 Thank you. Well, this is the special meeting of the Board of Directors of the San Lorenzo Valley Water District, September 9, 2020. Would you call the meeting? The meeting is going to convene at this time and Holly, would you please take the roll? Director Farris. Here. Director Fals. Here. Director Henry. Here. Director Moran. President. And President Swan. Here. Thank you. Thank you very much, Holly. So let's go to the unfinished business. Rick, would you like to lead it off? Sure. I see where participants are still joining at a pretty good rate. But thank you all for for attending the special meeting of the Board of Directors. This meeting will be to discuss the district's response to the CZU Lightning Complex fire. Next slide, please. Our presenters will be myself, Rick Rogers, the district manager. We have for water systems and operation James Furtado, our director of operations. For water quality quality, we have Nate Gillespie, our water treatment and system supervisor. Finance and customer service. We have our director of finance and business services, Stephanie Hill. And for outreach and environmental issues, we have Carly Blanchard, our environmental planner. Next slide, please. Some statistics on the CZU Lightning Complex fire started 816, 2020. It was a lightning fire. As of this morning's briefing, 86,509 acres burned in both, I do believe, Santa Cruz County, the majority of Santa Cruz County and San Mateo County. The fire is, as of today, is 83% contained. 1,490 structures were destroyed, one fatality, and at one time there was 2,224 personnel fighting this fire. The entire San Lorenzo Valley Water District was evacuated. Next slide. The Board of Directors has held four emergency meetings to receive system updates, to access conditions and take action. Cooperation with Cal Fire, emergency water conservation measures, emergency spending to restore water facilities as quickly as possible, and to help facilitate emergency repairs, approve additional temporary staffing, contractors, and engineering consultants. The photo you see is the helicopter we used yesterday to move pipe up to one of our, replace for one of our intake lines to get water as quickly as possible back to our surface water treatment plan. First time we had one come in on a trailer. Next slide. Fire suppression, the district personnel were in constant contact with firefighters to assist with response. We isolated areas and moved water where firefighters needed it the most, and at the time as they needed it the most. Fire hydrants and portable tanks were used for firefighting up and down Highway 9 in corridor and in the side streets. The Highway 9 corridor was maintained fully charged with water pressure for firefighting from Felton all the way to North Boulder Creek. So a lot of the side street water mains were isolated from Highway 9 to maintain water supply for firefighting. Next slide. Water connection statistics. As of today we have 510 connections with a do not drink, do not boil order. We just increased today our connections or decreased today our connections without water. That number shall will change today to 300 connections are still without water and water is projected to be restored by September 12th of those remaining 300 connections. Next slide. Areas without water. This slide should be update tomorrow too. We still have Big Basin Way, which is our biggest area, Big Basin Way from Boulder Brook Drive to Brooklyn West Park and area. Blackstone Terrace has been restored. The upper ridge drive Echley Terrace is still out of water. It's projected September 12th. Sweet Water and Lane, they just started turning the valves on in the last hour and that area is back in water. Upper Altavia and Mullen Way are still out of water. Blackstone Terrace is back in water. So we've made some headway and we're looking forward to restoring water on September 12th. Next slide. Major damage is the raw water supply lines that go to all of our surface sources across the Benelum and Mountain. That's Foreman, Pevine, Sweetwater and Clear Creek all together at total 7.5 miles of raw water supply line that crosses the Benelum and Mountain. The fire was hot. We walked that with FEMA representatives. That area has a lot of damage, limited access, timeframe to replace type of material needs to be discussed. There are a considerable amount of damaged trees. The trees stumpage and roots are burning underground and when those stumps burn and they lose their roots, we have several small landslides along the trail. We have environmental concerns, the cost and constructability. The whole 7.5 miles before was installed by hand labor. That photo you see is some of the support structure that used to have pipe on it that has been burned and destroyed. Next slide, please. Water quality. I'll ask the district's water quality and system supervisor, Nate Gillespie, to continue with the presentation. Yeah, thanks Rick. So water quality. Some of the San Lorenzo Valley Water District service areas were depressurized in the recent fires and some structures within those depressurized areas have burned. So when a large portion of the water system depressurizes, it can open up the water distribution system to various types of contamination, including bacteriological contamination, nitrate contamination, and organic chemicals can also enter the system in this depressurization. Next slide, please. So we know from experience with the city of Santa Rosa and the Paradise Fire that organic contamination, including benzene, can affect fire damaged systems that experience pressure loss. Regulatory authorities believe that benzene and other chemicals are created by the burning of plastic pipes, other water system components and structures, and that they can be sucked into the water system when it loses pressure. Next slide, please. So we issued on August 29th a do not drink, do not boil order for a majority of the system. We're all of the system north of Brookdale. This was done as a precaution to widespread depressurization. This was done in conjunction with our regulatory agency, the State Water Resources Control Board Division of Drinking Water, and it was again issued to all affected areas. Next slide, please. Looks like we, there we go. Water quality process. So again, we're consulting with a division of drinking water from the State Water Resources Control Board. That's our regulatory agency. The Santa Rosa Valley Water District doesn't get to decide what makes safe water. That's up to the State Water Resources Control Board Division of Drinking Water. So we began a robust sampling plan in conjunction with the State Water Resources Control Board to help identify contaminated areas and gather water quality data. Next slide, please. Water quality sampling. So we're still collecting samples for bacteria and nitrates, organic chemicals, and other constituents from representative areas of the distribution system. So Rick had mentioned some areas that will be returning to water service shortly. Those areas will still be under the do not drink, do not boil water advisory. And that's until they can be cleared by the State Water Resources Control Board that their water is absolutely safe to return back to service. So sample results are going to be posted to our website as soon as we are able to go over these sample results with the Division of Drinking Water. I'm happy to say tonight we have posted all of our lab results received as of this morning. So I know that's a question a lot of people have had about posting the lab results and those are on our website right now. To date we actually have a little over 90 samples collected and we've actually as of this morning received results on roughly about 50 of those samples. So a little bit more than what's on the slide here. Next slide please. How long will the do not drink order last? So we have lifted the do not drink, do not boil order in a vast majority of the system as we've been sampling this last couple of weeks. But the areas that the do not drink, do not boil advisory is still in effect. We are letting the data guide us. So I cannot give any concrete dates. So we need to sample, wait for the sample data to come back and review that with our state water resources control board. These aren't single sample events. We have to confirm through multiple sampling dates and locations that were certain contamination is not in existence before we can remove this do not drink, do not boil notice. And all notices are lifted in conjunction with the state water resources control board division of drinking water. Again it's not our decision to lift these notices. They must be done in conjunction with our regulatory agency. Next slide. So as of yesterday or I'm sorry that would have been Monday. Based on water quality samples collected over the past week the division of drinking water did approve the cancellation of the do not drink, do not boil advisory to roughly 2700 of our customers. But as of today 510 customers remain under that do not drink, do not boil advisory. Next slide. So this is a late breaking development. We did detect benzene in one of our samples in the Riverside Grove neighborhood. So last night the water district was notified of a preliminary detection of benzene and a sample collected on Creek Drive in the Riverside Grove neighborhood. The sample was taken on September 4th which would have been last Friday. So parts of this neighborhood are still under the do not drink, do not boil advisory that was issued on 829 2020 including where this sample was collected. The Riverside Grove neighborhood was a neighborhood that was impacted by the CZU lightning complex fire quite a bit. There are no HDPE pipes in this neighborhood but there are plastic service lines to customers homes that could have melted during the fire and caused benzene contamination. Next slide please. The final lab report for the Creek Drive sample that was collected on September 4th showed a detection of 2.7 micrograms per liter or parts per billion of benzene. The state health based maximum contaminant level for benzene in drinking water is one part per billion. So immediately after receiving this preliminary detection the