Buckman Direct Diversion Board

MINUTES OF THE CITY OF SANTA FE & SANTA FE COUNTY BUCKMAN DIRECT DIVERSION BOARD MEETING August 7, 2025 1. Call to Order This regular meeting of the City of Santa Fe & Santa Fe County Buckman Direct Diversion Board meeting was called to order by Commissioner Justin Greene, BDD Board Chair at approximately 4:00 p.m. in the Council Chambers, City Hall, 200 Lincoln Avenue, Santa Fe, New Mexico. 2. Roll Call: Roll was called and a quorum was present as shown: BDD Board Members Present: Member(s) Excused: Commissioner Justin Greene, Chair Councilor Jamie Cassutt Councilor Carol Romero-Wirth Commissioner Hank Hughes Rolf Schmidt-Petersen, Citizen Member T. Egelhoff, The Club at Las Campanas, [non-voting member] BDD Board Alternate Members Present: Peter Ives, Citizen Member Alternate Others Present: Bradley Prada Facilities Manager Nancy Long, BDD Board Consulting Attorney Bernardine Padilla, BDD Public Relations Coordinator Matt Sandoval, BDD Operations Superintendent Danny Carter, BDD Regulatory Compliance Specialist Samantha Secrist, BCC Accounting Supervisor Jay Lazarus, Glorieta Geoscience Peter Hunt, Glorieta Geoscience Reid Williams, Glorieta Geoscience Kurt Traverse, CLA Accounting Support 1 3. Approval of Agenda There were no changes to the agenda and upon motion by Councilor Romero-Wirth and second by Mr. Schmidt-Petersen, the motion to approve the agenda passed by unanimous [4- 0] voice vote. 4. Approval of Minutes a. Approval of the June 5, 2025, Buckman Direct Diversion Board Meeting Minutes Upon motion by Councilor Romero-Wirth and second by Member Schmidt-Petersen, the June 5, 2025 minutes were approved by unanimous [4-0] voice vote. b. Approval of the June 17, 2025, Special Buckman Direct Diversion Board Meeting Minutes Mr. Schmidt-Petersen moved to approve the June 27, 2025 special meeting minutes. Commissioner Hughes seconded and the motion passed by unanimous [4-0] voice vote. c. Approval of the June 30, 2025, Special Buckman Direct Diversion Board Meeting Minutes Commissioner Hughes moved to approve the minutes of the June 20th special meeting and Member Schmidt-Petersen seconded. The motion passed by unanimous [4-0] voice vote. 5. Matters from the Public Chair Greene invited Samantha Secrist to introduce herself. She said she is BDD’s new Accounting Supervisor and was happy to be part of the team. 6. Presentations and Informational Items a. Monthly Update on BDD Operations MATT SANDOVAL (BDD Operations Superintendent): Thank you, Chairman Greene, members of the Board. I’ll be presenting the BDD operations report for the months of June, July of 2025, the BDD diversions and deliveries as averaged in million gallons per day as follows: raw water diversions for the month of is 8.20 million gallons per day, July 7.87 million gallons per day. Drinking water deliveries through Booster Station 4A/5A, June average was 7.21 million gallons per day, July was 6.78 million gallons per day. Raw water delivery to Las Campanas at Booster Station 2A for the month of June was .89 million gallons per day and July was .84 million gallons per day. Item # 2 looks a little bit different. So I added, at the request of the Board at the last Board meeting, I included all the sources, all four sources of water, and I also included the previous year. So for June of ’25, BDD contributions were 58.7 percent and for July, BDD was 55.30 percent. And I’ll stand for questions. CHAIR GREENE: Thank you. Buckman Direct Diversion Board: August 7, 2025 2  MEMBER SCHMIDT-PETERSEN: Mr. Chairman, just two questions. So I wanted to ask, Matt, did you get updated numbers for the final San Juan-Chama allocation for the year? I think Jesse and you were telling us it was likely to be between 10 percent and 30 percent. MR. SANDOVAL: I don’t have those on hand but I can have it for you at the next meeting. MEMBER SCHMIDT-PETERSEN: That would be great. And then do you have any issues with the low flows on the Rio Grande with diversions at all? MR. SANDOVAL: Yes, we are monitoring that daily because the flow is low. MEMBER SCHMIDT-PETERSEN: But no issues with regards to diversions? MR. SANDOVAL: So far, no. COMMISSIONER HUGHES: With regard to the low flows, will you switch to other sources of water if the river gets too low to take to BDD? MR. SANDOVAL: Yes, that’s correct. We meet every Tuesday with the City’s water resource team and we project the future week and then we also do it on a daily basis so we’re always looking at that report. We coordinate with the other treatment plant water, Canyon Road Water Treatment Plant, so it’s always ongoing. COMMISSIONER HUGHES: So are you worried that they’ll be enough water? MR. SANDOVAL: No, we have enough wells – it shouldn’t be an issue. COMMISSIONER HUGHES: Okay. Thank