WEBVTT

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- Well, friends, I have five o'clock. So let's go ahead and call our meeting of the utility services board

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- for March 23rd, 2026 to order. And we'll start with the mission of the city of Bloomington utilities

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- is to enhance the quality of life in our community by providing safe, sustainable and high quality drinking water.

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- wastewater and stormwater services in a cost-effective manner, promoting public health, economic vitality

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- and environmental stewardship. And our vision is to be the leading municipal water utility organization

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- in Indiana. And just a reminder that if any board member has any personal or financial conflict with

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- any issues or individuals on the agenda, then please be sure to recuse yourself during those portions

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- of the meeting. All right.

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- First item on the agenda are any petitions and communications from board or the public? All right, seeing

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- none, we'll move to the approval of the minutes of our previous meeting on March the 9th. Everybody

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- had a chance to review the minutes. I'll entertain a motion that we approve. It's been moved and seconded.

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- Any discussion further? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right, the minutes are approved. Next

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- item is item four. Four A is standard invoices. We have a nine page list there totaling $844,502.01.

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- Questions on the invoices? Yeah. I have a couple of questions. So the first one's on page one. The 502

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- equipment monthly rental of the mechanical sweeper, I think that's the first time, I know I've missed

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- a couple of meetings, but is that the, are we renting? There are new vendors, yeah, that need to work

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- on our back trucks. Okay, so we have to- They come on site and do repairs and maintenance. Okay. Yeah.

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- I think you're asking about the rental. I'm asking about the rental. Oh, OK. Yeah. I'm sorry. We are

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- renting a mechanical sweeper? Yes. Do we need this long term, or it's an awfully expensive rental? Yes.

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- So what we're doing right now is it's a different kind of sweeper than the sweeper we have. We are seeing

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- if it's more effective kind of picking up larger matted debris than our regenerative sweeper.

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- It may be useful in certain situations that a regenerative sweeper is not the best tool. So we're kind

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- of seeing how effective that is through renting it before thinking about any decisions on buying new

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- equipment. And what type of sweeper are we talking about here? Mechanical street sweeper. So then that

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- goes to ask my other question about, I've got several questions today. So we also have some insurance

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- claims on page eight with the incident with the street sweeper. So is that the reason why we have to

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- have this? Are these completely unrelated? Completely unrelated. Okay. So let me just get this straight.

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- Number one, we're testing out some new equipment. Yes. To replace the sweeper that we paid for, no,

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- a new sweeper. To have an addition as an additional tool because it sweeps a little differently than

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- the one we have. Perfect.

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- So then my other questions, since I brought this up on page eight, are the various insurance claims,

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- if we could get just a little bit of information. First of all, was anybody injured in any of those?

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- So you said page eight. Page eight. Travelers indemnity. I just want to make sure everyone was okay

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- on our team. Nothing happened. And then probably just a little bit more information about what happened

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- to the street sweeper that

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- I'm not sure what happened with the street sweeper damages, but nobody, we didn't have staff injured,

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- no external public injured, no injuries. But those are four different vehicles, correct? Yes. That we've

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- had claims with. And again, I guess, is there any other information about what has happened with these

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- accidents?

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- I don't have specific on the incidents. I do think that these incidents happened over a broader span

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- of time and that these are all just getting built at the same time. So it's not like we just all of

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- a sudden had four incidents. I think they're just all being built at the same time. Okay, all right.

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- Then my other question is,

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- on claim page number two, the Leonard's Linen property. Is it more? This will have to give you some

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- background on that one. But are we getting any closer or is this just? I noticed that came out of the

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- stormwater account. I just didn't know if that was. They're spreading the cost of that settlement across

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- departments? There's some background on all that.

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- that we could share with you. Yeah, well, where do we start? I guess, Leonard's site, remember third

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- and Lincoln. Third and Lincoln. So when we did the next phase of the Big River project, we found a lot

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- of contaminated soil.

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- And so Chris is joining us to take over the legal side. I'd be happy to discuss this with you offline.

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- It's in litigation, and I don't think we should be discussing the merits of the case. And I'm not saying

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- you're going to get into it, but I just want to get us off that slope before we find ourselves in a

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- tricky spot. I'd be very happy to have a full length conversation with you about it. Bottom line is

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- there's some litigation going on over contaminated soil we discovered during a

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- a project that was taking us up through Lincoln and Third Street. And so there is some additional expenditure

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- occurring because we are trying to go through discovery and ramp up towards mediation and then litigation.

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- So that's what I was asking for. We're just an update where we are. So great. All right. I think the

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- part of it is that we cleaned it up. Now we've got to see what we can do to recoup our costs.

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- Those are my only questions on the claims. Just for my own education, I assume that this cost for printing

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- postage and mailing is just like our average monthly costs that you would just about average. Thanks.

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- Good discussion. Anything else on our standard invoices for today? All right, I will accept the motion

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- to approve those.

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- Moved and seconded. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right, motion carries.

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- Next is our utility bills, your utility claims list, totaling $206,714.83. Any questions about the utility

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- bills? I entertain a motion to approve.

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- we approve the utility claims list. We moved and seconded. Any other discussion? All in favor say aye.

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- Aye. Opposed? All right. Next then is our wire transfers totaling $583,288.27. Any discussion? Questions?

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- I entertain a motion to approve. I move that we approve the wire transfers.

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- We moved and seconded. Any other discussion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right. That is

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- carried and approved. And next are the customer refunds. Wait a minute. Do I need to approve a special

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- check run? Oh, that's further down. OK. There we go. I passed it already. OK. Customer refunds, totaling.

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- $16,069.03. Yeah, Jim. Yeah, thanks. Because I live in Renwick, I noticed that there's a rather large

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- amount of the Renwick HOA. Can you explain that? Now what? They overpaid us, and so we just refunded

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- the difference.

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- But when they made their payment, they paid the wrong amount. And this is just us refunding the difference.

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- So that's for the, I don't see that they use a lot of water in the park. I don't believe so, not. I've

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- never seen it irrigated, so I'm just wondering. It's interesting. All right.

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- I'll ask around and now it's around. Okay. That one and several others use the reason for refund as

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- adjustment refund. I don't know if I've just noticed that different today or if that's different language.

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- And there were several that had in the several thousand dollars in the adjustment refunds. So when people

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- have water leaks and it doesn't go down the wastewater system, we give them

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- refund for the sewer portion under bill okay so they were able to demonstrate that we have a whole process

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- for it good okay thank you any other questions on customer refunds okay ready for it's been moved and

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- seconded any other discussion all in favor say aye aye opposed all right customer refunds are approved

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- Next is the special check run in the amount of $1,888.93. Any discussion on those? All right. I move

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- that we approve the special check runs. Second. Moved and seconded for the special check run. Any other

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- discussion further? All right. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries for the special check run.

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- That brings us up to the approval of the consent agenda. Director Zager. Good evening. I'm Katherine

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- Zager, utilities director. I'm presenting tonight's consent agenda, totaling $20,651 for nonchemical

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- contracts. There was a last minute update. One of the contracts was removed, so it may differ from the

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- agenda you currently have.

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- The first contract is with Water Solutions Unlimited Inc. for $4.72 per gallon for the 2026 supply of

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- hydrofluorosilic acid, which is fluoride for the new bulk system at Monroe Water Plant. Next is with

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- Harrell Fish Inc. for $5,470 for maintenance, repairs, and replacements of the heating system at the

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- service center.

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- Next is with Electric Plus Inc. for $11,960 for the PD blower number three electrical reconfiguration

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- at Dillman. Next is with Alliance of Indiana Rural Water for $2,500 for confined space entrenched safety

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- training. Next is with Corson Fire and Security for $721 for service center sprinkler system inspections.

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- Is there any member who wishes to consider one or more of these items individually? Hearing none, if

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- there's no opposition, these items will be approved as recommended by staff. Hearing no opposition,

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- the consent agenda is approved. Thank you, Kat. All right. The next item is item seven, requesting approval

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- of amendment number one.

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- to the agreement with SSW Enterprises doing business as Office Pride. And, whoops. Did we take one out?

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- Wait. I don't have a six. Okay. Now that happened, okay.

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- All right, we have a request for approval of an on-call service agreement with Flow Solutions. Matt?

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- This is a usual on-call contract, and this company does work on our air compressors at the plants. So

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- we just wanted to be available to come fix things for us. All right. Any discussion on that agenda item?

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- Okay it's been moved and seconded to approve the on-call service agreement flow solutions any other

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- discussion all in favor say aye opposed all right motion carries thank you now we're ready for the approval

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- for agreement with services with SSW enterprises doing business as office pride

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- is for the service center here and they clean three days a week, Wednesday and Friday. What we discovered

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- was if we were closed on a Monday, they would come Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. So they're cleaning

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- two days in a row, which we didn't think was needed. So we're changing the contract to have them not

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- come in if the office is closed. Okay, so is it a reduction, Matt?

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- Yeah, because if there is a holiday, they will only clean two days a week. And it'll be, I think it's

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- about $290 a clean. So it's, since we're shrinking from three cleanings to two cleanings, does the dollar

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- amount of the contract reduce from what we originally? Yeah, for every clean that would have been on

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- a holiday would save us about $290. Okay.

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- And let's say right now it's Monday, Wednesday, Friday. So work Friday, leave, and then the office is

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- not fully staffed over the weekend. So then Monday, so it's basically like clean it two days in a row

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- with a Friday, Monday clean, correct? That's what we have now. But what we're saying is that they're

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- contracted for three days a week now. Sure. They would clean when nobody's here. Correct. I guess. Right.

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- And so if we were closed on a holiday on a Monday, we didn't want them to come back Tuesday and Wednesday.

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- to clean two days in a row? Sure. I guess what I'm saying is, do they need to come three days in a row,

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- or would it be good to have two days? Like, do a Tuesday, Friday, instead of Monday, Wednesday, Friday,

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- just on a regular week. I'm not trying to say. I don't know what your cleaning needs are, so I don't

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- want to say no cleaning services. That's just asking. We are not fully staffed on the weekend, so Friday

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- to Monday does seem back to back.

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- So that's something we can look into. This is not an amendment, this is the overall agreement. It's

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- an amendment. Oh, it's an amendment to the agreement, okay. Okay, any other questions? All right. I

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- move that we approve the agreement for services with SSW Enterprises.

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- It's been moved and seconded to approve the agreement with SSW Enterprises. Any other discussion. All

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- in favor say aye. Opposed. All right. Motion carries. Thank you. Next is the request for approval of

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- the amendment to the service agreement with Lane Christiansen Company.

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- Good evening. Hector Ortiz, Assistant Director of Operation. I'm here to request the approval of this

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- amendment. It's about 4,200 more from the original price. When they quoted, they quoted with some amount of copper

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- the winding of the motor, and when they took it out, when they took it to the shop and pulled it apart,

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- they found that the one that they quoted, it was the wrong size, so they're going to use a little bit

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- more now. Happy to answer any more questions. Any questions for Hector? All right. I move that we approve

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- the request for contract with Lane Christians & Company. Moved and seconded. Any other discussion?

