>> the meeting will come to order. welcome to the november 8, 2017, regular meeting of the public safety neighborhood services committee. i'm hillary ronen, chair of the committee. to my right shortly we will be joined by vice chair supervisor sheehy and to my left is supervisor fewer. the clerk today is victor young and i would like to thank jessie larson and leo from sf.gov tv for staffing the meeting. i would like to apologize for the late started of this meeting. >> mr. clerk, do you have any

announcements? >> clerk: yes. silence any devices. >> supervisor ronen:. call item one. >> clerk: an site business license for beer at 2149 chestnut street for necessity of the city and county of san fran. hillary ronen hi. >> good morning. inspector nelly gordon with the san fran police. you have a pcn report from marina theater located at 2149 chestnut street. they have applied for a type 40 license and this would allow them to sell beer. there are no letters of support or protests filed with abc. they are located in plot 507 which is considered a high-crime

area. they are located in census tract 128.00 which is an undue concentration area. northern police station has no opposition. the following recommended conditions, sales service and consumption of alcoholic befrnss shall be permitted between 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 a.m. each day of the week. all sales of alcoholic befrmgs for consumption in the seating areas shall be made from concession stands and shall not be should, served or delivered to customers by vendors. number three, points of sale shall not be maintained within the theater auditoriorum. guests shall a valid ticket to a movie showing to purchase alcoholic beverages in auditoriorum consumption. number five, no more than two

alcoholic beverages shall be sold or served to any one person during any transaction. numb -- from those containers utilized for nonalcoholic beverages. when the premises is exercising the privileges of their lie i understand, an employee -- license, an employee will monitor the activities on a regular basis. loitering is defined to stand idly about without lawful business is prohibited on any sidewalks or property adjacent to the licensed premises under the control of the licensee as on the abc 257 form dated

3/28/2016. excuse me. number ten, the petitioner shop responsible for maintaining free of litter over which they have control as depict on the abc 257 form dated 3/28/2016. lastly, number 11, graffiti should be remove from the premises and all parking lots under the control of the licensee witness 72 hours of application. if the graffiti occurs on a friday or weekend day or on a holiday, they shall remove the graffiti within 72 hours following the beginning of the next weekday. it should be noted that the applicant has agreed to the above listed conditions. >> supervisor ronen: thank you so much. is there anybody here from marina theater that would like to speak? i don't see anyone here. thank you so much for your

presentation. so, i would like to open up this item for public comment. is there any member of the public would like to speak on this item? you have two minutes to do so. seeing none, public comment is closed. would you like to make a motion? >> supervisor fewer: i would like to make a motion to -- a positive recommendation. >> clerk: the matter will be submitted as a resolution and forwarded with recommendation to the full board. >> supervisor ronen: so moved without objection. decide to move forward with positive recommendation. can you please call item number two. >> clerk: item two. public works to require a permit for the testing of autonomous delivery devices on sidewalks

amending the police code for civil or criminal penalties for unlawful devices and afoirming the determination under the zika -- affirming the determination under to see ceqa -- the, ceqa act. >> supervisor ronen: i'm sorry. supervisor yee asked that we call item three out of order. can we please do that. >> clerk: yes. item three. hearing on the short and long term strategies to reduce the effect of flooding during heavy storms severely impact certain neighborhoods in the city, particularly in the upper great highway area and districts 7, 8, 9 and 11 and request the public utilities commission and public works to report. >> supervisor ronen: thank you. so, we are having an off day in

the public safety neighborhood services committee. it looks like the president from the puc are not available. so, i'm going to open this item up for public comment first and then we will hear the presentation after. so, if there's any member of the public that would like to speak on item number three, which is the flood mitigation plans and severely impacted neighborhoods city wide, now is the time to come forward. each member of the public will have two minutes to speak. thank you. good morning. >> public: thank you to the board of supervisors tonight my name is nancy huff. i have a speech written for today. pretty much the same one i gave in april. the same as the two i gave in 2016 and the three i gave in 2015. lots of speeches.

