November 18, 2024 — Water Resources Advisory Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:00] Okay, the webinar is started. We call the order the November 18, th 2024 Water Resources Advisory Board Meeting. We'll start with Joanna in person. Yes, thank you. We. I don't see anybody online. And I do know we have one person here to comment under public comment. So let me go grab her, and I think we're ready for that once. You yeah, after your deal, let me go. Grab her. Oh, thanks, Karen. Next Agenda is to approve the This July over meeting minutes I went through very detailed thank you for sharing. Didn't have any edits or comments or anything on that I did not either. So then let's all those in favor of approving the October Meeting Minutes

[1:04] insurance is. There's some comment. Where should Lynn? Fantastic Lynn works here, and you just need to say your full name, Lynn Siegel, and we got 3 min. 9,000 people are on board for coming into boulder. 9,000 more units. This is. This is horrendous, for you know I was just listening to excel, and it's like the energy forecasting for demand is like skyrocketing like water. Water is life, you know, like energy is life, too. But all these things are adding up to a perfect storm, and we've got to like. You've got to get ex officios on planning board to be able to advocate against all this growth. 9,000 on board now, and they're considering the planning reserve area, 3 planning reserve. And then there's Papellio's, if you know it, Folsom and Pearl. There's the Mckenzie Junction. There's J. Road. That just got approved.

[2:06] There's you sell that it's endless, and and that's not even those ones are not even in the 9,000 that are already on board. Papilio's is but where the Hyundai is on 28. That's another development where the Geological Society of America? It's like historic and and a whole community. water view. We just changed the name to weather Vane appropriately, because it's on the flood plain, and maybe they didn't like the bad press of waterview. That's a completely entirely closed community that now I'm going to testify a tab on because there's garages in every space, and they're just moving all over, you know, because you guys drive. I drive 5 times a year out to this place, you know, because 71 years old, driving in the dark out here on my

[3:02] bike, and my bike was stolen. And so this is another thing. I how can I afford my water, Bill? And I'm begging to Joanne all the time. My bike's stolen, my catalytic converter stolen $3,700, and it happens because all these people and the more people and the private equity and the rental back securities cause these bigger and bigger companies to buy up. And they want to evict people, because that's the only way they can raise the rent, and they keep on raising the rent, and it drives up the property value. And it's this circular effect. And you guys know all this stuff. I'm just stating the obvious, I mean, but but I'm desperate to be able to get us out of this situation and build more just means more people, and it doesn't mean that we have any provisions for them in the infrastructure. And the water and water is life right? And we've got the Colorado River, and that, you know. Talk about that all the time. So please please get an ex officio. We really need someone on the other boards on Tab

[4:08] especially, and on on planning board. And you know, we just got 2 people onto Boulder Valley Comp plan. Laura Kaplan. She's a pro pro the airport, of course. Pro pro growther. And then we got Matt Benjamin, both under the representatives for the Boulder Valley Comp plan, and they always. Everyone's always citing, you know, you're always citing the Boulder Valley Comp plan. And these people are setting up the context for what you're going to have to meet with that, and we need to do something to stop this craziness. Everybody knows about it. Everyone you talk to, all my friends. Oh, people on the street know. And it's like. so stop already. Thanks so much. We did have one person join online. So maybe just if the folks online would like to comment. If you could virtually raise your hand.

[5:07] If you would like to speak, we'll give you a second to try that out, and if not. thanks for joining us. Okay, I don't see any hands raised, so I think you're set. Then we can move to the 1st information. I don't even know if you remember to do yeah before talk about the 1st information. Item, if it's okay with the board, I might comment on the public testimony you heard tonight and appreciate that from Lynn that she referred to Area 3, which is a personal brand. I forget the acreage of it. North end of town kind of where the Weekly Fund Park is. And so it's currently undeveloped land to the north of 36 there. and a lot of discussion happening with council and planning board. And

[6:04] you're planning to touch on that briefly on your matters. So the the 1st item tonight. No, to the Water Service Line inventory. It's an information item. no action required of the board, and I think good news to all, as you might have seen in your pocket. and there's no further consideration on this item beyond grab, and this has to do with an important regulatory requirement that required us to assess all of the service lines. From our distribution network to homes and businesses across the entire city. And you'll see in the presentation what we mean when we talk about service lines. a really challenging assignment and with a fixed timeframe to do it on. And here to present tonight is Megan Chandler, who is our

[7:04] water quality compliance manager. So if you're ready, Megan, I will turn it over to you. Thank you. Yeah. My name is Megan Chandler. I work in the drinking water team as a water quality or regulatory compliance program manager. We wanted to just provide an update on our water service and inventory project so to provide a little bit of background on this project. The staff work to create a baseline inventory of the material type of all drinking water service lines in the city service area. And, as you can see in this figure, all the service lines have 2 different owners. We have a city owned portion which runs from the water main to the water meter. and then a customer owned portion which runs from the water meter to the customer's property. and this inventory included both sides of the service line. and one of the main goals of this inventory was to ensure that there are no lead service lines in our city service area.

