Ahead and call the concurrent meeting of Western Regional Water Commission, Northern Nevada Water Planning Commission to order for November 5th, 2025 at 131.

And we'll start out with a roll call.

And I'll start with WRWC.

Paul Anderson.

Here.

Clara Andreola, President, Alexis Hill.

Susan Sever.

Naomi Durr here.

Diane Vanderwell.

Here.

Kathleen Taylor.

Mary Luis Garcia.

Miguel Martinez.

Here.

We have a quorum.

NNWPC.

KC Mentzer.

Chris Nelton.

John Flansburg.

Amber Sosa.

Here.

Michael Widmer.

Mylan Newen.

Don't love.

Here.

Danielle Henderson.

Here.

Eric Crum.

Eddie Quaganari.

Yeah.

Chris Mixon.

Here.

Jennifer Carr.

David Kelly.

We have a quorum.

All right.

Thank you.

Moving on to item number two, Pledge of Allegiance.

Please join me.

I pledge allegiance to buy the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation.

I'm going to go indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

We'll move on to item number three public comment.

Do we have any public comment?

None.

That makes it uh go a little bit more quickly.

Move on to item uh four approval of the agenda.

Uh if we could start out with uh WRWC.

Um do we have a motion?

Motion to approve second.

We have a motion and a second.

All in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Motion passes unanimously.

All right, and from the uh N M WPC.

Uh we are looking for a motion for approval of the agenda.

Motion to approve.

We have a motion, big second, second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Right.

Opposed.

Motion passes unanimously.

We'll move on to item number five, approval of the minutes in October 15th, 2025 WRWC meeting.

Any changes, uh concerns with the minutes to approve.

Okay, we have a motion.

Second and a second.

All in favor, signify by saying aye.

Aye.

All opposed?

Aye.

Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you.

Okay.

Item six, approval of the minutes.

May October 1st, 2025, Northern Nevada Water Planning.

I have review the minutes and move to approve.

Um we have a motion by Chair Planker.

Second.

Second.

Second.

All in favor.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

Motion passes unanimously.

And we'll move on to item number seven.

Uh presentation by Rath Talis on phase one A feasibility study of regional planning, management of wastewater utilities and at least disposal.

All right.

Uh can everyone hear me?

Uh this is Zach Green from RAF Tellus.

Yes, sir.

All right, great.

Um before I get started, I wasn't sure uh if Kim or anyone else um you know wanted to do any any preamble with respect to the study, or if uh I should just jump right in.

No, Zach, go ahead and jump right in.

Um, but I do want to make a quick note that member Hill is on zone now.

Thank you.

All right, great.

Um thanks everyone um for the opportunity to present our findings from this phase one a uh feasibility study of um regional wastewater and effluent management.

Um phase one a was tuned um pretty uh broadly, I would say um without a lot of analysis but with a lot of conversation.

Um so the goal of this phase was to identify regional wastewater challenges and objectives by having a lot of discussions um with all of you folks.

That includes staff and electeds.

Um, and that allowed the consulting team to digest a lot of what's been going on in the region and distill what this feasibility study is really about.

Um, from my perspective, I think we've gone further and faster uh in certain ways, uh, which has been great.

Um, you know, looking forward to sort of sharing what we found today.

Um what I'm gonna go through is just uh a bit of study background in terms of what the scope was and who was involved.

And then I'll focus on those key findings in terms of challenges and objectives, and then talk a little bit about next steps, and we can uh happy to answer any questions about the findings after that.

Um, so the the project team did involve three firms.

I think you've all um for the most part gotten to know us by now.

Um, so I won't uh dwell on this too much.

I don't think we have to do a round of introductions.

You'll be hearing from a few of us today as we present and then in the QA.

Uh, but the firms involved were RAF Tellis, which is my firm, uh Zanhero, um, Gwenmortulli's with us from there, um, and Jacobs was involved as well, um, although they're not with us today, um, but they were very helpful in terms of getting us oriented uh on the front of the end of the project given their involvement in the region.

Um, so what this phase involved, as I mentioned, is sort of documenting regional wastewater challenges and what the objectives are in exploring further regionalization.

Uh, the outcome will be a report that we're in the process of uh developing our first draft of that you'll have the opportunity to comment on before a final report is issued.

In terms of the subsequent phases that were included in our amended proposal, I'm gonna save discussion of that for the end.

I think um, you know, what we think what we thought those phases are, those future phases, um, is in part still true, but some of that has evolved given um, you know, I think where we land at the end of phase one A.

Uh so I'll come back to one B and one C.

In terms of the work we completed in phase one A.

So, what this really involved is a lot of document review um uh data and sort of initial research to make sure that um we understood sort of everything was available.

A lot of that information, um, you know, should we have the opportunity to continue to work with you guys will be beneficial for analytical tasks that are yet to begin.

Um, but they were also just helpful in terms of preparing the consulting team for the conversations.

Um, so we interviewed um staff and then elected officials as well, um, and we followed up uh with staff on the initial conversations.

And then our third session with staff was really uh focused around eight sort of topic areas that um have a nexus with the um sort of key challenges that we identified.

Those are shown on the right.

Um I'm not gonna go through all of those right now because I think uh it's somewhat uh redundant with with some of the future slides and the challenges.

But um suffice it to say, I thought from what I heard, uh I wasn't able to attend as I just um was blessed to have my second child, but um from what I heard, these were very productive sessions, and I've been briefed on what was discussed.

Um the nice thing was that it allowed us to um get through some of the complexity rather than having you know an hour with each community.

