EWEB Board of Commissioners — May 16, 2023

0:03 so welcome thank you everyone for coming out on this lovely evening it's sunny out so appreciate you choosing to be inside with us uh today we are being recorded and broadcast so I just wanted to make sure that you all you know we're aware of that um it will be available online uh after the event and we have um just a couple of quick safety check sorts of things if for some reason we needed to evacuate there is an exit on this side of the room and there's also next to this side of the room the bathrooms are located right through here so you know kind of a little awkward with questions but if you need to use the restroom please feel free to come up and use that as needed so someone like us attendance or flight attendants okay all right uh we have um

0:50 meeting point if we need to evacuate the meeting points is actually in the field out over here agenda is up here like I mentioned uh we will go through do kind of the welcome we have a couple of presentations and then the majority of what we're going to focus on tonight is questions and thoughts from you all we really want to hear your feedback uh we have staff here that are able to answer you know real technical questions and all the board members are here to you know give some thoughts and and hear your feedback um this is actually one of our favorite meetings to be able to come up here and interact with all of you so again thank you so much for taking the time to come up here and share your thoughts with us and you're what what we're doing in uweb uh so I'm gonna go through so my name is Sonia uh Carlson I'm the eweb board

1:36 president for this year I've been a commissioner since 2017 and I represent Awards six and seven in Eugene in my spare time on a real a real estate broker so okay all right uh okay I'm gonna turn it over to uh John Broski each one of us will go through and announce ours or we'll introduce ourselves and then uh we'll turn it over to Frank to start the presentations so for John okay this is John barosso stand up stand up I am the commissioner for ward two and three which is in South Eugene I've been on the board for a couple of years now and I also am a restaurant tourer down

2:22 in YouTube hi my name is Nikki schlossberg and I'm the at-large commissioner which means that I represent everybody um I've been on the board since 2019 and by day I am a speech language pathologist and I work with preschool-aged children throughout Lane County oh good evening my name is John Brown I've been on the board for this is my fifth term so it's like 17 years my last term uh in my day time I'm doing part-time commercial real estate and as much fishing as I can as soon as I get rid of this oh I'm Matt McRae I'm a conserve Awards One and eight in Eugene

3:07 um and I've been on the board now for a couple of years and uh in the daytime over for Lane County supporting Wildfire recovery from the holiday Farm fire okay and now I'm going to turn it over to Frank Lawson our general manager thanks well good evening everybody it's always nice to see everybody I do have the coldest seat in the room just just if I look like I'm sort of stiff and shivering as as I am um so thanks for coming out um we have a couple of quick presentations that we're going to give you these are really highlights of a couple things that we think are really important for this area one will be an overview of all the Watershed recovery work uh that we're doing up here in the

3:54 Mackenzie Valley and the other one will be an update on the decision that we made to decommission the Lieber hydroelectric project and where we are with the decommissioning action plan but before we get to that just a few people uh and to point out around the room uh for also if you have questions we do have um Misty uh in the corner here as well as Charlie they are really experts on our products and services so this could be things related to Holiday Farm fire recovery for example or our normal services such as Energy Efficiency conservation programs associated with septic systems and septic tanks and all kinds of things so they're the experts

4:40 on and how the programs work and how they're administrated so please reach out to them or if you have questions during the Q a they'll be available to help us with the response we also have our Pure Water Partners table so if you want to know a little bit more about that program and the stewardship Arrangements that we have and are making with residents up here that really Susan you'll get to talk later so I will introduce you we do have also a table when we have experts on all of our hydroelectric projects up the McKenzie Valley including Carmen Smith as well as the Libre project Walterville and what we're doing from a dam safety program as well that's Dam not damd

5:27 safety so just just so you know what they're doing and then kind of in the back corner we have a group that's really experts in a lot of things we're doing uh relative to our Wildfire mitigation planning emergency preparedness free trimming all those things associated with that I don't know if you recall but last fall it was September 9th we did execute our first Public Safety power shut off called a PSPs in this area lasted for about 36 hours and so that group is also looking at you to get some feedback from you on that experience and what that was like and how we can interact with with you better

6:13 and under those kinds of conditions and circumstances so a lot of experts in the room so when it comes to q a time please don't just limit yourself to the topics that you'll hear a little bit more detail about we do have experts in the room in a number of different subjects so thank you for joining us and with that I'm going to turn it over to Susan and Nancy we're going to talk a little bit more about what we're doing from a from the standpoint of watershed Investments here in McKenzie Valley thanks hi everyone I'm Nancy Toth with our drinking water source Protection Program here at eweb and I just wanted

6:59 to kind of remind hopefully every one of some of the products and programs actually that we have uh for folks in the Watershed so Frank mentioned our Pure Water partners program and this program is a voluntary program where landowners in the McKenzie can get help with replanting and we've done a lot of this particularly after the fire some invasive species removal in some cases we can help with fuels mitigation and erosion control measures and we also have a naturescaping workshop every year that I'll talk about in a moment and some free firewood program through the McKenzie Watershed Council and pure water partners we also have septic system Assistance programs and recently we've gotten septic system grants and Misty and

7:45 Charlie can help talk about those afterwards and we also have funding for home site relocation if you're able in your rebuilding process to move your home further away from a river or stream and we have information on undergrounding electric service lines and Energy Efficiency incentives for new construction next slide please and I just wanted to mention that our naturescaping Workshop which I think is the next slide yes has been set for Tuesday June 6th at five o'clock right here in this room and this is hosted by our Pure Water partners program with the organizations listed above uh plus someone from the Oregon Department of Forestry who will be here to talk about fire resilient landscaping around your

8:31 homes and in your properties so this is a chance every year we do a workshop where you can learn a little bit more about how to landscape your property using native plants and kind of where to locate them depending on site conditions soils slope things like that and how to use those plants in a way that allows you to use less chemicals on your lawn and less water and kind of save you some time and money in the process so you're welcome to attend this and RSVP to me and hopefully see some of you here on Tuesday June 6th and so just to remind everyone about our septic system maintenance program this is for homeowners in the McKenzie Watershed near rivers or streams and we've recently increased our rebate to

9:18 300 and this is to encourage regular septic system maintenance for your system and to protect water quality as well as save money over the long run so you are eligible to apply for this rebate every three years to look at your systems and get them inspected and pumped out we also have zero interest loan uh program available if you have to do a major repair or replacement for your system and that can be up to twenty thousand dollars in a zero interest loan we also now have received around three million dollars of Federal grant funding for the American Rescue plan act and that is for homeowners whose septic systems were damaged or destroyed in the

10:03 holiday Farm fire and so you may be eligible for up to thirty five thousand dollars depending on some of the criteria the type of system Etc so there are some criteria you must use a DEQ certified installer be the property owner Etc but these are retroactive funding available since March 3rd 2021 or that's how far it can go back if you've already repaired or replaced your system so please see Misty and Charlie after this if you'd like more information about this program and I'm going to pass it on the student now hi I'm Susan Fricke I'm the Water Resources supervisor at eweb for those of you who worked with Carl morgenstein or newham in the community he was a great asset to eweb he retired March 1st

