 are we on OK? I can hear you. Oh, great. How are you doing, Bill? I'm well. Thanks. How about yourself, Mark? Oh, another easy summer. I just looked at that hourly water report from my house. The kids are going to have to be doing their laundry in the creek bed now. If they can find one. So, yeah, I love that. That's good. Jennifer, I think we have everybody. I know that Board Member Watts was not going to be here today. So, are we waiting for any staff people? I believe we have everyone on the staff side, so you are ready to go. All right. Well, it's after 1.30, so I will call the meeting of the Board of Public Utilities for the City of Santa Rosa to order. If we may have a roll call, please. Yes, Chair Galvin. Here. Vice Chair Arnone. Here. Board Member Baddon Ford. Here. Board Member Grable. Here. Board Member Walsh. Here. Board Member Watts. Board Member Wright. Here. Great. Well, good afternoon, everyone. A reminder, please mute your phones or microphones when you're not speaking and to put away cell phones and personal computers. And if at all possible, keep your video on at all times during the meeting. So, with that, we will move to any statements of abstention by Board Members. Do we have any? Okay. Hearing none, we will now move to Item 3.1, which is a proclamation and a little award ceremony for Dr. David Smith. I'm going to read the proclamation, and I believe we have a short presentation that will be showing also at the same time. So, here is our proclamation for Dr. Smith. Whereas Dave Smith, PhD, was first hired in 1986 to support the City's Recycled Water Initiative, which eventually led to the expansion of agricultural and urban reuse and the creation of the Geysers Project. And whereas Dr. Smith supported science-based decision-making for regulatory compliance through key studies of nutrients, salmonoid migration, and habitat restoration, these studies supported efforts by the City and regulators to meet secret requirements, inform TMDL development, and protect our natural resources while addressing the community's needs. And whereas Dr. Smith was crucial in developing working solutions for the regional boards, no net loading for nitrogen and phosphorus, helping the City and the region craft mutually beneficial regulations. And whereas Dr. Smith has positively influenced at least three generations of water employees by generously giving his time to educate, coach, and mentor. And whereas Dr. Smith was instrumental in helping the City not only develop projects, but he also assisted the City with funding by helping to secure financing and grants for capital projects. And whereas in the rare occurrence when the City received a violation, Dr. Smith was able to get the City passed the frustration and focus on how to meet the requirements most cost-effectively, many times with innovative solutions that became standards for the State. And whereas Dr. Smith is retiring and will be busy entertaining and supporting his family while biking through the majestic Utah countryside. And whereas though he will be gone and greatly missed by all who had the pleasure to work with him, Dr. Smith will live on in the many successful projects he leaves behind. City staff will be left with the guiding principles of, quote, what would Dr. Dave do? End quote. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Board of Public Utilities of the City of Santa Rosa does hereby express our sincere and heartfelt appreciation to Dave Smith for his 35 years of Distinguished Service to the Water Department of the City of Santa Rosa. And I will be gladly signing the formal proclamation once I have it as your Chair. Dr. Smith, congratulations. We're looking forward to hearing some comments from you in a little bit. But before that, I would like to open it up to the Board for comments. Board Member Wright. Well, congratulations, Dave, and you'll enjoy retirement. I want to say a couple things. One thing that we're really going to miss with Dave, although I talked to him earlier and he says he'll still listen to us on the telephone. But 35 years of industrial institutional knowledge is incredible. I don't know that many people in the city that have that. So thank you very much for that. Dave is, you know, he's a scientist. He's an engineer. He's a project manager. And from my point of view, he is the expert on recycled water. So over the years, I've learned a lot of things from Dave. I really appreciate what I've learned on recycled water and biosolvents in particular, because I virtually very little understanding of that before I met Dave. So thank you very much, Dave, and congratulations. Thank you, Glen. Thank you, Vice Chair Arnone. I just want to comment, Dave, that I've been on the Board for a few years now. And it took me several years to realize that you were not an outside state consultant, because you all of your reports are given as if you were an outside state consultant. Same level of professionalism and detail. And I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciated it. I finally did learn that you actually were a person that arose of water and it made me very proud to be part of the same organization. So thank you for your 35 years of commitment and the professionalism you brought to your job. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else on the Board? Board Member Walsh? Yes. Dr. Smith, I just want to thank you very much for your service as a longtime proud customer and first-time Board of Public Utility member. I want to thank you for the legacy that you left behind, and we'll do our best. Thank you very much. I have no doubt. Member Bowdenfort? Oh, thank you so much. It's to my great misfortune that we haven't had the chance to personally work with each other, but our system looks like it does today because, which is just this phenomenal and unique system that we are proud of every single day. And I'm a proud Board Member here. I've had the good fortune to speak with some Board members at the time, Mr. Liskum, and Dick Dowd, who I think are here this afternoon to appreciate you. So we look like we do because of you, and thank you very much. We hope you enjoy all the mountain biking in the world. Board Member Gravel? I just wanted to express, echo my colleagues' comments and express my gratitude, and hopefully we can honor that with our service and adherence to good science and technical expertise and our fiscal and fiduciary duty as well, and honor that for many years to come. So thank you. Any other Board Member comments at this point? Dave, I think you know how much I appreciate having the opportunity to work with you. Your presentations were always thorough, yet you were able to dumb them down when you needed to, so that people like me could understand them. And I greatly appreciate that. I wish you all the best in your retirement. I'm sorry to hear that you're leaving the area, but I hope that we can continue to stay in contact with you. I'll now turn it over to Director Burke for some comments. Thank you, Chair Galvin and members of the Board. I did want to take a little time to thank Dave Smith for his 35 years of service to the Water Department. As has been said in the proclamation, Dave was integral in helping the Water Department develop effective solutions to our wastewater treatment needs and reuse of our recycled water. Dave began working with the City in 1986, shortly after the recycled water release or spill, depending on who you talk to. And he really did help us identify and implement solutions for reusing our recycled water, not only helping with the development of our urban and ag reuse systems, but also with the award-winning geysers pipeline solution. Dave has been assisting Santa Rosa with our negotiations and compliance with our MPBS permit for many, many years. And as was stated, he was really instrumental in identifying solutions for our no-net load requirements. I've had the fortune to work with Dave for a number of years. I began working with Dave more closely in 2007 on the incremental recycle water program as a pretty young staff person to the City. And it was an amazing learning experience. Dave was gracious in his knowledge and patient in answering questions. In 2013, when I started in my role as the Deputy Director of Environmental Services, Dave let me know that he would soon be retiring and that we needed to find another consultant prior to the filing of our next report of waste discharge for our MPBS permit. And I'm happy to stay safe state that somehow we convinced him to stay just a little bit longer and grateful that he got us through our most recent MPBS permit negotiations. And we were hoping to keep him even longer, but that pull to Utah is taking him away from us. So it has been a pleasure to get to know Dave and it has been a pleasure to work with Dave during my career. I cannot thank him enough for all of the work and support that he has provided to the water department and has been said by others he has been like staff to the department. Dave will be sorely missed and leaves a huge consulting shoes to fill on behalf of the water department. I wish him well in his retirement and thank him for all of the service to the water department. Thank you, Director Burke. Before I open it up for public comments, any other comments from board members or staff? Very good. We'll now open it up for public comments on item 3.1. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you're dialing in via telephone, please dial star 9 to raise your hand. Secretary Aitha, I'm sure we have some public comments. I'll leave it up to you and what order you want to allow them to speak. Thank you. So the co-host will be showing the three-minute clock. We have to limit the public comment. So we'll have Sean McNeil first. Sean, I'm going to allow you to talk so you can go ahead and unmute. Great. Well, I just want to say thank you, Dave, for all that you've done for us in the city. I think that was really covered very well by the members of the board as well as Jennifer Burke, Director Burke. And I just want to take a few moments to share my own personal gratitude for my own professional growth in this position that I'm in as the Deputy Director of Environmental Services. Dave, you've been instrumental in helping my professional growth, helping me identify which priorities of the many priorities that are on my desk that need the most attention and how best to address them. The time that I've spent with you while it's been relatively short, much shorter than I would have liked, will no doubt be with me throughout the rest of my career. And for that, I just want to give you my gratitude. Thank you. I yield back my time. Thank you, Mr. McNeil. Next will be Mark Milan. Mark, if I go ahead and unmute it. Thank you. And greetings to all gathered on this call today. Mark Milan here with Data Instincts. Dave has been a tremendous leader and mentor to so many of us and to so many projects, not just in Santa Rosa, but throughout the region. I had the benefit of working with Dave on several projects around the Bay Area. And also, I worked closely with him while he served as the Executive Director of Water Reuse, California for nearly five years. In that time, he helped move the ball significantly for the expanded use of recycled water throughout the state. It was amazing to watch and now see the fruits of his labor are still at play even today. I want to thank the board for making this proclamation so well deserved by Dave and for his extraordinary service to Santa Rosa and the whole region and for his contributions to the greater water and recycled water communities. