Scottsdale Council Directed to Pursue Low-Cost Water Projects, Defers $164M Advanced Purification Facility Over Cost and Regulatory Uncertainty

The City council meeting, Arizona. Proper nouns. Good afternoon. I would like to call the, let's see, what day is it? October 20th, 2026 city council regular meeting and work study session to order. City clerk Ben Lane, may we please have a roll call? Thank you, Mayor. Mayor Lisa Borowski. Present.

Vice Mayor Mary Ann McAllen, Council members Jan Duboscis, Barry Graham, Adam Kwasman, Kathy Littlefield, Here, and Solange Whitehead, Here, City Manager Greg Caton, Here, City Attorney Louie Santaya, Present, City Treasurer Sonia Andrews, Here, Acting City Otter Lake Clough, Here, and the Clerk is present. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you very much.

This evening we have Scottsdale Police Officers directors Ortiz, Showlock, and Savage, as well as Scottsdale firefighters Nadris Robinson and Logan Darling. If anyone requires their assistance, please let a member of our staff know. For the Pledge of Allegiance, I would like to call upon Vice Mayor Marianne McKellen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation, under God, be indisible, with the liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. And for the invocation, I'm delighted to have Pastor Ryan Goble here from Scottsdale Bible. And Ryan, thank you for being here. We really appreciate it. And I will let you take it away. As always, thank you for having me. Thank you. Would you pray with me? Almighty God, we come before you in this chamber this evening. Is this on?

We come before you in this chamber this evening grateful for the ability to exercise freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and freedom, Lord God, to debate and to care for the city in which we live. Lord, we love Scottsdale. You love Scottsdale. When we fight for the good of this place and for our neighbors, Lord, there is so much to be said about unity and kindness and gentleness and truth, Lord God. Would you put truth on our lips, gentleness in our hearts, and unity on our minds.

We ask these things in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much, Pastor Goebel. Thanks for being here. All right. Lots to report today. So, as many of you may know, it is our wonderful Councilwoman Littlefield's last term. She has termed out. And today is a very special day because it is her birthday, which means it's the last birthday she's going to spend on this dais. Right? We have some special treats for you.

There's some flowers and you have to share these, the crumble cookies. Okay, I wish you. Happy birthday. And I'm going to call upon our very own theater major, Councilman Quasman, to lead us in the song to celebrate. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you! All right, I can't forget the card. There you go. Happy birthday. We really appreciate you and all your years of service. Oh, my goodness. Look at all this. Yeah, so, wonderful.

All right, so moving right along, I mentioned a couple of our fine Scottsdale police officers here that are present with us.

I had the real thrill of attending the Scottsdale Police Foundation Gala over the weekend and many of our officers were there I know Councilwoman Whitehead and Councilwoman McAllen were both there Lots of officers our canine officers I think that what they called So that was a wonderful event put on by the board of the Scottsdale Police Foundation So thank you for having us at the foundation and keep up the good work Alright, moving on.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and I want to take a moment to recognize the women and families in our community who have been touched by this terrible disease. We stand with those undergoing treatment, celebrate our survivors, and honor those we have lost. Please take care of yourself and talk with your health care provider, of course, to obtain the appropriate screenings. And we will be presenting a proclamation to breast cancer awareness folks. So not today, but this month.

Alright, and before we move on to our regularly scheduled meeting, I'd like to take a moment to recognize the recent graduates. I see one right there. Of the Scottsdale Water Citizens Academy. And they are joining us here at City Hall. Water is of course one of the most important issues facing Scottsdale and our entire state, and understanding how we manage and protect this critical resource is important to the future of our community.

Scottsdale Water Citizens Academy, if you haven't taken that, I would encourage you to look at doing so, gives residents an opportunity to learn more about our community's water system and the work that goes into providing safe, reliable water in Scottsdale to residents and businesses. To our graduates, thank you so much for participating and becoming more informed. And the engagement you show is very impressive.

And thank you to our water staff for putting this wonderful program on and teaching lots of people what really goes on with water in Scottsdale. So with that, I'd like to invite the graduates, who's here from the Citizens Water Academy, why don't you come up and we will all take a photo together, if we're so inclined here on the dais. Thanks. Arizona. Precious. a home plan. Greetings. Thank you. All right, that concludes the mayor's report. Lots of exciting things going on in the city of late.

Okay, in terms of next we will have a presentation from the Scottsdale Artists School, and for that I will turn it over to Kevin Burke. I think you're joining us for this. Economic Development and Tourism Senior Director and Trudy Hayes, Scottsdale Artists School Executive Director. Welcome, and I appreciate it. Thank you mayor. We may have had a bit of miscommunication. I don't see Ms. Hayes in the audience yet. So, I'm sorry. She is here of course. Thank you. Please come up.

We were staring at the back of people's heads trying to find you. Thank you. Mayor and members of the council, it's my pleasure to introduce Trudy Hayes, executive director of the Scottsdale Artists School for presentation tonight. Thank you. You should have adjust the first arrow buttons. Okay, well, good.

Madam Mayor before you start can we just see if the sound is really Is it bad Testing testing Good Sounds good Sounds good Yeah Well good afternoon Mayor Borowski members of city council and esteemed guests I Trudy Hayes the executive director of Scottsdale Artist School And I want to thank you for the opportunity to share who we are how we serve the community and how your support makes this work possible Okay. I'm pressing. There we go. Okay.

We're a non-profit fine arts school at the corner of Second Street and Marshall Way in Old Town Scottsdale. We're in our 43rd year. We lease our beautiful building from the city of Scottsdale, built in 1928 as Scottsdale Grammar School No. 2 and later known as Loloma Elementary School. It's one of the few Spanish colonial revival buildings left and we're on the city's historic registry.

We moved into this building 33 years ago, so thank you for renewing our lease and helping this historic school continue to serve the community. As a fine arts school, we offer workshops and classes in drawing, painting, and sculpture, which include a variety of mediums, charcoal, conti, pastel, oils, acrylics, watercolor, gouache, and water and oil-based clay. Subject matter includes portrait, figure, landscape, still life, animals, and abstract.

Our adult workshops are mostly four or five day intensives taught by nationally and internationally acclaimed artists. Our studio programs offer classes taught by professional Arizona artists, and we also offer selection of online classes. Altogether, we offer over 225 adult workshops and classes annually. There isn't any place like us in the country that does what we do to the extent that we do it.

I've had instructors that have traveled all over the world and said there's no place quite like us in the world. Our youth and teen programs serve ages 6 to 18 with approximately 700 to 800 young adults attending each year. During the school year, the youth and teen classes are in the evenings and on Saturdays, and in the summer the kiddos take over the majority of the school and we do week-long summer camps. We offer scholarships for both youth and adult programs.

They are need and or merit based. We want anyone with a passion for art to have an opportunity to attend, regardless of any financial barriers. In addition, we offer weekly art history lectures by art historian Ann Conner. Participants can attend in person or view online. We also offer open studio, two-year-old art history lectures. Two to three times a week. You don't need to be enrolled in a class. We set up a model, easels, taborets, and lighting.

Artists pay a small fee and they can bring their supplies and they can draw, paint, or sculpt the model. It's also a chance for artists to connect and exchange ideas and be a part of Scottsdale Artists School's creative community. Approximately 50% of our workshop students come from out of state and some come from out of country. These students travel specifically to attend Scottsdale Artists School.

Students come as far away as France, England, Kuwait, Australia, Belgium, China, and Japan, and more. Their stays support hotels, restaurants, and shopping, and we encourage them to explore local galleries and museums. We partner with the Courtyard by Marriott in Old Town Scottsdale and spend more than $70,000 annually on instructor lodging alone. Students' days add further business. Our combined contribution to hotel revenue likely exceeds well over $120,000 according to our estimate.

We partner with local restaurant Arcadia Farms to offer concierge lunches.

Through this partnership students and instructors order and pay for their lunch directly from the school with delivery coordinated for the noon break This partnership generates more than in revenue for the restaurant each year We also encourage visits to Western Spirit Scottsdale Museum of the West the Galleries on Main Street Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art and the Scottsdale Center for Performing Arts These relationships help our students experience Scottsdale and support neighboring businesses and organizations In addition to what we do at the school, an important part of our mission is what we do for the community.

Our programs bring art into public spaces and partner organizations, reaching people who may not otherwise attend a class at the school. We provide free programming at the different branches of the Scottsdale Public Libraries for both youth and adults. We also partner with Scottsdale Arts, Western Spirits, Scottsdale's Museum of the West, the Scottsdale Unified School District, the Arizona State Fair, and the branches of the local Boys and Girls Club.

We do over a hundred outreach programs every year. We work with Ability360 to offer programs for youth and adults with visible and invisible disabilities. We have also provided programming with Hospice of the Valley's Dementia Care Campus, Caste Homeless Shelter, Banner Behavioral Health, the Muscular District Association, and many more.

These partnerships help us offer classes designed for individuals of all abilities and bring meaningful creative experiences to people facing barriers to participation. We also partner with the city of Scottsdale. So many of you have seen Sonora the horse traveling to the different Scottsdale events celebrating the city's 75th anniversary. That project came through Scottsdale Art School in partnership with the city.

Alongside Sonora, we offer free make-and-take art activities at community celebrations, such as the Pony Express, the Prada del Sol, Founders Day, Scotts Dazzle, and more. We also participate in Scottsdale Arts Family Festival with free arts programming. These experiences give residents and visitors a chance to create together and to participate in the city's cultural life.

We also work with Scottsdale sister cities, including our sister cities Alamos, Mexico, Washington, Kenya, Kingston, Canada, Kansas, Australia, Haiku, China, and Marrakech, Morocco. An example, the artists of Alamos used to have an exhibition in sale at the Mexican consulate in Phoenix. When they lost their venue, we began hosting their exhibition in sale at the school with 100% of any funds raised going directly to the artist.

We also hosted two free community workshops, including clay brought up from the Alamos River and a drawing project taught by both by artists from Alamos. In Kenya, Kennedy Kibbutt, who is the head of the Youth Arts Council in Washington, Gishu County, visited Scottsdale right before the pandemic. He was so inspired by Scottsdale Artist School that he established Eldorette Artist School, which is Eldorette's name of the city, and he did it in honor of Scottsdale Artist School.

He established it and he started with one room. We tried to send over supplies, but we were unable due to the shutdown because of the pandemic. He did come back and he visited our school, gave a lecture, took a workshop, and participated in an open studio. We were able to send him home with instructional DVDs, art books, all kinds of art supplies, and we were also able to raise money to buy his school a screen and a projector. And now they have two rooms.

Our local programs director and one of our instructors also traveled to Eldoret to teach workshops. So we can truly say our reach is global. So thank you Mayor Borowski, the members of the city council for supporting Scottsdale Artists School and renewing our lease. Your partnership allows this historic building to remain a place of learning and allows us to continue serving artists, families, and our broader community We believe that working together raises us all up.

So thank you for allowing us to continue to teach, create, and inspire. Thank you, Trudy. Excellent job and thank you for doing such great work over there. It's a wonderful asset for the community. And Councilwoman DeBuscus would like to say something about... Thank you.

Trudy, I just wanted to say we had such a wonderful time when we conducted our visit at the Artists' School, The Art of School and I just thought that your work is so wide It was my request to have you come here tonight to share with the city how much you're affecting our day-to-day life. I don't think a lot of residents quite really realize it. And this really showed it. You did a wonderful job showcasing your impact on the community. So thank you very much for coming tonight.

We appreciate you. Vice Mayor McKellen. Thank you, Mayor. I was also going to say thank you, Trudy. As a member of Sister Cities, I attended some of the events that went around your artists in residence from Kenya, and it truly is global reaching and life changing. So thank you for all you do. Thank you. All right, moving on. We have, I have an announcement.

The Arizona Superior Court and Supreme Court appoint, fill appointments on our Judicial Appointments Advisory Board, and otherwise known as JAAB, J-A-A-B. And by way of announcing the selections, the Arizona Supreme Court's appointment is Judge Ira Schwartz. I'm not sure if these individuals are present, but if so, please indicate you are. to serve on a three-year term beginning October 1, 2026 and ending September 30, 2029, pursuant to administrative order number 2026-098.

And secondly, the Arizona Supreme Court's appointment is Judge Monica Edelstein, And she is going to be or is a member of JAB is effective October 126 serving a three year term to conclude in September 30th, 2029. And so we welcome these judges to JAB and look forward to working with them.

Tonight, the council may make a motion to recess into an executive session if the need arises to obtain legal advice on any applicable item on the agenda, and if so authorized by the council, the executive session will be held immediately and would not be open to the public. However, the regular open meeting would resume immediately following that. All right, meeting minutes and approvals. I will entertain a motion to approve meeting minutes of special meeting September 22nd, 2026.

And that's all we got, just one. So that was easy. So move. Second. Mayor, I apologize. There were two sets of minutes. There was also regular meeting and work study session minutes. Thank you. All right. of September 22nd. Regular meeting and work study session minutes of September 22nd, 2026. Thanks. Thank you, Councilwoman Littlefield. Go ahead and indicate your vote. All right. Next, we move on to the consent agenda. We have items number one through 20.

Do members of the council have any questions on any of the consent agenda items or wish to pull any of those? I do myself. I think I want to have a little discussion about item number eight. So and that's regarding the GLO abandonment. Councilman Graham. Mayor, I don't want to pull an item, but for item number I just had it. Five. I would like the applicant to just maybe tell us, spend 30 seconds and tell us about it, but I like to keep it on consent. Which item? Number five, you said?

Number five, it's the select education use permit. Okay. Why don't we reserve that? Well, should we have it before the vote? Yeah, yeah, we could. Okay, so let's let's go ahead and have that individual come up, please. There are no public speakers on the consent agenda items for the record. Hello, my name is Krista Cross and it is my privilege to hopefully get approval and let you know that opening soon, We have a micro school beginning called Select Education.

It's in North Scottsdale, 92nd, and East Happy Valley. And we truly believe that the best type of education at this time is giving each child what they need in education and for the families as well Because everyone's lives are different, going different directions, and we've had great success. I have been a teacher in Arizona for over 30 years, and I am the proud recipient of the Milton Family National Educator Award.

And we have done great things with many children and we're hoping to continue doing that at our micro school. Again pending approval. So we are hopefully opening soon and we just want to let people know that we're there. And we're really trying to keep our numbers under 40 so we can give everyone exactly what they need in the classroom. And give those families support in North Scottsdale where we're a little limited in education for six year olds through sixth grade.

So just wanted to introduce ourselves again and say thank you very much for your support over this last year almost that we've been planning this. Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate it. Mayor thank you. I just wanted to thank the applicant for speaking to us and I wish them the best in their new campus. Absolutely. Thank you so much. Okay, and then on item number eight, well, we'll wait for that. Let's go ahead and I'll entertain a motion. We don't have any speakers to approve.

I think it's one through 20. Was it with the exception of item number eight? Second. All right, please indicate your vote. Thank you. Okay, item number eight, and I don't show, oh, Jeff Barnes, principal planner, I see right there. The reason I've asked to have this pulled isn't necessarily to impact this particular item number eight, which is a GLO abandonment requiring a payment from the applicant in the amount of $49,744.

And looking into this, I've learned, so GLO stands for Government Land Office Patent Easement. This is property that the city of Scottsdale has historically had an easement on or for, but doesn't own. So and when people move to abandon those when they buy a lot that has the perimeter and I understand the city actually maintains and Jeff you'll clear this up.

If any of this is incorrect, hopefully, and the city has an obligation to maintain the GLO easements until abandoned and that the concern I have on this is we are the only city in Maricopa County or any unincorporated area in the city. State that actually charges our residents and business owners for the abandonment of a GLO easement. And looking back at some historical data, it seems like there's been some ebbs and flows as to how the city calculates that.

And we don't have to talk about this right now, but I would look to have this put on a future agenda for discussion, just for consideration. If we, you know, if this is something we really want to keep doing or if there's an opportunity to follow suit with those cities and every other area in Maricopa County that abandons them in exchange for not having to pay to take care of them anymore.

So can you explain just a little bit about this particular one and just generally the GLO easement abandonment? Certainly, Mayor Borowski, would you like me to run through a presentation about this proposal or did you have those general questions? Not necessarily, just general 40,000-foot level GLO, unless you think it's critical. I don't think it is for the discussion. Should I say yes, Luis? I guess I'll say yes. Yes, Mayor, you should because it's not general. Okay, yes. Well, I mean, yes.

Yes, apply the general rules to this particular issue, item number eight. Yes, please. Thank you for the clarification. So good evening, Mayor Borowski, Vice Mayor, and members of the city council. I am Jeff Barnes of the city's planning department.

I will give you the brief version of presentation on the abandonment case here, AB0003, 2026, Which just for context of this application is a proposal to abandon GLO easements within the development project site with the ultimate goal of there being a new 14 lot single family residential subdivision at this 17 and a half acre development site I'll skip ahead on some of this to some visuals. We can come back to those key points if necessary.

So this is located northwest corner of Dixaletta and Scottsdale Road. The black outline sort of bolded line there represents that overall development site, the 17 and a half acres, which is made up of currently seven square-ish parcels that fall within that. Those, some of those parcels have these GLO easements on them from their origination and maybe addressing a little bit of sort of that backstory when larger parcels were established in this area and others throughout the city and beyond.

