All right hello everyone and welcome to the sustainability framework advisory
committee. It is Friday April 28th and it is one o'clock. We are in the City
Council work session room and we will we do have a quorum and we will begin with
our first item for individual consideration. Consider approval of the
March 24th 2023 minutes. And everybody good? Ed? I'm good. Okay all right and in
motion? Yeah comments? Oh yeah go ahead. Yeah there are a few items that I didn't
see reflected. I made an inquiry into incentivizing solar battery walls all
like California. I don't know maybe I erased it two meetings ago. It's not the
minutes but it's also not the matrix. I also note member it's so fast that we see
what the plan is to incorporate solar rebate grandfathering and for that to
come back to us several of us voted for the recommendation on the basis that we
see that or that that be included. I also asked that we discuss meeting twice a
month to make more progress toward actually getting some sustainability
tactics on the ground and I don't see that in the matrix either. So not in the
minutes nor in the matrix.
So do we need to add those into the minutes before they're approved to make an
amendment? Is that acceptable? Okay so I offer the friendly amendment to include
or to reflect in the minutes that in the matrix we include an inquiry into
incentivizing solar battery walls as well as that we see the solar rebate come
back to us reflecting a plan for grandfathering and that we have a
discussion on meeting twice a month to make more progress. That's what was said
prior to the meeting that weren't reflected so we just want to make those
reflected in the minutes. I'd like to second the motion with the amendments with the additional
comment that we've made a bit of a huffle in the past about the limitedness
that were reflected in the minutes and it does have a lot more detail than in
previous meetings so that's that's really awesome to see that reflected both in
the video as well as the minutes. Okay so all in favor of the minutes with
these amendments? Okay so we will put that in and move to item B, receive a
report, hold a discussion on the Denton Water Utilities long-range plans
addressing sustainability measures that also account for future growth. And we have Steve from
Denton Water Utilities with us today. And we are using the mics up here, not this one here.
That's better. And if you would just say your name again. Yes I'm Stephen Gay, I'm the director of water utilities for the city of Denton.
Thank you guys, thanks for inviting me to discuss our long-term master plans. We've got a few in the hopper. Right now we're working on our wastewater master plan and then we have
another one right behind that called the comprehensive, it's the one water master plan.
And that is, it compiles several different master plan efforts in one
initiative. We're looking at updating our 2018 water master plan so it's at the
infrastructure that we need moving forward. We're looking at a comprehensive
water supply plan. We're looking at a reclaimed water master plan. We're
looking at a conservation, updating our conservation plan and doing our drought
management plan. So in you'd say one water, you said where's storm water? Well storm water was left out
intentionally it falls in another business unit and they were
already moving forward with the master plan that we started. So we're here to talk about how those master plans can
intersect with sustainability. So in the conservation plan we're going to be
looking at plumbing code reduction so we can reduce the per capita per day
consumption. We're also looking at reduced water loss and through features
say. So the leak detection technology is advanced significantly in the industry
and so we have the ability to deploy throughout our distribution system
listening devices that can actually hear water leaking through a pipe and we can
detect leaks before they emerge as a break and so getting those crews to
respond proactively and fixing those leaks before we lose all that water is
one of the strategies we'll be looking into. The efficient irrigation systems being more
deliberate with our landscape audits and developing a program to help replace
controllers and to update them to something more sophisticated they can
they can actually detect when it's just rained or the soil the moisture of the
soil doesn't need the sprinklers to come on right away and then incentivizing
incentivizing low-demand landscape you know encouraging more that Texas
native landscaping and developing a program where we're evaluating those
programs to see if it'll be successful here to where the utility will help fund
turf replacement for residents that want to convert their lawns to more
of a Xerox cave and then finally within the conservation time we're working
closely with the sustainability team to put in place an ordinance that actually
dictates conservation. Right now to my knowledge we're the only utility
within the DFW area that doesn't have water restrictions on certain times of the year.
