-: This work session of the Texas Water Development Board
is called to order.
The time is 1:32 PM.
For the record I'm chairwoman, Brooke Paup.
And with me today is director Kathleen Jackson.
Welcome y'all. Ashley, the first item.
-: Chairwoman, the first item on the agenda today
is welcome and introductions.
-: Well y'all thank you so much for joining us today.
I know it's a interesting time to be traveling and to be
doing things in person.
So we're all very grateful that the four of you
joined us in person in Austin.
This amps initiative is truly a feather in the cap of TWDB.
Thanks in part to the visionary leadership of our resident
engineer on the Board, Ms. Kathleen Jackson.
I'm so delighted to have you here to see and hear what
our contracts are saying with the boots on the ground
and how you feel that we could better improve
the amp's process.
So with that, I will turn it over to Ms. Jackson.
-: It's a pleasure and an honor
to be able to have this work session with our contractors.
And of course we have those that are participating on not
only here in person, but also virtually.
And I think as many of you know,
really since I came on the Board,
I've had a real passion for small and rural communities.
And with any initiative, the question is always,
well, tell us about the case for action.
And I think in this particular case,
the story kind of begins with traveling around Texas
and visiting with the small and rural communities
and with the big cities and the million sized cities.
And what you kind of noticed right off the bat is
when you ask them about asset management,
the big cities have all their engineers on staff.
They have, a whole line of consultants
and the small community
I mean, oftentimes it's just one person
and many times they wear many different hats.
And so if you ask them about,
"What is your experience with asset management?"
They said, "Well, we desperately need it."
I mean, oftentimes they didn't know
where their assets even were.
Maybe they had a drawing from years ago in the back room.
Maybe it was just an operator that had kind of everything
in their head.
And so that was the first thing that you heard is that
we could really utilize and benefit from just kind of
knowing what our assets are to begin with.
And then secondly, when you ask them,
if they had any kind of game plan moving forward to do their
investments in terms of projects
or knowing what was the condition of their facilities,
their equipment, again that was something that just
was beyond what their capabilities were.
And then if you went on to kind of talk a little bit about
the operational integrity aspect of it,
which was their operating procedures
they'd bring out this great legal binder,
which of course needs to be in place.
And oftentimes they said,
"Well, it hasn't been updated in a while."
So many, many challenges with a small community.
And I think in looking at this your desire is that
they would have all of the resources
that a big city would have, or a middle-sized city.
And particularly in asset management.
And even those that had maybe done some asset management
training that consisted of going to a one day seminar
and at the end, I walk out with a piece of paper
with a lot of websites on it.
So I think it was pretty clear from the beginning
that what was really needed was human capital.
What was really needed was the expertise of the engineering
community to come in and sit down with these communities
and take on a role that really the water development
Board had never taken on before
to be able to provide this resource to the community
so that they in turn could be proactive
rather than reactive.
And we hope that the benefit that comes from this
is fewer calls in the middle of the night,
where the equipment that has failed,
and then you have absolutely no choice except to repair it
at whatever cost it is.
So having a better handle,
having that game plan to be able to move forward
and as opportunities become available,
or they come and they work with the water development Board
is they're actually able to invest in their facilities
to make their systems more reliable and resilient
and at the same time, kind of that one, two punch where
we know operational integrity is not just
the steel and the structure,
but it says operation and maintenance procedures
that need to be updated and really, really pleased
that I think we're gonna talk about some things
that were innovative that was done as a part of
this pilot project and kind of both of those fronts,
both on the facilities management standpoint,
as well as on the operating and maintenance side of it.
So just really, really appreciate the staff,
the work that they've put in to developing
the pilot initiative.
I appreciate all the thoughts and ideas and input
that we got from across the state,
as well as the energy and the talent
and the commitment of the firms that came in
and worked with these small communities
to do this initial pilot program.
And of course my hope is that going forward,
this program that was new and different than anything we had
done before will become kind of a natural consequence
of our day-to-day operation and become a real benefit,
not only to the Board,
but also to the small communities across the state
that can benefit from it.
So excited to have this work session.
I'm so excited about this program and really look forward
to hearing from y'all what works,
what maybe didn't work as well,
what would you add, just again from an AMP standpoint.
You were boots on the ground.
You were working with the communities is Brooke said,
your thoughts and ideas are something that for this program
we really wanna take and integrate.
And in that whole vein of continuous improvement,
move forward with.
So excited to be here.
-: I've known to echo what Kathleen said,
thank you all for being here.
And I just wanted to compliment Jessica and her team
for working with Ms. Jackson and coming up with
an initiative that again, I said,
it's a feather in our cap because it is a risk mitigation
tool that also helps preserve taxpayer dollars
through asset management.
And it provides customer service to these small communities
that desperately need a little bit more help.
So I'm very eager to hear what you all are saying
within the communities that you've helped.
And with that, just an FYI,
I'm gonna leave it to Patrick Katie, Patrick,
to lay out our logistics and protocols
a little later in the meeting.
I'm gonna ask everyone now to very briefly
introduce yourselves, please just state your name,
your firm, and the city you assisted.
We'll start with our in-person guests
and I'll prompt each virtual guests one by one.
When I call your name,
please turn your camera on and go ahead
and turn your cameras off when done,
just to make sure the whole system doesn't crash,
because we don't really want that today.
Sir, Scott.
-: All right. My name is Scott Mura.
-: You need to speak in this.
-: Do I need to push a button or anything or is it good,
My name is Scott Moran with five M associates,
formerly within Mar B group.
I'm in a little different situation here
'cause I was the engineer in charge of putting
this together.
Now that I'm out on my own,
I'm now the city engineer for Holland.
So I'm representing the city today.
So I've kinda got a little bit different perspective
being on the other side of the table now,
since this has been completed.
So I'll be able to provide that when we get to our part.
-: So you were an asset management engineer
and then became the city engineer.
That's a win, I think.
-: I bet you have some thoughts.
Scott: I do. I do.
-: Elston Johnson.
-: I'm Elston Jonson with Elston Johnson associates,
and we assisted MRB group with the city of Holland.
And so we provided systems assets management,
and more of the operational aspects of the program.
-: Well, thank you. Lady buck.
-: Lady Buck with KSA engineers.
And I was the project manager for the city of Pittsburgh.
-: And Chris Nance.
-: I'm Chris Nance with Park Hill out of El Paso.
And we assisted the town of Anthony, Texas.
-: Wonderful. And now we'll call on our virtual participants.
Tracy Hicks.
-: Hi everyone.
(system scratching)
Patrick: Tracy, just that you know that your microphone
sounds a little wonky.
So if you can go ahead and unplug it and plug it back in.
(system scratching)
-: I'm gonna skip to Joe Treyho
Joe, are you there?
All right, let's go to Eric Hall.
Eric: So my name's Eric Hall and I'm with HR green
and I'm going to kind of turn my cam on see if it works.
And we worked with the city of Blanco, Texas.
Glad to be here.
-: Thank you. Can you turn your camera on so we could.
-: Obviously it's not working. I just drive it.
-: That's all right, Rebecca Sant.
-: Okay. Hi everyone.
I'm Rebecca Sant I worked with Eric and the city of Blanco.
-: Wonderful. Thank you for being here.
Mike Liska.
-: Karen's, Mike Liska had a death in the family
cannot make it today.
-: Oh, I'm sorry to hear that, Janet Shegat.
-: Very good on pronouncing my last name.
I'm Janet Shegat and I'm with MRB group.
We worked on the city of Holland and I'm here.
Mr. Beach could not be here this afternoon.
He's in the hospital.
-: Thanks Janet.
Hope he's doing better. -: Thank you.
He's in surgery right now, so.
-: Phillip Gibbons.
-: Good afternoon, everyone. This is Phillip Gibbons.
Director Jackson how are you.
I work with the city of Holland as a management specialist.
-: Wonderful. Thank you for being here. Steve Walden.
Steve: Hi, this is Steve Walden,
It didn't look like these iPads
cameras are working, but it's good to be with you today.
And I'm part of Steve consulting and we worked with the MRB
group on city of Holland.
-: Thanks for being here, Steve.
Let's go back to Tracy Hicks.
-: Hey, this is Blake Bogan with a KSA.
I'll probably be speaking on behalf of Tracy
since it's mic is off.
We've both represented the city of Elkhart.
-: Wonderful. Thank you so much.
I believe we still have Joe Treyho left.
Joe: Oh, can you hear me now?
-: We can.
-: Thank you. This is Joe Treyho in Corpus Christi,
where they are IDR group of engineers
and I assisted the city of Three Rivers.
-: Wonderful. Thank you.
There you are.
-: All right. I'm obviously a home.
A family member tested positive a couple of days ago.
I'm clear with the COVID, but she had tested positive.
So I'm in quarantine workable today.
Hopefully be better.
Thank you. I finally got on Board here.
The Mike youth would not let go, never let go.
-: Thank you. -: Thanks for being here.
-: The way of the world is either IT problems
or COVID problems right now.
So thank you, Joe.
-: Thank you. Thank you.
-: Well with that, Ashley, the next item, please.
-: Chairwoman, I'm in the next item on the agenda
is amps initiative.
And Jessica Pena will address the Board
and the group on this item today.
-: Good afternoon, for the record I'm Jessica Pena
of the Executive Administrator staff.
As director Jackson and other Board members were conducting
their site visits that she spoke about,
an internal evaluation of efficiencies
was also being conducted that would help assist staff
expedite the application review process.
We noticed that staff spent more time processing
applications on systems that were operating
in a reactive mode with deadlines and requirements
that were results of enforcement actions
or compliance issues.
As we work with customers,
we often heard that some could not present an accurate
picture of line location because of lost records
or records that never existed,
or perhaps components were only replaced
after something had been broken or our sister agency,
the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
or at a federal level,
the Environmental Protection Agency had mandated
replacement or expansions.
Not only that, but we also observed in some areas,
often one person was wearing many hats.
For example, the senior administrator might also be
the water operator and often held that title
and those responsibilities for many years,
which often led to operation voids,
if that person suddenly retired and had maintained
that operation manual in their cerebral libraries.
Instances like this,
combined with observations by our Board members
in the field, let us to explore how to help systems
discover and understand their systems
and the needs associated with operating and maintaining
those systems that could allow them to shift to more of
a proactive management of those assets
in their communities budgets,
while at the same time,
creating a readily available pipeline of projects
for our state revolving fund programs.
Out of those two efforts, the case for implementing
the asset management for small systems or the AMs initiative
was launched.
In developing the program,
we work closely with the TCEQ to ensure that plans were
created in accordance with their small business
and governmental assistance sections guidance
on managing small public water systems
and managing small domestic wastewater systems.
The TCEQ assisted with promoting the program
and helped provide a list of potential small systems
for this pilot program.
We also consulted with the environmental protection agency
about our proposed plan.
EPA region six was very supportive of this initiative
and has shared this program with other regions six members.
As you know, the Board is also a member of the council
of infrastructure financing authorities,
which is made up of all 50 clean and drinking water state
revolving fund programs across the nation.
TWDB staff has presented on the innovative initiative
at its annual conference and positive responses
have been received thus far.
And that brings us to where we are today.
Thanks Jessica. With that, I'll hand it over to Patrick.
Patrick, next item please.
-: Yes. Chairwoman, the third item on the agenda
is overview of AMs pilot initiative,
and that is Patrick Hating.
-: All right, good afternoon, everyone.
And thank you for joining us.
My name is Patrick Hating and I am the relatively new
coordinator for the amps program here at the Texas
water development Board.
The pilot phase of amps consisted of six projects,
three wastewater and three water systems for small systems
representing the six different regions of Texas.
Once the participant systems are selected
with assistance from TCEQ,
the systems chose a contractor to work with
from a list of qualified contractors,
which was created through a request
for qualifications process.
The contractors and systems then work together
to create an asset management plan
to not only take stock of the infrastructure
that's in place and assess its condition,
but also reviewed budget information, operating procedures,
rural compliance, and several other elements
pertaining to the management and operation of the system.
With all that information gathered and reviewed,
the plans were drafted to maintain the operational integrity
of the system and to plan for the future.
I'm excited to hear more from the participants
in today's work session about how these projects went
from their perspective.
But before we get into more in-depth discussion
on the amps pilot,
I wanted to briefly remind everyone here
about the other opportunities available through amps
that can be found in the clean water and drinking water
state revolving fund intended use plans or IUPs.