so many and so little progress. i'm angry and frustrated beyond belief that i stand here today making the same speech that i have given time and time again to no avail. why are we still here three years after the flood of 2014 and less than a year after the flood of january of 2017, where people are still losing their homes and lively hoods and peace of mind? public utilities commission is not here to give their platitudes, they would tell you the issue is climate change. i don't deny that climate change is a problem. but that is not the reason why we have flooding in our neighborhood. what makes our homes flood year after year? poor engineering and mismanagement of resources is the cause. undersized sewers in our neighborhood is the cause. source lines upstream is the cause. -- sewer lines upstream is the cause.

victim blaming and endless studies which lead to no solutions for us is the cause. i'm here to ask once again for the city to stand up and do what's right. continuing to do nothing will be hiding behind the excuse there will always be a bigger storm is shortsighted and shameful. i don't want to be here again making these same pleas for help in 2018, 2020 and 2030. please. >> supervisor ronen: thank you for your comments. i want to mention that the puc is not here. that's my fault. not the department's fault. i suggested that it was going to be 11:00 and because we called the item out of order, i just want to take responsibility for that. >> public: of course, understood. thank you for your time. >> supervisor ronen: thank you. next speaker, please. >> public: good morning again. hello supervisors. my name is donna marie. with solutions, not sandbags,

here we are doing our annual raining season about the same standing issue. it is apparent sandbags are the preferred solution by both puc and city special -- officials with no long term sustainable solutions. well, on behalf of my neighbors, i would like to present a shorm-term solution for this season because we -- short-term solution this season because we live in a dire state. sandbags will mitigate six feet of sewer water levels that erupt inside homes from restoring our homes again and bringing us back to the same meeting year after year. thank you. >> supervisor ronen: thank you. next speaker, please. >> public: good morning. my name is rita.

i'm with the new mission improvement association. it pains me to see that my neighbors suffer so much from these faulty engineering actions. when interstate 80 was built, my neighbors are suffering from collateral damage when the drains for 280 were constructed. and at the end of cuyahoga avenue, that causes the flooding to back up there. at the interchange of 280 and 101 just past the farmer's market, it is where san bruno avenue and a step away is bayshore boulevard and it floods under there. up to a foot of water and entering cars on certain circumstances. it is not safe for the drivers who have to use that roadway either. it seems as caltrans and the

federal government who built 280 left a mess. and the mess has been suffered by the residents of san fran. so, i hope -- san francisco. it is not fair and appropriate to a city like san francisco. >> supervisor ronen: thank you for your comments. next speaker, please. >> public: hi. my name is blaine bachelor. i live in mission terence. i like my neighbors are here again. same pleas. same speeches. same demands, requests, whatever you want to call it for action and nothing. three years later, what is puc's solutions? to drop off sandbags and tell us this is climate change and this is not their problem or their fault. and it is. i am going to read a letter a friend of mine wrote on my behalf to ed lee and harlin

kelly. my friend was thrilled to save up enough money with her husband to become first-time homeowners in our great city. it was heart warming to see her move in and settle and build a home. as a friend, it was heart breaking to watch the 2014 sewer failure destroy the entire lower level of her home and create paper work, costs and financial problems. i have been sad to see her face taxing emotional obstacles. the ongoing negativity has resulted from this situation. she should be feathering her nest and enjoying her family and new baby. not clearing raw sewage in her home every time it rains. and it started last weekend with another moderate rain backing up the sewage in her neighborhood. i do understand that the cost of

repairing such infrastructure have are high. but -- are high. but it has been three years. that is more than enough time to come to a permanent solution. i'm sure you and any other voter will agree this is a responsibility of the city. given this certain evan yulety, the city will kick the can down the road as opposed to solving the problem. [bell]. >> supervisor ronen: thank you. is there any other member of the public that would like to speak? >> public: supervisors, thank you for brings this to a public hearing. i'm david hooper and i have lived in mission terrace for over 30 years.

