credit because we put it there for their use at the right time of the year and the rest of the state is in hurting shape and this is a state water project so we look at concerns going into the next year so what about next year? so we have done some modeling going forward. the first note if it's above or at median precipitation we're -- [inaudible] average year that is enough to fill hetch hetchy three times so an average year would be really nice to have. if it's similar to 2007 and low precipitation and at least some snowfall and dryer than normal but the results will keep us at 10% reduction and something that we can sustain in the future.

if it's the lowest bar with precipitation and see those conditions in april and may we will talk to our customers because we will plan for a 20% reduction in the coming months, whenever that might be, and one thing we need to talk to them is we all conserved a lot. the demand is down 20% and now we're asking for 10% more, start to ask people to do a lot of things so we don't want to take that step unless we thoroughly understand the consequences of that but in the meantime if we're in a different situation i think the rest of the state is going to look grim as well so there will be discussion about what needs to be done state wide and i think we have to think about alternative water supply options. not that we're going to build something tomorrow but do we need to think about a

[inaudible] plant or direct potable reuse water strategy, something that might take time to implement but if the conditions consider those are the considerations that we as prudent water managers have to be thinking about so again if it's a 1977 year we need to have serious conversations last spring. briefly i will turn to the next topic and we indicated to the customers there are wasting behaviors not acceptable so we set up a system with 311, public works problem line for people to report water wasting. they can do it through the call center or online with 311 or water conservation. we take the complaints anyway they come and get them into our 311 data base and getting information back out to people. any indication people are wasting water we're

sending a warning letter or postcard. we're getting information out there what people need to do to conserve water. for the first nine months we had 400 reports received and issued 182 notices to people and the reason that is lower many of the reports don't have enough information to actually act o they name a city block or intersection as opposed to an actual address so we don't know who to send the information to and when we get a chance we follow up and is there something to observe and so far i am happy to say we issued one 82 first notices. we haven't had to issue a second one yet or any repeat complaints on a given property so that's a good thing. if they have a problem they're taking action to fix it and we can get on with our lives and that's a quick update on the drought and i am happy to answer

any questions. >> commissioners any questions? i have a couple. your slide on the different reservoirs -- they don't show the big one in los angeles, do they? >> diamond valley is not on there. it's the 800-foot off storage that they built years ago. there was a item -- i saw metropolitan announced that the system wide storage was down substantially. they still have a fair amount left but they're probably in pretty good shape. i say pretty good because we're in pretty good shape and other places in the state are less so but that is because we made heavy investments to get there. >> okay. my other question is what happened to the joint effort to look into a desal plan? >> we have been working with the other bay area agencies,

about five of them looking at that and we've generated material. we're trying to determine that work and we have many opportunities to improve our regional reliability. so you may recall we brought principles of agreement looking forward at a different array of different projects and some would benefit a sub set of us and some would benefit all of us. for example, we are looking at a desalination proprotect that alameda county has on line where they can put that water into our system directly for a very minimal cost. that's a very attractive project we might be able to start in the next year or two and they're doing the work and next to our pipelines. we working with

east bay mud and -- [inaudible] santa clara county water purification plan -- their reverse osmosis plan for having recycled water and one step away from reuse and we're looking at that collectively so within the next year we need to determine the ones we will invest in most and i think we will talk about that in the cip process coming up. >> yes? >> thank you. the conversations i have had with leading agricultural experts on environmental issues unrelated to the puc some of the growers, -- especially some of the almond growers are starting to desal nate the water within the san joaquin. have you been monitoring those activities for lessons learned or are they too small some. >> they are doing a number of

things and particularly on the west side. the one i heard about is a distillation process and it sounds quite promising. they're doing small scale. they want to start stepping it up. i personally think that for the area of water research, desalination is where it's at right now in the water biz because anything that can bring the energy costs down is going to help that a lot and make it more attractive to a lot of people so there is a lot of research going right now. we are currently putting money into direct potable research done by the foundation on the health effects of basically reusing wastewater and putting into the drinking water system. it's been an idea not attractive but the conversation in the last years has increased dramatically on that front. >> and very important because

