people spend, you know, upward $1,000 to get the thing by it and install it. Oh, anyway, I'll support this. That's my comments. Thank you. Great. With that. There's no other board member questions or comments. I'll entertain a motion. See where the I don't know I see it I don't see the recommendation on here. Anyway, I'll move to approve removing the arm demand water pump from the rebate program. Perfect. That's a motion in the second. We'll now open it up for public comments on item 4.1 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. There's no one in the room wishing to make public comments no hands raised on zoom and no email or voicemail public comments were received. All right, may we have a roll call vote please. Board Member right. Hi. Board Member Walsh. Hi. And chair Calvin. Hi. And that passes unanimously. Very good. Thank you. Thank you again, Ms. Nordley. We'll now move to item 4.2 Deputy Director Martin. Great. Item 4.2 is a water waste ordinance revision. And presenting today will be Deb Lane, our sustainability representative. Good morning, Ms. Lane. My screen's being shared. It looks like already yes. Technical difficulties today. Oh, it froze. Try it again. Yeah, that's great. And then you'll move this using these guys. All right. Well, good morning. I'm here to talk about a proposed provision to our water waste regulation. Okay. So the regulations were originally adopted in 1999. And we're last revised in 2007 to include recycled water. Things have changed in the past 16 years. And we feel there's a need to modernize the regulations. You'll find the revisions were proposing in the red line copy that was included in your agenda package. So the current definition of water waste is a pretty simple one. A simple one, potable or recycled water use in outdoor areas, resulting in runoff or breaks or leaks in the potable or recycled water delivery system. The current regulations include the ability for the director to issue a written warning and to disconnect service. So why revise these regulations? Well, I'm going to go back to that. AMI and the hourly data that we're working with now has increased staff ability to identify continuous use, which is often associated with a leak or some kind of equipment malfunction. And our current regulations are missing the acknowledgement of continuous use exceptions for enforcement based on adverse effects and an option to enforce water waste for commercial industrial institutional or CII customers without disconnection. And it's also missing an appeals process. So for CII shut off is often not feasible. We have essential needs to continue operations at our schools, police stations, grocery stores, fire departments, et cetera, and a disconnection, which means for a customer who is not in is who is in violation. That's the only means we have, and that would disrupt a local economic activity as well. So we need a mechanism to motivate customers to resolve their water waste in these situations. So this is an overview of the proposed revisions to the regulations. I'll go into more detail on each one. So as a result of working with other cities of reviewing other cities and their regulations like Petaluma, we've spent over a year on working on this to review and had discussions with the city attorney's office. And so what we're proposing is that the applicability would be to all customer classes. We especially need this for CII, but it would also include multifamily residents, single family residents. We propose to redefine water waste and add an escalating administrative fine for every violation, add clarification on the authority to disconnect, add a process for requesting an exception or an appeal. So the current definition, which I read is quite basic. It doesn't address the equipment malfunction that we can see that can cause water waste, especially in a lot of our commercial, industrial, institutional accounts. And it doesn't put a time reference requiring the customer to find or fix the problem. So this is the proposed definition. Part A stays the same, which captures a lot of the outdoor water waste. But in part B, we were defining it as the escape of water through breaks or leaks or due to an equipment malfunction within a customer's plumbing or private distribution system for any substantial period of time within which such break leak or equipment malfunction should have been discovered and corrected. So you see, we've added that equipment malfunction and a time reference requiring the customer to, to find and fix the problem. In terms of the proposed penalty process, should we be able to enact an administrative fine? We'll continue to do what we currently do, which is offer multiple, we make multiple attempts to try and reach the on-site decision maker. This is especially true in CII where the bill might go to Idaho or Montana, but we want to find the on-site customer, which is typically a facility maintenance person or who runs that program and they're able to, once they know there's an issue, they typically want to fix it. So we spend a lot of due diligence in finding the right decision maker on-site. We offer an on-site water smart checkup. We provide ongoing technical analysis and support, and we would never enforce, put, go into an enforcement process as long as the customer is actively working with us and trying to find and fix the leak. However, but after multiple attempts and the customer is non-responsive, we'd follow the process that's outlined in the revised regulations. So the first violation would be a written warning. The customer would have, they're in violation of the water waste regulations and they have one week to respond or we would institute $100 fine. This would be a letter of warning signed by the director of Santa Rosa Water or the director's designee, and the customer would be able to apply for an exemption. So if staff receive no response in one week after sending the official warning letter, then the formal notice of violation process would begin. So the second notice would be the violation letter. They have 72 hours to respond or we'll impose that $100 fine. If we don't hear back in 72 hours, the third notice of violation would go out. The $100 fine goes to $200. If they don't respond within 72 hours, then we go another 72 hours lapses and they get another letter and the fine is now $500 and it'll continue to occur every 72 hours unless we hear from them or have evidence that they are working to try and fix the problem. These notices of violation would be signed by the