Speaker 1: Christmas, and that's what this holy day is all about.
Speaker 1: And so while you're enjoying the fun and the family
Speaker 1: and the laughter, we need to make sure that leading
Speaker 1: up to and on that day we are keeping Christ
Speaker 1: at the center of our celebration and remembering that's what
Speaker 1: this is really all about.
Speaker 2: More at familyminute dot org.
Speaker 3: Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome.
Speaker 3: It's timed out where the city matters, right here on
Speaker 3: K one, the one you trust. First things first, before
Speaker 3: we get things going. What's with this bog and eight
Speaker 3: our skyline? I mean, I took a look at our
Speaker 3: camera out here and I'm looking downtown and I don't
Speaker 3: see yours.
Speaker 4: Goy no, No, it's uh, well, it's just the wintertime,
Speaker 4: so you just never know what you're gonna get.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's the beauty of it.
Speaker 4: Will just wait a few days and they'll be completely different.
Speaker 4: Or maybe in this after afternoon outshot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, hey, Keith, do you think it's gonna know? It's
Speaker 2: a four letter word, Tom, we don't question. Well, let's
Speaker 2: get things out of way.
Speaker 3: I know that today is the first day of the
Speaker 3: leaf and the grass pack.
Speaker 6: It is, uh, today's the day to take advantage of
Speaker 6: the leaf and grass collection. Uh, So hopefully you've got
Speaker 6: it out there today if you're a Monday route, because
Speaker 6: we're picking it up on your normal trash collection day.
Speaker 6: So all leaf and grass, if you've bagged that material
Speaker 6: and set it out at the curb, it will not
Speaker 6: require a refuge or a grass yard waist sticker. So
Speaker 6: it's a free service to all our residential customers. So
Speaker 6: get that material out there again today. Hopefully you've already
Speaker 6: got it out there. You're probably missing the boat. But Tuesday,
Speaker 6: Thursday and Friday, when we pick up your normal refuge,
Speaker 6: we'll be by to collect those. It will probably be
Speaker 6: a separate, separate truck, so it won't be your automated
Speaker 6: truck that picks up your cart. So don't get too
Speaker 6: excited when it comes by and they go, hey, he
Speaker 6: didn't get my bag, so somebody will be around to
Speaker 6: get him. And for some reason we do miss them
Speaker 6: and we haven't picked them up that day, give us
Speaker 6: a call and we'll be sure come back and get
Speaker 6: those materials. So along with the grass and the leaves,
Speaker 6: we also will take sticks and branches if they bundle
Speaker 6: that material up, and no more than fifty pounds and
Speaker 6: no more than four foot in length. We'll also colleck
Speaker 6: that material material for you, so encourage all the citizens
Speaker 6: to take care of that. I was out early this
Speaker 6: morning and I saw a few locations where there was
Speaker 6: a mountain of bags of leaves. So some people are
Speaker 6: going to participate and take advantage of it, and that's
Speaker 6: what we got it out there for. We might also
Speaker 6: remind people holiday trash schedule actually fortunates this year. Of
Speaker 6: course we've gotten through now Thanksgiving, but upcoming Christmas and
Speaker 6: New Year's is actually going to fall on a Wednesday
Speaker 6: this year, so typically it's not going to affect the
Speaker 6: residential collection. A little bit on the commercial side, which
Speaker 6: we'll pick that up the day before.
Speaker 2: But again if it's a.
Speaker 6: Residential collection, you don't have to worry about getting it
Speaker 6: out before or after because we don't work the residential
Speaker 6: guys don't pick up on Wednesdays anyway, So with the
Speaker 6: holiday falling on that day, we're good.
Speaker 2: For those two days. Wait, no confusion, that's the way
Speaker 2: we like it. Easier the better.
Speaker 6: So just to encourage people, like to say, with the
Speaker 6: holiday season, make sure they're kind of following the rules
Speaker 6: and regulations. Have your carts out to the street by
Speaker 6: six o'clock in the morning. Typically, I like to tell people,
Speaker 6: you know, it's better just to put it out the
Speaker 6: night before.
Speaker 2: That way you don't miss it.
