Audit and Finance Committee (AFC) Transcript – 01/18/2023 Title: ATXN-1 (24hr) Channel: 1 - ATXN-1 Recorded On: 1/18/2023 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 1/18/2023 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. [9:32:22 AM] Good morning, everyone. It is January 18th at 9 32. I'm Alison alter, chair of audit and finance, and I'm going to convene this meeting. I'm joined on the dais by, the members of the audit and finance committee as currently constituted. Council member pool council member of Fuentes and council member Kelly. We have one main item on our agenda. We're going to start though. With our minutes. Do we have any speakers this morning? Okay great. So [9:33:22 AM] we'll start with public communication and I don't have the names for those so if you can tell me the names, please. Okay thank you. Mr Greenberg. If you want to come up, you have three minutes. Terror alter and members of the committee. My name is Betsy Greenberg, and I'm, a member of the ethics review commission. I attended your meetings in November and December and I'm here for a third time. To ask that you consider resolutions that the ethics review commission passed in July of last year. Thresolutions recommend changes to section 2-7 of the city code in particular the parts of the code that describe what is required to be listed in the statement of financial interest. As council members, one of your important responsibilities is making decisions about land use and [9:34:24 AM] members of the public need to be assured that the mayor and council members do not have conflicts of interest when making these decisions, so the purpose of the first resolution is to require that interest in real property be identified even when the property is held by a corporation partnership. Or other entity in which the official owns a substantial interest as defined elsewhere in the code. Interesting entities are disclosed currently, but there is no current disclosure about real estate that these entities own so this code change would improve transparency. He second resolution would further improve transparency requiring that the city clerk post to the city's website. The financial disclosure forms filed by elected officials as well as candidates for elected office. Currently the forms are available, but only with the public information request, which means it can take weeks to obtain information. Please [9:35:25 AM] remember to include the recommendations of the ethics review commission when you discuss future agenda items at the end of today's meeting. If you're troubled by any aspect of the recommendations, please reach out to me or the commission liaison to discuss your concerns. Thank you. Thank you, Mr Greenberg. Miss scale. Three minutes. Hello my name is Mary kail. I want to thank you. First of all for your service to the city of Boston. I'm right. I'm speaking today as a constituent to express my support for the proposed code changes recently recommended by the ethics review commission. Both resolutions are designed to improve accountability and transparency around the important land use decisions that frequently go before city council for consideration. The first resolution affects anyone [9:36:25 AM] required to file the financial disclosure form, including members of sovereign boards, the mayor and city council members, it requires its substantial interests in real estate be easily identified rather than simply listed as part of financial instruments, such as limited partnerships, real estate trusts or other business vehicles. The second resolution recommends that the financial disclosure statements be publicly posted for elected officials and candidates. I believe that both both of these proposed changes by increasing transparency and accountability will support a stronger, more responsive city government for all of Austin's residents, and I hope you could will consider including them for eventual consideration by city council. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr gale. We will now move to item one a minute, so I have a motion to approve the amendments. Council member Kelly moves approval and council member quantas second that all those in favor that is unanimous [9:37:26 AM] on the dais and welcome to council member Ryan alter, who is joining us this morning and hopefully will be joining us as a member of this? Committee. So we are. Here today at this particular meeting. To discuss the external review of Boston water. We're here, though, because austinites deserve. Safe and reliable drinking water. After the February 2020 to boil water notice the fifth major incident. With our water quality and supply in as many S. I felt it was important to have an external review of these recent water service interruptions and our community to identify what went wrong. How to prevent future failure and how to improve the overall resilncnce and functioning of our water system. Iasked our city auditor with organizing this [9:38:26 AM] independent review of our five most recent incidents. Virus resolution that was co sponsored by council members. Tovo Fuentes, Ellis, pool and Kelly. Three of whom are on the dais with me today. This was approved unanimously on February 17th at the council meeting shortly after the water boil. Today what we're gonna do is we're going to hear a briefing on the final report from the city auditor's office and the U. T center for water and the environment, which was commissioned to lead the external review. The water and wastewater commission will hear a similar presentation this evening. While the executive team from Austin water is on site to answer questions and make an initial responsibly. Austin water will share their detailed implementation timeline for report recommendations at a joint meeting with the Austin water oversight committee on February 15th. We are still determining whether that will be in the morning or the afternoon. I want to speak briefly to the process. Because I think it's [9:39:28 AM] important. This external review. Is not only to make sure that we can deliver the safe drinking water but also to rebuild trust. In Austin water. It is my understanding that throughout this project, Austin water has worked with the office of the city auditor and the U. T review team to provide access to facilities, documentation and personnel and that Austin water is working on an implementation plan for 49 of the 53 recommendations with 19 of those already underway. Austin water has also committed to providing regular updates to this committee and Austin water oversight committee. To keep us abreast of the implementation process. I want to thank the Austin water leadership team, especially in Rome. Acm good and newly appointed director roles. Rawlson for their commitment to change and transparency during this process. Rethinking our approach to emergency preparedness and stewardship of our resources, not an easy task [9:40:31 AM] . And I'm heartened by the response to this report so far. As we work to rebuild trust between our community and our utility. It is my hope that Austin water will also share clearly with utility customers what they have done and what they are doing to prevent future boil water notices, water outages and other service interruptions. I want to pause before we go into the report just for those who are watching who haven't read the report, to make sure that people understand that this report is an important step towards restoring trust in our utility. But it is not the only one that the city has taken or is taking. For those listening. I want to highlight that even before this review was commissioned, our water utility had already taken steps to address the issues that led to the four incidents with our water quality. And while this review was in progress in 2022 Austin water took steps to implement recommendations made in Austin waters internal after action report for the most recent water quality issue. The February 2020 to boil water [9:41:33 AM] ce. In other words, implementing the recommendations that we will hear. Today is only one piece of our utilities after action work. I'll call your attention to appendix two B of the report being presented today , which lists after action report recommendations from the various incidents and their implementation status. I will now introduce corrie stokes, who was our auditor, and thank you to you and your staff for overseeing this effort. This was independent of the city manager's office. It was procured under the guidance of the city auditor. Thank you, miss stokes. With that excellent introduction we so as you know, we did this as a result of the council resolution. Last year, we went out and contracted as mentioned with the center for water and engineering at the university of Texas, and they had many, subcontractors with various expertise that were assembled as part of this team. So today, Dr Lin cats who led that team will be presenting Dr [9:42:33 AM] Katz. Wrong way. Thank you and is at the center for water and environment. Yes. Good morning. Thank you for being here. Thank you and. Thank you for the opportunity to prevent the present the findings of our external review. That you so eloquently described our goals for us. I want to start by proceeding with the objectives of this work. And before I do, I'll introduce myself and cats. I've been the director of the center for water and the environment from a number of years, and I'm also a professor and civil, architectural and environmental engineering. At the university Texas and I've been there since 1998 so you can do the math. The objectives for this report. Or shown here. As council woman said. We reviewed [9:43:35 AM] five water quality incidents that were identified by the city council that took place. Between October 2018 and February 2022. We evaluated whether current technology is sufficient for meeting regulatory requirements . We evaluated infrastructure for its ability to meet design requirements. We evaluated operations to meet to determine if they could meet design flows during normal conditions and extreme events. And beyond that we were asked also to provide recommendations to increase resiliency, moving forward. And identify related issues that could improve the overall resilience and functioning of the utility. We addressed three key questions. As part of this, the first was, how does the water quality that's produced by the watershed? Impact the raw water quality entering the plant . And what are the risk created? By that and again we considered [9:44:36 AM] both normal operations and extreme conditions. From an engineering perspective. For the process is capable of handling this range of water quality, and then finally, from a staffing and organizational perspective is Austin water position to operate the plant over the range