 Good afternoon. I'd like to call the meeting of the Board of Public Utilities for the City of Santa Rosa to order. May we have a roll call, please? Yes, Chair Galvin. Here. Vice Chair Arnone. Here. Board Member Badanford. Here. Board Member Gravel. Here. Board Member Walsh. Here. Board Member Watts. Board Member Wright. Jerry. Here. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. A reminder to please mute your phones and microphones when they're not being used and to put away your cell phones and personal computers. Item number two is statements of abstention by any board members. Do we have any? Mary Nunn. We have no study session. The minutes from the October 7th meeting are we're sent to us. So at this point I will open it up for public comments and the approval of the minutes. 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. Do we have anyone? We have no public comments. And we have no one in the city council chambers. So we're okay there. So the minutes will be approved and entered. We'll now move to the staff briefings. Item 5.1, Director Burke. Thank you, Chair Galvin and members of the board. Our first staff briefing is our virtual water reuse tour and Elise Howard, our communications coordinator, will be making the presentation. All right. Good afternoon, Chair Galvin and members of the board. It's my pleasure to be here today to debut Santa Rosa waters virtual water reuse tour video. Next slide, please. Santa Rosa water has a long history of water reuse. In fact, a few years ago we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Laguna treatment plan since coming online in 1968. The plant has become a hub of the city's water reuse program reducing billions of gallons of recycled water and thousands of tons of biosolids each year that are beneficially reused and each year pre COVID the plant welcomed visitors from around the world, students and interested individuals of all ages but due to the pandemic we currently have our in-person tour on hold but plan to restart soon with all staff scheduled to return to campus on the 1st of November. In the meantime, the team has been working on a virtual tour video to provide an online learning opportunity and to enhance the in-person tour experience once we resume. Next slide, please. As you can imagine, creating a 10-minute video requires a bit of planning and coordination to impactfully tell our story. This required building and editing scripts in numerous days of filming at various locations with a variety of staff. We used high-quality video and drone footage to capture the magnitude of service that we provide to show the people that work around the clock to operate the system and to showcase the value of water and the importance of water reuse. A lot of hands touched this project and I want to thank all of the water reuse and Spanish speaking staff that participated in making these videos. I also want to thank our consultants, data instincts, and Ron Thing Media for making our vision a reality. Next slide, please. We are approaching the finish line with this project and I anticipate launching this new outreach tool to the community in November. This video has been produced in both English and in Spanish and we are currently finalizing the Spanish version. Once both of these videos are completed, we will share these with the community using the city's webpage and promote it through the city connections e-newsletter which reaches over 100,000 subscribers, our YouTube channel, and the city's social media accounts. Next slide, please. All right, here we are at the main event. I believe you all have been waiting for it. I'm going to ask Easter to tee this up for me and I'd like to show you just a couple minutes of this 10-minute video and following the meeting, I'd be happy to send you a link of the full version. So, Easter, whenever you're ready, you can press play. So how do we do what we do? Let's have our environmental specialist, Denise, guide us through the process of how we clean that wastewater. All sewage coming into the treatment plant goes through four steps of treatment, primary treatment, a biological treatment, filtration, and disinfection. This clean recycled water is used for parks, grapes, crops, and more. The plant produces a remarkable 7 billion gallons of recycled water per year and most years, nearly all that water is beneficially reused, offsetting the demand for valuable drinking water. The majority of our recycled water is pumped 41 miles to a geothermal energy production facility called the Geysers, high in the Mayakamis Mountains. There, it's pumped underground to recharge steam fields, which are used to generate electricity for nearly 100,000 homes in the North Bay. By recharging and replenishing the underground steam fields, our recycled water helps to support the generation of clean renewable electricity. Approximately one-third of our recycled water is used for agricultural or urban irrigation. In years that the plant produces more water than can be reused, the extra recycled water is released to the Laguna de Santa Rosa and returned to the Russian River. The solid component of sewage is processed and turned into nutrient-rich biosolids. Each year, over 30,000 tons are used