January 27, 2025 — Water Resources Advisory Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:01] Yes, the webinar has now started, so you are all set. Can call to order the January 27, th 2025 Water Resources Report Advisory Board meeting, and I will turn it over to Joanne and talk about kind of virtual rules. All right. Thank you. Hello. 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. We do need 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 may try to change it, or you're welcome to send me a text, and I can change it for you. There is no chat feature for this meeting. The Q. And a function can be used if you're having issues with zoom otherwise feel free to text me. If you need anything. I'm at 3 0 3,

[1:06] 8, 1, 7, 1, 7, 4, 2 members of the public may be unable to control the audio or video features and video is limited to city officials, employees, and invited speakers. Only I'll unmute you when you're recognized to speak, and I'll call your name when it's your turn to speak and announce the name of anyone next on deck to speak as well. and after I've unmuted you please say your 1st and last name, and we'll start a 3 min timer once you begin your comments. Thanks so much for your participation. Great thanks, Joanna. We can move next agenda. Item, which is approval of our November board meeting everything. You didn't have any comments or edits anyone else. I did not know what questions concerns. Is there a motion to approve the November meeting minutes? I motion to approve the November meeting minutes. Second, all in favor.

[2:06] So we approve the November meetings meeting minutes and we can move to virtual public comment. So do we have anyone who I signed up. Great. Let me check. I did see a hand up just a moment ago, but then it went down, so I'll just give folks another moment to virtually raise their hands if they would like to speak. I do see one person with a raised hand. Lynn Siegel is here. Others. If you would like to comment, go ahead and try to virtually raise your hand, and if again, if you need help, I'm at (303) 817-1742, otherwise. I think we are ready for Lynn as soon as we have a timer up. Back, up. There is no name for me to change.

[3:00] That's okay, Lynn. I see you and I've stated your name, so you're all set oops. Hang on, Lynn. You muted yourself. Let me unmute you. Okay, Lynn, can you hear us now? Yeah, and I don't have the display of seeing you. Oh, are! You're not able to see us on the camera. Now I can see your face now I see my name. So I think you have to PIN the group, and I can try to text you, Lynn, and tell you how to do that but would you like to make your comments? And then we can work on your visual through cell phone. Yeah, except I want to see who I'm speaking to. It's bad enough that you can't see me. Yep, we're.

[4:00] And I don't want to see a timer. I don't want to see that. I mean filling my screen. I want a timer in one of the video windows, and I want to see the group. Yeah. Well, my, who has to adjust your zoom settings? Lynn. So I'm gonna I'm gonna have to work with you to do that. Let me see if there's anybody else who wants to speak. because it might take you a second to do it? Would anybody else, as on the attendee list like to raise their hand to speak. It does look like we have another person that just joined. So let me give them a second to see we are in the open comment period of the meeting. So if you would like to speak, go ahead and virtually raise your hand, and we can give you time. Lynn. We're gonna need to have you go ahead and speak. I I can walk you through the video.

[5:03] Well, there's there's never been this problem. There's never this problem. I go to zooms for 5 different boards and for many things all the time, and it's some settings at your end. Yeah, I'm not sure that it is, but but we'll have to mess around with it. But I think that while we're doing that we're gonna have to keep things moving along. Really want to see who I'm speaking to. I don't think that's too much to ask. Okay, so you. So now I can start the timer and. Now I see the group, now I see my name. Yeah, it's because it shifts to whoever's speaking. So if you go to your view in the upper right hand corner of the zoom workplace instead of choosing gall instead of choosing speaker. You need to choose gallery.

[6:05] No, I know what that is, and I don't have that option. I can't control it on my end, Lynn. So you either need to choose whether you'd like to speak or mess around with it on your settings on your end. but I'm so sorry I can't change it on my end. Yeah, well, I'm not provided I don't know who the participants are. I don't know who's on this zoom, you know you can't see me like this is just ridiculous, that. Yeah, I know. I'm sorry, like. And that I can't see you, and the only way I can speak is to a blank thing with a timer, and I really don't want to speak under those conditions. I just. Yeah, okay, well, this is your window. So I I think we either need to. Yeah, I'll my right to speak. I don't think that's okay. Okay, I will definitely. Excellent. Comment. We do? The 1st agenda item and then come back to public comment. Is that part.

[7:05] That works for me that is totally up to you, John. I'm managing. I know. Why don't we do that? Let's Thank you. John. Thank you, it's mute. I have not joined Audio. Sorry. We're just gonna be an echo. Just one second. Okay. I took care of the Echo. Lynn. I will text you on my phone and we'll work out the video thing, and then we'll allow you to speak after the 1st item. Okay. Sure. Thank you. Joanna. You're welcome. That work for you, John? I think so. So then apologize apologies for that. But we can move to our 1st agenda item, which is the utilities year in review. which I'm very much looking forward to. Yeah. well, thank you for that. John, this year in review is always one of my favorite items of the year. It's it's kind of nice for us

[8:09] as a staff team to stop and reflect on what was accomplished this year, and for me personally to slow down and and think about that which we don't often get time to do. This has a lot of value to us as a staff team. It's kind of like our annual report, and it's it's nice to share it with the board. I will acknowledge that our by general guidance for our teams is that for most of our not all, but most of our agenda items, I like best to try and keep our our memos to like 3 pages. not counting attachments. This one. It's hard to tell the story in 3 pages, so we let it be longer. And so for this item the preparation of the memo and the presentation. It's also a good opportunity for newer staff to participate in a in a board item.

[9:04] Sure. Learn about the department. So tonight we have Andrew Walker. Andrew's a budget analyst and utilities works with stuff. He's our principal budget analyst and is also here. and with that I think I will turn it over to Andrew to get started. Thank you, Joe, as he said. My name is Andrew Walker, and I'm the budget analyst for Utilities department. I just wanted to begin the presentation by thanking all the work groups that contributed the material that will be presented tonight, and in the memo we appreciate the opportunity to share our work and accomplishments with you. The agenda for tonight's presentation is similar to those of prior years. We're gonna start with staff and financial updates move on maintenance. Then 2024 highlights, some regulatory updates. 2025 projects, and then ended with questions that the Board may have.

[10:00] So, beginning with staffing and financial updates, staffing within the department remains stable in 2024, the fixed term Green Waste program manager was converted to a permanent Fte for this coming year's budget. In January the city issued a total of 96.7 million dollars in water and wastewater bonds. The majority of these funds will be used for the main sewer interceptor project, and the remaining funding being used for 7 other priority projects, including upgrades of the 2 water treatment facilities and the wharf. Finally, in 2024 use of Arpa funds to provide bill payment assistance to customers ended. We will be focusing on developing an actual in-house and sustainable customer assistance program in 2025. Next, we would like to share about the department's 2024 ops. And maintenance. Starting with source water supply, snow snow melt fills Boulder Creek Basin reservoirs each year, and in 2024. Snowpack generally followed the historic levels, as shown in the graph. On the left the yellow and orange trends are historical averages, and the gray and blue are for the year 2024,

[11:06] additionally Boulder mountain reservoir storage levels were around the historic average for most of the year, however, due to a warm and dry spring summer. There was an increase in demand that brought the storage level down slightly as noted in the orange colored trend line in the graph on the right. continuing with daily water demand. The water demand shown in blue during the summer months was slightly above the 5 year average. However, we are in line with past year's consumption. Water consumption peaked during the summer, due to it being a hot and dry season, 2024 was notably different when compared to 2023, when high precipitation and low temperatures from May to July led to a sharp drop in water demand during that year. continuing on to utilities operations. This slide is meant to provide an overview of the different groups within utilities which allows the Department to operate and maintain the required critical systems and assets that maintain public health, community vitality and safety

[12:07] to begin the water. Utility covers everything related to our source. Water treatment, hydropower and distribution. 2024 was a full and busy year for the water operations, teams due to juggling multiple large cips and their impact on daily operations. The wastewater utility covers everything related to the collection of wastewater and its treatment at the wharf. Although the wastewater system overall is not as extensive as the city's water system. The teams were also in a position of maintaining daily operations and maintenance duties, while several large capital improvement projects were advancing in the collection system and at the wharf. 3, rd the stormwater and flood utility provides and maintains effective stormwater collection and flood management systems which are critical within the city at all times of the year. The stormwater and flood teams and programs are like are largely focused on maintenance and capital improvements, as noted, as will be noted elsewhere in the presentation.

