EWEB Board of Commissioners — June 4, 2024

0:04 good evening everybody Welcome to the June Eugene Water and Electric board meeting my name is John barovsky I am the vice chair uh commissioner McCrae the president is uh joining us remotely this evening got a few housekeeping things that we'll do before we start the meeting um first off is a facilities and safety awareness and the meeting Logistics so thank you for attending this evening um eweb management and subject matter experts are presented in the room and virtually the meeting is being live streamed and recorded uh please speak loudly and clearly so everyone can hear you we do have new audio and visual uh equipment this evening that we're

0:51 testing out for the first time so hopefully it will be working properly if not bear with us please um public test morning is welcome sign up forms are available at the back of the room visitor access is limited to the board meeting room and the restrooms restrooms are located on the first floor exit through the interior door at the back of the room and a security officer will direct you to where the locations of yes where the locations of the restrooms are in the event of an emergency such as a fire or Security in incident follow all instructions given by staff and if an evacuation is required please calmly proceed to the nearest safe exit as

1:36 identified and directed by staff and evacuate away from the building to the farthest points in the parking lot to allow clear and immediate s access for First Responders so with that being said for those of you who are are going to be uh doing public testimony tonight we have the protocols up on the big screen there if you could familiarize yourselves with that that will be helpful I'm going to gavel in the meeting and go to agenda item number one which is an agenda check do any of the Commissioners have something that they

2:21 would like to add or amend with the agenda okay not seeing any we'll move on to item two which is items from the board members and general manager um I earlier or last month I took a tour of the College Hill Reservoir site and that was really interesting to go down underneath and see all what was there including the um nuclear fallout shelter um also we had our UPR River board meeting whichers attended and then also our river trip which I want to thank staff for all the hard

3:06 work great Mr Brown thank you um three items one I'm on the oped board the board I'm just kind of there I don't vote but that's the post retirement the benefits and uh bottom line is the fund is doing good I think it's 14 or 15 million dollars that uh we have there uh but it's the EB's contribution this year will be about 250,000 and uh and but the insurance cost are going to go up about 15% for health insurance was a projection so that's that bottom line is it's doing well the Investments are doing well um I also attended the lane electric co-ops annual meeting on the liaison for them and didn't hear much about the operations I found out that 50% of their distribution

3:51 lights are already underground but Frank tells me if that's about the same percentage that we have about 50% I was surprised to hear that 11% of their pfolio which kind of surprised me because that's a lot I don't know how they get that because we get ours to those are just a couple statistics that stood stood out to me and then the third thing is it's just I like to comment I'm not taking a dig at stop but I am volume of detailed information that we've gotten in the last 40 eight hours probably surpasses any volume I've been sitting here for 18 years that we've got and uh I think it has to be fair to this board to give us enough time to digest it because it's very complex stuff and you know involves legal opinions and all this other technical stuff and so if we

4:37 could just be aware of that because we do have lives and uh and all that stuff came in over the weekend and then here it is Tuesday and we've got this meeting and we're supposed to understand to digest it and make decisions and just hope you be that that thank you Carlson I wanted to say thank you thank you um yeah I wanted to um you know thank staff also for the river trip and the College Hill tour I think that was really important especially the college he foration I appreciate that staff put that together so I just wanted to

5:29 McCrae seems like only some of the mics are working way we can't hear what you're saying okay so if if Commissioners can is this helpful can you hear me now okay so try to have the the microphone a little closer to you when you're speaking uh I don't see commissioner McCrae on the line so I'll just go ahead and go with mine uh pretty much everything has already been uh stated by the other Commissioners the the river trip the U River meeting uh those things were all very well and I want to thank staff for uh facilitating all of that stuff so it was very good to be able to meet with some of our other uh utility board members as well as uh elected officials on the river trip so that was very nice

6:14 and whoever ordered that day I really appreciate it although I should have put on sunscreen uh Frank yeah Commissioners good evening um just a couple of items first of all uh commissioner Brown sir certainly agree with the amount of volume and the time um that uh is the exception to the rule as far as its timeliness and and we'll make sure to correct that um the comment around the 11% nuclear is likely because that comes through Bonville and Lane electric a larger percentage of their portfolio is fulfilled by Bonville so that would be that would account for the differences between our percentage and Lane electric percentage of nuclear I had one item this evening for commissioners

7:00 um just wanted to uh poll the Commissioners uh regarding a particular letter that we received on May 23d U from U an individual uh regarding the potential proposal or sale of the leeberg hydroelectric um facility um it's something that uh we could evaluate I'll make a couple of of notes about that first of all as a perk regulated facility um there would be substantial regulatory requirements and processes associated with any transfer of ownership um as we do uh if if the board does U provide some endorsement to evaluate certain proposals we would do

7:47 so in the context of the original principles associated with our recision one example being to eliminate long-term risk for example um just wanted to to um highlight that we did receive that Commissioners also received that letter and um get some kind of endorsement from the board um and it could be head nods um would be appropriate if the board would like us to do some highlevel um evaluation of proposals to that we received regarding the leeber project would you like at this point or do you want us to do that later on in the I'd like it now if I can get

8:34 it commissioner Brown I think it wouldn't be of good use of staff's time I mean if it doesn't work for us how is it going to work for a Venture Capital Corporation and they're still going to have the storm water management obligation to the community and whether or not that could be I mean if they defaulted then who's going to take care of the storm water and that's a multi-million dollar obligation um for me I you know I think we've done the math doesn't work regulations are there and so I think it wouldn't be I mean you guys have enough to do I would not be in favor considering that even and I could go either way so um looks like we've got three for no so that's a no no thank you

9:21 Commissioners um I did get a uh text from commissioner McCrae that he didn't have nothing to add under items from board members other than to Echo the sentiments that were already said um at this point I'm going to uh and we have a couple of people that have scheduled sign up to call and usually we stop taking uh Callins or stop taking applications for public testimony once the meeting is started I told her we'd give it a few more minutes have we gotten any confirmation from the two that have called is on the line but I have not heard from the other individual okay so we'll go with Miss King and then the person who did call in at at that time we'll just

10:07 skip over her um the next item on the agenda is the city of jeans's potential fee we've got city manager Sarah Mader and staff before I go right um no you can come up to the front we put you in the big told me I de although it would be nice to have you standing in the public testimony here switch roll switch rolls for time and speak on your budget all right that one it's picking you up you're okay okay now it's definitely picking me

10:52 up well thank you so much for having us this evening I really appreciate it and I appreciate being brought up to the front of the agenda I know you have a long night ahead of you we recognize we had 20 minutes tonight so we're definitely not going to give you a presentation instead just walk you through some high points again I'm Sarah Mader city manager and I'm joined by our Chief Financial Officer Twila Miller and our assistant city manager Matt Rodriguez who also oversees Public Works and planning and development so does a lot of work with eweb um I think most of you know and have probably been reading about some of the financial challenges that the city's been working through over the last well actually probably like the last 10 years or maybe entire my entire career which is 28 years and I'll speak to that at the very end but more importantly as

11:38 part of this banial budget that was adopted last year we included over $20 million worth of ongoing reductions or reductions uh an additional $5 million that we repurposed so we took things that we were doing and we repurposed those funds to do other things to meet some of the Urgent Community needs and even with that we still had an $8 million Revenue plug that needed to be filled in the banum so as part of that we um we've been exploring new revenues I invited a revenue team so a group of community members uh to include uh commissioner Browski to help us like to really learn a little bit deeper about what's going on with the city's budget how we got here and to evaluate a a number of Revenue sources that a staff

12:25 team put together over the summer so we we met a number of times walked through that and they gave me some advice on uh what are the best um potential things that make the most sense for for The shortterm Gap and also some discussion about longer term issues and things that people want to see a lot more of including housing which was a high priority from for most so as you likely know it's not that easy to generate $8 million of Revenue in a single year so the supplemental budget that Council will have a public hearing about and take action on June 24th includes uh a mix of things to hit that $8 million most of it is reductions so there's about um probably six6 and a half

13:10 million dollars worth of either one-time savings or ongoing savings or some onetime Revenue options and then there's one new uh Revenue source that were was one of the items I want to talk to you about tonight and that is um a million dollars that we're proposing in an increase in storm water fees and the the way we would do that and I think you probably read about this is expanding the definition of what's eligible so right now we pay for a number of our Parks activities that are storm water functioning activities this is a discussion about um expanding that definition to include uh more of our park operations and that generates about a million dollars that's what we're proposing so that would that would land on the bill in about for a um average

13:55 home probably 80 cents to a dollar a month so that's item one and that's actually the smaller of the two but that would allow us to get through this um this the rest of this bial without taking deeper cuts and there's quite a few that are already built into the supplemental budget the larger of the new Revenue sources is consideration of a new fee for fire service and fire stabilization uh this is something that actually needs quite a bit more work but it would generate um and would need to generate quite a bit more money so it I think we're looking at approximately a $10 million proposal that uh would allow us to stabilize that service stabilize the general fund and also have some increases in some of the services we

14:40 provide to the community so that one um as I said needs more work it's it's definitely more significant but the council has said yes we're we're open to it so anytime we start talking about fees the first question usually that comes up is is web going to bill for that and the reason why I think people bring that up um locally is because almost every other city in Oregon that has any other fees for Parks fire and police which is many cities also do their own utilities and build build through their utility system we're pretty unique and that we're separated and so that's I think that's why the question comes up and it's why we tend to look because we already have that relationship we've been really clear with Council that that would need a lot

15:25 more work that um I know that this is been a tense conversation in the past we don't haven't built any assumptions into this and so some of the things that we're exploring are you know what would it look like if we build in house for this what would it look like if we also contracted for service with a vendor and we we had an RFP or an RFQ or an RF one of those RFS uh to explore that possibility and of course one of the possibilities would be could we reach an agreement potentially with e web if this proposal was to go forward so that is um because I know there's going to be a lot of conversation in the community we I wanted the opportunity to be able to come and talk to you let you know um that the the storm water piece uh as sooner should have pretty minor signif a

16:11 pretty minor impact operationally on on eweb staff it could uh involve a second rate increase so there is an impact I can't say it's zero impact the public hearing for that is on June 10th so it is kind of right around the corner with June 17th it's a wide Corner a wider corner and uh potential action on the 24th of June um and again the fire we're going to work on through the fall through the summer and and probably bring a proposal to the council in the fall so in the uh one of the fun facts that I presented at Council if you watched that was uh going back and trying to understand how we got here and I got hired in 1996 by the city as a Parks employee right after the

16:57 property me measures had passed and and we were freezing positions and making reductions and I think that was sort of the beginning of it and in my research of that discovered that in 1996 we had I might get the0 6 and point4 mixep it 9 11.6 we had 11.6 FTE in Eugene per thousand community members and today we have 9.4 and in that same amount of time we've grown uh 54,000 people so we essentially have absorbed the entire population of Springfield and we're doing that with 285 less people than we would have if we' kept that same ratio going forward so it's been a long series of reductions your um observation about increases going up Health increases going up at 15% when we're have some kind of locks on what our uh property

17:44 taxes can grow at make it very challenging and so we also know it's very challenging for the community so we wanted to just give you chance to talk and ask questions and if you would like a deeper presentation and more information we're happy to come back at any time I think that's it thank you commissioner Brown thank you very much and uh I I've got a real strong caution about this because I know we can't do anything about storm water that's in the charter and you're going to do it no matter what but um next year it's 13 million this year it's 8 million next year it's 13 million it grows to that closer to the microphone the microphone excuse me I'm doing the best okay thank you so um well I can't get it much closer I'm sorry but

18:29 uh so that now it's 8 million but it's 13 next year so and you already have baked into your 5year CIP 5 some odd percent per year compounded on storm water I've looked at the budget and my concern is is that it's an eweb Bill and two of the four charges on eweb bills have nothing to do with eweb but it's always tagged on to eweb and I have a real problem telling a single mother with two kids we're going to shut your power and water off because you can't pay this bill and this is debt by a th000 cuts to me I I would be totally for doing a separate billing I would absolutely help Champion you in that but to separate water and electricity which we have input on and control on and then separate the other two storm water and mwmc I'm good with that and then if you

19:16 want to add a fire fee and then we don't have to worry about the charter and everything else I would support that but I would have a real problem with with shutting people's power off because they can't pay this bill that now has fire and and and Parks operations in it and so that's kind of my high level response and you can talk me out of it but right now I would be challenged to to want to approve a fire fee because I know that probably not much we can do about storm yeah I'm not interested in talking you out of it so yeah I think we we share some of your concerns and that's why I've said we're we're pretty open to exploring how what is the best way to do this that works for for all yeah and and also I look at you know like forj their tax exempt but they pay they pay more in storm water fees than they do in electricity and and you look at the tax

20:03 exempt entities and now we're going to build them for a fire fee which do they are they really obligated to pay it or not and I look at the rental Community they're already paying for parks in their rent through their property taxes and their and their fire and so it's to me it's double Deb so there's yeah I wouldn't want to be in your shoes and try to figure this out but um I can see where there can be some push back on it but I also need understand your need for the money and you've done some pretty brutal cut already so I thank you and I'll support you if I can in in something that would not adversely impact our our rate payers thank you yeah M Carson um I I agree on the not turning power off piece I have disagree and and would not like to do separate billing if at all possible I know that

20:48 that's controversial but I think since we did a lot of work around um updating our bill um and what the bill itself looks like it I haven't had very very many constituents come to me with like they understand where that's coming from so they have questions about it they think more go to the city because it's spelled out a little bit better um but I don't want us to just for inconvenience sake or you know how it looks sake have an additional cost because it would be a you know a whole different system that would have to be paid for and that would be a bigger burden and thus we would get you know lower impact on the amount of money spent so as as much as I don't want to put another thing on our bill um if that has to be done I would rather

21:36 that we do it so we get more of our you know Community dollars where they need to go to support the other programs okay I I agree with what son said I got a text from Matt he said thanks for the presentation he didn't have any questions at this time um thanks for coming and presenting like like Sarah said I sat on the revenue committee uh we flushed through a lot of things and I did bring up a lot of the concerns that I've heard at this board and in this boardroom as far as uh the challenges to some of our customers have with with our billing and so just know that that was voiced in in the room

