Okay, I'm going to go ahead and call to order the council study session for February seventeenth, twenty twenty-six.

Mayor Scott Anderson.

Here.

Vice Mayor Chuck Bongiovanni.

Here.

Council Member Bobby Buckley here.

Councilmember Kenny Bucklin.

Here.

Council Member Young Kaprowski.

Here.

Council Member Monty Lyons.

Here.

And Councilmember Jim Torgeson.

Aquaram is present.

Thank you.

We have one item on the agenda presentation and discussion on agricultural agriculture water rate framework.

Lauren.

Reclamation released a draft plan in January detailing five alternatives for operating the river.

The only alternative reclamation stated they believe that they can implement without an agreement is shown here on the screen.

And if river conditions continue to decline, this no deal alternative shown here could result in Arizona taking up to 77% of reductions while barely reducing the other basin states.

We continue to advocate along with our Arizona partners that the no-deal alternative is incomplete and has many legal concerns.

However, the need to reduce demand on the system is more real than ever with this year's dismal winter conditions.

The current record low runoff projections indicate a high likelihood that Lake Powell will decline below the minimum power pool level by the end of this year.

This is the elevation at which the dam can no longer generate hydropower.

With or without an agreement, reclamation has stated they will move forward with new guidelines by October 1st, 2026.

These current hydrologic and political conditions on the river emphasize the criticality of Gilbert's response to these uncertain shortages through water resiliency projects such as the Northwater Treatment Plant Reconstruction as well as the well development program.

So just wanted to take the time to update you on what's going on on the river.

This is important context as we discuss the main topic of today's study session, which is the agricultural water rate framework.

Next slide.

Oh, sorry.

Okay.

So let's see.

There we go.

So we're here today because of a request to look into options to ease the rate burden for those who large residential properties that support livestock and local food production that are key elements of Gilbert's rural character and small town charm.

And so we've identified the goal has been to identify options to ease this rate burden while ensuring fairness for all customers.

So today I'm going to go through research and background information, the proposed rate, eligibility criteria, as well as next steps.

As part of our background research, we looked into comparable municipal programs.

We were able to find five different comparable programs among cities in the western United States.

A couple in California, one in Honolulu, one down in two, a couple down in Tucson, as well as some options that neighboring cities do to allow residential properties to be on a landscape water rate.

As we evaluated these programs, we saw that there were really just a handful of communities that have gone this route.

There's a wide variability in the eligibility criteria, but they do tend to focus on local food production at either a commercial or nonprofit level.

And the ones that are closer to home, the neighboring cities here in the valley, they have allowed residential customers to be on a reduced rate, but they require an additional meter, which is a high upfront cost.

And so we really haven't found an industry standard.

They were all really developed to meet the needs of the individual communities, which is how we've taken the approach for what we'll present to you today.

In addition to the background information on comparable programs, we also wanted to go into important background information as far as Arizona and Gilbert water policy and history.

As many of you are aware, the Greater Phoenix Valley, including most of Gilbert, was farmed primarily using surface water from the Salt and Verde Rivers.

And these historical water rights and canals continue to support those agricultural uses, even as the valley has developed and water policy has evolved.

The main evolution of our water policy took place back in 1980 with the Groundwater Management Act.

This act adopted was adopted due to drastic declines in groundwater levels seen throughout the areas shown on the map.

And it established water rights for all types of uses, municipal, industrial, agricultural, etc.

And an important piece of it was that it limited agricultural acreage to what was in production between 1975 and 1980.

This also led to the development of the shared and adequate water supply rules, which Gilbert is subject to.

The shared and adequate water supply rules require us to prove seven different criteria that develop a hundred-year assured water supply.

I want to focus on number seven, which is meeting the management plan.

And what the management plan does is it requires conservation through many different techniques.

One of which is that it stipulated that Gilbert adopt its conservation code.

This established water efficiency requirements for specifically non single family residential properties.

So every new development outside of the single family lot has to go through and meet our conservation code.

Some of those requirements are listed here.

I won't read them all, but just to highlight a few.