Water Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay, so we'll call a meeting to order. One, two, three, four, five, six, Mickey's on line seven. So we have a quorum. So we can go ahead and do our business. We'll start with a roll call. This is a special meeting, so we'll just start with a roll call and then we'll get right into the work. So we'll start with Tricia.

Tricia Bernhardt, present.

John Tonner, present.

Clark Hamelman, present.

Don Langley, present.

Jim Morris, present.

Harold Smethels, present.

Evan Hila, present.

Mick Conway, present. Mickey's online. Great. Okay. Very good. Thank you. So this is going to be kind of interesting, for sure. So we have, I mean, we're at a, so Will's not coming today? So we'll be showing up. Okay, so he's probably, easy to say, probably stuck in traffic. But this is gonna be an interesting kind of take. We really, gosh, we're getting close to the end of the road on this water plan thing. We had the public comment, public session a week ago Monday, I think it was, a week ago Tuesday. before. Yeah, so whatever that works out to be. But the staff went to the fair, we had the open house. I guess that was before the last meeting we just had. We've got comments that have been mailed in, emailed in, dropped off. So we're at this point of, We want to try and absorb what the feedback has been from the public and try and assess whether that feedback leads us to do maybe some clarifications, whether it leads us to maybe do any kind of modifications. I would say maybe expand some areas if we think it's really appropriate to do so. And the way we've decided to try and go through this is we did send out two spreadsheets. Lauren sent out a spreadsheet, a couple, when did you send that out, the first one? Last Friday, that had all the comments that had been received. from the public in one spreadsheet. And then what we have in front of you, did you email us today too? So just the hard copy today. So the hard copy spreadsheet, we went through it. There were a lot of comments that were, I would say, kind of editing. We had one person that said, did a lot of, I'll say, kind of grammatical, straightening out some of our edits, words, terms of choices. I mean, it was all worthwhile. But those were kind of numerous when they came in the spreadsheet, so we kind of took those out. There are some that I took out of this summary spreadsheet that I thought were just not useful to what we're trying to do. One of them was a letter, kind of an open letter to Douglas County leadership and just kind of talking about what the Douglas County leadership ought to do going forward in the county. And I thought that was a little broad for the Water Commission. So we just kind of took that out, too. But they're there. You have all of them in your spreadsheet, the ones you got in email if you want to go back and look at them. And then the plan here is to kind of walk through it, walk through these comments that we've been sorted out and talk through a little bit and see if that either leads us to think there's something we should do to the report. if there's maybe any more editing we wanna do to that. Or is it gonna lead us to thinking about what comes next, like what's after the report? Next year, this time, are we doing something else? Are we doing some more evaluations? Are we running a groundwater monitoring program? I mean, who knows? But that's what we gotta decide we wanna do too. So I think there's two ways to look at a little what we hear here. We did get extensive comments from James Eklund. James is not here today. I was gonna tell him if he was that he sent a couple emails with some fairly extensive comments. Most of it wording, how to maybe work things a little differently than what we had in the report, kind of improvements in clarity, those kinds of things. So half of those we've gotten integrated in. There's another set that Lauren and I are still looking at, but nothing, Pretty subtle changes for the most part, but maybe it does improve the quality of the document a little bit. We did get extensive comments from Frank Johns. You all remember Frank. And so a lot of those were really kind of, I'll say, grammatical, technical, where figures had figure wrong and stuff like that. So he did a really nice combing of the document and helped us with that. And then he's got several comments on the content that some of them we'll talk about here today. Otherwise, we're still absorbing his comments and seeing them. I think I'm going to say for the most part, his comments are going to help us figure out what comes next more so than maybe trying to wedge something into the report. So I think that's setting the stage. And if you all agree and all feel like get your sleeves rolled up and ready to go, we'll start walking through this and see where it takes us. You want to do that? Yeah. Okay. And then you'll put the spreadsheet up? Yeah. Okay. So, yeah.

And then, Mr. Chairman, I do have one additional comment I would like to present at the right time. I've given copies to the people that are here. Yes, sir. At your convenience.

Yeah. And we'll talk about this. We'll pretend it's on the spreadsheet. Yeah, and I mean, it's still, everything's still open. I mean, anybody that wants to, you know, throw any more comments out or send emails or whatever, we're still, you know, in this last little bit of editing and stuff that's valuable and appropriate, we'll get in there, so. Lauren?

Ann, if you're online and wanna take it away on the presentation. Hello, everyone.

I'm here. Can you all hear me okay?

Yes.

