Welcome everyone to the May 18th, 2026 Tampa Bay Water Meeting.

The meeting and public hearing were noticed in the Florida Administrative Register, the Tampa Bay Times, and on the Tampa Bay Water website.

The meeting is available for viewing through live streaming, and a recording of the meeting will be posted on the agency's website.

Vice Chair Waitemet will led lead the plea pledge.

The pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republican for which it stands.

One nation under God with liberty of justice for all.

Thank you.

Craggers.

Councilman Miranda.

Here.

Here.

Mr.

Peters.

Vice Chair Waitman.

Present.

Here.

I have members present.

Ever corn.

Thank you.

At this time we open the public hearing on the fiscal year 2027 operating budget and capital improvements program.

If we can have the budget presentation, I'll leave it to you.

Yes, uh good morning.

Uh thank you.

Uh this presentation will be performed by Christina Sagitt, our chief financial officer, and it'll be a recap from uh last month's uh workshop on the 2027 operating budget and also our fiscal year 27 capital improvement uh program expenditures.

Christina.

Good morning, Chair and members of the board.

Um, as Chuck said, this is a recap of the workshop that was presented in April, and board action will be requested after the presentation and public comment.

The proposed uniform rate for fiscal year 27 is slightly below two dollars and sixty-six cents per thousand gallons, which is an increase of about two cents over the current year, and includes a variable rate around 62 cents per thousand gallons.

We minimize the increase to the uniform rate by using four million from the rate stabilization account.

The projected demand for fiscal year 27 is 212.84 million gallons per day, and the source selection consists of operating the surface water treatment plant for an annual average of 79 million gallons per day, running the desalination facility with an annual average of 13 million gallons per day, and using the agency's well fields to produce about 121 million gallons per day of total groundwater, around 86 MGD from the consolidated well fields and 35 MGD from other well fields.

The agency's total costs are divided into two components, variable costs and fixed costs.

The agency's variable cost equal around 22 percent of the total of the fiscal year 27 budget, and the fixed cost account for the remaining 78 percent, and are broken down into four subcategories: contract and operation and maintenance agreements, debt service for bonds, debt service for member acquisition credits, and the fixed cost to operate the agency.

The pie chart shows that the total debt service for the bonds and member acquisition credits make up almost 41% of the fiscal year 27 total costs.

And just as a reminder, fiscal year 28 will be the final year of member acquisition credits, completing the 30 years of monthly credits to the members in consideration of conveyance of transferred assets per the amended and restated interlocal agreement.

The total costs for the proposed fiscal year 27 budget are 223.8 million, which is about a 4.4 million increase over the current fiscal year.

Variable cost increase by 1.4 million, and fixed costs had a net increase of 3 million.

The proposed budget includes a 3% cost of living adjustment and a performance-based merit program of up to 3%, and the request for four new positions, one IT network engineer, one mechanical technician one, and two mechanical technician trainees.

The projected adjustments of $13.2 million and the $4 million of use of the rate stabilization funds are netted against the total costs to get the proposed net revenue required from water sales of 206.6 million.

This pie chart shows the breakdown of each division's percentage of the proposed 27 total costs.

And you can see that the budgets for the water production and the finance administration divisions account for about 82% of the full budget.

This is because the variable costs and the contracted operations and maintenance maintenance agreements for the surface water treatment plant and the desalination facility are included in the budget for water production, and the agency's annual debt service is part of the budget for the finance and administration division.

Next, I will provide a review of the fiscal year 27 capital improvement program.

Three projects account for 67% of this spend.

The South Hillsborough Pipeline, segments A and B make up 42%, and the surface water treatment plant expansion makes up 25%.

There are nine projects with expenditures between 2.6 million and 16.6 million.

And then there are 31 projects with expenditures of 2.5 million or less that make up the remain rest of the estimated expenditures.

9% will be funded with member government joint project agreements, and the remaining 86% will be funded with the revenue bonds.

Either the existing revenue bonds or the anticipated bond issuance in August or September of this year.

The agency is also anticipating receiving reimbursements totaling 20.1 million from grants and district co-funding during the fiscal year.

To review the highlights of the proposed 27 budget, a uniform rate of $2.66 per thousand gallons, slightly more than two cents than the current year.

Anticipated demand of $212.84 million gallons a day, requesting four positions, bringing the FTE count up to a $167.

