The Sedgeley Board's Decision Packet on Fallow Ridge

Driving question. Which of three options should the Sedgeley Regional Water Board choose for the failing Fallow Ridge well field, and how should the board explain that choice to the people who will pay for it?

Your client. You are staff analysts for the fictional Sedgeley Regional Water Board, which serves a district of about 19,000 people. Everything in this brief and in the dossier is invented for this project.

The situation. The Fallow Ridge well field has supplied Sedgeley for forty years. Its five wells produced about 2.8 MGD when they were new. They now produce about 1.4 MGD, and the district's consulting engineer attributes the decline to screen fouling, sand infiltration, and two pumps past their service life. Average district demand is about 2.4 MGD, with a summer peak near 3.2 MGD. A separate backup well adds about 0.6 MGD and is not affected by the well field's problems. The district now covers the remaining shortfall with emergency water purchases from the Hattersley Regional Authority and summer watering restrictions.

The three options, as costed by district staff.

	Option 1: Rehabilitate	Option 2: New river intake	Option 3: Regional pipeline
What is built	Redevelop five wells, replace two pumps, add sequestration feed	New intake and treatment plant on the Ostley River	Sedgeley's share of a pipeline from the Hattersley Regional Authority
Capital cost	About $12 million	About $34 million	About $19 million, plus a wholesale rate per gallon
Yield provided	About 2.6 MGD from the restored field	About 4.0 MGD	Up to 3.0 MGD
Expected life	About 15 years	About 50 years	A 25-year contract
Effect on the average monthly bill	About $9	About $24	About $16, subject to the wholesale rate
Staffing	No change	Requires around-the-clock staffing and a surface water license the district does not hold	No change

Options 2 and 3 retire the Fallow Ridge wells, and the 0.6 MGD backup well stays in service under all three options.

The constraint that governs the packet. The board's rate covenant caps any single bill increase at $18 a month for the average household. An option above that cap is not forbidden, but a packet that recommends one must include a financing plan explaining how the increase would be spread or offset.

Your dossier. Each team receives the same eight fictional documents, printed below as Documents A to H: the well field capacity records, the consulting engineer's condition assessment, an excerpt from the district's rate study, the wholesale contract term sheet, minutes from two public meetings, a letter from a downstream fishing association about the river intake, a summary of state operator staffing rules, and the board's rate covenant. Each document is divided into numbered sections (A-1, A-2, and so on), and your fact-check log cites figures by document letter and section number. The documents do not all agree in emphasis, and some of them record what people said rather than what was measured, so read each one for what it can and cannot support.

What you turn in. One packet of no more than eight pages, containing, in this order:

• A two-page options memo addressed to the board, opening with an executive summary of no more than 150 words. The memo must present all three options fairly, and must state at least two disadvantages of the option you recommend.
• A one-page FAQ for ratepayers that can be read aloud in under three minutes and that uses no term the memo has not defined.
• An annotated source list with a fact-check log. Every figure in the packet gets one line naming the document it came from and its section number (for example, "Document C, section C-3"), or, for an outside source, its publisher and page.
• A four-minute oral recommendation to a panel of student board members, with one slide.

The dossier

All eight documents are invented for this project. The district, its people, the Hattersley Regional Authority, the Ostley River, the consultants, and the state rules summarized in Document G are fictional.

Document A. Fallow Ridge well field capacity records

Prepared by the district operations supervisor, April 2026.

A-1. Tested yield of each well. The district runs a pumping test on each well every spring. All five wells were drilled in 1986. Figures are in million gallons per day (MGD).

Well	1986	2006	2016	2025	2026
FR-1	0.60	0.58	0.50	0.36	0.32
FR-2	0.55	0.52	0.40	0.22	0.18
FR-3	0.60	0.58	0.52	0.44	0.40
FR-4	0.50	0.47	0.38	0.24	0.20
FR-5	0.55	0.53	0.45	0.34	0.30
Field total	2.80	2.68	2.25	1.60	1.40

A-2. Backup supply. The Kestle Lane backup well was drilled in 2009, about two miles east of the field. It has tested at 0.60 MGD every spring since it was built. It is not connected to the Fallow Ridge wells and does not share their pumps or screens.

