Austin Water Oversight Committee (AWOC) Meeting Transcript – 1/20/2022 Title: ATXN-1 (24hr) Channel: 6 - ATXN-1 Recorded On: 1/20/2022 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 1/20/2022 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== Please note that the following transcript is for reference purposes and does not constitute the official record of actions taken during the meeting. For the official record of actions of the meeting, please refer to the Approved Minutes. [10:05:30 AM] >> Chair: Council member Ellis and vice chair Fuentes will join us soon. I'm convening the meeting of the Austin water oversight committee at 10:05. We do not have any citizen communication so we're going to go first into approval of the minutes. I have a motion from council member pool and a second from council member altar to approve the minutes. It's unanimous. We have an item -- a briefing on Austin 2021 after action winter storm report. We really appreciate you coming today. I think it's important for the public to hear an update. I know that you have been [10:06:31 AM] working to implement the recommendations. I think it's important for the public to understand what's happening as we enter this cold season and today, you know, is evidence of that. So appreciate that. I know my colleagues will have questions for you and appreciate that. I'll turn it over and I want to acknowledge that vice chair Fuentes is now with us. >> Thank you, chair. I'm Greg Meszaros, director of Austin water. I'll get us kicked off today. Please advance to the next slide. I wanted to start with an [10:07:33 AM] overview today on the presentation and, council member kitchen, you mentioned questions. Please feel free to ask questions along the way. We have several content providers to go over various questions so jump in with questions or clarifications. We'll start off -- I'm going to say a few opening remarks and talk about the overall process, prioritization approach and some reporting suggestions for the council to consider. We'll have various content providers -- assistant director Randy Jenkins, Stephanie sue will be on operations, Anna will provide emergency management overview and shay [10:08:35 AM] will go over infrastructure. I think a lot of good content today and some opportunities to go deeper on the after action recommendations and status. Please advance the slide. So I want to speak first about prioritization because I know that's been come LG up in some of the audit and finance committee meetings. You know, there's hundreds, if not thousands, of after-action recommendations and how do you go about prioritization? And I want to say what we did. We spent extensive time with our commission on a special working group they put together -- many meetings over many months as we developed after-action recommendations. In your packet there's an excerpt from our after-action report that has our commission's recommendations on priorit prioritization, and that's what we're doing to drive our implementation. I don't plan on going over that [10:09:36 AM] with you today but I want to call your attention to that and that we did go over the prioritization step and that's one of the guiding documents as we're implementing. From an implementation perspective, it's a little baseball here but I thought you might appreciate how we're organized. We're setting up cross functional teams to continue the implementation. We've been implementing. This isn't just the start. Many of these things will consider to be implemented. We've designated an executive to implement each of the teams. I think it's important at this juncture that this has the highest level attention at Austin water. We had identified several years ago resiliency as a strategic focus and the executives have really been working on [10:10:36 AM] improving systematic resiliency at the utility. By having them lead these committees, it's a way to complement the winter storm and all risks we face as a utility. I think that's an important part of this and each of the leaders are going to be handling the different areas. Then we have a master steering committee where we get together. I chair that and we check in on a regular basis on how the overall implementation is going. We're part of the city wide that includes Austin energy and all the other departments. We're plugged in and integrated into all that too. From a reporting perspective, you know, we understand it's important to have transparency on progress, and what we would propose is that at our regular quarterly Austin oversight meetings with you guys that we provide an update on our [10:11:39 AM] progress. That's something we'll plan to do at each quarterly session in the future and we'll also continue to engage with our commission and that working group that was set up and their recommendations and quarterly report out to them. So that's some of the ways that, you know, publicly we'll be communicating progress across the set of after-action work that we're doing. And then again, there's other reporting that will happen in the city-wide perspective and we'll be part of that also for that. Council members, I want to conclude my opening remarks with an example and, you know, I was trying to find the right word and for me I think this last bullet is faithfulness, is what came to mind for me. I want you to know from the director of Austin water and all the executive team that we're going to be faithful in carrying out these recommendations, and we have been faithful before on after-action recommendations. [10:12:40 AM] And I want to give you the example of the 2018 Colorado river flood. I know the recent audit looked at recommendations associated with that event and it was really from a homeland security emergency management perspective, and we're a partner with them and own some of those recommendations and some of the areas that were successfully carried out. But many of the recommendations it was an Austin water sender -- centered event. We had dozens of recommendations and I want you to know we faithfully carried those out. I have a packet of recommendations that were Austin water specific and they're completed or on the way to completed. I want to use it as an example [10:13:40 AM] when we have an event like this that we do faithfully carry that out. Matter of fact I would point out that that Colorado river flood, even this next council meeting coming up and into February and March, there are council approval items associated with us carrying that out. If you recall from the recommendations -- one was that we add polymer. We have operating polymer systems at all three plants. The current one is being constructed. We did that in 18 months in a creative way to get millions of dollars of infrastructure completed. That's warp speed. Typically that would take 5 to 7 years to get done and we did it in 18 months. We have polymer plants that are operational and construction at [10:14:41 AM] Davis and Hancock are -- just as we were faithful with the Colorado river flood, we're going to be faithful with the winter storm after action plans. I would turn it over to assistant director Randi Jenkins. >> Chair: You know, I don't know that we can see the folks on virtually. Is there a way -- all I can see is the presentation. >> Not showing the presentation >> Chair: Okay but in between. I can't see you right now if you're asking questions, so just speak up. So we'll go ahead. I'm not hearing anyone but I wanted to let them know to speak up. [10:15:45 AM] So? >> . >> Thank you. Good morning. As he mentioned I'm going to cover community outreach and messaging as relates to the winter storm and our progress. As an overview of the communication strategies and key recommendations out of the after-action report I wanted to provide a high-level overview of what the sentiment was and the actions we needed to take to enhance our communication strategies. The first bullet is adjust and enhance our winter preparedness managing. Conduct targeted outreach to multifamily properties and enhance guidance and training for use of puck lick notification systems. I'm going to drill down a little further for each of the [10:16:47 AM] items. Next slide, please. To jump right in, Austin water took it seriously the ways in which we needed to enhance and adjust our winter weather preparedness materials. We got to work, consulted with other utilities to find out what lessons we could learn with them and what are some best practices as well as outreaching with other plumbing individuals across the city, organizations in and out of the city to come up with this approach. So we've distributed these winter weather preparedness tips. R across the city. That started in mid November in advance of any winter weather we might be having. Lo and behold here we are today with some cold weather among us. We've pushed out that messaging on social media. It's hee