City Council - Regular Meeting

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The roll please

excuse Dr. Here present. Yes. Here. Thank you. Real say a word of invocation.

Sure. Let's bow our heads for all that you've done for us, for the blessings you bestowed upon us, for allowing us to see another thanksgiving. We give thanks for this day for our and for all that you've done for us. Bless this day. Create within us a kind of peaceable spirit that we might feel and sense your presence. Bless the leadership that is gathered around this table. Bless it and anoint us so that we might do the things that are necessary for this our beloved city. We ask it and claim it in your name. Amen.

Amen. Amen.

Motion to adopt the agenda with amendments to the agenda. Number one, Project Congereie added to item two, discussion of matters relating to proposed location expansion or provision of services encouraging location or expansion of industries and other business and areas by public body pursuant to SC code 30-4-7A5. And then number two, short-term rentals added to item three, receipt of legal advice relating to matters covered by a client attorney privilege uh pursuant to code 30-4 A2. So move may motion and a second. Mr. Bailey,

yes. Mr. Brown, yes. Dr. Bus, yes. Mr. Brennan, yes. Yes. Mayor, I thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council. We will move forward with our first presentation, which is the clean water program update. Mr. Clint Sheiley, our assistant city manager for Columbia [clears throat] Water, will start us off. I know he's got some of our great um extension of the city family, our consultant team here. Thanks, Clint.

Thank you, Miss Wilson. Um good afternoon, everybody. Hope hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Good to be with you. Thanks for a little time to update you on where we are with the repair and and renewal of our wastewater utility. Um it's been a while since we chatted about what our our initiatives and and priorities are. Um certainly compliance with uh EPA mandated improvements as part of the consent decree are a big part of that program and we want to kind of tell you where we are and paint the picture moving forward um with what's ahead of us. As you know, um, CDM Smith has been our trusted partner since 2012 in this journey. They predate most of our staff that that are working um, in in the facility now and and particularly the management leadership. I do want to recognize Frank Egridge and Dana Higgins are here today. Robert Anderson who also helps us quite a bit on all things and um, mention Brian Cully and Jamie Kelso are here. They're going to share a little bit of information with us shortly. Um, on tonight's agenda, you have the third year of of a six-year contract, um, which is the second phase of the program with CDM Smith. So, that is on your agenda tonight. Today will somewhat paint the picture for that. This is a very key period in our our our work with EPA. Um, we have some new management that we're working with and I have to say, they've been very responsive to us. Um and and we're grateful for that. We're having quarterly update meetings. Um we have uh registered an extension request for four major projects. Um and that has been granted by staff. We're still waiting on some Department of Justice signatures to to ink that. That's going to give us a little bit of much needed relief there um to get some projects um give us some time to get

some important projects completed. Um but again a crucial time as we as we move from program development to project execution and getting some of these major capital investments in the ground and in service. Um I also want to mention two other things that you'll see on your agenda tonight. Um one is the the rate study contract renewal with Black & Beach. We're going to re-engage with them. We're hoping to re-engage with them to review our cost of service once again. and we do that every year as a kind of a best practice for utilities to do that. Um and they're just sending out a notification about our bond authorization that um those bonds that if if you so grant us the ability and author authorization, we'll use that to execute the capital project for this current fiscal year. So that'll be a funding mechanism for that. So um really quickly just some of the things that um we will talk about today. See if I've got this on. Well, Erica is not. Maybe I'm not holding my mouth right. Can you advance one? Thank you. Um, so we'll talk a little bit little bit of history really quick. Brian's going to give us some of that. Um, talk about how we're in compliance with the consent decree, the the program submitts that we've made. Talk about sanitary sewer overflows. That's a big component of us um getting out of our consent decree is reducing that volume and frequency of sanitary sewer overflows, the progress that we're making there. And then the other piece of unwinding this clock is executing those mandated projects that are spelled out in the programs that EPA says, "Thou shalt do this by such certain date." We have so much more certainty about what's ahead of us than we ever had before. and that's largely due to um our new contacts at EPA and their responsiveness

and approval and the programs that we put forward. So, we really know the path that's ahead of us and Jamie and Brian are going to spell that out and and we that starts to paint the picture of what the endgame might look like for the consent decree, which I think will make us all smile when we get there. Clint, I think it's important for, you know, because a lot of people like y'all been doing this for 12 years or 10 years or how long it's been now at this point, you know, and that we still have a lot more to get done. Can you maybe just give a little back history on why we're where we are today?

