 afternoon I'd like to call the meeting of the Board of Public Utilities for the city of Santa Rosa to order we may have a roll call please thank you chair board member right here board member Watts yeah board member Walsh here board member Grable board member Benfort here vice chair Arnone chair Galvin here let the record show that all board members are present with the exception of board member Grable thank you madam secretary I just remind everybody to please mute your phones and your microphones when you're not speaking and to put away all cell phones and personal computers with that we will move to our next item which is statements of abstention by board members do we have any very none we'll move on to our study session item 3.1 and our presenter is director Burke welcome thank you chair Galvin and members of the board as chair Galvin mentioned our study session is an update on PG knees Potter Valley project and I will be making the presentation I will also have our assistant city attorney Morgan bigger staff making a short part of the presentation on one of the slides related to legal issues so we're here today to give the board an update on the Potter Valley project and give you information on the status and then provide some details on three grant-funded studies that Sonoma water is currently undertaking and as part of those studies one of them we're looking for some direction from the board for our WAC member our water advisory committee member who's council member Rogers and our tech member our technical advisory committee member which is actually me and how we will be participating in an interview process related to one of those studies so that's an overview of what we're doing here today we can have the next slide please just a bit of a reminder about the Potter Valley project the Potter Valley project is owned by PG knee and it is a hydroelectric power plant it does divert water from the eel river to the headwaters of the east fork of the Russian River and that eventually flows down into Lake Mendocino it is an important part of the water supply for the upper Russian River as well as providing flows for endangered fish species that live in the Russian River system and over time this project has been in place for more than a hundred years and over time diversions through the project have dropped pretty significantly in the past diversions were as much as a hundred and sixty thousand acre feet per year they started going down in the year 2000 and then with a new FERC license or a new interpretation of the first license and a biological opinion it went down even further and now we're seeing on average about sixty thousand acre feet of water transferred from the eel river to upper Russian River and in most recent drought years we've seen significantly less than that next slide please so a little bit of history the current multi-year license that was issued to PG knee from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission or FERC expired in April of this year now there are annual licenses that are issued to PG knee to continue to operate under the terms of that license so initially the board may recall we've been providing you some updates over time but initially back in 2017 PG knee had indicated that they were going to re-license the project and so there was a lot of work that was starting to take place a number of studies as well as a lot of efforts put forward we were following those closely as staff and then much to everyone's surprise in 2019 PG knee decided that they were not going to re-license the project and withdrew their intent to re-license it really did caught catch a number of folks by surprise and so Sonoma water decided to kind of work with some other entities and I'll talk about that in just a second to form a two basin solution to really look at a project that would benefit both the eel river watershed and the Russian River watershed looking at the fisheries on both rivers as well as water supply on the Russian River and for a number of years the project or the partnership was working on feasibility studies and actually submitted a notice of intent to apply for re-licensing of the project next slide please these are the members of the two basin solution partnership or the two basin partnership it consists of Cal trout County of Humboldt Mendocino inland power and water Commission around bound round Valley Indian tribes and Sonoma water and so if we go to the next slide please as I mentioned there were a number of activities that the partnership has been doing the last couple of years they undertook a very aggressive timeline to complete some feasibility studies and looked at what would be needed in order what studies would be needed in order to re-license the project they did identify a potential preferred project that would look at removing Scott Stam and using what were basically referring to a run of the river proposal that would look to divert water during high flow times through Van Arsdale into the through the Potter Valley project and eventually into Russian River that preferred project had estimated cost ranging anywhere from a hundred million up to four hundred million dollars and the re-licensing costs and the amount of the studies that they would have to do was estimated between twenty and thirty million dollars the partnership was initially seeking funding to complete those studies because it was a pretty high cost that they had to meet and as they were going through that process in twenty twenty one they really determined that they wouldn't be able to secure funding and we're gonna have difficulty meeting the timeline to complete the studies by the April twenty twenty twenty twenty two deadline set by FERC so they did request a time extension from FERC to see if they could complete the studies and submit the license application later than April of twenty twenty two and in September of twenty twenty one FERC denied that request for a time extension next slide please so based on that information the partnership recognized that they really weren't going to be able to meet the timeline and wouldn't be successful in submitting a license a re-license application so in February of this year PG&E notified FERC of its intention to go through the license surrender process and that they would also be decommissioning the project in May of twenty twenty two FERC requested that PG&E submit a plan