Transportation Board - Regular Meeting

this August 19th, 2026 meeting, regular meeting of the Board of Public Utilities. Welcome to another evening of fun and frolic. We appreciate everyone's participation. Is there anyone, before we go into any more substance, is there anyone here or online for the water rate hearing that was incorrectly published for tonight when it's actually going to be two weeks from now. Do you have anybody online for that? No, Chair Gibson. Okay. Thank you. With that, we will open the floor to public comment. Is there any public comment on any item this evening that is not otherwise on our agenda? I don't see any in chambers. Do we have any online?

Thank you, Chair Gibson. For members of the public who are joining us tonight on Zoom, when Chair Gibson calls for public comment, please use the raise hand function. If you are participating by phone, press star nine to raise your hand. If you wish to make a public comment at this time, please raise your hand. There is no public comment.

Thank you. That takes us to the approval of the agenda. And there's... Several things we need to deal with there. First, item 4C on the consent agenda. The agenda got published last Friday without a title for that. So without a title, there's no description. There's nothing for the public to know what we're doing. And by the time that was caught and corrected, it was too late for the normal 72-hour notice requirement. So we will not hear that tonight. That will be postponed. uh... secondly uh... there are two board members eric and myself who both wish to pull item four b from consent and have a normal discussion on that and i would propose putting that after the discussion of the electric coordination agreement and third as a we don't know how long the eca is going to take we have a We have a full meeting again tonight, in part because we had to roll over some things from last meeting. The Foxtail Flats business plan could take a long time by itself. So I'm thinking that either we may, depending on how our clock is running, when we get to that under department business, we may just say we're only going to get started on it and limit the discussion to 30 minutes or limit the total time for that to 30 minutes or something like that, depending on how our time is going. Or we could push it to the end of the meeting and then we'll know how much time we have left. And what would be the board's pleasure?

How time urgent is that particular topic? I mean, whenever we could just go ahead and set it aside for another meeting.

It is something that we need to get started on. It's a big deal. Yeah, sure. But it's not an action item tonight. So I was thinking we might get started on it, let Ben do his presentation so we kind of get it out on the table and know what we're dealing with to start with anyway. But it's a complicated issue, I think. It might take quite a while. And I had never expected that we'd get it all done tonight anyway. That's the sort of thing you need to look at and think about and ruminate on a bit. So anyway, that one, we could wait until we get to what would now be the third item in department business and decide at that point. I don't think anybody would be terribly inconvenienced if we did that since we don't have a lot of public interest tonight. That's fine. If everyone is okay with that, then I would seek a motion to approve the agenda as amended with the understanding that the Foxdale Flats business plan may be shortened or postponed.

Okay, so let me understand the amendments. I'll make the motion, but the amendments, as I understand them, is that 4C is off the table for tonight. Correct. 4B is pulled off the consent agenda and put after the ECA discussion. Correct. And then we will see what happens when we get to the Fox Till Flats business plan.

Correct.

All right. Given that, I move that the Board of Public Utilities approve the items on the consent agenda as amended and that the motions and the staff reports be included in the minutes for the record.

I think you're a step ahead here. Now we're approving the agenda.

Then we go to the consent agenda. Given all that, I move that the Board of Public Utilities approve the agenda for tonight's meeting as amended. Second.

Thank you. I think I did that last month or sometime recently. Well, we'll get it out there somehow. Anyway, okay. Moved and seconded to approve the agenda tonight as amended. Consider that a procedural. All in favor? And we have a thumbs up from Eric, so it passes four to zero. Now we get to the consent agenda, which only has one item left on it. So would someone like to make that motion? Sure.

I move that the Board of Public Utilities approve the items on the consent agenda as amended and that the motions in the staff reports be included in the minutes for the record.

Okay, moved. The consent agenda has been moved and seconded. Any discussion? Seeing none, Kathy, would you please call the roll?

Member Stromberg?

Yes.

Member Nockley?

Yes.

Member Hefner? Yes. And Member Gibson?

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you. Motion passes 4-0. That takes us to public hearings. Item 6A, which is a recommendation for contract approval. Now, wait a minute. Let's see here. Oops, I'm sorry. I got my pages mixed here. I apologize. I apologize. Okay, item 6A, which is ordinance. It's a public hearing on ordinance 759. It has to do with authorizing execution of a water project fund loan grant agreement with New Mexico Finance Authority. And James Martinez will be presenting. Thank you, James.

Chair and members of the board, this ordinance 759 that we've bringing for you tonight is to execute a five hundred and twenty five thousand dollar amendment for the Denver Steel's phase two project we have since completed the project all the infrastructure and road work has been completed however in doing the connections, the service connections, some of the water meters that were near the residents' homes, when we tried to do the tie-ins, we found that the lead service lines were like galvanized steel and very, very corroded. So in effort we were, we worked with legal in order on replacing the lead service lines. It was considered like an anti-donation type of deal. But however, like in our standards, we own up to the water meter. So in just trying to do our due diligence, we worked with New Mexico Finance Authority and went towards asking them for additional funding in order to do the replacement all the way up to the service line. up to the home, should I say. We worked with legal with some documents to pretty much vacate the implied easement that we have at the moment. And then in the future they take ownership of the lead service line that we're installing now That's going to be owned by the home owner and if there's any Repairs that are needed they'll have to do it on their dime But we'll we will continue to own up to the meter which is now at the property line So

James, I just wanted to correct you. It's not a lead service line. Galvanized service line replacements. Correct. Thank you. Correct. The loan program is called lead service. Thank you.

Yeah.

Correct.

LED or LEAD. LEAD.

Thank you, Philo. But that is essentially what it is. We're amending the contract in an amount of $525,000 for those repairs.

Thank you, can I just ask why did in MFA have to get involved for this there was this the anti-donation stuff?

So I don't follow right okay, so originally we have drinking water funding for Denver Steel's phase 2 and phase 3 So we have to go through NMFA for the for the funds we we did request a We did ask if we could utilize the current funding to do the repairs and That funding did not allow for us to work on the service lines being that it was Anti donation and such but they did have this separate program the lead service line replacement that would reduce that

James, I'm not sure I followed completely why the line, I think it's called the service line between the meter and the house, which is normally the responsibility of the property owner, why we are taking responsibility for replacing that this time around.

Being that the meter was next to the home, we would, well, normally we would repair the line up to the meter. So, with this project, we moved the meters away from the home, and they now are located at the property line. So, and just doing our due diligence and, you know, being consistent with what we've done in the past, preparing the line, we went ahead and we asked for these funds in order to repair the line, and then from here forward, they will be the owner past the meter, past the property line.

Okay, I follow now. Thank you. Okay, do we have any other questions from board at this time? Do we have any public comment? I do not see any in chambers. We have any online.

Thank you, Chair Gibson. Anybody wishing to make public comment regarding this issue, please raise your hand. Chair Gibson, there are no hands.

Thank you. Is there any further discussion from the board? If not, we're ready for a motion. Sure.

I move that the Board of Public Utilities recommend to Council approval of Incorporated County of Los Alamos Ordinance Number 759, an ordinance authorizing the execution and delivery of a water project fund loan grant agreement between the New Mexico Finance Authority, NMFA, and the Incorporated County of Los Alamos, New Mexico in the amount of $3,252,000 for the purpose of financing the cost of phase two and three of the Denver Steel's water line replacements and forward to council for introduction and adoption. Second that.

Okay. Moved and seconded the suggested motion. There's no other discussion. Kathy, would you please call the roll?

Member Stromberg?

Yes.

Member Nockley?

Yes.

Member Heffner? Yes. And Member Gibson?

Yes.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Motion passes 4-0. That takes us to Item 6B, which is Resolution 26-22. This is also a public hearing on... uncollectible utility accounts, something that we do every year. Joanne.

Good evening, Chair and members of the board. I'm bringing resolution number 2622 for our FY21 uncollectible accounts. These are all our accounts that are over four years old that we have been unable to collect, either through liens or collections or they haven't come back to town. We look at the APPA numbers of uncollectible accounts for utilities between 5,000 and 10,000 customers. Their average was 0.008. We're right under that at 0.00079. So we're just slightly under their average for that utility size. The board will notice that I'm asking for you guys to approve the subtotal amount of $28,851.59. The additional $2,948 is for refuse fees that we bill on our utility bill that will go to council for their approval, and we will take this to council on September 29th with all the other write-offs for the general county. So I don't know if you have other questions. I did break down the different amounts for each of the utilities in the staff report, if you'd like me to go over that.

Does anyone have any questions? No. This is pretty routine. We do it every year. And we appreciate you working hard to try to get those numbers down as low as you can.

It's getting better and better every year.

Okay, is there any public comment on this resolution? Don't see any in chambers, online.

Thank you, Chair Gibson. Anybody wishing to make public comment, please raise your hand. Chair, there is no hands raised.

Thank you very much. Come back to the board for further discussion, which I don't see, or a motion.

All right, I'll make a motion. I move that the Board of Public Utilities recommend to Council the approval of Incorporated County of Los Alamos resolution number 26-22, a resolution removing uncollectible utility accounts from the Incorporated County of Los Alamos accounts receivables list for fiscal year 2022. I'll second.

Okay, moved and seconded. Last chance for discussion on this controversial issue. Seeing none, Kathy?

Member Stromberg?

Yes.

Member Knockley? Yes. Member Heffner? Yes. And Member Gibson?

Yes. Thank you. Okay, motion passes four to zero. That takes us to the electric coordination agreement. And Philo, did you want to start or you want to just go straight to Ben here?

Well, I'll start a little bit. We've been negotiating this agreement for, over seven months, eight months now. And I guess everyone needs a deadline to get to the finish line. And literally we added some additional provisions to the contract, which Ben will go through essentially what changed from July to today. and literally till today at 4 o'clock, and so I apologize for cover page missing, the incorrect cover page, but the document that's printed is the ones that had changes to it. And online we have Seth Kirshenberg, who also was assisting us with these negotiations, and he'll be able to provide more clarity to what these additional clauses that were added So I'll turn it over to Ben, and I appreciate the board's patience and how long it's taken us to get here.

We appreciate everybody's considerable efforts to try to get us here over actually four and a half years. Right. It's gotten more intense over the last almost eight months. In fact, it is eight months to the day since... The first draft was received from DOE.

Hello, Chair, members of the board. Happy to be here again before you. You've been seeing a lot of me lately, so I hope I haven't worn out my welcome. I'll be quick here, as quick as I can be. There are a number of changes that we've been tracking since our last visit with you for consideration of approval on July 22nd. And I have those all mapped out. And for the interest of being quick, I will say there are five separate documents that are part of the ECA. Only three of them have changed since we last met in July. That is the first one, the terms and conditions document. The second piece of it is the performance work statement. And then finally, the third part of that that changed is the operating procedures. The other two documents remain unchanged from their form that we viewed last time. going to jump right into the biggest hurdle that we had faced that is under the termination for convenience so that is what we've been working on for the past three plus weeks to get us here I will I will say that the structure of the terms and conditions remains the same they did in The DoD did add an explicit reference to the Federal Acquisition Register clause covering termination for convenience. They added that to it. That's one of the changes, and I'll go over all the changes after we discuss this termination for convenience matter. They also added in the performance work statement a four-page additional part to that. And again, I'll go over that. later but just so you know where we're talking about that is on page 9 not in the agenda packet but 9 of the handout packet that you received 9 of 33 it starts there at the bottom of that page under each dot 4 if you're following along page 9 each dot 4 so you have to jump through the TNC which is 22 pages and

Attachment C. Ben, while they're looking for that, where is the change in the terms and conditions?

The change in the terms and conditions is simply the addition of the clause 52.249-2, which is on the last page, page 22 of the first section of your package.

So, Ben, can we just take a timeout? I wanted Abby to load up the actual page.

Bring up the terms and conditions.

Yeah. And then go to page 22 is what you said, the last page. The last page of it. Yeah.

But it's... Looks like these are combined. No.

It should be.

Nope. This is operating procedures. That's the third piece of it. That's the one.

Attachment B.

Last page So right there at the top 52 dash dot 249 dash to termination for convenience of the government they added that as a reference to the Federal Acquisition Register clause covering that sort of thing Yes, so this is an explicit explicitly includes it now Has everyone found it and seen it now?

And everyone was able to locate H4.

That is on the second document, the performance work statement.

Attachment C, I think.

I guess I should have asked Ben whether you'd like us to make questions. Ask as you go through or wait till you're done.

For this one, please, fire away. The rest of the changes are much smaller in substance than this one.

Okay, well, I'll ask a question that's not really related to that, but it's on the terms and conditions, but I just happened to see as I was scanning through here, on page 20, option to extend the term of the contract The government may extend the term of this contract by written notice to the contractor within 15 days of the period of performance end date. It used to say 30 days, which is ridiculous also, but now it's changed to 15. What goes on there? I mean, we need three years, not a few days, but if the last experience is any guide, but why did that change?

So there's two parts to this section. The one is the actual... If you read further down, what we asked for and got was changing the giving, we'll start with this third line, giving the contractor a preliminary written notice of its intent to extend at least 90 days before the contract expires. That sets the clock going. That gives us time to go and run through our process.

Sorry, we've got confusion here. We're talking about... Attachment B and up on the screen is attachment whatever.

Right, that's the DOE's labeling on these documents set here.

No, no, I'm just saying like we're talking about some set of text. It would be very confusing to be watching this at home right now. Let me put it that way. If anybody's at home, I don't know if anybody's out there or not. But, I mean, maybe we could go back to the terms and conditions because that's where you are right now, right? Aren't you there in page, this guy, right?

Page 20. Page 20 of terms and conditions.

Attachment B. In the middle, sort of the. Did you switch it over? Yeah. Okay, good. Yes. Okay, perfect. Thank you.

And let me, maybe I can jump in here. Mr. Chairman, hello. I hope you're doing well today. This is Seth Gershenberg. So let's just take a step back. The renewal option, remember, we worked to add a clause that basically provided that the contract could be renewed so most typical contracts are just the 10 years here we have the 10 plus 10. so that was very positive the reality and we've been through this before regardless of what it says in the contract and you're correct these are short periods of time whether it's 60 days 90 days or even 180 days The reality is we're going to want to know years before if they're going to continue the contract as they have for the last 41 years or whether they're going to be terminating because there's a lot of other issues and obligations. And I think it's going to be dependent upon us to be asking those questions and going forward. By law, by contract, they will only have to provide this notice with a short period that's here. But by practice, in order for this to work for either the NNSA or the county, this discussion is going to have to happen a lot sooner.

Well, discussion is one thing, but action is something else. Okay, thank you.

