All right, good afternoon, everyone.

I had to call this regular city council work session to order on Tuesday, April 7th at 2026.

Madam Kirk, please call the roll.

Mayor Sarder.

Present.

Vice Mayor Greenberg.

Here.

Councilman Haney.

Here.

Councilman Beffy.

Here.

Councilman Milton.

Present.

Councilman Hastings.

Here.

Councilman Jed.

Here.

Thank you, Mayor.

We have quorum.

Thank you.

Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Item one presentation and discussion pertaining to internal audit reports approved by the City of Surprise Audit Committee.

I'm with the City Auditor Department.

We're here to present the audits that we've completed over the past year that we have presented to the audit committee, and they've been approved.

Within those five audit reports, we've identified twenty-six audit recommendations to departments in the city.

The second category was compliance that has to do with complying with both external laws and regulations as well as internal city policies and procedures.

We did identify some instances of non-compliance with the city policies.

These were identified in areas like closing out permits in a timely manner, fees charged to facility use, and payroll.

The third category we identified recommendations within our monitoring.

This is part of the internal control system where management would evaluate processes to ensure that the internal controls are working and that they're operating effectively and they're achieving their objectives.

We identified some needs for additional management involvement over the monitoring, including reconciliation and verification of data.

IT covers general controls, access management, data integrity, and system change management.

Recommendations we identified included improving the systems with some updates as well as ensuring the system access is being reviewed periodically.

Of the 26 recommendations that were identified, 20 of these have already been fully implemented by the departments.

One has been partially implemented, and then five of them are currently in the process of implementing the recommendations.

All recommendations were concurred with by the departments.

So that is our summary.

Is there any questions or comments?

Council.

Just as the categories that we identified, every department's a little bit different.

And so the recommendations were specific to the departments, but I wouldn't say that there was an overall trend of an issue of noncompliance somewhere.

Okay.

All right.

Seeing no questions from council.

Thank you for your presentation.

Okay, thank you.

Madam Clerk, please read item number three.

Item three, presentation and discussion regarding an update on the city's water resources.

Good evening, Mr.

Boule.

Good evening, Mayor, members of council.

This item is associated with our annual water resources update.

And joining us this afternoon is Ms.

Benita Cartha from Central Arizona Project.

She's been with us doing this update for the last five years.

And then joining us from EBCOR is Victoria Samwick, and she'll be providing an update specific to EBCOR.

EBCO is our largest water provider in the city, makes up the entirety of Councilman Duffy's district.

So it's great to hear how EBCO is tracking and trending similar to the City of Surprise water resources update.

And so we're going to kick things off with Vanitha.

And so Vanita's going to take us through, you know, what's going on with the Colorado River, the policies associated with it, the hydrology associated with it.

And really, as Vanita goes through that presentation, it's okay to breathe.

A big part of what we're here to do this afternoon to talk about how we are prepared.

And when I say we, it's surprise and EBCOR to really talk through the various scenarios and the various outcomes.

And as you'll see, we're going to be okay.

It just takes a little bit for us to adapt and to adjust.

And really, we think it's important to reconcile the headlines.

There's a lot of information out there pertinent to the Colorado River, but it's really important to hear how it what it means for us here in Surprise.

And then Amy's going to join us, and we're going to do our annual water resources check-in for surprise specifically.

So I'm going to hand it over to Vanita.

Good afternoon, Mayor.

Respected members of the council.

My name is Vanita Gartha.

I am the Colorado River Programs Manager, Let Central Arizona Project.

The CAP, as you know, brings in the largest renewable supplies to Central and Southern Arizona and provides more than 40% of the state's total water supply.

I will start with the current conditions.

So we are not going to see that much water coming into a reservoirs this year, resulting from the snowpack.

As you also probably know, the state, the lower basin has been in a shortage conditions in the in for the last five years.

This is the fifth year we have been in a shortage.

The deepest shortage that we have experienced was back in 2023, where we went to Tier 2A, where we took about 592,000 acre feet of reduction.

For perspective, that's twice the state of Nevada's entire Colorado River allocation.

Going forward, from 2027 onwards, any operations on Powell and Mead will depend upon decisions made by the Department of Interior based on a process called the 2026 environmental impact process.

