achieved with tuolomne rivers, and we still continue to think that negotiated settlements are superior to a regulatory solution potentially avoiding litigation on the matter. the one other comment i'll make is last night, about 10:00, we received a letter from a nongovernmental organizations. i can talk about that now or if you'd like to hear more from several of those folks that are here, we can have some discussion of that if you'd like. >> i think i'd like to hear from them. i do have a question before we get to that, though. we had originally talked about this time to talk about the difference of n.g.o.s and our positions or our proposals. >> mm-hmm. >> as we talk, the two big ones

that i wrote down are the planning drought and how we look at that, and the other is the different approach of unimpaired flows versus functional flows. are there other major areas where we think we'd differ? >> well, those are the -- those are big ones. i think another -- i wouldn't necessarily call it a difference -- is we have emphasized the amount of water we would lose. we have talked about, you know, projects that could provide that water and so we're talking about those more explicitly here, so it's not that with we've avoided those and never wanted to do them, it's just that they are -- seem secondary to talk about, are we actually talking about the right amount of water in the first place. >> okay. and is the n.g.o.s speak, if

there are identifying areas of difference, i think it would be helpful if we identify those. >> i have a couple of questions, too. when you put up that list of alternate ti ti alternative water supplies, is the reason you use those numbers is because that's what the impact on our water supply you believe will be with an unimpaired flow scenario? >> no. and if i could have the slides so that everybody can see the table there that we're referring to, each project has a certain amount of water that they can provide. those are what i would call the live projects on the table we have before us. they happen to add up to on the high end, to 50 million gallons perday. there would need to be more in some way or we would need to alter the amount of rationing that we might, you know, live

under if it came down to it. there's -- and there's always more alternate tiff supplies that can be looked at. these are the ones that are active for us, that we're looking at right now. that's why these are hear. the time frame of 10-30 years is just a buallpark of how lon it takes to get a project in place. i would say the non -- the purefied water, basically to drinking water, that's closer to 30 years. the los vaqueros expansion, that's probably closer to ten years. >> i guess where i'm going with this is to get some understanding of if we were -- if there was a mandate to -- for unimpaired flow by the state, what else would we need to do, aside from what's on that list, to be able to secure supply from our contracts? >> i think one way would be to

find a way to garner additional storage. we just celebrated the topping off of calaveras dam. calaveras dam was constructed so we could make it bigger, so, you know, making that bigger so we had additional storage capacity there would be a useful thing. that would get us a chunk of that supply. i figured we should finish the dam first before we talk about the next step, but that would be a way so that in really wet years, the tuolomne trust is talked about -- we had 3 million acre feet available in 2017. some of that water could have been diverted through the pipelines and put into calaveras for storage in dry times. that's one storage option. can we develop a larger groundwater storage option? one of the challenges there is everybody is obligated through the sustainable groundwater management act to better manage their basins, so people are looking hard at themselves first, and the welcome mat

isn't out necessarily for someone else to come in and be a party in the basin. even though they might be able to bring some extra water to it that might help the basin overall. that will take a few years to shake out before it becomes clear if that's a good idea or not, but i think there's some possibility there, but it's a little murky right now. >> yeah. it seems like as part of your first bullet in your conclusions, needing to plan better for water supply that we're going to kind of need to drive pretty hard toward what that actually means. >> yeah. if the plan's adopted it says it's going to require implementation in 2022. that's four years from now, so that's a four-year head start, but if these projects take 25 years, then we've got a period of 20-plus years where we would be at risk of potentially being severely hurt on our supply side with no alternative supplies immediately available.