Speaker 6: We have a lot of relief drivers sometimes during the
Speaker 6: holiday seasons that fill in, so sometimes the routes kind
Speaker 6: of like the mailman. You expect him to come by
Speaker 6: at ten oh five and some days he comes by
Speaker 6: at eight o'clock, sometimes at noon, and we can be
Speaker 6: that way sometimes. So make sure you put it out
Speaker 6: first thing in the morning at six o'clock. Have it
Speaker 6: out at the street. Nothing within five foot of the cart,
Speaker 6: so no obstructions. Make sure we can get to the cart.
Speaker 6: Make sure everything is inside the cart. We've had some
Speaker 6: issues with people stacking materials and things on top of
Speaker 6: the carts. And make sure all the material in the
Speaker 6: carts also bagged. We want all that Christmas paper and
Speaker 6: wrapping flying all over the place and we're picking it up.
Speaker 6: So bag all the material, make sure it's in the carts,
Speaker 6: and get it out to the street by six o'clock
Speaker 6: and we'll be sure and get it picked up for you.
Speaker 3: Well, very good, And while we have you here, and
Speaker 3: this is gonna keep me from calling you at like
Speaker 3: four in the morning when it snows.
Speaker 2: Okay, how do we go about?
Speaker 3: What's the procedure here as far as snow removal in
Speaker 3: the city.
Speaker 6: We actually have a snow removal policy that was established
Speaker 6: several years ago and it kind of outlines the procedure
Speaker 6: that we follow when we do the snow removal. And
Speaker 6: typically that will be the arterial streets first. So usually
Speaker 6: those are the ones that you know you're gonna have
Speaker 6: the first issues with travel on those bridges, overpasses, artillial streets,
Speaker 6: So we start with those and then we work into
Speaker 6: the residential areas or collector streets. Also, the only streets
Speaker 6: that we actually plow snow in the City of Barlsville
Speaker 6: is the arterials. We do not plow snow in the
Speaker 6: residential areas.
Speaker 2: Is such a.
Speaker 6: Problem with blocking driveways and what have you that typically
Speaker 6: just doesn't work out and in the time issue of
Speaker 6: you know, trying to get to all those So we
Speaker 6: do have a policy that we follow describes what we
Speaker 6: do sand salt and where we plow.
Speaker 3: There you go you have do is go to City
Speaker 3: of Bartlesville dot org and he'll be right there.
Speaker 2: You bet we should be on our website.
Speaker 3: All right, good, all right, Uh Terry, let's talk a
Speaker 3: little bit of water the unpros.
Speaker 4: Yeah no, we'll uh well, let's let's let Jason do
Speaker 4: his thing, because we all everything runs on the finances
Speaker 4: of the city.
Speaker 2: Let's do that.
Speaker 5: Let's microphone, that's right. I want Jason to get his
Speaker 5: time in the in the limelight.
Speaker 7: In the well.
Speaker 2: You know he takes so much, Yeah, he does.
Speaker 7: Earlier. So sound Sex was up.
Speaker 8: This this this month December eight is that almost eight
Speaker 8: point five percent, which is good because last week last
Speaker 8: month was down eight point four percent. They kind of
Speaker 8: flipped flip the months there, so he's doing gray. We're
Speaker 8: up one percent compared to last year currently and we
Speaker 8: you know, we budget really conservatively, so we're up almost
Speaker 8: two one two and a half percent compared to budget
Speaker 8: on the year.
Speaker 7: Flip that over to US tax.
Speaker 8: US tax kind of had a battle month, down twenty
Speaker 8: percent on the US tax side.
Speaker 7: Looking at that though, it is compared to the.
Speaker 8: Largest use tax being last year, the largest use tax
Speaker 8: month we've had today, which there's not a whole lot
Speaker 8: of data points here yet, but that being said, we're
Speaker 8: still we're still up a quarter of a percent compared
Speaker 8: to budget and we're.
Speaker 7: Still station the tax. Well, so use tax is now
Speaker 7: online sales tax.
Speaker 8: So when you shop at Amazon, you shop at any
Speaker 8: kind of store that has an online presence that doesn't
Speaker 8: have a physical presence in the state of Oklahoma, your
Speaker 8: sales tax is going to be collected as use tax.
