 order. Tammy, can you go ahead and start with the roll call please? You betcha. So as I call your name, if you could just say here or present or something, that'd be great. Ken Houston. Here. Thanks Ken. Wes Lowry. Here. Kevin Bowden. Here. Jason Elkins. Here. Nelson Tipton. Here. Francie Jaffe. Francie, can you hear us? I had my mute on in the wrong spot, which I always fiddle with it here. I am here. Sorry about that. Thank you. David Bell. Here. Todd Williams. Here. Scott Hallwick. Here. Tom Duster. Here. Allison Gould. Here. Roger Lane. Here. Marcia Martin. Here. Chair, I believe we have a quorum. Thank you, Tammy. The next item is approval of the previous month's minutes for November 15, 2021. Are there any comments, questions on those meeting minutes? If not, we need a motion for approval. I move to approve, Mr. Chair. There's a motion. Is there a second? Okay. Allison is the second. Any other further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. Looks like that motion passes unanimously. Thank you. So the next item, item four, is the water status report. Wes, are you handling that? Nelson will do that for us. Okay. I'm sorry. Nelson, go ahead. Yeah, sure. Good afternoon, everyone. So today, the flow on the St. Brain Creek at the Lions Gauge is 17 CFS. The 124-year average is 15 CFS for this date. The call on the St. Brain Creek is currently Highland Number 2 Reservoir. Admin number is 11,642 with a priority date of November 15, 1881. Call on the main stem of the South Platte River is Riverside Reservoir. Admin number 21,698 with a priority date of May 29, 1909. There's no call below Riverside Reservoir Headgate. So St. Brain Basin Storage, beginning of the month, is at approximately 67% of average. Ralph Price Reservoir at Button Rock Preserve is at 6,376.3 feet, which is equivalent to 11,450 acre feet. It's down about 4,700 acre feet from full, and we are currently releasing 25 CFS. So Union Reservoir is down approximately 1,000 acre feet, and releasing about 7 CFS. And it's, if anybody's been out there and seen it, it's frozen over completely. So that's about it. I think most everybody saw that we had some snow events on the end of December, the first week of January, which raised the snowpack for both the South Platte River Basin and the Colorado River Basin, which was good news for us. Wes will go ahead and he'll go and detail that on another item. It's going to be, you know, I wrote it down. It'll be on 9D on our water supply update. So that's all I have. Is there any questions? Any questions for Nelson? Excellent. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Nelson. All right. I'm on item five, which is public invited to be heard in special presentations. Tammy, do we have either of those? No, nothing today. Okay. All right. Now we'll keep moving. Item six, can or there any agenda revisions or submission of documents? We have none. Okay. Item seven is development activity. Wes, there's no development activity. Is that correct? That is correct. All right. Moving right along. Item eight, eight a is a designation of posting place for board meeting notices. Wes, do you want to go over that real quick? Yes. So as the board recall, last year, the city attorney's office recommended that water board designate the primary location of its official designated posting place on the city's website. We're recommending that again this year. And then also in accordance with kind of the Colorado Sunshine Law and as a backup location, in case of an emergency like a power outage, recommending that water board designate the lobby area outside the service center as the location for posting the physical agenda. So it'll be, so everything would be exactly the same as last year. And that's the recommendation. Okay. Are there any questions for Wes on the designation of the posting place for the board meeting notices? Not hearing any. And I've got the agenda up on my screen. I cannot see everybody. So feel free to chime in if you do have a comment. If there are no comments, we need a motion to approve the recommended meeting notice locations on the city's website as a primary and the bulletin board and the service center is a secondary location. Okay. We have a motion by Allison. Is there a second? Second. Second by Tom. Any further discussion? I can see everybody now and I don't see any further discussion. So all those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Go ahead and raise your hand if you can. Okay. That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Item 8B is the Union Reservoir Land Acquisition Program, the Kelleher parcel. Ken? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to bring up the map on page 15 of your packet. It's kind of easiest to see at this point where the parcel is and how it fits in. Just a little bit of history about the Union Reservoir Land Acquisition Program. City Council initially directed staff to initiate a land acquisition program around Union Reservoir in the mid-1990s. So we've been working on this about 25 years now. As you can see from this map, we've obtained a significant amount of the property around the reservoir. There's really multiple reasons this land acquisition has moved forward over the years. The first and obvious reason is to protect the area around the reservoir from development to ensure that in the future, when Longmont wants to enlarge the reservoir, we don't have large development around the reservoir that we have to address. And it's been very successful at doing that very thing. The second thing we wanted to do was, you know, a lot of the reservoirs on the plains, the far range here, obviously the neatest place to live is right around on the shore of a reservoir. So they tend to get fairly high development activities. And as a result, high nutrient loads and pollution loads from stormwater runoff from developed areas into the reservoirs, which exacerbate water quality issues. As a result, our secondary goal here is to just simply protect the shoreline around the reservoir from immediate impacts from development. This program does both of those. The third thing we really wanted to do is to be able to buttress and expand upon our recreational activities out in the Union Reservoir area. And you need to kind of develop the area to do that. And I'll talk about that one second. Then finally, the north side of the reservoir is operated a little bit. While we do allow boating on the surface of the reservoir, there's a lot of unique wildlife area up there as well. And so a lot of reasons we've done the land acquisition program. Currently, the City Council, in fact, a few years ago, directed staff to proceed with a perimeter trail around the reservoir that's been in the works really for about planned for about 20 years. It was even initially started scoping it out. And then it was kind of put on hold about four or five years ago to give staff time to meet with some of the residents around the reservoir and try to address some concerns there. More recently, it's been determined, staffs had direction to continue to do that development. One of the things on the west side of County Line Road 1, Spring Gulch number two trail system has been constructed and actually goes down to the entrance area of Union Reservoir. And if you look on the map here on Parcel L on the southwest side of the reservoir, the trail goes right through the middle of Parcel L. And so there's a short, just a short spur off that trail in here to the west shoreline of Union Reservoir. And so the first phase of the Union Reservoir trail will be from Parcel L up to Parcel D and then across the road to tie in Jim Ham pond with the Spring Gulch number two trail and create that western link on the west side. Again, if you look at this map, there's only two parcels we do not own. And that's Parcel E, Kellehardt Parcel, Parcel J, which is owned by the Willis family. We do, however, as part of a outside water tap that was approved a number of years ago by Water Board and Council, we did obtain as part of that outside water tap, granting that outside water tap and easement across that property for the trail. So really the last parcel of property that we need to get across is Parcel E. So acquisition of Parcel E will not only further the Union Reservoir enlargement and the Union protecting the shoreline of Union Reservoir, but it'll also create that last link for that eastern perimeter trail. Eventually, Councils ask us to get a trail around the entirety of the reservoir. If you can, if you can think of the trail around Lake McIntosh, the citizens love it. I mean, that's that's one of the jewels of the places between the three or four places really around town that the citizens really like. Those perimeter trails are one of them. So we feel that's an added benefit for this parcel. The current owner, Mr. Kellehardt, unfortunately passed away, I believe last summer sometime. And so the estate is putting the property on the market. We feel it would go quite quickly. It's a very desirable parcel, very nice large house on it with direct frontage all the way down up to the edge of the not the reservoir, but the Union Reservoir Company property, but, you know, fairly close to the shoreline. So very desirable parcel. Our hope would be to, so the executive for the estate first approached the city and asked us, hey, do you have an interest in buying this before I put it on the market? And we said, yes, it fits right in with the other all the other parcels that we've purchased around the reservoir. So we're at this point, staff is is recommending that we proceed with an acquisition acquisition will be around $1.5 million, but the bulk of the value of the property is the actual house. And we would hope to do similar to what we have. If you look right below it on parcel F, G and H, we don't own those houses, we just own the undeveloped property east of it from each just east of the houses down to the Union Reservoir Company property line. So that's what we would probably eventually do with this particular property is split that subdivide that into two parcels and then we could then dispose of sell or have another action and opportunity for managing the house and the remaining property. We have completed the phase one environmental audit. We've completed the altar survey. We have the appraisal hopefully do about the end of this month. So most of the diligence work is done. The phase one environmental audit came back clean as did the altar. So we're pretty comfortable with the parcel property that we have. And so at this point, staff is recommending the Water Board forward a recommendation to City Council to approve the sales contract. Functionally, how we do it is the city and the state will enter into that sales contract. Then that sales contract will go to City Council. If they approve it, the sales contract becomes effective. Even then, we would then close a few weeks after the council meeting currently hoping to close about the end of February on this parcel property. So be happy to answer any questions more broadly about the Union Reservoir Enlargement program or specifically about this particular parcel property. Thanks, Ken. Are there any questions on the proposed acquisition? Once again, I there we go. I can see everybody. Roger, we'll start with you and then go to Scott. Okay. Ken, with the purchase of this parcel, what other areas will prevent us from doing a path like parcel J? Is that going to be obstructing any creation? Yeah, let us bring the map back up again. And I can kind of go around the properties. So parcel