[13:04] and finally, the Business Services Division supports the util both utilities and the transportation and mobility departments with accounting and finance, Gis support and general administrative services, which is a critical internal support function to keep all of our work advancing. continuing on to utilities, maintenance. The utilities, maintenance team supports all 3 utilities to ensure levels of service remain high and their efforts are essential to supporting overall system operations within the water utility. The team regularly inspects and proactively identifies aging or problematic components for repair or replacement. In 2024. The team responded to over 300. After hours calls installed new system taps and new water quality testing stations. Additionally, the field service team, which locates all wet utilities and performs water meter readings and repairs. In 2020. In 2024 the team repaired or replaced over 600 new meters, and performed roughly 357,000 manual meter readings

[14:08] in wastewater. The team inspects the wastewater collection system every 3 or 5 years. In 2024 the team inspected 70 miles of pipe and cleaned 146 miles of sewer lines. Staff also performed over 200 repairs and 1,100 man homes. and then finally, within the stormwater utility, the maintenance team cleans and inspects the storm sewer system throughout the city. In 2024 the team cleaned over 13 miles of pipe and performed numerous repairs and patches in order to prevent failures, while also installing over 2,500 feet of new pipe. Additionally. the team plays a critical role in maintaining the open drainage and green waste projects. Green race throughout the city. In 2024 the team reconstructed the Wonderland Lake drainage area that had not been serviced in nearly 30 years while performing their normal outfall inspections and other maintenance activities.

[15:00] along with the everyday operations and maintenance utilities, works on specific projects to improve critical infrastructure as well as service to customers. The following are just a few of the projects from 2023. Throughout 2024 the Utilities Department completed a major upgrade of its utility, billing software utility billing team and a team from bit and from the business services division partnered closely to accomplish the system. Modernization. The upgrade includes changes. The payment processing system as well as a new customer billing portal to begin the transition to 100 paperless billing. The new system is now cloud is now cloud based, eliminating the need for locally hosted machines, while also enhancing the overall security and reliability of the system. The system itself went live in November of 2024. The next project we'd like to highlight in 2024 year 8 of 12 of the Barker gravity pipeline rehab was completed. This line delivers water from Barker Reservoir to Pitasso Water treatment plant as well as the Boulder Canyon, hydrogen facility, pipe repairs and liner installation was completed on around 7,000 feet of pipe bringing the overall project completion to 75%. The lining rehabilitation technique significantly reduces the environmental impact of this work as compared to traditional open cut pipe replacement methods.

[16:22] The final water utility project we wish to highlight is in 2024. The 63rd water treatment plant upgrades that were to replace aging infrastructure was substantially completed. After 3 years of active construction there are still a few minor components needed to finish the project, but the project remains on track for final closeout in the summer of this year. and then related to the overarching theme of replacing aging infrastructure, the repair and replacement of systems used for treatment and disinfection are the current focus at the Patossa water treatment plant in 2024 the 1st phase of construction was completed without impact to customers for the backwash supply. Tank upcoming phases involve long lead times for equipment with deliveries estimated at the earliest in late 2025

[17:14] moving on to wastewater. The wharf is being upgraded in order to comply with future phosphorus limits. This is a broad scope project that includes upgrades to existing treatment systems and processes, as well as revitalizing already existing assets. Construction on this project began in 2023 was around 70% complete at the end of 2024, with a projected commissioning date of July of this year. The second project for wastewater we wish to highlight is the main sewer intercept project. The existing sewer line at Belmont and Butte Mill roads carries 80% of wastewater to the work. The current concrete pipe near Boulder Creek has areas of severe erosion, and relocating the pipe, will significantly mitigate the risk of catastrophic events caused by future flooding. The current phase of this project impacts some of the largest and most critical assets within the wastewater system phase 2 of this project is currently underway and projected completion. Date is this year

[18:14] moving on to storm and flood. In 2024 stormwater team completed year 3 of the 7 year cleaning and inspection cycle. During this time the team cleaned and inspected over 16 and a half miles pipe, as well as over 300 storm inlets and a couple 100 storm manholes. These inspection efforts yielded around 75 pipe repairs, of which 4 were in critical condition. Photo on the right is from a pipe camera that found a fiber conduit that was bored through the bottom of a storm sewer pipe. Also in also the team completed a drainage project at 15th and Walnut, which included the addition of a green infrastructure. Specifically. now, I'm going to turn it over to Joe to share updates on the flood mitigation project as well as the 16.

[19:01] I'm gonna go off script for a second and go back to something that struck me when Andrew Slide came up on the Barker gravity line that I've I see practice runs of all these presentations, but it hit me that 75% completion. And I remember that specific project was a huge area of emphasis for a previous board, and I remember when that progress was 0%. And we were just starting. And it's it's a huge daunting like year after year project. So sorry about the departure. As as far as this. This slide got 3 major flood projects on here. South Boulder Creek Project is a major capital flood protection project. It's 25 plus years in in the making and in 2024 our project team submitted all of the permits and the documentation required for approvals.

[20:04] as well as closing in and working on the final design which is in progress, and that project is planned. The great ground here in 2025, which will be a huge huge accomplishment. and then the Upper Goose Creek and 2 Mile Canyon Creek Project is one that has been in front of the Rab a few times in the last few years, including in 2024, you might recall may have been July meeting that we we looked at a alternative on your Edgewood drive and had a good discussion with the board on that and so that project is now heading into the design stage in in 2025. I'm not sure if it's out there at the moment, but working on it. Request for proposal for consultant help for that. and then the last one on the slide. The Gregory Tran Creek Project is a phased flood protection project that's aimed at increasing

[21:10] the capacity and conveyance of the Gregory Creek stream. and our team made a lot of progress on that one in 2024 on design work, and the the creek itself goes through a lot of private properties as it kind of comes down through the western part of the city. And so our team members have been meeting with property owners and working on easements and those those conversations are- are going well. These flood projects are some of the most intense projects that we have in the city, because of the private property impacts and environmental impacts. And for me, really nice to see us gathering momentum on a number of these these key flood projects. you can go to the next one. so that I'll also talk about our safe and managed public spaces program.

