 meeting to order for October the 16th Board of Directors roll call will show all directors present except Miss Lather and Mr. Jaffe is on the telephone from Galveston, Texas. We'll have to call roll for everything on here. First thing is a public hearing a consider extension of WDO sunset period for a single-family residential development. Yes good evening directors as well as Gary Rawlinson is here in the audience he's the applicant. He came before you in September and asked to be agendized. He owns a lot that is in Aptos and Seascape where it was previously approved. The memo states that it was back in 1964 that this lot was created as part of the country club park track subdivision and so we confirm I just I'm giving you that background to confirm that this lot does qualify for an exemption from the water demand offset program that the board made that action back in 2016 and gave those lots a three-year period to gain a building permit. Now in this case the applicant did not find out about that three-year period right away and so he did begin his building permit process when he found out about it and it's it's he's in a point where he's in the coastal zone and I'll let him speak as well but a easy requesting an additional three months to complete the process beyond January 5th next year so that is what is brought to the board and I have not dealt with other lots there's one other lot that you're familiar with maybe that was the same evening in 2016 up under Debernardo Lane that initiated this this concept so I recommend we open the public hearing take testimony and then carry on through the night all right let's open the public hearing anyone wish to address us on this item this is the time hello thank you would you like me just to cover a couple things here anything you want your time okay first of all I don't own the property personally my parents own the property and so I'm acting on their behalf I actually operate under a durable power of attorney in all matters so I don't I wouldn't normally get any notice anyway and I don't know if they did get any notice I was told that generally it wasn't something that was sent out as far as a notice but once I found out I immediately started to begin the design process problems I'm running ran into immediately is that for the most part professionals are very busy they're very swamped in this town and of course I was soon into the holiday season as well so we had a couple different things working against me I did manage to get the design that I created two engineers before Christmas was told that it would be sometime in January that they would have plans and be ready to proceed the civil engineer actually delayed about three months on that and that's one of the major things that put me back I actually had to pull the project from they were also going to do structural I pulled the structural from them and then point and found another engineer to complete that now was able to finally submit in June I'm not a professional designer architect or any of these things so as you might imagine there were a number of corrections it turns out the packet of corrections comes to 52 items just from the plan check item there or the plan checked personnel also some stormwater transportation as well I have been working with a consultant in the last few weeks to try and address these and I hope to resubmit within the next week or so I'm doing this as far as fast as possible but I expect that there's been told it's very unlikely that even on a second submission that I'll be successful that they'll bring me back for more corrections after that and that to get that done before the deadline is highly unlikely with how swamp they still are down there and also particular reviewer that I'm working have my project under has declined to personally meet with me anything more than a fairly insignificant number matters he's he's swamped that's part of the reason and each reviewer down there has their own style so I have been able to meet with some staff members down there but I'm working with with them as best I can okay okay if it's possible give more than three months that would completely take this off an issue I have no idea how many times I'll have to go back any questions of the applicant no I read Mr. Jaffee any questions no I don't have any questions all right well thank you that's it okay thank you very much yep anyone else in the audience Mr. address us on this item scene I'll move we close the public hearing I'll second it we have a motion second roll call please director Lehu yes director Christensen yes director Jaffee yes and president Daniels yes okay so it's back to the board does staff have any position on this item he thinks we're done carry wait that was just to close the public hearing just the close of the public hearing I was wondering myself does staff have a position on this item pro con no opinion you know I think one might ask why why couldn't we notify everybody about this and we just have so many other priorities this is not on our list it was up to people building to come to us and and to prove that that they basically qualified for this exemption or this sunset period you know I can understand his situation he is in the coastal zone and and it is a busy time we know that for sure right if you know if you need to meet somewhere in the middle we have a proposal for that but you know I think you would you'd have to think about the other lots that that may be in a similar situation although that time frame is is narrowing down so one option is is you could you know potentially direct staff to come back and and modify that original idea of January 5th being the sunset and extending that to everybody another three months if you don't want to grant him a special privilege you know I think if if if the if the decision is to not grant the variance then we would potentially and him and suggest that this lot be subject to the water demand offset program then we would recommend that that be that he be considered as the one of the older types that would would pay the original fee and not be put on the waiting list since he's so far ahead right okay those are the two options you I would recommend considering yeah that's exactly what I was gonna ask what would be the repercussions that we didn't grant didn't grant the three month extension if you didn't then you know then the water demand offset program well if assuming he doesn't get through and get a building permit in but before January 5th then after that point the water man asset water demand offset program would apply and and then we have two different tracks there for the water man offset program there's the new track where's the waiting list and the rebate toilets and then there's the kind of the grandfathered people that have already been in the process and I think he would fall into that process if if you do go that route and how many more do we have a tally now and how many more lots there are that were affected by the sunset you know I don't I don't know of any right now that are in the in the pipeline I don't know if Shelley we would have I don't think there's more than a couple if any it because it the situation is that these lots are out there and we don't we don't didn't notify them because that would involve a lot of research going through county maps to find all of the subdivisions that were approved at one time with lots that have not been built yeah I I really can't think of one off the top of my head that's in the process right now we did have some come through that did get building permits and so they met the exemption you know if any came up it would be less than two I would imagine well if they haven't really already initiated contact with us there's no way they're going to finish by January so you know I think there's a very small exposure here you know the me to clauses here I think our exposure is really limited and I I personally think you know he's done his due diligence and I'm actually okay with the three month variance just create a precedence yeah I'll even make that motion okay to grant the variance and I will second it all right we have a motion and a second roll call please director lehu yes director Christensen yes director Jaffee yes and president Daniels yes now you can leave yeah thank you okay let's see what's next consent agenda so anything that you wish to have taken off of consent I know mr. Jaffee public I just another question about the 3.5 okay you want pull 3.5 okay okay now all we're asking is if anybody had any any in the public had any items they wanted to remove from consent that was all you have to you have to comment on something that's pulled so if you want to pull something so just which one do you want pulled I'd like to pull item 3.3 okay so that's fine so I'll make the motion to approve 3.1 3.2 and 3.4 check it okay roll call please director lehu yes director Christensen yes director Jaffee yes president Daniels yes okay we're gonna hear 3.3 September warrants August September credit card analysis thank you Becky Steinbruner I always I'm interested in looking through these because it shows a lot where the money is going and so I totaled up all of the items for pure water soquel project and for September alone it comes to three hundred and thirty four thousand six hundred and sixty seven dollars that includes the one hundred thousand dollar general manager authorized purchase order approval so I just wanted to point out that that's a considerable amount of money being spent on a project that hasn't been a formally adopted by your board I also have wanted to ask a question and this is the question that I have the fourteen thousand three hundred and six dollars sixty five cent payment to Corolla engineer technical support for development of enhanced source control study what is that and I also had a question about the number of overcharges that I see being refunded I haven't in the past seen that many if you can enlighten me on to why you think that happened I would appreciate that information I there are several refund of excess deposits for for several items and the legal settlements