Cave Creek Water Advisory Committee approves conservation campaign amid Colorado River shortage uncertainty

Call the order. We have a quorum. Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the announcements. Okay, we got a motion to approve the July 9th minutes. Second. Any comments? Any changes? All in favor? I Okay. Presentation by the town of Cape Creek on future water resources. I'll sit and stand here show up. Um, commission, thank you very much.

Um, the uh water uh video that um you're going to watch tonight, which I think some of you have already seen because it's was supposed to be held in secret until you had a chance to see it first, but it's out there. Um it was kind of commissioned by uh a town manager Grady Miller um earlier this year where he told the council that he would um work on a video to highlight some of our issues in town um positive and also what we're looking for in the future.

And so that's how the video came about and um it was just completed a little less than a month ago. uh with the help of CAP, we were able to uh get some really high-end quality uh video to help support um the the storyline that we're trying to tell here for our residents. Um which is uh we get our water from CAP. Uh this is how it works into the town. This is how we care for our water and here's the situation we're in looking for more water.

Um and but it's it's designed to be a we're doing all that we possibly can. We're secure right now. Um, and we're working hard to find more resources in the future. So, with that, I guess we'll start the video. The overhead lights. Hi everybody. Hello. Thank you. So is this available? Yes, it's on YouTube. pressure. Don't worry, we are That's not Let's just go through this.

From its beginnings in the central Rocky Mountains of Colorado, the Colorado River touches seven states along its 1500 mile journey to the ocean. Energy and growth to agriculture, towns, and cities. Epic. And this is while you're correct. It's not all pictures of Cape Creek. They're getting reverb. This is weird. and the happy little crescendo at the end. So, so as you saw in that video, um it's not designed to be a scare tactic.

It's also designed to be this is how we can protect our water resources and what we're doing to look for future water resources. So, um, you know, our utility department works really, really hard and the idea is to, uh, you know, kind of show the respect and the hard work that they do, uh, to provide the resources for the town and and their and, uh, hopefully that video shows it. Thank you.

Well, go to for YouTube it' be the town of Cave Creek and then uh it's it's Cave Creek water current and future resources. But you can also find it if you want an easier path is just go to um Cave Creek website, town of Cave Creek website and then go to the utility department and it's on the homepage. Oh, thank you. Well, that was the whole idea. I know we all turned off the mics, but we could. Thank you. My thumb's really sore from holding this one down.

We have to thank Bo and uh Vice Mayor Roy for narrating that putting that together because I think it's everything we can do to get outreach and again this is we're out very professionally done video for the channel that shows what we're doing highlights everything that this committee is trying to accomplish but what we don't want to alarm people but it is concerning what's happening with our water supplies so in the dialogue it said that the new um connect with Phoenix will supply us with so many million gallons of water it sounds like that's an onzoing thing, not just a when we need to do work.

Are we getting water regularly? Um yes. Well, we're actually we're actually going to evaluate um so uh the the IG intergovernmental agreement that we have with Phoenix is for them to divert, treat, and deliver our water resources. So, first of all, I just want to reinforce that it's we're not getting new water from the them. They're actually just treating some of our supplies. They do set a fixed cost. It's every two years they can give us a new cost. Um that what that is to us.

Right now it's actually very close to what it cost to operate the water treatment plant in the CAT pipeline. So u while that's going on we can then now look at every year we have to evaluate that. Every two years they give the cost update about um um do we want to base load with Phoenix? Do we just want to you know have a constant flow from them up to 1,000 gallons a minute is what's can be supported by their distribution system. We may not want that in the first year.

We probably won't add that much water. We probably we might test it for a while, but we'll probably run 500 to 750 and see. We also want to see the impacts on our system. So, yeah, we don't know at this point, but it gives us another tool to work on. Um, it does allow us for a couple of months in the year uh towards Christmas and into the new year where we have low flows to turn off the cap canal and the and the water treatment plant and do major major um maintenance work on it.

So yeah, when it comes online next year, it's going to give us some opportunities to evaluate it. One of our uh concerns is just water quality because we're we're moving water from Phoenix system into our system that's in our reservoirs and things like that. So we have to monitor that and evaluate that probably for several months to figure out how best to to take that water in. The good thing is where it's positioned is you don't know how the system works.

You know, the water treatment plants in the town core. It feeds the Neri reservoir which is on Hidden Valley Drive.

Ner's only equipped with what we call zone seven pumps and those are the pumps that pump all the way north on schoolhouse road getting all the way north to distribution system then you get to zone eight so it's pretty high pressure sites then we cut it with a pressure reducing valve to get down south on cave creek road all the way down to our customer carefree highway and out to desert hills we're actually using pressure reducing valves to cut that pressure the Phoenix interconnect site actually will boost directly into our pressure zone one which is along Carefree Highway and our direct connect into desert hills so Actually, we do think energy-wise it'll be more efficient than running the near site.

So, that we have to balance that out. So, it's it's going to be good. It's going to be challenging for the staff, but it's exciting time to have that and have that infrastructure backup is huge. I mean, yeah. And they also said that the storage tank be used for fighting wildfires. How would that work? Generally, uh when that Yeah. You can't pick the buckets. It's got a lid on it. No, it's just the town's overall strategy towards uh fighting fires and wildfires.

You know, we're trying to make sure that the distribution system is as reliable as it can be that we continue to provide water resources or fire resources to the extremities of the distribution system. That's sort of what feeds into that. So, it gives us another storage reservoir to help in the case of an emergency like a fire event to actually be able to be anywhere in the system to keep keep those hydrants wet for people to fight fires.

And you know, I think the uh um with our urban um interface that we have up here, I think um I forget the fire chief's name right now. Yeah, Minister Ford um Chief Ford, he's brought up that you know it's just wildfires is one of our biggest risks just our position. question in the future.

Uh but I think the the comment about that the added capacity that's that's brought by that S connect is a little unclear as to whether that's additional capacity or Creek waters exist and not you know uh just if there's an opportunity when you when you reedit the it in the future at some point in time or what have you might want to make make it clear that that's an existing resource not Well, Sean, to clarify that, it's my understanding that our allocation of the cap is going to be diverted to Phoenix in exchange for what they supply through their system.

So, one for one, right? Well, one to 0.95. They actually do uh we actually have a a 5% treatment transmission launch, which we actually get ourselves on treating the water ourselves. You never get 100% of your water, but yeah. So, uh we actually just had that conversation with Phoenix in the Central Arizona project.

So next year when the water orders are due, which is October, um they will actually have a water order that actually and I built a schedule and so we're going to order less water for the last six months of the year. Phoenix will and we're going to say it's going to come through Phoenix. So it's we're actually going to have to do a joint uh water order with the Central Arizona project.

So you had mentioned that you shut off the cap and I don't remember what the other resource was during the winter when the usage is way down. Could we could would that be then banked and then credited as available resources later? No. So that that's going back to the infrastructure. So you know right now the town has the one pipeline that's fed by four booster pump stations to get water 12 and a half miles 600 ft elevation from the CP canal to the town for our treatment plant.

Um so there's multiple single points of failure. Each booster pump station is in fact sort of a single point of failure the pipeline itself. And then we have multiple early files that need to get worked on and the treatment plant itself could use uh you know we we do a lot of work on it. We we shut components down and do work on it. Our thought is that you know if we have a major improvement project planned we can say we're going to plan and work with a contractor and give them dates.

I think December is when flows seem to drop significantly. We say from December to February, we can shut off that plant or that pipeline and you could do your work or we give you a six week or four week and we'll feed the system off of the interconnect with the city of Phoenix. It's going water resource-wise, it's still the town's water. It's either it's coming to us for treatment and delivery to the distribution system or it's coming Phoenix treatment and delivery to our distribution system.

So, and we do recharge any excess. This year we do have excess or unused portion of our cap allocation. It is going into uh CAP recharge facilities. Next year we forecast it'll drop a little bit. We haven't got the final numbers and what next year will be moving forward. That's what after 27 currently we're we're very lean if not in the negative and that's what we're worried about right now. But you know when I always mention that it's it's not a water resource uh issue.

Um it's the infrastructure backup that the city of Phoenix that gets us. So we don't have a single pipeline with a single treatment plant meeting all the customers. We now have a secondary supply. While it can't meet all their demands, there isn't a emergency clause in the IG and we can actually accept more water from them. So I have to be careful about you know calling peanuts and say can you turn off but if there's an emergency that's actually built into the also.

So um that that that truly if we get into a situation where like the cap pipelines down or something catastrophic happens at the plant it gives us some breathing space. Is that reciprocal? Do we have to have babies? No it's one way. So yeah that's how it works. Yeah. So it actually comes through and there's actually a backflow device so it can only go one way in from them to us. So yeah usually water providers don't want the water to come back.

So and you know well I'd like to think that we could back up Phoenix reality. our system is nowhere near as reliable as our system. So, so I'm glad to have this interconnect and be fairly close to being uh built. When when is that completion date? Uh June of next year is the substantial completion date. Um it's really being held on the delivery of the last piece of electrical gear. They call the um I believe it's the SCES. Um that got held up.

