 The Board of Public Utility meeting will begin shortly. We are having some technical difficulties. Plugged that TV, pulled out the Crestron. Someone came in here and I have no idea. So good afternoon. I'd like to call the meeting of the Board of Public Utilities for the City of Santa Rosa to order please. We have a roll call. Board Member Wright. Here. Board Member Sierra. Here. Board Member Grebel. Here. Board Member Barthelot. Here. Board Member Badenport. Here. Vice Chair Arnone. Chair Galvin. Here. Let the record reflect that all Board Members are present with the exception of Vice Chair Arnone. Very good. Thank you. Again, welcome. Any statements of abstention by Board Members? Hearing none, we have no study session. We have minutes for the February 15th meeting. I'll take public comment now on the approval of the minutes. If you wish to make a comment, please move to the podium. Seeing no one, the minutes will be approved and entered. Now move to our staff briefings. So if I could ask Acting Director McNeil to introduce our speakers. Thank you, Chair Galvin. Members of the Board, I'm excited to introduce the FEMA Flood Risk Mapping Project for Santa Rosa Creek Watershed. And we have Claire Myers, Gay Bosburn and Lon Peterson presenting. Thank you, Deputy Director McNeil. Good afternoon, Chair Galvin and members of the Board. I am Claire Myers. I am the Stormwater and Creeks Manager. I'm joined here today by Gay Bosburn, the Director of Planning and Economic Development and also Lon Peterson, the Director of CERO. We're here today to discuss FEMA's Flood Risk Mapping Project for the Santa Rosa Creek Watershed. The Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA is responsible for mapping our country's flood risk and for helping communities develop strategies for improving resiliency. FEMA has identified the Santa Rosa Creek Watershed for a map update. So today we'll provide an overview of the project, including what it is and its benefits and its impacts on the community. We'll also go over FEMA's project timeline and how our three teams are working together to ensure a comprehensive public outreach. So let's start by looking at the foundation really of this project. What is flood risk mapping? Simply put, it's FEMA's maps that show areas that have a high likelihood of flooding. More specifically, FEMA is using modeling data to identify flood hazard areas that have a 1% annual risk of flooding. This is also known as the 100-year flood. Flood mapping creates a series of statistical lines that identify risk on a parcel-by-parcel basis within a watershed. And these areas are designated as a special flood hazard area. In this case, FEMA's developing these maps for the Santa Rosa Creek Watershed. You can see the boundaries of this watershed on the map in front of you in purple. And so the analysis includes Santa Rosa Creek and all its key tributaries, which encompass most of the city of Santa Rosa itself as well as some unincorporated areas in Sonoma County. Why is this important? Well, because in order for the city and for property owners to make decisions on how to best mitigate risk, we really need to know what that risk is. And so mapping areas at high risk for flooding can help property owners make decisions about things like land use and purchasing appropriate insurance to mitigate risk and helping the city identify capital improvement projects to better protect our community. Why are we doing this now? Because flood risks change over time with development and new and better data has become available. There's no set timeline for revising flood maps, but FEMA, when new risks and data are identified, that is when FEMA will start the process of updating the maps. So revisions typically occur when more accurate engineering data is available or through a FEMA funded restudy or when community makes that new information available to FEMA. So I'll pass the mic over to Gabe now to discuss project impacts and benefits. Good afternoon, Chair and members of the board. As Claire mentioned, the ultimate final product of this exercise will be a map and that map will identify what is referred to as special flood hazard areas. That's SFHA. Those are also referred to as high flood risk areas. So properties that fall within that boundary are really subject to more stringent building requirements and insurance requirements. On the building side, under our local codes, we do not restrict development in that area. It is very typical that finished floor elevations on properties must be raised one foot above that flood elevation. And then also the placement of structures in that area also has to do a hydraulic and hydraulic analysis to show the impacts of water displacement. So there are special studies that are performed as part of the review of those projects. On the insurance side, residents are not required to have flood insurance in most situations unless they have a federally backed loan or if they are under a specific requirement from their lender. So what we're really looking at as part of this process is obviously there'll be temporary and ongoing impacts from a public outreach standpoint. As FEMA goes through this process, most of it is education and outreach and making sure our team members are there to answer questions from the community and advise them on requirements. Our ongoing workload, once this map comes into play, really hits the planning and economic development department because there's additional steps that are performed in both the entitlement phase and the ministerial phase of development projects. So that really hits our team, so we're preparing for that. In addition to the impacts, there are also benefits for many members in the community. Investment and property is the biggest investment one will make in their lives. So knowing the hazards that potentially in existent areas helps them make informed decisions about that investment. It also really helps the city better mitigate the impact. So when we understand where the impacts are occurring, flood studies help us identify projects that can mitigate those long-term, so it informs the capital project delivery within the city on the storm drain side. At this point, I'll hand the presentation