H.B. 489 Water Infrastructure Amendments: transcript

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. It's a pleasure to be before you this morning. Um, what this bill does, and, and this is one of one step, uh, in my goal, to try to figure out a way to eliminate and, uh, eventually get rid of retention and detention basins in the greater Salt Lake basin drainage area, so that we can, can prevent water from evaporating and soaking into the ground that we've captured and get it to the lake. It's a small thing we can do to, to help our lake quality. And so we can maybe quit talking about the lake and get it up to a level where it's, uh, it's not an issue. So, but what this bill does is it doesn't do that. It, it, what it does is it eliminates the option in most instances, to use retention basins instead of detention basins. And the, the difference between the two is a retention basin holds the water and does not let it go. It either evaporates or soaks into the ground. What this bill says is that cities and counties are, should, unless they're not available, they should use detention basins that drain in a timely manner to get the water, uh, where it's supposed to go. And, and that's really the extent of the bill, and it only affects the Great Salt Lake drainage basin. With that, I'll conclude my presentation and see if there's any questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, this is a curious thing and kind of a neat idea. I think they do some of this similar down there by, uh, Richfield and stuff to let, uh, to collect, uh, storm water that don't flood the town out that, uh, can be released. Uh, it's gonna be controlled a little bit. So if you've got some locations, uh, where these things need to be, or your detention, uh, uh, ponds, I guess we might call 'em. Uh, have you already got some locations or is this, uh, just, uh, saying we need to locate some

S So this, these are already typically required on all development. Um, and, and what the goal is, is to make sure that we've collected the water, we've done the hard work, uh, that comes with development. Our, our goal is to not have it stagnate in ponds, creating mosquito infested garbage collection areas and, and areas that just need to be maintained and end up being iceo. The, the goal is to eventually get rid of all of those and, and help improve, uh, a available land for development, uh, and inc more tax base, more affordable housing. Um, but, but this bill doesn't do my ultimate goal. This bill just says, when you do detention basins, they have to be detention basins, not retention basin, so that the water will flow, uh, eventually, hopefully getting to the lake where it will, uh, do good.

Okay. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Most of those that you see are detention basins. They, they, they take the water off a massive parking lot, and what it does is it, it, it lessens the burden on storm drain impact storm drains, and it meters that water into the storm drain when we have a large, uh, rainfall. What, what I'm suggesting that those are all detention basins. What I'm suggesting is that instead of doing, we're we're trying to limit re retention basins, which essentially capture the water and don't let it go. Uh, it either evaporates or it soaks into the ground. And with all the talk about the lake, I feel like this is one step we can take to, uh, we've collected the water, we've done the work to get it into a collection system. Let's make sure that we send it down the pipe to where it actually can, can do us some good.

Thank you. Um, I really do appreciate this bill. Is this bill, would it affect all cities and towns within the upper, like on the upper basins of the lake?

Yeah. Yes, it would. Anything that drains into the Great Salt Lake Basin.

Okay. Great. That was my question. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So is this to, uh, for just future construction of these basins?

Yeah. Yeah. Uh, uh, because I know some of them, they'll be build a basin and they'll just put it into the aquifer and have enough, uh, you know, gravel and stuff in there to sort it. Uh, so just future.

So that's not going back to some of the old basins and requiring them to flow those into the storm drains. Okay.

It's not my intent to make this retroactive. It's just moving forward.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yeah, thanks, Mr. Chair. Uh, this is a good plan. Uh, we have these down in my area, just west of Richfield. We've got a couple where when we get heavy rains, it's captured, uh, just on the east side of the freeway, and then it, it's released down through a canal system that goes on down and eventually goes into the severe river. And, uh, you get some heavy rains, that detention basin, you'll never fill it 'cause it's so big. But I remember when I first built my home, I couldn't get, uh, a conventional loan at the bank because I was in a flood zone. And then once they built the detention basin and the whole area grew. So it's, it's a good idea and it works. Thank you.