A-3. Demand. Average district demand over the last three years was 2.4 MGD. The district's planning figure for summer peak demand is 3.2 MGD, which is the average daily demand during the highest week of summer 2021, the last summer before watering restrictions were needed.

A-4. Shortfall and purchases. In fiscal year 2025, the district bought 90 million gallons of emergency water from the Hattersley Regional Authority through a temporary connection, and summer watering restrictions were in force for 71 days. Because the field tested 0.20 MGD lower this spring than last, staff expect purchases in fiscal year 2026 to be higher.

Document B. Condition assessment of the Fallow Ridge well field (excerpt)

Prepared for the district by Marlow Hendry Engineering, consulting engineers, November 2025.

B-1. Findings. The screens in all five wells are partly clogged by iron deposits and bacterial growth, which is the main cause of the lost yield. The screens in FR-2 and FR-4 have also corroded, and the enlarged openings let sand into the wells. The sand wears the pumps and settles in the bottom of the wells. The pumps in FR-2 and FR-4 were installed in 1999 with a design service life of 25 years, and both are now past it.

B-2. Recommended rehabilitation and cost.

Work item	Estimated cost
Chemical and mechanical redevelopment of all five wells, with new screens in FR-2 and FR-4	$6.5 million
Replacement of the pumps in FR-2 and FR-4	$1.9 million
Sequestration feed building and equipment, to slow new iron deposits	$2.1 million
Contingency	$1.5 million
Total	$12.0 million

B-3. Expected results. We expect the restored field to produce about 2.6 MGD. FR-2 is not expected to return to its original yield because of the damage around its screen. With the sequestration feed in service and the wells redeveloped every four years, the rehabilitated field should keep about that yield for about 15 years. The work would take about 14 months, and two wells would be out of service at a time while it is under way.

B-4. Limits of this assessment. This assessment examined the wells, screens, and pumps. It did not study the aquifer. The observation well at the field shows a spring water level 6 feet lower than in 2006. Present data cannot show whether that drop comes from regional pumping, a run of dry years, or the clogging of the field itself. A two-year aquifer study would cost about $250,000 and would answer that question.

B-5. Planning-level estimate for a river supply. At the district's request, we also prepared a planning-level estimate for a new supply from the Ostley River: an intake at $6 million, a treatment plant at $24 million, and a transmission main to the district's system at $4 million, for a total of $34 million. The plant would be sized at about 4.0 MGD, and its main structures would have a service life of about 50 years. Permitting, design, and construction would take about four years.

Document C. Rate study (excerpt)

Prepared for the district by Tolland Rate Advisors, February 2026.

C-1. Customer base and current bill. The study counts customers in household equivalents, so a business that uses as much water as three average households counts as three. The district has 7,500 household equivalents. The average household bill is now $62 a month. Because 7,500 household equivalents each pay 12 bills a year, every $90,000 of added yearly cost raises the average monthly bill by $1.00. The district's capital reserve holds $3.1 million.

C-2. Financing assumptions. We assume each option's capital cost is borrowed through the state revolving loan program at 2 percent interest, with the repayment term matched to the life of what is built: 15 years for Option 1, 25 years for Option 3 (the contract term), and 30 years for Option 2, which is the program's longest term even though the plant would last longer. On those terms, yearly debt service is about $934,000 for Option 1, $1,518,000 for Option 2, and $973,000 for Option 3.

C-3. Change in yearly cost once each option is in service. Figures are in thousands of dollars per year. A minus sign marks a saving.