Um these sessions allow allowed us to take an hour on one topic and sort of dive a little deeper on it.

And I thought they were impactful uh in that sense.

In terms of the participants from from your side, without going through all of these, um, I just want to say we we have really good participate participation and engagement across all of our three trips out to the region.

Um, and this is across sort of a broad range of folks, um, you know, finance, engineering, leadership, um, and electeds.

And so I think that allowed us to really kind of understand what you guys are are um struggling with and um how regionalization might be impactful in uh you know charting a better path forward.

All right, so um I do want to get into kind of the meat of the findings now.

Um first I'm gonna start with the identified challenges.

Um there were approximately eight of these, as I said, we had eight sessions in our in our last visit out to the region.

Um the first thing I want to say about what we identified here is that it's very hard to talk about one without talking about the other.

These are all interrelated.

Um, but I'll do my best to try to briefly summarize them.

So in terms of wastewater management in the region, there are capacity limitations that are already bumping up against growth pressures and are expected to be exacerbated as the region continues to grow.

Capacity limitations mean different things in different parts of the region.

In some cases, we're talking about a plant's ability to handle nutrients.

So not necessarily a hydraulic capacity.

In other places, you know, you might be talking about an effluent reservoir's capacity.

In other places, you may be talking about reuse demand.

So it means different things in different places.

I want to start talking about the next one.

Well, I'm talking about this one, but let's keep moving through.

So you have capacity limitations that are coming, some of which are here now, some of which are going to be more intensive over time.

You have nutrient regulations where there's some uncertainty in terms of what is to come, but that are having impacts on what is the capacity limitation.

So when we talk about nutrients, we're talking about the loadings in the wastewater as opposed to the flow.

So those are things like nitrogen and phosphorus.

And so effluent management and the quality of that effluent is dictated by regulations.

There are some draft regulations that are expected to change that have been issued by the state and federal regulators.

So there's a little bit of uncertainty there, but it impacts wastewater management in the region.

So what we know is that regardless of where the regulations go or where the growth comes from in the region, there are some significant long-term capital investment needs coming.

And that those may be more challenging to manage separately than together.

In addition, there's a nexus of wastewater, water, and storm water.

When you think about wastewater effluent reuse, that is a water supply demand.

When you think about a closed versus an open basin for effluent disposal, that has a nexus with water rights.

And when you think about what's coming into your pipes and what's going into the water bodies, there's a nexus with stormwater as well.

So there's complexity there, and there's a question as to whether that is better managed separately or together.

In terms of how all this is governed and paid for and funded, right now there's variability in that.

There are multiple layers of governance.

There are different modes of cost recovery.

And that just leads to complexity.

It can lead to uncertainty for developers when costs are different and cost recovery is different in one area versus another.

And there's a question as again, whether that could be more aligned and simpler under a single governance structure.

Some staffs, uh, wastewater staff are asked to do many things in addition to wastewater.

Um, and so there that can be challenging just from a workload standpoint.

Um stormwater management is one area where that is the case for certain jurisdictions.

Um, stormwater is something that uh has been included in this scope.

Um, you know, with some question marks, but because it's another significant area of capital need with a nexus to wastewater and currently overlapping resourcing in for for some of the communities.

Um across all of these challenges, there are sort of the complex layer of interlocal agreements that allow for significant collaboration currently, but also maybe slow down decision making and make things a little more complex that they might then they might be under alternative governance modes.

Um I'm gonna pass it to Gwen Moore from from Zenharrow briefly talk about the next slide, which gets a little bit at kind of the the one water um aspect, and we have a visual here that kind of um I think will help represent some of that that should be familiar to a lot of you.

Go ahead, Gwen Moore.

Awesome.

Okay, thanks, Zach.

Yeah, I think what what Zach is talking about in the last slide, the the challenges are sort of embedded at some level completely within the schematic, how water and wastewater and water reuse is moving throughout the region.

Um and this is an effort to really simplistically capture that.

That uh, you know, these are sort of the regional water asset portfolio, as I call it.

All the components of your portfolio are embedded sort of in this one region and optimizing those, optimizing those assets in the context of uh the Truckee River operations and the requirements there uh are really important.

So the idea here was to show how water moves, moves through the wastewater, you know, to the customers and then to the wastewater treatment facilities, and then potentially into other uses, whether it's ponds or wetlands or reclaim water on the road.

So the effort here really is to show the integration of this water asset portfolio and that the way we're going to be looking at governance of this uh needs to be representative of this.

Thanks, Gwen Mark.

Um, next thing I want to touch on briefly um is the regionalization objective.

So the way we kind of move through this phase 1A was to try to say what are the problems, and then what are we trying to do when we talk about a regionalization feasibility study?

What are the things, what are the hypotheses that we have in terms of what we might be able to achieve if we undergo some sort of regional transition.

Um, and so those are identified as the following the potential for enhanced financial and administrative efficiency, so maybe bending the cost curve so that it's less steep over time.

Um, and then simplifying, you know, decision making uh uh with respect to wastewater and investment timelines and things like that.

Um integrating water resource management.

So that's kind of the the one water aspect that we were just talking about.

There are there are certain aspects of planning that are easier to potentially accomplish under one governance structure.

Um an example of that might be advanced purified water projects like what's going on in North Valleys, um, where we already have sort of the water utility and the wastewater utility involved.

Umperational optimization and reliability is is really just referring to you know, trying to deliver a high quality of service over time as costs rise and the challenges become more complex, and then ensuring uh, you know, a good level of service across the region uh that's also you know affordable.

