Waterways Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon, I'd like to call the meeting of the Board of Public Utilities for the City of Santa Rosa to order. If we may have a roll call, please.

Board Member Wright.

Here.

Board Member Misler. Here. Board Member DeWitt.

Present.

Board Member Battenfort. Here. Vice Chair Arnone. Here. And Chair Galvin. Here. Let the record reflect that all board members are present.

Thank you. Any statements of abstention by board members? Seeing none, we have no study session. We have the minutes from the September 3rd meeting. At this time, we'll take public comment on those meeting minutes unless any board members have any questions or changes. Seeing no one rise, those minutes will be approved as submitted. We'll now move to item 6.1, which is our first staff briefing. Director Burke.

Thank you, Chair Galvin and members of the board. Our first staff briefing is our California Water Professionals Appreciation Week, October 3rd through the 11th, 2026. And Bryce Astin, our community outreach specialist, will be making the presentation.

Good afternoon. Thank you for the introduction, Director Burke. And good afternoon, Chair Galvin and members of the board. As Director Burke said, my name is Bryce Aston. I am a community outreach specialist for Santa Rosa Water at the City of Santa Rosa. I'm very excited to be here to share with you how Santa Rosa Water will be celebrating California Water Professionals Appreciation Week this October 3rd through October 11th. This week was established in 2017 by the California Legislature to celebrate the estimated 60,000 plus people who work in the water industry in California. So this week is not only a chance for us to celebrate our excellent team of water professionals already working in the field in Santa Rosa, but it's also a great opportunity to encourage others to pursue a career in water. I'm very new to the industry. I joined Santa Rosa Water.

I'm sorry, could you move the microphone a little closer to you?

Sorry about that. I just got warned about that. Thank you. I'm very new to the industry. I joined Santa Rosa Water in 2024, but in my very fresh experience, one of the best parts of the job is being connected with your community, serving your community, and seeing the fruits of your hard work in the service and infrastructure that Santa Rosa Water provides to Santa Rosa. So we want to encourage others to be a part of the profession and share the variety of job opportunities that are available at Santa Rosa Water. In fact, we have 93 different job classifications from engineers to scientists, customer service specialists to water system operators, budget analysts and more. We do it all and we are hiring. So we want to make sure everyone knows. To celebrate Water Professionals Appreciation Week this year, we will be hosting a series of in-person appreciation events across the city to celebrate the team for all they do to maintain a safe and reliable water system. These events will take place at various Santa Rosa Water work locations from October 3rd to October 11th. In addition to the appreciation events being hosted during Water Professionals Appreciation Week, Santa Rosa City Council will honor the Santa Rosa Water Team with a Water Professionals Appreciation Week proclamation on September 29th. We're encouraging all members of our team to attend on that day wearing their Santa Rosa Water gear to represent our team. This proclamation recognizes the level of service this team provides to the community, and we've had the opportunity to have our team receive this honor annually in years past, and as you can see, it's always a really great pleasure to take our picture with Council and feel that recognition from city leadership and our community. So as part of the outreach campaign for Water Professionals Appreciation Week, we put together a number of outreach materials to educate the public on the work we do at Santa Rosa Water and the opportunities available. We're using images like the one on screen in different formats, such as short form videos that we can share across social media to remind the community that Santa Rosa Water delivers more than just water. We deliver high quality drinking water that is tested over 200 times before it ever reaches a tap. We serve approximately 54,000 businesses, hospitals, homes, schools, and more with an estimated population of 178,000. To deliver this water, staff work around the clock monitoring, repairing, and maintaining over 1,200 miles of water and sewer pipe and other critical water infrastructure. This includes 6,600 fire hydrants, 19 water pump stations, 21 water tanks, and 17 sewer pump stations. Operators, technicians, mechanics, scientists, and more work at the Laguna Treatment Plant and throughout the regional water reuse system to recycle and beneficially reuse nearly six billion gallons of recycled water and more than 33,000 tons of biosolids every single year. Beyond that, our team out at the plant and members of our energy and sustainability team have been working really hard to bring new life to our water reuse education and tour program, which is officially relaunching this fall with a spooky seasonal open house. You will hear more about that later today from one of my colleagues, so keep an eye out. And finally, our stormwater and creeks team is tasked with protecting over 100 miles of creeks that run through our city. They work to restore our waterways, improve flood protection, and connect our community with the outdoors with events like Creek Week, which is also taking place next week, September 19th through 25th. So if you're interested in joining any of our events or getting more info on that, srcity.org slash Creek Week is where all of that information lives. In fact, pictured on the screen, this lovely picture is from our ribbon cutting at the Lower Colgan Creek Restoration Project this past spring, which is a culmination of a 10-plus year restoration project that revitalizes and protects vital habitat for local flora and fauna, provides green space for our residents to recreate and explore, and increases our community's flood resilience. And I think even some of the members of the board were there for that event. So lots of great work there. and actually finally this time, our engineering, asset management, and financial teams all work together to prioritize projects and invest nearly $41 million every single year into the resiliency and reliability of our critical water systems. The picture on screen is a great example of that, of our new UV treatment system out at the Laguna Treatment Plant. So all of this is accomplished by the dedication and hard work of 250 plus employees of Santa Rosa Water. As you can see, this team is hardworking, they are dynamic, they are dedicated. And so this is a really important story to share with the city of Santa Rosa. This is why we celebrate Water Professionals Appreciation Week, and I encourage everyone listening, including everyone here, to participate by thanking a water professional you know. You can even share stories on social media with the hashtag ThankWaterPros to celebrate these essential workers. Beyond that, on our end, we will continue to show the love to our team, especially during Water Professionals Appreciation Week, by pushing out information to the community using our various outreach channels. This will be educational. This will be celebratory information. On social media, we'll be using the hashtag CAWaterWeek, and we are Santa Rosa Water. to share these stories and to view this content, I encourage everyone to follow us on social media. On Facebook, we are at SRWater, and on Instagram, we are at SantaRosaWater. We'll also be publishing an article in the City Connections e-newsletter that goes out every other week from the City of Santa Rosa to a subscriber list in nearly, of nearly 100,000 subscribers and all of the information about the hard work that our team does and opportunities available with the Water Department are available at our website, srcity.org slash water. So in closing, I'd just like to say a big thank you to the team of Santa Rosa Water, our wonderful team, and to the Board of Public Utilities for everything that you all do, for your dedication, and everything you do to protect our water resources, our infrastructure, and our environment. And with that, I am happy to take questions or comments.