back to Claire to discuss the timeline. Thank you, Gabe. So the FEMA flood risk mapping is a multi-step, multi-year process that includes FEMA coordinating with local officials, technical staff, and the public. Gabe and I will walk you through each of the steps that FEMA goes through, and it's important to note that throughout this process, the city also will need to communicate with a large number of stakeholders as well, including FEMA, local officials, regional partners, and then definitely our impacted community members. To help our community navigate FEMA's project, a comprehensive outreach plan was developed by our three teams, which Lon will also go over at the end. So phase one is called Discovery, and FEMA is currently wrapping up this phase right now. In this phase, FEMA gathers local flood data and institutional knowledge from local agencies. They do this in close coordination with the community to prioritize future mapping, the risk assessment, and mitigation planning assistance. So the city of Santa Rosa, along with Sonoma Water and the County of Sonoma, have been working closely with FEMA to provide them with data on our Santa Rosa Creek flood study, which was recently completed. So FEMA will use the data from our local study, as well as their own data in their analysis, which brings us to step two, analysis and mapping. This is the second phase, and during this phase, FEMA will be using the information they gathered during Discovery, along with their own data to develop the preliminary flood maps for the Santa Rosa Creek watershed. FEMA, as I said, won't just use our flood study that the city developed, but they'll do their own analysis to determine the extent of what they determine to be the floodplain. The analysis and mapping phase is estimated to take about a year to complete. So Gabe can walk us through phase three. The first step in the map release is what is referred to as a preliminary flood map release. The first review is performed by the local jurisdictions. So City of Santa Rosa, Sonoma Water and the County of Sonoma, those comments are fed back to FEMA, potentially inform revisions to the map moving forward. And then the map is really prepared for community consumption. So the first step is to host community meetings. FEMA will be involved in those. We will be partnering with our federal partners to participate in those as well, to make sure we're informing the community on all the additional steps they will have to do when these maps are put in place. A very important point in this process is there is a 90-day appeal period. The FEMA flood study really looks at some of the flooding at a very high level. When they're more localized, specific challenges or specific features that may affect the study, a property owner has the ability to submit an alternate analysis that shows why that study is different on their particular lot. That is a very technical analysis. It will likely require a property owner to obtain services as a civil engineer. So we will also be forming property owners on what that looks like and make sure that they're informed on what they need to do to participate in that appeal process. And we are estimating that the preliminary map releases and occurs in the summer of 2025. So the next step is the FEMA sends a letter of final determination. This includes the effective date for the new flood maps. At this point, most of the information lives within the FEMA website, and we start directing there for the final maps. We also, at this point, really, because much of the concern will be about insurance, we do have the ability to partner with our, or federal partners, the National Flood Insurance Program to set up workshops so people understand the importance of potentially getting flood insurance when it would be required and how they would be connected to insurance providers. So that will be more of the engagement process. It is really important to note that once these maps are released, the FEMA flood maps hold for a lengthy period of time. Very similar to the appeal process, FEMA does offer a letter of map amendment process. So if someone misses the 90-day appeal process and those same situations exist on their property, they do have the ability to request that FEMA changes the map in that area. This is a more common occurrence when a capital project is done that actually changes the flood patterns, where FEMA will adjust based on that. But it is important to note that there is a long-term process that will allow amendments to those maps. And we are estimating that the effective map date, the final map is in spring of 2026 to spring of 2027. At this point, I will hand the presentation to Lawn to discuss our communications and outreach strategies. Great, thanks, Gabe, appreciate it. So given the impacts in Santa Rosa, we developed a strategic communications plan. This will basically help ensure the community is informed throughout FEMA's project. And while it's not our project, we are definitely involved in them. So our approach is to partner with Sonoma Water as well as the County and FEMA on this project. It is a multi-year project, so there's a lot of collaboration that will happen. We've clearly defined our audience, which is like the residents that will be impacted as well as developers within this area. We'll be doing specific community outreach in a more focused area in this, even though we're doing broad-level outreach across the board. Secondarily, we've created a webpage. It's already live and multiple communications materials that we put out in front of you guys this afternoon. There's the brochure that kind of highlights this project that we talked about. It's developed in both Spanish and English. It's for anybody in the audience. It's also up at the podium if you want to grab one. You can find out any of this information on the city's website at srcity.org slash FEMA flood mapping. In addition, we've created multiple internal communications for staff as well as council to share with the community. We'll be continuing to look for opportunities to get out in the community both once this period starts. While we don't know exactly when it'll start, we're ready to go out in the community to hold community