[22:04] as as many people know. Unsanctioned camping in our city is a is a complex issue. It involves a lot of human suffering, and its impacts are are far reaching, not only on the people who are camping, but the the surrounding community of property owners. Back in 2021, our utilities department. working with other departments in the city took on the function of helping with some of the cleanup work that goes with unsanctioned campaign. We have a 9 person team that works closely week to week with our police team on this issue, and hasn't been so much of a question lately. But occasionally someone will ask, why is this function in utilities? Because, as we've as we've looked around the country and other cities that have similar programs. it tends to be in like a public works. Or, you know, some of these areas just because we have the

[23:05] the infrastructure department structure to handle this, that type of work. And so it's a big topic of interest and concern for the community. And the statistics there on the on the slide are quite staggering, including the the volume of trash that gets all the way by the team. and if it were left out there, that would all be in the creeks and and drainage layers. So that's part of the answer to the question, why is this in intelligence? Think they're good? Okay. Next, next, we would like to just talk about 2 regulatory updates beginning with fluoride fluoride is obviously a topic that generates questions within the community which at times get directed to both staff and rep. We are sharing this brief update tonight for reference when needed adding fluoride to drinking water has been in the news recently due to a 2024 court ruling on its potential health risks.

[24:05] the ruling itself references, a health and human services study that found a link between exposure to fluoride and IQ in children when levels exceeded the recommended Cdc guidelines. Water fluoridation is recommended in order to prevent cavities and tooth decay. A ballot measure in 1969 requires the city of Boulder to add fluoride to its drinking water only at the Cdc. Recommended level without changes to either State or Federal regulations. The ordinance can only change by a successful ballot measure, and staff will continue to monitor the issue going forward and keep that informed about it. The second regulatory update involves nutrient limits within our wasteland. The graphic most likely looks familiar to those of you who have been on the board for a while. The worth is currently is required to meet effluent discharge limits as specified by the State of Colorado and the national pollution and discharge elimination system.

[25:01] The Werf is already meeting the nitrogen based limits specified by regulations as mentioned in the memo and is currently advancing. The phosphorus upgrades project enhanced treatment of phosphorus within specific concentration limits as mandated by regulation. 85 will be included in the next permit renewal for wherf. Even though we don't have a new permit yet we know it will include Reg. 85 limits, 2025 is the year to start up the new phosphorus removal system. And, as I mentioned, it's slated in summer looking to the future. Here are just a few of the upcoming priorities that we have as a department for 2025. Beginning with the water unit. the Utilities department itself has partnered with multiple organizations to develop an adaptive Eurasian water mill foil management program within Boulder Reservoir. While. excuse me, while in 2024, Staff spent a significant number of personnel hours manually removing Ewm from the beach, which, in order to allow for safe swimming, 2025, the utilities department and Northern Water have contracted an herbicide applicator that will refine the treatment strategy to optimize plant control, while at the same time protecting water units.

[26:14] Also, in 2025 the staff will staff will start the process to reduce forest fuels that exist between Costa Reservoir and the Boulder Canyon, Hydro Facility staff will also be partnering with the fire department parks and Rec. And Osmp to conduct emergency, rehabilitation work to protect at-risk critical infrastructure from wildfires. and the final 2025 priority. We wish to highlight for water. Utility is the Boulder Canyon, Hydro, Pinstock Assessment, which is this, is the highest pressure pipeline within our entire system. Staff will complete a condition assessment of the Pinstock, which was originally built in 1911, and conveys water from Pastor Reservoir to the Boulder Canyon Hydro facility. The assessment will provide valuable feedback to assist with the development of the appropriate plan to either rehabilitate or completely replace this 114 year old structure.

[27:09] Moving on to wastewater major projects for the wastewater utility in 2025 include the continuation of the phosphorus upgrades. The main sewer improvement projects. Additionally, several wharf building mechanical systems have reached the end of their use. Today, 2025 will be the beginning of a multi-year effort to modernize these systems, beginning with the Hvac. Finally, because of and since the April 2024 high wind event. A staff team has been assessing the electric power situation at dwarf the new reality of climate change and the likely and likely future grid, shutdown events from excel which they classify as public safety power. Shut off. It's not. It's not like the all.

[28:00] Sorry. Blame me. I don't know. While the wharf has an industry, accepted electrical power system with service from 2 grid substations, discussions are ongoing with excel, and others to evaluate options for improving reliability and overall resilience independent of any large scale improvements. With the electric power system at the wharf the team has advanced several steps to improve our ability to endure a future short duration out moving on to the storm Water utility. As Joe mentioned earlier phase, one of the South Boulder Creek flood mitigation project is designed to provide protection for community members, property major utilities and transportation infrastructure not limited to us 36 and the Foothills parkway, while minimizing the impacts to city open spaces. The project will include a stormwater detention, facility, a spillway and an outlet works to convey the detained water under us 36 and return it back into South Boulder Creek.

[29:05] and then finally, in 2025, the city is initiating a major update to the Boulder Valley Comp Plan. While utilities is not taking a lead role, the department is will support pnds by providing information, performing data analysis and policy recommendations as well as document review. The intent of the Comp plan is to protect the national excuse me, the natural environment of Boulder Valley, while still fostering a livable, vibrant, and sustainable community. The last major update to this plan occurred in 2017, and I just wanna thanks for your interest tonight and your support of our department. and before we completely turn it over to the board for questions, I did want to mention a couple of things that I noted. As I was thinking about this presentation. Andrew had a slide that talked about staffing and just noting that we have a water conservation position in our water resources team and some ways that the Board kind of touches the work that we do. John served on that helping us with our water efficiency plan, where that was one of the recommendations to add a staff member to cover that base. And so that's

[30:21] we're in the middle of a recruitment right now. And that's coming to life. And then just the one of the primary functions of the the board is the annual budget process. And what really strikes me this year from my vantage point, and my role is just the number of major projects that we have, going it to some extent to the frustration of the traveling public which there are. There are impacts to that. But I I think I've said it before. I feel like we have really good systems and utilities. And and there's a lot of things in place that are really good for the community. And I feel like it's on our generation of staff to leave the systems better than we found it, because they are aging and deteriorating. And so

[31:12] I'm just really pleased to see things like the Msi project. The 63rd waterline project, the slide that Andrew showed about the Barker gravity line like. and and the Board's diligence, and working through the cip and giving us feedback on the rates, and everything is is an important part of that. So thank you. Now for questions, questions. and one question, obviously top of mind for everyone but you mentioned Wildfire fairness. Are there specific facilities that you're like most concerned about, or any you know, research has been done to date on Wildfire fairness, or there has been a lot that has been done by our water quality group, and we've presented to the Board in recent years.

[32:04] I would say the our source water. We have 3 different sources, 2 watersheds. In the just to the east of the Continental Divide, the Barker system and the North Boulder Creek system and just a lot of forested land. a lot of our stuff is buried and and doesn't, doesn't burn. But some of those forest projects. I'm thinking what might happen to Parker Reservoir, for example, if we had a fire up there and we have our water quality team. Megan Wilson help call and Keith Dunlap have done bottling of that. and we've assessed that. And they identified so pre and post fire preparedness. So I would say, the the stuff in the mountains is probably the most concern, but also a lot of

[33:04] brick is buried structures that have us reasonably protected. But still some vulnerabilities like reservoir stability in the sediment and things like that. But we have a team that's actively planning as best we can and working on that issue. You mentioned that something about the wallpart control and stuff can't quite visualize where that is. Was that just getting out trees coming down that big slope. There you're you're think we've been up Flagstaff Mountain. We have that reservoir at the top, and then Boulder Canyon Hydro is the the big red Frick building at the bottom, where the tunnel is in Boulder Canyon. and it's it's a north facing slope and a lot of trees, and there are excel power lines, and we have our our buried pipeline.