There it goes. Looks like we're on. Good morning. Uh, good to be with you bright and early this morning. My name's Soren Simonson. I'm the executive director of the Jordan River Commission and, and also staff support to the Jordan River Watershed Council. Um, I, uh, want to just, um, mention two things specific to this bill. Uh, first of all, we know that the detention, and especially retention basins, are really critical to water quality. And so we have some reservation about the loss of the ability to capture storm water, which is, Representative Peterson noted often contains a lot of contaminants. And not being able to hold those contaminants and keep them out of our waterways is a really significant challenge. The second, uh, uh, item that I want to address, and I'd love to visit with Representative Peterson about this, maybe at some point if this moves forward and that is getting water in the ground is actually a really, really healthy thing for Great Salt Lake. Um, I understand the concern with evaporation and ponds and retention basins. Um, it will also evaporate when it gets to great Salt Lake, but getting water in the ground where it doesn't evaporate and where the water is cleaned is a really healthy thing for the lake. This may not affect every watershed, um, equally, but certainly the Jordan River Watershed, which has an enormous amount of impervious surface, it will have probably some significant detrimental impacts if this moves forward. And so I just bring this as a word of caution. I would suggest that maybe this is a study item. There is an enormous amount of work going on right now with the Great Salt Lake Basin integrated plan, including groundwater studies, which we know are really critical to the health of the river and the, I mean, to the Great Salt Lake and the rivers that sustain it, as well as to the freshwater systems around the lake that are an important part of our ecological systems connected to the lake. And I think integrating this idea as part of the Great Salt Lake Basin integrated plan and studying it, uh, rather than moving forward with something that may have, uh, detrimental impacts, especially on systems like the Jordan River, where we're already seeing loss of floodplain and loss of holding facilities, creating flood risks in places that they haven't existed for a hundred years, uh, with recent massive storms and, and the loss of, uh, places to, to hold storm water. We're seeing places even with outside of the a hundred year floodplain that are now at risk and, and in fact some being flooded in recent years. So we'd like to just suggest maybe pausing on this and further study and really integrating this with the, the research going on around the Great Salt Lake right now. It may be a great idea, but I think there's some elements of it that we probably need to study further. Thank you for your time.

Alright. Thank you. Alright, go ahead. Alright, thank You Mr. Chair. Uh, Justin Lee, deputy Director of Utah League of Cities and Towns. Uh, we, we've had some of our, and I've had some conversations with Representative Peterson about this. Uh, we've had some of our city engineers and, and some of our stormwater, uh, technicians reach out with some concerns about the bill. Um, uh, one of 'em, I know that we've talked about with Representative Peterson, he would like some clarification on, um, but the requirement to release as soon as possible, uh, gives some pause to engineers. Engineers generally like to have a little more guidance than as soon as possible. Um, and that also conflicts with some of the planning and some of the, the things that they normally do with some of this, uh, detention. There's also, uh, concerns with some downstream flood risks and cumulative impacts. When we're looking at anything to do with storm water or, or holding onto water, we have to look at it system wide, not just in necessarily one basin. And that goes to all the overall planning that they're doing, uh, with storm water and with holding onto flood waters. And, and when you release that. So the engineers would like to have some discussions to see if there's some more clarification and more specificity that we can get into the bill. So there's additional guidance there that doesn't, uh, throw anything off with their overall plans. Doesn't throw anything off with, uh, what they see as the best practices when it comes to release. And also to make sure that nothing, uh, interferes with their MS four permits as they're, they're looking at that with stormwater retention. So, uh, we would like to have additional conversations with the sponsor on this one. Um, he's indicated a willingness to talk to us, and so, uh, we'd like to keep talking, but, uh, our engineers do have some concerns, uh, with the bill.

Okay. Thank you. Your engineers like more guidance than I do. I prefer it to say as soon as possible. And let me pick what that number is. Alright.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Taz Bessinger with the Utah Home Builders Association. Uh, the Home Builders strongly supports this bill, uh, like the sponsor. We wish it, uh, would go further. Uh, but we, we believe it's a great step in the right direction. Uh, the, uh, divi, the department of, uh, uh, uh, e not it's not EPA, but whatever they are, studied this issue about five or six years ago. And their expert's, best guess was that the water going down through the ground would eventually make it to the Great Salt Lake, but it would take more than 50 years. So there's no more need to study this. There's, there's, I think the issues raised, the red herrings. Uh, this is something that's critical that needs to get done, and we hope that you'll support the bill. Thank you.

