Water Utilities Community Facilities District - Regular Meeting

Okay. I would like to call the Apache Junction Water District meeting for 02/17/2026 to order and request that all cell phones be placed in the silent mode mode. Roll call.

Chairperson Wilson?

Here.

Vice chairperson Schroeder?

Here.

Board member Cross?

Here.

Board member Heck?

Here.

Board member Johnson? Here. Board member Nesser? Present. Board member Seller? Here. You have a quorum, your honor.

Thank you. Can I have, excuse me, approval for a minutes of the December? Mister chair? Yes. So moved. Second. Moved and seconded. Roll call.

Board member Saller? Yes. Vice chairperson Schroeder?

Yes.

Board member Nesser? Yes. Board member Cross?

Yes.

Board member Heck?

Yes.

Board member Johnson? Yes. And chairperson Wilson?

Yes.

Motion passes unanimously.

Alright. District managers report. Bryant. I'll report your honor. Okay. District directors report. Mike.

Good evening chairman Wilson and members of the board. Give me a quick second here.

You know which drive is it? Rob, do you know which drive they usually put their presentation on?

It's in work session.

Work session?

Or I'm sorry, it's in council meetings, underwater. It should be a folder. You're fighting math right now.

It's in council meeting drive, Mike? Or work session.

That's December 16? Yep. December 16?

Those are just meeting minutes for December that you guys just approved.

Oh. There we go.

So now we're on to director's report. Alright. Just wanna give you guys a quick update on the Verde River sedimentation mitigation study update. So our Verde the Bartlett Dam that we've been working on for the last, believe it or not, almost four years now. Kind of give you a little background before I get into this.

Roughly, in 2023, SRP put out a request to us of how many acre feet of water that we would like to be part of this dam. We went big and bold at that point in time and asked for 50,000 acre feet, and then we went through a process with a subcommittee with SRP, and we informed you guys a lot of that. After our meeting, we came out that after we separated out between all the cities, were roughly looking at 7,413 acre feet. So big dramatic drop, but we're still getting a part of that bucket. So time continued on.

We're still part of the study working with our other cities and working through the process with SRP and the federal government, doing EPA studies so we can continue to build this dam. And the federal government now came in roughly in November, finally gave us what they required. Well, lo and behold, they want 50% of the actual slaughter in the dam now. So it went back to the subcommittee to say, hey, how much do you guys how much are we going to reallocate this out? We had a big push here recently.

Brian Draper, our water district adviser, went to the board meeting, and most cities wanted to go back to the way we allocated it out originally when we received the 7,413 acre feet. Some other cities were like, Well, no, we need to redo this whole thing because it just doesn't work for us anymore. So SRP had two different options. We actually went and discussed this ahead of time with a subcommittee, worked through the process. We ended up going back to our original allocations on how we did it by your needs rather than just what your wants were.

So we worked through that process. 10 other cities voted with us to keep with our original way we separated out the allocation of water. Eight other cities did not. Well, the eight other cities were the big boys, the Amwas, the Big, Phoenix, everybody else that wanted to change because it helped them receive more water. But we actually got the little guys together and actually won something finally.

So we worked through that process. Our allocation will stay the same at this 4741 acre feet of capacity. So we're a little bit less than half of what we originally planned out there or what we originally negotiated. We are still requesting that the federal government give us their requirements, what they need, not just, I want half of your supply of what you're building on this dam. Show us your need.

What do you have to back up if CAP supplies go down or if other things happen throughout the water system. So we're working through that process with them also. So this isn't the end of all of our negotiations on how much water we'll receive, but right now, we're roughly at about 4,041 acre feet. But remember, this is only available every third year, so it's really only 1,500 acre feet. So roughly you get about three homes per acre foot, so we're looking at roughly about 4,000 new homes that we could provide water service to with this or back up our existing supplies. So just to give you guys an idea. Any questions on that so far?

Mike, how recent is this information?

Just came out last Thursday. Wednesday, Thursday, we voted on this. So this is all new. There's some additional information that's all internal information at this time, but this is kind of where we're at that I can provide to you guys at this point.

And how close was the vote and how many smaller cities and towns?

