Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutWater Board - Minutes - 04/25/2002City Council Liaison Chuck Wanner Staff Liaison DeEtta Carr 221-6702 Water Board Chairman Water Board ViceChairman Tom Sanders 491-5448 John Morris 491-0185 Secretary Vicki Mesa Roll Call Board Present Tom Sanders -Chairman, John Morris -Vice Chairman, Joe Bergquist, Ted Borstad, Tom Brown, Paul Clopper, Bill Fischer, David Frick, David Lauer, Rami Naddy and Robert Ward Board Absent Joe Bergquist Staff Present Patty Bigner, Dennis Bode, Laurie D'Audney, Donnie Dustin, Clyde Greenwood, Jim Hibbard, Brian Janonis, Mike Smith, Dennis Sumner, Wendy Williams and DeEtta Carr Guests Present Carrie Daggett — Assistant City Attorney, Al Jakubauskas, Katie Navin — CSU Student and Gene Schleiger - NCWCD Meetin¢ Opened Chairman Tom Sanders called the meeting to order at 3:05 p.m. Minutes Approved David Lauer made a motion to approve the meeting minutes as amended. Ted Borstad seconded the motion. The vote on the motion was unanimous with Paul Clopper abstaining from the vote because he did not attend the meeting. Gene Schleiger spoke of drought conditions, and informed the Board that the District Board has added an additional 20% to the quota, raising it to 70%. He stated that this would leave room for a maximum of an 80% quota if needed. He reported there is enough water to deliver a 145% quota for this year and the next, and stated there is no water to pump from Windy Gap. Gene gave a brief update on the C-BT Litigation. He reported that at a recent meeting of the River District Board where its special Counsel was authorized to proceed with filing litigation against The U.S. Department of Interior. The River District is requesting that the Bureau and NCWCD get together and negotiate. He stated that NCWCD's position is that if there were new issues that have arisen they would be happy to meet with them. He spoke of the need for everyone to receive updated information and stated that NCWCD is currently focusing on addressing the allegations against them. He clarified for the Board that the District is not requesting any funding at this time, rather just the support of the City. Fort Collins Water Board Min,-,;s April 25, 2002 Page 2 Bill Fisher spoke in support of NCWCD's efforts and urged the Water Board to support the District. Mike Smith spoke of the need for the Board to be completely educated on all of the issues. After a brief discussion it was decided that NCWCD would be asked to provide information on all issues of the litigation at the next meeting. David Lauer spoke in support of the education process. He questioned the possible conflict of interest for the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Reclamation. Gene stated that the Fish and Wildlife's conflict involves both the eastern and the western slope, however it primarily deals with the West Slope. He stated that the lower river needed about 20,000 acre-feet. The River District has suggested that the C-BT project alone can provide the 20,000 acre-feet, however, in a recent study that the River District produced, they conclude that the amount of water is not the only limiting factor on the recovering of the species and that there is adequate water. When NCWCD proposed building the Sulphur Gulch Reservoir and it was decided that taking winter flows would be stored so that they could release whatever flows the Fish and Wildlife wanted - whenever they wanted it if it were directly above the 15-mile reach of where the endangered species are. The River District refuted the proposal and stated it wasn't feasible because of using west slope water to meet the obligation. The only way they would accept the proposal was if there was a reduction in the diversion that is being taken to the east slope. David Lauer asked if there is any indication that any other downstream states are behind this effort or if its all coming from the west slope. Gene stated that he has seen nothing that indicates any out-of-state interest, stating in his opinion it's strictly an east slope versus west slope issue. Resignations Tom Sanders spoke of the recent resignations for three Water Board members (Paul Clopper, David Frick and Joe Bergquist). He stated that the City has signed a contract looking into the Halligan Reservoir issues, which is a perceived conflict of interest for those three Boardmembers. He stated that all members who have a conflict of interest must file a conflict of interest statement with the City Clerk's office. Bill Fischer expressed concerns about losing Board members and asked whether resignations were necessary. David Frick stated that the City would be entering into an agreement to look into the feasibility of the Halligan Reservoir and stated that they did not want to take any chances of a public perception of a conflict of interest. Paul Clopper agreed, explaining that he is employed by the company that would be doing the work and if he could prevent jeopardizing the project by his resignation, then he believed that he was doing the right thing. He noted that he was within a year of having to resign from the Board due to term limitations anyway. Mike Smith stated the City has gone through an RFP process and ECI was chosen and stated that he was