[34:03] So it's generally in the vicinity of of where the Excel power lines are not exactly. And then, just like a a tree thinning project for that border. But keep some of those facilities protected. We've done projects like that. In recent years, like around the the tassel, water treatment plant and and things out. and I think done in in the a responsible way where it's not just like a for the for the forest. But yeah, I could add a comment or 2, if that's appropriate. So good evening. Board. Christaville, deputy Director of Operations to complement what Joe just shared. I I'm on a multi departmental team that's working on some of the wildfire mitigation aspects and priorities and planning and and best use of of funding that that comes available. What one thing I've learned is like, Joe said. It's not really the concern about the pipe itself that's buried, you know, burning or coming compromised in the moment. But if if that stretch was to burn, then it's really susceptible to, you know, future mudslides or the hill hills, less stable, etc. So then there's that increased risk of of the just, the infrastructure

[35:25] from a future, you know. large precipitation event that could eventually compromise the pipe itself. So I think that's part of the motivation as well. That's some broader area mitigation project up. And there's not just a line around where the pipeline is. It's sort of a general plan with other landlords. It's a good question, Steve. I'm not sure how far beyond the pipeline alignment. It goes. But it. my knowledge is it is fairly targeted around the the alignment, though it's not like a broad forest program overall.

[36:05] I had, I had a couple of other questions from just through the presentation on the staffing. I know that you guys said you were having trouble filling positions a couple of years ago. Is that kind of stabilized? Or do you have open positions now that you can't fill? Or what's sort of the general outlook in terms of staffing and water utilities these days. It's a great question. I think it has stabilized some. I was really pleased to hear that water conservation position that I mentioned, I think, had 31 applicants. Used to get tens of applicants, sometimes 50 or more, for all of our positions, and then Covid happened, and I think all of across the country people experience just less interest, for some reason. and for a while there we were only getting a few. But I think I think that is stabilized

[37:01] now, and there are pockets of the city where hiring is a is a challenge. But I think we're doing okay. How and how is the switch over to the electronic billing process going, or how do you do you expect to have some difficulties as you try to put that into full factor. How does that help from my vantage point? It's going really. Well, I think we have roughly 30,000 accounts so. or something like that that have to make the switch it has. It is long overdue that we've taken on these upgrades, and I I got the ability to see behind the scenes the teams that worked on this and I utility billing team or business services team where there's a key programming computer programming position in there that

[38:00] that supports the work, and it it's going well that the call volume of people who are needing help to make the transition is pretty high, and it's taking a bit of time to to turn things around and get back to people. But We've gotten feedback from our vendors, that and others that they have not seen this process go so smoothly as it is with ours. And I mentioned that that computer programming person in business services, they were just nominated for kind of a national award for their work. this. So not to say customers aren't experiencing any frustration or challenges with with it, but I don't know that you can take something on like this and have it. He's perfect definitely.

[39:02] Any other questions. Steve. Think that, too. When we went and visited the Msi. I didn't appreciate that it was nationally recognized as an innovative approach. I mean, maybe it seemed very impressive. But I just wonder is there an effort being made to share more broadly kind of how that's create a video? Maybe you already did. if it's okay, can we get back to you on that. I'm not privy to to what triggered it to be that national level recognition. Our. But our team certainly knows that I think it. It was centered around the tunneling effort and and that impressive work that that I believe you all got to see. so. But yeah, we're fortunate to award that project to Bt construction. They they're excellent in this area, and they they really do have a

[40:01] impressive reputation, and they've executed really well on behalf of the city. and that project would have had to do an open cut across Belmont, a really deep one. and it, if you can imagine what the traffic impacts of that when they basically was 0 for a major project like that which I'm really pleased that we ended up with that approach. Yeah, more generally, when I was reading through the year in review, I was thinking, they've really done a lot. There's so many of these great accomplishments, and where they're going. I kind of want to share this with my neighbors, you know, because it's just such a nice like summarized Snapshot. So yeah, sharing, sharing the successes so that people appreciate what's being done. Yeah, for sure, we're thinking about that. And it's good for us to do it in this way, it kind of becomes like our annual report, and it's written in the way

[41:06] we write things. But we've also created a version last year that we shared with the public. And it's something that we're gonna keep building on, because there there can be a fair question of like, why are the rates going up. Why are the bills so high? It's a massive operation and a lot of big capital projects you ever put any kind of insert in the bills or anything that would summarize that kind of thing we have. Yeah. seems like there might be a way you could take all of what you were just saying in the whole report, you know. Put it on 2 sides of a little flyer or something this summer, I think. Well, there's something to the like. You are very lucky to be here for a lot of reasons, and one of them is the investment, continued attention that's paid to the infrastructure that you benefit from every day, and

[42:04] a reminder of them had a couple of specific questions. The I saw on the memo the Arpa funds ran out for the bill assistance program, and it was being shifted to the county. Just curious if that's gonna impact the overall number of customers that can be assisted. I don't know that it will. With the arpa funding, which was in dire need during Covid there were a lot of people struggling to pay those bills it was really helpful. We actually got to a point where we had some balance left that wasn't getting used, and so we we kind of gave it back to the city for other uses. I would say the tail assistance program as we talked about when we go through the budget process. And what's being asked of our customers to pay for everything is a really critically important component. And Steph was actually working with Joanna Bloom, who's who's online here.

[43:07] Looking at other possibilities with that program is one of our high priority work plan items for this year. I I don't. I don't get the sense that there are huge unmet needs at this moment. But we want to make sure that we have that safety net for people just reinforce the point that Joe made that I think we had $400,000 set aside for that utility bill assistance with Arpa, and we ended up distributing $250,000 approximately, so that balance of 150 K. Was diverted over to the Hhs team. The Housing and Human Services team to distribute under a rental assistance program. So it's it's folks that still have a need. But and most renters pay their utility bills through their rent. So right, if it effectively is still supporting that mechanism.

[44:07] And I was curious about the implementation of the water efficiency plan. But it sounds like this. New hire will probably be tasked. You're putting a large part of that new plan. It's a great, it's a great product for what's coming. I'm excited for what's coming. And then the memo talked a bit, I think, about the pilot project to replace some turf with native grasses, and I was curious to give you like a little update on where that stands. And is that going to be done by this growing season? I am not sure. Joanna Bloom is is online and could maybe speak to that if if she's able on the fly or we could get back to you see, if Joanna comes on. I am here, Joanna Bloom, utilities deputy director for policy and planning. Did you ask about the turf replacement program? That or the project that's happening on baseline and 30.th

[45:04] Yes, there's a quick status update. Yeah. So we're just waiting the, there's actually 2 different ones. One's kind of residentially focused and the other one's more commercially focused. And I know Kim and Crystal are online, too, and they could probably tell you more about this. But we're gonna wait until the spring. We had to get rid of the weeds in the fall, and then we're gonna replant a couple of the segments in spring and then maintain it for a little bit until we reach 80% establishment. So you'll still see the the kind of mulch and things like that in place to get rid of the old vegetation before we can plant the new vegetation. So so stay tuned a lot more to see in the spring and and summer, and kim and crystal. You can chime in later. If I got that wrong. Great thanks, Janet. And then on South Boulder Creek flood mitigation. It's crazy that that's breaking down this year. That's obviously spurred a lot of conversations and community outreach. I was curious. If there's anything planned around breaking the ground and community engagement and

