Water Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay. I think we'll go ahead and call to order our meeting of the water commission for Monday, December 15, and we're gonna do this at 03:31. So, we do have a lot of people online. I'm just gonna recognize that first. We have Trish and Jim Mares are online, so I think we can be aware of that. Roger will not be here today. He has called in sick, so remember him in these holidays because he's pretty ill. And so if we can, let's just take roll call, go run the room, start with Sean.

Sean Tanner, present.

Evan Ella, present.

Clark Hamilton, present.

Jack Hilbert, present.

Don Langley, President

Mickey Connolly, President Okay.

So as who is here today, I would like to remind the Board, this is a Planning Commission day. So we need to vacate the room as quickly as possible by after five so they can set up a planning commission, and they can get out, for the holidays too early. So looking at the agenda, let's start off with approval of the meeting from the last agenda. Anybody have any questions, corrections, or things to discuss?

Chairman, this is James. Can you hear me?

Oh, there you are up there. Oh, James online too. Hi there.

Hello. Sorry about that. I just wanted to, say I was here. I'm I'm in Las Vegas,

so

I'd be with you guys.

Well, we're saving you money right now by making you get on this call.

It's a boring it's a boring water conference, so I'd I'd rather be with you guys.

Excuse me, but I've been to those. So okay. Well, thank you for for interrupting and letting us know. I'd appreciate that. Thank you. Okay. I need a motion, to approve. We have a motion from Mickey.

Second from Sean.

Second from Sean. All those in favor, aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. Okay. And abstain? None? All right. It's approved. We'll move on into the next item. These are items for consideration for comment. Well, it's actually no. If you have anything you want to share with the commission, that would be great about any of these three items. So the three items we have are Ramblewood, South Russellville, and Hidden Village filing one. Anyone have any questions or anything they would like to bring up to the commission at this point in time?

Chair, I have

this is Jim Morris. I have a couple comments, actually, in all of them. On, Hidden Village, it states water is sewer available there. I'm not exactly sure where this project is, but it looks on the vicinity map like there's developments all around that. I just wondering if, looks like Parker Water is gonna serve the, I think, the Ramblewood one is if Parker Water is anywhere close to where that hidden village could be served.

I'm raising these issues because of the update from the water plan from last month where the contractor talked about, you know, where some of these group where these homes, you know, be a good long term plan to talk about, you know, community kinda wells that would go deeper and get them out of these shallow aquifers. And so I just raised the issue of an hidden village. You know, I get if they're larger lots, septic tanks is probably not an issue, but from the water side, there's an availability of, you know, not you know, they're not gonna have fire protection, with a private well. Is it possible for the local water supplier to get them potable water without doing, you know, full blown, you know, fire hydrants every 300 feet and, you know, six and eight inch water lines if there's a way to get them potable water to their homes without having them rely on wells. And and Rabblewood's kinda the same thing.

They've got a little larger

Can we address that one real quick? I do know that Don wanna answer the one question you might have. You said you're not sure if Parker Water was serving that. Don, do you know? Thought

Don Langley. I looked at this on the map just to see where it was. And I don't think it's included or in our service area. And it looks like, to me, it looked like it's a whole development of very large lots, at least by two acres or so. And they're splitting one of the lots into smaller lots. So I mean, I don't know that it's not possible. It's close to Hilltop. So we're running along Hilltop. We have water supply along there, but I don't think it's on the radar.

Well, think what I would do is on this one, Katie, can you just let the commission know how the water I thought I read that it was being supplied by Parker Water, but I could be wrong. So and believe you me. So I, yes, that's a great question and great thought on that particular development. Think it's 67 or 76 homes, something like that, that are being subdivided out there. And that's Hidden Village, right? Yes. Jim? Yeah. Okay. Go the next one?

Ramblewood. That's, know, a little different deal, but there's gonna be, you know, a concentration of smaller lots, which looks like Parker, water and sanitation is gonna serve them. And then they've got a couple larger lots that it looks like they're gonna propose wells and septic tanks for. And, again, you know, if if they've got Parker water close for the smaller pots, it would seem to me to make sense to, you know, extend again potable water without having to do necessary, you know, full blown, you know, the big water lines and fire hydrants if their project plan is for private wells. They're not gonna have fire protection either.

So, you know, is it a better plan to just extend smaller water lines to them and and get them potable water without having you you know, to have another straw in the shallow aquifers.

Yeah. That's, a homeowner's actually splitting his lot. And what they're doing there, they have a 10 acre lot, and they're breaking down to two fives. So my concern was to ensure that they didn't have too much conflict in the wells, but not much we can do to control that. That's a state issue. However, that particular area, because I'm very familiar with it, is under deep, deep construction right now. They're redoing the entire road putting in roundabouts and all kinds of stuff. So I don't think that's one Parker would even entertain and I don't think the cost of getting the water is going to be interesting. But I think it's a comment that should be passed on to the commissioners. It's a good good question.

It's like, is there a way to for, a provider to get water to that those that lot at this point in time? Okay. Anybody else have a question on that? I would like to just note that Harold is in the room. So and, keep on going, sir.

Yeah. So then the next one is the Rusterville Road, which is, an application to allow a small venue operation on 40 acres of land. And irregardless of the, you know, the right away issue with the driveway and stuff, that's more of a planning commission issue. But on the water side, the well permit that's in the packet of documents, said that from the state said it's got a 15 gallon per minimum at maximum pumping rate and that the well permit, they asked for a one gallon a minute pump rate, and it showed that they have a 163 foot well. And so if they're gonna hold small events here I I can't remember what the number was, but it was less than a 100 people at these events, and it was, you know, less than 10 events a year.

But I'm just questioning if they've got a well that's producing a gallon a minute at a 163 feet, if that's a smart decision, you know, to allow them to bring groups of people out there for an event. And then, you know, then doesn't mention the septic tank issue. But, again, it seems like a water issue that's looming, by, you know, having that many people out there. And that's all comments I have. Okay.

Great comments. Anybody else? Seeing no more, we will move on then from, the item of our comment section. And now we're going to be getting into item of forward discussion and action items. I don't think we really have anything today. The fifth item on the agenda is the Douglas County water plan update. So, mister Forsman, if you would, please.

Okay. It's Jason. Good afternoon. Will Koger with Forestman Associates. I'm the project manager for the water plan. Good to see you all this afternoon. So we are here's where we are in the schedule. We've been working through phases one and two. Phase one is a water supply and demand analysis, and that included the groundwater modeling. And we've been collecting information and putting it together as starting point and then also looking at land use policies.

We're entering now into Phase three, which is to actually develop the water plan. And this is where we're going to be putting we have information we're putting together that we'll be presenting to you all for as in draft form for your comments and discussion. So that's what's coming up. And then further into into, 2026, we'll be having engagement and outreach, going toward a public, draft that we issue down the road here. So developing the plan, we are going to have a working draft that we will, share with you next month, next year.