really pleased with the team that was selected. Fort Collins Water Board Minu._s Page 3 April 25, 2002 Tom Sanders spoke of his disappointment with the resignations and expressed concerns that these resignations may set a precedent that in the future people might have to resign due to conflicts of interests. At this point, Paul Clopper and David Frick left the meeting. Water Supply Policy Update Dennis Bode and Donnie Dustin were asked to make a presentation regarding the recommended Water Supply Policy Update. A report regarding this subject had been distributed to the Water Board members for their review prior to the meeting. Mr. Bode began by introducing Donnie Dustin who helped prepare the report and thanked the members of the Water Board Water Supply Committee who had attended many meetings and provided a lot of input during the last couple of years. Mr. Bode began the power point slide presentation by stating that the purpose of updating the existing water supply policy was to provide a guidance document to meet future water supply needs. He said the presentation would basically be an overview of the draft report titled, "Recommended Water Supply Policy Update." The report includes a (1) historic review of the City water supply system, (2) a review of the present water supply policy, (3) the present municipal supply and demand, (4) the projected municipal supply and demand, and (5) the revised water supply policy elements. The appendix of the report contains a copy of the 1988 water supply policy resolution adopted by City Council and the recommended water supply policy update to be considered. Mr. Bode continued by summarizing some of the significant actions taken by the City during the last 120 years relevant to acquiring a reliable water supply system. He then briefly reviewed the seven elements of the water supply policy that was adopted in 1988. A key element was the adoption of criteria to acquire sufficient water supply to meet or exceed the type of drought that would occur only once during a fifty year period, often referred to as the 1-in-50 drought. Donnie Dustin continued the presentation by reviewing the City's present water supplies and demands. He briefly described the safe yield concept used for planning purposes and how raw water requirements are assessed for new development. He then discussed how demands and supplies were projected for the future. An important consideration is the different service areas within the city boundaries, some of which are served by adjacent water districts. He described how staff utilized a computer model to illustrate the effects of providing supplies during a I-in-50 type drought. Both additional water rights and new facilities were analyzed to determine what will be needed for the future. One conclusion from these analyses was that additional pipeline capacity is needed to convey water from the Poudre River to the water treatment facility. Another conclusion was that additional operational storage and long-term carryover storage is needed to operate the system effectively and to meet future water demands, particularly during a 1-in-50 drought. Dennis Bode then resumed the presentation by discussing the policy elements that are being proposed for a revised water supply policy. These policy elements are contained in six different items: (1) water supply for municipal use, (2) use of surplus raw water, (3) regional cooperation, (4) raw water quality, (5) minimum flow and ecosystem protection, and (6) recreational/aesthetic flows. He pointed out that the actual policy elements being recommended are summarized in Appendix B of the report. He concluded the presentation by asking if there were questions about the presentation or the report. Fort Collins Water Board Mims Page 4 April 25, 2002 Tom Sanders asked for a motion regarding the proposed policy prior to discussion. David Lauer made a motion to recommend the proposed water supply policy to City Council. Tom Brown seconded the motion. Tom Sanders opened it up for discussion related to the presentation and the report. Mr. Sanders added that he wanted to make certain that the intent was clear that we were talking about "at least a 1-in-50 drought" and that the wording in the report and water supply policy reflects that throughout. This may allow the City to meet a more severe drought, such as a 1-in-80 or 1-in-100 drought, if the opportunity arises. Mr. Bode pointed out that the wording in the proposed policy reflects that and he will go through the report and make any changes to make sure it is consistent. Ted Borstad asked a question about the length of the 1-in-50 drought. Mr. Bode explained that the drought criteria were developed when the original drought study was done in 1985. It was defined as consecutive years of below average runoff on the Poudre River resulting in a cumulative deficit of about 550,000 acre-feet. That drought could vary from being about four years of really dry years to eight -years or more of moderately dry years. The drought that was used in the modeling was six years long. He then pointed out that 1930 to 1937 on the historical graph of Poudre River flows was probably close to the 1- in-50 drought. Bill Fischer asked a question about section 5.1.2 related to storage