All right, good morning, everyone.

Can we ask everyone to please take their seats?

Uh today is Wednesday, July twenty second.

This is the joint meeting of utility cable telecommunication and technology, as well as public work, sanitation, and environment.

Um, can I ask that we please call the role?

Good morning, Council members.

Councilmember He is present, Councilmember Morrell present, Councilmember Willard, present, Councilmember Green's in the back, but I can see him.

Uh, Councilmember Harris present, Council Member McCarron present.

We have a quorum.

All right, thank you very much.

Uh Director Spears, agenda item number two, approval of the minutes, March eighteenth.

Uh, joint uh utilities, public works.

Um, President Morrell moves adoption of the minute, second by Vice President Willard.

Is there any objection?

Uh five years.

Six years, no nays.

All right, agenda item number three presentation, uh, Lincoln Beach from our Chief Sustainability Sustainability Officer, uh, Miss Megan Williams.

She'll provide a very quick update uh on the status of Lincoln Beach.

Don't think there's been much changes since our last meeting, but I'll turn it over to you, or Chief, rather, I'll turn it over.

Um, just to give you a lot of things.

Um, in conjunction with our design consultant renegade, our digital engineering, and our construction management at risk contractor um renegade.

So I'd like to I'm going to try and roll through this as quickly as possible, but before getting into the technical updates, I do want to uh just start with some of the guiding principles of the project.

So our three commitments to this project are uh safe to safely restore access to the beach, to be transparent about the progress, the challenges, and the timelines, and to move forward with urgency without compromising the uh the quality of safety of the beach.

We recognize that this is more than an infrastructure project, that it's a historic and cultural landmark, and we recognize the significance of opening the beach and every decision every decision that we make is focused on delivering a safe, sustainable, and lasting restoration.

So, this is what directly shapes what we're prioritizing during phase one.

Um I won't run through everything on this slide, but just to give you a quick overview of uh the elements of the infrastructure in this phase.

Uh, we're increasing access and parking improvements to the beach.

We're uh installing pedestrian safety utilities such as a bridge and including utility access through water sewer and drainage and electrical.

We'll be adding restrooms and conducting some beach and shoreline restoration and waterfront repairs on unsafe uh structures that exist on the beach, and then we'll be restoring the two historic signs on the beach as well.

Um to give you uh uh to back up a little bit on where we are and how we selected the contractor renegade because of the complex infrastructure involved in this project.

We decided to go with the CMAR route, which we got approval through the state to do.

And unlike traditional project delivery where we do design bid build, this process brings the contractor into the design process very early and allows us to evaluate the constructability, review costs throughout the design, and it allows us to identify uh value engineering opportunities and establish a guaranteed maximum price with the contractor on board.

So it improves our cost certainty, uh, reduces the risk and positions the project for a much smoother construction phase.

Uh one of the biggest things that we have uh achieved in this project is the agency coordination because of the multiple agencies involved in this.

Uh, it's been quite an effort to make sure that all agencies are on board.

We've met with Norfolk Southern, the Army Corps, DOTD, the Flood Plain Authority, uh, the Department of Conservation and Energy.

We've also met with Sewage and Water Board, NOFD, and Safety and Permits, and based on the guidance that each of these agencies have given us, we restructured the project into three construction packages.

All will still be happening under phase one.

So rather than submitting each permit simultaneously, this will allow us to break it up and advance the project much quicker through different phases of construction.

So our first project package will be the parking lot.

This is the uh easiest and most straightforward of the infrastructure.

The second will be the bridge tunnels and the utilities, and then the third will be the uh restoration of the beach and the waterfront structures.

Uh some major milestones completed.

Um we've received the 60% design package for the parking lot in April.

In May, we conducted a cost modeling workshop with the design team and the uh contractor.

Um this allowed us to refine those costs and find some significant cost savings in the first phase.

And then in at the beginning of June, we also received the 60% design package for the bridge, the utilities, and the tunnel.

Um, and then we completed some technical reviews with our city agencies as well, uh, DPW, sewage and water board, uh, city planning, and a few other and capital projects as well.

Um, and then as of uh last week or two weeks ago, I believe, we also received the 90% design package for the parking lot as well.

Uh this week we'll be conducting our cost modeling workshop to continue refining those costs as well.

Um, and these cost model uh workshops really allow us to get into the finer details of the costs and identify that value engineering like I talked about.

So we can refine this before we get to construction, um, and it it provides a lot more cost certainty than we normally see with our projects, and we'll hopefully minimize our number of change orders during the construction project.

Um again, we're managing this project very actively.

Uh we're not just waiting for the design to be complete.

We're meeting weekly internally with the design team and the contractor.

We have ongoing design review to resolve any technical issues.

Again, we've met with DPW, sewage and water board, uh, city planning, safety and permits, and a number of other agencies.

And we continue to conduct field visits as needed to resolve any project-related issues, um, and we continue to coordinate with our federal partners as well for the permits.

And then for upcoming milestones, uh, as I said, we've received the design packages for uh the 90% of the the parking lot as well as the 60% of the bridge and the utilities.

We'll be conducting the cost model workshop uh this week with the contractor and the design team.

We have met with Art Council Arts Council as well to uh start thinking about the public art that will be on the beach.

Um, and then this says July, but we are working through uh some coordination with Councilman Hughes' office for late August to conduct a community meeting to provide a uh more distinct update directly to the community, and then in early September, uh these are tentative dates.

We're looking at uh more concise update on timeline to begin construction.

But as of today, we are still on track to put the shirt the first shovel in the ground and begin the parking lot work by the end of this year.

That's everything.

Uh thank you very much.

Um couple questions, Chief.

Um there's a lot of rumors floating around, so I just want to put those to bed.

Uh one of the ugly rumors that's floating around is that uh this project is bankrupt and that money will be reallocated due to budget constraints.

Can you uh put an end to that ugly room with us?

Absolutely.

Um, all of the project budget that we have communicated over time uh consistently remains in the budget.

So we have a combination of funding from congressional funding uh for the bridge, we have bond funding, and then we also have grant funding as well.

So none of that money has moved away from the project.

Uh it remains exactly where it has been from day one, and it is available if I wanted to start construction tomorrow, or if I was able to, they could invoice me and I could pay for it tomorrow.

Thank you very much.

And so I just want to reiterate to the public and those that are here today, those funds are there and has not been reallocated, and we're gonna be keeping a keen eye to ensure uh that those funds get to where they need to be.

Um second question, just reassure the public.

Uh, we're talking about phase one.

A lot of residents just want to know when can they put their toes in the sand?

So uh give us that date.

Absolutely.

So we are looking at uh winter of 2027, fall to winter of 2027, of course, weather depending for all of the construction phases to be complete within phase one.

Uh we're this is part of why we broke that up into the separate packages so that we could advance some of the more simple infrastructure first, uh, rather than waiting, then every single thing was complete and every single permit was committed, was uh approved.

We can now advance certain stages faster than other and put shovels in the ground faster.

So again, we're looking at the end of this year to put the first shovel in the ground and complete construction by the end of next year.

Great, thank you.

So Chief, just to be clear, um, barring any like catastrophic hurricane, god forbid, we certainly don't want that.

But you know, barring some extreme weather weather event, um, we want to just be clear and explicit that uh there's no room for error here.

Um this project has to remain on schedule and all-time lot, and uh really appreciate uh you keeping it on schedule and on-time lot.

Yeah, we're doing everything we can.

That's why we're still meeting weekly.

Um issues that we may have to both your office and to the mayor, but so far we have uh knock on wood, we've been pretty smooth uh meeting with the the external agencies.

And if anything comes up as soon as we know about it, we're trying to be as proactive as possible in letting folks know that it could be a potential uh timeline delay, but so far, so far so good.

Thank you.

Well, look, I just want to thank you for your extraordinary leadership uh on this project.

Thank you for uh just the regular consistent communication with me, my chief of staff, Justin, and my entire team.

Uh I want to thank Mayor Moreno.

This is clearly a big priority for her as well and her entire administration.

And I want to thank all of my council colleagues.

I realize that this historic beach is anchored in District E, but this is gonna be a win for our entire city and our entire region.

Uh and and last but not least, but most importantly, I want to sincerely thank the residents of District E.

Uh, they have been so patient, but they deserve this.

Um I I appreciate them demanding transparency and they're gonna get that uh and we're gonna be doing another town hall meeting uh in short order.

So uh with that, uh any of my colleagues have anything, seeing none.

We do have one card, uh, Mr.

Ed Parker.

Good morning, Mr.

Parker.

Uh good morning, Consulman, our favorite councilman.

Thank you.

All right.

Uh I'm here in it uh instead of our uh community uh leader, uh Eric Jackson.

Eric had a uh little medical problem, so uh I'm here instead.

And one of the main things that we wanted to do, uh Miss Megan uh Williams is to have a sit-down with you.

Could you uh give me uh a time and a date?

We don't care when it is, as soon as possible, please, so we can talk about some of the community things that uh we have.

Yeah, we can um uh when I leave him over here, we can find some time together.

Uh calendar and find some time with you.

Thank you, thank you.

All right, thank you, Mr.

Parker.

Uh I'm gonna have Justin uh come coordinate with you and Megan to get that date locked down.

But uh Chief, thank you so much for your leadership.

Absolutely.

All right, thank you so much.

Uh next, uh ladies and gentlemen, what we're gonna do, we're gonna take some things a little bit out of order.

We're gonna take next uh item number four, item number six, and then item number seven, and then we'll take item number five last.

So four, six, and seven.

With that, President Morel in the chair.

Thank you, Chairman Hughes.

First up, we have energy's presentation on hurricane preparedness.

All right, whenever y'all are ready, you can get started.

We have your slides in front of us.

So yes, thank you.

Good morning, council members.

Sharonda Williams, Vice President of Regulatory and Public Affairs for Entergy New Orleans.

I have with me at the table today, Harry Barton, Director of Regulatory Affairs, Dan Calamari, who is our vice president of reliability, and Jessica Williams, who is our senior customer service manager.

Um Mr.

Calamari will get started, um, and then we'll have Ms.

Williams talk about um some of our customer outreach related to Hurricane Commerce.

All right, good morning, everybody.

Uh thank you for having us here this morning, and we'll talk about our storm preparation.

Uh we everything that we're talking about today, we're actually in full swing, and we started this process actually Sunday uh in preparation of uh the weather that we have coming in.