Yes, sir. Um, I will. And Brian will also paint a little bit of that picture. Um so it we we were um started investigation started in 2011 2012 and looking at quite frankly we were we were spilling too much sanitary sewage. We were having too many overflows and um it's not a a criticism of of anyone. It's just we had not invested in our utility, you know, as as robustly as we should have. And so um over a period of years, these things don't happen overnight. And so, um, we really needed to increase our investment and EPA came along and said, "Thou shalt do that." And so, um, y'all have been amazingly supportive in terms of the rates and in terms of of authorizing these really major capital projects that needed to happen. And what we've tried to do is be strategic rather than rehabilitate. if we're if we're looking at a pipe segment that's failing, we've been thinking about what does the carrying capacity need to be in the next 10, 20, 30 years. So rather than just rebuild a pipe the same size, let's increase the capacity so that we're setting ourselves up well for the future. And so I compliment the team that has done this again predating me. They they've been strategic about doing that and setting us up for the future. It is a significant investment. We're about twothirds of the way there in terms of spend. Um, but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel and that's a really good thing. And we we can put that on paper. We can lay the projects out and we can see what the timeline is. For the first time in a long time, I don't think I've ever been able to stand before you and say definitively we've got to have these projects completed by this date. those programs have been approved and so now we know what's ahead of us. Mayor, I

don't know if that answers your question enough, but um I imagine Ryan and then we'll give us some more details. Just it's such a long process and you know people keep asking me you know when is this going to end? You know, we the descent decree has been going on for a long time obviously and some of the projects as we know we don't control the time frame. EPA tells us what to do, when to do, and how to do. Uh which is also hard for people to understand, but I just want to make sure folks that are that are listening understand that, you know, we where we are. Yes, sir.

How we got here. and Clint, maybe talk about things that happened in the world a little bit since we started this process that don't just affect consent decrees like ours, but all across the country, there's been impact. Yes, ma'am. Absolutely. Um, so our our flood in 2015, EPA granted us some extra time because that added a financial burden and a workload burden on us and then also the COVID experience and um that really slowed things down a bit and slowed our progress. and they've been gracious to grant us some time extensions that have helped us

absorb some of the the financial impact of playing catch-up, if you will. And so, um, we we've been able to do that and really proud of where we are

and, um, and again, we can see clearly the vision that's ahead of us and what needs to be done. And I think that's a good thing for us. Can I let me ask you so we come to the end of the deadline? You can see the the finish line. Will our investment in the required infrastructure still clip away at the same rate to keep up with just general growth that we're seeing or do you think we'll see some relief on on what you request from us for wastewater? Councilman, it's a great question and I think um our modeling right now as we look at we try to project a 10-year capital improvement program and then beyond that our master planning work and modeling shows um around 2030 or so a contraction in the wastewater spend but we have been um holding off on a few important water capacity related projects and so you'll you'll start seeing more of an emphasis on the drinking water system as well. So, I think that continued investment in infrastructure and replacing aging infrastructure and preparing ourselves for the future to be able to say yes to a Mark Anthony Brewing, a Scout Motors development that's happening and improve water quality and customer service. Those investments will continue. So, um I I don't see a tremendous drop in that, but um year over year, we won't we won't have the proverbial gun to our head of the a federal government.

Say we'd be much further along in our drinking water hotspot projects if we didn't if we weren't forced to play catchup. Absolutely. There there's no question. We're continuing to invest in drinking water infrastructure, doing the things that we need to do. water is we're in we're in good shape there, but as we master plan, we know we've got some investments that we're going to need to make as well. Appreciate it. Thank you. Yes, sir. Well, with that, I'm going to introduce Brian Cully and um and and he'll set the stage a little more for us and talk about this year's contract. Thank you, Brian.

Thank you, Clint. Again, I'm Brian Kelly with CDM Smith and I've been the program manager for Columbia's Clean Water Program uh for the past 12 years. During those 12 years, I've had the fortunate opportunity to come here and speak to many councils about the progress that Columbia has made on completing those consent decree requirements and the city's march towards becoming a best-in-class utility. Um, that's a big part of what we want to kind of talk through um here today. Um, I don't know if you remember what you were doing 12 years ago, but 12 years ago I was working with city leadership, if you could advance one. Um, I was working with city leadership uh in this building and with outside council to help negotiate the consent decree back in 2012 with EPA. Um, that was officially signed into the record in 2014 and basically establish the criteria and the framework under which we operate today. Now, Mayor, you asked about consent decrees and their typical size. When you're talking about a large municipal utility, the EPA consent decrees are typically measured in billions of dollars in decades. It's not a small issue. Typically, you're talking very large. I think the most recent one I looked at was Houston, which I believe has about a $6 billion consent decree coming down on them right now, just to give you some perspective of of size. And so,

and 75% of it is waste water verse drinking water. Correct. Absolutely. It's not always waste water, but typically if you were to put them into a bucket, the vast majority are waste water. Just easier to uh out of sight, out of mind sometimes. It's not not uncommon.

