City Council - Regular Meeting

Call this meeting to order, gentlemen, ladies. Thank you. Okay, we'll call this meeting to order. If you very well will stand, we'll have a moment of silence and then we'll do the pledge.

All right. Thank you. If you will join me in the pledge of allegiance to the flag. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay. All right. Thank you and welcome each of you for being here for this special uh uh joint work session for the Georgetown City Council and Scott County Fiscal Court. Uh on the agenda for today is the presentation for the water supply assessment and Chase will be doing that in a few minutes. We ask that uh you know later on we going it's following the agenda. there will be some time for some discussion and questions and we'll try to move the mic down a little bit to do that. Uh with that being said, make sure I don't have any other notes to take care of. All right. So, if nothing other questions to be asked or we'll move on as item number two, presentation of the water uh supply assessment. Uh Mr. Chase Alvarez, the director of the general manager, excuse me, of the Georgetown Municipal Water Sewers Service. Mr. Avisita,

thank you, Mayor. Um, good evening. Um, uh, good afternoon. I'm pleased to have this opportunity to discuss, I think, what's a very important topic with the uh this joint session of the council and the the court. Mayor Jenkins, I appreciate you and Judge Coington pulling us all together tonight for the work session. This will be so everybody's aware going into it. It's a work session informational update not not requesting any actions of council of um some of our board that's joined us tonight. So um in this meeting I hope to bring you up to speed on very important topic that previous boards uh of Georgetown municipal the current board and staff have been working on for some time as we've had a lot of significant large projects over the last few years. the expansion of plant one, the south sewer extension. That whole time this has been going on, this really started probably back in 2020. And so what are we talking about is our long-term water supply assessment. So I'll start out just the question, why is this important to us? Um I think simply put everyone here through your own experience whether through council position or court position through customers or a board position um we all know that the availability of quality utility services provides for a higher quality of life in a community. I don't think anybody will say that that's up for debate. So we see securing our water supply future as the utmost with the utmost importance as the as one of our top priorities. So, uh, if we can go forward one, if we look at other communities, I want to kind of take you across the nation, look at this, uh, from a nationwide perspective. Uh, you can see serious problems all across the country with water supply. And I want to start by saying clearly, we don't have Georgetown and Scott County, we don't have a water shortage of any of of any kind today. Um, we're having this

conversation so we're prepared for the future and we don't have to face a crisis at any point in the future. Um, next slide kind of getting into these. Um, if we look out west, we can see that there's numerous states, there's numerous communities that all source water from the Colorado River. And we can look at this uh, situation for motivation. It's why we're here spending this time today. Uh there's multiple states and communities that rely on the Colorado River and they're dealing with long-term reductions in available surface water from that source. And the water planning in this region, it's now centered on managing that reduced supply. It's not uh they're they've come to the realization that water levels in that supply of the Colorado River, it's not ever going to recharge the way to historic levels the way they um they think that or it once did. So kind of one of our first of many problems. Next slide, please. We'll we'll go uh to the southern part of the country. In Texas, water supply challenges are driven by prolonged drought, rapid population growth, uh and aging infrastructure. A few of those should sound familiar if you've listened to me talk. Um, cities such as Corpus Christi, they're operating under advanced drought uh, directives and even while they're continuing water supply projects, they're recognizing that conservation alone is not going to do the trick if they're going to continue to meet their their customer demand. And uh if you look at some of the projects that are going on in Texas, the state lawmakers and local lawmakers, they're looking at investing billions of dollars into funding um and maximizing strategies for water supply beyond conservation. They're talking about infrastructure infrastructure renewal. So they uh are no longer looking at water loss, developing new supplies, expanding reuse, all in in terms uh all with the goal of uh long-term water supply reliability. As we go to uh Florida,

another one that I think uh it draws parallels to Georgetown Municipal groundwater levels. They source water from a uh underground aquifer similar to Georgetown municipal and the aquifer is reaching record low levels. So they're trying to figure out what their next move is. Um the temporary measures are not working there. So next slide. Uh national again nationally water supply challenges. They're tied to source water and uh infrastructure limitations. So aging systems uh emerging contaminants in the source water. They're all affecting how utilities, not just Georgetown municipal, can provide that water. And we don't want to end up in a situation like any of these communities. And this is just a snapshot of a few. Uh Georgetown and Scott County, we have been able or have been and continue to be, as everybody knows, one of the fastest growing regions in Kentucky. Uh quality of life issues, whether it be housing, employment, re uh recreation, education, economics. These issues are all impacted by community planning. And community planning is uh one of the biggest uh pillars of that is no doubt is water supply. So, um, we're going to talk a little bit about our current source and our treatment methodology that have served this community well for a long time and it's going to continue to do so. And, um, that's that's kind of what we're going to talk about on your agenda is our current operating state. Um, we know though that there will come a day that our current operating state is not going to be adequate to meet customer demand. So, we're going to get into um what we think will happen when we we get to that point and how we can continue to uh supply our customer demand. It's incumbent on the people in this room looking at the decision makers, board members, city council members, fiscal court members. Uh we've got to have a plan for sustainable water resilient supply and it has to be affordable to the customer, the end

user. So, uh, not looking at just what's best for today, but what's best for the future. And, um, so kind of this will be our agenda. Start with kind of brief history. Uh, this was back in 2019, November of 2019, the city and fiscal court requested that Georgetown municipal renew our previous uh, assessments that had been been done in the early 2000s. That uh, was a reaction in my opinion from couple of things that had happened. 2018 was a historically uh wet or I'm sorry dry year drought conditions in central Kentucky uh followed by a historically wet year. So we had problems on the drinking water side in 2018 and then the sanitary sewer side uh in the in the uh year right after in 2019. So it's been a number of years that we uh we agreed to bring this back to the forefront, get working on this. So we're excited to hear your feedback. um want to start off with an approach that makes this information make st sense. So we need to start off with why what do we want out of this? What is our goal for providing drinking water and um how will how will we use this the correct criteria to um make these decisions that are important to this community. So we're going to look at the current operating state. We're going to look at population projections that are going to help us plan for the future. how those population projections transition to water demand um projections and then the conclusions that will govern our or or guide those decisions. Um and then kind of get into our alternatives and our our near-term actions and long-term actions. So that's kind of the intro. Any questions before we jump in? Okay. So goal of our assessment if we want to advance one um as I said identify long-term source water that best uh meets the needs of Georgetown municipal

customers both current and future. So I'm going to start off by saying our projections and our study period they go through 2045 and we're looking at a solution though that goes or we hope goes well beyond 2045. So let's say um and and we were presenting some of this in the last few years, but I was saying at that time, how much water are we going to need 20 years from now? Uh so for 2045, we're we're into 20 uh 2026, so that's really 19 years. But um I think that we need to be prepared to handle an average daily demand of 10 million gallons per day and a peak or maximum day demand of 15 million gallons per day. Um, our current demand that we're seeing right now is 3.4 3.9 to four, right around four million gallons of water per day that we're sending out to the system for our customers. Next slide, please. I said we were going to talk about our current state. A lot of folks don't know how we source our water um, and how much we can produce. So, we're going to unpack that. our water treatment plant located downtown on Water Street, uh where we source our raw water from Royal Spring. We can produce up to four million gallons per day um of water for our customers. That number fluctuates. It's dependent on what Royal Spring produces. Um it's dry summer months, especially July, August, and tailing into September. We know that the spring doesn't produce enough water, raw water for us to treat 4 million gallons of water per day. And so at those times we supplement our water production with purchases from purchases of treated water from Frankfurt Plant Board and Kentucky American. And considering if we consider minimal production at the water treatment plant in our current state, uh the maximum daily demand that we can satisfy for our customers is equal to what we can purchase from Frankfurt Plant Board and Kentucky American Water

