00:00:06,530	Meeting to order Wendy will call, please. And Miss. Here. Man Reep. Here Andrew Jones Andrew Smith. I here Chair Landenberger. Here we have a corn and we will continue moving on to the approval of last month’s meeting minutes. Every we had a chance to review those. offer up any changes or.

00:00:32,270	The Right A second I’m a motion by manager Smith, seconded by Manager Mitchell. for approval of last month’s meeting minutes. All those in favor say aye, right? Motion passes. Minutes are approved. Move it on then to amendments and approval of the agenda for this meeting. Any changes? Any d Dennis, you had some, yeah, Mr.

00:00:57,270	Chair, board members, I’d, I’d like to add item 6D, um, Titus Geezen from Bervera Bank is here to share some information on potential investment options. Kate. add that Anything else Moved to approved as amended. Good. I’ll second. And a motion by Manager Smith, seconded by Manager Mitchell, to approve the agenda as amended.

00:01:21,970	All those in favor say aye. I. oppose Motion passes. The agenda is approved as amended. Move on to item 4 this morning, comments from members of the public. not see anything this morning. We can move on to McDowell Dan this morning.

00:01:40,530	I think we’ll have maybe Dave come up if you want to, Dave kind of give a little update on a couple of items this morning for us, warned Dave. Well, this is dangerous, Michael, leaving your laptop here. I could get you in trouble. read it Uh, actually just pulling up the traffic counts, um, so you kind of caught me off guard. Sorry.

00:02:07,230	No, that’s OK. I can I can pivot really quick Um so at McDowell Dam, try to keep you up to date on the traffic counts. Keep, keep true to my promise.e counts were 11,534. and it looks like we have ants in the trail counter again cause I know there’s not 9000 people on the trail.

00:02:30,900	So we’ll, uh, we’ll have to check on that one. We have a problem every once in a while, the ants try to recolonize and in that trail counter. So that number is a little skewed, uh I’m guessing it accurately would probably be somewhere around the 600 to 700 mark that’s historically what we’ve been this time of year.

00:02:51,000	um just looking at previous years, yeah, it, it floats around the 600, 600 mark. for July So other than that, uh, things are going well Um did just get off the phone with the DEQ, the test that was done at the end of July was negligible. It was low.

00:03:16,100	so nothing of concern, um, for that water quality test. Good. Of course, that’s the end of July. So we’ll keep an eye on it to see if anything bloom reblooms or anything like that or anything suspicious, so we can always retest, but nothing there.

00:03:36,430	Um, other than that, um, still have people visiting obviously by the numbers for the vehicles, um, everything’s going well with that. Have not heard and often to check in. I know that we’re probably, I think, um for that playground construction we’re 8 to 12 weeks out for the playground equipment, and I don’t think they were going to start until that was on its way, so I’ll check with them on

00:03:52,500	their timing with that. We’re getting close to that 10 week mark, I believe it was since it was awarded. OK. Uh, the, uh, are you saying 8 to 12 was the total time or 8 to 12 from now, you think? No, it’s 8 to 12 from once once it was awarded.

00:04:07,970	So we’re getting, we’re getting in that in that range where, yeah. Yeah. Yep. OK. So, they should, they should start activating out their or mobilizing out there and, and get into some work here fairly soon. So I hope to see that that moving by the next time we talk, uh, that would be good.

00:04:27,630	Uh, insurance claim wise, um, back in June July July, we had that hail storm that uh that dropped baseball sized hail at McDowell Dam and there was some, some damage.

00:04:50,000	um we are, we’ve gone through the report and we were planning to meet out there and walk through every, every one of those things to see how we want to address those areas preliminarily I’m thinking we are looking at probably 2 to 3 packages one just for the asphalt shingles, one for the metal roofing and one if we move forward with siding and window repairs.

00:05:08,330	Uh, and I say it that way because you’ve got some contractors that specialize in just asphalt shingles and some contractors that specialize in just metal roofing, and some don’t cross. Some do both, some don’t. Um, I think if we do it that way, we’re gonna open ourselves up to better comp um competitive quotes.

00:05:24,270	um but I think that’s, that’s the best way to move forward with that. So once we have a game plan, we’ll put those packages together and we’ll, we’ll work with, uh, get that off to contractors and and hopefully come back with some, some decent pricing for repairs. Uh, as far as that damage was concerned, a lot of good sized dents.

00:05:46,100	We did have one hailstone actually penetrate the roof. like go all the way through, um. but that’s it It was on the metal roof. It wasn’t on the asphalt. which actually sounds worse when you say it that way. So, yeah. Yeah. Other than that, uh, I think everything’s been going well.

00:06:05,870	We, you know, the last storm there were quite a few trees that, that did get blown over and which is somewhat of a blessing and somewhat of a curse, you know, the, the shelter belts that are out there are ash trees. and they’re 5 ft on center. They they’re planted very densely, um.

00:06:26,730	to forests and in David’s a testament, they, you know, they’ve kept him alive, so it’s a good problem to have that you’ve got trees growing that close to each other in a shelter belt. A lot of times they die off. That’s why they’re planted so close to each other in a shelter belt.

00:06:41,330	Um, we should probably talk about maybe thinning that a little bit, giving the trees a chance to grow and also reducing the amount of food when uh emerald ash borer comes, um, habitat for for that bug.

00:06:59,900	Um, so at some point, maybe we can talk about that when we go out there and just kind of go drive around and, and point and wave and and, uh, see what, you know, if we want to do something like that, we can make a game plan towards that as well in the future, not saying we have to do it right away, but it’s just something that’s been on, uh, David’s in, in my minds. um as we continue to manage that property. OK.

00:07:18,630	Makes sense Um, regarding ENDEF, so are we, everything’s been submitted to them, but they cut a, like a partial check, and how does that, I mean I turn in the as far as getting for the insurance claim.

00:07:36,330	My recollection, I don’t handle the, the insurance claims at, at the Park District and other director does, but from my recollection how it works is they go out and they inspect everything. They they come up with a value of it and if agreed, I think they will cut a check directly to the and if you’ve already gotten it, Wendy. We have received a check.

00:07:50,500	That’s, OK, OK. Yeah. And there is some, additional funds we can get if possible. Yeah. Yeah. So, then you get, you receive that, we put it out for quotes if they match, then that check is all you get. But if it’s more, it’ll go up to a certain value. Yeah yeah.

00:08:08,270	And sometimes they’ll, they’ll, uh, once the work is done, they’ll kind of re-release. Um-hum. Additional funds to get you up to the full claim, but yeah, but you already got part of that. You’re kind of in contact with them and. Yes. Good. OK. And then what about the, the issue with that fence.

00:08:22,530	There was maybe where there was spraying, did that all get resolved? It did. OK. Yes. Uh, the neighbor went and bought some trees and planted in himself and uh and took care of everything. So just David went over and talked with him, and he took care of it. OK. Yep.

00:08:42,270	And my last question, the, the ADA updates or anything going on there? Do we need to when Chuck’s out there too, maybe you guys could visit about some of that too. I think the, the biggest thing with the work that we’re doing with that playground, it’s gonna check a couple of boxes off OK.

00:09:00,100	For accessibility to a shelter, providing paidd access to the existing bathroom, albeit the existing bathroom is not accessible, but that is the game plan is to replace that bathroom to make that accessible when it is rebuilt.

00:09:13,800	So there are, we can go over it and just kind of go through an update, but there’s a few improvements that we’re making with just as a result of some new work that we’re doing. OK. Yep. Sounds good. OK. Any other questions for Dave Uh, thanks, Dave. Thank you. Dave Great. We’ll move on to the supplemental water supply this morning. Michael, any updates regarding Yeah, a couple things. You’ll note in the packet, um, back in February.

00:09:40,530	I didn’t receive a copy of it, went directly to the board address was the extension of the McDell Dam water permit conditional water permit’s been extended through February 1st of 2028 So you have some opportunity to continue on with the project you have, um, Travis has made multiple calls to Mr. Anderson. I see he’s here this morning.

00:10:00,800	Um, and have not gotten a full response back from the uh from him. He says he’s still looking at the documentation. So I just kind of take that with a grain of salt that obviously he’s really busy Um, as far as the emergency action plan, that’s

00:10:15,370	just kind of on the list at the moment, um, Mary’s been busy and we haven’t really coordinated on, uh, getting something done. Um. the Van Beek easement, of course, has been recorded, and I believe you’ve approved authorized payment for that and I think Wendy took care of that here.

00:10:32,800	So that’s, uh, that’s out of the way. Um I guess the other aspect is that once the final easement is in place, the consideration of the, uh, grant application process and I believe when that happens we will just, you know, take it upon ourselves to start putting some things together for

00:10:51,470	whichever meeting occurs for you so that we can have you an update as to where that’s at rather than waiting a whole month. Um, as far as the bank stabilization and trail protection, maybe I’ll just let Travis come up and talk to that because you’ve got the uh authorization for uh payment in

00:11:05,530	your packet, so. Travis, you wanna touch on that one Orange houses. Hey. right, uh, good morning. I will, uh, uh, the trail, uh, stabilism project is complete as, as you’ve seen.

00:11:27,900	I’ve sent out some pictures to the board members so that you guys can uh review how that work looked when it’s completed and uh I’ll also sent you and in your packet should be the uh final balancing change order to bring everything up to the actual installed quantities so that we have the, the total amount for the project, so that that will match what the contract amount is and then the, the final first and final pay

00:11:45,370	request for that project for the full amount of the work completed. so it’s a pretty, pretty, uh, easy thing. So um. Yeah, we don’t need any action on that.

00:12:03,000	We, we took action last month, right? Yeah, I think, but the last meeting, it was already complete and uh I just had to, to finish, uh, getting some of the documentation done in, in the final, uh uh. change order process, so. He’s going to get it signed and date. Good. Uh, I’m curious, Dave, uh, have you taken a look at the bank stabilization, Everything looks good. Everything looks great. Great, good, good. I appreciate that. OK.

00:12:22,370	I think one thing that, uh, if you take a look at the pictures, what was nice is we made the decision as to where the access route was to come in and in reality, um, minimal damage as far as the overall um through the Aero Club area So even though it’s been reseeded, obviously the roadway impacts were less than

00:12:42,470	we expected, so, um it looks nice out there. OK, good. Yeah All right. Mr. Chair, uh, uh, Travis, while you’re up there um, is the, uh, is the plan to, um, um, to, uh, build the pipeline this fall in McDonald Dam, if it’s approved.

00:13:07,600	Um, I guess that’s going to depend on when we finally get the easements in place and get those in hand, uh, still trying to work with the one remaining landowner who’s hasn’t signed yet to, doesn’t sound like he’s had has any issue with signing, and he’s, he’s, uh, agreeable to the project just a matter of getting that through.