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Milan. Next is Nicole Brankwis. Nicole, you can unmute. Hi. I just wanted to add on the 15 comments of appreciation for Dave's work through the years. I've worked with him for, gosh, almost 20 years, 15, 16, 17, something like that. And I've always just wildly appreciated his technical acumen, his strategy, always thinking outside of the box. And it's always helped, I think, all of us collectively who are working for the city produce a better work product. So I just wanted to be able to give my two cents today to say thank you, Dave. I really appreciated it. Thank you, Ms. Brankwis. And Chair Galvin, I'm not seeing any other hands raised at this time. Oh, we have one more. Dave Richardson, let me just allow you to talk. Dave, you are unmuted. Thank you so much. Dave, congratulations. I remember back in 1986 when I first asked you to come up to Santa Rosa to work with me. And it has been an absolute pleasure. You all probably don't know this, but some of the reports that Dave and I wrote in the early years, we actually wrote pulling all-nighters in Dave's office in Oakland. Eventually, Dave moved up to Santa Rosa, which was fantastic. And I remember as staff from the city would retire or board members would step off the Board of Public Utilities, we kept wondering how were we going to fill the shoes left by Ken Blackman and Ed Bronner and Dan Carlson, Miles Ferris, and Dave, you were there every step of the way to help the city move through all of those challenging transitions of staff and board and council over the years. So, thank you for all you've done with working with me and working with the city. Thank you, Mr. Richardson. Next, we have Ross Liskam. Ross, on you. Good afternoon, Dave. Ross Liskam, PPU member in 1986 or 2004. I think with the team of consultants along with the city management staff that was pulled together, the PPU was quite spoiled with the incredible quality and commitment that we were able to work with to guide us through our incredibly long-term process. With the many, many hours of public hearings, I know we had, there were times when questions were raised by the public that may not have been fairly accurate. You always stood up there, you had the demeanor to calmly address the PPU with accurate responses that corrected comments made, the professional knowledgeable, and you always took the high road on the facts. I will say, though, that there were times that we did notice that your eyebrows did raise a little. And not once can I remember when you were unable to answer any questions or concerns that were raised by anybody in the public as well as any staff or the PPU. And we wish you the best with your next chapter in your life. Ross, thank you, Mr. Liskam. Next, we have Ed Brauner. Ed, you can go ahead and unmute. Good afternoon, Dave. It's been a while since we've talked, but and it's hard to believe that it was over 30 years ago that you and I started working together. But I was really fortunate to be able to work with so many really talented people throughout the long-term wastewater planning process, the Geysers project, the incremental recycled water program, the San Rosa Plain conservation strategy process, and all the other things that we work together on. And I'm just I feel very thankful that I had this time to work with you and and worked with a lot of really talented people. And you were right up there among the best. And I just wanted to thank you for all you've done over the years for the City of Santa Rosa. Most of you on this call probably don't even remember me. Good to see your face again, Glenn. Anyway, Dave, I wish you the best in retirement. I never thought I'd see the day you'd retire. I thought you'd be there forever. But with with all the the good feeling I have about working with you on a professional level, I really count more important than that, that you and Amy are friends of ours and wish you the best of luck. Take care. Thank you, Ed. Thank you, Mr. Brauner. I believe Dick Doud also wants to make a comment, so I'm going to allow him to talk. So, Dick, you can unmute. And good afternoon. Can you hear me? Yes. I have written out some things that I wanted to say on behalf of Dave Smith. And I just want everyone to know that I believe by I have said it in an evil correspondence to Chairman Galvin that I'm delighted that Dave Smith is receiving this proclamation on behalf of the work that he did from the City of Santa Rosa and as a managing partner of the Regional Waste Water Treatment System. The work that he has done over the 35 years is just absolutely phenomenal. And when you think about the success of the geysers pipeline project where we pump approximately 15 million gallons of highly treated wastewater daily to the geysers which solved our discharge problems and also helped support the continuing production of renewable energy at the geysers for our region on a 24-7 basis so that the area's GHG emissions for electricity has been significantly reduced. Also, because the geysers pipeline was constructed to pass through the town of Windsor adjacent to its wastewater treatment plant, the town of Windsor has also been able to use the pipeline to send some of its wastewater discharge to the geysers and compensates the regional system for costs. So, doing this, thus the geysers project has been a win-win-win situation for almost 20 years. Hard to believe and when I go back in my term as a member of the Board of Public Utilities which was 25 years, it always wasn't a sure thing that we would find a solution that worked and there was a lot of tussle and pull and push and what have you but the geysers project has proved to be extremely successful. It wouldn't happen without Dave Smith's constant contribution during his tenure and I want to say that I'm delighted that he's getting this proclamation and I congratulate him very much. Thank you, Dave. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dowd. Secretary Aitha, do we have any other public comments? I'm not seeing any other hands raised at this time. All right, well if anybody pops up you let us know and in the meantime Dr. Smith, the floor is yours. That's a dangerous place to put me but thank you to all that have come on the call today to express your feelings and it's to all those people and so many others to whom I owe gratitude. The opportunity to work for such a high class organization as a city should be benefit enough for somebody's career but not only did I have the opportunity to work with world class managers of a world class utility but I was given the opportunity to work on at least two ones in a career project and it's I just have nothing but gratitude so I better stop there because it is that gratitude that that steals my emotions at the moment so again I thank everybody for giving me that opportunity and for taking your time today to send me off. It's been a wonderful opportunity so thank you so much. I never thought I'd see you at a loss for words. Congratulations. It's just because of the magnitude of the opportunity I was given so thank you so much. Much good luck in your retirement and like I said earlier I hope you won't be a stranger to Santa Rosa and we'd love to see you so well I will be back not for the next reported waste discharge I'm sure but I will be back and I do thank everybody and once again I couldn't have asked for more opportunity from the city and it was just a wonderful run and I can't say enough about the the quality of the organization I had a chance to work with so thank you. Very well thank you and have a great afternoon. That will take care of item 3.1 so we will move on to item 4.1 which is our study session. Director Burke. Thank you Chair Galvin and members of the board. Our study session today is on the Santa Rosa Plain Groundwater Sustainability Agency Groundwater Sustainability Plan and today presenting we will have Peter Martin our deputy director of water resources as well as two staff from the Santa Rosa Plain Groundwater Sustainability Agency. We have Andy Rogers who's the director and we have Jay Jaspers who's the Groundwater Plan Manager and with that I'll turn it over to Peter. Yeah thanks for that introduction director Burke and good afternoon Chair Galvin and members of the board. At your last board meeting I did provide a brief staff update on the activities of the Groundwater Sustainability Agency but at that time we did promise we'd come back with a study session going into a little bit more detail about some of the work that's been ongoing for the better part of two years to ultimately deliver a Groundwater Sustainability Plan as well as a lot of the background on where we are today. So I don't want to take up too much time because we do have quite a bit of discussion to go over through this study session so with that I'll hand it off to Andy Rogers. Great thank you Peter good afternoon board members and staff and other attendees that was an honor to be on for honoring Dave Smith and now I'm thinking about this presentation wondering what would Dave do so if any time to do any quick revisions but anyway yeah Dave is a wonderful asset to the city and leaves the legacy so it's great to be the first presentation following that. So we do as Peter mentioned have some things to get through and there's a lot of information but really want to give a little bit of very brief context for the agency and the Groundwater Sustainability Plan and then dive a bit deeper with the plan manager Jay Jasper who's going to talk about some project management actions and where we go from here to get these Groundwater Sustainability Plans submitted to the state. Next slide please. Next slide. So this slide shows the Santa Rosa Plain Groundwater Basin I'm sure you're familiar with that but just a reminder the lighter shade of gray is the jurisdiction of the Santa Rosa Plain Groundwater Sustainability Agency and the larger darker gray circle is the contributing watershed so basically the ridge lines that drain into the sub basin area. Next slide. So we're really here the core question is how can we ensure groundwater is available to us in the future. Next slide. The GSA was formed to answer those questions in 2014 at the height of the last drought the legislature approved the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act Sigma and the first step was to form an agency and I'm going to just have a really brief overview of that and it was completed in 2017. Next slide. And a little bit fuzzy but this is the essential structure of the agency the board of the