water district reached out to the state water resources control board division at drinking water to notify them. So this area remains under the do not drink, do not boil advisory and this morning the water district hand delivered additional notifications to each affected home and in addition pallets of bottled water had been placed in the Riverside Grove neighborhood for residents. Next slide. So samples were also collected at this site on September 3rd, September 5th, 6th and 7th. Lab results for these samples has not yet been received and the water district will be releasing those lab results as soon as they become available and we've had a chance to review them with our regulatory agency. So the water district in cooperation with the division of drinking water is planning on conducting an aggressive flushing and sampling regiment over the next few weeks in the affected area. We want to gather a lot more data in that neighborhood to see how widespread the contamination is and what quantities we're seeing in that neighborhood of benzene. So the district is moving forward with fire damage inspections of all service lines in the Riverside Grove neighborhood and removing service lines from houses that have been destroyed by fire which is approximately 40. Next slide please. So a big question does the Riverside Grove contamination affect other parts of the San Lorenzo Valley water district system? We do not believe it does, no. So this affected area is separated from the rest of the system by a check valve or a one-way valve in our Riverside Grove pump station. So anything below this pump station can't be receiving water from the affected area. But as a precaution in cooperation with our regulatory agency, we will be collecting samples in the surrounding neighborhoods to ensure that contamination does remain isolated to the affected area. Next slide. Just here's a bit of a snapshot of the fire damage done in Riverside Grove. Right. That was obtained from the county of Santa Cruz. It's their map from planning. The red houses that you see are destroyed. The green no damage. The other ones have partial damage. Our tank is up at the top of Pinecrest. It's kind of hard to see but you can see a little round circle by two houses that were destroyed. It's on my left of the screen on Pinecrest Drive and the pump station is located right down inside of the fire area. You can see a lot of homes were destroyed by fire. That area was hit, impacted pretty hard. Go ahead, Nick. Next slide, please. The district has been within conjunction with the county of Santa Cruz making bottled water available at our operations building in Boulder Creek. We've gone, I do believe, to date I think over 98 pallets of water handed out to people. We've had a lot of volunteers bringing water. We've had volunteers passing out water. The county has really stepped up and delivered these last few days. We ran out a couple times during the real hot spill. But now as repopulated areas, we're getting people coming from other areas, Big Basin, Forest Springs, and we're welcoming all in to get some bottled water. Next slide. Once the do not drink, do not boil order was lifted in downtown Boulder Creek. Maintenance staff installed a bottle water filling station for large quantities. This is a four bottle station that can fill up to five gallon containers. And it's being a big hit. People are nonstop coming up to that and filling larger containers for their use. Next slide. Damage. About 7.5 miles of the district's raw water supply lines were destroyed. Pipe sizes are anywhere from six to 12 inch. The treatment plant was shut down before the fire reached supply lines to protect the treatment plant from contamination. We did have heat maps from our fire consultant, Panorama, that were satellite heat maps and we were able to track the fire and the director of operations and our water treatment supervisor made the determination to turn the treatment plant offline about two days before the fire reached our supply lines and so that saved us a lot of damage to our treatment facility. Currently, water is being supplied pumped from groundwater wells and through the intertide six with the Felton water system, the district's Felton water system supplying some surface water from Fall Creek. With that picture you see is the actual pipe on fire. Next slide. Over 50% of the district's water storage is located in Boulder Creek at the Lion Surface Water Treatment Plant. Transmission water remains between the large tanks were destroyed by fire draining the tanks in a very short while. Construction crews are in the process of installing new piping and to the tanks and scheduled to be back in service by September 12th. Again, as Nate says, once we fill those tanks with water, we have a 72-hour hold period before we can start our sampling to determine if we have any contamination. So it's just not filling the tanks. It's a big sampling project and it's very time-consuming to ensure the water is bottable. We will get our folks back in water but they will continue to be under the do not drink. Not only were raw water supply lines destroyed, the operational turbidity monitoring station and pressure centralizing chamber is that big concrete structure you see in that picture was destroyed by fire. That's the Portman Creek intake right up at the stream. Next slide. Repairs are underway with material procurement. It was slow in the beginning but now material has been arriving continuously. Several areas require the replacement of water tanks due to fire damage and you have to see three 10,000-gallon tanks going into the town there in the Boulder Creek on their way to Blackstone and Eckley. Next slide. Repairs are difficult on these smaller zones due to the steep topography and the lack of access. The fire impacts damage these tanks. We are on the high reaches to maintain gravity, a flow to homes. Fire did burn down the Benelow and Mountain reaching several of our facilities. You're looking at here is the Blackstone tanks being craned in up on top of that sandstone ridge and the only access to get to that is to shimmy up that pipe like that gentleman is doing. Next slide. Damage summary. 7.5 miles of the raw water supply line. Treated water lines between the three major tanks up at Lion Tank, Forman Creek turbidity station and pressure reducing station. The Riverside Grove tank and Booster PG&E drops in skater control. The Bull Spring raw water line. The high reaches of the spring line was damaged up on Empire grade. South reservoir piping from the tanks to the Booster Pump, 2,500 million feet. Temporary main has been reinstalled and that's the system that they're energizing tonight with water. Altuvia and Mono Way transmission mains. The Eckley tank, Booster Pump, transmission mains, skater control, PG&E drop. All facilities were lost in that zone. Blackstone tank is associated plumbing. The Bull Spring raw water supply line. I mentioned that twice. Forman, Peavey and Sweetwater and Clear Creek intakes. We're finding several services damaged and there are more damage we're finding as we are out in the system pulling it back up online. I actually want to make a correction to that slide. Neither one of those Bull Creek raw water supply lines is right. It is Bennett Spring raw water supply line. Bull Spring raw water was not affected. If we get a chance to look at Bull Spring. Yes and nothing was affected there. Must take. Other damage, roughly 200 water meters. We lost some some small equipment and what you're seeing in that photo is in order to get in and do the piping replacement between the three reservoirs up in the water treatment plant. Several trees had to be removed that have burn damage. We had a registered professional forester come in and assess the trees and he selected many trees in that area that are damaged and need to come out. So that slowed down the response to replace that plumbing but for safety and for ongoing protection of those facilities these trees need to be removed and I do believe James you're working on with one of the local mills to see if there's a salvage value. Yes that's correct we're working with two different mills now. We have a private mill as well that came to us and asked to buy the wood as well. So the forester Steve Butler and Bob Pilgrim Travis Tree are both scaling and working with both of them to figure out what our best resource is to get rid of the trees. Thank you. Right now they're being stored on the processor property. We hope to get them out of there shortly. Next slide. James you want to take these? The director of operations? Yes so this is a rough schedule and assessment of the damage and everything out there and we have Sandus engineering working on this with us and he started putting together their schedule. This has been updated today. This is very rough what you're seeing now. A lot of the thing a lot of the stuff on here was compiled today and updated today. We were not able to get that back from them to put that into this slide but these are the main projects that we have going right now and the progress that we're making. The progress is kind of rough like I said it was updated today. When we get the updated one back we will be posting it and getting it out so that everybody can see what's going on. But there's three pages of this so you can go ahead and flip through each one of these and you'll see that it's kind of hard to see it's small. Forming the lion pipeline that is being worked on at this time. Lion tanks to big steel and big steel booster. We are working on that as we speak. Big steel tank piping is also being worked on. Big steel booster power and SCADA is Cupertino electric and they are working there. Next side please. And then you move over to Altavia, Mononway. That is 100% complete and back in. The lion is in but we have that isolated from the system as that is part of one of the zones that was open so we will not be able to put that into service until we are cleared by the state of VOCs and lifted from the do not drink do not boil. So what we'll be doing there is we will be flushing that main and then testing it daily and getting those results back until we can get lifted from