Speaker 8: It's a companion tack two sales tax, so it goes
Speaker 8: hand in hand with it. But in the older days
Speaker 8: the internet, online sales tax wasn't collected, but you.
Speaker 2: Just weren't collected sales tax.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so our state codified the online sales tax has
Speaker 8: used tax, so that's why we see.
Speaker 7: It in that form versus just sales tax collection.
Speaker 2: Good to know.
Speaker 4: So on the sales tax, what months Sometimes people think
Speaker 4: that that's actually from, for example, last month.
Speaker 5: How much behind is the reporting on that sales It's.
Speaker 7: About a month and a half behind. You got to
Speaker 7: realize if you.
Speaker 8: Went and spent your money today at the store, the
Speaker 8: store holds it in trust until they're reporting time, do
Speaker 8: they and they submit it to the State of Oklahoma.
Speaker 8: State of Oklahoma holds it for a period of time
Speaker 8: and then they remitted to us. It's about a month
Speaker 8: and a halfe so we get the usually around the
Speaker 8: eighth of the ninth, we'll get a deposit from the
Speaker 8: state that it's really from the prior month, a month
Speaker 8: and a half to that, and all goes. I'm I'm
Speaker 8: not a business owner, so I don't know when they're
Speaker 8: they get to choose what dates they're filing to pay their.
Speaker 7: Taxes with the State of Oklahoma.
Speaker 8: But I'm sure it probably varies in there to when
Speaker 8: you started doing your business. That would be my assumption
Speaker 8: on that side of it. So it is a I say,
Speaker 8: it's a.
Speaker 7: Month month and a half behind lag.
Speaker 8: So we're seeing so December sales, we're seeing you know,
Speaker 8: October sales.
Speaker 7: And this is what we'recing.
Speaker 4: And how much should we budget as far as did
Speaker 4: we budget a flat sales tax for this this budget cycle,
Speaker 4: this budget period or did we.
Speaker 8: We always budget reduced usually conservatively, And obviously we'll look
Speaker 8: at how sales tax performing the last quarter of the year,
Speaker 8: and we usually stayed between a one percent and two
Speaker 8: and a half percent decline from the previous year.
Speaker 4: There you go, well good and so so if somebody
Speaker 4: has just a keen interest in sales tax or really
Speaker 4: finding out more about the youth tax or getting into
Speaker 4: the numbers, which I'm sure there's individuals who just like you,
Speaker 4: Jason Jay, they just want to dive in the numbers.
Speaker 4: Who can they reach out to you? Can they find
Speaker 4: that online or what's their resource?
Speaker 8: You can? You can go to the State of Oklahoma's website.
Speaker 8: We have this information because you know, that's where I
Speaker 8: get mind phrase to put these together. Stable Oklahoma Tax
Speaker 8: Missions website. Okay, Now, you don't really get a whole
Speaker 8: lot of data. You just kind of get lump some totals.
Speaker 8: What was a positive You can look at all the
Speaker 8: METIS spiles around the state what they collected.
Speaker 7: There's not really a great level of detail.
Speaker 8: We have to sign CONFIDENCEI out is with the State
Speaker 8: of Oklahoma to get detailed information because you can look
Speaker 8: back and see individual store sales and from a competitive standpoint,
Speaker 8: try to try to backdoor on their.
Speaker 7: Monthly sales totals.
Speaker 8: So this confidential information that we get to see that
Speaker 8: not everyone would get to see. But you can't go
Speaker 8: to tax missions website and see that.
Speaker 4: Okay, So on the sales tax, actually the vendors pay
Speaker 4: the state and then the states US. So the city
Speaker 4: really doesn't collect sales ta the collection side, right, so
Speaker 4: we we really don't find out until.
Speaker 5: We get the checker they posted.
Speaker 7: We have no idea.
Speaker 8: We can kind of see how the state's trending a
Speaker 8: little bit and kind of have an idea, but still
Speaker 8: we're not. We're out here on an island by ourselves.
Speaker 8: So a lot of times what the state does isn't
Speaker 8: always indicative of how.
Speaker 2: We're going to do well.
Speaker 4: And I think sales tax people get maybe confused and
Speaker 4: that they think that the cities operate on property tax
Speaker 4: or some other revenue source, but really it's ninety percent
Speaker 4: of its sales tax.