you. CHAIR GREENE: Anybody else? I’ll continue on that thread. How low has it gotten? Are we getting to a point where you’re waking up in the morning and going, maybe today. MR. SANDOVAL: It’s gotten to the point that we’re watching it every hour. We’re up to 212 at Otowi now so – CHAIR GREENE: What’s the number? MR. SANDOVAL: 1.50 is the cutoff cfs at Otowi, for diversion. CHAIR GREENE: And do we track? Is that something that can be tracked here to see what that flow is at the river so that maybe that becomes part of our record. So it’s 212 where the average daily and the low of the month and the high of the month and the last year’s high month, low month on historic record. BRADLEY PRADA (Facilities Manager): Chair Greene, if I may. If you look at the second page, it says Rio Grande’s flow averaged approximately. CHAIR GREENE: Yes, okay. MR. SANDOVAL: We monitor every day and every hour. CHAIR GREENE: Great. And I do appreciate the historic record here. Because that kind of starts to show, one, how the mix works here for those of us who care about the City’s mix but also to show how the BDD supplies year over year. So thank you. MR. SANDOVAL: You are welcome. 6. B. Report from BDD Facilities Manager CHAIR GREENE: Brad, you’re up. MR. PRADA: Thank you, Chair Greene. Good afternoon, Board members Buckman Direct Diversion Board: August 7, 2025 3 and guests. Here’s the update on our progress for June and July 2025. First, on our major repair and replacement projects, the PO has been issued for a new front-end loader. We’re just waiting for delivery. Regarding design-build project, a prep meeting was held with AECOM, White Water Engineering and Board legal. The team successfully aligned on strategy and reviewed historical design issues all in advance of our meeting with the proposed design-builder. Additional meeting are scheduled to finalize our strategy. Hiring and staffing: Our personnel are working closely with City of Santa Fe to address and fill existing vacancies. We have had several successful new hires. Two water operators, accounting supervisor – that I planned to introduce but we jumped the gun there a little bit – CHAIR GREENE: Sorry. MR. PRADA: -- and automation has secured an administrator and environmental compliance specialist. An administrative assistant as well will be starting on the 18th of August. We are actively working to fill all of the key positions across the department. I’ll stand for questions. CHAIR GREENE: Any questions for Mr. Prada? MEMBER SCHMIDT-PETERSEN: Mr. Chairman, I have one question and it’s really more of a request and it relates to the design-build project. I’m wondering if at the appropriate time and I’m not sure when that will be in the development of the strategy if we could have a Board meeting executive session or otherwise to really hear about the overall strategy and where the team is heading. MR. PRADA: Chairman Greene, Mr. Schmidt-Petersen, I will defer to Nancy. NANCY LONG (BDD Counsel): We have that on the agenda today in executive session. MEMBER SCHMIDT-PETERSEN: Great, thanks. COUNCILOR ROMERO-WIRTH: Chair. CHAIR GREENE: Sure. COUNCILOR ROMERO-WIRTH: I just wanted to acknowledge the hiring which is so needed and so important and feels like a congratulation is in order. You’re not fully staffed yet but it looks like you’re making great progress in the right direction and I know that’s going to be really important. Thanks for all you’ve done to get us to what we have now. It’s super important. MR. PRADA: Thank you, Vice Chair. CHAIR GREENE: I did have a question about training and eventually partnering. I think we’ve talked about it here and I just want to see if we can start to gear this up. Santa Fe County is going to have a big water treatment facility and part of that is we want to flood the zone with qualified applicants so that they don’t poach BDD but BDD also provides a really good training facility so I don’t know if it’s an opportunity to work either with the community college or whatever pipeline that we think that we can start to build so that in a year or whenever the County’s big project comes on line, that we don’t destabilize BDD at the same time. MR. PRADA: Chair Greene, thank you for that question. Yes, we’ve been diligently trying to staff up so that hopefully we have all these positions filled. We want to be able to have those training sessions that we propose for people. Buckman Direct Diversion Board: August 7, 2025 4  CHAIR GREENE: Is there an opportunity to work hand in hand with the community college and see if they want to do – we do a pro-tech program through the County and there’s just a pipeline building for training programs. MR. PRADA: The City is currently working on collaborating with the community college to come up with a program. CHAIR