 Good morning. I'd like to call the special meeting of the Board of Public Utilities for the City of Santa Rosa to order. If we may have a roll call please. Here. Here. Statements of abstention by board members. Board Member Mollin. Yes thank you Mr. Chair. I'd like to disclose for the record that I was contacted via my personal email, which I still haven't found out how somebody got my personal email since I've been seated on this body one week, but it was regarding a appeal that is apparently going to be coming before this body of a staff decision regarding private sewer connection on a rebuild on Brush Creek Road and I have neither responded to the representative or done any follow up with staff on this except to say that I look forward to this item coming to the to the board and reviewing all the information at the same time so that's the extent of my contact. Thank you. Thank you. Board Member Dowd. I suspect that the gentleman that tried to get a hold of Board Member Mollin did get a hold of me. He's a friend and acquaintance Tony Cabrera who's a friend and representing the owner of that property and I met to talk about the issues so it divulging that ex parte communication. Board Member Badenford. And I'm just going to interrupt. We can continue to do this but I think we're going to duplicate the process at that time when the item is agendized so it's up to the board members whether they want to go through this exercise again then and now it's but it's it's not relevant to any of the items on the agenda today so I would just advise that it's not a requirement this morning. Thank you. Correct. Any other abstentions? Just for the record I'm going to state that I did meet with Mr. Cabrera also because I may not be present at the meeting in June when this may be come before the board so I have met with him also. All right we have no study session we have no minutes to approve we'll move right to 5.1. Staff briefing on the fire recovery activities. This I'll just briefly know this is intended to provide part of an ongoing update to the board in regards to the issues and activities regarding the water quality issues that have arisen in Fountain Grove as a result of the fire. Specifically today part of what we're interested in is some if you have any feedback in terms of the messaging and Miss Burke may hit on some of the areas where there is some confusion this is a complex issue and still somewhat dynamic in terms of some of the messaging that had been coming from staff so you'll introduce the support that we have in the audience and without I'll turn it over to Miss Burke. Thank you. Good morning Chairman Galvin and members of the board and thank you Director Hornstein for giving that overview of sort of what we're bringing today. One of the challenges we've been faced with is this is a very technical and difficult problem as you all have heard before it's unprecedented so trying to move through the way to communicate with all of our customers not only those that are within the advisory area those that are surviving homes in the advisory area those that have homes to be rebuilt in the surviving in the advisory area those in the burn area outside of the advisory area as well as communicating to the public at large about our water system and the safety and that the water is safe to drink there's a lot of variables and a lot of layers. Investigatory samples are different than regulatory examples and trying to explain all of this very technical information and data and investigation in a way that's easily consumable by the public and also communicating in a way that is frequent enough that they feel like they're getting enough information and being informed has been challenging so we have been working on that quite a bit and I'd like to particularly introduce Mark Milan with data instincts I think a lot of you may know him he's really a recognized national expert on communications especially risk risk management communications I think I'm saying that correctly working on a number of very complicated water supply projects throughout California but also throughout the US and internationally as well so we're very lucky that data instincts is a local forum right in our backyard and we've worked with data instincts over the years on a number of projects in particular they were the outreach on the geysers project which was a very complicated project as well to get through you know a pipeline through a very expensive area of this world so what we wanted to do today is provide an update on where we are with the investigation but we're going to do it through sort of a condensed down version of sort of the new messaging that we're putting forward this doesn't cover everything that we would normally be putting forth to folks but we do want the boards to sort of feedback on you know any any comments on that again it's a condensed version so we're still adding some additional information and things we wanted to cover but we thought this would give you a flavor for where we're going give you an update on the investigation we'll incorporate any feedback you have we'll also be bringing this to the council and working with them as well as as well as doing a number of other outreach in relation to our communication plans and starting to get this word and information out so with that we're going to do a just sort of a brief background and update on where we are and then talk about next steps in terms of rebuilding so let's get started so as everyone knows this is has been an unprecedented issue once we realize that there was contamination in particular benzene has been the contaminant that has been over the MCL and is most indicative of the issue that we're dealing with we pulled together regulatory agencies so state local federal agencies as well as national experts a forensic chemist team to really work with us to inform and develop an investigation including a sampling plan flushing plan and looking at resolution since that time it's been a few months we've done extensive sampling which I'll talk about in just a minute and we have determined what the source of this issue is this was caused by the fire in particular melting and burning of plastics particularly on the private side but also some of our components