Thank you for your presentation. I'm looking forward again to participating in the Water Professionals Appreciation Week. I'll be at several of the events and enjoyed it last year and years before. So kudos to everybody in the Water Department for all that they do. Board member questions or comments? Vice Chair Arnone.

Thank you. For the last few years, it's been my privilege to show up at a couple of the different water professional appreciation presentations. And I've really enjoyed doing it. And I'm very sad that I won't be here this year to participate. But it kind of made me, getting ready for those previous events, kind of made me a habitual reader now of everything that has to do with water in the newspaper. And I realized, as I get older, that I really look forward more and more to looking at those articles because on every occasion, it is showing how this water department is a leader of the pack. I mean, it represents the finest, I think, in the field of water professionals. And it's proven more and more. I read articles about sinkholes in front of Nicolas Cage's office in Brownwater and other adjacent cities and realize how proud I am of, I'm sorry? Yeah. malibu yeah well i was talking about brown water and salina but anyway um the sinkhole was malibu anyways i just want to say thank you now because i won't have a chance to say it then and i thank you for all of your work and uh you just uh make santa rosa look really good thank you thank you for those kind words thank you other board member questions or comments remember battenford

Thank you so much. I don't know if I could do it any better than Vice Chair Arnone. Thank you for putting it together. You know, most residents really only see a tiny portion or a tiny piece, even if that, sometimes it's just a sign that says, hey, don't put stuff in the storm drain right here. But it makes a difference, and I'm glad that the events in the week will actually highlight the people that not many people can say. They literally work in a field that is keeping hundreds of thousands of people safe and healthy. So I'm very proud to be a part of it. I want to go to the trick or treatment. I think there should be a board field trip for it. And I just wanna also take a moment. Our organization does a volunteer week event And this morning, Kyle led a creek cleanup with all of our volunteers. Thank you, it was absolutely fantastic.

Thank you so much. Amazing. You could get more of that at Creek Week next week.

Thank you. Other board member questions or comments?

