Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2006-07-19 Min - Board REGULAR MEETING July 19, 2006 In accordance with District Code Section 2.08.010, the TDPUD minutes are action only minutes. All Board meetings are recorded on audio tapes which are preserved perpetually and made available for listening to any interested party upon their request. The regular meeting of the Board of Directors of the Truckee Donner Public Utility District was called to order at 7:02 PM in the TDPUD Board room by President Hemig. ROLL CALL: Directors Joe Aguera, Ron Hemig, Patricia Sutton, Tim Taylor and Bill Thomason were present. EMPLOYEES PRESENT: Ed Taylor, Kim Szczurek, Nancy Waters, Jim Wilson, Peter Holzmeister, Neil Kaufman, Jessica Wilson, Mary Chapman and Barbara Cahill CONSULTANTS PRESENT: Steve Gross OTHERS PRESENT: Frank and Juanita Schneider and Fred Leidecker PUBLIC INPUT Fred Leidecker asked if the strip of land on Forest Lane will be declared surplus. The Board agreed to place this item on the agenda for August 2, 2006. ACTION ITEMS CONSIDERATION OF APPROVING AND A REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS FOR UNDERWRITER SERVICES FOR THE PROPOSED 2006 CERTIFICATES OF PARTICIPATION ISSUANCE Director Taylor moved and Director Aguera seconded, a motion to approve the Request for Proposals for an underwriter services for the proposed 2006 Certificate of Participation issuance, with a modification in wording under the heading "1996 COP Refunding & Outstanding Debt' to read that the DWR loans are not part of the COP issuance. ROLL CALL: Director Sutton, no (voted no at the last meeting regarding the 6% rate increase, continued concern of rushing to do the COP); Director Thomason, no; All other Directors, aye. SO MOVED. CONSIDERATION OF APPROVING A TRANSFER OF FUNDS FROM WATER FACILITIES FEES TO REIMBURSE THE WATER GENERAL FUND FOR EXPENSES RELATED TO THE BROCKWAY ROAD TRANSMISSION PIPELINE PROJECT. Director Taylor moved and Director Aguera seconded, a motion to authorize the temporary transfer of funds from the Water Facilities Fee Fund to the Water General Fund for the amounts paid to Vulcan Construction for the 24" Brockway Transmission Pipeline project up to and amount of $2,976,939; and further direct staff to return the amount paid for this project out of facilities fees to the facilities fees fund upon receiving the 2006 COP loan proceeds. ROLL CALL: Director Sutton, abstain; All other Directors, aye. SO MOVED. 1 Minutes July 19, 2006 - CONSIDERATION OF A REPORT ON BIDS RECEIVED AND POSSIBLE AWARD OF A CONTRACT FOR PURCHASE OF A GENERATOR FOR USE AT THE DISTRICT HEADQUARTERS BUILDING. Director Aguera moved and Director Taylor seconded, a motion to award the purchase of an Emergency / Standby Power System (Generator Set) to Cashman Equipment of Sparks, NV. in the amount of $41,245.00 (tax not included); and fund from the District's Building Fund. ROLL CALL: All Directors, aye. SO MOVED. CONSIDERATION OF APPROVING PLANS SPECIFICATIONS AND CONTRACT DOCUMENTS AND ISSUING A CALL FOR BIDS FOR PAVING SERVICES RELATED TO RECONSTRUCTION OF THE DONNER LAKE WATER SYSTEM. Director Thomason moved and Director Aguera seconded, a motion to approve the plans and speci- fications for the pavement restoration Project at Donner Lake on Cedar Point Drive, Mt. Judah Drive, Devil's Peak Road and Red Mountain Road for an estimated cost of $100,000; and authorize staff to begin advertising for Bids with a Bid Opening date of August 8, 2006. ROLL CALL: All Directors, aye. SO MOVED. CONSIDERATION OF APPROVING THE DRAFT DISTRICT MISSION STATEMENT, GOALS AND OBJECTIVES Director Taylor moved and Director Thomason seconded, a motion to adopt the above statements of Mission, Goals and Objectives. ®. ROLL CALL: All Directors, aye. SO MOVED. WORKSHOP ITEM DISCUSSION OF A DRAFT RESOLUTION FORMALIZING A DISTRICT CAPITALIZATION POLICY Kim Szczurek explained the capitalization policy is merely a housekeeping issue and ties back to the District mission statement. Most organizations have implemented this policy which addresses levels of expense and depreciation. Board discussion followed: • District has a set time for depreciation • Industry standard for capitalization policy • Government Finance Officers Association is a national group of finance officers- and industry standard board • GASB 34 ROUTINE ITEMS TREASURER'S REPORT Approval of the report: Director Thomason moved, and Director Taylor seconded, that the Board approve the month ended June 2006. - ROLL CALL: All Directors aye, by voice vote. SO MOVED 2 Minutes July 19, 2006 Approval of disbursements: Director Aguera moved, and Director Thomason seconded, that the Board approve the June 2006 disbursements report. ROLL CALL: Director Sutton, no; All other Directors, aye. SO MOVED. STAFF REPORTS No action taken. ADJOURNMENT There being no further business before the Board, the meeting was adjourned at 8:30 PM. TRUCKEE DO R PU C UTILITY (STRICT J. Ron He ig, resident Prepared by 0'1 u (v a tAe Barbara Cahi Deputy District Clerk