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- All in favor say aye. Opposed? Okay, motion carries. Thank you, actor. Okay, next on the agenda is requesting

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- the on-call approval of the on-call agreement with Marshall Security. Wow. That's what I give her taking

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- notes with my phone call today on an old agenda. We'll switch to the new one.

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- All right, so we took that one off, right? Okay. All right. What number is that here? Okay,

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- here we go. Yes, here we are. Request approval amendment number four to the Monroe Water Treatment Plant

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- chemical feed line replacement with Donahue and Associates.

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- I'm Dan Hudson capital projects manager for the city of Bloomington utilities And I'd like the board

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- to consider amendment number four for the Donahue design project for the Monroe water treatment of plant

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- chemical feed project this has been a long project a lot of Changes in the design and we're finally

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- pushing to the last part here. We've extended the time to end of December so

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- Wessler is asking for an additional $51,500 to do that. Donahue? Donahue, I'm sorry. Donahue. All right,

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- any questions for Dan on this one? All right. I move that we approve the amendment number four for the

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- chemical feed line with Donahue.

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- It's been moved and seconded. Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right. Motion

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- carries for that contract. Thank you. And so next then is request approval. The service agreement with

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- T. Lai Tai Lin Electrical Engineering Consulting on upgrades at Dillman. All right. Where am I?

00:21:43.586 --> 00:21:52.358
- All right. We have too many versions of agendas here. Take this one. All right. That one away. All right,

00:21:52.358 --> 00:22:00.633
- next then. Cocosing Industrial, request approval for change order number three for the construction

00:22:00.633 --> 00:22:08.743
- services with Cocosing Industrial for Dillman Road wastewater treatment plant site safety process

00:22:08.743 --> 00:22:12.798
- improvements. Yeah, this is another big project.

00:22:13.026 --> 00:22:22.484
- that is on the verge of closing, but we need to finish it up by going through a change order process.

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- They have like 12 different items that we've gone through. Most of them are added, some of them are

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- deduct, but they've all been listed in the back there. They're asking for a $62,534 addition to their contract.

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- Any other questions for Dan on this one? All right. I move that we approve the change order number three.

00:22:56.419 --> 00:23:04.648
- Second. All right. Moved and seconded. Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed?

00:23:04.648 --> 00:23:13.216
- All right. Motion carries. Thank you. As an addition to that, I just want to say probably there will

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- be one more change order.

00:23:15.522 --> 00:23:25.426
- coming in before the end of the project, so anticipate that. Got it. Things change, we understand.

00:23:25.426 --> 00:23:35.530
- They do, yes. All right, I think the next item is requesting approval of a service agreement with TY

00:23:35.530 --> 00:23:43.934
- Lin Consulting, Dan Hudson. Yeah, this is TY Lin, formerly known as Grayley Hanson.

00:23:44.386 --> 00:23:54.198
- And this is a consulting project for $59,284. And this is for in preparation for the rate evaluation.

00:23:54.198 --> 00:24:03.914
- Usually the board of rates wants a hard cost to know exactly what we're gonna do and back it up. And

00:24:03.914 --> 00:24:13.534
- that's what this contract is for, is to give us a consulting cost for the capital that's coming up.

00:24:16.450 --> 00:24:28.692
- Okay. Any other questions for Dan on this? I move that we approve the professional services agreement

00:24:28.692 --> 00:24:41.654
- with Thailand. I move and second. Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carried.

00:24:41.654 --> 00:24:42.974
- All right.

00:24:43.202 --> 00:24:53.621
- Then we have the next one is approval of a service agreement with T.Y. Lin, electrical engineering consulting

00:24:53.621 --> 00:25:03.377
- on upgrades at Dillman. This is a design contract for the large electrical job that's been sitting out

00:25:03.377 --> 00:25:11.902
- there for a couple of years. And T.Y. Lin is asking $445,096 for this. This is a big job.

00:25:12.482 --> 00:25:20.171
- and we expect it may take over a year of design. Is there any questions on the job that opened the question?

00:25:20.171 --> 00:25:27.295
- We just say the summary of the contract is providing electrical engineering consulting on electrical

00:25:27.295 --> 00:25:34.914
- upgrade project at Dillman for the improvement of the substation main switch gear and emergency generators.

00:25:34.914 --> 00:25:36.254
- Yes. That's a lot.

00:25:36.450 --> 00:25:44.699
- That's a lot, and it's mostly, it's gonna be a high dollar job for construction, but that's mainly for

00:25:44.699 --> 00:25:52.707
- the equipment. The transformers, the switch gears are all very expensive, but the design to do that

00:25:52.707 --> 00:26:00.956
- is typically a little less than a normal civil engineering job. And as I was discussing earlier today,

00:26:00.956 --> 00:26:03.038
- this is a situation where

00:26:03.618 --> 00:26:12.417
- we maintain the substation, which is a little unusual. I think here and there we do, I guess. It's been

00:26:12.417 --> 00:26:21.301
- questioned several times, and we've gone back to Duke and so forth, because we were wondering if Monroe,

00:26:21.301 --> 00:26:30.270
- it turned out Monroe Water Treatment Plant, they own the substation, they'll maintain it, but at Dillman,

00:26:30.370 --> 00:26:40.491
- We own the substation, and we maintain it. And right now, it's approaching 40-some years old. You don't

00:26:40.491 --> 00:26:49.736
- want that to fail? No. We don't want that to fail. Everything goes. Yeah. What is the lifespan

00:26:49.736 --> 00:26:58.494
- for substation? It could go 40 years, maybe 50. And if you look at it, it looks OK. Yeah.

00:26:59.394 --> 00:27:07.291
- If it was okay, there would be a lot less companies and business building them, right? That's true.

00:27:07.291 --> 00:27:15.504
- But we did have a failure at one of our medium voltage switches in the last couple weeks. So that could

00:27:15.504 --> 00:27:23.638
- be an indicator that we need to get on it. And then does this improve our emergency generator capacity

00:27:23.638 --> 00:27:27.902
- there or does it maintain it? Both. Right now we have

00:27:28.450 --> 00:27:37.171
- two outlets for emergency generators that will run the whole plant. We have one emergency generator

00:27:37.171 --> 00:27:45.892
- that's in place now that runs the headworks, but it doesn't run the blowers or anything else. So we

00:27:45.892 --> 00:27:54.526
- have outlets, but for us to do that, we have to rent generators. And these are big generators that

00:27:54.914 --> 00:28:01.889
- take a long time to get in. And so in an emergency situation, it would be tough to receive these. I've

00:28:01.889 --> 00:28:09.270
- looked at different places. And I think the only place I found one that we could get one was in Connecticut.

00:28:09.270 --> 00:28:16.109
- So just to get one over here would be tough. So we're looking at putting in permanent ones. But when

00:28:16.109 --> 00:28:23.220
- we get to that point, which would be the end of the project, let's see what costs we have left and money

00:28:23.220 --> 00:28:24.574
- at that time. Good.

00:28:24.706 --> 00:28:33.034
- Well, that's a good direction ahead. Yeah. At least we'll have a design for it, and it'll be shovel-ready

00:28:33.034 --> 00:28:40.969
- in case we get a grant, some house of money, possibly. Is this project something we would anticipate

00:28:40.969 --> 00:28:49.061
- in our rate case, then? This was in the rate case last time. OK. But it's not only the design, but the

00:28:49.061 --> 00:28:53.854
- construction as well. Yes. And I have to refer that to Phil.

00:28:54.018 --> 00:29:01.897
- He's the expert on that. Thank you. Good evening, Philippine Engineering. It was in the last rate case,

00:29:01.897 --> 00:29:09.928
- but there was other projects that have moved forward since then. And this cost has went up substantially.

00:29:09.928 --> 00:29:17.807
- So it will be included in the next rate case, this part of the project. Thank you. I would like to also

00:29:17.807 --> 00:29:23.262
- note that Dan was talking about having, so this is for the engineering.

00:29:23.426 --> 00:29:30.499
- I think it's really important for us to have shovel-ready projects like having design for these generators,

00:29:30.499 --> 00:29:37.049
- because these are the kinds of projects that can really attract external funding. And so if we have

00:29:37.049 --> 00:29:43.860
- something to present, we're a lot more likely to be granted, you know, to be accepted to grants or have

00:29:43.860 --> 00:29:48.510
- that external funding. Great. Okay. Any other discussion or questions?

00:29:54.146 --> 00:30:04.114
- agreement. Okay then moved and seconded all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay motion carried.

00:30:04.114 --> 00:30:14.801
- Thank you. All right next is the request for approval of the amendment number two to the agreement with

00:30:14.801 --> 00:30:22.302
- VET environmental engineering and looks like Chris will present on that.

00:30:30.818 --> 00:30:39.288
- Good afternoon again Chris Wheeler with city legal and this is an amendment to the agreement that we

00:30:39.288 --> 00:30:48.261
- have with vet at the moment which we're covering expenses for their work on the Leonard Lenin's litigation

00:30:48.261 --> 00:30:49.854
- they went they are

00:30:50.978 --> 00:30:56.929
- integral in the information that we're sharing through discovery right now with the Leonard's attorneys,

00:30:56.929 --> 00:31:02.879
- um, providing them with information on the work that was done there, the remediation that was necessary,

00:31:02.879 --> 00:31:08.546
- uh, the methods by which we did the remediation. They have a lot of the information. And so, uh, as

00:31:08.546 --> 00:31:14.440
- we're moving through the different phases of discovery, we're continuing, continuing to incur some cost

00:31:14.440 --> 00:31:18.974
- with vet as they continue to do work for the city as we prepare for litigation.

00:31:20.258 --> 00:31:27.718
- And that's what this one is, and we would ask that you approve it. Okay, any questions for attorney

00:31:27.718 --> 00:31:34.805
- Wheeler? Yeah. So it looks like it's increased six times the original amount. So that's a lot.

00:31:34.805 --> 00:31:42.340
- Just saying. Well, it's not unexpected. We don't know what amount of time it will be spent trying to

00:31:42.340 --> 00:31:48.606
- get together documentation. They're going to also probably have one or two of their

00:31:48.706 --> 00:31:54.283
- employees be deposed at some point, which will also cost additional money. We don't know whether that'll

00:31:54.283 --> 00:32:00.126
- happen because we might find a way to get it resolved beforehand, but that's why there's no way to anticipate

00:32:00.126 --> 00:32:05.863
- the total amount of the cost of having them serve as these expert. They're not really our expert witnesses,

00:32:05.863 --> 00:32:10.590
- but they certainly have expertise in the field and they are rather critical to the case.

00:32:12.962 --> 00:32:22.472
- says not to exceed no lawyers no that's not gonna work and it's not gonna work in this case we're gonna

00:32:22.472 --> 00:32:31.800
- we just have to pay as we go okay all right with that environmental okay it's been moved and seconded

00:32:31.800 --> 00:32:40.670
- any further discussion all right all in favor say aye opposed all right motion carries thank you

00:32:44.962 --> 00:32:55.321
- Next is the presentation, the USB application to the Indiana Finance Authority for the Special Revolving

00:32:55.321 --> 00:33:05.877
- Funding, State Revolving Fund, I think, for lead service line replacement. Good evening. I'm Erica Walker.

