a choice. they have to make a better choice for themselves. it is all about getting people to pay attention to the choices they are making. some people have to be in a position to make those choices. >> about the san francisco forty-niners. they want a new stadium. your predecessor had a bit of a falling out with them. even recently met with them, and what have they told you about what it will take to come back there. >> and they haven't told me anything more than what the public has already known. they have a very aggressive campaign that they are doing for the proposed stadium.

what i have tried to do first of all is do what i think is very natural for me. that is to form a very solid relationship and make sure that they are treated as they should be. they are a sentences the football team. they are our team. where is the enthusiasm? it should be there. you remind yourself when the giants won the world series, when they were in the dow and out, we love them. some of us didn't. we cursed them. the they are winners, everybody loves them. during these very hard times, they have suggested that they are looking elsewhere. these are the most challenging times. what i offer is keeping in your

open and keeping your allegiance to the city because i am keeping line. i have so many generations of people that want to see them succeed. having a relationship is first of all, important. and continuing the viability of our proposal so that if the nfl cells them from what we hear, it suggests maybe the economics are not there. i'm not praying for a bad situation for them, but should be economic to be there, i want to know that we have plans here for being a b plan to a 1a plan. is to have a relationship so

that is not embarrassing for him to say, why don't we take another look at what's at francisco has to offer. you not only do that by having a relationship, but by celebrating what they are doing today. they are still our team and they are still in our communities. i would like to have a welcome party. very soon. he is our coach. there are things that we have done in the past that have exhibited -- he is very excited about having one of those lunches that we used to have. get everybody together and root for the team. we might disagree with their effort, but that doesn't mean that they are not our team. >> humans and lloyd brown earlier. how often have you talked to them.

>> i know them vaguely. willie and rows of the wonderful friends for so many years. they give me great advice. i asked them a lot for the vice, especially when we have such a very serious fight with jerry brown over redevelopment. i have never intended for them at all to be a negative, because he is doing what he needs to do. >> eliminated from the state budget? >> it also hurts us in long term ways. we have used redevelopment of the correct way. the governor knows that. he knows there are other things to gain by this elimination. in that dialogue and, i have

asked for a lot of device. with all of the changing term limits, and who do we talk with? he says to be bold, talk to people you ordinarily won't talk to. and to build allegiances as mayor. for this great city, i can pick up the phone and call people and loss angeles, all of the mayor's. that was his first device. yet the 10 biggest mares together and start forming allegiance. when you put that together, you have a powerful voice of there. they listened across aisles. we have most of the populations of the states. that was one good advice.

don't form a wall even if you disagree. just because we are kind of more blue in san francisco. >> a lot more blue. >> a lot of our investors, they are republican. i was laughing about it because it was kind of this irony where the only investors that are trusted us are putting their omaha, we are trying to convince a democratic brotherhood.

we are not trying to be green. we are trying to create the economy better. you have to move towards green a lot more. >> a couple more quick questions here as we are running short on time. we have got to talk about shark fin souop. -- soup. it is a chinese delicacy, the sharks are tossed back into the water to die. you took a simi controversial stand by admitting that you

have been an -- eaten shark fin soup. explain a bit about this. >> i told the truth. you may are may not get that out of a politician. i don't eat it at all very rarely, but it is a delicacy that is used for weddings and special banquets. having said that, i am a very strong supporter of the fishing standards that the u.s. has about how you properly fish. there are reasons for those standards being created. that is where the education is,

the fishing practices. that is why i wasn't ready to support a ban. i wasn't sure if a ban was going to get there or not. i want to the science to tell us the proper thing to do. i am very open. the that is where i have been on the environment. if there are species of sharks, if there are continuing things that we need to do to protect the oceans and the environment, the banning of eating this will add to that, i am open to it. the focus has been, i think a lot of san francisco and a lot of chinese eat a lot of this. they understand that the

fishing practice is the thing that should be banned. we don't know if it will directly contribute to that at this time. >> there is time for one last question. it is an audience question. how can the local hiring policy be made compatible with the existing situation. >> there is obviously policy and reality. the policy that embraces local higher. i want her those that pay more to have a fair chance. we begin with this construction ordnance where we have special steps to be taken for contractors to show that they

are making every effort to comply with the word of its. we had people that were ready and willing to do that same work in san francisco. in my opinion, that is not fair for all of us that is paying for those projects. having said that, when you look at the city work force, i begin by saying, i remember when lily told me, if you want this job, move to san francisco. i made that sacrifice. how can everybody do that? i am not sure. i would like to champion more work force housing. it offers everyone a chance to afford to live here. that way it is a little easier. for the most part, may be for