bhc 3 Minutes July 19, 2006 Agenda Item # . . Public Utility District Staff Report To: Board of Directors From: Stephen Hollabaugh Date: July 13, 2006 For the month of: July 2006 ASSISTANT GENERAL MANAGER, ELECTRIC UTILITY MANAGER POWER SUPPLY ENGINEER— Updated by Stephen Hollabaugh, Updated 711312006 WAPA (Western Area Power Administration): I submitted our proposal with the City of Fallon for the Stampede Generation on June 7, 2006. This generation will be a great asset to our power supply portfolio. Western is sending through their departments for review. To date I have not heard anything new to report. Our submittal was the only submittal for this generation. Stay tuned to future updates. Making progress with a Federal agency can sometimes take time. Power Supply: The month of June has been normal compared to historical May loads. I have been able to meet our load needs with our Constellation contract and buying some amount of energy from the market at good prices. This helps in two ways. Our load is up and we are able to buy more energy at a lower price than our Constellation contract. Our WAPA contract has been performing well due to the water releases. I have been able to use this kWh value to buy power from the market to meet our customers load needs. Through June, the District has bought about 4.7% more energy than forecast and paid about 6.9% less than budgeted. Taken together, the District is about 11.5% under forecasted expenditures. (See the attached Purchased Power sheet that is meant to be a summary snapshot for Management and the Boards information) ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING — Updated by Joe Horvath 7/13/06 1 have been supervising the designs for electrical line extensions on numerous developments projects. In addition, I have been preparing a design to extend a three phase overhead circuit to the Prosser Lakeview area from Sugar Pine Estates via Alder Creek Drive. The Alder Creek Road right-of-way is on land owned by the USDA Forest Service. They need to perform an environmental review before giving approval to the District. I continue to prepare and modify electrical construction standard drawings and construction standard units (CUs) for job cost estimating and material staging requirements. I am programming new recloser controls for the District's Donner Lake and Tahoe Donner Substations and incorporating them into our existing electric SCADA system. In addition, I have been coordinating with our SCADA vendor as they prepare to install new master station computers to replace our 10 year old units. Page 1 of 2 �. ELECTRIC OPERATIONS & CONSTRUCTION — Updated by Jim Wilson 07113106 Electric Outages: Since my last staff report we have had three outages. On the 22nd of June a vehicle traveling westbound on Brockway Road tried to pass another vehicle on the shoulder of the road and lost control and hit a pad mounted switch. This caused a power outage effecting our customers from the Best Western to the airport. The impact pushed the switch off the concrete pad, shearing off three 200 amp energized primary cables and pulling six, 600 amp primary cables, which broke the bushings on the switch. The switch and the 200 amp cable was replaced and the power was restored. There is an on going investigation being conducted by Truckee Police Department, however at this point it does not appear that the driver was insured as he was an illegal alien. On Saturday June 24th a fuse blew causing power to be lost to some of the Old Greenwood cabins. On Sunday June 25th lightning caused a pole mounted transformer to fail and power to be lost to some of our customers in the Barnes Drive area of Prosser Heights. Work in Progress: Donner Crest subdivision, Plumas Bank and, Grey's Crossing phase 1, MD construction (in the industrial park), and two primary line extensions in Tahoe Donner have been completed. Grey's Crossing phase 2 is well under way and we expect to be able to power up the first home sometime next week. Vacant Positions: The District still has three journeyman lineman positions open. There was only one response from the union hall and he only worked here for one week before leaving. We are utilizing two rent-a-linemen from PAR electric which has helped us to stay on top of the high workload of summer. GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS - Updated by Ian Fitzgerald 6-15-2006 We will be completed our server/software upgrade this week. The upgrade is a major project that involves 7 servers, oracle databases, web services, automated data migration, and wireless integration. Beyond the initial hiccups, the upgrade has been going fairly smoothly and quickly. Results of the upgrade are already becoming apparent in the speed of access to the GIS data. Web access to our GIS has improved so greatly, speed improvement of over 1000%, that the software has already begun seeing more use than ever in the past. The Aerial/LIDAR project has begun. Survey took place in the later half of June, and data collection flights for the