Buckman Direct Diversion Board

MINUTES OF THE CITY OF SANTA FE & SANTA FE COUNTY BUCKMAN DIRECT DIVERSION BOARD MEETING October 2, 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 Rolf Schmidt-Petersen, Citizen Member Councilor Carol Romero-Wirth Councilor Jamie Cassutt Commissioner Hank Hughes Peter Ives, Citizen Member Alternate T. Egelhoff, The Club at Las Campanas, [non-voting member] BDD Board Alternate Members Present: Bradley Prada Facilities Manager Nancy Long, BDD Board Consulting Attorney Kyle Harwood, BDD Board Consulting Attorney Bernardine Padilla, BDD Public Relations Coordinator Matt Sandoval, BDD Operations Superintendent Samantha Secrist, BDD Accounting Supervisor Brandi Martinez, BDD Administrative Assistance Jay Lazarus, Glorieta Geoscience Peter Hunt, Glorieta Geoscience Reid Williams, Glorieta Geoscience Larry Pierce, Glorieta Geoscience Others Present: Joni Arends, CCNS 1 3. Approval of Agenda There were no changes to the agenda and upon motion by Councilor Romero-Wirth and second by Councilor Cassutt, the motion to approve the agenda passed by unanimous [5-0] voice vote. 4. Approval of Consent Agenda There were no questions regarding the Consent Agenda and Councilor Romero-Wirth moved to approve. Councilor Cassutt seconded and the motion passed by unanimous [5-0] voice vote. 8. Action Items: Consent Agenda a. Request for Approval of a Contract Amendment to the Professional Services Agreement (PSA) with Glorieta Geoscience, a Division of GZA GeoEnvironmental to revise the cumulative not-to-exceed amount from $125,000 to $190,000 due to a clerical error. b. Request for Approval to Re-authorize Unexpended Funds in the Major Repair and Replacement Fund in the Total Amount of $2,253,916 from FY2025 to FY2026. i. Request for Board Approval of a Budget Amendment Resolution (BAR) to Re-Authorize the Unexpended Funds. c. Request for Approval of a Professional Services Agreement with Arrowhead Security d/b/a Vet-Sec Protection Agency for Security Services at Buckman Direct Diversion (BDD) in the amount of $204,811.20 plus applicable NMGRT for Fiscal Year 2026. d. Request for Approval to award ITB #26005 “BDD Water Treatment Plant Chemicals” to various vendors for fiscal year 2025/2026 for an estimated total amount of $625,000 5. Approval of Minutes a. Approval of the September 4, 2025, Buckman Direct Diversion Board Meeting Minutes Upon motion by Councilor Romero-Wirth and second by Councilor Cassutt, the September 4, 2025 minutes were approved by unanimous [5-0] voice vote. 6. Matters from the Public – None were presented. 7. 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 month of September 2025. The BDD diversions and deliveries have averaged a million gallons per day as follows: raw water diversions averaged 4.66 million gallons per day; drinking water deliveries through Booster Station 4A/5A, 4.19 million gallons per day; raw Buckman Direct Diversion Board: October 2, 2025 2 water delivery to Las Campanas at Booster Station 2A, .40 million gallons per day. And for the month of September 2025, BDD contributed 37 percent of the water to the City and the County. And I will stand for questions. CHAIR GREENE: Anything from up here? Yes, sir. MEMBER IVES: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Quick question, in the minutes from the last meeting, Jesse had reported that the City had received approximately 31 percent – that should say Buckman had received 31 percent of the San Juan-Chama allocation. And when I looked at the report and this is page 5 which is the chart with all of the details on what waters to where, it indicated that Buckman or rather San Juan-Chama had diverted was 3,477 which is approximately 67 percent at least of the City’s allocation of 5,200 acres a year. And so I’m trying to understand the difference. MR. SANDOVAL: I’d defer to Kyle, please. CHAIR GREENE: Oh, we’re lawyering-up. KYLE HARWOOD (BDDB Counsel): No, no, no, this is the water nerd hat not the lawyer hat. The reason that that is possible, Citizen Member Ives/Councilor Ives, is because the City and the County do carryover storage from prior years in Abiquiu and so they’re able to release that water for diversion at the BDD. Despite the fact that the San Juan-Chama project did deliver to all contractors 31 percent of the firm yield this calendar year. Does that help? MEMBER IVES: Certainly helps and I looked at the chart on page 2 which is the City storage which listed approximately 10.5 acre-feet still in storage in three different reservoirs. MR. HARWOOD: Ten thousand. MEMBER IVES: Yeah, sorry, 10,000. MR. HARWOOD: You gave me a little bit of a jump there – 10 acre-feet isn’t going to get us very far. I’m sorry, so the question again, Councilor Ives. MEMBER IVES: So I had seen the ten five and I sort of remember from past meetings that I thought our actual water in storage was under that figure. So I could be wrong and maybe it was just because it was reporting on Abiquiu as opposed to El Vado and Heron as well, which account for some 6,500 acre-feet here. MR. HARWOOD: There’s very little in El Vado. It’s down for repairs and will be for a very long time unfortunately independent of the current federal shutdown. And there is some in Heron but I would trust the aggregate number in that draft. I’m not intimately familiar with how it has been going up and down of late but years ago the City and the County did begin a proactive program of