January 22, 2024 — Water Resources Advisory Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:01] Okay. Webinar started and is recording. Alright. Well, good evening, everybody Happy New Year members and staff, and to the public I'd like to initiate the January 20. Second meeting of the water Resource Advice report as we get started, though, if Joanna Bloom with the city, could discuss the public engagement process. That'd be great. Yes, thank you, Gordon. I'll go ahead and read some of the talking points. If Karen, you want to share the slides. So my name is Joanna Bloom, and I'm serving as the technical host for this meeting. We'll start with sharing a few slides of the virtual meeting rules that we follow. These rules are in place to find a balance between transparency with the community members and security that minimizes disruptions. We need a full name associated with each person's participation in open or public comment, and we cannot unmute you without it.

[1:02] If your full name is not currently displayed, please go ahead and change it, or you can text me at (303) 817-1742, and I can change it for you. There is no chat feature for this meeting and the Q. And a function is enabled and can be used to address zoom connectivity questions only. Members of the public may be unable to control the audio or video features videos limited to city officials, employees and invited speakers. Only. I will unmute you when you're recognized to speak and call your name, and Karen will run a 3 min timer and display it on the screen. Once you begin your comments. Thanks so much for your participation over to you. Thank you, Joelen. Our first order of business today is to discuss and approve the September meeting since September. For those of you listening was the last time the Resource Advisory Board man.

[2:03] Are there any comments about the meeting minutes? Remember, we talked about the Water conservation plan and other matters. Okay, I would simply like to note that there was a a good discussion amongst the rest members about the water conservation plan. Many good questions were posed and they were captured very nicely in the meeting minutes. So I wanna appreciate the efforts of staff to to really summarize the the discussion points very well, and II hope that trend continues. We appreciate that. Having said that though gonna have a nomination move to approve minutes. We like to approve it. Second, on paper approving September meeting minutes. Right? Thank you. And next we'll move on to a public comment period. And this would be our matters that are not part of the presentation materials for tonight.

[3:07] Is there anyone who would like to from the public who'd like to speak tonight so interested attendees that would like to speak. You can indicate your interest by virtually raising your hand, which is in the zoom features. In your control panel. I do see one attendee that would like to speak so far. Lynn. I am unmuting you now. Oh. just to clarify for the public. This would be the time for anyone to speak, because there's not a public hearing tonight. So just in case anyone's waiting for a upcoming information. Item. thank you. Chair. Right, Lynn, are you able to speak?

[4:00] I didn't get the unmute thing we hear you just okay. yeah. Ii can't take these $100 water bills. This is just these bills have to go down. And what you have to do. I know you have storm water and waste water and everything else. But you know who needs to pay for it. The developers in this town need to pay for it. This is M. Much too hard on the consumer in boulder $100 water bill, and I don't even irrigate at all. So what is the story going on here? This is ridiculous. I'm I'm a very low user. And you know, I heard last week, someone has a 35 water bill in a surrounding community. you have a lot of things you have to do about flooding and everything in boulder. But the more that

[5:07] people live here. the more I guess some people's logic with the economics of it is that you'll then you'll have more income. But that isn't the way it works. The more people that you have, the more demands on a unsustainable system of you know the water in this arid region. And you know, I mean, I'm not telling you anything that you don't already know. But this is hitting the consumer really hard. And I'm just I'm not gonna stand for it. A $100 a month water Bill. I've got $3,000 a year more property tax that I have to fight. I my whole life is spent from going to taxes to the Board of Equalization to the Board of Assessment appeals and everything in between which is my water bill and my century link and my, you know everything. There isn't anything left for anyone any more. It's just too much inflation.

[6:14] And what you people need to do in your positions is, expand them into planning so that we aren't developing the craziness. I mean, this is outrageous at the meridians. 900 people. What renting by the bedroom? See you. Boulder's not a subsidiary of CU. And we're funding all of this. And the water is key. And why are we doing this? Why don't we have some controls on the growth in this place. You know, Jerry, jest wants to grow, grow, grow. and it's not sustainable. And it's not okay. And it increases what wealth, inequity, and diversity, equity and inclusion. And

[7:07] it just, it's unsustainable. And it's an inelastic market, and more people will come the more you build done. Thank you. Oh, sorry! If anybody else would like to speak. You can indicate your desire to do so by virtually raising your hand. Give it just a second. Okay, I don't see anybody else who's interested. Thank you. Joel. I think. And that moves us to next agenda item, which is our principle topic for tonight information on the 2023 Year Review.

[8:00] Great, thank you, Jordan, and I am jumped at. Uchi. I'm the director of utilities and our primary item tonight is the 2023 year and review. If it's okay with, you might want to just comment on the public speakers. Input and as the board members and staff know each year typically May through July, we work on the budget process and there's a lot that goes into it. The utility has several 1 billion dollars worth of infrastructure. We we look closely at condition assessments. We try to avoid rate spikes in in setting rates. In the last several years. Put a lot of emphasis on bill assistance for customers who have trouble paying, I think. we received some Federal funds from Arpa and have help our community members with. If I'm remembering the numbers right

[9:02] can send me a note if I get it wrong. But I think like $250,000 worth of support. So but we welcome input as well when we go through the budget process. If I am hearing a little bit of an echo. and I'm not sure where that's problem set. It's intermittent. Try now and see if it's better testing that better on your end. Lauren is your is yours muted? Okay, I think it's muted now. That might have been it. We checked again. It wasn't easy one. Dustin. I think that was, I think we're good. Thank you.

[10:00] So moving on to tonight's topic for 2023 year and review, which is essentially has become the utilities annual report. Years ago. Chris will remember this. We used to do an annual report that was probably a couple of inches thick and we had. We had such lofty goals for the amount of content that some years we wouldn't finish it. And so I think it's been great for us to have this memo format for the board. And even though we don't have any action items tonight, I think it's a really important meeting for staff and for the board just it kind of forces us to go through the year and document the highlights of what was done, and making sure that we're responsive to the funding that the community provides us to operate the utilities and and do the capital projects. and having it in this format and being able to share it publicly. I think it's helpful as well. And the

[11:07] the report itself has a lot of utility, and we share it with new Council members, new staff as we're onboarding them. And so it is a good thing for us. I also think. It provides an opportunity for Staff, who don't normally get a chance to prepare board memos, or or do presentations, or don't get it that often. To to get a shot at that and participate in it. And so we kind of ask for volunteers each year for that assignment and have have been able to get a good mix of staff, and tonight we have Christopher Marx, who has presented to the board in previous years on on other matters he works at the wastewater plant and is a treatment process engineer at our water resources, recovery, facility. So, Christopher, I will turn it over to you and you can have a presentation.

[12:08] Can you go ahead and share my screen? This is always the moment of truth. The way we want it to practice helps. Now that I know where the super toolbar is, and while Christopher is doing that, did wanna acknowledge that it's been a while since we've had a board meeting, maybe going to a little bit more detail. Tonight, when we have the upcoming agenda, we normally have a earlier in the New Year, and there would be a meeting with with the Board later in the prior year to provide some input for that. But that schedule has all changed. So we just haven't really had any anything that the Board needed to take action on for the last several months.

[13:09] Good! Alright, thank you, Joe. and I just want to say thank you. The utilities directors for giving me the opportunity to present tonight, as well as to the rep members for for being here tonight. I'm from the water resource, recovery, facility. And tonight I'm gonna present on the utilities year and review for 2,023. I wanna thank all the staff members who contributed to the information we're going to present this evening. And that was also contained in the memo. We appreciate the opportunity to share a work with you. The agenda format should be familiar from prior years and aims to complement the material that's provided in your memo as well as highlight. Some of the critical projects and plans that were influenced by Rob last year. We'll start with some financial highlights, talk about water supplies, and demand from last year as well as some utilities project highlights give some regulatory updates, talk about upcoming priorities, and then, of course, there'll be a period for questions and discussion. But if at any point in time during this presentation, you'd like to stop on a slide and chat for a little bit about some of these items. Please go ahead and just disrupt my flow.