>> okay. and one other question, and i know we're going to get to the n.g.o. letter because i know they made some good point nz that n.g.o. letter. one of them -- i'm not sure it's a difference, but it's this question of peer reviewing the data. we've talked about this before on both sides, you know, the stateside where you've said in your presentation that that information that the state is putting forward for unimpaired maybe was peer reviewed but hasn't been shown to actually help the fish necessarily recuperate and thrive. and then, i think there's a question from the n.g.o.s about the peer review of our data that would show that the -- that the functional flows are going to guarantee it best or provide for the fish in a healthy way. >> yeah. >> so i don't know if that's

really a point of difference, but it seemed that that's a question. >> yeah, and i can speak to that one directly because that is -- it's not the data as much as it's the modelling together with the data, but the models were developed by folks under contract at the turlock and modesto districts at the direction of the federal regulatory commission. f.r.c. said we need you to produce a model that can model these results so we can use it in our nipa process, so that's what the districts did, and we pay for all of the studies that were did under the f.r.c. relicensing process. so we would support peer reviewing of that model, but it would have to be done in conjunction with f.r.c. since they're the ones that requested that project. if you look at it, the districts kind of own it, but f.r.c.'s going to use it in

their relicensing process. but i think we would be happy to support a peer review of that, by the parties that are most using the model. we just have used the results because they're relevant to this, but it's ultimately their model. >> could part of that process include reviewing the state's unimpaired model, as well with f.r.c., i guess. >> well, i wouldn't drag f.r.c. into reviewing the state stuff. that would be a bad thing. >> okay. just trying to figure out. >> it would be more complex, because f.r.c. has its own very established process. you know, the right way, the wrong way, and the army way? the same thing applies to f.r.c. there's the right way, the wrong way, and how they do business. that's getting f.r.c. and the state board together's probably not a likely thing, necessarily, although the state will have to provide water quality certification for any core permit or any federal license that is issued there, so there will be a relationship

there, and not sure how f.r.c. will deal with that, particularly if they're ready to issue the license and the state is not in a position to cite the plan. >> but this peer review model of the state model without f.r.c. >> we can take that up with the state water board. the state basically has now contacted modesto and turlock, requesting to see the back up for their model, so i think that's a good sign. it shows that they're interested and paying attention, and so there may be something that comes out of that in dialogue. >> thank you. >> mm-hmm. >> is there anything else? thank you, mr. ritchie. so we have a number of public speakers. i have a lot of cards here. so again, in the interest of time, that everyone gets an equal time to speak, we ask that you stick strictly to the chimes. first chime is the warning,

second chime, end promptly. so i'm going to call the first gentleman up, mr. bill martin. mr. martin. >> good afternoon. bill martin. i'm a san francisco resident, customer of the sfpuc. i'm also a member of the sierra club on the water committee for the san francisco bay chapter, and i just want to ramble a little bit unfortunately because i wasn't sure what mr. ritchie was going to say. but in response to the question what are the differences relative to the various environmental organizations' positions and the p.u.c.? one thing i think it's important to take a step back and look at the big picture of this. they're concerned about the entire eco system, and i think that the focus of mr. ritchie's presentation regarding the tuolomne is important, but that's not just what this is all about. this is really about trying to

restore the ecosystem back to some function -- back to some ability to actually be an ecosystem, and i think that one of the sort of taking that big picture approach, one of the problems that i have personally as an sfpuc customer and as an environmentalist is that we all share responsibility for this ecosystem, and for the sfpuc to say well, our own -- our responsibility's only tuolomne, well, sorry. it doesn't cut it. the point is that we're all -- we've all created this problem together, going back, you know, 100 -- say getting back to now about 170 years, at the beginning of the gold rush. so i think it's important for all of us to step back and say well, how can we all help in this -- in this area, instead of necessarily figuring out, so it's that -- that's the first place to start. to me, that's the big

difference right there, and i would just like to have that issue out there. secondly, relative to unimpaired versus functional flows, the way i understand it, and i certainly don't understand the -- the functional flow as mr. ritchie points out correctly, unimpaired flow is a simple solution. you go, this is how much flow we're going to put down there relative to history. well, what is a functional flow? is that that, and so i think one thing that would help me understand this concept of functional flow and have a better chance of perhaps understanding it and perhaps even supporting it would be a much better idea of what it is. exactly how does a functional flow contrast with the unimpaired flows the state has proposed? more detail, more transparency would be helpful. thank you very much. >> thank you. so to keep things flowing, i'm going to call folks up three at a time, and if you wouldn't