J is the one owned by the Willis family, which we have an easement across. So we won't be prevented. The easement is right along the shoreline. So currently, we would have to construct a trail. We'd probably do it like a crusher fine, like on the west half of Lake Macintosh. And it would be fairly close to the shoreline. It may or may not be where the final trail alignment. We don't have a final trail alignment yet. That planning process will occur this spring and summer. So that process is just starting. As you go around the reservoir, there really aren't any other areas that we couldn't fit a trail in. We don't own parcel A, the dashed parcels, parcel A, or U or T. If the trail happened to fall on the north side of Weld County Road 28, I don't think it will. But I don't want to presume where it's going to be until the planning. More than likely, it'll be on the south side of Road 28 there. Or maybe the shoulder, who knows. All those options will be looked at. But pretty much all the way around the reservoir, we either own the property, or we can fit the trail on the Union Reservoir Company property. One interesting part is that parcel D, the plan is to take the trail up to Weld County Road 1. My thought is we'll probably jump across Weld County Road 1 to Jimham Pond, go north to 28, and then come back across the road at 28. But we may not want to road crossings on that trail. There really isn't a good way to go across parcel C, which is between B and D, because of a very large wetland area that is probably one of the more critical wildlife areas out there. So if we don't cross County Line Road 1, I could see us probably going on the east side of one, just basically paralleling County Road 1 up to County Road 28, and then back east. That might require, depending on how you the trail alignment will go, you might want to try to get a small amount of additional ride away, because it's pretty tight on County Line Road 1. You don't want your trail too close to the road. That's the only place I could see. But the short answer is if we get parcel E, there is a way to design the trail, even if parts of it are temporary trail, all the way around the reservoir, and get that complete. Okay, thanks, Ken. Scott? Yeah, thanks, Mr. Chair. New guy question, Ken. I can appreciate with the nexus to the Union Enlargement Project where the water board would be weighing in, but this is more of a parks and recreation element to me, and I was just curious why it's before us specifically. Yeah, that's the property will actually be, I mean, it's going to be owned by the city a long, all the property is owned by the city. I get that, but the actual fund will manage the property will be the water department. It will also be the funding will come from the water department. So because it's for the enlargement of the reservoir, you know, I bring in the trail because this particular acquisition fits so well with the trail, it also fits with the city's overall kind of open space, buffering the East Side Longmont, but the primary purpose of the acquisition is for the enlargement of Union reservoir, it'll be paid for by, and whenever you, whichever fund kind of pays for property, that's recording and progress elements that were filed with the court, but okay. Is there other questions? Yeah, no, I generally supported, I just didn't understand the funding elements, so that makes a lot more sense. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Any other questions? I do have a couple, or Allison, you and Marcia go and then I'll, I can go last. Go ahead, Allison. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I apologize. I don't have a question on the specific matter. However, as I advised staff earlier, I have a previous commitment that I need to step away for. So I apologize. I'm going to have to go. So thank you all. Hope you have a great rest of your meeting. Thank you. Thank you. Go ahead, Marcia. Yeah, Ken, do you know where the house is? I'm thinking in terms of, is it going to be easier or hard to subdivide the property and sell the house? It will, the house is about one third the way down the property from County Line Road 1. It will be real, real easy to subdivide it. Almost, will go identically north of the other three parcels that are on the south side of it. So that part, that part will be real easy. That won't be a problem at all. Thank you very much, Ken. Ken, I've got a related question to that. If I read the right up in the agreement purchase agreement, it's going to be subject to a lease. There's something like that house is going to be potentially leased back to someone in that family. And I guess, where's that at? Because that may impact the value of the house. So make sure it also fits within what you're describing is in terms of the long term use. It seems like that needed to be played out at the same time the contract is. Yes, a very good point. Actually, as we will enter into, so part of the negotiations for the acquisition of the property, the owner's son was living in the house and continues to live in the house today. So part of the negotiation was to allow him to kind of have time to sort out his finances and acquire another parcel of property, plus we don't want to buy it and then immediately have an empty house. So part of the negotiations is you'll have for a three-year lease and that lease will actually be entered into coterminously with this agreement. The lease has already been negotiated. And so it's ready to sign as soon as we sign the contract. It takes about three years for us to run a subdivision process through the normal city subdivision process and then get something, you know, a management decision made on what to do with the house. And then if we want to sell it, it would take some time to sell it. So we feel actually that doesn't hurt at all. It keeps the house properly managed and a tenant in it while we're working through the legal parts of getting a subdivision done. Okay. Thank you. That helps fill a gap that I had. If you go back to the map, Ken, the one, I guess, question going through my mind, there's a few private entities and then is the green or the blue, I'm sorry, kind of blue line and then it's kind of black dash line on the south side of the property. Is that what the potential high water mark of the Union Reservoir expansion would be? Am I seeing that right? Yes. The black dash line on the southwest side of the reservoir and then the east side of the reservoir is the dam and bankment for the highest raise option. All right, I see. Our filing is 21 foot. But when we look, did the engineering 19 foot is physically kind of the best you could do out there. So that's a 19 foot raise. And then the red dash line is just where the 19 foot raise shoreline would be. And then the blue line as part of the negotiations with the reservoir company going clear back into the 1980s, we're putting a reservoir on top of their reservoir and their property. So we have to dedicate this property, the enlarged reservoir property to the company as well as replicate currently they have on the average of 50 foot buffer above the high water line to where their property line is. So we have to replicate that to the reservoir company. So on the north side of the reservoir, the blue line is simply where we would dedicate the extent of the dedication of the property to the reservoir company. Okay. The one thing that's kind of standing out to me is the far north end. It looks like there's a bunch of parcels that potentially would be impacted. Is that right? And are those also areas that the city would ultimately need to acquire or get, you know, to be able to expand the reservoir to this level? It is. Yeah, there's three large parcels, parcel A, U and T on the north side that really are the last kind of three well with Willis's parcel J on the west. Those four parcels are really the last four big ones. And then if you're looking up the Gulch to the north of A and Z, there's a whole bunch of small parcels up there. And it's not decided exactly how that, how that'll look will depend on the design of the dam when it's done. It's possible that we'll have an embankment through there for the relocated County Road 28. And we might not go up there with with the water might, you know, might, might just have an embankment, might put in an embankment in and leave water up there. We've told those property owners have talked to us for years about how that will look. And, you know, so that that part hasn't been decided yet whether we'll need to acquire that or not. But the three big ones on the north side, yeah, that's the last three of all the properties around the reservoir that we need to acquire. And two of them, A and T are owned by the same family, the Dochef Dairy. And we've had a number of conversations with them over the years. Okay. All right. Those were the questions I had. Any further questions for Ken on this? And I once again, can't see everybody here. There we go. Any other comments, questions? I'm not seeing any. So Ken, you need a motion for the recommendation to council on the acquisition of the property. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. With that being said, does someone want to make the motion for a recommendation to city council for the acquisition of the Kelleher parcel at Union Reservoir? Roger? I second Roger's motion, Mr. Chair. Sorry, I so moved. I was muted for a while. Well, we had the second jump the first, but Yeah, good job, John. I was I'm not seeing any. All those in favor say aye and raise your hand. Aye. All right. So that passes unanimously. Thank you, Ken. So next item is eight C, which is the cash in lieu review. Ken? Yes. Thank you again, Mr. Chair. I think we've been looking at this with with Water Board for a little while now, as you may recall, the last time we forwarded a recommendation for sending the cash in lieu to city council, we had increased the price of cash in lieu to account for small increases in the price, the cost of the Windy Gap firming project. And at that time and currently, the cash in lieu was set based primarily on the cost of the Windy Gap firming project. We've utilized a number of different metrics over the years. And for a number of years from the late 1980s up up until 2013, we used the price of CBT as the price as a metrics for cash in lieu, of course that quickly went out of went out of range for us, which is when we then started looking at other projects as alternatives to that and settled on the Windy Gap firming project. Councils ask us to seriously reconsider that and look hard at what we do. We've had, I believe, enough conversations that staff, the short answer right now is staff is recommending that we base cash in lieu upon a full wet acre foot of water basis. That's similar to what a lot of other cities do, although a lot of water providers use CBT, which is in and of itself a full project in that CBT has the underlying water right. It has the project that was constructed. It has robust storage in the project and what e-slope delivery facilities, which deliver the water to the consumers, including Longmont. So CBT, while it is a good full project basis, and many especially rural domestics use that as their sole source because that's their only source of water. Luckily, Longmont has a number of alternatives, which makes our system more robust. As a result, at the current time, staff is going to recommend Water Board that we use the Windy Gap project, the entire project, as a basis for that recommendation. The Windy Gap, what I call the parent project or