 and I didn't catch a thing I appreciate you making the effort to be here otherwise we wouldn't have a quorum thanks for having me Dan the dog is the dog is dirty but happy and marshmallows for for marshmallows for dessert okay so Roberta I think we have everybody we're going to have correct chair gavin I believe that's correct all righty well it's 1 30 so I'll call the meeting of the board of public utilities for the city of Santa Rosa to order if we may have a roll call please yes chair galvin here vice chair Arnone board member badden fort board member grable board member walsh here board member watt here board member right here the w's are accounted for great well thank you good afternoon everyone a couple reminders please make sure to mute your phone or your microphone when you're not speaking please put away all cell phones and personal computers we are going to do a little reordering of the agenda just so we get through the important stuff in case we have to lose board member walsh so um we're going to do uh statements of abstention and then the minutes approval then we're going to move to the consent calendar do the two report i three report items and then back to study sessions okay so at this point are there any statements of abstention by board members very none great so the minutes we have um for the meeting of may 6 those will be approved and entered and we will now move to the consent calendar we have four items on the consent calendar so unless anybody has any objection i'll entertain a motion to approve the consent calendar i'll move the consent calendar i will second second second calendar thank you motion by board member right seconded by board member walsh at this time we will take public comments on items 6.1 through 6.4 if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand if you are dialing in via telephone please dial star 9 to raise your hand secretary aether do we have anyone we have no public comments all right if we may have a roll call vote please chair galvin hi board member walsh hi board member waltz board member right hi great passes unanimously that'll take care of the consent calendar we'll now move to our report items item 7.1 director berg thank you chair galvin and members of the board um item 7.1 is a report item on our 2020 urban water management plan and 2020 water shortage contingency plan and senior water resources planner call in close will be making the presentation thank you very much director berg good afternoon chairman galvin members of the board we will be going over one last time with you the urban water management plan and water shortage contingency plan and then ask you to take action the information provided to you today is very similar to what you saw during your study session so i may move through it a little quickly but of course i am happy to take any questions that you or the public may have next slide we'll have a little bit of background talk about what the urban water management plan is and requires get into the heart of it which are the demand and supply projections and comparisons review the water shortage plan and then provide you with our recommendation for action next slide just a reminder the urban water management planning act requires urban water retailers to assess their long-term water needs and their long-term water supplies and reliability over at least a 20-year horizon this is something that needs to be done every five years and reported to the state uh santa rosa has 54 000 connections and delivers about 19 000 acre feet of water so clearly this law does apply to us and we've been complying with it for many many years we use a 25-year planning horizon again that is because we are more conservative and want to be a little bit more careful with our water supply analysis next slide the key components of the law are that there need to be opportunities for the public to participate there needs to be a very good description of our water service area population demographics land use and other pieces we need to fully describe our water demands currently and into the future and show the methodology we use to project those future demands we need to discuss each of our water supplies and how much we have from them and how reliable they are and consider a couple of risk scenarios with those and then discuss six strategies for managing demand over time and also make sure that we address water shortage and contingency planning and of course we do meet all of these requirements next slide please in terms of opportunities for the public to participate we've offered many we've done also social media outlet posts as well as bill inserts and we're doing public noticing through the press democrat right now the public review process is in progress the documents are available for the public to review at srcity.org forward slash u w mp for urban water management plan this will conclude uh june 8th we will have a public hearing at city council and ask city council to adopt these documents next slide please we can go to the next slide as well just a reminder that the urban water management plan has 10 chapters and a lot of appendices attached to it as well next chapter or next slide please now we'll get into the heart of it these are our water need projections going out over a 25 year horizon we like to show you how that compares to the previous urban water management plans analysis so that you can see that we do take into account changes in population growth development climate change plumbing codes restrictions rules and regulations so that every five years we are going back to square one and refreshing those analyses to make sure we're on target we are projecting out to 2045 that we will need 25,097 acre feet next slide a new requirement of the plan is that we do a drought risk assessment that requires that we look at the immediate five years in front of us and assume that water need will be normal that it'll be unconstrained that what would water need be if there were no drought in sight so this is our projection for what the state calls unconstrained water demand for the next five years we'll compare this to water supply in just a few moments next slide we also need to report to the state our compliance with the 2009 water conservation act and that was a requirement to reduce our water use by 20 by 2020 next slide and you will recall the analysis goes back to 1996 and as you can see the interim target for 2015 was 136 gallons per capita per day we came in at 84 the 2020 target was 126 gallons per capita per day and we came in at 99 so our community and our staff and efforts all paid off we were able to easily meet that target that target doesn't go away however next slide please we need to make sure that we comply with that into the future so we did the analysis and you can see that we anticipate even with growing population climate change more intense land uses will stay within that requirement into the future next slide the urban water management plan includes a thorough description of each of our water supplies their reliability the quantity where they come from how they've been used in the past etc in our water supply portfolio we have