They were done through federal patent action, which basically created large rectangular parcels and reserved an easement around the perimeters of those to ensure roadway and utility access in the future, not knowing what would happen with those parcels when they were created.

As the city has developed and established transportation master plans and local area infrastructure plans and a much more defined path for where street alignments go, where utility corridors are needed, They don't always align with the original rectangular configuration of those GLO easements. And so those are the ones that we typically see in applications like this that are requested for abandonment. And so that is, the city holds right-of-way interest in various forms.

There are other easement types beyond just these GLOs, and so the process laid out for abandonment of those in the city code is this process for GLOs and the like. In this particular instance, and maybe I will skip ahead to the development plan for the subdivision that's proposed as associated to this application. Those seven individual lots would be ultimately combined together and subdivided into a 14 lot subdivision with an internal street.

This is rotated to the side where north is to the right of your screen. But an internal street to provide access and utility corridors out to the adjacent existing remaining right of ways. So in the context of this, the GLO alignment, that sort of sideways T that was on the previous plans, is no longer needed with the layout that would be achieved with this.

As you touched on, Mayor, initially and has been part of our process in reviewing these GLO abandonment applications and right-of-way abandonment applications and roadway easement abandonment applications and the like, the city does have a valuation policy. It's been updated over time. The latest iteration as it applies to this scenario establishes a policy value of $1 per square foot valuation to the area to be abandoned, and that's how the number in this application was arrived at.

There are some other scenarios in that policy document that may drive different outcomes based on what's being proposed and the impacts of it. I'm not sure if that covers all of the questions that you had. I do have a question. Is this a combination between right-of-way easements and GLO easements abandonment?

Mayor in this particular application these are all GLO easements within the site The right of way around the perimeter of the site is either existing or the conditions of the abandonment resolution require the applicant to dedicate the additional pieces that we identified per the transportation master plan Okay, but just to be clear, GLO is not the same as right of way legally. Easement. I may look to our city attorney from a legal standpoint.

There are a variety of versions of rights of way from that. Mayor and members of the city council, the purpose of G.L. easements is to provide access to land and properties, right? So it is a form of transportation easement in a way. And they were established, I think right after World War I, to help veterans gain access to their land. And in terms of the question you asked earlier, Mayor, about why we charge, it's probably because of our city charter.

As you know, the Arizona Constitution has a gift clause prohibition, but we have a stronger prohibition in our city charter about giving things away. So we probably at some point and I'd have to do the research, determine that the charter requires us to charge us. Probably why we do it, unlike other cities who don't have similar charter provisions. Okay, I'd be in favor of looking at that. So that's all I have, Jeff. Thanks. I really appreciate it.

All right, I'll make a motion to approve item number eight, and that is... Do we have the language up here? Nope, there we go. Adopt resolution number 13772, authorizing the GLO abandonment AB-0003-2026. I'll second that motion. Thanks. All right. All those in favor, please indicate your vote. Thank you. All right. Public comment announcement. This is the time reserved for public comments.

And I know we have and this is for property owners, business owners, Scottsdale citizens to comment on non agendized items. And you get to go early tonight. This is good. No official council action can be taken on these items and speakers are limited to three minutes apiece. We have three speakers. First we have Raul Zubia followed by Frederick... Oh, work study. I guess these were non-agendas. All right. Thank you. Thank you guys for pointing that out. Okay, that's a year later.

Sorry, you're going to have to wait. Okay, so no public comment. That's a first, I think. Is that a first? Non-agenda is public comment on one speaker? Does anyone want to talk? I'm just kidding. Wow. Okay. I now close that public comment. So, moving on to, we have a petition, receipt of citizens petition number 29. The work study session.

Next we have work study sessions and this is provides a less formal setting for the mayor and council to discuss specific topics at length with each other and the city staff. Work study sessions provide an opportunity for staff to receive direction from council and for the public to observe these discussions and both of which are the I move to put on the agenda these work study sessions tonight, and with the support of my colleagues, appreciate that.

We are hearing from both groups, both presentations tonight. So first we have present and future discussion on Scottsdale water. We have Tira Ryden-Diaz, Interim Senior Director of Water Resources, and Jill Brummond, Water Policy Manager, will present. an overview of Scottsdale water, discuss possible expansion of water conservation incentives, and explore potential partnerships for rebate funding through SRP and Salt River Central Arizona project. So please proceed.

Good evening, honorable mayor and members of council. I'm Tara Reiden-Diaz, the interim senior director of water resources. I'm here tonight with Jill Brumend, our water policy The Scope of the Water Resources is the Scope of the Water Resources. The tip of the presentation follows the description in tonight's work study agenda that you just read. We'll hit all of those points this evening in the next 40 slides.

So maybe you want to stretch for a minute because it's going to be a lot and a lot of information. So anyway, on one with the show. Next slide. So our presentation overview, I'm going to start with the source and supply update. That's kind of what everyone's been talking about, so we're going to start out that first. Then I'm going to continue to a strategic plan update. Jill Bruin's going to come up and give you the conservation program.

It is kind of making our program a little bit long by combining the two, but we're going to get it all done in one night. So I'll come back up for the The Harquihela and Bartlett Dam expansion update. And then we have Aaron McCluskey who will come up with our water source and supply solutions.

So on the Corolla engineers, when they present the water source and supply solutions, we worked all summer collaboratively on a whole bunch of items for you to review to provide Scottsdale Water with the resiliency and operational flexibility we need. And then I will close the night out with our last steps, which isn't on the slides. Next slide. So this is our Scottsdale five-spoke approach. So demand management, that's our conservation piece. Our cooperative investment in the Harquihela.

Emerging water solutions that Corolla will present tonight. Our participation in the Bartlett Dam expansion and advanced water purification, which is pure water. All these spokes work together to reduce our Colorado River dependence, secure our today, and sustain our tomorrow. As we move through the information tonight, we will keep the perspective on the range of options with the projected yields, costs, and timelines. Next slide. So starting with the source and supply update. Next slide.

Scottsdale's water portfolio's current designation with assured water supply with the state is 141,341.74 acre feet. We like to keep those significant figures moving forward through the Arizona Department of Water Resources. Our modified designation is currently with the department for the upcoming next year tenure term, and we're waiting like everyone else to kind of get that final designation. So keep that 141,341 in your brain for our next slide, which is our 2025 water deliveries.

So our total potable water delivered, so your drinking water, was 82,600 acre feet in 2025, and our total water delivered, including reclaimed, was 90,800 acre feet. Sometimes those numbers get confused because we distribute some water that we reuse, so our actual water need is that 82,600 acre feet.

The pie chart kind of shows our different water sources, our CAP, our SRP water, which are both surface water, our reclaimed, which is the water we've pulled back, we've treated, and we've distributed it back out, mostly to golf courses, and our groundwater pumping that we do operationally and also as part of our Superfund sites.

So if you subtract that 141,000 number that you have in your head from the previous slide and the 82,000 number here, we have about 58,000 acre feet of water kind of that's in reserve that we don't have to use every year. Next slide. So this slide shows our, this is actually different than your slides you saw earlier this week when they were posted online. We corrected it today. This shows your 2021 to 2025 water deliveries by supply type.

Our deliveries have been fairly consistent in this time period, with the mix changing a little bit based on accounting for operational needs. That kind of changed a little bit year to year. A couple of things to note, our population from 21 to 2025 increased slightly, but our water deliveries decreased slightly over things, but they're pretty consistent for that period of time, regardless of the population.

Also notice that the blue cap water deliveries decline a bit during this period of time so that that piece on the bottom that bright blue And that the difference in what we either saved at our water campus and we stored or that we used to participate in regional conservation space So that conservation space is contributing to leaving extra water in the dams just to bolster up our whole Colorado River system. Next slide. So a little background on the Colorado River and our CAP rights.

You've had plenty of, a bunch of memos on this, this has been in the press, but I thought it was good to just come back and kind of mention it for everybody's Scustell has rights to 81,271 acre feet. Our water rights are governed by a stacked priority system. Shortage and drought reductions occur first to those with junior priority, Lake Mead water elevation. Arizona is most junior among states and CAP is junior within Arizona. Next slide. So our 2027 potential water cuts.

If the lower basin proposal is signed, we have calculated based on our municipal and industrial supplies, our M&I, and our Indian priority water we own, that will face a 17% cut to our cap supplies. With our 81,271 acre feet allocation, that's 17% reductions in the blue, our potential cap supply is that 67,455 on the left. Our cap deliveries in 2025 were 63,941 acre feet, so the 17% cut for this next year does not impact our current operational distribution. Next slide. Strategic plan update.

So one of our mottos in our strategic plan is, I just found it to write it down earlier, is stewardship, innovation, and people. So before I start the strategic update, I want to give a shout out to our water resources team and our water academy. It was nice. Everyone showed up. And the staffing update is requested in the work study agenda description. So yesterday we had five employees start their Scottsdale water careers in various positions in our water department.

Our current vacancy rate is under 5% right now. So we're doing really great and that's great compared to other cities. We did a lot of work last year in adjusting positions and we're a really great place to work in Scottsdale Water. So we are recruiting and retaining. So Scottsdale is very proud to grow and develop our team members and we have employees dedicate their entire careers to Scottsdale Water. We have three employees in the audience tonight. We have a couple of plants here.

We have Michael, Taylor, and Rob. Both Michael and Taylor started as apprentices and now they're supervisors at their plants, and Rob is their manager. He's been here for more than 10 years. Thank you for your service at Festive Water. All right. All right. Next slide. Strategic initiatives. There are five strategic initiatives that were approved in August of 2024. The first one was to implement advanced purified water, direct potable reuse on a system-wide basis in 2027.

When plans get approved, sometimes there's changes as we go. So we've had some ADEQ rule changes that we're working through that we've done a study on. But part of this strategic objective was to leverage our system and our knowledge. And we've done that. We just completed a three-day training, training all kinds of advanced water treatment operators in the state. They came out, trained on a facility. We're the only facility in the state that they can get their hours on.

So we're going to be cooperative moving forward that those hours then they can get trained. See, I have my curl of people shaking their heads to train the operators. So we involved with that. We hosted the study session and we had a 73% pass rate for all the operations. That was the first time they were taking a written exam. No one even knew what was on it. So that was super great.

And we have 11 of those operators here that passed So they sort of gold right now So again the timeline for AWT in 2024 did not anticipate the drawn ADEQ rule change or the additional capital and operating costs when it was originally projected So, and Corolla, when they come up here, we have a couple of really great options for AWP that they will present that will all show the time, cost, and yield.

The second objective was to increase system-wide well recovery capabilities by 5 million gallons per day by 2029. We're well in our way. We've done a bunch of well projects. We're finishing them up, and so we're going to beat that number. Objective number three was to fully implement system-wide automatic meter infrastructure AMI technology by 2030. We're 75% of the way complete. So we'll beat that number as well.

And Jill will go more into explaining what that is and what that does and how that helps us. Next slide. Number four was to pursue additional future water resources and wastewater volume that can be reclaimed and reused. So Corolla will also talk about this. I'll cover the Bartlett Dam update, but they will talk about some additional ways that we can pursue and collect some of the water that we would like to own and use in their source and supply options coming up.

And it's the same with number five, that will also be covered in the Corolla portion, and that's one I'm really excited about. So, all right, next slide. With that, I welcome Jill Brumand, who's our resident ASU Fulbright scholar. We'd like to brag about her to present the water conservation program update. Jill Brumand, Thank you. Welcome Jill. Good evening, honorable mayor, vice mayor, and members of the city council. As mentioned, my name is Jill Brumand.

I'm Scottsdale's water policy manager. I'm excited to give Scottsdale's water conservation program update. Next slide, please. Okay. Before I dive into our update, I wanted to give you some context. So here we have our demand classification profile. So on the left On the right hand side, this might look somewhat familiar. This is actually on page 9 of our drought plan. We've adjusted the coloring and oriented them the same so you can compare them across time a little more easily.

But this is the showcase of potable and non-potable supplies for how our customers use that water. So according to our deliveries, where that water goes across our customer portfolio. If you notice on the right hand side, there are a few options now, categories that have hatching. So on our multifamily domestic, the yellow category, and our commercial domestic, we have, as of 2022, reported to the Arizona Department of Water Resources, separating out our irrigation only accounts.

So for those metrics, if you want to compare apples to apples, You can sum those two categories. So for example, in 2019, 16% of our water went to multifamily residential homes. In 2025, last calendar year, that's now 16.2%. But it's separated across the irrigation with the hatching and then the domestic. We'll get a little more into why that maybe there's more to that story.

But just so you have some reference, the turf irrigation category, that kind of teal-ish, greenish, seafoam color, incorporates non-potable turf irrigation or grass irrigation. Other grass irrigation is incorporated into the commercial, multifamily, and single-family categories. So the reason why the single-family category isn't hatched is because, for the most part, our single-family residential irrigation is not separately metered.

So diving right in, our WaterSmart portal, Scottsdale provides free access to WaterSmart for all Scottsdale residents and businesses. This portal provides access to water use for all of our customers. And a callback to strategic initiative number three, we have 75% of our customers, as mentioned, have access to automated metering infrastructure, and this is that in action.

So because we have that technology we able to provide to our residents real information about their water use So this portal is we seen increases over the last year of 34 For reference, 21% of our customer base accesses this portal. The portal provides water conservation tips, information on finding leaks, and provides leak alerts to help proactively inform Scottsdale residents of a leak before it hits their bill.

Our team also follows up with residents who reach out via the portal to get support on any water questions they may have. So on the slide here we have the, if you can see that green line, that's the increasing registrations starting from quarter one of fiscal year 21. And those blue bars are customer requests that have come through the portal.

So if you're wondering about those that don't yet have automated metering infrastructure, we do have an offering for them that you will hear about shortly.

For our leak detection component of the WaterSmart portal, you can see on the right-hand side of the slide, a little bit of a tongue twister, the estimated leak loss prevented through this portal, the corresponding number of leak alerts that went out, and for those Those who have access to leak alerts, that is provided in text message format, email format or an automated kind of call that comes through for those who subscribe.

Something else that's exciting in the works, as mentioned, outdoor water use is one of the driving factors of water use in Scottsdale, and any water that's used outside is not a resource the city can recapture. So to that point, it's incredibly challenging to estimate savings potential on a given property when we don't necessarily have insight into the plants that they're using.

So an exciting new initiative and a forethought that came also from the city council, we are working on a partnership opportunity with SRP. So you can see on the screen here the water fluence portal, kind of a snapshot of what that looks like. It's a tool to help managers of large landscapes, whether commercial landscapes, so this is specifically those two hatched categories, our multifamily and our commercial, understand and manage their landscapes according to a water budget.

So it might be a little bit difficult to see, but there is a green band on that portal view. That's essentially the water budget. So based on the landscape on this particular property, that would be what water that landscape needs to thrive. Now, on top of that, you can see that blue line that's their actual water use. So this tool and the goal of this partnership is to more closely align those two.

So we have the water budget and then we have the corresponding water use that hopefully maps more closely to that. In addition, we have two other partnership efforts that are in the works. So we are a member of the Arizona Municipal Water Users Association, which is a group of 10 valley cities. And currently we're working on a regional messaging campaign to reduce outdoor water demand next year.

So these types of messaging campaigns are extremely important because, as many of you know, we may live and work and kind of move around the Phoenix metro area. So this is a great way to regionally collaborate with partners around the Phoenix metro area.

Additionally, and you did receive a memo on September 17th to this effect, we are in conversations with Phoenix and with Tucson regarding the Secure Water Arizona program, or SWAP for short, that is essentially a voluntary framework that is looking at regional support that reacts to the changing conditions on the Colorado River, and ensuring that we are staying kind of aware and engaged with partners on new water opportunities, and to ensure that we are able to collaboratively partner with entities around the state, So that we can all help each other out in kind of these changing times.

For our single family residents, we have a few really great programs that I'm going to highlight here regarding outdoor water use. So while we don't necessarily separately meter that usage, we do know, according to residential end use studies and other regional work, that up to 70% of that water is used outside. So when we're looking at our conservation programs, we want to ensure that we're addressing areas where there are savings opportunities.

So the Outdoor Water Efficiency Check Program is a really exciting opportunity for residents to get personalized access to two of our specialized conservation staff. So they will go out on site and they will provide direct information. information on how to set an irrigation controller, how to read their water meter, information about plants on site, and we get about 23,000 gallons of savings on average for program participants.

You can see on the slide the last three fiscal years of checks conducted and the corresponding gallons that we've saved. A newer pilot program that we've been working through with the conservation team is the on-site continuous flow check. So I mentioned that the WaterSmart Portal has capabilities to provide updates and alerts to our residents, but sometimes they're unable to find where that leak is coming from.

So this provides a service that helps support residents that are unable to find those leaks on their property, and it complements and extends service beyond the WaterSmart portal capabilities. And this was piloted starting in fiscal year 25. So as you can see, those numbers have changed as we've been working through that pilot. So rebates are one of our most popular conservation offerings.

