(applause). . (applause). . . >> thank you guys so much for that beautiful performance can we give them another round of applause? (applause). all the this time if i can ask

mr. joaquin torrez to join us again on stage, joaquin will be introducing the mayor and if i can ask my fellow committee members to also join us on stage. joaquin. >> thank you very much i have to say as director the mayor's oches of neighborhood services it's refreshing to have a mayor so dedicated to couldn't and it makes my job easier when our people in the community want to feel our elected efficients make our needs and it's in physical presence and i have had the great pleasure of serving under our mayor lee who i would like to make a invite to make a few remarks in honor or of arab heritage month here in san francisco. >> thank you, thank you joaquin, thank

you, welcome to our orange city hall. i want to welcome everybody here this fourthth animal america arab month of separation and it's my pleasure to join us here and many of us know that we are such a lucky city, and we are lucky because people around their world make their way to fraction, find hopey until the city they know that we celebrate our diversity and find strength in the different cultures that pretend together and now, i ask you also to bring me talent from the arab america communities to make me and help me lune run the city. yes, it's incredible. union, i think i can talk about how wonderful diversity is, but we have to get the talent from our communities to represent all of the different thing that we do in the city. and you know, tonight, even

though there is something called a baseball game out there, but these wonderful events that we have in the city whether it's america's cup whether it's fleet week, whether it's the 49ers playing or the giants playing, even eventually when we land the superbowl it all board of trustees all of us, i know that what i'm doing as a mayor and making sure that i support smallbitions in the city is helpful to the america arab community because all of us whether we are chinese americas hal teen know arabs is a starts for us to make our life a little more pleasant and own our business and is make sure that our kids get the best education possible and this is a story about immigrants in our great city. and so why not you have the first chinese mayor inviting immigrant community to really identify the talent in our community and allow me

to give them appointments in the various moo commission and the city and i want to announce my newest point to the aging commission because per not getting younger i want you to know doctor sham meret tan knee has been selected to be on our commission on aging and yes, he is going to help us because there is a lot of you that want to be in our city and you want to make sure that healthy nutritional unusuallile programs and housing are constructing wisely and so i have asked him to step forward and i have asked john paul s ema h a who has been on our treasure island and watch what he is going to do because that is a new part of our city and it's one where if he conducts all of the work that he is going to do as a commissioner on treasure island, he is go to get a lot

more treasure island to serve the that you saws of small residents that are a part of it and so we are seeking more fault and please step forward and represent our communities proudly and i'm very willing to work with all of you and on behalf of our city and on behalf of this wonderful celebration that we have, i call upon on our coaches for the arab heritage celebration, jeff who's here as well as l u b n a to please come on up and receive and just again, thank you very much for your work in the film festival and l u b n a for the wonderful leader ship that you have and devise that you are giving to he to run a vibrant culture center and i hopey that you are able to get a larger cultural center is because the population is going and i hopey that we are able to get you a larger cultural center and get you the resources that you need

to run the cultural and art programs and so on behalf of the city l u b n a and jeff this is our arab heritage month celebration proclimation. (applause). and go giants: enjoy everybody.. >> thank you mr. mayor. (applause). . >> yeah, mayorly thank you very much for the letting us use your house here tonight and letting -- we really appreciate it we know that you ran from the game to get here and so we

really appreciate your commitment to our community and we are happy that you are here to celebrate this momentous day with us. we have an awesome community here, we are here to celebrate the awesomeness of our community the dedication of our community and, you know we are hebe here to serve all of you so really this award should go to everybody here in our community. thank you very much. (applause). and i just want to echo jeff's words and say thank you for having us here today and thank you all for joining us and we look forward to many more arab heritage month celebrations and as well as our bigger community center and you know, through all of the different work that we do in different arab organization, different community organizationings it's about strengthening our community and contributing to the amazing cultural land scam of our city and we are very

thankful to here today. >> and thank you shad deand the committee for putting on such a great show and where joaquin. thank you very much also for all of your dedication and work. okay thanks a lot:. >> so please everyone, join us for the reception, for the following if he is activities we have a fashion show, as well as some food and accommodations and so please follow us into the hall. thank you. ♪ ♪

because we have a great waste water system here in san francisco, we do about 80 million gallons of waste water here in san francisco, which means we basically fill up 120 olympic sized swimming pools each and every day here in the city. we protect public health and safety and environment because we are discharging into the bay and into the ocean. this is essentially the first treatment here at our waste water treatment facility. what we do is slow down the water so that things either settle to the bottom or float to the top. you see we have a nice selection of things floating around there, things from bubble gum wrappers, toilet paper, whatever you dump down the toilet, whatever gets into our storm drains, that's what gets into our waste water treatment and we have to clean.

