Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I don't know about HD Glory, but it'll be there. My son-in-law had a great job at university. Sold the house, quit jobs, moved to Salt Lake, lived in a trailer. Have to be there. I was looking right here. Good to go. All right. Um, shortly after 5:15, so let's go ahead and get started. Welcome everybody. Ann, it's nice to see you. We've missed you. [laughter] Well, it's good to see you. Um, we'll start with the pledge of allegiance. Um, Tom, Mr. Jet, would you mind doing the pledge of allegiance? Looks like you'll be in charge of item zero and item five.

Please follow me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Thank you, Tom. Looks like our first item is approval of the minutes dated October 21st in San Francisco, which was last week. Uh, entertain a motion. I move we approve the minutes from October 21st. Uh, let's see. Dated October 21st, 2025 as stated in the outline. I second.

Motion in a second. All in favor? Any opposed? No. Motion carries. All right. Looks [clears throat] like item two is well the rest are city items but uh specifically looks like item two is intended to be a public hearing um and water use preservation element how engineering.

Yeah. So I can introduce them really quick if you want me to. [laughter] So, we have Ridley Griggs here with us and he is with Hail Engineering and he's here to present the 90% draft of the water use um preservation element of the general plan. Um and before working on this element, Ridley worked on the Cedar Cities water master plan and Cedar Canyon master plan. So, he's very familiar with the Cedar Cities um water resources. um we took your input from the October 7th planning commission meeting and um responded with some of your feedback back to him and they incorporated that into the draft and the staff has reviewed the plan and to make sure that the the requirements from the state are you know that those requirements are met and um you know at the 90% we feel it's a good tool that we can use in the future for for the water preservation. Um so after Ridley presents it then you know we are looking for any input or any other comments you might have that we can add before um it is finalized and brought back to you for recommendation [clears throat] um end of November. November 18th is when it's coming back as the final. So So uh go for it. Let me

thank you Amber Ridley. Go ahead. Apparently we have some technical difficulties here. What would you like me to do? Well, if I have to sign in, let's just everyone hope I Okay. Remember, kid. Do I need to turn this microphone on or it's on? It's on. Okay. All right. And is this clicker going to work for me or one of you my clicker? The round one's better. This one? Depends on whether he's trying to click through. Oh, I was going to say this one. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. I was thinking of slight advancement. He needs phone service. Okay.

Jonathan, is it My dogs ate my hearing aids. Can we turn the volume up a hair? Hang on. Is it?

Your dogs are probably hearing well now though, huh? Obey. Well, yeah. I'm not sure. $1600 down the I wouldn't Here's the thing, though. Um, I'd be careful adjusting any of the volumes just because, uh, it might start giving us feedback. Okay. Um, I would encourage those who may need that. I think we have some headphones you could use if you want me to try. We haven't tried them yet. Let me let me try this and then Okay, just a reminder, speak in close. Okay. Yeah. And I'll welcome your feedback. If you can't hear, give me a holler. Thank you.

Okay. All right. Uh, great to be here. Thanks everybody. Like Amber mentioned, I have worked on several water related planning projects for Cedar City and uh been on the hot seat in these chambers a few times and it it's always a pleasure. Um, so I'm I'm Ridley engineer with Hansen Allen and Loose um working on this project. Um, so why are we doing this is the first first question I'll address. And the the simple answer is because the law tells us we now have to, right? Uh, there's been a lot of momentum up at Capitol Hill for water related issues the past few years. A lot of that spurred by the Great Salt Lake um, and how low it's gotten. Um, and and while that's more of a northern Utah issue, it it propagates everywhere. and and up in northern Utah, they're finally trying to catch up to where where you've been in southern Utah a long time. Um, but the the main concern behind this is uh our legislators didn't want communities um planning their future without considering how they're actually going to acquire and preserve that water. That's really it. So, uh, as part of the general plan, cities, municipalities, as well as counties are now mandated to, um, account for that in their plan and and say, "All right, here's here's how we're going to secure our water future to enable the rest of this to happen." Uh, so if I could just back you up one thing, we had a mayor in the mid 80s named Carrie Jones.

And Carrie Jones family had been here for a thousand years. and one of the original settlement. Most most of the people here know who Carrie Jones was. He stressed and stressed and stressed that we focus on water conservation, water use, where to find new sources of water. It is just in the last couple years that we've really put emphasis on that. So I I want to applaud staff for pushing this, you for assisting us, this board for listening because it is so important and if we would have been talking about this actively 40 plus years ago, we would have been hands down much better place. So I just wanted to tell you thank you. [clears throat]

Yeah, absolutely. And and I will comment too that um our firm is helping a variety of communities with similar efforts and it's been pretty easy in Cedar City because there has been so much happening the past number of years that um a lot of it is just synthesizing what's already been going on. So I will say that as well. It's it's been great to work with staff and and everyone here. Uh it's really streamlined the process and and we'll get into some of that as we go. All right. So, one of the required elements in the plan is to account for how water use in the community has changed over the years and how it compares to state conservation goals. So, this chart here shows water use in Cedar City expressed as gallons per capita per day. So, over the whole year long on average, how many gallons is each person using? um that includes what goes on in their homes. That also lumps in water used by businesses, water used to water the parks, everything. So

I is this include university students on a do we incorporate university student or is this based on household? So this is based on population. Um, so do do we do we use students as part of that? Yeah, I Jonathan, we report those numbers to water rights. Does that include students? I'm off the top of my head, I'm not remembering. No, it's a great question. Thanks, Jonathan Statha, city engineering department. So, we we typically use census data.