10:48 and so I'm supervising the program now that he was over which was the source water protection drinking water quality compliance and our water quality lab so I just wanted to do a quick couple slides on some big restoration work that's going to be going on in the Mackenzie just so you all know we do this we're doing this large-scale phased restoration stuff I think everyone is probably driven by fedrock and see some of the work that happened there we have some other work planned but we can we've got our great partners that we work with too that's um McKenzie river trust McKenzie Watership Council and the forest service on this and these are pictures from bedrock and this was showing what it looked like here was the side Channel and here was what it looked like before the project and before the fire appears after the

11:35 fire and then there's after the project so down here is what was considered phase one and that happened um about two years ago now I think and so this summer what I wanted to highlight for you all is up in this area they're going to be doing phase two and that will start the beginning of June we're not sure sometime probably June 1st to 3rd so you will see some equipment bulldozers excavators all that stuff mobilizing up there you'll see people working around that period for the summer time and then that will wrap up by Fall so I wanted to highlight that for you and then also um close by on Ford's Creek Road there's going to be a bridge replacement on Pond Road and that one will be done this fall most likely that might change a little bit so that's some of the bigger activities that have to do with Watershed restoration that

12:21 are coming up in the next year if you have any questions about that please just contact me that's it oh I'm sorry now I'm going to be handing it off to Lisa good evening everyone I'm Lisa krentz at uf's electric generation manager I'm sure many of you in this room have questions or concerns about the Liberty commissioning decision and so we're here tonight to talk about that tell you a little bit more about the process of what to expect in the coming years and to take any questions or comments you might have we did put together just a few slides but we're going to keep it brief so that we can keep the majority of the time open for questions and discussion next slide please first thing

13:07 I wanted to do was introduce our project team although I know many of you in this room already know us again I'm always the current generation manager joining me up here tonight is Mark zinniker who's our generation of engineering supervisor and then the rest project team is also in the room um Spencer is back there he's our communication specialist Jeremy simoji in the back corner over there's our project manager and Robin lady I'm sitting back there in the purple is our regulatory specialist so this is the core team that's going to be working on our plans for decommissioning uh Uber next slide please Laura but just a real quick recap you are all aware that the canal sponge has watered since 2018 primarily due to seepage issues at the Coxwell Creek and what we call the Ames

13:52 area and then subsequently additional studies showed that there were seismic vulnerability concerns among the entire um or most of the portions of the canal thanks bye please so again this is just a recap so um with the understanding that the fix was going to be a lot more complicated than we expected we undertook an evaluation to determine what our best option would be for the future of the lever canoe we started with 11 Alternatives those were narrowed down to four that we did a comprehensive evaluation of thanks I think so thank you so we conducted a triple bottom line analysis to look at the social economic and environmental benefits and impacts of each of those four Alternatives and as you know and not surprising to any of

14:38 us there are a lot of issues that need to be considered in this decision next slide please Laura that culminated into a recommendation and ultimately the board's approval of that recommendation in January of this year to decommission Lieber Hydra project partially by converting it to a storm water conveyance facility while preserving the option to restore to pre-op project conditions at some point in the future I'm sure you've all seen the recommendation but I wanted to just highlight the seven main points of it the first is to permanently discontinue electricity generation at the labor project the second is to remove lever Dam and again this is largely also based on the fact that we assume this is going to be

15:23 a regulatory requirement from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and other regulatory agencies that have jurisdiction and the third part um is you know we understand that Lieber Dam provides access both to Residents and the labor catchery and so there is a need with the removal of of Lieber Jam to provide an alternate access board and so we will be doing an analysis of that I recognize that's a big Hot Topic issue for all of you you have a lot of concerns and so we want to talk about that process a little bit take your questions and comments and then tell you more about how we're going to get to the ultimate outcome there and that'll come a little bit later uh the fourth part of the recommendation is to repair the canal for stream and

16:08 storm water conveyance and again preserving the option to Natural Leisure to pre-project conditions at some point in the future and then again we recognize that there are going to be the impacts so looking for mitigation opportunities to reduce those impacts primarily for hatcheries and irrigators water extra irrigators and then because the lieberg and Walterville developments although practically operated independently of each other are combined together under one operating license from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission so anything we do with lieberg is going to have some sort of regulatory impact on Walterville so the recommendation also included doing a similar triple bottom line assessment for the Walterville project by 2030 although we do plan to do that

16:54 much earlier than that because we recognize that that outcome is going to help inform how we go through the labor process and then finally the recommendation included identifying opportunities for our Board of Commissioners to engage in the process and to um you know provide guidance and perhaps redirection should we get in from new information that might change the ultimate path forward next slide please okay so what happens next it's actually quite a lot and so again it's kind of a complicated process that most people have never had the opportunity to go through so I wanted to provide it at a high level so you know what to expect in the coming years the first step of the ferc process again Federal Energy

17:39 Regulatory Commission we call it Burke is to make a decision on what our preferred alternative is for the path forward that's essentially what the board did in January when they approved the recommendation to move towards decommissioning that's the first step of the process we got to figure out where we want to go and then we figure out how we get there the next step in the process is preparing an application this is a major component and will take several years this this is the part of the process where eweb will engage with regulatory agencies and other stakeholders to actually determine what decommissioning on the ground looks like so a lot of those details that so many of you want to know will be fleshed out at a high and sometimes at a detailed level during this application process the federal

18:24 entry Regulatory Commission needs a pretty detailed application in order for them to be able to evaluate it and go through the approval process the other thing that happens during this application Phase is we typically and expect we will need to do studies and data collection to inform how the decommissioning plan and what we actually want to propose to the perk and again there's consultation and Outreach throughout this process with various agencies prior to filing the application with work we do provide the 30-day notice to the public once the application is filed then ferc will initiate their formal consultation and what this means is that they will engage with regulatory agencies that

19:10 have jurisdiction over things like The Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act and then for themselves we'll start conducting their own analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act that's a process that takes a number of years Alternatives analysis as associated with that and there's public process included in many of those steps after all that's complete for full issue in order thanks I please learn and then we still have a lot more work to do before any construction occurs so once issues in order then you will need to secure construction permits there's often the need to write additional management plans that might not have been included in the original application and provide some more detail around some of the designs so that we

19:55 can actually get the construction permits that we need after all of that's complete then we move to implementation of actual construction and decommissioning following decommissioning then there's a period of post-implementation monitoring where we make sure that site conditions are as expected if they aren't Corrections are made we go through a reporting process to ferc when we believe everything has been done to the degree that that was intended we submit that report to ferc and not until after that do they notify us that our license surrender is complete so it's a really long complicated process with a lot of moving Parts Cyprus okay so what we're doing this year is developing what we call the Liberty

20:41 commission action plan or the ldap this is really a high level plan with key Milestones that Maps us out how we get to through all of those steps on the previous slides and how things are interrelated it'll include work plans and estimated timelines for a whole bunch of things a few examples are shown on the slide regulatory process stakeholder engagement strategies conceptual design development and there's a whole you know broad list of other components that will be included what the ldap does not include is any specific detail around exactly what decommissioning will look like on the ground so in sessionally what the ldap is is it's a process to get to the outcome rather than a definition of what the outcome ultimately will be

21:28 next slide please okay so all of that combined this is our most aggressive schedule that we can come up with um and so in other words construction won't begin for at least 10 years we've got the surrender application um and some possibly a settlement agreement that will take three or four years we've got once we submit to for their process is expected to take at least two years and then we have design and permitting after that which is another few years so the earliest that construction would begin would be sometime around 2033 and with that next slide please Lauren I'm going to hand it over to Mark so he can tell you a little bit about what