mind perhaps lining up on the wall over here. first, i'm going to call miss ann clark, if you wouldn't mind standing -- mr. barry nelson and chris gilbert. miss clark, welcome back. >> i'm ann clark, a member of the tu lomly trust advisory board and a member of nrdc. i'm speaking for myself and a different more local perspective, and i'm going to talk very fast. last friday, september 21, i learned about the meeting today and ended up spending the weekend doing a rough, simple draft chart about water. here's my rough simple grassroots draft about water and water supply. i hope it makes sense to you. i've attached it to what i'm saying today, and so you're going to get this chart that

you will see. and regard the other one as just the message i was going to leave on your desk. here's my rough simple grassroots chart. it's about water and water supply. i hope it makes sense to you. what the chart needs is bay area information, including a five-year track of water use and supply from september 1, 2013 to september 25, 2018. we, the common people need to know who gets the water, where it goes, who uses it, and the cost factors, commercial areas, farms and agriculture, homes and residents, cities and towns e corporate offices and campuses. we need information for the whole bay area because we live and travel all over the bay area. when i spoke to you on august 28, i urged the commission to establish two bay area committees as soon as possible. that included public access and information. the san francisco bay area water study committee, the san francisco bay area water supply committee. we need studies and statistics. we need plans and actions.

most of all, we need san francisco and the entire bay area to work together, to work together to face the challenges ahead and the present and future of our most valuable assets: water, rivers and ecosystems. thank you very much. >> thank you. mr. barry nelson. >> thank you, chairman kwon and members of the commission. barry nelson representing the golden gate salmon association. just as a very brief opening comment, i'm glad that you and the staff are -- are really focusing on this issue. it's -- it's impossible to overstate how important this issue is from a whole list of perspectives, we're on the wave -- on the precipice of

extinction. and i want to thank commissioner moran for his comment about trying to focus on places where we can find common ground and ways to move forward, and the letter that -- that mr. ritchie referred to, if i can give this to your staff, you may have seen this already, but this is the letter that mr. ritchie refer today that came in last -- referred to that came in last night. focused on three issues where i really think we can focus on making progress. the first -- we haven't talked about this yet today. the first is the current federal administration has begun a quite aggressive attack on natural resources in california, on the use of credible science and the regulatory process. and we would invite you to be part of the effort to resist that attack on california's natural resources. frankly, they're attacking right now on the same side

as -- as the p.u.c.'s current position, but i'll come in a moment to why i think that's particularly important. so that's that first issue, we're likely to see additional developments on this front soon, and we would urge the p.u.c. to actively resist some of what the trump administration is likely to be doing in the next couple of months. second with regard to science, i was glad to hear the staff say that they're open to the peer review process, and your staff was right. the real question here is peer reviewing the model compared to the approach that the state board has developed. in 2010, the state board developed, pursuant to state law, a -- what was their -- their flow evaluation process, looking at the state of the science. there was enormous scientific involvement in that process. if you haven't looked at the 2010 flow criteria report by the state board, take a look. it was developed through that kind of very extensive

involvement of independent scientists. what came out of that was a focus on the unimpaired flow approach. that came out of that sort of independent scientific process. now your staff has said the tuolomne river is different. i don't see it as different. the aerial photo we saw could have been a photo of any river in the central valley. they're all highly modified river systems. but we think peer review can get around that. i want to -- [inaudible] >> i have a question for you. so when you say it's dramatically different, how so and what are the major players in that? >> a couple of specific examples -- pardon me. the -- your staff suggests that water transfers simply aren't

reliable. 15 years ago, the city of san diego negotiated transfers with the imperial irrigation district. those transfers have been happening on a reliable basis ever since then. the metropolitan water district -- and water's gotten tighter in the last 15 years, that's true, but the metropolitan water district has briefed their board about efforts to develop a brand-new drew year transfer agreement right now, so those similar transfer agreements are being discussed right now. another aspect that wasn't on that list is the potential to wheel water through other systems. you have an inner tie with east bay mud. reason east bay mud's tie could be important is you could potentially open up water transfer market so you're just not trying to transfer water from the tuolomne river barch. it opens up a dramatically much larger universe of water transfers.

