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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2011-11-08 WSB AGENDAWATER & SEWER BOARD AGENDA Tuesday, November 8, 2011 5:00 P.M. COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE ROOM ENGLEWOOD CITY HALL 1. MINUTES OF THE OCTOBER 11, 2011 MEETING. (ATT. 1) 2 . GUEST : VEVA DEHEZA -COLORADO WATER CONSERVATION BOARD. 3 . TOM BRENNAN -UTILITIES ENGINEER -ALLEN PLANT EFFICIENCY. 4. GUEST: JOHN GALLAGHER -RED OAK CONSULTING. 5. UPDATE FROM DAVID HILL DATED OCTOBER 7, 2011 . (ATT. 2) 6 . OTHER. ~ WATER & SEWER BOARD AGENDA Tuesday, October 11, 2011 5:00 P.M. COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE ROOM ENGLEWOOD CITY HALL Meeting called to order at 5:01 p.m. Roll Call. Present: Clyde Wiggins, Wayne Oakley, Kells Waggoner, Jim Woodward, Bob McCaslin, Stewart Fonda, Cathy Burrage Absent: Jim Higday, Tom Burns, Chuck Habenicht, Linda Olson , Jo Lay. Also present: Manager of Administration Bock, Engineer IV Brennan, Field Services Coordinator Pierce, Billing Analyst Church, Deputy City Clerk Bush Mayor Woodward welcomed Kells Waggoner and Wayne Oakley as new members to the Board, along with Jo Lay (who was absent). Mr. Waggoner and Mr. Oakley signed the oaths of office. fill 1. ELECTION OF WATER BOARD CHAIRMAN. A Water Board Chairman was elected to replace the position vacated by Mr. Gray Clark's resignation. Motion: Moved; Seconded: To elect Mr. W iggins as the new Water and Sewer Board Chairman. Jim Woodward Kells Waggoner. Vote: Motion carried (summary: Yes= 5, No= 0). fill 2. WATER BOARD MINUTES FORMAT. Motion: Moved; Seconded: That the Water Board minutes, starting with tonight's meeting, be written using the action format. Audio tapings will be available on the City of Englewood 's website. Jim Woodward Clyde Wiggins. Vote: Motion carried (summary: Yes= 5, No= 0). Tom Bums entered the meeting at 5:07 pm Jj] 3. MINUTES OF THE AUGUST 9, 2011 MEETING Motion: Moved; Seconded: Recommend approval of the August 9, 2011 Water and Sewer Board Minutes. Jim Woodward Bob Mccaslin. Vote: Motion carried (summary: Yes = 6, No = 0). 4. MINUTES OF THE SEPTEMBER 13, 2011 MEETING. The minutes of the September 13 , 2011 meeting could not be approved due to a lack of a quorum at that meeting. Q 5 . GUEST: NICOLE HASKINS OF TELEWORKS. Nicole Haskins of Teleworks appeared to discuss billing options available to Englewood customers. Linda Olson entered meeting at 5:1 lpm ~ 6. PURCHASE OF A TV VAN. Tom Brennan , Utilities Engineer, discussed the purchase of a TV van and power control unit. Motion: Moved; Seconded: To recommend Council approval of the purchase of a TV van and power control unit from Boyle Equipment Company in the amount of $123,275 .00. Kells Waggoner Tom Bums. Vote: Motion carried (summary: Yes= 7 , No= 0). ~ 7. INFORMATIONAL ITEMS. The Board received the following informational articles : ~ "DENVER WATER BOARD TO VOTE ON 5.5 PERCENT RATE HIKE ~" FROM THE DENVER POST. (ATT. 4) "EAST-WEST PEACE PACT ," FROM THE COLORADO FOUNDATION FOR WATER EDUCATION. (ATT. 5) 5. UNSCHEDULED VISITORS : Mr. Ryan Laird appeared as an unscheduled visitor. ~ Meeting adjourned at 6:08 p.m. The next Englewood Water Board meeting will be November 8, 2011 at 5 :00 p .m. in the Community Development Conference Room. Respectfully submitted, Isl Cathy Burrage Recording Secretary BERG HILL GREENLEAF & RUSCITTI LLP ATTORNEYS & COlfNSELORS AT L AW 1712 Pearl Street • Boulder, Colorado 80302 Tel: 303.402.1600 • Fax: 303.402.1601 bhgrlaw.com David G. Hill Partner Email, dgh@bhgrlaw.com October 7, 2011 PRIVILEGED ATTORNEYCLIENT COMMUNICATION Daniel L. Brotzman, Esq. City of Englewood DO NOT DISCLOSER E c EI v ED 1000 Englewood Parkway Englewood, CO 80110-0110 Re: September Invoice DearDan: OCT 1 1 2011 ENGLEWOOD, CO OFFICE OF THE CITY A TIORNEY Enclosed please find our invoices for professional services on water matters for September 1, 2011, through September 30, 2011, in the amount of $34 ,256.06, with a total for the year of $493,673.72. ·The amount for this billing cycle on major cases of particular significance is listed below: Name Amount No Denver (04CW121) LIRFs $ 9,455.24 620 . Denver (09CW139) Diligence at Chatfield Reservoir 15,310.92 726 Stu Fonda has asked us to provide brief descriptions of the reasons for Englewood's involvement in all cases which appear on our bills each month, as well as a brief summary of the work performed by this firm during the month. The following paragraphs contain these descriptions with respect to the matters reflected on the enclosed invoices: Introduction. Please understand that this letter is a confidential attorney-client communication. Please keep it confidential. I have written down the bill by $15,050 from our agreed-upon hourly rates, in an effort to stay within the annual budget. That makes total write downs for 2011 to date come to $62 ,6 68.50. Daniel L Brotzman October 7, 2011 Page 2 There are two major bills for September which deserve discussion. The first is entitled "Denver Diligence." That title covers two aspects of Denver's efforts to take all the native flow which enters Chatfield, and keep the Chatfield gates constantly closed (or nearly always closed). The first aspect is the quality problem; when the gates are closed, Englewood's hardness soars, blue green algae proliferates, water temperature in the river rises, and the Littleton and Englewood boat chutes become unusable. Furthermore, prolonged gate closures may require new and very expensive treatment processes at the Bi-City wastewater treatment plant, since the dilution water in the river will be reduced. Resolution of the quality issues