the state. So those people will be out of water until the state lifts the do not drink do not boil. Even though there's water there they will not be in water pressurized water. Bennett Springs raw water line that is actually went into progress today. They actually got the whole thing fused and dropped into service today and we are starting to put that back into service. They are on a do not drink do not boil. It is a raw water system so that was put right into service. Pine drive water line was taken out by a dozer during the fire and when that was taken out by the dozer our crews went right in and fixed that and that was about 40 feet of main line that we were able to cut out lower into the road so it wasn't on surface level and replace that and put it back into service and testing was done and everything came back clear. Next slide please. So you have south reservoir that's the one down from Clear Creek and it goes up to Sweetwater Lane up off of Alba Road. All that plumbing has been put back into place. The tanks are being filled as we speak. We chlorinated the tanks then drained them and then now we are refilling that system. They are on the do not drink do not boil order notice and we will be beginning testing on that tomorrow for VOCs, BACTs and everything else that the state wants. They will not come off of that until they are lifted by the state but they will be in water. Cool Creek intake and piping no start on that yet that will come after the form and intake line that's a little bit later down the road. Riverside Grove tank that's a power drop there at Riverside Grove tank and as we did mention there was a benzene hit in that area as the customer service lines and their service lines from meter to their houses where PVC and our lines are poly and that system did depressurize and so we had some siphon into that system and so that is pretty much the cause of the benzene hits out there. We started a bunch of flushing out there today, flushing of the system and the maintenance crew is beginning to go out there and remove all service lines back to the main from the burned homes. Once the burned homes come back in to begin rebuilding or whatever they end up doing we will work with those customers to relocate their service lines and relocate their meters as that area had a very wooded area and a lot of those meters weren't bad locations already as it was so with the new construction we hope to clean up that system quite a bit. And then we have a little bit of damage on the booster pump station as well the power meter melted but we're able to run that booster pump station by generator so we are running water which is a good thing and we are working with Cupertino electric on a new meter and we have a little bit of fascia work and roofing work that has to be done there. The fascia burned on one side and the roof is a little charred on top so we'll be changing that out to a fire resistant roofing. Eccly tank and piping we got everything out of there all the piping is back down to the booster pump station a new tank has been put back up on the hill. Cupertino electric is coming in to redo all the power there. That system there cannot get water until the lion pressure zone is back in water as that feeds the Eccly pressure zone so we will not be back in water there until we get water up to big steel then to little lion and then it goes to Eccly. It's a whole ladder of events that will have to happen for them to become back in water. Next slide please. And we got a blackstone tank and piping that's all been done by district staff. You've seen on the crane lift we put new tanks up there we did all the piping that was damaged. We have been testing there if I'm correct Nate and I do believe we have had no hits in that neighborhood. Just to interject we have not had any results come in for blackstone yet. Okay so we have been testing we have no results okay that's good thank you for the clarification. But everything has been replaced and we are up and running those people are in water but they are on the do not drink do not boil and then the rest of those five projects down below except for the Riverside Grove booster one that I talked about the rest of them are going to take a long process to fix even to put in temporary piping or whatever we end up doing if we go permanent or whatnot so we need to get FEMA out and do a lot more investigation and inspection on those systems in order to figure out how to move forward. Next slide please. To date here's our recovery replacement costs we had our first FEMA assessment two teams came in FEMA and office around state OES representing the state of California and FEMA representing the feds this was our our preliminary assessment for recovery and replacement costs for the various projects some things we don't have good numbers yet such as the watershed the 1620 acres what we're going to do with the damaged trees landslide protection so forth we're still assessing that but you can see that the bulk of the cost the heavy costs are the raw water supply lines those are going to be very expensive to replace once we figure out and we engineer and we do an evaluation of what's available to the district next slide please we'll have the watershed and we'll ask I'll ask our environmental planner Carly to do an update on the watershed. Great hello everyone so as mentioned earlier in the presentation by rick we did have pretty heavy fire damage on the bend on the mountainside out there we own about 1600 acres which houses our intakes and the five mile raw line that was burned last week on Thursday we took out Cal fire's emergency response team who's going to put together a report on the area calling out the water district specifically this is really good news for us as far as funding this will be brought to the county directly and then the county will be forming a group of multiple agencies including the districts and we'll be able to hopefully get funding for erosion control and watershed restoration. Right now our consultant Panorama who was working on our fire management plan that was in draft form and supposed to be released in September has shifted gears and started to work on post management of fire damage so in the final management plan a lot of post fire recovery will be included now which was not going to be previously included we also prior to the fire we're working on a Cal fire CFIP grant to begin implementation of defensible space and unfortunately that that wasn't able to happen so we're going to shift gears on that as well and establish a forest management plan with the CFIP grant and that CFIP grant will cover 90% of the establishment of a forest management plan which we can then use for future implementation for forest management and restoration. It sounds like according to the county we'll be receiving the Cal fire award report this week and once that is received we'll be able to start those meetings with the county and the state level and hopefully begin figuring out funding and the next steps for erosion control. Rick you're muted. Next slide. As you can see as we talked about our surface water supply has been impacted approximately 50% of the of the district's water supply is surface water. When summer stream flows drop off well water is used to supplement water supply and winter wells are shut down allowing for recharge it's very important to the district that we allow water our wells to recharge and recharge the aquifers. Emergency restoration is already underway on the Foreman Creek surface water line and intake. The photo you saw was the yesterday moving pipe up to the treatment plant those are 40 foot sticks of 12 inch pipe moving up to the treatment plant to start to restore that pipeline for to bring water into the surface water treatment plant. Next slide. For the finance section our Stephanie Hill our director of finance and business services will give you this presentation. From the finance perspective not much has changed from the last special board meeting. We still you know roughly three million dollars in reserves to help finance this stuff but that money goes through very quickly that helicopter was about little over 60 grand in the blink of an eye. We will be working with FEMA and Cal OES for the emergency funding. You do need to pay up front typically and then you get reimbursed so we will be working with some financial institutions to get a bridge loan for whatever amount you know is determined that we're going to need to bridge the amount until we can get the FEMA reimbursement. Good news is interest rates are still at historic lows so you know from that perspective it is a okay time to be borrowing money. We're still be working with the insurance companies for any facility needs. It's still unknown at this point if any recovery rates will be needed. Next slide. Customer service if you're concerned that if your home's going to do not drink do not boil area but need confirmation you can still go ahead and contact customer service with your address. Late fees have been suspended at least through the month of September. The district has a policy for if your home was destroyed that suspends billing for up to three years. We have about 120 homes believed to have been destroyed within our district given the extreme circumstances that accounts are being reviewed to potentially be written off against some of the surplus funds from the fiscal year 2021 rate assistance program. In addition we have pulled them out of the this upcoming billing period to allow for us to get some of this stuff sorted out. Customers will continue to receive regular bills. The nine five billing was delayed but is scheduled to go out tomorrow. The delay mainly was we were in the middle of reading a lot of these different areas when the fires did break out. We still do have a high volume of mail coming in so payments are being processed daily. We are quote unquote caught up every day but I think we are still getting a lot of the mail that was previously sent getting sorted out and brought to us so we're trying to get people's payments supplied to their accounts as quickly as possible. Next slide. Questions before we before we go into questions Nate are