Uh we did an early order, but that's the last piece of equipment. So most of the site work should wrap up this calendar year. There'll probably be a pause for a couple months. Well, then most of the electrical gear will probably come by March and we have one piece of equipment that currently is scheduled up for June delivery.

We're talking to the contractor about if they can rent something or bring something out temporarily so we can actually start doing test up and start up on the site before June. But right now it's June. June um middle of June I think is the substantial completion date for the contract. And that's the Cape Creek component of the interconnect. You said there was a recommended to water this. Yeah. Well, Phoenix's water system, you probably ran into the work coming up Cape Creek Road South Highway.

That was the city of Phoenix building a new 16inch water line to come on and tie on to our 16inch which ends currently in front of Walmart. That work is done. They actually have to remobilize and come back out. There's actually um work at the intersection they need to do. They're going to cutting a new isolation valve and they have to disconnect the distribution system, fire system that currently extends the sprouts into the Braza hospital. So, they have to do that work.

They're actually they contacted Mel and the town engineer. They they plan to mobilize here shortly and start all that work. They also have a booster pump station upgrade to do and a pipeline on Lone Mountain. Per the supposed to be completed by February of next year. Um I've heard from the project manager they expect they'll be done by the yeah the end of this calendar year. So they'll be done probably six months before us so we can get that electrical gear sorted out.

We hopefully we're only three to four months behind when they're done but they'll be done before us. So it's all coming together very nicely. Moving to a different topic on your future water current water. any um thing to report regarding the testing of groundwater wells. Um yeah, you know, we've mentioned that before. So, and I know it shows the floor. So, the the Cave Creek water system was started on groundwater wells.

So, was Desert Hills um and Cave Creek had the foresight to actually get uh surface water supplies um from central Arizona project and build all that infrastructure. So, we have completed testing on three of the town's wells. uh we we focused on the ones that are in the town core.

There's an existing uh well treatment line or raw water line that actually got ran through the town core and connected well sites together because again the old private water company had the foresight to say hey we're bringing the treatment plant online but we might need the wells back up or use it some other classes.

So we're currently doing um so three wells that have been tested the one at the treatment plant site it's referred to as the right one well that used to be actually before it was a water treatment plant site it was actually the right reservoir booster site. So there's a right one and right two well and it was a dual zone booster.

Most of that work most of that improvements have gone away but the well casing still out there that was the highest volume well we got over 200 gallons a minute out of that and the water quality uh pretty much met drinking water standards. It was just very close to the um maximum level for our state. Uh then we tested a well on Linda Drive uh the east side of Linda Drive.

that well tested out very well, but we only got about 80 gallons a minute and again it had high arsenic in it, not exceeding 10 parts per million, but close um to the point that we're concerned. And then we tested the well at at um Grapevine Road and Spur Cross and that tested at about 80 gallons a minute also. So what we're doing right now is uh we've given all the information um Clare Creek and Associates has actually wrapped together a report and then they've given that to Black & Beach.

Black & Beach is evaluating to see can that water be brought into the treatment plant as a alternate water supply source in addition to the calf water so we can bring that water in. Can it be blended down to make sure it stays compliant? Um and or is it just useful for irrigation? So, we're waiting for that component. While we've been doing that, staff have been actually out investigating the well line because we have never found maps of the well line system.

Um, I've only ever found one section of about a thousand feet of it showed up in one drawing. And then besides for that, we're all just working off memory or where we've seen it in excavation. So staff have actually been potholeing the line trying to find it and testing to figure out how is it even connecting from the water treatment plant. We figured out we learned some new stuff just last week. So we we believe this upcoming year, we're working actually on the funding of the CIP right now.

uh we should be able to at least clip uh the right well and get that online and we're pretty uh confident we should should be able to tie it into the pole treatment units as an alternate supply. So in addition to the cap water we can actually feed raw well water something we have to monitor. Um we'll have to evaluate the other two which one makes more sense to bring online.

Uh if we could get all three that'd be great, but we'll we'll have to do the first one to get in overall dealing with the cost and all that. But um yeah, it went it went well. Testing the wells. We still have the last well that was actually operational in the system is the vermiche well which is out in desert um park drive on the east end of town that actually was very high in arsenic level. So about 10 times the contaminant level, maximum contaminant levels allowed by code.

Um, so we didn't test that one specifically and there were some issues with the weld casing itself. It's it's actually a deeper well than the other ones. The other wells are about 300 feet deep. That one's actually 800 ft deep and it's actually in a in a wash itself. Um, we suspect that it'll be a good well and it was the last one that to be functioning working. It's just we have to get past or figure out what to do with your high arsenic. So, we go back to that well.

Um, there was some work done in 2018 to try and repair the casing. It had some holes in it. um we may have to look at a redrill of that casing and then uh bring that back in. So that's an opportunity.

So while the wells will never truly, you know, they'll help out and I think there's language in the report that I want to probably get corrected with um as approval is it's not the bringing the wells online will not completely replace the shortage that we think is going to happen, but it gives us a backup which is nice to have. There's limits on how much ground water Yeah.

And our one of our concerns is how well once we started pumping it, you know, we we found the well records back to 1985 and we're able to map them all out. And you know, they a lot of these wells that we're were thinking of bringing online didn't run that many years before water company even abandoned them and didn't utilize them. So was that water quality or water quantity? We don't have the records to tell of that.

But I know water quality was always a concern with Cape Creek Water Private Water Company. So, do you anticipate with when we're using the well water that it'll impact the neighbors that are around there their wells? Yeah. Well, I mean, one good one. Yeah. The real answer is that it it could um the the our municipal wells have a have a a right to draw that water out and it's something we can monitor.

What we would do is, you know, we can't go onto the private property and monitor well draw downs. What we'll do is monitor our wells and we'll see how much we're drawing it down if it has the right well at the treatment plant. When we ran the test at 200 gallons a minute, we only had 8 ft of draw down after 24 hours of the aquifer. So that went uh very well. We just need to monitor that.

Um the one on grapevine, the good thing is there's a casing actually 200 feet to the west that we could use as a monitoring casing for the one when we draw that one out. There's not that many private wells in the town core. Um, if you look at the ADWR maps, there's some they're old. A lot of them are old irrigation wells that have no longer have been abandoned. So, um, you know, we're not in the area along uh going north along, um, Cape Creek Wash where there's a lot of private wells up there.

We're south of that point. So, we suspect that we will we will be drawing water out of the aquifer. Um, just the overall impact is something we'll just have to monitor as we run them. I would anticipate if we turn the wells on, we'll probably get a few good years and we'll start to see either a decrease in water quality or volume and or the draw down to make those decisions moving forward.

But it's nice to still have that ability to say, "Hey, in a pinch, can I get through 300 gallons a minute going into the system?" That's what we're looking at or help meet our obligations to ranch too for irrigation water. It's another tool in our toolbox. So what what are some of the biggest influences on our on our well water levels? I mean are are there outside influences that affect the water levels in those wells that you're aware of? Right. Yeah. Yeah.

The the the the town's aquifer um is is we're at the shallow end of the aquifer. It actually deepens and it goes deeper in bedrock as you go to the east into uh Carefree and Scottdale. So, we're at the edge of what I I always use the analogy of a bathtub. We're at the the shallow edge of the bathtub over here. So, when we start drawing it down as the overall groundwater table starts to decrease, we're at the edge.

You're going to hit see it first because we hit bedrock first because of we're daylighting. But yeah, the the without raincharging those uh uh the ground water itself. Yeah, there's there's so many exempt wells already been drilled into the act and I think you guys hit it very nicely in your report that there's just a lot of people are, you know, because water costs are high, they say, I'll just go to the expense of drilling a private well.

Well, now you're dealing with your neighbor's private well and everybody else's well. There's a lot of straws in this bathtub competing for limited volume of water. Um, so that's just something that's why the old water company had the foresight to say, you know, we can't build a water system and start issuing certificates of insured water supply and subdivisions based on this groundwater basin. And they went to surface water.

I remember in the 90s there was a big ruckus about carefree drilling, putting in golf courses and putting in wells and how it was going to lower the water tables here for Cave Creek. And yeah, well, there was a lot of monitoring going on and the town participated in in that. Um um ironically on that side, you know, ADWR, Arizona Department of Water Resources regulates uh the municipal wells. So, uh Carefree's wells, Scott's wells, our wells.

Um so there's a lot of discussion and we've got some of the documentation. Um Scott still in fact is recharging the aquifer right adjacent to where Carefree has a couple production wells. So they have stabilized the groundwater table in that specific area. It's around near the air park. That's the Carefree Air Park area over there. So Scottdale has three recharge wells that they're recharging the aquafer. Ironically right across the street is Caref freeze wells drawing down water.

But it looks like the groundwater table has stabilized because of some of that activity going on up there. So that's a good case where that's a good synergy. But you know ironically carefree is getting some of the benefit of the recharge that care Scottdale is doing their neighbor. It doesn't come up to us though. I don't think it comes up to us. So yeah, I do think if we can get the wells online, they're more of a an emergency backup to help us out.