So we're going to be looking at that and developing that ordinance and codifying it.
So that reclaimed the reuse master plan that I discussed a little earlier it's
we want to capitalize on the plan so right now we have an authorization from
TCEQ so that's the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to reuse six
million gallons a day of our effluent from concrete which is our waste water
treatment facility. Currently we only reuse about one-tenth of that flow and so
we have four customers on the system and that's what this plan is going to look at.
So what's the opportunity? If we have a pipeline going down a certain road is
there a city facility there? Is there a park there? Is there something that we
could convert their landscaping from potable water over to reclaimed water?
Same thing with commercial use doing the same thing and then we'll be working
with our business partners over at Development Services again after we have
a master plan and it kind of lines these things out to develop an ordinance that
requires connection to the reclaim system when it's within a certain
distance of a new development.
Is there any insight on why that is so low of a percentage right now?
Well so I've been I've been with the city for about two years now and from what I can tell is the
the organization didn't really realize what they had when they developed it and
didn't put a lot of investment into expanding the system. They had one
customer which is the Oakmont College Force within Brooklyn which is their primary user
and then the city's landfill is another one of our big users on that system and the Spencer Power Plant.
So that's my that's my guess and then that again that we talked about the
ordinance that will require connection with when those services aren't close.
So one of the things we're also going to look at in our water supply plan,
comprehensive water supply plan, is there an opportunity for us to recharge the aquifer?
So they have a TCEQ has an authorization for what they call ASR aquifer
storage and recovery which will give us the opportunity to actually take
effluent or treated water because you have to treat it to drinking water
standards before you inject it into the groundwater. Then you have an accounting
plan so we put in this much we get to take out this much at a later date.
That's what we're looking at at developing. So we would be doing a
feasibility study as part of the master planning effort and then we'll be
evaluating our previous well we had about 19 wells throughout our system
before we converted from groundwater to a surface water source. So is there a
question on that? You want to wait until the end? Yeah well I have yeah I'm just
writing it down. Then again this is part is this this dovetails our
comprehensive water supply plan dovetails into our reclaimed water master
plan from the perspective of utilizing direct potable reuse as a source. So
technology is advanced significantly in the treatment of wastewater to where we
can treat it above and beyond actually safe drinking water standards. So we have an
opportunity to treat at our wastewater treatment facilities using a specific
technology and then blending that water with raw water and then sending it into
a potable water treatment facility for final treatment. So essentially we
extend our water supply. We make something that's a little bit more drought
resilient and that's what we're trying to do with our water supply plan is
create some a portfolio that is more climate resilient so we have a bunch of
different buckets so we can pull out of when when we start to see when we start
to see depreciating I guess the depleting resources within our surface
water source if that makes sense. And then also we're going to be evaluating is
there any opportunity for us to send the treated effluent obviously to water
drinking water quality standards to a natural buffer or wetland and then
recover it later.
Okay yeah sure. What's the state of processing capacity need and where it
intersects you know the state of projected demand versus the state of
processing capacity. I remember about five years ago it was projected that
there'd be something like a hundred million dollar plant needed in ten years
that'd be five years from now but I know some steps have been happening in the
inner. Are we facing a pinch point process? I would say that we're at a pinch point right now
that's what the master plan is identifying. So we have as part of our
CIP our capital improvement planning we're looking at constructing some
additional treatment facilities to help manage the growth and the additional
flows that we're seeing coming into the system. Does that answer your question?
Dollar amount to be funded how? We're currently undergoing the master
planning piece of that and so we don't have any refined numbers at this point.
There was something like a hundred million dollars and they're still talking about that same order of magnitude?
With what we're seeing post-COVID with supply chain issues and labor issues and
materials we would see I would expect to see those numbers escalated beyond that.
Okay so all the more reason to reduce demand. To reduce responsibly reduce
indoor well actually our biggest use on the system is outdoor irrigation. It counts for about 75 to 80% of demand on the system.