Okay. And if we don't and then in the off years we use um what's called the ChemC Gardener Institute data which is at the University of Utah and they put out population estimates. So it's my understanding that that university students are included in that. Don correct me if if I'm wrong on that but um I don't see why they wouldn't be census data. Yeah. Whatever data comes from the census I don't know if they're counted in our census or not. I guess I I believe they are. Okay. All right. Thank you. I

I mean I'm not an expert in the census, but I would have worked for them many many years ago. It's typically going to be of the person filling out the paperwork and a lot of students do not count their temporary residences here as their residence for census purposes. So I would think the majority of students coming outside of Iron County would not include this as their residence. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Good question. Good clarification. Thank you. And and I I will say there this method of looking at gallons per capita per day has been criticized by some as a little problematic because there are a lot of factors that can complicate it, right? University students being one, large industrial water users being another. Um but nonetheless, in terms of tracking change over time, it's a pretty good number in most cases. um the three lines on this chart, the one on the bottom is outdoor use uh in the irrigation system and then the red line, the one in the middle is the drinking water system which also includes a lot of irrigation and then that top line is both of them added together. So, uh, on the left we're at 2001. On the right we're at 2024. And bottom line is, uh, in Cedar City there has been a trend in the last 20, 25 years of less water used per person per day. So, that's good news.

I don't see that on my bill. [laughter] Rates up, water down. Here's here's you. It was based on total users and total output, not output per user. That's right.

Yeah. All right. So, another element of this plan is to compare water use with the state conservation goals. So several years ago, the state commissioned a study, they divided the state into regions and for each region set a goal for what this number, this gallons per capita per day, what they think it ought to be in the near future and then the more distant future based on unique characteristics of the community uh such as climate, how much irrigation might be expected, uh industries present, things like that. So um this chart here shows in it's it's you'll notice the same data that was on the last chart from years 2000 to 2024. It shows the the historic usage in cedar and then it has two dashed lines which represent the state conservation goals. So the higher line that's shown in orange is the regional goal uh for this oh I'm drawing a blank on the name. I apologize, but generally the southwestern region of Utah. Um, but then a sub regional goal was also identified for Iron County, uh, which was lower. So that's that lower of the dashed line, uh, shown in green. So when we compare the trajectory that Cedar City is on to the regional goals and the subregional goals, we'll see that the regional goal is already met, which I think is why Iron County got a subreional goal is because per capita use is already lower here. But over the last 10 years or so, historic use has been hovering around that subregional goal uh with with a general downward trend. And over the last few years, that goal has been met. So, so the bottom line here is um Cedar City is doing really

well in terms of water conservation. Um when the state as an outside entity came in and and made some recommendations on what people could do to conserve more, that's really what these goals are is okay, what more can we do? What's what's what's feasible? And so Cedar City's really ahead of the game on a lot of fronts. So that's good news. Uh the not so good news uh is is perhaps the broader water supply situation in Cedar City. I'm I'm confident I'm not telling you anything you don't know. So maybe I'll go pretty quick here. Uh but but this chart shows here what we call a water budget or a comparison of uh the water that's needed and the water that's available. So we are measuring total water demand for the Cedar City water systems, both drinking water and secondary water. So this light blue bar on the left is existing demand. And depending on the year, uh the Cedar City systems use between about 7,000 and 8,000 acre feet of water per year. And just for background, an acre foot, that's a volume of water, enough to cover an acre one foot deep. So looking toward the future, if we look out toward 2060, 2065, that longerterm time horizon, that future need could grow up to nearly 14,000 acre feet. That's shown in the dark blue bar in the middle. And then on the right is existing supply. So that's what we would consider reliable supply for the long term. Now, in Cedar City or excuse me, in the Cedar City Valley, there's a a management plan in place that will start reducing water rights. So, as time goes on, there are certain trigger dates, one in 2035, one in 2050, um where these water rights start to go away. And so, Cedar City actually has a large portfolio right now

of water rights that is right around that 14,000 acre feet a year mark, but a lot of those are slated to go away. So when all those go away, that's what I've called the existing reliable supply on this figure. It's uh it's little more than 6,000 acre feet per year. So anyway, there's a clear need for more supply, more reliable long-term supply. That's the bottom line. What I will also say is when I started working with Cedar City about four years ago, that reliable existing supply after the groundwater management plan was about 2,800 acre feet per year. We're So, a lot of great progress has been made. Now, what

uh 6,200 give or take. So, a lot of good progress has been made in acquiring these water rights. So, that's great news, too. But, um there are definitely needs. Uh so, anyway, that's some background. So, what I want to acknowledge, and I don't intend to step through all these in a lot of detail, but again, acknowledge that a lot of stuff is going on and has been going on. So, um, I've listed some of those efforts here that are included in the report. I won't spend a lot of time, but there are a lot of people hard at work at improving the water situation and, uh, being as efficient as we can. So, with that background, another element of this plan is considering what can be done moving forward. So, um, we we compiled a big list of ideas in the plan, uh, based on input from city staff, uh, based on other work we've done with other communities, with the state, uh, resources available, and started putting a list of things to think through. So, these are listed here. um sake of time I probably will not hit on every single one but some of the some of the ones that need a little more discussion we'll we'll hit on the next slide but but there's a big list and as as we listed these ideas the general sentiment was okay these are a lot of great ideas but where do we focus our efforts how do we move forward so uh we we thought about these we ranked them based on a few factors you know how how expensive are they to implement how easy or difficult are they to implement and then how effective are they? And so a few strategies that we've ranked highly and included in the plan as as areas of emphasis in the shorter term would be more work on public education. that's been going on, but we identified some more opportunities to uh

consolidate resources, maybe do a little bit of work on the website and just create a one-stop shop where people can go and get a lot of questions answered and get a lot of help. So, that's one area of emphasis that is included in the plan. Um, using more smart irrigation controllers is another, particularly on city properties, um, where the city has a little more influence there. Um, another thing we have recommended is some sort of water conservation committee. Um, you know, everyone's busy. It doesn't necessarily need to be huge. It it can look however the city leaders want it to look, right? So, that'll be a discussion that happens, but some of these strategies probably need a closer look than is appropriate for a general plan. Um, and so that's our thought is where there's an issue that that needs some public input that needs to be worked out a little more, uh, work on a committee to to think through some of these and then figure out a direction to go. So, um, another exciting thing happening in Cedar City is um, new water meters are being installed that have a lot more capability. Uh pretty soon the city will have capability of in real time logging in looking at customer data, giving the customer that opportunity to log in and see what they're doing. Um and then you know compiling data, tracking data. There's there's a lot of neat uh neat opportunities that'll be available there. Um and then another strategy we're recommending is as that is implemented, think about how we can deliver that to the customer in their bill. So this image here is uh this is from the South Jordan City website. Um this is how their bills look. So they can they can show you historic use from previous years, how you're comparing. Um help the customer understand what their trends are looking like. Um you can also