lighted front and center on the website. One of the other items that [10:17:49 AM] came to light was making sure that we provided those in multiple languages. All those are translated into six languages -- English, Spanish, arabic, Chinese and Vietnamese. So those are all available. Little more about taking steps to make sure our community was prepared. In addition to just having written formats of these materials, we also took the step to enhance kind of our video and allow a place for the community to watch and learn about the things that we are asking them to do and so we've produced two videos on how to drip your pipes properly at your home and then also how to shut off your water meter. In the event of an emergency when there are 30,000 requests coming in, the community and public are prepared to be able [10:18:50 AM] to shut off their water at their residence. The images before you are images on the left-hand side of the video and on the right is a still picture of the covers and the water meter keys that allow an individual to shut off water to their residence. And so we took on a big effort to get those out in the community and we did so. We have distributed over 10,000 of those to date with more on the way and more to be distributed in the coming months as we continue to prepare and be ready for winter blasts, and so that has been successful. So we took that to heart and that's just a highlight of those activities. Next slide, please. So a little bit further about the distribution that we conducted to get these tool kits out to the community. We held multiple community events. In the fall we had five of those, and we additionally pushed out these kits to senior activity centers, recreation [10:19:51 AM] centers on the east side. We reached out and partnered with Austin public libraries to make sure they would have the materials for each of the branch locations. On the right-hand side of the screen there are images of our staff distributing those materials to the community. Next slide, please. And so this is the last and probably the most successful approach to tool kit distribution. We partnered with our customer service centers. They have billing centers on north, east, and south. So we distributed our tool kits at those locations, handed them out free, and I'm happy to report that there were lines out the door. So it was certainly a need in the community and we were filling that need. Next slide, please. I just -- I want to, you know, kind of echo that sentiment. We did have a customer reach [10:20:51 AM] out to us, and so I'm going to read this quote that they sent us. And this person says, "I live down in south Austin. About 10 days ago you were passing out free water keys and covers. I went and got one. There were blue and black sheets that were the best tips I have seen or preventing and repairing water leaks." We did get him copy and took him some additional covers and meter keys. I think this is an activity that resonated with the community. Clearly I think we helped to diminish a little bit of the anxiety around winter coming again, so I just wanted to highlight that for you. Next slide, please. And so I spent quite a bit of time talking about the winter tool kit and that preparedness messaging, but I want to talk about a few of the other items [10:21:53 AM] under way and in progress. We took very seriously the communication and notifications going out to the public. And so while we use the warn central Texas application, we did notice that -- we did find that there are ways to better prepare us to be able to send out those messages even faster. One of the activities we've done is we've provided our base maps for our service and territory areas as well as our pressure zone maps, which was a key in how we rescinded the boil water notice last year. So we've already preloaded those maps into their system so that in the event of a future emergency that would not be an additional delay that would be felt in pushing out those notifications. Additionally, I think you'll recall from my last [10:22:56 AM] presentation about how we utilized the portal, we've enhanced cross training there so there is more than sun subject matter expert that knows how to handle and push out those notifications. Additionally -- and I think one of the key activities that was a real a-ha moment for Austin water is in the past we've utilized operational updates and done that on a 12-hour cycle which is a key activity. In order to best get that information out to the public, instead of relying on a 12-hour operational period for the utility and how we operate we're going to align real time information to be pushed out [10:23:57 AM] appropriately and around the times of day people watch their local news stations. Outside that, acknowledging we did have power disruption throughout the city, you know, one of the actions that we're asking individuals to take on to be personally prepared is to purchase battery operated radios. Acknowledging that in the event of power outages we have spot purchased radio advertisements that we can convert to emergency messaging on the spot so those would be available through the radios as soon as we needed them. That has been completed another activity in -- and this relates back to our expansive -- or not expansive -- really high volumes of calls that were coming in during that time. And so we recognize the need to update our 3-1-1 coordination. When calls come in to 3-1-1 they're taken in a variety of [10:24:59 AM] ways but they're still manual intervention. That has to be done on the utility side to get that in asset management system and a crew routed to that property. We are making improvements to the systems and integrating the 3-1-1 applications with the utilities asset management system so that can be a seamless transaction. The last item I want to update and certainly is a valuable lesson learned about how we communicate to our multifamily and tenant community. So we have recently and as of this morning initiated our first winter preparedness E news letter that has gone to all multifamily tenants. That will be an important partnership going forward. While we sent out one this morning about winter tips about the first cold snap we've had [10:25:59 AM] this winter, that will be a quarter communication we partner with ae on. Next slide, please. And so the last item that I want to call your attention to before I turn it over to any questions is our service outage map, and so our mapping efforts was certainly one of the recommendations coming out of our after- action and certainly was something we were trying to produce on the fly during the event. We have a real-time service outage map that not only brings in our leaks in the system but any potential shut-outs that are happening. Shut-outs can occur for maintenance activities and this brings those in one format. It's something that the utility has offered over time but was not in a map and did not have the searching function where you could type in your address, [10:27:00 AM] find out where you are, what's happening around me. So this is live on our website today, and can -- I definitely recommend that you go and take a look at it and let us know. We will have future phases for this map to, you know, just continue to enhance its functionality but it is live today, so we're really proud of that enhancement and are looking forward to, you know, just providing our customers with a more simple solution in finding out the state of the utility. So with that, I'll turn it over with any questions before turning it over to our winterization of operation updates. >> Chair: I can now see folks. So, vice chair Fuentes? Okay. So we can't hear you. We're checking technical on that. Hang on just a minute, vice [10:28:04 AM] chair >> Ellis: I tried chiming in earlier and I don't think they could hear me >> Chair: We just heard you >> Thank you for this thorough update. I'm pleased to hear about the real-time improvements that have been made, especially on the communications front and I see the social media graphics and I'm always liking them and sharing them out so know that effort in multiple languages goes a long way in educating our community. I appreciate the effort that has been extended on that part. On the 3-1-1 coordination, I'm glad to hear there's attention focused on how to get that more streamlined between the 3-1-1 platform and your service map area and process. Is there -- do y'all measure response times? I know that we're encouraging [10:29:05 AM] folks for nonemergency if they have, you know, leakage or broken pipe to report on 3-1-1 -- do you measure response times and how long it takes someone, a technician to go service the area? Any information on that process? >> Yes, ma'am, we do. We do measure that. That's one of the key performance indicators we track on a monthly basis. I know a division inside the utility even