 morning Easter. Good morning Paul how are you this morning this is Dina I am the new recording secretary replacing Roberta. Hi Dina thank you I didn't see you in the list I just wanted to check in on one of the agenda items to let you know that for the allocations that will be me taking the item there's a memo from Grant Davis. I think in the draft agenda it had dawn potentially the dawn's out. Okay perfect thank you for letting us know. You bet thank you. Good morning all I was gonna say I think we only have four of eight but not quite a quorum yet but I just saw Matt joined so I think we might have a quorum now. Okay all right so I will go ahead seeing that we now have a quorum I'll go ahead and call the talk meeting to order just a reminder for tech members to the extent you can if you could please keep your cameras on at all times that would be great for those that are presenting if you could turn your cameras on when presenting that would be great and when not speaking if all could keep their microphones muted that would also be great. So I'm gonna go ahead and ask our new recording secretary, Secretary Manus to please do a roll call and again a reminder for tech members please state your name and your agency during roll call and when commenting or asking questions. Secretary Manus. Thank you Chair Burke. City of Cotadi. Great Scott. City of Cotadi. Thank you. City of Petaluma. Thank you. City of Brunner Park. City of Santa Rosa. Jennifer Burke Santa Rosa water and I believe Brunner Park just joined. Brunner Park is here. Thank you and can you state your name for the record? Mary Grace Plassen. Thank you. City of Sonoma. Outward Gula City of Sonoma. Thank you. North Marin Water District. Tony Williams, North Marin Water District. Town of Windsor. Christina Goulart, Town of Windsor. Thank you. Valley of the Moon Water District. I got Matt Polner, Valley of the Moon. Thank you. Marin Municipal Water District. Paul Sellier, Marin Municipal. Thank you. All right. Thank you Secretary Manus and I believe also for the record you're going to read off all others present on the call or on the meeting. Thank you. If you will do. Additionally participating via Zoom from the attendee list we have Brenda Adelman, Colin Close, David Keller, Eric Miller with NMWD, Jake Spalding with Sonoma Water, Joan Holtberg, Mike Berger, Peter Martin with City of Santa Rosa Water, Shannon Coutoula and please forgive pronunciations. I will get them right in the next future meetings and Vanessa Garrett. Great. Thank you. Okay so we're now moving on to item number two which is to adopt a resolution finding a proclaimed state of emergency and so that we can host these meetings virtually. In your packet you will find a memo as well as a resolution. As a reminder we did try to start meeting in person the last couple of months but with the rise in COVID cases and the recommendation to still socially distance and at least mask recommendation to mask indoors we felt that it was best to go back to meeting virtually. So if if there's any questions please um please let me know seeing no questions we're now taking public comment on item two if you wish to make comment via Zoom please raise your hand and if you're dialing in by a telephone please dial star nine to raise your hand and Secretary Ledesma do we have any pre-recorded or live comments? We do not and we do not have any raised hands. Great. Okay so in front of the tech if there might be a motion and a second? Move to adopt the resolution. A second. Okay so we have a motion by Valley of the Moon and a second by Runner Park and Secretary Manus if we could please have a roll call. Thank you City of Katari. Thanks Scott Katari. Yes. City of Petaluma. Van Hurra, City of Petaluma. Yes. City of Runner Park. Mary Grace Paulson, City of Runner Park. Yes. City of Santa Rosa. Jennifer Burke, Santa Rosa Water. Yes. City of Sonoma. Matt Ragula, City of Sonoma. Yes. North Marin Water District. Tony Williams, North Marin Water District. Yes. Town of Windsor. Christine Lort, Town of Windsor. Yes. Valley of the Moon Water District. Matt Polner, Valley of the Moon Water District. Yes. Thank you. That passes unanimously. All right thank you very much and so we are now good to meet virtually for 30 days. We'll move on to item number three, public comments. So we're now taking public comments on non-agenda items. Again if you'd wish to make a comment by a Zoom please raise your hand. If you're dialing in by a telephone please dial star nine to raise your hand. And Secretary Ledesma, could you please facilitate public comment? We do have a public comment from David Keller. You should have permissions to speak now. Great. Thank you and good morning. I just want to let you know that after some 23 years, 24 years of coming to WAC and TAC meetings, first as a member of the Petal and City Council and for many years as representative from Friends of the Eel River, I'm going to be retiring from Friends of the Eel this week and it's been a pleasure. It's been a challenge. Lots of great things that have happened over the past couple of decades and this committee and the WAC have been critical for getting that done. Friends of the Eel will be in the able hands of our ED Alicia Hyman who is up in Eureka and other associated organizations and friends who we've been working with. So I want to thank you all and I will continue to be interested in following on water issues from the Petal and River Council but my role as paid employee of Friends of the Eel is ending. So, yay. Well, congratulations David on your retirement and yes, it has been a pleasure seeing you or hearing you at WAC TAC meetings all these years and so appreciate all of your work and all of your advocacy. It really has been a pleasure and I don't know if any other TAC members would like to say anything or other members but congratulations. All right, thank you. Grant. I want to comment. I mean, David Keller is an institution and has been very active and involved on not just the attack but the WAC and Petal and the City Council and it's quite a legacy lead behind David. I don't know what we're going to do with that. You've probably set the record for most public comments with regard to our items and as active I think between you and Brenda, there's no replacing you. So you've earned the time off and we've appreciated your insights, certainly improved the product of our work and informed our decisions. So thank you for your service. Thank you, Grant. All right. Any other comments? And Secretary Ledesma, is there any other live or pre-reported public comment on this item? We do don't have any other comments, public comments. All right. Thank you and again, congratulations, David. We are now moving on to item four, which is our June 6th attack meeting minutes. And if you have any questions or comments from the TAC, all right, seeing none, we're now taking public comments on item four. If you wish to make a comment by a Zoom, raise your hand. If you're on the phone, please dial star nine. And Secretary Ledesma, do we have any public comments on item four? We do not have any public comments. All right. So TAC members, anyone would like to make a motion and a second? We can consider this item. Move to approve. Great Scott, Katadi. Thank you. All second. City of Sonoma, Matt. Okay. So we have a motion from Katadi and a second from Sonoma. And Secretary Manus, can we have a roll call vote, please? Thank you. City of Katadi. Great Scott, Katadi, yes. City of Petaluma. Van Herrera, City of Petaluma, yes. City of Roanart Park. City of Roanart Park. Sorry, Mary Grace Plassen, City of Roanart Park, yes. Thank you. City of Santa Rosa. Jennifer Burke, Santa Rosa, yes. City of Sonoma. Outwardly, City of Sonoma, yes. North Morrin Water District. Tony Williams, North Morrin Water District, yes. Town of Windsor. Christina Gouart, Town of Windsor, yes. Valley of the Moon Water District. Matt Holner, Belgamoon Water District. Thank you. That passes unanimously. Great. Thank you so much. All right. So we are now moving on to item number