 and call the meeting to order and just a reminder for folks that if you are a tech member please keep your microphones muted but please keep your cameras on if you could so that we can show we have a form of the meeting and process. So let's see secretary manis can you please do a roll call and folks please state your name and the agency you're with. City of Cotadi City of Petaluma Thank you. City of Brunner Park City of Brunner Park is on someone needs to promote Vanessa Garrett please it looks like Vanessa we're having trouble promoting you according to looks like we just got her okay great thank you City of Santa Rosa of course now I have problems with my computer Jennifer Park Santa Rosa water happy Monday City of Sonoma Matt we're Gula City of Sonoma Northman Water District Tony Williams Northman Water District town of Windsor Christina Goulart town of Windsor Valley of the Moonwater District they're being promoted now Marine Municipal Water District I know they mentioned they may be arriving late Valley of the Moon can we get a name check please yes Matt Bollner about the minutes thank you very much thank you and secretary manis can you please share all the public attendees that are also on the meeting thank you chair Burke Sandy Potter Peter Martin with the city of Santa Rosa Emma Walton Charlie Schneider Bob Anderson Bill Keen and one attendee listed as administrator through Northman Water District if the attendee from Northman Water District is a tech panelist please raise your hand and we'll get you promoted and that is all at this time okay and I think we also have Sonoma water staff a number of you on as well all right our next item is item number two and that is resolution or sorry that is a consideration of a resolution finding a proclaimed state of emergency and that medium person would present imminent risks to the health or safety of attendees and allowing us to meet by teleconference you should see a memo and a resolution before you I think we all know we've been dealing with COVID for quite some time and although cases are seeming to be better recently there are still recommendations for public meetings to social distance and participate virtually where possible so that is before the attack today are there any questions or comments from tech members on this item all right seeing none I'll open it up to public comments on item two if you wish to make a comment by a zoom raise your hand if you're dialing in by a phone please dial star nine to raise your hand and Secretary LaDesma do we have any public comments on this item we do not have any public comments all right um we'll entertain a motion if someone would like to make one move to approve Craig Scott Cotati all right in a second Tony Williams Northrund Water District second okay so we have a motion by Tony and a second by North Marin and Secretary Manus can we please have a roll call but thank you City of Cotati. Craig Scott City of Cotati yes City of Petaluma. City of Ronert Park. City of Santa Rosa. Jennifer Burke Santa Rosa Water yes. City of Sonoma. Mayor Gullis City of Sonoma yes. North Marin Water District Tony Williams North Marin Water District yes. Town of Windsor. Christina Gouard Town of Windsor yes. Valley of the Moon. Valley of the Moon Water District Matt Holder yes. Thank you that passes unanimously all right thank you everyone so that'll allow us to meet virtually today and we will now move on to item number three which is public comments if anyone is wishing to make public comments on non-agenda items please feel free to either raise your hand by a zoom or dial star nine to raise your hand and Secretary LaDesma it looks like we do have a hand raised all right Bill Keen you have permissions to talk great can you hear me yes we can okay wonderful my name is Bill Keen I'm the Administrator for the Sonoma Valley Groundwater Sustainability Agency and today I'm here to represent the three Groundwater Sustainability Agencies the Santa Rosa Plain the Petaluma Valley and the Sonoma Valley I know Sandy Potter here is on as well the GSA's were formed in 2017 to oversee groundwater management in those three basins and to develop groundwater sustainability plans and today we now have three adopted groundwater sustainability plans and fees were adopted this past summer for all three basins we are interested in pardoning the Sonoma water and its water contractors and would like to see the Sonoma Marine Water Saving Partnership which I think is on your agenda today extend conservation messaging and water conservation into the more rural areas where people are more reliant on groundwater and where these three GSA's uh oversee groundwater in addition our locally approved GSP's layout 20 years of programs and water projects critical to sustaining our three groundwater basins and we're already aggressively seeking funding to implement the GSP's and we do see benefits to the region of our ongoing work including to your contractors I also want to note that our three GSP's had to incorporate all the local growth projections for cities in the county when doing our work and we look forward to working with our local land use planning jurisdictions to incorporate the GSP's into general plans specific plans and into your urban water management plans going forward in closing we're available to attend your meetings and we plan on doing so and we would be more than happy to present to you in the future regarding our work and most importantly we look forward to the regional coordination and collaboration that we intend to do with you in the coming years and thanks for the time today to be able to speak all right thank you bill and we will take those comments under advisement and come back at a future meeting to address secretary Ledesma do we have any other public comment for item number three we do not have any other public comments all right thank you very much all right we will now move on to item number four which is water supply conditions and temporary urgency change order and Don Seymour with Sonoma water will be making the presentation good morning Jennifer and members of the tack so starting off with update on the water supply condition Lake Mendocino is currently at about 43,400 acre feet with a release of about 90 90c cubic feet per second last year at this time the reservoir was in much worse condition it was at about 17,700 acre feet so quite a bit of improvement of almost 26,000 acre feet higher this year lake Sonoma is currently at about a hundred and a