you prepared to say what we posted today? We posted a great deal of information on our website in regards to water quality. Are you are you prepared to give a quick summary of what was posted that might cut back some of the questions? No problem so yeah we we did post all VOC lab reports that we have received up until this morning. So we've been sampling a lot over the the last couple of weeks so we've got results of over 50 samples there. So we have the lab results in a kind of a little more summary of a format. It's basically an excel spreadsheet broken up by sample location and sample results and then we also have the hard copy lab lab results that you know it's roughly about 500 pages worth of raw lab data from our contracts lab. Included with that is also just kind of a summary of any you know remarkable results and that's all again on the district's website. Thank you. With that I'll turn it back over to the chair for questions. Thank you Rick and thank you and the staff for such a complete and comprehensive update. It's very excellent. So let's first see if the board has any specific questions they'd like to ask before we go to the public. So if any of the board members have a question raise your hand and we will bring you right up. Okay director Fultz unmute yourself. Yeah thanks I just want to start out by saying I think it was phenomenal that our district staff was right on the spot with respect to isolating and shutting down as much of these areas as possible to minimize any contamination. I think if that hadn't been done we'd be looking at a very different scenario here. So good work in that James and your team I think that's just fabulous. I had a couple of questions on the do not drink notice. I noticed there was a statement about Bennett Creek being under that notice had a separate notice gone out to the Bennett Creek area on that because I don't know that it was in the first one or at least I didn't see them. Yeah that's that's correct. Those homes were all notified directly once and what had happened is the the Bennett Springs line was made out of steel going from the spring box to the tank and over the years that steel line had developed some leaks and so those leaks were patched with rubber patches and that mainline was in the direct line of fire melting those rubber patches. So once that was discovered the area was the area served by Bennett Springs only which is roughly 20 homes. They were all hand delivered notices to not drink and not boil their water. When do we expect testing results back in that area? So we've gotten a couple of results back so far but as James said today they they replaced the pipelines we're going to need to take a couple extra samples but to date we have lab results that do not indicate any contamination. Yeah so and with that that will have to restart the clock seems that we did go in there and change out in line. We're going to have to restart the clock on the testing. The test results that came in already were clean yes but now it's a whole difference. We have to start all over because we replaced that raw water service line going to that tank. It looks like we're our testing lab has been turning things around very very quickly. I mean from the reports there looks like it is there are doing the one-day turnaround. One business day turnaround is how long does it take to get the approval through the state in order to publish these things? So yeah the just a note on our sample lab they are turning out results as fast as they can. I'd say it's our one-day turnaround is typically turning more into about a five-day turnaround. Once we collect the sample we need to overnight it to our contract lab. Once they receive it they analyze it within 24 hours but then it has to go through their quality control and quality assurance process. That can sometimes take a little bit longer as well and then once the data has been validated the report is issued. Once the report is issued we review it and send it off to the State Water Resources Control Board Division of Drinking Water and just kind of discuss any interesting findings with them. How long does it take for them to review and approve? You know we can hear back from them within roughly a couple of hours. Yeah so when we submitted to them on Monday with all of our information that we had compiled it took about it took about three hours to get confirmation but then to put all the final hard paperwork together and everything like that that took an additional about eight to nine hours to do so. We have to adjust mapping, we have to adjust notices, we have to figure out exactly what areas and addresses so it takes a little bit of compiling of information to be able to get that finalized and out on paper. Yeah I know everybody was really anxious to find out about that hence I'm asking sort of about how long it's going to take. The last thing I want to mention to Carly I know that you know the west side of Highway 9 has regrettably burned pretty well but we do have facilities on the east side of Highway 9 that did not burn and hopefully it'll be an opportunity for us to regroup with Panorama so they can continue their fire assessment of the facilities we have in the east side so that we can hopefully do some better remediation of those so that if there's ever a fire on the east side we will have hardened those facilities in a way that they won't perhaps be completely destroyed. I hope that'll be possible to do. Right and Panorama is still working on the comprehensive fire management plan for the entire district so those areas will be included and implementation will hopefully begin once we receive that plan we move past some of this more emergency work. Great thank you. Thank you Bob. Did you have any other questions? Not right now. Thank you. Any other questions from any director before we go to the public? Not seeing any? Okay so let's uh. Director Ferris is raising his hand. Yes we're on a screen. On the screen now. Okay Lou. Thank you President Swan. Nate I have a question for you. The effectiveness of our chlorination system is directly proportional to the turnover in our storage tank. Is there any reason to believe that the the resident time has lengthened that might affect the lowering of the chlorine levels? Yeah certainly um yeah that that does happen but uh you know we we try and maintain roughly about a 0.8 to a 1.0 parts per million of chlorine in our distribution at all distribution system at all times. Granted some of the far reaches are a little bit less than that but we are collecting our routine bacteriological samples and when we collect those we're required to test for chlorine as well so um yes it higher residence time can lower chlorine but uh you know we should be well aware just based on our routine sampling of our disinfectant level that's out in our distribution system. So we have no reason to believe that that's a problem currently? No. In the near future. That's correct. Thank you. And Steve I have a question or comment too. I'd also like to echo what Bob said about the the way the staff responded. Thank you very much. I was wondering for Carly maybe is are we meeting expectations of water conservation? James might be able to better answer where we are with storage. Okay. Yes so we are doing pretty well on storage. We've actually been able to turn down our main booster station coming into the upper valley the last few evenings. We're keeping our tanks nice and full and again today like we're filling those four 10,000 gallon poly tanks in the south reservoir system so that's pumping that's going on and that'll be going on all through the night. Tonight we probably won't be able to turn down that booster pump station and we're actually holding pressure and keeping people in water as up to par. Okay and then I was really glad to see the water filling station and as much as possible I would you know if it means buying five gallon water containers I would be in favor of that then constantly using single use water bottles so that's my only suggestion there but I love seeing people using big containers to get water versus the single use plastic bottles. Yes so a lot of our residents have been bringing in their own five gallon jugs two and a half gallon jugs and one gallon jugs and then we had a storage of five gallon and two and a half gallon jugs down at our Johnson building from a previous tenant and those were left behind by that tenant and they became district property at that time and so we are now putting those out here at the fill station for people to be able to fill those and use those instead of without so many plastic bottles out there. Excellent James thank you. You're Rick uh Lois you have your paw up? Muted. Muted Lois. You're muted Lois. Lois the bottom of your screen there's a oh there you go. I see it I got it. So my question is can I make a comment or can I only ask a question? You can say whatever you'd like Lois. Okay so I was recently talking to the fire chief for Ziani fire and the night of the evacuation when we were all being evacuated there was a line break on Ziani school road and of course all the fire chief called in a report to the water district but all the staff were being evacuated and so fire chief told me he was really worried if there was a fire what would happen but then who showed up um to help him out was our district manager and our manager of operations they showed up with with shovels and eventually more staff came and I I just wanted to say we have great staff um not only that that just happened but they've been out there with the firefighters making sure there's pressure pressure on the highway nine corridor they have done a phenomenal job and have put themselves at risk while doing it and I just wanted to say thank you to all our bar staff. Thank you Lois. Thank you Lois. Here we all echo those compliments and sympathies. Any other questions from the anybody on the board? I'm sorry now I've got to look at the screen to see if Lois waving his arm let me see I can't even find him anymore okay I'll assume you're not so let's go to the time for the opportunity for the public to ask questions and we've got about 24 of you out here so far