SLVWD Board Meeting Summary
February 6, 2025
Mark Dolson
Highlights:
Local Hazard Mitigation Plan – Public Review Draft
City of Santa Cruz Project Update
Grant Writer Agreement
CA-9 Bridges Contract Award
Next Board meeting will be at 6:30 PM on February 20, 2025
Preliminaries
All five Directors were present.
No reportable actions were taken in the preceding Closed Session (which was not concluded).
There were no changes to the agenda.
There were no public comments on topics not on the agenda.
Presentations
Local Hazard Mitigation Plan – Public Review Draft
Lee Rosenberg of Navigating Preparedness Associates spent about ten minutes updating the Board on the District’s Local Hazard Mitigation Plan (LHMP):
https://www.slvwd.com/projects/pages/local-hazard-mitigation-plan
Funding for this activity comes from the California Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP). An LHMP identifies mitigation actions that will make SLVWD more disaster-resistant and will allow access to future Cal OES / FEMA HMGP grant funding opportunities.
The LHMP project seeks to:
Identify natural and technological/human-caused hazards that impact the District.
o Natural hazards include earthquakes, storms, and fires.
o Human-caused hazards include climate change and cyberattacks.
o Hazard-related costs are increasing annually.
Assess the vulnerability and risk posed by those hazards to District-wide human and structural assets.
o Earthquake, fire, and flood were ranked highest out of ten categories.
Develop “mitigation projects” (i.e., strategies to mitigate the identified hazards).
o 30 distinct mitigation activities were identified with associated cost estimates (below $100,000, below $1 million, above $1 million), prioritization (low, medium, high) and required time-frame for each.
Develop a process to implement and track the projects.
o This has not yet been addressed.
Document the planning process, and engage the public throughout.
o The District began gathering public comment within the past two weeks. It will probably continue to do so for at least another month. A few hundred responses have already been received. A summary of these is pending.
Directors Layng and Largay were appreciative of the work to date. Director Largay requested careful cross-checking with other SLVWD plans (e.g., the 2021 Master Plan and fire-flow priority list).
Directors Hill, Fultz, and Smolley all expressed concern about how the District would assign priorities to 30 different activities. Lee said the team would engage in a more quantitative process to arrive at a final prioritized list. He also said an update was required every five years, and an annual review was recommended. Environmental Planner Chris Klier said the LMHP was basically a wish list that the District was required to submit.
Director Fultz elaborated on several key points. He said the District lacked the resources to do all these things. He recommended that the District also take the opportunity to enhance resilience as part of its ongoing infrastructure improvement (and he specifically cited his concerns about rebuilding the Peavine Pipeline with plastic pipe). Director Fultz added that fireflow is primarily targeted at fighting isolated house fires. For the CZU Fire, auxiliary water was employed. Lastly, Director Fultz called special attention to cybersecurity based on his own personal experience. He said smaller organizations can be particularly attractive to hackers, and any such attack immediately becomes the top priority when it occurs. He suggested that the District might want to replace its SCADA system with something less proprietary. Director Fultz closed by saying he would provide a number of more specific comments separately. He found the draft LHMP to be a really good piece of work.
President Smolley requested that the District publicize a timeline for the current public comment period. He also suggested that the LHMP be brought before the Environmental Committee, and Chris said he would do so. Director Fultz added that there were multiple neighborhood groups on local social media that should be included in the District’s outreach.
Director Layng suggested that the LHMP should include the still-open issue of providing universal locks on fire roads to enable rapid access for firefighters.
There was no public comment.
City of Santa Cruz Project Update
Heidi Luckenbach, the Water Director for the City of Santa Cruz, spent about ten minutes summarizing relevant current projects:
https://www.slvwd.com/board-directors/agenda/board-directors-meeting-23
Heidi replaced the retiring Water Director (Rosemary Menard) one year ago, and some Board members expressed hope that this could be the beginning of a new era of improved collaboration between the City and SLVWD.
Heidi explained that 66% of the City’s water comes from the San Lorenzo River (and the adjacent Tait Wells); 11% comes from Loch Lomond (which is filled via local runoff and also via water pumped up from the San Lorenzo River at the Felton Diversion); 15% comes from North Coast surface water; and 8% comes from the City’s Beltz Wells.