those are a couple of examples. the loss vaqueros -- los vaqueros, that project has substantial yield that contra costa is proposing to enter into agreements for dry year water, exactly the type of water that you would need to adapt to state standards. i think there's another example or two on this list, but we think it's a substantially larger list of tools that are not theoretical tools. frankly, i've been working on water issues for a long time. virtually every other larger agency in the state has made big investments in the last 20 years to diversefy their water supplies. for 20 years, most agencies in the state have been doing that. frankly, we think the p.u.c.

needs to catch up. we think you need to do that any way to address the impacts of climate change, but it's clear that the state board standards are what are really bringing that into sharp focus. we think there's a hefty list there. i'll simply add one comment about those alternate tiff approaches. east bay mud initially said something similar to what mr. ritchie just said. east bay mud said the same thing, and what came out of that, those discussions, very extensive, long discussions with -- with the environmental communication and local government, what came out of that was a project that nobody was thinking of going on. that was the freeport project. that project is serving east bay mud today. it was working during the drought. they transferred water through that facility during the drought, so the point is with -- if folks sit down in good faith and try to collaborate in terms of water supply solutions, we may come

up with ideas that aren't even on the table today. >> okay. thank you. >> thank you. >> you know, it does -- it makes me think of another question. thank you, barry, and it's for steve ritchie. you talked a little -- i don't know if you have an answer right now, but you but up there the 50 m.d.g., 10-30 years, and i understand what that's based on. you also talked about 100 m.g.d. as a number if there was an unimpaired flow mandate. >> mm-hmm. yes. >> and it seems like there's an exercise or some work that could be done, should be done, to say, you know, that is 00 m.g.d., how much of that could be met through additional conservation, kind of taking and doing the next piece of work, and then confirming that that 100 m.g.d. is indeed the number that we're talking about, and if that would allow us to not only provide for our

contracts -- and i understand we'd have to do that in partnership with bsca, and others, but drought scenario planning and climate projections, and whatnot. >> yeah, no, i think absolutely. if these requirements are in effect, we have to plan for that 100 m.g.d. you know, is it -- should we start planning for 100 m.g.d. right now? i think that's where we haven't gone there yet because that seems like a big number, and we still have questions about how the water would be used in the first place to benefit the environment, so why plan for something which we think is not necessarily the right answer? that said, you know, we've got projects on the books where we're looking to at least 50, and if the need arises, we'll certainly develop the plans for it, but that's -- you know, when do you start building something is what you ultimately get to is the question. we can spend, you know, 10, 20

million of planning information, but at what point are we ready to pull the trigger to spend $1 billion or more. i think that's the question. but working through, that's the need. that sort of folds in the noise, san mateo and santa clara, making them permanent customers, the additional supply they have requested, making up for the end stream flow obligations that we already have in the bay area, so there are needs that we have to plan for now that will eat into that. but that's what we do, is we look at what the need is, we try to come up with the best combination of solutions to get there with the, you know, obvious that conservation is almost always the right first choice because that's what we already have. >> one thing that would be helpful -- and i understand the -- the reluctancy to spend

money on something that may not happen, but it would help to have some kind of estimate of roughly ballpark numbers of how much money we're going to be talking about that. i come at that from a couple of directions. one of the things we talk about sometimes is the economic analysis and the impact of what the state board's actions would be. and you've heard me talk before about the difficulty i have, you know, dealing with those economic analysises. the much more salient analysis is what will it cost to fix the problem. so it would help to have that. and also, you know, i think we're being asked by the environmental community, you know, to the extent that we agree on the amount of harm that that -- or challenge that that kind of an order might present to us, we're being asked, basically, to step up and do the right thing and, you know, deal with it, cut your