and I think first up was uh Joe Kuchiera Joe trying I'd like to limit the questions to about three minutes to make sure that everybody has an opportunity to uh ask questions and receive Steve would you like me to run a three minute sorry Steve I didn't mean to interrupt you would you like me to run a three three minute timer for you? No that's okay Joe I mean uh James I've got to watch right here okay sounds good okay Joe go right ahead uh would you be so kind to come back to me I'm on a medical call and so I can't really talk right now no problem Joe go back and we'll go to uh Rob Rob please oh and also when you're asking your questions please state your name and where you're from for the record so you're just just the town you don't have to go any further sorry I'm trying to unmute myself can you hear me yes go ahead Rob Rob you are it looks like you can hear me maybe but now I can't hear you let me try to ask this question if if I'm on just curious about whether there's a plan to test for S VOCs in addition to VOCs and if not why not okay yes we've been uh we've been asking our state water resources control board representatives about uh SOCs and uh from the state water resources control board what they have told us is that the EPA method that we're using EPA 524.2 it has over 84 volatile organic compounds in it they've said these are the lead indicators for any contamination from fire related impacts given the time and resources available that we have these 524.2 VOCs are the most likely to show up I hope that answers the question thank you I wish most of the answer because my for some reason my audio cut out as soon as I stop speaking but I appreciate the answer okay I don't see any other questions there uh Nate would you like to give it a quick summary again since Rob can now hear yeah Rob just uh just repeat so we asked the state water resources control board about these S VOCs and they said that in their experience the 524.2 method of VOCs that we have been using to analyze for it has over 84 compounds and they said these are the lead indicators for any contamination from fire related impacts and given our resources and time available the 524.2 uh screen of VOCs are the most likely to show up if there is any fire contamination thank you thank you Nate okay uh do we have any other questions from anyone on the public we don't see any other hands oh we're going uh logged in Marion please again state your name and where you're from and then state your question or ask your question hi this is Bogdan I'm from Boulder Creek I was wondering uh Nate if uh or anyone else on the board if you can recommend a lab where we might be able to do our own SVOC testing if we're still inclined uh yeah I was in contact with uh Eurofins Eden Analytical down in uh Monrovia I believe they can do one um otherwise I would just reach out to any ELAP certified contract lab environmental laboratory accreditation program is what that stands for just any sort of environmental certified lab reach out to them and see if they might be able to run any any tests well and Nate this is Gina district council I just want to add of course the district can't endorse any particular um vendor so it sounds like you have experience with that vendor but um we can't endorse or recommend just to be clear thank you Gina for the clarification again just uh ELAP certified lab that that's all I would recommend okay understood uh do you happen to know roughly what the sort of range and cost is for such a test and perhaps a method uh an EPA method that might match the sort of SVOC um you know screen that we're looking for I don't I think you would have to uh reach out to the lab for the you know specific tests you are looking for and they could they could quote you on a price okay thank you all right thank you uh Tina to go right up to you I just wanted to answer Bogdan's question on the county website I did find there's a list of um labs that do water testing and it's a PDF and you kind of have to search through the um like refire recovery and so I I did research a couple of those and on that list it tells what each lab can test for um and there's a little key and it tells you like it can test for VOCs organics SVOCs and so forth um and I don't I don't have the the PDF off hand but um if you just search for the uh for the recovery and you look on the county website I did find it on there yeah thank you Tina okay any other questions for any of the staff or any of the updates that you heard today no okay uh Joe we'll give you a chance if you're if you're back off of your uh conversation if not okay we'll uh go back here to back to our agenda okay uh Rebecca could load the second presentation second powerpoint that would be great but before we go on uh Steve can I ask another couple questions please sure Bob go ahead so Rick um have we are we in touch with the cal fire and fire departments regarding the firefighting strategy for um inside the containment area since I think we're we're getting close to being fully contained um there there are still a large number of houses that survive inside the fire area and I'm you know we obviously don't want to see any more houses get burned or any more pipelines get damaged that might introduce uh VOCs into the system are we comfortable with the strategy for fighting these spot fires and um you know flare-ups that are that are occurring you know for the most part from the briefings that I've attended in the briefings I won't speak for James but the director of operations has been attending daily and sometimes twice daily briefings from cal fire you know they are approaching and moving out and about and looking for hot spots and people are calling in but basically they say that this fire will not be out until we get some substantial rainfall because it is deep in a lot of stumps and and and hard to put out but no matter where we go there's still you know there's still some type of fire burning and and uh they are addressing it and they've given us radio equipment so we have any issues we can call directly to them and they'll come right out but I think that you know the fire will not be out until we get rainfall well I think then it sounds like we'll need to be doing uh some continuous testing on the system just to make sure that um we're not going to see any additional issues with VOCs or any of the volatile content well and and they can speak to this better but in talking uh to the State Department this sampling will go on for some time even after we recover and and this we will do this to ensure we maintain a good water quality uh public water quality we'll be sampling for some time how long that is I can't tell you right now but especially in the areas that we did get a hit of VOCs sampling will continue for quite some time and we've applied for financial assistance from FEMA and that is part of the recovery and they will cover a percentage of the sampling because those samples are about uh I think we figured just the sample itself about $800 a sample yeah no I know they're I know they're expensive we're going to continue sampling way after the fire and to ensure and we're also even starting up uh Nate and the department are putting together a sampling schedule we have concerns on our intake water a raw water coming in from the fire from the you know Braymore subdivision which is up on empire grade several homes are destroyed and that's above our head waters so we have quite a bit of concerns there'll be sampling going on for quite some time now Nate do you want to add anything to that that I might have left out or gotten correct no just uh just echo what you're saying Rick is that is correct we are going to be working with the state water resources control board on a continuing uh sample uh um schedule um you know I said in our zoom meeting uh last week that you know this is a marathon it's not a sprint so you know part of these uh you know continued samples to ensure that we're not seeing any contamination is uh you know that that's something we're we're working on with our state water resources control board regulatory agency did did we post the map today or sample locations Nate yeah that was posted yes okay because we do have mapping and we're posting it shows where we've been taking samples in the distribution system yeah and I and I would encourage us to continue posting these samples all the way through the end of the marathon so that you know the people can be fully informed what's going on the last question Nate and this may be directed more to you would it be worthwhile to recruit a second testing lab to be able to increase the velocity of some of the testing if we're putting in a whole bunch of tests at one time and when one lab excuse me can't turn them all around fast enough would it be helpful to use a second lab uh at this time I don't believe it would be uh the lab we are using they are a very large commercial laboratory I believe they're the largest uh on the west coast so um they're doing a great job uh turning samples out as quickly as they can uh you know with a great quality control program as well so I I don't believe that would uh help us uh to look for a second uh lab at this time Nate when they when they uh detect don't they call us to do they call you when they if they detect before they even send out sample results they what they do is they email preliminary results so we do get some information before the final drafts come out I mean I mean I think you can understand there's just a tremendous amount of concern about this that circulates out in the social media and um and in the community I just think it's going to be imperative for us to be as fast and as transparent as we can around the test results are coming back so thank you for continuing with that yeah absolutely and you know just a comment on that too is a lot of time has been spent in discussion with the state water resources control board over the last uh seven days so that's just been a you know a big um you know uh use of time with them so we would like to post lab results as quickly as possible uh moving forward and you know we appreciate everyone's patience waiting for that too the state worked