of water quality conditions that have been observed. So to do this. We assembled a team. You'll notice the three square boxes in the center that highlight three differentas . Where we assembled three distinct groups of our team to focus on the first is operations , distribution systems and water quality. The second is organizational structure, communications and emergency response. And the third is infrastructure and energy requirements. Now all of the members of this team have or academicians and or consultants with years of experience so within the operations group Sarah Clarke fill brandhuber and [9:45:39 AM] Christine Owen have decades of experience and water treatment plant operations within our organizational structure, communications and emergency response group. Casey false is an expert in water infrastructure systems and project management. Carrie Stevens is an expert in organizational communication. Technology. And Harry Evans was a former chief of staff at the Austin fire department and let our emergency response, review. And then the third group was the infrastructure and energy requirements, and that was led by a team at brown and Caldwell . Engineers who reviewed the infrastructure with respect to design requirements and current status and y'all glaser, who's a research associate, this expertise is an energy we sent these three teams out independently and really excited to report that all three teams [9:46:39 AM] came back with a consistent set of observations and similar recommendations, which gave us a lot of confidence in our findings. So. When we started looking at the, this project and worked with the city and Austin. Auditors, to look at you know how to go about this. The first thing we said is, we have to provide a scope that makes sense that we can do in a timely fashion and answers. The question raised. So to do that, we decided to focus on the Ullrich water treatment plant. First because there's commonalities between all three plants. They all obtained water from the lower Colorado river. They all use, as a key process in removing hardness and treating water to meet requirements with lime softening. And then we decided to focus specifically on all all Rick water treatment. Plant because it's critical to the service to south Austin. It's the most complex of the three [9:47:40 AM] treatment plants you can see in the middle of that figure how the sizes of those clarify irs change. And so that makes even operating these, fairly complex, clarify. There's more challenging when you have different sizes across the plant . It was impacted by four of the five events identified by the Austin city council, and it's been subject to significant staffing changes over the past several years. So we thought this was the key plan to focus on during our work, although many of our recommendations extend to all three plants okay? Our approach was to provide multiple lines of evidence that supported our observations and recommendations. Ah we researched best management practices, staffing Austin water policy procedures, treatment plant design specifications, plant maintenance records asset management programs, capital improvement, training materials , water quality data. Historical [9:48:42 AM] data from source water, monitoring, historical raw and finished water data. After action reports, organization and management strategies for similar organizations like Austin water. We conducted over 25 interviews with personnel across Austin water with, going from assistant directors all the way down to operators. We reviewed the infrastructure and operations and compared it to regulations provided by both the state and the nation. And we looked at educational requirements for operators to focus on staff hiring and, promotion. And then finally, we compared the. Information to for communication and public information to documents such as the American water works trending in an instant, a risk communication guide for water utilities. So I want to first [9:49:43 AM] thank Austin water again because they were instrumental in providing access to all of this documentation that we received from the utility opening up to the personnel interviews and follow up meetings and, answering questions and very, rapid response. So thanks for that. I want to move on now to looking at question one. So the first of our questions, which is, how does water quality and, in the watershed affect the water quality entering the plan. And the bottom line is that the lower Colorado river water quality is consistent with respect to key water quality parameters. Over long periods of time that we studied, but it's subject to spikes into pretty during storm events. So what I'm showing you here is a plot of data that we compiled. From, what we received from Austin water. From 2000 to 2022. What [9:50:46 AM] were plotted on the Y axis is raw water turbidity. And we've highlighted areas where you see significant spikes, highlighting that the spikes that we saw in 2018 are, that we saw in fall of 2018 during that event is significantly higher than many of the other spikes that have been seen over over years. We also noticed that this relatively consistent, water quality that extended over the 10 year 11 year period or sorry , 22 year period that we looked at, also held for total organic carbon ph, total hardness and alkalinity so other water quality parameters that are key to the operation of a lime softening plan. Okay? The other thing I want you to notice is that even though we saw those spikes in the raw water quality when we take a look at the finish water quality over that over from 2011 to 2022, you'll [9:51:46 AM] notice that the finished water turbidity is consistent. And consistently low and falls below the regulations required by tcu . Q or and the primary drinking water standards, which says that it must be less than 0.3. Net floor metric timidity units. This is a unit to quantify cloudiness and basically it's about thinking about light, scattering. And this value of 0.3 is, as I said, a national standard refers to averaging over or looking at the month. And then at no time can attribute ditty go higher than one ntu. So the only event that led to a turbidity increase above that value or above any of those led to the boil. Water notice of 2000 was the 2018 flood event. The 2022. Boiled water. Notice was not a result [9:52:47 AM] of the watershed. And so in this slide, focusing just on that watershed properties. Here we go. Alright so moving the question to from an engineering perspective of the process is capable of handling this range of water quality. We do believe that the infrastructure is, appropriate to treat raw water from lake Austin and that the process design aligns with regulatory requirements. So that's the bottom line for this issue, suggesting that the plant is appropriate. As we look at this plant. Sorry. I'm losing the yeah, okay. Was, as I said, this is a lime softening based treatment plant very well suited for the raw water quality associated with the lower Colorado river, which has, ah! Sufficiently high hardness and alkalinity that you want to [9:53:48 AM] remove. The hardness from the water it meets regulatory requirements. And but one of the things that I'd like to point out is that lime softening, processes. Really? Benefit from very stable water quality. So the process that's used this up flow clarify that. You see, in the on the right. Is you know, one of the more challenging types of processes it requires more experienced operators, and it's not a system that you're going to basically start up. Or changed conditions on the fly takes some time takes hours to get things moving going, and it takes time for the for a new clarified to be brought online, so it's not associated with very rapid changes in system conditions, okay? Oh, sorry. [9:54:53 AM] There's one more thing I wanted to comment on the slide. And is that one of the things that's also important to recognize as we did this review is that the Ulrich water treatment plant typically operates at about 35% of the rated capacity. And so several of our recommendations point to the need to look at these processes at the rate of design capacity. Over the next. Several months and years. Because they haven't been tested at the 167 million gallons per day. But they were rated for so that is something that needs to be looked at. All right. So before I move on. To question three. I want to review the responsiveness to Austin water to the incidents that we identified. And I want to focus on the water quality and treatment, which is associated with the two first. Objectives or questions that we've answered. Okay? I also want to [9:55:54 AM] highlight that. In all of the incidents that we see there's no single cause. But rather a series of combined and cascading issues that lead to these types of events. Good. So the first is and I think this was said earlier. Austin water has made significant progress towards implementing a more majority of the after action report recommendations already, and these have improved resiliency. We believe. So I'm gonna start with the fire foam incident because we didn't spend a lot of time on this in the report. Because Austin water really had no responsibility for the cause of this instrument, and we believe they responded appropriately it to the issue. And rapidly resolved it with Austin in cooperation with Austin fire department. The October 2018 boil event. This was a water quality event in which the turbidity alkalinity and hardness strange this, you [9:56:55 AM] know, changed tremendously. It was an unprecedented excursion from typical water quality parameters. And, yeah. Would have been a challenge for any treatment plant to respond to but from the after action reports one of the recommendations in the studies that were done was the addition of a polymer system to provide further resiliency. That polymer system has been installed at all Rick and it's now being installed in the other two treatment plants, and we believe that this will provide further resistance resiliency. We have reviewed the data that came out of the testing of the stored water from that and, agree with the findings that a polymer system could be helpful. The zebra mussel issue. We believe this was a, an issue in which there was delayed response and it was more reactive than proactive to an emerging issue. All the there was tremendous data that was being presented [9:57:55 AM] nationally at conferences and in documentation that zebra mussels were spreading towards Austin. And. We felt like you know, this could have been avoided, but the Austin water has responded to this and their after action reports they've installed copper sulfate system to, had that off and are implementing a, a newer system as well. That will also help resolve this issue in the future. In