certifitive anyones technology is not what it is today and standards should be loosened that current technology allows us to have safe water whether it's gray or black water we know these systems often pay for themselves over time for the buildings that purchase less water. we also made aaddition nah amendment to make it easier for buildings to form so called districts where one building has a water reuse system and several buildings share that system which spreads the cost to do so you need the encroachment permit to connect a piping to another under the street we're applying from a major to minor encroachment which will make it a much easier permit to obtain.

we're also contemplations and working on trailing legislation which will exempt the square footage taken up by water reuse systems from far and water impact fee assessments needed to recycle water that square footage should not be suggest to impact fees finally we're considering follow up legislation we will be doing broad outreach into the development of the community to the numerous existing purple pipe existing zones sitting there unused and whether we should have legislation that requires over a certain number of years those existing buildings to find recycled water source whether it's installing their own equipment linking to another building in the district i am open to ideas that will

help mitigate costs and impacts the goal we share is the best use of water supply our precious water supply we can't sit idly by this legislation is a step in the right direction. i want to know we will hear during the presentation discussion around block and gray water. black water is water that comes from a toilet dish water utility or dishwasher machines gray water comes from bathtubs showers and sinks this legislation is broad in terms of requiring water reuse not specifying what kind of water reuse or what system there are various approaches and whether it is gray water black water or otherwise we're not requiring a specific type and in fact black water even though there used to be the ick factor around it.

more and more black water is part of our water future in terms of being a huge source of potential healthy and clean water i want to thanks the sierra club the bay orders and the institute for endorsing this legislation i also want to note we have several amendments i will be making after public comment none of which is substantive one is urging the puc to make fee aadjustments for buildings using the water systems and the expression of alternate water source in terms of minor clean up and today before public comment we will be hearing from public utilities commission how these systems work and have a short presentation about gray and rainwater system installed at

181 fremont we have representatives from the department of public health and inspections madame chair if the there are no initiate comments or questions i will call op paula keho. from the public utilitieses commission. >> okay. >> good afternoon. i have a power point i just want to pull up. paula keho the director of water resources with the san francisco public utilities commission as weiner mentioned weiner mentioned i will talk about the not portable water program how it works and examples of on-site water treatment systems happening in san francisco the nonportable water program is part of the san

francisco local water program which consists of a conservation program i think you know we have been doing conservation for many decades you aren'tly the residential per capita is 44 gallons per day in the system that is one of the lowest in california that is because san francisco is responding for our call reducing demand especially during the drought today we are building grand water wellings in san francisco where we will pump ground water with our surface supplies we will also have one south of san francisco working with our communities to the south to develop ground water program for dry years such as the time right now we have a recycle water program we water golf courses with recycled water

we have a recycle water on the west side of san francisco to irrigate golden gate and link con park -- installing on-site water treatment systems to collect and treat nonwater portable systems such as flushing and irrigation -- including rainwater that is defined as water that hits the roof storm water water that hits our street stores and parking lots also alternative sources are knew sense ground water that pump ground water that is to the pump system today -- gray water is water from our bathroom sinks

showers and washing machines and black water from toilets kitchen and utility sinks the san francisco puc has programs on the residential scale for gray water harvesting we're seeking a contractor to help expand programs on the residential scale we have been expanding our scale to the commercial large mixed use for unit and multifamily buildings in san francisco. two on-site water treatment systems in the buildings arraign water harvesting system that watcheses rainwater for irrigation we also have a living machine that collects and treats all of the black water in the building to the right is a living machine it's a series of wetland cell tell us that look like large planter boxes on the side of the treat it's treating all of the black water in the building so we can reuse that

water to flush toilets and urinals in building we have been able to save 60% of our water -- which is equivalent to 1.5 million gallon thes of portable water we served each year with on-site water treatment systems we heard from a lot of other developers in san francisco they wanted to collect and treat water sources in 20 level the san francisco public utilities commission talked with the building inspection as as the san francisco. department of health we had a number of stakeholder outreach meetings for an ordinance that would allow for the collection and treatment of water treatment in buildings it was passed in 2012 for single individual build buildings in 2013 we wanted to

expand for district scale systems how we define district scale systems is more than two buildings today you can install on-site water treatment system in an individual buildings or sharing and selling the water between buildings in the city. or ordinance this is just a quick overview of the ordinance in the ordinance i want to stress was a great partnership with the san francisco building inspection steve paneli and public health june win craft who is here today -- the city can come together and remove barriers and policies that previkt innovation from happening in san francisco. the role of the public utilities commission is program administration our job is to help developers architects and engineers to understand what

