April 15, 2024 — Water Resources Advisory Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:00] Doesn't. That's okay. Perfect. Maybe I need to just recording and ringing. Right? Please. Alright good! You! Does somebody want to officially start the meeting? Or would you like me to read the zoom guidelines first? Either one is fine. It's very strange. He has a call to order the meeting of the the one Resource Advisory Board for April fifteenth, 2,024, and Joanna, if you wanna do, the rules feel that'd be great. Awesome. Thank you. But we. Hi! 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 community members and security that minimizes disruptions.

[1:08] Please provide a full name associated with each person's participation in open comment. and we cannot unmute you without it. If your full name is not currently displayed, you can go ahead and text me at 303817, 1, 7, 4, 2, and I can help you with your name. the Q. And a function in zoom is enabled and can be used to address zoom connectivity questions only. Unfortunately, I can't answer technical questions in the Q. And a members of the public may be unable to control the audio or video features. Video is limited to city officials, employees, and invited speakers. Only I'll unmute you when you're recognized to speak. I'll go ahead and call your name, and then you'll have a 3 min timer that will be displayed, and we'll start once you begin your comments. Thanks so much for your participation. and back to you, John.

[2:03] I always figure how the swearing in goes. Who needs that? I I think you can just mention the agenda item. And then, Karen, I think you walk us through the swearing in the end of the Newport number. There's some participation for Katie. Alright. Well, then, we'll move to swearing in the new bit board member. Alright, so Katie has with her the oath of office, and I've asked her to just read that to us, and that'll go into the record. So, Katie, if you'll do that. I, Catherine Bridget, to solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States of America, and of the State of Colorado, and the charter and ordinances of the City of Boulder, and faithfully perform the duties of the office of the member of the Water Resources Advisory Board, which I am about to enter. Okay, election and and ask me for nominations.

[3:09] So elect new board officers tonight for chair vice chair secretary and Greenways Advisory Committee. And I guess we'll just tick through those. Open it up to nominations for chairs. We nominate John Birdwood to be the chair. I second the nomination. Okay, all in favor. And move on to Vice Chair. Any nominations for vice chair. I nominate Steve as Maxwell is vice chair. I will second all favored. Hi fired alright. So, Steve, as I share. Then we'll move to Secretary any nominations for secretary

[4:05] nominate Amy for the certificate. Alright, any seconds. I second that notation. All in favor. Alright. alright and the Greenways Advisory Committee, which is just someone from Rob sits on the Greenways Advisory Committee. It's a I've been doing it, I think, last couple of years. And so we can take nominations, for I'm happy to keep doing them also happy to turn it if someone else wants to take, it's very low commitment, basically one additional meeting. If you're okay. I might comment on this one. So the Greenways Advisory Committee is one that is made up of a representative from several different boards from memory. It's the planning board, the parks and recreation and the open space board of trustees transportation as well.

[5:06] It's it's been inactive the last few years. We haven't had a a meeting actually. and the city is going through a board and commission review with consultants. And so that is one that not sure what the future holds for it for the Greenways Advisory Committees, but doesn't hurt to to do a nomination. And and I don't think I introduce myself. I'm Joe, Teddy Jim, director of the Utilities department. so I guess an interest in doing that. I'm happy to continue being rep was, I guess, the uncertainty whether it looks like the future. But if there's strong interest in order Katie, if you wanna jump into a new role on your first year.

[6:01] I don't know. Folks have strong feelings about this. I thought you did a really good job of bringing us information when you did have connections, and if you're interested in continuing to do that, I would nominate John. Stay on. That. Is that a formal, formal second, Steve? Yes, or what? Thank you very much. alright. So we have our new board officers moving on to approval of the January meeting minutes which we were sent out, and we also have hard copies here. I read through them, didn't have any comments or edits. but curious. If anyone else has any comments or edits. Nope. Then I move to make a motion to approve the January meeting minutes I second the motion. All in favor. Alright. January meeting minutes approved.

[7:03] It looks now we move to virtual public comment. We're ahead of schedule. So I forget who I turn this over to might be back to Joanne, or did we already do what we needed to do. No it is time for open comment if that works open public comment, and I do have one member of the public with their hand raised. If there are others that would like to speak under open comment, you are welcome to also virtually raise your hand by using their raise hand function in zoom. So we'll start first with Lynn Siegel. and give me just 1 s. Lynn, too. You're moving around in my list, and I'm not sure why. Yeah, I'm raising and lower in my hand because I couldn't see the group at for the last 11 min.

[8:04] It just is the city of Boulder sign. Oh, thank you for the heads up. Yeah. We normally have the room view. You should be able to see the presentation this evening. And let me mess with the view. Would you also like to speak under open comment. Yeah. Now I can see everyone I like. I it's bad enough that you can't see me. But when I can't see you we're both talking to these disincarnate entities. It's pleasant. Thank you for sharing that. I changed a setting on the computer here, and I didn't realize until you said that that everyone wasn't able to see everyone. So thank you. Okie dove. What I wanted to speak about tonight is 2 things that the water treatment issue with excel energy and boulders. Water supply in general for considering the growth that's upcoming with the

[9:00] State government. first of all. excel we really need to have our own municipal electric supply. the excel is completely out of bounds. I mean, they had full opportunity to down the electricity during the Marshall fire. They did not. They even had a line that was How do you say? It wasn't disconnected, but it was it was messed up, and it needed attention, and they hadn't attended to it. In the year preceding the Marshall fire. An internal employee alerted them of this. Well, this affects you, you know, and when we don't have our own municipal electric supply, we can't coordinate, you know. We can react.

