 Mr. United, something's never change, except the result. Thank you. Good luck. Yeah, thank you. I can't wait for this election season to be over. I'll tell you that. I want the whole year to be over. Can we just, you know. No, unfortunately, you can't fast forward. You can only do what McIntyre suggests and that's reboot. Exactly. It would be nice if we could reboot the whole year. Can we start 2020 all over again, please? Yeah, exactly. A redo. Yeah, that would be so nice. Easter, do we have a quorum yet? The way this is displaying, I can't necessarily see. Yeah, I'll just need a couple of moments here. You don't mind. Thank you. Madam chair. I'm a short timer of a medical emergency involving a veterinarian this morning. So I'm going to have to leave a wee bit after 9 30. Sorry about that. Well, I hope all goes well. It's gone so well this year so far. Exactly. Yeah. We can't. My sister-in-law called yesterday. She was walking into her room. And she caught her flip flop on the door and ended up breaking her hand. Oh, yeah. She says this year just sort of sucks. And did I hear somebody say we want to do it again? It's over. No, don't start it over again. Get it. Get it in the rearview mirror. Well, maybe Jack, we could do better next time with. You're optimistic. I like that. We have five TAC members and five WAC members currently. Oh, okay. Well, that's not a quorum Easter. I have six. I have Valley of the Moon. Oh, no, you're correct. I don't have I miscorrect. I didn't. I don't have Windsor. So let's see Valley of the Moon, North Moran. Oh, yeah. You're optimistic. I like that. She warned us or armed. We have Valley of the Moon, North Moran, Santa Rosa, Roner Park and Katadi, right? Five. We also have some people calling in. So if you're calling in from number ending in two, two, three, four, if you can please state your first and last name. We're going to allow you to talk. This is Mary Grace from Roner Park. Mary Grace, I just told the chair I have to leave this meeting and we've been after 9 30 because of a veterinarian emergency. So just to let you know, I will be here. I'm having technological difficulties, but I will definitely be listening. Okay. Well, between the two of us, we'll be able to report. And then a madam chair with, with five out of eight, we do have a quorum. Oh, we do. Okay. Yes. All right. Thank you for that, Drew. Easter, are you, you guys ready? I know you're kind of in charge here. No, that's okay. If you're calling in from the phone number ending in 6131, if you can please state your first and last name. James Downey. Nice. You can put their names up. And then it'd be one more moment. I believe Dave King does not have the link. So I'm just going to, you don't mind pause for a moment and send it to him. That's right. We have a crazy email system and I, the email wouldn't come up. So thank goodness the number is printed on the printed material. Everyone's having challenges this morning. Must be the time change. Or the fact that it's Monday. Good point. Yeah, it is. Tomorrow's Tuesday, by the way. Sorry about that. My experience so far, because I appreciate the fact that we have these zoom meetings, but every time I log into one, I have to go through a certain amount of trepidation, whether I'm going to get in or not. Right here. Yeah. And I ever once in a while, I get bounced out. It's like, well, that's not very kind. All you need to know, Jack is reboot. Yeah. Yeah. One of our council members that I did that. I bow. Yeah. Yeah. I see Dave King now. I didn't have the link. Sorry. I was listening to you all on the city of Santa Rosa link, but see if I can start my video. Yeah. Thank you. You betcha. Okay. So if it would be okay with everyone, I think I will call this meeting of the whack and tack for November 2nd, 2020 to order. And with that, I will ask the recording secretary, the Desma to please do a roll call. And please state your first and last name. And please. Thank you for your engagement. City, Katari, Susan Harvey here, the deep Adalauma Dave King here, the divan a part Jake Mackenzie President. The City of Santa Rosa dick out. President. City of Sonoma, Northburn Water District. Jack, you're muted. Jack Baker. Oh, thank you. but thank you Drew. Okay Jack Baker North Marin. Thank you Jack. Town of Windsor. Valley the Moon Water District. John Foreman. Moran Municipal Water District. Jack Gibson here. And for TAC, City of Cotati. Great Scott here. City of Petaluma. And for others here. City of Bruniper. Mary Grace Pawson here. City of Santa Rosa. Jennifer Burke here. City of Sonoma. North Marin Water District. Drew McIntyre present. Town of Windsor. Andy Potter here. Valley of the Moon Water District. Moran Municipal Water District. Jack Gibson here. Just one moment and I will provide staff and public attendees. Barry Dugan. Collin Close. Michelle Maxwell. Jessica Lam-Martini. Dawn Seymour. Peter Martin. Tony Williams. David Rabbit. Grant Davis. Brian Lee. Claire Nordley. Just one moment please. James Downey. Andrea Rodriguez. Brad Sherwood. Chelsea Thompson. David Keller. Easter Ledesma. Roberta Atha. And that is you, Denise. Thank you very much for that. We will move on to public comments. We are now taking public comments on non-agenda items. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you are dialing in via telephone, please dial star 9 to raise your hand. The WAC Chair will then ask Secretary Perez if there are any live public comments. And then Chair of the TAC, Drew McIntyre will then read any or play any public comments left via voicemail or email. We are taking public comment in this order so that we can remove any email or voicemail from the record if the same member of the public wishes to provide a live public comment. This will prevent the public from potentially getting double airtime. So with that, Secretary Perez. This is Easter Ledesma. I'm filling in for Secretary Perez. And I do not see any hands raised. All right. And then Drew, did we have any email or voicemail public comment? We did not, Madam Chair. Okay. Thank you for that. Then we will move on to the recap from the August 3rd WAC TAC meeting and approval of Minutes, which was Attachment Number 3. Are there any questions of the WAC members? Comments, questions? Move approval of the minutes. I will take that. We asked for public comment, okay? So if there's no comments, we're now taking public comments on Item 3. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you are dialing in via telephone, please dial star 9 to raise your hand. And then Secretary Ledesma, are there any hands raised for comments? I do not see any raised hands for comments. Okay. And then Drew, are there any email or recorded comments? There are no emails or recorded comments. Okay. Then Council Member McKenzie, would you make your move? Okay. And do I have a second? Second. Second. Get that Easter. No, I apologize. I think there was two. Who was done for me? Thank you. Okay. Thank you so much for that. Then Secretary Ledesma, would you take your call? For WAC members, City of Katadi? Yes. City of Petaluma? Yes. City of Burnett Park? Aye. City of Santa Rosa? Yes. City of Sonoma? Northburn Water District? Aye. Town of Windsor? Valley of the Moon Water District? Yes. All right. That's agenda number item 3, unanimously approved. Thank you very much for that. So then we will move on to item 4. Drew, would you like to take this? Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. So this is a review and approval of the October 5th TAC meeting that's just been included in the agenda. So first thing I'd like to do is just ask the TAC members if there are any questions or comments. Seeing or hearing none, now it's time to move to taking public comment on this item. Again, if the public would like to make a comment, then raise your hand via Zoom. Or if you're dialing in on the phone, you can hit star 9 to raise your hand. Secretary Ledesma, do you see any live comments? I do not see any hands raised. And I did not receive any comments, any prerecorded comments via voicemail or email as well. So with that, I'm ready to ask the TAC then for a motion and a second to approve the meeting minutes as presented. This is Santa Rosa. I'll move a motion to approve the minutes. Sandy, I'll second it. Thank you, Jennifer. Thank you, Sandy. It's been moved and seconded to approve the TAC October meeting minutes. Secretary Ledesma, would you please do a roll call of the TAC members? The City of Petali. City of Petaluma. Yes. City of Burnett Park. Yes. City of Santa Rosa. Yes. City of Sonoma. Northburn Water District. Yes. Town of Windsor. Aye. And Valley of the Moonwater District. All right, that's agenda item number four unanimously approved. Thank you very much for that. So we'll move on to item number five, the Water Supply Coordination Council. We met on October 19th, and the agenda you have before you is the result of that. We had quite a long meeting on that, but here we are with this agenda. So do any of the WAC members have any questions? I don't see any. So with that, we will take public comment. Easy for me to say. Public comment on item five. If you wish to make a comment on Zoom, please raise your hand. If you were dialing in via phone, please dial star nine to raise your hand. Then Secretary Ledesma, are there any live comments? I do not see any raised hands. Thank you so much for that. And then Drew, were there any voicemail or email public comments? Madam Chair, there were not. We will now move on to item number six. So I'm sure everyone has had a chance to take a look at the 2021 WAC TAC meeting schedule. Are there any questions or comments on that schedule by the WAC members? I don't see any hands raised on that. So we are now taking public comment on item six. 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. So Secretary Ledesma, are there any hands or virtual hands raised for item six? I do not see any hands raised at this time. Okay. So Drew, did you have any written or voicemail comments on this item? Madam Chair, I did not. Okay. So we're not going to take a physical vote on this, but if any of the WAC members have any objections, please make those known at this point. I don't see any or hear any comments. Mary Grace, did you have a comment? Kind of. No. No. Okay. All right. Then with that, we will accept the meeting schedule for 2021. Thank you very much for that. And now we will move on to the Snowmobrin Water Saving Partnership. So Drew, do you want to take this? I do. So the first item will be item, Agenda Item 7A, which is the 2020 water production related to the 2013 benchmark. And I am going to share my screen here. And let's see. I was trying to see how to blow this thing up a little bit, but anyhow, this that everybody lose it here. Yep. Host Disabled Participant Screen Sharing. Oh my. That sounds serious, Drew. Here we go. Okay. There we go. All right. So everybody should have this in the agenda. This is our standard conservation tracking format that we use. We have the September, the actual month of September change in water usage this year versus the state's 2013 benchmark. More important actually, instead of looking at any single month, this is just looking year to date. And you can see that the water contractors year to date, total water use is 11% below what it was in 2013. And then below that you can see a graph essentially of the current year versus 2013 total deliveries and versus gallons per capita per day. And then what I always like to, let's see, comment on. We're sharing it for you, Drew. So if you need us to scroll. Okay. Yeah. If you can scroll, please. The next page. Again, just point out this, the second chart, which really drives home the point that, you know, 2013, if you look back at 2013, the state had used as a benchmark, you know, there was a little bit of an uptick there and total water deliveries at that year. But really, I think what's more important is look at what the water contractors have achieved since 1995, which is the left side of that chart. And this continual decreasing trend in water use per gallons per capita per day has really dropped down if it's about 35% since the late 1990s. And you can see there that in a very faint gray color is the increase in population over that time. So that's another good metric to just keep in mind above and beyond just looking at it, the 2013 state benchmark year. So with that, I'd like to ask the WAC first if there are any questions on agenda item 7A. No questions, Drew. But I mean, I think considering how dry and warm it's been, I think people have been doing an excellent job because it could be really could be much worse. Consider it's been so hot and so dry. Absolutely. I agree 100%. So good job, people. Any comments from the TAC? Okay, it's now time to take public comments on item 7A. If the public would like to make a comment via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you're a dialing in via telephone, you can indicate that you'd like to make a comment by pressing star nine. So please do so at this