[46:07] and all that, for sure, for a project of that scale, we would, we would do something. It's a complex one. So the number of things that have to come together. timing wise to break ground is is staggering, but we're on that track, and I know we'll be having those conversations as we get closer. Last question I had was just with the Comp Plan update happening. I think this characterizes utilities and play a supporting role. I was just curious if there's a way for utilities to play more of a role. It's a it's a great way for integrating water into land use planning, which is incredibly important. So I just. I'd like to see utilities play more than just a supporting role. Plus. Yeah, I I think we will have a pretty significant role in that way. And our planning teams and our utilities, water resources, teams, myself included. We're already meeting and and talking about some of those things. I can talk

[47:09] more on your matters about what the process looks like and timelines. But I think there will actually be some touch points for Rab on that which will be a unique thing that wouldn't necessarily be there every year for the Board, but great any other questions from the Board? One more general question, I guess. How do you see this? The issue of the sizing of your staff to handle the encampments spacing. How do you see that knowing in the future is that gonna become a larger part of your budget. And how how do you interact with the rest of the city to keep track of that, or keep track of where it may go in the future or try to manage it? That's a great question. I think we're gonna have to extend the meeting to 9. Seriously, though, that question has come to me from council and city leadership, like we have 2 essentially 2 crews that do that work now. And there's a question.

[48:18] do you? Do you need another one. Do you need more? And I talked about the complexity of the issue, and I I don't know that additional utilities crews would be that much for us now. And I know it can be perplexing to the community who supports us doing that work which not everyone does. By the way. It in in like? Why, why do I still see tents, and why do I still see people camping? And the the issue is so pervasive across the country. I, from my vantage point, seeing what the team does, seeing those statistics. I think we're accomplishing a lot, and it's

[49:02] he's got the situation relatively stable point in the city, not to say there aren't problems, but there are just other facets of the issue that I think have to be worked on to really make an additional breakthrough. Utilities. Crews aren't, aren't the answer. They're untreated mental health issues, addiction issues. And and so more support for that kind of thing. Is a is part of it. It's 9 full people that work full time on that. It's a lot they have supervisor and 8 staff right supervisor and 8 staff. They have 2 light duty dump trucks, and I see them in the creek corridor. Doing their work throughout the week, and I I see full trucks of, you know. Numbers are amazing. I mean trash all the way every week.

[50:12] So Boulder Budget City's budget, you know, there's been some news around. You know, budget shortfalls or anticipated budget shortfalls, and appreciating that you have separate revenues and expenses, operate as an enterprise. but you have so many joint initiatives where you're working with boulder staff. Is there any? Are there any areas where potential reduction in the city's funding for things impacts utilities. I would say not so much. We were just talking about the Sams program, and because our funds are enterprise funds and they're restricted and they have to be put to utilities uses. That's a program that actually have a combination of utilities and general funds like the team can actually go and clean up at a park that has nothing to do with utilities.

[51:12] The so that in 2024 the city adopted a new strategic plan. and one of the things that Steph is supporting. And and myself, too, is a long term financial strategy for the city, and that is a huge initiative in 2025, And just looking at the overall city's funding sources, and the health of our funding. And how we prioritize is is something that I see as a real positive in in just trying to drill into how we manage our finances. We're we're somewhat insulated. And I I think a great example of how that played out was during Covid.

[52:01] completely different funding structure than the rest of the city. and Covid had an impact of how and where water was getting used, and we saw some differences. But Other parts of the city were really struggling forever. Okay, thanks again for the presentation. I do really appreciate knowing you and the report, and always good to see. So I think we're gonna try and return to public comment before the next agenda item. So, Joanna, I don't if you want to jump back in. Yeah, thanks for your patience, Lynn and I, Lynn and I have been texting. So let's try this, Lynn. You should. I'm going to go ahead and ask you to unmute. and then, if you're able to tell us what you can see, I'll spotlight the room for everybody if if the screen isn't still working.

[53:00] Oh, great! I see the group. And John, Katie. Joe, Amy, Steve, and you usually other boards, put up a video window for the timer also. so I guess I won't have that. But you'll have. Yeah. And Karen was gonna try a different method. So apologies for the snafu. But I do think she was gonna try a different method. And and we can. We can practice it again before the next meeting. This. Oh, Karen, Sheridan is inviting you to use a zoom app timer by zoom, zoom! Go. Access information about you. So do I. Click on timer. Sure. Go ahead, and it'll and you'll see the timer on the right. Click on timer or open. Click! On open! -Oh, no, that wasn't it.

[54:00] I'll go back to zoom. Okay. So okay. And I think the timer Lynn is probably less important than you being able to see us. It says, 2, 28, though how many minutes do I get. You get 3, and we will restart it. Okay. And I think and don't you worry. We'll give you when it goes down to 2 min. I'll I'll time another minute, but I think you're ready to go. I can even move it down on my screen. So it's not blocking Katie Yay. Excellent. Great. Alright. Go for it, Lynn. No enjoying the discussion. I was concerned when I heard about the outages, you know, if we have outages, and it reminded me, you know, of of that storm, or whatever it was when we had the backup, and one of the systems went down. Oh, yeah, it's just a scary thing water, and I'm really cold. So please bear with me. I'm at like 40

[55:01] 8 degrees for the last 25 years, except when someone's in my house a house guest. Then I have to turn the heat up, but it just gets me thinking, too. I recently had a retrofit that was a complete disaster, but it included a heat sort, an air to air, heat. a heat pump, hot water heater. which is an interesting device. When you think about how hot and cold works and the connection between that and water. I'm actually less encouraged today, after talking to a plumber about the use of this device in the State of Colorado in the summer. In the summer it might be great, but they output a lot of heat, and they suck. I mean, they output a lot of cold, and they suck a lot of heat. Then the heat gets embedded in the hot water. But it's kind of self-defeating if you're having to heat your house up

[56:03] to heat your hot water. Then the form of heat that you have for your house, which I want. This is what I want for my house is solar to run a ground loop, heat pump. and, in fact, my neighbor across the street, who asked around. And. Has an air source, hot water heater, and an extra tank for the storage from the ground loop heat pump to add heat, you know auxiliary heat to the air source. So it's a connection between an air source heat pump and a ground loop heat pump pretty neat, anyway. So let's see. You did say something about the Hhs funds going to rental. That's concerning for me, because I own, and I don't feel like I should be punished for owning, because I won't own my house for a long time, and I'm saving up. I don't buy anything, and I'm saving up for 25 years for this ground loop peat come because they're about $90,000.

[57:09] So that's kind of an issue. And 30th and baseline. I was trying to envision. Is that the Ruhaf site And it's right across from Willville. Oh, well, excuse me, I was thinking, Arapahoe sorry. I'm concerned with this part of town. Okay? And as far as the development and homelessness. I just wanted to say, I think it's about 6 million a year. We're paying just to clean up the trash, and it might not be a direct issue because of the way that funding works. But it it is going to be an issue. If our our funding is, you know, if we're short on our budget. Then what are we going to do with all of this trash? And it's going to affect our water, you know, supplies, and just every trash and accumulation. All of that, you know, affects that so.

[58:02] and I couldn't remember the samp acronym SAMP. Yup, Lynn, that is your time. It's safe, and manage public spaces. And the last thing is, you know, Covid with trump. And we're at time. Problem. That's all covid with trump. Can you imagine, you know, just saying. Think, fun. Thanks, thanks so much for all of your help, Joanne. It was very good. You're welcome. Yeah, thank you, Joanna. Appreciate that. And thank you, Lynn, for working with Joanna. Any other public comment. I did see a couple of folks pop on, so I'll just say, for we had a technical issue in the beginning. So if anybody else is here for public comment, you can raise your hand virtually otherwise. I think we're ready to move on. You're all set. Okay?

