Adaptive credits here, I do have to give a big thanks to our public affairs team, Michelle, Jason Matthews, Stephanie Burns, who really helped kind of get this script in place. And also Brett McDonald kind of helped through production with myself. So I like to hear you guys thoughts, feedback, and if you have any questions, thank you. But Michelle wants to come
back up. Michelle, anything else? Very nice job. I assume you'll be applying for an Emmy on this one as well. Yes,
this is it's been on all of our social channels. It is on our website. We've sent it out to our member partners. We also have an initiative to send it out to all of our member partners who have community cable stations. They did that. We did that with our first one, and got huge response with it. And as Curtis said, with the video, we've broken it down into those chapters, which makes it easier for our member partners and for us to use it on social media, because people have smaller appetites for video on social
media. Any other questions comments that
the Michigan Science Center would be interested in? And I'm sure you probably already thought of that, but and DWC would also like to push it out to as many of our social media. So if you get us a copy of it, we'll make sure it gets out nature. Sir.
Very good. Whether or not have you thought
about maybe giving it over to
the hcma folks. John Clinton, Metropolitan authority park,
you know, they do a pretty robust
education system, both
kids to seniors. Cranbrook, Institute
of Science. It's really good. I
It's really
good question for you. Curtis, the first number you mentioned was 1.7
2 million gallons
for the beat. Yeah. So
but then he said, 470, 5 million. Gotcha. Okay,
he won. There you go, 1.72 so Yeah,
Mr. Chairman, if I may just a housekeeping note for those that are attending, we know that the video did not play over zoom, but we made it available in this room. Unfortunately, we had technical difficulties. Some of the attendees are asking that question
website, or will be
to the website. You send it. I saw it earlier. You send it out, I think, to member partners, right? Yeah, and
we it is on our website, so
we want to receive file that presentation. Is there a motion? All in favor? Aye, very good. Thank you. Curtis, Michelle Nikki, we're now on to the charges consultant,
thing I think the audit committee reviewed, but you want to take, you want this, to review this with the whole board, right,
correct. Good afternoon. Nicola Bates and Chief Financial Officer and treasurer for the Great Lakes Water Authority. The matter before you is a contract request that was unanimously approved by the GLW audit committee this past Friday. However, this particular consultant's work is very outward facing to our member partner communities, and so it was thought that perhaps we would introduce this firm to you as we begin work with them as part of this effort. So the contract is before you. The as many of you know, the foster group has provided financial consulting, and charges consulting work to the former DWSD and then glwa For many years, and we are embarking on a transition as the foster group winds down, and as we're just launched our new Financial System, July 1, we have teams in place. Matt Lane has now been with us for over two years, and his position as charges, outreach modeling manager, we have Cindy see that was taken on the financial forecast piece. So this contract isn't a replacement contract. It's. Something different. This is solely focused on charges, consulting services, the annual cost of service study, and so we issued a request for proposal using a qualifications based selection process. This is an important procurement, not just for the glwa team members, but for our member partners as well, so you'll see on page 65 in your packet, we had quite an extensive qualification based selection Evaluation Committee, and the evaluator evaluators also had advisors. So in addition to JL wa team members. We also have the DPW director from Macomb Township, the general manager from South Oakland County Water Authority, the Deputy Director for Detroit water and sewage department, the public services director from the city Allen Park, the Chief Financial Officer for DWSD also served as an advisor to the team, we conducted interviews with first evaluated proposals, conducted one round of interviews. Based on the first round of interviews, it was narrowed to two firms. Each firm was brought back for a second interview, and the ultimate winner selected is Willdan financial services and in on the phone or on zoom on the screen. At the top of your screen, you'll see Jeff Garvey, who is a principal with goldand Financial Services, Kevin Burnett, who is also our project manager with goldand Financial Services, and Jason Craig would serve as an advisor on this project. This team brings together, brings us a lot of expertise with very large municipalities, city, county of Denver, North Texas, Municipal Water District, which is also a wholesaler and cities as large as San Diego, and brings perspective from all across the country. In fact, they also have some international clients. Jeff and Kevin will be two of the primary people on our account. I just wanted to give Jeff a moment, if it's okay, to say hello and just introduce the team and add any further brief comments that he would like to add
no no further comments. Very nice to meet everybody, even if it's remotely. So we're looking forward to getting started. We had a call earlier with Dick and her staff. We're looking forward to kind of jumping in and getting to know you folks as fast as we can, but we're here today again. Just introduce ourselves. And if you have any questions you'd like to ask us, we'd be happy to answer those at this time,
and I think they will probably beginning to join in. Mr. Garvey and his team and I were already on the phone this morning, and we're working through transition with the foster group, who has a part time contract with us through the month of September. So as is the glwa way, the team will be drinking Firehose to get caught up to speed by september 30, as we begin to launch our next charges season. So again, want to thank them for being here, hoping that we make arrangements for them to meet all of our member partners at the One Watershed one Water Partnership meeting in September. So with that, I am seeking your approval of the contract to build in financial services for initial term of three years with two one year extensions for a total contract amount of 2,000,009 79, 140 just as a note as it relates to fees, and this is included in Jones procurement report, I think will Dan clearly telegraphs what they want Our work. They presented a very competitive fee proposal, although in my report, I'm asking for a budget amendment. Frankly, I did budget the flow, anticipating that I would be pulling some money out of our unallocated reserve, because it was such a unique service to propose the cost of service study is one element, but our additional services do tend to be extensive. As you know, we've had work groups throughout the many years, whether it's sewer charges work groups, as we revisit our methodology, water charges work groups, where we get into a process where it is unknown, that being said, I had an idea in my mind and what the cost would be, and this number is lower than that, so we are pleased that it is competitive.
All right, thank you, Nick. Are there any questions
that's. One second.
Freeman or Jane questions on this. All right. Motion very I don't, I
don't have a question I I guess? Well, I guess. Mr. McArthur, welcome forward. Thank you always, I mean, I only know Bob. I've only known Barb, and I've always felt that his financial processes were custom made for pwsd and GLW and so I'm hoping, as we go forward, that you're not just looking to follow the blueprint apart, although there'd be nothing wrong with following the blueprint, I'm sure that most of it's correct, but if practices that are standardized with the rest of the utility world that you're going to be willing to, you know, make recommendations as to how they could be better or changed or modernized, just just because we've got a different set of eyes look at we've had same set of eyes Looking at the processes for a very long time. So I hope you feel free to be able to at least make recommendations. And I'm sure Nikki and her team are going to be open to that those types of suggestions and that you don't feel obligated to just do it the way it's been done, because that's that's
welcome, understood. That is the direction we've received so far. Okay, looking forward to taking a look behind the curtain, so to speak, and see what's been done and getting started.
Right. Very good. Do we have a motion and support
the motion?
All? In favor. All right. All right, very good. Thank you. Thank you, Jeff, Jeff as well, Kevin and Jason, I appreciate it. Sure we'll be seeing much more of you, gentlemen. All right. Thank you, folks, thank you. We are moving on to item is Cheryl online. Bill,
it's going to make this presentation.
All right. This is the change order contract. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Tim coons. I'm the water engineering director. I'm presenting today for Cheryl Porter, who is not here today we have in front of you proposed change order number one for contract 1803990, that's the Lake Huron I lift, pumping, metering and yard piping project. This is a design build. Contract waste construction is the design builder for this project. The notice to proceed was initially issued on october 26 of 2020, so this project goes back a little bit. The proposed change order addresses two basic issues. The first is in June of 2022 glwa elected to change the pump selection after the design build contract was awarded. We did this in an effort to broaden the pressure ranges we could we could deliver on the 120 inch main the new pump selection allows us to operate the 120 inch potentially at a lower operating pressure which would be good for the long term structural health of the pipeline. And so that that change was made in June of 2022, so this change order extends the substantial and final completion dates by 234 and 204 day days, respectively. And also increases the construction contract value by $237,000 and some change the increase in price accounted for additional bonds, escalation insurance and other general conditions costs associated with change in the pump. The second issue this change order addresses related but separate, related to the pumps, but separate is we've had continued delays in the delivery of submittals for the vertical turbine pumps. There's three vertical turbine pumps that are being installed under this contract. Those submittals have been delayed. We're on our third submittal resubmittal. And so this contract extends the con. Contract time by 774 days. So there's two separate things we're doing there. The first one is the account for the glwa change. Second one is to extend the contract time. We didn't want to extend the substantial final completion date to the contract time because we still want to reserve the right to assess any contract measures we can like, like liquidated damages. We just had a lot of delays on this project. We didn't want to give, give away our our contract rights under this design build contract. So that's kind of a short summary of the proposed change order number one,
this wasn't taken to onr right.
A change order was on the on our agenda, but that amendment or that change order would have extended not only the contract time, but the substantial completion dates which would have given us, given away our rights to assess liquid liquidated damages. We wanted to retain those, so we changed the form of the change order only because changes we sought right that's correct day changes is isn't going to prevent us from seeking contract measures, as you say, Okay,
a little more clarity on the phrase this change order is being processed, including
us. What is I mean, practically speaking, what does that
look like? I'm sorry, I couldn't. I heard it. You're just a question about the unilateral nature.
The memo that we've got here outlines that this is a unilateral change. The Weiss doesn't agree with the dates that we've proposed, and so it's going to take some kind of meeting with Weiss to determine whether or not I don't know whether or not alternate dates for liquidated damages are justified. Back up,
I can read those words practically speaking, what
is that going to look like, and how much is that going
to cost?
Twice in June of 2022 we had, we had come to an agreement on the on the extended times that are listed in this change order since then, they've they've indicated that they're not no longer in agreement with those timelines. We had to get this change order in front of you to keep the work going, but And because we couldn't get agreement wise, we had to issue the change order unilaterally.
Does the lack of agreement would quite impact our timeline,
the contract there, we're reviewing their their third reason, little as we speak right now, so we're still moving forward with the project. There hasn't been any delays because of the way before processes.
Any other questions, all right, is there a motion and support? So moved. Hi, good. Thank you, Tim, we are moving on. We have a contract the Oakwood CSO sewer construction project. Naveed,
thank you, Mr. Chairman. Navin, chief operating officer for wastewater operations before you as a request to award JD for the board of the Northwest interceptor to Oakwood CSO sewer construction. This project was initiated as part of the master plan, really through the vein of maximizing our facilities within the GLW regional system and providing the best benefit to utility before we start making investments into additional infrastructure, this project is, is a construction of a tunnel that will interconnect the Northwest interceptor. Northwest interceptor runs along the Rouge River, basically, and picks up flow from many communities along the Rouge River. The interceptor is one of the three interceptors that come down to the water resource recovery facility for treatment, and that interceptor tends to surcharge it has a lot of flow that comes into it, and the surcharging effect happens from either the operation of the water research recovery facility, with how much flow we can handle through the facility, or just the sheer fact of the volume of water that's coming into it, in most cases, some of those. Communities that discharge sometimes are not able to get into that interceptor, resulting into potential overflows from their collection systems. So in a grand scheme of things, the volume of sanitary water that's generated in that area. If it's not able to get into the interceptor, it is working its way onto the surface and working its way into the waterways. So this project, what it will allow us to do is lower the hydraulic rate line and maximize the Oakwood facility during some events, not every event that would allow those communities to continue putting flow into the interceptor, it doesn't reduce or eliminate any potential additional CSO event from our facilities. It kind of stays status quo, but what it does allows us to treat more flow through it. This facility also will function as a backup to the WRF in the event that there is an incident at WRF, some flows can be diverted to the Oakwood facility for partial treatment prior to discharge, instead of the potential of no treatment prior to discharge through one of our outfalls, the project was identified by was received three responses. I think that's a great outcome for a project like this. This is a specialty type job. One of the benefits with JD is that they do have a tunneling machine available. And if you notice in the bid tab, there is almost a 10 million difference between JD and the two other bidders, and that is because they have a tunneling machine that's available to them, and they were able to utilize it for this project. The timeliness and the award of this project is critical for twofold. One, it's an SRF funded project, so that means that we have been identified for low interest funding and $20 million in grant funding. And also, if we don't award this project, JD may have to give the tunnel to an MDOT project that is happening that will be competing for the tunnel, which could potentially cost us an additional ten million in the future if we were to do this job. At the onr committee in June, the CEO was tasked to work through the allocation, and I will turn it over to CEO coffee to talk through the allocation of the project.
Thank you, Navid, so let me start with clarifying a point, because I think this has been a point of technical confusion, perhaps at this point, but in the past, disagreement. So this project started out, we thought it was going to be a CSO control project. When I say that, I mean it was going to reduce. We thought in the master plan, which is conceptual reduce CSO discharges. So we really thought it was going to be a CSO reduction project. As we went through the design, still a good optimization project. There's a lot of good reasons for doing it, but when you see us talk about things like CSO reduction, and I think Director Baker, you had a question like this, and I I saw your face. I I gotta answer this question before you for you ask it, because I think you asked it at me before. The idea is it doesn't reduce CSOs in glwa system. It does. It does reduce overflows in our Member partner system. So when you use the word system pretty broad, right? It could be our system. It could be the bigger system. So for example, Dearborn and in the Rouge Valley communities, Wayne County communities on the west side both have overflows from manholes that are not far upstream of our pipe. The reason for that is our pipes very, very full. When NaVi talks about things like surcharge, that means, you know, you have pipe. And the pipe we call the crown, the top of the pipe, that means the sewer level is above that. And when designers design connections to our pipes, they have certain assumptions associated with how pipe helpful, that pipe is going to be this pipe that he that we're going to work on to reduce that, that sewer level surcharges as much as, say, 10 feet. No designer expects, when they made those connections, that that pipe would surcharge that much. We're seeing, you know, a higher rain intensity, rain and the other big piece about this idea of CSO and SSO discharges is the location of this. It's way down by our water resource recovery facility in the southwest part of the system. So that's an area where this big system drains to this and by virtue of being down there, the water collects there, and the hydraulic grade line are the sewer levels high. So it affects those Rouge Valley communities in Wayne County. It negatively. It affects the Dearborn. Dearborn negatively affects Detroit. Negatively in the Oakwood district, it also affects Melvindale and Allen Park negatively. These are the communities that are way down by the water resource recovery facility. So I just wanted to clarify that, because I think it's been a point. I mean, I myself, I. To be honest with you. So when the designers came back to me, when they were doing basics of design, because I was the project manager for the master plan, I said, time out, and I probably put them through eight hours of presentations to me as to why it wasn't a CSO project, because it when you went from conceptual design to actual design, the hydraulics always wins, right? The system kind of balances itself out, but it's still a good project. So so that was the first point I wanted to make. So let me, let me talk a little bit about cost allocation methodology and what we did. So Nebby was exactly right. We talked to the on our committee, and they said, hey, you know, the cost allocation for this project was TBD. How that happened. Was last year, glwa presented a cost allocation method. We have three cost pools in our in our wastewater cost allocation. One is called conveyance. It's based on total flow. One is called treatment. And this is for the asset that the wastewater treatment plants 50% total flow, 50% sanitary flow. And then there's a CSO combined sewer overflow bucket also cost pool. That's why I brought that up. So we put it out there as a 100% conveyance project, because JL, W, a standard process is to have a single cost pool for each capital project. We have a lot of capital projects, right? We don't typically slice and dice these projects. So, but, but we had identified that this project had multiple benefits, and there had been, in previous years, a concern and a question about the cost allocation of this project. When we published that last year, it was like fall of, you know, 2023 we had a couple communities contested, we have a process for that, right? They contested the cost allocation. That process that we go through starts with meeting those commuters, talking about what their concerns are, and working through it. This is fairly technically complicated part of the system, so we were doing that. And as we did that, we got to the end of the year, and it was starting to get, oh, is this going to affect charges? And they said, well, let's, let's ask our charge consultant at the time the foster group to go through some things. We went through that and I said, You know what? Sewer shares. Our cost methodology isn't going to update for three years. We have, we have more time to work through this. Well, what happened was, we come to you with this contract. You're saying, Yeah, I understand you had more time bought, but now's the time before you award the contract. Let's figure out the cost allocation. So okay, that's fine. Took that on that was in July, July's on our committee. About the middle of July. We had three meetings with the communities, and I spearheaded this myself, because I was the person in charge of working through this before, when I was the chief planning officer. So given a short timeframe in the SRF schedule, which is very tight, I thought this is the best way to do it. I wouldn't normally do it, but it was the most effective way. So move forward. We had a four hour meeting. The first meeting, four hour meeting in person. Second meeting, two hour meeting in person. Third meeting in August, to our meeting in person, we pulled together those that contested the cost allocation and those that had responded to that. So this, this contesting the cost allocation is something that that we talk about in our Member partner outreach meetings. This isn't something that was up behind a closed door. I think we said, you know, they're they have a concern with this. We're going to work through this. So we pulled together this group. It was Detroit Wayne County reps, Oakland County reps and Macomb County reps, and myself. And so there were 10 of us, and we worked through this. So as we work through this, we did not get a unanimous support for any given hybrid allocation. So I'm going to talk talk through just high level points on page 87 of the PDF, principal points of the discussion. And I think this is really important, all the parties you agreed unanimously. This is a good project. Glwa should build the project. So this wasn't about whether we should build it on it was about how we paid for it. The second one, I have parties understood and agreed to the technical points noted below. Number one, its primary benefit is to reduce the sewer level during wet weather. Number one, primary, right? Second, the project provides emergency backup for the water resource recovery facility. Abby talked about that. And the third is what I talked about extensively. It is not a glwa CSO control project. It does help. It doesn't help glwa system. So number three, and I said this at the beginning and throughout the discussions, the parties were not fully aligned with a cost pool assignment, so we worked hard to get convergence, and we had concurrence generally, but we didn't get unanimous concurrence. So moving on, the parties agreed the dispute of the project's cost allocation should be resolved timely. You heard NaVi talk about the fact that SRS SRF has tight timelines, and we are, we are the recipient of $20 million grant for this project, which we absolutely want to be able to get so the parties that, yep, we gotta, we gotta get this one done. But what we also want to do is we don't want to set a precedent for future projects. This project's unique. If we're going to walk through this project and we're going to make a decision, but other future projects, if there was, if they were contested, we would take them on their own merit. We wouldn't layer the solution on others. So there that was number five, number six, Oakland and Macomb representatives requested, and we agreed, for this project alone, that the value of the asset and related depreciation for the purposes of calculating charges by the cost of service study would be the actual cost of the asset, less grant funding. This is a subtlety that if you want to, if you have questions about it, I can talk to you about it. We just talked about charge consultants. It's about how we allocate costs, and it's about our asset registry. We're going to get into too much of that. I don't think that was a big point of of dispute, but it was a point that was important to some of the members. So number seven on the next page, Macomb Oakland and Wayne County Representatives requested that glwa reopen the discussion, including of including an element of peak flow in our cost allocation. This is the bigger topic. Bigger topic is some of our member partners, namely Oakland and Macomb primarily, but also Wayne stepped in on this as well and said, Listen, you guys need to add peak flow. And I will tell you, we don't have peak flow. We've we've taken this up multiple times, and the reason we don't is because we are struggling to accurately measure peak flow from unmetered communities such as Detroit Highland Park, Hamtramck and other communities in the inner ring. That has been a, you know, to change a cost allocation if you can't accurately measure it's pretty challenging. So in the past, we've taken this up, you know, turned it over, looked at it eight different ways, and set it back down. So we can't do it. Can't do it. So we committed to picking that back up and having the conversation again. Technology moves forward, perhaps now we can, we can have that conversation and come to a conclusion. And then lastly, I put down the cost allocation method. This is the administration's recommendation for cost allocation for this project and this project and this project alone, this was the charge that you gave me, Director Hendricks, we were at onr, right. What's our recommendation? This is our recommendation, 50% in that original cost pool that we had had used solely, 25% in the treatment cost pool, zero and the CSO cost pool and a new wet weather cost pool, wet weather volume. It's not peak flow rate, but it's volume as a proxy for peak at 25% so this is where we came to
I can support this. It's a solid recommendation. It's not perfect. It's not perfect because we can't directly measure peak flow so that's problematic, but it is something that generally we got consensus on, but we didn't get unanimous consensus. The other thing that I think is important to make sure is is identified here, is that there isn't a big cost swing on this. The assets asset is less than 2% of our total assets in the asset registry. So it's particular cost allocation because we use the asset registry, doesn't sway the costs at all, really. And so there's not a cost implication to this change. It's a principle. And we talked about this over and over again when we were meeting, and the parties understood that. So I just wanted to make sure they understood it. This isn't a cost it's really about the principle of peak flow and the go forward in the conversation about it. So this is where we landed. I certainly can take any questions on this, and I spent a fair amount of time on it, as you can tell. So any questions you have, I'd be happy to take at this
point. Suzanne, any questions
I thanks for I know this is a contentious and time consuming 2% of the overall glas, I know, and believe me, my engineering team, there's a lot of consternation about about this with them. And essentially, you know, when a project is 8317 and that means Detroit pays 83% of the cost. When it's a conveyance project, it's coming off. So this is it's a big deal. It's a big deal. And it sounds like I'm now we're making distinctions between what is an overall glwa benefit. So that makes me believe that it's a benefit to probably my friends over at Wayne County, and not necessarily everybody or to that. So I'm voting the long and the short of it is, I am going to be in support of this one project, but I am. Are looking forward to taking on the more, headier issue that we all know has been around ever since glwa has to create. Let's get that so it sounds like we opening it up. 8317, that's not a conversation for today, but it sounds like we're moving in that direction. Line is that we're
correct. You can't open it up. But anyway,
and we'll, we'll deal with volume,
I guess. Let me say why we're opposed to this. You know, we think it's a good project, as you said. However, it is primarily a wet weather project, and we appreciate the 25%
wet weather bucket, we realized that the proxy for peaking and some will peak higher and dewater sooner than others, but we had hoped that there'd be another proxy that we could have expensed more to wastewater, because right now, we're only doing 25% of wastewater to wet weather when it's wet weather project,
we have separated systems only. For example, Okla Macomb is our second largest customer. They're fully separated systems. They do not have wet weather.
In fact, they're limited by the Northeast pump station and their contract capacity spending any additional flows, because they're pretty they don't have the wet weather,
so they're not contributing to the wet weather like the combined systems.
And I guess the only reason we don't have peaking, you know, in the deep plus is the fact that they don't have contract capacities and they don't have meters, which we all do we have.
So anyway, 75% of this project's costs then, are not based on wet weather. 50% are based on conveyancer and there is no comment to all. There's three cost buckets.
50 50% right of the this project is on conveyance, and conveyance is dominated by average volume, not wet weather. And 25% of this project the same amount that we're charging the wet weather we're charging 25% to treatment and this project, hopefully is never needed, but maybe once in 100 years, it might be used to help the WRF
in a catastrophe. So
my member partners and some and other counties are suggesting this should be a higher than the wet weather project should be higher than just 25% wet weather. And we appreciate the discussions on peaking. But of course, if someone's saying the only way we're going to discuss peaking is to open up 8317
then I don't think that's getting us there. So anyway,
I want to be incentivizing those people who are causing the wet weather, for either flooding or CSOs, to pay more for this project. I mean, our rate model is based on cost cause addition, that's the only thing at the end of the day we have to show people, and if only 25% of this project is based on wet weather and the others are paying more for this project that are contributing to the problem, I think that's an issue. So I won't be able to support it. I support continuing, you know, the effort, but certainly would have liked to see greater on the way, wet weather side, and you and I have had conversations on that, so I appreciate the time and effort that everyone's put into it. I think it's a good, good project. It's just who's paying one. Thanks.
Okay, any other discussion,
if not,
I guess I weigh in, just from the standpoint and nausea all of the effort that had gone into trying to find the right fit for this that there was no precedent or past practice, using terms like hybrid, trying to find a happy medium and trying to find some sort of a box for this video, I guess after listening to everything that you had to say for me, because this is a one time deal and the expectation that we won't be visiting this
again in these proportions,
that if everybody's acting in good faith, that this was sort of the best that can come out of restricting
conversation. Business negotiation, given that this is an important project that everybody needed to be done. So that's kind of what got me comfortable with, being a one time deal, not setting a benefit for future cost allocation, and I was okay with
All right, any other comments? There a motion to approve and support, all right, all in
favor. Next up, Bill, where are we going to close session?
Next up, before we do that, Mr. Chairman, and again, new business will continue after that closed session. But we have reports. There are no reports that we would be done on number 10 remarks, remarks
from me, any board member remarks, round to the CEO report.
Thank you very much. So, as you know, the Great Lakes Water Authority, we and the Army Corps of Engineers have received authorization and federal funding from Congress to partner and study flooding problems across Southeast Michigan. The study will formulate alternatives to reduce blood risk and maximize benefits to the region. And we've been talking about this for a long time. These types of things take a long time, and it's finally here. So we're very happy to say that the kickoff work on the study will be that the glwa, the Army Corps, will host a three day technical what they call design charrette and I talked about this, I think, last month as well. It's scheduled for September 16 through 18th. It is a structured collaborative event intended to bring together a variety of points of view to assist us in creating the overall scope. That's the goal. Day one of the technical design charreto focus on establishing the existing flood risk conditions in Southeast Michigan. This is all the counties for us. We look at Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, that's our wastewater system. Obviously, City of Detroit, inside of that as well. And priorities, different communities have different priorities. And this really crosses the crosses the boundary from wastewater and combined wastewater to separate stormwater. So it's a little bit of a of a stretch for us, but the reality is, this is where we got to go next. We did our wastewater master plan very water quality focused. We're seeing increased rain events and and this is where we got to take it. The following two days will take a deeper dive into the existing data that we have and what gaps exist, and identify a list of structural and non structural flood management measures designed to alleviate alleviate flooding in our region. Invitations to the event have gone out, and we're looking forward to collaborating with our partners throughout the region onto the water side as we prepare to implement changes to the level of orthophosphate. So I'm going to just pull a thread back to that video. And I always, I love this. Whoever came up with this ortho phosphate is water bodyguard. So orthophosphate, orthophosphate, you find it things like in toothpaste. But this, this coats the pipes. And when you have metallic pipes in the water system, this coats the pipes and keeps the water from coming in contact with the metallic pipe. So as we prepare, and you've seen presentations on this, but as we prepare to changes in our ortho phosphate feed, we are working with and partnering with Egle, Michigan Department of environmental ethics and energy, because they themselves have have reduced the allowable level of lead in the drinking water from 15 to 12. That's going to be effective on, and that starts per billion going to be effective on on January 1.
So glwa
really got ahead of this. So long before that regulation change was made, we initiated a study. You heard corrosion control study director Baker, you asked us about the corrosion control study. Over time, we've completed that study. It is in its final draft form. It has been submitted to Egle. Egle is reviewing that. I spoke with people just this morning, saying, where are we on this? They're fairly comfortable with what it is that we're going to do. They're just finishing their letter, so we have not yet received approval from Egle, but I expect that we're going to receive that any any day now. The idea here was for us to start this increased orthophosphate is on october 1. So what we're going to do to talk to our member partners is we're coming together with Egle to present to our member partners on this topic. Specifically, Egle is going to present on what they call the lead and copper rule. This is that change, and this is where lead service line replacement comes into effect as well. There's an awful lot of regulations that the local communities have to work through and lead service line replacement to protect the public against lead exposure, but we're going to do that on September 4. The next week in the afternoon, we're going to have a virtual meeting, and it's going to be just focused on what it is that Eg is doing and what it is that glwa is doing on this. So as we go forward with that, we will also talk about it at our one Water Partnership meeting, which is on September 19. So that's the plan for that, just letting you know what we're doing there. I love this bodyguard thing. It's a great idea. It's an increased protection for the public. That's what this does. So continuing on the theme of collaboration, we recently met with key leadership at DTE. So it was our executive leadership team, the chiefs deputies. We all went over to DTEs headquarters. We had a nice meeting where we talked about, introduce ourselves, built relationships, and we've done this before. In the past, there's been a lot of turnover at DTE, and we did get to tour their systems operation center and talk about things like clean energy, that type of thing. The thing I think is particularly interesting is we had a lot of power issues yesterday. Last night, we had straight line winds. I heard some of the areas reported over 70 mile an hour winds. We had a tremendous number of power issues. And so we are partnered completely in the success of DTE to deliver us power. We have generators in a lot of locations, but even power blips create problems for us. It was not one area, it was many areas. Yesterday, we were able to get through it. You didn't see any boiler water advisories, although pressures did fluctuate all our all of our water booster stations. I think you know the video said, you know, we have 19, right, 19 water booster stations all over the system. We boost pressures and all of our systems, all those booster stations have power. Now, one of the booster stations is on generator power because it still doesn't have DTE power. But one of the great things that we were able to do was make those connections and as DTE. So for example, when I was Chief Operating Officer wastewater, I had one connection with DTE. That person's not been there in a while, right? We need, we need their new contact information. We were able to draw on that last night in the middle of the night as we work through these issues. So so that was good. We will continue to make sure that that relationship's intact and and really functioning while it's in all our best interests. Our financial services area is in the final stages of planning for our annual vendor outreach event. It'll take place on Thursday, September 26 at the Auburn Hills Marriott in Pontiac. This event has been a staple and our continued efforts to connect with our current vendors and attract new ones. You guys know this is initiative for us. We talk about this on a pretty regular basis. A new and noteworthy addition to this year's agenda is a panel session showcasing five glwa prime contractors and them discussing how they select subcontractors. This is intended to provide practical insights for vendors who may be interested in performing smaller segments of GLW A's work. So we think this is a really, a really good addition. I applaud financial service area and our procurement team for coming up with that idea. I think it's great. And for more information, you know pages 32 and 33 here, we encourage vendors, if there are any vendors listening to to sign up for this and attend that. It's always a good event. Switching to our ongoing efforts to engage with our team members, we had our third team member and family open house on Saturday, August 3 at Waterworks Park. It was an amazing day full of fun and connections. We had just under 200 people attend, and I think I was able to talk to most of them. I got the very fun job of handing out ice cream. And it was one of the hottest days of the summer. I just saw ice cream carts so our team members right and always around. We're looking to have our team members feel connected to us. This is a good way to do that, and you can see more about that on page 29 of the report. I also held two more CEO visits in August. We went to waterworks Park and the Lake Huron water treatment plant. And one of the things we try to do is we always try to hit that midnight shift. You guys know we work 24/7 that's always tough. Waterworks Park, we were there in the morning. I was there at 630 I think our team was there to prepare a little earlier than that. At the Lake Huron plant, we stayed at for dinner. But we do Pizza, pizza lunch. Talk to team members. So more there. And these are good staples of how we communicate now with the team leader meetings that we have at each facility. So I'm going to close the report, as I always do, raising up some of the achievements of our members. First, I want to congratulate the Financial Services area for the sixth year in a row, they were recognized by the Government Finance Officers Association with the distinguished budget presentation award, congratulations. You always do a fine job. And as I said at audit committee, I'm just going to say it again when we stood up. Glwa, many of us that are in this room were here. This is the type of financial stewardship that we had envisioned. Nikki, you and your team have done an excellent job of actually seeing that vision come to fruition. You know, we're in our ninth year of operations right now. You know, it's hard to believe that we've been here that long, but you know, when you have a vision, everyone hopes it's going to come true, right? And hopes you're going to be able to live it up. It's been hard, but you've done a great job of it, and I think we're all better for it. So I was very happy to see that next I want to recognize Calvin Davis and Shane Clark, two of our electrical apprentices who passed the state of Michigan electrical journeyman exam. This is exactly what we're hoping would happen with our apprenticeship programs. They've been partnered up with journey workers and grow our own electricians as we go through so really happy to see that. And Steven Barber, one of our instrumentation technician apprentices who earned an associate's degree in Industrial Technology. We are very proud of this. We're proud of the programs, and the programs are bearing fruit with these individuals getting these types of certifications and licenses. And with that, I will take any questions
journey person,
Journey worker.
We call it now.
It's, you know, a female like me a journey with
I just want to emphasize why it's so important to get the phosphate levels up higher. Right now, if the state of Michigan says we get the actionable level at 15 parts per million Well, nine in Detroit, and there's their cities around us that have hit the actionable level. When you hit the actionable level, bells and whistles go off and you're required to do all types of reporting. That scares the chief out of senior citizens, even when you lose credibility of the system. So the state wants to reduce it to 12, the EPA wants to reduce it to 10, and we're at nine. We cannot hit that actionable level without having some very serious consequences. You lose credibility of the system. And I don't know if Flint has ever gotten it back? Yeah. I mean, even though they're on our system, and they have been for years, getting the credibility back is is almost impossible. So, I mean, I don't, I don't want that to go past by. Why it's important?