LIDAR and Photography have a planned time frame for the first two weeks of July. We expect finished data to be delivered around October, in time for next year's engineering. Kevin, our intern, has been performing very well in his position. This internship trial has been a great success. will be attending ESRI's user conference in San Diego the first Week of August. This is the world's largest conference with over 15,000 attendees. We will be advocating for new changes in our existing software that will help better our return on investment with the software. Page 2 of 2 Truckee Donner Public Utility District Purchased Power June-06 June-06 06-YTD 06-YTD 06-Annual Actual Budget Actual Budget Budget Load Data Total Load-MWH(including transmission losses) 11,396 10,979 78,559 75,002 150,168,128 Peak MW 20.0 18.9 Total Load-MWH%Actual---Above or(below)Budget 3.8% 4.7% Purchases(All In MW) Total Schedule All MWH Purchases-from All Suppliers 11,486 10,979 79,892 75,002 150,168,128 Load Scheduled-Other-NCPA etc.(Market Purchases) 788 Load Scheduled-Constellation Energy(Block,Call,Put) 10,698 Expenditures Constellation Power Supply Cost$ $557,277 $597,982 $3,692,614 $3,981,559 $8,059,465 Sierra Pacifc Power Co.Transmission Costs$ $73026 $67,132 $431,411 $450,790 $893,023 NCPA Power Supply Cost from Market Purchases $48:025 $ - $344,674 $ - NCPA Scheduling $6,199 $6,200 $37,194 $24,800 $74,400 NCPA Market Purchases-Paid from WAPA Acct at NCPA ($48,025) $ - ($344,674) $ - Total Expenditures $636,502 $671,314 $4,161,219 $4,469,549 $9,026,888 %over/(Under)Budget$ -5.19% -6.90% Total Unit Cost of Purchased Power$/MWh $55.85 $61.15 $52.97 $59.59 $60.11 Note: *Estimated Cost Agenda Item # 11 's. w ■ D s `+ Public Utility III` Staff Report To: Board of Directors From: Mary Chapman Date: July 13, 2006 CUSTOMER SERVICE: Customer service activity has been normal for this time of year. Applications for new residential services have been coming in slowly these last couple of weeks. MONTHLY WORK: Our monthly work is current. This includes meter reading, billing, accounts payable, payroll and general ledger. The staff is working diligently on closing work orders. There's still a lot of catch up to do here. ACCOUNTING: Besides their routine work, the accounting group has been working on the following project work: Kim has been working on developing draft policies on the capitalization of District assets and investing District funds. These policies are required by GASB 34 and GASB 40 respectively. Kim has begun working on the 2007 budget. There's a lot of setup work that needs to be done before the staff can begin their work. We expect to begin the formal process in August. Kim has also worked with Muni Financial to submit the District's annual administrative expenses on the Donner Lake Assessment District, Old Greenwood CFD and the Gray's Crossing CFD annual billings. The counties will be sending the tax bills out this fall. Tricia and Kim have been working on updating and modifying the financial master plan. They have made great progress. They're planning on making a presentation to the Board in August. Tricia has been working to design new capital improvements reports for the staff and the Board. Tami has been working with Nevada and Placer counties to process the annual standby charges. Tami and Julie are working diligently on closing development agreements and work orders in general. They are also training Suzanne our utility clerk on how to use the miscellaneous billing system and do other work order related work. Craig and Jennifer are working to set up staff timesheets on line which should save everyone using them some time and make the timesheet approval process easier. Jennifer is beginning to work with vendors to implement electronic payment of invoices for those who would prefer receiving their payment in this manner. She will be sending all of our vendors a letter within the next couple of weeks asking them if they are interested. This will be an ongoing project. 1 METER READING: The meter readers have begun to do the GO 165 inspection work that they do each summer to help the electric department. Their part involves visiting and inspecting customer service locations to make sure that they are in good repair. If they find anything wrong (such as a loose panel, low service wire or a tree limb on a service drop), they report the results to the electric department who sends a service crew to make the repairs. BILLING: Lauren and Craig are working on the integration between the billing system software and the accounting system software. Once this process is in place and the bugs are worked out, Lauren and Craig will each save some time at the end of the month and at the end of the year. Currently, the month end billing summary report is prepared in an Excel spreadsheet for the accounting department. The accounting department then posts the billing entry manually. This integration will automate that process. The billing and customer services staff have been working on cleaning up