[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[0:06] Good morning. The time is at a clock. Welcome to the May 23rd meeting of the sense in a river
[0:13] authority. If you would please stand with me for the pledge and the invocation.
[0:46] And please remain standing in the invocation.
[0:50] Let's put together.
[0:51] Lord, I love you, and I thank you for the opportunity you give us to assemble together.
[0:54] We thank you for your creation.
[0:56] We thank you for the provision in our lives that you allow us to just have a small glimpse
[1:01] of your beauty.
[1:03] Father, we thank you for what you've done for us on the cross.
[1:05] We thank you for the team you've assembled here, and Father, I just ask you to give them wisdom,
[1:09] give them your wisdom, so they can make decisions that glorify you and help your people.
[1:13] Father, we love you. We'll give you the praise and all the glory. It's in Jesus' name. We pray. Amen.
[1:26] Amen. How many combinations?
[1:33] Okay. The next item on the agenda is public comments. Before we get started, let me say just a few words. First of all, we appreciate each of you who have taken time out of your day to attend this meeting.
[1:48] For those of you who may be first time visitors or speakers, when your name is called, please come to the front.
[1:55] up here. I have a seat at the desk. Speakers are allocated three minutes. The light at your desk will be green
[2:03] yellow and then red when your time is up. In the past, when we have had speakers, I have occasionally
[2:11] allowed them to exceed the three minute timeframe, but we have several speakers today, so I would
[2:17] appreciate it if you could stay within that three-minute allocation,
[2:24] if you go over, I'll
[2:25] probably just gently remind you that you've exceeded your three-minute time limit.
[2:29] So, with that first speaker on the agenda, is Mr. Rigby Owen, Mr. Owen?
[2:45] I'll turn it on.
[2:51] The reason I'm here today, before I start, I'm not here to talk about the flood, because I couldn't
[2:58] to the lower level of Lake, my house did flood, so I had to buy, I'm going to tear that million
[3:03] dollar home down, and we brought a new home in the Baltimore State, so. I'm not mad. I just
[3:11] know what happened. What I'm mad about is when I read the statement of the new GM, our primary
[3:22] goal is to protect the dam.
[3:26] Once again, anyway, that's by Fox News, what about the flooding? Once
[3:30] Again, our role is the main team, the integrity of the dam, and as we have rainfall and stormy
[3:37] vents, Mother Nature does that.
[3:41] I really couldn't believe I was reading that.
[3:44] So what I have done, if you haven't looked at it, you all have a master plan for this river
[3:51] authority.
[3:53] You ought to look it up if you haven't read it.
[3:55] The River Authority Master Plan was for the full scale development of the San Jaceno River,
[4:00] just from 1957.
[4:04] On page 16, the name of the San Jaceno River Authority was adopted in 1951 by an act of
[4:10] the Texas legislature, replacing the old name, San Jaceno conservation and reclamation
[4:15] district, but otherwise leaving its objectives and purpose unchanged.
[4:23] Although the development of the River as a source of water supply is a primary concern,
[4:27] The conservation and reclamation of salt and lances, as well as the control of runoff waters, are equally important.
[4:36] The board feels that by initiating practice to control runoff waters, great and lasting good can be achieved.
[4:44] The idea for the creation of the authority was originated by Mr. O.F.
[4:47] who I knew very well, who had first become acquainted with the reclamation work in the far west in the early days of the century.
[4:54] moved to Conno in 1910 and after observing the prolificate, waste of soil and water in the
[4:59] St. Senator Valley became convinced that some type of river authority was essential.
[5:05] The legislation created in the authority was done in January 1937 by a representative
[5:10] Robert A. Powell, I knew his son very well went to school with him. The primary purpose
[5:16] of the bill. Number one, protect the soil from erosion. Number two, to
[5:23] provide flood control to aid and encourage reforcentization, to build a series of small
[5:30] dams along the river at the same center river, tributaries, and impact on water which could
[5:35] be so to mean it's about the industries and agriculture, and to stock the streams and impact
[5:40] of water with fish in a depth of a forest area with the gain from preservation of wildlife.
[5:47] New board members were elected in 1943 of one, I'm in which was my wife's uncle,
[5:52] In fact, she had another uncle settled on this board.
[5:56] The city of Houston, the city of Houston proposed constriction of a damn near Houston
[6:02] and his cause, the authority at all, to some of the original planes.
[6:05] That's when the first dam was to be the late Creek, and went over and moved it over
[6:09] here.
[6:09] The same sand to sand and rear with authority was adopted in 2001.
[6:13] The authority was created as a conservation reformation district, which primarily
[6:18] He did with flood control and protection and navigation, water supply for domestic use, soil
[6:24] conservation, restoration and recreation.
[6:28] Can is a walker, Montgomery, and San Jose in that part of Liberty County within the
[6:33] San Jose and water shed.
[6:34] These are areas within the limits of the authority.
[6:37] The authority has piled to issue negotiable bonds, secure its content and the water
[6:41] we know that.
[6:43] The act, which includes the equation of the lands required for water supply and for control
[6:48] recurrent devastating floods in the Valley of the San Luis General River. The authority
[6:53] recognizes that the peace, meat, and hasty development of the San Luis General River is a
[6:59] source of water supply would bring only temporary benefit to a few. That's how it is planned.
[7:06] This is my general reminder on the time. I appreciate that. If you give me a general
[7:10] just a minute, I'll be through.
[7:15] The authorities plan, therefore, is one that will lead to a
[7:18] and complete development of the watershed for all conservation purposes and for fair treatment
[7:23] of the rights of all residing within the area.
[7:26] Any other program would only lead to inequities between various...
[7:30] Sections and groups in hinder or prevent maximum utilization of the region's natural resources, which must provide maximum benefit for the entire populace.
[7:42] For the flood control, for the prevention of devastation of lands from recurring overflow in the production of life and property in the San Jose and the watershed, for months control flood waters, to encourage and protect navigation.
[7:55] As the authorities plan to extend it, we necessary to build dams, reservoirs, and channel improvements.
[8:00] These installations will greatly aid the water movement.
[8:03] The proposed improvements will also provide storage facilities and enable the authority to make full use of the St.
[8:09] Center River, the source of water supply.
[8:12] The water share of the St. Center Center, this is the last pay.
[8:15] The water share of the St. Center Center and the lower value of the river have been ravaged by recurrent floods for many years.
[8:21] These floods have not caused a deplorable loss of life and property, but have also carried off untold
[8:30] millions of tons of prime topsoils which have depleted the fertility land and the valley.
[8:34] In addition, the floods sweep down year after year out of the watershed area have been
[8:39] undated public highway structures, lands blowing the state of Texas, traffic and commerce have been
[8:45] disputed.
[8:46] Navigation on the lower part of the Santa Santa has also suffered from these recurring floods
[8:50] During the spring and flood of 1929, the River Dumplars
[8:54] deposits slipped, sailed into the Houston Ship Channel,
[8:58] which prevented vessels from entering
[9:00] or leaving the port of Houston for five days.
[9:03] In 1935, sealed deposits in the channel resulted
[9:06] in another flood along the Chanda Center
[9:08] disruptive shipping for three days.
[9:11] The authority has one of its objectives,
[9:13] the protection of navigation on the other part of the river,
[9:15] as well as the program of flood control,
[9:18] which will offer relief and habitance within the river and its tributaries.
[9:25] To sit and act like the only thing you have to do is protect the dam, is a dam lie.
[9:33] You have to protect the people.
[9:34] If you have any concern for people that are less fortunate than you,
[9:41] I was raised to believe that.
[9:44] I was also raised by Dad one time when I was about 20, I was in Newspaper Bill and I
[9:50] bitched about something.
[9:51] He said, you know what, if you've got a problem with something, you better have a better
[9:55] idea than what you're doing.
[9:58] Otherwise don't bitch about it and he was totally correct.
[10:01] My mom always felt me, you've got to feel for the last fortunate.
[10:06] It's not that they're poor.
[10:08] They may not be poor but they may just be less fortunate about things that happen.
[10:13] And this is what I think we've all forgotten, you forgot what we're here for.
[10:19] And you can do these dams, I've printed a copy of the dams for you, sir, in case you
[10:24] haven't seen what you're supposed to be doing, here they are, hand them out.
[10:29] You need to look at what you're supposed to be doing.
[10:31] It's all in this map that was drawn up for this valley.
[10:36] And we wouldn't be having the flooding we have on the east for the river or down there
[10:42] example, our king would, our wherever a heck you might be or living, if we did what we need
[10:47] to do.
[10:48] And it won't be done overnight, it should have been done 20 years ago or 30 years ago.
[10:52] When the built this relate, we had about 40,000 people in Montgomery County.
[10:58] We now have nearly over 700,000, and everybody's building and water's moving, and we
[11:04] have done nothing, but we need to get the federal government in the state and get these dead
[11:10] damn's built and war and saw this flooding problem. And you people have to stand up, have a
[11:17] backbone and speak up and don't be man-be-pambi and do nothing. You have to be forescaled. You have to
[11:26] be brave. You have to talk to the governor who puts you in here and these senators that put you in
[11:32] here and get them to get off their ducks. We got billions in the state. Maybe we're not
[11:40] not going to be warned so much about spending $12 billion down here at that goofy border.
[11:45] And spend so many up here saw in this flooding problem as caused in billions of dollars
[11:50] in damage. In this place in all these lives, I happen to be fortunate enough, I can destroy
[11:57] this million dollar home I live in and ride it off and then sell my waterfront lots. Hopefully
[12:03] to recoup some of it. I bought a new home. Most people can't do what I've done. And I feel
[12:10] sorry for them and I feel like also in this plan you're supposed to provide recreation on the
[12:17] waters that you encompass. And that's why my good friend Henry Brooks who served in your
[12:22] So on this board, got them to buy this land next door with this park was for a park.
[12:30] See, your mayor kind of recreation home.
[12:35] That's really good.
[12:37] I'm leaving.
[12:39] But I think you need to reopen the park.
[12:41] Replenish some of your regroup.
[12:44] Recoup.
[12:45] Some of your lost personality with the public.
[12:50] I think that would be a big long effort. Thank you so much. But have some compassion. That's what I'm saying.
[12:56] And if you have compassion, you get busy and buck up and look at these, look at the dad gun map I gave you.
[13:05] And see where these dams ought to be. And if you haven't ever looked at it, it's on your website.
[13:09] It's easy to pick up and it's easy to read. Don't come tell me the whole issue we have is preserve the integrity of the dam.
[13:19] Thanks, Mr. Speaker.
[13:23] Chris Black.
[13:24] Mr. Black.
[13:32] Good morning.
[13:34] My name is Chris for Block, and I'm a 76-year-old retired engineer who is
[13:39] lived in Kingwood since 1975.
[13:42] Since my retirement, I have spent considerable time analyzing the drainage of the
[13:46] San Jose Center River, Rodditchette.
[13:49] I've concluded there is an alternate approach to seasonal lowering of light
[13:53] The alternate approach proposed is based on management of flood-playing detention of the West
[14:01] Fort.
[14:02] Kingwood residents have been repeatedly impacted by flooding in recent years.
[14:07] Many in the community are overly alarmed each time Lake Conro releases water.
[14:12] There is no doubt high water release rates from Lake Conro add to peak river flows in
[14:19] the Kingwood area.
[14:20] However, most Kingwood residents do not understand the actual impact of these releases.
