 I'm going to reconvene this meeting of the Santa Rosa Board of Public Utilities. We had a rather lengthy study session on the draft groundwater master plan, which is now available on the city's website for public review. Before we go forward with the agenda, I did want to ask Assistant City Attorney Rawlings if you could introduce your partner there. Thank you Chairman Gale and members of the Board. I have today my guest with me at the day is Nicole Dorotinsky, who has been a research and program coordinator for the Utilities Department for seven years. During that time, she's been responsible for the Aquatic Biomass to Energy Project, as you may remember, and helps to coordinate the take-it-from-the-tap promotional program. She has just completed her first year of law school at Empire College, and she is working with me under the city's mentoring program, the Step Right Up program, and I'm happy to have her as my guest today. Welcome. I do remember your presentation on the Biomass project. It was an impressive project, and it's good to have you with us again. Thank you. Thank you. We have one item we will go back to that we did not take care of prior to our study session. I'd like to ask if there are any statements of abstention from any Board members today? Yes, I have one. But for consent, item number 6.1. Okay. Or 6.1. Are there any other abstentions? Okay. And Chairman Gale, just for the record, the reason for the abstention, I believe, is because this is a union contractor, and Board Member Stephenson has, within the last 12 months, worked on the union apprenticeship program for your former employer. Right. Thank you. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Our next item of business is approval of minutes from our April 4th meeting. All of the members who are present for that meeting will vote, I believe. And is there a motion to approve the minutes? I move we approve the minutes of the April 4th meeting. Second. Moved by Board Member Holt, seconded by Vice-Chair Galvin. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed. In abstentions, it is adopted. Thank you. Today, we do have one staff briefing and Budget Manager Reed, if you could introduce this item for us, please. Great. We have Teresa Godina, a Water Resources Analyst with our Water Use Efficiency Team, who's going to be talking to you about a specific project she took on. And go ahead, Teresa. Thank you, Linda. Good afternoon, Chairman, Gail and members of the Board. Again, my name is Teresa Godina and I'm a Water Resources Analyst with the Utilities Department. And I'm excited to have the opportunity to talk to you today about this project. Our department has been collaborating with the Univision, which is a Spanish-language television network, unarying a series of four Spanish-language installments that focus on Santa Rosa water. And the programs are styled as conversational interviews with Spanish-speaking utilities department staff, educating the viewers about various aspects of Santa Rosa water. Our department is taking a serious look at how we collaborate and educate our customers, specifically the Latino community. And we're thrilled when Univision approached us in December of 2012 with an interest in producing a series of short programs. Again, these programs are going to be more aired on their newly acquired television station, Unimas. But before we go into talking about the programs itself, I'd like to give you a brief introduction and to Univision and the market reach that they have. So how we got here. Again, Univision approached us in 2012 and we began working with them for various reasons. One, Univision has the largest Spanish-language television network in the U.S. Its target audience is Latin American families who reside in the U.S. And their largest audience of Spanish-speaking language television viewers around the world, according to the Nielsen's writings. And also there's a high trust factor within the Latino community when they see anything in Univision. So with that in mind, I like to share with you why this project is valuable to our department. I also want to point out that one of the deal makers for us deciding to move forward with the project is that Univision offered this to us at no cost. So there was no cost for the programs. So I like to go ahead and share a little bit more about the project. Like I said, we've identified the need to inform and educate the Spanish-speaking community about the services that we provide for several reasons. Latinos are the fastest growing population nationwide in Sonoma County, which also means they're a large growing number of utility customers. In addition, historically, we as a department have had a difficult time attracting Spanish-speaking customers to attend our free workshops, take advantage of our free incentive programs to reduce water consumption and to participate in environmental programs to protect our environment. And then finally, sorry about that, finally many of the Latino communities in our community tend to have limited disposable income. So educating these families on how to use water efficiently, reduce bottled water purchase by drinking tap water, and taking advantage of our rebates and free programs will not only help them save money, but they will be contributing to protecting our water supply and the environment. There are numerous benefits for our department to decide to reach out to our utility customers, including the potential and water savings, building a positive relationship, growing