 Good afternoon. I'd like to call the meeting of the Board of Public Utilities for the City of Santa Rosa to order. Hopefully Board Member Watts will be joining us shortly. If we may go ahead, please and have a roll call. Chair Galvin. Here. Vice Chair Arnone. Here. Board Member Badenford. Here. Board Member Grable. Here. Board Member Walsh. Here. Board Member Watts. Board Member Wright. Here. So good afternoon to all of you. Reminder to please have your phones and microphones muted when you're not speaking and to put away all cell phones and personal computers. Also want to announce that at staff's request we are pulling item 7.2. It will come back to us in a future meeting. At this point, item number 2, Statements of Abstention by Board Members. Do we have any? Hearing none. We have no study session. Next is the approval of the minutes for May 19th. We're now taking public comments on the minutes approval. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you're dialing in via telephone, please dial star 9 to raise your hand. Secretary Aitha. We have no public comments. Okay, the minutes will be approved and entered. We'll move to item 5.1. Acting Director McNeil. Thank you, Chair Galvin. Members of the Board, I am pleased to introduce Peter Martin, Deputy Director of Water Resources, and Colin Close, the Senior Water Resources Planner, to share with us the water supply update. Good afternoon, Chair Galvin and Members of the Board. I'll just pause for a brief moment and wait for the presentation to come up. But yeah, with me today is Colin Close, Senior Water Resources Planner. If we can go ahead and move to the next slide. As of today, Current Storage and Lake Pillsbury is 54,500 acre-feet. This represents about 82% of normal for this time of year. Storage is declining somewhat rapidly in Lake Pillsbury at this time. PG&E did file a variance from their FERC mandated releases and flows in the East Fork of the Russian River. And I will talk about that in a few slides later. But at this time, as you can see, based on that graph, there's sort of a tan line or beige line. I guess I'll pick a color there. And there's about a 20,000 acre-feet delta between storage last year versus storage this year in Lake Pillsbury. Next slide. In terms of Lake Menzino, Current Storage is about 50,300 acre-feet as of today. In terms of the target of their water supply storage, that's about 57% of the target water supply storage for this time of year. Releases were at about, I believe, 80 cubic feet per second today. And about a 30-acre-foot change in storage over the last seven days. Next slide. And in terms of storage in Lake Sonoma, storage is about 135,000, 300-acre-feet, and releases are set at about 160 cubic feet per second. Over the last seven days, due to the fact that the existing temperature change order has expired on June 8th for Sonoma water, they have had to ramp up releases in both Menzino and Lake Sonoma. And so over the last seven days, storage has declined in Lake Sonoma, a little over 2,000 acre-feet. So with these new minimum and extreme flows as a result of the expiration of their last temperature change order, it's resulting in about a loss of 350 to 400 acre-feet of water per day. So as you know, Sonoma water has filed a temperature change petition, which I'll talk a little bit about more in the next slide. So Sonoma water filed a temperature change petition on May 25th. This was delayed somewhat, given that they learned in mid-May that PG&E intended to file a variance from their existing flow requirements under their high-power license issued by FERC. As I mentioned earlier, on June 8th, the existing temperature change order expired, meaning that the water year base reverts back to being based on Lake Pillsbury's inflow. And based on that inflow to Lake Pillsbury, that kicks the Russian River watershed into being classified as a normal water year. That normal water year classification, which is further categorized as normal dry spring 2 per their Dec. 1610 that governs Sonoma water's water rights, dictated that minimum extreme flows ramp up to 75 cubic feet per second in the upper Russian River and 125 in the lower. So as you can see, previously they were operating under 25 cubic feet per second and 35 cubic feet per second. There was a significant ramp up during that time frame. Sonoma water is petitioning, as you know, that the state board classified the watershed as critical and reduced those flows back to the 25 cubic feet per second in the upper and 35 cubic feet per second in the lower as soon as possible. That petition is on file and they are waiting a decision by the State Water Resource Control Board. Sonoma water again, much like last year is committing to a 20% reduction in diversions between the time frames of July 1st and October 31st when compared to 2020. We did hear from Sonoma water staff that if these changes are granted, Sonoma water's modeling shows that waters by will adequately remain above 100,000 acres of storage in Lake Sonoma by October 1st. Next slide. And then in terms of PG&E's request for a variance on their minimum and stream flow requirements under their hydropower license, you know, PG&E filed a variance request on May 13th for relief from their FERC mandated flows for the Potter Valley project. Beginning on May 15th PG&E was required to release a begin releasing a minimum of 75 cubic feet per second into the East Fork or the Russian River per their normal water year operating conditions. Their request is that the minimum flow required to be reduced down to a critical minimum of five cubic feet per second. Obviously that five cubic feet per second considers that they will be required to make their contractual releases to satisfy Potter Valley irrigation districts irrigation needs. So it's a little it's more water than that but the bypass the total amount that has to be minimum released into the East Fork is five cubic feet per second is the request. And this request is based upon a target of 30,000 acre feet of storage remaining in Lake Pillsbury by mid-September. This request is mainly to support cold water releases in the Eel River for protected fish species. This is a departure from last year's critical target of 12,000 acre feet. So last year if you remember they also filed a variance but the target was 12,000 acre feet by mid-September. As of today that variance has not been granted by FERC to PG&E. PG&E did submit some new modeling with the proposed start date of July 1st. There have been several comment letters including one from the Water Advisory Committee asking FERC to consider something different than the minimum and stream flow request. And so that has been going on through their mandated processes for a decision by FERC at this time. Next slide. In terms of cumulative drought reductions this graph keeps getting wider and wider so I think at some point maybe some of these months are going to have to drop off before the end of next year but I'll figure out how to display this going forward. But at least