at the end there's a big long string of those and I would appreciate explanation of those payments please and one more the final one is consulting services for soquel creek we're project to kreger brook for a little over two thousand dollars what is that thank you I think for a lot of those you'll have to go to staff I can tell you what the issue is about source control having been on the regional board and we do that a lot when you have a septic system look at everyone who put stuff into the septic system and in some cases like hospitals they're required to treat before they put it into the sewer system that's called source control so clearly that's something that matters to us too and the weir project is a removal of a weir on soquel creek that is no longer functional and for fish passage that needs to be removed the others you'll have to ask staff yep okay so we're done with three three we'll make the motion we have to prove that no we don't prove that that's just for information right okay three five deny claim of damage Douglas that's director Christian oh yeah well I just I you know he was making the complaint based on not being notified officially about a leak that happened on a timely basis and so I was just wondering and I that's in my neighborhood actually so that's I know those people they are not residents at all in there not there regularly so I was wondering if it was legal legal to offer a notification service on that because I know we can't you know we aren't we can't tie staff up on a routine basis to do that but I was just wondering if any other water districts had considered director Christian notification system yeah because this matter is being referred to the JPIA because of the value amount of it it's probably not a good thing to sit here and talk about issues which could or may not affect liability generally on ones that are being referred the procedure is denial and then they take take over okay well I'm trying to know the answer to that particular thing it's more of a general question right trigger that and we do notify customers when they have a leak we send them a leak notification door hanger and we let them know that they may have a leak the only way we know is we're out at the premises we're checking the meter and we see them meter moving continuously and they get a leak alert on the AMR meters and so they'll identify how much of a leak they think it it might be might be exposed to and then they hang a door hanger on the customer's door now they come back to the office and if that customer account has a separate billing address as opposed to a service address then leak notification is also sent to the billing address along with the ITAS and and all of that was done okay I was just curious in general there was a way I know if we implement the AMI service that a lot of these kind of issues would be merely rated but I was just wondering if there was anything in place now we do notify so we just don't shut off the service unless it's a significant leak and that's to protect not only the customer but the district as well that was my only question was the general one about sure because there's an awful lot of vacation homes and water district okay well I'll move that we deny the claim and refer it to JPA I second but I have a question okay if we had AMI would this have been detected earlier yes it would have been detected within you know 12 hours of the leak happening and a notification would have been made to the customer by phone but if the customer is traveling out of the country you know you're not likely to be able to reach them so we have a 30 gallon per hour threshold for shutoffs and that seems to be a good level in terms of staff resources and if we were to consider lowering that it would really impact our staffing so we don't necessarily have the phone number for every client do we we try to have the phone number we try to have everybody's email but things change and people don't always notify us and so that can also be a problem and but if we have the software that goes with the AMI that people can like to ask an app they could get the notice no matter where they are as long as the ad correct internet connection if they signed up for the customer portal notification they would be getting that through their phones or their computers okay thank you okay so we have a motion and a second roll call director lehu yes director Christensen yes director Jaffe yes president Daniels yes all right oral communications items not on tonight's agenda you have three minutes to talk about anything else my name is Tom Stumbai and live in Aptos right here I'm perplexed by the way leadership in this district cling so tenaciously to the so very costly idea of pumping sewage water into our aquifers when I have heard and learned there is plenty of water available from other sources at what approximately one tenth the cost and like the water people in the city of Santa Cruz I'm wondering why you are not jumping at the chance to accept all the perfectly good drinking water they are offering and which is available now whereas your water the sewage water won't be available for five years yet as I understand it I also I would like to know why those who live in multifamily dwellings pay only about half of what I pay for water living in a one-family dwelling they are all use as much water as I do and most of them use much more I would like to hear your reasoning for these circumstances here and now or read about it in the immediate future thank you thank you any feedback yeah I have something thank you for your concern about the water for the future I'm very concerned as well to keep see water intrusion from coming farther online and I and I believe the rest of the directors are very receptive to taking water from Santa Cruz and any other sources and as a matter of fact we have a pilot study that's going on and we're take going to take as much water as thank you is willing to offer and I also am receptive to all sources of water anything that will raise the water level so we can push the seawater offshore more and protect the aquifer I'm very very receptive to and in terms of the cost I think the numbers are different than but then you have stated and that's something that I'm sure that if you go back through minutes you'll be able to tell you'll be able to see if intact Santa Cruz was willing to give us more water that their cost would be quite a bit more than what you're talking about thank you for thank you for bringing this up because it's we're we're all in this together and we're all trying to protect the aquifer thank you would you be would you be aware of when the district will be begin to take water from the city of Santa Cruz from other sources say potentially the end of November like a month and a half from now you're going to begin to hopefully all goes well with our testing of the circuit you know of the pipes that were isolating and being getting ready for it yeah so how is this going to affect the thing with the sewer water on which you're spending so very much money well this water from the city is only one-fifth of what we need and it only lasts for the next two years and that goes and then there'll be a different price I'm sure and there will be so we have to make sure we've got lots of options because we don't know how that one's gonna work out everything that I have heard is that there's all kinds of water available I know you do hear that and and the only place we can get it from is the city of Santa Cruz so we get our information about what's actually available from the city of Santa Cruz everything else is speculation right they have to give it to us how much water is running into the ocean every day through that so I think your three minutes are probably up they are okay my name is Scott McGilvery I live in live oak I'm one of the early members of water for Santa Cruz County I haven't been here for quite a while because most of the efforts that we've been putting in and that I've been putting in have been directed at Santa Cruz which has the water which needs to let go of the water so that you can get the water I'm here particularly tonight because of a note that Ron Duncan sent to Rick Longinati that announced that the gathering of 30 days of data would begin not later than October 22nd and that water could flow before the end of November by the end of November and that a permit had been applied for to the state on the 14th of September and we hadn't heard anything back and I'm I'm here to celebrate that I think I'm appreciate Bruce Daniels smile as I recall the story this is your 16th year in this endeavor and we may be within 45 days or 30 days of seeing water flow a new experience right but what I'm why I'm here is I don't think you're aware of what's been going on with Santa Cruz and water for Santa Cruz we have been studying the amount of water that's available in Santa Cruz and it continues to grow the volume continues to grow I want to share a little bit about it because I think you really you need to know this I wrote Melanie and Astor if she knew 450 million gallons of water was available and she didn't even bother to answer back so I'm here to give you some of this information I've given it to Rosemary Menard and John Ricker in the form of a letter I've talked with Rosemary Menard over the phone she didn't have any problem with the facts which is good because they're just Santa Cruz water department numbers so here here are some some of the facts we presented how much water could have been sent in 2017 which was a whole lot of water and Rosemary didn't like that because that was a very wet year so we went back and we did a very dry year which was this year we still found 800 million gallons that Santa Cruz had in its possession that went out to see because there was no place to put it we did another version which was an average year which was 2016 2016 was an average year and what we found is there's 435 million gallons that Santa Cruz has that if they had a place to put it they could store it after we did that we looked at another circumstance which is that Santa Cruz takes water