Yes. Thank you. Um, would, is there a portion of this, I, I don't know if there's any basins already ready to release the water into the Great Salt Lake, or, I guess that's, that is my question is if you know of anybody, any city,

Uh, these are, these are everywhere. Yeah. Um, and so as rain water falls, all I'm suggesting is that instead of capturing it in the grounds, and I think I need to clarify of the rain that falls from the sky, uh, there was a, a thought that was presented that, that maybe if we don't do this, we're gonna lose the groundwater that we have available of the, of the rain that falls from our sky, we divert 7%. Mm-hmm. That's what we're talking about. It's is 7% of the water that falls from the sky is diverted. Most of that goes to our lakes and rivers. But a portion of that is what we're talking about with these impervious surface, uh, detention basins. And, and all I'm suggesting is that of that small percentage of that 7% that we collect, and, and it is right, it's gonna evaporate, but if we can get it to the lake, it helps the levels first and then it will evaporate from there. So, um, there are detention basins all over the place that when it rains, these, these are actively working. So.

Great. Thank you. Thank you for that clarification. I just, I, yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

Uh, Mr. Chair, I'd like to make, uh, uh, a motion to pass out house bill 4 89 with a favorable recommendation.

Do you see any changes that you might be, um, planning to make on this bill? Before I originally had six hours, uh, that the storm, that the detention basins would have to be drained, but staff felt like it ought to be up to the engineer. Uh, I'm happy to go back to my timeframe, uh, and I'll work with the league on what they feel is an appropriate timeframe. My goal is just to make sure those drain completely so they don't become swamps and mosquito infested areas. And so, yeah. Yeah, I'll work with the league.

I would just say, as I mentioned in Representative Dominguez question, we we're only talking about a very small portion of the water that falls from the sky. Is, is what this represents. So to do what we're talking about is not going to impact groundwater levels, is not going to impact anything that, that was discussed along those lines. And so I would strongly suggest that, uh, we, we start down this road and, and do this, it will, it will have an impact. And like, it, it may not be significant, but it will impact that level and, and hope we can move forward, um, with moving past these discussions.

I'll waive. Thank you. All right. Then we'll have a vote.

Fully do want to move this Question mark. Go ahead. Yeah. I would, uh, move that we recommend favorably SB three 16 public employee attorney fee rec recovery amendments.

Uh, just briefly. I think, uh, in this context, I think it makes sense. It makes a lot of sense. I think you are closing a loophole. I think it's a, it's narrowly tailored to close that loophole. Uh, with regards to, you know, we, we need our, our public officials to act decisively and without, you know, when, when we have loopholes like this, it, it, it makes the enforcement of the law and it makes judgment calls with regards to attempts to enforce the law weakened. And so, um, you know, we need to make sure that when people are, uh, are attempting to do right, that they are insulated, you know, when there's sometimes some, some negative consequences to that. Now that, that does not preclude the idea that sometimes people act unconstitutionally or that they act, you know, and I don't think that this touches on those, those issues. It's just, you know, it's, it's one of those things where, uh, uh, we don't want to have good deeds going punished, um, in this. And so that's why I'm in favor of it. Thanks.

I'll waive. Thank you. Okay.

Good morning, Ms. Chair. Thank you Committee for hearing this bill. Anybody who knows me knows I'm not a fan of, of tobacco in any way, shape or form. I ran this bill for a couple reasons, which I'll quickly state. Uh, what the bill does in, in simple terms, is it bonds, license and collects taxes for internet and over ma over the mail, sales of tobacco, uh, products like pipe, tobacco, and cigars. Currently, there are abilities to purchase these items, uh, in a bootleg fashion, and it isn't being, uh, regulated. And so working closely with the tax commission, uh, we prepared this bill to, uh, allow businesses that are doing this, uh, to do it legally and, uh, fixes, uh, a tax rate that's, that's, uh, commensurate with other tobacco products, but, but fairly high. And secondly, it protects miners from ordering and receiving these products without, uh, signing for them. And they have to be 21, uh, to do that. And that's, uh, uh, the first amendment to the bill open to questions.

