 Good morning everyone. Morning. Morning. Morning, Jim. It looks like we definitely have a quorum here. City of Sonoma, we don't have yet Park to 902. Let's go ahead and get started. Probably hopefully we'll get some other folks joining. For those of you that are Giants fan, I hope you enjoyed the weekend, not so much for the 49er fans. And for those of you that don't follow the sports, I still hope you had a nice weekend. So we're going to start off and before I ask Secretary Ather to do a roll call, just want to remind everybody to state their full name and the agency that they represent. Roberta, you want to do a roll call, please? Yes, City of Catati. Got City of Catati. City of Petaluma. Hi, Cal. We're in the City of Petaluma. City of Roaner Park. City of Santa Rosa. Jennifer Burke, Santa Rosa Water. City of Sonoma. North Moran Water District. Drew McIntyre, North Moran Water District. Town of Windsor. Christina Goulart, Town of Windsor. Valley of the Moonwater District. Matt Fulner, Valley of the Moon. Moran Municipal Water District. Paul Selleay, Moran Municipal. Also joining the meeting public and other staff are Bob Anderson, Chelsea Thompson, Claire Nordley, Colin Close. David Keller, Jake Spalding, Kimberly Zunino, Lynn Rosselli, Margaret DiGenova, Paul Selsky, Peter Martin, Shannon Coutula, Steven Hancock, and Tony Williams. Okay, thank you, Roberta. Let's see, we're going to move on to agenda item number two. So this is to adopt a resolution proclaiming a state of emergency that would essentially allow a continuation of teleconference meetings as we have been having in the past. You will recall in the governor's order in 29-20 expired on September 30th, and that's the resolution or the executive order that all the WAC intact meetings have been following under in the past for remote virtual meetings. There is a new provision. It's Assembly Bill 361 that the governor signed on September 16th, and it does allow legislative bodies to continue to conduct meetings virtually. However, there are some procedures that need to take place, and that's what's attached here as a resolution. Just keep in mind that the governor's order in March of 2021 that declared a state of emergency still remains in effect, and this resolution essentially references that and makes a determination that having an attack meeting in person would present risk to the health and safety of attendees. The way AB 361 is written is that these actions need to take place every 30 days. So what's being requested now is approval by the TAC of this resolution, and again, it would be good for 30 days, and then similar actions would need to be taken in the future. The most recent one obviously would be the WAC meeting. It would be coming up in early November. So with that, I'd like to ask TAC members if there are any questions or comments on this resolution that's being presented for consideration. Don't see any questions or comments from the TAC. So we'll now open this up for public comments. This is agenda item two. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please raise your hand. Or if you're participating via telephone, dial star nine, Secretary Ledesma, do you see any public comments? I am not seeing any raised hands. Thank you. Okay, we'll bring this back to the TAC then for a motion and a second. I'll move. I move that we adopt the resolution to continue with tele... Second. Okay, so there's a motion. Was it Jennifer Burke? No, Matt Fomer, motion by Valley Mood, Matt Fomer to adopt the resolution. Second, was that Mary Grace? Yep. Second by Ronald Park. Thank you for that. And let's say who's going to call the... Is that Roberta? Are you the one doing the roll call on this? I am. Thank you. City of Katadi? Yes, City of Katadi. City of Petaluma? Yes. City of Rohnert Park? Yes. City of Santa Rosa? Jennifer Burke, yes. North Marin Water District? Drew McIntyre, North Marin Water District, yes. Town of Windsor? Christina Hulart, Town of Windsor, yes. Valley of the Moonwater District? Matt Hulner of the Moonwater District, yes. And I see that Ms. Ferguson has joined from Sonoma. Would you like to vote on the item? City of Sonoma? I'm sorry, I just joined. I don't know what the item is. Thank you. It was item number two calling for approval of the resolution to continue to have virtual meetings due to declaration or emergency. Okay, Colleen Ferguson, City of Sonoma, yes. Thank you. Okay, so that passes unanimously. Thank you. We're going to move to agenda item number three, which is public comments. Oh, actually, I'll let the meeting minutes reflect that there were no previously recorded public comments on agenda item number two, so submit it over the weekend via e-mail or voice mail to my phone. So now on agenda item three, we're now taking public comments. These are comments for items that are not on the agenda. Those of you in the public, if you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please raise your hand, or if you're participating by phone, dial star nine. I am not seeing any raised hands. Thank you, Easter. We will move on to agenda item number four, water supply conditions and temporary urgency change order updates, and Don Seymour with the agency will speak on this topic. Don? Good morning, Drew. Excuse me. Good morning, Drew. Good morning, members of the tech. Yeah, so starting with water supply conditions. So storage at Lake Mendocino right now is at about 14,700 acre feet. I know all of you are pretty aware that Sonoma Water in the spring had been working with, starting in the spring and through the summer, had been working with staff at the State Board and stakeholders in that direction. We were really emphasizing the need, the recommendation by Sonoma Water, and what we felt was a prudent storage level in October of 20,000 acre feet. So we're far below that level that we had been pushing pretty hard on stakeholders, the rest of the water users up in the upper river and on the State Board. And so, despite letters of water and availability going on in May and for tailments in August, we're at a pretty extremely low storage level at Lake Mendocino going into October, the new water year. The reservoir is currently losing about 130 acre feet per day. This is gonna likely increase to about 150 to 160 acre feet per day because under the variance that PG&E's, the FERC variant, the PG&E's operating in the Potter Valley Project, transfers from the project are gonna decrease from 30 CFS down to eight CFS in the next day or so. So conditions are gonna get a bit worse