from this aquifer takes water from the belts wells 140 million gallons a year if Santa Cruz stopped taking that water that water would be in the aquifer that's up to I'm gonna hit the buzzer here I hope I get another minute I don't need much more time hit in six seconds so that gets us to 560 million gallons a year in addition Santa Cruz has announced that they're going to file for a change in place of use for the San Lorenzo River water and if that is the case and Rosemary says it is the case that puts into play another 500 million gallons so the amount of water that's available to come to this aquifer now with the infrastructure limitations we have is a whole lot more water than anybody thinks it is not 20% of the demand which is 200 million times up on Frank. Thank you. Okay this is this is fine. We'll have a continuing conversation and yeah I'm glad to communicate with Santa. Next. I'd like to comment on that as well. Okay go ahead. Thank you for all the work you're doing and as I told you personally and I stated publicly very receptive to having water from Santa Cruz. One question that I have on this is whether your analysis includes climate change and droughts in the future and I'd like to see that and also I'm receptive to meeting with anyone from Santa Cruz or from other places who have a way to get more water in the aquifer because that protects the aquifer and keeps the water off shore. We'll be in touch. Thank you very much. Jimmy is our number eight player payer. Can I wave my three minutes to some. No we don't let that happen unfortunately. We don't do that. No we don't do that. Yeah some do. Here more of what he was saying. There'll be other opportunities for sure. I do want to have I'm in the community a lot talking to people all over the place. They're not in favor of the sewage treatment thing. They don't even know how much their rates are going to go up once that thing gets spent and in operation. They're not happy. I can't find anybody that's on board except in here. That's all I have to say. All right. Thank you. Thank you thank you Steinbrunner resident of Aptos Scott. Thank you for bringing some good factual information that you always get from dependable sources that are available to the public. I would like to second what he said. I would like to draw to your attention. I'm sure you saw the excellent article in last Sunday Santa Cruz sent in on the front page talking about this very thing. And so to that end I am a little concerned when I went to a water Santa Cruz City Water Advisory Commission meeting and saw that there are zero stakeholders engaged actually engaged in the water transfer process in attending the the district's public outreach and I'm just going to call the Supplemental Supply Committee because it's easier to say. I learned that things are not in place or have not been put in place in a very timely manner to do some of the fulfill some of the requirements. Most notably the four week testing of the service area that will reserve receive the service water that hasn't even been started. And to my understanding as of last week at this committee hearing committee meeting the state had not gotten back to the district about those plans that had been submitted. And the other requirement is that in the public outreach they really hadn't discussed and didn't seem like anyone really had a plan for how the customers within the service area that would will will receive this surface water would be notified. And that's another one of the requirements. So here we are the agreement was to begin taking water November 1st. You got the results of the pipe study that was very favorable and yet nothing happened all summer toward this end. Lots happened for pure water so Cal and that's my that's what I'm upset about. I also want to draw to your attention some campaign information that the three board members who are up for reelection put out with the slogan solutions grounded in science not all in capitals ones that won't hold water. The other people running other person running is talking about what are transfer. And so I have to assume and as many of the people who receive this assume is that there's a real distrust by those who are on the board now of the validity of water transfer. And that bothers me a lot that is being dismissed by the board members out in the community. So to that end I have organized along with the Sierra Club and Women's International League of Peace and Freedom a candidate forum for so Cal Creek Water District Board candidates and that's going to be next Monday night October 22nd 6 to 8 p.m. at the uptoss library. It will be moderated and the candidates will receive prepared questions in advance. Thank you very much. Thank you. I'll be happy to address that since that is was my campaign mailer and also point out that our mailer does specifically mention the community water plan which does mention the water transfer program in that document and further we all read the Santa Cruz Sentinel and that article we are very happy it is really always very reassuring when you're trying to make long range planning for something as dire as water to stave off saltwater intrusion to have two alternatives that are possible and neither one would happen unless we pushed we all pushed forward on all possible avenues of actualization of these two projects so far from disrespecting the actual process that we're undergoing for this with Santa Cruz City. We are cooperating everywhere we can and contributing to scientific studies to make sure that it's safe and I'm sure you're all aware too that the intertie has been in place for a while and there have been exchanges back and forth that enter ties are always available for exchanges on an emergency basis. So this it's this is a new use for it but we have been doing water exchanges. Let's not get into dialogue. Let's not get to you but after the meeting line and let's also stay away from politics if you don't mind. Yeah. Hi Gary Lindstrom from Aptos. I just want to repeat what the previous three people said and I'd like to add that yes the transfer program has been tested for drought years and it works out very well. We've even had the state look at the state fish and wildlife have looked at it. There's no problem with the fisheries and all that. So yes it has been studied in a drought year. The transfer program of water also sounds like a very good idea and the pure poop water injected into the aquifer is pretty horrifying to me. There's no way you can remove pharmaceuticals and other chemicals. Pharmaceuticals and other chemicals. I'm thinking of how we have been assured many times of the safety of different projects and to remind you that when for instance nuclear power plants first came out we assured they were safe clean and cheap and there anything but look at Fukushima in three mile island disaster and the fact that one out of two men will develop cancer in their lifetime and one out of three women radiation causes cancer. I'm also thinking of when I was a child in Los Angeles. I was born in 42. We go into the shoe stores and there were these machines and you would stand in the machine put your feet there and you could see the bones of your feet in the shoe supposedly to show you that the shoe fit. They did remove those machines because the radiation was dangerous and spreading to the reproductive organs. It was you could really see it was really exciting but dangerous. So we have to ask and also smoking and asbestos were considered safe things take time to develop. I want to so I'm very skeptical when we're told things are safe and the evidence actually shows otherwise. The AIMI emit microwave radiation and they're not green they're not safe and I'm going to distribute this again and anybody who's watching this has put out my stop smart meters and it says smart meters causing you money risking your health privacy and safety. These emit microwave radiation and dirty electricity they can't catch fire explode. Some of them caught fire fire in capital in 2015 so again I submit it. Thank you. Actually that's attached to the minutes of the last meeting if you want to just keep that. It's already part of the minutes. Yeah I'd like to make a comment. Okay go ahead. The last speaker. Sorry. My time up. The last speaker I too am skeptical of information that comes and so my approach is to do the research and and see whether or not I agree with with the the facts or what is being presented. So I just want to say that and then to the previous speaker in terms of a drought plan and water transfers I'd like to know who you've been speaking with at the was it fish and wildlife I forget what it was but I'd like to get that information to talk with them as well and I haven't seen the plan and and I'm assuming that the assumption that is in this plan is is for a certain amount of water coming from Santa Cruz and I'd like to see those assumptions as well because as of now the only thing that is being offered is two years of pilot study. Thank you. Okay. No it's okay. Is there's anybody else? Anyone else? Mr. Teresis? Seeing none I'll bring that back to the board and I'll just add you know it's just we've all gone through our our own skepticism about anything we're considering including using purified water from from wastewater and so we've we've done a fair amount of research and feel I feel after all of that comfortable about the safety so I wouldn't be here and trying to see if that's a valid option with my whole goal is to prevent the ruining of our groundwater basin so we'll keep considering it but I you know just so you know I'm sure all of us have we want it to be safe as well. Well I have a couple of things I wanted to add to that along the same lines for those of you who are concerned about this term poop water or whatever you want to call it if you want if you don't want poop water you should not drink the water that comes from Santa Cruz. They've done a study of some of the constituents and some of them are pharmaceuticals in the water and their water is worse quality than our groundwater and our groundwater is worse quality than you get out of a purification