hundred and fourteen thousand four hundred acre feet with a release of 105 CFS last year at this time it was at a hundred and thirteen three hundred acre feet so slightly better than last year but still still still near lowest for this time of year ever since since the reservoir filled so and I believe everybody's aware that towards the end of July FERC issued an order approving a temporary variance that PG&E has filed for the Potter Valley project in May that among other things authorized PG&E to reduce transfers to the east branch Russian river to between five cubic feet per second and 25 cubic feet per second they're currently releasing five cubic feet per second plus whatever Potter Valley irrigation district is requesting since that order was issued PG&E has been hosting drought working group meetings with a number of stakeholders and resource agencies around Valley Indian tribe to both provide storage projections under different transfer scenarios but also a temperature result of temperature monitoring that's been going on they've also been discussing with that group the possibility of increasing that transfer from five CFS up to 25 since those meetings have been going on the resource agencies have not felt comfortable with increasing that release so as of now it'll it'll stay five CFS until things change with regards to the temperature change petition some water has been managing the Russian river since we received our order approving our TUCP back in May we've been managing the whole Russian river under critical water supply conditions so for the upper Russian river that means a minimum stream flow requirement of 25 CFS and on the lower Russian river a minimum stream flow requirement of 35 CFS we've also been doing the monitoring and reporting requirements that order included that order expires on December 13th we do anticipate filing another temperature change petition it'll likely be to move the hydrologic index that determines the minimum stream flow requirements to a metric got from Lake Pillsbury to storage thresholds at Lake Medesino and that's really being driven by the fact that I think everybody's aware that the transformer bank at Potter Valley projects hydro hydroelectric plant has failed PG&E has still not repaired that and that means there'll be no discretionary transfers to the Russian river PG&E probably we anticipate PG&E likely will do exactly what they did last year they will just release what they're obligated to under their FERC license and then the five CFS that PVID receives during the winter so that's that's what I have Jennifer unless there's any questions all right thank you Don are there any questions from members of the tech all right seeing none I think Don you mentioned that you guys are looking at various scenarios for projections um are we still looking at staying above sort of the 100,000 acre feet by November we still on track for that we're still on track for that Jennifer however you know if we have a dry if we have dry conditions it certainly could it could drop down below 100,000 acre feet in early 2023 okay so we will be as last year we will be working with the state board on some of the some of the potential terms that that could affect our diversions from the Russian river if it drops below 100,000 acre feet before July 15 2023 and we'll be working closely with the tech ad hoc on that all right any other questions from tech members great thanks for the presentation Don with the long-term forecasts what kind of a year are is being projected for for the rainfall this winter thanks that's a tricky one to answer Craig with they are they are forecasting La Nina and you know for southern California that's there's a pretty strong correlation to dry conditions but Sonoma County rides kind of a bit north of where that that correlation exists and so it's right now it's a bit of 50-50 whether we could have normal or wet year versus the dry year unfortunately those the seasonal sub-seasonal forecasts that are those 60 to 120 day forecasts that don't have much skill we're actually working closely I mean Brad will be reporting out on some funding that the state is putting forward but we're also working with a consultant on some of the work they're doing on these forecasts but as of right now it's I really I don't have any guidance on where we're going to be this winter all right any other questions from members of the top all right seen none well now open up for public comments on item number four if you wish to make a comment by a zoom raise your hand if you're on the phone please dial star nine to raise your hand and Secretary Ledesma do we have any public comment on item number four we do not have any public comments on item number four all right thank you very much Don appreciate your presentation we are now moving on to item number five which is this number in same water partnership our first item is the 2022 water production relative to 2013 benchmark and our cumulative russian river diversions compared as required to 2020 by the temporary urgency change order I think everyone can see our region continues to do a great job with reducing water use we have the first table on the handout shows our July 2022 water usage in comparison to July of 2013 and then the second table shows our year-to-date water usage compared to the same time frame in 2013 you'll see overall we have a 27 reduction and then the chart shows our gallons per capita per day and our 2021 and the orange line our 2021 22 deliveries compared to 2013 so again showing pretty pretty significant savings and then if you look on the last chart it's also showing our gpcd over the years again with population increases water use has gone down quite significantly so good job by everyone for working together through the partnership and also implementing programs in our various service areas any questions or comments from the tack on our water savings right and if you go to the next chart in there you'll see our cumulative savings for this year July compared through about last week I think compared to 2020 do you have that chart Easter was the next one apologies one moment and you can see our requirement is for 20 percent reduction in diversions from the temporary urgency change order and we are a little over 30 percent this is 2022 July compared to 2020 any questions or comments on either of these documents from the top all right seeing none we'll now open up for public comment on item 5a if you wish to make a comment by a zoom raise