actually on the upper Russian River. And so that's really, really concerning. We're forecasting that probably by in the next three weeks Lake Mendocino is gonna decline below 12,000 acre feet. As many of you might know, the lowest, the reservoir has ever been is 12,000 acre feet and that was November 3rd, 1977. So water users on the upper Russian River really put themselves at the mercy of some big storm events in December, January to avoid Lake Mendocino from draining. Going to Lake Sonoma, Lake Sonoma is currently at about 108,700 acre feet. The release is about 85 CFS and the current decline from the reservoir is about 200 acre feet. So projecting that out with likely probably no changes in the release, the reservoir is in a decline below 100,000 acre feet probably by mid-November. As many of you know that there's a requirement in our water right permit for storage and re-diversion of storage from Lake Sonoma of that when, and in decision 1610 that when Lake Sonoma declines below 100,000 acre feet before July 15th of the calendar years. So Lake Mendocino Lake Sonoma is still below 100,000 acre feet, January 1. There's a term in our water rights that that will kick in that there are, it requires a 30% reduction in diversions compared to the three year average for that same month. So we are, Sonoma is working pretty vigorously with the state board staff on that issue. There are additional terms in that requirement that if we can demonstrate through analyses to the satisfaction of the deputy director of the division of water rights that the reservoir is not going to decline below 70,000 acre feet, we can avoid that 30% reduction. So that's what we're working on right now. And with regards to the temporary change order, as I think everybody knows, that expires December 10th. But so much uncertainty we, in the length of time it takes to process and approve the temporary change petition. We're Sonoma water staff is already starting to develop a petition that will probably be filing at the end of October. And hopefully if we see some real changes, significant changes in hydrologic conditions, we can pull the petition. But for right now, we do intend on filing in late October so that we have something in place, December 11th. So we wouldn't kick into higher minimum stream flows that wouldn't be appropriate if we're still in these really dry water supply conditions and extremely low reservoir levels. True, that's pretty much all I had. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thanks, Don. Questions from the TAC or comments on Don's report? Sure, it's Paul. I have a quick question. Go ahead, please. Don, you mentioned if you can demonstrate that Lake Sonoma won't go below the 70,000, was there a date by which that was a marker? You know, it doesn't indicate that in the term, Paul, but we do intend on submitting an analysis to demonstrate that and also committing to updating those analyses bi-monthly until condition significantly improves so that the deputy director can continue to keep us out from under that 30% reduction because, you know, the term really was, you know, I think they envisioned, well, first of all, it was developed in 1983 when water demands were significantly different. Even in the winter, you know, everybody's aware of just the really low per capita use based on just the outstanding work of the contractors over the last decade plus. So it wasn't envisioned it would be implemented in January, you know, to hit just indoor use. Okay, thanks. Any other questions from the TAC? Jennifer? Thanks Don and thanks for the update. Can you provide any additional information on what might be included in the temporary urgency change petition? Are you looking to keep similar terms to what's in place now or is that just information you guys are still developing? We're still developing, but Jennifer, we're hoping that it would likely be pretty much the same petition, you know, same request that we made in January of 2021. You know, not requesting a particular minimum stream flow, but requesting that the water year type be determined based on storage levels like Mendocino. So it'd be, you know, minimum flows would be reflective of our watershed conditions. And you know, if it's still dry January one, we'd still be in critical, but if we start seeing some big storm events and things improve, it would automatically adjust the minimum stream flows to reflect, you know, improve watershed conditions. And certainly not suggesting there should be a 20% reduction in diversions during that period. Thank you. Any other questions from the TAC? John, I had a couple of questions. Just regarding PG&E's transfers dropping, you indicated from 30 CFS to eight CFS, if I wrote that down correctly. Did you, you said that that will occur sometime this week? It'll occur on the, in the next day or two, Drew. Okay. What's going to happen is Parr Valley Irrigation District is gonna hit their allocation. They're gonna max out their allocation of 9,000 acre feet. And then at that point, it goes to, they'll continue to receive five CFS for stock water needs. And then the minimum stream flow in the East Branch Russian River goes to three CFS. Thanks, John. And then related to the filing of a temporary currency change petition, I assume that the timeline of filing it late October is to sync up with having something from the state water board before December 10th. Exactly. Without the order in place, the water your type would be dry. And so the minimum stream flow requirements on the upper Russian River would jump from 25 to 75 CFS. And on the lower Russian River would jump from 35 to 85. So just if we're in the similar conditions that we are right now, we certainly couldn't support those type of men in the stream flows. Okay, thanks. All right, we're gonna open this up for public comments. We are on agenda item number four, water supply conditions and temporary urgency change order update. If you're participating via Zoom and like to make a comment, please raise your hand or via telephone dial star nine. I do not see any raised hands. Okay, thank you, Easter. We're gonna now move into agenda item number five. So now we're in same water partnership. There's two parts to this. I'll take five A, which is just our monthly update on water production. So again, just tabulating water, all the partnership customers water use for the month of August and then also year to date. We have a comparing back as we have historically done to 2013 benchmark. And we also include for this year, cumulative, Italian, the