the diversion and pumping project that was constructed in 1985 on the West Slope, there are allotment contracts for that project, independent of the Windy Gap firming project. The only thing that project didn't build when it was being constructed was the storage component of the overall Windy Gap project. So really, the diversion and pumping project plus the Windy Gap firming project for storage creates the combined full story, full project that delivers wet water to the citizens of Longmont. The Windy Gap diversion and pumping project, while it originally only cost us over $6,000, $7,000 an acre foot to construct, its current value right now is about $30,000 an acre foot. And then the Windy Gap firming project, as we know from our recent cash and lose settings, about $18,500 an acre foot to firm up that parent project. So between the two, the $30,000 for the parent project and the $18,500 for the firming project, that forms the basis of our recommendation of going to $48,500 for the cash and lose price utilizing Windy Gap project as the metrics. If you go to page 28 of your packet, I'll go real quickly through how we get to some of our numbers. Probably the biggest is how do we get $30,000. Really, two ways we got there. The first was that if you look at some current sales of Windy Gap parent, the Platte River Power Authority, they originally acquired 160 units from Fort Collins, Loveland and Estes Park. And of those 160, their board directed them to sell 60 of them and retain 100. It partially reflects the fact that they're going to, in the future, more renewable sources that won't use as much water. They still use a lot of water, so they still are keeping on to 100 units. But the units they're able to dispose of, the most recent sales were a couple of years ago. December of 2020, they sold five units for $2,700,000 per unit, which at a 100-acre foot per unit, that comes down to $27,000 a unit. If you adjust that based upon the Bureau of Reclamation's construction cost index for dams and pumping facilities, which they have good data for, that made it $29,900, so ride out $30,000. And then the second option is the Platte River Power Authority has 10 more units. They've sold 50 of the 60. They have 10 more units that they're going to put on the market, five units that are going to put on the market this spring, and they are going to list, they're going to take bids for it, but they're going to list a minimum bid of $30,000 per unit. So we feel there's real good between those two activities. We feel there's real good justification for utilizing $30,000 a unit for the parent project, for the Windy Gap Divergent and Pupping Project. And then the $18,500, I believe we're all familiar with that. That's our actual sunk costs, our actual bid, the bid cost and what we have forwarded funding up to Northern Water. There's still luckily some contingency funding left in that project, so we're certainly hopeful that we're doing well with that price. That will of course have to be looked at in the future as we look at our quarterly. The good news is, I think you probably saw on the firming project report that the foundation's been dug, cleaned, grouted, and some of the plant at the bottom of the reservoir dam footprint has already been constructed. And during any reservoir project dam construction, your biggest most critical point is getting the foundation dug and not having surprises. So there were a few, there were some obvious differences from what the geotechnical did and what it looked like when it was opened up, but nothing big. So we're still very optimistic about that project moving forward and going on. And then finally, we also have in your packet a comparison of a lot of the front-range water providers who have a spreadsheet that shows that. Again, I always caution everybody, everybody, everybody's situation is different. Everybody's how they calculate and what they do with cash and loo is different. So I always suggest don't only, don't look at that as kind of compare it because it's really apples and oranges when you compare, although some of them some of them have similar as we do, but it's good information. Real quick update on the, one of the things as part of this process Water Board had asked us to come back and report on is the Piesco trade. As you, as you may recall, a portion of our future water supply is based upon the public service company trade. We have had additional meetings with public service and phone calls and conversations. Our most recent, we actually sent public service company a written request for either an extension or to make permanent part or all of the trade. They have taken that up kind of up their chain and it turns out their company does not believe they can enter into a permanent exchange. Was, was kind of the first really for them and for us to feel that. So not that they certainly reiterated it was extremely important in their future water supply planning and they're planning, they're very happy with the agreement and they don't intend on stepping out of it anytime soon. We will probably, they do believe we might be able to extend the term and possibly extend the opt out provision, timing right now. It's a 15-year opt out. Well, it said, we've never heard of anything that long. And I says, well, we don't want it that short. So you can, you can see, you know, two, two different entities can look at the same thing a little bit differently. But that is, that is something that is, we believe is safe and secure, but does not appear at this point that we would be able to make a permanent, which we thought. So that probably makes our water supply planning even more important. And it probably makes the union reservoir pumpback pipeline more important to maintain diligence on that and think it through and get it right. And so one of the things we weren't able to get all the information for today's meeting, but we'll try to commit for the March, the next quarterly review is March. We'll try to commit to have better, more well developed robust numbers on that pumpback pipeline for Water Board to review and look at at that time. So really, the biggest thing we're asking Water Board to kind of consider now is, whether or not you agree or what it would recommend to council, that we shift our focus on cash and loo to a full project basis, wet water from water right to delivery water to the system. And if that is the case, then we believe right now, the best metrics we have is when you got firming project of 48,500. So we still have a lot of information in the packet for you. One of the other things we included was the city of Fort Collins's may recently went. Ironically, Fort Collins per years, probably three decades was lower than Longmont. Their cash loo was 6,500. And we were, we went from the 7,000 up to about 18,500. And they were still at 6,500. And for years and years, they essentially about, you know, three or four or five years ago went to a project basis, like we're looking at also. And when they looked at theirs, they went up into the, they were in the $40,000 range. And then they, and they've been looking at their halogen reservoir enlargement. They, of course, they don't own any windy gap. So they didn't participate in the windy gap firming project. They carried the carriage windy gap for PRPA through their system, but they don't own any units themselves. So their future water supply was really kind of based upon the halogen project, which, you know, unfortunately for them is in the permitting process. And as they are going through that federal permitting process or finding some fairly significant cost drivers in their project as well. So when they looked at the, at the, that cost plus some system improvements they needed, and some, some base, native basin water rights, they kind of looked at all of that together. And then that's how they came up. They recently went from the $40,000 range to the $60,000 range. A little bit different for Fort Collins in that they include some of their system, which we don't, we have, we have that in our water, our tap fee, and a windy gap surcharge. So little, it doesn't directly compare, but Fort Collins was a similar size city that had a very good evaluation and good process that they were following. So anyway, that's, that's kind of the information we have for you. We're more than happy to try to get additional information. I guess staff would suggest that we maybe look at setting a cash new fee. Today, recommendation to council, knowing that in March we'll have another quarter leave review. If there's any additional information, we'd be happy to bring that and continue to move forward. So this point I'll also open into West. West has been integrally involved in helping us put all this information together. West and Elson both have spent a lot of time getting, getting this information together. So if either you have any additional information you'd like to throw out right now, if not, I'll open it up to water board for questions or, or a possible direction on moving forward with cash and new recommendation. I don't have any additional just ready to take questions. Hey, Nelson, do you have anything? Oh, I don't have anything. Okay. I'll open up to questions. Roger, look like you had your hand. Yeah, a couple of questions. Can the back to the public service thing and I don't want to belabor it, but can you refresh us on the current expiration dates on that agreement? It was a, go ahead, Nelson. I was trying to think of the exact date. 20, it's a 2080. It was a 75 year and we entered it in 2009. So it's 2082, 3, 4, something like that. Okay. So, so you're counting about talking to public service about doing a permanent or an extension. Your thoughts were to extend it beyond 28. Is that where you were going with that? Yeah. Yeah. At, at the least we'd like to reinitiate a 75 year period. So that would, that would put it about the turn of the century 2095 or 2100. We would, we could even go longer if they would go longer. We do 100 year one. We really have, we really settled on a 75 year. That was, that was when we did because that was the longest period that public service company had an appetite for at the time. And so, yeah, that's, we had hoped to, we really, what we're really focusing in on is the 15 year opt out. We would like to extend that to 25 to 50 years. So are you, what's their, what's their reaction to an extension? Or do you know? Their water resources staff whose primary job is to get water for them definitely wants it. Unfortunately, you know, they're a large corporation that answers to aborted directors in many, Atlas, Minnesota, I think out of state who doesn't quite have the appreciation for Western water. And, and so that's really their, their difficulty is, is convincing the corporate corporation out of state corporation. Okay. All right. Well, thank you. Tom, go ahead. Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Mr. Chair. So I'm, I'm going to ask a question that seems kind of flippant. Maybe, maybe I just am trying to kind of get my head around some of these things. So the, the, the sale, the upcoming sale of Windygap project allotment contracts. Are we, we're, are we in the market for any of that? Or are we, that's just going to happen and we're not participating in that, right? We certainly would have, in fact, we actually have the second right of refusal. If we wanted to purchase those, the, the original first right of refusal, pump, plumber or power authority has to ask for Collins, Loveland and Estes Park, if they would like to buy them back. That's, that's where they got them. So we, you know, and that's where it should be. All three of those entities have said no, they don't want it. They then have to ask Longmont, if Longmont wants to purchase it, and then if we don't want to purchase it, which we won't, then it will go onto the sort of quasi open market. It, you know, it has to be within the Northern boundaries. It has to be within the municipal sub district boundaries. You know, it can't just go anywhere, but, but it can go. We would probably would not be in the market for it primarily because we have excess parent project water that we did not firm as part of the firming project. And it's not really considered part of our, what is our firm yield of our, our system. And so before we would buy more parent project water, we would want to do something like the union reservoir enlargement or other projects to firm our unfirmed portion of the project. So so I get me. Oh, sorry, Ken. I was gonna say we're the last full one sixth participant in the project. We're the only participant that still has all of our original windy gap allotments units. Okay. So I guess I mean I've probably brought this up maybe a few too many times, maybe I'm not sure, but I guess what I'm trying to wrap my head around is this concept of like next incremental cost, right? And that, and that's like the basis or the foundation for our cash in lieu. And I'm just wondering like if we are not going to be in the market for this for these contracts, right? Are that is that really our next incremental cost or is the next incremental cost a more realistic project like I don't know something like the Union pump back or something. I mean, I could kind of justify at least in my mind this concept of like the next incremental cost being kind of associated with this project that is being built, right? Like the firming, the firming part of this, right? And I'm having a harder time maybe thinking about basing our next incremental cost on a project on shares and a project that was built 30 years ago now that that perhaps we were not necessarily, it's not a, it's not a realistic solution for our future, I guess, right? Like, so I don't know any, any, maybe, maybe it's a comment, but maybe any thoughts about that? Am I just not wrapping my head around this concept or maybe I'm being too kind of, maybe I'm holding on to this concept of next incremental cost is too much perhaps? I don't know. Yeah, no, I think that's a really good point. And that's really why what we're trying to do is be clear that we're not using the Windygap project as the quote next project we're going to do or the incremental cost, but really we're using as a metrics for that project primarily because CBT is too expensive to use as a metrics. Windygap is a project that is part of it's being built now, the part of it's being sold so it's real dependable numbers. We do believe we can get better numbers for the, like the Union Reservoir Enlargement and the pump back. We just don't have those yet. As soon as we do, Water Board may choose to either use that totally or partially or average it with Windygap. Other projects certainly could. In the past, we've put a little weight on water conservation, but our problem is, again, that's certainly not why we can calculate theoretical yield of certain prod components that gets a little more difficult to do, but certainly could. We just felt Windygap project is kind of also in the middle of the road, much less than CBT, but a little bit more than Union and pump back will come out or water conservation, those things. If you kind of look at the whole picture all the way from water conservation to CBT, you're still going to fall somewhere in the middle, which is where Windygap is. That's why we try to think of it as a metrics to compare to rather than the project that we would spend money on. Yeah, so it's just more of a proxy for what we expect the future data to look like. A project to cost, yeah. Marcia, did you have a comment or question? Yes, and I apologize. I was forced to take an emergency call in the middle of its discussion, so if I'm running over old ground, I'm sorry, but I have to ask. It sounds like your discussion is trying to keep the price as low as possible and or as low as can be justified. I don't understand why that is, especially since the rest of the policymakers are tending to push things, and I don't mean the policymakers, like the city council, although I do mean that, but also city planning, the people that are revising the comprehensive plan are looking at increasing the density of population in Longmont, in doing infill development that is much more dense than what the last planning was, and so it seems to me that we should have our thumbs on the scales in favor of people bringing actual water rights into the city, and if they're not, then having to pay a lot for it so that we can go out and buy it somewhere else. I hate to upset the whole discussion by asking that question, but I just did. No, actually that's a very good point, and certainly, at least for staff, we feel it starts to fall a little bit in the policy realm, but certainly we have or will have soon the data. As you may remember back when we were setting previously, setting the cash and loot price, the lowest of all the prices was water conservation. It was coming in around $10,000 an acre foot. Certainly if we wanted to derive more of our water supply from water conservation, that price is going to go up quite a bit because right now we're picking all the low-hanging fruit and it only makes sense to do the water conservation programs that are the most effective and least cost per acre foot, but to go further and further, it gets increasingly more expensive. We certainly could bring that information back. I guess what I was trying to describe was that we feel we certainly weren't trying to go to the lower, the least cost would be something like a button rock enlargement, which has the water right, has the enlargement, and has the capability to deliver it directly to our system. That price is going to be in the $20,000 per acre foot range, but we haven't done a federal permitting for that, and a federal permitting process could greatly change that price, as Fort Collins found out with Halligan. Another good, valuable project would be the Union Reservoir Enlargement and Pumpback Pipeline, which again is that's going to come in the high 20s, low 30s, still well below the 40,000 we're talking now. That's why we proposed a project that was kind of in the middle, and the only other project that I could think of that would come in higher would be the CBT, and there's absolutely, as a policy, he certainly could say, I want to use CBT as a metric, and then you're talking $70,000 to $80,000 an acre foot for it, which again, I have no problem with that policy being made either, little less defendable, mostly because in our past planning documents we've said CBT is so expensive, we probably don't, we did not, we affirmably said in our Brawl Water Master Planning processes that we weren't going to go get CBT because of its high cost, and so it gets, my only caution is we'd have to, I believe we'd have to talk with our legal department to make sure that's defendable. I believe it is because I believe it's within the context of a fee. We really believe we're telling you, the lower range and the upper range of what is a legally defensible fee, and so yeah, if we were to recommend $48,000 now, and counsel you don't want to just use either another metric or maybe a combination of all them, both Windy Gap and CBT, that would put you in the 60s, and that might be a very good policy decision too, so yeah, we're not trying to cut it low. Okay, no, well then that's fine, and like I said, I was missing a chunk of the discussion and I didn't want to force you to recap any more than you had to just to get me lined up. I, based on what you said Ken, I think it would, that the counsel would be very interested in the costs of the various options, whether it's used as a price metric or not. So for example, you know, if you asked, if you made me take a test on it, I wouldn't have thought about button rock enlargement, but it's a really good idea because it's good clean water, you know, so, but that doesn't mean it has to be our cash and loom metric, right? It's just something that's available to Longmont, and I don't know, I hope the staff would be collaborating on what all of our options are when we do the density planning for the next comp plan, right? I hope so, but yeah, yeah, I'd want the council to know too. Yeah, we absolutely need to be part of that because we need to understand what it means for our water supply. If we're going to plan it, you know, we have always held the position that the community can, should be able to plan what it wants, and we have a responsibility as a water department to fit that plan unless we can't, and then we have an obligation to tell the planning department we can't. So you're absolutely right, good point, and we will be involved in that planning process to make sure we don't overstep our future ability to deliver. Yeah, okay, great. I'm all caught up and thank you. Cool, thank you. Are there any other questions? I've got a few, but does anybody else want to go? I guess I'll ask mine. Number one, Ken, if I remember the city attorney when his presentation to us, I thought one of the things that he told us is we could not charge twice for the same service. And I guess what I'm wondering is we have this windy gap surcharge fee that's applied to new development. How can we charge that and then turn around and I know, you know, windy gap water plus the firming project may just be a matrix or a proxy, so to speak, in terms of the price. But doesn't that surcharge fee apply towards acquisition of raw water? I mean, when we weren't including the raw water component of windy gap, we're just including the firming project that made maybe a little more sense to me. But have you talked to the city attorney's office about that? Yes, that really gets to where, you know, the caution about using windy gap as a matrix rather than portraying it as where the money's actually going to go, because you're absolutely right. We have have already paid for the pumping, the diversion and pumping project. So the money obviously won't be going there. And the windy gap surcharge, that surcharge is directly going to pay for the windy gap firming project. All the funding from that, I mean, you can kind of say, well, it all goes into the water fund, but it's pretty well, you know, that funding is specifically directed to pay off the bonds for the, and the surcharge is scheduled to end on the same year that the last bond payment is made. So it's a, you know, a short term surcharge to pay for that. And that's why we believe it is reasonable to use a matrix as long as the windy gap is a matrix, as long as we're clear that is not where the money is going. It's going to pay for future projects. But if you have a surcharge and it's going towards whether it's windy gap or something else, isn't that partially a payment for their, is that not considered part of their payment for raw water to the city? Is that that's considered separate? I mean, I'm just stuck on this, you know, there's a surcharge coming in for the new development. They're paying for part of, let's say, the windy gap firming project. It's adding yield to the city's water system. So and then we're having a metric or a proxy with windy gap that includes water plus storage, aren't they paying, you