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Grand Forks City Council Service/Safety Standby Committee
Tuesday, September 9, 2008 - 4:30 p.m._- Room A101 _____

The city council of the city of Grand Forks sitting as the Service/Safety Standby Committee met in Room A101 in City Hall on Tuesday, September 9, 2008 at 4:36 p.m. Present at roll call were Council Members Kreun, Bjerke. Mr. Bakken is out of town.

Others present were Brad Gengler, Al Grasser, Jane Williams, Wally Helland, Todd Feland. .

1. Grand Forks City Code prohibiting domestic fowl - proposed amendment.
Wally Helland, health department, reported that the existing ordinance prohibits all fowl with the exception that if have permission from their neighbors within 75 ft. of their home. He stated that the city attorney had proposed draft of the ordinance which would basically eliminate all fowl, they have reviewed the ordinance and that he is suggesting that homing pigeons and ceremonial doves be included with a variance from the health department and also an appeal procedure if denied by the health department to city administrator, mayor and city council. He also stated that he is not aware of anyone having either homing pigeons or ceremonial doves at this time. He also noted that in the 31 years he has been with the department, there have been only 3 complaints re chickens in the city.

Chairman Kreun stated this item came at his request as they had potential incident in another area and becomes issue of health (droppings, etc. and dogs chasing chickens), and with the variance eliminate any problems.

Mr. Helland stated he would have the city attorney make changes; and the committee referred this to committee of the whole.

3. Downtown diagonal parking - final report.
Jane Williams, traffic engineer, reported that the diagonal parking is complete, striping done, that the cost participation agreement entered into with the State has been amended and signed, our ordinance has an inclusion in it for the angle parking and have written compliance from DOT. Originally there were 706 spaces and now have total of 787, including the 31 spaces on Riverboat Road, so downtown proper is 756. She stated that she has not had any complaints, only concern was around the high school and have taken away some of the parking there - spaces along 4th that were 2-hour parking and have made them 30-minute loading/unloading zones and seems to be working quite well; and are continuing to monitor area where the buses are.

Williams stated that snow removal is not going to be a problem as long as everybody continues to move their cars on appropriate days - that will continue to be concern.

Committee stated their appreciation for work put into this and that it worked out better than anticipated.

2. Lake Agassiz water service agreement.
Al Grasser, city engineer, reviewed background information on Lake Agassiz Water Authority - water supply and drought planning and made power point presentation (Garrison Diversion prepared slide show for background).

He stated this goes back to Red River Valley water supply that is authorized by the Dakota Water Resources Act of 2000, federal legislation looking at ways to supply water for drought planning for Eastern North Dakota and tribal interest, it is a major project and an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and final EIS was issued in December of 2007, and have been expecting Record of Decision (next process in EIS where they approve the selected alternative) for about 6 months. The area under Lake Agassiz Water Authority is 13 eastern North Dakota counties and adjacent Minnesota cities that get water out of the Red River. LAWA (Lake Agassiz Water Auth.) was created by state legislature, has 10 member board (5 city members and 5 rural water members) and have been meeting for a number of years, Grand Forks is a member by charter. In this area State has 52% of the population, and predicted population by 2050 is 565,000 and can vary; tax revenues, that 50% of ND sales and use tax collection are derived through 13 Red River Valley counties and are big part of the state revenue.

Part of water use, domestic and industrial as part of the EIS, they did background on agricultural water use and showed trends; that the ethanol industrial is adding substantial demand or want for water in eastern ND and would have more ethanol in the eastern part of the state if we were to provide the water to them. RDO wasn't big player, our big player is Simplot - but RDO would take up equivalent of small ethanol plant. Viewed map showing aquifers in eastern ND, our closest one is Elk Valley and largest is Spiritwood Aquifer which is quite a ways away, they did an analysis of these and determined there is insufficient supply, and a number of members are small rural waters that are getting their water supply from these aquifers now. He stated that the State of North Dakota has made a goal to reserve these aquifers for the agricultural community, particularly during times of drought, that we are heavily dependent on agriculture and if they are not able to irrigate their crops we end up with double hit in times of drought and have lack of water supply plus we lose our agricultural base.

Drought frequency climatic study did a number of researches on the climate and determined that the 1930's is likely to happen again and also determine a 1930's type drought is not particularly unusual, relatively common type drought when look back through historical records. (Showed pictures of Red Lake River in 1910) Red River has gone dry for months at a time, 5 months in 1934 and now region's only backup water supply is storage capacity in Lake Ashtabula (near Valley City) and has capacity of about 69,000 acre ft. and the current region's demand on an annually basis is 66,000 and not a lot of storage - 1930's drought is a ten year event when they go through and analyze it and in a multi year's drought there is not enough to meet today's demands and as region grows the problem escalates. Even today we have shortages in meeting our water demands. He stated they did an economic analysis and what that type of drought would do to the Red River Valley today - economic impact to the State and this is why we are convincing the State they need to be a major player in this issue because we are one of the economic engines of the State.

That we went through an extensive process in EIS in evaluating alternatives, and the preferred alternative is Garrison Diversion Unit import to the Sheyenne River and this relies on the existing McClusky Canal. Originally was on the Garrison Diversion plan, and was to be a big irrigation project and are transferring water across watersheds. He stated that under the EIS this is a $660 million project. Water comes form Sacagawea, basically Missouri River water which is ultimate source. It was asked who gets the Missouri River water - everybody all the way to the Gulf of Mexico - one of the big fights will be with the state of Missouri as they feel that is their river/water. This will need federal authorization and is a very detailed and particular process that we are going through on the project.

