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tv   SF Public Utilities Commission  SFGTV  September 13, 2020 4:00pm-7:01pm PDT

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highlight for you mr. pierce, i think it's critically important that we somehow get the message out to folks that we will support and stand by anyone who feels that they have information to bring forward about allegations of wrong doing and if you want work with director pelham and think about how best we can communicate that, i think that will be time well spent. with that, i will ask the moderator to call for public comment on this item number 7. >> clerk: we are checking to see if there are callers in the queue.
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please press star 3 to be added to the public comment queue. you will have three minutes to provide public comment and six minutes if you're online with an interpreter. you will hear a bell go off when you have 30 seconds remaining. please standby. once again, if you have joined this meeting, we are currently on agenda item 7. discussion of monthly staff enforcement report.
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you will have three minutes to provide public comment and six minutes if you're online with an interpreter. there are no more callers. >> chair ambrose: public comment is closed. thank you mr. pierce. i will call agenda item 8. discussion of executive
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director's report an update of various programmatic and operational highlights of ethics commission. that will be executive director pelham presentation. thank you. >> thank you chair ambrose. i won't recap the budget information i highlighted here in case this is where people look for the budget updates. there's some information there. quick update on the public financing program, since last month's commission meeting, as of yesterday, as of september 9th, it was the last day on which candidates running for the november election could be determined to be eligible for the program. as of the 9th, we now have 16 of the 22 candidates who agreed
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to participate in the program and on the ballot. 15 of those 22 board of supervisors are candidates are now participating eligibly. 68% participating rate, which is good. that's going to be really interesting to look at overtime if the new program provisions that were enacted this year, have helped people get in the program. together, that group of 15 is now qualified for almost $2.5 million. we will now turn to continue to mohammad public financing matching claims that are coming in. there's a provision in the law that says if a candidate who is deemed to be ineligible through our review by september 9th date, which is to have that determination appealed there's a process to do that.
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i don't think i have anything else to report on this item. i'm happy to take any questions if you have them for me. >> vice chair lee: we maybe doing lot of good work -- there
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are lot of things that the general public should know about. i would renew my recommendation that we step up on our educational outreach activities especially now with remote connections. i think it maybe little bit easy to organize them. given all the attention the election and everything else that the staff would put together ongoing activities. number one, to really resume our press briefings. one before the election, the second is post-election. to let people know that we're relevant and more importantly there's a vehicle for the public to report or to share their
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suggestions on government and clean election. i would hope to see that we would have the couple of press briefings taking place. when i say press briefing i want to emphasize we're talking about neighborhood, social media and ethnic media is really key getting information out to underserved community in the city. we talked about the ongoing persons of interest briefings or information gathering. i also felt that we need to expand the definition of persons of interest. it seems like the people on the front line are the ones who
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really need the information the most. i would like to see persons of interest to include city organizations, political organizations, bipartisan. those are the ones who may not be the lobbyist, who may not be actually running for office but they are supporting election reform, government reform. they may have a lot more experience and information to share if they were part of these in-person briefings. i would love to see that, yes we have limited budget i think that we're already doing these things. it's just a matter of expanding it to be more inclusive so that we can raise the professional -- profile and get the community
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energize and get them to know what the city of sa ethics comms and make us more stronger and connected to the people who are impacted. >> chair ambrose: thank you commissioner lee. i very much appreciate and share that perspective. my hope is that we -- with remote technology as a start, maybe able to do more of that with resources that we have currently. i would look forward to reporting back to you all on that front as well. >> chair ambrose: those are really good suggestions. commission chiu, did you have a question or comment? >> commissioner chiu: executive director pelham, if i can be helpful in any way in participating in the community, outreach community, i will be
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delighted to do so. i agree, it's part of the pandemic shutdown is that the proliferation of online meetings and outreach, digitally or virtually, i think is a real game changer in terms of being able to reach more people. people might not be able to come to a meeting because they have child care or they have to work. the convenience is doing from home on a phone or tablet or laptop, i think reduces those barriers and we can take advantage of that in this time. that will be really great. i had a second question for executive director pelham on the director's report, i see there is a budget item for statement of economic interest filing late
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fees. if you can report on it next month, i'd be interested to know the 7% who didn't file, how many still are outstanding and but efforts are being made to get them to file. >> i believe last week, i understood out of the 18 identified last month as electronic filers, i believe the number last week gone down to 14. i don't have today's current numbers. we have follow up with all filers to give them a 60-day notice.