as fertilizer and soil amendment for the city of Santa Rosa's farms and other agricultural lands. Right, so I hope you enjoyed that sneak peek and maybe you learned something and now you're very interested in watching the full video. So, at this time, I'm happy to take any questions from the board. Thank you very much. Board member questions or comments? Very nice work so far. I look forward to seeing it get released both in English and in Spanish. And at this point, I guess then we will open it up for 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 9 to raise your hand. And there's still no one here in the council chambers. Do we have anyone, Secretary Atha? We have no public comments. That will take care of item 5.1. We'll move now to item 5.2. Director Burke. Thank you, Chair Galvin and members of the board. Item 5.2 is a staff briefing on our LEET and Carly Preeter Springs Groundwater Wells and our interim deputy director for Capital Projects Engineering, Andy Allen, we'll be making the presentation. Good afternoon, Chairman Galvin, members of the board. Yes, my name is Andy Allen, Interim Deputy Director of Transportation Capital Projects Engineering. I'm excited to be able to talk about a couple of projects that we were working on for our, as part of the groundwater program. Next slide please. This is, we're going to talk about two well rehab replacement projects. One is for our LEET well and the other is for the pair of wells, which is Carly and Peter Springs, and they're located right next to us, next to each other on adjoining lots. Next slide please. First, we'll talk about the LEET well rehabilitation. That's the site of the LEET well. It's on a long driveway off Elite Avenue, parallel with Aaron Drive. Next slide please. The LEET well was originally installed in 1953, 10-inch diameter, 323 feet deep, and has a rated capacity of 240 gallons per minute. The biggest issue that we have on this is a separation in the casing, and it's not currently in use. We stopped using that when we discovered the separation in the casing. Next slide please. So we have, the current task is to actually assess the well itself. We're going to have to spot clean the well screen and do a video survey, aquifer testing, water quality sampling of course, dynamic steady state profiling, and also condition assessment of the well house. So we need to determine if we can rehab that existing well, or if we're going to have to decide to drill a new well adjacent to that, and then is that existing well house satisfactory for our needs in the future? So that's the current task, and then the future task of course will be to design the project based on that current study. We have funding started on this project, originally in fiscal year 1920, and also this last current year one, 21-22, and we have programmed in about half a million dollars a year for the next several years into the CIP. We may need to accelerate that the funding going to this project, depending upon how quickly we move through and with an estimated current need of three million dollars. Hopefully we'll be completing this work in fiscal year 23-24. Next slide please. Here are the pair of wells, Carly and Peter Springs. Peter Springs is located on Peter Springs Park, and Carly is on a single piece of property adjacent to that, and the pumping infrastructure is on the Carly property. Next slide please. So we'll start with the Carly well, originally installed in 1954, 8-inch diameter, 208 feet deep, rated capacity of 700 gallons per minute, which is a pretty good number. What we have as issues are the age of the well itself, the presence of a liner, and we do have some ground displacement issues at the site, which need to be evaluated completely. And then the current use for this well, we actually use it for irrigation. Next slide please. Again, adjacent property, Peter Springs well, which originally installed in 1923, 10-inch diameter, 160 feet deep. It has a rated capacity of 500 gallons per minute, but an operational capacity currently of 150 to 200 gallons per minute. The issues here are an open borehole below a shallow casing, and the top of the casing is actually in a vault below ground, which is something that will need to be corrected. And it too is currently used for irrigation. Next slide. Also, I'm talking about Carly Peter Springs. There was a previous evaluation on LEET that evaluation is going on currently for Carly Peter Springs. We did this evaluation a few years ago. That evaluation came up with the recommendation to replace the Carly well. That has a lot to do with the ground displacement and being able to rehab the building and actually replace the building. So the plan is to drill a new well and to put a whole new pump house and pumping system on the Carly site. And that pumping system will continue to support Peter Springs. And we're going to rehab the Peter Springs well, bring it into conformance of current standards, bring the casing through the entire well, and bring the top of the well up above ground, which is how it should be done. And again, we'll replace the pump house and all the occurrences necessary for this project. Next slide, please. So current task, because we've already done an evaluation, is