confidence with their water supply, and protecting and improving our environment. With these benefits in mind, we identify the four target areas that we wanted the UNEVC-owned programs to focus on. And the first one we talked about was Santa Rosa water supply. So I presented that topic and it was that aired on March 14th, and we basically talked about where our water comes from and introducing the various aspects of our water supply portfolio. The second program focused on water quality and take it from the tap and making sure that our customers knew that our water was safe to drink, and that program was presented by Jose Valencia and he's a utility systems operator that aired on May 3rd. So again, that really focused a lot on the water quality report and teaching our customers that our water exceeded all the state regulations for drinking water. Again, we really focused on teaching our customers that water is safe to drink. One of the issues that we found in our community, if you take a look at the articles at the bottom, you'll see that there's in this particular article, they're citing it, Teresa and not myself, but that in the Latino community, a lot of people come to the U.S. with the notion and the belief that tap water is not safe to drink because it is not safe to drink in their countries. So they spend a lot of money buying bottled water and don't realize that our tap water is safe to drink. So that's what this program really focused on. And then the third program was focused on water use efficiency and Gail Chavez, who is also here with me today, presented that program and that aired this morning. And she focused on talking about the free incentive programs and our rebate programs that we offer to our utility customers that can help them reduce water consumption and of course save them money as well. So that's really valuable information. A lot of our customers are not aware of all the free services that we provide. And then finally our fourth program, Julia Gonzalez, who's our marketing and outreach coordinator, will be presenting that and it's scheduled to air in September. I don't have an exact date, but it will be airing in September and she focused on stormwater and creeks and pollution prevention. So really teaching our customers that the only source of water allowed in the storming system is rainwater. And so and that any pollutants such as soapy water, oil, garbage and paint and so forth make their way to our water supply and so teaching them not to do that. And again, it's really educating the customer with some of the best practices. So again, by teaching our customers on how to use water efficiently, value our drinking water supply, prevent pollution, we are ensuring a safe, reliable source of water for our current residents and our future generations. With that in mind, I thank you for the opportunity to brief you on the great things that our department is doing to collaborate and educate our community. Do you have any questions? One of the issues that I have taken a personal involvement is the dental problem in the Hispanic community within the cavities with the children. And of course, we're talking at the county level about fluoridation of the water. And those who are on the committee that have been dealing with that believe that there is going to be some difficulty because of the Hispanic community not embracing water from the tap. So I'm wondering when you did do this presentation to present. Is it well received and is it easy to change people's minds, change their behaviors, and how big a problem is it in the first place? In terms of the outcome of the presentation with television and radio alike, it's very difficult to tell what kind of effect you've had on the audience because you don't have a way of getting feedback from them. But we do really see the need to go out there and educate our customers, particularly and I take it from the tap program, which is what you're referring to. Elise and Nicole have really worked very hard to partner. One, we partnered up with Network for a Healthy California and they've been at a lot of community events such as the Cesar Chavez Fair and other community events where you do have your Spanish-speaking community going out there and getting a lot of that information. So they are getting the information about our programs and especially in this case I'll take it from the tap program. There is a lot of work being done in that sense. Super, thank you. Just two things actually. First, are these programs going to rerun or was it a one time? No, they are scheduled to rerun. Good. We just don't know when they will be rerunning and so yes they will be continuously aired. Has there been outreach so that the Spanish-speaking community knows these programs and at least announcements are going to be televised or just kind of hitting this? We've done some just social media for these programs so that's the extent of what we've done with the programs. But when EVC on like I said it's nationwide and locally it serves services about 12 counties and they are continuously reared for the different not only the local channels but on a nationwide basis. And lastly it would seem to me that if it's not being done a focus really should be on the school kids so that they can take this information back to the home are we are we doing programs along those lines I know take it to the tap gets into this school system but are we are we focusing that on this? The Sonoma County Water Agency does a lot of the outreach with