tell you about our automated water meter project, so we can show that and differentiate that. >> and i get to talk about the pg&e smart meter part, and he will talk about our water program. as you know, pg&e has been authorized to install a smart meters and to implement that program throughout its service territory. the california public utilities commission authorized $2.20 billion on the program. pg&e was scheduled to begin deploying meters, smart meters, in san francisco on july 1 of this year. they have received since beginning deployment, in november of 2006, they have deployed a 6.6 million smart meters -- deployed 6.6 million smart meters, and 3.9 of those

were installed in 2010. over 1300 pg&e customers filed complaints. there were complaints of largely in the bakersfield and fresno area. the california public utilities commission received so many complaints, and pg&e acknowledged some existence of problems, that they began independent investigation into the accuracy of the pg&e smart meters. the city, a out of concern over complaints that we have already been hearing about, a petition was said into the california public utilities commission and requested that they direct pg&e to suspend deployment in san francisco or to take a pause while the investigation was pursued, so rather than installing and having to take them out and put them in again

if there were problems with the meters, we asked them to just take a pause and see what the results of the investigation are. a number of cities and others supported our decision to suspend deployment. you see them on the screen there. actually, you do not see them on the screen. thanks, mike, if you put that on the screen. not noticing, thank you, general manager. we have not had a response from the california public utilities commission to ours. they did not comment on suspending deployment. they did receive though on september 2, the california public utilities commission did receive the results of the third-party investigation. that investigation was performed by a consulting group,

it independently evaluating their smart meter program and the deployment at pg&e, and what i captured on this slide for you, the bottom line, i think, from the report is that the technology is good. they determined that the technology is good. the problems that were experienced in the pg&e service. they attribute to gaps in customer service. and the processes that were pursued by pg&e related to complaints, so it's sort of had a bottom line message that technology could, pg&e program deployment and response to customers not so good. and, thankfully, we have an opportunity here to learn from that experience, and our project manager, heathetr, for our

deployment of these high-tech meters has sat down with my staff and has the report and is taking it as a lessons learned opportunity, so we will make sure we do not have the same kind of customer service problems when we deploy, as we deploy, and as we talk more about the details of our program, another will not take over. if you have any questions? commissioner: i do. from the environmental health perspective, i guess there have been some concerns raised around the electromagnetic force, whatever, sensitivities in that area, so i think there are some concerns, and i do not know what percentage of customer complaints are related to that, and i guess there have also been some questions around safety issues. i think there have been some questions concerning the fiber issues, and then the third are related to privacy issues.

i guess this is paramount. >> the electromagnetic field concern, i think that was beyond the scope of what they were asked to look at. they were at ask to look at certain issues. there were those that word certain environmental factors. i can go back and see if there is a break out of that information, and if so, i can provide it, and, yes, i, too, have seen this. for example, the photographs of the installers of the meters have head gear on and the gloves, and the question is,

wow, if it takes that type of equipment to install it, is it really ok outside of my bedroom window? it was not tasked to look at those environmental concerns. they were tasked to look at the technology. i can go back and see if the california public utilities commission has addressed any of those concerns. commissioner: great, in those three areas, i think it would be good to get more information, a ticker korea before a big rollout. and there was a privacy question around. this gives a certain amount of access that may not have existed. >> i cannot answer those questions with respect to the pg&e smart meter program, but i know that they are willing to

address some of those for our water meter, so why do i not come back to you? we can hear from mr. richie now. >> props. mike, if you can bring the screen back? i am here to talk about the water meter program that we are engaged in right now, and this is a water meter. we have been looking at this as exactly the same technology that has always been there. looking at what transmits it to the puc, we will talk about

that, but what we're basically talking about is going from a manual system to an electronic system, where the signal is transmitted through a series of steps to the puc, with the data in cryptic, so it is not from this address or this person, so that information is not transmitted with that. we have about 180,000 water meters in san francisco. two-thirds of those are more than 20 years old. one thing we know is that as these get old overtime, they start to run inefficiently, so we are virtually replacing every meter in san francisco with a brand new meter. we are collecting the data on an hourly basis. this will detect things far more rapidly because we will see

spikes in usage. we will be working towards, as barbara just said, retail meters, as well, using these same meters. you would not have to install others. and we're using the local work force to do this. first, the need to transition units, which is this little grey box. when it comes to your home near you, this will be screwed to the underside of the meter box cover, and the meter just sits where it always does with the pipe itself. and then transmits the data to will be called data collection units, of which there are 77 that are scattered around the city so far. they collect material and then transport it to the networking computer that then deals with