Groundwater Sustainability Agency is comprised of the cities of Katadi, Runner Park, Santa Rosa, Sebastopol and Windsor and the two RCDs Goldridge RCD and the Sonoma Resource there's Sonoma RCD and water companies and mutual water districts within the Santa Rosa Plain are collectively a board member board seat and then Council Member Tom Sweatham is currently our chair for the Groundwater Sustainability Agency. Supporting the activities are the staff and consultants so administration, legal, council, facilitation are supported by sub-crime tracks to the GSA which would include myself and then we have a diverse stakeholder-based advisory committee that's helping us put together the Groundwater Sustainability Plan. Next slide. So the next step which we're going to dive into deeper today is the Groundwater Sustainability Plan which as you can see January 31st, 2022 is used to seem really far away but it's getting closer and closer. Let's go to the next slide. So the Groundwater Sustainability Plan and I'm really going fast here because I want to get into the need of this but really there's the four elements or components of the Groundwater Sustainability Plan which has been worked on for the last couple of years. We have the four elements is you know really describing the basin and aquifer conditions and baselines and as you know there's been a lot of work for many years with USGS that's provided a really good foundation for us before we started with the Groundwater Sustainability Plan outlining the sustainability goals and the actions to achieve sustainability and then of course a monitoring plan to see how we're doing along the way. And so here to present kind of the groundwater conditions of the San Rosa Plain is Jay Daspers, Chief Engineer of the Sonoma Water and Plan Manager for the San Rosa Plain Groundwater Sustainability Plan. And over to Jay. Thank you Andy and good afternoon board members. It's a pleasure to be here to talk to you about the San Rosa Plain GSA and the Groundwater Sustainability Plan that we're putting together with our board and our advisory committee as well as members of the public. As Andy mentioned the Groundwater Sustainability Plan is really the the next big phase of complying with Sigma and one of those key points or parts or elements of the Groundwater Sustainability Plan is to provide a description of the groundwater conditions as we know them currently understand them and that will be in section three of our Groundwater Sustainability Plan. If we could move to the next slide please let's go one more slide there we go. So the description of the groundwater setting, the conditions of the basin as I mentioned are really a foundational part of the Groundwater Sustainability Plan. I'll give you a high level overview and I do want to acknowledge Marcus Trava from Sonoma Water and his team really have done the really detailed technical work. Marcus I'm filling in today for Marcus he was unavailable for this presentation so but I do want to acknowledge his team and him for the work that they have been doing on this basin and the other two basins also in the county. And so just a couple high level points we want to cover on groundwater conditions is that this basin in particular relies on a variety of water sources including groundwater recycled water in Russian River water as you'll see and the groundwater resources are complex these are very complex geological basins geologically speaking. And the subsurface investigation characterization is science a little bit art and it is expensive too so we use a variety of technologies to provide the best information about the subsurface conditions. And overall you'll see that really the the basin groundwater budget for the Santa Rosa Plain is it's pretty good overall but there are some issues that we're we have to deal with over time in order to comply with Sigma over the 50 year horizon for sustainability that Sigma requires. Next slide. So just going over some of those key points this is the really a simplified pie chart of the water use or water sources for the Santa Rosa Plain you can see 45 percent in this basin comes from imported supplies from the Russian River primarily through the Sonoma water system. Then we have about 35 percent in groundwater and 20 percent in large part thanks to the city of Santa Rosa and its sub-regional system and you know the the work that was acknowledged by Dave Smith over the years represents about that 20 percent on average so that's a significant component compared to certainly some of the other basins. Next slide. There's of course a wide this this is similar to the other basins but maybe a little bit more prevalent in Santa Rosa Plain there's a significant variety of land uses and that means a wide array of stakeholders. So of course we have the incorporated areas the cities that you see there in the yellow we have a lot of agriculture in the basin and we also have a variety of agriculture we also have and it's really important here is rural residential significant population of folks who are not on a municipal water system and either have individual wells that they rely on or small mutual water districts and so there's really kind of a decentralized a significant component of decentralized groundwater use which adds additional challenges and certainly this is this composition here is a lot different than the kind of land use you would see in the basins in the Central Valley you know that are also having to comply with SIGNA. Next slide. So in terms of the geology I mentioned that it's complex the and that's similar to really up and down the state the coastal groundwater basins as opposed to say this big Central Valley basins these coastal basins are much more complex and they're smaller too and so there's a lot of faulting and structural issues even plate tectonics and then there's we have a mixture of volcanic deposits and metamorphic rock and sedimentary rock and it's all been jumbled together and faulted and so it's especially difficult for characterization this basin is just one example but all three of our SIGNA basins in Sonoma County are complex technically so it provides challenges to characterize you know how the geology and then how the groundwater exists and moves around within the geology but we have identified that in this basin there are two aquifers that we need in terms of management units we need to manage for SIGNA we have a shallow aquifer which is about 200 feet deep and then we have a deeper aquifer which is or is deeper than the 200 feet so those are really vertically what we're looking at and then horizontally you can see that we have different faults the Rogers Creek fault the Sebastopol fault are the two most significant faults and they also can provide barriers or affect groundwater flow and so those are some of the data gaps that we have is that understanding the impact of some of these faults along with the differing types of units of volcanics and metamorphic sedimentary rock next slide please as I mentioned there's a significant number of rural residential groundwater users and that's why there are a lot of wells in this basin we estimate 7 000 wells and that's an estimate the records are not great but we're working hard at the GSA to improve the records and we have a program called the guide program which is really to reach out to well users to improve our understanding and knowledge and our accuracy of our well records so anyway again this is a complexity when you're dealing with a lot of decentralized water users and wells next slide and mention this briefly but we are using a variety of tools that are available to us to help characterize the geologic conditions and the groundwater conditions in the basin we use remote sensing from satellites you know for the the ground surface levels as an example what we use to monitor to make sure there's no subsidence occurring due to groundwater pumping we have drilled and are continuing to drill and will in the future dedicated monitoring wells at discrete depths for characterizing groundwater levels and also water quality gauges to measure stream flow we have weather instrument monitoring and we also use satellites and radars for the weather also and so we incorporate all of this data and we're going to be doing some geophysical characterizations too to better understand what's going on in the subsurface for recharge areas and so that we are basically looking at any and all viable technologies to employ to improving the characterization into the future next slide so we have developed a monitoring network this is really looking at stream gauges and monitoring wells and I guess it has the climate there too the triangles of the climate we're using on the in terms of the monitoring wells we have shallow wells and deep wells for each of those two aquifer units and we're using all of the data that we can get we're working with voluntary well monitors to utilize that information and so we're really looking at kind of two levels of a well network one is a broader one where we're utilizing existing wells and any well we can we can get access to or get the data from and then there's a smaller group of wells which are called rmp's in sigma lexicon which is representative monitoring points and that subset of wells have to be especially or they have certain requirements for construction and those wells are important because those are the subset of wells those rmp's are used to really assess our our ability to have sustainable groundwater conditions and and so they have very specific requirements and and he's going to talk about how those are used in terms of sustainable management criteria in the next group of slides but i want to really emphasize that we're using all of the data in our models and our analysis but then there's a subset of data we're using to actually judge whether we have sustainable conditions or not so there's two levels there next slide in general our analysis of water level data and modeling has shown that the really groundwater flows similar to surface water flows from the upper uplands in the west and also from the east into the center of the basin then then generally up north there is some migration and interaction to petaluma basin in the south and so this is essentially though very in a simplified manner how the groundwater generally flows within the basin next slide i mentioned subsidence and the fact that we're using satellite technology to really monitor the the ground surface and changes in the ground surface groundwater pumping can cause land subsidence other things can cause land subsidence to like tectonics and other factors but this is an important factor within sigma that we really have to measure to comply with sigma primarily because of the central valley and these two pictures are are you know well known in the field here they show in the central both in the central valley the top insert is 1925 to 1977 and you can see at the top of the telephone pool that's where the ground surface was and then where the gentleman standing is where it was in 1977 and then this more