Um strategic planning and problem solving, I I think is is um gets at governance, right?

If you have multiple layers, that process can be slowed down.

There may be as little little bit less ability to control sort of a strategy and a vision for the region if if multiple parties are pulling in different directions instead of one all in the same direction.

And then, you know, this aspect has kind of been emphasized or minimized uh in different parts of our conversation, um, but we see it as certainly important for economic development.

Um, providing certainty, providing um sort of maybe more equal treatment uh or more clarity uh to those that are investing in the region and helping it grow from a wastewater management standpoint, I think is another aspect that's come up.

Now, some have said, you know, developers are in our const are one of our constituencies, but maybe they're not the only one.

Um, so I I think there's a each of these, you know, the weight of them is not necessarily something that we're we're getting at here.

I apologize for those alerts that keep popping up on my screen here.

Um so we're not necessarily placing a weight on all of these things, but these are certainly some of the objectives that came up uh through the study.

You know, so I think there were also important pieces where um or aspects of the conversations where folks kind of said we need to make sure we don't move too fast, um, or that we're not overlooking, you know, certain obstacles and concerns as we go about this feasibility study.

So um loss of local control is a big one of those.

So that there needs to be certainty if there is some sort of regional transition, that folks are represented, um, that the governance structure is reflecting the differences across the region and allowing the communities that currently control their own destiny to have a voice in a regional entity, if that's where this goes.

So that's definitely uh maybe the biggest one.

Um, financial and resource equity um is very important.

It's something that I think we will focus on potentially um in the next phase of this, should that move forward.

Um, what that's really about is making sure that um that the dollars the utility are invested equitably across the region, um, that there is compensation where there needs to be for assets in place that have been maybe paid for by some but not others, but could be regionalized, regionalized in the future.

Um there's concerns about governance complexity, um, you know, in the current state, and but also the political will to sort of move beyond it.

Um, there are roles that would change through a transition like this, uh, in terms of where the responsibility lies for decision making.

And so that's uh that I think relates to loss of local control, but is more about the governance structure that would result from any kind of transition.

Um, you know, laboral labor relations and staffing.

There's organized labor uh considerations, there's roles that could change.

Um and so all of these things I think um are areas of pause.

People want to understand how how would my role change if this went regional.

Um the difference is in the priorities of one part of the region versus another and between the agencies.

Um these are things that uh, you know, where we we certainly observed variability, and the question is how would a regional entity prioritize an investment um in one area versus another under a single entity.

So I think there's a lot of questions about how that could be done in an elegant way that makes the most sense for the region.

Um, and then just sort of momentum and risk aversion, right?

It can be hard to get through or certainly get beyond a feasibility study given all the concerns above.

Um I think there have been significant regional transitions in the region on the water side before.

Those were maybe a little bit different.

So some of these concerns are unique to this situation, and some of them I think are based on lessons learned from prior transitions.

This slide's just a schematic that I think was helpful in those eight sessions that occurred most recently.

What this really highlights is that there's kind of a spectrum here of things you can do when you talk about regionalization.

Um, there are things ranging from you know, shared services and collaboration that really is already happening to maybe partial consolidation of facilities, uh, which again really is already happening if you think about a facility like Tumworth.

And then there's full regional consolidation.

And so when we started this study, I think there was this question as to where on this continuum we were looking to go, or if it was all on the table.

By the end of phase 1A, I think we've heard from the participants, especially in the most recent meetings, that there's maybe a narrower end of this spectrum that is the desired state of the study.

That doesn't mean there's been any decision to move forward with these things.

Um, but in terms of what the feasibility should focus on, I think the reality of all the collaboration that's already going on makes some of the things over to the right more worth spending consulting dollars on to study than the things over to the left.

Because you guys already do a lot of service sharing and regional collaboration.

Um, so so just a couple more slides uh and then and then I'll open it for questions.

The major takeaways are really that um collaborative efforts would simply amount to the status quo.

So trying to figure out a bunch of um functions or activities where you guys could better work together, when those opportunities emerge or are evident, it's already being done.

Um so the goal of the feasibility study is not necessarily going to look at small bites at the apple that we would frame as collaborative efforts.

Um at least that's what we were told in the most recent set of sessions.

I mean, we think that makes a lot of sense.

Um fair compensation cost allocation across, you know, ratepayers and agencies, those were universal priorities uh in the most recent conversations.

I think there's there's sort of an eagerness to get to what does this mean from a dollar standpoint for my community.

Um and so I think some of those things um, you know, we can we can start getting into in the next phase.

Um there were conversations that were had around um, you know, whether wastewater, if it's looked at regionally should be its own thing, or whether water and wastewater just make sense to be managed under a single entity.

Um, and what we are hearing is that a one-water model is thought to enable sort of decision making investments, operations um that are the best thing for the region, that because of the realities of the relationships between these things, which at a high level were highlighted on that schematic that Gwen Moore walked through, that the thought is that if we're going to regionalize, that it should be under a single entity, uh, not a separate wastewater entity.

Um there's a feeling that there's a lot a strong sense of collaboration right now, and that the major investment needs that the region knows are coming, is driving this um study of regionalization at this time.

I think what folks were trying to communicate there is really let's keep going.

You know, we have some momentum.

There are more good feelings than bad about the possibilities for this.

There are major questions that need to be answered.

Um, but that it makes a lot of sense to sort of look at this with the next level of detail.

Um I think that optimizing, you know, in terms of optimizing potable water, wastewater and reuse, uh, considering the return flows uh of the trucky or the closed basin issues to the south.