Board Member DeWitt? Yes, this is a quick question. I've had people reach out to me to try to get information. Are you the person that answers questions to the public?

Depends on the question, but I can be a starting point, certainly.

Okay, I'll be very polite and not give your name out to anyone.

I appreciate that, thank you.

Any other questions or comments? All right, we'll open it up for public comment on item 6.1. If you wish to make a public comment, please move to the podium. I see no one rise. Thank you again for the presentation. Good luck with the Appreciation Week. Looking forward to it.

Thank you so much to all of you.

Now move to item 6.2, Director Burke.

Thank you, Chair Galvin and members of the board. Our second staff briefing is our Laguna Treatment Plant Tour program update. And Alicia Colicci, our sustainability coordinator, will be presenting.

Thank you, Director Burke. Good afternoon, Chair Galvin, members of the board. My name is Alicia Kulici, and I'm the Energy and Sustainability Coordinator in the Water Department. Today, I'm here to present on some pretty exciting updates for the tour program at the Laguna Treatment Plant. So just a little background. Before COVID, we had a full-time employee giving consistent tours at the plant, which meant hundreds of tours per year. COVID happened and we had to put the tours on pause. So a virtual tour was developed and then we were starting to pick up on tours again and we had the plant operators giving tours, which is great because they know all about the tour or the plant and the program and stuff like that. They have limited time and availability to give tours, so that gave us the opportunity to reimagine the tour program and kind of create a substantial program for the Water Department. So through water reuse outreach, we want to help the community understand the value of our water resources and support investment in critical infrastructure and encourage protection of the water resources we all share. We had Katzen Associates, which is a consulting firm, create a tour training program and like a master plan for the visual aid improvements at the Laguna Treatment Plant. They trained a group of water employees who were interested in giving tours at the plant. And that consisted of creating a training guide for them, flashcards, a study guide, and opportunity to give them mock tours as well to practice giving tours at the plant. And they were the ones that trained the initial group of tour guides. This is just a budget breakdown of all that went into the tour program so far. So Katz & Associates contract was $247,000. The floor remodel, which consisted of taking out the tile in the lobby was $20,142. The Sinorama contract, which is the firm that is gonna be installing the visual aids at the plant was $57,921. And then we do have an annual tour budget for water employees to charge their time and that's 40,000. And that also includes any resources they might need like extra flashcards or microphones or things like that that needs for the tour program. And this budget does not impact our current budget that's already been allocated. So these are some before photos. And the fish tank that was there got rehomed at the Sonoma Water Education Center on Wooler Road. They're very excited about all the fish that are in their program now, and I've heard really positive comments about the fish tank. So that was exciting. And then these are just some photos of what the lobby looked like before. And what I'm about to go through are all of the renderings for the tour program. This is not anything that's installed so far. These are just the mock-ups that the consultant created for us. And this is what we are planning to install. So this is what the admin lobby will look like. So we have the Santa Rosa Blue, and then on the left side we have the Russian River, and on the right side we have the recycled water distribution system with the geysers pipeline. Can't read anything on there, but you can see it in person when you visit and it's installed. And then in the center, we'll have a very large TV that will display different things that we utilize the recycled water for, so that will be reclamation, like irrigation on farms, biosolids, every step of the plant, like we have videos and photos, and that will be displayed on a loop in the center. The front sign is just gonna go right on the current concrete sign that's out there in front of the admin lobby. And if you remember in the admin lobby when you enter, it kind of wraps around so there's, The blue that you see is gonna be wrapped in the inner walls, and so in the back of that lobby, we have on the back wall just different infographics of different steps of the process, the system as a whole, what the amount of money that goes into it, and any other fun facts. And then this is the wrap for the estuary room doors, which is the conference room that is utilized by both city staff and the public. These are the renderings for the lab windows. So as you remember previously in my previous photo, you can kind of look into the lab when you enter the lobby. So these are just window clings basically that will go onto the glass. and you'll still be able to see staff and they can see out as well. And then Katz also created a mascot for us. So you may have gotten little stickers today that say I toured the plant. So those will be distributed to people that attend tours at the plant. And this mascot will be also distributed on different signage or other material for Laguna treatment plant. The mascot does not have a name, so I will take suggestions because we have like a suggestion box basically going on right now. So if the board has any suggestions on names, happy to take those at the end of the presentation. And I have a pen, so feel free. These are going to go on the back of the bathroom stalls in the men's and women's bathroom in the lobby. That's basically just what goes in the toilet goes in the trash can, which they will also learn and take away the three Ps on the tour. These tour stops are at each stop of the treatment process. So these serve as visual aids for the attendees on the tour. They don't need to give immense detail or anything. It's more of what's going on in each tank so they can kind of see the visuals because from the outside, it looks like you're looking at a giant pool of water, but it's good to see the arrows pointing on what the water's doing, how it's moving, and where it's going. And so CATS provided CATS provided the foundation for the tour training program for water employees. And our team is leading different sessions to different water employees who are interested in giving tours at the plant. So we get interest constantly, whether they're a new employee, if they've been here a while, we provide them with the resources that they need to give tours. So I know there's a lot of information when you go to the treatment plan, we don't expect every detail to be memorized, but we have staff that are engineers, admin staff, all sorts of people in different divisions that wanna give tours to the plant, so that's been really exciting. We have 16 tour guides that are trained to give tours to the plant, and so far in 2026, we have 214 attendees since launching the new program. So that leads me to what Bryce hinted at earlier, is we would like to invite you to our Trick or Treatment Mysteries of the Treatment Plant event that is on Saturday, October 17th from 10 to 2 p.m. We will have activities for all ages, so little ones can also come to this, but if you want to go on a tour, you do have to be 10 and up. The tours will be every 30 minutes from 10.30 to 12 p.m. And you can sign up there or you can find more information online at srcity.org slash tour the plant. We will also have a very special underground tour for this event only. So you don't want to miss that because it's not always open to the public. And we will have a lot of Halloween decor around as well. And on that note, I will take any questions. Thanks.

