the fire prevention safety. [speaking foreign language] >> and also to develop new legislations on fire prevention safety tools such as fire sprinklers and also fire alarms. [speaking foreign language] >> and he also he says the importance of keeping flammable items away from things that can cause fires. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker please. >> i'm the next speaker and i am jerry and from chinatown development center. i am a

community organizer and counselor and i lead the prevention workshops anded bidding coordinator academy. two of the speakers i did translation for are building coordinators and they go through training and recruited from the fire prevention workshops that we do yearly and do 13 work shops within one fiscal year and focus on different areas. we do a lot of education how to witness -- how to identify fire prevention tools such as to notice that a fire extinguisher is going out and things to look for if they have the custom that is cultural of burning incense make sure it's out before leaving their units, so in

connection with everything we actually do see the importance of having this legislation and actually pushing fortmore education workshops so more folks can know how to prevent fires and how to take care of each other in an emergency. >> thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon. i am tina chung from the development center as well. we are here today with other organizations part of the code enforcement outreach program funded by department of building inspection and i think what's really unique with our model and also i want to speak in regards to just really improving the decent housing and safe housing and living conditions in conjunction with the work that we do in the community but we're uniquely positioned as a neighborhood based organization and provide and work with tenants and landlords resolving

these issues. one of the things we always see is issues around housing, safety violations and i think the model is unique in itself in terms of trying to improve and also along with our mission statement of providing for safe and decent housing. one of the things we notice and a lot of programs were unique is we are culturally sensitive but language barer yes at times inhibit folks in the community to know what is going on and the landlords too that may not speak english especially in chinatown. a few things we're supportive of i know building inspections talked about the idea of high risk fire zones. for instance in areas where there is high density such as chinatown, large population, very small units and people living at niems over crowded unitings to be able to really have more education, more workshops and more really outreach and engagement with

the community to empower tenants to be proactive in the event of an emergency to be ready in the event of a fire and we support in terms of sharing information really enjoy the department of building inspection and their notice of violation online. it's very accessible and we support this and for example the fire department had one as well. thank you so much. >> thank you very much. next speaker. >> hi my name is tracy and i am part of the collaborative program and a member of sro in the south of market area. it's important that we have fire drills in our building where i live and even though it's annoying and some people set off the alarm at six in the morning and it's so loud it scares you it makes me happy ton that the alarm works so in the case of a real fire we're going to be saved and my kids have actually had to run owz many times in our pajamas because of the alarm so

i think it's really important. there's over 100 tenants in the buildings and important that the alarms work and happy that every month our building manager checks the alarms and the carbon monoxide detectors so that work and it's important to have the workshops and we can be more responsible and save our lives. thank you. >> thank you very much. is there any other member of the public to speak? seeing none i think that concludes public comment. >> thank you supervisor campos. so colleagues this is a hearing that's been called. supervisor campos how would you like for us to deal with the hearing? >> sure mr. chair if we can actually continue this hearing to the call of the chair to the extent that there maybe need to have follow up conversations, and i simply want to just note

that i am very grateful to the departments for coming out. chief thank you, the fire department and your staff for being here. thank you to department of building inspection director and staff. there is a lot of work that needs to be done and i know we're committed to ensure the safety of the city. i think the one area that we have talked about is how do we bring forward legislation that addresses some of the issues and i do have to say that i have a concern about the response times in terms of the ambulance, and i know that people are doing the best they can, but i think if there is something else that the city can do to improve that i think that would be important. in terms of the department of building inspection i have to say i have been impressed by the responsiveness from the director, and his staff and the housing inspection unit especially is pretty impressive. i have to say i don't have a

lot of confidence in the department of building inspection commission itself just to be honest. when my friend merna [inaudible] and i am glad she's there and i mentioned there are people haven't done anything and it's who you know politically to get an appointment but i think the department staff and the director will make sure they do the work that needs to be done, so with they would simply make a motion to continue this to the call of the chair. >> thank you and can we do that without objection. [gavel] thank you. mr. evans please call the next item. >> item four say hearing to explore the potential short and long-term strategies to alleviate flooding along folsom street in the mission district one of the most impacted areas in the city with storms and requesting the ethics comm . >>