Do you want to get through each person's questions or one one one one? I can get her name I had great
conversations at UNT. I happened to meet the professor there who is employed by
the city of Dallas to do a grade school education on water conservation and
she's you know quite quantitative and will make the case that you could do as
much with educating younger people who will have a bigger impact in 10 years as
affecting irrigation. Kind of a big claim especially given what you just said. Are you
creative with her? Would you like me to make an introduction? I'm not familiar with her and I guess you could go through Catherine.
Is it Dr. Thompson still? Say again? Dr. Thompson. If you told me her nickname her first name that's it.
You know her? Okay. But you know claims pretty powerful success with that program. Okay.
Yeah thank you for your presentation. That was one of my questions. I'm kind of
missing the big picture so what is so it sounds like your goals are lower per
capita water usage increased drought slash climate resiliency. So I'm
wondering on the per capita water usage can you tell us what it is now how that's
changed over the years? I can tell you what the per capita use is currently. I think at its peak it was roughly 175
gallons per day per individual and that was in 2011. Our lowest was in 2021 which
was just above 130 gallons per capita per day. In 2022 it was an anomaly we had an
extremely aggressive year with irrigation and that number popped up to
about 150 gallons per capita. What was the last year I'm sorry? Last year was 150 sir.
How do those numbers stack up against other cities? That's part of the
evaluation we were well within our targets in our conservation plan so we
can get back to you if you like to see a comparison with other cities within the region. That's pretty easy for us.
You mentioned was kind of offhand of depleting resources. This ties into kind of your projections. What are the
projections not not about uses but for a lot of resources in the region? Do you all have forecasts?
Well we own resources within Lake Ray Roberts and Lake Lewisville. Those permits are extremely complicated.
So we have what we call a fermule which is when lakes are down into conservation pools and when they're extremely low.
We have a very limited amount of water that we can draw from both Lewisville and Ray Roberts.
But when they're spilling as they are now and they have been for the last several years we have an abundance
of resources within those surface water lakes or reservoirs. And that's why we feel the urgency now
to develop plans to diversify our water portfolio so we can have different buckets to pull from should we experience that.
So my experience is primarily from the west. So I worked for the city of Las Vegas for about 17 years
and Long Beach California for about four. And so I'm very very familiar with drought and drought management in the United States.
So we're trying to be very proactive in developing those resources before we meet those resources.
Thank you for the answer. You know, right, thank you.
Brad?
Yeah I just have a handful of questions but I guess primarily the listed agenda topics about accounting for
future growth and I guess I just didn't see a ton of projections in your slides.
Could you profile what that projected demand in population growth are for you?
I can show you what we're looking at. So this is very subjective, right?
So we look at the land use, comprehensive land use plan. We work with our development services
and we see what the trends are right now. So right now, based off of a couple of factors,
so we have a lot of municipal utility districts along the 380 that are moving forward.
That have an interest in potentially municipal services, not just water and wastewater but other services.
We have the 100 coal, which is a development that's been approved.
That's moving forward and then we have to start standard growth, right?
And all of that together is projected over the next five years to be roughly eight percent is what we're saying.
Eight?
Eight, yes sir.
And those are the preliminary numbers that the consultant has provided.
They still have to go back and refine them. They're going to be doing some more analysis of it.
But that's the preliminary numbers.
Do you mind if I ask a question on that question?
Sure.
So on future growth, so if we do the eight percent increase in the current business as usual for our water supply,
like how do you see that playing out? Like how long is that sustainable?
Well if we do, if we do, well, so I'm going to understand your question.
If we don't do all the conservation and we don't start doing these things to save water while we have it,
the growth rate and if we're in a drought, like how long is our business as usual sustainable
if we don't start implementing all of these other, these other ideas?
Yeah, I think that that's a really good question and I'd have to go back and ask some people smarter than me to give me that answer.
Okay.
I can tell you that conservation is a very key component of our water supply plan.
