- Okay, it is nine o'clock and we have a quorum,
so we're called to order the City of Denton
Public Utilities Board meeting
for Monday, October 10th, 2022.
The first item is presentations
from members of the public.
Is anyone in the public wish to address the board?
I see none.
So we'll move on to the consent agenda.
Does any board member wish to pull items A through C?
Any item A through C?
Mr. Rybeck.
- I'd like to pull item C from the consent agenda,
Madam Chairman. - Item C.
Any others?
All right, do we have a motion to approve items A and B?
Mr. Cheek moved.
- Second.
- Mr. Rybeck second, all in favor?
- Aye. - Aye.
- Carries, item C.
- Yes, I have a specific question.
If the awarded firm has committed to the personnel
to manage and provide technical lead on the project.
- I'm just curious if they have committed to that?
- Sir, Jerry Looper, did municipal electric?
Yes, sir, they have.
We have sufficient resources provided to us
through this contract for all three phases of it
for over the next three years.
- Okay.
So have they identified those individuals to you?
- We have, we've met with those a couple of times already.
Of course, we're waiting on the official kickoff
for contract once we get it signed.
- And you don't yet have a contract.
- That's right.
- So I've met preliminary with these guys
to kind of get some ideas.
Of course, we had several with different criteria
to vet these guys out too.
- Right, well, I understand your kinds of evaluation process
and so on and so forth.
You've done a lot of work with those guys,
have done a good job for you.
Because of the length duration and importance of the project,
thought it was important to know
if you did have those personnel identified.
- We did.
- I only mentioned this because I've done a lot of projects
where that didn't happen, certain things occurred
which were unfortunate.
Thank you very much.
- Yes, sir.
- All right, do we have a motion to approve item C?
- So moved.
- And second, all in favor say aye.
- Aye.
- Carries.
Next item is approval of the September 26th, 2022 minutes.
Were there any changes or corrections?
Okay, do we have a motion to approve?
Larry's moving.
And Devin's seconding.
All in favor say aye.
- Aye.
- Next item is consider recommending the adoption
to reimburse the capital program expenditures
for the bond issues.
- Good morning, I am Randy Klingle,
the treasury manager here.
It's my pleasure to be before you today
to give you a brief presentation
regarding the capital improvement program
for the utilities for the reimbursement ordinance process
which is really our kickoff for the bond sale this year.
So the reimbursement ordinance is required by the IRS
so that it shows the city's intent to spend funds now
to reimburse themselves later by future bond proceeds.
We generally have the bond sale
within 12 months of this ordinance.
We like to usually have it in the summer months
and then definitely before the end of the fiscal year.
And our current debt policy also allows us
to have this reimbursement ordinance
in this process in place.
Today I'll show you the utilities projects list.
I will not be going over them in detail.
You've seen those throughout the summer
during the budget process.
These are the budgeted items as is.
There were no changes since the budget was adopted
by council on September 27th.
So we will not go through those today.
I'll just kind of give you a summary of those utilities.
So the electric projects for the 2023 budget program
is $72.9 million.
This presentation is also in your backup
if you'd like to look at the line items more.
Itemized if you will, in your own time.
And it's also in the ordinance,
the full project list as well.
Solid waste is coming in this year
at $16 million for their budget.
We have wastewater projects for $41.1 million.
And last for the utilities, we have $36.1 million.
And those again are budgeted items at this point.
So for the entire utilities,
water, wastewater, electric, and solid waste,
we have $166,347,641 as budgeted.
And this dollars were most likely reduced
as this project comes along
and they come back to you with a notice of intent.
We will reduce those most likely.
They'll have more time to look at their cash on hand
and their projects and where they are
four months down the line.
So they'll have the ability to reduce these dollars.
So our next step is the finance staff
goes to the bond oversight committee
to talk about the GEO bond sale.
And then in March, we'll come back
with a notice of intent for your COs.
And then in May, we'll have a parameters ordinance.
We'll be kind of the final number
and the final time we tweak the numbers to go to sale,
we'll go to sale in May,
and then we'll receive those proceeds in June.
And that's all I have.
- Questions.
Go ahead.
Oh, you?
(all laughing)
- Have the numbers changed at all
from the bond committee's recommendations?
- Not that I know of.
'Cause the bond committee usually only sees the election,
the 2019 bond programs.
That's what they oversee.
They usually don't talk about utilities.
- My question is how much will the projected bond project
add to the tax burden?
- The total, I would need to defer to someone else.
I did not have that conversation.
I don't know if there's anyone in finance here,
but I can definitely get that information
back to you this afternoon.
- If these are utilities, they wouldn't be on the,
wouldn't add to the tax burden.
They'd be coming through the rates.
- Oh, so it's being paid?
- These are all utility.
- They're utilities.
I'm sorry, yes, they're utilities.
- Oh, okay.
- So nevermind, excuse me.
- That's okay.
- Other questions?
All right, do we have a motion to approve?
- So moved.
- And a second, and Ben is seconding.
All in favor say aye.
- Aye.
- Carries.
Consider recommending the adoption of a contract
with Techline Inc. for overhead
and underground transformers for DME.
In a not to exceed amount of $75 million.
- Good morning.
- Randy Key, DMSP Electric.
Okay, overhead and underground transformers, RFQ 8064.
I'm in the planning department and DME plans materials,
needs, nine months in advance.
The demand is for project requirements, lead times.
We have 50 active projects requiring transformers.
Oh, wait, what?
Right here?
Thank you.
Also for maintenance work outages,
transformer failure, damage due to accidents, upgrades,
and just normal replacements.
Our inventory levels, we have 353 transformers right now
in stock, which is extremely low.
We have 1,238 purchase in our awaiting arrival.
The lead times right now is up to 60 weeks.
Can go all the way up to 150 weeks depending.
This is for single phase pad mounted
and overhead transformers in three phase,
I believe is at 40 weeks.
So industry reports that all 2023 production
has been committed.
Orders placed today will likely be delivered
in late 2023 or 2024.
All inventory and order transformers have been allocated
to future projects and maintenance.
The deliveries have been less than reliable.