And that does tie in. Thank you, Mr. Kirshenberg. That does tie in with one of the other changes that we made to the operating procedures where we now have an explicit statement directing the operating committee who administers this contract to go and start looking at the potential for the DOE to exercise their option to extend and do that three years in advance. Start looking at it. figuring out what changes do we need to make, the resources, is anything changing in the past seven years, and be prepared well in advance. And that aligns with what Mr. Kirshenberg just said. We would never wait until 15 days to get a notice. So regardless of what the value is, we're going to be looking at it sooner than that. And hopefully I'll still be around in 10 years.

Chair, we have Board Member Stromberg has a question.

Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you. Go ahead, Eric. Sorry I missed you there.

Thank you. So my question concerns the FAR clause because when I read the FAR clause, and I brought this up last time, the FAR clause was all about work being done. I mean, everything in the FAR clause was about it had the flavor of a construction project. And so, you know, say it was a one-year construction project and termination was done at six months later. The FAR clause talked about the work that had been done up to date and recompense and all these things. But I'm having a little bit of confusion here because I don't see how a FAR clause that has to do with work being done is being applied to a contract where it's just a electrical agreement there's no work being done and it just looks to me like a misapplication i was wondering if someone could explain that to me yeah maybe i if you don't mind if i jump in ben on this please um so uh taking a step back this conversation that we just had earlier today this uh we've got a fixed price contract here

Typically, utility contracts are service contracts that are structured differently than this, but they are only 10-year contracts, 100%. Here, an NSA has asked and they've proffered a fixed-price contract, and so we've got terms basically from a fixed-price contract that don't fit perfectly with the utility contract in all places. And that's why we have clauses like this. The other thing is, once again, we never see and barely anybody ever sees utility contracts with even an extension. And so they took their FAR clauses for normal extensions and put them in just so they would have a clause to actually pull the trigger, where most just end at 10 years and then that's it. And so that's why we looked at it as a positive that it has it, but we don't disagree with your conclusion.

So it's just a square peg in a round hole. Yeah. Okay.

Thank you. There's no other questions right now. We'll let Ben go. Try to creep a little bit forward.

Well, since we have already started talking about this topic, I do want to point us to the performance work statement. Let's go.

Abby, if you'd bring that up.

That is going to be C. Yes. Let's see. Wherever you need to go to page. back to page nine. And the bottom of the page there is, this is the added language that was drafted up by, prepared by DOE NSA, NNSA contracting office in tandem with the operating committee members, Philo Shelton and Cassandra Begay and myself. And with input from DOE's and our counsel there's four pages of material here I would ask that mr. Kirshenberg a play a quick summary of this because I'm not sure everybody wants to read through it in its entirety right here at the meeting

Sure, and I'm seeing something else on the screen that I think you're referring to the foxtail flats.

Yes, so if we scroll down, this is just the heading, and then we get the first page of actual body.

Okay. So this goes back to, Mr. Chairman, this goes back to the discussion that we had several weeks ago related to the termination for convenience and a limitation of the dollar amount and the liability for the Department of Energy. And everyone's concerned that said, hey, the county's investing in various resources. We're concerned about a limitation on liability as we move forward. Once again, this is the fixed price contract, so we've got a limitation, but you'd have a limitation also in the service contract to what is basically allocated during the year. But what we negotiated and discussed was the one larger resource that the county has outstanding as its foxtail flats. And so we provided a clause that basically doesn't bind DOE or NNSA, but it allows NNSA to potentially take assignment of the contract or a portion of the contract and take it over to the extent there's a termination for convenience. uh to be able to um uh you know uh then take that obligation of the county um out of the county and and undertake that uh the payment obligation and uh receive the resources the county on the other side of it wanted to, we appreciated that. We wanted to make sure also that any future resources that may come into the project could be added to this clause. So as we continue to invest, we look at those things. And then we also wanted this to be basically also at the county's option and request that they would take over some of these contractual obligations because uh right now the value of electrical resources uh throughout the country in in the southwest is very high uh and you know the county may at the time uh be better off selling the resource to someone else if there is a termination uh of this contract uh as we move forward so We put in a clause that provides this opportunity. DOE is not bound to do it because they couldn't bind themselves to do it. But it still creates at least a process and an opportunity for this to occur.

We've got four pages.

The four pages.

And is this all changed from last time? This is all new text?

All new text.

Okay.

We received it yesterday to give you an idea, and then we sent comments back last night. But we had talked about it with them for a couple of days.

Okay, just to, I mean, I thought we were going to have much fewer changes. I mean, I don't see, just to raise this question, I don't see how we're going to prove it tonight. I mean, if it was a minor change here or there, right, That would be one thing, which is what I was kind of expecting. But this is a lot more than I was – anyway. I think we need some – I would like some time to look at it personally.

That makes at least two of us. Okay.

The one thing that I will say, and believe me, I'm the same way you all are. I like to read everything. But once again, this is a trigger for an action. It's not a requirement from DOE or the county. It's an option that's put in in case there is a termination for DOE to potentially acquire A PORTION OF OUR OBLIGATIONS ON THE FOXTALE FLAT RESOURCE MOVING FORWARD. SO THERE'S NO REAL OBLIGATION ON EITHER PARTY IN THIS. IT'S JUST THIS IS AN OPTIONAL PROVISION. I DON'T KNOW, PHYLO OR BEN, IF YOU WANT TO ADD ANYTHING.

I JUST WANTED TO ADD. The board and council has purchased Foxtail Flats, so that's a done deal. This is a business risk mitigation measure that allows, you know, should in the event of everything break apart, we have an option to assign to the DOE this amount, the 80%. at our option. If it makes sense at the time.

I trust you guys entirely on this, but I've just got four pages. I haven't even started to read it. I understand that piece. I believe you. I just don't know what it is.

And then on the other side, if the board decides they want to delay, I think we need to decide having a special meeting. Maybe it's this Friday, whatever it may be. We have to We have a deadline of the end of the month.

Well, let's discuss that after we get through the substance here, and then we'll try to figure out what our path forward might be. Yeah.

Thank you. With that said, are there any other questions on this particular topic?

Matt? Yeah.

I'm Trying to scan through it and make sense of it. And at least the bold parts must be the important parts. So I think. Are they the important parts or the new parts? Well, the bold part of the new part. What's up on the screen right now? There's 80% of the applicable Foxtail Flats resources shall be allocated to LANL. And this is upon commencement of service. So this sounds like it's a resource. We use it as it's going. And I think if you scroll down just to the bottom of this page, Abby, this one I don't quite understand. And maybe somebody can quickly explain it. The 80% foxtail flats allocation shall not automatically apply to future resources. And this is all in the context of termination or in the context of regular operation in these sections right here?

I think the simplest way to look at it is that right now, 80% of Foxdale Flat is allocated to the lab or to NSA. In future purchases of power resources, the lab may be 50%, it may be 90%. So it was really just trying to identify that the 80% is not a fixed amount for future resources. The future resource will have to decide on what that is. It was based on the requirements at the time.

Okay. So this is setting the stage for how things work right now. That's what this page is about.

It's setting the stage for if we add additional resources to this provision in the future, that, you know, whatever the allocation is for the lab, that will be what is added to this provision probably.

Okay. Thanks. That helps. So I don't understand. Why is the ADP? Maybe you can help me with this. Why is the 80% in this contract, right? 80% is just a convenient way to think of the lab's usage, right? It's roughly 80%. It's not exactly 80%. It's whatever it is. I mean, would we have done that with any other resource? When we were doing San Juan, did we say the lab owned 80% of San Juan? I just don't understand the language, right? Does that make sense? I don't get it.

That's a good point. I will point out that when we did San Juan, we had no protections. The same sort of contract structure applied. So if there was a termination of convenience, we would have had no language even suggesting what we might do. So this is the best approach we have. The 80%, it could be more, it could be less, as Mr. Kirshenberg said. But to the number that we put in there. Yes. To speak to the specific question about other resources, that's simply addressing that Foxtel Flats is a known contracted resource. The county is currently contracted for it, for its full 20-year lifespan under the PPA. We accepted all that risk when we signed the contracts, and we carry them forward for the next 20-plus years. Without this, we have no... Nothing that actually speaks to that commitment that we have and what the DOE has signed up for, whether or not they choose to terminate. Any new resources will have to be handled entirely separate, and that's what that language you mentioned says. It's that this only covers Foxtail Flats because that's the only current long-term new contracted resource that we have. Future resources, if we choose to enter into them, are either covered under this exclusion language here or other provisions in the contract documents that address specifically how we handle new resources and the whole process that goes through.

Okay. Can someone walk me through the actual termination for convenience clauses? Let's put Foxtail Flats to one side. Because that was one of the issues, right? So I see this, what is that, clause five? Changes in requirements and mitigation. Is that where that starts? I guess there's down to clause seven too.

Maybe I'll start and then other people can jump in. what page is this 11 33 Okay. I'm sorry. I thought you were talking about just generally the termination for convenience in the contract clauses, not in the statement of work. Maybe we start in the contract clauses and then come to the statement of work.

Yeah. How about this? Yeah. Why don't you guys walk us through all of this text and tell us what you think it means, and then we can ask questions about it. Because right now it's just kind of like, oh, here's four pages. Do you have any questions? I have no idea what we're talking about. So maybe, Seth, you could take a step back and walk us through all of the stuff that we've been wondering about for the last couple of weeks. That would be great.

Yeah. And so in the contract itself versus the attachment, which is what we're in right now, the statement of work, there's a provision on limitation of government's obligations, right? And that is the issue that we focused on during the last meeting.

So that's page seven of the terms and conditions document.

i'll start talking as as it starts to come up but basically in in that particular provision there's a current limitation of six million dollars that that limitation will change over time um as as we move forward with the contract as you remember everyone's concern was well there's additional obligations that are out there that the county has undertaken certain obligations that exceed that six million dollars And when we enter into this contract, there were a couple of different things, which is there's the price that the Department of Energy is paying for the services. And we would be arguing that the limitation is based on the price or the current purchase of the utilities. It's not on the assets. Those are contingent liabilities, as we talked about yesterday with DOE, that exist that the county has incurred. So we would be arguing, once again, that the $6 million right now would be related to the payment of the utilities as we move forward. The reason why we wanted a restatement of the FAR clause 52-249-2 is there's a process within the FAR clause itself that basically, and those, I'm boring everybody who lives on federal government contracts in this room, but there's basically a process and a provision for if the government terminates and you have invested or undertaken certain actions under the particular contract, you've incurred certain costs that you cannot basically mitigate by selling to other parties, once again, under a construction contract, this is the way it works, then DOE will negotiate with you on the potential costs for that. DOE is going to argue that they're going to have a $6 million limit. We're going to be arguing that our long-term investments that we've made under the contract would allow us to sell these utilities to them. And these are liabilities of NNSA as well as the county, or that the county has incurred, and we're asking for reimbursement for them. And so under this clause, it goes through in depth and says, hey, look, what we've performed and what the costs are and the subcontracts and everything else and their liability is limited. And we need to recognize that. But we would go through and once again, we'd be making a contract. a claim for more under this particular provision. Now, when we looked at this, we said to DOE, we've got these long-term obligations. Can you make more of a commitment? Can we get rid of the $6 million limitation? And we went back and forth on that. They would not. get rid of that. But what we did come up with is another solution, which was to point the future us to a provision in the statement of work that basically identified, and maybe let's go to the statement of work, that basically said, we've got these long-term commitments like Foxtail Flats. And right now, the county identified for DOE, that's really our long-term commitment that we're most concerned about. And so let's set up a provision over the four pages where we go through and you can keep scrolling down, at least maybe stop there. where we've got a provision where we go through and they notify us that they're going to terminate. We do the things that are required by termination for convenience clause. We reduce our expenses. We mitigate our costs and those types of things. We recognize that the government has a process in FAR 52-249-2, a termination for convenience. And we also recognize that they have a limitation of funds. But then if you keep going down, they go through and they say, yeah, but, well, maybe it's farther up. But we recognize that you have this long-term commitment of Foxtail Flats, and we are going to work with you to look at potential purchasing the commitment that the county's made for at least 80% of the Foxtail Flat resource. And Once again, there's a clause in here that basically this will really be at the county's option. We don't have to give up this resource in case we decide it's more valuable at the time or in case we're actually negotiating with them and don't want them to have that resource and making them recognize they have to purchase it from somewhere else in whatever may be available at that time. And then it talks about the process for the committee to work together to look at this resource. And it talks about future long term power resources and the process. If you remember elsewhere in the contract, there's a provision that basically says We'll work with the Department of Energy to look at future resources. We'll talk to WAPA who can enter into long term agreements with the county where DOE may not. WAPA can enter into a 30 year agreement. And so we will look at the best way to mitigate costs for the county going forward and future contracts. uh and work together on that and then here it talks about adding those particular resources as well to this particular provision so um in addition to foxtel flats we may have another future project that we that we buy part of um and then we would add that to this clause through an amendment to the agreement um and uh ben and philo is there anything else that i missed that you all want to highlight

think that covered the what I wanted to see so if we were to do another future foxtail flats or something else that was a large investment that was over a long time from tell me again would we go through WAPA is that what we're saying now or would we try to adopt this clause to that

I'm saying that the county will have a lot of options. So when the county was investigating, investing in the small modular reactor, we were going to have long-term obligations, the county, if it did that. What we were looking at doing was bringing WAPA in. So WAPA can sign a 30-year memorandum of agreement with NNSA. Remember, NNSA is limited to 10 years with us. So they can enter into a 30-year agreement with NNSA, WAPA can, and then WAPA can enter into a 30-year contract with the county. So the county would then have an NSA through WAPA on the hook for a full 30 years for payments. So we put that in the contract just to point to the future us as negotiations are ongoing. It may be that we use this contract. I've seen other places where there's a renewal of a contract. We're looking at, and I know I've worked with Philo in the past on this, we're looking at new legislation to allow DOE to buy power for 30 years. So that may be enacted at that time. So we wanted to leave open all the options, but we also wanted to add this clause to say, if we're still in this 10-year contract and we're not going through third parties, there's still a way to add that as an additional clause PEACE TO OUR EXISTING CONTRACT.

YOU STILL HAVE THE FLOOR, CHARLIE.

OKAY.

A couple of questions on this page 10 that we've been looking at. Upon completion of service, 80% of the applicable Foxtail Flats resource shall be allocated to LANL. What is the applicable Foxtail Flats resource? Since we're anticipating that part of that power from there will go to the county, part will go to LANL, part will go to Sandia-Kirtland. and part of it, at least to begin with, will be sold presumably to some other entity, and all of those percentages may change over time. So what is the applicable Foxtail Flats resource that this is 80% of?

That would be 80% of 120 megawatts of the photovoltaic capacity and an equivalent share of the battery.

And this talks about Foxtail Flats, which, of course, is the major current issue.

Actually, let me make a correction to that.

Yeah.

We have to take off 30 megawatts for Sandia Kirtland. So it's 80% of 90 megawatts. Okay.