this problem isn't just mission terrace. it is in district seven and district nine. it is also down at 17th and folsom ajay dent to the new, high -- adjacent to the highly touted children's playground. this is fecal matter washing into people's home. repeatedly, historically. but it isn't a flooding area. it is 75 feet above ground level. this is what i would like see happen. i would like see the puc encourage to contact david, scott weiner, use their good offices with caltrans and the state of california in order to figure out improved financing for the issue, part of which it appears to me is the responsibility of the state of california. i would like say also that the supervisors who have been affected, their districts that

have been affected by this have been responsive individually. last january, i saw supervisor sheehy the morning after it happened and he was stunned. it isn't going to go away. we use a lot of buzz words politically. we talk about social justice. [bell]. >> public: they become empty if we allow a situation like this that everything knows about to go unanswered. that particular part of the community is not rolling in money. it is the poor neighbor to glenn park. the traffic there is horrendous and yet it is a community. so, i'm asking you to hold the puc responsible and to have them address these issues rather than just pass the buck. >> supervisor ronen: thank you very much. next speaker, please.

>> public: my name is dennis. i'm a native san francisco -- i have to say there can be no more finger pointing. doesn't make any difference who caused this. it needs to be fixed. and there isn't any excuse. it isn't your responsibility or your responsibility or yours to fix it itself. but to take the leadership to force either the city or the city and the state to figure out how these people going through having sewage come back into their home is atrocious. and it happened one time to my brother's place. it was outrageous the amount of filth and crap that came back into his place. and if these people to face it year after year, it is unconscionab unconscionable. i live near irving street and the city is redoing 48 blocks of irving street, most of which

doesn't really need to be done. these people need the kind of work that is being done all over the city for future mta transit vision. and in the meantime, these people are suffering. there's no excuse for it. and i just had to stand up here and urge you to urge whoever the hell it is on the other end of the phone to do something and not make any more excuses. thank you. >> supervisor ronen: thank you so much. is there any other member of the public that would like to speak on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. supervisor yee. >> sorry about the confusion. let me just go ahead and make some opening remarks. and i want to thank the public for coming out, continue to come out. i recognize several of the speakers from maple. we held our first hearing on

short and long-term solutions and strategies to mitigate the effort of flooding city wide. i had called a hearing in january, last january, due to the heavy rainy season and the significant impact on residents and their properties. specifically, there are three neighbors. man mango, ingleside terrace which is heavy flood impacted areas. city wide flooding also heavily impacts districts eight, nine and 11 as well as the upper great highway area in district four. on the borders of district eight and 11, the specific area, as you already know, is cuyoga avenue and in district nine,

alemany, maze and 17th folsom areas are heavily affected areas. since the first hearing in april, puc has developed and strengthed their strategies to better support residents in an effort to protect their properties. the goal of today's hearing is to have puc present their capital projects and strategies to the public so they can learn more, ask questions and be better prepared and supported in the rainy seasons ahead. since april, i am pleased that puc reported that at least in my district, the improvements to ingleside terrace has been completed and that the juice and forester area improvements are currently under construction to be completed next month. however, there are several other neighborhoods including cuyoga

in the city that really needs some focused attention. i'm going to thank supervisor tang, fewer, safai and ronen for co-sponsoring this hearing. i'm rooking forward to puc's presentation and i believe it will be informative and support for our residents affected. so, director harlni kelly from puc. >> good morning. and thank you supervisors for prioritizing this important issue. i'm harlin kelly and i'm the general manager of the san francisco public utilities commission and we are here to follow up about the flooding. at our previous hearing, it was on april 12th of this year, we updated the committee about our

capital projects, as well as a plan to identify and research a non-capital strategy for residences and businesses to protect their property in large storms. since then, we have been very busy coordinating with more than a dozen city departments to develop these non-capital strategies. and these meetings were held in the communities impacted by flooding to discuss them. we are very excited to share with you today the results of our work this summer. we have a suite of programs that we have already worked with our sister departments to develop. last week, we held a press conference with supervisor ronen and several of the departments to announce the expansion of the

grant program and efforts to protect properties against large rain events. we look forward to continuing the work with you as we prepare to roll out these programs. with that, i would like to turn it over to stephanie harrison, our project manager. thank you. >> thank you general manager harlin kelly. my name is stephanie harrison and i'm project manager. we are going to talk today about strategies for flood resilience. last time we presented our capital projects and we mentioned that we were going to be investigating some

