Board of County Commissioners Work Sessions - Regular Meeting

January 27th. Thank you.

2026, it's 11:00 a.m. We now start our work session uh overview and discussion regarding the Lake County Water and Natural Resources Department led by Bryce Olrich, water enterprise program manager. All right. Well, thank you board. Uh [clears throat] when I saw Elsa ask me a few more questions about the water storage and our progress there and then there is this block of time today just a few days away. I figured it would be a good time to come in here update you guys on where we're at with the water and how we're preparing for the upcoming dry year. Uh there's a lot of considerations. Um so I just wanted to give you a quick update. I just want to start with um an update on our IGA with Aurora. As we've discussed in fireworks sessions, that's our most, you know, impactful and consequential IGA. It really dictates how we can run our water operations in the county. We need needed to do a few changes to that IGA to make the way we work with Aurora and the conditions we work with them in work for the full-fledged enterprise that we are still working on getting implemented. Uh we had a bit of a delay. We had to change water lawyers in the course of

midstream. Yeah. As I midstream as I've been working on this.

Um and so as of January 1st, we hired a new water lawyer and they started working right away. And actually just yesterday evening, Matt and I received back some draft IGA documents from them. So Matt and I are going to review those today. And then um there's nothing substantial changes wise based on what I've presented to you, just the small changes we have to make. But what they've done is they've cleaned it up a lot and they've made it actually a coherent document that we can follow along and that'll be good for us going forward in the future rather than trying to compile a bunch of terms from prior documents just to get something out the door.

So once we've reviewed that and we feel like it looks good, then the fun part begins. they start negotiating directly with Aurora's lawyers. Um, and we've told them, you know, that's our priority is to get this cross the finish line before building season so that we can have the water enterprise as a tool this year for the building season. And it's also really important just to start realizing some revenue from this water that the countyy's invested a lot in over the course of three decades now. So, I just wanted to let you know we're we're we're plugging away on that. really encouraged by how things are going and how fast things are going with their new lawyer. Um, and from what we've heard talking to everyone around the industry, the firm we selected is very reputable and they have experience working with Aurora on some more contentious stuff than this should be. So hopefully that plays in our favor and gets this done. So, but as every decision I'm making right now is with a view on the snow pack. And so, if you look at the second page I presented to you, it's just a snapshot of the snow tail graph from today uh this morning looking at the state of the snowpack in the upper Arkansas specifically. So, this is Lake and Chief counties. This is where our water comes in. Um, I put on so the the black line is us. All right, this is where we are. And I know that the narrative is, oh well, the snowiest time of the year is still to come. And that's true, but it better snow a foot every day until then to get us to average. Even if it starts snowing a ton, we're not in a position where we can get in to a median snow pack by any means. I put the dark green line on here, which is the 2012 water year. And that's kind of our baseline for that was the last really bad [snorts] low water dry year we had. You can see

we're well below that. We're well below that. The only other year that has worse data that creates that bottom red line is 1981. That was kind of a statistical anomaly. So 2012 is what I'm looking at. That's what I'm comparing at. That's what I'm projecting based on what water was available that year. And we're in even worse position. Um, [clears throat] that's all to say that I'm also looking at the non massive golf course. They're our biggest water user for the water enterprise historically and probably into the near future too. And so given that we have two sources of water really. We have the firm yield doesn't change every year that's delivered by Aurora through their system from the other side of the divide. We also have the dairy ditch number three right up on none over. We cannot rely on the dairy ditch number three right to come into priority in any meaningful way this summer.

If it does, that's almost a bonus. But what I'm doing is trying to really make sure that our existing obligations, the things we know we have to take care of can be covered by that 40 acre featur. And then you know the the contingency water is berry water. So, what we've done with Mount Massive Golf Course, just thinking about how to supply them with water, you know, we know that's an important asset up here. However, they just can't be the only user of our water anymore.

And if they were to pump with, you know, no considerations otherwise, they might pump more water than we even have available in our water portfolio. And so this year it's being really care. We have to be really careful to limit the amount of water they're using, but not just that, but but limit it per month. So there's going to be a monthly pumping limit and overall season [cough and clears throat] pumping limit. [snorts] We've tried to give them a really good slug of water out of that firm yield of Aurora IgA water. We just can't give as much as they maybe have used in the past. Mhm.