22:21 and it was heard very well by by staff um one of the questions that I would have and I don't know if you can get back back to me on this or back to us with the memo is on the storm water fees you know you mentioned the impact to a single family home you know it's going to be this this much I'm wondering if you could also kind of give us what it's going to do to the business Community to some of the larger the larger storm water uh pay rate payers such as as commissioner Brown alluded to 4J you know Valley River yeah some of these large uh uh commercial and even small commercial you know what what the

23:07 average impact is going to be on those because it's easy to say oh this is going to be 40 40 cents on the average homeowner but you know if you've got a lot of improvent surfaces it's it's exponentially larger so that would be something that would be helpful for me so that I can explain it to to my constituents yes thank you um I don't have a question for City staff at the moment I did want to get a little bit of clarification um from commissioner Carlson and and schlosberg around the the issue of the billing cost um presently the city does pay for EB's marginal cost to do the billing but what I'm understanding from your feedback is that separate bills

23:53 would be less efficient and you're concerned with the efficiency of having Two Bills versus one am I interpreting that correctly yes okay thank you from the community perspective specifically right I mean obviously it's it's more work for us in some regards but I'm guessing that in and having a completely separate bill system for the entire community that would be more costly than running it through the system we already have in place I mean I could be wrong but in aggregate I think you're correct and and then also getting back to that you know one of the things that was brought up was and I'm Again part for the horse here when we're talking about billing

24:38 for a fee that there still needs to be a lot of work done on the the way it's put together is um it was brought up by B and by other people in the revenue committee and at city council that there would have to be some sort of of uh Fe assistance for low-income people that would be baked into that I think that was one of the things that we stressed as well so whe how that comes out this is kind of what Sarah alluded to in as far as that there's a lot of work that needs to be done on the second step of this that's why I'm kind of concentrating on the storm water fee which were which we're obligated to Do by City Charter Mr Brown so can you maybe help me with this so let's just

25:23 take the University of Oregon for example they don't pay a penny towards Fire Protection right now so would this take over that and now they're going to start paying into our fire department for the protection that they get yeah again this is this is determining how it gets built and who who's the owner but we anticipate that University of Oregon would pay the fee at least in our early discussions that as we look through like different scenarios I think um again we could be happy to come back and talk to you about what we're learning love to talk thank you yeah and and and this is a model that is being used by several other communities

26:10 throughout the state it's not like we're inventing it I mean you can probably speak to that yeah and actually Matt might be able to too I just wasn't sure how many slides we could get through in 20 minutes and a conversation but yeah do you recall the cities they just talked yeah so um just a few I remember off hand so Medford Corvalis grants passes considering it they haven't put it in Place Jacksonville there's three or four more yeah that that have a fee that includes um fire service in it and in Corvalis just kind of responding to your question about U ofo that OSU does pay that fee to Galis as an example

27:00 that would be an economic Bon for the fire department if they're not paying out yeah and I just want to clarify that um I I don't have a problem if the city decided that they were you wanted to do your own billing that would be fine but I guess if it's if it's cheap if it costs less money and you can use the money in a better way for us doing the billing I I'm fine with that and um I know we just went through a whole bill redesigned but if we did start adding significant fees I think that we would need to add something to the bill to make it clear even the return address maybe wouldn't just be eweb but eweb and the City of Eugene or something like

27:51 that yeah you said you had no comments did you want to chime in hearing none well thank you for coming in presenting here the text let's see what he says nothing from him thank you um he's he's in an area that has very weak signals so that's why he's doing it to that yeah Commissioners I just wanted to to make make it clear that the city's going through this process and and our intent is to work with the city around any kind of details that they they might need to support their options at this case uh at this time so um as they work

28:40 through their process they'll be continually reaching out to to us and we'll support them in their evaluation and what the options might look at so that there would be more details coming forward to this board at some point um regarding the path forward if if the board good with that that's our Approach at this point great and I just want to say that um from everything I've heard from staff on both ends the relationship between staff of e web and the staff City staff is probably one of its all-time bests as far as working together not just on bailing processes but shovels in the ground and tearing up our streets downtown commissioner brown but um we

29:25 will uh do our best to make sure moves forward anything else from you guys no I'm just super appreciative to be here and uh we look forward to hosting you uh on June 24th great yeah thank Youk you okay the next item on the agenda is our public input uh I will read the Preamble welcome to the public input session for this meeting this portion of the agenda is dedicated to providing community members an opportunity to address the board about any eweb topic or issue we respect all speakers and he we respectfully request all speakers adhere to EB's public input instructions

30:11 and code of contuct that are provided during the signup sheet that's going to be these things up here uh when your name is called you will have three minutes to provide your comments the public input session is now open we will begin with the following and we're going to start with our people who are on the phone first so that will be Kathy ging Kathy are you with us if so unmute yourself and you will have three minutes me yes we can hear you okay um Kathy gang Amazon uh segue

30:56 to comments for the sixth time this year I quote Register Guard today about rain mitigating Vanita fire crws will be working on mop up Ops to make sure all hot spots from fire completely out an analogy to eweb rep a smart meter installation company telling a smart telling a rate payer that after most digital meters installed they will send out the mop up cruise for the resistors oh yes those of us who had turns out as history may prove that it may be smarter and healthier for refusing not so smart meters we will not be extinguished like fire Embers because Nationwide resistance to smart meters is growing

31:42 like two bills in New York legislature Mr Lawson and Bor you would have been wiser with fewer IL legal headaches and rate payers more satisfied better served if you had treated customers more equity equitably especially EHS sufferers who intreated you to withdraw your Draconian policy to require universal Smart Meters 50% of the utilities do allow a true opt out including epad to keep their safe healthy conserving analog meters that e eweb rate payers thought was our Legacy policy no digital meter tragic flaws and E web's attempt to mandate 100%

32:27 compliance have emerged instead of from initial launch when eweb failed in 2013 to set up any let alone an ongoing citizen advisory committee recommended in your funded good company rep report you instead not only ignored that Sage Council but also reversed the 2013 board decision that emphasized even if one had opted in for a digital one could have analog reinstalled bes besides ignoring rap payers and elected Steward predecessors in the ice storm of 24 you authorized tactics the threatened rap payers capriciously turning off electricity of several senior women the day after stunning testimony by nine

33:13 smart meter opponents including a lawyer on May 7th one partially disabled woman was able to get to the door and was not able to get to the door before the electricity was turned off with no warning only one knock and nobody shouting I am an eweb rep or your electricity will be turned off now another had medicine requiring Refrigeration one woman had severe health issues one still has no electricity after two weeks ruthless and tactics and policy Divergence you missed the win-win opportunity I invited you to enable allowing ewb to retain its former more or less positive reputation by meeting with concerned payers that could

33:58 have resulted in positive outcomes instead of the legal morass in which you now find yourself wasting our money on legal fees and Tech that is not required on every house to allow a time of day pricing which itself is a policy that works against workingclass families that you serve there is still time to compr your time is expired Town Hall meetings please thank you thank you next up we have Sabrina seagull Sabrina are you with us yes okay we can hear you go ahead you'll have three minutes thank you

34:43 um uh I I just want to say I'm I'm a plaintiff in this suit against eweb and nobody wants to Sue eweb and we're all a community together my children went to school with your children and uh this isn't the way community treats Community um anyway but uh you leave us no choice we've begged for months and educated you for years and um some of us absolutely cannot have a smart meter on our home I I'm electrosensitive highly electrosensitive and I'm

35:28 doing my best uh to even survive living in town just being in my home where I am actually tortured when my neighbor accidentally puts on his Bluetooth um he's so kind to keep it off for me most of the time um uh but some when his computer updates it comes on and then he quickly turns it off when he realizes it or I call him because I'm suffering um and I'm suffering uh I I get brain fog and my heart hurts and I can't breathe well and I'm feeling pains when you're your

36:14 information is shooting through my kitchen and my bathroom I could feel the Transmissions of the other smart meters in the neighborhood and I don't even think my neighbors have the smart meters yet um so they're shooting through my home from the neighborhood and I could feel them very strong my kidneys hurt I could barely do the dishes at my sink my my kidneys my heart and my head um so I'm just doing the best that I can just to survive in my home my son goes to school and this is my life I have to be in my home and I do love my home but um then you want to add insult to

37:02 injury and insist to put a smart meter on my home and I cannot have the dirty electricity the additional assault basically on my body um when I'm just barely getting by as it is in my home and uh have the RF you know possibly leaking through and you say that you can't put in writing that we can have an opt out forever you know you you can't commit to that you say perhaps next month in the new board will vote to not allow opt outs anymore of your um opting out on the smart meter to have the non-transmitting mode um thank

37:49 you Kathy your time is up Sabrina I'm sorry Sabrina than thank you Sabrina thank you next up is Curtis blankin yeah I'm Curtis blankin ship Springfield Oregon I've paid taxes here since 1985 in Lane County uh there was a recent article uh just two days ago by NPR talking about um Farmington Massachusetts now has a networked geothermal heat pump system and it's the first one that they have independent ones that are owned by the users but this is the first one that is done by a Utility Board a networked geothermal heat pump system and uh your integrative

38:36 resources plan has nuclear power in it that you're going to hook up to uh Bonville or you already hooked up to Bonville and they're going to probably hook up to uh a out of state nuclear power so this is a win-win for you guys because uh it's run by electricity not gas and um so with Co generation and uh winter there's all kinds of winter storage schemes you could easily keep us off of nuclear power and uh the uo could easily put one of these in for their uh heat heating plan upgrade and um you know it would be a chance for them to teach students about cyclical uh alternative technical technology systems that are more cyclical instead of linear and uh change

39:23 you know we're going to have to rethink the way we do energy in this country we're going to fight climate change and stay off of nuclear so um I'm hoping you would do um so and there's lower you know there's lower load requirements because uh it's much more efficient to run they're pulling uh you know I'm sure you guys know how this works it goes through the Earth it takes the uh cool and temperature from the earth and adds to it and subtracts to it to cool it works to cool your houses also so uh I hope you've done due diligence and study I'd like to ask have you studied uh Network geothermal he heat pumps and would you please do due diligence and study these to keep us off of nuclear power because you're going to run into a lot of opposition for nuclear

40:09 power and uh please uh do much more new uh rooftop solar I'd like to see much more rooftop solar uh again to keep us off uh uh nuclear power and you know the the uo you're going to have to rethink about how these buildings are they're going to have to be much more uh oriented to the South with green houses on them for uh if we're going to go into the future with uh and lower climate change and fight climate change all right so yeah please do due diligence and check on uh Network geothermal heat fund systems thank you thank you next up is Sarah carlor Charles Charles

40:54 sorry Hi um I'm gonna try and cover a lot of ground in a little bit of time my name is Sarah and happy to be here tonight it's kind of a surprise because I work a lot and I don't usually have time to come to meetings like this and I didn't know this meeting was happening until I got the newsletter from eweb last night and there was an announcement in the newsletter but I got that kind of at the 11th Hour literally like 11 pm when I was kind of on my way to Slumber and uh when I clicked on the link for the agenda and the supporting materials that link actually leads to the January 29th agenda so uh I went to bed and I woke up this morning and I figured that there would probably be an announcement about a public meeting public board meeting like on the Facebook page but there wasn't

41:41 and so I was like huh I'm gonna guess call eweb to find out when and where this meeting that they announced in the newsletter is and when I got to your website to get your phone number is where I finally saw an announcement that had a link to the actual coordinates of this meeting and then I clicked on that link and there was as commissioner Brown mentioned a compendium of uh supporting materials that I have had zero time to review so if I wanted to provide any like technical relevant any relevant commentary on the technical aspects of this very complex Capital Improvement plan 10year plan super important public utility public comments public awareness that's 30 seconds

42:27 okay um second I wanted to note that I've never been here before and I got here a little bit early because I thought I could at least observe if not uh participate in the first part of the meeting but I couldn't so I took a walk around the facility and it's really beautiful I really like what you've done with the sustainability design the environmental designs and um whatnot like it's that those are the things we were talking about in public policy classes 20 years ago and it's really nice to actually see it in fruition I'm curious I'm kind of bummed that Sarah's not still here because I was wondering if the city or Andor county is requiring um uh new development and Redevelopment

43:14 to incorporate some of these not some but all of these uh environmental design like Progressive things that you've got going on here beautiful um let's see there's a couple things that came up so I am I only have 20 seconds left oh okay impervious surfaces uh it's storm water why are we charging people for storm water when impervious surfaces are actually the cause of storm water one of the things about this uh facility is it's got that grid work for the ground you're going to decrease your oh I have more things I'm on the advisory committee for the Planning Commission from Northwest

44:00 Eugene um processing right now how we're going to roll out the planning initiative we've been having a really hard time finding Civic space to have those meetings in and I'm wondering if you could consider opening up your conference room so that we could schedule those meetings through the city um to have them here thank you for your comment next is Ian patch Basset um I'm here to talk about these smart meters my 50-year-old brother died died

44:46 of Electro atic meals I talked to three surgeons independent doctors and they all told me the same thing I find it really apprehensible that you're shoving this down our throat these are our private homes we should have a right to choose what we have on our property and when this deal was made there was so much opposition so much that the compromise was made that we would never be forced to have one and you agreed eweb agreed that we had to opt in to get one and then you Secret ly change that have hit this in the back door you have to opt out not to

45:32 have one and now you're thuggish thuggish shoving them down our throats without any of our choice when does this entity eweb start listening to the public and stop acting like a bunch of padas that are just after Empire Building more Revenue this thing has it's not about saving us money it's about giving you more income when do we get a voice you all you people write these beautiful eloquent things about why you want to run for commissioner on the board in these fer pamphlets beautifully poetic when do you turn your back and starts kicking Us in the pants because you've all done it I don't understand this is a

46:18 a epidemic problem with this eweb You' never listened to us you do what you want you we do this kind of thing where we think we're talking into a wall and then you just do whatever you want and now you're bringing something that is truly unhealthy into our private homes we should have the right to choose about our own property and you should honor your agreement that you made instead of playing this game of intimidation and bullyism and maybe if you were more transparent and you supported us more and you gave us a little bit more idea that you looked out for our interest you wouldn't need S at the door but you make secret contracts with private companies that pay out millions