This kind of relates to that one water model that I was mentioning before, but I think what this one's really getting at is just the recognition that all of these things are interrelated and they likely should be managed under a single organization.

Now that includes stormwater as well, but I think there's a recognition that because you're starting from a different place on stormwater in terms of different aspects of the region, maybe having a revenue source versus not that one may be more complex and it should not obstruct regional initiatives around wastewater, but it should still be included in the scope.

So what that exactly means I think is to be determined I think there's a question of you know if we look at asset valuation, do we initially just do that for wastewater?

If we look at a transition to a regional entity, does that initially only include wastewater or does all this happen at once?

I don't think we have the answers to that.

But I think in the long term there was a feeling that ideally this would be part of what we're referring to as that one water organizational model.

A few more big picture points I think I'm going to let Kevin maybe walk through this one.

This will just kind of tie it all together.

Go ahead Kevin.

Sure Zach good afternoon everyone in the room nice to be with you.

Yeah this is you know trying to distill all the prior slides and some of those takeaways in the in the um immediately or the the immediately prior slide.

So something we heard I think loud and clear the last time we were with uh we were in the region was that the status quo works by necessity but it's largely suboptimal for all for all agencies for all parties.

Dak talked about the second one to some degree about wastewater capacity limitations and that some of those are real from an infrastructure standpoint either now or in the very near term but some is you know call it a paper constraint if you will where we have capacity unused capacity locked up based on agreement constraints or ownership of assets.

But for the reasons that Zach laid out it may prove politically problematic.

And so those those collection and conveyance systems based on uh the facilities that treat and and dispose of affluent thanks Ken the other thing I want to say is that um there's one agency that I don't think is interested in in regionalization of wastewater.

And I just wanted to kind of acknowledge that um you know we we have obviously four different wastewater agencies and one water agency kind of at the table here.

And I I think three of the wastewater agencies are are interested if there's an equitable solution and potentially making this transition um but for the the fourth wastewater agency I think there's a feeling that the the status quo is kind of working well for them.

So I didn't want to move forward without acknowledging that and you know who you are um all right uh this is the last slide before QA and I appreciate you letting us go a few minutes longer than was planned.

So phase one B and one C I think one B was really about once we've identified the challenges and objectives what are the regional models you know it was really we weren't sure if we would get to the point um where we would have a feeling that you know would this be wastewater separate would this be treatment only would this be water in wastewater.

It feels like for for many in the room we we we sort of have a vision of what that looks like.

And so some of what this next phase might be over say the next six to eight months I think changes a little bit.

I think that um some of the aspects in green around asset valuation, um, you know, around understanding kind of the regular the regulatory requirements for the water balance um and and detailing the benefits of increasing recycled water over time.

Um maybe on the table in the next phase, sort of maybe determining what would upfront um compensation look like under a regional model or under a sewer shed model.

So rather than spending as much time figuring out what is the model, I think from what we've heard, folks are itching to maybe learn more about what the financial implications are.

And so if that's the case and we're working to develop a um, you know, scope for the next phase, you know, we're willing to move faster in that sense uh if you'd like to.

The public education aspects that are highlighted in the green from our perspective should be further afield.

Maybe after the next six to eight months, there might be more information or or a better sense of where this is all going.

Um so a lot came up around uh stakeholder engagement.

We don't think it's now necessarily from there.

The the next phase, a one C would really get into the detail and organizational structure, staffing, collective bargaining rates and annual revenue requirements as opposed to just what the upfront compensation might be.

So that's a little bit more into sort of implementation planning in the weeds.

That's future phases.

I don't think we get there in the next six months uh necessarily.

Um so you know, thanks again for um giving us a little bit more time today and a lot of time over the last six months or so.

Uh it's been great working with you all and um happy to answer any questions about what we've learned so far.

All right, thank you very much for the presentation.

And uh Kim, did you want to add anything before we go to the commission?

Yeah, thank you, Chairman.

So what I would like to add is this is the reporting phase.

They will be um presenting a final report for phase one aid to us in the and correct me if I'm wrong, Zach.

I think in January time frame is what we talked about for the phase 1A report.

I I'd say before then.

Um which means we can bring it because of our meeting schedule to the boards in January.

So we we would anticipate that.

We have whatever recommendations they have that they fill up the report.

And now would be a good time for any comments or questions or things that you know you feel like you want to have included or something that feels uncertain, or it would be a great time to have that session.

Um what if we could maybe open it in an orderly fashion?

And if if you don't mind starting over here, kind of moving around.

If y'all have anything that you would like to ask or any comments you'd like to make, no questions.

Although I will say 43-year veteran, it's the same thing consultants had to say in the 1990s and early 2000s is one entity controls water and sewer.

So it's interesting.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, and um, you know, just to react to that a little bit.

I mean, I I think at certain points in the conversations, folks sort of said, well, what is what is common around the country?

What is what is common uh in the West?

And um, you know, certainly both we see both models.

If there is interest in in looking at case studies in the region or around the country, that that's another aspect that could be considered um in future phases of work.

Thank you.

I would just say um, as a representative of the pyramid like truck, we don't have to be included in any future stakeholder processes.

Absolutely.

I think Kim and I have talked about that, and and we would expect uh we would expect that to be the case and look forward to it.

Okay, so uh uh Zach, uh we I was involved in a little meetings.

We we had a fair amount of collaboration.

So we said that there was one group that wasn't that likes the status quo where it is.

Um that isn't as obvious to me.

So uh not sure not to call it out, but just saying um, you know, I guess I am calling it up.