They're very sporadic, less than ordered quantity
has received, I think last week we received four.
And that's kind of been the common trend
that you just don't really know
when they're actually gonna show up.
Higher than expected failures upon testing.
So not only are they showing up sporadic,
but the transformers aren't as good of quality
as they used to be.
Price of the transformer units on average
has increased 150% with our most used
residential transformers increased an average of 267%.
- Mr. Ryback has a question.
- Thank you.
So you test these units when they are delivered?
- They're tested before they're sent.
- Presumed as much, but I was curious.
So you receive a test report and then you also--
- What will happen is we will take it,
we'll install it on the project
and then we'll have a failure on the project.
- Or they'll show up and they're leaking already,
so you can't install it.
- So you're seeing visible, so you see the failure
upon delivery, not a matter of retesting them.
- True, and then also sometimes they're being sent
without certain inserts as well.
So, yes.
- All right, well, let me ask and have the floor
for the moment, so have you considered testing
upon delivery, even if they're not visibly leaking?
- We have talked about that, yes sir.
- Thank you.
- Mr. Beck has a question now.
- Oh, I'm sorry.
- Thank you, Chair.
You say you've got 350 transformers in stock
and that this is extremely low.
What's the average lifespan of a transformer?
- That's a good question because it varies.
I mean, some of them can last 50 years.
- What's the shortest period of time?
- The shortest is the second you install it in the agency,
just to be completely honest with you.
- So if you're extremely low at 353,
then on average, what are you replacing each year?
- On average, what are we replacing?
So what we have done is we have minimum set
and what we're doing is for each size
and for past years of failure rates,
we keep that amount in stock just in case.
If that answers your question.
- Go ahead.
- So you're saying basically you try
and keep one year inventory?
You said a previous year's worth of failures?
- Right, of failures, not for what we have on orders
for all the projects right now.
They're all allocated for projects and maintenance,
but our minimums are based upon failure rates
and outages for each size transformer.
So for instance, it's a 50 kVA.
If we normally have 100 go bad,
we keep more than that just in case for our failure rate.
- And you expect this to improve
with the newer transformers saying
that the old ones are up to par with?
- The failure rate, that's mainly for just any type
of outage, so the transformers
that are on the system right now,
that's what the minimums are for,
but I guess what you're asking is--
- Are you expecting a better quality transformer
in the future? - Yes.
- Okay, okay. - Yes, sir.
- And that should-- - Yes, sir.
- Improve like that, all right, thank you.
- Okay.
- All right, transformers purchased are based
on varied electrical demands
and secondary voltages outlined,
and this is our spend for the next five years.
- Okay.
- And?
Any more questions?
- Yes, Mr. Taylor.
- Thank you, Chair.
So this includes new development and maintenance?
- Yes, sir.
- And so do you have a pretty good idea
what the new development is,
or do you just kind of have this ballpark average
we're expecting?
- We have a really good idea of new development,
and what the 15 million year is based upon
is what we do is we look out nine months ahead.
We have an idea, a very good idea
of the projects that are upcoming,
and we get a count of all the transformers
that we think are going to be needed for those,
and that's where this pricing comes from,
including the new pricing increase.
- Okay, so that's no nine months of backlog.
- Yes, sir. - Just extended out
five years. - Yes.
- Okay, thank you.
- So this contract will improve the situation
- Yes. - Greatly, okay.
- Greatly.
- All right, other questions?
Do we have a motion to approve?
In second, all in favor, say aye.
- Aye. - Aye.
- Carries, thank you, Randy.
- Thank you very much.
- Okay, we have two items for the board's review today.
We have the future agenda items.
We've got two items to make you aware of.
Upcoming on the next PUB meeting, October 24th,
science will be presenting the water
and wastewater impact study.
And the next item is on November 14th,
you will receive an update on the Greensons
and the program.
That ties into the next agenda item,
which is a new business action items.
There are two questions that have come forward
for the board.
One is kind of old and one is recent.
Both of those just providing you an update
will be included when you receive
the Greensons program work session on November 14th.
- So they'll take care of both of those.
- Correct, and then we'll recycle those off.
So is there any additional questions
or items that we need to add
to the new business action item section?
Okay, thank you.
- All right.
Concluding items, does any board member wish
to have a future agenda item added
or have anything to say to the community at this time?
Okay, then we'll go into the work session,
receive a report and hold a discussion
and give staff direction regarding the update
on the Wastewater Master Plan.
- Good morning, members of PUB.
Stephen Gay, Director of Water Utilities.
We're gonna have Don Atkins from Kimley Horne,
who's the consultant that's completing
our Wastewater Master Plan, give you a presentation.
After he's done, both John and I will be available
to answer any questions you may have.
- All right, thank you.
- Sad.
Older and older, you gotta put these things on.
Some of y'all may know what I'm talking about.
When you get in this weird range between how close is,
so I have like two or three different magnification pairs.
Yes, I know it, I need to talk to my dad about that, right?
Okay, I think it's in here.
All right, we'll just keep this over here for now.
First of all, I wanna thank y'all for the opportunity
for me to be a part of this master plan.
I actually got my start here in Denton
almost 30 years ago right out of school
as an engineer graduate from Texas A&M
and it was gracious to get economy as a little
down the early 90s and got the opportunity
to work here in Denton.
And they trained me up so well, I got recruited away
by Kimley Horn to go back to my hometown of Fort Worth
and I've been working there ever since, so over 26 years.
So it's fun for me to get to come back to Denton
where I did a lot of hands-on stuff out in the field
and now I'm coming full circle again
to get to talk about the big picture
and setting a legacy of long-term growth for the city
and how that affects Charles wastewater system.
So thanks for Stephen, thanks for picking us
to do the job, so.
All right, that being said, let's talk about what,
fundamentally, what we're gonna go over to today,
the master plan purpose, the study area,
the flow projections associated
with those study area boundaries.
We're gonna talk a big picture
about the existing system a little bit.
Then we're gonna drill down in the Hickory Creek
improvements and I'll help define what Hickory Creek is
and the Clear Creek improvements.