Okay, great. Um, yeah, I wanted to provide as you guys are getting into the comments, I wanted to provide a bit of an overview of what we're hearing from public engagement and some of the activities that we've completed in the recent weeks. So I put together a little snapshot of that. Next slide, please. So in the recent weeks, as you all mentioned, we went to the Douglas County Fair. We were there for two days and interacted with about 120 of the fair goers. We had boards up. We shared postcards of information that had information on how to provide comment directly on the document, as well as accessing the survey that was on the website. And then we also shared information about the community workshop. And we passed out some native drought-tolerant wildflower seeds, which were a big hit. So people were excited about those and in general excited about the planning effort as well. And we heard similar sentiments during the community workshop. So we had about 60 attendees. It was at the Lone Tree Library. We had a more robust showing of information, different context, right? So a lot more detail there. People could ask questions on the various topics within the plan that were on boards. And then we also had the GIS tool that will be publicly available, shown on a screen. So people could go and ask questions, they could go to their specific location of interest and dig into the details of the data. And we had several people, primarily private well owners, who were particularly interested in that. And one thing that struck me across both of these activities was that we really heard a lot of excitement and energy for the planning process. I think if you're going to a community workshop, people know why they're there. They came for that activity of talking about this plan. But at the county fair, they're there to just have an enjoyable Saturday afternoon. So it was really interesting to hear that reflected in both settings. I think there's a broader community interest in this topic right now and excitement that this is happening. So that was an encouraging thing to see. Next slide, please. So, across and as I said, you know, similar sentiments reflected in both settings. So some engagement things that we've been hearing is that eagerness they really want to see water supply as a priority for the county. A good amount of concern for growth and the impacts that that has on water supply that came up very frequently in our conversations. as well as an understanding that this is a critical issue. So people do have some emotional energy about being nervous about the future of water supply and uncertainty about what that means for them. And then when we did share opportunities for action, they were generally in support of a very broad range of actions that would support water supply. I think you all are in an opportune moment with that community momentum behind you to be exploring this topic and be exploring what next steps you're all looking to implement to address this issue. Next slide, please. And so to put a little more detail to that, I know this is a bit small to see, but this was one of the boards that we had at the workshop. And we took several of the actions and then we asked people on the scale of not effective to very effective or unsure. how they wanted to see these things implemented. And as you can see, that darkest blue there is very effective. And that is where the majority of those sticky dots fell. So the numbers represent how many sticky dots were placed in any given category. And the first one there being expand water reuse. Uh, 2nd row being promote water wise landscapes. That's where you see the greatest energy. Uh, generally, um, with 24 people saying that would be very effective at a 27 total. Um, connect growth and water planning. I got 18 in the very effective. Make conservation a way of life. Had more responses kind of spread out across categories from somewhat to very. And then, and one unsure. And then strengthening regional partnerships. Also a good amount of energy there. Four said neutral. 21 said very effective. And then educate and engage the community. We had 19 saying very effective. Four saying neutral. And three saying somewhat effective. So some informed folks saying that water-wise landscaping is going to be very effective, I think, but yeah, you see, um, you see a good amount of energy generally, right? Like none of these were don't do them. Um, it was kind of do them all. So is the sentiment. So that was, that was kind of our snapshot of what we heard there. Um, in, in addition to the comments that we're receiving on the plan, um, I would, my big takeaway would be that there's a lot of energy for, um, for this effort and for next steps. and yeah for this one um you know incorporating those revisions so um in in the engagement section certainly i'll be highlighting the um the feedback we've heard and the energy behind that um in those summaries as well as the focus group summaries that were previously in there um you all will be reviewing and then recommending for bocc and then last comments will be through the water plant adoption into that final plan so as you've already mentioned kind of closing out those next steps as we head to the finish line if there's any questions happy to answer anything about our process any questions everybody good

Okay, well, thank you. That's a nice summary. So I understand James Eklund is now online. He's joined us as well. So we have three people online and Lauren and I deduced that the abbreviated spreadsheet that we handed out to you was not sent email. So if you're online, you should look in your email box and you should be able to have, you'll have the same spreadsheet that you'll be able to follow along. I'm sorry for the little delay there, but I think we got you.

Boy, it's hard to read, huh?

Can that be enlarged? DJ's on it.

Oh, yeah, there you go.

Okay. Okay. That's why we have hard copies, right? So anyway, we'll give this a go, all right? We'll see what happens. And so the first one is a comment that talks about the numbers of groundwater availability for the water suppliers and how those numbers, those availability, water availability numbers change over time. And when you get out to 2050, the point of this is that Although the supply appears to narrow on the data that we have in the report, what is not clear in the report is that a lot of water, a lot of supply, sources of supply have been replaced, groundwater has been replaced by renewable water, and that's both Castle Rock and Parker Water, very extensive replacement of groundwater. But the groundwater didn't go away. Groundwater didn't go away. So it's still a source of supply. And it's been moved into a drought status. And maybe there's even been diminished drilling, but there's still groundwater that's a source of supply at that time. So I think the point is, although we talk about how that gap has diminished, it really hasn't. And I don't know that that needs to be further articulated in the plan or if the way the plan sits there today seems to read just fine. So that's the comment number one.

Sean Tonner, I concur. I think we've got it covered. I think this is also making assumptions, you know, that we're going to zero, which none of them are at zero right now. Okay.

Okay. The next one is a little bit different comment because it asks, you know, I mean, these are the way they were written. So, you know, saying this is all fine and dandy is what we heard. But the question that's been asked is how often will the Water Commission come back to the public and update on the progress of the plan? And then also, when will the leaders be required to update us? So it's a question of, it reads to me like, well, okay, what's next? And are y'all gonna come back a year from now, two years, three years, or the Water Commission's still gonna be around? So I think that's a fair question. Comments?

I don't think we're ready to answer that question and put it in the report. That's for sure. But, um. I think that's something after we finalize this report, we need to have a spend a little time talking about. Do we just say goodbye or do we have some plans to follow up? But it doesn't go in the report yet.

All right. I think that's fair.

Yeah, Harold, I concur. I think throughout here, there's a lot of questions that really go into what's next. And that's a legitimate question, but I think that would come after. I think we need direction from the county commissioners and we need to, we need to huddle at some point in the future and talk about what's next. And that's a separate recommendation.

Mr chairman, this is, uh, and I don't think anywhere in the plan that we do mention that it should be. Reviewed or updated in some interval, like. 5 years or 10 years or anything like that and I guess. I'm wondering if we should make some kind of recommendation like that.

Yeah, I was thinking in section 10. That there was a 1 of the last things that was mentioned was something like an annual review. Does it does that ring a bell? I'm scrolling. It'll take me a minute here.

Well, pretty soon I would think of more like 5 year interval might make more sense, but. I don't know, I guess that we can see what people think.

Yeah, this is Sean, I would ask what is the consultant. see happening in arapahoe county el paso county and albert county as far as since they worked in those counties as far as their refresh of the plan but absolutely this shouldn't just go on a shelf and be a spot in time and then you know 30 years from now someone does it off and says oh well we hit that mark we missed that mark you know 20 years ago when we could have attacked it so i think that's also as a board um we should figure out with staff How best to communicate these recommendations or these thoughts to the county commissioners, because ultimately they'll be the ones giving the thumbs up or thumbs down on on what our scope is.