Company through those through those connections respectively. Any questions there? Yes, sir. I'm sorry. So, the water that you're purchasing from either Frank or Kentucky, it's treated, but do you do you have to do anything else other than put it in the system? We or do you have to pass it through anything? No, it's treated. It's we purchase treated water treated when we get when it gets to us and we uh distribute that into the system and get that to our customers through our distribution network. Got it. And Chase Kentucky American water comes from Ohio River and Frankfurt comes from Kentucky River. Is that correct?

No, sir. Kentucky American also sourced from the Kentucky River. They both pull from both pools. Yes. Ohio land. No, there's no Ohio River coming from Kentucky American. Okay. to all all different pools of uh the Kentucky River. Chase, do you do you only get that water like when you need it or do you have to pay to I'm going to touch on that in a few slides if you'll if you'll give me a minute. I'll come back to that. Chase, sorry council, if you can pass the mic down the table. Sure. Thank you. and then physical questions. Make sure you press that button.

So, um, if we can advance the slide. Okay. So, uh, Councilwoman Lesby Mitchell. So, we purchase a minimum right now of 500,000 gallons a day from Frankfurt Plant Board by contract. So, we purchase that every day. uh that goes into our system and goes to our customers. Uh and by contract through our current infrastructure, we can purchase up to 2.3 million gallons a day from Frankfurt Plant Board. And that's based on the uh the booster station that we uh we share and the pipe diameter. Um that is and that's outlined in our our agreement with Frankfurt Plant Board. So we can uh also purchase from Kentucky American that is uh with uh through two system connections that we use on an emergency basis we can purchase an additional 2 million gallons of water from Kentucky American uh water company. So right now uh if we if we needed maximum uh the maximum that demand that we could satisfy would be four from our treatment plant, 2.3 million gallons from Frankfurt Plant Ward and 2 million gallons from um Kentucky Americans. So just over 8 million gallons a day and as I said our current demand is um just under or right at 4 million gallons per day. Um, while we budget for purchases for from Frankfurt Plant Board and from Kentucky American, our rate structure is not based on long-term purchased at this moment uh from either uh of the other utilities. We produce water at our treatment plant at uh a much lower rate currently than what we can purchase it. And so while we do budget for those purchases every year, that is not a long-term um not a long-term operating state if we needed to purchase that

consistently every day of the year. Right now, uh our our purchase agreement uh it we purchased from Frankfurt Plant Board at $353 per thousand gallon. Our treatment cost at the water plant is $1.28 per thousand. So that gives you the range there. Um, as we continue to treat at our water treatment plant, I will also point out that our capital improvement costs that we we need will incur in the future at the water treatment plant is only going to drive that number up. It's never going to go down, that$128 per thousand. Um, one of our next capital improvement projects that most utilities will be investing in, uh, is is to be in compliance with the new federal regulation related to PAS. Uh we know that that project is coming. We don't know how much it's going to cost yet. We're going to be starting on that hopefully in this next month as far as uh going out for engineering services. But um as we do projects like that or just infrastructure renewal projects at the water treatment plant, our cost of treatment is only going to go up from there from that $128. We will combat those costs um by continuing to pursue funding uh uh funding support for any improvements and across our system but especially at the water treatment plant so we minimize the impact of the uh to the rates uh for our customers. Any questions about our current state? Okay. So, if we can go to the next slide. So, let's start looking toward the future um kind of how do we how do we plan for the future? How do we plan for growth and development of our um drinking water

system? How do we evaluate these alternatives for the future? So, we hear about projects all ac all across Scott County uh and the region constantly, developments, whether it's mixed use, residential, commercial, retail, education, um industrial, heard about distilleries, RV parks, we've heard about them all. They're all going to drive population growth. And so, we look at population projections. We went to Kentucky Data Center uh at the University of Louisville and they provided us the census data going back to the year 2000. And then they provided us with population projections through the year 2040. And then um our engineers did uh projections through the year 25 2045 which is our um design year or our planning year. So if you look the blue line on this uh on this graph that top blue line is Scott County population. Then we look to the orange line that is the Georgetown municipal service area. And if you wonder why there's a difference in those two, you've got to keep in mind that Kentucky American Water Company serves part of the uh county on uh on drinking water. So think anything east of the interstate of I75 that is Kentucky American Service Area and then anything west of the uh interstate that is Georgetown Municipal Service Area. So that's the reason why those lines don't match up. There is a little bit of difference. Then you see the green line is city of Georgetown population. We think that the um the orange line it correlates well because if you look if we can advance the slide please um if we're looking at 2026 the population shows that we're just over 60,000 and we account for three to four customer or three or four people per customer. So, uh, if you divide that, um, 60,000 divided by four, you're at 15,000.

That's right where our customer base lies. 15 to 16,000 is kind of where we've pinged up and down uh most of the last year, but we're just under 16,000 right now. If we go then uh next, if you look out to 2045, what we need to be planning on is we need to be able to serve uh just over a 100,000 customers uh less than 20 years from now. So that's kind of what we need to be planning for as a utility, as a city council, as a fiscal court. This is countywide. Um keep in mind these are projections past the current date. They're projections. I don't have the crystal ball. I I can't predict the future. Uh growth could speed up. It could slow down. It's not up to me, but this is the best information we have. So, this is what what we have to base. I have a question back here. When you break down the number of citizens that will have to be served, clients that'll have to be served by GMWSS, do you all break that down in projected single family homes, multi-unit dwellings, apartment complexes, commercial? Is that number broken down in there? Um, or how

This is just population right now. Just population. Okay. All right. I've got a question. Yes, sir. When you started you the prediction in 20 years is we'd need was it 14 16 million gallons per day? Uh 10 million average day. And I'm I'm going to come back to that, but tell me tell me your question. Well, no, just because population I was trying to do the math and if population doubles, we're doing more than double on the water, but it may be because of commercial properties or Let's let's go to the next slide. Calm down, Kelly. Good segue.

