January 26, 2026 — Water Resources Advisory Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:00] Anybody hear from Amy? I did not. I did not hear anything from them. Hi, I want to spell the meeting to order. January 26th, 2026 meeting of the water… Advisory Board. Diana, do you want to give us, sort of ground rules as we get started? Yes, I would love to. Hi, my name is Joanna Bloom, and I'm serving as the technical host for this meeting. We'll start with sharing a few slides. Of the virtual meeting rules that we follow. These rules are in place to find a balance between transparency with community members and security that minimizes disruptions. Please provide your full name if you participate in open or public comment, and if your full name is not currently displayed, please update it in Zoom, or you can send me a text, and I'm happy to change it for you. My phone number, here it comes, is 303-817-1742.

[1:03] There is no chat feature for this meeting, and the Q&A function may be used for Zoom connectivity issues. Members of the public may be unable to control the audio or video features, as video is limited to city officials, employees, and invited speakers. I'll unmute you when you're recognized to speak, and after I've unmuted you, please say your first and last name, and a 3-minute timer will start once you begin your comments. Thanks for participating. Gear Johns? Okay, our first item tonight is to look at the, I guess it was the November Board meeting minutes. Did anybody have any comments or changes on those minutes? Okay, could we have a motion to approve them? Motion to approve? Second. All in favor? Alright. Okay, and we'll move on to the virtual public comment. Okay.

[2:02] If anyone who is online would like to speak, now is the time to indicate by virtually raising their hand. And… Just looking at the names… I think there are… There might not be any public comments. Great. In that case, we'll move ahead. We've got a fairly full… Scheduled tonight. Three, information items, and I think there's a couple other matters that, Joe wanted to mention to us briefly as well, so why don't we go ahead and get started on the utilities review? I'll take over, Joe. Sounds good. Thanks for that. Good evening, board members. I'm Joe Tadiucci, I'm the Director of the Utilities Department, and I want to acknowledge that, yes, we did have 3 items for you tonight, and the year-in-review item that we'll talk about first

[3:01] is… is one of those where we kind of make an exception to our page limits that we set as a staff team. So, we kept you busy with this month. We try not to… Have too much, reading material, so apologize for that. But first, we'll talk about the 2024 year in review, and I… I feel the same about this every year. It's always one of my favorite items of the year. For me and my role, there's always just the day-to-day activities, and sometimes to stop and reflect on everything that gets done in the department, and And just seeing it all in one place is really rewarding. The memo itself has a lot of value to us. It's like our annual report. We've kind of adopted that as a format, and it's really nice to share it with the board. We used to strive for an annual report each year.

[4:02] That was a book about that thick, and earlier in my career, in many years, I think we overranged and we wouldn't get it done, so… Having… having this length and this format has worked for us. This item is also a nice opportunity for newer staff that, maybe haven't presented as much, or worked on the memo, to participate in the board item, and to also learn about the department. And so, tonight we have Megan Chantler. Megan's our Water Quality Compliance Manager. Megan has presented to the board before, but… Appreciate her taking the lead on this item, and she's in our water quality group. And so, just realize that this memo is 16 pages of text, and so you'll get the presentation from Megan, and we'll put some visuals and photos to some of the events that we had happen.

[5:03] throughout the year. So, with that… Megan, I will turn it over to you. There you go. Good evening. My name is Megan Chandler, and I work in the Drinking Water Quality team as a Water Quality Compliance Program Manager, as Stu mentioned. And I'll be presenting on your review for 2025. And I wanted to begin by thanking all the work groups that contributed material to the memo, and we really appreciate it to share our work with you. The agenda for tonight's presentation is similar to prior years. We'll begin with staffing and budget updates, operations and maintenance. Comed by Projects and Programs. Regulatory updates. 2026 upcoming highlights, and then finish with, discussion and questions.

[6:05] So, staffing within the utilities departments remained relatively stable in 2025. There does continue to be some vacancy backlog in recognition of the citywide budget challenges and limited hierarchies. The 2025 operating expenditures and revenues generally tracked as expected. The capital project expenditures will be addressed to RAV in May. And for some added context, you can see from the figure, utilities expenditures is the dark blue pie slice. They're a little bit over 20% of the overall city budget. And similar to previous years, the rate increases were accrued for the water, wastewater, and stormwater fund, resulting in a $9.18. Per month for the average single-unit residential customer.

[7:00] And this comes out to about 8% increase for water, 6% increase for wastewater, and 5% increase for stormwater lead. Next, we'd like to share about the Department's 2025 Operations and Maintenance. Starting with the figure on the left for snow water equivalent and precipitation, The yellow and orange trends. Our historical averages. The blue line represents snow water equivalent from 2025, and the gray trend is precipitation from 2025. The snowpack generally followed the story of the internet. Boulder's mountain reservoir storage levels were slightly below average due to river conditions and various capital projects. However, the reservoirs were able to fill during runoff conditions as usual. Water demand in 2025 was about 1% less than in 2024, and about 3% higher than the 5-year average.

[8:09] And then noting here, a 30 million gallon per day flow is considered the high demand threshold, and that's based upon Kennedy water use. So the, water demand exceeded 30 million gallons per day, 9 times in 2025. So this slide provides an overview of the different utility groups within, utilities. And they all play a role in operating the required critical systems and assets that maintain public health, community vitality, and safety. So the water utility covers everything related to our source water, water treatment, and distribution in hydropower. The wastewater utility covers the wastewater treatment operations and wastewater collection of sandstone. And the Stormwater and Flood Management Utility provides and maintains effective stormwater collection and flood management.

[9:06] The Business Services Division supports both utilities and the transportation and mobility departments with an assortment of essential services, like asset management and water budget re-evaluation. The utilities maintenance team supports all three utilities to ensure levels of service remain high, and their efforts are essential to supporting operations. Within the drinking water utility, the team regularly inspects and proactively identifies aging or public traffic as an infrastructure for repair or road replacement. Distribution system maintenance is outlined in the NENA. Which I will just highlight here includes exercising nearly 2,000 valves, inspecting about 4,500 fire hydrants. And open 1400 feet of aging infrastructure.

[10:03] Next, we have utilities maintenance for wastewater. The team inspects the wastewater collection system every 3 to 5 years. In 2025, about a quarter of the wastewater collection system was practically cleaned. While 18% of the system was inspected. Crews responded to 17 emergency blockages. 21 emergency wastewater calls, and conducted nearly 700 inspections. The stormwater maintenance team is responsible for maintaining 191 miles of piped stormwater infrastructure to support proper water conveyance and help prevent localized flooding within the transportation network. In 2025, crews inspected 72 miles of pipe and replaced over 2,000 linear feet of stormwater pipe.

[11:00] We also have the Greenways Program in collaboration with Flood Maintenance and the Mile High Flood District. They continued their stewardship of 416 acres of Riparian Greenway corridors. Utilities has a role in the Safe and Managed Public Space Team. Public Spaces team. In early 2025, the team faced persistent camping activity along the 1-mile stretch of the Boulder Creek Corridor at a scale and complexity not previously seen. The team adapted operations and succeeded in permanently closing the area to camping in Spring 2025. Additionally, the public space management team inspected over 1,000 areas. Performed over 1,000 cleanups, and removed 82 tons of trash and debris from citywide spaces. Along with everyday operations and maintenance, Utilities works on specific projects to improve critical infrastructure. The following projects are from 2025.

[12:09] So the City initiated the eighth major update to the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan in late 2024. Utility staff have supported the update, providing input on policies, water supply and water quality, and growth. Planning staff anticipate finalizing the plan in mid-2026, and will return to the RAB then. So moving on to some water usability projects, staff advanced several priority actions in the Water Efficiency Plan, working with Resource Central and others to support the Water Conservation Program. Shown here in the top two images showcase a water-wise garden and an irrigation audit to help improve efficiency. We also have a multi-departmental collaborative effort for WaterWise Landscaping, which is continued from 2024.

[13:07] And this led to day… led to time of day watering restrictions and development of a landscape annual. Utility staff also continue to collaborate with parks, Northern Water, and others to develop a management strategy for Eurasian water milfoil, which is an invasive aquatic plant in Boulder Reservoir. 2025 was year 9 of 12 of the Barker Gravity Pipeline Rehab Project. The map, this is a map from early 1990s, and it depicts the hydroelectric system. The pipeline circled here is a Barker Gravity Line, and it delivers water from Costler, or Barker Reservoir, to Costler. And the overall rehabilitation progress is about 80%.

[14:00] For source water protection and wildfire preparedness. Since receiving a grant from the state, our team… the team is working with the Colorado State Forest Service to plan a fuels reduction project between Costland Reservoir and Boulder Canyon. Where this… this, pipeline circles. And this project is designed to protect critical drinking water infrastructure during wildfire, and increase first responder access. For the water budget assessment. Staff began an evaluation of Boulder's current water budget policy to encourage water conservation and ensure implementation is sustainable. Phase 2 Utilities Rate Study will continue in 2026. More in this project will be covered in a later presentation tonight. For Pataxa Water Treatment Plant, repair and replacement of systems used for treatment, disinfection capacity, and the chemical feed system remain the main focuses of 2025.

[15:02] Staff also continued to implement the water transmission study recommendations. This included the construction of the 63rd transmission pipe. And we anticipate the completion of this in Q1 of 2026. The utility billing team also continued efforts to upgrade the customer billing software, which helped result in an increase in the number of customers managing their utility bills online. Moving on to wastewater utility projects. The worth continues to be upgraded in order to comply with future phosphorus limits. This is a broad-scope project that includes upgrades to treatment and improving existing assets. Construction began in 2023, and was completed in 2025, with the intent to bring the system online this year. We also have the existing sewer line at Balmont, which carries 80% of the water to the wastewater plant.