contrast to that, though one of the things that we noticed and we looked at was the response to another emerging concern that's coming out which is cyanotic toxins. Okay these concerns and their their ability to address this or or appear to be a lot more proactive. There's been meanings going on. There have been discussions, and there's already a report out, saying here's an approach that we can employ to address these issues. If they become apparent at this point, we haven't had [9:58:56 AM] any issues with it at the plant, so I don't want to alarm anyone. But my point is, is that this is a proactive response. And I think it shows positive signs for Austin water moving forward. What our storm Earth highlighted the critical role of energy resiliency and Austin water is moving forward with the emergency preparedness plan required by senate bill three. And finally, February 22nd boil water. This was a serious and avoidable failure that exposed some of the management organizational issues. Including staffing, training, internal communications. Emergency response and management. And so this is one of the areas. We spent a lot of our recommendations because we felt like this is where attention needed to be. Okay? So. Moving [9:59:56 AM] forward as we think about resiliency in the future. We can focus on question three. Which says from a staffing in an organizational perspective is Austin water position to operate the plant over the range of water quality conditions observed our our reviews suggested. There's a serious disconnect between what upper management efforts to improve operations. And the interaction with the plant and engagement with the plant. To be able to implement these effectively. One of the things that we noticed is that the current organizational structure have some challenges with respect to internal communications. Emergency response and attention to plant needs. If you take a look at a plot that we've put together of direct reports or and secondary reports to assistant directors. You'll notice that there's one that stands out and that is the [10:00:56 AM] assistant director over operations who has a significantly higher number of reports. No. Work by Gordon, that we cited in our work suggests that a narrow span of control is appropriate for work. That is complex by nature, high risk. Receives a high degree of P scrutiny. Requires a great deal of coordination and as geographically dispersed. To us that fits Austin water, and we agree with this concept of narrow span of control. Key concerns identified as well include, effective leadership and adequate staffing and Ulrich. When we talk with the people at the plant, there were concerns raised by the staff that included poor compensation. Frustration over the lack of effective training. Accessibility to the standard operating procedures that weren't being routinely accessed. And the time required for capital improvement projects [10:01:59 AM] , funding to be, funded. Sorry and executed. Okay? So we've got to highlight some of the organizational structure of recommendations that we looked at, because again, these are the key areas that we wanted to focus on today. The first is to address organizational structure issues by establishing clear lines of supervision and reporting expectations. We really believe that there should be a single person. In charge of the older treatment plant, and this is a recommendation that Austin water has agreed with, and we're excited that that, can move forward. We believe that there needs to be greater emphasis on documentation, training and team building, and we have a number of recommendations that addressed this issue. Address we also believe that there needs to be, an examination of attrition and [10:03:01 AM] retention and that this needs to be improved through partnerships educational programs. Increasing compensation and career advancement opportunities. We believe that there needs to be greater engagement of the plant staff and the asset management, operational procedures and emerging issues in water treatment. And finally, we believe that Austin water should report directly to the city manager to streamline communications and processes. In terms of emergency management recommendations. Again we're going to go back to recruiting and retaining skilled workforce across the organization and again. This is an example is when we send different people out to look at things and to interview we're coming back with similar findings. The skilled workforce is a key issue. We believe training is needed for plant specific processes, emergency management software and scenario training. The [10:04:02 AM] department operations center emergency management facility appears to be well designed and suitable to handle events. And Austin water has a robust online emergency platform vehicle. She for, handling emergency operations. But more training is needed. Ah so that all staff understand how the Austin water decision matrices occur. And are clear about escalation processes , so we believe that they need to establish document communicate and continually reinforce notification thresholds. For escalation of emergent events. And then finally, we believe that the span of control also needs to be produced at the plant during emergency events similar to what happens at the department. Operations center. Overall we made over 50 recommendations. In four of the areas we feel like the Austin the after action [10:05:03 AM] reports have done a very good drop of addressing a lot of the issues that we saw as well. There were still some remaining that we wanted to highlight. And, that are provided in the report. One is associated with water quality variability. Good. The polymer system is very good step towards resiliency, but one of the other things you noticed in the water quality changes that occurred during the 2018 event is that the alkalinity and hardness also dropped and this can be, concerning for a lime softening plant. And so we think there should be a review, looking at whether there is potential for, there's to be a concern in future events. That are again very, very extreme. In addition, we think there needs to be a focus on emerging contaminants like there is with cyanide toxins. There are other emerging contaminants that could [10:06:04 AM] be of concern that need to be addressed as well. In terms of the design capacity. I mentioned already that the plant normally operates at about 35% of capacity. We really think process testing needs to occur at design flows to make S that we're prepared. Emergency energy resilience again. We believe that senate bill three the emergency prepare this plan items are being addressed. And that they need to continue. And terms of public communication effectiveness. This is an area where we saw a lot of improvement from the after action reports and I wanted to give a shout out because, it's clearly more proactive and responsive, and I think they've made great improvements to this one area, though, that we did want to mention was that, at the present Tim the the customer service center for dispatch. Does not report to the assnt director for communication, and [10:07:06 AM] we think this is a change that is going to happen from our understanding, and we support that fully. We think it's important for Austin water. To own their entire customer experience, and that doesn't mean billing. I know all of us enjoy just getting a single bill. So moving forward. As we moved to areas where we think that, more work needs to be done. One of the issues that came about is a lot of the low priority. Preventive maintenance maintenance has been deferred. Due to staffing. Issues that you know, with 30% opeaff position, it's hard to find the resources to deal with deferred maintenance. Now hype the priorities are being put on maintenance that is associated with, risk to human health and delivery of the water. But there's a lot of other maintenance items that you don't need to happen on a on a routine [10:08:07 AM] basis at a plant and, this is an area that we saw some concern. Okay? Of particular concern is the solids management system, which is a key, a critical part of a of any treatment plant. If you can't get your solids or your residuals offline, and they can't stay on the plant, then you can't operate. So one of the areas that we had concern was the, the centrifuges their age and condition is such that they require a lot of maintenance, which is putting more demand on the staff. And there in 2020. There was a review of the solids handling system. The centrifuges are set to be replaced, and we really hope that that happened can happen as soon as possible. Finally. I'm not going to talk more about the organizational effective operations because I dealt with that already. So I [10:09:09 AM] just want to provide some final comments. One is that Austin water has a long history of providing high quality water to the city over 100 years. The water quality and treatment facilities are appropriate and finish. Water meets nationalist state standards more than 99% of the time or someone asked me I should put clothes on there, and I said more than 99. Plus, but but they're doing a great job and they've been doing it for a really long time and there have been T these occasions that we've seen, but, you know, I believe that there's a lot of commitment by Austin water. For meeting this mission of providing high quality. I believe that the staff from to bottom, understand their role in protecting the public from acute and chronic health risks associated with the consumption , which makes us a very, very critical infrastructure. Finally we believe that effective [10:10:09 AM] operation of a treatment plan is complex, as already requires a full complement of operators better trained staff and coordination among the staff, supervisors and management at Alberg and across Austin water we hope that our report provides recommendations that Austin water, will help Austin water improve their ability to, protect human health and provide safe water to the city and its residents, both during normal operation, normal operations and extreme events. And with that ah , thanks for your attention. I want to also send my thanks to the auditors who worked with us , Corey stokes D Kathy Harrison. And, if you want to contact either me or Corey, we provided the information here, so thanks again for your attention. Be happy to answer questions. Thank you, Dr Katz. As is our practice. We will, before we ask you questions, we will invite up Austin water if [10:11:12 AM] they want to provide any response today in advance of their larger presentation. Yes, thank you. Good morning council members. My name is shay rolls Wilson. I'm the director of Austin water. Thank you for your time and attention today to these matters and thank you to the office