# Water Quality Fees Board Special Meeting - May 5, 2022 > Auto-transcribed civic record · May 5, 2022 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/5568 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/5568?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2022-05-05 - **Last revised**: May 5, 2022 - **Length**: 5,024 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Water Quality Fees Board met on May 5, 2022, at 9:00 a.m. in the North Elkhorn Conference Room at the Tate Building, 125 Industrial Avenue, Suite 180. George Woolwine presided over the meeting. The board addressed four agenda items, including approval of minutes from the April 14, 2022 meeting and consideration of FY 2020 University of Kentucky Research Foundation (UKRF) matters. The board took two votes during the meeting and heard no public comments. ## Attendance The following individuals were present at the meeting on May 5, 2022: * George Woolwine * Harry Clarke * Donna Fogle * David Lowe * Aaron Vaught * Charles Martin * Greg Lubeck * Frank Mabson * Denice Bullock * Michael Cravens * Britney Ragland * Graham Gray * Shane Tedder No absences or late arrivals were recorded. ## Votes and Decisions **Approval of April 14, 2022 Meeting Minutes** The body voted to approve the meeting minutes from April 14, 2022. Harry Clarke moved the approval, and Aaron Vaught seconded the motion. The vote passed unanimously with 5 ayes and 0 nays. All five members voted in favor: George Woolwine, Harry Clarke, Donna Fogle, David Lowe, and Aaron Vaught. [timestamp: 0:02:27] **Increase in Grant Amount for FY 2020 University of Kentucky Research Foundation** The body voted to increase the grant amount for FY 2020 to The University of Kentucky Research Foundation (UKRF) by $143,200, raising the total from $216,800 to $360,000. Harry Clarke moved the approval, and David Lowe seconded the motion. The vote passed unanimously with 5 ayes and 0 nays. All five members voted in favor: George Woolwine, Harry Clarke, Donna Fogle, David Lowe, and Aaron Vaught. [timestamp: 0:33:09] This approval included the condition that the University of Kentucky assumes all risk for future project cost increases. ## Budget and Financial Actions The meeting included approval of a grant increase for The University of Kentucky Research Foundation (UKRF). The grant amount for FY 2020 was increased by $360,000. ## Call to Order George Woolwine called the meeting to order. [timestamp: 00:02:27] ## Approval of 04/14/22 Minutes [timestamp: 02:27] The board reviewed and approved the minutes from the April 14, 2022 meeting. George Woolwine, Harry Clarke, and Aaron Vaught participated in this agenda item. The minutes were approved without noted objections or concerns. ## FY 2020 The University of Kentucky Research Foundation (UKRF) [timestamp: 03:32] The meeting included a presentation on amending the scope of the FY20 Class B Infrastructure project for the University of Kentucky Research Foundation (UKRF). The discussion addressed increased construction costs that necessitated modifications to the project's original parameters. **Key Speakers:** - Britney Ragland - Graham Gray - Shane Tedder **Outcome:** The proposed amendment to the FY20 Class B Infrastructure project was approved. ## Adjournment The meeting was adjourned by George Woolwine at approximately 34 minutes and 16 seconds into the session [timestamp: 34:16]. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (5-0): Approval of the April 14, 2022, meeting minutes - **Motion** — passed (5-0): Increase the grant amount for FY 2020 The University of Kentucky Research Foundation (UKRF) by $143,200 from $216,800 to a total of $360,000 --- ## Full transcript I Is there It was possible that I was I don't think so Okay. Okay. Appreciate it. How are you doing? Crazy. You're not going to be along so well. You can sit in the middle. You're not really surrounded. No. You can sit wherever you want. I'll get the button clicker. Charlie, did you have your own little way there? I do. Are there more family? Sure. How are you? Thank you. Sure, good morning. Thank you. Sure, thank you. Sure, good. Thank you. That's your name. Thank you. Thank you. Sure, thank you. Thank you. I think you still went on this. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It's better. Oh. Sir? Thank you. I'd like to call the meeting at 9 a.m. on Thursday, May 5th. Has everybody had a chance to review the meeting minutes of the April 14th regular meeting? Quite an extensive agenda, and you said a great job putting it all together. Any corrections, revisions, additions? Hearing none, do I hear a motion? Do we accept the missus written? Approval. Moved by Harry, is there a second? Second. Second. All in favor of motion, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed like saying? Motion carries. With that, we would like to clarify our guest with you, Kay, and make a presentation. We'll start with a quick round of introductions. I'm going to take the board and staff. Shane Tether, Campus Sustainability Officer with the Facility of Candy. Graham Gray, UK Utilities. Brady Radlin, Utilities Engineering