Speaker 8: Truthfully, majority majority of our operations in funded with sales tax,
Speaker 8: especially over the general fund, police, fire, arcs, streets, General
Speaker 8: fund funded, no property tax funds operation that's only for
Speaker 8: debt service on general obligation bonds.
Speaker 4: So yeah, so that's so, I know, water, wastewater and
Speaker 4: sanitation run off of the utility bills.
Speaker 5: So those utility.
Speaker 4: Bills really don't reimburse fences for street department, please fire
Speaker 4: those sorts of things.
Speaker 5: Those are all self.
Speaker 4: Contained entities and funded through whatever revenue it is as
Speaker 4: far as water and waste, wires and sensation come off
Speaker 4: that utility.
Speaker 7: Building, that's how we derive your utility rates.
Speaker 5: Right, So then on recovery.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so the sales tax really funds the majority of
Speaker 4: the operation of the city, which is primarily police and fire.
Speaker 3: That's that's the larger of the largest, the largest A
Speaker 3: little bit goes Keith's way.
Speaker 2: A little bit.
Speaker 8: I'd say it's probably one of the middle sized department
Speaker 8: as far as dollars go. It's somewhere in the middle,
Speaker 8: police and fire being the largest two departments, right, Tom.
Speaker 6: We might also mention Benza just kind of come up
Speaker 6: on the holiday season, had some questions about recycling. It's
Speaker 6: a good time of year to keep that in mind
Speaker 6: with all the cardboard and stuff that you gather. The
Speaker 6: recycle site is actually operated by a company called Replenish.
Speaker 6: We kind of went into an agreement with them. Gosh,
Speaker 6: probably been three or four years now. Worked out pretty well,
Speaker 6: worked out very well for me, especially a lot less
Speaker 6: time for us be involved with it. So Replenish is
Speaker 6: open at the site Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I believe
Speaker 6: it's seven to four, so they have staff there every day,
Speaker 6: but they're typically only open for collections on those days
Speaker 6: in those hours. So again when encourage people those gift
Speaker 6: boxes and things as they want to recycle them and
Speaker 6: get them up to recycle center along with the plastics
Speaker 6: and other glass and things that they take, steel cans,
Speaker 6: aluminum cans.
Speaker 2: So the site is open.
Speaker 6: It's been a good partnership with Replenish. We basically supply
Speaker 6: them a site, the property that they use, and pretty
Speaker 6: much everything else they is on them, the collection, the packaging,
Speaker 6: the trucking and everything they do. All that we do
Speaker 6: occasionally help with some transport as far as labor to
Speaker 6: help load trucks, but in general it's all a Replenished
Speaker 6: organization and the partnership's worked out very well for us.
Speaker 6: And encourage people to use that site over there at
Speaker 6: eleventh and Virginia seven to four Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Speaker 2: Very good.
Speaker 4: Are there any restrictions on what they can recycle or
Speaker 4: things that?
Speaker 6: There are some restrictions and I hate to sit here
Speaker 6: and quote me what they are. I mean they take
Speaker 6: most plastics and the people they are familiar with recycling
Speaker 6: we're not currently taking they aren't taking paper. I mean
Speaker 6: they take cardboard, but they don't take like newspapers, and
Speaker 6: I don't think anymore. They do take glass, they take
Speaker 6: aluminum cans, they take steel cans, and you get into
Speaker 6: the pet one.
Speaker 2: Two's the trees, which are like your milk, drugs and
Speaker 2: water bottles and those things they take.
Speaker 6: So most of the normal things, it's about having a
Speaker 6: place to market and to sell it. So some of
Speaker 6: the things that they don't take are something that there's
Speaker 6: just not a market for. They have no way to
Speaker 6: dispose of it, so they can't take it.
Speaker 2: So like lithium batteries, things like.
Speaker 6: No battery collections on the site, had no tires. You know,
Speaker 6: we do typically in the spring, we partner with Operation
Speaker 6: clean House where you do collective of those.
Speaker 2: Type of materials once a year.
Speaker 6: But NEI, as Terry mentioned, no hazardous materials of all
Speaker 6: the liquids or chemicals and things like that.