Thank you very much, looking forward to it. Questions or comments from the board?

Board Member DeWitt. Yes, thank you for that nice presentation. A number of people have gotten in touch with me to ask me about the quality of the water because they continue to drink water out of plastic bottles. And I said, well, I do believe our water is better. And at this tour, will you be explaining why our water is better than bottled plastic water?

We don't touch on the drinking water really. We mention it and where it comes from on the tour, like in the beginning, but this is more focused on where it goes, like after it goes down the drain, after it's flushed down the toilet. So yeah, we don't focus on the drinking water per se.

Thank you for clarifying. I'll figure this out.

Through the Chair. Through the Chair, if I could just note, Board Member DeWitt, we do have a big ticket from the TAP program that has all the information on the benefits of drinking water versus plastic bottled water, and all of that's on our website if you go to srcity.org slash TAP, I believe.

Other Board Member questions or comments? Thank you, we'll open it up now for public comments on item 6.2. If you wish to make a public comment, please move to the podium. Seeing no one rise, thank you again for the presentation. Good luck with the tours. Thanks. We'll now move to item 6.3, which is our water and recycled water supply update. Director Burke.

Thank you, Chair Galvin and members of the board. Our final staff briefing is our water and recycled water supply update, and making the presentation will be Peter Martin, Deputy Director of Water Resources, and Mike Prinz, our Deputy Director of Regional Water Reuse Operations.