five, which is our water supply conditions and update on the temperature change petition. And Don Seymour with Sonoma Water will be speaking on this item, I believe. No, he's actually not here. Oh, okay. You get me for like a bunch of items today. Don is on a well-earned vacation day today, I think for the whole week actually. So he won't be here. Okay. Well, we have Pam Jean with Sonoma Water who did a presentation. Excellent. Thanks, Pam. So good morning everybody. I know I won't do it justice compared to Don. He can just fling off numbers and things off top of his head. It's pretty amazing. But I will do my best here. So I'm going to start off with an update on the temporary urgency change order, which we do have an order now. And we got that order in mid June, June 17th, I believe was the date. So it'll run into December again. I believe that got sent out to all of you. So hopefully you all have that a copy of that document. It includes pretty much the same types of requirements that we've seen in past orders. And I think the item of the condition of perhaps most interest to you is the one that requires the 20% reduction in diversion from the Russian river. We did get that term changed a bit this year. Last year we asked that it run for a time specific period, but the order was not issued that way. So this year it actually got issued that way. So that kicked in on July 1st. I think you all know that hopefully by now. And that requirement expires at the end of October this year, which is good, because that really caused a lot of issues. Not just for us, but also the State Water Board had to jump through a whole bunch of hoops in late October when it rained. And it didn't make sense for that particular condition to be in place. So anyways, I don't think I'll elaborate any more on the order unless there's some. Well, let me just I'll mention one more thing. So what we asked for in terms of changes in operation is we are our minimum streamflow requirements in the main stem of the Russian River. So both in the upper reach of the river from Heelsburg to Ukiat and downstream of Heelsburg to the ocean. Those two minimum flow requirements have been set at a critical condition. So that's 25 CFS in the upper river, 35 CFS in the lower river. The order does not change the minimum streamflow requirement in Dry Creek. It wasn't really necessary to do that because we need to release a certain amount of water for not only meeting minimum streamflows, but also for water supply for ourselves for our diversion. So that minimum flow requirement was not changed. So that minimum flow requirement is actually a normal minimum flow requirement, which currently is, I believe, 80 cubic feet per second if I have my numbers correct in my head. So that's where we're at. And I'm happy to answer any questions about that before I launch into our water supply condition. Okay, no questions. I will move on. So I think everybody knows that we're not in great shape in terms of water supply this year. We are in the third year of a pretty intense drought. However, I'm going to start up at Lake Mendocino. Lake Mendocino currently has about 50,000, 50,600 acre feet or so in the reservoir, which is about 20,000 acre feet higher than it was last year at this time. So this is partly due, probably mostly at this point, due to the fact that PG&E is not implementing a variance for the Potter Deli project that they requested, because the variance request hasn't been approved at this point. So up until just a couple of weeks ago, we were actually still gaining a little bit of storage at Lake Mendocino on a daily basis. We are currently just about matching what's coming in and what's being released. So we're sort of flatlining right now. But it's looking, you know, a lot better than we expected it to look at this point because of that issue with the Potter Deli project, which is a later agenda item. So I'll describe that later. So Lake Sonoma, however, is not in as good a condition as Lake Mendocino this year. We're actually almost at the exact same storage level we were last year at this time. There's about 129,451 acre feet in Lake Sonoma. This is as of yesterday in ways, which again, is pretty equivalent to what it was in 2021. So our projections as long as the temporary urge to change order is being implemented are that we should stay above 100,000 acre feet this year. I think most of you probably remember that there's a trigger in our water rights that requires us to reduce diversions at that 100,000 acre foot level, although it's not, it's not automatic. We can make a case for not having to do that. So I just want to share that. So we are meeting minimum string flow requirements pretty well. We have about 33 CFS at Healsburg right now, the minimum is 25. That's the lowest point in the Upper Russian River reach. And we have about 54 cubic feet per second down at Asyanda, which is our one gauge on the Lower Russian River reach that we're looking at. So it's looking pretty good. We do have, I think you all are aware that we have a lot of construction going on out at Roller and Mirabelle, really at Mirabelle, and then where the Inertai leaves Mirabelle and head south towards Khatadi, where it crosses both the Russian River and Mark West Creek, we have some projects going on this year. So I think you all are pretty aware of those, but they are going to cause us some, cause us to do some creative operations out at the river. So anyways, that your operations folks are aware of those, they've been notified at least a couple times about those changes. And those changes are really kind of kicking in over the next couple of weeks. And your operations folks also will be having a meeting with us on Wednesday. So this will be a large topic of discussion at that meeting. So we think we're fine in terms of meeting demand shouldn't be a problem, mostly because everybody's doing such a great job of conservation out there that our demand is, you know, pretty steady and fairly low. So it looks really good. I think that's it for me unless there's any questions. Thank you, Pam. Are there any questions or comments from the tech members? All right, yes, Paul. Yeah, hi, Paul, Celia and Marin. Thanks, Pam, for a great report, as usual. Hey, just a quick question on the Dry Creek releases. Is there any flexibility there? I know you mentioned they were at 80. And then the ASEANDA flow was measuring 54, which is above the critical point in the TUCP. So I'm just curious about that. Yeah, no, we need to meet that 80 minimum. And currently, you know, I looked to see what was being released, and I didn't write it down. And now I've forgotten what that number is. So we have some space there, but not a lot. The outflow is about 93. And so we're probably going to look at the gauges downstream of there. If I look at the gauges downstream, we're probably just needing minimum flows at the lowest gauge in Dry Creek. So but we'll take a look at it, Paul, just to make sure. But Frank Mello, who's our chief operator over that, is pretty on it. So yeah, we're at 82 at the mouth of Dry Creek. So we really don't have any space there to change that right now. And that, I guess, doesn't there's no in the TUCOs that you file, right? Is there relief from that? There could be relief from it. We just didn't request it this year because we thought that we would need to have 80 in ways in that week. So that's where we ended up. Thanks. Any other questions from members of the TAC before we go to the public? Pam, I just had one quick question. And I know you said in terms of 100,000 acre feet projecting above this year. Is that end of calendar year? Is that end of one? I'm trying to remember if that projection went through, I thought it went through November, but I may be wrong about that. That's the kind of question that Don Seymour has been asking right off the top of his head. I don't remember, Jennifer. I don't remember if it was the end of the water year or if it was the end of the calendar year or some. It would have been probably one or the other, probably not in