Prescott subcommittee approves Sept. 2 minutes; hears water-budget and water-use accounting update

The Prescott City Subcommittee on Water Issues approved minutes from its Sept. 2 meeting and received an update on the city's semiannual residential and nonresidential water budgets for the period July 1 through Sept. 24, 2025.

Chair Goode moved to approve the Sept. 2, 2025, minutes and Member Freewords seconded; the motion passed unanimously after members signaled "aye." "I'll move to approve the minutes for the September 2 subcommittee on water issues meeting," Chair Goode said before the vote.

The city's water resources manager, Brian Reese, told the subcommittee that the amended 2022 water policy guidelines (sections 11'13) set the semiannual budget for both residential and nonresidential projects at 25 acre-feet per year for the July'December 2025 budget period. Reese said four residential projects were approved administratively during the July 1'Sept. 24 window and that the total residential allocation used in that period was reported as 0.87 acre-feet, leaving roughly 24.13 acre-feet remaining in the semiannual budget.

Reese said four nonresidential projects were approved in the same period, totaling 1.99 acre-feet and leaving 23.02 acre-feet available for the remainder of the semiannual period. "So starting off with the residential projects, we've had 4 residential projects approved," Reese said. He also noted a separate table listing 10 projects already under existing contract, with those contracts accounting for about 1.9 acre-feet per year; that contracted volume is tracked separately from the semiannual budget tables he presented.

Council members pressed staff for more location detail. "You know, Brian, I'd like to see the street name and street number added to the description," Chair Goode said, asking that future agendas identify sites more precisely than generic labels such as "office building." Reese agreed to add street names and numbers in the next report.

Councilwoman Furworth questioned the demand assumptions for a listed restroom project. "What is a restroom that needs 0.42 acre feet?" she asked, noting that the figure seemed large compared with typical single-family residential allocations. Tracy Beasley, water resources project manager, said the restroom is part of a commercial site expanding outdoor food-truck service and that the restroom was scaled to serve the food-truck court. Reese said staff would re-check the demand analysis and, if needed, adjust the estimate: "We can take another look at the demand analysis on that and we can adjust this number as need be."

Members also asked for clarification about the WORM (water resource management) model used to estimate residential demand. Reese said the model uses 60 months of billing records to calculate average single-family indoor use; that average is applied to projects that are not already constrained by an existing contract. "We use the 0.17 for new projects that are not under contract," Reese said, adding that the WORM is used as a multiplier when applying the per-unit figure across multiple lots in subdivisions.

Subcommittee members asked several follow-ups about specific contract terms and legacy agreements. Reese identified two single-family units in the Molly Ray development (Chino Valley) that are each assigned 0.27 acre-feet per year under older agreements. He said the Molly Ray lots are roughly 1-acre parcels and the 0.27 figure reflects terms in the development agreement.

The subcommittee did not take other formal actions on the agenda item. Staff agreed to return with updated budget tables that include street-level location details and any corrected demand analyses for the restroom project.

The meeting moved next to an update on the city's automated metering infrastructure program and a presentation from the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality on PFAS sampling and mitigation.