include in a customer bill a comparison of how they rank next to their neighbors. You you may see that on your gas bill or other bills. I know I do on my gas bills. that's uh there's there's some research there that shows that's been proven to influence behavior. Um so there there's going to be some good opportunity there as the new meters come online and so we've we've recommended um some actions there. Let me back up before I move on because I skipped one important point. There are two elements of the plan. One is how can we help existing residents can serve and then another is how can we create policies so that future development is efficient. So I've been focusing more on existing customers up to this point. Uh moving on we we considered things for future development. We considered you know is there more that can be done for landscape efficiency standards? Um, can we require landscape plans being submitted? Um, one of the things specifically required is new or modified lot sizes or configurations. That's that's written into the code. So, if there were some different options for lot sizes, lot configurations, how would that change water use? We looked at that. Um, we explored some modifications to the conservation development program. I'll I'll hit more on that next slide. And then this last bullet point here, this is another uh language that's specifically included in legislation is uh the the law wants cities to consider what they call discouraging incentives for development activities that don't adequately account for water use or include strategies for reducing water demand. So basically if an industry or a commercial development wants to come in

and they don't want to be water-wise, how can we discourage that? So that was something required to be looked at. Um so considered all these strategies. Um, and what we find in Cedar City is, um, the water rights market tends to be probably a bigger discouraging incentive than anything you could possibly do, right? Because water is scarce here. It's hard to come by. It's very expensive. And so if a large industrial food processor, for example, investigated coming to Cedar City and they needed a lot of water to support their operation, they'd probably find very quickly that uh it's not going to pencil out here. That's just the reality of the water situation. So

that was city instigated as well because I mean the water market was largely different before what was it seven years ago when they pretty much changed the price of how much you have to put up for water rights if you're going to do a development. Yeah. Was not really a free market there. That's a that's a city planned kind of change to the open market for water. Okay. And I don't know that I have all the background to comment on that right now, but thank you for your comment. Um, well, I'm not even saying I'm against that. I'm saying that's something the city has done to kind of try this whole situation.

Yeah, thank you. I'd welcome any background, any discussion at any time if I didn't mention that. So, thank you. A slide ago when you were talking about Yep. limits per household on the water or recommendations. [clears throat] I don't know if any of you found this, but when we had five teenagers in the house, our consumption was enormous. It didn't really compare, you know, to a normal household. Yeah. And so, I don't know if there's any way to figure in household size with with that or recommendation or not.

Um, yeah, I I mean, certainly true. Yeah, there's there's plenty of good evidence to show that the more people in your house, uh, the more water you're going to use. Um, in in term So, the difficulty the city has is the city issues a building permit for a home and the city doesn't know who's going to live there and and what they're going to do. And so, pretty much the best a city can do is take a representative average when it comes to water exactions. Um then the other thing that the city can do is structure rates to try and in yeah use the tiers rates which Cedar City does. That's really the mechanism the city has to try and control behavior once once the house has been built and the people have moved in. So um if they want to if yeah if there's a house that uses more they'll contribute more. If there's a house that uses less they'll pay less and and hopefully it all works out. But

just don't shower. [laughter] So anyway, there'll be a bishop or a pastor on staff here to whom you can confess. [laughter] Yeah. Okay. All right. Thanks. All right. So, in terms of looking at things we can do for future developments, um, a lot has already been done in Cedar City with landscaping standards. Uh, there are a few potentials. Specifically in code, the city is supposed to consider limitations for pools or ponds. I don't believe that's in code now. Uh I don't know if you have enough pools or ponds that it's a big issue, but something to consider. We've included that in the plan.

We have ponds that aren't retention ponds in town. Oh, what else? Trying to think of any. Uh just on the golf course, I think. I know. Yeah. Yeah, there's the golf course one.

Yeah, that's the only one that comes to Well, lake at lake at the hills but that's a that that serves a purpose in the irrigation system also. So okay so another discussion that we've started um is related to the conservation development program. So, as you likely know, uh, development is required to bring water rights to support development. And the conservation program in Cedar City says that, okay, if you have less than, there are two tiers. If you have less than 3,000 square feet of uh, lawn on your property, then we will accept a lower amount of water rights. And if you have less than 1,000 square feet of turf grass on your property, we will accept even less water rights. So that's the conservation program. If you have less grass, then you're required to bring less water. So there was a thought about um adding another tier where there would be no turf grass permitted. So um speaking strictly from the water engineering perspective, yep. If that tier were adopted and if developers liked it, um that would result in a decrease in per capita water use per person. Um you know, from the perspective of how you want to plan your community. I'm sure there's a lot to think through. Um we've included that as an item for further study in the plan. Um I mean, I've been to enough HOA meetings. cuz I know how hard it is to get agreement on any landscaping ordinances. So, we're we're not including that as a yes, we're going to do this, but we're including that as an item for further study. So, um, anyway,

sorry, I have one comment about that and

and this was from a conversation that, um, we had with Andrew Dudley and that was um, the person that Steve recommended and he said a lot of times when we talk about um, landscaping and people say zeroscaping, they think it means zero and it's not just gravel. There are many things that can be done with zero turf, but I mean he was saying there's, you know, there's plants that are watered once a week, you know, for an hour on a drip line. So, it can be very a lot of foilage, but very um low water usage. So, that was encouraging to think of that because sometimes in my mind I think, oh, no turf, that just means gravel, you know, but that's not necessarily how it is.