And that's why it's included in the water mix report.
Just a couple other more, almost recommendations I suppose.
So I love a lot of what you have in here and it looks like you're really taking that past experience
in those water-limited municipalities and bringing that here, which is fantastic because we've heard from previous presentations
that drought and increased heat days are kind of those projected future impacts for our city.
I know that like xeriscaping for example on your slide two is a real fun buzzword for lawn replacement.
I just, in Las Vegas it's something like two inches or so a year in precipitation and here we get anywhere from 30 to 55 sometimes.
I'm just curious if, as a future recommendation as you develop that plan, if that can look at lawn alternatives
and not strictly those xeriscapes type environments.
Yeah, I appreciate that. We use that because it is a very common terminology.
One of the things that we intend on doing is as we develop additional treatment capacity,
we're going to, we have a vision or a plan long-term to incorporate some type of demonstration garden
that will show customers different alternatives. So it's not just xeriscape and so it's all kinds of other alternatives.
So ultimately we'll have a location that a resident can go through, walk through,
kind of almost like the catable garden where they can look at it and say hey, wow I really like that planting,
I really like that. You're telling me that this is a water-wise vegetation? Awesome.
And then we can help them incorporate that into the landscape.
I know that AgriLife in Dallas has some really interesting resources over that and in the city of Austin I think also does those cool classifications
on different landscape use plants because they have similar concerns for water usage in their irrigation system as well.
Thank you for the history too on the per capita gallons per day. That was really helpful and one of my questions.
The other one on the groundwater banking, I think the last I had heard is something like 70% of municipalities
in the Trinity Aquifer use surface water. So I'm not sure if you're familiar or maybe you could help us understand,
would there be any potential competition between other municipalities moving toward that groundwater use?
I understand you said like a banking system where we deposit from our allocations into a groundwater recharge,
but obviously that's shared broadly across the region, how would that?
Yeah and that's going to, it's sort of a more complicated answer than I'm going to give you right now.
We foresee it as being a regional partnership with the city of Dallas and Fort Worth as we develop these types of plants.
So we're looking at it, we're not just looking at it from Denton's perspective, we're looking at it from that more comprehensive view.
How can we best leverage our assets? Because Lake Lewisville and Lake Ray Roberts are jointly owned by the city of Dallas and the city of Fort Worth.
And so that's really one of our biggest business partners and we have the most opportunity to leverage that relationship in developing that ASL program.
So you see this as more of a kind of a regional partnership where maybe we're not uplifting a lot of this infrastructure?
Not all of it, but what we do have is we have access to a lot of raw water while the lakes are high
and we have a lot of treatment capacity to refine it to a point where we can inject it into the groundwater table.
So that makes us, it gives us a competitive edge.
That was all of my questions, but I really just wanted to emphasize that I appreciate your future forward thinking
in these sorts of plans for especially taking advantage of the assets that we do have sometimes in abundance and sometimes at a dearth.
It sounds like you're moving in a really great direction.
I'm going to skip for now and go to Ed.
Yeah, pardon me. So you say the master plan is going to extend out 50 years?
Well, we look at 50 years, then we come back to 25, then we come back to 10, and then we really kind of try to concentrate on the 5.
Okay, that makes sense. And so would that mean that there would be designated intermediate steps and timelines
for the implementation of particular aspects of the plan?
Depends. So what we typically do is we'll do that long-term master plan and we'll look that 50 years out
and we kind of dial it back into that 5-year plan and then we get midway through the 5-year plan, like in year 3,
we initiate another plan, right, where we go back and we check those assumptions for year 10 further out and we double-check.
So we kind of, we continually refine the plan as we move forward through the plan, if that makes any sense.
And does that refinement include the possibility of, I would assume would include possibilities
of having ordinances enacted to, rather than just verbiage?
Yes, sir.
Yeah. Great. And when will this plan be completed?