>> see these chains here, this keeps scum from building up. >> on this end in the liquid end basically we're just trying to produce a good water product that doesn't negatively impact the receiving water so that we have recreation and no bad impact on fish and aquatic life. solids is what's happening. . >> by sludge, what exactly do you mean? is that the actual technical term? . >> it's a technical term and it's used in a lot of different ways, but this is organic sewage sludge. basically what it is is, oh, maybe things that come out of your garbage disposal, things that are fecal in nature.

it's sludge left in the water after the primary treatment, then we blend those two over and send them over to digestion. this building is built to replace tanks here that were so odoriferous they would curl your hair. we built this as an interim process. >> is there a coagulant introduced somewhere in the middle of this? . >> this coagulant brings solids together and lets the water run through. that gives us more time in the digestion process, more time to reduce the amount of solids. these are the biggest ones in the world, like we always like to do in san francisco. they are 4 meter, there's none like it in the world. >> really? wow. >> three meters, usually. we got the biggest, if not the best. so here we are. look at that baby hum.

river of sludge. >> one of the things is we use bacteria that's common in our own guts to create this reduction. it's like an extra digestion. one of the things we have to do to facilitate that is heat that sludge up and keep it at the temperature our body likes, 98.6 degrees. >> so what we have here is the heat exchanger for digester no. 6. these clog up with debris and we're coming in to -- next wet weather season so we always come through here, clean them out, make sure that we get maximum heat exchange during the colder wet weather. sludge season. >> rubber glove. >> right here. >> rubber glove, excellent. all right, guys. >> thank you.

>> good luck. >> this is the full on hazmat. . >> residual liquid. we're taking it time to let it drain. we don't want to get sludge on it necessarily. take your time. stand on the side of it. . >> should we let it release for a while? . >> let it release. >> is that the technical term? . >> this is the most important bolt on the whole thing. this is the locking bolt. it locks this thing right in place. so now. >> take your hammer and what we want to do, we get rag build up right in here. the hot water recirculates right in here, the sludge

recirculates in here. the sludge sometimes has rags in it. all we want to do is go around the clean the rags. let me show you how. take the slide hammer, go all the way through the back, go around. >> got you. >> during the real rainy season, how does that change the way dealing with this job? is it a lot more stuff in there? . >> what we do, charles, we do this quarterly. every four months we go around and clean all the heat exchangers so we don't have a large build up. . >> go around? . >> yeah.

(sound of hammering). >> what i'm trying to do, charles, is always pull it out on the low stroke. >> right. so you are not, like, flying out. now talk about clean up. . >> then where does this stuff get deposited? . >> we're going to dump it in a debris box and it will go back to the plant. >> if you think back, the romans came up with a system of plumbing that allowed us it use water to transport waste away from the hub of civilization, which enabled cities to grow. . >> you have a large bowl, a drive motor and another motor with a planetary gearbox with differential pressure inside

there. the large mass up there spinning separating the solids from the liquid. we have to prevent about once a month, we go in there grease those, change the oil, check the vibration levels. the operators can tell just by the hum of that machine that it's a harmonic noise emitted that it's out of balance and the machine needs to be cleaned. it will start vibrating and we have vibration analysis machines that will come over here and check the levels. so it's kind of an on-going thing that you have to stay on top of on a daily basis. >> handled properly, you take organic residuals, as we call them, that are leftovers of our society and turn them back into some energy.

