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tv   [untitled]    October 6, 2010 6:30am-7:00am PST

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is some research and further development that needs to be done in engaging the university communities and other research organizations. but i think we gain much out of such improvement. as a second point the development of pilot projects. as mentioned again, i want to highlight it. i think it's an effective means of demonstrating something can happen. those are most effective if they involve participating decision making, and very much so in this meeting but decision making given the uncertainty. i just want to highlight that.
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lastly, i think the issue of comparative studies should not be underestimated. as we mentioned before, looking at the past compared to the future and what we believe the future is, again, looking at doing something about potential climatic change verses in case we don't do something about it, i think again, would provide a place for public communication and regulation process. >> thank you. yes? >> i'm with the hydrologist, barry wilson eluded to this, i think it's important to monitor
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what is happening and keep on that. the projection of trends is a good way to at least get a handle on something and also feedback can go to climate modelers and they can adopt their models if need be. that points toward more of a 50 year horizon more than a reasonable projection to make. it's nice to show it for a hundred years but that's pretty well mostly beyond all of our planning endeavors. there is a climate effort that was trying to be set up in 3 hundred stations and now it's scaled to one hundred. the energy commission is trying get another one in california. it's locating and measuring sites where we don't expect differences in the land use and
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really trying define really some of what's happening. the next one is maybe a little bit far out, but we're talking billions so for that kind of money, maybe we ought to support or look that idea of something out in space just like putting mirrors out there, something that can be taken down if necessary so reflect some energy back into space that we're not getting. >> thank you. brad has a comment. >> yeah, thanks. this whole question of data i think has or needs a very close look by the water management data. when you take the wrapper off of this you see it has lots of warts on it, let me talk about the,nrcs, in the west. i know you all have your own. but i saw a persuasive speech
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by randy who is quite properly convincing. changes all the way from stainless steel pillows to ten gallons and black pillows of this. vegetationle changes, the lesson here, i think in general and this applies to,usgs, and national weather, we need to make sure the networks are in good enough shape to make these decisions. they don't cost a lot of money but you need to know the data out there is quite flawed and we need to take care of it and make sure in the future it's
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doing what it needs to for us. let me expand this. there's a very nasty fight going on on the future of some satellites right now. the fight involved climate centers on these centers and certain governments want to toss them in favor of weather sensors. weather is important but climate also is. it effects all of us. no data means no good research fundamentally. so i encourage you not to lose site of some of these bigger issues. >> very good. >> on that issue, we're right in the process of adding 17 rain gauges, 17 instant rain gauges.
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i looked at how much it is to install it and it's relative to a five million dollar a year budget is nothing. you ought to go back and look at what data you wish you had and start putting that in place for whoever will follow you. we have an opportunity to make a small investment to stay with that that allow for better decisions in the future. snow funding, their so under funding we're looking to putting our own snow tell sites in, as you look to the future it might not be climate and regional but micro climate and my guess is lots of people are doing the same thing. but it's not that difficult of a step to do it. just sitting down and making those decisions may give you information on making better
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decisions for your customers. >> does that make it difficult for regions to exchange information. could you make that reliably uniform. >> rain gauge wise no body probably cares about the city of seattle but we could do some things. other than quality control and we're going to spend more money and time but i think it's easily transferable to others. >> let's go back to the floor. yes? >> i want to go back to the point of the technical and public engage meant. it's one piece of the puzzle but provide as lot of opportunity. water efficiency provides most of the savings on the consumer side. the numbers we heard about 18
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percent, almost all of that is not water agency and waist water treatment but keeping the water in the homes using the washing machines and so on. saving that can save humans money which then energy games people into, well, maybe we should listen to the engineers and people trying create the model. >> thank you. >> yes? yes? >> i want to tie into the first speaker and segway the opportunity for public, private partnerships and collaboration. i have an exand pl in
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california that's local to the san francisco, puc, the california commission has listed grant under their renewable fuels program and they are reported to supply several millions of dollars to demonstrate the viability of product that can be commercialized. all the good establishments in urban areas to convert to bio diesel fuel. these collaborative opportunities are available and have been used for many years now throughout the various states and, i think the opportunity is right in front of us to take advantage of these opportunities. in this particular case you
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have the state of california, you have the region nine, epa, so you have a regulator, san francisco ucuc. all contributing to funds offered by the california commission. so i'd like to suggest that we, as a group here, recognize that those opportunities are out there and that we leverage those opportunitys for the sake of reducing the carbon footprint and if we do that, these are near turn gains we can do as we get to the long-term as far as uncertainties and hydrological issues that might take a longer time to resolve. >> i just want to come back down a little bit to something
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a bit on the specific side and add to specific points. chuck and i spent some time yesterday talking about infrastructure and knowing it and knowing where your pipes are and what they can and can't do. yesterday as a waist water person listening to this, i'm thinking pipes and pumps which i'm sure your thinking too but your talking,dams, and canals and part of that is understanding each others language but what i want to add is there's a tremendous amount of coordination and research to know pipes kind of work. i worked together with some on a number of things and there's a huge management effort on going, with, epa, to add a drinking component to that.