00:13:23,730	But then once we have those easements in hand, um, then we can finalize the design because we still have a little bit of work to do on the design, some of that stuff we’re holding off on until we had the easements in place so that we could uh make sure that we had our route secured.

00:13:36,270	once now that we appear to have that route secured, we can finalize the plans. They’re probably 80 to 90% right now, uh, just a few things to touch up on that and then, and then we have to write the project manual for the project to put it out to bid. So we could potentially put out the bid here this fall.

00:13:52,000	I doubt anything would actually get started for construction because, uh, some of the equipment and materials for this project are going to have a little bit of a lead time, specifically like on the intake side and the uh pump station, but, um um, yeah, trying to actually move any dirt yet this

00:14:07,070	fall. Might be a little bit of a stretch, but, uh, we could at the very least get it out to bid potentially if we get that easement secured and then finalize plants set and get those out the door to bid. Mr.

00:14:20,800	Chair, uh, you know, one of the things I think, do we want to go through an outdoor heritage fun cycle, right? And, and trying to get funding through that. So and that would preclude us going into construction, I believe. Right. A couple of things on that too, Dennis.

00:14:38,870	Um, we’ve had conversations with DWR as we haven’t talked to the Outdoor Heritage Fund again, even though they basically last time said come back when you have your easements. So now that you have that, you can come back, um, looking at a potential dual grant request one through the Outdoor Heritage Fund. Find out what they will finance and then go back to DWR and finance the remaining portion that uh the Outdoor Heritage Fund may not.

00:14:56,000	So we’ll start looking into that process once the final easements in place so that we can maximize the potential grant opportunities. I do not know whether this qualifies. In fact, I don’t believe that it does. Dave could probably do that on the, uh, for the garrison diversion.

00:15:12,070	grant funds because they’re usually looking at park facilities. This is not a park facility, so just to let you know that that probably wouldn’t qualify for that, but um we’ll keep that in mind as we look through all the opportunities. I was just thinking that same thing, Garrison diversion.

00:15:26,430	I don’t know the last, uh, through the last commission cycle where, where the, uh, went through that process. Maybe they’d be more amenable to costs in some way like because it is, I mean, basically it’s recreation based, right? And so I think there’s, uh, I think it’s worth a question, I guess, at least.

00:15:45,100	That’s right, yeah. We will, we will ask the question and get the answer. So do we know it when that next Odoor Heritage fund cycle. Usually it’s October. OK.

00:16:05,530	So, maybe the applications are due at the end of August, early September, maybe have Travis if you want to take a look at when the next application deadlines are. Sure, I can look into that. All right. I think we can be prepared relatively quickly for the application because we’ve had the application in before. It’s just a matter of changing the update in the OPC and a few other items, so. OK. OK. Thanks, Travis. Anything else here Michael? Nope, that’s all. OK.

00:16:26,270	All right. We can move on to item 6 this morning, financial reports. Chair board members on pages 14 and 15 is the balance sheet, um, and, um, so I’ll just go through some summary discussion here. Um, inner checking, we started with $2,160,945.07. We paid bills in the amount of $118,0062.83.

00:16:54,000	um, in July we had income in the amount of $61,830.24. uh, which included some minor amount of real estate tax collected state aid. um some McDowell Da income in the amount of 7500 special assessments. um, and the majority of that though is the end of distribution that was shared back with their.

00:17:16,100	So that was, that was 46,000 of that 61,000. Um, so we ended up with a Indian balance in her checking account of $2,107,200.15. Bravera wealth account. 2,434,24615 was our starting. Um, we earned a net interest that’s the interest minus the administrative fee of about 80 $8400. So our ending balance is $2,442,615.56.

00:17:52,700	Reserve fund balance um. uh had a minor amount of interest, so that’s the increase from the previous. month, excuse me, so net total, um, of liquid acids is $5,250,491.20. Um our, uh, you can see our special assessment, um. excuse me, let me get down to that page. The, uh, designated funds.

00:18:20,500	Designated funds breakdown is on page 15. And so those largely remain unchanged some minor um transactions for different funds within those lists. So with that, Mr. Chair, I’d move for approval of the balance sheet as presented on pages 14 and 15.

00:18:41,900	OK, I got a motion by Man Reep and a second by Manger Jones to approve this month’s balance sheet. We do you take roll call vote, please? Andre Mitchell. Yes. Andrew Re. Yes Andrew Jones. Yes Andrew Smith. Yes. Chair Landenberger. Yes. Motion passes. balance sheet is accepted. Um, Mr.

00:19:04,270	Chair board members continue on page 16 has a profit and loss statement, um, looked over those numbers. Those are good, and so I’d move for approval as presented in your packet. so moved I got a motion by Manage Reep and a second by Manager Jones to approve this much profit and loss statement. When do you think roll call vote again, please? Mad Mitchell. Yes. Man Re. Yes. Mandre Jones.

00:19:24,000	Yes. Bender Smith. Yes. Chair Landenberger, yes, motion passes. loss is accepted. Um, for item C, um, 2026 budget did grab the preliminary budget off the um I saw it on the website. So, um, our allocation, if you recall we had requested 1 point and we’d shown a total budget of 1.2 million for 2026.

00:19:49,530	Um, part of that is, um, income that we’ve received through our investments. Um, the preliminary budget as presented and approved, if I understand it correctly, by the county Commission was 1.33 mLs or about the equivalent of $981,000 which is also about equal to what we received in 2025. So, um, that’s where that stands.

00:20:14,530	It’ll go through its process, Mr. Chair or Comm Woodcoox, it’ll be September. Mr. Mr. Chair, there’s, we’re having a budget meeting on this coming Monday, but there’s nothing that I can see that will be changed.

00:20:33,700	So everything moving along good, but every meeting we have, we will be looking at everybody’s budget and making adjustments accordingly, but as far as I know, nothing’s happening so far. OK, good. Thank you. Thanks, Dennis. Any questions on that? OK. And then item D as amended here is um I’d like to have Tituskeen come up.

00:20:53,630	Titus has been our rep for the Bevera wealth account, and so one of the questions that was asked at a previous meeting was, is there other options, including Treasury bills, that we could look into and so um Titus is going to go through a little presentation on that. Good morning everyone.

00:21:12,900	Uh, I’m Tituskeetsen with Preve Wealth, uh, as, uh, Dennis Reep, uh, mentioned, um the advisor on the account, uh, so I put together this packet. It gives a, uh, outlook as of July 25. Um, this is just good reading material for how the economy’s doing year to date.

00:21:28,500	Uh, I also included a year tod statement, uh, if you wanted to see how, uh, our fee structure works and how the uh account returns have gone a year to date as well. Um, there were 2 CDs, or sorry, 3 CDs, uh, this year so far. uh, that were redeemed and then deposited into this account.

00:21:49,170	Uh, as you can see on page 8, and then if we jump to page 10, uh, you can see the example, uh, portfolio that we put together for if you wanted to do CDs, uh, or US Treasuries, uh, our portfolio managers also through an agencies just to have uh a balance of an example. If you were to move into more of an investment account, uh, over cash management account.

00:22:11,170	Uh, so with the current money market, you’re at a 4.3%, uh, our fee on that is, uh, 0.25, so it’s a net of about 4.05 Uh, and then as you can see from each time segment, 6 months, 9 months a year, all the way down to 5 years.

00:22:29,270	Uh, the CDs usually do have a bigger margin, uh, I know when a lot of people see US Treasuries, uh, current rates, uh, that’s if you’re one of the 2 large banks that can buy those, uh, the, the US Treasury that we have access to our secondary market, so there are people who have bought them before and are looking to have

00:22:49,170	cash, so we’d either buy it at a premium, uh, or we’d buy it at, uh, a loss for them. Uh, so just off of par, um, were there any uh questions, uh, about the US Treasury aspect to this? So is just looking at this and I, it looks at the US Treasuries they’re running around that 3.9.

00:23:09,870	to 3.8 um, and right now we’re getting 4.05, right? Yes. So, at this point. Well, and, and, uh, with these, uh, rates, you would take a 25% off of that as well. Oh, that treasury one as well? OK. Yeah. 25. Yeah, well, the, the one would go from 4.

00:23:30,630	3 down to 4.05 would be our current, you know, the the Bavera wealth curriculum that we have, yeah. And, uh, the reason why some people would want to buy a longer term, um, is just in case the Fed were to start reducing rates. Uh, they didn’t reduce in July.

00:23:48,900	Uh, there’s another meeting in September where the, the market consensus is around a 50% chance of uh 25 basis point drop or a 50% chance of, of doing nothing. Uh, so if they do nothing, obviously the rate should stay close to the same. If they do drop down, uh, we’ll see it go down to around 4.

00:24:07,000	05 possibly, uh, and then another um reduce with the fee. Um so yeah, so if, if they do, if they would reduce rates, with the T Bills drop accordingly as well, I suspect, right? And so I mean if I’m reading this right, we are, you know, near term, we’re probably just better off just leaving it

00:24:28,900	where it says right now, right? I mean, that would be the advice. Yeah, depending on liquidity, uh, you might wanna look at maybe a 3-year, uh, possibly if you, if you were wanting to lock it in because the consensus is possibly that the in 3 years you’d be better

00:24:42,730	off. Right. Uh, but if you averaged out the, the higher rates today with a gradual downturn, uh, it would be close to the same probably. and we’ve discussed this before.

00:25:00,070	Our, our concern with locking for three years is just the availability of those funds, if we have a project, we have to, you know, fund and we just don’t have those funds available. So yeah, if you go into a bond fund or a treas or T-bi fund, you would pay a premium to take it out if you needed to, or it would depend on the condition at the time.

00:25:14,370	Uh, if you had a uh highly valuable, uh, treasury bond or CD, uh, we could sell it on the secondary market for a possible surplus Uh, but again, if the market goes the other way again, uh, then you would be possibly losing money on the sale of that asset as well.

00:25:34,000	So, so we, we do have the ability to liquidate any of the long term assets as well. Yeah. And, and this just, uh, you know, like again, the US Treasury bonds, I mean, is this a this trend will stay consistent, I suspect that they’ll always be below the Bravera wealth deposit fund.

00:25:59,100	So right now, uh, post, uh, pandemic, uh, money markets have been higher than your longer term. The, the what it’s supposed to be is the more time you give someone the better your rate’s supposed to be. The 30 year, the 10 year, the 5 year, they’re supposed to be uh benefiting you by giving up more of your time.

00:26:17,800	Uh, but with the knowledge that the Fed is going to be dropping rates, that’s where you’re seeing people at that five-year rate are hoping that they’re not losing money at that five-year rate. They’re anticipating the rate going to be around that mark in 5 years.

