July 2, 2020 at 9:00 AM - Operations Committee Meeting

Rationale:  There is nothing to consider for unfinished business.

Rationale:  Nothing to report.

Rationale:  The O & M Crew has and continues to inspect and do maintenance on watershed dams, we have completed 37 of the 45. We have also gone over the Clear Creek Levee. Also, regular maintenance on vehicles and equipment.

Rationale:  The fourth train of rock arrived Sunday and will be used in the levee area of Thomas Lakes which is approximately 90-95% complete. They have received a permit from BNSFRR so work can start in the Fuse Plug floodway along the BN tracks. It is anticipated that the above mentioned work will be completed by July 10. They anticipate having all work/repair completed by the third week of July.

Rationale:  We will submit our final paperwork on this project to NEMA the first week of July and wait for reimbursement.
JEO's contract was for $45,765 and in final we will have paid them $44,503.75, a difference of $1,261.25.

Rationale:  On Tuesday, June 23, FYRA conducted a Pre-construction meeting for interested contractors. Five contractors attended the meeting and Heimann showed them the site. FYRA hopes the contractors give some feedback on the project so final design can be completed.
FYRA did not receive any feed back from the contractors. Design will be sent to NDNR Dam Safety this week for permit review. We will advertise July 10, 17, 24. Open bids July 28th, take bids to Operations Committee July 30 and the Board August 10. We will issue Notice of Award August 11and Notice to Proceed September 8.

Rationale:  Heimann requested interest from six Concrete Repair Companies via email addressing the RCC cracks in the Auxiliary Spillway on the Wanahoo Dam. Two companies have interest and looked at the site, one declined and three did not respond.
Aksarben Concrete gave a quote of $38,493 and the Driveway Company $70,000. The Driveway Company didn't seem to enthused.
The auxiliary spillway is approximately 670' long and 100 -120' in length vertically.
This information can be used for budgetary purposes and in consideration as how we want to approach it.

Rationale:  As a reminder, Cottonwood 21-A (High Hazard Dam) is considered to be "in poor condition" because of "Inadequate Spillway Capacity".
Saunders County's engineering firm, Mainelli Wagner has completed a survey and potential design in which they will review with Saunders County Highway Dept. It will also be sent to NDNR Dam Safety for their review. If it's approved by NDNR we will need to discuss how to approach this improvement. We can ask Saunders County if they can assist with construction and develop an agreement or we may have to hire a private contractor to do the work.
We do not have a cost estimate at this time.

Rationale:  As of June 26, the monetary amount received from camping at Czechland Lake is $8,284.00

Rationale:  See attached a preliminary budget spreadsheet for Operations & Maintenance.

Rationale:  Heimann inspected the Drahota project in Colfax County and payment was made.

Rationale:  Lake Wanahoo Annual Permit sales for the month of June totaled $12,945.00. June totals from 2019 totaled $12,290.00. The District is continuing to see an increase in annual permit sales. At the end of June 2019 the District had received $67,384.50 in annual permit sales income, compared to $80,027.50 for the same time period in 2020. 

The 2020 Annual Park Permit Sales spreadsheet breakdown is attached.

Rationale:  The new primitive cabins are nearly complete. In June, Hancock Construction completed their portion of the interior framing, Butler Public Power trenched in the service line, and Harris Electric started the finish work on the electricity. The District will open the cabins for reservations on July 8th. Over the Fourth of July three cabins have been rented through our office. Public interest has been very high and staff is excited to finish this unique addition to the campground at Lake Wanahoo.

The reservation rate for these cabins will be $40/night and all will be available on Reserve America.

Rationale:  We are featuring our three recreation areas for our KTIC Radio ad and Wahoo Newspaper eAds which are attached.

Rationale:  Direct traffic to our site has picked up. This could be from past users directly typing lpnnrd.org vs searching for our site through a search engine. We received 31 clicks from our Facebook page to our website. Overall we’re showing a decline in users to the website, but Lake Wanahoo, Czechland and the Outdoor Recreation page views remain steady.
 