non-capital options for residences and businesses. so, we went to the drawing board with many city departments and we are presenting to you today the findings. so, if i could have the slides please. perfect. so, this first slide shows three design storms simplified so you can see how flooding grows in larger storms. especially key areas. these are core flood risk maps and they are preliminary right now. but we have defined core flood risk as deep and contiguous flooding. that means that -- >> public: it is not flooding. you guys have not the sewers for 60 years. and i'm sick of it. we are sick of it. >> supervisor ronen: excuse me. >> public: sorry. >> supervisor ronen: please

continue. thank you. >> so, puc has defined core flood risk and deep and contiguous flooding. that means the puddles that show up on is this map are at least -- up on this map are at least six inches deep and they span a half block or more. so, it is a neighborhood. not an issue on a particular parcel. in today's discussion, we will propose how the city will use each of these design storms. we just looked at the core flood risks to show you direct comparison between storms. when puc uses the five-year design storm to identify the need for capital projects, we use a broader flood risk metric. so, the shows how we do that. we make most effective use of rate payer dollars by prioritizing projects that address high risk. which is shown in red here. the biggest and most costly projects are concentrated in core flood areas that have a lot of red on the map.

and the goal for our capital projects is to eliminate the red on this map. that's what we are doing over the long-term with our capital infrastructure. but in doing so, we also address much of the ajay dent green -- adjacent green areas. this allows us to initiate construction earliest where the need is the greatest. it means some neighborhoods won't get projects right away because we simply can't do everything immediately. so, we prioritize using flood risk. so, construction of the collection system began in the 1840's. by the 1940's, the five-year storm was designated and since at least the 1950's, standards have been in place to govern new pipe design. in planning for sfip, there was a sewer system program.

a comparison of capital cost led the commission to endoors the five-year, three-hour storm as our level of service in 2010. and the commission affirmed this in 2012 and 2016 with sewer system improvement program development milestones. so, the five-year storm is our level of service and we design new projects in our collection system, designed to manage and control flows. our official flood protection policy is a goal -- the goal to integrate green and gray infrastructure, to manage storm water and minimize flooding and specific level of service is to control and manage flows from a storm of three-hour duration that delivers 1.3 inches of rain. so, this size of storm corporates to about a five-year storm and this is a common left of protection for large urban areas with systems like new york city, chicago, philadelphia,

seattle. by and large most of our system can handle the design storm. but some areas, like folsom, do flood in storms that are less severe than the five-year storm and we need to initiate construction projects in those neighborhoods. so, for these areas that don't meet our level of service, we are planning to invest $1.6 billion in capital projects over time. of course, as engineers, we can design infrastructure solutions that could give all san francisco flood from text in larger storms, but the cost to upgrade our city wide infrastructure is expensive. up to $15 billion. that number on this graph includes over a project life cycle. it would require construction on virtually every street in san francisco if we want to upgrade the entire system to an increased level of service. this wouldn't be quick.

this wouldn't be immediate or even quick. so, also importantly, these fronts compete for funding with projects addressing other problems that san francisco consistently rate as a higher problem. we have a lot of different needs that we are trying to address through our capital program. and given how uncertain future rain fall patterns are in the face of climate change, the concepts of adaptation and resiliency are very important moving forward. so, for these reasons, puc is maintaining our existing design level for our collection system to manage flows and minimize flooding in a five-year storm. so, our capital program includes projects that move us towards that level of service for the collection system. again, to control and manage flows in a five-year storm and staff are currently proposing

over $700 million. we presented many of these capital -- a handful of these capital projects to this subcommittee last april and we recently as supervisor yee referred to recently completed construction in ingleside terrace and underway in sunnyside. some of the larger projects are in the planning phases right now. but even when all of these projects are built, the same neighborhoods will still have risk of flooding in storms that are larger than our design storm. additional neighborhoods that already meet our level of service may also be subject to flooding in very large storms. so, let's put that into perspective. in a five-year storm, about 0.4% of san francisco building are currently subject to high risk of flooding.