Preferred Alternative Advantages - plan is adopted to different growth patterns in the Valley and is to serve northern rural water systems directly from the pipe, is reliable and we are storing water, delivered by gravity and stored in Lake Ashtabula, and our water treatment plants will continue to use those types of facilities. Western part of state is supportive of this and has gone through Water Users but basically the eastern part of ND has supported long term very expensive southwest pipeline projects in western ND and they understand that it is our turn to try to address our water issues.

Project Funding Overview:
Are looking at 3 way split - $220 million federal; $220 State; and $220 local. May have to borrow this money in the market, but some thought to get that as a federal loan, with more favorable terms on how we pay that back (local would be 13 counties or users up and down the Valley).

As to repayment, they have set us up into 3 tiers - Tier 1, community that needs water today and doesn't have any other alternate source; Tier 2 are communities like Grand Forks, can serve our water needs today but rely on in times of drought is a return flow from upstream users); Tier 3 - customers in rural water. Grand Forks will be getting project water, return flow and aquatic needs, but our first rights to Ashtabula water; they try to blend that together, but we need to make sure that stays separate because that is our first rights as we get that water before anybody.

Grasser stated they are looking into breaking project cost into two phases, Phase I is about $522 million to build pipeline into treatment plant and that process will take several years to do that; Phase II is $138 million and that helps connect a number of smaller industries that either need some improvements in order to get the water from the river or located away from the river and need to make connections back to a treatment plant. Water intake for Grafton connecting the Northern Rural Water Systems, Grand Forks Traill Water Dist. connection to the city of Grand Forks; Cass Rural Water has to do some interconnecting with Fargo and pipeline is southeast for their industry.

Operating and Maintenance has estimated about $575,000 annually and they are figuring this is going to start in 2013 and have inflation rate paid each year by the water users and shared among the board based upon cfs, doesn't have component of Tier 1, 2 and 3, but everybody pays a pro-rated share based on their cfs.

He stated a breakdown of the potential participants in the water supply: Fargo elected at about 38 cfs with Fargo industry about 13 cfs, West Fargo is fairly big player as well as Moorhead, Cass Rural Water, Grand Forks is big single player and looking at about 8.3 cfs for domestic water in Tier 2 and about 14 cfs of industry in Tier 1A. 8.3 is good representation and if took winter water use and that is about what it takes to meet our existing water demand right now - 8.3 cfs delivers about 7 mgd in finished water and that is about what we are running. Bjerke asked why Fargo about 4 times and that if based on population which is not even twice. Grasser stated Fargo is willing to pay for little more base than what we are, we are being very conservative, that there have been months of discussion as to what these elections should be and to account for growth the smart answer would probably take about 15 or 18 cfs to cover today's use plus our use all the way out to point 50. This puts us in control of this much water, and if somebody needs water in the northern end of the valley for industry, they will have to be talking to us.

Next Steps (time frame)
Record of Decision - expecting that any time
System Commitments - December 2008 - want to be prepared for the state legislature to go to
the State and ask for their commitment for $220 million
Preliminary Design - January 2010
Final Systems Signups - February 2010
Final Design - occur a year later - February 2011
Construction - 2011 to 2013 (Phase 1) and Phase 2 not quite as concentrated as Phase I and
develop over time as money is available.
This is the most optimistic timeframe, we start today and not delivering water until 2013 or 2014; that when drought is upon us is not the time to be dealing with this problem because not going to be solvable that quickly.

Grasser stated you would need to have a year's leads time in ordering the pipe, this is pipe and may even set up a plant in ND to produce the pipe here as talking about that big a project. He
stated Grand Forks industry share is a little over $11 million and domestic is about $15.8 million and Grand Forks' share would be about $26-27 million; and $3 to $5/mo. is probably range we will be in - and might be talking 40 year loans with refinancing after that and those are parts of the unknowns.

He stated that they had a meeting in Fargo today and distributed copies of the agreement of intent to enter into a water service contract for a supplemental water supply - they are trying to develop a preliminary agreement of intent with some financial commitments to see who is going to continue to be a player in this process so they can make their financial planning and engineering plans - there were some concerns about how binding this agreement was - doesn't bind us at this point in time because have so many unknowns - really need to define where the federal government is going to play out with their $220 million and need to present this to the state legislature and show a firm unity and need for the project. He stated they will be sending out a new draft and that it would be his suggestion that we make presentation to make sure everybody has background info. - they are asking for resolution by the governing body by December 1.

Grasser stated that we have to work this process out with the Corps to make sure when we need the water, they release the water - Corps has own goals and operations. Senator Dorgan has been a big player in developing the Dakota Water Resources Act and got it passed in 2000 and his representative was at today's meeting and they are trying to push that Record of Decision as best as can but is very delicate, esp. with Canada. Next meeting of LAWA is October 14.

Kreun stated that this is extremely important project but so far away it is difficult for people to get the comprehension of it all - and it was suggested that when they get the draft back to schedule work session and that it be televised and put on replay so public would be aware.

Adjourn

The meeting adjourned at 5:45 p.m.

Alice Fontaine, City Clerk