there have been areas where natural occurring chemicals occur within our environmental system, not necessarily because of pesticide use, so those are distinctions that are extremely important as we move forward, and with my other hat in terms of finding for the first time a causal relationship between autism and pesticide spraying during gestation has an impact with the water supply. many of the friends in the central part of the state are hurting in terms of potable water availability so anything that we can do and i applaud commissioner caen's question as well and anything that we can do will be significant and important. >> mr. kelly, i would like to request that we put on the calendar to have an update maybe quarterly on these various items that you just talked about. i think it would be nice to be

apprized of that. >> great. >> okay. >> and can you keep me on your mailing list? >> i knew you were going to ask that. >> thank you. >> okay. the next item is new irvington tunnel update. dan wade. >> [inaudible] >> oh i'm sorry. i didn't ask for public comment. it's a bad habit of mine. public comment. >> it's important to have public comment because the drought affects everybody. one of the things that i have

noticed we can make statements in general about the drought. that's okay. and everybody's hurting. i have -- since we live in san francisco we have to be forward thinking and we're not forward thinking. the staff is not forward thinking. we have proprietary technology that can help us right now, not only in the central valley but here in san francisco, and nobody wants to be forward thinking. like you know primitive [inaudible] and i know that sounds harsh, but what about forward thinking? what about

having a real conference on drought and bringing our university students, our scientists and addressing it just like when we had this napa earthquake. that's what we need to do. oh we have the reservoirs, this and that that and some charts over there that most of the people don't understand. we need to be forward thinking. who is going to take the lead on this drought? we can save millions of gallons of water, gray water, right here in san francisco. we have the technology. why are some people keeping quiet? why? people if you go to somebody and tell them "listen this is what we can deliver. we have the technology" and they poo poo

you. that's bad for san francisco so i challenge this commission and i challenge the staff to meet with us. we've had this conversation before with the general manager, with others in my writings. people have come over here and state to the san francisco public utilities commission that we have proprietary technology where we can deal with water, water with sludge and after we treat it no sludge. [inaudible] so i challenge you. let's not talk about the stats in general. let's talk about our future and future technology. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> i would like to say i feel today is my birthday because everything i just heard --

francisco reiterated there are solutions that are here so i want to address a couple. i heard about the desalination plants and we need to understand that reverseos moazis technology means that we are taking 70% of the water according to the epa that goes through the membrane goes to our wastewater, our toilet bottom line so why would we throwing that away to keep 30? once we remove it from the reverse osmosis and the water is a ion and when we drink it. how many stores in san francisco alone are using reverse osmosis technology when i buy a bottle of water i am getting 30% of what i paid for because the rest is going to the wastewater plant and we're doing that and it's

super constraitsed. the last thing that we could do and save 70% of the water we're throwing in the toilet. hetch hetchy is the beautiful pristine water and we're throwing 70% away and not just san francisco and i started counting water stores. how many of you are thinking about that waste? with a desal plant it's a huge waste. the technology is here today and have lab tests to show it's working. two, we have technology to remove the contaminants and solve the salt based water softeners. in one of the districts in l.a. they took many out of the homes and they were able to recover $75 million in savings for the wastewater treat plant because now they took away all that salt. we have the technology to do that. if you put it in the

home it would soften it without salt and clean and filter so when you mix hetch hetchy's water with the dirty groundwater the people aren't at risk like new orleans in amebas and other states and we have proven technology if we're given the opportunity so we're asking let san francisco be the leader in this. we can change the word with the technology but you can't do it if you're in your home and throwing away 30% and -- water systems and if you do that alone we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars saved not only by saving the water but also the processing. thank you. >> thank you. do i have any other speakers? okay. let's continue with the manager's