Yeah. Thank you. All right. Another item required by code is policy considerations. So like bringing these great ideas together and then figuring out how to implement them. So um that's a section in this document as well. I've included a summary of a few here. Um, so as far as policy goes for water conservation programs, um, there's some work the city would need to do to implement and administer new ones. So, um, that's that's why we landed on recommending that some sort of committee be convened is figure out, okay, do we want to commit city how do we want to commit city resources to getting these things done? So, um, that that's one piece of it. Um, also included in there is recommendation to partner with existing programs. There are a lot of programs available through the state uh through central Iron County Water Conservancy District. So definitely want to piggyback on those as much as possible. Um, and if the city wants to allocate funds for turf buyback or landscape incentives, we've recommended that the city consider doing a matching program. So, if a resident wants to um remove grass and get paid rather than just going through Cedar City or just going through the state, if they went through the state and then Cedar City kicked in a match, that could be a potential u way to make it more worthwhile and motivate conservation if the city wants to go that direction.

So, um city's required to consider landscaping options within public streets other than turf. Um, so on the city side, we'd recommend just getting some staff input on um, what any city-owned landscapes would look like. Um, ordinance revisions to eliminate inefficient water use. So, we talked about restricting ponds and or pools. And another ordinance that um some cities have adopted is for a non-residential user requiring them to present a functional justification for any turf grass they're installing. So not just put it in a park strip, put it everywhere because it's easy um but allow it when it serves a particular purpose. So that's something that could be considered. And then for low water use landscaping requirement in the code, we talked about a conservation tier with no turf grass. Um, we also have had some good discussions about requiring a landscape plan to be submitted. So, state law is really interesting on this. state law does not allow. So it help me out if I stumbled on but so the code is written in such a way that it says the city may require someone to submit a landscape plan as part of the development process but the city may not delay issuing a certificate or a building permit or a certificate of occupancy. So,

right now the city may require it, but the city doesn't have a lot of mechanisms to actually enforce it. That's good.

So, [laughter] anyway, um so yeah, the the city's hands are largely tied, but we've thought about, you know, the benefits of requiring a landscaping plan. One potential uh option we came up with is um in order to qualify for the conservation program and to be built under conservation tiers, that could potentially be a requirement imposed to to get them in that program. Um I see the city attorney leaning over and whispering and we'll definitely want his input before we uh go too far down that road, but that's an option. it it would be beneficial to the city to get that landscape plan just to make sure that the everything's in line, right? If the developer says, "Okay, I'm only going to use this much grass, so here's how many water rights I need." Uh, it's useful to be able to just make sure that they

I have no problem with.

Mhm. Yep. Okay. All right. So, in terms of implementing this plan, I've we've got a few boxes on the screen with a time frame. So, a few near-term actions coming up or one in particular that I've pointed out. Uh, the city's working on getting a wastewater effluent reuse study going. I didn't hit a lot on that in the presentation. Uh, effluent reuse is a really interesting opportunity. Uh but with the treatment plant being so far north, um getting that water here is not simple. So the city's planning to study that in more detail. Um we've also recommended getting a committee together figuring out which ideas are going to work and then um how the city's going to uh hire staff or allocate staff resources to support that plan moving forward. And then in 2027, plan would be to continue working on smart controllers, get those going on city properties, develop what we call a water budget for the city property, and start tracking. And essentially what that would be is uh sitting down and determining, okay, how much water should, for example, city hall be using based on how many people are here, based on the landscape, how much water should it be using, and then tracking how much water it is using. Uh so there's some accountability there. So we've recommended that for city properties, parks in particular. Um and then just tracking overtime. How are we doing? What can we do better? And then in following years, just continuous tracking, evaluation, refining. Um again, this is this is a plan or an element of the general plan. So we're trying we're trying to uh identify key priorities but not not also try to tie anyone's hands too tightly. So, that's the direction we're going there. Um, with that, well, there's my resource for

the code if you want some light reading. But, um, that's what I have. So, um, happy to have any questions or comments or I have a question. So, this has nothing to do with the Does the county have to also submit a plan? Yes. Is is that where agriculture comes in? Yes. Okay. because the number one use of water is alpha alpha. Yeah. So the count the counties actually there there's there are different uh items laid out in the code for the county and the county's plans actually have a little bit more to address. Um specifically yeah irrigation that has a lot to do with the aquifer.

Okay. Another question kind of on the same lines is on your charts that show water usage. Is that just in in using water that's going through the city or is that accounting farmers that have their own [cough and clears throat] their own well and their own acre feet that they get? These charts here are specific to Cedar City's water systems. Yeah. So it's really hard to actually track the total water use because so much of it's not happening within the city's control or even metering or anything like that. Yes. Yes. Numb numbers would be very different if we were trying to look at the basin as a whole.

The legislature in the past has talked about along with the state water engineer metering farms. Are they getting any closer to that or is it just I don't know that. I don't know if you're involved in that. So, I I try and keep up with the law, but not always successfully. So, I don't know. Sorry. [clears throat]

I have a question for Jonathan, and I hate to put Jonathan on the spot because I know he loves coming up to the spotlight. Um, can you re can you refresh our memory on or my memory on the the aquifer reuse the the number of acre feet that we have at our disposal once we get the pipeline? [clears throat] Jonathan Status. Um, Commissioner Jet, I think you're talking about the pipeline from Pine Valley. No, for the sewer treatment plant, the reuse of water. Oh, okay. Okay. The

Okay. through that new filtration system that we invested in. Okay. Sorry about that. Yeah. So, we've got there's about 3,400 acre feet that would be available uh from plant in today's in today's numbers. Um that's going to grow over time. Now, of course, that comes throughout the whole year, right? And so most of course most of the demand for for that water is going to be during the summer. And so we're only gonna have half half of that available unless we build storage. Still a dent in our to meet our our water

allocations from the with the state's requirements. Is that happening now or is that still being So the first phase is actually under construction right now and the first phase is to install the the treatment facility to treat it to what we call a type one effluent. Um and that's to be used for for farming and not for drinking like that's what the

it could be used for farming. It could also be used on uh just for irrigate for turf irrigation like on parks and and schools and churches and things like that. And that that's part of the reason when Ridley talked about the uh the study that we're working on. We're we're trying to plan for the next phases of that project, which which would be a pump station and a pipeline and then possibly expanding the city's secondary irrigation system to serve more customers. Um but yeah, that's that's going to be a great a great asset once we can bring that agree that water back into town. It's going to be it's really going to make a big difference. Yeah.