between, but I don't remember. Okay, great. Okay, so we will now, seeing no other questions from the TUC members, we will now open up for public comments on item five. If you're on Zoom, please raise your hand. If you're on the phone, please dial star nine. And Secretary Ledesla, can you please facilitate public comment on this item? Yes, we do have a public comment from Brenda Edelman. You have permissions to speak. Okay, can you hear me now? You can hear me good. My comments probably cover a few of your items here. So if I say something, you want me to wait, but I just soon say it all at one time. We wrote significant comments and there were a number of letters that went in from the lower river, excuse me. And we're concerned that the state basically did not accommodate any of our requests for the lower river. And that we are going designated to have as low as 25 CFS for the summer. Now, the lowest I've seen so far at House Sanda has been about 40 CFS for I think a week or two in the lower 40s. Then it moved up to the upper 40s. And that and just the last few days, it's been in the 50s. And of course, that's a good thing, although that's still pretty low. And there were actually two warnings about cyanobacteria, the river starting to develop more algae. And we also have the problem that when flows get real low over a summer that we have a lot more bioconcentration of toxins, nutrients, and other problems start creeping up. And so we're very concerned about what's going to happen to those of us downstream. As far as dry creek goes, I've looked at past flows from dry creek in the summertime. And on a number of occasions, I've seen releases as high as 150 CFS in the middle of summer. I keep looking at a lot of it was around the 80 CFS, but there were a number of times when it went not just a little over, but a lot over. One of the things we had been asking for is that there be some flushing intermittently of the river with higher flows to both accommodate water quality issues and also recreation. People just can't do an awful lot when the flows are very low, but we're also concerned about possible health impacts. The signs are starting to go up about, there were a couple of signs up about the cyanobacteria, and there is a lot of concern about that. So I was looking at this document. I'm also wondering about data collection and the way you will calculate, those contractors will calculate the 20% and decrease over 2020. And one of my concerns is that there's a lot of reliance on urban water management plans. The urban water management plans are based on artificial calculations that are based on estimates, and I've never seen you use the actual water sales data. And I'm wondering why that is the case, because what comes out is that the water sales data is considerably lower, maybe 20% lower than the projections of the urban water management plan. And I don't, there may be some perfectly good reason for this, and it would be nice to have, if there's a brief answer to it, I would like to know about it. I'm also concerned that the urban water management plans are two to three years old, the data in there is starting to get old. And the last two years, there's been enormous growth happening, new development. I mean, it's not just a few units, it's thousands of new units. And nowhere have I seen an estimate of how much water those new units are going to use. Or are using, they're in various, some are all already filled with renters, but a lot of them are just still being built. And the other thing is, you know, you put, we've been put at the 25 CF critical flow level, and yet by your own admission, your circumstances aren't nearly as critical as last year. So I just feel that if there was a certain amount of, let's say, extra flow in the river say before weekends, so the recreators can have more water and the river can get flushed a little bit. And not just, we never know what it's going to be. I mean, yes, it's 50 now, but how many days will it be 50? And is 50 enough to take care of water quality needs? So I'm just putting some of these issues out there and letting you know what my concerns are on a brief level. I'll go into more details in another time. Thank you. Thank you, Brenda. Secretary LaDesma, do we have any other public comment? We do not have any other public comment. Thank you. Pam, I know there are a few questions in there. Did you want to respond? Yeah, I can respond to a couple of things. First of all, the minimum flow in the lower reverse 35 cubic feet per second, not 25, which is what it is in the upper reverse. So I just want to make sure that I stated that correctly because it's very possible that I didn't. I also wanted to let you know, Brenda, that when the order was issued, it was issued before the state had everybody's comments, I believe. So there is possibility that they may choose to actually amend the order based on comments received. I don't know if they're going to do that, but it's possibility that I just want to do to be aware of that. And as far as this idea of releasing more water for flushing, I don't see that as being very viable just from an operational standpoint, purely from an operational standpoint. We could release more water and a lot of that water ends up soaking into the banks of the river. And it literally takes days for that water to move from either Lake Mendocino or Lake Sonoma down to the area that you're targeting. And there's no guarantee that water is going to get there. So the idea of ramping up and down for weekend flows is really not just, it's just not physically possible to do that in a way that you could have control over on our river. So I just wanted you to be aware of that also. We also, in addition to just not really having control because of long travel times and the physical reality of the river itself and what's happening out in the natural environment, we also have really strict ramping rate requirements as part of the order. And so to ramp up and down would literally take days to do that. And so we'd be in this constant state of flux if we were trying to do that. And at these lower flows, it's not possible to really hit the targets that we're trying to hit and be in that constant state of flux. So that's just my two cents there. So and Jennifer, you want to address the 20% or you want me to let me let me just mention because Brenda, what you're talking about is water sales data, et cetera, et cetera. The requirement in the order itself is actually 20% reduction in diversion at the Russian River. We have very good data associated with our diversions at the Russian River. We only have two places that we meter that water. So there's not like thousands of meters out there that we have to think about. There's two places that we meter that water. We know exactly what we're taking out of the river and sending out into the water transmission system to our customers. And the 20% reduction is on that particular volume of diversion, not on what is sold out in the system, because that that amount of water is what the state water board has actual jurisdiction over or authority over. So that's why that reduction is included as it's included in the order itself. So it's a 20% reduction in the diversion compared to 2020. And we can look at that data pretty readily and tell how we're doing. So it's not huge gobs and gobs of data, which you may be thinking if you're thinking meters and customers on retail water systems. So I think that's it for that, Jennifer, too. Thank you, Pam. And yes, I was just going to mention in terms of the calculating the 20% and Pam covered that very well, but we are comparing to 2020 water usage data. So it's actually it's it's a usage comparison. It's not a comparison. None of our reporting as a comparison to the urban water management plan. It's all based on actual usage data. And then in terms of the urban water management plans, they typically are slightly more conservative in that we're planning for future use. But it does take into account all development that's been included in general plans. So