Sure. No problem. Um, let's see here. And typically with consent decrees like the one the city has it working now. Uh, with consent decrees like the um, typically the one that the city has, there's sort of two phases of those consent decrees. There's sort of the plan phase and then the due phase. They're not exclusive. They do overlap a little bit, but if you want to talk a little bit about the the plan phase. Okay. Gotcha. Thank you. [clears throat]

Here we go. When you talk about the plan phase, that's essentially establishing the asset management framework by which we're going to determine how we're going to map, assess, prioritize our infrastructure that does need that renewal. That's the big cost on the back end. But you're also doing a lot of organizational organizational planning too as well. How are you going to train your staff? What are you doing for emergency planning? How are you going to organize yourself response? How are you going to record all the maintenance activities that you're doing? So, that's a lot of the stuff that you're doing during that planning stage. As a matter of fact, if you see a picture down there on the bottom left, you can see whenever Clint Sheily came into his position, we had a meeting with him and said, "Here's all the stuff you need to catch up on." And that's a lot of the planning documents. Now, I'm not going to promise you Clint read every page of it, but he had to listen to us give him a a summary. But that's again, when you get to

I assure you he read all of it, too.

I can promise you would skew you how much of that he does know. Um but uh but but that's a lot of what we're doing during that planning stage is is reinventing how the utility runs itself on a day-to-day basis as well as that assessment and planning for what we're going to do in the infrastructure phase. And then that kind of converts over into the the doing phase, if you will. Both implementing those organizational plans, but also starting to implement that infrastructure improvement that you're talking about, figuring out where your pipes need fixing, upsizing, and then actually going out and doing that work. And that's sort of where we find ourselves now. So, so kind of the the planning phase was sort of the the teens, early 2020s, and now we're clearly into the the doing stage. Jamie Kel is going to talk about this in a little bit in more detail on the doing, but recently there are some very important documents approved by EPA as Clint Shealey referenced that sort of give us that definitive list of projects that we have to complete by certain deadlines. That was not known until recently. So, that's a big update that y'all have not not heard before. All right. All right. As Clint mentioned on your agenda tonight is the contract mechanism by which we support the Clean Water 2020 program. Um you'll see that on there. The original contract started for the negotiation support back in 2012. Obviously the consent decree was implemented in 2012. We were helping with the planning and then that contract um expired in 2023. The city went out for renewal um through RFP. We proposed and the city selected us again for a one-year contract with five extension years. So essentially a six-year contract. Tonight would be the third year of those six on that agenda. And as I talk about as we go through all the different phases as a program and how you're doing a lot of the planning initially they're doing later uh what you need and how you need to supply support to the city changes. And I want to make sure you understand that as the needs of the city have changed as they go through the different phases of the program, what we've supplied to the city has changed, the support that we're giving, including a very important thing we do pretty much all the time, but especially very intentionally at contract renewal time, which is look at ramping down our services to you. Again,

what you need now in the doing phase is very different than what you need in the planning phase. And every single year, we take a look and say, what task are we doing as a consultant that can stop? what task are we doing as a consultant that could get handed back to the city for them to take over permanently or to a city partner consultant to manage going forward. And so we went through that process again this year as we typically do with Clint and his staff. I [snorts] wouldn't be able to get up here and speak and talk about progress without being able to speak about our subconultants that are helping us on the program. Um during the delivery of the program to date, we've had nine subconultants that are female or minority owned business, two additional that were small business, and one sub that was that was not. Um but those have been a huge part of our success here and want to acknowledge them. Um and I want to point out too tonight we have about 19 to 20% sub consulting, which meets our our 15% goal, which is uh we're very happy to to show that and have those partners on there. They're very important part of what we're delivering to you. So that's sort of the history of how we got from the very beginning to now. I can go into a whole lot more detail, but I heard somebody reference a full agenda. So unless there's any questions, I won't go into any further detail about the past to now. But I do want to introduce Jamie Kelso and take a moment and kind of let y'all know. Um, I mentioned during my opening remarks that I had been the program manager of the program for the last 12 years. Well, about a year ago, we officially named Jamie Kelso as my successor. I'm not leaving. I'm not going anywhere. I'm still available for questions or or anything like that. still support the program and as an adviser, but day-to-day the program is now led by Jamie Keelso. So, while I've been happy to come up here and and speak for for many years, more than a decade to this council um about our progress on the consent decree, you'll be hearing more from Jamie going forward, but trust me, I'll be right there in the in the background. Our offices are right next to each other. I couldn't hide from him if I wanted to. I promise you.

So, are we finally all all the projects approved at this point? And it's now just scheduled out. Correct. We now have a definitive list that we can put a box around and say these are the projects that are required by the consent decree. Before what we had was sort of the programs there's the planning programs that we have to figure out what we have to do and EPA has to buy off on it. We had done those a while back. They've been sitting at EPA not getting approved. Those are finally approved. So now we can definitively with certainty put a list of projects in front of you and tell you what those projects are and those are the ones that are part of the consent decree. That's new. We've not had that previously.