over the weekend right the long weekend we all did yeah good and they uh they even asked us when we sent emails to follow it up with an immediate text message uh so they knew they had an email and they were uh they were very helpful in crafting our message as well because they've been through this in in other areas in other fire areas so the state uh the R2 reps have really been a real benefit and a real help to us along with district council um we've all spent a considerable amount of time on crafting these messages no that's really good and thank them for us for doing that the community and the people will be very appreciative of that as well hey thank you bob uh rick you want to proceed with your next presentation we have a second presentation and we can get Becca to uh post it and for this presentation district council will deliver the presentation and that's all yours okay great thank you rick um and uh i i do want to provide a couple of disclaimers one is uh i have been having a little bit of internet connection difficulty today um i don't usually so um if you suddenly can't hear me um please bear with me and give me a moment until my zoom also um i wanted to say i don't hold myself out as a FEMA funding expert i'm certainly learning a lot about this right now and our firm has significant capabilities when it comes to federal procurement and contracting um but this presentation is intended just to be a really high level um overview of uh the FEMA program public assistance program so that we as a group can start to get on the same page and from understanding how FEMA works and what the process may look like going forward um and of course our district manager rick rogers has a lot of experience working with FEMA over the years from the aloma to earthquake and other disasters which no doubt will be very helpful in dealing with mechanics of the process and um rick please do jump in anywhere uh where you have some experience to add to what we're talking about next slide please okay so what we're going to cover today is just some background the governing law the timeline that's gotten the FEMA public assistance process moving um the public assistance program itself and the categories of funding that are available and what kinds of costs are eligible and uh in general terms we're going to talk about the next steps going forward next slide please so the the key statute that everyone talks about with respect to FEMA is the Stafford Act this is federal law that allows the president um to declare uh an emergency or a disaster when an incident uh exceeds the affected state and local government capabilities to respond so the president um acting on his own authority under the Stafford Act can declare a disaster that then gets the FEMA funding process moving um next slide please but uh the Stafford Act isn't the only relevant law that applies here um the governors and the presidential declarations are relevant the Stafford Act the National Emergencies Act California Disaster Assistance Act which is the primary statute um governing Cal OES's activities and then of course FEMA and Cal OES regulations are critical and then even below the various governing laws there's a lot of guidance materials available plus agreements that come into play between state and federal federal and local state and local partners etc that have a bearing on how the FEMA funding is actually uh uh uh distributed next slide so just a kind of the overview of the timeline that's gotten the ball moving with FEMA uh August 16th the wild wild firefighters started uh August 18th we got the governor's proclamation of the state of emergency August 20th there was a FEMA agency issued fire management assistance declaration that got stopped that unlocked some emergency assistance primarily with respect to fire fighting um approximately August 21st I don't have the exact date the governor requested the presidential declaration of major disaster and we got that August 22nd and I understand from Rick if this is right the day after that August 23rd um you started to have briefings on site with FEMA related to how to actually implement some of the uh funding process that's correct um so that that took place pretty quickly next okay so um it's the it's the presidential declaration that we got on August 22nd that makes public assistance available and just to be clear public assistance is only one of a number of types of assistance that FEMA makes available it's the one that's particularly relevant to government agencies and water agencies such as the district this type of funding is available to local governments also states territories etc some nonprofits for certain types of emergency work and permanent repairs to damaged facilities um the standard cost sharing basis for public assistance is 75 percent federal with 25 percent care being covered by state and local entity unless the federal shares increase can go up to 90 percent only with presidential presidential determination of need essentially in shorthand terms next slide please okay for the administration of the PA program um Cal OES is the state agency that's primarily responsible for working on a public assistance grant that's kind of the administrator of the FEMA funds um it's important to note that specific funding amounts haven't yet been determined for the public repairs portion of the FEMA funding that the district is going to be calling upon to assist with some of the necessary repairs um so we don't have specific obligations of funds yet for that purpose also not all of the public assistance categories have been formally approved at the time next slide please and speaking of the categories the two categories that have been approved um for Sam Santa Cruz County or the emergency work categories that's the free removal and emergency protective measures and um the district has been doing some work um and Ricky you can speak to this better but it has been doing some work that may qualify for summary reimbursement under these categories um but next slide we're particularly concerned about and interested in approval for the permanent um restoration and repair categories and in particular category F which provides water utilities from Lorenzo Valley Water District we have not seen formal authorization of any funds from this category for Sam County yet um it's indicated PBB there next slide please if I could if I could quick jump in on that Gina yes I did receive a call today from Supervisor McPherson regarding category F um he was going to reach out and contact a representative uh Anna Oshoe and he recommended that we do the same and if it by reading my screen right it looks like the representative is is on uh as a participant in tonight's uh meeting great um uh that's good to hear um so now assuming that the category F funds are approved for the permanent repairs um some principles that we need to keep in mind related to cost eligibility and this is just very high level summary of the of the relevant eligibility principles but um all of the costs have to be reasonable and necessary to accomplish the eligible work um which is going to be for the projects that FEMA ultimately approved through Cal OES um and also the con the procurement is going to have to comply with federal state and local requirements and um on a prior slide where we were talking about emergency work it's it's good to note that for a true emergency like we've experienced over the past few weeks um compliance with local procurement policies um may be sufficient and we've done you know what we can to try to obtain board approval and write the contracts in ways that allow for that to the extent that that work ends up being um uh eligible for FEMA reimbursement but um the game kind of changes with respect to the permanent work the procurement requirements become quite a bit more stringent going forward for the permanent repairs um another principle to keep in mind is that the amount of the funding is going to be reduced by applicable credits uh which is kind of a shorthand for insurance and other funding sources and of course um the district's district's risk management provider sdr sdrna was notified of the incident almost immediately after you know the wildfires became a serious issue for the district and they will be involved in figuring out sort of the the financial package for disaster recovery I put a note here at the bottom of this slide um there could be a whole presentation or multiple presentations in and of itself but I just wanted to make everyone aware that improved or alternate projects may be approved um but depending on whether it's an improvement or an alternate project it's going to involve and most likely some kind of additional local costs um um so again that's just the tip of the iceberg on that issue uh but something to uh be thinking about next slide please this is a very high level um overview of the process going forward um there's 30 days uh for the initial request for public assistance which um I imagine has already been submitted correct um then cal oes conducts kickoff meetings applicant briefings and coordinates the federal state and local participants and as I understand it that's also well underway and um cal oes also coordinates the project formulation and submission and um rick you've been right um right there dealing with these issues over the past few weeks is there anything you want to say about where this process a lot of uh what you said in your last slide about uh improvements and so forth a lot has to do with the district standard if you have a two-inch main and we have a standard that says that we will uh put in larger mains and as long as we've been practicing that standard which we have usually FEMA will approve the increase in size um it uh it really depends on what we have for standards and that we've been following those standards in which the district has and we have received uh improved facilities from past uh disasters by having those standards great thank you next slide please okay and so as we get into um the permanent repair phase uh like I said we're going to have to be very conscientious of following the applicable procurement requirements also the environmental