[16:06] To significantly mitigate the risk of catastrophic events caused by future floods. Teams relocated and reinforced portions of this line. So Phase 2 construction was the largest phase of this project, and it was completed this year. The Wert Lab continues to be one of the 21 wastewater utilities to monitor pathogens under the state surveillance program. Program funding is expected to continue through the next two years. The figure here shows COVID in wastewater versus Boulder County in city-reported cases. The worst HVAC improvements continue. The photo here shows the resilience of the lab staff continuing to conduct lab operations during construction. The sanitary sewer rehabilitation Program also continues. City staff identified about 1.3 million feet of sanitary sewer lines, that require rehabilitation. This is due to their original construction materials.

[17:14] The city began mining pipes in the mid-1990s, and funding for this program continues for the next 5 to 10 years. The Stormwater and Supply Management Utility completed an extensive list of projects and programs in 2025. Noting some of the projects here. The BUSH program continues to support water quality and stream health improvements. 2026 efforts, including, equilibrium monitoring in Boulder Creek and stormwater improvements in Chautauqua Park. The Stormwater Rehabilitation Capital Program completed year 4 of an 8-year cleaning and inspection cycle to support maintenance and identify major storm sewer repair needs.

[18:02] For Mile Canyon Creek, staff partnered with the Mile High Flood districts to widen the 19th Street Bridge and add a pedestrian underpass at Crestview Elementary School. And shown in these images. Flood mitigation colleagues and the Mile High Flood District staff are constructing soil lifts to reconstruct an eroded bank for Mile Canyon Creek. There are also a couple regulatory updates that we'd like to share with the board. First, we have Regulation 87 for dredge and fill. The City participated in CDPHG's stakeholder process and rulemaking hearing last year. Regulations are intended to protect all waters of the state, and the City worked to ensure the state's program will work in cooperation with the city's wetland ordinance. Interests were largely met, and regulations will go into effect early this year.

[19:06] For Regulation 93, this is Colorado's list of impaired waters and monitoring and evaluation. This is a state regulation that determines whether streams, lakes, and reservoirs meet state water quality standards. The state is proposing that two sections of Folder Creek will be delisted for certain water quality standards, and Folder Reservoir is proposed to be listed for chlorophyll A. This rulemaking hearing is scheduled for February of this year. So under the water utility, the lead and copper rule improvements are an expansion of the existing rules, which require water providers to make several changes to the lead and copper program. These start in November 2027. The state also requires systems to complete initial PFAS monitoring for the six newly prohibited PFAS compounds, and staff do anticipate being in compliance with federal rules.

[20:11] Under the wastewater utility, the work permit continues to be administratively extended, although staff continue to stay prepared for future phosphorus limits. The roof also continues to receive maximum credit for nitrogen loading within the state's voluntary incentive program. And staff anticipate, being able to earn phosphorus credits once upgrades are completed in 2026. The City is also participating in statewide small MS4 general permit renewal process. Permit requires municipalities to implement programs to prevent pollution from entering the stormwater system, and ultimately Boulder Creek. Updated permits are anticipated to take effect in 2027.

[21:04] Now that we've covered the many projects that have occurred in 2025, here are just a couple of the upcoming highlights for 2026. So, staff began a multi-year utilities rate study, in 2025 to evaluate the structural, financial, and policy foundations of our water, wastewater, and stormwater rate systems. A key goal of this study is to ensure long-term financial sustainability by aligning rates with system needs. For customer assistance… customer assistance enhancement, the 2026 Utilities Work Plan continues to develop an in-house sustainable assistance program in partnership with other departments to provide support for community members. I'm moving to infrastructure. Highlights regarding the water transmission system involves pipeline replacement from Kohler Tank to Broadway, which is north of Dartmouth.

[22:07] And is anticipated to start late Q1, 2026. With construction completion forecasted for late 2027. For the Southern Boulder Creek flood mitigation, the project is closing in on the permits, and construction is anticipated to start this Staff are also following DAM's local regulations to advance a phased site investigation for Barker Dam. This effort may include targeted field investigations to support risk evaluation and long-term monitoring. And finally, we have Albion Dam Rehabilitation Project. This project has been going on for many years, and is expected to be completed in 2026.

[23:01] And that includes our 2025 year in review. Thanks for your interest and support. Look forward to another great year in 2026, and are there any questions? Thank you, that was a quick… Quick overview of everything. We just saw our 2025 life flashback. Thank you for that, Megan. Perkins? Board? Don't So, first, that's a great paper. It's really good, very well written, very well, very interesting. I appreciate it. In fact, I think for new members, it might be… I'd suggest, you know, giving them the prior year's report, just, it's a good… way, and it reminds me about a lot of things to learn in the tours, and also, yeah, no, well done, all the people. So, I have a couple of questions. So, you mentioned that, right, some staff you're not able to replace because of what's going on citywide. Are there any,

[24:02] Is there any critical work not being done because of being unable to hire? No, I don't… I don't think that's the case. for some of, like, our utilities maintenance crews that may be holding a position open, it could be a pinch on a day where someone's on vacation, and someone else is sick. They might be… we might feel that a little bit more with the vacancies that we have, but I think overall health. We're doing okay, and even though there's been a hiring freeze across the city, kind of the core and critical nature of what utilities has done, we've been able to fill the the positions that we absolutely need to. Okay, that's good. So I… on the expenditures, it looked good. I guess what… the one area… I found the three areas, one was about right out about budget, two were just a few percent below, so… which is good, better than the other way around. But, I'm just wondering, what happens to the excess money?

[25:04] the revenues that were raised. Yeah, that goes into the fund balance, and it's kind of a rolling assessment of our finances. We have a computer model, and we share a big portion of that with the board when we go through the CIP process, and it affects our… our rates, and sometimes if we have more revenue and less expenditures than expected, we might be able to do a lesser rate increase the following year, and the opposite could be true. So, it just goes back to the fund balance. A couple more questions. Sure. So I… one of the things that I liked in the report was when you were reporting on what happened in 2025, and then there'd be a comparison to prior years, which is just interesting just to see, for example, on water usage. But I'd suggest doing that across the board.

[26:00] you know, where possible. For example, I don't know, just through chronographs. I mean, including a wastewater collection system, there's an amount given to me, an estimate of what's… how does that compare with the amount done in prior years? It'd be interesting to see. And then a final question I've got mentioned that the end of the low-income household water assistance program has been ended. Is that… were we getting a lot of money from that? I'm wondering if so, what's the… Consequence of that. trying to remember the context of it, but Joanna Bloom has the billing reports up to her. You may know the answer to that right off the top of your head. I do, more or less. I'm WD Director of Utilities. When we had the American Rescue Plan funds fund, we gave about $250,000 out in assistance. Now we have to rely on partners. It's significantly less than that, just because they have to meet multiple criteria. I think we're putting the software pieces in place right now and securing the amount of funding

[27:05] that we'll need going forward. I think some of what will decide how much goes out in every year is a policy-level decision of what we set that threshold at. I don't know if that answers your question. There'll be a reduction, I'm assuming, in assistance for low-income people? I'm sorry, say that again? Will there be a reduction in assistance Compared to, you know, when this, I believe so. Yeah, I think initially, $250,000, I mean, that was kind of a boon. And we did have $400,000 available. But it just wasn't needed for utility assistance, so we were pretty generous with it over a number of years. And then when we did. have some remaining funds, and the program was kind of winding down. What we did is we shifted that money over to, there's a special name for it, but it's basically housing security and, like, rental assistance. So… It was able to address more household bills than just utility bills, so I think we were still in there, but just maybe not directly, really. Was that a federal program? The American Rescue Plan funds were… How about the low-income household?

[28:12] No… Leera? Yeah, I think it might have been federal, right? And then they give the money to the state to distribute. So that ended during last year, right? For you… yes, for water utilities, I think it's still available for heating. Again, it's a great report. Appreciate that, and on that, on the billing assistance. the way… the way we're structured with enterprise status. it would be really appealing and easy to get our heads around. Can't we just take some of the revenue that we get and create a pot for people to be able to draw on? And we'd love to be able to do that in one sense.

[29:00] But the restrictions and the regulations that go with our type of funding doesn't allow that. And so, we have to work through separate programs to try and establish The funds for that kind of thing, but it's… it's still a priority for us. I have a question, but first, just to echo what Joel said, do you think… I agree, I think it'd be super helpful to see this as a new board member, so maybe for the next people coming in, do you consider that, that'd be great. But you mentioned Reg93, and that Boulder Roseboro would be listed as… or on… under there for chlorophyll A, and then two stretches of water cream would be divisive. I was just curious, like, what happens next. In that process. Hi! Would you like me to take that question? Would you? Would you mind? Yeah, Megan Wilson-Elt, I'm the Water Facility Senior Manager. So,

[30:02] the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment staff have proposed these changes to Reg 93. And that will go before the Water Quality Control Commission in February, and I'll make a final decision. After that, for Boulder Reservoir, probably nothing will happen for quite some time. Technically, any water body that's not meeting water quality standards should get what's called a total maximum daily load, which just… Evaluates all the potential sources of pollution and assigns waste load allocation. But the state is very far behind in creating those TMDLs, so we don't expect them… we don't expect the reservoir to be prioritized anytime soon. But nonetheless, we still look for ways to reduce nutrient loading, which would contribute to chlorophyll A, and so Kate could speak to that, but Like, cleaning up the goose… Poopula around the reservoir is one of them, and, just looking at other potential sources. So, nothing will really happen.

