tournaments. the other big driver in pesticide use in the city really is tournament golf. and this is kind of a separate issue on its own. i think what we've concluded in the ipm program is you really can't have tournament golf without having a lot of pesticide use. and, so, it's a community decision as to whether we want to have these deals with golf tournaments. i know there are a lot of benefits as well from the tournaments themselves, but i have to sort of treat that as a separate category of pesticide use. and to their credit, the rec/park golf team has been very, very committed to finding every way we possibly can to reduce pesticide use at harding park golf course. the -- i think that -- i also should explain we don't put public health pesticides in here because that is something for moe mosquitox, for example,

that we really can't control. ~ it's something that is driven by mosquito outbreaks, west nile virus outbreaks, various public health issues, and also those are almost universally very low toxicity products. they are mike robial products that are in storm drains or hormones that are in tiny, tiny amounts ~. so, that's the rationale for not looking at that. these are the top 10 most used hazardous products in the city based on active ingredient, pounds of active ingredient. you'll see most of them are for golf courses. joining us now is [speaker not understood] which is an herbicide used for the really tough weeds, the woody, woody weeds that you would maybe need a backhoe to dig out or that you just himalayan back berry,

cut down the stump and kill the roots [speaker not understood]. the good news is since we i think in 2008 identified garalon as one of the products we wanted to find substitutes for, there has been some decrease in our usage of it. this is natural areas program from rec and park and they are the program responsible for keeping biodiversity in our parks, protecting endemic plant species. and they from time to time have to use pesticide in that process. the purple line is garlon which really started to be used back in the early 2000s and right about -- and it peaked in i think it's 2005 there. and it's been on the decrease since then which we're very

happy about. i would respectfully disagree with the speaker earlier in that the natural areas program usage, according to combined 2010 through 2012 data -- this is different i think than what she had analyzed, which is 2013 data, is actually the smallest portion of rec/park's use. it would be the blue slice on this pie. the green slice is other parks and facilities. the kind of orangish red -- sorry about that. the small orange slice is golden gate park and the big orange is golf. this is just for recreation and park. so, in general, i think -- i'm sorry, i missed one. i meant to discuss the little statistics at the bottom of this graph. we have overall at this point

an 84% reduction in all pesticides since the beginning of the program. since 2000, which is when we really got our system best organized, it's been at 62%. since 2007, which is five-year mark, it's been a 6% reduction. as you can see it's very bumpy, depending on climate, depending on budget, depending on all sorts of things. >> depending on golf as well? >> and depending on golf. so, we are trying to find other ways -- other ways to lower that which i'll talk about in a second. a few other things worthy of note. what we are moving towards instead of -- along with with trying to get rid of the bad stuff on the list of pesticides are more prevention -- i'm sorry, more emphasis on

prevention. one of the big accomplishments this year was the roll out of our pest prevention by design guidelines, which is a comprehensive list of things, ways to build pests out of buildings. we are also promoting bay friendly, bay friendly landscaping system which is along with puc, we're trying to promote these sort of general holistic approaches to landscape management. it's not just about pesticides, it's about planting the right plants so you don't get the pests. the right irrigation so you don't have the diseases, so forth. so, in the past year we've done a lot of trainings. we had another urban ipm conference we co-sponsored, the city of crest and parks conservancy and many thanks to them for helping out in that effort. based on the design training which is the first of its kind in san francisco, we had this past year, and every year we have a complete round of annual

pesticide safety and ipm trainings for anyone who is remotely involved with pesticides. and, of course, our monthly meetings at the ipm technical advisory committee which it's about 10 times a year is what it amounts to. i also wanted to mention we launched a project to turn the pest prevention by design guidelines into a lead pilot credit. so, this is what the u.s. green building council, we're using the same national committee that helped put this -- these guidelines together to try to turn it into something that's permanently enshined in leed. so, i'm crossing my fingers about that one. and as i mentioned, we completed, i put quotes around that. we completed the [speaker not understood] database. there are still some big improvements that need to happen, but we have the data now. and which we did not have last time. ~ i spoke to you. i think i'm going to skip that

one for the moment. but just to talk about the list itself, this year we proceeded with our usual process on the list. the list is heavily managed -- what i have to tell everyone who asks is the list is not the program. we would not have the list if we didn't have this group of people meeting every month and talking about these things. and it requires extensive management. so, every year we go through it one by one, ask whether these products are really the safest available for the purpose. are they really necessary in the first place. and are they being used, and make changes accordingly. and you'll see we added 8 products this year, removed 12. there were language changes and a whole bunch of them. ~ in a whole bunch of them. and it's -- i always also have to say that the number of products on the list is not one of them -- not a metric for us.