So if you can go to the next slide.

Uh at entergy, we train our employees all year long for major events.

Um we follow an incident command structure to keep us unified with a lot of the different agencies that are also uh preparing for these storms.

In May, we completed a formal uh storm drill with all of our internal employees.

Uh locally, we not only have to prepare for hurricanes, but we have tornadoes and winter storms as well that we need to be uh execute work in an expedited manner.

Uh we can assure you we're ready.

Uh year after year, we're recognizing the industry for our performance during storm restoration.

We monitor weather through a third party where we can ask them direct questions and they can provide us uh clarity on the intensity, the track, wind speeds, rainfall events that we may see.

Uh with the extreme weather, we also look to predict the damages that we will see.

We have a special database that looks at uh how the storm is forming, the intensity of the wind speed, how fast it's moving through our system, and it will give us an estimate of what type of damages we may see and also uh the resources we may need to respond and energize our system in a certain period of time.

We uh perform inspections of critical distribution lines uh that serve critical uh infrastructure, police, fire stations, hospitals, uh sewage and waterboard facilities.

We patrol all of those ahead of time and make any repairs or address any issues.

And if we storm is large enough where we feel that we need to bring in additional resources that aren't already on our system, we will make those requests through our uh our neighboring utilities to help us out.

If you go to the next slide there.

Um talk about um as we ramp up.

We uh we need to be prepared if we are hit with an extreme wind, extreme storm case that we need to be prepared to have all the logistics set up for our uh employees and contractors that may help us.

So we look to be self-sustainable in in those areas, especially the harder hit areas.

Uh we ramp up our teams uh with line workers based off of that predict model that I talked about uh a moment ago.

And then all of integrat employees have a storm role.

Uh many of these roles are different than their day-to-day jobs, and that's why we go through the training that we have to do each year.

And next slide there.

Yes.

I just had a quick question.

Why are we using 70%?

So that's that's a goal that we we have seen where we can get 70% of our customers up in this time period.

Usually the ones that take longer are in the harder hit areas and take longer to address.

Plenty of times though that part of the damage also has issues on the customer side that also prevent us from restoring them.

Like what?

Like what issues on the customer.

So if they're um and we have a slide later in the presentation talking about what part of the system is owned by the customer, such as uh a weather head coming out of the roof of a customer's uh home, if it's damaged, uh they will need to repair it before we can restore power to them.

All right, thank you.

All right, and backing up to our damage assessors, uh, so we have uh many of those internal, we also bring in contract resources to assess uh damage if we're hit with a lot of uh issues on our system.

We often do have to utilize specialized equipment such as UTVs, helicopters, airboats.

Uh our distribution system often is in back alleys or backyards, so we'll need to have access to those areas to uh accurately assess and make repairs.

It's critical that we do record all our damages accurately, and it allows us to put things back to pre-storm conditions.

If we uh do have to make repairs, we will bring those uh repairs up to our resiliency standard and modern design criteria.

As we uh go through damage assessment, we do have to be prepare these employees uh for hazards that are out there.

Uh wind speeds over 30 could slow 30 miles an hour could slow us down of doing the damage assessment for the safety of our folks.

Road closures could slow us down as well.

We do provide them with the proper PPE to make them safe as they are out scouting and um and preparing for the unknown issues that they may encounter.

And so this slide here is a sequence of how we have to restore power uh throughout the the electric grid.

Many of these steps are happening all in parallel.

Uh so we have different resources that are responsible for different parts of the system.

But in order to uh restore all of our customers, we have to have generation in the area.

So we uh we we uh assess those generation plants, we get them online.

The transmission system has to be uh uh be able to take this power to move it into our communities.

Uh once it moves into our communities, that's when it's serving the different substations and the feeders uh out into our neighborhoods.

As we look to make restoration efforts, uh as mentioned earlier, we look at those critical infrastructure items such as hospitals, sewage and water board, uh police stations, then we move into restoring the larger number of customers that we can at a time in a neighborhood, and then those harder hit areas may take longer uh to get those customers on, and many of the times they also may need uh some work on their own side of the meter.

And if we go to the next slide, just to talk through some of the items that are owned by the customer and some that are owned by integers.

So the actual service line coming into the home and uh the actual meter itself, that's that part is owned by integers and if there's damage there, we'll be out there to make those repairs.

But if the conduit, the stack, uh the ring, the weather head that's coming through the roof.

If those things are damaged, those are owned by the homeowner, and they'll need to make those repairs before we could safely restore power.

Uh sometimes that work does require permits or inspections.

Uh so it's important for uh those customers that have qualified electricians to make those repairs.

And as we move into the next step, I'll turn it over to uh Harry Barton, director of regulatory affairs to talk about some of the resiliency work we've had.

Thank you, Dan, and thank you, council members, for the opportunity to speak with you today.

Um just a quick update on the resilience phase one efforts.

Um sitting here today, we've completed 14 of the 32 resilience projects across the city with seven currently under construction.

All 32 are scheduled to be completed before the end of the year.

Um, as Tropical Storm Arthur demonstrated, uh the resilience work is very important, and we have to continue this work with uh phase two of the implementation plan.

As a result of the tropical storm author damage, uh we place 12 poles, eight transformers, and 21 crossarms.

None of the structures that we had to replace were structures that were uh touched by the resilience work.

But all of the structures that we did replace were upgraded to equipment that meet the new resilience standards, including um the 140 mile per hour wind ratings.

We had no damage to our transmission system during author, and all of our customers were store were restored during the same day.

We did have a lesson learned during author.

Um we need to do a better job of ensuring the success of our customers in that they understand that they're gonna need their own electrical engineering experts and consultants to determine whether their equipment is properly configured based on our power quality standards, particularly when those customers provide a critical service like draining and pumpage.

We want to ensure the success of those customers and that the services they provide are adequately rendered.

So we will more proactively communicate with customers about those issues going forward.

Let me ask a question, please on these resiliency poles, and uh admittingly uh this regulatory role is new to me, so I'm I'm still learning a lot.

But I know we've had some preliminary conversations.

Um my interest is around lighting.

Lightning.

Um may be resilient to wind, but we're still seeing these quote unquote resiliency poles, the the equipment being struck by lightning.

So how are we going to make the equipment more resilient to lightning?

Because in the last couple months alone, we've seen quite a few um resiliency poles struck by lightning, causing widespread power outages.

I will let Dan, I know that we were out in your district 50 um, council member looking at some of that um lightning impact on some of the polls, but I'll let um Dan Callinari address that.

Sure.

So part of the resiliency program is to increase the wind capacity that a pole can handle.

Our standards also in the type of insulators we use, grounding material, um, we also protect us from lightning.

And we we design towards what they call basic insulation level, which uh we have a certain value that our design criteria meets, and that will improve us performance during a lightning storm.

There will be times where a lightning strike will be direct, so large that it could cause a failure.

Um not every rainstorm we have massive failures and and widespread outages, but if there is a direct lightning strike, there could be possibility that we could have damage and that we'll have to make a repair.

All right, let's just keep in mind from the consumer standpoint, and I hear you.

But you know, um I'm gonna start with my constituents in Venetian Isles.

Um that stretch was a resiliency project, but now in the last month of long alone, one storm author, and subsequently, they have now faced two lightning situations where they have lost power.

And uh New Orleans East along the Hain Corridor, uh another example of resiliency investment.

Um, you know, they have had lightning into that.

So we're gonna have to kind of dig a little deeper and figure out how we can make this equipment um you know more resilient to the lightning, because unfortunately the lightning doesn't seem to be gone anywhere anytime.

So yes, sir.

And Councilman, I would simply add, and um I know you've reviewed the resolution we have prepared today.

There is also a bit of confusion around how often the term lightning is used because we have many fair weather outages where you have a reliability equipment failure of lightning-related equipment, but the failure of the equipment isn't because of lightning, it's because it wasn't replaced timely.

So there's some there's some wig warm around there, but we're gonna get to the bottom of that in a separate resolution.

I just want to make sure that sometimes when you get lightning, it's not always light.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council members.

I'll turn it over to Jessica Williams uh from Customer Service to present on our customer communications plan for storms.

Hey, good morning.

I did want to add for the critical uh infrastructure, we do have nursing homes listed as well for priority.

Yeah.

So I just wanted to share that.

Um so to highlight our proactive communication strategy with managed accounts, critical customers, and community organizations.

I'll go through our customer uh communication slides.

So pre-hurricane season check-in, we begin outreach early to identify customers with special needs and critical facilities.

Um we can suck property inspections for potential power outage issues.

Um we encourage customers to to review for leaning polls, low wires, or vegetation concerns, and notify us of those.

72 hours before landfall, we can contact the customer and review their plans and any operational changes that they may have.

Twenty-four hours before landfall, we verify communication lines are open, and we assure customers that enter the New Orleans is ready to respond.

Twenty-four hours after landfall, we provide damage assessment updates and restoration progress, and then we provide restoration um timelines as those become available.

So next slide.

Okay.

So during the storm, there are ways that you can that customers can receive information during the event.

They can sign up for text messages, email updates, and visit our storm site.

They can also follow us on social media and check our outage map.

We will coordinate damage assessment timelines and estimated restoration times for storm through the city's NOLA ready site.

That's something we implemented last year, and it worked really well for customers.

And we will also note that this information is um on our website and we circulate with social media posts.

That's the next slide.

All right, so for our post-storm communications, um, we coordinated our critical customer list with the city, and we've also they've also provided us a list of senior leave-in facilities.

So once we get all of our critical customers restored, we do then focus on the senior living.

And we all will keep you updated on on all of that.

Um then the initial storm communications with the council will be through our district outage text as normal, and then after the storm has passed, um, we then will provide the initial updates on damage assessment and the restoration process.

Customer service will be embedded in the respective networks to make sure that we are getting real-time updates and the most accurate information for reporting to you all.

We will also staff the city's EOC throughout any storm events.

And this is the generator uh readiness program that we've implemented a few years back.

Um SEM will reach out to me and let me know which of these sites will be um the cooling centers, and once they give that information to me, we do also um reference that as a critical customer.

So if they do lose power, we can get them back on quickly.

We are at the end of our presentation, council members, unless there are any other questions.

I don't see oh any questions pending currently.

Can you explain what happened uh with the underground fire during the French uh in the French quarter doing during Essence Fest and what steps are being taken to prevent that from happening again?

