Board of Public Works - Regular Meeting

Thing for Tuesday, January 27. Please rise and join me for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one Thank you. Please be seated. And roll call of membership, let the record note that Alder Josh Lambrecht is excused. We will introduce ourselves starting from my left.

Patty Heffernan, District 8. Baret Meltzer, District 2.

Adrian Stanson Martin, District 11. Denny Dougherty, District 15.

Thank you. And we need an approval of the minutes from the previous meeting. That's 20 six-one 113, approval of the December 17 Utilities Committee meeting minutes.

Move to approve.

Second.

I have a motion and a second. Any comments or amendments? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any nay votes or abstentions? Seeing none, the minutes are approved, four to zero. We do not have any public hearings or appearances today. We do have some members of the public present, and I'm glad that you're here. Later after the presentation, there will be an opportunity for you to speak, so we will get to that. So we'll go ahead and I'm gonna, just get our other agenda item out of the way quickly.

We have 26Dash0114, request to award design of K 2 B Pond rehabilitation project to McMahon Associates Incorporated in the amount of $62,371 with a contingency of $5,000 for a project total not to exceed $67,371 Can I get a motion?

Motion to approve.

Second. All right. We have a motion and a second. Did a member of staff want to speak on that? Go ahead. Oh, I'm sorry. That was the wrong mic. Now you're on.

Thank you, chair. So the pond in question is a regional stormwater pond that was built around 20 a little over twenty years ago. And it was built before the current DNR wet pond standards were developed. And so staff, as indicated in the memo, had consulted with McMahon Associates in 2019 to conduct some evaluations of the performance of the pond relative to the current city code, current DNR technical standards for wet ponds, and also factoring in development patterns that have occurred within the South Point Commerce Park, which is the main tributary area to this pond. They identified some recommendations that would be capable of bringing the pond up to the current standards.

The major improvement, which is the second bullet point that's listed in the memo, the construction of a new inlet pipe, about 500 feet of 60 inches storm sewer pipe, has been completed. And now we're looking at pursuing engineering for some of the remaining recommendations in addition to some maintenance work that needs to be done that have to do with soils conditions and some erosion that's occurred on the ponds. So at this point, we're looking for a request to award the rehab project design to McMahon Associates, as indicated in the memo, that would involve constructing a brand new outlet structure for the pond that would, again, meet the current standards. And it would we'd also be looking for an additional pipe downstream of the pond underneath Plank Road to meet the current conveyance capacity standards. And in addition to that, as I had just mentioned, there's significant shoreline erosion that has occurred on the pond that's been due to three primary factors.

One is muskrat related damage. Another one is this pond is one of the biggest ponds that we have. When we encounter larger ponds, we'll often see wave action impacting the shoreline. And a combination of the wave action of the shoreline, muskrat damage, and the fact that we've got a silty soil layer along kind of along the waterline of the pond has contributed to some shoreline erosion that we'd like to restore. So those are the main items that would be involved in this design contract that we'd like to move forward with.

All right. Thank you. Do we have any comments or questions from the committee? Seeing none, let's go ahead and vote. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposing or abstentions? There are none. That is recommended four-zero for approval. That will go to council next Wednesday for a final vote. Now the next action item, 20 six-one 116, request to authorize preliminary engineering for initial Northland Bel Air flood study improvements and study update number four. Motion to approve. Second. All right. We have a motion and a second. So go ahead, Deputy Director Neuberger.

Thank you, Chair. So staff have come prepared with a presentation that we'd like to share with the committee and the attendees. We'll walk through it page by page. Basically, we're happy to report that we have some initial recommendations. And I'd like to walk through what those initial recommendations are, how we got to this point, and then what some future steps would be.

So we'll just go ahead and move right into the slides then. So with the flood study, Brown and Caldwell has been working on this since December 2024. And much work has been done, among which includes the identification of several areas of primary concerns. Those are indicated by the of the blue ovals on this slide. And they were generated using a combination of flood reports and modeled flood levels.