some data fields so that we don't have problems with the outage management system during an outage. We will also be going through our customer address fields to standardize them. This will allow those who run queries to be able to get more reliable feedback on customer data. HUMAN RESOURCES: Nancy has been working to fill the associate mechanic position. She has also been working on updating job descriptions. She is beginning with the positions in the administrative services department. She is expecting the results of the compensation study soon. I was on vacation for two weeks and it was great. After my return and I got back into my routine, my vacation is only a distant memory. I have been working on updating the Donner Lake accounting numbers; reviewing the annual submittals to the counties for the assessment district and CFD submittals; submitted a reimbursement request to East West Partners from the Gray's Crossing project funds; provided Bank of New York, our trustee on our long term debt, copies of the required annual reports and audit report; followed up on loose ends on our insurance renewal; dealt with a few customer billing issues; revised parts of our outage procedure; reviewed the outage procedure with the office staff; dealt with miscellaneous network problems with our contract vendor; worked with staff on a mailer for new customer bills; followed up on our transformer claim with the insurance adjuster; worked with Muni Financial relating to delinquent DLAD and CFD payments; participated in Webinar training with other staff; did a 6-month review for Lauren; reviewed many documents and attended several meetings. 2 Agenda Item # TRUCKEE DONNER Public Utility District Staff Report To: Board of Directors From: Ed Taylor Date: July 13, 2006 Subject: Water Department Monthly Staff Report Water Department Capital Projects—Office Engineering The following is a brief summary of the projects currently underway: • Donner Lake Paving—One of the remaining issues at Donner Lake involves pavement restoration of four streets: Cedar Point Drive, Devil's Peak Road, Mt. Judah Drive and Red Mountain Road. Per the encroachment permits issued by Placer County and The Town of Truckee, the District is responsible for a pavement overlay on these streets. A draft of the Contract Documents for this project has been completed and sent to the Town and Placer County for review. The current project schedule is given below: July 19, 2006—Board Authorization to Begin Advertising for Bids August 8,2006—Bid Opening August 16, 2006—Award of Contract • Donner Lake 6323 Tank Landscaping — Per the Encroachment Permit issued by the Town of Truckee, the District is responsible for some tree planting at landscaping at the Donner Lake 6323 Tank site. This work was not part of the contracts awarded (and completed) last year. Jessica is working on the Contract Documents for this project. The current project schedule is currently under development. • District Pipeline Replacement —2007— I have begun examining the planned pipeline replacement work for 2007. It is expected that some work will be in Tahoe Donner, with other portions in Sierra Meadows, Glenshire and possibly Prosser Lakeview. The Board recently approved a contract for LIDAR mapping of the entire District. Completion of this mapping will provide a single topographic map that covers the entire service area. This will greatly aid in the future production of design drawings. I am also investigating the possibility of using rehabilitation and/or lining methods to repair some of the failing pipelines. Four pipeline segments have been identified that are good candidates for a lining/rehab project. Water Department Capital Projects—Construction Inspection The following is a brief summary of the projects currently underway: • Brockway Road Transmission Pipeline — Construction began on May 8. The work between Jibboom Street and the railroad tracks has been completed. The work between the railroad tracks and the rodeo ground should be completed prior to the July 0 long weekend. The project is currently about a week behind schedule. To date, two change order items have been identified. One issue involves rock excavation related to installation of the casing underneath the railroad tracks. In writing the specifications, I did not intend for the rock excavation clause to apply to the casing installation. The contractor (and the boring subcontractor) interpreted the specifications differently. A meeting was held with the boring subcontractor on June 7 to discuss the issue. It was agreed that the boring subcontractor was entitled to some additional compensation, the final amount of which would be negotiated upon completion of the casing. The casing installation should be completed by July 21. The second issue involves pavement thickness on Brockway Road. The existing pavement is about 18" thick. Per the Town of Truckee encroachment permit, the District is required to place a 9' thick patch where the pavement has been removed. As described in the Bid