[31:07] And it's not surprising, that listing in particular is really more of a result of how the state calculates it. And the standard itself, rather than a change… a significant change in water quality. I think that's right. Yeah, so… It's very low. Yeah, the standard is very low. So it wasn't a surprise, and it… the water quality really hasn't changed too much over time. They've lowered the standard recently? They did. In terms of that. How's a public safety and the… Creeping. Creek. you know, clear of the encampments and so forth. I just was curious, was that… Is it expected that that problem and that budget will continue to grow, and so what was the… What was the… Amount of the budget that had to be.

[32:03] Allocated. What did that responsibility cost us? It's girlfriend. I don't remember off the top of my head, what's allocated in the budget. I'd have to… I could probably look that up during the meeting and get back to you. I don't know… it's not… Expected that that will continue to grow and grow. My own view is that Right. I think we're having the desired effect of the… of the… that work, and… but there's a limit. There's… it's such a complicated issue, and we could keep adding more and more crews. But there's a point where it's diminishing returns, and we kind of can accomplish what we are with the currents that we have, so… I don't know how many people are dedicated to that now? There… there were 9, I think, as we kind of…

[33:04] got familiar with the program and the resourcing needs. We sort of right-sized that last year, and I believe we're down to seven? Yeah, yeah. So there's a supervisor of the crew member, Excuse me. And I can pull up a budget sheet and report back out in just a second, if you give me a couple minutes. Yeah, yep. I guess I'm just curious of the… Would there be… would there come a point when that was a… Substantial impact that it would affect Or you could publicly be known to effect. the hashtag good water reach. Well, it's an expense, and… The team that does that work Just because of the pervasiveness of camping on creek corridors, where there are utilities interests, it…

[34:02] it's justifiable, in my opinion, that we use utilities funds for that. But the team will also go and do cleanups and work with our police officers and the rest of the broader program. In areas that don't have utilities, like parks or the… Pearl Street Dall, and so a portion of the funding comes from the General Fund. It's split between attorneys and General Fund. For about reasoning. Any other questions from your work? Thank you for that precise presentation. Joanna, do we want to interrupt here? Yes. Into the public again, I guess we have somebody now that wants to speak, so do we want to continue? Yes, if it works for you, I'll offer the opportunity, and I do think they're juggling a couple meetings, so… Sure. I do see Lynn Siegel here in attendance, and Lynn, if you are online and would like to comment?

[35:07] Now is your chance. I will also take the answer in… the chat, just real quick. We have a break now, or you can comment. I email at… I'm just reading you the email, I'm typing, whatever works for you. So Lynn, why don't I just give you one more minute? And can you make comment now if you are still online and… able to join. She just registered yet? Or I would. I'll be able to unmute, and we'll go ahead and start your timer.

[36:01] Got it. Great. So… As Joanna knows, I've had this leak in my place. I wish that we had videos, because I could show you my flush ring in my toilet that, has bubbles in it, a material defect. It's my newest toilet. And it… it was costing a pile. I don't know how much I'm getting back from the city, because it's a big blur as to Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 for rebates. But it was going up to $177 from 96 for a number of months. And, Cultivate, who helps elders out, couldn't find it. I had to hire a $170, you know, place to find it, and the problem is, I have another toilet just like this one that isn't even opened out of the package, and there are probably hundreds of those, and what about all the other citizens that are… that are getting impacted by these slow, undetectable leaks?

[37:01] That… You know, if no one knows about it, and can watch for it, and there are things you can do to watch for it, but it's like another on that list of millions of things you have to do, but still, it seems like it's an important loss. The other thing I wanted to bring up was And I'd like to know how much I actually lost. Because I scrimp, and I'm at 20 degrees in my house, because I'm saving for geothermal, and you know, so many people in town are constrained by Sundance coming here, and higher and higher costs, and fees, and transportation maintenance fee, and this and that. And it, you know, and Excel. And that's my main thing, is trying to get off Excel. And I think with the proportion that we have of heating and cooling. that we could really benefit by doing microgrids, transactive energy with storage and EVs, and, and geothermal, because that would lower our hull load, and only distributive solar, not transmission, high voltage electric lines, and that could help things a lot. I know you interact with the electric grids, so…

[38:19] That's relevant, but also, I'm really concerned about the lawsuit with the flood detention system at CU South, and the impact that that will have on the stormwater utility fees, and that's… that's a… A regressive tax to those in this environment of just scrape and rebuild and $20 million houses. So… We can't fix Mother Nature, Joe. We can't. This is a huge system. Talk to Allison Burchel. She's a geologist, a geochemist… or a geo… whatever.

[39:01] And something needs to be done, because this is an expense that is just putting money down the toilet, literally. Is my time up? Or… I don't see a number anywhere. Yeah, it is. Thank you so much, Lynn. Okay, thank you. Is that Joanna? Sounds like yours. Thanks. I wish we… I could see you, and you could see me, and I'd love to show you those little bubbles. It's like a material science thing that needs to stop. Great, thank you, Lynn. Let's move on to our next, information item, the order… budget discussion? Yeah, and before that, I might just comment on the last speaker that we had, and the issues with the water bill, and the toilet leak and whatever. I know Joanna and some of our team members in utilities maintenance have been supportive landing that issue, and it is tricky for people when they're losing water and don't know how, and it's costing them money.

[40:06] We've been trying to work with Lynn, and we do work with other customers when that happens. We can make leak adjustments and those types of things. So… I will move right on to water budget policy recommendations. We've been talking to the board a few times now about water budgets and and rate study, you heard a little bit about it in Megan's presentation from the year in review. And we're now at a transition point in that process. It's a good moment to check in with the board. Where we transition from the water budget aspects of it to the broader weight study. And so, wrapping up the water budget portion that we started with, and tonight we're going to share some of the themes that we've heard from the community on water budgets, and share some of our own observations as well, and talk about

[41:02] What we'll carry forward into the rate study. And our presentation will be led tonight by Heather Behrens-Loza, and she is our Water Conservation Programs Manager. Yeah, just a moment, I'm almost done figuring out things. And actually, Joe, I just sent you the… I don't know if now is a good time to get the sample budget update, but it's in your team chat. Thanks to Steph Klingemann for just verifying. Very slow. So, the SAMHS program. Safe and managed public spaces is about a million dollars. A year for utilities maintenance, and that includes both utilities and the general fund. And if you include all that the city spends on that, and think about, like, parks and recreation and police, it's about $3 million per year.

[42:11] So it's not insignificant. And just like that, we're back to our regularly scheduled program. Thank you all, technical difficulties over, hopefully. Good evening, it's good to meet you all. I'm Heather Berenzloza. As Joe mentioned, I'm our Water Conservation Program Manager. I haven't had the chance to be here before, so thanks for having me. Tonight, I'm building off of Rob's last conversation around water budgets. That's from back in October. And we're going to walk through proposed changes to water budget policy, as well as the community feedback and the data that led us to those recommendations. The goal tonight is for you to weigh in on those recommendations, before they get carried into the future rate study that Megan mentioned.

[43:00] And that's where we're going to take a deeper look at the specific customer and financial impacts. I do have some time built in in the middle for comment, because there's pretty dense information all the way through, so that'll be a great time to ask questions to the team. Alright, I know you all deal with a lot of topics, so as a reminder, water budgets are in the realm of utility fees. The elements on the slide represent what people see on their water bills, and water budgets apply only to the water usage charge. The water usage charge changes based on how much water is delivered to a customer, and it usually represents just about 35% of their bill. Again, as another reminder, water budgets are an estimate of water needs for individual customers, and they're based on a variety of factors. It's not a limit, but it helps determine the rate or the dollar amount for each thousand gallons of water delivered to a customer.

[44:00] For reference, this slide shows our 2026 water rates. It's got relative cost increasing as you go up the y-axis, and relative water use increasing as you go right along the x-axis. Customers are billed at a lower rate for water usage that's below their budget, which is the green area, and billed more for water use that is above their budget. Important thing to note tonight is that this policy evaluation is just phase one of a much larger and much longer effort. A phase two is going to be that rate study, and that will fully review current rates across water, wastewater, and stormwater. So think about all of those elements that are showing up on that utility bill. Phase 2 is when we get to really dive into specific customer impacts from proposed policy and rate changes, and there will be a presentation and discussion on the rate study in the coming months. Phase 3 is where policy and rate changes will be implemented. So that can occur in 2027 or 2028, depending on the complexity of the changes that are chosen.

[45:05] So tonight, again, what we're talking about is kind of high level. And we're going to take those recommendations on the water budget policy into the rate study in Phase 2. We have two primary goals of this policy evaluation. One is to simplify the policy, so it's going to improve customer experience and make it more sustainable to the next year. And two, to improve water budget effectiveness. In some ways, these goals kind of compete. So, we're hoping that our recommendations are going to be able to strike a good balance between these two goals. This slide is a reminder that the water budget applies to 4 different account types within our city. I'm going to walk through our proposed recommendations by account type. The simplest account type is single-family residential. These are customers in single-family homes, typically with one meter that serves both their indoor and their outdoor use.