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>> commissioner chiu: could we also send a note not just to the filers themselves but to their boss, to their appoint -- >> i believe that notice is provided as well. >> commissioner chiu: i don't know if this was done before, is it possible to publish a list of those who have not filed on our website? >> yes. eir wili will follow-up once wew how many that is. unfortunately it's ridiculousing cumbersome to find that. we need to make it simpler. we were waiting to see how many filed. we can find place on our website to update that information. >> commissioner chiu: let the legislative aids know that
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they've been called out for failing to file. >> most of the people on the list is board of commissioners. >> commissioner chiu: have we been reminding them they are not permitted to vote? >> yes. we shared that information with the city attorney's office. they can also make sure they have that information at the time, should there be an action something might taken. there's some on the list that left office. they still have an obligation to file. >> commissioner chiu: if there are commissioners or others who have not filed and has continued to participate in meetings and
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votes, what actions can we take or what consequences follow from that? >> individuals who have not filed one of statements or their certification of training, are disqualified under the provisions of the law from acting and participating. we can come back -- our advice somebody called their office about whether they should be acting. we would advise them not to take action. somebody had taken action when they were disqualified under the law, that's something we'll follow up through the usual channels whether or not a violation occurred and if a penalty should apply and if so what that is. we will follow our normal practices looking into violations have occurred.
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>> commissioner chiu: thank you. >> chair ambrose: i wouldn't recognize the names. i'm sure organization they were part of. you're saying they are board and commission members, next month, can you tell us which boards and commissions these individuals serve on? if they have resigned and have not filed their leaving office statement, presumably they have given notice of resignation, getting to that point, i like to know how many, if any, of these non-filers are actually active members of existing board and commissions. if so, which boards and commissions those are? thank you. now we're going to ask for comment on this item.
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sorry, commissioner bush, your hand is up. go ahead. >> commissioner bush: i wanted to associate myself with commissioner lee's comments about greater outreach. my thought on that is that our interested person's meeting now are pretty much reactive where we invite people to come in and give their reactions to proposals from the staff and the commission, the change regulations or laws or so forth. i think it would be very good idea to have an interested person's meeting in which the community came to us with what they think needs to be added to the work of the ethics commission. knowing that we have no resources but nevertheless, we do need take a pulse from them about what they see is going on and they would like to see greater activity from. since that's pretty much a virtual meeting, it's something that can be done by sending out
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questions as commissioner lee suggesting that we do an outreach to community-based groups that are politically active and others asking them directly, we could have someone develop a series of questions or it can be open-ended where they give us an essay. we should do something like that. i would recommend that we add that to our list for the next meeting. [please stand by]
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>> you are online with an interpreter. you will hear a bell go off when you have 30 seconds remaining. please stand by.
