public utilities commission good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. i would like to call this special joint meeting of the san francisco public utilities commission and the commission on the environment to order. it's just a little after 3:00 p.m.. mad am secretary please call the roll. >> for the puc courtney. caen, commissioners moran, torres?

>> here. >> for the environment commission president jash -- josh units ua arce, stevenson, nicholas, commissioners sarah wong, commissioner king is excused. >> please call the next item. >> please call for public comment. >> opening remarks for item 3. opening remarks by public utilities commission press vince courtney and xhis on the environment president joshua arce. >> we'll call for public comment on this item, but before we do, commissioner arce? >> thank you. on behalf of all of us at the san francisco

commission on environment, we are excited to be here today. we've been talking about getting together with the puc for a long time and it's been years since our committee met. i think we all agree that it's certainly the environment commission and the puc as well that there is a major sense of shared response responsibility in the amount of work we do. it's not just the environment of the commission is sole stewards of the environment and they are running water and power. from today we are excited about learning in more ways to collaborate. the city's environmental agenda has a lot to benefit from today's conversations particularly as we seek to engage communities historically not engaged or part of the traditional environmental movement and as

we talk about increasing job creation for city of san francisco through these programs. we are excited to be here today and we'll learn about the partnerships that we have and a little bit about each other's departments and the teams and we hope from the conversations from the commission and the staff and public and the community we come up with some ideas of what we can do. i want to thank your commission, courtney and the staff and the department on the environment and leadership and particularly from our shop at the end of our meetings, that our commission secretary monica fish. thank you very much for leading up to today. >> thank you very much. along those lines we had an opportunity as an organization to appear before the commission and had an opportunity to meet some of the commissioners at the

environment commission. i was impressed with the expertise and the enthusiasm that you all had and wanted to find ways to engage you in some of the items that we continually engage as an organization. here as my role in the public utilities commission i couldn't be moren enthusiastic about meesing with you for the first time, meeting jointly with you to discuss all the overlapping objectives and goals and a partnership moving forward and routinely getting together with each other publically and privately to talk about some of the things that we can kind of do jointly and individually as one. in particular i'm interested in looking towards putting together some joint initiatives, but i'm also looking to making sure that people have an at some point to talk about and think about all of the great things that the public utilities

commission has done for the environment and some of the great work. i think today's meeting is probably just an exercise in illustrating a lot of the things that the puc has been able to do over the course of the past several years that the commission on the department of environment obviously staff should think pretty highly of. oftentimes people talk about what's not occurring and what's not happening without talking about the glass being half full. no pun intend. with that, president arrests -- arce? public comment? >> we are going to call for public comment. dr. spin ola jackson. thank you for being here. >> jackson and what i would like to do is give a little history of the environmental committee when it was set up. i was the representative for

mayor jordan back in '96 because of the fact that we had problems in my community. in 1990, they were having the 20th anniversary of earth day well, i knew about earth day by watching tv, the news in the afternoon and they would talk about saving the whales, saving the whales. i got a chance to meet the young man responsible for earth day in his office. he stated a word to me. he said, it's about environmental racism. i said, environmental racism? he said, yes. now, i didn't know what the environment meant but i sure knew what racism meant. when he explained to me that all the toxins go into the

black communities and latino communities. i said wait a minute, you cannot hold no more earth days in chrissy fields. in 1990 was the 20th anniversary for earth day and held in bayview hunters poise -- point. from 1990-1996. i was making sure the mayor of the city, the board of supervisors, we would give tours in bayview hunters points because we had over 500 toxic sites in bayview hunters point. people were sick and dying and we did not know why. that was the reason the environmental committee came up and then it became a commission because of the fact of the mayor of san francisco and the board of supervisors that first started this committee. i just wanted to give you a history. i have been to some of your meetings

and i was told that you couldn't do anything about land. i said what? that's what a toxic is? how did that come about? you all need to do something about that because my people are dying in bayview hunters point because of the air that we breathe, the land that our children are playing on is all toxic. if you go into your internet because i know you use internet and look up harriet park and it will tell you how many days the children or anyone should even be there. you can also look up toxic city, san francisco. i'm glad to see someone is writing down what i'm saying because it's very important for you to know about bayview hunters point and about the community and why this body was set up and the need for you to be concerned about the lice of -- lives of the people that are maybe going to move into this area that shouldn't move

in. i would like to thank you very much and would like to say to shows of you in the environmental commission that i am the ambassador for solar, for puc. so i support solar in fact i was the first to receive solar for the low income seniors. i'm 81 years of age and i want to make sure that i'm here to make sure that you all continue with the solar program. it is very important to the people of san francisco. when i read a paper and see where solar in other countries, poor countries have solars for a whole city and here in america, here in san francisco, we can't have solar? that's a disgrace. with all the money we have in the united states because san francisco has always been the forerunner and the leaders for everything in the state, in the united states of where you are in america. i want to