All right, good afternoon, Chair Galvin and members of the board. Happy to present you with the last water supply update of this water year that ends on September 30th. In case you're tracking, rainfall is at about just a little below 27 inches for the water year since October 1st of last year, so 87% of average, so pretty normal water year. In terms of storage in Lake Pillsbury on the Eel River, storage is just a little less than 37,000 acre feet or 72% of the available storage curve in that reservoir for this time of year. Notably, PG&E has been operating under a variance from their FERC mandated flows since May of this year. And the target with that is a reduction in releases into the east branch of the Russian River, the upper Russian River, allowing them to reduce their flows down from 75 cubic feet per second during this time of year down to 25 cubic feet per second for the minimum flows out of that. And the goal and the target of that is to allow for about 25,000 acre feet of water to remain in Lake Pillsbury by October 1st. So as you can see, it is likely they are going to hit that target and be able to continue to provide cold water storage downstream in the Eel River until the time that it begins raining again. In terms of the Upper Russian River, Lake Mendocino storage is at about 63,000 acre feet as of today. 53% of the, or sorry, 56% of the forecast-informed reservoir operations water storage pool. I also want to mention too that Sonoma Water has been operating under a temporary change petition since August, or excuse me, also take that back, May of last year, or this year. And that will remain in place through October 15th. And that allows them to reduce their releases to protect fish species in the Russian River. and also align the conditions in the watershed with the storage in Lake Mendocino, alternatively to the accumulated inflow in Lake Pillsbury. So reflective of the conditions in the watershed and not those outside the watershed. They did petition the state in August for continuing variants if granted that would carry them through into spring of next year. In terms of lake storage, storage in Lake Sonoma, also very good. 235,800 acre feet as of today. Plenty of carryover storage to go into next year. Just a reminder that Lake Sonoma stores about three to four years of total regional water supply when it is full, so very close to full right now. And then I just want to highlight, continue to wrap up the summer outreach campaign around our Water Smart programs through the Sonoma Marin Saving Water Partnership. The tagline, again, this year has been less is more, if you will. So really promoting programs that allow folks to reduce their... turf on their homes taking advantage of rebates educating folks about smart plant picker for low water use plants in their homes and also we'll just continue to remind folks that fall is a great time to do certain maintenance activities in your yard mulching is great around this time of year and also you can also plant certain plants this time of year going into winter as well so with that that concludes my portion of the presentation i'll hand it over to deputy director brins

Thanks, Peter. Good afternoon, Chair Galvin, members of the board, Mike Prins, Deputy Director, Regional Water Reuse Operations, with a very brief update regarding recycled water supply conditions as of today. I think you may have all seen the updated aerial photo of the plant shown on the right there, which is essentially the heart and heartbeat of the recycled water production from Santa Rosa and the regional system. You have seen versions of this in the past. This is the recycled water storage trend for the current water year, which is almost, we're almost at New Year's Eve, you could say, at the end of September. The red trend shows the current water year storage trend. The black trend is last year's, just for comparison. And there is a gray line kind of intermediate between the two extremes, the maximum and minimums. which is the average, and due to some great coordination between Recycle Water Distribution staff and Calpine, we were able to flexibly operate during the summer and get the storage curve back down to the average. It had been somewhat elevated during the geyser shutdown, I think primarily because it's been a mild summer, and so irrigation demand has been a little bit lower than normal. That said, we do guarantee recycled water supply allotments for our agricultural customers through the end of September. And as of right now, the bulk usage of the 1.1 billion gallon allotment for our ag customers is sitting at about 59%. So there's still ample water supply based on our allotments Which again we only guarantee through the end of September But in reality water will be available beyond September just there won't be an allotment in effect at that point We will probably be able to irrigate for some time depending on supplies, but sometime beyond September so That's all I have for Recycle Water Storage Update, and Peter and I are available for questions should you have any.

Thank you both, gentlemen. Questions or comments from the board? All right, we'll open it up for public comment on item 6.3. If you wish to make a public comment, please move to the podium. I see no one rise. Thank you again, gentlemen. We have one item on the consent calendar.

I'll move adoption of the consent calendar.

Second. Motion by Vice Chair Arnone, seconded by Board Member Wright. This time we'll open it up for any public comments on item 7.1. Seeing no one rise, may we please have a roll call vote.

Board Member Wright,

Aye.

Board Member Misler. Aye. Board Member DeWitt.

Yes.

Board Member Badenfort. Aye. Vice Chair Arnone.

Aye.

Chair Galvin.

Aye.

Okay, let the record reflect the consent calendar passes unanimously.

Thank you. We'll now move to our one report item, item 8.1. Director Burke.

Thank you, Chair Galvin and members of the board. Our report item is a resolution of the Board of Public Utilities approving the USACE Partnership Agreement for Increment One of the Lano Trunk Rehabilitation Phase Two Project and delegating authority to the Director of Water. And Liz Hanley, our Acting Deputy Director of Engineering Resources, will be making the presentation.