cumulative savings on diversions. First thing I just wanted to, as you see on your screen, on the first page there, water use for August is down 29% versus 2013. Just a note in 2020, the water use for August was down 4%. So this is a significant change over last year in 2020. And then year to date, water use is down 19% versus 2013. And just I looked back in 2020 and it's almost double what we were conserving back in 2020. And back in 2020 it was about 11% versus 19%. And then we have our regular graph, just comparing GPCD over time. And then also the chart two on the second page, which again goes back much further than 2013 to illustrate just how much higher water uses, water use was by the contractors in the mid 1990s. And then finally, scrolling down to the next page related to our compliance with the 20% diversion, Russian river diversions reduction. You can see here that starting on July 1 through towards the end of September, you can see that we're beating that and are right around 22%. So we continue to work diligently on making sure that our diversions are below the 20% requirement in the order. Any questions from the tack on this? We'll see any questions from the tack. We'll go ahead and open this up for public comment. Again, this is agenda item number 5A. Water production relative to the 2013 benchmark and Russian river diversion reductions relative to the 2020 benchmark. If you're participating via Zoom, please raise your hand or dial star in mind if you're participating via phone. We do have David Callagher that would like to speak and you are able to talk. Great, good morning and very good progress on the reductions and thanks to all the contractors for the work that's gone into that. Is there a likelihood that given they're reduced significantly reduced water sales from the water agency that will need to see a rate increase in the coming year or at the end of this year to accommodate the financial needs for the agency? David, I think that's too early to tell. I do remind folks that we do have compared to the rest of the Bay Area some of the lowest wholesale water rates and it wouldn't be out of the question to be looking at a drought response given the demand reductions. But fortunately, we have had a long-term financial plan that we've stayed with for many years now that has a sovereign between four and 6% but I think this may be a year in which we have to test that and probably look at making sure that we're gonna come through with enough funds to maintain and secure the system. Great, I appreciate that and would certainly support if needed an increase in water rates. Thank you. And then David, keep in mind that the tip towards the end of December, early January is when the whole budget process starts again and that's where we'll have some more specificity. I do also expect in another agenda potentially November where there'd be a summary by the agency just on the last fiscal year, financials. Great, thank you. Paul Celia, did you have a, is your hand up from an earlier question? Do you have a question that I missed? I'm late putting it up here but thanks. It's really more of a comment, something to think about. So I noticed on the GPCD chart that you pulled up, it, I assume it is an annual GPCD as opposed to a seasonal. As we're looking at the potential for this 30%, let's say Don and Grant and everybody at Sonoma is not successful persuading the state that a wintertime conservation of 30% isn't a good idea. If we had a wintertime GPCD calculated, I think we could show, I would be surprised, right? If that wintertime GPCD wasn't already at the state health and safety limit. So I don't know if that's a tact maybe that Don and others at the agency are already looking at. Yeah, Paul, actually, we are looking at that and we will be providing that information. We're having, Brown and Coll will do that analysis using the allocation model and we will be sharing that data with the state board as additional information on why the 30% wouldn't be appropriate. Great, thanks. Thanks, Paul. We're still on agenda. I remember five, a water production. Any other questions from the public comments? I do not see any raised hands. Okay, thank you, Easter. We will now move to agenda five B, drought outreach messaging. And that'll be, I think, tag team between Barry Dugan and Paul Piazza. Yeah, thank you, Drew. Here we go. As, is that the PDF that's on the screen? Can I share my screen? Is it, can I get a loud? Yeah, just give us a second. Okay, thank you. So yes, we do have a public outreach update. Paul will be sharing the presentation with me as soon as we, here we go. All right, can you see that? Everybody? Yes, we can. Thank you. All right, so this is our public outreach update. I first wanted to acknowledge the assistance and support from Santa Rosa Water and their outreach team, particularly Elise Howard in helping us collaborating with us on pushing this artwork forward and continuing to update the look. Those are water, super water savers. And we'll get to more of those. The first item is our drop by event coming up on October 9th. You have a few minutes to finish reading that press release on the screen before we move on. But that press release was sent out last week. Paul, do you wanna talk a little bit about the drop by event? Sure, Barry, thanks. Yeah, we've got four agencies participating in this last October 9th event that includes the Valley of the Moon Water District and the City of Sonoma, City of Sonoma's hosting the event and the turnaround in the high school. The public works yard at Valley of the Moon Water District will be the location for that area in Sonoma. And then two locations for the City of Santa Rosa, which includes the Youth Community Park on Fulton Road and also Colton Creek Park down at Befford Street. And then lastly, one location in Marin at North Marin Water District's office on Rush Creek Place. But the full details of the locations at a much higher font size can be viewed on the partnerships website at savingwaterpartnership.org. So looking forward to a successful third drop by event for that, I would mention also that there is a city event that we were made aware of for Petaluma happening on the 10th. So folks in that area can also stop by that city sponsored event in Petaluma on the 10th to pick up kits as well. Thanks, Paul. So the drought is here, save water, the fall and winter version of the campaign, we've been updating the look and feel of advertising. The key messages are still basically the same. The drought