review process is going to need to be completed for these projects and then ultimately the state is going to be responsible for dispersing the funds but they are federal funds that come with federal requirements for how we um for how these projects are completed next slide please okay and um before we go to questions I just wanted to um and I guess I'll pose this to Rick uh we had talked about um whether it may be necessary to ask the board tonight for authorization uh for the board president to sign off on any letters that may be necessary to help um move the process of obtaining approval for category F funding um forward um do you think that's still necessary or something we should try to accomplish tonight Rick well I see the representative issue has got her hand up so she may have uh quite a bit to add here on this and maybe we could come back to this after questions uh that sounds great I'll turn it back over to the chair thank you Gina great job if um representative Eshew has her hand up at this point we'll go ahead and entertain any comments uh or questions that the representative has hello good afternoon my name is Brandon Robbins I'm staff assistant for the and within the office of congresswoman and Eshew I really just wanted to apologize I'm listening and taking notes I forgot I was signed in on this account um congresswoman Eshew was definitely committed to ensuring that you get all possible funding I'm taking notes so that she can help out in getting you that and I really do apologize for them this day congresswoman Eshew was not on the call she's currently in a committee meeting that's quite all right thank you very much for clarifying that we'll go back to the panelists then if the board has any questions for uh council and uh director Fultz you've got your blue paw up go right ahead you've got the Darth Vader mode we can't make out anything it's it's horrible uh hang on let's just go back to anybody else on the board that has a question for Gina no blue question blue has a question oh can we get him a flag or something uh I gotta get you on my screen Lou already had Lou we're you're muted Lou you're still muted Lou Lou's muted come on now go ahead Lou you're good now thank you president swan we had that we have as a board have approved emergency funding twice now for interim fixes and I just want to make it clear to Rick is there anything else you need from us tonight going forward that would help you in in this disaster relief well you have approved some funding and it's probably time to come back again uh if you saw that uh one of the slides I've probably exceeded that and it's time to come back to the board and get more authorization it hasn't slowed down the recovery effort we're moving as fast as possible on procurement materials and moving ahead so to answer your question right now Lou the board has has been very supportive and it's much appreciated our customers have been very supportive we're getting nothing but thank yous and all over the place right now we're doing good but there's a lot more to follow and I appreciate Lou being chair of the engineering committee and submitting your thoughts on hardening the system and how we need to move forward in protecting the water system from this type of disaster those are really great ideas as Lou said is there anything we need to do tonight I don't think so Gina do you believe so no and and we haven't teed that up there's an agenda item for tonight but we could do so in the near future if there's a need to get some additional authority and just real quick we have hired mostly local people we had we brought on I don't know James you're still there I don't see your picture but we brought on a lot of local people who live in the San Lorenzo Valley local contractors local as local as possible so that's been a really a good thing for our community terrific Lou did you have any other questions or comments Lou did you have any other questions or comments I think you're muted Lou yeah I'm muted again I was going to ask since I think it was brought up Gina that there may be a letter from President Swan giving authorization to proceed with certain things with the conduct with the with the approval of the board would that be something that would be helpful to have it may be I think I would like to ask at the conclusion of this discussion for the board to authorize staff to work with President Swan on any request letters to our government representatives that may be necessary to try to move the process of federal FEMA funding along we don't have anything to present to you tonight in part because we aren't presently certain you know what you know where we might need to reach out or you know perhaps apply a little pressure or letter needs be known but it's bound to happen over the next couple of weeks and so if we could get that authority kind of in our in our pocket we could you know prepare a letter and get it out promptly if it becomes if it starts to look like something that would be valuable would it be appropriate to actually make a motion now for that I'd be willing to do that well that would be appreciated I did see the director folks had a hand up and maybe it would be good to address those comments or questions and then circle back to we'll come back to that it's a great idea Lou and good suggestion but let's let's let the rest of the comments be heard first Gina is that are you got any other thing to follow up Gina nothing more from me just standing by to respond to any questions okay Bob go ahead your was that better much better not sure what happens with broadband sometimes you even look at it up mystery meet broadband yeah so Gina thank you very much for that presentation overview I'm sure we'll learn more about the FEMA process in great details we go forward to this probably more than we ever hope that we would have to know I think this question may be directed both at you and Rick my primary concern because of the large number on the preliminary budget was put together is associated with the long raw water pipes that are on been we're on bend level mountain so those were hdpe and so the question is whether or not we're going to be able to make a case to replace those with something other than hdpe that would be more fire resistant and be able to have FEMA approve that any preliminary thoughts on that at all and I think this probably goes in line with what Lou was saying because he's been in a great shown a lot of leadership in this fire protection area just just real quick to Bob on that you know we've been up on the on the pipeline with FEMA and discussion you know they're going to look at a lot of different things and value engineering will be one I know the other agencies have talked about hdpe products and you know they're they're they're citing this fire you know once in 70 years and they're looking at types of material and you know is it is it less expensive to replace because we did turn it off you know and did protect the the treatment plant then it is to you know harden them or maybe we just go in and we do 150 foot 200 foot defensible space all on the pipeline and there's there's several things that we can do environmental will be huge on that project just because of the amount of trees and stumps but then again we may be able to we may have to remove many of those trees and stumps that are from fire damage so we've got a lot to to review and to look into on the replacement of that but it is a very isolated pipeline to get materials in you know we can fly in but the one thing about hdpe is that it it's a very resilient product it works great for everything except fire there's no doubt about that when it comes to installation and snaking through you know that that heavily wooded steep forest there's not too many products that can do that you go in with steel you'll be welding fittings and you'll be doing more trussles and those type of things because it just doesn't bend like hdpe there's going to be a lot of engineering and a lot of debate over what type of material and how we reinstall that piping but we need to get started on it yeah i don't think i mean that there's there's certainly the possibility that another fire could go through there definitely um i just because i mean i hate to say it but you know the fire danger is not zero uh even after this fire is out i agree thank you thank you bob any other questions for jenna or rick well uh president swan yeah go ahead i don't have a question necessarily but i just want to kind of encapsulate something that i uh come to have in my mind here um i took my own personal tour of uh some of the devastated area uh above my house up alba road and my heart goes is broken for the people who have lost their homes and whether it's fema or other organizations this community is coming together to help each other and we will do whatever it can take the efforts needed to help us all recover that's all i have to say thank you thank you rick okay any other comments from the board if not we'll let the public go to the attendees if you have any questions on jenna's presentation uh when i see uh i see joe is back with your hand up joe you are recognized where are you from joe okay joe you're on mute yeah it takes a while for the uh for the button to come up to unmute right ahead joe where are you from i'm from brook dale oh okay great um this may have been said when i had to do this uh medical call uh so if it's been answered i assume you're going to post the recording and i'll i'll just hear the answer there are you going to post the recording we will be posting all of our recordings yes um go ahead and give us your question joe how uh a lot of emphasis has been is being put by the various agencies not just on the water data but on the issue of whether pipes were or were not depressurized in the various zones how do we how do you know uh that that was failproof okay i guess we'll let the staff uh analyze and i question i understand the question joe um on the highway nine corridor we followed with cal fire as much as possible we pulled over and i mean if i've got your question right we pulled over and discussed with cal fire about the the amount of flow and pressure