drilled down further -- daily, weekly updates with those teams. We set a goal to make sure we respond to leaks within 90 per cent of the time, but we are always above that metric, and so I believe as of late -- I'd have to go back and check our numbers to be sure and I can follow back up with your office, but inl as of late we are well above -- I believe we are above 90 per cent on that [10:30:07 AM] response time. >> Fuentes: Got you. I would be interested in seeing the response time in getting out to the household and knowing what the changing of 3-1-1 or at least looking for more efficient processes -- how that impacts the ability for us to get out there to service the areas. The other question I have is around the multifamily news letter. Thrilled to hear there is a partnership with Austin energy in providing information to tenants who live in apartments, and I'm curious if you all can share that news letter with us. I'd be interested to see what information is included and would want to include it in the news letter that my office sends as well. >> We'll absolutely get that your way. Thank you. >> Chair: Council member Ellis and mayor pro tem altar? >> Ellis: Thank you, chair. I had another question on the E [10:31:07 AM] news letter. It's really exciting to hear that that collaboration is happening. Is there a way for folks who are renting apartments to be able to sign up if they are not the main account's e-mail address for Austin energy? Because I'm wondering if if families need notification, if they should forward it to their family members so everyone in the apartment knows the information you're sharing. >> They can always call to make sure their account information is up to date. These individuals should be the direct tenants at that location because it's tied to the electric account. That's how we're partnering with ae, is that every tenant does have a separate and independent electric utility account, and so that's how we've partnered in that way. It should but they can call 494-9400 to make sure they have the information updated. [10:32:08 AM] >> That's great. I know with Austin water -- some divvy it up over square footage. I appreciate that that option is out there for apartment dwellers and I also love the service outage map. I know that's something you have worked hard in the last year to make sure is up and running and is helpful for people to know, you know, why they're out of water. Is there a leak? I did wonder if your notification system -- you've been able to send out information about boiled water notices, but do you have a way to segment that for people who may be quickly approaching running out of water as a treatment plant may potentially go off line? I know sometime the outage may happen before the boil water notice and people may want to make their decisions about whether to go stay with a neighbor quicker if they know their neighbor is going to be out of water soon and their [10:33:10 AM] neighborhood may not have access to running water for a while. >> As we advance our metering structure project, which right to date -- I don't know if anyone will mention the statistics. We've installed over 20,000 meters in the system with a plan to get to a 50,000 count threshold and, you know, continuing to replace those. That project should wrap up in the next few years. Think as we get more of those installed we will have time information about outages and we're setting the groundwork to have dashboards internal to Austin water so we can track along with that immediately as the items are happening. I believe we're also piloting and looking into -- I'm -- probably might need to rely on Rick to speak to this but in terms of storage tanks, we're not just simply relying on the [10:34:11 AM] measurement tool in those systems. We're also looking at deploying other electronic means that would help identify outages in certain territories. >> That would be great. And last question -- I really appreciated the slide that showed that you have videos up, instructional videos on how to protect your home. Can you plug very quickly where to find that? Is there a certain search term people should look for on your website? >> Austinwater.org and at the top is the winter weather tool kit. When you click on that link it will take you to the materials, including the videos. >> Great. Thank you. >> Thank you >> Chair: Mayor pro tem. >> Good morning. I wanted to make sure I'm understanding whether it is addressing one of the key challenges that we found during the storm where folks were [10:35:13 AM] reporting leaks but they were not showing up on the outage map until they were investigated. It's looking from the key here that you have -- leaks pending inspection. It appears that you have addressed that but can you speak to that a little more, please. >> Absolutely. The pending inspection would mean we've received a call indicating that there's an issue at that service address and we're routing a technician to investigate. Once they investigate and acknowledge there is a repair needed that would be flipped to a repair, which is -- go ahead. Sorry. >> No. Go ahead. >> I was going to say which is typically a different crew. We have crews that will come and investigate if if there's no problem or if there is, they identify what tools are needed to make the repair and that [10:36:15 AM] crew would be en route. >> The other question I have, for more in central Texas -- I appreciate the improvements you're talking about making where you have the service areas, et cetera. But one of the things that has always puzzled me is it seemed like the city waited really long to use it. Can you help us understand why it took so long to deploy that resource? It's not just Austin water. I think Austin water was one of the first ones that used it. You probably used it faster than what was happening with others but it was still far into the process, as I recall >> Chair: That's a good question and if you can't tell us any changes you've put in place to make that quicker. >> Absolutely. I did mention we have preloaded warn central Texas with maps. We had to get our gis team to [10:37:17 AM] produce the layers that could be up loaded. That transaction took a little bit and then to preload all of the accounts that were within those areas -- that also took another chug. Now that we have those areas preloaded, it will definitely go quicker. >> Thank you. Do you have something written up on the outage map on the changes specifically? >> Yes, ma'am. When you upload the real -- view the real map on your website, on the description. When you first open the map it pops up. It provides descriptions of the categories as well as acknowledging that we are, you know, working to get to each [10:38:18 AM] address on this list. >> Great. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Chair: I have a few follow-up questions. Thank you all and thank you for the questions. Welcome, council member tovo. I see you've joined us now. So the -- thank you very much for the distribution and helping us understand how the tool kits were distributed. What would a person do right now if they, you know, missed one of those opportunities and they wanted to get a tool kit? What should they do? >> So we are in progress of waiting for a secondary shipment of the tool kits to come in, so we are getting ready to set up a secondary distribution, so be on the look out. If they are wanting something in their hands now, those items are available at local hardware stores for purchase, so I do recommend -- you know, if [10:39:18 AM] someone wanted to. That said, I also want to highlight that while these things are kind of nice to have, most homes still have a private property shut-off valve that would work in the same way so kind of the meter key is a secondary source for shutting off water to your home. If you have a private, which most homes do -- have a private shut-off valve, that would be kind of your first step, is to shut that off. And then if that didn't work, get in the meter box. Then after that I would say we are still available taking calls. Our dispatch office is open 24/7/365. Feel free to give us a call if something is occurring at your 9residence >> Chair: Thank you for mentioning the shut-off valve. That part of the information in your educational video? >> It is. Yes, ma'am >> Chair: At this time there's a number of options. [10:40:19 AM] There's an educational video we'll tell them about -- the shut-off valve if they have one at home. There's tool kits coming in. Those who need that resource, that will be coming out. And I know you've been sending that information out to us so we can help distribute it. So I'll look forward to that when your next shipment arrives. So I have another question? >> The service center is open again >> Chair: Pardon? >> Yes. The service centers have closed due to stage five covid right now. Once they open, we