[14:28] So to start with financial highlights. In 2,023 financial planning and analysis team was staffed. Is the zoom manager. we suddenly have an echo again. Okay, let's try this again. I'll continue on the the funding that we received from Arpa which Joe mentioned just a little bit ago. Was distributed in 2,023 to the tune of $105,500 out of the total $243,000 that we received.

[15:03] This was from the Federal Government as part of the Covid Relief Act in 2,021. Also wanna note that funding was secured by the utilities engineering team to execute a large facility upgrade project at the Y Resource recovery facility. This financing also includes 1.5 million in principle forgiveness which makes that portion of the funding effectively a grant. Also note that we're actively managing our budget in the waterfront as a result of the weather year that we had in 2,023, which resulted in reduced water sales revenue. Since you asked one question. Go back to the previous slide. Absolutely. The second bullet of $105,000 that was provided for utility bill assistance. Do you recall hand or Joe, perhaps do how much that was actually spent?

[16:01] So I think the the whole 105,000 was given out to community members. I think we had. We had more available to us in the last several months or half a year. I think the request for assistance have dropped and other needs in the city. So we've we've kind of recalibrated where that's directed, but all 105 and 2,000 5,023 went to Bill customers. Joe's correct and I could just expand slightly. Council initially approved up to $400,000 for this program. And so, because of the behavior and the kind of reduced request from residential customers. Our plan is to actually make available the the surplus around $150,000 to our housing human services team who is providing some ongoing relief for renters which would actually include smells, ability for things like utility bills as kind of part of a renter provision as opposed to a direct utility customer.

[17:10] So that's our plan for the remaining funds. Here is it is the step there is that the news here from? Essentially, yeah, that's that's and where did he come from, or which is, she's sorry, Steph is sure, for Stephanie and She worked for a consulting firm, and advised that municipalities across the country on and and clients on their rate setting, and kind of the exact work that we do with the Board every year in May, through July. So when we saw her resume, and had interviewed her. We're excited with her background to get her on board. She's been here for what? Like? 4, 5 months a month. Yeah. End of September when she started.

[18:02] and she's figuring it all out very quickly. But there is a lot to to learn, so you'll probably see her in next year's budget process, or this year's budget process. Any more questions I will continue on. since slide is providing an overview of the different groups within utilities and advocate, for of the utilities department is operation and maintenance of the required critical systems of assets that maintain city services for public health, community vitality and safety to go down the line. Here the water utility is covering everything that's related to source water, potable water treatment, hydropower, and the distribution of potable water. The wastewater utility is related to the collection of wastewater and the treatment of wastewater at the water resource, recovery, facility, or, as I'll be referring it.

[19:00] referring to it. For the remainder of this presentation the worth. the storm, water, and flood management utility provides and maintains effective storm water collection and flood management systems which are critical within the city at all times of the year. We also have public works, business services, division as a team which is an outcome of the Public Works assessment that was conducted a few years ago, and it supports both. both the Utilities Department and the Transportation Mobility Department with accounting and financial transaction services, Gis and asset management support, administrative services and project management of noncip departmental feeds. We'll get into some of the watershed supplies. And this slide is providing a graphical re representation of the snow water equivalent or precipitation that was received in the 2,023 water year. I just want to know that the water year goes from October of 2,022 all the way to October of 2,003. So it's a little so it's a little different from the calendar year.

[20:16] The left hand axis on this is showing inches of precipitation, and the comparison that's being presented is between the average precipitation from 1991 until 2020. Compared with the 2,023 water year. the data provided is coming from a critical monitoring site, and the Silver Lake watershed, which is referred to on the graph as the University Camp Snowtell site. What I wanna draw attention to is that the snow water equivalent in blue is following the historical medium median in general, which is shown in Orange. and that precipitation followed the average until summertime, when we received more rain and that provided some additional inches of precipitation. So you can see that the yellow line is the average precipitation historically, and then that gray line is the water last previous water year, and you can see that as we get towards the tail end there, we're creeping above the average and finish a little bit higher there by, I think, about 4

[21:21] to 5 inches tops. So the takeaway from this slide is that 2,023 was wetter than average. Above all else we look at the daily water demands. That. The city has. The Graphic that I'm showing here is providing a comparison of the historical daily average demand for potable water, which is in gray, and then the daily demands from 2,000 Tweet 23 are being shown in blue. and the dates on this graph are actually the calendar year instead of the water year. and the Y axis is being shown in millions of gallons per day that is being sent out into the distribution system.

[22:08] And so these these trends are tracking pretty well together as you progress up until looks like early June or late July there, and we start to see that the blue line tracks much lower than what the historic average is. And this is one place where we're seeing that wetter year come into play, and you can also see that the blue line continues to kind of stay below that gray line for the remainder of the summer until we get into probably mid September. So in general, the the point of this is that 2,023 was wetter than average, and so irrigation demands were really not as high as they normally would have been. And we're seeing that here in this graph. sorry

[23:00] because yeah, portable water is going out into the distribution system from the treatment plants and then is being used. From there. Yeah, that's correct. And by that, then are you referring to lawn watering and residential properties. Things like that. Yes, that's principally with irrigation. Water would be so. One of the one of the things that usually happens in the summertime is we get a peak irrigation demand. And typically, that is around 30,030,000,000 gallons for a day. And that's kind of the threshold of saying, Here's where our peak water demands are throughout the summer. Just know that this is the first year in recent history, where there was not a single day that was above 30 million gallons of water per day. I know that the gray line does not actually go up and touch the 30 million gallon line. But that's just because, as you take a historic average, you don't really see those peaks anymore

[24:01] flow. But this is a really good, graphic to kind of illustrate our financial reality in utilities. And during the covid years when the majority of the city or organization was in financial difficulty because of less tax revenue. Our situation doesn't trend that way. We're we're we're not paid through sales tax, or it's through our utility customers paying their utility bills, and so our usage patterns were a little bit different during Covid, but our revenue was generally about the same or average in a year like this, where the water demand dips so far below the historic average that it has a direct correlation to our revenue, and so we have to watch them carefully throughout the rest of the year and make some decisions. And

[25:03] figure out how we're gonna manage that to balance the books for the end of the year, and we we fortunately, we've been able to do that, and that means successful. But that's where our financial challenges come from, some of them. So another thing that I'll add is that in the late nineties and early 2 thousands. our single demand days, we're actually about 40. So, in comparison from how much we previously used to, how much we currently use. There's been a significant change in that benchmark, and it's decreased by 25%. And to kind of stay on that same trend of of water conservation water use just looking at the demand of of the distribution system to supply the 60 boulder residents with potable water, and also receive the wastewater. The water that's being used then down into the sewer generated this graph here

[26:03] and this is a year by year, comparison of potable water as well as wastewater, and the annual potable water demand or production is what is in blue, and then the annual totalized flow to the work is in green. If you're wondering why these lines are not a little bit more similar correlated, it's just because the water use in summertime includes outdoor irrigation, and that does not go to the collection system. It does not go to the sewer. There's also inflow and infiltration that we refer to as I and I in the industry and that doesn't come from city water use that's coming from groundwater. And so these these 2 lines have some differences between them. But the major takeaway that I want to point out is that as we look back from 2,013 onwards. We have a decreasing trend in both of these lines, showing that we are continuing to actually reduce water on a totalized annual basis.

[27:11] So in addition to everyday operations and maintenance utilities works on specific projects to improve critical infrastructure throughout the system. And I want to take some time to highlight a few of the projects and programs from 2,023. The first is going to be a water utility project, and that's the Albion Dam rehabilitation, which has completed its second out of 3 years and utilities, aims to be complete with this project in 2,024. The picture on the left here is showing an aerial view of different forms on the dam that are being filled by concrete conveyor system at the top. And I just wanna point out that there's areas of that wall that are resurfaced and and new. And they look very fresh. And there's this other areas that are showing the current state of the dam, and really illustrating why this work is needing to be done. On the upside on the upstream wall.