Documents, the bid submitted by the contractor is based on an asphalt thickness of 4". Vulcan Construction will be due additional compensation for the additional asphalt thickness. • District Pipeline Replacement — 2006 — Longo Incorporated began construction on Contract B during the week of May 22. The work on Lausanne Way is essentially complete, except for some minor punch list issues. The main line piping and services have been installed on Bennett Flat Road. The pipeline has not passed the pressure test and the contractor is trying to identify the problem. Main line pipe installation has begun on Mougle Lane. The project is currently on schedule. There have been three instances where the old water piping was leaking to the extent that repairs were necessary. Longo Inc. performed these repairs and is due some additional compensation for this work. Developer Projects—Office Engineering Mike Connell has spent time working on projects submitted by developers. As of July 13, there is no backlog. Current turn-around time is about 4-5 days. We are awaiting resubmittal on a number of projects. Developer Projects—Construction Inspection Paul Rose and Mike Connell are currently handling inspection of developer projects for 2006. There are numerous projects under way. Other Issues Burdick excavating has begun working on the traffic roundabout at the intersection of Brockway Road and Martis Valley Road. The water pipeline work has not been performed yet. Caltrans has begun engineering and environmental studies regarding reconstruction of the railroad under crossing on State Route 89 near Deerfield Drive and Western River Street (also known as the "Mousehole"). The District has an existing 12" asbestos-cement pipeline that runs 2 through this under crossing at a skew from one side of the road to the other. Depending upon the final plans for this location, it is possible that the District may be forced to reconstruct this pipeline at District expense. There will not be any construction activity during the Summer of 2006 and I will bring more information to the Board when it is available. Water Department — Operations & Maintenance Distribution: The distribution crew went into high speed on repairing water leaks they repaired 25 leaks which 2 of those leaks were on Swiss the section scheduled for replacement this year. We currently have 15 leaks left to repair on the leak list. They also did 25 open trenches (meter sets), and 1 hot tap, 6' and larger. We have one person full time on this crew to doing USA tickets and meter maintenance. Operations: The Operations Crew is building the Old Greenwood Well building the underground electric work has been done and some off the underground water lines have been put in place all this work has been done by in house crews. Also the building has been constructed. Water Quality/ Inspection: Water Quality/ Inspection for the summer, we now have 2 people doing inspection because of the number of waterline projects going on this summer. On the water quality side, we have been getting air in the water again in the Glenshire area due to the wells in that area are already running 24 hours a day a few days a week. These run times should go down after Old Greenwood Well comes on line. This should take care of the air problem. 3 Agenda Item # TRUCKEE DONNER Public Utility District Staff Report To: Board of Directors From: Kathy Neus, Project Manager Date: July 10, 2006 Monthly Activity Report At the July 5th board meeting there was an inquiry as to whether or not the property located at 11510 Forest Lane, behind the District complex was ever declared surplus; there is no record that the property was ever declared surplus. There have been different discussions about the property but the property was never presented to the Board to declare the property surplus. �- There was a final walk-through with the potential new buyers of the old Del Oro Water Office property. There were a couple of final requests to be completed; nothing major just a little house keeping. The sale of the property closed late on Friday June 29th and the money wired to the District's bank. A for sale sign was placed on the Richards Blvd property over the Fourth of July weekend. There was hope that the sign might generate interest in the property but at this time there has been none. I have answered multiple questions concerning miscellaneous property that the District owns; questions such as what properties are for sale, is a specific parcel for sale, when will the building be torn down and others. I attended a Multi-jurisdiction, Multi-hazard Mitigation Plan meeting at the Town of Truckee. Nevada County is the lead agency for the Town, other incorporated areas and quite a few special districts throughout the county. The ultimate goal is to have a national disaster hazard mitigation program in accordance with the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 and to provide a source of funding for predisaster hazard mitigation. All participants in the county plan has their