their salaries, it has been hard to make that choice. >> things to the mayor of san francisco. a also think our audiences here on the internet and on the radio. this meeting of the commonwealth, we are adjourning. [applause]

across america, cities and towns, homes and businesses all depend upon one basic resource. modern civilization and life itself would be impossible without it. woman: okay, so today, we're going to look at how do we get our water? narrator: and today, it's a matter of simply turning on the tap. so often, we forget about the value of water. water is a commodity that is essential to life. 100 years ago, it would have been hard to imagine turning on the tap water. and now, it's an expectation. narrator: over 300 million people live in the united states. and each person uses an average of 100 gallons of water every day. man: what it takes to actually make clean water

is somewhat a mystery to most customers. woman: so how does water get from the river into your house, or here at school? woman: somebody has to bring that water to us, and somebody has to take it away when we're finished with it. man: the water infrastructure is vital for disease protection, fire protection, basic sanitation, economic development, and for our quality of life. man: you just can't visualize all the assets that are under our feet. we have about two million miles of pipe in this nation. if you're walking around in an urban area, you're probably stepping on a pipe. man: our grandparents paid for, and put in for the first time, these large distribution systems. woman: and in many cases, it's not been touched since. man: we're at a critical turning point. much of that infrastructure is wearing out.

narrator: our water infrastructure is made up of complex, underground systems that function continuously. these 10 locations take a look at the history, design, and challenges of our water infrastructure systems. each one represents a small part of what's at stake on a national scale. but understanding the challenges starts with understanding the value of the three basic systems. generations of americans have never experienced living without a constant, unlimited supply of water

delivered straight to the tap, or without their waste flushed immediately away. i think people often forget -- because, you know, water utilities have made it very convenient for people to get water -- how important this is. man: in terms of water supply, wastewater, stormwater development -- these are independent technologies. but what came first, most often, was a water supply system. the basic system is essentially the same as we used back in the 19th century. and in some cases, some of the same pipes. grusheski: philadelphia was the first american city to develop a water system and to take on as a municipal responsibility water delivery to all of its citizens. when william penn laid out the city, he actually chose a spot of land that had a lot of groundwater.

however, by 1730, 30,000 people lived within the first seven blocks of philadelphia, next to the delaware river. well, 30,000 people caused filth in the city and polluted their water sources. the groundwater was not potable. and in one year, 1/6 of the population died of yellow fever. now, they didn't know at the time that yellow fever was carried by mosquitoes. but the health issue was major in that first movement to build a water system. narrator: so they set out to find the cleanest source of water. although the majority of philadelphia's water now comes from the delaware river, early engineers found that development along the waterfront was causing pollution. so their search led them to the nearby schuylkill river. philadelphia developed technologies to pump water from the river into the city.

these technologies established engineering concepts that are still the basis for our water systems today. europeans flocked here. it was a destination point to see the new world technology. when charles dickens visited us in 1840, he was truly blown away by high water pressure on the fourth floor of the hotel he was staying in. nowhere in europe had he experienced that. this technology was doing something to support the life and the growth of the city. philadelphia, throughout the 19th century, was the major industrial city of the united states. all of these industries used water from this system. and it served as a prototype for many american cities, including pittsburgh and new york. man: new york city went to philadelphia and said, "you know, we're thinking of developing a hudson river water supply -- what do you suggest we do?"

and they said, "we've had "a lot of problems on the schuylkill. "don't go to the hudson river. go to the upland and work by gravity." and that's what new york city did. they first went to the hudson highlands, but 150 years later, it went to the delaware highlands. and really diverted the water that normally went to philadelphia to new york city. i don't think they anticipated that. narrator: the majority of new york city's drinking water comes from watersheds in upstate new york. a watershed is the area of land where water from rain or snow melt drains downhill into a body of water. mountains act as a funnel to feed rivers and lakes. and in this case, reservoirs. in the new york city system, water is collected and stored in 19 reservoirs,

which can hold more than a year's supply -- over 580 billion gallons of water. almost all of the system is fed by gravity, without the use of energy-consuming pumps. valves open to regulate the flow into the 85-mile-long delaware aqueduct -- the longest tunnel in the world. at hillview reservoir... the water is partitioned into another giant tunnel system. where it travels deep below manhattan.