Speaker 4: So yeah, so that makes it brings up a great point.
Speaker 4: If you do have use motor oil or maybe some
Speaker 4: fluids from your vehicle or whatever. Uh, there are some
Speaker 4: entities around town that will take that. Possibly, I know
Speaker 4: Walmart will take used motor oil. There may be some.
Speaker 5: Other entities that do that, but a lot of it you.
Speaker 4: Just have to hang on to until we do that
Speaker 4: annual hazardous waste disposal event, which I think typically is
Speaker 4: in theah so you just have to kind of hold
Speaker 4: tight with that and then dispose of it through that mechanism.
Speaker 5: There it so.
Speaker 4: Well, we are going to well before we jump into water.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: We certainly want to kind of touch base about the
Speaker 4: city council meeting that was held last week, so that
Speaker 4: we did have three new council members that were sworn in, uh,
Speaker 4: so we want to congratulate them on their new uh
Speaker 4: their new term or their new service. So that was
Speaker 4: Larry East, Tim Shehrrick, and then Aaron Kapatrick.
Speaker 5: So those are the three new council members. They the council.
Speaker 4: Did elect to uh to put Jim Kurt as the
Speaker 4: mayor and then as Trevor dor Say as the vice mayor.
Speaker 4: So that is your counsel for this h at least
Speaker 4: next two years, I believe is their term. Uh So
Speaker 4: they're h they have hit the ground running. We did
Speaker 4: have an orientation for them last week on Thursday to
Speaker 4: help get them up to speed and help understand kind
Speaker 4: of the diversity of the city government and all the
Speaker 4: things that we that that they now have some some
Speaker 4: responsibility for. But I think it was a good event.
Speaker 4: It was a it was a long day for I
Speaker 4: think everybody, but they were able to tour a number
Speaker 4: of facilities as well as different operation components of it.
Speaker 4: And then in the afternoon they had some presentations, received
Speaker 4: some presentations regarding the various functions of those departments and
Speaker 4: some of the other topics that have been ongoing throughout
Speaker 4: the you know, throughout the term or you know, throughout
Speaker 4: the last few years. But one of those was water supply.
Speaker 4: So that's my little segue into water supply.
Speaker 2: Then a little topic wow.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So it took a lot of words to get there.
Speaker 4: So anyways, as many people know, we had a drought
Speaker 4: about a year and a half ago, well started a
Speaker 4: year and a half ago. It finished really early this year,
Speaker 4: kind of January February of this year.
Speaker 5: But I always like.
Speaker 4: To touch base on a little bit of the history
Speaker 4: of our water supply and what we've done and why
Speaker 4: we've done it. But our our journey really started back
Speaker 4: in two thousand and one. Two thousand and two, we
Speaker 4: had a moderate drop for a few months, but our
Speaker 4: water supply at Hue Lake fell down to less than
Speaker 4: twenty percent. So that's if you're familiar with our water
Speaker 4: supply sources. We currently have four, but Hughe is our
Speaker 4: largest storage vessel, so that has over sixty percent of
Speaker 4: the water that we have available for us to consume.
Speaker 4: Then we have next is going to be the Kenney
Speaker 4: River is our next largest one than Hudson Lake, and
Speaker 4: then our smallest water supply source by water right is
Speaker 4: co Op Lake. So those are our four water sources.
Speaker 5: That we use.
Speaker 4: But in one oh two that was down to below
Speaker 4: twenty percent, and so that really started our long journey
Speaker 4: looking for different sources.
Speaker 5: So we have done a number of studies.
Speaker 4: One of those studies was to look at how much
Speaker 4: water do you need, how much water will your existing
Speaker 4: sources provide, and then where do you find.
Speaker 5: That extra water to bridge the gap.
Speaker 4: So that sudy was done and completed in two thousand
Speaker 4: and seven, and what it recommended was to secure the
Speaker 4: water storage that's available at Copan Lake and then to
Speaker 4: reallocate flood control to water supply at both Hula and
Speaker 4: Copan Lake. So when they talk about reallocation of flood control,
Speaker 4: the water supply. Those lakes, which are both owned by
Speaker 4: the corp of Engineers at Hula and Copan, have certain
Speaker 4: zones that are designated for a specific use. So the
Speaker 4: normal pool or what they normally operate at is water
Speaker 4: supply and recreation. And then during flood events, they have
Speaker 4: forty plus feet that's reserved for flood control, so it
Speaker 4: run off from various rain events.
