Central Virginia
Rivanna Authorities
RWSA Board of Directors Meeting 12/13/2022
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RWSA Board of Directors Meeting
12/13/2022
Attachments
RWSA BOD PACKAGE 2022_12_13.pdf
RWSA Minutes 2022_12_13.pdf
1. CALL TO ORDER
2. AGENDA APPROVAL
3. MINUTES OF PREVIOUS BOARD MEETING ON NOVEMBER 15, 2022
4. RECOGNITION
5. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S REPORT
6. ITEMS FROM THE PUBLIC
7. RESPONSES TO PUBLIC COMMENTS
8. CONSENT AGENDA
a. Staff Report on Finance
b. Staff Report on Operations
c. Staff Report on Ongoing Projects
d. Staff Report on Wholesale Metering
e. Approval of Updated Flexible Benefits Plan
9. OTHER BUSINESS
a. Presentation and Vote on Acceptance: FY 22 Audit Report
b. Presentation: Review of the Community’s Water Supply Plan
c. Presentation: Dam Safety Program Overview
10. OTHER ITEMS FROM BOARD/STAFF NOT ON THE AGENDA
11. CLOSED MEETING
12. ADJOURNMENT
Mike Gaffney
Chair, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:00:03
Good afternoon.
00:00:05
I would like to open the regular meeting of the board of directors of the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority.
00:00:11
First item is the agenda approval.
00:00:14
Do we have a motion and a second to approve the agenda?
00:00:18
So moved.
00:00:19
All in favor?
00:00:22
Aye.
00:00:22
Opposed?
00:00:23
Okay, motion carries.
00:00:26
Next item, minutes of the previous board meeting on November 15th.
00:00:30
Are there any comments or changes from the board minutes?
Ann Mallek
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:00:35
I move adoption as corrected.
Mike Gaffney
Chair, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:00:38
Second.
00:00:39
Motion and a second.
00:00:40
All in favor?
00:00:41
Aye.
00:00:42
Opposed?
00:00:43
Motion carries.
00:00:45
Bill, any recognition this month?
00:00:48
No, sir.
00:00:49
All right.
00:00:49
We'll move on to the executive director's report.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:00:53
OK.
00:00:54
Thank you, sir.
00:00:54
I would like to recognize three of our water and wastewater operators who all
00:01:00
passed state licensing exams and upgraded their license, Bridget Deacon.
00:01:07
has been with us for two years.
00:01:09
She came here unlicensed and she's worked hard to move all the way up to class two.
00:01:13
There's only one more level class one above that.
00:01:17
So we appreciate her efforts.
00:01:18
Similarly, Daniel Hunter came to us and joined us one year ago.
00:01:24
And he has as an unlicensed operator.
00:01:27
Now he's class three in the wastewater group.
00:01:29
So he's located here at Moores Creek and Keith Covington came to us from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
00:01:36
and we were pleased to be able to hire him and he immediately passed one of the state exams and now he's a class two water operator also.
00:01:45
So we appreciate the hard work that these people put forward to improve their licenses, which only helps Rivanna.
00:01:52
So we always celebrate that.
00:01:56
Our Jennifer Whitaker, Director of Engineering and Maintenance recently gave a presentation to a UVA civil engineering class on what it's like to work in the public sector as an engineer.
00:02:07
Now our career can formulate that way.
00:02:11
So we congratulate Jennifer in doing that.
00:02:15
Also, Dave Tungate.
00:02:17
Dave, our Director of Operations, was recently selected by a Virginia Association of Municipal Wastewater Agencies Committee to serve at the state on the wastewater operator licensing requirements.
00:02:31
And this is somewhat in response to the industry's difficulty in hiring and getting wastewater operators licensed.
00:02:38
So Dave is gonna work with a group at the state level to see how they can improve
00:02:43
the testing and the reciprocity from other states and how we can get more operators into the pipeline.
00:02:50
So we're glad for Dave to join that.
00:02:55
We told you last month that we would start a major renovation at the observatory treatment plant December the 5th and that's underway and we did shut down producing any drinking water at the plant around just before the first of December and so through early March that plant will be shut down
00:03:14
and we will be producing all of our drinking water for the urban area from the South Rivanna and the North Rivanna treatment plants.
00:03:21
So those are the three plants in our urban area, all of the city and the developed areas around the city in the county.
00:03:30
So South Rivanna, North Rivanna will be carrying the load for three months or so.
SPEAKER_02
00:03:36
Any issues on the shutdown or
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:03:39
Not so far, early on in the planning process before we got started, we realized that
00:03:46
English, our contractor wanted to work at night and as you know the treatment plan is directly adjacent to dormitories up there and it is and it was during exam and reading days so after we conferenced with Don Sundgren at UVA and Colette Sheehy and they asked that we not work at night so we did
00:04:11
Direct English that he could not work at night from December the 6th through December the 16th.
00:04:17
And then exams are over and the students go home and they can work at night as well as all day.
00:04:23
They were planning to remove piping and old materials out of the plant at night and free up space for the new work crew to come in during the day.
00:04:33
So we just had to make a little modification to that.
00:04:37
But otherwise, as far as I know, everything's going well.
00:04:41
Okay, yes sir.
00:04:45
And other major projects, we report just about every month on the South Rivanna to Ragged Mountain Reservoir water pipeline.
00:04:54
And what we wrote recently was that we still had UVA, UVA Foundation and one private property owner to acquire easements from.
00:05:04
but last week we had a very good meeting with the private property owner off Barracks Road and we came to verbal agreement on the location and the cost of the easement so that's shown there with the red star next to the green line that's the
00:05:20
only remaining private easement for that eight miles of piping.
00:05:25
So we're working hastily with Carrie and her colleagues to get the documents finalized and signed and then we'll have that easement in place.
00:05:36
So that's going to be a big achievement.
00:05:38
It's been years we've been working with that family to get the easement across their horse farm that they have there.
00:05:45
So that's great.
00:05:46
We continue to work on the Ragged Mountain to Observatory Pipeline and that includes UVA Foundation and UVA to grant easements.
00:05:59
We're coordinating with Albemarle County and Mr. Stewart on the Shanks Branch Sewer Pipe Project and if the county is going to allow an easement on county property so we can build that sewer line in the county property rather than in McIntire Road.
00:06:17
and we continue to work hard on the engineering and field investigations for the central water line that we talked about back in June that goes on Cherry Avenue and from the university to Free Bridge.
Brian Pinkston
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:06:30
We participate with the- Mr. Moyer?
00:06:32
Yeah.
00:06:33
The project you mentioned on McIntire, could you describe that again?
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:06:38
So this is a longstanding project since before I got here that
00:06:43
The pipe, the sewer pipeline from McIntire Recycling Center to the south towards Preston needs to be replaced.
00:06:54
It's undersized.
00:06:55
It connects to the city's sewer system around Preston Avenue.
00:07:00
So we own, Rivanna owns part of the pipe up to Preston and the city has a project to upgrade the sewer system.
00:07:06
And we're working together to replace that pipe from somewhere around Preston.
00:07:12
Is that right, Lauren?
SPEAKER_06
00:07:14
Right and then we'll probably with that project take it go ahead and go under Preston to generally that McDonald's.
00:07:22
Ultimately we've got another project that needs the entire sewer line needs to be upgraded all the way to 1415 street through the open areas.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:07:31
So this would take it from McDonald's, Preston to the McIntire Recycling Center.
00:07:35
We already have a new pipe that we built a few years ago many years ago from
00:07:40
the bridge at McIntire area to the McIntire Recycling Center.
00:07:46
Great, thank you.
00:07:47
So it's a sewer line replacement project.
00:07:50
And the alternatives were to put it in McIntire Road and shut the road down for months or to try to weave it through the ball field and across the frontage at the county office building.
00:08:01
And that's what's been proposed to the county now.
Ann Mallek
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:08:05
I have a question also.
00:08:06
So are you going back to the beginning and reopening all the questions that were discussed for five years before you got here?
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:08:13
Well, we hope so.
Ann Mallek
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:08:16
We've been there and done that, is basically what I'm saying.
00:08:19
In the middle of the ball field, we've been there and done that.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:08:21
Yeah, yeah.
Ann Mallek
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:08:22
So let's give Lance a break.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:08:24
We've given Lance all the information, he and Jeff I think are working on it.
Ann Mallek
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:08:29
I was under these standing, it was near the road all the way.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:08:31
It's adjacent to the road, it's close to the road, but not in the street.
00:08:37
It's along the county frontage and through the ball field.
00:08:40
And then we go under the big tree that you talked about and it would bore under that.
SPEAKER_06
00:08:46
Not under the side.
00:08:47
Not going to happen.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:08:48
Okay.
00:08:50
So that's the project.
Ann Mallek
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:08:51
Virginia Heritage Tree and it's outside, inside the root goal.
00:08:54
We cannot go fairing that up.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:08:56
So one time we were under a consent order from the state to replace the pipe because the sewer overflows.
00:09:02
But a few years ago, they removed the consent order and I guess felt like we had done enough.
00:09:06
So it's no longer a consent order project, but it was previously.
00:09:13
Does that answer your question?
Brian Pinkston
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:09:16
Well, it certainly answers something for you.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:09:19
I guess.
00:09:21
I mean, there was progress being made.
00:09:24
And the county and the city had got new county managers, city managers, and the discussion was to put that project on hold until those positions were filled.
00:09:35
And so it's been on my plate since day one, six years ago.
Mike Gaffney
Chair, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:09:40
And it was taken off the consent agenda or consent order because there were no overflows in that section of pipe.
00:09:47
They were further down and that was all replaced.
SPEAKER_06
00:09:51
Not that new overflows can happen in our section of the pipe, but that's what will happen ultimately.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:09:59
So we work collaboratively with the city and the Albemarle Service Authority for the Imagine a Day Without Water
00:10:07
Art contests, which is available to K through 12 students and Albemarle and Charlottesville and we've done this every year and you see some of the pictures of what was, they were the winning submissions this year from
00:10:22
various classes, they grouped the classes together like 9th through 12th, that was in the bottom right, that was the winning artwork and we have them proudly displayed throughout our building and around a treatment plant in different places and service starting in the city of May also so we do this every year to promote the value of water and get our youth to think about it
00:10:47
So Mr. O'Connell invited me to participate on what he called the best practices review panel.