And did you guys want us to cover that now during this presentation or during the state?

So council member king on the agenda item number six, they're gonna specifically present on the French Quadrify.

Okay, well, uh uh I'll I'll be ready for that.

We figured tonight.

All right.

Council members, there is one online comment.

But we can add it to the record if that's a preference.

Uh Councilmember Willard question.

Uh out of curiosity, I just wanted to know what enter G's rate of return on storm recovery costs was sitting here today.

I don't know that.

We can take an action item to follow up with you.

Is that something that y'all can send over?

Yes, sir.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, we could since we only have one online comment, why don't we just read that one for the record?

The comment is from Eva Washington.

She goes, My professional relationship with entergy is the utmost is with utmost respect.

I feel they have always tended to the needs of our community concerned about how they can help and serve others providing a payment center in the East for those who may need it, giving school supplies to our kids, supporting New Orleans East Festival, showing up where needed, and more.

Thank you, entergy, especially Amy and Jamal.

Thank you.

All right.

Next time we go to I believe you want to go to number six, Max.

Okay.

We're going to go to six, which will be electric system distributed viability presentation.

And for sewage and water board, you all will make your hurricane preparing this presentation at the same time.

You do the other one if that's okay.

Thank you.

All of your numbers that kind of work here.

I'm sorry.

I didn't have your baby.

All right, thank you.

Um obviously the French quarter and both Kenilworth and Kenneth have been front and center.

So, madam CEO and your team will defer to you.

Thank you.

Um thank you everyone for inviting us back.

I'm Deanna Rodriguez, President and CEO of Entergy New Orleans.

Um, and we have reset the table.

I have Jessica Williams, Courtney Nicholson, Dan Calamari, and our Vice President of Regulatory and Public Affairs, Sharonda Williams.

Um I want to tell you that we are here today for a few reasons, and one is to give you an update on where we were historically at the last meeting.

And uh we are going to present on the French Quarter in District and District D and particularly the North Kennelworth area.

And certainly we've learned a lot of lessons over the past few weeks.

Uh residents in the North Kentilworth neighborhood have endured too many outages.

We discussed those the last time we were here.

We know that, and we are sorry.

I've spent a lot of personal time out there as well, and I want to thank uh the customers for allowing us to make the reliability improvements and filling their neighborhood with a number of crews that we brought from uh Texas, Arkansas, and Mississippi.

We're implementing some improvements and how we keep you updated as well to ensure you and the public are fully aware and timely advised on these issues.

Uh we all care deeply about getting this right for our customers, and we will.

And I'm gonna turn it back over to Sharonda and Dan and Jessica to give you specific details about our work plan and our schedule.

Thank you.

Uh thank you again, Council members.

Um we um, as Ms.

Roger you guys just said, are working hard to make repairs, and we look forward to continuing to work with the council to determine how to make smart measured investments in our infrastructure while we ensure affordability for our customers.

We'll get started right where um Councilmember King left off and have Dan Calamari discuss our reliability work in the French Quarter, um and Jessica Williams will discuss our engagement with customers as we've done work both in the quarter and in New Orleans East.

Turn it over to Dan.

So if you can go to the next slide.

There.

All right.

So on the slide here uh before you, we got a detailed timeline of the French quarter insulant in our the way we responded, but rather than walking through the timeline, uh we wanted to focus some of our remarks on some top questions that we thought our public may have about this event.

And the first question that that we feel is did we miss any warning signs?

And this is a big question that we're looking in in ourselves in this event as well.

And we perform inspections and execute work in these underground vaults throughout the French quarter and CBD every single day.

None of those inspections suggested that we have risk like we saw here.

This part of the grid is maintained by entergy employees that are specially trained to execute work in this unique underground system.

Uh that is throughout the CBD and the French quarter area.

We are continuously inspecting these vaults.

Uh we do two end-to-end inspections of every vault throughout the CBD and the French quarter area every single year.

At the all heavy rain events, we uh inspect the vaults to make sure any water that has gotten into those vaults that they're being pumped out through our drainage system that we have uh that that that drains those vaults.

In the French Quarter CBD, there's not a lot of grass.

As water comes off of roofs down city streets, they will go into the gratings that are over the top of our vaults, and a lot of that storm runoff goes into those vaults.

So we have pumping systems that tie the drainage systems to evacuate that water quickly.

We are also throughout the year, we're inspecting the electrical components inside of these vaults.

We perform and simulate tests to ensure that our equipment will work properly as the system operates.

Looking at a another situation, so as we think about all these inspections, the work that we're doing, you know, uh what why did this happen here?

And because of the fire significantly damaging the equipment, we're unable to determine specifically the cause of the issue in that area.

And then you know, the next one is what should our customers expect.

And we believe our system is safe.

Uh we do not see a similar issue across other equipment.

We continue to inspect and work in these vaults.

We have a continuous replacement program for our transformers in these vaults.

We're also constantly testing our systems with other equipment beyond just transformers that we have.

As we install new transformers, we are incorporating new technology that will have a monitoring system of the internal components of that transformer and other conditions that are going on in the vault.

So currently to know that our pumping system is working, we have to actually go to each vault and see that the water is residing inside those pits.

This new technology that will be incorporating on new transformers will give us real-time indication that our pumps are working.

It will also give us internal uh attributes of oil in our transformers, what's the tent temperature, what's the pressure, what's the levels to give us some predictive information there.

Quick question.

Hang on one second, Councilmember Willard.

I think Councilmember King had some questions.

You good?

All right, Vice President Wellard is recognized.

So you guys are already replacing some of the transformers in the French quarter, right?

Where when you were and you had already done some before the July 4th event, right?

Yes.

Were those installed with this new monitoring technology?

So the new monitoring technology, we uh last year we were working with a number of different uh vendors to get a proof of concept, and we have uh got to that point now, and our new equipment is being ordered with the capability of installing this, and now future installs will have this equipment uh installed and monitoring system.

We have a handful of vaults already with them, and as we move forward with our transformer replacement, this will continue to be installed with those.

So some of the ones that you installed in the French quarter did not have this new monitoring technology?

Yes, because we uh we did not have we we worked with a couple of different vendors, and the last vendor is the one that has proved to be able to give us the right information and the right equipment that fits in these vaults.

So are you gonna go back and put this monitoring technology on the ones you already installed?

New installations.

Yes, alright.

Um we were gonna first keep as we install new ones, those are the ones that we're gonna prioritize first.

Once we get through that, we'll we'll start to look at the ones uh that may have been installed in the past.

Okay, and it was always your plan to equip the new transformers with this monitoring technology.

Yes.

So we have uh the the orders of transformers, we have ordered them with the capability, we just need to find the right technology to give us the right monitoring back.

Thank you.

And this is new technology, so this is something that did not exist years and years ago.

Yes.

And so, you know, the French Quarter, it's it's one of our areas that make our cities uh unique, right?

And this is this also brings a unique critical infrastructure.

So, you know, we we have to have everything on the ground, we have to have a lot of redundancy, and that's what this grid offers uh in the French Quarter and the CBD.

We have dedicated resources.

This is what they work on every single day.

Um it's it's unique in the technology that they have, the skill set that you need, so these folks are very proficient in what they do.

Uh our responsibility is to continuously reduce likelihood of these events, impact that that has on our customers.

We're continuing to drive quality inspections, a maintenance program, equipment replacing and ongoing investments, as I mentioned about the new technology.

We are we uh we are constantly looking um through different committees and uh industry leaders on what other uh equipment that they use as well, and we converse back and forth with a number of different industries on uh what would how we can improve this system.

And I'd like to turn it over to Jessica Williams here, senior manager of customer service to discuss how we kept our customers engaged throughout this event as well.

Um, hi again.

So for the uh communication for this um the French Quarter incident, we decided to have a boots on the ground approach.

And so, first Lauren Owens, our district C customer manager arrived on the scene immediately once we learned what was going on, and she met with um NOPD and NOFD and worked with them on the next steps for our crews.

Um, with that information, she engaged with customers, including the hotels in the area with real-time updates.

And once it was safe for our crews to start work, we ensured we got customers back on as safely and quickly as possible, and our crews work 24-7-hour shifts.

Um we drafted a timeline for the council members to share with constituents if they ask they were asked questions.

So I hope that was that was helpful.

And um, as we wrap up the work in the French Quarter, we do plan to circulate a message to customers that were directly impacted by an outage, and we'll include an educational video on underground vaults, transformers, and the equipment that are inside those vaults.

And that's all I have for the communication piece.

Unless there are any questions about the French Quarter um work, we would move to the North Kennel work.

Council Lover King is a question, just uh just a comment.

Um Ms.

Owens, Miss Um Williams, thank you.

Y'all y'all were on it and kept lots of communication open, and myself and the businesses and residents of the French quarter appreciate that.

So thank you to everyone.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

We'll move now to our work in North Kennelworth.

All right.

So I'll I'll I'll talk about the second topic here and and how we responded to our customers' concerns by accelerating the reliability improvement plan in North Kentalworth.

Um we're here to make the power service stronger, more dependable.

Um we started to see an uptick in the activity here.

Uh we we rolled into uh end-to-end inspection of that underground system there, inspecting 80 transformer vaults, uh submersible um areas along that neighborhood.

We utilize thermo cameras uh to help uh identify and lead to us addressing the media concerns.

Uh we also replaced a similar we identified and then led to replacing a similar connection issue that we were having on all the existing cable while the longer term plan was being executed.

Uh on July 12th, um, since July 12th, we've made a tremendous amount of work in the neighborhood.

Uh we mobilized over a hundred resources as mentioned earlier across different um states uh uh entity uh area to come help execute this work.

Um in parallel, we had identified a short-term plan addressing uh these connections that on our existing cable, and then also execute in a longer-term plan replacing uh all of the underground cable in that neighborhood.

We had to install uh 30,000 feet of continuous conduit uh to install the new cable.

And the existing cable was direct embed uh where basically a trench was dug uh initially, cable was laid in there, so you weren't able to just easily replace the existing cable.

So we installed 30,000 feet of conduit uh and also new underground cable.

We utilize specialized equipment to provide to minimize the impact to uh lawns and and grass area in this neighborhood.

Uh we did have to install small holes uh in each of the different work areas along the road.

The new cable being in this conduit is going to be protected, the new cable is better insulated.