director of Santa Rosa Water or the designee, director's designee. The customer at that point would have a right to appeal the final decision and the customer needs to contact Santa Rosa Water to resolve the violation to stop the fine process. We've done some research and water race administrative fines are common. These are some of the various cities and water districts that we've researched and our proposed fine structure is within industry standards. And you can see that we anticipate a low need to implement the fine process. In single family residents, we have about 500 reports of water waste per year. That's resulted in approximately eight shutoffs, which is about 1.5% of the cases. We have approximately 40 reports of water waste per year with CII. And if we extrapolate that 1.5%, that's fewer than one customer per year. So the proposed revision adds the administrative fine . I'm sorry, I think I went one ahead. No, I'm right there. This looks different than, let me look back at my last slide. Sorry about that. No. It has the, I'm sorry, here we go. This is the current, I'm with my thoughts now. I've caught up with my thoughts. The current authority to disconnect basically allows the city to disconnect from the service. The city can disconnect from the service. The city can disconnect from the service. And if they don't correct that within 15 days, the city can disconnect their service. The revision part a shows the administrative fine. That I've already described. And clarifies the authority to disconnect. Under city code chapter 14. The city can disconnect from the service. The city can disconnect from the service. Under city code chapter 14. That's zero for potable water and recycled water service. So this is a new section we're proposing to add. Because disconnection. Or an administrative fine could have an adverse impact on health and safety or hardship on the customer. So the customer can request an exception to a water waste ordinance violation. In advance of receiving the notice of violation that first is that they must submit written application explaining why the exemptions justified. And the director of water or directors designee may grant an exception. If necessary to avoid adverse impact on health, sanitation or safety of the applicant or public. And then to avoid undue hardship. For the applicant or the public. So we'll be able to identify customers with exceptions or they can self identify. And then staff will decide on a case by case basis. I think a good example are schools and hospitals. Or are the other essential types of services. Of customers that we would grant an exception for. And it's likely that most of these exceptions, we will grant exceptions for our situations where the customers already been working with us. And they've already found and fixed a lot of the issues that they're able to resolve. And there's just some real difficult ones. Old facilities, you know, no isolation valves, a lot of challenging plumbing situations. So they're, they're, they're, they are actively working with us, but they just can't get to the, to the, to some of those tough ones. And then this is also new as a proposed appeals process. Where any customer can appeal the final decision of Santa Rosa water staff regarding violations to the director of Santa Rosa water or the final decision of the director of Santa Rosa water to the board of public utilities. And they must submit a written notice of appeal. So if we get your recommendation today, we will propose next steps meeting with the full board of public utilities to consider the revised water waste regulations on September 21st. October 10th, we would present to city council at a public hearing considering the revised water waste regulations. There would be a second reading on October 24th. And November 23rd would be the proposed effective date, which is 30 days after the second reading. So it is recommended by the water department that the board of public utilities, water conservation subcommittee recommend to the board of public utilities, the proposed revisions of the city's water waste ordinance, city code chapter 14 dash two as described. Thank you, Miss Lane. Excellent presentation. I think this is definitely something that I'm going to support. And I'll open it up for any questions or comments from my colleagues. Yeah, I probably support this. I have an issue though. Certainly CII. This is very applicable to. I think of the somewhat dysfunctional homeowner that's on vacation. This whole thing goes on and they come home to a $800 bill. So I don't, I don't know what the solution is to be gentler with that. I don't know if we can even do that have a separate group, separate condition for separate group. But it concerns me that many people have no clue about their irrigation or anything like that. And finding them isn't necessarily, and what you do now is probably the best thing is you actually contact them and train them and show them what to do and all that stuff. But anyway, that is just my concern is that you, we could have some homeowners that just get hit with large fines and not really understand what to do. I don't think we're likely to, you know, right now there's a very Claire Nordley has developed a pretty robust process that we work with single family residents who are in violation of the current regulations. And there's a lot of due diligence that goes on. And like we said, there's only then eight shutoffs last year, very low percentage of have actually resulted in that. So so much due diligence happens. In front of that. They're on vacation and this is going on for a long period of time. And we've sent letter after letter, got no response. I mean, shutting them off. Yes, it could stress out the landscape, but it might not have the same kind of ramifications, right? As in CII where this possibility of that this fine is really, because we don't want to put any adverse subject, any health and safety or economic hardship on a lot of CII customers. It's not so intended for CII. I mean, for single family residents, although we want the flexibility to be able to use, use the tool as needed. Yeah, well, it's still person, you know, people go away for three, four weeks. You could then in sprinklers break, you know, my dear come by and walk on it. And all of a sudden you got a leak and then they come back and you've got all this here, your mail's on hold and you've got these letters and fines. And then you, and I guess you could probably appeal it, but then you got this whole big process and