I think it was either 10 or 11 to eight. Lot of the small like I said, a lot of the smaller cities joined in with us. When we initially talked about it back three years ago, some of the cities were such a small allocation. We all looked at each other and said, How much water is needed to keep you in this as a partner so that the whole region benefits from this? And everybody came up with this number of 4,500 acre feet, so roughly 1,500 acre feet per year.

So that kept about five or six partners in because they were at least going to get something out of their process as they got to the end rather than being cut out the whole supply because they couldn't show the need that they wanted. To kind of give you an update, we did have a meeting. We approved still the budget. It hasn't changed. We're still on budget from our last meeting that we had here.

We have one more payment, I believe, 180,000 next year, and that'll be our final payment for the original feasibility study that we're going through with SRP. So as you can see here, we roughly started in 2023. We're moving through the feasibility study. They've to balance it versus the environmental impacts, and they're working through this. So we're right here in 2026, still on schedule, probably won't be done till mid-twenty twenty seven, and then start on our actual design, and then possibly congressional approval in 2029 with the dam not being completed till, like, 2034.

So again, this is long range planning for water supplies here, but just want to kind of keep you guys in a loop where we are at in the process. So a lot of things happening out there.

Mr. Chair? Yes. Mike, why does it require congressional approval?

Because this is damming up another waterway, and then it has to show that there's not only an economic reason behind it, but environmentally, it doesn't impact too many things. And then they are also a partner in this. I believe currently, they're at about a half $1,000,000 that they will be providing as part of this project, possibly can even provide more as we get through some of that as we build the dam that may reduce some of our costs.

So they're not opposed to us?

Half 1,000,000,000.

You said half 1,000,000 or a billion?

Billion. Oh, half

1,000,000,000.

Yeah. Billion. Oh.

It sounded like half 1,000,000 from up here. 500,000 into this, and they're telling us what to do?

No. Okay. No. We're roughly a half 1,000,000 into it ourselves here at the district.

That I understand. Yes.

Okay. But we'll be working through that. In the end, I think the last estimate they were at is roughly about a $3,400,000,000 job in the end. So, again, huge, huge, huge deal here in Arizona to work through this. So government is part of that. We have to get all the approvals through them. Any questions on the VERDI system? I'll keep you guys updated as new news comes up. We'll be working through, obviously, some of these. We're not involved.

This is just going on behind the scenes with SRP and the feasibility studies. We just only get told when the bill goes up or down or if we're on track and on time right now. Just Okay? Some random updates throughout the system. You guys approved a $2,000,000 well drilling this year.

So on Ironwood, just north of Ray, if you see a well rig out there, we'll be drilling that new well here in the next two months. You'll see a well rig out there next to that community. You guys will be seeing that. We also started on the final build out of our water treatment plant, roughly another $30,000,000 to $40,000,000 job that we're working on with a developer to help supply their production they need for their system. And then at Booster two, we're expanding that and then upgrading it at the same time.

So roughly about 4 to $8,000,000 job that we're working through that process right now. We started out with approval of roughly about I think it was $2,000,000 earlier this year, so we'll be putting some more money in the budget for next year to finish that project. But just a quick update from the system. Any questions? Anything else?

Mayor? Mhmm. Real quick, since the states couldn't get along, Upper And Lower Basin, where are we at now?

Yes. The the lower states were able to get together and come up with their solution. The upper Basin states could not come up with a solution that matched ours, so now it's back in the federal government's hands, and they will determine on how they reallocate the Colorado River. So we're going back to the old packs from the 1920s. They're going be looking through those.

There's a lot of negotiation going on, reading back through a lot of that. So hopefully, there's not a new deadline. They had the deadline, I believe it was February 13, to have a solution, and that has passed, and nothing was resolved. So it really stays as is, as it's been in the past, but that's not the best scenario for anybody in the seven states that received Colorado River, because if people keep overusing, there won't be any water for anybody in the end. So hopefully, the federal government makes everybody sit down at the table again and says, Okay, how can we cut back and not just put the burden on Arizona or on Colorado because they were late to the game back in the early days?

And California has senior rights in there. They don't have to do any restrictions or anything. So the the federal government will be working through that process. We haven't heard much if there's a new date that they will provide the ultimate outcome, but I'll keep you guys informed. I won't until we find out some more information on that. Okay. Thank you. Thanks.

Okay. District Treasurer's Report. Okay. Thank you. And wow. No further discussion. I will now adjourn this meeting also.