time. And I'd like to ask Secretary Ledesma if she sees any live comments. I do not see any raised hands. And I did not get any pre-recorded public comments as well. So we're going to move to item 7B, which is an update of the 2020 Urban Water Management Plan Colin Close, who's the subcommittee chair, the TAC subcommittee chair on development of the 2020 Urban Water Management Plan, is going to handle this item. And I see Colin there. So Colin, it's all yours. Thank you. I just want to check. Is everybody able to hear me okay? Is my mic working? You're a little quiet. All right, I'm going to try. Is it any better this way? Oh, much better. Okay, terrific. I never know if my headphones will be better or if my computer will be better. So terrific. So thank you for this opportunity. As you know, I came to you back. I think it was in August to talk to you about the fact that we were working regionally to develop demand projections and talked about the timeline for the Urban Water Management Plan and that sort of thing. So I won't give you a lot of background just other than to remind you that water suppliers who have 3,000 or more connections or deliver a 3,000 acre feed a year or more are under the state regulations required to do Urban Water Management Plans every five years. And these documents, the long term water supply and demands look at the reliability of that water under a number of different kinds of stressed conditions, including extended drought. And this year, there are a number of new requirements for those plans driven largely by the recent drought we had that we experienced in 2014 to 16 and also by concerns over climate change. So quite a few new requirements this year. The regional effort, you'll probably recall that many of the members, nine of them of the Sonoma Marine Saving Water Partnership work together to use one contractor with a common methodology, but each of our individual agencies data to help each of us decide or determine what our demands are going to be looking out 20 years by regulation. We actually look out 25 years as a region to be more conservative. So Katadi, Petaluma, Rona Park, Santa Rosa, Sonoma, Town of Windsor, and also Moran Municipal, North Moran and Valley of the Moon Water Districts. All of the staff from all of those agencies have been working very hard with our consultant, EKI, to provide the data and the review and the comments so that we could come up with our demand projections. And those have been developed. We have our demand projections out to 2045 and those have been provided to Sonoma Water. And what Sonoma Water does with that information is look at their water supply and provide us a water supply reliability assessment that then we integrate into our own urban water management plan. So we're back on schedule. We did fall behind, but we've done a really good job of working very hard with some big challenges to get back on schedule. So the other piece at EKI our consultant is working on is looking at our water conservation measures from each of the agencies, how effective they are, how much water they save, what their water savings could potentially be in the future, the cost-benefit analysis. And so all of this work is now in a draft final report for each individual agency. Each agency has received their draft report and we will be meeting as a group on November 12th to ask any questions we have of EKI to get some additional information and feedback from EKI. And then we'll have until November 20th to submit our final comments on that final report. EKI will then wrap that work up and we will then provide the individual agency reports to Sonoma Water so that they have the final documentation they need. Again, this is part of their urban water management planning process as well. So each agency will integrate these reports into their own urban water management plans and Sonoma Water will use all of that data for their work as well. So we'll just mention that also I want to thank all of the agencies, all of their staff. There have been quite a few hurdles and I really appreciate how hard everyone has worked to help us get back up. Let me think about any other next steps. I guess basically just looking out to the deadlines the state has. July 1st of 2021 is the deadline to submit urban water management plans online through the state's portal. The state has indicated that deadline will not be changed. It would require legislation to change it. So that is our deadline despite all of the challenges that we've been facing locally. That is our deadline. So everybody's geared up and working very hard to meet that deadline. Prior to that date, agencies will need to send out a 60-day letter that just provides notice to other water suppliers in their region and to the water agency that just formally says they're working on their urban water management plans and that those plans will become available for public review and comment. We will need each of us to have a public review and comment period for our individual plans. Some agencies will be wanting to conduct a prop 218 process. I'll leave that to each agency to discuss with their legal services to see whether that's a requirement for them. That would be related to having drought rates that kick in during severe droughts that differ from regular water rates. So again that's a process you'll want to internally consider whether or not that's required for your agency. Each agency will also need to bring the urban water management plan and the water shortage contingency plan to their governing bodies. The state has indicated that each of those should be adopted under its own resolution. Some agencies in the past have adopted those with one resolution. The state has made clear in a recent workshop that they would expect to see the urban water management plan adopted separately from the water shortage contingency plan and then down the road if either of those documents needs to be amended locally the other one isn't called into question. So they are asking that those each be standalone documents. Of course the water shortage contingency plan will be in the urban water management plan but it does need to have that legal adoption through a reso to stand alone. So at this point I'm happy to take any questions that folks may have but again thanks to everybody who's worked so hard on this despite all of the very many challenges we've faced can't say how much I really appreciate everybody's help. Thanks Colin. So before I go through the process of asking for any questions or comments it's appropriate Colin that you were thanking all the water contractors for them providing you with the information. It's also appropriate for me to be sure to thank you as the subcommittee chair for all your good work and shepherding this through and staying on top of it. So kudos, nice job. Thank you so much. And I know that it's not over with yet so all right so any as far as comments on Colin's update I'll start with the WAC members first. Any any comments from the WAC members? So Colin could you say that date that they're due again? I didn't get all of it. Yes of course yes so submitting to the state by July 1st okay. And prior to that there's a 60-day letter that goes out that says these are being worked on. Okay. And there needs to be a public review process and there needs to be an adoption by the governing body so all of those things need to occur before the July 1st deadline. Okay thank you. You bet happy to help. Any other questions from the WAC? How about the TAC? Any questions from the TAC on agenda item 7B? Colin's update on the urban water management plan. Okay seeing none I'll move to taking public comments. Anybody from the public who would like to make a comment? On this agenda item via zoom please raise your hand or if you're dialing in via telephone you can press star nine to raise your hand. I do not see any public comments on this item. Thank you Secretary Ledesma and there were no prerecorded public comments on this item as well. So we're going to move to agenda item 7C 2020 EPA WaterSense Excellence Awards and Paul Piazza from Sonoma County Water Agency is going to lead this off. I don't see Paul on here. There's someone from Sonoma Water and doesn't state the name so I'm going to unmute you if you can please state your first and last name. Yeah this is Paul Easter thank you so I unbox the Sonoma Water Zoom. We will add you as a participant or panel excuse me so you'll be able to share your screen. Easter the technical wizard. All right everybody able to hear me okay? Yeah we see it too. All right thank you Madam Chair and nice to see you all on the meeting this morning. I have the pleasure to announce that the Sonoma Rinsing Water Partnership continues to get recognized for all of the good programs and work being done on behalf of your organizations by staff and in years past you know we've received EPA WaterSense Awards previously and those traditionally have been presented at the WaterSmart Innovations Conference each year in Nevada Las Vegas which went to a virtual conference this year and consequently we have the pleasure of actually introducing to you Veronica Bledi who's the EPA WaterSense Branch Chief that would normally be presenting those awards at WaterSense is able to join us this morning so without further ado I'd like to introduce Veronica and say thank you for being able to make it with us this morning. Good morning all. Good morning. As Paul said I'm Bledi and conveniently the helicopter is now flying over my house so pause for a second. It's big news. The beauty of COVID world right. So yes as Paul said I am the manager of the US EPA's WaterSense program and WaterSense we're really focused on helping consumers find simple ways of saving water through the use of more water efficient products practices and professionals and I'm very happy to be able to join you here from Washington DC with the helicopters overhead with some good news. While I hope that you are familiar with WaterSense I want to just emphasize a couple of points we operate as a voluntary partnership program and our partners include manufacturers to make the products the retailers to sell them and the promotional partners and I consider the water utilities to be our most critical promotional partners because you're on the front lines and communicating with consumers so much of our programming is focused on working with those utilities and giving them the tools to make their jobs easier. I like to say that we wear the white hat at EPA and we have more than 2,000 partners across the country including 144 local government utility partners in California and they've helped us save more than 4.4 trillion gallons of water and 87 billion in consumer bills since 2006. So one of the highlights of my year is the annual recognition of our partners of the year and these are the partners who have gone above and beyond our expectation of promoting the program. This year we had 29 awards which we normally would have presented in early October at the WaterSmart Innovations Conference like Paul mentioned but COVID-19 had other things in mind we're all working at home or different places and so I'm really happy to be able to join you here today to recognize the Sonoma Marin Saving Water Partnership as a double award winner for sustained excellence as an irrigation professional certifying organization as we call them PCOs and an excellence award for promoting labeled products and these are the 12th and 13th awards that you have received since 2013 so that's really quite an accomplishment. When you know at WaterSense that there's power and partnerships and it's obvious that your partnership does too and as a voluntary program working to help consumers save water, energy and money we need to rely on the efforts of many others to help us spread the word about WaterSense and in 2019 the partnership stepped up in a really big way by engaging in all of our consumer campaigns connecting with consumers via social media at the library at the local fair and even by adapting some of our materials to create your own videos which are great by the way and I really want to figure out a way to steal them and use them for our purposes as well. You've shown great creativity and have always been eager to share your experience with other partners. On the sustained excellence front which is our highest level of recognition, your PCO program continues to shine. I really can't say enough about how much we appreciate the qualified water efficient landscaper or QUEL program. It was great to see the partnership offered three certification workshops in Sonoma County including the collaboration with Santa Rosa Junior College offering students the opportunity to start their careers with the certification under their belt is really exciting and your work extends beyond your service area whether you know it or not there are more than 20 agencies across the West who have adopted QUEL for their use. Your efforts in 2019 to continue the work to develop a Spanish language QUEL