00:26:37,000	Uh, so in 5 years, the money market will more than likely be less than the long term options, uh, but it’s unknown at how, what time that time frame will, it will happen. OK your thoughts? Questions this morning? OK. I mean, yeah, again, it was, it was prompted by a question of what are some other options.

00:26:56,370	I mean, again, I think my opinion is that we stay the course for now at least, and um the other part of this is that, um, you know, we’re a board, um, managing this type of portfolio gets to be, um, some time consuming, and I wanted to make sure we were able to do that as board members, um, without being too burdensome, so.

00:27:15,700	And we can simplify it too if you wanted to uh do a 13 year and 15-year or any, or any number of things we can be very flexible and we can always present back again if, if requested to, to present. OK. Appreciate it. Thanks, Titus. Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah. Good.

00:27:35,730	Everybody kind of consensus at this point, but just keep going with the the very wealth fund and since we’re getting that 4+%, OK? All right. OK. Anything else, Dennis? Uh, no. No. No. OK. Thank you. All right, we can move on to item 7 this morning. Drainage permits complaints and issues. Andrew Jones, any updates on River Road? Watch is back again. OK.

00:28:01,530	And, um, quite frankly, I think he’s just looking for our opinion. as uh the board has made the decision that his problem is one that is self-inflicted. um, I talked briefly uh, to Michael about it.

00:28:29,600	and uh the culvert situation was put there to lessen the drainage program, many moons ago, if I could recall correctly. Uh, so at this point all we can do is advise him to find his own engineer and take the steps we’re really not involved in the situation. OK. Yeah, based on the conversation with uh Man Jones.

00:28:49,870	I think the, the underrun after we’ve, you know, kind of finished our analysis and uh Casey, um, Nick’s gonna call you relative to the culvert’s within that subdivision. Apparently Greg doesn’t have them, but we’ll we’ll have a conversation on that. Once we can tie some things down, the thought process is to um give Mr.

00:29:11,370	Cook and say, if you wanted to create a special assessment district to facilitate the process, um, here’s the information, here’s the background, um. likely and this is a recommendation that’s off.

00:29:28,330	It’s not formalized yet, but if you want to get a petition and get signatures then you can bring it forward to the board and the board might deal with it because otherwise that simplifies the amount of effort that the board’s putting into it, and it puts it back on the landowners to actually come in for a solution.

00:29:42,270	The other aspect you may want to consider, you’ve never bonded a project before? for the preliminary engineering report and the vote, that’s an opportunity to think out with this one. So you’re basically putting it back in the landowner’s position to solve it rather than the board trying to come into a situation and resolve it on their behalf. So those are the things that are kind of under consideration and thought process, so.

00:30:00,370	The bond basically would be to cover the costs of preliminary engineering report to take it forward. So in other words, the county’s not sitting and absorbing the cost of a more of a local issue.

00:30:18,100	I’m somewhat wondering and I do not have data, so I’m cautiously mention this, um, there’s a number of areas in the county where groundwater has become an issue, and I’m wondering whether being Saad is kind of a gravel pit area that even though we have the impact from the commercial industrial area that’s been developed, how much of that may be attributable to, you know, just the groundwater situation.

00:30:34,600	Don’t have data did not look for Wil scenarios out there trying not to go too deep into the, into the weeds, but, uh, I see that as a potential uh. factor in what’s going on out there. So, but we’ll continue to look at the special assessment district option and um prepare a brief letter, a memorandum to him.

00:30:53,730	from the board to say, here’s your option if you want to carry it forward. His only other option, and he’s talked about it, he mentioned it to me was to, you know, take legal action against those.

00:31:10,330	those properties and that’s entirely up to him, but the only option from the district’s perspective would be for a special assessment district, but I think in this particular case you leave it to him to bring it forward rather than um the district pursuing anything on its own. This property is outside the sea, Rens. It’s in the extraterritorial. It’s in the ETA. Yeah, it’s in the ETA.

00:31:24,800	Yeah. And, you know, from that context, uh, all of the development out there occurred before or the platding and majority of the development occurred before the stormwater management plans were in place for the requirements were in place. so good Mr. Chair, who was that? Mike Cook. OK. Yeah. Vitamin D. I. Yeah, list here.

00:31:44,970	Yeah. OK. Any other questions I will touch on another one here, um, uh, Chuck, you and I visited, um, Nick has been in and out of the office a lot, but I can tell you what we’ve come up with on the hock tree-based, based on the evaluation of all the data and the chronology.

00:32:05,330	Uh, we don’t see any jurisdictional issue from the water researchch district in that area based on the context of how the property was developed and how everything came into place. At one point in time we were talking about they put the culverts too high, and the culverts being high, we’re actually acting as an obstruction.

00:32:21,530	Well, it appears based on the data we have, we’ll take a closer look and refine that is that the um roadway ditch was actually constructed at the, at the wrong grade or whatever and what it amounted to is they just put the culverts in where the road grave was at.

00:32:37,330	So there’s nothing that the landowners have done relative to an obstruction. So in a roundabout way and um I need to research this a little further and talk to Nick is that the originalstormwater management plan was approved by the city of Bismarck, but they’re really the oversight issue of how it got constructed, uh, likely

00:32:54,100	didn’t take place and then there’s other, some extraneous issues that we want to uh refine, but I don’t see any jurisdictional issue, but the, the board’s context was, let’s, you know, put our arms around it and come back with a findings and recommendations or findings conclusions and recommendations statement relative to what’s going on out

00:33:13,230	there, and I’ll visit with you more on that, Chuck. I just had a brief conversation with Nick in the last couple of days, so, um speaking of Nick, and I don’t know that it’s on here, but I will touch on it real quick.

00:33:24,330	So before we move on to that one. So in, in this hacktree situation, for us as a board and for our district, it, if there was a a natural watercourse that was being obstructed, correct? That’s where we would get involved and you’re saying that’s not the case. That’s not the case.

00:33:40,330	And in this case it was an artificial watercourse that was created or was supposed to have been created as part of the stormwater management plan, which puts it in the same pretense if that was obstructed, you’d have authority. Yeah, OK. OK. Thank you. right get something else? Yeah, um.

00:33:59,070	I guess it’s really under old business, but being in how I was talking about Nick, um, Nick was out yesterday with Mitch and Tom Bernie with FEMA to do the CA for Burley County. Um, they went through Mitch’s with them. Now they’re still doing stuff for the next 2 or 3 days. OK.

00:34:17,170	But, uh, Nick went through all the processing and paperwork and elevation certificates to determine what was done in the past several years and the compliance with that and they, they did come across a number of things which you typically do on an audit perspective. So, uh, that’s going well and that process is moving forward, so. Thank you.

00:34:36,900	Any updates on the keelboat? Um, just the standpoint that I have, I need to finish writing the memorandum, uh, as far as the city’s going with the latte, everything is taken care of for access. It’s just holding on not holding anything up. The only thing that they’re looking at, they want us to research and provide them documentation, which I have.

00:34:51,270	I just haven’t got the memo together was, uh, the, um actual O&M component for that site. So, and like I said, I’ve got the documentations. I just need to do the write up.

00:35:10,070	and share it with them, OK? Can I do this in reverse order, but then finally the the river road there, is there any updates on, on that 10 gee. What’s that? It’s on the list. It’s on the list. OK. He, so we’re, we’re trying to avoid it. Just know, you know. All right OK Any other questions on drainage permits, complaints? Hum-um. All right. We can move on to projects this morning.

00:35:32,600	Uh, I doubt there’s much of an update regarding the whole Guy one I do know we, we did send the letter to the one landowner regarding, yeah. And then I will, I was jotting some notes down here from the easement side, um, obviously there’s not a critical, you have easements out there, so it’s just a revision of the

00:35:47,900	easements, um, those easements just to give you a background, the revisions would be um an update of the existing language which Dave and I’ll have to go over because obviously the gw it’s dated from the 70s, so we modernize it if you want to call it that, uh, description of the revised location of the

00:36:05,600	easement as a lot exhibit, um, and we would fix it rather than having it being movable from the top of bank so that we don’t have it change should situations exist, and then the O&M provisions as they’ve been stated in the special assessment district.

00:36:22,800	So those are the, the components of what that revised easement will look at and um Dave and I’ll just have to work through, and it’s going to be the same for everybody, La wise, so it’s just a, a template to uh to be reviewed by the board and then presented to the owners.

00:36:36,000	Uh, I will say that if any one of the individual owners chooses not to sign, which they do have the opportunity to do, obviously, because it’s uh requested easement from the board. Um, the board would just retain the existing easement. OK. So All right. Thanks, Michael.

00:36:54,630	Any questions? Just, uh, we’re just thinking out loud here as you’re talking about it, you, you’d make that easement a more of a permanent easement, so it’s not tied to top of bank on location, but, um, the people upstream downstream, that would be different. Yes, that would be the, the existing easement as it sets out there today.

00:37:09,630	And so I’m just, you know, thinking aloud. I totally agree with that approach. I just was wondering how if that’s going to be a discontinuity in the future, you know, and nothing, nothing to do about it. I think this makes it better. I like it. OK, thanks All right, uh, Apple Creek slide.

00:37:30,500	Um, basically update on that one. The uh bar engineering has gotten their um origin initial drilling. started for their um inclinometers to measure whether things were still moving or not, so that’s going in. Uh, they did install their drainage system.

00:37:50,630	Uh, there’s been some concerns on our side from Braun looking at their drainage system as it’s not keeping up with the water that’s coming out of the hill. Um, it might just be a, a timing thing. It has to be there a while for it to catch up, so they’re monitoring that and watching what’s going on.

00:38:09,000	Um, we did have a request by DES to come up and submit what they call a UEI number. It’s a unique identity information, um, I’ve got Sean in my office working on that and We, Wendy, they’re going back and forth. There’s a number of items in that. I mean, it’s a lengthy list.

00:38:25,330	It used to be the Dun number or Dun and Bradstreet uh, interestingly enough, you go to the Dun and Bad Street site. The only thing you can find is the number. So the information that’s attached to it isn’t there, but, uh, we’ll be stepping through that because that’s necessary for you to request reimbursement under the under the contracts.

00:38:41,370	So the contracts are back to DES and uh as soon as we get that information together and submitted and we get a number, we’ll turn that around and, and do the first reimbursement, which should be the next month, so. OK.

00:39:00,700	Thank you Any questions on the Apple Creek slide? And I will say I should add this, that uh Braun has got their sites located out there and they’re planning on doing their drilling for their own inclinometers and monitoring equipment as well.

00:39:15,230	Um, we did mention at the last board meeting about getting a survey for some of the locations and stuff out there and it sounds like they may have been able to rectify some of the concerns they had themselves, so they may or may not need that. So it’s just on hold for now. OK.