00:10:54
And so combined with Brian Key from the Bedford Water Authority and Bill Martin, who's the executive director of the Augusta County Service Authority,
00:11:03
We sat with Gary and his staff for just about two days and listened to what their departments did and what some of their challenges and opportunities were.
00:11:14
And it was a really good process for me to learn more about the Service Authority.
00:11:19
And so the group offered a few suggestions to the service authority.
00:11:24
But again, it was a good opportunity to learn more about their outstanding staff and some of the work procedures that they have at the service authority.
00:11:32
So we've appreciated the opportunity, Gary.
SPEAKER_02
00:11:35
And thank you for your time and your ideas.
00:11:38
It was a good energy.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:11:40
Yes, it was.
00:11:43
Okay, lastly, we wanted to remember Cole Hendricks who passed away and Mr. Hendricks had been not only a former city manager but a longtime Rivanna Authority's board member.
00:11:56
And he was instrumental in creation of the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority in 1972 and the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority in 1994.
00:12:07
and he served in many capacities of secretary treasurer, vice chair, and he was even the interim executive director for a while.
00:12:15
So we appreciated Mr. Hendricks's contributions to our authorities.
00:12:23
Okay, Mr. Chairman, that is the end of my report.
00:12:26
Thanks.
00:12:27
Thank you.
Mike Gaffney
Chair, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:12:28
Do we have any comments or questions from board members for Bill?
Brian Pinkston
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:12:34
I guess the only question I had and thought in your report, you were going to talk about Sugar Hollow.
00:12:41
I had mentioned, I have that included.
00:12:44
Did you discuss it?
00:12:46
Have you missed it?
00:12:47
Nope.
SPEAKER_02
00:12:48
I think I went right past it.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:12:52
So Sugar Hollow is a reservoir of course that the city owns the property.
00:12:57
We own the water and the water facilities there.
00:13:00
And there was a resident in the adjacent neighborhood that expressed some concerns to the city about vandalism, littering, fires, traffic and other issues at the reservoir.
00:13:13
and what I mentioned was that I think Lance can speak with the county and the city here in a process to work out a plan to alleviate some of those concerns along with Rivanna and that is in the works.
SPEAKER_02
00:13:32
Okay, any other questions?
Mike Gaffney
Chair, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:13:37
Okay, let's move on to the items from the public.
00:13:42
So we'll open up the meeting for the public.
00:13:45
And we ask that you identify yourself for the public record.
00:13:48
Are there any members of the public who would like to speak at this time?
00:13:53
Seeing none, we'll close the items from the public.
00:13:56
Note there's no responses to public comments.
00:13:59
And on the consent agenda, are there any items on the consent agenda board members would like to pull for comments and questions?
Brian Pinkston
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:14:07
I don't know about Paul, but I'd be interested in your flexible benefits plan.
00:14:12
Is that something that you all manage yourselves or do you outsource that?
Mike Gaffney
Chair, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:14:16
Lonnie, you want to speak to that?
SPEAKER_11
00:14:19
It's basically any employer that has tax-free deductions that come out of your checks, the Flexible Benefits Plan or HSA, you'd have to have what's called a plan, a 1.5 plan document.
00:14:35
We already have one.
00:14:36
This one is just being updated to reflect finer changes in the IRS.
00:14:43
It's just a document in place that says you can now deduct out of employees paychecks, something pre-taxed.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:14:50
Such as health insurance premiums.
SPEAKER_11
00:14:52
They're pre-taxed.
Brian Pinkston
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:14:55
This is an internal revenue document as opposed to like whatever service.
SPEAKER_11
00:15:02
Who's your flexible benefits?
00:15:08
It's okay.
Brian Pinkston
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:15:09
All right.
00:15:10
Thank you.
Mike Gaffney
Chair, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:15:14
Any other comments or questions on the consent agenda?
00:15:19
We have a motion and a second to approve.
SPEAKER_12
00:15:22
Second.
Mike Gaffney
Chair, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:15:24
Any additional comments?
00:15:27
Hearing none, all in favor?
00:15:31
Opposed?
00:15:33
Consent agenda is passed.
00:15:36
First item on other business is the presentation and vote on acceptance of the fiscal 22 audit report.
00:15:44
Matthew?
Matthew McLearen
Auditor
00:15:48
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the board.
00:15:51
My name is Matt McLaren.
00:15:52
I'm with Robinson Pharma Cox, and we performed the fiscal year ending June 30, 2022 audit of the financial statements for the authority.
00:16:01
This afternoon, I'll present the results of our audit procedures as well as briefly review a few of the key financial information in this document.
00:16:11
There are a few required communications between an auditor and a governing body and I want to briefly review this before we dive into the packet of information.
00:16:18
The first being information related to responsibilities under the audit.
00:16:24
As most people know, the auditor is there to test documents and controls.
00:16:28
and eventually a pine on the financial statements.
00:16:31
Management also plays a key role in the audit process that includes the audit hearing the financial statements and also maintaining internal controls throughout the fiscal year to ensure the accuracy of the financial reports that are quickly generated.
00:16:48
The next item described in this requires communication with the implementation of any accounting standards.
00:16:54
Fiscal year 2022 brought about the implementation of GASI Statement 87.
00:16:59
It was a monumental reporting standard for most governmental entities.
00:17:03
It's related to leases.
00:17:05
This is recorded leases.
00:17:07
At the lessor and a lessee, so both the liability and asset side, the authority did have to implement that.
00:17:14
Mr. Wood and his staff timely implemented this standard and actively implemented that standard.
00:17:20
There's a note to the financial statement in the document, the full reporting document that describes the implementation of that lease standard.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:17:28
And Matthew, if I might add, so that we lease the observatory treatment plant grounds, I think that's the add to the financial statements, that it's primarily for the observatory treatment plant.
Matthew McLearen
Auditor
00:17:39
Historically, leases that were not considered a capital lease, meaning when there was no transfer of ownership, was not recorded in the financial statements.
00:17:47
It was just sort of a no disclosure that existed as a true operating cost.
00:17:51
This reporting standard requires that that lease now be recorded very similar to as if it were to transfer upon ownership.
00:17:59
So basically, during the period of the lease, there's a lease obligation that's recorded as a liability.
00:18:04
If it's property that the authority is actually leasing to someone else, it's reported as an asset.
00:18:08
At least receivable.
00:18:12
The next item required to communicate are any difficulties in countering performing the audit.
00:18:17
This can be as simple as an ability to access records that we would need to complete our audit process to report there are no difficulties encountered during the audit process.
00:18:27
Next item required to communicate is accounting estimates.
00:18:30
As most financial statements, they include accounting estimates.
00:18:34
This is a necessary part of the presentation of those financial statements.
00:18:39
The two most significant accounting estimates in the authorities report are appreciable lives for capital assets.
00:18:47
Not real sure how long an asset may actually live and exist, but standards dictate an estimate for those capital assets.
00:18:56
And the second being estimates related to net pension and OPEB liabilities.
00:19:00
And those are determined largely by the actuary that's performing the computations to record those liabilities.
00:19:09
The next item required to communicate correct and uncorrected misstatements.
00:19:13
Most audits have audit adjustments.
00:19:15
Those are proposed audit adjustments that we would give as part of the audit process to management, including financial statements.
00:19:22
And we're requiring professional standards to disclose any uncorrected misstatements.
00:19:26
And please, there are no uncorrected misstatements.
00:19:28
All proposed audit adjustments are included in the report.
00:19:32
And lastly, required to disclose any disagreements in applying accountant principles with management and there were no disagreements in applying accountant principles.
00:19:40
That's the square ending June 30, 2022.
00:19:43
So that sort of concludes the required communications.
00:19:46
Now for the packet of information that I believe everyone has in their possession.
00:19:52
I'd like to start with the independent auditor report.
00:19:58
So the first of two reports that you will find in this document
00:20:02
We're on the audit firm's letterhead.
00:20:04
This is the seal of approval.
00:20:07
This is an opinion on the financial statements.
00:20:11
It spans, of course, about three pages.
00:20:13
If we were to read all three pages of the standard professional language, you'll find that we wish an unmodified or a clean opinion on the accuracy of the financial statements that we're presenting.
SPEAKER_12
00:20:30
Briefly review the
Matthew McLearen
Auditor
00:20:31
Financial highlight of the report document started with exhibit one or three core financial statements in this report.
00:20:40
Exhibit one is similar to a balance sheet.
00:20:42
That's the statement of net position.
00:20:44
Authority at a net position or net equity, approximately 164.8 million for the year end of June 30, 2022.
00:20:56
The second exhibit is the statement of revenues, expenses, and changes in net position.
00:21:01
This is very similar to our profit and loss statement, reports the increase or decrease in that net position or equity.
00:21:07
Authority reported an increase of approximately $4.68 million for the year ending June 30, 2022.
00:21:12
The third and final financial statement is the statement of cash flow.
00:21:19
It's a very detailed format.
00:21:22
But you see there's a double underline about halfway through the presentation.
00:21:26
That is the ending cash balance.
00:21:27
This statement reports solely the cash position of the authority.
00:21:32
It was approximately $75.7 million at June 30, 2022.
00:21:41
And lastly, I mentioned there were two reports in this document that are presented on the audit firm's letterhead.
00:21:46
The second of those two documents
00:21:48
I call it the yellow book opinion, the internal control opinion.
00:21:52
This is the independent auditor's report on internal control or financial reporting.
00:21:56
This is a report document that an auditor would describe any significant deficiencies or material weaknesses that we have disclosed during the audit process over the financial reporting and internal control process that management has in place.
00:22:09
As I mentioned, this is part of the management responsibilities to have that internal control in place since these report there are no significant deficiencies or material weaknesses discovered on the audit process or their internal controls.
00:22:21
That concludes my remarks.
00:22:25
I'm happy to answer any questions.
Mike Gaffney
Chair, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:22:28
Thank you, Matt.
00:22:29
Comments or questions from the board?
Ann Mallek
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:22:34
All I have to say as well is I know that this internal staff has so much work to do to prepare for our auditors to make sense of all that, which is way over my pay grade, but I really appreciate all the work to make it all come out right.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:22:47
Thank you.
00:22:48
And I mentioned the lease of observatory to be extra clear.