Total costs of $223.8 million, using $4 million from the rate stabilization account, net revenue required from water sales of $206.6 million, plus the fiscal year 27 capital improvement program estimated expenditures of $291.4 million.

For today's public hearing, the remaining budget actions include receiving any public comment on the proposed fiscal year 27 budget or capital improvement program, approving resolution 2026.

Thank you.

Board members, any questions on the budget?

I see none.

At this point, move on to public comment.

And the budget.

Good morning.

Good morning, Madam Chairboard David Ballard Gettys Jr.

I live on Georgia Avenue in Palm Harbor.

As a child, I used to play the board game Monopoly.

Now the board game Monopoly has a space on it called waterworks.

Now, what if legislation is playing a game with us concerning the water works?

The Declaration of Independence obviously says that legislation is being pretentious.

There's also a space in the game monopoly for the railroad.

The declaration of independence talks about a long train of usurpations while legislation is playing a game of water works pretentiously.

Then there's a spot that says go to jail.

That's where the 14th Amendment comes in.

Just thought I'd give you heads up.

Thank you.

Thank you.

This time uh public comment is closed.

I'll entertain the motion to approve the budget.

Move it.

Sorry, one second.

Commissioner Oakley and Councilmember.

Oh, Commissioner Peters.

Sorry, I don't have a motion for you all to vote.

Oh, here we go.

Well, I can we can just do it verbally.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay.

I'm sorry.

That's right.

So we have Councilmember Miranda.

A no.

Sure.

Let's do a roll call.

Okay.

So Chair Hanowitz.

Yes.

Vice Chair Waitman.

Yes.

Commissioner Cohen?

Yes.

Mayor Davis.

Yes.

Councilman Miranda.

No.

Commissioner Oakley?

Yes.

Commissioner Peters.

Yes.

And the motion passes six to one.

Thank you.

Okay.

Now we open the regular board meeting and we go to public comment.

I have a request to speak from Mr.

David Ballas Gaddis Jr.

Hello again.

Hi, thank you again, David Ballard Geddes Jr., Georgia Avenue in Palm Harbor.

Initially, we all had our own well water to supply our household water usage.

Then systematically the city started supplying the water, and we began receiving water utility based on a supply and rate wholesale cost.

Meticulously, the government designed a sewer system supported by sewer revenue bonds and applied an excise charge into the sewer portion of the water bill, invoking a bond charge, the disposal of the treated sewage.

The government predominantly pumped that sewage into local rivers and lakes, and here locally, Dunedin, the wastewater was pumped into the intercoastal waters behind Caladisi Island.

Methodically, newly constructed HOA and deed restricted neighborhoods, were equipping every household with sprinkler systems, wasting the water, exhausting, contaminating the groundwater with lawn fertilizers and pesticides, planting non-indigenous topiary landscapes, to include genetically modified grass, killing all the insects in the ground with poison while applying carcinogenic fertilizers to the water, destroying our wetlands for Cypress mulch used as landscaping required by the HOA association, the government, and their hirelings contrived what they wanted, engineered it for a purposeful outcome to deliberately produce the conundrum that they desired most, invoking for their benefit as self-evidence, suppressing oppressing us, the residents, in their process as they rise to wealth and importance and privileges and immunities, tax-free in the 14th amendment.

What used to be a wholesale utility water bill now includes ad hoc third-party fees, levies, imposts, excise taxes, bond revenue charges, the availability fee of reclaimed water as a toll charge, backflow charge as a surcharge, and now to include a Tampa Bay water bond dividend charge as almost three quarters of Tampa Bay Waters Capital Outlay finances bond debt, servicing bond debt charges.

From my perspective, the government, the government's resourceful solutions to society are not resourceful, and you're solving nothing in your process.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Move on to the consent agenda.

If there are no items pulled, um, I'll entertain the motion.

So move.

The motion from Commissioner Oakley.

Second from Vice Chair Waitman.

That was or it was I'm sorry.

I thought you said yes, and then he said Commissioner Miranda.

Yep.

Either one.

Somebody to the left.

Commissioner Miranda.

Charlie.

I do not know why I am not getting the option to start your recording on the system.

So we are going to have to do a roll call.

Okay.

Let's do a roll call.

Sorry.

Chair Hanowitz.

Yes.

Vice Chair Waitman.

Yes.

Commissioner Cohen.

Yes.

Mayor Davis.

Yes.

Councilman Miranda.

Yes.

Commissioner Oakley.

Yes.