program is going to help the partnership and the QUEL adopting programs and serve to professionals Spanish-speaking irrigation contractors who seek certification. It's also been really great reading your application to see how the promotional side and the professional certifying program elements work together in developing templates to inform landscape design for property owners who are affected by wildfires and looking to rebuild and your garden sets program which is helping residents to improve the efficiency of their landscapes. So I get very excited about your work every time I visit your website which I do pretty frequently to see what you and your member agencies are up to and you can be proud of your efforts and the commitment of all your agency staff working on water efficiency and fall program. I look forward to seeing what the partnership is in store for the future in 2020 and beyond. Again congratulations and best wishes for more achievements. Thank you very much. If you have any questions I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you Veronica. I don't know Paul did you have anything else to add? I did I do want to mention that at the end of this meeting just to acknowledge all the good work that's taken place to get these awards and know that it's not automatic and you know all the partners in the agency put in a lot of work and it's great to get recognized that at the very end of the meeting we're asking that the WAC members stay on and I think Paul or somebody else from the agency staff is going to try to take a picture of all the of all the WAC members as well as the awards so that they can capture that. Recall that in non-COVID days we all get together and the WAC members stand out in front of the meeting site there in Santa Rosa and take a picture and obviously we can't do that so this will be the second best way of trying to accomplish that so again remember WAC members please stay on at the at the end of this meeting as much as possible and then Veronica I really appreciate you connecting this morning and having an opportunity to have the WAC members here directly from you because a lot of them don't have a chance to go to the to the conference so this actually was a good opportunity to hear directly from EPA and as a side note Veronica I had nothing to do with my local Rotary Club meeting about a month ago and the topic of the week was the EPA WaterSense Award and we had a zoom a zoom in from somebody that I I'm sorry I can't remember I think her last name was O'Hara that worked out probably out of your office in DC and I just want to pass on that she did a great job to our Rotary Club members and it was it was great to hear that getting pushed out just in the community as well so oh that's wonderful to hear thank you for that and I think one of the silver linings of COVID has been that I've had the opportunity to make these sort of presentations to the senior leadership of many of our winners so it's a great opportunity to be able to see you if you're ever able to make it to Las Vegas in the future to the WaterSmart Animations Conference is great and a lot of your agencies are presenting there um but again the helicopters are getting ready for the election tomorrow yes yes and actually part is doing some test flights um uh again if you could do that but in the future I hope I can visit with you guys again or um half of my staff is tired okay so stay tuned Veronica I'm gonna ask for questions now um we'll start with the whack any questions from the whack on this item hey Drew it's Susan yes I just want to thank Veronica for attending our meeting it's not often that we get such honored guests um so we're glad that um that you uh you guys are honoring oh that's so cute and um Paul and the whole team I mean this has been such a trying year and the fact that we were able to do so much work um together um even with all the obstacles put in the way is really um says a lot for the staffs that um you know continue you know as Colin kind of said in his in his previous presentation you know no matter what challenges are put ahead of our staffs they still seem to kind of just either climb over or walk around or do whatever they can do so um thank you to the whole team um for um making this happen appreciate that we're very fortunate um to have a very committed experienced and talented staff made up from all of the agencies to bring these items forward so kudos to them any other question Veronica any other questions from the whack before you move to the tack okay let's move on to the tack now any questions comments from the tack on this agenda item 7c epa water water sense excellence awards seeing none it's now time to take public comments on this item if you would if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand if you're dialing in via telephone uh please press star nine to raise your hand I did not see any raised hands for this agenda item thank you secretary Ledesma and there were no previously recorded comments on this item so again thanks again to everybody especially Veronica for joining us Veronica stay as long as you want um we're going to move to agenda item 7d the Sonoma Marin saving water partnership annual report and paul's got a doubleheader here so paul you're up thank you drew now chair so each year the partnership generates an annual report showing the programmatic results achieved over the last fiscal year and our progress toward state mandated water conservation targets and in spite of the many challenges that have occurred during this time the water use efficiency staff at your agencies have done a remarkable job maintaining and improving the programs and services offered to customers to help ensure water is being used efficiently and not wasted um and just to point out a few of the highlights um Easter if you would scroll maybe just to the letter on page three most of these highlights are accounted for here um so first you know we we had one of the lowest rainfall years on record uh and combined with covid that obviously created a challenge for this uh year summer ad campaign um we needed to draw attention to conserving water to maintain water supply lake mendicino for a fall fish passage um so the campaign combined practical outdoor water saving tips uh with information about money saving rebates while emphasizing um how to save or how saving water helps balance the water needs of people with the needs of aquatic species in the russian river and i'm happy to say that the digital display campaign resulted in a click through rate that was more than double the national average for this type of campaign and i'd like to be able to speak in more detail about that but i am not a digital marketing wizard um but our um companies that did produce the campaign on our behalf were very impressed by the results and shared those highlight with us um due to the shelter in place orders many of the in-person programs of the partnership had to undergo rapid changes to accommodate remote participation this included the annual eco-friendly garden tour um school education programs residential water assessment programs and several workshops and trainings as well uh and the communities responded positively to these adaptations so for example the eco-friendly garden tour that occurred in may had over 6800 unique visitors to the garden videos that were created um on the fly at the end of may um and those are able to be posted for much longer periods so the exposure that we've garnered through that program uh was amplified uh even better than previous years what was just held in person over a single day uh the regional water use remains down significantly with the regional gallon per capita per day down 37 percent from the baseline gpcd that was created as part of the spx 77 legislation which mandated a 20 percent reduction in per capita water used by 2020 so we're we're mandated to achieve a 20 percent reduction by 2020 we're currently regionally at a 37 percent reduction which um is a fantastic result um you heard about the water sense awards recently i should mention also um we were just recognized through the smart water application technology program which is a national recognition program that's administered by the irrigation association that the garden sense program which is a collaborative partnership between um the sonoma rin partnership and the sonoma county master gardeners program just won the 2020 outstanding education and outreach award from swat so another feather in the cap of the partnership there that was just announced a couple of days ago and just scrolling down easter if you go to the buy the numbers section you can get just a quick view of uh some of the participatory numbers that we've managed to achieve in the last fiscal year regardless of all of the fires and current shelter in place orders so um we continue to focus on landscape um over four acres of turf were converted the low water use landscapes um through a combination of rebate programs and mulch programs we continue offer rebates for smart irrigation controllers through the residential programs uh our home water assessment programs are continuing to be popular um those again as i mentioned earlier were transitioned from in person to provide um tools such as leak detection and repair kits being distributed and self assessments being developed for home um residents to be able to self evaluate their homes to be water efficient um the diy tool kit which is available throughout the sonoma county library system continues to be popular um for checkout and that is a partnership between the sonoma county's energy and sustainability division as well as sonoma clean power so those kits are available for checkout and include a variety of different ways to measure the efficiency both in terms of water use and energy at your home and also include easy to install efficiency upgrades such as faucet areas and shower heads that are free for customers to install and keep so i like to highlight that because it's a very innovative program uh the education program that's offered through the partnership through sonoma waters education program has done a great job transitioning to um i always forget the buzzwords now in education the synchronous and asynchronous uh lessons so the ability to offer zoom in a live classroom uh environments as well as um work materials for kids to work on at home on their own time so um they've transitioned all of the education program quickly to be able to fulfill that need um for our k through 12 education programs and i'm hearing good results from um um our coordinator who operates that program so those are just some of the highlights um great job i want to give again kudos to all of the staff that help make all these programs such a great success uh it is no small undertaking by all of your people to be able to adjust on the fly and continue to provide the tools that are needed by our customers to help use water efficiency uh efficiently uh so with that i'm happy to answer any questions thanks paul uh before starting to uh receive comments i just want to mention that you know at this time last year and previous years we'd obviously were have handing out hard copies of this annual report so right now it's being distributed electronically but uh paul there will be hard copy versions made available uh later on for distribution to the to the various water contractors correct make that happen yep as offices return to regular public business hours uh to the extent you'd like to have those available we'll get a print run done okay great thank you yeah uh so let's let's start on taking any questions or comments from the whack first any members from the whack that have any questions or comments on this item it's susan again thanks paul i think in particular in these trying times it's awesome that you guys were able to convert the materials for the kids because you know being cooped up inside for the kids and having you know different programs and the ability for them to do things um i like the fact that you were able to to do some things for the kids to do at home i think that that's really important so kudos to everyone that um that did that because it it's important and as we've learned you know getting the kids early um on this path is good for all of us so thank you any other questions comments from the whack let's move to the tack any questions comments from the tack this is jennifer oh go ahead jennifer uh thank you i just wanted to um commend all of the water use efficiency teams from all of the various agencies in our partnership i think um sometimes it's not well understood how much effort and time that all those teams had to put in this year to not only change a lot of our programs to virtual options which sounds simple but as we are all learning and going through this it is a lot of time and a lot of effort behind the scenes for everyone to make virtual options available but also to the extent i know a lot of the water use efficiency teams also put into effect um various