Within the IUPs, there are two other funding sources
related to amps.
The first is a 0% interest loan of up to $100,000
to prepare an asset management plan,
which meets the criteria in the scope of work for amps.
This funding is available for all systems,
not just small systems that are eligible for SRF funding.
The second is a 0% interest loan of up to $500,000
for a portion of the total water development Board funding
for a project if the system has implemented substantially
all of the asset management components
in the amp scope of work.
This funding is available only for the small systems
that would also be eligible for the amps program.
The small system does not have to have been a participant
in the amps program,
but it must be eligible to be part of the program
and have an asset management plan that meets
the amp's scope of work.
So both of these funding sources are applied for the same
way as other SRF funding requests.
And so basically we have one funding opportunity for SRF
eligible systems to create an asset management plan
and another funding opportunity for small systems
that already have created and are implementing
an asset management plan.
And then although we are having this meeting today
to get input from y'all for the future projects,
one change that has already been made to amps
is that the total amount of funding per project
has been increased from 75,000 to 100,000 per project.
And then another change is that a section pertaining
to emergency preparedness, weatherization
and resiliency is now being required as part of the plan.
So we look forward to hearing all your thoughts
on the amps pilot and suggestions for forthcoming
arounds of amps.
So next we will ask the pilot phase contractors
to give a brief summary of their projects.
After that, we will then go into the discussion part
of the meeting.
We'll have five initial questions to ask
to a specific contractor,
and then there'll be opened up to the group
for any further input.
After those initial five questions,
we will have some additional questions
that we'll just be open to all the participants
who would like to offer their input.
We asked that for the folks joining us virtually
that you have your camera off, if you're not speaking,
and if you are speaking,
we need you to have your camera on
and also turn on your camera if you would like to speak
and that will give us the cue that you would like to speak
on an item.
And so with that, I thank everyone.
And I look forward to the discussion.
Sorry, I'm not done yet.
So first, can we have the representative
from the city of Anthony project,
give his a brief summary of the project?
-: So we help Anthony water utility
and Anthony is located on the Texas border at exit 08 on Y10
about 852 miles down the road from Beaumont.
We had two primary phases.
One was developing a GIS inventory
using some templates available for water utilities.
But the key focus that we we're gonna talk about
is using the EPA cups program, the checkup program
for small systems.
This was a software developed by the EPA
for a lot of the intended purposes
of this pilot program that small systems could use
for their water and wastewater utilities.
One of the advantages of that is
it's a combined asset management software
and a computerized maintenance management system.
So they can log work orders,
assign those work orders to assets and track histories.
That's a pretty advanced feature for some free software.
There was a lot of free and thorough training materials
available for it.
And again, it has a lot of the similar features
to enterprise software.
One of the negatives about this is that
there was no GIS integration and that's partially why
we chose to develop a GIS inventory outside of cups.
It is wastewater and water utility specific.
So it doesn't have some of the features
to integrate things like street and drainage departments,
and it is a legacy software.
So it isn't being currently developed.
It has a few key features such as an add an asset inventory
where you can use to store materials,
schedules of replacement.
There's an ONM calendar that shows reporting requirements,
but also any sort of recurring events associated
with particular assets.
And then at the end, once you input all that data,
it will give you financial performance metrics
and produce template reports
that show one of the reports is the asset checkup
that shows your high risk assets
and when they need to be replaced.
And then also a full carbon mike's cups report,
which is a full asset management document
that lets you fill in certain blanks,
but produces a pretty thorough asset management plan.
-: Sure.
-: Can I ask some questions. -: Yes, absolutely.
-: You need to be speaking into the mic.
-: It's not something they can just pick up and start
and learn took a lot of like an expert like you
to help them through the whole process.
It was pretty daunting.
There's a lot of stuff there almost too much stuff there.
-: It is thorough.
I think it is one of maybe the more accessible,
I mean, because I think to compare that accurately,
you would compare it to an enterprise software
and that's gonna be also the same kind of challenges.
But as far as that goes,
I think a lot of that available training material,
a lot of the presentations that you can find online
can walk you through it fairly slowly
and introduce you to the concepts of asset management.
-: If I remember Jessica Jessica, we kind of looked at that.
We were figuring out a template to use for an amp.
You of look at that and black,
that was just a little too much it's time.
So I want him to TCEQ standards.
Okay. Thanks.
-: So is there a cost for cups.
-: The software itself is free.
Like I mentioned, it is a legacy software,
so it's not currently being developed.
I think there was a patch that needed to be installed
to run on up-to-date windows,
but it is freely available
and all those training materials are also freely available.
-: I know that was one of the things that you really wanted
to kind of focus on with Anthony,
that opportunity to use cups.
And so what's your assessment now
that you've actually gone through the process?
I mean, if you had the option to do this,
or is there some communities that this is a good fit for
as opposed to maybe go on the other route?
-: I think when you, when you compare it to again,
like an enterprise software
that they would be investing with,
obviously the cost of the software is gonna eat
into the time spent more efficiently training
or learning about.
So if you can at the early phase of trying to get into,
some software package,
I think investing in the time to populate the data
is more important,
even if that is in the long-term,
that's not the best solution.
I think long-term, we would like to see more communities
get into enterprise asset management software.
But in the short term,
I think learning it in a free environment
is a lower risk alternative.
-: Alright, thank you, Chris.
And now we'll turn it over to the folks
from the city of Blanco project.
-: Hi, I thought somebody else was online.
Quick before we started Blanco with a question
maybe for Anthony.
I don't know if anybody saw that.
-: Rebecca, can you repeat yourself? I'm sorry.
-: Oh, no, I'm sorry.
I hope you can hear me. Okay.
Erick, it looks like you have your camera on.
So did you have a question for the other consultants.
-: Can you hear me Philip?
-: I was trying to unmute it,
but instead I was muted by the webinar,
so I couldn't unmute it.
No, I was just wanting to come in on cups.
I, as a participant in the stakeholder with the group,
with EPA and the development of cups,
and I have personally used cups.
Of course, you may just to be sure everybody's aware
that EPA announced some time ago that they will no longer
support cups.
So if someone were to download it and start using it
and they get an earlier
or a more current version of windows or apple,
cups may not work anymore
unless they maintain a computer that have that.
But also I worked with TCEQ in development of
their asset management tool, XL based tool.
And I think that's much more appropriate
for the small systems that we're targeting with amps.
-: An excellent point. Thank you.
Right, Rebecca, your city Blanco project.
If Eric was in unmute himself.
Erick: Yeah, I'm unmuted now.
I had a hard time eating myself.
So let me just make a couple of comments, Rebecca,
and then I'll pass it over to you.
I'd say overall Blanco's located,
let me see her if that's okay.
-: Hey Eric, if you could turn on your camera,
that would be beneficial for all.
Erick: I'm having difficulty doing that for some reason.
It's not working for me.
I can continue on or we can let Rebecca take this on.
If that would be better.
I mean, let me just make a couple of comments
and then I'll pass it over to Rebecca.
This particular project is located just
west of Johnson city and it is central Texas.
It was a wastewater asset management program.
-: Erick, you did a great job on that project,
and I know we're down we visited many times,
but because of the rules of the forum,
Rebecca's probably gonna have to take.
-: Okay,, I hope you guys can hear me okay.
As we mentioned, we did the city of Blanco.
It was their wastewater plan that we were looking at.
What we did, we also developed a GIS system with the city.
We used the NASSCO type reviews
and we actually did a bunch of field work.
So kind of go in and look at all their assets
and to help them find them,
which I think everybody would probably say
was the biggest part of this project
was helping cities identify and locate where things are
not just the condition that they were in.
I think what we did unique and fun for this project
that the city has really enjoyed is
they do have a GIS dashBoard that they can use.
We had a couple of days with one of three apps,
a workforce app,
so that the city can go in and they have it on their phone.
They have it on their desktop and they can make changes
anytime they want to to share the different condition
of the asset.
And so just look at where things are.
And so even part of that workforce app is that
they could mark stuff or this line is needed to be jutted,
or we just jutted this line and they can mark that
and it is available for them to see.
I couldn't figure out how to share my screen
because I have access to their system too.
But it's available that it could be shown easily.
Automat things will be highlighted for where
like poor conditioned assets are, what needs to be done,
different material types for the sewer lines
and all of that.
I think the city has enjoyed using that enough that,
and that they are planning on expanding it.
I guess they had another consultant do some water stuff
for them in VIS.
And so we're gonna put that into their system
and they're looking into adding some street characterization
as well.
so they're excited to show this so easily to use it
going forward, that they really kind of expanding that.
And I think this tool is great for them to do that
and I think that's all I really kind of wanted to say.
So we can open it up or questions.
I should say too I'm sorry I couldn't be there in person.
I also have a COVID exposure in our house.
So here we are.
Very glad we can do this stuff electronically.
-: Well, thank you, Rebecca.
Just as a gentle reminder,
to all those participating virtually
that Texas open meetings act requires
all virtual participants to have their camera
and their microphone both turned on
in order to be in compliance with the open meetings statute.
So all those in the virtual world,
please turn on your cameras if you can.
-: Just correcting Rebecca and maybe Chris too.
So I remember seeing a presentation by a guy who was doing a
GIS survey of the existing system he had as built plans
and still they were finding there was things were way off
Nashville plans did y'all run into that same thing.
Erick: Yes.
-: Go ahead, Rebecca. You can go first.
-: I'm sorry.
Yes, we did not actually look at old plants.
Like we did everything in the field.
So we had the city came with us to do
the initial characterization and the identification
of assets.
We had somebody come and they kind of just showed us
where all the manholes were.
So we did everything field verification
as part of this project.
But yeah, so that's very common. So thank you.
-: So there was an article, I think in the Blanca county news
that said that y'all actually identified or looked
for 200 manning holes in Blanco, Texas.
That's a small, super small community to have 200 manholes.
-: I think they have (crosstalk)
-: Sir, I was just gonna add that makes a lot of sense
from a wastewater a standpoint where you can physically see
most of the assets.
On the water side, we found that going off record maps
fortunately, we were in the position with a working history
with the town of Anthony, that we were in possession
of a lot of their record drawings that other small towns
that we've worked with don't have.
And because that's the case,
we were able to digitize that network from those old maps.
But there were still several instances
where things had been replaced and there was no record.
We tried as best when it was appropriate to go back
to primary resources rather than maps generated from maps,
generated from other maps.
And so that was pretty key,
but that also allowed us to save time and money
as opposed to surveying everywhere.
-: That's right.
-: Alright, great.
Thank you, Rebecca.
Now we'll go to the city of Elkhart project.
-: Hey everybody, can you hear me?
This is Blake Madison.
-: Yes, sir. -: We can hear you.
-: I'll present for myself and Tracy
on behalf of the city of Elkhart.
We completed an asset management plan
for the city of Elkhart,
and it's already kind of been put into place
and the city has definitely seen the importance of it.
We're doing a couple of big projects in the city now,
probably bigger projects than they've ever done in the past.
We're installing some big transmission lines,
10 and 12 inch that go throughout the city a lot bigger
than what a typical city this size would have.
They've experienced a lot of volume and pressure issues
in town because the two well sides were located
in a way that their transmission lines
were significantly undersized.
So we upsize those as well as put in pressure tanks
and we're taking out their elevated storage tank
it's an antique type facility that became a bit of a hazard
to the city because it's so old.
They had to make a decision whether they wanna convert it
to a pressure tank type of system
or an elevated storage type system.
When we were going through those projects,
I think it was very critical and important for a city staff
to understand we need to know where lines are.
We need to know critical facilities.
We need to know the status of them because they were going
through a staff transition at the start
and throughout the majority of this asset management plan,
it came very apparent to us that the asset management plan
was something that KSA and the city needed to work
to make sure the information that we were providing
for future generations would be accurate
and one that could be used in the future.
So although that was very inconvenient,
it was also very convenient to a point that
it was taken seriously by the city
and the city helped us out tremendously.
And it was just previously mentioned,
we studied the city's water system.
So the lack of system maps and lack of GIS system
was very tough to help us locate water distributions lines
since water distribution is a lot harder to locate
than sanitary sewer is.
So we were able to gather past mapping.
We didn't develop a GIS system,
but we did develop a DWG drawing of the city's water system.
We can use that in the future for locating future
improvements, as well as a water distribution
modeling as well.
