ITEM:		CONSENT CALENDAR
3.	CONSIDER APPROVING A CONTRACT WITH TIERRA PLAN IN AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $8,000 TO MAINTAIN AND PROVIDE ADDITIONAL DEVELOPMENT TO THE MPWMD STREAM FLOW DATA PORTAL AS A PUBLIC-FACING DATABASE WEB SERVER
Meeting Date:			January, 22, 2024	Budgeted:	Yes
From:			Dave Stoldt	Program/	2-5-3 A
			General Manager	Line Item No.:
Prepared By:			Jonathan Lear	Cost Estimate:	$8,000
General Counsel Approval:  N/A
Committee Recommendation:  The Finance and Administration Committee reviewed this item on January 16, 2024 and recommended approval.
CEQA Compliance:  This action does not constitute a project as defined by the California Environmental Quality Act Guidelines Section 15378.

SUMMARY:   Currently, the District maintains 15 stream gages, 3 weather stations, and 2 water level monitoring stations. The stations collect 15-minute data and store the data locally to the stations on their data loggers. Last year, District Staff worked with Tierra Plan to develop an API based data server to make the data better accessible to District Staff and the Public. The Water Resources Division also underwent a stream gage upgrade adding telemetry to the remaining 10 gages and brought those stations into the Web Portal, so the stations are available in real time.

There was a desire from the Hydrology and Fish Biology Staff to have all that data collected into a dashboard so that MPWMD staff can know current River conditions when planning fieldwork. All of this work has been completed and the data product can be viewed here (https://map.mpwmd.net/?page=map). Since completing the first version of the Web Portal, District staff has identified the desire to bring in more rain gage networks operated by Monterey County and Department of Water Resources. Tierra Plan has recommended an annual maintenance contract to keep up with software and operating system updates. An additional 40 hours of additional development to add new sensors or different types of data, such as groundwater to facilitate data sharing with neighboring Groundwater Sustainability Agencies. This contract is structured as time and expense, so if no work is completed, the District will not incur costs.

RECOMMENDATION:  The Finance and Administration Committee recommends that the Board authorize District staff to enter into a contract for an amount not to exceed $8,000 with Tierra Plan to maintain and provide additional development to the District’s public-facing database web server for the District’s stream and rain gage networks. This item is budgeted in the FY 2023-2024 Budget under District-Wide Hydrologic Monitoring.

BACKGROUND:  The Water Resources Division is at the end of a 2-step upgrade to the District’s stream gage network. The first step completed included upgrades to the gage data loggers and telemetry to all the gages in the network. The second step was to bring the data into a Web Portal. District staff had requested to have a dashboard built where real-time River conditions could be accessed to help inform fieldwork. This work was completed in calendar year 2023.

Users can now download customizable date data tables from any of the District’s gages. This functionality saves staff time and gets the data into the hands of the public faster as currently, District Hydrologists complete each data request when a request is received as schedules allow.

The work funded by this contract will be completed by December 31, 2024, termed “fiscal year” on Exhibit 3-A.

IMPACT TO STAFF/RESOURCES:   District Staff will work with Tierra Plan to customize this tool to best fit the District’s needs.

EXHIBIT

3-A Water Portal Technical Support and Additional Development

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