socially distant safe programs for our community to still be able to take advantage of water use efficiency programs rebates um outdoor checkups etc and again i know it was a lot of time and effort and i just really really want to recognize all of the staffs from all of the various partners um because it is a lot of time and a lot of effort and i think you can still see the amount of participation we have from our community which is just a great response and i'm just very appreciative of all the work thanks jennifer grant did you have something you want to say you know what i think jennifer really encapsulated much of what i was going to say so did it to that and then one other question i didn't want to let slip by paul was the click through component i really am interested in digging into that a little bit more with the kaga team and your team to see if we can learn something from that effective tool as we go into social media and this this platform i i think it would be a good opportunity to go a little deeper and understand why that would was such a high success rate to get through there but well done and congratulations to the entire efficiency staff again appreciate that grant um i can't say too that uh one of the highest received ads in the display category digitally was the spanish translated ad that showed the picture of the spawning salmon and talked about the connection between saving water helps ensure water for a healthy environment and the fact that that receives a click-through rate from the latinx community that was three times the national average um said a lot uh okay thanks for that any other questions from the tack or comments okay seeing none will it's now time to take any public comments on agenda item 7d if you are participating via zoom and wish to make a comment please raise your hand or if you are dialing in via telephone you can hit star nine i do not senior a hands visit a dead item thank you secretary ledesma and there were no pre-recorded public comments that i received as well so we are done with all the agenda items within agenda number seven so madam chair i'm going to turn it back over to you for agenda item number eight great thank you for that so we'll move on to item number eight the water supply conditions and temporary urgency change order and i understand that don seymour and jay jaspers are going to present this item i'm not sure which is going first so good morning morning susan actually this is don seymour and i so yeah don seymour cinema water uh good morning everyone um before i jump into the update on where we are with the bar to water supply conditions and alcinoma water managed the russian river this summer under the temper temperance and change order i think it's just important to go back to this figure which represented uh to the whack and tack back in in the spring and it was just summarizing um reservoir operable flood um flood management by the army corps this last um early winter spring under major deviation the 2020 deviation and i think it's important to revisit this slide because it has really good perspective on on where we are now and and contra and i think it's very helpful when we look at these figures that i'll be showing on the water supply condition where we could have been if we hadn't had this major deviation because it was incredibly significant on the water supply benefit it provided and just as a reminder um the deviation authorized the corps uh to the for flood control operations to operate in that light blue shaded area which is labeled the fero major deviation variable buffer pool and under normal flood management operations the corps would actually have would have had to uh would not be able to store water in that in that in that pool they would have had to um under their flood control manual by law had to have released that water but um the deviation allowed them to store that water under their discretion in addition using um forecast informed reservoir operation decision support tools that sonoma water developed along with scripts institute to manage that flow and and even though as paul mentioned this was an extremely dry year the um the the precipitate precipitation gauge up in yukaya measured the third dryest year in the last 127 years however because there was some opportunities to that did produce runoff into the reservoir corps was able to store and keep that water and as we move through these next slides consider where we'd be if we hadn't been able to do that as you can see in that slide if you look around january february we had a couple storm events that that that put us up into that that buffer pool and then in addition to that um potter valley project peachy knee was actually doing discretionary transfers through the potter valley project producing additional hydroelectric power which pushed it all the way to the top of that bureau pool and the benefit was over 11,000 about 11,000 acre feet of additional storage and that's that black line there and the brown line is where we would have been so we would have been going into the dry season with less than 60,000 acre feet instead we had nearly 70,000 acre feet and again i would suggest keep that in mind as we look at these next slides can you move forward ester and so um this is kind of where we ended up and the black line is the observed storage the dashed line is part of water supply storage levels that we have developed that we really wanted to stay above and that's how we were managing flows in the river this year using the flexibility that the temporary change order had provided us to manage to try to get the result we really we had a goal of being at about 40,000 acre feet on october 1 and if you go to october 1 we were right at 40,000 acre feet and right now we're about 4,500 acre feet above that um that dashed line so we were able to save a significant amount of water above where we really wanted to be next slide and so um this just to kind of walk through this slide that um the orange dashed line that that's at 75 on the vertical axis that's the normal minimum stream flow requirement under dry water supply conditions is where we were and that yellow line below it is the um is the minimum flow that the temporary change order actually authorized the snow water to go down to and that green band that is where we would normally the flows would normally be if we hadn't had that change order and so to make sure that we stay above that 75 CFS we would have kept flows at Healdsburg between 85 and 90 CFS and that blue line is actually the observed flow at Healdsburg uh during the change order and really where that water savings came in is not the difference between the blue line and that orange dash line but the savings really came in being able in that difference between the blue line and the and that shaded green line not having to operate in that uh in that in in that um buffer zone and that's where we really were able to save that additional 4,500 acre feet as you can see we really didn't need to go much below drive the minimum stream flow for dry water supply conditions and that's recognizing we had the goal of being at 40,000 acre feet but we also know there's many other beneficial uses of of flows in the Russian River ecological recreational aesthetic um water quality and so this I think this is a real big win of being able to manage storage in Lake Mendocino but still have flows out or near those dry water supply conditions. Next slide and this is just showing the same thing at Hacienda Bridge um showing the blue is the observed line and these observed flows this summer the orange dash line is what the minimum flow requirement would have been under under without the temporary to change order the green band that is is is where we would operate to make sure we stay above that that orange dash line and then the yellow line is where we could have dropped down to and again it's that difference between the blue observed flow and where we would have to manage in that 95 to 100 CFS to to make sure we're above um what we would have been and so that flexibility is where we really were able to manage the system and still maintain storage and preserve storage in Lake Mendocino. Next slide please and so this slide shows the black line is is is current storage at Lake Mendocino as of last week we're actually at about 35,000 acre feet I had to submit this presentation in enough time for the public to receive it so the black line is observed and those other lines are just different drought years that we've been in um over the years there's the rule you can see the um the the flood control the rule curve is that black dash line and then the brown dash line is actually kind of a target water supply we'd really like to be at and you can see all these drought years are well below that I think one thing you know as long as you know along with the good news of being where we wanted to be on October 1st and managing flows I think one thing we need to be um cautious about going into the winter season is that blue line is 2013 and we are tracking exactly on water supply storage that where we were in 2013 and I think if everybody recalls um that was followed by 2014 one of the worst drought periods on record and so um I'm sorry Jake had to jump off the the call because he had made a comment about my uh background and that's actually selector one during the 2019 uh the February 2019 March 2019 storm event and the water level is about two feet below the um the motorhouse and I guess that's made me being optimistic that we're going to have a big raise season this year to make sure we come out of the drought conditions we are and we're not seeing the 2014 so as I mentioned earlier you know think about where we be right now if we hadn't had that additional 11,000 acre feet those flows that I had shown you the observed flows in those previous figures would have been significantly closer to that to those minimums authorized in the temperature change order they would have been 20 to 25 CFS lower than what was observed this year in addition that black line would be well likely well below the 2014 line right now which is that green line so I can't emphasize how significant that major deviation and the water supply benefit was from it this year going into such a dry year next slide please and this is just showing the storage at um at Lake Sonoma right now um we're at about just under just under 173 a thousand acre feet and at about 70 percent of water supply storage in the reservoir just to give an update of where we are on flows right now Healdsburg is at about 78 cubic feet per second which is just above what the minimum would be under dry water supply conditions the flow at Hacienda Bridge which is the compliance point for the lower river is actually about 120 CFS now we've increased releases from Lake Sonoma as Jessica is going to is probably going to touch on the estuary had been closed for some time it's now open and there's a sense there's a plot there's probably a lot of a lot of fish that have been piled up waiting to come in and so we're trying to set up optimize the flow conditions to bring those fish up into the river for spawning so it's at about 120 right now probably over the next couple weeks we'll we'll increase it up to about 135 CFS to really maximize flow conditions for fish pastures through through the lower river and with that I'd be happy to take any questions members are there any questions for Don at this point Easter do you see any raised hands I do not I do for Dave King okay Dave yeah thank you I just have a question regarding the use of Fero going forward is that going to be something that is a permanent fixture in our analysis or is there still some discussion over whether that is going to continue thank you for that question yes though the fear of the lake in the scene of fear of steering committee which is comprised of folks from the Army Corps USGS several line offices of NOAA including nymphs and and the California Valley River Forecast Center Scripps and DWR collectively submitted a another major another request for a planned age deviation the difference is these these have been submitted in 2019 and 2020 the difference is this year it's been submitted for a five-year period so it'll go from water year 2021 out to 2026 and the plan is in that timeframe there'll be an update a permanent update to the water control manual that will that will lock these these these new operations into the flood management lake in Sino and Jay I don't know if you have something to add no that's I think the next phase of this is to implement an update working with the Corps of Engineers it's normal water and the Corps of Engineers working for a water control plan update while we hopefully have this five-year major deviation and I'll just note that at the end of the year the steering committee is looking to publish the final viability assessment for this program at Lake Mendocino and I know that a lot of folks are looking across the across country really on the the outcomes of