Manager. I'll take this off of the board and hands-tock. We appreciate that we may be here for the continued discussion of this project. The first several slides in this deck we have gone through I think two maybe three times with this group. We're happy to do it again if you want to like us to provide an overview of the project as the initial step. Yes, the chair was the last time, so we don't have any people at any time. Just very briefly, I'm generally familiar with it. Just very briefly. So this I guess is that we've lost count how many times we've been here in front of you guys about our clean towers for our project and I'll give you a quick overview right now. If you're familiar with our campus we have Crowder Field, the Fall Stadium, some of you may have known concert limestone and so back over here are the railroad tracks this is the vicinity that we're talking about which is adjacent to woodworking plants and a wonderful substation on campus as well we already went through our introductions and so the intent of this project is to improve quality and quantity of stormwater flowing from a great portion of campus into a wet run and the water that we're attending the harvest will be used in a cooling tower like I mentioned is adjacent to the railroad tracks in this small farm that we're looking at I'll show you in just a moment and we're also hoping that this will be as an innovative project inspirational to others that may come see it we also have another location on campus that we're considering the application of this once this concept is pretty So, just to orient you here, we have a very large storm cooler. I believe it's 8 foot by 8 foot or something of that nature. Annually, it carries about 170 million gallons off of the campus, about 200 acres or so. We did have a study that lasted nearly a year, but actually measured that water so that we know how much we get and when we get it. This is the cooling tower associated with our central utility plant which is in this vicinity here. It is one of several that supply air conditioning to the campus. We're familiar with the concept of air conditioning and we are a fan of cooling towers. So they use about 45 million gallons a year in evaporative cooling. So the concept being we will build a harvesting station in this vicinity to pool water and from this culvert and pump it into the cooling tower basin. Conservatively we are using 23 million gallons a year as our baseline number for how much water we are going to harvest. Of course you know we can harvest much more than that depending on when we use it and how we use it and what the stormwater flows are. So I believe you have this information in your document. I won't dwell on it too much. But long story short, the savings on this one is expected to reduce our water bill by about $139,000 and then there will be some associated sanctuary sewer costs as well. So it's about a $200,000 a year annual savings to the University should the concept continue at what we're expecting, which we hope for more than that. So very quickly we have the box culvert that we're going to intercept with a drain that will come into a pump station in this vicinity. We'll be able to pump the water into the cooling tower through some underground piping that comes up to the corner of the cooling tower. We will have some metering and controls on there so we'll be able to measure how much water we're actually harvesting and be able to also stop the harvest of water should we need to based on some spill of the road or something of that nature that we are able to detect with our sensors or connectivity sensors. So this one started back in 2017. Here's the evolution of where we've been. And currently, we issued this project for bid. Earlier this year, we have opened those bids, which is why we came back. We wanted to come back in front of the board after we had received firm bids on this project. And we are currently in the discussion phase with our contractor. and I'll let Graham add to his discussion with that. So at this point, they're just waiting on us to accept the bid should we choose to do so. If we accept it in the short term, it'll look like September or October time frame for completion should the supply chain unload. Do you have anything to add to the OEB public? Charlie mentioned last time that NAC, heavy highway, And they don't do heavy highway work, so I can't figure out why they call themselves that. But that's a different discussion. They were the low bid at $684,000. I think when I was here three weeks ago, I told everybody maybe $650,000, $650,000. So that's pretty close. They've done work for several of the treatment plants or a treatment plant here in the... They have been. I think I shared that with Frank. They have been on the various projects, but they've never been the low bid. Okay. That's why they won't fill your name tonight. They have been the low bidder for several jobs at the Army Depot. It turns out the consultant on our project, Bell Engineering, was also the consultant on those projects, just a happenstance. And they've also done some work for the