Speaker 5: Gets stored there. They release it at a reduced.
Speaker 4: Rate to mitigate downstream flooding, and so those lakes have
Speaker 4: that as a major component of its operations. So when
Speaker 4: we reallocate flood control the water supply, we actually raise
Speaker 4: that water level so that the water there's more water
Speaker 4: stored there during the normal events or during normal usage,
Speaker 4: and then that makes more water available.
Speaker 5: For us for a water supply perspective.
Speaker 4: So those are the recommendations from that study. And it
Speaker 4: took us literally took us twelve years in an Act
Speaker 4: of Congress to get the storage rights from Copan Lake.
Speaker 4: So the way that that operates is that you buy
Speaker 4: the storage the storage at those lakes for water supply,
Speaker 4: and those storage amounts are controlled by the Army Corps
Speaker 4: of Engineers and it's their policy they charge the original
Speaker 4: construction costs plus interest, So when that lake was finished,
Speaker 4: they then charge interest from that completion date to whatever
Speaker 4: date that you want to purchase that water right. So
Speaker 4: for example, at Heal Lake, we bought all the water
Speaker 4: rights and have had that for forty to fifty plus years.
Speaker 4: But at Copan Lake, we have just entered that contractor
Speaker 4: just entered that game as far as purchasing water supply
Speaker 4: at that lake, but a fairly substantial cost. And so
Speaker 4: at Copan Lake, for us to buy a million gallons
Speaker 4: worth of water storage a day would initially cost US
Speaker 4: seven million dollars.
Speaker 5: That's what the quota price was from the corp.
Speaker 4: Of Engineers, and that's what they held firm to and
Speaker 4: when you visit with them about negotiating a price, because
Speaker 4: it's a lake that's already built, already paid for by
Speaker 4: tax dollars, there's no other entity that's clamoring for that
Speaker 4: water supply. So one would assume that we can negotiate
Speaker 4: a deal that would provide them cost but maybe be
Speaker 4: a little bit more cost effective for us to pursue.
Speaker 4: But the Core unfortunately doesn't operate that way. It's this
Speaker 4: is our policy. This is the cost and if you
Speaker 4: want any deviation of that, it requires an Act of Congress.
Speaker 2: To do that.
Speaker 3: Is this where they go from the Army Corps of
Speaker 3: engineers to the Army Corps attorneys.
Speaker 4: That's one of the yes, yeah, the acronyms that we've
Speaker 4: heard just to get numerous times through that. So, being
Speaker 4: a water utility, any cost that we have to spend
Speaker 4: for water supplier, you know, capital provement, that cost gets
Speaker 4: relayed to the consumer, and so we want to keep
Speaker 4: those costs down as much as possible. So looking at
Speaker 4: not only what the cost of Copan would be, but
Speaker 4: as well as the cost of those flood control reallocations
Speaker 4: would be up in the sixty million dollar range. And
Speaker 4: that's a fairly substantial cost that our rate payers would
Speaker 4: have to take on our to reimburse or pay for.
Speaker 4: And so we felt, as well as Council felt that
Speaker 4: we need to get pricing in.
Speaker 5: More affordable terms for us.
Speaker 4: And so that resulted in going through Congress actually with
Speaker 4: federal legislation to do that, and so that took us
Speaker 4: twelve years to get that first trants of water supply
Speaker 4: at Copan Lake, which was in twenty twenty. So instead
Speaker 4: of paying seven million dollars, that ended up being two
Speaker 4: hundreds out two hundred and five.
Speaker 2: Thousand dollars, so quit substantial savings, just.
Speaker 4: Savings, but we are continuing to look at and pursue
Speaker 4: reallocation at those lakes as well as there are some
Speaker 4: additional water stores available at Copan Lake, but that again
Speaker 4: takes an Act of Congress for us to access.
Speaker 5: So we are.