know, at least a component of that twice? They are not because irrespective, the cash in lieu is to bring everybody up to three acre feet per acre on the raw water dedication fee. The surcharge is applied equally whether you have, if you have no water and you pay 100% cash in lieu or you have three acre feet per acre, that doesn't matter. That brings everybody to the level of playing field of three acre feet per acre. And then everybody who takes out a tap pays for the surcharge. So the surcharge basically is on top of the three acre feet. You're not, you're not trying to use that to pay any of the of the raw water requirement policy. So it is specifically to pay for or directly water, you know, water coming to the tap, which really is, is you know, that fee pays for that next incremental, the incremental water delivered to that tap. Okay. That helps that everybody's kind of treated the same whether they have the three acre foot per acre in wet water or they get a big cash in lieu that that helps me. A couple other, I guess, things that strike me as during this conversation. Number one, I'm PRPA. I know we're talking about, well, instead of maybe 15 years, you try to push it to a 25 year on the opt out, you extend the term of the lease from 75 to 100 years. The bottom line to me is it's not a permanent water supply. So to sit there and well, if it goes from 15 to 25 on the opt out and 75 to 100, let's call it a permanent water supply. In my mind, that's not a permanent water supply. At some point, and the anecdote I'd use is look at the town of Craig. Craig has a power plant and they have a coal mine. And if you would ask them 10 or 20 years ago, I'm sure they thought that those two were going to be around in perpetuity. They're both going away. There was an article about it. I read in the paper today, by 2030, those the power plant and I believe the coal mine are both going to be shut down. So I just feel like we're kind of deceiving ourselves if we sit there and kind of paper around the fact that it's not a permanent water supply. And if we can make that decision, it'll help us with our planning. Because if we wait 25 years to start developing those water supplies, good luck. It's going to be a heck of a lot more difficult at that point than knowing that, hey, we need to be ready that in 25 years, those supplies could be gone and we better have our ducks in a row before that occurs. So that's my first point. The second point is in the context of these costs, of these projects, you know, you brought up button rock and I think Union Reservoir enlargement plays into this. I think we need to understand what does or does not have major federal permit implications. I just look at when you get firming was off-channel reservoir. In my mind, it's simple, probably not the right term to use, but it wasn't on-channel and that took over 20 years to get permitted. And during that 20-year period, the cost of that project went up by an order of magnitude. So I think we need to be really careful about trying to hitch the wagon to costs that are tied to a project that takes a federal permit and whether or not that's viable at a minimum, it's going to take by decades to do and things only get more difficult as things go into the future. At least that's what the track record has been. So I think we need to be real careful about that component of it. On Union Reservoir pumpback, the one thing that would be interesting to me is how much yield could we generate without having to do the enlargement of the reservoir and what's the cost of that? Because those would be projects that I think we could do without having to get into this federal permitting and the cost and the risk associated with it. So just a couple of comments in terms of how we look at this going forward on those proxies or trying to compare cost estimates and how we set cash and lieu. So anyway, just a couple of points based on the previous discussion we had. I guess the way I look at this is if we set it now based on Windy Gap is a proxy with the thought that in Tom Deere point, we're going to have updated cost for the pumpback project coming in 2022, number one. Number two, and I know I brought this up previously, I think there's risks and we may want to adjust the safety factor on supplies. I know in the write-up, the Ken did, they talk about, they're going to be talking to Northern, we're going to be looking at modeling. How does the yield of the Windy Gap firming project change in the future? And that may need to be built into those costs as we go into the future too. So in my mind, we're kind of setting it as a proxy today with, if we agree with it, there's going to be other information that comes as we move into the future and we can reevaluate that as that information comes. So anyway, I'm, I guess, personally, I'm okay with using Windy Gap both in terms of the water and the project. Firming project is the proxy with knowing that there's going to be additional bites of the apple as we find out additional information in the future. But I would like this PRPA, or not PRPA, but I'm sorry, public service, I would like that kind of coupled with this discussion, maybe with the council, just so everybody understands the, you know, how much water do we need to develop and how does that relate to the projects that we're going to be looking at in the costs as we move into the future. So I'm sorry to take so much time, but just a few things as we go through this that are sticking out to me. So I don't know, I'll open it up, anybody else have any want to respond to that, Ken, or Wes, or if there's any other questions? Just, just one real quick response. You know, I think all the points you're making are really so excellent that we actually were not planning on taking directly to council the price increase, I'll get the recommendation on the cash and new price. We actually have scheduled to go to the February study session of council to bring this information to them, because I mean, your points are so well taken, we felt this is the kind of stuff that take a little bit of, you know, take a study session to get this information to council because it's a big thing, yeah, it's a big area and so we'll do that study session and then follow up with an actual resolution for the cash and new change and that that will be a great time to get more input, you know, back from council and all that will happen at the end of February, hopefully we can get it scheduled right, that then in March, council may ask us to tweak it a little bit more at the March quarterly setting. So I think there's real good opportunity to take all of that information, continue to update our numbers and continue to do that. So that's a really good point, Todd. Scott? Yeah, I was just going to piggyback on the conversation with the question to Ken, because I know we've talked about it, but is there a projected time by which we'll have union pump back costs in 2022? And the reason I'm asking is because this seems like a push to put in place a slightly elevated cost in lieu price first quarter of 2022. And I'm not sure it's the best metric at the end of the day and depending on when additional information is available, it's a policy question as to when to raise it, but if the information's available relatively soon, it seems like that would be more helpful or a better basis or at least a portion of information in which we could make a better recommendation upon. Yeah, I don't know, Jason has been talking to Darren Ault about getting some of that information to us. I don't know. Jason, do you have any kind of a commitment yet from those folks about when they might have that information to us? So I was working with Dewberry to provide updates on that and I'm still working with them to get us a proposal. They do have some of that background information. They thought it wouldn't take very long, but that kind of like everybody else, they've been really busy at the moment and I've not yet received the proposal, but it's due here in the next week or two. The proposal. Correct. To give us the updated cost on some of those projects. Yeah, probably wouldn't be reasonable to think we'd have it for the March quarter report, but we could try to push them a little bit to have it for the June, you know, which may, that's the case, it may make sense to set the fee now, the recommendation now and plan on updating that at the June quarterly review. And I'm not opposed to the proposal, Ken. I just wanted to understand the timing elements to that. I think there's another component to the proposal, which is the possibility of stepping it so that it's not a three time multiplier, you know, immediately. And I again, I think that it's likely that we'll have better information upon which to make a better recommendation in the calendar year. So to the extent that there's a step, you know, process that probably makes more sense to people that have been trying to come in and bring a proposal to you. All of a sudden, they've got a bigger number immediately. But I don't have a proposal that either other than it seems like it's about a multiplier of three. So if you went up 50% or 100% and then another, you know, you go halfway and then another halfway over a period of time that probably makes more sense to me. Okay. Tom. Yeah, I mean, I agree with Scott in the sense that it seems like it's something that would have to be phased in. And that that gives us a little bit of additional time, perhaps to get additional information. So for example, I mean, I would suggest something like picking a year or a number of years. So whether if you said, well, we're we're going to phase it in in a year or two years time, well, then now that's, you take the additional increment increase and you divide it by either four or eight and add that to each quarter. And and then that that enables you to then have with some caveat in there of, you know, pending additional information or something that could kind of disrupt that that that what that that that I don't know process or math or whatever, I guess, right? So so it just kind of enables us to have a little bit more time maybe to get some additional information, perhaps. So if we kind of agreed on some kind of phase in period, and then it's just a little not nearly the large steps or the large kind of increase that that might surprise some I suppose, I don't know. Roger. I guess I'll take a contrarian view. I don't think the increase, it's a significant increase, but I think considering where we are now, I've always felt we're so low compared to the others that we were underpricing it. And I'm very comfortable with with taking it to this level at the present time. I'm just giving you my opinion. I I still think we're just considerably lower than the rest of the communities. And I think that kind of gives us a little bit of a disadvantage when we're, you know, going about any type of proposals. I just think it's out of the ballpark. And I'm, I guess I'm saying I think these are the best numbers we have right now. And I'd be comfortable with proceeding with these numbers and the price that came out with. So I'm just I'm just voicing my opinion. Some of our mayor looks at it, Roger. Well, you know, I'm not uncomfortable with that number, because I think we've just been too far out of the ballpark. And it's based on good information. So that's just how I feel about any other comments, Scott. I won't take issue with Roger's opinion, because I recognize that that's an appealing way to view it. I would just echo Ken's thoughts, which is there's