00:22:51
We have a ground lease, we lease the ground, but we own the building.
Ann Mallek
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:22:57
And is that 50 years or it will be 50 more years once the improvements happen?
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:23:01
It's 50 years from 2021.
00:23:02
And then we have an option for a second 50 years.
00:23:08
We had a 199 year lease previously that expired in 2021.
00:23:14
So we had negotiated a new lease with the university for the ground.
00:23:19
It's a ground lease and it's, I think, 49 years with another option for a second, 49 years.
Mike Gaffney
Chair, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:23:25
Great.
00:23:25
And that's both parties option.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:23:28
Correct.
SPEAKER_12
00:23:29
Either party can call it out.
00:23:36
Yeah.
Mike Gaffney
Chair, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:23:38
OK, do we have a motion and a second for acceptance of the fiscal 22 audit report?
SPEAKER_02
00:23:48
Second.
Mike Gaffney
Chair, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:23:49
OK, any other discussion?
00:23:51
Hearing none, all in favor?
00:23:53
Aye.
00:23:54
Opposed?
00:23:55
OK, motion carries.
00:23:57
Thank you, Matt.
00:23:57
Thank you, Lonnie.
00:24:02
Next is the review of the community's water supply plan.
00:24:06
Bill?
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:24:06
Thank you.
00:24:08
So I wanted to just take an opportunity before we wrap up this calendar year to talk about one of the major plans that drives our authority and our mission while we're here is to make sure we can provide adequate amounts and quality of drinking water to the customers of the city and the service authority.
00:24:28
And we're gonna be talking more about this when we get to the capital improvement budget in February.
00:24:32
So I wanted to sort of set the stage.
00:24:35
And this is, of course, our Ragged Mountain Reservoir, our largest reservoir in the photograph there.
00:24:40
Deborah, you're going to do the advance.
00:24:46
All right, thank you.
00:24:47
So first, I want to set the stage and flash you back to 2002.
00:24:50
And this community, if you were here,
00:24:54
or if you're in the southeast as any of the states, there was a major drought, what we call the drought of record, which means it's the worst drought that's been recorded since the record keepers have been keeping information.
00:25:09
It was not only in Virginia, but it was along the whole East Coast from Virginia to Georgia had their highest driest rather August and July on record.
00:25:21
There were rumors that the city that the community was going to ask the university to send its students home because we were down to 80 some days of water.
00:25:32
The whole state of Virginia was in a drought watch emergency because of under the declaration of the governor.
00:25:40
So it was a pretty serious time in Charlottesville Albemarle as far as water supply.
SPEAKER_02
00:25:47
And the outcome of that, next.
00:25:52
was the Community Water Supply Plan.
Mike Gaffney
Chair, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:25:55
And I would say there is no single document that you can find called the Community Water Supply Plan.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:26:02
It's an accumulation of documents.
00:26:04
And we'll talk about the primary one, the Ragged Mountain Dam Agreement in just a second.
00:26:09
But again, the drought of 2002 spurred the community to realize that it needed a greater water supply.
00:26:17
And the community considered lots of alternatives.
00:26:20
One being running a pipe all the way to the James River near Scottsdale and other opportunities.
00:26:27
But the decision was made to drink local and continue to get our water primarily from the Rivanna River.
00:26:36
and so the Community Water Supply Plan was approved in 2012 by City Council and supported by the Board of Supervisors and the Albemarle County Service Authority.
00:26:47
And so the plan generally was to build a new dam, a larger dam and a larger reservoir at the Ragged Mountain Reservoir.
00:26:55
That facility had a dam, in fact, it has two dams.
00:26:59
The first one was built in 1885, the second one in 1908.
00:27:04
The current one at that time in 2014 was deficient in many ways, structurally it leaked, et cetera.
00:27:12
It was a smaller reservoir that impounded about 500 million gallons.
00:27:18
Further, the pipe that filled the Ragged Mountain Reservoir from Sugar Hollow was old, plus or minus 100 years old, it needed to be replaced.
00:27:31
So the strategy of those in charge at that time was a good one to say, well, we need work at the Ragged Mountain Dam, we need a new dam, we need a new pipe.
00:27:42
So they plan to build a new dam in Ragged Mountain, build a new pipe,
00:27:47
which would be the blue line from Rivanna Reservoir to Ragged Mountain and to close the pipe that currently exists and existed then from Sugar Hollow.
SPEAKER_02
00:28:03
Now that was a four-year contentious process.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:28:06
24 years maybe.
00:28:10
So you think, well, why do we have to pipe water to the Ragged Mountain Reservoir?
00:28:14
Well, this map shows you, maybe you've seen it before.
00:28:16
We have a really tiny watershed for the Ragged Mountain Reservoir.
00:28:20
It's just that little gray figure there.
00:28:25
It will not fill by itself by natural means of stream flow and rain.
00:28:31
Whereas the large gray area, which I described as most things west of Route 29 from Greene County,
00:28:40
to Batesville.
00:28:41
When it rains, in theory, that water gets to the South Rivanna Reservoir.
00:28:46
And so the strategist decided, well, that's where we should bring the water from to fill Ragged Mountain.
00:28:53
And that's where all the pipe is planned, from Rivanna to Ragged Mountain Reservoir.
00:29:00
Next.
00:29:01
Just to give you a little bit again of what I said that the watershed for Ragged Mountain is two square miles.
00:29:06
The watershed for South Fork Rivanna Reservoir is 259 square miles.
00:29:12
So you can see there's much more water passing through
00:29:17
South Fork Reservoir, then Ragged Mountain.
00:29:20
But conversely, Ragged Mountain, the new Ragged Mountain would hold 1.4 million, whereas South Rivanna is a little more than half of that at about 900 million gallons.
00:29:32
Yes, sir.
Brian Pinkston
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:29:35
Have you said this early on, Sugar Hollow, when was it built?
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:29:39
That was built, too.
00:29:41
Do you remember, Jennifer?
Jennifer Whitaker
Director of Engineering, Maintenance & Special Projects
00:29:43
That dam was built in 1920.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:29:46
Sugar Hollow, Sugar Hollow.
Jennifer Whitaker
Director of Engineering, Maintenance & Special Projects
00:29:47
Yes, all that dam was built in 1920 and the main dam that you can see now was built in 48 and then the rubber bladder was added in 99.
Brian Pinkston
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:29:57
And that always held water that went down to South Rivanna?
Jennifer Whitaker
Director of Engineering, Maintenance & Special Projects
00:30:02
To Ragged Mountain.
00:30:04
It naturally flowed to South Rivanna and piped to Ragged Mountain.
00:30:09
Even the 1920s, all that dam was
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:30:13
So this dotted line is demonstrating that this is river flow, but this solid line is pipe flow.
00:30:23
And again, the plan that was put together in 2012 was to stop flowing through this pipe to start flowing from the Rivanna Reservoir to keep the Ragged Mountain Reservoir full and build a new dam at Ragged Mountain.
SPEAKER_02
00:30:41
Okay.
00:30:44
Next author, one second, okay.
00:30:49
The additional 12 feet to be constructed at Ragged Mountain would add how much to the useful line?
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:30:55
700 million gallons.
00:30:57
So 2.1.
00:30:57
2.1.
SPEAKER_02
00:30:59
Really brings down to what's inside.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:31:01
That's right.
00:31:03
And
00:31:04
Over four times what it was before the new dam was built at 500 million now it's going to be 2.1 billion gallons when we can add the additional 12 feet vertical of water.
00:31:16
So right now it has 1.4 million.
00:31:19
The other thing that RIVAN is required to do is every 10 years we do a bathymetric study, which is an assessment of the urban reservoirs to measure how much water is in them at the usable quantity.
00:31:33
And you think, well, if it's full, it's full.
00:31:35
Yeah, but we get sediment washing in from storms and rains, etc.
00:31:40
that can and will over time decrease the volume usually of a reservoir.
00:31:46
And sometimes super big storms can help wash some of the sediment out, but routinely sediment is washing into the reservoir and the capacity is decreasing.
00:31:56
That's why we measure every 10 years how much water is in the reservoir.
00:32:01
And we work with the planning departments to project
00:32:05
growth in the community and the demand for water to make sure that those two things are in concert, that we have enough water to serve the projected population and water demand.
Mike Gaffney
Chair, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:32:17
And Bill, what's the estimated current cost of the additional 12 feet?
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:32:23
Well, just the 12 feet is $5 million to do the grading around the reservoir and to adjust the intake tower from the pipe from South Rivanna so that we get the water in the reservoir and keep it there.
00:32:39
In addition to the $82 million to build the pipe.
00:32:42
We'll show you that in just a second.
00:32:46
Okay, so Rivanna, in fact, in around 2006 applied to the regulatory agencies, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality for a permit to build a new dam at Ragged Mountain and the pipeline.
00:33:03
Everything was included in the permit application and that permit was granted by the agencies in 2008.
00:33:11
So we got a permit to build a new dam
00:33:15
and to build a pipeline from Havana to Ragged.
00:33:18
In this picture, you can see this stone riprap that's on the water side of the dam.
00:33:25
So that is approximately to the top of the stone, the level of what the water will be when we add the 12 feet.
00:33:33
So the dam was built to add 12 additional feet vertically equals 700 million gallons of additional water.
00:33:42
It was the ultimate capacity.
00:33:46
Okay, so the core permits expired almost five years ago, we got it renewed and the DEQ permit will expire in February of 2023.
00:34:00
So we've already applied for a new permit from DEQ and they have given us an administrative approval to continue to operate that is take water from the streams of the state and the US.
00:34:13
So we have a permit until they process our new application.
00:34:18
And so they have to renew that for us, whether it's gonna be five years or 10 years, what's the normal?
00:34:25
15 years to see if they'll renew the permit.
00:34:29
so we can continue our work.
00:34:34
So the closest thing that I would call to the community water supply plan is really the Ragged Mountain Dam Project Agreement that was approved by the city and the Service Authority and Rivanna in 2012.
00:34:49
At the end of all of the discussions on how to provide more water for the community,
00:34:54
And again, it included a new dam for Ragged Mountain.
00:34:59
It decided the service authority would pay 85%, the city 15%.
00:35:03
That dam was completed in 2014 and filled in 2015.