Then we'll talk about next steps to wrap it up
and then, of course, if you have questions,
we're more than happy to entertain, like Stephen said, so.
That being said, let's talk about,
just a little definition I put together
that I think gives a real fundamental definition
about what master plans are about.
It provides a roadmap for where, when,
and what size infrastructure upgrades or additions
are needed to accommodate future growth.
The bottom line is it gives not only the staff a roadmap,
but it also gives the, your public,
it gives the developers a roadmap and it's transparent.
It's one of those things where everybody knows
where we're heading based on your comprehensive plan
and the infrastructure it takes
to accommodate that comprehensive plan
and specifically wastewater infrastructure
in this presentation.
Okay, let's start out with your study area.
What you see here in the beige color
is actually your city limits.
So obviously we're gonna focus on the city limits
as part of your study area, but bigger picture,
what we also have in here in the original study area
is your CCN boundary, which is in green.
And that's also, you go, why did you use that?
Well, part of it is, is your impact fee,
that's your current boundary
for your impact fee study program
that's been going on for over 20 years now.
So we wanna be consistent with that.
But what's unique and what's occurred fairly recently
is significant development that actually stretches
outside of that boundary.
So you can see it at the edge.
The only major development that you see
that's actually in the city limits there
is the Hunter Cole Ranch that you see kind of
in the southwest portion of the map.
And then everything else is kind of outside of that.
And because of that, the staff came back to us
and said, hey, in some direction
from the city manager's office, you know something,
let's be looking at something beyond that.
So what we did was extend your study area boundary
out to your EDJ.
So we needed to still follow a city's official boundaries,
but you can see most of that development
that's out along 380 falls within that boundary.
And that was a little bit that stretched beyond,
but almost all of it's within that.
So we've increased that study area boundary.
And you go, well, why is it so big?
Well, the big goal here is we wanna begin
with the end in mind.
We wanna know where we're gonna go ultimately.
Now it may take 50, 75 years to get there,
but let's know where we're heading
and then we can come back and drill down a little bit more
on what's gonna happen in the next five, 10, 15, 25 years.
So that's why we increased the study area boundary.
All right, from there, we transition
and we got to do flow projections
based on those study area boundaries.
And you go, well, what do you base it on?
Well, we first of all, look at the comprehensive plan.
So we got Scott and his team,
actually probably this time last year initially,
and talked to them while they were in the middle
of the comp plan and said, hey, we're gonna be doing this.
Wanna partner up with your team
so we understand what's happening from a land use standpoint
and we can apply flow demands to that land use.
So this is what you see here is just the cover,
the comp plan, but then what we really focus on
and get data from is the future land use plan,
which is the map you see here.
What's really unique about this,
the areas you see in green, those are areas
that are kind of outside of the area
where there's not a defined land use type
beyond just ag and rural.
So that's why you see a significant green area
and that's where the development we're seeing
is occurring to some degree.
So we'll talk about that and drill down
and add a little bit more detail
when we do our flow projections.
And the one thing that we do in these particular areas
is look at the variable units of development
and I'll talk about that.
We're gonna talk about, we're gonna give you a flow ranges
from a low end flow which focuses on the green you see today
so it matches your comp plan exactly.
But then we also, because we see a lot of the development
that's coming in out there is more of a low residential
land use type that y'all have defined.
And so we also applied that to give a hypothetical
what it could be if all of it went
to a low residential type land use.
And we can talk about that a little bit more
as we get into it.
Okay, so existing flows today,
the green area you see here is where y'all serve folks
with wastewater today.
And we put out flow monitoring devices
and you have them at the treatment plant
that we know that there's 13 MGD or million gallons per day
of average daily flow that comes
to your treatment plant every day on average.
So that's the defined area
that that represents here in green.
Now what we've done is expanded out to add in
and using the land use plan and future flow projections,
what you would see added to the system
would be between 40 and 46 million gallons a day
if you completely built out
to your current city limits line.
And then I go to that other green area
that we talked about a little bit earlier,
you would add another flow range from 13 up to 34.
And you're like, what's the range here?
Once again, it's that ag rural is the lower end 13.
You can think about it, the density of use
is not near as much as if all of that went low residential
and that bumps that number up to about 34
in that particular area.
And you see that we're adding the totals up
up there in the upper left corner
of what this is adding up to for the whole system.
And then lastly, we extend out to the, yes, sir.
- Just a quick interjection.
So if an industrial facility that was going to use a lot
of water in its process were to be added to the mix
in some of these outlying areas,
would that push it beyond the high end?
- It could.
Industrial is interesting
'cause there's a huge variability in industrial
as you're pointing that out.
If you think about a warehouse facility,
it may have a few offices that's actually
a much lower usage, but then you can have a,
let's say a data center that's a water-cooled data center
that could drive the number up four times as much.
So that's the good thing of why you visit this
on a regular basis or working with the planning folks
when they know somebody's coming in,
it's kind of one of those things you have to kind of sidebar
and stop down and go, okay,
what kind of change does this affect?
And this is where Stephen and his team working
with the planning group on a regular basis
on what kind of development comes in,
will kind of deviate over and go, okay,
this is a special case, if you will,
compared to what the current land use plan says.
- Thank you. - Sure.
- So are you gonna tell us eventually the maximum capacity?
- Yes, we're heading, yeah.
Hang with me a little bit.
We're gonna, I think I'm gonna,
I think we'll cover the things at a high level.
We're not getting into the weeds,
but I'm trying to stay high level,
but it'd give you enough detail
to see where we're heading here.
- So along the same lines, not just industrial.
So a single family, is that the highest kind of use
per acre of typical uses?
- On average, it can be, yeah.
That's why it's kind of used.
Plus, that's predominantly the type of land use
that comes out into these areas, more than likely.
It's the, hey, I'd like to live in my nice subdivision
out in the suburbs, if you will.
We think moving into town's kind of nice too,
but it's still kind of the culture we're in
in the North Texas area.
- And just to understand, what is,
if all of the city limits or all of the CCN built out,
do you have a population number of what that would...
- God, I don't know if y'all projected
a built out population number, have you?