whining, just deal with it. that sounds pretty good. it also has a price tag, and it would be useful, i think, in our discussion, to have some ballpark sense of what that dollar amount is. >> i can commit to having a price tag at the next meeting. it's going to have bigger ror bars around it. >> no, i understand that. >> thank you, mr. ritchie. next speaker is chris gilbert. mr. gilbert, welcome. >> is it possible to pass a page to everybody here? so my name's chris gilbert. i represent the bay chapter of the sierra club. i'm on their water committee. i had something written down, but i think it's more important to address the presentation today. what i'm passing out is a

document put out by the public policy institute of california on alternative water supplies, and it is -- the back is where it might be more interesting to start. you can see that southern california has ten times the amount of recycled water in its investments, so this tells me that northern california is behind the ball on that alternative water source. on the front, it has the idea that alternate tiive water source -- mixed water sources improve drought resilience. so -- and then -- so that's my document there. and then, i want to talk about transfers. i want to second barry's point

about successful transfers being done in southern california. the m.w.d. is now leasing land in some water districts so they can get the water rights, so it is being done. i don't understand the idea that transfers have not been successful. i think it was stated it was done 20 years ago, it was tried, but it is becoming the norm, especially when waters pay one-tenth the cost of urban users, why wouldn't farmers sell their water rather than grow stuff? so i think that's being underplayed there, as some of the other -- some the other things. and finally, i want to say, the science -- i can see your dilemma here because unless you're scientists, who do you believe? i believe the environmental community, the farmers in the delta, 'cause it's all -- you know, you mentioned that the environmental community is making the demand, but it's

really wider than that. it's farmers in the delta, so when that body of groups come together and supports this plan, it's hard to not take them seriously when the studies on the other side are done by water districts. so turlock and modesto did the water study. that seems a little tainted to me, and that's all i'll say. thank you. >> thank you. want to call the next four folks, if you'd just be ready to come up in the following order. mr. barry hermannson. thomas solai, petter dreckmeyer. mr. hermannson. thank you. >> my name is barry hermannson, and i'm with the sierra club and the san francisco green party. i'd like to speak today just regarding my personal efforts to conserve.

i did speak to -- at a meeting last month regarding that, and there were two other individuals who came forward to speak at that time, as well. and all of us were using about one-third of what the average is for san francisco residents and actually that means even less than what people in the bay area use. i'm a little disappointed that there has not been more discussion about conservation. i believe francesca, you made a comment after ours that it was unrealistic to expect people throughout the bay area to be conserving as much as we have been, and i agree to ask people to give up two thirds of their water is -- is a tremendous ask to make. however, i listed off several items that could be actually implemented that actually would

enable this with very little effort on the part of individuals throughout the bay area. changing out your 2.5-gallon shower head with a 1.5 gallon, that's a 40% savings, right there. changing out your 1.6-gallon toilet with a one-gallon perflush, that's almost 60% right there with no change in your lifestyle. i'm also investigating putting a cistern in my house, because in addition to existing on one-third of the water that my neighbors do in the bay area, i have a back yard garden. i've been enjoying the harvest from my gravenstein tree.

before that, it was santa rosa plumbs, and part of that was installing a gray water system from my laundry. i mentioned that i got rid of my top loading washing machine and got a front loader. so instead of doing 40 gallons to do a load of wash, it's 20. i believe in order to maintain the watershed, we really need to talk more seriously about steps we can take to conserve water, realistic steps. thank you. [please stand by]

so low people eat too much, get fat and sick. it means the water to produce the food is not wasted but very expensive for the economy. thirdly,tude that meads a large amount of water like almonds

when water is limited should be reserved for less water intensive food production is wasteful. finally, the social political implications have artificially low water prices in the area or a country with much higher water costs is wasteful. it needs to be considered in a larger context. in corn conclusion, considering -- conclusion. it will not reduce the wasted water usage. it will make the would belems worse by decreasing the fish populations. it is time four the california water agencies, including boston to deal with the underlying issues instead of burying them thinking bandaids can solve the real problem. thank you. >> thank you.