capacity. He pointed out that under the "Policy Element" the report identifies 11,000 to 22,000 acre-feet of storage, but that in the "Strategies" it talks about 1,500 to 2,000 acre-feet of operational storage and 9,000 to 20,000 acre-feet of long-term carryover storage. He assumed that the 11,000 to 22,000 in the Policy Element is the sum of the numbers listed in the strategies. Mr. Bode confirmed that his assumption was correct. Tom Sanders asked whether the strategies relative to storage listed in section 5.1.2 had a priority order in which they should be pursued. Mr. Bode explained that both operational storage and long-term storage are both needed and should be pursued concurrently. David Lauer commented on Figure 4-8 which shows a comparison between the firm yield costs of Colorado -Big Thompson water, North Poudre Irrigation Company shares, Southside Ditches shares, and Halligan Reservoir. He wondered why the firm yield cost of Halligan Reservoir water was so much less than the cost of acquiring shares in the other three sources. Mr. Bode explained how the cost of CBT water was calculated. If the City were to buy one unit of CBT water and there was a 50% quota in the critical drought year, it would get 1/2-acre-foot of water yield. If the price to buy it was $10,000 per unit, then you would have to buy two units to get a yield of one acre-foot and the cost would be $20,000 per acre-foot. The North Poudre water and Southside Ditches water was calculated in a similar manner. With Halligan Reservoir, water would be stored during years when there is surplus water and then it would be used primarily in the dry critical years. This allows significantly higher demands to be met in all years. When you use Halligan in this way, the City is more fully using the water rights it already has and since new water rights are now very expensive, the cost of developing new firm yield with Halligan Reservoir is much less expensive. Bill Fischer referred to sections 5.5 and 5.6 in the report regarding the cooperation of the City in providing flows in local streams. It says that such cooperation should be allowed as long as, "the City's use of its water rights and water resources are not affected for the primary use of its customers." He wondered if something needed to be added regarding economic justification. He expressed concern about using water released from an upstream reservoir to run through the middle of Fort Collins. He added that Fort Collins Water Board Mim..,s April 25, 2002 Page 5 that might be nice but the water could be lost forever and would not necessarily be a benefit to the City's rate payers. Dennis Bode stated that these provisions were intended to provide for the possibility of cooperating with others to provide benefits to the streams without costing the rate payers a lot of money. Mike Smith pointed out that there are City Charter restrictions which would limit how the City could use its water without somebody paying the Utility for it. City assistant attorney, Carrie Daggett, suggested that possibly the wording could be stated more broadly to say that such cooperation would not affect the "interests of its customers." Mr. Fischer expressed satisfaction with that wording. Tom Brown raised a question about the wording in paragraph Lc of Appendix B regarding the use of existing supplies. It says the first priority is to meet the demands of the City's treated water customers, which he agrees with, but it does not draw a distinction between the Utility's customers and other customers within the City boundaries that are served by other entities. He wanted to make sure that we are talking about the Water Utility's customers. Mike Smith pointed out that the only water customers the City has are those served by the City Water Utility. Carrie Daggett suggested that some language could be included in the "whereas" clauses of the water supply policy resolution to help clarify this distinction. Tom Sanders commented that one CSU professor had been referred to by name in the report but that another one had not. He suggested that the report should be consistent by referring to both of them by name or neither of them by name. Dennis Bode said that staff would make that change. Tom Sanders asked if the Board was ready to vote on the motion to recommend the proposed water supply policy to City Council. The Board voted unanimously in favor of the motion. Treated Water Production Dennis Bode reported that as of March 5, 1,698 acre-feet of water had been used, which is about 95% of the projected use. He stated that the water use is fluctuating due to the drier periods. He spoke of the drought implications and encouraged citizens to use water wisely and efficiently, and clarified that he did not anticipate the need for water rationing. Other Business Tom Sanders requested the issue of Conflict of Interest be discussed and added to the Agenda of the next regularly scheduled meeting. He also proposed the possibility of nominating a Code Committee to look at the existing Code and any possible updates that may be needed. Bill Fischer has volunteered to update the By -Laws of the Water Board. Adjournment /The1 Board meeti d at 5:07 p.m. Tom Sanders, Water Board Chairman t � CAM DeEtta Carr, Water Board Liaison