- Well, especially not with the ag, and it wouldn't apply
to, you know, we can come up with a number.
- Well, I was just wondering if in your modeling,
if you're modeling single family homes, you say, okay,
well now we have another 100,000 acres
of single family homes, that equals...
- Yeah, we could absolutely use the assumptions
that Scott's team does and come up with that number.
It's so choose.
- And I might just add one piece to this.
Scott McDonald, director of development services.
This is so very fluid, no pun intended.
It just, the reality of the environment
in which we're in today,
the muds are potentially bringing 10,000, 20,000 new homes.
So new single families that we weren't accounting for
literally over a year ago.
So this transition has been happening very rapidly.
So for the team to be able to walk through
and try to go through this process
as we're looking at low density agricultural land,
all of a sudden seeing more high density, it's a challenge.
So the population numbers are unknown
and they can change very rapidly.
Like I say, if you talk about 20,000 rooftops
that we didn't accommodate for,
let alone any other industrial that may occur.
- Okay, and those muds are the ones
that are outside the CCN area?
- Some are within.
- Those are the boxes on the previous...
- Yes. - Okay, thank you.
- I'll illustrate a little bit more.
We can talk about that as we move through the presentation.
Okay, so these are the big picture flows
based on the study area boundaries that you see here.
What we're doing now is we're gonna transition
to wastewater basins and how those associate with this.
And you're like, what are those?
I'm gonna explain that here in just a second.
So, okay, we've converted the same flow numbers,
the same flow ranges you saw on the previous slide,
but now the outlines you see here are different shape
and you're like, what is that?
So what we're looking at here
are wastewater drainage basins, if you will.
And you're like, what is that?
The wastewater drainage basins,
basically they mimic your stormwater basins
or the stormwater watershed.
So if you see the names in here, you go,
hey, I see Pecan Creek.
I know that's the creek that runs through town.
So we mimic that.
And so the major collector mains that run through town
basically run parallel to the Pecan Creek through town.
And then of course, south of town,
the big Hickory Creek line that runs south of town,
we parallel that with our collection mains.
And I'll illustrate that here in just a minute.
And of course, the Cooper Creek is north part of town here
inside the loop.
And then of course, the Clear Creek is the big basin
to the north.
And then one thing I wanted to point out here
that I wanna talk about in a little bit more details,
you see that kind of the,
I'll kind of pull up our pointer here.
The little area you see up here, the dash yellow,
I'm gonna talk about that.
There's a nuance.
That's actually a sub basin,
sub drainage basin of Clear Creek
that actually right now the sanitary sewer up in that area,
actually we pump back over into Pecan Creek
'cause you only have one treatment plant today
that sits in the Pecan Creek.
I'll give you a little bit more detail about that too.
Okay.
Okay, so we're gonna drill down a little bit
into the existing system a little bit more here.
So we talked about the Pecan Creek basin earlier,
and you can see the green line in here
are gravity conveyance lines or collection lines
that basically parallel your current Pecan Creek
and traveled down to the treatment plant,
which sits here, the wastewater treatment plant,
which is the Pecan Creek water reclamation plant
that sits here.
And the other green lines that you see,
gravity flow wastewater to that plant.
Now the other place you also see these little red triangles
and what those are,
those also collect wastewater flows
like for down here where I'm pointing out,
that's the Hickory Creek basin.
And the green line you see that runs parallel
to the Hickory Creek is a gravity main,
large gravity main that collects
and then collects into what we call
the Hickory Creek lift station.
And what we do is we lift or pump wastewater
in this red line back over to where it can gravity
the rest of the way back to the plant.
So every little triangle you see
is a lift station that pumps back over in Pecan Creek
and the same thing up here.
So to kind of give you some pictures a little bit here,
you can't see them exactly on this one
because they're up,
they're fairly small in this aerial photo,
but you've got the border cowboy lift station.
You've also got the TA Union 76 lift station.
They've been up here for a number of years.
- They're not called that anymore.
- They aren't, they aren't.
That's what they're named in our stuff,
but there's a legacy to those names.
Yeah, we carry the legacy names
just 'cause it kind of stuck.
So that's what those are.
Yeah, the truck stops,
don't call themselves that anymore,
but our lift stations are still called that.
So a little bit of history there.
But this is just an area that shows you
where they're up near highway 77,
as you go west to Crum.
Those were those lift stations
when they pumped back over in the Pecan Creek Basin.
And I'll talk about the uniqueness of that
a little bit more in a minute.
This is just an aerial photo
of the Cooper Creek lift station.
Sits off Mayhill Road that pumps over into Pecan.
Talked about the Hickory Creek lift station a little bit.
That sits down by the, you know,
where the old Alton bridge is, historic bridge.
It sits down near that area.
It's kind of hidden back in the trees.
These aren't glamorous things,
so nobody really wants to see them too much, yeah.
(indistinct chatter)
Well, I appreciate that.
It's a nice area, it's pretty.
And then lastly, where do we collect and treat that?
We collect and treat
at the Pecan Creek Water Reclamation Plant.
It's been the only plant you've ever had since the 1950s.
And the last time it was updated
to the current capacity of 21MGD
is when I was a rookie EIT engineer in 1993 here.
So there's been upgrades and improvements there, of course,
but it's lasted a long time and it's hanging in there
and we'll talk a little bit more in detail on that.
Okay, so that's the existing system.
So now we want to drill down a little bit
on that plant that we just talked about.
And what I've labeled is
Pecan Creek Water Reclamation Plant size limitations.
One thing that's unique about it,
the current plant capacity right now
as far as treated sewage on an average daily flow basis
is 21 million gallons a day.
So that's what it can treat.
And you saw that average you all bring in is about 13.
There's some nuances to that
due to the fact that during rainy months in the spring,
the actually continuous three month average
is actually higher than that.
And that's what you have to,
the TCEQ or the state requires
that we actually size capacities
based on the three month running highest averages
and that's closer to 15 to 20.
So we're heading towards its capacity
and I'll talk about that a little bit more
in just a second.
So what are ways to increase the capacity?