And, that that is going to be coming to you in January. We're we're targeting then a workshop on January 26. That'll be a two hour workshop. And that'll be a good time for for just, you know, digging into this thing and and seeing if we have all the concepts there. One thing to to stress on this is we'll be looking to you for a big picture view.

So we're looking at the Christmas tree, and we wanna make sure it's got all the right branches on it before we put the ornaments on kind of thing. So we want to have a big picture discussion and talk about the concepts to build on. And, again, it's a working draft. It'll undergo many changes, I'm sure, from now to when we have a a a public draft. So, but certainly wanna get your feedback at the outset. And then that will also prepare us for, input from the focus groups. Yes, sir.

How long works that day is it?

Two hours.

03:30, 05:30. Yeah. Regular meeting.

Yeah. This this is Katie for staff. So the the meeting in January, we plan to go from three to five. And it it's it's going to be the initial public the workshop for the commission. This is gonna be an ongoing process with the commission.

Right.

Right. I think we're breaking it up into sections. It'll be presented over multiple meetings. So it's a good point. Right.

Yeah. I think I I

Harold, do you mind using your mic so people online can hear your comments right now? Thank you.

I'm sorry. I just said that we've been working year half on this. The last thing I want to be is time constraint. And so I mean two hours with the document. So it would seem to me whatever time it takes, I for one would say whatever it takes, block out the time. If you want to have a day session or half day session or two half day session, just fine with me because we're going to get one shot to do this right. Right. And my second question, the community outreach since we're not gonna see a draft until the January, the community outreach probably needs to shift right by several months.

It will be the community outreach won't be part of the plan because it's going to follow issuing the plan for public comment, and and our workshops are gonna be following in the 2026. And so we can show you what what the, what we're planning for for the outreach, but then it won't actually be part of the draft until toward the end after we've gotten the public input. Okay. So that'll be the public review down the road. So today, we want to give you a preview of what to expect for the working draft.

We have water demand and supply information, information on land use policies, and then we'll be pointing to public engagement. So first, with regard to water demand and supply, we have mister Jason Broome from Forest Green Associates will present here. Jason?

Yeah. Thank you, commissioners. It's good to be here with you. As as Will talked about, I'm gonna talk about, things related to supply and demand. So we'll touch on the the providers, that will be discussed in the reports, and then we'll look at population projections and moving from that into demands and supplies, both current and future.

And so what you see here is a list of of the suppliers, water providers that are in the county. You heard about this a month ago, but I just wanted to sort of recap for you. So 31 providers, they were provided the survey that we sent out, and 24 responses were received. That's those folks that you see without stars there in the list. We had five no responses.

One of them so Littleton, they have very little land in Douglas County, so that wasn't too surprising to not have a response there. They basically told us just to talk to their their water provider. And then two that are not applicable, Northern Douglas County and Southwest Metro. Northern Douglas County because they are included with Highlands Ranch and the Southwest Metro because they don't really have any developable land in Douglas County. And so we we use these responses that we got as one method of looking at future demands and supplies, of water within the county.

So next slide. So the reports, will include a discussion regarding each provider, so a description of that provider and, sort of their background, a discussion of the service population as they reported within their survey, review of water sources that they have, and also what they're projecting that they will will have going into the future, and then finally reviewing items related to water volumes. So demand and supply, again, as they reported it within their their surveys. Next slide. Then we'll cover

Sean Tanner. Quick sorry. Sean Tanner, quick question quick question. Two slides back where we have the various districts that replied, I think you had 24 of 31 responded to at least in part of the data survey. For me, personally, I think with the big four providers, will you guys break out how much of the survey they responded to? Like, did they respond to the entire survey? I'm talking, you know, the Highlands Ranches, the Parkers, the Castle Rocks, Castle Pines North.

Yeah. Yeah. That's our plan is

to Okay. Perfect.

How they responded to the surveys.

Yeah. Just because that covers 70% of the residents in this county, and we'd hope that we'd have as much data from them as possible.

And those are they're all pretty robust, those

So water

yeah.

So next. Yep. Current demands, this, again, is from the survey responses. You can see the the responses in the first line are the summarized numbers that we have. For the nonresponsive ones, we estimated based on a basic calculation that you can see below the table.

And then per the work that LRE did, we came up with the exempt wells numbers. So you can see a total water demand there as reported, by the providers. And so we'll break that down per per supplier and per provider in the report so you can see how that how that breaks out, within the county. Next slide. So next part is the population projection.

We've got a three different ones here that we've been looking at. So the first one being the latest numbers from the state demographer's office for projections out through 2050, and then we're gonna compare that back to the 2019 comprehensive plan, which will include slightly older data. And then a third comparison will be with the draft transportation plan, which recently came out and used the previous version of SDO numbers. So if you go to the next slide, Will, we've got some numbers here. So you can see the there's a column for, the SDO there, the third column from the left.

Those are the current numbers, versus the comprehensive plan in the next two columns, the last two columns being the transportation plan. So just some slight differences in those values that you see there. And so what we'll do is go back and correlate these with the numbers that the providers gave us and then work towards getting to a good consensus on, what population projection would be most appropriate here for the county. Next slide. So then we'll move into demand projections going into the future.

This table here shows you a summary of the demands as projected from each of the suppliers totaled up here plus that average growth rate applied to the individual well users come up with the total number there of a 108,000 acre feet per year. So we'll we'll coordinate this and compare with our population projections and make sure that this is, all making sense here as far as demand projections. Next slide. So current supplies, this is how the providers have reported back to us as far as their supplies are with the obvious exception of the second one, the nonresponsive. That's just an estimate based on the the demands we presented earlier.

So current supplies are this, and then next slide, Will. So then we'll go into the the breakdown of it. We'll break it down so that you can see which supplies go into that total supply. You can see in the pie chart down there, majority of it is Denver Basin water with the second the second highest being surface water. So we'll break that down currently.

And then as we move into the future, which is the next slide, Will. So we'll project out, as far as the supplies that the providers are able, to bring on and what they're looking to bring on and compare that back with our demands to to see where we sit as far as meeting out into the future.

K.

And that's the end of that part.

K. So staying with demand and supply analysis, we're now gonna talk about the groundwater analysis. And this is mister Bill Fronczak with LRE Water.

Can I just ask one quick question? I swear. Crazy. But when you say wholesale water up there, what is your definition of wholesale water?

That'd be connecting someone that's connected to a larger entity possibly where they get water provided by that other entity. For example, the city of Littleton is a connector to Denver Water.

I got you. Okay. I get it. That's contracted water. Right.

Got it.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, commissioners. Hopefully, everybody can hear me. So what I would like to do is just go through the groundwater analysis. I've done this couple times with with the commission here over the last couple months, and I just wanna repeat myself. So what we've tried to do is kinda go through we provided the groundwater at least portion of the report to the commissioners a little bit over a month ago.

And so what we wanted to do is just kind of walk through the overall objectives of the groundwater report, how it's going to be incorporated in the overall water management plan and just somewhat of a summary. So what are our objectives? We really want to work on that. And that is, you know, ground truth everybody to say, you know, we're evaluating the county's groundwater resources and really focusing in on that Denver Basin. That's a bulk of water use in the county right now, primarily in the central and eastern part of the county.