22:13 we're going to do in the meantime to ensure we're able to safely convey snow water Thank you Lisa well as Lisa just explained um major decommissioning will not be starting for at least a decade but that does not mean that you won't see anything happening out on the canal we've been out of commission for generating power uh on the early five years now but there's still water flowing through the canal because of the tributary creeks and it can be quite a bit of water where we have a big storm move through uh that process a risk that we do need to address and this slide shows a couple of examples of risk mitigation measures the upper left aerial um is at the Johnson Creek area that

23:00 collects indicates a concept where we'd be installing a plug in the canal Downstream of Johnson Creek and then adding a new outfall so that Johnson Creek could flow directly to the river on the right hand side this is the Cogswell Creek area a similar concept where we would install a plug in the canal to help string Cogswell and then direct the flow from Cogswell Upstream in the canal to an existing outfall to the McKenzie river these projects um we will surely start seeing some action as early as late summer with some drilling activities that would be done in preparation for this work next slide

23:45 we also want to acknowledge that we've been receiving a lot of very good questions about the decommissioning process um Jeremy simoji our leader project manager and Adam Spencer have done a great job responding to frequently asked questions those FAQs are available for review on our website and they've also got some hard copies at that table in the corner here tonight lots of good questions some of them we can answer but as the police that was alluding to there's a lot of details to be worked out before we can provide uh substantial deep details on a lot of the tougher questions we we can at this point in time give you

24:30 a sense for how we will go through the process of developing those details but it will be a significant amount of time before those details are settled um as Lisa also mentioned we've got a lot of stakeholders involved and that's part of why this process takes so long is because we eweb's role will be to facilitate decision making with the collaboration of major stakeholders and with public input for example on Transportation access issues we will be working very closely with Lane County Public Works and ODOT to come to us an ultimate solution

25:17 on the Hatchery issues it's the Army Corps of Engineers and fish agencies who will be in the driver's seat again eweb will be involved but um in a facilitating mode there's um you know clearly a very large number of stakeholders involved um we will um take as much time as we can to to listen to your comments to listen to your questions because that helps us understand the issues that we need to raise at the table um in the course of the decision-making project process in collaboration with all the major stakeholders so with that we would like to open up the meeting for

26:03 uh questions and comments okay so as we mentioned earlier this is this is Town Hall style type meeting we really wanted to make sure that we gave as much time as possible for the group but we also want to make sure that we spread out kind of the who's who's asking questions who's making comments so if I see that there's a number of people with their hands raised I want to spread it around and if somebody wants to have another round then I'll try to get through those first and then loop back if somebody has another comment um I also want to make sure that um everybody understands you know we're elected Commissioners we we will make comments you know as needed a lot of the

26:48 technical details and such will be answered by staff but any of the comments that are made from the individual Commissioners don't represent the commission as a whole they're they represent the opinion of that Commission and then um as a just as a quick reminder for anybody who came in late this is the first time that I think we're doing this here so this is recorded so just you know wanted to make sure that you were aware of that and otherwise what we'll do is um if one person over here has raised their hand in is uh oh okay okay Adam's going to um take the the mic around so I'll just kind of call on people and I'll let you know what order we're going in and I'll turn it over there and I did have one last quick note that we have a former elab commissioner John

27:33 Simpson in the um thanks for joining us John so thank you okay all right Adam uh let's get this down in here I saw his hand first and then well I'm Scott Roeder and I raised my hand first because I need to go back home and continue to clean up after the Federal disaster called the holiday time Friday which I've been doing every day for two years thanks to your decision not to bury your wires in the ground we Face people in this room don't understand how this fire occurred at milepost 47 there are three of your wires which cross the McKenzie Highway as far as I'm told one of your wires was pinned down because of severe winds by a tree UT energized your wires as you should have but they went across the

28:20 highway and leaned on top of laying electric swears if I'm not mistaken and they were re-energized without your knowledge even if Lane electric would bury the wires that parallel the highway under the ground this buyer would never have happened and I urge you again to reevaluate your decision which benefits you and Ms rear owners all of anywhere it in a way benefits us but all of the costs including my coronary heart attack and people who've lost their houses and have been screwed by their contractors or their insurance companies that's not the cost has not been born by ewip so that being said it is cheaper not for you not to bury your

29:06 wires in the ground but you should because it's the right thing to do we love you years ago you wanted to divest yourself of this territory and many of us turned out and urge you not to do that because we didn't want I think it was speed time wasn't it some other utility would take over this character that's because we like you and we appreciate what you do none of us in this room have the knowledge that you do about the Walterville canal and I frankly guess that most of us really don't care all that much about the seepage issues in the Walterville Canal most of us do care about the Lakes and we'd like to like to stay most of us

29:51 I think except for the white water rafters and for all the nonsense going around in Washington DC whether it's an alleged mythical earthquake that's going to take down your Dam that's never going to happen up here never it ain't never going to happen there will be an earthquake one day but it isn't going to impact our dams if if I was in your shoes of the county commissioner which thank police probably glad I'm not I tell the federal government to go pound sand because all the nonsense being generated by Washington isn't is taking our country down now that's all I have to say and I got to get back to cleaning up a mess thanks

30:39 thank you for sharing your your comments um you know I didn't know one of the things that we we looked into we asked about was whether or not we could keep the dam and stop generation and we were told that we likely would not be able to do that because if we don't have generation there's no reason to have a dam there so I know just one of the things that we're looking at but that is part of the reason that I personally made a decision on that and that we really if you want if not over here yeah there were disease yeah yeah oh well I was searching for a question in there but there were a lot of there were a lot of comments we we continually look at undergrounding um as an example

31:24 um it's very expensive um and the line he's referring to was a transmission line and if you go to area transmission line it does cost you because it cost about two million dollars a mile to bury a transmission line of that size and that's a 70 mile long transmission line so you can kind of do the math on on that one um that we're you know totally cooperating with all the authorities looking at what the cost of the fire was with the cause report has still not been issued by the federal government he referred to and it's been almost three years and we'll look forward to to the hearing what the what the ultimate conclusion of the cause was um but the as far as the the Liebert

32:10 decision there are a lot of things that went into that as as Lisa mentioned a triple bottom line we also had to look at it from a what is the UF Mission and what is our objective as a utility we are delivering electricity and water part of that is that if we have an asset an asset is not contributing to that mission we have to try to reduce the risk and reduce the long-term obligation of that so it is likely that the federal government will say the primary purpose of the dam has been removed therefore it needs to be removed it's also probably an EOS long-term interest to not have that ongoing obligation

32:57 okay and I saw a gentleman over here I thought maybe it was maybe it was you okay we'll go there and then we'll get on this side of the room yeah Drive I've lived there for nearly 25 years I started coming up McKinsey my grandfather was raised up here started using believer Dam lake when I was probably four or five years old spent my life on it my dream was to one day make enough money to where I could move up and live on the Lee bird Lake and it took me most of my life to do it but I did it belonged with several others in this room and now you know you're looking at changing dramatically what we're doing it and I would ask you to all of my your golfers and you spent your whole life wanting to play golf and