your hand if you're on the phone dial star nine and secretary Ledesna can you facilitate public comment on this item we do have a public comment from fernan adelman you are able to speak thank you can you hear me I just have a brief question I'm wondering if and when you track population increases to throw in as a comparison seems like it might be to your benefit to do so if there's an increase but it's a topic of a concern to the general public that while you're doing a pretty good job of saving water um so far we're worried that that at some time the you're going to get to a breaking point where the number of people the number of population increase will raise to the point where that cancels out your savings so I just like to know if you have that information or you're going planning on getting it thank you I'm not entirely sure I understand your question Brenda we do take into account population we get population statistics from the state whether they go up or down so we adjust every year we get updated information and the savings that we have are actual savings so those savings are sustainable savings that exist and as we all know with new development we require them to be extremely efficient so that's also forecast into all of or included into all of our forecasts for water supply and conservation savings so I hope that answered your question but I'm not entirely sure if that was your question I don't know if anyone else had any other comments looks like Brenda I yeah I mean it's um pretty close but it's something that periodically it would be good to get more information on that thank you okay we will do Christina looks like you have a comment hi I hope this is helpful I was just noticing that Jennifer when you were talking about that chart you were talking about the population going up and the gpc going down so I'm just wondering if what Brenda was saying was she would also like to see not just gpcd but total water use I'm just wondering if that's what she's saying okay thanks Christina I think we can um we can include water use uh total water use in the future so we'll look at that all we'll work with some water to see if that makes sense all right um secretary Ledesma are there any other uh public comments on this item we do not have any more public comments on this item all right thank you very much uh we'll now move on to item 5b which is drought outreach messaging and coffee yaza and Andrea Rodriguez are making the presentation I know that Andrea is going to jump in on this first I suspect she's just working to put her presentation in full screen yeah just a second it's I'm getting the little spinny wheel would you like us to share yeah for some reason my two screens aren't talking to one another Andrea I can put the pdf up if you'd like and I'll run it I think it might be able to share for you looks like looks like Dean already put it out so this is so if you would just like to let me know when you'd like to advance to the next slide each time and I will do that for you Andrea are you still there yeah sorry I keep getting kicked out of zoom once I try steering okay here we go so thank you for throwing that up we are going to do the update next slide please we've been working on our regular summer campaign which is updating everyone on their drip systems we've been talking about tree care systems our gray water rain harvesting we've been starting to message on that as well as always our smart plants hopefully you've caught some of the messaging through our streaming ads we've doing that through our Comcast partnership our print and digital ads as you'll normally see on the cinema media platforms videos through social media and we've also had some radio and spots as well so those have been fun to promote next slide please so we're going to just provide a quick update on the saving water partnerships summer pop-up events which have been ongoing this summer at a variety of different locations throughout your service areas we did have a coordinated regional event on saturday august 20th for hilsburg petaluma santa rosa out in sonoma valley with the coordinated effort with valley of the moon and city of sonoma and then a couple locations down in marine county too and the event was very successful we've got a couple of slides that will be just showing you pictures of the locations so the bottom left and right here was hosted at freedman's at the city of petaluma location and they were very busy that day great building too i didn't get a good shot of the living wall but you'll notice above the pop-up tent that there is a live wall on each end of that building that's a pretty phenomenal so if you've never been to that site i'd encourage it it was a hot day that day so for the city of hilsburg they were working with garenace hardware and were fortunate enough to be able to set up shop right inside the store in front of a nice big fan to stay comfortable and both these sites saw some some great participation for the day next slide please out at sonoma valley in addition to water conservation staff booth which is top right through the partnerships water smart plant program and our contractor with susan bond tempo at plant harmony we were able to get a really substantial presentation of the water smart plant label at their nursery at freedman so they were co-tabling that event and were able to provide in addition to drought outreach information information about our water smart plant label program and the available plants for people to purchase and install at their home that are the lobbyists next slide please down in marin peony hardware and novato was one of the co-participating retailers and marin water was down at one of the slow garden centers both got a lot of participation in the case of the mill valley site we actually had k tv news channel two show up and get a little airtime on the event next slide please and then similarly city of santa rosa was partnered with freedman's home improvement center they were very busy there at that location and also had some airtime on channel four in the bay area for the event that day next slide and i don't know andrea this is playable if it is uh this was just a shot of the channel four newscast um that was taken from andrea's television at her home and i'm going to turn it over to andrea at this point i'm always happy to send you the link after but it was something fine to catch it on the news after it is playable would you like me to play it out yeah let's give it a try thank you