And the areas that are circled there generally all indicate maximum water depth at some point within that area of concern. The maximum modeled identified flooding is indicated by the numbers there that are pointing to each individual area of concern. And so you can see on the map that those areas of concern range from maximum flooding depths from one and a half feet all the way up to 5.3 feet. And this would be in the modeled one hundred year twenty four hour storm.

Is this map displayed in the back there that people can look at more closely?

Have a hard copy of a map that the very right side of it got cut off. But we can certainly put that back and staff can hang around after the discussion to share. If anybody in the audience wants to take a closer look at that, we'd be happy to do that as well.

Thank you.

Say something quickly. These slides, just for your information and for anybody else that is interested in these, we will be adding these to the minutes after the fact. So all of these presentation materials will be posted publicly after the meeting. We just wanted to clarify that, that if anybody wanted to go back and look it will be available for review. The other piece I did want to add and Pete may get into this, we do want to be clear that these areas that are in the ovals are not exhaustive of where there is the potential for water to be on other roads.

This is just kind of highlighting the areas that have significant water, basically anywhere with water greater than one foot that is observed or modeled. And I don't know if you had alluded to that or were going to, but I did want to point that out that there are other areas that may have had water or have seen water. It's just that these are those indicative that are over a foot. Thank

you. Thank you. So

I'll just go ahead and go through the slides then, or would you prefer that I just pause at the end of each slide and see if the committee has any questions.

Do we want to save our questions for the end? Yeah. We'll save our questions for the end.

Let's just keep moving along. Okay. So this next slide indicates our initial system improvement recommendations. So there are three primary focus areas that are included in that. I'll start with the blue circle, which is kind of the downstream end of the areas that are recommended for improvement.

That would be an expansion of the existing regional stormwater pond known as Veterans Memorial Park Pond South. It's a bit of a mouthful. So for the rest of this discussion, I'll just refer to it as the Regional Pond or the Memorial Park Pond. So what we're looking for there would be an enlargement of the wet pond, including the flood storage area associated with it, some wetland upland storage that will provide for some habitat and water quality, potential outlet structure modifications to the existing pond outlet structure, and then trail considerations that would be part of if slide, then the goals for that next south side of the park. Additionally, we would be looking to make some storm sewer improvements.

So the first backbone of the improvement would be indicated by the green line. That would be the Northland Avenue storm sewer improvements and inlet capacity enhancement. Basically, this would be kind of an interceptor type backbone part of the system that would take that additional flood storage that we're proposing to build into Memorial Park South Pond and it would improve conveyance so that we can get more water into that expanded pond area. And then finally, the purple areas indicated as local sewer improvements and inlet capacity enhancements East Of Meade Street and South Of Northland Avenue. So basically the idea with that would be to take that area that we saw on the first slide as being one of the areas of concern.

In fact, the area indicated as having the highest modeled depth of flooding during the one hundred year event, 5.3 feet of flooding right there. That corresponds roughly with the purple area on the next slide as an area where we are recommending the installation of local storm sewer improvements in those streets that would tie into the proposed increased conveyance in Northland Avenue, which would then drain into the improved flood storage capacity in Northland or in Memorial Park South Pond.

So how did we get

to this point? What were the driving factors? So as we'd indicated at previous updates before this committee, early modeling sensitivity analysis suggested that storage, providing additional flood storage in upstream areas within the watershed could not provide meaningful reductions in the areas of the greatest flooding concern. And as we had said previously, what that involved was simulating in the model extremely large flood storage areas. We're talking about many, many city blocks, like order of magnitude, like 10 to 20 city blocks, just saying we're going to put we're going to fill that up with flood storage.

And what that sensitivity analysis indicated was that simply providing lots of flood storage upstream in the watershed was not going to produce a cost effective solution. We needed to find other tools to do that. Flood storage upstream in the watershed, I will say at this point, could be something that could be tacked onto these initial recommendations. And in fact, these initial recommendations lend themselves to being able to do future improvements like that. But those are not part of our initial recommendations.