Uh the conduit uh allows us some protection from accidental damage to the cable and the new connections that we're using seal tighter and prevent water intrusion.

Uh we have energized uh all the new cable on the west side of Crowder, and we have already started to backfill those holes lay side uh to make the uh the area um back to its original condition.

We've shifted the majority of those crews to the east side of Crowder.

Um, but in total, that project now is about 94% complete.

We're still working through some planned outages with different customers in that area.

We're gonna work directly with them uh to to accommodate the outages there.

It's not only important for us to have power service as strong and reliable, but we want customers to understand why we were out there as well.

And I'm gonna turn it over to Jessica to talk through a lot of our stakeholder engagement so we can answer questions with our customers uh immediately.

Before we get to stakeholder engagement, if you don't mind, let me let me chime in.

Um first of all, thank you all for being here.

Let me let me put a couple things to to bed uh as I begin my remarks, right?

Um this notion that um I am anti-entergy, it's just not true.

So let me first put that to bed.

Okay.

Uh I have said as a consumer, as a resident, as a state legislator, and now as a city council person, um, that I recognize the tremendous value of the entergy corporation and its subsidiaries, and the fact that it's headquartered in this great city of New Orleans.

That's not lost on me.

So let me, you know, for anyone that's saying, you know, we thought he was a friend, and all the other great things that are being said about me, I just want to put that to bed.

I have great uh respect for entergy.

With that said, as uh the public utility, entergy has an obligation to provide reliable power to its customers, and I as a regulator have a responsibility as well.

And so we shouldn't conflate that me doing my job as a regulator and as the city council person uh for being anti-entergy.

So I hope you you all can carry that back to uh entergy and I hope we can clear up that narrative.

I'm gonna remain calm, but I think it's I think it's a little bit in fact.

I think it's a lot disingenuous to say that entergy saw an uptick and decided to spring into action.

I think that's very unfair.

And you all can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's when Hurricane Hughes touched down that entergy decided to go into response mode.

Okay.

So it was said, you know, when this presentation commenced, quote, did we miss any warning signs?

I'm gonna ask a different question.

Did Entergy ignore its own data?

You all see the power outages.

You all send us data.

I hear directly from the constituents.

We have seen a pattern of outages in North Kenneth and Kenneth, but particularly in North Kettleworth on a weekly basis, and there has been times when the North Kelleworth neighborhood have had three outages in one day.

Again, when Hurricane Hughes touched down, then entergy decided to respond.

So I would like to know.

Did Entergy ignore its own data?

Why didn't Entergy address this?

Because these outages didn't just start in July.

So did Entergy ignore its own data.

And why didn't Entergy respond to this sooner?

Why didn't Entergy spring into action?

Because the response we can go back and roll the tape from the last joint meeting.

The response I got, well, council member, this is complex.

I get it.

But but madam CEO, as you've seen, right?

The great residents that live in that neighborhood.

The first thing you'll notice, the majority of them are elderly.

They're senior citizens.

Perhaps you met the lady who's living with ALS.

Perhaps she met the family of the gentleman on Le Monde who died of cancer.

Perhaps you met the number of residents on Aberdeen who are cancer survivors in remission but still taking their maintenance medicine just to stay alive.

And I can go on and on and on and on.

The point I'm making when they're sitting in a hot home when they don't have the energy to power their oxygen.

Is that humane in a first world country?

So I know people have said, you know, when I got loud and when I got vocal that Hughes just went crazy.

Well, they're fighting for my constituents, uplifting the voices of my people mean that I have gone crazy.

Then maybe we all need to go just a little bit crazy.

So with that, I'll go back to my initial question.

Did you all ignore your own data?

We did uh thank you.

We did not ignore our data.

I I think that the less well, I know that the lesson learned in this is the way we've managed outages before is usually on larger outages, and we have been very equipment-based focused.

So if we have equipment that's damaged that impacts a number of of residents, 400, 500, 1,000, that is caught faster.

Going forward, and certainly a lesson learned in this, is it's the onesie twosies or the 20 people that are impacted multiple times, which occurred in this neighborhood.

And uh we apologize again for for catching it, but perhaps putting it into a plan that was gonna take too long.

And there and when we refer to an uptick, it immediately went, it wasn't just one or two, it was few over and over again, which is exactly your point, and is not acceptable.

So going forward, what we've challenged ourselves to do is do it in reverse.

Instead of looking at it from an equipment-based fix, and and there are reasons we do that, council member, because of affordability too.

But it's also looking from a customer base and seeing we you know you said exactly right, we have the information, and how are we going from the bottom of the funnel up rather from the top of the funnel down?

So this is a perfect example.

Sadly, an example that we will utilize, you know, it's a it's sad that we had to find out this way, but better that we know now and going forward that this will be addressed very differently.

Thank you, madam CEO.

I appreciate that.

And um, you know, as as we move forward, um, you know, my ask is going to be um, you know, and and you've acknowledged the lessons learned.

Certainly I learned lessons every day.

Um, you know, but but sometimes in our, you know, we have to take, I know oftentimes I have to take my political hat off, I have to take my policy hat off.

Um sometimes in the corporate world we have to take our corporate hats off.

Sometimes as attorneys, we have to take our our legal hats off.

And sometimes we all just have to step back and just be guided by humanity, right?

Um and then this city in a first world country.

Just reliable power.

That that's what our residents deserve.

So uh thank you.

Thank you.

I think Jessica had some uh I do, thank you.

I did want to say for the outages that we're doing, where we're um we're doing our emergency outages, we are aware that it's elderly and there are a lot of people with health issues in that neighborhood, so we are knocking on doors to kind of work with the customer to ensure that they can take the outage.

We actually had one customer who had oxygen and asked us to postpone the outage until the next day.

So we are working with customers and we'll continue to do that.

Um so for our communication that we've done, um, we've immediately we immediately dropped door hangers in the North Kenneworth neighborhood with details around the project to let the residents know that we are going to be out there and they're gonna see lots of crews.

On that communication, we added a dedicated hotline for residents to get answers to their concerns uh in real time.

And so as of this morning, we've only received nine calls on that hotline, and I personally get the email when a voicemail is left, and we we um dispatch Amy out there to handle those concerns.

Um we've created a website that includes what we are doing, why we are doing it, and the timeline and progress where the work is happening in the in the neighborhood.

To inform the North Kennelworth residents of the web page, we've circulated texts and emails with updates that include the link to that to that website.

Additional communication around property access and digging on personal property has also been put out in the community, and that also includes the hotline number in case customers have questions for us.

And parallel with this communication, customer service as well as our leadership has been in the field and met with customers.

And once that work is complete, we'll communicate with the residents again by closing the loop on the project and letting them know that we are we're gonna be out of there.

Um I also wanted to let customers know that um we they will still have direct access to customer service.

We are gonna keep that hotline live for a few weeks after the project is wrapped up in case anyone has any questions or you know, any concerns.

Um and then just to continue effective communication, I'd like to take this time just to remind customers to update their information on my entergy um with their email and their phone number just so they can get updates as we push them out.

That's all I have.

Well, thank you.

Um in that spirit, uh I would be remiss uh in closing if I did not acknowledge the extraordinary orculean effort of the linemen that are out there each and every day under brutal heat.

Um I've seen them in the rain.

Um and we owe them a depth of gratitude.

So, madam CEO, please extend the thanks of myself and this entire council and my residents call me on a daily basis and are just so thankful that that they are out there.

And um when my residents offer them a bottle of water, just tell them to take it because it and they they they want to make sure they're okay.

Um Jessica, uh I would be remiss.

Um you know, one night you literally left the hospital to go tend to my residents.

Uh that's the epitome of humanity.

So I thank you.

Uh and Madam CEO, regardless of how we got here.

I'm glad we're moving forward.

I'm glad we're getting this done.

And um uh I look forward to us implementing the lessons that we've learned uh from the situation.

So thank you all.

I appreciate it.

Any questions from the daists?

Yes, I do have a councilmember green is recognized.

I just wanted to guess emphasize what Councilman Hughes said at the end um that I also appreciate, especially the work of those who respond to those outages.

Just two nights ago in the middle of the heat, um, there were there was a crew of five vehicles on press drive in Punch of Train Park.

Not too long before that, there was a response on Allen Tucson, an immediate response was brought out multiple vehicles, and we do want them to know that we recognize going near power lines is dangerous.

If it's raining, for example, and you have to wait and then you have to go back up to work, that's dangerous.

We do appreciate their work.

It's work that kind of goes unsung many times.

So between the linemen and the sewage and waterboard crews that really keep the utilities floating in our city, it's just important to recognize that we do appreciate their work in the midst of whatever might be the controversy, whatever might be what seems to be contention between the council and the providers, that there are people out there who are working and they're working every day in dangerous situations in heat, in wind, and we do appreciate their work.

Please pass that message on to them.

We will thank you for that recognition.

Our lawnmen love their job.

They look at it as a service to our community, so uh we'll definitely pass that along.

Thank you.

And and I agree with that.

Uh uh I can tell this is not just a job for those linemen.

Um it's the epitome of public service.

Um with that, we have one card, uh, William Stout.

Uh good afternoon, or good morning, council.

My name is William Stouting, the executive director of Rebuilding Together in New Orleans.

I'm here to speak in support of Entergy.

Uh specifically the investment that they have made over the last 10 years in the communities that we work.

So we're one of the only nonprofits that makes critical home repairs for low-income homeowners.

And we are actually the only one that is accepting applications right now.

And so without support of companies like Entergy that make critical home repairs and investing in the efficiency in the homes that we're working, we could not accomplish the task that we're doing.

And so there are not a lot of companies in New Orleans that are making the substantial investment in the work that we do every day, and it takes their volunteers coming out in the summer.

It takes them supporting us after the 20th anniversary of Katrina.

It takes their investment after the tornadoes in 2017 when we didn't even work in New Orleans East until Entergy made a grant so that we could help those homeowners.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

All right.

Umgy, hang tight for me.

I'm gonna ask you all um to clear the table.

We're gonna come back to the resolution.

We have a lot of moving parts going up here this morning.

So Councilmember, there was one online comment while we're doing the little switch of roof.

Okay.

I will like to take a moment to recognize and thank Entergy for being an outstanding community partner to Einstein Charter Schools.

Their commitment extends far beyond providing utility service.

They have consistently invested in our students and families through their generous support of a number of our school and community events.

Enter G has continually continually demonstrated what it means to be a true partner in education.