And there are existing wells going north up Schoolhouse Road that that we could look at, but we'd have to we have other issues with that um to bring those online and water quality was one of the biggest ones. But yeah, yeah, we're looking at all options at this point that and the existing wells is one option for us.

and we'll look at uh doing a more thorough uh review of the aquifer uh to see if there's any other things that we can is there locations for a new well for us either in Cave Creek or Desert Hills. I don't think so. Like I've found some history in Desert Hills. You know, just before we purchased the water company at the end of 2006, beginning of 2007, they actually had drilled two wells that completely failed on them. They got no production out of them. They abandoned two well casings out there.

So they ran into that issue before we took over the system. And then we obviously secured their water supplies with our CIP water delivery to them. So I always get technical when I get into this stuff. Anything else on that staff wants to provide or any other questions? Um just future water resources. We have a lot of things queued up.

um some stuff that we're working with with council that I can't share but we you know we are looking at all our options the town has you know we are a participant in the the um uh Bartlett Dam project it's called the Birdie Valley uh Birdie River uh sedimentation mitigation project quite a mouthful but you know because the the dam the sedimentation behind Horseshoe Dam on the Bury River they actually have to get storage capacity which is driving to building a new dam dam um you We have uh we've been in discussions in regards to Harkah Halo groundwater and there's actually an NDA NDA in place that the town has agreed to.

So we can't discuss too much that but that's actually a groundwater area that was set aside um as part of the the Phoenix Active Management Area as an area to uh import groundwater to. So we're looking at that as an alternative. We are looking also at um as mentioned in the video uh exchanges with other municipalities. The town has been successful in recharging some water for a few years. So at the end of this year, we'll be getting close to 2,700 about 2,700 acre feet.

Then with a little bit next year, we'll probably be approaching 3,000 over 3,000 acre feet in long-term storage credits. How do we get access to that is the next next thing that we're trying to get to. And then the town itself actually has rights to the Arizona Water Banking Authority water that has been recharged. But what we're hearing from the bank water banking authority is that they're not going to take the lead on recovering that water. it's up to us.

So, we're looking at exchanges to give us access to that. And what the exchange means is that we work with the municipality that either is um or a water provider that's that either can directly access the store groundwater locations where their uh recharges and if they have say wells that they can use, we they would withdraw our credits through their wells and then leave water uh cap water on the canal for us to use and treat and deliver to us.

Um so, we're we're looking at multiple options for that. So, you know, there's no one tool for us to help get past this shortage. Conservation is a large one, but you know, the not knowing what the final number we're aiming towards is also very stressful. And, you know, that's why in the video they mentioned up to 35%. You know, we think more realistically it's not going to be 35%. But, we've also heard from regulators that it could be 35%.

So it's having that much unknown and knowing how how how tight our water resources are right now. You know the town was successful a few years ago in in securing some municipal uh non we have municipal and industrial cap water which is one category and we had one which is less high a less secure priority called the noninag water the NIA water we've never been able to order the full allocation of that.

We're going to order it next year, but the last couple of years, every time we've ordered, they say you can only get 75% of it. We haven't been told formally yet. We think we might be able to get 75% or it might not be might be zero next year. So, they're asking us to put the orders in. They won't tell us to put the orders into what we're actually going to get of that water supply. That's 386 acre feet that we don't know if we're going to get or not get.

So, it's really hard to balance your checkbook if you're not sure what your paycheck looks like because at this point in the water resources is our paycheck. So what we're doing, we we've got multiple things. Um the end of the month, um next month, we have the joint workshop with council. So we want to present everything that you guys have done on water conservation and then we'll go into some more details.

We hope to actually have some things like some water exchange information available at that time to be able to share with council. So right now we are negotiating with a couple other munities. So um but uh yeah, we're keeping we have a really good team. Uh you know, Ryan does a great job keeping us on track. We've got a town's water attorney, um, Michelle Dwin, he's a great job, and Brad Hill, um, who were we're working diligently to help this town secure water resources moving forward.

I noted um, just doing a little review, uh that there's a grant program on augmentation proposals that and they've accepted six to further review and they're supposed to make a final decision. And I know you're not a participant any of those, but it's one of those things to keep an eye on as we move forward because that they actually go forward and start trying to fund some of that doing it and they're looking for participants that might be something to be very active in quickly.

So I I know those are not cheap um options and uh and your participation level would be very small compared to others. You know, and I think the one good thing of things like our participation in the Bartlett Dam project and our relationship with Phoenix, um it's it's amazing the doors that's open for the town. Um you know, people will take our calls and they know our situation.

We haven't been shy about uh sharing with them of, you know, I always use term we're the tip of the spear when you talk about cap shortages. This town actually moved towards um using what was termed renewable surface water. We've got away from using mine groundwater. Um we don't have a real way of recharging the groundwater table up here. That's why we don't we're actually that's one project we are looking at.

Can we recharge down by our water reclamation facility and then Phoenix recover that's another project we have on we're discussing with it. But just the doors that we've opened you know it's it's I've been uh quite amazed at the people who actually willing and then when they hear our story they say oh how can we help? So, and uh the the augmentation project the chair is talking about is a water infrastructure finance authority of Arizona.

They're the body that's put together that's typically funded through the EPA funds down to the states and the states and distribute that that funds for things water and wastewater projects. They did just submitted um the state itself was setting aside monies I think which came through uh the governor's office up to a billion dollars on a water augmentation project. So, they have six proposals.

uh they mentioned it last uh there's a specific meeting this meeting they mentioned it last week in their their board meeting but they won't release anything until they actually get the proposals evaluated so this could take a couple of months before we hear anything with the next steps but yeah they it's you're marked close to a billion dollars for something to bring a new water supply into the Phoenix metro area specifically the Phoenix active management area what I read was they were hoping to have further um narrow it down in October Another one with WHIFA is a water conservation grant fund which there's been a couple years of that going on.

Um I don't know if it'll be available next year but it's something that the town can look into and possibly the the funding usually goes out. They look for proposals in February, March or April and they accept them. whether it's even a conservation program that you'd be interested in or could deal with and it may or may not be something you could participate in, but it is a pot full of money that might it's a grant. Yeah. Situation. So, it's just something to look into on the conservation.

I appreciate that. And actually, I think one of the best conservation projects I'd like to see if we can augment it. We were successful in getting a Bureau of Reclamation water conservation grant which which helped pay for 47% I'm trying it was like just a hair under 50% of our changing out the water meters and gave the remaining water meters and then doing that leap in technology to the AMI system. So uh we have Neptune meters out in our desert hill system.

Uh some of them can be retrofitted to the AMI system. Some of them need are probably at the point where they need to start changing out. So we have about 60% of our customers close to 60% that we're getting almost hourly uh water usage data out of which is a huge thing. We have 40% that we're only getting um monthly as we do the driveby reads.

So as we can if we can convert the entire system I think that's a great thing we we have found it to be such a useful tool for us as staff and then that when we talk about the my 360 application so that we allow enable customers to see what they're doing so they can help participate. It can't just be the town looking out. We need everybody to help this.

And I think that from what we've seen, I think I'm sold on it, that that that that leap from a drive by once a month and getting your bill and seeing what your water usage to getting an app that tells you your water usage and being able to understand that is a huge thing. And that will help us conserve water moving forward. And it also helps customers. You know, our water rates are very aggressive as the tiers go up, the amount of water use.

So, I feel saddened sometimes when you see someone who has a water leak or they left their house for a few weeks and they come back and they're suddenly faced with a$1,000 plus water bill and they're used to paying a couple hundred dollar. So, um but you know that's it's the cost of the resource. So, if we can empower people to understand that, be able to get someone, hey, can someone go out? I'm out of state. Can someone go turn off my water because I have a problem? Stuff like that.

So, yeah, thank you for pointing those things out. anything we can do. It can be a struggle for staff to deal with things like grants. Uh we're trying to wrap up. Um the town as part of the Phoenix Interconnect project had actually reached out and got congressional discretionary funds two years ago authorized and I think this week we finally got the notice from the EPA region 9 that we can draw the grant down. Wow.

And I think we might actually have to make some changes to the contract that we have with MGC before we can draw it down to meet their contract shoulder requirements which we didn't know about because they wouldn't tell us because they didn't tell us how to administer it. So grants are are are a great thing for us to look for. We will look for them but they can also be a challenge for staff. They don't have we have limited staff resources and it's challenge. Yeah.

All the hoops you go through and this one is almost two years of trying to get this money. you know, we'd almost given up on it, but we we kept it going with it. So, yeah, it's $2 million. Yeah. So, okay. So, I'm not sure if there's anything else I could talk about. What resources we we have a lot of things that we're working on. There's a lot of I think the the workshop, the joint workshop with council will help us distill it.

I forgot that we actually did a workshop with council in May and a lot of that's going to be just reiterating uh the stuff that we've been working on. We have made a lot of progress in a lot of things. So, and I'm really excited about being able to bring forward the work this commission has done uh towards the overall outreach and water conservation efforts. Move on to the overview of the Arizona reconation committee. It's a bit of a mouthful. That's why we call it ARC.

Um so, I've had comments on why isn't the town a member of ARC? Um well the art committee was set up and is actually the same group of people that were brought forward um when the town the state was doing it drought management plan. So they basically brought the same group of people together. The town wasn't a participant at that time. So uh we are not a formal member of the Arizona reconultivation committee. Um that doesn't mean we are not uh cannot participate.