of the city auditors , the UT center for water and environment and their team. And to our interim acm, who was our interim director at Austin water over the majority of this review, Robert good. And especially, thank you to the Austin water leadership and staff who participated so fully in this review. We are learning organization. And we are already working on many of these recommendations. We want to reinforce areas where we're strong and when we want to strengthen areas that need it. [10:12:12 AM] So as you mentioned, chair alter . We are already working on many of these recommendations. We will report out more details on our implementation plan at a future meeting. I'm happy to answer any questions that you have today about ourururrent status or progress. Thank you. So really briefly, thank you, Dr Katz and your team. I think this is a really important report. For restoring trust and helping us to understand what we're doing, right and where we need to improve. You know, it's important that we acknowledge we were doing right for you know those who are watching or do you want to point out that the report highlights a lot of really important issues that we need to address, particularly with respect to organization and management. And I think we'll be talking a lot about those, you know, in our questions. What I'd like to propose that we do colleagues is that, we can each [10:13:12 AM] ask a couple questions and serious. Please keep in mind that Austin water will be coming back with their implementation report. You obviously can ask questions of Austin water. As much as you want, but this will be the main opportunity that we have. I believe with, the team although they may come back on the 15th. So I know for me. I will, in my questions probably focus more on the U. T team and highlight things that I want Austin water to answer when they come back with the implementation plan rather than have you give a partial answer today, but obviously anyone can ask anything. Boston water, so I'm gonna start with one or two questions and then pass it on to other other folks. Did you want to speak before I ask my questions, or did you want to go next to lead off with questions or end with your questions? I'm I have a lot of questions. So I was going to do one or two questions and then let other people each ask questions a couple questions and then we'll kind of rotate will be happy to [10:14:13 AM] go after you ask your first couple. Thank thanks. So, Dr Katz, if you wouldn't mind coming up, I think my couple of questions are are for you and your team. So overall, one of the things that struck me in this report was that it wasn't a big emphasis on billions of dollars of infrastructure. There were a few things like the sludge treatment and maybe we can come back to that one. But you did identify that there are obstacles in the capital improvement. Project process that you observed, so can you speak to that? And the related? Learnings that you had about the status of the internal condition assessment, which would also be related to the capital improvement process. Sure, there's a couple of issues one is, you know the capital improvement process, you know it can take up to 10 years between identifying, an issue that gets a proof. That's going to get approved for the or looked at for that process. The implementation. That can be a [10:15:17 AM] long time for a critical piece of infrastructure at a plant. So one of our concerns about the timeframe you could see that that was also expressed by other stuff, and so that's one area. The other. Area that we, felt and this was really more about engagement. You know, we listened we talked with, Austin water about the process that they used for. The C I P the development of that process, how it's working how it's evolving. And it sounded great. Right it was, you know, it seemed like it would be a good process. The issue that we have those who is that? We felt like there wasn't enough connection between that process that exists and can evaluate important areas and. And the operations at a partar plant, especially at Ulrich. We felt like without [10:16:19 AM] good engagement between the groups and across all work itself, then and the lack of staffing to be able to look at. You know, and evaluate different pieces of intra structure infrastructure at the plant. It creates a difficult situation for things to get prioritized at a level that moved them into that C I, P. Area where they're going to get funded. So I think that was our our view. Thank you. And then my second question is that there were four recommendations or effectively three because there was overlap. Where Austin water disagreed with the report. Can you as a representative of your team speak to your perspective on the underlying problems that you wanted Austin water just solve and making your recommendations or what you hope would be accomplished with those changes , so there was more autonomy from hr. The reporting relationship with the city manager and the span of control. [10:17:20 AM] Of the operations assistant director, I believe were the three areas that they disagreed with in the city manager reporting relationship was was repeated twice. So let me speak first to, hr. Staffing. Issues at. Utilities are national problems. This is not an Austin problem. There's a report that comes out everywhere every year called the state of the water industry. Good. And in that report, it highlights. You know the major areas of concern. In 2022. Aging workforce and anticipated retirements. It's number four on that list. Number 11 is talent, attraction and retention. This is a national problem. In fact, even EPA has gotten involved in creating programs. And I think the American water works association [10:18:21 AM] has applied for a grant to actually look at this issue and try and find solutions. We believe that there needs to be a concerted effort to attract people. Two. Austin water and other utilities. Bye. The other issue that we found is that. You know, Austin water is a critical infrastructure, right? I mean, people think of energy as a critical infrastructure. If you don't have power if the power goes out at your house, you know it. You're out. You're without power if the water is no longer safe to drink. You don't necessarily even know it right away. Unless there's great communication to get you that information. And so, you know. We're protecting the health of the city of Boston. The responsibility of a worker at a at a at a water utility is significant. They're working [10:19:24 AM] hard and they take this seriously. And as a result we see that hiring at an utility. That provides water to a city. Is an area where. Staffing is critical. And we believe that if, you know that that hiring it better at higher levels is key, because you know we're seeing across the board that there's attrition, across the country at higher levels. People are retiring. People are moving on. We want to make sure that the salaries are competitive. Both with our neighboring cities with neighboring jobs around and competitive. Nationally awesome . Water is Donna market survey. They made recommendations. I think they made like 100, and only half of them got implemented. And then the city raised the, the minimum. Salary and so you know, we really [10:20:27 AM] believe that this is an area that needs to be addressed. With respect to ah, the span of control. You know, we really also feel that. When you look at I mean, there are pros and cons. 222 you know how the span of control those, but when you have a system in which. There is a wide span of control for someone. Who has a lot of people reporting to them, and some of those those reports are somewhat conflicting, right. Everybody wants their infrastructure taken care of. Everybody wants. Their work done. Everybody needs the attention. To basically be in contact with the people who are oveing that span of control and have interaction with them to be able to make sure that the problems that are exist can be seen. And you know it's about [10:21:27 AM] touches and the more touches we feel that our, available and the greater ability to focus on issues rapidly. Is better with a smaller span of control and from our research, we felt like you know, the criticality of the infrastructure, the high risk the public scrutiny. All of these things dictate us, a narrower span of control. And then with respect to the third issue, reporting. I also want to say, though, you know, reporting to the city manager. One of the things that were actually really happy about was that awesome water does agree that there should be a single point of, leadership at the. At the old retreat mint plant and they do agree with that. Leave because of. Being able to have much wrapped more rapid access when it's needed to the city manager [10:22:28 AM] . We believe that you know the issues. With this critical infrastructure should be similar to what Austin energy has. In fact, Austin energy is like the closest sister agency right now , Austin water reports to mobility and we're not sure that that's really the best. Report for them, and so that's why we made the recommendation for the city manager. Thank you. I'm gonna recognize vice chair pool . And if each of you and then comes a member of Fuentes, and then council member Kelly, who's on the committee, and then if I can remember alter it looks like coming up. You're up and then I don't have council member harbor. Madison has questions. If you could each just ask a couple questions and we'll rotate through. If you have more questions. Thank you. Nice, cheerful. Thanks and I just wanted to open by thanking the auditor, her staff and Austin water and the staff at that department for digging in and taking on the responsibility of accountability and transparency [10:23:28 AM] . I just want to give a shout out to our new Austin water director, miss rose rawlson. That was quite, and introductory , an introduction. For the council in this committee to you and thank you for a very, careful, thoughtful presentation of the department's positions, Mr good. Thank you. Also for helping to shepherd these concerns over the last many months, and your continuing involvement, we are stronger for the professionalism that all of you bring every day to the city of Austin. And I thank you and the city manager for all of that. I did want to just focus a little bit on what happened at Ulrich. And ask professor Katz, is it? Dr Katz? Both are perfectly fine. I am a doctor. And I am a professor. Okay great . So, professor, the we know [10:24:29 AM] that what happened at Ulrich? Was probably the result of some cascading situations with staffing and hiring and advancement and salaries. But we also know that this was an intentional act by one or two individuals that caused the problem. And I understand these