thank you all. at least i got a few more minutes. i have 51 minutes. i have said everything i need to said. you have a blessed day and i can go home and wap -- watch you all on tv. thank you. >> thank you doctor jackson for being here. is there any more public comment on item no. 3. >> mr. brooks? good afternoon. >> item 3, public comment. i -- i'm mr. brooks. representing san francisco the various aspects have worked to launched the clean air program. which thankful the lack of lack of local agency formation in san francisco did not get finished to plan

the build out of hundreds of mega watt of clean energy in san francisco to put thousands of people to work in san francisco over the next 10 years, around a thousand or more per year with the local 261 which is well represented in this room right now. and i just want to note that the reason i can talk about clean powersf in public comment is that it's not on your agenda at all. we've gone before the subcommittees and the commission or the environment commission recently insisting that the cleanpowersf plans and program be put back into climate action strategy. that the mayor pressured the department of the environment to remove from the climate action strategy when

previously the department of environment staff said there's no way the city can make it's environmental goals and greenhouse gas goals with clean power powersf. it's absurd that it's not in there. sense it's -- since it's in the local area formation, it needs to go back in there. we said this before to the environment commission and have seen it not agenda ized and seen no action on it. the commission needs to say to the public what's up. then i would add a a n a little bit unconferredable -- uncomfortable notes the puc put the budget back in the

mayor's lap because it was inappropriately making a grab as monies that the board of supervisors specifically set aside for cleanpowersf. the interesting thing you should know about that budget hearing is that essentially what the mayor did was attempted to use that grab at the money to say, okay, now, even though the mayor has been cutting go solar sf repeatedly year after year which is another really important program to the building trade. even though mayor cut that and had been cutting energy efficiency funds repeatedly, suddenly the mayor is trying to make himself mr. good guy on clean energy and fully fund go solar sf. basically that was an intent to put go solar sf and fight over the same money. lucky for us we didn't get into that fight and we all

stood together in that hearing. the budget hearing sent a strong message to mayor lee that he has to stop playing games and fully advance both of these programs and stop twisting the arms of the people on these commissions to do his bidding when it's not the right answer for san francisco. the climate question is an emergency. we hear news reports every week about what an emergency it is. we count on all of you to move these programs forward rapidly. >> thank you mr. brooks for being here. is there anymore public comment on item no. 3? >> good afternoon. >> good afternoon, my name is robin share. i'm speaking for the trees in san francisco and speaking for the san francisco forest alliance. as part of the department of the environment and the natural areas program, i would strongly urge for the care and preservation of all san francisco trees to stop the

destruction of san francisco open space trees. you are caring for the water h20 and the carbon needs to be second questered and the 400 parts per million to 350 parts per million which were always considered the absolute maximum co 2 load in the environment. i have to say that no one ever voted to remove the iconic you eucalyptus trees in san francisco. it is shocking to go by an area that is under construction by recreation and parks to see trees removed from the area. people i have talked to about it have misconceptions. there are all

kinds of things written and said about you can leadership -- eucalyptus trees that are not true. we are waiting to talk to the professors in order to get it together. i really think the eucalyptus as san francisco's official tree. when i get back to san francisco i smell the eucalyptus and the money from the bond said restore the park. i don't think anyone thought that we were trying to restore them to the 1700s. i haven't used my time. someone else can have it. >> thank you very much for being here today. anymore public comment? i'm going to call or commissioner walt?

>> thank you very much. i had a clarifying question about something that our first public speaker eric brooks said. is it in fact correct that we could not say anything about cleanpowersf under this agenda? i have to admit that i read 4e as a topic under which -- >> you are right. under 4 e, we plan to go under cleanpowersf and other renewable efficiency programs. that's under 4e under the next item. >> thank you. >> thank you. can i call francisco decosta. thank you. >> commissioners, my name is francisco decosta. i want to speak about the people of this

area. i read the agenda and subjectively speaking, this agenda is about bringing two bodies together to decide about something. and i want to watch how you are deliberating this something. what i want to speak about is that 350 years ago, all that you see here was pristine. it belonged to the first people what we have done without contamination is on us. and what we want to do using fancy words like carbon foot print and addressing that is on us. do we really have the empirical data on the carbon foot print that we are going to be addressing? i doubt so. having said that, i

would encourage the san francisco puc to bring full on hetch hetchy and bring to san francisco here our home. don't sell it to somebody else and you have those permits and when those permits come before you, don't renew them. bring that hydro electric city right here to our city. let's see if you can do that. regarding the department of environment which was created not long ago by willie brown, i would encourage the department of environment to enforce the precautionary principle. you heard dr. spinola speak about contamination in the bayview. the department of environment hasn't said a word about hunters point, hasn't said anything about this rogue