Um the group has been brought together to continue the discussion. I put a little onepage back sheet into your uh packet on it uh to to come together. So uh when they in the 2007 uh uh Colorado River guidelines were being formed and they were doing the lower basin drought contingency plan, this is the group that actually was formed to bring that together. So they reconstituted that group. Uh there actually was a recent meeting um of the art committee. It was actually on June 17th.

There was actually um it's actually the committee is being led up by Arizona Department of Water Resources with participation from CAP. They actually did this meeting on the 17th at the CAP heads which was their 11th meeting as they got together. Um to be honest they keep they're they're saying the same things. They don't really know what the endgame is.

there, but they're trying to bring a group of people together, including other efforts where they're trying to bring together like uh Arizona mayors to to support and say, you know, this is the CAP is critical. That's what I was hearing from that that meeting is that there's a lot of they don't know because they don't they haven't been told because they're working with the federal government and um six other basin states to try and come up with a solution.

So, we have our preferred solution moving it forward. Um, which I think is reasonable and it goes in line with what the state has been doing for a number of years to help support keeping water on the Colorado River and behind the dams. But now we're hearing a lot of push back from the upperation states as far as they their rights and their not willingness to participate. So, um it's a good group to get together with.

What I found um out of that the uh the main committee actually asked and tked staff uh this cap and awe staff to then reach out to people who are not part of the committee.

So we were uh invited to what they called an ARC listening session um with uh the deputy director of uh ADWR and the deputy general manager of cap and it was myself uh Carefree Water was there um Apache Junction Water was there and creek water was there uh we are not members of ARC uh we're also not the other thing with the ARC members it was usually the people who have both SRP and CP water so that's another nuance to it but they are trying to reach out to us.

We actually able to sit in the room with those two deputy directors and explain our specific situations and I've been in rooms with them before and tried to explain it, but it's always nice to hear it again and hear what the other jurisdictions are doing. Their goal is to actually continue this as the ARC meetings formally get held that they'll do these um ARC listening sessions. We're considered part of the East Valley.

So, we were grouped in with the East Valley and they're doing another West Valley one. So, it was very useful. Again, they're they're trying to be as transparent as they can. I can sense their frustration. You know, they they know what would be a good solution for the state. They just don't know what's going to be thrown on the state. So, but it it is a good thing for us to watch for.

We're not again, we're not formal participants, but I'm glad that they started these um uh subcommittee listening sessions. You know, we're not formal members. Um but they're willing to sit and listen and participate and go into further details of the discussion that happened at the bigger committee. From what you can tell, have had the southern the lower basin states all agreed on a proposal that they are making to the upper basin or are there still disputes between California and the rest?

It's hard for me to assess that. It it seems like everybody did agree that the the um the uh um the 2007 guidelines have been beneficial and have worked for everybody, but it seems like there's always been a bit of a pressure point since some California raises runs back and forth. I get the feeling that the lower basin states are more willing to work together cooperatively.

It's just now this rift that is formed between the upper and lower basins and you know at the end of the day it's the you know Bureau of Reclamation actually and the Department of Interior who make who get to make the final decision at that federal government level. So we're trying to uh and they still do not have a the Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner been assigned yet.

You know, obviously the uh Ted Cook actually chaired or ran ran central project for a number of years has been put up as for the nomination, but there's also been some um scuttlebot I've heard that the upper basin states don't like that because he is has experience with the central Arizona project and Arizona. Yeah, you know, I've met him only a few times and I thought he was very I think he could do a very good job in that position. And I think you you do it unbiased, too.

But um you know, it's a political position. Sure. Yeah. There's another group of 23 cities um and their mayors that's uh Cave Creek and Carefree are both members and it's called the Coalition for Protecting Arizona's lifeline. How does that interact with ARC if at all? Uh not specifically. That's sort of a bit of an outshoot of just overall um uh messaging. It's trying to get a consistent message of how important the Colorado River is to the state.

Um so our mayor, Mayor Morris actually did a video for it's really being uh championed and pushed forward by um the CAP staff. Um so Bo worked with CAP staff to get that uh the mayor's video up and they're trying to put that all together. It's more of the outreach. Um it's not specific and not tied to the arc because it's more broad reaching because you know we are not a member but Mir Morris was allowed is is a participant in the other study.

It's just trying to get a consistent voice out on the issue.

Uh so one thing that we have heard and it came up in the art meetings has come up some other meetings is that they're they're feeling right now that the um marketing pitch that's being done by the upper basin states to cast a disparaged light against us the lower basin states is uh has been more effective than ours saying no you know we've been trying to be good stewards we are good stewards of of water resources we're not wasteful you know the stories well it keeps coming back well look at those guys with their golf courses down in Arizona.

You know, what are they doing down here? But, you know, you look at overall water conservation. The town the state has used less of our allocation have been very good diligent, but that's part of a a PR campaign to to show that we're united and that there there is a good story here to be told. Well, I will say that Colorado, for example, cities have had mandatory conf conservation for years and years where Arizona cities have not.

people uh I don't think it is a good sell point for for the fact that we haven't done some of that over the years. U you know even even at a lower side I realized we've done conservation that weren't mandatory that wasn't mandatory that was intended to compensate for that. What about all the growth? Nobody ever talks about growth or stopping growth or limiting growth or what are we going to do with all the growth? I mean, we talk about all this and I just got back from Colorado.

Colorado is growing as well. What I'm saying is the whole southwest or west if you I don't you know is still growing and you can go through the cities and I drove I don't know how many thousand miles I drove you know but you know you can see all this growth and yet we're sitting here when we know we have less water but that doesn't seem to we don't talk about that. I mean I know we're going to because it's going to have to happen. I just don't think that's it.

It's not um something that people are willing to talk about until what maybe 27 29 when you know when prices go up and you know water is really truly you know because you know it's the silent you know it's sitting there in the room but it's like well if the groundwater management act would have been uh implemented the way it was enacted 1980 growth would have stopped in Arizona in 2000 for all intents position. Yeah. I mean, I think Rio Verie is going to be a ghost town before I die.

I mean, most of it is all water, you know, and a lot of them are on wells. Um, the big ranches are on old wells now. Hopefully, those are still being fed by the Birdie River, so some of those aquifers might stay, but a lot of those houses that people have gone out there and bought are literally on hauled water. And not everybody's part of the um I can't think of the name of the EPCOR. Yeah, EPCOR, you know, and EPCOR is hauled water and people thought EPCOR was going to be piped water.

EPCOR is not piped water. That's just going down and filling up your your tank or whatever you have. So, I mean, these are just things and I know we haven't talked about it yet and we probably will, like I said, I think in 2027 or 28, 29, I really think these are going to be, you know, issues that we're going to have to talk about.

done nothing but talk about limiting growth and the people that get elected their job is to encourage growth and keep new people coming money you know and this town overall though I think we've been pretty uh proactive um you know our council has you know in 2019 2021 we had to go through and make the hard decision of limiting um new water connections in desert hills because of water resources Um, you know, there was a big fear, would we get sued?

We we found a state where there had been prior lawsuits that allowed us to defend ourselves against it. Um, and we haven't been yet. I'm knock on wood. Um, but, you know, we those are hard decisions to make. A lot of other water jurisdictions, water providers, especially municipalities in the Phoenix area. This is a a big discussion. There's millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars.

If you look at any large cities capital program, there's tens of millions of dollars being set aside for water resource acquisition and development. A lot of them also have more diverse water portfolios to begin with so they can better weather a reduction on the cap water because a they're either out in Salt River or they already have groundwater or they've got they're doing recharge and recovery already.

So, you know, the town is the sharp point of the stick where we don't have those other diversities diversifications of our water portfolio to fall back onto. Phoenix has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to date to get to where it's at. It's also um uh committed to doing its advanced water purification projects where they're directly converting uh reclaimed waste water into potable drinking water.

And they they've identified their third project that they're Is that what they're using to recharge Uh well in fact everybody's been using treated effluent to recharge for years. It's it's been is that the recharge you were talking about that's over by the carefree wells. Uh no that's actually Scottdale is doing that and that's Scottsdale's uh water ranch and I don't know what's what I was it may be effluent that they they're putting up in their treated effent.

When we say effluent, you know, it's it's treated water, you know, um it's just going in and and advanced purification is instead of taking uh the treated waste water, which is effent, high quality water, putting in the ground, a lot going through a soil uh purification and drawing out the well, you're actually putting it right into a treatment plant and doing that same purification of it. So, we're not making new water. We're just running in circles.

But yeah, but if you look at any I I challenge you, look at any capital program and that there's millions of dollars being spent and has been spent knowing that something's going to come. Everybody's in the same boat that we are as fact. We don't know what the the cut's going to be. So, and there are, you know, there's been a lot of legal fights over say ADWR's decisions to not issue new groundwater or certificates of shore water supply that are wholly on groundwater.

You know, that's been a fight too because of the groundwater bottling in the Phoenix metro area. So what so you talk about desert hills so you you're limiting them to connect most of them are on wells. So when those wells start going dry, which is going to happen unless we have, you know, 10 years of extreme wet in. So what's the plan even for that? You know, um um the mayor and uh uh um manager Miller actually spoke to the uh Maroba County Commissioner about that.