These collaborations have made a positive impact on our families, and we are truly grateful for entergy's continued investment in the success of our student.

Thank you very much.

All right, so sewage and water board um will bring you up next.

All right.

So with sewage and water board, I know you have a combination of presentations.

Um of them sort of overlap um hurricane preparedness with uh some of our recent weather events.

Uh councilmember McCarron, I know you have some questions.

Would you rather lead off what your questions or would you rather go into the presentation?

I think it might be helpful if you just lead off what your questions are.

All right.

Councilmember McCarn is recognized.

Okay, so for DPS 7, um, first of all, uh thank you for having me to DPS 7 uh to check out how things work.

Um and that that's obviously the first step I think that I will take on on the tour of multiple.

Um but I do want to say, you know, I went to the station and during the tour, I discovered this is quite a process to turn on these these pumps.

And it requires operators that are highly trained, that have the ability to stay calm when operating these pumps because in in s emergency situations like we saw on on July 11th, um, and and what you have as far as in your your slide about this, that this person maybe was getting frustrated and then was not able to operate these pumps.

So can you guys kind of talk a little bit about what kind of training do these operators go through and what training did this person go through before and after this event?

And then is this person still working at DPS 7 and how are you managing that?

Sure.

Good morning.

Um thank you for having us and thank you for your questions.

Um, as yes, as noted here on the slide, there were several contributing factors to the events that occurred that day.

Uh ultimately around uh delayed start to pumping, which led to frustration and some communication uh delays or I'm sorry, communication issues that led to just further delays, right?

So that's that's certainly not the situation that that we expect to see um of our of our operator staff.

So in terms of uh the the training program that one undergoes, uh a person will start in an entry-level position, they will work at a work at a station, maybe multiple different stations, and then they will go through an internal operator training, uh, which is uh in an office environment, and then they are assigned to a station to be working through that uh with someone who can mentor them throughout that process.

And uh when our team feels that they are ready, then they are able to be promoted into an operator position.

And how many operators do you have total?

We have so each um of the manned stations uh would have four main four primary operators.

Uh there's three ships in each day, and then where we have rotating shifts, so there are four primary operators at the stations that are manned.

Okay, so how many is that total?

Uh I'm sorry, I don't have the number.

So that's around 40 to 50.

Okay.

And what's the average number of years of experience for these operators?

That's that's a good question.

I will definitely get back with you on that.

Yeah, I mean, part of the reason I'm asking about this, and I think we've discussed it as well, is because we we cannot survive without the pipe, the pumps at this point.

So if you guys don't have a robust program of workforce development pipeline for people, including some kind of apprenticeship program, then how are we gonna continue to have enough employees and staff and supervisors that have enough experience to operate these complicated pumps and and employees that have the ability to be in a situation where it's under under pressure?

I mean, not everybody's meant for a job like that.

Um so what are you what are you doing as far as workforce development for these these pump operators?

No, thank you for that question.

Uh it can be a challenge to find individuals who do want to work in these environments.

Uh it is difficult, challenging work.

Um, you know, often people are staying uh, you know, obviously they're staying through storm events, they're they're working in challenging conditions.

So uh we do bring people in an entry level and and trying to set those expectations for them early.

This this is these are the challenges of the job.

Um, and many me and most people do rise to that.

Some decide that this is not for me.

Uh in terms of a pipeline, I I think that's where we you know would love to explore some additional partnerships with with workforce development.

We have some uh partnerships with with several already and would love to continue exploring that because that is that is a challenge that we see as uh many operators are you know nearing the the more experienced of supervisors are are nearing retirement, and we we need to make sure that we are building that.

So I think there's opportunity for us to do that.

I was gonna add that we do have an aging workforce in utilities across the country, right?

And there were times they would say that in five years, 50% of the people who are at the higher levels will retire.

And there is a need for a pipeline.

Now, what I've seen in other cities is that we were able to work with trade schools in the community that were able to assist us in preparing people in Philadelphia.

They started a college to train people to work for city government, and I was going to ask them to also include the sewage and water board sewage and water industry.

And so we have to find a way to attract younger people and to develop that pipeline.

We're going to work aggressively towards that.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's that's vital to the survival of the city and sewage and water board at this point.

So, you know, I would encourage whatever partnerships you need us to help with on that.

We are certainly welcome to do that.

I also I don't know what the pay range is for this, but that might be something that you guys need to look at as far as a pay study with um your civil service because these jobs I'm assuming are not very high paying, and they probably should be high paying because it's a high pressure operation.

So I would really expect you guys to look at the the pay grade of this this type of this operator.

And we will and we asked for support in the and we are already talking to different groups that can help us develop pipeline from different uh universities and trade schools.

Okay.

Whether were there any disciplinary actions involved for this event?

Not yet.

We're still continuing the investigation.

Once we've complete the investigation, we'll make a determination on that.

Okay, how much longer is the investigation gonna last?

I assume it'd be in the next week and a half.

Okay.

Is this operator still working at the pump station?

They are still presently assigned, but uh we do have additional staff uh when they are working for some and that's part of the retraining on the on the procedures.

Okay, and so this person was retrained how many times to go over like what happened and making sure that they're prepared for if there's weather today.

Correct.

Uh it's an ongoing training process.

Uh, one of the things that we did uh very quickly was to uh kind of simplify the the instructions that we had available to staff and and make those uh you know more clearer in terms of having a visual cue if there were to be um you know any any confusion, right?

Adding some additional visual cues uh and and retraining on that has been completed.

It's been really been an ongoing uh since that since that day.

Okay, one of the other things that I requested from you guys um over the weekend in preparation for this, sorry, was um you guys sent us a staffing report, but also I talked about the drainage crews.

So I I want to talk about that because you know you said that you guys were focusing on recent 311 tickets for catch basin cleaning after the most recent event in order to prepare for this one.

Um and the most recent report from 311 indicates 72 tickets for catch basin issues were open last week, but zero drainage related tickets have been closed in the past seven weeks, and it's a high concentration reported catch basin issues in areas that flooded during Arthur.

Can you guys provide an update as to what catch basins have been cleaned by sewage and water board and what your current approach is to addressing these hot spot issues?

Sure, we'll have to look into the issue of the tickets not being closed.

I know there's a couple different systems that we're working in with the 311 and then the city's cartograph program, and uh there's some uh moving of data around there, so we certainly want to make sure that you know when we are doing work and want to make sure that gets reflected properly.

So thank you for that feedback, and we'll we'll look into that.

Uh so immediately the next day after uh July 11th, so on July 12th, we had our teams out cleaning catch basins along Claiborne Avenue in particular.

Those were um some areas uh also in the the Claybourne and Carrollton intersection was significantly flooded, and uh they were also out in some areas of Lakeview, uh areas that you had flagged.

Uh one of those areas is part of a uh current uh JRR project, so I think there's multiple contributing factors there going on with ongoing construction, um, but they were gonna go check that out um again this week prior to that.

But that was kind of the general consensus.

And then the last several days, uh, they have been focusing on the mid-city area because there was certainly a lot of flooding there, so wanted to make sure that any you know debris that was caught in there was was clean.

I don't have this specific number, but we'll definitely get that.

Um as far as the the contractor work, they had recently uh started working uh on Ottawa Street near Tulane where we had the water main break earlier this year to uh and there was a lot of sediment from that break, and so wanted to make sure that everything is clear there as well.

Okay.

I want to go back to one more question about the pumps that I had.

Um I know when we were there, you said that the canal levels, that's how you base off of when you're gonna turn the pumps on.

And this is by someone looking out the window at the canal, correct?

Uh correct, and there's also a uh a level is also a uh gauge that you can read.

Okay, so is there some kind of like alert system that you can have?

I know I think Jefferson Parish has something in their canal where it sends up a signal or something that isn't someone looking out the window or looking at a certain gauge to make it a little bit easier and less human error of, hey, I think we need to turn this on now.

Sure, I think that's a it's a great suggestion to look at.

Uh, you know, there is it's each station is going to be unique, but not in the way that you know you're you're looking at it, you're monitoring the station, and that is the operator's job is to be aware of everything that's going on at their station, particularly when there's rain, they're supposed to be looking for that.

And um, you know, we also do notifications to all the stations, hey, we're it's we're seeing rain come in, please be prepared.

And so, you know, I can't speak to exactly you know, what was the mindset at that moment, but um, in general, the we they they should have started pumping sooner.

Yeah, and and I know that station is a is a flow through from the other stations.

So I guess you know, we talked about how the operators at the other stations can communicate with DPS 7, but then sometimes there's a breakdown, so or at least somebody can't contact the other person because they're working on something else.

So, how can you work to improve that line of communication between the operators to ensure that everything downstream is being turned on at the appropriate moment to that way the whole system flows?

Yeah, they are they are in regular communication, but as you said, sometimes you're you're busy doing other, you know, busy operating the pumps, right?

And then multiple people are doing work.

So uh that's a that's a great suggestion for us to take a look at.

Yeah, I mean, even if it's a matter of that you have another employee that's there responsible just for communication between the stations, while so that way the operators can do their job and just focus on that, so they don't have to worry about anything else, you know, on our on their radio, someone saying, like, hey, you got to turn this thing on.

I think that's I would encourage if you can have that someone else doing the communication so that way it takes that responsibility out of the pump operator, and that way they only have to focus on operating and turning on those pumps.

And that's good good suggestion.

We're looking at increasing staffing.

Some of the areas that we have.

We had had two, a day like today, that's the important storm day.

They'll have three to four.

So you're right.

If we can increase people that can help lessen the low, the better.

Can you briefly talk about?

I know Pritchard station is one that is not manned typically, and I appreciate that during this this storm.

You have have put people at um uh multiple stations that are on manned, some in in that area, and then some New Orleans East stations.

But can you talk about what happened there?

I know those are two automatic pumps, both of them turned on, and then at some point one of them turned off.

What what happened there and how soon did you get the pumps turned on?

How were you able to get a employee over there?

Yeah, so as you said, uh there's two automatic spumps at that station.

They both turned on based on a level indicator.

Uh so each station would have a level at which point pumps need to come on.

Uh and one went offline at 15 minutes later, so at 1.30.

Uh, what we believe the situation there was a power surge.

So there was there was a lot of lightning and things that day.

Um and this is not the station is not connected to the power complex.