Well, the first thing we have to do is reach out to TCEQ
and what they tell us based on environmental factors,
because right now the effluent discharge
after we treat it, it goes out, it's called effluent flow.
It dumps out into the pecan Creek directly
and then that flows down into Lake Louisville.
So that's how it gets treated.
And there's a capacity limit based on the stream dynamics
and that you can't discharge any more than 30 MGD
into the pecan Creek.
So we know it's like, well, our numbers up here
are significantly higher than that and build out.
We see the 69 to 144.
It's like, well, we've got to increase the capacity.
So what we did was reach out during our analysis phase
to TCEQ and find out if there was an alternate location,
we could discharge additional flow.
And what we came up with is an area that's fairly close
because instead of just gravity discharging it
into the pecan Creek now, we're gonna now have to pump it
to a location near the lake, but that'll add
an additional 25 MGD capacity to the plant.
So that being said, we can increase the plant
all the way up to 55 MGD, which is a good thing.
But it's not quite enough, obviously,
if you look at our build out flow numbers.
So what we have to start doing is looking at
where else can we put treatment facilities
to handle the long-term growth.
And that's part of the thing we wanna talk about.
One thing to keep in mind when I was talking about
the increased capacity, the city's already in the works
on bringing forward, they've programmed in an additional
five MGD additional capacity to be built.
And they're in the beginning design phases
of that particular project.
So things are moving forward at the plant facility already.
And you'll see some of the details about that design phase
coming forward probably in the next two to three months,
I guess, Stephen will have some details
if you wanna ask him more about that particular plant.
So how are we going to address this?
Let's drill back down in the Hickory Creek Basin
a little bit, 'cause that's one of the areas
that we're gonna have to address this particular issue.
What I did, I'm gonna toggle back and forth a little bit
just to show you, I've put the city limits back on here
but I didn't shade it in so it wouldn't cover up some things.
But you can see, I wanna focus in a little bit
the city limits line you see right over here.
And when if we toggle on those developments
that we talked about, we drill down a little bit more
and we toggle those on, you can see the Hunter Coal Ranch
which we show having a build out or a full development
capacity, sorry, build outs your whole system,
the full development capacity here about seven million
gallons a day on average would come into the Hunter Coal
property, now it's within your city limits.
They've come in several, several years ago.
So we've been planning on those, there's actually agreements
between the Hunter Coal folks and the city
on infrastructure for that.
But the amount of development you see out here in the West
is fairly new, it's what Scott was talking about
that's come through fairly aggressively in the last year.
And so this is where we have pivoted to look at this
a little bit and what are the ramifications
if all these areas are served by the city of Denton.
So that's kind of what we're looking at here.
So what we did was go ahead and add conveyance
or the collection mains that would be needed
along with the treatment facilities.
Now granted, this is fully developed
so don't think this has to occur in a year or two.
So this is big picture.
So what you see is a conveyance of almost $220 million
worth of work or 0.22 billion of lines.
You can see they kind of look like creeks.
Well, that's true.
What we do is parallel the creeks.
We wanna transport as much of this as we can
at the lowest long-term cost and that's gravity.
So we're letting nature do the work for us.
So that's what the conveyance is.
And then the treatment facility here we show
to be able to carry the seven, the build out of the 10,
the 10 number here, sorry, I didn't explain this,
that little dotted more Western developments.
If you add it up, all their fully developed flows,
they're about 10 million gallons a day.
And we have the additional seven for niner coal.
And then there's an existing three that's already out
in the system today we're accounting for
that gets you to the 20.
So then if we build a treatment plant to handle all of that,
it's a little over a billion dollars.
It's significant cost for treatment.
And those numbers have gone up nearly 30%
in just the last year.
- Just like everything.
- Does that include the TCEQ tolerance?
- Yes, we have capacity here at that.
We have some capacity to discharge directly
into the Hickory Creek at this specific location.
But then what we've all and as we come back to you all again,
we can give you some more detail about that other locate.
We had to reach out to TCEU again and going,
okay, they won't let us put 20 here.
We can put about six and a half or so.
I think it's what the number is.
We have to find other locations.
We've investigated that there are other places
in the basin that we can discharge.
But then we'll also get into some unique things
about one water master planning and direct portable reuse
and things where we can utilize
maybe for future development irrigation
where you can scalp off some of that.
That's a lot of detail that we all will get into
in a future presentation that we'll bring forward
to this group probably over the next year or so
and talk about.
Okay.
- So just to clarify. - Yes, sir.
- The rest would be relifted over
like as treated effluent would be relifted over
and discharged on the Pekala Creek side?
- No, we can discharge into the Hickory Creek basin.
- But six or seven, you said.
- Yes, but what we've looked at
is trying to move up the other areas
within the basin itself upstream.
And then you can pump back up and discharge
into the Hickory Creek basin and further reaches.
Instead of, we're limited in pecan already.
We showed you the kind of numbers we were limited to pecan
so we can't keep going there.
We've got to find other areas.
- Just one line straight to there.
- Yeah.
- So basically you hit tributaries of Hickory Creek
and you try to, and you put three here and two here.
- Yes, exactly.
- That's very intuitive, that's exactly what we do.
And we've got maps and we can show you a lot of that,
but we could be here all day too.
And I could be happy to talk.
And I know that's not what you,
y'all got other things to do, so.
Okay, let me double check on a few.
One thing that we are doing today,
wanted to let you point out is,
we're already in negotiations with the Birch family
for purchases of the land for a treatment plant there.
So that's in the works.
There's our, the Birch property
that's just, it's the, you know, it's, they live,
it's a wedge between 377 and Country Crullover Road
and the railroad track runs through that corridor.
- Do you know where my office is?
- No.
- Okay.
(laughing)
- I do.
- Sorry.
- It just sounds thicker.
- Okay.
- Those old bottoms, you know,
and then they put the, they put that substation,
the electric substation up there on top.
But those old bottoms on 377,
where everything just drops off,
there was no quarry down in there.
- Okay.
- You know where the Hills of Argyle subdivision is,
Office 377?
- Yeah.
- Yeah, if you went towards Hickory Creek bottoms
down in there, it's east of there.