If you have your latest version, the 3rd paragraph. in the start of Chapter 10 says to support accountability and tracking progress, then it has some additional suggestions. So it's already in the plan.

You don't exist if you don't have a mic. All right. Yeah, I think that's all fair. And we'll talk to Forsgren too about what we see going on in Arapahoe and El Paso County. I mean, I know we've tried to reach out to El Paso County. I think it's been five years maybe since they've done their plan. It's really been quite a while. So I think that's a good idea to see what the other's done and maybe we can replicate that. So let's look at another one, the next one. And I know this is kind of tedious, but my view is people sent it in, so we'll take a look together and see what we can do. So the next one, I found out who DMAR is now, when I've been reading this. What is it? It's Denver Metro Area Realtors. So it's the realtor organization, organization of realtors. And so they're, I mean, they're asking for implementation standards to be clear, objective, predictable, review process for property owners and developers be transparent, adequate flexibility for projects and demonstrated long-term renewable water supplies. And the county closely coordinate with the existing water providers to provide avoid unnecessary duplication and conflicting requirements. So, like, okay. Yeah, I'm fine with that. Um, I think that's a, that's good advice. That's a, that's a fair ask. Um, and we'll try and as best we can accommodate that. Um, here's the next one on a white one. Oh, yeah, James go ahead.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I was just going to note that I was on a panel with Greg Fisher from Denver Water and Ron Redd from Parker in front of the DMAR contingent in, I think they were in the tech center. And that was last week. And they said that they had submitted some comments and were largely appreciative of what we were up to. So just wanted to add that.

Yeah, thank you.

The next comment is, if I narrow it down, essentially saying that the 2050 is too narrow, too soon, and thinking that we should be looking at 50 and 75 years out, which would be like 2075 and 2100. I think when we started this, we picked the 2050 timeframe and looking 25 years is plenty hard, I think. And so as we figure out what we're gonna do next, maybe that's to start saying, well, let's start looking a little further. But I don't know about you, but I'm satisfied that we picked a good timeframe. Does anybody else have a feeling? You think we should look further?

Well, my only comment is that a lot of the inputs into the plan went out further than that. You know, the Parker Water Plan, the Highland Ranch Water Plan, the Castle Rock Water Plan all go beyond 2050. In effect, you know, we are looking beyond that, but this, I think it wasn't at the Board of County Commissioners that said we were to do a plan to 2050. It wasn't our decision. And so we're doing that.

Okay. The next one is just a emphatic comment that Highlands Ranch, oh, wait a minute, wrong one. Yeah, this kind of repeats what was said on the first one that although the numbers don't show this clearly, there's still groundwater availability in 2050 for Highlands Ranch and Parker Water in particular.

Trisha Bernhardt, going back to the previous comment, at the end of his comment, he makes a good point, which is worth discussion. He says, if the predictions are true, there won't be any viable non-renewable water resources to depend upon on the future, needs to be emphasized in the report. So, he is basically saying, so where are you reading that i'm looking at the the previous comment at the end oh yeah okay i'm with you yep just emphasizing the need to say that more clearly in the report but i also think that just reading into that comment looking at what's happening with the colorado river etc there's also a limit on renewable water that's available in colorado and that should probably be emphasized as well

Yeah, I think there's another comment coming that even hammers that home even more, that there's changing hydrology, and it's a bet. There's a risk. There's a risk to all of this, right?

Which leads into the idea of limiting growth until we're sure we have resources.

Yeah.

Not a popular idea, but a good one.

Okay. So I thought the next one, I highlighted the many, many thanks for hosting such an informative open house and dedicating so many people's time. So that's a thank you to the staff members that did that. Gave up a Sunday evening or Monday evening and all for the reward of a Subway sandwich. So, yeah, thanks to everybody for doing that. I think it was worthwhile. I happen to believe that maybe all presentations aren't automatically boring, but that's an opinion. So this last one on page one, I mean, just right out of the blocks, it's our suggestions that whoever is allowing this new building to happen in Douglas County should stop. So this is one that... you know, it's just, it's an anti-growth or no growth kind of a statement and tries to, or I shouldn't say tries to, but makes an assertion that there's probably not enough water. So that's a, That's both, I think, not trusting the data that says how much water we have where we are, but also the idea that limiting water is the way to limit growth. And of course, we know there's a tension here between growth and water. So I didn't see anything to do with this other than absorb it and understand it. Comments? Okay, on to page two. So the first one, the things I highlighted were in the opening phrases that the methods used to generate this data were highly subjective. And because of that, they, this person thought there should be some bracketing around the data with, you know, best case, worst case, middle case, and then that you plan for the worst case. And so that, I mean, that's one of three kind of points that were made here about the data. I would agree that, you know, this is data that we went to the water providers. We surveyed them. We asked them to give us our best numbers. So, I mean, the best number for, you know, three years from now is a pretty damn good number. But 20 years out, you know, there's a little thumb in the wind kind of finger in the wind kind of thing. So we know that. We did not. We did not go to all 31 providers and say, you know, give me a high and low on this. Give me what you think it might be or how bad it could be or how good it could be. I don't know. I mean, that would be really hard. But we didn't do that. Maybe refining these projections is something we may wanna work with the water providers over time. I mean, in the next year or two, we can go back to them and talk to them more, look at their plans more, and maybe get some more context on how firm or how soft those numbers might be. So the data is what it is. The next part of this one was concerned about new housing developments incorporating grass. And certainly don't think people should do that. This is that thought that new development should put in Xeriscape from the get-go. We all know what Castle Rock does. Castle Rock's really, really tight with turf and 500 square feet limits and stuff. So to a degree, that's happening. That's happening in the county. and how much that spreads on, we'll see over time. So nothing to me that adds to the report from this comment. Any others? Go ahead. No.

No, it just seems to me that the market is taking care of this. And we're saying in here water-wise, I mean, it's all throughout the report, so I just don't.