This is on the regular uh the regular distribution lines, and um someone had to go physically restart that, and that was not uh able to be done until 245.

So that was an hour and 15 minutes later.

And unfortunately that impacted you know the prolonged flooding in that in that neighborhood for approximately two hours.

So what we are looking into right now, in addition to the staffing during tropical events, which is part of our regular protocol would be to put uh put staff there.

We're all we are looking at adding notifications for these automatic pumps.

So if they come offline for you know uh electrical reason, we can get a notification uh that would indicate, hey, you go check on this, right?

That rather than um you know somebody looking at that station and being like, oh, the water levels are high, right?

So we we need to have a more real-time notification of that.

Okay, so you're saying that you guys didn't know that something was off until there was flooding that we reported?

Uh or significant flooding that was not normal.

No, there was not an on there was not an unamended notification of that.

And so that this highlights the need that we need to have that.

Yeah.

Like ASAP.

Agreed.

Okay.

Um and I I think while you have while you don't have notifications, I think it even during a regular rainstorm at this point, I am recommending that you have staff or staff readily available to monitor because we can't have that happen again.

I mean, majority of my district was flooded because of two pump station issues.

We agree.

We learned from the incident, and we will increase staffing where we can.

And please keep us updated on how you are doing that every every storm, uh, you know, whether it's a tropical storm or not, I think we need to have this council needs to have an understanding of what the staffing is at all of these pump stations.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Thank you, madam, Mr.

Chair.

Vice President Willard is recognized.

Uh thank you, Councilmember Hughes, and thank you, Councilmember McCarn, for your leadership here.

Um I just want to go ahead and say the best technology is not going to replace common sense.

And frankly, I'm getting tired of hearing that's a great suggestion.

That's a great suggestion.

That's a great suggestion.

So I have a couple of questions.

I'd appreciate like direct responses to them.

So when Tropical Storm Arthur hit, was DPS 7 and the Pritchard pump station properly staffed?

Yes.

They were properly staffed.

What was the title of the person in charge at both of those stations?

Job title.

You sh I mean you know who is in charge for those days, right?

I mean, if you're investigating and stuff, you should know that.

So to be clear, for Tropical Storm Arthur or for July 11th, I just for the flood, I'm sorry.

For July 11th.

Uh so the on July 11th, um, that title is a uh pumping and power plant operator.

Pumping and what?

Pumping and power plant operator.

At both stations?

Well, there was not anyone at Pritchard.

No one was at Pritchard.

Correct.

Okay.

Uh, how long has that operator been at DPS 7?

Uh several several years.

More than five?

Not more than five, I don't believe.

Three to five.

Yeah.

Um, a common saying when we get heavy rain in the city of New Orleans, is are the pumps even on?

Are they working?

Are they turned on?

Um typically what we see after an event like July 11th is sewage and water board saying, you know, some technical issues contributed to the flooding.

And then you then you explain it, and most people are like, you know, I don't know what that means.

Or you say we had catch basins, right?

Clog catch basins contributed to this flooding.

The flooding on the 11th was not, I mean, it may have been exacerbated by clock clock catch basins, but that wasn't the cause.

And I have the numbers.

Compared to this year, like so last year for going up to today, that was about 4320, 4,320 at this point last year.

You collected 10.6 mo million pounds of debris.

And I remember we when you provided us that that information because I said that's a lot to pull out of our drainage system.

This year you're behind.

This year you've cleared 2,506 catch basins.

Those 311 tickets are not being closed out as cat as councilmember McCairn said, and you've collected 3.5 million pounds of debris out of the clock out of the drainage system.

So what I want to know is from the July 11th event, was that operator failure?

Because your your presentation that you're about to get into says for DPS 7, the canal level at the station rose six feet in 20 minutes.

You don't need an automated alert to tell you the canal is rising.

You don't need that, which goes back to me saying the best technology is not a replacement for common sense.

All you gotta do is look out the window.

So was this a failure on the system side or was this operator failure?

The the delay and the pumping and the confusion was an operator issue.

That there is a certain area of town that is called drained by DPS 7.

Um some of the water that goes to that is coming from um drain station too.

So it's kind of a we call a relay station, so it's taking water from other parts of town, it's taking it to that station, and then it goes to the lake from that location.

So absolutely issues that in that area drained by that pump station, um, absolutely exasperated by uh you know operator issues and the issues we saw in the other parts of town.

The reality is we had three and a half inches of rain in an hour, right?

So that's also just a highly significant amount of rain in um those other parts of town.

I'm I'm not making excuses, I just that's also part of the some of the limitations of the case.

But obviously, if you don't have the pumps on when they're supposed to be on, it's gonna flood.

That adds to it, but I but I do want to echo that with the amount of rain we have, the 3.5 inches of rain recorded in an hour, the fact that we had uh intensities between 6.5 and 7.5 inches, there was going to be rain.

I mean, there's gonna be some flooding.

Yeah, and I agree it was increased by what happened with the pumps.

Um as far as the drainage, you know, we we're doing the best that we can.

We don't have enough to do all of the lines in I think it is five years or so, and so funding is an issue, and receiving that funding timely is an issue.

Now, the good news I can say but Mr.

Director, what I would say is if the day after you can dispatch people to clear catch basins, why couldn't you do it the day before?

Or the week before?

Okay.

And and they have, and there's certain certain schedule that they had to do.

You know, it is easier to do Monday morning quarterbacking to go back and look at it.

But those employees other issues, but I respect what you're saying.

But I do want to say this, that while at this point we've done about what, 3.4 million hounds have been removed.

We do believe that in um 2026 we'll ultimately remove.

I'm sorry, but ultimately I think it's back to about 12.

Probably about uh the same as we did last year.

So we're anticipating, we're anticipating about the same funding as last year.

We had 9.5 million, we're projecting 9.3, as far as we've um received less than five.

So this work is very much funding dependent in terms of being able to um get uh sorry, having contractor crews available and uh to support our internal efforts.

I mean, I don't want to lose sight of my point for all of this.

I mean, next time you come before us, update us on these numbers, how many catch basins you're clearing, how much debris is removed.

Um what I was thinking about after that flood event was what does the city look like?

What is the performance look like if everything goes as planned?

And I really can't tell you what that looks like because it seems like every time there's a major rain event, something malfunctions.

Something does not go as planned.

And I think the people of New Orleans deserve to know what actually the city of New Orleans looks like when there's a big rain event coming coming through and everything performs as planned.

The communication is there.

You know, we're on track, clearing the catch basins, removing the debris.

I I can't tell you what that looks like.

So I want to leave you with that question.

And hopefully we can get that evaluation at some point this year because we know we'll have a strong rain event before the end of the year.

We'll have another one.

Probably have multiple.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

All right, thank you.

Um Councilmember Harris is recognized.

Thank you.

Um thank you, Councilmember McCarran.

I did want to go back to the power surge and how that can be prevented.

I mean, we have entergy here.

We know what happened last time.

So what is up with this power surge?

Are there surge protectors that can be put in place?

Should be put in place.

I would I'll start off.

We have worked with oh that different Richard is not related to the power complex, right?

So again, just Pritchard station being being connected to the electrical distribution system.

Um before you start, how many other pump stations are connected directly to the power distribution system?

Yeah, we we have quite um we have several, and so they're um Pritchard, O'Lander, and I 10, and then um all of the ones in New Orleans East are directly um are use all the 60 hertz power, and so that all comes uh from the entergy system.

And we understand that there can be surges during a storm.

What is being put in place or what is in place to prevent these surges?

In terms of uh surge protectors for uh a pump, uh that's a little bit different than something that would be at your house, but uh I will get back with our team and and see.

Is there anybody from entergy who can address surge protection at the pumping stations?

Council members, um as you all know, I shared information with you all from the third party consultant that was assisting us with regard to May 20th and June 18th events.

Um as a result of that report, um it was determined that the energy side of the house was working properly.

The other side of the house, meaning the sewage and water board house side of the house, um, perhaps needed some adjustments.

The third party consultant has agreed to work with us to ensure to figure out how to make that work, and we are committed to sitting with them and the consultant to figure out what adjustments need to be made.

How quickly can that happen?

Because if all of the stations in New Orleans East are connected directly to the to the grid, and there's no surge detection.

We're available, the consultant has indicated his availability.

So I just want to clarify that the the report you're speaking of would be related to the um the faults on um that were experienced uh related to the substation, which is which is different, correct?

No, I understand that, but you all need to work together.

I look, we're all sitting up here saying the same thing.

If there's a surge, there should be some mechanical thing that's uh stops the surge from happening.

I don't whether that's on the entry side or your side, and all of these stations, and you can't tell me exactly how many are connected directly to the grid, y'all need to get together and figure this out before it happens again.

We will work with them to see if there is a way to have some type of surge protector.

Okay.

On uh the flooding that happened in District B, a lot of it which I drove through are areas where there were JIRR projects where there had been extensive construction.

What are you doing to ensure that the catch basins at those JIRR locations are clear of construction debris?

Because we know from the past that there have been concrete pieces, other uh construction material found in catch basins that need to be cleared.

So is there some checking that happens after a JIRR project or any road work is completed to make sure that there's no construction debris?

Yeah, that would be part of uh the ongoing inspection, and we are reinforcing to our teams that this is clearly not uh as it should be.

But the inspection should take place at the punch list point of the completion of the project.

I agree, right?

So you all should be popping the tops of those catch basins, seeing if there's any construction material, including concrete.

It shouldn't be put in the back of the catch basin list.

It should be done as a punchless item to ensure that those catch basins are clean, and I don't think that's happening.

Let us do this.

I agree with you.

As Councilmember Willard said common sense.

We have to follow common sense.

What you said makes perfectly good sense.

And so if it is not on the punch list, we need to put it on the punch list immediately after they finish.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Green is working on us.

Yes, good morning.

I um I have just two issues that I kind of want to address with you.

One is I want you to think about relative to catch basins, the potential for the screens on the catch basins to catch the debris before it goes in the catch basins.

And I absolutely know that the response is going to be that then that means that the debris will be on top and it won't be inside, and that could cause a problem.

But in the long run, it's just much easier to clean the debris that is accumulated on the top than it is to take off the drain covers, for example, put the machinery inside and go deep down.

I think one of the long term solutions to catch basin cleaning may be that.

And I know that you're not going to shake your heads on that because it's a challenge, because I understand the reason for it.