[10:00] And that's what excel does is react, and their reaction cost us. Who knows how much this last event that when when truly, in fact, we've had the winds like this for decades, and they've never had an outage. I had a a tree down on my property on December thirtieth, the day of the Marshall fire. They didn't come for 3 days the tree fell on my line. so for 3 days I was terrified that it could break, and then I'd have a live, you know. Event starting at my house. So even when they know what's going on, they don't do anything, and then they overreact with a a smaller event. And it is not. It has not been super dry by any means. Meteorologists have proven that in this last event

[11:03] the the clock's going all crazy. One minute's 2 min, and then it's 52 s. so the other thing is just having a good enough, you know. And then, when we have our own municipal electric supply. We can coordinate with any generators that we need. Maybe we're gonna not have such huge reactivity type events. And we aren't gonna need the kind of generators that we need to keep the water treated and as far as growth. I'm working lately on demolishing houses, which seems to be boulders plan lately, and the cost of this and the subsidy. This is to the developers to build more. Just tear things down and build them up and without a water supply that can take care of that. So do something.

[12:06] Glynn. If anybody else would like to speak under open comment. Give me just a second to raise your hand virtually okay. I don't see anybody else, so you should be all set. Right? Then we can move to our first information. Item, the water supply update. if you don't mind. That might comment just on the testimony from the one public speaker, and under matters from staff tonight we'll do a brief update on excel outage and how that was for utilities. So for the water supply update, this is something that we do every year in April, for tonight. This is our only agenda item, where we have a prepared presentation and Powerpoint slides

[13:10] and April and and May is kind of our operational water year. It's it's like the start of that operational year, and if you think about it like bank accounts, we kind of know what we're starting the year with. And so this is the time where we know how much we have in the accounts, and Kim will walk you through our situation, which I don't need to steal with thumb some thunder, but we're we're thumb we're in pretty decent position this year, so Kim Hutton is our senior manager who leads our water resources group and she'll she'll walk us through the presentation. Me share my screen.

[14:04] Helen. A alright, yeah. Hi everyone. My name's Kim Hutton, like just, and I'm the water resources manager, and my team is the one that handles both operations and planning of the water supply So today, well, first, I just want to bring up the photo that I'm sharing today. This was taken this is a still really reservoir, but it's the it's the day of the eclipse. Unfortunately, it's not the eclipse. But I thought it was a pretty stunning photo that one of our operators took. So I just wanted to share that everybody today. But this is kind of what it's looking like up there in the watershed. Got a lot of snow. Things are still frozen up there, but they're starting to melt out, down and a little bit lower at Barker Rosen in Netherland. so on the agenda today I will do an overview of the water supply situation.

[15:03] And then I also wanted to give some highlights from our water conservation program, both highlights from 2023. And then what we're planning for 2024 and third thing I'll touch upon. There was some questions in the February Rab meeting about some of our water use trends, so I put together a couple of figures to address those questions see here. And then, just to provide a little bit of context to this map within the packet as well. and Katie, you're gonna see this like every time we come here every April to give a water supply update, as Joe mentioned. That's because this is kinda like the time of year when all of our indicators are shaping up to to tell the story about what we're looking at for the year. But we always start with this map to give you some context. So, this is, we're looking at Boulder here, and from the east, looking west. Continental divide down the top of the map. There we have resources of water

[16:05] for the city. 2 of those are in Boulder Creek, and those are identified by these blue parcel or polygons. North Boulder Creek and Middle Boulder Creek, and about 2 thirds of our water supply comes from those basins. We've got series of reservoirs and pipelines in the Boulder Creek basin that where we store water in the reservoirs. We convey the water through the pipelines to the potassium water treatment plant where water is treated, and then it's distributed to our service area, which is that or polygon identified by that red hatch area. We also get water from the west slope, the headwaters of the Colorado River through a project that's operated by the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy district, and that's the Colorado, Big Thompson, or we abbreviated Cbt. And the Windy Gap projects. And that's identified in the sort of Tan color. Polygon at the top of the screen.

[17:08] So waters collected on the west slope in Grand Lake Lake, Grambe, Shadow Mountain. It's pumped through a tunnel through the Continental Divide, and then conveyed to water users in South Platte Basin. We specifically get water from Carter Lake through a pipeline that goes directly to our boulder resort, water treatment plant. And again, not a third of our supply comes from that source each year. Just to provide some additional context. We have some water water supply level service goals, which we call the reliability criteria and the reliability criteria were adopted by City Council in 1989, and we use them. We develop and plan for water supply system kind of according to these level of service goals.

[18:07] The reliability criteria define the acceptable frequency of water, use restrictions for droughts of varying severity. We model and plan our system with the goal of having no more than 5 years of water use restrictions in the course of a hundred year period. So the the intensity of the restrictions that we would implement would vary from reductions in outdoor water use to meeting essentially uses only. And since establishing this framework. 2,002 is the only year in which we have implemented water use restrictions. So we updated our drop plan in 2,022. So just a couple of years ago, and some of you were around for that process. and under that current classification system the 2,002 drought would have resulted in fairly severe limitations to outdoor water use.