will work out redistributing through those service centers again >> Chair: Okay. All right then. I had another question. Just to follow up on the integrating with 3-1-1 with utility, I want to make sure I understood that correctly. Does that mean that's going to connect to the outage map? [10:41:19 AM] That information connects electronically in a real-time way? Is that what you meant? >> Correct >> Chair: Okay. >> Which that integration through asset management exists. It's updated every two minutes, so it's continually pulling new customer inquiries. That is updated. The 3-1-1 component -- right now it's manual. It comes over. Staff enters it right away and it gets up loaded but the integration being built right now will speed that up even greater >> Chair: So it will automate it. >> It will >> Chair: Then my last question. Let's see. I think you answered my questions. Okay. So I think the next presentation is winterization. You want to move to that? [10:42:22 AM] >> Good morning, council members. My name is Stephanie sue. I'm Austin water's manager for water treatment operations. I guess if you want to pull the next slide up. And you can move on to the next slide. So today I'm going to provide an update on really what we've been working on from a winterization standpoint on the operations side. I'll start with some details of our winter weather preparations, which is really something we've been working on since the end of winter storm uri last year. Sorry -- oh, sorry. As well as providing an update of our available capacity protocols and what that means is our balancing of our maintenance activities with the -- our ability to also meet [10:43:23 AM] increased capacity demands through the wintertime and then our strategies to achieve neez capacity requirements. Next slide. So from a winter weather preparation standpoint, as I mentioned, pretty much when temperatures started rising in winter storm uri our staff got in and took care of critical prepares needed at all the water treatment plants. We're showing a couple of pictures here. The one on the left- hand side you should be able to see. There's a gray pipe running across the walkway and it's got a lot of cracks in it. That's pretty representative of the damage we sustained at our plants. Really, you know, broken pipes, leaks, bursted pipes and some of our equipment that is exposed to the elements -- you know, froze and we had to get in there and make repairs and basically get back to normal operation. Once we completed that, we [10:44:24 AM] really focused our efforts on really kind of through the end of last year on installing installation, making - - fortifying our installation and winterizing our piping and equipment. And I think it's worth noting that, you know, our plants are pretty well equipped and accustomed to dealing with a couple of days of dealing with freezing temperatures but with winter storm uri, it was six days of below freezing temperatures so that was challenging for a lot of our infrastructure. But through a lot of after-action discussions we had internally we focused on how to best winterize our piping. Another thing that came out of our after-action discussions was thinking about and buying tools that we need at the plant to make sure that we're not reliant on access to the plant. [10:45:27 AM] So kind of through -- in the middle of winter storm uri we were running low on lab supplies and that's something we typically have delivered to the plant but we weren't able to get access to that. Another outcome of the after-action discussion was buying chlorine hand sanitizers to allow us to do that. We've stocked up on supplies -- things like sand which I'm showing here on the left-hand side and de-icing fluid to make sure we have surfaces we can drive on. Heat ers to heat up our equipment to make sure they're functional when it's freezing outside. Employee safety items. I show some boot spikes, things like tire chains allow our guys to get where they need to. They have to do periodic checks throughout the day in freezing [10:46:28 AM] temperatures, making sure they can safely do that. Showing some cots and ready-to-eat meals. We had staff that were sheltering in place throughout that whole week so we wanted to make sure we had the right supplies to make sure they were safe and comfortable in the event we have to do that again. And then another thing we've been doing is updating our standard operating procedure. So we had sop's that existed already for the common weather we've seen in the past but we really took our lessons learned from what we observed during winter storm uri and used that as an opportunity to beef up our sop's. We have a two-tiered approach. Common winlter Wint -- winter and hard-freeze steps. Common winter steps are making [10:47:28 AM] sure cracking valves -- heaters are working, doors are closed. Hard-freeze steps are things like being able to drain lines, turning off chemicals that are not critical to our process, and, you know, things like reducing the amount of testing we do from our daily routine. I'm happy to report we've gone through sop's a couple of times this year. We've finished it this week just in time for the winter weather we have this week. That covers what we've been doing to winterize our plants and facilities. The other thing I wanted to cover is updated capacity protocols. So as you can imagine, you know, winter is our -- is low demand time and really is prime time for us to get a lot of major maintenance activities done, you know, with our plants. [10:48:29 AM] The photo you're seeing here is actually at our Davis water treatment plant. It's one of our staff members just a couple weeks ago washing down an empty basin. This is a pretty labor intensive and time-consuming process but it's something we have to do on an annual basis. We do this typically during the wintertime because, you know, summer is our peak production season and we want to make sure our equipment works and we're able to keep up with the need. As you can imagine, you know, we're in winter season and we are -- the challenge for us right now is to be able to balance these activities, maintenance and construction activities at our plants, with the capacity and the demand that we might see, you know, and we can see even in the winter season. A lot of it is basically making [10:49:30 AM] sure that we balance these important activities with our ability to be able to meet the demands of the water system. What that means is that we've got fewer basins and facilities that can be off line at the same time and so from a management and operations standpoint, that means that we are -- we're now implementing new strategies that allow us to kind of balance that together. Next slide. So these are some of the strategies that we've put into place to allow us to maintain the capacity and meet the demands, even through the wintertime. The facility concurrence process is a process we've actually been using for a while now. It's an internal process that allows the facilities within Austin water to communicate and coordinate on scheduled outages like what you saw in the [10:50:31 AM] picture before. And really allow us to communicate that and avoid multiple outages. That's something we've been doing a while but I think coming another winter season, again, making sure we can maintain the capacity and still do these things is something that now is present when we go through the facilities concurrence process. Situational awareness -- something Anna is going to talk a bit more about. What this is is making sure we're communicating out about things that are critical to allow us to meet capacity needs. So from the water treatment standpoint that's things like tracking chemical storage. Do we have enough chemicals going into a storm knowing it's going to be hard to get deliveries because of icy road conditions. Do we have the staff we need? Are we meeting capacity in order to meet demands the system will need? [10:51:31 AM] Another thing is really frequent reporting out of the distribution system health -- things like how much are we pumping, how much are we producing, how much usage and demand is in the system and how much do we have in storage? So a way for all facilities to be communicate on our statuses so we know how everybody else is doing and whether anybody else needs to step up if something happens. And then finally the photo I'm showing here is a remotely operated vehicle, rov. I wanted to talk about this because it's a good example of our need to continue to look into and invest in innovative technology. This is a device that we're using to inspect our tanks now while in operation. Traditionally inspections are done in a tank that you do water and you send somebody in [10:52:32 AM] there to do the inspection, but the use of something like an rov is helpful, again, to allow us to do the critical things we need to continue to do