coming today so just something fun it's always nice when we get a little media coverage so between channel two and channel four happy that those got some traction but also we have a couple more pop-ups rounding out the summer so keep them coming if there's anything else happening feel free to let us know and we can add them to the pop-ups and the next slide please and of course we're continuing partnering with the county communications team and doing the virtual drought town halls those are happening about the first thursday of every month so we're gonna we just had one in september that is online so we had brook binging binging bingo from the national weather service uh speak and she's doing a great job keeping everyone up similar to that weather question um as well as cinema water and participants keeping the community informed so keep an eye out for our october and november dates if there's anything else you like to see please let us know um always looking to get speakers and a couple different topics the other one we included was daily acts who talked about rain harvesting so that was a nice topic to fold in as well um and i think that's it if you have any questions or anything we can help with please let us know all right thank you um and uh thank you for the presentation uh thank you for all the work on the regional events i will just speak for santa rosa um we had actually i think over 600 kits that we gave out which was great um uh hit on a lot of new folks that we haven't talked to before and it was nice to see some press so thank you for all the work there i think it was really helpful um are there any questions or comments from tech members on this item all right singing none um we will now open it up for public comment on item five b if you want to make a comment by a zoom please raise your hand don't think we have anyone on the phone so i'll probably stop saying that to comment um secretary ledesma do we have any public comments for this item we do not have any public comments for this item all right great thank you paul and andrea andrea i will get it right one of these days all right we are now moving on to item number six sonoma aqueduct emergency repair and david royal with sonoma water will be presenting thank you jennifer uh thank you tech committee members as well and thank you easter for bringing that up uh i appreciate it uh so as many of you are aware um we are actively working on a leak repair uh at the west end of varano bridge in sonoma on august 17th we received a call from valley of the moon that they suspected a water leak in our infrastructure um we arrived on the site that afternoon worked into the evening potholing the location and determined um later that evening that there was in fact a leaking valve that you see in this picture um adjacent to the west end of the bridge we called out tpw structural engineers to look at the bridge to make sure it wasn't in danger of failing as a result of the leak and we were sure that um that we're in good shape there there's a retaining wall that retains all the backfill for the aqueduct and this valve um west of the bridge and so the bridge stands independently of that and so there's no problem um if we can move on to the next slide that would be great okay just an overview so um you can see the blue-green line is our aqueduct um and its proximity to sonoma creek um the the bridge spans sonoma creek and on the west end as i indicated is where the the leak is occurring and that aqueduct feeds sonoma tanks to the bottom right hand corner of the page fortunately we're able to top all those tanks off last night and so we're in good shape for repair that is actually happening as we speak crews were on site this morning at five a.m to begin shutting down the aq and dewatering the section of pipe upstream of the leak um the dewatering phase is still going on should be wrapping up shortly and then we have a contractor on site who will um cut into the pipe install a new valve approximately 80 feet west of the existing leaking valve which will allow us to shut it down there and then we can excavate at the leaking valve and remove it and replace it with a section of pipe uh one of the challenges we faced is is that retaining wall that i mentioned had a chunk of concrete that had swallowed off and settled on top of the valve um everything was you know covered in backfill but over time we believe that that chunk of concrete could have impacted the valve we'll know more once we get in there later this morning um and so we're in order to you know remove that from happening in the future we're going to just put a section of solid pipe through there uh next slide please so if you're standing on on Verrano Avenue looking east you can see the bridge in the in the background and that plate is where the location of the leaking valve is it's a 14 inch butterfly valve that was installed in 1963 so as we're all aware with our ever-aging infrastructure it was probably time for replacement anyway so it gives us an opportunity to do that uh go ahead next slide so we uh did excavate that first evening to find out the location you can see at the base of that one of those posts holding up the the guardrail we have our grout encased valve and you can see the crack in the concrete um with the retaining wall just beyond that that's the area in question and so the leak that you saw in that very first slide was exposing the very bottom of that valve and that's where the water was coming out it's been very consistent at about five to ten gallons per minute it flows under this retaining wall and down the embankment under the bridge and then subsequently there it disappears into the alluvial gravels adjacent to the creek so we've had an opportunity to do water I mean too I'm sorry to dechlorinate the water as it's leaving the site prior to entering Sonoma Creek next slide please so again here's the extent of the leak at the very bottom of that valve fortunately it has not grown in size since our observations began we're monitoring it daily reporting out to the regulatory agencies as well as the stakeholders unfortunately we haven't had any additional issues next slide so interestingly enough there's a gentleman who is living under the bridge who created a series of canals and pools oddly enough but what it has done is it's provided us a good location to dechlorinate the water prior to it leaving this this waterway and working its way into the gravels you see beyond the abutment down below the gentleman