and schedule for this process and in July of this year FERC or PG&E submitted a plan which included a 30 month schedule for submitting the surrender license application and decommissioning plan and that was accepted by FERC in July of this year and that 30 month time clock started upon acceptance by FERC so if we go to the next slide I'm actually going to ask Assistant City Attorney Bear staff to talk through some of the factors that we're following that may affect the schedule and surrender process for the project Morgan thank you Director Burke so before I start going through this bullet list I just want to point out that it's still very early stages but Staff and Council thought it was wise to try to identify at least an initial list of some factors that may affect the decommissioning process and possibly also the short-term supply and reliability of flows and also the long-term depending on how the decommissioning surrender and decommissioning process plays out so to start with in March 6th on March 16th of 2022 National Marine Fisheries Service wrote to FERC and asserted that the expiration of the FERC license would mean the lapse of the Ill River biological opinion the biological opinion contains an incidental take statement which allows for the operation of the Potter Valley project and provides coverage under the Endangered Species Act following this letter in March fisheries groups namely Cal Trout and others filed a letter regarding issuing a notice of intent to sue under the Endangered Species Act which is provided for as a citizen suit there's been no action taken as of yet although that deadline has elapsed so a lawsuit could occur at any time but separate and apart from that following FERC's issuance of its annual license Friends of the Ill River requested a re-hearing on the decision to issue that annual license and once the hearing was done for that by FERC the Friends of the Ill River and other fisheries groups petitioned the Ninth Circuit to appeal that decision now regardless of the potential merits of that challenge these are two different pathways by which the fisheries groups want to try to assert influence and get changes to the current operations of the Potter Valley project but also as I said earlier could affect the long-term outcome of what comes after surrender and decommissioning there's also a third element that's not on the list but I thought I'd mention which is there's always the potential for a license amendment proceeding that could be decided by FERC it would be a notice proceeding it would allow for hearing and intervention and comments to by all so that's yet another pathway that could affect the decommissioning process second bullet following the order issued excuse me following the order that confirmed the proposed schedule by PG&E for submitting a surrender application the fisheries group sent a letter July 29th basically asserting the same claims that the continued operation violated the Endangered Species Act and requesting FERC to set interim deadlines and also set a draft final date for surrender so not the application but what the end date might look like which could be many many years down the road yet another factor relates to tribal rights under the winter's doctrine which allows tribes potential water rights that have not been quantified at this time the Round Valley Indian tribes and the Weot tribe sent a letter in September of this year requesting private consultation with FERC to protect their interests to ill river water yet another potential factor is intervention by others such as Lake County where Lake Pillsbury resides at this point Lake County has not been directly involved in some of the exploration of alternatives and ways to save pieces of the project but they may they may insert themselves at some point another factor would be a transformer failure that occurred at the Potter Valley project in December of last year this transformer outage prevents power generation which ultimately results in lower flows and finally timely formation of a regional entity which is the subject that director Burke is here to discuss with the the board in the context of this greater conversation and the timely formation of a regional entity to negotiate and acquire necessary elements of the Potter Valley project to possibly continue some amount of water diversions into the Russian so there's a lot here on this list I'm happy to take any questions related to just this slide and then I'll turn it back over to director Burke so we'll just continue on if that's okay so if we go to the next slide please one of the things that Sonoma water has been concerned about and modeling for quite some time is not only the reduction in the amount of diversions from the Eel River to the Russian River and the impacts on Lake Mendocino but also modeling what would happen if those diversions didn't exist anymore and so what through the modeling that Sonoma water has done they have determined that in eight out of 10 years there will not be enough water supply to meet the needs of the Upper Russian River region and out of those eight years and two of those eight years basically Lake Mendocino is predicted to go dry I think we've seen the last couple years with the drought conditions and that has been impacting the amount of diversions through the project and also with the transformer not being there and so the project not operating we've definitely seen some of the impacts on Lake Mendocino the last couple years and how drastically low it got in particular last year so this is of grave concern and also with continued concerns about climate variability and climate change we could see even greater impacts but this is the modeling that Sonoma water has at this time if we go to the next slide please so this is really the heart of why we're here today we're here today to talk about a couple studies that our grant funded from the state of California that Sonoma water is leading the first study is to look at the condition and what modifications might be needed of the components of the project to continue to divert water from a water supply perspective through the project not necessarily running it as an energy project but that could be considered as well but really looking at what's needed to continue that diversion the second study that they're working on is looking at what needs to happen to provide water supply reliability