00:33:05.877 --> 00:33:14.558
- I'm with Arcadis. Yeah, and I'm Justin Master, Water Quality Coordinator for Utilities.

00:33:14.850 --> 00:33:21.709
- Okay. And we're here to ask for your approval to submit a funding application to replace lead service

00:33:21.709 --> 00:33:28.434
- lines and deteriorating mains across the water system. So in this presentation, we're going to talk

00:33:28.434 --> 00:33:35.495
- about why this needs to happen. Some of the policy public health drivers and then CPUs needs, then we'll

00:33:35.495 --> 00:33:41.278
- talk a little bit about the funding opportunity. Why, why now? Why we think that the,

00:33:41.762 --> 00:33:49.891
- see if you should take advantage of this moment and then get into the proposed project and some of the

00:33:49.891 --> 00:33:57.861
- estimated cost. So the biggest thing is public health. Lead is the most widely studied neurotoxin in

00:33:57.861 --> 00:34:01.886
- world history. I mean the Romans used it for their

00:34:01.986 --> 00:34:08.490
- water system, and some people tie that to the fall of the Roman Empire. So we've known that it's been

00:34:08.490 --> 00:34:14.866
- bad for a long time, but not until Flint, Michigan did we as a country understand that leaving lead

00:34:14.866 --> 00:34:21.306
- pipes in our system posed risk to citizens. And so you can see there on the bottom, this shows you a

00:34:21.306 --> 00:34:28.001
- policy change. It's called the Lead and Copper Rule Improvements, and it's following the Flint, Michigan

00:34:28.001 --> 00:34:28.894
- water crisis.

00:34:29.314 --> 00:34:37.395
- And EPA over the last eight to 10 years has been evolving the regulation a lot. And the CBU has a lot

00:34:37.395 --> 00:34:45.555
- to do in the next 10 years. Starting in 2027, they have that nice long list of things to do, including

00:34:45.555 --> 00:34:53.477
- updating an updated inventory of every service line material in the system. And it starts the clock

00:34:53.477 --> 00:34:59.102
- on a 10 year timeline to replace all lead service lines in the system.

00:34:59.266 --> 00:35:05.028
- And it gets them into some other nuances that you might hear about over the years, like offering to

00:35:05.028 --> 00:35:10.962
- sample school and child care facilities for lead in the system. So this is a big change, comprehensive

00:35:10.962 --> 00:35:16.897
- change, and a lot of work to do for the utility. They've been working, as you will see, to prepare for

00:35:16.897 --> 00:35:22.831
- this for many years. And this is just the next step in the preparation that they're taking. As we move

00:35:22.831 --> 00:35:28.478
- along the timeline here, you get about halfway into that 10 years. You have to have completed all

00:35:28.610 --> 00:35:36.462
- the school and child care facilities in your system and then get over to 2037 and zero unknown service

00:35:36.462 --> 00:35:44.619
- line materials. So knowing every single one and having to at least try to replace all of your lead service

00:35:44.619 --> 00:35:52.242
- lines. And as I said, the utility has been working on this issue for a long time. I was actually an

00:35:52.242 --> 00:35:57.502
- intern here in graduate school and I worked in a cubicle over there.

00:35:57.634 --> 00:36:03.393
- we were looking for lead service lines in the same neighborhoods that this project is centered on. So,

00:36:03.393 --> 00:36:09.040
- you know, over a decade ago, Justin's predecessor actually suspected this, and we started going out,

00:36:09.040 --> 00:36:14.743
- and sure enough, they are there. And Justin can talk a little bit more about what they've been up to.

00:36:14.743 --> 00:36:20.502
- Yeah. Again, Justin Mesher with Water Quality. I won't try to cram everything we've done over the last

00:36:20.502 --> 00:36:25.758
- five to seven years, more in particular, because that's kind of more related to this project.

00:36:25.922 --> 00:36:32.233
- But just a couple of things we've done. We did a deep dive into our records here, talked to a lot of

00:36:32.233 --> 00:36:38.544
- our, I won't say more experienced employees that had better field knowledge of kind of our practices

00:36:38.544 --> 00:36:44.980
- going back many years to try to put together this inventory that we originally submitted two years ago

00:36:44.980 --> 00:36:51.415
- now, which was kind of our initial inventory. And if you don't know the exact number, it's over 27,000

00:36:51.415 --> 00:36:55.102
- services. So it's a lot of services to try to go identify.

00:36:55.586 --> 00:37:01.747
- Along the bottom there, you can see that we still have over 9,000 that are unknown. Even since we put

00:37:01.747 --> 00:37:08.089
- this together, we've brought that down under 9,600. So we kind of evolve every day of trying to identify

00:37:08.089 --> 00:37:14.250
- some of our outreaches, trying to ask people to call in if you know what your service line is made of

00:37:14.250 --> 00:37:20.531
- or to help us identify those. So it's kind of an everyday effort to reduce those unknowns and find that

00:37:20.531 --> 00:37:25.182
- service lines. On the top there, you can see we do offer water sampling now.

00:37:25.282 --> 00:37:31.025
- Everybody that received our notifications that went out last year, if you have an unknown service line,

00:37:31.025 --> 00:37:36.657
- a lead service line, or certain types of galvanized lines, I'll just lump those in with lead for now.

00:37:36.657 --> 00:37:42.179
- You receive this notification and the offer for us to come collect a water sample for lead testing.

00:37:42.179 --> 00:37:47.922
- We do have a new instrument or new-ish instrument out at Dillman where we do run these samples in-house

00:37:47.922 --> 00:37:53.278
- now free of cost to our customers, which has been a big benefit because per sample at, you know,

00:37:53.602 --> 00:37:59.966
- Outsourcing to lab we were paying quite a bit for that So we are trying to get a lot of use out of our

00:37:59.966 --> 00:38:06.145
- ICP for doing that in-house free of charge, which has been great You know as I mentioned we do have

00:38:06.145 --> 00:38:12.447
- done a lot of outreach to consumers trying to get More involvement, you know, I think you know we get

00:38:12.447 --> 00:38:18.935
- 20% Return on some of these efforts. That's pretty good for us You know, that's high for some utilities.

00:38:18.935 --> 00:38:23.198
- So, you know people calling in to identify or filling out our online

00:38:23.362 --> 00:38:29.056
- portal for if you know what your service line is, I think is a new tool for us that's been very helpful.

00:38:29.056 --> 00:38:34.534
- And then replacing lead lines, previously we've been doing what was called find and replace. So over

00:38:34.534 --> 00:38:40.120
- the last 20 plus years when we found lead service lines, we were replacing them at the time of finding

00:38:40.120 --> 00:38:45.706
- them, whether it was through other projects or if somebody had a service line break and we found lead,

00:38:45.706 --> 00:38:51.183
- we were replacing those as we found them. More recently with this inventory and the funding options,

00:38:51.183 --> 00:38:52.702
- they've asked us, you know,

00:38:52.834 --> 00:38:58.378
- inventory room from now and then when we hit this next deadline start to replace them. So this project

00:38:58.378 --> 00:39:03.922
- is kind of just giving us a head start on that to try to get the known lead lines that we have now out

00:39:03.922 --> 00:39:09.359
- of the ground. And then as Erica said you know a lot more goes into this with some of the school and

00:39:09.359 --> 00:39:14.526
- child care facility samplings but that's you know down the road for us as far as sampling goes.

00:39:19.874 --> 00:39:27.733
- And then of course we're seeking your approval to try to get some some funding for CBU to replace these

00:39:27.733 --> 00:39:34.686
- service lines. This is part of the bipartisan infrastructure law, which for the first time.

00:39:34.946 --> 00:39:41.307
- in American history made specific funds available for lead service line replacement and targeting it

00:39:41.307 --> 00:39:47.606
- as well in disadvantaged communities including grant funding and giving that to the state revolving

00:39:47.606 --> 00:39:54.219
- funds around the country. This is the last year that those funds are available unless other states don't

00:39:54.219 --> 00:40:00.958
- take advantage of them then IFA and other states that SRFs that have communities with lead will be able to

00:40:01.058 --> 00:40:07.223
- to get some of that. So we might see a little tail end, but this could be the last year of funding.

00:40:07.223 --> 00:40:13.326
- And as part of that, for IFA, there's a portion of that money that can be given out as a principal

00:40:13.326 --> 00:40:19.553
- forgiveness loan, which is essentially a grant. After you complete, you issue into the paperwork for

00:40:19.553 --> 00:40:26.334
- a loan, but then once you complete the project, the entire principal of that portion of the loan is forgiven.

00:40:26.530 --> 00:40:34.438
- And then for any project that involves work in disadvantaged communities or lead, they offer zero to

00:40:34.438 --> 00:40:42.424
- low, very low interest loans or longer payback terms. We've seen, usually they're 30 years, but we've

00:40:42.424 --> 00:40:50.332
- seen it go upwards of 40 for projects like this. And then just to let you know, for a community like

00:40:50.332 --> 00:40:52.446
- CBU with this current MHI,

00:40:52.866 --> 00:40:59.088
- that the city has, looking at an interest rate, a standard interest rate of around 2.38%. That's what's

00:40:59.088 --> 00:41:05.131
- published on IFA's website. That's subject to change. You learn about that more in the loan closing,

00:41:05.131 --> 00:41:11.114
- but those are the rates they're advertising. In terms of the requirements for getting this funding,

00:41:11.114 --> 00:41:17.635
- you have to put together an application, which is what we've done as part of this project, and a preliminary

00:41:17.635 --> 00:41:22.302
- engineering report, which is a long document that goes into the project area.

00:41:22.402 --> 00:41:29.751
- IFA wants to understand CBU's needs, what their priorities are, so we've gone through all that and put

00:41:29.751 --> 00:41:37.171
- together that document. And then, of course, you'll see after this, there's two resolutions before you,

00:41:37.171 --> 00:41:44.377
- and one is to allow us to submit that PER and then to give us an authorized signatory to sign off on

00:41:44.377 --> 00:41:48.158
- the loan if the funding package, if CBU is selected.

00:41:49.410 --> 00:41:56.742
- terms of next steps. So this is actually also part of their public comment requirement. So we're waiting

00:41:56.742 --> 00:42:03.794
- to see if anybody from the public requests the PER wants to see it, has any ideas about the project,

00:42:03.794 --> 00:42:11.614
- they would reach out to Justin and give us comments and then we would update our approach. Then we would submit

00:42:11.714 --> 00:42:20.125
- all the materials to IFA. April 1st is when it all goes in. We get some comments back from their engineers

00:42:20.125 --> 00:42:28.064
- and then move into the pre-closing steps. And here's the project. So we've selected four segments of

00:42:28.064 --> 00:42:36.161
- deteriorating mains. And this is from the condition assessment work that CBU has done. And so all four

00:42:36.161 --> 00:42:39.934
- of these segments have a rating of two of five.