And so this graph is just showing the first table is really that's just an engineering calculation we're doing. The second table shows you their historic pumping per year over the last four years. So this gives us a good idea of what their average use per month is. Of course it doesn't account for the the availability of natural water, you know, precipitation coming down, but this shows that on average they're pumping roughly 35 acre feet a year. If we give them and the depletions is a whole other thing that's that's our consumed water. So the depletion amount is what we actually comes out of our firm yield. But basically this is saying that what I'd like to do is give them the ability to pump 25 acre feet of the Aurora water

which is you know about 3/4 of their need. And then if the dairy 3 is in priority where you're [clears throat] meaning that it's running and we can actually use that water, they can add another additional amount of w pumping per month of that dairy water. And if you look the monthly limit, if the dairy is in priority and they use their farm yield, it equals actually slightly more than their average total use.

So I'm not saying the dairy 3 water is going to be a priority. We can't rely on it. But if it is, this leaves them essentially whole as they've been every other year. And if dairy 3 doesn't come into priority or it's not in priority the whole season, they have to cut their water back just like everyone else in the state is going to be doing as well. They're going to have to be more careful with what they're irrigating, how they're irrigating. They might have to invest in system efficiency improvements. What What is the feedback from Mount Massive Golf Bin thus far? you know, like have you brought this to them and let like

I have a meeting with them tomorrow. So, I wanted to talk about it with you guys first just to talk about the general situation of why we're we're kind of thinking this way, but they're already thinking this way, too. So, they requested a meeting and we have a meeting tomorrow at 2:30. I know I've heard you're on the board. If you'd like to attend, you're more than welcome. We're meeting in the annex conference room. Can you send me an invite or Sure. Will tell me what time it is or something?

Yeah, 2:30 in the annex, but I'll send you the the actual invite. But we're I'm going to be presenting this exact same information to them. You know, I'm trying to meet them halfway and give them hopefully they have the same amount of water they've always had that totally meets their needs for irrigating 22 acres of golf course and they will still have the ability to irrigate a lot of it. However, if we're running out of water, they're going to start feeling the pitch, too. And that's just going to be, like I said, that's going to be regionwide. That's going to be statewide. We're not going to be in a vacuum in that. There's going to be a lot of water rights that are

Yeah. And and they're not the only ones getting pinched. You know what you're trying to do is preserve the water so that there will be at least some trickle going out of the faucet for longer instead of just us hitting a hard wall in July. That's right. It's like, okay, you're going to have dead grass frog. So,

you know, I think you guys share common interest and I think you'll be able to express that to them that what you're doing is in every is, you know, mutually beneficial. And I think in consideration of those new constraints they're going to have and we're all learning and you know we're I'm also working on finding them other sources of water that we need to develop to reduce their need of augmentation water which is our most versatile water. Um I think I would like to look at the cost. Last year they paid delay on I need to talk to you. Um, so I just had a meeting with Jeremiah. Who's Dan? [clears throat] Yeah, I have

There's a mute. Sorry, Dan. Fired.

Last year they they we charged them $22,950. I think if this year if I bump everything up to the market rate, which is kind of what PBLO charges, it's 29,750. So we're talking about $7,000 here. And I just wanted your feedback on consideration for that. Like I I had planned to gradually stair step them up to a market rate pricing, which is still pretty affordable at $850 an acre foot. Um but given that they're going to be working with us to coordinate this this year, just wanted to talk about potential cost.

Well, but we wouldn't be charging them for the full amount, right? If we go up to 29,000, we we charge them the a lease fee whether they use it all or not. Got it. Yeah. And so that's the you know, we're giving them 35 acre feet whether they use it or not. We have to allocate for that. So it's but this year we're proposing less than 35 acre feet. No, in the past we've given them 34 acre feet plus 10. I give them the entirety of the theory ditch yield, which is usually 35 40 acre feet on an average year. Yeah. Plus 10 acre feet of the firm yield. Because I can't rely on that firm yield, I'm g I'm proposing giving them Yeah. Yeah.

You know, more of the firm meal, less of the dairy. But um Okay. But I was also thinking about, you know, if we ramp up their cost, that would take it to 29,750. $7,000 more than it was last year before. What's what's the yield out of the dairy on a typical year? Average year is 34 years. 34.

And we were looking and that's an average year over 20 years, but our dry year yield is much much less, right? And and so we're talking we need the only years we can compare it to are 20 2002 2012 and maybe 2018. That's you know just like when you're looking at the water rights on Lake Fort Ranch the value is defined based on what it yields on the driest. Mhm. That's your firm yield. Are they going to be able to absorb that 7,000 or

last year they were last year we their water cost doubled and they were able to absorb that with a $1 green fee increase. [snorts] So I think so but I think I want to get into a little bit further discussion even if they were to find another source of water that's going to cost a lot more. Yeah. And so like they're in a position where they're they're going to have to start coming up to market for water wherever they get it. You know, if we if we even pay for the development of the Parkville owned water right, Parkville is still going to charge them something close to this per acre. 850 an acre. That's Yeah.