>> public utilities commission to report. >> thank you. supervisor campos. >> thank you for joining us and mr. cruz from the public utilities commission. >> thank you very much mr. chairman and i apologize to the residents who have been waiting to have this item heard. as you know there is a lot going on in the neighborhood and the district but i called this hearing along with the san francisco public utilities commission on the issue of flooding in my district because flooding and the 17th and folsom area which by the way is the lowest point geographically in the city has been a persistent problem for year after year, and at time its feels that the situation is just getting worse instead of getting better, and i know that the issue of flooding is complex. historically this vicinity was marsh land that has been flooding since filled in

during the 1920's. a channel that ran from the lands into the bay that actually existed at 17th and folsom intersection and because this part of the city was built on marsh land it continues to subside and one of the flood zones in the city and just ask anyone that lives and works in the area to know this is a huge problem. we feel the impacts of this every time there's a major storm. this past december for example in the huge rainfalls the area flooded yet again impacting dozens of residents, dozens of businesses. we are grateful to the department of public utilities commission to the department of public inspection for the work they did during the storm. they worked closely with my office to make sure we had enough sand bags to do everything we

possibly could, and we recognize that many people have been negatively impacted, so the purpose of this meeting is given the years of this happening we wanted to have a hearing to hear more specifics about what the issues are, what could actually be done and specifically long-term does the city have a solution that is practical, that is affordable? i look forward to hearing from the public utilities commission and before we begin i want to thank the residents of my district who have shared their ideas, their concerns. i know that you have talked to me over the years. you have talked to the public utilities commission especially i want to thank the commission business association and when

[inaudible] kaplan and instrumental in connecting businesses with the city and i want to thank two small business owners in particular who have been active in putting together ideas and doing outreach for the hearing. angela [inaudible] and hands art. thank you for advocating on behalf of community and thank you to the community for being here. i look forward to hearing from you as well and with that we will turn it over to emilio cruz who is the assistant manager of infrastructure for the san francisco public utilities commission. mr. cruz. >> good afternoon mr. chairman, members of the board. i am the ag for the public utilities commission. i would like to present a slide show presentation and then we will be able for any questions during the hearing. i would like to say that our general manager harin kelly was here but had to

leave for a prior appointment and also with me is staff including stephanie harrison and the author of the people we're developing on the issues with 17th and folsom. if i can go to the powerpoint slide. san francisco is a beautiful city because of its hill sides but that creates certain challenges for us during storms. in particular san francisco has eight independent watersheds or eight independent valleys that have collection points during storms so as a city we need to develop a system that can effectively collect from all of the eight watersheds and deal with the storms as they come. as a combined sewer system we actually capture 94% of the rain that hit it is the city -- hits the city and treat it and discharge. in that regard we're ahead of many cities in the

united states and don't collect the storm water and therefore making a positive environmental change. if you look at this area it's a large watershed, one of the largest that we have and water actual collects all the way far northeast north of the panhandle and naturally flows down in the southeast direction down to 17th and folsom so it's a large collection area that is the natural topography of the city. also part of this as the supervisor said it's a natural low point in the city and was naf gattible waterways at one point and in this map you could get on a boat and go to oakland from 17th and folsom. that is a challenge for us because of the natural topography that exists. now we did fill out -- in fact most people don't know first street in downtown called first

street because it was the first street. we filled the bay out to steward street and used to be east street and the second shoreline and filled a third time to the embarcadero today and the last shoreline at which point bcdc was developed and that was stopped but to put it simply at what point that was a waterway and from a nature perspective it wants to remain a waterway so if you look at some of the pictures as the supervisor said this is not a issue for san francisco. these are horse and buggy photographs showing 17th and folsom in standing water after a storm. additional photos of the streetcars passing through that area and again standing water. so here's a technical top graphical drawing that shows what causes that flooding. >> >> to the far left is the northwest part of that

watershed and you can see that the slope there is a strong slope that comes across as the topography moves east and the circle is 17th and folsom so effectively the water is collected through catch basins, comes into the sewer system and effectively in a large system gushes down the road here and hits 17th and folsom and flattens out but as the system backs up it backs up to this point at which point it starts to climb and that is where we reach our highest flooding. now what we have done to date we have stepped up our cleaning process. clean catch basins and sewers move water more effectively so we have crews go out to clean the sewers there on a regular basis. since 2013 we pulled out 1800 tons of debris from the basisins and sewers in the area.