00:39:29,630	Uh, there was a pay request that kind of came in that I’m not sure they all get resolved, there’s several, um, yeah, and that’s one of the things the based on um special authorization 30, the Water Resource District has sent the bills from Braun, and BGC and they’re paid directly by the Water Resource District. Apparently they’re mailing them to you, James, and they’re not necessarily getting to Wendy.

00:39:49,730	So we’ve kind of work on that in the background to make sure that they get to, to Wendy or actually get to us first for authorization to payment so that Wendy can process them. Yep. They are in the bills. Yeah. But I have. Um-hum. OK. Yeah, good, thank you for helping me. One’s help.

00:40:07,530	But yeah, that was a processing site on on Bronze primarily, so we, I think we’ve resolved that now. OK. All right. If nothing else on the projects, we can move on to other old business this morning. Uh, I A there, Crystal Springs Watershed Initiative. Michael has a presentation he wants to provide us this morning to give us some more background information.

00:40:29,000	Um, I think there was some correspondence going back and forth, I think, between Burig County and a few other folks just kind of wondering what, and we just kind of wanted to get an update on where this project’s at and maybe discuss a little bit more as a board.

00:40:43,100	I don’t think we’ve ever really come up with a consensus on where we think where this project’s going and OK, it’s interesting because I’m coming from over there. I’m going over here and I’ll wear a separate hat. Um, the Crystal Springs Watershed Initiative, I think you can get it up on the screen, maybe.

00:41:14,370	OK Uh, let’s try this Is that to Looks like It’s tall Beres Oh, that way, I got you Thank you. Wonderful electronics. uh thing is it’s this way. OK, and I don’t have it on my screen, but I have it on there so I can at least see what I’m doing.

00:41:47,170	Um Crystal Springs watershed initiative is in essence a um water removal project for the Crystal Springs area along Interstate 94 that affects uh BNSF and um the uh interstate. Um, so here’s kind of the this presentation is a summary of what was presented to the St Tuchman County Water Resource District for the feasibility study.

00:42:09,700	Um and kind of the, the, the theme of the whole process is what are we here to solve? In other words, defining the issue to start with, um, and the removal of accumulated and excess floodwaters and the, the model that we’ve kind of taken, it’s time to move water versus dirt.

00:42:24,170	because everybody in the railroad’s trying to raise their grade, the highway’s trying to raise its grade and has, they raised it 10 ft back in 2010, uh, the railroad ultimately, interestingly enough, has raised their grade by 28 ft. Total since way back when, um, and we’ve got the Bible camp and Township roadways and stuff that are underwater.

00:42:43,170	Uh, they’re also recreational lake cabins out there in Eglands. There’s about 600 acres plus of water or egg lands that are underwater, not from the low level but from more recent conditions. Just for context, this is you’re on the interstate, I think, is it just east of, just east of the city is Crystal Springs.

00:42:57,270	Crystal Springs, and he goes down and there’s that rest area. Yep. And they just, every year you go by there, it seems that they keep raising that embankment and you got the rail alignment with everybody, you know, like I said, when they raised it last time, the DOT did a report in 2010 um.

00:43:13,730	yeah it’s 2008 or 2010 and basically decided, you know, we’re done raising it and raising it and raising and raising, and we’re gonna raise it once and hopefully get by for a while. And you know, they, so they raised it 10 ft and we’ll show you where the where the trend lines going.

00:43:27,330	Uh, interestingly enough, historic lake elevations. I’ll go back here once. if it will go back go back to here. Um this is a preferred alternative. You can see the highway interstate’s kind of fuzzy, goes kind of right through the middle down here.

00:43:50,100	This is where the Bible camp is at, way over on the right hand side, there’d be a pump station and it’d be about 8. 8300 lineal feet of pipe. that would go in, or 83,000, excuse me. Thank you. Um, and we’d be dropping it into a tributary to the north of the Long Lake Refuge.

00:44:11,070	and the Longlay refuge goes down in Burleigh County and it goes to Long Lake Creek, which goes to Mckenzie Slough, which goes to Apple Creek, which goes to the Missouri River. So, uh, this is just kind of a profile of that system.

00:44:26,900	It’s really kind of odd to your point of thousands versus tens of thousands of feet, this real really spiky, but if you stretch this out, it’s really pretty flat ground. You can see along here there’s a number of irrigation systems. This will be a 30-inch pipeline. uh with a capacity of about 20 CFS.

00:44:42,900	Now we’ve set the capacity based on the projected inflow over the past, you know, 14 years in the period of record and what we’ve seen water levels in the lake have gone up, um, routinely in about 7/10 of a foot per year. This last year they went up 2 ft.

00:44:56,370	This is the first year in a long time they actually start falling off a little bit, um, because of evaporation and I’ll show some information on that here in a little bit. Uh, this is the alignment, um, we actually looked at 5 different alignments, one going to, uh, the Cheyenne River one going, the James River one going south, and obviously the they get

00:45:11,630	longer and longer and more expensive. This is the least expensive one, and it also takes it to the natural watershed outlet, which is the Missouri River. But it takes about another 40 ft of elevation on the current water level before you actually get overflow. Well, you can imagine where the camp’s gonna be and everything else.

00:45:28,730	Now, I arguably that watershed, you know, is it going to filter that point, it may not get to the point, but obviously you’ve got infrastructure that’s affected in the next, you know, 3 to 5 ft of elevation, uh, significantly. So as you can see here from a regulatory.

00:45:48,070	place on the alignment, um, we’re not ending up with uh any major issues as far as wetlands or anything else because we’re going through egg property. Again, this is a pipeline-based scenario, so we’re not going to have any open ditches. The only open ditch would go from the tributary here, which would go kind of southwest through Lake Eta. and then into the Long Lake Refuge.

00:46:06,730	So that being said, we took a careful look at the watershed. The initial watershed was, you know, like 250 square miles, and then we started looking at it, it’s much smaller than that when we did the spill analysis using um basically the NDRAM HeckAS model for the, that the state’s developed.

00:46:24,970	We came out with, uh, there’s only about 25.8 square miles of actually contributing watershed. Um, I always look at, it’s an illustration that’s kind of like an ice cube trait. You feel the lower portion of the ice cube tray, and they all spill to the ones down below.

00:46:40,430	Well, the ones up above are not spilling, but they’re leaking down below and the groundwater’s coming up on the other side, and I’ll show you where that’s at in a little bit. Uh, the one to the right here is, you know, a larger analysis if we had multiple, multiple rainfalls on top of one another.

00:46:54,230	Eventually it would spill and we’d have a larger watershed, but that’s not what’s occurring out there. Um, here’s the lake system, um, you can see the, uh, the camp Let’s see if The camp is right in here. You’ve got the railroad through here. The railroad spans about $3.5 million every time they do a great raise. from an expense standpoint.

00:47:14,530	They raised it 24, well, they’re trying to raise it 2 ft. They actually raised it 20 inches this last time, and within a year it was almost back to where they um, had water on the ties again So that’s a big expense.

00:47:33,170	Uh, the highway out here obviously is higher and just some general elevations as far as the interstatees upwards of 62. Right now we’ve got an elevation in the lake of about 54. But in 2033, and I’ll show that in a little bit. The interstate’s gonna have to think about raising the raising their grade again. So it’s just a matter of time I had uh 62 of the interstate, that’s the, that’s the lowest elevation.

00:47:51,900	That’s the lowest elevation. Right now, if they hadn’t raised it, the water would be about, I think, 2 ft over the top of the, the interstate, and as you’ll notice if you go further east, the, uh, they did their grade raise by Cleveland.

00:48:09,000	and it’s the same scenario there as far as the increase in water levels that are occurring, and the DOT out there just background is actually planning on building the foundation so they can raise that uh grade significantly.

00:48:25,230	Don’t quote me, I think it’s like 14 to 16 ft, but, uh, they’re not doing it because of, you know, dollars and funding, so they’ll build a base and then go from there. Uh, DOT, the steering committee for this has been Keter County, uh, Stutzman County uh DOT, BNSF, so everybody’s involved as far as the players here, including the camp as far as discussion as to what this means and where it’s going to go and um how it might actually be funded.

00:48:45,230	These are just some existing culverts. Uh, initially we looked at trying to lower everything, bring it back down to a more nominal level, and then after the water level keeps coming up, we, the decision was, OK, let’s lower it to where everybody’s currently protected. Everybody’s protected themselves to about um 1750.

00:49:04,530	So that’s the target removal. We could lower it more, but why lower it more? You’re spending money to take water out when uh um, you don’t have any infrastructure at risk.

00:49:21,000	That’s 1750 also gives enough free border protection for several large years of events because this pumping is going to occur over 180 day period. so we would pump long-term, smaller pipe, um, smaller pump system. uh to kind of optimize that as well as uh for costs. So just as background Stinnk Lake, uh, is, is the one. Let me go back here, one slide.

00:49:40,900	Stink Lake is the big one that’s right in the middle here. That’s the one that it was the lowest one in the system. It had the poorest water quality and it’s where everything came to and then everything came up from there.

00:49:58,370	So when we went back and looked historically at all the different lake systems based on aerial imagery, um back in 1957, Stink Lake was about 32. Now, um, 2024, it’s at 53 or like I said, about 54 right now. So when we looked at that’s a 21 ft rise when I remember talking about the railroad rates. They’re great about 28 ft.

00:50:18,170	That’s where that comes from through that whole area they actually realigned and straightened the railroad at one point in time historically to try and hit some high ground in between to avoid the, the grade raises. So overflow to the Missouri River is 1801, so it’s about 47 ft.

00:50:33,070	See, Michael, in the, in the late 80s, early 90s when the drought was kind of coming through this area to be getting the elev did it, did it drop a little bit there too? There was a little bit of a shift back in um, in Crystal Lake and Souths Stink Lake.

00:50:50,630	There was a drop by about 2010 But then we had 2011 and the major inflows across the state and everything jumped up. What we found here, uh, interestingly in the process um. I’ll show you it’s touchy This is the trend line based on the data. and this is the same thing the DOT did for, uh, Cleveland.

00:51:15,370	So we’ve had the conversation with DOT based on this and hopefully they will, you know, participate in the next stage or the preliminary engineering report, which is uh the feasibility studies are done. So the preliminary engineering report would be the next phase, but here’s the projected timeline of where it’s at.

00:51:31,270	Uh, you will note that the, the railroad is probably going to have to raise their grade at least once before construction begins, if not twice. So they’re gonna spend between 3 and $6 million just pardon the expression, stay above water during the period of time when we get the regulatory approval and actually build a pipeline.