meetings with our partners. And to make sure that the community is informed, we did create an email distribution list on our website. So when any major updates happen within this project, we will be sending out emails to keep people updated so they don't have to continually come back and check of where this process is. Next slide. And then finally, I'll leave you guys, this is information how to contact FEMA throughout this project. Again, we are coordinating with our communications team and this is the information that they provided. But from the city side, we also have information as I've outlined on the left and the right. And with that, that concludes our staff briefing and happy to answer any questions as needed. Thank you to all three of you for the presentation. I'll open it up now for any questions or comments from the board. Board member Bowdenfort. Thank you for the presentation and for bringing it forward. So early, a lot of times proposals arrive without really a realistic amount of time to learn and incorporate adjustments. In a few jurisdictions nearby, as some of these projects came about over the last handful of years, the timeline ended up being quite short, whether it was that the public just wasn't aware early enough. And some of the final maps are either ending up changing significantly or they're delayed, following a lot of outreach by those that own and manage, develop, ensure property. And so, I think it's fantastic that you're bringing it forward and just really being, it's clear that you're being really thoughtful about the potential impacts of what this could look like and doing some specific outreach. Can you tell me a little bit about, it sounds like you have some plans for just general outreach, but also are there specific entities, organizations that you plan to reach out to for comment on these along the way? Yeah, so back to this. I mean, we'll do global outreach throughout this process just based on the impact of the community or across the board. And why we do specific outreach once we get finalized maps from FEMA, we'll be looking at those based on a really defined audience with addresses. And so we'll do specific, probably mailings and other opportunities. But I think it comes down to, depends on what FEMA's map says and how many people are impacted. From the development community, again, we have lists and things. The city has multiple email lists that we'll be pushing stuff out to being proactive. And in addition, the city's main newsletter, which has 115,000 describers with a 40% open rate weekly that we'll be pushing stuff out through the entire process, globally, even though we're targeting very specific stuff. And then to the point of Gabe's involvement, like initially we're collecting data, Gabe's involvement is gonna come in these future pieces, but it's really critical from a team's perspective while it's just a few of us over talking, there's a big team of people that have been collecting this information and really prepping to be ready for this moving forward. So in both talking points and answering questions and really being responsive because depends on what comes up and different questions that we have throughout this appeals period, we will respond accordingly. So we're ready from the communications department in coordination with Gabe's team as well as Water to respond to whatever comes our way. So, I mean, I would say like normally FEMA puts out a few, like the general response is they do two notifications in the public newspaper and we realize that we need a much broader response in that. And so FEMA, they've been very happy with like our proactive response which has been led by Elise Miller, Katie Oseguera, and Flannery in coordination with us. So there's a lot of stuff happening behind the scenes as well to be ready. It's really as best as I can kind of see from my past experience on it. What's the real opportunity for thoughtful and professional input to be integrated before the draft maps are created in the first place and then following the release of those draft maps. I mean, as non-engineers and just regular stakeholders, whether you're a family or you're a business or you're a larger organization to even be able to provide thoughtful feedback on it. Sometimes folks are hiring their own consultants and it really is a, it's not just a simple, it can be a really complicated project to provide input on. So as much of a genuine opportunity for that to occur along the way, it sounds like you're ready for it, I appreciate it. Thanks very much. You're welcome. Remember, right? So I think you mentioned, are there consultants working on this for FEMA or are they doing the majority of the work in-house? How does that all, what's the sort of the org chart of that? Yeah, so the work that we are handing over to FEMA as part of the Santa Rosa Creek flood study, which is a collaboration between the city of Santa Rosa, Sonoma Water, the county, and then a consultant that we are using ESA who is doing the models that we have developed to give to FEMA. They are assisting us with the analysis of hydrology, hydraulics, and coming up with the data that then is being given to FEMA. FEMA will do their own process. At this point, they'll take our data. They have their own analysts and we'll move forward. So it's been the city and Sonoma Water up until this point and it's really just FEMA now. Yeah, and on the comm side, it's strictly a collaboration between FEMA, the county, as well as the city during the communications and just being responsive as possible. There's no consultant. It's all eternal. So to kind of simplify my mind, the technical mapping is done locally and then it's given to our big brother, FEMA to check and comment on. Yeah, and we've been collaborating with FEMA throughout the process. We've submitted the data to them in phases to make sure that our methodology was consistent with what they would do because sometimes FEMA does all of the analysis on their own, but they actually like partnering with cities this way and found that they've gotten more accurate and precise data. So yeah, they've accepted the hydrology and the hydraulics and we're just putting together the final package with all the maps and