City Council - workshop

Okay. Good morning, everyone. I'd like to call this meeting to order. Miss Huerta, would you please call the roll? Mayor Palat Guajardo? Present. Council members Roland Barrera?

Here.

Sylvia Campos? Here. Eric Cantu? Here. Gil Hernandez? Here. Kaylin Paxson? She's gonna be a little bit late, but she will be here. Everett Roy?

Here.

Mark Scott?

Here.

Carolyn Vaughn? Here. City manager Peter Zanoni? Present. City attorney Miles Risley? Here. Mayor and council, a quorum of the council and the required charter officers are present to conduct the meeting. Thank you, miss Huerta. So this morning, we are going to have a a briefing. It's I'm sorry. It's water shop. We're gonna go from now 10:04 straight through to 2PM. We're gonna hold our questions. We're gonna hear the presentation through. So I ask council members to write down your questions.

Then we'll go back if typically what we normally do is we have every council member gets, you know, two different opportunities up to five minutes to ask questions. If someone needs a third opportunity, I will allow that being this is a very important subject. So today's presentation and discussion, this is the item, regarding the City Council approved drought contingency plan to include policies that address water supply, water availability, demand conditions and drought stages. Topics for the discussion are going to include an update on water supply demand scenarios, recommendation on baseline water use by customer classification including multifamily, recommendation on curtailment percentages, recommended allocation by customer class, free adjustments or drop surcharges, I'm sorry fee adjustments or drop surcharges, review enforcement provisions, car washing, flushing motorboat engines, watering vegetable gardens, potted plants and other landscape, analysis of residential account growth, city swimming pools and splash pad for summer operations and community and stakeholder engagement. So we have quite a bit to cover today.

And like I said, we're gonna go through the entire presentation and then the council will go into question and answer. Did you have anything mister Zander?

Just one other thing, Mayor. That's a good overview. So some of the material today are policy issues that need council voting or consideration of a vote. So, some of these items, and Nick will identify them as we go the presentation, will be on the City Council meeting for the twenty eighth for next Tuesday. There was a placeholder put on the agenda yesterday that went out, but by tomorrow we'll have briefing memos and more material council to review. So some of the things like the curtailment percentages and reaffirmation of surcharges, those items and a few others will be on the council agenda, the business meeting next Tuesday, for action. Perfect. Yeah. Just wanna yeah. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. Nick, go ahead.

Good morning, mayor and city council. Nick Winkelman, chief operating officer, Corpus Christi Water. Before we start this presentation, I do want to thank the city staff, including many departments, not just CCW who has worked very hard and worked over many weekends to put this information together, and we'll continue to do so as we work through this these issues and this drought of record. Additionally, I also want to thank the CCW staff, which continues to work day and night to ensure our water supply is safe, secure, and resilient. Some third people that I do wanna The other part of the team is our professional consultants.

And I wanna thank Some of them are here today. Corollo Engineering, Mr. Jeff Stovall, PhD and PE, is here today. He's helped us, and him and Michael Pinckney from Corollo continues to help us with the updates to the dashboard. They've helped us with data analysis as we work through the various customer classes, so we're very thankful and appreciative of them as well.

Today, as the mayor introduced, we will talk about the an update to the water supply dashboard and the demand, our recommendations on baseline curtailment and allocations, and I will define those each of those three terms as they are all very important. We will discuss strout surcharges, enforcement provisions, and of course, our community engagement approach. If we could, let's first talk about our updated dashboard. If you recall, the last time we talked about the dashboard, we provided a number of different scenarios to help us identify when the projected date of the level one water emergency would occur. The ranges of the time frame, they range from as early as May to the most optimistic case was never hitting the date of level one water emergency.

We've worked with Corollo, with staff, to put together and update this dashboard, and we're excited to show it to you today. Couple of things that I do want to reemphasize. The level one water emergency date is when we are projected to be one hundred and eighty days or six months away from not having enough supply to meet our demand. Doesn't mean we don't have water. It means we are one hundred and eighty days where the current supply doesn't satisfy the demand of all of our customers.

So when we look at the updated dashboard, and it's on the next slide, there are certain assumptions and parameters, so I do want to go through those. So the updated dashboard assumes no inflow from rain events in our Western reservoirs. We know that has changed, and I'll give you some updated percentages just from today and tomorrow. It assumes a 20% curtailment from Lake Texana starting in August 2026. That is the date that we were provided by LNRA last week when they were projecting Lake Texana to be below 40% reservoir capacity.

That projection also assumed no inflows into Lake Texana. We are optimistic that they will continue to see some beneficial rain today and tomorrow. It assumes the Nueces groundwater program continues to operate, but we know the production can be limited due to the TCEQ monitoring plan that's established in the Benham Banks permit. Another variation nuance that I wanna make everyone aware on the dashboard, This assumes that the conveyance line from the Western Well Field to Owen Stevens is online in December 2026, which means that 24,000,000 gallons a day will be pumped directly to Owen Stevens. And that's important because then we don't have to We're not affected by the 7% carriage loss in the river that typically we see, and then we're also not limited by the conditions of the Ben and Banks permit.

The remaining water would then continue to go into the river. It also assumes the use of reclaimed effluent starting in November 2026. I do want to point out that our partners who we have effluent reuse contracts with are working very diligently to improve the completion dates of their project, and they're trying to move those projects forward as quick as possible. We're very appreciative of that. This is our updated dashboard model.

As you can see, the projected date of level one water emergency is now September, September 2026. A couple of things to note on this graph, and I know we've seen this a number of times, but let's just review it. The top line, that is our demand curve. You can see the pink dots on the right side of that top line. Those are the offset of demand due to the effluent reuse projects.

So that lowers our demand curve. In essence, it lowers the amount of water that we need to have available to meet that demand. The dark blue lines, those are the Western reservoirs. The light blue bars, that is the Eastern supply, which again is Lake Texana and the Lower Colorado River. The orange towards the bottom, that is the Nueces County well field program.

You can see the increase of that water as it ramps up throughout the year. And then, of course, in December 2026, you see that increase because that's when that conveyance line is built and operational, delivering the water directly to own Stevens. A couple of things, and I know we are all watching the weather more than we ever have. So we have seen some beneficial rain. The Western reservoirs have increased from 7.8% to 7.9%.

That's combined. Please note that it does take time for the impact of rainfall to be seen in the reservoirs. The beneficial thing about the rain over the last couple of days is it's more of a long duration rain, which helps saturate at the ground. We've seen one CFS increase in the Atascosa River just this morning, so that's good news as well. And then the Lake Texana LNRA has reported this morning that Lake Texana is at 57% capacity.

Those are all good things. I'm hopeful that the rain that we see today will see even a more increase in Lake Texana over the next day or two. I just want everyone to remember it's not an immediate thing. We've got to wait for the water to get to those reservoirs. The line at the bottom of the graph that sort of cuts through the Nueces County wells, that is the percentage of the Western Reservoirs.

And you can see how those continue to deplete. And and we all know that the water quality from the Western Reservoirs continues to deteriorate in terms of TDS and arsenic as those reservoirs deplete. It's certainly unprecedented time that we're seeing in both Choke Canyon and Wesley Seal Dam.

And, Nick, just make a comment on Evangeline. We know it's not on here, but yeah.

Yeah. That's correct. So one thing to note, yeah. Evangeline, the Evangeline project is not on here. There is a the preliminary hearing is April 28. That's a week from today. We hope to have information on how that will proceed after that preliminary hearing. I can't tell you when if we get it immediately or or a week or so after. That depends on the administrative law, judge. Certainly, any new water supply projects like Evangeline adjust this curve.

The target continues to be that we receive beneficial amounts of 4,000,000 gallons a day from Evangeline in November if we can get permits by the May. The other thing with the support of this council, construction continues on that well field. Pipe is being delivered, sites are being cleared, and we will begin the installation of pipelines at the April and the May. All of that is done so that we can get that 4,000,000 gallons a day starting in November. And then the Evangeline project, water comes online sequentially over time.

So we'll additional water each month after that. But again, it all depends on the permits, and we'll have to understand what happens at the preliminary hearing, which is April 28. I'd like to go over some definitions. These definitions are important when we talk about how we're gonna mitigate this situation. So baseline usage is the determined water usage of each customer class to establish its allocation.

So the baseline usage, the note I wanna make is this is usage under normal circumstances. So it's baseline usage is usage of that customer under normal circumstances. Curtailment is the required reduction for us to always have our water supply meet our demand. We do not ever want our supply to not meet our demand. That provides a whole another set of issues.

It results in fluctuating pressures. It may result in boil order notices, those are things that we are working towards every day to avoid. In the allocations, that is the amount of water that customer may use per month during the level one water emergency. Typically, talk about curtailment in percentage. It's a percentage reduction from the customer's baseline.

The important number for all of our customers to understand is the allocation. If you hear a percentage reduction, that doesn't mean a residential customer has to reduce what they are using by that percentage. It means their baseline is reduced by that percentage. So it's one thing that's not appropriate to say is everyone has to take a, for example, a 25% cut in what they're using. The established curtailment provides the reduction from the baseline, which results in the allocation.

I'm just trying to make that very clear. So one thing that all of our customers should understand, and the important number for all of them, is the allocation number. Let's talk about our residential customers. Of course, that's a very important customer class. The fixed baseline for all of our residential customers is 7,000 gallons a month.

Approximately 13% of our 91,000 accounts currently utilize more than 7,000 gallons a month. And please remember that the curtailment percentage, that would be reduced from the 7,000 gallons a month. The the goal for this is that the curtailment would be triggered at the date of level one water emergency. This will be one of those council actions that the city manager mentioned at the start of this workshop. Will I will talk more about it as we get later in this presentation.

Some more information on our residential customers. The graph at the left shows their historic usage. It's clear to see that the impacts of the restrictions from the drought contingency plan among the community is evident. Certainly, I would think a large portion of that is due to irrigating and the inability to irrigate at this point. But you can see the continued usage of that class has dropped over the last couple of years.

One of the questions that came up at the previous workshop is the number of residential accounts and how they have grown over the last couple of years. This chart does show the amount of accounts that we have. The increase from 2022 to 2025 is 2.4%. And the average annual increase over that time period is five twenty nine accounts. Thing that I do wanna mention at this point is in the previous workshop, we did talk about what a moratorium would be on new meters, and we went in detail on that process, and essentially the ineffectiveness of a moratorium on new meters.

I want to reiterate that city staff is not recommending at all a moratorium on new meters. During our last workshop, there were a number of questions on multi family units. Multi family units can be very difficult. One thing that we need to understand is that the usage of a multifamily unit can't be lumped into one box. Sometimes there's 10 units, sometimes there's 20 units.

It's very difficult. So what the staff has done is looked at these units to set individual baselines, looking at historic usage. Previously, we had talked about utilizing meter size. There can be a huge fluctuation in meter size, so it's very important to look at actual data and their usage. The recommendation is to look at a period of record from 2021 to 2023.

That is a period where, again, look at baseline as normal usage. So we know in 2024 and 'twenty five, there were serious cutbacks due to the restrictions from the drought contingency plan. So we would look at that baseline, the period of record of 2021 to 2023, and we would remove the lowest value in each month to come up with a monthly baseline that would be used for this customer class for multifamily units. One thing that staff has talked about is if I'm an owner of a multi family unit and I have 10 units, and maybe during that period only five units were filled, and now 10 units are filled, so the historical data may be artificially low, there is a variance process, and that's later in this presentation, slide 47 or so. We would recommend, if that's the case of any multifamily unit, they put together their data and they submit a variance request.

Here's an example of a one inch meter for a multi family commercial customer account. Again, you can see how their usage has also dropped. Next customer class that we wanna talk about is our commercial customers. Again, this is a similar approach. Previously, we talked about looking at commercial customers utilizing the size of their meter.