[19:02] and I will talk more about that draw plan, and and how we implement that. So our drought plan provides some guidance on whether we declare a drought each year, and if we do, how we would implement water, use restrictions with the goal of meeting some target water savings goals. I guess may. First is typically the time of year when, like, we said, all of our water supply indicators when they're gonna be telling us the most information. So we around the first of May. Each year we will look at in particular this particular, this. there's a the psi, which is our projected storage index, and this comes out of our dial plan. And we run this calculation

[20:03] while I'm and it helps us evaluate our water supply situation for the year. So this psi is essentially a ratio of available supply to the demands. Water demands. The available supply that we're looking at is how much water do we have in storage in our mountain reservoirs. So the North Boulder Creek in the Middle Boulder Creek basins, as well as how much water is available to us through the Cbt system. and then our unrestrained municipal demand that we have written up there is. This is how much would our demands be if we, if we let people use whatever they wanted at the year. Do you remember, Kim? Does that number adjust over time? They did not. So the denominator does adjust over time, and that's an update that we made in the 2,022 dial plan how that's calculated. But essentially, we're looking at the last 10 years

[21:02] of water use. And so as we become, we're becoming more efficient over time. So as we become more efficient. that, that's kinda it's reflected in that unrestrained municipal demand. Number. So this is a table from the drought plan that's related to that projective storage index number. So, for example, if if that ratio, the psi ratio falls within the 0 point 8 5 to 0 point 5 6 range. and we would consider declaring a drought, alert. Stage one. and in a drought stage one. We are looking to achieve up to a 2020% savings reduction in water use for the year. and we would go about getting those by placing limitations on some of the lower priority, use lower priority outdoor water uses. And so those are all kind of defined in the in the drought plan about how we're prioritizing water use.

[22:03] As Joe mentioned, the, we've done a preliminary analysis of this projective storage index, and we are sitting comfortably above point 8 5 this year. So we are. We're not anticipating needing to go to declare a water a drought stage or water use restrictions this year. So the psi is one tool that we have for evaluating a water supply. But we also look at some other environmental conditions to support the decision about whether or not to declare a drought stage and a lot of the 3 of those are snow, pack, stream flow, and our regional drought conditions show you some information or data that we look at. So these, this graph was updated today. So what we're looking at here is a map that's talking about our our snow pack. Specifically, our snow water equivalent and snow water equivalent is the amount of water.

[23:08] If you were to take a column of snow and melted. It's the amount of water you would get. So if you have light, fluffy snow, there's less water in that, then maybe some denser wet or snow. There's a network of these snowtail sites all across the Western us. So we're monitoring those in our our basin and Colorado River Basin, just to give us an indication throughout the winter time of how the snow pack is shaping up and where we stand today. So we are in in Boulder Creek. We're in the South Platte Basin. Here, let me get my indicator, my little laser pointer so. Oh, you can't see that. Oh, here you go. So this, this right here is the South Platte River basin. older Creek is just one of the base or watersheds in the South Basin. And as of today, we're at 100% of the Median snow pack for this basin.

[24:06] If you look over at the Colorado headwaters, just on the other side of the divide, also 100% of median and then statewide also comes in at 100%. So we're sitting pretty well with our snow pack. and then these, this right here is a graph of one of the snowtail sites in the Silver Lake watershed. So it's the university camp site which is on our property. This is a photos, Eric. one of our operators who's doing some snow snow pack measurements. But what this graph is showing in the green line. It's the Median snow pack, or A, the past 30 years. So 3 year. Historical Median 7, black line is the 2024 water year. So you can see that peak snow pack historically, has occurred around May first

[25:04] at this elevation in this area. and we are sitting at. See 96% of medium right now. So you see this big jail for it here, that was a nice storm we had a couple of weeks ago school was out there. We. So we've got still a couple of weeks before the historic peak. and even if we don't hit that peak level, we're still sitting pretty well with with our the amount of snow we've got up there. and this is a graph of the Middle Boulder Creek Snowtail site at Lake Eldora. You can see we've already peaked at this site. This one's a lower elevation site, and so it usually peaks and starts melting a few weeks earlier than the one on North Boulder Creek. so we've surpassed the peak Median in 2024 for this site, and it looks like snow snow starting to melt from the site.

[26:14] So we also look at stream, flow forecasts. And this is sort of for the for the season. And the reason we're interested in screen flow forecasts is we get our water. The snow melts. translates to stream flow, and then we either divert the water directly from the river To be used at the treatment plant water treatment plant, or we'll put the water into storage. So we're very interested in how that snow is gonna translate into to stream, flow again. Reservoir storage is really important to us. Because like, I said in that projective storage index we're looking into how much water we have in storage. We don't use all of our storage every year that that storage is like a drought reserve.

[27:02] So our biggest reservoir, Barker, which is Little Boulder Creek. We might drain that maybe a third each year, on average. So stream flow forecasts are looking pretty good as well. There are. There's a variety of sources. We go for stream flow forecasting, and I've just put 2 of them up here. The one on the left is from Northern water. The one on the right is from the National Resources Conservation Service and Rcs and both of these are showing roughly, average stream flow forecast for the year northern. Their April first forecast was for a hundred 9% of average and our Cs. These green dots here. My cursors, right next to the location for boulder is in the 90 to 109% range. Then we're also looking at regional drought conditions. And one source of information is called the Us Drought Monitor. And this is a network. They.