00:42:40.130 --> 00:42:47.169
- deteriorating mains, and then on those service lines, there are about 70 that we think are either lead

00:42:47.169 --> 00:42:54.208
- or galvanized. The galvanized part's important because some of these mains have leaded joints on them,

00:42:54.208 --> 00:43:01.178
- and so the galvanized pipes are downstream of lead, potentially accumulating lead on the surface, and

00:43:01.178 --> 00:43:02.750
- so CBU wants to update

00:43:03.042 --> 00:43:09.092
- efficiently update those deteriorating mains and then any potential service lines containing lead at

00:43:09.092 --> 00:43:15.141
- the same time. And it doesn't look very efficient because we're zoomed way out, but at the same time

00:43:15.141 --> 00:43:17.118
- they want to knock out any known

00:43:17.634 --> 00:43:24.751
- lead, leaded service line. We'll just use that category more broadly. Anything EPA would call a leaded

00:43:24.751 --> 00:43:31.799
- service line, we just want to get it out of the ground as part of this project, take advantage of the

00:43:31.799 --> 00:43:38.916
- funding, and then set the community up for success in terms of the compliance rate. So that's our plan

00:43:38.916 --> 00:43:46.172
- there. The estimated cost of the entire project for construction, actually all in, would be 4.9 million.

00:43:46.172 --> 00:43:47.070
- And of that,

00:43:47.618 --> 00:43:55.034
- up to $1 million in that principal forgiveness or grant just for the lead service line replacement work.

00:43:55.034 --> 00:44:02.238
- And it's possible, too, because you see the thatched area there is our disadvantaged community tract.

00:44:02.238 --> 00:44:09.442
- And so you can see most of the project is in what IFA would consider to be a disadvantaged community.

00:44:09.442 --> 00:44:16.222
- And so they may offer additional principal forgiveness for the main work as well. So we'll see.

00:44:16.770 --> 00:44:25.072
- And then for the rest, they'd be eligible for either 0% interest or low interest loans for the remainder.

00:44:25.072 --> 00:44:33.061
- And overall, so our goals for the project are we want to maximize that grant funding for CBU. We want

00:44:33.061 --> 00:44:40.894
- to replace any lead we know about. And then as well, get rid of those mains in areas that have high

00:44:40.894 --> 00:44:43.870
- concentrations of lead service lines.

00:44:45.986 --> 00:44:51.873
- Other parts of the project, and this is our last slide, and then interested to hear your questions or

00:44:51.873 --> 00:44:57.818
- thoughts, but, so CBU is part of this. They're gonna have to do a lot of customer outreach. One of the

00:44:57.818 --> 00:45:03.590
- trickiest parts about this work is that customers own half the line, so you have to go, you have to

00:45:03.590 --> 00:45:09.708
- get their permission, and it's actually really hard to do that. We do a lot of lead service line projects

00:45:09.708 --> 00:45:12.478
- nationally, and it can take between eight to 10

00:45:12.770 --> 00:45:18.904
- Attempts just to get people to sign and say yes I will take a free because this would be free to all

00:45:18.904 --> 00:45:25.039
- of the customers that are in the project area so that'll take a little bit of work from CBU and then

00:45:25.039 --> 00:45:31.173
- providing picture filter kits after replacement the the work can dislodge leaded particulates so the

00:45:31.173 --> 00:45:37.369
- law will require it but CBU would go ahead and provide those to customers now as part of this project

00:45:37.369 --> 00:45:41.438
- and then do some post replacement sampling with that ICP mass spec

00:45:41.666 --> 00:45:48.606
- instrument that they purchased. And we talked about some of the ongoing inventory work so there's still

00:45:48.606 --> 00:45:55.280
- a lot of unknowns and so as part of this project and over the next two years CBU is going to reduce

00:45:55.280 --> 00:46:02.087
- their unknown service lines through meter pit inspections and then testing out an emerging technology

00:46:02.087 --> 00:46:08.894
- device that could really reduce the cost of inspections. And then as Justin mentioned there's lots of

00:46:09.058 --> 00:46:18.406
- other compliance nuances to take care of, and so they'll be preparing for those other things starting

00:46:18.406 --> 00:46:27.754
- in 2027. And with that. Any questions? Thank you for that presentation. And do we have questions from

00:46:27.754 --> 00:46:36.919
- the board? Jim. Yeah, thank you for all that. So. You haven't yet finished with the magic wandering

00:46:36.919 --> 00:46:38.110
- in the city.

00:46:38.690 --> 00:46:48.313
- It's still going on. It's a wonderful instrument. I still have a hard time getting my head around it.

00:46:48.313 --> 00:46:57.747
- The other question is, is it difficult or expensive to dispose of the leaded stuff once you take it

00:46:57.747 --> 00:47:08.030
- out? Not difficult or expensive. Where do they put it? Nowhere where it could be near groundwater, I assume.

00:47:08.258 --> 00:47:13.211
- As of now, we've kept a lot of the lead that we've taken out of the ground. One of the stipulations

00:47:13.211 --> 00:47:18.412
- was we have a compliance sampling. We were on a reduced schedule, so we were doing it every three years.

00:47:18.412 --> 00:47:23.464
- But during that schedule for sampling, if we were to go over what they were calling the action level,

00:47:23.464 --> 00:47:26.782
- we would have to make process changes down in our treatment plant.

00:47:27.010 --> 00:47:32.517
- to make sure that our water was less corrosive. So part of that was we were hanging on to a lot of that

00:47:32.517 --> 00:47:37.917
- lead just in case we did get close to that action level or exceed that, we could use that for some of

00:47:37.917 --> 00:47:43.265
- the test studies to see what changes at the plant we would need to do to try to get that water to be

00:47:43.265 --> 00:47:48.772
- a little less corrosive. But as of last summer's compliance sampling, we're still well under the action

00:47:48.772 --> 00:47:54.490
- level. So we'll probably still hang on to it until we hit that 2028 change in the next step of the project.

00:47:54.490 --> 00:47:55.390
- Okay, thank you.

00:47:56.098 --> 00:48:02.915
- Is the action level already decreased until it hits? Uh, 2027 fall. Yeah. Um, so our, our 90th percentile

00:48:02.915 --> 00:48:09.603
- went up a little bit last summer to 5.3. We were around 3.3 or 5.1. We were around 3.3. But we did with

00:48:09.603 --> 00:48:16.419
- this last sampling have to make some changes to our sampling sites. Um, some of the older sampling sites,

00:48:16.419 --> 00:48:21.950
- they just carried over from sampling to sampling. This one we had to go back through.

00:48:22.050 --> 00:48:27.803
- and make sure that all of our sites work, because they're tier one sampling sites. For compliance reasons?

00:48:27.803 --> 00:48:33.341
- Yeah. 30. Okay. Cool. And I get, you know, I got this, I brought it today as well, and it's very clear

00:48:33.341 --> 00:48:38.987
- that any of these weird goosenecks are city-owned. Do they look like anything that connects to the main?

00:48:38.987 --> 00:48:44.525
- I know that's kind of a funky thing with people. Yeah, those will be part of the next steps. They will

00:48:44.525 --> 00:48:49.902
- start to look at goosenecks as, you know, like connectors will be a real pain in the butt to try to

00:48:49.902 --> 00:48:51.838
- figure it out in systems like ours.

00:48:52.098 --> 00:49:00.884
- And it does seem like it's a hodgepodge federally with what municipalities are doing with this in terms

00:49:00.884 --> 00:49:09.924
- of the costs and cost sharing. So you said it would be free to the consumer or customer that would include

00:49:09.924 --> 00:49:15.838
- schools and daycares. Is this regardless of this funding opportunity?

00:49:16.898 --> 00:49:22.394
- Just this funding opportunity. As far as the contingent on getting this opportunity. Yeah, exactly.

00:49:22.394 --> 00:49:27.944
- Because that would be a no-brainer, I think, and a big win to be able to get there. Yeah, and that's

00:49:27.944 --> 00:49:33.659
- one of the big problems facing utilities is trying to tell somebody without that funding, hey, you need

00:49:33.659 --> 00:49:39.485
- to pay $2,000 or $3,000 to replace your service line to help us fill our needs for the inventory process.

00:49:39.485 --> 00:49:40.254
- Right, right.

00:49:41.026 --> 00:49:47.539
- And then with the 9,600 or whatever we have yet to go, would this funding be able to be used for any

00:49:47.539 --> 00:49:54.117
- of those, or would we need to identify future funding to replace those? That'd be future funding. OK.

00:49:54.117 --> 00:50:00.630
- Thank you. Other questions? Great question. Go ahead. Yeah. Well, two things, I guess. Number one, I

00:50:00.630 --> 00:50:07.078
- know you've been doing a lot of work for this in a roundabout way. I heard about it from a township

00:50:07.078 --> 00:50:10.238
- trustee that a customer had reached out to them.

00:50:10.402 --> 00:50:18.106
- about the opportunity to have their line tested at their home. So thank you. I know you've been dealing

00:50:18.106 --> 00:50:25.514
- with a lot of folks. If we are to be funded, what's kind of our timeline on this? I know it's 2037,

00:50:25.514 --> 00:50:32.997
- but I don't anticipate these lines would take that long. Is that something that we have the capacity

00:50:32.997 --> 00:50:37.886
- to do in-house or that we would seek other folks to help with it?

00:50:38.242 --> 00:50:45.420
- It's going to be a mix of CBU and contracted out. IFA likes to see the funds spent within two years,

00:50:45.420 --> 00:50:53.025
- but they're flexible. Things come up in projects. And so CBU would be doing all of the admin construction,

00:50:53.025 --> 00:51:00.275
- admin inspection, and some of the other elements I talked about, like water testing, picture filters,

00:51:00.275 --> 00:51:06.174
- things like that. But then they would have to contract out the actual construction

00:51:06.338 --> 00:51:13.765
- Okay. Work and that's just part of the EPA funding requirements. They want to see like a public procurement

00:51:13.765 --> 00:51:20.918
- and they don't reimburse for utility work. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Did you see a heavy increase in water

00:51:20.918 --> 00:51:27.864
- sampling requests or phone calls when these go out? Oh, yeah. Yeah. This year we definitely saw more

00:51:27.864 --> 00:51:34.947
- than last year. I think we're up to close to 600 requests. And our ICP just kind of came online in the

00:51:34.947 --> 00:51:36.254
- last month or two.

00:51:36.898 --> 00:51:43.183
- a little bit of a slow process for us, but we have started to run samples on that, so we're gonna start

00:51:43.183 --> 00:51:49.467
- working with you on that list pretty quickly. But we're doing it all in house, so it does take a little

00:51:49.467 --> 00:51:55.631
- bit of time, which I stress to people, but the list does grow daily. Well, you get a lot of good data

00:51:55.631 --> 00:52:01.674
- out of it, too. Oh, yeah. I saw on the slide that for a project described here, you're anticipating

00:52:01.674 --> 00:52:05.118
- about 4.8 million, is that right? Yes, if we're winning.