Speaker 4: Pursuing those water supply and water storage contracts through those entities,
Speaker 4: and that's really all through federal legislation. So we have
Speaker 4: been working with Senator Langford, with Senator Mollen, Congressman Boukin
Speaker 4: and their staff in order to craft legislation to put
Speaker 4: through a Water Resource of Development Act is typical mechanism.
Speaker 5: That that legislation routes through.
Speaker 4: So we have been working with the Senators and congressmen
Speaker 4: and their staff to craft that language and get that
Speaker 4: in so that we can get the federal legislation needed
Speaker 4: to move forward with these items.
Speaker 5: So we believe that we have that in the twenty
Speaker 5: twenty four were to act as far as to access.
Speaker 4: The remaining storage at Copan Lake, so that language is
Speaker 4: in that bill, it is yet to be signed in
Speaker 4: the law. They're still working out the differences between the
Speaker 4: Senate and the House on the disparity between their languages.
Speaker 4: So hopefully they're able to reconcile that and that will
Speaker 4: be signed in the law. We're hopeful sometime in twenty
Speaker 4: twenty five, but time will tell. And that's kind of
Speaker 4: the crutz of it is there's years where the legislation
Speaker 4: just dies doesn't go forward, uh and there's other years
Speaker 4: that we're able to get something.
Speaker 5: So we're somewhat beholden to.
Speaker 4: Uh all of that legislative body to pass that that
Speaker 4: act that would.
Speaker 5: Facilitate us moving forward with that very good.
Speaker 4: So we have we have met with the Water Resources
Speaker 4: Committee and we've looked at a number of other options
Speaker 4: as far as water supply.
Speaker 2: UH.
Speaker 4: So we've looked at call Lake, Birch, Lake Skytook Lake,
Speaker 4: the Ooligau Keystone, as well as uh aquifer finished water
Speaker 4: or treated water from the Tulsa area. And so we've
Speaker 4: we've gone through and looked at to see what's available.
Speaker 4: But the Water Resources Committee is tasked staff to investigate
Speaker 4: four items and more detail, and so that involves Call
Speaker 4: Lake again, Hulan Copan as well as the aid of
Speaker 4: a Musa aquifer, which is a major aquifer in central
Speaker 4: Osh County that has quite a bit of water rights
Speaker 4: available within it.
Speaker 6: If I understood you right before, and I've heard you
Speaker 6: talk about it. So the CORE releases water from Heala
Speaker 6: and Copine daily that we have no control over a
Speaker 6: certain amount and we pick it up down here the river.
Speaker 2: Basically we get free water from that. Is that right or.
Speaker 5: It in a sense?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 4: In a sense, yes, So Heala and Copine when they
Speaker 4: were built, the Core had a policy that they had
Speaker 4: to release a certain amount of water between those lakes
Speaker 4: for environmental water quality issues or concerns they had downstream.
Speaker 4: And so that results or amounts some eleven million gawns
Speaker 4: of water a day at a minimum. So when they've
Speaker 4: got water in the flood control they release more, but
Speaker 4: as a minimum, they have to release eleven million gawns
Speaker 4: of water a day until there's no water left in
Speaker 4: those lakes. And so that's their policy, and that policy
Speaker 4: is it might as well be minted in the law
Speaker 4: because that's how they operate the lakes. And so even
Speaker 4: during our our drought last year, the heart of it,
Speaker 4: when I think Copine got down to thirty something percent.
Speaker 4: Hula was down in that threshold at one time as well,
Speaker 4: they were still releasing eleven million gallons out of those lakes.
Speaker 5: Every day every day.
Speaker 4: So what we do, and part of is how we've
Speaker 4: changed our operation on how we manage our water supply,
Speaker 4: is that we used the original water supply at the
Speaker 4: Caney Rivers. That's a little dam, low water dam and
Speaker 4: intake structure right next to Kitti Park. So we pull
Speaker 4: out of that every day twenty four hours a day,
Speaker 4: seven days a week, full year, and so we use
Speaker 4: that every day, which can supply water really for about
Speaker 4: six seven months of the year solely and it's by itself.