Commissioner Peters.

Yes.

The motion passes unanimously.

Thank you, Krista.

We move on to the regular agenda.

The first item up is B1, the general manager's report.

This is for information only the voice needed.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Warren and I will cover the first part.

And that includes the drought.

That is, as you know, we're in a stage three, and uh most of the state, as you see on this chart, is under an extreme drought condition.

However, and I'm hoping everyone in this room got the rain that we got yesterday, and so it looks as though that may continue, and hopefully it is the start of the rainy season.

Uh we got quite a good jump in the uh Hillsborough River overnight.

I'm looking at Rory Jones from the City of Tampa, and he's he's smiling today, though.

So that's uh that's a good thing.

Uh and if it just continues to rain, we should be on our way.

Uh but I did want Warren to go through a few of the slides of where are we with the uh the current conditions.

Good morning, madam chair, members of the board.

Through the month of April, we delivered an average of about 206.7 million gallons per day to the members for the first seven months of the year.

It's about eight and a quarter million gallons a day higher than the same period last year, about 4.2 percent more water delivered.

This is because of the very hot and dry conditions we've been experiencing since September, and we are optimistic that the rainy season is beginning.

Uh we hope it continues in a continuous everyday afternoon rain.

It usually starts with fits and starts, but once it gets going, we usually have continuous afternoon rains.

For the month of April, uh, just quick orientation.

The each bar is what we've delivered to the members each month.

Uh red is from our reservoir, blue is river water, yellow is desalinated seawater, and green is our mix of groundwater.

For the month of April, uh we show that we delivered about four and a half million gallons a day, less than we expected.

And the numbers for October of 25 through September of 26 are the projections that we had at the beginning of the year.

We put those in place so we can compare where we are to what we thought we would be at the beginning of the year.

For the bars on the right side of the vertical black line, those are what we projected to be for the rest of the water year.

You can see that desalinated seawater looks absent from September, but at this point we will be running the desalination plant in September of this year.

So this was just a forecast.

There was planned maintenance by TICO on a substation and transmission systems, so there's no power coming into our plant, but that should be only this week, and we'll be back up to operations.

As we have reduced our take from the reservoir, we're currently flowing about 40 million gallons a day to the surface water plant.

That has caused an increase in our groundwater sources.

We reduced the flow to the surface water plant in order to make sure that we sustain that supply through the end of the dry season.

At 40 million gallons a day, we have capacity to meet that flow rate until about mid-July, and that would drop us down to that one and a half billion gallon threshold where we have to start making some operational decisions.

The consolidated water use permit has a permit limit of 90 million gallons per day.

Because of the high demands and the balance of our sources, the running average was 96.23 million gallons a day at the end of April.

We do show that after this month there's a high water use.

Demands on the system should decrease, and we'll be able to bring this running average down over the coming months.

We will have to balance bringing the running average down, but also refilling the regional reservoir for next spring dry season.

So we don't put all of our resources to reducing this pumping rate, we have to balance that with storage for next year.

The South Central Hillsborough well field running average was an even 26 million gallons a day at the end of April.

And compared to our higher permit limit that we received last year of 26.82.

So that well field is in good condition.

The reservoir is down to about 3.8 billion gallons as of yesterday.

That's about 25 percent full.

And we are on track to if we receive our expected summer rains, have the reservoir full by the time the flows diminish in October.

With that, I'd be happy to answer system questions before turning back over to Mr.

Cardin.

Any questions?

No questions.

Thank you so much.

Yes, okay.

And I will pick up with some of the updates here that are listed on the slide.

The first being the Alpha River water use uh permit challenge.

Uh last month the board uh did agree on the settlement and coordination agreement.

Uh and uh it was approved by the administrative law judge uh to relinquish the jurisdiction back to the uh to the district.

The district will be taking up the final order uh tomorrow at their regular scheduled board meeting.

Uh legislatively uh uh the update the the Florida legislature is in session uh discussing the budget.

And uh we do have uh two appropriations uh that are uh they're be requesting money for the SCADA improvements, about a million dollars and also the surface water treatment plan expansion uh another two million dollars.

So they are still viable, uh, but I don't have any word on that yet, and I will let the board know as soon as I do know uh if we did get the money.

Uh pay and class study is in full gear right now, Cody and associates is uh doing the study and they're wrapping it up.

Um I'm planning to bring it back to the board uh to review with the board in the in the summer, and as well the strategic plan.