I've already moved, uh, that amendment, uh, as well as the Second Amendment, which allows taxes to be collected at time of sale. That was an addition that the tax commission wanted to put in there.

I'm Delaine England. As weird as this is. Yes, I am testifying in favor of this bill because this bill does protect our children. People are already buying cigars online without any protection of who they are. And so this will clean that up, and thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, motion that we sec, uh, that we, uh, favorably recommend first substitute house bill 4 47, the full body of the Senate.

It changes the, it just changes the effective date. Okay. Yeah, that's all. Second sub. And you want,

Okay. Um, this is a really simple bill and It only applies to counties in the first ca class. Uh, some people in the house missed that and ended up hearing from their librarians and voting against the bill accordingly. Um, so it really only affects two cities, Murray and Salt Lake City currently, who have their own libraries. So because of recent changes in the law, our property tax notice included city taxes along with library taxes, and it looked like a huge increase. So this is just saying that those are separate, just provides transparency in terms of where our tax dollars are going.

Yeah, I think they just play the city levy. Okay.

Yeah. I watched the house presentation and there were questions about whether or not those were unified.

So they operate their own library and I think they have contracts for operating within their system, but that's a different issue, so.

Morning committee. I'm Mr. Chair Billy Hesterman with the Utah Taxpayers Association. Just wanna speak in favor of the legislation. Appreciate Representative Stoddard for adding transparency to the property tax notice. So thank you for the time today.

I love it. Uh, Richard Yasi, chief Deputy, uh, auditor in Salt Lake County, the county of the first class. We are very supportive of this bill. Um, it'll allow us to, to do that separation, uh, for more transparency. So we encourage your support.

I would recommend favorably HB 5 65 second substitute.

I love the bill. I was gonna make the Motions. Okay. Yeah.

Thank you for the time this morning. Okay.

Thank you. Um, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, grateful to be here this morning. Uh, house Bill five 14 is a, uh, continuation of a discussion that started last year. We created the Utah Energy Council, um, in statute last year. The energy councils now stood up an operating, um, it started meeting this fall. Uh, the Utah Energy Council is tasked with leading out on energy, uh, strategy and, uh, um, energy development. It's working very closely with it's staffed by the Office of Energy Development in the Governor's office, and it is chaired by, uh, the, uh, OED director, um, the Energy Council, uh, in this bill. We're making a couple of adjustments. The first, the first adjustment that we're making to the Energy Council is we're adding two new members to the board. So the way the board is comprised today is, uh, the director of OED one appointment from the Senate, one appointment from the House of Representatives, um, and then, uh, appointed by the president and speaker respectively. And then, uh, two additional appointees by the governor. That's the current composition. We're adding the ability to add, uh, we're adding two additional, uh, members of the energy council that would be appointed by the committee. And, um, we're, uh, uh, adding a co-chair structure. So it's something that, uh, many of you're fam all of you're familiar with because of our, uh, legislative, uh, experience. But we're proposing a, uh, co-chair structure. And in that co-chair structure, the, the, um, uh, the co-chair would be selected by, uh, the, that second chair would be, uh, selected by the speaker and the president jointly. Um, the other thing that this bill does, and much of the, much of the, uh, new legislation in this bill, it, uh, creates a, um, uh, special district, which will allow for financing of energy infrastructure. Um, this special district is a special district that was part of the Utah. This is, this is like a water conservancy district or a mosquito abatement district. This is a constitutional feature that's existed since, uh, the state was created in 1896. And, uh, what it does is it allows us to, uh, help provide not just regulatory, um, uh, support in the Office of Energy Development, but it helps us to provide, um, uh, long-term, uh, capital support, uh, in non, um, uh, in, sorry, in revenue bonds that are not committing the, uh, full faith and credit of the state of Utah. Um, so this revenues, uh, bond structure will allow us to accelerate our development of energy infrastructure. Um, I'll just note that, uh, we've been working on this, uh, we've been working on this bill for, uh, since really the beginning of the session, there's some things that we're still working with, uh, specifically the co-ops, the Munis and Rocky Mountain Power to make sure that we're, uh, have gotten the language, uh, in a good place. We made, um, we made some amendments that got us part of the way there. Um, we thought we were all the way there. And there's some new issues that have come up this weekend that we, that I've committed to them and, and, uh, they've committed that we're gonna work through. We've got a meeting at 10 o'clock this morning, so just providing, um, all the context in the background. Uh, I know that the committee's short on time. That concludes my presentation.