I think to answer more generally, applicable meaning what's being used within the power pool. Okay. And that was the reason for... You know, the future allocation could be something different. So if the lab adds supercomputing and they're using 90% of it, they would do 90%. That's what we'd negotiate at the time.

Okay. Slightly different topic. This talks about Foxtail Flats. It talks about future resources, but we also have Laramie River, and it doesn't say anything about Laramie River, which is a long-term obligation of the county also. How is that to be treated if there were a termination?

That asset, capital asset, because we have to pay for its closure. We're collecting on those funds. This applies to the power purchase agreement contract for services. But it doesn't work with assets. Assets we can sell. And I think Seth mentioned that earlier in the description about capital assets versus purchase agreements.

So you're assuming that we can sell it, but we may sell it at a loss. We might sell it at a gain. Don't know.

Or we just keep it because it's 10 megawatts around the clock.

But again, it's a risk that we're taking. that there doesn't seem to be anything in here that addresses that risk.

That's correct.

That's the same risk that we've held since we signed up for in the late 80s for that, for LRS. Okay. That's a continuation of that. Go ahead, Mr. Gershberg.

Yeah, the only thing that I would add is that the extent that the county has certain obligations that it can't mitigate through sale and we have certain losses and we can show those particular losses, that's where we would try and make certain claims to NNSA under our contract. It would be hard, but we would try and make those.

Seth, at some point I want to follow up on that statement, and we can do that now or we can do it later. Whatever works for you or Ben. Let's go now. Okay. In response to a question that I sent yesterday, your response said, and this has to do with these long-term contracts, the county would have a claim pursuant to the old ESEA, in other words, the present one, for NNSA to pay for its share of a contract if DOE terminated the contract. But the county would not have a claim if the contract expired, which the current contract is going to expire at the end of this month, if not extend it. So this statement seems to suggest that today we would have a claim, as you just suggested, for Laramie River or, for that matter, Foxtail Flats, because it's an approved resource, but we wouldn't on the 1st of September. Is that true?

I guess as a lawyer, of course, I'm going to answer a little different. It is to say that we will make a claim FOR COSTS THAT ARE INCURRED BY THE COUNTY FOR WHICH THERE'S A LOSS AS WE MOVE FORWARD INTO THE CONTRACT IF THERE ARE RESOURCES THAT WE'RE PAYING FOR, YOU KNOW, AT THE TIME WE'RE PROVIDING THESE SERVICES. BUT DOE'S DEFENSE WOULD BE THAT IT'S NOT UNDER THIS PARTICULAR CONTRACT OR WE DIDN'T INCUR THE COST UNDER THIS PARTICULAR CONTRACT AS WE WENT FORWARD. I don't think it's as black and white, you know, as me just giving an answer saying yes or no. I think that's where we would be in this analysis and in that process.

So are the two contracts different in that respect?

So the other contract was a 30-year contract, and it is different in many respects. The similarity was that they were purchasing power, but it was very much more of a – almost similar to like a cooperative agreement. whereas this is a contract where they're buying power were their contractor even the same was true under the other one but this is this is more so but because the laws that they have to follow now are different than the laws that they had to follow 30 years ago even though both laws are still in in place that and there but the the rules and regulations are different and also um uh mr stromberg also has his hand up as well i just want to identify that um

Let's see. Eric, let me go to you, but I want to come back to that and continue this discussion. Yeah, thank you.

I was wondering if the lab exercises termination and they're paying this, I guess what I'm going to call a severance fee, is that 80% of the total 20-year contract? No.

No, it would be, they'd first only pay what they have allocated for that particular annual basis. The contract is only 10 years with a 10-year option as well. So I don't want to mislead anybody to say that it's a 20-year contract. It isn't. It's a 10-year contract with a 10-year option, a DOE's option to extend it.

So would it be 80% of a 10-year contract or 80% of one year?

They would pay the cost that we would claim. I don't think we would break it up as 80%. I think what we would say is here's our long-term cost that we can't recover for, that we can't sell, we can't do other things. And I have a feeling that, for example, on this Foxtail Flats, we would probably say we still need this 20% to provide power to the county. So, yes, it is 80% in that. With each one, I don't know enough about it to tell you whether that would be the response.

So we would reach for the sky and they would give us the parking lot.

Right. Probably. I've been through a fair amount of claims with the county and with NNSA. And in each one of those instances, I think the county's come out well. irregardless of the law on these issues. So I think that there would be more than a negotiation going on between the contracting officer and the utility department. I think this would be a higher level issue that would be discussed and tried to figure it out.

Okay, thank you. The county may have come out really well because we have a good lawyer.

Good team, good team.

Seth, if the existing contract is in structure a little bit more favorable in some of these respects, and it was a 30-year contract to start with, but it's been extended by 10 years, and then it's now been extended by 14 months, so obviously it can be extended. Instead of this new contract, why don't we take the old contract, extend it for 10 or 20 years, and put basically the new provisions that have been discussed here in it as a contract mod, and basically get the provisions of the new contract with the benefits of the old one together, and make it, you know, just continue the old contract, which would then be under the old laws and the old regulations that seem to be less onerous?

I'm going to answer it two different ways, or two ways. One, which is I don't think that they believe that they have the authority to extend it that much longer. They keep extending it because they're trying to enter into a new agreement. Their regulatory requirements are to have a different agreement. The other option, and Philo, Ben, and I talked about this with the county attorney's office more than once, which is the other option is always just not even to have a contract and just sell them the power like any other customer. But we just said that doesn't work because of the interrelated nature of the way we sell power, buy power. and how we need to work together to make all these things work. And so that's why we're, you know, entering into a new contract. There are different forms of contract that we could have gone with as we did it. But we're in we're we're with a fixed price contract. But I think I don't think that they would extend the contract much longer. And I think everyone thinks we're better off with a contract.

Well, I think we do all appreciate the complexity of the interconnections in multiple dimensions that we have had and have generally worked for us. But on the everyday basis, both the physical connections and the personnel connections and the scheduling and all that stuff, it would be complicated to unwind. But this is complicated, too. OK. I guess that's what I have on that topic at the moment. Do we have other questions at the moment on this? Or do you want to keep going through this?

All right. Well, if we don't have any more discussion for now, we can always bring it back up again on the termination for convenience and the associated language there. I'd like to step through all the other changes, which as I mentioned, are far less significant in scope. So let's go back to the first document, the terms and conditions, contract terms. And we will start with page two. So one change here, as was necessary, was the very last sentence in this text block was changing the period of performance to reflect the latest one-month extension that takes us out to September. And so going out from there, 10 years gets us approximately to one further month from July 31 to August 31, 2036. So that was one change. And if anyone has any questions or wants to discuss anything, please speak up. Otherwise, I'll move on to page four, which is essentially the same thing. Scroll back to the top of page four. Right there, the very first line. This is, if you scroll up a bit more, we can see the heading. AND THIS IS THE PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE NECESSARY SECTION UNDER THIS, BUT IT JUST DUPLICATES THOSE DATES, WHICH ARE ALSO LIKEWISE CHANGED TO SEPTEMBER 1ST, 2026, THROUGH AUGUST 31ST, 2036. THE NEXT CHANGE IN THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS IS, JUMPS US AHEAD TO PAGE 20. AND WE ALREADY TALKED ABOUT THAT. THAT WAS CHANGING THE 60 days notice of intent to 90 days along with the 30 to 15 days reduction in the actual written notice to exercise that option and Mister Kirshenberg went into some detail explaining the actual implementation how we would do that and how it may not align with those dates in reality in practice And then the last two changes are on page 22, the last page of this section of the document. And that is to insert at the very top of the page that termination for convenience clause. And then in the table, section J, list of documents, exhibits, and other attachments, attachments number one and two, the performance work statement and the operating procedures were revised today with their final form. And those dates were updated to reflect that. If there are any questions on any of these, please speak up. Otherwise, we'll move on to the next section of the package, the performance work statement.

Hold on just a moment. Are there any questions? Anybody else have any questions? It was my understanding that there is a second terms and conditions document that would cover a second 10 years. But that's still confidential to DOE. Does that really exist? And if so, how do we know that it exists? Where is it referred to, any place?

Or is that just hearsay? So in the DOE contracting side of things, there is one contract. That's what we've seen here. This is the sole terms and conditions. The option to extend is expressed as a separate contract line item number. CLIN is the way they say that. So there is one CLIN, contract line item number, for the first 10-year term and a separate CLIN for the second 10-year option if the DOE chooses to exercise it. My understanding of that content is it simply says, Here's the dollar value of that, $509 million, and here's the extended term.

How many dollars was that one?

$590 million.

Okay, but it's still invisible. We can't see it. That's the substance of it, though. It's the dollar amount. But we still can't see it.

Yeah, there is no separate contract, though, if that's helpful.

There's a separate – say that again, please, Seth.

Separate what? Sorry. There is no separate contract. I think all Ben is identifying is that there's just a separate line item for – just like there is here for the full dollar amount of the 400 and some odd million. There's just another dollar amount that they've got listed that – If they ever trigger the second 10 years, that's what they estimate the cost is going to be right now. But they would do a re-estimation. So that's a long way of saying there's no other contract. This is it.

Well, that's kind of what it looks like because we don't see anything else.

If there are any other questions, please speak up and we can go to them. Well, let's move on to the performance work statement then.

So that's attachment two.

Oh, one, my mistake. So first page where we have a change is on page four. And it is in section B43. Right there. The board member Hefner flagged this one. Notwithstanding this classification, projects with Total cost less than $250,000. The previous version had will followed by shall. So the will was deleted. That's the only change. Yay, we got something fixed. We got the cleanup. I made sure that every one of the items that had been flagged for prior reviews had been cleaned up. Moving on to page... 9, that gets us back to H4, and we've gone over that already, the four pages adding Foxtel flats and about all the options that are to be considered if in the, and I want to point out, what we perceive to be a very unlikely scenario of a termination.

So I do want to come back to this, but only after you've finished the other, go through the other changes, then we can come back.

Okay. And that gets us through all the changes in the PWS. That gets – now we'll go to the next attachment, which is the operating procedures. The changes here are on the first page, what we see in the title. On the third line of the title, operating procedures pursuant to the terms of the electric coordination agreement, the prior version retained some old labeling and said the electric energy coordination agreement. We're no longer calling it that. Let me just – so I deleted the energy. Then we move down to the middle of that text block there, following that long contract number, the 89233 and so on and so forth, with the parenthetical ECA behind it. Originally, the version you saw last month had the date of the ECA in it, and I removed that date because I didn't see any reason to have another date to update in any of these documents. It's always a bugger bear trying to remember where the dates are hiding and keeping them current. Let's go to page one now, following the table of contents. Here we go. At the bottom of the page here, you will see section H is new. And this is the associated language that I'd already discussed about how we are directing the operating committee to consider what needs to be done if the DOE both either either decides to exercise their option we'll be planning for that well in advance and at the same time that we're considering and getting the status of where can send ear Kirtland wants to go with their portion of foxtail flats and then you see the next page is two bullets there at the top of the page we're going to look at both scenarios we'll plan for the DOE to exercise their option to extend And we'll also plan to have them not extend it. And whichever one comes to rise, then we'll be prepared for it. All right. And...

Through A through...

I mean, are we... Analyzing our long... Before you leave...

Whether it's associated with these... To me. That's right. That's the way I read it.

They're equivalent to like whereas statements that you would typically see at the start of a...

Just setting the stage. I mean, if we turn it on in 2027 and the government uses 78.3% or 82.4%, I mean, have we failed in an obligation in our contract or not?

No, because it still says consistent with the applicable power of law and contractual arrangements.

Okay. So it's kind of boiler, in a sense, kind of boilerplate. Is that fair then?

I won't say boiler, but I'll say that it's at least a sentence that tries to send them out with a lot of wiggle room afterwards.

Okay. All right. So we can put that one. We can go.

Charlie, can I ask you a question relevant to that?

Yeah.

You're talking about terminating in 10 years or the contract expiring in 10 years, but the government could terminate the contract at any time.

Correct.

They could terminate it six months in.

Fair.

Or- So it could happen any time, not just at the 10-year point.

Yeah.

I mean, we have the same problem whether it happens at one year or 10 years. Fair. Totally fair. Okay.

Just wanted to make sure that that's indeed where we are. Just to follow up on Robert's question, out of curiosity, I mean, this is very standard, right? In every government contract I've seen, it always says government can stop almost any time, right? Right. Did the old ECA have that implicitly or explicitly as well? I mean, I'm trying to compare, like, what risks do we think we're taking on now compared to the existing one?

It's really funny. Ben threw out the Christian doctrine to me today, which basically says that every federal government contract, whether it says it or not, has a termination for convenience clause included in it. I thought it kind of did. Yeah, I mean, I believe that it does. I don't remember the old contract quite as well. Um, but even if it didn't, it still has a termination for convenience for us.

Okay. Uh, uh, chair and, uh, board member knockley. I can tell you on the old agreement, uh, when Uniper settlement came through, we combed through that agreement. It was Thomas Wyman and I, um, in that termination of that resource, The county was completely at risk for all of that. So the DOE didn't have any share in that. So we kept all the proceeds of the settlement funds and put it into the reserves because there was no tie. This here, it's similar, but quite larger energy supply agreement than we had in the past. And there's risk to the county and I think here, knowing it's a renewable project that meets all our goals, and we just wanted some assurance they'd be taking this energy or have the option to take the energy if they choose to walk away.

Yeah. Okay.

Okay. It's a risk mitigation. This is not perfect by any means. This is just a...

There's no risk-free approach to the future. Right. I'm with you on that.

It's just a... It's set in the business framework. Should we terminate, we have some pathways to explore and that it was contemplated here. So as Seth mentioned, when he goes to make a claim to the office in D.C., that we... you know, there was some intention here. And that's about the best we could frame up. Yeah.

No, that's all good. But, you know, we're reading through it now. And I'm conscious of the fact that there is a deadline. So I just want to make sure that the words, like, at least that I understand the words.

Yeah. And, you know, universe in reverse, that was an energy supplier that canceled.

Yeah.

But if the DOE had canceled... We wouldn't have had any recourse either in that case.

Yeah.

No, I get that.

So could we go on to three? So, you know, then the first paragraph says, okay, yes, parties use the operating committee to do smart things. That's good. And then they should document all of these things. That all makes good sense to me. Then the paragraph after that, after H, the allocation for each resource shall be based on the requirements, expected benefits, and the 80%. This all reads, so maybe Seth, you could explain this to me. This all reads, in case of termination, then these things apply. Is that what that passage really means?

If you go to number five. That's where we get to what you're looking for, I think.

Okay, well, I just wanted to know what that paragraph actually means. Does it mean anything in – like what's the – what's the intent of that paragraph back in three? Sorry. Back in three, the allocation for each – What are we signing up for with that paragraph, I guess?