[14:26] Only a small percentage of the water released from Lake Conro will add to peak water
[14:32] elevations at Kingwood and Lake Houston.
[14:35] Most of the water Lake Conro releases is detained in floodplains of the West Fort between
[14:40] Lake Conro and Lake Houston.
[14:42] In the last storm, Lake Conro released water at a maximum rate of 71,835 cubic feet per second.
[14:52] However, the USGS gauge site at Highway 105 only assured distance from the dam.
[15:00] Recorded a maximum effective discharge rate of 67,300 cubic feet per second. The difference is due to
[15:10] water detained in the floodplain between the dam and the U.S. G.S. gauge site at Highway 105. A similar
[15:20] effect is experienced as released water fills additional floodplains along the river's path to Lake
[15:28] Consideration of an effective discharge rate is a key concept in a more dynamic approach to maintaining
[15:35] lake-conward water levels and provided needed flood mitigation to downstream residents.
[15:41] The alternate approach proposed is to maximize releases early in a storm event to utilize
[15:46] the detention capacity of the Westfork flood lanes.
[15:51] This approach will conserve lake-conward detention capacity to limit discharge near the end
[15:57] of a storm when downstream flooding typically occurs.
[16:01] The watershed of the west fork and its tributaries covers a vast area.
[16:06] Flood planes of this watershed can be obtained significant volumes of flood waters before
[16:12] any structural flooding occurs.
[16:14] Managing releases using a protocol based on effective release rates to manage downstream flood
[16:20] plane levels can be implemented.
[16:22] This protocol would not require a seasonal lowering of Lake Conroy.
[16:27] I believe it would also be possible following a storm to retain more water in Lake Conroy.
[16:32] This will benefit the city of Houston and all other users who depend on the valuable water resource that Lake Conroy represents.
[16:42] Thank you.
[16:45] May I say something?
[16:47] Mr. Block, I have your alternate approach. I will share with the other board members.
[16:51] Okay, the entire eight four sheets or whatever.
[16:56] Okay, okay.
[17:05] Thanks, Speaker.
[17:06] Mr. Bill Baron.
[17:09] So I get your name correctly.
[17:10] Yes, he did.
[17:11] Thank you, sir.
[17:16] Good morning.
[17:18] My comments are really a question to you folks.
[17:24] If the Longstar Groundwater Conservation District was to
[17:30] to revert back to the original 64,000 acre foot per year, aquifer restrictions.
[17:40] Would you be willing and able and secondly, hauling would take to ramp up and accommodate
[17:50] the surface of the water deliveries that you would need to meet the demand?
[17:56] We're
[18:02] not able to respond to comments during this particular part of the session.
[18:09] We take lots of notes when our individual speak and so we will try to address those issues for you.
[18:17] Okay, I think it's important to have it as public notice that these are answered and could be done publicly.
[18:33] Thank you.
[18:34] Thank you very much.
[18:42] Kevin License.
[18:46] Morning, Kevin.
[18:47] Good morning.
[18:48] Luis is a little frog in allergies, so apologies for that.
[18:53] Kevin Lacy, president of the LCA, here today for two reasons.
[18:58] The most important one is to say thank you to the SJRA employees.
[19:02] People on both sides of the dam, it was your efforts, the work night, and weekends 24
[19:09] seven to follow what we know is a well-established damn protection protocols as it
[19:16] regards to lake levels and releases. It's a difficult job, but we thank you and we
[19:21] thank you to the great job in January and a great job under very dire circumstances in
[19:25] this last one. I also am here to listen to the post-mortem to see what we can learn
[19:30] what we can do better in regards to that and I have one suggestion. But I want to say it's
[19:34] disappointing, not surprising that people, on both sides of the dam, are critical of your efforts.
[19:42] People, mostly, are not aware of the constraints and the facts about living on Lake
[19:47] Conro, or downstream of the Lake Conro, and had damages from the floodwater.
[19:51] They look for someone to blame.
[19:54] These two major ran events of 2024 are not unprecedented, but as with all of these rare events,
[20:01] there were some unique factors.
[20:02] The rapid rise of the lake to level beyond 203 MSL give people little time to secure their property which starts having damages at about 203 certainly at 204 and above and certainly at 205.
[20:16] We have some significant flooding in some low-level properties in spite of the 207 flood control limit.
[20:24] We would ask if there's any way communication could be improved, that would be the best
[20:28] action to take.
[20:29] Any time levels are expected to exceed 203, but especially 204 higher, any notices to this
[20:36] effect would be very helpful even with a range of uncertainty.
[20:41] We strongly recommend that we proceed with the active storm management agreement and place
[20:45] priority on the permissions needed from the TCQ.
[20:48] We've been waiting on that for some time.
[20:50] And the original reasons for Lake Low-Rain to avoid complicated the needed dreadoring of the West
[20:55] work were well supported, temporary.
[20:56] The extension in 2020 was not based on any technical merit, but based upon a political promise
[21:03] to have Lake Houston Dam's Billway Project operational bike today.
[21:07] That has not happened.
[21:09] We are now seven years post-harvey with minimal progress on the spillway project.
[21:13] The spotlight should be turned on these delays and failures not only in the Congress,
[21:17] I do agree with the previous speaker, there are some downstream projects that can mitigate
[21:21] the releases in the flow and that should be looked at at Harris County and Montgomery County.
[21:27] I know your job is to protect the dam and a dam failure would be horrendous. In addition,
[21:33] you're holding back with your dam 40 to 60 percent of the inflow. Those are the facts that people need
[21:38] to understand and how difficult the job is. Thank you.
[21:44] Thank you, Mr. Slissier. Your comments are
[21:46] Thank you so much, appreciate it.
[21:50] Thank you, Kruger.
[21:53] Did we save the best for last?
[21:59] No, thanks so, Mr.
[22:03] But, good morning and thank you for affording me a few minutes of your time.
[22:09] Again, I note that our beautiful man-made God-filled lake is full to the very brim.
[22:16] Even after another month, where you sold all the water that your customers needed
[22:21] or wanted to buy.
[22:22] And it's still full.
[22:24] Our lake and our state of Texas
[22:27] Overflows with blessings.
[22:33] Thank you for your public service here today. With the reigns of last month, I'd like to publicly thank
[22:41] Brett and the late Conroad Division for their watchfulness and timely operations. Obviously serving
[22:49] 24-7 to protect the public and public resources. I think they've done that as well as we could ask. And if that wasn't active storm management,
[22:59] I really like to see how active storm management's defined where they didn't do a good job because they did.
[23:08] And all by the way, your permit doesn't allow you to impound anything higher than 201.
[23:16] That's in the permit.
[23:20] Heather and the communications team did a great job in terms of getting out timely notices of the critical operations that Brett and the Lake Conroad Division executed.
[23:29] Thank you, and I commend Mr. Spear relatively new for his well-conducted interview with that Fox 26 television reporter from Houston.
[23:40] So with communications being so important and with Governor Abbott's revisit here to this region,
[23:48] just three Mondays ago in the Convo, I'm reminded that the Governor's very concise,
[23:56] three directives per his March 2018 press release have really not been accorded any concise
[24:06] public response by the authority. Six years of fast for each of those three
[24:15] directives. One sentence each, what has the authority accomplished to date?
[24:28] What
[24:29] short progress, you could give the governor what he asked for, and what Lloyd
[24:34] Tissdale intended.
[24:37] The public continues to have patience as Mr. Tissdale asked the public to
[24:42] have.
[24:45] You've done much with selected stakeholders and closed meetings, but that's not
[24:48] enough.
[24:49] A concise public response is still needed for all of the served public.
[24:54] Certainly for your rate payers, it's overdue as a corporate board action, and
[25:00] Your new GM is the guy that can benefit the most from this, as a corporate board action,
[25:06] not individual board members.
[25:10] Quickly regarding item 6A, I'll leave one sentence on this.
[25:17] You're fine.
[25:18] I'd suggest that the authority staff has a host of project management questions you consider
[25:24] before the board should approve the spending and further engineering services.
[25:28] These freezing nickels, great firm, they'll be there to do the work when you're ready for
[25:33] me to do the work.
[25:34] You're not ready for me to do the work, specifically what needs to be looked at is having
[25:39] a sustainable plan for O&M of these structures before they're built.
[25:47] If it's there, it's not anywhere that I see on your website or in the read it.
[25:53] I thank all of you board members for willingly taking on the responsibility of public service.
[26:00] It's certainly not easy.
[26:01] You certainly have many perspectives coming here.
[26:05] And if I can ever be able to help and answer any questions as well as raising questions, then give me a call.
[26:12] I'd be happy to do it.
[26:13] Thank you.
[26:15] Thank you, Dan.
[26:16] We appreciate all the comments and the speakers.
[26:19] At this time, we have division updates.
[26:22] Yes.
[26:22] I
[26:27] do have a few comments.
[26:29] I'd like to make, I want to just limit and focus my comments and updates on what I call
[26:37] the May Day storm event, a more detailed presentation regarding this storm event, we'll be
[26:45] provided by our staff following my remarks, so that you get a better idea of what transpired.
[26:52] First and foremost, I express my deepest sympathies for those impacted by this rainy band, that
[27:01] dropped as much as 18 inches of rain in some of our upper parts of this light-conroad watershed.
[27:09] And throughout the San Juicino River Basin, causing major flooding in areas upstream of
[27:15] and like used, I pray for these people who've been impacted and as they seek to recover and rebuild their lives.
[27:26] We do take our responsibility seriously and rainwater from nine watersheds flow into Lake Houston.
[27:39] However, only one of these water sheds has a water supply reservoir, like conrum, that passes
[27:46] rainwater downstream, at a reduced peak flow rate.
[27:53] The rest of the water sheds, the water comes as Mother Nature sends it and is it flows
[27:58] down the river.
[28:02] During this Mayday rain event, weather forecasts change frequently.
[28:07] Even the day before the largest rain hit, a rainfall hit, the national weather service
[28:14] predictions included a high degree of uncertainty of where the most rain would fall and
[28:20] how much would fall, making it very difficult to be prepared for that.
[28:28] But we were, even each rain event, as you all know,
[28:34] has a unique rainfall pattern.
[28:37] This event included several waves of rain.
[28:42] Over several days, one of the most significant
[28:46] amount of intense rainfall falling in the lake,
[28:51] conral watershed upstream, in a very short period of time.
[28:56] Since I'll call it this rain bomb, fell upstream of Lake Conro Dam over half of the peak
[29:07] inflow of 150,000 cubic feet per second, was mitigated as rainwater pass through our gates
[29:18] downstream.
[29:22] I couldn't imagine what flooding would look like if we had not did not have this reservoir
[29:28] to mitigate some of that peak inflow.
[29:35] Our late-conro dam gate operations policy includes optimizing and balancing the lake levels
[29:43] and downstream releases, while protecting the integrity of the gates and the dam.
[29:50] I commend our staff, particularly late-conro and flood management divisions, as well as our
[29:57] all takers and others.
[30:00] For their tireless and conscientious effort, night and day during this event, to optimize the gate operations during storm event and to respond to public inquiries, which were quite a few.
[30:16] And speaking of that, timely and frequent communication is paramount in this type of natural
[30:25] disaster.
[30:27] Communication with the public, communication with emergency managers, communication with
[30:33] public officials at the local state and federal levels, communication with weather authorities.
[30:40] All of that, which we did.
[30:42] And I commend our communications staff for their effort.