- Okay, I get the general idea.
- Yeah.
- Okay.
- It's kind of, it's kind of covered up here,
but you can see the 377s right here,
and that's where Hickory Creek crosses,
and we're back to the east of that area.
- Got you, thanks.
- So yeah, yeah, it's the Birch property.
They've had it for years, the family farm.
- MC?
- MC Birch, yeah.
- Richard's there.
- Yeah, story with him.
I was funny, we were doing a water line
for you guys out on 377,
and we were walking down the right-of-way,
putting stakes out for doing some geotechnical stuff,
and he comes out in his pickup truck.
(laughing)
- He probably had a gun with him.
- Of course, at that time,
you still had a gun rack in your back.
(laughing)
And thank goodness, I was standing on
Tech Stop property, not his property.
(laughing)
And he kinda asked me what I was doing.
I was told, and he said, "Okay,
just as long as you staying out here, you're fine."
And we're like, "We understand."
So he's a character, so.
Anyway, okay.
What else?
One thing I wanna keep in mind,
let's illustrate to you guys a little bit too.
You see the big chunk of line
that's within the Hunter Cole property?
If that's just serving them, they're gonna build that.
We wouldn't put that burden on the citizens here in Denton
to have to build that infrastructure.
That's the one thing you need to keep in mind
when we do this.
The impact fees are a part of offsetting the cost
on the current residents.
It's about development paying for development
and paying for this infrastructure.
Now, the piece you see that's kinda in between the plant,
there would be a cost share there
where Hunter Cole's paying a portion of that,
and then the city's paying another portion
to be able to accommodate the growth
of other properties within that area.
Yes, sir.
- Is Hunter Cole Ranch doing a special improvement district
to help offset some of these costs?
- It's a little bit unique compared
to some of the others out here
that may be trying to do their own utilities completely.
They also, they realize that,
hey, we're gonna be on Denton system from the start.
We understand there's infrastructure
that needs to be built,
so they're gonna do a municipal maintenance.
Municipal maintenance?
- Management.
- Management district, sorry.
A municipal management district
encompasses more than just water and wastewater utilities,
roadways and several other things.
And it's a financing mechanism for them
to be able to afford their piece, if you will.
And then there's partnership.
(indistinct)
It is in a finance, it's kind of a financing.
It's a--
(indistinct)
Yeah, they basically start,
there's a tax of the people that live there only.
- Yeah, they're issuing bonds and then we'll--
(indistinct)
Yes, but they are, they're able to issue the bonds
and then repay back.
- Yeah, and it's within--
(indistinct)
- Yeah, they brought forward, they have a MPC,
a master plan community with the city
and then did the MMD.
So we have four teams,
if this isn't off posting, Marcella,
we have four teams internally,
infrastructure, planning, administration,
all working hand in hand with both of those groups
to work through the planning of all infrastructure, yeah.
- Yeah, it's significant.
I mean, I think they're build outs
in the 40 to 50,000 people kind of numbers.
Yeah, so, you know, it's a quarter of what the city is today.
So it's significant.
- So while we're on the topic of utility districts,
the other, the dotted ones out there,
they're outside of our CCN,
would they apply to become their own utility district
and we're just like a wholesale provider or--
- That's part of coming together
to talk about this a little bit today.
So there's probably a yes, yes, no,
and maybe in all of that to answer that specific question
because each one of these areas is unique to themselves.
Let me get to the rest and we'll come back
and Stephen can probably address some specifics
that I'm not involved in at this particular time
with regards to some of those,
if you'd like specifics about that.
That's all right with you, okay.
- I don't mean to interrupt you,
but we got word that Billy can't pick up on our voices.
So if you're talking,
please make sure your microphone is on
and you're speaking into the microphone.
- Is that a little better online?
- Yeah. - Okay.
All right, that's Hickory Creek.
And so what we're looking to do
is accommodate portion of that treatment
is what's the real driver here.
We can accommodate a large chunk of that treatment
in the Hickory Creek Basin
that gets us to those ultimate build-out numbers
that we talked about at the very beginning.
So let's jump up here to the Clear Creek Basin,
which is north of town.
As you can see here,
there is no wastewater infrastructure
in the Clear Creek Basin today.
Anything that comes to the,
that's built in the Clear Creek Basin,
for example, like we talked about the developments in here
and some new developments that are coming in here,
they will pump over into the Pecan Creek Basin.
And frankly, it's getting close to its capacity
in the upper reaches.
'Cause the upper reaches of the basin
were never designed to continue to carry
the Milam Creek area flows.
The Milam Creek area flows have always been planned
and are planned to go into the Clear Creek Basin,
which is what they naturally flow.
So you go, what is that, what that might look like?
Let's turn on some more graphics
with regards to the limits.
This is a little bit hard to see,
but what you see, I'll turn it off,
turn it back on again.
So we have portions of the Milam Creek Basin
are in city limits.
And then you see a large area over here
that's in the city limits that's related
to bringing water down from Lake Ray Roberts predominantly.
So it's like, okay, what's coming?
Well, before I talk about the developments
in the Milam Creek area and the small developments up here,
I want you to keep in mind,
the city knew this was gonna happen years ago.
And in 2000, y'all purchased over 200 acres of land.
It looks like a bargain basement price nowadays.
You know, wasn't much over a million dollars, I think,
at the time, a million and a half or something
for that 200 acres for a treatment
that was going to occur in the future.
So y'all already own that land.
So that's a super positive thing that's occurred already.
So what we wanted to do is just focus
on what it would take to serve the development
of fully developed properties in Milam Creek
along with these inquiries that have happened up here.
There's about four MGD worth of build out
in the Milam Creek basin.
Another one MGD of inquiry up here.
Similar to the Hickory Creek exhibit,
we added the conveyance or the collection lines,
the gravity collection lines you would need
to get to these places and then convey down
to the property that you already own.
And that five MGD to accommodate that,
you're talking about $95 million worth of conveyance
and about $250 million worth of treatment,
which totals to about $345 million.
Once again, this doesn't have to happen next week
or next year, but we're planning for the future.