00:35:09
The second major component of the agreement is the new pipeline from the Rivanna Reservoir to Ragged Mountain Reservoir and a pump station.
00:35:18
and the agreement says the service starting will pay 80%, the city 20% of that work and is currently in our CIP to be built from 2027 through 2033.
00:35:27
The other component is that as we mentioned, we have to modify the intake tower and do the grading around the reservoir.
00:35:38
The agreement says we can do that.
00:35:42
10 years before the community demand equals 85% of the safe field.
00:35:48
So that's a mouthful.
00:35:50
Our study would suggest that's around 2035 would be 10 years before demand equals 85% of the safe field.
00:35:59
So that's the timeline that works on.
00:36:01
And I already mentioned that the agreement also requires us to do the pathometric study and a safe field study every 10 years.
00:36:09
We completed one in 2020.
00:36:11
The next one would be in 2030.
00:36:13
Yes, sir.
Brian Pinkston
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:36:16
Does that mean that you're going to have to wait to do that height addition until mid 2030s?
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:36:23
That's what the contract requires.
00:36:26
It would be 2035 before we could do that in accordance with our calculations right now.
Mike Gaffney
Chair, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:36:32
Unless it's amended.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:36:34
Unless we amend it.
00:36:35
Okay, we're getting to that.
00:36:36
Okay, sorry.
Brian Pinkston
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:36:39
That's all part of the point.
00:36:40
It is.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:36:41
I'm giving you the baseline.
00:36:44
Just just the facts.
00:36:45
All right, go from there.
00:36:46
I'll wait.
00:36:47
Okay, it's not long coming.
00:36:49
So in 2018, well 2016 when I got here and I said well when are we supposed to build this pipeline for Rivanna to Ragged?
00:36:58
It wasn't clearly defined in our CIP and so my staff and I put together a presentation for the Rivanna board and we proposed four different completion schedules.
00:37:10
So the early schedule A was going to be from 2022 through 2030
00:37:16
A near term from 2027 to 2035 and then C was going to be 2032 to 2040 and the long term was going to be from 2042 to 2050 as potential schedules to build this pipeline.
00:37:34
And our board, the next Deborah,
00:37:38
Well, one of the contributing factors to the decision, our board, the service authority and the city supported schedule B, which was 2027 to 2035.
00:37:50
And a lot of the reason was in our debt curve, this was gonna be our debt level in 2018 or 2019, 2019.
00:38:02
And you can see we had space under the horizontal line starting around 2019.
00:38:07
31, 32.
00:38:08
And that was a big factor in deciding to implement the project, build the project into 2027 to 2035 timeframe with the major dollars being in the latter part of the eight years because of construction.
00:38:26
So this was a contributing data point to the decision, I think.
00:38:32
Next step, please.
00:38:34
So again, in 2018, the City Service Authority and Rivanna approved the project completion of Schedule B, 27 to 35.
00:38:42
The Service Authority even recommended that when, as soon as the pipe was finished, we add the 12 feet and add the water.
00:38:52
As soon as the pipeline was built,
00:38:55
and in a sense not to focus on the 85% requirement but as soon as the pipe was finished to raise the water levels.
00:39:04
And place upon the completion of the pipelines the way.
00:39:07
Right.
00:39:07
As soon as we completed the pipe to raise to move forward with the grading and raise the water level.
Mike Gaffney
Chair, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:39:14
I can't remember was that approved with the project schedule approval or was that just proposed?
SPEAKER_02
00:39:22
It's been built in an accountable improvement program, but I guess that's one of the issues.
Mike Gaffney
Chair, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:39:29
It wasn't approved with this month.
SPEAKER_02
00:39:32
But the original agreement has a formula that is probably not going to work.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:39:38
No, we did not take that part of the recommendation to city council.
00:39:42
That just came from the service authority.
00:39:45
Got it.
Ann Mallek
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:39:46
There's your question about the raising the extra feet, which the build's already done.
00:39:52
So, okay, except for the grading a little over.
00:39:54
Okay.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:39:55
So now we talk in terms of 27 to 33 and that what we thought was going to be an eight year project we think is six years is realistic.
00:40:03
So we shortened it two years by our ability that we could shorten it two years if the parties agreed that we would do that to 2033.
00:40:16
Okay, so now time has passed since we made this presentation almost five years ago, because I think it was around January of 2018.
00:40:25
And what we see now across our country and state are higher temperatures, changing weather patterns, drought conditions across the country.
00:40:35
And part of our mission, of course, is to be prepared to provide an adequate water supply to all of our customers.
00:40:44
And so we focus, this list of projects helps us complete our water supply planning.
00:40:51
The first two projects you're familiar with, we've talked about the South Rivanna renovation and the observatory water treatment plant renovation.
00:41:00
They should be finished next calendar year for about $43 million.
00:41:06
Next in our plan, project number three is to replace and build a new pipe from the Ragged Mountain Reservoir to Observatory Treatment Plant, including a pump station here right in the midpoint.
00:41:20
That's going to be a central pump station that pumps water not only from Ragged to Observatory, but after the purple pipeline is built, it will allow us to pump water from Ragged back to the South Rivanna Water Treatment Plant.
00:41:36
So it increases our flexibility and interconnects our reservoirs and our treatment plants.
00:41:44
So again, we could take water from Rivanna Reservoir.
00:41:47
and pump it to observatory and treat it there.
00:41:51
And as I mentioned, we can also take water from Ragged and pump it to Rivanna and treat it at Rivanna.
00:41:59
And so if we were particularly in a significant drought stage and South Rivanna Reservoir was really low, we would be relying substantially on Ragged Mountain Reservoir as our largest reservoir, hopefully with 2.1 billion gallons in it.
00:42:13
And we will be able to pump it and treat it from the South Rivanna treatment plant as well as the observatory treatment plant to get us through the drought.
00:42:21
And here is the 5 million that I mentioned Mike to raise the water level and make modifications to the intake tower in the Ragged Mountain reservoir.
00:42:31
We add that up to be about $215 million.
00:42:34
Our $79 million will be allocated to the city, about 136 to the county because of those funding formulas that were agreed to in the Ragged Mountain Agreement.
SPEAKER_09
00:42:47
Bill, is that in today's dollars or is that- That is in today's dollars.
00:42:51
Thank you.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:42:51
Yes.
00:42:53
So to somewhat review, when we look at a timeline of the community's water supply plan, we had a drought in 02,
00:43:00
We completed the plan 10 years later.
00:43:03
The Ragged Mountain Dam was the new dam was completed in 2014.
00:43:09
We're having to get new permits in 2023.
00:43:13
And our timeline is to finish the pipeline and the reservoir expansion around 2033.
00:43:21
So it will have been a 31 year process from drought to
00:43:27
to completion of the infrastructure to mitigate future droughts.
00:43:33
Next.
00:43:35
And here we are in 2022.
00:43:37
We see the drought around us from California to, this is Arizona at Lake Powell.
00:43:46
That's Powell in Arizona.
00:43:49
and Mississippi River.
00:43:51
This is a Mississippi River bed.
00:43:53
You can see here in October of 2021 that Mississippi was the green line.
00:43:59
And then in a year later, how the brown and the green line has receded.
00:44:05
You see it on the news many nights.
00:44:07
So the Mississippi River is drying up and they can't get the barges up and down to ship products, et cetera.
00:44:13
And even in Virginia in October of this year recently,
00:44:18
They have the state staff talks about the La Nina winter that we've had three winters in a row where temperatures have been higher than normal and rainfall lower than normal.
00:44:31
And they predict the same for this coming winter at this point.
00:44:36
So I would say drought could be at our doorstep.
00:44:40
We just don't know.
00:44:42
I would mention that the drought of record was for 18 months.
00:44:46
So from June of 2001 through November of 2002, we were in the drought condition.
00:44:53
And that was the drought record.
00:44:55
Our concern is that with the changing weather patterns, that the experts say rainfall intensity is gonna be greater, but periods of drought are gonna be longer because of the rising temperature around our globe.
00:45:13
We still have the same amount of rainfall, but it's going to rain intensely.
00:45:18
And so the solution we would say to that is we need to be able to catch the rain when it comes down and save it in our reservoirs as much as we can and have as much capacity as we need to get our community through another extended drought period.
00:45:36
Next.
00:45:37
We look to our strategic plan for guidance and
00:45:41
Again, in our 2023 plan, I think we inadvertently but strategically got the word evolving in there.
00:45:50
That was a new word this time, but I think it's right on target that our climate issues are evolving.
00:45:56
We had a plan in 2018 and a schedule for completion of the pipe and maybe circumstances are evolving and we have to reconsider that plan.
00:46:09
So in summary, our community have a drought of record in 2002.
00:46:14
It completed a plan in 2012.
00:46:16
We have all made significant investments in water supply and treatment facilities since 2012, about $85 million worth of improvements at the dam and the water treatment plant improvements.
00:46:31
We've built part of the Rivanna to Ragged Pipeline at Birdwood, but we have a ways to go.
00:46:38
to finish up with the pipeline project so we can fill fully and maximize and optimize the use of our infrastructure at the Ragged Mountain Reservoir.
00:46:48
We have 12 more feet we can add and I would say the sooner the better.
00:46:58
Next.
00:47:00
So we're not asking for any decision from you today.
00:47:02
This is for information, but I am prepping you that we met with Gary and Lauren last week as a preview of our draft CIP that we will present to this board in February.
00:47:14
We talked about accelerating the Ragged Mountain to the Rivanna to Ragged Pipeline three years.
00:47:20
and we're going to assess the cost to do that and bring that information to you in February so you can look at it holistically with all the other projects that we have on our plate and whether we feel like it's time to accelerate that project.
00:47:35
We would need to come back to city council and get them to support that as well as this board and service authority.
00:47:42
But again, the theme is we're trying to provide water for the community.
00:47:46
We have
00:47:47
12 feet wading in a new dam to be put in place.
00:47:52
And it seems we should do that as soon as we could.
00:47:54
Any questions?
Brian Pinkston
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:47:59
That's a really good presentation.
00:48:00
I mean, one other consideration is that if you move it forward, assuming cost escalation is going to continue to be a thing in construction, I guess.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:48:13
It would appear the longer you wait, the more it costs, right?
Brian Pinkston
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:48:17
Hopefully things will level out here at some point.