is here, save water, take action to save water. And the newest addition become a super water saver. So this is our refreshed logo and look. You can see that the colors are the same so that we maintain the familiarity of it. The branding is essentially the same. And these are all being shared with the partners as they need them. Here's just another version of it. I think the committee saw this last month, different versions of it. Take action to save water. So we're to take a five minute power shower to save water. Again, it's bilingual English and Spanish. Trying to lighten the campaign up a little bit to see that we can't keep people's attention. Become a super water saver. So this is the program that each of the contractors, and the saving Marin Sonoma, Marin Saving Water Partnership can use. So these templates are available. We've providing all the materials that are necessary. So you can enlist ratepayers, customers, members of your community to send in tips on how they become super water savers. Here are six examples that we laid out. And these are all participants in our earlier trusted messenger video series. So these are all members of the community that have agreed to participate. They went on, they were part of our videos to show the community how to save water in different ways, English and Spanish again. And then here is Ted from Santa Rosa Water. And his tip is that he places the bucket to catch runoff while he's heating up his water, and then he uses that water to fill his toilet tank. So that's just an example of what all of the partners can do to help. And here's another tip, Cynthia on the top is using her hose nozzle with a shut off. And then below there's another super saver on the lookout for water waste. This is the October message, the bilingual drought messaging, turn off your irrigation. So each of these messages are available for, they've been sent out to all of the partners to use on social media to turn off your irrigation to save water. This has gotten some pretty good attention. Including some pushback from some followers on social media, which isn't necessarily a bad thing because we're getting people's attention. That it's time to turn off your irrigation where you can. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. And I know that Paul is as well. Thank you, Barry and Paul. I'll start with the tack first. Any questions or comments from the tack? I don't see any. I just want to again, thank the agency for your continued coordination efforts on distribution of supplies and just work as a whole on the partnership. I will now move this over to Jennifer. Sorry, Jennifer. That's okay, thanks. Thanks everyone. No, I just wanted to thank both Barry and Paul for helping get the messaging out. Really appreciate the quick turnaround on getting information out to all of us about really promoting folks turning off their irrigation. So really appreciate that. And also the work on refreshing the brand. I think it looks great. And also just wanted to note that I saw the stickers pop-up notes. I'm not sure what it's called in the press Democrat for the drop by. So I think that's great. And just looking forward to another successful orbit. So thank you so much. Thanks, Jennifer. Andrew, if I may also mention that, I think we mentioned previously that the partnership is meeting members of the partnership are meeting monthly now during the drought. And the next monthly meeting, which I think is next week, we'll be kind of reforming an outreach committee to try and solicit a little bit more participation from all of the partners so that we can move ahead going into the winter, into the fall and winter with a vigorous indoor conservation campaign because we know we may have a steep conservation goal to meet. And just for clarification, that meeting is this Thursday. Okay, thanks. And no, any other questions, comments from the tax? We'll now open this up for public comments. We are on agenda item 5B, drought outreach messaging. If you are participating via Zoom, please raise your hand or dial star nine on telephone. We do have public attendee David Keller. That would like to talk. And you are unmuted. Great, thanks again. I'm wondering how this campaign is addressing the messaging that's coming out in groundwater planning where the message is we are going into a 20-year period of for planning purposes of wet seasons for groundwater. And how is that getting squared? And it seems to really counter to what we understand in terms of weather patterns and climate change. And B, it seems to be confounding a number of people about we're in a drought. So why are we talking about 20-year period of planning on groundwater storage and groundwater availability as surplus or as wet years? I don't know if somebody wants to take a swing at that one. David, I'm not sure what you're referring to on the 20-year groundwater projections. Apparently the county in looking at groundwater planning has been putting out that they're expecting a 20-year period of for planning purposes in terms of groundwater availability, 20 years of wet weather. And essentially from what I understand, from what I've seen so far in the past couple of weeks, no acknowledgement that we're in as I understand a likely long-term pattern of dry weather and much less predictable rainfall and therefore groundwater storage. And it's a mystery to a number of people I've talked to how the modeling for wet years for a 20-year period is being used for groundwater. And again, I don't know if somebody here today has picked that up, has seen that, but it's an issue in the groundwater planning. So I would think that question would probably be best addressed to the GSAs, but Mary Grace, did you want to say something related to this? Yeah, I think we're confusing for lack of a better word, synthetic hydrology model that's informing the groundwater basin planning with actual data. So the groundwater agencies have built a hydrologic model much like we build for flood control. It has a series of assumptions. It assumes a series of wet years and a series of dry years. And at the end of the model, it tells us where we might be with groundwater levels based on that hydrology if we take no management actions. So it really is a true planning tool that is helping inform projects and policies for long-term groundwater management. I think what people may be clear on is it's supplemented with a regular monitoring program that is gonna spot up things like, hey, it's been dry, levels are declining, we might wanna change