But we've got to understand size of their meter isn't necessarily representative of the amount of water that they're utilizing. In fact, the meter size can have huge variances. For example, if you look at a four inch meter, that can provide as little as 10 gallons a minute, or up to as much as 1,200 gallons a minute. So if you set commercial baselines on meter sizes, it would not be appropriate. So again, we need to look at historical data.

The process would be similar to the multifamily. We would look at the data from 2021 to 2023, with the lowest value of each month excluded. Again, that would be utilized to determine an individual baseline of all our commercial customers. Attached are some examples of commercial customers. On the left is a threefour inches meter.

On the right is a three inches meter. I think generally, you can see that the amount of usage does decrease over time. One of the things that I just want to reiterate is the amount of water and how it differs through different size meters and the variability in that. So we absolutely feel it's more appropriate and the right thing to do to set up individual baselines for each of our commercial customers. The next customer class is our wholesale customers.

We've listed our wholesale customers on the slide here. These are customers that CCW sells water to. They take the water, and then they have their own set of customers that they deal with. They have their own set of customers, which may include a set of large volume users, it may include a whole set of commercial users, may include a whole set of municipal users as well. And it can get very confusing.

So what I really want us to understand today is that we need to focus, as CCW, on our customer classes. We've reviewed residential, we've reviewed commercial, and now we're looking at our wholesale customers. As you can see, we've got Eight wholesale customers, and they are listed. And to just further my point regarding the complexity of our customers, and I apologize, the graphic on the left is a little bit complicated. But as you can see, the city of Corpus Christi supplies water to many different entities who then have their own set of customers, who then have their own set of customer classes.

One thing I do wanna point out on this slide, you do see the city of Three Rivers. Three Rivers is not a customer of Corpus Christi Water. However, we do have an agreement regarding the Choke Canyon Reservoir. Three Rivers does pay for a portion of our operational cost of Choke Canyon Reservoir because they benefit from the reservoir itself. That is the red asterisk that's on the slide.

When you look at large volume users, and I think at this point in time, we have to understand the large volume users. One of our wholesale customers, San Patricio Municipal Water District, has a number of large volume users. They are listed on the right of this slide. These customers are not Corpus Christi customers, they are customers of San Patricio Municipal Water District. So they will be affected of how we implement wholesale allocation to San Patricio Municipal Water District.

However, it's the business of San Patricio Municipal Water District and any of our wholesale customers to understand the effects on their customers. The exact same thing can be said for South Texas Water Authority, for Alice Mathis Beeville, Nueces County WCID number four. Port Aransas. The drought contingency plan does have a prescribed process for setting the baseline for our wholesale customers. It's detailed in the drought contingency plan.

That detail shows essentially that the previous five years of data would be utilized to come up with a monthly baseline for all of our wholesale customers. Staff has been looking at this rigorously, and we know that this process isn't the most appropriate. The reason it's not the most appropriate is because of periods like COVID, periods of the addition subtraction to their customers over that five year period, and of course the long duration of restrictions that have been seen. Again, I just wanna reiterate the definition of baseline usage. That is typical usage under normal circumstances.

If you look at the last five years, unfortunately, there hasn't been five years of normal circumstances. I'll definitely point to COVID during that time frame. Working with professional consultants, our modelers, our stakeholders, we feel the most appropriate approach is to develop an alternative process to develop to provide baseline numbers for our wholesale customers. This alternate approach looks at data from 2022 to 2024, And again, the lowest value from each month would be excluded. And it also has seasonality.

We absolutely understand that our wholesale customers have to deal with seasonality. Establishes a baseline, annual baseline that's divided into three seasons. Summer is one season, spring and fall is another season, and winter is the third season. I'm gonna give you some examples here that better show the point that we're trying to make. This slide is our wholesale account with the San Patricio Municipal Water District for treated water.

The blue bars are their usage. The dark blue line, that is how the baseline would be established using the current drought contingency plan approach. The orange line is more appropriate, and that is the approach that I've outlined in the previous slide, where we would look at three years' worth of data, subtract the lowest monthly total, and come up with a seasonality allocation. It's in you know, I do wanna take the time to remind everyone that this is establishing a baseline, and the allocation will be less than the baseline, depending upon the curtailment percentage. So this is not an allocation chart, this is a baseline chart.

As you can see, the orange line is more representative of typical usage for this customer, San Patricio Municipal Water District, but this is their raw water accounts. Same approach, the blue bars are their usage. Over time, the dark blue line is the baseline established in the drought contingency plan. The orange line is the alternative and recommended approach. You do see some variations in this, but overall, again, the alternative approach maps out to typical usage and what the definition of a baseline is.

Next customer is the South Texas Water Authority. And I have one of these graphs for each of our wholesale customers. And you can just see there, again, the bars are their usage. The dark blue line is the drought contingency plan method, and the orange line is the establishment of the alternate baseline method. City of Mathis, please note the city of Mathis, they're taking water from Lake Corpus Christi, but you can see the variances there as well.

City of Alice, they are also taking water from Lake Corpus Christi. You can see the variations in their usage. A lot of that has to do with when they are filling their in town reservoir, which is Lake Finley. City of Beeville, Violet Water Supply, Nueces County, WCID number four. Of course, they provide water solely to the city of Port Aransas.

One thing one thing to note, and and I I do want to talk about this, is you can see the reduction in usage, and you can certainly see where usage during this historic drought has changed. It's certainly changed, it's evident in this graph here for Port Aransas. The next customer class that CCW has are large volume users. Those large volume users are Sitco, Flint Hills, Valero, Javelina, Calpine, Lyondell, Celanese, Coastal Bend, Y Grade Logistics, essentially that's Phillips sixty six, STX Beef, and the Naval Air Station. For consistency and working with the stakeholders of our large volume users, we've agreed to the method to look at historic data from the period of 2022 to 2024.

It's the same thing as our wholesale customers. We're setting up seasonality because we know operations are different in different seasons for these customers. We remove value of each month. That is due to operational decisions. It might be, in this case, it might be a plant shutdown.

It might be repairs they're making or upgrades. So again, we are looking at, we're trying to develop the most appropriate baseline for all of these customers. And again, baseline is their normal usage during typical time periods. I will go through the data for each of our large volume customers. The charts are the same for each of these customers.

You can see on the left is historical data, in the middle is a seasonal evaluation, and on the right is the establishment of their baselines. So you can see their chart under the historical usage. The chart in the middle shows the seasonal evaluation. There is a blue line in the middle of the boxes on the chart on the top middle. That is would be where their baseline resides.

And then on the right of the slide is their established baseline usage. So we show the baseline usage in million gallons per month. It is shown within those three seasons. Again, it's summer, spring, fall, and winter. We've also showed the annual average per month, and then also the annual million gallons that would be used over the course of a year.

I do want to just continue to reiterate, because that this just establishes a base from which we reduce from. Next customer is Flint Hills Resources. The slide is the exact same. You can see the seasonality, the allocation set up per season. You can see their annual allocation and also their annual allocation for the entire year in millions of gallons.

The evaluation, again, the charts in the center show where the baseline resides within their typical usage. And you can absolutely see there is definitely seasonal fluctuation in their operations. Next customer is Valero. Can absolutely see the the same setup in this case. Avalina.

And especially as we come across Flint Hills and Valero, it's important to note that they, and maybe just to reiterate, I stated earlier that they are working very hard to deliver their reuse projects ahead of the original estimated schedule. We have Calpine, followed by Lyondell, Followed by Celanese. Coastal Bend, Y Grade Logistics, which used to be EPIC, sometimes it's referred to as EPICs, but essentially it's Phillips sixty six. STX Beef. Then we have the naval air station as well.

So just to refresh and reset ourselves, this is the updated dashboard showing the projected date of the level one water emergency in September. Staff is working every single day to for this not to happen. And with the addition of new water supply projects like Evangeline, addition of inflows, the benefits of all the work that we're doing, the goal is to never get to this point. As of today, this is the date when we will be one hundred and eighty days from supply not meeting demand. So the goal of curtailment is to, when we get to that point, to ensure that we always have enough water to meet our demand.

Operating the water supply system, we do not want to ever be in a situation where demand outpaces our supply. So once you get to this point, you get to a point where you have to end up with curtailment. Working with our modelers and staff, the recommendation is a curtailment up to 25%. As you can see, if you compare this dashboard curve to the previous page, you can see what that does, and it secures that we do not get into a point where demand outpaces supply. In a steady and efficient manner.

So, when you look at our customer classes, that curtailment percentage is applied evenly to all customer classes against their baseline. So the residential class, if you recall, we established their baseline is 7,000 gallons per month. The curtailment percentage would be 25, and that would result in an allocation of 5,250 gallons per month for our residential customers. Again, the allocation is what's important. Currently, approximately 30% of our residential customers utilize more than 5,250 gallons per month on average.

It's 30%. Commercial customers, if you recall, were recommending an individual baseline. They would have to reduce their individual baseline by 25% to result in their allocation. Wholesale customers' staff is recommending the establishment of the individual baseline utilizing the alternative method. They would also reduce 25% from their baseline to get the allocation.

CCW's large volume users, we went through the establishment of that baseline, They would have to be reduced 25% from their baseline as well. As all of the city of Corpus Christi municipal accounts, we will look at each of the accounts, set up individual baselines, and they would also have to be reduced by 25%. What we'd like to do now is look at what this means in aggregate for each of the customer classes. Remember, our customer classes are wholesale, large volume, residential, and commercial. The black bar on the left is the twenty twenty five consumption.

The dark blue is the baseline. Remember, the baseline is established usage under normal operating circumstances. And then the light blue is the allocation. So you can see across each customer class how things are made up and where the allocations and the curtailment would be felt. One thing I do want to point out, Alice, Mathis and Beeville are wholesale customers.

However, they draw water directly from the lake. They don't draw water from the CCW distribution system. So the wholesale customers listed on the left do not include Alice, Mathis, and Bevo. Their take is determined upon the lake levels. So this is essentially the curtailment volume under each customer class, and the aggregate of all.

The curtailment across all the wholesale customers combined. You can see that it's 7,700,000 gallons a day. Large volume users 7.5. Our residential customers are below, their average is still below the allocation amount. However, I do want to point out, remember I said that 30% of our residential customers do use more than 5,250 gallons a month?

There will be residential customers affected. So it's important for our residential customers to understand that allocation total. Commercial customers, their curtailment impact is 600,000 gallons a day.

Nick, can you just you mentioned it earlier, but this is important across the headline that all customers will take a 30% reduction. This is not accurate. That's an inaccurate statement, as you said. So customers today that are already below the allocation will just continue their water use patterns without a 30% reduction. Is that right?

That's correct. They will not they will not see an impact. It's important to understand that the percentage, and we're recommending 25%, is taken off of the baseline and it results in the allocation. If you are, if any customer is using less than the allocation, you're already meeting our request. So if and just to clarify, so if a customer is using less than the allocated amount, they are not cutting back by the 25%.

The 25% just gets us to that allocation amount. Baseline minus curtailment equals allocation. One of the things that is absolutely addressed in the drought contingency plan is that of surcharges. I do I would like us to look at surcharges and allocation as something different. They are separate measures.

The surcharges are a monetary incentive. Allocation is when we allocate water, we tell you what your water allocation is. The goal of surcharges is absolutely to continue the encouragement of conservation behavior and, obviously, to reduce our water demand. Surcharges that are established in the approved drought contingency plan are up on the screen. For residential customers, it's an additional $4 per thousand gallons over 7,000 gallons.

So if you're a residential customer and you use 8,000 gallons of water, you're paying an additional $4 a month. You will see that on your bill. So the $4 isn't applied to the initial amount, it's only applied per thousand gallons over that 7,000 threshold. Commercial users, it's an additional $4 per thousand gallons over a threshold of 55,000 gallons. The non exempt large volume users, it's $12 per thousand gallons over 12,800,000 gallons.