00:48:20
I understand inflation actually wasn't as bad, the latest numbers that we got, but all things considered, it seems like if you could do it sooner rather than later, I guess your main concern is to sort of stabilize that debt curve that you were showing us.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:48:36
Right.
00:48:37
That's the big impact to the city and the service authority is for their customers to pay that debt service.
SPEAKER_02
00:48:44
Right.
00:48:44
Yeah.
00:48:45
okay thank you okay thank you go back to this slide that shows the different elements sure and you talk about like observatory has an increase in capacity correctly advantage of the increase of Ragged Mountain
00:49:02
And also the importance of the central water line in this whole plan.
00:49:06
It's not supply.
00:49:09
It's distribution.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:49:11
We talk about the three-legged stool for water supply.
00:49:15
You have to have enough capacity in reservoirs.
00:49:18
You have to have enough treatment in your treatment plant.
00:49:20
and you have to have an ability to get that water to customers faucets in the piping system otherwise it has no value we could have a zillion gallons in reservoirs but if we can't treat it and pipe it to your faucet it does you no good so the community and Rivanna have done well in
00:49:39
Building a larger dam at Ragged Mountain so that we can have more water and storage capacity.
00:49:47
We're doing well and finishing up the two treatment plants, so now we have greater treatment.
00:49:51
And the central water line is gonna help us distribute that water throughout the city and throughout the urban zone of the county with connecting major pipelines along the way so we can get it to all areas of the urban zone.
00:50:07
Was that your question, Gary?
SPEAKER_02
00:50:08
And absent that, isn't there a restriction that's there that you can't take advantage of?
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:50:13
Right, we can't get water.
00:50:15
If we had a zillion gallons in the reservoir and we could treat a zillion gallons at the treatment plant, we can't get it out in the pipe.
00:50:23
We can't get it out of the treatment plant because the pipes are not adequate to handle that capacity.
00:50:28
So the observatory was upgraded from 7.7 to 10, 2.3 million gallons.
00:50:36
Not tremendously significant in itself, but the reality was observatory was a 1950s plant that really could produce four or five N.G.D.
00:50:46
forests, not almost eight.
00:50:49
So it's really going to have a significant practical increase at observatory.
00:50:56
In theory, well in practice we use about 10 million gallons a day now the community does at the urban area and so if South Rivanna would be in some sort of a disrepair and not usable or the South Rivanna reservoir was unavailable
00:51:13
We could pretty much supply the whole urban community from observatory if, when we get the central water line built so that we can get it out of the plant.
00:51:24
Because the plant would be, have a 10 capacity.
00:51:26
We'd have plenty of water in the reservoir.
00:51:29
If we can get the central water line built so we can distribute the water.
00:51:32
We could live off of observatory at least for a while until we got a Rivanna up and running.
00:51:39
Did you see the news of the,
00:51:42
Keystone Pipeline break and the oil run across the field over into that river.
00:51:47
I mean, we don't have any oil lines around here that we have exactly, but we have a bridge that goes right across our reservoir, right?
00:51:57
Two of them, the Rivanna Reservoir.
00:51:59
So not what should happen, but.
00:52:03
By connecting the reservoir with the pipe and improving the treatment capacity gives us much more capacity and flexibility to withstand things that might come up from the environment or man-made issues.
00:52:17
Gary, did that get all your questions there?
SPEAKER_02
00:52:25
and part of this water plan years ago that they're gonna have everything together.
00:52:30
Gotta have them in place to take advantage of any of this water.
00:52:36
Exactly.
Ann Mallek
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:52:37
Okay, thank you.
Mike Gaffney
Chair, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:52:38
Ann, you got a couple questions?
Ann Mallek
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:52:40
I have a couple.
00:52:42
So for February, would it be possible for you to give us an estimate of the savings that could be achieved if we do accelerate the construction of the pipeline only because recently we were notified the bad news from VVAD that they were
00:52:59
monstrously increasing the cost of a lot of our highway projects and bridge projects for that very reason.
00:53:04
And so they certainly seem to get it that this is coming and in the same timeframe that we're talking about.
00:53:10
So I would love it if you can find some estimates to help us with that.
00:53:15
And I would just take a moment to say how much I appreciate all of this work because
00:53:23
It actually was a fact that John Grady, our building person, said we're closing things in nine days.
00:53:30
They hadn't been issuing any new building permits for months before that.
00:53:35
So it's far more than a rumor.
00:53:38
I will just give you confidence.
00:53:39
I heard it with my own ears.
00:53:41
And just some other things that perhaps people who weren't in the room didn't know.
00:53:47
Yes, there was tremendous discussion about using our own water for our water supply and the great advantages because there had been upstream pollution and overruns and things in other communities in the James headwaters that are closer to the headwaters where they have combined sewer and stormwater systems.
00:54:05
And there was no way they could fix it.
00:54:07
And the other thing, there was a giant meeting of about 50 people around the table in the 5th Street
00:54:15
County Office Building.
00:54:17
And I think Mike was there.
00:54:18
But God bless the Army Corps of Engineers guy who stood up and said, as all the people around the table, the chamber and everybody, we're all talking about all the things that they wanted this and that and going to the James and he said, Well,
00:54:29
Let me tell you folks, you're not gonna get water from the James.
00:54:32
Other people have the water from the James and there is none for you.
00:54:37
And that saved us all a whole lot of time because we can set that aside and realize that we really had to solve the problem ourselves.
00:54:43
So I know there have been just thousands of staff time hours and brain power on the part of people in all the jurisdictions and agencies here.
00:54:52
And I'm just so grateful because it's one thing we have really done right.
00:54:57
and so I very much hope and that redundancy I think you mentioned prior to your arrival there were some failures I think in the southern part of the city and they were without water I think for some time because and that was where that idea for the water line came from the CWL to say we can't get you water if there's a break from x to y because there's no other alternative so
00:55:19
I am equally horrified by the cost of all these things, but I'm also very comforted by the fact that due to all the good care that people have had for many years, we have very affordable water compared to what most other places pay.
00:55:34
And I'm grateful for that.
00:55:35
And I'm grateful for everybody watching carefully to make sure of that as much as we can.
00:55:40
But this is providing the water to be able to sell at some cost to be determined later.
00:55:46
So I'm just,
00:55:47
Really excited about going forward and learning more.
00:55:50
Thank you.
SPEAKER_09
00:55:51
Thank you, Lance.
00:55:52
Just a clarifying question for my own notes.
00:55:58
So the raising the Ragged Mountain water level, you mentioned accelerating that timeframe potentially, would that require an amendment to the agreement as well?
00:56:07
Yes.
00:56:08
Is that correctly?
00:56:09
And would, is this something you'll be bringing forward in the near term?
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:56:14
Well, again, we're working through the numbers to see what the costs would be.
00:56:18
And we'll probably talk with Lauren and Gary again.
00:56:20
And then we'll be ready to provide a recommendation to this board in February, so relatively near.
00:56:27
So we have two things.
00:56:28
We have the Ragged Mountain Agreement.
00:56:30
It says we have to wait until 85% of the community demand.
00:56:35
We have a council action that said 2027 through 2035 was there.
00:56:42
approved schedule a little different.
00:56:43
It wasn't like a contract that got signed like the agreement.
00:56:47
So we would need to work with both of those documents to change the plan.
Ann Mallek
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:56:52
Yeah, one follow up.
00:56:53
So the permit from DEQ impacts all those other little categories too.
00:56:59
I mean, the water supply plan is basically carrying out what they gave us orders rather than permission really in a way to do so.
00:57:09
Is there a hurdle that has to be taken up with the EQ for using the upper gate collection after you get the grading and stuff down?
00:57:18
Or is that something you have local option to do that?
00:57:22
Do we have to amend the permit?
00:57:24
Okay, so that's a really good thing for local control.
SPEAKER_06
00:57:29
Thanks.
Ann Mallek
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:57:30
Good news.
00:57:31
And last question for next time.
00:57:34
The
00:57:35
bathymetric study, if you could send us a link to something hopefully with an understandable executive summary on the 2020 bathymetric studies, just so we can understand.
00:57:46
I mean, I think there was something like a 40% loss of capacity from when I was a teenager in 1965 to when some recent one was done in 2000, maybe.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:57:57
So I'd love to get an update on that.
00:57:59
We found very little change from, was it 10 years prior?
00:58:02
Very little change in South Rivanna 10 years prior, so we think that a big storm helped wash some out, because clearly it's coming in every day.
Ann Mallek
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:58:11
And hopefully some of our stormwater and erosion control things that all the various conservation people and all those things have done.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:58:19
Stream protection program, right.
Ann Mallek
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:58:22
And another thing, sorry to give you all these questions that you're not prepared for today.
00:58:28
I think I remember a story about a lot of sediment packing up against the dam on the inside.
00:58:32
Is that where some of the washout happened or something else you can tell us about some future time?
00:58:37
When you have it in front of you.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
00:58:38
Is that what we found in the bathrometry?
Jennifer Whitaker
Director of Engineering, Maintenance & Special Projects
00:58:41
What typically happens in a dam like South Havana is you get a, I'm sorry,
00:58:46
You get quite a bit of sediment that will build up behind the dam and that's why the dam actually has what we call mud gates.
00:58:52
They're low level gates that are opened during certain times of operation with the intention of trying to keep that material from building up.
00:59:01
What we found prior to the 2018 bathymetric was we were losing about 15 million gallons of storage a year due to sediment.
00:59:09
And we actually think that giant 2018 storm, which I would argue is probably close to the storm record for that watershed,
00:59:17
We removed probably 20 to 30 years of buildup out of the reservoir.
00:59:22
We think, we're surmising why those numbers showed that.
00:59:25
So between operational, between the upgradients, water protection ordinance work, using the mud valves, and then a storm, we believe that
00:59:37
We've seen some improvement in storage there, but we will also do the bathometrics again.
00:59:42
And it very well may come back because it may be a preferential spot for sediment to settle.
00:59:47
So we'll know with the next bathymetry.
Mike Gaffney
Chair, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
00:59:51
All right.
00:59:51
Thank you.
00:59:52
OK, thank you.
00:59:53
Did you get your question?
00:59:55
Yes sir.
00:59:55
Okay.
00:59:56
Thank you.
00:59:56
Thank you.