plant and there's one right over the hill in Silicon Valley there's one going in in Monterey and the biggest one and best one is Orange County they've been doing it for over 30 years they're doing a hundred million gallons a day of recycled water they intend to go to 130 million gallons so and they have a great record everything all the constituents are below one part per trillion which is basically essentially non-existent hardly can even test down lower than that so the purest water you can ever get right now is going to be from purified water in fact I think the city should put in purification for their river water in fact when we had someone from I think the federal EPA come and talk he mentioned that that you know it'd be good if the city got a purification plant for their river water so if you're concerned about that also about this you know getting water from the city I've told Becky I've told other people that if we get offered more water from the city at the same terms I would go for it but we haven't all we have offered right now of course that could change but it might not change they might decide they want to keep it off themselves or they might want to sell it to somebody or I don't know what but right now the only thing that they have offered us is the 300 up to 300 acre feet and in drought years we might not get anything up to 300 acre feet at a price of about 300 dollars an acre foot which is double the cost it takes for us to get out the ground so already we're paying more for that water but how much might they give us what time of year might they give it to us what the what are they going to charge us for us it's all speculation right now and so until we get something a little more concrete than nothing we can't do anything else we can't sit around and wait and wait and wait and wait for Santa Cruz I've been told by them that they're not even going to make a decision until the end of 2020 as to whether they're doing you know transfer water or if they're doing their own purification plant or if they're doing their own desal plant or what so until they make their mind up and actually offer us something we don't have anything to do so my comments okay so let's move on let's move on item 5.1 the board planning calendar yes I'll point out a couple items the finance and administrative service standing committee is next Monday four to five that's director Christensen and director Daniels then also next Wednesday October 24th from 5 to 8 30 is the GSP advisory committee meeting and I have some notes on what went what we did at the last meeting but also on the following Monday October 29th is the water rates advisory committee and just want to make sure everybody's aware that at the next board meeting on November 6 it'll be starting at 5 p.m. it'll be at the community foundation and that'll involve a water demand offset workshop the board asked for so I know it's on the calendar I just want to highlight 5 p.m. community foundation that's all I have you comments board public I have when I'm meeting so I've already mentioned that I'm going to be in the east coast for the for the mid-county ground water agency meeting right Cardo's my alternate but I on I don't it'll extend into that meeting on the 20th so I'll still be back there so I could potentially conference call in but I don't have an address at the moment I will just be in touch on that yeah November 20th is it too late to make comment on the things not on the agenda things up not on the agenda okay go ahead I just talking with a lot of customers and one thing I'd like to see gentiles doesn't have to be right away is just about the chlorination process for our water and how that's monitored as it moves through our water system okay there have been some comments about high chlorine levels in certain parts of the district okay we can talk about that yeah all right thank you sure 5.2 special board assignments yeah I'll just note that director Christensen brought up a request at the October 2nd meeting that's been put on there and that's to agendize the are there any modifications we might make as an organization to make the board meetings more efficient but also staff's input to try to optimize our time and so Tracy's taking the lead on that we're researching what others have been doing and collecting some information so we envision bringing back a memo at an upcoming meeting that kind of is workshoppy in the sense of not necessarily hitting a resolution maybe at that meeting but soliciting more input and then coming back for a final I just want to make you aware of that any comments staff public board on the one we're just doing the special board assignments to point to okay but that so all of that the whole thing are just to just the administration 5.2 okay so I just wanted to be thanks staff for reaching out to the new golf course owners for the for the stormwater recharge thing so I realize I don't think the sales gone all the way through yet but I'm glad they're receptive and thanks for following up 5.3 quarterly organization wide stat abbreviated status update yeah and let me before Shelley kicks off one of the things we thought we dip our toe into regarding the optimization and timing is this report itself it's it's evolved over time and one of the things we've done is a couple four times a year I believe we elaborate on each manager does a more whole bigger picture view of what what they're doing and then in the other months it's more concise this is typically the month that we would everybody would have a very elaborate long report and as managers we got together and said you know sometimes that works sometimes it doesn't so what you see here is kind of some some managers chose to do a shorter shorter version some side to do more in depth it helps them so if that works for the board will probably continue this process in the future meaning on the organizational wide quarterly reports that are more comprehensive give the right to the manager whether to expand out more or not and the board finds that valuable it helps staff so and so the board can ask questions yeah yeah so with that right we'll jump into it conservation okay Ron mentioned that we're having the board workshop on the WDO program prior to the November 6 board meeting and I just wanted to add that we will be reaching out to the applicants that are on the waitlist to purchase offsets to let them know about the workshop and the event that they want to attend and gain that information or provide input so that was all you have any questions on the rest of the report yeah I maybe I'm a little primer on on making sure I understand the numbers on the chart of the WDO program status so just how all those numbers add up because on the current program yeah so for the current program there's 46 projects on the waitlist that take a maximum of about 37 acre feet of water we have applicants under the old program that have added to the actual shortfall or are expected to add to it once they get a building permit and come in and purchase their offsets the total offset shortfall is 34 wait I'm sorry here that's why I was trying to figure out the numbers yeah the actual shortfall is almost six acre feet and the shortfall on paper is 34 acre feet so the plan is to work with the people on the waitlist and get them through a new offset program allow them to purchase credits first our first dibs basically once we roll out an offset bank okay so okay what's anything else alright so what's next engineering well I was one of the managers that decided to give you a comprehensive report so I'm sorry about that I will highlight that the inner tie between service area three and four at the end of Sumner the pipeline is installed and we're filling it tomorrow and so the pressure test and back T testing will be this week and the pressure regulating vault has also been set if you've been driving around you can see that big box it's gonna reduce the pressure from sub area three to sub area four a very smooth project so far I want to jinx it but it's going well probably just a few weeks left and then we are also coordinating with PG&E but they're probably gonna hold us up a little also on tonight's agenda there you'll see the item for the granite way well we're we kind of separated that project out just because of the fact that we only got one bid last time but tonight we're asking the board to award a contract to put in the pumping equipment and then we'll return also over the next month or so to acquire some of the electrical panels and then also bring back a smaller contract to do all the rest of the stuff hopefully we'll get started on that project you know and finish sometime after the new year a lot of discussion tonight about surface water I'll also cover Christine's O&M report tonight so they sort of cross over since we're working together on that the the zone for the test pilot the first phase one pilot area has been isolated and you know one of the comments tonight was why not sooner well if you've if people understood we were waiting for our two wells that were out of service to in order to get a baseline for that sub area that small zone so now that Main Street well is back in service as well as O'Neill we can get that baseline started and that was done on October 9th and so starting next Monday we are going to begin sampling that zone the plan is to open the valve on November 26th if you want to put something on your calendar we are still coordinating with the department the division of drinking water a permit has not been issued but we do hope in the certainly by November 26 we will have that in hand responding to any comments they have so that's it for the engineering report let me see if there any questions go ahead yeah you have mentioned the TCP facility and it's sequel on hold coastal permit on hold design on hold and wondering is when are we going to get this going because that's not one that's gotten held up so don't we have to meet TCP regs at some point well yes right now but you know we have limited staffing and so we're we're trying to hit the high priority items it is a high high priority for