Thank you, Jonathan. [clears throat] Thank you, commission. Any other questions? This is a uh item for public hearing and so we would um or we open the public hearing. Anybody that would like to comment on it um stop the microphone, state your name. And Clark.

There are so many thoughts here. First [clears throat] of all, it's so interesting to me and I know there's nothing you can do about it, but I'm going to say it out loud that the city c the state comes and steals the water saying they're going to take the water rights and then demands that we use less water. all the time. I and I when this first came up a few years ago, I said it's interesting that we never sail slow growth because the truth is more people use more water. What I think is terrible is what I call the water punishment tax, which is this tiered water system. And I'm going to tell you this true. This is what happened in Palmdale, California 40 years ago. It was a lovely little town with about four schools. By the time we left, it was a ghetto. If you go back there today, you would be shocked and none of you would want to live there. Part of the problem came as they started the tiered watering and I taught school. So I saw the all of the little families that came and I said to I went to the water board then first my time ever going to anything in the city and I said see here here's the problem. People want to have a nice place to live but if they have to choose between uh you know a nice place to live and food they'll choose food. So Palmdale now is nothing but a ghetto and I mean there's nothing growing. It's dead. You can say zero escape all you want but it is terrible and not a place that any would want to live. I call it a punishment tax because see here's what's happens. We don't want there to be a difference between people, right? But the people that have the money and I'm going to tell you this not that we have money but in the day my husband didn't care that our water bill was $400 a month. So what happens ends up happening. The people that have money will have the green yard because they'll pay the punishment tax. But the poor people that would love to have green grass, they can't pay it because they've got to pay for food and shoes for their kids and they will live in a ghetto. And that's what creates ghetto neighborhoods. I am so opposed to the punishment tax. I think water should be one price and you should you should pay for the amount you use. The other thing

is, and I want to say this to you, Steve, if they can come here and say, "Okay, we got this many employees in the city count, in the city buildings, and we're going to divide it up and see how much they're using, they sure should be able to do it to families because it also then wants people, I can't pay for this. I can't pay for the water. I had six kids. I know what it's like to have kids that are all showering and doing laundry. It all takes more." So, if you're going to really do it by person, then you should look at each household and say, "Okay, they've got 10 people in that household. Not everybody gets the same amount of water because if they do then the people with the big families get the punishment tax. So I am just so opposed to any of this and I think we I think mostly we need to look at ways to get people and I think people in Cedar have been learning to conserve water but the way we're doing when you try to punish and that's what that's what we do with sometimes ordinances and things we try to punish people into submission. So just a thought. Thank you. Thank [clears throat] you, Ann. [snorts]

Do you really believe that? Yes. What I said? Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. [snorts] I just I just curious on the water to punishment tax. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It's a punishment. Go ahead. Hi. Hello. My name is Cororeen Severn and I'm a resident in 4B Ranch area and I'm mostly here to maybe make some suggestions for incorporating in your plan or lower that mic down a little bit if you'd like. There you go.

Considering to add to your plan as ways to improve your water preservation if you don't mind. Um, one is for new home developments. asks residents only to have turf in either front yard or backyard, not both. And perhaps give them a size limit so that if they have a larger house, you set certain turf limits. Everybody wants a little bit of turf for their dogs to run around, their kids to have, but they don't need it around the whole house. Uh also, um when a client signs up with the city for water, that's when you can most proactively give them the educational material, not every month in the bill because they don't have time to keep reading it every month. And in that educational material, you could suggest ways to do desert landscaping or zeroscape. You could suggest a rainarrel program or other incentives that you want to give them at the time they sign up for their bill. So, make it here's some helpful ideas to you. Also, there was at one time a desert demonstration garden over by the visitors center and that's gone into very poor repair. And I would suggest you improve that area or work with the uh chamber to improve that area to provide it to residents to go and see what kind of landscape works for this area. They have a beautiful desert landscape area down in St. George, but that's not applicable for our climate. So, we need something local especially for people who are moving to this area

and don't know the climate well. And then my last suggestion is if you have a person from the city at community events to provide public education on water use and maybe do a giveaway like a shower timer and say thanks for stopping by. uh we appreciate you, you know, being a citizen of our community. Here's a little giveaway. You can put this in your shower. It'll give you a twominute shower. And then that can help with those teenagers that are maybe using more water than they need. Those are my suggestions. Thank you for listening. Thank you, Grant. Appreciate that.

My name is Dr. Sean Sever. I'm a 40-year environmental scientist, ran environmental programs all over the world. I'm considered a national expert in dirty water cleanup, although I'm retired now. I came into the water business primarily about almost 40 years ago. Um, primarily when cities were having to look at their contaminated groundwater and looking that as a source of supply water. Of course, that didn't work out very well in 40 years ago. But over the 40 years of working with them, there's a couple things I learned that seem to always work. And there are other things that never work. The one thing I will say is that anytime you bring in a policy, whether you implement it through your engineering program or that that in any way is considered a punishment, it won't work. People will just flat out object. And you know what ends up happening is whoever politicians you have in in office then will not be office right after that policy comes in. I can almost guarantee that's happened almost everywhere they brought in uh things like that. The ones that have done the best have had what I call behavior modification pro uh projects or policies where the people's have a choice. they decide, but you you clearly set your policy up that it advantages certain decisions and those policies almost always are successful. So when you're sort of thinking about this and giving advice to the city council and and you know uh organizing your thoughts to them um any any time and I this gentleman here it's Greg