[28:09] The other photos shown as we progress. To the right are the degraded downstream face of the dam, which has not been rehabilitated yet, as well as the view of the of Albion Lake or the reservoir from higher up in the watershed, which was drained prior to construction. And that's just an aerial photo of showing the natural beauty of the area. So, moving forward with water utility projects, we have the Barker gravity, pipeline rehabilitation that has also progressed in the last year, and is currently sitting at about 65% complete. And this is out of a 12 year program. The map that you're seeing on the lower left hand area shows the actual pipeline as a red line, and then it shows the areas of that pipeline that have been rehabilitated which are highlighted in blue.

[29:05] For scale. That line is about 12 miles long, and the efforts are aiming to complete about a mile every single year. The image on the right hand side is something that you all have probably seen before, and it's just to show again the sliplining method for rehabilitation that's being used. This method is, it's important because it's less disruptive to the areas where that pipe runs through. Normally, you might have to actually do an open cut, disrupt a whole area, and the Sliplig doesn't do that. So we don't actually have to do open cuts or excavation for Le. Nearly 90 of the project which is scheduled to be aligned, and only about 10% is, gonna be that excavation. Is that is that full? The whole line gonna be rehabilitated, or some of it. some of it still

[30:04] satisfactory from historically. most of it is not and and needs attention. There's a portion of it that runs on a really flat grade, and it's kind of benched into the hillside and his old concrete pipe. It's not pressurized, and water is running through it. All of that needs to be lined or replaced. And then, as the pipeline crosses valleys, it goes down and drop actually pressurizes that part of the system. and at least one of those they're called siphons. One of those valley areas was still in recent shape, but pretty much the rest of it needs attention. What's the expected life of this? So point we have processed where it is an amazing product and credit to our engineering staff for figuring out the the solution for a portable water project.

[31:03] It's it's uveared. And we can actually bring in a sample sometime. It essentially becomes a fiberglass pipe inside of the original pipe. And it is a a fully structural pipe. I would say 50 to a hundred years. If if we take care of it. It's it's it's basically like a brand new piece of PVC, it's not PVC, but it's like that. Probably even stronger inside of the old concrete pipe. Is this lead to gravity like it is. It's like a long tube sock, and every 500 feet on this pipeline there is a an access point. A manhole lid, and it's it actually gets pulled in with whinges, and then it gets and it's stretched out like a sock, and then it, and then we fill it up with air, and it gets blown up.

[32:02] and then a little trolley with a light trade goes through it and cures it in place, and so the benefit of that the pipeline is 10 or 11 miles long is the amount of ground disturbance to do the rehab this way is minimal compared to what it would be if we had to dig up the pipe and replace it. It looks like you're going trying to go from upstream to downstream. We're left to right on the diagram. I see there's a a notable gap over on the left. It's not co colored in blues. Do you know why that's been skipped over? I don't know off the top of my head, and my eyesight is not good enough to see that from from here, but I know there are some tunnels that may be getting saved until later in the project, so I suspect that maybe what it is

[33:01] I can just maybe go on top of that briefly. So I should introduce myself. Crystal Deputy Director of Operations. Joe is right. I believe some of the sections. There's either siphons or tunnels. So it's a little more strategic to to prepare for that area. The other item to note that's visible on the map is the the different coloring of the land topography. So that kind of just loosely indicates some ownership. So we have various private owners. We have public lands, you know us Forest Service and and a few others in the mix so based on permitting and and approval for access, we sometimes have to skip around where the work occurs. Any further questions. We'll keep our moving. which is yet another water utility project that we'll talk about the virtual rendering on the left hand side is from a design that was completed in 2,022, and was actually featured during this update last year.

[34:05] The image that you see now, is this very same rendering. But it's actually what's now in place as new assets at the 60 Third Street water treatment plant these pumps are probably about 8 feet tall, and they're providing flow and pressure to the distribution system, which is providing all of the water to the different homes and businesses throughout the city. and there is an increased capacity and service flexibility that these pumps are creating because the Ids have been incorporated. And if you're not familiar with that. It's a variable frequency drive that allows you to run the pump at a lot of different flow rates, whereas in the past it was really just a low and then a high, and it would just switch back and forth, whereas now we're able to ramp up and ramp down to just operate the system still a little more effectively and efficiently in general. If I can comment on that, if you think of it like a dial, we used to turned up

[35:02] flow rates in our Sixty-third Street plan and 4 Ngv. Increments, and there was nothing in between because of the pump they're either on or off. And so now it's you can pick any number between 0 and 16 and set it for that. It's it's a simple thing, but it's a big deal for our information. Yeah, we have a lot of them on the work. They're extremely handy to have to just create flexibility in how you're operating a system. On the right hand side is this large green tank that is providing Potasso with a larger storage capacity for their treated water. This project was more costly than anticipated. Archer Western was hired to complete the disinfection, capacity and corrosion control project. and their plans are to spread the costs out over the course of the project, since this tank and a number of other things in our post pandemic world are more expensive than we initially anticipated, for during planning

[36:08] is any of that cost increase related to difficulty getting materials, or absolutely because the demand for materials ha has shot up while producing those materials didn't increase during the same time. And so we're seeing lead times that are in excess of 6 months to a year more, depending on what you're ordering and we're running into the same types of issues with projects at the worth to the extent that we change the way that we're doing our project delivery to enhance earlier delivery, because otherwise we wouldn't have met deadlines, that word anything. For when you say that you mean you're like incentivizing contract performance through schedule, or we're expedite expediting schedule by incorporating the contractor sooner. Yeah, I'll just comment. I think we have

[37:01] on occasion had some performance incentives over over the history of time. But I'm not aware that we actually have those provisions in these current projects. Right? Okay? There's no questions about these items, and then and we'll talk about the wastewater utility projects. Because where there's water pipes you're also going to have super collection pipes that send the water that the city uses to the worth for treatment, and these collection pipes also needs an improvement to ensure capacity of the system is maintained, and then back up don't occur. The map on the left hand side here is showing 3 different phases of improvement for the largest pipes within the collection system. The yellow line is phase 3. The blue line is phase 2, and the green line is phase one phase, one. Work was completed in 2,003. The aligning of the existing sewer phase 2 is what is currently being performed and involves construction of a new sewer along a new alignment

[38:12] and phase. 3 is gonna be performed in the future and will comprise lining the remainder of the existing sewer system. Although the micro tunneling under Velmont Road is a method being used to prevent shutdown of that critical travel corridor which would obviously be very disruptive. Otherwise it's it's good and so advanced here. The image that's just shown up is a 42 inch Hobart fiberglass pipe that's shown next to an excavator that was during a ground breaking, breaking ceremony. and this is the pipe size that's also seen on the far right image, which is over near near the worth where the sewer. the where the collection system is being rehabilitated and upgraded.

[39:03] That 42 inch line also connects with a 32 inch line that comes from the gun barrel area. And then this is all delivering influence into the water. Resource, recovery, facility via a 60 inch pipe. So it's a very large pipe, but it's not actually the largest pipe that we have within the collection system. So, moving on to storm water, flood and flood utility projects. This slide is featuring photos of work being performed in 2,023 within city, and is, including enhancements to the storm sewer drainage, a new manhole and piping generally. Some of these were kind of complicated. And it's not my field of expertise. So I'm gonna pass this over to Joe for better project sharing on these. Yeah, I might want to just comment on on one of these projects, the first one on the left, there 20 First street and floral drive. and on the last slide you saw the main sewer project, which is a massive

[40:08] tens of millions of dollars capital project. but with Boulder being an older city, we sometimes run into these for lack of a better term, stuck issues. And this project was one where there was a a buried line that was leaking. I think it was part of a a private system before. At some point the city took it over, and people who live nearby their basements are filling up with groundwater, and it's only a handful of homes, but it's it's one of those things that there is not an obvious solution, or even within our organization. absolute clarity, that we own it, or which departments responsible, or even within utilities. And our team has to work through those issues and come up with solutions. And it can be as complicated as step, as a much bigger and more expensive project, and if we just leave it as a stuck issue, people are kind of suffering, and so we always have a handful of those things that we're working on and trying to fix. And out of the way the team comes together. And

[41:21] so here's about. Might leave it at that for for this one. Okay. then we'll move on to another storm. Wall, storm floodwater project. This is a rendering of the South Boulder Creek Flood mitigation project that had design were performed in 2,023, but is going to continue into design this year as well. The image that is shown up here is depicting the water detention that will be near Highway 63, and in green near the top center of the photo are the constructed additions that would help manage the flood waters more effectively.