Shown on the screen are four of our We have a lot of our rebate offerings, highlighting these specific rebates per the request of the work study direction by council. Our grass removal rebate is one of our most popular and consistently shows our most impressive savings. For the last two fiscal years, we've been able to take advantage of the Water Infrastructure and Finance Authority's water conservation grants to help bolster our rebate program above and beyond the budget of $550,000.

So you can see fiscal year 26's budget that incorporates those WIFA funds. In addition to outdoor rebates like our irrigation controller, which is also shown on the slide for our fiscal year 26 numbers, we offer the smart home water monitoring device. So for those who are waiting with bated breath for those residents that are currently waiting for our AMI technology to be deployed, We do have a rebate of up to $100 for a device that will give them real-time information on their water use.

So if you're looking at that 25 number, be also aware that because we offer WaterSmart, for those who have access to that service, a lot of times the near real-time data that's posted once every day with the last day's hourly data is enough for our residents. But we do have options for those who would like to get that real-time data. Our Water Management and Efficiency Technology rebate is the equivalent program for our commercial customers.

And many of those who have participated in this rebate program have done so to install more efficient irrigation systems with real-time leak alerts. But this is also a program that helps support our sub-metering for HOAs or any commercial Entity interested or for the entities that might have access to very large water using devices like cooling towers. So providing real-time leak alerts for these large users.

And this pairs well with our other programs, HOA and commercial water efficiency assistance. So our HOA program is very important. Scottsdale has nearly 600 HOAs, POAs, property owners associations, and sub-HOAs. So this is a very timely and engaged program. It incorporates everything from on-site landscape assessments and meter support to rebates for grass removal. We've seen a growing interest in our HOAs, and so this is always a popular program.

Our commercial program is a by request service that incorporates a review of water usage and a walkthrough for any interested commercial entities. Over the last several years, we've completed 45 audits, and our most common savings is from the commercial entities finding and fixing leaks, either during the walkthrough process or during our analysis and assessment of their data prior to the walkthrough.

So shifting just a little bit to our drought plan, our current drought plan was approved in 2021 and focuses on conservation, education, and voluntary efforts in the earlier stages, and then shifts to more demand management in the later stages. We're currently working with a consultant to update our drought plan to incorporate the changing framework around Colorado River conditions and operations.

This process will include public engagement that is scheduled for later this winter By council direction we were asked to assess elements like rainwater harvesting and hot water recirculation devices These will be incorporated into that public engagement process I do also have some historic information about the previous time that we offered our hot water recirc rebate if that is of interest to discuss tonight We do anticipate bringing the updated drought plan back to council for approval in spring of 27.

So stay tuned, more to come on that. But, while we're updating our drought plan, the approved current drought plan is still in effect. So the city's currently in stage one, originally declared in August of 21. As part of the current plan, a group of senior management staff across departments have been mobilized. So we have been meeting regularly to evaluate current water supply status, water and then shortage related scenarios. We will be coming back.

You heard a little bit from our supply update earlier in the presentation, looking at our estimated impacts for calendar year 27. We're still waiting to hear back from CAP on what those ultimately will be. So as we get more information and we have more information to provide to you, we will be sharing updates and recommendations. The drought management team is there to report findings and report recommendations to the city council.

For anything that is above a stage one, our current drought plan states that that requires council action. So if we go to stage two, three, or four, that would be a council action. And so as we get more information, we will be providing that to you with any staff recommendations that correspond to those. And I will pass this back to Tirok for the Harquihala and Bartlett Dam expansion update. Honorable Mayor, members of council, thank you Jill for the update.

I only have five slides and then we can get to the water source and supply solutions, so hang in there. So first I have the Haquahela and Bartlett Dam expansion update where we're at with both of these projects. Next slide. So this is the project location for our Haquahela project. It's just, I have to look and see, it's about 60 miles from here. It's at mile post 81, kind of on the way to California along I-10. We're on north of I-10. So that's where it's at. The next slide.

We're legally entitled to 38, 37 acre feet per year. We own 1,279 acres and we're allowed to pump 3 acre feet per year per acre. We have an additional 15,000 acre feet of long-term storage credits that we approved a few months ago. And the current estimate for our improvements in order to recover the water that we own, and the long-term storage credits are in that, so I should have put that in there and jumped ahead. But to recover our 3,800 acre foot per year is $32 million.

We are in partnership with the Irrigation Water Distribution System, IWDS, and that is a cooperative effort with Scottsdale National and Desert Mountain, who's providing the funding to recover these credits. We're beginning the NEPA process now, and we're progressing to our 100% design plans. We anticipate construction in late fall of 2027 and an 18 to 24 month construction schedule and will be coming with a pre-construction services contract after the first of the year for approval. Next slide.

Bartlett Dam. So here's the location on the left hand side of where Bartlett Dam is, kind of just north of where Stewart Mountain Dam is, and south of Horseshoe Dam. And on the right is kind of a schematic of what Bartlett Dam looks like. I thought that it was sort of interesting the way we just talk about it and we don't really see what it is. So, next slide. So Scottsdale is a partner with the Salt River Project, SRP, in the Bartlett Dam Expansion Study.

Our partnership also includes study participation in the Salt River Project Interconnect, the SCIF. I don't know if you've heard that there's so many acronyms. And that interconnect is creating greater flexibility between the CAP and the SRP surface water systems.

So Bartlett Dam the Bureau of Reclamation potentially will retain 50 of the expansion The current dam expansion modeled storage capacity for Scottsdale is 8 acre feet with our estimated annual yield being approximately 2 acre feet So our storage capacity assigned that we would have to pay off of is different than what our yield would be every year. So that's sort of really important. The current projected cost in today's dollars is $4.4 billion.

Scottsdale's current cost proportional to the allocation based on the remaining partners right now is $11,800 per acre foot. I wouldn't write that down. It tends to be that number is going to change. When you calculate it in your calculator, it's a lot of zeros. It's about $100 million. The NEPA is in progress, and to determine the final design option, there's a couple of design options that haven't been determined.

In order to add onto the dam, there's a lot of complicated reasons why they're looking at several options. The estimated construction start today is 2035 with completion in 2045. And we just met with SRP like two and a half weeks ago and they updated all these numbers in there. So we're still in the study. We're just waiting to go through and we won't have good details until they finish the NEPA process. And it has to go to the United States Congress for approval.

And that's not slated to go for another two years. So, next slide. Now you're on to please welcome Eric McCloskey from Acrolo Engineers to present our work on our water source and supply solutions. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor and Council members. I'm really pleased to be here to be able to share these supply solutions Eric McCleskey, I'm with Corallo Engineers, and I'm a water resources infrastructure planner.

So what we're going to do now is we're going to move in to talk about supply portfolios, and what we want to think about is the different options that are available to the city in terms of the yield, the timing, and the cost, and we'll be sharing all those with you as we move through. Next slide, please. So as we look at the options that are available to the city, these are the things that we've We've been working through recently, most recently.

So the first is the utilization of new conservation storage water. This is water that's in Roosevelt Reservoir to meet summer demands. An additional wastewater pump back station to bring more wastewater back to the water campus for reclamation to provide additional opportunities for water reuse. Advanced water treatment treated water in an exchange in the CAP canal.

would take water from the existing AWT facility at the water campus, put it in the CAP canal, and then have, through another partner, bring CAP water back to the city. And then the final one is advanced water purification, or the pure water at the water campus. So when we look at the AWPF, the facilities, we looked at a range of sizes from 1,800 acre-feet per year to 2,600 acre-feet per year in terms of the yield. And we'll explain more about that as we get into the details. Next slide, please.

So each of these options provide different options in terms of cost and timing and yield. The first one we're going to talk about is the expansion of booster pump station 10. If you can see on the map on the right, there's a little yellow dot labeled BPS 10. That's booster pump station 10. It's in the blue area, the central part of Scottsdale's water system. This water comes in from the Salt River system.

It would come through the canal to the Chaparral Water Treatment Plant, where it would then be moved into the system. And through Booster Pump Station 10, that water can be moved from the Chaparral Plant up into the northern, the central, and then up into the northern parts of the city. And so what we did here was we were looking at an ability to look for peak demands in the summertime.

So an 8 million gallon per day demand is what we looked at, taking that water over four months, that high use months in the summertime, and moving that water from the south to the north, we looked at modeling and ability to move that water, and we identified some distribution system improvements that would be required in order to do this. And so these are things that are pretty straightforward.

It's upsizing water transmission main capacity in order to move that water from the south to the north. And this is a really important site, not only for this water, but as we just heard about the Bartlett expansion, This water can also move through Site 10 up into the northern part of Scottsdale once that water is acquired So this is a dual project It provides a lot of flexibility both now and in the future Next slide please Okay, the six-pump back station.

This is a concept that the city has studied before, and this is the key to bringing more water back to the water campus for reclamation. So wastewater in the city of Scottsdale that is at the water campus is pumped back, Not all of it, but the majority of it is pumped back through a pump back system. There's five pump stations.

The yellow area on the map shows the areas that receive water from the pump back system and pump it back to the water campus, which is the green dot on the top of the map there. The six pump back would be a new pump back station that would be near Indian Bend Road in Hayden. It would collect wastewater from the pink area shown on this map and then pump it back through the southwest pump station and back up to the water campus.

This project would bring an additional 4 million gallons per day of wastewater on average annual basis back to the water campus and would allow the city a lot of options in order to, with current operations, with recharge and recovery, It would fit into all of the water reclamation and reuse options that we're looking at today. And so it's a key piece. It's an important piece of the future to allow the Scottsdale to immediately get more water back to the water campus. Next slide, please.

So this option is bringing advanced water treated facility water. This is water that is already going through a very highly treated process to purify it. The water typically is blended with other reclaimed water to be delivered to the reclaimed water distribution system. But this project would involve a new pipeline, a 20-inch diameter pipeline over two miles from the water campus south to the CAP Canal. It would require a new turn-in structure and would yield about 2,300 acre feet per year.

And this is based on available reclaimed water, which we'll show you on another graph that varies throughout the year because of the RWDS demands. This would require some coordination with the Bureau of Reclamation because it would be putting a new water supply into the CAP canal. The city is already in discussions with the Bureau of Reclamation for the Harkway Haleh project and for this project in particular, so those discussions are ongoing and there's some momentum there.

It is still something that would need to be worked out as part of this project. Let's go to the next slide, please. Advanced water purification. We looked at two options at the water campus initially. In terms of annual yield, these provide between 1,800 and 2,600 acre feet per year of water supply. The reason for that, if you look at this graph, what this is showing is a bar chart of the reclaimed water available at the water campus on a monthly basis throughout a year.

The purple bars show the reclaimed water that goes to the RWDS. And so that varies based on irrigation demand. So as you would notice in the winter months that's a lower number. They don't need as much water in the winter to irrigate. In the summer they need more. The blue bars show the portion of reclaimed water that would be available for another purpose, for advanced water purification.

And so under a current scenario, it really limits the ability to do advanced water purification for five months of the year. So there's five months that they're showing with blue bars. That's where that water could be used. And so without a six pump vaccination as an option to bring more water back to the water campus, it really does limit this initial option to just a partial time of the year where you'd be running your advanced water purification facility. Let's go to the next slide.

So we spoke to the RDWDS a few times already, but I just wanted to point out here on this map, This map you may be well aware of the RWDS and the golf courses that are involved in that agreement, but it's a really important part of Scottsdale's character and an economic development driver. Twenty-three golf courses receive reclaimed water from the RWDS system through a series of pump stations that take the water from the water campus back up to the golf courses for irrigation.

And these golf courses are very efficient in their water use, and many of them are doing things like the DC Ranch Country Club has recently removed 10 acres of turf to be able to save water. And so it is an important part of the local economy, and all of the options that we've shown you so far allow the water to continue to go to the RWDS. We're not taking any of that water back for any of these options, so we're assuming that this all continues. Next slide, please.

When we get to the details of AWP, what is important here is that this builds on Scottsdale's legacy of having a current multibarrier treatment approach at the AWT at the water campus for nearly two decades. The processes that currently are part of the AWT are ozone, UF, RO, and a UV system. In order to move to advanced water purification, the UV system would need to be updated and advanced oxidation processes would need to be added, as well as GAC contactors.

Everything in the white box around the city has already been doing for decades, and things in the orange box are things that would need to be added for AWP.

This puts the city really in a unique position amongst other utilities in Arizona that with all of the history of treating water to specific water quality requirements for the RWDS and the operations experience collecting water quality data and all of the things that go along with that, it really puts the city in a great position to move to the next step with advanced water purification. Let's go to the next slide, please.

Okay, so this is how the six pump back would impact advanced water purification at the water campus. So this is the same graph that I showed you before with the purple and the light blue bars. What's added to this is the additional water that would come back to the water campus through the six pump back. Those are the darker blue bars at the top. And so now under this scenario, you have a facility that's operating every month of the year.

It provides greater overall yield because now we have an initial 4MGD back to the water campus, plus the water that is available in those months when the RWDS is not taking water. And so for the months where you have high flows, we would need a 10MGD facility to produce a 6,000 acre foot yield over the year. Or a 4MGD facility on the lower end of that would provide about 4,000 acre feet of water per year. So there's some options there.

We were trying to put this within a band to give you an idea of what this could look like at two different scales. But this really demonstrates the value of thinking about these projects together because these are... You could think of them individually, but I think also thinking about them, it's not an either or. It could be a yes and. There's different combinations of these projects that you could implement to help Scottsdale as you move along in the future.

So let's go to the next slide, please. So here we're going to talk about yields on the different projects. And so what's important here is the capacity of the infrastructure, which is to move the water from point A to point B. And then there's the yield of the project, which again is kind of based on that annual, how much water can you provide on an annual basis.

So you can see with this option that you have facilities of different capacities, and the yields range quite a bit, from 1,800 acre feet with the 1800 acre foot per year yield, the smaller size of the water AWPF at the water campus, all the way up to, with the six pump back and the larger AWP at the water campus, you could have almost 6000 acre feet of water. And so, again, in combination, many of these things provide different levels of value.

And so again, it will come down also to timing and the cost and what these things, what does that mean for the city in terms of those things. So let's go to the next slide. So the way we've done this is we've laid this out in terms of how we see the potential for acting in the near term, mid term, and then in the long term. So on the short term, the reason we have NCS water there is because the city has already legal access to this water.

There's water in storage in the Salt River system that the city could put to use immediately. What would be required is some infrastructure that could be designed and built relatively quickly. The 6 pump back, also again it's a matter of designing infrastructure and that would be, it's a new pump station, it would require a new force main to bring water back up to the southwest pump back station and design and commissioning and all those things.

So it might take a little bit longer than the NCS water. The AWT water to the CAP canal option is also in that midterm and primarily because there is some infrastructure to construct there and then there's discussions with Bureau of Reclamation to consider. We have advanced water purification and Bartlett Dam in sort of that long-term area, sort of thinking out, because there's a lot of steps that you need.

Even though the city's doing so much already with the AWT, there are still steps that Arizona requires in order to move to AWP. And the city's well aware of all the steps we've studied, all the steps that need to be taken, but it is still a long roadmap to get there with some of those things with what Arizona's requiring. So many options over a various time frame here. Let's go to the next slide. On this slide what we're doing is we're comparing the costs of advanced water purification.

And so what important on this is we looking at again the two sizes of the facilities So there the 1800 acre foot per year yield and the 2600 acre foot per year yield The total capital costs with an estimated escalated midpoint of construction, those are 133 and 164 million respectively. Those are capital costs. The annual O&M costs are also shown, and that's 6.3 and 7.3 million, respectively.

So there's additional labor and things that would be required as part of that, and that's kind of built into that annual O&M cost. And then we have the total present worth shown there in millions, and so that's 232 and 277. And that's looking at, with the larger size, you have a little bit of an economy of scale with the O&M. A small facility requires almost the same level of operation support and staffing.

You may have less chemicals to purchase and things like that, but you still have an initial investment. So having a little bit larger facility, you get a bit of an economy of scale there. So it's not quite a linear relationship, but those are the numbers that we came up with. Next slide, please. So this shows the conceptual project costs for all of the projects across all the options that we looked at.

So again, the second column here are the total capital costs escalated to the midpoint of construction, and then we have the dollar per acre foot value shown in the last column. And so some things here that really stand out is clearly there's a wide range here. I mean, the NCS water on one scale, it's six million dollars estimated capital costs, six hundred dollar per acre foot water supplies, it's really on the low end of the spectrum of what's shown here.

Then we've got the six pump back and the AWT to the CAP canal, both kind of in a similar range. And then when you look at the AWPF for the 1800 and 2600 options, you really start to gain some efficiencies when you, or I would again say economies, paying more. It's clearly more capital dollars investment, but because you have more of a yield, you're getting a better value in terms of the overall water that you would have available to you.

And so this summarizes the cost of the projects and different options that we looked at. Next slide, please. And I think this is back over to Tira. Honorable Mayor, members of council, this is the last slide where we have a question slide, so you're almost there. So our next steps for Scottsdale conservation, resiliency, and operational flexibility.

To confirm Scottsdale's interest in the Secure Water Arizona program, SWAP, and participate in the first SWAP meet, they're calling it, in January of 2027 as a regional partner. Second, to evaluate additional conservation rebate programs through public outreach workshops As part of the 2027 drought management plan outreach effort. Finish the new 2027 drought management plan and return the updated plan to council for approval in spring of 2027.

