Colorado Water Loss Control & Management Committee Meeting
4:00PM Mar 26, 2025
Speakers:
Keywords:
Water loss control
Colorado Water Loss Initiative
water audit validation
North American Water Loss Conference
water loss stories
infrastructure leak index
water conservation
water audit software
carbon emissions
water loss committee
technical assistance
water loss training
water loss abstracts
communication plan
water loss goals.
Hey Nina, good morning. Morning you
Hello. Dena James, Hello,
good morning.
Morning, right. Hey, Kevin Sam,
now we got a nice, nice attendance today. Awesome. You.
Hey, there, Tyler.
Hey, how's it going? Drew pretty good. Go ahead, you can join us.
Yeah, thanks so much. Glad to be here. You
all right, I was getting a little worried. I saw a couple out of office emails folks on spring break. So I was, I was, I was bracing for a small crowd here, but it looks like we've got a good group, all right, and the the pop ins have settled, so I think we're good to go ahead and get started, guys. So first of all, thanks for for being here and joining this, this committee meeting remotely, and just doing a quick roll call. I've got Ashlee Hollifield, Sam Bryan, Chris Penwell, James de Herrera, Dena eganhoff, Frank kinder, hey. Frank. Katie Helm, Kevin Reidy, Nina, my hair. Michelle Ryan and Tyler. Is there anyone on that I missed? Okay, excellent. All right, folks, let's kick it off with just a review of the agenda and
All right, get Scott, come in.
All right, hey, Scott, just in time. Morning, morning. So I sent out agenda, an agenda yesterday, and we've got some, some of the usual agenda items, at least to kick us off for the meeting. And then we've got a couple here that that we did not get to in our last meeting. And so those are looking at goal setting, ways to elevate water loss across Colorado, and talking about water, audit validator training. So those were topics that we, I think we maybe touched on the the goal setting, but didn't get to that in our last meeting. So let me, let me pause there and just having the agenda in front of you, is there anything that folks would like to add to the agenda, to the agenda and make sure that we discuss during our time today.
All right,
if something comes up, feel free to come off mute and add it. Maybe we can add it to the to the next agenda, to the next meeting, if we, if we don't get to it today. But in general, I would always encourage everyone, if you have a particular topic you want this this committee to discuss, please email it to me. Want this to be a collective effort and make sure we're we're finding things that are that are relevant to talk about. So so first of all, want to do a welcome and just scanning the attendance list, Tyler, I think this is your your first meeting, so we're going to put you in the spotlight as the as the new guy here. But if you wouldn't mind, Tyler, just introduce yourself little little bit about what you do at Mount Warner and just any background in water loss control at your utility. Yeah,
thanks. Thanks Drew and appreciate being here. As drew mentioned. My name is Tyler Gilman. I'm the operations manager for Mount Warner Water District. We're located in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. I've been with the district since early 2018 kind of been in several different roles, most recently being the the operations manager. But through my tenure here, I've actually been involved with the Colorado water loss initiative. We were one of the, I think, I think we kicked it off as one of the the original members, when, when some of the free technical assistance came out, and the level one validation and stuff like that. So I've been privy to that whole process. I've been very proactive with our utility in focusing our efforts on, you know, the data and metrics that are provided through the water loss analysis, we found to be really helpful, and certainly looking to be, I guess, a proponent and a liaison To support the continued water loss gospel. I guess it's a huge it's a huge factor in our utilities operation, and we see a lot of opportunity to to really improve on our efficiencies. So hopeful to be able to bring some of my knowledge and experience, learn a lot from the other folks on this committee, and see where it goes.