00:51:48,970	assuming that uh all the partners step up and, and have it. Uh, the Bible camp basically in about 2036, the main structures are gonna be, they’d have to be moved by then. So if nothing happens within the next 2 to 3 years, uh, they’re gonna look at their options as far as relocating.

00:52:06,530	They do have property that they relocate to, but again, it’s still within the basin, and who knows where the, you know, you build an $11 million facility and the waters keep coming up.

00:52:24,800	Um, we don’t know the long term trend, you know, decades from now, um, but the scenario is trying to capture it at this point in time, and then like I said, the interstate 94, about that 2023 gives them about a two-year lead time for, you know, construction plant sets and everything else, uh, since they’ve done it out there before, you know, they probably can turn things around fairly quickly, but, uh, interestingly enough, somebody was telling me that they’re actually borrowing material relatively close to the facility, and then they

00:52:43,330	started realizing we ’ re borrowing material and the groundwater showing up. And I’ll show you a little bit of that scenario in a little bit. So, uh, their barrocytes tend to be limited because of the groundwater that’s in this area.

00:53:03,100	Now, um, from a historic record, um, just on air capacity curves from 2010 to 20224, we have, uh, about 22,000 acre feet. that were in the system However, when you go out and you do the aerial storage increases and other stuff, you come up with about 42,000 acre feet.

00:53:25,000	Again, you got all the um air capacity curve, we got all the lakes at the same level but when you notice the other one, Stink Lake was considerably lower. There’s a lot more storage, a lot more water that occurred in that to get it to that level, so um your average per year um is about 3000 acre feet.

00:53:42,170	If you were to do a trend line and say, OK, we’re gonna take out 3000 acre feet on an annual basis, we’d be able to keep up, but there are some years that are more uh in 2025. The inflow was estimated at about 7900 acre feet. So, uh, from a design perspective, we’re not looking at taking out the peak.

00:54:02,900	we’re just looking at getting water out and then managing the storage, in other words, letting it fill up, taking it back out, uh, kind of like a *** scenario, if you will, from a management perspective. Michael, you, the target elevation it says here is 1746. Um target elevation at this point was 1750. That’s kind of what I was thinking. Yes. OK.

00:54:22,170	On which leg? Well, on the entire system. They’re all, they’re all completely at the same elevation though, um, we had the uh DWR go and set in present stations, and you’ll notice with wind and changes and inflows from different directions. They’re slightly different, but, uh, basically they’re all connected now.

00:54:39,730	They’re all at one elevation And where is your station? Palm station will be on Stink Lake. And where’s that from that rest area Uh, that’s just to the north of the rest area. Yeah. Now, from that perspective, the decision to go to Stink Lake was made from several reasons.

00:54:57,370	The best water quality out there is in Crystal Springs Lake. because if you realize Crystal Springs, there’s an old fountain there. That’s where the um trailblazers and wagon trains used to come through, and that’s where they filled their water buckets or filled their water as they continued west.

00:55:15,470	So there’s a historic fountain that’s out there, well, if you will, as to where the, where the water was taken for that. Uh, Stink Lake, you know, just think about the name itself, give you an indication of what it was.

00:55:27,630	The one Guy said back in the 30s and 40s, um, they hated it and walked across it. because it was dry and it basically had an aroma to it so that water quality in that system is less or was less. It, it’s fairly consistent right now, but it was less than, uh than the other portions of the lake systems.

00:55:48,000	And Lake Ruley obviously has uh filled up and there’s a recreation area that’s built out there now and their concern is we, they don’t want to take the water level down cause they’d lose their lake. Um, they’re really not going to lose their lake because, you know, we’re going to an elevation that goes back to when they uh development was first created.

00:56:02,630	So that’s why we didn’t take out or not looking at taking out any water, although 1750 at this point. Are they part of the assessment district? Well, currently there is no assessment district.

00:56:21,000	um, would they be, could they be, yes, and here’s the, the, the conflicting scenario, um neither doesman County Commission nor the Water Resource District can assess the railroad. under a special assessment district. You also can assess DOT, um, and there is a, there is the ability to assess the county for roadways. Um, it’s been done, but it’s somewhat infrequent.

00:56:40,370	So this project is probably gonna end up being um a partnership between the parties and say, you know, how, who’s gonna be stepping up, who’s, because we’re looking at about $250,000 a year for operating just for pumping water out. Somebody’s got to pay that and how that gets processed is all gonna gonna wrap around So even if you remove it at 15 CFS.

00:56:57,630	I got the number down there. It’d be about 4 years to get rid of the water that’s there today. to get down to what we would consider an operating level. But that’s getting done that 1746 it’s shown. in that one, yes.

00:57:15,070	Yeah, yeah, then the next page, I think you have the, yeah, the next page, like I said, we’re we’re basically analyzing different options as we’re going through here, um, so here’s the interesting one when you look at the removal to the structured impact areas, which is the 1750, um, at a 20 CFS system.

00:57:36,470	Now functionally, depending upon the rainfall and runoff and groundwater inflow, you know, not necessarily gonna have a 20 CFS every day, all day for 180 days. It’s gonna be some operational period during that year to, to get it down. um, but you’re still looking at 1.9 or basically 2 to 3 years.

00:57:52,430	Uh, the reason we’re talking 2 to 3 years is this, is we took a close look at Lake Roulley, which is above Stink Lake and said, is there ability to hold water in there because the impact areas are on the highway and the and the BNSF.

00:58:05,870	So we’re looking at holding water in Lake Ruley as a surge pond initially. so that we don’t have to pump that water out and we can lower the waters in the impact area sooner, and that basically gains us a year. in that process. So what’s the natural overflow elevation from Gully down.

00:58:25,470	The natural overflow elevation from Ruley is 1846. Or, excuse me, it’s 44, uh, County Highway 39 as a culvert in it that was put in at 46, so it’s 2 ft above that. 18, 1844 717, sorry.

00:58:49,600	1746 and 1744, there was discussion that the culvert under um county 39 was an obstruction because it’s holding water 2 ft higher than it would had that culvert been at the level of the natural overflow.

00:59:05,600	So there’s discussions of, you know, if we’re taking water out are gonna be required to lower it below that or were they gonna be easements around the lake, um, majority of the residents out there with the cabins uh don’t want the water lowered. but I mean, obviously you can lower it some, but they don’t want to lose their lake. It’s a great fishery right now. In fact, I think game and fish just built another um ramp going out there so that people can get in there.

00:59:22,630	But from the scenario period of record I’ll take you to the lower left here, um, the numbers you’ve seen before, the 42,000 acre feet, Direct rainfall and precipitation over that same period um, was 60,000 acre feet, evaporation based on the North Dakota Hydrology manual is about 100,000 acre feet, so net

00:59:41,970	at that point in time, you should have had a 9000 acre feet reduction. There isn’t We actually have 42,000 acre feet of additional water in that system. which means the groundwater component is about 34% of the total inflow of the lake, which is a lot. Yeah, that’s.

01:00:01,100	A lot more than we ever expected initially. We thought the watershed was driving it, to be honest with you, on 1st,, 1st look, and it’s kind of like that’s not what’s going on So that being said, um, we’ve got surface acres and of course evaporation and everything else. So, um, we have a lot of water to take off.

01:00:17,800	Funding opportunities, I’ll show a little bit on the groundwater component, a little bit, uh, funding opportunities, the opinion of probable cost of this system is about 24.6 million. Um, looking at HMGP grant as well as uh the DWR grant.

01:00:36,330	in talking to, and this, this is actually changed since the conversations with DES, uh, DES has HMGP funds but probably limited to not unlike the uh Apple Creek scenario, probably about $200,000 so this would be a combined application for funding for the preliminary engineering report through the uh HMGP as well as DWR funding.

01:01:01,630	So ultimately the preliminary engineering report for this is about $976,000. Um Stutzman County is looking at that funding opportunity, giving money to the, uh um, their water resource district in Mills to actually, you know, participate in this, and of course it’s the participation share that, uh, that matters.

01:01:21,900	It’s about, and if I remember the number through DWR alone, it would be about a 63% cost share between the, the dual grants. Now, obviously we have participation people or participation groups, uh, BNSF did participate in a feasibility study that can’t participate in the feasibility study, um, uh, DOT did not So there’s going to be a request to all those entities to participate to basically uh

01:01:45,800	spread the costs amongst the, uh, the beneficiaries. Again, it’s interesting to Roger’s point, we do not have a special assessment district. And if you created a special assessment district, you can’t assess the people that benefit.

01:02:01,800	So there’s going to have to be a discussion between the parties and have an agreement that, you know, who’s going to pay what portion of the of the final project costs, and that’s going to happen in the, in the stage of the, uh, preliminary engineering report.

01:02:18,330	It, uh, I see on Google Earth, there’s a couple of waterfall production areas and there’s others in the periphery. Any discussions with those groups yet. what they would think about removing. We had, and I’ll go back to this one, the WPAs and WMAs are south of the interstate. There’s, there’s one in Crystal Springs Waterfall production area, and then there’s one to the northeast as well. Egl.

01:02:37,530	We’ve had discussion with the Fisher Wive Service just in general, um, not the specifics until we get in the regulatory side, um, obviously when they purchased those properties um, they had a lot more open ground than they do now.

01:02:54,800	They have water instead, um, one of the ones we looked at on the southern portion of this is that we’re not changing any of the culverts and the cross connections. So even though we’re taking water off, we’re not taking water below. uh what would have normally been there with the culverts installed.

01:03:10,370	Um, so from that perspective, but we will have to have a conversation with them relative to the impact of their uh their management areas. We have had the conversation with the Long Lake refuge, which I’ll talk about in a little bit, that, uh, as long as the water quality is better. than what they have in the refuge, then their general consensus was that they didn’t have any major concerns.

01:03:27,870	Now that’s not to say that’s going to change when you start having one on one discussions of actually what’s going to be happening, but um. and to your point, Dennis, that’s one of the things on the routing standpoint here going back to the, you can see the um the WMAs and the other facilities there that their ownerships

01:03:44,800	that are out here. So we also did have a conversation with North Dakota Game and Fisher relative to the fisheries, and they, they gave us some indications as to what water levels that they would prefer on Crystal Springs and Stink Lake to maintain the fishery.

01:04:01,530	So, uh, even though we have infrastructure impacts which are the huge dollar amounts, um, from an environmental perspective as long as we can not have the impact of the infrastructure, we certainly should be able to maintain, um those environmental values as well. OK. Let. to And the US Fish and Wildlife Service, uh, and specifically Long Lake National Wildlife Refuge.

01:04:31,800	So because it will go, go into that northwest, northeast end of Long Lake. Right. It goes into Lake Eda, and I’ll show you that in a little bit. It goes in the Lake Eta and then it goes into the refuge, and then it goes from the refuge into Long Lake Creek, which heads to McKenzie Slope.