the with the schools for us. Is that correct Glenn? Actually Board Member Galvin if Nicole Dorotinsky who happens to be here with me today can probably respond to that if that's all right. Sure, sure. So as part of take it from the tap we go into third and fourth grade low income predominantly Latino population and we educate them about the benefits of taking it from the tap about our water quality and we give them a little take from the tap stainless steel BPA free water bottles and the kids are ecstatic about it and we go back and we check to see if they've been using them and most of them have and we do older groups as well we base it on the economics and how much money they can save as opposed to buying plastic water bottles which is what they really do. Thank you. Thanks. Other question? Other questions? I do have one question you mentioned that you were promoting this program through social media what what vehicles within social media are you using Facebook, Twitter? Yes we do have a center as a water Facebook page and a center as a water Twitter page as well. Very good. Seeing no other questions Teresa and Gail I really want to thank you for the work that you're doing and I think this kind of outreach is very very important and as Vice Chair Galvin was indicating keeping up the outreach and attempting this attempting to communicate clearly this message is very very important and I really commend you for the work you've done and I thank you for bringing the presentation to us today. Thank you. We have two consent items today which we will actually vote on separately because of the recusal on 6.1 but before we do that is there anyone who wishes to have any of the consent items pulled for further discussion? Okay then at this point we'll take them separately. Is there a motion to approve consent item number 6.1? Second. I'll make that motion. Okay moved by Vice Chair Galvin and seconded by Board Member Holt. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Passes unanimously with Board Member Stephenson abstaining. Is there a motion to approve consent calendar item 6.2? I move that we have 6.2 support and authorization with the Director of Utilities and Services and Member of the Association of California Water Agency's Region 1 Board of Directors. I'll second it. Moved by Board Member Kearney and seconded by Board Member Stephenson. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed and abstentions. That item passes. Thank you. We do have one report item today and Budget Manager Reed if you could introduce the item. Okay. Deputy Director Glenn Wright, Deputy Director of Water Resources will present a recommendation that the city approve a resolution and support a participation in the water bond coalition. Good afternoon Chairman Gale and members of the board. This is actually a pretty straightforward item. I actually considered just having it go on send. It seemed like such a no brainer to me but this action is requesting that the BPU recommend to the city council that they approve a resolution in support of the city's participation in the state water bond coalition process. I have some notes here about some history of this process but essentially what we're talking about is the potential of a bond being negotiated by our legislature of about 10. I think it's 10.14 billion dollars and the emphasis of water in California largely is on the California water projects and oftentimes the counties like Sonoma counties that aren't really part of the delta process are forgotten or don't have the horsepower to really get a big piece of this legislation. So in 2002 the City of Santa Rosa did participate in a similar water bond coalition. This was of the northern and coastal California communities. These are the communities that aren't specifically delta oriented communities although some of them do get a state water. The coalition advocated for the local water projects to be included in the bond issue. And then in 2002 Prop 50 was passed by the voters. Prop 50 was $3.4 billion proposition and it integrated into that bond process funds for integrated regional water management programs and the City of Santa Rosa is in one of these programs in the north coast integrated regional water management program. So then in 2006 the legislator, the voters voted on what was then called Proposition 84. Proposition 84 was a $5.4 billion bond issuance. Again our local, we call it the NC North Coast, well I can't even say, I can't even say the acronym, it's North Coast Integrated Regional Water Management Program did receive money from that also which we're a member of. So then in 2009 during the drought the governor signed into legislation in special session SB X7 into law and among other things this legislation included SB X7-2 which was the $11.14 billion bond sale to fund statewide water and water related environmental projects. This legislation also included two other pieces of legislation that we've discussed many times. Most board members are familiar with SB X7-6 which is the CASGEM, the California Statewide Evaluation Monitoring Program which we just discussed in our study session and then also SB X7-7 which was water savings, the 20% water savings by 2020. So this was a component of that legislation. As I pointed out this was $11.1 billion. Originally the bond was planned to go to the voters in 2010 as you recall we were in dire economic needs in the state at that time. The legislature did not believe that the bond would go with the favorable rating at that