Mountainous areas obviously don't have Denver Basin. We wanna utilize this information in the supply and demand analysis, but outside those water provider service areas. Really kinda give the kind of the the county the ability to evaluate is there a Denver Basin groundwater resource available for new development in the future. Provide the county with information regarding the viability of using Denver Basin aquifer. I mean, is the Denver Basin aquifer going to be around?

Is it the be all end all sources? And then at the end of the day, develop also a tool, a GIS map for not only accounting, but also for public to take a look at and be able to screen through data relatively seamlessly from the state engineer's office through our analysis and pet draw through, you know, heat maps associated with what's going on with water available groundwater availability in the Denver base.

Any question here? Sir.

Well, thank you. A question, as you go that last slide, you're looking at the groundwater availability. One of the questions that came out at our last meeting was that there are certain areas of the county that there was plenty of water at the different levels, but I hope you break this out by the viability of the Denver, the Dawson, the the Upper Dawson. Because if we have a risk, that's where we are. Because those people in the wells can't go down to the Arapaho at a million dollars a pop. So I'm hoping that you'll you'll dedicate some time to that, the viability of those upper particularly those upper, basins.

Absolutely. Yeah. That's, that's in the plan for sure. And Denver Basin is meant for all four of the aquifers being the Dawson, Denver, Wrap Up and Fox Hills. So we're looking at all four of them.

And so just as a summary and as obviously that you have the report that we prepared, the draft report prepared, what's really estimated about a Denver Basin groundwater utilizing the most recent data and then analyze that through the petro model, but does a couple of things. First off, includes data that wasn't really around in 1985. There was a lot of data in the lower or the Upper Dawson, Lower Dawson or Dawson depending on what's not separated. Because the shallow was talked for and there was a lot of wells that could be put in there to be able to drill that deep. There also was not a lot of data in the Lower East Fox Hills.

There's still a lot of data in the Fox Hills. So we utilize more recent data as there's been more wells that have been put in the Denver and the Arapahoe to really analyze those geophysical logs in addition to looking at other logs, raster logs from the oil and gas, our conservation commission, etcetera, to really hone in on what that groundwater, the Denver Basin groundwater is. And that's what Petra does. It takes all these different logs and puts them into a similar format and do a similar scale, so we can take a look at it. Then what we did is we obviously evaluated all the data inside the county, the entire county and then also the area that's in the unincorporated areas of the county to see what water, groundwater levels or groundwater availability may be and then compare that to SB5.

The analysis came out with in this, I call it the middle aquifers, which is the lower DOS in the Denver and around the aquifers, there was on average about 36% more allocatable water or water that was potentially available from the Denver Basin and those aquifers. The Upper Dawson and Dawson and the Fox Hills, they are relative to what SB5 has indicated. The next thing we evaluated was groundwater level data and this is also difficult in the Denver Basin. And the main reason is there's a lot of wells that are being monitored that are mostly completed or not fully completed in the aquifer. So what we needed to go through is go through and screen out those multiple completed wells or wells that really didn't give us good data.

Then we had to scrutinize that data to really take a look at was the well pumping when the water level data was collected, was it in recovery, how long it was in recovery, these types of issues to really try to get a decent water level that was recorded. Ideally, for groundwater level in Denver Basin, it would be a dedicated monitoring well that's out there in the various aquifers for monitoring wells. Typically what's done though is USGS does the wells from the from individual participants that are individual allot wells or we get water level data from the municipalities that are also pumping wells as well. Then the final thing we didn't report before we looked at if there was any good water quality data across the county and the Denver Basin and there really wasn't that's publicly available. There is decent water quality data that we can get from the water providers that they file with the state in their water quality reports, from the raw water supplies, but there's not a ton of other data that's out there from the individual wells, for example.

Next slide, please. So then some more summary of the report, are approximately 10,500 wells of record with the State Engineer's Office in Douglas County that includes all the wells in the mountainous regions as well as all the wells that are on those individual lots that are not in a water provider district, if you will. So there probably saw a difference between the 6,500 and the 10,000. These are all those wells, almost big lots that are not really in a water provider. But as we indicated before, the petro analysis indicated the Lower Dawson Denver and Arapahoe have more water that's quantified than SB5.

The greatest amount of Denver Basin water that is available is in the deeper aquifers because the shallow aquifers being that Dawson or the Upper Dawson is really not available on augmentation plant. And that just becomes quite expensive and difficult to obtain in the county. And then water level trends indicate relative stability based upon the data that we do have with greater declines at the margins, which is getting something that we'd expect.

Bill, we've got a question here.

Yeah.

Question on the Petra model. Some of us are not familiar with those. But my question for you, is that paper water under SB five or is that recoverable water? That percentage that there's more water there, is that recoverable or is that estimated paper water?

Well, it's a it's always a good term, paper water versus recoverable water. It's been used in different terms across the state. Sometimes say people say recoverable water is rate recoverable rate of water, which means, you know, I get a well permit that might be 300 gallons a minute. Well, in reality, you know, because of the geology, you're getting 50 gallons a minute. When it says difference between paper water and recoverable water, that's gotten a little bit more murky as a result of the ability that the Supreme Court indicated that you got so much water underlying your land.

So you make this quantification and say you get a 100 acre feet. You can pull out that 100 acre feet. They don't give you a time period to do it. The maximum you can do it is within a hundred years, but you can pull it out over 300. So it's difficult to really say paper water versus real water because, again, what also goes into play with that is obviously geology.

You know, we got to take a look at what that geology might be and how that water how that offer might release water. How the well was constructed, you know, that's always going to go into what's physically available, which is what some people say is physical water versus paper water. And then just, you know, surrounding folks that are on the offer and how that might be impacted. So with those caveats, I mean, what this is really do is computing the amount of water underlying the land based upon the geology that's there. It's not giving us the exact amount of water that might be coming out of the ground over time.

Is there any rules again? Forgive me. I'm not familiar with this world, but are there rules of thumb about what is recoverable, like 65% or 80% or areas that you could put some because it it may give us a false sense of security, particularly shallow ones where we're saying, well, there's more water there than SB five says there is. But if if it's 60% recoverable on average or some rule of thumb, I think we need something to to moderate that or we're or or we could be misleading ourselves. Because, you know, in talking with people in the, you know, the real world recovering water, they have the they have this paper water, but they can't get it.

Sand or whatever. So I'm looking for is a rule of thumb or some deflator that we ought to be thinking about. Thank you.

There's not really a rule of thumb that's out there. It really comes down to kind of the definition of what is really what is considered recoverable. And the reason I say that is, here's another way of looking at it. We look at like say water providers or say just XYZ subdivision that's coming in. They say they need 100 acre feet of water for the number of lots that are there.