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a tool to know where your pipes are. you would be surprised how many people out there that don't know where the pipe is. they rely on joe to know where the pipe is. when joe retires we have a problem. so we need so start remembering and know where they are. what the decay curves are and their life expectancy to know where to put that. we can work with that and improve on them. as we improve our climate models we can use those tools to talk to each other. one of the things i'd like to leave on the table a lot of us should work together to know where the pipes are for world peace. >> there's n is a classic
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story i will not tell about joe and his knowledge of where the pipes are. i want to tie a couple of things together. the consensus issue was raised. i want to come back to this point that not everything is equally uncertainty. if you look at consensus. sea level is going up not down, temperature is going up, not down. snow melt is going to melt faster, not slower and run off the timing will change with more run off in the winter and less in the spring. magnitudes, there's more uncertainty but direction is often important from a management point, and we know a lot about direction and i could go on and on but there's a strong consensus about a number
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of things that lead to - as david said - to those opportunities. to get back to the comparative studies, the value of some really valuable is or should not be under estimated. let me give you an example that i should have mentioned the georgia, caucus brothers. there's three of you, i don't know how many of you are. have done a tremendous amount in this area in adaptive and study area and there was a study done again, almost 7 years back now i think by your brother on the american river and on the flexibility offulsom, reservoir. in terms of inflow and hydro
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generations and they got the damage information what it could be down stream which all of you know is a really big concern. they ran that under rules and got new information about flood damage and flood damage went through the roof with some of these increases with flows. - but then they did some comparative studies. if you change the operating rules - what could you do? it turns out there are operating rules that can handle the scenarios that are coming, that would permit you to generate
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hydro power and continue to have power supply and reduce flood damage. the information is enormously valuable to water managers. >> thank you. >> just a practical suggestion. there's a theme running through almost everyones presentations in the last day and a half that we need to do a better job of a broader range of water managers systems. one thing water manager's should do is simply go back and look at the capacity of their agencies. with, ab 32 in california, and with the, puc, looking at the utilities to makinging investments in water efficiency in order to save money.
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that means as peter recommended, if water finds where those are, to partner with you in achieving those savings. that sort of planning potentially brings it to the table but only if it finds those in the way that's compelling and that's true with regard to reoperation and the number of flooding issues and so forth. so there's a simple lesson there with working with with land use agencies. that's something utility agencies don't do enough of. i think it's important to look at those information internally to see well there's clearly a consensus to do more in the future. >> every water utility should to a greenhouse gas inventor. what are your greenhouse gases
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and where do they come from. everybody not agree on all of it but it's useful to have that baseline information, especially if the state moves to a cap or you get credit for reduction. some of you might be starting that already. >> i'm glad you mentioned greenhouse gases. the conference is on co2, there are others and methane comes to mind. many that are much more potent than carbon dioxide. i know that's by far the largest amount but there's the embedded question that i'd like to know are these other gases, what the water agencies can do to manager those.