additionally we started the sand bag program and we recognize there are things to learn how to effectively run the program we are stockpiling our own and not relying on other departments and figuring out the best way to get them out to the neighborhood so residents know where to get them. we have crews that respond and in december as well and we entered the national flood insurance program that allows owners to get flood insurance. if we didn't enter into that program they wouldn't be able to do so. we have a grant program and the residents put out barriers that reduce flooding we will pay for that improvement. so what have we done in the neighborhood? we made improvements upstream and pump improvement and sewer improvements. we spent almost $7 million just in that neighborhood to try to deal

with the flooding in that area. we have been out to meetings trying to keep the neighborhood informed. as you mentioned ni bb o and the other groups and we were at the hearing at stable cafe. we went door to door and stayed in communication with a number of residents trying to keep the conversation alive. if people are feeling like they're getting more flooding the reality is they are. the reason is that they are and the reason is that we are starting to see major climate change in the patterns of storms, so in our industry we have a five year storm which is the maximum expected storm in a five year period and theoretically you should see one every five years. in between 2007 and 12 we saw many more storms and one 25 year storm and as an agency we're

requesting the validity of the design and working with scientifics to determine a more predictable manner and what should we be doing given the change change we're experiencing and last we have rain gauges in the city. >> >> and in that area it shows in december the two storms that hit us were actually a 25 year storm and a 100 year storm so the reality is that we are getting indication of rain at a. >> indidation of rain more than historically. >> >> and coupled it's a low point and a natural waterway and that's is -- excuse the pun the perfect storm in the area. you asked about claims in relate

toed storm. we had 153 claims totaling $200 million and $2 million in clean up expenses. at 17th and folsom we have significant numbers also and i want you to keep them in mind in the conference as to potentials for long-term abatement and how we address the problem so one of the ideas that one of the staff pulled forward given the fact it's a low point can we have a collection basin under ground that would hold water during a storm and eliminate a flooding in the event of a storm? we did move a project -- move along a project. red park had a project there and build a park and we asked them to stop the project and give us the opportunity to

look at the feasibility of designing a storage tank under the park and hopefully that would address the situation. they agreed to hold off the project and we went into design on that. as we found was that the largest tank that we could cost effectively build under that park was a 800,000-gallon tank and we did the analysis of cost which was approximately $20 million and then we did the analysis of what benefit it would bring and it was unfortunately a relatively small benefit. in furthering that analysis what we found was to try to impact flooding on what we call a five year storm which is generally what we address city wide. we would need to capture and hold 1.5 million-gallons worth of water so twice the capacity of what we were looking at in order to really start to address a

five year storm and if we wanted to eliminate flooding -- again only during a five year storm we would need 3 million-gallons of capacity so as a reference point that is roughly a football field 7 feet tall. that's the size of tank we would need to build to eliminate flooding there in a five year storm and i just went through those numbers. so what are we doing? before that i wanted to also say we are looking at in conjunction with all of the other investments we're making in the infrastructure. we have a aging infrastructure and a sewer system in the southeast community that handles 80% of the waste in the city and running 24/7 since 1951 and we are working to improve that plant. we have thousand miles

of pipe and much is over 70% old and half is over 100 years old and you have the instances where a street caves in or a bus or truck is there and that's the reason. we stepped up the program from three mimes a year to 15 miles a year to catch up. >> >> we are dealing also with climate change and in sense of creating the dramatic storms but also with sea level rise and the impacts that we're seeing by projections by 2100 we anticipate the bay will rise 36-inches and some scientists say that could be doubled and these are the challenges we're looking at and where to invest the money. we have started the grant program. again we have under public law challenges