33:42 you finally were able to afford that golf course location with your home and then only to find out that they're going to take away your golf course but they're going to build money right behind your house and how do you feel about that I'm losing my golf course and now I got a two-lane road that's been a small Road for some time I live on the road and people in the them see me walk every day ironically I don't know how many have you guys ever been on the shore Market again Market don't drive it because when you walk and you turn onto Lee Shore Drive on the right hand side it's Steve's house the bank drops off big time on the left is Nolan pepper who are now 90 years old they've spent their entire life building this Japanese Titan

34:27 garden with a huge Pond you're if you'd make that into a two-lane Grill you're gonna have to build another bridge over their Pond or take away their dream and as you go down each one of these people in this room have their dream and you're going to step on their dreams as well and we're all getting to the age of elderly so now you're starting to talk about access across the river on the bridge getting medical when you do shut down they Park things on the other side to get to us I'm 64. I've had to use the ambulance service before it takes time to get there at least 20 minutes and now they're going to increase that that bridge traffic on historic it's like putting a freeway through the freaking Outlet I mean this is a historic Bridge it's built in 1938 the longest in Oregon

35:12 and we all love and use it we use the white ceremonies around it in Christmas and now we're going to try to turn it into some kind of a major thoroughfare it won't work and I I walk that road every day and I just want to reiterate that not only you taken away that amazing gem along the McKenzie river both economically and Beauty wide but you're also taking away our dreams and and everybody's access we all have dogs and kids and things and there's no way you can put a road down there so please if you're going to do this at least spend the money to build a bridge where it is if you're going to take the dam out yes and provide enough and I think they're probably a few that I've talked to realize that if you do

35:58 take the damn amount we're going to have still have a river I fish every day and I'll still fish the river but don't build a two-lane road on a one-legged Road it will not work you're going to take out driveways you're going to take out dreams you're going to take out you can't do it it just simply can't be done so simply put in either a bridge or another access so that people that live on that area can get to it so we have emergency access and don't decrease the historic bridge is traffic please don't and I and I say this from experience I I use that brick every day and I walk that road every day please Commissioners people that's in this room please take the time to walk down these short drive don't drive it and then start the dam

36:44 and walk the other and then come back to this room and sit down and see how you would feel and not only is it even feasible it's not and so that's all I really have to say and I know it's a lot but that's all I concern my name is Tammy Felton and I live on the corner of Lee Shore Drive and good pasture and my house would be one of the first ones that get affected by this widening of the road um we came up here six years ago and bought our house there we've loved the neighborhood we loved living on the

37:29 river and we love the bridge and to hear that this is going to happen just destroys our Dream just like Justin our community is a small very friendly Community we all know each other and to hear that you're going to come in and widen it make it a road where there is no road that means you're taking people's property whether you're going to use the eminent domain or you're going to buy us out I don't know you're going to be tearing down houses to make the road go all the way through um think about it build another Metal Bridge like they have down on Holden Creek

38:14 um a question about your slides you've said uh the first process is to decommission and settlement who's getting the settlement uh let me explain more about that um no the the way the first process works is you file an application but there are a whole slew of regulatory agencies and other stakeholders that if we went that a specific route we would enter into a settlement agreement that actually defines its settlement agreement process with regulatory agencies and others we have one a better Apartment project that has 17 parties that are part of it and that is is an agreement with all of those entities and that is in addition to but Bound by our

38:59 license so it's some nomenclature that's that's not terribly um used fairly often um your stakeholders and your it's a very specific legal um legally binding document that a lot of utilities use when they're re-licensing Hydro projects and some use for energy commissioning but not all okay so you also talked about burying the lines you know that's not only affected by the weather but it's traffic also anytime there's an accident and they hit a pole it takes out everybody's power all the way up River so that's just another reason why you guys shouldn't consider spending the money

39:50 uh so I saw this gentleman here and then let's jump in and then we'll head to the back for a little bit and we'll come back forward there's a lot of people here my name is Joel floor and I'm from the Lower River and I wanted to share an observation regarding the the salmon runs in the dams and for decades I've been seeing people blame the the dams for the loss of salmon and I wanted to share my observation before I got too old to do so but I saw what happened to our salmon runs we used to have beautiful salmon runs on the lower River and appreciate that there were a lot more salmon spawning on the lower River than up here because we have a lot more gravel beds and when I

40:35 and uh and when I was growing up there I mean I've been there since 1952 and growing up we would do it and do a lot of trout fishing waiting out amongst the herds of spawning salmon I mean they were just like walking out a bunch of herd of cattle and they would swim in between your legs and and there were just so many of them and then in 1969 we had a beautiful salmon run and then I got drafted and sent to Vietnam when I came back from Vietnam in 1971 there wasn't any decent Salmon Run and the salmon runs were gone and I asked my dad what happened to her salmon runs and he said well the scientists went and tagged the salmon and found out that

41:20 they go and go up to the pollution Islands they go up to Alaska and they spent five years off the coast of the Aleutian Islands and in 1971 the Japanese began using 50 mile long drift Nets 50 mile long and that's what happened to our salmon runs and these theories about blame the dams they ignore first of all the fact that most of the salmon were doing their spawning below all the dams and all the dance were in place and we still had beautiful salmon runs and then they also ignore the fact of commercial fishing and if you've got a theory that is ignoring observable facts

42:07 then your theory is not scientific theory it's bias Theory and I've written this up and I've provided it to the board and I hope you people read this but the dams are not the result they're not what caused our loss of our salmon runs is commercial fishing and now the there's some environmental groups that are suing the Army Corps of Engineers to uh are threatening to sue them and making them drain the reservoirs and so what we're doing is we're just diminishing the recreational use of our reservoirs over unfounded Theory it's just the hypothesis that does not is not supported by the observation and

42:53 the evidence and I'm sorry I got to run home you see how my wife is doing but I wanted to get that comment in thank you much I just want to get a quick show of hands how many people want to speak questions okay I see roughly somewhere between 11 and 15. so we have I want to make sure we get enough you know as many of you in as we possibly can in the time allotted so it's about three minutes per person roughly so we've kind of self-moderate there just to make sure to be respectful of the others in the room to keep on touch okay okay so um I think we said over here this gentleman was up next and I'm just gonna go look back to the back of the room

43:44 I have many questions well I'd just like to jump to that is Frank opened up there which is cost and I have the document that gave an estimate of this decommissioning way back when you were holding public meetings whatever you call them out in the Heat and like this Pleasant place and this which you can add to your headquarters which the final that when you made the final vote back in December I believe it was the Commissioners meet in a room that doesn't even have a a PA system yes okay I would suggest you upgrade it but the issue is as a final decommissioning estimate

44:31 change from your triple gold-plated consultant excellence so if you do go and look at the final version of the report that remains the estimate for our decommissioning costs and that is available on the website and so and so tell me then what was the difference in cost between decommissioning and the cost of returning to full service yeah so it um roughly the negative uh that we're looking at it was from a net present

45:17 value perspective and uh roughly I guess I'm just remembering these off the top of my head so roughly returned to service was a quarter billion dollars 250 million in the red and the uh decommissioning options were around 180 185 almost yeah so if you advertise that over 50 years you're talking about two minutes and my real problem at police has been this whole issue you lose your own ability to generate power the only thing you'll have left by the time you're done decommissioning Walterville which is your next step this is already preordained because all of us are linked together and they're