for Potter Valley in general and the Potter Valley irrigation district so serving those customers in that area their water supply the intake for their system is just as downstream of the Potter Valley project but prior to Lake Mendocino so they're really being fed by that water supply and then the last study and this is what we're looking for guidance on today is looking to establish what's what we're calling a russian river water forum and it's really looking to see the interest of stakeholders in the region and what they would be interested in in terms of contributing or looking at other options to continue that diversion and also look at resiliency of water supply in the Russian River watershed next slide please the goals of the water forum are to look at strategic engagement so developing a plan to engage the stakeholders to provide outreach and education to those stakeholders so i think a lot of folks are aware of what has been happening with this project but there are also a lot of folks that might not be aware so really trying to provide factual information to outreach to the public and stakeholders to say this is what this project does and here's what the impacts could be without it if there's interest there is a desire to create a leadership structure that might form the basis potentially for a future entity to take over the project and then also to look at solutions for the Russian River watershed in terms of water supply reliability if we go to the next slide please the process that's occurred to date Sonoma water has entered into the grant agreement they've hired cerns in west as their consultant to work on this project they've developed an advisory team so they have project managers within Sonoma water as well as representative stakeholders Santa Rosa is represented on that advisory team and then they've identified approximately 43 but up to 45 stakeholders to interview to gauge interest in continuing this diversion and and and and in water supply resiliency in general Santa Rosa's water advisory committee member or WAC member as I mentioned council member Rogers and our technical advisory committee member TAC member which is myself have been invited to participate in these interviews to provide Santa Rosa's interest in this process so if we go to the next slide please we're here today to get some direction from the board regarding the type of input that we would provide in these interviews so staff have put together a recommendation for the board's consideration on what we think guidelines guiding principles would be for participating in the interviews and what Santa Rosa's interests would be in this process so before you are our recommendations which would be in a no particular order but support continued flow of water from the project into the Russian River which would maintain water supply reliability for us as contractors as well as in particular for the upper Russian River customers but it also protects the benefit and the significant investments that we've made as contractors in the fisheries along the Russian River so we do think it's important that that flow of water continue in general we do believe that it would be in the best interest for a regional entity a new regional entity to be developed to acquire elements of the project and the water rights to continue this diversion we are receptive to contributing funding of some level although at this time I don't have a specific amount or recommendation for you but we do believe that funding should definitely be proportional to the benefit received so as I mentioned for the contractors we we do get some benefit but our major water supply is out of Lake Sonoma so we would want to ensure whatever we're investing and contributing in for this water supply to continue would be proportional to what we receive we also are recommending that any decisions related to this are consistent with our wholesale water agreement which is the restructured agreement for water supply and then last that we continue to have opportunities for meaningful input on the direction of the forum and any water supply resiliency projects that are evaluated next slide please so as this is a study session we are recommending that the board hold this study session receive the information we've provided and then ask any questions have discussion and provide direction that will inform our WAC and TAC member for participation in the interviews for the Russian River Water Forum and with that we can go to the next slide and we're happy to answer any questions and again we're we're looking for direction on the guiding principles and if that's helpful we can keep that slide up if you would prefer would that be helpful if we could go back and put that slide up Secretary Manis or Secretary Ladesma that would be great and that concludes our presentation and like I said we're happy to answer any questions and also looking for direction thank you to both of you for the presentation I think we all recognize the the immense value of the Potter Valley project to our water system and hopefully we can give you some good feedback today so I'll open it up for a board member questions or comments Vice Chair Arnone thank you I mean in general I I think the policy directions that are laid out on this last slide hit the right points and and I'm I would support that being our policy direction but I just want to emphasize that I one of the one of the elements that looks really appropriate to me is the idea of funding being proportional to the benefit received and going one step behind that that only happens if you have the right people at the table so I think that making sure we get that the that Sonoma water gets the right constituents in this interview process is very important you know because there are there are a multitude of interests here and some of them have actually greater interest than than perhaps Santa Rosa or even Sonoma water so I think it's critical that we get the right people at the table to make sure we have this proportionality and in any funding that gets discussed so I think this is a good job of laying out the the critical points and taking these forward would be my recommendation I agree with that I would concur with Vice Chair Arnone and one of the things that's concerned me through this process is the lack of Lake County being involved in the process you know the one of the the lakes that