nonportable water they can reduce in the building what they can use that for we track we want to know what kinds of water savings are achieved through the buildings and incentives i will speak to in a minute. the role of the department of public health is critical they issue permits to operate these treatment systems why this is critical we want to make sure we're protecting public health we want to ensure these public water treatment systems are protecting health when they're used to flush toilets or irrigation purposes the role of irrigation department inspection is critical they help in term terms of installuation and approval of on-site water treatment systems quickly it streamlines the process and consists of three major steps design construction and

operation phase. the design phase is applying to the san francisco puc about what kind of water source you would like to collect how you propose to treat it and use it for getting into more details with an engineering report that is provided to the san francisco department of public health which requires approval to obtain your permit from the building in inspection -- cross connection being between portable and nonportable a test is performed again to ensure the pipelines are separate and operation are three phases the system is started up but the water is discharged to the sewer to allow the operator to get a sense of how the system is working and ultimately use the water for nonportable

application for nontoilet flushing or irrigation the san francisco public utilities commission provides technical and financial assistance we have developed the guide book to help the steps i walked through. we have a calculate cue later helps them understand should i collect drainage and gray water what kind of demand do i have in the building? currently with i have a grant program the san francisco puc will provide up to $250,000 for an individual buildings as long as they save a million gallons or more of portable water each year for ten years. we also have a $500,000 for district system that saves 3 million gallons up to ten years if in deed this legislation goes forward the puc disease not provide grants for ordinance or requirements we're looking at

amending our grand programming we're considering things if it's an existing dual puming building -- similar to what weiner mentioned a few minutes ago -- wants to connect to one of these new buildings that are forming a district scale water system project. we're aiming to keep the program available to projects that may not necessarily fall under the ordinance there are examples out there of projects that may not fall within the proposed legislation. we're also looking at our capacity fees as well as flow factor assessments and we have been looking at modifying their fees our plan is to take it back to our commission the san francisco public utilities commission with proposed change in early september. i mentioned earlier we collect a

lot of information and track these projects happening in san francisco we have a report -- all of the information is available online this report and i want to highlight a couple examples that are happening today in san francisco. st. anthonies has arraign far vesting system for toilet and urinal plushing bg and e is an existing building that retro fitted the building to collect water for toilet and urinal flushing pier 27 harvests water for irrigation -- in the city is collecting rainwater store and gray water for toilet and urinal flushing as well as irrigation.

transbay transit center one of the original proponents in collecting and treating alternative water sources for gray water systems for urinal and toilet flushing as well as irrigation 31 fre mont -- i think you will hear a presentation on this is you aren't construction to intall a system for collecting rainwater for toilet and irrigation. the last examples are examples of scale operations maconi is looking at expanding the center there say lot of drainage at masconi center we're looking to capture at the convention center as well as the possibility of installing a truck fill station to provide water for street

sweeping purposes in downtown san francisco. we have another project. project. puc has been working with the department of public works to install a treatment system at un plaza the truck fill station the purpose of the water would be again for street cleaning downtown san francisco irrigation and for fountain make up water as i mentioned all of the materials are available online the ordinance our guide book and grant pam at smp.org and i'm happy to answer any questions you may have >> thank you. your staff has been helpful with this process we appreciate that. a couple of questions pirs thank you for those examples i think it's important for the private sector to see we're not just

telling private owners what to do with the cities and transbay the governmental building are being build that is important i think the masconi center falls within the area as well i think everyone's going to have to comply with this legislation. so a couple of things. in terms of monitoring thank you for mentioning that i know the department of public helt is actually taking another look along with other cities about whether the health standards for monitoring gray water but also black water are too conservative can you comment on that >> certaintily in the state of california there are water quality standards for gray and rainwater today however there are not more black water storm or drainage water.

the department of public health established water quality standards although there will not monitoring requirements today however we believe as a city these kinds of systems should have ongoing monitoring so we developed or program also the san francisco puc is spearheading a national program to look at what is the appropriate water quality standard we have a project we're working with we're funded by the water water research foundation with a panel of experts to develop -- public officials come to consensus at the end of the calendar year looking at water quality standards and monitoring requirements >> great. i also i know the puc is evaluating potential fee

adjustments for buildings that have water reuse systems i want to thank the agency to do that and i want to encourage the agency to make the fee adjustments requiring this for these buildings we want to make sure also they're getting a benefit in terms of less strain on the sewer system. in addition to buildings that do it volume -- volcano tier -- voluntary -- particularly the incentive funds to help buildings link together to form

districts since we're not man dating districts here that is a still a powerful and importative innocent incentive of 3-4 buildings are sharing it spreads the costs and makes it easier for everyone. i hope the agency will considerly consider that. p you could comment we want the city ultimately to be providing recycled water to san franciscoians i know the west side plan is water recycling plant is moving forward. the east side plant for the cohen's district is a little bit further off. i want to get your take on what we can expect to see in the future. >> so we are supervisor weiner mentioned san francisco looked at the east side and conducted

