Flagstaff Water Commission approves conservation ordinance, directs air-cooled data centers only

like everybody's here. Can you hear me? All right. No echoing or anything like that. Uh so let's call the meeting to order for the March 19th water commission meeting. Um I have something new to go through on the agenda to read off anyway regarding a notice of option to recess into executive session.

Uh pursuant to ARS 38431.02 2 notice here is hereby given to the members of the commission and to the general public that at this meeting the commission may vote to go into executive session which will not be open to the public for legal advice and discussion with the commission's attorneys for legal advice on any item listed on the following agenda pursuant to ARS 38-431.03A3. Okay. Are there any questions on that? That's something new on the agenda.

You know, the next item we have is roll call. But first of all, I want to welcome our new water commission member, Caroline Reid. Welcome. And I think it might be good uh if we just go around the commission and uh uh introduce ourselves to Caroline. I'll start. I'm Ron Doba. I'm the chair of the commission and uh my background is I used to be a city employee. So from there Don Yes, vice chair. Vice chair.

So, Don Bills, I'm vice chair and um retired USGS and currently the uh chairperson for the Cookingo Plateau Water Partnership Technical Advisory Committee. Hi, Caroline. My name is Haley. I am a Flagstaff resident like all of us and um I have served on the commission for a little over a year and used to work at the town of Gilbert before I moved up here in the water department and then work for a conservation organization in my day job. Hi, my name is John Nommen.

I worked for the university for 35 years directing the instructional lab program for chemistry. So I have a lot of chemistry background and been in the water group with Rob here for a number of years too. So good to meet you. Uh good afternoon. Good to meet you Carolyn. Uh my name is Rob Bain and I'm a I guess I'm here as a retired engineer and project manager and also as John mentioned an active member of the Flagstaff Water Group which is a separate u advocacy organization. Thank you.

Caroline, welcome. Um, I'm from Flagstaff, born and raised here. I am an operator out in Don Park Water for Don Park Water. Um, I I'm really concerned about the our water situation here in Flagstaff. So, that's why I became a member and I hope that is what you came to. Well, Caroline, that's all of us and obviously you have an interest in water or you would not have applied to be on the water commission. Tell us a little bit about your interest. Yeah. Hi, I'm Caroline.

Um, I'm an engineer as well. I'm a civil environmental engineer in town doing some consulting work. We do a lot of flood mitigation projects. So, it's been cool to see that side. And then I'm just I don't know interested in water. Wanted to get see other sides of it besides um like I don't know what I see as a young engineer. Great. Thank you and welcome again. Uh I don't know. Do we need roll call after going through all of these introductions or are we good? I think that might suffice.

I'm sorry. I think that might suffice. Okay, have everybody here. You've introduced Let's move on the agenda. Uh, public participation. Public participation enables the public to address the commission about an item that's not on the agenda. If you wish to address the commission, please state your name and address for the record. The open meeting law prohibits the commission from discussing or taking action on an item that's not listed on the agenda.

The commission members may however respond to criticism made by those addressing the commission, ask staff to review a matter or ask that a matter be placed on a future agenda. Public comments should be limited to three minutes reading time. Do we have anybody here for public participation? No, we do not. I am not seeing any. So, we will uh move on to the next item that is the approval of the minutes from our last meeting. Uh it's been a while, folks.

It's been about four months since we've had a a water commission meeting, but uh I did notice that the the minutes were attached to our agenda that we received. I hope you all have had a chance to take a look at them. Uh are there any uh comments, corrections uh that anybody would like to make for the minutes? If not, uh, I would welcome a motion to approve the minutes. I think the minutes look good and I move to approve the minutes. Motion's been made.

If there's no comments, do we have a second? Are are we approving all four sets of minutes or are we doing them individually? How many sets of minutes do we have? We haven't had a meeting for four months. So, we didn't have we there there there are no minutes to approve from the months that we have not had a meeting. So, we we're only approving the minutes from the uh uh let's see what's the what is the that meeting that we're approving? November 20th. November 20th of 2025.

So, a motion's been made. I I believe it was by John to approve the minutes. Do we have a second? I second the motion. Motion's been said made and seconded. All in favor say I. I. I. Are there any opposed? If not, the minutes are approved. Thank you. Okay, let's move on to new business. Uh we've got several items on new business for today's agenda. Uh we're going to be talking about uh it looks like we're going to be talking about data centers and land use.

And I'm not sure how how do we want to approach this first of all? Erin. Uh Tiffany, are you going to start off with this? Yes. Okay. So, I will turn it over to you. All right. Thank you so much. My name is Tiffany Antl and I'm the zoning code manager. I think this is my first time ever at the water commission in 13 years at the city. So, welcome. Um, thanks for having me. Uh, I am going to go through this presentation.

Um, last week we were with a work session with the planning and zoning commission and we have a public hearing following up next week with the planning and zoning commission before we move on to city council. Um, and I'll I'll go through this and kind of explain sort of the impetus of why we're doing this. There's a lot of information, I think, that's been published in different um, arenas and different media components about what this really is and why we're doing it.

So, I'll make sure you know all about that. But, when we were at the work session, we received a lot of feedback and comments from the planning and zoning commission. Um, especially in regards to water. Uh, one of the predominant questions that was asked was if we because they recently saw a conditional use permit for a golf course.

Um, there being a limitation on golf courses and they're only being allowed to use reclaimed water for that particular land use if something similar could be done for data centers. And that sort of sparked a conversation with water services to which they said, "Hey, we're having water commission meeting.

Do you want to jump in here and get involved?" So um with a lot of not a lot of planning we short jumped into this to see if we could get some feedback from you all on the right best approach for dealing with land uses that can be heavy large water uses. So recently uh we were asked by the Arizona League of Cities and Towns to complete a survey on how we would treat data centers based on our zoning code. and we realize that we probably have a little bit of a hole in our code.

Um the use or the land use data center is not specifically listed in our code. And so when you look at our code, it reads as if any land use not listed is not permitted. However, there are several categories of land uses that are very broad, especially in our industrial zones that group multiple individual land uses. So just really quickly, the land use that we would qualify today if somebody came in with a data center would be the heavy general industrial land use.

This land use is permitted in outright is permitted with no additional standards or qualifications in our heavy industrial and our heavy industrial open zones. uh would be permitted with a conditional use permit in our light industrial zones. Um I'm just going to go back. Uh so covered that and again no specific development standards for this land use.

So, if we were to go a conditional use permit route, it would be our standard findings for conditional use permit, which are good in helping us mitigate potential impacts of a land use um but are not as specific as um really trying to work on mitigating individual land uses. So, I think there is some confusion that by amending the zoning code to specifically add data centers that now we are creating the opportunity for data centers in our community. And that's the actual opposite.

We're trying to create specific standards for something that's already allowed. Um, in this proposal, we would be limiting data centers to the heavy industrial and the heavy industrial open zones with the issuance of a conditional use permit. So, data centers per this amendment would not be permitted anywhere by right.

They would also be subject to a whole set of criteria of specific use standards, which is what we're hoping to get a little bit of feedback from you all tonight um on and especially ads that our planning and zoning commission asked us to look into. Uh staff's goal is always to permit land uses in every zone. Of course, one of the things we've been asked is to also create an ordinance that would outright ban all data centers in Flagstaff.

So that I just so you know that draft is prepared and is cir circulating and will go to the planning and zoning commission staff doesn't usually recommend going that route. Um while data centers are certainly a very impactful land use, um there are ways to mitigate the concerns in dealing with those. So, a lot of places have been heavily inundated or hit hard by those initial land uses and we get to learn from those locations and areas um and see how we could incorporate those facilities here.

All right. So, I will just cover really quickly that we're going to be adding a definition of data center. Uh it's basically a facility or a portion of a building used to house computer systems, servers, and associated infrastructure for the storage, processing, management, or distribution of digital data. Data centers may include Yes. Excuse me a minute. Can we ask questions as you go, or would you prefer us to wait?

If you go back to that previous slide, I'm looking at that bottom bullet point there where it says staff is concerned that an outright prohibition on data centers may increase the risk of future state level preeemption. Yes. What do you mean by state level preeemption that they would be forced to allow a data center by state? Correct. Can they do that? Yes. Uh we just were forced to do that with middle housing. We've been forced to do that with accessory dwelling units.

Um I have spent the better part of the last two years dealing with all of the new state mandates of things that we allow in our zoning code. Okay. Thank you. Absolutely. All right. Uh so data center definition there would be an exception. Of course this building technically has a data center in it. Uh we have a server room. It's very small. Uh I learned today for example NAU has a small data center on their campus. It's specifically for Netflix.

Um these things already do exist in our environment. So data centers can be very large and very big. They can also be very small. Um, so we would be, like I said, amending our zoning code to make data center permitted use in the heavy industrial the heavy industrial open zone with a conditional use permit. There would also be these specific to use standards. So all of the standards that you see in black are standards that were originally presented to the planning and zoning commission.

anything is going to be in red is going to be anything that was changed since we were at the planning and zoning commission work session just so that you can see the difference. Um, essentially we're going to require that these types of development sites meet our site planning design standards. Typically industrial uses are kept out of site planning design standards.