Fantastic. Tyler, thanks so much for that introduction. And you're right. I think you guys were you guys came in at the initial introduction of the Colorado water loss initiative. I think it was in Glenwood Springs, where you kicked it off with this. So that's a water loss initiative OG joining the committee here. So great. Let me do one more scan. Any other new members? I think everybody else is has joined the committee meetings before. So great. Want to give a couple updates and announcements. We have talked about the North American water loss conference this year. This conference, if you're not familiar with it, you should be it's, it's a conference that is held every other year. This is one of those years, and the conference will be held in Louisville, Kentucky, December 2 through the fourth. So anything and everything you want to know about water loss will be at this conference. It usually has representation from 30 plus countries, just a show of hands on the line. Who Who here has attended the North American water loss conference before? All right? Kevin, in my hair. I know you guys have Michelle, okay. Ashlee, nice. Okay, all right, so we've got, we got room for more, and we'd love to see as many of you guys there as possible. Also the abstract. The deadline to submit an abstract to to present at the North American water loss conference has been extended, and that will be the new deadline. Date is April 3. So my hair, thanks for putting that, that link in the chat. If you are interested in submitting an abstract, and I would highly encourage it. You know, having having utilities present their their stories and their case studies, is really the the backbone and the the value of that conference. So I would definitely encourage you, if you're on the fence, to to swing the other leg over and and submit an abstract, and it has you got a little bit more time to do that with the deadline now of april 3. You can find it just by going to a WW website and under their events, or just search Aww, North American Water oil's conference. But if you don't submit an abstract do consider attending? It's going to be a fantastic event. Also, I wanted to let this group know that there is an upcoming Awa outreach subcommittee coming up. I need to check the double check the date, but I believe it is April 15. Let me. Let me confirm that real quick, and
it's not April 15. I will confirm that that date. But what I would like to do is this is a subcommittee from the the national aw water loss control committee. Steve Cavanaugh is the the chair of this, this committee, and it's made up of chairs and members of different water loss control committees across the country. And 111, good resource, or the best resource, for that committee, is having a representative from those different committees. And so since this is a now a well established committee. I would love it if somebody from this committee could represent Colorado on those outreach outreach committee meetings. So I'll pause to see if anybody wants to, wants to volunteer to do that, if you want to wait to get some more information, I think the frequency of those meetings are are quarterly, but I can double check that for you, so it's not a not a big time commitment, but it would be mutually beneficial. Representative from this committee, can attend those meetings and always come back to this committee and learn from what others are doing across the country. So I'll pause here to see if, if anybody is is interested, and if we don't have any immediate volunteers, I'll follow up with additional information. And Michelle, I can't tell if your hand's still up or if or if you are, or if you're raising your hand to volunteer.
Sorry, my hand was still up and it was not meant for that. I just didn't take
it off. I shouldn't have said anything.
I jump in on that if, if we wanted to, I can jump into the meeting and see what it's all about and report back and then see if anybody else wants to continue on that vein or not. But okay, sounds kind of interesting to me. It would help. Yeah,
great, great. I'd like to see some information Drew.
Okay, fantastic. Thanks, Scott. I think
that there would be a lot of value to have someone in attendance to both meetings and kind of bridge that gap and improve the flow of communication. I am really interested, but unfortunately, I feel like I'm at capacity right now, so I don't know if no one else is able to do it, then I could jump in, but preferably someone with a little bit more bandwidth. So I'm a maybe for now,
a maybe. Okay, so that's great. I mean, Kevin from a you know, governmental organization, Scott with the the rural water perspective, and Katie as a maybe, with the utility perspective, I think that is, I think that's a well rounded representation from this committee. So thank you guys for for volunteering for that. I will certainly send all of you guys, more information on that
cool, hey, Drew, you know, it'd be good too. Is, I know that we had a heads up for whenever the last I attended a national water loss committee that the big committee I was online. I think it was during Anaheim. So how often do those go and can we get maybe updates for everybody, anybody who wants to attend, those with their online or if they're in person, because I'm sure there's gonna be one at ACE right in Denver this year.
Yes. So there are those. Those meetings are quarterly as well. There are four meetings a year, two in person meetings and and two remote meetings. And the the two in person meetings are, there's always one at ACE, which is in June, and it goes back and forth on years where the North American Water walls conference is held. There's an in person meeting at that event on the off years. It is typically held at the, I want to say, the the Water Infrastructure conference, the AWA water infrastructure Conference, which is typically held in in September. So those, those two, the those two in persons meetings switch off each year and then to remote meetings to fill the gaps. So the next water loss control meeting is a remote meeting, and that is scheduled for April 16, so I'll send that information to everyone there for that meeting as well.
So let's see good, good. Add Kevin for the the National Committee, and just making sure that everybody is aware of that opportunity to join those and and participate in that committee. Lots of things going on over there. One of the more recent updates is a committee report that is published. It is the leakage emissions committee report that is outlining the methodology that is tying a reduction in leakage to reduction in carbon emissions. And it's not a I think it's okay to let the cat out of the bag on this call, but there is an update coming on the AW, free water audit software that is going to now add a carbon component to the water balance that you guys are are all familiar with. So along with with the water balance showing the different volumes for the different components, it'll show tons of carbon associated with that. There's a lot of information that I'm fairly certain that we've we mentioned the leakage emissions initiative on this in this group before, but I'll be sure to to share some more information, but for now, I'll just share a website where this initiative got started. It was a International Water Association initiative through their water loss specialist group. So on the website that I just put in the chat, you can find a white paper that was published with an international agreement on the methodology, and some case studies that have been published as well. So what I would love for this group to do is, if take a look at some of those case studies. There's even a template on some of those case studies. If you have information that you think you could you could provide to bolster some of these case studies, then there's the contact there's contact information on that website. So to please reach out if you want to learn more, or if you are certain you have information that you might want to that you could lend to help out this case studies, all right, so that that alone, and the outreach subcommittee, the stuff that the software subcommittee is doing, lots of stuff going on with that committee, and opportunities to get involved. All right, I think that is it for the announcements. Oh, you know what I meant to show this. Tyler, you helped our place marker on the on the committee map and our western expansion. So I
saw that boy, and I was like, You know what? I can do? It I can Yes, yes, Google, pin up there, yeah. I mean, again, that's actually one of the interesting points, you know, Drew where, you know, I was kind of hopeful that maybe I can bring something to the committee is now there are some other districts in our area. We are the larger of the districts, and we like to lead by example, but because we have this experience, it would be nice to expand that outreach, and there are some opportunities to work with other districts and bring this information and support towards them. So hopefully that is a benefit.