Yeah, I mean, one thing I've noticed in the market, when you say the market's taking care of it, I mean, lots are really small. And I know when I met with Shea, you know, they're really trying to figure out how to do xeriscape on a production basis, right? They're trying to figure it out, and it's hard, but they're working it, so they'll figure it out.

Well, look at Castle Rock. They give you, depending on the size tap, how much water you need, you get a lower tap fee. The market's taking care of it. I think this is great. Five years ago, this would be spot on. Now, we've moved past it. The market's there.

Okay. The next three one-liners, we don't need to talk about those. Those were kind of in the bowels of the document here. Question on the next one. Could you include a short summary of each water provider's goals and priorities for the next 25 years in the section? So I think the ship sailed on being able to do that in the report. I mean, we already did the surveys and we did not ask water providers for summaries of their master plans and those kinds of things. I know a lot of these master plans, the ones that are really well developed are a couple hundred page documents. I mean, there's a lot going on in those. So that one, kind of like the ship sailed, But I think you can, if a person's really interested, there is a lot of information on the websites of the providers. I mean, Ohio and Transwater, Parker, Dominion, Castle Rock. I mean, a little bit of research, there's a lot there. Those are pretty open organizations. Any comments?

Clark Hamlin, and I think, It's a big assumption that the priorities are going to align certainly 100%. You know, different providers have different priorities. We just, you know, what we have found is that the priorities are as much in alignment as needed. I mean, that's a pretty bold statement to say that they should that the all the priorities align.

I would see one priority that would align is what we heard from all the providers was the desire to get it to 100% renewable. And so maybe a recommendation for the commission or the county commissioners going forward is some type of dashboard for the public. That's where they're not having to go. And I totally agree. Most of our major water providers have very robust websites. But you have to hunt and pack and they're all set up differently and it's not very user friendly and unless you're a water attorney, and you're getting paid by the hour to look at them. But I would say if we had a dashboard, you know, a recommendation going forward, a dashboard that says, you know, we'll check in every whatever. three years, one year, whatever the cadence is, of where are you at achieving your 100% renewable goal, or whatever your goal is for your community of renewable water, and show that percentage almost in a very visual way. I think, one, that's transparency, and people can see that we're on the right path, and it's also accountability.

Yeah, thank you. I like that a lot. And the recommendation is to make the dashboard. It's not put the dashboard in the report.

Yeah, I think it's future looking at maybe one of the outgrowths after this plan gets in place is, okay, we're going to have a user-friendly public interface dashboard that puts everyone out there showing this is where we're at.

You know, I learned a long time ago, what gets measured is what gets done.

Someone said that once.

We put that out there. I think it was Edison. I think that's a genius idea. I don't think it's now, but I think it's our next, as we, what happens next. That's something we ought to do.

So if we're looking for things to do, I think the next one kind of heads us in that direction too. And maybe it's kind of related, but it says a great recommendation is what it opens up with. So I said, okay, now I got to go see what that is. So it is in section 10.9 and it's a recommendation about forming a regional groundwater or regional groundwater management and monitoring function, I'll say, and suggesting that the Water Commission could maybe take that on. That was kind of how I read that.

Am I reading that correct? Is that how you'd read it?

And maybe that's partly because, you know, there's a void now with USGS not doing the level stuff they were doing before. And it's... You know, I'm gonna have to think about that. I mean, I think it's probably a good idea, or it would be useful to have some kind of a function like that where we're continuing as an entity to say, let's go look at water levels, let's get the data. I mean, we've got a lot of data in the plan, and going and doing that again in two years or something like that might be kind of interesting. But I'm not sure how you execute that. Clark?

I just think we're a little premature in trying to figure out what we want to do, whether it's one year, three year, five years from now. I think this plan needs to be out there in a final form for a little while before we determine what the proper, or what the reaction to it is. I think we ought to, you know, I'd make the suggestion that we take a look at the next iteration of the county surveys in the water. You know, portion of the county survey from from citizens and, you know, see if anything has changed. I mean, that would be a measurement of our success in in the educational area. So, I just think let's not jump too far too fast into what we want to do in the future. Let's get this done. 1st, get it out there and. Finalize it and see that then kind of see what their reaction is.

Okay.

It's not anticipated yet.

Okay. Fair enough. Thank you. Any other comments? Okay. Yeah, this one's a kind of a big one, but I would say that the message of this as a member, this is a focus group member that talked about surface water is not limitless. And I guess the theme of this comment is surface water will undoubtedly diminish over time, and they feel that that is glossed over in the report, or perhaps I would say maybe not addressed fully in the report. I mean, there's some truth to that, in that the water providers are saying, this is where we're going, we're gonna go get it. We have plans to get it. I mean, that's pretty universal. And I go back to that notion that there's a risk that that water may not be available. And I guess who knows whether that risk is gonna get worse or harder or the water's gonna be less or things may actually turn. I like to think that we'll see it coming. It's kind of the way I look at it as a board member on a water district. But it's a tough one, right? It's a tough one, betting on nature, right?

Donna just goes back to the same concept that I was talking about before in that maybe we need to strengthen the discussion about climate change possibilities and risks. We are obviously seeing climate change and seeing a degradation and diminishment of surface water in the state, not just for Douglas County, but for all. and downstream users as well so um it it could stand a little more discussion in the plan and again goes back to what's the solution slowing down the idea of growth until we have the resources until we have the reservoirs built until we know where the resources are coming from

Yeah, so I was thinking James might hold up his hand on this one because, you know, certainly in the Colorado water plan, you know, talks about scenarios, you know, dry scenarios, wet scenarios. We talked about that as a really good planning tool. It takes a lot of imagination. You gotta imagine what's the worst thing that can happen, the best thing that can happen. And that's just been out of scope for us, I would say. So at least in this report, at this juncture, I think it's fair to say maybe some more discussion would be in order. I think that's fair to say. Yeah, Jim.