Yeah, you are well um I think he's referring to Sun Valley VID.

Okay, and what we stated is we're not opposed to a regional, but that doesn't necessarily mean we would give up our wastewater power.

Okay, so uh so we're not necessarily opposed to a regional wastewater uh company or or one company running it, um, but uh not necessarily giving up SVGIEs wastewater power.

Yes.

Okay.

So obviously um Sun Valley, uh, you've got your collection system, you've got your um uh some some agreements in place uh for capacity.

So those are the things that you think you're speaking of.

So okay.

Yes.

All right, that helps.

Thank you.

I probably have lots of the questions, but uh um, but no, I think it was a really great process and appreciate the opportunity to be involved and uh and work with all of my peers.

It was fun.

Thanks, guys.

Okay.

Well, I guess I have two comments.

Um, I am really interested in your case studies, like I'm very interested to see how others do it in the region, you know, in the West, let's say, and I don't know if it's like 50-50 or most of them do it one way or the other.

So I think it'd be very helpful to have a few examples we could understand.

And um, let's see.

The second thing, there's one more thing to ask.

Yeah, I guess that's it for right now.

Yeah, and I've seen um, you know, utilities as part of uh studies like this do really significant efforts where we not only gather everything in public domain, um, you know, we go through a process to identify peer utilities of interest.

Uh I've done it for up to 20, where we then kind of go through all their financials and do benchmarking, and then we go out and we we interview their finance folks and their engineering folks and their executive management folks and try to really understand those organizations and why their metrics look the way they do compared to those involved in the study.

Um you can do that really intensively, not at all, or just a little bit.

Um some people find it instructive.

Some people at the end of it say, well, we're different, labor costs are different there.

I don't think it's relevant.

And other people, you know, find it really insightful.

So um well, I think that it is easy to dismiss these things because they're not us, right?

Everything's different about our if you dial down to our local everything, our costs, our organization, our geography.

Um, but uh the other question I basically did have was when you said one water and meaning one entity, did it go further than that?

Was there a thought of forming a brand new entity?

Was that discussed?

Or was there a thought of centralizing with any existing entity?

Um, I mean, I I can be pretty frank about what I think I I heard that meant, although I wasn't in the room when it got to that stage.

Kevin, do you want to I don't want to overstep, so maybe I'll let you take that one just to make sure too far.

I'll try and be tactful about what we heard, but I think um from our notes from the conversation, um the thought was that having kind of a call it a peer or a sibling entity on the wastewater side akin to Tumwa, um, wouldn't be the best um wouldn't be the best idea to kind of have a parallel wastewater authority and that one entity would be best.

Now, what that may or may not look like, you know, folding under the existing uh regional water authority, a new authority, etc.

That's to be determined.

But the sentiment was that what is not uh attractive is to have kind of a parallel regional wastewater authority.

That's helpful.

I mean, because we sort of have parallel flood organization, you know, a much smaller scale, but it is a standalone parallel with a board, you know, with similar structure with ability to bond all of that.

So but what you're saying is for wastewater, they didn't they said that probably wouldn't be the best, be better to consolidate.

And and I think partly, you know, and I would I'd lean on folks in the room as well, but you know, for the reasons that Zach walked through and Gwen Moore walked through that we have so much interrelationship with all things water with return flows and water rights management, um reuse, you know, the future with indirect and direct potable reuse possibly.

So just the how interrelated both are that it would it would it would be kind of a half step, um, and it would still cause to have two entities that would have to then still be collaborating, communicating, harmonizing things across um two different agencies, two different management organizations, two different boards.

Okay, thanks.

I could weigh in a little bit too.

I mean, um it starts even from the source water, the choice of where the source water comes from has impacts to the wastewater treatment plans, uh to the return flow requirements.

So all things we have a lot of collaboration we do now with Comwala.

Um, and so it would it would make sense that you had one organization that was overseeing all those things.

And then you think about one of the main objectives of the uh regional um regional water um commission is to have the uh regional water management plan, and if you think about that almost under a web water agency, you would you would just about have that cover.

Um the only new ones you have there is you've got stormwater versus sledding.

Um and so uh you know, quantity versus quality kind of things as well, but there's a lot of coverage.

Other questions.

Uh no questions.

Um, I don't have a lot of questions.

I just comment that I appreciate the overview uh the time that you all spent in interviewing and getting to know our region and sort of putting that into uh presentation for us.

It was sort of hard to see the diagram of the water flow and conveyance.

So I'd love to get a copy of that, if possible, just to see from your perspective what it looks like.

Um, but I I really appreciate you uh outlining, you know, not just the limitations and growth, but the capital investment needs, F1 management, and some of those bigger issues that are on the horizon for each one of our jurisdictions.

And I think it's an imperative that we work together to find a solution before all of this comes to a head, and we have we are forced to make uh uh I guess faster decisions than we have the ability to do now and have the ability to have these conversations and actually go back and forth and replay the options and look at everything from different perspectives.

So hopefully as we move to do phases one A, I mean one B and one C, we can come to the end and figure out what's best for our region as a whole.

Well, now that we've been out I just I was very appreciative that you actually came out and spent time with us in the valley.

Sometimes the little guys get left out and and we did appreciate it, we learned a lot, and I hope you learned a lot too.

Absolutely, yeah.

No, it's it was great uh learning about your organization and your perspective uh will be treated equally to everyone else's.

Thank you.

I don't have the on.

You didn't know.

We'll we'll open it up one more time because there may be some more questions, but I'm sorry.

Maybe our members online.