[8:06] The staff followed all State Federal regulations to complete this initial inventory, and I'm sorry I'm getting over a little cold, so I do sound a little nasally. It's all good. So this inventory is a requirement for all water providers within the entire country. And our staff met with the State, and approved and received approval from the State at very intervals throughout this inventory process. Just to make sure we're following all the new rules. So we did present in July. So just like a reminder of kind of how this project went about. But we just the project team used several methods to investigate the service and material types. The staff reviewed thousands of historical records. We really focus on homes that are built prior to 90, 1956. And that's because of an ordinance that required the use of copper water service lines.

[9:02] which just means all properties that are built after 1956 are essentially classified as not lead, consume that they are copper. Then we also received over 900 customer inspections from the customer side of the service line. This picture is an example of what a customer inspection might look like. and we also conducted over 100 potholes in this in the street to identify the the material of the city owned portion of the service line. So staff have successfully classified over 28,000 service lines. 92% of service lines were classified as non lead. That is, this big yellow portion of this figure here, and those are classified as non lead due to historical records, build date or an actual visual inspection. And then kind of as part of this

[10:03] inspection program staff were able to sample or inspect a specifically significant number of service lines. and we were able to receive approval from the State to classify the remaining 2,000 service lines as assumed non-led and this was like pretty big approval from the State. So essentially, this means the statistical sample size meets both the State and Federal regulations. And really highly confident in these, assume non lead category. especially as we do, we do receive in customer inspections. And we're able to like verify those material types as non lead. So this is really big. And this only leaves us with about 62 or point 2% of all of our service lines as either unknown or galvanized, requiring replacement. and these service lines do require some further investigation.

[11:03] And possible replacement, just due to the lack of historical records in that part of town. So city staff. we've like worked. We've kind of to all these community members directly to verify the service and material type of those remaining unknown service lines. So just looking at this this chart, it's a very small sliver of town that still needs some investigation. and the big news here is that no lead Water Service signs were found in this inventory. That's great. So this is our our public map. It's available on our web page. and all service lines with a green dot indicate non lead. which really is the entire city. Except for this small section of town that's circled in red right here. and zooming into that section of town is just the Chautauqua historic district.

[12:04] We can see on the left side of this screen. So let's see. Oh, yeah. So all of the Sorry. The purple squares that we can see here on this map are all the unknown service lines. So we're working directly with chalk, the College Chaco Association and the private homeowners to verify those unknown service lines. and then it's a little hard to see on this figure. But there are 3 yellow triangles in the top part of this zoomed in figure, and those are the galvanized lines that need to be replaced. It's Coda Shaco Association is actually working to replace those galvanized service lines over the next couple of months. and these lines need to be replaced, because, even though they're just galvanized and not lead, we have no record of what they were upstream. and any lines that are galvanized that were upstream or downstream of lead, or could have been do require replacement.

[13:04] That's why those 3 galvanized lines need to be replaced. I guess I can just ask, are there any other questions on this slide? Maybe not, for now? And then, so as far as next steps go for this program. The EPA did publish a final lead and copper rule improvements on October 9, th and there were 3 major highlights from this rule. So the final inventory and the replacement of all unknown galvanized current replacement or lead service signs needs to be completed by 2037. Then the drinking water action level also has been lowered from 15 micrograms per liter to 10 micrograms per liter. And the current lead levels in Cdrs are really low. Well, below 10 micrograms per liter. nothing to worry there and then. We are also be required to sample. The test led in schools and childcare facilities, and that starts in 2027, although we'll begin our plan next year in 2025.

[14:10] And that is all we have for this update. Are there any questions? How do you know what you can see? What's at the meter? And you can see what's inside your house. Well, how do you know what's in between your house and the meter for sure. How do you know for sure that that's copper, if it's copper in your house? Yeah, that's a great question. So the State has created these guidelines for inspecting both sides of the service line, and they say, if you're able to look at the service line that's within 18 inches of entering your home. whatever it is, within the 1st 18 inches. Entering your home. That is the material underground. They've kind of found that through lots of investigation, mostly through Denver water has some tons of water service line investigations, and they can. They? They say the State says, whatever you see, entering your home in that 1st 18 inches is what's underground.