Absolutely, yes, that's one of the things that we it's been a recurring conversation to have more geographic diversity on this, on this committee. So we're making, making headways there. Tell your friends, Tyler, preferably the ones near to you. All right, so the other, the next thing on the agenda guys, is one that we've we've had this as a standing agenda item that has, has always generated a lot of good discussion where we ask folks to bring a water loss story to the to the meeting. This could be really anything. It's it's a it's a blank canvas, so long as it is centered around water loss control. Could be a project update that you're working on, maybe a new project that you've started. It could be some challenges that you're having. It could be some successes that you've had. Really, really open for, for, for anything. There's no expectation that if you have some some challenges, that this group is going to is going to solve it for you, but it's just in the vein of us all trying to learn from each other, hear each other's stories. So we have had a lot of folks step up and share those water all stories. So I want to see if, if anyone on the line has any stories that they would like to bring up, any updates from their utility that they'd like to share, and just raise your hand if, if you do have one you'd like to share. I
All right, hey, Kelly, thanks for going
Hi, yeah. So instead of sharing a success story, I actually have a concern and a question to see if this group could provide any context, once again, not expecting answers, but kind of just more of a conversation around it. So for the last several years, Fort Collins utilities, that's who I'm with. We've done our water loss audit, but our infrastructure leak index, which compares, you know, what the water loss audit gives us as our actual losses versus that unavoidable, real losses that has consistently been underneath one, indicating that our losses are most likely too good to be true. They're too low to be true. So we have spent the last couple years trying to figure out what's going on with our data that is indicating that, because realistically, that infrastructure leak index should be at least one showing that we're, you know, we're losing water at what is expected or more, and we keep showing that we're losing water at less. So if anyone has ever had a similar experience, maybe what they found with their data. And then our second thought, since this has been several years and we've been combing the data, I wanted to learn more about how that unavoidable, real loss is calculated for utilities. So what pieces of data actually go into providing that number for us? And then if by chance, you know, could that number be incorrect for our unique utility? Is there something that maybe port Collins utilities is doing that that's not actually representing our unavoidable loss? Yeah, so that's kind of where we're at. It's a unique situation. Because you think we would be happy we have such low loss, but we're at a point where it seems almost suspicious.
Gotcha. Gotcha. Thanks for sharing that. Kelly, maybe just to kind of facilitate a little bit, has anyone else experienced gone through the audit process with a infrastructure leakage index of less than one,
or if you haven't What, what? What are, what are some of the reasons why we might, might see that that infrastructure leakage index of less than one. Sorry, I'm turning this into a training session. I was unintentional avatar to break. Drew. Is
it one of the reasons that it's Yeah, isn't one of the reasons that there could be water infiltration. Isn't that possible? Isn't that one of the potentials,
yeah. So I mean, typically, when we see an ally of less than one, so first of all, Kelly it doesn't mean that you're you know. Your your audit is you know. Is garbage. It's you know. But what it means is that there is some, some air that we're not seeing in the in the data, typically the the waters, in the water supplied data, or the authorized consumption. And remind me, Kelly, I think you guys have done, I know you guys have done a billing data analysis through the through the water loss initiative. Have you guys also, or are you currently doing any supply meter testing on your main supply meters.
Yeah, so the supply meter testing, we did one a couple years ago, so I think it was two or three years ago now, they were able to drain a basin that they knew the volume that would fill it. And so we do have the correction on that meter that we use into the water loss audit where we can take that in. So we've done that once about three years ago.