Site planning design standards include things like lo where a building is located in relation to its parking, how you screen certain elements. It's what we would apply to generally most regular commercial land uses. Um, also the same with our architectural design standards. We don't usually apply those to industrial land uses. In this case, we would make that exception and you would need to meet those art architectural articulation requirements.

Uh mechanical, electrical and cooling equipment would have to be fully enclosed or screened um from views from rights of way and adjacent properties. Outdoor storage of equipment or materials is prohibited except during permitted construction or maintenance activities. So number five here was specifically added. We were asked to look at and sorry I typed this really fast but little typo there. Um the we were asked to include a setback from res from residential zones.

So usually when you think of zoning and you think of typical uklitian zoning zoning districts get more intense as you sort of go up the par or down the pyramid essentially. Um, you know, you start with very limited land uses in residential zone. You add a little bit more in commercial and then your big heavy indust or your biggest heaviest intensity uses or industrial zones. Zoning codes don't really work that way anymore. They're all just a a jumble and a mix of all of that.

We call zoning districts residential, but they really actually allow a lot more than just residential uses. Um so in this case we actually have a lot of heavy industrial properties that directly abut residential zoned land. Um there are actually very few parcels of land in the heavy industrial zones. Those parcels um generally consist of sort of the leaf building, the sheriff's office, the the jail that is near village at Aspen Place.

it directly abuts um highdensity residential uh but for the most part that site is already developed. There is a very large piece of industrial that is located next to smoke rise and what is now called the trailside neighborhood. Uh it currently is occupied partially with some cinder mining as well as a a construction yard heavy or yeah contractor's yard. Um there are some additional lands that are out um just at the entrance to Picture Canyon as well.

So those are like the three core areas that currently exist of heavy industrial just so you know. So the planning and zoning commission asked that we added in that 200 foot setback for when that you abut a residential use or residential zoning. Uh perimeter fencing to be required of course be decorative integrated with site landscaping. Um next one of the big issues the planning and zoning commission had was not just noise but infra noise infrasound.

So I had a day to learn about infrasound to to make the next um scheduled meeting. Uh but essentially that's what that DBC is looking at regulating is the sound that's more felt than heard is what infrasound is. Um if you're curious curious at all about that I have videos um that have been sent to me that I can share with you. Also the addition of sound attenuation walls. So, previously our version had noise restrictions. They were all DBA. We've added in the DBC.

We've added in a time frame as well defining what daytime is and what nighttime is. And then, of course, the sound attenuation walls when abuing those residential zones. We are looking at requiring generators to be in a compliance with all applicable state and federal regulations. Often data centers use diesel generators as backup um if energy or power should fail. Um this would just be requiring um generators that meet a certain standard.

Fuel storage and handling comply with all applicable codes. Number 10 is a a short again I had a day to turn this around. So that all mechanical cooling systems shall you shall utilize a closed loop configuration. So, this was also a suggestion that came out of the planning and zoning commission. Um, I believe water services has also reached out to an expert and they have some better language um to propose back to the planning and zoning commission.

My personal preference is not to list out specific technology because technology changes so rapidly um and to not find oursel in a particular um space or entity. But I believe the language that um that Tamara that the expert has provided is actually much more broad-based and probably workable. Um and we'll continue to have that conversation with the planning and zoning commission as well.

Uh the cooling towers, chillers, and related equipment be designed to minimize noise and visibility and visual impacts. Uh question. Yes. On the previous page. Yes. Um this one. Uh, oh, this one. Yep. Yeah. I'm I'm wondering are 10 and 11 in a sense mutually exclusive? Um, um, I may need an education here, but if you have a closed loop system, I don't believe you have a cool ever have a cooling tower. Is that correct? I I think of an cooling tower as an open evaporative system.

Evening commissioners. Tamar Law's water conservation program manager. So yeah, we um wanted to get clarification on that language. So we um reached out to Aniki Chamberlain who was formerly like a conservation staff member for city of Gilbert and now runs her own consulting agency that we work with for like large industrial users and institutions. And so she said that typically even a closed loop system, let me just read the language.

She says a closed loop system has to be associated with a heat rejection mechanism and that mechanism is usually water-based, most commonly a cooling tower. While the chilled water side of the system may be closed loop, the heat rejection side is typically open loop and will consume significant amounts of water through evaporation and blowdown as well as additional losses from mechanical and operational issues.

Um, so she's basically saying that we need to provide some additional information if if what we are hoping to achieve is kind of maximum water efficiency that the current language um isn't necessarily going to ensure that. I see. Thank you. Another question. Uh, can you go back to item seven? So, regarding the uh uh the noise generated, uh I noticed that there's a 10 decel u uh difference between daytime and nighttime uh range of sound allowed.

And I'm wondering if you can give us frame of reference for what those decel uh decibel amounts are practically uh you know related to. Is this like a semi driving by or you know I I'll need to come back with you to come back to you with that information. Uh the other thing that you mentioned when you were talking about this particular item is uh sound is not only heard it's felt and I'm wondering about the uh wildlife sensitivity uh to uh sound generated by data centers.

Um, you know, certainly I think noise impacts wildlife. I don't have any particular studies at this point in time to address that topic. Okay. Thank you. All righty. Um the last is the last one was about I'm just going to jump to the last particular provision that the planning and zoning commission added and that is all about decommissioning of uh data centers should the facility become out of use. And then lastly then there are specific conditional use permit requirements.

So this is the information we're going to need in order to assess the data center. Knowing that remember broad range data centers can be very large. They can also be small or medium-sized. So it's really hard to create a code at the end of the day that's one sizefits-all. It's meant to try to cover the big extremes but also deal with what might be small or medium sized. So we want a baseline noise study.

um if you have that baseline noise study, that's where you can actually start to actually um enforce code in terms of noise. So if we have that baseline noise study and we know what the surrounding atmosphere is, that will give us a greater hand in dealing with any potential noise generated from a site after it is developed. Um this does ask for it them to depict anti anticipated noise levels. Um, so you know, hopefully we would have information that would get us close to what that would be.

We would also want an assessment of current and future energy needs for the site. And then we would want identification of the energy source for the proposed data center and documentation from the utility providers affirming that there's sufficient power.

uh we are looking at making this recommendation that the use of 100% renewable energy for all data center needs is preferred and is attainable through methods including on-site generation virtual power purchase agreements and purchasing wrecks through utility providers. Uh next would be an estimate of the peak day, the average day and an annual water cons water consumption and wastewater discharge for the site.

Uh identification of the source of water requested uh reclaimed water or potable water and documentation from the water services division affirming sufficient water resources to serve the data center under its designation of adequate water supply. a water and sewer impact analysis and then the use of 100% non-pottable and/or recycled water for non-pottable needs is preferred.

So this is where the planning and zoning commission had that question of you know can you get to the place of requiring non-pottable water. Um the zoning code isn't the right tool for that. Um there are other city codes that regulate that those components and for example the current code that does require um non-pottable or the reclaimed water to be used for um for golf courses.

Um that is hot on the planning and zoning commission's mind again because they've recently just reviewed a conditional use permit for a golf course. uh identification and concentration of constituents in the wastewater stream that may have ne negative e effects on the publicly owned treatment work. So we're not just trying to understand the water side but also the wastewater side and then generally a narrative.

Uh like I said we're going to be back next week to the planning and zoning commission. would love your general feedback in terms of where where we can control in the zoning code water-wise and maybe what the water commission would see best in terms of potentially large water users.

So we aren't just one off dealing with potentially large water use land uses in in the zoning code for example um because there could be other land uses out there as well that could be fairly high water users similar to data centers chip manufacturing plant for example. Um there are required findings but if you have any questions I'd be happy to try to answer them and I know Aaron has a presentation to follow up us with as well.

Tiffany, could could we touch on uh the closed loop system for cooling purposes for mechanical systems? Again, to me, a closed loop system is a recirculated system maybe going through cooling towers to reduce the temperature of the water for reuse. Uh, so if they have a system like that, are they still going to be needing a lot of additional water just to make up for evaporation or I I I can't answer the question without having a data center tell us based on how large it is and the system.

You know, again, staff's preference would not be to pick the exact specific technology because there's also air cooled facilities. Um, the type of mechanical cooling system you use will also directly impact the amount of energy you use, which are the two big sort of controlling factors we're trying to assess is they're both big energy users and potentially water users. So, how do we manage between the two?

um that's the only reason staff at this point is recommending maybe not including the specific um technology. But if the water commission thinks that's the right best way to go um you know we'll definitely include that language and we do have some better information or better language that would also then include the air cooled systems. There's not just deal with cooling towers as well.

there's typically a plume to deal with from those and that could be a v visual that we're saddled with for a long time. So we did add in that 11 that they would need to screen and designed to minimize noise and plume visibility and visual impacts. So that is part of that consideration as well in terms of the findings for the cup question. This is a a big picture question.