isn't is potentially going to be eliminated is in their county and and yet they haven't had a seat at the table so I'm hopeful that as this goes forward Lake County is brought into the fold and has has a seat at the table if board member Spence along let's see you Glen board member right thank you chair yeah I would also support the recommendations and as said before the concept of proportionality is extremely important as our water supply does not directly come from Lake Menesino although the flows and everything else are important I think for our system to operate so we definitely have skin in the game but not a huge quantity thank you thank you other board member questions or comments yes Mr. Chairman board member Walsh go ahead please I agree with the comments of Chairman Galvin Vice Chairman Arnone and member Wright I think building and building a group together is is the way to go I think staff is is doing a solid job with these recommendations and just a couple questions or comments that maybe staff can speak to one is how does the federal support for the Warm Springs Dam impact that operation and then in dovetailing with member Wright's comments with respect to proportionality another question is how would the special tax that for Warm Springs Dam how might that affect the proportionality with with regard to financing I believe that tax was originally put on the tax bills for to make debt service payments and then after the debt service payments obligations were fulfilled now that those monies are are spent generally for the operation and the good of the of the Russian River so that's my comment and support and then with respect to proportionality how the federal participation currently that Warm Springs Dam project affect this this issue and then with respect to proportionality with the Sonoma water be willing and able to to kind of take the the special tax exceeds off the top and apply it to this project and then proportion everything else thank you thank you board member Walsh and I can speak to this a little bit and I might have to get a little more information from Sonoma water but the so the Warm Springs Dam which creates Lake Sonoma and also Coyote Valley Dam which creates Lake Medecino Sonoma water is the local sponsor for both of those dams and so there were bonds sold in particular for Warm Springs Dam in Sonoma County believe we are still paying those off I could be incorrect but I believe that is the case as contractors to Sonoma water because North Marin and Marin Municipal their customer base is not located in Sonoma County and they don't pay on that they don't pay through their property tax on that bond on those bonds they actually pay extra through their water rates to make up that portion to support the dam with in terms of so so that's really going to be continued to supported by our property taxes and by the rates that we pay for operation of Warm Springs Dam in Lake Sonoma if I could jump in sure I could both so the debt service for Warm Springs Dam was paid years ago I don't want to guess which year but but within the last say five to maybe 15 years so so that that's been paid off quite a while ago and I believe the agency got an opinion from their attorney saying that the the special tax would continue on the tax bills that could be used for other purposes and in general have some nexus with the purpose of the dam itself so the debt service on the Warm Springs Dam is finished okay so I can definitely get you more information from Sonoma water we do still pay on the property tax bill and that water that funding does go for continued operations of the dam and any maintenance or activities they need to do and then as I mentioned Marin and North Marin also pay their share through the rates so that would be a separate funding that's there for operation of Lake Sonoma and Warm Springs Dam what is being looked at is the potential creation of a new entity to take over the Potter Valley project and not necessarily or could be an energy project but in particular really looking at the water diversion from the eel river to the east fork of the Russian river and it would be really looking one at the first or second study that I mentioned is looking at the condition and condition assessment to see what the cost would be to take over the portion of the system that's needed and how much that would cost and that would result in some type of water supply cost that would be charged to those that depend on this supply our recommendation as staff level is because this supply really is more for the upper Russian river but there's also benefit for the fisheries that it is important for us and for that diversion to continue but that we should make sure that it's proportional to the benefit received because the really our water supply comes from Lake Sonoma and not from Lake Mendocino so I hope that answers the question so they're really two separate they'd be two separate funding mechanisms so this would be new costs going forward for taking over the project it does address the question and then the just the interest is can we look at the funding for the warm spring stand the special funding on the tax bill in relation to proportionality and have a discussion of that as we go along I can bring that back to Sonoma water and get some clarification and information on that for you yeah I'd appreciate that and would hope that that discussion is as part of the agenda before we get to what about the proportionality so thanks very much or remember Bowden fort thank you uh chair galvin I am in strong agreement with our our colleagues on the support for the policy direction I think that they span several of the questions that one I have and I think that we've we've had for some time it's such a complicated project a complicated decision that has evaded us for for some time I on the proportionality I'm curious I I suspect that this is the beginning of a long-term project if you will for lack of a better term and that any like decisions and recommendations on what does that proportionality ultimately end up looking like because we can see that there's obviously there's direct benefit there's direct use by our users by our customers and not direct use but then there's also what is the secondary benefit whether it's fisheries whether it's offsetting other supplies whether it's um water that you know can and can't be used in other parts of the