Month	# of Users	Top Pages/views	Viewing Device
October 2019	710	Home 543 Lake Wanahoo 355 Staff 121 Czechland Lake 100 Contact 95	Desktop 58.73% Mobile 34.48% Tablet 4.79%
May 2020	2,943	Lake Wanahoo 3,411 Home 1,690 Czechland Lake 677 Outdoor Recreation 487 Downloads 251	Mobile 53.89% Desktop 41.93% Tablet 4.18%
June 2020	2,003	Lake Wanahoo 1,992 Home 1,008 Czechland Lake 574 Outdoor Recreation 344 Downloads 195	Mobile Desktop Tablet

Our Facebook page has slowly declined in views since May, but our followers keep increasing. The page has 1,152 followers as of July 1. Our top posts included: a summer water conservation graphic from EPA, June board meeting date and time, and well decommissioning program info.

Month	Total Views	Total Reach	Total Engaged Users	Followers
October 2019	9,446	6,772	1,273	873
May 2020	5,724	5,047	253	1,142
June 2020	3,399	3,106	147	1152

Our Twitter page continues to slowly grow with more followers each month.  
Our top posts included: Pollinator seed available at the office (sadly we didn’t see many people stop by to grab some - still available if anyone would like to take some home!), well decommissioning program, Nebraska pollinator week downloadable activities.

Month	Impressions	Engagements	Followers
October 2019	3,707	61	300
May 2020	3,347	89	323
June 2020	3029	118	331

Rationale:  During the months of April, May and June, we purchased the "News Sponsorship" package with News Channel Nebraska for our Lake Wanahoo commercial. The commercial spot was a 30-second spot, with a 5-second spot showing the LPNNRD logo. The commercial and LPNNRD logo was shown a total of 47 times during the last half of April. And 114 times during the month of May. The time of day for the ads to be shown ranged from early AM to late PM.  We have not received our update from June’s schedule yet. June is the last month we will be advertising the Lake Wanahoo commercial. News Channel Nebraska has been great to work with and we hope to continue advertising with them in the future.
 

Rationale:  Nebraska Pollinator Week was held June 21-27. Throughout the week we shared posts about pollinators, created 3 activity sheets and offered free pollinator seed mix. https://lpnnrd.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/LPNNRD_Pollinator_Activity_set.pdf

I have also attached the Fiscal Year 2020 Educational Opportunities report. We were going very steady with numbers throughout the school year until March when the effects of COVID-19 began to cancel many events. Here are the list of events that had been cancelled.
Wahoo Cub Scouts event - approx 10-15 kids
Spring Conservation Sensation - approx 300 
Wahoo Headstart year-end celebration - approx 30
Wahoo 9th grade PE class - approx 75
Schuyler 3rd grade year-end fun day - approx 30
4H/NRD Outdoor Day - approx 40
Youth Ag Tour - approx 20
Kids Summer Institute - approx 20

Sadly, if we would have been able to hold those events we would have been around 2500 youth impacted which was nearly the same exact number as we were at for Fiscal Year 2019. With the uncertainties of how schools plan to operate in the next few months we plan to continue promoting our educational resources as we have in the past and will wait to hear more from educators soon.

Rationale:  Colon RWD was due for our three year Lead and Copper testing this month.  One of the five test sites opted out of participating, so a new cooperating site that met DHHS testing qualifications was located and testing completed the week of June 15.
Routine monthly sampling completed, meters read and bills mailed June 30.

Rationale:  On June 19 the RWD was alerted by the Buter County Landfill about a leak on their property.  The leak was out of the RWD's utility easement and was caused by Waste Connections staff excavating near their truck fill station.  Supply was shut at the meter and repair was handled by Waste Connection.
Monthly sampling completed and bills mailed June 30.