O&M because it is a very critical source for us and in this year's budget we did budget for those three items obviously no construction but moving forward with some of the paperwork I think once we get the granted way well behind us then that would potentially be the next project we can check off the list but there's only so many of us in the office could we hire consultants to help with some of this work well yeah I mean the coastal permit is probably something we handle in-house sequa and design would would be something we would reach out to consultants anyway okay it's it doesn't mean that there's no work to be done when you hire consultants so yeah it it's definitely on our list just with the surface water ramping up this this month we don't have we haven't had any time to do that okay okay so you're now O&M O&M yeah I'll mention that the O'Neill well I did mention the O'Neill well is back online now that the lower 100 feet of screened perforations are blocked off it reduced the specific capacity of that well significantly I think I reported that at an earlier meeting so we have to be mindful of nearby the drawdown because of that lowered specific capacity so we're monitoring that very closely significant reduction in flow rates that well will be turned off during the transfer as well as the other two wells that's the whole point we'll have to turn it on to make sure it's available because there's no guarantee that the city won't have to turn off the inner tie I want to clarify that for everybody that it's and not a guarantee they may run into some problems and they need to turn off the inner tie so we need to be prepared to go back to wells right away but the plan is to stay on surface water as much as possible through April and then after that go back to the wells and continue the sampling and monitoring plan I will mention I don't believe it's in in the O&M report but the city is planning to do an ASR test at the belts 12 and that it overlaps this winter transfer period so they'll not only be putting in surface water into a belts 12 as an it's an injection or recharge well at the same time as sending what as us purchasing water from the city and meeting their own demand that's all going to happen during the same period the extraction and the third phase of that they want to pump that water back into the the recovered water back into their distribution system and we don't want that water coming to the transfer to the inner tie right and so we're going to try to coordinate to have that done after April so that we continue to receive surface water because the whole point is to to monitor water quality changes with surface water not groundwater so any questions on that for me okay thank you okay let's go on yeah so Melanie it yep Melanie's in the air right now been invited to speak down at Metropolitan Water District they have a conference going on down there so I'll pinch it for her a communication plan it's been developed for the water transfer project and the plan's been submitted to the division of drinking water for that's for the pilot project on October 18th the first session of the Waterwise Academy will be starting we have about nine or ten people that are interested in that customer so that's that's awesome also on that similar note this coming Saturday from 12 to 3 at the heart of Soquel Park there's the Water Harvest Festival which we're collaborating with a number of agencies the environmental review for the EIR pure water is going a little faster than anticipated we got less comments than I think ESA anticipated so they think that they'll be finished before the end of 2018 or early 2019 and let's see the district did receive $150,000 grant reimbursement from the federal government US Bureau of Reclamation for the feasibility for pure water so they provided us a grant for that feasibility study and have now wrote written a check to us and we're still waiting on further grant monies that that we applied for with the Bureau and we anticipate in the next month or two hearing from them so that's it for special projects and community outreach finance please so for finance I just wanted to give you a quick status update on the refunds for the lawsuits it's a little more laborious than we had first anticipated it means touching about 20,000 customer accounts manually so it's taking us a little bit longer than we anticipated but we are getting it done and we hope we anticipate having it done before the end of October the other thing is the Water Race Advisory Committee meets on October 29th and SV 998 was signed into law and that is a legal statute that addresses the discontinuation of water services under that statute we will have to wait at least 60 days after they become delinquent before we can shut off water service that has to be that has to be in place by February of 2020 and because we are already making procedural changes under our new Tyler encode utility billing system that will be rolling out probably May or June of next year we're thinking that we'll just incorporate those procedural changes for SB 998 as part of our Tyler updates so we'll bring you back in a policy on discontinuation human resources here's a little bit I did just want to give the board an update on our recruitment we did have a new employee start today in our customer service field conservation department we have Denver Grant who came to us from the Glendora Water District as an experienced water conservation worker and he'll be working as a customer service field representative so we're happy to have him on board we close the this position the board clerk executive assistant position and we start interviewing this week for that position so hopefully we'll be getting that position filled and due to an anticipated retirement we did get confirmation of that retirement so we advertised and we have a recruitment running right now for a operation supervisor which will be vacated at the end of this year. Thank you. General Manager. Right and so always keeping an eye on the bigger picture two things cut my eye this month and that is a Department of Water Resources published their water year 2018 recap and I think I took these bullet items directly out of their report but it's reference there hot and dry conditions return is the title for water year 2018 and I'll just run through the bullet items I think they're important nearly all the state experience below average precip precipitation much of Southern California ended up with half or less than the average that they get down there the water year coincided with ongoing warmer conditions setting records this summer for maximum temperatures in the south coast region the water year 2018 is indicative of California California's ongoing transition to a warmer climate which after years of extreme variability and annual precip resulted in record breaking wildfires so again the whole climate thing you know maybe at a inflection point even we're seeing a lot go on and then Hilly Ocean organization that keep on my radar they just they're starting to question why isn't more done with recycled water and so they published a report noting that 417 billion gallons of treated municipal waste is discharged through 57 locations and you know they wonder why I'll read here has no clear benefit to the environment or water supplies and if it was used aggressively it could it could make a dent that's the end that's how they include their report so I just wanted to share those two items great thank you okay any public comment about the reports. Thank you Becky Steinbrunner. Thank you Mr. Dufour for that great engineering report that's good news you've got a date November 26th that the valve is going to open that's really good news thank you running through April and I had a question regarding the O'Neill well you said it was back online is the O'Neill well indeed back online I want to make sure I heard that correctly it's been down for a very long time and I hope it is and that the ammonia issues resolved on page 100 of the report there's some discussion about Aptas village improvements and I wonder if you can elaborate a little bit about the storm drain improvements that may require relocation of water mains in the phase 2A and 2B what is 2A and 2B how do they differ and how much might that cost I think that's those are my main questions thank you very much anyone else okay see none you move on to item 6.0 item 5.5 I don't know the answer I don't want to but if you want to you can contact him later you may not have the information either okay public outreach committee summary yeah so the committee both that committee and the other committee met I think we have the summary here this is meant more for a venue for the board to elaborate I will say one of the things that I thought was nice was the portions of the I think it's attached here let me go here that's a oh yeah you do it yeah they went through some of the website stats and other factors so you can see that the websites been extremely successful we're getting much greater hits than the average I think twice if I remember correctly what a typical website so this was one of the things the board requested last time was our year or two ago public outreach looks good seems like we're hitting a lot of people let's try to quantify it and it's always a challenge of course the web helps you do that so that's one venue which we use let's arrow on down let's see what else we got so it just gives you a 30% open rate yeah the that's that's extremely high industry average is around 23% so we're about a roughly a third above that good work they're doing and just when you look at this you see the kind of work that the district's doing I mean the quarterly newsletter informing our customers that goes out of course the annual water quality report 12 press releases that's one one a month there are a bunch of ads and banners on the right side there and coming down collaborating with other agencies for where we can for things that are cross areas fix a leak one of my personal favorites because Vi Campbell and I tried to do this for 10 years I never got it off the ground now Shelly