46:02 licensed together and it may well be if Frank would just stand up and say I can't generate power as cheaply as I can buy it from BPA and that's great so my only other question is this there was a McCullough report done by Cantwell Washington state which is also affected by BPA it was known back in 2018 when the Trump Administration wanted to sell off BPA transmission lines the estimate in that report was it would increase the cost transmission by 44 percent what's your alternative well obviously if you generate locally you're not paying transmission costs now maybe I'm wrong about all this but

46:49 this is the kind of stuff that those decisions all these people have to make over and should have considered what happens if the next Administration comes along and says oh we're selling off these assets because well first of all they're blue States and off the bat secondly we've already tried it once we'll figure out how to do it this time I got an answer we will continue to check our NPP assumptions over time for a book like this to confirm the amount of power that we generated lever dam is what three percent uh four percent it was four percent we haven't generated power there in five years so it's a very small portion of our overall

47:34 portfolio and part of the process that we're going through right now is making an integrated resource plan that looks at all of the different options available and many of those other options that were available were much lower cost than re than than recommissioning the labor facilities so it is part of what we looked at and what went into this we had over 20 different public meetings engagements Outreach sessions this was not a decision that any of us took lightly we knew that lives were going to be impacted in a major way we had what I personally felt like were no wonderful object I mean they were all awful options we're either raising rates

48:19 and impacting people in a very dramatic way um you know people on fixed incomes low income his families that that they can't absorb that 80 million doesn't sound like a lot but that when that translates into Bill increases and it's 20 30 40 dollars that can make and break someone um so that this is part of what what we want to bring into the to the sections what you do should I referred and eventually wallpaper he works essentially doing nothing separated than a widget maker that takes this Factory moves it to Mexico or to

49:04 China local jobs local generation control keep going and you're going to be subject to whoever's selling to power you become nothing but a wholesaler you're a middle okay well believe it that there's there I want to get to other people in the room here um this down in the back uh the greens turned on and then thank you my name is Rex Starr and I'm one of the lovely residents on Lee Shore that would get through the entertain the traffic going up and down that road should that option go through I do understand that there was a study of the of the tunia the route beyond the end of the county road at the end of leisure through Mrs toysland along the river and

49:51 through Todd sharpsland on the other in a damn road neither one of which I don't think have been contacted by any agency whatsoever about the likelihood of ever trying to negotiate some sort of a price I'm familiar with that and he had not okay number two uh you're saying well the you know the Liebert project only generates four percent of your of your power that's four percent out of your entire power budget I don't really much care what it costs you to deliver power in West Eugene four percent on that beberg project could handle the river these are the people that live here and require power and that's the that's the cleanest closest source there is thirdly damn my understanding that Dan part of

50:36 the original process was um flood control now I live above the dam but those people who live down below the dam might enjoy flood control okay that was a that was an old old concept and justification for a dance but beyond all of that the recreational value to the to the population of Lane County and much Beyond by losing leiburg lake is significant and I don't know that anybody really cares except the three or four businesses who get through agreeing their own revenue for people traveling Up and Down the River and enjoying that process and those who are trying to build a discovery center right across the road from the libert lake to draw people in and enjoy the process of a

51:21 Libra hatchery in its history and the ongoing process that's there these are all things that I don't know that were ever considered lastly when the when the canal became an issue that anybody ever ever ever considered poly lining the canal they have ponds and lakes and so forth all over the world they're a palm line and that immediately stops seepage did anybody ever consider that yeah those are a lot of great questions I'll cover a couple of them I might ask Mark to cover the Holly lining one I did want to talk a little bit about the process for the access routes so eweb has not undertaken nor have the transportation agencies who ultimately have jurisdiction over the access route undertaken any formal studies at least

52:07 that um is aware of we have already met with ODOT in Lane County Public Works around the impact that this is going to be to all of you and the need to develop options that all parties including the UAB Lane County Public Works ODOT and others um can hopefully live with it is a long process and again the conceptual designs alternative routes there are a lot of things to consider around what would be a feasible access that provides Ingress egress for emergency what you know Bridge loading rates are all of that was recognized also that there is understandably concern over good pressure Bridge it is a historic bridge and even the county and Lane County

52:53 Public Works have you know concerns around increasing traffic over that so a lot of questions need to be answered and a lot of work needs to be done to get to those answers to those questions but I fully recognize as does everyone on the project team and certainly our commissioners how impactful the access issue is to all of you and it would be for me too if I were in your shoes um so um more to come on that as we work through the process but please know we have already been in touch and are working with both of those Transportation agencies that's it I just have one other question real quick you know you talk about all the stakeholders you have to deal with please look around the room these are all stakeholders too who have a significant financial investment in where they live

53:39 and whatever your decision is if it includes taking that property out impacts everyone in the room and we are stakeholders absolutely are 100 you are which is part of the reason why we will continue with our stakeholder engagement strategy which again includes all of you we want to hear your questions we want to hear your concerns we want to be able to evaluate the impacts and ultimately try to find the balance between all of these competing impacts that we're trying to again find the best route there through it is hard it's very very hard and we recognize that there are impacts to individuals and their impacts to the broader groups as a whole I did want to say one thing about um the flood control so Liebert is is a

54:26 unique facility it is does not provide any flood control it's what we call a run of the River facility so it's not like Blue River or cougar that actually do and were primarily built originally for flood control labor does not provide that what it does is it passes inflows through the dam with the exception of what we divert through the canal for power generation when we were diverting but it it's understandably why folks would think it provides blood control because most and many dams do Liebert is not one of those Mark do you want to address the sure just real quickly yeah you're absolutely correct uh polyliner is uh precisely what we would want to do if we return to service but it's not the only portion of the canal that he's has

55:13 issues we would also need to be doing a bunch of structural upgrades or seismic stability because the liner doesn't do anything for us in the seismic event so the largest driver for cost on rehabbing the canal five miles of canal was the size of anywhere thank you I'm Dane Palmer I live on labor Dam Road um my front door will be about five feet from the highway you folks want to put in um I have to maintain that any of you people on that

55:59 side of the road with a Lee Shore Drive really worked and road we wouldn't be here tonight you said a minute ago eweb considers the impacts to Residents I have never seen me web care about impacts to restaurants he also said something about the historic nature of good pasture Bridge the dam is historical um regarding it a point that Jeff made you take the dam out you need to put another bridge where the dam was but here's a cheaper option got the dam leave the structure there

56:48 across the river pretty simple and a lot cheaper Amen brother from the back over here and one real quick check do you have anybody that has a different topic absolutely but I want to give a strange here too so um it's understanding over here so let's thank you I'll be fast uh first of all I'd like to thank pure water Partners group um I'm Jim Russell White Water Ranch um we've been trying to be nice quiet neighbors uh over on our side of the

57:34 South access of the river um pure water Partners has been over there a million times planting hundreds of Acres of restoration plants after the fires that they really deserve a hand from everyone regarding what we're talking about tonight I can give clear numbers what Lakeshore Drive would have to go through uh like I said we've been trying to be a quiet neighbor over at the ranch uh we grow blueberries and we have Timber after the holiday fun fire we had to do Salvage logging Salvage logging requires trucks coming in we had a little over 2 000 logging trucks come across the dam