in the water system as well as smoke set in ash from the fire was got into our water system and contaminated our system so in some cases it adhered to water service lines such as copper service lines and a water service line is the line from the main to the meter in some cases it absorbed into water service lines like HDPE service lines or gaskets in valves and is leaching back out into the water as I mentioned we've we've done a lot to really understand this problem and really do a very thorough methodical investigation we have taken over 4000 water quality samples and we're probably closer to 4500 at this point samples that we've been taking since November and this map in particular shows you the extent of where we've taken all the sampling we have taken a sample we've sampled every single water service line within 500 feet of a burn structure so not only have we sampled extensively in the water quality advisory area but we've also sampled extensively throughout the entire burn area and then we're continuing to sample throughout the entire system to ensure that this area is where we see the contamination and we're not seeing it anywhere else in particular this map also shows sort of the difference of how the contamination is acting in the advisory area we are seeing contamination through the majority if not all of the water service lines as well as we've seen from water quality samples that we've taken contamination is in the water supply that's in that area as well as components we have tested whether it's been pieces of Maine or gaskets or service lines we have seen contamination and some of the system and the appurtenances outside of the advisory area we've only seen contamination in the water service lines to burn homes so urban properties if I wanted to just add one piece that from our investigation there is so much that we've learned and we know there still is stuff that we don't know and that we may never fully understand and we do get questions so specifically a question we do get and we've really tried to understand this is why is this area acting so distinct from the other areas it did have of course similar from at least appearances fire go through as well as similar as far as we can tell and I'll explain what I mean by that in terms of pressure and water loss part of the challenge in trying to understand why this area may be so unique and what occurred is that as you've heard from us very shortly after the fires began we lost power and we also lost our telemetry our remote sensors that give us flow information level information and tanks pressure information throughout the system so it's been very very difficult to try and piece together what occurred today when we're asked what we do acknowledge we really don't know and we may never know and we speculate the current perhaps but there may be others thinking is this is not a result of some different sort of materials of construction I guess asked a lot and we really have not found what early on we thought a very distinct nature of the pressure and water loss in this area we think it has to do with the timing of the pressure loss with the fire going through it and what we mean by that is in some areas perhaps when the fire was initially hitting it they still had pressure which meant the lines that broke were able to flesh out that initial contamination that was formed and in this but this is all speculative in this area perhaps we lost water as the fire and a different sort of timing of pressure versus fire that allowed that contamination to come down into the system but at this point on that issue and that I'm sharing that reflecting both there are things we don't still understand and also it is one question we struggled with and are acknowledging because a lack of remote data we may never fully understand the and be able to provide clarity to that question great thank you so now that we have a thorough understanding from the investigation of what caused the contamination and where we found it we're starting to work on the path towards resolution and the recent information is really showing us some really good news outside of the advisory area where we've detected contamination and what we call first draw investigatory samples which are very conservative samples taking water that's been sitting in a service line and an immediate sampling point and and seeing what those results are we've replaced those service lines and then we've resampled and we have found that that has removed the contamination so guided by that information that's happening outside the service area and we are going to begin looking at and you'll be hearing on your next item replacing the water service lines within the advisory area one of the things that we have found is that the highest levels of contamination are in the water service lines to protect and ensure that the remaining homes were getting the highest water quality possible and really separating out any possibility of connection to that contamination in the service lines we did go through and isolate valves in some cases it's isolating service lines in some cases it's isolating whole courts to really limit any connection between the contaminated service lines and the 13 homes and this graph although I will say this is a graph that we're playing with it's not the one that we're going to use finally because there's some data that doesn't make a lot of sense and I'll explain that in a second but in general the trending that we're seeing is very good news since we did those isolations and continued to flush water and folks removing water these lines which I know are kind of all over the place show the results from the weekly samples that we're taking at the existing homes in the area the top red line is one part per billion and that's the maximum contaminant level so anything below that is regulatory compliance the dotted red line is at point five parts per billion and that's the reporting limit anything that's below that from a regulatory perspective is non-detect but because we can still see underneath point five where we can see we are doing putting those results available so that folks can be aware but those are really trace levels of benzene and so what this graph does show you is that prior to January