final data. I personally like having the local input on the mapping rather than having it come from Washington or somewhere like that. And lastly, it seems like we just did a FEMA update, a FirmMap update in my career. So when was the last time we did that? Are you referring to a FEMA FirmMap update? Are you referring to an analysis of flooding? Well, this is ultimately we're gonna develop firm maps out of this process, aren't we? Right, so I guess my brain goes in two different directions on this because FEMA does FirmMap updates regularly. I know in the last, since I've been here, they've done one for Todd Creek and Naval Creek. They just finished one for Mark West Springs. These are small that only touched a few parcels in the city, so the city didn't have nearly the level of public outreach. You may have been thinking back in 2017, the city actually started the Santa Rosa Creek Flood Study and did a round of models and maps back in 2017. At that point, the storm drain manager left, there were the fires and it got put on the back burner and we came back to it in 2019, 2020 and there was new data, new better data. So we updated the models for Santa Rosa Creek and that's this new data that we're now giving to FEMA. So I'm not sure if that answers the question, but that's... Yes, okay. Thank you very much. Good presentation. We're gonna go to Grable. Yeah, thank you for the presentation. I had the same question as Glenn before, so about consultants, but then part of the reason I was gonna ask that question is, is there an intersection, I'm assuming, between some of the mapping and our in-house sort of hydrological survey studies and then the climate adaptation plan aspect? Is there an intersection there with Sonoma Waters input and Rincan, I mean, that's obviously a huge, long project that they've been working on, but I just know that in the past, the risk mapping has been very modeling based on data in the past, as opposed to modeling based on predictive climate adaptation data modeling, right? Yeah, and so this whole process has been a close collaboration with Sonoma Water through their central Sonoma Watershed project. And so if your question, if I'm understanding it, is that collaboration with them and then climate adaptation and modeling. So climate is considered in the modeling that we have done and looking at the hydrology, what kind of storm events are we looking at? Better data about atmospheric rivers, looking at actual precipitation and the storm gauges. So it does, the city's flood study does take into account climate change. How FEMA chooses to use that information and how they incorporate climate change is something that's a little outside of our control, and they haven't said exactly yet what they'll do, but we have incorporated it into our own flood study. Wonderful, and just curious, what's been our experience so far with FEMA's capacity and responsiveness in terms of their technical review or technical advisory regarding flood? And I just know in terms of disaster recovery, that specific division of FEMA has been very under-resourced compared to fire and other disaster-specific departments that specifically flood environmental review, but that technical expertise has been very limited in terms of capacity in our local FEMA region. Yeah, that's a great question, and I've worked with both sides of FEMA, and I'm happy to report that section of FEMA has been truly wonderful to work with. They have been very responsive, very collaborative, and I think because the city, they have recognized that this city is doing a lot of proactive work around this and have expressed their appreciation for that. They've been a partner all throughout the flood study, making sure that we've wanted to make sure that what we will be submitting to them will meet their needs and their methodology, and they've actually been really wonderful to work with. They've offered to come to the city and speak at public meetings and answer questions about insurance and everything, so happy to report they've been great. They're wonderful. Yeah. We're member of Arthalo. Thank you, Chair Galvin, and thank you for the presentation. It's a very great work you're doing. My question is around the data that will be included. The Santa Rosa Creek study was presented, I think it said in November of 2021. So, and that's the data that we are giving to FEMA. Is that correct? Like, does the data go up to 2020 or is there additional data in modeling that is included? I'm just wondering if 2022 and 2023 information will be included too. That's a good question. So, I think we first came to City Council in November of 2021, but we have been working on this since then. And so, the data that we haven't actually submitted the final data to them. They have our hydrology and our hydraulics analysis, but the final data that is going to them will be accurate up to now, essentially. We use specific storm events in the model to look at. So, I don't think that we're using any of the storms in 2023 or 2022. I know that we did use the October 2021 storm, which you might remember. That was a pretty big one for the city. I got a lot of flooding, but so the data is about as up to date as it could be. Any other questions? Not, we'll open it up for public comment on item 5.1. If you wish to make a comment, please move to the podium. Seeing none, thank you again for the presentation. We'll now move to item 5.2, Acting Director McNeil. Thank you, Chair Galvin. Our next presentation is from Peter Martin, Deputy Director of Water Resources and Mike Prins, the Deputy Director of Regional Water Reuse Operations, and they'll be presenting the Water and Recycled Water Supply Update. Good afternoon, Chair Galvin, members of the board. Peter Martin, Deputy Director of Water Resources. I'll start this water supply update off and then hand it over to my colleague, Deputy Director Mike Prins, to close it out with Recycled Water Update. I'll just start giving some statistics on our local reservoirs. I did want to note that Lake Pillsbury is about 61,000 acre feet, which is about 110% of the average water supply for this time of year. Just note that similar to last year, PG&E will be keeping the storage artificially low given