Good segue. Um, so this is how we go from population projection to water demand that we need that we need to be able to have treated water for. Um, and this might be the most important slide we're going to look at today. So, we'll start with that um purple line across the bottom, the horizontal line. And and uh if you're looking at the the axis there, that's a four. That represents 4 million gallons per day. Um, I do have my clicker here. I hope I don't blind anybody, but that's this line here. 4 million gallons per day. That is our treatment uh our treatment capacity at the water treatment plant. So then I said we the next line is the green horizontal line going up to 6.3 million gallons. That is our operating state if we add our treatment capacity plus what we can purchase the 2.3 million gallons from Frankfurt Plant Board. And then the light blue horizontal line, I'm scared I'm going to blind somebody, so I'm going to try to limit my use here. Um, the light blue line going across horizontally, that's 8.3. That's our highest operating state. 4 million gallons treated at our plant. Uh, 2.3 at from Frankfurt Plant Board and another 2 million from Kentucky American. So then we look at our two curved lines. We start with the dark blue line that follows our uh Georgetown municipal uh population projection from the previous slide. And um if we can advance that once, thank you. Um we see that the uh population projection this is where the blue line is representing how that is um through the the engineering analysis how that translates to the demand that will result from those population projections. So, um, we think that the low range demand is what we're

calling comes from that population projection, uh, that gets us in 2045 to just over 100,000 people. That's going to result in a demand of 7.5 million gallons per day. We also wanted to look at a high range demand. We get one or two really big industries that came in for projects. um getting up above that is it's not out of the realm of possibility by any stretch of the imagination. So we also looked at the orange curve line as more of a high range demand that gets us to a demand of 10 million gallons per day in 2045. And so I don't think we'll be to 10 million gallons, but I think we're going to be somewhere in between the 7.5 and 10. That's where my my gut tells me we will be. So, I don't think it's at all um irresponsible for us to plan to have 10 million gallons a day of treated water in in 20 more years. I think um if we if we don't need it, that's fine. But I'd rather have it and not need it than the other way around. I don't want to be 20 years from now looking back and saying that that we made a decision that didn't get us the water we needed when when we're at the table today to to make that right decision. So if we can advance the slide one, if we're looking at uh 20 45 or 2025, so we'll call that current. Uh we just ended 2025. And our average day demand for the year was right around 4 million gallons per day. This projection showing us at 4.6. So just a difference of 600,000 gallons per day. I'll call that pretty close. I'll call that a good data point. We can go to the the next slide. Um, if we're looking five years from now, I'm I'm kind of showing uh by 2030, even if we use the high range demand, I think we're we can still serve that with our treated water plus what we can purchase from Frankfurt Plant Board.

So, I think we're still in good shape four to five years from now. We can advance one more. If we look uh 9 10 years from now in 2035 uh you can see in on the uh I'm sorry I'll first go to the blue line right here we would still be okay on that low range projection 9 years out 10 years out um if we hit that population and result projection and resulting demand uh we'd be at 5.8 8 million gallons per day. We could still handle that at um our current treatment plant level plus what we can purchase from Frankfurt Plant Board. Now, if we get to the high range demand 10 years from now, not only will we need what we purchase from Frankfurt Plant Board, we're going to need that water from Kentucky American as well. So, um we will be exceeding at least that that green line that represents what we purchased from, uh Frankfurt Plant Board. Any questions here? Mr. Corman, did I did that? Okay.

Question. Are these Is there any opportunity to buy more water from Frankfurt, Kentucky American or are you limited? Like your projections are saying based off of today's contracts, 8.3 is what we can do, Georgetown, Frankfurt, Kentucky American, but is there more opportunity for more water? Yes. Long term. Okay. Yes. Um, this is based on our current pipe diameter. That's the easiest way I can say it, the current pipe size.

Um, I think that one, Frankfurt Plant Board and Kentucky American, I think they will both sell us all the water that that we can buy. Um, and I think that we can upgrade our connections with Frankfurt Plant Board and Kentucky American relatively easily. Um, that's not uh a landmark uh hundreds of million dollar effort. That's something that we can do over time is upgrade those connections. um add parallel transmission mains, things of that nature that I think we can do and said I think that they will sell us all the water that uh that that we can use and we're going to talk about that uh in the second part of the presentation. Other questions right here? Yes, sir.

So, do you only buy from one or the other or are you buying from both Georgetown and or I'm sorry, Frankfurt Plant Board and Kentucky American? It's a good question. We buy daily from Frankfurt Plant Board. We we purchase from Kentucky American and emergency situations based on the rate. Frankfurt Plant Board is is much cheaper. Got you. How how how often have we ever had to do both? Been a drought time or something like that. In 2018, we bought a lot of water from both Frankfurt Plant Board and Kentucky American. Um I know that 2018 we far exceeded our budgeted purchases. Uh, and and we're talking about specific times of year.

Most of the time you're staying under that 500,000 minimum, right? I mean, that's kind of your No, no, we've got to purchase the 500 no matter what. But does that usually carry you forward every year that 500,000? Yes. Right. Right now it does. Yeah. We're contractually obligated. Yes, sir. Right. It's like use it or lose it type. You're paying for it.

You're paying for it either way by contract. And I'm going to talk about that a little bit later. Um, we can go to the next advance one more. Yep. Okay. This is kind of the same thing, but instead of it graphically, I've just got it um represented here with numbers. Our low range projection for 2045, we go out to 7 and a half million gallons. And our high range projection, uh, we go out to the 10 million gallons. I've added something on both both columns, though. um in sizing, in planning for permitting, designing and constructing water infrastructure, whether that's um treatment, pipelines, uh elevated storage tanks, uh booster stations. Not only do you design for your average day demand, you also have to account for your maximum daily demand. And that's just defined as 1.5 times your average day demand. So, not only do we need to be able to if if we had that high range projection, not only do we need to have an average day demand uh satisfy 10 million gallons, we've also got to be able to uh satisfy a maximum daily demand there of 15 million gallons per day. So,

Chase on that like like who decides that like that you have to do that comes from just uh is that is that just practice 10 state standards for engineering? That's engineering practices. Okay.

Thank you. Allen's our capital projects manager. Um, so put him on the spot. Any other questions here? Okay, next slide, please. So, let's get into the alternatives as we said um kind of can we buy more? Um, and so we've looked at a number of scenarios and I was asked uh to switch the order in which I did this uh when I presented this to the board. And we're going to start out backwards. I'm going to tell you about things that we've looked at that are not going to work just so we take those off the table right off the top. You don't have to think about asking me a question later about them. But we looked at a number of sources and this includes the long discussed Scott County reservoir. Um, we also looked at the South Elhorn Creek. Um, neither of those sources could provide the volume of water that we need as part of a long-term solution. Um, going to the reservoir problematic for two reasons. One, Army Corps of Engineer, uh, they permit empoundments and they regulate those. Corp of Engineer, I think, has been approached multiple times over the years, if not decades, by multiple judge executives. Uh, Judge Coington and I uh had those conversations as well a few years back and the core of engineers has repeatedly told us that an empoundment in Scott County is likely not going to happen.