prior to the isolations that we did in the advisory area we were seeing sample results that were above the MCL since we've done the isolations and have continued to move water and folks are are using water as well it's really good news the data is trending in such a way that it's showing that the contamination has been either in a lot of cases we're seeing non-detects and in some cases we're seeing very low levels one of things I did want to point out is you may see this little weird yellow line I don't even know what color it is in here it's supposed to be yellow where you kind of see this dot up there and dot down below one of the things we're still working through is data management and in some cases folks have asked us to take samples on the private side so take samples from their sinks or from their hoses the of the 13 that are in the advisory area and we've done that so in particular you'll see this is actually a result from a hose bib on the person's property taking it as a first straw for something that they haven't used for months on end and it was still below the reporting limit technically non-detect and then letting water flow through and retaking it and it became truly non-detect so again we're still playing with this graph it's not the graph we're going to use so they did want to kind of point out why it has some weird anomalies in there but we are going to be trending data over time and starting to show that to folks so they can understand that really the water quality that we're seeing in the advisory area is really showing good news so with that data with the results that we're seeing outside of the service area we will be replacing all the service lines within the advisory area to ensure that the surviving homes that remain there are really getting the most protection possible we will be installing temporary activated carbon filters for those folks so that we can then unisolate within the advisory area and return the system to normal operations and continue to sample and understand if the service line replacement solves the issue or if there's other things we need to do in addition as folks are rebuilding should anyone be ready to connect for occupancy prior to us lifting the advisory we will also as needed install activated carbon systems for folks for occupancy and then we're going to continue to sample we're going to continue to flush we're going to continue to implement our plans and the data will guide us the data is going to help us understand what's working where there may be additional issues so we'll really understand once we replace the service lines it really gives us 350 more data points that we can look at to see did this resolve the issue or are there other things we need to look at there may be areas isolated areas where we need to do some targeted replacement and it may be based on the data that we may have to look at full replacement so we're still all options are on the table but really want to recognize that the data is really going to guide sort of staff recommendations on how we should move forward this is to share we are getting some questions as we talk about the activated carbon systems is this going to turn into a permanent solution or is the city trying to save money with this phased approach it's not dominating the the meetings we're having with community folks it's very interesting and you see different perspectives but one is that concern and we're trying to be very clear these activated carbon systems are temporary from a regulatory context they wouldn't be allowed anyway and the full replacement is not off the table this is just a step to fully understand the right fix but some of the direction we're taking is leading to those sorts of questions that are driving a lot of thought and support of how we frame our messaging and context of those concerns so the first phase of starting to restore the system in the advisory area is the replacement of all service lines to the 352 parcels that are in the advisory area there's also some blowoffs that we've seen some contamination so we replace those as well you'll be talking about that at your next item and then it will allow us to unisolate return the water system to normal operations continue to flush continue to monitor and see what the data shows us and then determine if if or what next steps would need to be we are also continuing to work with both FEMA and Cal OES to really look at all funding options so we're looking at all opportunities for funding and also making sure that what we're doing and everything we're looking at is ensuring us to be in the best position to try and get reimbursement from FEMA but we're also doing what we need to do to ensure that we're restoring water quality we've also received some questions about some temporary water supplies in particular for construction and for irrigation in some cases in the water quality advisory area landscapes have survived and folks are interested in irrigating those landscapes and so we have recently developed a path forward for that and we will be sharing that information very soon but it will allow us with appropriate education signage and acknowledgement agreement to set meters for those that want them either for landscapes or for construction at their properties be very clear that this is not for drinking and not for any other purpose than in either irrigation or construction purposes so in terms of next steps we're continuing to refine the message continuing to work on our communications plan and have a number of different ways we're going to be getting the word out we're going to continue to use our social media our website our emails we're doing presentations last night we actually had a meeting with the surviving homes and we have another one scheduled for next week we're looking at various ways to reach out and talk to folks to continue to get the message out as well as continuing to update the board and the council and also working with the press that has been helpful to really reach out we've been working a lot with the press Democrat in particular to try and continue to get the information out in various ways we're going to continue to work with our expert team on how we're moving this forward and developing criteria for looking