I think this is what the power – pool does anyway, that this is this is already basically what you're doing. You're kind of as you're signing up for things and it becomes part of the power pool, you're deciding what is the percentage that's allocated to an NSA.

So in the future, if if if Ben and team, you know, find a great new geothermal resource someplace, then the power pool can discuss What the allocation should be and chances are high that it's reasonable it will still be 80%. But at any rate.

Yeah, and that will go into whether the county decides to purchase it or not as well. Okay. You know, all those different things, you know, as you're kind of going forward. And what's funny is I went through the same things. I was reading this, you know, for the first time yesterday, trying to go through and saying we're – YOU KNOW, YOU'RE BASICALLY, AS BEN SAID, THESE ARE KIND OF BACKGROUND THINGS. THESE ARE THINGS THAT THE COMMITTEE IS SUPPOSED TO DO. BUT I THINK WHOEVER WROTE IT WAS TRYING TO LAY THE FRAMEWORK FOR BASICALLY PARAGRAPH 5 ON THIS WHOLE THING AND TRYING TO RESTATE WHAT THEY THINK THAT THE POWER POOL IS GOING TO BE DOING.

AND SO JUST, ALL RIGHT, LET'S MOVE ON TO 4 THEN. SO 4 IS AGAIN MORE BACKGROUND BASICALLY. JUST SAYS IT OR NOTHING. These are all things that I think represent, right?

That's statements of the, as already described.

Are there any analogous statements of the federal government, right? Are there anything that the county should have in there?

Some of them made it in, but the most, that basically power resource to the government. So what determination of this contract, and then we decide there's value in that existing resource. We don't have to sell it to them.

Okay. Can we just go back to five? I'm sorry to be so pedantic about this, but I just like this. Let's go through it. So you said a lot of one through four was all background to get us to five. So let's walk through five. So what are we committing to in five? What is everybody committing to, I guess, is the right way to say it.

So this goes back, and it's pretty much – and I'm sorry for not being on camera as well, so I'll take that off. So I'm reading from my screen. So basically if – You know, NSA decides to terminate either partially or fully as they go forward that, you know, the parties will cooperate to minimize the financial impact. of the government's exercise of its rights so this is saying they'll work with us on this particular issues they'll we'll both consider reasonable mitigation costs including reallocation sale all those types of things the objective is to protect the county and its rate payers from costs attributable to an authorized landlord resource commitment while protecting the government from costs. So, you know, they're trying to say, hey, look, we're both trying to protect each other or ourselves as we go forward. We're both saying that. And then the credits, basically, that's how termination for convenience is supposed to work anyway, that we're both trying to avoid these costs and Any amount considered to be payable by the government shall be based upon unavoidable costs attributed to the government's properly authorized share. So this gets to the 80% piece that we talked about up top. And then after mitigation, which we're required to do under FAR 52-249-2 anyway. AND THEN NO COST SHALL BE RECOVERED MORE THAN ONCE. THAT'S ONCE AGAIN A PART OF THE FAR AS WE GO FORWARD. AND THEN IN 7, THIS BASICALLY GOES TO, HEY, YOU KNOW, TO THE EXTENT THAT WE REQUESTED, SO WE ADDED THIS LANGUAGE, THE EXTENT THE COUNTY REQUESTED, IF THIS CONTRACT EXPIRES OR IS TERMINATED BY THE GOVERNMENT, and the government wants to continue to buy a portion of Foxtail Fats or others, then we'll cooperate to evaluate that. So we don't have to do it. And then once again, to the extent we request it, where legally and commercially permissible, the government may consider contracting directly with the resource provider to take over this obligation. And then, you know, it kind of goes through government, you know, shall seek to do these things that they would want to do if there's a termination. And then this says, hey, I know we said all these things, but we're not really binding the government. And the government has no requirements. And the county is saying we're not, you know, basically we're not required to sell this to you. We may want to keep it ourselves as well. And then they go through their limitation of liability again in eight. Which are restatements again. You know, no obligation to seek appropriations, those types of things. And then how we're going to work together and look at these things in the future. And I think this was the intent of the whole contract anyway. That's kind of what I – this is a very unique contract, and one of the pieces that I really like about it is that you have this – piece where you're working together all the time and that you've got a committee that meets to make decisions that benefits both Llano and the county. That's very unique that this is built in. I think it's a very big positive and I think that's what this last section is trying to identify as well. So my calls with the Air Force, Navy, and Army, I say over. So maybe I'll start doing that here. It's not quiet.

You done for now, Charlie?

I think so.

Thank you. Or while you're thinking, Question page 10, section, this is section 3. This is the performance work statement, page 10. Section 3 below H, that paragraph that begins, the allocation for each power resource shall be established based upon the requirements and expected benefits associated with that resource. I'm not sure I understand what that sentence means. Is this only referring to an allocation of the cost of the resource if we were to split up? Or is this some more general allocation of resource? I don't understand it.

Yeah, I think it's that as we look at future resources and we decide whether or not to bring them into the power pool, that there'll be a discussion between NSA and the county. And, you know, if it continues along the way it's been continuing, it'll be an 80 percent, but it could be 50 percent or it could be 90 percent, could be 100 percent. You know, those are things that will be worked out as the county and NSA are looking at bringing in future long-term power resources. And I was just saying, we're not stuck with the 80%. We'll look at each individual case and make that decision.

But when we're looking at power, all the power goes into a pool, and it gets pulled out, drawn out according to need. The allocation of power and the allocation of the associated energy expense varies. It's not always 80%. It's somewhere in that range typically. But that's kind of automatic in how the pool works. And hence my question as to what this allocation refers to here.

I'll speak to that, Chair Gibson. Sure. I'll give you with an example. We had our Uniper contract. There were two parts to it. It was a 15 megawatt piece, and the county signed up for that entirely on their own. The DOE did not participate in that resource. Therefore, and it was fairly inexpensive. I believe it was less than $30 a megawatt hour for 15 megawatts for 15 years, I think. The county signed up for that, and we got the benefit of that price-wise. It did not get accounted for in the pool cost. It did not get blended in.

It was not an approved resource, I think that's what you're saying.

Yes. So that's what this is speaking to. We have the flexibility, and we retain that flexibility to address new resources as needed. And again, the second piece of Uniper was a 25-megawatt block, and the DOE was able to participate in that. So the cost of that. were blended in for the pool. So we've done it in the past, and we expect to be able to do that in the future.

So when something new comes down the line, and let's say it becomes an approved resource, a new uniper or whatever, then at that point, you would put it into the basically be a mod to the contract or something like that? You would say, okay, now we have a new approved resource, and we've agreed the allocation is, let's say, 80-20. and therefore then that would be binding in these senses until some future possible termination, something like that, right? Is that how this would work?

Chair? Member Nockley? That's correct. So that's defined. It's paraphrased here in Section 3 itself, those stepwise process. And it's described in the performance work statement as well, how we do that, starting with the operating committee, myself, the operations manager, looking for new resources, presenting them to the operating committee for consideration, a decision by the operating committee whether to proceed or not, and how to proceed, what the allocations will be, and then going through the appropriate contracting offices, whether it's the DOE and NSA contracting officer or representative, and the county side through the Board of Public Utilities and County Council. So that whole process is always there. Okay.

Okay, thanks.

Does that conclude your presentation, Ben?

That is, as I mentioned, that's all the changes that I wanted to bring up. Okay. So that's, unless there's more questions, I'm still here.

I don't think we ever let him get to his presentation.

There was no formal presentation slides to go with.

Okay. Well, hard to prepare slides when you only get this at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Let's see. I've got a couple questions or either questions or comments on the staff report. The statement is made that much effort has gone into making this new ECA into a foundation for a balanced partnership between DOE and NSA and the county. And I'm wondering how you call this a balanced partnership when it is not structured that way. It's structured as a buyer-vendor or buyer-seller partnership. That's the way DOE insists on doing it. And you see that all the way through. You know, DOE writes the rules and the county is expected to live by them if we sign the agreement. How do you call this a balanced partnership? It's one of the most asymmetric things I think I've ever seen.

Sure. Well, as the operations manager, I work closely with the DOE contracting office representative. I work with Lionel's staff and utilities on a daily basis, you know, planning out strategically, tactical decisions, daily decisions, hourly decisions. And so from my perspective, this contract supports all those functions working collaboratively. Now, structure-wise, as Mr. Kirshenberg referenced or mentioned, we are and the DOE has imposed certain restrictions on what they are able to do and what they believe they're able to do from a contracting perspective. And Mr. Kirshenberg can speak more to that. But from my perspective, I believe that all of the pieces that are built into here do speak to this partnership, even if we can't necessarily have an equal, fully equal partnership from the standpoint of that the county has the exact same rights and privileges as the DOE. I believe that's the nature of any contract with the government that you typically would get. And Mr. Kirshenberg, you can add in here from your experience if you have anything to add and follow as well.

I don't necessarily have anything else to add. I will say once again that you do have a unique piece that causes the county and NSA to work together and work collectively throughout the whole term. And that's unusual. And I think it's a big positive.

And the only thing else I'll add is, you know, on the We didn't go over paragraph nine. I mean, this was the last paragraph of the four pages inserted was, you know, the DOE wrote this, and they, you know, wrote the mutual benefit and future application paragraph, but, you know, it's basically saying we're going to work together to, you know, find resources that are economical, reliable, advantageous. That's They added that. They didn't have to put that in.

My sense, for what it's worth, is that I do believe that the NNSA slash DOE has tried and is negotiating in good faith to try to get a good agreement within the constraints, I will say within the constraints as they perceive them to be. But those constraints are, as Robert points out, quite asymmetric. I don't think the county has a termination for convenience clause. I mean, I suppose we could invent one, probably. So those are quite asymmetric. But I do believe that there's a lot of work to try to get to a positive, mutually beneficial agreement. I do. I do think one thing is, though, that, you know, utilities used to be super boring. Government contracts used to be super boring. Nothing's boring anymore. I would love a little more boring, you know, on occasion, right? So, you know, it's hard to look into the future.

How many times did you read through this?

Gosh. Didn't it get boring? I mean, boring is different. I guess boring kids in the eyes of older. Maybe as I get older, less things are boring, too. But, yeah. Yeah, so I think that is part of the challenge in trying to think through this.

Continuing comments on the staff report. This is just a comment. The next paragraph in the staff report talks about there were 67 review comments were identified by these reviewers. that the first review back at Christmas time last year says every one of the 67 comments has been addressed. That shouldn't be interpreted as favorably resolved. I mean, as is true of most any negotiation, you don't get everything you want. But the fact that it's addressed doesn't mean addressed the way we'd like it to be. In some cases, in many cases, they just said, DOE said, we can't do that. which is and left it at that. And item five in that listing there says contracting office and field office staff were deeply involved throughout the review process and coordinated effort with DPU staff. The effort was essential for working through difficult contracting issues to the satisfaction of both parties. The problem here is DPU is not the policymaker on the county side. They're an intermediary, really. They've done a lot of the work. But the parties are the county and DOE. And the county is represented by the council and the board. And we're trying to decide whether it This is satisfactory to this side of those both parties. So let's keep straight who the parties are here. And this is all I had on that part of the staff report. I'll ask... or more likely Philo, the staff report has a recommended action that we approve this. But that recommendation was made before we even had it. So is that still your recommendation based on what you got at 4 o'clock this afternoon? Because I don't think you had a basis to make this recommendation when you made it. So I'm asking about now.

Yes, Chair, that's why I wanted, you know, I had outlined that even over the weekend, we knew we were getting close on the negotiation and we were getting to a break point where we said we think we got it. The language is yes, there's a little back and forth towards the end to get there, to get over the finish line. I think Ben and I's recommendation is yes, we need to move forward with this. Now I realize you need time to consider it. I do appreciate the board deliberating on the four pages because that was the bulk of the changes. And then obviously there's some far language added that we pointed out that gave us this ability to make this insert into the document. I think while it's not perfect, it provides some risk mitigation. based on our current power purchase agreements and gives us a framework to move forward on future power purchase agreements. So I still recommend we move forward with, you know, I'd recommend approval of this as changed here at 4 o'clock today.

Okay, thank you. Ben, here's a question that's a little separate from some of the others. I just happened to find it in my notes here. What is approximately, or maybe you have it exactly, our total obligation over the 20 years for Foxtail Flats and our total obligation for the life of the plant to Laramie River? What are we at risk for?

Laramie River runs around $2.5 million a year. And we have a life of the plant agreement with that, which is expected to be through 2042. I haven't done the math on it, but I see you writing there, so.

So 20, almost 20 years, $2 million to $1 million?

Okay. And then Foxtel Flats is approximately, it's just under $25 million a year between the PV and the energy storage contracts for 20 years.

So that's $500 million.

I think it actually comes out, if you math it out, to like $480 million or something like that. What's $20 million between friends here?

We'll round. And Laramie River over 15 years approximately, 16 years, is going to be something a little less than $20 million. No, let's see. No, no, I'm sorry. $2 million? I'm sorry. Wrong. Two and a half million by 1625. It's about 40 million, I guess. I've already ordered that. That makes up some of the 20 million difference. Okay. It's a half a billion dollars is what we're at risk for. Now, the reality is, in worst case, if DOE walked away, we could sell that power. We might even make money on it, but we also could lose it. We're at risk. So the risk isn't $500 million, but it's significant.

Okay. I guess if we, sorry, just thinking through, obviously, just to be obvious, it seems like if we don't approve it and the county doesn't approve it and it elapses, then we realize the risk right straight away, more or less, right? Yes.

Do we have other questions right now for staff? I'm sure we'll ask them as they come up further, but we have to figure out what we're going to try to do here. Doesn't have to have the, doesn't have to at that point have the board's recommendation. It just has to be listed as an item on the agenda. I think that's the case.

Mayor Gibson, I do seem to recall it the exact same way. And then if there is attachments, those could be added later or by, we refer to them as green sheets on the dais, and then we issue those out to the press prior to the meeting on Tuesday.

So we have some flexibility. Yes, it'd be nice to have things done before it goes into the council's agenda package. But we have to... It'd be nice, but we may or may not make that. So you're available Friday afternoon. You're available Friday. I'm available Friday. Eric's available Friday. So it sounds like if we can recess this meeting and reconvene Friday afternoon, is that legitimate?

Mr. Chair, the board could recess and reconvene if they announce during this meeting the exact date, time, and place for the reconvene meeting.

OK. Let's get the easy part nailed down. Time. 1 o'clock? Just throwing. And Eric, you might be the one most constrained here. No, that's fine, because that's 3 o'clock my time.

I'm OK. 1 o'clock.

I can do 1 o'clock. OK. And we ought to... Can we talk about maybe a little earlier? That way we can get the packet to the council. I've got meetings up until noon. Okay, noon. Okay, well, I think you got your answer there. Sorry.

No, that's good.