[30:47] The public can see our lake levels and alphas almost instantaneously online.
[30:53] And we know that they were watching because we got calls every time there was movement either way.
[31:01] And we also have a widely circulated email that updates various interested parties on our
[31:09] If anyone desires to receive these emails, please go to SJRI.net and sign up on our home page
[31:19] and you will receive those emails during this type of event.
[31:26] On the Monday following the flooding event, Governor Abbott visited Montgomery County
[31:30] for a private briefing by local officials, including myself, along with the press conference
[31:37] for the public. I express my appreciation for the Governor's support and his feedback
[31:43] that he gave. I also appreciate several of our elected officials who were there present
[31:50] and expressed their satisfaction with how the SJRA team communicated with the public
[31:57] and operated the dam during this event.
[32:02] I also want to commend this board, all of these
[32:07] board members for their actions and feedback during and after the storm event.
[32:13] All of them, without exception, were engaged in providing feedback from their constituents
[32:20] around the lake, in the woodlands, on down to the Kingwood area, they were providing
[32:27] us invaluable feedback in helping us understand concerns from citizens from both upstream
[32:34] and downstream.
[32:36] And that's greatly appreciated and desired.
[32:42] Now we're busy with after-action reviews.
[32:47] And believe me, we've already had quite a few of those.
[32:50] To find ways to improve our mitigation efforts
[32:52] during flood future flood events,
[32:56] we've met with Harris County Flood Control District
[32:58] and have additional meetings set up with them.
[33:01] Montgomery County Judge Mark Kio and his staff.
[33:04] Harris County Commissioner Tom Ramsey and also Kevin Lacy with the Light Conroy Association.
[33:16] We will meet this afternoon with Houston's Mayor Whitmire and his staff.
[33:23] All of these meetings are including discussions on how to improve our flood mitigation efforts
[33:31] in this region. On all nine watersheds that contribute to the Lake Houston area. And so with
[33:43] this, we understand what our commission is to lead in flood mitigation efforts in the
[33:54] San Jose Center River Basin. We also know that we have some constraints. We have projects
[34:00] that are ongoing right now to help, but the funding sources is where we have to rely
[34:09] upon partnerships and connecting different funding sources together so that we can have
[34:15] the funds necessary to build some of these mitigation structures that would be very helpful
[34:23] in future floods.
[34:25] With that, I just want, that's all the comments that I have regarding this event and I appreciate everyone's public comments today as well.
[34:37] All of them will be taken to heart and integrated into our path forward. Thank you.
[34:45] We have a few other division updates before we make the presentation.
[34:51] Ed, did you have something you wanted to speak about regarding the mud elections that occurred just last week?
[35:00] A couple of things, yes, sir.
[35:01] Thank you.
[35:05] On the, I guess it was May 4th election.
[35:08] The woodlands muds, there are 10 muds that we serve through the woodlands water agency.
[35:14] They had a number of my director positions up a reelection out of 22 positions, 17 new directors were seated.
[35:25] And so we are, which is a big turnover.
[35:29] And then two years ago we had a sizable turnover also of the director.
[35:34] So we have a lot of educating to do.
[35:37] What our role is with the Will of Water Agency in the various months.
[35:41] and we have a date set for June 7th to do some of that orientation with those
[35:46] months and then Woodland Water Agency will also do a separate orientation
[35:52] kind of let them know what their role is as a mud director but we do have a lot
[35:57] of work ahead of us to bring them up to date on our projects and some of the
[36:02] activities that we are planning over the next 10 years.
[36:05] I do have one other thing to add, Chris, you might not stand in it.
[36:14] He's standing up on behalf of his wastewater team, but we received, he received the letter
[36:20] from the National Association of Clean Water Agency informing SRA that two of our treatment
[36:28] plans have reached Platinum's peak performance status, and that is for compliance of all the
[36:34] requirements for over five years and it's wastewater treatment plant two and treatment
[36:41] plant number three. And there's a number behind it. One has platinum six. The other one
[36:47] has platinum 17. Is that the number of years we're in compliance? So if you think about
[36:52] 17 years of compliance and so it's great to receive this acknowledgement and we're putting
[37:00] together a multimedia presentation to be presented at the National Conference and what
[37:05] gradually crescent his team if they were.
[37:14] That's it for me.
[37:16] Okay, so I believe the other update that we have is as I mentioned a few minutes ago,
[37:23] we will hear from Brett Rayley, Lake Conroy Division, and he will give President
[37:30] Presentation on the most recent weather event.
[37:36] Good morning, everyone.
[37:39] As Aubrey said, I've been asked to give some additional and more specific information related to the event that happened in late April, early May.
[37:49] Much of what I'm going to talk about, you've heard today from our speakers in Aubrey as well, but hopefully I'll have some more detailed information for you.
[38:16] Thank you.
[38:23] A couple of things that, you know, you've heard this before for me and if anyone's attended the board meetings,
[38:30] it is our number one priority particularly that of myself and my team to preserve and protect the structural integrity of the dam.
[38:38] As has been mentioned today, if we did not do that, then the ramifications would be unimaginable.
[38:45] So we talk about protecting public safety by protecting the dam. I can tell you we are protecting public safety.
[38:51] how do we do that? Well, we do it through a vigorous inspection and maintenance program.
[38:57] I'd be so we do host event assessments, which we are in the midst of right now.
[39:02] And of course, executing safe spillway operations.
[39:07] As Aubrey indicated, this is the upper part of the Sanctuary River Basin.
[39:12] And we call it the upper part as all those nine different watersheds all drained of Lake Houston.
[39:18] And also, as Aubrey said, ours is at the very, very top of what I sometimes refer to as a funnel.
[39:27] With the bottom of the funnel being, like Houston, the top funnel being the Lake Honour Watershed.
[39:32] It's only 450 square miles, but it's the only structure on the entire system that has controlled gated structure.
[39:43] The nine watersheds that flow in a couple of seven different counties, and so the point that was made earlier can't be stressed enough that in any given event, as it was said, all rain events are different, but in any given event, the rain may fall upwards in the water shed, lower water shed, you may remember a melda, the water fell south of the day, and every storm is different.
[40:09] Some background on the dam and its permitting.
[40:13] So the dam was constructed pursuant to a permit from the state of Texas.
[40:18] It does authorize us to store up to an elevation of 201 above meansy level permanently.
[40:26] We do have the authorization to store above 201 temporarily during storm flows.
[40:32] The permit also allows us our requires, as I should say, to pass in flows once the
[40:39] lake level gets above 201 above mean sea level.
[40:43] Another important thing that I hope everyone will take is that there are permit restrictions
[40:49] that go along, many permit restrictions, one of which is that any water that is released
[40:54] below 201, so not for passing in flows, must be used at a permitted
[41:01] water rights. So there must be first a permitty with available water. And then that permitty
[41:09] can ask to use the water. In this case, SGRAs permitted water is all accounted for with
[41:15] customers. The city of Houston may have from time to time water that's available and is so
[41:21] they can call on it.
[41:25] Today I'm really going to focus other than this preliminary things that
[41:28] I mentioned on three key points. The first one being that water that rises above two or two
[41:33] But what that rises above, tool-wing means sea level,
[41:37] cannot be held back.
[41:39] And I'm going to go down and show some slides
[41:41] and I'm going to go into why that is the case.
[41:44] Also, as I've mentioned earlier, just the operations
[41:48] of our Tenergate system and our operating protocol has the effect
[41:52] of mitigating peak downstream flows.
[41:57] And we cannot pre-release water since we don't have any water
[42:03] available unless the city of Houston asks for some of their water, and as a matter of
[42:08] course, SGARA does not pre-release for a number of reasons that have been well-documented
[42:14] and can be found on our website.
[42:20] So getting to keep point number one not being able to hold water.
[42:23] As has been stated, Lake Conro is a water supply reservoir, and the diagram, the two diagrams
[42:28] at the right help distinguish the difference between water supply reservoir and flood control
[42:33] reservoir.
[42:33] In a water supply reservoir, the intent is to keep the reservoir as full as possible to maintain your supply.
[42:42] In a flood control reservoir, you want to maintain capacity, you want to maintain space that can accept inflow.
[42:49] So that you can absorb that water before having the pass.
[42:53] We have at our dam, with our tenor gates, we have very limited freeboard, which is the space between, as you see at the top,
[43:00] the space between the water surface,
[43:02] the normal water surface salvation and the top of our gates.
[43:06] And very importantly, our gates are not designed to be over top.
[43:10] So what do I mean by that?
[43:12] So on the picture on the left, you're looking at the upstream side
[43:16] of the dam, you're looking at an individual gate of the five that we have.
[43:21] And the water, of course, is in the foreground, you see the gate in the background.
[43:25] That's representative of the 18 inches of gate that we have on all five gates
[43:29] that we must work with during the storm when the lake begins to rise.
[43:35] We cannot let water go over that for safety reasons.
[43:40] And so we must act incrementally, but consistently, to make sure we maintain safe freeboard
[43:45] and don't over top the gates.
[43:47] The gates also the structure is steel, you see on the right.
[43:51] They're not designed for the forces that would be placed upon them,
[43:55] with sheet flow coming over the top.
[43:57] and particularly not if you tried to move that gate with sheet flow coming over the top.
[44:01] They're just not designed for that.
[44:05] Key point number two, our operations do mitigate the peak flow
[44:09] that would otherwise go down through the river, where they're no damn.
[44:14] Even though we're a water supplier, reservoir, we're able to do this.
[44:19] We're one of the ways that we have that we can do that is that we purchase six feet of
[44:25] flowage easement when we constructed the lake.
[44:29] And so by operating our gates, we're basically
[44:33] and simplified, we're letting out less water
[44:35] than it's coming in as a result the lake is going to rise
[44:38] and we've got six feet of buffer that we can use to do that.
[44:43] And as I'll be also mentioned, our operating protocol
[44:45] is intended to help balance the lake level rise upstream
[44:51] and the outflows downstream.
[44:55] This is the map from here's gun flow control district.
[45:00] Those one month of accumulated rainfall starting April 22nd through May 22nd. And if you'll look in the very top of the watershed, I don't know if my pointer will work, but if you'll look up in the very top of the watershed, you can see we had in some places an excess of 25 inches of rain in a month. And so we all know it's been a wet period, but it's been almost an unprecedented wet period.
[45:25] The next few slides are to describe something not just the amount of rainfall, but what was, you know, I often say every storm is different.
[45:34] What was unique about this storm is the intensity with which some of the rain came.
[45:39] So this particular slide is talking about the basin average.
[45:42] We're talking about that 450 square mile basin that I showed at the top of the same single basin.
[45:49] On a daily basis on Thursday, the second we received almost seven inches in one single day.
[45:55] And so that level that intensity of rainfall is very high magnitude, and over the course of five days, on the base and average, we received an excess of 11 inches.
[46:09] Talking more specifically about the intensity, the next three slides are going to all be at the one gauge location, which if I go back,
[46:19] that gauge location is right there.
[46:23] It's right at the county line between Walker and here's I between Montgomery and Walker counties on the lake at FN 1375
[46:32] At that particular location, we had a you had one hour in which we received almost three inches of rain
[46:39] That is a lot of rain just to give you perspective
[46:42] We as operators have a large set so at our different rain gauges. We know
[46:48] Basically when there's very intense rainfall and those are set for one inch per hour
[46:52] And so three times that is just an incredible rate of rain.