47:03 of dollars a year and that you won't let us know the details of you know the Jones wood paper Bill Energy building thing we fought like he that you found someone to rubber stamp that and tell us that we didn't have a right to know the details even though it cost us millions of dollars a year you won't include us in the process you just act like a bunch of arrogant spoiled brats and I mean it this is our private home we should have a right to choose what we have on our property and you should not be in our backyard thank you Aden Basset is

47:55 bot missioners manager staff thank you for your time this evening my name is Aiden Basset I live in Ward one 25 years old I'm a third-year law student and I'm here to talk to you about the Carmen Smith project I was born in Eugene in 1998 and a year later eweb began Endangered Species Act consultation for its license renewal to evaluate the effects of continued operation of the K since upper willit river shinook and bed out ricit as threatened under the esa that same year when I was in fourth grade EB filed a settlement agreement with FK in which e web agreed to construct new state-of-the-art volitional fish passage measures to allow fish access to miles of river above the kmen Smith project when I was

48:40 a senior in high school you had insisted volitional passage made the project uneconomic and reached a new settlement agreement with fur to implement the inferior alternative of trap and Hall facilities 16 years after e web first agreed to enable volitional pass kman Smith has effectively no fish passage infrastructure of any kind and the damage has been profound in 2016 Noah Fisheries published an Esa status review for upper wamit river shinuk stating that the McKenzie river subpopulation once seen as a stronghold for this threatened species has been in Decline over the prior 10 years in other words in the eight years since then EB has had had

49:26 even more reason to know that it's near total failure to comply with the fish passage terms of its FK license has been directly furthering the risk that these salmon will go extinct this is an astonishing level of delay he current projections of completion of trap and Hall facilities near the end of this decade totally unacceptable 200 million is available through the bipartisan infrastructure law for upgrades to Dam that allow for passage to allow for first passage and the US fish and wildlife service has awarded more than $30 million in Oregon alone I struggle to believe that EB cannot afford volitional fish passage with so much Federal funding now

50:11 available just as one example feels like EB has spent most of my life skipping between excuses not to construct volitional fish passage fish passage facilities or in fact any fish passage facilities at all but no do ious risk of sink holes nor incorrect estimate of future power prices justifies further threatening a species on the brink it's long pass time for ewb to implement the volitional fish passage measures it first agreed to back in 2008 ewb needs to direct staff to provide cost estimates for fish passage that consider E's current legal and financial liability and the potential to receive federal or state funds to ensure fish passage time for the excuses to end thank you

50:57 Bethany C followed by Josh cour good evening Commissioners manager and staff I'm Bethany cotton eweb rayer resident of w 7 and conservation director for Eugene base Cascadia wildlands and original party to the C Smith settlement process as a conservationist recreationist rap payer and Environmental Lawyer with a focus on Wildlife law and deeply concerned with ewes long-term delays in complying with fish passage requirements at Carmen Smith I was heartened to see an update on tonight's agenda but find what was provided in writing inadequate the update repeats earlier excuses and States e web's intent to not achieve fish passage for an additional 5 to

51:43 seven years the update fails to disclose the potential substantial financial and legal liabilities bur notified eweb of in its April letter an Omission that is hard to Fathom as you conduct a cost benefit analysis the update also fails to explain if e web has actively engaged in the reinitiated endanger Species Act consultation with national Marine fishery service and the Fish and Wildlife service in the month since their letters the eweb seems so willing to be in multi-year violation of your license and federal laws is a serious deric it's the kind of behavior I might expect from a bad actor for-profit Corporation but not from a public utility whose stated mission is to enhance our community's vitality by delivering Drinking Water and Electric

52:28 Services consistent with the values of our customer owners and to do so while being a local utility that inspires our customers to invest in and rely on us Extinction is not a value of this community failure to comply with our nation's foundational environmental laws is not a value of this community nor does it Inspire Community investment or Reliance I want to emphasize how serious the letters from the three federal agencies are in 16 years of public interest environmental law practice I cannot recall seeing letters from an agency let alone all relevant agencies so strongly worded and start in their assessment of a partner's failures to meet their obligations as staff noted in the

53:14 written update NS accused you of bad faith not done lightly you have missed the window for trap in Hall to be a remotely viable alternative of course anticipated expenses have increased as you have delayed year after year that increase in costs cannot justify further delay EB is contributing to the extinction of two iconic Northwest species shinuk salmon and Bol trap I urge you to actively participate in Esa consultation this summer with nson fish and wildlife service adequately staffed the project honestly assess costs and benefits including the immeasurable costs of Extinction and the significant Federal power act fine liability and meet your decades long fish passage

53:59 commitments via volitional passage or dam removal thank you na ACC followed by Our Last speaker alen corn I I've been speaking out against the smart meter program since the beginning in 201 13 and I I appreciate the ability to be able to speak out in these meetings and assert my rights of opposition in in these public forums what I don't appreciate is retaliation from your

54:46 organization for my my ability to speak out and assert my rights and the and and I I also don't appreciate somehow that this board has no oversight from any other authority in this state apparently uh so that's fairly odd um but that in the last month since the previous meeting uh you guys shut my power off because I've been asserting my rights to decline a smart meter being being attached to my home as as I have since

55:31 2013 and and since then I've been extorted for $250 which I paid and now you guys have a transmitting meter on my home an act of retaliation because I know of at least two other individuals who have also been extorted for $250 for refusing a smart meter and have have paid the $250 extortion fee and have a non-transmitting meter so is this an equitable policy that you're retaliating for some reason against me because I'm outspoken on this issue for

56:17 so long and probably others I'm not saying I'm I'm the only one that's being retaliated against but you guys are well aware that there's legal proceedings ongoing on this issue yet you're still going to retaliate against me and others and force us to have a transmitting meter when we were clearly opted out from the beginning I it doesn't sound like an equitable policy to me and uh you you guys are really not looking so good in terms of the legal proceedings that are ongoing so you know turn off my meter there's no reason to force a force me to

57:02 be up all night because I can't sleep with this microwave transmitting meter on my home that's spying on me and and causing me to not be able to sleep so please turn off my meter thank our last one is Alan Alfredo Orman well hi again um forgive me for being late but I had a work extra because somebody just got to pay all these added fees and all these crazy things so that we can pay for the smart meter program that we really don't want and we have to pay for your lawyer fees and so on my bill I've got service charge I've got

57:48 electricity delivery charge plus the actual charges for what I'm using all I should be getting charged for is what I'm using that's how it used to be with eweb we don't appreciate having to pay for these programs that most of us don't want almost everyone I've spoken to in Eugene does not want a smart meter they're not willing as as we are to speak up but they don't want them I've only met maybe two or three people out of everyone I've spoken to that's in phas Smart Meters that's about it everyone else no no no you know so you're making you're also adding another layer of vulnerability to the system because yes they can be hacked into yes they the system can be taken down through hacking and if we're

58:35 ever I mean I know you guys have had meetings about what happens if this facility gets attacked well who's going to attack it it ain't gonna be us because we're not the crazy militia types but what if it's another country the first thing they're going to do is an electromatic P electromagnetic pulse bomb up in the atmosphere which will knock out the whole system so once you get the system going you're still going to have to go out and replace every single one of those Smart Meters that got knocked out by that electromagnetic pulse you wouldn't have to do that with the analog meters we don't want them we know that even if we opt for the no transmitting option now we know that eventually you're going to force us to have those meters broadcasting we know that we see how you're operating and we had the opt

59:22 out earlier about yes you can keep your analog meters opt out great all of a sudden no you can't have it but we'll give you this other option and it still messes with the electricity coming in the house it still add extra microwaves into the house and what we hear is it can start fires it can melt old wiring I have old wiring my house it's an old house you know so we know that the next step is going to be you're going to force us to have them broadcast be honest with people be honest with us be caring some of you you look like you're concerned when we're speaking but we see the lack of concern in your actual responses and in your actual policies so please make a change listen to the human part of yourself listen to your hearts

1:00:09 listen to our hearts please we really need that kind of connection with you guys and that's I got 14 seconds so thank you very much and I'll be see you next month thank you the where's the mic for public comment this is we are just installing these this is just started up today so we're working on uh audiovisual technology so bear with us on that matter but there are speakers in the in the room so it's all being broadcast um thank you everybody for coming out and providing testimony at this point I will ask if there's any comments from Commissioners or staff at this point commissioner McCrae texted me

1:00:55 that he has no comments anybody else okay hearing none we will move on to our next action item which is the approval of consent calendar a move to adopt calendar a second moved by commissioner Brown second by commissioner Carlson any discussion all in favor say I I'm in we have four eyes that that's enough

1:01:41 we'll move on to approval of consent calendar B Mr Brown I'd like to pull item five in consent calendar B okay can I get a motion to approve consent calendar B let number five so move second all in favor say I I I thank you Matt uh item number five go ahead John So yeah thank you and I would like to thank staff for the response to my inqu so for the people that don't see what we're talking about it's a $1.7 million contract rebuild a campground and part of the Karm and relicensing but I'm concerned about the discrepancies we we bu did this 900 some odd, in the 2024

1:02:30 budget the engineer said 3 million this comes in at 17 and so along with my thing about the things keep which you know when do we believe uh what it is we we've got an Engineers estimate of three million we have a budget item 970 and we have agenda item of 1.7 and this is for a campground so why such the deviation in the campground so commissioner Brown K Kelly chief operations officer for the record um there was an estimate done that was based on a prior Campground um project back in 2021 that's what you see for the

1:03:15 budget that scope changed over time the new Engineers estimate came in after budgeting cycle for 2024 so we're in budget cycle right now for 2025 hence the hence the difference so that Engineers estimate at three million um had changed based on time and inflation and also on change of scope so that's the the basics but if you want more I'm gonna punt over to Lisa who can answer additional questions well my concern is is had we just waited a few months we we'd be adopting a $3 million item instead of 1 7 and yeah we've got so much pressure on upward rates rates

1:04:01 are going to go up so much it's pathetic and then we keep keep doing this little by little by little and I just want to emphasize cost control and and frugality because this is a commodity that people don't have choice on and it's necessary to live with and so as we continue to go this trend I know the rates are going to go up quite a bit in the next few years things that are out of our control but the things are in our control it's certainly like to not saying you're not trying but I'm going to push a little bit harder to try a little bit harder keep cross control so uh I know we have to do it for licensing of things but you can see how that's kind of at least for me it's it's it's challenging when we have such a WID spread of numbers and anding the $190 million relicensing is

1:04:48 not big thing but it is million dollars is a million dollars so thank you very much by just something there commissioner Brown uh totally agree it is hard to estimate these projects particularly with the effect of inflation over the last handful of years this project is one where we did go back and did some value engineering um the original Engineers estimate was $3 million the Val we did value engineering and actually reduced the scope of the project in coordination with the forest service and other settlement parties with a stake in the campground design and came back with uh with that 950 uh some on Thousand uh we were actually and then then got an updated Engineers estimate of 3.3

1:05:33 million uh for that uh that new scope so we were actually it's still a lot of money but we were quite pleased with the 1.7 million because it's significantly lower than the the three plus million for the engineers estimate we do continue to watch watch um costs you'll see that in the presentation that we give later this evening we'll talk talk a little bit about where some of that escalation is coming from it's largely due to in inflation and supply chain issues but these are license requirements that we have deadlines to meet so we are committed to achieving those in the most cost of effective way that we can thank you so I'll move to adop item number five in con calendar

1:06:21 B second second any more discussion all in favor say I I I I thank you okay next item on the agenda is the annual Capital Improvement plan assumptions and priorities have 35 minutes leave us at least 15 questions please think I can talk for 35 minutes about Capital yes I I can yes I know you

1:07:11 uh good evening Commissioners uh everybody in remot land um tonight I I wanted to to spend a little time going over the the capital plan assumptions um it's it's really a preparation for our July meeting where we'll get together and talk about the 10year capital plan along with the long-term financial plan so uh bottom bottom line up front as they say uh drafts Capital plans and long-term Financial plans came in uh a little higher than than we may have expected so uh so we've been looking at the capital plan and um it's a very important part of the long-term financial plan discussion I feel like this is

1:08:01 um so uh for the record my name's Rod price and I would also like to start off by thinking Aaron Balmer and his group particularly Alicia orese and Daniel Davidson they were um the finance people who were very um sorry I'm still getting used to this mic um they were very instrumental in helping us come up with some of these projections and numbers on in a short order of time so anyway uh tonight we're going to cover um uh some of the the overview of how the capital plan works uh where the board fits in uh some of the economic numbers that that we typically uh talk about as goes into the capital plan assumptions

1:08:46 investment priorities from the electric water and shared services some of the challenges and risks that that come up into Capital planning and then leave some space for for Commissioners this is not a uh we're not looking for Action items here but maybe a little guidance and feedback on how you see priorities and and some of the assumptions we're going to talk about so um for the customer who was testifying that they may have missed some of the capital planning um there's still more to come so that that's good news here but it's it's a process and so we're at the beginning of the process here uh in the red box where where we're gathering information such as guidance from the board around assumptions uh and and the the

1:09:31 priorities around the Investments we're making we take that away sap does and we we mix it together with the long-term financial plan and come up with the best um levels um and optimize to to rates in in financial metrics and some of those things and uh we bring it back to the board in July uh in July then uh there there's details about both the plan and the the rate trajectories and and a number of things around the long-term financial plan and uh that's for uh the board to provide feedback and and uh look at and then of course we bring final versions back in October and um so forth so uh time frame um I just went through

1:10:18 that um so I want to start and talk a little bit about some of the terms and processes I know some of this is review uh we've talked about these things before uh just as a reminder uh the way staff T typically talks about uh projects and programs uh we talk about them being in compulsory uh risk-based and strategic so compulsory uh is the work you have to get done that's like the obligation to serve fixing things that have failed and so forth risk-based is a little bit more uh along the lines of projects that are uh time independent still need to be done eventually um they're flexible generally um they they're set to address

1:11:03 our strategic plan um in different priorities like that uh strategic are the big projects the kmen Smith second sources um those kind of things so the way we generally look at the plan and how we we build the 10-year plan with projects and programs is you start with the compulsory um and then you add the Strategic uh and then there's a a whole Hopper Wally used to have a nice slide that showed all the there's more projects that we can do risk based and then can get done so we choose the right projects uh to maximize our our financial um metrics and and our projects and um optimize the long-term