Well, the Wastewater Master Plan, we're going to be giving a presentation to City Council on, let's say, the first part of April, PV and then City Council.
It's not for approval yet, it's just a touch base with them to let them know this is where we're at and this is what we're seeing.
We anticipate by the end of the year that that plan should be finalized and prepared for council approval.
The One Water Master Plan just kicked off, I'd say about three months ago, so we're just getting started.
It's three to six months just getting started with that plan.
Would there be any opportunities to bring us up to date?
Of course.
Yeah, great.
If Michael just reached out to me, I'd be happy to come and chat with him.
Okay, just a couple of other things.
You said that 80% of the drinkable water is used for yard irrigation?
About 70 to 80%, yeah. Outdoor use, yes.
Is that considered excessive or normal?
It's actually normal. So in the Las Vegas Valley area, it was 75 to 85% until they got really aggressive with their conservation efforts and they curtailed it, but it's pretty common.
Yeah, the Vegas thing is interesting because that seems to be an instance of a complete removal of precaution and having to just suddenly, oh my God, look at the lake.
At least that's the impression that I...
Yeah, and having worked there, I might have a little bit...
I'm sure that's why I'm asking.
I know that the general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority and Las Vegas Valley Water Authority were very forward-looking on that.
They actually had projects that lowered their intakes.
They actually worked with the farmers up north and purchased a bunch of ranch land so they could tap into groundwater.
They designed conveyance systems from northern Nevada down to southern Nevada.
Doug Bennett, who worked for Southern Nevada Water Authority, was a conservation manager, and he started an entire conference called Waterwise and really changed the approach to conservation.
So case in point, if you walk down the Las Vegas Strip and you see the fountains in front of a lodge, you think, well, that's just a huge waste of water. That's probably the most efficient system in the nation with regards to recycled water.
Good to know. Thank you.
You're very welcome.
I would just like to piggyback on what we were talking about, waterwise vegetation or native vegetation.
I see that as when you look at what you mentioned about the hunter coal development and obviously the increase in the use of lawn watering, watering systems and that sort of thing.
It's very, very important that what you said about having a menu to choose from.
Well, that as well as having reclaimed water available for them because part of the hunter coal agreement requires that we build the treatment facility and so we will be designing that facility to have an effluent that can be used for reclaimed and as we install the infrastructure from hunter coal to the treatment facility, we'll also be putting in dual pipeline that can bring reclaimed water back down to that community so they can leverage that.
Will there actually be a treatment center in the hunter coal?
Not in the hunter coal, no, sir.
We've purchased the birch property over there off of Country Club Road, so it's about a 400 acre parcel and that's what we'll be putting in the treatment facility.
I think that's all I had.
Thanks for your presentation.
A couple of different categories.
Thank you again for the presentation.
Water is very important to me.
You too.
Well, I guess 58 years is better than that one.
The first category will be quantitative and I've heard several of these same questions mentioned.
What are our goals?
Are we in trouble now?
How much do we need to reduce the areas of opportunity?
What does that look like in terms of gallons and then what does that look like in terms of cost to make that happen?
I wish I could give you a definitive answer on that.
First of all, I don't think we're in trouble at this moment.
I think that we have enough supply, we have enough resources to manage the growth trend we're seeing currently.
The master planning effort is very important for us because it helps us identify the resources we need to invest in so we can maintain that water security.
Can we repeat the rest of your question, please?
Well, basically from a quantitative perspective, how many gallons of uses do we need to reduce to hit the target?
What are the targets?
That's what I'm missing.
And we're developing that.
So that's going to be an interactive process.
We're going to come over and look at industry standards.
We're going to look at best management practices.
We're going to look at what TCEQ tells us we need to be doing.
We're going to be working with our sustainability team.
We're going to say, okay, we've got this recommendation here for a reduction per capita per day.
We've got this one over here.
What fits best with our long-term goals and strategies?
And then we'll be bringing that forward for, let's say, concurrence.
Okay.
