SLVWD Board Meeting Summary

March 16, 2023

Mark Dolson

Highlights:

  • Investment Update

  • Memo Template

  • Peavine Tree Work

  • 2023 Update of the San Lorenzo River and North Coast Watersheds Sanitary Survey

  • Next Board meeting is at 6:30 PM on April 6th

Note: This was the first Board meeting held in the new conference room in what has been referred to as the “Johnson Building” at 2788 Highway 9 in Boulder Creek. The planned modifications to the room to make it suitable for hybrid meetings had not been completed. For that reason, the audio quality for remote participants was poor, making some of the Board discussion unintelligible.  For that reason, this summary is less detailed than usual, and may omit some minor points.

 

Preliminaries

District Counsel Gina Nicholls reported that the Board voted unanimously in Closed Session to approve the District Manager’s Goals and Objectives for December 2022 thru November 2023.  These will be posted in a public document on the District’s web site.

Gina suggested that since this was the Board’s first in-person meeting since March 2020, it might be helpful to ask the only remote public attendee to comment on the audio experience.  Mark Dolson reported that excessive reverberance and distortion made it quite challenging to understand many of the Board’s comments.  The experience was substantially worse than when everyone was attending remotely via Zoom.  Director Ackemann asked if it would be helpful to individually mic each meeting participant, and District Manager Rick Rogers said this was scheduled to occur the last week of March.

There was no President’s Report.

 

Unfinished Business

Investment Update

Finance Manager Kendra Reed introduced this agenda item.  At the January 18, 2023 Budget & Finance Committee meeting, District staff discussed investing the unspent funds from the 2019 $14.5 million Certificate of Participation (COP) and the 2021 $15 million CoBank Loans into higher yielding accounts. The funds were being held in the Santa Cruz County Fund earning an average of 1.47%.  District staff chose to invest in Treasury Bills (T-Bills) which are short-term U.S. government debt obligations backed by the Treasury Department with a maturity of one year or less. The investments were made through Wells Fargo and are in accordance with the District’s Investment Policy.

President Smolley noted that this strategy was originally recommended by a member of the public, Mark Lee.  Mark Lee emailed the District March 13th recommending that, given the recent failure of Silicon Valley Bank, the district should invest at JP Morgan Chase instead of Wells Fargo, based on liquidity levels. Kendra responded that the T-Bills had already been purchased at the time of Mark Lee’s email; moreover, there is little risk given that T-Bills are backed by the government.

Director Hill ended a brief discussion, saying that as a member of the Budget and Finance Committee he was satisfied that the District had done the right thing, and the risk is almost zero.  There was no public comment.

 

New Business

Memo Template

Environmental Planner Carly Blanchard introduced this agenda item.  In the past, Staff have worked from multiple memo templates for Board and Committee meetings.  This has resulted in inconsistent formats, text fonts, and organization.  To address this, Staff drafted an instruction coversheet that explains how to put together a memo (including a memo’s objectives, goals, and general instructions) and a draft memo template that outlines each section Staff needs to complete (including recommendation examples, motion examples, etc.).

On March 3, 2023 the Administrative Committee reviewed the draft memo template and requested minor changes: note environmental impacts (if any), provide further context in the background section, and ensure prior memos, reports, and other relevant documents are linked.  Staff recommends that the Board adopt the memo template and allow for further improvements to be identified over the next few months.

Directors Fultz, Ackemann, and Hill all commented that they were happy to see this.  President Smolley had one small suggestion, and Gina said she would suggest a couple of bullet points relating to contract approval.  There were no public comments.

The motion to approve the new memo passed 5-0.