Well, I can take it like I've had conversations with the Army Corps of Engineers myself as recently as a couple years ago and their statement to me is an empoundment is not the least environmentally impactful uh option. Thus, it is not an option and that that is my my firsthand conversation with them and and trying to do our due diligence to look at every option. So, I would agree that is not an option. I think we all wish it was. Um, I think it was a great idea back when the land was purchased. But, um, I think the other part on the Scott County reservoir is that, um, I've read some older reports that showed that the design year for that that project, that reservoir, the volume that it would produce would satisfy demand for the year 2019. So, we're already um, five, six years past uh, the design year for that project. the Elorn Creek problems related to both water volume and water quality. Uh I think the water quality there is not uh of a nature that we would want to base our long-term water supply needs on. We also analyzed combinations of sources through multi-party uh maybe regional partnerships and unfortunately those uh those alternatives yielded little interest. We did have some discussions with Louisville Water Company and Frankfurt Plant Board and Georgetown Municipal about possibility of a three utility partnership and it just those uh partnerships those discussions unfortunately just didn't yield anything that we thought was feasible to pursue. We've also talked to regulator regulatory authorities about reuse water reuse. We're we're building a brand new wastewater plant that's going to have effluent that's never going to stop. uh you can take that water that treated waste water and then treat it to

drinking water standards. That's a a source that's never going to dry up. And uh but unfortunately uh direct portable reuse is not permitted in Kentucky. I've talked to multiple division directors at Division of Water and they've just told me you've got other options you can use. I don't see that happening. That's very popular. droughtstricken states. Um, you're seeing that become very common in California, Texas, Nevada, Arizona. I don't see that coming here as an option to us anytime soon. So, um, that's a shame, but I I just don't see that as something that we can count on. Hey, Chase. Yes, sir.

Before you leave that, did you say direct potable water reuse is what they're against? Because ultimately we're downstream from somebody that's Yes, sir. package treatment plant is hitting the Kentucky River. That's correct. At either pool,

it's monitored by what's called the five mile rule. You have to be five miles down from a wastewater discharge uh to put a drinking water um intake. Is that correct, Alan? Putting you on the spot again. Five mile rule. Um I I still I think even where it is permitted in parts of the country where this is becoming more popular, it's still not permitted as direct potable reuse. It's indirect, meaning they um take wastewater plant effluent. They inject that into some kind of aquifer and then they that there's mixing, there's dilution and then they pull that back out for treatment. Um you're talking about a lot of money in treatment. still I I didn't get anywhere with um with regulatory authorities on that. So, we kind of just said we've got to take that one off the table if we're going to move forward.

Just out of curiosity, what's an average daily volume that you you know would be available if that was an option? Well, right now we're probably right around um 4 million gallons a day at the wastewater plant. I think we're a little under that. Chase, let me wait for the microphone to come this way and I'll ask my question. Question I have is what about coming out Grant County that gets it from Carolton. Okay, I'm going to cover that. Okay, if you'll uh if you'll give me a few minutes. So, coming from the north, we'll get there.

Any other questions? um on what's not going to work. Okay, I'm going to jump in, give you the overview of our alternatives that we've looked at that we've we've given more time and effort to vetting. And the first one we're calling alternative A and that is um we would be building a new fine it if it's going to happen. It happens to me in church. So,

um, alternative A is, uh, we would build a new water treatment plant for Georgetown Municipal and we would, uh, source raw water from the Kentucky River. Alternative B, we would continue to treat at our current water treatment plant and then we would, uh, purchase anything above our 4 million gallons a day based on demand, we would purchase that from Frankfurt Plant Board. Um, alternative C, uh, that is similar to alternative B. We would keep oper operating our water treatment plant. As demand grows, all of our excess would be purchased from Kentucky American Water Company. And then alternative D is uh, we would purchase all of our water from the Louisville Water Company uh, via a transmission pipeline from their service area to ours. Um,

when you say when you say two hours, what what's that mean? Two hours. From there, there's two hours. Uh, from from there's two hours. Okay. Saying two hours. Yes. To Sorry. Sorry. Um, that makes sense.

We have also who just Mr. Stone. We've also started on a preliminary basis looked at a second Ohio River option with uh partnering possibly with utilities in the I75 I'll say north corridor. Um ultimately I believe the supplier there would have to be Northern Kentucky Water District. I don't know that there's others in between there that uh would have the capacity. However, I think between Northern Kentucky Water District Service Area and the Georgetown Municipal Water Service Area, I do believe there are multiple communities or utilities that have a need for additional water uh like we do. So, it's a longer distance, but there's possibly more users that would uh could be positively impacted. So, um, we didn't really get into that alternative as deep as the other ones, but, um, some folks have asked us to look into that, so we're doing that now.

Hey, Chase, let's But the Louisville line is there, right? No, it is not. It's not there. So, Louisville's they have a line to eastern Shelby County. Okay. Chase, have you tied numbers into any of these all these alternatives coming up? Next slide, please. Leave them alone.

I like it. We're eager. Um, so kind of getting getting more down into the weeds on uh on all of the the four alternatives. Alternative A, as I said, that was a new raw water pump station on pool three of the uh Kentucky River. Would involve a new 18mi transmission main into Scott County where we would build a new water treatment plant. The existing water treatment plant would be phased out of service over time. uh we would own and operate the plant. And getting into the costs, uh initial capital costs, and this was in 2022, we were looking at more than $200 million for the river intake, the transmission main, and the new treatment plant. Um for the present worth analysis, over a 20-year period, um so total cost of ownership of that uh those assets, you're looking at more than $320 million. And those estimates were done in uh the year 2022. When I told the board when I presented this to the board, I looked at Peter over there with the news graphic and said, "Do not go quoting me that I think this is what we should do." Um I'm saying this is an option. This is one thing we looked at. I will say that um it has good and bad with it. Um the good being that this community stays has local control over its uh water resources, its water future. However, this this would require easement acquisition that I don't really even want to think about and I don't think that there's possible way that I could or the board would support a rate structure that could fund this type of investment. It's just not possible. Um so, um we did

it's uh it's it's one option, but I'm not saying it's the right option. I'm not saying it's it's perfect, but I question. Okay.

Um said I I think that this is ideal but not for the cost and I don't even think there's any way to chase funding to make this even remotely feasible. Um but it is something that we just we had to look at for um purposes of what we could do to uh continue to treat our own water. So, um, that's kind of the good and bad with Alternative Bay of a new TR. It's ultimately a new treatment plant for Georgetown Municipal. Any other questions on that one?

Just for fun, if there were to be funding available federalally or something like that in the future, how often does a line like that have to be replaced? What is the line? We depreciate assets on a 30-year cycle, but generally they're um operated much much longer than that. 40. I mean, we've got lines I'd say older than 50 years in our system.