And then what would be the associated cost with that to make this happen?
That really depends.
We have turf replacement programs, and on the Southern Battle Water Authority,
they probably have a $20 million annual budget that they can be earmarked specifically to turf replacement,
and that's to defer the construction of capital projects.
Okay.
Second category would be partnerships.
Are we, from an educational perspective, where are my consumer hat now?
Okay.
Do we have a tremendous amount of money in my water bills, i.e., water usage,
by connecting with a university that I'm drawing up like Texas A&M, I believe,
that helps me manage the amount of water that I irrigate my lawn with?
Yeah.
Do we have a partnership with the academia?
And how can we do a better job of getting that information out to the consumer?
Because there's a great opportunity for us to reduce the amount of water just through the education.
So that's my question.
Are we connected with that, and is that education to the consumer part of the plan?
Well, I'm looking over at Katherine, and she's saying that, yes, we do have that connection.
And I will tell you, part of this plan is to look at those irrigation systems.
I mentioned the controllers and those irrigation audits.
That's exactly what that does, is we invest money into a consultant that we make available to our residents,
that they'll come out to their home, they'll run their sprinklers, they'll look at them, they'll dial it in,
they'll say, wait a minute, you've got this kind of head on here, completely the wrong thing,
this is what you need, this is where you get it, this is how you do it.
And then we're also hoping to, again, earmark some funds that we can then say,
well, the controller that you're using was built in 1972, and it's not state of the art.
We can offset your costs to upgrade that with one that has a sensor that goes on your gutters,
and it tells you when it's just raining, and it tells your sprinklers not to come on.
Or it tells you, hey, it's raining, and your sprinklers are supposed to come on, we're not going to come on right now.
So things like that. So yes on the education, and yes on the fact that we're moving in the direction of providing those resources to our community.
Okay, if I may ask that we make that a matrix item, because it's very important to educate the community.
In my own block, just a block of the block, not water I see from irrigation systems
that's running down the gutters and into the silvers.
It's raining outside, and it's going on. And the sprinklers are running. There's tremendous opportunity for us in that category.
I'd really like to see us take risks as we can from an educational perspective to educate the community,
get this information out there, how we can.
Well, and part of that conservation plan is there is a line item, and the scope is to develop literature,
you know, educational materials for that purpose. And we'll be working very closely with our sustainability team to do that.
Okay, that answers my questions. Thank you very much.
I'm just a couple. One, I'm just curious if we have a list of water-wise vegetation anywhere on our website.
Like if some, if our homeowners were looking to change their landscape, is there a spot where they can?
I think it's still on there. I'll have to go dig a little bit and make sure.
I think that would be helpful. And then this is, I'm curious, because you said treated water a few times, and then you said,
and then I saw it back into the ground and then into the wetlands. And I'm curious,
like is there anything that we treat our water with that would be harmful to the natural environment if it gets put back in the wetlands,
like, you know, to our floor or our fauna or, you know, anything since it's so sensitive already?
And that's part of the studies that we'll do. Okay.
And so we'll have chemists that will be analyzing the water, the watershed, if that becomes an option, right?
So these are things that are being evaluated today, and we'll be able to say, oh wait, this is a go, this makes sense, we can do it.
Because of the environment that we're going to be discharging in, we have these tools and we can neutralize any of it.
So when we treat water, we typically maintain a residual, we have a chlorine residual, that's potable water, and that's not very friendly to the environment.
So we have to dechlorinate, so we add essentially vitamin C to it, which neutralizes that chemical and makes it safe for the environment.
The discharge from our wastewater treatment, so we need certain parameters where it's friendly to the environment.
That's primarily the water that we would be, if we chose to do a wetland, that we would be discharging and introducing into that environment.
In order for us to add water to the groundwater table, TCEQ is very clear that it must meet the drinking water standard.
So we have to meet a specific drinking water standard before we even inject it into the groundwater table.
So it's kind of two different points, two different treatment processes, but the same result.