>> good afternoon, i want to address some of the differences. i want to point out that we believe the nonflow measure such as habitat are critical to the success moving forward. we are not opposed to those. we feel in the absence of adequate flows they will be unsuccessful. you can have flood plains that doesn't help with regeneration and provide the juvenile salmon and other fish. water temperatures and other factors play in the flows. a functional ecosystem you have a main channel that serves as migration corridor, you have off channel habitat such as flood plane. larger fish are in the channel the larger fish are in the flood

plain. what the plan is attempting to do is squeeze everything in the channel. yoyou have the habitat in the channel with the non-native predators that is a big issue. a symptom of the problem we altered the ecosystem from cold water to warm water pooled environment. so mr. richy referred to the 1995 agreement and the special 9 project. i am going to read you from a sentence from the post project monitoring report. during extremely wet years lie flows flush the bass out of the stream. during the years following the flood it was controlled by the flow conditions unfavorable for

reproduction it is tied to temperature. large mouth bath require warm -- bass require low water temperatures. that was in 1995 and it failed. the temperature study that was done, and i don't think it was peer reviewed. we have questions about those. the temperature study found the salmon could with stand higher temperatures. what they didn't look at how that affected food supply and ability of predators to survive and thrive. a fish could survive. without food it is not going to survive. with predation eating it, it is not going to survive. these studies make it look like the plan could work. bottom line there needs to be a backup plan. if it doesn't work what do we work. the river management plan

doesn't have a backup plan. ran out. >> thank you. mr. ros rosencrantz. we don't have a position on the lower but we are worried that the state is going to go forward with a plan to put more water down the river and the commission will not be prepared. barry nelson referred to a list of program that have been implemented in the last 20 years, it was 20 years. this is five years old. i sent it to you five years ago. it has 19 different programs, many which were implemented by either metropolitan water

district of southern california or member agencies or santa clara and its agencies, those were to some degree in response to increasing environmental requirements like you are face anything the water control plan which limited exports in the delta, and then in 2006 and 2007 the dangerous species requirements kicked in. there was no warning for those. this has been in play for about six years proposed to be implemented in another four years. i would agree with barry nelson that the list is more expansive than what mr. richy put forward. water temperatures has worked and water banks has worked. that can be done relatively quickly. you have challenges because you don't have this much conveyance

in relation to the rest of the state. i suggest you think about that sooner rather than later there. are other agencies that have been forced to find new ways to do business, and you can support and i assume you will support your functional flow approach. you may not be successful. you may be partially successful, and you need to take these to meet your customers' needs seriously. i talked with your staff in detail and i will continue to do so. i will e-mail these and i have 20 bullet points. one doesn't really count. it is just that you urge staff to move forward. >> thank you. the next three speakers ready first is martin bothberg, dave

warner and deng niece louise. >> please come up, mr. gothberg. >> good afternoon, i am martin bothberg. i am speaking for myself. i spend a lot of time with the trust and other organizations. i respect everything you guys do. i have been up here a couple times. i appreciate the level of discourse that i hear from you, and how difficult this task is of managing our water. i don't have a lot of technical arguments. they have been stated. that is one of the nice things about going last. one of the high level ideas i get when i listen to steve richy and i wish i could hear it more versus when i read through the delta plan. it is going to take a great deal of collaboration. we have major challenges. it puts the emphasis where i

feel it should be as a water consumer on the environment. we have a situation that really does need work over the next several decades versus risk mitigation and water source protection. if you really think about it, though, the challenge is enormous, and both require everything that steve richy mentioned requires a lot of work and collaboration. i don't hear enough of that to oppose the water plan for the state plan, and i still haven't heard that. i heard differences. i haven't heard why one is worse than the other. thank you for the time. >> mr. dave warner.