the pressure built up by gravity from the mountains pushes the water upwards toward the surface through vertical shafts. these shafts feed the water mains of each neighborhood, which branch into smaller pipes below the streets... feeding into buildings and houses, into the plumbing, and finally, after its long journey, to our faucets. providing water to homes and industry is a monumental task, requiring immense infrastructure. but once the water is delivered and used, it must also be taken away. man: it's important that the waste generated by any society not be left around.

cholera, and other diseases and problems, have been spread, because people wound up living in filth. even the ancients understood that you couldn't have the sewage where you lived. and the easiest thing to do was transport it to another spot -- by water, or a river. most of the first sewer systems were on the east coast of the united states, often in places that already had developed a citywide water supply system. sullivan: in 1630, boston was basically three mountains, there were very steep hills. waste would run down quickly and dump into the harbor. and the tide would carry most of it away. well, this worked well for a while. the problem was, as boston wanted to expand, it started filling in the mudflats. the water could come rushing down the hill, it would hit the flat area and slow down.

at high tide, it couldn't get out at all. it got so bad that the city took over, 'cause the city has a responsibility to protect its citizens. boston built the first modern sewer system in the united states. ours was completed between 1877 and 1884. with this wonderful new sewer system, we were taking our filth and moving it out to the ocean. of course, all of this was untreated. in the 1960s, we were still pumping all of our sewage out to moon island, untreated. we would get swimmers here, never knowing, in the middle of summer, why you would have a cold. well, we were swimming in diluted sewage. melosi: the major way to deal with pollution, at least until early into the 20th century, was through the process of dilution.

the assumption was that the capacity of rivers and streams, and even the seas, allowed for certain levels of pollution that eventually would purify themself. as we get later into the 20th century, it becomes clear that the volumes of waste made dilution unworkable as a single solution. and so treatment became the ways in which we deal with pollution. narrator: to protect public health, starting in the 1950s and '60s, there was a push to put in wastewater treatment plants across the united states. today, with evolving technologies, the waste travels through multiple stages of treatment, removing tons of solids... settling out microscopic particles, and introducing bacteria that consume and decompose the toxic material. in some plants, the water

is further disinfected through the use of ultraviolet light or ozonation. these plants cost millions of dollars to construct, operate, and maintain. in population centers like los angeles, the scope of the task is staggering. the hyperion wastewater treatment plant serves four million people. it processes 350 million gallons of sewage and removes 500 tons of solids daily. after treatment at hyperion, what was once raw sewage is clean enough to release into santa monica bay. other cities and towns release treated wastewater, or effluent, into local rivers, lakes, and streams. as it flows downstream, additional cities may capture it for drinking water, consume it, and treat the water again. in other words,

the water coming out of a wastewater treatment plant often enters the watershed, flows into intakes of drinking water treatment plants, and eventually finds its way right back to our faucets. it takes huge investments to ensure that wastewater and drinking water treatment plants function properly to maintain a safe water supply. we made the initial investments in the plants and the pipes. but once we accomplished that, there was this great recognition that we had a series of issues associated with wet weather conditions. storm events where, all of a sudden, you're dealing with a lot of water. narrator: large amounts of rainwater can cause flooding. engineers developed two approaches to stormwater infrastructure to transport water away from the urban environment. one approach was to carry waste and stormwater through the same pipe. this combined system was less expensive than building two individual pipe networks.

and stormwater was seen as a way to flush out the sewers. through the 19th century, the combined system was considered state-of-the-art throughout the world, and is still in use in many cities today. but cities constructed these systems before treatment was the standard. and even today's largest treatment plant doesn't have the capacity to treat the sudden volumes of water rushing through a combined system during rain. the plant is overloaded, and the excess rainwater, mixed with untreated raw sewage, is diverted straight into local waterways, creating a combined sewer overflow, or cso. there are over 700 communities in the united states with combined sewer systems. the other approach was to separate wastewater from stormwater, using two pipe networks. this separate system simply carries the stormwater away from the city.

but even separate systems pollute the watershed. in developed areas, concrete and other impervious services prevent water from naturally soaking into the land. as the rainwater moves over the roads and concrete expanse, it captures trash and invisible chemicals, sending them straight to the nearest waterway -- untreated. when engineers first designed america's water infrastructure -- the drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater systems -- they were some of the most advanced in the world. but the infrastructure is growing old. and population growth and development, particularly in urban areas, have made it difficult for original system designs to meet modern health standards and reliably satisfy demand. man: our water and wastewater systems really are engineering marvels. because it's buried, it's invisible to us,