Wholesale customers are an additional $4 per thousand gallons over 25% of the twelve month average prior to March 2024. When we think about the calculations and the determination, there's structure a for surcharges. This structure is clearly identified in the approved contingency plan. This is essentially how it reads. To the city manager's point earlier, this is an item that council will have to approve.

Staff recommends approval of surcharges and this is an item that will have to come to council for your approval. Enforcement provisions. The enforcement provisions, when we think about them for a residential customer, they're the same provisions that are in effect today. We do have some customers that irrigate illegally. They are issued citations.

It's the same enforcement measure if we have customers that are utilizing more than their allocation. The important thing to note is that CCW is looking for compliance. We are not looking to issue citations. We will always do our best to alert a customer to make them aware. I know our utility billing office tries to make a number of proactive phone calls.

Staff tries to engage our customers if they're home and available to advise them to ensure that they understand the rules and the restrictions. The enforcement. So CCW has three water code enforcement personnel. It's for the entire city. Code enforcement for the city resides under the development services department.

They have approximately 27 individuals on their code enforcement team. It's very, important for all of us to understand city staff has no enforcement authorization to work outside of the city. We don't enforce restrictions in other cities and customers that are outside our municipal jurisdiction. I alluded to this earlier, but the utility office will monitor accounts, will do their very best to advise if something looks out of whack. Our cause has always been compliance and not citation.

There are exemptions and variances. This process is established in the drought contingency plan. We absolutely recommend that there are situations that will come up. There are situations that need a variance, that have a certainly a logical variance would be required. We recommend that the forms are filled out as completely as possible, and any entity requesting a variance, just be as complete as possible, provide the information requested so that an accurate determination can be made.

As all of you know from the last workshop, car washing under level one water emergency is prohibited. One thing that we do want to say is that alternate water sources, captured water, water well, rain water, those can all be utilized for these services. When you look at the drought contingency plan, the use of water, it really applies to water from the CCW system. Water that is obtained independently of that system is essentially auxiliary water and can be used to its benefit. I know that recently our rain barrels have sold out, and we know the city is utilizing rain barrels, and we know over the last day they've all filled up, so we're very glad about that.

Question that we definitely want to clarify is the flushing of motorboat engines. So the washing of boats as prescribed in the drought contingency plan is prohibited. However, the flushing of motorboat engines is not prohibited by the drought contingency plan. We do recommend if it's possible to when you flush your motorboat engine, if possible, capture the water and reutilize it for another cause. But again, the flushing of motorboat engines is acceptable.

Under level one water emergency, the irrigation of landscape areas is prohibited. What is acceptable is watering potted plants. This can be potted vegetable plants or potted any other kind of plants. The drought contingency plan does not allow for the irrigation of landscaped areas, which include vegetable gardens or fruit trees. Alternate sources, auxiliary water can be utilized to fulfill this demand.

Swimming pools and splash pads. So when you look at swimming pools, and I'm just gonna read it for clarity. The filling, refilling, or adding of water to swimming pools, wading pools, Jacuzzi type pools, and hot tubs is prohibited except to maintain structural integrity. This is from the drought contingency plan. We know that pools are a significant investment for homeowners, and we know if they aren't filled, there could be structural defects occur to that pool.

That is the intent of how the drought contingency plan was written. And with that, I'm gonna turn the next slide over to mister Michael Dice, who's gonna talk about the city operation of our city owned pools.

Thanks, Nick. Mike Dice, interim assistant city manager. So with the city swimming pools and splash pads, we are looking to reduce operations of all the city pools, but maintaining all city pools being open. Splash pads will be a similar process to what we had last year. It would be open, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, again, with some reduced hours. Ultimately, all city pools will have, covers, and we already utilize an evaporative prevention method in the water itself. And those pool covers should be delivered within the next three to four weeks, so we're being proactive in that. And that plan will be coming out soon.

Yeah. Michael, just go go over that first bullet again. So the each of our pools has different days that they were open last summer?

Correct.

So that same daily schedule will be in effect this summer?

It'll be exactly the same with just the reduced hours.

So we'll reduce operating hours by about 25%?

Correct. So we can get those pool covers in place, especially at peak times to make sure we're we're not having the evaporation.

Right. So, like, West Guth Park last summer was open five days.

Yes.

Bill Webb was open seven days. Correct. Just those are just two examples. So West Guth will be open five days this summer. Yep. The number of hours in that five day period will be less. Yes sir. Thank you.

Thank you, Mike. So we've also worked with our communications team to develop dates for information sessions throughout all of the districts. The approach is very similar to our budget information workshops that we host every year. And what we've done is the communications team, and we're thankful all of their hard work is they've established the following dates as shown so that our community can reach out to us and ask questions and gain insight. And as you can see, this is basically starting next month and will continue.

One thing to note, and I think these sessions are very critical, is we know, and I wanna reiterate, the water supply dashboard is dynamic. The dashboard presented today was finalized on Saturday. We know there are some changes. One of the most impactful changes could be additional supply and inflow to Lake Texana. And if you recall, that dashboard has a 20% reduction starting in August.

So if that gets pushed back, there's gotta be updates to that dashboard. Our commitment is to provide this council and our community an update of the dashboard a minimum of every thirty days. It may be less than that if there's significant events that affect the dashboard either way. All that being said, I think these community information sessions are important so we can talk one on one with our citizens and explain the details of the dashboard. With that mayor and council that concludes the presentation and this the staff and and I we stand by for questions.

Thank you, Nick. Thank you very much for the exactly one hour presentation. Yeah. It's a great presentation. So I have some concerns regarding the resin well, a few things, but the residential part of this.

So the plan seems to be it's being applied uniformly in terms of residential. And so I don't see in in this presentation where we have a mechanism for our residents to be informed or to communicate or to know where am I in my allocation. And actually, let's back up. What is the allocation? So you have the the slide that shows the 7,000 baseline, 25% curtailment.

Mhmm.

Which equals what?

5,250 gallons per month.

Okay. So so my concern is this. Page, 44 shows that if you have a second conviction that could result in discontinuing your water service. That's extreme. I I could never support that to to to turn someone's water off.

If there isn't some mechanism outside of me walking out to my meter and writing down where I am, I feel like we're missing something here. These are the summer months. You have kids coming back from school. Mhmm. You have you have water usage increasing just because of household members, right, possibly increasing.

So my concern is the resident. How do I know if I typically use six, seven thousand, 6,000 gallons of of 6,000 gallons of water and and I'm being asked to come down to 52 and my household membership couldn't increase or just because it's summer too. How are we going to create a buffer to to help our residents know? I mean, they can't be calling in every day and saying, what's my what is my what is my usage today? I just think that's I think that's very important because I think, again, this is being applied uniformly.

And if you have special, you have older homes, toilets that leak. And and I know we're not trying to it's difficult to address every single thing. But the main thing would be communication, to to let people know, here's how we're gonna help you come go from your your your typical usage to what we need you to be at. And and I would strongly, honestly recommend that we propose a voluntary conservation program that empowers residents to better understand what their water usage is and gradually reduce that water usage to x. Right?

So we dedicate June, July and August to extreme education and outreach so that people understand. You may be conserving. They have to because of where we are today. But we're we're gonna ask them to move that even further. And if we start today and we ask them to abide by I mean, we'd have to create a program. I just think that would help them. I have a problem again with shutting off service altogether, not knowing the circumstance of of of what that may be. Go ahead.

Yeah. Mayor, and and I I think your comment, you hit it on the head. Remember, the projection for the date of level one water emergency would be September. The majority of the summer months would not be in an allocation period, and it does allow, just as you said, for time, for all staffs to work with all of our customers across all classes to ensure that they understand the things they can do to achieve that goal in the end. I think this is definitely a time period where every one of our customers needs to understand their their usage.

They need to understand their look at their their bill, what they're being billed for, and and because now is the time that we can start making those positive actions in preparation.

How are we going to do that? That's what I'm suggesting a program. Not what we do now. A a a very strong program to do exactly that. Whether I I for example, I use 2,000. 2,000 is two people in my household. Use 2,000 gallons. I should still be receiving and being educated on, you know, here's what's happening, even though it wouldn't necessarily affect me. I think that's extremely important. I think a program should be created. What is the I think we also need to know how many resident How many households actually fall under that 5,000 What was the number? Five thousand two hundred?

Two hundred and fifty. So, 70% fall under that.

70%.

Yeah. So if there's 91,000 I'm just gonna do the math right now. 91,000. 63,700 customers are currently below 5,250 gallons a month. Below? Below.

Out of okay. So And And

above it is 27,300.

Okay. So 27,300 households would be at risk could be at risk of being turned off if they violated

They potentially could be above the 5,250 allocation.

Okay. That's my concern. You you heard my my recommendation. The other thing I want to bring up here is the boats. I I vehemently disagree with not being able to wash boats.

We're a coastal community. We had 30 to 50 fishing tournaments last year and the economic impact there was 20 to $30,000,000 to this community or this this region. The average cost of a used boat runs 50 to $150,000 and the average cost of a new boat runs a 120,000 to $300,000. The cost to upkeep any one of those boats in that range is about 10% of that value. We can't we can't say you can refill your pool to maintain the integrity, the structural integrity of the pool, but you can't wash your boat off to maintain that same structural integrity of the boat because both are huge investments that people make.

So I I I disagree with this. I think this must change. We have to figure that out. Thank you. Councilwoman Paxton.

Thank you, Nick, for your presentation. Super information dense. I appreciate it. I, for one, super appreciate how figures based on some of those large volume users towards the back. So thank you for providing that.

I think what I'd like to know is looking at those graphs that you have around page 19 and forward to some of those large volume users where you have a dark colored line that represents the current drought contingency structure for baseline, and then you have an orange line for the proposed new formula.

Do

we have a chart similar to that that demonstrates the same year usage trends in the residential class?

We right. I don't I don't have well, if you go back to let me go back to let me pull up the slide. If you go to slide seven, and maybe we can bring it up on the screen. I'll bring it up. Let's see.

Slide seven. So it's in a line format, it's not in a bar chart. But you can see this is the annual usage of the residential customer class for Corpus Christi Water.

Do you have a printed one that we could put on the little light next to you? Because I just have some questions to point out on that one. I I don't think people could see from mine, but if you look at the years '25, '26 2024, we had started some drought restrictions, but they were still early. So I'm I'm more looking at '25 '26. If you could kind of point to that 5250 line in the chart, and I know we can't do that on the screen. That's why I said if we could do it on the on the little light.

Yeah. He's drawing on it right now, and then we'll put it under the the sky cam.

Let's see if that'll work. Yeah. He's good. Yeah.

He's good.

Thank you.

Yeah. Please please excuse the

The master notes.

It's right up above your neck. There you go.

Awesome. Thank you. Yeah. That's a great line. Okay.

So, yeah, the black line is approximately please keep in mind that

just And, Nick, put that speaker on right there so people can hear. No. The one right by yeah. There you go. Okay.

Yeah. The the black line is approximately 5,250 gallons a month, and this is the residential class average usage.

So this is current usage according to the blue line.

Correct.

So that black line is the proposed new curtailment line.

It's the new allocation line.

Thank you. Allocation. So my point being, as you see it go through the other years of historic data, if we were to apply this to those, similar to the charts we have on page 19 and forward, it's not quite the same metrics. They don't seem to add they don't seem to translate to both the same. On page 19, if they can show that up on the screen real quick for your actual slide, And I'm not picking on page 19, I'm just using that one because they're all pretty much the same or similar.