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>> i think one more. someone that hasn't spoken frequently. in the fourth row? >> i'm with the seattle utilities and i want to expand on barries partners for example anding the funding i was recently in conference in washington and focused on carbon markets and there's a lot of discussion about linking up with the california system that's going to be emerging, whatever that may be along with the, i think its the reggie, system. there's a large amount of money trying to drive carbon out of the atmosphere. there's potential there, especially in california, if
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the systems link up to partner with funds that have billion dollars funds developed to essentially harvest certified emission reductions and trade them perhaps in the,eu, or in california. so there's a question whether the community wants their credit emission to leave the community but still, there's a lot of opportunities to others that may need assistance reducing the emissions. >> all right.. thank you. i think we're just about out of time and i wanted to just take the last couple of minutes to remind you that the website will be open. do you know how long laura? your going to talk about that. you have cards and you can put
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any comments on that. particularly if you have thoughts about what we, as agencies can do collectively to address to both prevent and address the impacts of climate change and, question two, is what specific things are you doing now to address it and would you like to share with other agencies and people involved in water supply. thank you alright. so much for being so active, and bringing such thought full comments to the general discussions. i want to thank our panelist for being energetic and having fresh thoughts after 36 hours of focussing on this and it's been a great pleasure having you on a panel. thank you. [applause]
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after school at 3.
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. 30 i hop on the bus and go to work with kids. i didn't realize i was going to get up that early for the rest of my life. >> it's hard to get good jobs. you can get well paid working at restaurants i was making good money that's not my 50 year goal working as a waitress. it would be better to have something to fall back on i wanted something where i would in 10 years accumulate properties. >> 3 months is a long time to be busy all day. i'm putting myself further in debt with the understanding it's worth the sacrifice. eating raman for 3 months. it's not fun but i think it will be worth it.
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>> we all want to graduate we are all tired of this class. been 11 weeks. one more week to go. >> i need to get these mraps out. >> my purpose is to get the recruits prepared for the construction training. >> what you do is get a 2 by 6 sitting on the saw horses. we will cut 10 feet. everybody going to get one and you measure up 6 inches. you sure you got 8 feet. >> as a carpenter you have to let them know what's expected and they need to know the stuff to get going on the trades. >> the main thing they need to know is how to carry the stuff on the job and the hussle. >> you can't work with the
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gloves. >> my part is a small part. my part is the best part. the part that really teaches them how to go out and fish rather than go to the fish market. my job is how to teach them to fish when the fish market is closed. >> this requires i thinking. when you go on the job site they will pay you 20-15, dollars an hour you have to think and figure stuff out and get the jobs done in a record time. >> one of the things we try to teach with the construction trades is your attitude going to work. how employers look on new workers and it's about profitability and productivity. it's not how much swings it takes to drive, you know, ita about do you have the right attitude?
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can you show up on time? can you make the company money? >> 12.5 times 15. >> i don't want you to use the calculator. >> the students go through approximately 420 some hours of training. we operate at the campus of the community college a 12 week, full time program, 7-3:30. >> if you were going to figure out how much [inaudible] you need you rounding up. >> average age of individuals in the trades is in the 40's from what we are told. in the 50's quite frankly those folks are getting ready to retire. we see a void. >> the average is making 60-80 thousand dollar a year more with benefits much it's hard work i
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will not lie. >> if you like working with your hands and creative and you look at a building and say, i did that finish and that building is there for a hundred years. come to my program you will work for anyone in the country. >> we send people to the dry waller the carpenters and the plummers. >> we are conscious who we give a job referral to. >> we look at the skills part as far as hayou do with a hammer and nail there are other components to be able to be a team player. be able to take directs and be precise and punctual things like this you need to help you keep your jobs. >> we will looking at the
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interviews today and doing the critiquing from the papers. >> i was thinking last week we were talking ask that was so much thinking going on about the interview and how i was going to do it. >> i feel like, me, as an african-american woman and older woman with children i feel i have to set an example. a lot of people don't know how to deal with anger and conflicts. the kids here look up to me. if i do something and don't set an example then they are going to follow. since i've been a positive roll model, coming to school
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everyday. some of those kids pick up on that and i see the improvement in them. >> one thing that i knew but the class helped reinstate is that you have to check yourself. we are all grown adults. >> i try to be motivated in everything i do in my life. if you don't encourage yourself to do something or do things for yourself you can't expect somebody else will do it for you. some people didn't make it to class because they have a bad attitude and decided it wasn't worth it. >> when you do something you have to understand why you are doing it and you can't say and come in and say, i will make good money. construction's not like that you have to want to do it because it's not aedz work. you have to want to get up and go to work and do physical labor for 8