recent photo is michelle snide from usgs and comparing at that location in the central valley how much the land surface has dropped from 88 to 2018 so again it's a significant issue in the central valley in our area we need to monitor to comply with sigma but we're really not we're not seeing any at this point any kind of discernible subsidence due to groundwater pumping next slide water quality also is overall good and yet but we do have to monitor and pay attention to water quality and we focus in our groundwater sustainability plan on naturally occurring contaminants or water quality impairments arsenic is naturally occurring and found in the basin in some locations above maximum contaminant levels for drinking water again it's naturally there because of the geology chloride and total dissolved solids likewise although I have more of a secondary issue we're tracking that and then nitrate also which is due to land use such as dairies and things like that those are the three we're primarily checking our mission for water quality though is that our actions in terms of groundwater management do not exacerbate existing water quality and that's water quality remediation and characterization and regulation are done by other agencies like the regional water quality control board and other agencies and so that's not an area that the GSA gets involved with but we coordinate closely with those agencies next slide okay putting all this together in terms of a water budget which is like your bank budget or so you have so much water coming in and you have so much leaving and then you take that on an annual basis daily basis whatever time step and then over a longer period of years and so this requires the use of a sophisticated groundwater model which we have developed that really interacts between the meteorology the weather the climate and surface water and groundwater with those interactions and allows us to take the historical information and calculate you know how water is coming into the system and how it's leaving and how much is in storage and we look at three time frames for this in this basin we're looking at historical conditions we have enough data going back to 1976 to be able to do this and we've defined that to 2018 as historical conditions we're calling within that slice of historical conditions sigma requires that you define what current conditions are and we've defined that later half or later piece of six years 2012 to 2018 as being reasonably represented of our current conditions given land use and climate changes and so that's how we have all agreed to define for this base and what our current conditions are based on that data and then we have to as I mentioned project out to 50 years from 2021 to 2070 which is really a crazy kind of period to project and understand changes to climate and land use but we have made our best effort at doing that and so we have forecasted based on changes in climate and land use a water budget over that 50 years next slide and so this just shows in a simplified format some of the major inflows and outflows to that water budget major inflows are percolation and precipitation ag water irrigation water that infiltrates in and basin subsurface flows and stream bed recharges a very important one and then there's some minor inflows also and then we have the major outflows which are groundwater pumping of course discharge to streams and evaporation evapotranspiration we have also some minor outflows there also as noted in the lower right so putting all that together is what we next slide yeah thank you so putting all that together we can come up with this kind of analysis that goes out that 50 years the top panel is the inflows the middle is the outflows and then the bottom is really the thing to look at here is the storage change basically the volume of water estimated by the model over the period of time the blue line is the inner annual storage change and the you want to look at the blue label on the left y-axis for that and you can see the blue line goes up and down depending on the weather those little shaded patterns in the back show the weather or the hydrology I should say and the darker yellowish oranges are a more severe drought and and then the blue are wet and then modified shades of that are less dry less less wet the green shows the cumulative forecasted storage and you can see that I guess the other point I need to explain here is that for climate change signal requires you can sit or requires that you consider climate change so we had quite a big discussion within the GSA or advisory committees on which model to use which forecast to use we came up with this particular model all future forecasts all climate models are long but what they can be used for is what about the variability and so this particular model you can see how actually shows some pretty pretty significant drought that we're going through right now and then it shows a period of relatively mild and potentially wetter climate for a period of years through 2050 early 2050s and then you see about 20 years of dry and so you see that our basin does pretty well until you hit that 20 years of dry and so that that's the reason why that green line goes down towards the end but it actually is pretty stable during those other conditions and so that's what we really have to for sigma we have to look at for the storage is do we rebound in good years it sigma acknowledges when you have dry years and droughts especially for a period of time you're going to go down in your volume but then do you have the measures to then bring it up when the weather turns to more favorable and so that's that's something we are looking at closely and we will continue over the next over the future as we move into this and future updates of the plan to continue to update this analysis so this is this will be a work in progress through the different course of the years as we continue to refine the ground water sustainability plan next slide so just this is my last slide on this section and it's just recapping some of the points is that there's a lot of different sources that really that this basin relies on and so it's important that those are all understood and plan for and manage together the geology and hydrogeology are complex we have data gaps as every as every groundwater basin does and we'll be focusing over the next several years on closing some of those key data gaps so that our knowledge improves continues to improve and overall the groundwater budget indicates a small decrease in storage over time and really we're looking at more of a significant drought and drought resiliency in this basin as I'll talk about it at the end here I think with that I'll turn it back over to Andy to really talk about how we utilize this information in understanding sustainable management for signal great thanks Jay so Jay's explained kind of the basin conditions that we're looking at and some of the factors that go into how we're going to prepare the how we are preparing the groundwater sustainability plan and the word sustainability has meant a lot of things to a lot of people for a lot of years and sigma has defined sustainability using six indicators so these are symbols showing those indicators are representing them chronic lowering of groundwater levels reduction of groundwater storage land subsidence we've talked a little bit about these already the depletion of interconnected surface water creek streams caused by groundwater conditions changing degradation of water quality caused by groundwater conditions and seawater intrusion and seawater intrusion is the only one that the Santa Rosa plane doesn't really need to worry about because we are not connected to the ocean's hydraulic influence next slide so each of the five criteria sustainability indicators I should say have criteria so this is a simplified way to start describing some of the terms we've all been wrestling with to define sustainability so the criteria include measurable objectives so the desirable goals the aspirational goals and each of those indicators and then on the other side of the equation the minimum thresholds which are the officials that are we find are unacceptable and those are values that we have to come up with and an undesirable results which are basically worst-case scenarios next slide so what we're putting forward and most of the basins and who are developing plans are also putting forward that groundwater levels have a direct relationship to most of the indicators the sustainability indicators so obviously groundwater levels is one but that indicates also changes in storage because the levels change and then looking at subsidence is there a relationship there and the relationship of surface water the water quality does have a relationship with with water levels in in certain cases but it's not as direct of a relationship next slide so foreground water levels which will help us look at measuring indicators the sustainability indicators we have to come up with numerical values and how to measure these what are the criteria that we're going to measure these and how are we going to respond depending on what the data shows us and this slide gives us an example it's probably pretty small on your screens but Jay had a larger version of all the monitoring that's in place and you mentioned the representative monitoring points and we have 34 at this at this point of water level measurement points around the basin and as also Jay mentioned that we have data gaps that we'll be filling and these monitoring points are measuring both the aquifers that he referenced next slide so really this and we're going going back and forth between the basin conditions to the plan relevance on sustainability indicators and now we're going to talk a bit I'm going to turn it back over to Jay to talk more about the project and management actions that we're coming up with based on the sustainability criteria that's being developed but essentially we're looking at the representative monitoring point network that I had a picture of and then a lot of statements significant and unreasonable so what is significant and what is unreasonable related to the criteria that build that that calibrate our sustainability are we sustainable or not and another takeaway is looking at historic lows and as you saw we have many many years of different seasons and conditions dry years wet years and we're looking at maintaining groundwater levels above the historic lows looks like it will provide us protection in the basin and allow us to meet sustainability goals that we're establishing into the distant future so and as far as water quality I mentioned the groundwater levels don't have the direct that direct relationship so we're really establishing a a jurisdictional agency coordination because there's a lot of agencies that have significant jurisdiction on groundwater quality and so coordinating with them and so what our responsibility is with projects that impact water quality that's where we kind of pay attention but we're also going to be in coordination on conditions