these are -- this is a tool box but the real metric is how much they end up using. let's see. so, there are a lot of different ways that we -- in addition to the pest prevention by design guidelines, there are many, many other ways that we have been working every day to try to reduce pesticide use and kevin is really the expert on this. he actually did a really great project with cockroaches in the nursery which has been successful, kind of a multi-prong approach to getting the pest with the bare minimum of [speaker not understood] basically which is a low toxicity product. we do a lot of -- at harding park, i should mention even though we don't have anything to show for this yet, we are working closely on a -- with

them on a new ipm plan and this is our way of trying to address a very difficult situation where during a tournament we have exemptions flying at me from the tournament organizers. and i am not a golf expert and it is very difficult to us to judge how necessary these things are. so, if we have a better ipm plan in place that will help answer the questions before they're asked, i hope. i think that's all i have for you right now, except to -- i encourage you to ask any questions you may have and to take advantage of kevin's presence here today, some of the good stuff they're doing. >> thank you so much, chris. commissioner gravanis? >> well, i would be interested, if it's all right with the commission, to invite kevin roland come up and just briefly

summarize rec and park's approach to ipm and give a couple of examples of the good work that you're doing. >> welcome. >> my name is kevin roland. hello, commissioners. i would like to also thank you for the great work that the department of environment does. it's the inspiration for me to come to work for the city. i owned my own business for many years and wound up selling it to a national company. and after looking at the ipm ordinance and the good work that san francisco is doing and the model that it really is, not just around the country but in other places in the world for sustainable pest management, that was what inspired me to apply for the job. and i thought i'd really like to be part of this. i started working for the city with the bureau of urban forestry and then a fellow named ross montana talked me

into it joining recreation and parks which is a challenging job, even for a person like myself with 25 years experience in pest management. some of the programs that we have done, and i'm very proud of, recreation and parks, chris mentioned the conservatory of flowers where we had an invasion of cockroach species. we used a combination of natural enemies to the cockroach as well as some very low-impact insect sidual materials like boric acid and some [speaker not understood]. and that problem is controlled ~. once it was a very visible problem that actually was an encumbrance to renting the facility out for various things. same thing with -- i don't know if any of you got to enjoy the

poinsettias at christmas [speaker not understood], that would be used on those flowers. time after time, rodent control, i'll go out and inspect a facility and it's always about rodent proving the facility first, and trapping rather than using some sort of bait. we don't use any second generation rodent base on parks properties. i find that understanding the breeding cycles, these different organisms can help me control them by knowing when to place and utilize my efforts and expertise to reduce the populations before breeding season, for instance, so we're not having adults out there reproducing. but those are just a few things. like to use, for instance, in natural areas program, i have meetings with them. i am a pest control advisor and a licensed structural pest control operator as well as a

qal which is a qualified applicator. so, i'll have meetings. sit down and talk, and my questions are always what are we doing first and they talk to me about the hours of volunteer work that goes on in the natural areas programs. their own manual efforts, which i actually have seen. i go out and visit these sites, whether they be parks or natural areas properties. so, i would say that my commitment to reducing use of pesticide, is a, i would be one of the applicators. i would be more inclined to use less than more. there is no incentive whatsoever for someone making an application to want to use more of the material. more than what might be necessary. the only reason that we do use it is sometimes these areas are

so difficult to get to manually to remove weeds, for instance, in a restoration project where just the sheer size of it, it wouldn't make sense or we don't have the resources to manually do this. but we've tried goats in some cases to remove weeds. we're looking into something called hydro [speaker not understood], which is a machine that uses a have high pressure water to destroy weeds and the root systems. i have to way some things like my caution erosion. is this equipment able to get into these areas. there's a lot to think about, i deal with basically all of the kingdoms and biology as well as some of these pesticides and having to be knowledgeable on that and the interactions between these different organisms. and oftentimes we use that in