00:52:05.218 --> 00:52:16.001
- get about a million of that forgiven, maybe? Okay, so then the rest of it would be coming out of water

00:52:16.001 --> 00:52:24.062
- budget, I think. Yes. Okay. And let's see, do we have that in the rate case?

00:52:31.010 --> 00:52:39.421
- water main replacement funding that we do have in our rate case. So that line item, that was, I believe

00:52:39.421 --> 00:52:47.589
- it was four million and then three million and another three million over another three million over

00:52:47.589 --> 00:52:56.081
- the course of four years. That's where this would come from. So yes, it's in the right case. Good. Other

00:52:56.081 --> 00:53:00.286
- questions? So we would, we would get that 1 million

00:53:00.674 --> 00:53:07.964
- back or was it just that we were to get that 1 million interest free. You would get it. Your yeah, the

00:53:07.964 --> 00:53:15.113
- principal would be forgiven the principal. So yeah, so we would still so we really would still 0 4.9

00:53:15.113 --> 00:53:22.544
- correct. Well, as soon as the project is complete, then that million would come off. Okay, I understand.

00:53:22.544 --> 00:53:28.702
- Thank you. Okay, I missed that. Thank you. The interest rates really low there. Right.

00:53:30.178 --> 00:53:39.598
- And the other good part I noticed is that, you know, obviously we'd be obligated to take care of the

00:53:39.598 --> 00:53:49.112
- line up to the meter. But this goes a step further from the meter to the residence. And that's a good

00:53:49.112 --> 00:53:58.625
- fix. Yes, it is. I hate to not be able to do that, too. Great. OK. That's the presentation part. Yep.

00:53:58.625 --> 00:53:59.838
- Now we have.

00:54:00.162 --> 00:54:11.925
- two action items. The first is the resolution, that's the signatory authorization, resolution 26-06.

00:54:11.925 --> 00:54:23.572
- And I think this is the one that gives Arcadis authorization to make application for us. So this is

00:54:23.572 --> 00:54:27.998
- the first one. Any questions on that?

00:54:29.474 --> 00:54:39.053
- Ready for a motion? I move that we approve resolution 2026-06. Second. All right, it's been moved and

00:54:39.053 --> 00:54:48.819
- seconded. Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, great. We have that one done.

00:54:48.819 --> 00:54:58.398
- And next then is the resolution 2026-07, the SRF Loan Fund Preliminary Engineering Report acceptance.

00:55:00.354 --> 00:55:12.153
- Any questions on that? All right. I move that we approve a resolution 2026-07. Second. Moved and seconded.

00:55:12.153 --> 00:55:23.401
- Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right. Motion carries. Both resolutions

00:55:23.401 --> 00:55:30.238
- were in business. Thank you. Okay. Next on the agenda then is

00:55:30.850 --> 00:55:41.237
- Let's see, old business. And do we have any old business from the board? Old business from staff. New

00:55:41.237 --> 00:55:52.134
- business from the board. New business from staff. We didn't have a subcommittee today or any subcommittees

00:55:52.134 --> 00:55:58.142
- in the past two weeks, so we're good there. Staff reports.

00:56:02.722 --> 00:56:13.387
- up and give her staff report on her E. coli study of Clear Creek sampling fellow it's a graduate internship

00:56:13.387 --> 00:56:23.953
- position here in the environmental division at CBU I'm here today to discuss some information and findings

00:56:23.953 --> 00:56:30.174
- on a E. coli study we are wrapping up on Clear Creek right now

00:56:30.274 --> 00:56:36.850
- as well as some implications for future like institutional steps that CBU could take. If we could go

00:56:36.850 --> 00:56:43.556
- to the next slide, please. So just like a really broad level overview before we dive into things, this

00:56:43.556 --> 00:56:50.132
- is a sampling and analysis project that started in October 2024, looking at E. coli loading into the

00:56:50.132 --> 00:56:56.839
- Clear Creek Jackson Creek system. It was done with support from a federal work study position, jointly

00:56:56.839 --> 00:57:00.094
- administered between CBU and IU's O'Neill School.

00:57:00.578 --> 00:57:07.118
- And so just some context for why we're looking at Clear Creek Jackson Creek specifically, as well as

00:57:07.118 --> 00:57:13.918
- E. coli loading specifically. The entire system is currently designated by IDEM as impaired on the basis

00:57:13.918 --> 00:57:20.718
- of elevated E. coli concentrations. And since the MS4 under the umbrella of CBU is the primary regulator

00:57:20.718 --> 00:57:24.862
- at the municipal level for stormwater pollution in Bloomington,

00:57:24.962 --> 00:57:31.743
- we felt that we were in kind of a unique position to respond to those impairment designations, try and

00:57:31.743 --> 00:57:38.656
- analyze the problem at a local level, and then identify some potential next steps to respond to existing

00:57:38.656 --> 00:57:45.372
- impairment. So just before we get into the project itself, just some brief reminder background on the

00:57:45.372 --> 00:57:50.046
- Clear Creek Jackson Creek system, which you can see on that map there.

00:57:50.178 --> 00:57:57.194
- With the watershed that drains to the system marked in black, it's a 25 square mile catchment covering

00:57:57.194 --> 00:58:04.210
- I think 64% of Bloomington's land area. There's 34 miles of kind of main channel perennial stream, but

00:58:04.210 --> 00:58:11.226
- that doesn't include all of the stormwater infrastructure that drains to it, as well as a lot of those

00:58:11.226 --> 00:58:18.174
- smaller tributaries you see, which a lot of them only experience like seasonal or post rainfall flow.

00:58:18.754 --> 00:58:25.319
- It's a pretty developed basin. The majority of it, if we could go to the next slide, is covered in this

00:58:25.319 --> 00:58:31.885
- red here, which you can see is various intensities of urban developed land. And then as you get further

00:58:31.885 --> 00:58:38.261
- south outside of the city's municipal boundary, there's more of a kind of patchy mix of forested and

00:58:38.261 --> 00:58:44.637
- grassland. But this really dense clustering of urban developed land obviously comes with an increase

00:58:44.637 --> 00:58:46.846
- in impervious surface cover, which

00:58:46.946 --> 00:58:53.938
- could be contributing to this problem. So we thought that this would be a useful area to study and determine

00:58:53.938 --> 00:59:00.417
- more about potential hotspots or things like that that are happening with pollutant loading into the

00:59:00.417 --> 00:59:06.832
- system. So a little bit of regulatory background. So like I said, we chose to focus specifically on

00:59:06.832 --> 00:59:12.734
- Clear Creek and Jackson Creek because they have existing impairment designations from IDEM.

00:59:12.834 --> 00:59:21.980
- So sections 305B and 303D of the Clean Water Act require state environmental agencies to assess, identify,

00:59:21.980 --> 00:59:30.698
- and report to the EPA impaired surface waters. For the purposes of that section 503B, 303D assessment

00:59:30.698 --> 00:59:39.246
- item divides the system into those 10 attainment units that you can see there. And in 2015 to 2016,

00:59:39.246 --> 00:59:42.750
- this watershed was selected for sampling

00:59:43.010 --> 00:59:49.473
- And the results of that sampling suggest that the entirety of the system has elevated E. coli concentrations

00:59:49.473 --> 00:59:55.936
- that bring it out of adherence with water quality standards. One unit in there has an impairment designation

00:59:55.936 --> 01:00:01.865
- for PCBs and fish tissue, and two have impairments for biological integrity. We chose to only focus

01:00:01.865 --> 01:00:07.973
- on E. coli in this project because we don't necessarily have in-house capacity for fish tissue testing

01:00:07.973 --> 01:00:08.862
- at the moment.

01:00:08.962 --> 01:00:15.619
- And IDEM is also currently reworking their methods for the biological integrity metrics. So we thought

01:00:15.619 --> 01:00:22.147
- that E. coli was sort of an obvious first step to kind of try and respond to that. Yes. Can you just

01:00:22.147 --> 01:00:28.933
- explain what the biological integrity is? Yeah. So right now they use, it's called the macroinvertebrate

01:00:28.933 --> 01:00:35.655
- index of biological integrity. So they're looking at basically insects and crustaceans and other really

01:00:35.655 --> 01:00:38.046
- small animals that are in the creek.

01:00:38.498 --> 01:00:44.943
- And a lot of those are really sensitive to pollution, whereas a lot of them have pretty high tolerances

01:00:44.943 --> 01:00:51.449
- for pollution. So if you're trying to look at the integrity of the system as a whole rather than testing

01:00:51.449 --> 01:00:57.956
- for a specific pollutant, you can kind of get an idea. If you're only seeing pollution-tolerant species,

01:00:57.956 --> 01:01:01.054
- then it might be impaired or something like that.

01:01:01.474 --> 01:01:08.350
- And we do some work with that in our Hoosier River Watch program and other related areas, but hasn't

01:01:08.350 --> 01:01:15.634
- been a major focus of this project as of yet. One thing I do want to touch on with the existing impairment

01:01:15.634 --> 01:01:22.578
- assessments for the system, which you might be able to see on the map here, those three blue dots are

01:01:22.578 --> 01:01:29.726
- where IDEM performed their sampling in 2015 and 2016. And then they essentially extrapolated the E. coli

01:01:29.826 --> 01:01:37.240
- data upstream to designate the entirety of the system as impaired. And so our thinking was if we were

01:01:37.240 --> 01:01:44.799
- looking to respond to those impairment assessments, there's a clear need for like finer scale localized

01:01:44.799 --> 01:01:52.140
- data to figure out exactly where in the system we're seeing really elevated concentrations and where

01:01:52.140 --> 01:01:55.774
- we're maybe not seeing quite as elevated loading.

01:01:56.482 --> 01:02:04.415
- All that aside, based on the designation of impairment in the system, the Section 305B and 303D of the

01:02:04.415 --> 01:02:12.271
- Clean Water Act requires state agencies in collaboration with local partners to develop total maximum

01:02:12.271 --> 01:02:19.973
- daily load reports. So basically these are studies that figure out for specific pollutants how much

01:02:19.973 --> 01:02:26.366
- of that pollutant can enter a waterway such that the waterway can still meet those

01:02:26.530 --> 01:02:32.701
- water quality standards at the state level. And so based off of what item found with existing levels

01:02:32.701 --> 01:02:38.995
- of E. coli concentration in the system, as well as the health standards that are in place, which we'll

01:02:38.995 --> 01:02:45.166
- get into in a little bit, the Clear Creek Jackson Creek watershed needs a 90 to 98% reduction in the

01:02:45.166 --> 01:02:51.337
- amount of E. coli entering the system. They followed that up with the 2022 watershed management plan

01:02:51.337 --> 01:02:55.614
- for the Lower Salt Creek system, which established a 2053 as the year

01:02:55.778 --> 01:03:01.818
- by which that, as the target year for that load reduction to be achieved. Other things worth noting,

01:03:01.818 --> 01:03:07.919
- this is the most extreme load reduction target of any sub basin within that entire mapped area, which

01:03:07.919 --> 01:03:13.959
- is not necessarily entirely surprising just because we have a higher level of development than a lot

01:03:13.959 --> 01:03:20.478
- of the surrounding landscape. And it also gave some preliminary ideas on potential sources for the sea coli,

01:03:20.578 --> 01:03:27.520
- and then best management practices that we could use to respond to them. And I'll get into those a little

01:03:27.520 --> 01:03:34.462
- bit later on in the presentation. But before we dive into the project itself, just a quick kind of primer

01:03:34.462 --> 01:03:41.142
- on E. coli in the context of water quality. So it's a species of fecal coliform bacteria, which means

01:03:41.142 --> 01:03:48.542
- that it essentially originates in the gastrointestinal systems of all warm-blooded animals. And so this can make

01:03:48.674 --> 01:03:55.302
- source characterization particularly challenging relative to other pollutants because pretty much anywhere

01:03:55.302 --> 01:04:01.620
- where there is waste being deposited from a warm-blooded animal, there's going to be some level of E.