we're getting close to having a full year of data here. In May of this last month Santa Rosa residents reduced their water use by 15% in comparison to 2020 and from July through May of this year water use has been reduced by 18% cumulatively when compared to 2020. So we're hoping and banking on some additional savings occurring in the summer as folks typically would start irrigating quite a bit. And next slide. I just wanted to highlight that the State Water Resource Control Board adopted emergency conservation regulations on May 24th. A lot of outreach has been going on regarding the adoption of these regulations. Effective essentially this week commercial industrial and institutional what is defined as non-functional turf is no longer allowed to be irrigated. There are some exceptions which include if a property owner determines that the turf is used for human recreation, civic purposes or sports or play. The turf is irrigated with non-pubble water or recycled water and that or the turf is on the same valve as at least one tree or perennial non-turf planting and the turf is owned by a resident or within a apartment complex but not at a commercial industrial or institutional location. So as you can imagine there's a little bit of confusion but really they're looking at these common areas that are not typically used for any purpose other than more decorative purposes. The enforcement authority for this requirement resides with the State Water Resource Control Board. This week we have begun direct outreach in form of letters updates to our web pages that will go out directly to those CII customers and we intend to be ready to respond to the public when they have several questions regarding this new requirement. Further they as expected the preliminary annual water supply and demand assessment was required to be submitted by June 1st. Santa Rosa water did submit by that date a preliminary annual water supply and demand assessment. Colin Close will give you a presentation in this water supply update on the full annual water supply and demand assessment which is required to be submitted by July 1st and then further all urban water suppliers in the state are required to implement conservation actions consistent with their locally adopted plans that are meant to address at least a water storage level of 10 to 20 percent which is consistent with level to according to the state's standards. We as you know are in stage three of our plan which is a mandatory 20 percent community-wide target. So that concludes my portion of the presentation at this point I'm going to hand it over to Colin Close. Thank you very much. If we could get the next slide please. Good afternoon Chair Galvin and members of the board. So as deputy director Martin indicated we do have this annual water supply and demand assessment requirement was adopted in 2018 and goes into full effect this year. The overarching idea the state wants to see water providers consider how much water supply they would have over the upcoming 12 months and the state has defined the upcoming year as July 1st of that reporting year through June 30th of the coming year and look at the supply projections assuming the coming year will be dry and then also look at unconstrained demand that's the ordinary amount of water customers would use if they were not in drought or not coming out of drought just the ordinary amount and that has to also include growth projections impacts of climate change and this sort of thing. So unconstrained demand compared to supply that's been impacted by a dry year. When water suppliers do that math if they anticipate there'll be a shortage part of that reporting process to the state each year is to tell the state what level of shortage will be triggered and what actions are going to take from their water shortage plans to mitigate the water shortage and then this report is submitted to DWR Department of Water Resources each year by July 1st. So that's just overarching what the state is looking for with the first report being due this year. Next slide. Compliance actually began when we updated our 2020 urban water management plan and our 2020 water shortage plan. There were two elements in those documents. One was a set of procedures we needed to tell the state ahead of time how we were going to do our water supply assessment. So we did include procedures that talked about the data, the personnel, the partners that we would be working with to assess our water supplies and our demands each year. And then we also needed to do a drought risk assessment and that was looking at the immediate five years 2021 through 2025 and project out how much water supply we think our community would need under normal circumstances and then compare it to water shortage type conditions or drought conditions. So we did both of those processes in the planning stages of developing those plans and submitting them and now we're in the implementation phase which is to actually do the assessment, determine whether or not there would be a shortage in the coming year and then report to the state. Next slide please. As Deputy Director Martin mentioned, there was an emergency set of regulations adopted May 24th related to the drought that required our first report be due June 1st in a preliminary status and then the final report of course still being due July 1st. The state asked that folks use the best available information that they had. They were very interested in knowing whether or not shortages were being anticipated by water suppliers, what actions they were going to take. But the state has also said regardless of whether a supplier has adequate supplies, they must consider activating all of the kinds of response actions they would if they were going into a 10 to 20 percent water shortage. So it's kind of an interesting piece here that on the one hand part of this whole process was to allow local control. So if folks had invested quite a bit in their water supply portfolio that and they could avoid drought conditions in terms of water supply when they had dry years, the state is still asking for folks to respond even if they have adequate water supply. So it's a bit tricky for some of the water suppliers as you can imagine around the state. Next slide please. So for Santa Rosa's process, we look at quite a bit of data from different data sources and we consider not only the supplies but also the demands and then do the math. So for the supply side, Sonoma Water provides 93 percent of our water supply each year so they have conducted their own water supply and demand assessment. We provided demand projections to them and they looked at all of their major contractors and the small contracts that they have as well, all of the customers that they serve and tried to determine whether or not they would have adequate supply if it were a dry winter. We looked at our city wells, we've looked at 15 years of data, they reliably produce about 7 percent of our supply in wet years and dry years and we also considered recycled