Is that paper water? In other words, are they able to withdraw that amount of water per year, that's going satisfy that subdivision? Or is that real water coming out per year? That's really kind of a rate question. If they say that they, I can get this water out over the next four hundred years, is that really the development plan that they're looking at? So where I hear what exactly what you're saying is kind of there's we have to look at it through different lenses. We can't just say it's 60 we can only get 65% out. We need to look at how is the developer or how is the water provider utilizing that water to meet its annual demands that or in its future annual demands? And is that really realistic and achievable based upon what we know and operational as well? Does that make sense?

I think so. Think as we go along though, maybe there'd be some areas where sands are tighter or some other things and where experience has shown if you're allowed rate of 15 gallons a minute average in the area, you're getting five. That would tell me that it's one third recoverable, right?

Yes. I think that's

somehow we otherwise, I think we're going to be kidding ourselves with how much water is really there.

I think that's an excellent point for discussion as we develop this as to, you know, what's what's gonna make sense to have his recommendation there.

Yeah. I mean, I agree. Absolutely. I mean, the last thing we wanna do is say that, you know, the Denver Basin is the be all end all and next thing, and we have a problem in the future. That's not a recommendation that we're looking at. What we're trying to do is quantify the amount of water and look at is there what's that water look like as a result of current rules and regs? And what can we do to how much water can be possibly withdraw? And there's just a lot of factors that go into it, but it's something we'll definitely look at. And I will talk. Okay.

There we go. Thank you. The other thing is, you know, David, we looked at the water quality data. And like I said, I indicated initially besides the water providers, there is minimal water quality data out there. It's just not a lot of data from the individual property owners.

The other thing that we noticed in the report is that most water providers are bigger water providers are accessing the deeper aquifers. They're going to the Denver and the Arapahoe, not as much in the Fox Hills, there's not still a lot of activity there. And a lot of the individual wells, which we're expecting are accessing the shallow walk first. The other thing we noticed with the individual allot wells is that there's a range of construction, most of them are a severe majority of them are accessing they haven't accessed the entire aquifer or haven't put their pump all the way at the bottom of wellbore. So there is some economic impacts to water level potentiometric, which is the pressure water table going down.

And this is just the considerations of kind of the end of the report. As we talked about just briefly a few minutes ago, quantification of the Denver Basin groundwater does not guarantee or verify that more groundwater can physically be withdrawn from the well. There was geology well construction, well operation, all that will impact how much water can physically be withdrawn. What we mean by well operation is we routinely get the argument from folks that say, hey, you can't say that you know, this this aquifer is, you know, the paper water versus physical water cannot release the amount of water that we need for our development. We'll just put in more wells.

Well, not necessarily. There's well to well interference. There's other things that happen putting more wells. So again, those combinations in that really impact how much water can physically withdrawn. And again, we got to make sure we're clear on that definition physically withdrawn. Is it on an annual basis? Is it to meet the requirements of the homes and the businesses annually? Or is it just over time? Because it can be argued that, hey, we can get the groundwater out of the aquifer. It just may take five hundred to one thousand years.

And then the other key consideration is water level data. Ideally, as we had indicated before, we'd like it would be great to have a groundwater monitoring network with established groundwater monitoring wells that are not associated with pumping wells. It's just very difficult to get a really good general water level and really evaluate trends in the Denver Basin without that dedicated monitoring That's all I have.

Thanks, Bill. We had a comment here. You probably didn't hear that you're looking very Santa like with your white beard and red shirt today. So appreciate that.

Well, the time that's the best of season. I wish I was doing that because I wish it was a better ski season, but it's not.

And for now Landy's policies, we'll turn to mister Ted Hyde with Michael Baker International. Ted?

Alright. Thank you, Will. Thank you, members of the commission. Got 10 slides for you this afternoon. We'll be talking through some, related land use procedures, protocols, and sharing with you our preliminary preliminary set of recommendations.

And, as part of the draft plan, of course, and the workshop discussed, you're gonna have, plenty of opportunity to look at these in detail and provide your insights and feedback. So, Will, if you could go to the next slide, please. Okay. You've seen this before, but just wanted to revisit, you know, as a team here, you being part of that team as the commission staff who's been working with us and the consultant team here just don't wanna lose sight of this critical nexus as we think about the effect that current land use and future land use in Douglas County will have on the availability of a sustainable water supply, over the next twenty five years plus. So as highlighted in a a 2018 report here, sometimes, oftentimes, that connection is misplaced or overlooked entirely.

So it's great that we're having this conversation and putting this plan together that establishes that clear nexus and keeps it really in the forefront. Next slide, please. Alright. So some key things, we we're considering as we put together the plan and as staff, as members of the water commission, in the years ahead, will be key for consideration. Factors such as how much growth is in fact going to place and going to take place in the county.

And I know Jason touched on varying ranges of projections. We will have project projections, both residential and commercial for you in the draft plan to consider, but that but that is a key consideration. Obviously, there's a one to one relationship between the amount of land use development that'll take place over the next twenty five years and the amount of water demand. Secondly, the location of where that growth is taking place. Is the majority of it or a good percentage of it taking place out on the fringes of the county where that development is likely more reliant upon individual lot lot wells, or is it in the closer in parts of the county that are readily more serviceable serviceable by existing water providers that have been surveyed as a part of this process?

What is the form of that development? Is a a notable percentage from a majority, larger lot, single family detached development, generally speaking, has a higher demand for water, much of that through exterior irrigation? Or is a lot of that taking place on, comparatively over history? Smaller lots, more condensed lots where the demand for things like irrigation, is less and opportunities for water recycling, are perhaps greater. And then lastly, through processes that the county has in place through its zoning ordinance, through its zoning resolution, and as development applications come in over the next twenty five years, is the county commissioners, the commission, and staff really taking a proactive approach to conservation in the provisions and in the requirements that are made of new development coming into the county.

So some key factors will carry through the process here. Next slide, Will.

We have a question here, Ted.

Yeah. Sure.

Question in proactive conservation. I think there's two parts to that. One of this conservation meaning useless water.

Mhmm.

More importantly, I think long term for the county is reuse

Reuse. Yep. Of water.

So it would certainly seem to be proactive. You should have a second part in there, and that should be, can you re how and where can you reuse the water?

Yeah. Good point and, and well taken, and I I 100% agree with you, and that is a part of the part of the recipe here. Yep.

Yep. One of the things we gotta be very proud of, I think every major water provider in Douglas County is is now or getting to be a 100% reuse. Capture percentage of the reuse. Yeah. And I think that's gotta be built into any land use factor we have.

Excellent. Good point. Thank you. Okay. So you have you have seen this slide.

You have seen this bar graph before at the November meeting when mister Koger presented to you. And I said, looked at this and did a did a slight analysis on the data, and I I called it the good news sort of because, if you look over the twenty five year planning horizon that we're all talking about, supply will exceed demand over the twenty five year planning period. But I'd I'd like you to take note best you can on the slide there in the the different bar graphs and the ten year reporting periods of the difference between the changes in supply versus demand over that time. And whereas demand is expected to increase from approximately 75,000 acre feet per year to a 100 acre feet per year, that's an increase of about 33%. Supply is approximation again, but is expected to increase from a 143 acre feet per year to a 160, which is only an 11% increase.