at you know this initial phase and what if any future phases should be to resolve the issue we're continuing to look at ways that we can expedite anything in relation to resolving this whether it's expediting service line replacements to expediting how we procure and install activated carbon filter systems for the surviving homes and then we're continuing to look at all options for funding and ensuring that we can be in the best position to hopefully be reimbursed and if you have any questions or folks are needing more information we are always posting updates on our website and that's srcd.org slash wq advisory and if there's questions about rebuild you can go to Sonoma County recovers org so that's just a small snippet flavor of sort of where we're going and happy to answer any questions and also happy to get any feedback from the board thank you for the presentation that I think provides some clarity for those of us that are getting questions from the public so that's great board member doubt I have questions coming from it quite a few different perspectives if you looked at that map in the whole area I lived in that area in three different homes and over 22 years and built many homes in that area of my former company so I have a lot and I have a lot of friends who happen to live in that area both people who purchase my company's homes as well as mutual members of found growth golf and athletic club so my questions are somewhat numerous but I think you've answered them miss Burt but I really want to be sure to get clarity on this so the first question is is in these outlying areas like Sky Farms St. Andrews there are some examples where the contamination reached a level which was not acceptable and I thought I heard you say those services are either been replaced or are scheduled to be replaced so that's my first question and along with that then are we continuing to monitor those as well as their neighbors services for water quality so that's the first group of questions that I have then when I get into the impacted at advisory area I also my company also built some homes in that area and what I read in this is that the city is going to replace the services to the meter and put in if necessary because of occupancy of those areas the carbon-activated filter what's happening from the carbon-activated filter to the house if there is is there any contamination are we going to continue to be monitoring the water that's actually getting to the yards and to the inside of the house because it appears to me by reading this that we're not we're not changing the service on the house side of the carbon filter so I'd like to get some explanation of that and then my last question sorry to bore you all with it but it appears we're heading in a direction and in somewhat I would have to say hopefully we don't have to change out all the mains at the same time I don't want to leave anything behind that should be taken care of because those carbon-activated filters are going to be removed when people start to occupy so I kind of have like to have a little clarity on that just to be sure and then my final piece of that question is if we go in this step-by-step process are we going to be able to still look to FEMA for pops possible replacement of steps downstream so do we get shut off because we said well we've changed the service and then they say okay you're done we're done with you so those that's a collection I'm sorry to go long-winded about it but it's really important for me and I suspect the other board members and as well as staff to really understand what we're doing and what we plan to do what we're we're investigating and what we might do in the future so that when we talk to our friends and people of the community we will have a accurate and common story to be telling them thank you great thanks board member down all excellent questions and all things that we've thought about and contemplated and I am happy to start answering those questions and then director Hornstein might have some additional comments to add so in particular I'll just take them in the order you asked outside of the advisory area within the burn zone so yes you are correct where we've identified contamination when we actually are looking at 0.5 parts per billion and above so actually below even the regulatory limit of those roughly 2,500 or so service lines that we've sampled we found 150 had contamination so we're replacing those in some cases our city crews have already replaced those and then we've resampled and confirmed that that cleared up the contamination at your last board meeting you awarded a contract to finish the replacement of those service lines and so that's going to be occurring and in the next couple of months it should be done somewhere by August and we are continuing to monitor and we are doing a statistically valid resampling of that whole outside service area just to confirm plus we're also testing the source water on a routine basis as well so that's what we're doing outside of the service area and again it has been good news in that it shown it's cleared up the contamination that we found inside the advisory area so also a lot of things that we've thought about and talked through in terms of we know now that the fire caused it and a lot of the contamination came from the private side melting and getting into our system so we are going to be replacing the service lines from the main to actually back of sidewalk so we're going to go past just the meter we're going to go to back of sidewalk we're doing that also outside the advisory area so that's a little bit on the private side then we're also through the building permit process requiring that folks replace from basically the meter to their home because that's where the contamination is a lot of times and and you know we know what's in our system and we've tested on our system but that is the private side so we don't really know what happened in terms of we can speculate that because that's the source it's probably higher on their side and so we want to folks to know that so we're requiring where we've seen contamination and we need to replace the service line we're requiring them to replace it through the building conditioning process through the building