EWEB Board of Commissioners — September 5, 2023

0:34 move on to items from board members and general managers um this past month um Frank and I met with Nancy Newton and Steve MO [Music] new assignment that was made this year and um added kind of introduced ourselves talked about how just want to make sure that my communication are open ing Rises and just got to know each other a little better yeah two items um number one um I hit a comment from some private property owners about our security staff and their interactions with campers on our

1:20 facilities and they said they were so impressed with the professionalism and the courtesy they treated these people and they wanted me to bring it up that they did an incredibly good job thank you very much I don't know who it was or anything but they said it was it was really good secondly I'd just like to say that I know in the past I've barked about graffiti and some of the big facilities have never looked better in 17 years I think whoever's doing the maintenance of the facilities and keeping them looking good and keeping the grass mode and on all our land that we owned and things like that it's never been better so thank you very much on both fronts well be sure to pass that on to Landscaping good job thank you

2:09 uh sure I just want to acknowledge a letter that came in their last full meeting um it was from a number of folks just encouraging us to we all got that letter right from I think it was from a Sierra Club and a bunch of signatories and I thought at some point right now but at some point um if we could speak to some of the things we're doing because they're encouraging us to help centralize um programs to support IRP um I'm trying to make sure he's using the right acronym um IRA funds incentives and I think we're leading into that my understanding is that there's those funds are going to the state first and they'll just they're deciding how they want to disperse the

2:55 funds but I do think we're paying attention to that I also think they were supporting the idea of increased support for low-income households this board has shown an interest in supporting low-income rental households especially so um I think there's good suggestions we did on that letter we'd love to have you know maybe just a memo from staff just talking about some of those issues we want to acknowledge the effort and the um foreign

4:11 and then I also want to acknowledge the reduction in Peak power that we had from our um our weight loss that went out um and for me I don't know I'd be interested in your thoughts is um you know so much closer to the issue than I am but interested in your thoughts about how your perspective on it it seems super encouraging to me the amount of reduction if I remember correctly it was on the order of 10 to 15 megawatts production in Peak but what was the Peak at the time so um Rod's got some information that he can run through here in just a second some of the some of the data percentages and that type of thing um I I don't think we we went into the particular event having an expectation of what just an out of the blue request

5:00 would would generate I think overall we were pretty pleased with the response yeah I don't know that um I I think when you look at demand response over time you have to look at patterns probably from other utilities as well as opposed to just the initial response this was because you can get burnout from those kinds of programs if you're asking for that every week for example sure and then we are we're going to try to couple that with formal demand response programs and really targeting a lot of this work for 2026 which means we have work in 2024 or 2025 to get ready for it around great design and understanding impacts and some of the other things that even

5:45 came up in the letter and I'll comment in a little bit about the letter but um but yeah you want to run through some of the actual results old God of captive sure um so the the Peaks are around 3 390 uh just short of 400. what we did um and this is a very precursorary look without a lot of scientific statistical analysis that Brian's team will be cranking out but uh we we did we're able to compare Monday which uh had the same temperature and load profile as Tuesday and Wednesday only Tuesday and Wednesday we had asked for the the reduction in so uh if you look at the the whole day on itself

6:30 um you know we were saying somewhere between [Music] 27 megawatts just and again that's just just a rough estimate um for the support of the hourly periods in total the range estimated reduction is somewhere between two and nine percent depending on the hours so one of the things we did show up was that it didn't just happen in the peak hour that we had called for I think ours I was also some other times where it seemed that people just went ahead and uh just across the board and the time get reduced so

7:23 we really don't know who heard the message and responded so certainly sets us up for some some potential efforts in the future I think to find out how much we could expect but also Market penetration if you will in some Greenfield kind of studies he said how do we reach the right people I'm encouraged by it encourage that our customers are paying attention and willing to make changes and super excited to see what what responses that goes out of the next couple of years um nothing for me if you can turn your camera on that would help be awful if I can see you chair

8:09 hold on thank you thank you I thought it was okay okay and then I just wanted to thank Frank for joining me at the River Road neighborhood association meeting I went to that middle of August and it's really good event with the neighbors there ask great questions got a chance to present on a number of our biggest you know topics have good questions out of it so appreciate that they invited us and took the time to let us present on [Music] with that I'll turn over to General Manager Frank do you have anything yeah a few things a few things to add so I um

8:55 I would like to acknowledge there's been a number of different Outreach events over the the last month including College Hill for example on the communications staff and the water staff put that on got a got a good turnout on a relatively Smoky day I also wanted to to thank our Communications team and also assistant general manager price for their work on this Outreach that occurred as as part of the request of the community that commissioner McRae was referring to that was a decision we made at 11 in the morning and implemented it at one o'clock in the afternoon and it was incredibly well done it wasn't just to

9:42 help us save it it provided a lot of good suggestions for the community as as far as how they could participate so I really wanted to thank staff for that we did in the general manager's office also received the open letter from the the Sierra Club Apostle tree Eugene and a number of other organizations I think the specific merits of the details in that letter are something that we're going to have to evaluate as management and the board over time it was it was very good public input but a lot of those issues relate to each other and so some of them regarding the um the IRA funds those are things that we we

10:29 have a group already looking at there's a number of things that and Jason will touch on one of the ideas that came up in that letter around a a central Hub of information around incentives which the state is actually putting together right now so there's a number of different things but it's I wouldn't recommend we pull all of the specifics out of those letters that letter and address them individually but talk a little bit more about the process that we're going to use that letter for which is to incorporate it in rate design discussions that we're going to have to have for example over the next several really probably a year and a half or so a lot of that will will come to the board and we'll be working on so

11:15 um but yeah we we did we did receive that letter and then then you know just a final note September is National preparedness month and so look for a number of different Communications from eweb on emergency preparedness and and other topics over the course of the next few weeks thank you president Carlson I think this is my item as well so um I really appreciate the fact that we can do this early in the meeting um and and bring these things up first of all while the board is nice and fresh and full of ideas um and but also so that staff can be

12:01 available sorry it's I just feel a little feisty um but uh also gives staff the opportunity to hear your feedback early in the meeting there were three items in your correspondence package uh this this evening one was informational the the climate guidebook and its contents which is very encyclopedia oriented did launch um you can't find it on the website there's still There's the link there or you can just go to the website and search climate guidebook and it'll provide provide the link for you a lot of good information in there the other two items we're asking for a little bit of guidance on and you can either provide that this evening or during our individual check-ins we're a little bit

12:47 ahead of schedule as far as getting feedback getting a version of the diversity equity and inclusion policy back to the board we had talked about October we actually did it this month I'm not sure uh commissioner schlossberg how exciting we made it we did we did try to to take the uh some of the engineering language out of it and and some of the dryness out of it um but I think um Rod Kelly and I feel like we landed in a pretty good place with it we expanded some of the definitions and I'll give you just one example when we talked about products and services we really included information programs the delivery of electricity and

13:33 water we expanded the definition of products and services as well as refined some of those other definitions based on your feedback from a couple weeks ago but you can provide guidance tonight or or in our check-ins for that and and barring any major shifts in Direction there we would like to bring it back to the board in October for your approval the other one um we're looking for some feedback here at Hutchins in particular who's our HR Manager on the process for the general manager's performance evaluation there are some aspects to this that put pressure back on myself and the board at the beginning of each year to Define not

14:18 only the organizational goals but put forth some of the performance metrics for the general manager to be evaluated as well and then the rest of it is is in the memo as far as how it flows from there what's what's different from what we've done now is that we've we've typically put a lot of emphasis on the performance of the organization and the organizational goals but there can be separate evaluation criteria for the general manager all the suggestions in there are consistent with existing policy that we have so um any comments or guidance or Direction this evening would be appreciated otherwise I'll hit you up during our check-ins send it back to you president Carlson

15:05 yeah a question on um the performance evaluation is that something that we'll talk about as a board prior to to evaluation or is that something that it is that's what we'll follow I'm not quite sure in the question other than the the way the process would work would be at the beginning of the year when we're going through our organizational goals for the year that would also be the opportune time for the board and the general manager to work out in fact I would suppose that most general managers would put forth some ideas as well as board members would put forth ideas for the general managers

15:50 criteria in the evaluation and then that would be for that year and then that criteria would be used during the evaluation process itself yeah so depending on the situation or the priorities of the board at the time shipped around year by year that makes sense thank you okay so uh I I'll jump in I I really appreciate the updates to the Dei policy it to me it does feel like it's inspiring it encompasses is a little bit more but it doesn't feel as engineering related so I appreciate that um

16:42 okay well we all have our strengths right um but I think it's it's definitely improved I also like the the points that were made in front of it about the implementation and what that so I mean for the rest of that work there and appreciate the opportunity have anything else yeah um my comment is just on the on your evaluation and um I know that every year somehow it just seems to like be there we're not prepared even though we have a given morning I just want to make sure that in like January maybe we have something on the agenda where we just talk about what the process is

17:27 going to look like and I'll only speak for myself but one thing about it that's so awkward is that I I don't in my day job I'm not usually evaluating the head of a large organization and so um and we also don't work directly with you so maybe just having a little bit more guidance and just some more thoughtful time around that process before we delve into it yeah I absolutely agree I think that's that's necessary I think also the establishment of the annual performance criteria will provide opportunities to have quarterly check-ins on this as well I think that if you Performance Management doesn't

18:12 occur once a year it should occur on a routine regular basis and feedback is an important part of of the job both from the commissioner's perspectives as well so really appreciate that and I and I think um I think that's absolutely right what the criteria should be we can clarify that you will move on from correspondence and move into public input I will note that we had testimony that was submitted electronically from will Rutherford

19:01 [Music] so it is 950 or their business you said you had testimony submitted by Will in the West it was the link to the video so if some of us don't think that putting that yeah I think we established a precedent

19:47 so somebody wants to come in here and talk about him insulation and have a three-hour presentation it's part of the record the private advertising on that I think that advertises private entities and things that may or may not be stock to me is not appropriate to do that especially giving some of the things I saw in there that were pretty accusatory on the board and things that said that that I think were misinformation and that we haven't had a chance to talk to the maker of that to happen to have some of those things refuted because I think there's a lot of misinformation in that document anybody can submit whatever they want correct but but if we're going to allow a 30-minute video to be made part of the

20:33 record now we established a precedent as an advertising for private companies on it is that something that's acceptable in public record I don't know that we have any policy again any against her foreign not really been precise through the through the years we have had other people through the year submit hundreds of pages of and we have typically characterized that as public input was provided

21:18 these are our our minutes are action minutes and so um we have typically limited that to a couple hundred words and if there's a link in there then a link you can person that's providing others have provided links to information that we may or may not agree with if if we want to dive into that further we should probably bring that up as as an agenda item to to clarify the public input process as because I think that has covered in foreign policy I haven't personally seen it and I just looked at my email again I'm not sure that I received it so I kind of shooting blind here but it does seem like if we have we have to follow whatever policies are so if we have some thoughts on how that should be set up

22:04 differently than we should set up a policy to make sure that it's actually in line with the laws and regulations of public commenting I feel like we can do a policy review before we submit those into a minute the board is open then I'm just one I just saw three headphones yeah um the only thing that I would say to this would be you know we often say that if you don't get a response to your public testimony at this thing in the eweb staff member will

22:50 get back to you I think it would be definitely appropriate for a new web staff member to get uh contact the the maker of the video and try to give him some perspectives that may not have been represented in the video that we're putting a link into and see if there would be a response from him on that and um just a thought I I would just there's there's a difference here between what's provided as public testimony which is going to be governed by board policy and how the organization responds to the massive amount of misinformation that's flying

23:35 around in the world and we're going to have to do almost you know unique assessments as to the impact of that information on the organization both the reach and the impact and work with our Communications Department to decide when and how we might respond um that that's an example of one where we may choose not to to glorify it with a response unless could be more in that case okay so let me go over here to the facility and safety awareness

24:24 management subject matter experts are here with us in the room and virtually during tonight's presentation remote centers will appear on the screen please make sure to speak loudly and clearly so everyone can hear you guests are invited to sign up at the people at the back of the room if they wish to provide public because their access is limited to the board of meeting room and restrooms restrooms are located on the first floor exit through the right hand door at the back of the room across an emergency sit through the glass door at the back of the room unless it is not safe to do so the alternate emergency exit is located at the rear of the building just beyond the restrooms during an evacuation follow staff's instructions and stay together for safety tonight's meeting will be recorded the recording has already started the meeting room will be muted during

25:09 break aside from that period virtual participants on screen and a public audience will be able to hear conversations what your name is called in-person speakers so we're going to say your name and optionally your address or Ward each speaker will be offered three minutes to present their testimony please keep track of time in-person speakers can watch the timer at the front of the room [Music] uh in all speakers can listen for an audio notification when your time has lapsed

25:54 if you are participating by telephone remember to unmute your call we don't have anybody participating by telephone after all testimonies we'll have an opportunity to speak if they choose although by policy we do not engage in a back please note the failure of a commissioner to speak shall not be construed and supportive or opposition to any speakers the board May request staff to respond to specific questions or comments posed by the public those responses which are for the public good may be posted on eweb's Internet site and what is okay and thank you for updating the form we had a change in the form so that if people would like to be contacted to actually do that so thank you I

26:39 appreciate that update so the only person we have that has signed up is Nadine Scott thank you I'm Nadine Scott homeowner on Liebert Lake real estate broker press president of the McKenzie Chamber of Commerce correspondent secretary for the Mackenzie Clearwater college and an eweb reg pair I want to thank Anna Spencer for responding to some questions regarding the decommissioning of the Lieber and power canals on the Liebert neighborhood page it was very helpful at the last meeting I asked why the Dam

27:24 bridge Fish Hatchery fish lad is in leibburg Lake must be removed it's my understanding the dam does not produce any power therefore why is this project part of the decommissioning of the Lieber Pollock announced it should be a separate topic and one that's evaluated carefully as it's going to affect tourism businesses property values Fish Wildlife and then be taking away a historical landmark biggest for the dam and the lake project separate from the Lieber Canal projects I believe if you separate out the cost of removing the dam if it does not have asbestos in it and

28:09 just maintaining what you already have it would turn out to be a lot less money for your rate payers than the cost of removing everything I would appreciate seeing the cost separated out in the cost of repairs and maintenance vice versa the removal of it all regarding removing it the road would have to be rerouted your plan to reroute it over the historical good pastor covet Bridge a sign was put up on the good pastor bridge this week that said Slow Down speed shakes the deck and causes damage to the bridge stop the shake save the bridge and yet you're planning to increase the traffic on the bridge considerably

28:55 you're meeting in August you had a speaker Miller from Northwest Riverfront properties State he stated that the loss of the salmon runs is not from the dams with fish countries and fish lattice but from climate change in the ocean he also said that he felt a fish out trees in the fish lattice would be a necessity for the future of the salmon runs again you're removing something we already have tourism is the main economy of the McKenzie river valley libertarian Park over a hundred thousand cars cross over that leeburg Dam bridge every year isn't it estimator of about 200 people to a cop