their concerns over the seismic stability of Scott Dam. So this is probably about as high as you'll see their water storage get this year. So something to consider. I have a little more discussion in later slides about how they'll be operating throughout the summer. In terms of Sonoma Waters reservoirs, storage in Lake Mendocino is at about 92,400 acre feet as of today. They are taking advantage of our nice weather right now to make some releases and evacuate some of the storage that they went over to the flood control pool. When I say they, I should mention it's Army Corps of Operations. I'm an engineer's operations right now as they're operating in the flow control storage pool. They're making decisions on both reservoirs as of January. As of today, their outflow from Lake Mendocino is at about 500 cubic feet per second and ramping up to about 1,000 cubic feet per second. So they're definitely making those releases now. Of course, as you'll see in this graph, it's getting closer to the time of year when storage will start to increase and the availability of them and the storage curve allows them to continue to store more beginning this month. So in terms of Lake Sonoma, storage is plentiful. Again, at about 271,800 acre feet today, releases are set at about 1,000 cubic feet per second. So obviously drawing down the reservoir to get it back into that comfortable furrow and forced flood control curve. So as I mentioned, PG&E has released their plans for their summer operations and releases into the area out of the Eel River diversion and into the Upper Russian River. As I mentioned, due to seismic risk, they can no longer operate the slide gates in spring so that diminishes their ability to hold back about an additional 20,000 acre feet every year. And so what that means is that they'll start off the times later on the year, once the rain's diminished, excuse me, with less storage to operate off of through the remainder of the year. Given that, they did submit requests in February this year to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission asking for relief from their mandated flows into the Upper Russian River. Typically beginning in June, they would be required in a normal year to be putting about 75 cubic feet per second of fish flows into that portion of the river. They're asking for the ability to reduce that, depending upon temperature modeling in the Eel River down to 25 cubic feet per second and if needed, all the way down to five cubic feet per second. So what that means is that you'll see less water going into the Upper Russian River above Lake Mendocino. I should mention too that with that, there is about a 50 cubic feet per second requirement for contractual irrigation deliveries to the Bodder Valley Irrigation District. There's a little bit of a buffer of about five cubic feet per second in that too. So yeah, some variability there and to depend upon what occurs towards the end of the rainy season this year. And then just notably last year, when they notified similarly, this is the exact same request that they had last year, FERC came back and requested that PG&E file an application to amend their license long-term to allow them to leave the spillway gates open indefinitely. As you know, PG&E right now is operating the project off of annual licenses, given that the prior license expired. And so this is a completely separate process from their current licensing efforts that they're doing for the decommissioning of the project. But again, just another wrinkle, they will need to formally request an amendment to their operational license for that project to allow them to make this change. And obviously I have to understand the impact. So there'll be more to come. Obviously some work to be done and outreach to the affected folks as well as the Fisher agencies as well. So, and then I just wanted to briefly, it's scheme to that time of year where we're starting to ramp up a lot of our outreach activities. We're gonna be out in the community doing workshops and we'll be at various events. So National Fix-A-Leak Week is March 18th to the 24th. So leading up to that, we've been sending out bill inserts to customers, asking them to take the dietab challenge. This is a regional effort, so this is mirrored in other agencies throughout the Russian River through the Sonoma Rent-Saving Water Partnership. Folks were asking them to put some dietabs in their toilet, test for leaks, report back, and they'll be eligible for a $25 gift certificate as well. So, and then we'll be at the St. Patrick's Day 5K event and out at various other events in this month. And obviously as we continue to see more opportunities to be outside, we'll be at various events in the future. So with that, I'm gonna hand this presentation over to Deputy Director Mike Prince. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Galvin, members of the board. Thanks for the introduction, Peter. You all, I think, have seen this chart in various forms at various points. I wanted to update you regarding the production of recycled water, which is essentially effluent from the Laguna Treatment Plant. The black line, which ends at February, essentially is our current production trend for this year. It stands in an interestingly sharp contrast to last year. Last year is represented by the red trend. So you can see last year we had kind of a spike and this is average daily flow averaged over the course of each month. So there was a lot of flow in January of last year, less flow this year, actually right about average, which is the purple trend in the background. Again, as I think you all probably know by now, all the squiggles in the background, I should say, on the chart represent individual water years that, when averaged, are represented by the purple line. But there was kind of a drop-off in flows last year in February, which is not the case this year. We've had kind of a sustained high flow because of a high number of storms throughout February. I'm happy to report that none of those storms have triggered flooding at the plant. We have been prepared for flooding at the plant, but actually have not had any real flooding at all this year. But then again, last year there was a spike in