Santa Cruz water customers maintain some of the lowest water usage in the state at 44 gallons per person per day. Even with 40% growth since the 1960s, the City is still using only as much water today as it did back then.
In the years ahead, the City needs new water supplies for two reasons. First, additional housing planned for Santa Cruz will increase water demand by 10%. Second, climate change is producing “weather whiplash” (cycling between floods and droughts), and a multi-year drought can decrease the water supply by 10-50%.
The City has identified three strategies as the most promising for addressing this need:
Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR)
Water Transfers and Exchanges
Modification to Water Rights
Other possibilities include desalination, recycled water (including both Indirect and Direct Potable), and further improvements in conservation.
The City is participating in three groundwater sustainability projects in the Mid-County basin and in the Santa Margarita aquifer:
The Pure Water Soquel Project will protect the aquifer from seawater intrusion
The Scotts Valley-Santa Cruz intertie will offer additional opportunities for collaboration
Aquifer Storage & Recovery in the Mid-County Basin
The Santa Cruz / Scotts Valley Intertie project is connecting the treated water systems of the City of Santa Cruz and the Scotts Valley Water District, enhancing emergency preparedness, conjunctive use, active and passive recharge in the Santa Margarita Groundwater Basin, and improved fire protection through increased fire-response flows. The intertie will run along La Madrona Drive and is projected to complete in about a year at a cost of around $9 million.
The City is continuing to work in phases on improvements to its Newell Creek Pipeline (running from the Newell Creek dam to the City’s Graham Hill Treatment Plant). As part of this project over the next two years, 3.7 miles of pipeline running through Henry Cowell Park will be abandoned and replaced with a pipeline along Graham Hill Road (at a cost of $30 million).
Over the next five years, the City is also spending about $140 million on improvements to its Graham Hill Treatment Plant, built in the 1960s. This is the City’s only surface water treatment plant, treating 100% of water supply during about nine months of the year. From 2020 to 2024, the City spent about $100 million to replace the inlet/outlet pipe to the Loch Lomond Reservoir, also built in 1961.
The City has also proposed modifications to its existing water rights to allow more options for where and how it can use these to improve operations, increase storage, enhance stream flows, and facilitate conjunctive use and regional collaboration.
Heidi listed three opportunities for collaboration: Loch Lomond water access, beneficial uses of the new SVWD/SCWD intertie, and potential ASR in the Santa Margarita Groundwater Basin.
The Directors were all appreciative of Heidi’s presentation and optimistic about the potential for collaboration. Interim General Manager John Kunkel said Heidi had already begun meeting with him.
Director Fultz and President Smolley each commented on what they characterized as an adversarial relationship between the City and the District in the past. This forced the District to spend a considerable amount of money to respond to legal objections to its water rights that could have been more fruitfully resolved via discussion. Director Fultz said he just wanted the District to secure the water rights that would enable it to operate in a unified manner across all three of its systems. (The District is currently using an emergency exception to accomplish this.) He added that he was firmly opposed to any District involvement in ASR. Lastly, he asked if the City was ready to provide cost estimates for providing the District with raw or treated water from Loch Lomond. The answer to this was that discussions are in progress.
There was no public comment.
Unfinished Business
None.
New Business
Grant Writer Agreement
Environmental Programs Manager Chris Klier introduced this agenda item. He explained that the District has historically missed out on vital grant funding opportunities due to limited Staff bandwidth. The District addressed this in 2021 by contracting for grant-writing support, and the return on this investment has been enormous. However, with the departure of the former Environmental Programs Manager over a year ago, the District was no longer able to engage with a grant-writing consultant.
In November of 2024, the District released a Request For Proposals (RFP) for grant research and writing consulting service. The RFP requested the interested parties to address the following tasks:
Funding Needs Analysis
Grant Funding Research
On-Call Grant Research
Grant Proposal Development
Legislative Advocacy
Monthly Invoice Reports
The RFP closed on December 16th, 2024. Eight qualified firms responded, and Staff reviewed these. Dudek received the highest score, and the ensuing reference checks were very positive.