And as I'll say later in this presentation, we want to continue work within this study even after if these initial recommendations are approved. We still have additional analysis that we will want to do that could potentially supplement these initial recommendations if we're authorized to move forward with engineering. And then as I had mentioned when talking about the last slide, we're looking at a mainline backbone conveyance improvement. Those are necessary to provide additional capacity to get the water away effectively from some of these flood prone areas. Additionally, localized improvements to convey peak flows to the mainline system and reduce overland flows and ponding.

That's kind of representative of the purple area that we were looking at. In addition to that, as I had mentioned, we're looking at expanded storage in the Veterans Memorial Park Pond South to mitigate flows due to increased conveyance. And that allows us to avoid pushing the problem downstream. If we simply put in a bunch of bigger pipes in this area, that water is simply going to get downstream faster. And we want to make sure that whatever we do, we don't simply move the flooding issues downstream.

And the flood storage that we're proposing to provide in Memorial Park Pond is how we would mitigate potentially increasing those downstream flood flows. The next slide, just a little bit more detail on the slide that we provided earlier is just kind of a benchmark way of demonstrating the improvements that we would see if we were to move forward with these initial system improvements indicated by the blue label there. So for the area of greatest concern indicated by purple area, as we had said, the maximum one hundred year water depth within that area under the current model conditions, 5.3 feet in a one hundred year storm. These proposed improvements are indicated by the model as reducing the one hundred year water depth in that area to 0.5 feet. So very significant improvements.

Benefits of this approach include sizing of the Northland Avenue storm sewer to accommodate potential future improvements West Of Meade Street and South Of Northland Avenue. And we'll get to another slide on that here in a little bit. Not only that, but the proposed pond expansion in Memorial Park would increase pollutant removal, help meet anticipated future development needs for the area, and it would meet our DNR TMDL and municipal separate storm sewer system permit goals. And then as we had mentioned earlier, the pond expansion includes consideration for our park use and trails. Moving on to the next slide.

As I've mentioned previously, this recommended approach also sets the table for making additional improvements within the drainage study area. And potential improvements that we'd like to continue studying as part of the ongoing work are indicated by kind of the blue or excuse me, the black cloud area. So those would be potential future additional Northland Avenue storm sewer improvements and inlet capacity enhancement. And that would be taking the conveyance capacity improvements indicated by the green line and continuing to extend those improvements further to the west in Northland Avenue. Additional future potential improvements would include local storm sewer improvements and capacity enhancements South Of Northland Avenue and West Of Oneida Street.

Again, that's kind of indicated by kind of like that lower leg of that black cloud area. So we've done some modeling on what we would expect to see if we would continue to move forward with improvements in those potential future areas. And that's also an area that was indicated by one of the blue circles of major concern. And under existing conditions during the one hundred year event, the model indicates a maximum flood depth of 4.1 feet. And based on the preliminary modeling for that area, proposed improvements in that area could reduce the one hundred year water surface elevation maximum down to 0.8 feet.

So again, improvements. All right. So that's all the benefits side of things. Let's talk about the cost side of things. So this slide shows the estimated construction costs for those three main areas, the blue, the green and the purple.

The Blue Memorial Park Salt Pond expansion project budget level cost estimate at this point, 10,000,000 Northland Avenue storm sewer indicated by the green line, dollars 8,200,000.0. And the local storm sewer improvements indicated for the purple area, 3,800,000.0. So the total estimated construction costs for these improvements would be $22,000,000 Here's the budget picture. We are anticipating the following budget requests if we move forward with this. The 2025 budget included will include special consideration carryover request for approximately $2,500,000 carryover requests will be are being developed by departments right now and will soon be submitted to the finance department.

DPW has identified about $2,500,000 so far in 20 '20 five stormwater capital projects that we are not moving forward with. And we will be proposing to carry over those monies to apply toward this type of solution. Additionally, in the 2026 approved stormwater capital budget, that includes $3,600,000 of flood mitigation projects. And to cover the difference between those and the $22,000,000 price tag would require in 2027 and potentially beyond flood mitigation project budget requests totaling $15,900,000 So that's the budget outlook for that. Moving on to the next slide, summaries, takeaways, discussions and next steps.