March and we'll see what happens between now and that time going forward. That can be represented with the current chart, which shows in the red trend that ends around March 1st of our current storage levels. In contrast to last year at this time, we're lower. That's attributable to two actual discharge events that we've conducted so far this year, which I'll update you in a little bit, but we are still above average levels for this time of year. Average is represented by the gray trend, sort of through the middle of all those trends that you see there. We did conduct discharges last year, which you can see are represented by sort of the sawtooth pattern primarily between March and April. It's worth noting that in the background of all this activity that you see represented in these trends, the geysers operation is still operating and taking a substantial amount of the effluent from the Laguna tree and plant as well. So right now our storage levels have come up actually. We actually have done a discharge event that wrapped up recently that lowered our storage levels, but then they have since returned to about the billion gallon range. I wanted to give you a little bit of an update just to orient you to where discharge events occur. At the bottom of this aerial photo, you see a purple circle. That's essentially where the Laguna treatment plant is. The blue line is highway 12. The yellow circle in the upper right hand corner is essentially where the Stony Point office complex are located. That's where the utility department or water department offices are. And then in the upper left, you see a red circle around Delta Pond. That is our main discharge point. We do have the ability to discharge from ponds in the purple circle, if you will, next to the plant. But our primary discharge location is from Delta Pond. We have a pipe network that we rely on to transfer water from the plant and from the storage ponds adjacent to the plant up to Delta Pond. But that is where discharge normally occurs. In our first discharge event from February 15th to the 16th, we discharged right around 434 million gallons. Since that time, we conducted an additional discharge that wrapped up on Monday and that brought our cumulative discharge volume to around 580, 582, I believe, million gallons. At Delta Pond in Santa Rosa Creek, we have a discharge diffuser that allows water to exit the pond through a pipe manifold and then enter the flow of Santa Rosa Creek through what are referred to as duct bill check valves. These are pictures from construction of that diffuser back several years ago. It's worth noting that the picture on the left shows few of the construction employees working on that diffuser. And they are working within an area that is kept dry because of sheet piling. There's actually flow going around this construction site in that photo because there was a de-watered sheet pile protected area where construction was occurring. So that actually is a picture from within the limits of Santa Rosa Creek. And then the picture on the right just shows the interior of the pipe manifold before duct bill check valves were installed. So there was actually light inside. So you can see inside the pipe. The discharge process, this is a slide I've used before, but I think it's worth mentioning just to remind you all and then for the benefit of newer board members, it is triggered by rainy weather. We have a discharge season, but then within that season we have windows of opportunity that open up where we conduct discharge events. Typically they occur when we have high flows at the treatment plant, which are also induced by precipitation. And ultimately when we get to about this time of the year, sometimes earlier, we have relatively high recycle water storage levels, which can trigger a need to discharge. Typically the geysers operation would be operating simultaneously, typically at its maximum flow rate, which is in the vicinity of 18 million gallons a day. In order to conduct the discharge, we monitor receiving water quality and quantity, primarily in Santa Rosa Creek, at the Laguna de Santa Rosa, we have various monitoring locations and we deploy actually instrumentation to measure flow, temperature, pH, turbidity, and dissolved oxygen. Flow, I should say, is normally represented by USGS stream gauge data. But those are used in a computer program to calculate what is our maximum allowable discharge flow rate based on a number of parameters, including the quality of the recycle water in the pond at the time of the discharge. We make real-time adjustments to the flow rates and I want to emphasize for members of the audience and the board that this is all according to a relatively complex MPDES discharge permit. This is all essentially routine according to permit requirements. This graph represents the recent discharge event starting just after Valentine's Day. The bars in this graph are represented by the left-hand axis, which shows the volume, the daily volume discharged. And the line in the graph is represented by the right-hand axis, which is rainfall in inches. And the point of this graph is really just to show you how rainfall affects what we discharge. We do have the ability to discharge less than the maximum allowable and we do often discharge less than the maximum allowable flow rate. But when the rain spikes, it tends to spike the flow in Santa Rosa Creek and that creates a window of opportunity to discharge a larger flow rate. So we monitor this closely. We can pick set points that are set in the computer program that we rely on and pick a target discharge flow rate. But then the parameters that I mentioned earlier are used to adjust that flow rate automatically in all cases below the maximum allowable discharge flow rate. But I thought this might be an interesting way to show you how rain affects what we normally discharge. And this is an entire discharge event represented from starting just after Valentine's Day of this year. This is the business end of the diffuser in Santa Rosa Creek in action. This is just a still photo that was taken from a video taken by I believe Steve Jacobs or Andrew Romero in our reclamation team showing some of the turbulence that occurs at the water