absolutely there's very little reason to look at communities surrounding us and what they do and apply that to what we do. It really ought to be a technical and objective analysis of what it costs for Longmont to provide water, not what Fort Collins does, not what Firestone does. And the fact that it's a differential, a differentiable rate, frankly, is is accredited to the way that we've planned historically. Now, the people that are out there charging a hell of a lot more people that didn't think about having a water system until five years ago and now are struggling to catch up. And their real cost to add an additional liquor for water is exponentially higher than ours. So that's that's just, you know, Roger, I'm not just agreeing with the way you look at it. I'm just saying that that's I would I would hope that there's no comments on the record from anybody saying we need to do this because Firestone is right. I mean, because it's just it's just not the right basis legally upon which to to make a policy decision, in my opinion. But yeah, we can go we can go full freight. I'm fine. I just I just think that that it is a fairly big sticker shock. And you know, there are prior people that have been in the queue waiting that will be surprised. But well, that's council's decision not mine. Tom, you had your hand up and then Roger, you can go after time. Well, why don't Roger go ahead and maybe respond. I'm not trying to put a lot on comparison of the community. But I think Ken did and his staff did a good job of trying to put solid numbers together. And that's what we're basing this on. And I'm I'm not leaning towards how we are. I'm, you know, I'm just making that of a comment. But I'm comfortable with the numbers that can put together. And I think they're solid. And I don't think there's any problem with submitting them. And yeah, numbers may change down the road. But I would prefer to go with the numbers that we believe are correct now. And we want to do some adjustment down the road. Fine. Sure. And pick up there and then Todd. So yeah, I mean, a couple of things. My instinct is still that we we still necessarily have a really good understanding of that next project, right? I feel like we're still kind of using proxy data from past projects to influence or to inform the future. And so I'd still really like to see what what we think the next project for us looks like, right? And I will kind of pick up with what Scott said as well, that we're very much the beneficiaries of these wonderful decisions that were made in the past, right? And and I think the thing that has to the extent that I've been, I don't know, disappointed is too strong a word. But to the extent that I've been a little disheartened by the by the conversation is that I wonder what would happen if we kind of shift the the thought process to saying, OK, well, we have these relatively lower costs relative to these other communities, right? And is there a way to kind of use that that benefit, right, that our kind of predecessors have kind of provided to us to our advantage as a community, right? So these relatively lower water costs, at least into the future, right? At least as previously calculated, right? Could could be somehow use that as a springboard to kind of create some kind of tangible benefit for the community. And I I don't know that we've we've really kind of like had that discussion because we're a little bit kind of bogged down and in having the discussion about well, what should the cost of water be? And I just I kind of wonder whether whether something more could have come out of that. And so that's something that I might kind of think about a little bit more into the future, whether or not those or more so ask City Council, right? What what some of their thoughts might be about kind of how to use those relatively low water costs relative to all of our surrounding communities to enable, like I said, tangible benefits, right, for the community. So, okay, thanks. Tom. Marsha. Marsha, you can go. My space bar isn't working. Sorry. I don't want to interject a full policy viewpoint into this because, you know, that's for the Council to do next month a little bit. But I have a hard time thinking about this in terms not in terms of how much is it going to provide now, but how much is it going to cost the City to provide in the future? And we have a very uncertain future. So I guess if we're going to look at, you know, what advantage a low price brings, maybe, you know, I missed it when I was on my call, but what's the advantage that we would expect to have by having low costs? Because it is not that we're having a hard time attracting people who want to develop our land. Yeah, so maybe I'll respond. I think two things. First of all, I mean, I do feel like, you know, there is a potentially a tangible benefit with respect to affordable housing. I know that water is only a small component of that. So of course, that may not be nearly the kind of bang for the buck, if you will, that you would really be able to point to and say, see what look what we did. However, I do think that if we reframed the discussion that planning for the future is a tangible benefit, right? That some kind of, you know, like I said, like I've been kind of saying a bit, you know, there's some kind of rainy day fund, right, that we are better prepared for for a future, right, that that is that is drier and lower uncertain potentially, right? And and I feel like that even that discussion, if that's where it went, that's that's fine with me. But but but kind of calling it a little bit more what it is, which is kind of contingency planning, etc. I'm just, I'm just not quite sure that I see what our real costs are yet, right, what what our kind of what what the real costs look like, even within a pseudo certain future, that then we can put a 10% or 20% buffer on top of that, I can justify those things, at least within my own mind. Right now, I feel like I'm still kind of using past data as kind of prologue to the to the future in a way that maybe isn't isn't quite what I'm understanding to be kind of the next and incremental costs, perhaps, right? Yeah, there was just a thing on the radio this morning that that talked about how little the past is predicting the future right now, in terms of of weather. And so, yeah, I'm not sure that we should be using backward looking metrics at this point. And we should have a big uncertainty factor. But well, in one note there, I think I mentioned earlier, that's part of what, you know, with the Winnie Gap project, for example, I think the modeling is going to be updated and we're going to try to take that into account as we move forward, at least in the context of Winnie Gap and we'll try to do the same with, you know, the universal or pump back. We're just going to have to evolve as this thing kind of moves down the road. And in my mind, we'd like you say, we just don't have the data at this point. But in my mind, we're set in a point today, what we think may be a kind of quote unquote reasonable cost, while we're getting additional information on Union reservoir, your reservoir pump back, but the other projects that we are actually pursuing, and we can update those costs as we get that information. So in my mind, I think we're setting up hopefully the right format that as we get additional information, whether it's, you know, the impacts of climate change, whether it's, you know, construction costs on Union reservoir, we can, you know, update that cash and loot price accordingly. So anyway, so Ken, in terms of what you need today, you're saying you're going to have kind of a policy discussion or you're going to bring this concept. And I guess maybe that's a question for today of, you know, is the water board okay with bringing this concept to the council next month. And then you'll come back to us with a resolution at that point for further consideration. Is that where you're headed here? Yeah, well, what we would, I guess ideally like is exactly what you're describing. Recommending that we use a policy of a full provision of a full acre foot of water, wet water from entire project basis. And if that is the case, then at the very least, we should increase the cash and loo 48 five. As part of this review process, knowing that we will have quarterly reviews, March, June, September and December, you know, we can, we'll certainly continue this discussion at each quarterly review will be able to fine tune this, but that if it is this policy, you know, since we, since we adjusted every quarter, I don't see a real big problem and going ahead and go into 48 five now. And then it might go up or down as we continue to refine it, but we'll certainly be closer kind of the to the benchmark of a project basis evaluation. If we if we do it now. So it's really a two step, approve that policy, and then set the cash and loo at this as of this setting at 48 five. Okay. Any comments on that of going there and I guess the other point that was brought up is this phasing seems to me that's maybe back to the council discussion of, you know, do they want to look at that in a phasing plan, but I guess I'm I'm comfortable with going to the 48 five now. I know, you know, we need more information as we move in the future and there may be some kind of some other information coming, but I think to just using it as a proxy to make sure we're in the ballpark of a full project. I mean, today, we've been looking at what's the incremental cost with when you get firming. If we're going to change that mindset to a full project, water rights plus the, you know, firming project, I think that's a good proxy for now to go ahead and set it while we're waiting on this additional information to revisit that as we move forward. So that's that's where I'm at. I'll let the rest of the board kind of weigh in if if we're okay bringing that to council next month. I got a thumbs up from Scott. Roger's a thumbs up and Tom is as well. So can it looks like you have your marching orders on that and then you'll bring it back after the work session with council. And then we'll look at putting a resolution in place or something more definitive at that point. Is that where we're headed? Yeah, well, we'll look at we'll re review this again at the March quarterly review. Okay. Sounds good. With that, I think we're on to the next item. So we're on to nine and nine a is a monthly legislative report. Ken. Yes. Be fairly brief this month. The legislation legislature convened on January 12. And we'll adjourn on May 11. As you know, every member gets to introduce two, two bills at the start of the session. So the initial kind of rush of bills came in. There actually aren't a lot of water bills right now sitting out there. There's only been three water bills and one joint resolution. The three water bills were the first one. They're all in this introduced in the Senate. The first one was the groundwater compact fund. So that doesn't affect long with that's fun to help meet the interstate compacts on the South Platte and the Republican Rivers. You know, important legislation, but doesn't directly impact long month. The second is a bill to further try to crack down on water speculation. So bill 22 dash old 29. Again, that probably doesn't directly impact long month. We weren't at this point ready yet to take a position on it. But they try every legislature to try to crack down a little bit more on water speculation. That's that's pretty tough to do, though. Then finally, Senate Bill 30 was to expand the Water Resources Review Committee