county that then offset or benefit our our customers almost in like a secondary position so I'll be very interested to hear updates along the way a quick question on the regional entity and I'm sorry if I missed it that it sounds like Sonoma waters already developed an advisory team and that the next step is that the stakeholders will be invited to participate in interviews has there been more of a structure um that's been uh described at all or is there is there more is there more um an anticipation of what that what that forum or what that team might look like and then we're essentially doing interviews to fill those spots or is it still pretty open on what the forum would look like and what the stakeholders would look like for example do we anticipate it looking like the former jpa except include making sure to include lake county for example do we have any anticipation of what that what what the membership might look like thank you board member battenport great questions we we don't at this time this is still the very first step so um there's this advisory team that's been developed to provide input on these initial steps of identifying stakeholders and then identifying who should be in interviewed so I've been part of those meetings to just provide some input on that as I mentioned there's about 43 I believe but they were up to 45 stakeholders that are going to be intro uh interviewed all along the russian river from representatives in lake county all the way down through all the contractors uh that are contractors to sonoma water including you know different interest groups um business agriculture um water users etc so um and then the intent is to kind of gauge interest and based on that information and what folks are interested in participating in um we're going to bring that information back and then my understanding is the advisory team will be going away and they'll be looking to create more of a a next step on a team that would help shape uh eventually what a regional entity may look like if if that's what the the information from the interviews pans out to be right so this is sort of the first step gauging the interest if there's enough interest then there'll be future steps down the line uh thank you director Burke um I I know there's a lot on your plate already um I think that uh even though we may not have uh our direct customers directly uh uh benefiting in in a way that potentially other cities and counties and other unincorporated areas might be um I do think that we have a tremendous resource and a tremendous amount of expertise that can um that can be brought to this by director Burke so along the way um I'm in full support of um our participation as as you advise thank you very much thank you board member battenfort i'm having a hard time seeing if there's other hands raised by board members any further comments or questions from the board all right hearing none I will 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 manis there are no hands being raised via zoom and no one in council chamber wishing to make a public comment thank you that will conclude the study session thank you again director Burke and assistant city attorney bigger staff we appreciate all the work that's gone into this presentation and we know that uh this project is going to be before us many times in the future and we'll be going on long after we're probably all here so thank you for keeping us informed we'll now move to item 4.1 which is the minutes from october 6th we'll take public comments on the minutes if you're wishing to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand if you dial in via telephone please dial star 9 to raise your hand secretary manis there are no public comments on this item okay that'll take care of the minutes will be approved and entered we'll move now to item 5.1 which is the water and recycled water supply update director Burke thank you chair galvin and members of the board as you mentioned item 5.1 is our water recycle water supply update and we will have Claire Nordley our sustainability coordinator and mike prins our deputy director of regional water reuse making the presentation good afternoon chair galvin and members of the board next slide please so i'm here to present about our water supply update this is a graph of lake pilsbury storage and as you can see with the dark black line that is our current calendar year water supply in lake pilsbury right now it's at 32 000 approximately acre feet and that is a 1200 acre foot week over week reduction so as you all know p genie has been operating under firks minimum flow to the east branch of the russian river which in turn reduces flow to lake mendesino and this variance will conclude when the lake is at 36 000 acre feet which depending on the rainfall could be next year next slide please so this is lake mendesino storage as you can see again the dark black line is this calendar year and the latest storage amount in lake mendesino is about 39 000 acre feet and as you can see this is significantly better than this time last year which is the pink or tan ish line at the very bottom of the graph it's about 27 000 acre feet more at this time this year than this point last year next slide please here's lake sonoma so again dark black line is this current calendar year we're at about 107 000 acre feet in lake sonoma and this is pretty much spot on compared to where we were exactly at this time last year sonoma water is preparing to put together a temporary urgency change petition because their current order will expire in december so if that goes into effect then we can expect increased flows you can also see here at this time last year in 2021 where we got that nice october storm so fingers crossed we get something similar this year next slide please i'm sure you all are familiar with this graph the blue lines are 2022 diversions from the russian river the orange bars are the 2020 diversions sonoma waters goal was a 20 reduction in diversions and so far cumulatively the reductions in the russian river have been 30 percent next slide please so here's how santa rosa water is doing as you can see the dark or i'm sorry the gray lighter gray bar is our 2020 usage the blue line is the 2022 usage and then the orange bar is the target in september santa rosa residents reduced their water usage by 16 percent compared to june 2020 and cumulatively since july 