time so they pushed it to 2012 and then subsequently they then pushed it now to 2014. Since that time the legislature is considering reconfiguring this bond there's of course I guess the main thing is the thought is that it's a large bond as you can see from the other two bonds just sold this is like double prop 84 which was larger than prop 50. So they wanted what they want to do is reduce the amount of the bond thinking it's be more palatable for the voters and of course what everybody says is go ahead and cut the bond but don't cut my portion of the bond cut somebody else's portion of the bond and for that reason it's very important that the city of Santa Rosa gets a seat albeit very small at the table for these bond negotiations. Simultaneously with the water bond coalition aqua is representing the city of Santa Rosa and Jennifer Burke is of course currently sitting on the aqua board at this time and is involved with the various discussions on the bond so she could actually give us a report possibly on what's going on with aqua's position on the bond if you will care to hear about that but anyway so basically in a nutshell to help us have a seat at the table and to have our city's input the utilities department is recommending that you move this resolution on to the city council for their approval and again what this this resolution does is it gets us into the con coalition and the coalition then will have 200 or 300 resolutions from different districts and cities and municipal organizations as a support and also it recognizes the utilities director and the mayor that can speak on behalf of the city of Santa Rosa with respect to this the bond coalition. I'll be happy to answer any questions I can. Right there's joining this obligate us to accept whatever bonds the interest rates on any bonds that they come out with compared to the city getting a better rate on its own. Yeah I don't believe we have a whole lot of control over that kind of a thing. This I think only gives us some input of what facilities the bond money will be utilized for. Right but let's say that we do get some money set aside by this cooperative bond issue and we could get a better rate on our own can we pass it up. No I think this is state legislation I think we're the state I'm not an expert on this but I believe that this will be voted by the voters and yeah we can't I think we're gonna have to go it'll begin. Once we're in we're stuck. I think yeah that's once the legislation once the legislature acted we were stuck. And I think actually I would ask our assistant city attorney or I couldn't mention that Jennifer Burke's coming down but also basically that this this state will be selling and floating the bonds and we will perhaps get a share of them perhaps not but we're not talking about a loan per se here we'd be talking about an actual basically a grant of funds to us that is not alone we wouldn't be paying any interest on it in addition to the interest that our our voter electorate is already paying on the bonds. Yeah good afternoon again Chairman Gatgale and members of the board just to confirm what this would do is the bond if passed would then provide grant opportunities that we could compete for both potentially statewide through funding grants for recycled water programs and for water conservation programs and then also compete for through the IRWMPs particularly we're in the north coast IRWMP and so it would have potential pockets of money that would go to those IRWMPs and then we'd compete for that grant funding. So similarly we competed for and north coast IRWMP funds back a number of years ago when Prop 50 was available and that's how we got our grant for the recycle water program. So how are these bonds going to be repaid? Again they would be sold by the state and they would be repaid to the state so it's just it's a funding mechanism for grant opportunities that would be issued from state agencies and then we'd be competing for those grants so we don't really have an input on the bond per se that's completely done by the legislature in the state. Yeah so they'd be repaid through the state general fund then right thank you that reassures me. George yeah is there any costs to join this coalition or is it just by just presenting no no there's no cost except for time spent by staff you know meeting and negotiating things like that but there's no fee. Other questions yeah we're essentially what we're doing here as I understand it is we're reconstituting our membership in a group that was originally formed to try and make sure that the northern California counties and agencies received their fair share of those state funds and it appears that this is the same reason for joining at this time is that correct? Yes that's correct. Okay are there any other questions or comments? Is there a motion concerning this report? Actually I have a resolution before you to make a recommendation to the council. Okay it's a resolution with a very long title is there someone who would like to move approval of that resolution? I'll move approval of the resolution the board of public utilities recommending that the city council agree to participate in the water bond coalition support the activities of the coalition endorse efforts of the coalition to develop the fair and equitable distribution of state waterbund funds for projects that will benefit the city of Santa Rosa and other entities throughout northern and coastal California and designate the director of utilities as the official