Yeah, on Lines 200 A through 200 N This was the House Amendment portion. Uh, you know, one of the concerns on a lot of these is we've got the electrical co-ops that are operating, you know, and their, um, you know, their lifeblood is oftentimes their service area and, and not degrading that. Uh, are there any other options or things that we can do to make sure that the co-ops are not their ability to bond and that exclusivity is not degraded? I think this goes, this language goes a long ways already in it, but is there any, are there any other options on the table to help on that?

We're meeting about that at 10 o'clock today. I've committed to them that, uh, we have absolutely zero interest in, in fringing on or impairing their, uh, service area, the revenue streams that are committed to, to them. We, we do not want that. The intent here is not to provide service. The intent is not to step into, um, to that space. The intent here really is a, um, financing feature. Um, yeah, so I, I'm committed. I've committed to them and, and, uh, we're going to, we are gonna meet later today to see if we can work through that issue. So.

Okay. And I, I appreciate that. I hope that, uh, just, just keep working on that. That's one thing that the co-ops do a great job keeping our energy rates low throughout rural Utah and throughout the rest of the state. And so while we, I, I appreciate the, the large projects that allow us to do some interesting things, um, in the state and, and allow us to be a little less monopolistic in with regards to energy projects. So I really appreciate the bill as a whole. I just don't wanna do anything that undermines those co-ops because I think they serve such an important role. And, and I appreciate what you've already done. And if there's other things, because I don't see it as inconsistent with your objectives at all. Anything you can do to help them out so that their bonding is, is protected, and their ability to get their own bonding within that energy and, uh, framework to develop their own projects is, is not degraded at all. So I appreciate that

We share, I share that same concern, and we're committed to make, we, we thought that we had it resolved with the amendment that we ran in the house. Um, there is concern that, uh, we, we need to do some more, and we're gonna, we're, I'm committed to that. So thank you, Senator. Thank You.

Yes, I have a couple. Um, so this will be a new financing structure. Um, help me, uh, you know, we say that it is not subject to, and I'm sorry, I was just flipping two lines, pen, right ink, and then here we are. It's like the worst thing for somebody with pen OCD to do, um, I'm looking at lines 2, 2 0 3. Can you discuss the types of revenue bonds, um, that they would be involved in, um, as it's, as it's related to, you know, 2 0 3 through 2 0 6?

Yeah. So thank you. First of all, I wanna clarify, this isn't a new structure. This is a structure that, uh, the special district has been around since 1896. Um, I wanna also point out that, um, the, uh, use of, uh, revenue bonds to finance these projects, uh, has been around. We've, we've done this in multiple cases that the most, the one that most people are familiar with, frankly, is Intermountain Power Agency. They're all of those, uh, all of the, both the original coal units and the, uh, subsequent to gas fired units were financed with revenue bonds. So the question is, how, how does that actually work? The power purchasers, um, are the collateral for the bonds, that's it. Power purchase agreements, so the collateral for the bonds.

So, okay. Good question. Thank you, Mr. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah. Um, do we have, I'm, I'm looking through this and I apologize. Uh, I did not get through this one last night. Help me, uh, how, you know, we talk about that it is exempt from, you know, from regular property tax, but is subject to the excise. So help me understand, are we central, are we adding these entities as centrally assessed entities, or are they going to be locally assessed? So, uh, they would be centrally assessed and they would work through a privileged tax structure because, sorry, Privileged tax. Thank You. Yes. Uh, because

they are essentially, uh, these would be like any other state, uh, owned asset. They would be exempt from the tax per, um, uh, per state statute. Uh, what we're trying to do is make sure that we can protect the property tax streams that would be available to, uh, potentially the local, uh, to the local governments. Um, again, the best example of this is, uh, um, Intermountain Power Agency and Intermountain Power Agency's context and the context of that, we created a, uh, it was a slightly different type of a structure. It's an interlocal, um, but, uh, that entity pays a privilege tax. Um, it's, uh, controlled by 23 of our municipalities. What we're seeking to do here is to have, instead of 23 of our municipalities exclusively be in control of, uh, this particular, um, uh, this particular, particular tool. We want to, uh, be able to have a state interest, uh, that has a statewide perspective, uh, being able to move forward with, uh, ener with these types of energy development projects.

