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Council debates extraterritorial agreement updates as Department of Health ERU accounting limits credits for lake irrigation
Summary
Staff presented proposed ETA policy changes, including requiring property owners to provide shallow groundwater rights and clarifying a 25% capacity reservation fee and connection windows; council members pressed staff on ERU calculations and whether lake irrigation should reduce ERU counts but staff said the state requires multi‑year trends before repricing connections.
City planning and public‑works staff presented a first‑touch revision of the city's extraterritorial agreement (ETA) policy driven by the first full round of ETA applications and recent Department of Health guidance on water system capacity. Key additions in the draft policy include: a requirement that property owners/developers provide state shallow groundwater rights equal to the ERUs required to serve the development; clarifying the capacity reservation fee is 25% of the total and how it applies toward system development charges; and defining connection windows (maximum five years generally, up to 10 years for phased developments).
Staff told the council the ETA language aligns with the Department of Health's office of drinking water capacity letters and the recently adopted water system plan. "This supports... the Department of Health because the Department of Health is talking about the number of connections we have available," staff said during the presentation.
Council members pressed whether properties that irrigate from the lake should receive ERU credit. Several council members argued lake‑irrigated lots incur infrastructure costs and should be recognized; staff responded that state rules and the Department of Health’s capacity accounting make it difficult to give proportional ERU credit unless there is a method to cap or meter potable use at each connection. Staff recommended waiting for a longer conservation trend and for a fall capacity update to consider any adjustment to the ERU calculation.
Council direction: staff will bring the revised ETA policy back for adoption (proposed next council meeting on July 28) and continue to confer with the Department of Health about ERU recognition and any possible adjustments once more consumption data are available.
