August 17, 2000 Meeting Minutes
University of
Idaho, McClure Hall Rm. 411
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UI: Larry Kirkland,
Facilities Engineer |
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WSU: Craig Benjamin
(Chair), Assistant Director of Facilities Operations |
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UI: Jay Becker
(Vice-Chair), Assistant Director, Utilities and Engineering |
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WSU: Robert Hengst,
Engineering Services Manager |
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Moscow: Gary Presol, Dir.
Public Works |
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Pullman: Mark Workman,
Dir. Public Works |
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Moscow: Steve Busch, City
Council Member |
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Pullman: Sue Hinz, City
Council Member |
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Latah County: Loreca
Stauber, County Commissioner |
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Whitman County: Les Wigen,
County Commissioner |
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Latah County: Tom
Townsend, citizen |
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Whitman County: Derek
Pohle, County Engineer |
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Executive Secretary and
Technical Advisor: Juliet McKenna |
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Bill French (Moscow resident), Helena Gregory (UI student and PBAC Summer Conservation Coordinator), Kathleen Warnick (Latah County resident)
Chair Craig Benjamin called the meeting to order at 2:35 PM. Minutes were approved as presented without objections. (C. Benjamin noted that a vote isn’t necessary to approve minutes.)
C. Benjamin
distributed copies of and read aloud revised versions of the Intergovernmental
Agreement and Bylaws. Based on discussion and comments a “Final Draft” will be
distributed to PBAC members with the September mailing for approval by the
Entities’ legal advisors, if necessary. The original intent and format of the
documents are intact. The
Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) has been revised to include the permanent
aspects of the PBAC. The following
lists major changes to the IGA that were discussed:
II. Membership – Changed to “Entity shall appoint one member with a technical background and another member that is in an administrative/leadership position.”
IV. Powers (E) – Discussion on this item regarding entering into legal and financial agreements; it now reads, “including but not limited to research projects, easements, and rights of access, if within financial resources provided to the PBAC”
Meetings, Officers, and Voting – this information is now included in the By-Laws.
Financing – (A) define fiscal year (July 1 through June 30); (B) changed to define past due as February 1.
Duration – changed effective date to October 1 and duration to 20 years, to coincide with PBAC goal of stabilizing water level declines in deep aquifer wells.
Annual Report – changed “reporting annually to Entities” to “publish an annual report”.
Dissolution and Disbursement of Funds and Property – (B) deleted “or through withdrawal of at least three of the participating Entities” recognizing that the remaining Entities may still wish to pursue the mission of PBAC.
Real Property – concern was raised about prohibiting the PBAC to acquire real property – i.e. computer equipment, easements, etc. It was suggested to address this issue in Section IV., Powers, above..
Repealer – Parenthetically add PBAC after Pullman-Moscow Water Resources Committee; eliminate the specific document references in the repealer clause because it doesn’t seem necessary to list them all.
Additionally, the
By-Laws were reworked to contain only information on administrative procedures
regarding meetings, voting, and officers.
In addition, to avoid redundancy, information that is included in the
IGA was removed from the By-Laws. The rationale is that the By-Laws can be
modified simply by vote of Committee, as opposed to the IGA, which requires
signatures of Vice Presidents, Mayors, and Commissioners. Changes made include:
Article II:
Meetings – (a) deleted
specific day of week requirement; changed to require a minimum of 6 and a
maximum of 12 regular meetings per year, with special meetings as necessary and
deleted business meeting requirement; (b) defined quorum as constituted when
members or alternates from a majority of Entities with eligible voting
privileges are present.
Article III: Voting – (a) clarified that each member from eligible Entities has one vote; (b)
define and allow alternates.
Article IV:
Officers – (a) define terms to
coincide with fiscal year (July 1 through June 30); (b) require election of
Chair and Vice-Chair and delete Secretary/Treasurer requirement; (c) add clause
to hire Executive Secretary or other staff that serves as secretary/treasurer.
C. Benjamin reminded
the Committee members of some points from Roberts Rules of Order, according to
which the meetings are to be conducted.
Chair Vote – Chair
only votes if it will change the outcome of the Committee vote.
·
Minutes – There
is no vote required to approve the minutes and once approved by consensus, the
minutes can still be changed at any time.
Closing Debate – Chair
may not close debate and any member has the right to continue debate before
vote is taken
Proxy votes are not allowed in PBAC meetings.