I'm certain I'll find it later. Um, just that we, you know, uh, you know, anyways, so I'll, I'm sorry, I'll find it later, but I, I can't find the essentially assessed requirement, but I'll find it later and, and be interested. So, okay. Um, uh, and the other question I have for you is, um, you know, just as we're putting this, just as we're putting this together, probably isn't going to happen this session, but one thing that I'm concerned about, just as we deal with these large power producers in rural Utah, I'm always concerned about centrally assessed, uh, you know, and their impacts to local, uh, and their ability. Um, you know, when you talk about some of the problems that come up as a result of centrally assessed assets, where, especially ones based on personal property, like energy producers are, they have high initial investment and high initial value, but then depreciate quickly. And so when they depreciate quickly, it is tough for locals to balance against those, uh, you know, to balance against those rapid increase of funds and then quick diminishment of funds in their budgets. And so, um, anyway, it, I, I'm hopeful that we will, uh, a good addition to this would be a requirement of a, uh, an agreement between the power authority and, uh, you know, the, the special district and the locals as to how property tax is going to be treated, or at least how taxes is going to be treated in the long term. These things tend to be, you know, 40, 50 years that they operate for a long time. And, and we want them to be very productive and those kinds of things, they do still have roads that lead to them. They still have emergencies that occur at them where police and fire is still needed. And so trying to make sure that some of these state entities for that are essentially assessed are not a burden on local communities, especially in rural Utah. I'm, I'm very sensitive to that. So, uh, if you would help me think through that, uh, as you're thinking about this issue, uh, and continuing it forward, that'd be very helpful.

Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I think we took an initial step, but we probably could take one more, but let me just point out, um, the Utah Section 11, article 11, section nine of Utah Constitution.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Motion to circle.

I I just got a sub I need to work on.

Thank you Mr. Speaker Pro Tim, uh, motion to adopt. The first amendment

Yeah. So in, in working on this bill, we worked with some of the stakeholders, the city engineers, and those that had some concern with the original, uh, draft of the bill. This amendment just addresses some of those concerns.

Thank you speaker for time. I am having trouble reading the amendment. I don't know if the internet is down or something, but I would like to know what is actually in the amendment please.

Thank you Mr. Speaker Pro Tim, uh, colleagues, all this bill does is it says that if we've collected, collected water from a, a storm drain, uh, parking lot, a, a retention basin, detention basin, it says that once we've collected that water that in, in the, the process and the, and the idea of trying to get water to the great Salt Lake, it makes it so that retention basins are no longer allowed in cities and, and areas, uh, municipalities that have a storm drain system that the intention of the state is once you've collected that water, uh, once you've, uh, put it into a detention basin, is to drain that detention basin entirely and getting all that water that we can to, to the Great Salt Lake. And it only covers areas that are in the Great Salt Lake drainage basin. Uh, appreciate DEQ, uh, the League of Cities and towns coming to us with some concerns they had, which we addressed in that first Amendment. And again, all this build does is it says if we have a detention basin, we expect that detention basin to drain entirely as, and we did remove the words as soon as possible to address some of the concerns from city engineers overwhelming their storm drain systems. And that concludes my presentation.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Pro tem. Um, I have concern with this bill. Uh, yes there are detention basins, but I think that there are some other practices in there that concern me with respect to the low. I don't remember how it's referred to, um, on lines 94 and 95 where it just talks about a low impact development practice. Um, I don't know that I would feel comfortable with that, particularly when residents are not, um, made aware of that immediately. So for this, I would be a no.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. I, I waive Summation is waived.