58:21 um probably no one on the Shore Drive knew that um in 25 to 35 years another 2 000 trucks will need to come in to do the logging that we just planted right every 35 years or so you have to harvest your trees we also grow blueberries right now we've got 86 Acres of blueberries they've been in the ground since 2012. last year we produced 650 000 pounds of blueberries our goal is a million pounds of blueberries um 52 foot or 53 foot refrigerated trailer holds about 25 000 pounds of blueberries a million pounds of blueberries would equal 50 big rigs to come in that's 50 big rigs going back out so 100 trips of big rigs going uh

59:08 across your Lake Shore Drive right now those those trucks sneak through the fish hatchery the trout hatchery and across Lieber Dam once again probably mostly or Lee Shore Drive didn't know we even had that so I just wanted to put some real numbers on what the impact of these decisions are and uh if in fact we actually do have another option on the bridge we love two lanes thank you everyone

59:58 and I have a question that's not quite as pressing to me as um the labor and Lake residents have but still important to us we use um the path along Lieber Canal for walking biking it's a wonderful wonderful thing the ties That Community together being able to walk from end to end and actually it's something of a sadness to me that we can't walk through the outflow that occurs where you have that big version um so my specific question is as the as eweb prepares designs for converting the canal to stormwater runoff will you be preparing two different designs one that preserves that ongoing pedestrian traffic and hopefully adds it up at the runoff of the northern

1:00:45 up River end uh and one that does not and providing a dollar cost or what it would take to preserve the amenity of that end-to-end traversal of the canal as a pedestrian good morning that question does fall in that category of his two early to say uh unfortunately it said there's we obviously do observative tremendous amount of recreational use of the trails and there will be options that will be evaluated and studied and eventually and opportunity supporting input going forward by the way just today the trail did reopen there seasonally we are able to reopen it when we're not passing on

1:01:31 to the waste big eight so again it's a full Trail my question wasn't so much what your final outcome would be but rather will you be evaluated um without any pedestrians below and provides that continued through passage yeah your comments I think I'm sure that we'll have that ownership of the table okay hi everybody I'm Gary Hatfield hi neighbors 1962 was a good year for some of us we were alive right well I was at McKenzie High I was a sophomore in 1967 I was at the University of Oregon I

1:02:18 worked for the U.S army Engineers to do a survey believe it or not we did a survey up here at leeburg we did a survey a couple other DMS a young kid jumped around and talked to people about why you were coming up to this area and what value you would get out of it believe it or not they said things that all of you talked about a minute ago or head home for me you're a very intelligent gentleman over there and the knowledge you have and if I had tips off to you for that one of the important things that was mentioned was a recreational value of these places years ago that Dan had speed boats on it okay remember that that's okay and years ago they floated down that River University of Oregon did having fun remember that until one or

1:03:06 two people didn't make it and they shot it okay and maybe they should we really lose sight of history and facts in those days we wouldn't have touched this Jack it meant something to the people and it meant somebody to the city and it meant something to Mr Brown over there because all of us knew what that River provided and what they have provided to us up here to be locally talking about this van the comments that have been made by my neighbors really exemplify the passion and drive that we had the preserves the Heritage to have the value of that dam for all of us and yes four percent electricity that means something but the disturbing thing for me is to

1:03:52 sit here as an older gentleman in life and to be I'm sorry panda jet because I keep hearing the fact that we're going to open up hearings we're going to talk to everybody at the end of the day decisions are already made I doubt if anybody on this board has changed your mind and if you have you're not going to step up and say anything and was it a universal Vote or not and then who talked to you folks about the money that was going to be spent or could be spent in other ways that's why I kept my head to this gentleman over here it makes more sense in a couple of minutes than a lot of you folks have made deciding whether 50 million dollars was good for you or not good look I paid my taxes I paid my e-wed bills I've done a Faithfully for all

1:04:39 these years I lost three houses in that fire I had one damage everybody came to me and said you know that house up there who owns that it's got vinyl siding melting off of it well that's half the old house well I'm right next to the the good Master bridge and guess what I thought that dadgum boat ramp next to my property we won and then we lost Mr Brown and they put in a boat ramp spent all that money and guess what we have now you got no Laker you're gonna have running down the river I guess it was important to share this with everyone here because we care we all took some time out to come talk to you but it's almost like the tree fall in the out there in the forest and didn't make

1:05:25 a sound I'm not sure it made a sound I think you're all very well-meaning and good natured and good people but I gotta tell you decisions are made do what you're asked to do I've been there in Corporate America for 54 years now said I retired so I can have an opportunity of chatting with you and I guess Mr Brown you'll be retired as well so wish you well in that but I don't know that there's anything we're going to be able to do to stop this but at least we could try to fight like him to save that damn and the road to access the two folks have and have some Summons of Life Before 40 years go by I'm not going to be here you could drive this thing out we're all dead but at the end of the day we're still here we still

1:06:10 care and we urge I hope all of us those of us that could you know stand up and take a good breath speak out on behalf of our folks up here that aren't here that have talked to all of us about please stop it and if you're not going to stop it then direct us to a really good lawyer or some Republican or some democrat that's going to represent us finally the people rather than people that aren't necessarily have a stakehold in this thing that we do that's all I'm asking we need somebody to help us

1:06:56 I am wink Fern Coast I live on Lee Shore Drive and one of the upper river people I have one question for the Commissioners and everybody for me women please explain to all of us what removing a dam removing the bridge and removing the lake has to do with repairing a canal that leaks silence yeah so let me take a stab at this and I'm going to count on an engineer to tell me if I've got something wrong but the canal is an integral part of the

1:07:41 whole tiger facility um right the dam itself doesn't generate power we run the water Swedish now into the PowerHouse so it now has to operate and it has to be safe in order for that Hydra project to work and the concern here is that when we dug into that Canal we found that when it was built in the 1930s it wasn't built with the understanding of the seismic risk that we have here arms and importantly the center of the canal is made out of liquefiable soils and that means if it were wet when an earthquake happened it would just kind of melt apart like butter and the water would come out of that canal and whoever's Downstream of that would be really negatively impacted that is the driver for our concern about

1:08:28 the community and that and that's really where the large costs of canal repair come from is because there are several sections of that Canal that have to have major structural repairs do I add that all right so far thank you so we um we could remove the canal but we can't to the Federal Energy Regulatory ignition will not allow us as I understand it to remove the canal to leave the dam in place we're not asking that well that's that's the question I just heard why aren't we why don't we leave the damn place right sure we did I missed the question the question is why what does taking out the Damned and removing the lake have to do with repairing a canal that leaks with storm

1:09:15 water runoff yes you haven't had any water in it for five years right well in order to put water back into it we would have to make the repairs that you're not going to do that you're going to repair the canal regardless of what happens now why do you have to take out the dam in the language said you were going to plug it yeah thank you safety repairs to move the water safely until we can fully need permission are you aware it's about the excisement capacity of the of the canal not the dance

1:10:15 and it was I didn't see the canal I lived right below the canal yeah it was very close to our Walterville Powerhouse it was a 4.1 event and um Lee Burke's High Hazard Canal we are required to design it for a 10 000 year return frequency event which in our part of the world is the Cascadia seduction Zone event which is a magnitude a magnitude nine um offshore event which is a magnitude and I and we got a mixer so we've got to be able to have a blood Creek Elementary