[15:03] It makes it easy, we know, because of the ordinance in 1956, that anything was built after that did not, does not have. That's right. That was inspected. Yeah, yeah, that's right. And we did verify a handful of a lot of many customers did respond with inspections that verified that they have copper water service lines if their properties are built after that date. Yeah, you have the right meeting when she last presented. You just need to get some large enough sample size. Assume that the rest is not led. It sounds like you got 92% like empirical data that those 90% are not. Yeah, that's right. Many of this like this, the yellow section here that 90% they were just the properties were built after 1956, before we got visual inspections.

[16:01] or we have, like a record like historical record from a records review. But then we use the additional information for the statistical, like sampling size to then categorize the remaining. So we had a it was about 2,200 that were still unknown. They were able to like automatically, classify as a student on lead from that a sample program like, I'm shocked that there was no. or we haven't found any lead yet. Yeah, I don't think it's that surprising. We just didn't find any lead in this inventory process except for that Chautauqua area. And so because of that, the State was able to like verify our results of finding copper mostly across the board for the material type. Yeah, yeah, it's great news. Yeah, definitely, any other questions from work.

[17:01] Thank you very much. Thank you. Good news. Yeah. Thanks. Before we transition to the next one just wanted to do a shout out to the team that worked on this. It's a major undertaking in a pretty short timeline acquired a lot of work groups. You know the process in short order and and work together. And I got to see that happen. And it was going smoothly and efficiently. Great teamwork and really important outcome for the community and positive public health. Anytime you use the words lead and drinking water together. People think about Michigan, and and we were pretty sure we were not that, and weren't expecting to find a lot. But it's good to have this done. Thank you, Mike. The next item involves an intergovernmental agreement with the town of Netherland for wastewater treatment

[18:02] and the the agreement will update the terms of of an agreement that's been in place since 2,009 and re up for another 10 years. Again, there's no action required of the board. This one, however, will go to council at a interim. Upcoming meeting and council will act on it, authorizing the city manager, basically signing the agreement. So even though there's no formal action required in the board. If you have. you have feedback, or concerns, or anything, or pass that on we go and present this to them. And for this item I am going to turn it over to Kate Dunlap, who is our treating water quality man? Hi, so thanks for having me today. Yeah. So I'm gonna take us upstream from the service line pipes up to the reservoirs where we get our our drinking water from. Let's talk about this agreement.

[19:05] So just to cover. Briefly, what I'll discuss today. This 1st kind of orient ourselves to Barker reservoir, the main focus of this agreement in our source water system, and then discuss for why we have this agreement in place and its effectiveness in protecting our water supply. And then I'll go into some of those high level terms of the proposed renewal of the agreement and some of our next steps. I think you all are familiar with our source water system, but we do have a diverse water supply portfolio. We have 3 primary sources, upper Colorado River diversions via Carter Lake, which is treated here at this treatment plant, and we also have the headwaters of the North Boulder Creek System, and including the Silver Lake watershed. and finally, we have the headwaters of Middle Boulder Creek, stored in Barker, Reservoir. and Barker Reservoir is located in the heart of the town of Netherland, about 19 miles west of the city of Boulder

[20:07] and For this entire water supply system. The city of Boulder has long prioritized protecting water at the source. A much more proactive and cost effective approach to providing clean drinking water rather than relying on treatment alone. And so this agreement is directly in line with that source, water, protection approach, and why we would like to renew for another 10 years. So Barker Reservoir, which again, is in the town of Netherland. This is a critical component of our source water system. In an average year it provides about a 3rd of our drinking water, and, as you can see from this photo looking west, the watershed is relatively unimpacted and have high quality water in the reservoir. The contributing watershed is primarily Boulder County open space, and Us. Forest Service Land, much of which is actually designated wilderness area.

[21:03] There's really only one primary source of direct contamination, and this is the town of Netherlands wastewater treatment facility. And it's located here on the western shoreline, where it discharges into Middle Boulder Creek, right at the high water line of Barker Reservoir. So about 15, I really was like 20 years ago, the city of Boulder and the town of Netherlands worked together because they knew that they had to to meet State permit limits. They had to upgrade their wastewater treatment, facility, and the town and the city went into and entered into this agreement together to enhance wastewater treatment, and in particular add phosphorus treatment to their wastewater treatment process which is not required under their permit. And the reason why we're so focused on phosphorus is because phosphorus in a freshwater system like this can contribute to algal blooms which, in drinking water, can lead to taste and odor events in drinking water, and it can also lead to the formation of carcinogenic byproducts

[22:05] in the drinking water, not to mention increased water treatment costs. So we entered into this agreement. This new treatment facility went online in 2013. So I'm just going to show you on the next couple of slides the how effective this agreement has been. The first.st Since this agreement started. We've seen a significant reduction in phosphorus, effluent concentrations from the wastewater treatment facility. This figure here shows esperous, effluent phosphorus concentrations from 2,008 to 2024, and you can see that there has been that concentrations of phosphorus have dropped in half since this agreement's been in place, and since they've been treating for phosphorus. and it's been remained relatively low below that 1.6 milligrams per liter or 1,600 micrograms per liter. And that's the target threshold that we have in the agreement.