and to address that 0.4% of san francisco building, we are looking at $1.6 billion, plus additional operational funds. in a larger storm like a 25-year storm, those building plus other building, a total of 1.6% of the building in san francisco are subject to flood risk and the cost to address -- to build infrastructure to protect us from a 25-year storm is $7 billion. and in a hundred-year storm,ability 3% of building in san francisco are subject to flood risk. but the cost of projects would be about $15 billion. so, that's just some perspective on the impact and the cost. so, to help address the problem, sf public utilities commission has been taking the lead in coordinating other city departments to develop creative,

quicker, non-capital strategies. we are not talking about laying pipes. help reduce flood risk to affected properties during large storms. so, these strategies intended to help integrate flood resilience at the property scale to complement our longer term capital projects. for the rest of today's presentation, it is going to focus on specific programmatic strategies in collaboration with other city departments. the first set of projects that improvements a prosecutor could make to their -- a property owner could make. so, the four broad categories of projects would be plumbing modifications such as installing back-water valves or other plumbing changes to keep water out or better drain a property.

dry flood proofing, which is keeping the water out of a structure. that could be sealing up doorways or adding barriers. adding a barrier in a doorway or even a speed bump in a driveway or a removal gate across a driveway. wet flood proofing, which acknowledges that a space floods, but makes it easier to clean up. for example, a concrete foot wall in a garage so that a property owner doesn't have to replace base board and dry wall every time it floods. and as a last resort, we are evaluating elevate as structure where other options wouldn't work. so, we have an existing grant program that we are planning to expand. first to include all these different project types and technologies. and second, to streamline the process and provide more assistance to the applicants. so, our team has developed a few examples to illustrate what

these properties could look like when they take advantage of the grant program. just to give you a feel of what this flood proofing would entail. the first example is a commercial example for dry flood proofing. this is a business in this example. and what you see is an existing build that is subject to flooding. and in the proposed, we have the door frames and the window frames have been sealed and have water stops on them. but since it is a business, it probably wants to remain open and leave the doors open when it is raining. removable flood panels to fit into the doorways that can be put in place if flooding starts to occur -- if flooding starts to occur. the next example is a wet flood proofing in a residential garage. the residential garage may take

some of the same measures of sealing the doorway and putting watertight seals. but also there would be work done on the interior in case the water does get in. so, that is vents that would let the water out. vents or drainage. flood resistant windows depending how high the water level gets. elevated utility boxes and appliances. electrical sockets may need to be ceiling sockets as opposed to sockets around the base board low on the walls. and cleanable and sprayable surfaces. this is the different kinds of technology that our grant program is going to be hopefully expanded to improve -- to include. so, this slide shows an example process we would use to determine tell jibltd -- eligibility for grants. starting at the top, those properties in the core flood area for a 25-year storm would be automatically eligible.

and other properties outside of those mapped areas could apply to on the in if they are also experiencing flooding due to either localized topography or ba back-flow into the plumbing. the options available to any particular property owner would depend on very site specific conditions t depth of the flooding and -- the depth of the flooding. there could be a site investigation to determine actual flood depths. maybe a historic high water mark or site specific understanding of how a down-sloping driveway could be channelling water in a flood event. for shallow flooding, options would be limited to the minimally invasive options. and then deep ter flooding would a-- deeper flooding would allow a property owner to consider more complex technologies up to and including elevating their

structure if that's feasible or their structure. and so, then in addition to depth of flooding, there's also a ton of property specific factors that have to be factored in. the height of their plumbing fixtures, interior, the integrity of the structure of the building, the structural soundness of the building, et cetera. that will have to be factored in. this next group of programmatic strategies is a set of requirements. corresponding with the 25-year storm. and these are intended to integrate flood resilience over time as structures are built and renovated. and so, the mandatory requirements would be integrated into existing city processes and city codes. we are looking at the potential for building code modifications. this would be similar to fema's approach and fema flood planes. they require flood proof

construction in their flood planes and reinstructs first-floor uses. we would take that as a starting point and consider whether it is relevant to the areas that are flooding. we also want to investigate other city permit processes to build in flood resilience. for example, a health department inspection for a new service business. and as a last resort, the city could also consider acquiring and repurposing properties that are subject to high flood risk. especially where other measures are unlikely to be effective. and so, the end-use depends on the specific location and scale of property acquisition. so, if, for example, multiple ajay sent property -- ajay