Um um it seems that you're adding quite a number of requirements specifically for data centers if I understand this correctly that wouldn't apply to other heavy industrial use kinds of applicants. Do you uh out of curiosity, do you open yourself up to litigation from data centers saying gee, you're saddling us with all of these things but not uh not uh you know our other partners doing other kinds of business and how can you realistically impose this on us and not on other people? Sure.

Thank you so much for the question. In this particular instance, no. I mean, if you look through our specific to use sections, we have some very specific development standards for different land uses. One that I'll pick off the top of my head is high occupancy housing. So, if you have a really dense uh housing project, we will impose additional standards on you. Um the the zoning code still has to meet certain parameters and be within the basis. you.

That's why you'll see things when I talk about words like preferred, it means I probably can't require um in the zoning code. I will tell you the vulnerability is uh we in the state of Arizona operate under Prop 207. The official name is um Property Rights Act. Uh I it goes back to 2006.

Basically what that um states is is that if we were to diminish the value of somebody's property through a zoning code, we would need to compensate that person for the cost or for the loss or we would need to wave the wave the zoning code standard. So the risk here is is that right now data centers are allowed in a lot more zoning districts without stipulations than this proposes. So, we always run that risk every time we change the zoning code.

Haley, uh, and Mary B, we'll get to this with Aaron later, but I'm curious. So, there's this this aspect of it with the zoning code, and then maybe we'll get to what we can do on the water side and large water user ordinances and things like that that are more Okay, so we'll talk about that later. Yes. Tiffany, are you going to talk about proposal number two? Did we cover that? So, proposal number two is simply the outright prohibition of all data centers.

And that was a specific request of the planning and zoning commission. And again, that's not staff's uh preferred recommendation. It was just in response to direction from that commission. There there are cities though that do prohibit data centers in a state. Yes. And we can as well. That's so we we prepared the draft. So that that is on the table. Okay. Um, and you're just you just would like us to discuss this today. Correct. To Yes.

I mean, we I would love to come back to the planning and zoning commission with an understanding of generally if this is something the large water user component is something you're thinking about exploring. So I can explain to the planning and zoning commission why those parameters aren't found in the zoning code um as they'll they'll go in other portions of city code.

So this could continue moving along its path and the your work in terms of large water use water land use water users can follow behind and we can catch up somewhere in the middle. All right. Well, maybe we should uh do we want to uh see something on the large water users next or before we kind of get the feel of the commissioners the way they're leaning on this. All right. Um thank you.

So, Aaron Young, water resources section director, and Tiffany did say, "If you're willing to give feedback on this proposal from the water commission to the planning and zoning commission, yes, she'd like to bring that feedback." Um, and when I met with Tiffany on Friday, a number of us met. I said, "Okay, yeah, we already kind of have this in in city code.

elements of what the concerns seem to be trying to mitigate are um within code part of a process of reviewing a heavier water user which I'll uh kind of frame for you. Um oh shoot I'm actively but I didn't want to do that.

Um, so I chatting with Tiffany, I'm like, would it help for maybe to present to the planning and zoning commission just a reminder of how we plan for water resources um on a large long-term buildout scale, but also more a daily production scale and what triggers in terms of water use come through our process. um we do see a gap in the in the policies and process for dealing with uh large volume water users in terms of having a specific policy or an ordinance.

So, this is something uh water services feels we we can explore and um I'm not going to get into really a proposal of what that might look like, but I just wanted to provide an overview of uh codes and policies that already apply. And I am not necessarily the expert on these. So, I tried to pull this information together uh with team members. I see some of them online. Jolene, Emily, um I see your name. So uh please jump in if I misstate something.

Um but in general in the codes um processes and policies uh which of these sort of apply to this topic and I just went through kind of picked these out high level but we'll talk about the engineering review process uh water services uh process and our policies that apply and then specific council adopted water policies. So that document uh 2014 those need to be updated. So we could add a high volume water user policy within that as an example rather than a specific ordinance.

So in terms of the engineering review process, the trigger for an evaluation of what is like a large volume user uh would be a peak hourly demand over 10 family homes. So that's not a lot of water use. I was going to get the million gallons per per day of what that is or uh but I I didn't get that in time. But that then triggers an analysis of our existing system capacity, water and sewer and um we can uh it requires compliance with our industrial waste discharge requirements.

So, initially Tiffany brought forward a draft of uh an uh one of the zoning code proposals that where the concern was um request what constituents are in the water and what might be harmful to the sewer system. Um instead of approaching it from what's harmful, we just have requirements that they need to meet. For example, uh we provide feedback to the applicant on the available capacity of our system on the uh water and sewer side through the WHISA. Erin, that's an ex that's existing, correct?

This is existing. Okay. And family homes demand is isn't that much. It isn't that much. I was actually surprised that that triggers a whissa, but talking to Mac, I mean, I I I've been doing some research on some data centers and they're comparing some of them to using the same amount of water as a as a city of 50,000 people. Yeah, I think the semiconductor plan I read 5,000 acre feet. Um, but then they're recycling 60% soon to be 80% if I have my facts correct.

But, uh, yeah, so they can get pretty big. Um, and for comparison, we use 8,000 acre feet of portable re or portable water a year here. Um, so they go through the WHISA process and that says, okay, your development triggers an upsizing of a water line and that's going to cost you in addition to your capacity fees, whatever all of that conversation is. Uh, you need to upsize our wastewater treatment plant. You we can't we don't have capacity.

Um and then within water services um we have um water demand evaluations um that are the system capacity but also the water resources water portfolio and we have um we keep estimating our builtout water demand every time we have a new regional plan. So with the regional plan 2045 I'm really looking forward to updating our numbers for what is that buildout water demand number. It's like, you know, 16 17,000 acre feet. So, a pretty big volume.

Um, so with the system capacity evaluations, I kind of touched on those. We assess capacity fees um for different meter sizes. So, I noticed some cities have an ordinance where their triggers are based on a meter size. uh for a 3-in water meter that requires a a calculation of capacity fees when they come to water services. So um and we have existing capacity within our systems as we add bigger infrastructure projects or more wells.

We we balloon in our capacity to provide water to people and then that takes up by existing or committed demand that turns their water taps on and then that shrinks and we add so our capacity in our system um uh builds up and then we suck water out of it. So it's kind of this um balance.

Um, but we could always add if if a industry that we really wanted in Flagstaff had such a a large demand that it was, you know, one and or two groundwater wells, 600 gallons a minute, we'd say, well, if you build the wells, you're adding that capacity for us. So, um, those are the kinds of things we might negotiate. In terms of our bucket of water, that's our designation of adequate water supply.

I just wanted to provide some slides with how we um how we calculate uh the designation volume for buildout water uh needs. And then we also have our water rights claims. So making sure that we've got um all of our water rights in order and um that's based on a 100redyear physical availability of all water sources. So, I know there's a perception we don't have water, but there is we're good at finding water and securing it. And then, um, we compare that against the buildout water demand.

So, there's a delta, we have a bucket of water, there's the buildout water demand, there is available water there. Um um so the system capacity assessments I just wanted to provide the codes so they're at your fingertips if you wanted to look at them. But um the water impact analysis again is that uh flow of of 10 single family dwelling units. And on the sewer side that's the same trigger. um the pre-treatment evaluation um have the codes here. So Jolene manages that program.

Um there's a pretty, you know, stringent um discharge requirements for um potentially harmful chemicals or constituents. So um we have that industrial user program. And Jolene, if you care to add anything on that, please raise your hand.

Uh in terms of our water port portfolio, our designation of adequate water supply granted by ADWR in 2013, the acre feet of our water sources that we had to prove the physical availability of using groundwater flow models and other criteria that are in the state code. Our wet water um uh physical availability demonstration is 32,000 acre feet. So, it's quite a lot of water. Um, that's our current well fields. That's Red Gap Ranch. That's surface water from Upper Lake Mary.

And then a portion of our reclaimed water. And on the left are the water commitments. So, our current use is um with reclaimed water is just over 8,000. It's about 10,000 acre feet. Our committed water are building permits and council approved plats.

So the volume of water that they would use and then the regional plan buildout um is was we'll we'll redo the calculation but it shouldn't change too much is brings that o to over 24,000 acre feet maybe 26,000 acre feet or so and then there's a future available in terms of calculating um I'm going to skip ahead real quick the buildout water demand analysis just so you know how it works. Um, we have a summary.

In this case, it was an 8-year water consumption average for these different categories. And you can see industrial institutional unit uh uses is 5,251 gallons per acre per day. So, for any um zoning that has that category, we apply oops that 5,251 per acre to get a water demand.

So, one idea is if a data center were to come to town or a semiconductor or something, if they use more than that average and what we've allocated for those um parcels in terms of water, maybe that's our our trigger is they're using they're proposing an additional 10% on top of that and that could be incorporated into like a large volume water user ordinance or policy. So that you know it's Shannon Anderson talking to Shannon and it's like well what are we giving up if we were to say yes?

Well we would be giving up a portion of that future available. So then the community could talk about that or could have a process. Um and then just going back a slide our designation of adequate water supply tracking is in the report to the water commission. And I just wanted to point out that the numbers are here in terms of our current demand. um that has added to our current demand of reclaimed water for our total current demand which is about 10,000 acre feet.