Gotcha, yeah. So those, those are the usual suspects when we see that ili of less than one maybe the the water supplied volume is understated, or the authorized consumption is overstated, or it could be a combination of both of those. So so it sounds like you are taking the steps I would, I would say that at least on the supply meter testing to if it's feasible to do that on an annual basis, just to see if some of those tests you know continue to produce some of the same results, or if you start to see some of those test results hop up and down, that might be some calls for for further investigation. I don't know anybody else on the on the line. Have anything to any thing to add to the ILI from Kelly seen,
I will, I will ask for the input for computing the unavoidable losses, the length of main very likely might be correct, also depending on your target systems, your account of services, which is easier for some some utilities, more than others, to to document those things. But pressure might also be depending on if it is the input, it's weighted average or pressure of a whole system, or it's more located into a specific area, that might not pull that big of a change in the computation of the available losses, but might have a slight impact in it. And then, of course, it will change the radio when, when compared with your real losses, we'll start with your losses. Sorry.
Yeah, thanks, man here, yeah, thank you.
All right. And then so Kelly we you know, we talked about the water supply and authorized consumption, another area we might look into when our windows performance indicators are either unexpectedly low or unexpectedly high. Apparent losses are something we might also look into. And I don't recall what, what those apparent losses look like in your in your system, usually the customer meter inaccuracies. That's usually the largest component of those apparent losses that can either be informed by, by actual customer meter testing data or or in the absence of data, it it might be, it's just it's estimated. So if it's if it's estimated, then looking into maybe doing some customer Meter Test testing to start to inform your apparent losses. A little bit more, a little bit better. That might be one other thing to check out and in the unavoidable real loss calculation is on the if you open up the water audit software and go to the the Definition tab for that, it'll give you the the the formula for the unavoidable annual real losses, and all of the variables that my hair just just shared with us as well. So each of those, those variables go have some impact on on calculating that value. Great. All right, thanks. Kelly, any other stories or updates from others.
All right, yeah, Scott jumped in, just took a trip yesterday, up to West cliff and forgot how stunningly beautiful it is there, just looking at the Sangre de Christos to the west on a beautiful blue 64 degree day. Hello. Anyway, on to business. Had a great discussion with their GM, Dave Schneider, who's very water loss conscious for a variety of reasons, foremost of which is cost savings as a result of water conservation. And what was really cool was seeing they sat down and they're using Aqua Hawk for all of their individual service tabs. And the clerk was telling me how many customers, when they see that stuff, their behavior modifies when they see day to day to day, the impact of what they do, you know, watering the lawn, flushing the toilet, running toilet, whatever it happens to be really mundane, basic things, but add up tremendously. So having having that tool available to the customers has made a tremendous difference in water conservation. And then that frees up the staff to do what they should be doing, which is not responding to leaky toilet calls. So it was just a real high impact with all the anecdotes that went along with it. So success story there for Round Mountain is the name of the, the name of the the, it's a special district, great. So, yeah, it was a great visit in many ways.
Excellent. Thanks, Scott. It's always good to hear about new tools that are being used, and especially when they're when they're working right and see the utility, see and the benefit that they set out to gain from those tools. Scott, I don't believe Brown Mountain is in our in the Colorado water loss initiative. So feel free to pass along the information to them again. There's no There's no parameters around the the size of utility to take advantage of that program. So it's a free technical assistance to all water systems throughout the state.
Oh, I'll definitely do that and use it as another excuse to visit. Soon.
There you go. There you go. All right, great, that's a good, good point that anybody else picking up any or as piloted or started to use any new, new technology in their system, or, or considering it,
um, I'm we're not looking at new technology, but I do have a water loss story to share that I don't think I Share before, okay, but if it's familiar, you know, just stop me. We have really wonky, inconsistent water losses. It's been going on for years, so we're constantly doing research to try and figure out what the heck is going on with our parks department. In the past, they would turn off their water service during the winter months so that they could avoid paying that ongoing charge just for our sewer fees. But an issue we were running into is they were supposed to contact our customer service department and let us know when they have re energized our irrigation for the season. So relying on staff to communicate is is not a hoist the best. So what would happen is they would turn on different irrigation systems at different points. Maybe they would turn on this park at the end of March, but something else wouldn't happen until May or June. And for that reason we were seeing a fluctuation in losses. So maybe there was a really significant one that happened in March, but when we finally got notified that they were using that irrigation and we turned on the billing mechanism, then we would see all of these sales that were occurring two months later. So we would see this kind of high and low as far as our losses, because, you know, collectively, our parks with all of that grass, it's pretty significant. Yeah, so we're we have a better process in place. What we're doing is we're keeping those meters energized all year long, and then we are just truing up the wastewater fees at the start of each year, if that makes sense. Um, in doing so, we're also doing a physical audit. We're working with GIS to do a physical audit of a lot of the city maintained properties. And we found some mystery meters. A really big one is outside of our city hall. We have this fountain. We turn it on during the summer, and it reuses water, but it's still a ton of water. That one was never connected to our billing system, and it's been there definitely over a decade. So it has a meter. There was all kinds of usage on that meter. I can't remember what it was, but you can imagine over the years, it was quite a bit. So a lot of lost revenue there, I think with our policy, we can only reconcile up to two years back. Otherwise, everything is just a wash. So that was a find that we definitely celebrated, but still mourning all of those sales that we missed out on.
