The Integrated Water Resource Plan (IWRP) will provide a mid-term and long-term evaluation of, and plan for, water supply and water demand management options for the City of Sugar Land in a regional context. An IWRP takes water supply planning beyond the traditional approach of cost-yield analysis and incorporates social and environmental aspects of water resource management. The project will recommend policies, programs, and capital improvement projects to ensure adequate water supplies and responsible management of those supplies for the City of Sugar Land.  An integral part for the success of the IWRP is community involvement and consensus building.  Consensus will be achieved during the IWRP process through a Citizen Task Force.  Both a Council Task Force and Citizen Task Force will be engaged to provide input and feedback throughout the development of the Plan.

The workshop for City Council on July 28^th, 2016 provided Councilmembers with an overview of the supplies and demands for the City, as well as a review of an IWRP.  Staff presented the project schedule and the responsibilities of each party, to include the City Council, Council Task Force, Citizen Task Force, Staff, and technical consultants.  The Council is charged with appointing both the City Council Task Force and Citizen Task Force, and reviewing and approving the IWRP plan and policies.  The Task Force was formally created on August 19^th with Council members Himesh Gandhi, Harish Jajoo and Steve Porter.  The next workshop for Council was on December 6^th, when Staff outlined the governance and responsibilities of the Citizen Task Force.  That workshop was followed with the Council approval of Resolution 16-46 on December 20^th which formally created the Citizen Task Force.

A City Council Task Force was formed to assist staff in the creation of the IWRP. The Council Task Force is charged with providing input on objectives, review and comment on the Citizen Task Force governance, and review and comment on the questions to be answered by the Plan.  Staff presented policy information for the creation of a citizen task force and received feedback regarding the task force governance.  Staff has met with the Council Task Force eleven times since it was created in August covering background and education information and IWRP tasks.

A Citizen Task Force was formed to represent the community interests in creation of the IWRP. Resolution 16-46, approved on 12/20/2016 authorized the creation of the Citizen Task Force as well as including citizens who live within the extra-territorial jurisdiction that are part of the Groundwater Reduction Program.  It also outlined the responsibilities: evaluating and weighting the objective importance; providing feedback on the Plan options; providing feedback on the final framework of the Plan.  The Citizen Task Force was appointed on March 21, 2017 and have met three times.  The focus of the meetings has been education to date.

The IWRP will require some technical work from outside Consultants.  On February 7^th the City Council approved a contract with Carollo Engineers, Inc. for the Water Reliability Study.  This study evaluated the reliability of the City’s existing water supplies: Oyster Creek Water Right, GCWA Water Supply Agreement, BRA Water Supply Agreement, and groundwater supplies.

In the second part of the workshop, Staff will also present an overview of the IWRP Scope for the decision support model.  This contract will include the more technical aspects of developing a methodology for the options evaluation, scoring the water supply options and policies, resulting in the recommended strategy for meeting future water demands.  The 2 phases of the scope are:

• Phase 1:

  1. Initiate IWRP

  2. Summarize Existing Conditions and Constraints

  3. Refine Future Demand Estimates

  4. Perform Gap Analysis

• Phase 2:

  1. Develop IWRP Decision Support Model
  2. Evaluate and Test Alternatives
  3. Conduct Workshop to Review Alternatives and DSM Model
  4. Develop IWRP Strategy and Prepare Report
  5. Additional Services

The IWRP RFQ was posted for advertisement on June 14^th, and submittals were due July 6,2017.  Staff reviewed the submittals and interviewed three consultants.  Staff presented the project to the Finance and Audit Committee on July 27^th to discuss financing.  Following this workshop, Staff will be asking for City Council to approve the IWRP contract on August 15^th.