is a matter of federal law under the Clean Water Ac t and NEPA, with official contacts being primarily the EPA and the Corps of Engineers. The second aspect is the quantity aspect. Denver seeks to eliminate Englewood's exchanges from Bear Creek to Chatfield, which provide soft water from Chatfield or sales to Centennial, which will grow significantly in value. The quantity issues will be resolved in the Colorado Water Court. The work for September was almost exclusively on the quality issue. We had submitted comments to the Corps and the EPA, on the draft Environmental Impact Statements for the Gross Reservoir expansion and the Chatfield expansion. The comments complained of Denver's ability to shut the Chatfield gates almost permanently, given Denver's new gravel pit reservoirs and the Gross Reservoir expansion. We had hoped the comments would receive some attention, but worried that they would be ignored. To our great pleasure, EPA wished to speak with us about Denver's ability to close the gates. We met with EPA on September 30. The meeting turned out to be long and cordial. The EPA personnel asked a lot of pertinent questions, and asked for more data on certain issues. We will of course provide it. The EPA personnel gave no indication of their possible course of action, other than by their questions and requests for data (which was to be expected). The mere fact of the long meeting and the questions was encouraging. The EPA people suggested we contact the Corps office in Denver, which handles the Gross expansion, and the Corps office in Omaha, which handles the Chatfield expansion, and various environmental groups. (We had already intended that.) At this point we have a meeting on October 12 with Trout Unlimited and other environmental groups. We are setting up meetings with the Corps, with the potential users of the expanded Chatfield space, and with the Colorado Water Conservation Board. CWCB has generally supported the Chatfield expansion, on the basis that the new users would release water to the river at times of low flow. Unfortunately, Englewood's engineering shows that the new users will not get any water to release. Denver will get the water, except in years of very high flow. Our comments covered the Bi-City issue, but the EPA suggested that Bi-City itself file comments. I will contact Mark Wagner, at Hill & Robbins, who represents Bi-City, about filing a comment. Daniel L. Brotzman October 7, 2011 Page 3 We have learned that nobody except Englewood has done the engineering to show that Denver can permanently close the Chatfield gates. When that information is made known, the recipients generally "sit up and t ake notice." So the quality efforts are ongoing, but it's too early to know if there will be results. The second major case is Denver 's lawn irrigation return flow case (the LIRF case). Denver seeks to quantify its reusable lawn irrigation return flows, collect them at the Burlington Canal headgate, and exchange them to Chatfield. There are two aspects of the case: First and probably foremost, the issues surrounding Denver's claimed exchange. Second, the engineering which quantifies the amount, location and timing of the reusable return flows. The exchange aspect is . very important to Englewood, as a matter of precedent. The background is this: Essentially in 1968, Denver gave notice that it would exchange from certain structures within and without former Water District 8. (Water District 8 went from Cheesman Reservoir down to the Cherry Creek confluence.) Denver ended up with a 1977 priority for exchanges from Metro Sewer (which is below Water District 8) to Chatfield. Denver seeks to expand that 1977 priority to include exchanges from all of its sources below Water District 8, including the LIRF exchanges from the Burlington headgate and exchanges from Denver's new gravel pit reservoirs near Brighton (both are below Water District 8). If Denver is successful in its contention that exchanges from below Water District 8 fall within its 1977 priority, then Denver wipes out 1) Englewood's exchange from Bear Creek, 2) Centennial's exchange from Marcy Gulch, and 3) the new users in an expanded Chatfield, all of which have priority dates junior to 1977. Denver seeks to establish the 1977 date in various Water Court cases. The issue is whether Denver gave adequate notice in 1968 that it intended to make exchanges of LIRFs and gravel pit releases from points below Water District 8. Englewood has a strong position that adequate notice was not given. The first case on the issue was set for trial last August, and we did a lot of preparation. Then Denver removed its exchange claim from that case. The next case is the LIRF case, which is set for a four week trial next April. That case is followed by two more cases on the same issue, set for trial in the spring of 2013 and 2014, respectively. So the LIRF case is quite important, from a precedential standpoint. If we can get a ruling that there was no adequate notice of exchanges of LIRFs from the Burlington headgate (which is below Water District 8), it will help a great deal with the gravel pit ruling, which involves far, far more water. The remainder of the cases is described below. 1. General (#001): This matter is our general file for work not attributable to specific cases . In some instances , the work is not specific to a paiticular matter. In other instances, the time spent on any individual matter is not large enough to justify a separate bill, but the time on the group of matters is significant. This includes charges related to general calendaring, reviewing various daily incoming pleadings and correspondence, overall case