the data. the meter transition units, again, they take our lead readings, and the technology has not changed. i want to keep emphasizing that. this is technology from decades of use. these are no some -- not some newfangled type of thing. the box transmits the data at 4 bits per day, so it is not a constant stream of data. it is just four times per day. it can be shut off remotely. they're pretty well protected so they cannot be tampered with without physically going to remove the box, and, that means we have, again, those that are manually read, they can always check those. the data collection units, that

receives the meter reading frequency channel, puc, at 77 places across the city, and they are pretty innocuous looking, but they are scattered around the city. most of them are run on solar power, with a few on ac current because they are in areas where there is not access to enough sunlight to make it working very well. this one is actually on the roof on some offices. the project deployment schedule, we have been in the phase where we have been deploying about 300 to 400 meters per week. this will extend it to about 8000 units.

we will then go into work in phase one. again, will be testing at the end of that phase. we will be doing even more than 2000 per week, so by april 2012, we will never replace all of the leaders in san francisco, and they will all be wired up so you can read them electronically. this map shows the distribution. the green boxes are the dcu's,

scattered around the city. you can see that there was a big vote agglomeration -- a big agglomeration. and yellow areas are where we are going to go beyond the first 5000 to get the next 3000 in place, so we're going to have a lot of things around the city. some of these things were chosen to make sure that we could get a good shot of readings be in taken from difficult locations -- a good shot of readings being taken. 100% of the meters are tested according to standards, and we are doing other tests to make sure that they are being

accurate. we will then do accuracy of field testing, where we will do manual reads to compare to what is coming into the electronic system. we do not want to do with live until we make sure it works, and there will be no billing until we know they are working properly. we are expecting about 5% of all installations out there -- we will be doing functional requirements testing at the end of each work phase, complete functionality testing, and the last thing we just completed was a radio frequency emissions testing, and this table shows the results of that. what you see is a comparison of microwatts, what is emitted from units, and it shows various devices. as one was using a smart phone

earlier, you should be careful of that. but lots of different things, cell phones, smart phones, baby monitors, cord was phones, headsets, microwave ovens, they all have varying degrees of frequency emissions, and the top three are the meter transmission unit, the dcu, and transmitted to our computer system, and you see those results do not even make the skill with all of those other routine devices, and in the case of the meter transmission units, that was made standing directly over a meter, so it was not 10 feet away, 20 feet away. it was actually on the meeting itself, so we're pretty encouraged by these results. we have very low emissions, and they are intermittent. it is not a continuous stream going out.

last and not least, we are hiring local on this. we have between three and 35 installers, and seven of those will actually becoming with the contractor on this, so they have people who have done this elsewhere. we expect to be adding 20 installers during the two-year installation project, and so far, we have two in this phase, and we expect to include some additional hires as we go beyond, moving he quit in and out. it will be a big deal. and we are using local businesses for incidentals. they were required to put forth the effort to hire locally. uniform janitorial services should be added to the list, so

we're trying to get as much as we can in terms of local hires into this, and that is really it. i release speaking on behalf of heather, the project manager on this. she is actually in texas as part of a gathering of people who regularly work on this to share what works and what does not to make sure we are looking out there as far as possible before we get there. commissioner: i would like to just bring up those three other areas that i mentioned to make sure we are covered. i do not know a lot about e.m.s., but i would assume that -- i do not know a lot about emf, but i would assume that rf would be the same.

and there are questions around safety and privacy. i do not know if those are concerns when it comes to this marni or not -- >> in terms of safety, these are typically meters that are in the sidewalk, and when we observe an installation, this is traditional. commissioner: what about --

>> this is actually bolted underneath, so it is separated from the ground, kind of suspended in the air with nothing else touching it. the boxes made out of a non transmits of material. so physically, it should be pretty good, and, again, on privacy, the data is transmitted with a unique number of identifiers. they are not transmitted with any other information like name or address, so it comes to our customer service bureau as unique data that are included, and then they can actually utilize in there, so there should not be any haute issue. vice president vietor: well, that would be great to come back with that. i think it is important just to

have a conversation. thank you. commissioner: so the grey box is attached to the meter? >> the bottom, not the cover. commissioner: so why could they not just pull off? >> they could just pull off. that would be useful. if we found there was not a signal, we could that can read it manually. the meter itself records. that will not change. it would cost money to get us meters modified, to take that feature off. >> what is automated is the reporting, not necessarily the meter. that is the difference, i think. >> i suspect the transmitter is somewhat water -- you know -- what is the word and looking for? >> watertight.