[23:03] We've seen that this reduction in loading has translated to a significant reduction of phosphorus in Barker Reservoir. As well. This may not seem as as impressive of a figure. I recognize that. But this is similar. It's also showing phosphorus concentrations. But in Barker reservoir from 2,008 to 2024. This does translate into a on average, a 60% reduction in phosphorus concentrations in the reservoir, particularly during the growing season July through September. and while it doesn't seem dramatic to be able to see any change like this in a water bucket of this size 11,000 acre feet. And attribute that water quality change to one action is is really quite remarkable. So we would like to continue this lower phosphorus concentrations in the reservoir we now are attaining the State water quality standard, as you can see.

[24:01] And so we would like like to continue those that reduced phosphorus into bar. So to do that, I'll just kind of go through some of those high level terms of this proposed renewed agreement. First, st we would like to increase our annual reimbursement to the town of Netherlands to treat for phosphorus right now we pay them about $20,000 per year. but through receipts that they've submitted over the past 10 years. We now know that the actual cost for them to treat is about as closer to 35,000, so we would like to increase our annual reimbursement to 35,000 per year. We'd also like to approve a 1 time reimbursement up to $30,000 to allow them to purchase 2 new pieces of equipment that they need to to get in order to continue phosphorus treatment. and we would like to continue the same 1.6 milligram per liter target threshold for effluent concentrations. However, under the previous iga, that that concentration was primarily focused just during the growing season like summer months, we would under this proposed renewal it would be year round control.

[25:12] and finally, we would like to renew for another 10 years. So in terms of next steps. We're presenting to you guys today. The town of Netherland will be presenting to their board of trustees in early December and following that meeting, our plan is to go to City Council with hopes of renewing this agreement, starting early next year. that I'd be happy to take any questions you might have. Why does their permit not require them? It's charge that lower cost level, you know. Why is. Guess. My question is, why is that our responsibility help them make state requirement. Why? Why doesn't their permit require that?

[26:00] Yeah, it's a fair question. It's due to their size. They're a small community. and so it has to do with the mill. The quantity with which they discharge is whether it dictates whether or not they have a prosperous limit. It is possible that they will get a limit in the next 10 years. although if they do get a limit it could be on the later end of that 10 years. And if they do, we do have A clause in the proposed renewal that you would continue to reimburse them up to 5 years after getting that permit limit. If it were below 1.6 milligrams per liter so that because usually when you get a new permit limit. You have a 5 year compliance period. but during that time they wouldn't have to treat for phosphorus. We would want them to continue. So we, we would continue to reimburse them up to 10 years back. Where does Netherland get its water from? Where do they withdraw the water. you know where Nettle and High School is, if I have a good map here. Just upstream on Middle Boulder Creek.

[27:02] They have some lights up there in the same area that we do. They're they're drawn off the same source. It is a similar source. They don't have a whole lot of water storage. So it's their intake is right on middle of creek. just upstream from there on slide 5. Just curious. The chart here at the bottom that increase in 2122, something happened there. Yes, There was an upset in their treatment process, and they had an issue with staffing. And unfortunately, it's led to some pretty major problems at their wastewater treatment facility. Their sand filters flew out and they had no operator responsible charge for a period of time. so you can see that when there's no

[28:01] well, this one had some phosphorus removal. If there were truly no phosphorus removal at all. We would expect the concentrations to go back up to the 4,000 to 6,000. But that was why there was that upset in that year, and during that year we did do only a partial reimbursement because there was a period where they did not meet the terms of the agreement. My question is, when it does go above the target location. It's just a matter of with reimbursement, we just pay less yeah and so the the previous iga was written unfortunately, such that it's an all or nothing. But you know it's a partnership, and you really want to work together. And so we agreed to attend like a 1 time. Let's make this a red, like a based on each month they were compliant. We divided the total amount. reimburse them for that in the proposed renewal. It'll be a month to month thing, so it'll be much more clear

[29:03] if there's a couple of months where they're not compliant. Then we just don't reimburse them for those. How many tiers are there in terms of the regulatory levels? I mean in terms of size of the community that I'm not familiar with. But Chris is our wastewater expert. Sorry to show you I don't know waterway that lots of people are taking water off of and discharging back into. Is it common to have this kind of imbalance for one city. That's true work with the one of upstream of them to meet their own demands, because the city upstream doesn't have to make the same meet, the same regulations that they do. Yeah. Good evening. More. Crystal Bill, deputy Director of Operations. I think this is a fairly unique situation that we have here in Boulder. So I'm not aware of a of an analogous one. So yeah. Sorry. Sorry. I thought you were asking about