Yeah, I'll I just want to um just get a clarification on that tiny next steps.

Could you could you run through that one more time just to make sure I'm I'm clear about that?

Yes.

And and Zach can help me with this too.

The next steps either prepare the report, the summary of this AFYA.

And Zach, I'll let you kind of expand on what will be included in that and um how we're gonna work through recommendations and scope of work for the next phases.

Sure.

Um so, like I said, we we did submit a proposal uh with multiple phases at the front end of this process, and only the first one was approved, knowing that the nature of phase one, one B and one C, um, you know, might change.

And and I think they're all deemed phase one with the recognition that getting to a trans getting fully through a transition like this is a long process.

Um so you know, even if we get through one B in the next six months and then we get through one C, you know, six months to a year after that, uh, it doesn't mean that all of a sudden there's a new entity and everything's uh, you know, um uh everything's transitioned.

So it takes time.

Um our vision is that over the next six months, a further clarification of the governance models and all alternative models.

Um, like I said, that that sort of smaller step to a sewer shed alignment model.

Um, so call those two alternative scenarios, full regionalization or the sewer shed model, then we could get through a process that would kind of flesh out the governance on those that would identify the assets, um, their depreciated values and their condition, and then um begin opining on what compensation might be like for the undepreciated portion and paid in portions of those assets and begin that process of financialization.

I don't think we would get through by June of 26 um a revenue requirement, a staffing model, a rate impact.

I think that is a longer exercise.

But what we think makes sense is that is to start charging forward on sort of that asset inventory and financialization of assets and governance model definition and getting input from everyone on that on doing some legal research.

Kind of makes sense.

So whereas our phase one BS scope previously was more about a qualitative funneling of a range of governance models, you know, privatization versus a public authority, um, you know, or wastewater treatment only, you know.

We think we've there's a vision in the room that is a little more crystallized, actually.

There's just a question of whether the numbers kind of work and it's equitable and there's public support for it and and what the rate impacts are.

And so we can't do all of those things in the next six months, but there are a few of them that we're going to be developing a proposal for that.

I think we'll hope to get to you or to Kim at um and WRWC staff by sort of the end of November to frame that out.

And then if Raf tell us is the right firm for the job, um, you know, hopefully uh get right into that next phase um, you know, in the coming year.

Thank you, Zach.

We'll go to those that are online.

Um anyone uh the commissioners care to ask any questions or make any comments.

I don't have any questions, Mr.

Chairman.

This is Alexis, but I look forward to talking about what how we want to proceed with next steps as a group.

So thank you.

Right.

Thank you, Mr.

Enlo.

Yeah, I do have a comment.

Um I just wanted to say I really appreciated that last two-day workshop session we had several weeks ago in Reno.

And I think I can honestly say never in my career have I seen this community more aligned towards a possible outcome on involving water and waste water management.

I mean, it was so um encouraging and optimistic to me to to see that that alignment and I think there were there was a great example.

I mean, some of the comments loss of control, but I won't even go into the specifics, but Casey had a significant problem to him.

And I'm not dismissing what other people say.

Dwayne was saying, well, that's really not a timely issue to me.

I'm not that worried about it.

And John Flansburg even had another view on it while I was kind of waiting for something else to happen first.

And from Tumwa's perspective, it and from this one water entity perspective, if we have everybody in the same room rowing in the same direction, wearing the same hat.

I could I could honestly say that never at Tumwa has there been an issue on where are we going to spend our capital improvement dollars, Reno Sparks or Washoe County.

It's where's the priority, where's the risk, and what can we afford?

Everybody's in the same room working through all the issues together, and we come to a consensus.

And I think the possibilities are really tremendous if we could have that same type of an approach on the wastewater effluent management side of things.

So thank you.

Thanks for sharing that.

Any other comments, questions?

Okay, we'll move it back to the room here.

Um other from from here in the room that anyone would like to bring up.

Can I just acknowledge um Kim and her team?

I don't know how on earth you wrangled schedule from all of the different entities like the staff and the elected officials, but I thought that was a tremendously um successful effort on behalf of WRWC.

So I just wanted to recognize you.

Thank you very much.

I'll second that.

Uh they really made it easy for us.

Um, not that they're this isn't a complex process, but WRWC was like a project manager extension and really helped with scheduling and and setting up these conversations um and doing a great job kind of bringing the room along.

So I appreciate it, Kim and Virgo.

Thank you.

So sometimes it's heard in CATS, but everybody works really well with us, and we couldn't do it unless we had that collaboration.

So thank you for making it easier for us.

And if we don't have any other comments, questions we're ready to move on to item number nine program managers report.

Thank you, Charlie.

Good afternoon, members of the commission from speedable windy day.

This item I typically bring to water planning commission meetings.

The Western Regional Board doesn't only see these quarterly revenue and expense and five reports.

So it might be a little bit new to our Western Regional members and not so new to our water planning commission members.

I don't have quicker.

So again, could you thank you so much?

So what uh if you look in your board packet under agenda item eight, you'll see A B, C and D attachments.

And the reason I have A and B is because I didn't have time with the schedule with the Water Planning Commission to get the end of the year early report for fiscal year 25.

So I included that to make sure that you have the updates.

But the real need of today is just giving a report through the first quarter of this fiscal year.

And so that focuses on attachments C and D in your board packet.

So this is just an opportunity for staff to update the Northern Nevada Water Planning Commission on the various projects and what was accomplished in those projects that combined a little bit of the last quarter of fiscal year 25 and the first quarter of fiscal year basis.