on an annual and frequent basis but still not interrupt or operation or capacity. It's something we've been using at the plants on the water lines because we can't stop production at the plant. It allows us to do the inspections we need to make sure the infrastructure is in in good shape. I guess the only other thing I wanted to add is that, you know, these are things that we are doing currently and I think kind of moving forward this is going to continue to be something that we're going to improve upon and develop more strategies around. I think from an operations and management standpoint, we're going to have to continue to invest in this type of innovative infrastructure to allow us to do these type of things and balance better and I think also from a capital [10:53:32 AM] standpoint we're going to have make investments in our plant to make sure that we have the right equipment and infrastructure in place to allow us to do the maintenance we need but also meet the demands of the system. With that, I think that's all I have. If there's any questions -- >> Chair: Okay. Let's see. Any questions? I have a few. Okay. I'll go ahead and proceed. If anyone else has a question, just raise your hand. So I have two questions for you. First off -- well, let me just say first it's exciting to hear about the efforts to continue to use innovative technology. I mean, really that's a force multiplier in terms of your staffing and the idea there, I -- you know, is to detect problems quicker and to get into places that is difficult for people to get into. [10:54:32 AM] So thank you for sharing that. So my question is two things. At the beginning you had talked about the insulation and winderization of piping and equipment. >> Uh-huh >> Chair: Did I understand you to say -- has all that been completed at this point or what's left to be done, I guess is my question. >> I can speak on behalf of the water treatment plants >> Chair: Okay. >> But, yes, by the end of last year we were complete with the repairs needed and installation that needed to be installed on our equipment >> Chair: Okay. Is there anymore winterization types of activities that need to occur -- winterization in the sense of infrastructure? >> I mean, on our existing infrastructure, not at this time >> Chair: Okay. >> However, as I mentioned, I think it's going to be something that we'll continue to work on and as time goes by, we'll learn more and act [10:55:33 AM] accordingly >> Chair: Okay. You had mentioned -- second thing was you had mentioned capital investments. Can you tell me a little bit more about what you meant by that. >> Yeah, and I know shay is going to talk about our capital projects and what not. Some of what came out of the after-action discussions was this notion of having -- maintaining a certain capacity while still, you kno -- acknowledging we have to take basins off line for periodic cleaning or maintenance that pops up at any given moment. So I think the thought would be making sure we are still able to meet our capacity needs and, you know, what that could mean is adding another basin so that you can take another basin off line, basically >> Chair: So are y'all in the process of aalying the extent to which you might need [10:56:33 AM] additional investments to balance our maintenance schedule and capacity? >> Yes, ma'am >> Chair: Do you have a time line for that. >> I think shay will talk more about that >> Chair: Okay. When you get to that. Great. All right. Council member Ellis? >> Ellis: Thank you, chair. Could you talk a little bit about the redundancy of electrification? I know there was at least one issue last winter about making sure that the power is staying on or that there's back-up generators or redundant power to make sure that's not the situation that takes a whole treatment plant off line if at all possible? >> That's also something I know shay is going to talk about. We have been working with Austin energy on that type of fortification. I'll let shay cover that, if that's okay >> Ellis: I understand. >> Chair: Let's move on to the next section. [10:57:35 AM] Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Good morning, council members. I'm assistant director of business services at Austin water. I'm going to describe improvements to the emergency management activities since winter storm uri. These improvements allow us to respond to winter weather as well as to increase your readiness to any type of incident. Next slide, please. I'll talk about our updated emergency response plan first. The emergency response plan, or Erp, is required under America's water infrastructure act. In 2020 Austin water published an Erp in compliance with the law. In 2021, we undertook [10:58:37 AM] significant revisions of the Erp to incorporate the lessons learned from winter storm uri and to incorporate additional infrastructure beyond the requirements of the law. What you see here are thumbnails of some of the enhanced components of this plan. An extreme cold response plan provides guidance on monitoring cold weather forecasts and activating our incident management team based on anticipated temperatures and precipitation. Decision matrices have been developed in extreme cold conditions and general operating conditions. The communications section of our Erp has been enhanced with additional information about internal communications, external partners, and critical customers. Emergency drinking water supplies have been documented. [10:59:37 AM] Information on waste water facilities is captures, and a procedure for emergency water use restrictions has been documented. Next slide, please. Earlier you heard Stephanie speak to the enhanced situational awareness at our plants. The updated Erp also promotes enhanced situational awareness for the incident management team, which includes representatives from across the utility staff. The decision matrices for incident management team, or imt, consider national weather service forecasts for extreme weather, Austin water's operational status, and any impairments to our infrastructure and external events taking place in the community such as other non-water emergencies or other known events. As conditions worsen, the imt status is elevated. [11:00:37 AM] The graphic you see here depicts the four operating condition levels that we have identified. We call these our op-con levels. During op-con one, shown in green, we are in normal operations and the imt is not activated. During op-con two, shown in yellow, we are in increased awareness and the imt is potentially placed on stand by. This would take place with enhanced risk of severe weather. As the severity of the weather forecast increases, we will update the op-con level accordingly. In op-con three shown in blue we are experiencing a limited scope incident. Imt will be placed on stand by and will possibly be activated. During op-con four shown in red we are in a utility-wide incident. The imt will be activated. [11:01:39 AM] This would occur with a high risk of severe weather. As the op-con condition escalates, there are specific response activities taking place in our operations related to staffing, pre incident checklists, notifications, and frequency of operational updates. Having these predetermined activation triggers allows us to prepare for a wide variety of types of weather, as well as incidents that are not weather related. This process allows us to be ready to activate quickly and to lean into responding to the conditions on the ground. Next slide, please. Now I'd like to talk about staffing and training. Austin water maintains a full-time emergency management division, and we also activate our incident management team with employees from across the [11:02:40 AM] utility during emergencies. The photos you see here show our incident management team working in our departmental operations center in 2018 when masks were not required. In fiscal year '22 we have added three new positions to the emergency management division. And the hiring process is well under way for all three. These three positions are part of Austin water's on going effort to guild up our emergency management staffing. We have steadily grown this team from one full-time employee in 2016 to six full-time employees today. I'd like to highlight the emergency plans officer senior. This will be colocated two days a week and will serve as an on site liaison. [11:03:41 AM] The emergency plans officer senior will lead utility efforts to promote community resilience such as coordinating meetings with diverse communities and building and cultivating relationships with community partners, volunteers and the public. Based on the lessons learned from winter storm uri, we have also revised our incident management team structure and staff assignments to build depth. We have enhanced the role of our public information officer within the incident management team to ensure