operational strategies or when the agency is doing this, think about some projects to be able to support groundwater. And I know that's really hard for the public to square that we're talking at the same time about a synthetic modeling tool and real life, but I think that's where the confusion's coming from. The groundwater tool is really intended to help us plan for the next 20 years, 50 years, 100 years, not to say tomorrow it's gonna rain. Okay, thanks, Larry Grace. Okay, thank you. Any other question on agenda item 5B from the public or comment? I do not see any raised hands. Okay, thank you, Easter. So we will now move to agenda item number six. Sonoma County Water Agency temporary allocation of deliveries for essentially what is a 40-day period. It's for the month of November through December 10th. And this will be presented by Paul Piazza. Great, thank you, Drew. So as is stated in the memo, as a result of the temporary agency change petition followed by Sonoma Water back in May and the subsequent state board order, which included a term that said that Sonoma Water and its water contractors shall ensure 20% reduction in rush river diversions for the term of the order, which is starting July 1st through December 10th. The WAC approved previously some allocations for the four month period July through October to meet this 20% reduction. At that time, the water shortage allocation model was still being revised and updated, but we utilized the 2014 shortage model to generate essentially the aggregate amount of water available for the contractors. And then the WAC did approve equal percent reductions for each of the contractors for that four month period July through the end of October. At a follow up WAC meeting, the WAC did approve the updated shortage allocation methodology and model and defined as the alternate allocation methodology. And so we needed to utilize that alternate allocation methodology to develop allocations for the remainder of that state board order term. And so we did take action to develop those allocations for November through December 10th and those allocations are displayed in the memo on page three. We did also run additional allocations for the remainder of December, which is also displayed in that third column. That allocation is really just informational. And then in terms of approach, we for the allocations in November and December, utilized an additional 1MGD of groundwater supply from the refurbished center of the Plainwell, which should be coming online this week. The assumption assumed that that additional 1MGD would be available starting October 8th through the term through December 10th. And then the contractors through the end of September, the July through September period, having achieved the 22% reduction in diversions, we had 2% over the 20% that was necessary to be reduced, reallocated for additional supply for November and for the first 10 days of December to help improve water availability for these allocations. So that's the approach as it's shown here in the table. You can see there is also a total allocation in acre feet for each of the contractors for that remaining 40-day term. And that's really all I have here, Drew, but I'm happy to entertain any questions by any of the tech or the public. Thanks, Paul. I'll start with questions from the chat. Colleen, I see your hand raised. Paul, it's not so much a question as a comment. I think it would be helpful to change the language in the A and B at the bottom. At first glance, I thought, oh, that means the column with the A is for December, once you 10, and the column with the B is for 11 to 31. So I would add those two numbers together to get the whole allocation for December. And then I just ran some numbers and realized that was not the case that the first number is for the whole month. Assuming that the reduction is just one through 10, right? Number dates one through 10. And then the other is if the reduction continues for the whole month. But they're both allocations for the entire month of December, correct? No, that's not correct, Colleen. So the target allocations in December are in million gallons per day. And so that figure that's displayed under the footnote A is the allocation on a daily basis in million gallons per day for the first 10 days of December. And you can take those first 10 days and add it to the full 30 days of November to reach the total 40-day allocation for the term of the order. So recollect that the state board order term only goes through December 10th. I should clarify too that we have no way to enforce those 10 days in December, meaning it would take the full month of December for us to get meter reads and to go through our Q&A or quality control and make sure that those reads are correct. And there's nothing in the order that specifies that there's gonna be enforcement for that period either. So this is really just informational. And maybe Dawn might want to speak a little bit more to that. But the second column B is again, allocations on a daily basis and million gallons per day. So you could aggregate that for the remainder of the month using December 11th through the 31st, if you wish. Okay, that's making sense. So the point 86 times 10 and then the point 73 times the balance add them together, get the million gallons and then convert that to acre feet, which is what I need to do to compare to our usage in the past. Yeah, and the reason we needed to separate them out is we were applying that reallocation of previously saved water by the contractor. So again, that July through the end of September, you'd achieved a 22% reduction. So we're taking that 2% additional off the top and we're reallocating that as available supply for November and December. So the question was how do we, to your advantage apply that additional 2% so we allocated it to the full month of November and to that first 10-day period of December to give you a more robust allocation. And then that third column, the footnote B, there is still a 1MGD additional groundwater supply included in that from the Santa Rosa Plainwell, but there is no reallocation of that previously saved water in that second part of the month. Again, it's really just informational. Okay, but that helps me understand it. Thanks a bunch, Paul. Yeah. Other questions, comments from the TAC? Keep in mind that this at our next meeting in the first of November, there could be another revision or update to this just to reflect another month's worth of data as Paul's memo had indicated. So let's move