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>> thank you. >> once again for the general public, if you just joined this meeting, we're on public decision on agenda item 8, discussion of the executive director's report. operational highlights of staff activity since the commission's previous meeting. please continue to stand by. madam chair, there are no callers in the queue. >> thank you. with that then i am going to
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call agenda item 9 and that would be discussion of possible action on items for future meetings. i am going to -- there is no presentation. if any members of the public intend to offer public comment to this item, they can dial in now and enter star 3 to be added to the public comment queue. now i'm going to ask all the commissioners if they have items for future meetings. all right. and commissioner busch, you're first with your hand up. you can go ahead. >> thank you, i would like to add a request that we look at the redistricting task force and whether or not its activities are covered by our laws on
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lobbying. is it okay or not okay to lobby or give gifts to members of the redistricting task force? that will be appointed in the next period of, i think in march according to the law. also, i like to see us add to the groups like permit expediters and lobbyists, strategic advisors. they are a classic revolving door group. they are often the most senior officials in the mayor's office or departments that do not engage in direct lobbying of their former colleagues, but provided a vice to accompa comp entity on how to accomplish something at city hall. you can see they advertise themselves as a strategic
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advisor. this is not a mystery. i would like that to be added. as i just talked about, a community meeting, an outreach to the community on what it is that people think needs to be given priority consideration by the ethics commission. we did something similar to this with the general obligation bond oversight committee when i served on it, when we did a survey of whether or not people felt what they got with the bond spending was what they had expected to get, which is an after action report. so, i know that the money exists to do those surveys from the controllers' office, the general bond oversight committee would often return up to $2 million in
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unspent funding. it could go back to the city and some of that could be tapped for us to do surveys. thank you. >> okay. so those are -- i mean in terms of the substantive question you asked about redistricting, i'm assuming that between director and her staff and the city attorney's office, they will be able to provide an answer to that question when we meet again in october on your proposal to address the strategic advisors. i would ask mr. ford in your policy staff report next month, in addition to giving us some feedback on what the utilization of advisory committees may mean
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to the work that you are charged to do, what that legislative effort because that would require legislation to amend the rules to require disclosure of these individuals who hire themselves out as strategic advisors. so if not a proposal, be prepared to speak to that subject and then with respect to the community i.p. meeting, i think excue -- executive director, you said improving outreach is on your agenda and it's clearly on the agenda of the commissioners to broaden our outreach for commissioner lee's point and commissioner bush now
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with this idea boar rrrowed froe bond oversight committee about tapping into a community feedback loop on what they understand we do and what they think we should be doing. that's yet another idea. so what i'm getting out of all of this is i know in november, we're going to be looking at the plan report on the agenda again. in october, i think we had a general discussion that we're going to see a discussion of possible action on this idea of supplemental resources to submit, to support commission objectives and that could be both advisory committees, as well as grant funding, requested payments, et cetera. i understand that this is a commission initiated item so i'm not expecting a fulsome staff
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report or presentation. we want it on the agenda with enough clarity so that we can brainstorm about all the possible ways that we might enhance, you know, being able to achieve the mission with the limited resources that the ethics commission is being given. then, i also have a note here, i'm sorry, form 700 answer. somebody asked a question about form 700 that i thought we were going to try to get answered at a future meeting. is that triggering anybody's memory? >> it may have been me raising the question of what extent can the form 700 accommodate a specific san francisco law, like disclosure of being on the board -- >> that's it. so on that point then, not 130,
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so i'm assuming our attorney is still there. so you together with ethics staff, can be prepared to explain to us the form 700, the rules, there is also the question about whether or not we're being encouraged or directed at a certain date to have everyone file electronically and then the other question about if one wanted to add additional disclosure obligations, would you do that through form 700 or other disclosure. if you can speak about that when we get back together again in october -- i don't know what the actual date is. the second friday in october. i think that's all i have. is there anything else that folks think that we need to --
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oh, commissioner lee. you need to unmute yourself. there you go. >> thank you madam chair. i just have a quick question for the executive director. since the november election is expected to be a little bit of a challenge in many ways with mail in and everything else. on top of that, our meeting is going to be less than two weeks away from the election. i wonder if we should push back the november meeting to a week if the system is still available for us to do the change. i'm concerned if staff will be able to have such a short turn
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around with less than two weeks. >> okay, now that i look at a series of holidays, but what does that mean anymore since we can't technically leave our houses. >> everyday is a holiday. >> the next meeting would be october 9th, which is the friday before indigenous peoples day on october 12th. i'm assuming we're all good for that meeting on the 9th. no one is going away for a long weekend somewhere where you can't -- aren't allowed to go. so two, you say election day is on the 3rd, veterans day is on november 11th, and we would otherwise meet on november 13th. you're suggesting that we push that? we wouldn't meet until
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november 13th. not the 6th, just the 13th. >> yeah, i'm saying it's still less than two weeks from the election. >> right. i don't have any problems moving it back to the 20th. we don't have to take any action now. why don't we just talk about that again in october and by then everybody will have a chance to look at your calendar and we can hear from staff on that. does that sound okay commissioner lee? >> uh-huh. >> okay good. is there anything else we want to put forward for a future agenda? if not, i'm going to call for public comment. >> i see commissioner's hand up. >> sorry, i forgot to take it down. >> okay, all right.