development harming or children and elders. hasn't said anything. if the department on environment dare to do the right thing or just to rubber stamp, we want to know. the precautionary principle and those who want to learn something is to find out that there is something wrong or contamination or whatever we need to stop and we need to go into investigation mode and see and he talks about our life, not only human life, every type of life. anyway, i am looking forward to the deliberations today to see how you interact on substantial things, viable things, holistic things. thank you very much. >> thank you francisco for being here. >> thank you, i'm looking forward to the presentations and the public from the

feedback as we go forward to the next item. >> madam secretary. no. 4, please. city clerk: item 4. presentation and discussion of sf puc and sf environment shared responsibilities and plans to advance the city's environmental goals in toxics reduction and environmental safety, water conservation, wastewater management, clean vehicle adoption and renewable generation and energy efficiency including a discussion of opportunities, challenges and potential future collaboration in pursuit of environmental objectives. >> speakers for toxic production and safety. not yet. >> you can jump ahead, that's

fine with me. i'm michael carl in the chief operating officer for the san francisco public utilities commission to give you a level of what we do and david will be presenting some unifying point and we want to get into discussion with the staff because that's where the real meat is. this is education for those who don't understand what we do. we are a water and power and sewer agency. we are about 1800 employees spread out over 160 miles. our primary businesses you will hear a lot about today. our water system, a lot of people talk about the hetch hetchy system. when you look at it, it's not just hetch hetchy reservoir. we have others in the sierras. lake elsinore and -- we have

hydroelectric power which we do transmit to san francisco. we also deliver water to 6.2 million pl -- people and provide services. for the light in this building, and water and sewer service is hetch hetchy power. we serve 2.6 million people. most of our water can ustomers are not in san francisco. in fact we have a water supply agreement with can ustomers that define our relationship and they make-up two-thirds of our water sales. we deliver 220 million gallons of water per day from hetch hetchy. water leaving hetch hetchy travels to one of our reservoirs. it's a high quality water source. we do not filter the water. we just disinfect it. we have

from the environmental protection agency and public health. we have 1 billion kilowatt hours each year on average. our sewer system is a combined sewer system. we take in both our storm water and our sanitary sewage into same system. we are only two cities in the state of california that has a combined system and the other is in sacramento. you will find most of the older cities in the united states has a combined sewer system. new york, philadelphia and others, chicago. we do have a system that's own 100 years old. the city has been around since the gold rush. we have about 1,000 miles in the city. what are our core priorities: there are three, deliver high quality and reliable services. that's what

our people do 24/7. we need to maintain our critical infrastructure. we'll talk about that and last but not least, we have to be afford avenlt ---ible. we don't want people to leave town. >> what have we done? it's the water improvement program. we are going to spend $4.6 billion to you -- upgrade our water system and we should be very proud of that. there are still several key projects under way but hope to be completed in the next several years. we are moving forward with the $7 billion sewer improvement program. this is important because it will update the sewer treatment plan for the first time in several years. we are the first to recover from the third largest fire, the rim fire. the recovery efforts are still under way. if you have

not been there, it is quite remarkable how much damage that caused. that fire was seven times the size of san francisco. we are in a middle of a drought. we are asking people to reduce their consumption by 10 percent throughout our service area and we are monitoring that closely and we'll hear more about that later. last but not least on the affordability index we are setting our rates for the next 4 years. that's important for both the water and sewer system because it creates financial stabilities and allows us to move ahead with our large improvement programs. today we'll cover a number of different things. this is for the viewing audience at home and include toxic and water safety and wastewater management, clean vehicle adoption and newer energy and efficiency. i will turn to my counter part. >> thank you. david as --

acting director for the department. i want to go over the goals of sf puc. i looked at one of our primary goals to keep waste of the landfill and reduce toxins. that interest twiens -- inter twines with sf puc. we try to keep them out of the landfill and wastewater. or energy and climate renubls are our energy efficiency work and renunl -- renewable work and climate work, we address the public sector. we who, with residents and businesses and the if 123

-- sf puc works with the department. two can be linked to fire. the rim fire and the drought. neither would be severe if we with respect to dealing with a long-term clierment change that is affecting a whole variety of what we deal with everyday on this environment. our issue helps all of us. our work and energy efficiency on the adoption of more renewables and greenhouse gas emissions, sits on well. we work together on a variety day-to-day programs like our green business program which is a citywide business program and the department of sf puc and other departments in the business program. we work together on urban forestry. puc is with the urban council and agricultural issues and

environment issues and they are all part of the agency working group. we have a common goal of providing justice and common goals of providing transportation and increasing the number of the electric vehicles infrastructure for this city. we have lots of room for growth as well in terms of projects where we can work together. our outreach efforts are already partnering with sf puc and other areas and a lot more. for example, for the past few years, our school education program has carried water conservation message to children on behalf of sf puc. we have departments now that reaches people door to door throughout the city, it's an area where we can cooperate and work together and --