if they were included, that is part of our projections. And the actual projections for new development include conservation implementation. And you can actually see the actual projections for use, which is significantly less than existing development. It's all on urban water management plans. And Brenda, we're happy to connect you with someone in Santa Rosa. We can walk you through exactly how that was done for our plan. If that helps provide some additional information. Okay, seeing no other public comment and seeing no other hands from the tech members, we will go ahead and move on to item number six. So item number six, I believe is Grant. But now I'm not sure who's doing that. I heard I'll be taking this one. Yeah. Thanks Paul. Okay. So item number six will be water shortage allocations and we'll have Paul Pielza speak on this item from Sonoma Water. Thank you, tech chair. Jennifer Burke. So this item really kind of dovetails off of Pam's discussion about the temporary urgency change order, which was received by us from the state board on June 17th. And particularly in regard to term 12 of the order, which requires Sonoma Water and its contractors to meet a 20% diversion reduction for the period July through October of this year. And Sonoma Water has as part of its restructured agreement adopted water shortage allocation methodology and model that's used in these times of shortage to provide our customers with allocations for how that water is to be a portion during time of supply shortage. So we did use the water shortage model that was adopted by the board in January to provide allocations to the contractors. General Manager Grant Davis did send those out back in June to each of the contractors. Hopefully you all receive those. And I'm happy really that's kind of all there is to this item. I'm happy to answer any questions either by the tech or the general public as to how these were provided to you. Thank you, Paul. And thank you for bringing the information. Are there any questions from members of the tech? All right. Seeing none, I just would like to say thank you again to all of the tech members last summer for working on getting the coming to agreement on the water shortage allocation methodology. And thank you to Sonoma Water for bringing that to your board. So we had a definitive methodology that we could use this year. Made things a lot easier, so greatly appreciated. So seeing no hands or questions from any of the tech members, we'll now open this up for public comment. If you'd like to make a comment on item six, please raise your hand on Zoom. If you're on the phone, please dial star nine to raise your hand. And Secretary Ledesma, do we have any public comments on this item? We do not have any public comments. All right. Thank you much, Paul. So now we are moving on to item 7A. And item 7A is an update on the water production relative to the 2013 benchmark. And as always, you will have a handout in your packet. We are continuing to track water usage on a monthly basis in comparison to the 2013 benchmark. That is a holdover from the last drought conditions. I think similar to what we did last year, Paul Piazza and I will be talking about potentially looking to do some specific data tracking for the allocations for 2022 compared to 2020. But we will continue to keep this updated in terms of comparisons to 2013. As you can see for the month of May, it was a 30% reduction. And so far here to date, a 24% reduction. So really showing a great deal of conservation still being implemented by all of the partners. And then you can see over time on chart two, a pretty significant reduction in gallons per person per day since our highs back in the mid 90s. So again, just showing a great track record of all the conservation implementation that's been occurring. And any questions from the tech on this item? All right, seeing none, we'll now take public comments on this item. If you are on Zoom, please raise your hand. If you are on the phone, please dial star nine if you'd like to comment. And Secretary LaDesma, do we have any public comments on this item? We do not have any public comments. All right. So we'll now move on to item seven B, which is our annual water supply update and demand assessment. And Paul Pielza with some water will again be presenting this item. Thank you, Chair Burke. So one of the updates that was included in the water code changes for the 2020 urban water management plan cycle was a new requirement for the completion of an annual water supply and demand assessment. The initial report for the results of this assessment was to be due to the Department of Water Resources July 1st starting in 2022 and annually thereafter. The annual water supply and demand assessment considers unconstrained demand in the current year against the current year supply with the additional plan to look at the next year as being dry. So Sonoma Water back in winter began conversations with the contractors to discuss the unconstrained demand that is going to be modeled against Sonoma Water's supply for this assessment. Again, the unconstrained demand by definition is to be considered as normal year demands, meaning without a constraint by water shortage measures that might be implemented such as currently during a drought. So this is a more conservative estimate of the expected demands against the current available supply and in consideration of an additional dry year. We utilized the unconstrained demands that were provided in the urban water management plan as part of the five-year drought risk assessment. Those unconstrained demands were provided by the contractors for each year 2021 through 2025, recognizing that there is a need sometimes to update those numbers. Sonoma Water did work with a few of the contractors to get updated unconstrained demand figures to make sure that this analysis as we were completing it this year was current. There were a few conservative changes that we made to change some local supply estimates that were provided in consideration of planned for groundwater sources by one of the contractors that hasn't been implemented yet and also in consideration of additional groundwater supply from one of the contractors that was being made available. So following the changes to the unconstrained demands, our engineers utilized an analysis that looked at the 10th percentile dry year in the year to come. So that was the 1976 hydrology, which as you are all pretty familiar with 1976-77 was one of the driest on record, if not the driest two-year period on record. And then comparing those demands to that current supply and forecasting next winter as dry, Lake Sonoma did drop below 100,000 acre feet before next calendar year, so roughly the end of November. But the reservoir was modeled to recover before January, and so we did not trigger that reduction in Dec. 1610. So consequently, the results show that there was no shortage triggered during this current summer and next year, relying on that 10th year 10 percentile dry year hydrology next winter, which is good news. It shows that we have some resiliency in the reservoir, even in the face of very dry winters. Following the analysis, we did provide the results to the contractors who are also required to complete and submit the results of an annual waterspline demand assessment to DWR on their own, in consideration that their supply portfolio includes not only Sonoma water supplies purchased from us, but also many of the contractors have additional other water supplies that they need to include in their own water supply assessment. Our report was filed on July 1st. We did indicate that due to low reservoir storage that Sonoma water and the contractors as part of the TACP were planning to reduce diversions from the July through October period voluntarily. That's both to make sure that, again, if we see another dry winter that we're doing our due diligence to preserve storage for future years, and also in regard to the governor's executive order, which is calling for a statewide level two shortage demand reduction