Uh, we are closing the window on the last five year strategic plan, and so we will be updating the board on uh how we did uh in July at the July board meeting, and we will be uh starting the new five-year plan, and that will be in front of the board later in uh September or August, September, October.

We'll be back in front of the board.

And lastly, I wanted to remind the board uh, I think Christina mentioned it uh at the workshop last month and also today.

Uh in July, I plan to be bringing a bond resolution for uh the new bonds uh 2026 A bonds worth about 292 million dollars, and it will be a resolution to start the process.

And at the same time, we will be bringing back uh a request to refund the 2016 A bonds, which uh the about 72 million dollars uh refunding could be a savings between six and nine million dollars uh total present value savings there.

So uh we'll be bringing those to you in July.

Uh I did want to flip the the slide here.

It will show you uh we had our bring a child to work day like everyone else did, and uh this is a huge successful uh program over the years, and as you can see, the the children are having fun, but they're also learning uh a little bit different from when I brought my child to uh to the to work day back in the day.

They didn't have any of the the activities that we have here, so it's pretty pretty exciting in that we get a large turn.

Uh as you see here, our water use permitting senior manager Kathleen Jonas uh re recently represented the agency at Geo Expo 2026, uh which was hosted by the University of South Florida's Geology Alumni Society.

Also in late April, we had a a great time out at Earth Day uh at ECOFEST 2026.

And uh we were the main sponsor of the 2026 chalk festival here, and you can see we had our logo designed for us by one of the uh artists there.

And that concludes uh some of my remarks.

I'd be happy to to answer any questions.

Thank you, Chuck, for the update.

Any questions?

Questions from the board members, okay?

Well, we move up to action items.

We have two items.

The first one is going to be presented by Maribel Medina, uh, the planning and projects director.

This will require a boat vote.

Good morning.

Okay, good morning, madam chair, and members of the board.

Agenda item C1 is a task authorization under the existing operation agreement for the seawater desalination facility with U.S.

water actiona.

Then Public Water has completed two capital projects and is about to complete a third to improve the desalination facilities reliability and restore its uh the facility towards its original design capacity.

In 2023, the facility required all seven RO racks of reversal small CIS racks and established them to uh ensure that they continue to operate.

Last year we removed all of them and reinstalled only five of them, which allows the facility to produce up to 20 million gallons per day.

Five of the original seven racks have now been replaced, while the long-term approach for the remaining two racks continue to be evaluated.

In addition, we completed upgrades to 13 variable frequency drives or BFDs, and including five of the VFDs associated with the original five racks completed in 2023.

This new project built on that progress, improving the reliability and the system redundancy.

We will restore the facility to its original design capacity of about 28 million gallons per day.

This project includes the construction of two new RO racks for trains six and seven, the purchase and installation of new pressure vessels and membranes, and the replacement or reconditioning of the existing 50 ton AC unit, motors and pumps, VFDs and the communication protocol, and materials and communication panels replacement for racks one through five.

Construction of the new racks six and seven will be complete by May 2027, and the final project completion is expected by August 2027.

The total budget for this project is 15 and a half million dollars.

This project completes a multi-year effort and its investments ensure the long-term reliability of our drought proof water source.

And with that, staff requests your approval for this task authorization in the amount of 15 and a half million dollars, which includes about three million dollars for owners' allowance.

And this concludes my presentation.

I will be happy to take any questions.

Thank you.

What are the chances that we can get this ahead of schedule?

We're moving as fast as we can.

I know you.

I'll entertain the motion.

Move approval.

Second.

I have a motion.

From Commissioner Cohen.

Second.

From it was Councilman Miranda.

Councilmember Miranda was second.

Oh, he was second.

I was motional.

Oh, well, it's hard because I saw his name.

Okay, so Commissioner Peters is the motion.

Councilmember Miranda is the second.

Sorry, I saw Mr.

Cohen also's.

It's a ball head just getting to you.

Oh, it's sorry.

Easy down there.

One second here.

Sorry.

Is the machine working?

Yeah, I think so.

Okay.

Let's cross our fingers.

Yes.

Okay.

Okay, there we go.

I think we only got to vote.

Board members, if you can enter your votes.

Seeing that all board members present have voted.

Clerk, you please tell the announced vote.

Yes.

They did.

Motion carries unanimously.

Thank you so much.

We move on to C2.

And this is going to be presented by Mr.

Hogg, our chief science officer, and this will require a vote.