Is the market rate. That's what Titan Gold pays and um that's what everyone else pays. The barn pond folks paid less because they got theirs through an auction system. So it wasn't as guaranteed and in return there was no biders and so they got it way cheaper than that. But that's the you know you come to them demanding I need this much water that's what they charge. Remind me how how Parkill Water would help get them water system.

So there's in 1988 there was a water court decree. So, it's already decreed a portion of the Moyer Ranch um right there at the turnoff of County Road. I can't remember what that is, but yeah, would know the one Moyer Ranch. So, down towards Hayden Meadows. Yeah. Yeah. Portion of that got dried up

and in return that by that dried up water can be used out of Empire Gulch can be transferred up to the Dilap ditch which then irrigates the golf course with that same amount of water. That water right has never been developed even though it was paid for mostly by the county some park hill in the 80s. The dilap ditch is not in a condition to convey water and the empire gulch instrumentation is not installed. So I actually met with Greg Teter last week to talk about how we can get this thing going.

That's what you're talking about in your that's what you're talking about in the infra that's the infrastructure you're talking about. There's several infrastructure needs, but this one is is the lowhanging fruit, I feel like. So, Parkville has the flume that they'll just give us.

We would need to contribute the inind machinery and labor cost to install a flume. So, it's a public works discussion. We install that flume. We relocate another flume on Empire Gulch. And then we install some telemetry, which I hear there might be grant funding in [clears throat] the state, but it would be $5,000 roughly to install the telemetry. And that allows us to measure the diversion that allows us to measure the Empire Gulch water, which we can then transfer to the golf course. [clears throat] At the end of this month, I have a meeting with my engine, my civil engineer to talk about he has he's going to have some initial cost assessments about what it's going to take to make the dilapitch usable again because if we can't use the dilap ditch and if we can't rehabilitate the dilap ditch, we can't utilize this water right that Parkville has uh without going back to court and that's a whole other discussion. So this one because Parkville already has the flume, if it makes sense, we can, you know, there's a potential that this fall we can do the Empire Gulch work and then next month I will have better information on what it's going to take to fix up the dilap.

Yeah, I would hope that since it's serving the golf course and it's Parkville water they're going to make money on and yeah, the county benefits from it because we save a water, I would hope that all three of those entities would contribute financially to this project. Um I don't think it should be just on the county. Um given it's not our water we're going to be making real and it's we're going to save all that odd water which is a huge financial benefit to us but it's still you know we're developing someone else's water.

So that's just something I I want on your radar. I talked to Michael Irwin about it. I kind of gave him the designs that Greg had given me. So it's something we can consider a little bit more. I I don't think it would take too much financial cost on the county besides the ink kind, you know, paying for the public works hours, but if they have that time, it would have to take place in the late fall, you know, after the water's basically out of the stream before the snow starts. So October, this October would have been great because we had great weather or November or December or Yeah, I call this winter the October that never ended. [laughter]

Um, so [clears throat] yeah, that's just something that's on the radar because I'm looking at any and every way to get the golf course different water. And if we can develop a water right that has already been through court, we [clears throat] don't need to readjudicate. We're not injuring anybody by putting it into place. We're literally just freeing up water for our enterprise to use elsewhere. Where does that water go currently where the diversion would pull it? It just goes direct. It runs for about a couple hundred yards and goes into the Arkansas right there at the the Moyer Ranch site there. So just to clarify, Bryce, whose water right is it? Parkville.

Okay. Thank you. And I think the origin is it was the county contributing because we didn't have any water for the golf course at that time in the 80s and we were just we still owned it. We still wanted something. So the benefit would be to get the water from Parkville. You're trying to find water for the golf course that would not be taking more from the water rights the enterprise manages, right? Okay. Yeah. Because irrigation water is irrigation water. It's supposed to go onto the grass and some of it goes into the soil and some of it goes into the grass

itself. But augmentation water is the most versatile. You can use it for anything including irrigation, but that's probably the lowest benefit use. So, being having an irrigation, right, it's like, well, that water can't be used for anything besides irrigating grass anyways, right? So, let's let's put it towards where it's most efficient to use it. And the dilap ditch would only be used for irrigation. That's right. Yeah. Are they in danger of abandonment if they don't put it to use? Um, yes. The entire dilap ditch right is the entire dilap ditch right was on the abandonment list last time [clears throat] and so it happens every 10 years