The blue line is the drought contingency plan, and you can see the usage bars. The blue dips below the usage there. The orange, there are some peaks that it dips below, but for for most of that orange, all the usage is below. So that's why I'm asking on the residential side if we have a chart that looks like this. Because if this is a proposed baseline establishment structure, it's different from how we're applying it to residential. So the the line you drew makes me believe that our current the majority of our users are already well below the fifty two fifty.

70% of the residential customers are. 70%. 30 percents or above.

What I'd be curious to see is what that recommendation could look like if we're actually mirroring the process on these stages for that customer class. Does that make sense?

It it it does. One thing to and you alluded to this, councilwoman. So stage two restrictions was March 2024.

Mhmm.

So that's you know, we started getting you know, restrictions were coming on. Changes were made. You can see that in the data. Stage three went into effect December 2024. So the thing is that the residential customers were making those restrictions already, and that would be evident if proceed with that sample set. I agree. Just just to clarify.

I and I think that if we look at this chart versus that one, you can track though that percentage drop across the peaks and low points of usage. You see how it's a much different structure. So I say that I would like to see what that would look like.

So and just so I'm clear, you would like to see us run the residential numbers using the same baseline methodology as what's shown for our wholesale customers?

Would that be very difficult? Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So what what in what Esteban told me is the the 7,000 is basically that that orange line. It would be the orange line in the new graph. But I understand what you're asking. We can do that.

So my next thing, on this 52, what we what the messaging that we're saying is 7,000 is the baseline. I think what we need to do is kind of embrace that fifty two fifty if that's the if that's the target, because what I still hear, even though we've said it throughout several meetings, what does that percentage mean, what I'm still hearing is the 7,000. And I think part of that could be why we're still hearing that confusion, because I still get a lot of questions if I go, you know, if I if I'm not you where am I gonna be charged for use? So I think that we should be very vocal about that number, the 52. What I also think is if on our actual utility bills, when we start this process, maybe for the first two or three bill cycles, include in there, show our math.

This is our this is how we got to the 52 number. This is your snapshot bill. You usually this is your average, and this is the reduction type of thing as a residential user. And then I do think we need to develop a resource for q and a so as the community has questions. Because we hear this all the time, but we still have questions. They don't hear it all the time. And we can establish what I'd like to see is a real good guideline on our customer service protocols. When they ask these questions, here's their resource, and here's what we say. Those kinds of things.

And, councilman, I I I guess I wanna underscore that. The the allocation number is absolutely what's important. Today, we wanted to show you how we got there. But then going forward, that's the critical number. Yeah.

Councilman Cantu.

Thank you, mayor. First of all, cutting the hours of the pools, I'm not for that. I mean, Corpus Christi has issues right now with gun violence for kids and cutting hours for pools, you know, I think that's that's just out of line. It's not the family's fault. It's not the resident's fault that we're in this situation.

And cutting back on hours on pools and and splash pads is is not a good idea for this community. I think a lot of children look forward in the summertime to go to the pools and especially the brand new pool that Gil Hernandez built. It's a it's a it's a beautiful pool, you know, and and cutting hours, it's just it's not right. Second, these surcharges, I just feel that the residents are the ones really paying surcharges. What a large volume user uses over 12,000,000 gallons a month?

Because my understanding, what I see, really, there's ExxonMobil. It's the only one, but everybody else is below that.

So, councilman, when you and I am glad you brought this up because I wanna be clear about it. If if you look at the the page I just brought up, which is page 25, these are our large volume users. Every one of those, except for the bottom two, pay the drought surcharge exemption fee. So under level one water emergency, on their large volume accounts, they will not pay a surcharge. One distinction I do wanna make is some of them have commercial accounts as well.

Those are smaller meters going office building and things like that. They will they would pay surcharges on their commercial accounts if surcharges are approved.

I just feel that the residents are just taking the heat on it. I mean, I'm just it's always the residents who has to pay or not water the grass or whatever the case is. You know? Like, you know, it just it's upsetting. On on the on the commercial accounts, what does the average user for a restaurant uses a month for as for water? Do you know?

You know, I don't I don't have that information with me. I do know there are variances in restaurants. And a lot of it has to do with not just food service, but the amount of business they have. So I can get you that information, but I I don't have it with me today.

Where where are we with contracts for the refineries? Do we have any are we still working on the contracts?

We are hyper focused on contracts, especially in regards to reuse, because that will directly offset our demand. So this this council approved some some excellent contracts with Valero and Flint Hills. We are currently working with some other large volume users to further utilize our wastewater effluent to bring those water supply demand numbers down. So that's that's critical because that helps us all. And we the one thing I can say is we're fortunate because they can those customers can take large volumes of effluent water, and we're we're not forced with having to treat effluent and use it as potable water like some cities have to.

Back back on the pools, what was the hours you guys were considering?

I'm gonna let mister Dice.

So we were looking at a 25 reduction to kinda mirror what the level one emergency would have. So as an example, most of the splash pads, eight to eight, it would be a reduction to nine hours in that day. And we'd probably focus on those peak hot hours to have that open at that time. But, again, it's just looking at how we can make those reductions. In the pools themselves, we already have the evaporation preventative. We have the pool covers going in. So we have some things that'll help prevent that as well, but we're looking best management practice.

Are you guys gonna put a cover over the pool? Like like a like a like a

No.

No. No. Just the pool itself.

Not

not as like a like an indoor or shade structure. Not it's it's actual pool cover. Yeah. Goes out great.

I just feel that, you know, that's that's the wrong direction to take. I mean, we have an issue here in Corpus Christi with gun violence with children, and and I think we need to keep our children at safe places. And, you know, a lot of a lot of children don't have the luxury to have a pool behind their house or go to Six Flags or whatever the case is, and they look forward to the summer times to go to our pools and stuff. And I just feel that we need to make sure we keep those pools open. And I got some other questions while I come back with my next time. Thank you.

Councilwoman Campos.

Thank you, mayor. Well, this truly highlights what residents have been doing all along, which is we've been saving. We've been saving water. We've been doing our part. What it also highlights is that what heavy industry has been using, which is, you know, go on as if there's no drought going on.

But, you know, of course, that's my regular soapbox. But at least now people can see it on the graph. So every time that that we get a presentation, it's always about us, about residents, how much we have to cut back, like on the pools. I think I asked you, you know, how much water do we actually use on splash pads? And I asked you I I didn't ask you about the pools, but I still would like to to hear that because I've heard a number as to one of these industries that uses they could cut back twenty minutes and it would be the the same type of amount of water used for one or two of these splash pads. So can you confirm that?

Correct. So splash pads use about 300 gallons per day.

300 gallons per day. Okay.

Total usage with splash pads and pools for the seventy one, seventy three day summer season is about 1,800,000 gallons.

1,800,000. Okay. And just one. One just I don't care which one you pick, but just one of the heavy water industry users. I don't care which one. Which one do you want to pick? And I'm not trying to pick anybody, but let's go with javelina. We hardly ever hear about javelina. How much do they use?

So they are excuse me, councilwoman. It's it's like 2.5. Right?

How many?

Jeff, can

you answer that part?

A million gallons per day is what my neighbor just told me. Is that about right, Nick?

Yeah. It sounds about they're lower they're user.

Yeah. So, 1,000,000 gallons per day. That's just one of them. Because I know the other ones use way more. And I know that Gulf Coast Growth Ventures, I think, uses like, I don't know, 12,000,000 per day.

So, you know, just night and day, how much water they use in comparison to what us humans use for our consumption. But okay. So thank you for letting us know how much water our pools and our splash pads use, 300 gallons per day. I also wanted to ask about the let me see. I wrote down some page numbers.

Oh, I already mentioned about how the residents are already consuming a whole lot less. And evidently, because we're consuming a whole lot less, it's being used by other customers because it's not saved. You know what I'm saying? We're we're allocated 7,000 gallons per day for what? 66,768 customers? But we're not saving that, are we?

So it's so it's nine so we the total number of residential customers is 91,000. I don't know where

I got the 66. That yes. Thousand.

That's roughly 70% of the of the 91,000. So 70% of our residential customers use less than 5,250 gallons a month. So that's where that number came from. We we have approximately 91,000 residential accounts.

Mhmm. Times 7,000? Because that's how much we're allowed, right?

So again, that's the baseline, and we should focus on the allocation number. The baseline subtracting the curtailment amount gets us the allocation, and that's the number that we need to focus on. And when we get to level one water emergency, and you can see it in the presentation, all customer classes are affected by that reduction.

Which we are. We've been yeah.

Correct.

That's why now we're focusing on the 5,200, because that's about, you know, with that reduction, where our number should be at. Or where it Yeah.

Right. You can see the, in terms of total volume, the amount of reduction provided by wholesale wholesale and large volume far exceeds any other customer class by magnitudes.

Okay. I also wanted to ask you about the I guess page 43 maybe, or where you're having the community involvement. Why is it that District 2 is like the last one for one thing? And what exactly is are we expected to receive for these community water information sessions? What are we looking at?

How I envision it is we will provide an update on the dashboard Mhmm. An update on the date of the level one water emergency, an update on our water supply projects, and we will be absolutely available to answer any questions that any of our citizens have.

Well, I was just checking to see if District 2 still has the highest population of all the districts, and the last I just read was, yes, we do. So why would we be the last ones? We have over, I think, 66,000 oh, maybe that's where I got it. 66211 when the last redistricting was done, but yet we're the last one, and I see that Districts 1 received two sessions. District 4 also has two sessions. But yet District 2, being the last one, only has one. There something Am I missing something?

If I could just comment, I'm not responsible for the dates of the sessions, setting them up. I will tell you that this procedure follows our budget workshops, which we did last budget season as well. That's a good the the setup has worked, and and I think the plan was just to

Well, I think it needs some looking at. I think we need to change some of these dates. I think that District two are very, very much involved, as you don't know if you pay attention to our public comments, but I don't think that's satisfactory and I think we need to change that. Let's see, page 47. Okay. Well, I'm glad that the like I said, our our our residents are really good about, you know, saving water. As a matter of fact, you mentioned that rain barrels were sold out. Yay for us. But does that mean we're going to be receiving more rain barrels?

There's another order placed.

Okay. Do we know when that'll be expected?

Okay.

So so just so everyone can hear approximately 500 rain barrels will be delivered either Monday or Friday. Okay. The dates depend upon shipping.

Okay. Sounds great. Thank you.

Councilman Hernandez.

Thank you, mayor. You excluded the Evangeline project. Pending the court case later this month. Correct?

Well, we excluded the yeah, we excluded the Evangeline project because we don't have the drilling and the transport permits yet. The preliminary hearing is set for April 28.

Okay. That being said, if we included it back in, how much would that delay the the curtailment or the announcement for water emergency level one?

So I I don't have that specific date, but it would absolutely push it back into next

Into the next year. Yeah. Into the next year. Okay. Would Evangeline would continue to provide more and more water as time went along, all things being equal.

Correct. It's a progressive approach. And as those wells come online, it makes its way into the system and continues. Continues.

Okay. And then for reuse and I'm just I'm using your memo that you had sent out on Friday. Yeah. Okay. For for time frames of when water is delivered. So you have the Evangeline groundwater delivering 4,000,000 gallons initially in November, and then a million in December for a total of 5,000,000 for this year. Roughly, maybe a million or two difference. Right? You also have reuse with Flint Hills Resources having 1,000,000 gallons associated with their project at Allison. Now we had a conversation about Valero and their productivity in getting the waterline. And you said they would probably have that by the end of this year.

They are moving as quick as possible. I know within the next couple of weeks they're having material delivered. I don't have firm dates from them yet on when construction will be complete, but they are they are they are working as hard as they can.

You have the the volume for them being in December 2027.

That's the

re the reason I bring this up because when you were on vacation, Wes was up here talking about when these things were projects were going along. He said that we should have our line from Oso to Greenwood complete by May of next year.