Good morning again, Madam Chair and Board members.

This is an action item.

And at the end, I will be requesting approval of an amendment to a well construction contract with HUS drilling services.

This is related to the East Pasco Well Field Project.

This is one of our master water plan feasibility study projects for how we can meet your demands in the year 2033 and following.

This project is in extreme northeastern corner of PASCO County.

And it is examining can we develop a water supply source there from both the fresh upper Florida aquifer and the brackish deeper aquifer, the lower Florida, or a combination of both.

The project estimate currently is between three and nine million gallons a day of some combination of these two water sources.

The original scope of the project had us constructing test wells and monitor wells in both the upper Florida and freshwater part and the lower Florida.

But because of schedule and cost pressures, we did we brought a recommendation to the board in April to proceed, April of last year to proceed in a stepwise fashion to complete the deep core hole so we could get geologic data and water quality data from the deep Florida and aquifer and test that bracket source, but to defer uh further drilling and studies until we determine the feasibility of the freshwater part.

Based on the very limited geologic data from this area, our consultant had estimated that we would encounter that productive zone of the lower Florida and aquifer where we could test the water quality at 2,200 feet below land surface.

So that was the depth that we worked into the construction contract.

To date, we have drilled below 2,001 feet, and we haven't quite found the zone that's productive that gives us sustained water quality that we can then analyze.

But the picture on the right shows the cores that we're removing from this well.

So it's a continuous core, and we're bringing up the geologic formation, the actual rocks, so that we can study them as we also test for the water quality.

This is a little hard to see, so we actually have a sample that I'll pass around.

That is a section of the Florida aquifer.

It's from about 1,800 feet below land surface at this site.

And up until a couple weeks ago, no humans had ever seen or touched that rock.

So you're some of the few.

You're some of the very few.

What we're requesting today in a contract amendment is to extend the drilling contract to allow the driller to go to a maximum depth of 3,000 feet, which we believe is more than enough to collect the data that we needed from this site to make future assessments.

Our staff and consultants will be out there as they continue to go deeper, and every time they go about 20 to 25 feet, we stop and we test the aquifer.

So as soon as we find that productive zone, we'll stop drilling.

So we won't spend any of the additional dollars that are not needed.

If we were to pause and see if we get to 2200 and then come back, then the driller would likely move to another site, and there would be a substantial delay in the project.

There's no guarantee that we could go back into the same well in the same manner.

It could deviate, and we're getting all different data.

So since we have set off on a course to cost effectively collect this data, we're recommending that the board approve this contract amendment to let us go to additional depth to collect the data that we came to collect at this site.

We'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

And thank you for the exhibit.

Any questions from board members?

Rock is pretty heavy.

So typically, I I went where is it that you normally expect to hit water?

Um part of it is incredibly tight and dense.

Yes.

And that's that long zone that we've been drilling through.

That's the confining unit between the upper and the lower.

And that rock is so tight that water really doesn't pass vertically through it.

Freshwater stays in the top and brackish water stays at the bottom.

We expected to find the zone in the lower Floridan that has more of those connected holes or VUGs, and that's how the water moves through the aquifer.

We expected it at 2200 feet max, but since there is almost no geologic data from this area, that was our best estimate.

So it's going to wind up being a little bit deeper.

We are at 2100 and we're finding zones that have more of those connections.

We're getting water, it's just not the sustained amount that we need to get a good water quality sample.

Hopefully, within the next one to 200 feet, certainly well before we get to 3,000 feet, we'll hit that productive zone.

Once we're done, the cores will be uh, I believe donated to the Florida Geological Society so that they're available for all through the state to study and catalog.

So it's a good resource.

Great.

Thank you.

Okay, at this time I'll entertain a motion for approval.

Okay.

We have Councilmember Miranda, the motion, a second from Commissioner Oakley.

Open machine for voting.

Foreign members, please enter your votes.

Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Hogg for the presentation.

Next up, we have presentations and reports.

The first item is going to be presented by Michelle Somm, our chief of staff and chief strategy officer.

Good morning.

Good morning, Chair and members of the board.

I'm here to provide you with a quick update on the implementation plan for the recommendations from the 2025 performance and management audit.

Um this is just a presentation and no action is required.

This study is a requirement of the interlocal agreement.

It's performed every five years, and from August to December of 2025, Baker Tilly Advisory Group performed it, and the results were reported to the board at your February board meeting.