[46:03] Next we have metered irrigation. That typically covers outdoor water use for multifamily and commercial, industrial, and institutional customers. Next, we have multi-family residential accounts. This is typically the meter that serves the indoor water needs of a multifamily property. And then we have commercial, industrial, and institutional accounts. So think of this as the non-residential indoor water use throughout the city. So that's our breweries, our bookstores, offices. And just a note, I am going to say CII when I reference commercial, industrial, and institutional, because I find it to be quite a bit of a mouthful. I'll go through these recommendations in a lot more detail, but for a high-level preview, community feedback and data has led staff to recommend keeping water budgets for single-family residential and future irrigation account types. And then we're exploring a broader range of alternatives for multifamily residential and CII accounts going forward into the rates.

[47:09] So let's start with single-family residential. The recommendation here is to do three things. Keep the water budgets, reduce the budget size, and to simplify them. Starting with why we're looking at keeping them, for the community feedback form, which we sent to all of our Build Water customers, we had 948 respondents. Out of about 1,000, there were single-family residential customers. Oh, excuse me. Rewinding a little. So the majority of the customers we had that answered in this group were people who owned their own home. I do want to take a moment to recognize this does not necessarily represent all of Boulder. But we did learn from the group that most folks understand their water budget at least somewhat well, and there was a split among the group as to whether the water budgets actually changed how they use their water.

[48:02] So what this tells us is that the current structure isn't too complicated for customers to understand, and there are some positive benefits from the structure. This led staff to proposing that we keep the water budget structure for the Within that same group, the value that rose to the top was a financial incentive to conserve water. While low overall bill and a stable monthly bill were less important to them. This tells us that a strong price signal associated with the water budget policy are in alignment with the values of the respondents, which again encourage us to recommend keeping the water budget structured and to lower and simplify them. Simplicity wasn't valued as highly within this group. However, we have 18 years of staff experience explaining and administering the policy that indicates we need to continue to settle that. The second element of our recommendations for single-family residential account types is to reduce budgets.

[49:05] When we look at the actual consumption compared to budgeted amounts, we see that the water use of many of our customers, and that's shown in the blue on the bottom, is far below the budgeted amounts, which is shown in red and bars up top. So customers aren't receiving a strong price signal for water use, even if their use is highly inefficient compared to today's standards. This disconnect between actual water use and budget amounts led us to recommend reducing the water budgets during the rate study. Again, we aren't suggesting specific numbers right now, because changing in that sizing can impact our customers' bills, and the rates to these where we will decide how much to reduce budgets by, and adjust pricing to manage overall customer balance. We also want to simplify the policy for our single-family residential customers. One example of how to do this is just to make the math simpler.

[50:03] Right now, the irrigable area for a single-family property is multiplied by an estimate of how much water that land needs. And that calculation is the outdoor part of the water budget. In the current policy, that estimate changes as the area gets larger, and this kind of resembles the complexity of the tax code. There is no other community in Colorado with water budget-based billing who does this. So one thing we can do to simplify the policy, both for our customers and our staff, is to use only one irrigation application rate. Again, that exact rate is another thing that will need to be determined during the rate study. Moving on to metered irrigation, it's again typically the outdoor water use for multifamily and non-residential properties. And the changes proposed for metered irrigation accounts are a bit simpler. This is because the policy for those accounts has always been simpler and more consistent with other communities.

[51:04] So, similar to single-family residential, staff recommends we keep water budgets, reduce the budget size during the rate study. Okay, so we made it through two customer types, community residential and metered irrigation. We figured now would be a great time for some questions and feedback. I have a quick question. Can you speak to the respondents of that survey? Did they give anything about, like, age, family size, anything like that? They actually didn't report a lot of demographic data. The way the city's survey… well, questionnaires go out, it's optional to include your demographics, and only… if I have it right, I'd have to look at my report, but only 3 people reported on their demographics. And they were all… they were all homeowners, but of different income brackets, so it wasn't particularly helpful. Mostly because we do make that optional for folks to keep it confidential.

[52:05] And then I just wanted to offer a little bit of feedback, which is I really appreciate, Boulder's desire for incentive to use less water, and I think we see this in a lot of areas. I like that about our community. And just being aware of already high costs, and I think we hear that in public comments a lot, and so just Being aware of that and weighing, you know, the need for conservation with high costs and increasing costs not only with water, but other things, and just keeping that in mind, I think. I love the incentive, and then I would pay for us to do this, and then people kind of freak out about the increase in water bill. So, I certainly think, socializing it when we come up with those funds and amounts would be helpful. Can I comment on that last one? And Heather, I don't know if you can back up a couple slides to that bar chart. That one, yeah. Every time we do a rate study, and the last time we came before the board, that is one of the biggest things for you all to weigh in on, this recommendation, and certainly staff will come with our thoughts and recommendation of where to set those limits.

[53:14] But that's kind of the trade-off. If you want to send a price signal that's going to have an impact on people's pills. We can toggle the rate per gallon to try and offset that, but it's a… It's a tricky balance to be struck, and that is one of the most… Commute… one of the items of most community interest that will probably come before the board. So, maybe make a… I go to this slide in here. Yeah. One more comment on that that you just made me think of, which is really interesting, is I know folks said they didn't care so much about a constant bill. I would guess if folks go over, they're more likely to go over in summer months when they're using outdoor irrigation. And so, to see, like, you know, if your bill increases two or three times full in summer, that could be shocking, versus, more spread throughout the year. So just, I think, being more aware of that seasonality as well, if the budgets are truly, you know.

[54:12] There's a big price incentive there, yeah. And I will comment, too, with just reducing, so when you see this line, recognizing seasonality, that there's gonna… there needs to be a balance between where the budgets are largest, so it wouldn't necessarily just be, see that line, shrink it. Also assessing, like, how that budget should split up, and I… yeah, hopefully I'm explaining that correctly. also calling out that our community does water very late into the year. Yeah. So not just meeting them on that, but also trying to increase education or awareness, like, hey, you can let your grass go dormant, and you don't necessarily need a huge water budget in September, October, because your grass is going to sleep, and there's nothing you can do to make it. Yeah, much better, yeah.

[55:01] It would also be really helpful in this chart, I think, to see mean as well as, like, highest 25, lowest 25, maybe a little bit more information, in addition to median here. box, whisper, whisper, not whisper. You can whisper. We can do a whisper version. What is the lowest… Block sort of rate for… Individual single-family residents. Like, you're charged the same amount if you'd have anything under 3,000 jobs, is that right? It's on that slide, we're making Heather go way back. There we go. So that… that first block, and that's going to depend on your water budget amount, that's actually a discounted rate, or they consider a discounted rate in our billing, so that up to 60%. And then that last 40% is up to the 100% of your water budget. So that discounted rate is going to be that 565 per year. It's not some component of your usage at the very low end, where you're paying the same amount no matter what you actually use?

[56:13] If it's under, like, 2,000 or 3,000 gallons a month. There's no meeting on team here. Yeah. No, you will. Hi, I'm Kim Lutton, Water Resources Manager, so… So, as Heather explained in the beginning, there's a couple different components of the water bill. One is a fixed fee, so that is… that is set regardless of how much water you use. Then there's the water usage fee, so regardless… so it varies. There's no minimum, usage charge for water usage. If you happen to use I guess, zero, the newly used for zero. However. water usage is rounded down to the nearest 1,000 gallons. So if you use about 1,100 gallons of water for the month, you'll be billed for 1,000 gallons.

[57:07] And then that 100 gallons kind of bolts over to next bus. I guess the point I'm… I was trying to get at was, I know that it's… That… that, you know, minor amount of usage is probably not a very significant Opponent, in terms of the overall Water consumption in the city, but it's also You know, I would assume those variations occur, those small variations occur in a very high number of your individual customers. you know, regular residential home to 2 or 3 to 4 people, and I just wondered, is there… When we get down to this level of detail, trying to plan budgets and so forth, is there some value to To… trying to go to a… to the next level, like… should I be… should I be charged a little bit more if I use 1,100 gallons rather than 1,000, or 1,200 to 2,000 versus 1,000? Because it's small individually, but if there's a lot of homes where there's minor differences like that, does that add up to be a significant

[58:07] coded. when you're getting down to this level of more detail, it seems like a lot of… seems like a lot of very fine detail, but you're already getting down to a pretty fine level of detail here with this budget. Would that make sense to… To try to go to a, you know, to a more detailed level of consulting. I think that, for us. there's an element of tension to that, because as Heather mentioned, one of the overarching goals is to simplify. And… and to have people's bills be understandable, so I don't know, Joanna, if you do have… Thoughts on that? Question, being closer to the mechanics of it all. Yeah, I mean, my initial thought, and Deanne and Vanessa are listening in, and I can check back in with the billing team to make sure what I'm saying is accurate, but… you know, right now, we read in 1,000 gallon consumption, and if I understand your suggestion, you're saying do it in increments of 100 so you get more variability? I just went back and looked at my bill during the winter months, which it always says 3.

[59:08] Yep. No matter what we do, whether it's on some time, and I just wondered, you know, there's probably some… significant amount of donations, very small for an individual house, but when you add up all different houses in the town, does that… does that constitute a… number, and I agree with the simplification part of this whole thing, but we're already at such a fine level of individual property detail here and all, would this kind of thing making sense, or is it just going to complicate matters even further? I think I'm following you a little better now. And if you're talking about the way it's reported on the bill in broad strokes without the without the rounding or number of significant figures, could we report that in a little more detail? I'm not sure. Why don't we look into that and report back?