surface in Santa Rosa Creek when we are conducting a discharge event. But I think it represents how the diffuser diffuses flow into Santa Rosa Creek. Sometimes there can be sediment or gravel covering certain duckbill diffusers which can affect how even the flow is out of the diffuser. We have conducted maintenance in the past to improve that. And we take a look at that on a semi-regular basis to just look at the condition of the diffuser. But this is a screenshot showing the effects of the diffuser on Santa Rosa Creek during a discharge event. I also wanted to emphasize and put into context our current discharge season relative to prior discharge seasons. You can see on the left hand side of the axis or chart in 2010 we had a discharge of just under 800 million gallons. But then we had quite an extended period of time with little or no discharge activity at all that would typically just boil down to operation of the geysers and precipitation patterns and therefore the production of recycled water from the Laguna treatment plant. You can see in 2016, 17, we had a very significant discharge event. That's a memorable one for a few people on my team as well as myself. Everything basically went fine. Then we've had intermittent discharges since then but overall it's worth pointing out that many years we don't discharge any recycled water at all. The gray line on the right hand side there just represents sort of a tentative total. I think that has not been updated to the current level of 582 million gallons of discharge but it puts our current year into context of prior years and the lack of discharge in several years in between. So our discharge through the third of March at that time equal just over 536 million gallons. As I think you all know, we have phosphorus limitations on our discharge that we managed by obtaining phosphorus credits and so every time we discharge it consumes a certain amount of our phosphorus credits that we have. The discharge as of March 3rd of this year amounted to 5,641 pounds of phosphorus which equals 5,641 credits. We have not yet done a final accounting of remaining credits but we'll be updating the board about that later this year. So with that, Peter and I are available to answer questions if you have any. Thank you both gentlemen. Any questions or comments from the board? Very good. We'll open it up for public comment now on item 5.2. If you wish to make a comment, please move to the podium. Seeing no one move, that'll take care of your presentation. Thank you gentlemen. We have one item on the consent calendar, item 6.1. I'll move the consent calendar. Second. Motion by board member Wright, seconded by board member Grable. This time we'll open it up for public comment on item 6.1. If you wish to make a comment, please move to the podium. Seeing no one, if we may have a roll call vote please. Board member Wright. Aye. Board member Sierra. Aye. Board member Grable. Aye. Board member Bartholome. Aye. Board member Baden-Fort. Aye. Vice chair Arnone. Chair Gavin. Aye. The consent calendar passes unanimously with chair vice chair Arnone absent. Thank you. That'll take care of the consent calendar. We'll move to our report item, item 7.1. Acting director McNeil. I'm happy to announce Kellen Johnson, the environmental specialist in the stormwater and creeks team, giving a presentation on the professional services agreement approval for Evans and Dishazo cultural resources study and archaeological tribal monitoring for lower Golden Creek restoration phase three. Hello, chair Galvin and members of the board. I'm Kellen Johnston and I am an environmental specialist for the stormwater and creeks team in the water department. Thank you for hearing our presentation today. I'm gonna be speaking about a professional services agreement for cultural resources study and archaeological and tribal monitoring for lower Colgan Creek restoration project phase three. I think I spoke to you all about the lower Colgan Creek restoration project a few months back when we were going after a grant which we did receive and I wanted to give you a little bit more information about that quickly and then we'll go into more of the details of this. So basically the lower Colgan Creek restoration project is down off Bellevue Ave in front of LCL in high school and there's three phases. This is the third and final phase we're entering here. It's a 1.3 mile creek restoration project that will both enhance the habitat value of the creek and enhance the water quality while also expanding the flood storage capacity of the creek. It's currently rated for a 25 year flood and it will expand to being able to hold a hundred year flood. Then we'll also include public access components. So we've received this grant and we plan to start construction in 2025. So it's part of our process to get our permits and everything ready for that. We have started the process of finding an archeological consultant. It's gonna move this a little closer if I can, here we go. Okay, so we notified all of the tribes of our upcoming project back in September of 2023. We heard back from the Federated Indians of Great and Rancheria requesting tribal consultation in October of 2023. So we have since met with them and they've requested that we update our 2010 cultural resources study which was completed for all three phases. And so we also would need to do that as part of our Army Corps section 404 permit. It's a requirement under the section 106 portion of that permit. And so we reached out to some different consultants and we received three proposals in the end of January 2024. The scope of work is essentially to conduct a records search and literature review to a field survey which is a pedestrian field survey, complete geoarchaeological trenching. So they'll be looking for any cultural or other archeological remains. Then they would be doing evaluation of the buildings that are on the property. Those are not part of the impact area of the phase three project, but they would be something that we would want to still consider because it's all one property. And they would be part of the future parks development of the either side of our Creek Restoration Project. And then they will write a report of