actions by all of the retail and also water, urban water providers in the state. So with that, happy to answer any questions by the TACP or the general public. Thank you, Paul. Are there any questions or comments from members of the TACP? All right. Seeing no hands raised, we'll now take public comments on item 7B. If you'd like to make a comment and you're on Zoom, please raise your hand. If you're dialing in on the phone, please dial star nine to raise your hand. And it looks like Secretary LaDesma, can you please help facilitate public comment on this item? Yes. We do have a public comment from David Keller. You have permissions to speak. Thanks. This is a question probably for Grant. The water agencies, water rights, are for 76,000 acre feet drawn from the Russian re-diverted stored. And I know that in the initial draft, the IR on the water flow and fish project, there were comments from the state board about whether or not the water agency is using it 76,000 acre foot and water rights. And the question was whether or not keeping that under the use it or lose it premise for water rights is an issue. If that's still an issue for the water agency and how the negotiation or conversation with the water board is going. You know, Pam, do you want to provide a bit of feedback for David on that question? I know we have been looking very diligently about what the Potter Valley situation is going to translate into the region very clearly. And there's enough uncertainty that we're factoring that in. But in terms of whether or not we're going to be needing the full allotment, it's evident by what we're going through right now and that this item on water shortage contingency planning and future projections that we are right there out in the year 2040. So I'm not exactly sure what you're looking for there, David. And Pam, maybe you want to chime in? I'll just mention that we're not having active negotiations with them, David, about that 75,000 acre foot number. That will be considered at the same time they consider our extension of time under our water rights. That extension of time petition was filed a long time ago with the state water board and it's all part of, as you mentioned, the Fish Flows project. So it's all kind of part of that package right now, including a number of other water rights updates that need to be made to our water rights or that we're requesting be made to our water rights. So I don't think we're going to have any sort of clarity on this in the next couple years until the state water board takes up that project, which we'll probably go to hearing at the state water board at some point. Yeah, thank you both for that. So, Grant, if I understand in the projections, 20, 40, you're assuming that what are the demands from the water agency will be at the 75,000 acre foot? Well, I mean, it's a long way off. You've got a room water management plans, accordingly. But we show our ability to manage properly. It's possible we could extend that out. But the number is there and it's been pretty well vetted. And I think we'll know more as we go. That's our barometer. Okay. Well, looking forward to seeing that the EIR eventually get to find whatever the PVP outcome will be or likely outcome or alternatives would be looking forward to seeing that. I'll bet you're going to be doing something more than that in retirement than waiting for our EIR to come out. Are you think so? Yeah, I hope so. It's true. Thank you, Grant. All right. Do we have any other public comment on this item? We do not have any more public comments on this item. All right. Thank you. Our next item is item 7C. And I believe Barry Dugan and Paul Piazza from Sonoma Water are presenting, although I've gotten some bad information so far. So we'll see. But nice to see Barry. And I believe Barry, isn't this your last official day of work? This is my last official day, Jennifer. And I wouldn't miss this meeting for the world. Congratulations on your upcoming retirement. And thank you for spending your last day with us. Go ahead and take it away. You're welcome. Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the TACC. And one of the reasons that I wanted to present this today, or at least start the presentation, is to introduce my successor. And that's Andrea Rodriguez. As she is on the screen, she will be managing the Community Affairs Group. And the Community Affairs Group is in good hands as is the TACC and the partnership when it comes to outreach. So Andrea will be participating at the end of this presentation. So you'll hear from her then. So this is, can I share my screen, Easter? Just one moment, please. Okay. Thank you. I also just wanted to say that we're modeling the TACC's peaceful transition of power back in June. So this will be orderly transition. We hope there'll be no protests. We're still waiting for this. We want to welcome Andrea. Nice to have you join us. And also, like I said, congratulate Barry on his well-deserved retirement and a really great career with Sonoma Water. It's always been a pleasure to work with you. And I wish you all the best in retirement and welcome your successor. Thank you, Jennifer. I appreciate that. Barry, it's for somebody who's not letting us give you those permissions. So I'll go ahead and present for you if you want to let me know when you'd like me to change the next slide. Sure. Go ahead and change the next slide. So just want to refresh on our summer outreach campaign in July through September. And a reminder, I didn't put it in there. All of our materials are bilingual, English and Spanish. So the messages for July and through September are updating our drip systems, caring for trees during the drought. You can read all of those. And our usual advertising and outreach methods that will be going on throughout that period. And I will now turn it over to Paul Piazza for the next slide. And he will take us through along with Andrea. Thanks, Barry. So we also had plans this summer for saving water summer pop-up events that are going to be happening regionally on August 20th, which is a Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. have locations in Santa Rosa, Healdsburg, Petaluma, and the other locations on the screen. There will be information available on the partnership's website, which is savingwaterpartnership.org. So I encourage you all to keep an eye out there on the website for additional information. In addition to this Saturday, August 20th event, we will be supporting additional pop-up events with our other partners throughout the summer. So keep an eye out for those. Next slide, please. Coming up later this month, we are participating in the Zero Waste Week event that's happening throughout the region to host a Zero Waste Water webinar that features information for homeowners on how to identify and fix what are some of the more common irrigation leaks that we see at residential properties. We've got a couple of great speakers that have a ton of industry experience to bring you information about what you need to know at your home in order to keep your irrigation system performing efficiently and get the most out of the water available this summer to keep your landscape thriving. So look for that. Again, information available on the partnership's website. For those of you that have a phone handy and are really excited to use QR codes, quick, grab it while it's on the screen and it'll redirect you more information. And then I'm going to turn this over to Andrea Rodriguez for the next slide. Hi there. Nice to see everyone. My name is Andrea and we are also pairing up with the county of Sonoma to do a series of Drought Town Halls. I want to say thank Jennifer. She kicked it off the other month and we just had one last week which focused on the parks and health of the river. So our algae's, they gave a great presentation on that. The next one coming up will be September 1st. So we encourage you to share those, participate, and follow along. They're on all of our social media and websites. They are bilingual as well. Each one will have a