Jim Mars. I'm not sure how it gets into the report, but I think the reality is, as you said, is that we really have to rely on the weather. And I know Parker Water was releasing water, out of the dam because I had to. I would guess in the last few days you probably had open river and was putting water back in. And so that's the reality of the weather and it's gonna be hit and miss. And that's maybe one of the measurements five years from now we look at is how has filling these reservoirs where we're betting on for the most part open river times to put water in there so that we have it to use when it's needed. And knowing that during certain dry periods, you're gonna have to release some of that water to meet your requirements. So it's maybe a measurable item, but the reality is in the last week or two weeks, you guys went from releasing water probably to putting water back in.

Yeah, Harold.

You know, I used to have a sign in my office from a quote of a British Lord, I forget who it was, ran one of the big British companies. It said, the money's gone, it's time to think. And I think that's where we are with water. The low-hanging fruit is gone. It's time to think. And every time we do that, we generate new water. I think of the, well, I think of the Parker Project. I think of some of these coming down from Box Elder. Our case, rainwater harvesting, recapturing reuse. if we need to think outside the box for longer term. But I think to say that the water's all gone is naive. Every time it happens, we find new, look what Arizona did. When we think that's the case, some creative ideas come up to bring it back. So I think, I wouldn't say it's all gloom and doom. I think what we need to do is foster a willingness to consider One of the big disappointments I've had with our County was that some creative ideas came out for water plans, big ones, and all we could do is fight about which one wouldn't work. And that's madness. We've got to have a culture in this County where there's no bad ideas, just ones that work better than others. I believe that very strongly. That's what it's worth.

Okay, any other comments? You know, I like the idea of, you know, we've got a, I mean, we've got numbers, we've got a time, I'll say, supply numbers laid out over time, how many, what we think we're gonna have in five years. So we ought to be checking that, right? We ought to be checking that every couple years, probably. So this fits into what we do next. We'll deal with that in the fall.

Sean, and to kind of piggyback on Harold, we look at the innovation of WISE. Well, now that the two main providers of WISE Water are finding challenges in their system, I think while we are insulated by primarily being dependent or having the systems based off the aquifer, That's eventually gonna, so I agree. I think we're gonna have to get very open and creative on where we find more molecules and how we use molecules to the greatest extent we possibly can, as evident by Castle Rock.

Okay.

I put this one that begins page 312, 3.4, I kind of put an X on that because I didn't really understand what the point was. So I kind of read it as maybe being a little pushback on mandating maybe landscape designs, things like that, but we'll worry about that one. This one was a little, I guess, implied, maybe untrusting is the term I put. Were the findings of this report are helpful only if you live in rose-colored glasses? If you are a realist, I am not sure these projections truly reflect our needs in 2050. So that one is what it is, so.

I've attended a couple of the collaboration meetings on wildfires. And one of the things that was stated in there is very clear is that you don't turn on the faucet when you're trying to fight a wildfire. That's not where the water comes from. And you don't use, well, you do use water to fight a wildfire. That's not the primary way wildfires are put out. They're put out by a lot of people building fire lines and doing the right thing ahead of time and so forth. Extending our water lines an extra half mile in every direction is not gonna help put out wildfires.

sean yeah i remember the wild land commission a month ago when they said yep water makes up like a very small percent of fighting the fires yeah yeah what i recall is that they they use it to try and cool an area enough so they can get in and really protect some homes and cool some critical infrastructure but yeah and a lot of it's just digging trench lines and yeah taking away the fuel

THIS NEXT ONE IS KIND OF EXTENSIVE. Oh, I suppose an interesting point where it says Parker is 33% of the increase in supply, Castle Rock's 27% of the increase. The data would say exempt wells and new developments at 11%, and Sterling Ranch and Dominion at 8%. And then they say, well, these are the only four that are growing, so this is all we should really be focused on. And maybe we should discuss these four entities in a much more detailed way, I suppose. I would also submit that Meridian has growth plans. I don't know if you, you know, between Lincoln and C470 is a whole lot of land that Meridian owns that I think they're intent on office parks and a lot of stuff there. I think Emberness is still looking at growing. There showed a little bit of growth in the Pinery that might still have some growth. But I mean, it's a valid point, but I don't know that that means that you take your eye off the county and the entire county and look at this collectively across all the water providers and just say, focus on a few. So again, I'm not sure what to do with this comment other than it's kind of an interesting point.

Some of these numbers I've never seen before, so I don't know where they came from.

Yeah, I didn't go back and try and reconcile the numbers. The next one, Highlands Ranch is anticipated development areas built out. So I think there was the figure that showed, this is the chart that showed the shading of where the growth was going to be. I mean, the numbers from Highlands Ranch Water are just flat lines. So, I mean, that says it right there. Again, the next one, Table 6-2, Future Water Supplies. Another comment on looking for ranges rather than point estimates and maybe some kind of confidentiality or confidence brackets around those water projections. It's not, that was non-scope, so. And if we went back and asked the water providers, I'm not sure how they'd approach that. This one, page 7-1, talks about Article 7 and asks for an executive summary paragraph at the start of each section. Thinking like, well, that would have been nice, but I don't think we're going to try and do that now. That would be hard. And that's not to say that we can't, you know, as time goes on and we see how, you know, I think it's a good point to see how this is absorbed and used in the community and stuff, that we can't. We can write summaries. We can come out and have follow-on communications and say we've looked into something further or we went back to the top three water providers and and set them down and reviewed their master plans and we think we got a bracket on how secure they are so stuff that I think it just kind of helps points to things we can think about later thicker and shallower is incorrect it's shallower and thinner so agree with that So we got a big one here. And again, so they put a disclaimer on there, but I still want to, you know, tell or ask the questions that I think have been I mean, they're asking the right questions, I'll put it that way. Safety factor for water supply and demand. So again, we're hearing that, we've heard that multiple times. I mean, could look at it a different way, a safety factor or bracketing the data. Certainly the demand side looks credible. So that was a comment or I'll say an affirmation over, we think we can see how things are gonna grow. I'm not quite so sold on that because growth, I mean, it can just stop in a heartbeat. We've seen that happen before. But it's a population growth, it's developers, there's data to say, here's the direction, here's the trajectory of what growth looks like. But then again, less confidence in water supply projections. Just a little bit of not confident. Ask the question, can the survey instrument be included in the appendix to the plan? So that would be them being able to see what questions were asked to the water provider. So they can, I guess, then see that what we asked for is what the data shows. And interestingly enough, I know the survey instrument, the request itself wasn't in an appendix in El Paso County report, because that's where I went and copied it, copied it into Word and then handed it to Foursquare and say, this is what we wanna do. So I don't think that's plagiarism, I think. I guess just being efficient, but yeah. Again, overly optimistic on assessments. And then maybe, you know, some speculation on why people would be over, you know, reassuring or not, you know, how projections in water might get biased, I guess is the term I'd use. So, yeah. I didn't, I didn't find anything in here that that I would say would reflect anything in the report. But it's always interesting to see how people are reacting. And there's still, there's still some skepticism or lack of trust that that's out there. Mr. Chair, we saw that.