[28:07] They produce maps for the entire United States. And I'm showing you a map of the State of Colorado right now. The map on the left is for last Thursday the map on the right is a year ago, so you can kinda the white. It means no drought and as you get darker and color that's more and more severe drought conditions. So you can see that up in the South Flat base in where my cursor is. We're faring much better this year than we were last year. The reverse is true, for for the Colorado River Basin. So western Colorado. but still overall like the yellow, is abnormally dry conditions, but not severe drought conditions. So we're sitting pretty good with with drought conditions this year. and then the

[29:00] it third, fourth factor to show you today it is our reservoir storage, and this is a pretty strong indicator for us. How well we're doing with water supply. So this orange line is the amount of storage we have in our mountain storage. So the North Boulder Creek, Middle Boulder Creek reservoirs where we're at this year. The gray band is our historic average going back to or the range. Sorry, the range going back to 2011. And then the dash line is the average from 2011 to the present. So we're about average with our reservoir storage for this time of year. Some of you may recall. Albion is. I'll be in reservoir, is out of service right now for construction. So we're unable to store in that reservoir for the next 2 years. But that's about 5% of our storage. So even with that, we're sitting in a good position.

[30:03] So in summary. we've got average average snow pack on average to both average stream flow forecasts. and we are expecting our resforce to fill this year. So that's a really good sign. When Joe talks about the start of the year, like you're checking account. When those reservations fill. you know we we start over with the transition the Cbt quota for the year. So with the Colorado Big Thompson Water, they allocate a certain amount per percentage of of your total units owned each year. This year, they just set a 70% quota. So that means for every unit of water we own. We have available point 7 acre feet of water and that's the long term average for for their allocations. So we are in a great position for water this year, and we do not believe that we will need watery restrictions

[31:04] but we continue to monitor conditions over the course of the summer. You can update update that drop stage status at any any time that we need to. So that is conclusion of the water supply update, and I'll I'll if anybody has questions. Now we can do that. And then I can go on to these 2 other topics. The times which we're really happy to be average. I think it was about 1 point. this process renegotiating some of the management control the river. It's gonna happen by the end of 26, or whatever will that have any impact on on the availability of water?

[32:08] Lost another Cbt. I I guess at this point. I. It's hard to say, but I will say that the amount of water that's Colorado River water that is in the Cbt. System is like a drop in the bucket for the entire Colorado River Basin. And so any you know, any management decisions that happen it, they may have an effect on the availability of Cbt water. But they're not gonna solve the problem by by making big reductions to what's available to us. Hey? So move on to water conservation. And again, just talking about some highlights from 2023 and making or discussing what we're going to be focusing on in 2024. And some of this is coming out of the the water efficiency plan. Big highlight for 2023 was updating the water Efficiency plan. But

[33:09] one of the recommendations that came out from there is to such a recommendation. Anyway. I think we we told you guys we would come back and report on like what our conservation efforts are are looking like. So I think maybe every year in April, in addition to the water supply update, we'll also do a water conservation program. Update. so in 2023, in addition to updating the water efficiency plan. And that took a lot of our time, we did work with our water conservation partners, resource, central pace and ecosycle primarily to offer and implement a variety of outreach and service programs. So we've got those programs listed up here. Maybe I'll just touch upon a couple of them. One, the lawn removal program I think it used to be called. No, I'm not. Gonna I don't remember what they used to call it. It was turf, something to turf to.

[34:07] Nonetheless, the idea! The idea is. remove your bluegrass and replace it with a more water. Efficient landscaping. We received a grant from the State of Colorado last year. To help with this turf removal. And so we're we're putting some of that water or that money into the turf removal program. Just to be able to offer more more services or more participant offer this to more participants. During the year. But we had about 65 participants last year, estimating about 35,000 square feet of grass that was removed. Slow. The flow are sort of like sprinkler audits. Outdoor sprinkler audits that services both residential and commercial customers.

[35:03] We did about 70 of those last year. The garden in the box is the sort of like paint by Denver. they even purchase a kit of low water, use plants, and they they can. I'll have some diagrams of where you might want to plant them in relation to each other. So we don't do a lot of we don't subsidize those much, but we we do for income qualified residents. So we we offered some of those last year, as well as sponsoring 3 water wise seminars. and then pace focuses really on our commercial customers, and so they'll go into businesses and offer advising services as well as doing some direct installs of water, fishing fixtures. And then with eco cycle, those who went to the classroom and do some lessons on, you know. water conservation, or they have other programs as well. So we had. We were in 12 classrooms

[36:01] last year through Ecosycle. And then for 2024, what we're planning on focusing on in addition to those programs that I just talked about will continue those with our water conservation partners. we got a lot of great recommendations that came out of the water efficiency plan. So we're looking at starting to implement those programs this year. So a lot of these are still in the development phase. But I'll highlight a couple of them first, one being integration of water conservation into other city planning efforts. An example of that is, we are undergoing what's called the Western City campus redevelopment, which is by this site. Okay, cool right there, right there. The Alpine balsa project. It used to be called so it's gonna be kind of central hub for city offices, facilities. So we're working with our facilities department on ways that we can implement indoor and outdoor efficiencies and stuff.

[37:07] That new space another one to touch upon is an appliance voucher program. So some feedback that we got from the water efficiency plan update process was that we could offer rebates. But there's still people, I mean, that's money. After the fact, somebody still has to go out and spend their money and then get reimbursed for it through a rebate to be able to reach more people potential better programs to offer a voucher, which is, they've got the money upfront to go purchase water efficient appliances. So we're looking at how we can develop that program this year. We're also looking to develop some relationships with or partnerships with community groups who are already out there in the community doing work. There's some some groups that are. They're very much interested in water conservation. So can we leverage.