00:59:57
So one thing I would like to add to the discussion is something that Leonard always pointed, Leonard Sandrick always used to point out to me when he was, you know, thinking about the university's position is what is the reaction going to be 20, 30 years down when they look back?
01:00:20
And, you know, we had to draw out a record in 20,
01:00:23
2002, and here we are, we're 20 years later, and if we get a new drought or record, are we ready for it?
01:00:35
And, you know, probably not as good as we would like to be.
01:00:44
So, you know, with a new drought or record in 2024 or 2025,
01:00:50
It's, you know, people are going to say, what's Rivanna been doing in the last 20 something years?
01:00:57
So it's just something to think about as this all gets talked about in the next few months.
01:01:04
I'm sorry for that.
SPEAKER_02
01:01:05
I shut the whole thing down.
Ann Mallek
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
01:01:08
I have some very compelling pictures that we've seen today that should be sort of packaged and ready to share that story with anybody who has, because it's pretty amazing.
Brian Pinkston
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
01:01:17
Thank you.
01:01:18
Sorry it took so long.
Mike Gaffney
Chair, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
01:01:20
All right, so next item is the Dam Safety Program Overview, Victoria Fort.
Victoria Fort
Senior Civil Engineer
01:01:27
OK, I'm Victoria Fort.
01:01:38
I'm a senior civil engineer, and I'm here to do my annual overview of our Dam Safety Program.
01:01:43
Thanks for most of you.
01:01:44
This is probably a review, but for a few of you, this is new information, so feel free to ask any questions that come up.
01:01:53
All right, today I'll cover just a brief segment about dam safety regulations, both state and federal.
01:02:00
I'll talk about the various components of our dam safety program, all the dams and features and some of their most important features within our system.
01:02:09
I'll talk about dam emergency planning, both sort of on the design side and also emergency action planning.
01:02:15
And then lastly, I'll cover some recent and current dam safety projects.
01:02:21
So in the state of Virginia, sorry, the Commonwealth of Virginia, the regulating body for dam safety is the Department of Conservation and Recreation.
01:02:30
So they are the authority that is ensuring that Virginia dams have proper and safe design, construction, operation, and maintenance to protect public safety.
01:02:38
Every dam in Virginia is subject to these regulations with the exception of any dams that are owner licensed by the federal government.
01:02:45
So for instance, Burke.
01:02:46
Any dams under a certain size, so dams under a certain height or dams that impound under a certain volume would not be subject to these regulations.
01:02:55
And then lastly, any dams operated from mining, agricultural or canal purposes may be subject to different regulations.
01:03:03
So I think it's fairly obvious why dam safety is important, but I always like to touch on a couple of higher profile recent dam emergencies.
01:03:10
So the first I'll talk about is
01:03:12
the Edenville and Sanford Dam emergency in May 2020.
01:03:18
So on May 19th, the Edenville Dam failed following heavy rains, which created flash flood conditions and then later overtopped the Sanford Dam, which was another dam downstream.
01:03:29
As a result, over 2,500 properties were destroyed or damaged, which caused an estimated $250 million in damage.
01:03:38
During that emergency, over 11,000 residents had to be evacuated, but thankfully that did prevent any loss of life from this event.
01:03:46
A little closer to home, a few years back, we had the College Lake Dam overtopping in Lynchburg, Virginia.
01:03:53
They experienced over six inches of rain in two hours in August of 2018.
01:03:58
That caused the water level in the lake to rise rapidly and it actually overtopped the dam.
01:04:04
You can see in the picture.
01:04:05
Yeah, you can see where there's riprap and some red dirt exposed because the dam actually did overtop.
01:04:12
because they were unable to get enough water through the emergency spillway.
01:04:16
And that caused damage to the road and the embankment.
01:04:20
They rapidly were able to open a valve and dewater it.
01:04:23
So they avoided a catastrophic dam failure.
01:04:25
But during that emergency, over 150 residents were evacuated.
01:04:30
And they've since determined they're going to remove the dam and restore the streambed at a cost of $20 million, which will start next year.
01:04:37
And that's actually independent of the replacement of this bridge, which actually I think was just completed.
01:04:42
These are costly and they're also hugely impactful to our communities, which is why we take this really seriously.
01:04:49
All right, so just a summary of the components of our Dam Safety Program.
01:04:53
It is a broad program.
01:04:55
It also involves a lot of our staff time and effort.
01:04:58
So obviously it involves a lot of permitting and regulatory compliance, submission of operations certificates, annual inspection reports, studies, et cetera.
01:05:08
Development of emergency action plans and updating those and training and running exercises at regular intervals.
01:05:16
It involves regular maintenance and vegetation control at all of our facilities, regular repairs and upgrades to these facilities, installation and maintenance of public safety features including signage, fencing, cameras, etc.
01:05:35
Completion of studies and reports in compliance with the regulations, completion of regular inspections and surveys of these facilities, round-the-clock monitoring, particularly of our high-hazard dams, and obviously our operations department for any of the dams that are involved in marshland.
01:05:55
So all of our facilities are listed on this sheet.
01:05:59
On the left side, we have all the ones that are currently under an operations certificate, either from FERC or the Department of Conservation and Recreation.
01:06:07
So included in our high hazard dams are the South Fork Rivanna Dam, the Ragged Mountain Dam, Sugar Hollow Dam, and Beaver Creek Dam in Crozet.
01:06:15
I won't spend too much time on them since Bill has talked about a lot of those today as well.
01:06:20
We also have two low hazard dams down in Scottsville.
01:06:24
There's the Toadier Creek Dam and then in Crozet there's also the Lincoln Hole Creek Dam.
01:06:28
We also have a handful of currently unpermitted dams, including the North Fork Rivanna low head dam that's at the North Fork Water Treatment Plant on the river.
01:06:38
We have the Buck Mountain Pond Dam, which is a dam that we acquired when we purchased the Buck Mountain property.
01:06:46
That one we're doing some studies currently and I'll talk about more about that later.
01:06:50
The Meacham River low head dam, it's another old facility out west of town that is a low head dam, and then the IVMUC pond dam, which belongs to the Reading and South Bay story.
01:07:02
So to provide a little more information on these facilities.
01:07:05
The South Fork Rivanna Dam.
01:07:06
I wish I had the picture from the storm that Jennifer mentioned.
01:07:09
This is taken in 2017.
01:07:11
We got a fairly dry year.
01:07:13
So you can see that the whole base of the dam is exposed.
01:07:16
And not six months later, I think we have what we believe to be the blood of record.
01:07:21
We had seven feet of water going over the dam.
01:07:23
So pretty dramatic difference in a matter of just six months.
01:07:27
This is regulated currently by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC, that's the federal government obviously, and that's because in 1987 a small hydropower facility was built at this site.
01:07:40
The original dam was built in 1965.
01:07:43
That hydropower facility is defunct and it is planned to be decommissioned in 2023 at which time we will surrender our exemption that puts us under federal regulation and it will then be regulated by DCR like the rest of our dams.
01:07:57
There's a concrete gravity dam that is 700 feet long and 54 feet tall.
01:08:03
This is the Ragged Mountain Dam, as Bill talked about quite a bit, so I won't belabor it, but it's regulated by DCR, built and completed in 2014 to replace the historical dams.
01:08:14
It is an earth-filled dam, 785 feet long and 125 feet tall, and it will eventually impound an additional 700 million gallons of water when we raise the water level by 12 feet.
01:08:26
Sugar Hollow Dam is another state regulated dam.
01:08:29
This is located up in the northwest corner of the county in Whitehall.
01:08:33
It was built in 1948.
01:08:35
Well, the original Blowhead Dam, as Jennifer mentioned, was built in the 1920s, and that's just out of frame here at the end of the still, what we call the stilling basin.
01:08:43
This concrete dam was built in 1948 following some mudslides during which the dam sustained some pretty significant
01:08:51
damage.
01:08:52
We upgraded it, replaced the press gates with an inflatable press gate or rubber press gate.
01:08:59
That was just replaced last year because it had reached the end of its useful life and the overall dam is 480 feet long and 96 feet tall.
01:09:13
Alright, this is the Beaver Creek Dam.
01:09:15
This is located out in Rose.
01:09:17
This is a state regulated dam.
01:09:19
It is the
01:09:20
Soil Water Supply for the community of Crozet.
01:09:23
It was built in 1963 for both water supply and flood control, and it was in partnership with the Soil Conservation Service, which is now the National Resource Conservation Service.
01:09:35
It is an earth-filled dam, 530 feet long, 60 feet tall.
01:09:40
As many of you know, it's a very popular county park in Crozet, so we work with parks for maintenance of the grassy areas of the dam.
01:09:48
You also have Browns Gap Turnpike running along the crest of the dam, which is the state road.
01:09:54
Currently, this dam is undergoing a planning and environmental assessment study funded by NRCS for what is going to require spillway upgrades.
01:10:06
So we're completing the study now that is expected to be done early next year, and then we will move into the design phase of that project.
01:10:17
Pretty much, not exactly, but it's going to look dramatically different.
01:10:23
So our last two dams that I'll cover in detail here are Toadier Creek and Looking Hole Creek.
01:10:28
These are both low hazard dams regulated by the state.
01:10:31
Toadier Creek is the one in the picture on the right here, and that's located down in Scottsville.
01:10:35
It's an earth-filled dam that was built in 1971, and then there's a rock cut spillway just in the background here at a frame.
01:10:43
It's 277 feet long and 35 feet tall.
01:10:47
and that is also in Albemarle County Park.
01:10:50
And then lastly, the Lincoln Hole Creek Dam that was out there this morning, looks great.
01:10:54
That is regulated by DCR.
01:10:56
That's located in Prose just south of Beaver Creek Reservoir.
01:11:00
And this was built in 1995 as a sediment storage basin and the whole property is owned and managed by Ragged Mountain.
01:11:08
It's a concrete gravity dam, oops, sorry.
01:11:11
And it is 458 feet long, 32 feet tall.
01:11:16
Okay, so we've talked about our facilities, we've talked about the regulations, we understand why it's important.
01:11:21
So now I'll talk a little bit about how we plan for dam emergencies, both in design and then also in emergency planning.
01:11:29
So dam safety emergencies are very low probability events, but obviously they have a potential for extremely high impact to the community.
01:11:36
So as a result, they're designed with a very high level of conservatism to minimize the potential failure or any other emergencies.