Maroba County is restricted because they their current my understanding of their current regulations are that they can't stop someone from building a house on a property with has that has hauled water. Okay, they can they can basically say you know what's your utility supply? I'm going to haul water and there's nothing to prevent them doing that. And then you have on top of that then Arizona Department of Water Resources and the Groundwater Management Act allows for exempt wells.

So someone can say I'm going to haul water. I'm going to drill my own well. Okay, now we'll say okay you met the criteria you have the utilities. Now you can you can build your home and you can occupy that house. There is still that growth going on in Desert Hills. I see it and it turns my stomach because it's some property owners and some developers that we've worked with over time and then they knew we weren't issuing permit. So what they did is they got together three or four lots.

They drove a well and then they're selling them off. Right? That well drawn's dry. Are they going to be coming and knocking on our door saying hey that water line out there and they're not even putting you know tanks in to you know get pled water even. So most people haven't thought about that yet. Or fire protection is the other one. We actually had the conversation with Daisy Mountain Fire who's a fire district out there. You know, what's their fire insurance going to be, right?

Um that is a fear for for me, you know, but at this point would they come back and force us to make connections? I don't know if legally they can, right? But you know, something that could be happening too within the next five years, let's say. Yeah. And all those wells that are being drilled out there for those private exempt wells, they're fighting against those reproduction wells that we have, right?

So, you know, there's only, you know, unless there's more than one aquifer out there, you know, over time. Yeah. And you get more and more um straws in it. Yeah. Yeah. It's a struggle. There's no easy solution. I think the the this county needs to have some direction and some leadership to say, "No, we have to stop this practice. We can't allow people to do this." But it this state is has very strong private property rules. China, you're going that's big lobby to go up against.

Do you have any idea how many of those situations exist? Um, I know several dozen out in the desert hills area and then you know out there then there's a whole area if you ever uh look at ADWR actually has a mapping system where they actually map the wells and you can zoom in on it. If you ever look at Desert Hills um we can do it because we actually download the data set. We actually look at in where our pipelines are. It gets thinner where our pipelines are but it doesn't grow away completely.

But outside of that, it's almost every other lot has a well out there and it's just a checkerboard of of exempt wells. So it's it's pretty pervasive out there. So they're all fighting for the same water, same straws in that same bathroom out there. That's not on the west side. Yeah. So they would go back to the county then if the county is giving them permission to make a will. It would seem like the county has to come up with a solution for them. They don't probably not.

They probably have to say deeper. County doesn't that it's the Department of Water Resources is state law. It's it had really as long as they build it to standard um you can put an exempt well in on your property. Um you know it's really very limited the state, the county, uh the city has very limited ability to stop that. And you know all they Only thing that could be done, which nobody does, is require as part of the disclosure big bold letters, right?

You you you know you're there is no dependable supply, right? Uh and your well may go dry. Yeah. Warning. Warning. Yeah. Or is likely to go dry, which is more likely out there and then uh just might go dry. And up here, too. They're going dry up here. So, yeah. Well, we all know it really was a bad situation not too many years ago. Cave Creek, too. But anyway, we don't have that yet.

I'm just throwing that out there that I think in the future that will be something Cave Creek's going to have to address or look at is, you know, what's happening with the growth. Well, it needs it does need to be making clear um that to anybody who comes in and you know no new connections and so that people know that they they you are not an alternative to wells and if they their goes dry so that they don't have an argument that you know wasn't clear to them.

Well, and what's the status of Cave Creek when when every single lot is sold? So, do they have the right to get city water? And is that we've talked about that before. I know you have some kind of plan. There's a lot of lots north of Maintown, Oldtown that let's say, you know, in two years all of a sudden, every one of them sold and everybody puts in for City Water.

That's going to be a we actually in our 20 2024 utility master plan infrastructure um integrated utility master plan, we actually did that exercise. We actually There's a map that shows up in the planning framework section of chapter 2 because I was thinking of we'd actually we need to keep that current where we actually went through that exercise. We went within the town's municipal limits.

We actually mapped out all the existing properties, the existing lots, the ones that had buildings were the ones who not buildings and then who had town water. We counted them all up. Right? So after we did that exercise and we accounted for the certificates of assure water supplies which were issued to subdivisions after 1980 groundwater management act and the neighborhoods that were platted in the town before 1980 that he gave them right.

We came up with a number of about 805 acre feet of additional water resources we need to meet all those demands based on an average you know half an acre foot. So, we've quantified that, but in a lot of cases, those properties that we're talking about, there's not water lines near them, right? So, there need to be an extension of the distribution system or you do like you did me, which is a service line of 600 feet. Yeah, yours. Yeah, yours is the end of I know I know, but we prefer not to do.

No, and then we we could do we can even do that analysis. Okay, let's go out 600 feet past distribution system. How many more lots bring in? And that goes into some of the factors we're trying to look at. How much new water resources can the town afford, right?

and do we need and we actually are working with that radill's been look working on that type of analysis because new water resources are not cheap right and I just see that you know we've talked about I love everything we've done I just think our next stage you know is dealing and looking at what you've already done and looking at that and going wow what if and you know how does that fit in with the cut that's coming and that much more water like you say that someone buys a lot and they at this point right Now, if someone buys a lot, they can ask for water.

Correct. Yeah. In inside of uh if you buy a lot with inside Cave Creek's municipal boundary, right, um we will allow you to uh um get a new water meter up to one inch and up to half an acre of water either for a residential or non-residential. So anyway, so those are just things that I think we we haven't talked a lot about, but I think that's our future of once we get all this going and then we can do an amazing job, which I think this is awesome, but that's going to be another challenge.

Well, I'm glad you bring that up because that's something we do want to keep going with and and not knowing what the goal post is or the endline is what how deep the cuts are, it's really hard to come back and say, "Okay, we should proactively make a decision on limiting new connections in Camp Creek." We didn't have in Desert Hills and that was really based on the fact that Desert Hills was started and only had groundwater rights and they didn't have enough groundwater rights to support their existing customer base.

So it wasn't fair for them to to take from Cape Creeks to add to take from Cape Creek. So that that would that allowed us to make that decision point. Um will it come we might we anticipate we might have to have the same conversation in town you know as we move forward. We do wells, we do water exchanges. That can buy us a few years, but that next trunch of water to help the system grow is not cheap right? And you know, can we afford it?

Nancy, if you can be thinking about how you want to phrase that as a future agenda item, that's a little later in the agenda and we'll get to what will be, you know, as an agenda item the future. But let's move on to the um water rates uh and restores for um understand it's this is just a brief tell us where you where where you are when you expect to be able to present a little more detail to us.

Um well overall you know I think the next little check-in will be the workshop and I'm hopeful that by the workshop next month that we'll actually have some things I can share in u not just with council executive session which would be about some water exchanges they're trying to do and andor u you know um we know how Bartlett's proceeding. Bartlett has another two years in it environmental assessment so that one's a slow process. There's a there's rates and rates. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

There's a workshop currently scheduled the week after the the um um the joint water resource session. The following week is actually a workshop to discuss that. It's currently on schedule. So we are looking at you know we are looking at the fundability of the current capital program. Um so there is some been some modeling done on that uh of can how much can we um uh debt fund the current capital program.

Uh there's been some discussions on on some water resource purchases and building that into the rates themselves. So the we don't have firm numbers that makes it hard to do rate modeling in some cases. Um but we hope to be able to present some information the week after the workshop with council and I forgot what date that is. There's it's the 23rd. Our workshop's the 23rd. The following week actually is currently scheduled a workshop on the rates. But you don't um it's an open session.

It's actually a workshop with council. you guys will be invited. So, I don't have anything to share with you guys right now on it, but um this workshop I think is more to have an interaction with council and then we could present something to you guys in the smaller group as far as what we're trying to do with there's been discussions on should we um broaden the the uh rate tiers that we have the five existing rate tier.

We know our costs are fairly expensive and that one option we're discussing is should we come up with a a low lifeline rate tier. Right now it's 0 to 10,000 gallons is the first rate tier. Should we do like 0 or 0 to five to help people out who are being good stewards of our resources and or increase the upper rates and above? Currently our top rate is 50,000 gallons. Should we have even a higher rate or just increase that? So that those are all discussions ongoing.

So the thought was at the workshop on the week after the 23rd um that that would be presented. You don't know the exact date though. No, I don't have I think it's the Tuesday after the 23rd. So, yeah, I think it's the 30th. 30th. That's the tenative date right now. I know um our finance director has been sort of bringing some stuff together. I've been uh giving them some additional information that they can run through.

Uh we're looking at things like the town's uh the how we apply the boosted rates, which applies to about a third of the Cave Creek customers and twothirds of the Desert Hills customers. Uh so there's a push to ensure charge being applied and how we justify that and a couple of other things that we're working on to be able to bring forward some some rate discussion.

The biggest unknown we're challenge we're having with is is water resources and how we can build that in and I don't think we can just build it as a race. There's been some discussions on can we and I think legally we can u build that in as a capacity fee. Currently, we have a um uh water and wastewater infrastructure capacity fees in place. Um uh state statute, the way we're reading it, I think will allow us to actually do a water acquisition capacity fee, water resources.