I'm just asking. No, legitimate. No, it's a good question.

And we also ought to contact Jen and see if she is available Friday afternoon. She wasn't available tonight, and I don't know whether she'll be available Friday, but we got to ask sure I'll ask I think we go ahead anyway. I'd certainly like to have as many people on board for this as we can If she is available Will the video be available in a timely manner that she could, if she has time, look at the video of this discussion before? Pardon?

It would probably be available tomorrow morning. It has to have time to render. Zoom is usually available first, so I could send her the link for the Zoom.

Okay, so there are options if she's even available. Useful for to hear. Yeah. Discussion, yeah. Okay, I think in terms of place, Do we have to say anything beyond the county building? Because I don't know what room unless Kathy can look at.

I'm looking right now.

Oh, okay. We'll give you time to look then.

Yes, Mr. Chair. I recommend that it has specificity to the location because the intent is that members of the public who want to listen listen to the deliberations of BPU with regard to this item, we'll have the opportunity to do that and they'll know exactly where to go. So it has to be announced in this meeting and then we have to immediately post that information in a conspicuous location as soon as this meeting is recessed.

Okay. Okay, well let Kathy work on that. Back to formalities here. so we just if we just take no action on this right now and then at the end of the meeting we recess the meeting instead of adjourn it and to 1 o'clock Friday afternoon at such-and-such a place does that accomplish what we're trying to accomplish here yes mr. chair okay thank you I have two locations available Friday we have actually the DPU conference room is available

And let me check one other conference room. I thought 3.30 was available, but it is not.

Chambers is not available?

No. Well, I don't have access to that calendar. I'd have to check in the morning. Chambers and B&C are only scheduled by reservation because they're open to the public as well.

Because this would be the best room to do it. It would be. We have to specify tonight where it's going to be.

And we have video Zoom capability in the DPU conference room. We wouldn't have the Granicus, but we have the Zoom.

That's probably the best location because room 330 is not available. And that's the only other one that has Zoom and Granicus. Well, it doesn't have Granicus, just Zoom.

Does that cause any issues if someone from the public wants to actually physically show up or not? No, they can come in.

Question. If we recess tonight to 1 o'clock Friday at the DPU conference room, and this is available, can we put a sign up that says the meeting is moved to here? Is that legit?

Mr. Chair, I believe the meeting could be moved if you post, but it would have to be clearly posted, and I think someone would need to be available at least at the beginning of the meeting at that location to direct individuals to this location.

Someone would have to be there, you say?

That's my recommendation.

Okay. More than just a sign. Because I've seen signs out front where people come in and say, the meeting has moved to this place or that place.

Yeah, I think posting is what the law requires, but the recommendation would be to ensure that the public could find the meeting in the event that it's moved.

Okay. So we have, with a little effort, we have some flexibility there, too. Okay. Is that okay with everyone?

No. I'd like to just think about if proposed, I mean I think we've been talking about could we and I want to ask should we. I think we shouldn't table this because I think through going through and reviewing it tonight I feel comfortable. I mean I think my responsibility is to make sure we're better off with the contract. I think we are. I think making sure that showstoppers have been addressed. And I think we've done that over the last eight months or more. We've identified showstoppers. We've worked through them. And I think we need to make sure we're mitigating our risks. And I think what we reviewed tonight convinced me that we've got reasonable risk mitigations in there. And that's my understanding of our responsibility. I feel personally like I would like to understand it more, but I think I recognize that I would have to go to law school. I would have to get utility manager experience. I would need all of Ben's experience. And so at some point, we need to rely on these guys and the team and the work. And I feel like the time is now. And I think if we tabled it until Friday, what would change? We might understand it a little bit better, but I don't think their recommendation is going to change. And I don't think... you know, sort of playing through, if we did that, what would happen? Then we decide not to go forward with this contract. We need an extent from DOE. We need another special meeting before September 1st to approve that. And I just don't feel like that's in the county's or the utility's best interest. So I feel like, personally, the contract is in our best interest. We've identified and mitigated risks. And I think we've... address the showstoppers that are in here. So I don't see what two additional days of time would provide me as a board member that would change my analysis of that. So that's where I think the board should go.

Thank you.

Can I ask you a question, Matt? Is that legitimate?

I'm going to do it anyway. You just did. You already asked me a question. Oh, I did. That's all good. Because I'm torn, right? I'm sympathetic to everything you just said. I'm also sympathetic to trying to go through. I'm really glad we went through the four pages in some detail. So that's good, too. And I really don't have, like, a great answer to your question, like, what are we going to learn in the next day and a half, right? Especially just at home, because we can't talk to each other and stuff like that.

We can't talk to staff.

We can talk to staff. That's actually a great point. I guess one question I'd like to get your take on, or everybody's take on, is have we done... we have to do appropriate sort of staff work ourselves for council. Cause Robert made the point quite rightly that, you know, You know, the way this works is now DPU and NNSA have negotiated something, and it's up to us to go put our due diligence and take on it and then report out to council. So, in effect, you know, we're doing staff work for council. Have we done adequate? Do we have enough to do to say, no, we've really done adequate staff work for council? Because I think they're relying on us pretty heavily in their approval. And that's what I'm wrestling with. I don't have a great answer to either of them.

I think that is a good question. And I don't know how I would measure, what's the metric to say, yes, we have? How do we know? And so maybe, I don't know, Ren, have we done enough for you? You're our customer.

No, our customers are the people that we supply power to. Right.

You've been working on this for four years.

No, we haven't. Staff has.

Staff has. I would agree with Matt. It seems like you have addressed the changes.

Okay.

Thank you.

And I do, I mean... to continue the dialogue. I mean, this is the largest contract I've ever gotten to vote on.

So we need to do some work.

But I do try to say, OK, what are we doing? We're better with this contract than without it. We've identified risks. We've trusted our lawyers to mitigate those. There's no big showstoppers I see. Could it be better? Maybe. Could it be worse? Definitely. We're kind of stuck with it, and so I guess Maybe this is to be provocative. Maybe what the board needs to consider is a policy that by 2070, we need to have the county in a position where we can walk away from the ECA. Right now, we can't. We're stuck. So maybe we need to define some new policy that will get us out of this mess in 10 years, in 20 years, something like that. But right now, we can't. We need this contract. And so I think we've made the improvements we need to to mitigate the risk.

Well, one, I don't expect the staff recommendation to change, but that's only a recommendation. We're the ones who make decisions. And we greatly appreciate all the staff work and the staff recommendations, but ultimately we're the ones who have to make the decisions. We haven't had time to read this yet. As we know, there are often errors in things that anyone writes, and certainly there have been many in the and the several different drafts of this. So I, for one, am not prepared to approve a contract of this importance, this magnitude, this duration, that I haven't read yet. So I couldn't support this tonight. We'll see about Friday. But I have to read it first. This idea that this has been going on from the very beginning, that DOE's been giving us things long after they promised them, right up at the deadline. I mean, they seem to know when our deadlines are. And we get stuff right then. And that's what happened again today. We didn't get this until the meeting. County didn't get it till 4 o'clock. So they didn't have much time to look at it either. I think it's more important that we do it right than we do it fast. And I don't know that we'll necessarily do it any better on Friday, but presumably no worse anyway. So I think we should hold off and continue the discussion Friday afternoon. And maybe it won't be a long one, but at least we'll have had a time to sleep on it. I don't see Mr. Stromberg saying anything.

Well, okay. So I agree with all of you, which is, which is, which really means that I agree with Mr. Nockley that saying I'm torn because I don't know that. I mean, I appreciate what Matt said. And I think that I don't know what we can really do. It seems like we're backed into a corner and, And if we came up with something on Friday, would legal actually go to DOE and suggest changes? Would DOE accept them? I mean, we're kind of backed up against the wall, and it's not good. It's not a comfortable position to be in. You know, trusting our legal. I'm kind of agreeing with Matt. I don't know what else we can do. But I'm willing to wait until Friday.

Well, Matt, if you feel strongly, you can make a motion and see if you get a second. I'll make a motion.

I move that the Board of Public Utilities recommend Council approve the electrical coordination agreement between the Incorporated County of Los Alamos and the Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration and forward to Council for approval.

Is there a second?

I'll second it.

OK. Is there a motion to table?

Can we have some discussion on the motion?

Mr. Chair, you have a motion on the floor. I believe that needs to be voted on before a second motion can be made.

Well, a motion to table can be made. The motion to table is not debatable. So if there's going to be discussion, it needs to be before a motion is made. Is that correct? I mean, what's the point of having a motion to table if you can't make it?

Mr. Char, I believe the motion to table should have been made before a motion on an action item was made.

But there was nothing to table at that point. I mean, it's the motion that has just been made that it would be the subject of tabling. Before that, we were talking about recessing the meeting and continuing the discussion later. But now we have a motion on the floor.

So just for clarification, you're asking if the discussion and action on the motion that was made can be tabled to a future time, not the action item on the agenda?

We're discussing the motion now, yes. So that, I believe, can be tabled. Is that correct?

That's a really unusual procedural issue that I've never encountered. Isn't that unusual?

I'd like to invoke my right to terminate for convenience. Just thought I would try it out. What are you terminating?

I guess there's actually no requirement. Let's see. The straightforward way to deal with this would be to table the motion if we wanted to table it, if there's a decision to do that. If we recess the meeting without taking action, that's a little bit. It's almost the same thing, but it's done a different way. That would be weird.

Can we, let's say, I'm beyond my competence in Robert's rules here, for sure. But let's say, let's play this out for a minute. So Matt's made a motion. It's been a second. We have a motion in front of us. The normal thing to do would be we would discuss the motion and then have public comment and then have a vote, right? So suppose, just to play it out, If we have a vote and then it's approved, then it's approved. Now, what happens if we have a vote and it's rejected or tied? How does that play out? Could we pick it up on Friday, in other words, again? Or how does that work?

Then there could be a motion for reconsideration.

We'd go to another motion. OK.

Right. So if it was turned down tonight, We could still recess the meeting, meet again on Friday. One of the folks who voted against it, voted on the prevailing side, would have to make a motion for reconsideration. And, of course, that motion has to pass. And then you can bring the issue back up again on Friday. So we could do that route, too. If it were to fail tonight, if it passes tonight, I guess actually we could do the same thing. We could meet again on Friday and reconsider it. I don't know if anybody has a stomach for that. But there is that option, I think. Waiting for a legal beagle here to tell me I'm dead wrong.

I think the purpose, again, while we're waiting for a legal counsel on this one, I mean, the purpose, what we're trying to do here, Matt, I would say, I'm not going to speak for him, but Matt's made a motion to try to test the waters to see is there energy, sufficient energy to go ahead and pass it.

I mean, if there's four votes for it or there's three votes for it, then it passes. If there's only two votes for it, it fails. But that does mean we could bring it back Friday for reconsideration, assuming that we decide tonight we're going to hold a special meeting on Friday with that on the agenda at 1 o'clock, blah, blah, blah. Which is kind of a tenuous way of doing this, but I think it's legitimate.

The skies are opening up.

If this is what brings rain, we'll take it.

Mr. Chair, under the Roberts rules, if there is a motion to table the motion, then it would require a majority vote.

Right, yes. Yeah. A motion to table is a motion, and it requires a majority to pass that. And that's not debatable. So once that motion is made, we have to then immediately vote on it. And you need a second, right, still? That's correct. You need a second on a motion to table.

Okay, so have you made a motion to table? I have not.

Okay. I'm just trying to figure out what our processes are. Once that motion is made, we can't discuss it, so we have to vote on it.

But a motion to table then can supersede any discussion on the original motion? Or do we have to have the discussion on the original motion? How does that work?

If the motion to table passes, then the action is tabled. If it does not pass, then we come back to the original motion and discussion can continue. Is that all correct?

Yes, that is correct.

Okay. Okay. Then I will make a motion to table the motion to approve the ECA.

I will second that motion.

Okay. So that one we have to vote on. So a motion is made to table the discussion of the ECA motion. Kathy, would you please call the roll on the motion to table?

Member Stromberg?

Yes.

Member Nockley?

Yes.

Member Hefner?

No.

And Member Gibson?

Yes. So motion passes three to one. This discussion is tabled. And at the end of the meeting, we'll announce a recess of the meeting until Friday.

So therefore, we don't have to make a motion for this Friday meeting.

That's correct. This motion, when we start the meeting up again, this motion is on the table.

It's already on the table. OK. That was complicated.

Well, it doesn't happen very often. OK. It's 8 o'clock. We have a bunch of meeting left. What is the pleasure of the board? The next item would be the long-range water supply plan contract. Then we'll figure out what we might want to do, if anything, with the Foxtail Flats business plan. Then we have several items of board business, status reports, tickler file, transaction survey report left.

Let's keep going.

Eric, I'm hearing from here people want to keep going. How about yourself? We keep going. Okay, we'll keep going. That takes us then. No, everybody take a big deep breath first. And then we will move to the long-range water supply plan contract, which is on page 34 of our agenda doc. So this is a recommendation to approve a contract for a long-range water supply plan, and that is Mr. Martinez. James, go ahead.

Chair and members of the board, I'll be presenting the purpose of the 40-year water plan, the strategic update. We would like to proactively just update the current long-range water plan to ensure our long-term community resilience. So continue to the next slide, please. So the purpose, the need for the long-range water plan. In the plan, we'll account for any of our combined pool of water rights. We have 5,541.3 acre feet of groundwater water right. It's a 30-70 split with LANL, us being the 70%. which includes, it's about 3,800 and some change of acre feet of groundwater water right. And LANL has 1,600 and some change of their acre feet for the LANL groundwater. In addition, we have 1,200 acre feet of undeveloped San Juan Chama project surface water. So what we would want to do with this project updated plan is We would update the lanos recent twice Which projections show that there's going to be an increase in water consumption? In addition will also address Or will also mention the shutdown of our County's highest producing water well due to the groundwater contamination Which we've had to reevaluate our available safe yield and And then the need for the plan also is a prerequisite for us to remain eligible for state-funded and infrastructure grants or to request federal funds to build hopefully our new water well at Overlook Park.

James, do you want to go through the slides? You might have missed advancing one slide. Oh, I'm sorry.

Did I go? Was that the one we were on?

Yeah, I think we're on probably five now.

Okay. Let's see. Four.