and it was on the abandonment list and the state actually did a favor at that time and we basically ran the dilap and flooded the campground to to prove that we had used that ditch right so we didn't lose it and it got off the advantage that's why we did that y [clears throat] needs to be used at least once every 10 years, but realistically more than that. You know, that was just the bare minimum, so it didn't go away. Um, so you think that in February you'll have some numbers for us about like what it would total the total it would cost and then Yeah,

from there we can go to see who would be willing to be partners with us and paying for it. Yeah, I think the cost assessment is going to be our first one because then we can make an analysis of like is it worth to go fix the DAP or should we be folding this into a larger court application. M okay. And we can in that court application we could change the point of diversion from the DAP headgate to the Dilap well that the golf course currently uses to pump our water out, right? And so we just skip one or so miles of ditch. We'd still have to pay for the transit losses on that ditch. It wouldn't be perfect, but it would be it could be more efficient. We also said it would be very expensive.

And that goes into Yeah. I wanted to talk a little bit more about the infrastructure needs because we have the Dilap ditch which isn't usable. We also have the upper river ditch and the upper river ditch is what feeds the Hayden pond. So, it comes directly from the main stem of the Arkansas. It goes actually um around the railroad tracks there. There's I think it's called the current property down there on County Road 10 by the fly over. That is the upper river ditch. It controls everything going into Hayden, which we need to have functional to use Hayden for storage. We have to be able to measure water going in and out of Hayden to use it anyway, but especially if we're going to be coordinating with Aurora like this.

Mhm. And there's some real big barriers to that. The first one is the beavers. Just the the physical beavers in the ditch. It it runs really low gradient. It's a perfect beavers love it. And so we need to find a way, you know, you're not allowed to exterminate them anymore. There are state programs available to relocate them. And we even heard about in some other places like some really good places that they want them relocated to

but it's a whole process through CPW. We would have to pay to trap them. they have to go to Monte Vista to be quarantined and then they get hopefully put back in Twin Lakes area. Um, so the beavers have to get rid of because otherwise we're beating our head against the wall or we have to find some sort of solution for them. And then the other big one is the ditch system is designed so that only the amount of water that's supposed to go into Hayden goes through the the flow gate and the rest goes through a waste gate. And that wastegate goes underneath the railroad tracks and it is so clogged up it scares me even looking at it. I wouldn't get near it because if you fall in you're going to be part of the clog [clears throat] and there's no way to get rid of that clog without Union Eden Pacific

allowing us on their tracks because it's underneath the railroad tracks and they are incredibly hard to get a hold of. Um when I was talking to Michael about this last week or two, Gary Sliffka says he might have a good contact. So, we're going to try I have somebody that I talked to a couple weeks ago and that was my that was what I said is I thought I said maybe Matt can write the [snorts] right kind of letter. Yeah, I talked to the real estate person a few weeks ago and do this issue we were dealing with. Yeah. Okay. So, that's those are the two elements we need to figure out. So, we can't get Hayden as a storage vessel this summer. We're going to have to figure that out and my goal is spring 2027 we're ready to operate it. Um

because it takes so long to relocate the beavers, you think, is the big part of it that we [clears throat] won't have it this summer? That's right. Yeah. To destroy their dams. [snorts] Yeah. They just rebuild them. So, yeah. And I go I'm down there, especially in the fall when they start getting real upy. I'm down there every day or two clearing out the beaver dams that they just start forming in in our ditch infrastructure. And like you can go anywhere else. the river's right there, but once you out of the ditch and so I'm down there all the time clearing it out and that's to this point that's all we can do is just be more aggressive than them. Um, but I don't think it's a long term. We're busy.

Well, and just that's going to be a lot of money, too, to have a miniac down there every week. And that's what it takes right now is a min goes down there every spring and clears it out to get it going. So, something we need to think about. It's a piece of infrastructure. Mike Conland's real hot to trot on this because we are mandated to maintain it and we are out of compliance and our maintenance of it because of the way the the water is flowing. So, [snorts] um it's not a huge deal now, but it will be. Are there any other identified nearby beaver populations that would maybe move right in and take over once

Yeah, I think absolutely. There's that. And right around Hayden Meadows, the river slows down and starts bending and that's where they came from originally. Yeah.