and Melanie and Becca have gotten magnets for the trucks that advertise the rebates and that sort of thing so really inexpensive yet effective method I think Shelly mentioned at the meeting that you've gotten a lot of the rebates are coming through these magnets so that's a positive thing and then of course the coffee talks the board and staff making an effort to to get on the community to reach the public and so we I think at least one other water agency commented that they're taking our almost exact ad and concept here and and running with it which is great because that's one of the things in water especially especially conservation and outreach that they capitalize on each other's good work is there anything else there to add oh yeah so it keeps on going the educational trailer which won an award recently in the learning center I plead with anybody who has not been to the district and gone through the learning center please do that the board was willing to give up their boardroom and make it into a learning center and it's got hands-on things to touch a little game for kids so give you a minute for your kid to be occupied while you take the tour that only takes a couple minutes small space but impactful and social media courses is important these days and a lot of numbers on that so just wanted to bring that bring that to the forefront there the outreach we've really stepped it up to communicate with our customers any questions comments 5 5 water resources committee yeah there's just a summary I won't necessarily elaborate on on this unless unless there are specific questions pretty much detailed there what we went through any questions on this comments I just had a comment on on minutes because it was about the last second last bullet on that cruise efforts on treated water isn't that it's not what's that what what where are we at oh yeah so he submitted an email Ken Gerard is a member of the public he's a customer that's on the committee as a public advisor and after the discussion we had this he sent an email saying how does he was unclear and he thought would be a good agenda item for an upcoming meeting regarding what the city's doing with their ASR aquifer storage and recovery so I took that shared it with the managers and Taj probably within four or five minutes sent a request over to Santa Cruz to attend the next meeting this this specific meeting to have one of their representatives come in and talk about that so that's in in motion I believe they said yeah they would send some one of one of their staff representatives so that's what that's pertaining to and I know they also give tours of their plant too if you really wanted to get into it right right okay any questions comments on that mid-county groundwater agency update yeah so I know we have two board members that are on that president Tom LeHue is president of that committee right now and director Daniels you're on it just an opening for that I will just set the stage that we're kind of crossing a precipice into less planning results that are coming out of it which is refreshing to see so at the last meeting there wasn't too much on the agenda I think a the biggest item was some more work for Montgomery and associates used to be hydrometrics to do additional work but the kind of the roll up your sleeves work is being done at the groundwater sustainability plan advisory committees that meet monthly as opposed to the MGA which meets by monthly so at the last GSP advisory committee meeting some of the preliminary modeling results were presented that they have been doing and we plan on continuing with that at the next meeting like the other big thing was the water basin status report which was on our agenda right right you're right that was also there any comments on that yeah I I have a comment okay the ground water standardly sustainability plan advisory committee is starting to get down to the point where we're doing our first iteration that at the metrics that are required in the sustainability plan and one thing that's being evaluated right now is any of the board any input on that I'd like to hear well close the coast it's the protective groundwater right we've already determined or if we use the water model to develop some new numbers it's those but for right now we have is the protective level yes yeah if I might add to elaborate on director Jaffe saying so in the the metrics I believe you're referring to are the indicators sustainability indicators there's six or seven really and one of them is groundwater levels and so what we've done this is an iterative process but set the lower threshold the minimum acceptable number and so now they're going back yeah that's that's the the lowest floor so to speak but what do we really want to obtain as as a community what are the levels were we shooting for not what's just barely acceptable so you have your high goal or your goal and then you have the minimal and we're we're on to the high goal now or the goal and we'll iterate back through okay and I guess I just on that I guess once again that might come down to a little bit more modeling right because like if you model like worst drought and you had protective levels then how long would that be protective for you want you would like to have a margin of safety yeah yeah it definitely more iterations of the model for example what they did at the last the model results they presented last time my interpretation of what they were saying and it was done in a different way but they said what's the basin need and they so they just assumed we cut back our pumping X amount and so that looked like I think they cut us back a couple scenarios 13 or 1400 acre feet and then assumed we got a couple hundred acre feet from the city of Santa Cruz so it was roughly a 1500 acre foot deficit is the way I interpreted it but that they said oh and they may be able to improve that if they optimize if we can optimize pumping a little bit more but the but is that that still didn't heal down in the aromas and then over toward the Santa Cruz area what we call the TU the lower aquifer near the granitic base with the sediments also is experiencing some significant drawl down so you might be able to take care of part of the middle of the basin with that amount of cut back and but the two edges so I have to solve that portion of the riddle riddle to any other comments on that none just okay come on up thank you Becky Stein burner I I just would like to point out that the summary of the committee meetings to do reflect that members of the public were there but reflect nothing of public comment at those meetings and I think there should be some notation on the the minutes or the committee summaries that the nature of the comments that the public did did submit so I I would like that I would also like to see that in future committee meetings and actually board meetings to there be a declaration of ex parte communication I think that lends itself well to transparency and in addition to the report about the mid-county groundwater agency update there is I believe a tour coming up next week on October 23rd for the GSP members and also members of the public that are interested in touring some of these monitoring wells and maybe you have more information I know that it is going to happen but I think that would be I would appreciate you putting that out to the public here at this meeting tonight so maybe those at home listening could and would be interested in going could sign up thank you very much yeah I don't know the the times on that I'm not involved with that personally I know that outreach is handling that it's this I know it's in our our report that we just mailed to everyone our other blasts from the MGA yeah it's Tuesday yeah there's a set up to visit different sites along the you know the creeks well here it is October 23rd but you knew that already are you interested in the mid-county groundwater basin and want to learn more you are invited to join our GSP advisory committee on a groundwater basin tour we will visit a monitoring well production wells a drinking water storage tank a stream gauge and a few locations on Soquel Creek we will meet staff from agencies that work together on this region to help protect habitat values and improve water supply reliability so that is the basic description of it sounds interesting is that on our website director christensen are you reading no I'm reading on a mailer oh no nine o'clock meet at coastal monitoring well I have oral argument so we won't have a decision on that case until 90 days after the oral argument so my guess is probably not before the end of the year great Oaks is sitting in limbo in San Jose nobody seems to know what's going on I'm still talking to Bob Johnson is one of the attorneys about it and one of the bills that didn't get a lot of attention is SB 1244 which was adopted and it actually can completed all the water demand offset requirements they were placed 35 low-flow toilets installed 35 low-flow toilets they're ready for your consideration public comment on that back okay I'm gonna move approval we have a motion second roll call please director lehu yes director christensen yes director Jaffe yes president Daniels no that passes let's see we go on to six to new ordinance so item 6.2 is the second reading of ordinance 1802 superseding ordinance 1801 fixing rates charges and fees and this is just kind of bringing us back full circle to wrap up all of the rate changes that were a result of the lawsuit settlement so this is just the final reading and adoption of that any public comment I'll make I'll make the motion hold on we have public comment sorry no problem you couldn't see it for the Becky Steinbruner for the public's benefit can you please review the necessity for 1802 and specified particularly fire services and that was determined at a later time and so 180 questions nope I'll make the motion I'll second the motion roll call please director lehu yes director christensen yes director Jaffe yes and president Daniels yes okay and now we go to the aforementioned Santa Cruz Mid County Basin groundwater monitoring update