with making improvements to private property using public funds. we found a way around that by creating this grant program which would allow residents to go out and purchase the water gates and we would reimburse them and put in the back flow preventers and we would reimburse them. the sand bags we provide to the residents during the storms. the flood insurance i talked about and operationally during the storms we're doing what we can. midterm actions we're looking at are we're evaluating the expansion of the grant program. we want to see more people take advantage of it. we heard some residents talk about some stumbling blocks given the limits on the program and looking to expand them. we are increasing the outreach to the diversity of the community that exists there and doing what we can from a scientific perspective so right now given

our radar detection capability we can see a storm with a four hour notice and have a general idea of how big the storm will be but not have an idea of how it will distribute in the city and the watersheds. we are working with the national atmosphereic association noah on a new program and put a new radar station in the bay area that would increase that window of warning from an four hour window to an eight hour window therefore giving us more time to react to storms and using a radar and what is san francisco today and how much rain will come from the watersheds and we can do real time analysis and move water from one collection

system to the other in order to reduce flooding in the city but obviously 17th and folsom being the highest priority right now. what would it take to eliminate flooding during a five year storm in our system? and what we're looking at we would need to make an investment they believe we need to make anyway which is a new central bay side collection system. today we have a force main that has failed twice during seismic events so we are investigating the construction of a large tunnel in order to increase the collection and conveyance during a storm. if we invest in that project would roughly cost $1 billion then we could build a connector 10 you will in the area that would be 17 feet in size that would move the water that hits the low point through an under ground tunnel to central bay side tunnel

therefore eliminating a flooding experience during a five year storm. the cost associated with that tunnel approximately $250 million, so if you look at the big picture the cost associated with eliminating flooding in the area during a five year storm is approximately $1.25 billion and we started work with the city attorney's office to see if there is a way to acquire private property that isn't impacted to deal with flooding situations, further the programs of the puc with system wide improvements if the owners are interested in that conversation, so we are working with the city attorneys just like when we started -- they have a grant program the initial reaction was no you can't do that. we found a way to do that. we are hopeful we will find a

way to do this as well. having said all of that the critical thing is that the system, our system overall is designed towards that five year storm and when we collect we collect approximately -- we can collect and store in one storm 775 million-gallons so basically if a three hour storm drops that amount we can handle that and that's a five year storm roughly. once we get beyond that our system simply cannot handle that so if you look back on december we had a 25 year storm and a hundred year storm. even if we spent a billion dollars we're going to flood during a 25 year storm and hundred year storm so those are some of the challenges we face as a city and the other thing i will say because it's pertinent we're looking at what else can we do instead of the typical

great infrastructure where we collect and treat water and investing in green infrastructure. what can we do to create permeable pavement, green roofs and to really help during a storm to reduce flooding and investing $400,000 in eight different projects in each of the watersheds to see which once are most effective and coming back to invest another $4 million in those types of projects to see if they improve the overall performance of the system so having said that we are committed to continue to work on that this. we have invested in this area and committed to another $10 million investment that didn't solve the problem and studying the connector tunnel and if that's the policy of the puc and the city to move forward in that direction and continuing

to look at short term improvements. i should mention looking at trying to make some improvements to private property up flow that would reduce the flooding more down flow and working with the city attorney to figure out how we can do that without violations of public law and again i believe we will get there. we are forcing a creative approach to try to deal with the problem. >> mr. cruz thank you very much for the presentation. before i turn it over to public comment i just wanted to ask a couple of quick questions. i know that -- i mean it's frustrating quite frankly to hear how challenging this is and even with the huge financial investment of 1.2 billion that you're still going to have issues. what is the timeline for the city deciding one this issue of the tunnel, the $250 million tunnel that could

be at least part of the permanent solution? and second on the issue of private property and imminent domain you're considering what is the timeline for when you're going to decide whether or not to pursue those? >> on the second thing which is the acquisition of property that's today. we are actively working today with the city attorney's office. we are pushing this as a potential option because we see that that while -- while there is no precedence for this there is the opportunity to occur acquisition of private property to have a natural collection basin and moving that neighborhood back to what it used to be or look at making flood resilient buildings if there is a way to acquire the property and design that type of building and build a building back over the area. we are looking at both of those and that is something we're aggressively moving towards