29:40 tourism is the main economy of the MacKenzie River Valley taking that away from the MacKenzie River Valley would be a huge loss to the businesses and the economy I would like to know how we can have our questions answered as you don't allow a q a on your agendas [Music] [Music] to say thanks for the testimony and for coming all the way down to to talk with us um there is a route to get questions answered um and I trust that stack will follow up with you that is we've said that explicitly that staff will follow up if you don't get any questions answered

30:25 here I know you posed a bunch of questions that are mostly technical in nature so I think the the staff communicating with you and sharing that the answers is probably the best way for you to get the information indeed I'd appreciate that thank you sure one comment because we we've been hearing similar questions or similar comments and I know we touched upon this before and we have um thank you page but I just think if if there's a way to um like have frequently if they frequently frequently asked questions just some easier ways so maybe people don't have to sort through the whole thing if there are questions that we tend to get multiple times I don't I

31:12 don't know how to do that but maybe questions for people in the area or something like that president Carlson just just a couple of comments I'll I'll mention this to the board and the audience as well there's a reason that the dams included in the decision and that's the the assets including transmission generation and the dam are included in the fertile license that that we are deciding to um that we had made it that we have made a decision on relative to the future generation at that site there are probably three primary reasons that it would be naive to think that that Dam will remain at the end of the process one of that is for has no

31:57 history whatsoever and would very likely oppose that a dam whose primary purpose is to generate electricity when that electricity and that primary purpose is removed Burke will very likely not support anything other than its removal the second thing there will be just as many people interested in removing that dam for fish and wildlife Reasons from third parties including government organizations and non-government organizations that will be part of the evaluation process and then thirdly it would make no sense for eweb to own operate and maintain and deal with the risk of an asset that does not support our primary mission so when you combine those three things

32:42 it is really naive to think at the end of a process that the dam would remain now that said really coming to the board at this point in time lobbying for specific outcomes is really premature the government and or sorry the regulated process that Burke will have oversight and eweb will run that will take several years will provide opportunities for stakeholders to participate in the ultimate outcome and so you know all those things combined kind of lead us to the fact that we can listen to testimony but the process which will be a highly public regulated process will provide opportunities for that to happen

33:28 relative to Transportation issues we have talked to Lane County use the Transportation Authority in the area ultimately will be their decision what Transportation options are evaluated and eventually decided decided upon we have a another meeting with Lane County in October they are very aware of it they know that this is an issue that they're going to have to address and so we're going to work with them in good partnership to address the transportation issue specifically for example so all of these will be worked out over time but to lobby of you at this time is is really premature that will come out in the process but there are reasons why the dam will very likely

34:13 be removed once the decision was made to not generate electricity at that facility because I remember before we made the decision I asked a number of us asked what you know could we keep the dam and get rid of the power generation and answer that we'll continue to update the frequency frequently answered questions so put those in order of frequently Asked potentially um as as those come up but I just wanted to clarify that there's a very formal reason and formal process drive that's going to drive the outcome [Music]

35:02 so we will move on to approval of consent calendar a and I actually have a note [Music] um age 31 of our board packet it just there's a line where it says and Mr Lawson Mr Lawson said they could change Community I don't know it seems like maybe that's public it's not never mind now that I've read it out loud and not at 3am it's fine thank you all right do you have a second second okay all those in favor say aye aye okay uh Next Step approval of consent

35:47 calendar B it's like a um just a question about one items um the one with the power settlements and Consulting Services LC LLC is that on number a oh that was on number eight nobody approved that one yeah I already approved that um that's okay my question was actually more of a clarification not because I had any opportunity I'll just follow up by email to give my questions answered on that so carry on

36:33 Deborah Hart I know all right available and who are Aaron well I see Deborah right now if you wanted to ask it if probably the most efficient if you want to ask it yeah if I can thanks uh no opposition to the contract I'm just looking to better understand the service that we're hiring for because it's not totally clear to me um I'm wondering if you can help me just by describing I I just not quite understanding what they do I'm sorry no apologies and I should maybe let Aaron answer this question since it is his staff person but when BPA

37:18 um uh move uh moved to the eim and five minutes increments and I seen erroring up it became necessary for us to have a product that would help us balance uh to their records in order to ensure that we were making the appropriate payments to BPA we used to do that manually but the volumes of data that those intervals create make it um I I don't want to say impossible but exceedingly challenging to do with any accuracy manually and so that is that is

38:03 really part of the first phase of this and Aaron do you want to chime in have sure yeah um so essentially we're we're signing up for a computer application here going to be software as a service and as Deborah said uh we're in the energy imbalance markets the BPA has now joined we're getting information meter data in five minute increments so far more massive amount of data that we need to validate in order to make sure that we're paying BPA the right dollar amount month to month so yeah end of the day it's a software application that helps us do the work

38:48 great thank you very much I appreciate the clarification the next calendar fee does anybody else want to cool I would like to pull number five calendar B minus number five thank you all those in favor say aye all right motion passes all right number five I wanted to find out a little bit more

39:34 about so this is the mcleaning company for a human human resource research and advisory membership services is so this is a contract amount is for 212. and then down below is talking about 350 000 I think that's just the one I'm just curious a little bit more about what the you know what this project is is this something that we've done in the past

40:25 sure hi um good evening um sorry Kiera do you want to go yeah I can go ahead and take it perfect thank you commissioner Carlson this is a service we have been using for the last three years for the Workforce Services Group they provide advisory services and resources related to HR um and Personnel type of items that includes engagement surveys new hire surveys exit surveys they offer a Dei advisory service that we are hoping to add into the contract and so this request is for a contract that would be reaching um the 212 000 over the span of the

41:10 five-year period so it's broken down about 40 000 per year other questions on the CAC Services which was also in the first using calendar a the commercial insurance broker services it's actually okay I can I can take that one um I don't have my um consent calendar pulled up at the moment but our

41:56 Commercial Insurance Brokerage services are um is a contract that we have had for years and years and years and we have extended it it does not require it's not required to go out for bid but we have done that in the past we've expanded the contract because of the onset of something called paid leave Oregon they helped us negotiate with the Standard Insurance to see that through they were also on board for our Union negotiations they've been our provider for the last many years and provide Insurance Brokerage services for most of the public Employers in the region and also up in the state of Washington

42:41 there was a very wide range of bids on that I made from 182 to 575 000 and I noticed on this one we picked we ended up with the middle range one at 270 and I was just curious if you're going to clear what that one won out over the other two that were lower priced and also more comfortable oh you know what I think you might be looking at Insurance Brokers that are outside of the HR realm is that bright I think yeah the cat is the name the exact name is the CAC specialty for control wrong one I apologize that one would be Sarah gorsingers

43:27 I'm sorry I didn't quite catch the question but it sounds like it's about the commercial broker services yes yeah is this so that had a pretty wide range [Music] um in the pricing lowest bid was like 185 000 and the highest bid was 575. we ended up going with the one who was in the middle 270 it had the highest ranking RFP but I just noticed that the other two had lower prices and were also local so I had some questions about that I'm sorry I didn't catch it on the first yeah I can um let you know that on the two that were the lowest price they one of them was not

44:13 um a focus on utility commercial broker services so they didn't have the experience we were looking for and then on the other one they did have a utility Focus but their pricing was structured in a way that they would provide us a base price for just the purchase and marketing of our insurance products that we were looking for but they had a model that any additional Services would cost extra so for example if we had a claim they would charge us for processing and managing that claim for us so when we looked at the overall value of what we would be receiving we anticipated it would be significantly higher than what was included in the actual request for proposal so that's um

45:00 based on the overall value of what they were offering we felt like the CAC was the right price with the right uh marketed products for us well thank you I really appreciate the answer so we're back on number five then McLean and Company the last item s item five on consent calendar B second all those in favor say aye

45:45 yes really quickly I just wanted to acknowledge somebody that's in the crowd it's Deborah Smith work for 20 20 years assistant general manager and now she's the general manager I think of Seattle City Light and welcome back it's good to see you thank you it's uh um I just wrote something I said I'm sitting in an even board meeting because I needed to get my fix [Laughter] okay so sorry I apologize did I read recently that there was a retirement party not all right maybe I think I overlapped with you and I think we met one time at an APPA event not long enough um before well thank you so much for joining this

46:31 evening okay just don't overdose on that fix all right all right next up we have the nope here findings from the Pacific Northwest utility conference why okay

47:22 well it's really nice to be here uh with you I thought maybe Deborah showed up to support us [Laughter] um and we really appreciate the invite to to share uh Northwest Hospitality perspective industry I'm crystal ball the executive director of the Pacific Northwest utilities conference committee and what we many of us call without saying a long name pinock actually um it's one of those acronyms uh and my partner Lisa selig is here she is the analytics and policy director and

48:09 together we are peanut um and our organization has been going through some transition but we are here to talk big changes that we're seeing in the industry um so I'll begin with the big picture the energy sector is going through significant transformation and efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from electricity production are replacing fossil fuels with more renewable resources and other non-immitting resources carbonization it's also increasing the demand for electricity economy-wide and by that I mean from

48:55 changes in transportation with electric vehicles and potentially Heating uh Federal legislation is providing incentives for renewable energy development and it's also boosting the US economy and Manufacturing so here in the Pacific Northwest there is [Music] an electricity demand do you do two industrial loads including data center services also extreme weather is impacting the grid more frequently and increasing the need to build resilience Eliza and I um we are here to share a regional

49:48 tonight we're going to talk about three first we're going to explain the purpose of the Northwest Regional forecast and I understand you have a copy of that report um second we're going to tell you I'm walking through the major differences that we saw between last year's forecast and and this year's forecast third we're going to talk about what Utilities in the region are doing increased coordination during this period of tremendous change in our industry so I want to start with some backgrounds and I'm also looking at the time uh and so I'll go quickly peanut is a

50:35 not-for-profit trade Association we have about 50 members consumer owned Utilities in the Pacific Northwest and investor owns utility including some industry Partners like enter to Northwest and uh powerx in Canada these members share a common interest in the efficacy and reliability of the Pacific Northwest power grid and we do have a board of directors it is elected by the respective membership groups and they serve for term of two years Frank and Deborah are members of the pnext board and I appreciate their commitment to our organization we have a long history

51:20 of collaboration in our region and we have a peanut a reputation for bringing people together and it's one of the reasons why I was excited about working at peanut um so for those of you who know me you know that I'm passionate about bringing people together and that's the mission of our organization um well we have a long history uh we um performed um many many years ago uh in 1980 so 40 years ago we became actively involved in Regional planning efforts and we tracked what was going on at the northwest our conservation Council and got

52:06 involved in evaluating those power plants those 20-year Regional power plans that's an example of our history um so while the issues in the Northwest have changed over the years strength has endured because of its members who come together to build relationships research problems and and learn from each other um Elise and are really good partners um we have a lot of experience in the industry representing the bondable power or working having worked for sorry not representing having worked for uh the Bonneville power Administration and Seattle City Lights and Puget Sound Energy so we've got the basis covered um and we have a shared vision for

52:52 looking at and that vision is for peanut to be a respected Forum where members come together to share information find common ground and develop Regional solutions that support that evolution in our industry safely reliably and importantly thank you so with that background about what peanut is we want to explain the purpose of the Northwest Regional forecast so if you think about the Northwest and you think about the resources in in this region it is very interconnected and Northwest power utilities understood even back then how interconnected it was and how important it was to work together and

53:39 this uh one of the most regional forecast is something that this group of utilities has has been producing for over 70 years it is uh important because it tracks Trends in loads and resources from a utilities perspective and the way that it works really is we ask our members to provide information to us and we aggregate that information and we produce a report not a lot of work goes into it it's not that simple but we're here to share what we saw this year compared to last year um and so it's a consistent approach and uh it allows us to identify Trends and serves as a regional barometer it is you know again the Northwest power act the

54:26 1980 Northwest power rack footprint in the region is defined as the four Northwest states um and uh larger resembles the service territory of the bottom of power okay so with uh that explanation of the purpose of this document we want to share with you the big changes that we saw from just last year to this year uh this was our first year putting this report together as I mentioned peanut has been going through a transition um I was selected by the board of directors just in November last year to be the executive director and I had been working at peanut for almost a year uh

55:12 Elisa um joined us shortly after I came to Phoenix and so when we started pulling this information together we were a little um uh we definitely wanted to share what we were seeing with our members um because it was very very different than what we had seen before and there are four big changes that we did um share through our system planning committee and with our board to make sure that you know this was something that utilities were becoming more certain about and that's why it was showing up this year in our Northwest Regional forecast uh so the four big changes really is rapidly growing load expected over the next five years with

55:57 likely more load expected um yeah Energy Efficiency long history of conserving energy in in this region and that is foundational and I was listening to a the report about uh consumers here in the in Eugene who responded to that heat wave and reduced their demand and we are seeing demand response really projected to grow in this 10-year Outlook so that's the second thing Energy Efficiency I'm really foundational and then demand response starting to grow utilities starting to really

56:43 plan for and depend on that demand response um so with those loads and even with that Energy Efficiency and demand response we're seeing early deficits and on a regional basis you know if this isn't addressed then these will continue to create real challenges in our region but we are seeing utilities stepping up their plans for renewable resources energy storage and other flexible resources that can provide that uh capacity for completing a reliable system uh so again those are the four big changes I'm going to turn it over to

57:28 Eliza to walk you through um these changes and we've got some visuals and we welcome questions Elisa yeah thanks Crystal so Crystal um talked to you about the changes that we're seeing and so I'm going to walk you through load and resources and deficits now and so we're going to first start with limited and we have here the 2023 forecast which is um which is this rapidly increasing load which is in the solid and the dash is the 2022 forecast and we're talking about a remarkable 28 increase over the next years and and so this is something that

58:14 you know is you is an aggregate picture um it's an incredible change and as crystal said much of that load is attributed to new industrial customers solidifying plans and schedules for development and primarily data centers but what is interesting with the solid forecast is that it flattens out over the latter five years which indicates that electrification and climate change effects may still not be fully embedded in here or the timing at which maybe it's beyond the here Horizon that we're looking at where it will show up and so we need to be thinking about this when we think about the infrastructure that's going to be

58:59 needed to expand expand the grid to meet these increasing loads um and so then uh annual energy you know we're showing you here annual energy and the green and the orange and in the blue the winter Heat Winter Peak we are still winter peaking area but um but you know summer Peaks are growing and it crosses over what we um last year expected in the forecast so our forecast in summer is really starting to increase as well the other thing to think about when you look at this rapidly growing

59:44 wood not every utility is experiencing growth of the same weight so we have a smaller segment of the lid that is growing more quickly so you have to look at what's going on in your own Community too to know what's going on but this Regional picture is important because we're an interconnected electricity so another interesting thing about this little forecast in my crystal said we had to really talk to everybody and verify what was going on and make sure we're putting out the right signal is that birds have not the birth rate for