But just recently, the residents of Punchertrain Park cleaned their own catch basins along Prentice Boulevard, and the amount of debris in it was just tremendous.

And there are still some that unfortunately, even though three by one requests have been filed, um, they haven't been taken care of yet.

The challenge is that in certain areas we have so many trees, we have leaves that fall every year.

We have debris that's caused by um rainstorms that kicks up sand in certain areas more than in any other areas, and it goes right into the catch basins.

We also have these clowns who refuse to pick up their grass and other items that they blew um after cleaning up um in front of a house and they put it right into the catch basins.

Still happens.

But that would be potentially solvable if there was a screen on the catch basins.

I just want you to think about it.

What I saw in Punch of Train Park reminded me that with 72,000 catch basins, with our desire to want to see more trees in place, we're gonna always have a problem in that area unless we can stop it from going in there.

We'll investigate the use of screens.

Think about it.

I mean, I know the challenge.

The challenge is going to be that then we have to get around with public works and others, and communities will have to help and remove the debris on the top.

But it's much better than it going inside and then going down the block.

One of the concerns and one of the problems with cleaning the catch basins is that it's not what you see, it's what you don't see.

And many times those trucks are taking debris that's not visible, you know, from the through the naked eye.

But um, just think about it.

I want you to weigh it and tell me that a determination that's been made that the screens are counterproductive, because I think that in the long run they can be productive.

The second thing is um council members um, especially McCarron, but others have asked about staffing levels at the pumping stations during emergencies.

Do you all use retired employees to come back who have expertise in certain areas, or can you use them more to have in place the personnel that you need, especially for emergencies?

I understand that there are limitations on the number of hours that a retired person can work at the sewage and water board, 17.5, for example.

Is that number based on some analysis that has been done, some limitation caused by um whatever the internal mechanisms are there?

Is that something I can be addressed in the future?

Because obviously one of the ways to address the personnel needs and the experience during um potential storms is to have personnel whose experience.

That's a very good point.

I've even had different individuals say they would want to come back and help.

The people who work at the sewage water board are very, very loyal.

So we will talk with HR and look into what are the limitations, how many hours could a person work?

Is it feasible to bring them back in?

But uh someone who knows the system is a very good employee to bring back if we have the opportunity.

Well, especially as you see an emergency.

You know, if you see a storm in the Gulf, um, there's nothing like having someone back at the pump who um can address the issues directly.

And unless you tell me that there's a limit in law, and I don't think that there is, but there could be, because you know, some people think that the sewage and water board was subject to city council regulations and that we should be making regulations.

Well, a little bit of that is going to change, and I I accept that.

But at the end of the day, there are some things that exist that are hard to explain because we didn't do it.

So is there what is the limitation of 17.5 hours based on?

Yeah, that is uh a rule in the civil service uh of the city civil service, right?

That is not a sewerage and waterboard rule, that is uh that would be a civil service rule regarding um staff who've come back after retirement.

All right.

I want to ask you to look into that possible change.

Sure.

Because that is the way to get more experienced personnel in the pumping stations and in the administration where we need to be as we see obvious problems approaching.

Okay.

That's all those two things.

Thank you very much.

I do want to say this.

I'm sorry.

Thank you also, because I don't know if I'm going to have a chance to say it um later.

I do appreciate the work of those guys who are out there every day.

You heard me say it, and I want you to say it, and maybe some of them were watching.

I see them in holes.

I see them working sometimes in the rain.

I see them working on Sunday mornings when it's hot because an emergency has been called in on Algemaya, and they never really get recognition.

The council recognized them once at my request, but I know that they're a new personnel because it's a job that people don't necessarily want to stay with and if they're young, but there are some people who have been working for 30 plus years for sewage and waterboard.

And I want you to know that we see them.

We see them.

It can be a difficult job, a challenging job, but I find their disposition to be right, and I tell them that they are maybe the most important group of workers to help keep our city from flooding in some respects because of the work that they do with those pipes, the work that they do underground, and the work that they do in emergency response to needs.

So please continue to share that information with them.

We appreciate their work, and we appreciate your work too.

It's a difficult job.

You've been here eight months or ten months.

Um we've had directors who lasted 30 and 40 years, and we had floods in the middle of their terms.

I just want to let you know that I see changes and challenges, but I see ongoing challenges.

But I will tell you this: when I look at the flooding that took place in St.

Tammany Parish, when I look at the flooding that took place in Jefferson Parish, I just say that this is a much more difficult issue that can just be addressed overnight.

It's going to take some time.

You've asked for two billion dollars.

Well, we don't have two billion dollars, but you've asked for it.

So we can't blame the system not working on the fact that you haven't asked for what you need.

But I appreciate your work and I look forward to continuing to work with you as we make progress in important areas.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

All right, thank you very much.

Um I think the time has been low.

Okay.

Uh President Morel is recognized.

I know that everyone's probably wondering why I've been so uncharacteristically silent today, and I think that uh uh I'm certainly studying what has been presented by sewage and water board, and I believe the council will take it under advisement, but I think that my resources and my time are better spent working with the pumps committee about the transition on August 1st.

So that's what I'm focused on.

I appreciate the information that's been presented.

Um I think that I appreciate that there's been some information presented.

Thank you.

Ms.

Chairman.

Uh thank you, uh Council President Morel, and in that same vein.

Um I've been quite silent today, and the reality is for the public.

Um I appreciate the presentation.

What we're gonna do is uh we're gonna submit the rest of the presentation into the record.

Um I'll let Council Vice President uh speak in a second.

Uh the reality for the public is right now um the information that you're presenting, we just don't have the power to do anything with it.

And so my time is better spent um focusing on what's gonna take place within the next nine days uh when this council will actually have the power to do something uh about these things and we'll be putting our words and and actions uh behind that.

So stay tuned.

Um so I'm gonna submit the rest of the presentation for the record.

Council member Willard is recognized.

Okay.

I had I wanted to touch on the um the report on the substation.

So the study says there was an under voltage trip setting that was set at 20 percent, right?

Um and that's been adjusted to 30 percent, correct?

It's actually been adjusted lower than that at this point.

That was not reflected in that report, but it has been changed.

To what?

Uh it's now uh will accommodate a 72 percent voltage drop.

Okay.

All right.

Uh it says that this solution will not likely solve the reliability issues being experienced.

That's what the report says.

The re the real issue is the instantaneous nature of this trip itself.

The report says these under voltage trips are intended to react to voltage depressions and are detecting these conditions properly.

So it's working as design.

The problem with the implementation of the under voltage trips on the static frequency controllers is that they are set up to trip instantaneously, which is uncommon when utilizing this kind of trip on this kind of equipment.

The instantaneous nature is significantly reducing the ability of the static frequency controller at sewage and waterboard to be able to ride through voltage depressions that wouldn't affect other customers.

Sewage and waterboard told the consultant that the controller for the static frequency controller does not allow a delay to be set on the under voltage trip, and that they've reached out to the manufacturer about getting one added, but you haven't gotten a response back yet.

Has that changed?

No, we're still they're still doing that analysis on their end.

So why?

Let me let me re-emphasize this portion.

They are set up to trip instantaneously, which is uncommon when utilizing this kind of trip on this kind of equipment.

Why did we do it?

We have provided this report to the engineer of record and to the equipment manufacturer for their review and response.

So nobody from sewage and waterboard flagged that this could be a problem.

The manufacturer didn't say, hey, you might want to rethink the instantaneous nature of this trip.

I see what you're pointing.

Have y'all asked, I mean, have y'all thought about these questions to yourself?

Yes, we have.

Okay.

And we and the bottom line is this is settings that were made years ago when they started to develop the project.

And at this point, they're saying yes, it the trip is instantaneous, that's an issue.

And they're saying that the trip setting needs to be adjusted.

We're trying to handle the things that we can affect the trip setting.

We've made, I think, a big stride in lowering it down to 20%.

That's that's major.

The instantaneous tripping and not having a delay, we're going to work with the manufacturer to see what we can do with that.

But I must admit, as the executive director, it makes me wonder how did we get here from the very beginning.

And I and I know this predates you.

Um, but from this from this report, if that if that feature is uncommon, to me, I would presume the manufacturer will have to custom engineer something.

If they have to custom engineer something, two things happen.

It takes longer and it's more expensive.

In the meantime, what are we going to do to ensure that the equipment doesn't trip offline?

I mean, we've lowered it.

Is that all we can do right at this point?

Yeah, so that was uh the lowering of that setting does mitigate quite a bit of risk, right?

Um, allowing such a larger voltage drop.

Uh but ultimately what we're working towards is an agreement with entergy um and potentially mice or the grid operator to be able to uh have a um able to operate our turbines at the same time.

And this is not turbines and in replacement of entergy.

What it would what it does is it will allow uh for there to be uh less of a voltage sag actually seen by the equipment if there were to be one, um, which there likely will be based on this data we have now.

So that's that's where we're going to um and we're having those conversations with with MISON Entergy at this moment um at this time so that we can get to that, which will um you know even hopefully re eliminate that need for a time delay.

So we completely understand um the concern, and that's ultimately I think the best solution.

I would request a near real-time update on any of that feedback once you start hearing it, uh, and certainly uh have it included the next time you come before this committee.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you, Vice President Willard.

I'm gonna acknowledge the council president on the second.

Um Madam CEO and Vice President uh Williams, why don't the two of you come to the table?

Because I think the um president's gonna have some questions, but the sewage and water board.

Let me just give you some some some friendly advice to sewage and water board.

Um you all have nine nine days to change the approach in which you answer questions because I just want to give you fair warning.

On August 1st, the lack of direct response, the dancing around questions, standard response of oh, that's a great suggestion.

It's just not gonna work on August 1st.

So you all can take that under advisement and do that as you may, but you might want to change your approach starting August 1st.

Council President Um is recognized.

Thank you.

I was out, then the map brought me back in.

So I just want to rehash something that was made at our last meeting.

That's why I really just need a Sharonda.

I didn't really need you, Deanna.

There's a reason why you publish the frequency variation on your website for all com all commercial, all commercial customers, correct?

That's correct.

And that's because you're telling them in real time for warning to every commercial customer, this is the variance that could come across, and your equipment needs to be set to meet this variance, correct?

That's correct.

Here's my question, generally speaking, and some of those predates Mr.

Heyman admittedly, this power plant was over time and over budget.

That's a fact of life.

How was it that during that lengthy period it took to get this power plant online?