all that kind of stuff. It just seems a little bit ruthless on single family residents where CII, you know, they're the big boys. They can handle it. They got people to deal with that kind of stuff. That's just my, that's my concern. If you can think of a way to adjust that or do something for that. Well, I think Claire can confirm, but if they're gone for a few weeks, they aren't going to be near the process takes several weeks when the initial outreach happens and letters are sent. I don't have it memorized when the first letter and how long we wait in between many weeks go by before we would even disconnect a customer, a single family residence customer, which is the current process that we use. We would not be instituting an admin fine while they're off on vacation with a single family residence. Well, that it seems to me that the ordinance is written so that there's flexibility with the director of water to make exceptions and or to waive potential fines and the appeal process. I understand and appreciate board member rights concern, but with AMI, we're going to know about the leak right away. And even if the people are out of town, chances are the city's going to find a way to contact somebody that can address the problem while people are on vacation. So I don't see it as being a situation where we're going to be doing any undue hardship on somebody, particularly if they are gone and have no reason to know that they have a problem. But okay. I do believe assistant city attorney and bigger staff as a NRAC is interested in potentially responding. Yeah. If Miss Lane wouldn't mind minimizing her share screen or hitting escape. So you can see, you can hear me, which is most important. Yeah, I just, I just wanted to speak to director rights concerns. We absolutely agree with you. We were very, very deliberate in how I drafted this language, but also in concert with staff, including Miss Lane and Miss Nordley. For the very reasons you specify, I would emphasize that there is discretion at the staff level in determining when someone becomes quote unquote non responsive. And there is a long lead time and we send them a warning letter before we actually send them a fine. And there's kind of different points where they can for lack of a better term appeal for where they can, you know, seek intervention out of staff level or even up to the director level. And so that gets more towards chair Galvin's thinking, which is we have created kind of little relief valves along the process. So that someone isn't stuck in a really unfortunate situation. And again, I would emphasize the, the, the it's a, it's a staff's discretion, the enforcement. So I believe the focus will be, be mostly on CII, but I also felt like it was appropriate to have this applicable to all classes, at least in theory, if not in regular practice. So that's just what I would layer on top of every one of those comments. Thank you. Yes, thank you, chair Galvin. I appreciate all the comments. I've heard including. Consider the hardship on residential water customer that we have built flexibility in the process. And that we, it looks like we can shut off the water to a residential customer if they're not responsive to save, you know, to save the waste of water while they're, while they're out. I'm considering offering a, an amendment to the recommendation to add to the proposed exceptions that the director, the director of water may consider the cost of repair in relation to the economic condition and degree of cooperation of the customer. If repairs needed. Okay. Apply the fine, apply the fine money towards improvements and whatever caused the leak or breakage. And I'm not sure if member right, if that would be helpful to, to, to your supporting ordinance. In general, I do support changing it. Well, it seemed to me that the ordinance itself gives the discretion to staff and to the director. I don't know that it needs to be specific with regards to hardships or costs of repair. I understand and appreciate your concerns, but I think we trust staff and the director to do the appropriate things. If there are circumstances where the homeowner comes in and says, you know, I just can't afford this fix or, or I, I'm sorry, I was gone and I didn't realize that this problem was occurring. I think the, the discretion is already built in there. I don't know that we need to be specific in terms of a, a one-off kind of situation that we specify in the ordinance as opposed to just giving the staff and the director the, the discretion to make those decisions. I'll agree with that. After hearing what you said, if they have the flexibility and the appeal could come to the Board of Public Utilities, it's something we can do and we just want to help people out to stop water waste. So, okay. I'm good. I'm good with it as presented. Thank you. Assistant city attorney, more bigger staff. Did you have further comment? No, I would just echo what you said, chair Galvin. It is the language is purposefully broad in that it would give the director or their designee. The opportunity to take all those factors into account and to forgive it for lack of a better term. So rather than being prescriptive in the language, it's not a good idea to be a prescriptive. That's what I'm saying. I guess that's what I'm saying. Okay. Other committee member questions or comments. It's not all entertain a motion. Mr chairman. I'd like to make a motion. I move that. That the board of public utilities, water conservation subcommittee recommend to the full board. Public utilities consideration. I would like to make a motion to amend the city's wastewater ordinance. City code chapter 14 dash two has described. I'll second. Very good. We have a motion and a second. I'll now open it up for public comment on item 4.2. Who wish to make a comment via zoom, please raise your hand. The dialing in via telephone, please dial star nine to raise your hand. Secretary Montoya. There's no one in the room wishing to make public comment. No hands raised on zoom and no email or voice mail to make public comment. Thank you. Thank you. We have a roll call vote, please. Yes. Board member right. Board member Walsh. And chair Galvin. And that passes unanimously. Very good. That takes care of item 4.2. Thank you again. Thank you. Appreciate your hard work and also to assistant city attorney figures to have for his work on the drafting of the. The revisions. That concludes our agenda for today. So the subcommittee is now adjourned. Thank you. See you everyone. See you next week.