accident property -- adjacent prop owners may be reck and park or housing. those are the kinds of things we are talking about. each of these end-uses has its own considerations, its own processes, funding sources and limitations. so, it is very site sfe specifi. my first slide showed you three different maps. we are shifting gears to the third map, which is the notification area corresponding to core flooding in a 100-year storm. the idea here is to make information available to promote property owner knowledge and responsibility. and so, this strategy is twofold. first, is defining the map and sharing that map with the affected property owners and

notifying them they have a flood risk and clarifying the disclosure process at point of sale. right now, state law requires flood risk to be disclosed at point of sale of a property. so, it is just a matter of clarifying the forms that are filled out when an owner sells their property. and then final think -- finally, this last set of strategies doesn't tie to a five-year or a hundred-year storm. this would apply city wide and would be before a property can sell or potentially complete a major renovation. that if there is a code required back-water valve, if there's a basement and a plumbing fixture in the basement that is below the sidewalk, our code rerequires a back-water valve on those fixtures. and we would be looking at a new trigger. so, at point of sale or major renovation, that there would be a requirement to install that

back-water valve. right now, san francisco has a current requirement to install water efficient fix which you weres at point of sale. it is sort of similar to that. it is rierg -- requiring a back-water valve if it is required by code at point of sale. and also the sewer lateral would need to be inspected and repaired at point of sale and potentially with major renovation. and this is consistent with what many or even most bay area jurisdictions already do. they require sewer lateral inspection and repair before a property is sold. so that's the suite of programmatic strategies and also requirements through codes and grants. since we identified this port foal you of -- portfolio of proms, they have reached out to

-- programs they have reached out to get information. we have held community meetings and also coffee meetings. we tried to have a couple of different opportunities and venue formats for people to have conversations with us or hear about information. we had 50 attendees from the public between all of these meetings. and as we have these conversations, we had 12 property owners on the spot fill out a grant interest form and hand it back to our staff at these events. so, we are now in the process of following up with these 12 property owners who have expressed interest. i believe over half of them have already been contacted. and then at the close of those -- the two weeks of community outreach on october 31st, we did a live tv, a radio interview and a press conference with supervisor ronen at the 17th and

folsom park to spread the words about the grant -- the plans to expand our grant program and also the plans for mandatory requirements through city processes. coming up, you will see bus ads encouraging our communities to get rain ready. so, you probably will see those in the next two morptsds on bus -- months on buses city wide and we will be hosting an adopt a drain volunteer event for those who have adopted drains to pick up their materials, their vests and other safety supplies. so, the end goal for the mandatory -- the grant program modifications are underway. but there was also the set of mandatory requirements. and the end goal for these mandatory requirements is to modify our city codes so flood resilience can be incorporated. we have been working with dbi

and planning to develop the specific requirements and also keep up the coordination between democratics. we wanted to give you a sense today for what types of changes are likely to be proposed for future board action. so, the first potential content change is building construction standards to reduce flood risk. and those would be triggered for new construction or major renovation, which we have to define what threshold of renovation would trigger this. 25-year storm map that i showed you, the draft maps, we would be looking at finalizing and fofr mallizing those -- formalizing those maps. that would be building code, plumbing code, electrical code, everything that is relevant when it comes to flood proofing a property. another code modification would be the inspection and repair of

laterals. and that would be at point of sale or major renovation. and again, to be defined we are working with building inspection to try and figure out what are the thresholds for major renovation where these might apply. and the last one is back-water valve for fixture behind the sidewalk vent which that already exists in the code, but we would be adding a different trigger at point of sale or major renovation to have install those back-water valves. so, depending on what specific requirements are developed, we could be modifying a set of city codes, including the building code, the housing code, the planning code and/or the public works code. so, we are working on figuring out how to coordinate all those different modifications and what the specific requirements would be. we expect this to unfold over the next year or so and we thank you in advance for any support that you are willing to provide in the process, in the code