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then moderator, if you can see if there are any commenters in the queue. >> madam clerk, we're looking to see if there is anyone in the queue. for those on hold, please wait until it says you have been unmuted. we're on agenda number 9. if you have not already done so, please press star 3 to be added to the public comment queue. you will have 3 minutes to provide your public comment and 6 minutes if you're online with an interpreter. you will hear bells go off when you have 30 seconds remaining. please stand by.
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>> once again for the general public, if you have just joined the meeting, we're on motion agenda item number 9, discussion and possible action on items for future meetings. also as a reminder, public comment can be submitted in writing and will be shared with the commission after this me meeting has been concluded and will be part of the official meeting files. written comments should be sent to ethics.commission@sfgov.org. please continue to stand by.
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madam chair, there are no callers in the queue. >> all right then, with that i'm going to call agenda item 10, which is an additional opportunity for public comment on matters appearing or not appearing on the agenda pursuant to ethics bylaws article 7 section 2. if you want to have a comment on this idea, call now and press star 3 to be added to the public comment queue. is that agenda 11? >> madam you are correct. >> okay. >> madam chair, we're checking to see if there are callers in
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the queue. for those on hold, please continue to wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted. if you just joined this meeting, we're on public discussion on the agenda item number 10, additional opportunity for public comment on matters appearing or not appearing on the agenda pursuant to ethics commission bylaws article 7, section 2. you will have 3 minutes to provide a public comment, and 6 minutes if you're online with an interpreter. please stand by. once again, if you have joined, just joined this meeting, we are currently on public discussion on the motion of agenda item 10,
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additional opportunity for public comment on matters appearing or not appearing on the agenda pursuant to the ethics commission bylaws article v vii, section 2. a friendly reminder, public comment can be submitted in writing and be submitted to the commission after this meeting has been concluded and will be part of the file. written comments should be sent to ethics.commission@sfgov.org. please continue to stand by. madam chair, there are no
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callers in the queue. >> all right then. i do just want to say everyone take good care. the air quality statewide is between hazardous and very hazardous and we all need to be extra careful and also our thoughts go with the people who don't have a place to hide out from the air. with that, i can adjourn the meeting if i have a motion to adjourn the meeting. >> so moved. >> all right. seconded by commissioner bush and smith. all right, the meeting is adjourned. we'll see you all on october 9th. stay safe. all right. >> thank you everyone. >> bye. >> thank you. [♪]
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>> hello everyone. welcome to the bayview bistro. >> it is just time to bring the community together by deliciou deliciousness. i am excited to be here today because nothing brings the community together like food. having amazing food options for and by the people of this community is critical to the
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success, the long-term success and stability of the bayview-hunters point community. >> i am nima romney. this is a mobile cafe. we do soul food with a latin twist. i wanted to open a truck to son nor the soul food, my african heritage as well as mylas continuas my latindescent. >> i have been at this for 15 years. i have been cooking all my life pretty much, you know. i like cooking ribs, chicken,
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links. my favorite is oysters on the grill. >> i am the owner. it all started with banana pudding, the mother of them all. now what i do is take on traditional desserts and pair them with pudding so that is my ultimate goal of the business. >> our goal with the bayview bristow is to bring in businesses so they can really use this as a launching off point to grow as a single business. we want to use this as the opportunity to support business owners of color and those who have contributed a lot to the community and are looking for opportunities to grow their business. >> these are the things that the san francisco public utilities