that report because there are several programs that are following the Lake Mendocino project such as at Prado Reservoir in Orange County we're working with them we're also working at Lake Oroville and New Bullard's Bar for a similar project and more recently at Howard Hansen Dam in Washington are all following the Lake Mendocino example so Jay do we Jay and Don do we see this ultimately being used at Lake Sonoma too as one of the recommendations from the steering committee which again includes members several members of the Corps is that it should be evaluated for Lake Sonoma so there's no definitive plans but that is a recommendation by the multi-agency steering committee and so that is something I will want to turn our attention to once we get through into the new year and get the final viability assessment published and moving on with the Mendocino water control plan but yeah it's it's another item that should be in our focus great um and Jay did did you have any other additions um to this item no I think Don did a great job some right okay and then um are there any other questions from the Wacker attack I'm not seeing any hands although I am seeing um Adam chair this is Drew I have a comment and a quick question the comment to Don you know the old adage the picture is worth a thousand words so that your graphs were great to illustrate just everything that the agency has been doing and especially the the success that you guys had in keeping the flows in the Russian river um higher than what had been the new uh approved lower threshold there so good job on that and then my comment to Don or Jay regarding just Lake Mendocino and the forecast informed reservoir operation how many how many other reservoirs in the United States were ahead of what was being done at Lake Mendocino well I can take a crack at that uh Drew that Lake Mendocino uh Fero program is the first of its kind and therefore it has a lot of eyes on it across the country certainly in DC but also throughout the country um there are um some other applications that had some same themes to it but not as extensive um um as the Lake Mendocino project uh Folsom Reservoir had some limited aspects of a forecast for example in its recent water control manual update with it associated with its new spillway but um Lake Mendocino is definitely the first of its kind for this type of a program as considered the uh initial demonstration project thank you for that again I just wanted to have it spoken from your words just how unique and um trend breaking this whole this whole process was and and Don did a good job of showing the direct benefits this last year and I I think I can speak for all the water contractors uh looking forward to the the potential benefits that can be achieved in Lake Sonoma as well Madam Chair there was just my comments questions thank you it looks like David Rabbit has a comment well I have to also just say thank you uh to the forward thinking uh individuals within the water department or water agency that uh moved forward with Fero I think from day one it was really seen as something that was going to be you know uh breaking the mold of that 1950s era rule curve uh which we all paid a dear price for our for and I forget which year it was Grant where we released a whole lot of water in anticipation of a storm that never came so it's it's Fero but it's also uh coupled with really the kind of the advanced uh understanding the the weather patterns that we have and the uh and those um gully washers that come in over the pacific and uh if you if they hit your watershed you're golden and if they miss you're screwed and uh so just saying thank you and really uh the excitement for uh expanding this beyond Sonoma County I mean look at the look at the benefit that California if we could save a small percentage of water uh upwards of 10 percent I mean that that is probably multiple reservoirs at the end of the day uh that could not be built and just to utilize water in a much more efficient fashion so thank you for everyone who's worked on this from day one I think it's really something that's um never had a negative side effect going forward and has been nothing but successful thank you for that David um I am not seeing any other whack and tack members last chance here see no more so with that we will take public comment on item eight if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand if you are dialing via telephone please dial star nine to raise your hand and what is happening here I think it's going crazy here sorry about that um so it's like my computer's going crazy if you're dialing via phone please dial star nine to raise your hand and um secretary Ledesma I see one hand I think David Keller yes I will allow David Keller to talk you've been unmuted great thank you um David Keller for Friends of the Eel River um friends would like to really again thank and give full appreciation to the water agency Don Jay the rest of the crew the other agencies for the tremendous work you've been doing with Fero and also on demand reduction among the contractors that's really been critical to helping make the Russian River work and helping make the next steps on the Potta Valley project reductions and changes from the deal of diversions from the yield to the Russian possible so again our full thanks and appreciation for that work it's groundbreaking and really looking forward to seeing the paper published when it is published by all means let us know give us a link to it thank you Easter I'm not seeing any other attendees raising their do not see any other hands raised okay there's a question from Don Seymour okay it's not a question I did have one more thing to add regarding Fero and so in 2020 we saw this exceptional water supply benefit but I just want to point out we also tested Fero differently in 2019 because it was a very different hydrologic year and although because it was just so wet we didn't really see a water supply benefit from Fero but because I think you all recall we've had some very significant atmospheric rivers particularly the the February 2019 March 2019 storm that and a couple others in that year we were really able to test how it performed under these flood management type situations and it performed very well and so we've had these two backpack years they were very different hydrologically but we were able to gather a tremendous amount of information on how it performed in really wet big storm of it type years and then following in 2020 under these very significant drought conditions so really important data that was collected to go into the final 5 million assessment thank you for that so I am not seeing any more hands raised so Don and Jay thank you so much for that wonderful presentation and I I agree with Drew I think and David I think the picture you know pictures worth a thousand words and it puts it in you know kind of a visual perspective for all of us so thank you for that then we will move on to item number nine the biological opinion status update and I believe that Jessica Martini Lamb is going to take this yes good morning good morning and thank you all and I am going to give the the biological opinion update so hopefully you have and thank you at Easter for putting that up on the screen so the first project we'll talk about it's the fish habitat flows and water rights project and the environmental impact report currently staff are making good progress on preparing the draft EIR or what will be the recirculated draft EIR so we're continuing to do current analysis project description updates and some pretty significant updates to our modeling effort and reaching out to our partners resource agency partners on the progress that are being made there so we're also starting to have some very initial discussions about how things like public workshops and hearings might work in a virtual environment so those discussions are moving forward and on the dry creek habitat advancement project and work is is racking up this week actually so Hanford which is the contractor hired by Sonoma water to construct the remaining phases these three sites is has completed their entry work and they're wrapping up the move on the on the sites this week our environmental staff at Sonoma water were able to get extensions to allow us to work past the October 15 timeframe and industry work was was completed right around that date but we continue to complete work in the above the water and they should be demote by the end of this week so they were finishing up other reach five work and Hanford also completed the maintenance activities on three previously constructed projects on reaches four seven and eight so these are sites that had some sediment deposition during the flood flows from February and March of this 2019 and that work has completed looks really great we're pretty pleased with that with that maintenance effort and then um we are continuing to make progress on working with the Army Corps of Engineers on phases four through six so our Sonoma water right away staff are continuing to work with property owners and negotiating easements for future phases of construction and Sonoma water in the core are currently reviewing the 99 design documents and preparing the bid package that the core will advertise for the phase four sites so those include two reaches of dry creek one is about a mile downstream and another is about two miles upstream of Yelkin bridge so the hope is that the bid package will be out in early 2021 so that construction can begin in the summer of 2021 um and then Sonoma water in the core are continuing to work on the formal project partnership agreement also known as the PPA that described the financial terms and rules and responsibilities of the Corps um construction effort so moving on to fish monitoring um so as as you all know during the fall we really start focusing on the Chinook upstream migration um so our video cameras have been at Mirabel fish ladder have been operating since um late august um and uh we had a closure of the river mouth on september 28th and so that flowed down um the number of Chinook that we were seeing move past the fish ladder the river mouth opened or or self-reached on october 28th so we saw a small surge in the number of Chinook that moved upstream at that time um our current number of Chinook observed the ladder is at 90 uh Chinook salmon um and i think you don already mentioned the increase in minimum inflows to accommodate the adult Chinook migration so we're hopeful with that that we'll start seeing more um adults moving upstream regarding the estuary management project um our logging management season ended on october 15th um we continued our biological water quality monitoring throughout the season uh water quality monitoring is still um occurring because river flows haven't come up um but uh that once we start seeing river flows come up if we get some rain then uh that work will be suspended um as i mentioned the estuary closed on september 28th so this management season we had a closure um at the beginning of the management season in early may and then the estuary river mouth stayed open uh all summer until the end of september um and then it stayed closed until it self-breached on october 26th um and then in regards to interim flow changes i don't have much add beyond um Don's great report on the temporary urgency change petition i would just add that um in addition to all the great work that the team's been doing this season uh they're continuing to prepare our weekly hydrologic status uh reports and supplemental reports as they're available and those are posted due to Sonoma water's temporary urgency change petition website and uh with that i will take any question thank you so much for that report um so anybody on the whack and tack with questions i'm looking to see if i see any any hands i'm not seeing any hands Drew's got one up is it i can't see it go ahead thank you madam chair uh thank you jessica i just i had a couple quick questions on the dry creek habitat enhancement project and i don't know that you'll be able to answer this question but um in this write-up it indicates that you know hanford did also complete the maintenance activities that were done as a result of the 2019 storms and then and the narrative here it says that you know it was uh it's hopeful to be more resilient in the future do you know what what was there was there a change made there as part of the maintenance or cleanup that would indicate that it wouldn't experience the same sort of sediment buildup in future storms that it did in 2019 i actually drew right i don't know the specifics of the of that work um i do know that my colleagues are pretty happy with the work that's been done there um but i don't know the specifics of exactly what was done okay i can ask mr manning to send you a message with that all right thanks jessica and then my my only other question had to do with just the with the uh mouth of the russian river self-breaching um on october 26 was that all just natural