pre-design and design, which will include a geotechnical investigation, a site design, which will be a well and building layout, and then preparation of well construction and destruction design, including plans and specifications. We had funding started on this project in 2019-20 and added some in 2021. And right at the moment, we have about $2.5 million in that fund. And so we will be coming back for future funding as we evaluate the rest of the project. Current estimate about $3.2 million. And hopefully we'll be about the same completion date on this project, 23-24. Next slide. Brings me to the end of the presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Mr. Allen. I'll open it up for any board member questions or comments. I had just one question on the Carly and Peter Springs. You said irrigation. Is it just irrigating that nearby park and possibly the junior high, or is it going somewhere else? That's the primary use of the water. We also use that water to top off Lake Ralfine. I believe there's a pump. We pump it up to that lake when it starts to evaporate during the summer. Thank you. Any other board member questions or comments? All right. I will open it up then 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 nine to raise your hand. Secretary Etha. We have no public comments. And there's no one here in the chambers. So that will take care of item 5.2. We'll now move to item 5.3. Thank you, Mr. Allen. Most welcome. Director Burke. Thank you, Chair Galvin and members of the board. Our last staff briefing is our water supply update. And our Deputy Director of Water Resources, Peter Martin, will be making the presentation. Sorry, I have trouble getting off mute there. Good afternoon, Chair Galvin and members of the board. Very pleased to give you this water supply update on a rainy October afternoon. Just to give you a sort of a few quick points about the rainfall we're experiencing, it's very likely that we'll have received two to three inches by a Sunday rainfall. As of last night, we received about 1.4 inches since beginning of October. So that would put us sort of above the average that we'd see in the month of October already. So usually that's less than an inch. So definitely a welcome change. And then multiple weather models are suggesting that the region could receive six to eight inches of rain in total through this series of storms that could carry into the next two weeks. So we've been told that we need a minimum of seven to 10 inches of rain to begin the runoff process where the soil in the region is damp enough to produce runoff into our regional reservoirs. And further, the region needs at least 25 inches or more of rainfall this winter to be able to remove ourselves from potential water supply shortages next year. So hopefully a lot more to come. I guess we can go ahead and start the presentation next slide. So in terms of Lake Minnesino storage, Simo Water has had some issues with their reservoir data collection at Lake Minnesino. But as of Monday, they were able to take some manual reads and based on those manual measurements on Monday, the reservoir is about 13,400 acre feet or about 22 percent of their target storage for this time of year. Reservoir outflow has been consistently around 52 to 55 CFS. That's down from last month of the 65 to 70 CFS or cubic feet per second, which was, as you remember, being driven by channel losses and channel losses in the upper Russian River, which are now lessening. Next slide. So as of today in Lake Sonoma, reservoir storage is about 105,584 acre feet and releases have remained steady at 85 cubic feet per second. So with the early returns on rainfall, we did hear from Simo Water that they are now rejecting that the reservoir will not fall below that 100,000 acre foot threshold until at least mid-January, hopefully not at all. But this is a sort of a departure from the last update and the projection of that milestone by the end of November, which is some positive news. So go into the next slide, please. So as a reminder, Simo Water is under a temporary change order issued by the state and that order includes their requirement to reduce their diversions by 20 percent over 2020 levels. Through this timeframe, they have exceeded that target, so they are well in compliance with that requirement of their order. Simo Water is still, I should step back, just to note that order does carry through December 10th, so Simo Water is still anticipating filing another temporary change petition by the end of this month to allow them to continue to reduce their releases from both reservoirs and preserved storage over winter. It's likely that they're going to ask to seek some relief from the existing 20 percent reduction that is in the current order as natural stream flows start to return and the Russian River and contractors' customers stop outdoor irrigation and are limited in terms of what they can cut back over the winter. But nonetheless, it is still incredibly important that our region continues to conserve water for the foreseeable future because we have a long way to go before the next spring and we don't know what the winter will continue to produce in terms of rainfall for the region. So we'll be working