From a time frame, do you see this is that we'd be able [snorts] is this the next 5 years, 6 years, 7 years? What are we talking about to try to get this complete? Because Sure. The latest date that you're going to see from Jamie here in a minute is 2032. Now, it's staggered. There's different parts of those programs that end sooner. Summer in 2028, summer 2030, summer 2032. So, it depends on which part of the program. But if you want to say, give me one date I can know is supposed to be the the finish line, 2032 would be it. And that's because that's the time it'll take us at the the current CIP budgeted rate to be able to complete and execute all those projects. So we got get any more approvals for the projects. We're set. You got it boxed in. Correct.

Correct. For the required infrastructure rehab projects. Mhm. [snorts and clears throat] They're not designed. They're just they're at various stages. A lot of them are designed. Um some are still in progress. Some are in construction. uh we started I said the the planning stage was back in you know 2012 and early things we were doing projects in 2017 2018 so we were doing a lot because had we not there would have been such a huge spike of work at this part of the program it would have been insanely expensive if we'd have waited till then so we've been doing all along but it's more concentrated on doing at this point you partnered with 12 subcon consultants [snorts] yes sir is that total or what

that's total on the life of program. Yes, sir. We don't have 12 that we're working with right now. Right now, I believe it's four that we're that we're working with in this next year coming forward that'll be minority participation. Um, see, for minority, it would be very high. I can't break out exactly minority, but it would be the vast vast majority of what we've done. Yeah, I I'll say of those 12, nine are female or minority. We did have that count um up on the slide. The vast majority of those have been minority. Some some are both technically um but the vast majority have been minority. Three of the four right now are [clears throat] three of the four right now are are MBE.

So the the logos wear McDow you see DA Atlantic South CBC those are the main three that are minority right now. Yeah. All right. And that's if I just was to guess guess off the top of my head, those three are at least 75% of the subconsultant part of this contract fall apart. I'm trying to run the math real quick while Jamie's talking. All right, with that, I'll introduce Jimmy Kelso and he'll give you a lot of detail on current projects and also the road map forward. Just pointing this in here. This is the magic spot.

All right. Thank you, Brian. Thank you all for having me here today. So there we go. Perfect. So yeah, moving forward, talk a little bit about the compliance, a little bit more of that where we stand. You know, Brian set the scene. Uh Clint as well, where we've been, what what got us to this point, but then I'll be kind of in charge of here where we are right now and then moving forward uh where we stand. Again, as Brian said, I'm now serving as the program manager for the the clean water program. Been working as Brian's deputy since about 2018. So I've been kind of in the background making sure these projects are advancing. And then uh Brian took a day off. So we finally kicked him out one day, moved him to the uh ameritus advisor role and uh moved me into that um that program manager role uh for CDM Smith side of things. So several of my slides y'all have already hit on a bunch of the main topics. So wh There we go. I knew I was going to do that at some point. There we go. So where do we stand right now? I went forward way too far. There we go. All 20 uh program deliverables have been submitted to EPA and dees. And we talked about that. We had the picture there of all the different program documents out on the table. All 20 have been submitted and all n and 19 of the 20 have been approved. You see a bunch of dates on there. A little bit hard to read probably, but you see a bunch of dates in the 2014, 2015, 2016 time frame. That is when we were in those early years getting that setting the scene for what the program needed to to kind of guide the city on a new way of doing things. That's all those programs. They've all been approved, implemented. Now we're down to the bottom there. You see the one no at the very bottom right corner. That is the capacity assurance program. As the name suggests, you we're engineers. We're not coming up with very imaginative names. Capacity assurance program is assuring that the capacity is available in the system when when a new connection is made. That can be a new restaurant over on Harbison. It can be a new 500 home subdivision up in the Crane Creek Scout area. Anything in between that making sure that the capacity is in the system. the gravity lines for the most part, pump stations, and of course

the treatment plant itself be able to handle that new flow that comes into the system. So, it's not based on the capacity of the plant, it's based on all the infrastructure that's attached to it.

It's officially based on that as well. It's the the gravity pipelines, those pump stations that often are part of that transmission route, and then the treatment plant itself. Quite frankly, the treatment plant has plenty of capacity right now. So, that is a you kind of just official, yeah, let's check that box and move on. it usually comes down to the gravity uh system itself most often. So that that program is with EPA waiting for their final approval. We're in some ways okay with that little bit of time they're spending to uh to um issue that approval because once it is approved that will trigger some time frames that I'll talk about here in just a second for the completion of projects and

mayor point out you don't have to do those projects to get out of the cons [clears throat and cough] but if you don't do them by the time that the capacity runs out then that portion of the system will go to moratorium but it's not a requiring project to appeal to EPA they'll they'll let you go to moratorium we got a tremendous amount of capacity right I We're not even at 50%, are we? The the the treatment plant itself has a tremendous amount of capacity. Yes, it's probably somewhere around that structure that goes with that. Mhm. A few of the pump stations are kind of close and most often though it is a gravity a gravity pipeline that was put in in the 1970s. Um and it is simply too small now for the amount of of flow that's coming to it. And that's what we see physically overflow.