Um a number of valley cities already do that that do that. So that's we bring new water resources on the new new connections will pay a proportional share of that cost. The one thing we have unknown is we're not sure of the water resources we have to secure how much to support the existing customer base. So there's but we can come up with all the factors and figure that out.

Some of that work might have to wait and I don't know if we can adopt anything before we don't know what the final cap cut is. But yeah, so there are a lot of small pieces coming together. I think the workshop with the council was to try and present some general thoughts and get some direction and then we should be able to start distilling stuff down and and um the utility advisory committee is actually a stop on the rate study. So we need to stop with you get a check in with you guys.

I think the thought of talking to council is to get big broad picture direction from them. You know, they've adopted our operational budgets and they've adopted our five-year capital improvement program. They also adopted our um 2024 utility master plan which actually presented a 20 plus year capital program within that. How does this all come together? Because there's some big numbers associated just with all that stuff and how it all work.

So, I think they're they want to get some direction on just that direction on where to go with because we can be spinning our wheels very easily on something like this trying to get develop rates, but we do need to we are realistic.

Um, in 2022 when we last adopted the rates, we did a six-year program that was prior to the completion of the master plan, the new scopes that were identified and the new work that we've done on the new cost of water acquisition and securing the town's water resources. We need to take that work and re reinvent it and rough you know the last couple of years especially in Cape Creek water I think desert hills water had zero rate increases in it.

So we're at that point where if we don't do anything we're going to be not increasing and but then there's also how much can we increase the town already has fairly high water rates. We realize that, we recognize that. How much can we keep pushing? What's there going to be the break? I would ask that as soon as you have a firm workshop date, um would you just let us know? Yeah, it should be on the town's uh information calendar. I know, but we don't always get that as we should.

I mean, you know, if you guys can push one out so that we don't have to proactively Well, the 23rd is your joint meeting and then the week following is the uh Well, I know that's what that but I heard it was tenative. So that's Well, that's that's why it's I don't think it's on the calendar yet because it is potentially not happening or is happening. I have enough information to present to council.

Yeah, that so I'll always ask once I warmed up and and if the date change, I'll pass that along as soon as we know it. That's all. And can you just remind me because I don't have it in front of me because I know we talked about but does the commercial people pay a different rate than say u homeowners? When you say different rate for water for water rates are going to be the the the or the type. Yeah.

So customer type does pay a different water uh there is different water rates for different customer types. Okay. But but not all commercial customers are necessarily in the commercial class. Interesting. Yeah. That's where Right. I mean that's Yeah.

Um yeah so if if it's a commercial business being used as for commercial purposes it gets the commercial designation but like restaurants and all the things all those bars so that's where commercial class is not all commercial because there's restaurant class as well so there's there's we could share that different classes and I'll be most most of the time water companies do it by meter and you know classification but I understand that but I guess you know I'm thinking of all the people that come up here and enjoy the life enjoy the restaurants the bars or whatever and we're asking all the homeowners up here to do all this conservation I'm just wondering you know how much the those are they all cons conserving and do they pay more for the for the use of water since they're using the water that all of us that live here are using all through the rate study that was part of the rate study that John was talking about before because I remember I I've seen part of I was just remind so our rates are actually um you do two components to any of the rates it's the base rate and then the thought the base rate that that's paying for basically the the keeping the lights on is analogy I ask you we we regardless of whether you use a drop of water or not I still got to run the plant I got to keep it ready to to do that and then the volutric pace for the usage of the extra flow added to it.

It's about a 50-50 ratio we're doing and I think most of the base rates are set just by the meter size and then we do have the usage category. So there is a differentiation in there. It's really strongly most strongly seen in the wastewater side.

A lot of the commercial customers are tied to the wastewater system and because of the loadings and the strength of the wastewater stream they get charged a proportionally higher amount on the wastewater and residential customers aren't charged uh they everybody's charged a flat fee. where commercial customers are charged a base rate plus a volumetric. So they get a proportional share of their water bill. We think that water is being returned to us in waste.

So they actually if they use a lot of water, they're also going to pay for a lot of waste water on that side. But yeah, that's that's one of the things is the the types of categories that we have. I'm trying to remember them. We have schools, commercial, general office, um uh the water rates, pools are broken out, irrigation's broken out. I got it. You can show it on the website. Yes, we do have it. So, so I'll pull up here to the top.

So, how the website has is broken out between Cave Creek, Desert Hills, and our Cape Creek wastewater customers because there's only 950 or so Cave Creek wastewater customers. So, the you basically click on each one, it gives the different rate classifications um water. So, you have your base monthly charges, whether it's the size of meter, and then you get the issue if it's boosted or not.

Boosted to the town's is as I mentioned all the water from the water treat plant goes to our nearest site gets boosted to pressure zone 7 anything that has to get boosted beyond pressure zone 7 requires another boost there's a separate rate for that and it can be fed by pressure reducing valves downstream of pressure on 7 and then what about like I say the restaurants the bars yeah keep going down that gets into this is the rates per thous single family residential multif Yeah, we have commercial and commercial irrigation, commercial pools.

That's it. And that's it for the water side. We go up. So, we can see commercial against residential. Yeah, those are really close rates. So, when it comes to water, there isn't the residential category unless they're on sewer. And then they do get the res resident or the restaurant on the sewer side. Just one more to see the higher rate. So on the commercial try to get to the the top here. If you're using morning 50,000 gallons and you're commercial customer every gallons above that is 1807.

That's commercial pools. Yeah. Yeah. Commercials is back up there 1856. Yeah. So it's it's right now it's or you can use your gallon. Yeah. So in 2025 if you're a commercial customer and you're using over 15,000 gallons every,000 gallons is $174 and go back up to the residential. Yeah, 1750 for that's 1750 or she gets a higher usage. These are just things in the future. I'll put that on for our future.

thoughts of what how we need to look at things because we talked a lot about residents 50,000 is a huge amount. Yeah. So that's but even the low they use a lot. I can only imagine some not much different. I think you said the average is 0 to 10,000. Um yeah I think if you actually do a true average of the system of all accounts it's it turns out to be just around 11,000 either system and then then you break out that so that's part of the rate study. 85% of our customer base is residential.

They're only talking 15% above that and as part of the rates they actually looked at where they fall within that portion. I understand the goal of this was that 1750 was to you know try to promote conservation. So having a higher rate being the residential being that you're you know higher end user. Yeah. You want I hope that that idea that having that higher rate for that res how much it is above the 0 to 10,000. That is another discussion point.

Should we come up with a 0 to four or 0 to 5,000 categories? I I would like to see the distribution by each one of those classes. It's in the rates study I went through it. Yeah. So the rate studies available I think still on the internet on the town website. But yeah, they they go through a very detailed uh analysis but we can share that these are just future things.

I'm just thinking of future as we've talked I think what we've done we're you know we have something to present but what's it just they have the usage data I think we just gave the the end one year of data if you ask commercial to pay a premium above everybody else how much would that potentially bring in right this type of scenarios they can answer so the residential component. It's only less than 15% of our customer base.

That actually doesn't make that much more revenue, but does help promote conservation, but I think it will make a difference in three years from now. I think three years from now, we're sitting here after the cut and when we're looking at things, you're going to be looking to find areas to make a difference. That's what that's what I'm looking at. I'm looking at where are we headed after you get all this cut and what's going to be happening. 728 current rates you're going to go from 710 to 1856.

Again, this is the 2028 is the current end of the current adoptive rates.

What we're trying to do is is look at next year hopefully with the current schedule come into effect next spring is the new rates and looking at that whether we asked for a couple of years or we did last time was a sixy year rate study you know we know with our capital program we know with water acquisition even these rates don't support all so with the new rate study are you sticking with these and then looking beyond we're actually looking to change Okay. That's what the goal is. Yeah. Okay.

And what they were talking about with the 10% increase every year. Yeah. Came out during the budget sessions when they we looked at the the proposed largely based on the proposed out program which included some some uh substantial costs for water acquisition were built into that.

That's what was that's why of That's been a good discussion point has been you know if especially if water acquisition is not for the current customer base but for any future growth should that be a separate asking fee that's charged to those future users share but that was made uh in one of the presentations during the session was it was a 10% growth every year for 10 years spent pay for the capital program which included water acquisition right which admittedly was not overly overwhelmingly accepted by c all the council members.

So they were asking to fine-tune that. So that's not necessarily what the final proposal is going to be hopefully, but uh it is I just that was the first flush at when we put together the the capital program which was the new project list out of the master plan and looked at the acquisition cost that we were anticipating. But I think we need to be realistic and I agree. I mean this is going to cost a lot. keep talking about it and keep everything we're talking about.

It's this is reality and and the and that has very limited uh impact on c you know people are preser preserving 25% that means 25% less water is being sold which right but the budget doesn't change that's right that much there's a little bit of variable cost but it isn't that much it's interesting because when they do the model they actually build in factors called elasticity the thought is as you increase rates factors to help help analysis and do that because you don't want to keep raising the rates and so it conserves all a sudden course by revenue stream.

Exactly. That's what happened to Los Angeles too. Yeah. Also got a brand new camp too. Yeah. Yeah. You know everything gets amplified with our small customer base. We only have we're trying to balance this um over 4,500 customers in two water systems between utility operations, the general operations of those systems. Um uh and also the uh you know the planned improvements, capital improvements, which again we have to make those hard decisions.