[59:00] Thanks, Jonah, so that we can move to the next information end. Really would like to see the water bills going all online. And thanks. For working our next item here tonight. It's also an information item. It's an introduction to waterwise landscaping policy and code. Our city, our current city council at its initial retreat after the after it was elected, or the last election and city Council identified the waterwise and firewise landscaping and code requirements as one of its this Council body's 11 priorities. the items being led by our planning and development Services Department in conjunction with other departments like ours. The planning team visited with city Council on this topic in late 2024, and the plan in general, which I think you'll hear about is to solicit input on on these code updates throughout 2025. So there's no action required of wrap tonight. But

[60:08] it's it's at least an initial opportunity for you to provide input, if you have any, and the presentation tonight will be led by Lisa, who who is a principal city planner in the Planning and Development Services Department. So with that, turn it over to you. Thanks, Joe. Lisa Hood, from planning and development services. I'm also joined online. Chris Ricardello, our principal landscape architect is here. I'll do the presentation, but he knows the nitty gritty of the code. So if you have questions, he's there, and we've also been working closely with Crystal Morey with the water resources, part of utilities on this project as well. So I'm just gonna give a quick Update or a quick overview of the project. Really, we want to introduce this to you tonight. But we'll come. We'll plan to come back throughout the year. As we work through this project and develop more detailed recommendations. But, like Joe said, we're hoping for just some initial guidance and feedback of what you think of some of the best practices research that we've been doing over the last couple of months.

[61:12] No advancing. Okay. So we've identified this project purpose is that we're really looking at our existing landscaping regulations with the lens of water conservation and making sure that those are the regulations and code that we have are advancing the goal of conserving water. So we're looking at all of the rules on the books right now, and how and opportunities for how we can improve like. Joe said, this was a 1 of Council's priority projects for 2024 to 2025. But it's also being It's also helping us implement something that happened at the State level, which was a Senate bill 24 0 0 5, which you might have heard prohibits non-functional turf. And so it applies to several different types of uses, transportation corridors, commercial uses, industrial, institutional, and then what the State calls common interest communities. But that's really like the common area of the nation

[62:08] way. Think of that! And so that's where you cannot have non-functional turf, and they've very vaguely defined non functional turf as turf that doesn't have a function. So basically a recreational or community purpose. And so the city will work to have a more clear definition of what on functional turf is, but it actually also applies to artificial turf. So you can't use artificial turf in those areas or invasive plants, which is not that many people are trying to use invasive plant species, but that also applies for the State bill. So because Council Council actually identified that as a priority separately of this Senate implementation, and the timing just works out perfectly that we can do both. With this project as far as public engagement for the project you mentioned the water Efficiency plan. We did a lot of great public engagement at the time of the water Efficiency plan. And so we're hoping to be able to use that input. There was a lot of overlap. Many of the recommendations in the water Efficiency plan are aligned with kind of the goals project.

[63:10] and so we'll use the input that we already have, as well as have some opportunities for public review and comment on the options as well as we went to planning board, and we're here, and we'll come back to you through the year as well as some other engagement strategies. We'll be utilizing for this project. You guys probably are well versed in this. But boulders water for conservation program has a number of main features. So the foundational stuff we've talked about meters and billing and things like that. There's lots of technical assistance and incentive programs that they work on as well as education and outreach. And then the other. The 4th pillar is really the rules and ordinances, the regulatory side of how we do things. And that's really the focus of this project. just because this might be something you don't hear a lot about. I wanted to give an overview of how landscape plans are reviewed at the city. I mentioned Chris Ricardello, our landscape architect, is here tonight. We have one landscape architect who reviews all plans in the city. So, just to give you an idea, he reviews for 545 building permits a year, 132 planning projects, and he goes out and does all the inspections. So he does

[64:18] almost 300 inspections through the summer months to make sure that people have installed the plants to the specifications in their approvals. We require landscape plans for all new construction, additions and significant remodels. And it and it varies what people have to comply with, based on how big of a project it is, basically on the other side of submitting plans. We also have enforcement through 2 different departments. The Planning and Development Services department enforces certain types of landscaping violations police department enforces others. I liked this graph because I think it's actually from the water efficiency plan. But it just identifies we haven't updated our landscaping code. Since 2,003, there's been a lot of great progress that's been made in the last 20 years, and you can see, especially on the indoor water. Use the blue bar

[65:09] that's been going down very well over the last 20 years. But if you look at the yellow the outdoor water use, there hasn't been a big change. And so while we're seeing that water use go down little by little, it's mostly on the indoor side. So the purpose of this water conservation aspect of these changes would be to tackle that outdoor water, use and just to see this in another way, I just wanted to highlight that, going back to that State Bill, it focuses on the commercial industrial institutional uses, and then the municipal services like parks and city services. This is the water use by customer, sector or land use type. So that State bill is going to tackle the outdoor water use of those uses. And then this actually leads up to a question that I have for you all about, and that we asked City Council last month is whether we want to take the State Bill a little bit farther and apply that non functional bill prohibition to multifamily residential as well, so that we're taking

[66:08] almost half of that water use and tackling the non-functional trip there. Over the last few months after starting this project, we had the help of a consultant to do an evaluation of boulders existing landscaping regulations. So they looked at every single line of code that we have that's related to landscape landscaping. Then they looked at a number of comparable communities, mostly in Colorado and Front range. and what they were doing. There's a lot of best practices out there on waterwise landscaping and the best practices, especially with that State Bill coming out that every community is going to have to comply with and that consulting team prepared the recommendations that I'll be explaining to you tonight. They also helpfully created these categories for the different recommendations. So things in a code of water, efficient land use code that are foundational things that really move the needle on water efficiency. And then things that work with ecosystem services. They have multi multiple benefits, not just water efficiency.

[67:13] And then something that's really important to this project. And it was mentioned in the last item is, we do have a constrained budget. So just trying to understand of these best practices. What's actually realistic. It's they're all great ideas. But maybe we can't do all of them so understanding, which are kind of a low amount of effort. That's something we can do with existing staff. What's a medium effort where we might need an additional staff member to be able to do that successfully. And then what gets into the high level of effort to implement where we need multiple staff members funding things like that in order to do that. So this is kind of the summary slide. I'll go through each of these. These were the 7 recommendations. The consultant also noted that we do have several things in our regulations that are already best practice. We, even though we adopted it. 20 years ago we were at the forefront of 0 scaping at that time. So we have some great things in there already, like 25% maximum turf restriction, things like that. But these are things that they saw in those other communities that they identified as best practice. That boulder doesn't do right now.

[68:17] 1st is non-functional turf. Obviously we have to do that for the State Bill, but we don't have a all out prohibition in our code right now, firewise or fire resistant landscaping. This project's actually tied to a wildfire code update, too. And so with both of those we are hoping to identify, especially in the Wildland urban interface specific plants that are more fire resistant, that people or specific plants that people should not plant in those fire prone areas so incorporating that in our code many other cities have that one of the big ones is soil amendment and mulch standards of all 8 communities we looked at. They all had them. But Boulder doesn't have any. And so that's really trying to set plants up for success, that the soil is proper for them to thrive, and that mulch also helps to conserve water and is used adequately on a site. So that's a kind of medium effort, as we add more regulations. That's more things for people to check staff members to have to check, but eventually it could lead to kind of a cost savings, because then the plants don't die and have to go out and enforce, and things like that.