[46:59] On a 15-minute basis, as I said, our alarms are for one inch and an hour.
[47:05] We'll in two different occasions, we received more than an inch and 15 minutes at that location that I pointed out.
[47:12] So we're just talking about nearly unimaginable rainfall rates.
[47:17] This slide is just to give an overall depiction of the event.
[47:21] Some of the things I want to point out is that we came into the event
[47:25] coming off of another event.
[47:27] So we had already previously been to 12,500 CFS.
[47:32] We had already been to water surface elevation of 20.9.
[47:37] And we, before we made our first, before the lake began to rise again,
[47:40] we were already flowing 7540 cubic feet per second.
[47:45] We consider the beginning of an event when it's on the descent from a previous event when the
[47:52] lake first starts to take back up, starts to ascend.
[47:55] And so that happened about 30 minutes, just after midnight, and about 330, we made our first
[48:02] gate change, and we went from 75, 40,000 to 8,000.
[48:06] You can see our peak, as has been mentioned, was up nearly 72,000 CFS, something to something
[48:14] to note is how steep that rises. That took place within 10 hours, roughly. So in a 10-hour
[48:21] period, we went from as far as release rates from 8,000 to 72,000. That is fast, very fast.
[48:29] We reached a maximum water surface elevation of 205.14, and then you can see we incrementally
[48:35] reduced on the descending limb until we finally got back to the pool level.
[48:43] Something to note is that I've only highlighted a few points of reduction, but there are
[48:49] many points, there are many more gate operations that took place within that period, but
[48:54] it would clutter up the sheets so I could also show a few.
[49:01] This has also, you know, a point that's been mentioned, but there's a couple of key things.
[49:05] One thing for it slips my mind, which is easy to do, because the rate of the peak rate of inflow
[49:13] in this event exceeded that of Harvey.
[49:17] So think of that.
[49:18] The peak rate of inflow in this event exceeded that of Hurricane Harvey.
[49:22] And the peak outflow from this event was less than Harvey.
[49:28] So I just hope everyone will take a minute to think about that in addition to the fact
[49:32] that we reduced the inflow.
[49:35] What we let out, our outflow was approximately 58%.
[49:41] I mean, 50% of the peak inflow.
[49:43] So our peak outflow is 50% of the peak inflow.
[49:46] That's significant.
[49:49] In this particular event, you can see that some of the contributions
[49:52] from some of the other watersheds.
[49:54] These are peak flows measured at certain locations
[49:58] and that over here is the date and the time
[50:01] which those peaks occurred.
[50:03] And in this particular event, there was a larger percentage coming
[50:07] down the West Fort from the Lake Honoural Watershed
[50:10] than in many other events.
[50:12] Just goes back to the nature of all storms
[50:14] and different.
[50:17] Point number three, we do not pre-release.
[50:20] Something that have to make clear, I hope everybody understands
[50:25] that, again, going back to permit restrictions.
[50:27] Our permit says that if you're below elevation 201,
[50:32] You're limited, a maximum diversion rate of 700CFS.
[50:39] At that rate, it takes a week to lower the lakes, six inches.
[50:45] And a week prior to this event, we would be in the forecast was for anywhere from one to two inches of rainfall for our area.
[50:55] There's a star on the map on the right that's right over top of Montgomery County.
[50:59] And you can see it was a little bit more up into the northern watershed, up into Walker County.
[51:05] But nothing like we experienced.
[51:08] Another point is that small, so it takes a long time to make any effect.
[51:15] And any small, excuse me, any small additional storage is really not helpful in a large large event.
[51:24] We all know that weather predictions are not always, it's hard to predict out very far.
[51:33] And even during this event, just prior to the event, we were not no one, including our colleagues at the National Weather Service, had any England that we were going to receive the amount of rainfall and the intensity of the rainfall that we received.
[51:50] Well, it's a continuation of that point that we don't pre-release.
[51:56] As I've already said, if water is pre-released at 201 below, those type of versions must
[52:01] be accounted against water supply, permitted water supply.
[52:05] Our water, I say, S.J. Ray's water, is already committed to its customers, so you've used
[52:10] it on occasion may have available water, and if they choose to use it, they're limited
[52:15] to no more than 700 human people second. And they must ask for that, too, that's JRA in writing.
[52:24] That's all I have, and I'll take any questions.
[52:30] Did you see a Houston call for water? Was it to why?
[52:35] In this evening? Yeah.
[52:37] I do not receive those calls, so I will defer to Aubrey.
[52:42] The city used during this event did not call for any water.
[52:47] Well, it was a couple weeks later when we had a rain or about a week later when we had a rain event.
[52:55] They call for the water, but it never really got below the 201.
[53:01] They were wanting us to release some water once we got back to 201.
[53:06] But then it started raining again and it started going above 201.
[53:13] So they never really, we didn't use any of their water.
[53:17] Or they didn't pass any of their water through the lake.
[53:19] But I guess my question is why did they call for the water?
[53:25] Was it to reduce the water in the lake or was it to use it?
[53:32] I think it was both.
[53:35] They're intent from what they've told me is that they would have used that water.
[53:41] They go to Lake Houston and then they have several water supply.
[53:50] and customers and so forth, and it different supplies other than like Houston that they
[53:54] can decide where they're going to take that water from.
[53:58] And so that's what they described to me.
[54:02] Thank you.
[54:05] Thank you.
[54:08] Thank you.
[54:08] Thank you.
[54:08] I do want to commend you publicly for the job that the whole team did.
[54:14] Everyone here, the Paul takers, everybody, it's really a tough
[54:20] place to be. And we have that kind of a day lose. I appreciate your efforts. I appreciate
[54:27] your hard work and your conscientious. Thank you. Thank you and as you said, I can't stay
[54:32] strongly enough. It's absolutely a team effort. I mean, you can't imagine how many people
[54:37] contributed long hours. Very much appreciated. Thank you. And I'll just make a comment too
[54:44] the same thing I go in appreciation to have been.
[54:47] I think as Aubrey said, and as Kevin said, I think that the ability for us to learn
[54:52] from each event is critical as we go forward, and I think jointly there's a lot of agreement
[55:01] that we really need to be pushing on the permanent permanent level so that we can do a better
[55:08] job on active store management, especially when we know we have an active hurricane season coming
[55:13] forward. And one thing in particular that we did learn was, is that, you know, we kind of
[55:19] got a benchmark and we learned the conveyance of the river downstream after the
[55:24] dredging took place. And actually the peak at the west board was a little different.
[55:30] They both know and the hydrographs predicted, and what's happened in the past. But I think
[55:37] I'm trying to control outflows and keeping the maximum release is not impacting the projected
[55:47] crest downstream 24 to 36 hours, and I think that's the key takeaway for us to look
[55:53] at to get better for the next minute as we move forward.
[55:58] Thank you.
[56:04] That's all of our division updates at this time.
[56:15] Okay. The next thing on the agenda is consent agenda. You have consent agenda items item 585C and your board packet. I'll need a motion a second for approval.
[56:28] I'd like to ask it.
[56:39] I'm sorry, did you repeat that?
[56:42] Could we move C to the regular agenda?
[56:46] Item
[56:51] C.
[56:54] Any comments about that?
[56:58] Moving C to the regular agenda.
[57:01] Okay, so we'll change that then to say we have
[57:06] consent of General Adams A through B, A and B, your board packet,
[57:13] be the motion in a second for approval.
[57:16] Make a motion.
[57:18] Second.
[57:18] Motion second for the comments or questions.
[57:22] All in favor.
[57:24] All opposed.
[57:26] There are no motion passes.
[57:30] And that takes us to regular agenda.
[57:32] On the regular agenda, as we just pulled item 5C, we'll take that up first, and that's
[57:39] professional service agreement, work order number one, process water discharge, optimization
[57:45] study, and I believe Connie, you and your group have that.
[57:50] Yes, ma'am, so we're yes sir, and yes ma'am for pulling it off, so this is a project that's
[57:59] at the GRP. Essentially, there's an effluent that comes out of portion of the treatment facility
[58:08] that discharges to the city of Conroe. And so the city of Conroe charges us right. It's
[58:14] actually double if you were inside the city because we were technically the GRP is not within
[58:19] the city limits of Conroe. So we pay twice the sewer rate for that effluent. So what this study
[58:24] is doing is trying to optimize that effluent discharge to where we're reducing it and maybe
[58:29] able to use it elsewhere in the plant itself so either kind of reusing it back up into the water
[58:35] stream or potentially putting a treatment facility off to the side to treat it and then
[58:40] discharge it without discharging the conders. So this study is essentially trying to help us
[58:44] to long-term reduce that typical O&M costs of having to pay into conders. So my point in questioning
[58:54] is to be honest with you is that we do a lot of studies for a lot of different things.
[59:02] And the board is presented with the proofs of study, but then we don't ever see the result of the study.
[59:11] And what the effect was.
[59:13] And so that's sort of where I'm going with the question.
[59:17] I have no job that you need to study.
[59:19] That's fine.
[59:20] And I have no problems approving it.
[59:24] I just simply would like some follow-up in how the study actually was effective.
[59:31] That was it.
[59:32] I'm just going to discuss out of this.
[59:33] Thank you.
[59:35] That's probably a good comment, thank you.
[59:37] Thank you.
[59:38] Thank you.
[59:38] That's appropriate.
[59:39] We need to make a motion to approve this now.
[59:45] Okay.
[59:45] You've heard a discussion on the regular gender item that they need.
[59:51] Okay.
[59:52] Let's still five seats.
[59:54] Still five seats.
[59:55] Change from the contingent items to the record agenda.
[59:59] Need a motion.
[1:00:00] Second, for approval. Second, for the comments or questions.
[1:00:08] Not all in favour? All opposed? All in
[1:00:12] motion carries. Okay, we'll text, it takes six A, which is the only one on the regular agenda. Work
[1:00:22] Order number two, San Jacena River, and Tributary Settlement, Removal, and San
[1:00:28] Trapped Development Project.
[1:00:31] Rihanna has this one.
[1:00:34] Good morning, Board members.
[1:00:35] I'm Esturati, Senior Management Team.
[1:00:37] As our Reset of my name is Brianna.
[1:00:39] And today I'm going to give a presentation on our Settlement
[1:00:43] Removal and San Trapped Project.
[1:00:48] Before I talk about the work order and what that covers, I wanted to briefly touch about the background.
[1:00:55] I've been involved since the first seed was planted with this idea, so I'm going to try to be very brief and not go into a bunch of history, but in 2018 it's really when we started coordinating with the production operations.
[1:01:08] We specifically wanted to coordinate with APOs that are part of the Texas aggregates and concrete association.
[1:01:15] And so, the one APO that really stuck was how it materials, Mark, Ed and Ronnie, if y'all remember we all went and toured that facility after Hurricane Harvey and from those conversations, we really gathered up the idea of creating some legislation that would allow us in less controlled district to remove material, to improve the floodway conveyance and the Westfork and truebetaries with the River Basin.
[1:01:44] And so, May, 2019, we had that legislation passed.
[1:01:48] It is House Bill 1824.
[1:01:50] This essentially allows an exemption.
[1:01:53] So, as section was created,
[1:01:54] and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Code
[1:01:56] that allows us and Fleck Control
[1:01:58] to remove that material.
[1:02:00] And we can put it on private property.
[1:02:03] For us, the plan is to have health materials.
[1:02:07] Take that material.