great yes so this was presented to the MGA the Mid County groundwater at their last meeting actually it was on the consent agenda so it wasn't presented it was just in there as an informational item so knowing we're kind of the heart of the basin and our board's background state of critical overdraft and that's you can see it up there on the screen their exact words are therefore the basin continues to be in a state of overdraft it does suggest that seawater intrusion is not particularly increasing at this time although because of the water levels coming up although we just had a gentleman walk in our door a couple months ago where his well just got hit so the with seawater intrusion so basins doing better we're not there yet so you know what I don't want what I want people to be acknowledged in my mind is that hey all the great work that our customers have done in this stage three curtailment has made a difference and they're cutting back approximately 25% over the last couple years and the good work that Taj and his team have done redistributing the pumping I can't under overestim over emphasize that enough because it's crucial in the in the mix the lower demand on the basin by our customers during our stage three curtailment has lowered usage and given us a little bit more breathing space in how we operate our wells basically reducing pumping at the coast and also the EIR we did a couple years ago for the five wells to move at the board approved that to move some of the wells in such as granite way what a couple of the other wells polo and O'Neill would be three of those well so that that's made a difference so however the what what I'm concerned about is the bounce back our potential rebound from this huge conservation effort that our customers have been doing so you know the two we found two good pieces of data one is a stand for report and actually that does a good analysis but it doesn't really reach a conclusion they say it's very complex how rebound occurs and they haven't nailed it yet however there's another graph and it's cited in that upper diagram I'm going to pull it up since it's not in the report it's just linked and that's this chart and this is a this is a very revealing chart in my mind this is from water deeply and I'll just slowly walk you through it this is a graph you got years along and months along the bottom there on the x-axis and on the left y-axis is percentage of adults and on the right y-axis is water savings and percentage of adults on the left is that's of awareness or think that the water supply is a big issue so what you see here is when the water supply was high in people's minds around 65 70 percent as being a big issue and that was due to the kind of universal wide statewide press of the drought and everything conservation spiked and went way up it went from just a couple percent up to around 25 30 percent however as the state started to say hey it the drought is now over you and not making such a big deal of it in the press the consumption also declined almost in line with it so I guess my point is that at some point we hope to lift the stage three curtailment that's part of the effort behind the community water plan to get supplemental supplies so prevent seawater intrusion and not make it so arduous on our customers but in my mind this graph suggests that once we do that we'll probably see some similar to what we're seeing here and we've already seen when you look at our reports what we're seeing is a steady incremental increase already in usage especially in the summer months but some in the indoor also so reason to to be proud of our customers they've they've towed the line this far and the request and the call to conserve and I think that has staved off further seawater intrusion however there probably come a time that you know I know they want to go back to normal usage and when they are told that it's okay to do so you'll probably see it the consumption rebound in accordance to this it already has it already has rebounded it has not as bad as the rest of the state but but I think I think that's a lot to our messaging I mean we're out there if you look at every newsletter every it always I mean don't give up don't give up thank you your your your wholeness till we can get a supplemental supply you know I know I don't know of any agency that that message is as strong as we do on the conservation side of things because we need to I would like to comment on page 158 so the interesting part about this a4 which is off the screen at the bottom there's a four a4 is a foot and a half off of protective levels a3 is also off protective levels but not by much two tenths approximately and a8 is also off of protective levels about a foot kind of interesting that you know all three of there are not protective except a2 yes in the middle so I'm not quite sure why that would be the case that a2 is pretty good and the other three are not if you go over to Soquel Point it is still also not at protective levels that's of course in the city of Santa Cruz is live oak area so that's one of their wells that's saltwater trusion there and the other thing is a5 5a right up there in the kind of Aptos area and that's kind of a dangerous place because there's that big pumping depression inland from there so they're off a foot and a half so worrisome yeah can I comment on that because you know when I get this information I go back and look at our old you know where we were just I think it was 2012 it was 70 feet below sea level there and knowing if we in inland right 70 the groundwater levels were 70 feet below sea level inland that are pumping well and basically sucking in seawater in the aquifer I would I in my and the hydrologist did some estimates we've published those in previous documents but that if we continued that we would have it would hit our main wheel failed in two years and so you know now we have the sky Tim data showing that it is right at the coast so if we had continued that we hadn't reduced our pumping moved our pumping inland then my conclusion based on their analytics is that well fill would be hit right now in their five production well yeah it's our heart of our production for sure so it's still not out of the woods though because we're not at the protective level that's the biggest thing I carried away from the study any public comment I have a comment oh sure go ahead so these protected levels the numbers that are reported or some type of average in terms of where the groundwater level is relative to protected levels and if you look at for instance SC3A which is on the page 166 of the agenda even though the average is above the protected level there are times of year where some water levels are low protected so that does not give me a good feeling at all that because assuming that the protective level is the right level whenever you go below that whether it's an average or whether it's just for a short period of time see what will be coming in that's a good point what other though go ahead just so using averages it's five of the 13 coastal and the numbers I was giving out was the offset from the 12 month average there's also a three month average because this was done in the spring the three month is a lot better than the 12 month yeah the other thing is remember when we came up with those protective levels we debated we decided on a 70% confidence level you know so I mean if you if you just want to increase that confidence level a little bit that makes them higher and I wonder just just to remind myself in that of that right but you know if I may comment that's a great point that director Jaffee makes this is not a game of averages here I'm I am an average I I do the average that's my kind of mantra but in these kind of things because I think it pans out in the long run but in this kind of scenario just like episodic stream and erosion it doesn't happen as an average you know and when you do get a dip and it is below a protective level it's it is pulling the seawater intrusion in there so you cannot go by the averages on this any other okay thank you Becky Steinbrunner first of all I want to point out that this data is only up until January 1st 2015 so I would like to see some more current data but I think in looking through this what really amazes me is that the the aquifer appears to be very resilient and responsive to conservation because leading up to 2015 that was a drought time and people really did a great job conserving but even the data goes to 2018 just well that's not what I'm seeing on the graph okay well that's the last labeled point is January 2015 but there's three bars after that which would take you to 2018 table one demonstrates it up on the screen March oh well on the graphs that's not labeled at all well that's because every five years is labeled uh-huh okay okay well that's not clear well all right well thank you well then that's even better because again it shows these are spring numbers which are best case numbers I'm sorry these are spring numbers yeah which means they're the best case it's after a year of rain season of rainfall okay thank you so to me that even reinforces the resiliency of of the aquifer and what I see overall is that the groundwater levels have come up and what I see in most cases is that the chloride and total dissolved solids have gone down or stabilized and I think that's very good even at the Moran Lake thing on page 162 166 number 3a the groundwater level is up 167 5a the chloride is is down or stable groundwater elevations up 168 9c the groundwater level is up 169 8d it's up one page page 170 and 1a the groundwater level up and 176 3a the groundwater level is up so that is all good news at what point does the district decide that you can remove the I believe in your tier your fee structure you charge an emergency water rate so at what point do you correlate this information with how you're going to be charging your customers and and maybe adjust some of the urgency of the pure water so-called plan to give the water transfer program a bit of a chance thank you we look at all the numbers can I make a comment okay yeah you know one of