own list of projects which will be submitted to the county, none of the projects are prioritized other than by the submitting participants. In addition, by participating there is a potential to receive up to an additional 20% monies from FEMA depending on the severity on the disaster. By not joining it would not preclude an agency from receiving FEMA money but it would be tougher to get the monies if needed. There is no cost to participate other than time for meetings. Local agencies participating include the Fire Department, Truckee Sanitary District, Tahoe Truckee Unified School District, Town of Truckee, Truckee Cemetery District and the US Forest Service (there are three projects proposed in Truckee). Agenda Item # � , I. # NNER , c �� Staff Report To: Board of Directors From: Scott Terrell Date: July 12, 2006 Note: Since most of these projects are ongoing, Staff continues to report the basic information and highlights the activities that have occurred during the reporting month. When a projectlactivity is completed it is reported,then deleted from this report. Conservation/DSM/Economic Development/Public Benefits Landscape Water Conservation Workshop Series 2006- Staff is working with Villager nursery August �- 12 on a Landscape Water Conservation Workshop. Staff is working with Trout Creek nursery to find a date for their workshop. Smart & Living EXPO- Staff has been meeting for the last several months organizing a green building conference titled "Smart Living Exposition" that will be held in Reno October 7. This is an annual event which grew out of the Smart & Sustainable Living EXPO held at UNR last year. The Truckee Community will be invited to this event through a TDPUD bill stuffer this Fall. Green Building Tour- Last year's tour took place October 8 and included both Truckee as well as Lake Tahoe. This is a big event building upon last year's very successful event where the tour grew from about 50 people per year to over 75. The green building movement is growing which is creating more interest in the tour. Staff assists every year in updating the Green Building Resource Guide. ft is becoming a Regional Guide this year and will include Truckee, Lake Tahoe and Northern Nevada.The information is very helpful to our customers who want to learn more about GB measures. Planning for next year's tour will begin early this year. Green Building Assistance- Staff has been talking to several developers over their possible interest in incorporating green building measures into their subdivisions and other projects. So far I have talked to the developers of WinterCreek, Hilltop, DMB Highlands Group, Forest Service, Town of Truckee, Recreation & Parks District new Community Center, Park Service new Museum, new Sierra College campus planned for Truckee in 2008. The Sierra College Board approved making the campus a LEED Silver green building rated building and has asked staff to participate in the design process. Staff has now been asked to participate in the design of the Mill Site/Railroad Yard neighborhood project. Staff has been in touch with several of the green building project developers to stay in touch and help out anyway needed to advance the green elements of these projects. Staff gave a presentation on Green Building to the Sunrise Rotary May 9. Affordable Housing- I have offered to work with WHATT in Truckee to make their projects more affordable through energy and water management strategies. I have attended some affordable housing conferences and • Page 1 meetings including one with a green building emphasis. Staff has been in touch with most of the area developers regarding their plans to design and build affordable housing units. Staff is in touch with Rachelle -�-- Pellisier, WHATT Exc. Director, re: Truckee's proposed affordable housing plans and the Project Architect and Developer. Staff attended a Green Building & Energy Efficiency Affordable Housing Conference May 30 in Sacramento. Public Benefits Program- TDPUD staff prepared a Public Benefit's report for TDPUD PB programs from 1998 through 2004 for NCPA in preparation for a report CMUA is presenting to the legislature. The purpose of the CMUA report is to show the legislature that CA's public utilities have been aggressively implementing their PB programs as compared to the picture the IOU's are painting about the publics. TDPUD Staff has processed about 490 Conservation Cash Rebate program applications to date. Schools Energy & Water Conservation Education Program- This program is designed to teach both energy and water conservation to 6th grade children and includes energy and water conservation measures the kids can install in their parent's homes. Sue Mock is responsible for teaching this program for the School District. Livingwise kits have been ordered and received for this School year. Staff gave two resource planning and efficiency presentations June 6. Ground Source Heat Pump Program- Staff is currently looking into new ideas on how to educate and promote this technology to our