It's part of those different buckets that we're developing where we can, oh, well, our reservoirs are being depleted,
let's pull this lever and take some of the stress off of the reservoir so we can extend that.
Oh, things are still getting worse, we have another lever we can pull and so on and so forth. Does that make sense?
Yeah, yeah, I just want to make sure, I mean, I knew that it was looked at, I just wanted to clarify for myself because it's very important to us.
Okay, and then we have, do we have rebates for our irrigation systems? Is that?
Not currently.
No.
And that will be one of the things that we'll be looking at as well.
Okay, and just a comment, the reason I ask about the future growth in the business as usual is because as these items come to our decision makers,
that type of information will be very helpful for them as they're looking at budget and like, you know, planned projects.
Because as, until, you know, items are implemented and budgeted, it's just a plan.
And so, I think that type of information is really important to have. And that's all.
Okay, can we do a second round?
Oh, do you have another question?
A few that, you know, come up over the course of the conversation.
Okay, go ahead, Paul.
Is there potential for another reservoir to be built in the region?
Well, that's a complicated question. The construction of reservoirs are typically driven by Region C,
which is a portion of the Texas Water Development Board, in which we're a member of.
So what we do is we do our projections, our growth projections, and our need.
We submit them to Region C. Region C evaluates it, looking at it for more, obviously, you know, regional solutions.
And then, based off of the need, there may be an opportunity to build a reservoir.
But I think that the most current reservoir that's actually under construction right now is Lake Ralph Hall.
And that's being constructed by the Opportunity Regional Water District.
And they've got some business partners in that one. And it's way, it's down the path.
I think within the next two to three years it'll be constructed.
And that's unique because it's not, I don't believe it's a Corps of Engineers reservoir.
So that's also one of the complications with doing a surface water storage facility in the state of Texas is that partnership.
It's not just with TCEQ, and it's not just with your regional partners.
Then you have to work with the U.S. Corps of Engineers to construct that reservoir.
And is that one that we would conceivably be able to get some rights into?
Should it become something that is, I'll tell you one, I'll tell you for certain that I'm not going to want to pass up any opportunity for us to secure additional water resources.
So I will advocate for any water right we can purchase or we can partner on just because it's our long-term sustainability.
You may not be the right one to answer this one. Maybe it's a question that can't be answered today.
But I realize I have a little confusion in my own mind as I contemplate one replacement, zero escaping.
And I throw this to anybody who's got greater expertise versus everyone here.
Is doing that simultaneously problematic for heat island impacts and air cleansing because you're reducing vegetation?
Or are there any offsetting tactics that you would want to do at the same time in order to get the holistically best sustainability action plan?
Because you're taking greenery out, something else you need to do, right?
Is it good for water? Is it bad for other things? It's a question. I don't know if we know. If anyone here knows the answer to that.
I'll keep moving if nobody leaps to their feet.
And to that point, too, pollinators.
So maybe not totally strictly. And it's at a high cost, obviously, to keep doing what we currently do in the water.
This you may have answered, but I just didn't get it clearly. And I hope you don't mind just saying it again if you have.
What is the timeline for the master plan? When are you hoping to have it baked?
The wastewater master plan should be completed this year in 2023.
We've just launched the wastewater master plan.
There are many other sub-plans to that that are going to take some time. So I would say 18, 24 months from now.
Oh, that's way past 2023.
Yeah, that's for the one water master plan. That's the one we just came out of.
So 2025-ish, potentially.
What would you like to see from this committee? What would most help you?
I think you'd hear a lot of support for the elements that are on there. We want to see more quantification.
We've got questions here and there, but you're kind of speaking our language.
I haven't given it much thought. I haven't had any struggles that I've had to navigate, which would inform where I would need assistance, if that makes sense.
Thank you.
Adam, can I ask one more question? It does come up as you think together.
It's on the water quality side. I understand dental needs or exceeds quality standards.