to opening this up for public comments. Again, we are on agenda item number six, a temporary allocation of water deliveries. If you are participating via Zoom, please raise your hand or dial star nine if participating by phone. I do not see any raised hands. Thank you, Easter. We will move to agenda item number seven now, biological opinion status update. Hail, please. Trying to unmute and turn my camera off. Okay, thanks, Drew. Hopefully, well, there you go. The document that you all received with the agenda packet is up on the screen. It's got a couple of really nice photos in it, so I just want to draw your attention to that including some pretty good description of what you're looking at when you're looking at those photos if you have some really good idea of what's going on out in the construction part of the project. But let me start off at the beginning in the document, which is the fish flow project. I don't think anything has changed dramatically on this other than we are, of course, going to be continuing to try to respond to comments and also change up the project description, which is what requires recirculation for the draft environmental impact report for the fish flow and habitat and water rights project. And the date for the draft environmental impact report has been changed, I see, on this version to 2022. I don't think there was really any way we were going to get that draft out by the end of the year given some of the changes that need to be made to the document at this point. So that's the schedule we're on right now. As far as dry creed, the Habitat Enhancement Project goes, we've had an interesting year with regards to the fisheries on the river and specifically the fisheries, the fish up at the hatchery, the coho specifically up at the hatchery at Warm Springs Dam. Because of the really dry conditions out in the watershed, it's been a challenge to try to deal with those fish at the hatchery and also really be strategic about what were those fish were being released to so that they're not being released into habitat that eventually is not going to be good for them and they may actually not survive. So there's been an unusual amount of fish released, coho released to Dry Creek this year because of these dry conditions. And about three weeks ago, might've been a little bit more now, three weeks ago, they did release about 10,000 juvenile fish into some of the habitat enhancement sites that we've developed on Dry Creek. And they expect to release another 10,000 this month in October. So it's been really great that those habitats are there for these fish and they've really become a pretty essential component of the coho recovery effort this year, especially during these really dry conditions. As far as construction goes, Hanford's wrapping up the work that they're doing out there on face through this year. All the work in stream is pretty much done, they're cleaning up and fixing up the access roads, installing some remaining fishers, features and demobilizing as we speak. And habitat monitoring, I don't think there's any real big changes here. We continue to do physical and biological surveys of constructed sites in order to verify that we're doing the correct maintenance and construction also out there. So this work continues and it'll continue throughout the life of the projects, the construction projects and well into the future. Phases four through six, we've spoken a lot about these. There's not any really huge changes here. Phase four, which was planned to go to construction this year, I think everybody knows is postponed until next year because we're still dealing with the right of way agreements for this phase of the project. There have been requests for changes and we've gotten some preliminary feedback from the core on those changes, but they haven't been finalized at this point. I did want to mention that large logs and large woody material that are going to be used on the construction site are being delivered to the core, the course of yard up at Warm Spring Stamps. So there's a huge pile of logs and large wood material up there at the moment. ESA and Cardinal, this again, I don't think has changed a whole lot, but ESA and Cardinal have completed 99% designs for phases five and six. And this is the phase five is scheduled to start in the summer of 2023, phase six and 2024. They finished the appraisals for phase five so far and are presenting or preparing the right of way offers for the property owners there. And they're also working with property owners on phase six to refute with regards to access and staging areas for that project. ESA is also working on a design package. They've got a 30% design package for an additional site immediately upstream of the phase three reach five site. Looking at some tributary crossing that may have to happen as part of that project and what that might cost. And they reviewed the design in early September and now they're scheduling meetings with the property owners to talk about access and not just access but also using their sites, their properties for a project. And they're meeting with those folks as well as the regulatory agencies on what they've got so far as far as fish monitoring goes. I think we reported that the WAC meeting in September that the video monitoring systems are in place at this point. And actually there's an update to the numbers here. This reflects that thus far 2021 we've seen one hatchery steelhead and no Chinook. We actually and David Manning's on the call. He can correct me if I've got this wrong but I do believe that last week they saw, I don't remember the number exactly. It was somewhere on the order of seven to nine fish over a period of about seven days, both Chinook and possibly a coho. And I didn't hear any steelhead in those numbers. So we did see some Chinook and I believe possibly a coho. And David can correct me when I'm done here if I've got that wrong. As far as eschewery management goes, the mouth of Russian river closed last week. So there's very little, because of the low flow in the river, we don't expect the elevation of the eschewery to go up very quickly. So we could see an extremely long closure for the eschewery longer than we've seen before unless we get a large storm and a large flow in the river and or something much larger in terms of waves out in the ocean. But it looks like we may be in for a long closure in the eschewery at this point. They do continue to do monitoring down there, both water quality as well as biological monitoring that's