So in our shared work program, that is a program that we have at the Trekkie Meadows Regional Planning Agency.

Director Smith and I work together with our staff to advance regional coordination and the development of digital mapping tools.

They help us with our website upgrades and most recently have finished and we're working on login credentials and security on a documents library.

We have about 600 historical documents in regional water planning that we want to make available to our member agencies.

Some of those are dated, but the information is there.

So we want to make sure that that library is accessible, clickable, and searchable for our partner agency.

So we're excited to launch that this next quarter.

And we also added an email subscription so that we can send out a mass email to everybody with announcements, um, board meetings and such.

For the wastewater regionalization feasibility study, I won't go into that because you just heard a lengthy presentation where wrapped with that.

So we're excited that that's continuing to move forward.

We'll bring more to the board in our January meetings.

The Cold Springs Water Balance is a is a for the first step of many steps, many hydrographic based and model development processes that are going to take place moving forward.

But the Cold Springs Water Balance is focused on looking at water coming into the basin, water going out of the basin, and how development might impact that and how we can plan for uh facilities and utilities moving forward in that area.

So the model was completed.

Um the presentation we gave a presentation, a joint presentation to the regional planning commission and the regional planning governing board last month, um, just to give them some information on what the purpose of the study is and how it impacts our planning.

Um and currently modeling scenarios have been you have been developed.

We're gonna run a few models on you know ultimate build-out in that area.

They call it breaking the model.

They want to put as much in there as they can to see where the model breaks and and what that means is is when are we going to need new facilities?

When could potential planning impacts be seen?

Um, when would wastewater facilities need to be um planned for and capital improvements?

So those scenarios are under development, and that should be moving forward in the next few months.

The Toma water usage review program performed 1900 residential commercial water audits.

Um that is essentially they have a crew that goes it up and customers call and say, Hey, my I'm using a lot of water, they can go out and audit their meter and their water usage and help them to do that plan to conserve water and save their um water one water nevada and regional coordination.

I kind of lumped these together.

This is our the assistance that we get through data instincts that pretty much coordinates and facilitates the advanced purified water tours that we offer each year to staff and board members.

Um they facilitate and put on the 2025 or the every year, hopefully now, the Trekkie River Watershed Symposium.

And um, they're also advancing and helping us with regional coordination on the regional water management plan update.

We were talking about some of those digital tools that Trekkie Meadows Regional Planning is helping us with.

This is a part of the NDEP permit requirement for the advanced purified water facility.

What they're doing is doing water water quality monitoring to see if there's any constituents that would come into the system that could impact negatively in fact that we plan for through the advanced purified in designing the advanced purified water facility.

And recycled water education Sierra Nevada Journeys had they held 13 family STEM nights in 2025 through the summer of 2026 and reaching over 800 people with recycled water education.

And they've recently updated their modules that they do with the STEM nights, and I'm going to be implementing those this fall and next spring.

They're doing a great job.

So real quickly, you'll see attachments 8B and 8D for fiscal year 25, our revenues totaled to a little over $2 million.

And those revenues come from our one and a half percent surcharge fees on water bills.

And our expenses were 1.5 million for quarter one in fiscal year 2026, our revenues were 525,000, and our expenses were 176,000.

So essentially what this is telling us is after our audit in August, we have no findings in our audit, our financial help remains stable and it's consistent.

This looks exactly like it should.

So we're we're doing good with our finances and our projects and accomplishments.

Thank you.

And so I'll take questions from the one.

All right, we'll move on to one more nine report discussion, possible direction to staff concerning the results of the C annual priorities.

Um session held on October 1st, 2025, prior to prioritize projects and studies for fiscal year 2027.

Okay, thank you, Charlie and Breakdown for the record.

Um you need to go ahead and advance the slide.

Perfect.

So each year the WRWC staff facilitates a priority setting session.

We call it now with the Northern Nevada Water Planning Commission.

And this session is an annual session to really reaffirm the existing priorities we have based on planning momentum and needs and to look and see if there's any other priorities or actions that we need to support regionally with regards to water resource planning.

And so we initially the process is we coordinate with all the member agencies behind the scenes and find out are there new priorities, are there things that we need to incorporate into the priority setting projects or concepts that will help us implement the regional water management plan.

And so we do that behind the scenes.

We create a really cool, what I call a really cool digital tool so that in our public meeting, we can use those tools as a survey for those so that the board can review the projects.

We provide an overview, you'll see in your board packet, it's attachment 90 with an overview of each of our priority of the projects, and they can rank the priority of project with one to five stars.

And that is to help us determine since all of our priorities are important.

We never want to minimize the importance of a priority or a topic in the regional water management plan, but it allows us to really filter through and say, okay, if we have a certain amount of money in our budget to support these projects, and our projects actually the expenses on our projects that the cost for the projects are going to be greater than the amount of money that they have.

Um, how do we prioritize the projects?

And so a one-star would be, for example, this project is an important project.

However, we could maybe able to put it off for another year and have needful funding.

Number two would be this is an important project, but we might partially fund it.

Number three could be give us score to three.

Um, this project's important, and we should definitely consider funding it at least partially.

Four is this project is super important.

Let's look at funding it at least partially, and then five would be this is a critical project.

We need to fully fund this project that year.

And that allows us to score the different priorities and projects and then develop our budget for the next fiscal year.

Jen, do you want to advance those things?

Thank you.

So if you look in your board packet, um, you'll start to see the results in in the board packet.

And um, what we first do is have the board members before they see the projects, we want them to do a brief scoring and ranking of what water management plan focus area topics are do they see as the most important.