So what is that?

It was it is an environmental impact process because to operate both Powell and Mead, it is reclamation, which is a federal agency that has to take decisions.

And before a federal agency makes any decisions, they have to go through a NEPA National Environmental Policy Act process.

In this case, it is a fully blown EIS or an environmental impact statement.

Reclamation has been doing this from the past two years.

The process has been ongoing.

And they published a draft EIS back in January.

The DIS looks at what are the triggers for determining shortage in the lower basin as well as the entire basin.

How do we create storage in these reservoirs and other pertinent factors?

There were about five alternatives that they analyzed, including a no action where we do not do anything.

The basic coordination alternative that came next is to be implemented if there were no agreement among the seven basin states that share the Colorado River supplies.

And also based on reclamation's existing powers.

The enhanced coordination alternative again should be would be implemented using reclamation's existing powers plus any additional legislation that may be required.

The maximum operational flexibility is from NGOs and the supply driven is uh is a variation of an alternative that the lower basin and the upper basin states had submitted.

So let's look at what this does.

So if you look at uh all of the alternatives, there is one common thing, and that is that there is reductions in the lower basin across every single alternative.

So if you look at the orange bars that show reductions to the entire lower basin, including Mexico's allocations.

So if I take your attention to the basic coordination, we take a 16% reduction under that alternative.

And if you look at the maximum operation flexibility under the deepest reduction, it is a 44% reduction to the entire lower basin' allocation.

And the blue chart is to show out of that 16% under the basic coordination, Central Arizona project, us, we take 77% of that.

In the maximum operational flexibility of the 44% reduction, CAP takes 98% of that reduction.

The other thing that is very common is there are no reductions implemented in the upper division states at all.

Actually, we need to go back one.

That's fine.

There was a slide in between.

Okay.

All right.

So uh going back, going back, if you were to look at the basic coordination alternative, and if I were to look at CAP supplies, um CAP supplies at the deepest reduction would go down to 280, 237,000 acre feet, very small.

Under the maximum operational flexibility, if you were to implement that at the deepest reduction, CAP supplies would go down to 24,500.

This, these are alternatives that are looking at options when there is very deep reductions and when there is full use.

So this is not to be alarmist, but these are the options that reclamation is looking at.

So with that, these are the key takeaways for you.

As I told you, snowpack is slow, system storage has been at historically low levels.

Uh, but we do know we have had storage.

The one great thing about the state of Arizona as well as the lower basin is that we have some amazing huge reservoirs in our system.

We have been in a drought for the last 25 years, and we have not been in a shortage until recently.

So we have reservoirs, and the idea here is to leverage the storage in those reservoirs.

And so we need to continue to do that.

So for that, Powell and Mead must have prudent guidelines to ensure we can continue to uh serve our customers.

And for that, every single water user across both the basin in the upper division and in the lower division, across sectors, agriculture, municipal, everyone should be good stewards and must share in reductions and also must share in good hydrologies.

So that's the takeaway I leave you with.

Thank you for your attention.

Vinita, do you want to share with the council CAP's involvement in commenting on those alternatives and maybe what the next steps are with that?

Yes, definitely.

Thank you, Mike.

So the DIS was published in January.

The comments were due on March 2nd of 2026.

CAP submitted comments.

We absolutely did not like the EIS at all.

We don't think these are of reductions, basically taking one part of the law of the river when they do not implement reductions in the upper basin, or they do not implement an analysis of what the upper division states have to deliver to the lower division states on a 10-year basis is not analyzed.

So we have commented seethingly on the DIS and we have asked them to withdraw it back and come back with an actual analysis of compact and also ensuring reductions are shared across the basin.

Thank you.

And City of Surprise was also a supporter of our comments.

So we'll pause there for comments for Vanita before we transition over to EBCOR and Surprise to figure out, you know, based on that information, you know, how are we moving forward as a water provider?

Councilman Judas, question, comment.

So just a quick question.

The way I understand the original compact from the early 1920s that the upper basin is required to release a certain amount of water down.

Was that I mean, I think that's basically what our argument is at this point.

Is that something that's been renegotiated or reorganized over time?