folks are no longer with the city of Austin. So with regard to deliberate action, and, knowing that these actions were intentional. Can you help us understand how. How we can manage that through things like increased staffing and oversight and salaries and training is, I imagine there's a direct line to that. Including having a better sense of who might be the person who would take this kind of drastic action for whatever [10:25:30 AM] motivations but identifying that kind of a situation in advance, but what in the what? In the portfolio of recommendations and improvements could have kept that from happening. So first of all, I'm not going to speak to what the, any intent or whatever associated with what happened. That's fine event or not privy to that, and so I can only report on what did happen and what we see. We see an overworked staff that's trying to ah! I don't know if over works right right term. I want to use there's a lot of things going on in the water treatment plant, and there's not enough stuff. To be able to really address. All the needs. We talked about the deferred maintenance we talked about. You know the complexity of Ulrich in [10:26:30 AM] terms of its operations? You know the need to have really even good interaction between the distribution system who's saying we need more water in the understanding that the plant just can't turn a knob and produce more water? But like any organization. You know, culture. Is a key in culture comes from the types of recommendations we made. Good training. Good interactions. The ability to be able to, be rewarded for, you know, to receive merit awards for good work and being able to, she advancement being able to ah! Have. A situation where you here you believe that your voice is being heard? All the way from the next person you work, too, [10:27:30 AM] and then all the way up a line of communication that's working well together. You know the ability to know your job. Right, well to know that the people who were working who were, operating, say the filters. Ah! In the in the in the shift before you are did it the same way you're going to do it, having standard operating procedures that you can rely on understanding escalation? Of incidents. And when people work at ace where they are comfortable with the working but the system and they're being compensated appropriately. And they're being acknowledged, for the work that they do. I think you start to build that type of culture in which everyone is invested in the plant think I think that's true. And I think the fostering of a sense of accountability all the way down [10:28:32 AM] to each individual employee, at the city, so pride in the work a recognition that as public servants we are delivering. Important utilities and services to our community that they rely upon and the health and the safety of the community is our is our unique job. I appreciate the difficulties in all of that when we talk about human behavior and personnel and human resources, there's always it's always a very difficult, engagement. But I think that the information that you haven this report the request to step up. The levels of engagement among the staff to increase the staffing to tighten the lines of reporting. Increased training levels and a real focus on the building of the staff. Will go a long way to supporting what is as you point out a well functioning 99% sturdy, [10:29:34 AM] predictable resource for the city of Austin. And I think that this audit in this report and these findings come at a really important time. For us to reset with a new director. It's a new year. There's a sense of urgency , and there's a sense of, engagement and activity. I think throughout the city of Austin personnel as as an entity looking forward to ways to continue to make better improvements in the way we deliver services and the precise nature and of accountability and transparency. So I again I thank you. That was really about the only thing I wanted to address here today, difficulties relating to the human resources component. But also the very important elements that you bring in this report that if we can build on them should make a real difference, and hopefully these sorts of things won't happen again. Thank you. Chair. [10:30:36 AM] Thank you. Council member of point S and then continental Kelly. For the presentation. Lots of excellent information and certainly you know, I appreciate your comments when you talked about how employees that Ulrich will really at all awesome water plants are critical employees doing very important work for our city and delivering, delivering water quality water services. Reliable services. As well as maintaining the trust of our community. And for forecasting the trends that we're seeing in the industry, knowing that we do have an aging workforce, knowing that we have a recruitment and retention issue, I would like to invite the new director of Austin water to come up because I like to ask her some questions. Thank you. One of the parts of today's presentation that stuck out to me is the 30% staffing vacancy that we have at Austin water. [10:31:38 AM] Director welcome. Congratulations on leading our utility and its first and foremost, I'd like to hear from you on what your vision is for the utility and whether your initial thoughts on how we address that 30% staffing vacancy, knowing just how critical it is for us to have the staff at already and all of our plants. Delivering these critical operations. Well, I think like many intractable problems, it's a matter of using all the tools in our toolbox. As Dr Katz mentioned, this staffing is an issue across the water industry, and certainly it's an issue across the city of Austin. And so we are human resources division within Austin. Water is really engaged on some strategies for recruiting new folks into our plants that include, you know, having meet and greets at the plants where they can see what they would be getting into where we would [10:32:38 AM] provide application assistance on the spot. Those kinds of really thoughtful and, creative opportunities, so we're working with the human resources department. On some of these strategies, Dr Katz mentioned or alluded to salary compression, so as we implement our salary study, and also as the city addresses are are ah minimum wage work. We have some salary compression issues that we need to go back and address. And then we have, you know other elements of our of our salary study that we will continue to work with human resources to address so that's kind of the tactical. Kind of some of the elements of the plan. Some of the tools in our toolbox and well we'll come back with, you know slides and more detail on that at a later date, but, you know, fundamentally, get. Dr Katz spoke a lot to the issues of culture and that's that's really what I see at Austin water. You [10:33:39 AM] know what brought me to Austin water was the dedication of our staff. The level of technical expertise across our organization and the commitment innovation really from field staff to executive team members. I was out at alright. Yesterday, meeting with the operation staff and the maintenance staff, and they're they're stoked to do some of this stuff they operations staff were talking about being excited to put the plant through its paces. And you know, really establish the processes that we need to be able to run it at B, confident in our ability to bring it up to higher flow rates as needed. And so I think there's a lot of energy at Austin. Water around, but really being the best that we can be and that we have all the tools we need to do that. That's great. That's great to hear. And you know, ensuring that we have they are compensation and competitive compensation for our workforce is something that is very [10:34:39 AM] important to me as a policy maker, and so when do you think you would have those plans available and submitted to hr? What kind of timeline are you thinking about for us to raise the wage? We are already we've already submitted plans to hr. We've gotten some feedback. Some of those have been implemented or are in the processes of being implemented. Others were still engaging with them on. Not all of our suggestions meet their requirements, and so we're evaluating those areas, so it's an ongoing process. I don't have a definitive timeline when I think will sort of be through this part of it. Other than to say it's really something that we have to do as a part of our normal business on an ongoing basis. I don't think that we're going to come. We're going to have an action item list of 10 items and then be done with this issue. I think staffing and compensation is just a continual challenge of the future. Thank you. And you know, I know that we have our acm Veronica Briseno [10:35:40 AM] in the in the room and to extend that can just really emphasized the importance of having these plans approved and worked on in our hr department, not only for Austin water about across the board, is of utmost importance. To us and just knowing the critical staffing shortages that we are still continuing to see across the city. I think that it's important that, that folks know what a priority it is to us. And one thing I wanted to lasting. I wanted to highlight and just thank you for visiting Ullrich yesterday and having those conversations the next question I had is how how does one of the recommendations that was highlighted is the engagement of plant staff at Ulrich in the development of standard operating procedures and just having them or involved in what was going on? How is this information? Been communicated to them? And how are they? And how do you foresee involving plant staff and the changes to come? Well, we are have been in [10:36:41 AM] the process of updating our standard operating procedures. For some time, and in the after after action, if any, after action of the February 20 to boil water notice event. We, one of our strategies was to implement trainers at the plants and we so we've been working on that. And we now have those staff identified and in place and we're getting them ramped up. We're getting plant staff engaged with those folks. So this is a it's a work in progress. But in terms of engaging plant staff, where that's a that's a focus for us. As we, as we work on these, updates to our standard operating procedures, training staff, getting everyone doing the same things in the same way as and really what I heard a lot about yesterday was knowledge, management and knowledge transfer. And so you know, field staff are very focused on. How do they get that information out of the brains of the more senior [10:37:42 AM] people and into the brains of the new folks that we're bringing on board, so there's a lot of focus just within the ranks of the of the operations and maintenance staff on on that knowledge