ongoing at this time of year. I'll just mention though that the management season does end in mid-October and that's when we sort of shift from managing the eschewery for actually having higher elevations for fish habitat to managing it for flow control. So that shift happens in mid-October. And Don already talked about in our flow changes, so unless there's any questions on that, that's the end of my report. Thank you, Pam. Questions, comments from the TAC on panel's report? And I have- Thank you, Mr. Mike. One, Pam did a really good job, a very exhaustive job on the biological opinion update. I think I also just wanna make a point, there was some good press on this, but the kids at Casa Grande High and United Anglers, they really stepped in very quickly and we were able to put some funding along with Kendall Jackson to allow that to happen, but it was an important backup for that huge investment in Coho and a tremendous learning opportunity. So I wanna make sure folks are aware that Casa Grande and United Anglers came through in a big way and are helping us to do those resources. So pretty impressive, I wanna thank them. Thanks, Grant. Pam, I don't know if this is for you or David Manning just related to the 10,000 juvenile fish that are released into the four habitat enhancement sites and then another, there'll be another 10,000 in October. Is this, if these habitat enhancement sites had not been constructed given this dry year with what would the hatchery release program even look like? Would they have still released the fish or I guess as you had already commented, it seems like this is a really big benefit to have this available now during these dry years where there's actually a habitat, good habitat. I would assume for the juveniles to actually survive in what has been a very severe drought period. Yeah, I don't know the answer to that question, David. Maybe you could answer that. I don't know if they would just continue to hold and somebody needs to let David in to talk. I don't know if they would just continue to hold fish at the hatchery or what they would do. So maybe David could answer that. Can you all hear me? Yes, we can. So there is a space limitation at the hatchery. They can hang on to those fish for as long as possible, slightly into the winter to try to let conditions improve in some other streams, but there's no guarantee of that and that's stressful for the fish. So releasing them on their schedule and they held on to some of those fish for longer than they would have already. They would have been released to some of them in the spring into some tributaries and there simply wasn't enough flow to do that. So they're reaching the breaking point as they begin to spawn fish at the facility here in the next month or two that choose up any of the available space left for rearing those juveniles and they need to get them out the door. So they might have had to have released them into Dry Creek despite the habitat enhancements but the decision to do so and the number of fish they put in the creek is made much easier by the large volume of habitat we've created. And those fish are monitoring indicates those fish are staying in the creek and seem to be doing well. So all the resource agencies are thrilled. It's a big deal. Thanks, David. Any other questions, comments from the tech on this agenda item before I open up the public comments? Seeing none. Again, we are on agenda item number seven biological opinion status update. If you wish to make a public comment, via Zoom, please raise your hand or dial star nine via telephone. I do not see any raised hands. All right, thank you, Easter. And then, I actually just for the record I did not receive any earlier comments over the weekend on any agenda items. So just carry that through. Okay, so Pam Jean, don't go very far. We've got you for agenda item number eight Potter Valley project update. Okay, so hopefully everybody knows at this point because I think we reported this out at the WAC meeting that the Potter Valley project, the partners, I think, well, first of all, Don talked about the operation of the Potter Valley project and how that's gonna change over the next couple of weeks. So I'm not gonna touch on that. But as far as the relicensing or licensing of the project goes, the two basin solution partners submitted a letter in early September to FERC. And that was in line with a deadline that we had to file with them by September 14th. In that letter, we requested an abeyance in the process that we're in. Essentially, we asked for them to sort of allow us to do some work to figure out our best path forward. We received, we also then updated that letter a few days later when we found out about some funding that was not in the state's budget explicitly, like we were hoping it would be less explicit than we were hoping it would be, that would be available for that work. So a few days after that, we received a letter back from FERC. The letter we got back from FERC was not an outright denial request for an advance, but it was also not an approval. So it requires us to file a sort of a status update in 60 days from the date of that letter and then another update, a status update in the January timeframe. And so that was in line with that. January timeframe. And so the partners got together for the first time after receiving that letter up last week. And I think all the partners really, in that meeting that we had, confirmed their commitment to the partnership and the commitment to working as a partnership no matter which direction the licensing goes, whether it remains a licensing process or becomes a surrender process. I think all the partners feel like we're much stronger together. It's very, as everybody knows, when I was sort of a disparate group of folks representing a lot of different views. So we feel like we have some really good strength being together. So we're working our way through that right now. We haven't made any huge progress since just last week when we met for the first time on this, but we are working on a plan to move forward, including hopefully acquiring some state and potentially even federal funding to help us get through this. And a lot of the information and the work that we need to do, regardless of what direction the project goes. So that's sort of a common, there's a lot of commonality between no matter which direction it goes, the information that we need to develop. So the partners are still wanting to do that together and currently hanging. So we'll see how that goes. I