01:04:01.620 --> 01:04:08.062
- coli contamination. Most strains of E. coli are relatively harmless. There are some that are pathogenic

01:04:08.062 --> 01:04:14.256
- and can cause some pretty serious infections, but its real value in the water quality world is that

01:04:14.256 --> 01:04:18.654
- it's a strong indicator for the presence of fecal waste in the system.

01:04:18.786 --> 01:04:25.734
- And then it can also trend quite closely with the presence of other fecal-related pathogens. And so

01:04:25.734 --> 01:04:32.681
- getting back into the regulation side of things for a second, I'm going to be referencing these two

01:04:32.681 --> 01:04:39.768
- standards throughout the discussion on the project itself. These are the standards that IDEM used for

01:04:39.768 --> 01:04:45.534
- the original impairment classification and the load reduction targets, and they're

01:04:45.794 --> 01:04:52.008
- under this category of what they call full body contact assessment. So the idea is that they've crafted

01:04:52.008 --> 01:04:58.342
- these standards to kind of reflect risk of infection if you are fully submerging your body in a waterway.

01:04:58.342 --> 01:05:04.735
- So it's mainly focused on recreation. For that reason, it's also not listed in the slide here, but they've

01:05:04.735 --> 01:05:10.710
- established a recreational season for sampling. So everything is between April 1st and October 31st

01:05:10.710 --> 01:05:15.550
- essentially. And so basically the way these two standards work is they will have

01:05:15.746 --> 01:05:23.272
- An agency will collect five or more E. coli samples from a given water body or a given site. The average

01:05:23.272 --> 01:05:30.583
- across all of those, if it is above 125 colony forming units per 100 milliliters, then the water body

01:05:30.583 --> 01:05:38.109
- will be classified as impaired, even if the mean, or it's a geometric mean, so it isolates some outliers

01:05:38.109 --> 01:05:39.614
- and stuff like that.

01:05:40.194 --> 01:05:46.672
- Even if the geometric mean is under 125, if any single sample in a set is above 235, then it'll still

01:05:46.672 --> 01:05:53.087
- be classified as impaired. And I know those numbers don't mean a whole lot right now, but it'll make

01:05:53.087 --> 01:05:58.993
- more sense as we move further along. So that brings us to the project itself. So we set out,

01:05:58.993 --> 01:06:05.344
- like I said, with a couple key objectives. First, we wanted to provide finer scale local data on E.

01:06:05.344 --> 01:06:09.790
- coli loading than is currently available from IDEM and other sources.

01:06:10.178 --> 01:06:16.326
- Alongside that, we wanted to identify physical, spatial, or meteorological factors that are regulating

01:06:16.326 --> 01:06:22.474
- the loading and transport of the pollutant in the system throughout the year or across sites, identify

01:06:22.474 --> 01:06:28.443
- potential sources for E. coli contamination in Clear Creek and Jackson Creek, and then provide some

01:06:28.443 --> 01:06:32.382
- sort of guidance for future response by the city or other actors.

01:06:33.090 --> 01:06:39.519
- And so the methods employed, we used a combination of a rotating set of nine sites, which I'll show

01:06:39.519 --> 01:06:46.205
- in a second, where we performed weekly sampling at those sites to both get those geometric mean results

01:06:46.205 --> 01:06:52.827
- that I had mentioned, and then also to understand how E. coli levels were varying over time and across

01:06:52.827 --> 01:06:59.320
- different weather conditions and flow regimes in the system. And then we augmented that with some ad

01:06:59.320 --> 01:07:00.542
- hoc sampling where

01:07:00.674 --> 01:07:07.595
- We had known problem spots or trying to go up tributaries to see is there differences in this part of

01:07:07.595 --> 01:07:14.856
- the watershed versus another. All field sampling was performed pursuant to IDEM's field technical standard

01:07:14.856 --> 01:07:21.845
- operating procedures for E. coli. And then once those field samples were obtained, they were delivered

01:07:21.845 --> 01:07:28.698
- to the wonderful lab folks down at the Dillman plant for enumeration to figure out the concentration

01:07:28.698 --> 01:07:30.462
- in those samples and then

01:07:31.042 --> 01:07:37.375
- both in the field and in the lab, we used some pretty robust quality assurance guidelines to make sure

01:07:37.375 --> 01:07:43.155
- that the data we were getting was actually reflecting what we're seeing in the stream system.

01:07:43.155 --> 01:07:49.795
- So like I said, this is the combination of a rotating weekly sampling and then kind of one-off or follow-up

01:07:49.795 --> 01:07:53.054
- ad hoc sampling. So anything you see up here in red,

01:07:53.154 --> 01:08:00.166
- is a site that was sampled weekly throughout the majority of that recreational season to identify how

01:08:00.166 --> 01:08:07.384
- these things were changing over time. And then all of the other white dots there are for kind of getting

01:08:07.384 --> 01:08:14.670
- a closer view into more local dynamics that could be valuable. And I should say, too, I forgot to mention

01:08:14.670 --> 01:08:21.613
- that's the start. If anyone has any questions throughout, feel free to just jump in. But if we could

01:08:21.613 --> 01:08:22.782
- get to the next.

01:08:22.882 --> 01:08:30.815
- So project to date, we have 211 samples from 32 sites, nine of those rotating weekly ones, and then

01:08:30.815 --> 01:08:38.907
- 23 from the ad hoc. And kind of unsurprisingly and consistent with IDEMS findings, we see elevated E.

01:08:38.907 --> 01:08:47.157
- coli concentration system-wide. Nearly 80% were above that mean standard, whereas a majority, 63%, were

01:08:47.157 --> 01:08:49.854
- above the single sample standard.

01:08:50.242 --> 01:08:57.227
- But what is particularly concerning to us is there are quite a few that are not just slightly above

01:08:57.227 --> 01:09:04.562
- the impairment standard, but pretty significantly above. Most particularly the 14% of samples that maxed

01:09:04.562 --> 01:09:11.896
- out the undiluted test sensitivity for our standards. I should note this is not necessarily, it is cause

01:09:11.896 --> 01:09:18.462
- for concern. It's not necessarily like out of, you know, it's not extraordinarily out of the,

01:09:18.594 --> 01:09:25.010
- realm of possibility for a normal urbanized creek system like this. And then we also saw a lot of inter-site

01:09:25.010 --> 01:09:31.426
- variability in terms of concentrations as well as intra-site variability across different weather conditions

01:09:31.426 --> 01:09:37.430
- and stuff like that. And I'll get a little bit more into that as we continue. So this map is a little

01:09:37.430 --> 01:09:43.375
- bit difficult to parse through at scale. And we have a full report coming on this that provides some

01:09:43.375 --> 01:09:44.670
- more clarity on that.

01:09:44.994 --> 01:09:52.111
- But you can see here the main takeaway is just that we have pretty elevated concentrations across much

01:09:52.111 --> 01:09:59.091
- of the watershed, and at individual sites we're seeing under different flow regimes smaller and then

01:09:59.091 --> 01:10:06.070
- much greater concentrations of E. coli, including some well, well above the standard. Go to the next

01:10:06.070 --> 01:10:10.078
- one. And then these next two slides are going to show you

01:10:10.466 --> 01:10:18.316
- how the E. coli concentrations that we obtained compared to those single and multi-sample standards

01:10:18.316 --> 01:10:26.167
- that I mentioned. So this is that 79% that were above the mean 125 standard. And I should note here

01:10:26.167 --> 01:10:34.174
- that there is some overlap with the markers. So there are some sites there where you'll see elevation

01:10:34.370 --> 01:10:41.921
- on one day and then not elevation on another. And it's not super clear at this scale, but just a caveat

01:10:41.921 --> 01:10:49.327
- there. And if we continue on, it's the same visualization, but for the 235 single sample standard. So

01:10:49.327 --> 01:10:56.733
- you can see it's not constant, and it's not across every single site, but it is pretty serious across

01:10:56.733 --> 01:10:59.710
- the watershed. If we could get one more.

01:11:00.418 --> 01:11:06.824
- So then kind of honing in on those nine rotating weekly sites specifically, and we have like a full

01:11:06.824 --> 01:11:13.422
- breakdown and list of those in the full report that's forthcoming, we see pretty substantial variation

01:11:13.422 --> 01:11:19.444
- across sites. So all of them had mean values that were pretty well above the health standard.

01:11:19.444 --> 01:11:26.042
- But we see, perhaps unsurprisingly, in like these more forested sites, like on the west side over near

01:11:26.042 --> 01:11:30.142
- Woolery Mill, we don't see quite the same elevation that we see

01:11:30.370 --> 01:11:37.527
- up in those two sites clustered in Switchyard Park, which receive a lot of discharge from heavy and

01:11:37.527 --> 01:11:44.970
- pervious surface cover downtown, and also from some of our older neighborhoods where the infrastructure

01:11:44.970 --> 01:11:52.127
- has been subject to deterioration for longer. And then across all sites, this drainage channel near

01:11:52.127 --> 01:11:57.566
- College Mall Road and Buick Cadillac Drive was pretty far and away the most

01:11:57.986 --> 01:12:05.108
- extreme elevation that we saw across sites. And I'll get a little bit more into potential causes of

01:12:05.108 --> 01:12:12.373
- that variability as we continue. And then if we look across time at these single sites, I've got them

01:12:12.373 --> 01:12:19.708
- visualized here with the red bars being the E. coli concentrations and the blue lines being the inches

01:12:19.708 --> 01:12:27.614
- of rainfall in the past seven days. So trying to get an idea of is this a case where a bunch of waste is being

01:12:27.874 --> 01:12:34.590
- brought in by surface runoff or are there more kind of like chronic gradual transport of E. coli into

01:12:34.590 --> 01:12:41.241
- the system. And what these generally indicate to me at least is that we are seeing a lot of episodic

01:12:41.241 --> 01:12:48.352
- loading after big rainfall events which is kind of consistent with outdoor waste like pet waste or anything

01:12:48.352 --> 01:12:49.406
- like that being

01:12:49.538 --> 01:12:55.611
- flushed into the system after a heavy rainfall. But these bars where you see really elevated results

01:12:55.611 --> 01:13:01.984
- when there hasn't been a really substantial rain event in recent days are particularly concerning because

01:13:01.984 --> 01:13:08.117
- they suggest that there could be some sort of dry weather source that might be infrastructure related

01:13:08.117 --> 01:13:14.311
- or something else. If we could continue on one more. And then this is kind of the similar takeaway but

01:13:14.311 --> 01:13:15.934
- a different visualization.