Ridley Ridley um did a really good job at giving you some good suggestions that actually flow into policy decisions or policy uh styled u approaches that work very very well. Um but there's al and then then you have to meld with that the other thing that the cities that melded technology with their particular circumstances. So for example we worked in New Jersey. New Jersey doesn't have a water problem. It has a flooding problem. What the main recommendations and they're currently working on this now is they're adopting technologies like uh permeable ashvault that helps infiltrating that water in when they build their swailes to control their uh flooding. They all of those swailes or all those flood control systems have infiltration systems built right into them. you know, things like that that can be done as part of the construction for a fraction of the total cost of the construction have been extremely successful in places like that. So, you know, understanding where your water is going to come from, like for us, it's periodic flooding. You know, we get lots of water all at once. We wait for our snow melt. We're dependent on our on our aquifers. So the more you can do to sends that water into the aquifer, which I've noted you guys have started really doing, which is great, but you can do a lot more of that. That's that kind of thinking is often very very successful on the technology side. And then the third comment I will make, it really depends on you folks. If you don't lead by example, nobody's going to pay attention to you. I mean, I worked on a project in Georgia where the town council basically felt that they could all have big lawns and uh you know, nice nicely irrigated uh farms and everything else, but they wanted everybody else to reduce their water. You can't have that happen. You know, if the city is going

to and that was on individuals within the city, but also with terms of the the way the city is approaching, for example, you have that demonstration garden over the entrance. We'll create a demonstration garden that is actually typical of the environment we live in that when people walk around there, they look at it and go, "Oh, I could do this at my house." That's what you want to focus on. You want the person that's come to the town to walk around there and go, "Well, gee, the city's doing it. I could do it." And when you don't do it, you know, when you're over irrigating the public school lawn and the roers running down the road, nobody takes you seriously or at least doesn't take the the overall county policy seriously. So, you got to lead by example. And I'll tell you that has been the biggest um consequence in all of the ones I involved in. The more the city was leading by demonstration, the more successful they were. end of store everything else because every city's different. Everybody has different water sources, needs, you know, outflows. Um the one thing I can tell you is that um recapturing your gray water is a potential source of of additional water. It never turns out to be quite as successful as everybody thinks. The companies that have done I should say companies I worked for a lot of the companies that were involved in the cities trying to get water. So I have that kind of perspective and companies that can use that water and actually encouraging that development having that as a specific water resource. So for example uh I worked with a company that is predominantly a uh silicon wafer manufacturer needs ultra pure water. City water wasn't good enough. So they were going to have to build their own treatment plant anyway. Well, we helped the city helped convince this company that I was a consultant for

to use their gray water. They were they were going to ultra purify the water anyway. The city contributed a little engineering money to the engineering front end so that the water could come up to a certain standard. It was type one is what they were after. And from there on in, the company ultra purified its water, the water, and they just used gray water. So they they took no water out of the current potable water system to do this. Uh and uh you know so thinking out of the box in that kind of way as to who you want to de you you know to develop in the in the county like not just be we don't want this we don't want that. Look at who you do want and go after them as as potential partners in the city that can use the water resources that don't impede on your currently use. you know, your current potable water. Cuz in my in my opinion, this is my opinion, gray water will never ever replace enough water that it becomes a significant resource going forward unless you're willing to be like Las Vegas and spend billions on infrastructure development. And I don't just don't see a small city like Cedar

is gray water. I know RVs and you have black water and gray water. So, uh, what I'm referring to is water coming out the pipe from your treatment plant. Okay, that's what you're referring to refer to as gray water. Okay, it's got better names now. They've, you know, they didn't like that name, so they now type the water type ABC. Uh, your type one water is still not potable water.

You know, you're never going to be able to use it for potable water. Not unless you want to be sued. And I've been on that that side of things. And you know something, city always loses. So, you know, um I you know, I've had those I've been expert witness in those kinds of uh cases in Florida and you know, the cities I can tell you right now is city's never won in my experience, you know, trying to change trying to get their uh effluent water cleaned up enough that it can be called potable water. Um so those are a couple of the things that that I've learned over the years. I hope they're helpful to you just [clears throat] hear them from somebody that's been doing this for a very very long time. Um, you know, I have to say that the the cities that led by example, created behavioral policies, policies that modified behavior, not absolutes, and then really looked at technology, had their engineering departments get really up on front on the technologies that were specific to their circumstance. Like, I don't expect the people here to be going out and looking at uh permeable ashalt. It's maybe not a real thing here in Cedar City like it would be in New Jersey. Um but certainly infiltration galleries, improving your aquifer, you know, those are the kinds of things where you're going to like it's going to be a big win because more water that doesn't sit on the surface and evaporate that goes down into the aquifer you're going to have in the future. So, you know, those are probably three areas that in my experience have been extraordinarily successful for folks that have, you know, been interested in water. Anyways, thank you for your time.

Thank you. Uh I know you're still there yet. Does anybody have a question to Dr. Yeah. I I I want to tell you I I was reading water's fascinated me since I moved to Cedar. Coming from Alaska, you drill a hole and six feet down you got water, right? Everybody has pumps in their basement because water's six feet down. And when I came to Utah, the idea of buying water and buying land, I'm like, it it took me quite a while to start to understand water is probably one of the most complex issues. Yeah.

From a legal standpoint that you can get into. And we were we just lost one of our council members that probably one of our most genius, Tyler Melon, when it came to understanding, you know, water laws and so so forth. And so I read a lot of articles on water and there's some places in Arizona um where limited water and they put 2,000galon septic tanks and they re re they take they use their gray water from their home for their showers or sinks. They use certain soaps and so forth and then they they pump it out. Now, these people are pretty green, so they pump it out using solar, but they pump it out and they use that for watering their yards, watering their gardens, and so forth. And it's fascinating the the the ingenuity out there for water. Now, when it comes to leading by example, I could not disagree with you if for nothing. And I think you're right. The schools are guilty. Farms, we drive by farms and I get it. They're coming out of Wales, but perception is perception. And people that don't understand whales and don't understand farms and

times a day, you know, it's confusing for them. And and and so what the take that I get is education is everything. Um the punishment thing, I totally disagree with her. I mean, I don't consider it punishment. We the only way to get people to listen is through their wallet. Well, sometimes that's in the behavioral change that you need to make

and you can call it behavior change that and there are ways not to do that. Well, we're pretty simple folk here and we could probably learn from people that know better ways, but um so there are and and for our our our our guest speaker tonight, do you do you know of any places doing what I talked about with the gray water and large tanks and reusing their water in their own gardens? Did you is that something you guys study because our mayor talks about your company as in you guys just lowered from the heavens with knowledge?