or was that because some flows had been increased by uh releases by the agency of course natural um and actually was sort of an interesting event this time because um the beach has been really steep one thing that we see during these winners where we don't have really high flow events in the river to really knock down the beach is that the beach gets quite high especially on the north end so the the elevations on the north end of the beach are between like 10 feet and 18 to 19 feet high except right next to the jetty and um this particular closure the the beach height adjacent to the jetty was about um right around nine feet in mid october and then we started seeing these waves coming kind of from the west that started eroding the beach right at the jetty groin and so it actually ended up what we think happened this time is that the beach the ocean waves eroded the beach from the ocean side inward and we saw uh because we go out every uh week or so and catch the sort of try to capture the beach crest elevation right um at the lowest spots along the beach and uh we saw an actual decrease in that during the duration of this closure which isn't really typical um that's what we think happened this time is that it actually eroded from the ocean side to the point where it just knocked down the the beach enough for it to self breach okay great thank you for that and then i just want to um close with saying we're we appreciate you having a date in there of spring 2021 for the release of the draft recirculation of the draft er so it's it's good to see that that date um coming up in the not too distant future so madam chair those are my questions great thank you drew and i am i am not seeing other what any other whack tack members so i will move on to um taking public comment on this item on item nine if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand if you're dialing via telephone please dial star nine to raise your hand and um secretary ladesma do you see any attendees i do not i do not see any raise hands okay and drew did you have any um recordings or emails i did not you did not okay so with that then we will move on to item 10 the potter valley re licensing update and chair harvey this is grant i'll go ahead and start that yeah uh really great meeting today thanks for keeping it going i'm looking at in the interest of time i uh i am going to try and be brief actually with regard to this with the knowledge that the whack uh is going to be considering uh a draft comment letter deferred so just by way of background i just go back to about uh may 13th of 2020 where the no i parties submitted a feasibility study report uh which had a project plan as you're all aware of um just as a reminder the no i parties and the partners interchangeably are referred to as the uh no i party so it's the inland empire uh mendesino uh water and power commission which has sub members of five different members that they have to get approval to which makes this challenging in addition you've got cal trout uh primarily leading the effort on behalf of the conservation communities and there are a number of folks that are following this very closely so that's another element of this the county of humble and the uh brown valley indian tribes as well as ourselves in cinema water and as you know um the water contractors uh have been ably represented by both drew and by jennifer participating in this process on behalf of the contractors as well as the huffman process the ad hoc that's what it's called so uh we've been making good progress um and we've been staying on schedule it has not been an easy slug all the way to get five such diverse parties to agree on a pathway moving forward but nevertheless recall on september 14th of 2020 we were able to um issue our uh our plan and a revised version of the initial study program on the 15th uh the reason we had to revise it was there was some privilege information on cultural resources uh that that were in part of that and we needed to have fur keep those uh protected uh jumping ahead on september 29th we did hold uh initial study report meeting uh an all-day meeting it was very well attended and uh a lot of the detailed analysis was was was taken and provided at that point included presentations and active involvement by FERC itself we then uh had to by mid-october uh get our our initial study report meeting summary concluded got that to FERC and we're at that point now where we will be uh entertaining the uh any disagreements and study requests and so the water contractors have been as i said uh very involved i i can personally say that if there aren't um meetings of common interest partners there's either legal formation or uh there's just been a high degree of coordination which has been good it's been great questions active involvement of an issue of this important it's this long term i said from the beginning with potter valley it was going to be a long term proposition which i continue to repeat that while there are these very aggressive schedules there are a lot of studies that are being proposed there are two new ones that i think i would call attention to with the september 20th uh submittal and that is a new study that we're doing over and beyond what what pgne was planning it's called aq12 which is going to be looking at scott damn removal reason for that is there are a significant potential information gaps that need to be informed things like geotechnical physical and chemical properties of the sediment deposits in lake pillsbury uh the timing and the volume of erosion downstream deposition of those sediments uh vis-a-vis uh erosion transport and the effect on downstream facilities including van arsdale uh diversion infrastructure in addition there's another uh very important study that we're calling sp1 it's on social economics and uh the noi partners uh have this new study that are going to is going to evaluate the social economic effects of scott damn removal on communities and economic resources near the eel river and the russian river specifically from scott dam to van arsdale reservoir uh eel river from caporn dam to middle fork eel river and middle fork eel river to the city ocean the uh potential resource issues will be evaluated in the study and they will include the direct value of changes in the base case and the proposed project in in the direct and indirect effects of water resources changes in water supply flood hazard reduction fisheries other recreation and nonfishing property tribal interests beyond fish fisheries the nonfishing and infrastructure construction all of this i'll remind folks can be found uh by going through the website which is completely updated at two basin solution.org that's t w o b a s i n s o l u t i o n dot o r g and uh with that i think that will be setting up the discussion and um your consideration on weighing in with regard to firke at this point. Thank you for that grant i think you you did a great job summarizing it and correct me if i'm wrong i thought i read somewhere that there when you say it's going to be a long process i think that there was like was 22 different studies that have to be completed for us to move forward that's a lot of studies. Yeah and and i think the partners at this stage are engaging looking at that daunting reality looking at the schedule looking at the time frame the honest regard that the funding on you're going to have to prioritize these studies some way shape or form and that's really going to be where we have to have some heart to hearts and look at what actually has to get done to inform the decision making process there's there's just no way you're going to get the 20 plus studies done all at the same time and that's good to know. Yeah okay um are there any um members of the Wacker attack that have questions for grant questions or comments? Looks like Dick Doud has one. Thank you i don't know why i'm not seeing the hands but thank you is he like waving i can't see the visuals in he's waving now yeah okay go ahead dick i'd recognize that look anywhere thank you grant for your presentation i am most concerned about congressman Garamendi weighing in on mostly on behalf of uh my concern is if we and then i'd like to have your comments on it uh my concern is reduction of property values of homes that are on a field like Filisbury behind scott dam and if we end up as a part of our two basin plan taking that down for probably some very understandable uh engineering and technical reasons if we won't end up getting uh really beat up uh by FERC uh if uh if we don't work somehow collaboratively to assist in with uh lake county so i'd like to hear your thoughts well um you're absolutely right uh if you go on to the two basin solution website you'll see uh an article that was uh printed in the press democrat as well as the uh the response to that uh initial uh four page letter by congressman Garamendi i think it's important for folks if you don't all right if forgive me if i'm repeating things that you already know but it's not always understood that that congressional districts uh can change they're going to change after this election after 20 uh 10 10 years and 2020 congressman Garamendi represents the lake county portion of Lake Filisbury and so that's a very important uh and right to be concerned about what his thoughts are in terms of how the FERC process is going to be underway whereas um congressman Huffman represents the Marin Sonoma of the Oregon border portion not including Lake Filisbury and so having the two of them while discussing i think that congressman uh Garamendi is expressing what some of us have said through this process uh in terms of lake county needing to be fully engaged in the long-term sustainable solution for what happens to to potter valley and so i think it will weigh heavily on what FERC uh is expecting um but for the record i want it to be known that our board uh uh and and director rabbit you can weigh in here have asked us to participate and we've had no less than three meetings with supervisors from lake county as part of this process and it's partially why um as i was saying earlier two new studies uh that are going to be proposed one of which is the socioeconomic aspects of Lake Filisbury and what would happen with decommissioning there as well as the actual study on the physics so um i would just say it's a prolonged process getting ever more complicated and uh the congressman up till now has not weighed in as directly as he did there so it's in play and i think that they'll need to be uh additional considerations for what ultimately uh we're striving to develop will be a a regional entity that could actually manage whatever it is that is agreed upon in the region to manage what's what's uh the benefits of the potter valley project but it that's why it's taking so long i don't know it's director rabbit if you want to add those comments and my my request is that uh you and i think damn gene are mostly involved in it but anyone else from the snow and water uh keep keep the whack and the tack updated as this moves along please uh director i can assure you uh that drew and jennifer um have probably put us on a schedule that's hard to be um there is at least weekly meetings that are going on the communication probably can't be much tighter uh we have done everything we can to almost bend over backwards to be as inclusive as a common interest party to do just that in fact hopefully jennifer and drew you can confirm that there's been regular and ample communication on this for good reason yes there there have been uh the grant uh under your leadership you've done a really good job of uh accommodating our requests for very frequent updates um through this process so um and we will continue to take those updates and and bring them up through the tack and the whack meetings uh as they're regularly scheduled as well thank thank you madam chair if i may yes just to follow up on that uh grant had mentioned that you know i think the board of directors have been consistent from day one in regards to uh involving lake county just like we wouldn't want anything to happen to a a facility within our county with from another county we want to make sure that we had those communications so that that was conveyed early on i think it goes to what grant also talked about is the whole coalition and differing ideas of um that communication and being able to bring that forward so while the letter um uh wasn't necessarily a surprise i think it will push that a little further uh and keep us moving in the right direction but i do think that it's important that the lake county uh is involved and i think these additional studies will be beneficial uh to to really kind of understand the outcomes that we that we all need to move towards thank you for that any other questions or comments from the whack or the tack i'm trying to look both visually as well as from the little hand raised thing and i am not seeing any so then i will um ask for public comment on item 10a