[69:26] Related to watering schedules. This one is also surprising that we don't already have. We have no regulations that say that you can't water between certain times. Other cities often say you can't water between 10 and 6 some other cities do specify like times of day or not, times of day time, days of the week. So like, if you have an odd number address, you can only water. On Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Our Enforcement officers don't like that idea as much as the time, so we're looking kind of towards just the time part of that, but just kind of interesting that we don't even have that

[70:01] I'll skip over the temporary irrigation to go to the landscape efficiency, water efficiency standard. This is something we're seeing in a lot of communities that have recently updated their codes. Some other communities call it a water budget. But we have a very different thing for called a water budget. So it's not the same thing as our water budget. It's more of an allotment. So it's an allotment for a property of how much water they can use in their landscape design. And then plants are based on their back otranspiration rate they're identified of how much water they're expected to use. So if you want to put turf, high water, use turf on your property, you're gonna have to make some trade offs, because that's going to use up a lot of your allotment, and then you might not have the chance to do as many other plants, because you're gonna hit a max. So that's what a number like Aspen and Castle Rock have implemented that recently. Broomfield has one, too. There's kind of varying levels of how complex they get. Broomfield has a pretty simple one. Where there's like low medium, high water use. Aspen has a lot of math involved in it. So there's a lot of different ways. You could take that, but it's essentially in most places they create a worksheet that has to be submitted with their landscape plans. And then that speaks to the temporary irrigation is kind of a

[71:18] flexibility valve for that where? we understand that plants need more water as they're being established. And so maybe you're going to use more water for the 1st 3 years to get those plants to establish. But then that temporary irrigation would be shut off. There are some communities that actually make you rip up that irrigation. I don't think we would go that far, but just kind of acknowledging that we again want the plants to be set up for success and be established during that well, during that first, st few years. Last item. This is what our highest, we think our highest level of effort. One to implement would be professional training and certification. Again, a lot of those communities that are doing kind of the most

[72:02] the most for water conservation in their codes also has these professional training certification requirements. So, like Castle rocks, had a really long term program of water conservation out of necessity. And they require that anybody submitting landscaping plans has to have completed this quell training, which is qualified water efficient landscaper training and so they have a registration list. They have funding for it. They have a staff member. They have a pro a a connection to a pro like the water program that puts it on. It's really complex. We talked to them about it, but that would be something that Boulder would have to stand up on our own. And we think for equity reasons. We wouldn't want people to have to pay for that like landscapers to have to pay to get that certification. So it's something we would need funding to subsidize that so that's 1 where we're really trying to weigh the cost and benefit. And we're when we talked to council. They were kind of like. Is this going to? Is the juice going to be worth the squeeze on this? Because there's other ways we could do it. We could also just incentivize people to do the certification like, create a list of. Here's the landscapers we know who are certified so people can find them easier. You know, it doesn't necessarily have to be a requirement.

[73:18] So those are the the 7 best practices that were recommended by the consultant, as well as the level of effort that we think each would have just to give a very brief summary of an hour and a half conversation with city Council. They were most interested in those low, low, and medium, the green and yellow recommendations. Just because of the constrained budget. Also, we don't need to do all of it at once. It could be something that you know. We implement the 1st 5, and then wait a couple of years and see how it went. And like, I said, they want to understand the cost benefit of those high effort changes. I I actually didn't mention this. But we talked a lot about having a consolidated plant list for the city, where, if we have those low medium or yeah, low medium high water use plants we'd have identified which plants

[74:10] are allowed in the city, and then that would apply across all the different departments, because right now we have lots of different plant lists. for forestry and parks, and everybody but trying to come up with a consolidated citywide plant list that would also have the fire resistant plants in there, too. There was also discussion right now. We're pretty strict about rock mulch. We don't allow rock mulch for the most part. And so Council wanted us to allow at least some percentage of a site to have rock mulch. There's a lot of there's a lot of competing values in all of this. But there's competing values with the wildfire wildfire protection like, if you really wanted to be super wildfire resilient, you would have all rock mulch, no like nothing that could burn. But that has a lot of climate, negative climate impacts. And so there's a lot of weighing of things, but having some flexibility, they were interested in just allowing some rock mulch.

[75:09] and then, as far as the question about whether to apply that Senate bill to multifamily the bar graph that, or the pie chart I was showing they were supportive of applying that or expanding the applicability to multifamily. There's a question of how do we define multifamily? Would it be duplex, and above or 4 flex? And above. So there's some openness to how that would be defined. There's a lot of other council priority projects that are trying to support the development of duplexes and triplexes. So they were wanted to make sure that it wasn't going to negatively impact that those other priorities that they have. So that's the quick summary of what they said, the questions that I would have for you tonight is really just your initial thoughts on any of those 7 best practices of what you'd be most interested in as a board. What you feel like

[76:06] might move the needle most on water efficiency or water conservation or you're most surprised that we don't already have for us to move forward with, because our next steps are to develop a plant list, start looking at the code and actually thinking about drafting it and then developing public engagement for probably the early summer and then the idea would be that we would have that draft ordinance, and that would come back, and you guys would see it before it would be adopted by council. probably in the fall of this year. And then also, if you support expanding the non functional bill probation. I can take questions. I know I talk really fast. I'm really interested in this idea of tying the water efficiency standards to fire, resiliency and fire wise. And you know the way. Maybe it's thinking about more fire, resilient plants, but just more broadly using mulch and soil, health, and all of the things that are tied to that I realize at a certain point they may contradict. But I see that as being, you know it's a low hanging fruit.

[77:19] green area here that would be helping to educate by raising awareness around. It would be helping to educate general population about some fire resiliency approaches and and also getting the benefit of water conservation. So that certainly seems like good initiative to move forward with. I'm just gonna add, I think we're really fortunate in that. A lot of folks in the community don't necessarily need a rule or standard to do something. I think folks are really motivated to try. And so I would say, if we're able, even before they're like official measures, you know, if you put our recommendations in a watering schedule. I think that would be really helpful. You know, that was something I had no idea about before we got an irrigation system, so would be happy to, you know, match whatever that recommendation was.

[78:13] And then for the second question, I it's that's really tough. I would wait for a definition of non functional. I think that is really important to answer that. So be, have you guys made any estimate or sort of a low, high type range of what the eventual impact of these programs could be on it and so forth. We haven't yet. We're still pretty initial phases. But there, I mean the the ones that on the other version of this our consultant identified the ones that have the little watering can, as the most other cities, any of the other cities you looked at? I mean, there's been estimates like, is it 2%? Or is it 15% in terms of sort of the

[79:04] that's a really good question. I think Castle Rock would probably be the ones who have had a program the longest. So we were connected to them, so I could ask them. We talked to Aspen also, but they've only had this for 3 years or something. So yeah, that's a great question, and we'll look into it. So now I need. I'm sorry. Can can you explain what all the icons are? Yeah, my my recommendation doesn't have any. It probably should have the little ecosystem services. So the brick is foundational. But watering can is water efficiency, ecosystem? Is, it needs multiple. So it should really have that ecosystem services. One. But yeah, got it. Yeah, thank you. I'm super glad City's doing this is happening when I will not be unwrapped. excuse. Who's the consultant you heard?