permit process where we haven't seen it in the burn area we're providing language to highly advise folks to replace the on the property side so just to add to that but I think it was well covered that we're using the conservative standard that we developed in terms of replacing service lines outside the advisory area which is 0.5 which is half the way below the MCL limit and that's where based on that data of sampling all the properties outside the advisory area where we got a result above that we've replaced the service lines and in those properties we are requiring them for the same reasons that we've replaced the public side for them to replace the private side as part of addressing this issue in the advisory area we're taking the approach to replace all the service lines and therefore we'll be requiring everyone to replace the private side the water lateral going to their homes and I just want to point out in those areas where we have tested every service line in the burn area and some of them have been non-detect many most of them have been non-detect we're simply issuing a informational statement that we highly recommend that they replace their water service line but it's not a requirement so where we want them to understand that you know we've had these kinds of issues so that they are at least fully informed in their decision-making process on that and then last questions about you know if the phased approach shows and the data confirms that you know we've resolved the issue from the water service lines we do understand and we're hearing quite a bit from folks that you know they want to know that we've resolved the issue so we are taking a phased approach and we are letting the data guide us and we are we are looking at ensuring that we can test the system and understand if there's anything sort of left behind because we don't want that to occur and if it turns out that it doesn't resolve the issue you know partial replacement or full replacement is still options that are that are there as well and we have worked very closely with FEMA and Cal OES and they understand this approach and they're supportive we can't guarantee what's going to happen with FEMA because you just never know it's a very complicated process but they do understand the phased approach they do understand what we're doing and at least at this point it it appears it doesn't close the door for you know future phases they they understand it's a phased approach and that we'd be submitting future phases as needed I I would add if I could that the phased approach what we've tried to do is as Miss Burke noted it is develop it in conjunction with FEMA and have them you know as they were looking at the data and asking questions as you would as you see these graphs dropped do you need to replace the entire system and they were asking those questions at the same time we began to ask them among ourselves so we worked with FEMA to develop the strategy with the intent that they would own it and understand that this is the right approach that there are issues in any approach one for example is there are some out there that are recognizing by a phased approach if you do have to replace the entire system haven't you delayed that fix by the time you're taking for the phased approach the answers yes yet by the phased approach it may be remedied much quicker than two years right so it's a bit of a two-sided there's also some acknowledgement that has come to us that in the phased approach and the money you're spending on the service lines if you do have to replace the entire system wouldn't much of that work be redundant since it's very difficult and it would be to replace the mains and salvage the new service lines you just put in and that is something that we are talking with FEMA so they do understand the entire project if we do need to do full replacement we've just added to the cost burden by this phased approach that they're working with us on FEMA for a project like this and I don't want to suggest otherwise does not clearly say yes to anything so they ask questions and they think about it and they sort of kind of give you indication so that is where we are so we're far from a place where I could with confidence say they are going to reimburse us for this water quality issue generally in any way nor necessarily with the process we're working very hard in fact talking about we may a couple of us may be going to DC next week so we're working all levels of FEMA and legislative support in our delegation and the like remember Grable yeah I have a couple comments and questions on that I do understand that the phased approach could could delay things but what I'd like to have more of a you know maybe consistent concise message about is that the reasons for those delays are not you know they're they're good reasons that also will I think increase the likelihood that we will be a reimbursed because we've gone through this process of due diligence because we've been conservative with you know with that approach and minimizing both the work the timeline and and the potential costs to FEMA I know the reimbursement process is very volatile and can be long-winded as we saw with Northridge but I think that that approach now that we have a temporary solution that is not an impediment to occupancy I think that that is that shows due diligence and will increase the likelihood that we're reimbursed what I don't want is that the the messaging the optics on that somehow create uncertainty for people not just people wanting to rebuild but I'd also like that outreach to go to realtors I know we have you know board member baton Ford and others who are involved with the North Bay Association realtors as we see properties changing hands and that accelerating I think it's it would be great to reach out to as many points of contact to get that consistent clear message because we can't just rely that you know and people reading the paper people checking their email that I mean we just have to diversify and and hit every point of contact including those who may be moving here or those who may be selling their properties and that's affecting you know the the way that's represented or you know the potential the potential sale price of those properties I think