1:00:29 this for loads have not been this High since the early 1980s and that's um something that we said what what's going on and the five-year growth rate we've talked about it's bigger the red line is a little bigger than the blue line and so what we have on the bottom is the forecast here and we can look at data going back as far as 1961 to say how is how's life been growing um and um you know what what is driving this well the clean energy transition the internet of things and big data and artificial intelligence are driving um factors driving blue today in terms

1:01:17 of the clean energy transition we're manufacturing is needed locally and you know what's going on with data centers and Ai and there's just a need to have those close to load um also what we did see though in the past you know Regional Energy Efficiency Investments and updated building codes and standards tempered growth over the last four decades so you have this flattening paddled industrial kind of age but you know maybe it didn't grow quite as fast so we're trying to figure out where is load growth going and we want to make sure that we're sending the right signals and so it's important to get the utility and the region together

1:02:02 and understand these trends Crystal talked about Energy Efficiency being a Mainstay so what we look at on the right in the blue is the 2023 forecast and it is projecting a little more energy cumulative Energy Efficiency over the next 10 years compared to the previous five four pass and this is important it's a big part of that load it's actually embedded within that live forecast so we see what utilities are thinking about and you know it's about little shy of 2 000 megawatts out of a load that was the peak that was you know

1:02:47 by the end approaching 40 degrees so it still is part of the solution and we'll kind of keep that in perspective but it's not going to need all of the um the universe that's expected hydropower in our this is a chart that shows our existing resource stack on the left is the nameplate capacity that's what's installed and what could be the maximum generation expected out of the unit on the right is what's expected annually to generate and so that's about you know half of that gameplay capacity and that in part is because we're Hydro

1:03:32 dominated region and that's driven by the fuel we have a clock basically with these and clean to we start at the at 12 o'clock with clean resources and work our way around the clock and to emitting resources and what we can see is that in the Northwest that we are largely a clean um clean region and hydropower provides that strong Foundation but the other thing we see is that we know we're in the part of this clean energy transition and so we expect that wind and solar will start to play an

1:04:18 increasing role in needing that clean generation but we're also thinking about how are we going to meet those with capacity resources and and to meet the peak we have you know 55 000 megawatts of gameplay but resources don't contribute on that Peak day up to that amount of capacity capacity you know so I want to kind of put a number in your head is you know for winter that's about 38 000 microwatts so you're gonna have to step down and in the summer we're expecting from the same resources about 35 000.

1:05:03 um I have a lot so um you know because we because the fuel is just not there all the time and so those are just important things to keep in mind now this is our foundation what we start out today what's listing and committed no and what we also know is that we are on the carbonizing power supply and if you look at the brown um the crown block at the bottom that's what the utility in this forecast the Northwest utilities remaining coal you see the dashed lines and you'll see the utility

1:05:48 plant exits from coal and that is um you know describing our need for resources as well so we have increasing load we have all efforts that are happening see behind those together and that is driving need for resources now I'm going to walk you through what does that mean when you put it all together we have the resources that are about 55 000 what but they don't contribute all the time we have the loads that grow you know winter people a list of 40 000 like a

1:06:33 lot um and then we have exits from Florida and um since 29 put that all together and look at some Trends and is the region going to be able to meet obligations so what I'm showing you first is the 2019-2022 reports these show included deficits and then yellow orange or the summer deficit is I'm gonna layer on today's and what we see are growing um

1:07:22 so as you go down further about September set by 2032 we expect the summer deficit of 11 000 megawatts and the winter is a little bit less this deficit um what do we mean by deficit it's that Peak wood plus a Banning margin for uncertainty so just have to meet that meet our love we have to need it forecast so what we need we know that there's a 50 chance of higher or lower

1:08:11 also resources they don't operate all the time you have an apartment of this much fuel you know they still also wake up so those um we're also accounting when we look at this picture trying to show that Trend over time and that trend is the growing and this is only looking or being in Community Resources like I shared here so we need is some more resources but so how are we going to get there because these deficits are growing um and that's an important consideration and I also want to leave you with why these deficits are are growing

1:09:03 they're you know compared to last year shrinking loads are growing you know and it indicates that the region doesn't have the Surplus that it used to so um you know that's another thing that we learned forecast of Energy Efficiency case that we saw that was happening in these episodes were kind of in the same area um and um with all of that we're going to need some investment in new communities talk about that

1:09:48 Renewables and storage are dominating the plan on the left side we needed about a thousand four thousand megawatts structure that needs assessment the right side you can see that utilities are stepping up their plans they said team you know we need to have more resources so they've stepped it up however we've got the 17th president you know what

1:10:33 summer we might only expect this to contribute let's still leave it another five it's a region could actually need 30 000 or a megawatts team deficit that we showed in the previous this is really a significant achieving I think the other thing to think about 17 000 megawatts is the third of our existing capacity that we have in that in the next 10 years if we're going to seventeen thousand megawatts and low resources yeah we need a substantial amount of us

1:11:22 before I take it to Crystal's to explain what the utilities are doing we really have is you know learning you know you have to increase our our Resources by their have to have a transition that's happening that those deficits are really something that we have to get used to because right now moving away but to make clean energy transition we're going to see

1:12:10 a lot of work to keep piss with that change but I'm aware of the time want to get to your questions so I'll wrap up Roofing is a transition tree are new Solutions and increased application and we are seeing utilities invest in those schools in the states together in ways that they requests in ways that they haven't done before Federal funding is expected to advance clean energy

1:13:07 each year and so this forecast doesn't include Technologies uh but we expect that we will see them plan for this future these are also uh and we see the region coming together away approach that organized you know approach in the United States but we do see utilities getting together to address some of the original transmission organization that we've organized

1:13:52 does and are taking steps to address resource adequately that and it's designing requirements satisfaction and we do see Transmission in so it really is um hard to predict the future even for me the ball but what we do see is utilities relying more on these powerful Partnerships plan for the future so we appreciate the opportunity to share this information to

1:14:39 give you a regional perspective of what's going on thank you very much appreciate the information and more questions so thank you for your presentation and we've been talking about this in a lot of information in-house about how we can prepare our IRP and building stuff I know like the permitting process takes many many years it's not so easy just to like build a new so happen I guess turn it over to Elise and have a real

1:15:25 nice experience in that area to answer your question yeah I would say you know utilities are adding resources and it's been kind of more of a slow and steady pace so this is a big case and I think as a result uh there are a lot of projects that looked like they could be permitted but the other thing is that we have to be able to commit to the list so if you're going to take a lot of work there's been a lot of encouraging

1:16:12 um there's awesome things that can give you some thoughts as well so we have to all get creative and work together to find Solutions leaders before our energy or more demand um and share you with this yeah is you know those resources for the first five years are probably absurdity has that um it really picks up and there's tire that lasts more than the challenge utility stuff utilities are actually

1:16:59 um looking at the optionality that they have within the existing laws they do I have to retired in 2020 until 2030. if the people are looking at what kind of Headroom they need looking at the laws and trying to think about how they're not surprisingly the the investment you know in these new resources is coming from those qualities lists so I still have and that said that there is World Cup ending [Music]

1:17:45 it is a reason why I need to make investments and electrification and climate change as utilities start recognizing those impacts on their load as well have better information about the timing that is going to also has the potential to increase the so we're trying to get creative with our Solutions we love recognized an opportunity to get creative command response you don't want to um don't want to uh teach your customers either as your job is to serve their Hood

1:18:30 two questions thank you very much for the presentation one the Amazon Google AI and everybody who sucked the life out of all the firm cheap power hydropower in eastern Oregon and Southern Washington why are we continuing or are you as an organization you know giving them tax incentives to build more and more of that to take more of that power away when we have these type of predictions or are you doing anything to address that is that two questions yeah um so our organization not for profit um utilities uh and uh

1:19:17 and we are share this information um again we we don't um provide any tax incentives that's at the state level uh we are a dissociation and we're seeing the proliferation of data centers not just in our region but in other parts of the country and I'll share I'll let Elisa share some of her experience when she shared this with a broad audience across the West right and you know so the growth and data centers is happening you know I I heard in Arizona you know they were experienced they're expecting a double load in the next decade so that's even more than mercy and here I also got a call from Northern Virginia

1:20:02 Electric Co-op after I presented this forecast they said how are you forecasting data centers we're expecting a huge amount of data center growth we're already having trouble serving that loading but I guess I would say you know they're um I don't think we're advocating for one kind of load over another kind of load um I don't think utilities are there's um but uh that these Technologies also serve a great service um to the to to humanity in some ways because it does provide a stability to stay

1:20:47 connected it helps health care I mean we've just gone to a very digital world and that is about a progress um so there are things that come from that that can be considered positive and so you know there are different schools of thought but um you know I think that's like political you know maybe that's a political policy question with the state of Oregon and your representatives about the tax breaks of where power should be going and it doesn't mean there's also rate design that can influence who pays and how much they pay for the

1:21:33 resources which is outside the scope of the Northwest Regional forecast all we're trying to bring is the data and information about what is happening um and then it's for the utility needs to work with their boards to work and figure out how best to serve balloon and what blood y thank you and then real quick so we are aggregating and making a big guess in your aggregating and making it yes and so everybody's guessing and you're guessing about the guessing so to speak what are the chances of magnifying the margin for error in this because you're taking all the utilities the best guesses and you're making your

1:22:19 best guesses and then that compound and chance for have a bigger deficit than what you have a bigger deficit or maybe not as much maybe we're overly forecasting right so we're under forecasting I think it's very hard um it's not an easy job to be a load forecaster I think by consolidating and me looking at Trends over time we see what's happening um and so you know forecast error we saw a forecast error in the 60 and so I think that is another reason why we bring that kind of trend information visibility so we can talk about what do

1:23:05 we know and what don't we know sure so we can think about those projections so that is why that looking back on our history is very important and that's why a forecast like the Northwest Regional forecast that can go back and compare these Trends over time is useful for that discussion I would add you know it's one of the reasons why Olivia and I were cautious about the information that we were receiving and why we embedded it with our facility members again through our board and through the system planning committee so we take this very seriously it's very hard to do but we are pleased to share what we know thank you

1:23:53 so if you want to go first all right I have a few things um thanks for the presentation and the report this is really helpful and I appreciate you providing bringing up a team to help us think about these I'm curious my understanding of the federal inflation reduction act in such era a little harder to model because in some of them there are there's no category right there's um they're they're not limited by tax burdens so um without diving into the leads on those incentives and the question really is how are you managing inflation reduction act incentives the reason why I mentioned it is to be clear that none of it was showing up in

1:24:38 this year's forecasts and so we expect that as utilities uh remember about these opportunities as state and set up programs to tap that Federal funding that they will be able to include that in their plans and when Eliza and I share a request for information we might see some of that coming back to us and that may happen with next year's podcast and it is so we're lagging and we expect to see more of it but wanted to be really clear that that doesn't show up in this year's that's super helpful so the the projections out to 20 30 or something 10-year study but we gather that information at the

1:25:25 end that's really helpful thank you um another question you show deficits both in Peak and average generation I'm curious from your professional perspective are you more concerned about our ability to meet the peak demands are more concerned about the deficits in Africa it's an indication or in this clean energy transition so we need energy as we shut down coal plant we need other energy the deficits are bigger and peace Earth and I think it's a trend that's worth tracking on the energy side so we've usually filled in energy it's episodes by really relying on other regions Surplus or

1:26:11 increasing our the gas generation because energy basis but especially when low Waters happen so the water is not low we're going to have not quite as big of the desktop but we do rely on these other sources and so we need to think about how they're how that's going to change our needs so that's just uh you know it's something I watch it's not a primary concerned and then last question um you're working regionally on on behalf of smaller I don't know if it's necessarily small utilities but publicly

1:26:56 and privately owned utilities um what does your interface look like by with BPA and if you're sharing this with them what are they saying yeah thank you for that question and it was in my notes but I went right over it uh we collect information from utility members and the Bonneville power Administration so we get about over 130 Utilities information in this forecast and the Bonneville power Administration is not a member of our organization but they are on our board in a non-voting ex-officio way you really can't do anything in this region without a bpa's perspective and put on Solutions so we do capture most of the utilities in in the region

1:27:41 yeah and I think it's a follow-up question is uh I assumed that these projected deficits that is curious what the action or steps being projected on behalf of BPA right there that thousand pounds really in this conversation the real world example Elisa and I are working with the long-term planners at VA to share information hair notes to talk about the purpose of our forecasts and how they get to load forecasting and our organization also offers Workshop to those people in the utilities working hard up to solve these challenges and we we invite BPA and we

1:28:28 will get a presentation from BPA at that forecast at that load forecasting Workshop about their upcoming resource program and what they're predicting okay I'll try and be quick because I know we're over over time here um a few quick takeaways one it seemed like the the amount of renewable energy that we need to collectively input is well over the 12 000 I think you said thirty thousand it's roughly megawatts it could be roughly 30 000 to meet that level of deficit resource of uh nameplate capacity so it takes how long to implement

1:29:14 I mean I know we have some in the pipeline it doesn't sound like you know there's some may be permitted some may not but even with that we're only at 17 planned right now that is coming in a few years so we even have an ability to to get ahead to prevent this or are we just saying you know three to five years we're just going to be in a major shortage sorry I'm gonna I I just want to be clear on kind of where we're at uh on the numbers uh I'll I'll turn to Eliza but really on the general message you know we we saw some really big changes between this year and last year but we certainly don't want to be alarmist because what we also saw is that

1:30:01 utilities are planning for this and it is a 10-year study so we're looking out 10 years trying to predict the future in 10 years and we see utilities stepping up with resources and we expect to see more of those come online we expect to see you know some of the permitted challenges uh resolved through increased coordination uh and so we don't want to sound an alarm we definitely want to demonstrate that utilities yes deficits are a way of tracking um and and really we make sure that you know that utilities are working on this together across the region at least on the numbers yeah and I I guess deficits are in a bright line that

1:30:46 there's going to be in them there are a lot of tools that utilities have but they are increasing and it does mean of resources so it is you know I would say it's not we're trying to strike that balance right there may not be enough and so there are other tools potentially you know run the gas more delay some of the whole requirements you know but we don't know specifically what's going to happen but I think utilities are going those choices do I shut down a thing or a wait a little longer and you know transmission to other regions can help there are surpluses of diversity

1:31:31 clinics and loads and so tools like demand response More Energy Efficiency make that may okay degrees as well sick and what utilities want to do so I think it's just important to keep in mind there's a lot of tools that utilities have it's but you know high prices may be something that we have a lot more volatility and prices is something they have to get used to and I think that's an important thing for a utility to be considering is how do they fit within this Regional picture we wish we had that crystal ball um right it's amazing to have her with us I

1:32:18 have Crystal Ball but it's still not helping us it's still hard I still can't predict the future like we would like yeah absolutely I mean it's just when I sit here as a commissioner and I think about okay we have this major regional deficit we're doing our own work to do the IRP to figure out what proportion of that is but then I also think about we have the Carmen Smith that took a decade or more to I mean 15 years just to license and now we're doing the construction process I mean it's 20 years before we get the small amount that isn't even a fraction of what you're saying is a deficit so when I when I take this in I go okay now what do I do with it so maybe Frank can answer that for me