I think our asset management planning really provided
like a realistic approach to the city.
Can sometimes be an eye-opener for
the status of what your system is and what it's gonna
take to continue to operate it.
But I think the main point I wanted to make was
staff transitions, city council transitions,
leadership management transition.
Those are the kinds of things that
when they come up, put a damper on improvement projects,
as well as maintenance of the system overall.
So that would be one point that I think it's really a point
of emphasis for the city of Okra.
They took it seriously because of the transitions
they were undergoing at the time.
-: And their asset management plan helped them
to kind of stay on track through the transitions
of the staff.
-: It did.
I think Eric called in,
He's the new public works director
and he came in the new public works director
didn't leave a whole lot of information for him.
So he was a bit lost.
So this was a bit of a blessing to him,
for us to be working on assisting map
and inventory or table where everything is
and how long things have been in the ground,
when things need to be replaced.
'Cause I think if it weren't for something like this,
it would've been very hard for him to keep up
with the system and know where things are.
-: Thank you.
-: Excellent. So thank you, Blake.
-: Thank y'all.
-: Tracy's on, did you have anything to add?
-: No, that's it.
-: Okay, well, good to see you.
-: The same.
-: Hey Karl.
And so next, we'll go to the city of Holland project.
-: I'll start us off here
and then we've got a couple of other team members
that are got Elston here to my left
and a couple online that they can jump in and add to it.
Ours was kind of a multifaceted.
It was the asset acquisition, the management,
we did ONM manual for the city.
We kind of had the exact same issue that Elkhart had
in the turnover of staff.
We've got a new mayor, new council of
as soon as this project was completed,
the public works director retired
along with two staff members.
So the public works department who normally has four staff
members now has two.
So they are very much in a reactive mode right now.
So that's why they couldn't attend today.
But yeah, giving them updated maps,
updated, ours was geared more towards the wastewater side.
But while our survey crew were out,
they also picked up all of the valves, fire hydrants,
any asset on the utility side that they could come up with.
But the issue that we came across was how do we get that
data into the staff's hands?
Asary has some products that you can get online.
You talked about DWG, but that requires extra software.
What we ended up doing was putting into a KMZ,
a Google earth format.
So what that enabled them to do is they could have that
on there, they all use Google Earth, they do what that was.
They could open the KMC, click on a manhole.
It brought up a picture of the manhole where it was
in the city
and we also opened the manhole, took a picture down.
Now they could see what the inside looked like.
And also see what kind of pipes were coming in,
what condition it was.
So that's really helped the city out when they've got line
blockage work order for a wastewater
is not working correctly.
They can pull up that Google earth,
click on the manhole of where they think
they've got the problem.
Now they know what size line? Is it PVC?
Is it clay?
Now they've got a better understanding
before they even stepped foot outside that door.
So that was a big hill.
-: Can I jump in?
So what I'm hearing from all of y'all is the lack of current
or updated maps was truly a hindrance to you
when you first jumped in to help these communities.
And it sounds like you all have each individually found
different solutions for that mapping component.
It's more of just a compliment to you all.
I guess you guys worked with the community
and found the best way to get that data to the community
and in a way that they could actually use it
in a manner that was helpful.
So well done to you all.
'Cause that's not an easy feat.
We've been dealing with mapping issues
with our flood program for quite some time.
And they're pervasive within the state as well.
Do you have a comment, Jeff?
-: I was wondering your perfect world.
What hurts somebody used in.
In a perfect world what's the best mapping software.
Ain't it a GIS top software.
-: It's gonna be dependent upon the city.
Every city has different capabilities.
The cities I work with,
I'll say they're technologically challenged.
So make it as easy as possible to access the data.
They'll use it.
If it's hard, cumbersome, they're not gonna use it.
-: So it's not a very easy system that works best.
-: Not to my experience.
there is not a one software catch-all for everybody.
I love EZRI, I love what they do.
You've got a lot of capabilities.
It's extremely powerful.
But if you've got a rural city that
now has two staff members that they're lucky,
if you can get them to print a word document,
trying to get them to learn a new software
and try to go fix water line breaks, wastewater clogs,
it's pretty cumbersome for them.
-: Why isn't there a catchall for these small communities?
It sounds like this would be something
that a company would actually wanna put out a product for.
It seems like it's needed and wanted,
something that is user-friendly and easy
for these smaller communities.
Why hasn't someone develop that catchall?
-: There's others that have tried to get into the market.
And I will say, I don't wanna say try.
They are in the market. We use global mapper quite a bit.
It's I call Esri the Cadillac of GIS global mappers,
kind of the scaled down version of that.
It's not as robust,
but it's also in my opinion and more user friendly.
They have, again, they can export it to mango maps.
That is an online data sharing house. That's available.
But again, it's another piece of software
that you've got to get somebody to use.
And that's kind of the disconnect that I'm seeing when
you've got staff members that have been with the city
for 20 plus years, that's all they know,
that's all they wanna do.
Now bring in technology into this,
I don't want this to sound negative at all,
but the younger generation that embraces technology,
once they start moving up,
the technology will become more of a mainstay
in these smaller cities.
Smaller cities struggle to maintain their staff.
If you've got somebody that's AA license
that can handle the water wastewater,
they can go to a bigger city and make twice as much.
Small city can not compete with that.
What they typically end up doing is
they just move the next guy up into the position
that's all they know is their city.
They haven't experienced anything else.
-: The state is experiencing something quite similar as well.
It is not just isolated to smaller communities.
-: It is everywhere.
How you implement that and how you get that to the staff,
that's the million dollar question.
Each place is work city, like Brook said, you got that.
-: That's correct.
I've got other cities that I would have no problem
showing them the Esri and they could run with that.
And they're all excited about it.
Another city you talk about GIS and their eyes glaze over,
they want a hard paper map, which is good,
but the paper map it's outdated the minute you put it.
So where do you go from there?
And you know, the paper maps for Holland,
I believe they were 1992 is what they were using.
So yeah, they were extremely outdated.
Their a waterline break.
They'd go out search for a few hours,
And hopefully they see a water bubbling up
and that is their location to the utilities.
-: One comment I just wanted to add on that is,
I think the best system is the one that's used
If that's excel spreadsheet or Google earth,
or the technological limitations,
aren't as important as the use and accuracy of that.
-: But it sounds like that
what was identified from the communities as being like
their top priority was kind of knowing and understanding
their assets.
So in every case, that was your top priority.
And then what you found was that it wasn't
a one size fits all, or one system fits all,
but again, to your point, whoever could use it the best.
And I think I remember the vision that y'all had
on your particular system was not only that you would go out
and use Google earth and take a picture of the as is,
but as an operator in the future made a change,
they take a picture with their cell phone
and be able to come back to literally the office
and be able to input that data.
Further to your point, I think that they've said
the operator of the future will have a valve wrench
in one hand and an iPad in the other.
So, this is, in my mind, a great start towards that,
and the other thing that I think was a requirement
that we have to take into consideration is
that whatever software was developed,
the requirement was that that was a leave behind
and that belonged to the community.
So that was something else to kind of take into account.
-: Well, and another thing I would say is
we really stress to the city that this is a living,
breathing document.
This is not something you just do,
put it up on the shelf and then come back five, 10 years,
pull it out and try to do something with it.
It's only as good as the data you put into it.
So it has to keep moving forward
and you have to keep updating it.
And I think the cities know that, they understand that.
And the problem is how do they keep doing that?
But what is the process for doing that.
For them, once this program gets it set up,
what's the next step for them?
And that's a big question that we had
from Holland is that,
Alright great, we have all this information,
what do we do with it when we replaced this line.
How does all of that get done?
And what's the funding mechanism for that?
Then I don't know if that's something that
water development Board has thought about
in a recurring funding for that.
If it's something the city can pony up part of that,
or some other funding mechanism
to help a city out with that,
'cause this was a big undertaking.
And it's a lot of great data in,
from my perspective as the engineer that I love it
and want it to keep living forward,
but how does that happen with the city?
Do they budget that and their annual budgets,
which are already razor thin
and less don't have as many staff
and with all the issues that's occurring.
-: That's kind of the balance, isn't it?
I mean, what's the investment in what kind of investment
can we do that will keep it kind of moving forward?
And that's part of why we asked you all here to give us
your thoughts and ideas, because y you're kind of like
the experts who are doing that and have to deal with it,
kind of going forward.
-: Scott, did you have any of your colleagues
that wanted to speak to your project?
-: We've got a few more, for example, we did--
-: Sorry, someone interrupted you. So.
-: We also did the asset management plan using TCEQ format
had that put together operation and maintenance manual
was put together.
What else am I missing?
-: We also just gave them a kind of a snapshot
of whether you are compliance files with TCEQ,
both water and wastewater.
And we went ahead and added since this system
was more of a natural systems upon system.
So it was not a lot of the mechanical parts to it.
We went ahead and did a water source vulnerability,
the kind of assessment with them,
just to make sure that they are aware of where they are
from a standpoint of source and look into the future
of how to manage that.
They're in a regional group and just,
I had opportunity to talk with that regional group.
And so we just wanted to make sure we kind of gave them
we were in there and had opportunity to time
and give them kind of a holistic picture of their utility.
-: And I know we have a question on the TCEQ amps coming up.
I don't know if Phillip wants to Roach that now,
but I'm sure he may have a lot to say
on our number one question.
-: We'll go ahead and go to the other communities
before we start with those.
-: Thank y'all.
Next, we'll go to the city of Pittsburgh project.
-: Thank you.
So the city of Pittsburgh at the kickoff meeting
had already invested with the Texas council of government
to handle their GIS that they were working on.
What they were finding out is
they were using their existing maps
to enter the data into the GIS
and of course, it wasn't always lining up
with where they wanted to be.
So we talked about two or three things
with the kickoff meeting.
One was to go ahead and get the asset management plan
based on the TCEQ format.
It's a wastewater project,
so we looked at the why the operation and maintenance manual
at the wastewater plant,
and then the GIS kept coming up as well.
So we partnered with the city where the city went out,
located the manholes.
We actually brought out through survey data
just two survey equipment where we could just
hit a point, attach photos of the manholes,
condition of the manholes with it
and enter that data very quickly.
So with the city locating the manholes and us coming back in
doing the measurements and doing the pictures
and actually giving them a true GIS point.
They were able to get that information back to
the East Texas council of governments
who was managing their GIS system
and then we were once again,
blessed a lot of their historical maps drawings plans.
And so we were able to help them be able to attach that
information to their GIS in the appropriate point
so they can do the same thing where they could click
on the system and work it.
That was part of it.
The other part of that the city was really interested
in was of course an inventory of all
their mechanical equipment and lift stations,
as well as their wastewater plant and operations.
So we were able to document that as well
as part of the maintenance plan.
And then we were also able to link that back to the GIS
so that they could have,
they got a lift station and I know what age the pumps are,
what size they are,
who manufactured them and things like that.
That has got to be a living document
to keep that information up-to-date,
but it's the same song, different verse.
They were in the same situation where a lot of their staff
is aging out, ready to retire.
And so this has helped them transition.
And I think that's one of the main reasons they were really
interested in this project was to get that transition so
they could retain that knowledge and some of them besides.
I like the story you elaborate
that you've mentioned earlier, something besides that.
-: So you actually had some pretty positive outcomes
from the approach you had from the operating manual
as I recall.
-: We did.
So we took it as a tube approach since we already had a lot
of the operation and maintenance manual
and had a lot of the information to update,
we actually approached it,
well, we went back in with the AA operator
that was on our staff to go back in
and help them to prepare an abbreviated manual if you will,
so that they wouldn't be staring at a book.
that was four inches thick.
They were staring at a short abbreviated manual
and then have that operator actually go through
and train their staff at the time,
plus document maintenance
and what was really required to keep it operating.
-: It's kind of an executive summary for operators,
so to speak and then-- -: It was.
It was an executive summary for owner manual
that they could carry around with them.
-: And then some checklist as well.
-: We did.
We had checklists and that owner manual
where they daily operations.
This is what you check off, this is what you do,
whether that daily, weekly, monthly, how that works,
as well as our operator was able to take
and he was, he was a biologist as well.
So he was able to take his microscope
and be able to show them exactly what the process
would look like when it started to go bad.
So if you see this type of bug and it looks this way,
then this is your reaction to it.
-: Have you seen any real life examples
of having that manual in place
and having a transition occur and.