that they're monitoring and and to make sure that we're aware of what's going on and what's being done about it so with that I'm going to ask Jay to pick it up from here to talk about projects and management actions and development and kind of the process from here going forward you're on mute day thanks Andy this is I think is our last group of slides if you could change to the next one thank you so you know these are what we're developing in section six of the groundwater sustainability plan or project concepts and management actions at this point in the game here with this first groundwater sustainability plan in terms of implementing actions our focus is going to be on really investing in completing the monitoring networks closing some of the key data gaps but we are laying out some project concepts that I'll go through here for that we could begin on the first five years there are some things that are at least as I showed you that some things that we'll need to do we have until 2042 in order to or 20 years in order to achieve sustainability so we have time to do these things and our course may change as we get more information over the next 20 years and we will update the groundwater sustainability plan every five years and so you can think of this as kind of a evolving and an adaptive process but you know so but for this first submittal this is based on the information we have and I'll go over now some of the initial project concepts and management actions that are being considered for this groundwater sustainability plan and some of these are needed to achieve at least when we compare it to our sustainable management criteria that Andy went over he believed over this course of time through the year 2070 we'll need to do these things others are to achieve you know drought resiliency etc or both and so there's kind of three major categories that projects we group one project is really the low hanging fruit and we're looking at some form of a voluntary conservation and wanting sufficiency measures that I'll quickly go over group two would be percolating storm water or recharging surface water more of a smaller scale program and then group three would be aquifer storage and recovery there's other things that may come into play down the road if or needed if it's needed including perhaps some regulatory or mandatory actions by the GSA board pursuant to its authorities we don't see those as needed right now but they are always there if the GSA board decides that it needs to move in that direction down the road next slide so I'll just quickly go over these kind of three categories the first one is group one which is a water use efficiency a voluntary water use efficiency focusing on the rural egg rural and ag groundwater pumpers rural residential and ag groundwater pumpers the city of Santa Rosa of course has a very robust well developed water use efficiency program as is but we really need to get out and you know implement some of these water use efficiency programs in the rural residential area and we're looking at approximately implementing maybe a target of 20% conservation goal over time in that sector and you can see some of the the programs that we're looking at I'm sure you're all well versed in this and then also an agriculture looking at perhaps close to a 10% reduction to water use efficiency and irrigation needs next let's group one type of projects group two is more of a surface water stormwater recharge on a smaller scale and we're looking in this basin one of the things we're looking at is kind of a flood mar where we could take some flood water perhaps if it ever floods again and then we can put it into some you know flood some vineyard areas for example or we can work with agricultural vineyard owners or farmers to create a stormwater a detention basins and if we can co-locate it near near streams there's been some studies that show that it potentially could recharge through the course of the summer enhancing base flows which would be an advantage for groundwater sustainability because one of the five indicators that Andy talked about was depletion of surface water and so if we can help bring and help increase base flows for some of these streams for the support groundwater dependent ecosystems fisheries that would be a benefit in complying with a signal so that's another type of a project that we look at potentially starting to work with the farm communities and other partners and perhaps implementing some of those next slide group three would be a little bit more intervention here and this would really be targeting the deeper aquifer where a lot of the groundwater pumping occurs at least the larger groundwater pumping and this would be taking russian river water likely drinking water and using aquifer storage and recovery wells to introduce either to inject or to introduce by gravity into the lower aquifer via these wells and then when the sun when we have low flows in the river or drought conditions we will have that water stored in the aquifer and this is aquifer storage and recovery is fairly common technology and water management there's a lot of funding for these types of projects from the state and a lot of incentives to implement this and especially now with the drought upon us there's a lot of movement towards aquifer storage and recovery as a drought resiliency measure not just as a sigma project and so that's another matter that is within the environment we're working on right now and releasing this report for sigma compliance we also all understand the significance of the drought and so some of these things may be occurring for drought resiliency too so I'll just leave that there for the moment but anyway aquifer storage and recovery is is one such technology in a group three project concept next slide so just to go back we have run the potential benefits and I'll draw your attention in the graph on the upper left we have anyway run the benefits the simulated benefits in the model for the group one group two and group three projects and the blue line there shows the baseline which is what you saw before without any projects and you can see that the storage groundwater storage through the course of our projections increases for all of these different measures which it should and so anyway that really shows some of the benefits for certain configurations of these projects that we estimated and you can see on the table on the right there there's the number of for the scenario baseline and for each of those colored lines on the graph group one projects two projects three projects you can see that there is in terms of groundwater levels if you look at the potential undesirable result which is what we want to avoid beginning in 2042 if we don't do any of the projects we're projecting that we would have some undesirable results but with any of these all of these projects or any of them we would not report into these projections and so that's an important point there also to consider again we'll be continuing this evaluation as we move forward closing data gaps refining our models and we'll also have the ability with future groundwater sustainability plans to tweak our sustainable management criteria too so there really is an adaptive component to this whole process of sigma next slide and this really just is a you know your your kind of general planning wheel here where you plan you implement you evaluate respond and that gets to what I was just talking about how we're going to continue to bring in new data and adjust our programs and our actions as as necessary but are really in this first five years which is what this groundwater sustainability plan in terms of implementations focusing on focusing I have to emphasize on filling our data key data gaps and then starting some of these I will call them no low regret projects such as conservation and perhaps some recharge projects but not but really understanding that we're still early in the process and we have to 2042 achieve sustainability next slide so we are in the process right now of and working with our board and advisory committee to develop the final draft and some of the drafts are on the website now may have been for review I think the first five out of seven sections are now posted and there are several ways to provide your input and comments other than in this meeting but board meetings of course advisory committee meetings community meetings and then of course public review draft and I think I have one more slide which shows the schedule yeah there we go so the important thing to look at at this schedule is the red box in the lower right which is so Andy mentioned we have a January 22 deadline our target is to bring it to our board in December the the plan for their consideration of adoption and if you work backwards you can see that on the left side there it shows the seven elements or seven chapters of the groundwater sustainability plan and each of those green boxes show AC review advisory committee review that means that they have been posted on the website and they're really available for public review too and so we have the first five are out for review and here shortly we're going to be issuing the final six and seven projects and management actions that I talked about and the implementation plan and so that all of the all of the the whole document will be available in shortly here for a review for a month and then we are going to have a public review a 30-day public review in October and then we'll have a hearing and then we'll take the comments that we receive finalized final draft for board consideration in December meeting our January 2022 deadline and I think oh just on the bottom line there you can see that some of the dates for the different advisory committee meetings and board meetings and the community meetings there also I guess this this version just has yeah it's kind of simplified from what we've had in the past but you see the meetings there that were scheduled in the future and I believe that's my last slide and I'll turn it over to Peter for closing. Yeah just um but you know before we open it up here for uh plenty of questions from the board you know just um want to thank E&J for their attendance today and helping us to get a better better picture of what's planned to be adopted here coming up in the next couple of months obviously this is a huge effort with a lot of stakeholder influence and input community meetings will be held over the next I guess there was one on the schedule there for October 13th and you know I think for this board you know looking ahead you know this this date that's coming up at the end of the year is not going to be the end of this effort you know obviously we have a mandate to get a plan submitted to the state as a region and we're participating in that by the end of this year but beyond that these plans while they're new you know Sigma is a new requirement we'll need to you know as you saw identify all that the data gaps start to fill those in this is an adaptive process so while there is sort of a 20 year planning horizon there's interim