that operations and communications are aligned during an incident. During emergencies, the public information officer will schedule and prepare regular updates based on a plan transparency approach to releasing information to the media and the public [11:04:42 AM] synchronized with the news cycle, as Randi previously mentioned. We maintain three rotating shifts on our incident management team. We have instituted real-time tracking and quarterly reporting to make sure all incident management team positions are filled. Austin water also trains our employees on the incident command system. Our employees take online courses through FEMA and we have relaunched our in-person training as of November 2021. We have instituted real-time tracking and regular reporting to provide visibility and to employees' completion of their requirements. Next slide, please. Finally, I would like to talk about our emergency supplies. We've designated a warehouse to serve as our hub for incidents and emergency supplies. [11:05:42 AM] We have storage shelter in place supplies for staff which can be deployed to any facilities, including cots, blankets, meals, water and hygiene kits. We have increased our emergency water distribution supplies for the community using our multipronged approach, which includes bottled water, water totes, fire hydrant adapter kits and now potable water trucks. Prior to winter storm uri we kept six cases of water on hand. We've increased that -- including some cartons with a ten-year shelf life. We have a supply of 56 water totes. These are portable, 275 gallon water tanks that can be [11:06:43 AM] deployed throughout the community. We're procuring additional 60 totes with delivery expected in a few weeks. We have maintained a supply of about 55 fire hydrant adachter kits in the -- adapter kits in the warehouse as well. The picture you see here is one of our two new potable water trucks. We have received one truck with a 2500 gallon capacity and a second truck with an 1800 gallon capacity. These trucks are outfitted with pig gots and connectors that can be deployed in a variety of circumstances to meet the community's needs for drinking water and can be deployed relatively quickly. We maintain contracts for bottled water. We have a local vendor who is required to maintain an additional 19 pallets and a second vendor available to [11:07:48 AM] provide multiple truckload shipments. This concludes my presentation. Are there any questions for me? >> Chair: I have one question. Not seeing any questions from others. I have one question. I wanted to say thank you for recognizing the importance and taking steps on the importance of focusing on community resilience and designating and hiring a staff person at a senior level to be responsible for that. One of the things that I think we all learned is the importance of connecting to the community and engaging the community and partnering with the community in response. So can you speak for a moment to this person's responsibility during an emergency? I understand that -- and really key is the preparations and creating those community [11:08:49 AM] connections, as you mentioned. But have -- can you talk any further about what this person's role would be during an emergency? >> Yes. Thank you, council member kitchen, for that question. As you mentioned, the planning that this position will do year round during nonemergency times will lay the foundation for how they will operate during nonemergency events. We are working to design the roles and responsibilities for this position. That includes the roles and responsibilities, both during an event and year round. So while I can't provide for you the specifics today, we will have a clear understanding of that emergency plan officer's role. We know they will serve as a liaison between Austin water and hee-some year round. [11:09:51 AM] During emergencies we have channels of communication that are established in working with hee-som so we are identifying what is the best value this role can bring. I'd be happy to report back as that position evolves and that plan is documented on the specifics of the role the emergency plans officers will play during an emergency >> Chair: Thank you very much. I think we can move on now to the next section. Oh, I'm sorry. Council member tovo, did you have a question >> I did, but I've forgotten it >> Chair: We can come back to you when you remember. >> It was earlier in the powerpoint and I don't have the powerpoint. Once I get one, I'll remind myself what the question was >> Chair: Okay. We'll move on right now then. >> Actually, Ann, I have a [11:10:52 AM] question. I was wondering, you know -- I appreciate all the additional information about the water that Austin water has on hand, but within the scheme of the overall emergency management, you know, when is it Austin water's responsibility to distribute the water and when is it he-som and how does that function in terms of a responsibility chain? >> Thank you, mayor pro tem. That's an excellent question and we are working with he-som on the city wide disaster food and water plan and so we will have an integrated approach during an emergency with that plan. The water supplies that we are talking about right now really allow us to provide a rapid deployment and a rapid response to bridge through the initial [11:11:52 AM] days of a large-scale emergency. As I mentioned, the second contract that we have provides truckload shipments, so when we have experienced days' long emergencies, the city has engaged those truckload shipments, and he-som has coordinated points of distribution. So I expect as we are developing these new approaches for rapid deployment, as well as relying on the past experience with the large truckload shipments, we will refine that plan so that there is a -- I guess what I would say a continuity of emergency water that's provided. >> Thank you >> Chair: Council member Ellis and then council member tovo [11:12:53 AM] >> Ellis: Thank you, chair. I really appreciate this presentation. Can you go into a little more detail about the distribution plans themselves? We know since there's been graphics shared after last February that show that certain parts of town will be off line for water much longer than other parts of town. So are you prioritizing the folks who will run out of water first? >> During an incident, council member Ellis, we would assess the areas of need and those can be different based on the type of incident or if we're having particular infrastructure that's being impacted. So we would assess that and then deploy the emergency water to those locations as the need dictates. We would coordinate that through hesom. I know director Ortiz spoke yesterday to coordination with community organizations to meet needs during an emergency. So I would say it's likely to [11:13:55 AM] be situation by situation where we're assessing where is the need for the water and then deploying those supplies. But what I will say is with the various types -- the multipronged approach we have give us various ways to respond within a community. So we have the totes that we used successfully in apartment complexes. We have the fire hydrant adapters and the bottled water so we can really customize which solution we're deploying, depending on the needs of that incident. >> Ellis: Okay. That is good to hear and I will just mention again because I know we've heard presentations about this from different departments along the way, but there are some parts of town where the roads aren't being cleared as easily -- parts of [11:14:56 AM] district 8 and parts of district 10 as well -- you can't get to those districts unless you deploy early. It's probably happening on the outskirts as well where we may see more of the wild fire or flooding risk as well. So I want to make sure that's on your radar as we talk about these plans. >> Yes, it is. Thank you. >> Chair: Let's move on to the last section and we'll have questions -- council member tovo, is your question about this section? >> It is. And it is a quick one. On the slide that talked about vendors, the one was noted as a local vendor with supplies on hand and there was a second vendor, director Wilson. Is that a vendor locally or a vendor elsewhere? And then have you set up or coordinated relationships with vendors outside the area in the event that we're ever in the circumstance as we were last time where supplies are very [11:15:59 AM] limited in our local community? >> Yes. The second vendor that I mentioned that provides truckload shipments is a national vendor that the city has a contract with. And so depending on the nature of the emergency, when we place the order, they would be trucking in shipments from their, let's say, warehouse locations. And that could come from a variety of locations -- you know, depending on road conditions and that type of circumstance would