Sure. Sure. All right, that's great. Katie, thank you for for sharing that. It's awesome.
Hey, Drew, I've got something that I just remembered. So, you know, we I work with a lot of places around the state sex. Scott does too, and had a call with the town of Moffitt in the northern end of the San Luis Valley. Really small. I mean, a few connections. It's not very big at all. They're embarking on a really big project where they've got to get, they got a bunch of wells, and they're trying to hook things up, and they've got a, it's, there's not a really distribution system even yet, and so they're trying to work through that, get meters on things. And it's, I feel for them, because they're, they're, you know, it's like 100 people, I think. Anyway, we had a really great call, you know, on the call with CD PHE, the Colorado Department of Health, environment, Department of local affairs, who does a lot of the, you know, local government help and land use stuff, and then us. But between the three of us and some San Luis Valley grants possibilities that they're looking at. It seemed like they're getting a pretty good package together to try to put some mains in and put meters on things and so, and they've got a really interesting connection to a another, like a marijuana grow operation, but some other connections, some houses over there. And it's, it's a really fascinating, you know, story. But anyway, just wanted to throw that out there that I, hey, I'm going to get them into the program, the water loss initiative, just so they have a good basis to start from, even though they're really tiny, they're really just talking to them. They're really motivated. And I think that is a really good thing. And and for me, you know, even though they don't really, they've got some, you know, meters on some wells, but they don't have meters going to places, houses and things that are connected to those wells. And so they want to try to control that, which is a great start, but I'd like to get them into there, and then we can, you know, then we can kind of help them with grant funding. So I always try to steer people through a program first, so that they can help prioritize things and then get into a grant funding situation. So, but it's just, you know, it's, it's fascinating that there's just tons of places everywhere that just need a little bit of help. These folks are really motivated, though. It was really good to see, because sometimes you don't hear from anybody because they're just not able to kind of get out from the weight of everything that they're dealing with. But it was really, it was really cool, and they're really, you know, sharp and just really wanting to understand what they're doing. But anyway, that's something that I'm working with them, so maybe you'll see them pretty soon, hopefully coming into the
program, yeah, yeah, that'd be great. It's another, another reminder that, you know, there's probably 100 reasons they could come up with of, you know, we've got too many things going on right now, but, you know, even to to the tune of not being fully metered, but that that definitely should not postpone anybody taking advantage of the program. Great. Kevin, thanks. Alright. I mean, this is my, this is always my favorite part of these, of these meetings, but I'm going to have to move us to the next item, or we're going to, we're not going to get to them two meetings in a row. But if you do, if anyone else on the line does have another, another story, hold on to it. Bring it to the next meeting for sure. So actually, Kevin, I'm gonna, I'm gonna stick with you. I didn't, I didn't give you a heads up on this, so I'm kind of putting you on the spot. But if there are any updates, cwcb, updates that you would like to share,
let's hear it. Okay, cool. I'll keep it quick. Just you know, if you guys are covered entities, which means you're selling more than 2000 acre feet of water a year. We've got the new requirements coming in june 30, 2025, for through your 1051, reporting for putting a water audit, attaching water out there. So we've been getting some, a lot of interest, actually, from a lot of folks and and Samantha's on the line, to Sam's online, that we've been working Denver Water as well since they're kind of a special case where they're distributing water to a lot of people, but I think we've got a pretty good setup for that going forward, and we're ready to, you know, collect those water loss audits. We did get a bunch last year, which is great people were submitting last year, but we'll send out a reminder pretty soon on that too, just to remind folks. I'm sure everybody else has been on this call has been doing it already, so, but we'll send out the larger reminder and and I'm really looking forward to this to kind of see you know how this is for the most part, folks are going through our water loss initiative, and so these are going to be pretty well validated audits. I'm just wondering, I'm just kind of curious, if we're going to get some audit get some audits in there that they're not through the program and they're not validated, and seeing if we can't see a discrepancy in those as well. Curious to see if that happens. But anyway, June 30 is a deadline for the 1051, stuff, so just you can easily attach your your whole worksheet to the end of the database, and we'll have it. And we're also working with other smaller folks that don't have to do the 1051 but who are actually doing water loss audits, and you know we're talking to them as well as saying, hey, just send them directly to us, because you know, we know you don't have to do the 1051 unless you're already doing it. Great. Do it if not. Send us the audit separately if you want to, because, you know, they're not required exactly either. So, but, you know, the idea is to collect as much data as we can so we can kind of get a better picture. Again, that's going to help our statewide, statewide planning for the next water plan as well. To set out, you know, kind of, you know, what we want to do in that thing and and how we want to fund everything going forward and what's needed so and just so, you know, seeing that map earlier of the water loss committee, I was like, boy, there's a big, big void on that west slope. It's only a few Aspen and steamboat, but I'll be out in Montrose at the end of April. We're as another project through the Sonoran Institute, a growing Water Smart workshop that we bring together communities to work on integrating land use and water planning together. And I usually plug the committee and the initiative during those anyway, but we're working with the Colorado River District as well as the Southwest Conservation District, and we've got a bunch of people coming from the west slope, like six or seven teams, I think. So I'll try to drum up some business there through that one and get some some folks, if there's some water people that are into water loss and on those teams, at least, I'll, you know, broadcast the information that, hey, we need your help over in the west slope, because that's looking pretty blank over there. So is the eastern plains too. But so they hit that another time. So that's all I got.