report. >> good afternoon commissioners. dan wade and could i get the slides please? thank you. so today i am here to talk about the new irvington tunnel and give update on the progress of this project. as you know based on past presentations i have made the construction has been progressing well to date despite of very difficult tunneling conditions and gassy conditions and high water in flows and water pressures and geologic conditions ranging from squeezing soft ground that requires intense support to hard rock support and has drilling and controlled dentinations and

we had this in the tunnels and the sheer zones. the project is approximately 95% done with construction. that's 90% complete overall but construction phase is 95% as of the end of the last reporting period and in fact in my last update to the commission on august 12 i reported that the bay tunnel and the new irvington tunnel would put in service this fall based on the current progress of both projects. the bay tunnel is still on track to be in service this fall. however today i need to brief you on a setback with the new irvington tunnel project experienced recently and will impact the construction schedule for this project so i would like to briefly describe the problem and the challenges and show the status of the plans to get the

construction back on track as soon as possible. now these photos show the new irvington pipe installation and as reported the pipe is installed and steel liner and the excavation for the tunnel for the 10el length. over 18,000 linear feet. this shows construction workers within the pipe and that's within the rough excavation of the 13.5-foot diameter tunnel excavation and insert this pipe in that excavation and then we place a cement grout between the steel liner and the rough excavation of the tunnel to grout the liner in place. these photos show workers inside the tunnel

including welding of the steel pipe lengths that are 50 feet along the three and a half miles of the tunnel. the grout is placed in that space after the photos were taken. now as i said at the beginning of my presentation the mew irvington tunnel construction had a setback after that space was grouted. namely between work shifts in the early morning hours of august 27 a 65-foot length of tunnel lining buckled at a location 8200 feet down stream of the alameda westportal of the tunnel and where in flows were very high and pressures are very high, and it's a very deep portion of the tunnel below a

mountain. as can be seen on the photo on the left, the left-hand side of the steel lining of the tunnel actually buckled into the tunnel several feet and this is a view looking upstream towards the east. the photo on the right is a view of that same buckle from the opposite direction which shows the damage steel liner and broken weld with groundwater actually poring into the tunnel. now although this is a serious and unfortunate occurrence that impacts the current construction schedule i think it's helpful to put in perspective this is 65 feet of over 18,000 feet of tunnel liner that has been completed which represents less than 1/3 of 1% of the total length of more than three and a half miles of new tunnel alignment that has been completed. as we speak the protect team clb the contractor and the management team and the

designers are working together to develop a repair plan that is robust. we're currently investigating the cause of the failure and we're also investigating other sections of the tunnel in order to provide assurance that the tunnel will reliably serve the customers for decades into the future. so the status of the project is that we have removed the damaged section of tunnel lining as of the end of last week, the 65-foot section that was damaged. we are currently investigating the cause of the pipe buckling using an independent third party consultant. third leer we're investigateing areas of the tunnel adjacent where similar in flows occurred. there is 2500 feet we know there were similar conditions during the tunnel excavation and we're drilling holes in the lining and

checking the groundwater conditions behind the tunnel liner along that length. we're developing a detailed repair plan and the procedures are being developed by the contractor with recommendations from the design team and then it is the designers will have finally review and approval of that repair plan. now, this week do we expect to begin implementation of the repairs in the damaged section of the tunnel, and then we would repair other sections of the tunnel if necessary based on our investigations that are ongoing. now the current delay estimate is 2-4 months in the construction and we're working around the clock to expedite the repairs without compromising quality. we're being very careful to make sure we don't expedite to the extent we miss something so we're are investigating carefully and doing the repairs as we go.

it's possible to put the tunnel into service before the end of the year but of course that will depend on the results of the investigations. with they will happy to take any questions. >> questions? why do you think it buckled? >> why do we think it buckled? so i want to be careful answering that question because there is an independent third party consultant investigating the cause of the buckling but it's definitely related to high groundwater pressure and may be some aspects of the construction that contribute to that high groundwater pressure interacting with the tunnel liner in a way that would cause the buckling. >> so we might be in real trouble with other parts of the tunnel? >> no. i wouldn't say that at all. there is a length of tunnel where we experienced difficult groundwater in flows during construction. that is about 2500 feet of the total