that's that's just something that we can we can help out with a little bit in terms of the clear accurate messaging yes all great points and we'll definitely incorporate those and we have been working with and reaching out to the realtors we've actually gone to norbar meeting we'll be going to another one as we sort of roll this out and get additional education we've also added a number of the norbar folks to our water quality advisory email list I do want to mention you know at this point it's it's probably one one of our most effective communication tools we have over 10,000 subscribers to that email distribution list and we're also seeing that when we put things on social media they're being shared by quite a few folks so it really does feel that that's been the most effective way that we've communicated but we are reaching out we're attending any meetings that we're pretty much asked to go to we're also reaching out to folks and saying hey can we come and talk to you as well so not only have we been to norbar but we'll be going back we're also also looking at the north coast builders exchange and ECA and other groups that would also be rebuilding as well so we're looking at all facets perfect thanks vice chair Arnone thank you kind of following up in the same idea I have a question about what what's happening to the water bills for the affected area and I don't ask because I'm wondering whether they're paying or not I'm asking because that seems like a logical vector for pushing information that is customized to individual properties to people who may not be tuning into all the other kinds of outreach that you're doing so if they are one of the 13 surviving homes their water bill is being credited and they're still having to pay the sewer if their property has been destroyed those bills were ceased immediately in October so they got final bills and they won't be getting built until they re-established service and so we're not be able to use that as a mechanism for pushing information then because we stopped billing I mean I guess the question is can we use that our billing process to push information out we yeah we can definitely look at using the bills to put put information out in that way we do we will be there will be so our water annual water quality report is coming out and we'll be putting that information out through the water bills I think it's already going and so that's a mechanism that we're using but that's a great idea we'll look into those opportunities to get messaging out that way as well and I think consistent with the the challenge of so many bills now we're not going out that may be also added to our long-term strategy there's going to be ongoing you know attention to this issue and interest and as it does get rebuilt and repopulated that probably then will be a more targeted way to get the information out long-term to keep the communication line going on of course we're going to continue to sample for years more than we typically would and that will be a really good mechanism once we get some population back in the area board member Watts for the 13 standing homes are there private service lines going to need to be replaced so that's a good question we have for those that have asked and we've offered to all of them that we would take inside samples and it's like at a kitchen sink bathroom sink hose bed to date the ones we've taken the results have come back except for the the sort of one on tall pine where it was a hose bibb either non did I mean they've all come back underneath the MCL and in most cases have been true non-detects so it doesn't appear that that's really an issue but we're always willing and offering to sample for folks and sort of a one-time inside to see if there's an issue it's a good question because that's a slight inconsistency and what we had noted that our approach is requiring the water lateral from the meter to be to the home to be replaced everywhere we've decided to replace for because of the data and protection the public portion of the service lines the reason we are not requiring although supporting sampling as you heard requiring replacement is those properties did not have the burn so we're being cautious and conservative as we've tried to be in this whole affair in terms of replacing their service line and they're feeling that's a good thing but not imposing a requirement uniquely on them because those homes didn't burn but availing if they do want us to support sampling to confirm that they aren't seeing contamination and I have another question regarding does the city have a public information officer that's handling the media and across all departments or is internally are we having to handle that on our own it's a bit of both what we do have a very strong public information group within the water department Elise Howard just does a great job this issue is certainly a citywide issue and the city's new public information officer Adrian Mertens is engaged and involved in all aspects of the messaging and supporting a citywide consistency because there are meetings that water staff don't go to and there are other messaging that's going out citywide so we you know there's had there's a lot of communication occurring so yes it's a bit of both but we are trying to have a citywide approach as well other questions the only other thing that I would mention I'm sure it's part of the messaging is I think it's important that the public understand that the opportunities for some of these homeowners to get the activated carbon filters is a temporary fix it is not a permanent fix and I think we need to make sure that's clear in our message board member doubt this is not meant by any stretch of the imagination criticism of staff and the way this has evolved but I think I have been inadvertently a part of the problem in miscommunication as I've talked to friends because when I first heard of the activated carbon filters at one of our study sessions that we had it was my understanding that those carbon filters were to be put on the water services as a means of providing safety for people who still lived in their 13 homes in the advisory area and to allow construction of new homes and the water that was then going to those homes would be safe for the