So you you have a delta there of about twenty twenty two thousand acre feet per year. So the takeaway for for you to consider is that the gap between supply and demand becomes less over that twenty five year period. Speaking with mister Koger about this, he made the good point that the supply bars want you to know that they represent best case scenarios based on paper rights, expected aquifer yields, and really the ability to physically and financially access water wells water via via new wells. The the main takeaway here is that over time, that that gap between supply and demand is lessening. And assuming this trend will continue over the next twenty five years, that gap, under one scenario would only become tighter.

K. Next slide, please, Will.

Question.

Yes. Go

on. You talked about the supply side. What about the demand side? What can you explain what the demand projections are based on? And do they take into account continuing conservation, continuing emphasis on conservation, continuing emphasis on size reduction for lots and so forth?

Yeah. Yeah. Will, I may lean on you a little bit here because I know this was based on input survey responses we received back from the providers. Do you know if the providers holistically or generally built those the aforementioned factors into their estimates for demand?

I I imagine that they have. I don't know that for a fact for all of them, but, they the, conservation that they're certain of, I think they've got that factored in. But I I think there's a very you know, there's a wide disparity of responses too we got from the surveys.

Evan, Hila. So back on the supply side, though, you do show an increase in supply. I mean, you going to break out what those are based on? I mean, does some of that include reuse, or is it importation? Or what are you basing that increase on?

And not not

to That's

Again, not to pass it back to Will. But, Will, in our discussion of twenty five year supplies in the plan, do you know if that'll be that'll be broken out?

It, we we have, some information from the water providers that we can show, and we'll we'll show, like, example, the Wise project and some of those larger projects that can bring water in into the county. But there's I'm not sure we can allocate exactly how much supply is for each of those projects.

Well, I guess it depends on the data that you got from the providers. I guess if they say, yeah, we're going to increase 5,000 acre feet of supply by reuse, we would want to see that broken out in the report. Right.

And we did it. We that was one of the questions is how much of the water supply is reuse. So okay.

So I have a question, and it's great because it comes right, Evan. This is Jack Hilbert. When you look at the supply, obviously, the first thing is any, I think, a novice or citizen's gonna look at is, well, why isn't that flat lined? I thought our aquifers are here they are. So is there recovering?

But the supply demand, I think, needs to be clarified also that that's bringing water in from outside the county, its contracts, it's from all other sources and ways to increase the use of water so that the supply become I mean, reuse of water does not increase the number of gallons. What it really does is increase the number of usable gallons. And so, I think it's important that we understand that because I think it's confusing if some say, well, the aquifer's going dry. Well, if it's not going dry, then why are they going out buying and bringing in so much water? Well, because the fact is there is a delineation in water supply.

Somehow, we've got to make that connection. I'm just looking at what I think the general public is gonna look at, and it's gonna be like, well, where is that coming from?

Right.

Right. Mhmm.

Okay. Thank you. Sure. And and going

back to the demand side again, I just have a hard time understanding that increase in demand. It seems to be increasing. The demand seems to be increasing at a faster pace than our population projections are increasing. And while our population is increasing, I think every major water provider will tell you that their expectation is is use per individual drops over that next period of time. And so I have a hard time correlating those two things in my mind.

Mhmm.

And I I

I think that that makes sense

to me.

So I need to see some more detail on

that. Right.

K.

And and a part of that is with these projections from the providers, we need to reconcile that with the population projections that we have the different models of and, you know, what makes sense, how does this fit together.

Just looking at that, it looks like those projections are percentages are looking at the percentages up there, you know, roughly figuring in my mind, it looks like those are a higher percentage than what the population growth is. And I just can't get there from here knowing what I know about what's happening in the county.

Yeah. Good good point.

Okay. Good discussion. Well yeah. Thank you. Okay.

Good. So so accounting for environmental variables as we as we talk about land use. So based on a report from CSU 2024, they they looked at average annual temperature back to 1980 and kinda carried it through the 2024, and there's been an average there's been average annual temperature increases from that baseline year. And I think more so for our purposes in this plan, and, again, projections, but they are projected to continue through 2050. So and and accompanying that is an expected or an anticipated increase in what is called the atmospheric evaporative demand, so such as essentially the thirst of the atmosphere and the the the rate at which evaporation occurs, coupled with, you know, an increase in in heat waves, most of them seasonal, of course, but drought, and wildfires and and declines accompanying declines in the average level of moisture in the soil through those summer months, really now April to October, decreases in in snowpack and if, obviously, effects on water there and, and stream flows.

So, again, I wanna emphasize these are these are projections. They are not finite definitive statements. But, if if these trends, persist over the twenty five year planning period and and beyond, I think the takeaway is that this could accelerate, demands, versus available supplies. Okay. Next slide, please.

Alright. So what is what is the best way forward for the consult team, for staff, for use of the water commission, for the commissioners? I think as we're doing right here right now is taking a proactive approach to planning and considering how we're gonna adapt to variables and some of the projections ahead of us. I think the the the rule of the day is to not plan for more, plan for an excess. We're planning for less, not only for the horizon year of 2050, but beyond that.

I think with with a real nod to what the county has done so far in a positive way is to really build on the policy and regulatory foundation, partnership foundation that the county has in place, but go to that next level. Alright? There's a lot of good stuff happening already. What is that next level over the next twenty five years? And that's the the primary point of our effort here.

Really taking a diversified approach to conservation, which we'll get at in the recommendations to address what I consider to be an opportunity to really ensure that long term sustainable supply. And you as the commission to really help guide those recommendations on this critical issue for your your colleagues who are on the the county commissioners, to exercise their regulatory regulatory authority and to really thinking about the health, safety, and welfare of county residents, existing and future, putting measures in place to ensure that that supply will be there. And then you you take a part in this last one, certainly, is to engage in those regional and even state level partnerships with other agencies that are that are taking the proactive, realistic, long term view of this issue. So next slide, please. Okay.

So very briefly, the the foundation that I mentioned, is which very much a positive that we can build from collectively here. I know it's a visionary document. It's largely high level, but in the county's most recent comprehensive plan, the 2040 plan, and these are just three of them. I really wanna emphasize. There is a an entire page devoted to goals, objectives, and policy that really get at the importance of and ways to ensure conservation of water, the management of water.

So we have a very solid comp plan, foundation to build from there. Then on the more regulatory side of the house, in the zoning resolution, we've talked about these in prior meetings, but, in sections 18 a, the the water supply overlay district and the accompanying water supply zones map, and then section twenty seven zero eight and the landscape plan and all the requirements that are in. These are just three examples of existing conditions in the zoning resolution that go a long way for helping ensure that future development takes a more sustainable approach to the management and use of water. Next slide, please. Okay.