Great, Kevin. Are you? So since this is the first year that attaching the AWA water audit to the 1051, reports is is required. Have you seen many come in yet? Or do you expect to see, you know, just kind of a high volume of them coming. What's the what's the trend look like? Do you usually see most of them come in in June,
usually like May through June. Yeah. And, you know, it's just depends, because it takes a folks, you know, their their billing cycles, as you guys probably know, it goes till usually, least the third week in January for the prior year, for the calendar year. So then we don't expect it sooner. But I, you know, I don't, I haven't checked yet. There might be some that have already come in, but usually between, yeah, I say April and June. Usually we get them in, and then inevitably, we get spokes. June 28 Hey, can I get an extension? I'm like, Yeah, that's fine. Just just, we'll keep you in mind. Just get something in so yeah,
and then just a reminder, I think you, you said it, but just a reminder that that requirement is, there's no requirement to have that water audit level one validated, which is one of the, yeah, one of the services through the Colorado water loss initiative. But if you are engaged in the program or not. I mean, there's that's still something that's an opportunity that's provided to you. So having that, having a sense of how reliable that data is before attaching it to your 1051 report, is certainly encouraged, and something that you you can take advantage of. So those that haven't submitted it, you still have that, that pathway through the program.
Yep, and speaking that too, really quickly. You know, we're, we're bridging into phase three of the water loss initiative, so we're all good to go. We just, we're just working in some scope tweaks and budget stuff, and going to get that contracted. So we should have a real continuous time, you know, from Phase Two to phase three, there won't be a blip or anything. It shouldn't be. We should be able to just seamless, providing the service continuing. And so that's good. And what Drew said about the validated audits, which is really fortunate, because I think most of them will be validated through the program anyway. So that's a really good thing. I think other, some other states probably ran into that where they weren't requiring validated audits, maybe, and they got a bunch of, you know, good stuff and a bunch of bad stuff that came in and and that that helped us, you know, with, you know, research, you know, know, seeing how the, you know, the value of validating an audit is, but I think, for the generally, most part, I think we're going to have mostly validate audits, which is great for us, because that just gives us much better data and a much better outlook on what water loss actually looks Like here in the state. Yeah,
that's great. You know, Kevin, that just gave me an idea. I was at a conference last week and saw a really good presentation from the Delaware River Basin Commission. And so this this basin touches four states, New Jersey, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania, and services a little over 8 million people in that basin, and they have been collecting water audits for a little over 10 years, I think, self reported. And of course, they have, they have some, some type of, you know, filtering processes in place. But the audits come in self reported, and they're not, they're not level one validated. So after 10 years of collecting water audits, their number one conclusion and recommendation forward was to increase the data reliability through water audit validation. So what, what my what my thought was, is, if it is of interest to the group, we could invite that, that person from the Delaware River Basin to, you know, give a, you know, a short presentation in one of our committee meetings.
Yeah, that'd be great. That's, that's one of the things I was looking I was mentioned, you know, I was thinking of when I mentioned that, because I remember seeing his presentation at no a couple years ago in Denver, and how they had a lot of years and, you know, audits, but they weren't really validated. So trying to go back through that, you know, try to get out ahead of that, not have to backpack and and look at those things again.
Right, right. Great.