access to 29100 acre feet per year through a contract with Sonoma water that's our entitlement for drinking water we also produce drinking water from our wells and we have some non potable non drinking water that can be used for all other sorts of purposes from our regional recycling center in total our portfolio during normal water years when we have an average amount of rainfall is 31540 acre feet next slide this is a second stage of our drought risk assessment for the immediate five years the state required that we assess how much water would be available if this immediate five years had the same rainfall patterns that we saw in the driest five year period on record and to remind you that's 1987 to 1991 for our region so what we would anticipate having available is 22660 acre feet per year not the 31540 acre feet per year we would have an abnormal water supply year next slide please so as we look out and we compare the demands that have been projected against the supplies that we have during normal water years again 31540 acre feet available to us that's the bar chart for each of those five year increments the line is showing our projected water demand again population growth employment growth climate change more intense land use is all taken into account so you can see that in normal water years we anticipate having more than sufficient water supply to meet the needs of our community next slide if we have a severely dry single dry year that is equivalent to the driest year on record for the Santa Rosa area in 1977 we would anticipate that we would have a shortage in supplies of anywhere from 11 percent to 14 percent in any given year looking out towards 2045 in that case we would implement our water shortage plan so if this were to occur in the future we would be launching the appropriate stage of our water shortage plan that we'll review in just a few moments next slide we also need to analyze how we would do in a an extended five year drought and so this is looking at that five driest years on record 1987 to 1991 looking at how much water would be available if we had the same rainfall patterns that we did then and as you can see the model shows we'd have adequate water supply but I wanted to remind you the discussion that we had during the study session and that is modeling is helpful it's useful it's an incredibly important planning tool but in real life in real time if we have a second dry winter we start to take action we don't wait to see whether the following year will bring adequate water supply we're very conservative we're very careful with our water supplies so this winter was showing itself to be less than normal in terms of rainfall and we were already reaching out in our winter campaign to all of our customers asking them to be careful with water that's continued through where we actually let our customers know that we're in drought and we need to make sure there's no water waste that non-essential uses of water are cut back and that everyone's very careful two days ago as you know city council adopted a resolution calling for a voluntary 20% reduction in water use by our community we'll be going back to council in either June or July asking for a mandatory reduction in water use in our community so again modeling is helpful it's useful but in real time we look at the real data right before us consider the risks and liabilities and we do everything we can to protect our water resources next slide here's the third part of the drought risk assessment that's to compare unconstrained or normal water demand against reduced water availability if we had the five driest years on record and again in the modeling we would have sufficient water supply and we would take steps immediately as needed to ensure that our water supply is secure and that we have adequate water for public health and safety so again helpful as a modeling tool helpful as a planning tool but we take action in real time based on the circumstances we face next slide so when we do have water shortages we have our water shortage plan the first plan was adopted in 1992 it's been revised a number of times and the 2020 plan is now ready for public review on the website as I mentioned previously next slide a water shortage plan is required by law and it is set is a set of planned response actions that are there for us to take at any given level of a water shortage so that we can help our community reduce their water use and ensure we've got adequate water for public health and safety this year the water shortage plan has to be a standalone document so we're asking city council to adopt it as a separate document we update it every five years next slide please as we talked about during your study session there are a whole list of new changes and additions and new analyses that were conducted to make sure that our water shortage plan was updated appropriately we added stage eight to our shortage levels we updated the water shortage charge the water allocations the excess use penalty and we complied with a whole host of new requirements including articulating and describing in great detail a whole series of procedures that we have used in the past but did not have formally included in our water shortage plan those are now all included in our plan next slide please so these are our eight water shortage stages and if we can go to the next slide we can see how these compare to the state's standard stages and as you recall most shortages we've experienced in the past have been 10 percent 15 percent or 20 percent I do recall one that was 25 percent many years ago so we allow ourselves much more flexibility in those early stages of water shortages so that we can tailor our response with our community and this does map to the state's standard stages and is an acceptable format for establishing our water shortage definitions next slide please you're familiar with the water shortage charts we've talked to you about this both from the perspective of the water shortage plan and also our water rates it is a temporary increase in the commodity rate that is structured to encourage water conservation and protect the financial condition of the utility next slide please again this is a the water shortage charge structure it does require council action council would have to not only declare a water shortage emergency they would have to also adopt this with an ordinance so this is not an automatic element of the water shortage plan it does require council action but for example if we were in stage three and the reduction target was 20 cut back in water customers would be charged seven and a half percent more on their commodity rate their per thousand gallon rate but if they reduce their water use by 20 they would not see an increase in their bill and they would actually likely see a decrease again this is a way to encourage conservation yet protect some of our revenue losses and it is temporary as soon as our water shortage is over that water shortage charge is removed from the customer bill next slide water allocations are a way to respond to severe drought with rationing water we establish this with our priorities public health and safety being first