 

Peavine Tree Work

District Engineer Josh Wolff introduced this agenda item.  The Peavine pipeline alignment is currently obstructed by multiple fallen or otherwise damaged trees as a result of the
2020 CZU fire and ensuing rainfall. The District is considering how to proceed with the replacement of the Peavine pipeline, but these efforts are hampered by the presence of these trees and other hazards.  Staff is recommending that the Board authorize an expenditure of $31,970 to Mike Powers Forestry LLC to inventory ($18,420) and clear ($13,550) hazard trees along the pipeline bench.  This work is a portion of the overall 2020 CZU fire recovery work and, as such, will be included in the Federal Emergency Management Agency reimbursement grant with a split of 90% from FEMA and 10% from the District.  In response to a question from Director Mahood, Josh explained that the inventory with precise latitude and longitude of each tree is needed to satisfy FEMA requirements for reimbursement.

The Directors had some minor follow-up questions, and President Smolley then moved to approve the expenditure.  There was no public comment.  The motion passed 5-0.

 

2023 Update of the San Lorenzo River and North Coast Watersheds Sanitary Survey

Carly Blanchard introduced this agenda item.  The State Water Resources Control Board, Division of Drinking Water (DDW) requires Sanitary Surveys to be completed for all watersheds that act as a drinking water source in order to evaluate these sources and assess the vulnerability of watershed lands and waterways to contamination. The first San Lorenzo River and North Coast Watersheds Sanitary Survey was completed jointly with the City of Santa Cruz in 1996.  Updates have been completed approximately every five years, as required by the State. 

The primary objectives of the update are to: (a) identify any changes in the watershed that have the potential to cause contamination of the source water bodies; (b) identify key sources that can be categorized as significant to the watershed; and (c) provide recommendations to address those contaminant sources.  There have been limited changes to land uses in the watershed since the 2018 Watershed Sanitary Survey with the exception of the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex Fire, which resulted in tens of thousands of acres of watershed lands in Santa Cruz County being burned. Given that more than 900 structures, hundreds of vehicles, propane tanks, septic systems, water and wastewater pipes, and other infrastructure burned in the fire, there is the potential for contamination of the soil and creeks in burned areas by hazardous compounds, such as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene.  Water analyses collected through 2021 (the period covered for this update) show that SLVWD and Santa Cruz Water Department drinking water sources are uncontaminated. This is presumably due to a proactive initial cleanup and erosion control response by the EPA, the County, the Santa Cruz County Resource Conservation District, SLVWD and the City, combined with a lack of any substantial storm events and associated landslides in winter of 2020-2021 that would have mobilized contaminants into creeks prior to clean-up.

While the SLVWD can influence water quality management activities within the lands
they control, protection of the majority of watershed lands requires the engagement of
outside entities including the County of Santa Cruz, California State Parks, and various
non-profit organizations.

Staff recommended that the Board review and accept the 2023 update for the San
Lorenzo River and North Coast Watersheds Sanitary Survey prepared by the San Lorenzo Valley
Water District and the City of Santa Cruz Water Department. The Sanitary Survey
update was submitted to the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) Division
of Drinking Water in March 2023.

Director Mahood noted that the report had minor errors that were no doubt a result of the report being cobbled together from previous versions, but given that this report was assembled largely to fulfill a regulatory requirement, and did not commit the District to any actions, there was no point in revising it.

Director Fultz asked if this was largely driven by the City of Santa Cruz.  Carly replied that the District and the City prepared the report jointly in order to share the costs, and that the City took the lead in preparing the report.

The Directors had some minor follow-up questions, and President Smolley then moved to accept this update.  There was no public comment.  The motion passed 5-0.

 

Consent Agenda

These items are deemed adopted if nobody pulls any of them for further discussion.  There was no request to pull the previous meeting minutes.

 

District Manager’s Report

Rick reported that the District has received the invoice from Sandis for the engineering study for Bracken Brae.

 

 

Department Status Reports

Director Fultz asked a question about the use of surface water.  The ensuing discussion was unintelligible.

President Smolley asked when Sandis was expected to complete its design and update its cost estimate for the Probation Tank.  Josh said the target was the end of March for pipeline work.

President Smolley asked about Quail Hollow pipeline damage.  Josh began to reply, but District Counsel  advised that, given the potential for litigation, this discussion should be taken offline.

 

The meeting adjourned at 7:25 PM.  The Board returned to Closed Session, but it did not anticipate any further public report.