Okay, good. Thanks for that. That update, Kevin and good, good discussion there. So let's see here, guys, the next thing we have up here, or let me before we move away, anybody have any questions on on those updates that Kevin had, any, just any further discussion there. All right, the next thing that we, that we have up is, is some goal setting we, we brought this up in, in our January meeting, I think, or, or maybe, maybe just before looking at what kind of goals do we want to set for the committee for the for the year, and we, we certainly have some, some high level objectives that that we introduced at the at the beginning of the committee forming, and then we've now the committee has been established for over a year. And I thought maybe, if you know now that we've kind of got our feet under us, maybe start identifying some, maybe their their yearly goals. Maybe they're, maybe they're a little bit longer, but just identifying some of those. And then as a committee, we can, we can discuss which ones we think are going to are most important. Do we do we think that's a goal we want to work towards? And then we, we also started a sheet to kind of capture some of the, some of the ideas here, and appreciate those that have, those that have entered some some stuff on here to get us started. So I think this is a, this is a work in progress, but just to give you an idea, one of the goals here was that'll segue into the next agenda item was to elevate or to submit 10 water loss related abstracts to various conferences highlighting water loss work done in Colorado. So we've already here in the first quarter of 2025 have made a lot of good progress on that. And I'll share some some information, some some speaking obligations that that Michelle Erickson has submitted for some stuff that that Frank is working on and even a non revenue water panel that has been submitted at the Rocky Mountain water conference that'll take place in August. I believe that's in Keystone again. So that's already a lot of a lot of great stuff and a good, a good uptick in what, what we typically see, and in some of those, those events, those those technical sessions at conferences around the state. So we have some other ones here. So we've got elections of officers for committee. So we've got that by the fourth quarter of 2025 develop a roadmap for goals, for objectives of the committee for the next two years, and develop communication plan around water loss to draw attention additional interest in members. So Dena, thank you for adding that. And Dena man, I just as I was reading that, remember that we talked about doing, like a top 10 reasons to attend the North American water loss conference, to publish in the what's the name of the of the magazine, the Rocky Mountain water magazine, yes, yes. Have we missed our opportunity for that? No, there's still
definitely opportunities, especially if you're talking about the
conference in December, to attend.
Okay, yeah, great. Okay, so this is, I think, right now we are in kind of a goal gathering mode. So this, this sheet is available here, and I'd really encourage folks to to put any, any and all ideas on here start with gathering, you know, as many goals as we can come up with, but also kind of paring that down to what are the most reasonable and effective goals for this, This committee, and I think the ones once that we have on here right now is a fantastic start. Maybe open it up to the group, any, any additional goals that that we want to talk about right now that you might have in mind that we can we can just go ahead and jot down here,
I'd like to get a water loss article into our quarterly magazine for starting,
which is, I think it's called Colorado, I forget what it is, CR W, a quarterly magazine. We'll just go with that.
Right? In addition to to these publications, there's a, I know there's a handful of online mediums also Angela, after our last meeting in January, published a blog post on Aqua talk, and we immediately saw new enrollees through the Colorado water loss initiative As a direct result from her blog post. So just general, I mean, I know Dena this, this goes, this tucks in under this communications plan, but having just continue to elevate water loss through, through these different articles, technical articles, just the same as you know, these, these training opportunities, all fair game. Yes, Frank,
I think another addition to the articles would be the association, associated landscape contractors for Colorado. And I realize you might ask why that's the case, but we're heavily partnered with them on outdoor water use, and I think adding in the context of distribution loss management would be valuable for the authors to or for the readers to understand, and we can help facilitate That
great Frank, what was the, I'm sorry, what was the group? Again,
you might call it alcc for short. Okay, their magazine is called Colorado green. Colorado green, okay, yes, great. It's an online magazine. Now it's no longer in print, but it's still widely read. Excellent. I have one more Drew, yes, we have a local, online, I suppose it's a podcast of sorts, but it's also kind of a clever radio it's called H 2o radio run by a woman named Frannie Halperin, and she is available for producing these small vignette stories. She has worked with various groups that many of our folks here probably know, but she would probably be open to a story about this, maybe an interview with Kevin or yourself. And she's kind of widely distributed. I'm not quite sure how her business model works. I don't believe there's a charge, but I'm not, I'm not positive anymore. Yeah, I don't know if it's hard to know if it's a pot, it's anyway, it's out there. H 2o, radio.org, I think. Okay, thanks. Alright,
yeah, I totally forgot about that. Frank. I haven't, I haven't talked to them in a long talked to them in a long time. That's a good suggestion.
Fantastic. Yeah, I think these are all expanding under, you know, communications, communication plan, and I guess you know another one of the another way to, as we continue to think about these goals, is, is put some measurable aspects around them. How many, how many articles as a committee or do we, do we want to set a goal for, for for publishing? How many you know, how many podcasts, whatever you know, some of these are pretty, pretty easy, easy to quantify, and others, we could put a little bit more detail to it. This is a great, a great start, guys. And I wonder if, well, first of all, I encourage everybody to continue, you know, use you have the link through the agenda, and continue to put your ideas on here. And then perhaps in our next meeting, we really formalize some of these, some of these goals and and work towards them. I realize it'll be May by that time, but not all of these goals have to be accomplished in in a year. So, I mean, we see some over a horizon of two years. So that's, that's a Okay, all right, we're right at the at our time, guys, but I do, I want to ask if I mentioned some of the some of the things that we've done in this first goal, to some of the abstracts that have submitted, some of the opportunities for events to To talk about water loss, or elevate water loss at and I wonder if, if I might go to Michelle Erickson first to if you would talk about the or just let us know the events you've submitted an abstract to to share what's going on city of Loveland and Frank, I know that you've been tracking a couple different events and opportunities to elevate water walls, so if you guys wouldn't mind just just sharing that with the group, so we can kind of hear what what's going on.