Build upon the Salt River Project SRP and Scottsdale partnership with Water Fluence, the Bartlett Dam Study, and the SRP Central Arizona Project CAP Interconnection Facility . Continue working with the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, ADEQ, on the advanced water purification facility rules to align with achievable results and city operations. Carry on working with the Bureau of Reclamation, VOR, and the Central Arizona Project, CAP, on Wheeling Water on the Cap Canal Water Highway.

Advance pursuing and retaining water sources and supplies in our capital improvement plan by expanding site 10, that's the NCS water. Adding the 6 to pump back, that's reclaiming the water south of Indian Bend, and upgrading the AWT UVAOP, that one piece of equipment that it's been 20 years, it's time to upgrade a few items. And I did want to just mention on the golf course slide that it's the RWDS users that actually paid for our whole AWT program when we started designing it in 2008.

I designed it, ran that project, I ran the capital project to build that. We finished it like 2011. So that solved a problem which just kind of one brag for Scottsdale is that partnership was kind of new and innovative and it allowed the golf courses to secure water that wasn our potable water resource And the problem we were solving then was salt in the water And here we are 20 years later, and our salt in the water cooperative partnership is the basis of everyone else's AWP.

So just a little brag out there. And that's why it's important for us. We train and we use that facility and our innovation we share. So with that, the next slide is questions. Thank you, Tierra. Appreciate that. I think I'm going to, let's take the dais. I understand. I'd like to take the council's comments first. Okay. Before we do a motion. So Tierra's here, Yeah, we're talking about that. Got it. Go ahead with your question. I have quite a few remarks.

I'd like to actually hear from the public to make sure I capture what they're looking into if that's possible. Okay, there's only three people, so let's go over that. Thank you so much, Mayor. Raul Zubia followed by Frederick Tack and Douglas Kubrick. Good evening Mayor, Vice Mayor McAllen and council members. Raul Zubia, address is on file. We just heard a long presentation of water plans, but it's not a long-range water plan.

It relies on ideas that may or may not pan out and it fails to provide a path to a safe, secure, and affordable water future for Scottsdale. In just the past two years, our water fund balances have gone down from $221 million down to a projected $80 million this year. That is the money we need to invest in future water security, and it's disappearing. And at the time where critical vetted water projects have been defunded.

Three years ago, a different city council adopted a water plan for the future. This council majority defunded it. And tonight, instead of restoring a real plan, we are being asked to accept something that lets politics override good water policy. That is not how Scottsdale got here. Our prosperity was built by elected leaders who put the community first, who believed in science, and who invested in a secure water feature.

Scottsdale Water was once making national headlines as a leader in water innovation. Two years later, we're in the headlines again, but for all the wrong reasons. So this council majority has recklessly undermined public trust in our state-of-the-art water treatment facility. It has put our water future at risk. It has spent millions of dollars on proposals that fail to deliver long-term water security, all while blocking the projects that do. And residents are watching. They deserve better.

They deserve a plan built on science, backed by real funding, and focused on the long term, not the next political moment. Water is too important for politics, and it is the foundation of our economy, our neighborhoods, and our quality of life. We need to get back to investing in water security and delivering water our residents can trust and afford. So I'm urging you to return to the work of building a long-range water plan. Thank you very much. Thank you Raul.

Next we have Frederick Tack followed by Douglas Cobre. All right, excuse me. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, Council members. My name is Frederick Tack. I'm a resident of the city of Scottsdale, address is 8401 East Edgemont Avenue. Long time listener, not the first time speaker, so glad to be back.

I'm speaking to you tonight as a resident, but also as a water professional, an industry professional with over 25 years of experience, both as a licensed civil engineer here in Arizona, a board certified water resource engineer, environmental engineer, a certified water and wastewater operator, and also a recent past leader of industry organizations.

like the Arizona Society of Civil Engineers National Society of Professional Engineers and the Easy Water Association I here tonight because I want to encourage you to support the recommendations of the city water staff and their presentation tonight I can attest that they have some of the most recognized industry locally, regionally, and nationally leaders in the industry. And the this the water system isn't some community experience or experiment even.

It is a nationally recognized and nationally used utility for reflecting good governance projects that result in change both at policy and delivery. And as mentioned in the presentation tonight is leaned upon by other local cities to meet their water needs as well. The key thing about the presentation tonight, it puts a lot of things on the table, but really what that's all speaking to is water security, and that's what should be on your mind.

I hope you're considering what level of water security Scottsdale needs, what you want, how much you're willing to invest, and how much it provides safe, resilient water for the future. But I would encourage you to make an important distinction. Your policies and priorities that you set and give direction to Is that decision that you get to make and that the technical decisions on how they deliver on that should be empowered to your staff.

It was highlighted earlier that staffing is a big part of water security and if Scottsdale expects to make nationally leading technical decisions, it needs to invest in retaining and supporting the professional staff capable of giving that to them. That's your superpower. You have the ability and capability to empower the staff to deliver on what your goals are.

These are professionals who have ethical obligations to protect the health, safety and welfare of the public first, in addition to their allegiance to the city, state and federal rules and governance. That doesn't mean that the council shouldn't ask difficult questions, and you absolutely should. You get to, I only have three minutes, so you have the time to ask those. You should be asking what it costs, what the risks are, how reliable is it?

And really you should be supporting decisions that result in lowering the long-term cost to operate. There are many complex and difficult decisions you and others will need to make now, and it may cost more now, but evaluating it based on the long-term cost of operation is key. You have an opportunity to retain your view as a national leader, not by building innovative projects, but by good governance around your policy and projects.

So you retain the responsibility and accountability for funding priorities, affordability and long term policy. But water safety and delivery belongs in the hands of the water professionals you hired to deliver it. Thank you. Thank you Frederick. Appreciate it. Douglas Cobrick Thank you, Mayor and Council for the opportunity to speak. My name is Doug Kobrick. I'm a 39 year Scottsdale resident, also a professional engineer working in the consulting business in the water sector.

I live at 7215 East Kolo Drive here in Scottsdale. I'll speak briefly to you just about the vital subject of Scottsdale's future water supply. Scottsdale and most of the other cities in the Valley are among the clients that we work with, but I'm just here speaking on my own behalf this evening. I commend you for addressing this challenge.

The status quo that we've really enjoyed for several decades is over, and we're in a new and challenging era with respect to water, and I sincerely hope that the city will continue to take The forward-looking approach that has long characterized Scottsdale as an industry leader. I have three specific suggestions I'd like to offer to the council. First of all is the importance of collaboration, and it was great to hear some of the examples that staff shared with you this evening.

The Colorado River water supply problem affects everybody. It's everybody's problem. It hits every water utility in a little bit different way, but there are strength in numbers, And there are potentially economies of scale from working together. So I would encourage the city not to retreat into a silo, but to look for opportunities to work with others and share our work together to solve our shared problems.

Secondly, I really encourage the city to remain innovative and maintain its technical excellence. You heard Frederick talk about the reputation that you enjoyed nationally. That's absolutely true. Scottsdale has always been at the forefront of advanced solutions to our water challenges. You have always employed some of the very best and brightest in our industry and that remains so today. So I strongly encourage council to listen to your staff and take the benefit of their wisdom and expertise.

And then finally, I just want to point out, as we all know, that solving these problems will require significant investment. The low-hanging fruit have all been picked, and so the cost of water, which has always been an incredible value here in Scottsdale and elsewhere in Arizona, is inevitably going to need to go up. Some of those projects you saw presented there by Eric from Carollo are going to be expensive, and obviously this can be a very difficult political issue.

Rates increases are obviously sensitive, but I encourage the council to demonstrate the leadership that's It's needed to make those difficult but essential decisions to strengthen our water supply and address our water needs. None of those solutions are cheap, but they'll only be more expensive later, and the most expensive approach is to do nothing.

So one final point I'd just like to make is that when the city does look to recover its costs of doing all this stuff, please look to the people who benefit the most from these investments and make sure that they pay their fair share for the benefits they receive from a reliable water supply. I thank you for the opportunity to speak. Thank you, Douglas. Appreciate it.

Before we move to, and that was the end of the speakers, before we move to questions from the council, where were the recommendations? Was that on the last slide? It's in the left. Can you keep that up please? Because that slide 38 that went through, I think it was 38 that Eric went through, maybe it's the next one, that talks about all the, the one where you had the like eight choices and the price per... Cost per acre foot. What's that? 39. There we go. Yeah, that's important too.

So are one of those, or some of those in the recommendations slide? Honorable Mayor, members of council, they are. Which, can you go back to which part? So the NCS water use was in the recommendations. The Six Pump Act was in the recommendations. The AWT, the canal, actually is part of the Harkla Kalea discussion, so it was in there as far as working on the canal superhighway question. I have the AOP, UV-AOP as a, to upgrade that portion in the recommendations as well.

So the last two there, especially the last one where it seems highly cost effective compared to some of the other choices and it seems like there's a combination, that's not being recommended? So it is. So the six pump back is being recommended. Yeah, you see, and I think what we did on here is to look at go forward, like providing those kind of long-term solutions. And the Six Pump Act we could do right away and we could use that water.

So that's why it's up there separately, but it's also there as a combination. And then in the recommendations I did, because the Six Pump Act will take some time, and so would AWP, working out the rules with ADEQ for AWP. So in the interim, one of the recommendations is to upgrade the UV to UVAOP. That was where the yellow line and the white line was there, because upgrading that piece of equipment, it's been 20 years, that would allow it. That's a long lead item.

That's something that we would need anyway. It's also upgrading the system. And so we could do that kind of in conjunction as we work the rest of this stuff out and then move forward with the AWP if we chose to do so. But the six pump back, in my opinion, is super important. I think those first two line items we do, I've already put those in as capital requests for next year.

I'm hoping that we go forward with them, but we're in the budget process for next year, so I slid them in for part of the committee. But because those both give us acre feet of water we can use kind of immediately, like particularly that NCS water use at that booster pump station 10, That gives us water that we're not utilizing right now. It pumps it up north. And that also gets us ready if we have any additional water that we'll get from Bartlett Dam. So that makes sense to me.

It was actually part of the strategic plan, but it actually fell out of our CIP and hasn't been in there. So we'll just pop it back in and be able to use that water pretty quickly. And that's a, as far as time, yield, and cost, that's a cheap project. The project is fast and it gives us a yield right away for water that we already have, we're just not utilizing. The six pump back, you know, that's water we can control. That's our destiny, right?

So if we can control our water and we can have it, why are we kind of giving it away? Like we can use that water for right now, for recharge. We could use it for reclaim. Like we're meeting all our reclaim dates right now, but we certainly could So those are two simple things that we could do right now that kind of revamp our capital program a little bit. Our capital program was kind of – it's a 2014 version. It really hasn't been updated in the last 10 or 12 years.

And so we've been really working hard going through and pulling things out and seeing what it is that we really need to to do to kind of go forward and to kind of rethink all of it. So I think those top two items are in the recommendations and so is upgrading the AWT. Okay. And I would like at some point to have you explain the difference between maybe right now, why not, between AWP and ATPW. A-W-T-O that I said before was Advanced Water Treatment Operator? No.

What we're doing now versus what's contemplated. Let's go back to the ADE approval. Let me go back to slide. That's really one of my favorite slides. Let me just find out which one it is. Slide 34. Like the procedural difference, meaning- Right, so it shows here. So this is the procedural difference. So what we have right now is in the white. That's how our recycled water moves through now. It moves through ozone, it moves through UF, it goes through RO, and then it gets treated by UV.

So that's kind of where we stop right now. In order to move to AWT process right now, to move to AWP, we would need a UVAOP system. That's an advanced oxidation process. So it's a new piece of equipment that replaces our current UV. And then we would also need some other finishing, polishing processes, which would be the GAC here, the granulated activated carbon for additional removal.

And then we would likely blend it with groundwater or do some other blending because all our water kind of gets into the same spot. Not just like that water molecule that gets you, it kind of combines at our plants. So that's kind of where it is. We have the white done, we just need to change out that piece of equipment and add that GAC to move to AWP. Okay, two things on that.

Aside from the initial investment to convert or to progress, if you will, to the new process, Is there a cost savings and a time savings if we implemented the new process ultimately, notwithstanding the investment cost of the new equipment that you're talking about? Honorable members of council, you mean if we just replaced the UVAOP? We actually don't have that costed in this. I just gave it as a suggestion because we're still working through the ADEQ rules we submitted our last one.

So are you asking about- That's not what I meant. What I meant was taking us if you to go from the existing process to the new process and you don't factor in the cost to upgrade if you will the news to the new process. Would this be a more efficient system both in cost savings and time savings for the production of purified water?

Honorable Mayor, members of council, we would have to do all all those items and it would be that acre foot per cost that we had along with the additional operating cost to move to AWP. So I guess I'm not being clear with my question. I'm talking about after that investment is already made in terms of the actual processing of the water. Is there, what are the advantages? Let me just put it that way for the new process versus the existing.

So the new process to go to AWP would be that you could direct blend the water as right now we are taking that That excess AWP, AWT water, but only for those four months a year when we saw that one graph where we just had the purple and there's like the summer months, there isn't any additional water.

So it would only be those a couple of months that we could, instead of pushing, pumping the water into the ground and saving it, which is what we do now, and then we pump it out again and retreat it, we would direct blend that water. So it is only it doesn't actually acquire without the six pump back. We don't actually acquire any new water with AWP. We only take the water that we were pumping in the ground and it provides a direct blend.

So it isn't there's no net gain without the six pump back. Okay so you recommending the new process ultimately once the ADEQ comes in Honorable Mayor members of council that a policy decision that would lie with council I am recommending that we at least change that UV AOP piece of equipment now and then we'd be ready to go forward.

And it would also, it's a time savings, it's probably a cost savings because buying it now versus buying it, we projected those costs out to the midpoint of construction. So it would just be taking a little bit of that money right now, and then we would have flexible options. I'm looking for options that are flexible, that we create resiliency, that gives us a lot of options going forward because no one has a crystal ball on where we're going with the water. Okay.

And that gives us 6,000 acre feet per year estimate. Honorable Mayor, members of council, if we include the six pump back and yes. Okay. Thank you. I'm going to turn it over to Councilwoman Whitehead. Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Yeah, we've kind of been in the weeds. I'm going to kind of get to a higher level, but people who know me know that I sort of like the weeds anyway for this topic.

But that said, I just want to thank staff, not only for and Corolla Engineering for being here, not only putting this presentation together, but also spending time with us, the council ahead of time so that we were able to ask a lot of questions and understand a lot of things ahead of time. You know, as I often say, a city's job is to prepare for the worst case scenario and then work diligently to deliver the best case scenario. And we're not experts up here.

We are elected to listen to experts, listen to our residents and make data driven decisions, which we have, as the last speaker eloquently said, as we have done for a very long time. And so that brings me to some of what's going right before I talk about this proposal in general. For decades, city councils have, in fact, looked very far into the future and were reaping the benefits today. So many of the projects in today's presentation are the fruits of that, those investments. Harkwahala.

I don't even know how many years it predates me that there was a decision made to make that investment in Harkwahala. The water campus, and I think it's 30 percent, I think the golf got credit for a little more. That was a partnership with our golf industry to build a water campus that produced potable water, which is now called AWT, which will be called AWP, but somebody added an F to that.

The difference is that we were using the Water Campus water as test drinking water, and we had beer made from it and all kinds of other popsicles or whatever. Now the new ADEQ rules require that we go to AWP just to answer that question. But again, the whole Water Campus itself was long range planning. The 2019 bonds that Kathy Littlefield and I helped bring into reality, Those are providing humongous, for lack of technical terms, savings that we are going to reap in terms of water conservation.

The Prop 490 also is giving us a variety of tools and trees, in fact, ways to save more water. The Water Smart portals that were brought up that are leak detection, that was all that predated me. And of course, the decision to pay for added capacity in Roosevelt Lake. So you add more water through the dam, you add the dam, that's what we're doing in Bartlett, then you're capturing more water, and we paid in advance for that water, but we've never really gotten that water.

So I'm just pointing out that there are a lot of giants that predated us that led to the successes, the options we have. And I just want to say that, you know, we have a serious water challenge in Arizona, in the West, and in Scottsdale. But really, there are no technological barriers for solving these problems, for overcoming these challenges and coming out more secure and more resilient in our water supply. We do have sometimes political challenges, so it is going to take political will.

So there's, and one more thing I want to say is everybody's looking for a silver bullet. Everybody calls me, get rid of water fountains, or, you know, we all have ideas, right?

There no silver bullet There silver buckshot We are going to need this water and this water and this water and this water and this water And that is how we collectively I think I think Tyra said something to that Collectively that what gives us gives us that resilience So the last two years have been a little frustrating for me This presentation is well, I'm so happy to have this presentation, but it's two years in the making.

And in those two years, we haven't necessarily gone in the right direction here in Scottsdale. Our water usage is up. And that's based on the data that we water usage data were required to give to the Arizona Department of Water Resources. As one of the speakers mentioned, our financial reserves are down. So this council in 2025 started and inherited $222 million in fund balances. By the end of this fiscal year, we'll be down to 80 million.