So a little bit more on the foundation. From 2023, there was a community wide, a county wide survey that went out. And just very briefly here, it really identified, at a high level that many residents, majority of residents, see the importance of this issue and that, the central coordination, of water issues between the commission, between staff, agencies, between providers, they agree that it's a very important issue. So that's that's what we're doing here with this plan. And I think maybe more importantly is that we are on a solid foundation of public support.

73% of identified inadequate having an adequate long term supply as a high priority. So residents, business owners, they see the importance of this issue, which is which is a good thing. Switching over to the state level in the last three year, you guys are all familiar, but the the foundation of Colorado legislative support has come through on this issue. These three bills in particular, and I won't go into detail, but you know a bit about them because of the names here, but really taking a more assertive approach to the use of and limitations on turf and irrigation, and the positive effects that that can have on overall water savings over the the twenty five year planning horizon. So really coming from a solid foundation here and looking at our land use recommendations.

Okay. Next slide, please, Will. Okay. So I really do wanna emphasize that these are preliminary because, like I said, in the both in the workshop and in your review of the draft plan, you're gonna have a chance to see them in detail and provide your insights and comments. But there are currently 25 of them.

I wanna share a source with you that's one that's in italicized there. It's one I leaned on heavily in in doing the research for this. We documented a number of case studies from throughout Colorado, Western US, what other communities are doing on this issue. So it provided a lot of really good content. But that's been coupled with, you know, working with Terrence and Katie and, and Lauren to really getting their good feedback and initial reactions to some of our ideas on these issues, and that's helped us refine a bit.

And, other recent water supply plans, your neighbor just to the north, Arapahoe County, El Paso County. So looking at what's been done recently by your, your peer communities. And then really providing a a range of options. Again, that taking that diversified approach from, you know, the stick and the regulatory side of the house to the much more programmatic and the educational resources that we can apply to better inform and educate and inspire people as it relates to management and conservation. So I think as as as you look at these, as staff looks at these and you're thinking about your comments related to them, it'll be really important to consider staff's capacity to to manage, to administer, to implement the financial commitment that may be associated with enacting some of these recommendations.

I think momentum is an important thing. So for the county and for the state of Colorado, are there measures that, wow, that really smacks of something that there's a lot of momentum behind? It makes good sense for us to get on board and do our part in relation to this measure. Kind of the other side of the coin where there may be a pushback from residents or the developer community. You know, we live in a in a political world.

And if you read a measure or recommendation, you say that is an absolute nonstarter, and we are gonna be getting dozens of phone calls from the development community on day one, well, that's probably one you're gonna take a harder critical look at. So just wanted to flag those kind of key key factors or considerations. Okay. Next slide, please, Will. Okay.

So I'll run through these quickly. So from on the we took a close look at the the the county zoning resolution, some preliminary ideas that came to us. And, again, you'll see these in more detail, but, possibly updating the provisions to the landscape plan requirements, that are associated with new development. There are opportunities for the county to go further in that regard. Similarly, with an irrigation ordinance, if it were to adopt and enact an irrigation ordinance, perhaps greater requirements could be placed on, irrigation systems in new development, types of equipment, how they're applied, how they're checked, etcetera.

Maybe limitations on months and days for irrigation. On the development review side of things, say for use like a data center, we know about the water use of those, really applying those conditional use provisions. So saying that if a application were to come in for that type of use, that said user would have to achieve a certain number of points really to achieve a desired level of water conservation for that use on that use. Reducing lot sizes and minimums in certain districts is something else where we we recommended in there. Again, enabling property owners and developers to come in and say, okay.

We have a reduced minimum. That's gonna require less irrigation, cumulatively less demand on water resources in the county over time. Minimizing new developments with individual on lot wells. So not to say they won't happen, they can happen, but overall, reducing the percentage of those in relation to overall residential and commercial development. And then for really promoting central water supply systems in new development when it when it is proposed.

Okay. Next slide, please, Will. Okay. Couple more on the resolution that we could talk about partnerships. So for for future development patterns, looking at the big picture of where development is zoned for, where it is allowed to occur, taking a look at establishing priority growth areas in the county for residential and commercial, and knowing that those are prioritized based on the ability to access serviceable water and and really achieving cumulatively less demand on overall resources.

And that's really feeds into the next bullet, and that is just being context smart in how growth is planned, how growth is accommodated. So it's not so much saying no growth, limited growth, as it is strategically managing growth to, to maximize the, longevity of the water supplies that do exist. And then partnerships with providers, I think the county has a really solid record in that regard. But, again, that kind of in that vein of going further, really to support the providers and continued research into the development of renewable water resources and then supporting, aquifer storage and recovery, and reuse strategies, which was mentioned earlier in the conversation. So you're probably, picking up the sense here, but a real diversified approach to recommendations.

This

is

our last slide for today as it relates to the land use. But, thinking about county protocols and procedures, this idea of a tiered watering program at county owned parks and open spaces, really looking at what those resources are used for, the levels of use, the types of use. And then over the twenty five year period, kinda doing a phased reduction of irrigation at properties that really don't don't demand it or demand it less based on the types of uses and the intensity of uses at those locations. So that's that's the intent of that. Supporting the expansion of South Metro Water Supply Authority and their their service replacement program.

This has proven very effective in a lot of your peer counties. So supporting the supporting that expansion where opportunities exist to do so. Rain barrel discount program, you know, it's one of these things where on an individual property, it has minimal effect. I have a 64 gallon container at my property, for example, but I think about multiplying that over by 10, by a 100, by a thousand, for every major rain event, and you it really starts to add up to a significant amount of savings, as it relates to water that could be used, from other sources. And then, phased WaterWise upgrades to Douglas County buildings.

I have one shown up here with the, the library. And, you know, looking at those facilities that are publicly owned, county administered, where upgrades to facilities have never occurred or haven't occurred for a while, everything from faucets to showerheads and things like that, making upgrades steadily to achieve water savings. Really, on the educational side of the house, maybe so many people love social media nowadays. Attention spans are shorter. People like to get their information in sixty seconds or less.

So really leveraging that and maybe working with communications to develop a really effective and meaningful education program that highlights things that people are doing around the county in terms of water conservation. And that could include staff. It could include the commission or just everyday residents. And then lastly here, so where where water providers are are making efforts to consolidate and achieve greater efficiencies, really supporting them in that to to do things like reduce leakages and improve overall system monitoring. So there's just a snapshot.

More information, obviously, to come in the draft, and thanks thanks in advance for thank you for your questions, and thanks in advance for your input and comments on the report. Will, that's all I have from us.

Yep. Thank you. So now we'll turn to Ann Kukenmeister also with Michael Baker International regarding engagement and outreach. Ann?

Hey. Can I make one comment about Ted's presentation?

Please.

This is Jim Morris. Ted, hey. I just wanna point you as a water utility I have some experience with, and it's called El Paso Water.

Okay.

I'm in El Paso, Texas.

Mhmm.

And, they do a great job on communication and education. And, they if if you look at on their website and their, outreach, they have, like, a kind of a community center, so to speak, education center attached to their water treatment plant where they bring students in and do all kinds of outreach and education there. But I just point you to just take a peek at what they're doing. They do a great job, and it, if you haven't seen it or heard about it before, that'll be a a good tool for you to look at in the future.