Thank you. Thank you, Director Burke, and good afternoon, Chair Galvin and members of the board. As Director Burke mentioned, I am Liz Hanley, the Acting Deputy Director of Engineering Resources for Santa Rosa Water. You will see Terri Marks' name on the slide. She is our project manager, excuse me, our project manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. She was hoping to join us today. but she had a last minute obligation and won't be able to be here, unfortunately. On the slide we have a, excuse me, today we will be presenting the resolution for BPU's approval of the US Army Corps of Engineers partnership agreement for increment one of the lano trunk rehabilitation phase two project and the delegation of authority to the director of water for the execution of the agreement. And here we have a brief overview of what we will be discussing this afternoon. We will review the background of the project, the project's location, the US Army Corps of Engineers Environmental Infrastructure Program, the partnership agreement itself, the fiscal impact, and lastly, our recommendation for your consideration and approval. One of the ways in which Santa Rosa Water evaluates the city's wastewater system is by conducting periodic updates to its sanitary sewer master plan. The latest update in 2023 included condition assessments of our large diameter sewer trunk lines. Several of our sewer trunk lines were recommended for rehabilitation due to their poor condition, with the lawn-o-trunk being identified as the city's top priority because of defects including exposed and missing aggregate, and also exposed rebar in some locations. Due to the magnitude of the project, the rehab of the lawn-o-trunk was split into four phases of work. As you'll likely recall from previous presentations to the board, our phase one project was completed last summer. The second priority is phase two, which is the subject project we are discussing today. And phases three and four will be future efforts. In total, the four Lano-Trunk projects will rehab approximately 31,600 linear feet of 54 to 66 inch diameter pipeline, along with 59 manholes. Our current phase two project is 6,600 linear feet and includes 10 manholes. The Llano sewer trunk is the city's most important wastewater trunk line, as it carries approximately 70% of the city's total flow to the Laguna treatment plant. Significant impacts would be expected should there be a pipe failure, a blockage, or a sanitary sewer overflow due to the poor condition of the pipeline. Of particular concern would be a sinkhole or an overflow that could impact public and private property, Llano Road, and the environmentally sensitive areas around the pipeline, which include wetlands and the Laguna de Santa Rosa. Rehabilitating the sewer trunk line reduces the risk of catastrophic failure, which is crucial to keeping our critical wastewater service flowing and for protecting the environment. This next slide shows our project area. In the upper right, the project locations for the full length of phases one through four of the lawn-o-trunk rehab projects are shown. The full length of all four lawn-o-trunk rehabilitation projects stretches all the way from the Laguna Treatment Plant at its south end and runs approximately six miles to the north, ending near the city's A Place to Play Park. on West Third Street. The close-up map towards the center of the slide shows our phase two subject project in blue and green dashed lines. Phase two was divided into five increments for feasibility and funding requirements. These five increments stretch from the north end of completed phase one and run 1.2 miles to the north along Lono Road, ending just beyond the location where the City of Sevastopol's sewer line ties into our Lono trunk line. Increment one of phase two, which is the subject of today's approval, will be the project design, environmental and permitting work for the full length of the phase two project. The construction itself will be increments two through five, And this will be four separate increments of work, which will take four construction seasons and will also require future funding appropriations and separate partnership agreements with the Army Corps for each increment. The partnership with the Army Corps is made possible by their Environmental Infrastructure Program, which is a federal program that provides financial and technical assistance to non-federal sponsors. The program provides for the design and construction of water-related environmental infrastructure that is publicly owned and operated. Funding is provided through congressional appropriations and requires cost sharing by its non-federal participants. The federal cost share cannot exceed 75% of the project cost and the city is responsible for providing the remaining 25% of the funds. The partnership between the City of Santa Rosa and the Army Corps is, or the agreement itself is the contractual mechanism that will allow the Army Corps to lead project development and construction assistance efforts. The city's participation in the Environmental Infrastructure Program and the partnership agreement would not be possible without the Federal Water Resources Development Act program and congressional support. The 2023 Water Resources Development Act included $19.4 million for the City of Santa Rosa for water and wastewater infrastructure improvements, And $2.293 million of this was appropriated for increment one of the 2026 federal, or in the 2026 federal budget. Increments two through five will require future approvals and appropriations to progress the project. The partnership agreement itself establishes the Army Corps and the city's obligations and the cost-sharing responsibilities. For increment one, the Army Corps will provide project design, environmental compliance, permitting, and construction assistance, and the city is responsible for providing real property interests, which basically means the land or any required easements required for the work. And for increments two through five, pending future appropriations, the Army Corps will provide construction and the city will be responsible for the ongoing operation and maintenance of the infrastructure improvements as they are completed. The anticipated total project cost of phase two and the breakdown of the federal and city cost shares are included in the table before you. For all increments, federal funds will cover 75% of the cost, and the city will cover the remaining cost of their projects, which is anticipated to be 25%, but it could be more if the project cost exceeds estimates. Increment one's total project cost is $3.049 million, with the city's estimated 25% cost share obligation being $756,000. The City of Sebastopol will also contribute 6.1% of the city's 25% cost as part of their obligation under the sub-regional agreement. This will amount to approximately $46,000 for increment one. The total estimated project cost for the full length of phase two for increments one through five is $26.359 million with the city's anticipated 25% cost share obligation being roughly $6.6 million. The project has no fiscal impact on the approved current fiscal year budget as the funds have already been allocated to the project. And with that, I'll go ahead and read the recommendation. It is recommended by Santa Rosa Water that the Board of Public Utilities by resolution approve the partnership agreement between the Department of the Army and the City of Santa Rosa for increment one of the Lano Trunk Line rehabilitation phase two environmental infrastructure project and delegate authority to the director of Santa Rosa Water to execute the agreement and execute or approve other documents as necessary to implement the agreement. And that concludes my presentation and I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you, Ms. Hanley. I'll open it up for board member questions or comments. Board member Wright.