affect the delivery times. >> Thank you very much. >> Chair: Okay. >> Apologize. I don't know why I said director Wilson. I think it was because the next slide was up >> Chair: We'll move on to the last segment now. >> Good morning, council members. I'm Sha shay -- I'll be talking to you about some of the priorities as relates to [11:17:00 AM] infrastructure improvements following what we learned from the winter storm. Next slide, please. We take an all hazards approach to capital planning, protiezing -- almost everything we do can be categorized as resiliency. I'll highlight things that are relevant to weathering future storms. There are a few projects we accelerated due to winter storm uri and constructive collaboration came out of the winter storm and I'll be discussing the emergency preparedness plan that's required by senate bill 3. Next slide, please. In the weeks after the winter storm we accelerated the schedule on three projects already in our cip. And these projects address areas of vulnerability in our [11:18:01 AM] distribution system that we observed during our response to the winter storm. New elevated storage and transmission mains to serve pressure Zones, new transmission zone in the north to alleviate a bottleneck and a rehabilitation and electrical resiliency project for a key pump station that moves water to the south. We kicked off planning for these last year. Next slide, please. Other near-term projects that are focused on resiliency and underway include the north Austin reservoir, which is under construction and replaces a reservoir constructed in 1913. That will go in service in coming months. We are also well into our [11:19:02 AM] advanced metering project which Randi mentioned earlier that will replace nearly 250,000 water meters with smart meters. We had a few thousand of these in the winter storm and the data that came in was invaluable in helping us identify leaks and communicate with our customers through the my atx water portal. Next slide, please. We will also continue to invest in renewing Austin program which replaces small diameter, poor-performing pipes. We've been doing this little over 10 years and have seen records in our break rates which are below industry averages. We have nine projects in construction and 30 in design so you'll continue to see the [11:20:02 AM] projects coming through on council agendas as we move them into construction. F work also continues on the aquifer storage and recovery project, a long-term project that came out of the water forward plan. That is in the pilot phase and just as an example, we'll continue to invest in water storage and transmission infrastructure needed to serve Austin's growing population. Stephanie mentioned the plant improvements that will allow us to do maintenance more effectively at the plants while minimizing the impact to treatment capacity. I don't have a specific bullet for that but that's in our after-action item as well, to begin working on the planning for those -- identify what those improvements are and begin working on those. Next slide, please. So as our water and waste water plants age we've been systematically addressing the electrical and power gear to [11:21:03 AM] bring them up to modern standards. I reported on this a little more thoroughly in a previous presentation, but here are a few of the key projects as they relate to winter weather resiliency. So the Davis water plant power distribution upgrade is just finishing construction. And along with the replacement of the second power feed to that plant from Austin energy, the power service to that plant is now significantly more robust. A similar project to replace electrical gear at a station is in construction. We're working to implement a secondary power feed for one of the critical pump stations at Davis lane. We're in replacement for electrical gear at the south water regional waste water plant. We've identified a priority list of lift stations that [11:22:04 AM] should have permanent generators and we continue to manage a rbust fleet of portable generators that can be moved around as needed to lift stations. Next slide, please. One of the really positive outcomes of our after-action efforts along Austin energy's after action work has been an on going collaboration between the departments. Here are a few examples of how we're working together. We've worked on an agreement that increases flexibility to transfer loads between the power feeds at the Davis water treatment plan on the Austin water side. And Austin energy is actively making improvements at the bee creek substation that will allow automatic transfer capability between the feeds on their side and implement a third feed that backs up the two primaries and that work is [11:23:05 AM] currently underway. A lot of it has been done already and should be completed by the end of '22. We've been reviewing and updating our critical load list, including adding our key pump stakeses and adding our -- stations and adding our data centers. Austin energy has been receptive to reviewing those with us and identifying additional tier one critical loads. Together we're evaluating innovative approaches to power resiliency, including electrical reliability as a service, which is where we would contract with a third party to install natural gas generators or our sites. This would be a three-way contractual agreement. There's still a lot of details to work out, but it looks very promising as another tool in our tool box. Next slide, please. Finally, a quick word on the [11:24:05 AM] development of our emergency preparedness plan required by senate bill 3 which is legislature passed shortly after the winter storm. It requires water utilities to extend a plan -- to submit a plan for extended outages. We have submitted the first deadline to notify providers of critical loads. We are on track to meet the deadline to submit our Epp and identify the options we're going to use as wem as implement our -- well as implement our Epp. We have done extensive review of facilities and identified three key areas -- electrical hardening and redundancy as critical sites, working with Austin energy, managing the treatment pumping and storage [11:25:07 AM] capacity as well as demand management tools. So we continue to develop those options for -- first of all, submitting our Epp and implementing as part of our overall after-action work. And next slide, please. That is the end of my report. I'm happy to answer any questions. >> Chair: Mayor pro tem and then council member Ellis. >> Thank you. I'm not sure who this -- which director or assistant director this question is best answered by. This is all really important information, and I really appreciate the thoroughness and the clarity of how you are presenting this material to us. Yesterday in finance we had a conversation about winter storm [11:26:08 AM] after action as well, and I brought this up there. I am -- I think it's really important that we talk about the winter storm and that we make sure we're prepared for cold water but we as a city need to adopt an all hazards approach so in our conversations, I want to hear about how we're prepared not just for cold weather, which was our last war, but all the other kinds of hazards -- whether it's wild fire, flooding, or heat or who knows what else the lord can send our way these days. So can you speak a little bit more about the all-hazards approach? I know that we have a hazards plan that you have to submit I think to the federal government or the state government and in one of the recent ones, there was no cold weather contingency. I would like to hear more about the broader all-hazard planning. >> Sure. I'd be happy to initially [11:27:09 AM] respond to that and then allow others to chime in if they'd like to. As assistant director for engineering services my team has a responsibility for planning and delivering capital improvement projects, and we also have the ability for staff throughout the organization to collaborate to put together business cases for improvements they think are needed. And we have a business case review committee which consists of several of the assistant directors that you see before you today where we evaluate the projects we're going to move forward with. And one of the criteria is how does this move the needle in reducing our risks? We don't just think of a specific freezing or flooding or wild fire risk. We think of an all of the above risk profile. There may be things we do specifically because they address one risk -- like [11:28:10 AM] polymer feed systems are for flooding risks. Most of the things we do just make our systems more robust and that makes us better to with stand whatever happens. >> This is Greg. I'm add to that. I think council member -- the all-hazards? >> (Indiscernible). It's a little hard to hear you. >> Can you hear me? No? Is that better? >> Yes. >> In addition to