Consideration and Approval of Contract Amendment:  Amendment One to Independent Contract Agreement (ICA) with Salt River Project (SRP) for the Upper Lake Mary Watershed (ULM) Monitoring Project.

Upper Lake Mary (ULM) is an essential water source to the City of Flagstaff. Large-scale forest thinning efforts under the Flagstaff Watershed Protection Project (FWPP) and Four Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI) are planned for the ULM watershed starting in 2019 and 2023, respectively. There is limited information on how altering the watershed by thinning a forest will change surface water runoff and aquifer recharge. Documenting hydrological conditions within these watersheds will provide important information to assist with future forest management decisions. We are asking for authorization to continue our contract with SRP through FY17, and to add robustness to the existing study by adding the above equipment to the project. The costs listed above include equipment, installation, operation, maintenance, and data management.

Council approved Utilities budget request for FY17 of $137,000 for the ULM Watershed Monitoring Project (). This includes a one-time ask of $32,000 for capital costs and $105,000 annually for operation, maintenance, and data management. The FWPP bond program (407-09-425-3277-1-4290) has been budgeted $5,000 towards this project for four (4) more years for a total project cost in FY17 of $142,000.

Council supported purchasing the six (6) SRP Flowtography Stations on April 1, 2014 for $14,850. Council approved an Independent Contractor Agreement with SRP on April 5, 2016 authorizing Utilities to spend $67,860 in FY16 on operation, maintenance and data management costs for the six (6) Flowtography sites, and purchase of two (2) new Flowtography Stations. With cost savings from the FY16 budget, seven transducers were purchased for installation in FY17.

1.)  Approve the amended contract with SRP.  This action would bring significant value to the existing project.
2.)  Not approve this amended contract with SRP.  This would mean the project would not function, data collected to date would be less meaningful, and the City's investment in FY15 & FY16 of nearly $70,000 would not be given the attention allowed to produce information.

In 2013, the "Paired Watershed Study" was presented to the LM-WC Technical Advisory Committee (TAC). The TAC agreed that the project was important to begin prior to the occurrence of the FWPP and 4FRI thinning projects, as baseline information. TAC agreed to purchase the flowtography equipment and made the recommendation to Council, along with instrumenting Newman Canyon with a USGS flow gauge and sediment sampler.  Council formally approved the recommended action and the equipment was purchased and installed. After one year, the plan for the Paired Watershed Study partners to take over operation, maintenance and data management for the flowtography equipment from SRP could not be fulfilled, which left the project at risk. One of the partners, Rocky Mountain Research Station (RMRS), provided a letter on October 21, 2015 stating that while the they were not successful in taking over the monitoring duties, they are in full support of the Utilities Division to contract with SRP in order to ensure a robust and continuous data record that is available to the public. 

In October 2015, Utilities approached the Budget Committee with a plan to fund SRP to continue their services at the sites. This request to spend Utilities Contingency money was approved.  Council then approved a budget of $137,000 for this project for FY17. Utilities is making the recommendation to continue paying SRP for operation and maintenance of the existing Flowtography Stations, to install, operate and maintain transducers at the six (6) existing SRP Flowtography Stations, add three precipitation gages to locations in the ULM watershed, and add a new SRP Flowtography Station and pressure transducer site in the ULM watershed as part of this request. These equipment and data should round out Utilities Upper Lake Mary Watershed Monitoring Project for several years.

Staff anticipate a transition to a more cost effective method of collecting flow data in the future. At this time, six (6) sub-watersheds of the ULM watershed have sites instrumented with SRP Flowtography Stations. Each station captures a photo every 15 minutes focused on a graduated vertical stake of rebar placed in the center of the drainage. When runoff events occur, the photo captures the height of water against the rebar. Each height corresponds to a table of estimated flow rates, which can then, in turn, provide an estimate of flow volume per event. The idea is that cost savings will occur in the future as the stations are calibrated with pressure transducer data. The transducers are capable of logging water levels at a much finer time interval, and thus capture the ebb and flow of runoff events rather than the 15 minute snapshots of flows captured on camera. The photos are a very important piece of information to have, as a "picture speaks 1,000 words." Once calibrated, however, each transducer-collected data point will in theory have a photo on record that corresponds to that sized flow event. The more time-intensive photo processing process may be augmented with the more time and cost efficient pressure transducer data.

Additionally, staff anticipate this work will support a larger research effort that's been proposed by NAU Geology and RMRS, which is to study the hydrological response different forest thinning treatments and maintenance practices have on runoff and recharge. It will take years however before there is enough data and analyses to make recommendations regarding which maintenance practices promote surface water runoff to ULM and recharge to the C aquifer. It is essential that Utilities collects the necessary baseline monitoring information in order to contribute to future watershed management decisions. An additional benefit of the City partnering with SRP is the continuity of equipment and data management across all of these watersheds with potential for a broader project and study redundancy.

Based on the specific type of work done by SRP, it is important to match the existing equipment installed in 12 other watersheds near Williams, AZ. The watersheds have similar size, elevation, and forest type which is the one major benefits in partnering with SRP and maintaining continuity of data management across this entire area. For these reasons, it has been determined that a Sole Source Justification is appropriate in this case.

As of November 2015, all information collected within the ULM watershed will be made available to the public.

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