And as you've heard, there's going to be a lot of costs involved investing into the future. I am thrilled about all the new employees. So welcome to all the new employees. But we have lost a record number of top level technical and policy staff. So that's always difficult. I was pleased that the water strategic plan that I helped also, also Kathy Littlefield was also a councilwoman Littlefield. We helped get through, made this presentation.

However, it has largely been defunded and stagnant for the last two years. And this is back to that AWT versus AWP. I'm going to stop using those. But we were the leader. in producing potable water from wastewater. And we were on the cusp of taking that final step. So the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality decided before, even though for years, people on a test case basis were drinking our pure water from our water campus, they added that extra step that gets us from AWT to AWP.

So that extra step is the difference between not being able to blend that water, not being able to expand our water portfolio, and get rid of some of the gap that's created by the loss of the knowing steep cuts we're going to get from the cap, and having an extra source of water. And I just want to mention too, there's a lot of talk about, well, the golf courses use all of it during such and such months. This is not, there's no stagnant numbers here.

The golf courses are doing amazing things to reduce their water usage. So what they are using yesterday has nothing to do with what they might be using tomorrow. This is a, this water challenge is something we're all going to be very involved in.

So, the bottom line though is the biggest, the most important project for Scottsdale, the top priority, and the recognized most important source of water in the West is this advanced purified water, is reclaimed water, treated to a level that's a higher level than most bottled water. But that has been for a variety of reasons that none of them made sense to me. That was cut. That project was cut. So we were on the cusp of having it. Now we're a couple years behind.

And so I'm going to talk about the different projects I support and don't support, but it's absolutely imperative that we get it started. The same regulations that we've used as excuses not to move forward on our project. Phoenix started one of their, of three, they're going to build three AWP, pure water facilities, and they're 50% done with one from the ground up, whereas we just had one more little in there to build, and we've stopped.

So I do want to talk about the projects that I'm excited about, that probably made little sense, maybe they won't make any sense to you with me talking about them, too. Can you put up the pumps? I think I took notes too. I always forget the names. The pump back, I just want to explain. Right now, our wastewater from about Shea North goes to our water campus and gets treated to pure, to AWT. We treat it to potable water. That's the goal. South of Shea. Slide 30. Okay.

Yeah, so south of Shea, all of your wastewater, if you live south of Shea roughly, roughly, it's all going to 91st Avenue. It's going to Phoenix. So the, what did you call it, the Pump Back 6 What that's going to do is take a lot more of our South Scottsdale wastewater and get it to our treatment facility. I don't know if that was as clear in the presentation. So what we want to do is capture more of our wastewater and keep it in Scottsdale and treat it to a potable level.

So I'm really excited about that project. It was canceled for a variety of reasons, so I am glad it's back. The pump station 10 that was mentioned, very excited about that too. I mentioned that the Roosevelt dam was raised and more water was stored and previous councils secured some of that water for us, but we didn't know how to get it to Scottsdale. Therein lies pump station number 10. That will give us the means to get that water again to our water campus.

So these are really exciting projects I support. I do not support this idea of once again postponing the final piece that we need to take our wastewater, get it certified by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, and start blending it right here into our water supply. And the reason, and instead, I totally oppose this idea of sending our wastewater, our treated wastewater that every one of you paid for, and putting it in the canal and sending it to Chandler or whoever else.

And I have three reasons I oppose that project. I oppose that. Number one, it is very expensive to treat water. So what our ratepayers will be doing is they'll be treating wastewater, then we'll be dumping it into the canal, and then we'll be getting water from the canal and treating it again. So it's not quite double, but we'll be paying twice. And let me tell you another thing. There is no deal where we send a cup of water down the canal and whoever buys that cup gives us a cup back.

That's not how it's going to work. We're going to send a cup of water down the canal, let's say to Chandler, whoever, and they're going to give us maybe three quarters of a cup back. So we're going to be paying more to get less water. And then number three, our number one challenge at the city of Scottsdale is to stop being reliant on the cap. And yet this, this AW, this proposal that was proposed actually increases our reliance on the very problem we're trying to solve.

So I strongly oppose that project. And I just think, you know, because I'm hearing a lot of this toilet to tap kindergarten stuff, well, that seems to have fed this two-year delay in us finishing this project. And it seems to be at the heart of why we would send treated wastewater downstream when we need it right here in Scottsdale. So I want to talk about toilet to tap. Folks are already drinking it.

So I have a list of all the cities, all the municipalities that are putting their wastewater into the canal upstream from us. It's not a problem. So I'm going to quote former water director Brian Beesmeyer. Yeah, I have to. And I made it so the public will have all these documents too. And these are just missing from the presentation, but I'm sure they had to cut the presentation down to a certain level.

What did former water director Brian Biesmeyer said when somebody complained about toilet to tap? He said, the source of the water doesn't matter. It's the treatment that matters. So why on earth would we not be working to make our treat our world? You know, we were the leader, make our water treatment the best it could be. That investment is critical. I have a A few questions. I also have a few other comments about what this proposal is. There was a whole lot of pieces and parts in it.

And again, really feeds into the notion that there are a lot of opportunities for us to solve this. But what we don't have is a comprehensive drought management plan. And this isn't a surprise. We've known about this for the whole two years ago. that this council's been in office.

We have to plan for 20% to 100% cuts in the cap because all of those remain on the table and we not there yet So we have a lot of pieces and parts but we don have a comprehensive plan We also need a conservation plan So I appreciate all that you doing on conservation The best way to prevent mandated water usages is to have the plan And so I you know I looking forward to seeing a plan so that we know so the golf courses know so the homeowners know how much they need to conserve in order to meet future demands We can't look one year ahead.

We have to look 10 years, 30 years, 50 years ahead, 100 years ahead. What also is not in this presentation is just the water usage data, although I saw you added that probably in the last minute, because an hour or so ago I didn't see it. But the water usage data that we submit to the Arizona Department of Water Resources. So I've asked the city clerk to have all these charts available to the public, and I can pull them up. But so these are charts that are really important.

We also don't have municipal water usage data, and I think that's important, too. We need to know how much are we using compared to last year's and what's our goals. And finally, the other thing that I think is missing in this is the financial resilience. So there is no such thing as a water department if it isn't financially secure. And so we need to have that plan. And as I mentioned, our water fund balances have drastically gone down in the last two years. So we can turn that around.

It's never too late to turn it around. But it's important to say where we're weak and where we're strong. My priorities again are for a drought to have a drought plan to bring back the advanced water purification to make sure that we can drink our own water, not send it down the canal and make conservation a priority. And then I have some questions for staff on these different slides. Yeah, I just want to point out on slide five, or it's sort of six.

That pie chart just doesn't sync with the AW, what we submit to. I think it's important that the public see the same charts, the same numbers that we have to supply to the state. So, and I recognize why you've lowered that from 71 to 69, but I just want to point out we should be consistent. Let me see some of my... Oh, I wanted to understand why on slide 29, the booster pump station, I think you mentioned four months. Isn't that something we would want to run for 12 months?

I don't know if these are questions you want to just answer at a later date. Why don't we just have you answer these at a later date? I'll submit these questions, but I'll tell you what they are. On the drought management plan, I'm going backwards, slide 21, 15,000 acre feet reduction, doesn't that put us in stage two? You mentioned stage one. You can bring, again, I'll just give you these questions. On your chart, let's see slide 24. I think you should add herkwahila to that. It's the chart.

Anyway, the chart where you list all the timelines for the different projects. Do you see that Tara? Honorable Mayor, members of council, we didn't include it in our timeline because this is a project that's already moving forward. It wasn't anything we'd have recommendation. This was just an update. Okay, so it isn't on there. If you if you can kind of put it in that medium range and to receive that 3800 acre feet.

Okay, well, actually, I have a few other questions, but I think I'll take those off lines. But overall, I like the direction. I don't see a cohesive long range plan. And I see some big gaps in cotton conservation targets and AWP, the pure water. But thank you so much for the presentation. Vice Mayor McAllen. Vice Mayor McAllen- Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for your presentation, Tara.

And to the new staff, May this be the hardest day you have so far A little light levity there Thank you for joining the city of Scottsdale and congratulations to the staff that passed their certifications That quite an achievement 75 of the people taking it So that wonderful That being said I do want to let you know that as we move forward with the plan I mean obviously all of us will want to be involved but I appreciate the comments made by the two gentlemen actually all three gentlemen who spoke but understanding that you are the water professionals and we respect you but we also want to represent the citizens in this decision process And that we will be, you know, encouraging you along the way.

That being said, I fully support the six-pack pump, the station 10. Obviously, the easiest fix is the UV AOP. That's almost a no-brainer. So we fully support that. And then moving towards advanced water purification seems to be the best, That's obviously investment for our dollar for our citizens. There are going to be some tough decisions that do need to be made. That means water rates may go up because we are going to have to put in infrastructure. That's the reality.

The gentleman out there smiling, the professional, you know, he alluded to that. We know that. That's why we're elected to make decisions that may be tough but responsible, and that's what we're going to need to do. So thank you. I look forward to working with all of you to move this forward because we do need all of these items that you suggested and even more. But we need to move towards that advanced water purification. So thank you. Councilman Graham. Mayor, thank you. Great presentation.

Very eye opening presentation. I agree with some of my colleagues that have already spoken. It's the NCS water use 6th pump back, it almost feels like a no brainer. You mentioned those were not put in the CIP. Honorable Mayor, members of council, Councilman Graham, so the 6th pump back was an idea. It was not included.

It was not included when I went back to go see why and go through, because I've been really digging through the capital program just to figure out where we're at, what we need to do different, and we have kind of a different way of verifying those projects and deciding what needs to go forward and how we put them in our budget. So, there was a parcel of land that was offered, and when it was investigated, as a six month back, it was in the floodplain.

So, instead of, at that point, that's when it was abandoned, and they're like, instead of looking for another location, the other thing too is the idea at that time was to run another pipeline up north, so like 14 miles up to the water campus. That's a little bit of my advantage in this seat where I'm sitting at, is I know where all the pipes and pumps and everything is because I built most of it. So we worked with Corolla and we had a lot of ideas and we all put our heads together.

And we were able to figure out a way to take a short transmission line between a new pump back and the southwest pump station, So that it can go up north so we don't have to do that whole pipeline. So it's a little bit about my analogy is that, you know, when you're reading an essay and you're proofreading it, you're proofreading it, you don't see it, and then someone else reads it and finds eight different mistakes.

So that's just a little bit of just having a different perspective of looking at it and just thinking about things differently and thinking about what water we can control and recover right now.

So that's also on the forefront because doing the projects that don't yield us any water or use water in a different way, but it's the same water, aren't We're not going to solve the problem, but creating the six pump back where that's water, because that water that we send right now, that goes to Shrogs at 91st Avenue, and we actually pay for treatment down there, and that's water that we can send up to our water campus and actually treat cheaper. Wow.

And then, you know, right now we could go through the AWT process and we could store that water, which is like a net gain for us, right? And we could use that whenever we needed to use it. So I guess the reason it wasn't in the CIP then is just that there was kind of an obstruction and we're able to resolve that with you and your team with a fresh perspective on it.

Yeah, Honorable Mayor, members of council, Councilman Graham, it was, it just was an idea but it didn't get put in the CIP and so we, I've already put that in for a CIP request for next year. I hope that we see it in there. Yeah.

Pumped station 10, why wasn't, that hasn't been in the CIP Is that So no it was in our they have this really big long spreadsheet that has this workbook of 10 or 12 years worth of projects It was out there in In the out years In really far out years And it just something we can move up now It not that expensive And I think it may have just been who knows what what was prioritized There were things in the capital budget like expanding the cap um plant for 30 million dollars was in there for like I believe it next year Don quote me on that one But like that something we like well we not going to get additional cap water right So that doesn make sense So it just reframing what that capital is and just spending a lot of time I think some of it was It just needs a lot of time spent on it and it was just sort of, it was sort of route for a period of time.

Yeah, I mean, you know, as it was said, I mean, pump station 10, I mean, that's gonna take water we get from SRP and move it north. Are there any prohibitions or regulations for moving SRP water north? Is there any? Honorable Mayor, members of Council, Councilman Graham, yes there are, but there are some water in here that we could use up north. Okay, so we're allowed to do that? Yes. More or less? Okay.

Well we have Jill Brumman who's super smart on all the rules and so she says that we can use that water up north for the water that we're not using. So we can give her credit or blame her? So the NCS water, she's going to nod right now, is not on project water. We can use that other places and we're not using it. So that is the difference with SRP water.

Some of the SRP water has to be on project, but because this is part of the conservation space, In Roosevelt, we're able to use that wherever we need it. I hope it's okay that I asked about that. Well, it's on record now. Yes. Let's see what else here. Let's talk about wastewater. I think it was, how much, we, you know, we're all in on the recycling water and treating the water and reusing the water.

But is there, I mean, I guess maybe I'm looking at slide 32, are we not able to use, do we have enough, do we not have enough wastewater to use for all these purposes with golf courses and what we currently use it for and then also, you know, potable reuse? Do we have enough wastewater for that? So, Honorable Mayor, members of Council, Councilman Graham. So this slide does show it. So you're correct. So the purple are not the months that we could use it.

So April, May, June, July, August, September, and October do not have any water that we're either pumping into the ground to save or we could use for direct potable reuse. So all that's used. Now if we switch to the slide with adding the six pump back, assuming we do that, that does change the equation.

But right now if we were to put in AWP, if that's the question you're going for, we would only have that light blue right now available and it would be redirecting water, which I think is a really important point because right now we take that water and we save it and we can pull it out right now. This would just take it and direct potable reuse under the AWP plan. And so it's not giving us a net gain of water. It gives us access to water, but it doesn't add acre feet to water that we can use.

But if we add that six pump back, then I think, is it the next slide that's a six pump back? Two more? Right here. So here's if we add the six pump back and take back some of our water that we own, then we would be able to, in that top blue, that darker blue on the very top, That would be the water that we would have to either do additional recharge or to store.

So with your cost per acre foot at the end, are you, because if you did the six pump back, that would be kind of a requisite, a necessary cost. So your cost per acre foot does that include, incorporate the six? Honorable Mayor, members of council, Councilman Graham, it does. And we actually, and we also, I'm sure you'll appreciate, we accelerated that to the midpoint of construction. So there is a little bit of a different term here. Engineering economy kind of uses total present worth.

Accountants use total present value. So same kind of thing, but a little different word, a little different semantic. It's allowed to be semantic. A different way to geek out? Yeah, whatever, yeah. Whatever floats your boat. Yeah, for sure. So this is, it's one more slide actually. This is just the A. So, yes, so here it is. So the six pump back with the smaller facility, the 4MGD, it does have, so it has a six pump back and the improvements from AWT to AWP. Yeah. And that's at $231 million.

And then to go to a larger plant is that difference of that $30 million there. And you get a little bit of an economy of scale there on your dollars per acre foot. Just for the audience and kind of the public, what do we buy per acre foot, what do we pay per acre foot from SRP and CAP? Just approximate. I'm at like $400 in my head. Right now, but that could be... From CAP? So CAP, we pay $400 an acre foot and then SRP, do you have an approximation? Jill, do you know that answer?

So, Honorable Mayor, Members of Council, Councilman Graham, they, Jill is telling me that CAP is hundreds of dollars and SRP is tens of dollars, relatively speaking, so. Hundreds of dollars, so cost per acre foot for CAP is $350, $400, and SRP water per acre I think that the water at your foot is like 50 bucks, 100 bucks. We need to get more SRP water, don't we? Like, now.

Well, Honorable Mayor, Members of Council, Councilman Graham, unless you have farmland that you farmed, you know, 50, 60 years ago, that's probably not going to happen. I know. I know. We've got to be aggressive in what we do to strengthen our water portfolio, make sure that, I mean, We just got to be ahead of, we got to stay ahead of this water curve. We're paying 50 to 100 bucks per acre foot for SRP, 300 bucks, 350 to 400 for CAP.

So you look at, I mean, advanced water treatment water to the CAP canal, $1,700 per acre foot. If we did the 1,800 acre foot acre fee per year, advanced water purification at water campus, you know, $9,000 per acre foot, $7,000, you're getting pretty high there. And so, I mean, residents deserve the full picture and what the actual cost reality is. I think that we could go out and buy, and I think we were doing that, I think we recently bought one.

What do we pay per acre foot when we bought it off in the Harquihala Valley? Honorable Mayor, Members of Council, Councilman Graham, it was $550 for our acre foot for the 15,000 long-term storage credits that we purchased in the Hart-Kwhale Valley. So we're buying it on the third market for $500, $550 per acre foot, and to do this would be $7,000, $8,000, $9,000 per acre foot.

So, I mean, I just, we're going to do, we're going to be aggressive and we're going to do what we need to do to secure our water every step of the way. Water is not something that you pinch pennies on. I think we all agree with, agree on that up here. But we also just need to look at the cost reality. And I mean, it was said up here, source doesn't matter, treatment matters. So, and I think residents and taxpayers would also say that we can't totally ignore costs.

So those are some of my questions right now. I mean, this is a great discussion, very timely. I'm impressed with your staff, impressed with the research, and I had a few more notes, but I think I'll give my colleagues a chance to ask some questions, and I want to hear from them. Thank you. City manager, would you like to say something? Thank you, Madam Mayor. While we were on this chart, I wanted to address a little bit of the timeframe that was brought up.