GREENE: Can you reach out to our utilities team so that they know – MR. PRADA: PU is directing that, Jesse is. CHAIR GREENE: Whatever is appropriate, if it’s me, that’s fine. If it’s something that you guys can do and I’ll try and have our Santa Fe County Utilities reach out to Jesse about it. MR. PRADA: Will do, thanks. CHAIR GREENE: Thank you. If there’s nothing else, we’ll move on. 7. Action Items: Discussion Agenda a. Request Formal Adoption of the FY2026 Annual Operating Budget COUNCILOR ROMERO-WIRTH: Move to approve. CHAIR GREENE: Now you see how easy this can be. COUNCILOR ROMERO-WIRTH: Mr. Chair, I don’t know if our new staff had a presentation, but certainly with a motion on the floor we can still hear that. CHAIR GREENE: Okay, should we get a second to hear it? MEMBER SCHMIDT-PETERSEN: I’ll second. CHAIR GREENE: Thank you very much. COMMISSIONER HUGHES: I have a comment. CHAIR GREENE: Yes, and I think you do too. Comment, go ahead. COMMISSIONER HUGHES: Yes, it was approved by the County on May 27th and it was approved for slightly more than is in this – that’s just a little wiggle room -- $2,358,891. So that’s good. CHAIR GREENE: That was for the record because there were questions of when and how much the County had approved for our portion of that. Thank you, Commissioner Hughes, for getting that and thank you for Yvonne Herrera Santa Fe County’s Finance Division Director. So we have a motion by Councilor Romero-Wirth and a second from Member Schmidt-Petersen. COUNCILOR ROMERO-WIRTH: One other comment. CHAIR GREENE: Please. COUNCILOR ROMERO-WIRTH: Part of the reason that this is easy is we’ve already done this. I just want to perhaps state for the record that this is really a pro forma thing at this point. We do approve the budget earlier in the year and it goes to both partners, the County and the City, for approval and then it comes back here after it has been approved by both those jurisdictions. So coming here is really a pro forma thing. I just wanted to put that out and why I think there’s not really a need to drive into it in any great detail because we’ve already been there. CHAIR GREENE: We were hesitating a second just to make sure we had the answer from Santa Fe County as to the date. Thank you very much. Buckman Direct Diversion Board: August 7, 2025 5  The motion passed by unanimous [4-0] voice vote. CHAIR GREENE: Motion approved, good job. Congratulations, your first budget. [laughter] b. Request for Approval for Purchase of Laboratory Analytical Services from eurofins Environment Testing South, LLC for Fiscal Year 2026 in the total amount of $94,322.55 COUNCILOR ROMERO-WIRTH: Move to approve. COMMISSIONER HUGHES: Second. CHAIR GREENE: So we have a motion to approve by Councilor Romero- Wirth and second from Commissioner Hughes. Anybody want to discuss? The motion passed by unanimous [4-0] voice vote. DANNY CARTER (BDD Environmental Compliance Specialist): Chairman Greene, thank you, Board. 8. Matters from the Board – None were offered. 9. Next Meeting a. Thursday, September 4, 2025 10. Executive Session a. Discussion of the Contents of a Competitive Sealed Proposal Solicited Pursuant to the Procurement Code During Contract Negotiations as Allowed by Section 10-15-1 (H)(6) NMSA 1978. COUNCILOR ROMERO-WIRTH: Mr. Chairman, I move pursuant to the Open Meeting Act, Section 10-15-1 (H)(6), that we move into executive session for the purpose of discussing a competitive sealed proposal solicited pursuant to the Procurement Code during contract negotiations. CHAIR GREENE: Can we get a motion to adjourn friendly amendment into that to adjourn after that because there will no further meeting? MS. LONG: You can include that in your motion. We usually don’t do a motion to adjourn. COUNCILOR ROMERO-WIRTH: This is this funny thing, that you guys do motions to adjourn and we never do. So I don’t know how we handle this here. MS. LONG: I think we can just note that we are adjourning the meeting and then going into executive session and we won’t be back. COUNCILOR ROMERO-WIRTH: So moved. CHAIR GREENE: And I’ll second to keep it moving. Do you roll call your executive session? MS. LONG: Yes, sir. Buckman Direct Diversion Board: August 7, 2025 6 The motion to go into executive session passed by unanimous [4-0] roll call vote as follows: Commissioner Hank Hughes Yes Rolf Schmidt-Petersen, Citizen Member Yes Councilor Carol Romero-Wirth Yes Commissioner Justin Greene, Chair Yes 11. Adjourn The Board adjourned at 4:25 p.m. Approved by: Justin Greene (Nov 2, 2025 23:04:33 MST) ____________________________ Justin Greene, Board Chair Respectfully submitted: Wordswork ATTEST TO KATHARINE E. CLARK Santa Fe County Clerk Buckman Direct Diversion Board: August 7, 2025 7 Buckman Direct Diversion Board: August 7, 2025 8