different theme but of course they all message on drought. So please keep an eye out for those as we have three more coming up. But there's anything you want to see on those, let us know. The recordings and presentations are always available a little bit after as we get those remediated for our websites. But we encourage you to share those and let your customers know about them. So thank you. And I think that's it for us. All right. Thank you. And again, congratulations, Barry. Welcome Andrea. And are there any questions or comments from members of the talk? All right, seeing none. I just had one just noted clarification. You mentioned that the next one's in September but there's also an August date. Are you guys having the August one? Are you not? No, we are. I'm just already in the head. Okay. Just wanted to make sure. Great. And I think I'm guessing you guys have already done this but there's information you want to send out to all of the TAC members and the partners. We can help advertise on, I'm sure, our various social media channels and websites as well. All right. So seeing no other questions or comments from the TAC, we'll open it up for public comment. If you would like to make a comment on item seven C, please raise your hand on Zoom. If you're on the phone, please dial star nine to raise your hand. And Secretary LaDesma, do we have any public comments on this item? We do not have any public comments. All right. Well, thank you all. And thank you for all of your work over these years, Barry, and best wishes in retirement. Thank you for joining us on your last day. Thank you, Jennifer. I really appreciate it. And thank you for, thank you and all of the TAC members for all your work. Keep up the good fight. All right. Thank you. Okay. We're now moving on to item eight and item eight is a biological opinion status update. And Pam Jean will be giving this presentation from Sonoma LaDesma. Pam? Hey, thank you. Whoever just put up the actual update. So hopefully everybody has a copy of this, our update for today. There's a couple of photos on, I think, the second page or third page. I can't remember now anyways. So take a look, because I'm not going to give you all the detail that's here. Starting off with the fish flow project, there's really no change at this point. So I'm just going to move straight on down to the Dry Creek Habitat enhancement project. There's no construction going on right now out there, although there will be, looks like starting maybe next month. So as far as Habitat monitoring maintenance on the Dry Creek projects, I think this is pretty similar. The text here is pretty similar to prior months, so I'm not going to spend a bunch of time on it. There is a whole lot of data collection that goes on associated with these projects, and there's some good description of what those different types of collection protocols are here. So the only other thing to add is that there is a little bit of maintenance still going on at this point with some plantings out in the field. So as far as phases four through six, or as sometimes we call them miles, four through six goes, the cores is implementing those projects. Hopefully everybody knows that by now. The phase four project is the one that's at the forefront right now, and the core awarded construction for that project at the very, very end of May, and they're also, they're getting really prepared to get the contractor out there on site. So we're doing some terrestrial, I can't say that word, vegetation surveys, also doing some pre-construction biological surveys right now, because they're hoping to get out there in early August to actually start construction. There's a pre-construction conference happens next week, so they're really moving along on that project. And according to the update, it looks like there's going to be a ground basin ceremony out there in August also. As far as the phase fives, five work goes, we do have a 99% design report on phase five. The core is doing their quality control review on that right now, and once they're done with that, they will advertise for construction this fall, and they intend to start construction at least next year 2023. We're working with all the property owners in terms of agreements for right of way, in terms of compensation and easement language in order to construct these projects. And we're also continuing to work with property owners on phase six to finalize access routes and staging areas for that portion of the right of way work out there. Construction of phase six is not expected until 2024. In addition, and then we've talked about this before, there is a small reach on phase five that is being done outside of the work that the core is doing, Snowmawaters doing this work, and we are looking at having, we have a 60% design at this point for this reach, which we refer to as 5B, and we're coordinating with permitting agencies and owners of design consultants, etc., to get out there to figure out what the photographs are showing you, which is this drainage that we need to get across. So that work is ongoing right now. As far as public outreach for both the overall Russian River, the biological pin-in as well as the Dry Creek project goes, it looks like we're looking at doing a meeting in August. I think we tried to do a meeting last year where we, the PPFC meeting I think was going to include a Dry Creek meeting and that got postponed, or perhaps we could say it got canceled due to COVID. So we are trying to get out there this year to talk with the folks in Dry Creek Valley in August. As far as fish monitoring goes, there's not only monitoring going on associated with the biological opinion, but there is a lot of monitoring going on this summer associated with the drought and requirements and our temporary change order as well as just practice our normal practice of doing a lot of fish monitoring. So we have a lot of work happening. I just was next door this morning and saw various many trucks leaving with lots of biologists in those trucks going out to do this monitoring. We're doing monitoring not only sort of in what we consider the main stem down to the estuary but also in the estuary itself. So collectively they're monitoring fish populations at five sites, water quality at 23 sites and that does not include the USGS gauges which add another probably eight or more sites and physical conditions at eight sites. So they're doing this work all summer into the fall and we will be reporting a lot of our findings to the state as we go along on a weekly basis so that they know what's going on and whether or not conditions are changing out there. As far as the Rush River Estuary Management Project goes, the mouth of the Rush River has closed a number of times this year. It is open right now and we are in what we refer to as the lagoon management season which began on May 15th and runs into October. So we as part of that continue to monitor fish and pinnipeds which are the seals etc out at the mouth of the river and sometimes further up the river and do water quality monitoring. That began in June as well as topographic surveys in the beach and I know there's some king tides coming soon. I'm trying to remember if they were this week or next week but it should be interesting to see what happens out there. And the last thing in the update here is interim flow changes. We already talked about those under item five so I won't repeat that and I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you Pam for that great report. Are there any questions or comments from the TAC? All right seeing none. I'm not sure if I missed this last time but or maybe it wasn't in the report but seems like quite the range on the construction bids. Any concerns about that? I think they were, Grant you can correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding is they were kind of clustered at that lower end and then there was an outlier. I may be thinking of a different bid but that was my recollection from that. So we certainly that eight and a half million is very similar to what