1:33:04 well I was going to give commissioner borowsky a chance and I'd like to make a couple of comments at the end just to provide a little bit of context around why we think this is important okay and I have one other question quite a bit about data centers eating up a lot of energy which I would have expected it would have been more on the EVs and the transition to the electrical economy but I mean how much data does a document take up but if we store it indefinitely I mean should we be thinking about a giant data Purge instead of you know me storing seven thousand photos of cats every year is is that even even something that should be considered or is it really

1:33:49 more on the Eevee side or much bigger players in the data side you know I can't speak to the details behind what part of the data center load is causing that but I suspect it has more to do with Computing right and but but I can't I can't say you know I think those are good questions that um Von broski thank you and and thank you for the uh the report it was fascinating to go through and read um I guess I'm going to piggyback on the

1:34:34 The increased load of industrial with the data centers do you have any idea from the people who are reporting that they're going to be seeing that increased load from the data centers that it is because of our Region's uh majority clean energy you know when you look at companies like AWS and Google in their strategic plan is to be carbon neutral and so are they citing these data centers in areas of the country that have a high percentage of carbon neutral or uh or clean energy and is that why we're seeing the spark in the Northwest because our our pie is 50 clean and they can put

1:35:20 that towards their climate goals that's my first question a little bit but it can be part of the picture but we also need to find it in Northern Virginia and they have nuclear gas portion of their energy Supply we know Arizona you know they are trying to become a cleaner air and I think there's this one this this load that has to be close to where people are also we have hurt that needs us to where they have other data centers another infrastructure

1:36:07 and so so it's a combination of factors really it's an industry that we're all still trying to understand how to forecast and they're competitive with one another and so it's very challenging um and and that's a challenge for the utilities great um the second thing that from your presentation that I I really took away that was was uh enlightening was you referred to uh all of the power sources as fuel so water is fuel sunlight is fuel natural gas is fuel water is fuel but you know a lot of times people don't think of it in that term you know oh we've got a low water heater our gas

1:36:54 tank is half full it's it's a fuel so that was enlightening to hear you guys think of the resources in that direction and then my last question is I'm not I'm a peak deficit when you're looking at that part of the the industry uh strategy going forward is storage and we know that storage has a limited amount of time you know the batteries we're looking at right now are four hour things are those Peaks for our Peaks or are those two day Peaks that we're looking at the deficit of and is that reasonable to think that storage isn't a

1:37:41 viable option for hitting our Peak deficits okay so use it on something this is a one hour Peak deficit we're not in our our kind of our forecast and our Trend and that's something why we are working with the Bonneville our administration because they do a sustained piece at what is needed and so those comparisons but we're really trying to see are they seeing the same trends that we're seeing and so we're eager to see their forecast and be able to talk through those comparisons with the region as well

1:38:28 yeah well first of all I wanted to thank Crystal and Elisa for not just coming to share this but going through all the aggregation and Distilling it down to a level that you can draw some conclusions from so so thank you and thank you for sharing it part of the reason we wanted to do this with the board was to give you a little bit of context around the environment of which we are planning around and to recognize that we operate within an interconnected system and so while we have our own IRP as as you you've learned there's 200 other irps going on simultaneously and what it's going to create and is an environment that's really going to be pretty turbulent for a while when you start to look at markets or conditions

1:39:15 that create scarcity what happens is you start to see excursions you start to see pricing excursions which we which we've already seen in the market some of those are driven by market Panic some of them are driven by physics some of them are driven by Mother Nature and conditions for us I think it's really important that our IRP teams and our planning teams recognize the fact that if you start to look at the characteristics of which we're planning in we can't just look at a resource under its ideal conditions this board recently passed a resiliency policy part of that policy is to look at decisions that we're making in the unknown in the worst in the non-normal conditions which might mean

1:40:00 it drives us toward decisions that while on in one profile one average profile might not be the best decision but it might create the most flexibility if you're dealing with a with a Marketplace and conditions that are turbulent you want to create flexibility in the decisions that you're making because what happens is it also drives supply chain issues it you know you talked about the IRA what's going to be really interesting is to look a few years down the road and see what it's done to supply chain challenges that we that we have and so there's there's just a lot here um I wanted to give you a little context I don't think there's anything to panic about however in our planning we really need to develop flexibility we need to develop options and we need to go into

1:40:45 this with our with our eyes wide open knowing that there's a lot of different things that we're trying to plan around so I appreciate the the opportunity to weigh in and really appreciate Elise and thank you for sharing and this will continue they're they're just done with this one and they're going to get started on the next one here pretty good just like our our IRP more change yeah look for the trends we'll tell you what we see and the other thing that I think is going to be interesting is and I think the question touched on it there's a big difference between planning for something and doing it and and we see a lot of barriers around permitting and other things that it's great you put it on a piece of

1:41:31 paper it's easy to put it on a piece of paper you then have to actually go make it happen and it did take 15 years to re-license a hydro this facility that already existed transmission is going to be a really critical piece to interconnecting all these different loads and resources that are both becoming more Dynamic so there's a lot of work to do and that's great and it's exciting to be a part of it I guess so we'll see what happens next thank you okay well we're a little bit behind me catch up a little bit we will go on to resolution number 2316 adopting new e-web purple manual and

1:42:48 take it away all right good evening Commissioners uh now that we just got through talking about the report subjects a little forecasting and we'll move on to my second favorite subject uh Public Utilities regulatory Jack uh it's a purpose as it is otherwise known I has played a powerful role in the energy landscape so it was first passed in 1978. purple was designed to promote energy conservation between local resources of course Fair rates uh tonight we have a real treat double header on purpose where we will first be talking about the existing manual and uh

1:43:40 and we'll be sharing insights on how the staff proposes to streamline and modernize the processes our objective we want to balance comprehensive public inputs Cornerstone of what we do here at U.S with practicality public engagement is essential to Our Success however the existing manuals complexities are really just no longer aligned with today's reality so joining me up here at the table uh from your right we have Jonathan Hart our new power acquainted supervisor and Aaron Bush Megan camper was unable to join us this evening if you have any easy questions I'm happy to help with those but please so with that we'll hand it off okay

1:44:27 thank you I will try and pick up I am often very quiet every time I speak I will say the same disclaimer so just stare at me if I'm not loud enough um Ryan just mentioned some of the background here I really just want to highlight two agenda items one on the process one on new standards and having those new standards come out as kind of what's creating the incentive to reevaluate the process first off this is the appearance process existing manual and putting a new process in place so Ryan or Brian alluded to some of this this tiny bit of background on purpose so again the public regulatory policies Act passed in the late 70s in response to the energy crisis and so in that

1:45:13 context right they're really focused on resources efficiency efficiently context with Crystal okay we're right efficient use of facilities conservation of energy kind of it's a well-intentioned statute to kind of incentivize these things I've had a few different parts but one of the parts was a set of standards for utilities to consider and so that's what we're talking about tonight is standards that are included with program and most recently the 2021 infrastructure investment jobs Act created new electric vehicle and demand response statements so it's those two standards that are from this recent station that were

1:45:59 so the big context for eweb is how do those purpose standards apply we are a non-regulated utility so that's distinguishing us from folks like Portland General right that's an investor-owned utility they are overseen by the Oregon Public Utilities Commission and so in that context the Oregon Oregon Public Utilities Commission is the one who looks at the purpose standards and develops Rules and Things around that he has to comply with that so because their investor in utility there's kind of this different treatment for qweb as a locally government kind of recognizes that context and says hey you're locally governed we're going to give you autonomy to let the board and the local community decide what's right for you so we have a lot of authority to determine the process that's right for us as well as our

1:46:44 options the one thing we have to do is conduct that public process make a decision so we have to we have to think about the standards and show considerations um so Ryan alerted alluded to that existing manual I don't know if you compared to look at it I have read it um it was one of those things where we looked at like how on Earth are we going to apply this thing and that was part of the discussions like what a reasonable problem actually the last time standards were passed in 2005 the last purpose standards staff said hey maybe we should do this stuff for the processor process around to it so here we are today saying hey

1:47:29 good this time so basically it's really complex there's a lot of legal language in it that has unnecessary requirements that aren't required but really the changes in the energy industry we interact with our customers has changed so that's really not necessary so you know what's actually in purpa that we have to consider like what is this this is pretty much verbatim from the statute it's a pretty simple very language right we have to have a form of notice in hearing we have to make a decision in writing it has to be evidence and it has to be available to the public with that we've got broad authority to

1:48:14 determine what works for us so basically we're suggesting kind of a more efficient process the 30-day five-day public comment primarily relying on written comments right we have a website that we can see we did that with the IRP we get a lot of it in common today but also having an in-person session for folks who want to show up those comments are going to inform kind of our consideration and determination so whether we choose to adopt standard and then we would use this new process for considering the um so that was a really quick recipe with a broader process that you know something doesn't come often certainly last time in 2005

1:48:59 2006. it's new to me it was a big big thing to look at that manual and try and figure out like how has this applied using and so yeah we were basically asking like hey included materials in the board packet for this process all kind of sitting there I don't know if your professionally but basically we're recommending the motion to repeal the existing manual and implement the new corporate hearings process quick question so you said earlier that we we would we have to have a public hearing so we're changing on the manual but then in order to change it then we would have another

1:49:46 meeting in 35 days the requirements so we don't the requirements are for consideration of the standards not for the actual process so for us it's up to us like determining what the appropriate process for us that was literally an e-web thing there wasn't like hey purpose said you have to spend this many times in this much public into it because if I have the process they just literally said have a process and so we don't have to those those requirements are penetrating the standards but not for the process so we kind of have A Separate Peace we can change the changes

1:50:32 and then to change the standards then that will follow the process that we adopted okay thank you clarification things like this the process that you're recommending is similar to our rate hearings right it's the same thing so it would just bring consistency across that we're just that's the goal which is going to keep it right we're trying to make it uh kind of more efficient and effective align it across as well intended and at the time right people have passed it manual remarkable legislation in that context and a lot of folks acted accordingly kind of did this big like I don't know if you've read the memo but like there's like 700 pages of documents that came

1:51:17 out of this thing it's not in our benefit it's not our customers benefit to go through that right we want something that's more effective you mentioned that the industrial and utilities are regulated by the puc to do something similar to our date going through a similar process at this point of views [Music] Utilities Commission is the one who decides what standards IVs have to pick so the Utilities Commission will look at herpa and say hey we want to adopt these standards let's do all this rulemaking around it apply that to [Music] so they actually decide for Force utilities

1:52:05 and here's how you're going to do it because they're assuming triggered by the same new standards for EVS and Dr so yeah so the puc would look at the same purpose documentation but I think I guess that's my question is I assume they're doing something parallel for the ious as we're doing this and then my last question how is this your second favorite topic uh well um I will say the sarcasm translates poorly into print [Laughter] I I do have quite a bit of experience working with her on the right side though uh one of the most new sections of it is avoiding costs

1:52:51 remaking something that we would do anyway regards the weather where is it our direct generation rate for example or directly connected we'll learn that is an example of an avoid big cost rate that purple would describe so that the customer came in and said hey you're walking away to cosplay if we could say great we've already got you have anything I don't see your hand raised so okay I'm gonna move to approve resolution resolution 2316 repealing the 1979 procedurals manual for hearings

1:53:38 under the national energy act and adoption all those in favor say aye [Music] aye passed unanimously thank you will move to the second round yeah double feature here so Brian is a purple um okay so now we're going to talk a little bit more about the actual standards um kind of you're going to hear a little bit of this redundant hopefully I know it's it's fun to hear public utility regulatory policies act a whole bunch of times but for this item discuss a little bit more what consideration and determination means like what is the analysis how we're making a decision

1:54:39 we've talked about this non-regulated utility we have right so both on the presenting process but also whether to adopt a standard not a lot of local autonomy and so you get to decide what is appropriate for us um I want to call attention to this last bullet because I do think it's important snapshot in time so there have been 21 standards passed since it was initially enacted in 1970. last update right was in 2005 we had this update in 20. 21 we don't have to go back and look at all these things all the time you may get a determination on whether to adopt the standard and the reflection of the utility circumstances and strategic Direction at that time

1:55:26 we now changed our policies we have changed our rate design since we have adopted or not adopted certain standards back in the day you're going to revisit them so be making a decision now on these standards considering it for the utility at this moment is not walking us into a forever so I want to be clear about that this is a reflection of where we're at you don't have to think about it in terms of forever part of the purple will talk more about this is the process and really just the consideration piece for us for us um so that the internet determination

1:56:11 consideration so these are I keep saying them because their language it's language in the statute determination is basically like the decision of whether to adopt a standard right so you're determining is the standard appropriate for e-web and we're determining if the standard aligns with purple purposes which we've mentioned several times they're broadly in that kind of efficiency conservation efficient resource so determination is kind of like is it appropriate and should be adopting it and consideration is broadly the analysis and the complication that we're using to make that decision those are kind of the two pieces in the statute again I want to stress that this shouldn't feel like it's coming out of

1:56:56 left field as we talk about these talk about it we've got broad strategic Direction around immune response around electric vehicles electrification so the analysis and information should reflect kind of what we're doing and so all of that will kind of fold into how we're thinking about it not not sipping out anything this month this is really just a background but um just a little background on those standards so demand response the standard basically says that utility should promote demand response and kind of says hey you can enact rates to cost recovery um and then for eweb you know where are we

1:57:42 at we don't have any current demand response programs or time abuse rates that is due to a couple things we have done some test pilots and some kind of analysis of that and pass with those yeah next time we also don't currently have the advanced metering infrastructure or the software sets you have Enterprise systems right demand response is something that is really looking at Dynamic load many fluctuations and having billing capabilities and rate making that come along with that so you have to have metering infrastructure to see what the heck people's those acts potentially doing you have to have the software on our end to match up with that and pair

1:58:28 of rates and data with those things and so we don't have either of those rolled out right now they're kind of in process or soon to be in process ing 2025-ish for those you also know that demand response is selected as a resource of IRP part of the action plan for the IRP uh kind of kind of part of the long-term strategic Vision so for demand response we've got this juxtaposition of I'm currently doing it we're missing a couple of key technology pieces implement but also we're headed that direction for the electric vehicles that's the charging standard right that's kind of how we interface with electrified things is how do they charge what energy the

1:59:15 goal of the standard is to promote transportation electrification so all those sub bullets on the left hand side are the things that kind of purple things we can do to impact the effectiveness or influence people to Electrify right so affordable rates improve charging times support investment in charging infrastructure um so right that standard the goal is to promote electrification on the right hand side kind of where are we at we actually have a number of policies in programs and rebates around TV charging and other electrified Transportation right so we've got rebates for residential domestic commercial customers we've got some