[42:09] Excuse me, Chris could go back on that on the South Border Creek polligation project. Joe, do you know when the current schedule is for the I believe it's the 60% design report which will be the next big report. and we have. Yes, it's scheduled to come out here in the next month or so, and we just did a pretty significant update for members of the public that might be watching to our website. And it also talks about some upcoming board and council processes. The the last kind of city process, step and approval has to do with open space and a disposal process. There's not really a role there for around, but there'll be something's coming up.

[43:05] Okay? So I believe these are your slides as well. So related in the South Boulder Creek project that we just talked about is one that has been in discussion, and the city has been working on it for 25 years or more, and kind of going through a process of elimination. Looking at alternatives that has some really sticky issues associated with it, that that the community wrestles with, and we understand that and then we have another one that the Board took action on last year in the form of the Upward Use Creek and 2 Mile Canyon Creek flood, mitigation plan. and all of our. The city was developing late. 18 hundreds before modern floodplain regulations and a lot of development occur in our drainages. And so there are always tricky land use and private property issues with these projects. And so the team works really hard to to try and find consensus solutions. But it's difficult.

[44:15] And there was a lot of interest in this one related to reach 6 and an area that has a lot of trees and and grassy area. People understandably concerned about what will happen during construction. and the project seeks to in part solve the issue. You see in the photo on this slide. This was during the thunder storm last year, and that is that that is a I think it's a Toyota 4 by 4 that is, pulling a super room out of. That's actually that street sign. That's Broadway. And so the storm water system is under size there. And we're we have a project to upsize the stormwater system. It's part of a bond that I'll talk about on the matters.

[45:02] And if we collect that water in the storm or the place it has to have somewhere to go downstream. And so there's a whole system of of repairs that we have to make. And we just have a lot of work to do and really appreciate the Board's input and and deliberations. When it comes to these plans that we ask you to look at and make a recommendation. Do you be giving an update on that ergos, especially at reach 6 during numbers from Staff? II was really just planning to to talk here and but you're reminding me. After the Board took action we had a pretty significant community meeting in November of last year. and unfortunately there, there's a lot of that utilities that's not flashy, and and people aren't interested in our projects often times, and no matter how hard we try with public notice, we might, we might put together a community meeting and have less than 10 people show up.

[46:07] This one that we did in November. I think there were 100 people there, 60 or so in person and balance. Virtually. And I think the team did really nice job of walking everybody through that. The project is starting design here in 2024. And so yeah. we'll be working on the design for the next year or so and hoping to build a construction on elements of this mitigation plan in 2026. Given the interest in in preserving the current conditions in that reach. 6. We are relooking at a piped alternative under Edgewood drive, and having a consultant kind of revisit. The feasibility of that. Don't know what the outcome of that is. Yet

[47:04] is that a pipeline that would run that whole stretch through there for my nineteenth to all underneath the street. Yeah. And and if the Board remembers the whole plan, which was 2 different pre systems. And because of the development in other areas, they're all already, like on 2 Mile Canyon Creek, it goes back and forth from an open channel above ground to a large pipe section in order to convey The floods were trying to protect the community from 100 year flood magnitude. The the pipes have to be enormous, the the size of the wall behind you in that level of magnitude so fitting that underneath the street that has other utilities and existing things is.

[48:01] it is a bit of a and the 100 year flood protection. That's the decision was made to do that level of protection based on it. It's the regulatory floodplain. And across the city 16 drainages. There are instances where there is so much development and constraint that it's not even possible to get to 100 year level. Gregory Creek is another one that is much less than that. We're we're aware of community discussions around climate change and the fact that the magnitude of storms are getting larger and more frequent. And we're we're factoring in that into all of our utility planning but the the level of development that has already occurred in the city generally a hundred years, is kind of what is within reach for us.

[49:05] Do you know the timeline of the console report on the pipe graduate option. I'm guessing. Quarter one quarter 2 year of this year, but I'll see if anyone sends me a chat message to refine that answer any further questions on this item. I'll go ahead and move on to multi-departmental collaboration. which Jo, I believe you wanted to also share on this. Yeah, I have mentioned and and I think our team has has reported out to the board at various times. Unfortunately, across the country. cities and communities are are wrestling with people living outside and camping issues. And so that has has

[50:06] become a situation here in Boulder. and used to be that we had departments kind of working independently with outside contractors. There. There's just unfortunately, is some clean up work associated with that. and it's something we took on in in utilities. In 2021, and City Council approved. Budget gave us an initial crew, then doubled that in 2022, and we've been working with our police department. And I would say, also working with the on House community and our housing department to try and encourage people to services and and shelter, but not everybody makes those choices. So it is. It is a scope of work that we've taken on, and we've had to establish our processes and the whole program. Since 2021 we've looked across the country and how other cities do it and have found most that have these types of activities have it within their Public Works department. So

[51:14] II would love it if society came up with solutions for these issues, and and we could work ourselves out of a job in in this comfort work for the moment it is. it is part of managing the city. And so how is that position under utilities? Is it making sure that their waterways are clean? And that's how it got under? Yeah. And we started with the crew that was solely funded by utilities, and we just focused on the creeks and drainages cause that tends to be the locations that people want. And then City Council, added a second crew out of the general fund, and so the team can go to other areas and parks and other city property to

[52:05] help out. We're needed there. I know some other cities in Colorado and around the country. It does fall under utilities. But there's some security issues, with crews going out and and addressing, you know, doing clean ups. And so is there some sort of coordination with the police? When you send crews out for sure each week the team has a variety of activities and there. There have been many court cases across the country where this type of work has been challenged. And so giving people adequate. Notice that we're gonna be coming through. And we generally do that each week towards the end of the week. and then when the team is interacting with the In house community, unfortunately, and it's not you can't paint in in broad strokes. It's not everybody. But there is a significant portion of the population that's dealing with mental health, mental health issues, addiction issues and things like that. So for the safety of our team

[53:12] when when they're having those interactions which I'm I'm really proud of the way that that happens and how much compassion our team members and the police show. But occasionally something does escalate. And it's important that the police are there for for everyone's safety, including more people that are camping. There are other days of the week where there may be abandoned materials. And the team isn't having those interactions with people, but they go around the trucks and and clean, clean up and pick up, and you can see on the on the slide here some of the metrics that are just the terms of trench and think we have 2 or 3 pickup trucks. small dump trucks, pick up small dump trucks, and each week, even in the office area that I work in downtown.

[54:07] I see truckloads of stuff getting picked up. We're all we're all city departments are involved in the Sams group program. So it's a partnership between parks and recreation and city police. as well as utilities, housing city manager's office, city attorney's office there. There are a number of how much of the dollars going to support this activity is part of our budget from memory, I wanna say about $300,000 per year annually from utilities. And think the and then double that, and the other part comes from the general fund. There was initial outlay and expenditures to buy vehicles, and

[55:07] maybe some of the one time expenses but Just the crew, salaries and and things like that. It's an ongoing expense. The numbers you've got right are are stunning in in their magnitude. I'm wondering, though, if, since you've been doing this for for now 3 years since the 2021 have those numbers gone down. Have they gone up? Stayed the same. We have. We have an action plan for this. The Sams team does, and there are a number of different metrics that we track. It's it's a little bit hard to say. II think we need more time and consistency in the way we're tracking the data.