And if we relocate these to a different part of the county, it's it's then it's a beaver mitigation. How do we keep the them out? And then it's but it's a lot easier if I'm down there, I don't know, or our crew is down there a lot trying to stay ahead of it. It will always be a problem. There's just no way around it. That's just that's the nature of low gradient streams and ditches in where we live, right? It's part of our environment. So, um but but we're we're past the point, you know, we're past that deferred maintenance point where it's going to take some bigger work to get it functional

and we have to have that functional. And I eventually I really do I want to fold that in. It's just if we can anticipate it needs to be part of the enterprises budget for sure. But if we get Hayden operational as a storage vessel, not only do we get to use it for storage, so we get to bank water year to year, but Aurora will pay the evaporative loss of whatever percentage of water they have in right now, we pay 17 acre feet out of our 40 acre feet a year just on evaporative loss out of Haiti. So even if Aurora stores 50% of the water in there per year, that's huge. you know, that's 8 and a half acre feet to get back firmly into the enterprise.

So, just can you just reiterate why why is Hayden not available this summer? Is it mainly the clog or is it mainly the beavers? It's because we cannot measure the flow coming into and out of Hait because of the clogs. Yeah, the clogs. I think the beavers we could probably get rid of. The clog is a bigger deal. And if we can get the clog sorted though, like anytime this summer, wouldn't we be able to start tracking how much is going in there?

We might. I think when we get this figured out, then it's going to be going down there with the civil engineers and just looking at the state of the infrastructure to make sure that the because what's happened in the meantime is like the flow intake structure is actually like sitting out above the stream of the ditch because of the way the beavers have made. This is all underneath the train tracks. It's um yeah, it's near the train tracks, but there's this property. You know, you take this road and there's a house right here. Yeah. He's got a big set of lakes next to him. So, they like it, but those are not supposed to be there. That's our ditch and it's supposed to just parallel the railroad right there. Is that like a private trout club right there or something?

That's the current ranch. Um, the trout club is over here. Not talking about Roland J. Roland J is further upstream. Okay. Yeah. And the Karns, they know. I mean, they deal with public works all the time. Like, they have a ditch on their land. We have private property rights that supersede theirs. But we basically we we need to figure out how to get in touch with Union Pacific to figure out how to start even That's right. identifying what we need to do to address the clog with the the gauging station or whatever so that we can measure.

If we clear out the waste gate, then we could actually like address the other parts because the the excess flow would be going where it needs to go rather than directly into the ditch system. And the first step is talking Union Pacific. That's right. Union Pacific. And then um Michael says he has a contact with CO. [laughter] I've been in so many meeting I was in so many meetings last year talking about Beavers and I was like, "Oh my god, this I didn't get it till literally today." So [laughter] I finally come home to roo and there's [clears throat] I couldn't figure out.

Shucks. So, that's all to say. Um, that's our water storage vessel. That's the one that's decreed. That's the one we can use. That's the one we need to figure out a way to use cuz it's kind of a essential key. We can run the enterprise without it, but man, it would make things better to be able to bank some water year to year so we could actually maximize our yields and not waste that water. Yeah. Be huge. Where will the enterprise be at without that this year? Like how many acre feet are we going to be potentiallyating? Three. Okay. [clears throat]

That's where we have a sa safely left for ourselves is 3 acre feet. But that's that's 30 augmentation units, right? And so that's actually that's significant. It's enough for me. It's it's more than I need to like make my budget square out, but um it's still still pretty small. How does that math work? Like 3 acre feet because each market rate being 850 and that's right. That's the difference between irrigation and Okay, gotcha. So you want to irrigate it and you don't want to own it, $850, $850 an acre foot. Got

because we can own this water and divide it up into tenth of an acre foot units and sell those to offset wells. That's where that 10 augmentation units per acre foot comes from. Yeah. It's like subdividing giant lots of land and to sell parcels that are worth more. Yeah. And this is like this is the most efficient use of our limited water, right? We can stretch it towards maximum benefit this way. And because we charge, you know, the enterprise is going to charge $9,000 for inclusion on each of those augmentation. So $90,000 versus $850. I can see the but the 90 is a one time 90 is one, but we

you get the onetime inclusion fee, but then there's going to be a $700 per year on&m fee on top of that. There's there's your regional.

That's right. So like the the enterprise I've designed it so that the inclusion fees as we sell the or contract the water out initially pay for the startup costs pay for maybe hopefully some infrastructure eventually once most of the water's contracted out the on andm fees are designed to pay for the self- sustaining finances of the enterprise. So what you said that like we're you proposed a a smaller amount of water to go to the golf course 25 acre feet. You said we have 40 reliable from Aurora. So where are the other 15? Hayden is most of that.

Okay. So with Hayden or with if the golf course pumps 25 acre feet Yeah. Their consumptive use is 18 1/2 acre feet. Okay, that's what comes out of our firm yield. Got it. So 18, we're saying 18 and 12 comes there. 17 for Hayden. That leaves us 4 1/2 acre feet. I want some wiggle room. Yep. So three is what we can say that gives us 1 and 12 acre feet. If something weird happens and we need that water, especially our first year, we're learning how the enterprise is going to work. Yeah, we got all these complications with how we're running water down at Twin Lakes now. And yeah, that that buffer is going to be important. It's a very small buffer, but it's solid. Okay.