[38:02] You know the connections that they have the work that they're doing. and again reach more customers and final thing to touch upon is expanding our demonstration garden program. And the way we are doing that this year is we are looking to do our own city trip. Replacement pilot project. So this map here shows this area Baseline and Thirtieth Street. And there's this parcel identified here. 5,000 square foot parcel, which is sort of in the right of way. and at the junction of some paths and the roads. And this is an area that our transportation department manages or maintains we are looking we wanna do a pilot project where we are removing the Bluegrass, using 3 different non chemical methods for grass removal.

[39:00] and then we will seed it with a native native grasses. And really, the point of this project is to develop a lot of information on both the methodology for removing the grass, the term grass, how effective it is! And then, you know how time, intensive labor intensive it it is, and just develop a lot of this information that we then can provide to the public. Like a lot of people are interested in removing their bluegrass, but they just don't know what it takes. We've all we're working with native edge, which is the contractor that won that bit. And they're actually really excited themselves about this project because they get a lot of questions from their customers. And they just don't have the information to answer those questions. So they're they're gonna be a really good partner of this project. So we're excited about that one. So that's kind of a summary of our water conservation program 2024. Any questions about that

[40:01] other plans for the pilot project like 400 blacks like on site, so that people walking by like like we are in the process of trying to figure out what information we're going to be putting out there on Site or on a website. But that is part of the conversation of you know what information we want here. We're telling the grass 3 different ways. Follow along here. and we we suspect there's gonna be a lot of questions. There's gonna be plastic tarp or sheet out there and then sheet mulching, which is like cardboard. It. So it's gonna be a very on looking site. And so we do recognize the need to put some information out there. But there's part of it, too, so people can see what it looks like. And now they know what they're looking at. QR codes. QR, codes, yeah. But ultimately it will be like good looking 0. Steve space

[41:02] in the end. What we're wanting to do is try. Put some native grasses down, and see what is what's the look of a native grass as opposed to a blue grass. And how much water we we're actually separating this area on on the water meters. So we will be able to have compare water use for this before and after and hopefully it looks alright, I mean, but that's it, too, I think. You know. Maybe shifting people's perception of what this type of space should look like. So not so much 0 speed. And just for yeah, native grass, it requires very little water. Other additional state funds coming in this year. Yeah. So we have $40,000 this year. Half of it's going towards this project, and the other half will will.

[42:03] We're put towards resource. Central's turf replacement projects for so individual customers can benefit that way through resource central it? Then I'll move on to some of the water use we had from the February meeting. So I did. I went through, and I kind of wrote down all those questions that were asked and we did. We said, We'll get back to you. So I think I might start just by summarizing what the question was. And talk about that information. So first question was, how does Boulder's water use compare to other municipalities? So this is some information that we put together during the water efficiency plan. Update? so right here we're looking at Boulder. We're kind of falling right in the middle of water. Use. This is per capita water use so we're at about 133 gallons per person per day. I I should actually say this is the for your average from 2,016 to 2,019

[43:10] when we are developing water efficiency plans. That's kind of some baseline data that we have there. Water use last year was really low, cause it's so wet. So actually, a per capita number has come down. So we're kind of sitting right in the middle. Need to overlay like parcel size. Oh, oh, no. Well. there's a yeah. A lot of ways you can look at it. Per capita is kind of an easy way so it's a number we have. So it's an easy calculation to make. And I just want to point out Aurora and Castle Rock, or on the lower end. They they kind of have some of the more aggressive outdoor water use and landscaping restrictions. so they're kind of in in the front range. They're kind of leading, leading the charge on outdoor water efficiencies.

[44:02] and some of that goes back to just what their source of water is. Castle Rock is predominantly on groundwater, which is not not too renewable. So and then there's question about, can we tease out how much of the water savings come from conservation versus or outdoor water savings are related to conservation versus just weather, and that's it's that's a harder one for us to evaluate. But what I put together here. And actually, I didn't put together these graphs. One of our so but the blue bars are per capita outdoor water. Use going back to 1984. And the green line is irrigation water requirement. So essentially, it's how much water it's a measure of how dry it is. The higher the point on the green, the green line there, the drier it is, and the more irrigation

[45:03] plants need to thrive. So you can sort of see? First of all, since 2,002, which is where my cursor is right here. That's again, when we implemented water, use restrictions. So there's a downward trajectory of per capita outdoor water. Use over time. So we are seeing some savings there. But you can also see in some of these years, where it is dry, we've got higher water use. I I think that was more tied to the pre 2,002 period, and since post 2,002, we actually are. We don't see kind of those peaks in water uses when it's really dry as much as we did in the past. So this period right here. not seen a lot of those big peaks. But it's some information we have to kinda tease out that

[46:01] that question there and then there was a question related to what are, what are the drivers of water conservation or water efficiencies that we've seen? And can we distinguish between door and outdoor use indoor outdoor drivers. So, but the next 3 slides will kind of get to that. This first one. Here the blue bars are total annual water use. and the black line is our per capita water use for both indoor and outdoor. So our we we're certainly getting more efficient in our water. Use per capita since 2,002, which, again, is this red red bar here, and our total water use as well as declined since 2,002. Now, whether or not that's due to indoor outdoor use. So this is that same outdoor water use graph that I I just showed, and again just pointing out, since 2,002 we can.