milestones and we'll continually be checking in and and have a lot of progressive work that's going to continue beyond that date in January of 2022 so you know and you know of course Santa Rosa is going to have some influence and you saw some of those projects in other areas we may be asked at some time to partner and projects in the region in the future to help you know mitigate potential effects of you know mega droughts or you know other things in the future so you know no one has a crystal ball as to where we'll be in 20 years right so there is that as well so and then I just wanted to kind of close just my experience I've been very lucky perhaps unlucky to have participated in two groundwater planning efforts for Sigma and my takeaway from just so far in this space is that it is in pretty good shape so so we're very lucky compared to many of the very difficult choices that are going to have to occur in the central valley in other areas that are that are really grappling with perhaps some serious groundwater issues in a very short period of time so you know definitely the work of you know Jay and Andy and Marcus who's not here today you know they've definitely done quite a bit of work and this basin is unique and that there has been a lot of groundwork already laid and so those data gaps aren't so big as maybe in other areas of the state as well so with that yeah I think we were looking to if director Burke maybe just I gather any questions and input on this effort so far and you know definitely seeking some feedback on this this planning effort right now. All right thank you deputy director Martin Mr. Rogers and Mr. Jaspers we appreciate the presentation I know it's been a long and arduous process but I'm sure we'll meet our January deadline and we'll have lots of work to do thereafter so at this time I'll open it up for board member questions or comments board member Grable. Yeah thank you for the really really detailed and comprehensive presentation on something that I think is going to continue to become just more and more crucial and important to you know frankly not just our economic viability and agriculture and and the biodiversity here but also just our survival. I just have a few a few questions and while I have what we have Jay here thank you so much to Jay Jaspers. Remember doing some awesome work on the watershed task force after the fires good to see you again on the on the groundwater on the stormwater and groundwater recharge stuff do we have do we have tools yet that that measure that recharge you know that where we can see which you know which of these mechanisms are actually are actually functioning where we need them to you know in that 20 year timeline I know that cities like Tucson have sort of combined some of their public works and water departments to do you know some things that I'm sure you have in your in your quiver like permeable harps hardscapes and the curb cuts and so the the placement of swales and abundant retention basins around around urban areas which of course typically I've always just been sort of channels our hardscapes are just and channels of diverting rainwater in this a few times when we have them but that it struck me this year our numbers for rainfall seem to be right in line with the average rainfall for like Tucson Arizona which was alarming but then also reminded me of a presentation I heard from I think it was Occidental Arts and Ecology Center someone from Tucson Public Works who was talking about some of their mechanisms for recharge but what he had said in that presentation a few years ago was that they didn't quite they didn't yet have accurate metrics for for for measuring mechanisms for measuring and tools for measuring that groundwater recharge and you know how successful they knew it was good but they just didn't know how successful that was so I just wondered what what tools we have now at our disposal and how how accurate our our capabilities are at measuring groundwater recharge. Yeah Chris thanks it's good to see you again too in a different venue. I think you're referring to the surface water recharge rather and I'll just first say that we have some challenges in our area with surface water recharge because of the soils we have or more volcanic and clay on the surface so we have to look very carefully we just can't do surface water recharge anywhere it's really finding the smaller areas of sweet spots. Alexander Valley is one area that is probably the most amenable to it but in the San Rosa Plain there are certain areas so there's that challenge we have compared to like the Central Valley or I would think Tucson I'm not specifically familiar but I I think probably so compared to there so there's that challenge we have but then in terms of the measurement and monitoring there really there's a few ways you can do it and one is you know you put in wells and you look at water levels or soil moisture probes and then you can also look at the amount of water if you monitor the amount of water you put in these ponds if that's what you're doing and then you can just do that kind of a volume check too and make sure the water is going down and actually what we would want to do and from a sigma perspective is we would want to make sure that that water goes down and is bringing the groundwater levels up and then we would want to see a base flows enhanced and Kendall Jackson did a pilot study with folks from UC Davis a few years ago in the San Rosa Plain and they and they did that and they could they could demonstrate enhancement of base flows and and for us in sigma when we're looking at that kind of recharge from a sigma perspective we would really want to see the enhancement of base flows because that's one of the five metrics we have to really measure success by if we were looking at more of a groundwater level volume I think it's the aquifer storage and recovery for that metric so there's from a sigma perspective we look at the recharge as beneficial but for two different reasons that we have to achieve and so there's no easy way to measure it other than just kind of by looking at those different components that I'm aware of at least and just just so I'm I know the difference as a layperson in terms of like so the Jackson I'm familiar with the with the Jackson pilot project I know that they're very invested in that so that's more you know the the basin and the groundwater underneath like a Russian the Russian River or a tributary or in a in an existing basin not necessarily like you said in other areas where you may have to drill wells to access you know for asr access you know permeable rock you know a place where hydrostatic pressure is actually going to achieve the goal so what what's the difference in terms of how that's achieved between like the Jackson example of like a you know your your enhanced flows of static flows but then also what that means for what's under it and then like your asr you know those are those are two completely different mechanisms right yes they are they're they're reached two different flavors of recharge and they help us achieve two different things the aquifer storage and recovery is probably a larger volume and would go down and help with your groundwater levels because that lower aquifer is the one that gets pumped the most and we have to be careful about that one from a pumping perspective and so the way you you can't really achieve that by surface recharge that is you'd have to go through the first aquifer then you have a large play unit and then the deeper aquifer and so that's not the way to get you know from A to B the way to do that is aquifer storage and recovery for those purposes of storage and groundwater levels which are two of the five metrics the groundwater surface one will help groundwater levels locally on a smaller scale but it really will also help and what we're really interested in again from a sigma perspective is it's really enhancing those base flows for fish and for habitat because we do see you know that over time some of those small tributaries the base flow have has shrunk or you know the amount of dry time for a tributary has increased over the years and then to help in any kind of year like this you know to help alleviate some of the pain would also would also be helpful so we see that both are a good package that we should be pursuing but for a sigma perspective from a couple different purposes that makes sense or thank you the board member questions or comments yeah it's a board member bad for thank you for that presentation that was uh that was an excellent update a question on the the approximate 7 000 wells on the record so far i think because so much of this will kind of roll itself out with a practical implication for individual owners and individual customers um is that 7 000 number gonna stay firm is that what you're using as the baseline or is there still uh exploration happening that will kind of get to a more accurate target of the number of wells and do you want to take that you've been involved in the guide program really closely yeah sure great question so um we have uh for assuming groundwater extraction there's about 25 percent of the total that's estimated to be extracted from our basin from rural residential properties so that's a lot um and that's not all the 7 000 wells but so there's an estimated amount that's that's used per year for those and so what we know is that we don't know everything and one other thing is there's probably other wells um and maybe more multiple wells on properties we don't know yet so we developed what's called the groundwater user information data exchange program or guide which is way easier to say um and we launched this in um we was may where uh we have somebody can go on to our website um and look pull up an interactive map of the groundwater basin and look specifically at their parcel and what we're explaining is that we're estimating rural residential user you're using a half an acre foot per year that's our estimate and we assume you're using groundwater uh based on your land use and we don't we don't have any water supplier hooked up please tell us if we're wrong give us some additional information because we want to make our database better and so we have been getting information back that we've got some things that we need to correct some things we need to address and then people are providing additional information so um that is a very much of a goal to improve our database and certainly understanding the numbers of wells is one of those pieces right and how long will that data collection window be open well that remains to be seen I think it'll right now it'll probably stay open um because what we're doing right now is we're just starting a process to re uh calculate and develop a structure for groundwater use in the basin again we came up with a structure for that estimate in 2019 and now we're updating it with better information and this program is going to inform that so we'll be at a point where we say okay we've gotten all the information we get you need to make a decision now but we