water. There's a very small amount of our landscaping that is supplied recycled water. So we look at that and that has been reliable in dry years and wet years because those recycled water customers are considered the highest priority. So in looking at water supply, Sonoma ran its very data-rich, complex, sophisticated water model that has about 100 years of hydrologic information, about 40 years of water demand information. So they ran that process and they determined that technically speaking, yes they would have adequate supply to meet demand and I'll talk a little bit more about that in a moment. In terms of unconstrained demand, when we looked at our unconstrained demand assessments, we considered population growth, increased housing, increased commercial accounts and we considered the projections we had in our urban water management plan for that five-year dry period assessment. So we looked at those, they're a bit aggressive in terms of the population growth and housing numbers were higher in those projections than we've actually seen but we went with those to be conservative. We'd rather overestimate the amount of water our community needs than underestimate particularly when we're in dry conditions and we need to make sure we have adequate water supply. Next slide please. So when we compare supply to demand, we do on paper technically have adequate supply to meet these unconstrained demands for the upcoming year, even if winter is dry. But I'll remind you of something I think you're very aware, we look at two to three-year planning horizons. So certainly we need to consider our immediate water supply conditions, our immediate demands but we know we have to not only face potentially a dry winter this winter but there could be a dry winter in the subsequent and even the third winter. So we always are thinking not only about this immediate year but its subsequent years as well and as you heard from Deputy Director Martin, Sonoma Water thinks along the same line so they have filed a temporary urgency change petition that includes a commitment to cut back deliveries by 20%. So when they're talking about diverting water from the Russian River with 20% reductions from July through October of this year, we are also considering the fact that we need to do the same. We need to make sure that we are managing our water supply very carefully. So the lake has nearly two years of water supply in it but if this winter is dry and the subsequent winter is dry, we still need to be able to provide water to our customers. So we are reporting to the state that we do have adequate supply for unconstrained demands but we are also reporting to the state that we will remain in a Stage 3 water shortage until the lake recovers to a degree that all of the contractors and Sonoma Water in the state have confidence that there's adequate water supply to come out of those drought emergency conditions. So we have reported to the state that we will continue to implement a Stage 3 water shortage to be conservative with our water supply and make sure that we have adequate supply for our community for not only this year but subsequent years. Next slide please. So we're going to show you the tables. They're going to be a little hard to read. I apologize. We tried to zoom in on them. There are a couple of them that will zoom in even further but we just wanted to give you a sense of what this report looks like. The preliminary report was submitted to the state. That is a public document. Any members of the public who are interested, they will be posting the submittals that the state receives on July 1st. The state will make all of those available to the public. But if any member of the public is interested, they are more than welcome to reach out to us and we can provide them with the preliminary report and the final report. Just to let you know, we do not anticipate any changes from this preliminary report. We submitted it a few weeks ago. Things have not changed substantially since then. We do not anticipate things are going to be changing in the next two weeks. So what you see today is what we will be submitting to the state. Next slide please. So the first table of five tables simply provides contact information about who the state can reach out to should they have questions about the report. Next slide please. The second table shows the projections that we have come up with in terms of this unconstrained demand. The amount of water our community would use if there were no drought in sight. If we hadn't been in drought, weren't recovering from a drought, weren't anticipating a drought, that normal ordinary water demand. And as I said, this is actually probably higher than we would have actually seen if we were not in drought because we haven't seen the population in housing numbers that we did anticipate we projected in our urban water management plan. So water demand would actually probably be a little lower than this, but again we want to be conservative. There's also, so that's 20,050 acre feet for potable and 140 acre feet for landscape irrigation with non-potable recycled water. Next slide please. We also have projected our water supplies. Sonoma water confirmed that they could provide the amount of water that we would need if we had unconstrained demands. We know our city wells can produce water for us to help with about 7% of that demand. So that shows that we would have 20,050 acre feet of potable water and 140 acre feet of recycled water for those 32 or so landscape sites. I just also want to mention the state offered an opportunity for any agency that wished to to project out their demands and their supply by month. Some agencies have water supplies that are only available during certain times of year. They may have legal restrictions or operational restrictions on those supplies. For Sonoma counties, most of the providers here in Sonoma County, including the city of Santa Rosa, our annual basis is really appropriate. We have our water supplies. We know what they can provide over a year and they aren't really limited by seasonality. So we went ahead and used the default, which is just to simply use annual projections. Next slide, please. So I'm going to zoom in on this one if you'll hit the next slide, please. So what this shows us is the demand for water we projected 20,050 acre feet could be provided by our available supplies. We would have 20,050 acre feet. And so technically speaking, our shortage level would be zero. However, because of the way the city is conservative with our water supplies, because Sonoma water has taken action to be very conservative with the water supply, because Lake Sonoma is at the lowest level. It's been in 30 years. And because the state is expecting local water providers to enact shortage conditions up to 20%, what we've done is we've shown that technically there is no water shortage, but we will be doing water conservation. We don't have additional water supplies to augment our existing water supplies at this point, but we can do conservation. So