to include a specific seat for Colorado agriculture. I'm fine with that. But again, it doesn't directly impact long month. So we are asking for any recommendations. None of these bills go forward right away at the start of the legislature. So we'll come back in February with more information on all of the all all of the water bills at that point. Probably have more interest is the wildfire bills. Actually, even though there's three water bills or five wildfire bills already introduced and wildfire, both because of the east troublesome and the Cameron Peak fires, and then the recent fires in superior in Westville is really a cut and more of a focus of the legislature this year. And probably the one bill that's of most importance to us right now is House Bill 22, 1011, which is wildfire mitigation incentives for local government. So the state is looking to set up additional funding for wildfire mitigation. Again, J. Longmont has taken wildfire planning and forced stewardship very serious for many years. In fact, we came up with originally over 20 years, about 20 years ago, we developed the Button Rock Preserve Forest Health, Forest Stewardship Plan to do forest health up in that area. And we've been working doing that for now 20 years. So we've got a really good start, well ahead of other people. One of the first in the area really do a larger effort on that. But additional money and multi-jurisdictional activities are important. Those are going on. So it looks like there's going to be a little bit of money and effort. And then there's going to be a lot of focus on that in the next couple of years. Certainly protecting our watershed is extremely important to us. And as those bills start fleshing out, again, we'll bring we'll even bring some of those back to you at the February. We haven't had a chance to really go through and look at those wildfire bills to in depth. Yeah, but we will do that and bring those back in February. So don't have any action today, but just a quick summary of the legislation where it's going in this, as every year this time of year, it's starting off. So that's all I have. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay, any questions for Canon on just the general topics? Sounds like we'll get into it a lot more detail in future months. Not hearing any comments. All right. With that, we'll move on to 9B, which is Water Resources Engineering Projects Update. Jason. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to give you guys a quick update on a couple of big projects. So the South Saint-Germain Pipeline Rehab Project, we have finished lining the first half of the pipeline. That's going to get us basically from the diversion structure in the creek just east of the fire station in Lyons. So that'll get us through the town of Lyons. So that's been completely lined. We're currently in the process of tidying up the project, cleaning stuff up, and demobilizing all the heavy equipment so that our new contractor who we're about to award the pump station project to can mobilize into that same spot. And so I'm currently in the process of awarding the contract for the construction services for the South Saint-Germain Pipeline Pump Station Project, which is a separate project, but again ties into the South Saint-Germain Pipeline, which basically puts an interconnect between the south and the north pipeline. And so we're expecting construction to probably kick off here in the next two months based on the time it takes to award and to route the contract and everything and actually get that executed. So I anticipate probably the end of February, if we're early, to be doing the pre-construction meeting with the new contractor. So anyway, that's pretty exciting. We came in under budget, well under our engineer's estimate. And so that's, we're excited about that. Quick announcement that engineering services, engineering administrator Larry Waynell is retiring at the end of the month. And so I'll be taking over a couple of his projects, notably WTR 112, which is the North Saint-Germain Pipeline replacement project. That's a CIP project that's been going on for some time. And so I'll be taking over that. Currently, we are at 60% design for phase nine, which is about 1600 linear feet of the pipeline that's within Highway 66, just east of the town of Lyons. So anyway, I'll be taking that over at the end of this month and we'll be taking those 60% design plans and moving them to 90. And then after that, the plan is to roll that in to construction, which we'll do later this summer. So having said that, those are some of the big fish that I got going on. There's a bunch of little stuff going, but that's really the big major projects that we have going on. Any questions on those? Any questions for Jason? No, thank you for the update. Jason, appreciate it. Was there anything else or was that all of them? That's really it. I could give you a quick update on Button Rock Outlet. We're working on a plan to do some permanent repairs on that, replace the bronze seat. The bronze seat that's currently in there is the same seat that was originally installed and it wasn't installed to be serviceable. So we're looking at a plan to try to remove that and to put in a serviceable bronze seat for the future. Other than that, I don't have too many details. We're still looking at multiple options. That one is a pretty complicated project. It's looking at it on paper, it looks easy, but actually doing it, getting it in there without having to tear apart the gate and do major construction, that's the hard part. How can we piece this back in? The demolition part is the easy part. It's reassembling, that's the hard part. And to do that in under two weeks, that's also the challenge. So anyway, we're working on that in future water board meetings. I'll hopefully have a plan that I can show you, but right now it's working out the details. Okay, great. Thank you for the update. No problem. Any questions for Jason? Not seeing any. Keep moving. Next item is the water conservation update. Francie, are you out there? Yes, and hopefully I didn't switch my headphones to mute this time. So two updates. One, I believe I let the water board know last year that the water conservation budget was supporting the sugar mill in steam revitalization update, and specifically to support that there is a focus on storm drainage and sustainable infrastructure and really looking into how water conservation and low impact development can be a key part of that. Other parts of that project focus on transportation, land use and urban design. That effort is underway. The project team is currently working with property owners, area developers. There is an Engage Longmont web page where there's a survey that residents can fill out. There was also an update recently to City Council that can be shared that I can send a TAMI to share out to the water board along with that Engage Longmont link. There is some upcoming engagement opportunities. So the project manager, one of the project managers recently asked if there are any specific questions about water conservation or other topics around water that could be asked about kind of in this development area. So I also wanted to put that out to the water board in case you all had any questions along. I forgot to grab a map, but I can quickly and shared if folks are not familiar with the steam and sugar mill development area, but wanted to ask if there are any questions about this upcoming sub area planning process that why the project managers are engaging the public that water board may want to add or include in kind of that discussion. My understanding is that they're really trying to take this as an opportunity in the sub area planning to really explore different sustainability concepts and opportunities. I don't know about the rest of the board. It would help me to see a map. I'm not up to speed on exactly what all is proposed there, Nancy. No problem. Let me find one quickly. Here I believe this is from, so I am only, if there are any detailed questions, I would direct water board members to go watch the city council presentation, but I just wanted to pull this up as this is the area here highlighted in pink. That is where they are doing the sub area plan. So this is main street here and that's third. So at the focus is a lot along kind of understanding opportunities and challenges and creating the infrastructure in this area. And I wanted to why I have this pulled up. Here is actually also the engaged log month overview that goes into more depth and then again also has that highlighted area with the survey. So when creating this plan currently they are looking for if we're developing this area are there opportunities that we can be more ambitious and how we develop around pursuing water conservation, stormwater drainage, low impact development. So that's where there could be opportunities when engaging the public that if there's a specific question that the water board may be interested in hearing from the public, I just wanted to kind of open that up to the group to see if there are anything, but I know this is just kind of a quick update and overview and there could be an opportunity if after watching the video or kind of looking through in this and more depth that you could also reach out to me over email and I can pass that along to the project managers as well. Okay, thank you for Nancy. I don't see Ken, maybe Wes or Nelson. I assume all the raw water obligations are satisfied for that area. So it's just purely redevelopment. So whatever comes on there will be a new kind of water demand without additional water supplies coming into the city. Is that correct? I don't know. I'd have to look at it. It's a pretty big parcel. I'm not as sure if 100% of that area within the boundaries of that area have been fully annexed. I'm fairly certain if they've been annexed, they've not been platted and that's where the proverbial rubber will hit the road unsatisfying deficit. So that'll be part of this conversation. Marcia, did you maybe have some insight there? Yes. At the eastern end, two of the three parcels that are the sugar mill area are in fact outside the Longmont city limits and would require an annexation. And I do not believe that the third has been platted either. All three of them are under contract by developers, but two of them are not inside Longmont yet. So that probably tells you some of it. Thank you. Prancy, did you have some? Yeah, I'm not as familiar with that component of it, but this partnership for water resources to provide funding to planning for the development of this sub-area plan came out of a joint department effort focused on growing water smart, trying to continue to integrate the water use and land use next. I think I've mentioned to the board before, so we're really trying to use this as an opportunity of how can, are there ways we can be really innovative of developing land in a way that minimizes water usage to really kind of promote how, like, if there's other redevelopment areas, can we use this point to this property and say here are actually very innovative ways you can really reduce your water usage. So it's also serving, we're hoping to serve in kind of a demonstration site as like that, trying to embody that growing water smart mentality. That's great. Well, thanks for the update. Any other questions or comments? Todd, I want to respond real quickly to more specifically your question on some of the deficits. There is a large portion of that property on the east side that is the former sugar mill