Pre-Meeting Q & A from the Board - January 9, 2018

The following questions have been posed by Commissioners prior to the scheduled Board Meeting on January 9, 2018.  Staff responses are included below, and are sorted by Agenda topic.  

Strategic Plan for Protecting the McKenzie Watershed (DAMEWOOD)

The following acronyms are used in the Source Protection Strategic Plan presentation and exhibits.

ACOE - Army Corps of Engineers
BPA - Bonneville Power Administration
DWSP - Drinking Water Source Protection
MRT - McKenzie River Trust
MWERS - McKenzie Watershed Emergency Response System
MWMC - Metropolitan Wastewater Management Commission
OWEB - Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board
PWP - Pure Water Partners Program
SUB - Springfield Utility Board
SWE - Snow Water Equivalent
USFS - U.S. Forest Service
WQ - Water Quality

Consent Calendar

CONTRACTS

Alstom Renewable, US LLC, the hydro division of General Electric Renewable Energy (MCCANN)

Is the $5.8 million allocated in the CIP separate from the $19.7 million being asked to support this contract? A 30% administrative cost of $5.8 million to oversee this contract seems a bit high, in what ways do staff support this contract?  A portion of the $5.8M contained in the 2018 CIP will go towards funding the $19.7M contract for the Carmen turbine-generator rehabilitation that is before the Board. The $5.8M budgeted in the CIP for 2018 will support a number of different initial expenses for the turbine-generator project, including the Alstom contract. The cost of EWEB labor (engineering and administrative) for the work will be relatively small in 2018. The majority of the 2018 expenses will be associated with (1) milestone payments to Alstom/GE Renewables for design/modeling work completed, (2) design submittal reviews by EWEB's consulting engineer Black and Veatch, and (3) miscellaneous preparatory work completed at the Carmen Plant by others, such as contractor inspections and detailed measurements of turbine/generator components that will be replaced or refurbished. EWEB staff support the contract through an assigned project manager from Generation Engineering. The project manager is responsible for review and approval of all work produced and all invoices submitted for payment. The project manager involves others from the organization in this work as they see a need to do so.

Real Property Surplus Declarations (MCCANN)

Why were these properties originally obtained and have we utilized each of the properties in some way during the time we have owned them? Is resiliency a consideration when deciding to declare a parcel surplus (i.e. could it be used to s ore a water truck or electricity repair vehicle?Are there other sites nearby that could serve the same purpose?).  In some cases, EWEB has owned property for decades and the original intended use is not understood or the land use around the parcels has changed significantly. On the electric side, technology has decreased electric use per capita because of energy efficiency. This changed (decreased) our load projections beginning in the 1980s.

EWEB has hundreds of properties that we are reviewing for future use, including uses related to resiliency and distributed resources.  The Property Management Department relied heavily on the business units (water, electric, or generation) to decide whether or not a property was needed before preparing each surplus declaration request for the Board. Going forward, EWEB staff will insure that property decisions are made in the context of the master planning work for all of the operating divisions, including resiliency, emergency response, and distributed resources.

Correspondence

Emergency Water Supply Update (DAMEWOOD)

Are potential islands created by collapsing bridges and other infrastructure being considered when choosing locations? For instance, under this current plan, there are over 18,000 people in the Santa Clara area who would have a very difficult time accessing water if the Beltline collapsed onto River road. Are you considering any sites North of Randy Pape Beltline? Is there another round where more areas are considered? Given that wells collapse, are more surface water filter trucks being considered? At first blush the number of sites throughout the community doesn't seem like enough to actually serve the number of people in each region. How many people can really flow through one of these sites in a given day?  Over the course of the next few years, the number of potential distributed sites will increase in the context the "potential islands" created from conditions that cause isolation (bridges, rivers, etc.) and based on the rate of distribution. When we laid out the potential sites we did consider 'islanding' to some extent. We have sites on both sides of the Willamette River, on both sides of the rail yards and Highway 99 corridor, and on both sides of Beltline to the West.  The areas north of Beltline warrant further review.

With respect to the 'water filter trucks', we will be field testing our first one (a treatment trailer) in the coming months. It is likely we will need to make a few minor changes following this testing, however, once we are comfortable with the configuration, additional trailers will be added to our emergency water supply portfolio. This decision will likely be made in mid-2018, and will be determined by the estimated number of sites requiring filtration.

On your last item questioning how many people can actually flow through distribution sites, we are currently showing twelve (12) potential sites. Our 2012 Emergency water supply plan included a total of six (6) sites for the Eugene population. We increased the number of sites to enhance the ability to deliver water and minimize the distance people have to travel to get water. We will continue to evaluate the number of sites to serve this scenarios we balance our experience, resources available, and ability to train volunteers to operate each site.