-: When we talked to the city manager at the follow-up,
they had a staff member that was out in another portion
of the operations that moved to the wastewater plant
and was able to take that manual and actually
follow it through and said that the transition
to actually come up to speed with operating that plant
was significantly quicker than it would have been otherwise.
And so they were extremely happy with that.
And that was that same thing people aging out,
this is a way to get them back in sooner.
-: So again, kind of twofold,
not only knowing where your assets are,
identifying what's needed to be done for the upgrades,
but also this importance of for compliance
and for long-term sustainability of the asset,
having that executive summary for operators,
and then also that maintenance check
that they're doing on a routine basis.
Scott: Absolutely. -: Excellent.
-: And you would think that a checklist and executive summary
would be something that is just basic maintenance,
but obviously it was a very proactive approach for you all
and really helped with your staff.
-: And we just realized when we showed them
the O an M manual,
or when we brought it back up and we opened it up,
it's like it was saying their eyes glazed over it,
that thick book.
And we thought this has gotta be something
that doesn't happen with.
So we tried to scale it down to something
that was manageable,
that you could take in without having
to spend three weeks reading it.
-: So the value of those outside eyes coming in, I mean,
something that you would think is just very basic
hadn't occurred to 10 cartoons.
-: That's great. Thank you.
-: All right. Thank you, Annie.
And finally, we'll get to the city of Three Rivers.
-: Yes. This is Joe Treyho.
Can you hear me?
-: Yes sir. Hear you and see you.
-: Maybe back in?
Well, thank you very much instance,
cause you so far and shows the small towns,
even though they're small and what can find Three Rivers,
they're very proactive in trying to keep up
with system actually.
And we first started out, we have this little problems,
maps and information, gathering them all together.
What was fortunate for us as the city manager
been there many years and kind of worked his way up
it was a utility storage along the way.
So as we went through and cataloged all the equipment,
the motors, pumps work hours, lines,
there was a small town pride in keeping up our system,
making sure that the able body product to the citizens,
of course meet all PCG requirements,
would help them with the short term, mid term, long term,
one to five years, five to 10 and beyond.
And I think that one of the items that came up was a number
called by Patrick to stand,
kind of do a interim review about about a year later
and went down there.
And I really hadn't talked to the manager.
We had call back.
They did say that they were using it.
And it was pleasant to see that they actually were following
through with the first-year requirements
and that's air pumps, motors.
I think the other thing that was good was going out there
and meeting with them and discussing all their challenges,
the course, budgetary departments.
They were able to keep pumps and pumps and motors as needed.
If they needed something to be sent off. They had a backup.
One of the good things about Three Rivers is that
it's located close to of course at the dam
to the west is down at Three Rivers.
So they're not only able to take water from basically dam
where their system,
they also have a right to the river
and they have that as a backup
and they actually keep up some backup plant pumps
that they actually run periodically to be sure
just in case their system fails at the dam,
they can simply draw from the river while their pumps
set to them or repaired or whatever services they have.
The other usual issues of line breaks, older lines.
We have a lot of system.
They gave us the information and updated that with them.
And I think the report as we put it together,
it actually helps them, again,
that's been discussed quite a bit on the alternatives
and that way they're looking at their system
and it's also been stated, this is a living document,
actually it's useful.
And many times some of these reports
that I've personally done in the past,
they go back to something, you said, insert Board.
It's simply stuck up on the shelf and not really usable.
This one is really been used.
And they keep up with it for their budgeting
or their longterm and evaluation systems
and ensure that they're up-to-date and where they're headed.
One of the items that read to you out there,
they had a pumping station that was not really good at it.
It looked all right when we reviewed it a year ago,
but it wasn't scheduled to have actually any maintenance
or replacements or any improvements.
And actually some of the system bit,
some of it failed and they actually went ahead
and replaced the good pumps and bought a backup.
And actually ahead of schedule and felt like this
our plan helped them prepare for that.
And of course it keeps effective.
It's an unexpected tool.
It helps them with their inventory,
what is the project worth?
Is it worth moving forward?
I think it gives them alternatives,
because if they go back to the same old way of doing things,
simply replace replace it.
And they can look at maybe doing an alternative
or change a purchase plane or a line or through a line.
I think it gives them a sense of
what's the re painting life of the system.
And what's the return on investment.
What's the best thing to do.
Again, that's on their budgeting and costing
and a lot of them are looking at for sustainability.
And then in working out there with them,
that they do look at the condition versus performance,
so they can really get quite a bit out of it.
They push it, but they know enough to keep
a spare pump motor equipment as a backup.
So I was impressed with that.
And then the--
-: And one of the things that you mentioned
in your conversation had to do with implementation.
So what would you say that was in this asset management plan
that really was meaningful or different
or enabled them to actually implement it?
Because as you mentioned earlier,
implementation was the key.
You gave a couple of examples of implementation,
but could you just expand on that a little bit?
-: Well, in preparing this, we actually inventory,
obviously everybody did inventory, the entire system,
we rated it and we actually set out
entire Excel spreadsheets of year one items, year two,
and they ha they have all their equipment lines
in one location.
And that's what helps them know.
They weren't guessing at a certain item.
They actually have a field and they had their maps.
They have a feel of their entire system
and what it takes to prepare for a project
and other implementing a repair.
And what isn't horizon as for other
future modifications or improvements.
So I think put this whole booklet together for him
and include ONM and things like that.
Budgeting also the managers that didn't help them
help prepare the emergency preparedness plan
that the TCEQ is required.
So it's turned out to be helpful for that.
So I think it gets a long range,
look at their entire system.
And although it's static once a year,
they do keep up and they don't have any exotic software
that they all mentioned.
They have the simple Excel sheets,
but they do keep up with it.
They do keep up with their system
and they're very aware of what the system can do
and where they have their problems.
And this simply a tool to help them categorize everything
and remember where everything is at.
-: Excellent point is that it's a tool or something
these operators are gonna be able to use
and the city's gonna be able to use for years to come.
That's a great summary. Thank you.
Yes, ma'am.
-: I think Patrick we've heard from everyone?
-: Yes. -: Ashley, next item, please.
-: Chairwoman, the next item on the agenda
is amps pilot initiative projects round table discussion
with invited participants.
-: Perfect. I will start.
The AMS program has used the asset management plan format
that is suggested by the TCEQ.
Do you feel that this is the best format to use
or is there another format that is better?
And are there any specific elements from other formats
that you feel would be beneficial to add to the elements
of the TCEQ format?
-: I believe I will let Philip answer that one.
-: Let's see. There we go.
Hi, chairwoman, director Jackson.
I'm madam happy to discuss that area.
I think that the TCEQ tool is an excellent tool.
Again, I'm speaking in regards to the small systems
that we are targeting the small rural systems.
Number one, because it's Excel based and then many of them,
not all of them already have Excel
and have some a basic knowledge on how to use the tool.
It also gives them a step by step guide on how to use it
as well as TCEQ can provide assistance
to the FMT assistance program.
Yes, as individual citizens may need it for follow-up
or a further instruction, that can be used
in conjunction with the Boards effort
to keep the program going.
The only other asset management tool that I have used
is the Cubs program, which I spoke about earlier.
And the reason why I wouldn't primarily wouldn't recommend
it is because it's no longer be supported by EPA.
So if someone were to go through the process
of setting it up and then later on, when they get an update
in their operating system,
then they want work for.
So that's why I asked what the asset management tool.
Just as a side note is that once our team started discussing
Holland, even though the scope of work was for wastewater,
we went ahead and included the asset management plan
for both water and wastewater, just as an added value,
'cause we thought there would be a benefit to the city.
So our whole team agreed on that
and we went forward with that.
One very, very, I think, important benefit to us
having the asset measure plan completed form this fact that
Scott mentioned is that they now have a turnover.
CEO's secretary has gone public works to where it has gone,
operator's gone.
So we can now have a tool that's already been developed
that we can take out to the current staff
and sit down and just train them on how to use it.
In terms of speaking to the issue of follow-up,
this can be incorporated into their annual budget cycle,
maybe two or three months before they actually get
into the full blown budget cycle.
They go out and about at a minimum once a year,
update the asset management plan
and then use that annual funding amount
is gonna be needed to fund the asset management tool
and to incorporate it into their budget,
as well as a registry so that they can go about saying
how they're gonna fund it.
So those are ways you can look at keeping it going as well
as potentially filing a funding process for it.
The other thing I liked about,
I've worked with numerous small systems
under the TCEQ FMT assistance program
and actually providing one-on-one assistance in setting up
the asset management program.
And many of them, we actually took it
from five years to 10 years.
So once we do the five-year projects,
get that set up because it's Excel base is hardly any effort
whatsoever to extended another five years
and go out to 10 years.
'Cause Manda asked us life is gonna be longer
than five years.
So I found that 10 years was much more appropriate
in a lot of cases, but we start with the five,
but they don't have anything and then go with the 10.
So that'd be my comments there.
Did I answered a lot of the questions
or is there courses additional?
-: No, I believe you thoroughly answered the question.
Thank you.
-: I didn't have a follow-up though.
You mentioned the right study.
And what I recall is that
not only did y'all kind of move forward and do the water
and the wastewater,
which was kind of expanding and thank you very much,
the scope for that small community,
but you also, I wanna remember data robust right study.
And could you speak to that a little bit?
And I know that wasn't necessarily a requirement.
It was only to identify whether one was needed,
but any thoughts there
on the value of that and how you might approach that
in other situations?
-: Yes, what I did was review their current rates
and to see if the current ways will support
the asset management plan is terms of funding.
And I found that it did not.
But we didn't actually do a full blown study.
I did recommend to them to reach out to TCEQ,
'cause I didn't do race studies under the PUC assistance
program as well for small systems.
So they could get a race started done through that
assistance program at no cost.
That was quite a switch over and leaving them the staff.
So I don't think that actually got followed up on
and then I detailed as well in my written report,
all of the business we had and so forth,
but we just revealed the rates and compared it to whether
or not they had the funds to go forward
and find the assets as needed,
but not a full blown rate study.
-: Thank you.
Yes, ma'am
-: All right. I will turn it over to Ms. Jackson.
-: We have another comment.
-: Eric, did you have air call?
Did you have something to add to this question?
-: Yeah, I appreciate that.
I finally made it.
I do have a comment. I agree with what he said.
I think we ought to try to keep it as simple as possible
to start with basically getting the mapping
and the base mapping together.
And asset conditions is a big enough task.
If we stick with something simple
and it's kind of programmed that the TCEQ
has a place to start with,
I would really highly recommend we do that going forward.
-: Thanks Eric.
-: So I know in a perfect world,
you do water and wastewater for this,
but if you had to pick,
is it more important to water or wastewater
or does it depend on the type of water you're treating
and groundwater versus surface water or is, does it matter.
-: That is a tough question, man.
-: But again, that's gonna be based on the city.
A lot of cities hit what's what their citizens can see
and that's water.
If you've got a water line break,
citizens are without water, that's gonna take priority.
Wastewater as long as they can drain the bathtub,
flush commode, it's out of sight out of mind.
So typically the wastewater system is the one that gets put
on the back burner.
The water systems are typically the ones
that take priority and are the ones that,
I would say, have newer infrastructure.
'Cause that seems to be the priority for a lot of cities.
So yeah, picking one or the other
from an engineering standpoint,
I would say wastewater 'cause its' always neglected.
It's always the one looking for funding.
It's a very harsh environment and it's expensive.
The water side is, again, it's the one that's focused on
the most.
So it typically has a little better infrastructure
than the wastewater.
That's my opinion.
-: You think most of them already have kind of an idea
on the water because it's newer,
but they really ignored the wastewater.
So in our aspect, wastewater we're better
because nobody does anything.
-: That's exactly right.
-: Yeah. It's only an issue
unless the city has got a lift station
wastewater treatment plant
those two are the items that the city focuses on.
'Cause that's something, they hit a button, turn it off,
turn it on and change all and do the normal maintenance.
That's pretty easy.
It's hard to do maintenance on wastewater lines
when you have no idea what condition they're in.
They seem to be flowing, so, okay let's not mess with it.
It's working.
So let's not touch it.
-: One thing we see is that they'll have an overflow
not overflow, but they're plants to capacity.
So let's say most of the bigger plan.
Well, it may be just because you have so much I and I
you don't know about so and building a plant is expensive.
It's heck. -: It is.
And addressing INI is kind of a, in my opinion,
it's a double-edged sword.