Or do we have any idea why that's not going to be the case or why it looks like the feds aren't using that?

Definitely.

Um, Mayor Sauder, Councilmember Judd, thank you for that question.

So the 1922 Colorado River Compact sets forth that the upper division states must deliver on a 10-year rolling basis the 75 million acre feet over 10 years.

75 is all the lower basin states, including uh all the lower basin states allocation, plus one half of Mexico's allocation on an annual basis.

So if you were to add that up, it would add up to 82.5.

So the upper division states are supposed to deliver at least very, which is the compact point, an 82.5 million acre feet over the last 10 years.

That that volume, that none of the compact has ever been renegotiated.

We have built around that.

We have come up with negotiations, agreements that have built around that.

We have never breached compact except for the time in the 1960s when Powell was being filled, when Powell was just constructed.

So right now we are at the edge of a compact compliance.

The issue here is in the DEIS reclamation, implemented cuts to the Central Arizona project by priority and also to the state of Arizona as a whole, whereas they did not analyze one thing about the compact.

So our comment is you cannot take one part of the law and implement another and call it good.

So that's what we are arguing against.

Compact is absolutely necessary for the lower division states.

We signed a whole bunch of agreements and contracts depending on a certain volume to be delivered, at least very on an annual and on a 10-year basis, if that helps answer your question.

That does.

Thank you very much.

Councilman Milton.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh the legislature and the governor, I believe, are they are working on perhaps even funding another lawyer or another legal option.

Um, would would CAT be involved in those briefing?

Would you be involved in that if any uh if we had to maybe go to go to court over this?

Um, Mayor Sartre, Councilmember Melton, the the Department of Water Resources has um has hired an outside council, and that's based on the budget that they have received from the AZ legislature.

If we were to reach a compact call, which we are very near, it is likely that the state would have to file um suit.

And if they do that, CAP is absolutely going to help out.

Okay.

Um, and but a caution, so would all of the other basin states.

So everyone's going to start trying and defend their own rights.

Of course.

Thank you.

And CAP does have also council and budget to fight that war if that happens.

Okay, good answer.

Thank you.

There are no more questions or comments from council.

Awesome.

Thank you for your presentation.

Turn it over to you, Victoria.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

Thank you so much for the invitation to speak.

My name is Victoria Stamwick, and I'm the water resources manager for Epcor.

I've worked with some of you in previous capacities when I've served as the local government relations representative.

So it is good to be here in this capacity.

As many of you are familiar, Epcor is the largest private water utility in the state of Arizona.

And uh, as Michael pointed out, we are the largest private water utility that serves the city of surprise residents as well.

So up on the screen right here, we have our water and wastewater service area for the West Valley.

And overlaid with that, we have the surprise city limits, just to contextualize which part of your municipal boundaries that we serve, and also to uh demonstrate where else we serve in the West Valley.

And I will note that previously this was all based off of three different service territories.

But because Epcor became a designated service provider back in October of 2025, we now service the entire West Valley system under one designation with one water resource portfolio.

And that has been extremely helpful as we plan for any drought conditions on the Colorado River because we're able to distribute all of the water resources across all of our residents, and we don't have to limit certain allocations to certain systems.

So that was very much the intention of becoming designated as well as demonstrating that 100 year of assured water supply for our entire West Valley service area.

So what I'm here to speak about today, though, is how we are taking this information from CEP, the Department of Water Resources, the DEIS negotiations, and how we are beginning to plan for what that means for the future of our water resource portfolio.

And again, it's okay to take a breath.

I have all good news, which is that we are prepared for shortages, and this is exactly what we've planned for.

But essentially, what our planning approach did was to look at our current water resource portfolio under our designation, and then to basically analyze between a 30% reduction up to that 98% reduction.

How would we respond to those reductions to our CAP allocations and what changes would need to be made?

And under all of those analyses, we have sufficient water resources to meet current demands in the West Valley, as well as committed demands.

So those developments that we have already pledged water to, but maybe have not yet built, been built out, or perhaps they're starting to be built out but just haven't reached the end of build-out.

So what this means for you and your city is that all the customer demands under any shortage situation will be met, even under significant reductions to the Central Arizona project.