management. You know, the you can't write down every single thing you need to know about how to operate a very complex treatment plant and how to maintain highly complex equipment. And so that kind of, on the job training has to be a component in what we do, too. Thank you and congratulations again and thank you to everyone involved. Dr Katz and our city auditor and her team really appreciate all the work that has been done and the fact that we're able to have this briefing in a timely manner so that we are getting this information back out to our community, and I want to thank chair altar for her strong leadership on on getting this audit conducted in this report to us, so thank you. Thank you. Councilor Fuentes council member Kelly, everybody . Thank you. I am and I would [10:38:43 AM] just want to echo what you said . And all my colleagues have said about being so thankful that we're at a place right now because of the leadership of council member alter really coming forward to make this audit happen. We have a unique opportunity, I think as couilil members to really understand the ongoing that Austin water and areas of opportunities have been identified and some thankful for that. Congratulations on your new role. Thank you. Welcome to the city of Boston family. It's great. Some of the things that I was concerned abore the 30% vacancy rate. The 70% of Austin. Water operators feeling burned out and frustrated, and I know earlier, Dr Katz had mentioned the compression issue kind of alluded to it, but other than meeting to fix compression. Have you noticed any other unintended consequences, perhaps from raising the minimum wage to $20 per hour that may affect morale or anything at Austin water that we could address? Well I think [10:39:44 AM] we have to factor that into our our future plans. For compensation and retention practices. I think. It does create. Frustration on the part of staff that have been there for a long time to have new stuff coming in very close to their, their rate of pay, so we, we need to address that. I don't have a like you know a five point list of how we're going to do that, but it's certainly very much on our minds. Okay thank you. And then you talk about the knowledge loss. Do you have any sort of mentorship program over at Austin water or anything similar to that? That would help when there's a retirement kind of provide that inherent knowledge that you can just learn from reading a book. We do have our our maintenance teams team up the newer hires with the more experienced staff, and so they they learn on the job as well as learning how to use the [10:40:45 AM] standard operating procedures. So we have that I don't know that it's necessarily a strictly formal process. But it's certainly a practice. That we use in order to train new operators. And that's common in utilities. You you don't come in knowing how to even if you have experience as an operator or a maintenance worker. You don't have experience with that particular plant as new staff. So it's very common to have those kinds of on the job training practices in place. Thank you so much. Ryan alter. Thank you so much. Thanks for letting me join in today actually have a couple questions for Dr Katz. If that's. My question is a little technical. You'll forgive the engineering me, but. Are these machines? Are these plants rated for a certain [10:41:46 AM] level of intake turbidity. So, for instance, if it hits 302 you do we know we're going offline or how does that work? So, the rated the plants are rated for particular design capacity. Based on the infrastructure in terms of flow, so all work is rated for 167 million gallons per day. Based on the requirements to obtain the effluent that it it's targeting, so that means if you go to T C Q recommendations, where you look at 10 state standards or national standards, they're going to look at help fast. Is the flow going over? With the intent that the processes are are set. Being designed for a particular turbidity. You know, [10:42:47 AM] any plant is that's designed based on the water quality that you have is going to be designed within certain ranges and expectations of changing water quality parameters. But in 2018 the turbidity. Went you know, from the normal influence of, you know where it occurs less than six and to use 90% of the time or something like that. Two. As high as over 300. Okay so we're talking about? You know me holding up a glass of water that you don't see anything in almost even at that. Six en tus, maybe a little bit of cloudiness. To something that looks like, there's mud in the water. It's gonna you know it's not going to be translucent. So for the treatment plant to be designed for that range. Over a short period of time. And but [10:43:48 AM] but a long enough duration of the event. So for example, awesome water has handled from my understanding of looking at the data. Events that hit very high turbidity. But they don't stay there that long. So it's a it's a question of time. It's a question of the amount and it's a it's also you know, have you done scenario testing to know how to change the operating conditions? So when you're doing a the softening plant. You're adding chemicals, right? If you look at the design of the plant, you'll see a number of points for chemical addition some of those are associated with, you know the lime, the process itself for lime softening and also it includes the addition of limend it includes the addition of iron and trying to optimize those things. You know , we do that we do that in the lab. You can test it, but doing something in the lab is not the same as doing it. When you're [10:44:48 AM] treating, you know, 60 million gallons per day, right? So you can optimize the, operations for it. You can try and stress test water quality conditions, but not very easily because you don't have enough water. To bring in that at a turbidity of 300. So you do these things in the lab and then you hope so. After the 2018 event. What happened was is that, the city hired or, I don't know. Hiring processes. Well, so Austin water, basically, as enduring firm to look at what they could do, and they did a lot of testing in the lab, and they did it with water that was banked from the event. And from that they looked at all sorts of different operational conditions , and they were able to identify operation conditions that could handle that water. In the lab. And you know, based on, you know [10:45:50 AM] , not having a solid contact, clarify their that's like the one that we're up flow. Clara fire that's the that's like that. That's what you can do so you can be prepared. You can study but that type of an excursion is very extreme. And if you looked at the data that we showed you with turbidity, there were other extra corrosion, of which they were. Easily. Able, I wouldn't say easily. I wasn't at the plant, but they were able to handle, the changes in water quality, right? And the reason I ask is as I look at that chart what stands out to me as those peaks seem to be growing. Right, and I don't maybe that's. Just it's small sample size, but and you touched on it a little bit of looking at and this might be with outside of your bound of what you're looking at. But are there any factors in terms of the intake whether it's you know [10:46:52 AM] , increased use of our resources that are leading to the. The turbidity being at a greater level. When an event like a flood or something happens. We did not study that. So I mean, you know I don't think the data showed us enough statistical evidence that we could we could say that that the you know during that month in 2018, there was a it was a two month period that hit record rains over that period of time. So whether they're going to happen again, I mean, like that. You know, if you you know, you can ask the hydrologists in the room who look at this more frequently. But, you know, we think of things like 100 years. Storms or 500 years storms and you know those values have actually changed in the last few years, so I can't really speak to the future like that. I can say [10:47:52 AM] that. The water has been pretty stable. Overall. And that there is no evidence that it's changed . We looked at water quality parameters. Over 20 year periods for a lot of primers, not just turbidity. We looked at alkalinity and hardness and. We don't see significant trends. There's been a slight drop in ph a little bit. But it seems to be coming back as well. And so that could just be a cyclical trends , so we don't have enough data to be able to comment. I think then the other question. Some my colleagues have touched on this so around the staffing challenge , and you mentioned that this is not a local challenge. This is something that people are dealing with across the country . Given that that is the case. What are other cities or utilities doing about early and this might be outside of this report. It might be just in your anecdotal work. Are they hiring third party people? Are we just all struggling to do deferred [10:48:54 AM] maintenance? What's what's happening out there think you know there's a lot of things that people are trying. There's been I've read some things about, you know, looking at hiring more diverse groups doing more, you know, trying to be more inclusive. You know, looking at, you know, groups that would have particular opportunities to come in with expertise, including, veterans, I think was one of the ones that I saw. Educational programs, providing opportunities say at the community college to get certified, or to work on on the education associated with that. Certification takes a while, and that's why I added that that figure that shows what it takes to you kno, to move to the point where you're, a supervisor , which takes, you know, at least about five years. Of experience and, so I think education, I think you know? Yeah. I feel like I want to say [10:49:59 AM] if you pay them they will come. But you know it takes time to get the experience and it takes training and I think a lot of other utilities are looking at this with this as well. And I think, okay, there are opportunities out there. As I said. A as looked, you know, has sort of cited this in the American water works association has a grant. I think as part of that, looking at the issue, so I think that there are things out there. Well, thank you. And thank you. Chairman alter excited to dive into this as we go forward. Terrible plan. I'm sorry. Thank you. And welcome to the diet. Thank you. So I have several other questions for productive cats and your team. So what are the things that you say in the report is a high reliability organization. And I in particular, I'm would like to understand how a high reliability organization would approach scenario planning. So [10:51:00 AM] this is something that I've heard over