Yes, James. Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you.

Go ahead.

Yeah, on this one, I thought that the useful question isn't whether providers are overly optimistic. It's what level of certainty attaches to future supply. And I'm not sure we spell out or Forsgren maybe did. Maybe this is an easy one for them to, you know, assume planned supplies were checked against water rates. infrastructure, capital improvement plans, et cetera. And if that was done, then just showing the work would probably be sufficient to address this.

Don, maybe you can go ahead and say something, but I don't think you did against water rights. I think you said that before.

We took the information from the water providers, and so it was their analysis that we depended on for that.

So you're just depending on what they said. There was no verification of water rights, is that correct? Right. Okay.

It was all based on their reporting to us.

Yeah, I think the assumption, and this is the approach that was done in El Paso and Arapahoe counties both, was that they would be forthright, at least to the extent that they have, what knowledge they have. It's what they truly believe. I think that's safe to say. Does that answer your question, James?

Yeah, I guess. Probably just better spell that out and just say that these are not the conclusions of the Commission as to water supply risk, we're merely reporting what the water providers told us.

Okay. Yeah, I think I think that's fair. Right.

This is Sean. Yeah, I think a simple disclaimer, just saying, you know, all the data here is provided by the providers, not independently verified or whatever.

Yeah, okay. And is the best and most comprehensive data set that we've had?

Absolutely.

Right? Absolutely. I mean, even if it's soft and squishy, it's the best we've had.

Better than nothing.

Yeah, it's a great start.

Sean, again, I also think in this section there's a, at the end where the sensitivity analysis on what's been completed Um, as far as projects, and what does that mean for our available supply? Obviously not in this report, but again, as we put stuff in the parking lot for down the road, that may be another thing to keep on the marker because we're. In some cases, depending on some of these projects to kind of Harold's point, some of these projects getting completed, but what's our fallback? What's our plan B or plan C, which, as we all know, in water, you better have a plan X, Y and Z, because you're going to have a lot of. That starts stops challenges timelines delayed blah, blah, blah.

Okay, thank you. So last one on this page. Again, this is another restatement of, although the gap or the margin between supply and demand falls from 56 to 37%, there's more behind the scene there that would make you think that this is not Well, maybe incomplete picture is maybe the way I should say that. And also, I would say I'm a, for a believer in scenario planning, I've done a lot of scenario planning and really find it really useful, but that's a level of planning that we haven't adopted here yet. So put that one in the parking lot and maybe we'll grow into that too. I wasn't quite sure, this is the last page. Actually, we're doing pretty good.

Oh. I do.

Okay, so it's the item that's listed as page 96 and 9.3, right? Okay, my print's smaller. Okay, so the point of this is, you know, it's a little bit of a discussion about reuse. And, you know, the good thing about reuse, whether it's potable or non-potable, if you use a gallon of reuse and use that to displace a gallon of new water, then that's generally good. I'll say the draw, part of the draw to potable water reuse is, if you reuse the water and send it out in the system and you don't throw all of it on the ground, it comes back to be used again and again. So, I mean, if you're getting half your water back, some water may get used two, three times, maybe even four times. I think there's an efficiency to potable water reuse, but non-potable reuse is certainly better than no reuse. And we have entities, I mean, like Meridian, where they live on non-potable reuse. So I'd love to have them come talk to us sometime too. I didn't see that this needed to result in anything changing in the report. Yeah, and the next one kind of goes along with that.

Mr. Chairman, at the last meeting, Steve Bowen made a comment that he doesn't think you get as much reuse back. I think he used the 20% number. So just, I checked with Parker, they're at 75%, and that 75, 70 to 85% is what I'm used to seeing for reuse. So I don't know what he's computing in those numbers, My experience from the company I was with and from listening to what Parker's doing, reuse properly done is a highly reliable and very efficient system.

Yeah. I was just... Checking, I mean, there was also a comment that, and I don't know that it made it into this list, that it's a question. So we have these projections for 2050 and we have a lot of reuse in 2050. We have a lot of renewable water being supplied in 2050? And is that renewable water reusable to the extent that the bedrock groundwater is? I hope so. Don't know, don't exactly know the answer to that. But it's going to be pivotal for sure. The next comment, page ES1, executive summary. Lauren and I have done a lot of work on the executive summary. When you see it again, you're probably not going to quite recognize it, but we did a lot of work on that, just trying to make it more vibrant, I guess is the term I would use. This is a message from the Castle Pines Village that says we're not growing. And if you think we are, we're not. And from where they sit, they look at Pine Canyon and Crow's Nest as growth areas. So 2,000 in that community. We know we haven't had a lot of contact with this metro district. But it's certainly, it's one of the water entities that would be interesting to have in and get to know a little better. Any comments? Okay. One more. This says page ES7 executive summary. Again, we may have scrubbed this out a little bit anyway, but water supplies and the plan are overly optimistic. So there's a common theme to that, you know, that there's just concern or skepticism, you know, that Maybe it just doesn't feel like we should think there's as much water as it is because we've been in a drought and it's hot and dry and I get that. But I thought the point in here, they made three points of things to do. The first is to assist large irrigators like metro districts and golf courses to gain access to treated wastewater. I thought, well, yeah, we know that's a good way to irrigate rather than using potable or raw water sources. I think that's an analysis that happens all the time. And I think golf courses in Castle Pines use non-potable reuse. Castle Pines itself does, I think. Yeah, Mr.