[30:01] treatment sizes. But yeah, I'm not aware of any analogous. We're not going to be compensated for our trustors, removal efforts or downstream communities. We are not. But we're, I think, you know, regulated right, you know. I guess my question was, how are you? Have several different tiers like that, or is it like just big and little? Or what's the what determines what level you'd have to meet? Yeah, Kate, Kate answered appropriately, that the major discharges. I think one mg, and above that, that's focus right now for regulation 85. So we're clearly in that in that bucket. it's it's yeah. It's time will tell how the State moves through with enforcement on the smaller facilities to mandate, you know, removable laptops and advanced nutrient levels. But we'll have to see so it could be triggered to one other thing like so sometimes, if if Barker reservoir were impaired for chlorophyll, a like algae

[31:07] that would then trigger a phosphorus control which then could trigger phosphorous? We know that, you know it costs Netherland $35,000 to this phosphorus treatment. Do we know how much it would cost older if they there been any sort of analysis of the question. And we were we were talking about this to try to cause. It's a good question, and I think it's hard to put a number on, but it it could lead to increased coagulant chemical needs. It's hard to also put a price on paste and odor. Events and the loss of public trust in your drinking water and algae is one of those things that it's like a positive feedback loop. Once you have algae. it's really hard to go back.

[32:00] Yeah. And so, because people at this way before I was here, we're smart enough to see, hey? Barker doesn't have a problem yet. Let's continue that we're able to stop that cycle early and hopefully never get to the point where algae is a concern. So I don't have. I don't have a direct number. It goes along with the whole source protection, like, yeah, trying to get ahead of it. Fire or something else that exacerbate the antibacteria. It's a really great question comment. I think. Like you just said, I think there's lots of other examples where money invested in source control always. That's all I'm talking about cost benefit ratio. But we just don't have that data. It's it's an important thing to protect a lot of positive feedback on the quality of our drinking water and the base.

[33:06] We've made investments like the Carter Lake pipeline that brings water here now. and so also important for us to have a positive relationship with our neighbors. just the scale of the operations and the difference between boulder and Netherland, they're so much smaller. We have a source water quality and and help them with that. So makes sense. All of your room. 35,000. It's a real bargain. Yes, really, I mean, it really is to be able to demonstrate that it is. It is working. And we know, too. I think it's especially important, too. I didn't show up here, but we know the climate is changing. The temperature of the reservoir is increasing, and so to be able to

[34:09] reduce spots from smoking is even more important than maybe any questions or comments from the board. Thanks, Kate, thanks for making those presentations. and that we can move to letters from the board. I don't have anything that we can move to matters from staff. and we have a few quick updates tonight, and this is similar to meeting. We had the Msc. A few months ago where we're having a fairly short business meeting, and then we'll close out the agenda and and go into a tour. And we'll hear a part of the matters update as a primer for that tour. But 1st

[35:04] would like to start with a quick billing software upgrade from Joanna Bloom. Then Dr. Christyville will talk about Area 3, and then we'll have no primer for the realizing we should also double safety briefing before we started. Or if we made it this far. Yeah, just real. Briefly, thank you. I'm Joanna Bloom. I'm your technical host. But I also oversee the utility billing group, and they've been working hard for the last year and a half or so to upgrade our billing system. We had kind of an antiquated system that was locally based. And so we're moving to a cloud based system for security reasons. But

[36:00] also just to improve the reliability of the system and also to enhance the customer experience. So in the background the database is being upgraded. But then the customer engagement portal will also look new to folks, and then we also have a new payment processor. So all 3 of those things are gonna go live in a week on Monday, November 25, th and so you will see some reduced service capabilities this weekend while they port over all of the data. And then there'll be a new customer portal on Monday that all customers will need to register for a new account for. So the old system is going away, and you'll have to register for a new account to do that, you will need your account and customer number from your existing account. Save your own bill. Write that down. If all else fails. We have people manning the phone so that you can call and ask what those things are. But you will need to register for a new account. The good news is, if you

[37:08] We're on auto pay. Cost, even. We're not using it. There you go. You're good if you're on auto. All customers, if you're on auto pay. Now, all of that is being ported over to the new system. So you don't have to resign up for auto pay. We don't have to chase down 20,000 payments that will happen automatically. So hopefully it'll be a fairly light lift. And then this conversion is the precursor to the city, going paperless towards paperless billing, starting the beginning of next year. So January 2025 is the last paper bill. And folks will then get an online bill. Folks will be able to opt in for a paper bill. If if online is not an option, and we do have that request from some of our customers. So there's still a way to accommodate people, but we'd really like to encourage people to try it. Try it for at least 3 months, and then, if you really can't live with it. Then we can send you a paper bill, but hopefully we'll get there so we can support our environmental benefits and reduce our postage costs and things like that. So

[38:18] that's coming up. Encourage all your neighbors to sign up. Would this be quicker way to inform people of like a continuous, slow detection type thing, or is that not? Yes and no. So we still only do. Monthly water reads. There is an alert that you can set up through the customer portal, so you might be able to get information in a different way and more quickly. But, unfortunately, until we get to the point where there's more real time information, which we're working towards. But it's that's still a way to help the hardware meters and that part of the system. If we long term.