You can see it hasn't changed much over the years. And then last year I had 550 acre feet of committed demand. And then ADWR in 2033, we have to go back to them and um they only granted us 14,800 acre feet that we could build over 20 years. So, we still have 4,000 acre feet under our designation before for the community to continue growing into. So, it's a substantial volume. Um, okay, I'm not going to show you big chart.

We'll jump ahead to that's just like the calculation for buildout water demand, but I'll skip that. Um, water policies. Council adopted water policies in 2014. It was the city's first set of water policies. We do need to make updates to these, which would be great to maybe start this uh summer. I just wanted to highlight that um strategy. We have water adequacy strategies. I'll just kind of touch on three core topics. Um, but consider the economic value of water.

So that's where, you know, what can we get as a return on in return on gallon per water back to the community and jobs or other factors. That's something that we could talk about with adopting a a policy. It could also be additional water conservation. Um maybe it's a water efficiency report that that the director can approve. I saw that as an example with the Kyle Center publication. Uh strategy B22G.

Um let's see available uncommitted water resource that can be allocated to priority devel development. So I see that as that kind of green portion the remaining volume we could work with city council or just internal staff on um internal departments on uh how to allocate that towards priority developments.

Um, and that could o occur before we continue to approve any development agreements so we can get ahead of the conversation so that as we go forward we can build those factors into DAS or um con final construction plans and such. We can have them uh provide an efficiency report um or do that economic value calculation.

Uh policy B3 on water quality already touched on this just that we have uh we want to ensure businesses do not discharge waste which can compromise the connect collection infrastructure treatment facility impair operations or cause reclaimed water to fail to meet permit requirements. So we really protect our our wastewater system. Jolene is executing this um as a a as a program and then the city shall develop wastewater treatment facilities which adhere to a zipd permit. So pretty standard.

Um we have a lot of stuff on infrastructure. I kind of didn't get to highlight and pull out highlights here, but um on the infrastructure side, uh we just want to make sure we're always we have adequate capacity for our current people. Um we don't want to give up our policies on I didn't put it in here. Our policies for redundancy. So, Upper Lake Mary is 26%. If that's one season of water, if it's full, we say it's like three seasons of water if we don't get spring runoff.

So, that's um maybe not redundancy. We want to include in our redundancy calculation. So, we have in policy what that redundancy calculation should be as a principle of soundwater management, for example. So, there's a lot already existing. Um, and I just thought I'd pull some numbers of um, current high volume uses. So, um, this is these are out of our report to the water commission. Reclaimed on the left, we had 800 acre feet of water used by golf courses. Um, manufacturing just 13 acre feet.

On the portable side, if you look at institutional colleges, um 400 acre feet, um commercial altogether, 1900 acre feet, beer can actually use a lot of water, um as an industry. So, uh just things we don't think about. And then yeah, just I kind of had this if there are any questions about reclaimed water use. So I hope this helps per with kind of framing how I view water. If I hear data center, I don't freak out. I'm like, well, what what do they bring in terms of uh other community benefits?

I'm surprised to see landscaping at 270 acre feet per year. Really? Although we use reclaimed water mostly for landscaping, but maybe not. Yeah, we can't provide reclaimed water everywhere, of course. Uh so a lot of um apartment complexes with green spaces have to use portable water for their landscaping and Tamara will be talking about more ordinance stuff today, including um nonfunctional turf and trying to reduce that. Okay, questions.

Rob uh Erin, in the context of the current discussion about data centers, I guess my bottom line question is you've shown how you evaluate large users, but do does water services have veto power in any sense over an applicant? If if you do your analysis and say, "Yeah, this is a really big user and they'll have to um you know, pay their big connection fees and all that kind of thing." Can you can you actually go above and beyond and veto a development?

Uh I don't I don't know the answer to that, Commissioner Vain. Um whether we have veto power or whether we can say you need to bring water with you and it makes it more difficult for them to come here. I would have to look into into that question.

Well, maybe um Tiffany then I I don't know if water services then provides a recommendation and if you don't have veto power per se, can you give a recom do you give a recommendation to either the um city council or or zoning or whatever say this is this is not a a um use we can sustain. Yeah. Again, I'm not I'm not sure if Mac was here, he might have a better answer to that. I would have to research it for you.

um once they conduct a whistle, we would say this is what you need to bring with you. Um but whether we can outright say no, you can't do this, I I don't know. So we would never approve an application that didn't have a approved WISA with it. Um so that would be part of the conversation. If we don't have the water to serve it, that would that would kick you out of the findings for a conditional use permit 100%.

Um, so we don't generally approve either a resoning or conditional use permit if we don't have the services to serve the property. So that in and of itself, the question becomes, if we have the water, can we still reject the application? Um, the planning and zoning commission or the city council could have the authority over that. Maybe water services doesn't have the authority to decline um based on current codes and requirements. I'm not the expert. I don't know.

But in terms of the zoning case, there are still all of those other findings and elements um that need to be sort of overseen and met. So all of those different general recommendations or requirements for data centers for for to be specific. Um the I just was able to pull up that language too that Tamara um provided and I think the way to go is really this opt this number one option which would be to prohibit water cooled systems entirely that I can do.

I can prohibit the cooling system where I might not be able to say we can't provide you with water. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. I'm kind of pressing on this because the question I think becomes do we try to write into the regulation relating to data centers some kind of specific limit or do we just we could actually be silent on water use in the data centers but just leave it up to the existing process of water services reviews of heavy of large users. Agreed.

And and the answer will bubble up. So uh agreed. I believe you have those options. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I as I said, I I don't know whether it makes sense to try to write a specific regulation for data centers or not. It sounds to me like you've got a process that works separate from that and there's no particular need to write a specific requirement into the data center regulations. Well, I think this data center, let me read you the whole thing of what's proposed. She gave multiple options.

Um, and I think the easiest best option would be to prohibit the water cooled systems entirely. Um, it's probably also the easiest in terms of enforcement. Um, instead of trying to go back and regulate a certain amount of water use and that type of thing. So, the actual stipulation would read mechanical cooling systems for data centers shall utilize air cooled heat rejection systems only.

the use of evaporative or water-based heat rejection systems including but not limited to cooling towers, evaporative condensers, ad I can't say the word adob I don't adiotic systems and water cooled chillers is prohibited and I think that would start to address a lot of the things that we saw that I think people were pinpointing the concerns on Um, so if there's general feedback on maybe taking that approach, I would love that.

So with that approach then basically we would be, correct me if I'm wrong, shutting the door on data centers as far as water goes. Well, no, we would just require an air cooled center or an air cooled mechanical system. Yeah, I know we're not the electrical commission but Sure. Let me give the other options. Um let's give the option two performance-based more flexible but requires oversight.

So allow water use but strictly limited mechanical cooling system shall not utilize potable water for heat rejection unless total annual water is demonstrated to be a certain gallons per kilowatt or per square foot per year. I I don't have that number subject to city approval and ongoing reporting but it would require this constant ongoing reporting throughout.

The last would be the hybrid approach would would be to default to the air cool with limited exceptions require air cooled systems as the baseline with exceptions only if a defined water use threshold is met. submetering and annual reporting are required and system design is documented and approved. I I think one of the questions is um what is the variation by month for these data centers and what is the effect of building it at elevation in terms of the cooling type they might be able to use.

Um, and you know, water is really the limiting factor whether we want one of these things or not. So, I I don't have the answer to those questions. You know, as as far back as I can remember here, and that's a ways back, we have never ever wanted to attract high water use industries here in Flagstaff for a number of reasons. Uh, and actually one of them is water is so darn expensive to develop here. And you know, we look at some of these other communities that are trying to deal with this.

And I know Erin gave us some information. I don't know how many of you have had a chance to look at some information on some work that was done by the Kyle Center uh of the Morrison Institute, but they mainly looked at uh the metropolitan areas and how they're dealing with data centers.

And we're not comparing apples to apples when we look at how they're dealing with data centers to the impact that a data center would have on us here because when you look at the water portfolio of some of these large communities down there, you know, it's it's a blip compared to what could happen here uh with the data center coming to Flagstaff. Uh obviously one of the alternates is saying we look at Morirana. Morirana refuses to provide portable water to data centers.

Well, you know, we could provide refuse to provide portable water. We don't have we don't have enough reclaim water to support a data center. I I question if you know could the state force us to accept a data center if we don't have the resources that they need? I want to touch on that. Yeah. So Morirana actually prohibits the use of their city water. They portable water, but yeah. So um I originally started with that draft. Okay.

Um uh the the second is the state can require us to add land uses into our zoning code or permit things through our zoning code. It doesn't necessarily go as far as to say we have to provide. Usually there's always caveats that we don't have to allow those facilities if we can't serve them. For example, middle housing. Middle housing is forplexes all the way down to single family. So forplex, 3plex, um duplex, single family. They're now allowed um anywhere a single family home is allowed.