representative for the city to the water bond coalition and waive the rest of the text. Second moved by vice chair Galvin and seconded by board member Carney all those in favor of resolution please say aye. Aye. No and abstentions passes unanimously at this point I believe we have a report a water supply update would you like to introduce again Linda. Deputy director water resources Glenn Wright will again deliver the water supply update and deputy director sub regional operations Mike Prince will join him at the end for the sub regional water supply okay and Gina can you turn on my overhead here and what is that well that's this is that technology you actually have to put something in front of the camera that old technology okay is that clear that's clear over there that is there but they want to see the graph okay good afternoon chairman gail and members of the board again so it's not that the bpu isn't important but this whole presentation is based around the last bpu meeting and the reason why that date is so important was that was also the date that the temporary urgency change order came out from the state so everything is in my presentation today is going to be based on May 16th so when I was here exactly whenever that was three weeks ago we were talking about this very order and some interesting things have occurred I sent you these in advance so most of you have seen them but what you can see very clearly from this picture is that by reducing the flows out of Lake Mendocino we have more or less stopped the bleeding in the in the storage of Lake Mendocino so today Lake Mendocino is at least this morning it was at 59,587 acre feet that's 53.7 of the what I call the summertime water supply pool that's 85 percent of what I call the wintertime or 70,000 acre foot water supply pool and it is 48.6 percent of the total now this is what gets more interesting about the story currently right now they're releasing 100 cubic feet I mean cute feet per second out of the out of the reservoir so when when they actually reduced the flows out of Lake Mendocino to 75 cubic feet per second that really means not at the dam that means at the gauge at the confluence of dry creek and the russian river so right at that confluence before dry creek water comes in they have a gauge there and they have that set for 75 cubic feet per second and that's where that's of course the problem they have is there's a long way between the dam and the confluence of dry creek I think it even takes a couple days for the water to get down there so it's a little complicated to exactly determine how much water to release from the dam so that's why the release now is at about 100 or it's been ranging between in the 90s and early hundreds and the inflow right now today is is under 100 it's ranging in the 90s to maybe 100 right now so since that day of May 16th we have actually gained 303 acre feet in the reservoir so you can see on May 16th we're at 59,284 and today we're at 59,587 we actually hit a high point right here 59,810 acre feet and that's an interesting story why what what's happening why did it hit a high point and now we're back on the decline we're no longer gaining in the reservoir and the answer is that our water comes from some of the water that refills Lake Mendocino comes down the east fork of the Russian river but first it goes down the eel river and passes through so until June 1st Lake Pillsbury was considered in a normal state they're regulated by the federal energy the FERC federal energy I can never get the words right but anyway the FERC license and anyway on June 1st according to the FERC permit they went to a dry condition and that forced the PG&A to reduce the flows through the tunnel by 35 cubic feet per second so we were at one point receiving as much as a hundred and 30 cubic feet per second through the tunnel and now we're in the 90s so that is why Lake Mendocino now is no longer gaining but it is in declining so since June 2nd which is and actually it occurred at midnight on June 2nd or June 1st so almost just barely June 2nd we have lost 223 acre feet from Lake Sonoma that's basically 55 acre feet a day is the rate it's going down so if you figure it was actually five days not four days it's actually 44 acre feet per day so the what the agency is telling me is they expect that the Lake Mendocino is going to drop at a rate of 30 to 40 acre feet per day so it's in a definitely declining state so from now on in this summer anyway I'm going to be showing you this chart a lot so this chart is the chart that's in the very last page of the order and and what you see there of course is the water supply pool on the top that big thing on the top the dark black line is the actual surface is the capacity of currently of Lake Mendocino and the dotted line is the proposed they call it the critical storage curve line and what was so critical about this is that what the permit says is should the storage in Lake Mendocino drop below the critical storage curve for more than three days then they will reduce the flows to 35 cubic feet per second at the confluence of the Russian River and Dry Creek and the flows in the lower river will go to 50 cubic feet per second so those so this this is something we're going to watch very closely but fortunately for us during this period of time of May 16th till now we've actually uh have created a 1700 acre foot buffer in between there's a little tiny piece right there you can barely see it and I'm not sure how accurate anything is here but according