You address INI yes, you are getting rid of your peaks
but you're also probably losing wastewater.
So your average is may go up.
So it's a catch 22, I get it.
But at the same time, it's something that does need
to be addressed.
And that's where I tell my cities,
that's where the focus needs to be is
let's go hit your system, not just build a wastewater plant,
just to treat storm water.
It's a better use of your funds.
-: I agree.
-: So y'all did both together.
So is there any synergies associated with maybe doing
them both at the same time,
as opposed to doing wastewater and then following it up
with water later?
-: Well the asset management side
we mobilized our survey crew.
They were at with the survey equipment anyway.
It took them a little bit longer 'cause it's more assets
to pick up but at the same time,
I think he mentioned the city staff can go around with you.
We actually had a golf cart they rode around with us,
pointing out where everything was.
And that's another thing I've seen the city
will implement wireless water meters.
Well, after a few years,
you're no longer gonna the meter anymore.
That person leaves. Now where's the water meter.
Well, with this asset management
we've located the water meters.
Now we know where they are and that's something
that can carry over to the next person.
-: And nobody's on the ground even looking for leaks
and stuff like that too
-: And I think from a staffing standpoint, I mean,
especially in the smaller systems,
they're gonna do both water and wastewater.
And so it's best to have them work with you on that.
And if it works this, there's not a major issue,
one of the other, then this is a good idea to look at both,
if you can and provide input on that
and help them out with that while we're there.
-: For city staff, it's putting out fires
and when the public is yelling that they don't have water,
that's gonna be their number one priority.
That's where they're gonna wanna spend the money.
And again, with this asset management plan,
I think it was pretty eye-opening to the city of Holland.
they've got a lift station that was put in,
in the mid nineties.
So it's getting to a point where it's going to have
to get a significant amount of work done to it.
It's nearing the end of its life expectancy.
And that was something,
again that was out of sight out of mind.
Now this has come up with asset management plan.
We have replacement cost built into it to show them
what it's gonna cost to build it.
Now they've got something to plan for in that five,
10 year plan.
So instead of waiting until it actually falls apart,
and then now you've got to spend everything
under an emergency.
-: That's what we're trying to prevent.
-: Excellent comments.
I will turn it to Ms. Jackson for the next question.
-: So question number two.
Is it better to use asset management software
that has a lot of features specific to water or wastewater
operations or another software that might have
less features, but has the ability to be used
for other city infrastructure operations as well?
What are some of the ways that small towns can use
the products from amps in other areas
of the city's operation?
And we thought first off if maybe Anthony,
the city of Anthony and Parkhill could comment on that.
-: So the first part of the question
regarding asset management software
specific to water and wastewater, certainly when,
from what I've seen in the marketplace,
most asset management enterprise asset management software
is designed for municipal assets.
It's a broad range it's designed.
And so I think definitely that makes a lot of sense
that we're seeing more of that
than just asset management programs
designed specifically for water and wastewater.
Ultimately, as I said before,
the best option is the one that people will use,
obviously the more people using it in your organization
that justifies the investment in that software more.
And so I would say yes
it's probably better to invest in something
that has more broad use.
And I think definitely from the standpoint of whatever
system that you're using,
the mindset and education of kind of learning to wait,
first of all, accurately inventory,
the things you're responsible for and rating
that based on it's service life and replacement costs,
and then using those to budget for replacement,
just that mindset could apply to all sorts of departments.
It doesn't if it's even other assets
like vehicles or things that have that same mentality
of understanding what you own,
when you need to replace it and what condition it's in.
-: So just the AMs process and just kind of the education
that goes in with the city leadership to start thinking,
as you said, in that mindset and applying it,
not just to water and wastewater,
but to other assets within the community, I think
that's an excellent point.
Any other comment.
Oh, your camera's on. Okay. So Rebecca.
-: Yeah. I just wanted to add to that,
that I think roads and stuff is pretty important
'cause a lot of water and wastewater lines are under roads,
or even like indigenous with norms systems.
And so using a software or being aware
of just your assets and water and wastewater,
and then seeing that you need a road repair cities
can really get a lot more benefit.
I think in that sense of time, a couple of things together,
I think a complete streets kind of thing.
So this just wanted to add that.
-: And I guess we see that oftentimes somebody is gonna
replace the street then knowing the condition
of the wastewater systems is valuable and vice versa.
So that if you're doing one,
you might consider the other doesn't necessarily mean
you're gonna do both, at least you've considered it.
-: I'll move on to question three.
One way to promote more participation is to request more
representation from the system at the kickoff meeting
of the contract, for example,
requesting representative from the city council,
city management and utility management to be present
at the meeting.
Do you think this increased in diverse participation
in the process has beneficial?
-: Yes. (chuckles)
-: Do you have any other ideas to promote
the continuity of the asset management process
from the system after the contract ends?
-: So you stole my answer, which was yes.
(members laughs)
I thought I was done?
Now, in our case, in this situation,
what bringing in the council member, the mayor in this case,
and a lot of the operations managers,
we were able to understand how they were operating
in what systems they already had in place
so we could piggyback onto that
so that they didn't have to learn a new system.
They can utilize what they were doing right there.
What had also led to that I didn't say,
something others have said is they realized how important
this was at the end of the day.
So after getting the wastewater system in,
then they started locate their water valves throughout town
so that they could find that and start getting
that documented to a better location,
where they were narrowing it down to less than a 30 foot
radius or area.
So those things were very important
to get the process going in, to getting buy-in
from everybody that was there.
That's the other big thing is once you get the buy-in
and they're excited about the project,
then they'll actually utilize it in the future.
If you'd ever get buy in,
our experience has been that it doesn't work as well,
if at all.
-: You can't do things in a vacuum.
You really have to have everyone involved,
all your stakeholders and all your city leadership involved.
-: You do, you have to have everybody involved and everybody,
you may not always get everybody in total agreement,
but you need to get them in enough agreement
that we can move forward together as a group.
And then that case,
it may be that each city's operating a little bit different
than the next city down the road.
But it does also, as we've mentioned here,
it's based on familiarity as well as
your skill sets and what you can do once you understand.
-: So another question was how important it is early on
to get engagement from management.
So this is maybe a trick question,
but how important is it to get engagement from the folks
who are boots on the ground and they're out there
in our operators?
-: Well, it's extremely important to get buy-in
for the management because the management
is a big part of the budget to get you the resources
that you need to handle the project.
So as the management was bought in,
or as they get bought into it,
they'll budget money to something they understand
and they were able to participate in
and they had had input into creating.
And so we feel that that is real important
just for the process to continue and not wasted effort.
-: I think what's so many unmet needs within the city
to convince city leadership,
to include these infrastructure costs within these
razor thin budgets, it's a heavy lift.
So getting everyone involved in the beginning
to look at the assets and look at the infrastructure
is the utmost importance.
-: And in these kickoff meetings
I was impressed with this one and we've done it
in other places since
where it's everybody from the wastewater plant operator
to the guy that's out digging the hole,
to the mayor of the city, that's in these meetings
and everybody in between.
So that when you get,
they kind of all understand where we're going
and where we're heading in these small communities,
that may only be four people
'cause they're all wearing different hats.
But they all see the direction where it's going.
And if you can mesh their ideas together into a common goal,
it certainly helps.
-: So you're shockingly saying that participation
and communication are important.
-: So I have a follow-up on that.
-: So one of the requirements of the program was that
the participants have to dedicate about 80 hours
are required to participate.
Did you find that that was enough time?
Were you getting more engagement than 80 hours
from your communities?
-: I think for us we got more than 80 hours
because they went and located every man hole in town
and they went down and cut brush and did things
so that when we came out,
we could give them more information than we originally could
because we have the information,
we have the location found as well as when we developed
the O and M manual
and especially abbreviated O and M manual,
we went around with that operator and that was there
and said, "Okay, stay in here at this unit.
This is what you've got agrees today.
This is what you've got to look at.
This is what you're gonna listen for
and by the way, it's this old,
and this is when we need to start planning for the future
so that we get that buy-in as we're going
through the process, if that answered your question.
-: It's more like lab work too.
Like they got to go out and get on on the job training
about what exactly it was that you put together?
-: Absolutely and I think that is as well as just opening up
the manholes that probably hadn't been opened
in however many years, 30 years,
we pop the Liz on those things.
When we took the pictures,
they were sitting there looking at it too.
So there was a lot of information that was collected
at that point, not only in digital format,
but then that's really elaborate again
that was utilized.
-: And as I understand it,
then I can communicate it to the community
because they are the powerful messengers.
They're the ones that have seen it and understand it.
So wonderful.
-: Is that on, here we go,
I was gonna bring up and reiterate.
We've been talking about the buy-in
for as an engineer,
we can go out and build a brand new Cadillac wastewater
treatment plant.
But if the operator only knows how to drive a Pinto,
it doesn't matter what Cadillac we give them.
So the deliverable on all of this is critical,
so that they'll use it.
And that's what you get upfront is that's where
you can gauge, so what can staff do?
I've had one staff member that worked for a large city
that had GIS and he was familiar with it.
Now I know we can go that route and do the Esri side.
He's familiar with it.
Other cities it's,
okay, he's struggling to turn the computer on.
Now we know where we need to go with that deliverable
and so that it can be used.
So just wanted to reiterate that.
That's great. Steven, did you have a comment?
-: Well, the last part of this question had to do with
do we have any ideas on how we get some continuity
or transition?
And that's really pretty critical 'cause
we could do a good job on any of these aspects
or approaches.
And then it really just dies with the transitions
that are not naturally occurring out there in the industry.
So a truism that exists is what gets measured gets done.
And so one of the things that we have found when we've done
these emergency response plans and other things with small
communities is to suggest strongly that they put it in
some sort of a quarterly review process inside of their city
council or their Board.
And so every quarter they're gonna get,
and this goes back to one of the earlier participants
that said that they constructed this kind of a high level
executive summary and an action item list,
not the big document.
You go down that list,
you peruse that list at every quarter,
you say, "Where are we on this."
And daylight it was a great disinfectant
and it does a great job of fixing a lot of things.
And if you don't make this visible,
then it will die the slow death of all bureaucracy actions.
It'll just be one more thing wasted.
So it always comes down to them understanding
that their water and their wastewater systems
are the core of their community
and a civilized society.
And if you lose that,
we've seen it over and over in Texas and other parts
of the United States in the world, you lose the community,
the community has a slow death.
So if it's that important,
why wouldn't we be having it on a quarterly review?
And so it comes down to real simple things.
And it's again, you mean you need us to tell you that,
but actually what we do.
And so we all need reminders of simple things
like we need to eat, and exercise, well.
We need reminders, right?
So this is not rocket science
that we need to do is boil it down,
put it on a quarterly review,
maybe monthly than super priority.
And then that the high priority things that you talked
about, risk based issues that are more important
than the vulnerability of the system
will be coming up on a regular basis
like they might have a re ready to collapse a sewer main
collector line.
And if it collapses,
everything's gonna back up in every home
in the community.
Well, that's probably a priority.
So that's a simplified thing.
And the other thing we're glossing over here is
the idea that there is a management structure in place,
such as a city council or a Board,
because the community's under 300 population in the country.
And in Texas, that's the bulk of the systems.
And many of them they're kind of their trailer parks,
their mobile home parks.
They're all kinds of other community systems.
Some of them are investor owned, but there's a lot of these.
And if they have a community like an HOA
top of rubbed system, they theory have a Board.
So you have to put the tools in place
and the bulk of the volume, the volume of the systems
in the state of Texas,
let's say at the community water system level,
let's say roughly 4,500 water systems in our community.
Of those let's say like 3,500 of them are,
like below 3,300 population,
which means they don't have to do conservation plan.
They don't have to do an AMs.
I mean, a emergency response plan.
So all of these things we have to put in,
how can we do induce that?
So this simplified just like
let's make it simple and let's come back
and review it regularly.
And that will allow some continuity to happen.
And lastly, because of this problem of continuity,
I would close the saying,
we've got to understand that it's probably gonna be a
a traumatic shift regularly because of the lack of resources
and that if we assume that could be the case,
we have to think out of the box.
And I would say,
we need to have a whole another section
on how do we transition this.
And one of the ways to look at it would be like
having somehow at a state level,
some type of satellite management that augment, for example,
the city fall under any elk card, whoever else,
when they transitioned,
there's some satellite management that has that maintains
and runs the asset management plan has it in their hand,
here it is, let me walk you back through it.