PBAC approached the US ACE to request assistance with an “economic evaluation of supplemental water supply alternatives” under the Planning Assistance to States (PAS) program. A meeting on August 8, 2000 was attended by Juliet McKenna, Craig Benjamin (PBAC Chair), Gary Presol, Larry Kirkland (PBAC); Jim Osiensky (UI); Dave Reese (US ACE, Walla Walla District; Chief Hydrologist). This meeting was held to discuss items to be included in a scope of work to be prepared by the ACE. PBAC makes no commitment to funding the work until the SOW is complete. ACE was instructed to scope a project that could be completed in several months and not exceed $20,000 (or a total PBAC contribution of $10,000). In summary:
· LK suggested, and it was generally agreed, that PBAC would like to approach the economic study in a phased approach. The first phase (this year) should be a quick economic overview (order of magnitude costs) of a number of alternatives for supplemental supply. A second phase, to be completed after this year, would be to perform a more detailed analysis of a few of the most economically feasible options.
· PBAC requested the following options be evaluated by ACE in terms of water supply potential, capital construction, and operations costs. In developing the Scope of Work, PBAC encouraged the ACE to propose other viable alternatives that may not be included on this list.
1) Groundwater recharge via recharge ponds (infiltration basins)
2) Groundwater recharge via recharge wells (passive or injection)
3) Passive groundwater recharge of deep aquifer by shallow aquifer
4) Direct use of surface water
5) Update the costs presented in the 1989 General Investigation completed by the ACE to pipe in surface water from outside the basin (Snake River, Dworshak Dam, Laird Park)
· Each alternative should be evaluated for quantity of water supplied, dependability, and cost of implementation. Costs may include construction costs for treatment, storage, and distribution; costs for completing required environmental impact statements, legal filing etc.; and operations and maintenance costs.
· The following alternatives were excluded from the study: implementation of water conservation programs, wastewater reuse for irrigation, and modification of pumping patterns to increase pumping from shallow aquifer. Although these are viable alternatives, the costs have either already been calculated, or could easily be calculated by PBAC or the local entities.
IDWR is proceeding with the funding request for the Palouse Basin through the Idaho legislature for FY 2001. Norm Young of IDWR indicated that the chances of obtaining funding would be much greater if matching funds were provided by Washington state. This is a possibility that PBAC is pursuing, although there are several reasons why it may be difficult to get money from Washington this year: (1) local Washington state legislators are not currently aware of and involved in PBAC activities, unlike Idaho, (2) on the Idaho side, IDWR has repeatedly expressed concern about declining water levels and an interest in solving the problem, whereas Washington Department of Ecology has not expressed the same level of urgency, and (3) the financial climate this year in Washington state seems to be much more restrictive than in Idaho due to budget pressures caused by, among other reasons, passage of I-695. J. McKenna also mentioned that through WSU, the state of Washington spent $100,000 this year to prepare a “pre-design report” to reuse treated wastewater for irrigation on campus. Although this money did not go directly into the basin research project, the project directly supports the goals of PBAC and perhaps can be recognized as a “match” for this year.
Helena Gregory distributed updated water conservation brochures. She encouraged PBAC members to read the brochures and follow the guidelines. She is preparing a list of locations to display the brochure in the basin and several Committee members took brochures with them.
S. Hinz suggested distributing at the Police and Fire Departments and planning a mass distribution in preparation for next year’s Water Week (May 2001). D. Pohle suggested including brochures in packets given to new building permittees from the County Planning Department. J. McKenna thought it would be a good idea to include this information on the web site.
J. McKenna presented pumping totals for each entity for the year to date. Through June of this year, Pullman and Moscow are above the 5-year average and WSU is below. No data has been provided by UI. J. McKenna noted that she will provide quarterly updates to the Committee, when data are provided to her. Pullman and Moscow could not explain the increased pumping rates for the year, except to say that it is weather-dependent and if there were an increase in new homes, that could explain the increase in water use in the communities.
J. McKenna showed a page of “Water Conservation Tips” provide by the Moscow Water Department that appeared in August 10, 2000 issue of AdMart.
Thursday September 21, 2000 at 2:30 pm
McClure Hall Room 311 – note room change
The meeting was adjourned by consensus at 4:10 p.m.
Respectfully Submitted,
Juliet M. McKenna
Executive Secretary/Technical Advisor