Okay. So, quantifying our current water usage and unused water rates. The updated plan will clearly map out the total water right portfolio and active institutional demands and critical regional safety allocations. So the objectives mainly are conduct an audit of our current operational water pumping and the county's unused water rights to secure our future expansion. What we got to show to New Mexico Office of State Engineer is we got to demonstrate our current water usage and our proposed future projections. That is mainly the purpose for the 40-year water plan per the New Mexico Office of State Engineer. Furthermore, we'll delineate specifics as such, the 188 acre feet. that is going to be applied towards the Jemez Mountain Fire Protection Emergency Reserve. And in that, we also plan to look at what return flow credits that would be available to us. So we'll look at that with the consultant as well. We'll also look at the LANOS future projections For their supercomputing. What is that? What is that going to entail? What is what do we need to? account for on that and like I mentioned The consultant will help look how we can utilize the San Juan Chama water rights Which is the 1200 acre feet next slide? So how do we integrate? the surface water with our groundwater. So we'll assess the integration of the San Juan Chama Project surface water into our water production system. Right now, we have 1,200 acre feet, but what is actually available? In recent data, the firm yield has actually dropped down to about 350 to about 400 acre feet. So that's been a reduction of around 40% roughly. So that will be documented and noted in our study here that we're going to plan to do. Another point is the Rio Grande is fully allocated and heavily appropriated. So the New Mexico Office of State Engineer will not issue any new water rights. So, you know, we would like to look at utilizing our current water rights, surface water rights at this time. Looking, we're also, our consultant who is BHI, we included an optional contract service, which it would be for them to help us file for a formal new point of diversion permit application for the state engineer for the Overlook Park well. they'll assist with doing some hydraulic modeling development and verification to test the system flow that of course this sorry let me back up looking further down the line should I say when we start doing the the design of the well Things will need to be looked at, such as the hydraulic modeling, verification of the phase to test the system flow, which will include doing like a pilot drill and determining what the capacity is. And then, let's see. Okay. Furthermore, investigate the specialized surface water treatment infrastructure. What type of surface water you get into the design portion, handling any legal and compliance. The bullets of the 40-year water go more into the design portion of the new well. Next slide. Next slide. Here I put a slide in here of mitigating contamination risk from the contamination plume. In the updated plan, we'd want to talk about and document the operational shifts that we've had to do over the years in order to reduce the water quality threats to our primary aquifer. So, you know, the complete shutdown of the Patito Well 3 That was in hopes to stop pulling that plume further south. So we will document that in this updated plan and mention it that way it's well known. And as we use this document for future reference and planning, that's well established in there. Next slide. Climate change and environmental pressure. So as Shane mentioned, there are 1,200 available by the time... the point of maps and transpiration also just a glance map launching any costly to a collection so if the state engineers office has information that we could utilize to do our studies will will have our consultant do that rather than creating new models from scratch. And then ultimately just evaluating any long-term climate vulnerabilities using verified baseline assets. All right. So as we plan to construct As we're planning to construct the new Overlook Well, as we move forward with asking for federal funding to do so, we'll need to show more precise engineering designs and updated capital cost projections in order for us to pursue these avenues for funding. consultant what we would like them to do is formulate some comprehensive updated cost estimates from what I believe it was a CDM had produced probably what about 10 years philo about 10 years ago and that that would help us updated cost in order for us to construct the new water well and then Also, looking at the dedication of the transmission pipeline from the overlook, how do we get it to the Rover Boulevard in New Mexico 4? What is the route? How much is that going to cost? So, the consultant will assist us in determining the best route and the cost in order for us to do that. Next slide. So right here I have a breakdown of what we have in our fiscal year 26 for our CIP, what's budgeted. We had budgeted $75,000 for the updated water plan. In there we also had design of a new water well at Overlook Park. That was mainly looking at or assisting us in modeling and looking at the evapotranspiration, assisting us with doing some of the legwork with the New Mexico Office of State Engineer, filing that new point of diversion. So we had budgeted $230,000. The proposal that came in, it was $42,000 and some change for the plant itself. However, the optional services, like I mentioned, for assisting us with maybe looking at some of the evapotranspiration, the new point of diversion, that came in at $56,000, which was under what we thought would have been the $230,000. So, I guess it was swapped. We're applying a 12.4 contingency. which is $24,000, almost $25,000, for a total cost of $224,000 plus NMGRT. Just to mention, which I didn't put on this chart here, but for fiscal year 27 and 28, we have budgeted about $1.8 million just for the overlook well designs. That's just for the design of the well. That's looking at doing a test drill, checking the capacity, hydrological studies and modeling. And that's just to demonstrate how we're pulling water from our new well, demonstrating that we're going to pull it from the surface water of the real ground. We've got to demonstrate that to the New Mexico Office of State Engineer. And then, of course, assisting us with the permit. So we're estimating roughly $1.8 to $2 million for just the design portion of that. And by establishing or initiating this updated plan that puts us in a position to better ourselves in order for us to go go ask for state funding or federal funding for the new well. Staff recommends awarding the contract to BHI, who's a highly specialized technical team that's assisted us for our wastewater treatment plants. They're in the know of the current New Mexico water rights, and that way they could help us navigate through these hurdles that we foresee. We really... We thought highly of their proposal, being that they showed the engineering strengths of Bohannon-Houston, and then they partnered with the sub, the geohydrology expertise of John Shoemaker and associates. So we thought that they had a pretty well-rounded proposal. And so just to shorten my presentation, we request a formal vote to execute the contract and begin our meetings with our stakeholder workshops. And next slide. And I think that's if you have any questions.

Okay, let's start with Matt for his questions.

Okay, sure. First, James, thank you very much. I think we spend a lot of time on energy, and looking at my crystal ball in four years, I think water's gonna be at least as important, so we should be spending 50% of our time, so this is great. I really appreciate this. Looking at the budget slide two slides back, it seems to me that a lot of your discussion is about the Overlook Well, And to me, that's an important part of, but the bigger issue is the 40-year plan. And it looks like the DPU budget said, yeah, the Overlook Park is the important thing. And it looks like the consultants came back and said, no, the 40-year plan is really the important thing. It's a good balance in there. We need to think about both. But my question is, for the 40-year plan, are we thinking about fire at all in our water planning? And I think part of that is reading Philo's report and looking that we're selling water right now to firefighting efforts. The fire regime is going to change a lot in 40 years, but there's a lot of fuel. So I don't know how fire activity is impacting our water right now, much less in 40 years. So I don't know if there's some small part of that 40-year plan that thinks about fire and what that will mean for a 40-year water planning or not. But I'd encourage that should be at least considered.

Those are one of the things that we will incorporate. Like we will mention the allotment, the water that's going to be allotted for the new ski or snowmaking, which is I think I have put 188 acre feet towards that. The other thing to note in there was the chromium plume remediation. which in doing some digging on that, I think they were allotted an interim measure of about 700 acre feet, or 700 and some change, right? So we'll document that in the 40-year water plan, and then, like you mentioned, we'll see if they have any other recommendations on looking at fire or, you know, those things of that sort.

And the chromium plume, of course, is a huge important thing for the four-year water plant. So, yeah, thanks. Sounds good. Thanks. Eric?

Yeah, thank you, Chair Gibson. So, I know it kind of sounds heretical, but the last time that I guess it was NMED or whoever it was – no, wait a minute. It was EM. It was N3B, whatever it was, making a presentation. And I asked a question. I said, well – What about if we just maybe we started up Pajarito Well 3 again and hooked it up to the two ion exchange and instead of filters and instead of reinjecting it, we just use that as drinking water. I mean, the Pajarito Well 3 is already it's already licensed for drinking water. And then, and, and the guy from N3B or EM said, uh, you know, actually, yeah, we've done that. And it's been in other places has been pretty successful. So why don't we just do that instead of just re-injecting the stuff, we can just use that as a drinking well. Can we, uh, can we start up those discussions?

Let me, if I can interject on that. The challenge right now, the scope before us is a 40-year water plan. Getting into the chromium plume remediation, taking that water and serving it to the community, is that possible? Yes, but that's a whole different application of technology that would have to be permitted and considered, but It still would be there's still a need for a 40-year water plan We need the water for the community now if What we're asking for with the overlook well is have an ultimate alternate point of diversion that's not related to the plume because it's been stymied with Between the DOE and NMED for the last decade, and we're not seeing a good path forward with that. So that would be another long-term discussion. Maybe it's an alternative to consider, but it would be difficult.

Yeah, I'm just thinking it could be another arrow in the quiver. It's just something, you know, we can think about because like I said, if a well's already permitted, wells are extremely expensive to drill. And if we've already got the well, it's already permitted. If it works out, maybe we could kill two birds with one stone by doing that.

And, you know, I appreciate that. But I also want to remind the board that we do have well replacements in the plan, the The Pajarito Well 3 was built in the 60s. It's starting to age. And so you have to balance some of those issues. And I think that's been maybe one of the challenges why N3B hasn't developed a work plan for a spinner log test to utilize PM3 as a reinjection site, for example. You know, there's a lot of considerations that we'd have to think about there. But I don't think it, one way or another, the plume's going to be there. They still need to extract water and treat it. So we'll need to include that in the 40-year water plan. But that could be an alternative for it. So thank you.

Yeah, and I appreciate that. And we can even drill a well right in the middle of the plume and use that. And, you know, bring it through the two ion exchange beds and use it for drinking water. Anyway, just wanted to throw that out there. That's all. So thank you. Thank you.

Charlie? Yeah, just a question. Is this having a 40-year plan? I had the impression it was a requirement of the Office of the State Engineer. Is that correct? Correct.

It's a requirement. The way that I was reading it, you've got to show the way you're going to use it or lose it type of deal. We've got to demonstrate what our future use is going to be. with our projections of course we've got to be realistic of what those are right now i think we have a little bit of a buffer and unused water rights but essentially yes we need a it's a requirement in order for us to maintain the current water rights that we have currently and when will we when will we be out of compliance with that requirement in other words is this

Is this essential to have this now in order to be compliant with our requirement?

We just filed extension of time through the New Mexico's Office of State Engineering. In my communication with them is That extension of time is good through September, the end of September of 2026. Following that, they're going to send an email letting us know when the 40-year water plan, the new 40-year water plan needs to be in effect. And that way we will go based off of that for any future, you know, like the construction of the new well, anything of that sort, they'll be based off of that, because it'll be our plan for our future water usage.

How long is this proposed contract? When do you think are we going to have it done? Is this for a year or something?

It's two years.

Two years, yeah. Okay, thank you.

I'd like to follow up a little on Charlie's question. What triggers a new 40-year water plan? Does it have to be done every five years, or is it when the state engineer says we need one, or is it from when there's a significant change in the situation? What triggers it? Philo, do you know the specifics?

Yeah, I believe it's about every decade you need to update it, and we're past that time period, as James mentioned. They gave us a temporary extension through the end of September. Assuming we'll have an award, we'll have a schedule to develop one.

The contract is for two years with five consecutive one-year extensions. It sounds like what you just said is that The state engineer would like to see something by the end, basically a year from now. It doesn't seem like these timelines are adding up or are consistent with each other. And the second part of the question really is, what might happen in those succeeding five-year extensions?

So... In talking to our procurement and my thinking was that further down the line maybe like doing the preliminary design maybe utilizing Bohan in Houston for their services on some of some more of the preliminary design efforts And chair I'd also like to add permitting is a lengthy process That's unknown timeline

And having the ability for extensions is real important. I think the plan will be done within a year. It's the, we might have an emergency call, thunderstorm flood warning. So it's, the plan will get done. It's the permitting elements of this part of the project that could take some time.

Yeah, two years seems like a long time to do this kind of a plan, but it'd be nice if it's done in a year. And particularly if the OSE wants it, would like to see something substantive in a year.

Just to give you an example, OW2 took five years to permit, so.

Okay.

Question on the financial estimates here. The budget for the water plan was $75,000, yet the proposal for that is almost twice that much. Why were we that far off? Or why is it twice as expensive as we estimated? Conversely, the design, of course, it may be a change in scope, and that's kind of what I'm trying to figure out here. The design was budgeted at $230,000, and the proposed cost is $56,000 and change. Is it that it's going to be a lot less expensive than we expected, or is there a change in scope in there?

It was just the more expensive for, I guess, their rate. When we initially looked at this, James Allred was still on board, and I think we had looked at the previous 40-year water plan, and we estimated it would roughly be about $75,000 with the proposal, when it came in, we were actually, well, I was actually surprised with the amount that it came in, so we negotiated with Bohannon Houston to better understand exactly what that was. It was actually a little higher than what this was. We negotiated them, being that they were anticipating having to do a lot of legwork to get information from Llano on their water usage. So I mentioned we could probably do a lot of that legwork and get get those numbers for you. We have the data. So that cost actually came down by another $30,000. And then we reduced the scope as well for looking at having them come in and do some presentations as well. I think I asked them to maybe do some remotely rather than doing the travel. That would save a little bit of the cost there. But essentially, yeah, just the overall rates of the hydrologists and engineers, I guess, of the more recent time that we're in, I guess, now.

The lab, until recently, was telling us they needed a lot more water. Now they're telling us they can actually live within their existing water rights, at least that's the last thing we heard. How does that discrepancy play into this? Will we be basically doing the plan, assuming that the lower usage from LANL, because that's what they're currently saying, or will we be looking at contingencies if they're demands really are substantially greater than what they're now telling us, closer to what they had originally told us, or at least in that direction. So what do we plan on for LANL?

So I think in part of that, we would probably sit down and have these negotiations with them to kind of just make sure, have a better understanding of it more exactly what their planned future projections are. So we will have Bohannon Houston assist us with these meetings.

The need for a new well at Overlook, we're presuming we'd put it, is driven by one or two things. One is the chromium plume and BM-3 being taken out of service. And the other is the potential for the lab wanting more water than they're currently telling us. Both of those are laboratory or DOE-driven needs. Why are we asking, why should we ask our citizens, our rate payers, to pay for any of this?

So the 40-year water plan, that's mainly a requirement for us to stay in compliance. The other portion, like I mentioned, to document the chromium plume, the need to overlook well, and essentially look at utilizing our surface water rights. I think once we have it documented in the 40-year water plan, that puts us in a position where we can then tell the federal government, hey, these are the reasons why we don't have PW3. The contamination was your cause. So having it documented in that plan just further assists us to ask for that federal appropriation.

But we know today why PM3 is out of service. Why should we be spending another couple million bucks to document that before we start going to DOE and saying pony up?

Chair, I think what... I wanted to show the budget. This is DPU's budget, the $305,000. That's out of the water fund. We do serve water to LANL. They're a 20%, 25% customer, depending on time of year. But we don't have current cost estimates of what it's going to take to move water or the feasibility to move water from Overlook into our system. So the 40-year water plan is a planning document we need to do, required by a state engineer. We also need to understand how we can perfect our San Juan Chama project water and bring it into our system, and we'll get some cost estimates. Now, James mentioned future budgets, but that was contingent on federal allocation. It was not coming from the water fund. Oh.

That's important to me anyway.

This is important, but that's more. We need an ask. That's what they call it when you go to the feds. I need a number for an ask. I don't know what the right number is because the numbers we had were over a decade old and we've had all the inflation and new permits and regulations for that matter that... I don't think we have a good number for an ask today, but we'll get one through this plan.