[1:02:08] You live on material
[1:02:09] as they will be the operator in the maintainer
[1:02:12] of these sand traps once they get constructed.
[1:02:15] And so once that legislation was passed in 2020,
[1:02:19] we had for reason nickels come on board
[1:02:21] and do our conceptual design study for the sand traps.
[1:02:25] And this conceptual design highlighted a number of areas
[1:02:28] where sand traps may be good.
[1:02:30] Ultimately, out of this report,
[1:02:32] they recommended two in-channel traps to go into design.
[1:02:36] And so, a couple years later, 2022,
[1:02:39] the conceptual design report was completed.
[1:02:41] And now, here we are, in 2024, after years of coordination and with APOs with our funding
[1:02:48] partners, we are now hopeful next month we can start preliminary design.
[1:02:55] For the preliminary engineering, for the stand traps, it will cover two end channel traps.
[1:03:00] And so, on the image to the right, you will see the two green-hashed areas.
[1:03:05] These are the two channel traps that are recommended from the conceptual design study.
[1:03:10] And so these are the two that we will evaluate with frozen nickels in this work order two for a preliminary design.
[1:03:17] And the black hatch area, that is a potential out of channel trap.
[1:03:22] This came on board after talking to Hall of Materials.
[1:03:26] It is a retired pit.
[1:03:28] They were very eager and open to us potentially using this as an out of channel trap.
[1:03:33] And so we're having freezing nickels also evaluate that if it would work.
[1:03:39] When we did our conceptual design, we went through a public comment period, and so we received a lot of concern, comments about the environmental, how it might affect the streams, the stability, what it might do, upstream, downstream, if they stand trucks were constructed.
[1:03:55] Those are all things that are going to be looked at during its preliminary engineering.
[1:03:58] Freeza is going to have a very heavy lift on the environmental evaluation piece of this and ultimately what we'll get at this P.E.R. is
[1:04:07] Recommendation to move forward with either an out-of-channel trap potentially two of the internal traps to move forward for a final design
[1:04:16] With that we'll also get an opinion of probable construction costs so we'll know have a good idea of what it's going to cost to construct these
[1:04:24] Oh,
[1:04:29] and then you may know, I mean, we know there was a breach in the hall at nine on this last event.
[1:04:35] You want to talk about that?
[1:04:37] We can talk about that.
[1:04:37] I just didn't know where this was at and relationship to that breach.
[1:04:40] So, this is actually right upstream of that.
[1:04:44] And it is adjacent to Hall of Materials facility.
[1:04:48] They no longer own that parcel, where those breaches happened.
[1:04:53] But 100% blockage is right downstream of where these facilities could be.
[1:04:58] So it, while it's not good now, it may be a benefit to have the sand drops there, because
[1:05:05] they can capture that for a ghost downstream.
[1:05:08] Thank you.
[1:05:11] Eric, you perfectly explain the difference between the internal and the internal damage.
[1:05:16] So for the internal traps at green hatched areas, so essentially once the water rises and
[1:05:23] flow is out, the sediment will settle in the green areas, and the idea is that how material
[1:05:29] will go and pull out the sand. The out-of-channel trap, that was a little bit more complicated.
[1:05:36] That's something we're going to have to look at in the preliminary engineering.
[1:05:39] We've talked about all sorts of things. I don't know if any of them were going to stick,
[1:05:43] but we're going to identify that during preliminary engineering.
[1:05:46] But essentially, you'd almost have kind of a breach on one end,
[1:05:51] so once that water gets high, it goes in, the sand settles out, and the water floats out the other end.
[1:05:57] So, in that case, the water, the sand was settled in that accident.
[1:06:01] Yes.
[1:06:04] And then, one of the benefits to having the out of channel trap is it can store more
[1:06:09] sediment without having to be excavated as much as the internal traps might have to be.
[1:06:17] Brianna, I've had some public inquiries about this project, particularly regarding the long-term
[1:06:24] operations and maintenance. Could you talk about who's responsibility that will be once the project is completed and in what type of
[1:06:33] O&M is required for a project like this?
[1:06:37] So one of the key things we're looking at this is since it is going to be aggregate production operation,
[1:06:43] operating and maintaining these. We want me to identify an APO that was open to the public private partnership,
[1:06:49] opportunity that this presents for them.
[1:06:52] Halematerials has stated that they're going to be there for the next probably eight years.
[1:06:58] So they're very open to this partnership.
[1:07:01] Once that eight years is over, we've talked about getting easements or at least on that property.
[1:07:09] And then we've had conversations with city of Houston.
[1:07:11] They might be open to moving into that position to operate and maintain the same track.
[1:07:16] because ultimately it does benefit them because that's less sediment going down to Lake Houston.
[1:07:22] That will be discussed in the PER as well. The long-term operations and maintenance.
[1:07:29] Most likely in fact.
[1:07:30] The final design, but it's something we will talk about in P.E.R.
[1:07:35] I mean, is it projected that a lot of that sand, especially out of China, will occur during
[1:07:43] more of a major event as opposed to just normal flow?
[1:07:47] Yes, a lot of the suspended load will occur during heavier rain of rain events.
[1:07:54] So, in the operating procedures or in the processes of it, I would assume that it's going
[1:08:02] to be critical that there's time in this and removing that after a bit before the next
[1:08:06] event takes place right or that would be contemplated in this somewhere in the...
[1:08:13] Yes, that'll be talked about.
[1:08:15] Halematerial will be closely engaged as we move through PR and final design just so we're all
[1:08:21] on the same page because the worst thing that could happen is there's not that
[1:08:24] communication and then construction happens and we're not on the same page.
[1:08:28] So they're going to be involved at the front end so we know exactly what direction
[1:08:32] we're heading and we're on the same page as far as operation mates and scows of
[1:08:35] the same process.
[1:08:36] Thank you.
[1:08:37] Exciting to see this in the forward and then to see if it helps affective ideas and
[1:08:43] if there's opportunity to use another place to, you know, because there's a lot of,
[1:08:47] to get ready to spend another $800,000 in my case
[1:08:50] with an undredging, which is starting momentarily.
[1:08:54] And you know, you just wonder if we can minimize
[1:08:56] something that was going down there,
[1:08:58] you know, can they take that money?
[1:09:00] It's almost like preventive, you know, upstream and someplace.
[1:09:03] And I know there's a lot of creeks and tributaries
[1:09:05] that put a lot of sand in the sediment in that lake.
[1:09:09] But thank you.
[1:09:11] Yes, sir.
[1:09:11] Ran of what's the timeline for completion of the study?
[1:09:14] So, if this were quoted as a proof today, we're waiting for the ILA to be completely executed
[1:09:22] with Black and Full and City Houston. So, we would start PR in June, and then that would
[1:09:28] be about six months ago to final design, but probably a year. So, we're looking at this year
[1:09:38] at 2026. So, the cost of this project will be split three ways between her standard
[1:09:44] of the flood control district, City of Houston,
[1:09:47] in the sense in a river authority.
[1:09:49] Yes, sir.
[1:09:50] When the project actually starts,
[1:09:53] with the cost for the project,
[1:09:55] also be split three ways.
[1:09:57] Yes, everything's going to get split.
[1:09:59] City of Houston is actually taken to their council
[1:10:03] under approval to fund us through construction.
[1:10:07] So they're going to be involved financially
[1:10:09] through the whole project.
[1:10:11] And then, so we'll share some of the flood control district.
[1:10:14] Thank you.
[1:10:18] With that, we asked the general manager to negotiate an execute will for two, with
[1:10:24] three, before I said I'm going to move in Sand Truck Project.
[1:10:30] Okay.
[1:10:30] You've heard a review and presentation on what to agenda item six A, on the emotion and the
[1:10:36] second for approval.
[1:10:38] Make a motion.
[1:10:40] Second.
[1:10:40] Motion.
[1:10:40] Any further questions or discussion?
[1:10:45] Not all in favour?
[1:10:47] All opposed?
[1:10:49] All in non-motion carries.
[1:10:50] Thank you, Graham.
[1:10:51] On
[1:10:58] 9th of 7, we have two presentations, first presentation regarding the proposed GRP Fiscal
[1:11:08] Year 2025 budget.
[1:11:10] I believe Pam and her staff will be presenting that.
[1:11:18] Thank you, Aubrey.
[1:11:20] Chris and I will be presenting that the GRP budget has been prepared by the GRP staff on
[1:11:27] crisis guidance. So we have presented this to the Finance Committee on the 17th of May.
[1:11:37] So our calendar has been, you know, we lay out our calendar, technical services starts
[1:11:44] on the tenure project plans back in November. And we step through staffing plans in January.
[1:11:51] And now we're to the point of, we presented this on Monday to the GRP review committee. And
[1:11:57] We will bring it back to the review committee in June for their vote on the budget and rate,
[1:12:02] and we will bring it back to this board next month for the rate.
[1:12:07] The budget will come to this board and August with the other remaining divisions and departments.
[1:12:16] So keep budget drivers.
[1:12:18] So when we were doing the budget this year, we looked at four main drivers for the budget for
[1:12:22] the rate.
[1:12:23] First you're going to see is the usage has increased.
[1:12:26] This is not just surface water, this is not just ground water, this is total demand has increased
[1:12:31] By four million gallons a day or one basically one and a half billion gallons a year
[1:12:38] Second thing we looked at was chemicals
[1:12:40] So across the board we've seen a cost reduction on all chemicals and usage on the surface water side
[1:12:47] When it comes to the gag or the granulated activated carbon
[1:12:51] The operation staff maintenance staff was able to do some operational changes.
[1:12:56] Identify some ways to do things better.
[1:12:58] And that calls savings in FY24 is about $500,000.
[1:13:02] For FY25 would have been 750,000.
[1:13:06] Additionally, when we looked at staffing, we found some ways to combine some positions
[1:13:09] and reduce them at teams.
[1:13:16] One other thing just add, we were talking about demands.
[1:13:20] When we're looking at 22 FY22 and FY23,
[1:13:23] You'll see those were drought years, so the demands are a lot higher, green lines representing
[1:13:28] total demand, and FY25, we did take in consideration the two drought years, but we also
[1:13:35] had to take in consideration growth in Montgomery County.
[1:13:39] And so far right side where it says FY2025 proposed, that is what we're looking for, which
[1:13:46] does include about that 1.5 billion gallon year increase.
[1:13:50] I
[1:13:54] have a question in regards to the staff reduction.
[1:13:56] So these staff positions you don't intend to fill?
[1:13:59] Correct.
[1:14:00] Yes, man.
[1:14:00] They were currently vacant positions.
[1:14:02] And so what we did going into next year is we're just not going to fill those positions
[1:14:05] and eliminate them.
[1:14:10] You know, in today's environment, it's economic environment.
[1:14:15] It's unusual to hear towards cost reduction.
[1:14:19] What cost, where did the cost reduction come in with chemicals?
[1:14:24] So with the chemicals every day, the staff are always looking at ways to do things.
[1:14:27] things better quicker or faster if you will.
[1:14:30] That in combination with a scattered group,
[1:14:32] we were able to identify some ways of instrumentation
[1:14:34] to kind of fine tune the numbers if you will.
[1:14:37] That, as well as the inflation is going down quite a bit
[1:14:40] for what we originally proposed in this year's budget.
[1:14:47] So this is the FY25 proposed budget
[1:14:50] for the GRP division.
[1:14:53] You will see that the revenues have increased,
[1:14:56] but as Chris spoke, there's a higher demand.