and we have another ability to take that sludge and get a nutrient value for crops there. we actually are running a kind of composting energy recovery system. >> well, this is a dirty job. we try to do it safely and we try to do it without imposing too much on the public. people want to flush their toilets and have things go away and not be bothersome again. we do a lot to try to accomplish that. i'd like to invite you to come back any time you want. once you got this in your blood, you are not going to be able to stay away. the raging waters are fun and when we do digester cleaning i really hope you can come back. that's quite a sight. >> yeah, that sounds interesting. >> i really appreciate you coming by and it was a

>> san francisco is home to some of the most innovative companies of the 21st century. this pioneering and forward looking spirit is alive in san francisco government as well. the new headquarters of the san francisco public utilities commission at a5 25 golden gate avenue is more than just a 13-story building and office ablation. instead, city leaders, departments and project managers join forces with local architectural firms ked to build one of the greatest office buildings in america. that's more than a building. that's a living system. ♪ ♪ when san francisco first bought this land in 1999, it was home to a state office building. >> this was an old eight-story

brown building the state owned and the workers' comp people were in that building. it was an old dee correctvth it building for decades. when i was a member of the board of supervisors, all of us wondered why we hadn't done anything there and the mayor thought the same. >> if an earthquake happened, the building was uninhabitable. it sat there vacant for quite a while. the city decided to buy the building in 1999 for $2. we worked and looked at ways that we can utilize the building for an office building. to build an icon i can building that will house a lot of city departments. >> the san francisco public utilities commission has an important job. we provide clean, pristine public drinking water to 2.6 million people in the san francisco bay area from the hetch hetchy regional water system. with also generate clean renewable energy for city services like public buses, hospitals, schools, and much more. and finally, we collect and treat all the city's wastewater and stormwater making it safe enough to discharge into the

san francisco bay and pacific ocean. >> in 2006 the puc was planning a record number of projects. >> the public utilities commission is a very infrastructure-rich organization. we're out there rebuilding the water system. we've budget working on power generation in the country. we've been doing sewer for the city. we're looking at a brand-new rebuild of all watt systems in san francisco and we haven't had a home that's been other than mental. >> they staff over 900 people. the puc is in two office locations. >> you know, this is such a great place for a building. if the puc owned that building and we could make that the icon i can sustainable building puc represents, wouldn't be a dramatic idea? >> so, one of the major decisions we made was we wanted to make a statement with this building. we wanted this building to be a lead platinum building which is very few buildings in san francisco that achieved this mark.

>> leadership and energy environmental design, it takes a look at the way we think about the places where we live and work. i like to think of it as designed for human and environmental health. lead addresses five categories that enhances environment. indoor air quality, energy, water, materials and resources, and sustainable sites are the five categories for the lead. you can go for several gold or platinum certifications. >> the city wanted to be silver lead status. . maybe gold was a stretch. and people said, if we're going to be a sustainable organization that the pucs this has got to be the top of the line. it's got to be a lead platinum building. what does that mean to us? we run water, power, and sewer. so, those are some of the biggest things involved in lead platinum. ♪ ♪

>> by late 2008 the project, as we got the contractor on board and we were able to start pricing it, we're a multi-, multi-, multi-million dollar over budget. >> the story a lot of people don't know after we got select today do this project, the first price we came in with was $180 million. and the city said, you know, this is a great building, but we just don't want to spend that much money. so, the project was on the verge of being canceled. >> if you're looking at why this building came to be, in many ways it also included mayor gavin newsome, particularly, who really had an affection for this building. he saw the design. he saw the potential. he wanted to make sure that that building got built. and he said, do what you need to do, but please, if you can make that building work, we need to have that building in civic center. >> i happened to be at a green conference santa clara. he said you shouldn't cancel that project. can you work with us?

michael cohen phoned me up the next day. can we cut $40 million out of this project? it was one person more responsible than any others, it's tony irons, was the architect that was responsible for the revitalization of city hall who came to my office and said, we cannot abandon this. we can't walk away from this project. we have an opportunity to really take a lot of our values and principles, particularly raising the bar as we did as a city on our green building standards, mandating the most aggressive green building standards for private construction anywhere in the united states. and showcasing them in this new building. >> the city for the sfpuc, it was critical that the building stay as a lead building. the easiest thing to do to cut out millions of dollars, let's just go from lead platinum to lead gold. but that wasn't the objective. this needed to be the best example of energy conservation of any office building in the united states. >> we became ined