And other can check on the system
on a monthly or quarterly basis and to get those
newer operators up and running and something like that,
where we have some actually experienced people coming back,
and let's say re impregnating the DNA of what
has been lost in the transition.
I'll close.
-: That's a great comment. Thank you.
I will hand it over to Ms. Jackson.
-: So what tools and resources have been most beneficial
for an operator to have that can be incorporated
into an asset management plan
to ensure operational integrity of a system
and getting the most efficient use out of
the assets of that system?
I think Rebecca might wanna.
-: Yep. I'm here.
So I guess one of the things that I think we all kind of
talked about is the tool that they were gonna use
the GIS mapping and everything that we talked about,
and everybody else shared
their different mapping techniques.
I think that's really a benefit for the operators
just to know where their systems are because a lot of them
didn't know, and that was kind of brought up before as well.
And I guess one other kind of comment that I wanted to make,
and I forgot before was I think that this is a great program
to do the whole plan, but I'm almost wondering,
since there's so much benefit for these cities,
that even just take what the people know
and put it on a map somehow,
if that could almost be like a phase one of an asset plan
that could be maybe different that the Board could help
small cities do just like this,
because I feel like really finding the assets
and inventory and stuff is just so helpful.
And especially everybody I think has mentioned staff
turnover as well.
And when you notice that at Blanco,
and so I feel like that would be helpful
to just have that kind of baseline
to help the cities going forward.
But I also thought what, and I forget the city, I'm sorry,
who did the abbreviated ONM?
That sounded like a really beneficial tool for an operator.
And so I thought to continued maybe doing that
or if there was a way to help other cities
do that similar process.
I think that would be great.
-: So Rebecca, basically you're marking
some of those initial funds for mapping
and that these like phase one.
-: Yeah, because I think a lot of cities too,
like they haven't looked at something,
like they haven't ever opened their manholes
or they don't care about their sources because it's working,
they don't really know how bad it is
and how to plan for it.
And in that sense,
they don't really know like what kind of projects
should we apply for SRF funding with,
because we're not sure how it looks.
And so I think that one of the powerful parts of this plan
is just showing them, Hey, this is how old it is.
You got some really critical stuff over here.
Did you know that you have a wastewater line
that goes over in this direction
and possibly is underneath the school or something,
because I think communities where that has happened as well.
And so it's just tying to identify that stuff
that I think kind of has gotten lost
in the people turning over and construction happening
and all that.
I don't know that that would be a big benefit
for an operator.
I think that mapping is probably the biggest benefit
that when you go see.
-: I think that was again what was identified
by the communities as a top priority.
And I think something that all the folks who participated
in the pilot study kind of put that as the top
of their list.
So Wilson. So Janet, did you have a comment?
-: Yes. I haven't always been in the engineering world.
My previous lot, I worked in a municipality for 30 years
and part of that, I was the city manager.
And I just wanted to let you know
that this program, it was a small city,
It was that 5,600 people, but this program will be a big,
big benefit to all of the smaller cities,
because I mean, 10,000 and under,
or maybe even some that are 15,000 and under,
because most of the time their budgets are stretched thin
and having this funding available for them to do that,
is amazing.
They they're gonna put their money somewhere else
because there's always another squeaky wheel somewhere
and that's not gonna get the attention that it needs.
So by providing this funding, it's awesome.
I applaud y'all for doing that.
-: Well, thank you.
And I guess from your city manager's point of view,
and also being an engineer
so important that you have the asset management in place,
but having this kind of as your disposal
from a management standpoint,
does that enable you to kind of move forward
and kind of convince the community that they need to invest?
-: Yes, definitely.
And someone else mentioned involving the council
the city councils involving them throughout this process,
then they kind of have a buy-in
get their buy-in on it.
And then even though councils change,
there's still gonna be probably somebody there
that was there when it was created.
But I think they're all seeing now,
especially with all the money that's flooding in
for infrastructure improvements,
that it would be great to have this to identify,
okay, this is the first thing we're gonna do with our money.
This is the next thing we're gonna do with our money,
because they don't really ever have time to sit down
and just think about what do we need to focus on?
What is most important for us to take care of,
to keep our infrastructure going?
And we're not constantly putting out fires.
I think Scott said something about,
they're always in the reactive mode because
they don't have the staff,
they don't have the time to even be proactive.
So that's gonna continue.
And I think by having this opportunity,
it will help so many communities.
I'm not an engineer, but I do a lot of grant writing
in grant administration.
And I love helping, especially helping
the smaller communities find the money
to be able to do these projects.
And I've done quite a few water development
Board applications
and got funding that way, which is great too.
But just getting the focus well enough to say,
here are our priorities,
this is what we need to do from those asset management plans
is right.
-: Well, thank you for your comments.
I agree the funding is important,
but I think we're very fortunate that we have the talent
to take the money and to execute it and to do
the very prescribed deliverables that,
again, we're talking about today, but yes,
And I know that Eric's got his camera on.
So did you have something you wanted to say?
-: I had to jump on this one because I think they'll have
anything that we don't try to demonstrate
was the ability to take a high-tech platform
like Esri software and make it reachable
to a small community.
And I know that based on some numbers that we've seen,
if an entity wanted to go out and get an Esri server,
those costs can run you up 50, 60, $70,000 a month.
I'm not sure about the monthly payment,
but you can take a platform or work on the way
to get to the softwares to an applicable
to these small cities in a much more cost-effective manner.
Like we demonstrated for Blanco.
And one of the other panelists mentioned
that they worked with the cogs, doing local GIS.
That's an excellent idea.
We talked about doing a co-op and having a group of cities
working together to help each other with procurement
and maybe GIS management.
Those are that also add a lot of management question
addressed the management question
that we were talking about before.
But I would say that that the way technology is moving
and the way we became Blanco that these small cities
can't afford and can use these Esri software.
In the Esri demonstration, we came up with,
we're talking about database management mapping.
The city used the workforce app also to track
their maintenance
it's introductory asset management maintenance tools,
but it's a start and they've got some sort of digital
platform to use.
And the upshot is that they have it in place.
And it'll that in itself will keep the program rolling,
so if they are vested in providing a GIS service
and they got that system in place,
then that in itself will keep them rolling
and committed to it.
So we talked more about it, but I think that these tools
were definitely reachable for these small cities.
-: So sometimes if you seen the value,
then you are able to kind of jump in
and was that your experience in Blanca
where maybe there wasn't a whole lot of expertise initially,
but when they saw the value
and what they could get and achieve and learn and utilize
that they caught on pretty quickly.
-: I'll tell you in Blanco,
they are being pressed by land development,
coming in from San Antonio and other places.
So then people coming in asking,
"Hey, what's missing, you have a map of your system.
Can you connect?
Do we have capacity for this or that?"
And I'll show you this as planning strength
and the ability to help address those issues,
it'll turn into a capital impact fee discussions
and various things.
There'll be instrumental for these cities
as they grow and change.
-: Thank you, Eric.
-: We'll move on to question five.
What information or tools within an asset management plan
or the asset management planning process
would be most beneficial to communities
to achieve the goal of implementation of the plan?
Three Rivers?
-: I'm back in?
-: We can see you Joe.
-: Yeah, very good.
Most excellent plans,
I think the onsite meeting with the people, of course,
the software, things like that help,
but in smaller communities that they stated over and over,
you have the same people carrying many hats.
They do pretty well, I'm telling you.
They meet the requirements
everything is regulatory and everybody's safe.
But I think the tools that are given
is as we used was the actual planning near term,
the near term, midterm, longterm,
actually give them a database and possible at times,
trying to help them update that yearly.
or every couple of years,
many times they don't have the capability of doing that.
They do keep probably keep them up or handwriting
or keep the notebook.
But another thing I was gonna tell you is that
a lot of these smaller cities again, but helps them
in getting out there and then everybody helps out.
They do the mayor for the mayor on down to the operator
and the guys in the field will get out there
and try to help out to these things together.
Because many times they don't have the accurate maps things
and those items, inventory.
This helps put together in one place inventory.
So I think that making sure that all the inventory is done,
but it's an off shoot of this,
and I think that that makes them very aware,
not either there's so many bar boils in that in the state
and we all feed of this.
And they're all very aware that that is the key thing
that they do not wanna happen.
So because the safety of the public
and of the bad press you have to be on tape,
you have to report it.
And so it happens quite a bit.
I think that stressing that or funding is provided
to the city so that they're able not to get out
either through the engineering, through people
that locate items,
especially locate the water house,
especially have a valve operating or valve sweep, I guess,
procedure or something in the operations plant
or in the I'm sorry, the asset management plan
simply because these guys,
I used to be a city engineer, public works director,
they'll get a water leak.
And depending on the area they have a valve is brand new
or a valve is 50 years old.
What was that in gloves?
So they'll expand out to close more and more valves.
It's two o'clock. I don't want them to fix a leak.
They opened up the valves, even they remember.
And then over this iterative process,
they sooner or later you have 20 or 30% of your valves
throughout the system closed in any given city
throughout state, which leads to short-circuiting,
bad water quality and eventually the water hole.
So I think that's important that the stress,
when we do the inventory or whatever you perceive
in the future, that you really drill down
to the really minor things
we all say a little more plants and water apart things,
you see a pump station that's not turning on,
but the water wastewater,
the overflows and manholes people connect in their rooftop
grains, or their gutters to the stone brand outfall,
I'm sorry, the storm drain outfalls,
but they'll do the outfalls don't work very well.
So they'll decide into their clean out in the back
of the yard and it causes INI issues,
overflow issues to waste water.
So a more detailed inventory,
more in the weeds of what's needed in the program
will cost a little more, a little more effort,
but I think that's what really helps small towns
and they don't have the manpower to go around and do.
-: So more of the detail, the better,
and maybe even consider doing it in a couple of phases.
And hopefully, maybe some of the communities
after they buy in and do the first phase,
we'll kind of pick up the next kind of one moving forward.
So thank you, dude.
-: That's great job.
I think we'll move on to question number six
and this we're just gonna throw it out there
and y'all can answer in any format you want.
-: So a one method for determining the criticality of assets
and prioritizing where resources are expended
is determining the probability
and consequence of failure of each asset.
Are you aware of this method
and if so, do you find this to be more or less beneficial
to systems than other methods
for determining criticality of assets?
-: I guess I'll jump in real quick.
I think city staff do this every day.
They're looking at their system
and they're doing it naturally.
As I move forward in a plan
we're having to take that data and put that in.
And in the asset management plan,
you're taking the assets and you're ranking those
based upon what condition they're in.
And let's take, for example,
a manhole that was put in 40 years ago,
it's probably nearing the end of its life expectancy.
So here in the next five years,
we need to start doing something with that manhole.
That's what we can do as an engineer.
The staff could care less about the manhole. It's working.
What they're looking at is the booster pump station.
Is it working? Is it operational?
That my pudding water up in our elevated storage tank.
That's the data that we've got to figure out
how to implement into because they know the nuances
of that pump, how it needs to operate.
It may not necessarily be by the manufacturer's
recommendation, but they're making it work.
And it's that type of information that we're having to get
from the staff to put in this plane,
that's a little tough to show inside of a plan.
We're writing that pump on a condition.
Is it operating like it's supposed to?
Absolutely not, but it is operational.
So how do you rank that?
And putting a critical component like that
and putting a ranking on it
that's from the staff and that's where you've got to get
that buy-in from them.
Make sure they're telling you everything you need to know
about it and I can't tell you how many times,
every time I meet with the public works director,
I hear something new about their system
that I did not know about.
And that's where with an asset management plan,
it's critical to keep meeting with them over and over again,
I think Steven made a good point about if there's something
critically wrong with the system, bring it to light,
don't hide it because as soon as you bring it to light,
you bring focus to it, now everybody knows about it.
It may be there's a direction to try to fix that.
Then I think that's what this asset management plan does.
It puts those critical components.
They may rank higher or lower
depending on what the staff feeling is,
how it's operating and what they think
is gonna need to be replaced.
What's gonna need to be fixed
that needs to be incorporated into there.
-: So not only a by the book probability,
but also taking in comments from the staff.
-: It's kind of hard to as an engineer,
that's not in the system doing the nuts and bolts
or with the consultant,
that's not doing the nuts and bolts
to make that water house.
My opinion, it's gotta be from the staff.
