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HomeMy WebLinkAboutWater Board - Minutes - 08/17/1990Water Board Minutes August 17, 1990 3:00 - 5:45 P.M. Light and Power Conference Room 700 Wood Street Members Present Henry Caulfield, President, Tom Moore, Tom Brown, Tim Dow, Mark Casey, Terry Podmore, Dave Stewart (alt.), Paul Clopper (alt.) Staff Mike Smith, Linda Burger, Dennis Bode, Jim Hibbard, Ben Alexander, Wendy Williams, Andy Pineda, Molly Nortier, Paul Eckman, Assistant City Attorney Guests Mike Shimmin, Special Counsel for Utility Bruce Kroeker, Consultant Members Absent Tom Sanders, Vice President, Neil Grigg, Marylou Smith, Ray Herrmann President Henry Caulfield opened the meeting. The following items were discussed: Minutes The minutes of July 20, 1990 were approved as distributed. Water and Wastewater Utility Management Plan Bob Wilkinson from the Natural Resources Division, was scheduled to be present today to give a presentation on the Water and Wastewater Utility Environmental Management Plan. However, staff determined after receiving Mr. Wilkinson's draft, that there were some areas where the Natural Resources' interpretation of the plan was not in agreement with the Utility's. Henry Caulfield asked Linda Burger to discuss some of the substantive issues that were in Mr. Wilkinson's draft that are not in staff's version. He emphasized that the Board will not be making a decision on these matters today, but with this review they will at least have a basic idea of where some of the differences are. A draft of staff's Water & Wastewater Utility Environmental Management plan was included in the packets. Linda Burger began by saying that staff has heard from Natural Resources that they are willing to make some revisions. Therefore, she isn't certain that all the issues now will remain issues when they produce their final draft. Water Board Minutes August 17, 1990 Page 2 Mr. Caulfield referred to the document that the Water Board received last month which contained all of the ideas that came from the public. "Is Natu- ral Resources going to present all the ideas that came from the public or are they going to sort out ideas that are presentated to Council?" he asked. Based on the draft that was given to staff, Natural Resources has made an attempt to take the ideas that were presented by the public and cluster them into problem statements. However, the difficulty arises when, for example on the metering section, they only mentioned the comments in favor of metering. In other words, some judgement was used as to which problems from the public to present. Mike Smith added that "they didn't give as much credit for things that the Utility is already doing that are good; they just emphasized the differences." One of the areas Ms. Burger found troubling was a total difference in approach to dealing with the irrigation companies from the positive relationship that the Utility has developed with them through the years. Natural Resources' version suggested an approach that includes more control of what the ditch companies do. The goals were similar. We both want to work with the irrigation companies, but the difference in approach between ours and theirs was substantial. Also, Natural Resources made the statement that aquatic life protection is not used as a basis for determining what wastewater treatment levels should be, "and of course that's the basis we use." Another area they felt the Utility has not adequately addressed was the integrated studies of water supply and water quality issues. Ms. Burger thought she had presented a fairly substantial set of instances where those concerns were integrated, and "expressed where we had control over the quality of raw water supplies and the things we were doing to address quality as well as supply." One of the recommendations that was made is that there should be a combined land use/water use plan. This recommendation appears to be returning to the concept that water ought to be a driving factor in planning for the City. "We are at the point now where the Planning Department does the planning and the Water Utility provides the service to whatever is called for in the plan, she believes. Ms. Burger said she has tried to de-emphasize the split delivery of raw and treated water, and the use of gray water systems, because of the expense and the problems that have been associated with them. Natural Resources has taken those back out and made them a separate category that requires more study on the part of the Utility to determine whether they are appropriate areas to pursue. In addition, they have called for a comprehensive study of hydrologic systems. Apparently what they are looking for is a combination of interactions between surface and ground water in terms of both quantity and quality; and identification of areas where ground water may be near the sur- face and could potentially be converted into wetland areas to protect them from development. Water Board Minute • August 17, 1990 Page 3 There are several references to holistic environmental considerations being taken into account and studied. Ms. Burger is a little uncomfortable with the term holistic because she doesn't have a very defined idea of what it means. An example was that when we are making decisions related to water supply, we should be looking at what impact those decisions have on whooping cranes in Nebraska. In addition to that, one of the things we should be doing is studying the uses of water that have been relinquished by our con- sumptive patterns. The assumption seems to be that if the people in the City were to use less water for domestic purposes, the water saved would become available for some other use. Apparently "they are assuming that Colorado Water Law is not intervening in the decisions about the uses that can be made of water." Mr. Caulfield asked if the Board had any concerns or comments about the draft that staff prepared, and if there was anything that should be considered further. Mr. Caulfield announced that the work session on this subject will be held with the City Council on August 28. He said he would be present at the meeting to let them know that there hasn't been anything substantive recommended by the Water Board on these issues at this time. Mr. Caulfield went on to say that there seems to be some confusion between the Natural Resources Board and the Water Board, and he doesn't want the Council to have any notions that the Water Board has approved matters that they haven't had the opportunity to review and discuss. He said if Board members think of any changes or revisions in the document after studying it further, to get in touch with Linda Burger. Measuring Water with Metric Meters Jim Hibbard, Transmission and Collection