[47:00] There is a bit of a drop in outdoor water use, but it's a actually more pronounced in our indoor water use. So this is indoor, for example, water use. And it's just took 2,002. We've really seen a decline in indoor water use. So the indoor water efficiencies really are a result, I think, of what they. the appliance industry, improvements for appliances. And that's something that's really driven at the Federal level. Federal State standards. I think outdoor conservation is more driven by local Matt days. So. and then the final question was, how does water usage compare to population? Change so? And I put together the, it's the per capita water use in these blue bars. And then population. Is this red line here. So our population is increasing. Better per capita water use definitely decreasing. So even as our our population increases over time, we're expecting not to

[48:06] that that buffers a bit, or tampers a bit or our total water use the overall water use is pretty flat, right? It's been it. It's kind of been fairly flat. Yeah, pretty flat. And again, we, the biggest fluctuations we see are really due to how wet it is back to you. That's this is the so. This one is total wire use. So these blue bars here. So again slight, decrease, but not seem as strong of the signal as as without indoor use overall. So that's what I've got and questions.

[49:01] I know that when we moved here almost 20 years ago, now we started watering before, you know. 8 Am. And after 10 pm. At night we picked up on a lot of different types of water conservation things. And I wonder what the education looks like in the community around. is it mostly eco cycle that's doing that? Or is the city? Also. we're true. Yeah, I think we're we're trying to find ways to send messages out whether it's on our website. But through social media is the big one as well, where we just don't get people with little messages throughout the summer about water conservation tips. And we are now looking. And the recommendation from the water efficiency plan was just, you know, developing more information. For the public. So we're we're exploring some other avenues as well.

[50:08] Alright, thank you, and thank you for them. Are you to speak to anything on the next information item, or is it useful only, and briefly, on the management staff? If that works for you 2 dance. and so alright onto matters from the board anyone have. This is the other. I guess I'm gonna keep you. There are no matters you can do matters from staff.

[51:01] Great! Well, I will get that started when we have a few updates under matters. I'll I'll start by talking about the power outage that we have last week, and then I'll turn it over to our quality team for a few brief updates. And so I think most people are aware that there was an excel power outage situation that started last last Saturday and excel proactively de-energized their electrical system in in our area and the surrounding area for fire prevention purposes. And that meant that we lost the kind of the grid power to a number of our critical facilities in in utilities, and had to make some operational changes. Our our Vitassa water treatment plant was run for the weekend on an onsite emergency generator, which was something that we have upgraded as part of capital improvements. We had a generator before. But just. We learn from some of these events in the 2013 foot

[52:12] taught us some things, and so that system ran really nicely on an onsite generator. It just automatically switches to that. And you introduce grid power. Our 60 third water treatment plant was offline for construction and and our own operational needs, anyway. So there were no impacts there. Similarly, there's a major capital improvement project going on there. That Rob has waiting on the in the budget cycle the last few years, and we're also upgrading our backup generator system. There we have, I think most of, you know, but we have 8 hydroelectric facilities integrated into our water system, I believe most of them, but not all

[53:02] we're operating. And so we took those offline when you when you lost power, we that power goes onto the grill, and we have contracts with excel and tri state to sell it to them. We don't have a way to use it for our own needs. the biggest impact that we have is that our water resources, recovery, facility or waste water, treatment, facility. and the way that also has a backup power system anticipated. And the way that was done and designed was a dual power feed through separate substations with excel, which is having that dual feed and separate substations is, and an industry standard. And it's a practice that's accepted by the Regulators. Unfortunately, in this, in this situation.

[54:01] even though that system was developed in coordination with it. So they both got shut off at the same time which caught our attention. Chris, Chris and I were talking on on Saturday afternoon and so, and had these they. They were offline for probably an hour or so we estimate. We had 2 h before the plant overflowed and and raw sewage ended up spilling out onto the grounds and eventually getting into Boulder Creek. We were in coordination with with Excel or Op. Office of disaster management. Director, city manager was talking to them, and fortunately they re-energized the system and we avoided an overflow. Really wanna credit, Chris and our operational staff at the wastewater facility.

[55:02] We have big capital projects going there as well. and one of the large clarifier tanks was offline because it was being reproved by construction contractor. And so it was empty and as as we learned our our situation with the power of the team, made the quick decision to divert waste water flow into that empty tank, and we're able to hold it long enough to get the power back on and and resume operation. So that was good thinking on their part. And bought us some time, and our our city manager Maria, provided a staff update or city update to our city council on this past Thursday, and she definitely touched on the utilities impacts. But there were acts across the city with recreation centers and traffic signals and traffic accidents, and

[56:07] our our own housing director on his own personal generator to the older shelter. so that they would have power and could keep operating. So it's really impactful, I think understandable. Given that a lot of wildfires start from electrical situations and down power lines, and it is a practice that's developing across the nation, I think Excel probably has learned a lot from their first attempt at it. Here they'll they'll be attending our city council meeting this this week and talking directly to our city council, and so we'll certainly be coordinating with them, as well with hopes of avoiding a repeat of that scenario, and I think. Given that that's a new operating situation to contemplate for the future, just as we've made investments and backup power at other facilities. Well.