In the spring of 2025, as we were going through the budget development process, this project, particularly I'll have you focus in on the one that says 164, And we deal with large numbers just so for the edification that's $164 million. And in the spring of 2025 what occurred is ADEQ had modified the rules and this budget had this capital project had significantly changed and the Budget Review Commission said you might want to really take a look at that.

It had been estimated probably around 15 to 20 million, what we had earlier estimated some previous staff that we would take the existing water that we were piloting and testing and just scale it. The new rules changed that through that quite a curveball. And so again to the budget review commission they said you might want to take another look at that. Some earlier estimates were in the range of 67 million dollars. So we've already moved from $15 million, $20 million to $67 million.

And we haven't even started the project, mind you.

So to the great credit of Carollo we brought them on board and has done extensive work as you can tell from the phenomenal presentation this evening and spent 18 months on what it would really cost And again now we at million And then we said you know that a capex What this going to look like on an opex And that had never been discussed We talked this evening about the test They hadn even designed the test 18 months ago of course And so that factored in some of the operational costs that we have at either or million depending upon the size of plant So keep in mind that was the larger plant at 164, the larger of a 10 million dollars.

There had been discussed 20 million dollar, or excuse me, 20 MGD million gallons a day, and we can never generate that enough to fulfill that. So the 164 million is based on a 10 million gallon a day plant. And then of course it doesn't yield that much because of the chart that was shown previously. And we see that that's one of the highest next to the one right above it on the acre foot per cost. And so just wanted to point out some of that timeline.

And what we wanted to bring back to council was a menu of options of how we move forward before we move forward at all, quite frankly, so you could understand those costs. And this was just on the heels of a project, a sewer project that we had estimated at $12 million and it turned out to be $70 million while we were finishing up that project. So we didn't want to return to that type of budgeting, and so we took the time and extensive work by our outside consultants and staff.

The other thing I might mention is the Six Pump Back really coming into favor through this discussion. And also just I'll end with the financials that were issued just late this afternoon from the city treasurer at the request of a council member. And what I would note on this is, although it appears the combined reserves are much lower than the previous year, what we have budgeted in the current fiscal year is $330 million worth of capital projects. Not for water and wastewater, for water.

$330 million. And what I will tell you is that production-wise, we don't achieve anything over $100 million, just with staffing and consultants and working through procurement. And so we essentially have kind of over-budgeted, if you will, and that has occurred in previous years as well. We're looking to refine that, but that's why you see from this chart that we have had a significant reserve, and then it kind of rolls because we don't complete those capital projects.

So what I would really point out in this sheet that was distributed is we have the largest projected expenditures for the capital improvements at $160 million of this just being transferred compared to the two pre—well, it's really the previous, there's actual and the preliminary—at approximately $40 million. So 4x. 4x is what we have here compared. So I think that is more of a full picture for council's consideration. Thank you, Madam Mayor, for the time. Thank you. Councilwoman Littlefield.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you very much for this really, really terrific presentation. I think we all up here appreciate it very much. I did have one question, however. If you could go back to slide 34. Just one question. One question. At the moment. Until the next question. Until the next question, yes. Okay, you said on this slide, this bills Scottsdale's current multibarrier treatment, the AWP. Could you go through this?

I would like to know the GAC is what you're saying where we are and what we need to do next. Could you go through that in detail a little bit for me and explain it more specifically as to what we need to do next? What we would be doing and what would be the cost? Certainly. Honorable Mayor, members of council and councilwoman Littlefield, and again, happy birthday. Thank you. So this slide, this AWP, builds on Scottsdale's current multibarrier treatment.

So that multibarrier treatment is our AWT, and that's what the golf courses came together in 2007 and we designed in 2008 to 2010.

So that and then we built it well anyway in the early times So that all of the area in the white and just the UV portion So that why we have the little white dash line that comes down where you see the little lightning bolt So that our little UV It a disinfection process So literally through UV lights there are these tubes of lights and it goes through and it blows things up in like layman terms So the water right now our wastewater comes through this ozone it comes through UF it comes through RO That RO is sort of like what people have in their houses underneath their sink So that reverse osmosis process so the UV is UF rather is alter filtration So it kind of goes through all these processes and then it goes through our UV And then that was where the water that was at our little testing facility that we had a permit that expired in late 24, beginning of 25.

So that's where people, you saw people drink the water from. It came on the outside, just right at that white line, just through the UV. So to move to the AWP process, we would still use all the items in white. We would just need to change out that UV and make it a UVAOP kind of machine. And then we would have some additional finishing at the end, either through the GAC, and then kind of finish stabilizing the post-RO water. So just a couple of processes at the end.

So again, changing that UV to UVAOP. It's an advanced oxidation process is what it is. It's a whole different contraption. And contraptions, right? Yeah, well. And then we would just need So it's a couple finishing items on the end of our current process, but it's definitely changing out that UV to UVAOP and then some other finishing processes at the end. Do you have any idea of the cost of doing that? So yeah, so we did go through the cost on it.

So that was, we costed this out with doing this water without additional waste water. So just for the couple of months per year instead of recharging, direct potable reuse. So again, no net gain. And then we did cost it out by adding that six pump back and either doing this at two different plant sizes. So we did have that cost. Would you like me to bring those costs back up? Sure. It sounds to me like this is the next step that we need to be taking to move forward.

And I'm just trying to make sure I'm right. So, honorable Mayor, members of council, Councilwoman Littlefield, so I did in my recommendations to suggest at this point, until the ADEQ rules are finalized, that we just change out that one piece of equipment. It just gives us flexibility and options. We can pay for it. And all the costs are accelerated to the midpoint of construction, so they're more expensive. We could kind of just do that one piece now.

And that would just give us flexibility going forward if we chose to add those additional finishing processes or not. So let me see if I can find the slide that has the... I don't have all the numbers memorized because these were Corolla slides. They probably changed too. That's okay. I would suggest that that would be the step forward that we take at this point. Slide number 39. Because it looks like the next thing that we need to do.

So, honorable Mayor, members of council, council members of limited field, I don't just have the UV AOP option in here because I kind of threw it out because there were so many things in here. We didn't cost that out separately and that's really a policy decision. So that's why I kind of threw it out. But we're happy to come back and bring about what those costs are. Thank you. Councilwoman DeBascus. Thank you. First, I would like to thank Mr. Tack and Mr.

Kobrick for coming to speak with us tonight. I agree that we have a great team and they are providing a high level of expertise for us tonight. So thank you for that. And then also, I appreciate the comment about collaborating with other cities. It does seem that we are very successfully working with other cities, and so I'd like to talk a little bit about the presentation that you gave tonight. On page 5, you talked about 141,000 acre feet. Can we take a look at that? Page 5? Slide 5. Slide 5.

So many flashes. So this is 141,000 acre feet and that is our assured water supply. So that is our total water portfolio that we have in one year. Honorable Mayor, members of Council, Councilwomen DeBosca, that's correct. Do we have 141,000 acre feet year after year or is that a one time number? That is year after year for a 10-year period.

We have 141 acre feet times 10 over the course of 10 years water available to us Correct So we are currently using you rounded up to 90 acre feet per year Well honorable mayor members of council Councilwoman Boschka said that is a clarification that yes that what we distribute but that not what we use because the potable water we use is that 82 number Right So that's really different.

So it's sometimes on some of the reporting with both with ADEQ, with the Arizona Department of Water Resources and some of the information you have, sometimes that gets added in and that's where some people think we have the wrong numbers and it's just you have to make sure you have the right amount. So that's what we distribute. Sometimes the state number also shows what we store, but that's savings. So that's where some of the discrepancies come when people So you just have to be very careful.

So that is correct. So if you go one more slide over to slide number six, so this clarifies it. So the total potable water, drinking water that we delivered was 8,200 acre feet. So what we actually distributed it and sent out also includes the reclaimed water and that's where we get that 93% of the water. Okay, so whether you're taking 90,000 or 82,000, we have 50,000 or 60,000 acre feet of water per year over the course of 10 years that we aren't utilizing. Is that?

Honorable Mayor, members of council, Councilwoman DeBacus, that's correct. We have a lot of water. Is that what you're saying here? It sure is, that's what it looks like. It looks like you're saying we have a lot of water in our portfolio. I'm the engineer, I just report the numbers. So if you think it's a lot, I'll go with that. Yeah, that seems like a lot. Our taps are not running dry. Okay. So now, then we talked about a 17% reduction in cap water. Can we go to that slide, which might be?

I think it's the next one. Slide nine. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. One more. One more. There we go. Okay, 17 percent. So if we had a 17 percent reduction, then that would be 18,000-ish acre-feet that we reduced from our cap allocation. But we just said that we had 50,000, 60,000 acre feet more per year than we use, let alone we use 63,000 acre feet of what CAP delivers to us.

So one of the comments that was made earlier tonight, and I think is a fair thing to point out, is that we sure use a lot of CAP water. We seem very reliant on CAP water. Can you explain why we use so much CAP water specifically? Chair Honorable Mayor and members of Council, Councilwoman DeBoskis. So our cap allocation of that 8,100 acre feet, we are required to put every drop to beneficial use. So we're not able to not use it. So we either have to use it and utilize it.

So it is really a first in, first out. We've got to use that water first. And so either we're using that to treat and distribute, or we're taking that water to use it. We're recharging it. So we have to use that water first. So I'm glad you bring that up because that's a point where everyone's like, you're so reliant. But the reality is we have to use that water. We legally have to use that water. So then that also then allows us to save the other water sources that we have. Correct.

And so that's what we're doing with it. And so that might be why that 50, 60,000 acre feet per year seems somewhat invisible to people because it's being saved, it's being used in other ways. Correct. Interesting. Okay. So this 17% reduction, that would mean that we would have no effect on our usage of the cap water because we are using less than that 17% reduction. So honorable mayor, members of council, Councilwoman DeBascus, that's correct. We will save less.

So that will be the resulting fact. We'll just put less in our savings account. But we won't have to go to any alternative plans to make up any difference in cap water. You're correct. And how did you come up with the 17% reduction? Where does that number come from? So honorable mayor, members of council, Councilwoman DeBascus, that is from the mind of our From Jill Broman.

But so we have M&I supplies, which are the municipal and industrial supplies, and so that has a certain rate and depending on what our combination is. So like everything, it's a big long math spreadsheet. And so that's what we've estimated. We won't know until CAP comes back and tells us. We also have Indian priority water that has different rates. So it's very complicated on it. I'm happy to have Jill answered if you want a more in-depth question on the water accounting. It's fascinating.

Yeah, I'd be interested in what level of confidence do we have in the 17? What's the potential for 40? What are your thoughts there? Good question. So, Mayor, members of the city council, what we've been told by CAP, they have communicated with us based on the lower basin proposal. They have estimates for each different priority of water. As part of that assessment, they're also looking internally at levers that they can adjust for the upcoming calendar year.

So when we're looking at our portfolio, and I wish we also had a slide of all of our different priorities, we're assessing the numbers they've provided. So you've probably heard things about the 20% reduction to M&I supplies. CAP has communicated to us that might be 14 percent. Because our portfolio incorporates more than just the municipal and industrial priority of water, there's implications to some of those reductions.

So we've been told on best available information that those reductions then would impact us volumetrically about 17 percent. They're currently in the process. We submitted our water order as of prior to October 1st, as we have to do every year. And they're currently assessing, they have, if you think our portfolio is complicated, they have tribal leases and all kinds of other things that they have to look at all of those different pools of water.

So they're going to provide us more insight ultimately on what we need to reorder. We're going to have to provide a revised order and at that point we'll have a much firmer number for what 27 will bring us. But this is best available that we have currently. So the calendar year is October 1 to September 30th? Honorable Mayor, members of the City Council, Councilwoman DeBosquez, yes. So we have fiscal years, we have water years, and we have all kinds of others.

So we have to, the water year starts October 1st. We put in our water orders, but they go into effect technically January 1st of 27. Okay, so we are continuing to operate on our order? Yes, so what we had put in previously for 26, we're still currently working through that order as we presented to CAP last year. And so then we are expecting a 17% reduction starting on January 1? Honorable members of the council, Councilwoman DeBosquez, yes, that is correct.

And would that be a one-year allocation or are we expecting that to be more than one year? So for the lower basin proposal, that would be in effect potentially two years. CAP is going to have to assess every year what that means relative to some of the other levers that are part of that plan. So there's elevations at Lake Mead or Lake Powell that may require some additional re-consultation with states and partners across the basin.

So there's a possibility, depending on hydrology too, that that dynamic might change outside of the framework requirements. Okay, so my bad math, let's redo, let's do the math again. 81,000 minus 67,000, so that's 14,000 cut? Correct. Yes. So it's 14,000 cut. We have 141,000 per year, so 141,000 minus 14. So we're still in the 127,000 acre feet per year that's available to the city of Scottsdale for use. And we use 90. And we use 82,000.

That for our portfolio there are implications that that 141,000, some of that is groundwater supplies. So we typically operate in the surface water space because that's renewable and we're able to use that annually. As our current drought plan stipulates, that impact, that volumetric impact, may have implications on what that looks like, depending on what the council decides on those volumes.

Okay thank you Some of these may be items that you cover Jill so it might be good if you stayed up Okay so we talked a little bit about the water smart and those meters and that they available for 75% of the homes, is that what you said? Honorable Mayor, members of the city council, Councilwoman DeBoskis, yes, that is correct. So we are automated metering infrastructure.

There is a device that goes onto our meters that then has kind of a collector and repeater set up so that that hourly usage data that's collected in the water meter is then able to be sent digitally to display on the portal for people to assess water use. Is there a reason why some homes don't have them yet? We're currently working through that process in the northern parts of our city.

We have to deploy that technology with cellular, and so that's kind of a different dynamic with a lot of the infrastructures put on telephone poles or light poles or other things that are less available in northern parts of our city. And so we have to kind of work through what that rollout looks like with our operations team. The leak detection and prevention is incredibly impressive. So I'm very excited for the rest of the rollout and for more residents to sign up for it.

That's an incredibly impressive product. So thank you for sharing about that. Thank you. I'm excited about the 2027 regional messaging campaign on water conservation. I think that's a wonderful idea. I remember as a child seeing TV commercials about turn the tap off when you brush your teeth and things like that. That would be wonderful for those kinds of things to return. And in a regional way, because I agree with you.

Some people might work in Phoenix, live in Scottsdale, live in, you know, work in Scottsdale, live in Phoenix. I think it benefits it. And it's a good idea to do it regionally. So thank you for participating in that. The SWAP program with other cities, I think that's wonderful. It has an opportunity for us to collaborate as Mr. Kobrick recommended, and so these are all great opportunities for collaboration. And then I really like the outdoor efficiency inspections. I think that was wonderful.

A million gallons saved in a year, that's great. Some social media and some, hey, we'll come inspect your home for free and all that kind of stuff. I think that could be really useful. So that's a wow. These are wonderful programs that I'm glad that we're talking about it tonight so that the residents have an opportunity to learn about it. You guys are doing incredible work. Thank you for that. The water efficiency assistance on page 19. Can we look at slide 19?

So this is related to HOA and commercial water. We had a presentation, I think, in the last council meeting, or maybe the meeting before, where we talked about some of our large water users, and I think four of the six largest water users were apartment complexes. So do we do that as well for apartment complexes or is it just HOA and commercial facilities? Honorable Mayor, members of the council, Councilwoman DeBosquez, it is available for any commercial entity.

The dynamic with apartments or with condos is a little bit different. So we would do common area spaces as part of the walkthrough, but we don't go into any individual units or homes. Gotcha. Okay. I think that's great. Can we look at slide 24? The estimate for the 32 million, I just wanted to confirm that, are we paying that or that's in the partnership with the IWDS?

Honorable Mayor, Members of Council, Councilwoman DeBoscus, so that 32 million dollars is our estimate and that is with the partnership with the IWDS, so that they are paying for that. So they are paying for that. So that 15,000 acre feet that we purchased, that is going to come through the infrastructure that's created. I'm sorry, I'm saying this wrong. I'm sorry. Do you want me to try? Yes. Okay. You can correct me along the way. So we're building the pumps. Yes.

and then the pipeline and then the turnout to the cap canal And so the 15 acre feet of long term storage whenever we wanted to use it would go through that same pipeline advance And we looked at we don need to increase the pipe size or do any of that because we could take it in an off period of times when it didn come in on the other 3 acre feet So we looked at that pretty carefully because I wanted to make sure that we weren needed to upsize later Right, right. That's wonderful.

That's wonderful. That's a great use and again a collaboration, right, and a partnership there. I appreciate that, that we are able to do that. On Booster Pump Station 10, and I don't have the slide number, but they should be next-ish. It's actually a couple more through there. Oh, there we go. Yeah, so this seems to me like a bird in the hand.

You know, the, the, we were just talking about the Harquihela, that's a distance and that's infrastructure and whatnot, but this is all a discussion, Pump Station 10, the 6th pump backstation, these are all discussions about water that's currently in our portfolio that we could use better. Yes.