Okay, let's go to the next alternative. This is where we would continue to purchase or treat our own water up to 4 million gallons per day. And then we would uh we would purchase water from Frankfurt Plant Board for anything that exceeded um exceeded that demand. And then we would operate our uh treatment plant for the amount of time it took for the math to work out that our treatment cost would exceed the cost of purchasing water all of our water from Frankfurt Plant Board. uh based on the current costs for us to treat water, even knowing that we've got capital improvements coming at the water treatment plant, I think that we will be operating our water treatment plant here in downtown Georgetown for a number of years. I don't see that going away anytime soon just based on the simple math of uh how efficiently we're able to treat water. Uh like I said, I know we've got capital improvements that are going to change that math, but uh we can do a lot of work before we catch up to those rates. Um, so we would purchase additional water. We currently uh they they uh pump water through a 16inch transmission main between the Frankfurt uh ser or the Frankfurt plant board service area, the Georgetown municipal service area. At some point in the future based on demand, we would have to upgrade that to at least a 24inch main. Um and and I can distribute these uh slides and it kind of shows the pipe diameters for the different sections uh that would need to be upgraded. Um I think that uh well this would most of our water uh over the years as we purchase more is going to be sourced from the Kentucky River. I think Frankfurt Plant Board um they have excess capacity at their water treatment plant. I believe they're based on the last time I spoke with them kind of on this subject and and based on kind of the information they've shared, their current demand is around 7 million gallons per day and I believe they have

the ability to treat up to uh 17 million gallons per day. 18. Okay, 18. So they have quite a bit of treatment capacity. Um the challenge with this alternative is over time based on the demand is when we would have to upgrade the transmission infrastructure. And I think that um Frankfurt Plant Board would be willing to um I mean we would go to them and say we we want to share those infrastructure costs and would they do that with some sort of negotiation based on the terms of a long-term purchase contract? And I'm talking 25 years or more. Um they know they're going to have that customer. They're going to be more willing to leverage capital to um help us and our system and the transmission main between the two systems. So,

do they sell anyone else? I'm looking. Yes, they do. I'm looking at a Frankfurt Plant Board representative that I know and putting them on the spot. Okay. Yes, they do. So, even with selling to other folks, we still have enough buying from them. I think they've got quite a bit of treatment capacity and and with it's really just a thing of looking at the transmission main and that would only serve us. Chase, how like the 16 to 24 inch switch is is that a lot? Like I can't really tell from the map. Like it's a significant amount of water. And then I mean if if we how how many miles are we talking of that? You remember that off the top of your

I mean just kind of guesstimate. Good job. That's why we want him to move. What is it? It's pretty good. Alan, could I ask? You know, 55,000 ft. He know we have existing line now, but on the map looks like it changes to red as it kind of turns into Scott County, comes down Pays Depot. Is that correct, Chase?

That's correct. And that what that's getting into is the red portion uh here. This is what we're getting into when we're talking about our um southside tank and distribution system improvements that Magister Wallace is going to ask me about a little bit later. What's the approximate length? What's the approximate length of that section? I don't know the answer to that. Three miles. About three miles. You do the math. Thanks, Chase.

Yes, sir. Um, so again, a long-term purchase agreement that is where we can we can possibly u get the uh Frankfurt plant board to work with us as a partner to make these infrastructure upgrades. It's not a capital investment that we've got to make uh 100% to us. They recover that capital uh investment through their rate in the long-term purchase agreement that we would establish with Georgetown Municipal. So Chase, are they willing to uh build lines into Scott County? I know they already come to Midway I believe. That's that's what we've been talking about and we're going to talk more about that too. Okay.

Okay. Um we'll go to the next slide. This is the deeper dive into alternative C. And this is as I said same thing but the the end user or the the wholesale water supply partner would be uh Kentucky American Water Company. So, we would continue operate our water treatment plant and then we would buy anything over the 4 million gallons per day from Kentucky American. I think with this option, we'd be w operating our water plant um in perpetuity because I don't think that our treatment cost is ever going to catch up to Kentucky American's rate. Um I think that this would end up possibly with again a long-term purchase agreement with Kentucky American Water Company. I think that's a little bit different in terms that Kentucky American we'd be p partnering with a private for-profit company and um the control of the rates would would really be uh solely at the PSC. So any questions um on this alternative

still sourcing from the Kentucky. So that that means that most of the cost of this option is going to be on the residents, right? and and the rates that they're going to have to to eat, right? I'll say yes. Just it's almost has to, right?

Yeah. Okay. Next next slide, please. So, I'm going to explain this alternative. So, you can see that we did a lot of work here. However, um I'm going to point out at the beginning that uh this is our Louisville Water Company, Ohio River option that Louisville Water has informed us they've withdrawn themselves from consideration and becoming a uh long-term partner, wholesale water supply partner with Georgetown Municipal. So, I'm still going to talk about it so you know what we looked at, but I'll just say that upfront that um they did uh you'll hear about this later when we get into our procurement process. They did withdraw. So, alternative D is what we called this. It involved a 42mm transmission main from the eastern part, eastern half of uh Shelby County all the way into Scott County. The main would be constructed, owned and operated by Louisville Water Company. Water would be sourced from the Ohio River Aquafer. and the cost of the transmission main similar to the the previous two alternatives that would be borne by uh the wholesale water supplier and then they would recover that cost through the rate to Georgetown Municipal all governed by a long-term purchase agreement. Um

why did they back out?

I the letter they sent me was it didn't have that much information. I think um depending on who you talk to, I've I've talked to the president president of Louisville Water about it. He gave me some information. I'm let's just say they've they've withdrawn. So, um as you saw kind of the and gasped with alternative A, the downside is that in initial capital investment. It's impossible to overcome. I'm going to point out with alternatives B, C, and D. Um the downside ultimately is locally we are losing control of our rate structure. Um we can negotiate, but ultimately um the water source is not in Georgetown and Scott County. So um if we're purchasing from a wholesale water supplier, as best we can negotiate though, we're we're um we're locked into their rate structure, not our own that's approved by this council. So any questions on kind of the four primary alternatives? So next slide information kind of that we've gone over. That's a 30,000 foot very quick overview of a lot of of of five years worth of work. And um so at this point uh I presented this to the board first back in um July of 2024 and our next step at that time was um which is complete at this time was we wanted to extend our current purchase agreement with Frankfurt Plant Board and that has been completed. That was done in September of 2024. We executed a fourth amendment with Frankfurt Plant Board and that extends that purchase agreement through 2034. Um, with this agreement, we had always paid their standard rate, but by increasing our minimum purchase from a

quarter million gallons a day to half million gallons a day, our purchase rate went from 3.94 $3.94 per thousand down to $353 per thousand. So, that step was already complete. And I believe based on our projections for population, our projections for demand, uh I believe this amendment serves us well in terms of uh at the time it was executed 10 more years of service uh partnership with Frankfurt Plant Board. Any questions? Okay, next slide. So related to kind of long I'm sorry.

If if you entered into an agreement for a long-term purchase uh with Frankfurt Plant Board, could that could that current standing agreement be amended? Um I believe uh and I'm for a savings for I'm not speaking for Frankfurt Plant Board, but I think if they were going to get an extended term um yes, they're going to they're going to look to um help us with renegotiating amendment 4. And I think that's that's where we're headed.