what their findings will also create a monitoring plan. And then during construction, they'll have a cultural monitor out there every day, keeping track and making sure that all of the excavation is being monitored appropriately. So we reviewed the proposals. It was a myself, a senior environmental specialist and the project engineer. And we chose Evans and DeChaiso from Sevastopol, California as the most qualified proposer. So Evans and DeChaiso would complete the scope we just described. And we've also included a 20% contingency on this because we don't know what may or may not be found at the site. And so it could change the scope of what we need to do as next steps if there were any findings. So we wanted to just simplify and streamline that by adding that contingency up front, but then that would only be accessed with approval from the city. So it is recommended by Santa Rosa Water that the Board of Public Utilities by motion approve professional services agreement with Evans and DeChaiso of Sevastopol, California to complete this cultural resources study and provide archeological monitoring for the Lower Colgan Creek Restoration Project, phase three, in the amount of 133,792 plus a contingency amount of 26,758,40 cents for a total amount of 160,550 dollars and 40 cents. And that's all for me. Thank you, Ms. Johnston. I'll open up for any board member questions or comments. Yes, board member Wright. Just one simple question. Do you know when the expected construction time might be for this project? Yeah, we hope to go to construction for June 15th to October 15th of 2025. We'll have some pre-construction, most likely at the late fall of this year as well, but that would all be kind of above ground, no ground-disturbing activities this fall. And the pathway is gonna be on the west side. Correct. Okay. Yes. And is the bridge in place there? So the bridge, we're still fundraising for the bridge, the bridge, the pedestrian bridge, we are still hoping to install and fundraising for that. We've just recently submitted a grant that we're waiting to hear back from that would help fund part of that. So that would cross the corner right there where currently the project takes a 90-degree turn. That area will become more of a natural meander with a pedestrian bridge from the bike trail on the south side that then connects over to the future ADA trail on the north side. Thank you. Mm-hmm. The board member questions or comments? Board member Grable. All right, thanks for the presentation. Just to, I guess, I'm curious to know if Evans and Dishazo, do they have a good working relationship with Creighton and Retria? They do. So they were one of the three preferred archeological firms that they work with the best and most. And so we were excited to see that as, that they have a good relationship that gives us a little bit of opportunity because sometimes the scheduling can be pretty impacted to have a tribal monitor. And so if you're with one of their preferred consultants, sometimes they're able to play dual function and help keep the schedule going. That's fantastic. Is it still Freddie Romero, or who's on Greighton and Retria's staff from the tribal membership side? Do you, who works with Evans and Dishazo in the Latino? You know, I'm not totally sure. Yeah. I'm glad there's that process, though. If they give you their preferred consultants and go from there, then avoids a lot of those historic issues and antagonisms, well-founded antagonisms that came up because people weren't talking to each other. Right, exactly. So this will increase the communication and just make it all nice and smooth. Everybody will know what's going on. Wonderful. Any other questions or comments? Motion. Move to approve the recommendation. Entering a new agreement with Evans and Dishazo. Second. Motion by board member Grable, seconded by board member Wright. We'll now open it up for public comment on item 7.1. If you wish to make a comment, please move to the podium. See no one move. Will he have a roll call vote, please? Board member Wright. Aye. Board member Sierra. Aye. Board member Grable. Aye. Board member Bartholome. Aye. Board member Baden-Fort. Aye. Vice Chair Arnone. Chair Galvin. Aye. Thank you all. Let the record reflect the motion passes unanimously with Vice Chair Arnone absent. Thank you. Well, next on the agenda, item 8, public comments on non-agenda matters. See no one rise. We have no referrals. We have no written communications. Any subcommittee reports? Board member Wright. The Budget Subcommittee met on February 27th to review regulations around waters, various enterprise funds, summary information on current fiscal year budget, and preliminary assumption for the development of the proposed fiscal year 2024-25 budget. The subcommittee also received budgetary information for the current fiscal year 2023 and 2024, an update on reserve balances and an overview of the budget schedule. And that's it. Any questions or comments on the report? If not, we'll open it up for public comment on item number 11. If you wish to make a comment, please move to the podium. See no one move. That'll take care of the subcommittee report. Any board member reports? All right, acting directors report. Yes, thank you, Chair Galvin, members of the board. This is a friendly reminder that all BPU members are required to file a Form 700 form. So if you haven't completed your Form 700 this year, please do so soon. Information on filing your form, 700 was sent via email in January. And the absolute final deadline to file is April 2nd. You will be receiving a reminder email within the next week. You can submit your form by following the link to that email or logging into the net file. If you have questions regarding the Fair Political Practices Commission, FPPBC, requirement to file a Form 700, you may contact the FPPC directly at Form 700 at fppc.ca.gov or call the advice line at 1-866-275-3772-1. Thank you. That concludes my report. Thank you for the reminder. We'll now take public comments on item number 13. If you wish to make a comment, please move to the podium. See no one rise. That concludes our agenda for today. So we will adjourn and we'll see you in a couple of weeks. Have a nice afternoon.