And it feels to me like we're doing a wonderful job in the north and using that water for the gulf, but we can, you have identified that there are opportunities for us to do a little bit more, a little bit better. And it's not even little, actually. It's a lot. So between pump station 10 and the sixth pump back station, what's the total acre feet per year? I think it was in the six, seven, six range? 6,000 acre feet per year range.

Honorable Mayor, members of council, Councilwoman DeBacca, so we get an additional, I'm going to look at Carollo, 8 MGD a day for, I think we have that on the slide, don't we? If I can help, it's 3,000, sorry, Madam Mayor, if I may. Yeah, we have 3,000 acre feet on the NCS and then, um, That's I-10. Yeah. So that's the booster pump station 10 is 3,000 acre feet a year. Yes ma'am. So slide 36 if the booth can help us guide there. Yeah, there we go.

And then when you slip in the Harquihala, so you got the 3,000, the 3,600, which we've discussed in detail. And then you add in the 3,900 acre feet for the Harquihala, gets you approximately 10,500 acre feet. And we're looking at a loss of 14,000 from the cap. And then when you mix in, yeah, well, we're not even using all of that cap. And then on top of that, we don't use all the ground water, so that gets mixed in. Wow, so there is a lot of water opportunity in Scottsdale.

There is a lot of water opportunity. This is wonderful work. Thank you for uncovering this and sharing it with us today. One of the questions I want to ask might be a legal question for our city attorney, which is related to the Shrog for the 6th pump back station. Do we have any obligations to send the water to the Shrog? Honorable Mayor and members of the council, I'm my water attorney answer those questions. Thank you. Thank you.

Honorable Mayor, Council Members, Councilwoman Jaboskis, that is something that I am currently reviewing right now and we will be getting a memo to you on that. Okay, thank you very much. Honorable Mayor, Members of Council, and Councilman Jaboskis, just to add in on that, just to relieve some fear, the amount of water that we've looked at for the pump back is not water that we would have to send to them. So that would be easier.

We are looking at, so we can, we believe we can get that 3600 acre feet without impacting our SHRAG requirements. And are, in your memo, are you looking at canceling SHRAG entirely or how much, or could we pull back on some? Are you going to look at all those options? So honorable Mayor, members of council, Councilwoman DeBosch, this is to make a really clarifying point on SHRAG.

We actually do need to send some stuff to Shrog because we do have like water that we just can't recycle anymore that kind of needs to go down there. So we would have a requirement to send some to Shrog, but we could definitely, we are investigating how much that we can pull back. So the sixth pump back, it could have more water coming through, which would then obviously reduce the price, the cost per acre feed if we have more water that we're going to even bring in through there as well.

So that could make it more efficient. Honorable Mayor, members of council, Councilwoman DeBoschkis, I think we're really like, I'm an engineer, half a glass of water, not half full and half empty. So I think we're probably really in that 3,000 to 4,000 acre foot range. Now, there are other opportunities.

We have bonded very little in the water department to go look and bigger sewer area to collect And so we might be able to do it This is a smaller project but we could expand that to add more water like you suggesting That interesting That interesting More sewer Well, more collection towards the pump back, so a little bit more sewer improvement to the antirapillate. This one is like the easy button amount of water that we could get quickly, but we could expand that footprint.

Oh, that's fantastic. Okay. Slide 32. Okay, so this slide shows us today what is available for AWP, correct? And so what we were just talking about with the pump back stations and the NCS, then there's another slide that adds a bar on top of it. But so that slide is maybe 35? Two more. 34? Great. Okay. This slide, does that take into account the 17% reduction from CAP? Honorable Mayor, members of council, Councilwoman Boschus, this has nothing to do with the oversupply. This is new water.

So this doesn't have anything to do because it's not about our distribution. This is just about what we have. So it doesn't have anything to do with the cap water supply because this is just the recycled water that's coming in. So it doesn't. So that's the recycled water. So the purple is what we distribute right now to the RWDS, the golf courses. And then the light blue is what would be available for AWP should we choose that option.

But right now that light blue we're pumping in so it would just be a different use and wouldn't be new water. And then the top blue, the darker blue on the very top is what additional water that we would have for either indirect potable reuse or for AWP should we use the six month back. Or for saving. Correct. We could also, that additional, we could use the light blue right now that we pump in the ground and save.

We could pump into the ground and save that top blue layer if we had the six pump back. You're correct. Okay, so we're looking at about 6,000 acre feet that would be able to be reused or saved or would just give us flexibility in our portfolio. Eric, is it 6,000 acre feet total? So is that, does that subtract out the water that's going to RWDS? Yeah, it doesn't count. That's a total yield. Okay, so honorable Mayor, members of council, councilwoman Mr.

Oboskis, that's the total yield for AWP, so it doesn't subtract out, really it's the bars. So it's like we would need the, if we did a 10 MGD facility, you know, we're getting, we wouldn't be getting that 10 unless we have that six pump back. That's an important clarification because everyone thought we had the 10 with the AWP all along and that's where the numbers worked out, but we didn't have the 10. So, and we only had the four a couple of months a year.

So this is the, that, what the total plant would yield, but we would still need that, that purple would still need to go to RWDS under our agreements. Okay, okay. Can we go back to 32? Okay, so I think this is a very interesting slide to note that August is our highest water use month of the year. But that all summer long we really don't have any water available for AWP. We just, it just isn't there because why? Why is August our highest used month?

You'd think people are gone and you know we kind of slow down a little bit in the summer. So can you help us understand? Sure, Honorable Mayor, members of council, Councilwoman Boscus. So my theory, and Jill can pop me in there, is that there's a lot of outdoor water use in August. So, and it's also the time the golf courses are watering more, keeping their grass alive, right?

And then, so, even though you feel like everyone's gone, everyone leaves their outdoor irrigation on to keep their plants alive, right? And we've all gone out to our plants in August and they're like, really sad looking. And we hope to get them back and then we end up replacing them in the fall, right? So that is, it's outdoor water use. It's that people, things look bad and they're using more water outside even though they might be at home.

And then we don't have the recycled water when they're not at home because they're not taking showers, they're not washing their hands. We're not getting any of that water back into our system for use. So it's a lot of outgoing but not a lot of incoming in August. And whenever we water outside, we're not reclaiming that water. Right, right. So these conservation efforts are going to be important, right? This regional messaging about plants and whatnot in the summer.

I also think it's important to highlight, your next slide was about golf. Can we go to the next slide, please? Our golf courses, I live in DC Ranch. We're currently watching the golf course undergo a complete renovation. They've torn out the turf. They're doing a lot of work and I've spoken with them about the new grass that they're putting in and their effort to really use low water use grass. And that's also important that they're a good partner with us as we go through this.

Can we look at slide 37, please? So I wanted to ask you about these timelines because we don't have years here. So you did talk earlier about Bartlett Dam being 20 years out potentially. That's really far. So that's our far out kind of timeline. So can you walk us through these and you know just give us sort of an estimate of when you think those dates potentially are?

So honorable Mayor, members of Council, Councilwoman De Bosca, I did that on purpose because it's not empirical yet until you guys make some decisions and so or provide some direction. So the NCS water use is easy. We could do that. We could put in our capital plan. We could start designing it now with some other capital funds that we have. And so that one's actually pretty fast. That one's super easy. It's really just changing the pumps out, upgrading the station a little bit.

That's a slam dunk. The six pump backs, a little bit more work. We would have to find a parcel for it, kind of an idea. And then the design in that, I'm going to do it. So that's probably a three year time frame, maybe four, maybe five. We would like to bond that project going forward because it's a big project and we could utilize our cash better that way. And then the AWT, the canal, that's really kind of a regulatory question, but also building the pipeline.

But what's important on this AWT Water Decap Canal, it also goes into the SWAT program. And the reality is that cities and municipalities and towns, we all have these receiving places off the cap, and that becomes everyone's heart to distribute. So the ability to like really work with BOR and CAP on the idea that the canal is a superhighway of water, highway of water, versus just Colorado River water is really important because that's going forward. That's not treating it like 1992.

That's talking about 2042, right? Right. Which is kind of where we're at. 2042, we're not even complete with the Bartlett Dam yet. Right. Which is clearly at our end. It actually should be a little bit further over because that AW, P at the water campus could be closer to the beginning of that long term and Bartlett Dam is further out. There is a big span in there so that's probably, we didn't scale it. Okay, okay. And so where were you at with the AWP?

Honorable Mayor, members of council, Councilwoman DeBoskis. So we could change out that UVAOP pretty soon. We could do that in a two or three time, probably a two year time frame, two, three, I don't know how long the long lead time is on that piece of equipment, but the AWP, if we went to that full, we're probably in a three to five year time frame. And most of that has to do with the regulatory requirements with ADEQ, it's not the construction. Right, and you submitted comments yesterday?

Yes, we did. Fingers crossed. Yeah, we'll see. Can we take a look at slide 39? I was a little bit surprised by the cost. I think this was kind of eye-popping, these big numbers, their acre-foot costs. But I understand that these are plants and it's a very expensive process. And we've been talking about hundreds of millions of dollars. But some of these per acre-foot costs are really surprising. Surprising, staggering is the word.

Yeah, these are some really surprising costs, especially when you're looking at the AWP numbers. Those are really something else. I appreciate that the sixth pump back is also a large number, but as we're talking and it sounds like there might be more opportunities to use it and bring that cost down, then that makes that more attractive. And it's all this bird in the hand opportunity to really squeeze every last drop.

I use every pun I can think of to take advantage of the water that we do have So we done such a great job recycling the water and using it on the golf courses So I appreciate that it a little bit more difficult to keep finding those opportunities and so that you have found some that are sort of easy to get to is excellent But I think we should mark that these are enormous numbers. These are beyond a commitment.

You know, we have opportunities to acquire water and to do more things and to work through conservation and other efforts that could really have an impact. So I'm hesitant to be excited about those kinds of numbers. But what I really got out of this presentation is that we have a lot of water in Scottsdale. Scottsdale. You have really shown us that and you've shown us some flexibility.

You've shown us that our water department is innovative, using fresh eyes to find these opportunities and to really incorporate them into the planning and just being really thoughtful about it. So I really appreciate your work on this. Thank you very much, Taryn. Taryn. Thank you. Thank you. Councilwoman Whitehead. So I do want to clarify something. I appreciate all these remarks. There's a really huge big difference between legal water and real water.

And so it's easy for us to talk about water that the city of Scottsdale or Arizona is entitled to, but Mother Nature doesn't really care. And so the reality on the ground, I would love to be swimming in all that water we just talked about. But there are real discussions today about draining Lake Powell to save Lake Mead. This isn't something that's ever happened since Lake Mead was formed. And I want to talk about why we have the cuts, the very incredibly low cuts that we do have.

We have those because California volunteered to take huge cuts and help Arizona. So the cuts we would be seeing this year could have been much worse. But thanks to that and thanks to the federal government for accepting the lower basin plan. So what we have as a best-case scenario, and in my, the way I view it, is it's like a gift. A gift saying, you have two years to get serious about the reality.

It kind of reminds me of the saying that pilots are taught when they are first learning to fly, if the ground and the map disagree, the ground is right. That's where we're at today. The ground is right. And so we have a very real opportunity, and we better not blow it, because legal water doesn't come out of faucets.

I also want to talk about the pricing because according to the Arizona Municipal Water Users Association, advanced water purification is the premier large-scale solution for secure and the most cost-effective water supply that we have. And so this is just a start, but these numbers don't jive with anything that I'm reading throughout the state and from other water municipalities, so we've got to dig a little deeper.

Because it has been established that in fact our pure water, for many reasons, we don't have to move it, it's right here. here. And for us, we already have most of the treatment done. And it is and we don't have any federal laws preventing us from getting it. It is already ours. It is the most secure and it is the most cost effective water solution that has been the that has been what councils have been told since we built the plant.

And that is what why the city of Phoenix is building three such facilities. So I definitely am going to want to dig deeper into that. And I just want to talk about apartments. You can hate apartments all day long, but there's not a single apartment who's the biggest water user in the city. I just want to say the biggest water users, we do have a condo, I'm not naming names, you know, that uses a lot of water, but we have resorts, we have golf courses, we have We have hospitals.

And then the collective of all the single family homes. Again and again, we've heard that outdoor water is gone forever. Indoor water is valuable.

That's what we bring back into the system and we recycle So apartments if you look at one of the graphs up there they use indoor water but we recycle that And they use a tiny fraction of the outdoor water that you might use if you lived in a single home So I just want to give them a little bit of a you know shout out for being actually good on that one front But yeah this is a great start but we have you know again we don even know if we have two years There are many water experts, including the top water guy in the state, who is warning us that Mother Nature may not even give us two years.

But Lord knows, I'm pleased with the one-year reprieve we have, and that's why we have such a small amount of cuts. Thank you. Councilman, Councilwoman DeBoskis. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Councilman Whitehead, I'm a little bit surprised. The election is over. The dire warnings are no longer needed. Our experts have just told us that we have a lot of water.

We don't seem to be in a dire case, and so I don't think it's appropriate to be talking in such strong language, especially when our water experts are telling us a different story and creating a picture of efficiency. They're creating a picture of innovation. They're creating a picture of innovation. They're creating a picture of innovation. They're creating an environment in our city, which is what we're accustomed to, being at the top and being people who are thoughtful and thinking forward.

Working together with our residents, working together with other cities, we are leading in water. And so to create a situation where we have dire predictions is not appropriate at this level. You know, one of the things that was shown to us tonight is that AWP is not the cheapest. It's not the best. And by the way, there isn't enough of it to fix the problem. So what we have learned tonight is that we cannot rely on AWP. That's just not going to be the final solution.

Unless you want more of it by taking it from the golf industry. Is that what you're saying? Because our experts are saying we just don't have enough. So I think we need to stop with the dire warnings. I think we need to work with our city. And we need to have a solution where we're working closely with our residents and telling them the truth, telling them the honest truth. Thank you. Councilman Graham. Mayor, thank you.

And thanks again, staff, for the clear and thorough presentation on where we actually stand with our water. You know, I never really take time to appraise my colleagues' comments, but I want to make an exception right now. I want to thank Councilwoman Dubouskis, Her questions and comments were some of the most clarifying and illuminating and elucidating that I've seen from the dais.

They brought clarity to this incredibly important issue that others have used to try to, I would say, undermine security or confidence in our water professionals, in our water conservation efforts. Leaders should calm fears with facts and not attempt to undermine confidence in what we've worked so hard for.

This presentation shows straightforwardly that we have a diversified portfolio, an assured water designation, strong conservation results, and decades of experience recycling and banking water. Cap reductions are real and we plan for them. But the idea that, as Councilwoman Dubowskis was saying, to stoke some of these thoughts is not what we should be doing. Our residents deserve better than that. I think we've got some, I've kind of talked about them earlier.

I mean, I was proud of myself earlier talking about the costs and bringing that up, although I was just pointing out your work. So it was very good work. We have easy win opportunities right in front of us. Conservation efficiency, leak detection, outdoor use, and tools that we know work. We need to pursue those aggressively. We need to stay vigilant about our water security. We need to keep protecting our existing supply. And we should not give away our project to the next large property.

Give away our water to the next large project. Conserve it, recycle it, bank it, protect it.

I excited about what we discussed tonight And again I want to congratulate or congratulate I want to comment on what I consider to be an elucidating role that Councilman Tabouskis played in this important crucial conversation Thank you Councilwoman Littlefield Councilwoman Littlefield Councilwoman Littlefield Thank you Mayor I just had a quick question and all the talk about water brought it to my mind I talked to Brian Biesmeyer a number of times while he was the director of water resources here in Scottsdale And he was very active in trying to close down the individual wells, especially in South Scottsdale and Central Scottsdale, and put everybody on the overall water system that we have for the city.

And I was wondering, do you see that as a problem? Is that an option that's still being looked at or are people being talked to about moving off the individual wells and going on to the city system or no? Honorable Mayor and members of council, Councilwoman Littlefield, I actually haven't had any of those conversations. There are some entities that are on some private wells, some HOAs that have some private wells. So we've had some discussion with them.

Some of it is that there would be some capital investment on their portion. So there are some active wells. I'm not aware of any individual wells that people are on within our service area. But I'm happy to look into it and get back to you. Yeah, there's quite a few. I can tell you where some of them are. Sure, I'm happy to hear. Because I lived in a house that had a well. Fair enough. But he was just concerned because the water doesn't recycle back into the city's system.

It just dissipates out. So honorable mayor and members of council, Councilwoman Littlefield, so the well, like freshwater wells into the thing, so it's also, we do have some homes that are not on sewer. And so we have looked at that just recently. I went and met with a homeowner and talked about their connection. They were having a difficulty.

We have a couple other ones that we're looking at that to do a little bit of some sewer improvements to bring those lines closer to them so they can connect because that's absolutely that gives us that wastewater that we could recycle and in areas where we already have a pump back to collect that. So we are looking at that. Thank you. So it looks like that's it. I want to point out and maybe ask for clarification on this slide that we're looking at.

We're really, this isn't an apples to apples comparison with the price per square foot, price per acre foot, excuse me. I mean, this is obviously the project cost, which let's take the six pumped back plus 2,600 AFY yield, $4,600 per acre foot. So when you amortize that over 100 years of available water, I mean, do we have a price per acre foot over the course after the project cost? Because it sounds like we're mixing the two, the price per acre foot versus price per project. I can clarify.