Thank you for the presentation. Seems like a good deal if we can get the federal government to pay for a good portion of this, if they will. I'm just curious, the 2.93 million that we spent on phase one, a portion of that was spent on brick and mortar, or is it all design and soft costs?

All of increment one for phase two will be just design and soft cost, and then the construction will all be within increments two through five.

Okay, and then, so the 25, 75% portion it's confusing me in this fiscal impact table where you so city share 1.1 million and then you show federal share 75 1.1 but then it seems like it corrects itself later on but how does that work exactly does the uh on that table

Yeah, I apologize, it looks like we do have an error up there under the 75% column.

Oh, okay, that was confusing me.

Yeah, there appears to be an error in increments two through five there, but the grand totals are correct, and also for increment one, those breakdowns are correct.

Okay, so the bottom line is the feds have paid for some soft costs and phases two through five will be paying hard costs for actual brick and mortar and liners and resin and all that kind of stuff.

That's correct, yes, and they will pay 75% of the total cost of the project.

Now in previous years I've worked with the Army Corps a lot and they're not exactly speedy. Are we concerned about giving them this much responsibility about they causing delays in the project?

We have had discussions with them about timing. They have admitted themselves that they are a little slow with projects, but we've put a great deal of effort into coordinating with them well ahead of this project for multiple years. I've only been with the city a few years, but we've been working with them for years for some time even before that to get as much done as we could ahead of the agreement. We have a pretty good schedule laid out with the Army Corps and we've also got a jumpstart on some of the environmental work. We have two years of our rare plant studies already completed as well as a wetland delineation. So we've taken a few steps like that to try and get ahead of some of the timing issues.

Okay, well, good luck with that project. Thank you.

Board Member DeWitt.

Yes, to follow along with that, thank you for the nice presentation. I am just now learning about how these types of financing mechanisms work. And I wanted to make sure that the city will be prepared if inflationary situations arise and if the costs increase. Do we put aside the total 65, 6.5 million now and have it ready? And then if something else comes up, there's a contingency? You're nodding your head, but I need to hear what you want to say. Yes.

So we do already have the first increment programmed into our current fiscal year budget. And for the following four years, we have money set aside that we're planning to allocate and seek approval for each year. Additionally, we do factor in inflation for each year. The estimate isn't just based on today's dollars. It's based on future year dollar amounts. And then lastly, we do, as part of our CIP budget, we have a contingency measure in there. We have a million dollars each year. that we build in to cover overages on our projects. So with all that accounted for, we hope to have planned well enough ahead to cover any overages.

Other board member questions or comments? All right, we'll open it up for public comment on item 8.1. If you wish to make a public comment, please move to the podium. Seeing no one rise, that'll take care of that. May we please have a motion?

I'll move that the Board of Public Utilities by resolution approve the partnership agreement between the Department of the Army and the City of Santa Rosa for increment one of the Llano trunk line rehabilitation phase two. environmental infrastructure project and delegate authority to the director of Santa Rosa Water to execute the agreement and execute or approve other documents necessary to implement the agreement.

Second.

Motion by Board Member Wright, seconded by Board Member Badenfort. May we have a roll call vote, please?