01:11:43
Potential causes of dam emergencies include rainfall exceeding the dam's design, material failure, vandalism, and then we'd also consider an accident or public safety event at a dam to be a dam emergency.
01:11:59
I mentioned we have high hazard and low hazard dams in our system and that hazard potential classification
01:12:05
is created to convey the severity of the consequences from the dam's failure and misoperation.
01:12:12
So it's not a reflection of the condition of the dam.
01:12:15
It talks more about if that dam were to fail, what would be the consequences?
01:12:18
So a high hazard dam, for example, Ragged Mountain Dam, would mean that if it were to fail, it would cause likely or probable loss of life and some pretty serious economic damage.
01:12:29
Conversely, low hazard dams, if they were to fail, so Toadier Creek Dam, we would expect no loss of life and pretty insignificant economic impacts.
01:12:43
And then that hazard potential then dictates the design criteria for the dam and its spillway.
01:12:51
All right, some other terms you'll hear thrown around when you're talking about dams and dam emergencies is the probable maximum precipitation or PMP.
01:12:59
And the jargony definition is the theoretical greatest step of precipitation for a given duration that is physically possible over a particular drainage area at a certain time of the year.
01:13:09
And basically you can distill that down to mean it's the worst possible amount of precipitation you can see at a location.
01:13:17
So there is a PMP
01:13:18
for Sugar Hollow, there is a PMP for Ragged Mountain.
01:13:22
And they're different depending on the location and the storm, the length of the storm.
01:13:28
Dams with a high hazard potential, they have to be designed to pass the flood that results from the PMP.
01:13:35
So this humongous hypothetical storm is what we have to design these dams for.
01:13:40
And that flood that results is called the probable maximum flood or the PMF.
01:13:47
To give a sense of what that means, I have a chart here showing a few different recurrence intervals for storms and their relative precipitation.
01:13:56
So this is for the Sugar Hollow Reservoir.
01:13:59
A two year storm or a storm you would expect to occur at least once every two years would see about three and a half inches of rain over a 24 hour period.
01:14:07
A hundred year storm or storm that you would expect once every hundred years would result in about nine inches of rain over 24 hours.
01:14:15
Your PMP is 34 inches of rain over that same 24 hour period.
01:14:19
So this is a massive storm.
01:14:25
Let's see.
01:14:25
So within our system, the 24 hour PMP values range.
01:14:30
So for South Fork reservoir, for instance, it's 23.7 inches of rain over 24 hours.
01:14:36
and then up to Sugar Hollow which is 34 inches of rain in 24 hours.
01:14:42
It seems improbable, it seems ridiculous but as many of you may know Hurricane Camille in Nelson County in 1969 brought over 27 inches of rain in an overnight period which is about 81% of the PMP.
01:14:57
And then even more recently in Madison County in 1995, that's the storm that damaged the Sugar Hollow Dam
01:15:03
They saw 25 to 30 inches of rain in 16 hours, which is about 86% of the PMP.
01:15:09
So these are very real events, even though they're very unlikely.
01:15:12
All right, so now that we've covered sort of the regulatory side of emergency planning, I wanted to talk a little bit about what we're doing internally to prepare for these types of emergencies.
01:15:24
So internally, we have what we call our owner's dam safety program.
01:15:27
This is a requirement of Burke that we developed a program, but we apply this to all of our facilities.
01:15:34
And we have a dam safety policy.
01:15:36
We also have internal training requirements and procedures.
01:15:40
We have requirements for safety and design and quality construction.
01:15:44
And we include requirements for dam maintenance and monitoring.
01:15:48
We also develop emergency action plans or what we call emergency preparedness plans for low hazard dams.
01:15:56
And those are documents that allow for coordination with emergency planning agencies during a dam emergency.
01:16:03
And those get updated annually and distributed to, I think a handful of you here are plan holders.
01:16:09
And then we run training and drills annually on those.
01:16:14
And I'll talk a bit more about those in just a minute.
01:16:17
And then lastly, obviously, to prepare for emergencies, we have signage, we have some alarms, we have plans for downstream notifications to property owners, and a number of other public safety features that would help us out in case of an emergency.
01:16:33
All right, so dam emergency action plans, as I mentioned, are a set of pre-planned actions to minimize or alleviate emergency conditions out of the dam.
01:16:42
And they contain procedures and information on issuing early warning notifications in order to minimize the loss of life and property damage during an emergency event.
01:16:51
So these outline how Rivanna is to coordinate with Virginia Department of Emergency Management, the Emergency Communications Center, local police, fire, rescue, VDOT media, local government, and other parties.
01:17:06
We maintain formal emergency action plans for each of our four high hazard dams.
01:17:11
And then as I mentioned, we also have emergency preparedness plans, which is a much more condensed document for our low hazard dams.
01:17:20
This rainbow of colors, some of you may recognize, those are the front covers of our four emergency action plans for the high hazard dams.
01:17:28
And those include South Rivanna Dam, Ragged Mountain, Sugar Hollow, and Beaver Creek.
01:17:35
So the EAPs define who's got which responsibilities in the case of an emergency.
01:17:42
So in an emergency, Rivanna would be the ones out there verifying and assessing the emergency conditions of the dam.
01:17:48
We would then notify the participating emergency management agencies.
01:17:52
We would take any corrective actions at the facility.
01:17:55
So if we need to make a repair or start lowering the water level, that's our responsibility.
01:18:01
We would issue condition status reports to the community.
01:18:04
and then also we would be the ones who would declare the termination of the emergency at the facilities once we feel that the threat has passed.
01:18:12
Outside agencies that are also plan holders, which include the emergency communication center, county and city governments, fire, rescue, et cetera.
01:18:22
They would receive condition status reports from Rivanna, notify the public and then coordinate and conduct evacuation from any inundation areas if it were required.
01:18:31
And then more on the government side,
01:18:33
would be a requirement to provide mutual aid if requested and able and or declare an emergency which would give us more resources towards the emergency.
01:18:44
All right, so this is just one of many important components out of all of our EAPs.
01:18:51
And this is our failure scenarios and notification charts.
01:18:54
And I'll talk about these in just a second.
01:18:56
So during a dam failure emergency, there are three scenarios that we prepare for.
01:19:00
The first is the absolute worst case.
01:19:03
Failure is imminent or it has already occurred, in which case we would be conducting immediate evacuations and it'd be an all hands on deck kind of situation.
01:19:12
The second scenario, scenario B, is a potential failure situation developing.
01:19:17
So for example, we discovered a seep at one of our earthen dams.
01:19:21
It appears to be getting worse.
01:19:23
It could develop into a failure situation.
01:19:26
So it would be something that we'd monitor.
01:19:28
and we would have all of our communications set up accordingly.
01:19:31
And then lastly is our most common scenario, a non-failure emergency and that generally is used in the case of heavy rainfall.
01:19:39
So we have, for example, the storm in 20, I think it was May 31st, 2018 at the South Rivanna Reservoir, we exceeded a certain height of water over the South Fork Reservoir and that initiated the EAP at South Rivanna under a non-failure emergency situation.
01:19:59
So each scenario has its own notification chart for each of the dam EAPs.
01:20:03
So you can see here, we've got our dam facility name.
01:20:06
This is for South Rivanna.
01:20:07
This is the call down sheet for scenario A.
01:20:12
So a failure is imminent or has occurred.
01:20:14
And then it has all the corresponding communications and then alternates are listed at the bottom as well in case someone can't be reached.
01:20:21
So we have these for all of our dams under all those scenarios.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
01:20:24
We did a non-failure emergency notification recently, right?
Victoria Fort
Senior Civil Engineer
01:20:28
We did for Sugar Hollow Dam.
01:20:30
They get a certain amount of rain.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
01:20:32
A few weeks ago and I forwarded it to Jeff and Michael and Gary, I guess.
01:20:40
So just like on the list who were supposed to notify that we had a potential non-failure emergency because of the amount of rain we got at Sugar Hollow.
Victoria Fort
Senior Civil Engineer
01:20:50
Exactly right.
01:20:53
This is another component of all of our emergency action plans.
01:20:56
It's a dam breach inundation map and what it shows, and they all look a little bit different, but this particular one shows three different scenarios for dam breaches and they're shown in different colors.
01:21:07
It shows which structures would be inundated and it also calls out major intersections that might be affected.
01:21:13
and these little call outs I understand you can't read but it basically says how long it would take after a failure for the flood wave to reach that location, what would be the height of water, what would be the maximum discharge and it kind of just gives you an understanding of the time to impact in the case of that emergency and what would be affected.
Ann Mallek
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
01:21:37
Is this one hypothetical or is this just downstream from Ragged Mountain?
01:21:42
This is Ragged Mountain.
Victoria Fort
Senior Civil Engineer
01:21:43
So what the scenarios that are shown on this map, and I don't have the legend and I can't read it anyway on this scale, but generally we show what's called a sunny day breach.
01:21:53
So the dam fails sort of out of the blue in the middle of a sunny day.
01:21:56
People are out playing soccer, driving their cars, etc.
01:21:59
We'll also show a PMF, our probable maximum flood, under the non-failure scenario and under the failure scenario.
01:22:07
So a PMF with no breach of the dam is still a huge flood.
01:22:10
There's still going to be roads inundated and houses inundated.
01:22:13
And then we show the incremental difference in that amount of flooding if the dam also fails.
01:22:19
So those are the scenarios that we show on the map here.
01:22:21
And I'm assuming that yellow is probably our PMF with a breach of the dam.
01:22:27
And this is here.
01:22:28
There's the water treatment plant.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
01:22:32
Underwater.
01:22:32
Oops.
01:22:33
Is 64 underwater in that one?
01:22:37
Yes.
01:22:38
Right there.
Jennifer Whitaker
Director of Engineering, Maintenance & Special Projects
01:22:39
Underwater.
Victoria Fort
Senior Civil Engineer
01:22:43
That's right.
01:22:44
And then you are here.
01:22:47
I think we are here.
01:22:48
So we're high enough above the creek that we're OK in this building.
01:22:53
These are the call outs where it just says basically time to arrival of the flood wave, flood depths, etc.
01:23:09
Okay, lastly, I just wanted to cover a handful of dam projects that were recently completed or that are in the planning phase.