[60:00] The next… this… this is not the… Last, or even second to last time you'll hear about this issue, so… Are there any questions? Okay, I guess I have maybe two thoughts that are related. First, I'm curious, like, when is the last time? Maybe I missed this somewhere before… when is the last time that we evaluated the water budget in the city, and set these different budgets, I guess, across the year and across different groups. And then also, part two to that question is, like, looking ahead and how we can use the water budget to accommodate, like, different changing, like, climate conditions and how we conserve water, in the city, and, like, use those price incentives to really get people to, like, kind of move towards the level of conservation we want to see, like, as conditions change, like, how often can we revisit this? Is that something we can build in to this policy change?

[61:02] I say I should give you my first stab at it. I'm definitely on a team of people here to answer questions today. I believe the last time it was really looked at was 18 years ago, right, when it was put in place. So this is really our first full reboot of what our budgets. In terms of how often we do it. Just a, side note on that. We did look at budgets 10-ish years ago, and actually changed the budget for single-family residential, and we… And we reduced that, maybe also for multifamily. I'm sure Deanne or Vanessa can chime in here, but, so it was reduced, but the indoor component, I guess, for those budgets was reduced. about 10 years ago, and I think we were looking at the CII budgets

[62:00] it's just really difficult to do anything, you know, to get benchmarks for those, so we didn't do anything with those. But it wasn't as… I don't think it was as in-depth of an analysis as what we're doing right now. I guess I just wonder if there's a way, like, if we're talking about simplifying it, but also, like, trying to make it more effective for future, like, conservation goals, like, depending on how conditions change in our water supplies, like, is there a way to revisit it? more frequently, as conditions change, like… and I'm not sure if I'm thinking… Before you answer, isn't, like, in our drought plan, don't we have the tools to be able like, we think about the water budgets and the rates, and I'm not remembering the details, but I think we have that ability now, if we got into a circumstance. One of the mechanisms for managing water reductions, if we were to declare a drought, would be

[63:01] through the water budget and billing process, so we could reduce people's water budgets, so that if they continue to use water in a drought at the same level, they then are paying a higher price solution. So there is a mechanism. There are, if I can say, too, there are a couple ways to look forward on the climactic part of this right now, too, where we were talking about… I apologize for all the slide changing, everyone. I made you go back almost. Yeah, almost at the beginning. But going back to the concept we were talking about with the usage. And the things we do right now, thinking about that, sort of the shape of that curve, that is one thing to address climate. And it's too detailed to go into now, but there's also, I think this will show up in the rate study for you all, but thinking about how we calculate the rate of water that landscape needs is also a component of this, so we're not going into that tonight, but that is the longer-term pattering around our climate that we have a chance to work on right now.

[64:08] That helps. So… Couple of, questions and thoughts. First, at some point, the issue, sort of, income, I mean, assistance for low-income users, maybe that's something to get into at another time, just, you know, it'd be interesting to get a… just what, like you mentioned, you can't just take the reserves, and so what are the options, what's available? Yep, for sure. So, it's interesting you mentioned that 2025 usage was a little below 24, but that was well above 5 or 3% above the 5-year average. Has water usage been going up in recent years, or… Can we tell? Can't tell. Do you know what I mean? Actually, I mean, water usage… 2001, 2000 was our peak water usage, and it's decreased 30% since then. The last… 5 years, it's kind of been holding steady, just very… variations have really been weather-driven. Was the reduction, like, 30% was a pretty dramatic reduction, right, from 2000? Yeah, over the next handful of years, there's a big reduction, so people who would…

[65:14] 2002 is when we did implement water use restrictions, and People just kept those practices kind of in place, really, and then we've improved upon efficiencies, primarily through, like, indoor plumbing fixtures, becoming more efficient. So, that's, I think, the A primary cause for seeing that decrease in water use, but of late, it really is… when it's been very dry, we do see it. water use go up. What… what year? Two years ago, we had pretty low water use that year. Yeah. Well, and also to follow up on Kasm's point, and I know that's an interesting table, T-rates… Which probably, with higher temperatures, will go up. It might be interesting to have some climate change scenarios, it might be interesting.

[66:02] look out 10 or 20 years and just see how big a difference… if it's going to make an appreciable difference or not. You know, my analysis, I remember looking at this years ago at the impacts of what we found, pretty small line change of water usage, but… So, Okay, and then, yeah, I'm just also, I'm really interested in the variance in usage, so I think, like, are there any, like, off the top of your head, how many… what share of people actually exceed their budgets, particularly in the summertime? Make sense of that I think it depends, Pat, and I… At some point, I'm going to pull Vanessa and Dean on, but I'll try to do my best to answer these questions first. For single-family residential, it's a small percentage. It's small. It is… Heather was correct. September, October, 10 or less, and I ballparked that, and I'll correct myself if I'm wrong, but September and October, when plants need less and people haven't adjusted their system, that's when they really exceed their budget.

[67:03] for commercial and multifamily, it's different, and I know Heather's gonna speak to that in just a couple of minutes. But it's different. There's a level of separation between the user and the budget, and so it just… it's a different animal altogether. That was… but I… I completely agree with the… with your foundation to reduce the budget. They're way above No, thank you. That looks a lot like Michael. Look at those numbers, and it's, but yeah, it's not… and one of the thoughts is… you know, if you're reducing those numbers, right, then some more people would get caught. If you raise the rates, then Or could make it higher, or even just by reducing it, you'll cash, and then in comp… people say they want some payoff. for having, say, water, so if you were then able to lower rates, particularly in the summer, I think for those who are using less, then you say, yeah, we are rewarding, you are getting incentive, because it does make sense, I think, that you give people

[68:04] positive and negative incentives to change behavior. People do respond. Look at the… look at the bag, it's 10 cents on a bag. You know, that's made a big difference. So that… small, small numbers can make a big difference. And then another thought, I know you're talking about, and I understand the desire for simplification. I actually kind of like the notion, so as I understand, based on size of land. The larger your lot. the… the less you're allowed to use, or at least for the… in total, right? Because I forgot, above… it's 5,000 feet, and then with the cut, it was at 9,000, and then… so you have a really big lot. Yeah, you're gonna have your… the allowable amount. Personally, now, is that the total lot size, or is that the size that's actually getting irrigated? That's such a great question. It's the irrigable area. In most cases, unless a property owner has paid.

[69:00] to intentionally irrigate that. So you can have a 15,000 square foot lot, and intentionally, yeah, a minimum of 2,000. To me, it makes sense. If somebody's got a huge area and grass, you know, and that's… That's a lot, and if they, you know, they're restricted, and it does serve an incentive either, right, you want to maybe put more of it in Xeriscape or whatever. And I think it's not a… it's not a bad thing. So I… I personally understand the desire to simplify. I… my own view would be I think that… I personally like… I'm not sure if those are the right numbers, but the intention makes sense to me, as long as right, and it sounds like it is allowed for if your incentive is there not to irrigate them. Okay, fine. I would say in some of the most unhelpful data we've gotten, freeform comments and others were almost dead-even split between, I want this to be a lot simpler, and I want this to be exactly fitting my needs.

[70:02] Like, like, 40-52%, like, perfect split. Yeah. So unhelpful. So… But the other thing I was going to comment on the… on the rates, I think In terms of… I mean, you really want to reduce outdoor use, so in a lot of ways, it makes more sense to me to… if you're going to lower those budget loads, do those in the summer when you're trying to… or in the watering season, let's say. when you're trying to encourage… I mean, getting to Steve's point, too, about indoor use is different, right? I mean, there, you want to… maybe that's where you get a little easier on reducing the budgets, but, you know, the outdoor use, and I forget, what share of Boulder's water is going outdoor? I mean, it's 50%? 56%, is that where you kept? A little bit, like, 50 to 60%. Yeah, but that's awesome. I'm sorry, 40 to 50%. Where, you know, it seems like from less… You know, the marginal value of that is probably lowered, what, for indoor use, so it makes…

[71:00] Makes a lot of sense, at least to do that. And then, I guess, again, this could be another topic, another point. I'm just curious, does the city offer any financial order incentives for putting in, you know, low-flow toilets, shower heads, appliances? Currently, we don't have rebates, so we… we don't have a lot. We offer irrigation audits and some commercial indoor audit-type things, but there aren't standing… a lot of standing programs for that. The Water Efficiency Plan identified a priority of being very income qualified for this type of program. So with a focus of building programs like that, hopefully this is where we're headed, but that's what we identified, rather than blanket programs, focusing on income-qualified folks. So… Gotcha, pretty much, yeah. This could, I mean, right, there's a cost-benefit analysis in terms of the of incentives versus how much more am I going to save. Although it also reduces revenues, then. I understand that trade-off, too. another discussion. I did, you asked about water use, and somebody from online checked in, and I… just to… as another data point, the average winter consumption for single-family residential, like, in those winter months, that represents indoor use.

[72:13] has decreased from 4.2 in 2014 to 3.5 in 2025. So, the indoor use is going down. I realize I'm rewinding into it. Okay. Exactly, yeah. I think that nationwide has gotten Although, one other thing that's important, too, with climate, you know, picking up my climate, I noticed this fall. like, in November, a lot of people were, you know, watering lawns with, you know, the hoses. I'm actually able to turn my system on and off. I have a gravity drain, so it's very easy, so I… which is, you know, but, you know, so I… maybe it's just something to keep an eye on. We start getting… seems like the fall, summer and falls are getting quite dry, you know, so that it could be pushing The water… the outdoor water usage into some of those months, those months that we normally don't see, or haven't seen.