has been notified that once construction begins he needs to vacate there's been some concern about that but I think it's going to be a relatively short duration and not sure what his long-term plans are but once we're done he'll be free to move back in I guess next slide please so interestingly enough Argonaut constructors has been doing a repaving project in many of the roads that run east to west from Arnold into the town of Sonoma Verano was one of them and we were able to stop them from their concrete grinding and paving operation ahead of us getting in there to do this repair we were a little bit concerned that you know the additional vibrations associated with this could exacerbate the problem on the valve but that is not the problem and we will be able to to continue the paving project once we're done next slide so as I mentioned we have crews out there today and the contractor is in place getting ready to cut into the pipe they will put in a new 16 inch valve upstream of the bridge there are three meters for value of the moon that are impacted by this we've been in contact with them and as well as the city of Sonoma so there should be no issues associated with the shutdown other than those three meters I think value of the moon is prepared to deal with that and hopefully if all goes well by the end of today we'll be out of there and we can restore pressure in the line as well as rechlorinate take samples and send those to the lab to make sure we have residual chlorine so in addition to putting in the 16 inch valve we're going to put in a T assembly with another valve for a potential bypass should that be needed in the future and again we're removing the failed valve and replacing it with a solid section of pipe that I think that wraps it up for me if anybody has any questions I'm happy to answer them thank you David um are there any questions or comments from members of the tech so quiet today value of the moon or Sonoma hoping it's going well for you all they must be doing a good job you know communicating because we don't have any questions excellent I will thank Dwayne for that thanks Matt well thank you for providing us an update on this project uh I'm glad to know that you guys are mobilizing quickly to get this repaired um and if no questions or comments from the tech then we'll go ahead and open it up to the public we are now taking public comment on item six if you'd like to make a comment on zoom please raise your hand and Secretary LaDesma do we have any public comment on this item we do not have any public comments all right thank you very much um and thank you David for joining and presenting at our meeting thank you Jennifer all right we will now move on to item number seven which is the biological opinion status update and Pam Jean will be giving the presentation yeah good morning everybody and thank you um Mr. Ravine I'm not sure who just put that up but thank you hopefully everybody um well I know everybody received this along with the agenda so if there's any questions afterwards I'm happy to answer them I'm going to run through it pretty quickly um the fish flow project uh there's really no changes there from the last time we spoke and uh we do continue to work on um quite a bit of modeling work um because we're still trying to zero in on um changes to the Potter Valley project and potential changes to the project which is in turn is going to change our project description which is going to require recirculation so they continue to work on that giving them all the modeling done so that the impact analysis can be revised accordingly so that's what's going on with the fish flow project the dry creek habitat enhancement project the core is out there they're under construction on reach 13 which is part of phase four of the project they awarded the construction contract for that right at the end of May of this year and they began construction on August 10th or sorry August 1st we were actually out there for a groundbreaking ceremony on the 16th and um they had gotten quite a bit accomplished already uh we were out there again just cut uh about two weeks after that and um they had a whole another stretch already completed so Macaulay who's the contractor out there is really working quickly they've sort of got the whole dewatering of the site and and uh work that they need to do to move keep continue to move upstream really down they're really doing a very quick job of it so um as uh was shown a few minutes just a second ago there was that groundbreaking ceremony there are a couple of photos in in the packet for you to look at that was just the the golden shovel portion of the ceremony and then down below the second photo on the on that page is actually one of the pieces of the project that was already completed by the time we even got out there two weeks into construction as far as habitat monitoring and maintenance which is the next section in the reports we continue to conduct physical and biological surveys on previously constructed sites order to make sure that we get credit for that work and also to check in case there's any maintenance needs for the sites that have been completed so there's a good description in here of what those things that the surveys are that they do I'm not going to go through those but part of this too is they also continue to do things like install willow cuttings in certain places in order to have enough shade so I just did want to mention that so as far as phase four through six go phase four as I just said is under construction right now at least the first portion of it the next portion of it will be under construction next summer and phase five we have a design report done there has been a review by the core of engineers for district quality controls what they call it the comments will be addressed fairly soon and that project will go to construction in 2023 I think they're going to bid it this fall at least that's the current plan the property owners for that project are in the midst of going through their compensation offers for access well it's actually for easements in order to construct and maintain the project so over the next 25 or more years so the phase six of the project they're a little bit further back this project this portion of the project is going to construction at least the plan is in 2024 so they're working on initial right of way with regards to the phase six work right now just upstream of where the photographs that you just saw is another small