1:11:48 financial plan the other thing that that I guess I'll point out too is um uh the some of the terms that we do use and this comes from the board policy is the type one type two and type three so once the programs and projects are are budgeted and and approved and in progress then the the categories are set up in type one type two and type three for reporting purposes so you'll find those U uh in the quarterly report um broken down that um basically uh this year something that's different I uh is the capital reserves so each each Capital plan has

1:12:35 an amount of reserves in it um previously uh in water was 8 million now it's 9 million uh and previously in electric it was 25 and now it's 26 basically just reflecting that the the value of the assets um somebody mentioned inflation earlier um the value of the assets has gone up so does it Dee ation amounts relatively speaking to that um speaking of inflation um we have uh we're sticking to our uh previous year's uh or we started anyway with previous year's inflationary assumptions um but we do recognize inflation is a big pressure uh one of the charts we came up with here if you uh look at the the chart there uh these

1:13:22 are compounding um inflationary rates for construction only um and so we assume um some rates for our forward projections in in construction um the the assumptions we've been using have been pretty successful the the orange line is the actual inflationary rights that come from the the construction F construction indexes those line up um pretty well until 21 and in 22 and 23 you can see that the two lines separate a little bit so we undershot perhaps a little uh for a couple years and uh that comes back to impact some of the things that I'll talk

1:14:07 about later but um one of the things under consideration is how how do we uh input and calculate uh inflation in our in our long-term Financial plans so that will probably be uh re um Revisited here in in July when we come back uh remember I mentioned that we start with compulsory we add U strategic projects and then we ask add risk-based projects well how how much um how do we know how many risk-based projects we can add because we've got more than we can do um so one of the ways we we look at this uh is that we use a a ratio of um

1:14:52 Investments per uh annual depreciation and so for electric uh for instance there's some pretty good industry benchmarks that that have stood uh the test of time that says if you invest about one and a half times to two times the the depreciation rate then you'll keep ahead of of the um reliability and and financial goals one of the things I wanted to point out um and just as a reminder in 2021 we came to the board and about a number of things around resiliency um aging infrastructure um strategic projects and that kind of thing so uh in that time frame we uh proposed in in the board

1:15:38 approved an increased set of ratios that means we could have put more projects in our 10-year Capital plan and so uh that's kind of reflected there in that that chart to the right you can see where uh for instance the on between 2016 roughly and and the 21 budget we were averaging a ratio of about 1.8 um and now uh we're we've added to about 2.4 on average so um the reason I'm I'm talking about this a little bit though is uh we're still working on this in July right so I mentioned inflation is outpacing um our expectations so that ratio may even if we keep that ratio we may get less done than than we we could

1:16:23 with the same amount of money so some of the uh priorities we have for investing in uh in the electric um is U current drivers Leber Canal uh Dam safety Walterville trailbridge um we talked to the the board several years ago about a cable replacement program but a number of substation projects uh distribution Investments um and um as of recent years we're we're also replacing a lot more failed equipment so one of the things that we do to track the the success of the investment or or monitor I guess the the amount of investment is is the age

1:17:09 of system metric U and again you can find this in the court early report the the age of system is basically the accumulated depreciation divided by the plant and service and doesn't matter if you speak finances or whatever but basically it gives you anide aide of how financially old your system is and so again um electric has some um some pretty good U industry standards across the the utility business that says if you stay below 60% you can stay ahead of all your reliability and and those are the targets that are good the extra uh Investments we uh brought to you in 21 were designed to help bring the age of system down uh to roughly 50% in 2030

1:17:55 uh again that was to uh address aging infrastructure stuff that's built in the 40s and 50s trying to get that replaced to make sure we stay reliable in the water system um we don't have quite the same amount of of Standards to in benchmarks R ages system but um the number of uh 43% um is kind of where we're at with the water system but it tells you and shows you the the amount of investment uh if you go back to the table that that I first showed the the investment rates were higher and so I think that's sort of a reflection of of the that that investment level but uh

1:18:41 investment priorities are are Watershed uh I want to throw that in there because that that fee is um ends in 2026 but um we've talked a lot about the base level water uh storage projects College Hill Hawkins Santa Clara U 4th of course um and then the the interconnecting systems that the pipes that it takes to create the backups and connections to those projects uh Strategic investment was was the big uh ad in 21 which is the second Source in the related transmission projects shared service Investments uh Ami Advanced meters um uh there's a typo there in the slide I apologize so we

1:19:26 have uh next year uh meters to still install up River Electric meters uh and we'll still have the water meters to finish up here in town uh next year Enterprise Solutions um Business Systems um you know it's combination of software and hardware and all the things that that we need to do to run our business um more effectively and efficiently and uh I think through there been a lot of information about that but that continues uh the other thing that um more of a risk based but it's the rock facility upgrades and and also the the work we're starting out here um that just started I think this week on the the corner of Roosevelt and Burleson to help enhance our facilities

1:20:19 here this is a a slide I kind of liked and and this is one Frank talks about the the balloon squishing kind of thing which I'll explain in a minute but um the slide was in the background and I thought I would put it in here too uh to show and explain it a little bit so it's a series of of capital plans over the years mapped out um and so for instance the the plan that we brought and was approved in the board in 2019 is the blue there from 2020 to 2030 so that shows you what we were projecting at the time in 2019 so if you jump all the way now to the and again the 2024 it's a draft so it's not a finalized thing but uh what you see there is that the capital plan is

1:21:05 much higher it's the one in green than the blue and it's also uh loaded in the the earlier year so it's it's got a shape like a hump and so this is where Frank gets his balloon thing you know you squeeze the balloon and it pops up in in a different area same amount of air and scope but um part of the reason I talked about inflation uh that's one of the contributors here uh another contributor is uh Carmen Smith which is the deadlines haven't changed to do the work but we've not been able to do the work when we had hoped to do it and so it's pushing expenditures closer into these uh coming years and so as you can imagine um that has an impact on our our long-term financial planning uh it also

1:21:50 has impacts on our capacity to do things you know we uh need to have people and and finances to do those uh and so that's just an illustration in the water if uh if you see in the background there has a very similar kind of thing going on where inflation has really driven up the price of of some of the um construction costs of the projects related to the Second Source mostly so I think one of the things that um obviously there's a lot of risks here um we could talk about risks um but I another thing Frank said that really caught my eye I think or ear was the the

1:22:36 plans need flexibility and and I think the way we do our planning allows for flexibility I think the other thing that really helped this is we have a very strong financial footing we just got some bonds um sold today anyway that's your thunder not mine but um but we we're sitting in a really good Financial place and so it allows us to be able to flex and move projects and so um I think the the biggest concern um you know is how do we how do we get it all done with with the money that we have so I'm GNA stop there uh for any questions and discussion but any thoughts uh just a couple thoughts there uh we can turn the risk dial um risk-based dial to to tweak things but

1:23:22 were there any uh priorities or uh Missing or added or comments on on any of that so we don't take any comments from the public after comment I'm sorry I can talk with you afterwards if you want yeah okay uh questions from the commission sure aome um I have a question question I mean you're you're asking us turn the dial or lower priorities I think they're all really important um but my question is on cost infation seems like everything costs

1:24:08 more than we think it's going to cost and we have a lot of big outstanding things that we're still working on and the things that we're planning for and trying to assess the cost how do we get better at um estimating how much things are actually going cost I think this a great question we've been asking the same thing so um again I think what we're going to do is I think eron's online but uh what we've talked about is there's different methods to to do that right now we're doing kind of an average kind of thing and so um uh really what we uh I shouldn't say that what I should say is we're we're following the fed's guidance right um and so um but there are ways to look at historical kind of things and do something different so that's part of

1:24:53 the information know details that we'll bring back jump in a little bit Yeah commissioner SLO through wow that really got loud sorry everybody's awake now um so I'm going to reframe your question just a little bit I think we have some uh right now we we manage about $1.4 billion dollar worth of worth of assets those are in different phases of their lifetime and we have uh at the same time some pressures related to inflation related to some of the other the other things that that Rod mentioned and we're going to have to navigate that um and we're going to have to work with the board around what the priorities and tensions are going to be between rate pressures on one side and um managing

1:25:41 our assets and taking certain calculated risks on the other um the the good news relative to how we handle inflation is we have noticed over the last several years especially because we deal with assets that have really high um raw material content for example we we deal with very big things it cost a lot to ship them it cost a lot to to uh do certain construction projects and that has outpaced even just standard inflationary numbers so as part of that navigation uh we're going to have to take a look at where we have Flex Points uh quite honestly where we can take calculated risk move things in and out uh in their time frames uh in order to be able to meet the financial obligations uh that we've set forth in

1:26:26 policy but also the uh to be able to navigate the impacts on rates in our customers um the the amount of scope per dollar that invest that we invest has gone down because of the abil because of what you're talking about and we're just going to have to be able to to come back to the board with what that flexibility looks like um I think we're going to have to forecast going forward over the next 10 years a a forward-looking age of system based on different levels of investment in order to be able to create the flexibility I think you're you're looking for so that we can make conscious choices with this plan um as it now the good news is we do have certain Flex Points um the bad news is we're seeing a lot of pressures that are that are for forcing us to use those Flex Points thank you and then you know

1:27:11 I know my time is up but also just the regulatory pressures that we're facing it seems like a lot of our costs are driven up by that and I don't know that we have a crystal ball or something that can tell us what um what regul ations or what what changes are coming but it does seem that that it's definitely impacts it yeah agree the the regulatory environment is is not getting easier to navigate it's it's becoming um more restrictive and more challenging it doesn't necessarily um mean that um I mean that when when you look at Regulatory Compliance that's that is in our compulsory classification of of projects that's not something that we

1:27:56 would typically Flex in the long term we're going to have to decide what our business model looks like and what kind of resources that we want to to have as an organization that are very heavily involved from the regulatory side so that's that's a bit of a longer term decision uh but it does impact the 10-year Capital plan ahead Mr Brown no thank you so um just for purpose of Education the um costs of weatherization and things of that are not in this Capital consideration this is just the infrastructure so how many substations did we lose during the ice storm

1:28:42 seven did we go offline probably significantly more than that we I don't number in around the 70s and now that's 50 years ago and now they all need to be replaced it's like repl your light bul to do it all at once you do it all once again so we're faced that is that not correct and so we can't run any of those to failure well I substations are a little different so um but the the idea is um they have individual components in them that that we are um trying to be effective in not just replacing the whole thing but components of them that are aging so my priorities for Capital Investments are reliability and affordability equal and so whatever it takes for you to achieve that because the portability

1:29:29 thing is coming up and liability is because we're going to put a lot more dependence on the electric grid so you're the experts figured out those are by by macro comments on that so I don't want to get commissioner Brown you did pick two items that are constant tension with each other um now the the one thing that I I will um agree with you on is if you look at the history of Eugene a substantial amount of infrastructure was built in the 60s and 70s when when Eugene was growing at a very rapid pace and all of that infrastructure is aging at the same time now what we've uh what we're working on is not to replace that all at once but how do we navigate your

1:30:17 comments around affordability uh using what Rod described which is to look at the different components and the risks of replacing different components within that infrastructure in a way that doesn't put the pressures on rates that that may be replacing all of them simultaneously would I think um our electric manager Tyler nice describes this as the sort of the pig in a python or the I don't remember exactly how he described it but it's it is a a lump of investment that we're facing that we're going to have to um create some flexibility and quite honestly take a look at where we can take risk and where we can't I think another just quick answer to that we also have some reliability components that we know and so you kind of go after the the the highest

1:31:04 offenders if you will and so um in the oldest stuff so so there is a plan out there that that steps through so you can uh hopefully we can see that when you get a little more details from Tyler in the in the presentation you'll get next year or next year next month whenever it is sorry I need sleep all right we've got Matt in the queue Matt yeah thanks can you hear me okay yes great thank you um first I want to say actually John Brown does have a crystal ball and I'm actually a little frustrated he doesn't bring into meetings to help us with all this stuff but beyond that um first thank you for the presentation Rod um and the the materials um I this I I think of all the

1:31:50 things that we're doing this makes me maybe the most anxious and couple of like individual projects that make me anxious to but the pressure here and you know inflationary pressures in particular and and remaining High interest rates just makees me uncomfortable I do feel like as a board we've done all kinds of things and past boards have taken all kinds of steps to um really be prudent about spending funds and reducing risk and providing cushion um you know Frank just spoke to that and um I like this board has opted to you know preuner um we're like I feel like we're doing all the things we can to give ourselves as much cushion as we can but these changes are certainly a little bit concerning my

1:32:36 question for Frank and Rod are there additional steps that we should be considering that will give us uh a little more cushion at this point or do we just need to start um a strength set kind leaning on those levers that we do have available to us that's all I have thank you yeah I think that's good uh good question what additional steps are there so with everything there's uh there's risk as Frank was pointing out so so Deb and Aaron and we've been talking about this in finance there's there's tugs and PS there's debt ratios there's different metrics and there's different F uh funding sources so you can bond fund versus a rate fund and so what we're going to do is is come back with the information we have and we get tonight

1:33:21 um on in July with some of those more Det so uh so you'll get to hear uh information about the capital plan and the the resulting um uh risks and and trade-offs you might get in the capital plan versus the the rate trajectory or metrics or or whatever I I would add to that that you while I can't claim to have favorite meetings throughout the year uh probably the discuss around the long-term financial planner amongst my favorites it it really does get down to the the tradeoffs between how we want to manage project projects over the next decade

1:34:06 what risks do we want to take and what does that mean from a financial and rates perspective and um there will be more steps that and more ideas that we bring forward next month for the board's consideration um we want to understand where we we want you to understand where we see tradeoffs uh and we want to get uh from you your thoughts on where you could see trade-offs as well but that's um that that's the the question at hand is exactly the one that U commissioner McCrae mentioned which is what else can we be doing um to deal with the the tensions between our values here around affordability and and um maintaining our reliability which is the other part of the investment in infrastructure thank you Mr Carlson