[56:01] Our approach has changed in the middle of that. And so kind of an unsatisfying answer for people. Just anecdotally learning about this process and helping our team build the program from the ground up. I can say it is making a difference both in the condition of the city and and keeping it cleaner. And part of the program when we're doing the notice is just letting people know what services are available. Every once in a while somebody's ready to plug in. And and there there are enough people available. It's typically not our department. It's our housing department, but to plug in. And so the the most challenging aspect of this work is that the community is is divided on it, and has been divided, and people have really passionately held views on on the one side that

[57:01] city of Boulder or a minute municipality. It's our role to keep the city clean and safe and and then on the other side. There's a as equally help point of view that there are so many gaps in society, and these people have nowhere else to go. And and we're violating their human rights by not letting them sleep outside and and have shelter. and I think both parts of the community are right here in their points of view. And so we have to navigate that carefully. And I think the compassionate approach that the team does is a big part of striking that balance is that the total budget for this whole program, then from the city would be like. Now, when you factor in like, there are urban park Rangers that are part of the program downtown ambassadors that are funded separately. But I think we have a link to the funding. It's millions of dollars per year the whole Sam's program. I can send the board and memo where we have briefed council in detail. And if you're interested on

[58:19] February eighth our housing department is going to do an update on all the homelessness programs. I don't think this is going to feature a lot of the presentation. But the memo that is has gone to council has a ton of detail on the Sams program. so I can forward that to motion to work, we, as the utilities department is contributing. It's pretty small to the overall effort them. at least in finance, in terms of dollars, maybe not in terms of the staffing or people. But it's a manageable portion. And I and I think we have to do it. And it's it's probably split. The primary components are probably split 5 or so different ways, and we're one of those 5

[59:10] public spaces. Sorry I'm I'm hurting your flow and time any more questions so that I can keep moving forward. Then I will. and moving on, we shall to some regulatory updates. Which is where I get to talk. Yeah, because we're gonna talk about the water resource, recovery, facility. Again, and

[60:05] we're required to meet affluent discharge, permit limits that are established by the State of Colorado and the national pollution, discharge, elimination system, or future limits are going to change. According to the timeline shown on the slide, which I think everybody has actually seen at some point in time before, because it's been floating around for a while, but it does very effectively capture the summary of what we are looking at moving down the road. So currently, the work is already meeting the limits specified for total inorganic nitrogen or Tim. And it's performing the phosphorus upgrades project so that treatment of phosphorus can be included, and that's going to be part of the next permit. We will have a phosphorus limit which will come as an annual medium, and I'm sure you're all familiar with this from from previous meetings. But if not, this is just catching up again. On some of the limits that we're anticipating. We do not have them yet.

[61:08] but despite that, we are working on upgrading the system, to be able to remove phosphorus moving on down the line to regulation 31, which is in gray there at the end, and features some really small numbers this has a later implementation timeline and the point of this regulation is to protect source waters which are obviously influenced by facilities like the Werf. And part of that regulation is the Vip program which I'm sure you're also familiar, and we have some Vip targets that are presented up there as 9 and 0 point 8 4 nitrogen and phosphorus. This is additional permit compliance, time that we're earning year by year by voluntarily reducing nutrients in the discharge. Well, in advance of when it's required. So our permit is not as stringent as what these numbers are showing, but we are still meeting those, and in many cases exceeding some of them for at least nitrogen, and we seek to do the same for phosphorus here in the near future, with the project that we're that we're working on currently

[62:20] the image, and the left hand side is just showing this a source water, you know. That is, you know, we're working on protecting these things so that the water quality going to the water treatment plants for portable use is also protected. It all depends free move on. I noticed the nitrate concentration, the daily maximum, 17.9 milligrams per liter. Isn't the safe drinking water, active drinking water standard for nitrate? 10 milligrams per liter I would have to double check. You're probably right about that if you're remembering it, and I know there is a nitrate value nitrate absolutely.

[63:00] Our permit limit is 17.9. But I couldn't tell you the last time we actually came near that on a daily level for any significant amount of time, without having process upset considerations so chime in Gordon. It's it's a fair comment. And I think the assumption here, through all the modeling and looking at the mixing zones and discharge, and where the next downstream water intake would be that there would be obviously some treatment, you know, from from the next downstream before this definitely will be would be used. But we we do anticipate probably some more stringent daily daily limits that aren't really reflected here. That would be other permit criteria just for us focusing on the kind of regular 31 line of things. But we likely will have a lower nitrate limit also as an individual parameter. Yeah. yeah, we are anticipating that absolutely. And it will circle in with a total inorganic nitrogen, which is ammonia, nitrate and nitrite.

[64:02] and we'll be working on maintaining all 3 of those 2 as as a group, and that will be part of the next permit. Thank you. So any other particular questions on this. Okay. then I'll move on to the next regulatory update. Which is on. And this is a really hot topic of discussion of the water industry generally. The city is already performing the required monitoring of the regulated compounds in drinking water, wastewater and wastewater biosolids. There are 6 pfos compounds that will have drinking water standards and the important takeaway that I want to throughout here is that the drinking water results are non-detect for Pfos and the city plans to remain diligent as efforts to continue complying with regulations. People can come from a variety of sources, and some common ones are listed on that wheel to the right which I scavenged from Riverside, California. One of the most interesting to me was pizza boxes.

[65:12] So just going to show how many places this these chemicals have been used, and you know, will obviously be discontinued, as that's a major emphasis of the Federal Government is to just get this out of, you know, use period. But in the meantime we continue monitoring, and you know we'll remain. Yeah. It's fair to say that Pfos compounds are ubiquitous. They're in cortex jackets. They're in Saran Wrap. They're in Teflon. Remember Scott. Sorry. One of one of the first uses of a of a Pfos compound. The have a small concentration of Pfos present, because there are so many different places where this can come from within the community at large. And so we do see a little bit of that in there. The concentrations that we're seeing in our biosols is are below the action levels mandated by the by, the State.

[66:12] So we are not needing to take any severe actions at this point in time, but we will continue monitoring to ensure that it stays that way. I'll go ahead and move on. We are gonna move on to upcoming priorities. So we're gonna talk about 2,024 and beyond and just highlight a few priorities for each utility as looking forward. So first off, something that was mentioned right at the beginning of this this meeting is the water Efficiency plan. Update? Just want to say, thank you to the Board for interesting contributions to this update, which.

[67:02] is effectively the plan defining efforts for the water conservation program it's mentioned before. This is something that wraps all last fall, and it's actually gone through the 60 day comment period and has been accepted as is and so this implementation plan is going to be starting in 2,024 staff is going to strive to implement as many attributes of the plan as resources will allow, as as we're able to. 2 of the main takeaways are are listed here on the slide, and that's that you know additional reductions per capita use throughout the city, which is a general metric. We're not projecting any immediate decreases or changes to the targets for that. and there is an aim to continue to reduce non revenue water. What is the current percent of dog revenue one? I don't recall off the top of my head. I think we'll have to get back to the board. With that I would be. Let's do that. I would be guessing as well, I apologize. I didn't have that number right right from.

[68:11] There are lots of steps that we can. I didn't mean to catch off guard, but I didn't tell you about the number of main books. I didn't know if it was something that we had been actively tracking on an annual basis. So we do? Yeah. And that is principally from leaks and pipes. Yeah, that's a big part of it. There are. There are other other things that happen in our operations. the number is 10% woo. That's pretty sounds. But you're getting better freaking phone. So that's used to be accepted. The plan as is. II believe they help you.

[69:07] I'll keep going. We'll we'll we'll confirm that, John. But that's my understanding as well. Robby Glenn, who, you might remember, was leading that effort for us. Is is out on a well deserved parental leave right now. Father, so it has been approved. so sticking with the water utility for the coming year transmission system map is what's being shown on the right hand side, and the 3 different colors are representing different pressure zones. The future goals are, including enhancements for measurement, the instrumentation to better control the transmission system, which includes a lot of very large diameter pipes that are carrying very large flows the highlighted segment that's shown us the red ellipsis there is. It's it's a segment that goes south from Sixty-third along Jay road rough, coming from diagonal highway and proceeding south.