together in the region to reinforce that message over the next coming months despite, as you can tell, that it's raining. So next slide. So through this graphic, you can see we didn't achieve our water savings target at 20 percent in the month of September compared to last year. We also sort of fell short, unfortunately, achieving our water allocations for Simo Water for that month as well. However, the good news, as you can tell, is that we still remain in line with our cumulative allocations from Simo Water for the months of July through September. And we're hopeful that the additional wet weather that we're experiencing and significant outreach efforts surrounding folks turning off the irrigation over the last month will be able to achieve the savings in the month of October through the month of December. We have still a long way to go to get through December in meeting our individual targets. Next slide. So, you know, just looking ahead to fall and winter campaign, you know, over the summer, we were definitely hitting very hard on getting folks to be very judicious with their water use outdoors and will continue to move forward with a different message over the fall and winter. You know, obviously, we've begun over the last month asking folks to turn off the irrigation. It's all that more important now that rain is falling. And then, of course, within the fall and winter months, when the irrigation season has ended, the only way to achieve water savings since indoors. So, you know, while we're still continuing to help folks prioritize protecting trees and shrubs during the drought, we are asking the turn off the irrigation and then we'll be finding other ways to help people with irrigation going forward, including promoting rainwater capture and greywater systems this month. And then, as we move into winter, we'll be focusing on helping folks save water and doors and fixing leaks. Next slide. We still have some community events planned. I do want to kind of just first start off with, you know, just going over our recent drop by event is the last planned drop by event of the year. We did deliver 600, 1,600 drought kits here in Santa Rosa at our locations at Youth Community Park and Colbin Creek Park. So that was a successful event. And then looking forward, we'll be participating and trying to continue to hand out as many kits as possible and other educational opportunities, including Halloween at Howard Park and in the Halloween event and the Rosalind, hosted by the Rosalind Community Building Initiative on October 29th. And then we'll be looking to see folks out at the Santa Rosa Farmers Markets as well through the remainder of the year. Next slide. I do want to highlight that we continue to, between the Save and Water Partnership and Santa Rosa, with our partnership with Daily Acts, continue to host several workshops over the next few months that may be adventurous to the public. These are well attended so far. So we're seeing this virtual format is working. There was a Greywater Basics presentation and there's a link to that video from the Greywater Basics Workshop on October 14th. That will follow up with the Laundry and Landscapes Workshop and then, you know, we're moving into some other workshops as well. Folks can go to srcity.org slash workshops to register for those. I do want to point out that the Rain Barrel Systems Workshop will be giving away a free rain barrel to folks that attend, well at least one, as a giveaway in hopes that we can get more people to attend that as well. So next slide. So that kind of concludes my brief presentation today. I'm happy to answer any questions from the board at this point. Thank you Deputy Director Martin. Questions from the board for the Deputy Director Vice Chair Arnone. Thank you. I was pleased and glad to hear that Lake Sonoma is projected now to stay above 100,000 acre feet until mid-January. Could you remind us of the consequences of what happens if Lake Sonoma falls below 100,000 acre feet? Yeah, so we've heard in several conversations from Sonoma Water Vice Chair Arnone about their plans looking ahead. There are terms in their water rights and of course Decision 1610 by the State Water Board that says that once they reservoir falls below 100,000 acre feet before June, I think it's June 15th or maybe July 15th, they're required to reduce diversions to by 30%. However, there is a secondary sort of threshold of 70,000 acre feet that they're held to in that as well. So when Sonoma Water is going forward with their proposal to the State Board on a new change order or request in the terms of a temporary sea change petition, they will be providing to the State A plan to ensure that they don't fall below that 70,000 acre foot threshold over the next year. So there's some flexibility in the way that's worded. There are alternatives that can be proposed to that additional cutback in their diversions. Okay, thank you. Other board member questions or comments? All right. If not, we will take public comments on item 5.3. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you are dialing in via telephone, please dial star 9 to raise your hand. Secretary Aitha? We have no public comments. And no one here in the chambers. That'll take care of item 5.3. We have one item on the consent calendar, item 6.1. There are no questions about the item. We can have a motion, please. I'll move. We adopt the consent calendar. Second. Thank you. We have a motion by board member Wright and a second by board member Badanfort. At this time, we'll take 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. No public comments and no members of the public in the chambers. We'll now have a roll call vote, please. Chair Galvin? I. Vice Chair Arnone? I. Board member Badanfort? I. Board member Grable? I. Board member Walsh? I. Board member Wright? I. Thank you. We'll now move to report items. Item 7.1. Director Burke? Thank you, Chair Galvin and members of the board. Item 7.1 is a request for a change of scope, change order for our pump station, for our emergency well located at a place to play. And Eric Robber, our supervising engineer with our capital projects team, will be making the presentation. I'm having a little difficulty promoting Mr. Robert to panelists. Hold on just a moment, please. Mr. Robert, I can't promote you to a panelist for some reason, but I have given you permission to speak if you can unmute. Can you hear me now? Yes, thank you. Great. Thank you, Chairman Galvin, fellow board members. Good afternoon. My name's Eric Robber, supervising engineer with the Transportation and Public Works Department. I'm pleased to be here today to present our request for a scope of work change order and additional contingency in connection with the emergency pump station at a place to play park in Santa Rosa. Next slide, please. In today's presentation, I'll briefly describe the project and its purpose, some project background information that brings us to where we are today and close with our analysis of the issues and a recommended path forward. Next slide, please. Project is located in the north side of West Third Street, just east of Fulton Road, at the intersection of Third Street and the most westerly entrance to a place to play park. The purpose of the project is to convert an existing test well into an emergency well and connect it to the city's water distribution system so that it's available in the event of an emergency. Next slide, please. Work associated with the project consists of site grading, constructing a pump station facility, rehabilitating the existing well, connecting the system to sewer and storm drain facilities, bringing existing power and telephone to the project site, constructing a perimeter fence with aesthetic enhancements and restoring disturbed areas. Next slide, please. In 2006, a test well was installed at the corner of Third Street and the westerly most entrance to a place to play park. In 2016, the test well was inspected, reconditioned, and a pumping test performed. Pumping test results indicated a sustainable yield on the order of 500 gallons per minute with no primary water quality thresholds being exceeded. Between 2017 and 2020, we prepared a design to convert the test well to an emergency groundwater well and install the previously described infrastructure. In May 2020, the city awarded a contract to Team Jalati, Inc., and work on the project began shortly thereafter. However, in November 2020, the city suspended the construction contract due to the discovery of arsenic in groundwater from the test wells at levels exceeding drinking water standards. Since then, feasibility studies were performed to evaluate alternatives to addressing these elevated arsenic levels. On the basis of these feasibility studies and subsequent bench-scale testing, the design was revised to reduce arsenic levels in groundwater below drinking water standards. Next slide, please. The design was revised to include measures to increase iron in groundwater to facilitate formation of iron arsenate solids and remove those solids via cartridge filters. To accomplish this, the building size was increased. A chemical feed system added, instrumentation and controls revised, and a large diameter pipe loop to facilitate arsenic arsenate formation was added. The estimated cost to implement these revisions is $870,369. Next slide, please. It's thus recommended by the water and transportation and public works departments that the Board of Public Utilities by Motion approve a change of scope contract change order to include constructing an arsenic removal treatment process for construction contract number C01965 with Team Gelati, Inc. of Pettiluma, California. Increase the original bid amount plus contingency by $957,405.90, which includes a 10% contingency and authorize a total contract amount of $3,035,618.94. Next slide, please. That concludes my presentation, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Mr. Robert. Any Board member questions or comments? Board member Wright? Just once again, I support this item. Just curious, what was the status of the project when work was halted? Most of the grading had been completed. Power was brought to the facility from a remote location. Some of the plumbing work was done tie-ins to the system, and that was about it. No building construction had occurred, so in some ways the timing was fortuitous in that we don't have to undo anything that this revised design would have required. Thank you. Any other board member questions or comments? All right, we'll open up item 7.1 for public comments. 