We actually have award-winning water. We were a Texas waterer two weeks ago.
We took second and third in the state for best tasting water.
We were beat by Houston by one point, but the conference was in Houston.
I'm just a little bit suspect.
But Houston has a unique flavor.
They do.
I'm wondering about microplastics. Are they being tested for even? Are you up to the state of the art on that?
I'd have to defer to someone in the lab to answer a question.
I know that all of our protocol needs state regulations. We're testing for all the constituents that we're supposed to.
We're getting ready to publish our water quality report, which has a lot of great information and shows you how very much compliant we are on those requirements.
Yeah, I'm just curious because there's things you test for and there's things that may not be tested for.
I don't think that's testing.
I don't think it is.
We're very closely regulated by TCEQ and the federal government, so we follow those regulations very strictly.
Are we good?
I don't know if this is the right term, but permeable concrete docked driveways and sidewalks where instead of runoff...
That's a great question. That's more for a drainage question to answer, but I can tell you in my experience, we leveraged them in Colorado, we leveraged them in Las Vegas, so they're a viable solution.
Great. Thanks.
I did confirm that our native plant lists are on our website under the wildlife and wallflowers, and then we also have a whole water conservation webpage that we share with seated that has the Texas natives and all of those resources in there.
Awesome. Thank you.
All right, we will close this item. Thank you so much. Appreciate the information. And move on to our next item, C, staff reports and the matrix.
And I do believe Mr. Stevens had an item to add to the matrix. Do you want to say that again?
Yes, I would like for a more comprehensive presentation on the water plan in terms of quantitative, what are we trying to accomplish, what are the targets, and then how will these strategies, these tactics, impact our goal of sustainability with regards to water?
And the costs. Okay, and this may be a little bit further out as Stephen goes through the development of his plan, but I think I can capture it on the matrix to bring him back and see if he gets more information together.
Yes. Okay.
And I hear him say it's been presented to the city council, but where is it going to be? I heard him say April. He did say April. I think he meant May.
He meant May 2035. April 2044. Anyone else have any questions on the matrix, want to add to it, take off? Yeah, I mean just to close the loop versus the comment on minutes.
It was agreed to incentivizing solar battery walls that we see the solar rebate discussion come back with grandfathering address. And actually on that topic, I would also add that I had misgivings, it might just be like a report being needed to see if we've correctly valued rooftop solar
with respect to the value of avoiding transmission expense. And then the item about whether we should meet twice a month to make more progress toward actually getting some sustainability tactics.
I have one thing. If possible, I'd like for an update on efforts at charging stations in the city. I know there was talk when I was on the PUP of increasing charging stations.
I'd also like to know if there's any discussion or plan for the city to utilize solar panels over parking areas, over parking lots. And in a general way, if there are any actual city initiatives for utilizing solar generation.
Are you talking about for city facilities, municipal functions, and also the same question on the EV charging, are you looking at the public facing or are you looking at the fleet facing?
Both.
I've been reading so much lately about how cities are covering their parking lots.
Actually, I'd like to see an update on that.
All right, so we will move to concluding items. Does anybody have anything they'd like to add at this point?
I have a question with regards to the sustainability fund work plan. The only information I could find that's available was published October 21 through March 22.
Clearly, we are a year beyond that. Is that plan still our guiding document or is there something that -- I couldn't find it on the website or anything like that. Is there a more current plan that deals with the fund, sustainability fund?
There is one for this fiscal year. I'll find out where that one lives.
Just so that I want to make sure as I'm working through this, I've got guidelines that I'm working from and thinking from, so that and the simply sustainable document that is out there, is that the most current document?
It is.
It is? Okay.
We'll be working on an update to that this coming year.
Okay.
All right.
Thank you.
Go ahead.
I believe the Red Bull Festival is tomorrow.
I believe it is moved indoors and it is tomorrow.
Awesome. Thank you for that.
Okay. We will adjourn at 1.49. Thank you so much.