we've seen on other projects of this size and breadth up in Dry Creek and that bidder, McCullough, who it was awarded to has done projects already on Dry Creek so they have not only a lot of insight and really understand what needs to be done but they're also really good at what they do so we're pretty pleased to see this. Okay good yeah that's better said than I could have but I'd also just mentioned that this is a core project and honestly you know Dave Manning basically gets his nail down at the core these days and having to follow every single new twist and turn I cannot thank the survey crew and the staff for patiently working through this very very long process. We know it's worth it because it's a large project but it does add time energy and cost no question about it. All right thank you yeah just a little surprise when you have eight and 23 and then three in between 14 and 15 million. Yeah and that you know that to me that's where I would expect them and that you know sort of 10 to 15 range but yeah we'll see. Well glad to know you guys are familiar with them. All right thank you. Any other questions or comments from the tech? All right seeing none we'll open it up for public comments on item eight if you're on zoom please raise your hand if you're on the phone please dial star nine to raise your hand and secretary Ledesma can you please facilitate public comment on this item? Yes and we do have a public comment from Brenda Edelman you have permissions to talk. Okay thank you very much I have a couple questions from what I recall the point of these rehabilitation work on Dry Creek was to slow the flow which would allow higher releases so that the juvenile cell monads would not be negatively affected and I'm just wondering if you have any information about whether or not or what the actual change would be the outcome of or is it premature to to ask that question because it's my understanding you can release more water if this project does indeed slow the flow and that could be beneficial for the lower river as well as the fish so this ties into the the biological opinion which runs out a year from September and I'm wondering what's happening with the biological opinion is it going to be renewed? I haven't heard anything about the whole point of lowering flows in the lower river was to have a lagoon for the juvenile cell monads in the lower river I haven't heard a word about what's happened with that except a couple years back I heard a couple of fat fish were found but it seems as though the anticipated benefits from lowering flows in the lower river have not been found to occur and I'm just wondering if you have any more information on that and also Pam you made a comment about USGS monitoring eight different sites and I don't recall hearing that before and I'm just wondering if you can tell me where those sites are and so I hope someone could give me some quick answers on these questions thank you Pam if I might before you jump in anything about sites and whatnot Brenda one thing I think that's probably fairer is to explain the Dry Creek Restoration Projects those those enhancements are actually to design to create refugia and back channels the slowing the water down is actually occurring off off into the restored area creating the habitat for juveniles to get out of the way and and not have those flows so we are still capped very much by what we're able to bring out of Lake Sonoma but I think it's that that's the distinction I'd hope that you can realize it's not just a slow in general it's to create habitat off the main stem that would slow the water down create the habitat conditions for over summering and wintering Pam I don't know if you have anything more in terms of what Brenda was questioning in terms of monitoring stations yeah so Brenda there's several and I'd aid is probably an overstatement there's a number of USGS gauge stations that also include water quality monitoring these have been in place for a very very long time and if you go to the USGS website and you look up the various gauges on the river you'll find that water quality data posted there I don't recall off the top of my head which gauges they are so I can't help you there but they're typically recording dissolved oxygen temperature possibly conductance I can't remember and turbidity possibly also so if you just go to any of the USGS gauges on the internet you should be able to tell which ones have that data because it'll be posted there okay and there and actually Brenda I'm glad you brought up the biological opinion you know for expires next year 2023 and because one of the things that when I went through the biological the BO update for this meeting I realized is missing from it is an update on the biological assessment that is underway so we need to start including that in this update so that this group has this group and the WACC has and the public have some idea of where the biological assessment which leads to the next biological opinion stance so we will include that in future updates great thank you Grant and Pam for those answers and yes would be great to start getting an update on next steps with the biological biological assessment going forward all right are there any other public comments on this item there are not any more public comments on this item okay thank you thank you Pam and I believe you're up for the next item maybe item number nine is an update on the Potter Valley project and I think Pam yep that's me it's kind of my meeting uh um is it's the pamphlet I should have gotten a glass of water before we started um so what's going on with the Potter Valley project we are still I'm trying to remember this group met last in May right so um we are still waiting for um FERC on an operation from an operational perspective PG me filed a variance request for a change in operations this year we are still waiting for word from FERC on that so a number of parties filed um I know I'm not going to remember the proper terminology but they essentially have kicked this into a more formal process than normal um in the in the way that they filed um comments or uh concerns on the request for the variance and so um I think uh FERC has to go through a little bit more of a formal process this is my understanding they have to go through a little bit more of a formal process in order to approve the variance um and issue a variance so we're waiting for that so that's one of the reasons why when I was giving the water supply update I talked about um the flow in and out of Lake Mendocino kind of matching right now the reason for that is because that variance hasn't been approved once the variance is approved the flow coming into Lake Mendocino from the east fork Russian River is going to go down significantly so um that's the current state there um we also uh there's a there's a working group of um the fisheries agencies the round valley Indian tribes and the number of stakeholders on the Russian River um they met last month um with regards to the variance but PG me has told us actually they she told David Keller who asked the question and and uh responded everybody got the response um that that group will not be meeting again until the variance is uh issued so that's uh the next time that group will be meeting as far as um the license for the Potter Valley project I think everybody knows that the license expired in April PG needs operating under an annual license which is a very standard process through FERC or a licensed project um National Marine Fisheries Service filed a letter in I believe it was March where they were asking for a number of conditions to be attached to that annual license and they're referred to as interim protective measures um and uh so PG me along with um at this point the project is is in what we call a surrender process so PG me has been told to do two things one is respond I think it's very soon it's either this week or or next week with a plan and a schedule for what they want that surrender process to look like for FERC's approval the other thing that FERC has