Louisville Metro District. I don't know which plan. I grew up in Louisville, but I didn't recognize the address for 10,540 years. That probably has something to do with that. Our intention would be, We feel comfortable with their work. We know some of their subcontractors, the concrete folks do a lot of work, so we know these people. We are comfortable with their bid. And we're comfortable with the bid. We have support from our vice president for facilities that would like to fund this project and we're going to discuss the extra commitment that the universe is willing to make on that. I would say, Grant, after opening the bed to do our due diligence with NAC, being comfortable with a little bit, we have no reason to not go with a little bit on this. We had a good conversation with Charlie and Frank, which led to aspects of the proposal of the day, and without putting words in it, you all want to summarize your position relative to that conversation. That'd be great. Well, I mean, we can comment after you guys. Okay. So the idea then would be we, you know, we have the stormwater program and thinking about this project as an innovative project and also one that has been hit by market conditions that made the total cost escalate in ways that we could envision when we developed the initial proposal we I'm looking at kind of the concept of you know max award being the max that this project would ever receive from this group so that's three hundred and sixty thousand dollars that would be your max award for any proposal we've been approved at 216 and so the discussion is around we are firm that we will we can move forward if this project receives max funds so if the innovation funding via the change order process can get the city's confirmation to this project through that max funding award the university is fully committed to cover the difference on the bid, which is 324,000 and any contingencies that come on. If there are no contingencies, that's a 53-47 split, which is way closer to 50-50 than the 80-20 that we see on typical projects. So I think there's the contingency built into it. So that's, we would love to have a discussion with you all today about that we've got as a starting point and i should say they're referring to the 360 000 that's the max for class b and i should know that it wasn't the max then however And that's it. Okay. Slide down. So, I apologize for not being here last night. I asked some questions. We're probably talking about coverage. But what would this make come up? We have existing coverage. The concept that we've talked about was due since the project through the call, was being innovative and just received general pool funding, then those funds are still sitting inside and have been since then. And so the idea was just to maybe utilize those innovation funds, just to get sitting there anyway, and to actually pay for up to the max $360,000. So that would be the $216,000. And we're just going to talk it out at the $360,000. And the other reason we're having this discussion really is because we didn't have money. Right, exactly. And so it's a couple of seconds. That's always the case. Yeah. That's the reality. Yeah. And I believe I provided you all if you were able to print with what we recommend. Right. If you'd like to read those I can. Yeah, I would have to print it. I would have to print it. I would have to print it. I'm not going to do that. Basically, it's a senior number two. That's all good. Yeah. Ideally, we would have had the quotes before we came to that meeting. That's not the way it worked out. Next week or 10 days later, I think I'd estimated 600 to 650 based on the consultant's estimates. The low bid was 684. And so the recommendation, and I'll let it be allowed from the staff here, is the project We are asking the Board to consider approval based on the following. The project construction cost increases is substantiated by the competitive fees received by the applicant. The Board had previously considered this project as innovative, which afforded consideration for previously unallocated innovative project funding. Number three, approval of the amended grant award, as summarized in Table 2 below, caps the City's commitment to the maximum amount allowable under the current program. The university is one of the largest rate credits for the management team is demonstrating an unprecedented commitment to this project by assuming nearly 50% of the total project cost and agreeing to absorb any future project cost increases. So those are our recommendations for this project or for every official request. So if the board decided to move forward with this, would there be a stipulation saying that they would repay any future costs associated with it? Yeah, I would advise so. Yes, and we can do it. We'll confirm that. That clearly is. It did number four, I think. Yeah, it was. Yeah, number four, the last thing. It's a stipulation to the grid. Yeah, what he's asking is. We've done some rock soundings in the area. We feel fairly confident that we have a clean path. However, those things are never 100%. We run into a... We accept full