However, future growth, so as we're looking into the future, we might need to have additional water resources to continue to provide renewable water resources for development in the West Valley service area.

But I'll say that we're actively pursuing those additional resources, and I'll get to that in a minute.

So here is our portfolio for Epcor's West Valley system.

As I mentioned, we were designated in October of 2025, and we've designated, we've been we've demonstrated to the Arizona Department of Water Resources that we have a water portfolio for our current demand, for our committed demand in the pipeline, and for any future demand through the year 2034 for 100 years.

So this should be an assurance that everyone that is in the pipeline and that is in the development pipeline or we're currently already a resident, there's a hundred-year assured water supply portfolio for them.

And so the supply types that you'll look at is our breakdown for our West Valley system.

We have uh 55% of our supply is groundwater.

And that cap is set by the Department of Water Resources as what is physically legally and continuously available.

We also have effluent, which we direct deliver, we have some effluent that is stored and recovered, and then our CAP allocation about 17,000 acre feet.

And we also have surface water that we receive from uh the Aguafria River through Lake Pleasant.

And so those supplies are about 69,000 acre feet.

And how does that stack up against our demand?

Well, the demand is about 50,000 acre feet currently, which means that we have about 20,000 acre feet for anything that's in the pipeline or future that we have not yet realized.

So again, under our planning scenario, we looked at various different alternatives and what that could mean, and we landed on an estimated 70% reduction to CAP.

So that's what I'm showing you here.

Again, there's a lot of uncertainty as to how reductions will be implemented and what that volume is.

But in summary, rather than reading off all these numbers for you, I think the key factor is that if we were to reduce our Central Arizona project allocation by 70%, we would take a reduction in our portfolio.

But we have the additional infrastructure to pump any groundwater to make up for that demand.

And so I say that because as you'll see, our groundwater supplies that are listed, that's what's been proven to the Department of Water Resources under the regulatory frameworks.

But under severe drought conditions, there are opportunities to pump additional groundwater supplies, up to 80% of any losses to CAP.

So while that limitation right now is set by the regulatory framework, uh, we have the firm infrastructure and the water in the ground to pump 78,000 acre feet.

So again, rest assured that any shortage conditions to CAP would be mitigated through just additional pumping of groundwater resources.

But we recognize that the whole goal of the 1980 Groundwater Management Act was to continue to develop off of renewable resources in the state.

And so we're actively pursuing those.

One of the next kind of buckets of water that we're looking at is our growing effluent.

And so that's our reclaimed water that we're able to capture from homes and treat.

We can either put that back into the ground, recharge the aquifer, uh, or we can directly deliver it.

And we're really proud of the fact that we recycle 95.9% of our treated effluent.

So there's other things that of course we're doing, as I said, looking at additional water resource portfolios, such as uh the raising of Bartlett Dam, being able to have additional storage capacity, uh conservation initiatives.

We launched out uh a grant that customers were able to utilize to remove their grass and change it to desert friendly landscaping, um, water smart meters, and then also technology uh such as continuous improvement of our internal infrastructure to be as efficient as we possibly can.

So that concludes my part of the presentation.

Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Councilman Melton.

Thanks, Victoria, and good to see you back again here, surprise.

Um the last year, I know uh the white tank facility, there was a discussion about um it's it receives a supply, I believe, from Lake Pleasant through the through the country through that canal.

And I believe that there was discussions about the county management of that.

And I know there was maybe we're looking into was it being managed optimally.

You know, there was was there was there opportunities to have uh you know to to reduce the amount of downtime that we get from that.

Is that is that process ongoing?

Is there been any discovery from that?

Mayor Sartori, Councilman Melton, yes, we are actively working, and that is with Maricopa Water District, and so they are the irrigation district that manages the delivery in the surface water.

And so uh they actually stop deliveries during the winter time to do maintenance of the canal.

And so there's been a consultant that's been hired on staff to look at how we need to basically maintain that canal to be able to access it year-round.

Um, and then we're also concurrently even looking at upgrading our treatment capacity for the White Takes plant and being able to uh bring additional partners to cost share in that.

So, to answer your question, we're actively in negotiation and conversation to be able to utilize that.

I thank you, Victoria.

I appreciate that.