the things that can be misinterpreted is the dynamic nature of the aquifer and what I think is being realized is that the aquifer is more responsive than what the hydrologists originally intended and so what goes up fast goes down very fast so what it's suggesting to us is that a you any temporary hit on the offer whether it's pulling or drought would cause the numbers to go down quickly and so this is actually makes us more concerned as we approach it not less concerned so I think it's important to note that you know the aquifer actually is extremely responsive to give you an idea we used to measure water levels essentially by putting a stick down and seeing where the water was located in the well we did that every month or two or quarter or whatever and now we put electronic meters in when we did that we found out water levels were going up and down every day along with the tide so go up and down we go up twice a day and down and up and down just from the title so it's a very responsive thing it's a system okay let's move on I have a thought I have a comment okay and I'm glad people like Becky aren't taking a close look at this but for instance on page 166 there's a five-year timeline and where it shows the levels going up but if you look at the last three years of it they're pretty stable so I think it's a misrepresentation that all these water levels are going up so just want to make that comment to be careful and interpreting the data and not to just look at a five-year trend yep quite true anything else okay so we move on item 6.4 grant way well side improvements thank you as I reported earlier in my status report we had to bisect this project to hopefully save the district some money and the ratepayers some money last month we received we had this project out to bid as a combined project and we received only one bid and it was $276,000 over our budget our estimate so there's a couple items big ticket items that staff can handle kind of independently and individually and so this is this item that will include installing the well pump the column pipe that brings the water up from the pump and discharge head as well as the concrete pedestal and also the wire that goes to the pump to the submersible motor after that we will it'll sit it'll be sealed and protected and then we'll hopefully order that's this contract and that's the only only scope of work for this separately will bring the electrical cabinets and then some of the other work that we need to do but this is just to get the ball rolling we did solicit two proposals we tried to get more but these both were significantly less than what was itemized in the big the lump sum bid in September so staff feels confident we've worked with both of these contractors before we're we're comfortable working with precision hydro it's actually a sister company of the company that drilled the well for the district so it is our recommendation to award this bid to precision hydro and we'll move forward with ordering the equipment and installing this part of the project just so it was significantly less than the bid that came in and how did it compare with the engineers estimate this is in line with what we've seen we would have expected absolutely mr. Jeff that was my same question okay thank you for the creative approach to this to find it a way to get this work done for less money thank you public comment thank you Becky Steinbrunner I I was interested to see the Pacific Coast well-drilling bid on this I do remember there was some legal dispute after the initial drilling and I just want to verify that you that the district is confident that they will do a good job that there won't be any further legal action that would bring expense to the ratepayers and cause delays to them the work and just in in closing having just we've all just examined the the groundwater modeling it still baffles me that this new well is being drilled in the Aptos Village project instead of up further inland at the quail run tank where maybe the soils might have even been better than the clay soils at Aptos Village thank you anyone else just I don't maybe before does I don't remember any legal issues the rising out of the drilling of that well with the well-driller was there no no there were any I don't know what that comment came from I don't either because I mean the idea that our engineering manager would even bring something if he had a concern about that kind of takes me off and all these well locations were ones that were picked by our hydrologist after careful examination of the entire district and where would be the best place and all of them went through an EIR and that's why it's there in fact we picked another place we'd have to go off and spend pile of money to do another EIR because you don't have approval to put it anywhere else so right so it looks like there are four motions to be made I will make those I will second roll call please director Lehu yes director Christensen yes director Jaffe yes and president Daniels yes so that passes thank you and just for clarification you passed all four motions as written correct and we have two letters they kind of stand up say what they say any comment on those public comment is the writer of one of those two letters I copied you on my comment on the Twin Lakes Church pilot recharge project did the district extend the public comment for that project okay well I would just as I said in my comment like to point out that the the environmental study for it was really done as just a standalone project not really linking it at all to what its true purpose is and that's an injunction injection well for the pure water SoCal project and I really I really think that needs to be examined that's considered in the other EIR what about all the trees that will be removed with this that wasn't considered in the EIR that wasn't there so the other issue that I have with this project is that from the public's thoroughfare on career college strive there is no notice at all you have to go up into the church property and you have to park in their private parking lot to see a small laminate piece of paper and so I really feel that this project has not had adequate noticing not visibly public in on career college drive and again it was not on your district website immediately with if people went to the website I I did that and I came to you before and pointed it out so again I really feel like this project has not received thorough public noticing and I know you're going to move forward with it because that's what you've got on your mind but I just want to protest it thank you anyone else I think we're done with all the written communications and correspondence and so we now go to close session there are two items for discussion there's any public comment on those yes I do Becky Steinbruner and again I want to point out that without even having adopted this project obviously the property acquisition at 2505 Chanticleer Avenue the Lamb property is for pure water so Cal project as is the property at 2701 Cabrillo College Drive from the Twin Lakes Church and it it irritates me that this very expensive transit these variant expensive transactions are moving forward without the completion of your EIR without the board formally approving and adopting it as a project that you're willing to take on and without any vote at all from your ratepayers or the other users other people who depend on this pure charisma aquifer for our water and I think it's very irritating and I just again want to protest that your board I think is not being transparent and the ratepayers have no idea what is going on as Mr. Canizaro told you most people are not in favor of this most people have no idea that they're looking at another rate increase in March and one every year after that for five years that's what your plans have said to pay for this project and yes you are applying for grants and yes I'm happy to hear that you're getting some but it's still these these grants the seventy million dollar grants anyway are reimbursement grants and some of them will take possibly ten years to get reimbursement so you're putting a huge debt burden on your ratepayers and I really want to point out that there are no safe drinking water standards for many of the pharmaceuticals in DMA and other unknown contaminants that cannot even be tested for because sewage is a chemical soup and you can't test for what you don't know is there that's been put out in many local sources and you're rolling your eyes director Lehu that's all right you do that but I'm still protesting and I'm not alone there's a there's a groundswell of people out there who are not at all happy with both the expense and the health risk of this project thank you anyone else thank you for your comments I do not agree right that I wasn't rolling my eyes I just closed my eyes because I've heard this a lot of times and like I said the science behind it what actually water that's been purified compared with pretty much any other source is going to be a better quality so Marilyn Garrett 37 year resident of Aptos I do agree with Becky Steinbruner's comments and think we're reading different science and so it's related to her letter and that's the comments right now yes and sewage water is a chemical soup what the rape payers are facing here without being informed without their consent I think is improper and the fact that you're moving ahead without the EIR being completed seems backwards in the procedural steps that need to take place I also understand by let's see twin lakes that to do this project many old trees will be cut down I'm very much against cutting trees and speaking of cutting trees related to that PGD is doing massive cutting of trees in the county that's not that's not no no but the ground water this is gonna affect the water levels and quality everywhere and I think that's key that we need to look at always thank you anyone else okay you're done we go to closed session I just mentioned one thing is just that the cost when it was analyzed of water if we don't have any kind of supplemental supply ends up being more much more per unit of water