control, for instance, coyotes and gophers. and that's what we encourage, to have these rafters and blue herrons, this time of year, you see them out there hunting. this year in our annual pesticide safety training which is mandatory, the second part is sold out by our biodiversity. we've invited fish and game to come in and do training with the staff to answer questions and be aware of wildlife in the parks and their role. and the second part is the predator/prey relationship between raptors and rodents. i hope that hope fully gives you a good description of my role which is to reduce pesticide use where i can ~. it's the main thing i do. >> thank you very much. thank you for everything you

do. all right, colleagues, questions? if there's no other discussion from the commission, do we have any comments from the public on this item? yes, ms. bose. [speaker not understood]. >> and hooray for the goats. you don't have to do a card. that's okay. i would like to start by thanking chris and kevin for their work in trying to reduce pesticide use. i'm speaking now as an individual and not representing any of the organizations with which i'm affiliated. i've been following pesticide use now for several years and attending the meetings that chris holds in order to discuss the reduced risk pesticide list and i'd like to complement them on how open these buildings are

and how willing they are to take feedback from the public. having said that, i still have two issues with the presentation that chris made. first of all, i have a question about whether it really is work putting in so much pesticide into the natural areas. and the fact is that i don't think that the numbers that we've showed on that graph for pesticide use are accurate. going back to what i said in the database, just off the top of my head, there were two months of data missing in 2010. there was at least one month of data missing in 2013. there were three or four different reports that didn't get included in 2012. so, i think the database is working to its greater accuracy. i don't know if it's there yet.

certainly at the little subset i looked at which was natural areas, it's still not right. so, i can't speak to what happened before 2008 and 2009. that's the earliest information that i've got. but certainly in the last few years the natural areas program has been using a lot of pesticide and i understand why. their job cannot be done without it. the question is, is that job worth doing? is it worth putting so much insecticide -- sorry, not insecticide, all herbicides? and thank you to the natural areas program for not using insecticides. but is it worthwhile using so much herbicide to try and remove plants without really strongly rooted in the foil over there, but make that naturally grow there now, even if they were not here in 17 76, they are now the natural

vegetation of these areas ~. so, is it really worth this much pesticide use in order to do that? so, really, those are my two comments. number one, is it worth it to do the natural areas with so much pesticide? and number two, the database still needs help and, you know, to the extent that i personally can be of any assistance, i would like to offer chris that i would do so. thank you. >> thank you. any other members of the public? seeing none, public comment is closed. you know, it sounds like, ms. bose, give notice of the meetings in the conversations, that's maybe a good forum. and thanks for coming and sharing with us. as long as there is a forum, you're notified and able to engage on all these. at a minimum that's a good thing. please don't hesitate to keep us up to speed.

any other questions? just one quick observation. looking at the pie graph, man, that golf is really -- so, just a quick question for chris. why do people play golf? just kidding. withdraw the question. [laughter] >> 80% last period of all pesticides from golf. any other questions? so, this is an action item we he need to approve the list for this year. anybody that is ready to make a motion that we approve the list? >> motion to approve the list. >> i'll second it. >> all those in favor please say aye. >> aye. >> those opposed please say nay. ayes have it. [gavel] >> thank you, everyone. item 12, please, monica. >> review and recommendation on updated climate action strategy priorities for 2014. [speaker not understood]. this is action strategies list

for commissioners, walled, grab varess, josefowitz, speaker cal broom head. this is a discussion and possible action item. >> thank you. commissioner josefowitz. >> so, does everybody have a copy of the climate action strategy? >> no, coming out next week. >> excellent. is it coming out next week? >> yes. >> that was the good news. i thought i was -- >> oh, -- >> we're going to drop and everything. i missed the opportunity. >> anyway, so, this is i think one of the departments and melanie's great achievements is putting together this climate action strategy which is kind of cool to what the department does, to drive the emissions down to the city's targets. it's been a long time coming,

but it's really good. so, really excited to hear about it. >> terrific. well, i'm really excited to give you an overview of it and we can get into more detail and try to answer your questions. and i'm going to try to give you some context about the report itself. before i start, i wanted to make a comment about commissioner arce's request or interest in the holding an event to highlight those departments that have done a great job at hacto. every year in june, we sponsor the blue green awards where we highlight departments that have done particularly well or done some great specific project related to all of the climate action strategy activities in their climate action plans. and it's a wonderful event. we weren't able to hold it last year because war memorial was being done and that was our