And that's what this is about.
And illustrating to y'all, this is a big step for the city.
We've had a single treatment plant for nearly 70 years now
and it's time to start moving forward to where,
we're meeting it's, we're getting beyond its capacity
and need to move forward to seeing other areas
to treat wastewater.
Okay, so, yes, sir.
- Thanks.
So with our existing and then proposed to new treatments,
are we getting up to around 50 MGD?
Am I-- - Well, the numbers
that we're showing here that I illustrated
are focused just on those developments
and accommodating those developments.
What we'll do when we do more comprehensive,
the plan and we'll come back with you guys,
we're gonna look at beyond just those developments.
Your land use, your future land use plan
has a lot of other places to show development
and we need to accommodate that.
So this was just to illustrate the urgency
with regards to the development that just has come in
within the last year that Scott talked about,
that has kind of ratcheted up the urgency
that we didn't anticipate when we first started doing y'all
working on this.
So we've kind of, you know, kind of deviated over
to focus in on this a little bit more,
but we will look even big picture.
So it'll be need to be even more
than what you see here today.
So just to accommodate the development
that we're talking about here,
it's a total of a little over, you know,
$1.6 billion worth of infrastructure.
You know, and you're probably-- - That's a B.
- That's with a B.
Yes, I know it, it's a big number.
There's no doubt and that's why we wanna talk to you early
'cause we're here to...
This is a vision thing, big picture thing
that not only y'all is advisory to the council
and of course the council is gonna have to make
some big decisions on how to address these developments.
And so that's why we wanna talk about it now
when we first hear about it,
not when we're done with the report
'cause that's not too late.
We could redo things, but how about we just do it
while we're in the middle of the process?
(indistinct chatter)
Yeah, for sure.
- So when you talk about these improvements,
are we talking about putting reclamation plants
in the Clear Creek and Hickory Creek?
- Correct, yeah, I can show you the map again if you'd like.
Okay, yes, it'd be, you would,
the city would then operate three plant,
yeah, two more plants, which would total three
and that should get, there's, they would build in capacity
in the size of the property that you've purchased
would get you to the build out number that we saw.
We could get you all the way up to the 144MGD
if you wanted to go there.
So it's setting you up for in perpetuity.
- Oh, good.
- Yeah, okay, yes.
- Go ahead.
- I'll go back or--
- Well, yeah, just a few more questions
kind of in this vein, how long does it take to construct,
if we own the land, what is our trigger that says,
okay, we have to build this now?
Like, is it the first house building permit in Hunter Cole
or the next mud or do we need two years or four years
to build the infrastructure?
- Let's look at Hunter Cole just as a great example.
The good thing you can do now that's great about this is,
well, let's see if I can, let's show it that way first.
It's simpler.
You're collecting, there's residents
that live in Hickory Creek today.
So we have capacity in Hickory Creek today
to collect at the lift station today and pump over.
And we'll continue to that.
Hunter Cole could come on today
with not a whole lot of houses,
but enough houses to keep, they can move forward.
They can, we put in this line right here
that gets put in probably first.
There are some other lines that aren't on the map
that actually serve the southern half
that actually get into the Hickory Creek main today also.
And then they can gravity down to the lift station
and pump over and get treated today.
So we need $40 million in conveyance,
that first large conveyance line sized for future growth.
- And we'll break down as we bring the master planning,
we'll break down these individual project details to you
if you'd like to know.
- Well, and then there's a trigger point at,
okay, the lift station is at 80 or 90%.
- No longer at capacity, correct.
And that's the big trigger point in this.
After you build it,
there's some trigger points that TCEQ requires.
If you're getting so much flow,
75% of the capacity, then you start design.
And then if you reach 90% of capacity of the plant,
then you have to be in construction.
A general rule of thumb for y'all,
design on a project to that magnitude takes about a year,
construction two, two and a half, depending.
Now, it's scary right now due to the supply side of things.
We've never experienced what we've been experiencing
in the last year and a half with regards to that.
When that clears, we'd all be millionaires,
if I could tell you the answer to that.
(indistinct)
Yeah, but we do our best.
We just keep plugging away.
It's affecting all of us.
So it affects the construction industry
and supply of materials needed
to construct these kinds of facilities.
So it's an interesting dynamic
where the growth's still coming,
but this is why we have inflation,
is the supply side can't deliver what growth needs.
So the price goes up.
That's kind of a way over simplification,
but y'all understand the economics of that.
So I will let you know where we're heading here
and coming back to you guys.
So first big thing we need to do,
I think the question was kind of already asked,
we're gonna meet with planning and Scott's team,
talk about finalizing.
We've got to throw some kind of dart at growth rate.
The comp plan currently right now,
if you looked at the whole city in general,
it's two and a half percent.
I think it's what's been assumed,
but you can see we have to focus
on the infrastructure by basin.
And you notice the Hickory Creek basin
is where most of that development's coming.
So the odds of the growth rate being two and a half percent
in Hickory is probably not true.
It's something higher than that.
So we're gonna get with Scott
take a big shot at what we think it might be, right?
He's kind of smiling going, oh no.
So we got to have those and what that allows us to do,
we've got some hydraulic modeling tools that we use
that not only we use for sizing your infrastructure,
but then we pass that on to your staff
and your staff then uses that going into the future
as a tool for how to size.
And when things change, they can get in there and go,
well, we don't need a 48 inch pipeline now,
we need a 54 inch because the data center came in
and the land use changed and let's reanalyze that.
So we're developing a tool for your staff
to be able to use into the future.
From after we get the planning numbers on growth,
this is when we do our first draft of the five, 10
and 25 year capital improvement plans.
And then from there, one thing that we've done
as part of our planning and it really ties to your one water
is we, NUGEN Strategies who's worked with y'all
for a number of years on the financing side,
we have them as a sub-consultant to us to go,
how do you pay for this stuff?
Yeah, there's a big number and there's a list,
but what's really important to all of us
is how does it get paid for?
Y'all talked a little bit about your budgeting,
they partner with your finance folks
while we're doing the plan, not after the fact
and go, hey, what effect is this on our rates?