[1:14:59] That's enough.
[1:15:00] Calculation. Our expenses, our ONM expenses, as you see, from our budgeted of FY24, are going down. And it is
[1:15:10] efficiencies that the team has found. You will see on the debt service. If you look at 23's
[1:15:17] actual, that 34.6 million is our basic our annual debt service. It's higher in 24 due to the
[1:15:29] And so that the defense gave us a $600,000 year reduction in debt service.
[1:15:39] So that is the $34 million proposed for this coming year.
[1:15:44] And then as always we try to have zero net effect to the fund balance.
[1:15:50] The next slide will give us a little more detail on the ONM so you can see line by category
[1:15:55] where we've gone up or down,
[1:16:02] so there's, of course, our major category is always supply,
[1:16:07] supply material and utilities. It's a function of the plant.
[1:16:14] Here's the breakdown. That service, in prior years, has been over 60% and you can see it's coming down.
[1:16:21] Thanks to the defense and we continue to pay down our debt.
[1:16:25] So, hopefully someday we will have a nice circle with no depth and
[1:16:35] always, always.
[1:16:37] As Chris spoke about the reduction and you can see over the years, we opened the plant in
[1:16:42] September of 2015, which was fiscal year 2016, and you can see where they have gradually
[1:16:48] been evaluating staffing to get it to the optimal level.
[1:16:54] and this year at the toll of 39 FTEs for the GRP.
[1:17:03] Again, another breakdown, just the same picture,
[1:17:06] reminder that we always shoot for no change to the general fund,
[1:17:12] no net effect of year over year.
[1:17:16] On this slide, you see that we fully funded what we have as current
[1:17:21] operating in rate stabilization fund, which is currently three months of O&M,
[1:17:27] budgeted oinium, we are pending the rate model and presentation by the outside consultants
[1:17:36] of the GRP to fill in this last column because they have recommendations on what the
[1:17:43] reserve should be and we are not currently at those reserves. But we will be bringing this back
[1:17:51] with the completed column once we have that presentation and if the rate study is accepted.
[1:17:57] So, same goes for the emergency and the on-art, but we are fully funded at the balances we
[1:18:03] have set currently at the GRP, which is a great thing because a couple of years ago we
[1:18:08] weren't.
[1:18:11] I wanted to remind everyone of our past dues.
[1:18:14] They started back in September of 2016.
[1:18:19] The short pays are no-pays, as you see, include penalties and fees, but we're at 17 million
[1:18:24] on past due on just pumpage and surface water sales alone.
[1:18:33] So our proposed rate, we are going from, we are proposing going around water, 11% reduction
[1:18:41] from 299 to 267.
[1:18:45] Three cents of this reduction is due to the debt defeasants.
[1:18:49] The remaining is due to the efficiencies gained in the plant.
[1:18:53] surface water. We are proposing going from 341 to 326. You will see that, again, based
[1:19:02] on the rate of study that's going to be presented, there's a change in the differential.
[1:19:10] Going from 42 cents to 59 cents between groundwater and surface water. The consultant will
[1:19:19] presenting that next month, and you will get to see the results of their study.
[1:19:28] Our comparison to our surrounding entities, we still fall in a very good range compared
[1:19:37] to our proposed, of course, going down helps.
[1:19:42] But with our surrounding entities comparison, we're still on the low side.
[1:19:48] Again, 2.67, 3.26 are proposed rates.
[1:19:55] Reminder of our budget.
[1:19:57] We go for the break even.
[1:20:01] No, as you well know, there's no profit in non-profit.
[1:20:06] So, no change to the general fund as our recommendation.
[1:20:11] In payment, of course.
[1:20:12] It's a note there that you can go back a slide.
[1:20:14] Yes, sir.
[1:20:15] The revenue totals of 60 million, 427, assumes
[1:20:21] collection of the rate at the 100% level.
[1:20:24] Yes, sir.
[1:20:25] Of course, now I carry with.
[1:20:27] Correct.
[1:20:27] That's a good question.
[1:20:28] Yes, sir, that is correct.
[1:20:30] In that shortfall, right, in revenue,
[1:20:34] if it doesn't change, it's made up through.
[1:20:40] Either what we have in the general fund,
[1:20:42] or if they will cut projects if necessary as the year goes on.
[1:20:49] There's... there's...
[1:20:50] Chris just gets reviews the budget every month with his staff
[1:20:54] and against Actuals and if he sees us,
[1:20:57] we have a wet ear and we're not having the revenues
[1:21:00] and then of course we don't have the collections.
[1:21:03] We look at projects so what can we defer?
[1:21:08] Yes sir.
[1:21:09] Here's not our word.
[1:21:10] No ma'am, it's not.
[1:21:12] So, again, reminder, next steps, the GRP Review Committee will vote on the budget and the rate
[1:21:18] order next month.
[1:21:20] We will bring the rate order to you in June, and then of course the budget will come
[1:21:25] with the rest of the S.J.R.A.'s budgets in August.
[1:21:29] What did you say the rate would be?
[1:21:31] 267 and 326.
[1:21:34] Yes, ma'am, 11% reduction.
[1:21:37] And 326.
[1:21:40] Yes, ma'am.
[1:21:42] Pam, do we know what that reduction will amount to in terms of the average savings per household?
[1:21:51] We are exactly that.
[1:21:52] No, because since we wholesale it, we don't usually take it that far.
[1:21:57] That comes from the other end.
[1:21:59] Yes, sir.
[1:21:59] Okay.
[1:22:00] We can if you'd like to.
[1:22:01] I just wondered.
[1:22:03] What that would be.
[1:22:09] And I'll just make a comment that the Finance Committee did, as Pam said, meet through
[1:22:14] you this and appreciate all the work that's gone into it.
[1:22:19] They always do a great job over here.
[1:22:21] Thank you.
[1:22:22] Thank you.
[1:22:23] Much appreciated.
[1:22:23] Definitely a team effort with between the divisions and the accounting.
[1:22:28] Jamie drives it.
[1:22:30] Kelly is the G.R.P. accountant with Chris and Chris and his team, they meet a lot to get this refined and
[1:22:39] where they want it.
[1:22:40] So, thank you, Mark.
[1:22:42] You could almost say we've got the best service water in the lowest prices around, right?
[1:22:52] Okay.
[1:22:53] We're ready for 7B, which is a presentation, several presentations actually, since these are
[1:23:02] small ten-year project plans. So the first one is with the Highlands Kit Crab will present that as well as our lake con row.
[1:23:13] Ten-year project plan. Bear branch will follow that with Brianna Gallagher, presenting that one in the raw water enterprise.
[1:23:21] so that merit will present.
[1:23:25] OK.
[1:23:26] Morning, everyone.
[1:23:27] Kit Crab here to present the Highlands
[1:23:29] Division 10 Year Project Plan.
[1:23:33] So starting off, this is an overview
[1:23:35] of the Highlands Division System and the projects
[1:23:39] and locations that are on the 10 year project plan.
[1:23:43] Throughout this presentation,
[1:23:44] I'm going to focus in on the projects
[1:23:46] for fiscal year 25, so the projects
[1:23:49] either currently in construction in design or that you will be seeing for approval in fiscal year
[1:23:55] 25. One of the things I want to highlight on this graphic is that a lot of our focus in the
[1:24:02] next 10 years is going to be on the main canal and on the South Canal. So we have a lot of
[1:24:08] levee improvements coming up and a lot of focus on replacement or improvement of those older
[1:24:14] structures within our system. We do still have some structures in our system that are
[1:24:19] original to the system, so they're from the 1940s. They've been rehabbed over the years
[1:24:24] and they'll be in need of improvements to replacement here pretty soon.
[1:24:30] When we look at the
[1:24:31] projects of the 10-year project plan, there's three categories that these projects can fall into.
[1:24:36] We have projects that our facilities related looking at our EOC or our pump stations. We have
[1:24:43] our siphons and levees projects, again, doing improvements and replacement of structures.
[1:24:49] And then we have projects related to operations and maintenance, so these could be more
[1:24:53] looking at access within the system or improving operations.
[1:25:01] The first project on here is Diphon 1617 and 18 erosion repairs.
[1:25:05] This project is currently in construction and will wrap up construction at the beginning of fiscal
[1:25:10] year 25.
[1:25:11] I did have a few photos up here just to show the current progress for this project.
[1:25:17] Siphon 16 is the one on the screen and that is a structure that, again, was original to
[1:25:23] the system.
[1:25:23] It's been improved over the years by passes added and so what we've done is installed
[1:25:28] sheet piling.
[1:25:29] We've used flow filled to fill in all the voids underneath and around the structure and
[1:25:34] we're going back in and adding channel protection, channel armoring and the form of rip
[1:25:39] wrap at those structures.
[1:25:40] So we're hoping to extend the life of these structures 10 plus years, pushing them out of the current 10 year project plan to make room and make way for some projects that had a little bit higher priority.
[1:25:54] Siphon 39 and Levy improvements. This is a project that is getting designed and will be constructed as one project and one contract, but it is two projects within the 10 year project plan.
[1:26:04] This one is currently in final design, we will be advertising it for construction later this calendar year and this was a customer driven project.
[1:26:12] We have received and will receive customer contributions for a portion of this project.
[1:26:20] Main canal levy improvements between like Houston pump station and Siphon 6 has historically been on the tenure project plan and his historically been pushed further and further as we were able to delay the project by removing structures in the system.
[1:26:35] However, we are seeing significant high priority
[1:26:39] levee erosion throughout the stretch of the levees,
[1:26:42] and it is an area of the system that we've identified
[1:26:45] needs levee raising in order to improve capacity
[1:26:48] and increase capacity within the system as a whole.
[1:26:51] We are currently in a preliminary design
[1:26:54] for this doing some hydraulic modeling.
[1:26:56] We will move into final design for this project
[1:26:59] next fiscal year and then into construction after that.
[1:27:06] The next two slides are similar to 39 and 11 improvements that is two projects in the 10-year
[1:27:12] project plan but looking at being design and construction, design and constructed as one.
[1:27:18] They're on the lower left is a graphic to help orient you with where these locations are
[1:27:23] located.
[1:27:24] These are near the Highlands Reservoir and near the Highlands Office or EOC and the 11 improvements
[1:27:30] are needed because we are seeing a lot of erosion in this area as well.
[1:27:35] Again, another project that has been pushed off, and then there are some areas of low
[1:27:40] levees within the stretch as well that we're needing to improve.
[1:27:48] Structure 2 is one of two structures that we use to push water into the Highlands reservoir.
[1:27:55] This is, as you can see, as structure that's not much to it, as a couple pipes and a couple
[1:27:59] gates.
[1:28:00] The erosion is occurring around the gates, so we're not sure that they're functioning very
[1:28:04] as well. We will be replacing this with a structure that looks very similar to our typical
[1:28:10] standard new syphens. And this is also a location that is a restraint for us, a hydraulic
[1:28:18] restraint. We can only push so much water into the reservoir through this location, so we're
[1:28:22] looking at improving that as well.
[1:28:28] Thank you, St. Pempsation Pemps and Motor Replacement. We are going to be replacing the Pemps
[1:28:33] motors. We're switching from the 2400 volt to 480. We are finishing up construction for the
[1:28:42] remote operation center out at Lake Houston and half of that building was the switch
[1:28:48] gear rim. So all of the future electrical equipment for these pumps and motors and new pumps
[1:28:53] and motors will be located in that new ROC building. There's also with this project going to be
[1:28:59] looking at a new generator and some improvements there as well.