Yeah. So related to kind of what's past 10 years, what's past 2034, uh we felt the next steps had to be to um conduct a RFP or request for proposal process for wholesale water supply. So as of uh July of 24, we conducted preliminary discussions with Frankfurt Plant Board, Louisville Water, a little bit Kentucky American about what a long-term partnership would look like. And that includes infrastructure cost and investment. That includes term of the agreement, the cost sharing, pursuit of funding, all of those things that could factor into a long-term uh purchasing agreement. That was all done, as I said, preliminary, just kind of what it what's actually feasible. But we kind of felt like we needed to in order to zero in on what a partnership would actually look like, we needed to go through an official procurement process. So, we developed an RFP for long-term water supply and we sent that out to um Frankfurt Plant Board, Louisville Water, Kentucky American, Northern Kentucky Water District, and also Versailles Municipal Utilities because Versailles has uh we know that Versailles actually has quite a bit of excess treatment capacity. However, there's no transmission name between Georgetown and Versailles, but we sent it to them as well. This served as our official procurement process. Go to the next slide. um it was established and it was as as we said from a legal standpoint it was followed in order to meet those state procurement protocols. Uh we didn't feel that soul sourcing just going to one utility and negotiating directly we didn't really feel like that was um for this magnitude of of contract that that was going to be the smartest way to do this. So we did go through the or we in this current process right now. RFP was um it did have our official proposal guidelines and instructions from the

wholesale water supply uh utilities and um it was based on if we go to the next slide it was based on our both our low range and our high high range um average day demand and maximum day demand. So same thing this came right out of our RFP for 2045. We had the 7 and a half million gallons for our low range projection with the m the maximum day demand and the 10 million gallons per day uh with the maximum daily demand of 15 million gallons. So the wholesale water suppliers had to propose on how they would meet both our low range and our high range needs. Uh what infrastructure would be involved and how much it would cost. So next next slide. We requested uh information um on projected capacity, guaranteed capacity. We we requested information on any potential limitations. Uh what would be their limitations to supply Georgetown under drought condition or if they um we had the question earlier um if they had other customers, would there be a a priority list? Um, so we we asked for all those things and and that's kind of in the existing commitments uh of of treated water to others. So we asked about all of those things in this RFP process. Um, next slide. Probably most importantly, we um we asked about their proposed billing uh and rate structure for wholesale water supply and purchased by us and the methodology for future rate increases that they use. Um, and they'd also have to disclose the capital investments that they would be proposing the cost of those capital investments in order to serve us and meet these demands that we'd established. So, we would at least know what their rates are going to be based on the capital investments that um that were going to be put in the ground uh that would serve us uh help serve our

customers with water. Next slide. We required um all of the wholesale water suppliers to submit a base proposal for um the same point of delivery to uh uh so everybody was all anybody that's proposing had to submit a base proposal to one central point of delivery uh in our service system. So at least we had a base to go off of when scoring these proposals. Everybody had to get the water the same point that we could uh accept the water in a uh optimal area of our system and that it was hydraulically uh advantageous to us. We don't want to accept um millions of gallons of water in a part of our treatment uh in our I'm sorry in the part of our distribution network. It only has 4 inch lines and we're going to have to that's not going to work. So we had to pick an area. We did that and that's what their base proposal had to be based on. Then we allowed them to propose alternate proposals and that way um Frankfurt plant board where they have their closest infrastructure they could leverage that with a probably a better proposal. Kentucky American could do the same. So we let the um the wholesale water suppliers do either one uh or well they had to do both. Um but it it gave us even comparison to one part of our system. It also gave them the opportunity to give us their um lowest cost methodology for serving us. Next slide, please. We issued the RFI, which was kind of the first step of the RFP. It was just requesting information if they were interested or not. We did that in September of last year. And then we uh sent out the official RFP and on October 17th of last year. And as said, we sent to Northern Kentucky Water, Kentucky American, Louisville Water Company, Frankfurt Plant Board, and Versailles Municipal Utilities.

Next slide, please. We received back uh Frankfurt Plant Board. Uh we received these on November 21st of last year. Frankfurt Plant Board submitted one base proposal, two alternates. Kentucky American one base proposal, one alternate. Northern Kentucky Water, one base proposal. As you can see, is what I said, Louisville Water. they did not propose and we received no response from uh for sales municipal utilities. So that brings us to the present on the next slide. Um what are our next steps now? So we at the staff level, we've begun diving into all these proposals, all this data that we've received. And um we've kind of developed a whole new set of next steps. And so the staff, we as I said, we've begun reviewing those. We have um we think at minimum uh next step, we will be requesting additional information on the proposals from specific wholesale water suppliers where we've reviewed, we have questions. the uh Georgetown Municipal Water and Sewer Service Board, they have selected two members uh to work with staff on a preliminary scoring committee. That's not that the staff and these two members are going to be making this decision for this community. This is just a preliminary review so they can set direction on what information do we think is the best, who scored the highest that we think we should go to the the entire board, the city council, fiscal court. I do believe that this is a decision that that won't be made in a vacuum that that we've got to have input. Uh as you can see how important it is and and um how difficult of a decision this is going to be. So um that's kind of the work that we have set up set before us and we look to get started on kind of the scoring with the scoring committee as soon as possible.

Um in your RFP and your RFI, how long are these proposals required to be valid? Um, what did we put in? I think we we put How long? Did we put six or 12 months in there? I think we took 12 months, Christie. We We gave ourselves quite a bit of time that they had to hold is almost over. They had to hold their proposal. So, 12 months, I believe that's correct. Okay. I'll check on that and send that out.

All right. Thank you. And then my question and would ask for consideration is did any of the process allow for um the successful bidder to u work with the city and the county and state and federal representatives to to essentially try to give us an opportunity to get funding from the state and federal level to help offset the cost for for the project.

I think in any direction we wanted to go, I think any of the wholesale suppliers um would be very eager to work with us in order to leverage all funding opportunities. I just don't know of a way that we could have included that and scored that effectively in an RFP process. My my my question is if if it if it was done as an alternate that led uh and gave biders the opportunity to bid on an alternate that you know here's here's a here's a proposal but the alternate would allow for a 24month period for the elected bodies to to to work to try to to leverage federal and state dollars. If we were unsuccessful, then it still that you know that original proposal would stand and you'd move forward with that that successful bidder. Could you structure that like that through an offer? I don't think any contractor is going to do that or any company because it's I mean two years out things change so much for any company or any contractor on their cost

but as we are now and today there is no opportunity for leveraging any federal or state dollars and there's got to be a way just to give yourself time to do go to give us time to work collaboratively I just can't see anybody putting themselves out there that long. I mean, that's a long you can you can like you can build into a bid what what you would see as as growth. I guess you could have it fall back to whatever and growth growth in cost. I mean, there's no perfect opportunity,

but but that would be a question that I have as you go through looking at at the proposals. The longer you go out, the higher the price is going to be up front. Yeah. It's never going to be cheaper than it is today. Like it just is. But I do know that, and tell me if I'm correct, that the proposals that stand today do not allow for us to try to leverage um you know, like a successful bidder couldn't say uh they couldn't leverage any federal or state dollars to help reduce the cost. the current proposals are not they don't have a basis. They don't have that basis.

They aren't that doesn't mean that it can't happen. Yeah. It just means that their current proposal is not based on x number of dollars of funding being um awarded to the if it's a a wholesale a regional partnership of some kind where there's infrastructure investment, there's not uh those numbers are not based on an allocation of funding from a funding source currently. Is there a way to like have that broken down to where we could then go after that for the specific cost of especially the infrastructure part that that people are going to add and then charge us?