modifications process. so, our next steps, again for the suite of strategies, the incentive grants and mandatory requirements. we are finalizing an implementation plan. we are coordinating with departments on an ongoing basis. we have begun community outreach but we will that, especially when our grant modifications are approved. we will do a big push to make it as visual as possible in our communities. those immediate grant improvements that we are trying to do in the coming months are increase our program funding, which was actually done a couple of weeks ago. our commission is funding pieces. we are trying to expand it for the additional project types. special assistance for low income. streamlined application process, enhanced assistance when it comes to the grant application and also the technical side of it. technologies and permits and city processes and things like

that. and also assistance with identifying qualified contractors who can perform the work. i also understand that supervisor safai requested an update on our cuyoga capital project. so, the status of that right now is that negotiations are underway with caltrans to develop a co-op agreement. and that will establish the terms for their participation in the project. we are in the negotiation faze phase right now. i hope this update to describe our strategies has been informative. >> thank you for your presentation. i see there are a few supervisors that are lined up to ask questions. before we get to them, let me -- i know that in the april hearing, you did a pretty good job explaining the five, 25,

100-year storms. and just to -- for the public that may not have been there or heard it, can you explain, for instance, when you say 25 years, what does it really mean in layman's terms? >> there's been rain data captured in the city for over a hundred years. we have a very long record of what rainfall has fallen in the city. there was a statistical analysis initially performed in the 1940's that looked at the patterns we have seen as a city. and on a long-term average, a storm with a five-year return period would come once in every five years. and that doesn't mean that if a storm happened in 2000 that it is going to happen next in 2005. because it is like rolling a dice. you could get two fives in a row back-to-back, a week apart from each other. but on a long-term average,

every five years. likewise a storm with a 25-year return period can occur once in every 25 years on a long-term average. and a hundred-year storm would be once in a hundred years. what that means in any given year there's 1% of a chance of that kind of storm occurring in san francisco. i said that the data was originally done in the 1940's. but we have periodically looked at the rainfall record that has occurred since then in the many decades since the 1940's to confirm it still reflects the statistical trends of the data we have. i believe it was most recently done in the last five years. we have looked at all the data we have and the long-term statistical patterns and that curve is still relevant today. now, as we move into the future, there's a lot of uncertainty

with respect to what climate change is going to be bringing with respect to rainfall intensity. but unfortunately, what we don't have agreement in the scientific community about how our patterns may shift. we know that they may shift. >> thank you. i just -- one of the things that we are always -- how do we compare with other places in california? >> other places in california don't have combined systems with the exception of a small area in sacramento. so, when we talk about a combined system that carries both wastewater and storm water in the same set of pipes.

the best comparison for us is other combined systems in really large urban areas. a five-year storm is typical for those large urban areas. new york city, chicago, philadelphia, seattle to name a few are all large urban areas with combined systems that have a five-year design standard for their infrastructure. >> i guess when you say we have a combined system -- neuroplaces, are they -- newer places, have they moved away from combined systems and pretty much have two systems? >> i -- i don't know the industry trends on that. >> so, most cities have a separate system and the reason they have separate system is because it is a cheaper system.

because the storm water when it overflows, you don't have to treat it. but we have a combined systems because we treat everything. every drop of rain has some form of treatment in it. it goes through the treatment plants, to the box sewers and we have these box sewers around the perimeter of the city. so, it is a more expensive system to have. >> is there any thinking whether or not it makes sense for us to go -- i know it is going to cost lots of money. but going to sort of a two-system for san francisco? >> i think the challenge is that in the -- early in the 1849's when our sewer systems were built, it was built as a combined system. they actually by the turn of 1899, we had 300 miles of

combined pipes and we just continued to build off of that. so, to answer your question, if we want to separate the systems, both systems, one of the challenges is that our treatment mrame plants have a certain capacity. that means we would have to first separate all the sewers in all the streets. if you look at trying to separate the entire system, you are tearing every street up. it would be over $16 billion and i just want to point out that the cost of the sewer system comes from the rate payers who pays the sewer bills. so, it doesn't come from taxes or property taxes. it comes from your puc water and sewer bill. and so, that means that we would have to raise rates considerably if we want to perform a lot of these major capital investments.