What can we afford to do versus what's required to be done? What what we what do we need by say regulation? You know, a few years ago, the town had a reclassification of a large water treatment plant, which forced us into going in purchasing the P membranes, and that was a cost that came up very quickly, but that was because of the way the regulators looked at the classification of that land.

Um, if there's another regulatory change that could impact us, you know, that's type of lens we now have to look at. You know, if you ask me what's going to fail next, I'll say I don't know, but I'm very scared of something failing. Um, so we have to how have to balance that. And then the sewer system is another challenge for us because it's even older in some cases.

Um and then you know the maintenance hasn't been done and it's also just the um sorry it's it's a small even smaller customer base. It's 947 customers right now and system trying to balance the cost of operating that and business repairs.

And that's always been something that the town has actually been offsetting with the general fund ever since for sewer operations and especially since the 2010 expansion of the sewer system and creation of the new uh sewer plant on Carefree Highway which was done to allow for commercial development.

Um so you know I was I get educated very early here that you know without the sewer plant being relocated on the highway the town would not have the benefit of Walmart and now Sprouts and all the other commercial development along there. And since we are a sales tax based system, it's that was the part of the fairness that that was actually uh some a portion of the sales tax revenues being set uh helps offset the cost of the bonds that were used to build that plant and relocate that plant. Okay.

Is there anything else on rates and resources at this juncture? We go back now get to the water conservation awareness proposal that we have and we turn to the committee first. Any further comments after it has been available here for a week. Um hopefully everybody's looked through it through the cover letter through the provisions. Anybody had opportunity to to comment prior to the final package being put together. Anybody um have any further substantive comments? Awesome.

Y appreciate everybody's work on it.

um especially you Robert for the whole package and your son's work which anyway with that I will move to adopt it to provide to council I second it oh I can just I actually was going to make one suggest as I read through it was before today's meeting I actually did have one edit I would suggest about halfway through the package where it talked about water's precious There is a a a a paragraph a third paragraph on that page talks about need a re-energizing of the towns of wells and then the statement is actually made if successful the town's old wells can cover most of the shortfall caused by the cap reductions.

I would say yeah so well initially when um when you initially talked about it it was going to cover all of the initial 20 to 25%. Yeah, but I don't have a problem with that. Yeah, now that we've done some of the well testings, a couple of the wells are less than seven 75 gallons a minute. Yeah, I'm very cautious of how much. Yeah. So, I we have a little more spir jumped out at me. Yeah. No, no, I appreciate that. Um that's which do you know? I just see these are unnumbered.

So, is it after the all the um line's got it up on the screen right now? It's like midway through the package. It says water is precious. It's the third paragraph they have. And this is where the change is on the page. And even the fastest and easiest action is to restart. It's it's one activity is to restart one action to the town is to um restart several town wells.

I'm very g say I' I'd just soften that from the standpoint that I don't know how well I think that can cover a portion or some of the shortfall. What would you like to have? What what did you say? Potentially and cover potentially some of the shortfall.

Yeah, that's that's that was so potentially once the fastest key detection one of the actions to restart several town wells the wells are currently being tested and then the last if successful the town wells could potentially cover a portion of the gorge potentially even this is an easiest Say that one more time so I get it right. Just insert uh can potentially cover most of the cover most. But it says most still. You don't want most. No, I think some of the capture. Yeah. Okay. Change most.

Even the document itself there's 20% 25% I think there's 35% throughout it. So we don't know which let's just get it clear so we know what uh Orion's going to change it to and the minutes are correct. So on the second sentence, we're going to say one of the actions or one one of one action one option action or option one action is to restart. Yeah. One action is to restart several old wells. Uh and then the last sentence that's so that's the only up to that point.

Then the last sentence, if successful, the town's old wells can potentially add that cover a portion of or cover some of the shortfall. Substitute some for most. Okay, participate. Now you're adding words. Would every We just got rid of most. Just delete most and put some. I know. I got that. Okay. I heard anticipated. So No, don't get any of that. Just can potentially. just put potentially between can and cover. Okay. So, can potentially cover some of the shortfall caused by C.

You got Thank you. I don't I'm hopeful the wells will help. I just want Yeah, okay. Anything else? Did you see? No, I think that was good. Yeah, I appreciate all you guys work on this.

is going to be great to uh get and you know um pause for a second and talk about I just did the workshop session but I thought of the workshop is that um I started doing a draft outline uh with that but we'll actually have you guys come in and I think we're doing a general introduction to talk about some stuff because this is a continuation from a workshop that we had with council in April and you guys come in about midway through the conversation then as conservation outreach that's where our bot is right now so I'll be able to share as I uh figure off the draft But um we actually did have a good fairly detailed presentation back in April to council.

That's what we're using as our starting point. So just filling in the gaps or the additional information and then adding this is a huge plus for that conversation. I appreciate everybody's you know I think good conversation with council time to to uh put this in the package so they can have time to look at it and provide feedback comments that they have.

But I think you guys have outlined what a really good outreach program that you know Bo will be the lead on this and keep this going and and help get this out there and the ideas are like all the marketing materials or everything else that you guys have come up with are really really good and 8 specific well you got a motion on the floor. Well I just uh I've got a it's going to be changed here.

Um the I did have a I did want to make sure that the change to consultant and and how that was worded everybody's happy with because that was kind of the biggest area of discussion. Not using a consultant but using it as a not not using as an on-site phone. Yep. Um and everybody it's open and big enough that we can I just want to make sure this we got it to the level this work it's for everybody. Okay. And if I could say something.

So, um I did, you know, uh draft up this uh water conservation slogan, um kind of sheet that we Ryan originally put in the front and I'm like, "No, I think we'll put it in the back." And I don't know, Bob, how you feel about I mean, they're basically just slogans about, you know, water saving ideas versus commercial. And then I thought, well, maybe we could put it with Cactus Charlie that if we're generating um sayings for him to say that we could pull from here is what? Absolutely. Yeah.

Mine was just an example. Yeah. You know, we could use the uh images and have them say lots of different stuff. Yeah. And I encourage you all to contribute, you know, whatever you think might make sense. Yeah. And uh we just want to expose as many people as possible to the the mascot idea. So the association is you see this, you think about water observation, right? And that's why I kind of came up with a couple of his friends.

Maybe we could use desert tortoise or the rabbit, you know, in your imaging. Your son could maybe add the pictures in and, you know, have them say a few things with Captain Charlie. So that was my I just wanted that nobody uses a broom anymore. It's all the blower. Oh, use a broom or blower. That's why my rates are low. Okay, with that, I I would uh ask for a motion to present this package as amended in the water fresh section um to the mayor and council. I I second. Yeah, I'll second it. Okay.

All right. Right. Okay. Once people do something good, we want to make I'd like to join. So, we have to summarize how we get there. So, again, I'll be talking a little bit up front talking about all the other things that we started off with. Right now, it's sort of um and we could reverse that order, right? Uh sort of the the back half of the workshop would be the conservation.

So, we can get into the the the projects up running that spend most of the time hopefully just talking about conservation that's the focus of the workshop but I I see a joint joint one myself are you going to have an agenda then yeah I've started doing that by building a a powerpoint slides we can agenda on that detail order stuff so I can share that with you on the draft and um uh you know where and again we can potentially revert it where we talk about conservation outreach first and then we get into the projects but well I I would think it would be better to go ahead and do you know conservations to it for us than shortage as resource.

So how are we I just think it's going to I honestly think it's going to be the more um it's just been more one-on-one workshop the council is going to get more impact of that. The other one's me presenting up front. Hey, we've already talked about this. These are the things we've been working on. This is the next step we've done. Now let's pause here if there's any questions. Then we're going to talk about conservation which you guys can champion that.

So I don't participate or see haven't spent too much time up front um getting to where I can pass it off to to the joint group to present the council and you know they all seen this in advance so they can come back with their comment and just present where we think it should be going. So well I mean there's a couple options that we can uh handle and this goes into the future agendas of meetings.

um whether after we get an agenda whether we want to it doesn't have to be a an inerson meeting we can have a telephonic meeting just discuss how we want to presented this to you know how we want to present it to council at that meeting you know yeah it's public yeah I mean again we can meet per in person or like I'm just saying whatever is more convenient for everybody we want to do just a telephonic communication and get it over aligned or website, however you want to do it.

I think the the last time that we physically did a joint workshop, we've done a couple uh with originally was a water advisory committee and then um with council during the um rate study before and also through the master plan and logistically how we've done it.

We've had the the council up at the DS and we've actually had the chair and vice chair with all the members behind and then present from there and staff are at the other table here and then that that's that facilitates presentation and obviously the other members can come up and speak at the podium as requested to add that's how we've done it. Unless you want to add more chairs that's an easy thing for us to do add two tables to allow more people to sit up at the front interact.

That's how we've done the workshops. We don't have the room to allow council to come down here and we're all sit in one big big happy family. So they they're sort of at the DS and Samantha's room. I think it's good. Three of us after these guys. So there's four of us. Four of us. Yeah. So we have four. You sit right behind the one and then you can come up and interact very quickly if if anything comes up. So uh you can you can speak to any specific issues.