[57:09] we'll certainly be looking at that, but starting with looking at the arrangements we already have with it. So so questions. So it's the expectation that excel and the city will work together to come up with what the rate path would have been, or what what the rate shutdown would have been for the work and for other essential facilities that that would be our our hope. I'm sorry. That would be our hope and throughout the weekend I was listening anytime there's a disaster and our emergency operation center is activated. We have staff and utilities and other departments who are design, who are assigned to fill a wall

[58:04] over the weekend, and they provide every few hours. There there is a meeting that is conducted, and people provide updates from various aspects. It could be county transportation or city utilities or or city communications. And so we. We were having those discussions throughout the weekend, and I was so what I learned and what city manager shared on Thursday night is many critical facilities, and not just in boulder, but surrounding communities as well. I think every water treatment plant in Boulder county was operating on backup power, and I know at least one community had kind of a limited amount of time where they could continue that. So I imagine there will be, and I would hope there will be some stakeholder engagement going forward. I think, like other community members, we've learned of

[59:04] the general plan that Excel had on on Friday night or Saturday morning through email. And it was only a a few hours before but that we learned what was gonna happen with the. with the wasteful facility. So we can. Had that been coordinated more in advance, I think it could have been avoided. For example, one of the 2 feeds to the to the wastewater plant is underground, so it doesn't really present a fire risk, and I I think excel will have the ability to isolate that. But we'll be talking with them. We we actually, in the early 2 thousands, different generation of staff then sitting before you now. But a lot of thought and planning went into it. and we made capital investments in the Excel system, and we pay a monthly charge for reserving that capacity for backup power.

[60:01] So alright and have a few few updates on the water quality side, and Megan Wilson out, Call our is our senior manager of our water quality group and she'll go through those and start by talking about what was in the memo tonight for the Industrial Free treatment program. The reason that was presented is to Rob was coordinating with our agency partners at the Environmental Protection Agency and coming to agreement on how that could be publish and doing it with Rob made the most sense for us, so she'll talk about that and the region water situation. I pulled a reservoir as well as a regulatory update on pfoss. So Megan is good news. She's in the meeting Zoom Meeting, which is not where we started. She'll do those updates.

[61:03] Okay, thank you, Joe, and good evening board. Thanks for your time tonight. As Joe said, I'm gonna start with just a quick update on the industrial Pre treatment program. This was in your packet, and just wanted to describe a little bit about what that's about, and see if you have any questions? Sherry Durin is our industrial pretreatment supervisor, and she's here, too, and can answer any any questions that I can't. Just as basic background. If industrial pre-treatment is a new term for anyone. This program ensures that discharges into the sanitary system from industries and businesses, meet certain standards and don't cause harm to the collection system. The water resource, recovery, facility. staff, and the discharge into Boulder Creek. So it's looking to make sure that the Ph from industries is within a certain range. Any chemicals they're discharging are treated prior to

[62:03] the waste going into the sanitary system. Things of that nature. And then we also regulate restaurants. By requiring grease interceptors, so that Greece doesn't build up in the collection system. Last year think it was last year we made some updates to the Industrial Industrial pre-treatment code in the Boulder Revised Code and following that, it made sense to update our enforcement response plan. So this plan is is largely an operational document for us. It provides kind of specific enforcement actions for any violations of the code. It doesn't change the code. It's well within our authority, and is is similar in nature to the previous draft of the plan. But just provides more detail, and it ensures that if we do have any violations, that we're kind of applying any enforcement remedies in a fair and equitable manner. Luckily we have really great industries in boulder. And really, do we really have to do any enforcement? And we really kind of focus on compliance assistance? If we learn of any problems that they're having.

[63:12] This program is directly overseen by the Environmental Protection agency. That's a little bit different from most of our clean water programs and the safe drinking water programs which are overseen by the State but for industrial pre treatment across Colorado, EPA is the direct regulator. So as we were updating this plan kind of in response to some comments that EPA had. They recommended that we do public notification as part of their approval process of our enforcement response plan. And so we have reached out directly to our industries that are permitted. That's about a dozen in the city. We publish a notification in the daily camera, and as we have conversations with other entities like restaurants and people that we don't have day to day contact with. We can let them know as well.

[64:02] So far we haven't received any comments. But we'll continue to accept comments for the next 3 weeks or so, and then, if we do get any questions, we'll respond to those, of course. And then our next step would be to submit this erp for final e EPA approval. They've seen it and said it was approvable. So pending this public notification process we expect it will be approved, and will we'll finalize that internally and and be able to use it as needed. So I'll pause there and see if there are any questions or feedback. It easy on our end. Okay? Well, I will. I'll go to pfas next. So, switching gears you may have heard in the news that the EPA finalized drinking water standards for pfas.

[65:01] for 6 pfas compounds. Last week. This rule had been a draft form for quite some time, so not not a surprise. That they came out. In case anyone doesn't know. Pfas is a class of manmade compounds. they are pretty ubiquitous in our environment, used in a lot of household products. Anything that is, water, oil or stain resistant may have pfas chemicals in it, and they're really found all over the world at this point in water and air and soil. So these. as I said, EPA developed standards for 6 of these compounds. The city last year to comply with a different EPA regulation to monitor for pfas. We monitored for 29 compounds. Including those 6 that are now regulated, and all of those results were non-detect. So at this point, we believe we will be fully in compliance with the new standards, without any additional treatment.