The yeah. The the engineer, Ardura, has estimated by May, the project will be completed. But I you know, we haven't awarded the CMAR contract for that yet. Once the CMAR is on board, we'll because then you'll have construction and the engineer working together on an established date.

Can you relook at your estimates for volume in your memo for the next week to make sure it aligns with when you get or you're projecting projects to be completed?

I I will update that after I get in I will request input. So a couple of things. So the Valero is a Valero project, so I'll get updates from them. Okay. And Flint Hills, I'll get updates from Flint Hills. The Osota Greenwood, I'll request another update from Mardura. Yes, sir. Okay.

Yeah. Alright. So I'd like to say that what you're projecting here, if all things go well with Evangeline, will actually be pushed into next year, so this won't. This is just worst case scenario.

It Yeah. Because think think about, you know, the the inputs you've got, the 20% reduction in Lake Texana. You're assuming no inflows into the Western Reservoir, which it's raining now, so that's good. But we're not getting the kind of rain we need. So

Understand. Understand. Okay. So I want to kind of go back into your how you're doing the allocation and then surcharge structure. It seems to me outside of residential allocations, you have each commercial, wholesale, and the rest of them as individual baselines, but your surcharge structure does not match that.

The surcharge structure is what's in the approved route contingency plan. No, I understand.

Yeah, we

just Are we gonna change that to reflect baseline? Because it seems like, to Councilman Cantu's point, each restaurant is different in terms of how much water they use on particular baseline. Like for example, if you have like a Golden Corral that has dishes that they wash, versus a McDonald's that throws away that has paper goods. You may have a different usage in terms of what their water usage is on an individual basis. Same thing with large volume users.

They have individual baselines. It should it's it seems to me that their surcharges should be based on the baseline that they're doing, not some arbitrary number that is selected, that we did through the drought contingency plan. I think we need to review that to where it's on an individual basis, which leads me to the issue that I I came across with the exemption of water emergency that we that are is kind of implied through the language that's in our current, drought contingency plan. And I asked for the individual, contracts that we have for, the drought surcharge exemption. And come to find out, we only have two contracts for that And what you had sent me, Peter, there was Valero and Equistar.

All the other ones don't have contracts for the surcharge exemption fee, which and what I asked for it for was because I'd there was nowhere that there was any language that it was exempt from stage four or from water emergency. And even those two contracts between Equistar and Valero don't match. They're different languages, which was kind of a little frustrating on my part. But, you know, it from this the specific language here was in some cases kind of identified in our drought contingency plan. And I'll read it.

The fee the city agrees to the fee may be adjusted no more frequently than every five years by the city council. City acknowledges that the company's timely payment of said fee, the company is exempt from the city's water allocation surcharge of city code section five five dash one five four for the month of billing and curtailment of water during reservoir system stages one, two, and three, except when such curtailment is required by Texas Water Code section 11.039 or required by other applicable state laws or state regulations. However, this agreement does not prevent the city from allocating water supply in the event of a water emergency shortage defined by TCEQ regulation or city ordinance. So I think we need to look at that language a little bit closer because it's not this isn't matching up. And I want to be very clear here and it should be the surcharges should be by baseline of what they're actually using and give them credit for what their baselines are.

And, you know, how however it's calculated, not by some arbitrary number. Thank you.

Councilwoman Vaughan.

Okay. First of all, I wanna thank the citizens because they we ask them to conserve and they have. They worked really hard. They stepped up and they were responsible. And thank you for all the work that you've done as well, Nick, and your staff, because I know y'all been working in mister Sonone nonstop on this. Let me ask you something. I'm sitting here listening to this about all the users, different users that we've got. Why isn't the city of Corpus Christi listed as a major water user?

Are you referring to the chart where we list the different customer classes?

I'm just referring to the city of Corpus Christi. Why they're not I don't see them listed in all the things that we do. I'm thinking where are they listed? We've got residents. We've got commercial. We've got industry. And by the way, I do think industry has stepped up. Some people don't, but they have reduced their water consumption as well. I'm talking about the city of Corpus Christi. Because if we're going to ask the citizens of Corpus Christi to step back and make all these sacrifices, then we need to lead by example.

Right. So on on page 39, we will be reducing our water usage by 25%.

Okay. Well, let me ask you this though because I've got I'm gonna ask you to do something because I think that it's important that the city do this for the cut the citizens of Corpus Christi. Can we ask the city to compile and publish a list of their facilities? I'm talking about public public safety, city hall, everything, all the owned facilities that we have, and include their usage, irrigation, parks, everything that we do, and and publish it monthly so the citizens see it. They have a right to see that because we use a lot of water. I don't know how much. I'd like to know. Do y'all have any idea?

Yes. We do, councilwoman. It's a million gallons. Is that right, Jeff? Well.

Yeah.

Okay. So our current usage is less than 1,000,000 gallons a day per month.

Okay.

And one thing that I wrote down your request. One thing I do wanna say, there is water utilized in some of our treatment processes. Again, I'm speaking for Corpus Christi water. There's there's potable water utilized in some of our treatment facilities as well. There is also potable water utilized at our odor control at a number of our lift stations currently.

And that's good. And the citizens need to see that the city is conserving. That's my point.

Yeah. Well

Let's lead by example and show them that we are as well. Of the things I wanted to ask you is because when I had the meeting with y'all yesterday, y'all had a different take on the pools. You were gonna actually close some of the pools and leave some open. What happened?

After meeting with several council members, mayor I mean, sorry, councilwoman Vaughan, We decided to keep all the pools open. Okay. Then, actually, we got feedback on such meeting a few weeks ago individually, like councilwoman Campos had concerns on closing one of the splash pads. So it seems the prevailing sentiment of the council supports keeping all pools open. And so that's why we changed our recommendation from yesterday.

And, you know, I get that and understand what you're saying, Eric. I do. I understand all of that. My point is this. I just think we need to look and see for sure what all the uses of the pools are because you've got some new ones, you've got some old ones. The older ones, I would think, would be harder to shut down and start back up than the new ones because of the equipment, the parts, and all of those things. But I just think you still need to look at it and just see. Yeah. I don't know what they wanna do. I don't wanna shut the pools down, but when you get to a situation like this, everyone's going to have to sacrifice.

And our pools, all the things that we get to do right now, that's entertainment. Water is a necessity. It's not gonna be pretty for what we have to do, and I don't wanna do it, but everybody's gonna have to make sacrifices. Everybody is. And I think if the public sees that, I just think you need the pros and the cons of open in them for certain errors of the day because I'll understand you wanna do a pool cover. So that helps us with evaporation. But if you're open in the heat of the day, what good does that do?

Well, I did. I in in, you know, Mike, has he they have an analysis of all the pools and how much water they use. I don't I don't know if you want to speak to that.

As stated previously, basically, the seventy one, seventy three day summer usage is about 1,800,000 for all the pools and splash pads. So what the pool covers do is, again, it's another method of preventing the evaporation. We already use chemicals in the pool to help with that. So we're just trying to layer those preventative measures to limit what we're losing to the sky or or whatever it may be. So layering that and, again, the suggestion of the limited hours was another possibility to help with that water usage.

Because we wanna send leave them open. I understand that. When you send me that list, I'd like to see the individual pools.

Yes, Some

of the others might want to as well. Mayor, I'm gonna have some more oh, no. No. No. The surcharge. That's what I was gonna ask you. The surcharge, is that just for one, two, and three? Let me find my notes. For stages one, two, and three, it's this the emergency doesn't count. Does emergency one count when you have to go to that? Where your exempt the exemption for the surcharge? Or is it just for stage one, two, three? It just needs to be clarified so the public hears it.

So the the exemption from from the paying the surcharge fee, and it's it's a called a drought surcharge exemption fee, is applicable even in level one water emergency. However, they still get allocated. Those customers paying that fee still get allocated.

So those are in the contracts. That's you agreed to that?

That that is the, we've had legal review it, and that is the the legal review and the the the opinion that we've been providing.

Okay. Just needs to be clear so this the public understands that.

But but it is important to note they will be allocated, and they are making up a big portion of the volume, that we have to, curtail by.

Okay. Thank you.

Councilman Scott.

Thank you, councilwoman. I had that same note that they're still paying the drought surcharge fee during level one. Right? So they're still paying it, which is good for the rate payer, good for the rest of us. I I tell you, I did think that the that they would have to pay overages, that's the wrong word, in level one, should they use more than than the allocation. Right? I just thought I thought that I thought that was the way the system set up. Obviously, you say I'm wrong, and I'll move on. Hey. We're gonna have a conversation about rate impacts at some point.

Is that today? We are.

But that the shoe falling after lunch? Or

Not today, but the in May. We're we're gonna bring a midyear review of rates k. Which is unusual. And so we're not gonna wait for the budget to talk about rate setting. We're gonna recommend rate increases in a few months.

Because it's you just have to. Right? I mean Absolutely. Cost we gotta pay, and if we're all using half, then still gotta make up I think the bondholder still wants their money, last I heard.

So Right.

Okay. In

May. In May, June. Right?

Okay.

Yeah. Late May, early June. But the rate where we're gonna recommend rate rate adjustments go into effect, this is our recommendation. We still need to hear from the council in October year, not January.

My big note was I support the alternative approach to the wholesale water provider allocations. Is that the right so anyhow, you've asked, you're gonna bring that back in an ordinance or something?

That would have

to be an ordinance change, yes, because right now the drought contingency plan approved by ordinance has the five year averaging, and we wanna recommend this one.

Well, appreciate that work. And I think it's you know, my my point would would have been that we wanna treat everybody fairly and to the best of our ability. I think we're doing it. I think there's some a little consternation over in one of the entities, but that's a conversation for me, for us for another day. Hey, how do we track can somebody tell me how to track lake levels? You can do that later. Murad mentioned that yesterday.

You did.

Somebody just instead of me texting you every day going, hey, How we at? How we at? Where where we at? It'd be nice to just say, counselor and public, you can go to these three websites and see

There's just one website. So it's called water data for Texas. Yeah. It's by the Texas Water Development Board. I have it on my phone as, a, you know, hot app, but water data for Texas. Just type that in. It's a real nice feature by our partners at the Texas Water Development Board. And you just click on the location, it tells you pretty instantaneous what the level is.

And is that what we use for Lake Texana's numbers?

So no. So, LNRA, of course, manages Lake Texana. The LNRA's number differs slightly from what's on the Texas Water Development

We like theirs better. It's a little higher normally. Their

number is about 2% higher on most days. It averages that. And how And send me a weekly or a daily update on where they're at.

Could you Is there a way we can track that on our own? Or do we have to get that looked at their website.

Know, might be on their website. I just don't know yet.

I could not find it on their website this morning, but generally speaking, that doesn't mean anything. So if there is a way, just let us know. So if it rains, like there's rain in the river, does that generally allow us to put more of our well water in the river? Because it's all about the the TDS levels. Is that what?

It it it's all about the TDS levels. I would say generally, one thing that I do want to bring up is that, of course, we all know there's a Calallen Barrier Dam, and if you get rainfall between below Wesley Seal Dam and in front of the Callalan Barrier Dam, it provides water to the river. And so we need to be very careful. And that's another reason we would adjust our well pumping.

Which you're

So we're not letting the So we're not allowing the water to go over the Got Al Allen Barrier Dam.

I missed that. I I think, counsel, I think our conversation needs to be with our our beloved partners in Austin, about the 15,000,000 gallons a day that we're leaving in the wells that could provide relief, based on our current TCEQ, permits. I mean, we're spending a lot of energy and I I get it. We're spending a lot of energy on what happens when we hit that level, but I think we also want and people are making comments. What can we do to avoid getting there?