to the water agency that's 1700 acre feet so we have a buffer of 1700 acre feet and also the lake storage is declining so we believe we'll be able to stay above the curve but the problem that we're having is that the agency as part of their permit is told to negotiate with communities in the upper river which they have actually no jurisdiction over so if you know I think I read the paper the other day the cloverdale is going to have a 20 percent reduction in water use and so we need to have other communities in the upper river follow suit with that so it's really an issue in the upper river to keep this this curve above the critical storage curves so that's this is the story that we're going to be following closely over the next few months so the next uh item is lake sonoma looks like we're following right exactly on 2010 uh lake sonoma has um 222,259 acre feet of water according to the water supply pool of 245,000 acre feet that's 90 full it is essentially it's got 58 percent of the total capacity uh and the release is right in line with the biological opinions of about 105 cubic feet per second and there is some inflow there actually shows some inflow it's around five acre five cubic feet per second so a little bit of water is coming in or how they figure that out I don't know uh so that's what's so there's still a lot of water up in lake pilsbury my neighbor went up there water skiing and it was packed and everything was normal lake pilsbury and this is our problem it continues to go down as you can see right now lake pilsbury is at 47,988 acre feet of water that's 55 uh percent full and the outflow is 141 cubic feet per second I believe it was closer to 190 when I was here last on May 16th so they reduced the flows out of lake pilsbury traveling down to Van Arsdale at Van Arsdale 52 cubic feet per second is going down the eel and 95 is going through the tunnel to Potter Valley one thing also I didn't realize is that the Potter Valley irrigation districts actually has water rights for 50 cubic feet per second although typically they've never actually used more than 19 so but anyway that's just sort of an interesting side side effect the water they don't use continues on down to Lake Mendocino and lastly at Hacienda the flows are right at the biological opinion number of 85 cubic feet per second right now so it's pretty much right on so that's the activities of our rivers and reservoirs as of today one last thing I want to mention is that the water contractors and the agency have embarked on this 20 gallon challenge and essentially what this is is you go I went on to the website you can go to the agency website and it's right there a big blast and you can sign on to it and what you do is you sign up to save water through using not using a toilet as a waste basket for example shortening your showers turn off the water while brushing your teeth you can you can you can pledge to do all these various things and then you can be put in a contest unfortunately it turns out because many of our some of our employees pledged and it turns out uh-uh they can't get in the contest you cannot be a contractor to win so I don't I thought probably for I imagine board members are the same so the idea is to have people pledge and have a lot of outreach around this 20 gallon per person reduction and it works out pretty well for us because what happens is as people sign up then we will get their contact information and then the people that are within our service area we will then contact and offer them rebates and audits and and our services to try and reduce the water impacts in our service area so it's it's a good outreach tool for our water resources group and I think that's about all have to report I got the email about the challenge and but as I listen to you and there's there's a flow that's being released from each of these these points how does this may seem stupid question but how does the citizenry cutting back interrelate with the amount that comes down the river I don't get the the nexus well you're right the the major problem we're having right now is actually in the upper river and not directly with us the the 20 gallon challenge is a russian river watershed wide challenge so there are water agencies offering that people not to people in yuccaia and cloverdale anywhere in the russian river watershed so those people are benefiting from that challenge also so there's one little bit of water also the other thing is as less water is released from the upper river less water goes to the lower river so obviously the less the more we can serve the less water goes to the lower river so it's a benefit for them also so the thing is what's what people forget is that we're all connected we're connected to people in the upper river the lower river the water users the ag culture it's not one person it's just unfortunate in this situation we're the only person that's got a hook in us by the state okay thank you and so one other question you said that the flow out of lake sinoma down dry creek is at 105 105 yes and that is the that's limited by the biological opinion well it is uh that is what the biological opinion wants us to be at but we have the option in drier periods in the in the water agency may use this that they can actually increase that so if they're forced to reduce flows out of the upper river they can actually have what i call them chits or one opportunities they have five opportunities to raise it to 125 cubic feet per second and they have like three opportunities