use facilities about building a plant on the east side of san francisco for toilet flushing for buildings whereas the west side is for irrigation in the puc is coordinating with waste water enterprise who are activitily in the water sewer system plant. who are working to upgrade an old aging infrastructure the proposal for the water recycled treatment plant would be located in the south east treatment plant as you can imagine we need to keep the plant running while doing modification to sewer system space is limited so we're working closely with the sewer system program anticipating when we do move forward with construction it would probably be around 2026 there is a lot of moving parts with the south east treatment plants the bio solids

moving forward again space is limited we need to keep the plant running certainly the east side recycled water is part of the portfolio and consider that an important component within the water program. >> when will the west side facility be operational >> we're currently ending the requiremental review program we're planning to go to the commission in august of this year if all goes well with our approvals going into construction with in 2016 with completion in 2018 so a two year construction for the project >> for the benefit of the public i know the west side will provide irrigation to the golden gate park where will the water generally be used >> the west side recycled water project we're building a treatment plant in ocean side with the existing waste water

treatment plant we would serve golden gate lincoln park and portions of the pracidio >> again i would say i really think the city needs to move forward aggressively with it's own water recycling capacity i know it's not something that happens over night i don't think it relieves our need for buildings to have recycled water system even in the roads it's going to take a while i would encourage creative thinking how we might be able to start recycling water for example we're renovating our parks one by one i hate the fact that the deloris park is reportable water it should be recycled water if ginsberg were here he would say

we would love to do that but we don't have it -- move aggressively even if it's one step at a time addressing needs thank you. >> thank you. >> i have a couple of questions quickly i wanted to know the nonportable water program you spent time talking about the future you would like to go into for san pran what is the cost associated to get us to that level of using nonportable water consistently? >> the parts of our program recycled water water we're focused on nonportable for irrigation as well as on-site water treatment plans we have six projects online in terms of water treatment systems in the

building we have total 25 other applicants that are considering using nonportable water in a district in san francisco. the number is growing. just in terms of when we pass the ordinance in 2012 that enabled a streamline process to move forward with these kinds of decentralized water system we're focusing on nonpotable when it comes to san francisco. >> so there are no costs? >> sorry. i apologize. the costs are to the building owner so with treatment system may range from $250,000 to a million dollars it depends on the on-site water treatment system that is selected for example the in our building the living machine costs approximately $1 million in our system you will hear from 181 fremont they will know in terms

of how much that treatment system is. there are 15 vendors, we have collected throughout the country that provide treatment system it varies how much water is collected and used etc. unfortunately there is no one answer there say range >> does that the mean building owners are able to select their preferred treatment system? >> yes. that's a great question. thank you. what we ask for is an engineering report that looks into specifically what water are you going to collect gray or rainwater and how are you going to treat it? what treatment system are you going to reuse? a membrane bio reactor which is compacted versus water treatment machine. all of that is specific very detailed that gets approved by

the department of public health. we don't say what kind of treatment system you need to use. >> thank you very much. supervisor kim? >> thank you. it was great to have an understanding the work our new city public buildings are doing in whole and to learn a little bit more about this proposed ordinance. i think is definitely a step in the right direction i think there is nothing more tragic than the amount of clean water we waste that could have otherwise been gray water foundation drainage this is something good to see i noticed some of our publics buildings like pier 27 and a couple other sites you said their primary nonpotable ratter is rainwater? >> yes so pier 27 was collecting

rainwater they were also complying with the city storm water ordinance as a way of complying with that ordinance and installing harvesting system to reuse the water for those purposes and uses >> these would require these large development projects would reuse rainwater gray water and drainage is it all three or either/or >> it doesn't require any particular -- they have to do a water budget then try to meet as many of the water needs as possible. with those various sources >> one of the concerns i had about rainwater we haven't had a lot of rainwater. so in a year like this year i imagine could of these sites would convert to potable water

instead. >> we have designed our program to cover all types of water sources so it's not just rainwater in case it doesn't rain there is also the opportunity to look at other sources that are more reliable and readily available and produced on a more ongoing basis. >> i know this is beyond the scope of ordinance supervisor weiner talked about sites on the east and west side. on the west side for irrigation and east nonpotable water to developments if smaller buildings are interested in also converted to nonmore -- nonpotable what are the alternatives? >> for smaller use we encourage rainwater services using arraign

barrel to catch your rainwater we also have what the city of san francisco you can install a three way install irrigation that is not spray for homeowners we have a program online in terms of material we're actively seeking a contractor to encourage more workshops and more outreach with our residence to expand the program further we anticipate nah program being up and running again. in the fall of this year. >> i wasn't aware of that so single family own owners and smaller buildings go to pcu to rerout their water >> yup there is permit required from the department of building inspection if a homeowner wants