purposes needed therefore and now I'm hearing that our replacement of the services may in fact solve the problem the carbon filters then will be taken out as chairman Galvin just stated and we will not now have to change we may not have to read a place all of the mains and so I have told people that the carbon filters were going to go in temporary for the purposes I just stated and then we will commence replacing the main that was my understanding about a month ago so what I would really encourage us to do is to put that kind of information into our message so homeowners know we just didn't cop out on them but that our research showed us that this may solve the problem and it will make it safe to live in these houses and if we get further information then the city still will consider the replacement of the mains however you want to express it but this has been an evolving issue and I think we need to say that's what it's been and we're trying to get this to be the best solution for everyone and I would just offer that you certainly are not alone with that understanding and we've tried to say if needed as necessary but that gets lost and we're we need to reinforce that certainly going forward and then there's the other piece that will probably play out in certain ways of where we did install them no I want to keep them no it's time to take them that kind of thing is likely to play out in some way as well you know just add that the carbon filtration piece was really something that we felt a need to you know as we've discussed previously get clarity on the ability to utilize it to answer the question of rebuild folks were at an important juncture as you recall about if I start rebuilding it might going to be able to occupy my home when it's complete and so that was an immediate response that we felt we needed to be able to provide and we so we had to have some solutions even though we didn't know whether we were going to need the solutions at that point in time so we had to kind of have a solution for that question now and continue to work on the problem as we have been any other board member questions very good thanks for the update and I know we'll continue to get them so we'll look forward to further updates on the messaging and go from there thank you we so we have no consent items we have one report item item 7.1 which is the contract award thank you chairman Gavin Gavin and board members for convening today for this special meeting my name is Jillian Tillis and I'm an associate civil engineer with transportation and public works we're here to review the scope of work for contract number 2222 replacement of the water service is affected by the Tufts fire inside the advisory area and to avoid the contract the lowest responsive and responsible bidder Terracon constructors Inc. Miss Tillis could I ask you to get a little closer to the microphone yeah thank you Jennifer did a really great job going over the background and I really I don't know how much I have to add but by using the phased approach the city is looking to accelerate the restoration of the water quality in the advisory area we are going to this is the area the advisory area our as we discussed public outreach is one of our highest priorities right now and we have been coordinating our efforts with the water department and contacting homeowners their mailings websites social media postings and since the press release last Thursday I have begun receiving inquiries and questions from home owner homeowners and I have been coordinating those responses with with Miss Burke Miss Urbanek and Miss Howard after the water service lines are replaced and flushed the area will be retested and we look forward to seeing the testing under normal conditions our team will also be working closely with the water department to coordinate the shutdowns and the flushing during those shutdowns so we're replacing the water service lines to 352 parcels however we estimate that there are 368 service lines that were damaged all service lines will be replaced with one inch polyvinyl copper tubing will have a new saddle at the main all manifold services will be replaced with two single water service lines all of this work will be performed by open trench installation we will not be doing pipe bursting or pulling the line we've also be replacing the permanent blowoffs we're starting with 15 but there is up to 27 blowoffs within the advisory area we'll be removing the sidewalk we'll be replacing the water meter boxes and we'll be installing a stub out 12 inches behind the sidewalk for future connection in the fountain grove area the majority of this work will be taken place inside the public utility easement and we won't actually be going on to their property and then we'll be doing permanent trench paving in test in the anticipation of the truck traffic that will be continuing over the next two years and through the rebuild process the project was advertised on May 4th 2018 we opened bids on May 21st 2018 we received a total of seven bids ranging from 2.3 million to 4.7 million the low bid was 18.25 percent under the engineers estimate and Terracon constructors Inc. of Healdsburg California was the lowest responsive and responsible bidder it is recommended that the board of public utilities by motion approve the project and award the construction contract number CO 2222 in the amount of two million three hundred and five thousand seven hundred and thirty two dollars to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder and approve a ten percent contingency contingency thus offer a authorizing a total contract amount of two million five hundred thirty six thousand three hundred and five dollars and twenty cents thank you and please let me know if you have any questions board member doubted I have two comments first I want to go back to it says on this page and I can't tell by this I think it's page four but I'm not positive where it's it's the bullet item that says installing activated carbon water filters at the surviving homes I think that that step should say and to assist in the ability to move into homes that are being rebuilt they would those activated carbon filters will be added so I think we need to be clear about that that that's an option that's out