>> my name is dave warner. thank you for investing significant time on this topic and the engagement today and the last meeting. i would say it is great news that the state water board has reached out to explore more what is going on. that is a wonderful step in the right direction that leads me to how can we reach out to each other? the comment is maybe it is time to ask both sides what would it take for you to be more comfortable incorporating the other side's view. i can't spea speak speak for the environmentalists if it were accepted as equal or better than the state water bedder plan, that -- board plan that would go a long ways for us. technical comment. when we talk about 100 million

gals a day, those are based on demand higher than what we have seen this decade. they are based on fairly high numbers. third comment, in 2014, los angeles mayor declared the los angeles would reduce water imports 50%. he was re-elected by a landslide. the point i like was there was a photo opfor him showing a groundbreaking of this. the state water board was helping fund. i can't remember the project. they were helping fund the project. the $1 billion price tag is probably right. one point. to the commissioner more and's list. i think adaptive management. i know steve used it. i am not sure of the meaning.

it would go a long ways if it meant these measures didn't turn-out to work we weren't seeing recovery of the populations we were expecting, that we would take further action. i think that would be another one. thanks so much for your time. >> last but not least. yoany other public comment on ts item? >> my name is eddy. i was born in san francisco. i have lived here much of my life. in many instances, i am a big fan of the sfpc. i think it can be very forward thinking and do a lot of great work with regard to the power sf. i live an block away from holloway which is fabulous and

looking good. i do think there is room for improvement and to be more innovative and forward thinking with regard to our water supply and the opportunities we have to identify new supplies. i think there are many more than we were presented today. particularly, in working with the wholesale customers, primarily the folks from boston. the folks in the south bay made it clear they are moving quickly towards reuse, where that is portable or direct or indirect. there is a lot of opportunity to assist with that. we have companies like facebook and sales force who are very vocal about wanting to implement on site treatment systems and have been able to do so now that the state is going to allow the local agencies to

start permitting these systems. that is a big ask, especially in the peninsula for the smaller municipalities. sfpc has a lot of lessons and opportunities to share with these other agencies how we can implement satellite infrastructure that helps alleviate some of the issue was the water grid on the supply and treatment side while also adding more resilience by adding infrastructure not necessarily at sea level and waiting for sea level rise to take it away or offline. i see that as a major opportunity to -- from the demand savings side. the other thing that hasn't been talked about much is with regards to climate change and our decreasing snowpack, we may get 40% unimpaired flows anyway.

we are getting rain later in the season as rain not snow. we may get that anyway, in which case we need to be prepared for that. i believe distributed satellite infrastructure is a better way to do that. water systems are swinging to the large scale, i think it is time for the smaller distributed scale grey or green infrastructure to do that. >> thank you. public comment on this item? next item, please. mr. chairman, if we might, i have some questions that i was waiting for the end of public comment. if i can pursue those. >> please. >> the letter that was sent, i did get it last night and had a chance to look at it. i thought it was positive and

constructive. i think it represents, you know, a good faith effort to find common ground where that can be found so i acknowledge that and appreciate that as well. one question. on the matter of peer review, i think there is an underlying issue we somehow have to deal with. if somebody has a bright idea i would love to hear it. that is that the reason we have different scientific opinions is not just who paid the scientists. it is what is the question that was asked? if you ask somebody what flow regime closely mimics natural hydrology is required to support the fishery you will get one

answer. if the question is how do we provide in the fish in the way most economical in the terms of water cost to society, you get a very different answer. as we look at trying to peer review we have to figure out how to bring that divide. you know, i think the state board can be faulted for being relatively insensitive to the impacts of their proposed order on water agencies. i think that their position is worthy of challenge as perhaps ours is. that is a fundamental question. i am not sure how to resolve that. i am open to thoughts about that. second comment, i think the third request had to do with the

department of interior under the current administration. i understand the point. the thing i think we need to be somewhat conscious about or aware of is that these are agencies we have to deal with, department of interior is the jurisdiction allentyty. fish and wildlife service are agencies with mandatory conditions over licenses. we have to talk to them. we do talk to them. where we disagree with what they are saying, we will tell them. that discussion is important and needs to continue and will continue. i think that we need to be clear that while we may disapprove of the general thrust at the highest level in washington, we also need to know that we deal

with these folks all of the time. the people we talk to most of the time are not the secretary of interior. i never talked to them. what we do is talk to buyologists and people who are regional directors and that kind of thing. that is a different kind of conversation, and we do not approach that by saying whatever they say we disagree to. it would be irresponsible for us to do that. we need to view what they say as critically as what they view what we say that is a important discussion. the last comment. i think in the letter it suggested we do a variety of things, peer review. it rays the question of timing. the state board is on a schedule to issue a final order.

we need to deal with that. we don't have the luxury of just saying, well, we will file our appeal later because there is a timeline. you have to act within a certain amount of time to protect your rights. that is our reality. i also believe we can chew bubble gum and breathe payment and litigate and negotiate payment, too. we need to figure out how to as we continue the discussion where the proposals fit with in the timeline and where we can be flexible and where we can't. one other thing raised was the viability of transfers. i don't think anybody is says they are not viable. trying to come up with the transfer tat 11th hour suimpossible. if nobody has water to spare,

finding a willing seller is hard to do. you have to set this up ahead of time. they are viable. people made good use of them. there are some big plumbing problems. we aren't part of the state water system. if we have one state water system customer willing to transfer water to us we have a hard time taking delivery of that. somebody suggested maybe we should look at that. our aqua duct is potable water. when we think of transfer the most obvious to us and the most technically and financially feasible are ones that end up from oakdale if it gets on the river we have the same plumbing

and chemistry. those are highly viable. we had trouble consummating those deals. we were close with modesto and that blew up. don't think water transfers are not viable. every agency has their own issues. we have particular constraints, but they are viable and frankly should be part of our planning how we deal with things, whatever the threat environmental or regulatory induced. that is the end of my comments. anything else? okay. next item, please. you bay area water service

conservation agency update. >> good afternoon, nicole. there are three things i want to talk about today. first relates to the same conversation you have been having. i want to open up and thank you for the hearing that you scheduled at your second meeting in august. that was something i sincerely appreciated timing wise coming out of our meeting in july was interest to have such a thing. we didn't meet until september. you offered up the opportunity and i think we all appreciated that. it started a good dialogue. i also, you know we had 19 members from the agencies here including my chair who felt it was significantly important to hear from them as well. i wasn't here. i was on vacation. i did watch it. in general it was a hearing that

initiated a good conversation as evidenced by some of the discussions today talking about where do we go? bosca is focused on the idea of voluntary settlement agreement. there is no way i can tell thaw is easy to do. none of this is easy. i believe strongly that is the way for you to get the best result in the soonest possible time with the least amount of otherwise unnecessary expended costs legal or otherwise. we are putting all our resources to that end and to try to bridge that gap to figure out what is going on here so we can achieve objectives of the plan but not decimate the water supply. i see appreciate the agenda. it was on the board last week and there was good conversation

there as well. a couple things to offer to the conversation you had on transfers. as you know we were trying to do a pilot water transfer to test this concept before the drought. we have been doing it since 2012. i will tell you what we found was one of the fears we had. we are not a member of the state water project, we don't get a borough contract. the borough said we don't care you are talking about it, go away. you can't use our facility. it all fell apart. we initiated our conversations. there are viable options out there. it is complex and difficult and it needs a lot of work and the tuolumne river options are there. that is always our interest as

long as ier. that was as option we suggested at the time. it has not been able to bear any fruit yet that is where we are at with the delta plan. the second item i want to talk k about is last friday. that was a good news story. i appreciated the effort of your staff to really create that celebration. more importantly to get the word out about what has been done. the number of people that have reached out to me separately because they heard about it, saw it on the news. it had been such a long time since we had all of the problems, and i think it really speaks to fortitude, leadership, persistence and strength to get that project and get that dam done. that is a significant improvement to the service area. i do applaud the skilled workers

and your leadership. lastly, if i could have the slides. just to continue my tracking of water use and it also does relate to the discussions we have been having about the delta plan. this is water use through july 2018 as reported to the state board. this is total, not just purchases. for july 17% less than the pre-drought use. you continue to see the gap between the top blue line 2013 and the red line which is our current use. obviously, there has been some rebound, but not back to the pre-drought use. we are