can certainly leave the program open to additional information going forward and because of the drought you know one of the silver linings is more people are interested to see what information is available and they can participate in making our data data better thank you Vice Chair Arnone um yes I uh feel compelled to make a an observation more than a question I see two things going on right now one of them is that we have a hard deadline for getting a GFP approved by the end of this year which is a highly technical project and requires a great deal of work that it's apparent is being performed very well by by your team and that that gives me comfort and I'm glad to see that but I think on a maybe a broader perspective as we get deeper and deeper into regulating groundwater we're going to have more and more people pay attention to this issue and and I think we need to develop a mechanism for communicating with them that is more appropriate for for that kind of a mission because a 40 page slide deck with incredibly dense text rich you know graphic rich charts is going to lose people and so I think we need to focus on the immediate goal of getting the GFP approved but I think over the term we need to start figuring out ways to package this in more digestible bites for people because this is you know this is the way this is the new regime I mean we we are going to be in this business for the foreseeable future and we've got to be able to answer people's questions and explain it to them and why it's important why it's critical um and and so I I I have great confidence in the competency level of the people that are working on it for us and I'm sure you're going to be doing that but my suggestion is that we we try to make this more accessible for people uh as as we go forward that that's my comment can I respond to that um yeah yeah that's a very such an appropriate and critical piece uh Lord Memo are are no are no need to um be uh one of our our some snow in the water team one of the tremendous benefits besides the technical expertise is very good at uh grant applications and being successful in that so the ground water sustainability agency has gotten a number of grants to help pay for this very expensive plan and one of the pieces of the most recent grant up in pop 68 includes what's we're calling a rural residential outreach campaign and so that's included surveys that have been conducted focus groups that are have been convened and now they're putting together what will um for our advisory committee and our board to weigh in on what campaign messaging seems to resonate and what's important and what feels of value so our agency you know we do have a mission and and we want to comply with the law and all those things but what values can we bring to people a rural resident versus somebody who's a geologist so I really appreciate that perspective if I could just hear you know we're always looking for better ways to communicate because it's very difficult topic it's technical also you can't see ground water either so it's it's hard um and so any input we're all ears um just so you know we have the uh heavy duty presentation we have the middle of the road and we have the lighter touch for more of the public community you got the middle of the road so it could have been lighter but um also it could have been a lot heavier too we'd still be talking so that just gives you kind of a flavor the level that we gave you here today thanks other board member questions or comments great well thank you again for the presentation we'll now uh open it up for public comments on item 4.1 if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand if you're dialing in via telephone please dial star nine secretary etha we have no public comments very good that'll take care of our study session thank you again for being here gentlemen item 5.1 is the approval of the minutes for July 15th those will be approved and entered uh item 6.1 is our water supply update director berck thank you terry alvin and members of the board our water supply update will be given by peter martin our deputy director of water resources peter great yeah um thank you director berck uh and i'm happy to stay on uh back to back for these presentations today um i'll be writing a very brief update um but um definitely packed with lots of good tidbits this time so um quick go to the next slide here so this is a uh a figure that you know you're familiar with this point um as far as uh lake minisino storage uh it's currently at about 31 percent of water supply capacity and has under 25 000 acre feet of water uh in storage and um as we heard from snow water recently it's sort of starting to fall a little bit under their expectations for the remainder of the water year um if you'll remember snow water's goal and operational plans that were negotiated with the state water resources control board uh was to hopefully keep 20 000 acre feet of water in lake minisino by october and so um lake minisino's water supply obviously continues to drop to a variety of including attributes to a variety of factors including upper russian river water use um next slide so um last week snow water staff did let us know that uh lake minisino storage fell below the minimum threshold set by snow water um in the state water resources control board that was a target for august 1st as you can see in that black line there um this means that the emergency regulations that were laid out will kick in and water curtailment notices were sent to an additional uh several hundred water right holders in upper russian river um they are now limited to uses uses that are uh for human health and safety only um and so that's just directly in response to the fact that um as snow water said losses in the upper river uh continue to be much higher than anticipated uh snow water is now projecting lake minisino will fall to 20 000 acre feet by perhaps september or earlier or actually excuse me earlier than the october deadline um or time frame that they had set um and you know perhaps fall even further below that 20 000 acre foot threshold uh which remains very concerning um so these additional curtailments that i mentioned before uh could help snow water and being able to better manage their their flows um and reduce their releases for the remainder of the summer and hopefully keep as much water in lake minisino as possible uh next slide so um lake sonoma is at about 50 percent of water spike capacity in approximately as approximately 123 000 acre feet of water um as we've mentioned before this is the lowest storage for this time of year since the reservoir began its operation in the early 80s um however there is some hopeful news to share and that um as opposed to what i just displayed with lake minisino uh lake sonoma storage is tracking as anticipated based on uh their forecasted reduced releases from the reservoir under the temporary sea change order and the efforts by the contractors including santa rosa water to conserve water beginning in july um as of last week um diversions from the russian river were down 24 compared to this time in 2020 but um you know as of today we did find out that if dry conditions persist as fall and winter snow water you know doesn't have enough water to continue supplying customers um with lake sonoma water for another year to two years um however you know we're all aware that potentially drastic mandatory conservation orders would be required um should below average rainfall continue through the winter so it obviously remains important that santa rosa water and other contractors can use say water uh for at least the near future through the winter uh next slide um so you know as i mentioned as of last week diversions from the russian river uh were down by 24 compared to this time in 2020 um in the temporary urgency change order the state mandated uh that um snow water reduced the diversions by 20 compared to 2020 beginning in july 1st um they are meeting this target as of today and this can be directly attributed to water use reductions by uh snow waters contractors including santa rosa water of course um and i just want to note that we are as a utility tracking right along with the rest of the contractors based on some preliminary data that we've received uh this morning we did receive uh the numbers for our deliveries for last month from snow water uh you know the month of july and i do have some some initial positive news to share and our conservation efforts appear to be working um you know these numbers are of course preliminary and we haven't received any final from snow water but it appears the santa rosa water utilized only 87 percent of our allocation of water last month um you know meaning we went below our goal of target reduction by about 13 percent um you know as i mentioned before we'll need some additional confirmation from snow water in this particular figure uh but you know some good news to share there and we obviously have a long way to go uh through this mandate through december but it certainly appears that the community is responding and doing what is needed and we're very thankful for that so um next slide uh you know i just want to kind of highlight some of the upcoming outreach activities uh so we're getting very busy uh getting the message out to the customers about the importance of conserving water during the drought uh we have a new radio spot that i believe is going live perhaps today um that will be highlighting the drop drop by event that is going to occur throughout the region and um with two locations here in santa rosa a bill insert will be going out um with a cash for grass um you know information uh as you'll remember we did increase uh with the blessing of your uh water conservation cell committee uh the amount from 75 cents per square foot of turf replaced to a dollar 50 um we're going to highlight uh many of what we call supersavers throughout the city um you know and hopefully um by highlighting some of those folks that are already supersavers that will um provide information to other customers on how they can to become a supersaver um and then of course uh the take it from the tap program uh has undergone a bit of a revision um might mainly due to the pandemic we've we've been doing a lot of virtual presentations but that program is going to start with the kids returning back to school again um probably most likely virtually it appears um but we haven't integrated a lot of drop messaging in there as you know um children are a great audience because they carry that message home um and then at your next meeting i will be able to share uh some of the trusted messenger videos that have been created with uh the help of staff from sarah's water and um staff from snow water and the saving water partnership um so look for those uh coming out this month uh those are folks that are you know fillers of our community various businesses including um we have folks from santa rosa junior college uh amy's kitchen and um some uh landscape contractors in santa rosa that will be a part of that um and then we've continued to