1:11:46 to repair the canal right can't you do why did you repair the canal without taking out the dam so the dam it's a diversion Dam its purpose is to back up the McKinsey River just enough so that we can divert water into the canal it's a uh it's just licensed together it's a system the power plant the canal the dam and if we decommission the project it is a decommissioning of the entire system not just the canal not just the power plant but the the dam as well okay hold on you're splitting the patent with Walter bill with Liebert the decommissioned half of it why are you able to do with that and not able to do

1:12:32 with the dam that that's where some regulatory complications come in we do at Lisa was referring to there's nothing we can do at leuburg uh with how affecting Waterville um we will need a license amendment in order to decommission the Urgent continue operating the Walterville project but that is the the path that we're on right now that Walterville will continue operating so what you're saying is you can do it but you're not going we cannot uh decommission a portion of the hydroelectric project they're they're separately operating systems we can continue operating one hydroelectric system and decommission

1:13:18 the ER under one pass one license one life right and the amendment would be to split the license so that we do not have to decommission both but we continue to operate in one while we decommissioned leader you have shut off gates at the dam for the canal do you not yes so use those to shut it off and maintain the canal the way you need to maintain it yeah it's a it's a decision that's not within our control we can propose to do that but uh um yeah well you the the precedent uh is that when you decommission a hydroelectric project it's it's really a very very low likelihood that you'll be able to keep your Dam

1:14:12 hi my name is Nadine Scotty I'm a homeowner on Lee bird Lake and I'm also a real estate broker for women um I have a question and I purchased that because I want to live on a lake I've lived on a river before it's not safe unless you really know what you're doing in your professional um Lee Burke Lake is very safe for families and kids and it's used a lot I want to know if you take Libra Lake away how are you going to compensate me for the decrease in my property values and Sonia as a realtor you should really think about this all those properties are going to

1:14:58 be decreased in value because they no longer have a lake that they can use something else I wanted to say is that um this summer um many people that live on Weber Dam Resort in the lake went around with petitions um for people who used the lake in a three-week period and we gained 1100 signatures from people that actually came there with families use the like kayaks boaters all of that 1100 people in three weeks use that Lake you're going to take that away from them that's tourism that's our economy up

1:15:45 here you need to think about the businesses that is our economy locals cannot support the economy up here we need tourism something else I'd like to say it's John um twice I met you down at the meetings at the lake and I expressed my concern about this because at the time I was president of the tampered Commerce and I'm very concerned about tourism you told me don't worry that lake is not going into it what happened thank you lady um and I did say that because that was

1:16:33 what I was advocating for as I came into this process of becoming a UF commissioner I love the lake I spent a lot of time up River one of my best friends has had a cabin on gay Creek I'm familiar with the area and that's something that I I was hoping could happen as as I've learned things sitting in this chair and learning about all of these things that are put Upon Us by the federal government by the state government by the Fisheries by the tribes and as a fiduciary duty to my eweb customers which you guys are UF customers there's

1:17:19 a lot of evil a lot of eweb customers hundreds of thousands of eweb customers and I've got to think of them as well the way what absolutely you are everybody is as as important and everybody else has different impacts when it comes to this decision the impacts to you guys are really hard and on the ground the impacts to rate payers are are a part of the thought as well I understand that something that that I had to look at was and you asked why can't you keep the dam or why don't you return the dam to service

1:18:05 part of returning and this is something that I've learned and there's part of it that I'll probably get wrong because again I'm a restaurateur I'm not an engineer I'm not a water resource manager I was something that was elected to represent my constituents and some of the stuff that I learned was okay we've got a license on this on this damn until 20 so 2040. if we decided that we wanted to keep the dam and not do anything return to service like some of you are advocating for that's 200 and something million dollars of work we need to re-license it again as you see Carmen Smith

1:18:51 hundreds of millions of dollars to relicense it probably two more sets of re-licensing just to make it worthwhile so we're talking a lot of money and when you do that I have to look at what is my long-term risk right risk is part of something that I had to do to think there's ongoing maintenance there's there's if there is the earthquake and so I learned a lot sitting at the table and when I when I said to you don't worry we're not taking the Lakeway I was being absolutely genuine this you know at that point with the knowledge that I had in my head

1:19:36 I learned more and I came to a decision that I felt the best option for Eugene Water and Electric Board and its customers was the decision that we was the vote that I took and I'm pissing off people and I'm sorry about that but that was the decision that I had to make and I live with that um I hope that the transportation issues I hope we can work those out we want to be a partner with that but we're not the drivers of it I would contact your County Commissioners and your state representatives and say hey we need enough money to build a bridge and and and work with them and we'd love

1:20:24 to partner with them but I don't know if we can bear the cost I don't know if I can ask you can't get down the road the road's not going to work for you guys I am not evap does not better think about that you can't get down to the beach or drive ought to come up with another why is it here to hear how we feel about this why aren't they here it's convenient for you to tell us how you think but you need to have blade County and uh oh hold on they should be here we don't really we don't even know what

1:21:10 your communication with them has been on this issue but the honest you said you've been down Lakeshore it's not possible to do I met him when I went on a fishing trip one time over to the the I can't remember the what do we call that Vision holder yeah I talked to him it was blueberry fields I didn't have any idea that many trucks would run through there we cannot get that kind of traffic going down Lee Shore it won't work you've been down the street no I get it bottom line you guys want to take the damn out to cut your costs I get that I get that a lot so you want to take the damn out

1:21:56 no I don't need that you don't I get it I get it once again you're gonna have to build an Iron Bridge make two foundations across instead of damn piece of Steel up there to cross over right where it sits it was a little bit of that cost because we live up here with I get it but we're not all of Eugene we're a small individual but a bunch of people but you can't go up and down you know

1:22:41 you guys are not thinking the whole picture they're thinking dollars and cents money you already have a bridge I apologize for losing my voice and what the only thing that I can say to that is I will look into that as a commissioner and see what we can do no decision as far as I know there's been no decision that we're running Lakeshore Drive Alicia he says get it right be sure I have one more question a quick question um several times I've asked the question about has the Damned been tested for

1:23:28 asbestos when dancer built in the early ages uh like Brooklyn Portland's event company used asbestos in the cement uh my response has been from several e-web people that that's our plan to do down the road uh as a realtor when I was the house the first thing I do is have an inspection done so I know what's right or wrong with that house why aren't you testing that damp prospectus right now

1:24:16 so um we have looked at all the records with respect to construction of the dam there are no indications other asbestos being uh president we will conduct a hazardous material assessment not just for a asbestos but for lead or um any contaminants that might be present in the late Libra relate sentiments Etc all that will be done in the in the unlikely event that we do discover as best as it would be abated as part of the removal of the project it is or cost estimates for uh those types of contingencies were

1:25:02 included in our cost estimates so what are you going to do for your water customers in Eugene when that that structure is taken down and oh you do find this best is that now they're drinking it that water feeds your system we live above it yay it's um no surprising the emotion in the room there's been a lot of losses here and so hearing that more loss is coming is obviously very devastating and I'm just curious is there an opportunity for them for the dam to be considered a historical landmark

1:25:47 where there could be funding that could come from Federal grant funding that could help with a canal um and then maybe that could change what would happen in the future I know that there was a lot of historical landmark that went up and down limited Bill up here um during just kind of trying to help our community out um so I don't know if that's an opportunity but something that was looked at the entirety believer project is considered a national on the National Historic register um however we have not specifically looked into whether funding to maintain