01:04:45,970	And that’s where if you want to, if you wanna look at this, that’s where Burleigh County becomes involved because the water’s coming your way. Yeah, or, or West side of tap between Tappet and Dawson, yeah. Yeah. Well, they’ve had, uh botulism issues there on the West End, that’s where, that’s a you need flake because the main inlet.

01:05:04,370	comes in from the south and then uh, well, very far downstream and in the outlets right by the inlet and so the water has to back up and if they have botulism problem when, when they have those.

01:05:28,370	issues, they lose thousands of ducks and so, uh getting fresh water there is that, is that something they ’ re looking at and, and, as benefit. They’re actually, they’re in the initial conversations they said as long as the water was quality was better coming in from that side than what was in the system. It would be a benefit to them. Now, in 19 in 2015, get my dates correct.

01:05:47,000	In 2015, they replaced the gate structures because there’s a system that goes north towards Lake Etah. They replaced those wooden gate structures with metal ones. and I’ve got a full plan set of that.

01:06:03,000	In fact, the water resource district back in 2015 was open to comment on it, but all they were doing is replacing the existing system, so there really was nothing to comment on. Um, they have had issues of reconstructing some things and trying to raise the water level in there because if they have a higher water level, they’ve got less botulism issues, um, and there are some concerns that I’ve noted out

01:06:18,170	there that at some point in time we’ll have a conversation with him. Uh, the outlet itself is actually in Burleigh County. The outlet structure. The rest is in, is, is in Kidder County. Um.

01:06:36,870	So here’s kind of the BC ratio and I know this is gonna go higher, uh, BNSF grade raises, I, you know, I just took a 10 year window um, I think on our planning scenario, we, the window of benefits will be more towards the life cycle of the project. probably the 20 to 25 years, but we had to come up with a number to start with from a feasibility perspective. So you’re looking at, you know, 10.

01:06:54,370	5 million in grade raises, Bible camp relocations, 9 to 12 or 9 to 11 million uh single DOT grade raises in 20. 2 when they did it, um, was 16.5 million. and obviously as you go up, the more you go up, the more you go out, the more material that’s necessary.

01:07:12,700	So, um, there’s going to be a lot more, you know, cost there, uh, 5 to 600 acres of uh ag land. We just valued the land and property because it’s out of production. It’s just not there. If you had to buy it, you know, we just put a number down.

01:07:27,500	Uh, county roadways are about 4.3 million per mile to raise them with a 2 ft grade raise that’s about 8.6 million. The one of the larger ones that we do not have a number 4 and we’ll have to visit with BNSF to refine this as their interstate commerce, uh, BNSF, there’s discussion that they lose a

01:07:45,100	million dollars a day when that rail was closed. And it’s closed during the grade raises. They’re trying to do things in the evening, at night, and everything else, so there’s a significant loss there, so the benefit cost ratio is probably significantly higher than the 1.

01:08:02,270	9, but in a feasibility study, the question is, is it feasible? The answer is yes. Again, I just got some of the, the grade elevations and, and information on the background here that we were were from before. Here’s the discharge and this kind of where it goes, where if you want to talk about the uh, the impacts or potential impacts down to uh Burleigh County.

01:08:23,370	We will be discharging into this tributary that goes through the highway, goes through old Highway 10, goes through the interstate, um, goes through the railroad, uh, Dawson Hooker is what it’s called. There’s 4 culverts there, and then it gets into Lake Edday and when whispering stream is basically the upstream edge of the lung-like refuge. OK.

01:08:44,370	So what we did in Kidder County was basically doing like everybody else and threwing up their hands and say, hey, we don’t want any more water. We have enough water problems. What are we going to do with your additional water.

01:08:58,630	Uh, so the discussion is what is the impact of discharging that water from a regulatory standpoint, this will be a statewide or interdistrict significance permit. because we’re having two water resource districts involved.

01:09:18,530	What, uh, Stutzman County basically has told Kidder County, both in letter and in meetings is that uh whatever improvements are necessary along this tributary and stream to accommodate the project waters are all going to be a cost to the project. They’re not a cost to Kier County. Uh, there are current issues along this stream with cattails and some culvert installations that need to be upgraded. Those would be upgraded as well as part of the project.

01:09:33,470	So Cater County would not have a cost other than the participation and involvement in the process and making sure that uh um their needs are accommodated, um, we believe that the 180 day pumping timeline window, um, is gonna require easements along this corridor.

01:09:53,270	Um, it’s kind of hard to maybe get an e a se ment within Lake Edda because, you know, what kind of water level change? So what we did, we took the HeckAS analysis, and we went through and took a look at the stream. from the upstream side all the way down to uh um. to uh whispering Streams, excuse me.

01:10:12,970	And we found very little change in water surface elevation, putting, and this was done at 15 CFS because we’re still early in the process. We found very little change on the 15 CFS being added to the system. And when we added it to the system, we added it on top of a uh stream crossing Stans design event.

01:10:31,070	So we said, OK, I mean, obviously 15 CFS and the tributary is not gonna be an awful lot of water, it’s not gonna be very deep. um. obviously because the cattails, it’s moving through pretty slow, but, um, there’s really no impact. So when we looked at the stream crossings.

01:10:48,700	here’s the net effect that we had with no improvements Staring at uh Highway 10. These are in inches. We have 3/5 Avenue, the greatest increase was about 13.4 inches, and that was the, you know, the additional head or the additional height of water behind that culvert system out that street at that.

01:11:03,700	So what we did then is we said, OK, if we put in, uh, first of all, let me back up. all of those stream crossings meet the stream crossing standards. even with the additional flow that we would add. So we’re not violating the stream crossing standards by adding Project Water.

01:11:21,800	Um, the one that failed was actually the railroad. The railroad’s culvert was putting back in 1960s and they need more to even meet their uh system standards, so they would have a 42 inch steel pipe that would again improve that system to be able to move water faster through the system. Is the stream crossing compliance tied to a design frequency? Yes.

01:11:43,100	based on the, whether it’s the interstate which would be a 100 year counties would be 15 year. Township 25 depending upon the actual crossing location and and the classification for the roadway. Yep.

01:12:08,270	So, what the context that the recommendation uh to the um Stutzman County Comm for the project is that you insert or put in additional capacity at each one of these crossings to accommodate the additional water to not have that additional rise in water surface elevation at those locations. Are you going to have flow in the stream? Yes.

01:12:23,370	So you’re gonna have, um, extended duration of flow in the stream, yes, but as long as you’re not, as you’re within compliance, you should be within the um the confines of the tributary itself. Again, we’ll probably have to get easements just because the duration, not necessarily from a flood scenario.

01:12:40,370	Um, if you put 3 inches on either side of the stream and know that the stream goes up, you know, the impact area from a footprint is relatively small. Uh, there are concerns relative to adding water on top of a stream that already has groundwater issues. Um, this one actually probably has inflows from groundwater. That’s why it’s constantly wet.

01:12:58,530	So there are some things we’ll look at further when we get into the preliminary design side. Um, the Stutzman County Commission in the preliminary engineering report, one of the recommendations for scoping is that this is one of the first things that gets discussed.

01:13:17,170	with Kidder County, so the Kitter County knows what’s going on before we go into the full blown design of the rest of the system. And we do have meetings set up with the, with the commission to talk about that. Is there an opportunity for all the counties involved to get together and have a discussion openly and publicly. There always is.

01:13:35,800	In fact, we’ve offered, uh, Stutzman or not Stutzman County will have a public informational meeting that will occur once the feasibility report is done, the same has been offered to Cater County. So as far as Burleigh County goes, um let me see, let me talk to. this one for a second Um.

01:13:55,530	going from that, here’s the scenario, we went back to DWR and got additional funding to look at the groundwater component because of its impact, um, the initial, the DWR went out and flew the area.

01:14:12,230	They have their AEM study, which is basically they’re doing the groundwater analysis for gravels and sands and trying to find out exactly where the aquifers are and where the water is, and based on that analysis, you can see here the Crystalix or Crystal Springs Lake System is right here. Crystal Springs is here. It goes back over here. The groundwater and it actually covered it up here. Um, the water surface in the lake is 1755. The groundwater around the lake is 1775 to 1800.

01:14:34,000	So you have this constant flow of groundwater moving through the system over a period of, you know, years, and it, it’s showing up on the lake.

01:14:52,370	And when you look at the 20011 event, you look at the 2019 event and the, the, if you’re looking at rainfall data as well as runoff, um, that water’s in the system and it’s coming. so the projection, we are now projecting about a 6/10 of a foot rise per year in the uh in the lake elevation. Uh how long that’s gonna last? I mean, obviously it’s somewhat uh. What do you have a feel for lag time? Um, we’re, we’re looking at that right now.

01:15:11,900	That’s one of the things that our groundwater people are looking at to try and figure out what that might be. Uh, again, we could do a you know, we’re in the feasibility level, so we’re flying pretty high, um.

01:15:25,800	once they look at it, they may say that, hey, we in the preliminary engineering report, we might want to look at this in a little more more detail. But right now it’s, it’s pretty rudimentary, but you can obviously see that we got a significant groundwater component going on out here.

01:15:40,100	There’s been a lot of discussion kind of a little bit of a squirrel here, been a lot of discussion said, well, let’s just irrigate out of the lake. Um, well, you can irrigate out of the lake, but you use it for consumptive use.

01:15:51,370	You have a little bit of evaporation, but the rest of it just goes back into the groundwater goes back in the lake, and you can’t implement that in any reasonable timeline because if you got to irrigate 10,000 acres, well, good luck getting enough people signed up. You can’t do it in a reasonable timeline to have an um manageable effect on lake elevation.

01:16:11,170	Now what has been happening out here, is it because of the AEM data, the landowners out there who are choosing to irrigate now know where to look to put their well systems. because you basically have a an underground map of where the, where the aquifers are and where the where the best well systems would be. Um, kind of going down to the Long Lake system, um.

01:16:30,530	the control elevation at Long Lake and of course you see way over here, the road going south. This is the outfall structure that’s in Burleigh County. um that is basically at 17, 13.5. Um, it’s been raised 18 inches with rock. There’s rock in the structure, um. I’m not sure that it’s permitted rock.

01:16:54,430	That’s a question that’s out there, but, uh, obviously they’ve done that approximate acres is about 17,000 acres. Um, that’s what’s reported in the water permit. We went through and validated that with um the lighter analysis of the area. That’s the current That’s the total acreage within the refuge, the body of water based on that elevation rege itself, not the surface not the surface.