Thanks for the tip. I'll look it up.

You bet. Yep. Bye. Thanks.

And I'll just follow-up.

I have one comment,

mister.

If it's alright, mister chairman.

One comment. Yeah. Going back to the the potential outcomes or recommendations, the very last one about providers. I'm really glad to see that. We talk about kind of nondiscriminately providers, and I think there are providers in Douglas County, and then there are other providers in Douglas County.

For example, five of our small providers, I think they were all small, didn't even bother to respond. And and my guess is that most likely is because they don't have the capacity or capability to respond. They certainly there are small providers in the county that don't have the capability of responding to all the what my expectations are, future regulations from the federal government and the the ongoing emphasis on quality and and and so forth. And I think those providers are in the county are unique and that they are gonna need considerable assistance and direction and guidance from someone, and then I guess the county is that someone, to to continue to be successful providers going into the next two or three, four, five decades. And, so I just think it's important in this plan that we somehow recognize that, yeah, the majority of of the water users in in the county are served by large, you know, good, water providers.

But we have a bunch of users out there that are on very small, very, I don't know how to say it, but, providers that, don't have the capacity and the capabilities that some of the larger providers have and are gonna need considerable assistance going forward. Thank you.

Good point.

Mister chair, can you hear me?

Fare away. Fare away, Jim.

Alright. Thanks. Sorry. James Ecklin.

So,

Ted, I didn't hear anything about data centers, and the meeting I'm at right now is a bunch of municipal water providers that are struggling with that issue. And Mhmm. To kinda pick up on Clark's point, It's the smaller communities that see a real amazing economic development potential. All the tools that they might need to evaluate an opportunity like that. And I think that's exactly where the county commissioners want us playing is on issues like that.

So if somebody wants to drop a hyperscale data center, it will blow up all of your demand projections. Yeah. There's a there's a data center up on the border with Wyoming, just east of Cheyenne Mhmm. That will dwarf I think it's 10 times the electricity used by the entire state of Wyoming will be used at that hyperscale center. So Wow.

I just some of these things are huge. They're not it's, like, eight to 10 football fields under one roof. Right. And they they're just massive. So it they they can be you know, the QTS plant out in Aurora, their data centers are relatively low to no water use, but that if you use less water, you gotta use more electricity.

So Okay. It's it it it you know, we might be pushing on the balloon in one spot and it pops out somewhere else. So, anyway, just wanted to to flag the the potential for Douglas County being a, you know, a big water user.

Okay. Yeah. Thanks, James. I'm gonna have to

I wanna ask Jim a question. There's a card. Go ahead. Jim, I know a lot of those data centers are huge users of water for cooling, but I thought a lot of that water then would be reused.

Yeah. They try and close

the loop

on the entire thing. Yeah. Yeah. They do. They try and re reuse every drop because it's cheaper to do that. And some of them have just

gotten used to one or the other.

Bottom line, is it a big new use or or demand, or is it just a demand on the reuse capacity?

Yeah. I've seen five to thousand sorry. 5,000 to 10,000 acre feet a year as being the demand of some of them, like in Phoenix. And Can most of that

be reused?

They are reusing it, but they you still lose Okay. Evap you still have some evaporative loss in the technique that uses that much, or you've just gotta use more air coolant, more electricity. So Mhmm. The PUC, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission is telling, Excel and others that they're gonna limit the number of electrons they allow to be sent to a data center. So if you're gonna do that them on the power side, then they're probably gonna have to get even more water to a data center to cool it. K.

K. We got just a few more slides to get through. Do you want I mean, is it okay to go through that before we get back to discussion?

Any other questions or comments on that? Nope.

Go ahead, run.

Slides or if you wanna take out, we accept it.

Alright. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Anne Kuugmeister again from Michael Baker. So quick overview here.

Just a second, Ann.

Oh, apologies.

Sorry. What was that? You want to

take the section we had before we go to outreach? Or do you want to run through the outreach slides?

We could run through the outreach and then finish that up. I know we got a limited We time no

time left. There'll be

no time.

We have a we literally do have a deadline cut at five.

Okay.

The

outreach is great, but it's going to be postponed anyway. Let's get back to questions for what you've got so far with the twelve minutes we have left. That'd be my recommendation.

Because Yeah. Would happen

anyway in the near term.

Commission, you're how do you guys feel?

I'd second that.

Evan? I don't I don't

care either way. Clark?

I'd follow on. Get an idea. Do what? I'd like to see the engagement outreach, least the concepts quick.

Don?

Yeah. I'd like to just get through this last bit of slides.

Okay. And, Mickey? Jim? Anybody? Do you care? Oh, you don't see most of them, but if you do.

I'll do.

Why don't we, go ahead? Let's if we could just move quickly K. Through this part right here, but and if we can circle back, we can. But you can see what happens to our time.

So we'll skip the video coming up here, Anne.

Sounds good. I will be abbreviated. Next slide.

Okay.

Alright. So our goals for this, phase of outreach will be to inform the public of the work that's been done to date. So we'll be going to them after you all have a chance to review the plan and after the focus group input has been received as well. So it'll be a more refined version that's been vetted internally first. We'll be sharing out the existing conditions, and then we'll be asking for input on the recommendations and strategies such as those preliminary ones that Ted shared with you all and getting some ins insights on their priorities, where they have support, where they might have confusion or questions on those recommendations.

The outcome of that will be to use the feedback to inform the recommendations and incorporate it into noting those priorities. So not that we're going to dismiss a recommendation, but we can just note this one has strong community support. This one needs additional education to the community because they were confused about these elements. Next slide. Just as a quick reminder, we already have the project website up and running, and we have a project flyer that'll be available.

We'll continue to use both of those, to help us communicate this in this phase of engagement. Next slide. And we're going to be conducting outreach to get the word out on these opportunities to serve input using the Douglas County channel. So social media, we'll be providing newsletter copy. We'll be reaching out to you all to help us share with your networks.

We'll share with water providers. I'm hoping to get that broad network of information out the door so people are aware of the opportunity for input. Next slide. Our hub for engagement is called Social Pinpoint. So this is a engagement website, and it's where we will have all of the information, digitally captured.

So we'll be providing a summary of existing conditions and what we've heard to date. We'll be sharing, engagement strategies on recommendations. And then, we're also going to, have some opportunities for people to share stories or provide other open ended feedback here. All of this is going to be mimicked and mirrored in our in person engagement, so we'll have all the opportunities to provide feedback both digitally and in person. Next.

Maybe two slides because we're skipping this one. Happy to share that video with you all. You can skip this, though, I think, for time purposes. It's just a brief overview of what that engagement website looks like. We're going to be launching first into focus groups.

So after you all review the plan, provide your feedback, we'll then be sharing, information out with the focus groups tailored to their input. So we're connecting with water providers, private well owners, and then also developers and HOA representatives, to get their perspectives on, the data that we have and also the recommendations in those conversations. That's in February to March. And then the public meeting, which will be offered in a hybrid format, will be in the March to April timeline. So, again, after the plan has been vetted, we will have social pinpoint up and running.