and over again. From the advocates that helped us move forward with water forward and have been really active, in in in. In our water decisions. I'd like to understand that. You know what should we be doing under best case for our scenario planning. You could speak to that. Can you reflect a minute? So there's five characteristics of a high reliability organizations. There's commitment to continual improvement to medicate current and future risk. Development of systems and procedures that are matched to that criticality. There is, alertness to other forces that would affect those operations. Commitment to resilience with formal systems in place to recover from errors. And respect for expertise, [10:52:02 AM] regardless of rank. In other words, listen to everyone. I think those are the things we've tried to highlight. In our recommendations. That, the continual improvement that you know. Shape pointed out that that's you know, they want to learn and they want too more. I think that's a theme that you know will resonate well with with both management and staff at any organization, and I think commitment to that will help. I think, you know, getting the S O ps. Ah to the point where all staff are understanding them following them feel that they have access to them, having the . Understanding of what's going on with, you know, emergency emerging contaminants on having studies done that help you look at issues that you know. We just brought up. What is the future look like? Are we seeing trends occurring or their emerging contaminants that we're going to [10:53:03 AM] have to be looking towards how we can treat them the cyanide toxins being you know, one example of that. Engagement across where we respect everyone in the organization and what they contribute the idea that you know, the idea of mentorship , for example, is one of the key ones that I would point out for, especially given that at all work, especially it takes a long time longer period of time to learn those processes this knowledge management and transfer that shape record. Indicated also is a key. And those are the key things that I think associated with high reliability organization. We tried to focus on and our recommendations and believe that, you know, we believe it's doable, and we believe that Austin waters committed to making that move forward to so, you called for, you know, doing more scenario planning one of things you said for hot and cold weather. You didn't mention [10:54:04 AM] wildfire, which is a real risk, and our plants are in high welfare risk areas. What would be involved if there was a wildfire and the water supply was contaminated or you could not reach the plant. So what I worry about when you have a wildfire is that you know, as you get that runoff, that comes in, you're going to change the organic, not only the total organic company. Matter that's in the system, but the composition of that organic matter. And so one example that I can think of off the top of my head is that if that organic matter changes, it may not be as amenable. To the lime and iron chemicals that are being added to the plant to remove them. That can have a cascading effect . For example, if you're not removing as much organic matter then you have the potential to, create more issues with your disinfection system both in terms of the use but also the [10:55:04 AM] production of byproducts. So those are the types of things you have to look at. I think we did mention wildfires in the report as an emerging issue, but, ah, we didn't go into depth and into it. But those are the types of things that you could do, and there's been a lot of there's been a number of studies down there is literature out the, that you know, look, has looked at wildfires and other areas of the country and the impacts on water quality coming in, and so I think, you know, reviewing those looking at what the changes are trying to understand whether, the processes in the plant how you would respond to them, so would you. You know, would you change or disinfection? System would you have to increase your contact times to meet requirements, but also minimize, the disinfection byproducts that you would form so those that's the type of thing I think about that can occur, and I think I [10:56:04 AM] think there's a lot that can be learned both from literature. And you can and you can learn from testing. As well.nk you and Dr Olson, I'll wanna be following up with your don't have to come up right now. I want to follow up W with your staff to think through some of those. Issues because I'm particularly concerned about that. Dr Katz I in the report. You made it clear that outside of these events, the data presented indicated that awesome water consistently delivered safe and clean water. Across various measures. We see that in appendix too deep to what? I didn't understand well from the report. Oh, was that we had asked in the resolution about whether and how these particular situations impacted health and safety risks of our customers. Because one of the questions we got a lot was you know, I didn't know about the notice. I drink the water, you know, trying to understand. What level of risk or site health and safety risks we were at you know, during [10:57:04 AM] these water boiled periods if they drink the water. So I think there's multiple questions within that question. Which is why I'm thinking a little bit before I respond. The first thing I want to say is that when the city issues of boil water notice. That means you shouldn't drink the water. And, whether whether I believe that there's a high risk associated with the incident that occurred it is irrelevant. Because we were violating a standard and the standards are set to protect human health. And. No one. You know when you fight when the problem is not all of our standards can be based on I measured this contaminant at this moment. In all of the water [10:58:06 AM] that you're drinking. So that I know it's safe for you. So we are very conservative. About. What it takes to say that water is safe. And so if an event occurs and. We we don't meet a turbidity standard, which is not in itself suggest anything about health. It is a is, you know , we use a treatment technology we use filtration to say. That if we filter this water, your risk will be low that you're going to have protozoa are cryptosporidium in your water. If. The treatment process is working. Then the turbidity will be low. Wright. If the turbidity is not low. Then. And we don't meet that requirement. Then we issue a boil water notice [10:59:06 AM] because the regulation is set based on the treatment technology not due to the presence of someone seeing a cryptosporidium in the water. So so it's a complicated issue is my point when we look at this type of technology no. Awesome water, you know, follows national primary drinking water standards and tcu Q regulations and they're testing the water during at based on compliance. They issue water quality reports to the public. They are under scrutiny for meeting those requirements. And when they do, then the assumption is that human health is protected. That's that's the goal. So. To answer your question. You know, we didn't spend a lot of time talking about the health risks. Because, we didn't feel that it addressed the three questions. [11:00:07 AM] To the level two to a point that we could answer. The question was, there wasn't a health risk . There was a risk because there was a boil water notice. Thank you, and I think it is important for thblic to understand that connection between the higher levels of turbidity and the higher levels of the projects of, in the water, and that's it's a proxy in some way to the best of your ability to be able to be able to look at that. And the rules are trying are designed to keep you healthy , whether it comes out of your tap, and in that moment you were at risk. We're not able to say at this point in time. Thank you. You. Highlighted the need to stress test facility for full capacity. You said just so saying that we're generally running the plant. I think it was 35% of capacity. How does one do that safely? And is it normal to not have done that? Well, it takes time and it takes staff. To do it and so, you know [11:01:13 AM] , I think she could talk a little bit better to how you would do it at the plant. I'm not a, an operator. And, but you know, you have a number of, filters, for example. Wright. So I can operate. Younow, even at capacity, I think in terms of design requirements the plant can run simply 14 out of the 17 and still meet capacity based on the design specs. Okay? If I only if I was if I'm operating fewer filters. Then I can increase the flow rate to those filters and test that way. So you noticed when we show the plant drawing there's multiple filters. There's multiple clarify irs, so, not all of them are operating. At the same time. And so if you can stress tested by you know, producing or you can stress that the whole plant [11:02:13 AM] simply by producing more water right so you can produce more water across the entire plant and go up to that value, and then you just have to have somewhere to put it. And I guess I said, I think that's something that shaken address better than I thank you. And so, my last question for you, and then I have a couple questions for Austin water. Is, I believe the report suggested that the type of turbidity event that we saw in 2018 was not something we expected to be more frequent with climate change. Can you explain? Why or error. Well for the same reason we don't expect 100 year flood her every year, but it could occur two years in a row. So it's a you know, a statistical probability. We haven't seen that kind of a, you know. So that's why okay, because it seems to me with climate change. We may see more of those. What makes and that, but we can't just assume we're not going to see it for 100. [11:03:14 AM] Years well here, but let me say this right? So you know, we have seen higher levels of turbidity at the plant that the plant's been able to handle. Okay, so there's higher and then there's just really? Really high. So even the chart that I showed you , I think had that we put in the document came from, you know, not, you know from the data that was presented to the state. And doesn't represent the highest turbidity that was seen during that event. It was even higher than that. So my point being is that, that was quite an excursion, and that's why we're saying that. There are excursions, but Austin water has been able to handle a lot of those excursions and meet water quality standards. Thank you. I appreciate your time and your team's work. Dr. Olson I have a couple. I have a question for you and just some things. I want to make sure that we're covering at our next meeting. Thank you, [11:04:17 AM] so I wanted to give you an