Subsequent to that meeting, Baker Tilly provided us with an implementation plan.

But before we talk about the implementation, I want to quickly go through the 11 recommendations from the audit.

The recommendations were broken into five categories, and they're summarized on the next two slides.

The full recommendations can be found either in the audit report or in the implementation plan that's attached to your agenda item.

The blue recommendations indicate those that have already started and are in progress.

Under workload and structure, Baker Tilly included three recommendations, developing an overlapping hiring strategy for key positions, developing knowledge retention and knowledge documentation tools, and exploring shared service agreements with the member governments.

Under succession planning and career development, Baker Tilly recommended the agency continue to develop succession plans for positions at high risk of retirement or turnover in the next several years, and develop additional career ladders where it makes sense.

They also recommended building on the agency's leadership development program to expand to other levels of the agency and to create agency-wide key performance indicators.

Technology and processes recommendations included creating a process and evaluating agency systems and applications to reduce redundancy and formalizing an annual review of the agency's artificial intelligence policy.

Strategic planning and governance recommendations included the development documentation and implementation of a robust asset management program and the creation of a business continuity plan.

And the final recommendation was under organization culture and communication and included the creation of a financial working group with the member governments to increase financial transparency.

The implementation plan included a prioritization and ranking of the recommendations.

As you saw on the previous slides, more than half of them are already on in progress.

All of the recommendations will be incorporated into the agency's strategic plan that Chuck mentioned earlier will be coming to the board later this summer.

And all recommendations will be implemented within the next five years.

Progress on them will be reported quarterly on the board agenda and annually as part of the strategic plan report.

And that concludes my presentation.

I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Any questions?

I'm curious.

The uh annual artificial intelligence policy review.

When do we uh start the policy for AI?

Do you have an idea?

Uh it was really just in the last couple of months.

Do you know?

It's recent.

It was this just in 2026, the beginning of 2026.

Well, it's good that we're doing it because a lot of places have even started.

Thank you.

Okay, next up we have the hurricane season.

Agency preparedness update.

We're here already.

Good morning, Chair and members of the board.

Uh, today I want to focus on the 2026 hurricane season, our preparedness, what changed, and how we're going to coordinate regionally.

Here at Tampa Bay, we use a comprehensive emergency management plan, and inside of it you'll find an incident command structure.

All hazard-specific responses.

We got plans for prolonged events, communication and coordination plans.

It's our playbook on how we deal with major disruptions, especially hurricanes.

Each year, preparation begins in February.

Planning begins with a document and readiness review, and the review includes updating all our written plans.

In March, supply is inventoried, and we create our needs list or our wish list.

And May is our training month.

This year we have the emergency management services international coming in to train the staff and to review our documents.

That will be happening this week.

Also in June, we keep our generators fuel maintained at 90% pre-storm.

And we conduct communication redundancy testing and any other final checks.

Some storm seasons results in changes needed.

We track and implement those changes through continuous improvement.

For example, since Helene and Milton, the last storm season, we improved our generator capacity.

We also connected additional support services to our partner generators to ensure our warehouse remains available.

We developed additional contingency plans to keep our well fields powered, and we enhanced our fuel contracts to give us a broader fuel supply chain.

We've updated communications redundancy, including purchase in Starlink, as you see pictured here on this slide.

And we continue to look for opportunities to move our power lines underground.

We will continue to communicate status with our partners, starting with a kickoff meeting next week.

We have a great deal of resilience built into our system.

During a weather-related activation, we leverage that resilience, planning, and preparation to adjust to conditions as needed.

We do so with the safety of the staff and the community at the core of our efforts.

All activities work towards a coordinated response, safety, and system integrity.

We work with our partners to do what we can to sustain the region and stay on mission.

Regional coordination is important to us.

Before hurricane season each year, we meet with the member governments to align our expectations, communications, and any changes from previous years.

Once we're in season, we'll continue to report our condition to the member utilities and also discuss topics like impacts to supply, water quality, or severe weather and start that coordination early.

During storms, we hold daily briefings with our members and coordinate closely with the county EOCs and the state for a broader response.

And from a public standpoint, we work to ensure messaging is consistent across the region.

The goal is shared operating picture so we can respond as one regional system.

In summary, our focus in 2026 is to maintain a reliable regional water supply, support member governments during disruptions, and deliver a coordinated resilient regional response.

We can't control the storm, but we can control how prepared we are.

That concludes my presentation.