Yes. That's usually Yeah. I mean there usually a combination of operational type issues. Sometimes you get you get grease in the lines, you get a collapse of a pipe. We'll fix that through rehabilitation. Quite often, at least half the issue though is just too much flow coming to it. So if anything's wrong with that pipe, then it becomes an overflow often. So these are the three reports that are kind of guiding us through the rest of the way to complete the projects that we've talked about that we now know what need to be done and now we have to get them finished. The IR report and the supplemental IR report, that's infrastructure rehab report. Again, as the name name suggests, rehabilitation of the various infrastructure in the city's system. The IR report is the big pipes and the big pump stations. That was approved in March and kind of triggers three different criteria, three different levels, if you will, of uh completion. 3 years, 5 years, and seven years based on how um critical the the rehabilitation need is, how poor of a condition is the asset in 10 of those 13 projects are already complete. We are doing really good on the IR uh report, including all the ones that are on that three-year time frame. They're all finished. The supplemental IR report is for the small pipes and the small pump stations. That was also approved the same day back in March earlier this year. There's no real hierarchy though to the SIRR. It's just 5 years to complete every project that was associated with that. We're about 2/ird of the way, give or take, uh through those projects as well. The majority of the 15 not completed are either under construction or at least under design. Uh, Councilman Brennan, to your point, almost everything is at least under design at this point. Then the capacity assurance program, again, we mentioned that one's still under EPA's review, awaiting approval, though we've been told should be happening sometime soon. That triggers a 60 days for the ones that are extremely undersized. We're good on that standpoint. But really, the the the bigger time frame that we're watching is that two years uh to complete uh pipes, pump stations, what have you, that are are a little bit undersized, so to speak. We're through five of those 12 projects. So, you can see kind of from a percentage point, we're we're a little

bit maybe behind in that category, which is what triggered as as Clint Schilly mentioned earlier, the consent decree modification. We went to EPA, the city went to EPA and said, "Hey, we've been the city's been a great actor through this. There's been a communication continually for 12 years. Uh we need a little bit more time on a few of these projects." and we're waiting at official approval, but we received all the verbal approvals from EPA's technical staff, from the EPA staff attorneys, uh that that is coming and that will give us additional time for four different uh capacity related projects. I'm going to get it eventually. I'll have it down by the time I'm finished. [snorts] So, the other part again, as Clint mentioned earlier, there's the the projects component, then there's the SSOs. the SSOs were really kind of the canary in the coal mine, if you will, that triggered that brought in EPA and started having them looking around and leading to the consent decree. You can see the tremendous improvement uh back from the 20 uh 2009 2010 time frame 455 336. It was honestly on its way down though as the consent decree was entered into in the 2012 2014 time frame. Then you see quite honestly a slight increase that is quite honestly attributed to better tracking, better documentation, uh better acknowledgement and awareness of what is happening in the system as a lot of those different consent decree programs were implemented. We quite honestly caught more of the issues and started to fix them. And then you see from about 2020 on a a drop from 200 to about the 130 range for for most of the last few years. That 39 of course is a little bit unfair since that's only four months into the the fiscal year. But if you kind of project that up, we're still in that 120 130 range. So again, we've coming back down even after getting a better awareness and tracking.

Will that always be at that level? I mean, just based because of how geographically we're situated. I mean, because it seems to be a consistent number to some degree. It's always one of those. The goal was zero. You're probably never going to make um zero. I think uh EPA has a lot of standards out there for number of SSOs per 100 miles of a system. If you look at that for us probably a best case scenario is maybe something in the this is truly best case something in the 60 to 70 SSOs a year range uh in terms that would be about five SSOs per 100 miles which is kind of a benchmark for EPA and prior to 089 it was pretty consistently at that

it was it was up there. Yes. and you got [snorts] to go for that period of time which is what led to EPA getting putting their attention on the city. So similar chart here I won't spend too much time to keep this moving from a volume standpoint again way down over the last 10 years. Those three red red items I wanted to point that out kind of transition to some project talk here. Those were wastewater treatment plant uh SSOs usually partially treated uh but still not not great for the environment. Certainly gets the riverkeepers attention. Those were all due to power outages which have since been uh most most likely resolved due to the completion of an electrical reliability uh project out at the wastewater treatment plant kind of in conjunction with Dominion working with them on that. So we're hopeful no more red bars in the future and if you kind of take those out moving forward you can see the volume has had the corresponding drop as well as a drop in the quantity of SSOs. So with that amount I'll kind of move into some projects and kind of show where we stand on some things and then kind of move toward wrapping it up. So different areas of the system that that have seen uh a lot of growth and therefore a need in in infrastructure improvements. Of course Crane Creek with the scout development in particular there's been some gravity sewer upsizing for a whole entire length of that Crane Creek trunk line running up there. Hopefully that'll go away. Um oh there we go. Uh so again three different projects totaling about a $20 million investment. About half of that though was provided by a grant from the department of commerce in conjunction with that scout development. Uh Clint Sheiley of course was involved in that and that was a tremendous help to the city to get the the three projects the three pipeline projects completed. Those are all complete and I can say the city is ready for scout to to come online right now. Farther down Crane Creek getting pretty close to the city limits there up on the Mountain Drive uh Clement Road area you have the Lower Crane Creek Equalization Storage Facility. That's a $66 million project. I believe the largest wastewater um infrastructure project the city has undertaken. There's a little drone photo there from just about 2 weeks ago. You