2:00:01 things for affordable housing bicycle electric bicycle rebates and then car share right so we're kind of approaching it from a few different angles but we do have a broad swath of programs and incentives at that a lot of the funding for that just for context comes from the Oregon clean fuels program that is where we get um credits I don't know thank you we get credits when customers charge with our low carbon Electric Supply and we Market those credits and use all that Revenue

2:00:46 so we're already doing a lot of things kind of broadly rewind this so in the big picture right the new standards appeared broadly aligned with our strategic Direction if you want to point out the second bullet kind of the process side for us as a non-regulated kind of locally controlled utility a lot of the goal of program is to have us thoughtfully consider the standards and interact and engage with our customers and Community about like we should so that process piece is really as big actions Helen again we govern um I've been to kind of time length you have three broad swim Lanes here board staff that's us and public comment

2:01:34 so September 5th is the night I think passing the resolution on the new process which we'll use um the staff were giving a little bit of background right about these new standards just a little bit about kind of what they are and where eweb is at on Friday we are going to post a public notice and kind of open up a page on the website around the purpose standards solicit public comment so that comment will be open for 35 days we'll have some time forward meeting in case people want to come in and then also next month we'll come back either in person or provide materials and give more more analysis like where where is what is the broad picture for

2:02:19 us and really provide some initial leanings on what we're thinking about as well as if there's public comment by that time kind of a brief summary of that so you kind of have a sense of where things are moving and then by November we would have a clear recommendation on them to adopt the standards incorporate their analysis so the goal is to have that resolution we would hope that pregnants reflective of our strategic interaction all these good things we're trying not to catch the board by surprise for the next couple months [Music] questions

2:03:08 anything it's Evie and ER and the questions we'll get more info so when smut was here last month and we put a presentation on some of their electrification things they mentioned about putting in EV charges in local income housing projects and I questioned the wisdom of that because EVS are expensive and utilization rates and they had no data on that so hopefully you're going to look into that because I think you can get some good data places Amazon Crossing on and other new market rate places that have charging in their utilization rates and the cost and also you with the BBA Clinic probably the best Healthcare in the world 30 in and I don't think what's

2:03:54 been used in five years still I would say the goal is to incorporate things like that I know that in talking internally until next month to really dive into things but e-web does write some of the the bicycle infrastructure the car share they're doing different things than an explosive under purple and I do think we kind of like have been talking internally about what is this Equitable routine what does access mean so I have some things that differ closely what purpose put in here so that definitely will be part of our consideration thank you uh one quick question about our public notice I assume do we do public notice that in the RG or other Publications that are just on our website uh the plan

2:04:41 right now I believe I'm going to look at Erin o is the registered guard we could also do it other places that's the current plan great thank you and then uh my understanding John is that the IR a has incentives for used EVS as well and the prices will come down and become more commonly used houses yeah thanks so long as you can actually put batteries they actually have places to park them in links to drive them immediately okay let's do that all right um okay so do you have what you need for

2:05:26 now that was information only so we will be back with more for the next couple months so thank you okay and while we're switching my computer is threatening to restart update thank you commissioner uh good evening everyone I'm Jason user of the public policy and government Affairs director here at the Eugene Water Electric Board

2:06:12 I'm here this evening to give you a snapshot of public policy and uh our excuse to be legislative and policy matters at the state level here in Oregon you may recall from either my reports dispatches from Salem OR from the news it was a fairly bruising State legislative session that involved the longest legislative blackout of State history so after a pretty tense atmosphere at the Capitol in the final days it's no surprise it's been very quiet since I think the legislators just needed a break to decompress but summer vacation is ending that the kids are back in school and state agencies are taking up the PIN to look at their rulemaking schedule the legislature

2:06:57 legislates and state agencies Implement it's not unusual for a bill in Salem that might be the shortest five pages is to produce 50 pages or more of an administrative rules so a lot of activity expected here in the fall and on my next slide I'll highlight a few of the key rule makings that I expect will be keeping me and our subject matter experts accurately with busy this fall number one notably the home energy programs and one shop portal that were included in the Omnibus climate package passed in the final days of the session this creates two programs that anticipate a 100 million dollar plus

2:07:42 infusion of federal funds from the inflation reduction act Oregon will be authorizing two programs to receive those federal funds one program is a home electrification incentive program it's a la carte a second program is a whole home Energy Efficiency rebate program it's expected to or it's required that those rebates would increase the excuse me decrease the energy consumption in a residence by 20 percent and that's very exciting um it's gonna be great that you have customers would be able to Avail themselves to these programs our interest in it is to be at the table to ensure the state programs are complementary of utility programs

2:08:27 we'd like to see bi-directional information sharing to effectuate that that also will be really important for two things we need to ensure no irrational outcomes happen such as a person receiving multiple incentives that total greater than 100 percent of the cost of installing a measure it's also very important for us to ensure that all of the Energy savings accomplished through the state program are properly recorded and measured for the purposes of evaluating compliance or reaching the Energy Efficiency Targets in the Northwest power plan that's important to us as well we have some great staff at UAB that have great Acumen and I believe actually this Thursday we have an internal meeting web

2:09:12 staff to prepare for the listening sessions that Udo will be conducting next month so we're getting our plan together to communicate to Otto hopefully what's constructive input as they design that program uh there's also these Elementary programs also involve the creation of a One-Stop shop portal as they're calling it it's kind of modeled after something the electric vehicle trade Association fourth did a few years ago they created some kind of portal where you enter in your address and the Portal populates information about all the EV incentives for the purchase of an EV or other equipment um you could Avail yourself to so it's the same idea I understand there's been Community interest in a local portal I

2:09:57 think that was communicated in the the letter that commissioner McRae was discussing I would think that it's very likely Statewide portal could supplant the need for a local Florida we'll take a look and see how that turns out I'm thinking the state may have insights and information that would make that portal even more Universal so um exciting stuff move along the building performance standard that was enacted in the Omnibus climate bill that would direct the Oregon Department of energy to inventory commercial buildings around the state of Oregon Benchmark their energy use and come up with energy performance targets to make those buildings more efficient in the future there's no direct role for

2:10:44 eweb we have no direct compliance obligations under the program but because many of our customers will it's another rulemaking we'll want to be at the table possibly sharing our own experiences with Commercial Energy Efficiency and we want to be there also to support our customers it's very possible that it's going to be also commercial buildings that are multi-family buildings or could be a non-profit I think it's probably going to be something where we will suggests that any federal funds that Oregon hopefully can attract to help assist building owners if that's a finite resource we certainly would want to see multi-family and non-profits prioritized in that process

2:11:30 moving along the natural and working lands incentive fund was enacted in the Omnibus climate bill that's very exciting to us you may recall from previous correspondence Governor Brown has enacted a cap and reduced program in the state of Oregon by executive order the climate Protection Program we were watching that closely to see if carbon sequestration would qualify as an offset and potentially be a way to help bring resources to support uf's carbon sequestration program that's already off and running unfortunately due to a legal opinion from doj the governor had to limit offsets only to regulated sectors under the climate Protection Program so

2:12:16 that omitted natural and working lands from that carbon sequestration and it's great to see the legislature though basically incorporate a standalone program specifically tailored to these lands and they allocated 10 million dollars to the program initially that's not a lot of money but it's very possible there are federal competitive pots of money and having an existing state program including a little bit of skin in the game at the state level that could do that position where again you can you can Federal money to populate that fund up even further so again this is another topic that you have had good experience in we're obviously interested not only in reducing carbon or sequestering carbon but the co-benefits

2:13:01 to water quality from that sequestration so we'll be bringing UF subject matter experts to that rulemaking as well the last item here a state energy plan that's not a rulemaking per se Odo was the directed by the omnis climate Bill to formulate a state energy plan and it's a very robust stakeholder process that they're required to follow I would not say that Oregon was previously bereft of energy planning at the state level but it's fair to say we've never had a single home that was all written down in one place and this kind of robust stakeholder process I I don't think it will shock you if I told you

2:13:46 it's likely it will not be a consensus document there's too many stakeholders and too many viewpoints and too many interests for that to be likely we've already seen that in the formulation of Washington's state energy plan I think one recommendation we might we might make is for Odo to strive to properly inventory the trade-offs of all the recommendations they make possible that some stakeholders who may not agree with a recommendation may feel like they were listened to and their input was considered in the document the recommendations to discuss the trade-offs of the recommendation in the state internship plan

2:14:33 uh there's one more item it actually I'm sorry it's not in my slide it's a late breaking item I I just also wanted the flag that uh Oregon enacted a paid leave act uh to a previous legislative session uh as that has reached the implementation phase state level they did actually make some technical fixes in legislation this past legislative session um kind of what I've been hearing from UF colleagues is that's been a mixed bag some of the technical fixes may not actually have fixed everything they intended to and it's created some unintended consequences and eweb as an employer that I think has some pretty employer for employee friendly leave policies and benefits um we probably aren't a good fit for this legislation which probably is more effective in

2:15:19 places where there was a vacuum on this sort of thing so if you'd like more information I can try to follow up with you on that but I just wanted to flag that as an item that uh we'll continue to be worked on at the state level so that's the rulemaking items I wanted to give you a little bit of a look ahead and try to prognosticate on 2024 legislative I had a great crystal ball joke teed up here but he's here still and she beat me through it twice tonight I'm gonna save that one it's okay Chris what's your name you can you know I'll I'll get more of a magic eight ball prognostication then um it's hard to predict this far out but uh two items uh that I think could be

2:16:05 discussed in 2024 and neither of these will be a surprise because Crystal actually talked about them uh in the peanut presentation you've heard about the influx of large electric loads data centers and crypto mining operations uh there is a concern in the legislature about what clean energy procurement standards or really the lack thereof apply to some of these new loads when they are locating in parts of Oregon served by consumer owned utilities that are not subject to the clean electricity standard is enacted in 2021 so there was an effort this past legislative session to tackle this issue there was a bill it

2:16:50 was a little unorthodox because the bill would have actually put clean energy procurement compliance obligations on the large load itself rather than the load serving utility it was an unorthodical unorthodox approach it was well intended but did not go over well and the bill was unsuccessful I really do think though this issue is coming back um it may only be the subject of legislative hearings with like a work group that would work on this in 2024 it's hard to pass a bill in a short legislative session if it's contentious so this could be more like an item that the legislature takes up in hearings and tasks a work group to work on and make

2:17:35 recommendations to the 2025 session and while I certainly think it's possible things like the clean electricity standard could be tailored to a broader in scope and incorporate these loads at commissioner Brandon I heard you mentioned tax policies it's very possible there could be something that ties tax incentives for these loads to what kind of energy serves the load that that is fraught with Peril 2 that's a little bit of an orthodox approach as well but um moving ahead organized markets and the form and or the formulation of a regional transmission organization it's hard to succinctly do describe this topic but I'll try with a crude analogy

2:18:22 there was a time when people bought airline tickets by actually contacting individual Airlines to find out what flights prices were available nobody really does that anymore we use things like Expedia kayak where we can see all sorts of flights with different prices and times all at once again it's a crude analogy but there's something like that happening in wholesale electricity markets a move away from bilateral transactions to an organized centralized optimized approach that uses the grid more efficiently there's already an example of one existing development the we have a Western Energy imbalance Market it's already been in

2:19:10 practice for several years now there's multiple proposals to expand that same type of Direction multiple permutations they each check different boxes as far as the market functions the geographic Footprints how far on an incremental Spectrum to uh full centralization they go I will I won't try to summarize them all there's a great report we can make available to you if you're interested the Oregon Department of energy was asked to study an RTO and organize markets value proposition and make make a report to the legislature our general manager Frank Lawson was actually on the Advisory Group and made some great contributions it's a good report I think

2:19:56 it really does a good job of covering the trade-offs it definitely suggests there is a value proposition that could benefit clean energy deployment gas reductions and consumers but it doesn't suggest that organized markets and RTO are a magic Panacea to solve all the challenges for the electric sector so it's a pretty balanced report um and I think uh I will close there and take any questions I have one question based on the presentation that we had earlier is there any work that we should be doing with legislators or other

2:20:43 other groups the government entities about permitting and how to speed that up we are really looking at more of the resource and balance do we need some officials focusing on uh Well turns out there was a work group that met last session to consider citing reforms they did not come up with anything tangible that they turned into legislation I wouldn't be surprised though for them to take another crack at it there was some legislation passed last session that we're making it a little bit easier to cite solar projects of a certain size at the county level instead of the energy facility citing Council but beyond that I don't have

2:21:29 anything off the top of my head I can tell you is a tangible proposal that's going forward I think it's possible that maybe something that the federal level might be tackling there's certainly proposals in Congress I think Senator Joe manchin has a proposal to make exciting easier I don't have anything off the top of my head that I know Oregon is going to work on especially in a short session because there's there's competing values right you're going to certainly have to work with conservation groups wildlife Advocates it's a tricky proposition but you're absolutely right I mean something needs to give we need a better process to get these things built just because

2:22:15 we have the inflation reduction act the funds to do it if there's too much red tape getting in the way we're not going to be able to do this stuff fast enough Frank this looks like you're just going to say it is a a more active discussion at the federal level APPA nwppa we're involved in both of those organizations and as you can imagine each political party at each branch of Congress has introduced their version of Permitting reform some targeted very specifically some more General it was part of the negotiation for the debt ceiling it got that wasn't the right place to have it but it got to that level so I would expect something

2:23:00 federally over the next year or two and we'll Jason all work on how we can get our voice into that presentation on College Hill Construction and public Outreach plans for that I just want to check because I know it's

2:23:57 good evening president Carlson Commissioners we're excited to be here tonight I'm Karen Kelly chief operations officer with me is Laura Farthing our senior engineer and project manager for this project and Jen Connors our communication supervisor and we're excited to talk about this very big very impactful project of College Hill replacement I was just reading uh an article tonight during one of the presentations where some tribal folks were describing water and they described it as water is sacred water is life and I agree with that and that's why I really think it's important that we're talking about this project tonight okay making sure I'm looking at the right thing on the screen so I'm going

2:24:42 to cover the project background in need Laura will cover the project status update and Jen's going to talk about the public participation plan so as far as the project background and need goes I want to remind folks of a few things one is the College Hill Reservoir was constructed in 1939 so it is about 84 years old and the concrete vendors concrete tank vendors these days claim that the useful life of a concrete tank is 50 years so we're quite a ways past that so I wanted to remind folks of that we first identified the need to replace gas level reservoirs with distributed storage through our 2015 Master planning process and in 2020 we

2:25:27 really began talking about this project in Earnest both with the board and publicly so what I want to talk about now is that the safe drinking water is Paramount to the health of our customers and our economy we're investing today for a resilient tomorrow because our base level water storage is a critical part of our multiple barrier approach to Safe Drinking Water and our resilient spine and you've heard me thought about that approach many times before but I want to remind everyone that water storage is critical to having a pure water distribution Network and is the last steps in the process to ensure quality reliability and fire flow before the customers tap important to understand that our base