01:13:16.034 --> 01:13:22.606
- It's just a scatter plot of past two weeks precipitation in inches and the E. coli counts that we got

01:13:22.606 --> 01:13:29.114
- from sampling. And so the ones that are of particular concern up here would be those in that kind of

01:13:29.114 --> 01:13:35.815
- top left quadrant where there hasn't been a ton of precipitation in recent days, but we're still seeing

01:13:35.815 --> 01:13:42.259
- really heavy transport of E. coli containing contaminants into the stream body. Let me go one more.

01:13:42.259 --> 01:13:43.934
- And so based on all that,

01:13:44.098 --> 01:13:52.477
- and this work is still ongoing a little bit, is preliminary insights into potential sources of elevated

01:13:52.477 --> 01:14:00.614
- E. coli concentrations in Clear Creek and Jackson Creek and potential municipal responses for it. So

01:14:00.614 --> 01:14:08.348
- this kind of category is just like outdoor waste deposition across livestock, pet and wildlife,

01:14:08.348 --> 01:14:10.846
- and human. On livestock waste,

01:14:10.946 --> 01:14:18.026
- Just because we don't have nearly as big of an agricultural footprint as most watersheds, the 2018 TMDL

01:14:18.026 --> 01:14:25.038
- report assumed that there was no major contribution. There's nothing we've seen in the data since then

01:14:25.038 --> 01:14:32.049
- that would dispute that. But continued action could just be monitoring of those kind of concentrations

01:14:32.049 --> 01:14:38.993
- around any known sites where people are doing domestic livestock or poultry operations or things like

01:14:38.993 --> 01:14:39.742
- that. Yes?

01:14:41.250 --> 01:14:50.449
- It's pretty ubiquitous Yeah, a big a big source to is is when people will apply Manure for like fertilizer

01:14:50.449 --> 01:14:59.133
- and stuff like that. So that could be a contributor It's difficult to quantify The challenge I think

01:14:59.133 --> 01:15:08.246
- is is going from the concentrations that we're seeing towards like Since we don't have like strict counts

01:15:08.246 --> 01:15:09.278
- of how many

01:15:09.442 --> 01:15:15.822
- livestock or pets or stuff like that are in the system. We do have a couple avenues where we could try

01:15:15.822 --> 01:15:22.016
- and parse out how much of it is contribution from human versus pet versus livestock, which I'll get

01:15:22.016 --> 01:15:28.459
- into a little bit right towards the end. But yeah, it's challenging to, especially when you think about

01:15:28.459 --> 01:15:34.777
- people reusing manure or other things like that. Moving on to pet and wildlife waste, this is a known

01:15:34.777 --> 01:15:35.582
- contributor.

01:15:35.842 --> 01:15:42.656
- especially considering the high populations of like urban deer or raccoons, other sort of urban familiarized

01:15:42.656 --> 01:15:48.907
- animals, and migratory waterfowl are a known contributor in a lot of areas. This is one that's kind

01:15:48.907 --> 01:15:55.346
- of outside of institutional control for the most part. The city performs deer coals annually, but it's

01:15:55.346 --> 01:16:01.598
- really nothing at the scale that would be an effective response to this sort of thing. So continued

01:16:01.598 --> 01:16:04.286
- outreach and education on like responsible

01:16:04.610 --> 01:16:11.088
- pet waste removal and stuff like that would be one avenue for continued improvement there. And then

01:16:11.088 --> 01:16:17.824
- the last one to touch on in this category is human waste. So specifically there's been some scholarship

01:16:17.824 --> 01:16:24.367
- on the contributions of homeless encampments or things like that where people don't necessarily have

01:16:24.367 --> 01:16:30.974
- access to indoor plumbing or things like that and might be sheltering in areas that are near streams.

01:16:31.170 --> 01:16:37.270
- This is a potential contributor and it's another one where it's really difficult to assess that in a

01:16:37.270 --> 01:16:43.431
- local context. What we do see from other study areas is that it does have some contribution, but it's

01:16:43.431 --> 01:16:49.652
- often like orders of magnitude less than other sources. But activities here that the city could pursue

01:16:49.652 --> 01:16:55.752
- would be just continued monitoring specifically towards that dimension of potential loading and then

01:16:55.752 --> 01:16:59.678
- targeted outreach towards those communities and stuff like that.

01:17:02.690 --> 01:17:09.195
- So this brings us into some more of like the kind of infrastructural areas of potential contribution

01:17:09.195 --> 01:17:16.280
- that might be more within the city's purview for response. So the first one here is sanitary sewer overflows.

01:17:16.280 --> 01:17:22.786
- So a major source of E. coli in a lot of urban settings is combined sewer overflows where they don't

01:17:22.786 --> 01:17:29.226
- have a separate storm and sanitary sewer system. We obviously have a separate system, so that makes

01:17:29.226 --> 01:17:32.318
- things a lot easier from a response standpoint.

01:17:32.514 --> 01:17:39.514
- but we still do during heavy rainfall events or line blockages. We'll occasionally see sanitary sewer

01:17:39.514 --> 01:17:46.652
- overflows at specific points. So during project duration, there were 19 SSOs across the watershed. Four

01:17:46.652 --> 01:17:53.514
- were related to blockages and they're marked in white there. And then the remainder were related to

01:17:53.514 --> 01:18:00.446
- rainfall, extreme rainfall events on two days, April 5th and 6th and June 30th of last year. And so,

01:18:01.666 --> 01:18:07.217
- Just from a physical standpoint, these obviously do contribute. I mean, it is waste that is directly

01:18:07.217 --> 01:18:12.768
- entering the environment. And so we expect that this could be a contributor to episodic loading, but

01:18:12.768 --> 01:18:18.264
- we don't have any evidence yet that it's a major contributor. Although, of course, continued action

01:18:18.264 --> 01:18:23.925
- is continued assessment, monitoring, and upgrading of our system, which we perform on a routine basis.

01:18:23.925 --> 01:18:29.695
- If we go one more slide, we can see a little bit of the investigation we did trying to determine whether

01:18:29.695 --> 01:18:31.454
- SSOs were a significant source.

01:18:31.874 --> 01:18:39.403
- So based off the timing of sampling at that June 30th event where we saw a lot of SSOs, we had some

01:18:39.403 --> 01:18:47.083
- good data where these six sites were sampled immediately before and immediately after the rain event.

01:18:47.083 --> 01:18:54.688
- And so those first three did not have an upstream SSO, whereas the bottom three did. And you can see

01:18:54.688 --> 01:19:00.862
- here there's no real visible relationship yet that would suggest that that's like

01:19:01.666 --> 01:19:09.740
- a major driver relative to surface runoff or other sorts of things, but continued investigation in this

01:19:09.740 --> 01:19:18.046
- area could be useful. Next slide, please. Another sort of infrastructural potential contributor is failing

01:19:18.046 --> 01:19:26.042
- or poorly maintained septic systems. So we know that there are still septic systems citywide. This map

01:19:26.042 --> 01:19:31.166
- here is kind of one attempt to map those out at the county level.

01:19:31.682 --> 01:19:37.246
- septic system records are associated with the individual address. And so getting like one compiled list

01:19:37.246 --> 01:19:42.597
- of every location was not super feasible. Although I have heard that they're doing some overhauling

01:19:42.597 --> 01:19:48.001
- on their records right now. So that might be available in the future. So instead we've selected here

01:19:48.001 --> 01:19:53.886
- for CBU customers who are only receiving drinking water service. So they're not being charged for wastewater.

01:19:53.886 --> 01:19:59.397
- And our theory was that that could give an approximation since they're having their wastewater handled

01:19:59.397 --> 01:20:00.574
- by some other system.

01:20:00.866 --> 01:20:08.837
- We do know that this is not fully accurate and that gets at what I had put there about assessment challenges

01:20:08.837 --> 01:20:16.150
- but generally we still see this kind of clustering down there near the central stem of Clear Creek.

01:20:16.150 --> 01:20:23.537
- That's kind of between Winslow and Gordon Pike and we also see some clustering up in the areas up in

01:20:23.537 --> 01:20:25.950
- the northwest. We haven't seen a

01:20:26.434 --> 01:20:33.776
- super meaningful relationship between proximity to septic and elevated E. coli readings in the surface

01:20:33.776 --> 01:20:41.047
- waters, but continued analysis is ongoing in this one. If the city does identify that this is a major

01:20:41.047 --> 01:20:46.750
- contributor to E. coli impairment in the system, public outreach is one avenue.

01:20:46.850 --> 01:20:52.354
- There are also models for policies that we see in mostly the nonprofit space with like Friends of Lake

01:20:52.354 --> 01:20:57.964
- Monroe, for instance, runs a cost sharing program for septic maintenance or things like that. That could

01:20:57.964 --> 01:21:03.307
- be something to pursue way down the line if we determine that that's a serious issue. And then also

01:21:03.307 --> 01:21:08.811
- the last thing I wanted to know on this side is you do see some pretty heavy clustering south of town.

01:21:08.811 --> 01:21:13.406
- And so that gets at something that's kind of in the background of all of this is that

01:21:13.826 --> 01:21:21.461
- We can do a lot to reduce E. coli loading from within city boundaries, but obviously we're in a watershed

01:21:21.461 --> 01:21:28.880
- that straddles a lot of jurisdictions, and so there's still limited opportunities outside of our area.

01:21:28.880 --> 01:21:36.083
- Next slide, please. And then this brings me to the last potential source that we are considering as

01:21:36.083 --> 01:21:43.070
- a contributor to the E. coli elevations that we're seeing, which is sanitary sewer exfiltration.

01:21:43.202 --> 01:21:50.002
- So the idea here is during heavy rainfall events, a lot of sanitary systems nationwide that have any

01:21:50.002 --> 01:21:56.735
- sort of cracks in the pipes or gaps at joints or things like that will have groundwater that enters

01:21:56.735 --> 01:22:03.670
- the sanitary system. And just based off of the influence that we see at our wastewater plants, we know

01:22:03.670 --> 01:22:10.942
- that this is kind of a fact of life when it comes to sanitary systems of this scale, but recent scholarship

01:22:11.042 --> 01:22:18.129
- suggests that during dry weather, there could be significant contributions of E. coli out of the pipes.

01:22:18.129 --> 01:22:25.557
- So the idea would be when the soil around a pipe is saturated with water, there's nowhere for the wastewater

01:22:25.557 --> 01:22:32.576
- within the pipe to go outward because the pressure is forcing it back in. Whereas if you see this sort

01:22:32.576 --> 01:22:38.846
- of drying out of the water table or like the water table goes below the sanitary pipe, then

01:22:39.170 --> 01:22:45.732
- that pressure differential is reversed so the water, wastewater could come out of the pipe. This is

01:22:45.732 --> 01:22:52.492
- a really difficult phenomenon to quantify or to pin down and especially in a system of this scale. But

01:22:52.492 --> 01:22:59.185
- continued monitoring on that front and continued, you know, maintenance and improvement and repair of

01:22:59.185 --> 01:23:03.582
- our sanitary system is one major avenue for response for the city.