can see it's an 8 million gallon storage tank. It's basically just a a lever to help uh alleviate flow increases during rain events and things like that. That is about uh 60% through construction and it was funded about half give or take 25 million uh dollars from that same department of commerce grant associated with scout and then 10 additional million dollars uh from the SC rural infrastructure agency associated with some of the federal ARPA funds that came through requirement to build a tank versus doing a tension.

It's not a requirement to do that. It's really just it's the the the most simplest way to alleviate those massive flows. The alternative would be to make a pipe that's just ridiculously sized for 360 days of the year. Um, so you have this then basically just serving as that catch basin, if you will, for those five heavy rain events a year that might come through. Feels like more these days. Got that coming.

I say this this is a similar design. We do have that already in the system over in the Sluda um river basin over right along the Sluta River uh in the the Kinley Creek kind of near Shaw where we have a pump station over there. have a similar system and it works great to alleviate that downstream flows that are coming through uh West Columbia on on their way to the treatment plant. So, a proven system that's worked for the city before that we're implementing here for the second time. So, some other projects scattered across the city. Maybe you advance it for me. Sorry. Perfect. the Slutter reinforcement extension. Talking about that over there downstream of that pump station and the tanks we have in the Slutter River. Uh we we had some undersized pipes and so we've had a couple different ways of going about handling that. We have a a um the first picture there on the top right. Sorry.

There you go. Is an upsized gravity line. I just wanted to show off a little bit. That's your deputy director of of major capital projects. There on the left walking through what is rainwater, muddy rainwater. Not an active sewer yet though. I just wanted to clarify there. But um go [clears throat] back a little bit. There we go. And then the main part of the project though is in conjunction with the city of West Columbia. We it it became more and more difficult and therefore costly for the city to put a force main underneath the Slutter River just due to the rock nature of that location. West Columbia came to Columbia staff and said, "Hey, we're looking to put a pedestrian bridge here. It's been a long time goal of ours at this location." Basically connecting to the city of Columbia's River um Sluda Riverwalk location. that coordination has been in progress there. And there's kind of a little bit of a rendering of what we're seeing there connecting the existing Columbia Riverwalk, Slutter Riverwalk to a proposed West Colombia Riverwalk in the same area there connecting also in with some of the zoo botanical gardens. Of course, the zoo's been having some some improvements there as well with their zipline and everything. And so, kind of a whole little [clears throat] setup there that's going to come together pretty nicely, I think, in that area. The force man will be hung from the underside of that pedestrian bridge, saving the city millions of dollars versus going under it, boring underneath the river.

Is that all part of the project on the riverbank there? Yes. Zoo by the bridge. That's all leading up to this. The the project, some of this construction that you did see was that gravity line going in just downstream of there. And now um be coming to you all probably in mid 2026 for a contract for that bridge itself, which will be the next round of uh Is that at the Candy Lane or is that further down? It's Candy Lane. Yes sir. Candy Lane. Yep. Yep. [clears throat] So the the left side of that picture is the connection to the Candy Lane parking area. I think it just slid it down a little bit. [clears throat] Yeah, but it was relocated but not significantly.

So I got it that time. Very good. All right. So some other areas stick into the city limits here for a moment. East Rocky Branch phase one and two. Another large uh combined investment there. $37 million for two projects that takes us from the Congre River at the downstream end all the way up to Maxi Greg Park. Uh phase two is complete and phase one is actually on your council agenda for this evening uh to move into construction for that. This is one of those IRR phase 2 projects that had that 5-year time frame. So, we're looking to get that going and check another one off the list of projects that are completed. [snorts] Advanced for me, sorry. There we go. Slutter River Basin. Again, over in that area, we talked about the Slooh Reforcement Extension. The gravity system needed to be upgraded, too. So, $32 million has been spent there across three projects. Two of which are complete, one of which is almost complete, running up Kinley Creek all the way from the Shaw um factory there all the way up to Harvest itself, allowing for more expansion in that Harvest area uh for whatever may may come in that area. Next one for me. And then I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about the treatment plant a little bit. Again, it's kind of consent decree adjacent because it has so much um capacity available in it. And overall, the city has done a good job of keeping it upgraded with u major improvements. The next one is coming uh in the next six months or so to you all. It is about a $35 million project and it will handle basically the sludge portion of that uh in order to to properly improve the the sludge removal portion before the the uh treated waste water is put back into the river. So again, a major uh expansion or major improvement and investment in in that portion of the city system as well.