Speaker 4: But during the summer and spring months when consumption increases
Speaker 4: because of outdoor water use, then we supplement with the
Speaker 4: lakes at copane Cula as well as Hudson there. So
Speaker 4: that's the way that we manage those sources to kind
Speaker 4: of keep that as a fishing and hold as much
Speaker 4: water in the lakes as possible. But ye, the Core
Speaker 4: does release lakes from Hula and Copen every day, and
Speaker 4: they do have websites where you can check to see
Speaker 4: how much they're releasing and what those elevations are at
Speaker 4: those fatigular lakes, but back on the aid of a
Speaker 4: Mussa aquifer, so we've looked into that there is water
Speaker 4: rights available. Unfortunately, the yield of that aquifer is not
Speaker 4: very good. So if we had twenty five water wells,
Speaker 4: that would yield us about.
Speaker 5: One point four million gallons of water day.
Speaker 4: So it's just not a very a very porous aquifer
Speaker 4: and not a real high yield type offerer, so that
Speaker 4: probably won't really suffice us to make a substantial improvement
Speaker 4: with our long term water sources. We've also completed a
Speaker 4: study looking at Call Lake and so those prices range
Speaker 4: from about two hundred and fifty million to three hundred
Speaker 4: million to build the pipeline and pump station to.
Speaker 5: Get that water at Call Lake.
Speaker 4: The one good thing at Call Lake is it more
Speaker 4: water than we will need for the next two hundred
Speaker 4: plus years, so it has a lot of water storage available.
Speaker 4: The problem is just the cost and the distance to
Speaker 4: potentially go secure that hula and copin it's going to
Speaker 4: require additional congressional acts to get some traction and move
Speaker 4: forward with that. Heal is by far the most cost
Speaker 4: effective option for us to pursue. We already have infrastructure
Speaker 4: there at the lake to get water to our water
Speaker 4: supply sources and to the treatment plant, and so we've
Speaker 4: really been focusing on HULA to facilitate a flood control
Speaker 4: reallocation and different options that we may look at that
Speaker 4: but by far HEAL is the most cost effective option
Speaker 4: for us to pursue. But we will have a Water
Speaker 4: Resources Committee meeting probably in the next month or so,
Speaker 4: depending on when we can get the committee members together,
Speaker 4: to go over in detail what these options are and
Speaker 4: what the costs have been determined at so that they
Speaker 4: can get that information and potentially recommend a path forward
Speaker 4: with one or more of those. But that's really where
Speaker 4: the water supply stands today and that we we're still
Speaker 4: pursuing it. We need additional water rights for a long
Speaker 4: term perspective. We're good fry for the next fifteen to
Speaker 4: twenty years, certainly even during a significant drought, because even
Speaker 4: this last drout, which was the second second second worst
Speaker 4: drout in history of these areas, that our water supply
Speaker 4: only dipped down to fifty six percent, so oneh two
Speaker 4: is less than twenty percent. With this last really almost
Speaker 4: drought of record we were down to fifty six percent,
Speaker 4: so the things that we are doing to manage it
Speaker 4: and to conserve water are working. We certainly know that
Speaker 4: we need to get additional water supply for long term
Speaker 4: needs in the future, but those are things that we
Speaker 4: will continue to move forward with and address. One other
Speaker 4: thing do want to note here on the last few
Speaker 4: minutes of our time here is that we are pursuing
Speaker 4: an additional source that we have talked about here recently,
Speaker 4: which is water reuse. So we've talked about that in
Speaker 4: great detail in regards to the wastewater treatment plant expansion
Speaker 4: that will generate us about four million goawns of water
Speaker 4: day that we could potentially reuse once that effort is complete.
Speaker 4: We technically don't have that available to us just yet,
Speaker 4: since we have to expand and add additional treatment to
Speaker 4: the plant to facilitate that water stream to us. But
Speaker 4: we are looking at construction to start in twenty twenty
Speaker 4: six and be complete by twenty thirty, So by twenty
Speaker 4: thirty we'll have another four point one million gowns to.
Speaker 5: Add to our portfolio.
Speaker 4: But we're still looking to get at least ten to
Speaker 4: sixteen million goawns more of water day which would suffice
Speaker 4: us for the next one hundred years.
Speaker 2: Very good gentlemen.
Speaker 3: I want to thank you for coming in and bringing
Speaker 3: us up to date on all things city, on city matters.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much for having yourself a great week
Speaker 2: so