getting several years of diversion into storage above the BDD for years like we’re experiencing this year. MEMBER IVES: Yeah, and quite frankly the El Vado at 5,100 acre-feet just seemed high knowing that that dam is under all sorts of repairs at this point in time. MR. HARWOOD: It should be 180,000 acre-feet when it’s working properly but it’s very low right now. MEMBER IVES: So it sounds like additional acreage was drawdown on our stored water. MR. HARWOOD: They way I would think about it is that the current year water available to contractors is the checking account and that water in storage is the savings account and whatever is in savings can be released for diversion as long as it doesn’t exceed our environmental permit at the BDD. Buckman Direct Diversion Board: October 2, 2025 3  MEMBER IVES: Got you. I would love to just get confirmation that we then released presumably about 1,700 acre-feet out of storage. MR. HARWOOD: The way I would think of it is that we released all 3,000 that is showing as being diverted from the system and only 31 percent of the City’s 5,230 and only 31 percent of the County’s 375 was made available to those two entities this year. Does that help? MEMBER IVES: You know, that makes it an accounting issue and I’m just trying to figure out what got pulled from where and what the numbers are because it didn’t seem to quite make sense. MR. HARWOOD: I’ll work on a question back to Jesse and Bill and copy Brad and Matt and I think I know how to frame the question: what did we start with for the year? What did we receive and what did we release and divert today? It’s a little bit of the difference between cash and accrual accounting if that would give you a better – Good for now? MEMBER IVES: Good for now. Thank you. CHAIR GREENE: So I am going to ask, what do you attribute the drop from 55 percent in the same month last year to 37 this year? MR. SANDOVAL: Chair Greene, members of the Board, so you’ll see the previous six months we kind of over pumped so that strategy this year was to pump during the summer months and then kind of taper off. So actually by the end of the year we’re going to pump more water than previous years but the strategy was to do it in the summer months. CHAIR GREENE: And pump you mean just hit the wells? MR. SANDOVAL: Sorry, divert. MEMBER IVES: One more. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I note too at the last meeting Jesse had indicated we had two artesian Buckman Wells that we actually have to pump because we can have a lot of pressure built up in those wells – and this might again be a Kyle question – but I was just wondering how that plays into our return flow obligations with an artesian well like this because if we have to pump them to keep them functional presumably if it’s [inaudible] interest isn’t being necessary produced. MR. SANDOVAL: Thank you and I’ll defer that to Kyle. MR. HARWOOD: I’m going to give a less [inaudible] answer unfortunately to this question. I think that the artesian nature of the Buckman Wells which were in that condition in the 70s when they were pumped, if water is diverted and puts beneficial use it would need to be accounted for to the State Engineer’s Office, that pumping would go into the groundwater model, it would tell the City, in this case, what the surface water impacts of their groundwater pumping are. But there’s nothing sort of inherently about the artesian nature of the wells that really gets away from the basic water right accounting of diversions need to be accounted for and modeled appropriately for compliance with the permit. As you know, I did work on that permit a lot many years ago but that’s really a City, Jesse, Marcos and Bill sort of detail question and I don’t want to say more because I’m not sure how else they would answer that question, if that’s okay. MEMBER IVES: Perfectly fine. It’s the first time that I’ve ever seen any reference to us having artesian Buckman wells and I was just curious how that played into the permitting and return-flow obligations. Buckman Direct Diversion Board: October 2, 2025 4  MR. HARWOOD: Artesian wells have a whole different set of regulatory requirements that I’m sure Jay could speak to here if you’re interested after the meeting. But fundamentally, they were artesian when they were initially drilled. In fact, there are stories of people rafting this section of the river in the 60s and the 70s and the water was coming out of the well casing above the height of a person. I’ll leave you on that historical note. MEMBER IVES: Yes, thank you and thank you, Mr. Chair. CHAIR GREENE: Anybody else? Thank you, Matt. MR. SANDOVAL: Thank you. 7. B. Report from BDD Facilities Manager BRADLEY PRADA (Facilities Manager): Thank you, Chair Greene. Good afternoon, Board members and guests. This report outlines the progress on the key projects, procurement and staffing as of October. We’ve made progress on the design-build project, and major repair and replacement projects are advancing well. We have a detailed update on the ongoing hiring efforts to fill several positions. First, LANL MOU negotiation continues earnestly with LANL personnel. We are preparing to bring a completed MOU to the Board in the coming months. Next, the MR&R Fund, quotes have been successfully received for the pumps. These pumps are required for 1A and 2A. This purchase will be processed immediately and funded through the MR&R Fund. Finally, on