>> when you talk about the 16 billion or whatever it is for a two-pipe system versus let's say to amend or fix a system that could actually have larger capacity, what's the difference in price? i mean, would it be cheap tore do one way -- cheaper to do one way or another? >> i think one of the challenges that we aring on the sewer system is that it is an old system. it needs a lot of capital investments. so, at one point you are looking at the collection, which we identify $1.6 billion. but other than the collection, we have another $7 billion. we have to upgrade our treatment plants, our outfalls, our box sewers that capture. so, it is a lot of investments. so, if you add this on top of it

-- so, the question is what's the balance? because right now, your combined bill with water and sewer is an average of $71. but if we were to invest $16 billion, your sewer bill would be $400. and so, the question is that, it is affordability and you have to make choices. we are engineers. we can design for a hundred-year storm. not a problem. it is about the cost and the disruption to the entire city to make that happen. and so, that's why we are presenting other options. and even in places where we are planning to do infrastructure, we want to offer these options because we know that it will take time to actually go through the planning design and its construction. and we wanted to make sure that, you know, you can fight mother nature for so long. but we are trying to adapt and

give options that people with invest in their property. there are some areas we look at flooding, some homes flood and right next door, some do not. one of the reasons is that if you have a down-sloping driveway that goes below the sidewalk, those folks flood. and right adjacent to it, they have driveways that are above the sidewalk and they don't flood. and so, that's why we are looking at ways to try to, you know, help people and have this construction adapt to these low-lying areas where water comes to those low-lying areas when our sewers are filled up. >> one last question. in terms of your outreach, i know that 50 people showed up. did we actually reach the residents that were heavily impacted, like cuyoga? >> so, we have e-mail lists of stakeholders that have come to any of our flooding events in the past. so, we sent e-mail notifications

out about all of the community meetings. but we also went door-to-door and had conversations with anyone we could reach. but also distributed over 200 flyers including the cuyoga corridor. we tried different ways to outreach to individuals and we are also planning to do a follow-up. we are going to send another e-mail out to say for those of you who are able to make it, we appreciate it. and for those who weren't, here's a lot of links to the information we presented and we invite you to let us know if you would like to have a personal phone call with our staff or a personal meeting to be able to go through some of this material if it is of interest to you. >> i appreciate -- sounds like you have made an effort. but sometimes the effort doesn't result to what -- which is the question i have is even with that effort, were you able to reach at least some of many of the residents that were heavily impacted?

>> with the flyer for sure. we left flyers on each of their doorsteps. does that answer your question? >> my question is really straightforward. out of 50, would you say 25 of them came from the heavily impa impacted? >> i see what you are saying. of the 150 of them, about half were from the cuyoga neighborhood. and of those, just sort of in my general sense of who was there, about half of those were people who are impacted by flooding. and the other half were sort of interested or concerned or -- so, we didn't reach the whole cuyoga neighborhood in person. but we also hope that the follow-up that were planning

this weekend next would be able to reach some of those individuals in a more personal way. >> thank you. supervisor safai. >> thanks, supervisor. so, just to build on that point because i think supervisor sheehy and i share part of the city that has some of the worst flooding when water is coming up to the side of a car. it is not the same as coming township the top of your foot. and i think what you saw in the frustration the woman walking out of this room is that, yes, we are experiencing global warming and it is real. and what that means is something that might have occurred every 15 years or every 20 years is now happening every other year. and so, i think there's a lot of frustration in years and years of build-up because majority of the homeowners in our district have lived there 30, 40 years. this is the only home they have

known this is something they inherited or bought a long time ago. this is a part of san francisco, these are working families. and they have no other options really. so, you have a lot of children. you have a lot of monolingual speakers. you have people coming from all over the world and this is a home that was not disclosed to them that they were experiencing flooding. they were not -- it was not identified to them that this was something that they would experience. and so, they are horrified. and so, i think the right way to approach this is there's a very organized group in our district that can identify every single home that is experiencing major flooding. and so, what i would suggest is working with that group to identify those 50 or 60 homes. i want to commend the puc. i know would have been having a lot of conversations on information before purchasing the home and raising the