18,000 linear feet of the tunnel liner and so we're are doing a detailed investigation of that section in particular, and we're also investigating other areas as well. >> yes. >> i want to follow up a little bit on that. i know there was recently some groundwater legislation signed at the state level which i think is way over due and part of that is in response to what is happening state wide with the groundwater table and all the wells being drilled because of the drought and whatnot. do you think -- i understand your third party evaluation but do you think it's related because what is happening in adjoining tables that this 2500-foot area is particularly vulnerable to additional problems? >> it's a good question but i wouldn't say it's related to

the recent legislation or the groundwater pumping that has been happening on the project. this area is historically -- well, let me say this. when the existing irvington tunnel was constructed and adjacent and parallel to the irvington tunnel there were high in flows in the construction of that tunnel as well so we expected groundwater in flows during construction and as we excavated we would tril ahead and grout -- or drill cement grout to prevent the in flows and done for the tunnel excavation. now you have areas of the tunnel where there is leakage during construction and those flows were controlled, but as the construction progressed there were certain areas where the pressures were very high and the contractors had difficultly in those areas. >> so you haven't seen increase

in groundwater pressure in recent years even though you saw some at the old tunnel? >> correct. we haven't seen an increase in water pressures in recent years. >> any other questions? >> we will keep you apprized of the status of this project. >> good. thank you very much. >> that concludes my report. >> good. any other public comment on the general manager's report? seeing -- >> [inaudible] >> i'm sorry. i didn't hear you. >> it's a breath of fresh air when someone in charge of a project really divulges what happened or -- right now we can't talk too much about it until the 30 party does the investigation and tells us.

>> >> but it's a breath of fresh air that you all know exactly what happened or more or less exactly what happened and the matter is taken to address it immediately. thank you very much. >> okay. next item please. >> item 8 is a citizens' advisory committee update. >> good afternoon commissioners. i wendy and the chair of the citizens' advisory committee. i am proud to say that i celebrated my first year on the citizens' advisory committee and it's been a great year. we have three long standing appointees and 13 new appointees. most of the appointees have experience in dismpt disciplines and represent constituent groups around the city. we have 50% of color, 50% people of non color and 11 women

on the cac which is really wonderful. we have been doing some orientations and trainings around our enterprises since we are so new and some of those have included review -- overview of the water supply and drought on the committee. sewer improvements updates on the committee and we talked about operations and capital budgets and work force development and the drought and impact on the agency. i want to give quarterly reports to the commission to make sure we're communicating and working with the commission as well as management. two of the items that we have doesn't we have passed two resolutions. one is on global technology that we think is very timely considering my account has now gone live. it would be iphone, android

app for water conservation. we passed a clean power resolution and ask the commission to consider that resolution. we are meeting every month and we have sursubcommittee meetings on tuesdays and working out very well for us. we have three new members that started this month as well. and i think that is it. >> well, first of all i want to say welcome to our meeting. i wanted to thank you for everything that you do. the cac is very important and a lot of your time, and we all appreciate it very much. >> absolutely. thank you and last month president courtney came to our meeting which wasn't a formal meeting so we didn't have quorum but we had a discussion and surprised to see president courtney and we would love to see more commissioners

come to the meeting and see what we do. >> good. any comments commissioners? thank you very much. >> thank you. >> do i have any public comment on that report? seeing none we move to the next item. >> item 9 is a sewer system improvement program update. >> good afternoon commissioners. karen kubick director of the sewer system improvement program. can you bring the slides up please? today is my regular quarterly update. we're going to focus on the projects and program status and talk a little bit about the projects that are in construction as well as stakeholder and work force development. so here on the graphic you see all of the projects moving forward in phase one, and these have been scoped based on