Um, but there is stipulation in that state statute that says we don't have to allow those where there isn't infrastructure to serve them, including water and sewer. I could comment on the reclaimed water um piece. The thing with data centers is you can require water recycling and if they're recycling 80% of their water, at least we're getting that back in our wastewater and we can keep them on a closed loop almost on reclaim.

Whereas golf courses, all of our users right now pretty much are we don't get the water back as you all know. Um we can make that part of this policy. um in terms of making that the highest priority. If we get the water back, if we have available water, that's our highest priority.

I've been to a bunch of conferences later on innovations with these um you know, cloud computing centers, whatever you want to call them, uh high-tech uh centers, and they might loop pay to loop our reclaim system, which would be a huge benefit to all users. and they might help us pay to upgrade um our wastewater treatment plant. There could be a win-win somehow with um with then providing discharge water to to golf courses.

And a lot of these systems they pay to purify the water basically because of the the scaling issues. Um I toured a facility outside Boise. It's a huge tens of billions of dollars facility. And I toured the treatment train. They were they were piloting different treatment trains to get the purified water where they wanted it to be for groundwater recharge when they didn't have the demand for 100% of what they were treating at a wastewater type system.

So there could be innovation innovative solutions that really do benefit Flagstaff. Just wanted to mention that Lee Chairman Doba Emily Melhorn has her hand up and then I have a comment afterwards. Emily um yes so I mentioned in the chat and sorry I can't be there in person. I didn't want to get anybody sick. Um but if we limited to aircooled um only data centers that would limit the size of the data center um but would still of course allow them.

You can only expand to a certain size where you've maximized your ability to cool via air cooling systems. Um but once you allow water cooled um systems uh in the data center it's a little bit more difficult to um control the size of it.

Um so you've mentioned reclaimed water you know how much reclaimed water do we actually have even if you use other non-pollutable sources like say that they need to have a rainwater harvesting system where they're using that to cool it still dependent on if it's raining or not which we know that is not reliable here in uh Flagstaff. So, um I would say just there are different ways that we can maximize efficiency.

Um requiring that there's submetering to make sure that if they have faulty valves that there's not, you know, leaks that are going um unattended to. We can maximize the um cycles of concentration that are in the cooling system.

The maximum efficiency is about seven times that you can reuse the water before you have to dump it because it is been mineralized to the point that it will damage uh the cooling tower and those are very expensive and so you know of course they want to protect their very expensive equipment more than they want to save water. Um, so seven times is about the maximum time that you can reuse water um before you have to dump it and start again.

Um, that water as far as being able to put that back into our system, there are usually a lot of chemicals, acids, and whatnot within that water to make it soft enough to be able to reuse it as many times. So, these are all important things I think to consider uh with um this.

We don't have a great deal many like cooling towers in Flagstaff and that's why we've sort of relied on um the expertise of uh Mamir Consulting um for this because it's not something that has really been very uh you know predominant in our community up to this point. So all things to consider. Thank you. Thank you Emily. Do we have any other comments? Haley, did you have something? Yeah, just a couple questions.

So, kind of along what Erin was saying, could we could we have large water users that come in above what we anticipated for a certain like land use? And if that was the case, they could then fall under some new scrutiny or requirements or pay more. Is that an option we want to entertain? Uh, bring your water with you. And then I think my other question was I think Gilbert and Chandler and maybe it's not apples to apples so I I want to go look but like there was um value.

So if it came with a certain amount of jobs then we would consider it. So that would be you know maybe not a data center maybe that would just naturally kind of weed it out. So I guess I'm curious if there's if we're exploring those other options too or if we just want to focus on straight up no no cooling water cooling technology and therefore that's how we prohibit it. I guess there's I just wanted to explore a couple other options if that's a thing.

And it's it's kind of hard to respond to this not knowing the exact details of a data center that would be proposed. You know, if if you if you go to ironically, you can go to AI and and learn all kinds of things about data centers like they're they're big water users. They are not large employers. You know, there might only be a handful of people that are working at these things.

and they're huge uh power users that in some cases it has been shown that the power use the cost of that power actually has been passed on to the residents in the communities too just because the power providers have had to put more capital into uh new power facilities and so forth and their and their grid system to supply them that power.

So, I know we're not the electrical commission, but there's so, you know, it's I hate to say it, but we're kind of like dancing with the devil dealing with these uh uh data centers. Yeah. And I worry that if we say no water, but all electric, there's other implications. So, that's where I'm kind of like, is there another way to address this that's not just water or Right. So, I mean, there definitely are trade-offs in the situation. There's definitely a hybrid approach we could pursue.

I mean, if water is of the most concern, um, you know, the other thing, one, I don't always trust AI, um, it it's not coming from a data, it's not always 100% accurate because I ask it zoning code questions all the time and it doesn't get them right. Um, just to see well and I do already have customers that call me and say, "AI says I can do this." Um, and so, you know, it's definitely part of the process.

Um, not all land uses in and of themselves have that benefit that you immediately see with maybe a large employer, but there are land uses that have secondary benefits. So if you think about it, if a large data center came in and they had a a fairly large water demand, that may require them to assist the city in providing that water source in order to serve them, which could then in turn become a benefit to the residents and to other development in Flagstaff.

So there is always a way to sort of spin that sort of conversation and the same could be true of the electrical grid as well that it you know if somebody came in and made a major investment that was not possible for a single family home developer but was possible for something like a data center there is that potential for that secondary benefit. um that should be part of the sort of thought process. But at the end of the day, I know I'm throwing a lot at you in a very short amount of time.

Um we are basically trying to sort of fill a hole in the zoning code right now. So what I want you to recon what I want you to keep at the forefront of your mind is data centers would already be permitted by right in our zoning code in these heavy industrial zones without restriction. That's number one.

Uh, number two is so if if we do go this route of allowing a data center use, if that is the route the planning and zoning commission chooses to recommend, where would you have us go in the zoning code and what would you encourage us to solicit to the planning and zoning commission, especially in terms of that the cooling systems potentially?

Right now, we could absolutely limit it to air cooled and we could wait for the water commission to come up with a more advanced policy on large water users. Zoning code can change all of the time. We can come back and we can um revise the zoning code.

We're just looking maybe for some help in the approach on how do we protect our current water resources, making sure that we can adequately serve any of these land uses should they come in and and what I can tell you is we don't in in the planning department we have not reviewed any applications and we've not received any preapps for data centers or the like and again the land base here that we're talking about highly limited um maybe three parcels of land could actually meet all of the parameters, maybe two actually at the end of the day, could meet the parameters in the zoning code, especially when you add in the 200 foot setback.

So, just remember there's all of those other features, but at this point, would you want us to be as restrictive as we could in terms of water? Would you like us to take a more medium approach? Um, we can take that harder approach now and wait for you all to catch up and come back and do an amendment when you all if you decide you want to develop a policy in terms of large water users. I hope that helps. It does.

And I'd like to move this along because we have some other items on the agenda today, but I want to give you some information as well before you leave as far as feedback from the from the water commission. And uh the way I see it and the information that we've seen today, we've got two proposals that we we're looking at. One is the landbased proposal. So I'm not asking the water I'm not asking the water commission today to provide feedback necessarily on the second proposal.

I just wanted you to be aware that that was moving in the background. What we're asking from the water commission today is specifically recommendation on those water component elements of the zoning code text amendment which is really in proposal number one. Oh, I thought that uh I thought that that proposal number two was in there for a reason. I just wanted to make you aware of all of the moving because yeah, I just wanted for proposal number two.

I just want to make you aware of all of the elements, but um you know I do serve at the planning com and zoning commission's uh purview and that was specifically their recommendation. Again, it's not staff's recommendation. I'm right now I'm looking for the expertise on the water related issues in terms of data centers.

And if you'd like to come to the planning and zoning commission and um give them your feedback, I'm sure that will also help them make that decision on whether they recommend proposal one. Well, as I indicated earlier, we have never been had an interest in attracting high water use industry here in Flagstaff.

I I think in developing an ordinance or something that uh that looks at high water use high water users is almost putting something out there saying uh we might be able to open the door for you in the future and that could lead to other things that we're you know we have to pay for in the future. So I I don't know that I would want to see that happen as well. uh as far as you know the the proposal number one and the water issues there. I don't know.

Do we have any comments from the commission on that? Go ahead, Rob. Yes. Yeah. I I guess where I'm coming out on this is that um I think we have a mechanism to deal with large water uses. You know, that's what both Lee and Erin uh described. And so I wouldn't try to be too particular in the specific regulations within the data center language.

I would what I would put in there would say would be something to the fact that if the data center chooses to use a water-based cooling system, it must be a closed loop system and leave it at that. And then and then once the details come in, then Lee and Aaron and their team have the chance to review the total usage and the money they can bring to the table and so forth for expanding capacity and they'll either vote thumbs up or thumbs down and then you'll utilize that.

But I wouldn't be try to be overprescriptive, Ian. Just that that's just my own that's just one person speaking. But um I I think you've got a system and just bolster that and uh rely on that being effective. By closed loop system, you're referring to basically a recirculating system that's cooled. Yes. That's cooled. And the only water they would be using is what needs to be supplemented as a result of uh losses in the system. Yeah.