2021 water use has been reduced by 18 percent compared to 2020 next slide please so santa rosa water has certainly been active in all of our drought outreach we've been participating in a lot of in-person events this year we've provided over 15 000 individual devices to customers such as shower heads faucet aerators toilet dye tabs toilet flappers etc and the demand really seems to never end no matter what event we're out at people are always interested in receiving the free devices we've the water use efficiency team has also been doing a lot of community presentations to rotary clubs garden clubs etc and of course always our in-person workshops in-person and virtual workshops with our partners next slide please in november starting on november 1st we're going to be messaging an irrigation off message to our customers so you can see two examples of social media ads that are going to be running starting in november a bill insert will also be run encouraging customers to turn off their irrigation we have radio ads social media of course our city connections our newsletters and then on our water smart yard page which provides customers information about recommendations for how many minutes to run their irrigation system that will be turned to zero minutes encouraging again people to turn off the irrigation for the winter time next slide please so looking ahead for 2023 there's still a great deal of uncertainty about drought conditions for this next year noah predicts you know higher than average temperatures but an equal chance of both rainy and of dry conditions this coming year so it's really just unsure whether we're going to still be in a drought so we the water use efficiency team has developed a regional marketing calendar for the full year of 2023 and all of that marketing material is scalable so if we do get quite a bit of drought we can pull back a little bit on that marketing if we don't get a lot of rain this year and it's we're going to be still in a third year of drought we can increase that level of marketing so we're going to right size it depending on the drought next slide please great i'm going to turn it over to deputy director prince for him to continue the presentation thank you thanks claire good afternoon chair galvin and members of the board i've kind of a brief recycle water update for you today in the last update that i gave you i spoke about some maintenance that was being done on pond a which is in the red circle in this aerial photo obviously the plant is there on the right and lower right hand corner and a good portion roughly half maybe slightly more than half of all of our recycle water storage and the system is represented by the medallane pond complex on the left side of the photo there pond a is essentially an extension of a hydraulic extension of the wet well which the geyser system and our lower pressure reclamation distribution system pull water from so it is very relevant in terms of the overall hydraulics and flow that goes out to our system but i wanted to show you this slide more or less to put things into context next slide this is actually the photo i showed you during my last recycle water update there's been a lot of work done on this since this time but i wanted to put it into context by showing you the condition during the last update next slide and this is a picture of a pretty interesting piece of equipment doing the work that was necessary to improve the conditions in the pond you can see it's essentially a mini excavator with very large tracks on it to prevent it from sinking too much into soft materials such as the inner berm of pond a nonetheless it's pretty straightforward process and it produced the following result next slide pretty significant improvement that material that's floating on the surface there really can't be removed by any means that we have available it's also not consequential for the operation but it's a pretty significant overall improvement i think to the condition of pond a and i figured just showing you a few photos might bring you into sort of what we do from time to time with the pond complex so moving on to the next slide please so this is a very brief sort of interim summary of the way things have gone with our irrigation season to date and some discussion of the geysers contract management for the balance of the year we did stop supplying irrigation to our agricultural customers october 10th we did guarantee allotments through september 30th so we actually did better by delivering it through october 10th not all agricultural irrigation allotments were fully utilized and that in conjunction with the fact that we were able to deliver through october 10th means i think that was a pretty good season i do intend to get some data summarized for the next recycle water update to give you a more detailed picture of how deliveries want this summer that information is just not available yet urban irrigation is probably going to start tapering off pretty soon it is weather dependent things are still pretty dry we've even seen some hot weather this week but we do expect temperatures the decline of temperatures to trigger a proportionate decline in irrigation to our urban customers plant flow right now is averaging a 30 day average of 13.5 million gallons a day the geysers flow is actually it's been lowered below 11.5 mgd and we anticipate keeping flows on roughly around 11 and a half mgd for the balance of the year so you can see the difference there there will be an accumulation of storage we do project that we are going to hit our minimum delivery to the geysers for 2022 that is subject to wet weather in the remaining quarter of the year if we have significant rains we may increase the flow to geysers to manage our storage curve which i'll show you just a second and that would result in delivering more than 90 percent but we are targeting 90 percent for the balance of the year or i should say the full year delivery next slide this is the curve you've seen many times and it has a different x axis or horizontal axis than the curve that claire was just showing you earlier about water supply this is a water year time frame so happy new year it's a little delayed but we are now in the new water year and so that's why over on the left hand side of this chart you can see the two red segments of our current storage curve and what is now shown is the black storage trend is