infrastructure, we also take the all-hazards approach -- we've communicated the system -- it helps us reach customers and communicate in all conditions, building out the emergency planning group -- the division we've done, having [11:29:10 AM] these resources dedicated to full time. Executing plans when the emergency occurs, training our employees. We're a part of the bigger system where we all participate in desk-top exercises, planning for wild fire, toxin risk -- the list goes on and on. We take that systematic approach to those activities. Council member, you mentioned our federal government required planning and there are certain deadlines that those plans are updated. We exceed those. We're doing annual updates and constantly reviewing plans and updating them for new insights on hazards. Longer term things like the asr project. It was envisioned as a draught [11:30:11 AM] response tragedy and still is but gives us all kinds of operational capacity and availabilities we wouldn't have. Things like water forward are really in many ways an all-hazards approach. Whenever you're managing water demand, I think that serves across a wide range of risks too. That's a big part of things like reclaim, conservation programs. I could enumerate others but we are doing our best to look at a broader set of risks. >> Thank you. >> I think -- mayor pro tem, this is Anna. I also wanted to add that America's water infrastructure act includes the all hazards approach. That extends to human-made threats such, malicious acts. [11:31:11 AM] It requires us to do maintenance to systems beyond the water utility infrastructure we've discussed today. We are also within the plan addressing those risks. >> Thank you. I appreciate that and hopefully might be useful for this committee to look at some of those other hazards and see where we are on them and see what the steps are. I'd like to call our attention to wild fire. I've had an opportunity to sit down at least once to talk about wild fire preparedpreparedness. There's a real need to be planning for those treatment plants and their resilience with respect to wild fire, and I think it would be useful for this committee to hear about those efforts and where they are and for us to see progress [11:32:12 AM] on those. We also -- you know, the challenges are somewhat different. You have to be able to provide the water to be able to fight the wild fire. You have whole areas that are going to be, you know, shut down from water service or, you know -- I just think that some of the dynamics may be different, and it would be, I think, useful for us to have a better understanding of how Austin water is thinking about their role in protecting us and being resilient in the event of a wild fire. I suspect that council member Fuentes, who is very focused on flooding, may want a similar conversation for flooding. I have been less deeply involved in H talking with Austin water about that. I know they're reogniing the risks, with the treatment plants but also the water [11:33:13 AM] quality lands. I think that might be a useful topic for us to cover in a future meeting unless staff want to say anything about it today. >> I'd like to -- you'd mentioned about providing regular updates to this committee at every meeting, so I would suggest that perhaps at our next meeting you could drill down a bit -- not just a bit but give us more specifics with regard to wild fire and flooding. I think that -- I think that we're hearing that your approach is an all-hazards approach, but a conversation about the specific and unique aspects of these particular risks of -- in our community would be a helpful conversation at a future meeting, so? >> So, chair kitchen, it would be helpful to [11:34:13 AM] clarify -- we can drill down and speak specifically on risk reduction we're doing for wild fire at Austin water and how Austin water prepares and helps reduce wild fire risks. And we can talk about how we're planning for flood impacts but if you're looking for a systematic wild fire fire department approach -- you know, fleeding with water shed and -- flooding with water shed and others, that will -- >> Chair: I understand. That's a broader conversation. We're talking about the -- from your perspective. >> Certainly >> Chair: And y'all's role. >> We can I think prepare and provide insights into that >> Chair: That would be great. Okay. Council member Ellis? >> Ellis: Thank you, chair. Could I just get a short update on the expected time line to [11:35:14 AM] complete the treatment plant electric infrastructure project? I think we started that about a year ago but I'm not sure with covid and other things like that if it's still on track or what the expected time line is for that completion. >> Thank you. That did go into construction in February of '21 and it is about a three-year -- three to four year construction period. So we're two to three years away from that going into operation. >> Okay. Thank you. I imagine there were quite a few phases of trying to get it all taken care of. So I appreciate that update >> Chair: Council member tovo? >> Thank you. Director? I had a question about -- first of all, it's super exciting to see the work that's been done and the work moving forward. [11:36:16 AM] I'm really in particular excited about the aquifer storage. Thank you for providing an overview of all the efforts moving forward. On the slide that talked about the work you're doing, the collaboration with Austin energy and the -- you described it as the transfer of power between feeds. I wondered two things. One is -- I hope I didn't miss this in your answer to council member Ellis -- the time line for how quickly those updates would be for critical load changes -- updates to the critical load mapping. What is the time line there? And two, could you kind of put it in layperson's terms what it means to have that work done with Austin energy to have that transfer of power between feeds possible? If you could put it in context for us of what would happen before and what would happen now that you have that new [11:37:17 AM] capability, I think that would be really helpful. >> Absolutely. Thank you for that question. I think the first part of your question was the critical load list and we have submitted our facilities to Austin energy for review, the ones we think need to be tier one critical loads. They're in the process of reviewing those. Preliminary recommendations have been made but they're still finalizing them. >> Do you have a sense of when they might finalize them. >> Imminent. Several weeks to a month. Our plants all have two feeders coming in from Austin energy and we have automatic transfer gear, both on the Austin energy side and on the Austin water side, and up until now, we have not been able to make that transfer on our side because of the risk that it poses to [11:38:18 AM] Austin energy's system to suddenly switch all of our loads to one feeder. But we are putting into place the protocol in order to be able to do that that really maximizes our flexibility and allows us to make decisions in the moment that sort of best protect the facility as well as Austin energy's infrastructure. So it's more of a process improvement where we're able to have that communication in real time and make those changes that we weren't able to do before. >> Thank you very much. Thanks for that explanation. >> Chair: All right. Well, thank you all very much for the presentation today, and just as a reminder to everyone, as you mentioned at the beginning, director, you will keep this committee updated on progress on these implementation of the [11:39:19 AM] after-action report recommendation. So we really appreciate that. And so I'm going to move on to our next item right now, which is just our last item, which is to identify items to discuss at future meetings. Does anyone -- you can send them to me afterwards but you may want to mention some. Vice chair Fuentes, do you want to mention anything in particular? >> Fuentes: Some topics I think might be interesting for us to explore further is process of service extension requests. I think this committee might be a pathway for everything that goes into those requests as well as touching base on the history and potential challenges that we face. Also, looking at the -- of course having the brief update on the smart meter process roll-out and how that is going and going city wide. [11:40:19 AM] And the low income rebate program and winter preparedness, which we did today. Thank you >> Chair: All right. Thank you very much. We appreciate all your efforts, and thank you for coming out today and this is really important for the community. I think that -- you know, these are live and they're also taped. So it's a way for us to help educate the community and ve -- and respond to questions we're receiving. >> Thank you >> Chair: With that, the meeting is adjourned at 11:40.