contingency on that, and that would be our problem to solve and our funding issues. I feel like we've got a clear path, but I've said that before. Then you find an old... Who knows? Mr. Martin, in terms of the stimulation, is there a way, since we already have a government agreement out there, Is that a way to document, I guess, the additional stipulation? Is that something that we would just pretty much have to? I assume it would become a component of a change order, but I'll look at our attorney if that for his advice on that. But I think you could add that as far as it was mutually agreed upon as part of the change order. And the board would also be approving subject to these stipulations, so the board approves some stipulations, and that's apparently approved. But there's also typically a cover letter that goes along with that that comes from the vendor or something that explains kind of what's going on. And basically the language that we drafted here would probably be basically what goes in that letter. Just accompany the letterman. It all emerges into the chamber. Okay. And a motion could be clearly come. Absolutely. Is there any questions as a result of the recommendation staff? Any questions from the staff? Well, I just, I mean, I think, I thought it was an inventing program from the beginning. I was impressed with that. It becomes more and more, you know, maybe that happens and is shared with others. I think that's important. As I recall, we even fell for funding for 2017. We lost in 2018. Okay. And it didn't meet our criteria. So even though we really liked the project, the points didn't get in the funding range. So that's when we started to try to make the project better off trying to form an innovative type tool if we could pick up something that shows it's very unique. So I think we've been supported from early on. I felt bad and couldn't find it when we first brought it to us, but that's a little story. Can I say something? Yes, ma'am. When May initially had this presentation in the last time, it was like just words on the paper, but I took the, I went with the train game, I wanted to get it to the Grayline to see how it's going to water. I just heard all this talk for the last year or so. And I was really impressed at what they did. So it kind of looked a little different, you know, than it did on paper. And I'm glad that I went there because now I kind of understand it more than I did previously. So the numbers I hit, I would do the numbers, but the actual projects didn't come alive. It was just words on the paper and presentations. But from looking at Great Lines, it seemed like a really wonderful program. I think that if I had known a little more about it, I probably felt a little different about it. I just let the numbers go in with that. But it was an experience, and I'm grateful that I've been able to see it. So now I can better understand the stormwater harvesting project. It was just the whole purpose of it. So it does look a little bit like a smile. Now I didn't have to talk about him. He's a perfect, perfect painter. I didn't know what that was. I was just sitting here. You're an expert, man. Yeah, I'm an expert. I saw it. So what it is, it seems like a really wonderful program and the project that you're doing, based on what I saw over there. So I'm glad that they get off that opportunity to go. So I think it's one of the programs. She saw, excuse me, she saw gray lines, white harvesting. So of course it's a smaller scale. This will be a giant version of that harvesting. And of course the water in this case will be harvested for air conditioning. So I think that's what she's speaking to. I think the scale sometimes when I see these overhead images on campus, we're essentially running a small city over there. No offense to you all. We're much smaller. Those fans, thank you, Brittany, although we're right, each of those fans are about 15 feet in diameter. Each of those, there's like two groups of three. Underneath both of those sets of towers is essentially an Olympic-sized swimming pool. It's got a yay amount of water in it. So the water falls through and then it goes underneath that swinging pool into the plant. I mean, this is a, doesn't look, that doesn't look to be real big to me on the picture, but, you know, going and looking at it, these are huge, huge units. I mean, the volume is just enormous. You, in the presentation, I think I heard you say that there was just 45 billion gallon per year need for water. It's just one facility. We use about 45 million gallons of water a year. That's how we cool our campus. Okay, then there were some that commented about 23 million gallons here. What was that? That's what we anticipate harvesting. The total need is roughly 45 million gallons. That can fluctuate with weather, but that's a good number. We anticipate using, well that's about half the water. 