If council asks a question that the chair, vice chair um want someone else input, just come up. Boom. You're you're right there. Or we can I think we got room to set up another tables. potentially have four of you sitting up as front. Oh yeah, front row then assigned seats will be current positions. Again, do you have an idea of when you think you might have your rough agenda done? Um I uh probably next week. I mean I've actually already started the PowerPoint.

It's basically an update from the last one and then again this will be keyed in at the right now it's the second half of it. Yeah. Um so I don't know. next week or the joint meeting's on the 23rd. Uh the week of the 15th would be the week before that. Anybody want to and it's not you're out of town. So are we just wanting to decide who wants to present the report which they want to present? It's that big a deal. I think just present it. I mean it's all here. They are going to have a copy of it.

Um I think you can as chair and co-chair if you want to a vice chair excuse me um you know just do it succinct um ask for questions and and you know make it simple.

Yeah, I don't think that we should read the whole thing to them, you know, but just talk kind of in in generalities of the sections, you know, and and probably the most important thing is kind of the the phase in approach and we want to get their buy in to, you know, the different elements, you know, so that we can then engage both, you know, and then go and and get this thing um in the works. Yeah. I think just logistically the workshops on the 23rd um I think the clerk beats those up.

So I have to actually have the a packet in um the week of the probably the 10th or 11th I think usually. So at least a week before it's not an action per se. So it's more of information but they like time and they have to publish it still five days. This whole thing will be in it. Yeah. That'll be part of the you have a slideshow and this will be part of that. So our slide deck on top of it how we're presenting our information slide deck. Did you want something um additional William?

Were you thinking of something different? No, I just I wanted to get it I wanted to give this committee an opportunity to say how you wanted to present it. Yeah. sweet, simple, hit the main points which I think are in the beginning and you know hit the main titles and then you wrap it up with Cactus Charlie, you know, you go through literally the you don't have to you know Yeah.

But I mean you can go through almost the titles of it with them maybe and just to make sure they did have time to read it but just hit the titles and then kind of a general statement about what's what what that addresses. So, I did actually um on the the cover memo, right? Is that going to be put on a letter head something? You know, I was exactly how you guys approved it. You guys want some changes? We have a letter head for our committee. I know. Do you want me to make one?

No, I just I mean on on the logo on the front page, um that's a very old logo. Um and I can get you or Ryan can get you a you know, current town logo. Oh, that'd be great. Yeah, just so it doesn't become a talking point. Yeah, like Well, that's expensive to change out. That's all. It just I had that. I was going to say, yeah, it matches. It matches, but different color. Okay.

Put in new logo and then Okay, if you're a good I mean, I'm good with how it reads, but I just thought whether you have an inner office memo or No, we're just going to do mayor and council. That's something to be dead one. Okay. don't care. Yeah, there' be a package with it. Obviously the PowerPoint I can go I what I'll do is I'll pull through and have highlights so we have slides and talk to it.

So it's not going to be complete repetition I don't think a lot of slides and we'll pull out the high points of it and we can speak of it here in your packet we can turn a page be nice. Yeah, we will have page numbers though, right? We need to ask we can direct people through, right? Yeah.

I mean what I would suggest is go through the executive as part uh part of what's putting together a package that that might be on a PDF that we would show would be the you know through the executive summary and a couple uh the handful of the informative messages maybe not the current one so much because they've already seen them but you know respective ones and u you know and maybe I'll I'll I'll look through this If you want sed that deal with Robert I'm not going to be in town the week before Bill that's not when we'll meet not a problem um okay so the next items though are future agenda item and future meeting dates so are there additional item we should be done but at least this part of the conservation plan.

Well, as far as our next meeting goes, it should be unless we want to talk about any feedback from the council. That would be that would be Yeah. I would like to ask the council, you know, what do they need? I mean, we've kind of been self-directed so far, but are there any hot buttons and stuff that they want us to look at or or comment on? water. They said that was our our mission. Of course it is. They said find water resources. So I don't know the best way helps.

We can certainly ask them in the meeting but you know it's we're planning you know if there's any discussion that Sean and Ryan have with them. You know we're looking for ideas right now. Why wait? Are we hearing a meeting in October or do you want to have another one since I don't think we'll have another one in September? We're going to have a joint meeting. Wouldn't think there would be a need and if we set the 30th. Yeah. So, let's go to October end of October.

We had we had provided dates of the 24th and the 29th 24th of September. Uh but we'll won't do that one uh because we're going to meet on the 23rd instead with the with the council.

If if we want to, we could um either post or either pre or or after the joint meeting notice our own for having just a short agenda to discuss what happened uh at the council meeting to kind of see we can deal with that if if you want to do that just you know at the end of that meeting and with Ryan is with any thing that we want to add to that but I don't want it to be a long meeting, but we've already had a joint meeting with the council, but if you want to have a half hour meeting right after Well, so I I'll be out of town from the 24th through the 1st.

I'm I'm talking on the 23rd. Oh, on the 23rd. I can I'm just Yeah, I'm just just so we we're all together right then or whoever's available and then just have a meeting rather than try to do it on the 24th. just to have a a short very short meeting to discuss primarily. Does that have to be posted? Yes, it'll have to be posted and we can do that. That's not one of the challenges will be knowing when the meeting actually ends. Well, but but again, you can notice it immediately following. Yeah.

Before that, you know, or or 20 minutes following if you want to take a break in between, but uh you know immediately. Yeah.

immediately immediately following you know and we can put it a tenative time or immediately following whichever is is earlier and you just go I mean that's done all the time do two it together I'm just trying to keep keep it simple and the main thing will be just to discuss the the joint meeting and any um action we want to u you know take as a group after that you know uh or or agenda item uh the actual action at that meeting.

I don't expect that will be an action item agenda other than discussion and setting agendas for in the future. Okay. So, we're looking at October for our Do you want to look at October for Well, the October meeting we had was the 29th. Okay. And I don't know if we need to do anything beyond that at this time. I I wouldn't you know then you're starting to get into Thanksgiving and the holidays and we'll see what uh assignments we might get if we're just to recap. Okay.

So September 23rd, the joint meeting with council immediately after it, we thinking have a hold of the meeting with with no action items maybe put on there. You know, it'll be it'll be discussion of of input from council regarding, you know, a discussion of input uh and uh and then and set future agenda items and potential agenda meetings if we want to add meeting or two at that time. Yes. Based upon what we've got understood that that should be all we have on that agenda.

Don't want to be complicated. And I just want to invite you if you haven't heard already that um the CIP board president is going to be here on September 16th talking to council. Uh there's a meet and greet at 400 pm here in the council chambers and then he's going to speak at 5 to the um council basically sharing the news of uh cap with the council and what to look forward to. What date was that? The 16th. Okay. Or four o'clock. Yeah.

Four o'clock is the meet and greet and then five o'clock is the council meeting where he's going to present first thing at CAP. Yes. Thank you. Thanks Paul. Yeah. Welcome. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah.

actually tomorrow at 9:00 the cap and you you want to you can log on their website we'll do the annual briefing to u talk about the anticipated sort of been notified as a tier one shortage next year but then we'll get the formal briefing of of of go to it on the website about what's happening with the water resources for next year with state or on on Colorado River water that's that's a meeting coming up and you know what time that is 9:00 a.m. So, you can get to it through the cap.-az.gov.com.

Um, and on their website they have it so you can stream the video. I think it starts at 9:00. Usually takes about an hour and a half. They talk about stuff on their capital program. It just everything in general. So, there already has been a declared shortage. They don't declare a shortage. Actually comes through bureau reclamation.

They just will talk about how it's going to impact uh moving forward for next calendar year which for them is I felt before Yeah, then they work with us on calendar years for order. So, everybody's got different days to screw fiscal year, calendar year, federal. Tell us what next year's reduction will be. Not only, but they'll give us some anticipation, some ideas.

Um, right now with the tier one shortage, what we're anticipating is the town's municipal and industrial water supplies will be able to order 100% of that. They have not told us that we can't order all of our non-Indian Indian a water. I anticipate we'll have at least a 25%. They'll ask us to to we'll do place an order for 100%. They'll come back and say no, you can only get 75%. That's they've done that for three years in a row.

I expect they'll actually a 50% reduction next year, which gives us a little bit less water to recharge um next year checking account for longterm. Next year looks good. the year after they were all worked up and that's because right now they're still working on the same criteria. Yeah. And and they've been able to maintain the water level in meet sufficiently that they have net tier one.

So yeah, as a state they've done some stuff where they've actually you know as a municipal provider we've been reached out to there's been augmentation programs just internally as a as a cap water user. We've been asked to we if we don't need all of our allocation. Um, and this the ADWR has had a program for a couple years that they pay you not to take your allocation to leave leaving water on the river, they call it.

You know, I wish we could have participated, but I think it was more valuable for the town to generate the long-term storage credit. Had we been doing that for many more years, we'd have a much bigger storage account and we could have thought of participating in that, but it didn't didn't work out for the town. I always I always laugh. I always say that we're the rounding error to everybody else's water supplies.

But with that, unless there's something else for the good of the poll, I'll take a motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor?