MINUTES OF THE SPECIAL WATER PLANNING COMMITTEE MEETING
May 2, 2006
Call to Order/ Roll call – determination of a Quorum
Chair Haddad called the meeting to order at 1:30 p.m. Committee members present were Vice Chair Lewinger and Directors, Irvin, Linden, Loveland, Martin, Pocklington, Quist, Rhinerson, Saunders, and Sundram. Committee members absent were Vice Chair Watton, Directors Dixon and Rogers. Also present were Directors Arant, Bond, Bowersox, Dailey, Ferguson, Johnson, Knutson, Lewanski, Lewis, Morrison, Steiner, Thompson, and Williams. At that time, there was a quorum of the full Board and the meeting was conducted as a meeting of the Board; however only the committee members participated in the vote. Staff present was General Manager Stapleton, General Counsel Hentschke, Deputy General Manager Lanspery, Assistant General Manager Cushman, Director of Water Resources Weinberg, Water Resource Manager Purcell, Principal Water Resources Specialists Friehauf and Senior Water Resources Specialist Bombardier. Ms. Jazmadarian and Mr. Malinowski, from Maguire Malcolm Pirnie were also in attendance.
Public comment
There were no members of the public that wished to comment.
Consideration of Draft Drought Management Plan
Chair Haddad began the presentation by reviewing the board’s involvement to date in the development of the Drought Management Plan. An initial meeting was held April 6, to discuss historical plans and the Drought Response Matrix. He stated that the other main elements of the Plan, the Allocation Methodology and Communication Strategy would be discussed today.
Mr. Weinberg continued the presentation by stating the plan was developed as part of the Water Authority’s long-range planning efforts to secure and maintain a diverse and reliable water supply for the region, and to prepare the region for potential water shortage conditions due to drought. The plan includes actions to avoid cutbacks during drought conditions. It provides a methodology to allocate limited supplies to member agencies if cutbacks are required and a communication strategy to keep the agencies and the public informed of drought conditions. He also discussed the key challenges to developing the methodology, which is to balance local supply development and retail reliability.
Mr. Weinberg introduced Ms. Friehauf who continued the presentation by reviewing the approach to evaluating the Allocation Methodology. She then went through the four steps of the methodology that included determining agencies water needs, adjustments to reflect fairness/policy, allocation of supplies, and calculation for retail reliability. She concluded the presentation discussing the balance reached between minimizing uneven retail impacts and not penalizing development local supply.
Chairman Bond, Director Rhinerson, and Lewinger questioned the determined available water supplies and the MWD 40 percent cutback.
Ms. Stapleton explained that the 40 percent cutback was just an example MWD cutback level to compare with net cutback to the region in order to demonstrate the benefits of diversification.
Director Lewis – growth element, how is this calculated? A historic average of meter purchases was taken to determine increase in water demands due to growth.
Director Pocklington questioned the Local Projects 30 percent credit and would like to see a program that would encourage local agencies to get involved to produce more water and if the Board would consider giving that encouragement by moving the percentage from 30 percent to 50 percent, what would this do to the formula?
Mr. Weinberg stated that the TAC had discussed the level of credit and what would encourage local supply development. TAC agreed to the 30 percent.
Director Saunders asked for an explanation of the calculation of retail reliability, M&I level of service after reliability adjustment. Ms. Friehauf stated that the adjustment was to avoid large discrepancies among the member agencies level of service to minimize economic impacts. The methodology does not penalize agencies if local supplies are developed.
Chair Haddad asked to review the bullet point on Allocating Water During a Drought. He asked if any thought was given to health and safety. Mr. Weinberg stated that once in a health and safety situation, the situation would most likely be out of the Water Authority’s control and we would be allocating on a much different basis. The DMP allocation is focusing on minimizing economic impacts.
Chair Haddad turned the meeting over to Vice Chair Lewinger at 2:30 p.m.
Director Lewis referred to the economics of the farming community and that it brings millions of dollars into the region. How would the Ag customer be affected? Ms. Friehauf stated that Ag (IAWP customers) understand that they have been taking water at a reduced rate for a number of years knowing that they would be the first to take the 30 percent cutback. After initial cutback, the IAWP would then be treated the same as M&I customers
Mr. Weinberg began the discussion on the Communications Strategy, and then introduced Mr. Malinowski former Public Affairs director at MWD who continued the presentation.
Public Affair Representative, Liarakos reviewed the implementation of Communication Strategy and how to utilize media relationships to ramp up messaging during DMP implementation.
Mr. Weinberg reviewed the tentative schedule for the adoption of the Drought Management Plan.
Vice Chair Lewinger asked for clarification between the four phases of the communication strategy and the three stages of the Drought Response Matrix. Ms. Friehauf referred to the DMP page 6-10 (Table 6-1 General Communications Strategy) which shows the link between the phases of communication strategies and the stages of the matrix.
Director Irvin complimented staff on the outstanding report. He asked staff to consider the parallel between the gas shortage and water shortages and fill the in the gaps in order to keep the public informed.
Director Pocklington thanked the staff for the excellent report. He asked Mr. Liarakos about the cost of advertising. Mr. Liarakos stated that the Water Authority does not buy advertising. Director Pocklington asked that a budget for advertising be brought to the board for consideration.
Director Loveland asked about public access cable programs and how do they fit into the program. He stated that some member agencies have substantial access, what if any access does the Water Authority have? The Water Authority have used the public access channels in the past and thought that it would be an option to use to get the message out.
Director Rhinerson stated that the Water Authority pays part (20%) of MWDs advertising campaign and would like to have staff follow up with a report to the Board in the near future. Also, when the annual survey was sent to San Diego customers, ask if they had heard those ads to ascertain the viability of paying for advertising during drought situations.
Chairman Bond spoke on the briefing of elected officials and informing them as soon as possible so they could be a source of getting the word out quicker. He also wanted to know why it is listed in phase four and not earlier.
Mr. Malinoski stated that the elected officials would be informed in phase three with face-to-face contact and then again in phase four.
Director Sundram - use email, billing inserts, email from individual agencies or the Water Authority as part of strategy.
Director Johnson - sensitive to cost factors are their any costs attached to the Drought Management Plan.
Mr. Weinberg answered that there were two issues 1) cost to implement Drought Matrix actions, such as spot transfers and, 2) additional labor and materials cost that will not be as significant, but paid advertisements will be an issue.
Vice Chair Lewinger stated that the committee has had two workshops and heard the three main elements of the draft DMP, the drought response matrix, which talked about implementing actions to enhance our supply prior to allocation of shortage, if not able to enhance supply sufficiently hence the allocation methodology and communication strategy.
The Committee can wait for this item to come up at the next Committee meeting on May 25, 2006, as an action item, or as a Committee, we could take action now to recommend to the Board the approval of the Draft Drought Management Plan.
Director Pocklington moved, Director Rhinerson seconded, and the motion carried unanimously to recommend the approval of the Draft Drought Management Plan to the full Board of Directors.
Adjournment
There being no further business to come before the Board, Director Lewinger adjourned the meeting at 2:55 p.m.
___________________________
Ben Haddad, Chair
| 