Board Member Wright.

Aye.

Board Member Meisler? Aye. Board Member DeWitt?

Yes.

Board Member Badenfort? Aye. Vice Chair Arnone?

Aye.

And Chair Galvin?

Aye.

Let the record reflect that resolution passes unanimously.

Thank you, thank you again for the presentation. Next item on our agenda is item nine, public comments on non-agenda matters. If you wish to make a public comment on a non-agenda matter, please move to the podium. Seeing no one rise, that will take care of that. We have no referrals. We have no written communications. We have no subcommittee reports. Do we have any board member reports? Okay, then we will move to the director's report. Director Burke.

Thank you, Chair Galvin and members of the board. I have a couple items to update you on today. First, I wanted to let the board know that due to a lack of quorum, we will not be meeting on October 1st. So no meeting on October 1st. I just wanted to make sure the board knew that and we will send cancellation notices before too long. Also wanted to let the board know that you should have received communication by email earlier today about the upcoming Boards and Commission lunch. That'll be occurring on October 8th and information is in the email and please feel free to RSVP through that as well. I wanted to let the board know some good news that I was neglecting letting you know previously. About a month ago, we received information that the city's bond rating, which also includes the Water Enterprise Fund and the Wastewater, Subregional Wastewater Enterprise Fund, received an upgrade to the credit rating from AA2 for both the City and the Water Enterprise to AA1, and for the Sub-Regional Wastewater Enterprise from AA3 to AA1. So it's really good news, it reflects Moody's analysis of all the work that the city team has done to correct the general fund concerns and issues, in particular related to the water and wastewater enterprises. Moody's noted that we have an exceptionally strong financial profile for the water. which includes robust liquidity and very strong debt service coverage. And they also noted the importance of the multi-year rate increases between six and seven percent that are adopted through fiscal year 2030, as well as the wholesale water cost pass-through mechanism. on the sub-regional wastewater enterprise. The upgrade reflects the resilient financial profile highlighted by the exceptionally high liquidity, strong debt service coverage, and also the large cash funding that we are putting into the capital upgrades at our plant, as well as the planned $35 million debt issuance. Good news, wanted to share that, and I apologize for not sharing that earlier. And then last, I wanted to let the board know that I'm very excited to announce, and I'll pass this around, that the Lower Colgan Creek Restoration Project Phase Three received another award. We received the Floodplain Management Association 2026 Integrated Flood Management Project of the Year. Every year, the Flood Management Association recognizes important achievements and leaders in floodplain management. The award recognizes teams or individuals who have prepared and or implemented a local, state, or federal multi-objective flood management plan. This award recognized the Colgan Creek Restoration Project Team for demonstrating innovative advancements in water management and collaborative partnerships with community groups and the public, benefiting environmental, flood control, recreational, and emergency planning interests. I want to specifically thank our funding partners, the Department of Water Resources Urban Streams Restoration Program, the Wildlife Conservation Board, and the Agriculture and Open Space entity. I'm also very proud of the team that has led this project, in particular, Kellen Johnson, who's been the project manager, Greg Dwyer, the project engineer, Steve Brady, Michael Santorini, Kyle Spongberg, Nick Lin, Charles Robinson, Claire Myers, and so many others that help support this award-winning project. So while the award is not quite up on the FMA website, We do have a short video that highlights all the award recipients, including our project, and I think we're able to play it. And we're gonna ask Secretary Montoya if she can play that quick video for you all. And again, a big congratulations to the team for a very well-deserved award. All right, well, we tried. Oh, nope, here it goes. And that concludes my report and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Any questions or comments for the director?

Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to highlight that as Director Burke talked about the bond rating, I want to highlight a piece that she undersold is that the bond ratings associated with the water and wastewater enterprises actually pulled along the city bond rating increase as well. So it was really the work that Santa Rosa Water has done to help citywide efforts. So I just wanted to make sure that I gave the kudos where they were appropriately deserved with the Water Department.

Thank you, Mr. Nutt. We'll now open it up for public comment on item number 14. If you wish to make a public comment, please move to the podium. Seeing no one rise, that'll take care of item 14. That'll take care of our agenda for today. So we will not be meeting the first meeting in October, and we will see you on, I think it's the 15th. So we are adjourned. Thank you.