2:26:12 level storage serves all of our customers not just those in the proximity to the tanks and for tonight I want to discuss the issues that this project is aiming to address one being resilience and reliability all of our base level reservoirs have structural and seismic deficiencies they are at or nearing the end of their useful life for water quality we must ensure that we meet modern standards for quality which means better Design Elements to reduce water age and improve flow as well as security from vandalism and other threats operationally we need to allow to take one tank out of service while we keep the other in place to meet the needs of our customers in our community and on the regulatory side of things we

2:26:58 must take College Hill out of service based on our agreement with the Oregon Health Authority by the end of this year end of 2023 and constructing replacement storage is important to deal with the end of useful life at our Santa Clara Reservoir so the timing here is important and figuring out just how and where and when we're going to deal with Santa Clara will be a future topic and through all of that I want to remind folks that we are looking at all possible funding opportunities and the projects will be managed based on budget and board policy so in the 10-year CIP I did want to just mention so you've heard many times now we've talked about new storage at East 40th you're well aware of that project next project that we're focusing on

2:27:43 tonight is College Hill and then future projects against Santa Clara and Hawkins are to come and with all of these projects also includes transmission system levels so one of the things that we hear regularly now that we are talking about College Hill more and more is why College Hill and why now we have an agreement as they mentioned with the Oregon health authority to rehabilitate or decommission College Hill by the end of 2023 to address water quality concerns from the leaking roof choice uh we have attempted to repair the roof joints but the repairs do not last so um the existing Reservoir cannot be retrofitted to meet current seismic standards it can be improved but it can't actually be retrofitted to meet

2:28:29 those current standards and that's a really important distinction so for us to make additional short-term investments in a reservoir that's at the end of its useful life just doesn't make Financial sense to us the cost would be high and then the tank still would be operating Beyond its useful life it still will be a work and climate in age so we need new tanks that meet modern standards and will last for another 80 years so the benefits of demolishing and rebuilding include better water quality protection earthquake resiliency and safety and then again the smaller tanks having dual tanks at one time enhance the ease of operation

2:29:14 so the next question we hear a lot is why not drain the reservoir and keep the empty structure and there's many reasons for that first I want to just stress again that this Reservoir serves everyone not just the neighboring properties not just the surrounding Community to the tanks but the entire population of our service territory um we need to take advantage of gravity you've heard this before when we were talking about East 40th that the College Hill site is at elevation 607 which is really important to our pressure zones it allows us to gravity feed from the storage to the customers and that makes it things more efficient we have limited opportunities in this community to take advantage of that yet here we have a site that is already at that elevation and at that type of land use so we think

2:30:00 that is the best use of that space we also have space constraints we have to get two tanks into the site and need room for a third and Laura's going to show you a little bit more about that leaving that tank would create a liability and as Frank was mentioning with the New York Dam it's another one that would be a stranded asset it would no longer meet the needs of our mission which is to provide safe quality and replacement again will enable us to take Santa Clara out of service and figure out a resolution to that whether it be rebuilding it or building somewhere else to replace that and Santa Clara really is within five years of its useful life and that's based on some

2:30:45 condition that we had so last but not least on this I want to point out that we need to maintain our commitment to the rate pairs that commitment is in sustaining safe reliable affordable and environmentally responsible drinking water and in our last customer survey that showed the customers believe the top priorities are reliability and affordability and that was across the board to report differences in age income and residential status being that of both property owners and workers so we believe that this project is Meeting those ongoing so just to close as you know it used to be eweb's regulator drinking water quality is a top priority for me as an

2:31:30 individual but also for our entire water utility so the picture on the right you can see the roof joint of College Hill up close it is there's a big gap there anything that can get on the roof can get inside the tank inside the tank is finished drinking water meaning it does not undergo additional treatment so it's important that we resolve the structural problems of this Reservoir and also the security problems of this Reservoir with human access to the top uh in the early or late 90s early 2000s there was a survey that showed 13 of all waterborne outbreaks come from deteriorating storage tanks and while we have a chlorine residual in there pretty much to overpower that and deplete the chlorine not to mention that if

2:32:16 something was introduced to that tank that couldn't be dealt with by chlorine that would be in people's finished drinking water so it is a very big concern um so Safe Drinking Water Act standards require storage facilities to be secured and to deter Vandal access no other water storage site in Eugene permits Public Access this is why it's so important to me personally and to our team that we fence these reservoirs and keep the public out and the best part about this project is that we can do all of this and still maintain some recreational facilities and some shared space because we know that is a value to our customers so with that I'm going to pass this over to hear the update on the project from work

2:33:07 all right so for a status update at East 40th the tanks are substantially complete the structure themselves are done we're working currently on pipelining Pipeline installation in Patterson streets connected into our existing transmission system there's a second phase to the transmission that'll go all the way down to the 34th and Hilliard which we'll start up after the end of this phase uh after we finished the pipelines we still have some piping on site to complete miscellaneous work bed there but we're on track online by the end of December 2023. we're also working on landscape design right now there'll be a public process associated with that we'll start that work in 2024. so we put College Hill on hold while we were focusing on East 40th so right now

2:33:52 we're in the preliminary design phase which means we're looking at defining the criteria for the consultant to finish the detailed design we're working on preliminary design items like tank siding after that we'll move into detail design right now the design contract is out to bid so you'll see that come through on the consent calendar at the October board meeting we're aiming to start construction in mid to late spring 2024. so the first phase of the construction will be demolition of the tank and then we'll start on earthwork and tank Construction and then at the end we'll work on landscaping and restoration team the engineering and design criteria that we're taking into consideration these tanks will be identical to East

2:34:39 40th that allows us to have an efficient water system they'll work really well together the elevations will match East 40th like Karen said they'll be at an elevation of 607. I think the whole Community is going to get tired of hearing that number by the end of this the bottom elevations will match as well so um that will allow water to Flow In and Out efficiently we're also looking at the proximity to nearby residences there's only houses on the North and the South Side that have bought the property we're maintaining a 40-foot offset to the edge of the tanks that also aligns pretty closely with what's already been developed on the site we're minimizing view shed impacts to the neighbors we're also looking at maximizing public space and public use at the end of the project outside of the

2:35:24 tanks themselves we're looking at how to minimize costs we're ensuring that we have adequate access for maintenance and operation use this we're taking into account the security requirements so the fencing and where that's going to go looking at minimizing the excavation and looking at making the construction as efficient as possible to make the project less expensive and we'll have it this schedule and Karen also mentioned we're also taking into account future replacement or Improvement space the Future Past Generations really had foresight in purchasing all the property at that elevation so we want to make sure to give future Generations some choices and some flexibility in what they can do

2:36:11 so the project scope as I said right now we're in preliminary design we're really right now focusing on tank placement we included this figure for reference only just to show the scale of what the tanks could look like on the site to show kind of what we're considering for future use we're working on Final placement right now we're anticipating that'll be complete in the coming weeks the geotechnical work the surveys surveying is done we're working right now to finalize the scope in the alignment for the required transmission Improvement so we can get water in and out of the tank we're also starting to work on Project rendering so people can kind of visualize with the tank the site will look like in the future and we're starting to work with the State Historical preservation office on the

2:36:58 historic mitigation so this has been determined to be a historically significant site so there's a process we need to go through go into demolition after you finish the preliminary design detailed tank design and pipeline design all have been they said we're gonna for starting construction mid to late spring 2024 and then we'll move after tank construction we'll move into site Reserve restoration and then the elevated green tank that's located next to this site that will be removed as part of this project we're just not sure on the timing or what's going to happen with that site yet so what's next as I said in the coming weeks we're going to finalize tank placement the shippo process requires us

2:37:43 to have a memorandum of understanding we're starting that process next week we have our first public meeting on September 12th for that and we're also meeting with the required agencies it's ideal to see the contract comes through on the consent calendar in October we're on track to drain the tank by the end of 2023 and we'll leave the site open and um the public will be able to use it as it is now until right before construction and then we'll cite we'll sense the extent of the sites and then we'll start the public process which general talked about to develop the landscape and Recreation plan then we'll go into our participate public participation plan next for the record I'm Jen Connors I'm

2:38:28 the uf's communications supervisor I'm co-leading public Communications for this project along with my colleague communication specialist Claire Ray who joined eweb in July of this year and is in the virtual audience Commissioners are familiar with neighbor and General Public Communication for the East 40th water storage project and there are some similarities between that project and College Hill for example The Importance of Being clear and authentic with the public about opportunities for Meaningful input for College Hill the areas where public can have the greatest impact on Project outcomes are landscape design public amenities and historic mitigation

2:39:14 our goal is to provide the community with multiple ways to engage on these project elements in April ewed publicly announced the decision that College Hill would be the next Reservoir to be replaced and in completion of new storage at East 40th the announcement was made on our website via our email interest list social media and was covered by several local news outlets picked off our public Outreach last month with an ice cream social at the reservoir this was an informal meet and greet where we introduced team members and answered questions it was a well-attended event and we received about 21 comment cards with ideas about how the site could be used

2:39:59 in the future as Laura said next week we will hold a historic mitigation Workshop to describe the process and collect ideas from the public for how to appropriately commemorate and memorialize the structure and its importance to the Eugene community next year once the tanks are cited we will shift Focus to the Landscaping plan utilizing public events surveys and other tools to inform and engage neighbors site users and the public at Large and once the project approaches construction we will keep surrounding neighbors informed every step of the way similar to the East 40th project construction will be impactful to the neighborhood it will create noise dust and other disruptions while we can't eliminate

2:40:46 those impacts is committed to being a good neighbor during construction by completing the project as quickly and efficiently as possible and maintaining open communication to ensure updated neighbors are updated regularly on what's Happening and when work is being done we're taking the recording and tracking of College Hill comments very seriously heard from community members that they want to know their feedback is heard how it is used or if that feedback is not acted upon why not and all input input is being put into a tracking sheet and is tagged with the subject to allow comments to be sorted and mobilized when needed not surprisingly people

2:41:32 enjoy the top of the existing reservoir for recreation are deeply interested in continuing activities such as bike riding roller skating stargazing and Tai Chi and we expect this is a message Commissioners will hear often in the coming months project team is reiterating a clear and consistent message that while the new tanks will not be open for public use eweb is committed to a public input process for landscape restoration screening of the new tanks low impact Recreation facilities that can be enjoyed by everyone while aligning with broader Community Values such as responsible use of funds Public Safety and ease of maintenance

2:42:18 moving forward we are going to expand our Outreach to traditionally underrepresented groups to make sure diverse voices are heard on this project which impacts all rate payers as we expand Outreach our goal is to provide multiple channels for engagement and try to break down barriers to participation our email list has more than 330 contacts and growing soon we will utilize direct mail to deliver information about the project to all new neighbors within a one mile radius of the site and invite them to join the email list continue to utilize our website as a One-Stop shop for project information plan and attend community events and of course make ourselves available to site neighbors and other interested members of the public for Q a and general

2:43:13 so as we said at the beginning very big project very impactful it's important to the entire community so our goal tonight was to give you some updates and see what questions you've had for us if there is something more we can do to prepare you we do believe there will be a lot of interest by the community in this project and that you'll get a number of folks reaching out to you over the main computers of construction as similar to East 40th only we have folks who've used this facility there you've heard all the stories so the historic mitigation piece of this is going to be hard very seriously um but it's time to get

2:43:58 some new structures there and so that water utility folks can sleep at night so with that I'm going to ask for questions yeah thank you for that presentation and you are all very seasoned at this by now um so my I have two questions one is what did you what did you learn from the piece 40th that that you're doing differently at this time for that one I can start with that so many lessons so many um but I'll just pick one over the top of my head um from a public Outreach perspective you know at East 40th we were very focused on the adjacent neighbors for the first half of that project leading up to tree removal and we learned that

2:44:45 there was a broader neighborhood and Community interest Beyond just the the adjacent residence to the to the site and so for College Hill as I said we are expanding our Outreach much earlier in the process um and my other question is about um well I know that we're going to hear a lot about what's going to happen to that space and it's really hard for people when they feel like something's being taken away from them and I also hear you saying that there's going to be opportunity for public input with landscaping and things like that I just want to make sure that people hear correctly what it is you're saying that when they hear that there's opportunity

2:45:31 for input and Landscaping it doesn't mean Landscaping of a flat surface that everyone's going to have access to and I'm just wondering do you are there any preliminary drawings that you've shown people or just so that people have an idea of what to expect we have not shown anybody any preliminary drawings because we're not that far in the process yet um we basically right now are just kind of been focused on figuring out what the primary uses are we all live I mean Jen and I both live very close to that facility and so we know that it's a really important part of the community that people have strong ties to so I think that really paying attention to what it is that draws them to the site and trying to make sure that there's some sort of feeling associated

2:46:16 with it but as far as specifics we have not we're not there yet so thank you as we progress with Dei latency this is the first example of a project where I've seen Dei incorporated in so can you give me an example because I'm learning about 100 served Community would be in your Outreach I think this was also outlined in your packet so I'll but I will try to remember a few of the groups that are on our Outreach list so that would include um Eugene adaptive services for persons with disabilities persons of color young people

2:47:04 Spanish-speaking Community we've identified organizations that are active in the community and have broad membership in in some various those various organizations that we're going to be inviting to the process and asking to join the email list and engage with us as as much as they want to and are able to great thank you very much but [Music] um it has been determined of the engineers to decide to the course applicant if that has not been decided yet we don't have an engineer on board yet but likely the excavation is significantly less than at East 40th um so the site's already been previously

2:47:49 Disturbed throughout extents it will be a option that we will consider speaking of Lessons Learned From the Past we've learned lessons on excavation and things to watch for so but it will be enough likely be an option that we be explored thanks um I I guess I just can I appreciate our organizational

2:48:37 especially those right next to the facility see Community Support broadly also we're able to see the commitment to seismic performance um upgrades including including a Hayden bridge and then here as well as the 40th 40th Caribbean such a better spot than we were 10 years ago so appreciate the organizational commitment to that you mentioned one thing about um that this facility can't be upgraded can't meet today's seismic standard couldn't be retrofitted and I'm I think we did a study in to that effect right now you asked somebody could we do that and I just think um my guess is that there will be a bunch of people who

2:49:27 um an issue study or analysis that says it just can't be done or if we if it could it would be after hope I guess is probably the former but I think just being really clear about that will be how much appreciate the commitment to the historic mitigation I know you have a workshop slated for the 12th of September and inviting people already to start thinking about that and see what comes through that process and we look forward to seeing what kind of Creative Solutions our team can come up with to you know take some of the pieces of the existing structure and reuse them or what honest ly you can extend as

2:50:15 I think that's all I have thanks so much for the presentation and the work you're all doing here John grofsky thank you um and thanks for the presentation you mentioned that you're going to be putting out an RFP are we planning on using the same contractor that we used for East 40th to me it seems kind of like a no-brainer although I know we need to look at the best cost and and whatever we're looking at but just Lessons Learned building one of these things a mile and a half from where we're at are we looking at the same contractor