I don't know exactly. I'll say this is the mayor, his staff, the judge, Georgetown municipal to say that we haven't looked at and talked to funding agencies, elected representatives at the state at the federal level. We've done that. They've pretty much said we've got to know what you're going to build or who you're going to partner with before we can pledge money. Um, I get where the importance of what the judge is saying is it would be nice if there was a way that um we could somehow have included in the RFP process and the scoring criteria the ability to leverage some funding or leverage funding for an alternative. Like I said, I just I don't know how that's done. And we worked very hard on the RFP. I'm not saying it's perfect. Um, I will say just based on my review, uh, just I've read through all the proposals. Right now, there's not one of them that's on the table that I would recommend. I think at minimum we've got to go start negotiating because there's not one that is acceptable in its current form. Um, if we went to the negotiating and we can't get to a uh a place where we feel comfortable bringing a proposal to council that we think is feasible to get us the water we need at an affordable rate, then we're going to have to throw out the proposals and start over. Um, we can't we can't agree to something that we can't afford or that's not going to get us the water we need. Um, so I think that we've got to look at the proposals, um, possibly start reaching out to the ones that we feel like are uh, most feasible and see if they if those discussions yield anything productive. If not, then we've got to reject them all like we would any other type of bid where we don't think we've got responsive bids. We throw them out and we start over. and

maybe there's something we can look at that we could potentially um find that mechanism to include leveraging funding opportunities. Like I said in this part, we did try. I just don't know how that's done. I'm not saying that we we were exhaustive. I just didn't know how to do it. So,

Chase, oh, sorry. So it would seem to me um based on what you're saying that perhaps in getting the bids the proposals it's not there but once we decided on someone and we wrote an agreement a contract that we could put different options in the contract say we get funding for $5 million for something you know it's once we pick somebody then it's included before you sign a contract but but it is impossible to know at the at the front end but before you would would that work

well my question is is you know um would other options be available and would other entities made a bid if the ability to try to leverage average federal and state dollars were were an option on the front end instead of, you know, not being there on the front side. So you're you're saying if if if folks out there knew that there was a possibility that it was going to be funded by federal dollars that you might have more takers or more

more agreeable numbers or or they're not likely because there's less risk to them maybe because of the

but I I don't I don't I think the cart is before the horse. I think you can go after funding because there are often times that funding is available and you and it is inserted into that budget and you may not do the project for three years and you don't have to have the project in whole to get the funding there and you you know this from being in the school system. There are school districts that say we want an ATC. They don't know exactly how much it's going to cost. They haven't bid it out. They haven't thoroughly completely designed it yet, but they go to Frankfurt and they get $16 million to go towards their project. That is completely opposite of what we're talking about right now. What you're saying is you've got to have it all or or partly mostly wrapped up before we can go after funding, which is not true.

Uh I I think that we would at least need a some bit of an idea of a some bit of a direction. I don't think we need a detailed. What do you mean by direction? like which way does the city county want to go with Frankfurt or Louis Frankfurt is the best option then at that point you bond with Frankfurt you bond with the plant board and GMWSS and city council and fiscal court and does the plant board are do they have any governance or are they have does Frankfurt have any governance over the plant board? Say that again. Does does the city of Frankfurt have any governance over the plant board like we do here with GMWS? on our board.

They just appoint the board. They don't vote on anything in in council or Okay. But you you can pick a partner based on these things and then say yes, you know, this is I agree with you there. But I mean, you don't have to have a project down the line before you can go after funding. I agree with you there. I I think that what we've heard back is we'd have to at least get to the pick a partner point. But I think at the point of the I I dis I still disagree with that because you have a a range of project costs and that's what you can do is say because they're not going to fully fund it probably. No,

at the state level or the federal, but you that's when you pick a dollar on what is affordable to ask for from the state and from the federal. And you don't have to have a fully cost of what it's going to be because but you never know what the true cost is going to be. But you might have to have a who that you're going to go with before you ask. But you still can't put it out to bid. Well, I didn't say that, but I'm just saying you got to have a who. I don't know that you can have a who because when you do an ATC, you don't know who your CM might be or your GC. You may choose that down the line. So there's your who on who's building it and all that stuff. So but if you have who could they help? Absolutely. So

yeah, if it's if it's whatever Frankfurt Louisville, you got you got an entity with you. We're we're in a we're in a budget year. So you're looking two years out. That's right. Because if it's not in there now, if it's not in there by April 10th, it's two years out. But here's I'll go back to what you said. We are not in by any means in any type of right water supply concern at this time. We are trying to be proactive and we are trying to look down the road to supply what is needed in the future for our community.

Well stated. So, so before we enter into a long-term agreement, I will go back to say trying to leverage federal and state dollars to to make sure that those dollars give our rateayers the lowest option that's available and as a starting point. And I know you've got to go through this process, formalize the scoring, and then make a recommendation, but just me as Joe Pat Coington, judge executive, working with the fiscal court, wanting to partner and collaborate because we understand, we've talked about this for several years.

This has to be a collaborative effort in my mind. Absolutely. And u Well, you know, you don't know what you've done. We don't know. I mean, there's no there's no real knowledge. just guesstimates. So, I mean, going through the process gives us some more concrete information to, you know, longer term. Council member Amber.

Um, I think that being visionary at this point is critical. We don't know what the climate's going to be like. We could have three years in a row of drought. I think it's obviously we're not in a crisis situation. I'm thankful for that. But, um, we need to be proactive and I appreciate all this information. I This ultimately I have a lot of relatives in the west. It's it's water wars out there. This this ultimately becomes very political, very um power structure heavy. Uh lot of things with Louisville just shutting down is a bit of a red flag. Um I don't think we've gotten easy answers from that. Maybe never will. I'm curious. Um Lexington uh doesn't have a lot of water. That's one reason why they were never made the capital of the state from what I've heard. How are they approaching this since we've not mentioned much about Lexington and maybe we could leverage something with them at some point? I don't know.

Believe Lexington I mean they're they're served by Kentucky American and I believe they're served from two sources um as two different pools of the Kentucky River and Okay. that's that's their only option. That's that's what their um that's what their options are. And if we were to uh partner with K Kentucky American, that would be yet another concern of mine with that alternative is um from those two pools and that those transmission mains, there's only so much water there.

Exactly. And along those lines, Miss Hamrick, you know, back to what uh Todd mentioned earlier, we've talked about as well, like is there an option from the north that would consider Ohio River source water just along the just along the the thought process of the the Louisville water coming from the west? Yeah. So, judge, can I Yes, sir. expand on that a little bit.