there that the will the city is willing to be a part of and then I'll go to the page seven seven and I personally would recommend because if you look at the bid spread there's a huge disparity between bidders and I would certainly support a contingency in the neighborhood of 20% rather than just 10% obviously staff would be making the decisions as to whether it was necessary but I think we're going to find a lot of changes necessary out there so at any rate that's that's my comment is that I I would like to give you a little more latitude so that we keep this thing moving along rather than a need to come back to the board for approval that's my recommendation on your first comment I think your edits do reflect the accurate intent of where we're going and we should make these edits prior to posting on the website or correct the posting accordingly thank you for that and mr. Bannock concurs with your assessment of what we're likely to see in this project going forward so your suggestion does work for staff any other board member yeah board member Mullen thank you I have a couple of questions relative to the service replacement the the polyvinyl copper tubing that we're using is this the current city standard for service laterals or was this part of our research towards a solution for this particular problem the current standard is HDPE however given or polyvinyl so so and the reason I ask that is that in our public information outreach I would hope that we include information that we believe this is the best service materials to replace this as well as doing our corrective action to solve the problem but this is is part of our public information outreach so that we again this is a really tough thing for people to wrap their head around our drinking water a safe reliable drinking supply is something that we all think is very important if you have young children you're moving back in you have other issues to worry about is the safety of the water so the fact that we're using materials that we believe not are just going to solve this problem but provide a long-term solution I would hope that gets wrapped into our public information outreach thank you I think that's a great suggestion and I just wanted to add a bit of clarity that maybe you all recognize that it is a copper tubing the water will just be exposed to the copper the polyvinyl is a coating on that and that's simply for corrosion protection any other board member questions or comments hearing none I'll entertain a motion well I I would support the recommendation that's put before us on page seven seven but would increase contingency amount to 20% I'll second it with a caveat of asking counsel whether or not that would violate any of our existing code requirements or building regulations to increase the amount of contingency for an individual contract or the fact that the notice probably referenced 10% contingency when the bidders bid the project well the the contingency amount is a city policy to allow our staff as things progress through these projects to have some latitude for unexpected circumstances and changes that may occur I think we have the latitude to increase the contingency amount it's not a bid item it's just something that the city wants to include in the contract to cover those unexpected costs so I think it's it's fine for us to proceed on that basis that makes that makes my second unconditional okay we have a motion by board member Dowd seconded by vice chair Arnone's any further questions or discussion board member Watts what would the total amount be with the 20% and the only the only reason why I asked is that is it close to some of the other amounts that were that of the other bids and if it is would that have changed the decision to go with this particular and the the contingency amount is like I said the city's practice is to include 15% to cover unexpected costs that doesn't impact any of the bids amounts that were received so any of the bid amounts we take that bid amount and that's the contract and then we add 15% to kind of give us some latitude on the ground for unexpected changes so it doesn't impact any any bid amount would have that additional contingency it's just now we're doing a 20% to give us a greater latitude to and to pay for unanticipated changes on the ground right I think that's a key point that the use of the contingency unlike the bid amount is not money that will necessarily go to the contractor the use of the contingency will be based solely on staff determination that there were change conditions or something else independent of the basis of the bid so generally a contractor would not look at whatever contingency is as part of the money they're going to be receiving and how they would bid the job because that's going to be staff determination whether or not any of it will ever reach the contractor I understand what the contingency means that wasn't exactly my question but I think somewhere someone answered it anyway so to go back to that first part of your question the with a 20% contingency it's about 2.75 million any other board member questions or comments if not I'll call for the question on favor of the motion including the 20% contingency say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And we have one missing. Thank you. Thank you. Any public comments on non-agenda matters? See no one rise we have no referrals no written communications any subcommittee reports? Hearing none any board member reports? Hearing none any directors reports? I don't have any items today although I did want to thank the board share staff's appreciation for you accommodating the schedule this special meeting it does give us two weeks jump on starting this work which feels very important and we did greatly benefit from the feedback on the first item in terms of framing our ongoing communication so thank you for that. We're moved out. I did want to say as under board member reports I did let Chairman Galvin know and Director Horenstein that I will not be in able to attend the I think it's June 6th meeting or whatever that next first meeting in June is. Very good. Any further? We stand adjourned thank you all for being here and again thanks to the board for making the effort to attend this special meeting.