piece of work that's normal water is undertaking and that would allow us to get in there and do some work that work that just that piece of it is at about a 60% design phase and we are we have a select design selected so they're working on that design alternative right now as far as public outreach goes there was a meeting with the dry creek valley association board members on august 17th this is sort of an annual meeting that we do with the dry creek valley association in order to keep them up to speed on the project for their request and fish monitoring this season they're doing a lot of work this is the time of year that they get out and they do sampling out in the constructive portions of the project and they include doing things like electric fishing which you can see in the lower right photo on this page and looking for the fish that they do collect they are tagging those fish so that we can detect them that the antennas that are out in the system now through the winter so we began doing this monitoring in 2013 and it's proven to be pretty effective so they have a pretty good idea idea of the fish whether the fish are or not using the habitats which they do seem to be using the enhanced habitats on the next page there's a discussion about the fishery monitoring that's going on an association with the drought this this work is being done in order to document effects on the fish during the droughts in the mainstream russia river and in the estuary so there's also water quality monitor going on at lake mendesino and collectively there's a number of sites that are being monitored for fish a number of sites 23 exact sites that are being monitored for water quality and then physical conditions at eight sites um this data is collected either continuously the water quality data continuously or through grab samples and the physical monitoring is conducted conducted by weekly um as as we go through the drought and all of this data is being collected and reported to the resource agencies on a weekly basis as well as we meet with the resource agencies every two weeks to make sure that they understand the data that we've provided them that we're not there there's not any misunderstandings and just so that if the status of the fish change during this drought that we're talking about that and any needs that may come up so the russia river estuary management project we are currently in the management season for the lagoon out at the mouth of the russia river that the management season runs from may 15th to october 15th and we continue to do fisheries pinniped and water quality monitoring that started in june um along with topographic survey monitoring of the of the beach out at the Jenner um out at Jenner at the mouth of the russia river uh we had a lot of closures on um at the beach or at the estuary this year um but the estuary is currently open and there's uh we don't expect it to close anytime really really soon although excuse me this is the time of year we're going to see a closure um we would likely see it in september and october timeframe and don already talked about interim flow changes um under the temperature agency change petition order so i will not speak to that unless there's any questions there and that's it for me jennifer thank you pam are there any uh questions or comments from members of the tech in the biological opinion update all right seeing none um i will just note uh that i was given the opportunity um to uh go on a tour and sort of represent the tech um on a tour of the some of the or the phase of the project and it was incredibly uh interesting and really impressive work by your contractor so um thank you for for allowing me to be on that tour and to see some of the work that's happening it's really impressive um so and especially the drone work you all are doing too so that would be all very very cool all right seeing no questions or comments from the tech uh we'll now open it up for public comments on item number seven um if you wish to make a comment by a zoom please raise your hands and secretary ledesma can you facilitate public comment on this item we do have a public comment from charlie schneider you have permission to talk hi thanks uh pam just quick question for you i was wondering who on snow water staff i could talk to about the upper main stem monitoring just interested in hearing more about what you guys are doing up there so charlie are you are you wondering about excuse me fishery monitoring or correct monitoring yeah fishery monitoring fishery probably the best person to talk to is greg horton okay yeah i know right you do you know him yep yeah this okay perfect thank you talk to greg david manning um is out i'm pretty sure on vacations so i'm not i may be wrong about that he was out last week i thought he was out this week too but i may be wrong about that i would i would talk to greg i'll drop greg line thanks okay you're welcome and we do not have any other public comments all right thank you very much uh that completes item number seven um item number eight is um potter valley project update and pam i think you're up again yeah so i think don gave a pretty good a really good update already on the variance requests and how it's being implemented right now as well as what we expect this winter in terms of um transfers of water through the project um due to the the transformer bank being um down so um i'll just mention and i'm sure i've already covered this with y'all but um we did uh pg me did receive uh concurrence i guess or approval from the federal energy regulatory commission on their filing um for a schedule a plan and a schedule to move through the surrender process um so they are in the midst of implementing that they are on a 30 month track that started um beginning of august timeframe and um so they will be preparing a final um surrender application during that time and a plan for decommissioning so those are the sort of two pieces of what they're going to be working on we have not heard um anything about when they're going to start their public outreach work but we would expect them to have a lot of public involvement during this process that's what's laid out in their plan and schedule and so we're just sort of waiting to hear about that they have about six months i believe it is in their schedule to get um a consultant on board to work on that um i assume that as well facilitation type of work as well as the engineering work that needs to be done as part of the process so um so