[70:13] which is a very large pipe carrying large system, flows. and this pipe segment replacement has been designed currently and is out for contractor bidding it represents the first of many needed pipeline replacements for the transmission system program also mentioned that there is the lead service line inventory project that's ongoing to work on understanding how many lead pipes are present within the distribution system, figuring out which ones will need to be replaced as the years go on, and continuing to comply with state requirements to eliminate this piping. we'll keep it up.

[71:00] I think it was noted in the the annual, the the summary that there were no Red Service lines identified that. Yes, that doesn't mean that they don't exist, just that. They haven't been identified. And it's an ongoing project that's going to continue digging deeper and deeper until we are very confident that there are no led service lines or that we identify the ones that truly are there, and then don't replace them. When you talk about water, drinking water and lead. people's minds. Go to Flint. Michigan, and some of the or stories that have covered have occurred in other places. That's not what we are. We don't expect to have no very much at all. Yeah, just to reinforce. There's no documented led on the city side of the system and based on where we're at in the service line inventory of the private service lines. There's no confirmed led at this time. So that's good news. But we're just kind of still narrowing down through

[72:06] layers of of evaluation. any other questions on on this particular set of information. I guess I'm curious. When you were meeting with the Srs. That color, water resources and Power Development Authority folks. If you had any conversations around their funding for led service line inventories or I don't recall. I think we were focused on the projects that were in our application. But we can check with our team and follow up. I kinda doubt it, but we can follow up like Joe, said Amy. The other thing I can contribute to is. we started with kind of a range of multiple projects within the water and was water fields, and through some ongoing discussion with them. We were, I think, guided towards just bring forward your one prominent project. So yeah. So we narrowed it down to one water project and one wastewater project.

[73:14] and we're again quite fortunate to to get awarded. The the wastewater effort on phosphorus. Think a lot of the State's Led Service line funding is going towards some other folks with some serious well, speaking of wastewater, Chris. let's talk about utility. So I've mentioned this a few times. The phosphorus upgrades project that is currently we've we've already gone through design. We've broken ground, but the majority and the bulk of the work is going to be happening in 2,024 and 2,025. I've provided the image of the plant here on to the right or right from the center, really, and the items that are highlighted in pink are all of the different assets that we need to upgrade in order to perform treatment for phosphorus and manage the repercussions of doing that treatment.

[74:15] I won't go into particular details at this point. But it is definitely a lot of work that's gonna need to be happening over the course of the next couple of years. This project is also going to include some major rehabilitation in our primary clarifiers, which, just, you know, need a little bit of love on the assets. Previously you've heard about the asset management work on the water utility in particular, what we call the aim project, which is asset, inventory, and maintenance efforts, and these are going to be advancing for the wastewater utility for both the collection system and at the work to ensure that critical assets are well maintained. and that the that they're well managed to ensure levels of service for the whole of the city. Data is, can help drive appropriate replacement cycles and best practices for capital planning

[75:08] of which we've mentioned a couple of times that some of the projects that are already happening have been a little bit more expensive than previously, I anticipated. and one that I'll bring to light, is a parallel project for 2,024, which is including the complete mechanical rehabilitation of one of the 4 secondary clarifiers, which failed in 2,022. This is highlighted as a red circle there in particular, the one that has failed. The project cost came in well above estimates like the project mentioned for Potasso. and this is due to the supply chain disruptions coupled with inflation, that is being experienced. So it's not really a simple fix to navigate through these things when we have lower estimates for what the project was going to cost from years ago. 2,024 is when construction is gonna begin for this asset to come back online for the worth.

[76:05] which is gonna benefit greatly from having all of its assets online during our winter spring process, challenges of which you may have heard about in the past any particular questions that I might be able to answer on on these projects. I guess one that was the biogas energy system working out. It's working out great from a operational standpoint. We obviously have things that you know we're starting to, you know, do a little bit of replacement on, but it's all anticipated. And from financial standpoint we're doing really well, the Ren's market is very strong. And we're continuing to work towards other new revenue streams and profit sharing with Western disposal. Who's our partner in this.

[77:01] So things are evolving and continuing to work really well. I'm nearing the end of my fifth year on the board, and in my time here. This has been one of the shining stars. I think of anything the utility department's done. It's just fantastic. very proud of it. almost generating as much revenue as the hydropower. Yeah, not quite as good on an annual basis. But like, you say, it's it's still pretty impressive. Yeah. And just the staff. The community values around renewable energy and climate goals. For us to be able to contribute directly to that number of different ways. It was moving upgrades. This is the project that's gonna be funded part by the Srf loan and I'm wondering you mentioned that the project is gonna be going into construction, or we are currently in construction ground starting to. There's a small asset in the let's see if I can.

[78:16] Let's say, press something. I'm wondering if, when you went through the contracting process, if you found that there was like an increase in the estimates associated from the contractors and better associated with it being subject to some federal requirements. Hmm, if it was, if there was kind of we were talking about increases in, you know, in material costs and difficult getting materials. I'm wondering if you experience any sort of escalation associated with the fact that there would be some Federal requirements attached to this project. Moving forward in a design bell delivery model. And so that that contractor and consultant design built team which was actually picked prior to

[79:03] to that, to to the decision to pursue the Sref funding. So I don't know if that really influences kind of the guaranteed maximum price, you know. Once it was at that at that stage. But wonder what the yeah, your contract terms look like. Yeah. Chris, Chris, if I may, can you guys hear me? This is Chris Olson, I'm the waste water engineering supervisor. To the extent that the contract price was influenced by things like the Davis bacon wage, determination, etc. Long story short, is no we hired a pretty pretty reputable contractor that that pays their employees very well. They were selected in part because of You know their their ability to retain their they're skilled staff.

[80:05] and their skilled subcontractors are sort of in the same boat. so there was very little influence on the Gmp. By going to the Srf. Model. Thank you, Chris. Alright. I will continue on, if there's no other questions on this slide. So these are some projects that you've probably already heard about a little bit tonight, but one that you haven't heard about. That's on the slides. The Gregory. the Gregory Canyon Creek Project. which is, in its early design for phase, one implementation, and includes feedback from stakeholders like property owners that are along the drainage corridor. Phase, one is defined as the downstream segment from Pennsylvania to Boulder Creek.

[81:02] and as we're looking into future years, the next flood mitigation planning effort is anticipated to focus on the combined ranages of Skunk Creek, Louvre, Canyon Creek and King Sculch. But the timing of these projects is isn't really done yet. alright. There's no questions on this, then, that includes the slides that I have and the sharing that we have for you at this point, and just wanted to feature some of the folks doing the actual operation and maintenance and organization of these different utilities projects and the things that are really the core and heart and soul of of this utility. There's any other questions that you have, or any discussion that we you'd like to have then, please feel free

[82:03] does seem like we had a lot of questions and kind of conversation as we went. So if if we're good, so we can talk more now, or we can move to the curious about one thing to go back to them. first. Your first couple of points are, Chris, where are you talking about the You know the maximum daily usage that used to be in the range of 40 million gallons a day, say, and that report said that we didn't hit, or we only hit 27 1 million a couple times this year. And I understand that a lot of that has to do with the rainfall, etc. But have you guys tried to do analysis of sort of the. you know, per capita conservation trends that we've experienced in the city, I mean, you know. we save. We save whatever 4 or 5 million of that was due to excess rainfall. But maybe the other 8 or 10

[83:06] 1 million gallons a day is somehow due to some kinds of conservation that occurred over the years. Is that something like that roughly accurate? For sure. We we track that information, and we had a significant drought in Boulder in 2,002 and across the front range of Colorado that occurred, and at that time most municipalities didn't have a formal drought plan. And we did. After that. It's the only year that I know that we declare restrictions and just the values and ethics of our community. That was really, that was a huge signal, and just on their own. A lot of conservation has happened and our trends have been decreasing ever since. We've got some kind of a charge or figures on that per capita for user connection type of

[84:01] basis that yeah, we do. I think some of that is in our drop plan and our efficiency plan. And then the peak flows at the at both water and waste water. Treatment facilities, I think, have been dropping progressively. Have we been able to do like some analysis of how that was accomplished? Like, can you tell how much of it was like more efficient irrigation systems versus internal? You know household practices of showers and all that kind of stuff? Or can we get? Add some of the drivers. For behind that success, I think we did a efficiency plan 7 years ago. We just update updated it last year, and I think we know in general what some of the factors are, but I think it's it's hard to PIN it down. Truth, a level and a precision.

