supervisor kim: we are now back in session. >> regarding the portion of parcels, the tpnja board

unanimously authorized the agreement with hines. >> that does conclude your agenda for the day. supervisor kim: cnn, we are adjourned. -- seeing none.

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 >> the next time you take a muni bus or train, there could be new technology that could make it easier to get to your destination. many are taking a position of next bus technology now in use around the city. updated at regular intervals from the comfort of their home or workplace.

next bus uses satellite technology and advanced computer modeling to track buses and trains, estimating are bought stocks with a high degree of accuracy. the bus and train our arrival information can be accessed from your computer and even on your cellular phone or personal digital assistant. knowing their arrival time of the bus allows riders the choice of waiting for it or perhaps doing some shopping locally or getting a cup of coffee. it also gives a greater sense that they can count on you to get to their destination on time. the next bus our arrival information is also transmitted to bus shelters around the city equipped with the next bus sign. riders are updated strictly about arrival times. to make this information available, muni has tested push to talk buttons at trial shelters. rider when pushes the button, the text is

displayed -- when a rider pushes the button. >> the success of these tests led to the expansion of the program to all stations on the light rail and is part of the new shelter contract, push to talk will be installed. check out the new technology making your right easier every day>> good afternoon.

now like to call the january 24 meeting of the public utilities commission to order. secretary, would you call the roll? [calling roll] i expect vice-president torres to be joining us shortly. >> we will go into closed session at the beginning of the meeting. any public comment on the items listed in closed session? he none, can have a motion? >> so move. a-- seeing none, can i have a motion? >> conference of legal counsel anticipated litigation is council of bill legal counselor.

conference with legal counsel existing litigation as defend iant fontana v city and county f san francisco. government code se >> we are now live. [inaudible] president moran: we are back in open session. the commission met in closed session and took no action on items 5, 6, and nine. the commission did approve settlements on items 7 and 8. can i have a motion as to whether disclose discussion during closed session?

>> motion not to disclose. >> second. >> motion carries. -- president moran: motion carries. mr. secretary, if you would call item 12. >> item 12, approval of the minutes. approval of the minutes of the january 10, 2012, regular meeting. president moran: any revisions or corrections to the minutes? could i have a motion? to go so move. >> second. -- >> so moved. president moran: all those in favor? motion carries. >> item 13, public comment. this opportunity is members of the public may address the commission on matters that are within the commission's jurisdiction that are not on today's agenda. i have no speaker cards so far. president moran: mr. acodecosta

, welcome. >> happy new year. i think 2012 is going to be a very challenging year and a good way. i am here to talk about the san francisco redevelopment agency, and at some of the changes that are being fostered. not because the city needs it, but because the state demands that somebody take charge of the assets and a one ever has been grandfathered in. so they have to do it rather quickly.

after the martin luther king holidays we did not get sufficient time when the meeting was held for some sort of resolution being presented. today that same resolution will be before the board of supervisors, and if they vote on it, then all of the details will be taken care of. and whether you like it or not, and i am talking about the san francisco public utilities commission, with all that's happening with the america's cup, this, that, and the other, the larger properties of mission bay, hunters point, candlestick point, comes under your jurisdiction or one way or another. whether it is you wersewer, clen

water, and also, energy. even transportation effects you in one way or another because of the infrastructure. so because every development has gone away, other large parties are primed to come in, if they have the money some of which they do in some cases. in so i am here to say that with a sewer system improvement project, which is in our backyard, and with whatever else is happening, sfpuc is poised to have san franciscans, because we know the training was done and a lot of money came from the redevelopment and other enterprise agencies are going to have changes there.

and so i am here to request that the southeast sector is taken care of so that we have people with skills to do the right thing when the right time comes. thank you very much. president moran: and you. any additional public comment? -- thank you. seeing none, communications. we have a fairly rich set of communications that have been provided to the commission with this agenda. faugh foon item three, a quartey report on the waste water improvement projects, i know it does combine the interim cip and anticipated ssip. that is something we requested, and i appreciate you doing that.

that is something we were asked to develop under recent. that is something very positive. i appreciate that. >> on the same topic, page 10 of that report, ongoing construction. i wanted to ask about the cost variants, which is almost 11 percent signed. -- 11%. that would be the figures on page 11. >> page 11 is blank. >> let's see. capital improvement programs.

that is quite a bit. why is it so much? >> do you have this report? item 14, 3c and under tab 2, page 10 and 11. i think i can answer it.

and there are two big things. the single biggest thing is $7 million. originally we were going to do this in two different phases. we record to do an underground portion, and then we were going to do a trench on another portion of it, and this came to the commission two or three meetings ago where we said this micro tunneling went so well that by continuing to continue to do micra tunneling and bringing in a new contract would save us time and money, so we amended the old contract, which is the reason for $7 million. but we figured it would probably cost us 8 million or $9 million to have an outside contractor do that, and we would have to stop the entire process. that is the major portion. >> see, we do look at these things. [laughter] president moran: it is a format that point out things like that.

where things are happening, and makes it clear they are happening. >> for that one change, the real variants stake here is more along the lines of 2%, right? -- the real variant figure at stake here is more along the lines of 2%, right? president moran: any other comment on the communications? >> thank you for catching that item. this is a really comprehensive projects under way. it is very helpful.

i assume it is on the website. perhaps people >> any other public comment? commissioners, is there any other commission business? >> without any, the report of the general manager. >> good afternoon. we have two items today. first is a short update of where we are. >> as part of today's agenda, we're going to seek your approval for the clothes out of two regional project. i would like to give you a progress update on the

challenges that have been encountered in the last two weeks, starting with that eastern segment of the pipeline currently on my radar screen. there are two issues that could lead to potential schedule delays. one is the potential delay of fabrications -- fabrication of the pipes and the other is the need to secure a missing environmental permit from fish and game. we have a project tracking these issues and i am confident we will be able to mitigate these issues and the overall project schedule will not be delayed, but i wanted you to be aware. i want to keep you apprised of two of the most challenging progress issues. it continues to