Cost item	Option 1	Option 2	Option 3
Debt service	934	1,518	973
End of emergency purchases (90 million gallons at $4.00 per 1,000 gallons)	−360	−360	−360
Fallow Ridge operating costs no longer needed	0	−210	−210
Sequestration chemicals	64	0	0
Pumping power for the restored wells	92	0	0
Redevelopment every four years (yearly share)	80	0	0
Six added operators	0	522	0
Treatment chemicals and residuals disposal	0	320	0
Power for the intake and plant	0	370	0
Wholesale water	0	0	986
Share of pipeline operating costs	0	0	51
Net change in yearly cost	810	2,160	1,440
Effect on the average monthly bill	$9.00	$24.00	$16.00

C-4. Notes and limits. The wholesale water line assumes the district buys 1.8 MGD on an average day (average demand of 2.4 MGD less the 0.6 MGD backup well), or about 657 million gallons a year, at the opening rate of $1.50 per 1,000 gallons in Document D. Each $0.10 change in the wholesale rate changes the Option 3 bill effect by about $0.73. The Option 1 figures assume no emergency purchases after rehabilitation, although a summer hotter than the planning peak could require some. The table shows costs once each option is in service and does not include emergency purchases made while construction is under way. All figures are in 2026 dollars and do not include inflation.

Document D. Wholesale supply contract term sheet (draft)

Draft terms offered by the Hattersley Regional Authority to the Sedgeley Regional Water Board, January 2026. These terms are not binding until both boards approve a final contract.

D-1. Term. 25 years from the first delivery of water. Renewal is not guaranteed. The Authority will tell the district by the end of year 22 whether it will offer a renewal and on what terms.

D-2. Capacity. The Authority will deliver up to 3.0 MGD on any day.

D-3. Minimum purchase. The district will pay for at least 1.5 MGD on a yearly average, whether or not it takes that much water.

D-4. Rate. The opening wholesale rate is $1.50 per 1,000 gallons. The rate is adjusted each July by the change in the Authority's cost of service, by no more than 3 percent in any one year.

D-5. Capital share. The district pays $19 million as its share of the pipeline, the pump station, and the meter vault. The Authority owns and operates the pipeline, and the district pays a yearly share of its operating costs.

D-6. Drought curtailment. If the Authority declares a drought emergency, it may reduce deliveries to every wholesale customer by the same percentage, up to 20 percent, for as long as the declaration lasts.

D-7. Schedule. First delivery is expected about three years after both boards sign.

D-8. Temporary connection. The current emergency connection runs under a separate agreement that ends on June 30, 2028. The Authority has said it would extend that agreement year by year while a long-term pipeline is under construction, and that it would consider any other extension case by case.

Document E. Minutes of two public meetings (summary)

Recorded by the clerk of the Sedgeley Regional Water Board. Minutes record what speakers said. The clerk does not check speakers' figures.

E-1. Meeting of March 12, 2026, Sedgeley Grange Hall. Forty-six residents attended. A resident of Mill Road said she lives on a fixed income and asked whether any increase could be spread over several years. A resident of Orchard Street said Hattersley "raised its rates 9 percent last year" and asked why Sedgeley should depend on it. The general manager replied that the 9 percent increase applied to the Authority's own retail customers, and that its wholesale rate rose 2.5 percent last year. Board member Okafor asked whether a rehabilitated field could fail again. The consulting engineer answered that the work should hold for about 15 years with regular maintenance, but that the assessment had not studied the aquifer. The owner of a garden nursery said last summer's watering restrictions cost her business about $30,000.

E-2. Meeting of May 7, 2026, Sedgeley Grange Hall. Sixty-one residents attended. The secretary of the Ostley River Anglers' Association read the association's letter (Document F) into the record. A resident said river water "is cleaner than well water." The general manager replied that river water needs more treatment than the district's well water, which is why Option 2 includes a full treatment plant. Another resident asked whether Option 3 would give control of the town's water to Hattersley. The general manager said the district would keep its backup well and its own pipes and storage, but would depend on the Authority for most of its supply. The board chair announced that the board will vote in September and asked staff to prepare a decision packet.

Document F. Letter from the Ostley River Anglers' Association

Dated April 20, 2026, and addressed to the Sedgeley Regional Water Board. Paragraphs are numbered for reference.

F-1. Our association has about 300 members and has worked to restore trout habitat on the lower Ostley for 25 years. We understand that Sedgeley needs a reliable supply, and we do not oppose a river intake as such.