[39:02] We'll upgrade that. But we're not clear yet. This will be the platform that integrate all that data into. And even on a more basic level. The existing system is quite old, and if you've ever. if your credit card was hacked and you tried to change the card in this system. it's a mission and can be quite frustrating for people. So we're looking forward to things like that just at a basic level. That'll would it be more user friendly for our customers. It's certainly, if you hear, I mean you all are a conduit. So if you hear of anything that are not working well, or whatever that you want to highlight. Please let us know, and we'll we'll try to fix it. The idea is to have it be something you don't you ever have to think about. You just pay your bill and you're done with it. Area 3. I'll try to do this justice in a few minutes. But we can find ways to follow up if there's more interest.

[40:03] So yeah, area 3 is also known as the Planning Reserve. Officially, the area 3 planning reserve. It's a 500 acre piece of land that the city owns about 200 acres, and the rest of it's privately owned right now. So yeah, just north of J. Road. east of of 36 kind of goes to the swear Broadway, and 36 terminate or join there at the north end of town. This, this has been identified and flagged in the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan as a potential area of future urban expansion City. The reason this is coming up right now is in 2025. There's gonna be a major update of the bold rally Comp plan and council asked to do the 1st step. The the comp plan identifies multiple steps. to look into this concept of of using that land for some kind of urban service purposes.

[41:00] So this year. In 2024, the the long range planning team, again directed by council, was asked to take the 1st step, and what the 1st step is what's called urban services study. So our team has been a partner department to support that work. So Chris Douglas and the engineering team well as Kim Hutton and our water resources team been doing all that detailed work with our consultants to basically, you know, it's again, it's very concept level. But you know, what would it take to provide services to that? That area and water, wastewater and stormwater services are just 3 of like 7, these urban services, the others being like ace and emergency services, parks, rules, and things like that. So study is done. This urban services study is done. We have again very concept level thoughts and opinions of what it would take to serve this area. No surprise. It would take a lot, a lot of new infrastructure, a lot of money? And again, very conceptual at this point.

[42:03] So this urban services study is is now done, and what's in front of both planning board and council is. did you accept the study? So it's not. It's not at all a detailed version of what that future land would look like in terms of the development. But it's just here's here's, you know. the level of effort it would take to serve that that area. So for us, in our role in utilities. It was really that simplifies down to 3 main levels. You know, we have the the water resources to serve that area, you know, source water rights and and paper feeds and and all that. You know. What would it look like for the onsite infrastructure, water and wastewater to handle that? And then what are the offsite improvements, pipes, and treatment? So all 3 of those things were looked at. And and again, it's it's a it's a large, it's a large amount of work and and

[43:04] infrastructure and cost. So Last week there was a joint council and planning board meeting on Thursday this topic was lifted up, and public comment and of investigation into this. There's study session previously with council. So where we're at right now is tomorrow tomorrow night the planning board will finish their public hearing and and vote to accept the study or not. And then on Thursday, this week, same thing for council, they will finish the the public portion, the public hearing portion, and also vote to accept the study or not. If both entities accept the study. and you just take the next step in the process, which is a kind of a community, needs assessment. Those kids not at all ready to develop the area. But it's just the next step in the process. If the study's not accepted. we'll just put it on the shelf for another 5 years, and in 5 years time, when the when the next board value Comp plan update comes across.

[44:06] they go back to pick it up. So that's kind of the decision in front of planning board and councils we take. Take the next step in this investigative journey or so, except you have interest in curiosity. You can learn more tomorrow night and Thursday night as planning Board Council. I'll leave it there, but happy to take some questions that I can answer, or or Chris Douglas, or others what the assumptions were in that assessment. He's we have, we have lots of lengthy memos we can share that are publicly available, and great questions so consultant that was hired to support this work. they just to run the math, do the numbers. They picked 4 different kind of scenarios along the spectrum of what could be possible.