for last water year which again just wrapped up at the end of september so as you can see our levels our storage levels are slightly below average that's because we did increase flow so the geysers to get our curve a little bit lower but i want to remind you that we are anticipating to have a fairly low delivery for the balance of the year and we'll be hitting our minimum geysers contract deliveries doing this allows us to have a little bit extra storage if we fingers crossed hopefully see quite a bit of rain we'll be able to capture that while still having met the geysers contract delivery which is measured on a calendar year basis not a water year basis so the last quarter of the year is a little bit of a crystal ball process in terms of determining what flows we need to manage the curve and hit our geysers contract deliveries nonetheless we intend to at least hit our minimums but this is a fairly standard representation that you've seen many times before maximum storage capacity is the horizontal line at the top the orange angular lines below that is our our typical upper limit for storage trends then we have the light blue range of maximums and minimums with last year shown in black the sort of central line is our average and then we have the other light blue line that shows our our minimums over our historical trends and then we also have that lower limit line which is has been used as sort of a bracket for storage trends so i think that is my last slide next slide yes claire and i are available for any questions on the presentation thank you to both of you for the water supply and recycled water supply update i'll open it up now for any board member questions or comments board member battenfort thank you chair gavin and thank you deputy director prince nice to see you i remember you you gave me my very first tour whatever it was five years ago out at pond a so thanks for the pictures it does help actually quite a bit you're welcome i have a just a quick check-in question on i know that this was the first year where we did ag user allotments as early as we did and then slightly a different process and one did how did that go for for you and your team did we learn anything that was beneficial moving forward and two are the ag user meetings still happening or do those stop now during when the irrigation season is over so i know that they have a new director over at farm bureau and i think that they were having those meetings over there so just hoping to check in on did the process work better for your team for our users and how do things proceed now that the irrigation season's over sure i haven't got any feedback about how it worked for our customers but we did set allotments early and we increased them i think three times we are very sensitive to the fact over the course of the season we are sensitive to the fact that if there are going to be increases to agricultural allotments it's much more useful for our customers planning purposes to have those increases earlier the flip side of the coin is if we do them too early and we don't see how the weather is going to go for the summer it can can be tricky my sense is that we got them done early enough for it to make a difference we also did see that the summer didn't trigger as high demand as we normally have or we have seen in the past we did have some heat waves but overall i think the humidity and temperatures were such that irrigation demand seemed to be a little bit lower we haven't had any agricultural customer meetings lately but we do tend to get into those based on my prior experience in the after the beginning of the year and and talk about conditions and projects and things like that so i do want to obtain feedback i haven't gotten any yet but i do want to obtain any feedback that we can get from our agricultural customers to see if we can do things better as always great thank you very much sure other board member questions or comments all right if not we'll take public comments on item 5.1 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 manis there are no public comments on item 5.1 thank you that'll take care of item 5.1 we'll now move to item 5.2 director Burke thank you chair galvin and members of the board item 5.2 is imagine a day without water and elise miller our communications coordinator will be presenting elise do you need to do a microphone check secretary manis she was on but now i don't see her on the attendees list and sorry i needed to unmute myself okay can you hear me now yes thank you very much yes we can oh let me turn on my camera there we go thank you for that all right let me start over uh good afternoon uh chair galvin and members of the board uh wanted to share with you today how santa rosa water is participating in imagine a day without water next slide please so imagine a day without water is a national education campaign and the day of action is today october 20th next slide please so let's take a moment to imagine what a bummer of a day it would be to wake up in the morning and there's no water to shower brush your teeth make coffee cook or clean uh no one wants that and i know i don't think twice before turning on my tap and santa rosa because our community has invested in a clean safe and reliable drinking water system next slide please so for imagine a day without water we are educating the community members about the value of the water service they have and the need to continually invest in our water resources infrastructure and the environment to ensure our water is always on so how are we doing this well santa rosa water has created a three-part video series that highlights the value of water in our community these short videos about two minutes each can be found at srcity.org slash value of water and these videos highlight where our water comes from the people behind the scenes operating and maintaining our water systems and the needs to continually invest in our community's water future and for imagine a day without water santa rosa is sharing these videos across our various outreach channels such as our web page social media and our city connections in newsletter next slide please in addition to educating our community about the value of water we are also asking them to show some love for water by taking the eye heart water pledge the pledge only takes a minute and we're going to select randomly select 10 winners to receive a