We will have boards and opportunity for people to ask questions, talk to experts on topics, share their feedback on the recommendations, and then we will merge that data with our digital data to get a comprehensive dataset of public feedback. That is a quick overview.

Okay. Now we can go back. Thank you very much and thank you for being accommodating. Appreciate it.

No problem.

Go back to this timeline. I go back to my original comment. We're not even gonna see draft until the January, and we're moving into February and March with the outreach. I think we need to make sure we build plenty of times so that this group has a chance to analyze it and comment before it goes out to public or we're gonna have mess on our hands. So I I would encourage you to relook at that at the at the months on there, what goes where. The plan sounds great, etcetera, but but, I don't wanna get a cramp down where we get this thing at the January. In February, we're going out to public.

Yeah. I would say so it'll be earlier in January, but but I think Well, no.

January 26. We just said it'd be the first

time That's our workshop meeting.

Yeah.

Right? But but I think these dates can be considered as tentative, and and if we need to adjust those

I think start thinking right now, Justin. If we're gonna see it on the February 26 of January, and she's going out public in February, there's no chance to review it or comment on it.

Yeah. I think I think one of things the commission has the has the opportunity to do here is to force the sliding of that of that public presentation piece if we don't feel comfortable with the information we have. I mean, there's no doubt this commission can say we're not having a public hearing until we're done in this part. So I agree with what you're saying that we can't force fit our conclusion of the results, for the sake of having a public hearing. And I think that's what he's really trying to say.

So the thing we wanna get to is when we get there and I've even looked at the line, probably wouldn't hurt to back up that Brown at least to March because she just said it. We're reaching out for public in the March timeframe. So I think I would just go ahead and preliminarily push that one back, at least starting in the March timeframe. Because to be honest with you, I don't see how we're going to get through it all. We're gonna have to do January, February.

So I think it wouldn't hurt to just slide that brown a little bit, and then we can make a determination if we wanna slide it more. But it's not hard, fast, and fixed is what I wanna say the commission because I think the point is we're going to control that. There's only one other entity that can circumvent us and that's the commissioners, but that's another story.

Sean Tanner, might I suggest once we have the preliminary plan that we work out at the work session, maybe divide and conquer. And I'm just thinking back to when we put the RFP together and we had a working group of three of us and maybe divide up into three, three teams so that we can get deeper into each section. Because each one in and of itself is warrants a five hour work session.

So that's a good question.

Mean I think we can get into that once we kind of see what the plan looks We'll

see what it looks like.

Yes. But I think maybe that might be in our toolbox where we break up and have working groups that tackle the various sections so that we can keep this thing moving along.

Which will definitely keep sliding that lower brown scale over. So as Harold was talking about. But I think that idea might be worth something experimenting with too. Any other thoughts, comments somebody wants to make?

Yeah. I have a question.

Yeah.

Mickey. Yeah. Mickey Conway. Is the the public input intended to be something that we're considering in the final version of the plan? Or do we have a commissioner's agreed upon plan and then public input, the hearing happens after that? Or just what's the sequencing on that? How's that supposed to work?

Yes. No. I'm just kidding. It's I think what we're gonna have to do is we gotta get to some public input to make sure that the public feels like their comments can be incorporated in case we've missed anything. So we're gonna have to ensure that we do that. If we don't, then it's gonna be it'll be a battle. I'll just put it that way. So and I think that's what he said earlier was that we have to be able to accommodate. And part of what he's doing, I know why it's so far forward, they wanna get public input so they can come up with a final document that engages and includes theirs. So we may be pushing it just a little bit back, but not a huge amount.

But I think we've gotta get to that public place after we've had an opportunity to scale it and to look at it and modify it and then to engage and find out what the public's got to add to it and then we can go from there. Does that make sense? Tricia?

Yeah. Just real quickly, I wanted to make a comment to Will and Bill. I think it's really important when we're talking about the supply, particularly with the big providers. We desperately need to understand the source of what they're talking about when they say they have x amount of acre acre feet supply for 2050. How much of that is groundwater? How much of that is renewable water? Where's the renewable water coming from? I know nobody likes to talk about some of those private plans, but we desperately need that kind of information. We can't just assume that they have that amount of supply. Where is it really coming from?

Gotcha.

Please help us break that out.

Harold? Harold?

Yes. We're about out of time, mister chairman, but I I I come back to comment earlier. Of course, background my background is in renewable water and with some experience in the oil patch. In the oil patch, have what's known as proven reserves. That gets into what can you really get out of it. And saying we have gross water to me is not acceptable. We need to know what is really recoverable or at least some estimate or some methodology. In the renewable water world, we know how many years of storage we need to get a firm yield. We understand that. In the oil patch, we know what it takes with proven reserves.

And here we're saying, there's water down here more than the state law says there is, but that's meaningless if we can't figure how to get it out. So I'd like for us to go back and spend some time, mister chairman, the best we can. What is recoverable? I'm particularly interested in the upper, the aquifers Dawson and Denver because we have you know, it's one thing to talk to the water providers. We've got thousands of people out there on these shallow wells.

And if we have a problem, it's there initially. So I do I'd like that. And the other question, fascinating concept that put out about a a water a, some type of a of a well monitoring system that the county would put in, early warning system of some kind. I'd I'd like to see a little bit of that expanded a bit. What does that mean?

I think that one here, because I looked at that too. I was thinking about that. I think that is something we definitely could take on as a side maybe one of Sean's ideas. Someone have an idea what that would look like and cost it out and go through all of that. But we need information to do that. So I think it's one of those things we can we should definitely, a commission, look at. And I think we can get to that point. It's gonna be an interesting concept. And I just wanna reiterate, we have two minutes, and then we're in a hard shutdown. Sean? Let's try it.

Honor the two Sean Tyner. Honoring the two minutes, I'll use five seconds. I think, absolutely, when we have the outreach I know. I already lied. Outreach groups, we had well owners. And I think when we're doing that outreach, floating that idea and we give some concept around and get their feedback, you know, would they be open to the county putting monitoring systems or whatever this thing looks like?

I think it's a good idea, especially with the public because they've got the wells. I mean, I don't know why we can't pop a meter on a bunch of them and tell them there's nothing. We're not coming after you. You're saving our water in the in the county and your own water. So

And there is some monitoring by the USGS that's been going on a number of years. So maybe it's expanding that program or whatever. Yep.

Beautiful. Alright, guys. I hate to do this, but I'm gonna have to put a hard shutdown here so we can get ready. And anybody got anything good to the order? Next meeting pardon?

Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas to everybody. Happy holidays. Happy New Year. All of that. And remember, our next meeting is January 26, and it's at 03:00, not at, 03:30. And then we're gonna have to have a be prepared to have a discussion about also timing of future meetings thereafter because we're gonna see what happens to us at that meeting. Okay? Great. Thank you.

K. Thank you.