that shows that we would reduce water use by about 20% using our water shortage contingency plan stage three actions. Next slide, please. Because we have said we're going to do conservation, we wanted to show the state in table five. This is the last table of this report. All of the shortage response actions that we are taking now and will continue to take, we have projected through June of 2023, of course, if we have a very saturated wet season this year, of course, then we may be able to lift that sooner, but we're just going to project it out to June to be conservative in this report. If you'll hit the next slide, please, we'll zoom in on these. So what we're doing is we have all of our stage three restrictions in place and prohibitions, all of our water waste ordinance enforcement and elevated enforcement with things like water waste patrols. We also have all of our rebate programs, technical assistance, do-it-yourself kits, videos, workshops, etc. So this is to show the state that we have a very comprehensive suite of activities that we can do. Many of them are ongoing. As you know, our water conservation programs are ongoing, water waste enforcement is ongoing, and then we also have additional things such as the prohibitions and restrictions that we put in place during stage three. Next slide, please. So as I said, that is the preliminary report. We anticipate submitting that unchanged, as it is, as you've seen it today, in time for the July 1st deadline. We have no substantial material changes to make. Sonoma water has not changed anything in looking at their water model. We don't see any changes of significance to population growth or development or housing. There's just simply nothing here that would drive us to make any changes to that report. So we anticipate submitting it as you saw it today. Next slide, please. So with that, we are happy to take any questions you might have about the annual water supply and demand assessment and about the update on our water supply conditions. Thank you. Thank you to both gentlemen. We'll now open it up for any board member questions or comments. Hearing none and seeing nobody unmuting, we'll go ahead and take public comments on item 5.1. 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 Aitha. There are no public comments. All right. Thanks again for the reports. We'll move to item 5.2. Acting Director McNeil. Thank you, Chair Galvin. Members of the board, I'm excited to introduce item 5.2 presented by Tony Lomas, the water quality supervisor. He'll be presenting on the drinking water quality report update. Good afternoon, Chairman Galvin and members of the board. Today, I'm presenting the 2021 water quality report update, which in turn was made available to the public on our website and other outlets in late May. Additionally, outreach to our customers and the community was rolled out during the first week of June. And first off, I would just like to say that although I'm presenting the water quality report, this was actually a group effort consisting of our water quality team and our outreach team, outreach team, but a special thank you to Nicole Dorotinsky and Katie Oseguera. They gathered the information to put this together and made sure it was distributed properly and on time. Next slide, please. So we are required to monitor our system monthly and at the end of the year, we are required by the Division of Drinking Water to provide a detailed report to our customers. We test the system weekly under the total coliform rule and as well as the disinfection byproducts rule on a quarterly basis. We also test for Latin Copper, which is every three years and actually currently began the process of collecting this year's sampling. Because of our production wells on Farmer's Lane, we must also comply with the groundwater rule. And along with that, our cross-connected control program ensures the safety of our water supply as well. Next slide, please. The Water Quality Report provides information required by law, but we also use it as an outreach tool to educate our customers about where our water comes from, our water system, and the numerous tests that we conduct to ensure our water quality meets and exceeds all regulatory requirements. Next slide, please. So legislation does allow us to use other outlets to advertise and share the Water Quality Report. We no longer must supply a hard copy to every customer as in years past. This year we used announcements on Facebook, email, and e-newsletters, and we also provide hard copies to customers who request them. This year, the ads will run in the press democrat on June 24th, 26th, 28th, and 30th. We also supply copies to various public places throughout the city, and our sample event also carries copies on hand for any customer who may request one. Next slide, please. So in a typical year, we receive about 95% of our water from Sonoma Water and then 5% from our Farmer's Lane production wells. Our actual 10-year average has been about 94% from the water agency and 6% from the groundwater wells. But in 2021, we did have 92% from the water agency and actually 8% from our groundwater system. Next slide, please. This is a picture of our water system here in San Rosa. Because of the extremes in hydraulic gradients due to the topography, it is broken up into many different pressure zones. So we make sure we have at least a minimum of one sample station in each. Currently, we have 144 sample stations throughout the city and basically to ensure that we're getting an accurate representation of the drinking water throughout the system. Next slide, please. This is a picture of Sonoma Water's infrastructure. It is complex as well with over 90 miles of pipe. In the upper left-hand corner is where Sonoma Water's 6K Sons are located near Maribel and Waller. And the lower left-hand corner is the Katari Intertide and they do have standby wells located there as well to supplement the system if need be. Our next slide, please. And one more, please. Thank you. Here are a couple of pictures of our sample stations throughout the city. These are what we use to test water according to the total coliform rule as well as our quarterly and annual sampling. We currently have two different styles. The standard one is on the right and the pedestal style is on the left. And we have tried to upgrade as many as possible to the pedestal wherever possible just to eliminate the sample from possible contamination. Next slide, please. This here is our Farmer's Lane Treatment Plant. This picture shows our green sand filtration system that we use to filter iron and manganese and we also disinfect system and then blend the water into the system. When in operation, we do test for iron and manganese weekly and we also perform monthly and annual tests as well. Next slide, please. Because we receive almost all of our water from Sonoma Water, they do test for over 100 constituents annually and then they provide us with this data. This is an example of one of the sheets that they provide. It includes the constituent itself, the maximum contaminant level, the detectable limit for reporting, and the public health goal. And they do provide this data from their 6k songs as well as from their production wells and reservoirs also. Next slide, please. So this is the 2021 Water Quality Reports Results Sampling Page. We are required to include anything over the reporting limit in this report. At the top right, the columns are separated between Sonoma Water and water provided through our production wells. And this is the top half of the report which contains the primary drinking water standards. And these are those that have health concerns. Next slide, please. The bottom half of this sheet are secondary standards which are mostly aesthetics such as clarity, taste, and odor. And again, the state recommends that we include the results from our production wells on this report. I would like to, however, make note regarding the 1-4 dioxane that's listed at the bottom section under unregulated substances. 