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. And no one in the chambers. May we have a roll call vote, please? I'll offer the motion. I'm sorry. I guess we do need a motion. I'd like to make a motion that we, by motion, approve a change of scope contract change order to include an arsenic removal treatment process for construction contract number CO1965 of Team Jalati, Inc., at Luma, California, by $170,369 and authorize a total contract amount, including a 10% contingency of $3,035,618.94. We have a motion. I second that motion. Seconded by Board Member Walsh. Just to be on the safe side, I'll open it up again for public comments on item 7.1. Secretary Aitha? We have no public comments. All right, now we can have a roll call vote, please. Chair Galvin? Aye. Vice Chair Arononi? Aye. Board Member Badenford? Aye. Board Member Grable? Aye. Board Member Walsh? Aye. Board Member Wright? Aye. Thank you, everyone. Item number 8 is public comments on non-agenda items. We'll now take any public comments on item 8. 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. And no one in the chambers. That'll take care of item 8. We have no referrals. We have no written communications. Do we have any subcommittee reports? I don't think we've had any subcommittee meetings. Any Board Member reports? Okay, we'll move to the director's report. Item 13. Thank you, Chair Galvin and members of the board. I did have a couple items to update the board on. First, I wanted to provide an update on our testing for purr and polyfloral alcohol substances or PFOS. On July 9th of last year, the state water board issued an order requiring all publicly owned treatment works to investigate wastewater and biosolids for the presence of PFOS, otherwise known as forever chemicals, and to submit a final report. The water department started developing our sampling methods, which are very prescriptive because many personal care products and clothing contain PFOS chemicals, and the analysis to detect these chemicals is calibrated down to parts per trillion. So these samples can only be analyzed on very specific instruments in clean rooms free of contaminants. The Laguna Environmental Lab coordinated with an outside lab to analyze these samples. Happy to report that the sampling was done well by the team, so all of our blanks came back blank, which is a great thing. The city has completed the sampling, written the final report, and submitted the results and the report to the State Water Resources Control Board, actually just earlier this week. And those results will be combined with results gathered from other sampling done by other treatment plants across the state to determine the presence of PFOS in wastewater and biosolids. We do anticipate that this will result in some type of regulatory rulemaking at some point in the future. At this point, the data is still too early to determine really to make much analysis of what we found, but we did find PFOS present in influent effluent and biosolid samples. The next item I wanted to let the board know that engineering staff from both the water department in the transportation and public works department, as well as Caltrans and local consulting firms attended a workshop just yesterday, I think, sponsored by the Engineering Contractors Association. And the goal of the workshop was to identify if there's a problem with backlog projects for roads and utility projects in the city of Santa Rosa and also to explore and collaborate on how to improve getting projects out on the streets. We did receive valuable feedback during that meeting and staff will be following up with the Engineering Contractors Association on specific topics in the future to continue gathering feedback in ways that we can improve putting projects out. And last, I wanted to let the board know that today is Imagine a Day Without Water. And we are taking part in Imagine a Day Without Water. It's a national day of action meant to raise awareness about the value of water and the infrastructure that provides this valuable resource. As a participant, we are asking the community to take action by learning more about the water systems that deliver water to our homes and businesses each day and the importance of investing in our water future. And community members as well as our customers are encouraged to visit srcity.org slash value of water to learn more about this and imagine what it would be like to have a day without water. And that is my report and I'm happy to answer any questions that the board may have. Thank you, Director Burke. Any board member questions or comments? Very good. Then we will open it up for public comments on item 13. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you're dialing in via telephone, please dial star 9 to raise your hand. Secretary Aitha. We have no public comments. And no one here in the council chambers. That concludes our agenda. So I'll adjourn the meeting. Wish you all a happy Halloween. Enjoy a trick or treating. Hopefully you get wet and hopefully we have a nice wet two weeks until we meet again. So we are adjourned. Thanks.