1:26:34 historic structures would be sufficient enough to bridge the gap um I doubt it but it's something that we could we could certainly look into we are in the in the process of looking into a number of other funding sources to help bear the cost burden and for all of our customers and so that's that's something we contribute it comes to mind I was out where God just informed me that this seismication has to do uh category nine seismic events okay and that's already being driven by first

1:27:19 I have we have a democratic Administration we have Democrats controllers settlement has anyone contacted any of the political people because well either DeFazio or herbs widen everybody's all about green energy green generation green and now you're going to pull out 24 megawatts observices perfectly functional even though they were built 100 years ago there is the old perfectly function so you raised a good point the design criteria that we need to adhere to in order to return to

1:28:05 service is a very very high bar and everything if you live ourselves I don't believe that we have um with our political representatives to get some sort of waiver so that for can can say yeah okay it's good enough for since we don't need a nine they thought you'd be in mind here we're not alone come on we're not saying a different place just just a little bit of background so you know ferc has a mandate to protect Public Safety damn safety is a priority there have been a number of things that have happened in the nation with damn

1:28:52 failures over the last 10 years that have dramatically changed regulatory landscape as when it comes to DM safety and what the Ferg um believes the design criteria needs to be in order to protect life's lives and so we are a part of a much bigger system our our facility is rated according to perk specifications um so they're I'm pretty confident to say there's no such thing as a waiver from fork for our Lieber project and this is a bigger uh concern around uh again life safety and an organization who is tasked with ensuring Dam safety they take a conservative approach but when you

1:29:37 understand what their mission is that's where they're coming from well I just want to I want to say if I could because I'm sorry to interrupt but I think it might help you guys to hear a little bit about what I want to say and you know Gary Hatfield I went through a heck with him we fought putting in that boat landing we hired attorney we fought it Gary was offered a lot of money for that property and he turned it down because we went to court spotted and ODOT couldn't reach the site distance on that on that dangerous corner and so Gary said okay fine I'm not going to sell him I'm going to build my own houses and we're all fine well magically here's the lesson I learned not being a government guy is that all you got to do is change the rules and all of a sudden the site distance works

1:30:23 and now we have a dangerous that's still dangerous it was dangerous a year ago but all of a sudden magically it's not dangerous anymore because all we did was change the rules now that happens every day in government so when you sit here and you're telling us that we can't we have to go by the rules I used to believe that but along with Gary you've taught me not to so now you're saying you know there is no rules what happens is you can make whatever you want happen now ODOT could come in and they can say that's fine but ODOT can just change the rules even can just change the rules for to just change the rule everyone can change the rules it's easy to change the rules you just have to have enough people wanting the vote to change the

1:31:09 rule excuse me one thing yes read it the most dangerous of faith in the languages were always done it this way yes right well I'll tell you right now right there right before I vote now I I'd like to hear admit and Mindy you answered so my questions you know and you were you got right back to me on email but if it works for everybody else I'd like to change a lot of rules too I'd like to see you know fly fishing only in the lake and no Motors on the lake I mean we can always attain rules right in fact we have free electricity but in the end that's what you're getting I think what you're feeling here is so many times you guys have changed the rules ODOT has changed the rules and Gary is one that's sitting in there that's probably been affected the most by by a lot of this

1:31:54 stuff here financially and so I just wanted to say that not because you know I think it might help you guys as Commissioners to understand what we're dealing with allow for some other time to go around is there anybody who did not get a chance to talk I know that many of them so I'm going to get these two last people and then we're going to wrap up I can I don't know if anybody else can say that I'm more than willing to help stay and listen to more of you know what you have to say and talk about you know

1:32:39 one-on-one what we've been able to do okay does anybody consider the impact of 126 it's already dangerous there's a lot of wrecks there all the time that's right people turning to get on that bridge they'll be backed up both ways well a half mile they come by that store at like 70 miles an hour you're going to have all kinds of wrecks on 126. there's already enough we hear silence every day and that won't be safe it's a one lane bridge it won't work Amen brother

1:33:24 hopefully mine's a much less controversial question um but I have been privileged to regress uh eweb's awarded Commissioners numbers of times and I appreciate being able to do that but what I would appreciate even more would be for us to have our own commissioner what would it take no no offense you do a fine job but um what would it take for um the McKinsey Valley to have their own e-rex commissioner yeah I would just like to uh comment same thought it was just occurring to me the

1:34:10 same thing we need to be able to vote for our representative currently the Mackenzie Valley does not vote for the e-web board we are not represented and we are one of your customers how do we change that that's a really interesting um we are empowered by the City of Eugene we are we've been uh in the city of Eugene's Charter so for an all in order for you guys to be able to vote on it the City of Eugene would have to change their Charter and I don't even know if that and then that would get referred to the

1:34:55 voters so you would have to Lobby the City of Eugene City Council to do a charter Amendment they would put that forward to the voters of this unfortunately of the City of Eugene um and then that could be written in but we've been in the charter of the City of Eugene for 100 years more than 100 years so that that would be the that would be the only Avenue and and it's not like we could say yes we want Mackenzie Valley to vote for us because if we could change the rules I'm sure that we would do that we would have a representative that you guys could vote for but it's not you know none of you represent us we have well we

1:35:42 know we have different Wars you had 800 people vote to keep the lake ahead less than 200 people who said they want to open it to the river the 800 people that said keep the lake do not live inside the city limits in Eugene and you're not listening to them but they are stakeholders every one of us is a stakeholder every one of us is a customer and we have we should have a voice and 800 voices should have a little more power to you in your decision making than 25 or 100 to come up from the city and say we want the river to run free that's your words and your reports what

1:36:28 I just quoted roughly correct period and also all the signatures that Nadine is referring to we had about 450 people respond to the survey uh 200 or so said um you know wanting to preserve and re-commission and about 120 said to decommission but it wasn't a public vote but it's up to our elected officials to make the decision um and so you know I'm I'm in the communication scene on the project so I thank you all for having that say and we've changed how we're going to do the project and we've learned things and that's all important and that's why we're here to continue to learn how we

1:37:14 can carry forward and work with you all and learn about issues on the road and study that and walk the road with you Jeff and and you know we are your representatives they are they are your representatives even if you don't directly vote for them um that's why we're here and that's why they appear to listen to you ask so is there a chance of a change of mind or is that written and still am already we'll also say too is that there are a number of other people across the Eugene area that are also customers that don't get to vote but I mean I personally many of the others we spend this time up here because we do care we're all volunteers we want to hear what you have to say

1:37:59 otherwise we could choose not to come up here but that's not what we're about this is why we had 20 different meetings to come and listen to you and many of the things that you've said made us ask other questions in those 20 different meetings to try to figure out if there's a better way to go about it and there are a number unfortunately regulatory requirements that we're constrained to so I thank everybody for coming this evening there are some there are the tables around the outside and if you'd like to stay for those who can and would like to talk to any of this unless everybody willing to do that so thank you again and if all of you stand up and say or tell me who voted yes to decommissioned

1:38:44 this email was it unanimous yes that's why they're sitting there wow and the decisions were made before we got up here what's going to happen there was no way for us to impact anything except but what it has placed in this public Community sorry but that's what happened you helped the Republican that's it thank you very much everyone okay I'm gonna wrap it up