And then that's the thing, any dairy 3 water we get above and beyond that, that's a bonus. Yeah. But if we could store that Dairy 3 water, then we could Yeah. account for we could build it in to next year. We just can't. Yeah. Okay. So, we have to use that firm field cuz we know we're going to get it. Um, everything else would be bonus, but if we can't use it, it's gone. So, yeah, that's really important to get that storage up and running. The other the other thing, you know, I know we had talked about um the barn pond system. Yeah.

And the potential to use the barn pond system for storage. Mhm. We met with the Barn Pond engineers uh I think it was two weeks ago now just because they're in dry mode too. They're looking they they had some problems last year. Basically we're the most senior water right and we're above them and so if we fully utilize our water right it creates problems for them. It creates constraints

and it maybe jeopardizes their ability to have flow every single day. I don't see a way around that this year. They have enough water that they lease from PBLO that they're going to be fine for this year and probably next year. But we need to start thinking about if we want to do something down there, it's going to be a pretty intense operation. The biggest thing about it is that the augmentation, so the groundwater and transit loss of the Barrier Creek barn pond system is over 3 acre feet a year.

They only store maybe a half acre foot to 1 acre foot. So, it doesn't make sense on a water storage perspective to make them into storage because it's just it's a loss. It's always going to be a loss. We'll never be able to do that. So, but recognizing the, you know, the community benefit down there and everything, we presently do not have the ability to serve that pot system, but the friends of Barrier Creek have a source of water, but they don't have the permanence that the augmentation plan does. So, how do we make them part of the enterprise?

How does how do we make this work? And my theory is it's going to take contribution from them on their side, too. If if we're going to run the plan for them, if we're going to make sure everything is good and give it permanence, we need either financial contribution or contribution in the form of water. Mhm.

And so my thought on that is that there's a minimum amount of lease water from PBLO, which is more than they need, but it's still not that much more. And so what if what if the friends of Barrier Creek paid to they just paid for that perpetual lease of the bare minimum of PBlo water. That's their inind contribution is they pay for we we'll say 10 acre feet of PBlo water. We run the plan for them. We pay for their three to four acre feet of transit loss and whatever to keep the system whole. We get the storage a little tiny bit. They get the fire suppression benefit. And then we also have a little bit of water extra from there to cover for a reserve contingency build into our plan, whatever it might be. But the the thing is regardless of what we do down there, it's going to go back to court. It has to. Any permanent solution down there will go back to court. And because of this is an augmentation problem, anytime you raise the word augmentation in the Arkansas, it's a dirty word and we can expect significant opposition.

So it just means our court case is going to be more expensive and take longer. And so we need to think about my suggestion is that we have many different needs of the enterprise. If we're going to go back to court, let's make it worth our while. Let's, you know, there's no danger to these ponds being used for fire suppression. In the meantime, they have a legal supply of water for at least three more years. Yeah.

What? And it's going to take us probably 2 to 3 years to get through court, whatever we decide to do. So, I want to wrap up a bunch of these concerns we have and maybe sources other sources of water into one court application so that when we go and we fight all the other entities because they're going to come out against us because we're proposing more augmentation in the upper Arkansas, we have not just the friends of Twin Lakes and the Berry Pond or Fairy Creek Farm Pond benefit, but we get all these other added benefits for the enterprise going forward too. You know, when I'm talking like let's let's have a 20 year, 30 year lens on this because it's so expensive and hard. Let's not do it again. So, let's let's make it the right set of moves. And I think we can wrap this all together. We can get um some grant funding maybe, especially for the preliminary engineering because it's going to take some really intense engineering studies. But because we have Aurora, Parkville, the golf course, Friends of Barrier Creek, there's so many different partners that are interested in this,

that's what the state wants to see now when they're giving out grant funding, right? Is that more than one party is benefiting. So, I think there's a a good case for grant funding there, but we're still going to have to front the the legal fees. I'd want it written out like how much like anticipated Oh, for sure. cost and how long and how much benefit we would get and you know return on investment just FYI. Oh, absolutely. Okay, great. Absolutely. We need to do this and I think that's where

you know my suggestion or what what I'm feeling is we just we run we get the enterprise going. We we got to get it going, get it up [clears throat] and running. We run it for a year and as all these as we learn and as we're operating, we're also learning about more opportunities. Mhm. You know, meeting with Greg last week, I learned about another source of water that might be available to us with a court decree that I never would have even considered if I didn't meet with him. And it's because we're making progress on our plan that he can start thinking about how his needs meet our needs. And you know, if he has extra water and can make some money and we can benefit from it and it makes money financial sense for us too, why not? Yeah.