[1:29:05] We will be starting final design for this project next fiscal year.
[1:29:12] The Highlands Reservoir Dam is considered an intermediate size high hazard dam,
[1:29:16] and so we do have an emergency action plan with that.
[1:29:18] We look at that on an annual basis and update it,
[1:29:22] but every five years we do have to have a more significant look at that EAP
[1:29:27] and do a table top exercise so we will be doing that next fiscal year.
[1:29:35] 722 Culver improvements is more of an operation and maintenance project.
[1:29:40] There is a drainage channel that crosses at Sife in 22, it is on our main canal,
[1:29:45] and it is difficult for our operators to access that site and get around it.
[1:29:51] So it's very difficult for them to move, spray and maintain that structure.
[1:29:55] So with this project we will be looking at adding a culvert across the full easement.
[1:30:07] This is a new project. If you remember on the map graphic, there were a lot of hatching on the main canal for
[1:30:14] Libby improvements. This is a project that we have identified, which is loving improvements from
[1:30:21] 7-7-7-9, very similar to the other levee improvements projects. We have significant erosion in this area and through the hydraulic modeling that we've done for other projects in the past.
[1:30:31] This has been a location that's been flagged for low levees and in need of levee raising. This is a project that we will be issuing our Q4 here in the next month or so on getting design started next fiscal year.
[1:30:49] The East Canal Transfer Pumstation is located at the intersection of CUS Canal, coastal water authorities canal and the estuary East Canal.
[1:30:57] When this project was constructed, they did take into consideration future expansion of that Pumstation.
[1:31:04] So when we talk about doing any campus improvements, we are considering any future expansion at that location as well.
[1:31:10] We did have a master plan done for our EOC location, and what stemmed from that master plan was making improvements on our eScanale pump station where we already have site security and adding some different storage buildings there to move equipment and things that nature from our EOC campus to the eScanale transfer pump station campus to make our use of EOC campus more effective.
[1:31:38] So, this project will be looking at adding just a pre-engineered metal building specifically
[1:31:44] for Skata for them to store equipment and materials.
[1:31:50] And then also adding in a stop-log storage location, so we'd have a hand crane be able to
[1:31:57] easily transfer these stop-logs onto a trailer to mobilize quickly to our locations when they
[1:32:03] need them.
[1:32:04] Currently, all of our soft logs are stacked one on top of each other on a really big trailer,
[1:32:09] which makes it difficult to do that.
[1:32:12] We are birds.
[1:32:16] It's only a few miles from the main office, so this was also an area that we'd identified
[1:32:21] if skated needed to have a deliveries made to it that it would be easy to get out there and
[1:32:27] an easy for a trek to make deliveries there as well.
[1:32:36] Barth Road is on our East Canal, is located downstream of our Transfer Composition, making it a higher priority location for us, looking at Replacement.
[1:32:45] So we will be replacing this Typhine, it's currently a single 48-inch pipe going underneath Garth Road.
[1:32:51] We'll replace it with our standard Cyphines.
[1:32:58] And then the last project I have for you is the South Canal Transfer Composition Capacity Improvements Project.
[1:33:03] this was a customer driven project due to anticipated growth in their demand.
[1:33:10] And so a project that had previously been on the 10-year project plan was the replacement
[1:33:14] of the stock military transfer consultation generator.
[1:33:17] We've incorporated that project into this project.
[1:33:20] We will be looking at building a new transfer consultation to increase the capacity.
[1:33:28] For next fiscal year, we're looking at around $20 million over all with the 10 years around $133 million.
[1:33:36] But something that is a little bit new for us, this fiscal year, is looking at bond funds.
[1:33:41] So in the past few years, we had moved solely to using our and our funds, but due to the need of the projects and the tenure project plan, the schedules that they're on,
[1:33:52] We have identified that we do need bond funding for some of those projects to keep us on track.
[1:34:00] Keep us replacing structures that need to be replaced and doing these loving improvements that we can no longer keep pushing back in the 10 year project plan.
[1:34:09] Additionally, there were a few projects in the 10 year project plan that were customer driven.
[1:34:13] So we have received and we will receive additional funding from our customer.
[1:34:18] And so the remainder of that will be made up by the R&R fund.
[1:34:24] With that, I'll ask if there are any questions on the
[1:34:27] file-insteading of project plan.
[1:34:35] That's correct. So these would be projects
[1:34:37] purely for the benefit of a single customer
[1:34:39] that we would be coordinating with to execute
[1:34:43] supplemental agreements with for specific projects.
[1:34:51] Kit, where Arcaneal goes through Crosby and behind the friendly forward, they're in Crosby.
[1:35:00] The owner of that property asked me what I was taking place with the canal and about
[1:35:06] how long it would take, what's the best response that I can give him.
[1:35:09] So that was the first slide, the 1617 and 18-a-reson repair project.
[1:35:14] We will be finishing that project, I believe, in September, October of this year.
[1:35:24] But as far as what's going on, we're doing some erosion repair around the structures
[1:35:30] to increase their life's fans that we're not having to fully replace them at this time.
[1:35:34] Great, very water flow through there, more capacity.
[1:35:37] We had significant erosion around 1617 and 18, so there's not any capacity improvements,
[1:35:43] but just extending that by adding sheet-piling, adding flow fill, adding rip-rop so that we're not having any sort of emergency project pop-up on those.
[1:35:54] Okay, thank you.
[1:36:12] Thank you.
[1:36:18] You have to listen to me for a few more minutes.
[1:36:22] Like, kind of a division, tenure project plan.
[1:36:26] So, again, like the Highlands Project Plan, this is an image to show you the locations of projects
[1:36:34] over the Junior Project Plan.
[1:36:36] However, this presentation is going to focus on projects for fiscal year 25.
[1:36:45] In the same way as the Highlands, we do have a few categories that these projects fall under.
[1:36:49] We do have facilities related projects, spill away infrastructure and system projects, and then
[1:36:55] the O&M projects.
[1:36:59] So there's really only one project that we want to focus in on for fiscal year 25, and that is the maintenance facility improvements project.
[1:37:08] The Lake Hunter maintenance facility is located on the Lake Hunter campus.
[1:37:12] As you enter the gate entering the campus, it is there on the left.
[1:37:16] A number of the structures at this facility are original to construction of the dam, so they are aging and in need of replacement.
[1:37:25] This project started back in 28.
[1:37:30] Facility, campus, where we looked not only at the campus but at the late Conrad Division office here on the dam. We considered current and future needs for offices, for equipment, future equipment, and determine what we needed to do.
[1:37:47] The recommendation from that master plan was to construct a new maintenance facility.
[1:37:51] I
[1:37:56] have a few fun animations here for you on this slide.
[1:37:59] I just wanted to run through what this project encompasses,
[1:38:02] because it's not as simple as building out in field.
[1:38:06] We do have this project out for advertisement right now.
[1:38:09] We will be receiving proposals next week,
[1:38:12] and we have had a lot of contact engagement on this project,
[1:38:17] so we're very hopeful to get some good, competitive proposals.
[1:38:22] The first piece of this project will be construction of a new maintenance facility, which requires the demolition of the existing facility.
[1:38:30] The new maintenance facility is going to have a maintenance area, work area, as well as office space.
[1:38:39] We will also be constructing a new covered storage. This will be a concrete slab covered storage, not just for parking or for employee parking.
[1:38:48] this is covered storage for equipment, so looking at storing our boats or trailers or tractors.
[1:38:55] We do have to shift the fuel facility out of the way to make room for the maintenance
[1:39:00] facility, the new building, as well as being able to drive around that new facility, so we
[1:39:06] will be shifting the fuel facility.
[1:39:08] We are looking at using the existing tank, but getting new pumps, and we will be integrating
[1:39:14] the fuel management system that has already been implemented by other divisions.
[1:39:20] And the fuel facility does provide fuel not only for like Conra, but the G&A division as well.
[1:39:27] We are keeping the existing wood shop, which is one of the original facilities,
[1:39:32] but we will be doing rehab on that, which will be replacing some columns, panels, and painting the exterior.
[1:39:41] With this project there will be a generator that will be installed capable of
[1:39:45] to apply the facility and then additional site improvements are needed.
[1:39:50] So we are having to remove the existing rubics system and installing a new rubics system,
[1:39:56] new water line coming from the GNA well down to this facility, looking at drainage around
[1:40:02] the facility, adding some improvements there as well as lighting and security.
[1:40:08] One of the things that I want to point out is that we did take every effort to protect the
[1:40:15] There is a new driveway that will be installed on the north side, but it is going between two trees over there, and we did ensure that there's whip and true protection was adequate.
[1:40:31] There is a modular building out there that is where a number of folks are office.
[1:40:36] This building will actually be moved down to the Coast Guard for their use, and that will be happening before the construction serves.
[1:40:47] I do have the floor plan of the New Maintenance Facility here for you to take a look at, as I mentioned, about half of that building is going to be office space, conference room kitchen, et cetera, and then the other half is the maintenance area.
[1:41:00] When we were doing the master plan for the facility, we did talk to a number of other agencies, went and did a lot of tours of other facilities of a similar size in nature and took into consideration their feedback when developing the layout for the facility.
[1:41:17] As I mentioned, we are out for bid right now and we are hoping to bring this to you for approval in July.
[1:41:28] I wanted to quickly touch on a few other upcoming projects.
[1:41:32] Previously mentioned in the GNA division,
[1:41:37] tenure project plan, the late Connor Campus Payment Improvements project.
[1:41:40] So this is a project that is split between like Connor and GNA.
[1:41:44] And this project will be happening after construction of the late Connor maintenance facility is completed.
[1:41:49] So that will be looking at widening and replacing that road with that project.
[1:41:54] We will also be looking at access improvements.
[1:41:56] This is referring to the entrance and switching out the gates there so that we would have two lanes.
[1:42:01] One entering and one exiting.
[1:42:04] And then on a five year basis we do have the dam inspection.
[1:42:07] So that will be coming up in fiscal year 26.
[1:42:13] Next fiscal year we're at about $2.6 million overall for the next 10 years at approximately $16 million.
[1:42:22] With that, I'll see if there are any questions about the link under it in your project plan.
[1:42:28] I have a question.
[1:42:30] We voted on last year.
[1:42:31] What did we vote on?
[1:42:32] Just the study?
[1:42:36] For this product, for the maintenance project.
[1:42:38] Maintenance building.
[1:42:40] So last year would have been the engineering.
[1:42:43] We'd had a design contract for the final design of the maintenance facility itself.
[1:42:49] This is the result of that study.
[1:42:58] You might have seen some patches along the intro, where we're trying to extend its life a little bit.
[1:43:04] All right.
[1:43:12] We have another presentation.
[1:43:24] Good morning again.
[1:43:27] Today, I'll give you, we'll be giving you the Bear Brants to your project plan.
[1:43:31] Some are to the late Conor One.
[1:43:32] It's really to cover one project.
[1:43:35] One that we're really excited is actually occurring right now.
[1:43:38] Before we go over that, I wanted to briefly show an aerial of the actual drainage system for the bare branch system.
[1:43:46] The area in the yellow is the entire system.
[1:43:49] It includes album branch and panther branch, and it has bare branch, and then I'll flow together and go downstream.
[1:43:57] The red area you see right there by Curgonol Road, that is the dam itself.