So what we know, again, just to kind of recap what we've talked about here, there are no easier perfect solutions. It's a very large drainage area. I think we had mentioned previously ballpark, this is about five square miles. Actually, if we include areas on the Far West End, both the Northland and the Bel Air, It's closer to six square miles. So it represents a very, very large area of the city.

So large drainage area, large types of large scale improvements are being recommended. Additionally, as indicated by the memo, we're requesting approval for DPW to move forward in the contract scope for design engineering of these initial improvement recommendations per memorandum. And so at this point, what I'd like to do is just pause a little bit and talk about the project development process and the steps that we would propose to take as we would typically take for some of these large capital stormwater improvement projects. So the steps typically would be to go from the study process into increasingly detailed and refined engineering design steps. So the next step in the process would be 30% design engineering plans.

And then the next benchmark beyond that would be to advance the plans to 60% to 90% engineering design, at which point we would be ready to apply for various permits that would be needed from outside agencies, including, in this case, the DNR and the county who has jurisdiction over Northland Avenue. It's County Trunk 00. And then ultimately then we would take it to final engineering and then ultimately construction. So this approach that we've identified would lend itself to a multiyear construction process if we chose to go that way. The logical way to approach that would be to start with the Northland or excuse me, with the Memorial Park South Pond expansion, then the Northland Avenue conveyance improvements and then the local storm sewer improvements.

So it would be a big project. The total time frame for constructing that project would be something that would be developed as part of a future engineering scope. It's obviously a lot of work would be involved there. But I just wanted to point out that it does lend itself to be a multi year approach if that's the way that budget development played out. So again, the action item here would be to proceed with the design contract.

At this point, the exact scope of that design contract has yet to be determined. That would be something that we would look to negotiate as a single source contract with Brown and Caldwell. They're the ones that are doing the drainage study. And then if we do move forward, we would anticipate coming back at a later utilities committee with a recommendation to approve a design contract. And at that point, we would have a detailed contract scope and design contract value to present to the committee.

So that is the presentation. And staff would be happy to entertain any questions at this point.

One thing I did want to add, if I may. If we receive approval at this time to proceed with the engineering on any of these projects, the earliest we would be looking at potential construction would likely be we're thinking maybe the 2027. We need to do preliminary site work, refined modeling, design, permitting. There there's several geotechnical. There are a lot of items needed to get a contract from start to finish or start to construction ready so just to be clear if we proceed with anything now there's still a point of time while we'll have to do plan before we can go out for bid for construction.

So I just want to paint the picture of timing just to get this moving. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you both. Really appreciate that. And really appreciate all the work that went into the modeling and developing a presentation that's easy to follow and easy to understand. I think we have members of the public here to speak. I'd like to let them speak first before we speak up here in case they have questions that we can answer. If you would like to speak, please approach the mic, state your name and address, and let us hear your thoughts. Is there anyone who wishes to speak? Seeing none from the audience, I'll go next to Alderperson Croat, District 14.

Okay. Thank you, Chair. First of all, just want to thank my constituents for coming that are here. Attendance is not representative of how many people are following this. I just want everybody to know that there are I got at least one or two emails from folks that couldn't make it today for a variety of reasons.

But there are a number of people following this closely, and I'm trying to keep those folks up to date on what's happening. This is obviously a long process that started a while ago, and I appreciate all the work that's gone into it. I appreciate the staff updates, the committee updates. Thank you for clarifying that the files will be available because I saw a lot of people taking pictures and just want to make sure that that information is available to everyone, whether it's seeing it here or clicking on it on the website or something. So I'll make sure that if anybody's having any trouble finding it, we can get the link sent to it.

I don't really have any specific questions. I think in the beginning of this, I knew, and I was trying to convey this message, that this was going to be a big project and a very expensive project. Dollars 22,000,000 is a very expensive project. But it is an important project that the city is looking to embark on, multi phase over probably the course of a couple of years. One question I think that I did have is, with the phases, is it possible for some of that to overlap?