to the design-build project: our internal team is currently meetings on weekly basis. This team includes AECOM, Wright Water, BDD Legal and BDD staff. We are preparing for the receipt of the revised design-build proposal. Following a comprehensive review of the revised proposed, we are ready to move forward into contract negotiations. Staff, BDD personnel to work diligently with City staff to address exist8ing vacancies. I won’t go into too much detail but as you can see from the list we are making solid progress. The list has gotten smaller and smaller each. And we’ll continue to make this one of the top priorities. I’ll stand for questions. MEMBER IVES: I know from the minutes of last month’s meeting, it said that on the rebuild that you were moving into the next phase but there was no explanation of what that next phase was. So I was just curious, what was intended? Is that the contract negotiations? MR. PRADA: Thank you, Mr. Chair and Peter Ives, the next phase was the revised proposal. MEMBER IVES: Got you. And that’s all I had – oh, actually on the LANL MOU, I know there was much talk about giddy-up last month in the minutes, and now it’s something in the coming months so I was just curious as to where we are in that process and if you have any clearer timeframe in bringing that back to the Board. MR. PRADA: I’ll defer to Kyle. MR. HARWOOD: Thank you, Citizen Member Ives. We have recently taken a slightly different approach to the technical request on the MOU and we’re hoping that that will get us past the current disagreement and I hope very much that we bring you an MOU ready for execution for the November Board meeting. MEMBER IVES: Should I ask what the disagreement is? Buckman Direct Diversion Board: October 2, 2025 5  CHAIR GREENE: Is it that $90,000 or something? MR. HARWOOD: We’ve recently tried to take a slightly different approach to the funding of the sampling which we hope will be successful. CHAIR GREENE: It’s our going away gift to Councilor Romero-Wirth. Please try harder, faster. Tell them we’re pressured internally – MR. HARWOOD: Harder, faster, yes, sir. MR. PRADA: We will definitely make that our top priority. CHAIR GREENE: Great, thank you. Again, if there’s a role that either myself or the vice chair can do to push that, we can write a letter, we can do all sorts of things – [In response to a raised hand from the public, Chair Greene advised this was not the appropriate time for matters from the public.] I had an additional question to the pumps, what’s the lead time on those? MR. PRADA: Thank you, Mr. Chair, 20 weeks. CHAIR GREENE: Twenty weeks? MR. PRADA: After we receive the PO. So there’s a process internally here in Buckman and also at the City to produce that PO and then as soon as we get through that, it’s 20 weeks after that. CHAIR GREENE: And those are replacements or just kind of kept in storage until we need them or do you preemptively – MR. PRADA: They are going to be shelved until needed. CHAIR GREENE: Okay, great. 9. Action Items: Discussion Agenda – None were presented. 10. Matters from the Board MEMBER IVES: Just one question because I may have missed it in today’s activity. I looked at the chemical award and there’s no reference to fluoride; has that been ceased? COUNCILOR ROMERO-WIRTH: Right, it doesn’t affect BDD. It’s a City thing. MEMBER IVES:. So does BDD put in fluoride? MR. PRADA: Chair, Peter Ives, once again, we are not injecting fluoride. MEMBER IVES: Have we in the past? COUNCILOR ROMERO-WIRTH: I think it would be better to either get a briefing on this if this is something that the Board is interested in or get the right people to answer these questions. I don’t want a misstep here. The thing that we passed doesn’t affect BDD. MEMBER IVES: I understand that I just don’ know – COUNCILOR ROMERO-WIRTH: There’s a lot of history on this which I do not have in front of me and would hate to even attempt because there’s a lot there. MR. PRADA: I’d like to add something. It is naturally occurring and already in the water that we produce. MEMBER IVES: And, as we know, the CDC, may they rest in peace, have specific limits to the amount of fluoride and my recollection is that the ambient fluoride than the CDC recommended limit by some small percentage. I guess it wasn’t a great amount – I’m just Buckman Direct Diversion Board: October 2, 2025 6 wondering if the policy of the BDD has been to include fluoride in the past and whether we stopped it. COUNCILOR ROMERO-WIRTH: There is a County resolution and again I would like to defer these questions to either offline or for presentation we could talk about the history on this. I really don’t want to do it kind of shotgun because I want to make sure we are being really accurate. MEMBER IVES: Always prefer accuracy. If we could have a brief update on that, on what has been the policy, if it has changed. And, again, I just hadn’t seen fluoride in any of these chemicals. COUNCILOR ROMERO-WIRTH: There’s a County resolution that is significant on this. CHAIR GREENE: We’ll come prepared with where the County complicates this. Anything else? 11 Next Meeting a. Thursday, November 6, 2025 12. Adjourn The Board adjourned at 4:20 p.m. Approved by: Justin Greene (Nov 2, 2025 23:05:47 MST) ____________________________ Justin Greene, Board Chair Respectfully submitted: Wordswork ATTEST TO KATHARINE E. CLARK Santa Fe County Clerk Buckman Direct Diversion Board: October 2, 2025 7