It's uh, you know, every everyone in Arizona at every level, you know.

We said this when we went to DC that we're you are all trying to be good stewards over waters down to the down to the HOAs are trying.

Sun Village is doing a lot of work just to reduce turf and every level uh that we you know, we're doing we're we're improving management and Epcor.

I thank you for for pursuing that.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

So no other questions or comments.

I appreciate your presentation and appreciate you, Epcor being a great partner with the City of Suppress.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

And similar to EBCOR's assurance that they can help weather these storms and reductions on the Colorado River, we've received confirmation from writing from our partners uh from the city of El Mirage.

They serve our original town site.

And for what Amy and I know of our partners at Liberty Utilities that serve a big portion of the area north of Deer Valley Road, east of uh the US 60.

It's in there in the same boat as well.

So now we'll transition over to City of Surprise water resource check-in and run through some scenarios at our end too.

Okay.

Good evening.

Good evening.

All right, so um, my name is Amy Peterson.

I'm the water resource manager for the City of Surprise Water Utility.

And um tonight I want to share with you our annual water use report update.

So each year we have to report to the state how much water we used.

It's like doing our water taxes, and I get the pleasure of sharing kind of how how our taxes came out this year.

So on this slide, I've given you uh a summary of water use as well as wastewater um treatment and our effluent production because that is part of our renewable resources.

Couple highlights uh on this slide.

I don't expect you to memorize all the numbers.

Um but what I did want to highlight is that you know, we still are a growing city, so we are seeing increased demands year over year.

And they're uh, but they're actually coming in a little bit softer than what we had projected in our integrated water master plan, despite the fact that our account growth is right in line with our integrated water master plan.

So account growth, 7.5% year over year, um, but demand was only 5%.

Really, what that is reflecting is the fact that our actual efficiency per account got a little bit better this year.

And um we we look at that year over year, and we also look at that on a 10-year trend.

And so what we're seeing is that our our gallons per day per account, gallons per day per person has been going down little by little consistently over the last 10 years.

So that's a trend that we like to see continue.

We're happy to see it, but of course, um, our water conservation program is really designed to kind of continue driving that.

The other point I wanted to highlight about this slide is our effluent recharged.

So Surprise uh is a city that delivers all groundwater to our customers for drinking water, and then we take all of our wastewater and our CAP supply and we recharge that to offset what we're pulling out of the ground.

So it's really important to us that we be comparing what we're pumping to what we're putting back in the ground, and just looking at our effluent, um, we were able to recharge almost as much as what we delivered to our customers.

So very, very close.

Uh, but again, that doesn't include the CAP recharge that we do on top of that.

So another healthy look at the growth of our effluent production.

So, as you know, the City of Surprise is a designated water provider.

In 2022, we demonstrated to the state the volume of water that we needed to continue to grow over the next 10-year planning horizon.

And so this pie chart represents our water budget for our water service area.

So our budget is 24,450 acre feet.

Um, the darker orange box there is our current demand.

So you can think of that as water that we delivered, as Amy just mentioned on the previous slide.

Um, we have to track our committed demand.

This is what we identify as platted lots or homes in the pipeline or commercial or industrial under construction.

And the remaining purple there, that 10,578 acre feet, is what we have available during this planning horizon to grow into.

What's not encumbered in the designation of assured water supply is our long-term shortage balance off to the right.

We've established a policy where we like to have 15 years of water banked for events such as shortages on the Colorado River, um, or really for uh growth.

So we'll go through a couple scenarios here.

And in each of these scenarios, uh, very similar to EBCOR, we're very thankful for the position that we're in.

Our current demand and our committed demands are protected in each of these scenarios.

And so as you can see here, all things remain the same.

We currently have 27,34 customers or equivalent dwelling units.

Our committed demand uh obligates us to serve another 5200 EDUs, and we believe the timeline associated with that absorption based on the amount of new accounts that we're getting every year, it would take us about three years to absorb into that.

That leaves remaining for growth under this scenario 18,800 new customers to be absorbed over a timeline we believe to be about 11 and a half years.

And the curtailed growth associated with a potential 25% reduction would be about 6,000 EDUs under this scenario.