[73:04] One other just general comment is, I know personally the one time we were over our waterbed in the summer was right after we purchased our home, it was June, and it had not been watered for 6 months, and so we watered more than we normally would. And I know in the neighborhood, anecdotally, the new builds, the new purchase homes, there is a lot of water use. And so I think, like. certainly there should be a cost associated with that, but I think communicating that and knowing there are exceptions, you know, this person went over their water budget once in 5 years, versus, like, it's a continual thing, and just being able to pick out those outliers as well, because I know… I see that happen a lot in our neighborhood. Fusion. He's done yet. Alright, so moving on, moving into multifamily residential and CII accounts, which again, as a reminder, is typically indoor houses for those types of properties.

[74:08] BAC recommend that we use the rate study to explore a broader range of alternatives, and then we come back with options and additional analysis during that study. We're gonna go through some of the feedback and data that led us to that. Our community feedback form that I referenced before had 48 respondents in these groups, and we also hosted a large water user workshop. There were 18 attendees representing a variety of industries. One reality identified in that feedback is that there is a large disconnect between who receives the bills, who can upgrade fixtures and fix leaks, and ultimately who would just speak deeper around water use. This is a really big disconnect, and it can definitely distort the potential benefits of a water budget. Community feedback also revealed some key themes from these customers. The first is that predictability is extremely important. And that doesn't mean that January bills look exactly like June bills, but it does mean that on an annual basis, they kind of know what to expect.

[75:14] Next is that multiple different account types are extremely confusing to people. There's also a lot of variability in legitimate customer needs for water in this group. So it's very important that any alternative rate structure consider the scale of those needs. Finally, going forward in this process, we, city staff, need to bring more information to these customers about the real impacts for a variety of alternatives, so that way they can be more informed and provide more input on options. So based on this feedback, staff explored options that include both water budgets and more traditional rate structures, and I'm going to walk through… There are a broad range of rate structures that could be used for both of these kinds of accounts.

[76:00] A couple options considered, but ultimately left behind, were a uniform rate. That's where the dollar amount for 1,000 gallons stays the same, regardless of the amount of water used, and also increasing block rates. That's where the price of water jumps up at set thresholds as a customer uses more water. These structures don't take into account the scale of customer water needs, and our workshop attendees expressed high levels of hesitation, around changes in that direction. So we don't recommend carrying them forward into the rate study. Customers at the workshop also really leaned into a preference for continued consideration of that scale for individual needs with a future rate structure. So all three options we're proposing to carry forward incorporate varying degrees of scale, and I'm going to walk through those. Our simplest alternative, we're recommending to carry forward is a meter-sized increasing block rate structure. Bit of a mouthful. This structure would have multiple blocks where water gets more expensive as use increases.

[77:07] Also, larger water meters would be able to use more water before hitting their next block. This structure is used for our neighbors in Arvada, Lafayette, Bluesville, and Superior. In the table on the slide, we have an example from Lafayette and the rate structure that they use. In the example, a 1 inch meter would hit block 2 charges once it exceeded 20,000 gallons, but a 3-inch meter, which is serving a larger building with more fixtures, would have block 2 charges once it exceeded 120,000 gallons. The second recommended alternative is simplified water budgets, and this is a hybrid between meter size increasing block rates, the thing we just went over, and what we, what we already have for a water budget policy. We noted in the memo that the scale of water use is dramatically different between a 3 quarter inch meter versus a 4 inch meter. At smaller meter sizes, water uses are much more predictable, and they're similar in scale. But with large meter sizes, those uses can really vary dramatically.

[78:13] So to allow for simplification for the majority of our customers, while also being more flexible for our large water users, we want to explore a hybrid option. This would have a set water budget for 3 inch meters or smaller, based on meter size. So, for example, all 1 inch meters would have the same budget, and all 3-inch meters would have a larger budget than 1 inch meters. Then 4 inch meters or larger would have a customized water budget. Because water budgets amounts would be set, and not vary from year to year like they do now, this is still simpler to administer than what we currently use, and it's more predictable for both our customers and the utility. Finally, the third alternative we recommend carrying into the rate study is a no-change alternative. Although the current water budget rate structure is unsustainable to administer, customers in the workshop did appreciate the customization and flexibility that water budgets offer.

[79:14] So we'd like to bring a no-change alternative into the study, but as a note, we are going to have to address resource challenges for this alternative. Alright, I was in the weeds again. Zooming way back out for a quick recap, the water budget policy recommendations are two. Keep water budgets for single-family residential and metered irrigation accounts while reducing budgets and simplifying, and then to evaluate a broad range of alternatives, broader range of alternatives for multifamily residential and CII accounts during the future rate study. Looking ahead, here are some of the key dates for the rate study itself. The utilities rate study kicked… did kick off in late November 2025, following the selection of our consultant. That's NewGen Strategies and Solutions.

[80:07] As a reminder, the study covers water, wastewater, and stormwater utilities, and is focused on evaluating current restructures and long-term financial sustainability. We're looking to provide you an update likely in March, so you'll learn more and have opportunity to have feedback in the coming months. With that… It's a lot to digest, but, open up to questions and comments on this second, round of options. So on meters, is that something that they're put in, and then how long do they typically last, or how easy is it to change a meter size? So PNDS determines… Planning and Development Services determines the meter size based on the type of development, so you would have to go in and get some kind of permit to show a change in use, to change your meter size.

[81:08] That being said, the individual meter is… is… there's a lot of engineering that goes behind assigning that, and then the meter itself will last 20 or 30 years mechanically, and you just change it out when you need to, or when there's technology updates. It's not so easy. So, in other words, creating incentive to go to a… you know, different meters. No, no, no, because it just wouldn't fit the use. You know, you… the meter is sized based on the use, like. like, a multi-family residential will not have a little 3-inch meter intended for one family to sort of be sufficient. And so they'll size it based on the number of units, the number of fixtures, that kind of thing. Okay, so I'm wrestling about that Lafayette example versus the simpler one. What that might mean in terms of incentives, and just fairness. Because Lafayette wanted this, I guess, seems more fair, it's more complicated, but it seems more fair based on your meter size, but…

[82:06] trade-offs. I think meter size, and you all will have to help me when speaking to this, but I do think meter size allows you to accommodate the various scale of use. I mean, partly what makes commercials so hard to bill for is that you might have one little shop with a toilet and a sink. and then all the way up to IBM, or a brewery, right? And you're trying to find a billing structure that fits that range. And so, meter size is a way to kind of accommodate for the larger users and the smaller users without really punishing them, because there's already the math being done during the development stage, and so we're just capitalizing on that. And the billing structures. And so it's customized, but it's… it's a pretty standard and credible process to determine the meter size, and then you can add the billing structure on top of that. Right. But if you'd like the other one, the other option might be that you combine

[83:07] up to 3 split in thick. Below 3, it's… certain… a certain set of blocks, and above… above that made more custom, but even below 3, Those are big differences in the water use. Yeah. So someone has a 3-inch… if it's a 2-inch meter, is paying a lot more. And the service charge for the size of the meter is significant. So, you don't want a bigger meter unless you… you have that demand. You get penalized with the fixed charge. Or you would be. You're not, would you be? A little bit more of a general question, going back to the individual, say, residents. Why… in general, why were the budget… why do you think the budgets seemed to…

[84:01] be so much higher than actual use? Is that just something we do in conservation all the time? When you first establish those budgets, or what explains that? I think I can… I can speak to that. Honestly, it's a… It's… it's a decision that… You know, staff makes the recommendations, and the board. Council members, it's a policy decision, and it's kind of the… will to have it be low enough to send a price signal. And in the first Iteration, that rate study that we did back around 2007 or 8 when they came into play. It was… it was probably more experimental, so they were… I think the thinking at the time was, let's ease into this and see how it works, and… I think the last time that we brought it before RAD was around 2017 or 18.

[85:02] And as Joanna said, it was minor tweaks, it was not, like, overhauling the whole thing like we're talking about now. And I think they lowered it some. They sort of eased it down a little bit, but… I think that that'll be the work that we all have to do Together and in communication with the board as you… as we get to the next stops. And the analysis of the rate study. That will be a key… decision point. Any other questions? Okay, thank you for that overview. We got some… We'll go on to item number 3. Perfect, and I will make a few introductory comments here.

[86:04] The third item tonight is a watershed Protection Ordinance. And the intent behind this, it's… we started looking at this several years ago and had a much broader scope, but we've narrowed it. The intent of this would be able to give ourselves the option, if there was a spill, or an intentional dumping, or something like that in our watershed. Which most of our watershed is outside of city limits. We would have a mechanism to engage in penalties or other enforcement activities that we currently don't have. And so, that's… that's what we're thinking about, and Kate will present that. In terms of RAB's role, there's not really a formal action that you have to take tonight, but if you had thoughts or feedback, we can certainly carry those themes forward, and we would for sure want to let you ask any concerns that you have.

[87:02] So, our presentation tonight will be led by Kate Dunlap, and Kate is also in our water quality group, and Drinking Water Quality Management. Great. Thanks, Jill. Hey, thanks for having me today. Yeah, so as Jill mentioned, I'm just going to be providing an overview of our proposed watershed protection So, for today's presentation, I'll just start with some background on our source water supply and our source water protection program, and then delve into some details about what our watershed Protection Ordinance is and our goals and expected outcomes for Passing such an ordinance, and I should have plenty of time for any questions and discussion. So, as you all know, the City of Boulder's source water system is vast, and it's largely outside of the city's jurisdictional boundaries. So this map here is showing those primary water supplies in blue shaded areas.