Oh, yes, sir. When we started this effort, um, at that time it was Mayor Prather and Judge Coington saying, "We don't care what you look at, but you're going to look at an we're going to have at least one Ohio River option to consider in this exercise." And so if you look at where Louisville Water was with their um their service area, the eastern edge of Shelby County u to Scott County, and then you look at um we talked about going up uh toward Grant County or Northern Kentucky Water District, um the distance in mileage is drastically different. Allan, can you refresh my memory the difference between the two? We're talking

42 miles to get to Louisville and over 55 because you're not just getting Northern Kentucky Waters service area, you're getting into that service area to a pipe that has the water that could actually send that uh volume our way. So just the sheer linear footage, we said we we can't look to Northern Kentucky Water. However, if you're looking between us and Louisville Water Service Area, in between, there's really no other customers that benefit off that infrastructure. What we're learning today is in the I75 corridor, there are um other utilities that could benefit. Now, that's a whole another um negotiating with multiple utilities in that corridor on a pipeline and setting up how you govern that. Um, wow. That you you talk about a lofty goal, but that might be if you've got more parties at the table, you overcome that cost of more linear footage if we want an Ohio River option. And we've actually had some folks at the state leadership level that have asked us to get uh to get more in-depth on that option. Well, Chase,

Chase, since the Louisville option has pulled out, you know, it's another 15 miles of water line and you've got you've got at least one two different districts that would, you know, pony into that. So, you know, the northern Kentucky route may be plus, you know, what we experienced in 2018 with uh and Brandon will tell you the same thing with the drought and the water level went so bad and people complained not only in Georgetown but in Frankfurt about the water quality. You know, when's the last time the Ohio River stopped or went desperately low? though.

Yeah, you know, I've talked about that. Um, and yes, I Okay, Chase, I know we're on a limited time here, so we need to uh move it along here. I think um we are you really done with next steps? I'm done. If you're not done with next steps, you know, discussion and questions from city council and on physical court, I think we've done some of those. So, uh, is there any more questions from the council or fiscal court? I just want to say thank you, Chase. It was very informative. That's amazing. Thank you. Appreciate it. Appreciate that.

I had I hadn't checked my email today. Did Are we going to get a copy of that or have we already? We can distribute a copy of that.

Uh, again, yes. Thank you, Chase, for for your due diligence on getting this done and and presenting this council. This is the second time I've heard this and it's it's you know it's uh a lot of things needs to be done with this and I'm glad you're taking the forefront on this. At this time I get you allow for item three which will be some public comments. I'm going to give you four minutes for each one of them wants to come up. If you would pronounce your name or give your name for the record and you'll give four minutes in which you can come in and if you want to comment anybody in the audience You sure?

Hi, my name's Emily Thompson. Um, we moved to Georgetown. This will be our second year here and it's been great, fine. Um, we are now having an issue, which is my last year. um with the water at our house. So, and I brought our bill from this says five, but I have pictures of the other one. So, the most water we have ever used since we've lived in this house. We live over in Mount Vernon um near the hospital. The most water we've ever used was January to February of 25. We used 3,380 gallons of water. Last month, we used 2,380 80 gallons of water, and now we got a bill yesterday in an email for 10,350 gallons of water used. It is me, my significant other, and a 2-year-old. There's no way. We got a bill. Our bill is usually $75, $80. We got a $286 bill yesterday in an email. No notice that we had used that much water on our door in our mailbox. Um we had a plumber come out and check for leaks because we called. That's what they said to do. We have no leaks. He's sending me um a letter tomorrow in the email that states that I stuff is crazy right now. We are on a one we are a one and a half income household. We can't take a $210 increase in water, but water's something you can't live without, especially with a

kid. So, we called, we did the the food die test. Um, we've done all the things. They're supposed to come tomorrow and tell us, but they told us that it's not 100% accurate. And if they don't find it's a leak on their end, it's up to us to figure out what to do about that. So my question is why now? Like why this random 10,000galon spike with no notice? Should they not be notifying us? Should they be notifying us? I mean, 2,300 gallons is a lot less than 10,350 gallons. And with no leaks present from a plumber, I don't know what what else to do. So, that's why I came today. Um, and I spoke with other residents. their bills didn't change um in my neighborhood, but other people across Georgetown have had the same issue of being normal one month and then the month next month it be 14,000 gallons and they call a plumber and there's no leaks. So, are we truly using the $4.6 million or 4.6 6 million gallons of water per day that they stated in 2025 or is there an issue somewhere in the county that needs to be found? All right. Thank you. All right. Uh Dan Homeman Dan Hullman, Georgetown. Um, yeah. So, this issue that Emily just talked about is is an important issue that a lot of people like someone today on the street just saw me and they said since they sort of knew I was involved in some of this that they had an unexpected bill. And if you look at this uh Facebook page, the Georgetown KY water

complaints, there's all these there are a lot of unexpected spike. There's a spike issue and city council especially has had uh residents come recently. So, there it just seems like there really may be something out there. they they just say is toilet leaks is the most common thing. Could it like uh could there be like systemwide pressure issues? Because if you look what can cause this if you have high pressure in the system that can cause um for one if you turn your your water on for 5 seconds if you're having like a high pressure day or week a lot more water comes out of your uh faucet for that 5 seconds than it does when the pressure is low. So, do we have like, you know, 150 PSIs of pressure in the system? Sometimes, uh, are there water bubbles in the system? These things have not been mentioned yet by GMWSS as possibilities, but these are possibilities that can cause spikes. Um, and it they're just it just seems like people in town are thinking there is some reason for these spikes or else they're just fudging the numbers. Um, so could you all look, you know, address at some point water pressure uh issues? Could could that be a fluctuating water pressures? So, I'll just address real quick uh the uh this uh the uh so it does seem like these options that are on the table. So, the one main thing I think these RFPs that have been put out that Chase has said none of them are really desirable. He hardly would recommend any of them and we got them in in November. Could they just wrap up their procurement process and get them out to everybody uh so that everybody can know the numbers? That that was the one thing that was missing from this presentation. uh $200 million for option A, which was where we build a water station in Frankfurt. But then the other three options, there were no numbers mentioned. Uh though though there are there are uh there are numbers actually from the Northern Kentucky Water District, they have publicly you can get that through public record, their number, I forget what it was, but it was about a hundred million uh dollars. So could they just wrap up this RFP process? Chase said that this shouldn't occur in a vacuum, but yet it has been occurring in a vacuum for the last three

years. like this conversation has been going on for three years um and it's been in a vacuum but until now. So wrap this up and get it moving on. Uh and so then the other options that are taken off the table uh reuse of affluent. So we're looking uh into the future. So in the future uh people are reusing affluent. It's becoming more and more common. So one of the board members at the presentation was interested in that and was asking questions about it. I think it was judge. You you seemed interested in that as an option. I believe one one I asked about the volume, right?

So could we Yeah. So why was that just taken off the table uh with the five mile rule? You pump your affluent five miles away and then get it back. Is there a point that we could just I believe he indicated that the division of water said that was not enough. Well, with directory use directory use is a problem. Mr. Homie, you got you just three minutes.

Three minutes. So yes, direct reuse of affluent is not permanently allowed, but five mile reuse of affluent, could that be allowed? And then the north El Cornin Creek, they often refer to the south Elcorn Creek, but it really I don't know is it it's the north Elcorn Creek that flows through Georgetown right by our existing water plant. Uh could you know and that's very similar in run to the Cane Run waterhed. Could that be cleaned up, you know, not today, but within 10 years? Could that wershed be approved to to draw from? has that you know that's an option to consider. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Is there anyone else that will speak for this for this committee here or this during this work session? Anybody in the public? If not then uh with none of us brought before this group this meeting is ajourned.