23 of the 45 million we would harvest is the best word we can come up with out of that storm car and there would be certain times of the year October when it's really dry that you would not be able to get the water from Wolfwood Tributaries that's true correct and that's also just the way the weather works you can get an Indian summer but at that time of year we're starting into a heating mode. So it is a seasonal demand. We're not running this in January to February. Well, occasionally we'll run it in January to February. But it just turns out that the flow matches our campus need for cooling. Not perfectly, and you're going to get a drought someday, but you're also going to have plenty rain like the last couple of nights. And then this weekend, that would be gravy in the tank, if you will, if it rains like it's supposed to. David, Aaron, any comments, questions? I would just say I appreciate the university's additional commitment to the project, and I would hope that you would invite the board to sit in. Oh, we have a, we have a party or something? That was going to be my suggestion. Maybe when you reach punch list level or something like that, invite us over to take a look. I know I'd be very interested to see how it turned out. We'd be able to show that to you. I was going to offer, but I was afraid it would sound sumptuous as relative. And if there somehow becomes a presentation out of this as far as the project itself like that, is that we'd like to participate in that. In our world and in the stormwater world, I know the university is not always in that same realm. We'll likely present it in the utilities world as well. Yes. We'd be happy to co-present in those opportunities. If it's as successful as we all hope it's going to be and stuff like that, is that to toot our own trumpet a little bit about it. It would be a good opportunity for the university and for the city. It checks a lot of boxes. I know that's a cliche, but this thing really does check a lot of boxes. What I'd like to see is not only between us and the smaller world of water quality, I'd like to see the public have real information about this. Not only it says, look what the university is doing, but it says, look what's available. to our two communities and and you know people people don't know a lot of people don't know about this program so this would be a great opportunity to advertise what we do we would creative services and i'm already kind of brainstormed out a video that we can make relative to it highlighting this program what's going to be a top line goal point to include in that could be great the original agreement actually incorporates the language about sharing with some of the information in addition it also incorporates a stipulation about low-flow being in uh forefront where you guys have to basically shut it down from the um frankly work closely with kinko um you know maybe the project has a letter of capital from can we walk through kind of what our connections and supported yeah other assignments we appreciate the additional support and we've always been excited So I think that's a tremendous opportunity. The numbers seem to work out. It's unfortunate, but no one could see it coming. No. And so I wonder if we have the stipulation for the assuming all risk, the U.K. has assumed all risk for future cost increases. I don't get to support how many other stipulations. I can't put that right in. But certainly we have people who've been that sort of stuff, but I do have to come back and fund vice president to restate that. I think as Charlie mentioned, it would be great to have that with the board. That language is in the original agreement. If the contingencies got beyond what we were willing to pay, we would owe you your money back. Yeah, a letter says this kind of draws the line in terms of we're giving additional money. The only thing that I could think is if we find a, not to be seen, an ancient burial ground or something, we had to reroute the pipe. But as far as, you know, water flowing to the sump, pumps pumping into the Olympic swimming pools, I mean, that's proven technology. If we have to reroute the piping or something and that enters a change order, a cost order, we run into a big block or something, we'll have to, you know, program it out. We'll assume all those costs. We can put that in. Yeah, those risks are costs and time. I think based on our perspective, the thing you've got to worry most about is the controls for the pump station. We're having the hardest time being able to get basic controls that you used to get. get. A PLC takes, you know, it's like with the chip thing. Anything that involves a chip takes six months longer than it does before and it seems like it costs more as well too. Well, I was, you know, pretty aggressive schedule and I was wondering, I was thinking about some of the projects that MCGs have actually delivering electronic components and of folks, because that's when you and your product are... Sure. But have you had any discussion about delivery of important components of it, whether it's a title or... Of course they're going to say based on the current quote that they have from the equipment vendor, this is the timeline. Now that's, they're not going to tell you, not to be smart, not to tell you much else at that point. So they're, they still feel it's a realistic