Is now when we do the thickening improvement, are we looking down the road to pasteurize that and pelletize it instead of having to continue to buy liners, rent dumpsters, and haul that stuff all the way to It's a I wish there was a simpler answer. Clint, you can tell, is ready to go on that one. Yeah. Thank you, Jane. May really quickly, mayor, it the thickening improvement needs to happen regardless of how water and potentially dry the solids. So, it's a it's a step in the process. Are we looking to do that so we can I mean, because we're, you know, we spend quite a bit of money hauling Yes, [clears throat] sir. Sludge.

There are some perllorinated compounds that could be in bioolids that have kind of steered us away from land application right now. We may look at some destruction technologies down the future as that becomes regulated. So, right now we're still working with the landfill, but we absolutely want to diversify our disposal options. Yes, sir. Perfect. And I'll say that dewatering improvements, which is, as Clint just said, kind of the second part to the thickening is on the current the city's current five-year plan for getting going uh toward the end of that five-year plan, but it is on there as a as a project that that has a home to happen.

So, all right, next slide if you can. Yeah. So, where do we stand? Kind of wrap it up here. Bring it bring it home. Three more slides, I promise. From the funding standpoint, we've been spending spending money. The city has been spending money. The investment has been incredible. You see certain years that were down for various reasons. Maybe a project got delayed for whatever reason. Easements took longer, a permit took longer, whatever the case may be. There were a couple down years. If you add up all of these from fiscal year 20 through fiscal year 25, which we just completed, I did the math here. is $566 million was budgeted and 611 has been approved has actually been um allocated to to projects. So $45 million over that of course 45 million is from eating into maybe past shortages or past overages in the past from prior years I should say. But again, over the last 5 years, uh, city staff has done a tremendous job of getting these projects out on the street. Again, spending even more than has actually officially been budgeted. And we'll continue that with, uh, East Rocky branch again on the council agenda this evening. The Thickening Improvements project that I mentioned a little while ago, once that goes, that is budgeted in this current fiscal year 26. And we, there's no reason we won't uh, meet or exceed the $93 million for this year as well. So big picture though, again, that's the money being spent. Tie it back to the consent decree for one last slide here. We originally said from a kind of a a non-inflation adjusted standpoint, this was a $750 million consent decree. As projects, sometimes projects took longer, sometimes projects occasionally do come in over budget. A lot of things just simply the time frame went longer than maybe some people were expected. I know we've we've kind of mentioned that here today. How long is this consent going to go on? The current estimate now with inflation adjustments included is just over $1 billion. 1.06 mentioned we're about twothirds finished. That's that $644 million that has been approved by council versus the 1.06 total. So 65 or so% of through through the consent decree is where we

are from a project standpoint. But again, every project is known. Now it is just funding, designing, and implementing them. And so my last slide, we've hinted on this a lot already, but uh kind of where do we stand and where do we think we can wrap this up? We mentioned the clean water program officially kind of what we're here talking about today. Its sixth year, if we were to go to that point, is estimated to be completed in late 2029. And I put that on there because of how it compares to some of the other things. There's a lot of things coming to a con conclusion around that time. Talked about those IR groups, that hierarchy of how bad is the pipe. March 2030 is that middle tier, that group two. Uh March 2032 is that last date that I think Brian mentioned earlier that's the last date you'll see up here is March 2032. But you see IR group 2 March 2030 SIRR that's the small pipes 2030. There's consent decree modifications extra time frame we asked for on a few capacity projects um early and middle of 2029. Again the clean water program wrapping up in late 2029. And then the last point that Clint um already made earlier, we finally saw when we did the five-year CIP with the city this year, the past the peak for wastewater projects to to your point, Mr. Brennan kind of past the peak on on wastewater side which means a general transition of the focus to the water uh funding project water project funding needs. You are going to see more and more pro water projects more and more large pro water projects on your agendas as the years move forward as the the focus shifts a little bit more to that water side and getting those things going.

With that though that's it open up for any any other questions I can answer or Brian or Clint as well for that matter. Jamie, could you go back to the where do we stand slide? This one or the one before?

The one before. So talk about Clint knows we talk about this a lot and for the public to understand and you've touched on it because some of it's about the timing of the bigger projects and when they come online but when you see this budgeted versus the approval every single year getting into FY23 and coming forward they're starting to level out and meet up. But talk about why sometimes you would have those greater fluctuations. I think sometimes people say, "Well, you're budgeting all this money and then you only have half of that approved or [snorts] then you have another year where you budgeted less and then it's showing a lot more approvals." So, just want people to understand.

Sure. Fluctuation.