-: And Phillip, I think you had something to say.
-: Yes, I will concur with Scott.
And that's what I did with the staff
during the development of the asset management plan,
the TCEQ tool has that component built into it
on the first step, the inventory phase.
So if we take the inventory and then there was a,
after you completed put into inventory,
then you take each items in an inventory
and as a set of questions,
you ask determine about the condition of it
and whether or not you have redundancy
and how critical it is to the operation of the system
in terms of delivering to the mission.
And then at the end,
you generate a number one through five for each asset.
So if an asset has a one is priority one, and so later on,
you use that for your planning for volt budgeting purposes
and operations.
And so you're gonna start with all your number ones first,
and then two, three, four and five.
So five is like new or brand new.
And then one is past its life,
is near failures, a lot of repairs being done on it.
So I was think it's a very, very important step
in that overall process.
-: So that's a yes? -: Yes.
-: Thank you. -: Eric.
-: Yeah, I would agree that the TCEQ method
approximates this method that you mentioning
it's actually built into it.
But what you have is you have a simplistic approach to it
without getting too analytical in it.
So the failure rate, it measures reliability,
and you'll go and get,
ask those questions in those rankings of the TCEQ,
which get to that comment about reliability
or the consequences of failure.
It's in the TCQ method.
So I would recommend that we keep it simple.
And a lot of cities that we talked to
that are getting more complex,
we're talking about preventative maintenance issues,
where we're actually getting into thermography.
We're looking at lubrication,
we're looking at vibration to do a look at assets
from a preventative maintenance standpoint
that's you're talking way on one part of the spectrum
and at least small cities,
I'm not sure if he'll be doing that at this point.
Now, as they get into this med,
then start getting their program going,
if they want to advance and get more specific
and more or less analytical, the respect to resiliency,
and maybe even get into the preventative maintenance world,
think they can do that, but it would be a step that's
for the future, in my opinion.
-: So the consensus is, I mean, we talked about
the detail and at which it would be done,
or the methods at which we were done
and what we would incorporate.
But I mean, overall, it's the consensus that,
yes, this is something that brings value in,
would be something we would like to include.
I'm seeing everybody here kind of shaking their heads.
-: Catalina, I would think that we do,
but as far as the program goes,
I think the TCEQ method actually approximate this.
-: Eric, we need your camera on.
-: Oh, I'm sorry.
I think the TCQ method actually approximates
this technique already.
So I'm not sure if we need to get too programmatic about it
going into it at this point,
if I'm understanding your comment.
-: Okay, thank you.
-: If I could just add to that. -: Yes, go ahead.
-: I think even that simple approach can help kind of direct
more advanced like inspection if the utility is looking
at what what assets they need to inspect,
even having that basic framework
of a criticality can give them good direction
as to which assets they need to focus on inspecting,
rather than trying to say,
TV, their entire wastewater network,
they can focus on the high criticality lines.
-: Obviously you can't do everything at once.
And so.
-: All right, you gave me the rate study question.
What elements were evaluated when determining if a rate
study was needed for the system?
Anyone jump in, right study.
Everyone loves that question.
-: Because remember one of the requirements of the program
was to determine whether it was needed
and so what we were kind of curious about is,
what did you actually go in and look at
to determine yes or no?
And were those something that was defined?
-: We got Philip up there.
-: Hey, go for it.
-: Step three of the TCEQ to analyze the set by entering
the budget information.
And then it projected out over that five-year period
to show whether or not they would have a negative
or positive if they actually implemented
the asset management portion of it.
And it even does a calculation to show how much the average
customer would have to pay if there was a shortfall.
So that's what we use for the analyzing section of it.
-: So you felt like that the elements that were included
in that evaluation were adequate.
-: Yes ma'am.
And then from there they could decide they wanna go with
the full blown straight,
but it definitely does the announced a section of it
for them.
-: Thank you.
-: I also wanna mention that, I know we keep cities,
but there are a lot of water supply corporations,
as well as utility districts that could benefit
from this as well.
-: That's it.
-: All right. Well, we'll just continue at it,
no one wants to talk about rates study. So.
-: What kind of training tools or resources can be provided
during asset management planning process
to utility management,
to be able to communicate the short-term
and the long-term needs and effective manner
to governing bodies of the utility.
-: So I guess I'll jump in here again.
So again, the asset management plan,
it gives out that budgeted ranking
the priority one through five and kind of tells
what's your highest priority, what's not looking so good,
what's gonna need to be replaced in the next five years.
And then you've got your next subsequent rankings.
Two through five kind of gives the city a snapshot
of what they're looking at that they're gonna have
to focus on in the next five years.
And talking about rate studies that goes along with this,
the majority of the cities are gonna be shocked
to find how much their rates are gonna need to change,
to be able to pay for what needs to be fixed in the future.
The infrastructure's aging and a lot of cities
they've replaced pieces, portions, things like that.
But with new technology, a wastewater treatment plant
we've already said is extremely expensive.
Some of these plants were put in in the early eighties.
So they've been in for a while and they've been patched up
and eventually you're gonna have to bite the bullet
and do something new.
A lot of cities just kick that can down the road.
And I think what this asset management plan does is,
again, using Steven's term is bringing it to light that,
Hey, we've got this major issue sitting over here,
that's out of sight out of mind that we're gonna have
to do something with and oh, by the way, here's the cost.
So how are we gonna handle this?
And yeah, you can get a water development Board loan,
you can get a grant, but the city's still gonna have to pay
some of that back.
And where are those funds gonna come from?
And starting sooner rather than later,
getting the population or the citizens involved,
understanding that, Hey, we have this big expense coming up,
we need to prepare for it.
That kind of gives justification to any changes to that,
to the sewer rate, water rate, whatever the case might be.
So now there's some backing to that
instead of just saying,
oh, we need to pay for more staff
or pay for more improvements.
There's a lot more behind that number.
-: Oh, raising rates is never a popular thing
to do obviously,
but infrastructure is aging throughout the entire state.
And it's something that we really talk about it,
the Board the value of water,
the value of our infrastructure and trying to get
public buy-in to, there is a cost associated
with maintaining our infrastructure
and what I've heard from a lot of our colleagues out there
is just a clear, consistent,
and early engagement of the public that their rates
will probably go up is obvious.
Like you, otherwise you will have just a political fight
on your hands,
but if you can get to them early and engage them early
and let them know exactly what it's for,
it's a lot easier path.
-: Yeah, I found up as a council member
and mayor of a small town.
And what I have found is the more you bring it up
after so many times of bringing it up,
they finally get to the point,
well, why aren't we doing it?
So that's kind of the best philosophy
to take out exactly where I'm out.
-: And I don't know, maybe Eric could comment as well,
but part of the challenge is that,
if you communicate the asset management needs
to the utility director, I mean, you're insane.
I mean, you can almost say one word
and they'll finish the sentence, right?
As opposed to the council who then in turn
is got to communicate and convince the public
that this is a good investment.
So, part of what we kind of like to get your thoughts on
is, well, what is that education?
What is that training, what does that look like
that kind of helps the utility manager
who's already in sync with it,
to kind of get that same communication going
with the city council so that they in turn
can hopefully they're the trusted messengers
can kind of help and communicate that to the public.
-: And that's always the challenge because
a lot of these rural cities, your council members
are school teachers, farmers, tow truck driver
that know nothing about city operation.
And so, that's the challenge of trying to get
that importance of what your infrastructure looks like
and convincing the council that has no idea
when you mentioned air raider
on a wastewater treatment plant,
they have no idea what you're talking about.
So what I've done on some of my smaller cities
is we've taken them on field trips.
Now, when they're newly elected,
Hey, come out to the wastewater treatment plant with me,
let me walk you around and show you
what we're talking about.
And that's done wonders now getting them to a wastewater
treatment plant, that's a challenge in and of itself.
So again it's gonna be city by city basis
on the approach that you take to get the council involved.
A lot of these cities, the council members,
or your neighbors,
or your kid plays with the sports on the mayor's kid,
so there's always that connection
and always that opportunity to be able to talk
about things like this.
And you just have to keep your eyes open
and make sure that we're gets out there.
Even in a council meeting,
a lot of mine, I put a city engineer update,
it's a standing agenda item on the council.
And so that gives me an opportunity to give up and talk
about something that not necessarily an agenda item
or anything the council needs to vote on,
but it's at least something to get it out there in the open
so that's in the meeting minutes.
And if anybody wants to go back and look at it,
they can review all of that.
So it's opportunities like that.
You just got to get the information out there.
And, again, as a mayor, I put articles in newspaper,
Facebook, I'm not a social media guy,
so that may be an issue,
but you can never put it out there too much.
Somebody is gonna say, "Well, I never saw it."
And it's hard to reach everybody.
-: So Eric, I know that you had a lot of involvement
from Mayor Harding in Blanco and the moving forward
with the asset management program.
And one of the quotes,
I think I remember you saying is, seeing is believing.
And so I interested in your comments on how we can.
-: Since Mayor Herding left office,
we had a big transitions, like some others had noted.
And so we had people almost forget everything.
And the city has rediscovered everything
that we've put together.
We just got to re up on our GIS contract yesterday.
So I would think that part of it would be
to look at the data.
I wish we could show it to you.
The dashBoards you could create
and the map that you can create
with these Esri software packages
that prioritize the system.
So you could come in and show all the systems
that are red or green or blue, whatever,
depending on how you ranked them.
It creates a really good communication tool
to do the council and to the citizens.
If you have that mapping capability
and you have the ability to show it in a dashBoard format
and it's all there, and that technology is right there
for them to use.
And I don't know if you've seen it,
but if you would like to look at it, we can show it to you.
-: Thank you. Steven.
-: I think we're on the right track about this idea
of privatization, things have to be prioritized,
and we've got ways to do that.
We've discussed that.
I think there's one additional step.
It's like one step away from actually getting there
to communicate to folks, for example,
that are not the engineer crowd,
or they're not lived in this.
They need to know a real world consequence
of this priority list.
So for example, if this fails,
if this particular manhole in the section five,
this is vitrified clay pipe, that's seventy-five years old.
If it fails, what happens?
Oh, everybody in town on this main collector,
it will backup all of the bathtub,
showers and toilets in your whole community.
Everybody will in your town will want your head.
Oh, that's probably a pretty big deal.
So they need to know that,
or there's gonna be a waterborne disease outbreak
related to this.
Maybe it's a surface water treatment or
they need the ground water under the flips of surface water.
They needed to fix whatever that is.
They need to know the actual consequences.
Maybe it's a litigational thing with CCQ
or a consumer or an industry suing them, but make it real.
I think that's that transitional step to make it real,
and again, make it frequent
in their review of accountability that that heart makes
it come to life instead of just like,
oh, why didn't you do your priority items?
They're just stagnant engineering priority items,
as opposed to, if I don't do this,
everybody in town is gonna be at what my head.
-: Thank you, Phillip, did you have something in here?
-: Steve said a lot of.
I actually worked with the city of Blanca
and did two rate study and helped mayor Harden,
and helped them get rate pants was great.
And what I do with the committee and I work with
is the campaign and what people normally,
all of us research has shown
that when you feel someone a fact what they say consciously
or subcontract is, "So What.
So we have to answer to, so what question,
when we tell them you do that about telling them
what the benefits.
How are you the individual household quantity benefit
from this rate increase in terms of like what Steve
just mentioned, you won't have sewage backup anymore.
Are you gonna have water that you need
to run your business?
Whatever the benefit that they're going to receive,
which is key in any sales,
is that it's a campaign with settlement,
what a one liners on how they are going to benefit.
And that has proved to be very successful
and get these rates passed and approved.
-: Thank you.
In the essence of time,
I think we will skip to the final and big question
of the day.
-: So this is our followup,
and we're hoping that everybody will kind of weigh in
and participate in this one.
So overall, did you find the amps pilot project
to be valuable?
And are there any specific elements that you would add
or remove from the scope of work?
And so why don't we just start maybe with Lanny,
we haven't heard from him in a while and then maybe Austin.
-: So what I was thinking
when this question came up is,
yes, the project was valuable and to kind of tailor it
to what the other question was as well.
So city of Pittsburgh, actually a credit to the city manager
and the council there
that they were thinking ahead of how do we take this
information and how do we do the things
we were talking about
where we're actually having a visual input of it.
And they started a work order system.
They discovered that one of the things that
a lot of times the guys out in the field,
that documentation is not their strong suit.