opportunity. To help us understand what level of information we can expect WHE you come back in February, 15 and February 15th about the implementation plan. So what I would like to do on February 15th is review the recommendations, probably in sort of similar groupings, right ? This one is about operations. This one is about recruiting and retention. And really talk to you about the overarching strategies that we have to address those recommendations. And then what are progresses, so we want to address the specific recommendations, but we also want to operationalize the way we do that into our normal business, and so will want to, give you a sense of that and then a timeline for implementing specific recommendations. As well as what we're doing to drill that into what we're doing [11:05:18 AM] our day to day basis. Thank you . And I know that you're you know new into the position of a lot of things to do, and I appreciate the priority that you're placing on implementing, these recommendations and what they represent for rebuilding trust with the community. Appreciate your willingness to meet with a lot of the advocates, multiple times to talk through some of these issues, so thank you for that. I wanted to highlight just a few things that I want to make sure that the report covers. I don't expect you to answer these right now. But in terms of your implementation report or your presentation I want to make sure that you highlight what the next steps plans are on the centrifuge. And delivering water to south Austin. In those contingencies that were raised. Help me understand why you're waiting until the budget to get the new position to oversee the other plants so that one can oversees all rich. The ultimate implementation date seems off. Not sure why we have to make until October, 1st. For that to [11:06:18 AM] happen. When you report back if you can please explain how you're going to address the underlying issues that were raised in the for recommendations where you disagreed. So you may have a different solution, but I want to know how you're addressing kind of that underlying, set of questions that were raised. And you in your prior capacity worked a lot on the power reliability issues. If you can make sure that you update us on the work that has been done to improve power, reliability at all rich and the other plants the report recognized that water forward doesn't take into consideration. Contamination our water quality of our water issues. So if you can make sure you're helping us understand how that's going to be in the update to water forward. If you can explain what you're currently doing, in terms of the scenario , planning and how you are [11:07:19 AM] approaching, making those changes and then, if you can provide more details on compensation and what management is going to change to make hr more responsive that maybe the level city manager level, but there were a lot of issues that were raised over the responsiveness. Of hr. Two things. And then as an this isn't I don't know if that's part of the implementation plan or part of your communications plan. Several people suggested in their responses to the report that it would be really helpful in rebuilding trust. If we had some simple answers to like. What is Austin water doing to prevent final toxins being an issue and what are you doing to prevent future adages? Like what we saw, so that the community can here we are coming up on several anniversaries in February, and I think the community is on edge and being able to communicate in that way, I think would be really important. So I wanted to [11:08:20 AM] mention all those and then I do want to conclude. And this may be for city management in general, I see a CM good and acm Briseno here. I couldn't help but read this report and I feel like I've heard these things before. But there are echoes of what's in this report with respect to management and organization that I hear from lots of other departments, so we hear problems with hr moving effectively so we can hire inconsistent training, lack of training. New staff not trained , well, lack of culture of reporting problems. Cross training means we have a few with expertise, a department that is understaffed and has too many tasks for the few people available. We have systems or S O ps, but staff see as voluntary or don't follow. Lack of scenario planning at multiple levels more work to be able to reach community in the languages [11:09:20 AM] they speak. More attention could be pd internal communications backlog of preventive maintenance and very long capital improvement project timelines just to name a few. Which to me, I hear echoed throughout the city. Organization and I would really , you know, invite our senior management to take a look at this report and not look at it solely through the lens of Austin water. We have man departments that need to be high reliability organizations that need to be functioning better that are experiencing the same problems. We saw things go wrong. In February of 22. We have a road map from this report of what we need to do for Austin water, but there's a lot of things in there that we hear. In other departments, and I'm not going to single out, you know, particular departments per se, but I will say it's tear about it and finance and as a council member, I hear over and over again, little pieces of these things. You know about [11:10:22 AM] department morale, different things about communication, not senior managers. All of those things happen in other departments to we need to be paying attention to those and making sure that we are addressing those issues, and I think Austin water will be much in a much better position to be able to address their needs. If we're paying attention to some of them or systemic issues that are coming outhere in terms of management in organization, and so this is not all on the directors shoulders here. There is an upper management responsibility to look at these echoes and figure out how we address these were coming out of the pandemic. We are in a different world, but we ignore these issues, at our peril. And while there are national issues that doesn't mean that we don't have to do everything we possibly can. Everyone wants to come to Austin. Let's put in the effort, you know, lean in and [11:11:22 AM] make these things happen. So wanted to say that and let me conclude by just saying that this report is more than a list of recommendations. Think it really provides us a road map and so thank you to U T and your partners. For your work and thank you to the city auditor and Kathy Harrison in your office who helped guide that process. I think this is a good model for us to really get the information we need as a council to know where we need to live mean in what this report does is, it highlights the need versus some systemic change. And I hope that we can embrace the new thinking about our resource management and emergency planning so that we can better prepare for the water quality and supply events that we will experience in this new world. Many cities are grappling with it. We have a road map of how we can do better and what we can do here. I believe strongly that our city can emerge from this process and these events. More [11:12:25 AM] prepared and more resilient, but that starts with transparency and accountability. And as we implement these recommendations , I hope we will keep that in mind and that we will, work to really take on the systemic challenges that are really, you know, challenging us in important ways across the organization, and in ways that we are capable of addressing. We have great people we have you know from this report. We have good infrastructure. We have to make sure that we're supporting our people and that we have the systems we need so that our management our leadership can act with the agility that today's challenges demand. So thank you for everyone who is involved. I don't know if anyone else has questions on to raise their hands. So thank you. Thank you. Those to those who are watching, we will continue this conversation on February 15th. We don't know yet whether it will be morning or afternoon. We do have a full packed agenda and [11:13:25 AM] I'm not going to invite miss stokes to come up and talk about our future future items. So thank you. Thank you. So I show for next month and there may still be other items we've reached out to identify. But we will be presenting results of fire time over audit overtime audit that was done by outside contractor we have an audit of strategic direction 23 related to economic opportunity and affordability. There's a chance that one may move to March. An update on the animal services projects, so we wanted to come back and talk about that on it. That was, past was asked for through resolution this summer. Or last summer. Now that it's 2023, then an update on disaster preparedness. That's a periodic update that happens and that would would fall at the February. I mean, at the yeah. February meeting and the last thing I have on here is believe it's a report back related to a [11:14:26 AM] budget writer from building services about converting contract employees to permanent employees. So it's yes, as you said quite a packed agenda. It may be that that's something slide to March, but we'll be working on that in the next couple of weeks. Thank you and our current plan, colleagues who are on the committee and council member Kelly some on line will be to have the audit and finance committee meeting in the morning and then the Austin water oversight committee. In the afternoon. That would be a special called meeting for us. For audit and finance that seems to be be the best and then the chair of awesome water and chair of audit and finance will work together. For orchestrating that afternoon, but it is think that this is this is, really relevant for both committees, and there's a fair amount of overlap, so I think I think that will work. Well and it's important that we do this in a in a timely manner, so I think that will be the [11:15:26 AM] plan? The likely plan, but we will. We will connect more on that with each of the each of the folks and let you know thank you, miss stokes for you and your staff's work on the earlier audit. Appreciate that. I know we took a different route than usual for this kind of thing, and I really appreciate the way that you and your staff delivered and I want to also do a shout out for our contract that we put in place with U T. So that we would be able to move more quickly, with contracts of this sort when we needed them, that that was something that the deputy city manager, Gloria put together and I think it's really useful way for us to be able to move faster on things. So thank you to everyone who is here. And with that it is 11. 16 and I will adjourn this meeting. Thank you.