customers. Staff has been contacted by several developers, architects and building engineers, etc. due to their interest in possibly pursuing GSHPs for projects they will be building. Staff has been working with Meline Engineering to evaluate the potential for a GSHP system for the building. They have conducted two studies which look promising and staff has asked them to prepare a proposal to do the engineering and write specifications for the project. This project is on hold until funding is available for it. Fuel Cells- Steve H. and Staff attended a fuel cell presentation given at TDPUD June 15. Delmar Networks offered a turn-key 5 Kw fuel cell for $15,000 to demonstrate fuel cell use in Truckee. Staff is currently looking at the value of such a project and whether we have now or in the future an appropriate site and application for this demonstration. Del Mar Networks has provided us with a Buy and Try option of using and demonstrating the technology at our facility for 3 months without obligation. Staff hopes to bring this fuel cell to TDPUD. This project is on hold until funding is available for it. Energy Surveys/High Bill Assistance- Staff completed 1 commercial and 2 residential energy-use analyses and/or energy survey(s) this month. Staff also responded on-site to 2 residential "high" bill complaint(s). There are currently several customers Staff is working with to help them understand and control their energy costs. Staff fields many questions by phone. Comm unications/Pubiic Relations/Education Newsletter- Staff with the assistance of Gilwee PR completed the current newsletter which went out in Spring. The articles in the newsletter included: TDPUD water system, customer service programs, energy and water conservation, green building activities, the Truckee biomass project and a welcome to the two new Board members. Staff is working on the Summer newsletter. Articles in the Summer newsletter will include electric and water rate increase needs. Community Event Marketing- Local organizations have been in contact with TDPUD staff regarding helping them publicize their 2006 activities. Bill stuffers distributed and planned for distribution this year include: Earth Day, Truckee Home and Building Show, Truckee Day, July 4 Beach Party, Truckee River Day, Kidzone Treasure Chest, Nevada County Fair, Lake Tahoe Summer Music Festival, Smart Living EXPO,Truckee Green Building Tour and a Power Content Label. Power Content Label- State law requires that all California public and private utilities supply their customers with a Power Content Label quarterly. The last PCL was mailed out 01, 2006. 0 Page 2 Water Bottle- The new TDPUD water bottle is getting a lot of attention. There have been requests for bottles to take to meetings and other events Staff has 2,000 TDPUD water bottles along with 2,000 labels to be applied to any water bottles being filled with pure, clean Truckee water. If you know of any groups or organizations that could benefit from the use of TDPUD water bottles please let staff know. Truckee Home &Building Show- Staff helped the Home Show staff organize another great event. Staff gave a Green Building Presentation May 27, 2-4 p.m. to between 60 and 70 attendees of the Home Show. After the Green Building Seminar staff gave a Green Building Tour from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.to about 40 to 50 Home Show attendees. This is the best attendance and level of interest in green building we have had to date. The theme again for next year's Show will be green building. Staff met with Pam Neff, Home Show organizer, to discuss bringing in more green building type businesses into the event in 2007. Community/Statewide Involvement Town of Truckee Green Building Committee- Staff was appointed to the Town of Truckee Green Building Committee. The Committee is currently working on several new projects including looking at voluntary guidelines and more educational activities and information for consumers and local building professionals. Staff attended the June 5 meeting. The Committee adopted the Build It Green New Home Construction Guidelines for educating the community on green building in Truckee. Staff is working on the Preface to this document. Sierra Business Council- SBC is holding it's annual conference in Yosemite November 1, 2 and 3. Sierra Green Building Association- Staff participates in the Sierra Green Building Association in Truckee. The group educates and assists building professionals in their pursuit of building energy-efficient, economical and human and environmentally-sensitive buildings in the region. Many local building professionals are actively pursuing green building design. SiGBA organized a series of seminars and other events to assist consumers and building professionals last year. The Sigba Executive Committee meets monthly. Staff attended the June 13 meeting. Regional Sustainability Grant Proposal/Study- Staff met with a group of people in No. Nevada, Lake Tahoe and Truckee to put together a proposal that will bring in