to raise it to 145 and they can actually raise it as high as 165 one time and that's in 15 years and so they obviously want to reserve those for when they really need those opportunities so anyway that's right right now we're we're in sync everything is within spec as far as the release down dry creek prior to the biological opinion you know i'm i'm not i can't recall but i'm thinking it's it was probably around 160 okay okay thank you uh last session why i asked uh is there any reason for us to uh ask our uh users to uh voluntarily cut back on water within the city or do you think the water agency 20 gallon plan is sufficient well you know we we actually never let up in our city we're always asking our water users to use water efficiently we we still tag people for water wasting we're out there doing audits every day uh and although we haven't specifically put a number on on you know voluntary reduction um we're very uh you know we're we're always encouraging our customers to use water efficiently so that that message has never changed even when we have full reservoirs yeah is there any reason for us to uh promote on the city website or otherwise the turf time number or remind people that they can access that for their irrigation well all that information is on our city website all over our programs turf time it's if you flip it up i don't so there's no reason to give it special emphasis right now yeah yeah it's the only thing we could do is highlight it i suppose is on our city the first page you enter is srcity.org and we again we can direct them to to the the water conservation that might be a good idea to do i would i think so yeah i actually went and took the challenge over the weekend um and i think the website that the the agency put up was a pretty good tool to increase awareness um but as board member holt is suggesting if we can look at ways to increase the visibility here locally i think that would be a useful useful thing and um you know one of the things they did when they put the website up they make very very specific recommendations if you reduce reduce your shower by 30 seconds you're going to save so many gallons and i want to uh i know that it was something that was done i believe through the partnership that we are part of yes um i i think that kind of approach in the future is a good one to uh to continue to use those very very discrete actions that a person can actually think about and commit to to taking can make a huge difference um and if we can increase the visibility on our own websites i think that's a good thing as well the other thing that i would suggest if you have the ability to give feedback um all the members of the partnership let's let's try and make sure that all of our logos are actually on anything that gets posted because i don't believe that the city of santa rosa's participation participation might be uh as noted as the water agency and the way it's presented so if you could take a look at that okay thank you thank you good afternoon chairman gale members of the board if glenn's report was on the upstream water storage my report is on the downstream water storage uh basically these are plots of the reclaim cumulative reclaim water storage volume that we have in i think it's 11 reclaim water storage ponds in the sub regional system when i was here last and i can actually talk a little bit about some features of the the chart maximum storage capacity is basically the hydraulic maximum storage cumulative storage of all of our ponds combined uh the orange line and the yellow line comprise the operating envelope that we try to stay within and there are three full years 2004 2007 and 2005 which are considered minimum average and maximum storage curves that we compare the current year to uh every every year um when i was last in front of the board discussing this we were somewhere around the peak and it was a pretty easy prediction to make and i was right that was the peak we we peaked out at uh right around 1.3 billion gallons of storage and that was it and today we're just we're right at a little over 1 billion gallons um we have not had to discharge any flow at all this year um discharges are visible on other years for example in 2005 when the storage trend increases steeply enough we have to prepare to stay within our operating volume or operating uh envelope and a discharge shows up as a significant drop in volume and you won't see that in this year's trend um and it's a predictive thing we don't always know how the balance of a winner is going to turn out so there some years we may have regretted discharging not knowing that we weren't going to be getting a lot of rain subsequent to that point but anyway um don't need to say very much pretty straightforward update but we are uh below our minimum operating level um i predicted that we would be although we're not as low as we have been in the past and the real pinch will come later in the season when we get out into august and september when our storage volumes are are the lowest that they will be one of the biggest challenges then is water quality um you can get more algae growth in in the water storage um ponds at that time because of the minimum volumes that are stored so that's just a quick update uh short and sweet we have to answer any questions that you might have um my assumption is that uh we would uh if you want to get back to that minimum edge of the envelope uh why would you do you feel that the which way would we go when we reduce ask our recycled