Do you have any questions?

Thank you, Mr.

Johnson.

Any questions?

I see no questions.

June 1st.

Every year through November 30th.

Hurricane season.

Okay.

Next up, D3, South Hillsborough Pipeline and Surface Water Treatment Plant Expansion Project Construction Update.

Ms.

Medina.

Hello again.

Um agenda item D3 provides the status of construction progress for both the South Hillsboro Pipeline Project and the surface water treatment plant expansion projects.

This map illustrates our 26-mile pipeline designed to deliver up to 65 million gallons per day to the growing area in South Hillswater County.

The project includes 17 tunneling locations, which are shown in the image with orange diamonds.

And these tunneling locations are strategically planned to minimize both traffic disruptions and reduce environmental impacts during the construction phase.

The diamonds highlighted with a red circle indicate the locations where tunneling work has already been completed.

In addition to the pipeline, the overall project includes the construction of a new Alcalini adjustment facility at our regional facility site, as well as two points of connections in Hillsburg and Hillswater County infrastructure.

Tunneling is progressing really well across the project.

We have completed several major crossings, including the Kins and Bloomingdale, the CXX crossing at Limona Road, and Feach Hawk Creek.

Active work is currently underway at State Road 60, the Alafaya River, Leader Fitch Hot Creek, as well as at Parsons Avenue and Lumsden Road.

In the image, you can see our microtunneling machine, which is very known as the Crimson.

And this machine is used for the installation of our 60-inch diameter pipe.

Open cut installation accounts for about 90% of the pipeline construction.

Construction is now complete along South Kings Avenue between Bloomingdale Avenue and Green Briar Road.

And crews are continuing to advance towards Buckhorn Creek and are currently preparing for work along McMullen Road.

In parallel, crews are preparing additional areas by installing maintenance of traffic controls, trimming trees, and implementing erosion control measures.

In the image, you can see our horizontal directional drilling at leach uh literfish hock rig.

The public information team is working really hard to keep residents and business informed with frequent construction and detour updates throughout a variety of ways, as you can see on the slide.

In April, our team handle 195 stakeholder interactions, including five complaints, and public outreach and project team staff are visiting businesses, coordinating media stories and tours, and attending HOA and community meetings to present and answer questions among other things.

In addition, our construction manager at risk Garney has in his in their team community coordinators, which are stationed in the field to assist residents and businesses with a variety of needs.

And spending is aligned at 14% of the total 478.4 million construction budget.

At this stage, we have not identified that we need to address the budget and schedule, and the project is performing as suspected.

Now the surface water treatment plan uh project is designed to increase the capacity of our system by 12 and a half million gallons per day.

It includes the addition of the fifth treatment train along the supporting systems, which are labeled on the traffic A through E.

The new treatment train will meter the existing treatment processes currently in operation.

The area shown with letter A represents the fifth trade uh treatment train.

In B is where the new belt press uh filters will be in uh replacement presses will be installed.

Area C identifies the location of the three new filters, area D shows the location of new chemical buildings, and area E includes the expanded area for our solid uh drying beds.

In area A, the team has begun utility relocations and the installation of new piping.

In the belt filter press area, we have demolished the existing belt filters and started the installation of new supply lines.

And in areas C and D, we have completed the grading for the new filters and chemical buildings.

Overall, the surface water treatment plant expansion project is progressing well as well and remains on track.

Construction construction is currently at 3% complete, and spending is aligned at 12% of the total 167 million dollars construction budget.

As construction activities increases, we will continue our focus on maintaining alignment with the construction and budget and schedule, and we have not identified at this point that we have any budget impacts or schedule impacts, and again is performing as suspected.

And this concludes my presentation.

I will be happy to take any questions.

Thank you.

Any questions?

I see none.

Well, thank you, Ms.

Vanita, for your presentation.

Are there any other administrative matters role business we have to address?

Okay.

That means that we move to receive and file.

All under the motion.

Move.

Yeah, Commissioner.

Uh I'm sorry, Councilmember Miranda did the motion first, and then Mr.

Vice Chair Waitman was the second.

Board members, please enter your votes.

In the our present board members have voted.

Please tell you announced vote.

Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you.

Well, this concludes our meeting.

Uh we are off in June, which means we are back here July 20th, I believe.

So with that, um, everyone have a great June.

Um hopefully you have some good vacations and breaks so we can get back refreshed for July.

Thank you, everyone.

Meeting adjourned.