that's where we're at right now just sort of waiting to hear from them about um getting involved so all right thank you pam are there any questions or comments from the tech all right seeing Jennifer let me let me mention one more thing so the other thing um which i think i've mentioned before to this group also is that we have um uh are some funding from the state a grant from the state and we are probably within a couple weeks of execution of two consultant contracts for that the first contract is for um the rush river water users group um and or users forum the second contract um is for uh doing an assessment of the potter valley project facilities specifically the facilities that move water between the enone russian rivers so those contracts should be executed very soon and that work should start soon and i'm happy to share once we've got those scopes of works done and those contracts executed i'm happy to share them with you and you can share them with everybody um and the other piece of work that's being done um has more to do with water resources in the potter valley itself that's a couple weeks behind those so i would expect maybe within the next four weeks or so we'll execute a contract on that so we're moving forward pretty quickly to get those done and once once they're executed we'll we'll start implementing those scopes work great thank you Pam um are there any questions or comments from the tech on anything Pam just reported related to potter valley Pam i did have a question um has uh snowmobotter heard at all if um huffman's ad hoc is still going to be convening and meeting and has there been any discussions of how um huffman may reach out and work with congressman thompson now that uh the jurisdictions are going to be changing in 2023 yeah um for those who don't know um lake pillsbury and somewhat downstream of lake pillsbury is going to become part of congressman top thompson's district on the first of january 2023 so um congressman thompson is very interested in understanding more about the project and everybody's everybody's concerns um and um with regards to the project i don't know personally what the two congressmen are doing i know that um there was an attempt to do to go out to the facilities themselves um to the pg need facilities um which didn't end up happening just due to scheduling and a bunch of other reasons um so i i don't know i mean they don't tell us what they're doing in terms of coordinating so i don't have direct knowledge of that but i'm i'm sure that they will i know that one of the reasons that that site visit didn't happen was because one of the congressmen couldn't make it and and they wanted for they wanted both of them to be there so um i noticed brad just came off mute and i'm wondering if he has something to say but let me finish by saying um and as far as uh congressman huffman's ad hoc goes i'm actually kind of surprised that we haven't met um but it could be that they're waiting for the first sort of round of um outreach from pg need before they convene that's um what i'm that would be my guess is that what that's what they're waiting for to know a little bit more about what the plan is on pg needs part and and if i recall correctly and apologies if i don't have the right information but weren't they supposed to have a plan in place and what was the schedule again for that initial plan i know 30 months for the whole thing but were they sharing right i think it was six months yeah okay all right thanks pam and brad did you have something you wanted to say sorry i noticed you came off me that's okay you covered it pam and i was just going to follow up with the russian river water user forum we'll be going out with stakeholder interviews we're interviewing about 45 uh different interest groups and individuals throughout the watershed um jennifer has jennifer berth has been on that coordinating committee with us so we'll ensure that the water contractors including the tech and whack are are represented in those moving forward but we do anticipate those interviews going out hopefully within the next month and as we do engage and start those we would like to update this group and offer if you all hear things in the community when these surveys and discussions happen uh we'll welcome that feedback and input on what you're hearing so i thought i wanted to say pam thanks brad and pam any other questions or comments from the talk on item number eight all right uh seeing none we'll now open it up for public comments you'd like to make a public comment on item number eight please raise your hand by a zoom and secretary ledesma do we have any public comment on this item we do not have any public comments on this item all right thank you you all right we will now move on to item number nine which is the snow water government affairs update and brad what is making that presentation thank you jennifer hopefully everyone has the hand out there and i'll just give a very brief update on the water transmission side of our funding request uh two two big milestones did happen over the last month um since we last met on the federal side uh we are excited to say that after several years of advocating in washington dc uh we were we're able to get our seasonal to sub seasonal initiative with the department of water resources included in a senate appropriations bill with funding tied to for a million dollars as don mentioned earlier in this meeting uh long-term forecasting needs are it's a miss there's low probability on the current forecasting and so what the season of the sub seasonal project will do it will actually fund a pilot project to help administer super computing data forecasting for forecasting that's forwarded 12 months out it's quite a remarkable initiative it's an initiative that jenine jones from the department of water resources has been leading for the last several years along with the western state water council whom we've been working with so uh that is exciting news again that's the first time we've gotten any kind of a senate appropriation on that program nationwide uh the other exciting developments uh thank you everyone's help here is the advanced quantitative precipitation information program which is the installation of radar units weather radar units throughout the bay area again for the very first time we've actually got the the terminology a qti in a senate appropriations bill with another million dollars funded you know these are baby steps right you got to get in with baby