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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes Water Resources Advisory Committee - 02/20/2014 * Minutes of Water Resources Advisory Committee held 11:00 a.m. Thursday, February 20, 2014 ° Water Utilities Building —Choke Canyon Conference Room 2726 Holly Road * Corpus Christi, Texas mPluplio Attended by. Brian William, San Patricio Water District;Luci Sosa, CCISD;Robert Kunkel,Lyondell Basell;Scott Kucera, CCISD; Jeff Edmonds,Residential;Sally Gill, Green Industry;Bruce Wilson CCISD;Rocky Freund,Nueces River Authority;Brent Clayton, City of Corpus Christi Environmental&Strategic Initiatives;minutes taken by Lori Bryant, Environmental&Strategic Initiatives Everyone attending introduced themselves and explained their affiliation. Chairman Edmonds asked the members whose terms are near expiration if they wish to continue their membership; all agreed. Those absent members who would be affected will be contacted, and City Council will be asked to reappoint all those who wish to remain. Rocky has been an ad hoc member; the committee voted unanimously to create a permanent seat for a NRA representative. Chairman Edmonds has one year left until he will reach his term limit. Brent summarized the recent City reorganization: while most divisions of the former Water Department are now part of the new Utilities Department,Water Planning and Conservation belong to the Environmental &Strategic Initiatives Office and are housed at City Hall. Next was a review of the current water supply system and statistics. Combined lake levels as of this date are 47.4%- well above where supplies were at the low point in October, but trending downwards. TWDB has done recent volume metric surveys to adjust for sedimentation loss—Rocky believes it may take a year for them to alter the pass-through reports accordingly. Both state and national projections are for drought to continue to be severe in our area. Presently the City is observing Stage 1 drought restrictions; voluntary conservation is encouraged while daytime irrigation and water waste are permanently prohibited. But without significant rainfall, a drop to 40%is likely by June or July, and Stage 2 will be reinstated. During most of 2013,while under Stage 2 restrictions, residential consumption dropped 16.6%, saving 1.1 billion gallons. Because this was largely due to limiting irrigation to once a week, City staff will be recommending that Council make this a year-round mandate. During last summer once-weekly irrigation was not effectively done by Code enforcement; the responsibility has now moved to the Police Department,who says officers don't have time. Instead of the designated trash day, would it be enforceable to use an honor system? Could overuse be determined by meters? Sally moves to recommend the once-weekly plan, but enforce with education through outreach and marketing, then wait and watch for results issuing citations. She adds that James Gill will provide statistics showing it's beneficial to plants to support marketing efforts. Added promotion of how successful the exemption process was last summer for new turf,well-users, athletic fields, etc.will also encourage compliance. Because of last year's impressive results, conservation measures have become a higher priority amongst City Council and staff. Looking at conservation as a long-term strategy, the goal now is to save 20,000 ac/ft over ten years-the equivalent of building a new water source. Along with the proposed once-weekly limit to irrigation, other methods to reach that goal are being considered: • New building codes that limit turf area and type of turf used • Repairing leaks throughout the City system, which currently causes a 7% loss annually • Drought triggers—whether to raise them so restrictions begin earlier The next portion of Brent's presentation examined long term projections for industrial and population growth. While TWDB projections are fairly conservative, the City took these higher projections from economic advisors. The City's strategy to meet increased demand begins with the completion of the Mary Rhodes Pipeline Phase 2 in 2015, as well as the reuse of treated wastewater from the new Broadway plant. More reuse projects will come online over the following five to ten years. One possibility under consideration is to replace existing plants as they age out with a single, centralized wastewater treatment plant. Return flows are being taken into consideration while exploring reuse projects. Existing plans for both a pilot and a demonstration desalination plant are moving forward, but full-scale desal is not anticipated until 2040. Desal may end up being considered as a replacement for the reservoirs as they silt up and dams become too expensive to maintain. The next meeting is set for May 15, and the group is adjourned.