free ticket from the tap water bottle and the pledge can also be found on srcity.org forward slash value of water or by going to the short url here srcity.org forward slash water pledge try to make it really easy for anybody to find it next slide please so just to recap participating in imagine a day without water is really easy we encourage everyone to visit our web page at srcity.org forward slash value of water and there you will find the videos information infographics and more that help tell santa rosa's water story also on the web page you'll find that link to the eye heart water pledge and as i mentioned it only takes a minute to show some love for water and with that i want to thank the board for your time and i'm happy to answer any questions thank you miss miller i'll open it up for board member questions or comments very good i hope it's a successful day and you get lots of pledges and keep up the good work thank you at this point we will take public comments on item 5.2 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 manis there are no public comments for this item that'll take care of item 5.2 we will now move to the consent calendar we have three items on the consent calendar we have a motion by vice chair anoni seconded by board member watt i'll open it up now for any questions or comments on the consent calendar seen none i will open it up for public comments on items 6.1 6.2 and 6.3 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 manis there are no public comments for the consent calendar all right maybe we have a roll call vote please certainly board member right i board member watt i thank you board member walsh hi board member grable board member ben fort hi vice chair anoni hi chair galvin hi let the record show that this pardon me the consent calendar passes with 60 nine or six votes and one absent vote of board member grable thank you that'll take care of the consent calendar we have no report items item 8 is public comments on non-agenda matters so at this point we'll take public comments on item 8 if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand if you wish to dial in via telephone please dial star 9 to raise your hand secretary manis there are no public comments on non-agenda matters all right that'll take care of item 8 we'll now move to item 9 which is referrals we have none we have no written communications item 11 is a subcommittee report and i believe the water conservation committee has a report board member watts yes thank you so the water subcommittee um conservation subcommittee we met on october 19th and we discussed two items the first item was a proposed high efficiency toilet rebate and so this program would provide rebates for customers that want to save water by swapping out their existing 1.6 gallon per flush or greater toilets with more high efficient toilets that use 1.1 gallons per flush or less and the subcommittee voted unanimously to support and implement the new rebate program so it's exciting to have a new new incentive for for our customers and then we also received in-depth review of the current water years the current years water use efficiency and drought outreach activities as well as some upcoming planned events for this upcoming year if we do have ongoing drop conditions and i believe that covers items from the uh subcommittee thank you board member watts any questions for board member watts from the board or comments all right hearing none we'll open it up for public comments on item number 11 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 manis there are no public comments for item 11 thank you that'll take care of item 11 any board member reports hearing none i will move to item 13 directors report director berke thank you chair gavin and members of the board i have a short directors report for you today as the board may be aware uh sienna was a water is part of the sonoma marine saving water partnership we're one of 13 water utilities in sonoma and maron counties that uh are working toward regional solutions for water use efficiency and i'm very excited to let folks know or let the board know and the public know that uh the partnership was awarded to epa water sense awards at their recent water sense conference uh or sorry water smart innovations conference in las vegas uh the partnership to receive the 2022 sustained excellence award for its ongoing success with our qualified water efficient landscaper program uh and that program was actually started by uh sonoma water and a sienna rosa water starting together and building that so we're very excited that it continues to receive such recognition and then we also received the 2022 promotional partner of the year award for our outreach and activities in 2021 for the second year of drought and uh we are just very pleased to uh get this recognition from the epa these are national awards and very proud of our continued participation in the partnership and the second item i have it's also uh we're very excited to let the board know that we will be having a groundbreaking ceremony for the ultraviolet disinfection project or uv replacement project at the laguna treatment plant uh next week and it'll be on wednesday october 26th from noon to 1 pm i will send details out to the board uh but a big thank you to our chair chair galvin who will be speaking as part of the groundbreaking ceremony and uh we are this is an active construction site so we are asking folks if they are going to come to uh please rsvp like i said i will send information to the board um if you have a hard hat and vest please bring it uh we will have some but if you have your own we'd appreciate it if you bring it and please remember to wear appropriate shoes and also carpooling is encouraged where available and that is my report and i'm happy to answer any questions the board may have thank you director berk any questions or comments from the board certainly will encourage all of you to hopefully be there for the groundbreaking ceremony next week looking forward to it okay at this point we'll open up for public comment on item number 13 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 manis there are no public comments on item 13 all right i believe that concludes our agenda for today so thank you all for being here and enjoy the rest of your afternoon we'll see you in a couple weeks we are adjourned thanks everyone thanks folks