Art in Public Places Committee (Through Sept 2021) - Regular Meeting

It was very anonymity. It was nice when I wasn't on there.

Board Member DeWitt is absent.

Board Member Battenfort, here. Chair Galvin, here. Let the record reflect that all board members are present with the exception of Board Member DeWitt.

Thank you. Item number three is public comments on non-agenda matters. If you're going to be able just to make a public comment on a non-agenda matter, please raise your hand or stand up, I guess. Seeing no one rise, we'll move to item number four, which is our new business item. So, Director Burke.

Yes, thank you, Chair Gallin. Our only item is a proposed professional services agreement with Sonoma Resource Conservation District, and Heather Johnson, our environmental services officer, will be presenting.

Welcome, Heather.

Thank you. Okay, so we'll come back in just a little bit. And you share. There we go at the bottom. And then hit share.

And then put that in a presenter's book.

Yeah.

The bottom, yeah.

I shouldn't have to. There we go.

All right. Good morning, Chair Galvin and members of the committee. I am here today to present our proposed professional services agreement for Sonoma Resource Conservation District, also known as Sonoma RCD. So some of this background might be familiar because Deputy Director McNeil just presented on a related contract, and you probably been on the board for a while. But our NPDES permit or our National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit for the regional system has a final limits for pollutants that we can discharge into the watershed. This contract and this presentation is specific to our phosphorus limit. So our permit has a narrative-based limit, which is no net loading of phosphorus to the Laguna de Santa Rosa, which can be converted to a numeric limit of zero. And so knowing that we wouldn't be able to meet a zero limit, the regional board provided a compliance pathway for us. And that compliance pathway is the water quality trading framework. And essentially what the framework does is it allows for us to develop and implement credit generating projects. And we can then use those phosphorus credits to offset any discharges that we might have in a given year. So we currently have four existing credit projects that need ongoing verification. The first one is our Beretta Dairy project. This was a partnership with a local dairy where we funded on-farm best management practices to reduce phosphorus loading from dairy operations. And we get about 400 credits annually from this project. The Pepperwood Preserve project is one of our earlier projects, similar to Beretta Dairy. And what we did here was we funded erosion control best management practices, mostly through roadway repair. And from this one, we get about 337 credits annually. And then Laguna reaches one and two, and Colgan Creek reaches one and two are very similar. We worked with Sonoma Water. We did sediment. They did sediment dredging, and that's where the bulk of the phosphorus credits came from. Laguna was a little bit different in that they did hydraulic modifications, so we can get up to 100 credits annually for 10 years from that project. So we got quite a few credits from both of these projects, we got almost 15,000 from the Laguna project and we got almost 17,000 from the Colgan project so. There was one other project that's not listed here that did generate a bunch of credits, but it doesn't have any ongoing verification that's needed. So with all of the credits that we've generated over the years and the discharges that we have, we currently have 13,000, like 600 some odd credits heading into our current discharge season.

Can you hold on just one second? Did you get a phone call from Wayne?

No, I did not.

I did. It said he missed a call. He was going to call you. He was outside. I don't know what that means, but anyhow. I don't think so. I think he's probably in his garden or something. General outside. Okay, we're good?

No, it's fine. All right, so why do we need this contract?

The water quality trading framework is really specific in that it requires that any new credit generating projects that are developed or that are currently generating credits be verified by a qualified third party entity. So the bulk of this contract is part of that ongoing verification or any verification for any new projects that we may have. Additionally, there's a task item in this contract for identifying and developing new projects. So we don't discharge every year, but we do discharge. And so we're constantly on the hunt for new credit generating projects. And this would include the ability for us to use their services to look for new projects. We did an RFP that we posted to PlanetBids for the list. It was posted in late April. It closed in early June. It went out to the general public. So over 900 vendors were notified. We received one proposal and it was from the Sonoma RCB. And that proposal was reviewed by Deputy Director McNeil and myself for their qualifications. I did wanna point out that while we did only receive one bid, I was contacted by another consultant that we have And they currently provide services for cost-first credit tracking and discharge monitoring, but they ultimately decided that this didn't really fit their consulting scope, and so they didn't bid on this project. So the recommended consultant is Sonoma RCD. The Sonoma RCD has worked with us for many years. Let me try not to miss anything. They've provided credit verification monitoring since the inception, which was the nutrient offset program before it was the water quality trading framework. They're very familiar with our proposed scope, our reporting requirements, and our regulatory requirements. They have established relationships with agricultural landowners and community partners throughout the watershed, and that makes them ideal for project implementation. Additionally, they have demonstrated the ability to work with us on these credit generating projects, and have consistently provided reports online. So with that, it is recommended by Santa Rosa Water that the Contract Review Subcommittee recommend the Board of Public Utilities award a professional services agreement to Sonoma Resource Conservation District To provide technical support, credit verification monitoring, and project development support for the City of Santa Rosa's implementation of the water quality trading framework for the Laguna de Santa Rosa watershed. The contract amount is not to exceed $132,550.50. All right, and I can answer any questions. Great.

Lisa, any questions?

No, just a couple of comments. One, thank you for specifically mentioning why the need for it, because the third party verification piece was important. Because my first question, of course, was why aren't we doing this internally? I know that we have the expertise and a great team to be able to do that kind of work. So I think bringing that up with the full board is a great idea. Any idea why we only got one bid?

I we've talked about this and I, my guess is that it's really just such a kind of a unique thing. There's not a lot of water quality trading around, but we were the only one in the area. And, and so I just think that people aren't that familiar with it. And that would be my guess.

So Windsor's not having to deal with this.

Windsor is dealing it through our .

OK. Scope of work looks good. I'm glad that we've worked with them, and you've had a great experience doing that.

Any questions?

Any comments, Cheryl?

And this has been a great partnership working with the RCD. If you're familiar with them, they're like a quasi governmental nonprofit organization. This is the kind of work that they're really set up to do. And so they kind of fill that space of supporting both. They work a lot with ag, so they have been very good in the past of helping us find projects that are above and beyond the requirements of ag and bringing us projects like the bread and dairy project. And we have hopes that there'll be a couple more projects that we might work with them on. Before we get out of this regulation.

Any other questions or comments? All right, we'll take public comments now on item 4.1. If you wish to make a public comment, please raise your hand. I see no one do so. Would you mind making a motion?

I certainly will. I will make a motion that the Contract Review Subcommittee recommend to the Board of Public Utilities award a professional services agreement to the Sonoma Resource Conservation District to provide technical support, credit verification, monitoring, and project development work for the City of Santa Rosa's implementation of the model quality training framework for the Laguna de Santa Rosa watershed. The contract amount is not to exceed $132,550. And I will second that.

So may we have a roll call vote, please?

Yeah. Board Member DeWitt is absent. Board Member Vandenport? Aye. Mr. Calvin? Aye. unanimously with board member DeWitt.

All right. That concludes our agenda. So we are adjourned. Thanks, everyone, for being here. Sorry to take up your time, but I know we needed to get this going, so it's all good.

Thank you.

Yep.