So I submit an abstract for the Colorado water wise conference, and it it would cover some of the lessons that we've learned from doing water loss audits in the hope that other utilities could learn from our mistakes, but just to kind of cover things, things that have worked well, and things that kind of caught us off guard, or or areas that we had to change as we went through the water loss audit process year after year.
Great, great. And Michelle, did you there? Remember correctly? Did you also submit something for the North American Water walls conference
I presented in 2023 so that I didn't do one for this coming year, but I did one, gotcha,
gotcha, Frank, what's, um, what's going on in your neck of the woods?
So we
host an annual stakeholder meeting this year. It's April 23 for all the cities we serve, and Michelle has graciously accepted an invitation to share a similar story of her practices and that she'll be an early part of our agenda where we talk about the role water loss plays in regional water management. And I'm really glad that she also submitted to the Colorado water wise symposium, which will be held this fall.
Excellent, excellent. And then, guys, I'll round us out. We also submitted a real collaboration of committee members. Submitted a panel for consideration at the Rocky Mountain water conference. Dena agreed to be the moderator. She promised to throw some softball questions, but then maybe speed them. Speed up the pitch a little bit. The the panelist Kevin Michelle Nina and Scott winter at Colorado Springs Utilities. So really, keeping our fingers crossed, I think this would be a great addition to that, to that program, and mixing it up a little bit to hear different mix of perspectives of water loss across the state. So these are just a few things that you know, just batting around from our last meeting in January. Have have really come to fruition. And I would say this, this goal is certainly on track. But again, continue to add some ideas here, and then in our May meeting, we will talk about it a little bit further. All right, guys, I did it again. We are at our time, and we almost got through the agenda, but I'll move this to the top of talking about water audit validator training. We talked a little bit about it. You know, those that have been part of the Colorado water loss initiative. Have seen the value in that water audit validation, but Kevin's talked about it a little bit, and also maybe getting perspectives from other parts of the country to hear those those stories and those challenges as well is something that that we as a committee could look into. So before, before we clip it, let me just give open floor for any additional comments, closing remarks, other agenda items or topics that that those on the line would like to discuss in our next meeting. Yes, Frank,
I'll just offer one. We have a new team member joining us on April 3. He's coming from the Portland water Bureau, Portland, Oregon, that is, and his role out there has been a water loss analyst, and so very excited to have him join. I'm going to ask him to be our representative on this committee, and I would expect to also maybe assign him some additional roles, such as maybe even an officer. So all that to say we're going to be able to add our capacity with somebody who's a known practitioner, and he might be able to add some goals to ours as well, since he's been involved with California, Nevada, West Coast operations out there. So his name is Michael Thomas. He used to work at Denver Water for a bit, and all of you will get a chance to meet him at this next meeting, as well as our stakeholder meeting if you're attending. So looking forward to getting you to know him. Nice. He's next.
Awesome. Thanks, Frank, hi guys. You guys snagged a good one.
All right? Any others just doing a quick, quick scan, any other comments or topics you guys would like to see in the future? Okay, they don't have to be shared on during our meeting. Again, if you do have topics, please, please email them to me and we'll make sure we get these on the agenda. We'd love to hear from you guys, but if nothing further, I think we're a good, good spot to clip it. Thanks again for everybody. Oh, sorry. One more thing, may 13 is our next meeting in person. It's going to be at Aurora water. Nina is has graciously offered to host us there, and similar to what we did in January at Northern Water. Frank, thank you. After the committee meeting on May 13, we'll have a demonstration at Aurora water with their in pipe energy installation. So really looking forward to that, we'll send out some more details to everybody soon, but for now, please save that date may 13 in Aurora, looking forward to seeing as many of you guys in person as we can. But once we do send that, that official invite out, do, go ahead and respond, and we'll put an option in there, if you plan to attend remotely or in person, we'll just want to get a good a good head count as best we can. So thanks. Thanks in advance. Nina for for hosting us. And everyone else just saved that date of May 13. Cool. Okay, now that's it. Everyone have a fantastic rest of your week, and we will talk to you guys later.