Chair, I can speak directly to that. Castle Pines uses treated effluent from the Pine Creek. Plum Creek, sorry, Plum Creek treated effluent.

And then the second recommendation of this comment was to install boulevard rain gardens to capture runoff. I don't think we can do that. You guys are doing your, kind of cutting the ice on rainwater. I'm not sure where you're at on that.

Our rainwater harvesting water court now. Full speed ahead.

Okay, so we'll see if something, if that becomes a viable source, huh? Is that the right term?

Yeah, and this idea of the rainwater, it's wet meadows, and I think just about everybody's doing wet meadows somewhere. So it's a very viable water resource to just direct your off flows for wet meadows. We do it. I think almost all modern developments do that. So that's a good point. But I don't know if we need to bring it in here. I think the market takes care of that. Water is very expensive and getting much worse. And that drives these kinds of efficiencies for wet meadows and other things.

And then, of course, the last major change they recommend is no more turf, right? No more lawns, so. Nobody, not prepared to argue about that, so.

Okay.

That's that sheet. Harold passed out his document, right? So, they don't have this online? Oh, okay. So, this is the same, this is a familiar topic, right? And you offered some different language.

Yes, and with respect to a fellow commissioner, Mr. Eklund, I clarified some points. Basically, Let me just read it aloud for those. I'm sorry, it's not in the book. Consistent with county policies supporting water reuse, renewable water, and connecting new development into existing systems. New developments which can be served by an existing system that has capacity to serve is expected to connect to such a system as opposed to relying solely on groundwater. If a new development chooses not to connect to such an existing system and relies solely on groundwater, An appeal for increased density would be inconsistent with county policies and generally should not be approved. That's just our recommendation to the commissioners. They could do with it what they would like. Basically, this eliminates the competitive advantage in some ways of being on groundwater next to a system that's reusable and renewable, but also basically saying you shouldn't be rewarded for that. So what this would mean is that we're recommending that they not approve water appeals that would increase density that could have connected to a renewable and reusable system.

Okay. I think that's completely consistent with what we've been talking about for the last couple of years. I would just take one word out, and that's that generally should not be approved. It's just plain shouldn't be approved.

Well, that'd be fine with me. I'd agree with that.

So, Don, just real quick, I wanted to make a point about a definition for new development. And I kind of brought this up last time we were talking about one of the referrals. the density of something. If somebody has 40 acres and they want to add four houses, is that a new development? So it would be a density of 10 acres. If it's a density of two acres, is that a new development? Is it 100 houses that we call a new development? Is it 10 houses that we call a new development? There needs to be some kind of a thought about definition there. I agree with Harold's paragraph, but I think we need to define what we're saying is an actual development.

I was thinking about that issue. In some ways, it's self-correcting. If it's four houses, they probably aren't going to need a water appeal. If it's a 100 houses on on a small acreage, they have to use, they would need to water appeal for the additional density. So, I think that may correct some of that, but you raise a good question. Our policy all the way through is if you're near existing system, connect to it. That's what we want.

Um, Evan, you want to comment?

Uh, yeah, I just thought, um, it would help to refine what, uh, Harold has suggested with regard to the word appeal. if we say appeal for a higher density under regulation 18A, because I do believe that the appeal for greater density is a term of art in that regulation, and to distinguish appeal from the context of an appeal that can occur if any developer that gets a quasi-judicial termination made on their development, they have the right to appeal to a court or try some other appeal. So I think you mean under Regulation 18A, do you not, Harold?

Yeah, I do.

I think so. Yeah. Yeah, I think so.

Yeah, I mean, I think, boy, I'm going from memory too, but I think that process kind of flows along through that document and takes them to the ability to appeal for more density or its appeal to reduce the consumptive standard. I can't remember exactly. Yeah, the demand standard. So I think that's a good edit to just tie it into 18A. Lauren will look at the words to make sure that goes good. I think using inconsistent and should not be approved works well within the context of how we're writing all the other stuff. So I think that's a good improvement. Thank you. Yeah. Okay, so that's Harold's. James, I don't know if you were on when I made the comment that we do have your comments that were emailed to us and the comments from May have been integrated into the latest draft. The comments from June, Lauren and I are still kind of wordsmithing around on that. So I think we'll get the, I think we'll get the context of what you want or what you think needs to be improved. I think we'll get that built in there. This may not look exactly like what you suggested. And I think that's where we are on the comments. I'm gonna do this. So Katie put a summary together of the comments. She just kind of looked at the whole universe of them and kind of grouped them into main themes. The main themes that pop out were growth versus water availability. So there's a lot of concern. They're connected, you know, explicitly connected probably. Concern about optimistic supply projections. Heard that. drought, climate, and long-term planning. So, you know, that's all of us all the time anymore, trying to figure out where these changes in hydrology are going to go, what temperatures are going to do. It's just really hard. And we just kind of keep looking. looking down the road and doing the best we can, right? Conservation and landscaping is a common theme, generally. I think, and I think we saw that in the board present, you know, where they put the stickies on the board. People really get this, right? I mean, they get it already. It helps, it makes a big difference. You know, as you escaped my front yard, I took my water consumption down 30%, just like that. And I have hummingbirds and bees, which is kind of fun. So, conservation and landscaping, renewable water storage and groundwater and reuse. Customers want greater attention to storage and renewable supplies, seeking clear explanations of the continuing role of Denver groundwater. and which water supplies can legally be reused. I thought that was pretty succinct. And how we're wrapping our arms around renewable water storage, groundwater, it's a big topic. Forsgren is working on the storage map, right? So that's a missing piece, a summary of all the storage in the county that we have and what's planned and what we'll do more of. And then the last one on that summary page was accountability and transparency. So I thought that that kind of lined up with what we read, what we went through. It was kind of fun to group it that way. And that's probably how we're gonna try and group this. I'm gonna say, and report on this in chapter two. So we still gotta react, we still gotta put something in the plan on what we heard, the themes on what we heard. And I think that just kind of frames it up how you'll probably see that coming. I think I gave my notes to Lauren and she's doing the work, am I right? Okay, all right, good. Glad to hear that. The Oceanic Nino Index, the ONI, for this three month period has exceeded the temperature anomaly for, since they've been looking at temperature anomalies for El Nino. So it's big and it's here There's your fun factoid for the day. It's big and it's here. What the hell that means, we're going to see, right? We're going to see because this thing could go all kinds of different directions on us, right? But the monsoons were nice.