timeline. Now, you know, if a key component sitting in the harbor out in LA and we got a problem. But that's all we can do. And we assume, we accept that risk as the project manager. We understand that could happen. In the spirit of due diligence, another thing that you can't have is your contractor's coming back for the board costs for some of the components because there's a fire saying that the manufacturer's putting an escalation on the end. Yes. That might be something that you could entail. We're aware that, of course, NAC, I believe, is trying to get the foot in our door, and we welcome other vendors. That would be short-sighted on their view, but that's certainly something they can detect. Yeah, that's a possibility. Go ahead. But our boilerplate that NAC responded to contains some protections for the university relative to that. So when they signed off and submitted a bid to us, they did so in a legal way, saying they weren't going to come back and do something like that. All right. Any other? Charlie got anything else you want to say? Yeah, I just was going to say that in assuming that the board does approve our recommendation and we're going to have to do due diligence very quickly to be able to get this change order done because council is running out of time as far as their schedule before summer recess. Plus, you guys are the board that did right now that has an expiration date on it. So I just want to make sure that we're all moving very quickly, assuming that the board reacts positively to be able to get this done as quickly as we can. Great. No, I mean, I think you've already approved it. You've already determined it. It's a project that holds the grant program funding, so it's already important. It meets the grant max cap, so you're not treating them differently than you do any other grant program. You've got the innovative funding. The only comment I would make, and I hesitate to make it, but your goals, and it's not relative to their, what you do is them. this will not be the last time you probably through a grant advocate say we have a supplemental amount of money to complete our project. So you may want to consider maybe as part of the January programmatic meeting, talking about what sort of guidelines or what sort of guidance you want to kind of guide your discretion with regard to any future asks. Like what types of criteria are you looking for for things that might trigger additional funding? what kind of timing do you want? Do you want to wait a year after all of the annual grants have been approved and do like an end of year kind of consideration? Or do you want to maybe create a pot of money that you, in case of emergency break glass kind of thing, or if somebody comes to you with a worthy excuse for increasing their funding, you have that funding available. Just things to think about kind of so that we're not, so you're not acting the bank. So you have some sort of guidance that kind of help you with the next task that may come in terms of determining kind of what the parameters are and it's it's better for you all as a board and for the integrity of the program if you can develop those parameters that would be my only recommendation i was thinking the same thing that i was looking at all those all these projects that we've got out and you know we don't get people coming back and saying well you know prices have gone up so much we can't do this project you know, in the sense of presenting a president. But I wouldn't be surprised to see that happen. In addition, I think staff is thinking about, you know, having a conversation as well as presenting some more criteria for innovative experimentation. I think it's important that we establish some kind of box for what would be considered. so that way it gives people a number of comfort or gives them some knowledge of whether or not they're headed in the right direction all right um i think we've gotten all the input the chair i'll make a motion that we accept the staff's recommendation increase the grant by $143,200, a quote of $369,000 based on the four conditions that have been recommended as part of the staff's recommendation. Let's move out here. Thank you. Is there a second? A second. A second. All in favor of the motion, signify by saying aye. Aye. All right. Council Liza. I hope she cares. Thank you. Thank you all very much. It's great news. Thank you. Good luck. We'll make it happen. We'll make it happen. So what's the next spin, Charlie? Like I said, we're all going to have to make sure we communicate on getting the material we need for a blue sheet to be able to get council people, and I'll take the lead on that part. All right. All right. Thank you. good I think it's absolutely right here that do it please in this direction I think we will turn around there's yeah one last one last on with this is adjourned oh yeah all the favor the uh-oh my return motion to adjourn Aaron okay is there a second second second by hearing all in favor the motion so you have to say aye. Aye. Opposed line seven. Opposed line seven. Opposed security. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.