[88:01] So we get our water from, Carter Lake, Boulder Reservoir, North Boulder Creek, and also Middle Boulder Creek via Barker Reservoir. And we routinely partner with landowners and track permitting activities and other large land use activities in the watersheds, and this is part of our long-standing source water protection program, and just part of our multibarrier approach to providing clean drinking water. In 2023, we partnered with stakeholders to update and revise our source water protection plan, and this is just a voluntary document that helps to guide our Source Water Protection Program and the projects that we implement. And one of the key recommendations from that plan was to develop and implement a watershed Protection Ordinance. So what exactly is the Watershed Protection Ordinance, or a WPO? Under state law, Colorado municipalities may enact ordinances to assert extraterritorial jurisdiction to protect their water supplies from pollution or contamination.

[89:04] And these WPOs can extend up to 5 miles upstream from where the water is taken, so these are, like, intakes and diversion points. And most importantly, I would like to highlight that these WPOs do not infringe upon the authorities of others to regulate activities. So currently, there are more than a dozen municipalities in Colorado that have watershed protection ordinances, as shown in this map. And these really range from basic prohibitions against water supply contamination, all the way to full permitting programs. So staff have been long exploring and evaluating various options for what a watershed protection ordinance might look like for us, and we have landed primarily on basic code updates to provide an enforcement mechanism and expand the city's authority to protect the water supply from pollution.

[90:00] So to illustrate what this means. Let's see if it comes here. I've included some of the proposed ordinance language. just highlighting the key areas in yellow, to point out the main points of it. So simply, it states that no person shall deposit any substance that could injure the water supply. It states that the ordinance applies up to 5 miles upstream from our intakes and diversions. And it asserts that violators would be subject to penalties and liable for damages if they were convicted of, contaminating the water supply. So if this were to pass in the event of contamination of the water supply, the city could cite that as a code violation. And it also allows our city manager to partner with and coordinate with other entities, like the Town of Nederland and Boulder County, to pursue additional actions to protect the water supply and ensure that that doesn't happen again, that contamination doesn't happen again.

[91:04] So, this map… well, that blue is not showing up as well as I thought it would, but hopefully you can see the blue shaded area. This is a map of the watershed protection boundary. These blue highlighted areas are the 5-mile boundaries upstream from our primary intakes and diversions, and this would be the area under which the ordinance would apply. I'll just note that this does not include Carter Lake. That's because Carter Lake is managed by Northern Water, and we partner with them routinely on source water protection and other efforts as well. So, if passed, this ordinance would be accompanied by a city manager rule, and the city manager rule would more or less be this map to show the boundary. And we would also publish a website for the public that describes what the ordinance is, why we have it, and it would have an interactive online map so that residents could understand where their projects or properties fall within this… within this area, and…

[92:04] for the normal will be available in Spanish and English. So why are we pursuing a WPO? First. It's just another tool in our toolbox, in short. The city currently does have limited ability to pursue enforcement in the event of contamination of our water supplies. But if we were to adopt this watershed Protection Ordinance, it would allow us to cite a municipal code violation. And we could impose penalties and other enforcement mechanisms. Also, having an ordinance like this in place may prevent or deter contamination in the first place. And importantly, as you might have seen on that boundary, it does overlap with other water providers, so it would provide simultaneous protections for the water supplies of the town of Nederland, and also many of the residents within unincorporated Boulder County.

[93:06] And finally, clean water is just easier and cheaper to treat. And so, by protecting our water supply and taking these proactive measures, like this Watershed Protection Coordinates, it does help us to maintain those, lower water treatment costs and associated lower water utility bills. So in terms of next steps, after talking with you all today and hearing your questions, our plan is to go to City Council in spring for a first and second meeting and consent. If passed, we hope to, enact the, enact the ordinance, following that meeting, and implement the city manager rule, and publish the website and the online map for… The public. So with that, I would be happy to take any questions you might have. Have we had any known continuation issues?

[94:03] So we haven't… I would say there's no specific impetus for this. Like, there's been no event in particular that led to excess or a specific contamination. It's more just a proactive approach. To ensure this continued watershed protection of the water supply. This is a relatively new… possibility, or it seems surprising that so few cities in Boulder have… in Colorado have this sort of protection already. Is this something that's sort of a new legal concept, or something, or… It was, I believe… so, I believe the first one was in 2009. It came about from Carbondale because a fertilizer plant was going to, Reconstructed and developed immediately upstream from their drinking water intake. And through a lawsuit. from Carbondale that's turned into state law that now allows municipalities to develop these ordinances, so…

[95:02] In terms of why it's not widely used, I'm not really sure. I don't know if anyone else knows, but, I think, if I'm remembering correctly, you all can't… correct me if I'm wrong, I think the evolution of this Several years ago, there was a lot of activity and discussion around oil and gas development. And we were really thinking about it in con… that context when we started looking at it in earnest. And I think… For a variety of reasons, our… enthusiasm for going down that road kind of dampened, but I think it just brought to our attention that, oh, we kind of have a gap here, and it would be a good idea to have something in place in general that's fairly simple and straightforward. That's at least my… Yeah, that's a really… I'm glad you brought that up. That's… that's fun.

[96:02] So I think that's what sort of brought us to this point tonight. We felt like we really should do this. The idea makes sense. Would the 5 miles cover the entire watershed? Not the entire watershed, I could go back. It depends, so… Is that the limit? It covers the majority. Yeah, so… it's… For all purposes, it is the vast majority, and it really covers the most critical area. Just west of the Barker Reservoir line, for example, that's primarily designated wilderness area under U.S. Forest Service. So there are already protections in place in that trial. protected, okay. What about for… well, that's another question I have, is what about federal or state law? Coming after, if anybody, right. Pours of pollutant, just decides to march up to… I'm gonna just pour some… Toxic, nothing else.

[97:05] Yeah, I mean, would they be prosecuted under federal or state law? Yeah, so this will be just sort of in addition to any other local, state, or federal laws or permit violations. Those would be handled separately by the entity that implements those rules. This would just allow the City of Boulder to have giving people a mechanism to have more enforcement in the event of contamination. Which might also provide revenues to deal with the consequences, right? It could, yes. The money's collected. Seems to make sense, but it'd be interesting to know what, yeah, how much… isn't covered by the 5-mile limit, or when you go into council or something. Yeah, so, and actually, maybe I could… show, but it really is… almost 100%. designated wilderness Area.

[98:00] Upstream from the boundary. That dashed line is the Continental Divide, right? Yes, exactly. So everything… everything from the blue shaded area to the west would… Not recovered. Yeah. But not easy to get to. I'm sorry, everything from where? Up to the left of the pollution. I mean, the left would not be yet, because that's… yeah. Up to the continental provider? That'd be really hard to get to Europe. Yeah. But you said that's… that also has federal protections. Yep. Okay, I don't know if you can see this. Okay, so… Eldora Ski Resort, for example, is right about here. Sorry, there's a huge delay. Okay, so about that, about that far. Yeah. So that's the significant part that's not covered. That's interesting. That's the one every state law. It is, yeah, it's the federal. Interesting.

[99:00] At least to start. Yes. Yeah. Of other… of other municipalities. Made any kind of claims under this? Protection, and then if I executed any kind of acting? The WPM? Do you know? Not that I'm aware, but only… The only actual, legal… course that I know of was Carbondale, which led to the development of these, but I'm not aware of. Other lawsuits. People have cited a watershed Protection Ordinance. And I have talked to many of the municipalities that have these in place. I'm just curious if you're expecting any pushback from, like, city council or the public in adopting something like this, because it seems to really make a lot of sense. Yeah. I mean, I would hope not, because it is… to me, it seems like a no-brainer. It offers watershed protection without impeding on the rights of others to regulate activity.

[100:09] You know, we've been… we've been… we've met with, Town of Nederland and Boulder County, and they're, engaged in the process and look forward to continuing to coordinate with us on it. As I mentioned, it does… offer simultaneous protections for Netherlands water supply, and they only have one intake. So it's… it's helpful to others as well. So, I don't know if you could… wouldn't supposed to speak to Council pushback, but I would hope not. I think you're spot on. I'd be surprised if there was a big… concern, and Kate just mentioned, if anyone was going to be concerned about this, it probably would be Boulder County. because it's in their area, and the team has been working collaboratively with them, and my understanding is they're supportive of what we're doing.

[101:04] But also that… I was thinking that Carbondale example was more like you had a… some sort of tree… something was going in, someone's facility. that could spill ore, just as a result of their normal operations, could also emit pollutants would be a problem. I'm assuming that outside this ordinance, Boulder could still sue if there was some plan to put in a paper mill or something, you know, up in, you know, west of Nettle, that the boulder could still file a suit and claim that there would be damages to water supply in advance of that. I mean, wouldn't have to wait for them to actually put it in and see if you're… If you actually are… if the water actually is damaged. It's a deep question, but… Legal activities would always be an option we have. Most of those… types of developments would involve a regulatory review process, and we could participate in that, and we do… there was some proposed mining activity that we've been actively involved in. Okay. Yeah, that's a good, more relevant example.

[102:05] Yeah. Shit? Thank you, Miss. Any questions? So, it just… I'm gathering that there's not an overarching concern from the board. Yeah. So I make sure I'm reading that correctly. Okay. Thank you for those presentations. Do we have any other matters from the board? You all? So, I'd like to ask, just looking at this one a little, clearly it's been a dry winter, as we all know, especially those of us are skiers. My understanding, for example, I think, Ted, It's a Niwat Ridge. There are about 4 inches of soil water. equivalent.