if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand if you're a dialing via phone please dial star nine to raise your hand and um secretary uh ledesma i think i see at least one hand over here yes we have david keller you can um we've unmuted you all right great thank you david keller friends of the old river um on the letter to fir um and i appreciate the direction you guys are going in um i had a clarification uh if possible the first one to be on page two uh really the first paragraph um where it says that no water user or a class of water users will be obligated to pay any cost that is disproportionate to the benefit received um what's the thinking and maybe grant is the best on this one what's the thinking on how public trust values uh and in stream uses would be covered in in that shall we say obligation to pay uh for benefits any any sense about what direction that's going in uh david i think you're referring to the water contractors uh letters so i'm not afraid of hypothesizing on that okay you can pass on that i have so many from the contractors would uh would talk to that that would be great drew do you want to take that yeah are we moving now into this so david let me ask you this can we hold um that question will we get to that item would that be okay with you absolutely sure okay thank you david um so um are there any other public comments i'm not seeing any other hands secretary let does i'm not i'm not seeing any other hands either okay all right so then thank you for all that thank you grant um that was a very quick summary of lots and lots of works and studies so um we we have been meeting you know quite regularly and it's a lot of information and and i really appreciate um all the work that's going into it because it's not um it's not a simple thing it's very complicated so thank you for that so we will move on to approve the whack comment letter for the potter valley project socio economic s e dash one study um so hopefully everyone has had an opportunity to review this letter and um did you want to add anything drew uh yes thank you madam chair so um as grant had had mentioned you know that the meeting you know is we had a lot on the agenda so i'm not going to go i'm going to assume that everybody's had an opportunity to read the memo and review the letter and just hit some of the highlights um just excuse me uh just to recall with the whack that uh the whack just exactly two years ago at the at the november meeting set up a subcommittee essentially called the whack potter valley project ad hoc subcommittee with the knowledge that various actions through this um potter valley project relicensing uh would be moving quickly and there needed to be some some ability to uh respond in a timely fashion uh in different phases so this uh subcommittee has met periodically to address potter valley project issues and what what the whack has in front of them today is a is the third comment letter essentially this year on pvp related topics the first one was uh a letter in support after the planning or the notice of intent party submitted the feasibility study report back in uh may and then in the summer months uh FERC issued a scoping document number three and the whack pvp ad hoc subcommittee got together and actually submitted a comment letter to that scoping document number three and then um that actually that comment letter is included as attachment one in this agenda and then attachment two in this agenda is a new letter that is specifically focused on the new study that grant talked about one of the two new studies and that's on this what's called se one the social economic study uh and this study is estimated to cost about half a million dollars again recall that the 22 studies are estimated to have a price tag from 12 to 20 million dollars this one se one is uh you know 500 thousand dollars and the real focus of the comment letter really is to try to make sure that that the study is properly structured so that it can provide meaningful information uh especially looking from our perspective the water contractors on uh you know development of the regional entity that's going to be paying for this project and making sure that this se one ends up being good background information for that regional entity when there's an evaluation made about the social and economical impacts of the project so that's what a lot of the comments uh in se one that's provided here as attachment two are focused on and um in terms of the regional entity formation you know what we're hoping again is that se one will provide good information that will uh help direct or support that financial plan that the regional entity ends up developing to ensure that there's adequate revenue streams for long-term sustainability of the project and as uh david keller already mentioned i'd be happy to answer questions on that one of our common comments through these various letters is uh to make sure that uh the water contractors are not being obligated to pay for anything um that's disproportional to the benefit that the water contractors receive so again that's a that's a common theme that you'll see in our comment letters so far and that's included in this comment letter as well so with that i'd be happy to answer any questions um that that the whack or the tack or the public have on this action item in front of the whack today this morning so with that do we have any um whack or attack members that have questions or comments i am not seeing any hands raised so then given that i will um ask for public comment on 10 b if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand if you're dialing in via phone please dial star nine to raise your hand and i believe um at this point david keller you can ask your question again east if we can unmute david i think he can ask his question okay great thank you i just had a step out having earthquake brace and bolt contractor in and question and i highly recommend the program if you can anyway um so on the draft letter page two uh a very desirable principle of having uh uh payments of any cost proportion to the benefit received so my question is is how is the thinking going on payment for um in stream or public trust values um any thinking on how that would be addressed so david um you know this in reading this se one study i mean it is very general and very broad and um it's hard to understand you know what the consultants are really going to come up with so i don't have a direct answer uh to your question and that respect our comments are trying our comments point out that you know the the objectives of the study you know they use the word value in a lot of different ways and it's not clear to us just what is that value is is it uh is it the you know uh economic value is it uh uh societal value is it an environmental value uh we ask for some that the uh scope should identify some better definitions uh and our goal again is so that you know everybody can benefit if you're going to spend you know five hundred thousand dollars on a study uh we want to try to have it as much specifics as possible in the document so at the end when it's being read by everybody not only the water contractors but other groups as well that that there's um you know good definitive information out of that study and i totally appreciate that and and i'm looking forward to seeing how uh the consultants would address that and certainly in terms of thinking for the contractors and for all of the beneficiaries of water from the eel river um how people willing to take responsibility for that and i mean one of the power of the uh parallel questions that go with that is whether or not there has been any significant outreach to grape growers uh both in mendo and uh Sonoma county i mean they're planning a two billion dollar industry that is dependent on water diverted yet so far i have not seen the grape industry stepping up to uh let's say yeah we'll participate in the cost of these studies uh no less in the long term uh outcome of of how the water transfer project would be paid for in the future um so that's another nut to crack as it were um moving on on the note at the bottom page two comment number five pages d five d six um if the draft fish flow er is to be included so should all the comments that were received with that um should go with them we should go with that document as well since it's not yet at the revised draft but there certainly were a lot of comments received on them particularly by agencies and NGOs uh and also the uh ISRP report independent science review report should be included uh in the information provided as well um and i guess i'll leave it at that but those would be suggestions for some uh modifications minor but i think important modifications to the letter to firk so thank you very much now if you have any further questions on that be happy to discuss it with you thank you david um secretary ladiz bach do you see any other hands i do not i do not see any of the hands raised for this agenda item okay thank you for that um true did you have any written or um voicemail comments on this item that you received madam chair i did not okay so so with that do you have anything else to add to this true i don't have anything else to add my only comment to um david keller's response about some other changes is just to encourage you know other people to make comments um to firk as well this is the opportunity for any public and other stakeholders uh to make comments i think the cutoff period uh for comments on this initial study report is november the 14th well thank you for that so um on this item we're not going to do a roll call vote um but i'm asking if there are any members that have any objections to us sending this letter you please let us know if there are any objections i see no hands i'm trying to look visually easter do you see anyone either objecting okay so since there are no objections to that we will be moving forward with that letter and we will move on to item number 11 the summary of the l and u fire complex and covid 19 ever after action review with water contractors and we'll get a presentations from the online survey and i believe steve handcock is going to take this item good morning madam chair thank you i just actually want to redirect this to barry duvian and michelle max will they will be reading the presentation this morning perfect thank you you can move on to the the next slide um i'll take this one good morning madam chair members of the whack and talk my name is barry dougan with sonoma water um i wanted to talk first about the um water contractor coordination calls that we have been holding did hold at the beginning of the covid pandemic through the fires and the psps events these were very valuable in our experience they provided us with a regular way to communicate with each other mainly to talk about situational awareness which is a term that i have come to adopt after initial skepticism about its sound but we we talked about a lot of things during covid in terms of staffing infrastructure impacts supplies really kind of really nitty gritty things that were going on and the water contractor calls take place um with with a lot of staff we had 20 20 to 25 staff members on the calls it was a continuation of a really productive process that we started last year during the kink a fires and power shutoffs of course we've had we've had these these calls during previous fires but i think that they've become a little bit more structured and and routine if you will um i think what the big thing that relates to to this committee is that this reinforce the value and the need to establish this emergency training and coordination subcommittee that steven handcock has been heading up and that has been meeting regularly and then finally i think it really strengthens the channels of communications that we've established among water the water contractors and staff that are really valuable so i'll turn it back to michelle thanks very um you can go on the next side uh i'm michelle maxwell um and i'm going to review the after action review process that we went through at to normal water recently for the cova 19 and lnu wildfire responses um this process primarily consisted of surveys and discussions regarding mostly our strengths and weaknesses around these responses and um highlighted ways to improve upon our actions moving forward um we requested feedback through three different surveys one was sent to all of our staff at to normal water one was sent to our eoc staff in particular um during the activations of our eoc and one was sent to our water contractors which is what i'm going to focus on today so the focus of that um that water contractor survey was mostly on the effectiveness of those coordination calls that barry just talked about as a platform for sharing that current information situation awareness infrastructure threats risk um resource needs and really anything else that was pertinent to that incident we also looked at the frequency and the quality of the communication the strength and