[66:03] There will be some additional monitoring and reporting requirements, beginning in 2027. So we are very fortunate to have very good source water supplies Kim presented on earlier. And and so again, fortunate not to have to and investigate new treatment methods or anything like that. Any questions about pfas. Okay? And then, finally, we have presented on this Reese fairly recently last year. And our team typically gives an aquatic nuisance species update on the boulder reservoir But we have found Eurasian watermelf oil, which is an aquatic nuisance plant. We found that about 2 years ago in Boulder reservoir, and last year it increased in density, more than we had anticipated. And so, if you're kind of familiar with the reservoir all along the western coves side of it, and including the swim beach, is kind of where the plant has taken up shop. So we've been looking into management options in partnership with parks and recreation, and also Northern water as a co-manager of the reservoir.

[67:28] Right now the impacts are really mostly on recreation its density can interfere with swimming and boating. So parks and recreation is exploring some near term treatments. This spring focused on mechanical removal. They might move this one beach a little bit to an area where the plan is less dense. From a water quality and and water supplies perspective. It's not really near the intake and boulder reservoir is used only as a backup water supply at this point, since we treat directly off the carter pipeline at the boulder. What reservoir water treatment plant

[68:06] however, if it. If we did have to treat that source or it became even more established, you could notice maybe some taste and odor issues again. Only if we had to treat off the reservoir directly. We are with those partners. I mentioned parks and recreation and Northern water exploring long term management options. That will include routine vegetation surveys to better sort of target where treatment is needed. We may use some strategically placed lake bottom barriers it could look like targeted herbicide use. And we're we're working with a consultant to who has extensive background in reservoir management and specifically with yours. Eurasian water will mill foil so we're waiting for the consultants. Final recommendations in May, and we'll kind of go through those the parks and recreation staff are updating their board next week

[69:07] with a similar update, and we will keep you informed. As we look at those management strategies and likely come back this summer. With some more specifics on what that long term management looks like. So not not great news for boulder, reservoir but and it will be a long term management issue, but hope to at least keep it under control as much as we can. Any questions on that. You just answered a Megan. But just curious like you have long term. Are we just learning to live with it now, and trying to manage it as best we can. There's no removing it altogether. Very unlikely that we'd be able to just eradicate it once it's established. So yeah, we are looking at at long term management. Megan, is that just a risk to event creation? Or is there some full aspect to it that

[70:02] cause treatment to be really necessary. So the primary impacts are on recreation. We have colleagues who do triathlons in the reservoir and can attest that it is difficult to swim through in places, and then can also impact boating from the water quality perspective again. it's nothing. something that's bad for you. It just would result in taste and order issues. And then the reservoir is used as a water supply downstream. And so if that outlet got or outlet got clogged. You know things like that that that would require management, but I think it is mostly for recreation purposes that we need to manage it. Would add to what Megan said. I was just talking about the excel update and mentioned a few investments we've made with with the board support like backup generators and capital projects

[71:04] back in 2,018 the Board had a decision on the cargo pipeline, which we already had a canal delivering water seasonally to our boulder. Reservoir 60, third, 3, 4 treatment plant. So there was a discretionary element to it. But we learned a lot from the 2,013 flood, and I think made the justification for that pipeline stronger. And so with the board support, there's another resilience investment we've made in the city. The the report that Megan just did would be a lot bigger deal to us. I mean, it still matters, but we can take. We can now take water from alarm and water sources all year round, directly through the pipeline. and we can still use it for water supply purposes. But you know, in in the moment some of those decisions can be can be hard to make. It's a balancing act of what things do we prioritize, but

[72:09] happy with all those investments now. So I think that is what we have for matters from staff. And if you would like, I could move on to so upcoming agenda. We have 3 meeting series on the capital improvement program, which is something that we landed on several years ago and has worked really well. We usually start in May with a refresher to the board particularly for a new board member. The capital improvement program is huge, and so giving everybody a month to just remember where we left off last year, and what we were looking at, and a refresher on everything that's in front of us.

[73:02] and that happens in May. And then in June we come back and really do a deep dive into the into the program. And what we're recommending as staff, and what we're seeing for the next 6 year program. And really look to have a dialogue with the board and get your feedback that June meeting, and then we come back in July, hoping to have addressed that feedback and ask for a recommendation from the board on the on the CIP. And utility rates, which annually is one of the more important things, and one of the more the the folks that the board has that has some gravity to it. So you're looking at that last year we ended up doing the May meeting, just memo only, and a packet only because the we had some scheduled racial equity training for the board that happened to be on the same night

[74:02] that was on. I don't think that's going to be replicated this year, and I know that that scheduling of the of the training is something that is in discussion now, and I think there will be a few different options for board members. Then the other thing in July we'll have an information. Item. Megan or team will be back, I would assume on Led Service line inventory, which is something that we've talked to the Board about as times and it's just inventorying across the city. The service lines are the water lines that go from the city infrastructure to people's houses, and just doing an inventory of those to see if we have any that are led that need to be replaced. We don't expect to find a lot, but it is a regulatory thing that we have to go through. So we'll have that we should have a good update on that.

[75:00] And then typically August is a month. We haven't had a meeting, and it's looking like that cannot begin to see it. So that's how things are shaping up for the next few months. That's what I have. I'm not calling you jay ship any question not human. 20 min early. Is there a motion to adjourn the meeting? Yes, I motion to adjourn. Thank you, Staff, for updates. And that's actually. he said, before we join the that's okay. Appreciate the feedback.