And so the result is um, you can see the ranking.

The number one was the wastewater and effort management piece that is very much in alignment with where our focus has been in our priorities over the past two or three years.

Water quality rank number two, water supply, number three, uh flight control and stormwater conveyance number four, and then regional planning strategic priorities is number five.

And I just wanted to highlight that that number five, the regional planning strategic projects also includes the update to the regional water management plan.

It's things like the Gold Springs Water Balance or it really involves multiple regional water management plan topics and multiple communities coming together, multiple agencies coming together to um participate in that planning effort.

Uh next slide.

Okay, and so what I and rather than putting on the screen every single project and how it was ranked.

I've done that in the past, but it seems to be way too much information on the screen.

I thought I would just highlight the top seven ranked projects.

And so you'll see um if you look at the regional water management plan focus area, there's you can see the WW, the RPs, and the WQ.

So what those are is WW is wastewater topic, RP is regional planning, and WQ is water quality.

So if you look at the top rank projects from the previous slide, this is very much in alignment with wastewater being the top priority and water quality being the second top priority.

The region and regional planning uh topics came up was because the regional water management plan has to be updated in this next fiscal year.

So I think our members recognize that that was going to be an important piece overall.

Even though our rank at the bottom in the previous slide, after they started going through the projects, they they found that that to be um an important priority.

Okay, next slide.

So the outcome is our professional services budget detail.

And I believe that is um item so it's gonna be right.

Yes, so the attachment 9A.

You want to look in your board packet or 98.

I summarized it here, but you have more details in the packet.

And this is our uh professional services budget detail.

So basically our projects costs and list, and you'll see that water um wastewater rose to the top at six was a budget of six hundred thousand dollars, water quality 452, and then regional planning was the 430.

So um the budget does align with the priority setting.

And what we'll be we do have contingency funds of $800,000, but that is likely to increase or decrease as we finalize the WRWC budget in February, primarily because we have to look at what we've spent this year, what we have left, and how we're gonna allocate those funds.

So that contingency fund could fluctuate up or down depending on our end of the year numbers.

And with that, I'm happy to take any questions and chairman.

What we're looking for, Jen, if you want to advance the slide.

What we're looking for today is just some recommendations based on what you've seen in incorporating this professional services budget detail into the WRWC fiscal year 27 budget.

I'll turn it over to you.

All right.

So Marika, we are looking for a motion to accept the priorities setting results and draft kind of a professional services budget.

Sure, I'm gonna comment here.

Um so what's great?

I mean, the the luxury we're according here is all the work programs that we have.

We've been able to basically fund with the contingency.

There are there are several projects that we don't have any current scope of work on that we would be able to add uh in future as those scopes were developed.

So like that gives us a lot of comfort.

So with that, I would move that we um that water planning commission accept priority setting results and brought into the professional services budget detail and recommended WRWC to incorporate them in the fiscal year 2027 budget.

Second, oh crap.

Are there any other comments?

All right, all in favor.

Aye.

Are you opposed?

All right, motion passes unanimously.

All right, we'll move over to the WRWC side.

Uh any questions or comments before we take a motion.

All right.

And anyone willing to make a motion.

Mr.

Chair, I'll move to accept the priority setting results and draft tentative professional services budget detail for fiscal year 2027 and direct staff to incorporate them into the WRWC fiscal year 2027 tender budget.

Mr.

Chair, I'll check it back.

We have the motion and a second.

All those in favor by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

Passes unanimously.

Thank you.

And we'll move on to item number 10.

Discussion possible direction staff regarding agenda items and dates for future WRWC and NWC.

Thank you, Chairman.

So I have up on the screen our meeting scheduled for March.

We already went through the annual meetings of next year at the previous uh Northern Nevada Water Planning Commission meeting and WRWC meeting.

The January meetings are scheduled for January 7th for the Northern Nevada Water Planning Commission.

It will be at 1 30 in the Washa County Chambers.

And WRWC is scheduled January 21st at 8 30 in the Sparks Chambers.

Just to note our milestone for the WRWC as we have board elections.

Hopefully I will have enough with the wastewater regionalization report and scope of work coming forward.

We'll have that as another agenda item for our January meetings.

Sorry, I skipped over December.

We don't hold December meetings, so everybody have happy for December.

And then in February, our meetings will be February 4th for the Northern Nevada Water Planning Commission and February 18th for the DJ WC.

We will be looking for the tentative budget approval.

February.

So those will be important milestone meetings for us.

And primarily because in March we have we will be attending the water reuse symposium in Los Angeles.

And so we will not have a WRWC meeting in March.

And that's when we would normally approve the budget.

So we really need to have that approved.

And any other uh discussion items or question.

Just a question on the scheduling.

Um for our November meeting.

Was is this replacing the November 19th meeting or yes?

So this yes, yes.

So there will not be a November 19th meeting for the DRWC.

Okay, and then on Tumwa, I was not sure if anyone's here, but um they also have a meeting, I think on the 19th.

I didn't know that was conflicting with our we canceled.

Okay, great.

I will take those off.

Oops.

Okay, any other questions before we move on?

And do we need to vote on this or no?

All right.

Great.

We'll uh go on to item number 11 public comment.

Do we have any public comment?

I have none in this anyone in the public wishing to speak.

Um item number 12, commission comments.

Any of the commissioners have any comments or anyone on the commission?

No, happy holidays.

Number 13, staff comments.

Happy thanks, David, and happy holidays.

Thank you so much, everyone.

Appreciate it.

All right, with that, we'll go.

Thank you very much.

Um please.