01:17:14,900	Well, that’s the water surface at the control elevation Now Lake Eta is a separate system that’s actually upstream slightly, and there’s more acreage in there. So what we’re looking at the total annual, um, Crystal Lake inflow from the system is about 3200 acre feet.

01:17:33,370	assuming that, you know, you’re pumping a 180 days at 20 CFS. That would be a 2-inch rise in that lake on the refuge in 180 days. But if you take that 2 inches and divide it by 180, um, there’s really not much of a rise in the lake system.

01:17:50,700	So if you’re talking about peripheral impacts around the lake, you’re probably not even going to be able to measure it or see it. is there any part of that lake that’s on private land or is it all public? That is an interesting question because we did take a look at that. I don’t know if I’ve got that map.

01:18:13,470	I don’t have that map in here. Um, the refuge does have refuge land. and it has easement land And if you take the refuge land and the easement land, there are areas around the lake. that are not on an easement and not on the refuge, at least according to their GIS system.

01:18:34,730	So there are private lands that are not under easement or control of the fish and wildlife Service at this point. How that manages for um how they manage their system and raise it and whether they’re creating flooding impacts on other properties that’s secondary to the project question but almost assured me grazing. Yes. So. Um-hum. Yeah. Probably not contingious. Right.

01:18:54,470	Yeah, most of the land around the lake itself is, is, uh, grassland. but there are properties that are not part of the easement and refuge system. it’s got to got to be proved got to, a pretty small amount. We’re probably not talking.

01:19:13,270	Yeah, no, I don’t, we’ve, we’ve not, uh, tabulated it, but they’re like I could point out a couple areas that I know, but um, yeah, they’re not uh not extensive areas. but there are areas that based on the easement boundaries, and we don’t know for sure, obviously not having done title search, there may be easements that aren’t shown on the, on the GAS

01:19:29,800	mapping. So, um, again, those are conversations that we had once the project goes forward. Uh, Kitter County’s expressed some concerns relative to the refuge and how it’s managed.

01:19:46,730	Um, I’ve been down there and take a look at some of the way, what they’re doing and I’m questioning it, but in all reality they probably have a management plan. They’re probably following it. uh, you know, so from that perspective, I can’t second guess from the outside just looking at what’s physically going on, so. Michael, explain how you got to the 3200 acre feet annual crystal-like inflow. I’m not following the math there. OK.

01:20:07,600	Let’s go back to is that, you see, that’s the volume that would eventually get to Long Lake. So we as a district need to understand that as far as the impact potentially the Long Lake and it’s residents and things of that nature, but 15 CFS over 180D’s, that’s the calculation.

01:20:26,370	2 CFSDs, but isn’t it two acre feet a day for CFS? Yeah. Um-hum. So, that would be like 7000 then. Right, but we’re not necessarily pumping the full 180 depending on 80 days. No, yeah, but it’s, if you take two, if you take 2 times 4 or 2 times 20, it’s 40, 40 times 180 is 7000. Got you.

01:20:39,900	That’s what I’m just trying to understand how, how you get to that number. The, the scenario we have is the ability to pump plus the average flow. And what we did, I’ll go back to this one, the operational removal on a annual basis is roughly 3000, just a little over 3000 acre feet per day per year.

01:20:58,430	Which page is that on? Uh I don’t have a pH number. OK, there it is, yeah. but anyway, so that’s where it came down to, that’s the amount of water that we’d be taking out.

01:21:12,500	OK, and again, um, the one thing we talked with Kidder County as well is that, you know, if there’s a stream event and there’s flow, wing can shut the pumps off if there’s a concern with flooding. OK.

01:21:25,230	So, that’s, so there, there’s some Right, yeah, we got a, we got an average flow for a period of time, and I, I just use that 3200 as a, as a measure of the average flow to what would be the impact on Long Lake refuge.

01:21:44,470	The other one to, to take into account, I wanna dig into this a little bit further, but have not obviously the drainage area, uh, for Long Lake Refuge is about 700 square miles, and I think in a final analysis from permit perspective, we take a look at what is the total runoff in To Long Lake.

01:21:58,870	in acre feet, historically based on the there there’s not a USGS gauge down there, so it’s kind of an anomaly, but you have to go back and figure out what that is and then say what is that acre? That is at 3.7% of the total volume going into that system. Um, those are questions that are probably gonna get asked. Now from that standpoint, take it from Long Lake and continue down the system. Uh, once you pass the outfall structure, you go into Long Lake Creek.

01:22:16,870	and that’s where Burleigh County is going to start seeing water, um. arguably with that amount of water coming in the system, I’m not sure how much of it’s gonna pass through you know, there’s gonna be evaporation and losses in the system, and then you go into McKenzie Slough, which is a whole another area where, you

01:22:32,800	know, it’s pretty significant as far as the area that spreads out all over the place and then it goes into the Long Lake Creek and um down into Apple Creek.

01:22:46,170	I kind of like, you know, scratch my head a little bit and said, well, we need 3 CFSs at McDonald Dam. and, you know, there are times we don’t have it. If this was in place, would it get there? Um, I’m guessing it probably wouldn’t just simply because of the stream miles and everything else that takes place. I mean, it’s a, it’s a quite a stretch to get there.

01:23:04,170	But is that something that as far as this, you know PER you guys are looking at completing and getting funding for, would that look at the impacts to Burleigh County as well. We would, we would look further down the system at that point in time. Like I said, we’re just in the feasibility standpoint.

01:23:18,170	In other words, can you afford to build it in essence, and the answer is yes, but now we get into the regulatory issues and we have to start evaluating, you know, do we need easements along the streams, what happens at the refuge, what happens beyond the refuge, all that would be looked at in the PDR from an environmental perspective.

01:23:34,730	because the refuge is gonna ask the question So, well, and then the individual landowners where you don’t have existing easements. I mean, perception reality, right? Even though it’s a minor amount, it’s, it’s online, right? So don’t do it. Yeah, so all that’s gonna be pumped.

01:23:50,330	Hey, did, did we, as part of your process to date, have you looked at, you know, potential cause for this and just natural. any manmade causes that you’ve identified, you know, we’ve, we’ve had a lot of discussion. I wanna see if I can go back here.

01:24:14,900	We had a lot of discussion based on the watershed and said, OK, here’s our liar. Here’s what LiDAR tells us, and it’s relatively new. It’s like 2023, I think. and where are the overflows? And is there drainage that has taken place.

01:24:33,530	I can tell you there’s from a rudimentary search, there’s very few drainage permits out there, um, but our people managing their water on their properties, yeah, they just do. um, we did not find anything significant that would say within this 25 square miles that somebody’s added 3 or 4 square miles because of a drainage system that somebody dug from that perspective. But yeah, we did take a look at that.

01:24:54,330	There’s been a lot of discussion that while everybody’s putting in drainelel, now the drain towel’s causing it. Um, OK, when 34% of your inflows from groundwater, you know, you can put a lot of drain tile systems out there and they’re not going to add that amount of water.

01:25:07,230	So, but to your point, yeah, there’s a discussion as to what’s out there and what’s permitted and what’s not permitted. Um, I suspect in the, in the realm of things, if people were to start filing complaints, then, you know, things would be looked at to see whether or not uh there’s some issues.

01:25:26,370	There has been discussion within the global perspective, there are some areas, and I, I could point them out, but, um, it’s kind of immaterial. There are some areas to where there are significant water issues up against roadways that if the system was in place, you could open it up with a drain and take water down to the pump system and get rid of it and

01:25:39,270	have benefits to other areas within the watershed. but that’s a management scenario and obviously you know that’s not considered, in other words, we’re not looking at a drainage project. We’re looking at solving the problem at the bottom end. And most of that watershed is kind of in the plateau, right? Yes. It’s not a high motivated landscape.

01:26:00,100	Correct. Yeah, there’s a, like I said, it’s the ice cube tray scenario. The, the, the lower portions have started to overflow down into the bottom and distinct lake and the upper portions have not overflowed yet because the water’s not there, but what’s happening is because the soils, it’s basically infiltrating and showing up as groundwater.

01:26:17,170	Are the wetlands in that watershed, are they, uh, following the same trend. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, they’re basically following the same trend as the increases, though in a lot of cases they go up and down, they don’t necessarily have a continuous rise. They’ve risen to a point to where the groundwater inflow has basically stabilized them.

01:26:36,270	so you make I notice the pipeline runs right through the central Dakota irrigation. area by, you know, tapping and Dawson in that area. Um-hum. They have any interest in taking some of that water? I mean, they, they’re irrigating, but let me, let me explain this one.

01:26:58,800	we picked an alignment, basically a straight line, that’s probably gonna meander a little bit when it’s all done, just simply from uh design and head and everything else, um, this group of landowners, you can see the circles are going, hey, um, we’d really like to take water off this system. Right. Um, a couple of aspects.

01:27:15,330	I don’t believe that we can take water off the system. and give it to them as part of an HMGP or a federal project or DWR project. It’s just not gonna happen. It’s not not an allowed, even though I look at it from a common sense perspective, it’s a way to dispose of the water.

01:27:32,000	But now we’re disposing of the water and irrigation, then some of it’s gonna show back up into the groundwater, so you’d have to look at what the influence is.

01:27:50,530	What we found in the in the review of the pipes or the well systems out here is that they complaint is that they often have drawdown and don’t think that they have enough water. Uh, the interesting component that Horsehead Lake is kind of off to the north West.

01:28:07,600	Um all of the irrigation pump systems out there pump and draw down and are almost short for or pure for a while, but the minute they shut off, they go back to the same elevation, so it’s not that they don’t have adequate groundwater, it’s that they don’t have an adequate well system. to give them the groundwater that they need or the water supply they need. In other words, the soils isn’t getting the water to the well system. So that’s kind of what we’re seeing out here.

01:28:21,500	Um, but, but they have actually asked and said, hey, we’d love to tap onto it and you know. and pump it for our system when we’re short on water or when our systems aren’t working. Uh, the other one about irrigation, I’ll just touch on this because, you know, there’s all the different pieces.

01:28:35,800	Uh, the one landowner who has a bunch of irrigation areas out here, and he said, you know, we just put in the irrigation systems that take care of it. And I said, well, how often did you irrigate this here? He said, well, I turned my system on maybe 3 times. I’ve had good rain. Um-hum. Yeah.

01:28:49,170	And I went so I need to be pumping irrigation systems 24 hours a day. every day or 2 2 ft per year maximum allocation for groundwater supply. Typically it’s 18 inches, and if you’re not using any because I have a wet season, I’m not helping the lake any.

01:29:13,070	So there’s a, there’s a context of, of the value of irrigation, though I have encouraged anybody out in this particular area that wants to irrigate the water’s there, um, I’ll be honest with you and, and straightforward DWR has not been making allocations of water.