water irrigators uh the farms and others to reduce their use or would we reduce publish for the geysers um we're under contract to deliver a certain amount to the geysers and that's uh you could say that's an interruptible supply but we don't look at that as an option generally speaking um the agricultural supply is what's considered an interruptible supply and I believe Randy Piazza who actually operates the reclamation system has already notified the the farmers that there may be allocations that we would use um we wouldn't normally at this time of the year make significant adjustments to try and get back within the operating envelope that is something that we would start to do more towards July August September through allocations to the agricultural reuse customers that we have a few years ago I think we cut them off didn't we maybe I'm not sure about that except for the turf farm yeah I'm not sure Jennifer may know actually we did allocations that's basically what we would we would do first is basically the limit their use but not cut them off and and it our reclaimed water is very much a commodity to uh the agricultural users and they they have a lot of concern when they see the trends looking the way they are because it can really affect them thank you other questions thank you very much you're welcome yeah this is our time for public comments seeing no members of the public present we'll move on to referrals I believe we have no referrals um are there any written communications we believe there are none at this time um are there any subcommittee reports the contract subcommittee met earlier this week and looks like we'll have one more meeting before any items come before the board are there any board member reports directors report thank you chairman you know I have a couple things I did want to mention we're in a pretty much continuous recruitment process right now we had a couple of retirements in May and the way it's looking we're going to continue to have retirements throughout the year as well as staff moving on or and up so um we're recruiting for interviewing for water use efficiency manager and instrumentation technician wastewater operator trainee our two deputy director that we have in acting positions of course and about six interns that we have acting college students who come in and help us out and get credit and you know so that's been a lot of change and ongoing stuff and getting new faces in so that's good the budget hearings that we're the council will consider our budget appropriation request will be starting June 18th and then they're going to carry over to the 19th and possibly the 20th so because of that the bp meeting on the 20th will be held at the utilities field office in room m just in case the council is still in the chambers at that time I wanted to let you know that the Sonoma County water agency is replacing an aqueduct at the turnout at Jenner have at the railroad tracks this week and fixing a butterfly bow on the aqueduct so they're continuing work within our aqueduct to make sure that the water is that everything is being up to date our own cip we're almost done on Montgomery Drive for those of you who frequent that area that's nice to see they're starting to do the striping but they are starting the Montgomery Village north area construction so there is some night work at Farmer's Lane and Montgomery Village and we do have a website www.srcity.org backslash mb area and any residents that want to know when we're going to be doing night work that is posted on that website all of the projects in the Montgomery Village area we're also going to be starting the Slater Street sewer between college and Benton this month and then finally I just wanted to mention that if you haven't been to municipal services center south recently there's a lot of changes going on the entire cip teams are moving over from least space into the the mse south area every day that you walk in there are new cubicles and people working very hard amazing coordination by the city's facilities planning coordinator Cameron McDonald and we've got our own electrical crews and then hired office furniture people there every day and they're just putting it up like crazy so that will be saving us that least office space over across the street from where they're moving into very good as we enter a meeting today I wanted to take a minute to reflect on the work that we do here on the board of public utilities and the other boards and commissions where private citizens freely give their time to help maintain the community and to build a better community that we live in it's no small thing it takes significant commitments of time and sometimes that's too easily taken for granted while doing the voluntary work in public service that the folks on this board do is an essential part of building our future here in Santa Rosa and Sonoma County this morning I was reflecting on the commitment that all of you have shown and remembering a small quote from Robert Kennedy who said the future is not a gift it is an achievement sometimes public meetings are adjourned in the memory of someone and today is the 45th anniversary of the death of Robert Kennedy so today I'm going to adjourn our meeting in his memory and I also wanted to honor the spirit of public service that his life inspired of many and that continues in the dedication that is shown by the members of this board and other boards and commissions and I thank you for being here today with that the meeting is adjourned