and foremost the economy being second and third making sure that trees and shrubs to the greatest extent possible can be kept alive through even more severe water shortages next slide please the excess use penalties is a way to enforce the allocations customers can avoid them if they stay within their allocations both the water allocations and the excess use penalty again they require council action council would have to declare we are in a water shortage emergency and would have to adopt an ordinance that includes these structures to allow them to go into place next slide please in terms of compliance and enforcement whether it's for our water waste ordinance which we enforce every day or it's for any of the restrictions and prohibitions against water use when we're in a water shortage or the allocations that are assigned to each customer in severe water shortages our approach is progressive enforcement it's been very successful for us in the past we assume customers might not know there's a violation we alert them to it educate them about the offer help where we can so that they can come back into compliance and over the past 25 or 30 years what we've seen is about 95 percent of our customers come into compliance with a progressive enforcement approach rarely we will need to actually issue a written warning to a customer but again that's very rare but it's there if we need to and we have penalties that we can enforce if needed but again our approach is to work with customers directly and an outreach and education perspective and help them to comply so that we all meet the targets that need to be met next slide please it's a very brief review of what we went over during the study session and with that I would like to recommend on behalf of the water department that the board of public utilities by resolution recommend that city council adopt the 2020 urban water management plan and the 2020 water shortage contingency plan and I am happy to take any questions that you may have thank you mr close board member questions or comments at this point I think we've all been through the the drill and the study sessions I think we all know the importance of this plan so I'm certainly in favor of the recommendation and the resolution any other questions or comments from the board if not we have a resolution mr chairman I'd like to make a motion thank you I'd like to move that by resolution the board of public utilities recommends to the city council the adoption of the 2020 urban water management plan and the 2020 water short shortest contingency plan as presented by staff I'll second thank you we have a motion by board member wall seconded by board member watts at this time we will open it up for public comment if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand if you're dialing in via telephone please dial star nine to raise your hand secretary aether do we have anyone we have no public comments may we have a roll call vote please yes chair galvin hi board member walsh hi board member watts hi board member right hi very good thank you very much again mr close we will now move to item 7.2 director burke thank you chair galvin and members of the board item 7.2 is a report item bringing forward our recommended changes to the sewer cap and water cap setting period for the sewer or water cap in effect from July 1st 2021 through June 30th 2022 and uh allen alton our deputy director from finance will be making the presentation hello chair galvin and members of the board we're here today requesting a modification to the sewer and water cap setting this year let's let's get those slides going shall we there we go next slide please all right so each year for billing purposes we set sewer and water caps on residential bills so the sewer caps are set so that the sewer is not charged on water for irrigation so it's a maximum amount of sewer charged on a watt on a customer's bill regardless of the water they use so the lower the cap the lower the typical sewer charge they will be charged less however if they use an amount less than their cap so the other function of a sewer cap is to determine when a customer should be in tier one or tier two of their water rates so then the only other cap that we have is a water cap and those are for uh customers that are water only they do not pay into the city's sewer system and those caps are set both on residential and irrigation accounts and it determines when customers pay either in tier one or tier two so next slide please so this is how we set our caps it's a basic methodology and they're the same for both water and sewer we average the water use during what we call the winter billing period so we'll winter billing period a consensus of three full months of meter use and it typically starts right around November 15th and it goes through three billing cycles beyond that so we do it through that time period because there's typically no need to irrigate during those months that's at least in theory that's sort of would so with the least amount of irrigation you are you're capturing the water use in the residents and not what is being used for irrigation so we kind of factor the irrigation part out of it next slide please so a calculation based on that using those three billing periods is that if through the first billing period there was 5000 gallons of usage four in the second one and four in the third one the average would be about 4.3 leaving the sewer cap to be 4.3 next slide please so why is this here different so the winter billing period this year is mostly dry however we did have the second billing period had a sufficient amount of rain for plants so we use an evapotranspiration for eto let's just go with eto that's much easier i do not understand the large word um to determine what plants need to be healthy so uh and i have a slide coming up in the next couple ones that show exactly how that works but in simple terms the eto measures several factors to determine how much water a plant needs and the data that we use to confirm that are based on weather stations around Santa Rosa through a certified state program next slide please so we wanted to show some rainfall totals during the winter billing periods over the last few years to kind of show you some trends and basically our takeaways is that there hasn't been a lot of consistency over the past several years but uh uh it does appear that that we have significant um uh rainfall or at least better rainfall uh last year in January and that's mostly uh during the second billing period so uh which is part of what we're looking for in terms in terms of a recommendation that i'll get to in a bit so next slide please so here uh we show how eto shows what plants are needed so basically the higher the bar means the more need for irrigation so it's an indication that during the winter uh billing period um in the middle of it you have that lower bar so it seems that that there is sufficient eto to not require irrigation so there's been enough uh rain or moisture in the air that's helping the plants so we're not needing to uh uh irrigate as much and again so what we want to do is pull the irrigation part out of our sewer cap