What should we do
the lead and copper rule at state level is, you know, it's a done deal. The federal level is it's, we're not going to be able to stop it. I'm actually on an advisory committee for it, but getting the phosphate numbers in the system have a negative consequence to glwa at a cost, and there has to be a balance of how high you you can raise it, but raising it to the amounts that are being recommended would be extremely helpful in us getting our number from nine down to, say, a six, and that just buys time to get the lines out. Now be mindful, this is $100 million project for Detroit to take the we have to take between eight and 10, 10,000 lines out a year in order to be done in 10 years, which these are all unfunded mandates that have to pass on to ratepayers. If we can't get dollars from the federal government to do it right now, we're getting the assistance, but that that's not guaranteed, it will not continue throughout the 10 years. So the more lines we can get out now, whoever comes behind me in five or six years will have fewer to do and less money to raise rates to get it done, but the key is you need to buy time in order to get that done. And it's not just Detroit. Everybody who's got their service lines has got this issue, and it isn't Detroit that's hitting me, actually, communities around that are so, you know, I'm I'm thanking Susan for all her support and working with Egle in order to get this done, because there's serious consequences. You lose credibility. Trying to get it back is, not, is almost impossible. And for low income customers, the cheapest water that they can they can have is getting it from the tap, not buying it from a gas station for $2 a bottle. They have to have. You have to have as clean, safe and affordable, and it is right now. So we want to keep it that way, and this phosphate level are very important to buying time in order to get the lines out, which will remove the risk forever,
if you remove the line from that
help. But it's going to take 10 years. We need to buy some time.
Thank you. So five, six years that what I heard,
no, I'm done. I'm just I'm saying we'll run out of money at some point.
Regarding the Charette three day. The
first day? I think that's a great question. And the answer is no, it really is intended that day one can be more policymakers. The expectation is that many policymakers are not going to be able to spend three days in this thing. It's not going to. So it's designed intentionally to have the big picture questions be brought up in day one, and really more than more detailed work by scientists, engineers and day two and three. Not that the policy makers can't go, but if you do have representatives that are engineers, scientists, it would be good for them to be at day one, so expect and day two and three. But I think your question is, it wouldn't be awkward at all. In fact, it would be preferred if you want to go that you at least go to that day, not one of the other days, if you can only make one
clear You're under no obligation to attend. I don't have
anything so anything I appreciate.
Favor. Aye. Any other managers? Bill, a few housekeeping masks, Mr. Chairman, at this point, we do anticipate canceling our meeting on the 11th of September. As you've heard from the CEO's report, we will make that decision at the close of business on the fourth of September. After after the presentations take place, in case anything unintended or or unforeseen should come out of those conversations. So the 411
Okay, and so, as I indicated for you, get the final decision close the business, but we anticipate that to be a cancelation, and then we will meet on the 25th in October, just another reminder that we will be both on the Wednesday the ninth and on Wednesday the 23rd and Wednesday the ninth will be essentially a single topic, meeting on the economic catalog. And then finally, in the month of November, we only have one board meeting. I want to remind you that that meeting is on a Thursday. And then, yes, sir, just one item, the Economic Overview. I'm mean, there could be others, but that's our anticipation. That meeting will be on the ninth, it will be at 1pm and on the 23rd it will be at 2pm It's on Thursday, the 24th 21st and just a reminder that we're off cadence. We only have one meeting that month, the one it is a Thursday, because they have a Thursday in December as well, if we need it. Anything about that right now, we can certainly do that.
December, you have two meetings. The first is on on the 11th. And for many of you, I know that you would be occupied on 25th so your second meeting would be on the 19th, if it is necessary. And the 19th is the third thing. So whether we have won our two meetings in December, we always try and find it to one, if we can. But as you know, the budget, finances, other other considerations and your considerations may come up. So I will, obviously, as we approach your end, continue to provide updates on that for you, unless you. Member of the board,
we do have a request for closed session. David
Good afternoon Chair Baker, Michigan open meetings. Act commits public body to enter closed session to consider matters that are exempt from disclosure pursuant to statute. In this case, the Freedom of Information Act exempts public disclosure attorney client communications. We have two attorney client communications we like to discuss with the honorable body, so we ask tickle both to enter closed session,
motion to go to post
audio Recording. All right.
Secretary
said, Director brown Yes,
Director Hendrick,
Director quadro,
we will be returning after close
recording stopped, just
Two communications,
Maybe, Oh, I think it's Good working Online
For The recording in progress,
open session. First item we have is purchase of 662, Connor,
nothing further proceed with regard to a motion to give us authority for 266, five.
Question, all in favor. Aye. Thank you, Bill. You want to take public act 152,
thank you, Mr. Chairman, before you is a motion to approve an 8020 allocation of health care costs under public act 152, and that will continue for a one year period. Of the board should approve a motion to approve as requested.
This is continuation of what we've done the past, just in
with our prior practice and with some of our collective power and
agreements. Is there any questions or emotion so Move approval. All right, any discussion? All in favor,
aye.
All right, very good. That ends the meeting. Or is there a motion to adjourn? I?