Okay. So, and and I want to be careful here because we've used gray water in a few different ways. So, you're talking about household gray water. Y uh saving it, using it for irrigation. I've not worked with communities that have done that. We do most of our work in Utah, some in Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada. uh not a lot in Arizona, so I I can't speak a lot to that. Well, when you spend 200 gallons a day on on the average home is using 200 gallons a day, it does not take long to fill up a 2,000gallon tank because the toilet's not where the water's coming from. That's not where the water

sounds overwater use is. It sounds to me like if a committee is put together, doctor, you might be candidate for I was thinking maybe nominate a doctor to be on that committee. I agree. As long as it doesn't take away from my travel time. [laughter] It won't tired. So I'm just tired. Yeah, you can travel from 4B to here all you want. I live here. I want you to be success pure self-interest. um is that I want you to be successful because it's good for me. I mean, that's just the way it is. Let me talk to you about a little bit about So, there's a couple different thought processes for what they call the graywater uh recycling in Arizona.

The the first way it's done is they create two plumbing systems in a house. Y first plumbing system is your black water. That's your toilet water and that goes out into your septic tank. Then there's a second system that goes out into a separate tank and that's we would call that gray water, but it's unpottable water comes from your dishes. It comes from that that is usually filtered in some way. It like gravel, charcoal, you know, it some people get really fancy with other filters depending on what they're using. Generally speaking, that water in many states is approved to be put on gardens. Yeah. Except for food. Yeah,

it's the only place where they say don't water your your food garden with that. Now, there's exceptions to that. Some states have said if you spray it, you can't put it on your foods products, but if you infiltrate it, like put it in, you know, like a infiltration system, you can use it for food products. I don't have an opinion about it. It's just those are the ways that you see it happening. on a small city basis. It really only the one thing Arizona has over what Cedar has, you have very old crusty infrastructure. It's expensive for you to put a new pipeline down the main street or, you know, out to a school, stuff of that sort. A lot of the this kind of infrastructure is done on new communities. So, let's say you're going to have a 8,000 home new community. Well, you mandate as part of your your building permit process a two-water system. That's the place you would do that. That's going to be hard here. um you're going to have to start really really tiny and kind of get up from that because if and I've met a lot of the builders including the ones running for mayor um you know they they don't think about things on that kind of scale and it's been my general experience having built a house here uh anything that's kind of out of the normal Cedar City Utah way of doing things with maybe a little St. George pushed in is like, you know, they didn't even want to hear you, you know, and you know, I'm an expert in these things and I couldn't convince my own people.

Things are changing. Yeah, things are changing, but it's going to be slow. I The another simple thing you can do, the one thing I was able to convince our landscaping to do is so we wanted to have a barrel system in our garden. Turns out in this city you can't have a barrel system. I don't know. A few years ago, you couldn't. I think you can now use rain water. When we were building our house, we could not get a permit from the city to have a barrel system.

Um, so we did something entirely different. Instead of having our storm water flood our next door neighbor, we built an infiltration gallery underneath our garden. So our storm water first place it goes from the back. This is only the backyard. The backyard storm water all goes into an infiltration gallery. And we built the infiltration gallery so that it would be uh you know we dug down deep enough so that it interacts with its surface um penetral soils of uh inf infiltraable soils gravel over top you know and built it you know it's probably about 3,000 gallons. So our storm water does not go out into the sewer does not go out and just kind of flow down into our next door neighbor. Some of our storm water goes into a a little it's like a cyist. You know, in the old days when I was growing up, we would call them cyistrns. You know, we would build a sister. It would hold water. Um we decided not to pump from it because again, we couldn't get a permit for or permission from the city to do that. So, we could actually pump water from it and use it for irrigation. We don't. We just use it as an infiltration system. You could easily add that to your permit requirements. Why don't

if you have a area of this big uh infiltration gallery, every house has an infiltration gallery. Little changes like that done a lot of times make huge differences. I think well I was just going to say let's um can you you would be candidate probably for that committee. Um, can you leave your contact information with Faith over here and and when they I don't know who's going to organize that. I think that it might be really helpful if you were able to do some input there. Yeah, we're [clears throat] about an hour deep, so we need to move along.

So, I'm going to tell you what I think. Here's my uh email [clears throat] address and telephone numbers on the front. So, thank you, doctor. appreciate that. Appreciate that know we have a expert nearby. Um, and as I say, I've been doing for 40 years. So, that's awesome. Okay, we'll close the public here. Anybody else want to say anything? Ridley, anything from the Griggs tribe? No, you're good. Um,

yeah, I I I did fail to address I mean I can speak to anything you Well, I can try to speak to anything you want, but I did intend to address the idea of a a conservation demonstration garden. So, that that's an idea that is in the plan. I spoke to Central Iron County Water Conservancy District. They also have that in their plans and they have property for it. So, um just keep that in mind as you move forward. uh there might be some partnership opportunities there. So I I did want to bring that up and um beyond questions.

Thank thank you for that. I think it's a good thing that the state is crowding us a little bit in that direction and and our need is crowding us. So thank thank you for your comments. [cough and clears throat] Um, next public hearing, uh, we will hear from Amber, uh, regarding some swimming pool, uh, safety thoughts. And All right. So, it has, um, come to our attention that we need to update our ordinance a little bit. So, oh, sorry. I have two jobs here. Hang on. Let me get it up.

Thanks, Ridley. So currently um the ordinance is what is in black up there and we have been asked to um add the red part which says when a pool is equipped with powered safety cover that complies with ASMF 1346 a fence is not required. So currently we require a safety fence with self-closing um self-latching things like that. Um but adding in that when there is a powered safety cover that meets these standards that the state has set that they don't need to have the fence enclosure.

Yeah. Does anybody have questions uh of of Amber? I would say that I think this came did it not from a board of adjustments meeting where our language was old enough that what seemed reasonable for a pool didn't exist. So exactly I think it kind of grew out of that. So I have I have a question. So does this automatically close if a little kid wanders in to that pool area?