[85:02] But I think just less outdoor use and more efficient fixtures is is a big part of it. and I guess the other thing I'm curious about is. have we tried to compare ourselves regionally or nationally, to how other cities or other utility districts have done during that kind of same time period for sure, and it was a conversation that I was having with team as we were updating the efficiency plan and looking at other similar cities in the Western us as well as on the front range, and we are not the lowest of the low. But but I think we're if I remember correctly, we're in the bottom third, and that's that's where we would expect to be would like to. I know. Often, Joe, we have a kind of a water resources. Focused night where we provide updates. So we're we're happy to bring back some more specific. Steve, to your your questions and comments. Set up, Joe. I know Joe's gonna cover schedule. Maybe that'd be a good time period to

[86:12] the usage is gone from, say, 40 to 30 or something like that on average. And what's the population done during that time? I mean, it's gotta be what? Maybe the fact that I missed the first part of your question. I'm just. yeah. I'm just curious to see that per capita figure, because you gotta figure that during that same period of time there's been a pretty substantial. You know, growth and population of the service area in the city. I think it has been trending upward, but I also think the the city has had some pretty significant direct growth policies. And so it's it's been more managed here than other municipalities.

[87:01] But for sure we can. We can bring back that information and April is is kind of water resources might and has been that route. So I'd like to make a short comment that though water water demand has not has decreased progressively, as you're as you can see on the graph here, and you're seeing the same trend of flow going to the worth the way that our system works is not necessarily on flow so much as it is about loading, which is something that we have not seen decrease. And so what we're seeing is actually increased concentration of nutrients and things that we need to treat and remove during the system granted at lower flows. but still seeing the same amount of loading, and even, you know, increases in that organic load.

[88:02] One other quick thing I was gonna ask to. Maybe you're gonna talk about this in a minute. But what's the Covid tracking working right now? Hmm! Again. I can tell you, while we're moving through the rest of the it. It has been generally way lower than the peaks of the of the pandemic in in kind of bouncing up and down, but I'll go from the latest thing now that I have. Yes, I can. Are there any other questions on your review presentation? No, just a comment. Thank you very much for one putting this together. Very clear, concise summary of all, a lot of stuff that's going on. And thank you, Chris, for presenting very clear and helpful. Thank you for the opportunity. Second notes, great presentation, and another year of of incredible work by the utility staff. Very, very impressive, and my only

[89:04] residing comment would be, if there is a way that this information could get out excessively to the public and the city council and others, it's it should be the daily camera. It should be in the city's quarterly newsletter that comes out, you know. It's just really fantastic accomplishments that utility system. for sure. Appreciate that feedback. We have new council numbers that have just started. As of this last election cycle. So it's the type of information that we share with them, and then, as all of our rep numbers come on the board, it's it's taken me a while as a director to kind of hit my stride and figure out what's meaningful, but something that I like to show that board members, I think it provides a good snapshot and city manager's office. I might know, has just gone through some restructuring had a couple of vacancies. Now have 2 assistant city manager, deputy city manager, and and Maria, or city manager, and so reporting lines have changed a little bit right now.

[90:10] Report to Pam Davis, who's assistant city manager, and so sharing this information with Staff key staff as well, just to get people up to speed. But I am also thinking about how to package it so that it could be shared more broadly that memo format to the board. It's kind of a distinct style of sharing information, and it wouldn't. We're thinking about how how else we could don't go back to the 80 pages. Why don't we turn down to our next agenda item for tonight? Which is matters more. very items that board members should like to bring in. I had something.

[91:00] I know. When I started on on the board. It was sort of covid time, and so we were virtual meetings. And now we're in the hybrid meeting. And the question came up earlier, if there's any thought to us going back to more of a public meeting structure. Yeah, I think eventually we will trend that direction. The City Council meetings are now open to the public. Their regular business meetings, study sessions are are still virtual in zoom. By the way, we will have a fun study session with new Council this this coming Thursday, if you're interested. and then some of the boards that have tend to have a lot more public following the the work. I think, have transitioned back to public participating in person. We haven't had a a lot of interest. Historically, there have been few meetings here over the years. We may have a bus load of people if we anticipated that we would make other arrangements, but I would say

[92:12] eventually, I think we'll get back there, maybe even in 2024, but still a little bit more out of curiosity than any sort of passionate feeling about it. But thanks, yeah. And I just, I think. yeah, having the virtual and hybrid option. I think. makes us more accessible to more of the public just across the city. But then the technology and and making the rooms and specific setups work. It's a little bit more complicated. So lot of it support in the background. And just in 2023 we now the board meetings used to occur at the our municipal Services Center Parkway, which is a big facility, has a really nice large meeting room.

[93:04] And we now have the technology there. We want to go back there. I may be one of the only people here gets a paper copy of the bill, but one reason why I do that I continue to do. That is because it has inserts and insert recently. I'll show it for people one pager on what the 2020 rates are for the 3 Enterprise zones. and my question is, has have any done feedback on that? Each year when the rates go up? the community feedback that rises to my level. There's there's a few here and there. I think our customer service reps on on the billing end of our team. Probably hear a little bit more of that. But hasn't been a ton of feedback, I would say

[94:06] with that then I might go to the next item, which is matters from staff alright, and I've got a little bit of a list here. Not too much. I think I get through it quickly. One thing that I wanted to mention is that the city has been going through a review of its board and commission process. I forget the number of boards that we have across the city. It's it's only it's it's a large number. And there's always been questions of what the role of board members are, what what meaningful contribution you make. I know this board is how we've had some of those discussions in our in our retreats, and so just taking inventory of the process. I think I'm not mistaken. Some of you may have have done a survey for a consultant that is helping with that work.

[95:02] but I think some of the recommendations are enhancing role priority, some training tools, both for key staff. If you think of a new director that comes to the city and then was hired from another person a role like mine. You're you're responsible for the board process. So board secretaries as well as onboarding for your board members. And I think there's with our racial equity plan. It's also interesting. Attracting board members from a variety of population types. So I don't know that any of I I've heard a few report outs on the process. I think council in one of their recent meetings did as well. I don't know if there would be anything striking for Rab that would change in the in the future. But I do think there is some inconsistency across the city, and the way. So looking into that.

[96:02] and then shifting gear, just some highlights on financial updates. And in December, as you know, what the board occasionally in our cip, including last year we have some bonds, and we talk about projects that will be package together in those bonds. It's actually a big body of work for our 2 financial staff members to go through the process of those bonds, and we work with closely with our Central finance department. In December, city again received a triple, a bond rating from Smp global. which is the highest rating that you can can receive. Last year last week we had a bond sale of 96.7 million for 2024 bonds, and at an interest rate of 3.4 4

[97:01] really getting into the geeky numbers here. What was the term? I'm plenty of totally and and so that is the last water and and sewer bond that we'll have in the near term. I think there's one another one projected maybe in 2,029. We also applied for a State revolving Fund loan Christopher covered that. In this presentation we had a little bit of discussion on it. We have not gone after those loans because we just done better in the interest rates with bonds. And so the bond this year is 3.4 4. The effective interest rate of the Srs loan was 3 or 5%. And then when you combine and there was the Srs loan was 19 or 20 million, if I'm remembering the magnitude right and 1.5 million that's Christopher mentioned was essentially a Grant

[98:06] loan forgiveness. So that was a good program on the finances. And then I would also just mention quickly. We. We had that massive deep freeze last weekend dangerously low temperatures. I know a lot of community members had frozen pipes in in their houses. and last thing you want to deal with in a deep freeze for our for our utility. We don't tend to get a lot of main breaks and waterline breaks when we're at the peak of those cold temperatures, but then, when it falls out and warms up again like it has now, and the ground shifts and and moves our utilities maintenance team. There's been an uptick in main breaks. We had one today that had a lane of 28 closed and a few businesses out of water.