factorations so next slide please so uh we looked at several factors to develop uh the current recommendation um obviously the customer usage uh uh through the winter billing period since this is a critically dry year uh we looked at rainfall uh the eto for the period and how the caps would affect customers uh there was also a consideration for the outreach uh that it already begun uh to remind customers not to irrigate during rain events so based on what we looked at we felt that the that the fairest way to apply caps this year is to use uh the winter average um or just solely the second billing period and so to ensure that customers receive the fairest cap we look at the methodology that benefits them the most and then we set that for them um so uh um and what we found is that also about 50 percent of the accounts would benefit from a second uh winter billing period option with 29 of the average from the winter billing period so um with that let's go to the next slide so what we're asking to do is to look at the average um and what we would determine the caps to be by either the average the winter billing period or the second billing period whichever is no so and then we would apply that effective July 1st but that allows us to go in and and to try to be the fairest as possible to the customers uh with these caps by either taking the average of the whole period or if it's if it's a better cap for them to be just the second billing period we would just apply that second for the next slide uh slide please ah which brings to our recommendation so uh it is recommended by Santa Rosa water and the finance department staff at the Board of Public Utilities by resolution establish sewer and water caps effective for the period for July 1, 2021 through June 30th 2022 by either averaging usage for three winter billing periods of November 2020 through March 2021 or based solely on the second billing period where irrigation was not required whichever is your and with that i'm available for questions thank you very much mr alton at this time i'll open it up for any board member questions or comments board member right yeah after sitting through this winter i was wondering how uh the water department was going to handle this with the uh rainfall being zero in one month and normal in another month and it just seemed very odd so uh so i think this is a good solution i've assumed part of the way we're able to do this now is our computers can do more than they used to so we can actually sort and dice our information and and figure out everybody's bill on a certain month also i'm pleased to see that now and is learning some of those water uh some of the water lingo and is uh is getting a little out of his comfort zone of all finance anyway that's my comments thank you thank you very much other board member comments board member walsh i just want to thank that deputy director of finance and uh and alan i'm kind of with you as far as the as far as the number plate with the with the water use and the evaporation and all that but uh thank you very much for putting the extra effort to take care of customers that's almost your chairman thank you see no other comments or hands raised i'll ask for a motion and we have a resolution i'll recommend um that oh am i muted no i'm sorry about that um i will move the motion that san rosa water and the finance department staff the board of and the board of public utilities by resolution established sewer and water caps effective for the period from july 1st 2021 through june 30 30th 2022 by either averaging usage for three winter billing periods of november 2020 through march 2021 or based solely on the second billing period where irrigation was not required whichever is lower oh second the motion thank you we have a motion by board member waltz seconded by board member walsh at this time i'll open it up to public comments on item 7.2 if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand if you're dialing in via telephone please dial star nine to raise your hand secretary aether do we have anyone we have no public comments we have a roll call vote please chair galvin hi board member walsh hi board member what hi board member right all right thank you very much thank you mr alton we appreciate the presentation we'll now move to item 7.3 director berke thank you chair galvin and members of the board item 7.3 is a report item on our 2021 demand fee update and making the presentation will be kimberley zanino our deputy director administration and bob reed with the reed group good afternoon to both of you i'll let you start bob and i'll come in at the end great thank you thank you chair galvin and hello members of the board of public utilities thank you for the opportunity to present the proposed water and wastewater demand fees for you once again i'll go through basically the same presentation we went through in the study session a couple weeks ago and summarize the recommendations for updating these demand fees so we'll talk about the methodology and framework the usage factors that we updated on the amount of water and wastewater demand from residential customers and how that affected the the fee calculations and then present the specific fee schedules and compare that with some of the neighboring communities so next slide please as you know demand fees are one-time fees generally paid for by new development when they connect to the system they pay for capacity in the water and wastewater systems these fees have been in place for a long time the last comprehensive fee update was in 2014 although the city does have a practice to adjust the fee amounts for inflation each year the legal standard for this type of fee is in the government code which basically says that the fee should not exceed the estimated reasonable cost of the capacity that's being provided in these systems next slide please so we are continuing to use a system buy-in methodology for calculating these fees there are a couple other methodologies available but basically what we do is as we look at the present value of the existing system facilities and assets and we divide that by the existing level of development or the demand that the existing level of demand on those systems to come up with a unit cost a cost per unit of demand this buy-in methodology is best applied in areas where the infrastructure is largely built out and the community is largely built out so that you don't really need to you're not extending or expanding the system and also that any cost of doing that are consistent with what they have been historically it's a common and well accepted methodology within the industry development community is familiar with this and generally comfortable with it and it incorporates the cost of existing facilities rather than having to rely on couple improvement plans or master plans or documents that are sort of anticipating what cost may be to expand the system in the future it also does not rely on a capacity analysis the engineering analysis that is is required in some of the other methodologies so it simplifies the calculation because of those things and then also the buy-in fee represents a reimbursement for