cheap, low-cost venue. and we hadn't quite finished fully moving in yet at that point, so, it was tough to hold it at the department and we had no budget for it. but i think this year we're going to be in much better shape. >> if we do, i love where i think you're going with this. does our trophy shop have like a little green truck trophy? >> well, i was thinking to have a trophy of the light duty vehicle that's not there. >> there you go. >> we'll have to think about how to do that. >> so, the good news, thank you for letting the cat out of the bag. the climate action strategy is printed. it's almost going to be ready to be released. i wasn't informed it was next week. it might be the week after, but the website is now ready. our outreach campaign is prepared the team is ready to

move. if you've got questions about that. is there anybody from our outreach team? guillermo is in the audience. so, if you've got any questions about that, he can address it. so, where are we with climate action? this first slide should come up in a moment. it's going to show you greenhouse gas emissions, where they come from by sector. and you can see that the building energy use is actually the dominant area that creates greenhouse gas emissions. of course, we have to admit this does not include air travel. that is out at the airport and under federal jurisdiction. so, this is what we have under our control. and this is how it breaks out by sector and by use. and you notice that both natural gas and electricity have big chunks within the

building sector. and we're going to -- we can talk about each one of these pieces and where that's coming from. of course, the picture for the city departments looks a bit different from this. and you can see that the residential and commercial are actually roughly equal with actually more of it being in residential than in commercial. which i know is a surprise to a lot of people. they think it's all those big buildings downtown and industrial uses and it's actually -- it's us. so, looking at the trends over the years, if you look at this graph, we he started in 1990, tracking data. and i would like to point out that tracking this data is no simple thing because data collected over periods of time, the way the data is collected gets changed.

and then you have to go back and readjust all the old numbers with whatever information you can gather about the time. but we have had some big decreases in the amount of gas emissions and it's been largely in the electricity sector and the shut down of hunters point and it potrero power plants which were the large electricity producers. [speaker not understood], shutting them down was a big thing. it made a big step in not just cleaning up our air, but cleaning up the content, greenhouse gas emissions content of our electricity. now we're much more similar to -- similar to the rest of the grid through the state. incidence of asthma in the nearby neighboring communities has dropped significantly since then. >> has it? >> well, that's really good news.

another tangent to take. the blue line, there is where our climate action strategy will take us through to 2030. and you'll notice the dots along the line, those are -- we have san francisco targets that we want to achieve and we think this is going to help -- we're going to be able to meet our -- meet those targets, the 2025 target, et cetera, and you notice that we're considerably below both the international and the state targets. now, one of the things that has come up in the last several months is what about the municipal greenhouse gas emissions reductions. we've actually been tracking that data since the mid -- since, well, probably started 6 years ago, 8 years ago, started tracking that data. so, we haven't been able to bring down the municipal usage at the same amount because

we've had more time to run on the community wide data. so, just a little bit of a context on the data piece of this is that this report uses 2010 data. and you might be thinking this is 2014. why are we using 2010 data? we collect data on the community wide basis about every two years because it takes a lot of effort to do it. and it takes a long time. for example, a pg&e representative just told me the other day that they still had not completed the coefficient of greenhouse gas emissions verified and approved for the 2012 data. so, even if we tried to collect the 20 2012 data today, we would not be able to. we would have the data this summer and go to third-party verification and go you through that process some time in

august or early september. so, we would be able to give an update to the update in terms of where we are. and i'm hoping the number will come in very close to the 20% production during the 1990 levels that we had set as a target, but are all waiting with bated breath to find out. but don't hold your breath for 10 months. keep breathing. so, where are our reduction strategies coming from? and the biggest one is the 100% renewable electricity. that's the big orange slice there. and if you think about it, the bottom slice is the orange -- the red one there is energy efficiency. and i just want to kind of contrast the two pieces. that if you think about energy efficiency, this is going into homes and going into buildings and actually conducting a transaction and doing physical work, disturbing their place of work, disturbing their home,

their building that they live and work in. this is difficult. not everybody is ready to get that done in their home today or tomorrow or even this year. and, so, there is kind of a slow market acceptance to doing energy efficiency. it takes money and commitment. so, these sorts of things are dependent on actually changing equipment and behavior at the end of the pipeline are harder to do. whereas if you can do something like renewable electricity where you're taking already what's connected to the home, it's already connected to the building and you're just changing the quality of it, that's a lot easier to do. it's a lot cheaper to do. so, 100% renewable. we could think of that in terms of natural gas also. we just aren't that many dairy farms out there that we can pump the gas and the lines and start promg