Well, so again, you know, honestly, cards on the table, some of it is sometimes there is a project delay. We intended to I I'll just use fiscal year 1920 there. The first one there on the left as an example may have intended to have some $40 million project get out that it did not due to a permit delay or what have you. It would be the main reason why the next year was so much higher that money was still available once the project was finished with design easement acquisition permits all those fund steps than it was moved moved into construction and was completed. Other times it can be the scale of a project the amount of funding needed has to be spread out over a couple years. Um we we've seen that sometimes with some of the largest uh plant projects on both the water and wastewater side with a you know especially the last few years from a true CIP standpoint of about $93 million that works out to about 60 for wastewater and 30 for water. I'll pick on water for a second even though we've mostly talking about wastewater. If there's a $30 million water project on a specific year it can't have the entire $30 million water [clears throat] budget available to it. So we may fund it $ 15 million one year and 15 million the next. In that case, there's a high likelihood you're going to show that first year as a $15 million shortage because really just kind of holding that money over for the next year until we got to the full budget needed.

Mhm. [clears throat] I thought those are probably the two main scenarios that happened though. Project delays happen and then how to how to make it work with a funding standpoint. Right. And just really I guess underscoring the point that if the council approved a $93 million budget one year and not all of it was utilized then that's why you may see it's not that they then approved certainly yeah additional didn't use it some of the funds are carrying over right and I believe that's actually the example I meant used at first there 1920 in 2021 I believe council said hey you only spent half of what we gave you last year use that up um before we get back to some sort of elevated number moving forward, which we did.

I wanted to add just think about um the 40 semi-million dollar investment in replacing all of our water meters, which has been transformational to us from a customer service standpoint, been fantastic. We couldn't eat that elephant in one year's capital improvement. We had to spread that over multiple years to accumulate the funds, then be able to execute that project. So, couple other things I want to just mention. um the the throughput capability of the team for the city of Columbia and I say team it's not just Columbia water it's the the finance department the procurement department the clerk management every you know all the pieces that have to touch the projects these really large projects to get them through the process bidding and and and then the construction is running like a well oil machine I mean I've never seen it run this well So that allows us to to get the throughput we need. A couple of other things we've been driving to make sure we stay out of moratorum. That has been a key driving force for us. We did not want to curtail any any developments in the future. And so I'm delighted we've so far been able to do that. Um in terms of getting the sanitary sewer overflow numbers down even further as we fix areas of the system. Those are areas that we don't have to go and make point repairs and and be doing responsive reactive maintenance. We can turn that staff into doing preventive maintenance, clearing grease blockages, washing lines, doing those types of things. And so as we move strategically more to preventive maintenance, I think that will also help bring those numbers down. So, um, what other questions do y'all have?

Anybody have any questions? Will Clint so uh you know DOT has a website can go to the public can go to and see projects you know timelines and all that. Do we provide any forward front for residents that want to come on and learn for example how's East Rocky Branch phase one going to you know work what neighborhoods are going to be affected during construction.

Yes sir. We sure do. And um so these tear sheets that we provide sometimes with your agenda packets um Dana and her team we we keep the the Colombia water website updated and you can click on storm water projects, water or wastewater projects and get updates, status updates, project magnitude anywhere from early design phase all the way through construction. So we do our best to keep that updated for the great resource. Thank you.

And then the dashboard too. you all do a great job with, you know, my dashboard that I push out to you all. There's that one that you get, there's the public facing dashboard as well. So, I think the we've now started putting the um clean water information, Columbia water information on there as well.

We do. Yes, ma'am. And um I know Dr. Brussels and I sat down um a month or so, two months ago, and and kind of went through some of those, but but we slice and dice the data there. here these charts that Jamie showed, but there's a there's a whole bunch of stuff behind that, even down to how we manage the work orders, the type of work orders, and what's being done to address that. So, um, a lot of data analysis is going into it. And I'm excited eventually to see where AI might be able to help us even more fine-tune what we're doing and our efforts. So, thank y'all so much. Appreciate the time. Thank you.

Thank you. Great job. Thanks. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, we going to transition [snorts] for the other items into executive session.

Well, you got a motion. Yes, Mr. Mayor. I'd like to make a motion that we enter into executive session for discussion of matters relating to the proposed location, expansion, and provision of services encouraging location or expansion of industries or other businesses in the area served by the public body pursuant to SC code 34785, project dream, project catalyst, and project Congereie as well as receipt of legal advice relating to matters covered by attorney client privilege pursuant to Code 3470A2, special revenue sources and short-term rentals, and also receipt of legal advice relating to a pending, threatened, or potential claim pursuant to SC code 3470 A2, Jerry DeMarco versus City of Columbia. And then finally, discussion of negotiations incident to propose contractual arrangements pursuant to SC code 3470 A2, Wood Creek Farms Bridge repair project. Is

there a motion? So move second. All those in favor? I. Madam clerk, works [clears throat] for me. Any opposed? Not hearing any. Uh, I think we can move on. I need I need like a two second break. [clears throat]