And if based on the current conditions of our TCEQ permit, we're having to leave as much as 15,000,000 gallons a day in the wells. That just seems like a that that's bad for the for the for the citizens. I I I don't I I get more of high TDS water in the river. It's not good for the river. But 15,000,000 gallons a day would go a long way to

them. Substance. So I do I do wanna I do wanna clarify that that number. So the the Western Well Field isn't fully built out yet. K. So today, we're not leaving that volume on the table. I can easily say with the Eastern Well Field, the max capacity is 10, and we're pumping four and a half or so. So we're leaving

5.5?

That's correct there. And then

tell again me when the Western comes on fully. I should know this.

So there's a couple of things, and it's in my memo, but the original Western Well Field, the two fifty acres, is scheduled for the May. And that's gonna be close. I will tell you, we will be running some wells on generators because the permanent power won't be fully there. And then it Ed Rochelle, that that comes in after that. And I've got it detailed in that memo.

Good for you. So but at the May, we should we we have the capacity to pump 16,000,000 gallons out of the Western Well Field.

The seventeenth. 17.

Alright. Let's say at the May, we have 17 and we don't anticipate being able to pump all 17, or do you feel confident we'll be able to pump all 17 into the river?

We're gonna see how the river reacts. I know what I can tell you is we've discussed this point significantly because it affects the dashboard. And essentially, what we've utilized in the dashboard is operating the well fields combined at about a 66% production rate. That's what's in the dashboard. Now, the river is very complicated.

The production of the wells, and I've said this before, it changes every single day so we can meet the monitoring plan. The other inputs into the river affect that. These streams, rainfall, and what's coming out of the lakes. So there's there's things that affect it either positively or negatively, so the the production changes every single day. We adjust for that.

But but generally speaking, you're we're gonna the dashboard has 66% of the 100% of water we think is available.

That's correct. Yeah.

That's correct.

And Ryan's looking at it. But which means 34% of that water is sitting in the well

That's correct.

While, you know, 70,000 rate payers or whatever it is, 90,000 connections are going, hey. So Yeah. And I get it would take a waiver from the TCEQ in some conversation. I'm not smart enough to know, you know, what that number might be. But I would think it would deserve a conversation with TCEQ going, hey, you know, when the lakes are below 10%, I mean, you gotta, you know, you gotta help us. And so that I just wanna put that pitch out to Yeah.

We agree, councilman. We I said it last week in my weekly press briefing, and Ryan's been helping us communicate weekly, sometimes more than a week with TCQ. So we're they have all the information that we can give them at this point. So they're we're waiting on TCEQ on their analysis. But we we're saying the same thing. We're leaving a lot of water, not in production.

Alright. Well, thank you. I I was in Austin last week and did not hear that that those conversations were going on. I did not watch your briefing. Full disclosure. Got a

lot going on

in my life. And I know you're brilliant. And I don't wanna take away I'm your brilliant

just saying we're making the points.

Okay. And to

the point where TCQ is is maybe a little sick of hearing from us. That's how which which was we're waiting for them to do their analysis.

Okay. I appreciate it. I think that's important for the the the rate payers. I will tell you, I think a pre enforcement notification process would be a good thing this summer just to kind of start prepping people. And I think I'm out of town, so I'll circle back around my remaining questions. Thank you.

Councilman Roy.

Thank you for the presentation. I want to go back. I've a couple council members have talked a little bit about when you look at the residential baseline being at 7,000. And you've you said that 13% right now use above 7,000 gallons per month. Right?

So one of the things I would like to explore the opportunity to see if maybe we could look into this is that if you've had a residential customer that historically, let's just say over the last couple years, has used over 7,000, I would hope that they're just not ignoring some type of, you know, commode leak or some something. You know, that there's there could be something related to that. And part of the reason why I'm bringing this up is I have had a couple phone calls where we've had residents in my district that have a large number of children, more than the average. Right? And so one of the things that I I always talk about when I hear somebody when they complain about their utility bill or how high it's been, is just to make sure, number one, that hopefully that they've looked to make sure that they don't have any leakage or anything of that nature.

And but what I was thinking is that, if possible, I would recommend that we allow a variance report to be submitted for those families. I think there could be situations where you have foster parents that may have a temporary increase in number of children in their in their household. That could be a very good valid reason for why they have been over. And you can see this statistically as far as their use. If they've used 9,000 gallons for the last three years, right, then there could be a good reason for that and maybe look at the possibility of allowing them to have a variance.

Let's submit the information at least to say, hey, this is the reason why. I don't even wanna get into the fact, and I don't know the legality of it, but, you know, you have some people that actually work out of their home. And and and so let's say that, for example, that they're preparing meals for people. You know? I don't know. Maybe they use an extraordinary amount of water. There could be a a very good reason behind that, and they're operating within the legalities of of what they can do. You know? But I think we ought to look at that, the allowing the residents also. Because we know, statistically, the residents have I mean, we're we're lower than 5,000.

Right? So that's just my suggestion on that if we could look into that possibility. I think it would definitely help with those families that have more children than the norm. Maybe they're an extended family, they got grandparents. Because nowadays with the economy, that's an issue. You have people that have their mom and dad or whatever move in with them. And I've seen situations where both sets of parents have moved in. And Mhmm. You know, so we need to take that into consideration, I would think. Yeah.

That's really my only you know, I when I look at our industrial partners and and the list, I thanks for providing that information. I think overall, our industrial partners have, also, lowered their consumption. I I there is one particular group that I I was following, but I think, statistically, part of that has to do with just the fact that that particular company was sold. It went through new ownership. They were shut down, and then I watched the spike as they ramp back up.

But they're one of the the smaller users. So I was just looking at that particular trend. The other thing is is I wanna make sure, because I don't know how this works, but even with our large industry users, they have multiple water meters, right?

That's correct. Mean, some of them have a large volume meter and some of them have commercial meters.

Right. So we have to also figure out how we're going to look at that in terms of making sure that what their total usage is. Because, for example, what if they have a building or a house or something like that that's technically under corporation? You know?

So so that would be considered a commercial account, and we'll we'll view it as a commercial account because that's correct.

Okay. Perfect. Anyway, thank you. Good presentation.

Councilman Valletta.

Thank you, mayor. Councilman Roy, good points. Seriously. What is it? I'd I'd like I'd I'd see that now where you have, you know, individuals, particularly foster parents who would have greater usage. Along those lines, you might want to think of churches and or convents as to what they utilize, something of that nature, and find out where we're at with there. You know, a couple of things. We didn't mention in here foundations just to for the public's sake.

Right. You're still allowed to water your Okay.

Yeah. I can't go over the rule. If you have time, councilman, the rules what are the rules? Somebody a council member asked me the other day. So we

So foundation watering is allowed? It's drip irrigation. With drip yeah. With drip irrigation.

Drip irrigation. Every other week. Week. Right? Every other week. Yes. Every other week with drip drip irrigation only.

Okay. Drip irrigation always make that clear. Know? Occasionally, I see I won't say which neighbor. I see them saying I'm watering my foundation.

Okay. Yep.

Anyway, you know, I know I know we don't have. At least where we pay our bill. It just basically tells us how much we use for the prior month. Is there any type of software? I'm just curious that that we've looked into that basically says what somebody's usage is? Necessarily in real time, but maybe the prior week or something?

So we have, and I wish implemented, it but it's not yet. We're working with IT to improve that ability for customers to log in and see their usage. The caveat I do want to point out is our meters transmit through radio. So there are times when you can have a car parked over a meter, and it will not transmit for the day. But then the next transmittal is for day two.

It may look like you're using an extraordinary amount of water, but it's actually over a two day period. So those are things we've gotta be very careful so people understand. So the totals are right, but it doesn't always, because of other issues, cars parked over the meters doesn't always transmit

Okay.

Daily. Well, I think that's a whole thing. I think if somebody could look on a weekly basis like on my on my electric bill, I get to see I get emailed what my usage is. And and and how how so that way I know what it is. And then we have yeah. And the same thing is is that for for some other properties that we have, we just we get those too. And so I think that would be if if there's a possibility do we have any idea when that might be implemented or rolled out?

I'll have to I'll get back to you with an update. But I know it's been talked about, and I've had conversations with councilwoman Campos about it as well. So I'll get back with you with an update.

I thought Peter had

Yeah. Right. So there are there are like, I I saw about two years ago, San Antonio San Antonio Water System encouraged their residential customers to buy a product made from Flume. It's made by the company Flume, F L U M E. And so it's real simple to attach to your water meter real time application that tells you how much water you're using, is your water on. So we need to work with that company to see if we can get discounts, we do some type of a batch buy. But that's just one device. There's many out there. So part of the question of what are we going be talking to residents about when we have these meetings, that's one of the things, is how can you determine how much water you're using? How do you figure that out?

Yeah. I think that'd be a useful tool.

Yeah.

Just particularly if there's a leak or something

like that. Well, that's what right now I use it for that, and it really has helped us out a lot in my household. Think Inadvertent leaks that could

I'm gonna call him out. I know Mark was having an attack last year when there was water all over his driveway.

Mark, come on.

And he said he and he said, but there was it was a leak. It was a leak.

You need one of those flume devices.

But but we had that same thing in another property that I have. We had a leak and you can just see the bill from last year. Yeah. That's the only time. And that was the only time they went over 5,000 gallons, by the way. Right. You know? And so I I I just I just think that that's the thing. And, you know, I I I wanna I don't wanna take away from the public, but, you know, the the different on the graphs is when we put in water restrictions. Yeah. You could see the graphs that, okay, you can't can't wash your car, can't water your grass, you know, can't water your shrubs, you can't do that. And that's what it is. I mean, I think now, I think the mayor has a good point. We wanna educate, we wanna get the community all on board and they understand. I think the majority of the community that has called me is says, hey, I get it.

I get it. And a lot of that, believe it or not, I know somebody might scoff at me right here next to me. But believe it or not, a lot of them wanna preserve it because they want industry to be able to have that ability to be able to preserve industry because they know how important the jobs are. You know, and so I think that's one of the things they know that we're all in this together and I've said on the radio numerous times. We've been a manufacturing community.

For seventy years. So we have to plan if we want to maintain that identity, we need to continue to utilize that. So, know, 25% reduction on me is a whole lot less and a whole lot more manageable than a 25% reduction on one of our high volume water users. The other thing is, and I'll use Alice as an example. Obviously, I know they've they've got two wells.

So they yeah. One one well is operating. The second well is not online yet. It should be shortly. I I don't know that

And I know we can't argue with their business model, but have we talked to them about if if they're gonna have what what level of curtailment or if they're gonna implement it? Because they'll they're I mean, I think Alice is only using about 2,000,000, maybe three a day. And their wells are gonna bring in about a million and a half.

Yeah, I I believe so.

Yes. And I know I know they they're good partners. I mean, I would admit they're good partners and they took us some initiative here. So I I think that's the thing. I know in particular Mathis and Beeville have already entered that. They're also digging wells. So are they going to once again, I guess that's the whole thing. I would just say we find out what it is they're doing. Because right now we don't know.

Well, math so Mathis is currently drilling a well. They're they are hopeful. I talked to their city manager just last week. They're hopeful to have it online by the May. Is there their latest target?

Yeah. But, I mean, they're not gonna are they gonna continue to curtail? That's my thing. Yeah.

That's my understanding. And and the the point is they're they're adding additional sources so that they can make up for the curtailment from the CCW system.

Okay.

So they can remain whole.

Yeah. That's my understanding. I I just I guess that's the whole thing. I I I just I just once again, I I just think we just need to reiterate, even though they're bringing their own sources online, that, you know, we're all in this together because it just they're still purchasing water from us. And I don't think they're ever gonna go away. I think that that's the whole thing. They still wanna have the system. Because once we get desalination on board, then what is it? Then that allows our reservoirs to replenish. And that's the most inexpensive water that we have available.