past investment in the system so when you collect that fee revenue it's set aside and used to improve or rehabilitate or even expand the the systems but doesn't necessarily need to be set aside for a specific project intended to meet the growth demands it's so it's generally available for for any capital projects next slide please so this table summarizes the fee calculations for both the water and the wastewater system as you know the wastewater system is comprised of both the local collection system as well as the regional reuse system for the treatment and reuse of wastewater we look at the fixed asset records from the city's financial accounting records and we we take those historical costs we subtract out the depreciation so we're looking at a book value of those assets and then we escalate those to a current dollar value another way of saying that is we take the original cost we escalate the value based on inflation and then depreciate it reflecting that it's not new facilities anymore and we come up with a value expressed on on that basis so we are looking asset by asset in each of the systems and if I recall right there's a couple thousand assets that we're looking at and going through that calculation we then make some adjustment to those valuations we add in some of the financing costs associated with acquiring and constructing the the facility so we add in that issuance costs as well as interest costs the the present value of those we subtract out outstanding principal which reflects the fact that you haven't really acquired a portion of those assets that are being that financed and then also monies that are set aside for capital projects in your capital reserves and or have been appropriated for projects yet to be built those monies are added in as being part of the system assets we then take that total value and divide by the system demands and then express that on a cost a dollar amount per thousand gallons per month of demand and i'll talk about the demand factors that that we use here but this is the basic calculation summarized here you can see the the water fee is increasing by quite a bit by 55 percent the wastewater fee by about 15 percent but when we apply these to the demand factors for residential development or and non-residential the the few amounts are coming down so if we go to the next slide as i mentioned we did update the the use factors for both water and wastewater and i appreciated Collin close's presentation a little earlier this afternoon particularly the one graph that he showed the the demand projections that were developed in 2015 with the last urban water management plan relative to the current plan and when you looked at the 2020 numbers it looked like about a 20 reduction in the amount of demand today then was anticipated for today five years ago with the last urban water management plan and what we did with this the update was we went we looked at the last four calendar years of water use data for residential accounts all the different types of residential properties for water demand fees we're looking at usage during the peak month generally a july or august billing cycle and we took the average of that peak month over the four years to use as our water use factors for the demand fees and and those showed a a reduction from what we had previously used we've had a drought since then there's been some hardening in the water usage in the last since the last study and so those are being reflected in these figures so this shows the different types of residential development single family duplexes apartments and and so on these categories have been refined and adjusted a little bit from the last demand fee study and it's because we have more specific and more complete information on some of these so there has been some minor refinements in the way we've defined these categories for you can see the bottom line here for non-resident development commercial industrial and irrigation we are charging the fees based on uh use adjustments for each development project and that thousand gallons per month so it's that standard uh one thousand gallons per month is is applied for the fee and then and then that's applied to whatever the estimate is for each development project we go to the next slide this shows both the current proposed water demand fees for each of those residential development types and again that last line for the commercial industrial and irrigation accounts is expressed on a thousand gallons per month you can see many of these water fees are some are going up and some of them are going down slightly and that's because while the the basic fee is going up the usage factors are coming down and so those two things offset each other um for the non-residential accounts um the city is also updating the usage factors it would be used for different types of businesses and in applying those it may be that's that some of that development would see reduction in the aggregate fee as well go to the next slide this summarizes the usage factors for wastewater um and like in the in the last item on your agenda we're looking at winter water use to come up with the the usage factors and again for this update we looked at the data from the last four calendar years to update these factors and we also see reductions in usage across the different types of residential customers here uh as as as well go to the next slide this shows the current and proposed wastewater demand fees for the different types of development and in this case for the residential customers they are all decreasing by by some amount again the effect of the lower usage factors is more than offsetting the increase in the base fee amount and if we go to the next slide this summarizes what the combined water and wastewater demand fees will be for each different type of development current proposed and showing the change both in dollars and percentage terms here and you can see across the residential spectrum all of the combined water and wastewater demand fees would decline by some amount varying amounts because of the changes in the usage factors and again for the non-residential it would be applied on a case by case basis based on the estimated water usage and winter water usage that would be associated with those development projects and if we go to the next slide this graph provides a comparison with the current and proposed water and wastewater demand fee for a typical single family home in Santa Rosa with some of your neighboring communities here right now you're sort of in the in the middle of the pack and with the proposal with the fees going down you would be at the low end of the of the spectrum for some of the other other cities in the county I will I will mention runner park is conspicuously absent here absent here and that's because of the complexity of their fee structure that and it does vary depending on where you are within the city and some other things that complicate it so we we didn't include that here but that shows what those two fee components would be in the neighboring communities and the next slide at this point I'll turn it back over to deputy director Zanino thank you mr read good