1-4 dioxane is a solvent-based stabilizer used in manufacturing and processing. Back in October of 2021, this constituent was detected by Sonoma Water during routine sampling of radio collector well number 3 located in Maribel. When they were notified by the lab, these results seemed very unusual to them. So re-sampling of the source was done afterwards and came back as non-detect on two consecutive sampling events. They believe that these data results were most likely impacted due to PVC upgrades that were done at the collector just prior to sampling. And although these are, there's no current standard for this contaminant, there is, however, a public health notification level. This is why we have listed here on this report. Next slide, please. And this concludes my brief presentation. And with that, if there's any questions I could answer. Thank you, Mr. Lamas. I'll open it up for any board member questions or comments. All right. Very complete report. We appreciate it. We'll now open it up for public comments on item 5.2. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you're dialing in via telephone, please dial star 9 to raise your hand. Secretary Aitha. We have no public comments. Very good. Thank you again for the report, Mr. Lamas. That'll take care of item 5.2. We'll now move to the consent calendar. We have one item on the consent calendar. Are there any board member questions or comments regarding the consent calendar? If not, I will entertain a motion. I'll move the consent calendar. I will second. Thank you. We have a motion by board member Wright, seconded by board member Watts. At this point, we'll open it up for public comments on item 6.1. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you're dialing in via telephone, please dial star 9 to raise your hand. Secretary Aitha. We have no public comments. We have a vote, please. Chair Galvin. Aye. Vice Chair Arnone. Aye. Board member Baden-Fort. Aye. Board member Grable. Aye. Board member Walsh. Aye. Board member Watts. Aye. Board member Wright. Aye. That carries unanimously. Thank you very much. We'll now move to item 7.1, Acting Director McNeil. All right. Item 7.1 is a report on funding agreement between Santa Rosa Water and the State Water Resources Control Board in authorizing and designating representatives for the assistance request. And presenting this today will be Andrew Allen, our supervising engineer. Good afternoon, Chairman Galvin and members of the Board. I'm here to present to you regarding the funding agreement for assistance request 5705 Santa Rosa Prop 1 consolidation project. Next slide, please. Well, here's the overview. We will give you a little background on the state's program, a location map, specifics about the request for assistance, and we did have a couple of prior BPU and city council reviews regarding this project, our analysis, and our recommendation. Next slide, please. So back in 2015, the Senate established the ability to require mandate consolidation of water systems. And the Division of Drinking Water has identified nine specific locations in the area served by Santa Rosa Water and had us mandated that we consolidate with them. That means they join our system as we are the bigger system. Specifically, it was assistance request or AR 5705. And during this process, the state has been assists in this consolidation projects. They're coordinating activities up to this point, including hiring an engineering consultant to prepare design, which is hovering at about 90%, which is what's done with this phase of the work. And they've also assisted by reimbursing property owners for fees paid. Again, this is Prop 1 grant funding that we will be applying for, and it will fund all the costs to connect these sites to Santa Rosa Water. Again, planning phase is near completion, and the grant funding will facilitate construction, including all construction costs, associated fees, and city planning costs. Next slide, please. Here's the location map showing all nine of the water systems that are to be consolidated. Seven of those are mobile home parks, and two, which are James Court and Dolores Lane, are locations that will require a public water main extension down James Court and down to Dolores. And then the connection of those two are have duplex units to be connected, and they were served by independent water systems. You can see that part of town where all these are concentrated. Next slide, please. So kind of reiterating, the water board regulates water quality of private water systems, and there was contaminants found in these nine water system, including arsenic and other contaminants. Several of these sites were being processed through, and then combined to come up with a total of nine private water systems. Combined into one project, again AR 5705, and as I already stated, seven mobile home parks and 27 duplex units divided between those two other water systems. Next slide, please. So you have seen a little bit of this before. Back in 2020, we came before you with a feed deferral agreement. El Cristal Mobile Home Park had a significantly challenging site, had all of a sudden had E. Coli showing up in their well, so they needed to cease providing drinking water there. So in the short term, they provided bottled water, and they wanted us to accelerate the connection for El Cristal, which we are moving forward with. First step was that feed deferral agreement so that the cost for those demand fees will be paid by the overall big project that we're moving forward with. And after you recommended it, the council approved that. And then back this spring, we came back forward with you to authorize approval of the water service agreement, and that was required that we sign that for the state. El Cristal is paying to connect their mobile home park to Santa Rosa water for drinking water. And so they'll get read, because we've been able to sign that, they will be reimbursed for their construction cost, and that construction is ongoing right now. There's been a few hiccups along the