[45:03] Of no surprise. The housing is of high interest. Accounts try to press into the housing needs potentially use some of this land for that. but it's not exclusively housing, you know. There's parks and other urban use types that were included in these scenarios. So there's scenarios A through DA being kind of the lower end of the intensity on on development intensity, me being more more of a higher end. Scenario d. If I remember the numbers right. I don't have it all exactly in front of me, but it could could yield over time and fully built out, you know. Up to like 19,000, you know, new new residents or new units. So it it has a potential to be a significant urban. urban extension of the city. But 1st things. First, st again, the study that would have to go from area 3, and then the Comp plan officially

[46:04] would would potentially change that land use to area 2, then makes that that land eligible for annexation. And once you're annexed into the city, it's area one. All the services are there? Yeah, there's there's lots of interesting facets and aspects of this. just from the utilities perspective we're doing that. A little analysis sounds like it was only a matter of cost, not like. So the city has the water rights in theory. with climate change to handle those different areas of growth and demand great great question. Scenario D being the most intensive that that did trigger some warning lights and flashing lights, that that we probably wouldn't be able to do all that is in front of us and known in the community on top of

[47:04] larger amount of development in Area 3 without having impacts on our reliability, criteria and water usage. So the short answer is, if Area 3 got built out as as scenario D would- would identify. we would have to have some trade offs in water use likely, more frequent restrictions on in future years, like 2050, 2070, with climate change factor. some of the lesser scenarios. It's looking pretty favorable that we could could supply that that area. our levels of service up some items, I mean, I would say, in the next year and a half relating to policy. Around water supply. No while Chris was talking I sent you all a link to the

[48:02] the memo that went to Council last week. Great council planning board meetings. And then within that memo, there's a link to the previous urban services study. So okay. anyone's having trouble sleeping. We got some. We got some reading materials for you. All right, you're transitioning to the last item and mentioning similar to the Msi tour we did at the Msc. A few months ago. We'll do a tour of this facility and some capital upgrades. And Steven Groters, who's here on my right, is the project manager for that and one of the supervising managers and Utilities engineering group. We're also joined by Chris Douglas, who's presented to the board. He oversees the whole engineering team. And yeah, can you still hear me, John?

[49:01] We haven't chased them away yet. John Stoddard is our water treatment manager who oversees team that operates this plant and the Picasso plant. Turn it over to Hi, members of the board. Thank you for the time. Here. We're figuring out how to share on my team. which I just promoted you to a co-host. So you should be good right now. There you go. little step to get it in presenter view there, and good, and we're on. Okay. Well, let me start. My name is Steven Groters. Once again. Welcome to the 3rd water treatment facility. This is a very brief primer on in the field walk. So there's so much that can be said about this project, and many years in the making. and the title of the projects is up on the screen right now. 63rd water treatment facility campus, electrical and high service pump station project. So I've gotten a lot of practice at saying that.

[50:14] And I'll kind of move along here. starting off this project as with most of the work that we do really focuses on supporting core city services. So public health and safety, quality of life services and helping establish and maintain a vibrant economy. water and utilities in general, you know, for for all 3 the project is data driven and goes back many years. But the details of the project were from a project called the 2019 aim effort that was previously talked to the board back in 2019, and that identified this particular campus as a priority in the capital improvement programs.

[51:04] For a a few highlighted reasons. 1969 is the original date of the campus. and that is for some of the core infrastructure. Here. Notice the high service bomb station. That's the largest singular pump station in the city of Boulder, and is really the workhorse for getting water from the treatment plant out to our customer base. And then with that, there's a lot of key electrical equipment. The campus itself delivers about 30% of the city's potable water which makes it really critical for drought tolerance using western slope supplies. This is the only campus that can treat and deliver water from the western slope water rights portfolio. and it's the only means of backup to the other water treatment plant, which is water treatment. So some of the pictures that are up on the screen right now on the on the left, is this data driven process.

[52:03] There's thousands of points of data that drive the critical nature of equipment throughout the treated water infrastructure. And then pictures over on the right are what we mean by what is campus? Electrical look like. Oftentimes the electrical equipment looks like a gray box, but there's a lot going on inside the gray box and long lead equipment, and equipment that comes with it kind of a large price sack. So it's really important to stay on top of this order to keep the facility up and healthy the next slide. Here is the goal for the project itself, which was to replace major campus, electrical and high service pump station capital assets in a way that addresses aging infrastructure and needs to see level of service goals now, through the comprehensive plan, build out scenario

[53:04] project officially launched. September 2019 there's a number of phases that take place for the project of this size. It is on track. Most of the work is already successfully in service projects nearing final completion, work totally being done contractually with our business partners. Here. you can see, we had procurement processes, preliminary design, final engineering bidding, and all through the covid pandemic equipment lead time issues like all of it, and really happy to report that we are on track. And, like I said, a lot of the project is already successfully in service. So the next small number of slides are just pictures representing what some of the critical assets look like when we started the work, and then what they look like now on the left is

[54:06] these critical piping and strainer systems that help take in water supply from boulder, reservoir. and aging valves and coatings and things like that. And then on the right is what it looks like as a project left. That phase work. This is a picture of one of the structures that also has a number of pumping pumps inside of it. The the windows and the exterior of the building needed some architectural touch ups, and so on over the years, with age, and so on. So we have new glass structures. And then on the top of the building. Is kind of a representative of what we've done throughout the project in terms of safety. So there's hand railing and things up there allow maintenance staff to access the critical equipment and do so?