So my understanding is that it closes when the pool is not in use and someone can actually walk on top of it. it's hard enough that you can walk on top of um as far as you know it being under you know not in working condition or something that like that or not closed that's a whole another issue that's a kind of a personal thing. So

when when it came before the board of adjustments, the gentleman that was doing it and and made a presentation about it, [clears throat] excuse me, and essentially said that exactly what what what Amber just said that it's rigid and able to um hold weight, but much like a gate on a fence, if left open, the fence becomes less right less um of a

I thought the fencing was more of a safety issue like the NFPA rules that require a certain height then the self self-closing gates you know so that you know so little kids can be protected from that I think Utah state law trumps us here I think Utah state law gives it either or or both but I'm I'm either so we don't really have much of a say yeah I think Tom I think you're Right. Yeah. Although I don't know. Yeah, that No, that's correct. That was part of the conversation I think you guys had with the board of adjustments is Yeah.

We're actually just trying to come into compliance with state law. Um it'd be interesting if they would come up with some type of safety feature similar to a self-closing gate. Um it would do so hopefully without somebody in the pool. Um, I don't know if our technology is quite there to be safe, but yeah, right now the state one does not require anything self-locking, I guess, in the sense of these pool covers. It's more based on long as nothing, what was it, four and a half inches, I think, in diameter can't fit through any gaps. Um, and then the weight of about two of me can walk across it. Well, for the record, I think the state made a mistake in in not requiring fencing around swimming pools. Too many kids in this country drowned every year as a result.

Talk to your state legislator. This is a this is a public hearing item. So, we'll open it since an has I just have um here's my question. If if if does the pool have to be closed by law if not in use? In other words, if somebody says, "Okay, we're not using it, but I'm going to leave it open or it's broken," then are they liable if a little neighborhood child runs through and drowns? Do you know what I mean by law? I know what you mean. And I really I don't think there's a statute that says you are liable if um there's if you leave it open, if

you would likely have somebody with much higher risk of liability. There's always too many factors to predict it here. But yeah, if if the law requires you to install something to keep kids safe and you don't maintain it, don't do what you're supposed to do with it. Yeah, I'm going to assume your liability is much much higher, okay, than if you've done everything you can because you can kind of see that. Although, when you go back east, they have no fences and you just see swimming pools and things out and I always think, wow, that could be dangerous because anyone can wander into your yard. But here, and some of it can vary. I mean, we were just talking about earlier. You go back east, it's a totally different problem with water than we have here. There's open bodies of water all over the place. Everywhere you step, there's a big lake. Yeah, it's true.

You know, their their soil is what we buy at Home Depot for our gardens. Um, it's a different world than here where kids don't grow up with water everywhere. I mean, it' be kind of like having signs for alligators everywhere in the south. You just expect it. Any other comments? Uh, thank you, Amber. Then we'll close the public hearing and be willing to entertain a motion or recommendation if somebody has one.

I'll make a positive recommendation to on on modifying um the ordinance revision 26-4-9 pertain to swim covers. Have a motion. I'll second second. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Okay. [clears throat] The next is a discussion that we've had for a couple times now. Tom, we missed you last week. Last week I was Yeah. close to

Sounds like you were um not doing. You know, I I since since I blabbered on for so long with the water issue, I I'd be willing to move this to the next meeting if if if others agree. Make a motion, Tom. Please. [laughter] I'll make a motion that we table this till the uh next uh final commission meeting. We did. Thank you. Second, anybody? We did table it last week till this week. Yeah. But uh if you have some thoughts that are more than 38 seconds about it, then No, I'm just teasing. No, I

we'd be I think we've all suffered enough listen to my blathering. Do you One of the things that one of the thoughts that I have Thank you, Tom. We'll take anybody else like to table till the next one. My only thought is um you know if you think by the next meeting you'll be ready to have you know something set in stone. I know we've been just discussing it but you know do you want to come back and discuss it when you're ready to or do you want it set for November? I guess is my thought of [clears throat]

you know what what I would like is just to table it to the next meeting personally and then if we need to kick it but some some of the things that I would ask our city planner to help and is figure out some ideas on size of buildings for IM1 and the definitions of IM1 uh of the uses because it's so broad right now that you I mean it you could have a 100,000 square foot building in IM1 running 24/7 [snorts] and you know I I I think people need to know what they're moving next to and the same would apply to IM2 and and and some of the others we have some pretty good ideas what we have for general commercial and MU and and CC DC and you know that type stuff.

Uh yeah Tom we can certainly do that. We we have been looking at definitions and trying to [clears throat] figure out what makes the most sense for INM1. Certainly anything we come up with would be more restrictive than you know but having something solid and some something that would be good for staff and residents. And I own IM1. We can try to get you some ideas. Several acres of IM1. It just of these people kind of made a dent in me out in the valley that were saying, "Hey, this I am one, what the heck, you know, maybe what we ought to do then just say let's tackle I am one um you know,

sure at a time." I think two things and I thought this is Amber did her presentation too and that is is that some of it comes up naturally like the swimming pool thing. it's a good time to say, "Okay, hey, we need to make an adjustment here." Rather than try and go out and identify every potential out there. Others, maybe it's like Tom just said, Donna, it's helpful to say, "Okay, here's something that's representative of this."

Yeah. And we've poked around a little bit and you'll you'll see definitions. I I don't know if it was St. George, it'll say something along the lines of INM1 is manufacturing but consisting of existing parts, right? Uh maybe so, you know, you're just putting components together. I mean, we certainly have uses like the plastics plants and stuff out in port 15 that are certainly far beyond, you know, putting widget A and B together, but I think that would be a a good exercise, you know, for the commission if this is where we want to focus. um what makes the most sense in these two zones and we can try to come back with some ideas and certainly look at other cities and

try to put some on the screen for you. I think it's important and then Tom you have some thoughts about building materials that we'll talk about. Say that again. You had some thoughts also about building materials that we can you can focus you can focus on next time. Yeah. Yep. Yep. All right. Anything else from the city? I'm sorry. Are you tableabling that item as well to next meeting? I just apply for that. Tom made a motion for those. I can't instead listen to myself anymore tonight. [laughter] I'll second. All right. Okay. Well, that was good. I didn't mean to.

Meeting adjourned. Thank you everybody. Stop talking. Yeah. When is the next meeting? Uh, skip.