Honorable Mayor, members of council. So we did it in acre foot because, you know, the water department is the only city service where we provide a service to you, that water that comes to you, but we also buy a commodity. And so all that's kind of the talk with acre feet, we were trying to like boil it down so everyone kind of got it and it wasn't talking in our distribution number, which is, you know, millions of gallons per day is kind of the distribution number.

So that's what I'm used to thinking in. And then, but we buy water at acre feet and certainly the water policies on acre feet. So this is the capital cost for investment. This isn't the operating cost. And so once you have that NCS water use, for example, let's just take the easy one. The cost per acre foot is $600 to put it in, but after that there would just be the operating costs going forward. So the same with the six pump back, it's $2200 an acre foot.

We were just trying to put it in to understand what it costs to buy that as the commodity, but then once we had paid those costs, there would be operating costs with the AWP for sure, and we show those operating costs, but the six pump back, we would have to have some additional staff because that would be additional staff. We may be able to incorporate it in with our current staff, and the NCS water use is just upgrading the pump.

So it was just trying to put it in the commodity pricing just to be able to compare it. Okay, so I just wanted to point out that's not the price per acre that we would expect to pay or absorbed this time 20 years from now. No, not every year. Yeah, you're correct. Clearly, that's disproportionate. It's not every year. It was just to show what the commodity price of putting that in to get that water. Correct. Totally understand.

Yeah, and so, but no, you wouldn't be paying $600 an acre for it for the next hundred years for the upgrades of the booster pump station 10. We're just going to pay it the one time for that acre foot to get it as a commodity and then we would go forward. I just wanted to make sure that was clarified. And the next thing I had to, Jill, I want to ask you, the hot water recirc that you mentioned, I personally think that's a very appealing idea.

I had an estimate done by a plumbing expert who has replaced, you know, these, put hot water Recirculators in homes and if you let your sink run, one sink run for two minutes, it's three gallons are lost, right, per minute. And so over a year, if you just let it run one sink for two minutes, much less three sinks for three to five minutes or a shower, right, The sink for two minutes is 1,100 gallons per year lost water, right? Wasted water.

And then, actually, it might be a little, no, it's 1,100 actually. And then that, to put a hot water recirc in your home, single family home, is $1,100 coincidentally. Oddly. So I am a big, huge supporter of that. I'd love to see the city source or provide some sort of a rebate or cost sharing incentive to really make that happen. I mean, when you look at the, I did the math, 73,000 single family homes are there about in Scottsdale.

If one sink runs two minutes per day in each one of those homes at 1,100 gallons per year, that's 80,300,000 gallons of water. Gallons lost. So, you know, 246 acre-foot, to put it in your language. So I think that's a really big issue that we should be taking seriously. And it sounds like you had a little bit of experience previously with that. And before you do comment on this, I do want to hear what your thoughts are. Also, the rainwater harvesting ordinance.

I think we really need to focus on capturing rainwater and water that's flowing through our community. We've seen the storms over the last couple of weeks that, I mean, my gosh, if we had a highly effective rainwater recapture program, that would have been great. Honorable Mayor, members of the city council, if you would permit me, I actually have documentation at my seat with some information on historic numbers we have regarding our hot water research program. Sure. Thanks.

All right, honorable mayor, members of the city council, I'm so glad you brought this up. This is definitely one of those areas of water that is very intuitive and touchable for all of our residents. You know, I mean, if you're waiting for the shower to warm up, or if you're waiting for your sink to warm up, those are visceral gallons that you are We did actually offer a hot water recirc rebate from the years 2005 to 2016. We provided a total of 2,729 hot water recirculation rebates.

We actually looked at, so they have typically a lifespan of 10 to 15 years. So as we've rebated these during the time of our program, we found, And kind of similarly to some of those metrics that you have quantified, an estimated yearly savings of about 2,723 gallons. As we have moved into even more efficient fixtures for our shower heads and rebating things like WaterSense label devices, a lot of that is more on the kind of weighting side.

So it's when we assess our conservation programs, we're always looking for kind of the most gallons saved per dollar spent on our programs. So when we've done the assessments in the past, those gallons relative to something like our turf removal, which has, you know, hundreds of thousands of gallons saved across... I don know if I allowed to some of the words around so it a little easier to read I realize that the font is kind of small, so I apologize for that. Thank you.

So when we're looking at kind of quantifying... Oh, thank you. That's a fancy little device. When we've looked historically at these numbers, we've prioritized programs that have greater savings, but part of conservation is also the education component, and as we get people engaged around their water use, there is savings associated with that as well.

So we were going to be bringing, as part of our public engagement piece, as we discuss different conservation or demand management strategies, kind of providing some of this information to our residents to get feedback on, you know, because we really want to get insight into how they use their water and how they feel connected to that water.

And so we will be incorporating some of that and if there's additional direction on assessing these numbers, but I thought it was interesting to share kind of real Scottsdale numbers relative to the REUWS is the Residential End Uses of Water Study. There's since been an update to that study, so these numbers reflected are from 2014, Elisa? 2016? And there was another study that was released, I think, in June. So... But happy for additional direction on kind of what that looks like.

No, that's great. I think that's wonderful. So I just I think that's a great way to go. And as we close this out, thank you both for your presentation and of course, Corello. That was a great ad as well. But I think we've got direction. Sounds like the UVA AOP replacement that's already in the works. Obviously, the conservation plan. I do like the idea of publicizing these things, you know, more widespread. And savings tips as well. So with that, I think good job. Thank you. Thank you so much.

All right. Well, last but not least. What's that? Next we have the, we have Erin Perot, who from Planning and Development Services, she's the senior director, and Kevin Burke from Economic Development and Tourism, senior director. and they will lead a discussion regarding zoning ordinances applicable to data centers. Welcome. Thank you Mayor. Good evening, honorable Mayor and members of the city council. Per your request, we're here tonight to discuss data centers. So what is a data center?

A data center is a facility that includes computer servers and IT equipment to store, process, and transmit digital information, Continuously. These centers also include electrical infrastructure, cooling systems that are required, backup power that can be generators, batteries, or sometimes substations on the site, and telecommunications facilities. Data centers can range from relatively small facilities to large buildings or even multi-building campuses.

In terms of different types of data centers, there are enterprise data centers that are really focused on operating primarily for one company's own technology needs. There are co-location facilities that provide space, power, and connectivity to multiple customers. And then there are hyperscale facilities that we're seeing most talked about today in the media.

These hyper-scale facilities are the very large facilities or again multi-building campuses that are designed for substantial computing demand. Scale is the most important factor in evaluating the potential impacts to the city today. In terms of data centers, it's not a new land use in Scottsdale or otherwise, But what is new are the changes in the scale and intensity with these facilities, and that's why they're being talked about so much by communities.

This change in scale and intensity is primarily due to the rapid growth in AI cloud computing and other digital services demands In terms of this change in scale and intensity it creates considerations for community beyond just land use and zoning now It also creates capacity issues, public safety and long-term infrastructure needs to be considered. The change in scale is one reason we're starting to look at closer regulations of some of these facilities, especially the larger facilities.

Water use is another consideration for communities, but not every data center is a large water user. It just depends on the facility size and operations. So what are communities considering nationally?

They're really looking at, there's no one model that we found, they're doing different things in different places, but they are all looking at land use, site and operations, infrastructure, and even considering long-term consequences of some of these facilities, including possible decommissioning in the future or adaptive reuse. of some of these sites. What are Arizona communities considering? We took a look around locally. Again, there's no one model to solve data center regulation.

Some communities are continuing with their existing zoning as they have in place today, but others are taking a look at closer regulations, depending again on the size of the facilities. One common factor we're seeing both nationally and locally in communities is that communities are taking a look when larger facilities are proposed at additional regulations. So how do we regulate these data centers in Scottsdale?

You won't find the term data center in our current ordinance, but you will find the broader terms of data processing, hosting, and related services. So we do not define or regulate data centers specifically. It would fall under that broader category. And we don't currently in our ordinance distinguish between sizes of facilities. So where are they permitted? They're permitted in the I-1 and IG zoning districts.

These districts are primarily located in the Scottsdale Air Park, so they're already kind of insulated from residential uses. In terms of regulation, they're permitted by right, but that doesn't mean that they're not regulated. So of course they go through our zoning regulations, our development review, building codes, fire codes, and other applicable codes as well. There's no data center specific conditional use permit in Scottsdale today.

In terms of the I1 and IG compatibility standards, we look at a lot of things with regard to anything built in I1 and IG, including data centers. That would be building and activity setbacks, landscaping, open space, building height, lot coverage, mechanical equipment screening, and so forth. These standards, however, were not developed specifically to address large data centers at this time. So we have two data centers in Scottsdale currently.

These two data centers have been in the community since 1999 and 2000, so they're not new land uses for us. These two facilities are modest in terms of their size and utility use compared to the hyperscale that you're seeing played out in the media today. So we don't have those hyperscale facilities in Scottsdale. These two facilities are generally experienced by our community, similar to a large office use, warehouse, or industrial use.

And there are no new data center applications pending in Scottsdale right now, so none of them are knocking on our door imminently. In terms of some considerations, zoning is only part of the regulatory framework that we're looking at. Zoning can address and does address today location, setbacks, and buffering, building design, equipment placement, and noise-related site design.

Other things that other communities are looking at particularly again with the large facilities are water and wastewater use electrical use emergency response because of some of the fuel on site for the generator backups air quality and so forth And then finally, tonight's discussion is to obtain council's feedback regarding regulations for data centers in Scottsdale. The city can continue on with the existing regulations that we have.

Another option, of course, is that we could look at further regulation for this type of land use. Should council decide to go with further regulation or have us at least explore that, we would, of course, understand what your policy issues are this evening.

coordinate with other city departments and our outside utility partners, continue to look at what other communities are doing, and then of course work with our legal team to figure out what we may or may not be able to regulate, and then bring something back for your consideration. With that, that concludes my presentation and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you, Aaron. For my convenience or sake, when I get to my questions, can you go back to the slide before this, please?

Vice Mayor McKellen. Vice Mayor McKellen McKellen Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Aaron, for your presentation and for sitting through all of water to get to data centers. I'm going to actually ask you to go all the way back to, I believe it's the second slide, and it lists what the four categories are. Maybe that's right there.

So the two that exist and have existed in Scottsdale with no problem at all since 1999, and no one would have ever known they were here because they fall under a different definition. What do the two fall under? Where do you see them between those four terms? What are they called? Honorable Mayor and members of the city council, they would probably fall under the co-location. We believe they're serving more than just one particular technology need. Okay, thank you so much.

Yeah, it's one of those things that sounds big and scary, and when we first decided to talk about this, I asked you right away, and you said, we already have to. They've been here since 1999. And then you explained to me that the definition was a little different. So with this place and time and there are no applications, it would be safe to say that we should be proactive and define what would be best for our community by defining it other than this, you know, what did you call them?

Hikerscale. Yeah. So anyhow, thank you for your time. I just wanted those clarifications. Appreciate it. Councilwoman Tabascus. Thank you. I actually wanted to ask Kevin Burke about the data centers. I understand that we have no applications. As you work in economic development, have you received any inquiries? Is anyone talking to you about data centers? Mayor, Council, Councilwoman Dubasquez.

At present, we've not entertained any conversations from private sector developers expressing interest in developing what we would refer to like large scale or hyper scale data centers in Scottsdale. Not yet. And in the conversations about the type of businesses that people are interested in, are you hearing anything about even these sort of medium sized data centers? Is there Is there any talk about data centers at all?

We've not had any conversations with potential data center developers or those who would be interested in constructing projects really of any size. I would say based on our experience and looking at the deal flow, the projects that have come to the region and statewide, there really aren't any new sort of smaller scale co-location facilities being constructed. All of the momentum is towards the hyperscale, right?

And the scale of these projects, as Aaron stated really clearly, has changed very significantly over the past decade. Where those projects, like the ones that we have existing in the community, are between, say, 5 and 15 megawatts. Now the smallest of the hyperscale data centers that are coming into these communities would be 200 megawatts, right? So potentially, say, 20x what they were just a decade ago.

And all of the associated facilities that are required for something of that scale are difficult to find in Scottsdale at this time, which I think helps to really significantly explain why the interest has been in other communities and not Scottsdale. If you're going to build a facility that is going to have a 200 megawatt data center, you're going to need more than 40 acres to do it, which is what some of those older co-location sites would accommodate.

So in your view, they're not coming to us because we're not the right fit for the type of data centers that are coming online today? Mayor, members of the council, Councilman Dubonskis, I think that's a fair way to put it, right? There are myriad factors that go into location decisions for any type of corporate business. For data centers in particular, it's power and water and its land availability and its community compatibility.

On a bunch of those scores, we have APS and SRP both with their own capacity challenges due to increasing demand. Water use is a challenge across the southwest. And then land availability is sort of the one that, particularly for our community, sort of takes us out of the running for a lot of these large-scale projects.

They simply don't have the site availability that some of the other communities across the region have to make that process of locating a large hyperscale facility something that they would consider. When we were in Taiwan, the mayor of Mesa, one of the things that he talked about pretty frequently is that the city of Mesa has several data centers, and he was promoting that they have five pads available for data centers in Mesa.

It may be that in addition to what we have available, that other cities are actively seeking data centers and you're apparently not. And so data centers may be going where they're wanted in some senses as well. I would agree with that statement. Okay, thank you. Councilwoman Whitehead. Yeah, actually that was a helpful question slash answer. I think the fact that we don't have appropriate sites does minimize, you know, the chances of having these centers here in Scottsdale.

But I guess, you know, the three concerns are the noise and the water usage and the energy demands.

So I think if, you know, and with the The mayor proposed large water ordinance You know I think that what we looking at There is I mean there one company that looking at Scottsdale I don know what size data center or anything it years off but it just would be good for us to be educated on the different data centers and if possible to put with that you know those factors like well you know would these exceed a noise level Would these exceed a normal office power usage And just to have some education up here and then for the public.

But again, it is data centers are an issue nationally and statewide, and it's not about ending data centers, but it's about making sure everything is balanced and, you know, the usage, but not a Scottsdale problem per se. Thank you. Councilman Quasman. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Can we all just admit that this is not an issue in Scottsdale and close this right now? Because this is, we are just, now it's just grandstanding and wasting everybody's time. So I move to close this item.

Actually, I'd like to speak, please. Okay, let's talk about the issue that doesn't exist in Scottsdale. I brought this forward. I understand it doesn't exist in Scottsdale. Pardon me. Can you go to slide 11?

It doesn't exist in Scottsdale yet, but it's incumbent upon us to look ahead and when a data center does decide to chem apply to put in an application for a data center in a neighborhood, which I can think of one off the top of my head, and we all are aware that there is a potential for at least a data center. Every industrial zoned area could be one. I totally agree it's not the right community for it.

However, you know, looking at realistic requirements if and when one comes before us certainly does not offend me.

I think that would be a wise thing to do in the event we do see this use coming through So I in favor of having our city attorney look at what is appropriate and is relied upon by other communities to put safeguards for our residents who might be exposed to an application in their neighborhood So I don know why we wouldn do that but Anyway, I'd like to make a motion to direct the city attorney to come back with ideas about what makes sense for our city to enhance regulatory oversight, For example, with water recirculating noise mitigation safety requirements.

That's what I would look for. I'll second that motion. All right, I don't see any other comments. Let's go ahead and take a vote on that. All right. Thank you both for your overview of this and we'll look forward to see what Luis has for us in the future. Thanks so much. Thank you. Time to get the cookies out. All right. That concludes our regular meeting this evening. And Vice Mayor McKellen wants to say something. Vice Mayor McKellen Thank you, Mayor.

This weekend, I'd like to invite those watching, those present here. We are having, the city is not sponsoring it, however there is the 10th annual Dia de los Muertos event this Saturday that will happen on Civic Center Mall and I'm looking forward to it. So thank you. All right, Councilwoman Littlefield.

Thank you and I would just like to thank City Council and our staff for the lovely flowers that they gave me for my birthday and the cookies too Thank you Councilman Graham Mayor thank you I want to take a moment to congratulate city staff for a very successful relocation expansion of the Old Town Farmers Market Record attendance record sale There were so many sales the vendors ran out of inventory I hear The site is working great better than anybody expected There shade there grass there places for people and families to sit and actually enjoy themselves which is a change from the past.

So I want to congratulate everybody. A lot of work went into that and it gets overlooked very easily. Second thing I want to mention now I want to promote is there's so many things coming out, especially with Halloween and fall festivals. Eek at the Peak. We've done that before our family. Pinnacle Peak Park, North 102nd Way in North Scottsdale. Saturday, October 24th, 9 a.m.

They're gonna have animals, they're gonna have live interactive, great for kids, and it's just one of the features of our city that makes us so family friendly and tourism friendly. So I hope to see you there. All right, I'll add on that. It is great news with the farmers market and I think everyone up here was hugely in favor of the farmers market finding an effective relocation. and successful for their for everybody in town. That of course was never the issue.

So I'm glad to see they're succeeding. I haven't been yet, but I'm looking forward to getting there. So with that, I will move to adjourn. All right, we're done. Thank you.