01:29:30,070	There’s a number of people out here looking for permits that they’re not issuing because they didn’t have the data to support the fact that they could actually issue it and the water would be there. I’m hoping in the conversation we actually had a long meeting with D DWR to say that’s what they’re gonna be using this for, to look at the availability of water for those systems.

01:29:45,900	So I’m hoping that um those who have been waiting uh, will probably get their permits and others who are looking for water would actually be able to uh get an allocation. water quality coming off of your project, I mean is that irritable water? As, as we see it based on the data that we have, the answer is that’s yes.

01:30:04,530	So the other aspect of it is, is if somebody wanted to drop, drop an irrigation system in the lake and pump water off. That would be fine. They could do that, however, being as how we know where the wells could be located, where they can get the water from the aquifer.

01:30:20,000	I would rather have them go to the aquifer because they, then they wouldn’t have a restriction because at the lake level it got to a certain point. The DWR might say, OK, you’re, I’m gonna shut you off. So you’re better off in a, in a, in a well drilled system from a uh long-term supply per se.

01:30:34,900	But even taking out of the aquifer could still help the. Oh, absolutely. The scarring in the leg. Yeah. Um-hum. Very interesting. So, yeah. Yeah, it’s a, a lot of good information, Michael.

01:30:49,370	There’s, it’s, it’s been a long time putting it together, and there’s obviously a lot more that needs to be done, um, this is kind of a brief summary. Uh, the issue kind of comes down to with Burleigh County, um, the flows are going into the refuge.

01:31:05,330	They’re going to come through the refuge, um, arguably, uh, instinct tells me you’re probably not going to see much of it by the time it gets to the refuge and through the refuge system. So to your point though, it’s coming, therefore, uh, like I tossed out the idea of, hey, we need 3 CFSs at McDowd Dan. Maybe it’s here, but I don’t think it’s gonna, you’ll be able to see it in the end run So. similar uh, opinion on McKenzie flu. Yeah.

01:31:25,100	McKenzie’s flew is just another large buffer once it gets in there, it’s going to spread out, um, there are obviously complaints around McKenzie’s sloop based on the standpoint when it goes dry or when it goes full.

01:31:44,970	um just as background, uh Roger had a call from a landowner along McKenzie Slough that was complaining about the box culvert underneath the Interstate 94. Apparently they’ve complained about that box culvert before and saying it’s too high, uh, when you look how flat it is, um that’s, it’s just the way it is.

01:31:58,270	I mean, when the water gets in there, it spreads out all over the place and right now there’s a lot of water coming from the refuge area this direction. Um, so, you know, there’s a lot of flat ground out there that’s flooded from that complaint standpoint, what I did in consultation with Rogers I got a hold of the regional uh DOT district engineer and I forward it to,

01:32:16,430	you know, that complaint to him because it’s basically their culvert, their issue, um, it was kind of interesting this, if you want to call it the circle of life, um.

01:32:30,270	one of the guys in my Fargo office called me and he said, did you file this complaint? I said, what are you talking about? He said, well, now I got a call from DOT that I got to look at this culvert, and of course we are looking at it because we’re looking at the uh uh reconstruction and regrading through that whole McKenzie slough area as part of a DOT contract for, for Houston, so.

01:32:45,730	so he’s gonna be providing the background information on the culvert, the analysis that we did for the reconstruction. to them and then they’ll get back to the landowner and have the same discussion, um, primarily that it was put back in, was put in in the 1960s as far as the original um interstate system and hasn’t been changed since and due to the flat

01:33:02,870	grades. there’s no plans to do anything to it, so. OK. It’s been a problem since the 80s. Appreciate the update, Michael. Any other questions, thoughts for Michael this morning? And at this point, I I don’t think there’s any action or anything the board needs to take.

01:33:20,530	I mean, as far as an opinion goes with the project, I guess we’ll have to see you as, as you gather more information and we get to the next steps and see what those potential impacts could be down in, in Burleigh County at that point, we can rent circle back and discuss more with Catherine.

01:33:36,470	Just, are, is Houston the engineer for this project? Yes. That’s why I’m standing out here. Right on the Stutzman County side now. Um, couple of things on that just as background information, and I think you’ve seen probably the emails, um there was a Kidder County meeting, Comm meeting, and the reporter was there from the steel ozone and

01:33:53,530	the steel ozone reported that Burleigh County was opposed to the project. Um, I did circle back and I provided the information to Chair Bittner and the County Commission. He hadn’t really heard of the project, so I sent him kind of the, the background information on this as well.

01:34:09,800	Um, so as things go forward, obviously, I’ve been telling the, you know, this board periodically that the project is ongoing, we’ll get you a copy of the feasibility study, and I suspect on the permitting side of the equation when it gets to the regulatory site, uh, they’ll be comments requested

01:34:24,100	from DWR relative to this as well. I would expect that. So OK. OK, very good Yeah. Long presentation. Preciate the opportunity. Yeah. Thanks very informative. Thanks, Michael.

01:34:45,800	OK, uh, looking at the other old business this morning, um, Michael kind of gave an update already on the Burleig counting of the CRS kind of ongoing. uh and then I don’t think there’s been any movement on the mitigation plan project. I have talked to Mary, um, Casey’s not here.

01:35:05,370	Um, Burleigh County Highway Department has presented its commentary and there’s some maps that have been updated and, uh, Mary and I will get together probably for an hour in the next 30 days and, and talk about the, uh, any comments from this board relative to its projects and stuff, and I, I can fill you in on what those changes are when, when I make that so.

01:35:17,600	OK, thanks, Michael. OK. uh, no other old business we can move on to new business this morning. Uh, item on there, I guess, Roger the Missouri River joint board EAE program contribution for 2025.

01:35:44,630	Right, so, uh I can’t remember all the discussion last month, but, um, last year we had a donation of uh 1,000,010 Did they act, yeah. OK. And so, um I guess I would Was it 7500? That was the number that I was thinking is OK. So, I guess the We’re just waiting for an invoice. We did approve it last meeting. Oh, OK.

01:36:04,530	And I was supposed to get a hold, kind of like to do that, so I mean I put that on my, I’ll do that. OK. All righty And Yeah. OK. There’s no problem I guess We have a, a group of young people. who seem to feel that wire cutters need to be tested.

01:36:32,100	but it has been fixed, um we also did go in and spray and mow. Uh, the weeds are down a tish, just a tish So we may have to do 3 sprayings this year instead of 2. and I I remember correctly, I did ask for 3 springs when we passed it.

01:36:57,900	um the Cowboy cowboys are doing a good job of checking things out there. Um. before this little incident, I picked up a couple of bags of garbage again. Seems to be a favorite spot to dump your beer cans. and there’s, I’ve talked to the highway patrol guys and the sheriff’s department.

01:37:19,230	Not much you can do about it So, um, but it’s flowing well. We don’t have a major weed problem at this point. And I think if we do spray it this year, we’ll see even less next year. So, we’ve sprayed once this year? So far. OK. So far. OK.

01:37:36,800	So, they’re, they’re taking this, this cowboys thinking a second one and potentially a 3rd possibly a 3. OK. Um, we tried to get the weeds as they were coming up. um. and we did a pretty good job. I saw that before this incident, um, but I do definitely know they’re gonna have to spray a second time and, and possibly a third.

01:37:58,100	OK. Wormwood is hard to kill out. I didn’t realize that. I don’t, I, I’m recalling two Kathleen, there were, there were discussions on spraying for cat tails versus the weeds on top and on the, on the back slope and things it have they sprayed for the, the cat tails?

01:38:14,630	Not at this point. OK. Is that, are they starting to. Well, we’re, we’re still, we’re still in negotiations. Let’s put it that way about it, um. we’ve talked about spraying them and I’m told the best time to spray them is probably the end of this month.

01:38:35,430	Um so I’ve, I’ve made a couple of phone calls, have not received callbacks to find out from. chemical people when they suggest doing this. Well, I think cowboys should be able to tell us what they’re. Yeah. Recommending. Yeah, and I, I know Travis, you’ve been out there is the, is the cattails starting to become I think they’re that kind they always do. OK.

01:38:59,530	I don’t, we’re not seeing new growth in the C cattail or I didn’t when I was up there and that’s probably 3 weeks ago. Um. so I think our spring is, is being affected. I got it. But we got to do it again. Get you later. Yeah. And then there were some repairers to some fences, I think you did.

01:39:18,730	Travis took care of those for me and it was minimal cost if I recall correctly, like, I haven’t done that yet. Oh, OK. You’re going to, you’re going to do that soon, though. Yeah. Yeah, I guess, consensus of the board have to have us go out there and make those fence repairs? Yeah. OK.

01:39:39,470	All right Is there a wire you can’t cut I know that’s a silly question. Electric wire maybe well, we better you charger, we do it. Yeah. Put up some high voltage signs that you can keep people. Not a bad idea. I’ll look into that, James. OK Anything else on Ber Creek? No, we’re good.

01:40:05,100	OK, um, additional correspondence, you know, for any Platts or stormwater management plans, uh, can be available upon request. You see a couple of the, uh, subdivisions there in your. that have been submitted to us for review. If you want to take a look at those, you certainly can. uh, to move on to item 13, approval of this month’s bills.

01:40:23,800	You made me laugh and then I sold drum. So, um, 4 members on page 34 is a summary of the bills, a couple, few things to note. We have a bond payment for Apple Valley in the amount of of almost 17,000 um.

01:40:43,530	included in this month’s bills are the payment for the McDonald Bank, McDowell Ba stabilization about 87,000. um, some Apple Creek. Slide bills there that are fairly significant and then I think we have 2 months of Houston engineering bills. I don’t think we had any last month, so. um, math checks out. Everything looks good. I would move for approval payment of bills and the amount of $220,357.59. 2nd.

01:41:10,370	OK, got a motion by Man Ja Reep and seconded by Manger Jones to approve and pay this month’s bills. Wendy you take roll call vote, please. Interic. Yes. And Re. Yes. And Jones, yes Andrew Smith. Yes. Chair Landenberger. Yes, motion passes. Bills are approved and paid, or will be paid.

01:41:32,170	OK, uh, remaining information in your packet there, um, just kind of some more details on this month’s billing. Our next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, September 10th at 8:00 a.m. in the same room. Everybody can make that meeting OK.

01:41:54,070	Um, quick question, I guess Michael or or or uh have we heard anything on the, uh, the Chase Deitz drain tile. No, have not received anything back from him relative donorship, so OK, we’re still waiting on that additional information right? OK. and how owned the property in order to own it. maybe. wait until he closes on the property and actually has his name on. in. OK. Sounds good. Thank you. OK.

01:42:21,800	There’s nothing else. No business before the board. We