2:51:02 well due to public purchasing laws we can't necessarily hire the same contractor without going through a formal process so right now we're we've got an RFP out for proposals for Design Consultants likely the last consultant that we use will propose but we know that there's other interest in it so we have a team I think of five that will evaluate those proposals so that's what you'll see first and then the construction will have to go out to a formal bid so that will be awarded to the low bidder low better or best suited I mean I know that we've seen some contracts where they score higher and it may not be the lowest bid or are we tied to the actual lowest bid on this one

2:51:48 I would have to work with our purchasing department I don't we don't have that answer right now I know there's alternate ways to put the project out to Bid And I think it'll likely depend on how we decide to phase the contract and of what different construction contracts we have so thank you I'm also just one note after this agenda item I think I'm going to go to bed it's almost coming at six o'clock in the morning here so um I will look at the other not the other parts of the the meeting later on thank you John appreciate your commitment to eBay

2:52:34 okay all right well uh I just had a couple of quick comments I understand that you're doing this historic mitigation Workshop I'm not entirely sure what that entails but maybe it would be very interesting to see if there's like a time capsule or a book or something that comes with all these memories I mean we had a proposal up there in weddings and other things I mean obviously it's a very loved um resource in the community and it would be interesting to be able to commemorate that and have people share and put their memories into that to um I I am curious on the so what radius did we do Outreach at 40th versus kind of what's the expanded radius of Outreach

2:53:24 I don't remember the exact like mileage around East 40th I do remember that once we expanded it we were reaching out to about 250 Neighbors in the area and that was in addition to what we were doing working with the southeast neighbors Association utilizing their communication tools our website media et cetera compared to the College Hill one mile radius that I mentioned there's about a thousand s that will be on that Direct Mail list I think that's it thank you very much for all of your work I am so excited to have you three taking this on and I know that it's in very

2:54:10 good hands I just it's not want to proceed through together working on this project thank you okay and we will take a 10 minute break and say goodnight to John or good morning all right attendant break

3:04:16 good evening Commissioners I'm Lisa Krantz generation manager and for the first time in question I'm here to talk about something other than movie I'm excited about so I'm glad to see there's some folks here interested uh joining me tonight is Patty Boyle she is our Karma Smith licensed deployment supervisor and we're going to be giving you an update on our progress towards achieving our the requirements of our um now it's been quite a while since we did a formal update on the Carmen Smith project so I'll spend just a little bit of time providing some background in history to remind you I items then we'll discuss our progress towards implementing the requirements of our

3:05:01 license including create challenges we're facing and there are quite a few and then finally I will take some time to talk a bit about the lookout fire that continues to burn near the project I know many of you are very curious about damn safety issues that we have near Carmen we will touch on a couple of those very briefly as they relate to our ability to license our requirements we'll be getting a lot more detail on our dam safety program at the October meeting we'll bring a focused presentation on the details about into that so you won't hear about much about the trail bridge single investigation but you will in a month

3:05:48 it's a good preview all right so since it's been a while for context I did want to quickly go over our project layout and how things work geographically to you know set the tone for the the projects that we're going to be discussing later let's see if the mouse can you training all right well let's just focus up on the very top is Clear Lake that is the top of the McKenzie Basin from there yeah does that cursor show up okay great so here's Clear Lake up at the top of the MacKenzie River Clear Lake flows into Carmen diversion Reservoir this is eweb's diversion Reservoir very low storage capacity at this Reservoir really the intent here is to divert water for the purchase purposes of power production through a

3:06:34 diversion tunnel the karma diversion tunnel as we call it into our Smith Reservoir that stores water until we belong to generate it by sending generate power by sending water through the power tunnel to the Carmen plant that's located here at the um end of Trail bridge Reservoir there are two units in the apartment a lot does not reduce that on average but that's there are also a couple of bypass reaches and then I'll end to talking a little bit about um Reservoir said going back up the river here Karma diversion we divert some of the water through the power canal through the diversion tunnel to Smith

3:07:20 Reservoir then we have What's called the Carmen bypass reach which is this section here this is the MacKenzie River what's spilled from Carmen diversion Dam goes into this reach and the upper reach is called upper Karma bypass reach it ends at tamolitch Falls we're all familiar with everything that is now the lower carbon bypass region that's both named them differently because we have there are quite different resources after fish on the Smith side of things what we spill out of Smith Goes Down The Smith bypass reach which is the historic Smith River Channel Bridge Reservoir is at the Confluence of the Smith River and the community River

3:08:05 average Reservoir operates as our regulating reservoirs so essentially what that allows us to do is use the Carmen power plant as a prepaid facility generate when we need the power and don't generate one we need it so water flows from Smith into Trail bridge and then Trail bridge acts by excuse me the elevation in the reservoir moves up and down through the McKenzie river Downstream of the project and Clover sheet in addition to what's shown here on the map we've got the spawning Channel which is just Downstream here and then of course the transmission line the power from them all right um quick review of our license history so a bit of assorted story here on the

3:08:51 original license was issued in 1958 it had a 60-year term on it set to expire in 2008. and with licensings and re-licensing you generally need at least 10 years to go through that process so the re-licensing process began in 1999 with a final license applications submitted in 2006. then once upon a license application was submitted set to work on negotiating a settlement agreement with a number of development firms which I'll remind you of who those are in just a moment that settlement agreement was filed in 2008 the same year that the license expired then between 2008 and when the license was ultimately issued in 2019 there was

3:09:39 there were delays primarily the original lay from 2008 to 2015 was related to some issues with involve into the river designation and specifically what actions who have the authority to authorize actions within the world your area and then also some boundary issues and discrepancies there so we were kind of ticking away waiting for things to happen the Wild and Scenic River issue popped up and took many years to solve during that time power markets changed dramatically and our estimates that went into the original economic analysis for the 2008 license application we're no longer valid so we requested at that time to go back to the negotiating table with our settlement

3:10:25 see if we could renegotiate some of the terms of the license the settlement parties agreed we did a renegotiation between 2015 and 2016. that resulted in an amended settlement agreement that was filed in 2016 and that the new license with a 40-year term was issued in 2019. all right so the licensing or re-licensing process really is intended to have an outcome that effectively announces power production from the project including the cost of that power with the environmental and social impacts of that project so licenses include Provisions to mitigate environmental impacts such as providing passage and instruments to social benefits or

3:11:12 improved social benefits like Recreation cultural historic preservation so essentially the licensing process is very similar to a triple bottom line approach with a regulatory Nexus the karma Smith project like I said we entered into an amended and restated settlement agreement with many agencies and partners the parties to the amended and restated settlement agreement are shown here on the slide they include federal and state regulatory agencies both environmental agencies and Land Management agencies includes tribes and environmental nonprofits so these are the parties that we work very closely with deployment of our initial large projects and we'll continue to work closely with them throughout the remainder of the four-year licensed term

3:12:03 all right so the license itself has boilerplate language as as most licenses do the settlement agreement is what really outlines the majority of the major infrastructure and site-specific requirements so when we talk about the license we're talking about about the license and the settlement agreement because the settlement agreement is Incorporated in home to the license so we'll use those terms interchangeably they mean the same thing there are seven management plans that were drafted and approved prior to filing the settlement agreement they essentially make up large portions of the settlement agreement those are shown here on the slide there's the Aquatic management plan which establishes the passage at Trail bridge Dam both of us stream potential for fish passage at

3:12:49 Carmen's virgin Dam depending on Brokers there it requires habitat for all the reservoirs and those bypass reaches I talked about and then Provisions that address fish stranding and with mandated Reservoir elevations and ramping rates we have the recreation and Aesthetics management plan that requires reconstruction and ongoing maintenance campgrounds and Dave's facilities it also includes eurovisions for signage and to manage key views so that aesthetic you know the wildlife management plan that establishes goals and requirements for the management of 343 acres to terrestrial habitat for wildlife those are primarily on our

3:13:34 transmission line and near the labor project and then in addition to that that management plan has some other items in there for protection of wildlife species via seasonal restrictions for construction disturbance those sorts of things and ongoing right needs vegetation management plan very closely tied with Wildlife Management plan it sets out our requirements to protect and enhance culturally and species in addition to maintaining vegetation for our wildlife habitat and we have the cultural and historic Properties Management plan which establishes our requirements for protecting historic properties of which there are several at the Carmen project

3:14:20 and then enhance and protect cultural resources and finally the roads waste and staging areas management plan that provides guidance for construction and maintenance activity as well as road maintenance these were all the management plans that were originally submitted with the settlement agreement when we went back and renegotiated in 2015 the amended an extended settlement agreement as they were originally written in 2000 exceptions Aquatics management changes to it related to this passage once a license was issued we then drafted these other management plans that were required but are not drafted prior to the license that's a fire

3:15:06 response plan the water quality management plan and the transmission line management plan so I lay this all out here to give you a sense of the framework from which we're trying to deploy all these licensure requirements settlement agreement and the license for the plate license requirements together total hundreds of requirements ranging from relatively small minor projects while monitoring efforts too very large scale complex multi-year construction projects to track a lot to coordinate and um a lot of hurdles to gym are we going over most of this but just picked out a couple of things that I wanted to note as key licensed features so these are by no means an

3:15:52 exhaustive exhaustive list again it's hundreds of requirements but these are some of the key things I've touched on most of it already but I'll draw your attention to the light purple above it that is these are major components out of the products management plan and just a reminder the original license and settlement agreement application included promotional fish ladder at Trail Virginia for Upstream passage and the floating fish screen on travel to Reservoir to provide for Downstream Passage those were the items that were very very expensive that we went back to the salon priorities and recreated form count in the license which is a trap and Hall facility at the base of Trail bridge Dam and using the trail bridge Spillway

3:16:37 Orlando stream passive so the traffic home facility for Upstream passage the original way for Downstream passage using the trail bridge Spillway for Downstream passage necessitates turning our Trail bridge off for the purposes of actively producing power we do still need to be able to operate that for safety reasons because it is one of the few ways we're allowed to move water through the project but for the purposes of power generation it will ultimately um stop generating once permanent upstream and downstream fishing processary car that was the major piece I wanted to cover there just one quick note on the water quality management plan because they didn't talk about the specifics

3:17:22 there that is a plan with requirements to monitor water quality ongoing and then stay within established criteria so a lot of stuff goes on with with trying to stay in compliance with all these management plans now I'm going to pass it over to Patty to talk about projects we've completed today thank you so I thought it would be helpful to provide a little bit of information on both license required projects that we've accomplished so far and some of the projects that we have completed in order to refurbish the power producing facilities in order for us to continue our reliable supply of hydropower in this particular Slide the two farthest or two pictures to the left are

3:18:08 the turbine shutoff valves those German shut off valves allow us to isolate the generated units one of which we're working on right now these these are very large valves were replaced in order to facilitate that upcoming project as a part of that turbine killed off valve project we also inspected and repaired the power tunnel meaning it had to be deep watering at the time dewatering that tunnel was is very rarely happens it is done very very carefully to avoid collapse or any other data exactly that was it made eight years quite nervous and we've carefully planned and executed that and there were no troubles

3:18:53 but it's not something we'd like to see repeated and that's why those terminal files are so important it allows us to isolate the rest of the plant out during the the event so that has been completed it was of course assisted by the refurbishment of the crane to lip gloves spouse as well in that far left um we will talk a little bit about the refurbishment of the substation there at the coffee uh we we tore off the entire deck which included all of the waterproofing membrane and replace that as well as the substation including the switch gear was completed and moving on into the next project

3:19:41 the first of the two units of carbon Powerhouse are being rebuilt right now we expect the first of those units to be completed later this year we'll run it for something 60 to 90 days to make sure it functions properly and then we'll start tearing down and refurbishing the unit should be completed sometime in 2025. then moving on to our next slide Lisa mentioned the recreation a couple of example photos of facilities that have been rebuilt to date on the left is the new restroom facility ice cap Creek Campground it's just outside of our project area

3:20:27 and one of those those projects that was a part of the wild and Scenic issue and this one was authorized by the USDA as opposed to for project on the right is just an example picture of one of the campgrounds in the nuclear versus turbosch Campground that is is now complete and waiting for our turbine projects to be completed so that we can access it supplied um the expanded and improved spawning channel that Lisa mentions that's just below Trowbridge Jam proper we Channel and have now in installed the

3:21:13 temporary tracking Hall facility that picture on the left is on it but it was about two days before the fire started just in time and we and we hope to use it this fall that has that has been completed temporary traffic Hall not to be confused with the current traffic Hall to be installed at Trail bridge we'll talk a little bit about why we have a temper like here a few minutes left so I mentioned a number of very large projects some of the smaller projects are equally impactful although don't have large infrastructure requirements the middle photo is a picture of an

3:21:59 installation of a bird flight diverter on one of the transmission lines we have bird flight diverters on all of the over water spans of transmission removal those diverters give Birds visual better visualization of the lines as they take off from the from water they don't preclude birds from landing on the transmission lines or anything shs avoid that Collision in on the left there is a newly replaced Culvert we've both inspected and replaced any of the culverts sized or changed in order to facilitate the fish passage those those projects

3:22:44 were recently completed this summer and then the far right is a picture of the relocated sections of the transmission line that were previously either Crossing or in Deer Creek or in this riparian area those were relocated up the up the hill so that that Creek could was rehabilitated and rehabilitated by others previously the transmission line clearing essentially cut the vegetation back such that the warmed between the sun would go through and

3:23:37 and there's a long list of projects it's it's getting a little late but I could go on for a long time on all of these but we we as a multi-disciplinary community and working with the English and Engineering Department for multiple projects each year in either categories of license deployment or are producing facility in order to maintain that reliable power and fulfill our commitments so that's the good parts then we move on to some of the challenges that that really we need to address in any of these projects so when we talk about challenges some of the things that we have to be really careful to make sure that we know is the

3:24:24 site itself has constraints uh the the construction period cannot start before the end of the high flow period for DM safety purposes and so that's usually sometime in June it could be earlier it could be later and the construction season ends before high flows begin again or Wildfire steps in or any other sort of weather related event would precludes so we've got a rather narrow window of maybe 10 10 or so weeks for construction I point that out in part because when we experience a delay it's very easy to lose a construction season all you have to do is get a few weeks delay and you may lose your construction season so it has a pretty big impact

3:25:10 um I don't have to mention anyone we've got a wildfire now we've had wildfires near the area that have impacted operations in each of the past two years and I would expect those to continue to happen periodically hopefully not back-to-back years but it's something we need to have as a part of our planning Horizons so that we have a safe evacuation for for folks that happen to be working uh there's limited space so construction tap projects have to be planned such that they do not con conflict with each other as contractor or impede circulation within what we have a traffic management plan for what's going on that includes the public as well

3:25:55 conference so that that can get complicated the the plant is remote and Staffing can be Complicated by folks whether they want to work in a remote environment with specialized skills and knowledge for our plant into can be difficult to find folks and if the apartments to adjust for so we just try to make sure we're well ahead of that whenever possible working with anyone uh so in in I list those as site constraints and that's all within the context of running the plant every day 24 hours a day so it's it's quite a bit and and those operators