[55:01] No, that type of opportunistic improvement, something that really has fingerprints throughout the campus endeavor to do something. We wanted to leave it better than we found it, not just replacing more before and after. So the left is and we'll go see this physically, but down in the main pump station floors the left side is what it used to look like with horizontal major pumps. The number at the bottom is a decibel reader. So one or 2 pumps running, pushing about 90 decibels, and then on the right hand side is the new pump station. They're aligned in a vertical orientation. So there's quite a different look to the room, and a really nice, beneficial side effect of the work that we've done. Is it much more quiet is. Folks can now talk to each other in the room without during protection, things like that.

[56:06] An overview from up in the mezzanine area. On the left is the same pump station where it used to look like 6 pumps, sort of throughout the floor space. And again, kind of showing that linear nature consolidating the equipment into a line of vertical pumps. The campus itself. Again, opportunistic improvements on the left is the roadway that's used to circle around the campus. and that's used for chemical truck deliveries on a routine basis. That was a dirt road before the project, and on the right hand side, showing pavement improvements. It's nice, but it's also really important. In winter months, when things are wet and slippery, to have these large tanker trucks come in and be able to navigate the site.

[57:05] A lot of what we'll walk over can't be seen anymore. Large piping. This is large, 42 inch diameter, piping. going to from and through the facility. A lot of that piping had to be rerouted in order to do construction while also maintaining the treatment plant and functional service project. Piping is yeah, it's all replaced. Now we have flow metering equipment. Now, that's highly tuned into what we're trying to do a major benefit of the of the project is being able to turn the pumps up and down before it was an on off switch. And now it's more of a dial that helps on operational sides out in the distribution system helps in the treatment plant. And really a highlight is, it helps us fine tune the water rights.

[58:01] Yeah, they get precise amount of water at the time of year that the city would benefit most from. This is not a finished product. This is in construction on the electrical side. This happens to be my favorite picture of the project. There is so much electrical work that took place successfully through the last 3 years. And it's hard, really, in a photo to capture electricity. But I think this one does it the best really complicated high voltage equipment. The the contracting team that was partners with us on this were top notch. Very fortunate I I marched for all of the folks involved in. especially in the electrical side, really complicated teamwork talked about. It's really sometimes difficult. By the end of a long duration project, a such intimate and close partners this project to accomplish that. So this is a represent representation of some of the team members, and there's coins in a couple of the palms of the hands there, that we all said good thoughts over and cast those coins into the concrete as the last punk was cast into place.

[59:23] We're cool. Some of the team members there. Just, you know, smiles not even staged. These are folks who are really happy to have been part of this good project and team members, and in the background the complex series of instrument in instruments used to run the facility. We'll have a chance to go. Take a look at that wall. Those instruments were in different places physically throughout the facility, and consolidated to a single wall to help with operation of the campus, and to make things more intuitive for upkeep of all of the things.

[60:04] Also a part of that instrumentation wall is some redundancy and features that help allow for remote operation. It's really important for nighttime operations, operational shifts, and flexibility having resilience so like, I mentioned before, super brief, but lots more that can be said and happy to chat as we walk through. I can comment. Having been the in my prior role, the water resources manager and we had the tour pumps. and so we could operate part of the system for mg. they're like the old dial on the television, on or off. And it. They kind of gave us fits with trying to fine tune our source selection. It's like

[61:01] you have 8 or 12 or 16. But but now, with this project variables to be pumped. So you set to whatever you want. Oh, wow! Service change every day. There are times when your people are available right now. 6. So we have. 3 things have been awesome.

[62:14] Now we can go to 11. If we want that. You came up with the aim. Then fire name would be effective. Yeah, thanks, Steven, appreciate that. Looking forward to the tour switch to upcoming agenda, and I will just say, appreciate the Steven's presentation. And what you'll see in the tour. The Msi project you happen to. we would have gone past the 1, 1963rd intersection tonight. There's a major capital project that we have going on there, replacing some pipelines that are are critical to the system, and then

[63:04] condition that they need to be replaced. And so there! There's a shout out there for the board in in working through the the budget with us every year, and the cip program and the rates for kind of seeing all those things. So we really appreciated that for upcoming meetings, as as has been our practice the last several years. we'll have a meeting in December. January will focus on the year in review. I do not know where 2024 went, but it's it's about the 3rd page. And then in February, as the last few, least once we've had our a Rab retreat at that time. So that's how things are looking. Question as well.