don't know if Matt wants to add anything. I think at this point, Pam, that's a pretty good update on where things stand. Appreciate it. Thank you, Pam. Open this up for questions, comment from the tack. I have a question for Grant or Pam, just from the water contractor's perspective, is there, would there be any benefit for any comments at all from the WAC at this point in the process with the most recent communication that's been going back and forth between the agency and FERC? I'm just curious how the water contractors, from the agency's perspective, if you feel like there would be any value in any communication support layer, what have you? I don't know, Grant, how you feel about it, but I don't think with FERC, it will help a whole lot for anything to be done. Like I said, it wasn't an outright denial of the demands request, but it was definitely, you can see us heading that direction, I think. But I think where your input would be really helpful is when we're trying to get this funding from either the state or the federal government. And if we can get support for that once we've zeroed in on it, we're talking to both Department of Water Resources on water supply planning side of it and to California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the partnership is a California Department of Fish and Wildlife more on the restoration, fishery restoration side of things and that those two components are really important to the two basins solution. It's not a one or the other, it's both. And so as the state is divided between those two, we could use probably some help when we're ready to make that ask and use some letters of support at that point if it's appropriate. Okay, good to know. We're certainly being ready to do that. Any other questions, comments from the TAC before I open this up to the public? Drew, it's Paul, I have a quick question just come a little bit behind the times on this effort, Pam and thanks for everything you and the agency are doing. So if it were the relicensing, we're not to move forward. Do you have a, can you share what would the other path look like in terms of the water supply, the surrender? And then what would those impacts look like? Yeah, I don't know what, I've never been through a surrender process so I can't describe the whole thing to you other than the way it's been described to me it's kind of like a relicensing process because you have to go through almost the same sort of steps but when you get to the end license the project itself either, there's sort of bookends either the project just stays there and they lock the door and walk away or and they quit operating or the other end is that they decommission all the facilities, remove them all, take them all out or anything in between. So your license, the license or power production has gone at that point. There is the possibility, sort of in that middle ground that portions of the project could stay in place and the portions of the project for water supply purposes that we would of course want to see stay in place or Cape Horn Dam or some version of Cape Horn Dam or some sort of some version of the diversion through the tunnel and into the headwaters of the Russian River. So that's sort of in that middle space as I described it. And that type of exchange of ownership of assets can happen as part of the surrender process and it just wouldn't be, it wouldn't be a hydro facility anymore it would just be a water supply facility at that point. So and that's the kind of questions we don't have a lot of answers to you because for that to work, we need to understand better what that looks like and what that costs at a much closer scale than we know right now. We have some very high level numbers but they're not probably not very accurate at this point. So that's one of the things that we need to understand better is what it would cost to operate that kind of a project. And how reliable is it, what are the issues with it in terms of physical issues with it because of its age and et cetera, what kind of condition it's in. So those are the types of things we need to answer on the water supply side. The other thing on the water supply side is that I don't think Sonoma water anyways and I'm not sure Sonoma water certainly doesn't view the water supply side of the project as necessarily being restricted to just those diversion facilities. But there's an ability to do other water supply features in the Russian River Basin as part of the two basin solution we're interested in that also. Great, that was helpful. Thanks, Pam. Any other questions, comments from the tack? Seeing none, we'll open this up to public comment. Again, this is agenda item number eight, Potter Valley Project Update. If you're participating via Zoom, please raise your hand or dial star nine by phone. I do not see any raised hands. Thank you, Easter. Okay, we're getting towards the end here. Agenda item number nine is items for the next agenda. Again, any special items above and beyond the regular reoccurring items? Does the tack have anything? One question I have, I guess, from the agency is, well, we have anything from EPA WaterSense? Is there anything at all this year? Hi, Drew, yeah. We're still trying to figure out next steps to either get a picture. We did receive a sustained excellence award for the Quel program. And so it's always a little tricky with the remote meetings to follow up with EPA. They are planning to do the awards at the WaterSmart Innovations Conference in Las Vegas, which is happening in person this year, although given current COVID concerns, our staff are not going to be attending in person and so we'll be accepting that award remotely. I know last year we kind of took a screenshot of the WAC and submitted that as a photo, it kind of worked. We can try that again if you're interested. And again, similar to last year, I can certainly extend an invitation to Veronica Black at EPA WaterSense to see if she would like to attend a meeting. Okay, great, that's good news to hear that we continue to receive those awards. Anything else from the TAC on the agenda items before I open it up to the public? Seeing none, if you'd like to make a comment on this item, again, this is special agenda items for the next meeting, via Zoom, please raise your hand or dial star nine. I do not see anybody's hands. Okay, great. All right, that brings us to the adjournment of the meeting. Thanks, everybody. Appreciate also the public's participation. I hope everybody has a good week. Bye. Thanks, gang. Take care.