And I think someone referred to what I know of as blowown water. I mean that's Yeah. That's the you have to purge either continuously or periodically because of buildup of minerals and so forth, right? But so so there are always some losses and but um but I think that that terminology closer loop system is pretty generally understood.

It is the caveat on some of those systems and I've dealt with them in industrial uses in the past is as I kind of indicated they can have a significant plume from cooling towers or things like that. And when I look at our view of the peaks from various places in Flagstaff, I would certainly hate to see a to see that change that picture change in my mind. So we're talking about keeping it a closed loop system, Tiffany, right?

We'll give the option for air cooled and if it is a water cooled system, it has to be a closed loop system. Closed loop system. Does that help you? That is extremely helpful. Okay. And then above and beyond that, Lee and his team will look at the total usage and um make a judgment. Sounds great. Thank you. I didn't for mean for my my thoughts to speak for everybody.

So I don't know if anybody else has before we before the we end this discussion I do we have any other comments from the commission. How do you all feel about closed loop system? I think for me is is the whissa enough for you all right now? Like is that sufficient? I think it is. It's a process that we use for all developments and water use.

I just say if if if the water use is low then it's not a huge problem but if the water use is high who has priority in times of scarcity this uh data center will have huge political cloud and it could be a real problem for the city. Everyone suffers scarcity equally. We don't we don't prioritize necessarily. We have our water availability strategies which we executed in 20 2002 when we didn't have enough lake water or wellwater to make up the difference.

And the water availability strategies say if if we're uh our safe production capability, it's in city code um is reduced enough where we don't have redundancy to meet expected demand. uh summer or winter then the community we say you can't water out outdoors and we enforce that heavily. So there are three strategies. So we're always in water availability and then there's water emergency and and water crisis.

Um and we almost had that this summer and Lee did kind of start to kind of like who am I going to call to say to reduce water? Um but it isn't like we would say data center you keep going and people you stop drinking water in your homes. Oh go ahead. Yeah I just wanted to chime in a quick clarification that from what I understand even the language closed loop system does not necessarily mean minimal water use. So, I just want to make sure that was clear. Does not I'm sorry I didn't hear that.

That um even if the language says closed loop that might only um pertain to one half of the operation and that the total operation might still have significant water uses. I just want to make sure that that was clear when you when you're you certainly high water using industry. Yeah. Yes. Exactly. Yeah. I just want to make sure that um when you were endorsing that specific language that that was understood. Yeah.

Are we familiar with any of these facilities that have been constructed that are closed loop systems? No. I I you know the Kyle Center for Water Policy, they have two reports right on their website. The one on the lower left right here. You have that one as well. So, I think that I saw somewhere on their website where they list all the data centers they knew of or supercomputing centers, whatever you want to call them. They lumped a bunch together.

I think they kind of provide a if I find an exact link that that I'm thinking of, I'll send it to the water commission. I'll look for it because it kind of laid out what all the facilities were and water use. Okay, Emily has her hand up. Yes. So for further clarification, every system that uses water cooling, whether it's efficient or not, has a closed loop system component to it.

And what the closed loop system does is that it further chills the water so that when the water is circulating through the building, it can pick up more heat to then go and be removed. from the process. So just saying like a closed loop loop system in and of itself is not going to provide any additional efficiency measures. Then maybe we're going down the wrong road.

I would say there there would need to be more if we were going to have um if we were going to introduce water cooling as an option. There would need to be more than just saying you need to have a closed loop system. You know, I know the staff is stretched, but I think to make any logical decisions, we need need to do a little research what air cooled benefits are, what closed loop systems are, what water use is for the various sizes. Uh otherwise, we can't make a rational decision.

So, other than not doing Yeah. not doing it or or prohibiting that wasn't one of the options prohibiting water cooling technology we could for these we can require air cooled systems only at this point and that's another that's another option then yes that is one of the options is to just rely on air cooled and not use water use and so if ultimately because we don't have all of those details. Maybe that is the direction that you would send the planning and zoning commission.

I'd be curious if other cities have done that. Has anyone else done that? About what, Haley? Just air cooled like prohibiting water cooling. Like has anyone else done that? I could I could get on that bus air cooled question. Uh, do we know does air cooling automatically drive up energy use? It does. Absolutely. But we're not the electrical commission. So, well, someone else could say no.

Here's the thing is we can start with air cooled and as we grow to learn more information about the closed loop systems, we can always come back for further refinement of the code. I think aircoolled would be a good start. How that's just my opinion. Speak up folks commission if you if you want to jump on that or not. Chairman Doba, just a quick comment and I think Commissioner Paul touched on it earlier with the um Kyle Center um and bringing your own water.

Um the the Valley cities are not necessarily apples to apples when we compare to Flag Staff. They have the ability to wheel water from one city to the other. they can bring the water with them. Whereas in Flagstaff, if they bring their own water, they're tapping into the sea aquifer, the same one that the city has tapped into as well. So, they're getting it out of your bucket if they bring in their own water. So, slight slight difference there.

And we would give them the well sites or we would ask for the money to drill the wells ourselves, but or you know, we're really pushing to develop Red Gap Ranch because it would provide redundancy if we had a mega wildfire here. So, we're you know, trying to work with area the region to make that a regional supply. So, a lot of a lot going on. And another recommendation maybe if you want to bring an expert would be somebody from the Kyle Center.

They are on everyone's agendas at conferences to talk about data centers and all the caveats. So just a thought just out of curiosity would a decision like this be made on current water resources that we have available now or would be the overall bucket that would be available in 10 20 years what kind how where does the decision- making go with that? Yeah. So, our our bucket is, you know, our physical availability demonstration of this 32,000 acre feet. We're currently using 10,000 of that.

Our regional plan buildout brings us to about 26,000. So there is a delta there um that we would say at more than 5200 gallons per acre um when if I don't know sorry 50 5200 gallons per acre why am I stumbling on that um gallons per acre per day so if we exceed this industrial institutional that's what the demand is um you know and it cuts into our future available then we have a conversation. I'm not too worried about that.

I mean we're so far away from that but we should have some policies on how we address uh numbers that come in and exceed this even on multif family attached attached housing units if they exceed that 173 gallons per house per day. These are based on actual water consumptions averages over eight years. So, um we've got capacity. We're going to keep drilling wells. We have to um build into our 9900 acre feet of our current well fields. They're the cheapest ones to develop.

Not necessarily I shouldn't say that because Red Gap depth of water there is a lot shallower by thousand feet. But anyway, we're going to keep drilling wells over time. We're going to keep adding capacity. developments come in and use that. But if if a data center wanted a thousand acre feet, we'd say, "Okay, you're going to give us money to drill four wells. You're going to use that thousand acre feet. It's going to go through our wastewater system.

It's going to come back to you and we're going to have to upgrade wastewater. We're going to have to upgrade the uh wildcat plant and sorry, that's $300 million." And they're like, "Okay." And then the community is like, "Yay, we don't have to pay." No, I'm kidding. But you never know what they might come to the table with if they like Flagstaff and maybe they offer good jobs. Hard to say. Well, even drilling more wells is still coming out of the same aquifer in the future. It is.

And you know, that's our groundwater modeling work. That's um you know, we're we're keeping tabs on our water uh levels. We're we're they're not using the upper lake lower lake Mary area wellfield. I mean, it's not attached to the lake levels at all. deep water, but we're not using that water because that system doesn't recharge like others do as quickly. So, that's our goal. Okay, we we do need to close this item out and move on. Uh I think I'm hearing support for air cooled systems.

We would like to avoid enticing data centers that we're going to have to provide water to for cooling purposes and go from there. Other than that, some of us did like proposal number two. Tiffany, thank you. And thank you for humoring me on proposal number two. Thank you for your presentation. Okay, let's move on. Um, where are we at? Uh, next item I believe is Tamara discussion of the upcoming revisions to the landscape development plan list. And it's a little almost a little ironic.

We're looking at changes to the plumbing code, uh, water conservation ordinance, and low use water plants, and then big water users. So, yeah, we I have a lot of code things for you today. Um, if you wanted to, since it's already 526, the landscape development, the plant list is the one that's like the most in its infancy. Like that process is just starting. So, if you wanted to kick that one to next month, I'm happy to um just give you that update since it's not very far in the process.

Jess, if you wanna I can I'm happy to do that one next month if you think we're running a little short on time since which one? The landscape. The first one. The landscape plant list one. Yeah, the first one. Yep. Yep. Yeah. How's the commission feel about that? Okay. Well, let's let's take that next month. Let's move on to the plumbing code. Okay. Thanks. Those ones are more pressing. Okay.

So, um, every couple years the city looks at updating the kind of the building code and the plumbing code. And this is one of the years where I'm asked to provide some feedback on the plumbing code. So, I have some changes that I'm interested in making the first one. So, this is the um the chart here that shows the gallons per minute for different fixtures. So we would like to move um a number of the fixtures to say that they have to be water sense labeled.