afternoon board board members I am just going to give you a quick update again on the outreach that we have done to the development community we created FAQs for our development community we have updated our webpage that is specific to demand fees we have also sent the FAQs and letters out to all the current contractors and developers on our lists of developers and contractors working with the city as well as emailing local associations to offer presentations or any information that they may want to distribute to their members or to attend their meetings next slide please timelines for the adoption we did meet with the subcommittee twice once in December of last year and then again in January of this year and then on April we met with them again and they recommended to the full board both the adoption of the report and the recommendation to city council we had a study session with you on May 6th and now here we are today to follow up with a request for recommendation to city council we are scheduled to go to city council on June 8th with a study session and then be back at city council for consideration of adoption of the new fees on June 29th next slide please so it is recommended by the board of public utilities budget subcommittee and santa rosa water staff that the board of public utilities by resolution recommend that based on the 2021 water and wastewater demand fee study the city council adopt the revised demand fees and re-adopt the annual escalator and make related changes to the city code next slide please is there one no thank you mr reid and deputy directors and you know i'll open it up now for any board member questions or comments regarding item 7.2 seeing none we have a resolution thank you mr chairman i'd like to make a motion chair galvin do we have to take public comment not until we have the motion mr chairman i will make a motion okay i i move that the board of public utilities recommend to the santa rosa city council that we adopt that they adopt the 2021 water and wastewater demand fee study and adopt the revised demand fees with the annual escalators as presented as presented by staff thank you i'll second okay we have a motion by board member well seconded by board member right at this time we'll open up to public comments on item 7.2 if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand if you were dialing in by phone please dial star 9 to raise your hand secretary aether do we have anyone we have no raised hands thank you may we have a roll call vote please chair galvin hi board member walsh hi board member waltz hi board member right hi very good that passes unanimously that takes care of item 7.3 we're now going to move to item 5.2 is our study session director berke thank you chair galvin members of the board item 5.2 is our water and recycle water supply update staff briefing and deputy director peter martin and deputy director of water resources peter martin and deputy director of water reuse emma walton will be making the presentation thank you welcome to both of you thank you good afternoon chair galvin and members of the board i'm happy to be here with another timely water recycle water supply update may i interrupt just one second sure i think we may have lost board member walsh i'm looking at the list of participants and i don't see him on here anymore i'm not seeing him on the attendee list chair i will keep an eye out and let you know as soon as i do see him all right assistant city attorney donovan can we continue at this point uh yes you can continue with briefings at this point uh particularly considering the nature of the briefings but we should keep an eye out because if i'm looking to see if i do not see that walsh is rejoined but if you want to continue with the briefings you may do so but the minute should reflect the departure in no form thank you very much then we'll go ahead and continue um deputy director martin proceed please right now thank you uh thank you for that um so yeah um i guess we'll move on the next slide here no no secret here uh rainfall has been dismal this year um this shaping up to be one of our driest water years on record in the region um following on the third driest year last year in 127 years of record keeping um snow water did take some significant action last week in response to the drought situation on may 14th snow water filed a temporary sea change petition with the state water resource control board um requesting to reduce minimum and stream flows on the lower russian river um and requesting that that classification for the water should be changed from temporarily changed from dry to critical uh they also requested uh that the existing critical flows in the upper russian river be able to continue um they've been doing that since february uh and that temporary sea change petition that's already been filed would expire at the end of june um and then finally in their petition snow water is committing to reduce its diversions uh from the russian river between july first and october 31st by 20 compared to last year meaning of course less water would be delivered to the contractors like santa rosa water next slide so um this is a storage curve for lake menesino in the upper watershed um in our communications with snow water they continue to emphasize the critical nature of the upper russian river situation lake menesino is about 43 of its water supply storage capacity for this time of year um and they're noting that without uh significant demand reduction in the upper watershed uh they faced the threat of going dry this year in lake menesino by the end of the year um and potentially getting water supply levels getting so low that they would not be able to manage their releases from that reservoir um we were reminded that the order they're operating under allows them to reduce the releases from lake menesino uh to critical minimums and that expires at the end of june so they did file that temporary sea change petition uh extending that request um and so if that order is not extended uh paired with the reduced reductions um reduced diversions that i mentioned earlier uh lake menesino could reach critical storage levels by october um so just kind of as a reminder snow water doesn't have control over the upper russian river users for the most part but they are continuing to work uh with those diverters as part of a larger coordination effort with the state water resource control board um there's part of some discussions going on that are all about voluntary reduction agreements uh for those diverters and water right holders in the upper watershed next slide current storage in lake sonoma is at about 145 thousand eight feet or uh 59 percent of their target water spiker for this time of year uh the outflow in the dry creek has been at about 150 cfs for the last few days um as a reminder the temporary sea change decision didn't cover the lower watershed so this new temperature change decision is going to be expanded to the lower russian river if that petition is improved by the state water resource control board the required minimum in-stream flows for the lower river would be able to be reduced by a little more than half uh from