steps funding and then you grow it that's the goal um a qpi will this money will help with operation and maintenance funding of those radar units now remember a qpi is you know originally funded by uh dwr and the state through the bay area integrated regional water management plan and our whole collective of local governments and water agencies flood control agencies in the bay area have been trying to get federal dollars to leverage those state dollars so quite frankly we all here don't have to pay for those radars to operate and maintain those in the future so this was a pretty big win on the federal side to get the a qpi in a senate appropriation bill uh with funding tied to it we are looking at a cr bill continuing resolution uh on the federal side which actually is is good news because we have ongoing programs that should sustain funding such as the pacific coastal salmon restoration fund uh forecast informed reservoir reservoir operations continued funding on the federal side uh so the continued work at lake municino throughout the state to support zero on that note what's not in my report but i we just there's a lot happening at the state level now too and i will save you this later on is the governor signed quite a few bills over the last few weeks uh one of those being a bill that is securing funding for state investment in zero as we like to say the f and zero is is not only forecasting but funding we need both to have zero so we're excited to say that the state for the governor signature on a bill last week did secure uh continuous ten million dollars to support forecasting research predominantly through dr marty ralph shop at the center for weather and water extreme it also provides roughly a million dollars for the aqti program as well so it's kind of a double whammy a win-win from the state and federal uh uh supporting levels on aqti so that's great news that uh i'll send more information out on that later this week uh we also are working in jennifer uh helped out with some information to dwr dwr getting additional drought funding and they're looking at uh doubling their investments in turf removal program so dwr specifically reached out to our region to see what was what was going well and not with turf removal rebate programs so thanks to jennifer and tannerosa water for providing some great information that will hopefully help uh roll out some more money for those rebate programs that you all are putting out there uh that's it for the the government affairs funding side of of the report jennifer but i did want to quickly just say that um you know as a part of our government affairs program we continue to welcome your staff and your board members out on facility four and i'm happy to say that the valley of the noon water district we finally got a date on our schedule so their board is coming out in october uh so please do reach out to myself for anyone on our team we'd be happy to help counter and get your your team out to see our water facilities and then also wanted to just briefly mention thank you to everyone who participated in our strategic plan uh meetings the last month or two we are on track to have a new five-year strategic plan on the end of october once we do have that we'd love to come back to the tack in the whack and present that we'd love to have our staff do that not just myself but maybe some of our action teams that are actually putting together our our action items for our goals and then last but not least wanted to say that uh we have our uh one of our key communications aspect working with you all is you know what have we been up to since we've last met and what key infrastructure project are we working on we started a quarterly video series it's not just us at you all but the public on what key project we're doing uh last month uh hanna camp hanna camp uh did a video for us on corrosion control cathodic protection uh next month scott carter from our team will be doing a video on our water storage recoding uh program it's a long-term program as you know but at least we want to start to get folks familiar with it and also hope to get some legislators familiar with this if you get maybe some more funding to speed up that program so stay tuned for that fun video bring out the popcorn that's going to be fun we're going to get a drone near a water tank don't worry pamp we'll coordinate with the right folks um but it'll be it'll be a fun good video so with that i do want to also once again uh say we have our our wednesday all staff do meetings we've done a lot of y'all already we've brought in to meet our staff and kind of do a meet the contractor meet meet our water community mr. Craig scott i've got an invitation for you sir to come and do that potentially in the next month or two so uh take a look at your email and see if we can get some date schedules because our staff find that extremely valuable and uh thank you for your time on that so with that that concludes my report and i'm happy to answer any questions either today or feel free to ping me anytime after this thank you brad appreciate the update are there any questions or comments from tech members all right seen none um thank you for the updates very helpful um and great job advocating for the funding so thank you for that um seeing no questions or comments from tech members we'll open it up for public comments we're now taking public comment on item number nine if you wish to make a comment please raise your hand on zoom and secretary ladesma do we have any comments on this item we do not have any public comments on this item all right thank you very much um item number 10 is items for next agenda i think we will have a lot of our um routine updates um anything i think we're trying to see if we can bring an update on the tank recoup project to the next meeting um hopefully that will work out and anything else folks would like to see for the next uh agenda that'll be a tack meeting in october it's actually coming up quick it's october third um and then our next whack tack meeting will be in november any questions or comments from tack on this item all right seeing none we will um just open it up for public comment on item 10 if you wish to make a comment by zoom please raise your hand and secretary ladesma do we have any public comments on this item we do not have any public comments on this item all right well that concludes our business for the tack meeting today um so we are now adjourned thank you everyone have a great day thank you