Like if the Pond project is happening, can some of the work on Northland Piping happen at the same time? Or does it kind of have to have one phase finish and then one next phase starts kind of thing?

So I would say that that is a possibility, but I don't think I would want to commit to simultaneous construction until we've had an opportunity to develop an engineering scope. I think part of that has to do with this idea that when we're proposing to be in Northland Pond or excuse me, in Memorial Park South Pond expanding that, there may be advantages to not increasing the conveyance going into the pond at that point until we've Completely. Gotten some pond work done just to not increase the amount of water that would have to be managed on the site. So those would be considerations that would be made during the engineering design phase.

Okay. Thank you. And I thought that was the case. One kind of leads to the other, and you don't really want to get ahead of yourself with the conveyance until the pond is finished. But also really appreciate the budget part of this because that's obviously a member. I'm a member of the finance committee. So the numbers are important. And as a taxpaying citizen and a rate payer to the utility, we all need to understand what those potential impacts might be. If you could possibly talk a little bit about what that might look like for rate payers based on maybe past big projects or kind of a high level outlook? I know we're early in some of that, and these numbers will change.

Right. Yeah. Thank you for the question. Chair, can I go ahead and move

on? Certainly.

Thank you. So this kind of points to some future steps that are identified on page two of the memo. And I'll kind of just go ahead and list off those bullet points at this point. So moving forward within this study and then with concurrent activities, staff would look to continue the ongoing analysis within the study through early twenty twenty six, identify and present future study findings with potential additional future project recommendations within the area the study area, provide project updates to the utilities committee approximately once per quarter as we've been doing, finalize the Northland Bellaire drainage study around mid-twenty twenty six. And then really, want to highlight these next two bullet points.

We would coordinate with the finance department on a planned stormwater utility rate study to support phasing and scheduling of recommended improvements along with other DPW stormwater project priorities. So we've got a $22,000,000 estimate for these three zones that we've identified. That is expected to have, along with other spending priorities that are already within the five year CIP, we would anticipate that a rate increase would result from that. And at this point, we would want to consult with the finance department before we'd be able to provide any preliminary indications of how much we think that will be. But we do think it's a reasonable assumption at this point that a rate increase would result from adding a project with this sort of a price tag.

Okay. And I can appreciate that because I think we're early in the costing part of it. But it's good to have an understanding that this will have an impact on rate payers at some level. It's also I appreciate your comment about this won't be the only project that the city's embarking on over the next five years. There will be a number of other stormwater projects, some of them DNR kind of mandated projects and other projects the city is just taking on to be ahead of mandates and things from the DNR.

We still have water quality goals we have to meet to your point. Far as the rate analysis goes, we did it was approved in the 2026 budget for storm water utility rate analysis. So in my mind, it pairs nicely with getting some of this information that can feed into that analysis. And then we'll have a better picture of that 2027 beyond projection of what rates would look like and how much we could attribute each year to these types of projects beyond what we've already allocated.

You.

Thank you, Chair. I don't have anything further. I just would encourage the committee to keep this process moving forward and approve what's in front of you today. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, moving back to the committee. Any comments or questions up here?

I do just have one. I want to say that I appreciate that your department understands the urgency of this and how important this has been to get this solved in the community because it very much interrupted the lives in a big way of Aldercrow's constituents and at the same time held the bounds for the fact that there are other areas that are being maybe not impacted as much, but still in a way that is also very urgent and found a way to balance this as best you could and as fairly as you could across all of this. And it was done with the utmost care and competency. And it makes me proud to be part of the committee here. So thank you.

Thank you. All

right. I do see members of the public who would like to speak now. So go ahead, approach the mic, state your name and address. Oh, sorry. Now the mic is on.