Flipping over to a scenario that really mirrors what Victoria mentioned, the 70%.

So all things remain the same.

Um remaining for growth changes obviously to about 3,800 new customers, and that would be absorbed over about 2.4 years.

And under the scenario, really what takes the most hit would be our the space in our portfolio allocated for growth at about 22,500 EDUs.

But again, under each of these scenarios, current customers, committed customers are in a great position.

Amy.

So before we move on to the next slide, I just wanted to pause and see if you had any questions about um the shortage scenarios that we prepared.

I mean, the the curtailing and the growth, that just means people can't move to surprise.

Is that correct?

I think what it means is you know, there's there's a couple things about these shortage scenarios that aren't really inherent.

One is one, we could we could begin to use our savings account for the 15 years worth of groundwater that we've we've saved up.

Two, um, we don't quite know what the duration of these of these restrictions would be.

And three, there's certainly emerging markets associated with development acquiring resources to bring to the table, very similar to how they build roads and all the other infrastructures to support the communities.

So I certainly don't think that we'd be closed for business by any stretch.

It would just require more creativity and engagement early on with them.

Thank you.

Councilman Judd had a question.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, and so you said we've got about 15 years of water storage credits.

That was a little higher.

What happened to the we were at 17, 18 years here with our previous conversations?

I knew you were going to ask a math question, Councilman Judd.

So every year we bank water and that credit balance grows, but also every year our demands increase.

And so every year we recalculate what were our demands that year, what was our what is our credit balance.

And so that's why you kind of see that number fluctuate.

You know, between 15 to 16 years in the bank.

So our water supply hasn't gone down.

It's just we have more demand on what's potentially.

That's exactly right.

Okay.

Thank you.

Once again, your math is impeccable.

All right.

Um so if you if you're okay if we move on, uh, what I also wanted to share with you this evening, what we sorry, what we wanted to share with you this evening is you know, we're always working on um other initiatives to enhance and support our portfolio.

And so we're just gonna give you a couple high-level updates on some of the other things we're working on to support our water resource portfolio and its resiliency.

So we can skip to the next slide.

Okay.

So uh back in 2022, this council adopted our integrated water master plan that's really our compass for weathering growth and the potential of reductions.

And one of the most important parts of this document are the growth projections via you know, uh commercial, industrial, population, rooftops.

And so the first order of business with this integrated water master plan update is recalibrating our our growth demands.

And so we've recently completed this task of our planning framework.

Um, the the lighter blue line there identifies you know what we thought previously the growth trajectory would be.

The darker blue line identifies what it actually might be a little bit more in the near term, but then it kind of plateaus out in the long term.

But again, this is kind of the granular detail that we need to make sure that we get right.

So as we run through potential scenarios or we're evaluating big water users, um, we can get that right.

Um, this slide shows the water demand projections a little bit differently.

Um, so on the bottom is the year on the left side is the water demand, and the various colors represent where the water is being used throughout the cities within the different special planning areas.

So you can see special planning area one begins to bend to the right, which you know identifies that this area is getting built out.

And then you can see special planning area two is really ramping up with growth and demand.

Um and again, this is very similar to our 2022 effort in terms of calibration.

So this is really what we use to ensure that we're on track when we're doing our annual water taxes every year to make sure that we're using what we thought we should be using.

So the next update that I want to share with you is an exercise that we recently completed uh in which we are we applied to the state permission to increase our area of hydrologic impact.

So, as Michael and I like like to say, this is water resources 201.

And I will um try to describe it as succinctly as possible.

So we do recharge uh in a few areas across the city, uh effluent and CAP water being put back in the ground.

And so I've got a map here showing you three different recharge facilities with three different colors.

We also pump from several wells throughout the city, and you'll see those as the yellow dots on the map.

So if you do recharge and rec and uh pumping within a mile of each other, the state says you're not pumping groundwater, you're pumping what you recharged.

And that's represented in the map by the little circles.

Those are one mile radius circles in blue, green, and purple.

Now, the state has also put out a policy that says, but if you've been if you've been doing recharge for a really long time, uh scientifically, you're going to start impacting the aquifer in a positive way.

And so if you can prove that through modeling, we'll let you increase that radius beyond a mile.