Excuse me just a moment, because that's an important concept there to me anyway. I need to capture it. Okay. Do we have any other questions right now? Do we have any public comment?

Thank you, Mr. Gibson. Any members of the public wishing to make comment? Please raise your hand. No hands, Chair Gibson.

Thank you. Discussion or motion?

I move that the Board of Public Utilities recommend approval of AGR 26-62 with Bohannon Houston Inc., BHI, and their subconsultant John Shoemaker and Associates Inc., JSAI, for the 40-year long-range water supply plan update in the base amount of $142,650. plus the optional services in the amount of $56,550 to complete a new point of diversion permit application and hydraulic model development slash verification and a 12.4% contract contingency of $24,800 for a total authorized contract amount of $224,000 plus applicable gross receipts tax and forward to council for final review and approval. Second.

Further discussion. I think we probably, apparently we do need a new 40-year water plan, although part of that is for DOE. But I'm not yet convinced that it should be our responsibility to do a new well at Overlook, but the amount to generate a cost number for that is only $56,000. That's probably not worth fighting over at this point. So I remain concerned that I don't want us, the county, to be paying for DOE's issues out there. And that's something that I'll be looking at as we go along. But I guess I'm not real comfortable but okay with this at this point. Other discussion?

Yeah, I wonder why we... pay so many consultants so much money we not have the uh competency to look at this stuff ourselves and come up with our own plans i'll let philo address that if he'd like chair and member stromberg uh

This new water balance with drought conditions, the state engineer just recently completed their 50-year water plan. There's a lot of things that have changed in the regulatory environment that we need to consider that we're not experts in, and that's why we retained this consultant.

Okay. Thank you. Follow-up to that, is this one of those situations where the OSC expects to see a consultant that they trust developing the plan versus them not trusting us to do it?

Chair, I do think when we make permit applications for points of diversion, they're going to want a certain level of professional analysis to be presented for that. And this, you know, as James mentioned, the professional hydrologist that can do the analysis, it's a complicated engineering and groundwater type of problem. As you know, with acromion plume, they have all kinds of ground order hydrologists doing analysis and still haven't contained it. But I'm just saying that. Tells you how valuable that is. It's one of those things that we just don't have that in-house capability to do that work. It's technical work. It's consulting kind of activities.

OK. Any other discussion?

Maybe just following on that, I agree that it is technical consulting work, but I think, as I said earlier, water is just going to become more and more important. So I don't think we need that expertise in-house, but I think focusing on water more and more is going to be important. Absolutely. Thanks.

Okay. If there's no further discussion, Kathy, would you please call the roll?

Member Stromberg?

Yes.

Member Nockley? Yes. Member Hefner? Yes. And Member Gibson?

Yes.

Thank you.

Motion passes four to zero. Thank you. Thank you. That takes us to a decision point at 8.40 about whether we want to or to what extent we want to address the Foxdale Flats business plan tonight. What's the board's preference? If you look at the agenda, we still have a fair amount to go. We can postpone it. We can have Ben do his presentation and maybe a first round of discussion and limit it to, let's say, no more than maybe 30 minutes, maybe less. Or we can go full bore into it. What's your preference?

Open open the discussion. I think we have a lot to do still so I think deferring it would be good I'm excited to hear about it, and I enjoyed looking through it.

I think deferring makes sense tonight Deferring makes sense deferring makes sense We've got a couple of preferences for deferral Eric you got any comment or preference I

Well, I'm looking forward to hearing about it. I'd like to hear at least a few minutes of it to begin with.

Okay. I see Charlie sort of nodding his head.

I'm not going to fight. I don't want to go full board.

No, I don't think we want to do that tonight.

I mean, I guess I'm thinking we've got a full back page of... board business status reports. That looks like significant.

Okay. Well, I see a little bit of division here. Yeah, I would be interested in it also, but I think I'm going to make a decision from the chair here and say we defer it tonight and pick it up again probably in two weeks, but we'll have to look at that agenda too. All right. Okay. That takes us on then to board business, which starts with the chair's report. Number one, I flew over Fox Hill Flats again yesterday morning. There's a lot more ground cleared and things happening. particularly visible from the air or doesn't really exist yet much is structures. You see lots of things that look like they're beginnings of structures or pilings for structures and things like that. There's no buildings of consequence. Or you can't say, oh, there's a whole bunch of inverters already there. or anything of that variety. I wanted to take a picture, but it's so spread out into about six different working areas, each one of which is a bunch of trucks, a bunch of people, and a bunch of stuff, but nothing that would really show much of anything. So I didn't take a picture. And that's consistent with what the website says their progress is. It talks a lot about pilings and this, that, and the other. But it doesn't say anything about real structure yet. And that's consistent with what I saw. But there's a fair amount happening. It certainly is more extensive than what I saw on the 10th of June. I think it was up there flying over it. Anyhow, things are happening up there. Sorry, Eric, you were gone this week when I had to go that direction anyway. So I didn't get a chance to let you see it firsthand to convince you it really is a project.

Well, you know, and I really appreciate that. And again, you said website, but you're not talking about the Foxtel Flat Solar website. Yes, I am. Well, the last update was the December 2024.

Let's see, someplace I have that written down, but it sure looked like a much more current website to me. I mean, it talked about activity that was consistent with what I saw.

Yeah, it's not Foxtail Flat Solar. I'm looking at that right now. And the last update was December 2024. So I sure wish they would update it.

Well, okay. I'll tell you what I saw anyway. Okay. Okay. Moving on. Oh, by the way, on that same flight, of course, I flew up over those mud puddles that we used to call reservoirs up there. Actually, they look pretty similar to what I remember from the last flight, overflight. You know, Abiquiu's got water in it. Velvado's really low. The one that looks even worse is Heron that's above Velvado. I mean, there's just nothing there. And Navajo, which, of course, doesn't feed us, but I fly over it anyway just to see what else is going on. It looks like it may not be too much worse than it was. I think it's down some. But that's all eyeball stuff. The numbers are available if we really cared. It's just eyeball observations. Second item, the state NMED has put out a proposal to basically regulate methane leaks, natural gas leaks. It sounds like, and I didn't drill too deeply into it, that they're planning to use modern technology, satellite and aircraft, to look for leaks. And the way I read it was report those to the owner and expect something to happen within three days. Now, this still has to go to the Environmental Improvement Board, so it's a beginning of a rulemaking process, I believe. But interesting, because that is a huge contributor to greenhouse gases. Our climate action plan ignores it, but it's a huge contributor that we ignore, one of the several things that's wrong in our... Yeah, I remember you included that in your model.

I did in my model. Very rough guess, and if they get better numbers, that would be great. Can you monitor that using commercial satellite imagery or technology in some way?

Well, what they did before, there was a satellite up there specifically designed and used for that purpose. However, a year or so ago, I saw something about... that satellite might not be there much longer. So whether there's another one, I haven't followed that. But aircraft are another way it can be done and has been done. Both of them have been done. So hopefully we will at least get much better numbers than the kind of anecdotal surveys done by aircraft and satellites a few years back. And the last item I have, I'll mention it here before we're all asleep. Matt, that scheduling meeting scheduled for, I think, the 28th is tough for me to make. If I do it at all, it'll be remote. Can you two guys do a different date?

Yes.

Oh, good. All right. We can try to do that now or we can have Kathy coordinate later.

Pardon? Later might be best just to look at calendars, but let's move it.

Okay.

You want to move August 28th, you're saying?

Yeah. Okay.

I'll get in touch with both you and Matt.

Okay, great. Thank you. That's all I have for Chair's report. Do we have any board members' reports? I don't see any that moves on to utility managers report.

Yes. Chair and members of the board. Uh, we had our time of use and demand rates put in place on July 1st. Uh, and the AMI portal is now back up and running, but despite months of testing, uh, the production of the bills didn't go smoothly. And so we have many billing cycles delayed and, um, Bill's corrected. We anticipate our September bill going much better and have corrected GRT amounts applied to the time of use portion of the bill. We have issued, and I'm sure you've seen several press releases going out to explain what's occurred. between those two functions. But I do want to acknowledge the hard work that our customer care staff has been doing in this transition. So it's been a heavy lift, so thank you. It mentioned that DPU, we are selling water to the fire department and forest service to help with the firefighting efforts. basically staged out of the airport for the Frijoles fire. Elk Ridge, we are working on the closeout documentation and easement to acquire the gas assets from YES communities. For the White Rock substation, R&M installed all the concrete piers, and next week we'll be installing additional rebar in the oil containment vessel. And then once all the concrete is poured and cured delivery of the transformer will be scheduled shortly thereafter. And then we had an issue that we identified to LANL flicker and drop in voltage and actually Board Member Stromberg had a graph he shared with us too. He experienced it. And so we have been, We identified that it's on the TC1 circuit, but we haven't figured out the reason of why that's occurring. When we moved everyone over to the TC2, there's been no flicker issues. So we requested that we stick on TC2 until we can hunt down the gremlin that's causing the voltage regulation. Then in White Rock, I know, Chair, you asked about what What occurred with that outage, that happened, and they found the fault early Friday morning. It ended up being located in the intersection of Aragon and Grand Canyon. And then the crews were able to restore power to all but the swimming pool over the weekend. The cable fault was on an old-style concentric neutral, and it showed signs of deterioration and on Monday the crew was able to remove the failed cable and replace with new in about three hours because that actual failure point was within a conduit it wasn't a direct Barry one then New Mexico gas with their virtual pipeline you know that operation is going to continue through Labor Day they've complete about half of the hydro tests The recruitment status, we hired a superintendent last month, so we're in the process of interviewing for the supervisor. So we have people moving up through our organization. And then the locator position closes tomorrow. And then next week, August 31st, we'll have closed on the ads for our three power system operators and electrical distribution engineering manager, and other vacancies are in water production operator and associate engineer and management analyst. So we're making some progress, but there's always plus and minuses each month. And then the Hemis Mountain Fire Protection Project, we had approved a procurement package for the wire, and we received some formal quotes, but FEMA ended up rejecting them because they wanted the procurement method to be through a formal bidding process. So we're on a do-over. That obviously is delayed installation of underground wire on the project. So staff has pivoted and working on a temporary overhead power feeds for the four pumping stations because our goals that begin pumping water in November, for snow making and also the lodge does not have a functioning well so they truck water, fresh water up to serve their customers currently and it's not a very sustainable arrangement. The FEMA grants a two year program so we have time to do this a little more slowly like they want and we'll be extending that into the 2027 construction season to do all the undergrounding wire and hookups from there. With UAMPS, I'm still the chair of this carbon-free power project. The holdup is the intellectual property transfer with the DOE and all the parties that participated in this project. However, they expect some resolution between October and November, so hopefully I'll be out of a job by the end of the year. And there were no updates on the geothermal projects this month. The San Juan Generating Station, the mine reclamation work, they worked out. We can complete all the site grading a year early. However, there's a limiting factor of the amount of irrigation water available to revegetate those sites, and they only have enough water to irrigate 600 acres at a time. So essentially they're doing like 300 acres, and then they move over. When that gets signed off, then they move over and irrigate another 300 while the middle one is growing in. So it's a two-year process per site. per site. So they'll be done in 27, but they'll need to catch up on the irrigation through 2030. I was hoping they could wrap up sooner, but as we know, we're not seeing the rain except for tonight. And then strategic planning, our workshop is next Wednesday, and so I think I shared that the senior management team did a SWOT, so we're going to share that with the board, and then we're going to review the strategic focus areas, goals, and objectives. And as we went through them this year, we divided it between the objectives that are ongoing, meaning we need to continue that year after year, versus others that are more measurable. And Then we're going to break up into little work groups and then come back and make a final recommendation as a team effort between the board and senior staff. So that will do next Wednesday. And then we're working with procurement for an on-call contractor for the overhead make readies the atomic fiber installation, uh, they, they finally got green light to go. So they're, they're, uh, needing a little more, uh, speed and finishing, uh, the make ready installations, uh, and that will be paid for by the project. And, uh, chair Gibson, you gave a good update on Foxtail flats. Um, the, this, the solve PV team, 93% done with grading. 60% on seating, 83% with the roads, 29% on fence, 34% on the piles, and 67% on the pile survey, and then 67% complete on the pile installation. So you only saw the piles, and that's hard to see from the air. But they will be installing racking systems here very soon. as well as the best battery energy storage system. And then on the high voltage side, they're working on the foundations for the tide lines. And then Desiree's expecting the modules to show up the end of August, and they'll start delivery of the best technology in October. So things are They're getting all the foundation work in place, and then we'll start hopefully seeing panels on your next flight in a month or two. And that completes my report.

Okay, thank you. Questions or comments? Eric?

Yeah, thank you, Chair Gibson. Philo, can you give me an update? What's the LANL tie line to the White Rock substation? Was that completed?

Yes, that was completed some months ago.

And it's all been tested?

It's programmed ready to go. We haven't tested it with an outage, though. Okay, excellent. Thank you very much.

Okay, first I would like to thank Joanne and your team for what I know has been a Herculean effort to get the new billing system operating. Yeah, you can test it all you want before it goes live. But once you go live on anything like that, you discover more issues. And it's not a big surprise that we're seeing them and you're having to slug your way through them. Thank you. A question on the White Rock failure, first

Get up there, Dennis. He was there, so I can't. Okay.

We'll go straight to the expert here, or the stucky, depending on how you look at it. First, it was said that it took three hours to replace that cable Monday morning. Did that involve another outage?

No. Well, it did. new cable was pulled in. We had to take the Mormon Church out because we replaced a switch that served their cable as well. It was one of the old live front switches that when they tried to open it, it took a few seconds to operate, so it was due to be replaced, and it's not one of the safe ones. So we had two services off for the cable replacement, but none of the residential services were off.

Okay, thank you. And we had one cable failure, but there seemed to be an outage all over the main part of White Rock. Is it just one feeder that covers that? I thought there were more than one there.

There are three feeders in White Rock total. One is Mirador on that side of Highway 4, and then the rest of White Rock is covered by two feeders. And because there was no upline protective device except the circuit feeder at the substation, it took out all of White Rock circuit number one, which covers a very large geographical area in White Rock.

Okay, so it was the one circuit that it took out? Yes. It didn't propagate beyond that one, although that covers a lot of our customers.

And it took a while for the crew to find out By trial and error, at what point will it hold, and then we know that we're very close to where the failure was. It took them quite a while to do it, and it took six of our linemen to get it done, because we only had four when I got in on Friday morning.

Well, I'm glad we had those resources available.

Yes. These guys are very good, and several of them come from Taos.

Okay. I think that's all the questions I had on that. Thank you. You're welcome. You said there was, among the job ads that you listed as closing on the 31st, was this electrical engineering manager. Can you say whether we've yet seen any interest, or can you not say that?

I don't know that information to say one way or another.