But we got to we got to think about what does make sense. Is it a minimum lease with PBLO? Is it engaging with Parkville in a much more substantial way to utilize some of their underutilized water rights? I mean, that's the new idea I had, you know, right? Could we just take a commission? Could we [clears throat] engage in a long-term lease, right? Like, we lease part of the water long term and we pay for it and then once we have it, then we can divide it up, contract it out, sell it, whatever. That's an option. And then there's the dilap ditch and the point of diversion considerations. And

and it's not just the barn pond. You know, if we're going to look down there, I'd look to like to look at a few more potential storage vessels that have been identified. And the barn pond's the series of beaver ponds across the street from the uh the Twin Lakes Roadhouse. Right. That's right. But what I I I started referring to it as the barrier creek system because the entire system from the point of diversion over on West Bartlett Gulch on Angel View or near Angel View that entire system has to be augmented including the Markham pond and the barn pond and the entire wetland system. It's and that's where like the fire suppression pond designation doesn't quite solve it solve it because

the ditch system is still artificial. Yeah. you know that still needs to be coming. Wow. So getting [clears throat] this court case together sounds complicated and timeconuming. Is there risk at the end where they say you know this is a great plan but but no I think that's where the engineering and legal analysis on the front end is going to be really important. But I also think it's about and and a lot of my ideas come straight from Rachel Zenanella, division engineer, right? Like she's helping us. She wants solving these problems will help her too. She's fabulous.

Yeah. You know, I and and so I we'll have a good sense of what's viable and what's not. But it's also a matter of like asking for so much so that if parts of it get taken away in objection opposition, we're still [clears throat] left with a lot of benefit. I think that's more of the strategy is okay, we know this is going to go and we might, you know, let's build ourselves in some wiggle room on what to give to get to our core objective. Bryce, can I ask you a question about the the 3 acre feed that that's going to be available? Could someone you're going to have what? First of all, what what do you call them exactly? Those share those little shares people are going to be use them for a dry lot or an ADU, right?

Augmentation units. Okay. And could someone go buy them all? No. someone would have to go to the building department say this is what I want to do. Can I buy an augmentation unit? So, and will they become more valuable over time? Like if someone has an ADU with an augmentation share, would that be part of I mean that would obviously make the property more valuable?

It will absolutely. I mean it would you know cuz it has another dwelling unit that's legal on it. Um if we run out of water then eventually yeah any property and you can't get an augmentation unit from the enterprise anymore then yeah any existing augmentation unit will be more expensive or more valuable for resale. Yeah. But that's my goal is that we roll this out slow enough that the enterprise pays for itself but also gives itself some runway to develop some future water rights. And is it first come first serve or is it

it's going to be first come first serve. So there's several um in the water marketing policy. You know there's a lot of concerns about like what you're talking about like speculation uh someone buying all of them. There's a lot of safeguards [clears throat] that prevent that. So there's a maximum amount I can sell every year. I think [clears throat] it might be under 30 for the first few years as we're getting, you know, getting our feet under us. There's also a maximum amount of augmentation units you can apply for on any given any given application. And so for like a commercial campground for instance, you're only allowed to go up to six augmentation units on your application. If you're coming in for a home, your home you're limited to three augmentation units on your parcel, one of which is reserved for an edu. The other two you can use for either a large house or a house in a livestock well. And then you know if you were to a lot we got a lot of interested people. Oh cool now I can subdivide this parcel and make five different parcels with houses on it. So you can only subdivide a parcel in two. Each of those two parcels you created is allowed three. So still that six maximum on any one land use application.

Um it has to be tied to a land use application pre- buy it. That's right. has to be tied to an land use application and there's also a time limit when you have to put that into use like you have to get your CO within two years say of getting the permission. Um that's a whole discussion for another day. We might have to think about that because um what about leasing? I thought a lot of this was going to be actually leasing and not selling. Where is that? So leasing is basically everything else. That's the yeartoear stuff. That's the golf course stuff. That's anything we have left over. But the golf course is the big lease. And that's the difference between contract and lease. Yeah.

Lease is can change based on the water conditions. It's going to change year to year. When we contract something, it's firm. It is set.