So in January, we submitted three applications for uh permits to increase those three different radiuses.

And the beauty of what we've done here is we're um we're doing something that really is in line with our integrated water master plan goal of aquifer sustainability, but we're doing it all through essentially a paper exercise rather than having to spend millions of dollars on additional infrastructure.

And so it's you know, kind of a win-win-win.

Um, and we have uh we'll we'll hear back from the state on you know how they've reviewed our application in the coming months.

But we're pretty excited about this one.

All right.

So the next high-level update I want to provide for you is it is time to update our drought preparedness plan.

So we have a drop preparedness plan that's been in place since we've been a utility.

It's actually a requirement of the state that you have a community drought plan that you update every five years.

So right now we're due for our five year update, but also it's pretty in line with what's going on with our Colorado River supply as well.

When we did our last uh drought plan update, uh we had kind of lined it up a little bit with the uh Colorado River shortage triggers.

And so if those are gonna be changing, uh then we need to make sure our drought plan is calibrated with how the river is actually operating and how it might impact our supply.

So that's the need for this update.

Um, and we'll be leveraging our water resource round table, kind of kicking that off again to involve different stakeholders as we go through that update.

Um we learned a lot since the last update that we did in 2020, um, largely through the water resource round table.

We weren't learned a lot of feedback that we got from HOAs.

And um, so we want to continue that model.

Um, what I have up here is our plan for the four round table meetings in which we'll be uh gathering our stakeholders.

And the first meeting is coming up on May 13th.

This one is actually the invitation is extended to the other water providers in our city because we first and foremost want to make sure that whatever's in our drought plan is kind of calibrated with theirs so that we're not creating a disparity or an inequity across the city of how we're all acting on our drought plans.

Um so that's the first one we have coming up, and then our timeline really is to work with stakeholders throughout the year and bring that drought plan to you for consideration by December.

Lastly, I want to share some of the um highlights of our water conservation program this past year.

This is also something that we report on to the state when we go to do our annual water taxes.

Um April is water awareness month in Arizona.

I believe we have a proclamation later today to that effect as well.

And uh we've kicked off the wild and mayors challenge for water conservation.

Thank you, Mayor, for your support for us in doing that.

And so um that's the biggest initiative I have to share.

Um, it's mywaterpledge.com for any listeners who would like to take the water conservation pledge with us.

Um, we're always looking to expand our water conservation presence and our programs, our offerings, making sure that we're providing resources for the public.

So in the past year, um, I think two years ago, we launched the qualified water efficient landscaper program.

This is a training program for landscape professionals that we are offering for free to landscape professionals throughout our city.

And this year, uh the way we enhance that program was by also offering a Spanish-speaking version of that.

Um, we've got more enhancements coming, but that's what I have to share with you today.

And then I also just wanted to highlight um our outreach programs.

We've been offering, you know, we offered 49 different education programs for free for our residents.

We uh we increased our rebate issuance 20 fold.

And that was through the success of that grant that we um that we accepted a couple years ago that helped us expand our rebates to the whole city, not just our water service area.

So I want to thank you for the support and continuing the funding for that because we're seeing a lot more participation in our programs because we're able to offer them to the whole city and not be so restrictive.

And then um also wanted to share that we we did a record number of leak detection home visits.

These are done by our utility billing uh field staff.

And really, uh, because of we have that awesome AMI system that does all that leak detection, we're able to make phone calls.

We visited almost 4,000 residents last year.

So with that, that's our annual water resources update.

And, you know, depending on the news that Vanita gets and we all learn about likely this coming fall, we will be back to better calibrate, you know, the actual scenarios to really understand, you know, what our fate will be for uh 2027.

But again, as the slides depicted for Ebcorn surprise, uh, we're we're in good shape heading into 27.

Council, any comments or questions?

I appreciate your leadership, your forward thinking.

When you talk about water, you have to do every little bit of it.

And that in this presentation demonstrates that you were all doing that.

So thank you for keeping the city uh up to speed on the right track for growth for water, all those different things.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We'll entertain a motion to adjourn the work session.

Move to adjourn.

Second.

It's been moved and saying all in favor.

All right, all opposed.

So moved, we're adjourned.