The first phase of the contract will consist of the Funding Needs Analysis, completed within 60 days of agreement approval. The total cost of the scope of work is $50,000. The Environmental department budget for Contract/Professional Services has $160,078 remaining for FY24/25, so sufficient funds are available.
Director Fultz had some cautionary questions and comments. He noted that Dudek is a very large organization whereas SLVWD is a very small customer, and he urged vigilance with regard to consultant overhead charges. Chris said he expected the cost of a typical grant application to be around $10,000, and he expected the $50,000 to cover a full year.
Director Hill was impressed with the professionalism of the proposal. Director Layng expressed confidence in Dudek. Director Largay had a similarly positive reaction, and he offered three suggestions: (1) seek to identify District overhead time requirements, (2) look for opportunities to include District projects in pooled grants, and (3) track billed hours carefully.
President Smolley asked if Legal had reviewed this, and Chris said they had. President Smolley said he appreciated the careful assessment of competing bids, and he added that he would like to see the initial analysis come back to the Board in two months to provide an additional checkpoint.
There was no public comment.
President Smolley moved to authorize the Interim General Manager to execute an agreement with Dudek to provide grant writing services for an amount not to exceed $50,000. Director Layng seconded this.
The motion passed 5-0.
CA-9 Bridges Contract Award
Assistant Engineer Joel Scianna introduced this agenda item. SLVWD was contacted by Caltrans regarding its plans to replace two aging bridges along Highway 9 in north Boulder Creek, crossing the San Lorenzo River and Kings Creek. This replacement will take multiple stages, the first of which requires SLVWD to install a temporary pipeline across the north-bound side of both bridges and then to abandon its existing mains along the south-bound side.
Construction and demolition work over rivers has special conditions to prevent environmental impacts. In December of 2024 the District published a request for bids for Construction of this work, using plans designed by MME. Three bids were received by 1/22/25:
Corcus Construction $ 400,400.00
CEAU Co. DBA Castillon Company $ 729,300.00
Disney Construction $ 1,233,333.00
Corcus Construction (founded in 2023) is the low bidder, and their bid appears to be complete and suitable. Two reference checks were positive. Caltrans has informed District staff that time is of the essence, as they would like to begin demolition work as soon as possible.
The FY 2023-24 and 2024-25 budgets included $400,000 each for Caltrans bridge work. The FY 2023-24 amount was not spent. Staff is proposing a budget amendment of $400,000 to increase the capital improvement budget for this project to a total of $800,000 to cover this contract and all other related expenses such as labor compliance, compaction testing, and other special inspection services. This project is funded with reserves.
Director Hill asked about the wide range of bids, and Joel said Staff was most surprised by the high bid. Director Fultz and President Smolley provided additional background on Corcus (which is a recent spinout of Ranger), and they were satisfied that this was a reasonable choice. However, Director Fultz requested vigilance with regard to Change Orders, and President Smolley requested that Staff monitor Corcus nearly full time for the first month or so. Joel said the construction inspection would be done in-house.
There was no public comment.
President Smolley moved to direct the Interim General Manager to execute the Notice of Award for Phase I of the CA-9 Bridges Water Main Replacement Project to Corcus Construction, Inc. in an amount not to exceed $400,400, and also to adopt a Resolution amending the FY 2024-25 Capital Improvement budget by $400,000. Director Hill seconded this.
The motion passed 5-0.
Consent Agenda
There were three items on the Consent Agenda:
a. Finance Department Status Report for December
b. Operations Quarterly Status Report
c. Board Minutes from 1.16.25
The Consent Agenda was deemed to be adopted by unanimous vote. Director Fultz commented that it was not customary to include status reports on the Consent Agenda, but he said he would submit his questions in writing.
Two written communications were received, but the Board did not address these:
Margaret Balch wrote to say that her water still tastes like crap after the fires
A flyer was shared regarding “The Haven” (the proposed housing development on Graham Hill Road across from Henry Cowell State Park). The flyer stated that "The Haven" bypasses county zoning regulations using the Builders Remedy exemption; that the developer is seeking annexation into SLVWD; and that, without SLVWD, this development will not happen.
The meeting was adjourned at 7:50 PM so that the Board could return to Closed Session.