All right. It's easy to put out an ad, but getting interest is the hard part. That's when we have real progress, when we've got interest and then hopefully qualified interest. And finally, it sounded like you're proposing changing the format of the strategic planning meeting a little bit to do some subgroup work. Can you elaborate on that a little bit so we can think about it before we go in next week? Sure.

We realize there'll be a couple people online, so there'll be a group, and then we want the board to work collaboratively with the team members on site. We'll try to, the ones online, we'll try to put a couple team members with them. They call it a little, I don't know what they call it, like a classroom in Zoom. You can create a break room or whatever it's called.

By team members, you mean staff? Yes. Okay. So what... So you're going to break up into... Two groups. Oh, just two groups. Okay. And what are the two groups going to be dealing with?

You'll be going over that long list of objectives. We have the six focus areas and then the long list of objectives that go under each of those.

So are you proposing that each group work... the whole thing and then we get together and discuss the differences or we each do half of it?

Each do half.

Okay.

And then come back and present. So that will be, you know, and then public comment after that.

Okay. Well, it'll be different anyway. We'll see.

We'll try it. We'll see how it works. Yeah. Okay. It's a workshop, so we're going to make you work. You haven't been already, I see.

Now we actually have to do something, huh? OK. And Eric, by the way, I did find my notes. And I think what Philo just read about Foxtail Flats also came from foxtailflatsolar.com. So I don't know why you're having trouble finding it. But that's where we're getting our information. Okay, county managers report. Juan, are you still with us?

I am. Thank you, Chair Gibson. I don't want to step on Councillor Herman's toes here in a bit, so I just want to just focus really on, Philo did mention it though, the broadband atomic fiber project has started, and it began in Cairn Circle down in White Rock, and It is the first of eight phases underway, so that's a big milestone for the community and also like to just echo Manager Shelton's sentiments regarding this is a really strong partnership with the Department of Public Utilities, because if we're not going underground through micro trenching, We're going to be hanging fiber on existing power poles, and so there's going to be a lot of coordination that's already happened, but will continue to happen for the next three years during this construction. But we are underway, and so I just did want to report that to the board. So that's it for me. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. And since people like to look at things that are actually happening, if you wander out to Airport Road, you'll see a massive amount of of supplies accumulated at the old airport parking lot out there. Okay, that takes us, thank you, that takes us to Council Liaison's report.

Thank you, Chair Gibson. We had a working session last night down in White Rock. We had presentations about the Lodgers Tax Advisory Board and the Personnel Board. And then we had a briefing on the ECA from Mr. Ulbrich, who did a great job telling us, giving us the update for how things stood yesterday. And then we also had three public hearings Well, public hearings on three possible charter changes that will be on the November 3rd general election ballot and tweaked some wording on these. The first is to amend term limitations for standing boards and commissions and ad hoc advisory committees from two terms to three. just to make your night. So, and then the second one was amending, let's see, to remove party affiliation requirements for all standing boards and commissions with the exception of planning and zoning, BPU, and one other. And then the third one is actually for utilities for all remaining operating profits to be transferred to the general county fund.

Removal.

What's that?

Removal.

Removal of that, yeah. And then we also had an overview about the street light maintenance. There are short, some folks that are able to do that work, replacing those street lights. So there are about 60 lights out, but they have filled those positions. And so... It will take a little while to get all of those changed out, but they're working on it. And that is about it. I will stand for questions.

Thank you. Are there questions? I have one. In any of the discussion that's been held on the ordinance, excuse me, on the charter amendment or the proposed charter amendment that has to do with utilities, Has there been any discussion of if that amendment passes, the transfer is still in county code and the authorization to transfer back is still in county code. Will that automatically go away if the charter amendment passes? Will that require a separate council action to remove that from county code?

I'm not sure on that. I can find out, though. I can get back to you on it.

I'd be curious.

No worry, but curious. Okay. I'll get back to you on it. Thank you. You bet. Thank you.

Thank you for the report. And that takes us to Environmental Sustainability Board. And Carly, thank you for your patience this evening, if you're still there.

Yeah, I'm still here. Yeah, of course. Yeah, so last month, the main thing that was covered at the ESB was the deliberation on whether or not to recommend a plastic bag ban ordinance in Los Alamos County. And so we heard from many members of the public and ultimately decided to vote against recommending the plastic bag ban. And then for tomorrow's meeting, there isn't a ton on the agenda, it looks like. Um, there's going to be an update on the biosolids composting operation. Um, we're going to discuss and determine some new working groups. And then outside of that will just be sustainability manager updates. Um, and it looks like they did mention an upcoming agenda item, which will be the energy efficiency pilot program with burning box. And that's it.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. And any questions? Thank you for sticking it out this long this evening. You're welcome. I hope it was maybe a little bit interesting to you.

Oh, yeah. Especially the water updates. That's very important.

Thanks again. Yep. Okay, that takes us on to General Board Business, the Open Meetings Act, and IPRA presentation, which we start on page 170 of our agenda doc. And Christella, it's your turn, finally.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have the first slide, please. The Open Meetings Act and the Inspection of Public Records Act are New Mexico's fundamental sunshine laws. As discussed further in greater detail in this presentation, the Open Meetings Act, or OMA, sets forth the requirements to allow the public to attend and listen to meetings so that they can be informed about the affairs of public entities. And the Inspection of Public Records Act, or IPRA, sets forth the requirements for public access to government records so that we can have an informed electorate. That's the general purpose of both of those Sunshine Laws. Next slide, please. So the general requirements of the Open Meetings Act, among other things, are a fee FORUM NOTICE AND AGENDA. I BELIEVE THIS IS AN OUTDATED, I BELIEVE THIS IS AN OUTDATED, THIS IS NOT THE ONE IN THE AGENDA THIS IS NOT THE ONE IN THE AGENDA PACKET, BUT THAT'S OKAY. I shortened it, so that's why I'd like to move to the other slideshow, just so that we can move a little more quickly through. I think the other slideshow was a little repetitive.

And by the way, everybody here has been through this a couple times before, so you don't have to. We have some knowledge and understanding of it, although a reminder is always helpful.

And so what is a public meeting? A meeting is an open meeting. A public meeting is a meeting of a quorum that is held to formulate public policy, discuss public business, or take any action within the authority of a board or a commission. Next slide, please. And what constitutes a quorum of the BPU? For the BPU, that is three members. Next slide, please. So for the BPU public business as defined in the Open Meetings Act would include those items that fall under BPU's powers and duties. So the powers and duties include, as you know, jurisdiction and control over utility systems owned by the county and also proposal of policies. And so those policy discussions and all of those items that fall within powers and duties would require an open meeting, except for certain exceptions. Next slide, please. So one thing that really has to be cautioned that I think all boards and committees have to be careful with, and I think a lot of the Open Meetings Act requirements are handled before a meeting is held, but the biggest caution is that members don't engage in what's called a ruling quorum. So that's where communications happen outside of a meeting in a series of communications where policy might be formulated, for instance, through email or telephone communications where communications really happen amongst a quorum, even if they're not all physically present at the same time or all communicating together at the same time. Next slide, please. So the next element is notice. Next slide. So the Open Meetings Act requires notice of public meetings to be published. And it allows local bodies to determine what reasonable notice is. The county council has determined that reasonable notice for county boards and commission and committees is 10 days prior to the meeting. Next slide, please. So the next element is an agenda. So there has to be an agenda published for all public meetings, including BPU meetings. Next slide. And so the agenda has to include specific items of business that are to be discussed. And it must be made available to the public 72 hours prior to the meeting. Next slide, please. so only items or topics listed on a published agenda may be discussed by the BPU and Only those items that are marked as action items can can have action So posting of agendas the county's Open Meetings Act resolution requires meeting notices to be posted in the vicinity of the municipal building and the county's website Next slide please so meeting minutes That is the who, when, and the content. Next slide. So the Open Meetings Act requires minutes to be taken, prepared within 10 days, and considered at the next meeting after the meeting for those minutes were taken. It has to include the date, time, and place of the meeting, the names of the members in attendance, and those absent, the substance of the proposals considered, and a record of any decision and votes taken that show how each member voted. And the purpose of that is so that secret votes are not taken. Next slide, please. So failure to comply with OMA. If OMA is not complied with, actions are invalid. And it also could result in criminal penalties. So that's a very stringent requirement that New Mexico has that many other states don't. is a criminal penalty provision. Next slide, please. So the Inspection of Public Records Act states that every person has a right to inspect public records with limited exceptions. And so that includes all documents, papers, letters, books, maps, tapes, photographs, recordings, and other materials that are used, created, maintained, or held on our behalf, any public body, And so that would include and relate to public business. So that would include also materials held by members of the Board of Public Utilities that are related to public business and communications. Next slide, please. If you have any questions, you can obtain information from the New Mexico Attorney General's Office. And also, please reach out to the county attorney's office with your question. Thank you.

Thank you. Questions? I have one, probably more of a comment than a question. This is page 14 of your presentation, 184 of our agenda document. quotes the annual county resolution 2601, which pretty much gets repeated each year. But it talks about providing notice to broadcast stations and newspapers of general circulation. It would seem to me that that needs to be updated a little bit since we don't have broadcast stations and we don't have traditional newspapers. Although I know the LA Daily Post is called a newspaper of record. I guess it does get published once a week, so maybe it is a newspaper still. Anyway, just a comment that maybe that needs to be updated or at least reviewed.

Yes, Mr. Chair, and I believe that may actually come directly from the Open Meetings Act. I will check into that, but I believe it does have that requirement.

You might be right, in which case we don't have discretion. I think you're right. I think you mentioned it. Thank you. Anyone else have any comments or questions on this?

matter.

I think we're all pretty well used to it, and as far as I know, comply with it religiously. Okay, that takes us to item 8G2, annual review of our procedural rules. We'll take this back to Christella.

Mr. Chair, pursuant to section 1.5 of the The board's procedural rules, the board is required to review and revise as necessary the rules at least annually at a regular, well, July VPU meeting. So the utilities manager and staff will help formulate new language in the procedural rules and distribute those changes. Staff has recommended two changes this year. The first is to a provision in Section 4.6, and that's B, to allow a rate ordinance presented to the BPU for a minor correction or amendment regarding a clerical error within 30 days of presentation for public hearing before or adoption by the county council. It does not need to be submitted in advance of the public hearing, but may be acted upon by the BPU when submitted. And I think that's just to allow an expedited consideration rather than having introduction. That's the reason for that recommendation. And then the DPU administrative staff has also requested a change on page 16 to the schedule for August to allow the approval of the resolution to remove the five-year uncollectible utility accounts from the accounts receivable list to September so that it can align with the county's general schedule for approval of the resolutions. I think that our finance staff has indicated that they prefer to take those in October.

So just move that approval bullet from August to September?

Yes. OK. And I don't believe staff has any other recommended changes. OK.

Questions or comments from the board? I've got a couple. Well, first I guess I should ask, does anyone have any changes or comments on how we're conducting business that you'd like to suggest here for consideration? Because this is the time to do it. Ask that general question first. I'm not hearing any, so I guess that's a vote of approval or acquiescence at least. There is an error in the table of contents. When you get down to around page 16 or 17, there's a registration error. The table of contents is off by a page from the actual text, which is something that should be easy to fix before we do a final approval on it. I'm not so sure that I'm very enthused about this amendment that's proposed. The long one here, a rate ordinance presented to BPU for a minor correction, blah, blah, blah. It seems to me that this is a reaction to a very, thankfully, very rare occurrence. And I'm not sure that we need to put a long addition to our rules to deal with something that may not happen again or is unlikely to happen again, since we're That's how rules and things like this just get longer and longer and longer and longer if we try to react to every little thing that happens. So I would rather see that not included in a new one. But that's one board member's opinion. Others?

Brevity is the soul of wit. I guess brevity is the soul of wit. No, but I think I'm compelled. I think keeping it shorter is probably good, just if it's a one-off. I don't see the need for it, so I agree with you.

I'm happy with that as well.

Okay. Eric, any thoughts from you on that one?

Yeah, I'm not a fan of knee-jerk reactions either.

Okay, well I think there's consensus on that point then. So when the final version comes back for approval, that should be taken out. And a correction, and presumably the table of contents will get corrected. Anything else on that subject this evening? If we put that early on the agenda, we could have talked about it for 30 minutes. Okay. That takes us on to status reports. Does anybody have anything on status reports? Comments or questions? I have one comment. I think the ASAI calculation here is wrong in the electric reliability report. If our reliability was only 98.5%, that would be equivalent to a SADI of 126 hours. And I don't think we're anywhere near that bad. So I suggest that one might need to be looked at again. As I calculated it, it was more like 99.97%, not 98.56%, which sounds a whole lot better. Anything else on status reports? If not, then we'll go to the transactional survey report. Abby, you're on.

Thank you, Chair Gibson. I only have a few things I want to share out of this. Let me get to the right pages. The demographics pretty much stay the same transactional survey to transactional survey. So some of the key findings, um, the number of visits to the customer care center have dropped since last six months ago, um, down from 29.4% to 16.2. This is mostly I'm guessing because a lot of services through customer care, they've also given online versions of, to not have to have people come in so much. So I'm assuming that's partly why it's reflected. Let's see. Here's just some reflections of why people are coming in. They're pretty standard. Nothing really stands out there. Let me minimize this. Number of times the issue, it took for the issue to be resolved one time, 86% roughly. So we've gone up in resolving issues sooner. That's a good reflection that our customer care team and the DPU staff that they've interacted with know what they're doing. They're well-educated. They're well-trained. They're all that kind of thing. And, you know, you never know what these people are concerned about, what the issue is. So it's hard to say about some of those further ones. And then our overall average for our customer care is at 91% down here. That's pretty good given what the customer care team had to deal with in terms of what came up over the last six months, time of use rates and power outages and how they're handling all those calls and questions. So that's a really high level of what happened on the transactional survey. So I'll stand for questions.

Thank you. Questions? Let's see, this was through June. Have you seen a significant increase in contacts since the time of use rates went into effect?

Joanne, do you have a, he wants to know if there's more contacts with customer care since time of use.

I'm sorry, I was working on time with you, Steph. Actually, our... Survey report.

Untied tongue before speaking. Thank you very much, Abby. This is useful feedback, even though we don't often spend a lot of time talking about it, but we look at it, and as long as the things are going in the right direction, that's great. and they tend to go in the right direction. Thank you. That takes us to the tickler file. Anything that anyone would like to have added or moved or whatever? We'll wind up doing some juggling anyway because we've carried two things from tonight into next week. The next meeting, we'll have to see what that does to that meeting. And we don't yet know exactly when we're going to have the scheduling meeting. Normally it would be Friday next week, but we're going to move that to some date uncertain. Okay, if there's no comments on that, We'll provide a final opportunity for public comment.

Don't adjourn.

Right.

Right. I have it circled here.

Anyway, is there any public comment in chambers? Don't see any. Abby?