asked for is a response to that March letter from National Marine Fisheries Service so um and it's they're both on the same timeline so both of those requirements were imposed on PG me um through the same correspondence so we should be seeing that pretty soon um some sort of response from PG me and until then we really don't know what they're going to going to propose they haven't um they haven't shared that with anybody so that's where we're at with regards to that once we know that um we'll have a better idea of what they what they think a project in terms of decommissioning might look like at least we hope there'll be some insight in their response um and they will start the process of doing stakeholder outreach etc in terms of implementing that process so it'll be a sort of a stepwise process similar to um actual relicensing but it's moving towards license surrender um the other thing that's going on at least internally for snow and water with regards to the Potter Valley project is we are working on getting three contracts out for the scope of work associated with the Department of Water Resources grant that we got for Russian River watershed water supply reliability and those three scopes um one of them has to do with the actual physical um operation of the Potter Valley project and of the diversion itself um so we've interviewed a couple of engineering firms um and if I selected a firm I'm not going to say who because we don't have a contract yet so um so that first contract is is pretty far along the second contract that we're looking at is has to do with uh Russian River water users and getting all the folks together that benefit from the water that's um transferred from through the Potter Valley project into the Russian River educate them understand what their concerns are get understand what their the impacts to them of a change in that might be understand whether or not they're willing to pay for um to have that transfer continue etc um and I believe the firms that were um shortlisted for that particular contract to come in and help with that outreach um were interviewed last week so um I believe they are again I think we have a selection but I'm not going to say who I think it is anyways because I don't want to mess that up um but we don't have a contract yet so um that's the second contract the third contract um has to do with kind of focusing in on the Potter Valley itself and looking at water resources up there and I know that we've um also done interviews with those firms and I believe um there's been a selection made there so um although that I know a little bit less about so I really don't know who was left there um uh we also have some modeling work that we're doing internally under that grant but um that most of that work is actually already completed but there is some work also being done in-house so we should have um a lot of we have a lot of movement but we should have even more movement on all three of these um probably the next time we report out all right thank you Pam and just the FYI while we were all sitting here the email came out from FERC and so the plan and schedule have been submitted by PG&E but not the response to the nymphs letter yet so um excitement if everyone who wants to go read that's coming up or it's out um are there any questions or comments from the tap on the update for PG&E or Prada Valley project sorry um I did have one quick question um Pam and I don't know if you know that answer to this but um on the motion to intervene on the flow variance by a couple of the other agencies do you know if Sonoma water or some represent representatives of the Russian River will be included in some fashion in that um in terms of the request for the flow variance and FERC process I'm not sure what your what do you mean by part of that Jennifer do you know what the process is and how comments are like facilitated to make sure Russian River interests are represented um I don't really know that the process um I just know it's a little bit more formal that the commission I think has to actually consider the variance I that's my understanding maybe it doesn't happen at staff level now because of the motions to intervene um but Grant you can correct me if you if you understand the process anymore most of those um the motions to intervene where it was essentially just a support of what was submitted in terms of the variance request those likely would not have kicked it into this more formal process so the motions to intervene that are have an issue with the variance request really are Russian River interests so Russian River interests would be represented because it's Russian River interests who filed those motions so um not necessarily us but other parties and I know as the the WAC we supported we sent a comment letter you're right supporting uh Sonoma Waters position but yeah we were um a little leery of filing a motion to intervene because we knew that it would kick it into this more formal process and we recognized that as you all did in the letter that you sent that um there is a need for a variance and we were afraid what's happened now would happen and that is that um it would the variance wouldn't happen for a long time and that would put the storage and like um Pillsbury and Jeopardy and we were concerned about that happening so um and that's kind of exactly what we've seen happen now okay so I'm guessing we'll just continue to monitor and if there is some type of process then um we can determine if there's a need for any participant right yeah okay great thank you any other questions or comments from the tech all right seeing none uh we'll now open it up for public comments on item nine um if you want to make a comment by a zoom raise your hand and if you're on the phone dial star nine and uh secretary Ledesma can you please facilitate public comment on this item we do have a couple public comments Brenda Edelman you'll go first and you have permission to talk um that was a mistake I'm sorry I don't hear the comment on this item thank you I thought you were just doing a high five Brenda yeah David Keller we have public comment you have your raise your hand raised you have permission to talk great thank you and Jennifer as you noted um as uh Pam was presenting the FERC filing from PG&E came in and uh just a quick uh it's the proposed plan to and schedule for preparation and filing of a surrender application including decommissioning plan is 30 months from the date that FERC accepts that proposal so uh somewhere in about two and a half within about two and a half years there will be a decommissioning uh and surrender proposal on FERC's desk and in the public's hand so uh it is moving forward it will happen uh we would prefer it happen faster than that uh and as Pam noted uh the delay on getting the variance means that it's unlikely that Lake Pillsbury will retain the storage necessary for uh names your recommendation on a 30,000 acre foot uh storage or hold back for fisheries purposes so uh the sooner the better and uh let's see that this is moving all right thank you David um Secretary LaDesma do we have any other comments on this item we do not have any more comments all right thank you thank you Pam um item number 10 is items for next agenda um anything in particular uh from the TAC any recommendations as I mentioned work with Sonoma water to start tracking uh information related to the 20 production and diversions any other items for next agenda all right seeing none um we'll take public comments on this item if you wish to make a comment on item 10 please raise your hand by a zoom if you're on the phone dial star nine and Secretary LaDesma do we have any public comment on this item we do not have any public comments all right so thank you uh it sounds like we are adjourned it's 10 29 um have a great day everyone and again congratulations to Barry Dugan on his last day and impending retirement and David Kellogg's retirement oh yes and David Kellogg's retirement as well and welcome Andrea thanks everyone thanks everyone thanks Jennifer