out of the fire hydrants we kept uh some tanks would have kept up our state of control we did uh visual checks of driving to tanks that we could get to um to ensure that we maintain water supply um but in some areas we vowed off we vowed off bear creek road um and that's why we had to do additional sampling out on bear creek road because we know we depressurized and lost pressure on bear creek but maybe would help to clarify the question i don't know maybe maybe i didn't get your question correctly what what i understand from county health and from state water resources control board is they are placing a lot of credence not so much on the water data quality as much as the reporting that they've gotten from the district about which parts of the system lost pressure and which parts remained pressured and that was in large part why they removed the unsafe water order they lifted it in the areas that they did it was as much an engineering understanding in in in their minds as it was a water quality uh data analysis and so i'm trying to understand how it how how confident and how is it what what is the method that gives the assurance of which areas lost pressure and which didn't and there was no cross-pollinization between the two well when we sat down with the state we sat down with our system mapping uh we updated the mapping with arrows on the flow of water we do know what areas stayed in water and which areas didn't stay in water by physically going out and checking tanks and then that was backed up by by water quality sampling so it was a combination of hydraulics which pumps were running the main pump that brings water up from ben loman uh that's located uh between ben uh boulder creek and brookdale never shut off through the fire um the wellfield never shut off we were we never lost storage uh south of brookdale so we we were all out with eyes on the system and we're very confident that what we produced to the state to determine to lift the the do not drink order you know was was good hydraulics and we were very confident that those areas did not run out of water and they and fire departments didn't run out of water either uh on the highway nine corridor and yes we did turn some areas off um but we then we came back and after we recharged and we did several you know bacteriological sampling uh that they were concerned about on the depressurization of the system now the areas that have the impact with the hdpe um are still do not drink and we're still sampling in those areas right so i don't i don't know that's your question but we're very confident that are the main backbone of the water system um stayed pressurized with good pressure good flow like i say the main pump that brings water up into the boulder creek area never shut down we changed over we removed check valves to allow a different tank to become our main storage in boulder creek that tank was sampled we're very confident on the on the lifting in the areas that we lifted um that we maintain water pressure throughout because the the the the responses i've been getting trying to talk to the folks that were listed as contacts on the order you know the published names and numbers they're they're quite confident that you're going to find contamination in the areas that were depressurized and where homes were burnt and so the question is how do we know those those contaminants which they're confident they're going to find that there seems to be a little question about that from from the experts at at the state and the county health level how how how how does the district and the consumers know that there wasn't leakage into the areas that you've lifted the order in well that's kind of that's that's kind of the central question yeah and if i could jump in for a second uh we want to point out for brown act reasons that we did move on from the prior agenda item where this was relevant to a new agenda item regarding FEMA so i'd recommend keeping any concluding discussion on this point brief oh i feel that that's just an attempt to cut me off i announced when i was called on that that i had a medical call i had to take yeah joe okay hang on joe uh let me let me i think that and you may have been unbusy with your call at the time but when nate was doing his his uh assessment of the water quality and and the and the stretch yeah i wasn't i was talking to a doctor yes i wasn't able to listen and i said that at the beginning and i said joe if you don't mind joe can you listen now joe if you don't mind listening now we'll let you stay on keep talking but uh nate went into a great detail about talking about even when water is is made available and repressurized and added to the system there will be an ongoing series of tests that continues uh for quite some time and so if you're worried about the the water quality uh nate's uh assurances and the state's monitoring requirements are such that there this process will continue for quite some time so nobody's going to turn the water on without having fully tested it and gotten sign off from the state water board and and just real quick most of the system that we that we uh lifted uh the do not drink were zones that were not impacted by fire you know there was no homes destroyed on baircree grode up on nina terrace um those areas got low on water or ran out do you mean moving water around but they weren't impacted by fire or and had the contaminants that uh you know with the vocs so that data was looked at and that's one of the questions to stay asked you know whether any homes damage here or there any services damaged here and the more majority of those zones know the zones that have the most damage uh riverside grove uh big basin they're still a do not drink and we're still testing um we did find you know we did find contaminant in the riverside grode and we're on top of that we're doing uh extreme amount of flushing right now and testing in and out of that zone um so we're really confident and the state's confident and they looked at all of our engineering mapping and we spent probably two hours of discussion to lift that 20-2500 connections we're very confident that those that that water is safe to drink yeah the you'll you'll probably love this rick that you know the state says that well we're not really calling the shots we're just providing advice and recommendations to the district and it's up to them to make the decisions so i thought you would really love that i disagree well thank thank you we're going to move on to another uh to another attendee who's been patiently waiting thank you joe for your comments uh make sure you listen to the recording later uh bogdan mary and if you have comments regarding the presentation by district council please proceed with your question or comment bogdan uh yeah can you hear me yep oh great uh sorry unfortunately i i didn't have a specific question about the the FEMA uh side of the presentation and i think actually rick kind of touched a bit about upon my question he explained uh that uh Nina terrorists was out of water so that was uh if i could ask if there aren't a lot of people in cube uh is it the case that you uh sort of moved that water out of Nina terrorists out of the sort of pheromone area to use elsewhere well and i feel pardon me for jumping in just i just want to we have some different folks on the phone because of the importance i think of some of the issues that are being discussed and i do just want to remind everyone that because this is a board meeting as opposed to the public briefing from last week we under the brown act we do have to stay on the topic on the agenda which for this item was um the FEMA assistance so um i just advised that a brief response to the question would be okay uh but it is going to be important for these uh board meetings to stay on the agenda topic bogdan if you want won't you email me and uh we can talk tomorrow okay rick thank you and phone call with you and i can shortly just answer your question real quick no water does not move anywhere else in the system out of the Nina terrorists zone right okay just because i know we are out of water after two days uh from some folks that were around but anyway rick i'll i'll shoot you any call and we can talk and i can give you some reasoning for that okay appreciate it okay thank you uh do we have any other questions regarding the last topic on the agenda that was discussed the FEMA no okay that's it we're coming to the towards the end of the meeting here uh Gina did you want to allow Lou to introduce that motion yes it would be greatly appreciated and Lou i can suggest language if you'd like or um unless you have something you want to propose no i would i would i would appreciate all the help i can get um okay so i'd propose um if you agree Lou a motion to authorize staff to work with the board president to develop any correspondence that may be uh appropriate to communicate with the district's elected representatives um regarding FEMA public assistance needs and for the president to sign any such correspondence on behalf of the board in the district i saw move based on Gina's comments thank you Lou i'll second that holly would you like to record a vote director ferris i director false yes director henry muted i i i know i i couldn't find it anyway i yes director moran yes president swan yes motion passes right thank you very much yeah well that wasn't too painful i'd like to thank the staff for putting together such a again excellent and comprehensive overview of where we are and again to reiterate bob's earlier comments i really want to extend my appreciation and i'm sure the board and the valley's appreciation for all the tremendous hard work that the staff and all of the employees of the water district have continued to perform throughout the past uh uh a few weeks and unfortunately that they'll continue to do for the forecoming foreseeable future and uh i'd like to thank all of the attendees who showed up including our representatives representative and um i hope that you do a good job of briefing miss eshu on our needs and all the help that we can gather from her with that this meeting is adjourned thank you all very much thank you thank you all