[99:05] Normally, they're not quite that impactful. I think. Well, over. On average, we've had in the past. We've had well, over 100 main breaks per year around 60, which is is really pretty good for natural national averages. and but a lot of them occur after it warms back up after. That's what I have for matters from Staff. I guess you did ask about the yes, okay. 1. One of the things in the 2023 your review was discussed on the Boulder Creek water, sampling with respect to the E. Coli of Dl. And it struck me that in that packet that we had, that there wasn't much discussion on on actions taken. It was principally on plans that were developed or reviewed.

[100:07] And so I'm I'm wondering if you could speak briefly on what occurred in 2023 along those lines. Yeah, for sure. II misspoke just now I was intending to talk about the Covid. But I remember we had that discussion, and I think Megan Wilson are water quality manager is on the line, and I know she has some background information on that, so might invite her to come into the meeting and talk about that. Appreciate it. Yeah. Hi, good evening, board members. I'm Megan Wilson out call. I'm the water Quality manager, and I can speak to some of our ongoing E Coli activities. Many of which we think of as pretty routine and so did not include in the packet. But some of our Ms 4. Permit compliance activities contribute to

[101:05] sort of mitigating E coli getting to the creek. So those include things like spill response. Responding to any illegal cross connections with the sanitary system that we find education and outreach including to specific industries that are known to contribute e coli if not, if they don't have best practices or manage their waste properly. So that's things like restaurants. And so we've had some targeted outreach to those industries. and all of those things contribute to keeping bacteria out of the creek. Some of the other efforts that the city organization supports like creek clean ups as part of the Sams work routine storms who are cleaning and maintenance. Those also help to reduce pollution sources. And I think the studies that you're referring to Gordon are really our investigations of the sub sewer sheds. Because most of the pollution sources are pretty dispersed, uncontrollable. We're really kind of looking for things like illegal cross connections with sanitary

[102:12] things like that. And and so those require those kind of sub sewers and investigations. One significant source that we found out of that is a ditch return flow, and we've been actively working to better manage the irrigation water from that ditch with the University of Colorado. So we're kind of at a point where we've done a lot of the priority investigations that were identified in a in the 2019 Tmdl implementation plan. So we're actually kind of pausing some of those studies for the first quarter or so this year to just kind of review everything we've done over the past 20 years and determine what would be the most effective steps moving forward. So we'll continue our monitoring, which we do. Monthly. We have a staff person who monitors monthly in the creek and then weekly from, I believe, July through October. Those activities will certainly continue, and all of our sort of routine compliance activities, but in terms of that kind of what we think of is above and beyond work. We are kind of pausing to see what? The next steps are.

[103:18] So hopefully, that's helpful. The the other thing that came up a few minutes ago was the status of Covid, and I just sent a figure to Joanne or Bloom. I'm not sure there it is. certainly won't be able to see all the scales and the numbers on the scales, but on the bottom. This goes back to August of 2020, where it starts on the left side of the graph and goes through November. and the

[104:00] the brown line is the testing numbers that come from our wastewater sampling. And the the blue is county reported cases. And somewhere in 2022, I think it just became less of a practice for community members to formally test and report their test results. So public health officials across the country are really relying heavily on this wastewater testing on the right side of the scale. You do see that there is a little uptick. I would say more than a little ones, that in in September, and then again in early November, which I think throughout the course of tracking this anytime we get to one of the significant holidays or events like school starting, or something like that. You tend to see a spike in the graph. How how far in the rears do you get the data? I mean, how how long it's paid to get the information?

[105:06] We get it pretty quickly as far as the wastewater sample analyses go because the intent of the program originally was to create an early war warning system for healthcare. So we, I think, get the data about 3 day, 2 to 3 days in advance of when we think a spike is gonna happen and the data correlates about that way. The turnaround from sample to result is fairly quick. I want to say, 2 days. Yeah, nothing more than that. It might even be less sometimes. Thank you for. Thank you, Joanna, for being able to share that on the fly. I put that email report that I get every week or so.

[106:00] I think that's what we have for matters from Staff. And let's do that in this discussion of future Futurist. And I did little bit unusual that it's been since September that we've had a meeting. Do appreciate. A few years ago, during our retreat to a few board members, Gordon mentioned that. If there aren't a lot of action items. And and if Staff are just really putting together an agenda for the sake of having the meeting. everyone preferred that would not do that. and I would say, for the last 3 years we have not had a meeting every month. It's it's a little bit unusual, like, I said to to go from October, November, December. Not have a meeting. and the retreat timing had an effect on that. But there have been certain months each year, where it just hasn't been a lot to go on. So I think, just to give the

[107:04] board an overview. I think this year 2022, 2021 probably be similar to to this in terms of the workload and the number of meetings for the board. There was a period in the I would say, the middle teams of the 2 thousands where our engineering team Christopher, showed that life cycle of the flood projects and there are mapping studies and mitigation plans. Director at that time, I think, was having a challenge load balancing all of the meetings because there were too many things required for the action. And we've done a lot of those studies now. So there will be some unique things that come up. So I think for February the

[108:00] the thought would be to have a retreat. Then on, probably on the day of our normal business meeting, if the board is available, and that is on February 20 sixth, I believe. and we've we've used we've used the same facilitator consultant for that for several years and would propose doing the same if that works for everybody and I know Karen has done some outreach to the individual board members to double check availability. but I think that is how it is shaping up. And then again in March. I don't know at this point that we're gonna have any items requiring board action. and so probably would not have a meeting that month. And then in April every year we have historically, every April water supply situation, because it's when we have certain key information like the winter snow pack available to us.

[109:03] That is the month that a new zoom member starts. So Gordon will have done this time by by that point and we'll get this every third Monday is back, and we'll be having a new member then, just to to give you a snapshot of the rest of the year. Every year May through July we have the budget process last several years. Historically, we haven't had a meeting in August, I think. September. I think we have some water quality items that would be meaningful to the board, and and they require some board action. And then somewhere this year there's an area free Urban services study that is being led by our planning and development Services Department. It's kind of the north end of town. very north edge of town. And just

[110:06] for utilities. It's looking at whether we have the treatment, capacity, water supply, capacity system things to support that. And so, having a discussion with the board around that over time comes, I'm not exactly sure when that's gonna fall in Europe, but that might be a unique thing. And then, I think, late in the year, possibly some of those flood mitigation plans that Chris additional activity that way. And I have so many things open on my computer. I lost track of my sheets. So I was doing that from memory. But I think that is what I wanted to the upcoming schedule. and I would say, if there if everyone's available and we can do the retreat in February, talking about the schedule and the way it's working out getting candid feedback from the board. How you feel about the gaps in the agenda

[111:12] and the work world would certainly be and appropriate. Item for discussion. 6 to 8 and it has varied from year to year in the we. We've done retreats there. There's been at least one year recently, where we did it more in the late afternoon. And so I think if you all have preferences, that's that's something you can PIN them. I think. Most years, though, it has been the 6 to 8 timeframe. Well, Joe, thanks for lining up kind of big picture for the meetings coming up in the year provides good context for us and what to expect. But, President. that's what I have. So probably at the end of line. Are there any comments from board or anything

[112:07] that is there a motion to adjourn. motion to adjourn? Second. all in favor of joining tonight? Micro units alright. Thank you all, and thank you to the public, and especially. Thank you for Staff. Much. Appreciate it. Yes, thank you.