1:34:54 um couple of questions and then I'll comment on on the questions at hand um I'm I'm curious so on page 17 we were talking about the age of system um and I'm curious so if our Target for electric is 0% and you said that it's the division of how much how old the projects are versus the it's the the accumulated depreciation accumulated depreciation if it's a very new project then we have much fewer accumulated depreciation so if we just installed two giant water tanks at 40th and Patterson is that enough to sway that

1:35:41 metric and so that's why it's well under the 60 it's like at 43% for the water side is that one of the factors water's been it's not exactly Apples to Apples but water's been running running at the 40 50% for a long time and I that I think it's really U you look at the size of projects that have been done versus the size of the capital assets um and I'm sorry the assets and the capital work we do um they can chew into it it just has a lower thing do they last less amount of time than our electricity projects no okay so part of the reason that I you know when I look at that I'm like are we are we overinvestigation main target is 60% are we over investing um and it's it

1:36:30 it's hard to me to know because I know that we've done some of these major projects so seeing that skew shift it's not necessarily a good indicator but I don't know how big of a portion that is um there's also the other side of it that it says we don't have a we don't have a set Target for that particular one and I don't know it kind of alluded that there isn't an industry standard for the water side um I don't really understand why there isn't um but again if if we're trying to pick a measurement that kind of roughly you know over time tells us that we're making the right level of investment which I it seems to me that we are we kind of weren't for a long time and this is why we have this pig and the snake

1:37:15 that was uh suggested so now we're at this place where it's like well now we can't really not do anything about it we have to this mound and so that's even going to go down further is that the correct assessment ahead what I would say is uh consider the Water and Electric Systems differently um so the standards and benchmarks one has their own and the other one has their own um so it's it's the relative amounts and the changes that that are that are important but uh the Water System um for instance the the the increase in spending started Gish back before I left in in terms of getting like Hayden bridge and that's a lot of money that was invested in the system so that helped drive that price

1:38:01 that down um relative to and again electric so you can do a $5 million project and it has just that much less because of the size of the asset is what 750 million versus 250 million so um but I I wouldn't get too wrapped up in this these are rules of thumb these are things we use for for guidance um and you can it's they're not Standalone either so hopefully we're looking at all the metrics uh networ Valu is and you know there's lots of things to look at and consider those are Financial perspectives there's also reliability statistics kpis breaks per mile uh a lot of those things that that also play into it so um so we are targeting you know um some extra investment because our our

1:38:48 brakes per leaks per mile no I'm sorry brakes per mile I can't remember the AWA but something like that and so that's driving the investment in pipes because some of the type one work so well obviously I mean the 40th inti we had to to do that so we could take College Hill offline so that was not really an option to not do it we had to go home um okay so then in terms of the uh you know deprioritization of some of these projects I mean it's very hard for me to I mean we've we're already down the path of all of these projects too so saying let's you know pause on this although I am curious EES versus CES versus Communications I I kind of personally

1:39:34 lump all of those into the same thing maybe that's incorrect on my part but um I don't know what the how the communications varies from the DS side of it yeah so I mean maybe there's an opportunity I think those are just examples I think what we try do is is get the the feel of priorities from the Strategic plan so there's the resilience so if we're trying to address resiliency in the water system and uh and that's the the Big Driver right now is is all the work that's going on in the water system the the big ticket work for instance so um I think those are just examples and so when you get more of the details from Wally and or the Mike and

1:40:19 and U Jaren and and Tyler next next um next month that it'll be a little easier to sort through so I'm just trying to prime the pump a little bit here to get you thinking about uh different projects and then it's also of ping the pump and like I mean if there are projects to you that don't keep you up at night and don't think that they're you know a big priority now just let us know yeah too because otherwise I mean I just feel like we're so invested in all these it's not the trade off the trade-off is probably the affordability piece and so that's that kind of conversation we can have that here's here's the the balance and then I think about you know if we had put in the secondary Water

1:41:05 Treatment Plant six years ago we wouldn't have had this either so you know the longer we put off some of these projects the affordability aspect starts to eat us on the other end of it okay that's it thank you I'll just add something commissioner Carlson actually what you said at the very last sentence there was really appropriate when we when we think about tradeoffs we're not just thinking about the the risk profile that we're dealing with um relative to uh reliability for example but also the impact of delays on the overall cost so you can push out a project you can you can take out the lumpiness in your investment and in the meantime ultimately you're going to pay more for it on the on the outside so some of those conversations we will um

1:41:51 take a deeper dive into uh next next month relative to age of system you brought up age of system I do I do think it's important to recognize the difference between an industry standard and then a benchmark uh and where those are developed um the the electric side uh APPA and and other organizations have a number of different industry standards and bench benchmarks to work from it's different a little bit from the water side uh from two perspectives one those those assets are depreciated uh at separate rates than on the electric side those are you know and even within certain classes those are depreciated differently um and also the lumpiness of the projects there and and certainly the projects that are large like the um the

1:42:36 drinking water storage projects those will have a direct impact uh a noticeable impact um on the age of system so um you're correct in both in both accounts um but as we go through this I think one of the things that that we want to bring back is based on different levels of investment and different kinds of projects what does that do to our age of system uh and potentially even some of the things that we know might uh be a more immediate threat to reliability which would move those into more of a compulsory role instead of a risk-based role thank you um so I had a couple of comments and questions first comment was

1:43:22 on the chart that shows the the the balloon don't really like the fact that it corresponds exactly with my elected uh tenure 24 to 28 is the peak I'd known that six months ago I may have made a different decision um I do like the fact that uh previous board made the uh decision to jump the the metrics to two and a half and four and a half as far as investing this and I understand understand that because of the inflationary pressures and some of the other things that we're going to get less bang for a buck even at the two and a half um you know if it was up to me I would bump that up to three and a half but then that gets to our rate and and so that's going to be

1:44:10 the hardest balance for me going forward um and I don't know if this really really uh falls into the CIP and the long-term financial plan but I would like to know where where on the dials we can turn them when we see big cost overruns you know when I see a Carmen Smith cost overrun of three million four million5 million or some of these other things that will have a direct impact on rates because we're just sucking it up and paying for it either out of reserves or wherever are there risk-based things that we can turn the dial on to help us

1:44:57 or having a list of those risk-based things that we can go to and say you know if we push this out yeah it's going to cost us more in the long run but we can live with that right now to to have the the rate pressure less and I'll give you an example of that back in the the day when I was on the Eugene's budget committee they were going through a bunch of problems right and one of the things they said you know they replace their their Fleet at seven years okay and so it like okay well if we push that to eight years that saves us this many million dollars it it may mean that there's more repairs on that truck or that a truck might be out of service more but if we have some of those types of dials that you we can turn and I

1:45:46 don't know at what point we get to turn those whether it's in the budget process whether it's in the long-term Financial plan for in the CIP but you know when I see an overrun in a in a consent calendar and I know that that's going to have a direct impact on rates coming up being able to know from staff what a reasonable dial to turn to help us with that upper rate pleasure would be helpful yeah so we have a um both Water and Electric have Capital uh processes that that look at this stuff pretty much all year round um and so I've had conversations with both Wally and Tyler in finance and you know the lump

1:46:32 how do you smooth out the lump right well there's ways to do that and that's what that risk-based category is for um and it uh it doesn't you know and that that's where if it comes at a cost of scope um you know Sony wants to see all these things done um but it comes at the the expense of of rates then then we have some different ways to to look at that but it that's all part of the fun right it's very and very enjoyable um commissioner I I I think you bring up a a couple of points relative to how and where we turn the dials and um some of that whether a dial is even turnable has to do with the driver of the project if it's a safety based project if it's a a

1:47:18 piece of equipment that fails not so eloquently you know if it blows up versus if it just quits quits working if it's driven by a compliance obligation these these are things that we generally won't turn the dial on relative to affordability if it's simply a matter of of timing it's a matter of the scope per cost if there's things that we can manage based on the timing of the investment so there's a reasonable amount of risk to push something in or pull it out those are where we will generally have the most opportunity to turn the dials um part of the discussion with the board occurs around the long-term financial plan which kind of sets the boundaries of the overall which

1:48:04 is one point where the board can weigh in and then there's the budgeting process which is which is another one uh and then the third one as we go through the year when we when we have um sometimes you'll see a consent item that says you know we budgeted x amount it's actually going to cost us y amount we're going to manage within the budget that means that we're going to turn those dials around risk-based projects to do that great thank you other comments from the board thank you for the presentation look forward to seeing uh the integrated with the long-term financial plan in the coming months I think next month's meeting will be a very important one for Commissioners okay it looks like we are

1:48:51 on schedule and are scheduled for a 10-minute break I'm going to say let's go 8:15 we'll be back thank

1:59:49 so I'm going to call the meeting back to order the next item on the the agenda item is uh item number 10 Carmen Smith update Lisa Mark and handy will be giving us our presentation we have 45 minutes was least 20 all right we'll try we do have a lot of information to cover but we'll talk quickly um good evening Commissioners and guests I'm Lisa CR generation manager joining me tonight is Patty Bole Our Generation or excuse me our kmen Smith licensed deployment supervisor and Syer Our Generation engineering supervisor we are here to provide an update on the deployment of the Carmen Smith hydroelectric project operating license now a lot has happened since we last spoke to you in

2:00:35 September so this evening uh we are going to provide uh background a regulatory update project status and discuss Stam safety factors and budget now you saw this slide in September but the history is relevant so as a reminder the history of our current FK license goes back to 1999 when relicensing began a final license application was submitted in 2006 following years of studies and discussion with stakeholders including Regulatory Agencies the existing license expired in 2008 and that was the same year that the original settlement agreement was filed after that license issuance was held up for many years due to a discrepancy in the wild and Scenic

2:01:20 River designation which was was essentially a jurisdictional issue between the firk and the US Forest Service and not something within EB's control during that time however power markets changed dramatically to the point that e web uh requested to renegotiate some specific terms to of the settlement agreement to address the economic issues an amended and restated settlement agreement was filed in November of 2016 that included a revised upstream and downstream fish passage so rather than building a volitional fish ladder for Upstream passage and a floating fish screen for Downstream passage the settlement of parties agreed to a trap and Hall facility modifications to the spillway for Downstream passage and permanently shutting down the trailbridge PowerHouse the current

2:02:06 40-year license was issued in May of 2019 shown here is a list of the parties that signed on to the amended and restated settlement agreement of note several of the parties from the 2008 settlement agreement declined uh to sign on to the 2006 agreement uh namely several non-governmental organizations one of whom is here tonight Cascadia wildlands American Whitewater Oregan Wild and the orgon hunters Association now FK licenses and settlement agreements by their nature are intended to balance the social environmental and economic costs and benefits of a hydroelectric project since the license was issued in 2019 several notable things have

2:02:53 occurred I won't go into each in detail but I wanted to provide a timeline of the most recent events first in April of 2020 eub presented a plan and schedule for construction of permanent fish passage to the fish working group which is made up of federal and state agencies tribes and NG NGS that are parties to the settlement agreement that scheduled showed completion of fish passage in 2025 which was several years beyond the license required deadline of May 2020 2 now we'll discuss the drivers for that later but it is important to note that the three-year uh deadline that was um anticipated in the settlement agreement was optimistic from the start and has become increasingly complicated since now concerned about that delay National

2:03:38 Marine fishery service us fish and wildlife service the organ Department of Fish and Wildlife and the orgon Department of Environmental Quality filed a notice to cure and initiate a dispute resolution under the uh terms of the settlement agreement in October of 2020 the FK per a license order required EB to work with the fish agencies uh on a deadline and advancing fish passage as soon as reasonably feasible then to make things even more complicated in May of 2021 sinkles were discovered in trailbridge Reservoir which directly impacted the design and eventual construction of permanent fish passage at the base of trailbridge dam and ultimately lengthened the the schedule by many years in October of

2:04:24 that year octo uh e began formal discussions uh on actions that we could take to mitigate for the impact of the delay in fish passage on aquatic species and in January of 2022 just a few months later UAB agreed in principle to all the actions that had been identified to date by the disputing parties then in March and April of 22 the national Marine fishery service and US fish and wildlife service requested additional mitigation actions that required further design and Analysis and I'll discuss the details of those mitigation actions in a few slides now as the board is aware in October of 2023 so just last year both the national main fishery service and US fish and wildlife service filed letters of non-compliance with FK that included

2:05:10 allegations that EB had intentionally delayed license required projects and acted in bad faith e web filed a comprehensive uh response to FK in November which you've all seen at the request of the federal fish fish agencies also convened the settlement agreement policy committee which is essentially a procedural step to allow parties to withdraw from the settlement agreement in December National un fishery service did just that by filing their notice of withdrawal from the settlement agreement agreement and requesting that furk as the federal Action Agency reinitiate Endangered Species Act consultation for upper willit spring shinuk salmon in January us fishion Wildlife service followed suit by also withdrawing from the settlement agreement and requesting Esa

2:05:55 consultation for bull trout then in April FK issued an order to eweb responding to numerous eweb filings extension of time requests and general project status in that order for granted several extension of time requests that were outstanding and required that eweb file responses to for three specific projects our plan submissions for those are currently under review by the fish working group and will be submitted to FK in the next month or so FK also stated that EB is out of compliance with several license articles including permanent upstream and downstream fish passage and Smith bypass reach habitat notably FK did not address the request from National Marine fishery service and US fish and wildlife service to re reinitiate Endangered Species Act

2:06:41 consultation and then finally just last week for non-governmental organizations Cascadia wildlands Oregon wild American Whitewater and wamit River Keeper filed a letter with furk in response to their April order noting many of the same concerns as the fall letter from the federal fish agencies now I want to be clear we understand and absolutely share the concerns of uh about fish passage delay we also find that the letters um by the federal fish agencies and the NOS are simplified with respect to the complexity of the dam safety issues and the current causes for delay and we are going to talk about those in a little bit more detail important to note that regardless of the letter submitted and the uncertainty of how FK is the federal Action Agency will respond all license

2:07:27 requirements remain in effect and EB continues to work as quickly as possible to meet those requirements so resource agencies have a responsibility to administer The Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act and because the fish passage projects are significantly delayed the agencies have requested actions to mitigate uh the impact of those delays those actions include funding for uh phase four the deer queak aquatic habitat restoration project e web did fund that that was completed in 2022 um we also constructed and operate a temporary trap and Hall facility at the kmen Smith spawning Channel which is just Downstream of trailbridge dam that was completed in 2023 and will continue