And that's the one we want to utilize. So, okay. Me see So, let if I had one other note here. How much time do I well, I have sixteen seconds. So if I come up with it already said foundations. Okay. Thank you.

Nick, I'm gonna go back to residential really quickly. I don't agree, Peter, that I think we should be asking our residents to purchase anything. I mean, I think that's something that we need to think about and how we can help be that buffer to our residents to know where are we, where am I in my water usage. I don't know what that is, but we have a call center implementing something, not asking them to pay for something, especially at this point in time. That's my 2¢ there.

Back to the boats. I forgot about the foundation. So we are actually allowing, right, which is rightful, the dripping of or watering of the foundation through drip irrigation.

Every other week. Yes.

Same thing with the boat because it's the structural integrity of the house. There is a structural integrity of a boat, of a huge investment that people make here. And I wanna say the number I I I don't have it right here, but it's amazing how many thousands of boats that are that are purchased here in Nueces County in the region. So maybe boats are part and y'all can figure that part out. They're part of a household usage if you store your boat at home.

And and again, y'all can work that out, but I really I can't underscore the importance of being able to wash down a boat because of corrosion and what it will cause. The we said the communication okay. I'm gonna jump over to commercial really quickly. What's the criteria and the limits that define a, quote, health and safety exemption? And what uses qualify and what uses do not under that under health and safety exemption?

So we've we've we've worked to better clarify that language in the drought contingency plan. We really need to look at every variance request carefully. And we will rely on Chief Wade to help us navigate through that. Obviously, I think we can think of the obvious cases when you talk about required surgeries in a hospital, things like that. Those are the easy cases.

There are certainly other levels where that could fall into. All I can say is that we're gonna work with Chief Wade and the Emergency Management Department to better understand that. In addition to working closely with all those customers who request that. It's really a conversation to understand their business, their operation. CCW does not you know, we we're not experts in operating hospitals or schools, and and we we need to understand that. And we we want them to present the facts to us.

Can I see my time, please? If you can leave that up there. Thank you. Okay. So that's something you're still working out. That's extremely important, I think, to many. That's correct, Nick?

Well, yeah. We will we're we'll take every variance request, look at it with due diligence to better understand it. We need to take everyone seriously and look at the facts presented so that there's no adverse effects across that would have a ripple effect on our health and safety support services throughout the region.

Okay. I'm gonna give you a scenario that I was given.

Okay.

And I'd like to ask about your thoughts and what is the answer to this. So if there's an entire shopping center on one meter and it uses, you know, a high amount of water, 100,000, 200,000

Okay.

Gallons. And you have 80% of it is say a laundromat, a water mill, and some restaurants. But no one uses above 55,000 by themselves. So who pays the surcharge? How do we go around situations like that? Because that that would exist across the city. Right?

Right. So the the meter is with one cuss in that case, the meter is with one customer. And we were looking at that one customer in the same manner as we look at our wholesale customers. Our wholesale customers have many customers also. They, just like that entity, have to manage their own customers. CCW wouldn't get further deep into their business to manage their individual customers.

So the the landlord would have to figure out

Yeah.

Who pays what? Mhmm. But he's the one that's gonna get the violation surcharge or what have you.

Because the accounts with the landlord.

With the landlord. Yeah. Okay. Alright. Thank you. Councilman Hernandez.

Okay. So this gets into what I was saying earlier. The example the mayor just gave doesn't work when you have an arbitrary number. Right? Of for surcharges.

For the surcharges.

Right. 55,000,000 gallons. Right? Instead of doing a baseline, which you have for allocation, a baseline. Right?

Yeah. And again, the surcharges, that is what's in the approved So we just we reiterated what

That goes to my question here. Is it you're gonna make change this this requires these changes require changes to our drought contingency plan. Right?

Mhmm. Yes. It's Okay. So That's correct.

Do when are we gonna see that language? And when do you expect us to vote on?

So we the the goal after this meeting today is to to work on putting this together. Our goal is to have the majority of it to council next week on April 28.

So you want us you you haven't shown us the language to the drought contingency plan updates, and you expect us to vote on it next week?

That was the goal.

I think you need to change your goal. We need a lot of time to talk about it because there's a lot of things that we haven't agreed upon here. One of it being mainly these arbitrary surcharges. Now I understand when we first did this last year, this was it was the best information we had. We didn't talk about baselines. We didn't talk about, you know, individual structures. I think we're probably need another week.

Yeah. That's fine, councilman.

At least to review the language so we can all be in alignment on it. I don't think one week's enough.

No problem. We can put it on for May 5, councilman. Maybe next week we could do a briefing on it's an interesting concept. We hadn't thought about it, to do the surcharges based on individual Baseline. Baseline.

Well, mean, I said, you have different restaurants that have different baselines of water usages, and you're going to have this arbitrary number that doesn't apply equally. Now the example she gave with one meter for the entire complex, their baseline may be different, right, for the entire amount. So you do the percentage based on the baseline of their usage. Now we have smart meters, right? The MCUs mean MTUs.

MTUs that we can look at their water usage on an hourly hourly basis. I've seen it. So we have the ability to do this, to charge them based on their baseline on individual basis. I don't know what the technology of that would be. I guess we'd have to ask Peter Collins to kind of put his input onto it.

If we can do something along the lines and and notify people of what their baseline is. Now I don't think you need to do that on residential side. I mean, if you're going to be using more water, it probably for if you have a swimming pool, I'm not going to I'm not going to worry about that. But I think when you're talking about businesses and livelihoods or, you know, you have a lot of individual meters for multifamily complex, you know, I'd you know, you you're gonna have to do it on baseline basis.

Yeah. Councilman, just to clarify, you you're requesting the surcharges use the same baseline as the allocation. Right? Right. Okay.

So if you're gonna do it, like, let's say, 25% allocation based on that, then that's what your level should be for your surcharges. Okay. Right?

I understand. Yeah.

Right now, and I say this for industry as well. If you're gonna have that particular thing, it should be based on their baseline. Not 12,800,000 gallons a day. Don't know where that even you know, doesn't make sense. It should be based on their baseline. Because some some industry won't ever make that. I mean, know, Javelina is what? Yeah. Or and this is on a monthly basis.

Monthly.

Month. Right? So you can only use 12,000,000 gallons a day in a monthly basis. Well, if they're using a million gallons a day well, they'll hit it halfway through the month. Right?

So I I think it should be the allocation and the surcharges should be based on their allocation, on their what their baseline is and then what the curtailment is from that. Same thing for wholesale customers. Now, it's going be an interesting way to have kind of go through this. Okay. And we can we can kind of address this offline to make sure we're we're aligned on it.

The I want to talk a little bit about what the city's water loss. In our last route contingency plan, was 77%, seven and a quarter percent. Where are we now?

So I'm gonna I'm gonna let Wes Nebgen, our director, talk about it. But I do wanna say that well, I'll let Wes cover.

Good afternoon. Wesley Nebgen, director of water systems infrastructure. We track it on a daily basis. Our current difference, we're gonna call it between what is produced at Owen Stevens through those measured through those meters versus what's measured through the 107,000 other meters in the city currently is around five we average between four and five million gallons a day difference. Now there are variations in there when you consider water loss.

It's not necessarily like we've talked about due to leaks. You're talking about meter inaccuracies is a big part of that. Unavoidable losses is a big point, part of that, which is considered in the water loss report. So we are reaching a threshold where it's actually, any more money spent on that would not give you the return that you're looking for. If you look at the calculations in manual on water loss. We are almost at a the leakage index of a one, which is what they consider the best.

So you're saying we're losing four to 5,000,000 gallons a day?

We're not losing. You're saying we're losing water as if it's leaking on the ground. That's we're not losing.

Well, you said water loss report, 45 It's

not a water loss report. It's a water audit. It's like an audit in so we have meters that come out that measure from Owen Stevens. Stevens. They go to a 107,000 other meters. So you check the meters that it measures at everybody's individual household against the meters as it comes out of Owen Stevens. So you have a natural variance right there. The meters, as they get older, register less water. We all know that. That's how they are.

Our meters are reaching 20 years old, which is why we have a CIP project right now in the book to replace them. That means as your meter accuracy decreases, they're registering less water than what Owen Stevens is registering pushing out. So that delta accounts for a big part of what you're talking about.

Okay. So we're not accounting for or losing it via just meter differences.

Not following your question.

Okay. So you're when your water audit says that we have a difference between the difference between it is four to 5,000,000 gallons on a daily basis from what is produced, from what is billed, or what is So it's a combination of what is lost through leaks, what is lost through meter inaccuracies. So it is still a loss in some aspect. Right?

Yes. It's a lot. That's why I asked. So are we talking about water loss through leaks? Are we talking about water loss through meter inaccuracies, theft, unmetered water that's not through firefighting, flushing, things like that. So there's a lot that goes into that report when we talk about water loss. I wanna make sure it's completely understood that we're not talking about water we're losing through leaks that's just being wasted.

I'm not saying it's being wasted. So we're we're I guess we're doing, what, a 109,000,000 gallons a day nowadays?

No. About 86.

86,000,000 gallons?

From Owen Stevens?

Right.

Treated.

Treated. So what?

That's On average.

That's what? Seven still 7%, seven and a half percent, somewhere in there?

The four it's around five because you also have to count. We have a million gallons that's fed back into Owen Stevens from that as well. That's not metered in that.

Okay. Owen Stevens That's clear as mud.

Water. It is. It it gets it the report gets really if you watched my water conservation report, I did a presentation on it, and it's there's a lot of inputs into this.

Well, I think we need to hold ourselves accountable for that water audit Yes. Difference. However you want to call it. We need to we need to hold ourselves accountable to make sure we're reducing

And and and to your point, I'll answer one final thing. Like, as far as what we estimated we lost on leaks last year that we knew of from leaks that we saw in the system was approximately 56,000,000 gallons. That's what we saw for the whole year that we estimated we lost in leaks.

Considering the AT and T contractors is burning their water lines, I think we need to recover that water loss from them.

Yes, sir.

Thank

you. Councilwoman Vaughn.

Thing that I'm concerned about, we're talking about the foundation and you have to have a drip irrigation in order to do it every other week. Well, realistically, most people don't have drip irrigation. I mean, it you can't afford to put it in. A landscaper usually does unless you're smart enough to do it yourself. So that's unfair to the ones that don't have it because your foundation is so important. So I wish we would revisit that and see if there's a way because I think some of them are actually doing it when they power wash their house. It's getting down in their foundation, which is pretty smart. But I just think, mister Simone, we need to revisit that.

Yeah. So the drip air you you could have a when you're describing this that's built by a contractor. Mhmm. There are another term for drip irrigation is a soaker hose.

Sucker hose?

Yeah. Soaker hose. It's just a flat hose.

Well, we need to make that clear because when I think of drip irrigation, think that what we've got that goes a lot along the line. They would not think soaker hose.

Right. Look. We can add language to this. A drip irrigation or soaking soaker hose that you can buy at Home Depot or Lowe's.

That's good.

Point. Yeah. We'll have to

Well, they just need to know that they can go get that and it doesn't have to be installed.

Right.

We're talking about leaks. Does the city have anybody, a group that monitors our leaks?

Absolutely. So we we have a very robust infrastructure group. We have crews that work and respond to leaks very quickly. In fact, I and I'll invite Wes to come up again to share some of the information, some of the great the first, the time it takes to respond, and then the time it takes to address the leak. So, Wes, I'll put you on the spot again.

So when we get a call through the three one one system, the work order is created. And from that point to the time that we respond to an actual leak is on average thirty seven minutes. That's when we have personnel on staff. Considering that a lot of times it takes an hour to drive across the city, that's pretty a a pretty good time frame. From that point, when we get it, it, we have the leak repaired in approximately six and a half hours.