[80:03] So I guess, to answer your 1st question. I would love to see it all. I think the soil limit and mulch standards does save more water than you would expect, and it's pretty impressive what that does. And then the professional training certificate, professional training certification also stays more water than you would think. The way it was described to me was, you can have the best designed irrigation and landscape on paper from water efficiency standpoint. But if the person who installs it and maintains it doesn't know what they're doing, you can lose a lot of that water efficiency, a lot of the gains you would get from from having really good standards. So I realize it's a it's a doing what Castle Rock does is a big lift. But I think it's where we should go in the long run, I think. Kind of prudent course of action, and then the landscape water, fishing standards, or the water budgets that also lot of water saving potential there. and and the other ones, too. I would just love to see happen, I think, in terms of the the new non functional turf.

[81:03] Expanding it to multifamily. I would encourage that. I I would like to see it in single family homes as well. I know that's a big political, hot topic. The way I think way, I think not functional turf, and how a lot of people talk about it. It's turf that literally the only person who walks on it is the person mows it. And so you think a lot of front yards are that way. A lot of open space like Hoa, open spaces, parking strips, Medians. It's something where you see it, but no one ever ever uses it for anything besides the aesthetics of it. And so that's why, like what that Bill says is, there's still plenty of places for turf, backyards, parks, all that like. That's all appropriate. But it's a turf that literally no one ever walks on. Is what they're they're focusing on there. So I strongly encourage adopting the multifamily. Standards as well. Awesome. My tail is wagging pretty hard right now.

[82:00] Any other questions from the board. So I was talking about this earlier, and you know we have energy efficiency auditors or free free audits. Where people come to your house and say, you know you could do this. You could do this, you could do this, and it seems like it would be a really amazing thing to have someone come to our house and say you could to make these changes to your irrigation system. You could take down this fence to help with your fire resiliency. You could, you know, sort of that package, and that is like dark dark red. I appreciate. Probably you need the professional training and certification before you could even get to that. But I think in the future that would be something really amazing to offer older residents. I was gonna say to you, maybe just think about excel. Has the like they kind of gamify. You get like points every month for the amount of energy you save. Right? There have been multiple times I'm like, I will wait until 7 Pm. To do laundry, because

[83:01] I'm going to reduce that number. So I think, like, even yeah, small things like you get a $5, Bill credit. If you use less water, can be fun. Yeah, we do for Wildfire. We actually have a detailed home assessment that they'll go out, and they'll come to your house and go around with you for 2 h and tell you like you should cut these trees down. You should take this stuff out of the 5 feet around your house. And there's actually a Grant program now that will help people complete some of those improvements. And then I actually live in Denver water, but they have. You can get an irrigation audit like someone to come and do that. So I don't know, Jodi, you know, if they do that good news, we do have that. And it's it's already an active program. And it's happening. Resource. Central is is who we partner with as a city agency, and they will come and do audits and reprogram your system for you, which is great, and do irrigate and do wire so not at the same time. They wouldn't do like your irrigation and your Wildfire resiliency at the same time. But

[84:07] we have a program for the Wildfire, and they're actually grants that are that are there. And and we're working to really coordinate all those efforts. So that we're not just having independent things that are in contact with each other. Yeah, we're happy to send a link. I'm glad Lisa Lisa mentioned it. But I was aware of this program. But yeah. detailed home assessments. Does they do fill up early? So contact them, yeah. And they did get like a hundred. I think they got 100 requests the day after the California wild fair started, and now they're backed up till April. But it's I've gone on a I've gone on one of them. It's awesome. Just want to know. I and I could be misremembering this. But Permitting group at Boulder, I feel like there have been some changes in the last few years to add more staff and create more

[85:04] like streamlining of permitting. So I know Chris is on like. Well, maybe it would be a good idea to sort of advocate for additional landscape permitting reviewers so that we could towards landscape water efficiency standards. That's yeah. That's definitely that was a big part of the conversation with Council as well. Is that like? I said, if you add more, Chris is already doing 545 building permits. If you add more standards that you have to review, for obviously they're good standards to review for. But it just takes more time. So that's a big part of this project is trying to also make the case for some budget allotments to get some more staff to help us do this in boulders. Actually. it's not that common to have an actual landscape architect on staff to review most, a lot of range utilities. It falls on utility staff who are not landscape architects to review these landscape plans. So but yeah, any any chance to increase that capacity would be very helpful.

[86:08] Any other questions. thanks, Lisa, appreciate it. And looking forward to see all 7 of those adopted and getting on the detailed home assessment list for May. Thank you. Cool. I guess we can go to matters from the board. The only quick thing I had was just looking at the agenda for this year. There's a lot of there's a big process happening on the Colorado River this year, renegotiating new guidelines. And I think it'd be helpful for the Board to get an Update at some point, maybe for Northern. So just wanted to. Maybe that's probably already on your radar, but wanted to like that. That would be of interest. I would think that's a good flag. We've done that where Northern Staff have come to the board with updates on that system over the years. So I know Kim Hutton, our water resources managers online. So sending the bad signal to her.

[87:10] I think that'd be that'd be great. And I need for an update. Yeah matters from staff. I mentioned it earlier. Biggest thing I wanted to cover tonight. And I can. Debrief is just the the Boulder valley. Comprehensive plan update is really beginning in earnest this year. I think some discussions with Council take place here in early February to to get some of that started, and the the comprehensive plan is is the overarching policy document for folder value, and it's reviewed by multiple bodies within the city and county. The the plan will be led by our planning and development Services Department. We've already talked about it. In this meeting. There is overlap with utilities around levels of service and flood protection and water supply. There's a lot of focus on land use

[88:13] and policy around that which is directly related. To what resources do we have to support that, so we will for sure be working hand in hand with the planning department on that as it relates to to some of those things, and there will be some touch points with Rav every year in April is when we do our water supply update to the board. And so, as a staff team. We've been talking about that as a potential touch point for the for the board. I know there will be a study session in May with Council. We'll be talking about some of the things, including water, related matters. So that'll be good timing and the the overall schedule, for it is 2025 and

[89:04] into, I think, mid 2026. So I think that'll be a big topic. That'll be a big topic for the whole city and the community, and should be an interesting one to cross paths with the board. I think that is what I have under. That is cool. Then we'll go to feature schedule. Yep. So Looking at February as a potential for Rab retreat on the on the normally scheduled night. Although January and February each year, there's a holidays on the 3rd Monday of the month, so we end up being the 4th Monday, I believe.

[90:03] Don't not looking like we will need a meeting in March, and then in April there's a lot of activity. We'll have. We have 2 meeting seats that will be filling on the board. Oh. so swearing in the new Board members and election of officers will take place that night. April is always the time that kind of heading towards May that we have a good picture of what the snowpack and everything is for the water supply update. And then, as just mentioned, potentially coupling that with a check in on the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan, and how that might relate to water. So that is what the it's coming up for the next few months in terms of the future schedule. And then the only other thing I wanted to mention is that for the last few years there has been some of the racial equity training for the forward, so

[91:03] that the that program will continue in the city. And I think the we've tried different ways of doing that. And so I think for this year what we're landing on is just dedicating a normally scheduled board meeting for that, and with what I know about the schedule for the year. It might make sense to look at doing that in potentially August September timeframe. So. and, John, I am sorry that you're most interested in is coming from the surface right as her right. Yeah. turning off the board. Glad the city's doing it. So well, thanks to Andrew and Lisa for presentations and answering questions, really appreciate that. Is there a motion to adjourn? She's weird. Second, all the paper.

[92:01] Thanks everyone. Thank you.