So water sense essentially does efficiency testing and they also do efficacy testing. So they make sure that the fixtures not only are efficient but they actually work well. So ensuring that that label is there um on things like the laboratory faucets and the shower heads even. So right now water closets or toilets we already have a restriction that says that they have to meet 1.28 to eight gallons per flushing cycle. That already exists in our code.

Um, we want to add that it also needs to be water sense labeled.

And here's another piece is we want to add that it needs to have a maximum performance rating score of at least 600 g per flush because I mean the the amount of the market that doesn't meet that standard and has the water label is very small but we just occasionally will have a complaint where someone says but you said that I installed a sufficient one and we'll find out that it doesn't have this uh maximum performance rating score of at least 600 like I think to get the water sense label you have to get 300.

So that um it's essentially like a number of grams per flush that can be flushed down per flush. So we don't want people to be in a situation where they have to double flush. So that would um provide that clarification. This is mostly this like chart is mostly using new developments. Um you know when a when a homeowner is going to replace a toilet, they don't typically go to the plumbing code.

We of course always um direct them to these types of specifications, but we're adding it into the plumbing code here. the urinal um gallons for flush that also already exists on our code. So that's not really a change. Just the water sense label is a change. Um the only one of these that's a little bit different from the water sense rating is showerheads. So technically um water sense label shower heads have to meet 2.0 gallons per minute.

However, our team did like a pretty thorough survey of the local supply. We went to like six or seven stores in Flagstaff and looked at every shower head and we didn't find any that aren't already 1.8 or lower. So, the market is already essentially at 1.8. So, we don't think it's going to be um a headache to have 1.8 gallons per minute into showerheads. So, um hopefully those changes make sense.

And then basically what you know the next step is that we're going to have some public hearings like where people can come in and ask questions about these you know proposed efficiency measures and you know obviously that's going to um other building changes are going to be incorporated too. So it's not just water there's energy code changes and things that um are coming forward too.

Um so let me know if you have any questions or concerns about any of these and then uh yeah I'll move forward with that next. Yeah, go ahead. Tamara, all these um fixtures with the reduced flows are readily available, I would imagine, at like Yes. Yes. local Home Depots and Yeah. Um I think Home Depot actually has gone to only selling water sense labeled fixtures. So, pretty much anything you buy at Home Depot is going to be Waterense labeled.

Um and like I said, we looked and couldn't even find any like showerheads that didn't already comply with the 1.8 like at your Home Depot. I think Home Co. has like a few fixtures that are like a little bit higher, but that's the only one that we found out of all the stores that we surveyed in town that didn't meet that. And again, like the average homeowner that's going shopping isn't necessarily going to reference this chart. It's more for like new development.

They will have to comply with this when they're um putting fixtures in. you you know we used to have an incentive program in place for people to change out fixtures to go to low and we gave rebates at one time. Do we still do that? Yes. Yeah. So we provide a rebate for high efficiency toilet. So they do have to meet this MAP score and they actually have to be less than a gallon or less per flush. So the current code is this 1.28 and to get a rebate you have to exceed the code rate.

So, we're going to give people an incentive to do even better than what the code requires. So, that's um for toilets. And then for showerheads, faucets, um typically what we're doing for faucets is we do air raator retrofits. So, we just pop off the housing and we pull out the internal mechanism in the faucet and just put a new one in. And those we just provide completely for free.

So, we provide those when we do consultations, which is where we're walking through and looking at all the fixtures. um we often give them away while tableabling or in kits. And when we did our strategic plan and our consultant looked at kind of the payback of different um measures or actions we could take to conserve water, replacing showerheads and faucets just in real time as much as we can basically pays itself back instantly. So we just that's why we provide those for free.

So we you know install hundreds of those every single year. When would these go into effect? I can follow up with you. Yeah, I don't know. Like I know the hearings have to happen in the next few months, but I don't know what the requirement is for like the lag time between when it's adopted and when it's enacted, but I can follow up on that. Back back to the rebates.

I thought I heard you say that you had to have so much of a decrease to be eligible for a rebate, but looking at a water closet here, if somebody already has a 1.6 six gallon per flush water closet. Are they going to be eligible for a rebate if they go find one that's 1.28? Yep. Okay. Yeah. So, I think for commercial in in that case, we would typically say like we can provide rebates for just meeting code.

For residential rebates, we do require them to go to that like premium what we call premium efficiency. Um, does that make sense? I'm sorry, I didn't hear what you just said. Yeah. So we typically like you don't necessarily want to incentivize someone just to meet code. We you want to incentivize them to exceed. So that's why for residential customers, we ask them to go to that premium efficiency one gallon of flush or lower. But we provide flexibility for commercial customers.

So sometimes we'll see like a hotel for example um going from all of their 1.6s down to meat code at 1.28. 28 and those we do rebate as like fixtures that get high volume use. Okay. Um this was says discussion on here. Yeah. I just I guess I wanted to just make sure that no one on the commission said like whoa whoa whoa this sounds crazy. Um but if it all looks fine then I think we're good to just uh go to the next item. Yeah. Any any comments? Everybody on board with the commission?

That's great. Okay, looks looks good, Tamara. Thank you. Um, okay. That takes us to old business. Proposed updates to the water conservation ordinance in the city code. Is that going to be you, Tamara? Yes. Okay, it is. And Erin just wanted me to make sure that you you knew that some of these efficiencies are already in the code. So, some of them like the 1.28 and the 1.25 are already exist in our code. Okay. Yeah. And those have been there since a long time. Yeah. Okay.

So, the next one, this is the more like beefy one. So, this is a followup on our kind of ongoing discussion on kind of reclaimed efficiencies was where we started on this. And so, I did add some language into our water conservation ordinance about reclaimed water. And also we we added in a few of the other items that we talked about um that could kind of affect portable and reclaimed for efficiency. So I'm just going to kind of go through those. I did add um a couple extra definitions here.

So for example, we have a definition for an artificial lake. It says an outdoor body of water that is artificially constructed or installed and used for a recreational scenic or aesthetic purpose. And then I also provided a definition for nonfunctional turf. So, I wrote um irrigated ornamental grass designed solely for aesthetics rather than recreational or community use.

Examples of non-functional turf include, but are not limited to turf located between a sidewalk and the street, street adjacent turf located in business frontage areas, or turf in roadway medians and roundabouts. And then, um so we did like add in some clarifications on when we're talking about portable water and when we're talking about reclaimed water. And then the sections that we added in actually zoom out just a tiny bit. Oh, we had to um just provide an update.

Uh so this division is no longer called community development. It's called planning and development services. So that's just kind of an administrative change here. So um right now the portable system, you may recall, is subject to irrigation constraints. So portable users cannot irrigate between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. and they also have to adhere to an every other day schedule based on their address. So here are some restrictions that we're proposing for the reclaimed system.

It says the following water availability strategies shall govern the use of any city water by any user of the reclaimed water system as prescribed below. No person shall irrigate between the hours of 9 and 5 during the months of May through September.

And the reason I put in those like the month clarification is because um those of you that went to the tours at Pine Canyon, they mentioned that occasionally during a very dry winter, a golf course will need to irrigate in February to keep their grass alive, but they have to do it in the middle of the day, otherwise it's frozen. So, um this like 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. restriction is just for the warm weather months, not for the cool weather months.

And then um it also says that the reclaimed system uh that they cannot waste water. So let me just actually pop up to that and I'll just read the definition of wasting water and we currently already enforce this um for the portable supply. We just have not had the ability to enforce it for reclaimed until potentially now. So right now wasting water um the definition is to use or expend water thoughtlessly or carelessly.

Examples include, but are not limited to, allowing water to run into the street or the gutter, allowing water to pool, irrigating during precipitation events, failing to repair leaks, and the deter determination of wasting water shall be made by a representative of the city of Lakes. So, um, now the the reclaimed system would be subject to that same restriction that they're not they can't waste water. So, that's the reclaimed um section.

And so we didn't um put them on like a every other day watering since we heard that that um is like operationally difficult for these big tracks like you know golf courses, parks, etc. Okay, here's the other restrictions. So the first one is that a homeowner's association cannot require a homeowner to install or maintain turf grass, nor can it prohibit water efficient landscapes. HOAs shall have 12 months from this ordinance revision to create new landscape standards that meet this restriction.

However, my team and I have been doing some research and I actually haven't been able to pull up a single HOA that does require grass. So, this might be just more of a safeguard that we're saying like we are not going to have HOAs that require GA grass. So, um I have been trying to find an example of one that would be affected by this so that I can talk with like their board, but I have not found one yet. So, we've been trying to like redree all the CCNRs and stuff. Yeah. Yes. Excellent.

I'm I'm happy if you have an example. I'm gonna I would love to talk to someone. Okay. Um so the next one is nonfunctional turf cannot be irrigated. So that same like the turf that's like in a median in a roundabout a place where it's just purely or ornamental um that we would say like we're not going to irrigate that type of turf.

And so we I think would need to do like a survey on our end where we kind of map that out and like say okay here's the sections of grass that we think would be affected by this. And then we would, you know, maybe that would also have like a 12-month grace period or something where we would um, you know, work with those users to like transition those to a more like native or drought tolerant landscaping. Okay, next one.