[1:44:02] And then the grain, the purple and all the other colors, are the five modes that actually
[1:44:07] fund the operations and maintenance of the system.
[1:44:12] And so our good folks at Lake Honro, they are the ones that operate in maintain bare branch,
[1:44:18] they are the ones that go out and do weekly inspections, any de-snagging, any pre-clean up.
[1:44:23] They are the ones that keep bare branch so nice.
[1:44:29] With that, similar to the other 10-year project plans you've seen, there are a number
[1:44:34] of things that go into the 10-year project plans I'll be touching on the items that touch
[1:44:39] fiscal year 2025 and other than that, we do have in later fiscal years our emergency action
[1:44:45] plan for bare branch, our five-year inspection for TCQ and we are providing some project management
[1:44:51] assistance with those water agency on one of their projects.
[1:45:00] It's got a couple different names, but we've been calling it the bare branch modification project. This is what the core has recognized as the title of the project. So it's just easier to give it that same title as I talk about it.
[1:45:12] The first part is the sole cement repairs. That is the area in the red hatched lining. As you can see on the bottom right, that is the pictures of the sole cement conditions, probably about a year ago.
[1:45:24] And so, it still looks the same, during planning, we've talked about replacing the top 10 to 12
[1:45:32] inches of the soil cement with reinforced concrete that is likely what's still going to happen,
[1:45:38] but we do now have a consultant on board looking at the soil cement and the service
[1:45:42] spillway and we're in preliminary engineering right now and so they're going to present us
[1:45:47] alternatives and ideas on the best path forward to replacing the soil cement.
[1:45:51] The total project costs as of right now for the solicitor repairs is a little under $2 million.
[1:46:01] The next part of the project is the service bill replacement that is in the area and the red hatched lines.
[1:46:07] That's going to include the service bill and the plunge pool.
[1:46:10] This one is going to be looking at a number of alternatives that our consultant is also looking at.
[1:46:17] There's nothing, nothing is going to change about this except the shape of the structure.
[1:46:22] It will pass the same amount of flow, so it's not going to change anything other than the shape of the structure itself.
[1:46:31] And it'll include things that the current spillway doesn't have like effective joins and water stops that currently don't exist with the current service spillway.
[1:46:40] This portion of the project costs a little over $3 million.
[1:46:46] The total projected tenure cost for our bare branch division is a little over $5 million,
[1:46:52] but I want to keep in mind the bare branch modification project is partially being funded by the core.
[1:46:58] We are receiving enrollment infrastructure funds for that project.
[1:47:01] So we're receiving $3.6 million to cover the $5 million project.
[1:47:08] We are in PER for that project right now, so we'll have a better idea of what actual cost is going to be once we get towards it.
[1:47:16] to P.R., our consultant will be getting us an opinion
[1:47:18] of probably a construction cost for that.
[1:47:21] So we're hoping it doesn't change too much.
[1:47:23] But if it does, we are prepared to go back
[1:47:25] to the core for additional funding.
[1:47:28] With that, that is the bare branch in your project plan.
[1:47:31] If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.
[1:47:33] If not, I hope you all have a good day.
[1:47:38] All right, have a good day.
[1:48:04] Good morning, everyone.
[1:48:05] And as I'll be mentioned, I'm going to give you a brief overview
[1:48:07] of the Roll War Air Prize 10-year project plan.
[1:48:11] Just to start as a quick refresher, the World Water Enterprise is the internal enterprise that
[1:48:17] over follows over the umbrella over the Lake Conrad Division and the Highlands Division,
[1:48:22] as which you've already heard presentation on the day, as well as our raw water supply efforts.
[1:48:28] So where the Lake Conrad Highlands Division's handle the operation side of providing
[1:48:32] raw water to customers, the raw water supply looks at planning for future, obtaining water
[1:48:37] rights, managing water rights does type of thing.
[1:48:39] So that left-hand Roll Wars plays really what this project
[1:48:43] playing focuses on.
[1:48:47] So the S.J.A. provides surface water to two service
[1:48:50] series.
[1:48:50] I mean, Roll Wars usually.
[1:48:51] To two service areas, one is Montgomery County,
[1:48:54] which you see there in the Orange color.
[1:48:56] And then while our jurisdictional boundary does not include
[1:48:59] Harris County, we have an agreement with the city
[1:49:01] fused and allows us to provide roll water to customers
[1:49:05] east of the San Jose River in Harris County.
[1:49:08] So that's the area you see highlighted there in green.
[1:49:11] So those are the two areas we focus on.
[1:49:12] making sure there's ample water supply to provide to customers in those areas.
[1:49:17] It really, all that we do in the Rollwater Enterprise, the Rollwater Supply,
[1:49:21] is core to extra is mission of conserving, developing and protecting water of the same simple ways.
[1:49:29] So the first project I want to cover is really the backbone of everything we do in Rollwater Enterprise.
[1:49:34] And that's our Rollwater Supply Master Plan.
[1:49:36] The first Rollwater Supply Match Plan was developed in 2018.
[1:49:40] It did a 50-year planning look ahead of what Rollwater Supplies we have available.
[1:49:45] What customer demands look like 50 years in the future, both existing customers and potential future customers and determine what the difference was between the supplies we had, the demands we projected, what projects and water rights and things we need to obtain and construct and put into place to be able to meet those needs into the future.
[1:50:03] Roll water projects are costly, they're large scale, they can involve logging environmental permitting.
[1:50:08] So if you wait until you need the water supply, it's too late to build a project to get it.
[1:50:13] So this is why we do such a long look ahead for these efforts.
[1:50:16] There's no funding anticipated FI-25.
[1:50:19] We are currently wrapping up the latest update to the Rollwater Maxx Plan and this year 24 is our goal.
[1:50:24] Then we will have subsequent plans of the plan as every five years, really in perpetuity.
[1:50:30] So for the 10-year project plan, the total project estimates about 1.7 million,
[1:50:34] but that does not include future or even our past, our past study or our future plans,
[1:50:38] again, we'll continue on into the future.
[1:50:44] The next three projects I want to cover are all related to permit applications with TCQ.
[1:50:49] The first is for return flows from Buds, 89 McGurmer County, Buds, 89, and the City
[1:50:54] of Huntsville.
[1:50:55] They have permits to discharge wastewater discharge flows into Lake Conro.
[1:51:00] Esturized City, Houston, a few years back into the settlement agreement with those entities
[1:51:05] where we could take possession of some of those return flows to get discharge into Lake
[1:51:09] of this project is to go to TCU, get a formal water-right permit, allowing us to get those
[1:51:14] flows.
[1:51:16] Total project estimate of about $300,000 to obtain that permit.
[1:51:24] Next is an amendment to our Lake Conno diversion rate.
[1:51:27] That's in our Water Supply Permit, our Lake Conno.
[1:51:30] The goal of this project is to increase the 700 cubic feet per second that Brett referenced
[1:51:35] earlier.
[1:51:37] And really what that does is it just provides us more flexibility and the city
[1:51:40] use the more flexibility in being able to divert water for our customers and for various
[1:51:45] uses.
[1:51:47] Total project estimate of about $150,000 to pursue that amendment to our permit.
[1:51:55] And the third permitting project is by far the largest in scale similar to the MUDZ-89
[1:52:00] Huntsville project.
[1:52:01] This is related to return flows, wastewater return flows, but whereas that project was
[1:52:05] looking at Lake Conros specifically, this is looking at targeting all of the return flows
[1:52:09] in the entire upper stages in a river basin, which you see there, in his bright
[1:52:13] shoulder, there's about 3,000 square miles of area.
[1:52:16] So, a lot of water that's being discharged and will continue to grow as development happens
[1:52:21] in the region, this is really the low hanging fruit, if you will, in water supply.
[1:52:30] Are you going to be there? It's not that we have to go and build infrastructure to pull water in from a different region or to do anything like that.
[1:52:37] So it's even though it's $1.5 million, our estimate is much more cost effective than going and building a pipeline or doing a major infrastructure project to get other water supplies.
[1:52:47] And you'll notice that's a several year project, we're estimating it running through fiscal year 2028 to student amount of permitting coordination with TCQ, those type things that will be required.
[1:53:00] Similar to our raw water master plan, we perform every five years a raw water rate study.
[1:53:06] Again, we're currently wrapping up the latest iteration of that study.
[1:53:09] The goal is this fiscal year to face that.
[1:53:12] We do this every five years in order to first, to meet contractual requirements,
[1:53:16] we have some of our customers.
[1:53:18] And then second, and really, most importantly, to ensure that we are developing rates that make sense,
[1:53:23] that allow us to do all the work and like Conor on the island's division,
[1:53:26] that we need to do to keep our infrastructure up and running.
[1:53:29] and then just to set appropriate rates and fair rates for our customers, the total project
[1:53:34] estimates around $700,000 in the tenure project plan, again, that does not include future studies
[1:53:40] that will continue in perpetuity every five years into the future.
[1:53:48] And the last project is a little bit unique compared to the others.
[1:53:51] So ASR stands for Office for Storage and Recovery, if you're not familiar.
[1:53:55] And as a process by which, where normally you think of a well, you pump water out of the ground
[1:54:00] use ASR allows you when you have a time of wet weather, you have additional water that you don't
[1:54:05] have a need to sell, you can actually pump that water and check that water into the ground through
[1:54:10] well, then you can put, you store in the aquifer, then you can put back out when you have a drive
[1:54:14] part of the year where you need additional water, it's kind of how you balance your water usage
[1:54:18] across the year. This is something we've been looking at for a number of years. We were playing
[1:54:23] to do a study at the arrogance of doing a study to look at the feasibility of ASR in our
[1:54:28] service areas. With perfect timing, Texas Board of Board approached us. They were mandated
[1:54:33] by the state to study this and ask if we would be, we would like them to do a project
[1:54:37] to our behalf to study. Of course, we accepted. So, Texas Board of Elmbury is performing
[1:54:41] a feasibility study on ASR for us at no cost that really helped us to determine, is this
[1:54:47] a feasible water supply strategy for us and in our region? If it is, then we could potentially
[1:54:52] expand this in the future for additional phases. We just don't know what that study is going
[1:54:57] more a couple of this.
[1:55:02] Yes, yes.
[1:55:05] The total project cost for the 10-year plan, a little over $3.2
[1:55:09] million. And I'd be happy to take any questions you may.
[1:55:20] So we're looking to wrap it up in the next three
[1:55:22] months or so. We can absolutely do that, yes.
[1:55:32] Thank you very much.
[1:55:33] In regards to the study that is it costing us the name money, the Texas Water Development Board is doing.
[1:55:40] So do we have input and not, how do you, okay?
[1:55:43] We will, my understanding is that we'll submit, you know, draft the board to us, we'll
[1:55:46] be able to take a look at that and give more comments and input.
[1:55:49] Yes, ma'am.
[1:55:59] What's all of our presentations under item seven for today?
[1:56:05] Okay, at this time, we'll be going to the closed session.
[1:56:07] The date is May 23, 2024.
[1:56:09] The time is 9.57.
[1:56:12] The Senate Senator of Authority Board of Directors now convened an executive session
[1:56:15] pursuant to text the government code section 551.071 for consultation with the authorities
[1:56:21] attorney.
[1:56:27] 1114 that concludes the May 23rd meeting of the Senate Senator of Authority Board of Directors
[1:56:33] our next scheduled meeting will be June 27th.