There was no consideration for that frequency variance by sewage and water board.

I get that you've submitted to the I mean, and Caitlin, I know you are you an attorney?

No.

Because you gave a very attorney answer.

That was literally like an attorney being cross-examined by a judge, like, we've submitted this back to the manufacturer.

Like one of two things happened.

Either the company that provided our frequency changer did not account for that, and we're told to account for it and did not, in which case, a direct answer would have been, and we've engaged counsel to sue the hell out of them because they gave us an effective changer that account for energy's variances, they made a mistake, or that's why your answer is very loyally, sewage and water board and ask them.

I get it sometimes it feels like when you're at that table, you're in front of Congress and you're trying to make sure you give an answer where we don't see like arrest you for perjury.

That's not really a thing here.

It's more like your freedom is not at risk being in front of the council, your credibility is.

If I may, I has the executive director, as an attorney not practicing in Louisiana, and as someone who's received this information.

There have been information that we received that has given me concern as far as what did they know when they signed the contracts?

What did they know about what type of lag they could accept?

It was originally set at like 80%.

I thought that was high.

Now we're able to lure it.

We have now the report.

And it talks about the fact that it doesn't have the time delay and certain things were not in line with customary with to the way uh machinery should should respond.

I want us to look at the documentation that we had when we entered the contract and look at our consultant, look at the manufacturer, get a better understanding of should they have known to lower the lag.

That is something we're gonna look at, and as a former general counsel is something I've looked at in other cases and other ways.

And so we will take the time to evaluate that.

I've only recently gotten the report.

And so we'll take that and talk with our council and talk with the uh investigate to see if this is a good thing.

And I appreciate that.

It's just like I said, the the tenor of these interactions and these after kind of incident reports, a lot of this is just reaction.

And with with with an organization that's this important that, especially during the rain season in New Orleans, which I would say Councilman Bray Hughes starts in like what February and ends in October, the that's like our monsoon season in New Orleans, people have to feel like it's not just an issue of trial and error every day.

A lot of the problems we see, like everyone is aware at this point, if you're not, you don't follow any media or anyone ever about your pumping capacity.

It's one inch, what one inch the first hour, and then a half an inch every hour afterwards.

That is your capacity.

I think that where people kind of lose their minds is that is how you operate under optimal circumstances.

When you factor in power being tripped, you factor in human error with pumps not coming on, a system that already is operating at deficiency just ceases to really operate at all.

And I think sometimes what frustrates people is that when the messaging is, let me tell the public again what our operating capacity is, let me bring up catch basins again.

Everyone already knows that these are outstanding issues, and when you reiterate them as literally part of your messaging after every time the council or anybody else calls you to task, it's your using basic information to mitigate responsibility.

We know you have one inch per hour and half an inch every hour afterwards, but when the power is tripped, to be honest, either this was improperly installed, either it was improperly spec'd.

Whatever the problems are and how that changer was installed, I have not seen anything yet that indicates entergy is responsible for the installation or operation of that frequency changer.

What and like I said previously, I'm not a huge defender of energy, but when the messaging out of sewage and waterboard was occurred was to bring energy into the blame, it really for once, no offense.

For once, it wasn't really their responsibility, it was sewage and waterboards.

And what happens is that as people dig into the issue and find out the effort was more like to talk about the challenges and spread the blame.

It's not we need to feel like you're laser focused on when a problem occurs, identifying the problem, saying why the problem occurred, and how you're definitively going to fix it.

And we're still talking about something that happened, what, Mr.

Wheeler, like a month ago, without definitive clear timelines as far as who was at fault, what are the steps being taken.

I now know the steps are that you've lowered it as far as you can go than you're talking to the manufacturer.

But we did that immediately.

We did that the next day.

We're right, but the problem is that the manufacturer got that information.

My understanding is the variance that energy has publicly facing on their commercial site is still lower than where you're at.

Right?

Am I incorrect in that?

Well, the uh the point that Councilmember Willard made is about the time delay too.

Okay.

Our standards say five to twelve cycles, um, and their trip is on an instantaneous method, not allowance for any cycle for the voltage to sat.

Okay, so what you're saying is not only is this the voltage setting, the delay is supposed to allow for more forgiveness and allowing that voltage to pass through versus the instant trip, like in your house when there's a surge and your breaker flips.

That's correct.

So even with the voltage, the the God, these terminology kills me.

Even with even with the adjustment on the setting, if the instant trip is still there, the problem can and likely will still happen.

Right?

Is that what I'm hearing?

It can't still happen.

Okay, so even though you've done your best with the existing equipment, the fact that that instant trip is still there, which is not the industry standard, which is also disclosed in your interaction with commercial customers, we have to anticipate that this can and will still occur until you get a final remedy from the manufacturer who installed the equipment as to how to fix the timing so that it doesn't trip, right?

Or be able to do the the cogeneration, the parallel uh agreement.

Which is a miceo issue now.

And enter G sewerage and waterboard MISO agreement.

Okay.

That's a lot.

It's a lot, and we're and we're in July, and we still have August and September, where we're in the height of the rainy season.

So I think that the Councilman Hughes' point, these are all significant considerations as to what post-August 1st looks like.

And I think the Council Willard's point, it would really rebuild public confidence.

If there is not a sense of urgency from the manufacturer to provide almost instant solution of this problem, I would really consider litigation at this point, unless there is definitive proof that sewage and waterboard on its end did not probably spec this project, which is also a possibility.

Like I said, to be candid that produced your time, Mr.

Heyman, that was a previous executive director issue.

But if this was not spec'd properly, that's not your problem, but it's still a sewage and water board problem.

The sooner we get to the bottom of that, because I mean I will tell you in the entire prior council, which I think is just Mr.

Green and I up here right now.

We spent a lot of money and a lot of time trying to get this right.

It would be incredibly disappointing if we missed something this obvious.

Because if you're building a new commercial building, you can look at the specs on Energy's website to make sure that your system works with their system.

It would be very unfortunate if a tens of millions of dollar public project didn't check the website.

We will investigate it.

And as a footnote, I am a former litigator.

That's how I started out after law school.

I'm a former assistant attorney general for the state of Missouri, so I appreciate what you're saying in the direction you're pointing us in.

We will look into it and see did they overlook anything or did they not follow any direction that we had, and that would be the consultant and the manufacturer.

Okay.

That's all I have.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

All right, uh sewage and water board, thank you so much.

Um appreciate you being here.

I know we have entergy can stay at the table.

We have two resolutions to take up and the joint report uh for the public's benefit and the benefit of the press.

Um that report is now on the public works website.

So if anybody wants to read that report, you can go to the public works website.

All right, with that, um, President Morel in the chair.

Super exciting stuff.

All right.

So we're gonna first deal with which resolution we do in first, Aaron.

Uh we are going to dispatch with the reliability resolution.

Okay.

Um Aaron, why don't you give us a quick overview of the reliability of resolution?

Gladly, Councilmember Morrell.

Thank you so much.

Uh good afternoon, everyone.

Uh this resolution deals with the reliability standards established as part of Docket number UD 1704.

It sets a procedural schedule to revisit and revise those standards.

Additionally, it provides a scope and timeline for revisiting what is often referred to as a 2018 quanta report, including the recommendations made there and any changes made since that time as a result.

Um there are also some additional reporting requirements, and I believe Councilmember Willard had a couple of remarks he wanted to make on this.

Thank you, Aaron.

Um, we're we're just offering up an amendment to um the resolution, and it really goes back to some things that we had started discussing back in uh March.

So the amendment would just acquire require interjee to report feeder level performance using IEEE standards, which was the standard the council first set in 2023, and it also requires entergy to report performance, um, including during major weather event days, um, because we know how the we we need to know how the system performs under stress.

So that's what the amendment would do that we're incorporating.

Council members, if I can read the that amendment entertainment.

Also, just to be clear, the amendment will have to be considered at the full council meeting because we can't do amendments in committee, right?

Correction.

So, all right.

Let's let's get educated.

Let's go for it.

This is this is um our little utilities committee uh standard.

This resolution has not been put forth to the clerk's office.

Our typical approach is to read the amendment in full, make sure the council is in agreement, then we approve the resolution in its new form to be submitted to the clerk with the recommendation from the council.

And this is going on the August 6th council meeting agenda.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um so the amendment reads as follows: be it further resolved.

Sorry, to be clear, this is going to go on the last page of the resolution after the last full paragraph.

The amendment reads, be it further resolved by the Council of the City of New Orleans that ENO is directed to include a feeder level analysis using the original methodology as described in appendix A of resolution number R 2373, as well as the adjusted methodology for ENO proposed in its 2024 ESDRS filing.

Additionally, ENO is directed to record and report portfolio on feeder level safety and safety, including major event days in its annual compliance filing.

ENO is directed to resubmit its 2025 reliability report with this information and to include this information in future reliability reports.

That is the amendment.

May I have a motion and a second?

Motion.

I will second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Hearing none.

All right.

The amendment passes.

Council members, you may now entertain a motion on the resolution.

Before we speak on the resolution, I just want to hit the quick highlights just for the highlight reel.

In this resolution, we begin the process to revise reliability standards through a procedural schedule.

Aaron already spoke about the Quantal report.

We also require additional information on unplanned outages, especially those attributed to equipment failure and vegetation.

And we direct the advisors to explore bill credits for customers in sp impacted by unplanned outages.

So wanted to make sure the highlight reel actually hit the really quick items on it.

Appreciate you, Councilmember.

I will move.

Can I get a second?

Second by Council Willard moving on the amended resolution.

All in favor?

Any opposed?

Hearing none, it will be put to the full agenda.

Does Andrew have any comments on this item?

Um just we want to make a note that we just got the um resolution yesterday afternoon.

We're still internally digesting it.

If we have any comments, um, we'll give you formal correspondence before the August 6th meeting as we would usually work with CURO and the advisors to do that.

Okay, thank you.

And next we have number seven, right?

Go ahead, Aaron.

Uh Councilmember, this is a resolution to consider entergy's motion regarding an extension of the electric formula rate plan writer.

It's a procedural schedule.

Okay.

Um do we have any comment cards on that?

No.

All right.

I will move, second by councilmember Willard.

All in favor?

Uh any opposed, hearing none.

That is sent to the full council.

Uh Councilmember Willard moves to adjourn.

I will second any any opposed hearing none were adjourned.

Council.