2:08:12 to operate until permanent fish passage is constructed another request was to contribute to a fund for future habitat projects and provide Downstream Passage through the existing Spillway and immediately uh shut down the trailbridge PowerHouse now this uh last one is a little more complicated because we need the trailbridge PowerHouse to be able to operate to safely pass river flows through the dam when the spillway is closed for construction of Downstream uh fish passage via the spillway however we're currently conducting a low-load study uh to determine if the plant can reliably operate at very low loads to enable increased spill for Downstream fish pth passage until permanent uh fish passage can be comp uh completed the preliminary results of that study are

2:08:58 very promising and we feel hopeful of a positive outcome for that and then finally the agency's requested that we incorporate stage zero habitat restoration principles into the design and habitat enhancements in the Smith bypass reach and increase flows beyond what is currently required by the settlement agreement we have completed 50% design for that project we're working on the 90% design and we presented a full proposal including flows to the agencies a week ago that they're currently considering so I wanted to talk a bit about project delays and the drivers for that the graph on the left shows the projects that we're tracking in 2024 this is not all licensed projects it's just those that require work this year but it serves as an example of where

2:09:43 things are at projects are divided into small medium and large projects for the for the purpose of this uh conversation small small projects are those that tend to be uh less complex whereas medium and large projects are typically highly complex multi-year and costly but also have the greatest um and most significant environmental benefit once they're completed now as you can see we're on track for a majority of the projects but we are behind on several medium and large projects these are projects like permanent fish passage and flow relas structures not surprisingly these are also the projects that are most impacted uh by the D safety concerns and issues which leads me to the graph on the right which are reasons for delay now there are certainly things

2:10:29 that e web can do better um and we continue to seek input from agencies from FK from consultants and others on how we can improve and we're implementing a number of ideas to that end that said Dam safety is the primary driver for the current delay and Mark will talk a little bit more about why that is uh a little later on all right what just one more note on this one thing to note is that we track projects in compliance according to FK deadlines which are separated out so for example design and construction for the same project will have multiple um deadlines and requirements from furk so they'll show up as two or more projects in the graph even though they're related to the same outcome finally um and I promise this is

2:11:16 my last slide before I pass it on to Patty for more uplifting news shown here is our master plan so you aren't intended to be able to read all of this what I wanted to show um was to highlight the sheer number of simultaneous projects that we're working on at Carmen Smith there's a lot going on and a lot of overlapping construction projects and you can see each line is a separate project most of them large complex projects and uh includes design permitting construction and closeout so these do take a a long time to complete um I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge the immense effort that all the generation division staff as well as environmental staff and um many other partners throughout the utility um are putting into accomplish all this work I know we're behind on

2:12:01 projects but we're also putting in a tremendous amount of effort and there's a lot of folks um highly dedicated to getting this work done so I wanted to acknowledge that and thank that and with that I'm going to pass it to Patty to talk about 2024 construction thanks Lisa um I do get the the benefit of sharing what I think is pretty exciting news about projects underway in 2024 the project photos on the screen were taken just last week and this is where we're staging logs Boulders and Treetops that will be assembled and placed in both deep and shallow water locations in the chage reservoir and in the Smith reservoir uh for the benefit of of all aquatic species uh the the particularly

2:12:47 exciting piece of this is comes in the turbridge reservoir where we are really supportive of the shinuk habitat and the bull trout habitat both of these projects have been extensively reviewed by FK Dam safety as well as the resource agencies within our fish working group and I think that everyone's pretty excited to have these projects completed in 2024 go ahead and give me my next slide in addition to the reservoir habitat we will also be completing the Final Phase of improvements to the spawning Channel this project rendering driv gives a sense of the log and tree structures along with the gravel and Boulder additions that will go into the spawning Channel just in the next few weeks these materials are intended to break up the

2:13:32 flow of the water and add complexity to both flow and habitat uh primarily for the benefit of shinuk salmon but will benefit all or multiple species there at the spawning Channel B trout also used the spawning Channel and we'll benefit from all of these improvements with my next slide then also uh in addition to the habitat projects we are rebuilding two Recreation areas these were noted earlier in the in the board meetings uh you approved that Construction contract thank you very much and pictured in this uh slide is the shoreline where the lakes and Campground is behind those trees what we will do is rebuild that entire Campground including picnic tables fire Rings new restrooms and boat

2:14:18 storage for H hand launched C the little design U rendering shows an example of what one of the uh campsite configurations will look like that's a a little bit of a trickier project because all of the materials must be barged in for construction um and it will take place after the habitat is installed in the Smith Reservoir then let's see we've got also the second of the two Recreation projects will will take place at at the Smith dayuse area uh that area will also get new picnic sites fishing facilities a shoreline Trail and be will rebuild the boat ramp there at that facility

2:15:04 both of those Recreations are anticipated to open reopen in 2026 then I just wanted to note that we have a growing list of completed projects um some of these you've seen before and i' just like to highlight that our first completed project for 2024 is the wildlife habitat improvements on the transmission line you may remember that we began that project last year and needed to shut down the project due to wildfires um we were able to return to the project early this year and complete it after reassessing the need for additional snags along the transmission line given the impact uh that that that project was completed just in late April a few weeks

2:15:51 ahead of its May deadline so with that believe that's the end of my slides we'll turn the the presentation over to Mark who has uh some information on our power plant improvements and uh the complexity of the dam safety issue yeah thank you Patty so U power generation improvements uh we are nearing completion of the power generation improvements at Carmen Smith um we will be starting the last uh unit overhaul uh later this summer summer uh and it's been a long road uh 2016 is when we performed the first power generation improvement with an overhaul of the Gantry CR shown here doing its back max load capacity test uh next slide um and it got its uh first

2:16:37 heavy lift in 2017 with the delivery of two new turban shut off valves for the Carmen plant those were completed and installed in 2018 and then we moved on to the rebuild of the Carmen substation uh which sits on the roof of the Carman power plant all that old equipment was removed the roof deck was reconstructed uh new generator step up Transformers breakers on the roof uh switch gear uh and relays in within the power plant all completed in 2019 and then um the most recent uh uh or the next uh project that was completed was at the trailbridge power plant uh and controls improvements

2:17:22 completed in 2023 uh this is the 1963 vintage electromechanical controls that were replaced with modern relay systems new switch gear uh make that plant ready to support the necessary fish passage construction which had been planned for the next year um and we'll get into some of the reasons why that didn't happen as planned um at the carbon plant so the first unit overhaul uh that one started in 2021 was happening in parallel with a lot of this other work I described um on the left you can see the new coils being installed around the Stater core uh on the right you can see the refurbished rotor um one of the heaviest lifts completed by the Gant Crane and the next slide shows uh the turbine new

2:18:11 turbine components uh Wicked Gates on the left uh the new turbine Runner itself on the right um started spinning and commercially operating in uh April of this year and as uh I alluded to I also wanted to touch on um the major um complications that we've experienced associated with uh emergent and uh other damn safety issues so in 2018 um that's when the carbon sinkle Discovery occurred um on the right you can see a bimetric survey from 2016 compared to 2018 this is where we realized that these were not test pits Relic from construction but rather active sink holes uh that that complicated a

2:18:56 relatively straightforward flow release structure um that Patty's uh team had planned um delayed it and expanded the scope to include Spillway work as well next slide um seism discoveries um in 2020 um improved Imaging um light R Imaging um revealed that the white Branch Vault Zone did not stop at the belnap hot springs rather it extended North All the Way Beyond Clear Lake in close proximity to the Carman project shifting our understanding of the seismic Hazard uh it's not the Cascadia uh the major Cascadia event but rather it's a local close proximity fault Zone that has controlling our seismicity next slide and then of course at trailbridge

2:19:42 uh May of 2021 was the discovery of uh of sink holes in the trailbridge reservoir um triggering extensive investigations so that we could understand how those um sink holes would interact with the planned fish passage improvements at the spillway and at the Trap and Hall facility uh needed to fully understand that relationship um in order to properly uh design and construct and um uh add mitigation measures to those projects as required by the sink holes next slide so each of those emergent Dam safety issues as result in a lot of studies and just a couple of examples here um they're not small efforts uh this uh the sinkhole TR syho study on

2:20:29 left 388 Pages the seismic hazard assessment on the right 324 Pages these are substantial documents that get reviewed by the Portland regional office they also go to F subject matter experts in DC there's back and forth if you can read the the fine print on the right that seismic Hazard assessments on revision two um each of these uh FKS review processes uh result in comments that need to be addressed before they are ready to be approved so that we can proceed with next steps on design and implementation results in increased cost and as you know uh results in prolonged schedules to coordinate mitigation of these Dam safety issues with planned uh fish passage

2:21:18 work right thank you Mark and I I thought of something while you were talking mark around the PowerHouse Improvement so we were able to begin them prior to license issuance in 2019 because they weren't um so the other components of the license were uh uh predicated on having a license to do that work so that's why the PowerHouse work was able to to be uh to begin prior to license issuance all right so I'm going to talk a bit about economic changes um as you're aware uh this comes up almost every board meeting the the budget projections for the project have changed significantly since the initial 2016 project estimate of 139 million our current estimate puts U completion of all the required projects in the licensed settlement agreement at 194

2:22:04 million that does also include Powerhouse um upgrades so I wanted to provide some example of what is driving that escalation so overall scheduled delays have not been our friend um they have made us susceptible to inflation and supply chain issues and then there's Dam safety concerns both known and emergent that have expanded the scope of many projects and then additionally there are un have been unanticipated costs related to mitigation for um delays in fish passage um for example construction of the temporary trap and Hall facility at the slating channel was not originally um anticipated to be needed so I wanted to go through just a couple of examples to give you uh some idea of where those escalations and how they're occurring um Ross the board with

2:22:51 respect to those three separate um items so I'll start with the the Carmen load bank so this is a project that is not um the cost escalations are not driven by Dam safety and they're not driven by uh regulatory uh changes the original estimate in 2019 for this project was $8.1 Million um the current estimate is$ 17 million so this project is really supply chain and massive inflation as the major drivers for um The increased costs Smith flow release structure is a different story so this is a project that is um heavily influenced by Dam safety concerns and issues the estimate for this project in 2017 was a a $1

2:23:37 million the current estimate is 16 million and that is again driven by Dam safety um because we needed to um modify the design significantly to accommodate for the probable maximum flood inflation is also a factor as it is in any project um that we're uh implementing these days but uh Dam safety is primary driver and then finally as another example uh the Carmen diversion flow release structure this is an example that Mark already talked about but in 2017 the estimate for this project was 1.7 million Dam safety issues required um a complete redesign and new Spillway Spillway Rehabilitation um that brings uh the project up to 4 uh 5.4 million when you

2:24:24 add also in the um increases due to inflation those are just some examples um additional information on uh budget and project uh value overall project value will be presented in the fall uh following our annual um integrated resource Plan update so that's all I was going to cover on budget tonight but we will be back in a few months with more detail and and a broader discussion at 20 minutes right at 20 minutes all right yeah I have M Carlson to the queue okay I have a number of questions I'm gonna try to just rapid fire them um one I just looking at the Timeline so we

2:25:10 started this whole project back in 1958 50y year license did we have trap and hall or any sort of fish passageway during that entire time no there was no fish passage at the project Okay so we've had 50 years where there's no F fish pass passage that was not required so then we get to um 2000 or TW 1999 we start relicensing we get through that process which takes almost 10 years um until the license expires and we get uh this license issuance delay because it's now designated a while and Scenic River designation so now they're saying okay if now this designation you need fish passage is that correct uh no um so just

2:25:55 a couple clarifications there so studies as is typical relicensing is a multi-year process and you start with studies and and other um investigations to determine what um you should do as part of a relicensing so that's what started in 1999 uh the final license application was um submitted in 2006 specific settlement um negotiations were from 2006 to 20 8 um after that time so there was a discrepancy in the way the Wild and Scenic uh River was mapped so uh so that's what caused the delay is the time that delay between 2008 and 2015 I'm sorry what who maps that who makes that determination that M it's the

2:26:40 for service and yeah the ones that made a mistake that then caused this designation to screw up our licensing plan I just want to get it clear yep that's correct okay so then we go through this whole process in good faith many of these people sign on these organizations sign on we go through this whole process and then we get down to 20 20 which you know obviously many things are going on and this is where we're asked to put in F fish passage additional fish F fish passage is that correct no so the the revised and restated settlement agreement M that was um signed in 201 uh 17 submitted in

2:27:26 2017 uh included a temporary tra and Hall and um Downstream passage via the spillway the previous settlement agreement also included fish passage it was a a volitional fish ladder for Upstream passage and a floating fish screen for Downstream passage we had temporary fish fish passage and and how and since when have we had temporary fish fish passage since so since 2020 in 23 last year we built a pretty extensive temporary trap and Hall facility that's located at the spawning Channel um that's been operating since last year we'll continue to operate until permanent fish passage is um complete prior to that uh we did contract out with the Oregan Department of Fish and Wildlife to manually move bull trout from the base of trailbridge dam to over trailbridge Dam okay so we

2:28:12 did tra and Hall we were moving fish prior to hook and hle yeah okay angle and hle okay and how many fish did we get during that time any I can't I don't know I mean we're talking like hundreds five I mean rough scale any ideas for bull trout I so bull trout have been the fish that have been manually moved um for a longer period of time I don't recall uh how many but we can get back to you uh with that number we did operate the temporary trap and Hall in the spawning Channel last year it was complicated because the project needed to be evacuated for the lookout fire and so we were only able to operate that facility for eight days I think and didn't get any fish however um our team has been working with ODFW and the fish

2:28:57 agencies um to make any modifications um to that trap that they thought was necessary in order to improve its um efficiency this year so we had we had some trap and Hall of some kind we were moving fish even though fish hadn't even existed in this whole space for I mean 50 years they' been blocked I mean this was from decades ago our are these kind of fish like trout and that they return to the place that they spawn at yeah so um so the two listed species we have are upper wam spring shinuk salmon they are an anris um fish species they they do have historic they were historically above trailbridge dam before the project was built um bull trout um are a migratory species so they move in and