01:23:05.698 --> 01:23:11.875
- And that kind of brings us to next steps generally. And I've divided this here in terms of like analytical

01:23:11.875 --> 01:23:17.647
- steps relevant to this project and then institutional opportunities for response at CBU or the city

01:23:17.647 --> 01:23:23.593
- writ large. So analytical, we have a full report forthcoming that ideally will be available for public

01:23:23.593 --> 01:23:29.481
- view on our website just so that we can present those findings and have them serve as information for

01:23:29.481 --> 01:23:33.118
- future response or just public knowledge and things like that.

01:23:33.602 --> 01:23:40.315
- One thing that the leadership at CBO has been supportive of is there's emerging technologies in what

01:23:40.315 --> 01:23:47.295
- they call microbial source tracking. So this is what I was talking a little bit about with the livestock

01:23:47.295 --> 01:23:53.942
- question was you can do characterization of E. coli in samples that you obtain because there's some

01:23:53.942 --> 01:24:00.721
- genetic markers in E. coli that are specific to human hosts versus cows versus pigs versus, you know,

01:24:00.721 --> 01:24:02.782
- waterfowl and stuff like that.

01:24:03.202 --> 01:24:09.558
- And so that would, there are some contractors who do that service in the region. And so that could be

01:24:09.558 --> 01:24:16.163
- one step to determine, you know, if we look at that and we see that it's mostly from animal contributors,

01:24:16.163 --> 01:24:22.644
- then we might shift our focus towards public outreach and education and stuff like that. If it's mostly

01:24:22.644 --> 01:24:29.000
- human, we might need to devote more resources towards assessing the infrastructure in our sanitary or

01:24:29.000 --> 01:24:30.558
- septic or other systems.

01:24:30.690 --> 01:24:38.387
- And then institutional opportunities. We have this Clear Creek Corridor renewal project, which is planned

01:24:38.387 --> 01:24:46.156
- to enhance infiltration and all sorts of improvements to drainage. A lot of co-benefits with this project,

01:24:46.156 --> 01:24:53.563
- but one of those could be enhanced buffering for E. coli entering the system, continued assessment of

01:24:53.563 --> 01:25:00.606
- infrastructure generally. And then there's a whole host of recommended best management practices

01:25:00.738 --> 01:25:06.653
- Um, contained in the 2022 watershed management plan, um, put forward by IDEM, as well as just things

01:25:06.653 --> 01:25:12.978
- that we know and implement in our regular practice that, uh, could be effective. Um, things like enhancing,

01:25:12.978 --> 01:25:19.420
- um, stream bank, vegetative cover and stuff like that. Um, and then of course, public outreach and education,

01:25:19.420 --> 01:25:25.452
- particularly on pet waste or livestock waste or other areas like that. With all that said, that is the

01:25:25.452 --> 01:25:30.430
- only updates we have right now on this project. Uh, if you go to the next slide, um,

01:25:31.042 --> 01:25:38.301
- ready for any questions or discussion, and I would welcome thoughts either today or if anyone thinks

01:25:38.301 --> 01:25:45.919
- of something later, feel free to email me. Wow, thank you. We appreciate that. Jim? It sounds like really

01:25:45.919 --> 01:25:53.177
- good science. What's your training? So right now, I'm a master's student in environmental policy and

01:25:53.177 --> 01:25:59.358
- natural resource management. Historically, I've done a lot of water sampling with the

01:25:59.618 --> 01:26:06.459
- IU has a limnology lab that runs a program for the state where they do multi-parameter testing on 80

01:26:06.459 --> 01:26:13.300
- lakes across the state every summer. So a lot of my background comes from that. And I, of course, am

01:26:13.300 --> 01:26:20.277
- not doing this in a vacuum. I've got a lot of support and guidance and all that stuff from some really

01:26:20.277 --> 01:26:25.086
- talented folks with a lot of specialized knowledge at CB. Sounds good.

01:26:25.410 --> 01:26:32.615
- You mentioned early on that E. coli in and of itself is not particularly dangerous to humans, but it's

01:26:32.615 --> 01:26:39.750
- indicative of other things that might be. Is that accurate? There are some, the caveat I would say is

01:26:39.750 --> 01:26:46.954
- that there are some strains of E. coli that are quite dangerous. When you see food poisoning outbreaks

01:26:46.954 --> 01:26:52.830
- and stuff like that can lead people to hospitalization or death even in some cases.

01:26:52.962 --> 01:27:00.214
- The majority of strains of E. coli are relatively harmless and the majority of those that do have like

01:27:00.214 --> 01:27:07.677
- a pathogenic impact are mostly just kind of like minor gastrointestinal illness. But it is still a public

01:27:07.677 --> 01:27:14.718
- health concern. And then like I said, yeah, you're correct in that it trends quite closely with the

01:27:14.718 --> 01:27:17.182
- amount of waste entering a system.

01:27:17.314 --> 01:27:25.901
- And then also, it can be indicative of other things that can come from waste, like giardia and other

01:27:25.901 --> 01:27:34.489
- sort of waterborne illnesses. Yeah, so finally, I noticed in the presentation that the concentration

01:27:34.489 --> 01:27:43.162
- at College Mall Road was pretty high at Jackson Creek. And from there, it flows down through Sycamore

01:27:43.162 --> 01:27:44.862
- Knolls and Renwick.

01:27:46.466 --> 01:27:53.334
- when the creek is flowing and the weather is okay, there's lots of kids that are playing in Jackson

01:27:53.334 --> 01:28:00.407
- Creek and I just wondered is that not recommended? So yeah, this is something that I think discussions

01:28:00.407 --> 01:28:07.344
- are ongoing on within the organization and I don't necessarily want to say too much. The one thing I

01:28:07.344 --> 01:28:13.662
- will say is that there is a set of stricter standards for how frequently you have to sample

01:28:13.890 --> 01:28:20.257
- and things like that for designated recreational swimming spots. So Fairfax Beach over at Lake Monroe,

01:28:20.257 --> 01:28:26.500
- for example, if they get an E. coli count that's too high, they'll have to close the beach. We don't

01:28:26.500 --> 01:28:32.929
- have any designated swimming spots in the city. So I don't know if it's something that we have any sort

01:28:32.929 --> 01:28:39.111
- of authority to recommend or not recommend. But it's also, I think, difficult to strike the balance

01:28:39.111 --> 01:28:42.078
- between saying that this is a cause for concern

01:28:42.562 --> 01:28:49.780
- I wouldn't necessarily characterize it as a public health crisis or anything like that. Exactly. Don't

01:28:49.780 --> 01:28:57.278
- go swimming in the creek and consuming the water, certainly. But a lot of impressive data and information.

01:28:57.278 --> 01:29:04.496
- It's a bigger sampling and watershed area than I think I thought I was going to be looking at. Evelyn,

01:29:04.496 --> 01:29:09.822
- do you know what portion of that watershed is on septic you kind of showed?

01:29:10.082 --> 01:29:16.737
- quite a bit of that, but I mean, is it a decent percentage? I'm talking maybe like 20% or so less. I

01:29:16.737 --> 01:29:23.393
- was under the impression at least just, and this is kind of speculation just based off of background

01:29:23.393 --> 01:29:30.180
- knowledge of the city, but the areas where we see that clustering are pretty low intensity residential

01:29:30.180 --> 01:29:36.638
- development. They're not super dense relative to most of the other city or parts of the city. So,

01:29:37.730 --> 01:29:43.836
- I couldn't hazard a guess on a percentage, but I don't think it's super significant in the grand scheme

01:29:43.836 --> 01:29:49.767
- of the population. Yeah, I was just wondering if that does play a role just in my former lifetime of

01:29:49.767 --> 01:29:55.697
- showing up and investigating septic systems that we're failing. With those though, I do really agree

01:29:55.697 --> 01:30:01.862
- with source consideration. I think it's a great way to go. And as you said, that can kind of drive maybe

01:30:01.862 --> 01:30:04.798
- your efforts or next steps if you can subtype it.

01:30:05.154 --> 01:30:10.882
- find that out. It sounds like we would have to outsource that. I don't think it's terribly expensive

01:30:10.882 --> 01:30:17.008
- necessarily, right, to do that kind of sampling. I've only seen a few quotes so far, but nothing egregious.

01:30:17.008 --> 01:30:22.679
- And I think, you know, if we are seeing high levels of human waste too, we could want to be cool to

01:30:22.679 --> 01:30:28.408
- see if we are seeing a lot of sugar toxin producing E. coli, but that's just out of my own interest.

01:30:28.408 --> 01:30:33.342
- But perhaps, you know, if we think that those are sources, you know, I think certainly

01:30:33.698 --> 01:30:40.118
- partnering, it sounds like you've already connected with Monroe County Health Department. Obviously

01:30:40.118 --> 01:30:46.538
- they have the jurisdiction of on-site wastewater in Monroe County and might be able to work with us

01:30:46.538 --> 01:30:53.279
- or assist you in helping do dye testing or investigating some of those sources as well. So maybe another

01:30:53.279 --> 01:30:59.699
- consideration. But yeah, thank you for all the information. Other questions for Evelyn? I was going

01:30:59.699 --> 01:31:03.358
- to ask about Monroe and then you mentioned like Fairfax.

01:31:03.650 --> 01:31:14.246
- But would there be other non-beach parts of Lake Monroe that might, if you're testing at Fairfax, can

01:31:14.246 --> 01:31:24.946
- we extrapolate that that is the same for the whole lake? I am not 100% sure, in all honesty. I believe

01:31:24.946 --> 01:31:28.062
- that there's a requirement to

01:31:28.194 --> 01:31:34.657
- publicly post results or, I mean, there's obviously the requirement for the notification of closure,

01:31:34.657 --> 01:31:41.184
- but I bet I could track that down and email it to you and see if. Okay, thanks. Thank you so much for

01:31:41.184 --> 01:31:47.647
- all of your work on this, outstanding the time you've put into it during your time here and then the

01:31:47.647 --> 01:31:52.958
- presentation today. Thank you. Thank you. Very good. Thank you so much. Thank you.

01:31:56.834 --> 01:32:06.101
- All right, anything else on staff reports? We have two congratulations. First to Josh Fox, Dillman Wastewater

01:32:06.101 --> 01:32:14.610
- Operator who just obtained his class four license. And then to Hannah Bretz, one of our Monroe water

01:32:14.610 --> 01:32:22.782
- operators who just received her operator in training certification. That's good news. Thank you.

01:32:25.186 --> 01:32:33.824
- Do we have any petitions or communications from the public? Anything else from the board? All right.

01:32:33.824 --> 01:32:37.758
- We will stand adjourned. Thank you very much.