put out targeted outreach letters to specific customer classes uh we'll be sending out some information to landscapers uh about the cash for grass program changes as well as uh you know last month we really made a targeted effort to to get the message out to about prohibitions and restrictions to all the affected businesses throughout the community um and then uh this isn't actually already august but i do want to highlight that we have the uh uh lawn gone sheet mulching 101 workshop uh coming up next month in partnership with our contract with daily acts um so we're trying to get as much folks as we can to sign up for that virtual offering uh next slide so um as you're aware we have a drop drop by event planned uh for august 21st there will be several locations throughout the entire watershed in men's you know sonoma and marine counties but uh two locations two locations are going to be staffed by santa rosa water staff those being nagasawa park and cuttington mall um the event will occur from 8 to 12 uh here in santa rosa and a drop kit toolkit includes um you know obviously shower heads garden hose nozzles aerators diet test tablets we um have a water smart branded uh biodegradable sponge um and you know we've given out plenty of yard signs we still have quite a few of those around uh and we do also have some of those now in spanish as well so we're starting to see those pop up throughout the city um and then you know of course we'll have additional water saving resources um that will be packaged up for delivery to our customers so more info on that can be found at src.org slash drop drop by and um you know definitely look forward to perhaps seeing some of you there uh as well as uh getting together with my colleagues on a saturday and um getting out and talking with the public so uh next slide so um you know closing we're obviously santa rosa water is here to help save and go to src.org slash water smart or our drop whip age src.org save water um and that concludes my presentation a happy answering questions thank you deputy director martin uh board member questions comments see none we will now open it up for public comments on item 6.1 if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand if you dial in via telephone please dial star nine to raise your hand secretary atha we have no public comments thank you thanks for the presentation i'll take care of the water supply update we have one item on the consent calendar well entertain a motion i'll move i'll move the consent calendar second we have a motion by vice chair anoni seconded by board member baden fort to approve the consent calendar now open it up for public comments on item seven if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand if you're dialing in via telephone please dial star nine to raise your hand secretary atha we have no public comments may we have a roll call vote please yes chair galvin hi vice chair anoni hi board member baden fort hi board member grable hi board member walsh hi board member right hi for good that takes care of the consent calendar thank you we'll now take public comments on item number nine if you wish to make a comment please dial star nine or raise your hand do we have anyone no public comments thank you we have no referrals we have no written communications any subcommittee reports i don't believe we've had any subcommittees meet but just in case okay uh any board member reports directors report thank you chair galvin and members of the board i have a couple items to update the board on today um first i wanted to provide a brief update on our a place to play uh standby well um as uh the board may recall we have been working to uh convert this test boring to a standby well uh we had issued a construction contract to team gelotti in may 2020 um and during the course of construction to convert that test boring to a standby well uh pumping and water quality testing occurred and we found the elevated levels of arsenic that were above our drinking water standards this was unexpected and we did uh inform the board about this earlier this year um we put the construction contractors work in suspension and we have been working with consultants to try and determine a potential treatment option i will like to just uh acknowledge that team gelotti remains engaged and willing to work with the city to complete any identified changes to the project necessary to address um the arsenic treatment that we will have to install so we really appreciate them working with us um earlier this year working with consultants uh we completed more rigorous water quality analysis in conjunction with distribution system modeling to identify potential options for arsenic treatment and based on that uh analysis we have identified a path forward and we are now working with our existing design consultant west jose associates to redesign the project to address the drinking water treatment needs um and and the um treatment plan that we will put in place uh west jose associates is in the process of completing those designs right now uh as i mentioned we are still in contact and engaging with team gelotti and we'll be working with them to make any necessary changes to the scope of the project and bring back anything to the bpu in relation to contract changes that may be needed so uh that is moving along and just wanted to let the board know second uh i have some good news to share um in march of 2020 the city received approval from cal oes for a three point four million dollar fema hazard mitigation grant and this grant uh was to fund replacement of emergency backup generators at critical water and wastewater facilities uh since then the team has been working hard on this project um and developed designs for 18 sites um in january 2021 based on those designs the engineer's estimates showed costs for the project were significantly more than initially anticipated um and came in at about nine million dollars in response uh city staff began working with cal oes to develop an application for additional fema funds submitting the first draft to cal oes on march fifth after numerous iterations the final application was accepted by cal oes and we just recently found out on july 26th that they have um approved our application for the full amount requested so we will get an increase uh of the grant amount to six point five million dollars which is great news um that's an additional three point one million dollars in federal funds to complete this project so a big thank you to the cip teams and the operations staff for pulling this together and uh really working hard with cal oes to get this additional grant funding and then i wanted to also update the board on our um process for getting to hybrid board meetings as i mentioned at the last board uh meeting we are still targeting your next uh board meeting to move to a hybrid meeting uh following how the council is implementing their um meeting process what that means is that at the next uh board meeting which is currently scheduled for august 19th although i will let you know it is a very light agenda and so we're trying to see if that meeting will need to occur or if we are going to cancel cancel that meeting um if we do cancel that meeting we will then uh aim for the following meeting which is the september 2nd meeting to be our first hybrid meeting um the board members will have the option to attend the meeting in person in the council uh we will be having secretary atha pull you all for your interest um at this time it would be the chair and vice chair uh most likely attending in person at every meeting as well as myself and um assistant city attorney donovan and then we will have uh secretary atha and our uh support from gina perez also attending in the chambers and then it will be open to the public um masks will need to be worn at all times and we still have the uh plastic dividers up between all of the council or the chamber seats like as we the board member seats um and uh staff will stay in a virtual uh position and all the presentations will be coming uh virtually so that is where we are in terms of moving to a hybrid and reopening to the public for board member meetings per direction of the council um and that concludes my report and i'm happy to answer any questions that you all may have thank you director berk any questions from the board or member gable yeah thank you director berk um just as a as an anecdote in in my organization in san francisco paul you know we were moving back toward lifting a lot of the restrictions and and we work really closely with department of health um and and their contact tracing team and their risk management team and it became really clear uh after some some serious incidents locally uh in congregate environments but also those the case studies of the concerts that uh the the delta variant certainly does not seem to discriminate between vaccinated and unvaccinated folks um so i was just uh i know we were all excited to get back to in person and i certainly with the previous you know coded variant i thought it was a a safe and distinctive possibility i had no problem returning to in person but i will say that my my thinking on that has changed and and and i wouldn't personally want to return to in person given the um the abundance and aggressiveness of the delta variant you know myself being vaccinated i i still have some serious concerns so i just want to make sure i kind of voiced my uh my experience with with that so far and it seems to be changing rapidly so um yeah i just want to make sure we're really being as safe and cautious as we can given the the uh the aggressiveness of this latest surge thank you board member grable and we definitely are watching we um we have COVID meetings uh weekly um we have calls with the health officer um and definitely take into account all direction from them um at this point based on discussions and what we know and i clearly hear you about the delta variant um but the safety protocols that have been put in place we still have social distancing we still require masking um and and council is still meeting in this hybrid fashion uh the thought was that they would really like to see the public meetings open back up so that's the direction at this point in time that we're moving down but i hear your your concerns and definitely appreciate them and and like i said we will definitely keep it open for hybrid participation um so any board members who are not comfortable and don't want to come in person will have the um a virtual option great thank you any other comments or questions for the director all right we'll now take public comments on uh item number 14 if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand if you're dialing in via telephone please dial star nine to raise your hand secretary aether do we have anyone we have no public comments very good i believe that concludes the agenda for today's meeting so i'd like to adjourn the meeting in honor of dr david smith and wish you all a good afternoon and see you in a couple weeks thank you mr chairman thanks all have a good week