F-2. Our concern is summer flow. Records from the state gauge at Ridley Bridge, just upstream of the proposed intake, show a median August flow of about 30 MGD. In the dry summer of 2022, flow fell to 14 MGD for most of August. A withdrawal of 4.0 MGD would take about 13 percent of the median August flow, and more than a quarter of the river in a summer like 2022.

F-3. We ask that any permit for the intake require the district to reduce its withdrawal whenever flow at Ridley Bridge falls below 16 MGD and to stop withdrawing whenever it falls below 12 MGD. Without those conditions, our association will oppose the permit.

Document G. Summary of state operator staffing rules

Prepared by district staff from the state's rules for licensed water system operators, March 2026.

G-1. System classes. A groundwater system that only disinfects its water and adds a sequestering chemical is a Class II system. A Class II system may be run by a licensed Class II operator who visits each site every day and remains on call. A plant that treats river or lake water is a Class IV system.

G-2. Staffing a Class IV plant. A Class IV plant must have a licensed operator on site at all times while it is producing water. Its chief operator must hold a Class IV license.

G-3. Class IV license. An applicant must pass the Class IV exam and have at least four years of experience at a plant that treats surface water.

G-4. Present staff. The district employs four operators. The highest license any of them holds is Class II, and none has surface water experience.

G-5. Staff estimate for Option 2. Covering one post around the clock takes about five full-time operators once vacations, training, and sick leave are counted. With a Class IV chief operator, Option 2 would need six new positions. Staff expect that the chief operator would have to be recruited from outside the region.

Document H. Rate covenant of the Sedgeley Regional Water Board

Adopted by the board as Resolution 2019-07.

H-1. Purpose. This covenant limits how fast water bills may rise, so that households can plan for increases.

H-2. Definition. In this covenant, the average household bill is the monthly bill of a residential customer who uses 5,000 gallons in a month.

H-3. Cap. No single increase may raise the average household bill by more than $18 a month.

H-4. Projects above the cap. The board may approve a project whose full effect on the average household bill is more than $18 a month only if the decision packet includes a financing plan that does one or both of the following: (a) phases the increase in steps, each no more than $18 a month and taking effect at least 12 months apart; (b) offsets part of the increase with grants, reserve funds, or other revenue, naming each source and its amount.

H-5. Reserve floor. The capital reserve may not be drawn below $1.5 million.

H-6. Notice. The district must explain every increase to customers in plain language at least 60 days before it takes effect.

1. Session 1: Evidence inventory. Read the whole dossier. Produce a one-page inventory listing each of the eight documents (A to H), the question it can answer, and one question it cannot answer. Mark any document, such as the meeting minutes, that reports claims rather than measurements. Output: the signed inventory sheet, checked by the teacher before Session 2.
2. Session 2: Narrowing and outside search. Turn the driving question into three research questions the packet must answer. Find two public sources outside the dossier and write three evaluation sentences for each, naming its publisher, its date, and its limitation. Output: the question set and the annotated search log.
3. Session 3: Options table and fact-check log. Build the comparison table your memo will use, adding the two columns the staff table leaves out: total supply available under each option including the backup well, and margin above the summer peak. Every cell gets a source line naming the document and section, and any cell that depends on a condition (a drought, a permit term, a rate change) gets a note saying so. Output: the completed table and version one of the fact-check log.
4. Session 4: Options memo draft. Draft the memo, including the executive summary, and exchange it with another team. Reviewers mark any sentence whose figure is not in the log and any option presented unfairly. Output: the reviewed draft with both marks addressed in writing.
5. Session 5: Ratepayer FAQ. Write the FAQ, then read it aloud and time it. Cut until it fits under three minutes and until every term traces back to a definition in the memo. Output: the timed FAQ and a short note listing every term you had to define or remove.
6. Session 6: Recommendation and submission. Deliver the four-minute recommendation with one slide to the panel, answer two questions from the board members, and submit the full packet. Output: the delivered recommendation and the eight-page packet.