Okay. That's all good. Hello. Rachel Peterson, 2701 North Viola Street. I would like to take this opportunity to speak on behalf of our neighbors and our neighborhood to say thank you and to say that we appreciate the work that you are doing. And it impacts us in a very meaningful way. And I encourage you to continue this work and know that you have, like Alder Crow said, a series of advocates. If increase is necessary, we would be happy to advocate for that. The work that you do is so important. And I work in the real estate industry, and I will say in our neighborhood alone, there are like three or four houses up for sale at any given time.

So you are not only supporting the existing constituents in our neighborhood, you are also supporting future constituents as Appleton begins to grow, as we know it rapidly is, right? It's one of the fastest growing cities in Wisconsin. And the work that you do is part of that. Like that's incredible. So know that the work that this committee does is so appreciated and not only helps people that are here, but also helps our future neighbors. So thank you so much.

Thank

you. Would anyone else like to speak at this time? All right. Well, again, my gratitude to staff and Alder Croak, you have a follow-up.

Thank you. Just one last comment, because I don't think it got high I I know you highlighted it, but I don't think it got highlighted enough. Sometimes when we look at cost, we look at return on investment. And what are we getting for this investment, right? Of the things that you highlighted was the change in the one hundred year flood level.

And I just think that we should talk about that a little bit more because it's significant. We're going from I wrote down 5.3 feet to a half a foot in that particular area, but then you talked about another area that would see also a reduction from 4.1 to point eight feet. And that's the return on the investment right there. So if we're going to look at, you know, what are we getting for $22,000,000, not only are we getting pond improvements with maybe water, DNR water quality, but also reduction from a very high level to almost a minimum level. Like, you're going to have some number there, right?

It's not going to be zero point zero. But to be 0.5 feet is a significant reduction in the one hundred year flood model. So I just felt the need to highlight that because it's such a big change.

Thank you. And Deputy Director Neuberger, go ahead.

Sure. Just one point of clarification. I would like to add that the area in the blue cloud on this particular slide with the 4.1 feet of current flooding and the 0.8 feet of flooding would rely on additional future study analysis and future projects that are not included in this recommendation.

Fair. I knew that. Yep. But it's, yeah.

And there are slight reductions with this piece. So there's an interim condition, I guess you could say before this work is done that there are still net effects elsewhere beyond that purple boundary.

So we know there will be improvements. We have not quantified those in model yet. There will be improvements beyond the purple circle there but we have not modeled an interim condition for that yet. But we know it will help.

Thank you. Well, think especially with the timing of the rate study, our ability to factor this into that study is really important. So I also feel that there is a matter of urgency here. I think the sooner we can get that engineering design, the sooner we'll be able to start the process. And especially since this is going to be a long and complicated process, we really we don't want to be playing catch up. We want to be as proactive as we can and get to it. So I am very, very grateful for Alder Krott being here. I think you've said a lot of the things that I wanted to say, and maybe you're about to say another one. So go ahead.

Thank you very much. I promise it'll be my last comment. But if we move into this phase, can I ask Steph, when might we get another update? As people are following this, continuing to follow it from the study to the engineering phase to the next phases, the next phases and ultimately construction, when might another update come through this committee?

So I would anticipate that the next update would be in perhaps one month. We'd really like to try to bring the design contract through this committee in about a month. And that'll provide the next opportunity for an update. And then in addition to that, we would anticipate quarterly update number five probably around the April to May timeframe. Thank you. Thank you.

Alright, jotting that down from my notes. Okay. Well, thank you very much to the members of the public who came out, today and all those who are watching at home and following this. And, again, really appreciate Alder Quote's work to make sure that everyone is staying informed and getting all of this information as we put it out. As was mentioned, all the slides in the presentation are going to be attached to the agenda when the meeting video is published.

So if you have any questions, you can follow-up with your alder person or you can reach out directly to the city. So let's I guess we are ready to vote on this item. I know it's a very big dollar amount, but, I think that this is a matter of urgency, a matter of responsibility, and this is very important for our residents. So all in favor say aye. Aye.

