Consideration and Approval of Contract:  Ratification and Approval of a Cooperative Purchase Contract with JE Fuller Hydrology & Geomorphology, Inc. in the amount of $257,489.00, in addition to taxes and other charges, to continue the Upper Lake Mary Watershed Monitoring Project.

1. Ratification and Approval of a Cooperative Purchase Contract with JE Fuller Hydrology & Geomorphology, Inc. in the amount of $257,489.00, in addition to taxes and other charges, to continue the Upper Lake Mary Watershed Monitoring Project; and
2. Authorize the City Manager to execute the necessary documents.

This Cooperative Purchase Contract with JE Fuller Hydrology & Geomorphology, Inc. (JE Fuller) allows Water Services to continue collecting data to design forest management practices and identify how surface water runoff responds to watershed conditions in the Upper Lake Mary (ULM) Watershed. Water Services began monitoring in 2015 in response to proposed forest management proposals by the Flagstaff Watershed Protection Project (FWPP) and Four Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI). Water services contracted with the Salt River Project (SRP) from 2015 through FY 23 and is now transitioning data collection to a local firm, JE Fuller.

Water Services has an ongoing budget of $105,000 per year for this project in Water Resources account number 202-08-304-1061-0-4260.

Priority Based Budget Key Community Priorities and Objectives
Carbon Neutrality Plan Regional Plan

Yes, the City Council approved the initiation of the ULM Watershed Monitoring Program on April 1, 2014, for $14,850 by authorizing the release of partner funds (City of Flagstaff, National Park Service, Coconino National Forest) with the National Park Foundation. Further, the City Council approved the original monitoring contract with SRP on April 5, 2016, authorizing Water Services to spend $67,860 in FY16 on the operation, maintenance, and data management costs for the six Flowtography sites and purchasing two new Flowtography Stations. With cost savings from the FY16 budget, seven transducers were purchased for installation in FY17.

On December 20, 2016, Water Services requested the City Council's authorization of Amendment One of the contract with SRP. This authorized the City to spend the City Council's approved budget for FY17 of $142,000 for the ULM Watershed Monitoring Project, including a one-time ask of $32,000 for capital costs and $130,000 annually for operation, maintenance, and data management. The FWPP bond program (407-09-425-3277-1-4290) committed to $5,000 annually from FY16 through FY20.

On September 1, 2020, the City Council authorized a contract with SRP for FY21, FY22, FY23 for a not-to-exceed $105,000 annually for continued operation, maintenance, and data management.

1. Approve the Cooperative Purchase Contract with JE Fuller. This action allows for three additional years of data collection and brings staff closer to understanding the rainfall-runoff relationship in different areas of the watershed; or
2. Do not approve the Cooperative Purchase Contract Fuller and terminate paired-watershed data collection in the ULM Watershed. This option is not recommended by staff.

In 2013, Northern Arizona University & the Rocky Mountain Research Station (RMRS) presented a Paired Watershed Study to the Lake Mary-Walnut Canyon Technical Advisory Committee (TAC). The TAC agreed the project was important to start before FWPP and 4FRI treatment projects as useful baseline information. TAC agreed to purchase the Flowtography equipment and funded a U.S. Geological Survey streamflow gauge and sediment sampler in Newman Canyon. The three parties (City of Flagstaff, Forest Service, Park Service) 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 the 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, RMRS, provided a letter on October 21, 2015, stating that they fully support Water Services contracting with SRP since they were not successful in taking over the monitoring duties.

Seven sub-watersheds of the ULM watershed have sites instrumented with SRP Flowtography (TM) Stations and a pressure transducer. Each flowtography 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 water height against the graduated rebar. Each height corresponds to a table of estimated flow rates, which estimates the total volume per event. Stream flow rates and volume data are compared with precipitation data to establish a rainfall-runoff relationship. 

Staff anticipates this work resulting from the JE Fuller contract will support a larger research effort 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. Water Services must collect baseline monitoring information 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 the watersheds monitored by SRP state-wide with the potential for broader project and study redundancy.

Pinal County conducted a competitive and open procurement process through a solicitation that resulted in Contract No. 205526ROQ with JE Fuller Hydrology & Geomorphology, Inc. The City of Flagstaff Procurement department has verified the cooperative purchase contract as valid and appropriate and presents the best value to the City.

This contract with JE Fuller will assist in the ULM Monitoring Project the provides redundancy in watershed monitoring and in understanding rainfall-runoff relationships within ponderosa pine forests. The same monitoring equipment is installed in 12 other watersheds near Williams, AZ. The watersheds have similar size, elevation, and forest type which is a major benefit if one watershed were to burn.

In the early 1900s the Lower Lake Mary dam was constructed in Walnut Creek. When the lake did not impound the volume of water expected, due to leakage through sinkholes in the Kaibab Limestone, the Upper Lake Mary dam was constructed and began filling in 1941. Both dams altered natural flows through Walnut Canyon and through the National Monument. In recognizing this issue, the City of Flagstaff signed a water rights Stipulation with the Forest Service and National Park Service, sorting out water rights but also establishing a workgroup to manage studies or projects that may result in more frequent steamflow events through the National Monument. The City contributed $100,000 to a fund restricted with the National Park Foundation, and recommendations for the use of the fund are made by the Lake Mary-Walnut Canyon Technical Advisory Committee and brought to the three respective agencies for approval. To date, the TAC has spent about half of the fund, including the total with interest. Council authorized the disbursement of an additional $19,000 from the account on June 16, 2020, towards funding the USGS streamflow gauge at Newman Canyon.

All information collected under the Upper Lake Mary Watershed Monitoring Project from November 2015 forward is available to the public.