property and you may recall in the 1970s when the sugar company, pre-western sugar company, was divesting itself and selling out, they sold the water rights off of that, so there's a good little chunk of property out there, and annexes will have no historical water right on it, so it'll owe the full three acre fee per acre deficit. So yeah, the cash and loot setting is going to be interesting for that project. Great. Okay. Thank you, Francie. I appreciate your update. That's neat project. Did you have something else? Yes, I have one other, hopefully also a neat project. Starting this past fall, we started to get the data coming in from our automated meter readers for our new meters with water. So over, I am working with two other staff members and I've been looking through the continuous water usage data, and this year we're hoping to develop a, looking at that continuous water usage, which we now are getting multiple reads per day instead of one read a month to identify leaks. So we haven't fully established the program so far, but and most things that I'm finding are I would say maybe one gallon per hour, very minor, but during our testing process we came across a leak that looked like it was 90 to 120 gallons of water per hour, and that it sounded like it actually was from a leaking toilet. So hopefully as we continue to do this testing process, we'll continue to identify and figure out a process of notifying residents when they have leaks that are I would say above that 50 gallons of water usage per hour so that we can notify them within a couple of days instead of a month later when they receive a really high water bill. So we're just starting this process, it'll probably be later in the second half of the year until we have a kind of a more robust program, but just wanted to let the water board know that that's a project that we're working on developing this year and have gotten started. And then my last update is that we have released the water efficiency specialist position and that is open until February 1st. Great. Thank you Francine. Any questions, comments on the board? I don't see any. Thank you very much. So now we're on to 9D, which is the monthly water supply update, Wes. Yeah, in light of the time, I'll go really quick on this. We've included in the packet as we always do four to five different pertinent pieces of information on the current water supply. The first one, Tammy, if you could go to page 55 of our packet, we always try to include the end of month reservoir storage information. Nelson had mentioned we had around 66, 67% at the start of the month. So we'll, by virtue of this being a later meeting, we'll have a new read coming out next week, but I can tell you that's very close in alignment to where the five-year average is. And so last year, you may recall, Button Rock was full at this time, but we had Union down this year, Button Rock's down and Union's only slightly down, but near similar numbers. So we feel like we're in a pretty similar and decent spot. As we move through the packet on the next section there, we always include the Colorado Water Supply Outlook Report. And that report is put out at the beginning of each month. Again, since we're 24 days into this month, that information is a little bit dated, but especially wanted to kind of share with folks if we go to the next page, kind of the Colorado State wide water supply condition. And wanted to basically say that as of right now and as was shown in January 1st that we're, I'm just going to say near average. As we continue to kind of move through the packet, I'm going to go ahead and jump to page 66. That's where we have the South Platte River Basin Snowpack Summary. And in that graph, you'll see where you have a pretty good stagger where we're now above average 127%. That was of January 10th. This month, or I'm sorry, today, we were closer to 100 and somewhere around 120, 117%, something like that. And that was similar for the next page on the upper Colorado River Basin. And so what you can find when looking at these graphs is you see where single storm events definitely impact the snowpack. And so I think we're forecasted for up to about a half a foot and the Rocky Mountain National Park overnight tomorrow. And so we're going to continue to see those bumps. But my point is in the next two months, the months of February and March, we usually see about a third of our snow water equivalent coming in. So we're going to be paying close attention from this point forward. But at least we have a good starting point now that we're above average. The last thing that I wanted to just point on was on page 69, the US Drought Monitor. I'm going to start including that just to kind of give a general sense of overall, the way we're the status. And you'll see that right now the state of Colorado is in the classification between abnormally dry and extreme drought. Boulder County itself is kind of in the moderate to severe drought. And these these outlook reports come out a couple times a week, I believe it may actually even be just once a week. And so they'll change a little bit. But we're not in an exceptional drought. And we don't have anywhere that doesn't have any drought. But so we're kind of kind of where we expect it to be. But certainly we'll be tracking very closely in the months to come. But we think we're in a reasonably good position as we stand right now. That's all I have unless there's some questions. Are there any questions for Wes on the water supply update? I'm not saying any. Thank you, Wes. Okay. So we're on to item 10, which is review a project listings and items tentatively scheduled for future board meetings. Is there anything on that item in the packet or just anything else that the board wants to bring up today? You know, I will mention one thing on Jason's report. I don't know if you guys have seen in the papers, but North Weld Water District had an issue with getting permits and a pipeline through Fort Collins, and they've actually issued a moratorium on taps for the town of Severance. The only comment I bring up there is I just think that anybody, any entity that has a water supply system that goes through another jurisdiction, the more you can do to kind of stay ahead of making sure your facilities are in good shape and, you know, operating well. I mean, obviously provides flexibility, but also just surety for the city. And I know it's tough for North Weld and some of the folks that are the cities that are under their system. So just kind of highlight maybe Jason's work and the city's work in that regard. So Scott, you had a comment? Yeah, just to make it crystal clear, North Weld didn't just put a moratorium on the town of Severance taps. It put a moratorium on all taps and Severance is getting all oppressed because they've been put a moratorium on their building permits and they have no money coming in the door based upon no building permits. So others up there are similarly situated just more visibly, more visibly public than others because they've got a lot more on the planning docket than the others do. Thanks for the clarification. You're right. I just highlight the, you know, importance of making sure the infrastructure along has is in good working condition. And, you know, obviously with the flood, there was a lot of work that came out of that. And just want to commend Jason and staying on top of it and making sure it's working as it should. So did you have another comment, Scott? Yeah, I was just going to say the other the other element up there that's, you know, just for context, it's not really so much the the status of how their existing infrastructure is being kept. It's the fact that they need to add additional infrastructure. And as Todd mentioned, being a multi jurisdictional governmental entity having to deal with City of Fort Collins, Larimer County, Weld County, they can't build fast enough under the permitting situation to deal with the growth that's occurring up in Tinmuth and Windsor and Severance and all that. So fortunately, we don't have the same the same variables, but I'm always grateful for living in Longmont as a water consumer, believe me. Right. You're right. Different conditions, but in my mind, it kind of highlights, you know, make sure you take care of what you got because it can be hard to replace down the road. So thank you, Scott. Anyway, anybody else have any other comments? I'm not seeing any. So we'll we'll keep moving on. Item 11 is informational items and what are your respondents? Hey, Todd, I'm sorry, Nelson. Yeah, Nelson had an item and then I have one. So I just want to comment with I'm sorry, go ahead. When Scott brought up North Weld. So in your in that cash and new comparison table that we have, North Weld is in there and I actually did identify before this whole news broke out with Severance, it's identified in there that they had a moratorium. I put a date in there. I think I believe I have a date in there too. So I just wanted to let you guys know that we are. I did put that in there and that she already. Okay, thank you, Nelson. Wes, did you have something? Yeah, I just wanted to one last thing on that. We always include on the Water Board project status report Water Board Terms. And this year, Todd's term is up. I wanted to let remind Water Board back in December City Council met, I think it was on the 14th, and we can send you a link to that at that meeting. Councilman, help me out, Ken. Waters Councilman Waters made a recommendation for boards in the future. So starting this mid year to have boards more engaged in the applicant selection process. So generally, and no final details have been made. We're just beginning this with the some of the direction of the city clerk's office. But what we're hearing is that what might be coming forward is where each board would have a maybe a two board member along with possibly a staff member doing interviews. So it'd be different. It wouldn't be City Council doing the interviews for like three minutes and trying to go through 22 boards. This is a chance for Water Board active members to be part of the review process. So in the months to come, we're going to provide some more information as we receive it. But wanted to kind of let that so that all board members can reach out to any of your constituents or people that you know that there's going to be a new position opened up because as it is right now, Todd, I think you've been with us now for 10 years if you can believe that or not. And I think on Water Board, there's a two term limit. So the way it sets up right now after two year or after two terms, a member would need to take, you know, a year off and then they would be eligible to reapply. But just kind of wanted to bring that up for everyone's information. Okay, thank you, Wes. Any questions, comments? I'm not saying any. Okay, thank you. Next item, the informational items, Water Board correspondence. There are some items in the packet. Any questions, comments on those? I'm not seeing any. Okay, we'll move on. Item 12, items tentatively scheduled for future board meetings. Cash and Lou, we talked about that. We'll revisit it in March. And any future Water Board agenda issues, I'm not seeing any comments. All right. Our next meeting date is February 28, 2022. It's the week after President's Day. So mark your calendars for that. So anyway, with that, is there anything else anybody wants to add? I'm not seeing any. So I'll go ahead and adjourn the meeting. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll see you all later. See you guys.