2:29:42 out within the the Watershed uh they have and they they do have a population Upstream of trailbridge dam have the whole time that um that the project has been in place but have been disconnected from other populations Downstream of the dam so why do you think that they all of a sudden last few years after all this time decided that now we need to do this oh for fish passage it's a it's so it's it's very typical um and I would say it's it's an assumed requirement of any relicensing proceeding where fish passage is theoretically feasible so maybe we could say they got new information that maybe caused them to change their mind and ask different things of us that maybe a fair

2:30:28 assessment well in the 50s when most of these dams were put in place fish passage was just not something that um was routinely installed um times have changed um more information around fish populations D Dynamics um have been gained so fish passage is is generally acquirement at hydroelectric facilities if it's technically know how many are really being impacted by this particular project and I'm sorry if you don't mind I have a few more questions um it seems to me that they got new information and they asked new things which is the same thing that we've done we got new information that we had damn safety issue and we brought it to their attention and they said hey we

2:31:13 need to pay attention of that it seems very similar to me that that's what happened with this fish fish passage issue and that we've been trying to work through many barriers including these other ones um to deal with it and it's both shocking to me and um odd at the same time that we would get these weird letters when we've been working with them throughout this entire process and people and organizations that originally signed on to these same plans with that similar information have like turned a complete Blind Eye in these last recent Years to all of these other things that have gone on that have caused delays so it's it's just my observation but I think it's very odd

2:31:59 I'm going to turn one one other side here we've done a lot of work on the downstream portion of the river we're going to remove leeberg does that have an impact on the fish yeah that make it up to the dam that's actually above here it um the removal leberg will presumably um benefit shinuk more than buol trout but there will be a broad benefit for all aquatic species oh and did they not any of that in the work that we've done to mitigate I'm just curious because it seems like we should get at least some credit for that pathway that we're going down also we I know that in response to the fires we've done a lot of work around our uh

2:32:46 Watershed protection and that should help the fish as well does any of that count in this process is that a rhetorical question yeah you don't okay well I'll let others talk thank you brown thank you I've got a lot of questions so just a macro question so did the feds get a free pass on this because um Lookout Dexter there was a much greater run on the wamit then there's no fish ladder there's no no passage and no way to even accom with tra and hall or anything do they get a pass a free pass because they Relic it several times AC um well the core of engineers is not subject to a FK license so very different Prof tell me 194

2:33:31 million um are our rates on our five-year projection based on that 194 million I'm looking at Deborah but we've been including um updated numbers uh in the long-term financial plan so our our rate projection that we have where our rates are going to go up include $194 million Debt Service forment 194 million was in the plan last July just shy of that so most of that was captured and then we have a new uh we have newer numbers that will be included in July okay and the 194 million assumes what F passage it assumes the current um

2:34:16 requirements in the license which is trap and Hall okay and when I was on the board when we were talking about the fish ladder the engineers couldn't figure out how it would work because on the on the far side opposite highway is where it was going to come over and the drop was too much and and they were going to compromise the Integrity of of the they couldn't figure out engineering how to do it they were just buled and uh and has anything changed because they said it would be the longest passage of anything in the Northwest and they didn't know if the fish would able to use it but they were more worried about Dam safety about when they when they had to dig into the mountain wall to have the fish ladder come there because of the fluctuation level of that they said it would be a 14 foot drop and it kill the fish yeah that that was why that

2:35:02 fish ladder was so expensive is it was an engineering challenge there was a solution to it but it was a expensive solution and it also has it's also exposed the same Dam safety um challenges going to compromise the Integrity of of the mountain and so right that was and so um the last question I have is the habitat we're doing in trailbridge in the reservoir proper we're doing a lot of habit so all the reservoirs and uh the reaches haveit we do any sinkhole mitigation will that negate the habitat structure that we're putting in so if we put in all this wood and all these rocks and then we have to go in and do the construction project to

2:35:48 mitigate sink holes all that cost be mitigated or or just negated so I'm going to I'm going to answer that in a roundabout way but it'll get to your point so you you rais a really good point in that um habitat in both instream and in Reservoir habitat when contemplated under the original or the revised and restated settlement agreement and the original license was not considered to be a dam safety concern however um it's not just related to sinkholes but also just the general change in understanding around um Dam safety vulnerabilities has caused um all of the habitat projects to be subject to um Dam safety review with respect to the reservoir habitats um you know we Dam

2:36:34 safety um the Portland regional office and I think DC um had to sign off on on that we we do need to build uh a much beefier um debris boom to accommodate for um concerns around wood that's placed as habitat being mobilized and ending up um on the dam Mark anything else did it did that answer your question Comm my last one is if we built a fish ladder we had to build a downstream a filter basically a trap and that was totally untested technology they didn't know if it would work and it was like 40 or 50 million bucks they had no idea it was going to be a floating and they were going to trap the fish and it was pretty Star Wars type of thing you know that nobody knew knew even how

2:37:20 to design it let alone construct it is that still the case if we build a fish ladder we I know we stopped generation to offset the downstream um damage to the smes but if we if we continue to not generate a trail bridge we put in a fish ladder do we still have to put in that screen that 40 or50 million screen so that's an unknown so the fish ladder and downstream um screen were designed as kind of a a hair um presumably if we were to um to investigate a fish ladder we would be starting from scratch um be not only because the original design is quite old but we have a lot of new emergent Dam

2:38:05 safety issues that were never considered when that design was prepared so how that relates to Downstream fish passage I can't can't say that's good thank you my time up so I just have a like bigger question um is when do we really talk about Arman Smith I mean uh I think about all the things that we've heard of tonight we talked about our Capital Improvement plan and how much you know costs and where can we turn the dials and things like that and then we've seen that this is like like $60 million over budget um environmentally problematic and and um

2:38:50 we've got risks of fires now we have low water years like when do we have this higher level discussion about what we want to keep growing money at this project I mean I don't know what our options are I know that um we're committed to locally generating power but how many more sink holes will come up or I I just think um and we talk about what our our portfolio is going to look like anyway I just wonder when do we talk about in a bigger picture so I think we're going to start that discussion in the fall and I am looking at Frank to see if he wants to chime in but but that was one of the thoughts for this for the fall in conjunction with the integrated resource

2:39:35 plan is to have a broader value discussion yeah at least is correct um I think looking at the the business model for the electric utility specifically uh presently we're completely vertically integrated on the electric side um and so having that assessment and Analysis and talk about the trade-offs between having uh and owning and operating our own generation as part of that we'll we'll be part of that discussion that that does that said that does not remove Our obligation under the license that we presently have so um but having that higher level discussion should inform a number of directional decisions around

2:40:21 resources thank you and thank you for the presentation I really like the way you laid it out with the timeline and everything very clear I would also just just add um that another piece of that relative to that business model decision uh informs uh the product selection that we decide and direction we decide to go with the bonab bille contract Matt you are in the queue can now I can't all right you hear me now we go

2:41:08 great thank you uh thanks to the staff for presentation and the the materials The Briefing materials provided beforehand uh it's all really helpful um I have a couple of clarifying questions um Sonia I hear your frustration about like uh this feels like a a challenging situation um but I'm trying to I'm trying to make sense of it myself and I'm wondering Lisa if you can um point to the trigger or triggers that required this like started the requirement for fish passage you mentioned something about the forest service um but how does it relate to are um our relicensing and how does it

2:41:54 relate to The Endangered Species Act because I think there's a few things at play there and I know we could probably spend a lot of time I'm not I don't mean to drag us into the weeds I'm just trying to understand kind of the trigger that started this and like and the timeline especially of like when when that trigger was pulled yeah so um it is it is complicated um so the the forest service and wild and Scenic River um issue that we were talking about is unrelated to fish passage when the the project was originally built in the 50s um there wasn't um the mandatory prescriptive authorities held that are currently held by the federal fish agencies National fisheries service and US fish and wildlife service under the federal prow

2:42:39 act and section um 18 fishway prescriptions so that um commissioner McCrae is really the trigger for a p fish passage require enement and the federal agency's authority to require that unrelated to the for service okay great thank you um and and we started the re licensing process in like 2008 or 2010 and and started talking about fish passage at that time correct I'm sorry I couldn't hear you could you say that again yeah I'm sorry um we started the relicensing process in like 2008 or 2010 and started the conversation about fish passage at that

2:43:24 time is that right so we started the original conversation about fish passage in the early 2000s in preparation for the final license application and ultimately the 2008 settlement agreement then um began renegotiation of the fish passage methods in 2015 for a renegotiated settlement agreement that was submitted in 2017 okay thanks um uh I guess for me I've been uh following the FK docket and the that April letter from furk is concerning to me the language the rhetoric you know seems like it keeps getting heightened

2:44:09 each time we hear from the federal agency and it this one feels like f is is saying hey you know you guys have to take some action here um and and they're pretty plain about that I'm curious what our plan is to change course to meet the requirements that FK and the federal fish agencies are putting in front of us given that it's very difficult we have seismic issues um you know all the challenges we have in front of us I'm curious what our plan is to change course so that we're in compliance with first requirements yeah it's a really good question and unfortunately another complicated one um um you know again we we are committed to looking at things we can do differently or better uh the

2:44:56 reality is the review times that um from both um Dam safety and uh others are just prohibitive of Expediting the schedule beyond what we currently have anticipated and I'm I'm looking at Mark and Patty to see if you have any adders um so essentially just in a nutshell we're doing what we can can but there is not a feasible way to construct fish passage next year next week or even in two years we have very significant and concerning Dam safety and Regulatory review processes that we have to go through and cannot um sideline anything you want to add to that

2:45:48 Mark I agree 100% with Lisa and just would contribute that what we are doing with the the remaining license requirements is advancing those as quickly and as expeditiously as possible including all the habitat projects that are going in this year and next year yeah that's a good point Patty so yeah we are advancing what we can even if that means um you know being you know ahead of license um dates requirement dates um because it's a project that we actually do have the latitude to move on Mark right I was just our our um all of our work in and on the like Trail bridge power plant as an example was in anticipation of implementing the downstream fish passage improvements the next year we were urgently wrapping that project up so

2:46:33 that we could go into construction and it was that dis discovery of sink holes the the year prior that FK um was clear that that sinkhole risk needed to be understood before we could Advance the design um and implement the work as had been planned prior to discovery of Sy gos and I I do appreciate the work that we're doing um on on the fronts where we do have flexibility um and the mitigation activities we're taking but what I'm what I read I think in the memo there was that uh F's not recognizing that as meeting our obligations or maybe it's the fish agencies that aren't recognizing that work as meeting our

2:47:18 oblig for this license um I guess I see I I I think the fish agencies and FK understand the pickle we in and yet they're laying uh at least what I read as a letter to us saying hey you know you got to do something and so I you know I I don't expect I guess a a perfect resolution tonight but I I will be curious to hear what our plan is to make sure that we're not in a spot where we're getting sideways with FK and um and exposed to Greater you know potential Financial penalties or or the like um my last question would be around the fish passage that we or the the you said hook and hook and Hall I think is

2:48:04 what you call it Lisa that's not meeting FKS or the fish agency's requests here for fish passage right I mean something we're doing on the side but it's not meeting what they're asking for is that right so the angle and Hall definitely not that is not a good long-term solution um the temporary trap and Hall facility that we have built in the kmen Smith spawning channel is better but it is not um as effective as what is to be planned for permanent fish passage but it is what it's this the place that's available to us and um and we did get U buy off from all the the fish agencies on the design and operation of that facility

2:48:49 and Patty has something D oh yeah and downstream fish passage correct through the spillway so we are doing what we can currently to maximize spill through the spillway um to allow for Downstream fish passage to the extent possible we hope with the um preliminary results of the low-load study that that will be increasing even further um in the in the near term so can you clarify for me you said we got buy off from the fish agencies on fish passage that you just mentioned but it's um was it bu off in the design but we haven't built it is is the pickle we're in at this point no so the temporary trap and Hall facility um totally different facility than the

2:49:35 permanent trap and Hall facility that's um intended to go at the the base of trailbridge dam the temporary trap and Hall facility was really um designed and construction to constructed to mitigate for the fact that we can not build permanent fish passage at trailbridge so totally different project um and the the the fish agencies and others uh reviewed and approved the design and the construction and operation of that as a temporary mitigation measure okay thanks I appreciate you feeling all the questions from all over and I appreciate the team's effort on this um yeah on this project it's a it's a tricky one thank

2:50:21 you thank you Matt um so I have a couple of comments and then a question or two um going to a little bit of what Sonia said you know when I part of my duties on this is I sit on the McKenzie watered Council and we have done a lot of of things that take care of the fish in our Watershed um helping funding that so I think our commitment to at least what I've seen our commitment to the the recovery of the run is genuine I think that that can be said um so the couple of the questions that I have

2:51:07 is you know the bar has been moving on us you know the with the new seismic things and the the pmf what is the what is our maximum flood that we have to build this to now I know when we talked about when we talked about leeberg it was a one in a million year flood are we having to build these Booms to what what level is the pmf yeah it's the same probable maximum flood extremely low probability but High consequence um one in a million is approximately one in 10,000 one and a million that order of magnitude correct those are the types of curve balls that have been thrown at us in in some of this regulatory prop

2:51:54 um second on the on the downward spill that we're doing now are there fish are there smols up above that are actually coming down are we planting those or where where are those coming from so since we have a trap temporary trap and Hall facility at the spawning channel the idea is hopefully there'll be a lot of fish in that trap they will be moved above trailbridge dam um that would be um primarily shinook um perhaps bull trout but bull trout are also again I think I mentioned that there is a population of bull trout above trailb dam in Sweetwater Creek and so this um connect them to uh their ability to go back and forth okay and then now I'm G to tail on what the concerns that Matt had and I

2:52:41 guess for me some of my concerns are if the agencies that have said they're pulling out of the settlement and want us to change course convince work of that sounds to me like the options that the the the agencies are looking for isal a fish ladder that they can swim up or taking the dam out those are the two things that I heard from from some of the people and those are I think what the best case scenarios that these two agencies would like to see happen if Burke says we have to do

2:53:28 that what is our path forward that's a good question and um probably more of a legal one uh than I would be prepared to answer at this point okay um and I'm looking at that as not so much of a legal as more more of a financial because as we've seen with with FK mandates you know FK mandated we we fix a canal and it was a $200 million mandate it FS that mandates that we do either uh this ladder or take the the dam out or face these fines for not being