[103:00] And I think the average at this time of year is about 6.5. Once we've already got that data, happy to share it. But, And that this is, like, the second or third driest year out of last 40 or 50, so, you know, we've got time to go. It's late January, but with each passing week, you know, and next week's forecast to be dry, you know, it seems the potential for drought, increases. I understand Broomfield is… their staff is talking about some sort of a Is that an option for what is it, drought watch or something? But I'm just curious, I understand it's premature to, you know, declare a drought or do anything, but just… I'd be curious, we don't have to answer it now, but what's the process in terms of monitoring, but also, you know, when… drought, emergency, or whatever the right term is declared, all of that, just since it's… as I say, with each week, it becomes more and more possible.

[104:00] For sure, we're watching it closely. I know a couple of them are interested in the situation. We've seen news reports from the town, from the… from Broomfield, and… If it works, Kim is here, and she's our Water Resources Manager. That was the role I was in before I came through with this one, so, used to work together closely, and we definitely monitor conditions all year round. A lot can happen between now and when it really matters in early May, late April, but Kim, do you want it? Sure, yeah, and also, just to note, we'll be back in April with our water supply update, and we can have a more informed conversation then, but process-wise, so we've got our drought plan, and there's indicators. The drought plan helps us characterize the type of… Drought that we're in, and identify,

[105:00] whether or not we should implement water use restrictions, declare a drought stage, and implement water use restrictions. That process typically is early May is when we make a formal declaration, so we're watching conditions up until May. The reason we wait until May 1st is because, March and April tend to be our snowiest months, and so, like Joe said, a lot can happen coming down then. So we're aware, we're not… thrilled that the snowpack is low right now, but, again, we've got… we've still got some time to go where we can, decrease that deficit. And it… and it can be done very quickly, right? There's not an issue, it's just… It's… Oh, the drought… It's declaring the drought purpose and putting it… Yeah, so that would be, city manager would declare the drought, and so we, we've got everything in place for that. Okay, and one of the… Options to use is actually then lowering those those budget levels, the water budget levels, so the rates would go up at a lower usage? Yeah, so depending on the drought stage that we declare, we would be seeking, like, a target water use reduction.

[106:06] And then we've got different, MEC… different tools to implement to try to achieve water savings. So, I'll just throw an idea at me, not… result of much, but just to toss it out. Is there any point in just letting people know that, you know, things are tight if it continues long as is? I'm just wondering if people… I don't know if people have much option to do much anyway to reduce water use before, you know, before the outdoor use. I mean, a shorter shower, but… That's kind of… yeah, I mean, it's sort of the… Or is it just pointless? Right now, we're, yeah, at a point where most of the water use is outdoor use right now, so, and when we… for the drop stages 1 and 2, we're really targeting outdoor water use. Stage 3, which is the most extreme, is when we might, you know, be targeting indoor water use. So. To avoid fatigue by our customers.

[107:00] we probably wouldn't initiate any messaging until they can do something about it, so maybe March. That's what needs to change. Okay. But we're also starting to have conversations internally, formulating our messages. Okay, that's good. Sometimes in drier years, we might even discuss internally You know, our team meetings among departments of, like. Asking our parks department, like, this might not be the year to do a whole bunch of tree planting, you know, in parks, or that kind of thing, or a big turf replacement. project or something like that, but it's probably even a bit early for that. And each city, like you mentioned, Broomfield, their supply situations. And the mechanics of it is… has some similarities, yet it's still… it's quite different. And so, we do coordinate with our neighbors in… in years where it stays on the drier side, and just…

[108:01] try to have some collaboration on how, in a regional setting, we might message it as well. And we get the CBT briefings then in April? I mean, it's part of the overall water supply update. But I forget which year it was, Tim. I remember… one… one year early on when I was in that role, we went from 70% snowpack in, like, the third week in April, and May 1st, it was at 110. Yeah, it's a massive storm. We get one or two massive storms, and it can change everything. But odds are, one of these years, that's not gonna happen for us. Yeah, okay, thanks. I mean, that's… I'm just glad, pleased to hear. And simultaneously, on a public-facing end, this is about when, like, anyone who partners with Resource Central and, like, folks who do garden replacements, like, sometime next month, we'll have our posts out about, like.

[109:01] plan for your garden in a box! So there are things people can turn to that do revolve around landscapes, and they do start to pick up around this time, so if people are thinking about their outdoor water use. that… that's a January, February, probably February, early March kind of thing. So we do… we do stuff people can at least turn to as they start kind of thinking about that, if it's on their mind. the other… Issues on board? Okay, and how about any matters from the board, or from the staff? Yeah, I've got a couple of things, to hit them quickly. I think we haven't had a meeting since we had the… power… what is it? Public Safety? Power shuttle Power? Which was a pretty big event here in Boulder in mid-December. I was actually scheduled for my surgery the day. So I was really personally interested in that, but…

[110:06] It's the second time that's happened now, and just the learning from the first time, our team was really well prepared, and did a nice job managing our utilities systems. We were ready, not to suggest it's not a huge impact and burden on us. does require us to do some manual operation. We can't have backup generation at every single thing we have in the city that's You know, that we rely on for automatic operation, but our water treatment plants operated on generators and maintained service and operations the whole time. Fortunately, we appreciate that Excel-maintained power supply to the wastewater plant, which was a Big item of city and public interest the first time there was a shutoff, so just wanted to let you know that we fared pretty well in that.

[111:05] Also, huge impact on community members with refrigerators and freezers and all that stuff, so I don't at all mean to suggest that it's… an easy thing, but we fared well. I was really proud of the collective team, and how they kept the systems running, and also coordinated with the Office of Disaster Management, and just communicating what our needs and situations were. So that's what I have on that. I also wanted to mention… I sent you an email, mid-afternoon. You may not have had the chance to see it, but there was a lot of interest From the community after a message went out from us, from the city, on encouraging people to water trees in the winter. And, we received a number of inquiries around wastewater charges.

[112:00] And because the, If you think of a household, there is a physical water meter on the water coming into your house, but utilities like ours It's not common to meter waste water going out. And so the usage charges are established based on winter use. On the assumption that most people aren't using water outdoors. And… the… the way… We'll be here till 9 o'clock if I try to explain. It's part of the reason we're doing the rate study, but it's complicated, and it's kind of measured and implemented in broad strokes, and in a lot of ways. Some of those broad strokes favor the customers. So even though people are watering right now, or they'll do so in the in the winter months, it may not have any impact on their pills, but it's something that we're monitoring closely. If you look at the email that I sent you, and I sent out a number of those in December, it has a link with some more detailed information and explanation.

[113:10] That is something that I've asked the team to, think about as we get deeper into the rate study, is that something we want to try to address and just review how we do that? So… That was an interesting exercise. Buck. A couple of other items I want to mention. I think you'll hear in the upcoming agenda in February, we'll have the retreat and not a regular business meeting. There are a couple of things that'll probably go to City Council before the next business meeting. One of them is an intergovernmental agreement with the town of Nederland for a water storage agreement. Another is for a CBT lease with the town of Erie.

[114:05] Those are not items we would typically go into detail with, with the bond, with the board. And, in neither instance, they're not amounts that are going to make or break our supply situation. But we have had discussions with board and with council on water supply. There has definitely been a sentiment of sharing what we have with our neighbors when we can, and these are a couple of instances where you can help them a little bit. So, just in case you… sometimes the news media will pick up on those items, and if you see it, that's what's happening. And that's what I have on matters from staff, and if you'd like, I can… Schedule? Get your schedule? If you'd like, and if I can find… here it is. Upcoming schedule.

[115:00] We'll hit that. So, in February, we, as you know, we're working on scheduling the annual Borg retreat, and I… is that… 8th and 9th? Yep, well, that'll be here. Yeah. And then… In March, we'll have a further information item kicking off the Utilities Rate Study, more in… earnest, and giving you an engagement overview of what we have planned there. And that is also the time that the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan is slated to come back to boards all across the city. So we'll have that in… March, and then in April, there'll be an action item swearing in the new board members with what I'm describing on schedule. We're going to keep Steve busy right up until the end of his tenure here. And then, as you heard from some of the prior discussion, a big item that we have every year in April is our water supply update, and hopefully we will have experienced some huge snowstorms in the mountains between now and then, and there'll be nothing to see here.

[116:14] That's what I have. Okay. Anything else from anyone? Mr. Speaker, was the purpose of the retreat, and since I've never been involved in one? I think it's a… it's a good opportunity for the board to, just reflect on The… the way things are going for you to give us staff input, talk about the relationships you have with each other. There has been good input from the board at past retreats. The utility bill assistance was something that the board really emphasized. And the fact that we don't have a meeting every month, that was something that came out of the retreat. We used to

[117:00] feel compelled to produce an agenda every month, whether the staff needed one or not. And there just, frankly, are some times during the year where there's Nothing we really need to advise the board on, and nothing for the board to act on. So, those are examples of what can come out of it. A lot of years in the past, we've also used that time to work on that annual letter. If Council asks for one. We've already got that taken care of, and it just wouldn't have worked this year, timing-wise, so it probably will be a little bit shorter, given that we don't have that work. Thanks. Thank you. Great. Looks like we have to kill 3 minutes until we can adjourn. We'll be right here on a motion to adjourn the meeting. Motion to adjourn. Second. Second. All in favor. Okay, and the meeting is in your name.

[118:00] Thank you, everyone.