This is Sean. That was exactly what I was going to ask. What does that mean?

This is Jim Morris. I'm getting my snowmobiles tuned up. Yeah. Ready for the big snow. Good stuff.

This is Lauren Pulver with staff. We do have Christy Davis with the CSU Climate Science Center coming next week. So the 24th, so she should be able to speak more to what does that mean?

Sean CSU, I think has probably the most foremost. climate group in the world, I mean, not in the country.

It's good. I mean, I get their bulletins. I'm downloading stuff. It's a lot of fun. And they seem to make it, I don't know, absorbable, I guess, digestible. You can get good, quick stuff. It's fun. This came from Noah, but... Yeah, she'll be here next month or next week, excuse me. She did do a presentation to Parker Water and I asked her at the end of the presentation, I said, well, you know, we're planning on, you know, getting water from the Lower South Platte River, you know, in about 20 years, you know, we're looking for some pretty major yields out of the Lower South Platte River. So can you tell me what the climate's going to be like in 20 years? she declined and and she said you have to think about scenarios that's what she said so um so any anybody want to make any more comments open comments uh just question so we've gone through a couple rounds of the comments when are we looking to refer to the commissioners kind of timeline

And this is Lauren Pulver with staff. So next week, we will be bringing you a draft that has red line changes. So you can see the revisions, I expect they will be mostly chapter two. So summarizing the comments we've heard, then some technical changes and formatting changes throughout the document. And then depending on how discussion goes next week, and if you all are comfortable to make a recommendation to the board, and we'll follow up on what next steps will look like for that process.

So, would we commit this Sean? Would we convene a special meeting to vote to move it out? Or is it just we chewed to Don and say, I'm good with this and staff cleans it up and we get an overtime.

I'm kind of feeling like, you know, the meeting next Monday. Um, if we're all, if we're all thumbs up, we can take a vote and say, we, um, we like this work. We like the product and please take this to the county commissioners and see what they think. Right.

I'd be in agreement with that.

Yeah, we're there. Right on schedule.

No pressure, Lauren. When will we receive that red line?

Our goal is Friday. So I know that doesn't give you a lot of time to review, but again, red line so you can see changes, hopefully.

We'll have a weekend to read it, and then it's an up or down a week from today. Correct.

That's the plan, yes.

Yeah, so the, I don't, there's not a lot of revisions left. I mean, we worked on the executive summary in chapter two, and then we had some fixes, I'll call them kind of throughout the document, um and then we have to decide if there's any you know changes or comments that we want to try and insert in that i mean i've still got james's comments so i'm kind of redlining those as best i can in pdf so it shouldn't it shouldn't look a whole lot different right i mean the groundwater stuff staying i mean it's staying like solid right the groundwater study and all that data and all that stuff so But we can go back for more edits if we want. We decided to do that. And if there's any comments that you saw on the main spreadsheet that you wanna bring back and discuss, let me know. That was just kind of my cut on teasing out the ones I thought most relevant. Are we good? Evan. You good?

Yeah, no further comment today.

All right. Aren't you going to Watercourt? Am I correct?

Yes, I will. We go starting next Monday. I'll be up in Greeley all week, so anyway, I will not attend the meeting next week, but we'll work with you and Lauren after we get through those meetings to try and finalize the documents

Okay, so I think we're good to adjourn.

member discussion yes oh yeah i'm sorry yeah that's okay i thought we were there we we touched on the idea or discussion about data centers and i had seen in the news but have not seen any discussion about a data center outside of parker i'm curious to know anything about that facility what are the water demands from that data center and i know clark you said they're not much but what does that mean I need more information. And is this something that we should have discussed as a water commission?

This is Lauren Pulver with staff. That went through the Parker land use process. It's an incorporated Parker. It's not a Douglas County project. Okay.

Okay. And can anybody provide information on how much water is needed?

I don't know. Yeah, I mean, they'd have to pick it up out of the news.

My guess is probably a closed-loop system. All of them are anymore in Colorado.

I'm trying to think who the water provider is because it's not Parker Water.

It's not Parker? Who would it be?

Do you think it is? Would it be Meridian? I believe it is Parker. We'll have to look on that.

Don, that's your homework. I just want to understand more about the water use at data centers. People ask me that and I don't know the answer.

I think I have some technical information I can share with you. And the data centers themselves generally are moving, like you say, to closed-loop systems. You know, throwing up evaporative coolers would be a bad look. The water concerns get really big if they're building their own power plants right that's that's when it gets really if they put in gas turbines those kinds of things and some of the really big ones do haven't seen that in colorado yet they use a lot of water a lot of consumption so but i think i think i got some stuff i can send you

And this is Lauren Pulver with staff. Correcting myself, they are served or will be served by Stone Gate Village through Compark. So Don, you're off the hook.

I think I would have known.

Stone Gate Village. Which is all groundwater.

It is. Yeah. Okay.

Any other member comments?

Okay. Well, I feel good today. Maybe we should go down to the tap and dough and tip one, right?

We do have planning commission, so we've got to reconfigure.

Okay. Thank you.