And that's really big deal
and what's the effect on their impact fees.
So we'll do that and then of course,
at that time we'll stop down at a draft level
and have the staff review.
We'll come back to y'all again to review and talk about it
as we're further along.
And then of course, council gets y'all's vision
and thoughts and questions, try to address those.
And then we complete the report
and then come back to you again with the final report
and for approval.
- So I'm just making sure I understand
the financing of this entire project.
Obviously the developer has to put in their part of it
but downstream is gonna be,
we're counting on the impact fees to pay us back
for the investment we'll put into there, correct?
- As much as you can and keep in mind,
impact fees work on a,
the state law requires that they work on a 10 year window.
So think about this infrastructure,
it's getting built to serve way beyond 10 years.
So what you do is you get to recover a 10 year window number
and then the part of the infrastructure
that's sized beyond the 10 years,
you then get to recover when we do the impact fee update
again in five years, you get the,
it's a rolling 10 year window.
So you slowly recover as development's still coming in,
you slowly recover more and more of that infrastructure cost
through impact fee.
Now it's not dollar for dollar, it isn't.
- It doesn't account for inflation either.
- Yeah, yeah, and we can, we can build in to some degree.
That's one thing that,
that's an assumption that we'll need to talk about.
The dollars I am showing you here today,
that's a great reminder 'cause I didn't say it,
is it's present dollars today.
Now, if I would have done this a year ago,
I would have been way under shooting the number.
So do, do numbers, do these numbers ever go down?
No.
Will they flatten maybe for a period of time?
We're hoping so.
We're seeing a little bit of it
in the construction industry right now.
I don't know how many times my estimate
over the last six months has been the low bidder
on jobs that we've put out on the street.
It's been pretty, you know,
which I've never had that kind of issue before.
So we're recalibrating our cost projections
and that's kind of what's reflected here
and why that number's so big.
- (indistinct)
- That's, that, that's a--
- That's a whole nother--
- Yeah, that's a choice that it's made at y'all's,
I won't say anything about that.
- Okay.
- So that's, that's the end of my presentation.
I'll be happy to go back and look at any slide
or I may have just wore you out.
Don't want to talk about anymore.
- Go ahead, Devin.
- So I just, I have a couple,
returning to the CCN question,
and this might be more for you.
With those developments that are outside of our current CCN,
would we be looking at expanding our CCN
or looking at, we're a wholesale provider
and they're a utility district or--
- That really depends.
We've been talking with the developers in that area
and they have a strong appetite
for us to receive services from us.
But what that would require essentially
is them petitioning the CCN holder,
which is I believe Sanger in that area
and request to be released from the CCN.
And Sanger doesn't have any infrastructure
in that area and that's one of the criteria
that the Texas Public Utilities Commission looks at
when they consider those applications.
So they would have to go through the process
and that would be, we would have a developer agreement
with those communities.
You can get released from Sanger CCN
and then accept service from us.
Or if it makes more financial sense
for us to be like a wholesale provider, we would do that.
But the advantage of having them release
from the CCN and become part of the City of Denton
is building to our criteria, right?
So we have more of a more leverage
to ensure that the infrastructure is designed
and constructed to our standards
when we're the service provider.
Does that make sense?
- Yeah, and would we be looking at
development by development piecemeal
or would we try and say here's the gravity line
of Hickory Creek and hey, seven developers,
maybe you wanna get together and we'll support you
in this negotiation with Sanger?
- Yeah, Scott's really been the lead on these discussions.
I'm gonna let him kind of jump in.
- He didn't wanna touch it with a 10-foot pole.
(laughing)
- That's why I asked you here.
- So it's fairly complicated.
A number of these MUDs are being proposed
with some similar ownership.
So we've put all of those folks into a room
and we've kind of talked about their needs,
our needs, our concerns.
And it really started with water
and groundwater is an issue.
We have surface water available to us.
So as we talk about water and wastewater,
as Stephen indicated, there is an appetite
for them to be serviced by the city.
Our greater concern is really long-term.
If something happens long-term and someone develops a MUD,
the MUD they're able to develop by right
through TCEQ or the legislature.
So the city really doesn't have a lot of say.
So where we have the advantage of having water
and wastewater services available, we're trying to use that.
So in talking to all of these.
- Whoa, what was that?
- Computer.
- The shelf.
(laughing)
- We're good.
- It's all good.
(laughing)
- Regroup.
So we have a great opportunity to be able
to have infrastructure built
through those municipal utility districts at their expense.
Where ultimately they would be getting services
through the city, from the city,
and ultimately providing the infrastructure,
really with a minimum participation from the city.
I think that I'm optimistic that a number
of these municipal utility districts are looking forward
to trying to put this together.
And as we just kind of walk through all of this,
it gives us a much better idea of really what they think
that their uses are and what that density would look like.
So they provided all of that modeling.
Stephen's team's working through that currently.
So they've done that in the last couple of weeks.
As I indicated, this has come on rather quickly.
To the point it was, I think you'll hear our city manager
say that we get a new one weekly.
And it sure feels that way.
But really it's been every couple, two, three weeks,
they'll expand or add some other territory
into what those muds are.
It's a very simple tool for them to work through.
It just takes some time, if that answers your question.
- Yeah, and I do have one more question
that might be best posed to you as well.
Let me see if I have my notes.
I'm sorry, just kind of figure it out.
- No worries.
- Yeah, it does.
Gets much worse done.
(laughing)
- Okay, yeah, I'm sorry.
I can't remember what my second question was.
- No worries, I'll be here.
- Thank you.
- All right.
Other questions?
(laughing)
Other questions?
All right.
What do you need from us?
Nothing, nothing, okay.
- It was merely an update just to kind of
make sure you understood where we were going.
We didn't want any surprises to say those are big numbers.
It's a lot of growth, it's a lot of infrastructure,
and we just want to make sure we're ahead of it.
- Yep. - Yeah?
All right. - Good job.
- Thank you, everyone.
- Thank you.
All right, that concludes the agenda.
It is 10.05.
Do we have a motion to adjourn, Mr. Cheek?
We're adjourned.