You know, we're never going to go back to a house with a contract and say, "Actually, you don't have water this year." It just we can't run it that way. But okay, so if we say we clear all of the water getting into Hayden Meadows, great. So then we've got the, you know, you can run the enterprise for 5 years selling 30 every year, whatever the math is. After that though, once all those are sold or like if it gets clogged again, like what happens to the enterprise because we're not getting any more income from all that water that we sold, but we still have this infrastructure that we have to maintain.

That's where the on andm fee, that's the yearly O andM fee. Got it. Got it. Okay. Yeah. So, there's it's meant to be like the inclusion fee is your tap fee. Yep. Your M fee is your rate. So there will be a finite amount. There will be there will eventually be a finite amount. We're going to It's like 1,200 based on what we have now, right? 40 acre feet. Yeah. Um 1,600. It's really I mean that that gets into the realm of theory because we have to start making a bunch of efficiency improvements and if we get the golf course off then then I mean

then we're talking the enterprise allocation goes up [clears throat] to 20 firm every year. Yeah. You know so it can expand really easily and then with that water sharing agreement in Hayden we we glean off eight more eight acre feet there. So there's an ability, especially with storage of good yield water or good years, if we can store that water, we could eventually maybe build the enterprise up to having 40 acre ft. That's still pretty limited. That still only means, you know, we're not like entertaining, you know, hay irrigation or anything, but it's a lot more than we have now. And then it a lot that would give us a lot of capital to then [clears throat] I just that's my whole goal is yeah we have to get this up and running

but we still have to always be looking to build more capacity. Yeah. Somehow someway more efficiency here. Yes. But [clears throat] more water us and everyone else in the state. Yeah. Did you say Parkville would be party to the court case or no? They might be. That's a that's a realm of that's that's just a very preliminary like hey I might have this water I'm not using it right now think about it um it would it would be for our benefit so I doubt I it would be mostly on us for sure cuz all they're set they're

set they're old water rights they have more than they can ever use. Yeah, that's right. And they and and they have a really good rate paying base now, too, to keep investing. Yeah. So, yeah, that's, you know, there's there's some potential there. And I'm really excited about it. I don't want to get too ahead of myself, though, cuz it's so new. Mhm. But like, that could be I mean, that's water that's here. That's that's really old and senior, and yeah, we'd have to take it to court ourselves on a long-term lease basis. But still, the water's here.

It's really exciting. We're not talking about like having Aurora ship more water in under the tunnels or Thank you, Bryce. Yeah, thank you, Bryce. I appreciate that update. Yeah. So, I think um I just want to lay the point that, you know, I have I think I have it in my capacity to run the enterprise right now as is. We can make some efficiency improvements to get that Hayden going and everything for very little money. But if we want to entertain these bigger projects like the Barrier Creek system and everything, it's going to be a much bigger investment and timeline.

Boss is little, but if you have some sort of schedule of people going down to break up the beaver ponds, I [laughter] will happily get on that. Absolutely. I'm going to be teaching Rachel on campus about it in the spring. So, yes, please. Can I be on that work? He's [clears throat] coming. So, we'll be covering it. I have heard some wild stories around the state about what people do with beaver dance. Beaver. Yeah, it's really wild. Explosives. Mhm. Bulldozers. Yeah. I mean, the old school like many good explosives. 30 years ago, I would have been camping out at the ditch with my 22 and would have been okay, but

can't do that. So, there's some new programs we've heard now. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you, Bryce. Yeah. Let me know if you have any other questions about the details or whatever and um I can update you. Okay. Anytime you want. So, are you looking The memo said you're looking for direction or direction from staff. Oh, sorry. It was just staff direction like direction to me. Oh. on um maybe I misinterpreted that um just mainly on the if you're comfortable with what I propose for the golf course lease. Sounds good to me. And just the general investment timeline considerations about the story.

Yeah, I think you can do a great job. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. And hopefully this changes. That's [clears throat] really There's a 1984. If you look at it, it's like this and then just an incredible monster spring. That's what I'm hoping for. Yeah, I keep wanting to say that in every one of these conversations like second half of February, the end of April, we could see 80 to 100 in and compare that with Isn't there a website that has historical? Yeah. Yeah. So, this is I can send you the link because I look at it every day. This is the Colorado Snowtel website. Snowtel. You can look at it major basins Arkansas wide. You can look at a minor. So this is just upper arc. You can look at lower arc.

But it's only been going since the 80s. 1981 is when the data starts. Accurate data. They had stations previously just that didn't get dialed and everything. Do I need to call for a motion to adjourn? Yeah, it's a work session. Okay. Just close us. Everybody all set? Yeah. Thank you. It's 11:52. this meeting uh with Bryce Olic is adjourned. Thank you chair. Thank you chair board.