Manager, reported that staff received a letter from Don Hilger from CSU, who has proposed that since the City is embarking on a metering program, and will install a substantial number of meters over the next 20 year, it is an ideal time to change the measurement of water use from gallons to cubic meters. The technology is there and meters are available from manufacturers. Moreover, there are some cities that already measure their water metrically. "It's not so much a technical issue as it is a policy issue," Mr. Hibbard pointed out. He asked the Water Board to provide some input. Mr. Caulfield believes that the federal government has in some way decided that the U.S. should eventually go to metric. He wasn't aware of the exact terms of that. Dave Stewart understands that by the year 2000, the U.S. will convert to metric. "You already do a number of measurements in milligrams per liter," he said, and "I don't think it would be a big change for your staff." Mr. Caulfield asked if the State has taken a position on this question. Mr. Hibbard replied that since staff just received the correspondence, there hasn't been much time to do an investigation. Mr. Caulfield suggested that some research be done on the matter and then defer the question to the Demand Management Committee. Water Board Minutes August 17, 1990 Page 4 Staff Reports Treated Water Production Summary Dennis Bode reported that July was about 89% of what was projected, so water use was relatively low. August appears to be heading that way also. Potential Conflicts of Interest Prior to going into executive session to discuss legal matters relating to the Thornton issue, Mr. Caulfield asked if there were any Board members present who may have a conflict of interest. Tom Sanders chose not to attend the meeting because one of his Civil Engineering students at CSU is doing some analytic work for the City of Thornton, and Dr. Sanders thought it was not in the City's best interest for him to participate in the executive session. Tim Dow's firm represents a number of clients who are also parties to the Thornton litigation. Mr. Dow believes that their interests are aligned with those of the City of Fort Collins, but he isn't certain about that at this time, because not everyone has taken the positions they will ultimately take. For that reason he thought it was prudent that he not sit in on the discussion and also because he is counsel of record for other parties to the case. Tom Moore was asked if he perceived that he has a conflict of interest since he is president of Water Supply and Storage Co., of which Thornton controls 47%. "It is not like I have a contract with Thornton," he said. Mr. Moore does not believe he has a conflict, but he offered to leave the meeting if anyone else considered his presence to be a detriment to the City of Fort Collins in terms of injuring their case in any way. Nobody stated any objections to his presence at the executive session. At this time the Board went into executive session. Letter of Support to the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District The purpose of the letter from the Mayor was to advise the NCWCD that the City of Fort Collins supports, in principle, the District's involvement in opposing Thornton's water right filings for the purpose of protecting Northern Colorado's high quality water supplies. Two minor changes to the draft letter were suggested. Mr. Caulfield asked the Board to vote on recommending to the Council that the draft letter of support be sent to the NCWCD. There was unanimous agreement to send the letter to the City Council with the suggested changes. Other Business Henry Caulfield reported that there is apparently a plan within the City to use the Council liaisons to Boards and Commissions, more than they have been. The Water Board's liaison, Loren Maxey, has chosen not to be heavily involved, but other liaisons apparently are. Ms. Burger explained that at the last meeting of the Legislative Committee of the City Council, some of the legislative issues related to the Thornton situation were discussed. Thornton, essentially, is aligned with some other cities to pursue basin of origin legislation which could severely limit the Water Board Minut• . August 17, 1990 Page 5 type of compensation that would have to be made to the basin of origin in the case of a transfer out of the basin. One of the primary elements that is in the proposed effort now, that has not been there in the past, is that they are trying to draw a distinction between transfer of foreign water over the mountains and agricultural trans- fers across basins. At the meeting of the Council's Legislative Committee, the Mayor indicated that she would like to have a confidential work session some time in September to discuss both legal issues and the legislative efforts. Mr. Caulfield asked Ms. Burger if she has brought this before the Water Board's legislative Committee. "Not yet," she replied. The idea is that the Board may want to look at strategies to deal with both the legal and legislative issues together as opposed to keeping them totally separate. The Utility did not have a very aggressive legislative program last year, Ms. Burger said. Has someone been attending the Legislative Interim Committee meeting? Mr. Caulfield wanted to know. Wendy Williams has been attending those, Ms. Burger replied. Ms. Williams related that there have been some of the same issues that come up each year: water conservation, basin of origin, etc. There has been proposed legislation by Rep. Carpenter to look at ways to protect Colorado's water that is currently flowing out of State, by vesting that authority in the State Water Conservation Board. The Board would then have conditional water rights for storage, but that's as far as it has gone, she concluded. Mike Shimmin said that the potential difficulty in terms of the relationship between legislation and litigation is that if Thornton successfully gets a bill passed this session that purports to set forward limitations on the kinds of protection given to the basin of origin water users as a condition of these transfers (which is what we have reason to think is a concept that they are talking about), that bill could potentially retroactively affect the outcome of the litigation we are working on. That is why Ms. Burger is concerned that the two can't be viewed in isolation, he emphasized. Mike Smith announced that the City Council has adopted the Wastewater Treatment Master Plan. Also, the City has an option on the purchase of rangeland for resource recovery purposes. That will probably go to Council sometime in September or early October. Since there was no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 5:45 p.m. Water Boa d secretary