currently at 85 cubic feet per second to 35 cubic feet per second this is obviously to more proactively manage their storage in lake sonoma uh and keep those critical supplies in the reservoir late into the year to support support um the diverters or excuse me the contractors and the uh threatened endangered fish species in the watershed next slide so um director berke and i presented to the city council on tuesday taking the bp's recommendation for a 20 voluntary community wide request for water conservation uh they did pass that unanimously um so as a result of that we'll be asking our customers to save water immediately uh through sort of common sense measures such as eliminating water waste taking shorter showers uh self-pertailing or eliminating outdoor water use as much as possible uh finding and fixing leaks and then of course um if possible uh we're asking customers to take advantage of our rebates and make more permanent changes with things like replacing turf swapping out less water efficient devices in their homes and businesses so that'll be the focus for the time being um as we discussed the last time we once we hear back about the results of the temporary change petition uh from the state water resource control board will likely be enacting a stage of a water shortage plan later on this summer next slide so this month we've uh fully transitioned into our summer drought campaign uh through this number rent saving water partnership and other uh participants in that that group with the tagline drought is here save water um we'll be coordinating a drought drop by event with the snow marine saving water partnership i heard today there will be 15 different locations throughout mendicino sonoma and marine counties uh the one that will be staffed by santa rosa water staff will be at the sonoma county fairgrounds on june 12 i should i should say all these events are occurring on june 12 um from nine a.m to one p.m so um we'll be coordinating so both sort of citywide and region wide on this drought response um and this is just one of those things that we can kind of coalesce and work together and roll out this messaging as we go on as you know the what water advisory committee asked for 20 voluntary so um this is just kind of solidifying that message throughout the entire watershed so you'll see new video and radio messaging rolling out and also um high visibility signage and advertising uh throughout santa rosa with this particular tagline next slide so um i just kind of wanted to highlight some of the the targeted outreach activities that are occurring um you know internally we're doing as much outreach as we can we're beginning to make sure that the message is being carried internally uh consistently and that our operations are consistent with the message that we're projecting to the public of course uh we're meeting regularly with other study departments so that they feel that they have the support and the tools they need to make adjustments in their operations and also respond to the community ride request for 20 reduction um we're making full use of radio social media and digital advertising um to the to direct the public to resources available to them to save water right now um we're coordinating with snow water and our partners in the region including this number and saving water partnership to ensure consistent messaging and the rollout of those conservation requests up and down the watershed so you'll start to see the signs and banners going up around the city with the drought is here save water campaign and branded messaging a large banner actually was placed outside the corner of our building here at municipal service center south so just start to look for those signs to show up throughout the city over the next few weeks and um of course one of our best communication tools is messaging that's typically including customer bills and envelopes um just through some of the messaging that we put in our bills in january and february i think we can attribute part of that to a 500 increase in water use efficiency requests from customers that we saw over the last couple months next slide so i'm definitely very excited to announce that we have a series of garden workshops that'll be coming out this summer focused on low water use gardening techniques and implementation and homes and businesses we partner with daily acts to develop content and host these workshops at the moment these workshops are limited to virtual offerings but they may change depending upon the public health directors we do right now have one workshop in spanish language uh which you know we we did partner with daily acts and they're helping us develop that content and hosting that workshop um so signups and more information will be available on our water smart web pages next slide so i did just kind of wanted to check in try to provide some statistics for some of the things that we're seeing here um i think we're at a point now where we can probably be pretty comfortable stating that the information about the drought is starting to reach a broader portion of the public um we've seen a large increase in volume of customer interactions at the department which i would say is a positive sign that customers are preparing to take action to conserve water um we've responded to 412 phone calls last month did several dedicated irrigation meter checkups 26 water smart home outdoor only checkups those are socially distanced checkups that we've been continuing to provide during the county health order we delivered 218 kitchen aerators bathroom aerators and 545 shower heads and then of course we did have that earth day event over at a place to play park so we've been able to deliver 529 um diy water smart kits as part of that effort so and then of course you know we're doing a lot on our own system to be as efficient as possible the distribution system staff responded to about 18 work orders the resulting about 416 staff hours making sure we're keeping our system tight and also reducing water leakage as much as possible there and of course we've followed up on 14 water waste enforcement cases last month what they believe over 30 contacts was related to those so um actually that's going to conclude my portion of the presentation and i'll hand it over to deputy director walton thank you thank you good afternoon chair galvin and members of the board i'm i'm walton i'll be providing just a very brief update on our recycle water supply today next slide please now we continue to trend very low in our production um you can see kind of the end of february march was the only time that we reached flows higher than those that we experienced last year but now that we're moving into um what is actually considered dry weather for us we're even trending below um our production for last year as well next slide please our storage is about 775 million gallons again the lowest we've ever been for this time of year and on the downward trend which we expect we are in a good place though with respect to allotments and we do anticipate that we will be meeting all of the allotments that we set forward this year next slide please again we just continue to communicate with our users and our regional partners we're continuing to have ongoing meetings both with our customers and the farm bureau we meet regularly with our regional partners to discuss recycle water availability in ways we can work better together and just as a reminder we are working towards our 30-day geysers shut down we will be shutting down the pipeline on May 25th to undertake some very critical work and we'll get that pipeline back up and running as quickly as we can to make sure that we meet our contractual obligations with the geysers next slide please and that's all the information I had to share with you today but be happy to answer any questions thank you deputy director Walton if the geysers are shut down for 30 days do we have any estimates to the amount of recycled water we'll be able to produce and store during that time period it's about 350 million gallons that we will produce and store or about a little more than that that will actually produce we'll be able to make 350 million gallons of that available for our ad community as a result of that shutdown because as you know we don't have to make up that water to the geysers so that's that that that amount will come off our contract great okay other board member questions or comments regarding the water supply update all right we'll now open it up for public comments on item 5.2 if you wish to make comment via zoom please raise your hand if you are dialing in via telephone please dial star 9 to raise your hand secretary aether do we have anyone we have no public comments okay thank you very much for the report both deputy directors I appreciate it we'll now move to item 5.1 director Burke uh chair chair galvin I believe there's a recommendation from director Burke that at this point we suspend other items I believe director Burke does want to give an abbreviated report but since we're now lacking a quorum I think director Burke you had wanted to move your overview of some of your staff services just to another meeting is that correct okay then we will uh we will pass item 5.1 and we will move then let's do item eight which is public comments on non-agenda matters if you are we'll now take public comments on item eight if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand if you're dialing in via telephone please dial star nine to raise your hand secretary aether do we have anyone we have no raised hands okay I'll take care of item number eight item nine we have no referrals item 10 we have no written communications item 11 is subcommittee reports and I have a report with regards to the contract review subcommittee we met on May 10th to review the two agreements both of which were unanimously recommended and we're on our consent calendar today the first was for the ghd work on the kelly farms mitigation bank development this project work order provides professional services to plan design permit manage inspect and perform five years of post construction monitoring the project will provide a cost effective way for the city to mitigate for impacts to the tire salamanders and wetlands and the second contract was a cooperative agreement between caltrans the sonoma resource conservation district and the city this agreement allows caltrans to fund a restoration project on city-owned farm and have the sonoma resource conservation district install the restoration and conduct the required 10 years of monitoring and the city receives $25,000 to cover staff time that supports the agreement so that was the activity that we took with regards to the contract review subcommittee any other subcommittee reports seeing none we will now take public comments on item number 11 if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand if you're making a comment via telephone please dial star nine secretary aether do we have anyone no public comments that'll take care of agenda item 11 any board member reports seeing nobody indicating okay we will move then to item number 13 directors report thank you chair galvin and um just because there was something made public earlier um i just wanted to uh note that at the meeting i understand we don't have a quorum at the moment so um i'll make this brief one just this one item um as announced at the zero waste Sonoma board of directors meeting this morning renewable Sonoma has decided to end negotiations with zero waste Sonoma on the potential development of a regional organics processing facility um they will they have also decided to suspend uh or sorry to end negotiated negotiations with the city for the sighting of the project on uh property adjacent to the Laguna treatment plant zero waste Sonoma still has an interest in finding a long-term solution to in county organics processing and will be exploring alternatives moving forward um i think the board is aware that we did invest a great deal of time and effort in support of this project and we are very saddened by the outcome however we do know that the work that we have to we have done is going to provide a good foundation for future efforts i did want to take a moment to thank councilmember Sawyer and board member baden for it for their willingness to serve um on the negotiation ad hoc and all of their hard work on this project we asked a lot of their time and effort and they graciously provided it um i also want to thank the staff team that worked so diligently on this project the last two and a half years including Tonya Mukvitz, Nicole Dorotinsky, Elise Howard, Jill Scott as well as uh two former employees Mauling Plain and Joe Schwal they worked tirelessly with zero waste Sonoma and renewable Sonoma identifying creative solutions for this project and i also wanted to do a very special thank you to Emma Walton she was the lead on this project um so appreciative of her willingness to take on this project and continue working on it even after she moved from her position as the deputy director of engineering resources to taking on management of the treatment plant it was a really big ask and her amazing leadership expertise and guidance was phenomenal she put the city and the water department in a really great place for a future regional project and i can't thank her enough and that's my report you're muted yeah thank you sorry about that i want to echo the director's comments because i know that there was a tremendous amount of hours put in by staff and to try and make this project work and it's it's it's sad that it didn't work but hopefully there's other opportunities out there other people interested in taking a look at this project that could make it beneficial both to us and to the waste management department so any other board member questions or comments for the director all right we will now take public comments on item 13 if you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand if you're dialing in via telephone please dial star nine to raise your hand secretary aether do we have anyone we have no public comments very good that will take care of the agenda i appreciate you letting us kind of move things around so that we've got all the important stuff done while we had a quorum and we'll see you in a couple weeks we are now adjourned