way with that, but it is close to being connected for drinking water. Next slide, please. So this is the stage where the project has moved far enough along that we will be applying to the water board for funding of the project. Again, nine private water systems, and all of which will be connected for both domestic use and fire protection. By the time we move forward with this larger project, El Cristal Mobile Home Park will already have domestic water. As any customer comes in and joins our water system, they need to bring their fire protection up to current standards. And so we are part of the project includes having private fire lines and hydrants within the mobile home parks. And so that's what that's about. Next slide, please. So for us to sign and the project to move forward, the water board requires approval from the governing board of the consolidating agency, and that is to, that is you, BVU, and to carry out the project, enter into the funding agreement and accept and expend state funds for the project. So once we have this document signed, we can move forward and we will move forward with the project through our capital improvement program. And then we will build that and be reimbursed by the state for all costs. And again, including all our fees and demand fees. Next slide, please. It comes to the end of my presentation. And it is recommended by the water department at the board of public utilities by resolution authorized Santa Rosa water to carry out AR 5705, Santa Rosa Prop 1 consolidation project, and authorized the director of Santa Rosa water or designee to enter into a funding agreement with the state water resources control board and accept and expend state funds for the project. And next slide, please. I'm here to answer any questions, and I believe we actually, we might have a representative from the state also joining us today as well. Thank you, Mr. Allen. We'll open it up now for board member questions and comments. Vice chair Arnone. More of a comment than anything else. I'm very much in support of this, and I think it's worth pointing out the fact that we're often faced with state-required mandates that are unfunded, and this is a state-required mandate that is actually funded. So I think it's a good example of the way things, since Santa Rosa water is required to engage in this conduct, it's nice to see funding going along with that requirement. And so I'll be supporting this action. Thank you, vice chair Arnone. Board member Walsh. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, I'd like to echo the comments of Vice Chair Arnone. I think this is a very good thing to do. I appreciate the state law and the work by supervising engineer Andrew Allen for pushing this through and getting things right. And then the one question I have is it looks like on the background report, the water board identified nine water systems with groundwater contamination in Santa Rosa that qualified under this project. They've been consolidated into the end of the assistance request 5705. It looks like it's connecting seven mobile home parts and 27 duplex units into Santa Rosa. The question I have, are we just bringing in the parts of private systems when they fail, just parts of their customers where they fail or have inadequate quality of water, and then do the privates then deliver water to other customers. And then if they fail, then we bring them on board. I'm kind of interested in how the scope of this works between the private systems and the public systems. And I wonder if the supervising engineer Allen should help me out with that. Others get scoped into the state programs? Yes. Great question. And there are others germinating right now. I will tell you that this isn't the last action like this. The state monitors the water quality. And when they find that the water quality contains contaminants that are not acceptable, they start the program and bring them in. I don't think there's a proactive system, if that's what you're asking for other mobile home parts. The beauty of this is that once the state identifies them, the water systems are connected at no cost to the water system itself. Anywhere along the line, one of these mobile home parks can come forward to connect, but it's a very pricey venture to do that, including demand fees and all the construction costs. Most of these are in the millions for even a small system. I think the overall project is, the estimate at the moment is $10 million to connect these nine systems in. So it's a pricey venture. Like any resident or property owner in the area, if they want to connect, they can move that forward. But in this particular situation, the state has the ability to pay for it and get them connected. And again, it comes to us. Sometimes they're consolidating two neighboring water systems that neither are a public entity, but in our case, we're the big public entity that can handle that. Did that answer your question, sir? Definitely did. And I'm tempted to ask the question that we call the objective answer on whether a private supplier can just decrease the quality of services until they butt up to the line and then hand it off to us. But that won't change what we do here today. I just want to say I appreciate you scoping these projects and getting the work done. And I appreciate what the law is today in the grant budget. So thank you very much. We're member Wright. I believe you had a question. I support this issue. My question was answered. Thank you. We're member Watts. Yes. Thank you. Not any particular question, but just very excited to see that this kind of projects are happening. This is a public health issue that our department is able to step in and make a difference for these households that are connected to these systems. And really happy to hear that there are others kind of in the process of hopefully being a part of this type of project as well. So I just want to thank you for your work on that. Thank you. Any other board member questions or comments? I also want to commend Mr. Allen and his staff and the state for this program and the opportunity that affords these mobile home parks and the duplexes. And I will be supporting it as well. We have a resolution in our packet. If I could get a motion, please. I'll move a resolution to the Board of Public Utilities authorizing Santa Rosa Water to enter into a funding agreement with the State Water Resources Control Board and authorizing and designating representatives for the Assistance Request AR5705 Santa Rosa Prop 1 Consolidation Project and waive the reading of the text. Second. Thank you. We have a motion by Vice Chair Arnone seconded by Board Member Grable. At this time, we'll open it up for public comments on item 7.1. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you're dialing in via telephone, please dial star 9 to raise your hand. Secretary Etha. We have no public comments. Thank you. May we have a roll call vote, please? Chair Galvin. Aye. Vice Chair Arnone. Aye. Board Member Baden-Fort. Aye. Board Member Grable. Aye. Board Member Walsh. Aye. Board Member Watts. Aye. Board Member Wright. Aye. That passes unanimously. Great. Thank you, everyone. As I mentioned earlier, we are skipping item 7.2 for another meeting and we will move now to 7.3. Acting Director McNeil. Thank you, Chair Galvin and members of the Board. I'm excited today to introduce Robert Wilson, the laboratory supervisor, to talk to us about a report on materials transfer agreement between the city of Santa Rosa and Verily Life Services. Good afternoon, Chair Galvin and members of the Board. As Deputy Director McNeil mentioned, my name is Robert Wilson and I'm going to be presenting on SARS-CoV-2 testing in wastewater. Next slide, please. So one large question has always been is SARS-CoV-2, which I'll from here on forward call it COVID-19, is it under reported with public health data? And one way to potentially look at that is through wastewater-based epidemiology, where you take samples from local wastewater treatment plants and analyze them through digital droplet PCR for a quantitative value in levels of COVID-19 in the wastewater through the employee. We do know that people shed virus in stool three to four days after infection and through BD-PCR, we've actually, the Netherlands was able to detect after the first infection in the country one week using BD-PCR wastewater COVID-19 RNA. It is important to realize that the virus doesn't actually survive in the sewers. Sewers are extremely caustic environments for viral loads. So what we're actually looking here is traces of the virus through RNA and that can be detected through the testing. There isn't an increased risk for wastewater employees. There's been national studies done to determine that the typical PPE used by wastewater employees to protect them from other viral loads and bacteria in wastewater is defective at protecting them from COVID-19 as well. Next slide, please. So we actually have been doing some monitoring in our raw influent. We've been a part of two studies, one with BioBot, a private corporation, and one with LumenUltra. Both of them received funding from the CDC to do their studies and accepted us as part of a large nationwide study. We sent one to two samples per week. The samples for those studies were raw wastewater, so wastewater coming into the treatment plant. And City staff has been responsible for the collection of these samples, operations crews collect these, bring them into lab. The lab preserves those samples and then ships those samples off to BioBot and LumenUltra. We also send some basic data about sample collection to the companies and flows and population size, that type of thing, so they can use it to develop the metrics. Next slide, please. So this is actually our data. This is from BioBot. Both companies have provided data to us, but BioBots is nicely graphed. So you can see here we started collecting in June of 2021, the blue line represents our samples and the virus concentration. The green line is the seven day rolling average of new cases based off of data from public health. And then the gray lines are individual week new cases in your county, again, based off of public health. You can see that we started collecting in June, continued through end of August, beginning of September, when the funding from the CDC ended for the private companies, BioBot and LumenUltra. There is a gap in the data until funding, again, resumed in February 22, and then you can see our data points continuing on the graph through the end of May, which is the data we had most current for this presentation. Next slide, please. So we'll zoom in on that last part of the graph, because that's really what's helping us here. Before we believed that COVID-19 is under reported, due to obvious reasons, people, you know, ill and not being tested, testing at home. But the graph here shows that the green line stays relatively the same while the blue line increases drastically and proves that COVID-19 is under reported in our community. But picked up by wastewater-based epidemiology samples. Barely is a subsidiary of Alphabet, and they are looking for a public-private collaboration. They reached out to Sonoma County Public Health. Sonoma County Public Health then reached out to the city of Santa Rosa, the water department, city of Petaluma and the county, and asked for agencies that have more than 50,000 people in their collection system to send them samples. Next slide. They are looking for a one-year agreement, which would be three samples per week. They are actually looking to pay us for these samples. It's up to $200 per sample based on the sample that we send them. They are looking for samples collected from settled solids, so it is slightly different than the raw wastewater, but we already collect settled solids daily from the treatment plants so this wouldn't actually increase any set time in terms of sample collection. We would then preserve and ship the samples to Barely, similarly what we have been doing to the other private corporations, and then the data again is quantified via DDPCR. Quantified data is different than qualified, and since that you actually have a number versus presence absence, whether exists or doesn't exist. After that, Barely will then report that data to us, the CDC, Stanford has a special study of the doing, and to the public health officials at Sonoma County. So the data won't be in a black box, it will be available to all the public health officials for making those decisions and for us so we can know more about what's coming into our headrooms. Next slide, please. So it is recommended by the water department that by motion, the board authorizes a chair to sign a materials transfer agreement with Barely Life Sciences for SARS-CoV-2 and wastewater at the Laguna treatment plant. Next slide. And with that, I'm available for questions. Thank you, Mr. Wilson. We'll open up now for questions from the board. Questions or comments? Seems like a good program for the city. Make a few extra bucks and obviously get some good data to back up all your testing. So board member Wright. I have no questions. I'm just commenting on the data and what it's showing. It's very revealing. I think this is important data to have. And so I actually, I'm overwhelmed with the data. So thank you very much for your presentation and I'm in support of this item. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, board member Wright. Board member Grable. Yeah, thank you. That was a great presentation. I'm glad we're embarking on this partnership. How's there, in terms of what the city of Santa Rosa has done previously throughout the pandemic, what was the difference then and now in terms of, was there testing done before and then how is that transitioning now in terms of volume of sample, what it will tell us over time, those sorts of things. What's the sort of comparative analysis there? Just clarification, you're asking pre-pandemic or early pandemic? Early pandemic over the past two years. Over the past two years. So yeah, the technology is relatively new and they needed to develop the sampling matrix so they can understand the testing. So that's why you didn't really see sampling start until July of 2021. The technology has been there since that point. It's just whether there's funding for these private corporations to do this sampling, which is why there's that gap in it. The company has actually offered for us to continue with them, but it's hard to continue if it feels that the data is not being utilized. And when some county health approached us, that's when we know it's important for the county health officials, and especially because of the drop in data that they're receiving due to people taking Apple tests and that kind of thing. No, that's really informative. I'm glad because I've noticed that as well, that in just in public health circles and some of my previous work, the number and the volume of people actually testing with mild symptoms or asymptomatic is just not as much. So you have epidemiologists having to estimate constantly what the actual number is above reported cases. And it's so reassuring to know that we're going to have that in place to really have a backstop with the data and sampling that doesn't require the sort of voluntary submittal of data or frankly the interruption of folks, their everyday lives to think that they have the ability to go in and test every day or every week or any of those things. It's becoming less and less obviously realistic for folks to do that unless they're sick. So I'm really glad that that's being funded, that it's being put into place. It's frankly it's also generating a tiny bit of revenue for us, but that incentive is there because otherwise I don't think it would happen. As we go forward, even though there's less and less severity of disease, I can't imagine that we're not going to be back in this situation again in the future with other epidemiological challenges where to have this in place and to have it be something that is readily available and it can be activated quickly to help us sooner the next time around. I'm hoping there isn't a next time, but realistically if there is then this will certainly be a lot more useful and informative than like I said that voluntary, like I think you're going to get a mass adoption of testing when this is just so much to more readily available and accurate. So thank you. Member Walsh. Yes, thank you Mr. Chairman. First I'd like to laboratory supervisor of Mr. Wilson. It's pretty much echoing member Grebel's comments and then with respect to the agreement with Verity, you spoke about the provision of data to the city, the CDC, Stanford and local public health officials. Will that data also be available to the general public? I believe it will be the current data that we're collecting with Biobot is publicly available as well and it's hosted on the website so there's no reason why I know that it's not going to be the same with Verity. Great, well I very much appreciate that and I hope that will help educate people about the need to stay safe. Thank you. Thank you. Other board member questions or comments? Seeing none, I'll entertain a motion. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make the motion to support the program and to approve the agreement with Verity. Second. Okay, we have a motion by a board member Walsh seconded by board member Grebel. At this time we'll open it up for public comments on item 7.3. 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 Aitha. There are no raised hands. May we have a roll call vote please? Chair Galvin. Aye. Vice Chair Arnone. Aye. Board member Baden-Fort. Aye. Board member Grebel. Aye. Board member Walsh. Aye. Board member Watts. Aye. Board member Wright. Aye. Carries unanimously. Thank you all. Thank you again Mr. Wilson for the presentation. Good luck with the program. Next item on the agenda is public comments on non-agenda matters. If you wish to make a comment on item 8 please raise your, via Zoom please raise your hand. If you're dialing in via telephone please dial star nine to raise your hand. Secretary Aitha. We have no raised hands. Alrighty we have no referrals. We do have one written communication that was in your packet. So at this time I'll see if there's any board member questions or comments regarding that written communication. Hearing none we'll open it up for public comments on item number 10. 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 Aitha. There are no public comments. All right item number 11 subcommittee reports. Do we have any? Don't believe we've had any subcommittee meetings. Seeing no one indicating otherwise we'll move on to item number 12. Board member reports. Nothing there. We'll move now to item number 13 director's report. Acting director McNeil. Thank you chair Galvin and members of the board. I do have one item to report. Santa Rosa water hosted our first ever virtual Spanish language recycled water site supervisor certification workshop on June 9th. This virtual offering is complimentary to the virtual English language site supervisor training held over the past two years. That was an outgrowth of us continuing to ensure compliance with our urban recycled water system permits amidst COVID restrictions. Feedback over the years has led us to determine that there was a desired need for Spanish language recycled water site supervisor trainings for our urban and agricultural recycle water users. At the same time staff have also been working on a online self certification course in English which is now up and running. The certification course is a free tool that is available to anyone who wasn't able to attend our live training earlier this year and is interested in becoming a certified site supervisor for a site that uses recycled water. The course consists of watching the recorded presentations and taking a final exam. Participants can work through the self study course and the exam at their own pace. Staff found that due to site supervising turnover that holding once annual trainings didn't ensure timely completion of the certification for the use of recycled water in our service area. This allows site supervisor to complete the certification any time throughout the year and ensure consistently safe delivery and use of recycled water to our customers. The regional board has been complimentary of this approach and has sent information out statewide to allow other recycled water site supervisors outside of the region to complete the training via our offerings and that concludes my report. Thank you acting director McNeil any board member questions or comments for the acting director? Seeing none we'll open it up for public comments on item number 13. If you wish to make a comment via zoom please raise your hand if you're dialing in via telephone please dial star 9. Secretary Aether? We have no public comments. Very good I believe that concludes our agenda for today so we will be adjourned till our next meeting. I wish you all a good afternoon and we are adjourned. Thank you chair Galvin.