Any opposed or abstaining? Saying none, this is recommended four zero for approval. This will go to common counsel next week on Wednesday. Since it is recommended four-zero for approval, it's unlikely that there would be much, discussion or debate over it at council. But, the public will still have an opportunity to speak at that Wednesday council meeting.

So especially if there were people who couldn't be here tonight and, want, counsel to hear their feedback, that will be another opportunity to speak before the final vote is taken. Alright. So though that was the end of our action items, we will move down to our information items. We have 26Dash0117, water supply service plan for Appleton Water Works. I've got all your mics over there

turned So on we'll take it. Thank you. So this is an informational item, but I just wanted to bring it It's a requirement by DNR that we submitted and completed a water supply service plan. And I think the genesis of it, to be fair, is rooted in not the Great Lakes water compact and diverting water from the Great Lakes, but also a concern that they have regarding well water systems and the reality behind demands on those systems as aquifers are being depleted. So it's a way for some communities that may not have plans in place to not only identify their sources, are they preparing for growth, are they addressing any environmental concerns that may transpire, and are they addressing the infrastructure needs.

So this plan, albeit we rely on a master distribution plan, it's a more comprehensive deep dive into the entire distribution system that really addresses all these points. And so I want to make note of that. This is really a subset of a larger plan that we work with Public Works or Public Works takes the lead on that addresses short, mid and long term needs of the community based on growth factors and where we may have opportunity within that to potentially serve as a greater wholesaler. So in summary, the water service plan, the one on this informational agenda item is rooted in a lot of that master, the last master distribution plan update. Went through and did some updates on it.

We still have very good reliable capacity. A downside of a lack of some of the large industries that went away a few years ago with Kerwin, Riverside, Neenah Paper, they were significant consumers of water. Well, we've made that difference up with wholesale. And that wholesale as water efficiency grows, our demand has kept pace with the plant's capacity. So we're good. It doesn't mean we're not going to continue to evaluate it. There's a lot of growth in the North Side Of Appleton that's taking place right now. That's going to put future demands on. We're going have to put in additional infrastructure. And so be prepared for a future water distribution master plan update that's coming in the next year or so.

So I just want to make note of that. There is a placeholder for public comment. I will leave it up to committee to decide if they think this is worthy of an action item. So I would encourage, and this is not something I normally encourage, but take a look at it if there's questions or you think it rises to that. But in my professional opinion, there's nothing in here that I was concerned about. And again, there's some future work to be had as part of a greater engineering deliverable. Deliverable.

Thank you.

All right. Any comments or questions? All right. Our next information item, 20Six-one18, water main break reports for October and November 2025. Anyone have any comments or questions about those?

Okay. Just a moment here. I'm waiting for my computer. So it looks like our, year to date number was higher than the previous year. But I was wondering, Director Youngworth, if you could speak to how is this unusual weather that we're experiencing impacting water main breaks?

Great question. And I did want to reiterate with '24 was a very much an outlier year for the low number of breaks that we had. I wanna say we usually are around 60 to 70 on average, so we had a really good year in '24. And it ebbs and flows with weather and aging and material and the soil surrounding the pipes. With the recent cold weather, we've had our crews have been out in the bitter cold in water.

So it it's they they work very hard, and I give them a lot of credit for the work that they do. We haven't had that many. We did have just just one last week, knock on wood what usually when you get that frost going into the ground is when you start seeing some fluctuation in the soil surrounding that pipe and the breaking where we where we cross our fingers is when that frost starts coming back out of the ground and you start to see that fluctuation yet occurring again. That's where you start to see the breaks. It seems that things almost stabilize when it's this cold.

They're solidified, and they'll start not to say that they still won't occur, but it's less now than there is when that that frost is going in and then again coming back out. So right now, holding relatively steady. And, again, we cross our fingers and and hope for the best. Thank you. Are always out there when they're needed.

We're grateful to them. All right. Any comments or questions up here? All right. That was the end of the information items. I will entertain a motion on item number eight. Motion to adjourn.

GREGORY Second.

GREGORY We have a motion and a second to adjourn. All in favor, aye. GREGORY We are adjourned. Thank you all very much.