And that doesn't mean the the pipe is leaking the whole time. That that's from the time we get the call to the time that they finish getting it repaired and get the water turned back on and back into service. So six and a half hours is is outstanding. You're not gonna find another large city that comes even close to us really on the time frame that we take to repair those. The other factor that is in that is we can't even start a repair on a leak until what line locates clear.

We have to wait two hours for that. That's for safety purposes to make sure there's no AEP electrical lines, gas lines, things like that before we start digging. So from the point that we get it to full repair is on average six and a half hours.

Well, I wish there was some way we could recapture some of that water whenever it's flushing out, and I don't know how you would do that. But, like, I've seen them when they do the hydrants and the water's going all over the place. Can they not recapture it by putting a tank or something up to their truck? Because we could use that water for other things. I'm just saying it's a lot of water when it you've seen it on the streets. We all have, and we get complaints about it.

Ultimately, you could do that. It's just a matter of time and money when it comes to doing, you know, those. Are you getting your return back on what you're capturing?

Everything's about money in

it. Yes, ma'am.

K. One other thing and councilman Roy talked about more than one person, basically, and different ones that use more water. I got a text from someone yesterday. They have seven people in their family. Well, they use 11,000. So that's huge. And so I think there and that's only 13% you're saying that uses above the 7,000. So I think we have to revisit that as well.

I I would, fall back on the variance process, and I would recommend that that customer submit a variance. What and the the reason I answer in that manner, councilwoman, is I can't we can't identify all of those circumstances. But if people bring those circumstances to us, there's a process to handle it.

And I appreciate that. And I think that if we do that, we need to make it really simple to the public, kinda like the soaker hose, so that they know what to do and how they can do it. And just be communicate really well.

I agree. Thank you. Completely agree.

Councilwoman Campos. Thank you. Okay. So so the process would be a variance to apply whenever you have unusual or extenuating circumstances. Like, I think I've been telling you since yesterday about our park adoption that we planted over 30 fruit trees, and they have irrigation or drip lines, but that is going to be affected, you said.

Yeah. How the drought contingency plan reads, you would not be able to irrigate them with CCW Water. Distribution water. They can absolutely be irrigated with auxiliary water sources.

Okay. So we would have to, I guess, get in line with some of the potable reuse water that people have used or use?

So there's the reuse water that's available at Oso. There's captured water and rain water. There's gray water. There's well water. Some people have wells, those kind of things.

Okay. I do have a question that someone sent me, and I did email it to you, but since I've got a little bit of time. The question was day zero estimates. When we are completely out of water, out of our Western reservoirs, what is the let's see It's a common metric. The reason I ask is because if you look at the reservoir drops over the past six months, it looks like we'd be completely run out of water within the next to one point five years.

So that's for both the Eastern and Western reservoirs. So do you have zero estimates? Like, how would you

If you go back to the dashboard, and I may try and put it on the screen. The the the purple solid line at the bottom, that's the capacity of the Western Reservoirs. So that's not referring to Lake Tex Ana, that's only referring to

To the

Choke Canyon and Lake Corpus Christi. But you can see how those percentages eventually go to near zero.

Okay. Mhmm. Hopefully, answered their question. Okay. That's all that

I had. Thank you. Councilman Scott. A

a note, Mayor. Flume Good. Flume Good. Carol's watching. That's big deal to her.

Right. And to Mayor's point, you're right. We need to see how we can help the residents even more. I know San Antonio had a discount program that they work with Flume, there's other applications, but just tell me from my own experience, it works great.

Yeah. It makes complete sense. Because Roland's right. We had somebody call, by the way. Wonderful. The city called and said, hey. Your water usage is up. We went, no. And then we called somebody out, sure enough, there was a there was a leak that we were unaware of. So I think I think Steph did a great job, by the way, on that. But if people buy those on their own, can they install them

through That's a great thing about them. It's easy, very easy to install. You just strap it around the pipe and that's it.

I'm gonna remember that when I'm in the back and water's going everywhere.

Your

wife will be proud of you when you get that done.

I have a couple of notes. My sense is there's gonna be a lot of you need a human infrastructure to handle the variants that are start coming your way. And so if if you need any council support for that, you know, I assume we have five people working in that department. I'm just my sense is there's gonna be a time period where you're gonna need 15. And so Absolutely.

Absolutely. And we're we're we're strategizing on how to best handle that.

K. I I do have a soaker hose on my foundation. I use a timer, you know? Ultimately turned it off because of the because of the days and times of the week, but we just go out and turn it on and and then go back and turn it off. So, yep, I'm a big soaker. I get I'm a big soaker hoax fan. Sounds weird. I have two final comments. I I'm interested is why are we add did we ask Texana to give us a water dashboard based on no inflows? Because I I don't know that they've ever not had inflows in Texana.

So that yeah. That's their their process. So so currently, after and the city manager and I have been working with their very professional team, and they, for the last couple of months, they've they've sent us weekly updates and estimates when they will be below 50%, 40%, 30%, 20%. And their approach and how that data's determined, is assuming no inflows.

That's interesting, because it's a very dynamic lake. What

we've come to realize, and what we've been told is it fills rather quickly and it it completes quickly as well.

Last thought. Thank you. I I appreciate you answering that. Last one is I I am critical of the no new water dashboard concept, but just so because I do think it's gonna rain, you know? Mhmm. Maybe we're used to getting 10 and we're gonna get one or three. But but to imply no new water, I think is is not gonna be an accurate result. So my my fallback is how often, you said it earlier, how often are you willing to update the dashboard?

Yeah, so to answer your question is, we are committed to updating it a minimum, at least every thirty days, and it could be more. So when the dashboard is updated, how we rationalize the data takes into account the actual data that we've seen in the current lake levels.

I think there's a lot of people that are gonna follow this, and and they're gonna make business decisions based on not having any water in September. And I think that's inaccurate. And so anything we can do to update it. I mean, think there's a lot of investment that is that is looking at this presentation. And I understand to be as conservative as possible, but I I think it lacks some reality. And so as it rains, if it rains in the next two months, which is our rainy months, I'd ask that we update it even more so than than thirty days.

And and just to clarify, I'm glad you said that. We know there's a lot of constituents watching.

So Yeah.

September is the date when we project to be a hundred and eighty days away, or six months from supply not meeting demand.

Right.

So as it stands in September, it it doesn't mean system pressures will fluctuate. It doesn't mean you know you know, all those adverse things don't happen. But but we are six months away from that scenario.

Right. I just think they're they've got pop cities in Texas they can invest in. And and do you do you invest in Corpus Christi if we're gonna go into level one emergency in September? And that's based on it not raining at all, which I don't I I don't think is historically happened, but maybe it has. I I like the old concept, by the way, which was you took the worst month of the worst year, and you that model. And I understand we went to the 24, and then we used 25, and now we're just doing no new water. So I'm not gonna beat up any further. I just wanna tell you I'm critical of that. That's not what I would done. And if we do have rain events in the next forty five days, I would ask that you to update it. Yeah. Alright. Thank you, mayor.

Yeah. We'll have we'll be monitoring the Evangeline issue next next week. So that'll be that could be a big update already. Hopefully so. That'd be 4,000,000 gallons we'll add starting in November.

Help from the TCQ.

TCQ is our partner and friends, and they're gonna help us out. So

Mhmm. Councilman Roy.

Nick, again, thank you for the presentation. You know, it's always good when I felt like I've learned a lot as far as some of the details and the mindset. But one of the things I want to just ask is that I know that you regularly meet with industry. And so have you had any and I'm sure that part of those meetings led to coming up with this plan, right?

That's correct.

Has industry or even some of the commercial users, have they given you any feedback in terms of the workability of this plan? Is this something that is it, you know, it's conceivable, but is it something that in reality would be able to be put in place and and and continue for them to to operate and and not harm?

So that's an excellent question, I'm gonna answer it from the CCW perspective. And again, CCW doesn't operate refineries, and we don't pretend to know how they operate. The experts are those companies. The indication that we've been given is that the percentage of curtailment leading to the allocation is is not gonna be easy, but they are all committed to working hard to meet that. And ways that they will meet it, it's it's a plethora of solutions.

Some of it is effluent reuse, some of it are measures they're doing inside their plant. It's all of these things coming together. What industry has said, they are committed to working towards that to meet the allocation requirements, and then also, of course, that results in them sustaining their operations.

Good.

Specifics have to come from them.

From an education standpoint, one of the things I did, I actually pulled up. We're pretty much empty nesters. I've only got three of us at home right now, but I'm but for about a month or two months, it's interesting that the timing here, two of my kids are my are coming back as they one of them starts vet school. Right? So he's gonna be here. And so I thought, okay. How's this gonna impact? Where am I at? And so I actually I pulled up the information to see where I'm at and and how much I'm using. And I had a leak that I it was a very, very small leak, but I had that repaired a couple months ago.

And I wanted to see how much it would change the volume. But I think it's good for consumers. I mean, we are doing our part and just being cognizant of it, being reminded of it, letting us know. I I think, you know, that positive reinforcement that if we did bring our our usage down from one month to another month to to be reminded about that. And I think all those things are really good.

But it's certainly I started thinking about ways that I haven't even put in place because, you know, I've got a 17 year old daughter, and sometimes I think she's probably using 3,000 gallons herself. But, anyway, those are all good things, and and I'm glad that we had this opportunity. And I hope that everybody tuned in and listened because we can learn. And, the takeaway from this is even though I think the residents have done well and I think most of industry has, we still can learn from this and continue to improve. So thank you.

Yep.

Okay, Nick, and everyone here, staff, everyone who put together this presentation, know that was a feat. Thank you. Councilwoman Peckson. Sorry. Thank you.

I do wanna just because I know that you look for consensus, I do wanna echo what council member Roy said earlier about case by case variants being open to those discussions for a special case, particularly residential. I think that that's really important. That was a good note to make. What councilwoman Vaughn said about being very clear with these different drought restriction levels. There's a lot of conflicting information out there, and we sometimes feel like, well, we have it listed and we've said it and it's black and white, but it's not because there's so much information out there.

And so I do I would really like to see and I just kinda jotted the notes down I brought up earlier. Something we can add to our bill, FAQ type SOP for for folks calling in and asking questions. And then I think that there's a lot of value to adding to potentially our website a section on auxiliary water source how to, if you will. Where do you go? What do you apply?

What's the structure? What's the process? Not that we're telling people to necessarily do that, but we're making it incredibly simplified for them to know how to do that. And then also I think there's something I think that we need to have a designated presence for our stance on the variants requests. I can I think we've talked about it a lot up here, but I don't know how far that's going to echo, but something to point people to in a positive manner and then providing some of those examples of what what we talked about here today?

And and then I did see that we still do keep on there that stage, each drought stage information on that, so continuing that as we move forward into the next stages. The rain barrels, I said it last time, I'll say it again, I really think that we need to look at a program where we're not charging carte blanche for those. I'd be happy if we even looked at some of the sponsorships we're doing around town and canceled some of those right now under an emergency type situation. You know? One event table could equal anywhere from 16 to to 24 rain barrels for people.

They're they're they're $50, but that's that's attainable. We have budget allowances for procurement, and I think I really would like to see that as a priority, how we can get these to people.

Currently, the rain barrels are, of course, they're like a net zero cost to the city. What we charge is our cost.

I'd like to take that charge away. As far as looking at our allowing our residential customers to protect some of their higher investments, I think your vehicle is a similar item. And if if a if a constituent would like to use a bucket, a handhold bucket, and clean their vehicle to protect it, we live in a salt air environment, and they're staying in their allocation, then I think that should that should be warranted. Somebody asked me that there's there's some comments circulating in the I think on our videos saying that the city mentioned we were gonna put liens on houses for noncompliance. Could you validate or deny that?

Yeah. We can deny that. We're not nobody in the city's ever said that, so it's probably

I just