3:26:41 work really hard the picture on the right is a little bit of illustrative of the damn safety issues that we're addressing background materials went through a little bit of history on the Discovery and current investigation of the sinkholes of course as you mentioned we'll be back next month for greater detail there there are Regulators NDM safety haven't hit a test that they cannot pick up or review the permit fish passage this will resides until we're we have a plan in place to address those particular sinkholes uh the in the regulatory times for review

3:27:26 of projects whether or not they're associated with Dam safety has lengthened that we we routinely see delays in both the dam safety review and other Regulators they they are challenged by Staffing and workload as well and so while we may be ready to move forward until we get through a regulatory process we can't put forward the contracts to actually construct and that leads to delays and so among these items the VM safety issues that have delayed key fish passage projects and other delays caused by Staffing or otherwise those run into increased cost and requests from The

3:28:11 Regulators in particular for for passage delays result from that battling and so it's going to run through just a little bit on the mitigation piece now that mitigation is is in response to the resource agencies and their responsibilities to to administer The Endangered Species Act that's that's their basis uh and because they're significantly the delayed they have asked for mitigation in a couple of forms and one of those is the is to be able to temporarily trap and hash and examine in particular from

3:28:56 this Channel and transport them above to church so we designed and built the summer a temporary trap and Hall and uh weather and weather and Fire and then we will try to run it in the next week retail only 10 pairs of fish they've also requested and we have paid for the fourth phase of the Deer Creek restoration project that restoration but back to what's put in place the stage zero design of aquatic habitat Restoration in your ingredient finalized that that piece of project that was completed two years in advance of when

3:29:41 it would have otherwise been put in place therefore benefiting to seasons then so those two things have been completed requested and completed our mitigation perspective we've also got requests to contribute to funding for future aquatic habitat projects we have a request for and are in the process of Designing a stage zero type product habitat in the Smith bypass reach and to provide some additional flows to support that habitat and then also to consider ways to maximize the amount of available Downstream Passage through the short

3:30:27 Bridge power plant Lisa mentioned that that was a part of their request but we also need that power plant to be reliable so it will be a bit of a balancing act between reliability of the plant and maximizing Downstream passage and we'll work with our Regulators to find something that hopefully of us the point behind the reliability of that plant is so that we can build one of them so hope I'm hopeful that that will work out fine because our interests in the long term are really actually well aligned so that's the mitigation that we're discussing and ultimately hope to have that finalized

3:31:14 the end of this year and have the opportunity to discuss that further okay then the last slide for me is is really just a snapshot of the master plan and I don't intend to throwing out any particular projects here or uh identify any issues it is really here just as an illustration of both the breadth of projects on in the upcoming years and the length of the timeline we do our best to estimate realistically what it will take to complete these projects and in some cases when drafting the license and making payments it was overly optimistic sometimes circumstances could change we work through with our regular Regulators for

3:32:00 delays or ways to improve prove the timeline but in this case what you see here is in fish passage and a number of other projects going out for several years that that we said from an update on the lookout fire yes all right thank you Patty so unfortunately the Wildfire situation this year provides a real-life example of some of those challenges and constraints that we're facing up at the project um you know our staff we have an incredible um group of people working on deploying the slicing we're very dedicated to getting things out in a timely manner and every year we've had something sort

3:32:47 of knock up knock us off of our feet this year it was the lookout fire we had a number of projects that were in process thank goodness we were able to finalize the temporary trap and Hall just a couple of days before the fire broke out but there are a number of other projects that are underway that have been impacted by this fire things do change quickly I updated this at nine o'clock this morning this slide and it's already way out of date so um so I'll give you the real update just verbally um the fire dates started on August 5th I know you've been getting as a board regular updates via our AGM it was a lightning cause fire the current size is over 24 000 Acres it's at 20 containment and those are still

3:33:33 the numbers as of this morning um great weather conditions this past weekend did help the fire a lot it was a little concerning um last week when the Highway 126 was closed on Thursday and the fire was getting ever so much closer to our project just for reference because this is a this is a small map so this is Trail bridge Reservoir right here and this is Smith reservoirs and our campus where our operators are housed and it's a primary headquarters is right here basically at this this the road here so very very close to our project um we were moved to a level three

3:34:19 evacuation but we did Evacuate the project just prior to that expecting that so staff and contractors were evacuated on August 18th we have as an organization been in ICS for several weeks now watching this fire we've been off the project essentially for normal operations for several weeks now fortunately we did have the opportunity or the ability to operate the project remotely from our trading floor and our Traders there running the project remotely have done an exceptional job with that we have also gotten throughout this process for Dam safety and public safety reasons we need to get eyes on the equipment regularly and so we have had operators who've been able to go to

3:35:06 the project once daily for about well up to two hours or so to check on equipment and make sure everything's looking fine we have had operators stationed both down river in Lieber but then also over the mountain in sisters should there be a highway closure we had access to the project from both sides of the highway this is changing tomorrow so fortunately as of today if our low pretty low fire activity and our fire responders have given us permission to go back and occupy the site on a more regular basis so we will be able to do basically return to relatively near normal conditions as soon as tomorrow and start doing some of the assessments for what

3:35:51 damage may be there so that's that's new as of about 11 o'clock today uh just a couple of pictures so um you know we haven't had the ability to fully assess the entire transmission line that's actually happening tomorrow on the electric division is taking a couple of land crews out there along with um landscape enforesters and others to take a look at what's going on there so that once we are able to get in there and restore the line they can do it quickly and have the equipment on hand these five these pictures were taken a couple of weeks ago as the fire was burning into the transmission line by the way that was planned the transmission line provided a very good fire break for fire responders to to

3:36:37 stop the fire app would you expect very pretty minimal damage there might be some insulators that need to be replaced and cleaned but we'll come on that in the next couple of days so when the fire first broke out and looked like it was going to get close to our project our Partnerships with the fire responders up there has just been incredible and they have supported us in our facilities in a fantastic way so Oregon State Fire Marshals sent spent several days with folks out there putting protections on our structures should the fire come into the project area the picture on the left is a communication Tower up on Smith Ridge picture on the right is one of our brand new signs that I believe Trail Ridge

3:37:23 Campgrounds that was just recently installed so hoping to protect that should the fire run in there and then of course as you know it's a remote project and so our operators not only work there but they live there at least half time and so they have homes there on campus we've had sprinklers running to protect those homes keep things wet and then on the that's the picture on the left and then the picture on the right side are brand newly refurbished one of our units at Carmen that what you see there is a protective cover being put on it to avoid damage from smoke Ash and other things it's a real just a lot of thanks and gratitude to the fire response team for all their work there even though we expect pretty minimal

3:38:08 structural damage there are going to be some impacts related to this event so there will be project delays we are very close if not already at the point of not being able to kind of pick up some of those projects that we had to to walk away from again this is this is this old slide as of nine o'clock this morning um since then we do believe we will be able to move fish um via the temporary trapping Hall perhaps later this week so that's great news um and then finally we will have we do have Lost Generation so we have the the plant has been off for a number of weeks now as of this morning the estimate of Lost

3:38:53 Generation is about eight hundred thousand dollars uh at the average of August prices it's about twenty five thousand dollars a day in Lost Generation and we do expect it'll be at least seven to ten ten days before we can re-energize um and again more to come on that once we get our eyes on that equipment and see what it takes to restore everything with that open up to questions oh I did forget one thing I really wanted to I had it here in writing but I very specifically wanted to thank the fire responders and also thank you web staff been in ICS for several weeks now a lot of folks have been um participating in that very specifically

3:39:38 I wanted to take to thank the Carmen operations team so they've been impacted more than most they're we're not only um you know had a king put in their duties but they were have been physically displaced from the project the the picture there with the eweb logo is the view from our camera up on Smith Ridge about a week ago when aqi was close to 1200. very very tough conditions out there and and they have handled it all with just with flexibility in patients and I really appreciate that and also to Chris Taylor who has really been managing working very well with the fire response team up there

3:40:24 with that I want to live on the questions thank you I started this week 16 years ago yeah when we first did this I think we were it wasn't financially feasible project you know we had four twice power price curves at 220 megawatt this was going to cost over 230 million and those were 42 million over budget now and we haven't dealt with the sinkhole we haven't dealt with other things um and we've gotten some more costs but our prices are down in the 30 megawatt is this no longer financially feasible funny we knew you were going to ask that question or somebody was do you want to take that uh so you're right we analysis in 2016 as we renegotiated the

3:41:12 settlement agreement removed quite a lot of costs associated with that fish passage and and and reset to a financially viable project we've and set the budget and I I'd have to look back 139 and so the delays themselves have caused a number of cost escalations in addition to I'm not sure if you identified that along with the with the Dam safety pieces rerun that analysis to check that and that's something we can do it has not been done to date some of those numbers aren't available to us one thing I will point out is there's a conversation around that is it an economic project compared to compared to

3:42:00 what decommissioning this project is in the same sort of conversation so your choices would be is it economic financially moving forward or is it decommissioning a better strategy but I'm just thinking that if when we initially started and we had a 220 million dollar cost and we had 200 a megawatt power to justify it now we're at 190 million 181 million and we got 30 megawatt power to me I I already figured it out so you don't need to go through that for me I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing something because it sounds like the cost is going to go up more with with sinkholes and with the fish medication yes I do think we will see additional

3:42:45 cost of practice and then real quick on the 800 000 is that our lost revenue or does that include our cost of that because when we when the power went from 30 megawatt to 1700 we had to pay it is that 800 include that or is that 800 our lost revenue and then is there another cost allows a for us having to buy replacement power because we didn't have peaking I'll have to double check but my understanding is that's inclusive those very large you know this very high power price days in August 30 seconds so when you spill in the spring to get those bolts Downstream uh you're going to fluctuate the river levels because you know how my phone rings every time that happens are you guys going to be fluctuating because you're not doing that now and they get really sensitive

3:43:30 when you start messing with the upper the entomology gets all that stuff are we going to flush it so the ramping rates that apply down river will stay in place okay so you're not going to mess around please advantage to those ramping rates thank you that's really good news appreciate it I have a question just about the water quality constraints that we have to stay in is that around the temperature or is it other mostly temperature yes yeah very cold up there the Smith River Reach is the is the component we're there uh Regulatory Agencies really want to keep an eye on temperature we will be

3:44:15 monitoring it throughout the project though thanks for the presentation so we shut we shut the plant down when the fire started then you said that we were operating it remotely what are we operating remotely then so one of the units at the karma plant is able to run on station service so it can feed power to the campus to the homes and to other things without um you know putting electricity onto the transmission line oh okay so it runs as sort of a local local units yeah that's what the fire is coming to we we shut down the transmission lines we're specifically going okay that makes sense thank you and that's really important because if we lose that then you know we would have to run on

3:45:01 generator power which takes fuel also means people need to be there to refuel it Etc so I've got it um is there any recourse for the 800k laws there's like nothing else we can do it's not like that's an insurance thing or anything I don't believe so all right well thank you very much for the presentation I appreciate all the hard work and it's been a lot up there so thank big thanks to the team and okay thanks for hanging with us late night

3:45:49 future board agendas would you like to know about future it's in your background materials we have [Music] um Brian's second favorite topic continues in October with some purple work um as well as we start October is really the kickoff for our financial season so October November December well Deborah Hart and her crew will start getting into the budgets and rates and and the specifics of those and so those are those are upcoming depending on the feedback I get around the Dei policy we may or may not cancel the work session in mid-october really specific

3:46:35 guy I'll wait to hear the feedback that we get relative to diplomacy other than that I will be a little bit out of pocket the second half of September um Rod will be acting in like capacity while I'm not available I wanted to quickly just get a check from Commissioners on this setup there's challenges that brought to my attention also Kramer and how this feels so I want to get feedback it didn't work for me

3:47:21 because every time each one of you interacts with staff I can't hear you so you finally drug out my hearing aids after 10 years I've been sitting on these because I've known that I don't like it now they're out because when you speak that way I can't hear you and so it did I I can overcome it by using these things I hate them but and then I did have a comment from Deborah she said she couldn't hear you don't feel like I'm a quiet person no man I have trouble hearing you too so shop but it's it's uh no it can't be with microphones I mean we used to have microphones we were old off in our in the headquarters building we had microphones can we not have microphones in here we hired a contractor to come in

3:48:07 and do some work in here so when will that be done um I'm not sure I know we just got it on board so I don't know when they're scheduled through that should be this month oh no I'm sorry I'll get back sorry I could I I I just adapted I just it didn't hear you because and it's nothing against you or anything but ever if we need to accommodate Communications it'll work it's just that when you're like Matt when you're speaking at the interacting I couldn't understand what you were saying it's not because you were speaking away from me well that means I don't know maybe we constantly get complaints of people on online can't hear us either so I mean

3:48:54 it's kind of all around it needs you know and I hate this setup I've been I'm like this at all about when we're in a line like this it's just kind of hard for us to interact with each other I think I liked I liked the huge shape more okay this was trying to help the audience here is better but now we can't hear each other either so one and then set up another account I hope that we can go back to the u-shape and then have microphones yeah Commissioners I I think that if you just look at the amount of time during the course of a meeting that that you spend interacting with each other that far outweighs

3:49:40 the fact that there's some people who might not be able to hear that interaction your interaction other than public testimony is a priority until we can get some of the technology upgraded so it sounds like going back to the to the more the the closer knit board discussion and then we'll all work on projecting during certain times for the up of which the public might have an interest so this was an attempt to project toward the audience we didn't have the audience that we have had recently so um this is continuous Improvement at work and we will uh we'll revert back to that

3:50:27 and then we'll work on some some other types of Technology upgrades all right thanks for allowing our experiment we don't know until we try it right I appreciate having the time clock available for them to see it got you know it returned it so they could see it but then I couldn't see and so anyway you know other challenges other opportunities to improve I also wanted to note that the language about reaching out to to people testifying was removed from a public input piece missing it here but we added we added the ability to reach out to them by adding contact information but then we took out the comment that we reach out to them all right we might want to revisit that

3:51:12 if others agree that that's something that we still want to do I think we've modified that a little bit not that automatically and I'll I'll go back and double check just just to make sure I'll work with um Ann and Holly on that it wasn't an automatic oh if you don't get it because some people pose absolutely ridiculous hypothetical questions and in our Preamble we committed to getting back to them on that and then this should be more if the board directs okay for staff to respond in a certain way we would be very much more pleased to have that degree of filter apply to it it's not that maybe we don't need to add it back in I just wanted everybody to be aware because it was commented that we reach out to people and we say it and we

3:51:59 no longer say it so yeah I think this is the we need to we'll work to strike the balance between the run on hypothetical question to ask the question versus someone who's legitimately interested in a response that is otherwise unavailable or not not responded to so that's a we're trying to strike that balance there 5 a.m at the airport yeah we don't have

3:52:48 to you everyone to stay warm uh race it's open you want to sign up registration's open okay with that adjourner