01:23:16
So just this year, we completed some drainage improvements at the Lickinghole Creek Dam and at Ragged Mountain Dam, just minor repairs to deal with seepage and wet areas.
01:23:26
So those were done, I think, late spring.
01:23:28
Last year, we did a number of projects as well, including the replacement of the rubber crest gate at the Sugar Hollow Dam.
01:23:36
We also made some alterations to the Ivy MUC irrigation pond dam.
01:23:41
to lower the effective height of the dam and the spillway so that it would fall below the requirements for state regulation.
01:23:49
So that work was done last year as well.
01:23:51
And then we did a number of small projects that we bundled into one project at South Rivanna Dam that included repairs of the two mud gates that Jennifer mentioned.
01:24:02
We did some grouting repairs at a historical seep next to the raw water pump station.
01:24:08
and then we also did some safety improvements in the two chambers to access the mud gates and then also on the north abutment of the dam just to create a safer way to access those areas by our staff and by contractors.
01:24:23
So those were all completed recently.
01:24:25
In the planning and design phase, we're currently working on some study work and inspections of the Buck Mountain Pond Dam.
01:24:34
So this is the dam that we acquired when we purchased the Buck Mountain Dam property.
01:24:38
It likely needs some rehabilitation work.
01:24:41
So we're doing a study to determine the hazard classification of that dam.
01:24:45
And then once we have that determined, then we'll determine what extent of repairs are needed at that location.
01:24:53
So that is ongoing.
01:24:55
We also, as I mentioned, are doing the planning study for eventual spillway upgrades at the Beaver Creek Dam.
01:25:02
That is underway and that's expected to be completed
01:25:06
early next year, and then move into the design phase of that project.
01:25:11
And then lastly, the South Fork Rivanna Dam, we are decommissioning that hydropower facility.
01:25:17
That work has been approved by FERC and has been awarded to a contractor, and I believe that work is expected to start in the winter, actually, not the spring of next year.
01:25:29
And then we're always doing work at all of our facilities.
01:25:32
We do monthly tree and brush clearing,
01:25:35
At all of our dams, we do seasonal tree removal where needed.
01:25:40
We continually are installing new, better public safety measures, signs, buoys, cameras, et cetera, and maintaining those.
01:25:49
And then always looking out for other small repairs to make sure that we're staying on top of these facilities.
01:25:57
Any questions?
SPEAKER_12
01:25:59
It's very interesting.
SPEAKER_02
01:26:00
Thank you.
Ann Mallek
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
01:26:01
All right.
Brian Pinkston
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
01:26:02
Very incredibly.
Ann Mallek
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
01:26:03
Thank you.
01:26:04
Thank you.
01:26:06
So is decommissioning one of the options you're looking at for future decision on the Buck Mountain farm dam?
Victoria Fort
Senior Civil Engineer
01:26:13
That is one of several options.
01:26:16
Okay, that's great.
Ann Mallek
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
01:26:17
Rehabilitation is the other.
01:26:19
Right.
01:26:19
Okay.
01:26:20
And
01:26:24
I was really taken in the homework phase with the maps of the flood zones and things.
01:26:30
And one of the things that I'm most reassured by with all of the improvements made at Ragged Mountain has been the safety improvements for all of those downstream lower Avon, Elliott, places that were really in terrible danger because of that original 15 foot spillway.
01:26:51
for a reservoir that held millions and millions of gallons.
01:26:54
I mean, it was just mind boggling really.
01:26:56
But is there an alarm for an audible something or are we still, one of the city councilors when I was arguing with him 20 years ago, don't worry, said, oh, it's okay, we have a telephone tree.
01:27:10
and I thought there has to be something better than that for the people who were so close in proximity along the creek there if bad things did happen.
Victoria Fort
Senior Civil Engineer
01:27:18
So we do not have an audible alarm.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
01:27:22
So generally the staff is going to notify me.
01:27:27
I'm going to call Jeff and Michael and say, activate your public safety people and evacuate this area.
01:27:34
And that's kind of the way it happens.
01:27:36
We don't do the evacuation.
01:27:37
You guys in groups do because you have the staff and they're your residents.
01:27:43
That's the way it works.
01:27:44
Is that right, Jennifer?
Jennifer Whitaker
Director of Engineering, Maintenance & Special Projects
01:27:45
What we do have though are cameras at all of our dam facilities so the operators can look at the facility 24 hours a day and we also have water level sensors so there's alarm set but if that changes elevation more than a certain percent in a certain amount of time it sets off an alarm at the possible dam failure emergency and the operators know to go look at the cameras send people out and
01:28:14
and follow up on that.
01:28:17
So there is some level of promote.
Victoria Fort
Senior Civil Engineer
01:28:20
That's right.
01:28:20
We have a lot of monitoring that happens.
01:28:22
Some of our facilities, Ragged Mountain is the prime example, have also seepage monitors and piezometers where if any of those change their readings dramatically, we're also getting SCADA alarms for that.
01:28:33
And generally in any of these situations, so Bill mentioned that we recently activated the emergency action plan for Sugar Hollow.
01:28:39
We generally lean very conservative.
01:28:42
So if we know rain is coming, we're already watching the cameras and we're watching all of the SCADA data like hawks.
01:28:49
And then when we hit certain thresholds, usually we already kind of have an all hands on deck situation because we're already looking for it and we're prepared to make notifications as early as we can.
01:29:04
Yeah.
01:29:04
Oh, that's really good.
01:29:05
Thank you.
SPEAKER_08
01:29:06
Michael.
01:29:08
As you talk, I'm thinking about how we make sure that our emergency plans includes the possible overflow of these dams.
01:29:20
That's something I'm going to check when I get back and make sure that when the notification comes, we have some indication of how much time we have for that evacuation and
01:29:34
And I'm just not sure.
01:29:36
We just approved an emergency manager several weeks ago and we're writing an emergency management plan.
01:29:43
I want to make sure that this gets included, you know, and for consideration so that we can be responsive.
Victoria Fort
Senior Civil Engineer
01:29:50
Sure.
01:29:51
I'll add to that.
01:29:52
One of the, I think it's a state and a federal requirement is that you conduct
01:29:58
Tabletop exercises or full exercises with the community at regular intervals.
01:30:02
And so currently we're planning to have a large community is somewhat of a training and an exercise event sometime in 2023.
01:30:11
We don't have a date.
01:30:13
We're still in early phases of planning that, but that will be coming as well to get the community back together to run through a scenario like that.
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
01:30:22
So this is another one of our sort of quiet programs that's in the background but yet you hear when we bring it forward it's a huge issue that could affect the community and a huge responsibility and Victoria and Jennifer do a great job managing it but
01:30:38
They're the limit of our staff, really.
01:30:39
They work on this for the most part.
01:30:42
So it's not like we have 12 people working in the dam program.
01:30:46
We kind of have parts of two and they do a great job.
01:30:50
But it's one of those things, if it goes bad, it's real bad.
01:30:54
So we need to be practiced on how to deal with this.
01:30:57
Absolutely.
Victoria Fort
Senior Civil Engineer
01:30:58
We've found that our water operators do an exceptional job at watching the data and reservoir levels and activating these EAPs have been continually
01:31:07
Just blown away by how tuned in they are to that and how well they all seem to
01:31:13
to react in those situations.
01:31:14
So props to them.
Ann Mallek
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
01:31:16
Am I right that you have, I'm sorry.
01:31:18
Am I right that you have electronic ability now to open the gates?
01:31:23
For example, I'm thinking back to 95 when the dam keeper who I think was Mr. James went out there as it's coming over his head, turning that wheel to open the things at the bottom before.
Victoria Fort
Senior Civil Engineer
01:31:33
I think we can remotely operate some of the raw water.
01:31:37
Valves at Sugar Hollow.
01:31:41
We do not have remote operation of all of the gates at our dams, I don't think.
Ann Mallek
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
01:31:46
That one is a good one because it's so long.
01:31:48
It takes such a long time to get somebody there now and that would be important.
Jennifer Whitaker
Director of Engineering, Maintenance & Special Projects
01:31:51
Sugar Hollow is the rubber gate itself is fully automated.
Ann Mallek
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
01:31:56
Okay.
Jennifer Whitaker
Director of Engineering, Maintenance & Special Projects
01:31:57
So it's programmed to go down and come up appropriately.
Ann Mallek
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
01:32:00
Okay.
Jennifer Whitaker
Director of Engineering, Maintenance & Special Projects
01:32:01
And then we've got eyes on it and you have manual
01:32:04
override remotely on the release valve at the bottom and the transfer valve.
01:32:09
So we needed to activate some of that we could.
01:32:12
And then other facilities where they're harder to get to, we do have some level of automation.
01:32:18
Sometimes it's local automation and sometimes it's remote automation.
Mike Gaffney
Chair, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
01:32:21
Thank you.
01:32:23
Yeah, just to add to the 95 storm in Madison, it took out one whole bridge.
01:32:30
from Route 29, and that took about a year to replace that.
01:32:35
So when we look at ours going over 64, imagine if 64 got taken out or compromised.
01:32:45
Okay, any other questions?
01:32:47
Thank you, Victoria.
01:32:50
Are there other items from the board or staff not on the agenda?
01:32:56
And I have one.
Brian Pinkston
Member, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
01:32:58
Okay, go ahead.
Mike Gaffney
Chair, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
01:33:00
Have we closed on the property of Buck Mountain?
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
01:33:04
No, January the 10th is the planned closing date.
01:33:09
The attorneys have been processing the paperwork and as far as I know everything's full speed ahead.
01:33:14
January the 10th.
Mike Gaffney
Chair, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
01:33:16
Any other items?
Bill Mawyer
Executive Director
01:33:17
Other than we appreciate all the support we've gotten from the board this calendar year and we wish you happy holidays.
01:33:24
See you in January.
01:33:25
Thank you.
Mike Gaffney
Chair, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
01:33:26
Any reason for a closed meeting?
01:33:29
We have a motion and a second to adjourn.
SPEAKER_02
01:33:33
Second.
Mike Gaffney
Chair, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
01:33:34
All in favor?
SPEAKER_02
01:33:35
Opposed?
Mike Gaffney
Chair, Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
01:33:37
Okay.
SPEAKER_12
01:33:37
Meeting adjourned.
01:33:40
That's exhausting.