weaknesses of our response in general and any mitigation recommendations that the water contractors had you can move on to the next slide all right looks empty that's that's all right um so the main findings from our water contractor survey um were to continue holding those regular meetings and focusing on the elements that i mentioned uh we we found it really important to have this communication network established during those incidents and um eventually we want to incorporate a formal mutual aid relationship within those communications uh some things that were mentioned for us to improve upon include risk and out adding more risk analysis and capacity and demand issues that we may face into those calls focusing on mitigation tactics like system redundancies vegetation clearing general fire vulnerability assessments of our sites and facilities uh real time demands and um production adjustments improves weather recording and flood monitoring and then better preparation for our psps and general outages that we might experience another um another thing that we want to establish is a training and exercise program with the water contractors and this is a goal of our emergency training and coordination subcommittee additionally we want to develop incident-based conservation messaging um to serve as a method to organize and plan for those that conservation messaging that has to go out during those responses and to plan for a variety of scenarios where we might have to issue that conservation messaging and um and then have consistency between those responses and this has also been added as an action item in that emergency training and coordination subcommittee so um overall we received some really really good feedback from this process um we had a lot to reflect upon and um we have a lot of amazing action items to work on moving forward um it proved to be a really really valuable process and something that we're definitely going to continue doing as um a post response evaluation tool uh so I hope you also found it valuable and um are there any questions so are there any questions from the whack-and-tack please raise your hand Susan this is Drew McIntyre I have a question I actually have a comment I don't know why either it's so funny you know I to tell you the truth I don't know where to raise my hand on well see that's the problem is you have the visual people and in order to get the hand raised you have to do the little participant things so all right two things going on so there you go anyhow I was just being honest that I'm not sure I know how to use this system that's okay um but I just I just want to just really quickly say you know I know the TAC leadership both Jennifer and I uh by the number of people the water contractors that were calling in on these calls that were coordinated from from Barry and and Stephen etc with the agency staff I mean it was it was very evident that that we were all getting something out of these coordination meetings and and uh they were there they were very beneficial I I know that they took time and effort by by Barry and Stephen etc to schedule these and coordinate them and I I just want to say again that thanks and and we definitely got value out of out of them and are looking forward to uh working together but moving forward great thank you any other and Colleen's got a hand Colleen Ferguson okay well I just wanted to second this is Fergie from City of Sonoma just wanted to second what Drew was saying and expressed appreciation to ground for Sonoma water and Barry and Stephen for holding those calls these are during very stressful times I know there's a lot of pressure on Stephen and Barry and all of the Sonoma water team and we're all stressed and being able to come together as water contractors as a team and share what we're going through and learn from each other it it was so very helpful and I hope we can continue that teamwork in the future disasters that I'm sure will be facing Colleen that's very nicely put because I think the more planning that we do and the better that we get to work together when we're not in an emergency situation I think the better off we we all are and as Michelle pointed out that you know that you learn as you go along and then you can you know kind of document things and then then you'll have a plan for when you know we are in these critical situations so any other comments from the Wacker attack I am not seeing any so with that we will ask for public comment on item number 11 if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand if you are dialing in via phone please dial star nine to raise your hand and secretary Ledesma do you see anyone I do not I do not see any right hands raised this item okay nor do I so drew do you have any written or voicemail comments on this item I do not okay well thank you for the information and keep up the good work and hopefully together if we have any other situations hopefully 2021 will be better and we won't have to use what we've learned but thank you for the presentation and thank you for all the work you do there so we will move on to item number 12 the integrated regional water management plan update and I think Grant you're going to take this yeah I will be brief chair Harvey this is kind of becoming a standing item for our WAC meetings and I think for good reason and that is because many of you are in one or the other of two regions so I'm a water our northern end is up into the north coast resource partnership and then the southern service area is more in the bay area so we've both had the opportunity and the challenge of trying to be informed and active in both integrated water management regions in the north coast again at seven counties and that seven counties to know the north the Oregon border and a lot of the attention and the activities there because it's a DWR supported governance structure we're just becoming a lot more proactive and have been asked to be involved and to demonstrate the governance model that we've established up there which includes two supervisors from each county and then a technical team of experts that supports that including the tribes on the the policy committee some of the things to note is it's been a very good regulatory regional opportunity secure funding not just from the Department of Water Resources but they've gotten funds from the Department of Conservation and the several other statewide investment strategies so I keep that out there because as you know we just got off the topic about working together in COVID and in fire response and other disasters but that entity is going to continue from my estimation to play even a more important role for anyone that's part of the north coast resource partnership for securing funding for resiliency for funds to help support upper watershed protection for small smaller utilities that have to drinking water as well as a sanitation function so just a heads up that that one has had a lot of interest from the state and there will be more I think there's a strategic planning meeting coming up in November and I appreciate those that are involved I know this one Jake McKinsey as you recall I know he's not on the the WAC meeting now because I guess a vet issue but he used to chair that and I suspect that we'll have colleagues of Director Rabbit being more and more involved with that one shifting gears into the Bay Area which is the other one for integrated water management planning that's the nine county Bay Area including folks basically Katati South and our big project there that I'm going to continue to want to keep the WAC aware of and ask for support and continued involvement will be about a 19 million dollar radar program that is now including four next band radars and one C band radar with the addition of potential two more and that's important because Marin County is likely to get another radar up on the Mount Tam watershed there are site locations that currently taking place and then a second one for Sonoma so we're looking at six next band radars and one C band radar which is going to effectively help us with emergency response for direct precipitation management understanding where flooding is going to occur helping to get folks out of harm's way how to stay away from areas that are prone to flood we're talking about coupling that with expanding the one rain system that was involved after 2017 and looking to expand that to the other burnt areas so that's my way of saying that these two planning entities though they started at integrated water management from DWR they've evolved over time and as a fiscal agent of a large project like that I want us to make sure that we're successful in getting these radars up and running there are two of them up now there's two more to come by next year and I think that is going to show a compliment and then there is a tangent to this and that director rabbit's chair of the north bay water reuse authority that many of you are part of and that's another entrance that's secured federal funding coming in that we got to keep an eye on is its nexus with drought contingency resiliency plan that we're well underway with as well as groundwater planning so these broad regional interests that encourage us to coordinate and communicate directly if we do that well we benefit I think the state is going to continue to use that as a mechanism as well as hopefully new federal funding that might be forthcoming so as quick as I could say that's why those are on there and I appreciate you keeping those on the black agenda I was a little speed talking there grant yeah because I'm looking at the time and I don't want to be the whole one talking so are there any questions or comments um take grants speedy presentation I am not see drew do you have any comments usually I do I do not okay all right I and I'm not seeing any hands or anything so then um we'll take pop public comment on item number 12 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 and secretary lodesma do you see any oh I see a hand yes we have mark malon and I will unmute him oh thank you well welcome mark hi everyone I hope you're all doing well I just wanted to um express my um agreement with uh grants comments these are competitive times throughout the state and the more regional and the efforts that are made it it helps with getting funding for projects I think he was spot on so I just wanted to throw that out there really encourage us all to continue working together great program today a lot of great stuff was covered thank you very much thank you mark thanks mark any other hands I am not seeing any I am not seeing any other hands on this agenda thank you so much um so drew did you have any written or um voice comments on this item madam chair I did not okay so we are moving on to our final item items for next agenda does anyone have any items that they want to be sure that we get on next time's agenda please raise your hand at us or speak out or do something to get our attention oh it's true thank you madam chair I just want to add besides our regular ongoing agenda items we will have for the first WAC meeting next year we'll have a new WAC member orientation binder so we'll be trying to work with all the different agencies on who those new WAC members might be and then at this February meeting we would also have an update from the tech budget subcommittee on the draft Sonoma County water agency water transmission system budget for fiscal year 20 or 20 21 excuse me 22 great thank you any other I'm not seeing any other hands so we now we can take public comment on item 13 if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand if you're dialing in via phone please dial star 9 to raise your hand and then secretary Ledesma are you seeing any I am not I am not seeing any hands for this item on the agenda people must be getting anxious so Drew were there any voicemail or email comments on this item there were no comments no comments okay so I really really appreciate everyone hanging in here I know it's been a long meeting they seem to be getting longer Easter thank you thank you thank you for taking care of us during all of all of these technical issues and keeping us moving along in things and drew thanks for all your hard work getting us there thank you for all the presentations someone is raising their hand I'm seeing who is raising their hand this is uh this is paul with cinema water just wanted to provide a reminder that we do want to try and get a screenshot of the whack uh with the awards behind me I'll be stepping out of the view of my camera so they'll be on the screen and I've got my staff Brian Lee queued up to try and take a screenshot picture perfect so whack members remember not to hang up when it's when it's time to leave but uh thank you everyone please stay safe and we will hope to meet again next year and next year is going to be a great year so everyone take care and be safe and whack members please stay everyone else can go thanks thanks paul for that reminder well thank you Susan and just to