water-resistant. >> that is it. >> colleagues, and the questions? ok, hearing and seeing none, any public comment? >> we have one speaker card. commissioner crowley: 90. -- thank you. >> i was almost asleep, but he will bring up when he said good faith effort. we have been talking for the last year-and-a-half. good faith effort does not mean jobs for my people in the community. it is not local hiring. i have heard that word for 40 years. that was when we had redevelopment time for our community, like you had in 1972 the expression of the sewage plant. that word was used. i want you all to delete that

word open a " good-faith effort" but i want to go back to -- " good faith effort" but i want to go back to proposition 26. i have a great concern because of the fact that when you stated if a yes vote goes through, that would jeopardize a lot of people like myself, retirees, receiving less than $62,000 a year, to vessel were on their homes, and you said that the board of supervisors are supposed to be may be voting on it today, a no vote. i do not know because i'm here. i do not know if you have someone who has heard whether or not they have voted on it, but if so, my request to you is that you send notices to those of us that pay our bills,

informing us that 26 will jeopardize, if passed, our solar in san francisco, since we are supposed to be a green city. i'm just asking -- will you please consider that, and let people know and understand? people who do not attend these meetings do not know about services you provide other than challenging us for the sewage, and i would like to say that, too, while i'm on it. i have been back in my home a year, will be, on the 28 of september, and i would like to say i have been receiving my pg&e bill, and my electricity has been less than $4 a month, and this is because of the solar. people listening in the audience because they see me all the time, and i let them know that i

am your ambassador, and i am requesting that everyone get solar because the benefits -- it benefits not only the applicants, but as well as our breathing, our health, and i know we had a concern about those smart meters. there were people at those hearings, and i am afraid, and a lot of people are as well but are getting sick on those smart meters. please get the information on the effect on health here in san francisco. commissioner crowley: 90. >> if i could clarify, no supervisor -- i know supervisor mirkarimi had legislation today. i did not know if that is for today or the 26. >> before the general managers' report, there were some

comments, and i wanted to say something about them. we have a precautionary principle, and that is expressed into the system fish from the aquarium died, in view of that and other things, i think we need to have another hearing. a lot of people that have adverse impact can benefit from that hearing. on the san bruno natural pipeline blast, the gentleman gave some information, but we need to have protocols introduced at the office of emergency services because they did have a meeting there, but the role of sfpuc and the role of other emergency services that

rely on water, we know sometimes we cannot use water in certain cases. we have to use other types of chemicals. in this case, water. we had an incident not too long ago on thomas avenue where we did not have sufficient water. the pressure was very low. my thing is this -- if we know that there are these large gas pipelines in areas where there is a heavy density of homes, we need to establish some sort of pipe line to address that. in southeast corridor, because of the power plants, we do have these large plots. most people do not know about it. i know about it. we cannot reveal it to to many people because, as i said,

after 9/11, things have changed. on the closure of potrero power plant, we have been going back words because of the california independent systems operation, which i said a long time ago, the other one should make that determination. we need to look at it from the point of view that sustainable practices are implemented, but also, the the constituents know about it, and that is always good because any other rebuilding in the city, the constituents need to know about it so they can participate in those deliberations. and i am off to the board of supervisors. thank you very much. commissioner crowley: next

speaker place. >> i had three comments. one on the san bruno incident. david was nice enough to get information to me and then to all the member agencies that your system was intact, and that is very important communication. we appreciate it. otherwise, they'd not know when the system is ok, and that is a horrible place to be, so that the information was very useful. bthe second part, that was on my end, and i will take care of that, but i was not aware of the fact that the rp had been sent and there were no responses. we would be happy to support that. we have people come to every one of our meetings, some of them very constructive and polite, and some of them not so polite.

but we would be very interested in seeing that issue will forward. the letter to the epa, which the commissioner mentioned, specifically asked them if they would do research. it is good that they think the puc is doing a good job, but i would like to respond to the request for research and see what that response is, but we would support that. i would like to be able to support that, and if that is something we could arrange with your general manager. lastly, on the wsip report, just as your report on the power plant in san francisco, there was the issue of who was responsible for cleaning up that contamination, and if that is a cost of the program, we would be interested in knowing whether someone is going after who should pay for that cleanup. thank you. >>