funding from the National AIA group in Washington DC to conduct a sustainable economic development study for this region. The group was recently notified that the National AIA awarded the grant/study to this region. Staff meets regularly with this group and helped form a Planning Committee made up of representatives throughout the Region. The first Regional committee meeting was held May 15 in Reno. The next meeting was held June 13 in Truckee. The final meeting was held in So. Lake Tahoe June 21. The SDAT Team has a preliminary visit to this Region July 10, 11. Green Building & Economic Development- This subject is gaining a lot of interest in the Truckee/Tahoe area as an economic development tool. I have created several power point presentations on green building which cover this topic and many more. California Municipal Utilities Association Energy Services, Marketing and Legislative Committees- Staff attended the CMUA Energy Efficiency & Marketing Committee meeting in Riverside April 3, 4. The group met and discussed several issues including a lot of impending energy legislation. The CMUA group is also working to create a stronger relationship with NCPA and SCPPA members to work collaboratively on programs and projects. The group is planning to work collaboratively on promoting green building throughout most of the public utility service areas in California. NCPA Public Benefits Committee- Staff joined the newly formed NCPA Public Benefits committee to work with other NCPA member utilities to optimize benefits through collaboration. The group is put out an RFP to solicit bids from consultants to create a database of PB measures and their kW and kWh benefit. • Page 3 Bidders were interviewed in June and a contract was awarded to KEMA Consulting. NCPA member utility energy services staff has had several meetings to move this project forward. The project has been completed. This project will clarify to the CA legislature exactly how much money in being spent by each public utility on each specific area of the state-mandated public benefits program. Staff attended the May 25 meeting in Sacramento. CA Regional Water Authority- Staff began attending RWA Water Conservation Committee meetings in April, 2005. The committee is made up of water representatives of most of the water agencies in No. CA. The group works together to optimize collaborative program benefits. TDPUD's involvement with-this group is dependent on whether there are funds for our participation with them in 2006. Public Renewable Partnership(PRP)- Western Area Power Administration Staff formed a group called the Public Renewable Partnership made up of about 15-20 publically-owned electric utilities throughout the State. PRP applied and received $6,000,000 in grant funding from the California Energy Commission. The grant money included funding an assessment of whether a biomass plant could be built in the Tahoe-Truckee area that could provide a reliable supply of economical electric generation for any interested utility. The grant money also includes setting up a small-scale 15 kW biomass demonstration project. The Commissioning/Start-up and operator training took place the first week of November. The Biomax 15 unit became grid-tied and operating as of the last week in December. McNeil Technologies is submitting the Final Report on this pilot project early January and we will continue to collect data through 2006. A report on the feasibility of the larger scale(1-3 Megawatt) biomass project in Truckee is ready for Board review. Shaun Mitchell with TDRPD and Staff spoke at the April 10 APPA Engineering & Operation's Conference in Sacramento on the Truckee Biomass Project. The presentation went well with about 40 in attendance. TDRPD and Staff gave a presentation/update on the Truckee Biomass project to CEC staff June 26. -- BIG PAC- I met with a newly formed group of public agency councils(PAC) who are discussing ways to work together in their 50 plus local governments on green building issues and promotion. This group has completed it's work on Statewide voluntary Green Building Guidelines adapted from Alameda County Waste Management Authority's GreenPoints GB guidelines. The Guidelines are now being disseminated to city and county entities throughout the state and have now been adopted by the Town of Truckee. Utility Energy Forum Planning Committee- The May 3-5 UEF Conference was very successful. Staff was in charge of the organizing the Forum's Green Building pre-conference workshop which was rated very highly by participants.Staff also spoke on Truckee's Green Programs. US Green Building Association- TDPUD is a member of the USGBC. Staff attends the USGBC Annual conference at least every other year. Staff interacts with the San Fran USGBC Chapter as San Francisco activities certainly affect Truckee as many of Truckee's second homeowners are from the Bay area as well as those shopping for real estate in Truckee. This year the annual Green Building conference will be in Denver in November 15-17. • Page 4