Portable reclaimed water cannot be used to fill an artificial lake with a surface larger than 600 square f feet. So, we're not This would not be a restriction for like Joe homeowner who wants like a little fish pond or something um on his property, but it's more for these like larger larger um bodies of water. um artificial lakes constructed or or permitted and continuously maintained prior to the date of this revision would be exempt. So, we're not talking about ones that exist.

And also, we heard a concern that maybe there might be a state statute that's in conflict with this. Like our legal team did already read through this once, but it is possible that something was missed. So, we might need to get some additional clarification on that. Um yeah, if there might be a conflict somewhere that we don't that we didn't realize. That is one that I like. Rob's got a question. Yes. Okay. Okay. When I read that one, I I couldn't help but think of Lake Elaine. Yes.

Which has not been continuously maintained. Correct. So, is Lake Elaine now? If this was passed, in theory, it would say that we do not refill Lake Elaine. Yeah. Because it has not been maintained, you know, it's like very leaky. I don't know. So, this is would be a restriction that would affect that. Yeah. Yeah. So, so this is a significant action. Some Yeah. Would be there would be some opinions about that for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And it's obviously been subject to litigation. So, yes. Um. Yep.

But this is this is this is big. Yeah. Wait a minute. Are we saying that they would be prohibited from filling Lake Lane? I think anything that is not being already continuously like maintained like that already exists. I think we're saying we're not going to build future things. And I think that um since that is like going to require like significant like infrastructure filling etc.

Uh like I think we're saying that it is not it does not adhere to like what we would consider good water conservation practices. Aren't they under a court order to fill Lake Lane now? Uh I possibly Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. This would force the issue which is Yeah. Yes. It would be Yeah. I guess another piece to the puzzle. Um Okay.

So then the next one is portable or reclaimed water cannot be sprayed into the air for decorative or aesthetic purposes outdoors including but not limited to decorative fountains. Recreational uses such as splash beds are not limited by this restriction. So we just want to clarify that we're not talking about kids playing on a splash bed. We're talking about like a fountain like the Bellagio um does not belong in flakes. And then the last piece and then and then I'm I'm excited to hear thoughts.

Uh so we have had some discussions with our like parks team there's a few parks in in the flake staff system that are still on portable water and when we have talked to them about like can they comply with the every other day schedule they've said you know operationally that's very difficult for us because if we have a tournament that goes on for three or four days in a row then we don't irrigate during those days so that the fields don't get smooshy and then we have to catch up and so I saw that um some other municipalities have this provision it's It's like an exemption process for like recreational turf or athletic fields.

So, this is that exemption um kind of like a draft codification of that so that we don't get complaints from the public where they say, "You said I can't water every every day or every other day or you're not following the rules. I see that your park's doing X, Y, and Z." So, basically, um you know, we would be putting up like a sign at the park saying like that there's an alternative watering schedule being used here.

we would have like a conservation plan or checklist that they would have to ensure that they're making sure that they're they don't have leaks and that they're using, you know, like uh an irrigation controller that doesn't um water during precipitation events, that kind of thing. But basically just a way to like formalize that they would have exemptions.

Um, and that could be parks or schools or NAU, whoever has like an athletic field that kind of needs to be outside of this um, these provisions and also happens to be on uh, portable water. Um, and then last thing I just wanted to highlight is that we added in that um, so right now we we do fine um, users if they have multiple violations of the ordinance. Uh, but we've been like resetting the fine process each year.

So, this we added in like a a sentence here that say they have to be searchcharge free or free of fines for 18 months before the amount resets because that it increases every violation. So, we're saying like there's kind of an 18-month rolling period where if they have multiple violations over that period that the fines can continue to increase. Okay. Now, I'm I'm here to hear your thoughts and discussions. Yeah. I just had a question on one of them.

You said uh I couldn't tell if we were disallowing portable irrigation on non-functional turf. I think I I just wrote irrigation period and I think that is actually defined in this ordinance. So it says to irrigate is to supply land or crops with water by means of pipes or hoses. So, we're basically saying like if it is grass and it's located somewhere that is not functional, if it's purely aesthetic that we're I mean we're not allow it not allowing it to be irrigated.

So, I guess essentially we would be killing it. Interesting. Okay. And then that but that could be like where you target um rebate opportunities or something like that. Yeah.

But we have talked about like in the cases where we would find tracks that would be um subject to this restriction that we could create like a couple year like rebate process where they could get additional funding for converting to like a native or drought tolerant landscaping where at that point the irrigation is totally fine. It's irrigating something that you know meets the code. It's just not irrigating grass. Yeah. Other questions from the commission?

Tamara, would you like a a formal recommendation from the commission to go to the council with this or Yeah, I mean, I do think so. I did say that the next step that I have to do internally is that I do need to meet with our pros team to make sure that they are comfortable with the provision for the athletic fields. So, there might be some minor adjustments to that section like operationally. Um, so that is like for me internally a next step that I need to do.

But then yes, I would think that after that the next step would be to take this to council. So yes, I would like to hear your opinions on whether or not you think this is ready um to present to council. Just one more clarification. Were the golf courses okay with the 9 to5 restriction? Does that still give them enough operational flexibility from when you leave? Yeah. So we like presented that a few times during the other like stakeholder meetings and they seemed pretty comfortable.

I think that's also typically their operational hours where people are on the on the um course. So, I don't think they're typically, you know, irrigating during those times anyway. Yeah. And with regards to golf courses, the restrictions on the water use is when they're taking water, right? Or is it when they're irrigating the golf course? Because they may irrigate out of lakes that they have on their own property. It's specifically for irrigation. So, it's not about when they're even. Yeah.

Okay. All right. Any other questions? I I think uh you know we've we've gone over this a few times and had a number of meetings I know and we've been out talking to the golf course people and had tours of the golf courses and and so forth. Uh if we have no more questions, do we have a uh motion to recommend to the city council these modifications to the cons conservation ordinance? I make the motion. Motion's been made. Any further questions? If not, uh, do we have a second?

Second's been, uh, second's been made by Don Bills. Uh, we had a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say I. I. Do we have any opposed? Okay, the motion carries. Tamara, thank you. You can run with it. All right. Exciting. I My only comment would be with regards to that Lake Elaine thing.

I'm not an attorney, but I I I believe there might be a court order requiring that to be filled up, and I don't know if the date of that court order might preempt the date of this ordinance going into place. So, we may still be saddled with that. Yeah, we might need Sterling to have an official like statement or opinion on uh yeah, kind of which one takes precedence. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Uh, that takes us toformational items to and from the chair, commission members, or staff.

We'll go around the commission first. Don, do you have anything? Uh, nothing from me. Haley? No. Uh, John? No, I guess nothing. Rob, Matthew, no. Caroline, anything? Nope. How was your first water commission meeting? Awesome. Awesome. Okay. I I don't I don't have any anything else either. I would like to thank all of you for your attendance tonight. And uh Chairman Doba with Can I make a couple comments before we adjourn? Uh sure. All right. Thank you.

Uh I just wanted to bring a couple things that we're working on to your attention. Um we are working with Stantech Engineering Firm to pilot an MBR portable plant at Wildcat Hill. Uh it'll be for about six months and Stantech will be paying for everything but the electricity to run it. So that'll be on us. Uh I will keep you filled in on when that happens. Uh we're also looking at piloting an advanced water purification trailer with Hazen and Sawyer.

Uh that one will cost a bit and it'll probably be for one week. So I will keep you filled in on that if you'd like to have a field trip to come see either one of those. Um excuse me. We have started our annual report to the water commission. Uh so we're working through the numbers and we will get that to you probably sometime. I don't want to promise it always takes longer than I think but uh sometime this summer.

And then I've also been asked to um ask the commission to be careful when you hit reply all to the commission. Uh when you hit reply all and send emails to each other, it violates open meeting laws. So please make sure that there is not a uh forum when you're replying to each other. That's I don't think we've had any we haven't had any issues with that, have we? I don't think I think there was one email about a field trip. It wasn't a big deal.

It wasn't like a something you were voting on, but it was just I was just asked to bring it to your attention to make sure that you're you're aware of the open meeting laws. And that's that's it for me. All right. Thank you. Yes, Erin. Chairman Doba, we do have a representative Continental who would like to make a statement on the last agenda item. Okay. If that's permissible. Yes. I'm Sandy Peterson. I'm president of Continental.

Well, the rights of which you get uh you get a small cup at Starbucks for 10 bucks. Um just purely for clarification, I have no agenda whatsoever. I was the one to get the parties to actually talk again and to uh drop the legal action that had been pending for a long time and wasted all kinds of money. The settlement agreement uh stipulates that uh the the lake should be filled.

However, it does in two different places indicate that it's subject to the availability and quote affordability of water. Obviously, you can't identify the latter. Uh you certainly can the former. So, that's the only statement I can make. And again, well, thank you very much for the clarify for clarification. Very good. Thank you for bringing that to our attention. Okay. All right folks. Uh I have nothing else. So, we shall adjourn. Thank you.