So they started a work order system
where they were filing things electronically.
So they can take that electronic data,
move it onto a mapping system so that somebody else
can see it.
So I would think that some way of documenting
as we're managing our asset management into the future,
some way of documenting how often a piece of equipment
fails, whether it's one year old or 20 years old,
so that we understand what's going on would be a good thing.
Other than that, I think the project was real valuable,
especially to the communities that they were able to use
to get a little bit of an introduction to it
so that they can take to the future
and start dovetailing these other items
and so they can manage their system better.
I think it was a great idea.
-: I think overall,
I would agree with landing that it's a great project
and I'm very happy at opportunity to work on it.
And I think it's a huge benefit to small systems.
They need as many tools as we can provide them
to the continue to operate and be viable.
They don't have the resources nor the time, has been stated
a lot today, and it's true.
They just don't have that.
They have to work it just of surviving every day.
But one thing I think I would then would suggest is that
somehow building a little more frequent follow-up
because I think what we're facing here
with the city of Holland complete transition.
We're very fortunate that Scott has a relationship
with them, so we can go in and do the transition.
But if we didn't have that,
I'm not sure how it would get back in there
and get them to pay attention long enough to say,
"Hey, this is what we provided to y'all.
This is how you can use it going forward."
And so something I know we have an 18 month follow-up,
maybe a little more frequent,
just so we can try to catch those transitions
as much as possible.
-: Thank you.
So, Chris, did you have anything you wanted to add.
And maybe think too,
is there anything that we're doing
that we don't necessarily need to be doing
in the realm of efficiency.
-: And streamlining.
-: Or anything we need to add?
-: Again, on the first point, absolutely.
This is, this is incredibly valuable.
And I think again, the ability to prioritize
and anticipate future costs, because absolutely,
I think we're running utility network for some of these
small communities that's just reacting
to what you have going on that day.
And so absolutely this has value.
And again, like I mentioned on the inspection data
that you may have a right now of,
I have problems with my sewer.
I wanna get it all inspected and that might not be
the best use of your money.
And if you have an asset management program
or even the risk assessment part of it,
you can understand some of these priorities.
I agree with the frequent follow-up because I think
what's really important to this is not just a goal
of an asset management plan,
it's almost more important
than the full asset management plan is
the habits you're trying to build into keeping track
of your inventory and keeping track of
where you're spending money on, on maintenance
and understanding that better.
And being able to communicate that
to stakeholders you might be fighting for funds
that you can document those things.
-: So Scott, any scope changes you'd recommend?
-: Well, I wanna piggyback on what Ms. Sant was saying
earlier about the phased approach.
What we have found with the acquisition of the assets.
There's so many different directions you can take that.
So that's kind of the precipice,
the starting point, I guess,
of getting everything going.
And so that is without the asset locating the asset
out in the field,
you've got really nothing other than old maps and paper
and things like that.
So in my mind doing the asset acquisition,
creating that GIS or creating that list of items of,
some sort of map for both water and wastewater.
'Cause again, I'll state it again,
water is gonna be number one on every city systems mind.
So if you go to a city,
"Hey, we wanna help do an asset management plan for you."
Water is gonna be the first thing that pops up
in reality it's probably the wastewater
that needs to take the priority.
So if you wrap both of those up together and phase one,
doing the water and the wastewater, in my mind,
you're saving some funding there and mobilization,
you've got a survey crew out there shooting at anyway,
why not go ahead and just have them pickup most systems.
So yeah, in my mind, I kind of liked that phased approach
that would be a better use of the funding starting out
because really a city doesn't really know
what they have until you put it all together.
And that kind of directs where you go,
when that second phase of
maybe the asset management plan.
We do all of acquisition for all the water side
and everything looks great.
Then all of a sudden we look at the wastewater side
and it's, oh, our lines are that bad.
They're in that condition.
Well, do a more, in-depth look at the wastewater side
and we can hold off on the water side.
So that kind of directs how you approach it moving forward.
So do I think it's a great value? Absolutely.
The value is number one for the council to plan for budgets,
city staff to plan for budgets,
but it's invaluable to the city staff to be able to have
that data readily in hand when they're out in the field
like you mentioned turning valves and somebody mentioned
turning valves, we see it all the time.
They go out valve, hasn't been exercised,
it's locked up, it's seized
so what's the next option go to the elevated storage tank,
turn the whole system off.
That's happened several times at cities
and so that information is invaluable
at the city staff level.
And again, that first phase
that gets the city staff buy-in because
that's data that's in their hand, it gets council by in,
because now they could see what their system looks like
and whether it's good, bad indifferent.
At least now they've got something to look at that
that help drive their decision
when they're creating these budgets.
And I think that's what we'll end up making
this more sustainable, is that buy-in.
-: Any other thoughts from folks here from the Board
or those participating at home or in their home?
-: Follow-up the 12 month apartment walking over the 12 month
and 24 month follow-up is it's very good.
And it reminds the client or the small city that,
what they're using, what they're doing,
what they've done in the past.
And if we have a follow-up, I think that was great.
And when you have the follow up,
the engineer needs to be present,
go out with the manager and operations director,
staff, or staff director,
and actually go through the system.
It actually, when they know you're coming there,
you give them a two, three week or month
in the future point appointment,
they'll actually go through everything and make sure
that they followed it.
And like I said, in Three Rivers, they were very proactive.
So I didn't have too many problems there
of what they had done
and they were actually hitting one of the areas,
but I think the 12 month.
-: I think that's important.
And so I know.
-: It's very important.
Otherwise it becomes to.
-: Make a comment as well. So thank you, Joe.
-: My comment is back to what Rebecca was saying earlier
about the facing.
I liked the idea and I guess
the application, the timing of the funding,
like they wrote back and made a comment earlier.
Sometimes these folks don't even know what they have
before they can get an SRF loan.
So I'm a hundred percent clear on the funding operation
or the mechanisms that y'all are placing.
It looks like you've got the zero interest loan for SRF.
And I didn't quite understand how the 100,000
would be applied.
Maybe it would be beneficial to have
that amount of money to be offered separately to cities
that can come in on a priority basis
or on a first come first serve basis
that might be able to apply for money
separate from the SRF program in order to do so.
The base mapping and condition assessment work.
Rebecca, do you have any comments?
-: I was just gonna add with the follow-up.
I think it would be critical or important
to try to engage all those levels during the follow-up.
So not just, the public works director or the operators,
but to try to maybe go back to council or the mayor
because people do change.
And I think, especially at small cities,
people maybe change more frequently
or they get farmed out or whatever,
and that would be a good reminder,
but at the same sense that the follow-up is tough
because I think really part of this is
you want the city to take this and run with it
and make it their own.
And it shouldn't be an engineer's responsibility
or the Board's responsibility to make sure they remember
what they've got.
So that's part of just keeping that staff engagement.
There was a question,
I don't remember who asked it before,
maybe Jessica about if the 80 hours was enough.
And I think some people said the 80 hours
that the city had to give was enough.
I think doing the field work and the 80 hours is good,
but I don't know if there's a way to help,
like get the staff more involved
in the whole kind of process of creating the plan
or working through a worksheet because it is about
training people.
I'm not sure that a followup retraining
is always beneficial when you're trying to get somebody
to be oh, I'm in the field.
I can make this change right now because of you.
-: Well, thank you. Great comments.
So I think that's all of our comments.
-: That's great.
Ashley, next item, please.
-: Chairwoman, the next item on the agenda
is public comment on the TWDB AMs initiative.
We got one registration card for the meeting today,
and that's from Larry Bell, who's technical assistance
director at Texas rural water association.
He did not indicate whether he wanted to address the Board,
but he did submit a question for us in writing
that he was interested in whether sewer cameras
were used in asset surveys to show the actual type of pipes
or conditions.
Did ask that.
-: Any boots on the ground?
Any experiences with super cameras?
-: No, on the sewer cameras,
I know some of the cities have their own small cameras,
but really what you need are the full blown truck mounted
cameras that can actually go the 500 foot distance
and then all of that, and those get pretty expensive.
So for us on the wastewater side,
it was really just looking in the manhole,
what pipe material, now if it was PVC coming into the pipe,
five feet later, it could have turned into clay who knows,
but we at least have somewhat of an idea
of the size coming out of the manhole,
but no, we did not do any CCTV work
as part of this scope.
(member speaking off mic)
It is a lot more expensive.
It'd be great to have that on the city side,
but yeah we couldn't get it into the budget.
-: Any other public comment.
-: That's the only registration card that we had.
I don't know if anyone else is online indicating
they want to comment.
-: Is there anyone online that wishes to comment
on the TWDB amps initiative?
All right, Ashley, next item, please.
-: Chairman, the next item on the agenda
is public comment on any other matters
within the jurisdiction of TWDB.
-: Is anyone signed up for public comment?
-: We do not have anyone for that type of comment either.
-: Is there anyone in the cyber world
that wishes to comment on any matters
within the jurisdiction of TWDB?
All right, Ashley, next item.
-: Chairwoman, the final item on the agenda today
is closing comments.
-: You go first.
-: Well, I just wanted to thank the staff for the great work
that they've done in putting the pilot program together.
Again, this is, I think, a first time effort
for the Board and providing, if you will,
that human capital.
And we were just so fortunate during this pilot initiative,
I think to have a great set of human capital folks
who had the expertise and the talent and the commitment.
And I think you heard in the presentations today that
they went above and beyond what was expected.
And I have really just kind of latched on to the objectives.
We appreciate all the comments today in terms of
what you think we can do to fine tune the process.
We're always about continuous improvement
and wanting to do what is best value,
not just for the Board,
because we are obviously investing in this,
but also for the communities that are served.
And so, just a great opportunity, appreciate the staff,
appreciate all of the firms that not only participated
in the process and the pilot study,
but taking your times and be here today,
or be here virtually and share with us your thoughts
and ideas.
And I would encourage anyone.
I mean, we always wanna know what people are thinking about.
And so even if you weren't here today and you have an idea,
please pick up the phone,
call me or one of the staff we would love to hear from you.
And really excited for the next phase
in terms of moving forward.
And what's kind of on the horizon.
And again, how we can improve the system,
how we can expand it.
I think one of the things that we seen, which was
maybe something we didn't necessarily expect is that
is the whole concept of asset management is growing
and the engagement and involvement.
So we saw communities that were not in the pilot program,
actually asked to participate, start asking about it.
We have communities that are moving forward
with their SRF projects include,
asset management as something to do moving forward.
So I interested in what we can do to help communities,
to be able serve the communities in which they're in.
So appreciate everybody's time and effort
and just excited about the next phase.
-: I really love to thank staff Jessica and Patrick
and not staff, but my fellow Board member
for putting this together.
I think that this is a perfect example
of how this Board does not shy away from having
these really candid discussions about our programs.
I don't think there are a lot of Commissions or Boards
that would have an open work session
and ask people in public,
"What do you think about our program?
Tell us what we can do better."
But this is a Board that is always looking to improve
our programs and our staff that are always looking
for stakeholder engagement.
We're a very collaborative agency and Board,
and we're just really happy to hear your insights,
good, bad, neutral.
We just wanna hear what you all are thinking.
And as the lawyer on the Board
and the lawyer, everyone jokes, 'cause I always say,
well, I'm the lawyer and the Board.
So I pass all the hard questions on to Kathleen
as the engineer.
It was actually really refreshing for me
to hear what you guys are saying,
operationally and how it's actually helping
not just with the asset management,
but also with the possibility of rate increases
and collaboration and engagement
and working with the leadership in your cities
was something that I had thought about,
but just hearing it from you all was very impressive.
So I think that this was a wonderful meeting.
You worked so hard on it.
And I think we had a fantastic discussion.
It was exactly what I wanted to have happen.
Jeff, do you have any final remarks or?
Jeff: No. (speaks faintly)
-: We can stop without complimenting our chairwoman
because one of the things I think I'm so proud of
is that I know she's an attorney,
but she starting to think like an engineer.
-: What? (members laughs)
In fact, I tell you, I'm thinking like an engineer.
So thanks for the engagement today.
-: I'm gonna tell my husband that,
he's gonna be in complete disagreement with that,
but anyways, thank you all.
And with that, the Board will not meet
in closed session today.
There'll be no further business
of the Texas Water Development Board.
The meeting is hereby adjourned.
The time is now 4:01 PM.
Thank you.