2:54:19 non-compliant do we as a board at some point have a an idea of what that financially would take that 194 million to yeah we don't have a an idea of the what the cost of a fish ladder would be at this point again we can't and just go back to the conceptual design of the fish ladder that was construct or that was designed after partially designed after the 2008 settlement agreement so it would be a total wag something we would have to consider and do um you know an analysis on then the last question I have is at what time frame do we anticipate seeing some sort of a decision on that type of thing from F do

2:55:04 we have any idea when they're going to rule on the requests that have been made by the Fisheries we do not and for for folks in the room um just a reminder that uh the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission FK is the federal Action Agency so they are the entity that would act on that request from the federal fish agencies we do not know um the order that they issued in April uh mentioned that the request for reinitiation had occurred but did not um provide any um insight into what they plan to do with it okay thank you Sonia for second round that's um I had few more questions um so on the the risks and the delays I

2:55:52 noticed that there weren't fires located there um we've had a number of fires I think pretty much every year for at least the last four years we've had a fire up there too correct that's correct it is uh you know there are a number of risks that weren't on there because we were trying to just um you know not overwhelm but we have scient constraint issues we certainly have Wildfire issues that have impacted the project uh many years in a row most notably last year when we had to EV fully Evacuate the project I'm still not clear so I just want to reiterate this so if I think we're still waiting on FK to say yes you can do anything is that correct or are we passed some of the D

2:56:39 safety issues because my understanding was that you're still waiting on them to say you can do the thing that you need to do to fix this that so with respect specifically respect to fish passage I think is that your question yeah yeah fish passage because that's what we're getting these letters on and it's bringing everyone out of the woodwork to pile on that damn you eweb you haven't done what you should do and it feels to me like KK is saying hey you have an issue we didn't know about this before it came up recently we're working on it with them in good faith and have continued to do so and now they're saying hey what the hell have you been up to all the last four years you know aside from I don't know covid and other

2:57:26 things that we've had going on that were also outside of our control I just want to know we are still working with FK and we can't do anything until this is fixed right the damn safety is yeah and you so and a a point to clarify here is FK is um their multi- entity organization as well they have a division of hydrop power and compliance and they have a division of dam safety both with separate missions essentially right um we work very closely with the division of dam safety um that is where we have our our primary points of contact and trying to work through the dam safety issues um the depart the division of hydropower and compliance or dhack they're still tasked with administering

2:58:12 the license requirements and so and there is this absolute conflict between Dam safety requirements and our license requirements and so F in and of itself are a bit at odds um with each other sure and you know they're a federal agency that is massive I mean we issued the application and it took three years for them to approve it so I don't expect that to move any quicker just because a bunch of people piled on some letter that you know and should we as a board take it seriously absolutely but I think that's what we're doing here tonight is kind of pulling a part and unweaving this onion and getting to the center of what is going on um and so you know there's another claim that that cost is

2:58:59 an an issue and yes it might be but again that's not the delaying Factor No in fact the delays have cost um a tremendous amount of money so um so any assertion that U has delayed to save money is just um inaccurate not factual okay and then sorry one last question and then I swear I will rest um the the fish when I look at the the map of where this is I think I'm remembering this correctly but right at the base where Trail bridge is located is it the Haley Falls just right up the hill from that or is that down below I'm trying to remember where that is it's just up the hill so there's like these massive

2:59:44 waterfalls just a short bit further from where the the offshoot is that we're trying to bring these fish into is that correct so where would the fish go to spawn past that it's not like they're going to jump up a waterfall that's I don't know 50 to 100 feet you don't have to answer that I just think it's bizarre and thank you for clarifying where the where the B is so tamage Falls also known as blue pool is um a natural barrier to fish passage has been for a long time um fish passage at Trail bridge Dam would open up uh on the order of six miles is that right 46 miles of of habitat yeah that's not

3:00:29 currently accessible yeah that habitat is found predominantly in the bypass reaches and okay just above Trail bridge Reservoir so there is habitat above there okay so it's not I was thinking that trail bridge was just right at the base and then it was the fall so that's why I went ask there's okay sping habitat Commissioners for a second round just a real quick confirmation that shinook on McKenzie are in threat not endanger currently yeah buol trout orous and the the salmon SPS I think buol trout likes salmon yeah I mean because they're not I mean they're they're not bug eaters they're

3:01:15 they're as with any um ecosystem fish e other fish and but yeah um shinook salmon are a food source shinook fry SMS are a food source for B trout fish passage but I just want to keep it all in context too because I think safety is just as important as preserving you know environmental but I just want to make sure that they're threatened not in danger yeah thank else sounds like no yeah nothing else for me thank you John thank you um I guess the last thing

3:02:01 that I would like to say is just for me personally as a commissioner I am passionate about maintaining the water set as a healthy part of our of our ecosystem and doing whatever we can as a utility to help bolster that ecosystem um but there's only so far that I think we can go as as a a publicly owned utility um and I think we have done a lot of good work and I hope we continue to do a lot of good work on the McKenzie and the Watershed to to ReStore Habitat and bring back our threatened species whether or not Trail bridge and

3:02:48 Carin Smith are the the thing that will do that I'm not sure at this point but I am committed to doing whatever we can to help maintain our ecosystem on the McKenzie and upper wamit that we will move on thank you for the presentation we are going to move to River meeting followup I suppose commissioner just to uh introduce the subject

3:03:34 um this year the McKenzie river Court meeting was resurrected as an openhouse um appreciation dinner we changed the format significantly from the the prior years um staff has gone through um I would term a a a post event a hot wash we've we've gathered a number of different suggestions uh for improvement going forward should the board like to stay with that type of format um I did in just in introducing the subject um I wanted to thank staff for all the organ organization of it

3:04:20 um Adam Spencer who the youngc resident of the McKenzie Valley did and I think that we all thought did a a great job of introducing the meeting setting the context so I wanted to to thank him um as well so we've kind of gathered our input and have have a number of different suggestions but this time was really allocated to get commissioner feedback on the format since it was a change whether you'd like to continue it and if you had suggestions for improvement if so um going forward and well it was somewhat fresh in our minds so um vice president barovsky I'll turn it

3:05:06 back to you we'd just like to gather input from the board as to how we can improve going forward um I thought it went really well um in general uh I thought I was supportive of the format I was skeptical I thought it was a bit ambitious when I saw the list of topics that we were all supposed to discuss but um I think it worked really well I appreciated getting to talk with people one onone um in a way that I couldn't at just some of our regular meetings it was nice to be able to sit down with them and listen to what people had to say I'm not sure how uiver Els about the meeting if it made a difference to them or not but from my

3:05:53 standpoint I felt like I was able to connect with more people listen to what they had to say and um overall it just felt much more respect respectful first I'd like to thank Mindy because you're the you're in my opinion the impetus to to change the format to do it defitely and I thank you very much because I thought it was one of the best meetings up rer meetings I've ever attended that I hope we don't deviate from it I think we can do a little bit better you know I found out my popularity I had one coach in my four staff members was kind of a nice thing that my ears weren't ringing I was a really was a nice discussion with people so it would have been nice to maybe have

3:06:39 to interact with M was definitely and I other than that I I thought it was a 9.99 success so thank mat yeah thank you I guess I just Echo appreciate the change in format really appreciate Adam's um introduction and kind of carrying the thread for the whole evening I thought he was a great job with that um I don't have any big changes to suggest I think likewise felt like it was a way better format more effective I feel like um residents felt

3:07:24 heard more than they have in the past so all around um I think a better outcome and I really appreciate the effort that went into organizing that I also appreciated the security um there I felt like yeah I felt like we the the crew is really taking care of all the details and really appreciate it thanks thank you um yeah for me I I agree I think it was it was done very well um one comment that I would make going forward for next year is a lot of the questions that got asked of me I could answer because I had three years on the board and and do some of

3:08:10 the answers I know that we're going to be having a new commissioner on board next year and it might be only a month or two in so making sure that one either he is is uh brought up to speed as much as he can or is supported by staff as much as he could because a lot of the questions that were asked me I wouldn't have been able to answer in that first year um so that's just something going forward uh I think that would be helpful if you're if you're looking at that when we have a new board member I don't want him to be you know there's already a fire hose effect that you get when you join this board and then to have a fire hose effect at perhaps sitting at a table with somebody who's peppering them with questions that he can't answer may not Shine the best

3:08:55 light on on the organization but other than that I was really happy with it and I think it went well one other comment so I sat at the table with folks who were concerned about uh labor Dam so people who had feelings about things and it was really great to hear what they had to say and um I was with Frank and also Jeremy samoi great at being able to communicate um but something that I did notice was really a difference in the way we at eweb kind of responded to some of their questions and concerns and so I don't know how to share that kind of feedback but especially going forward as um you talk about the transportation

3:09:41 plan and all of that I just noticed some opportunities for us to communicate better with people so maybe our checkins I'll share some of that with you yes yeah commissioner just a couple of the feedback that that we went through uh first of all the room was pretty noisy um and if you were at a double table um the the distance created some challenges with the communications that we're going to look at if there's some different configurations going forward also just the information tables weren't quite um I identified very well so that really kind of trying to differentiate where you could get certain information that um where we had technical experts in the room just

3:10:27 identifying those a little bit more clearly um and then finding a way to connect some of those dots that that commissioner barovsky mentioned um because you know when you're in a room you might have a planned question or two but those aren't the ones that you get asked you get ask a broad range of questions everything from from from treat trimming to fish habitat to Transportation issues and so um having at least access to the proper resources within the the room and how those could be followed up on was another area that we're looking at so we have a a number of different things that we're looking at as well but it sounds like Commissioners appreciated the format it definitely um facilitated more people to

3:11:14 have interaction with staff and Commissioners um as opposed to just a a conversation that was dominated by a single topic and so um if if that was the objective I think we achieved it sounds like commissioners of supportive of a similar format next year maybe with some continuous improvment thrown in just one thing don't throw an ice storm in it next year okay I I'll speak with the people I know to try to prevent that okay any other comments on up River right next thing is future board agendas I just want comment about the future board agendas we we do have a meeting that's scheduled for July 2nd

3:12:01 I'm just wanted to confirm with the board whether the second is still the date that you want or whether we want to push that from the second to the 9th we just we need to be able to plan around one or the other I won't be here on sale and will not be able to call it te could be a fishing day for somebody um they could still be here but I if you want to move it I mean it's a it's whatever everybody else I can be here the second or the night kind of have an issue on the 9th my wife is getting hip surgery on the eth so if I did it I would doing it from

3:12:56 home I I have family coming in the previous on the second but about I can also make the ninth work I just wouldn't run the elog executive quick mat do you have any issues one way or the other I'm checking right now end okay let's move it to the ninth I'm will be a maybe I haven't missed one yet but I'll be a maybe oh maybe a dial in dial in at best okay dial in at best and and maybe

3:13:43 not even at all I'll just do a quick com consultation with an and Holly I works okay from our in after creating all this discussion I just want to make sure we make it happen all right we'll make it the we'll move it to the nth thank you that was all I had on future agendas um I am looking for a specific time to address the Commissioners um having a comment around the the business model so on the electric site so I'm looking for a time to do that that's associated with some of the other things that that we're looking at around

3:14:29 resources all right last is board wrapup go and just one thing about six months ago we terminated a contract for about a million bucks up to McKenzie to kill trees along the corridor because of the fire and you were going to get somebody's going to get back to me about what we did with that you know that to beat that requirement I think it was $900,000 was the was a contract and we we took it out of the consent calendar because we said that enough trees have died from the fire maybe why killed perfectly good ones and I just wondered if you could get back to me on what happened with me that requirement did we meet it by um like counting dead trees from the fire or whatever we were going to girdle and pop them we can answer that right yeah oh so after the fire and we pulled um

3:15:16 the that effort off the table for last year we did go back and reassess what was needed to complete our Regulatory Compliance we completed that in late April of this year we'll watch um and work with a force over of the next several years to see how things come back to address if we need additional snags over into the future so we are definitely in monitor mode right now is good and we're monitoring I I just wanted to say that I appreciated you giving me some extra time to talk about the Comm Smith piece and ask some extra questions because it's something that's very near and dear to me Watershed protection um you know

3:16:02 how we move with this and how we're seeing as an environmental organization um because I think we do a lot of really wonderful work here and when I hear some of those things it rils me up so anyway I just thank you for your um leway anything uh I would just say thank you uh barowski for um cheering the the meeting today and and to the rest of the team for facilitating my remote participation I've had some extra help from Ann and Holly and uh really appreciate it yeah just one thing I want to pass it to Deborah Hart Who has

3:16:47 some updates on our favorable participation in the bond markets so this morning we did price bonds for the electric utility uh last week uh the market did take an upturn which is not good for us uh and we did know it was going to be crowded however over the weekend and Monday things calmed down a bit and uh even with the crowded Market we took offers uh we took orders of $665 million so 10 and a half times what we had available to sell so it was a very popular product and uh we're able to shave um basis points off and bring

3:17:33 our all in um total interest cost to 4.29 uh that is not the best rate that the electric utility has seen but last year in a different market for different utility the water utility came in at 4.13 so we felt pretty good about where that landed and then when we look at how we compare to the mmda yield curve that we look at we had the tightest spreads which is good that uh on our longer term bonds that EB's seen in 10 years so all in all given the conditions of the market we feel really good at where uh where we ended up

3:18:21 versus we do budget we do plan for 5% uh so uh that was a good showing for us right thank you um one thing that I would like to maybe throw out there having been the first time facilitating the meeting um you know we start the timer when we have questions they give us three minutes and we ask a question and staff takes up 2 minutes and 45 seconds of that and other meetings that I've been at when we ask a question if staff is responding they've stopped that clock I don't know if that's something we want to look at in the future but it's just something that it feels like we put added pressure

3:19:06 on ourselves to get what we want both two staff and from staff when we're looking at a clock that's blinking at us when staff took up the majority of that 3 minute so I don't know if that's something we want to bring forward in the future you know time when we're talking about procedures or whatever but I just noticed it tonight as as being the chair and uh I just wanted to throw that out there so with that if there's nothing else we were are