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commission is doing. they are doing it because they feel they have a responsibility to san franciscans and to people in this community. >> i had a grandmother who lived in bayview. she never moved, never wavered. it was a house of security answer entity where we went for holidays. i was a part of bayview most of my life. i can't remember not being a part of bayview. >> i have been here for several years. this space used to be unoccupied. it was used as a dump. to repurpose it for something like this with the bistro to give an opportunity for the local vendors and food people to come out and showcase their work. that is a great way to give back to the community. >> this is a great example of a
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public-private community partnership. they have been supporting this including the san francisco public utilities commission and mayor's office of workforce department. >> working with the joint venture partners we got resources for the space, that the businesses were able to thrive because of all of the opportunities on the way to this community. >> bayview has changed. it is growing. a lot of things is different from when i was a kid. you have the t train. you have a lot of new business. i am looking forward to being a business owner in my neighborhood. >> i love my city. you know, i went to city college and fourth and mission in san francisco under the chefs ria, marlene and betsy. they are proud of me. i don't want to leave them out of the journey.
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everyone works hard. they are very supportive and passionate about what they do, and they all have one goal in mind for the bayview to survive. >> all right. it is time to eat, people.
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>> is time to eat, people. >> president caen: i'm the president of the san francisco public utilities commission. at this time i would like to call to order the regular meeting of the san francisco public utilities commission. today's date is tuesday, september 8, 2020. roll call, please. >> president caen? here. >> vice president vietor: here. >> commissioner moran: here. >> commissioner maxwell: here. >> commissioner paulson: here. and we have a quorum. >> president caen: good. will you please read the announcement? >> during the covid-19 health
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emergency and given the public health recommendations issued by the san francisco department of public health and mayor breed, have lifted the restrictions on teleconference. this meeting is held via teleconference and televised by sfgovtv. for those of you watching the live stream, please be aware there is a brief time lapse between what is being viewed. on behalf of the commission, i would like to extend our thanks to tv and puc i.t. staff for their assistance during this meeting. if you wish to make two minutes of public comment on an item, dial 1-415-655-0001, meeting i.d., 146 087 5808, pound, pound. and star 3 to speak. i'm going to ask the commission and staff to mute their microphones to minimize background noise if they have not already done so. madame president, the first order of business is item 3,
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approval of the minutes of august 25, 2020. >> president caen: commissioners, before you you have the minutes of august 25, 2020. are there any additions or corrections? seeing none, madame secretary, could you open it to public comment. >> secretary: members of the public who wish to make two minutes of public comment on item 3, approval of the minutes of august 25th, dial 1-415-655-0001, meeting i.d., 146 087 5808, pound, pound. to raise your hand press star 3. mr. moderator, any callers?
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>> madame secretary, we have one caller in the queue. >> secretary: thank you. >> caller, you have two minutes. caller, can you hear me? can you hear me? >> yes, we can. >> hello? >> yes, can you hear us. >> i'm sorry, this is barry nelson with the golden state association -- >> just so you -- >> mr. nelson, this is on the minutes, item number 3. >> yes, it is. well, i'm sorry, it's public comment. i apologize. >> okay, you can call back during that item. >> i sure will. thank you.
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>> secretary: any other callers, mr. moderator? >> no other callers in the queue. public comment on item number 3 is closed. commissioners >> president caen: commissioners, a motion and a second? >> so moved. >> second. >> president caen: madame secretary, please take the roll call vote. >> president caen: aye. >> vice president vietor: aye. >> commissioner moran: aye. >> commissioner maxwell: aye. >> commissioner paulson: aye. we have five ayes. >> president caen: motion carried. next item, please. >> secretary: next item is item number 4, general public comment. members of the public may address the commission for up to two minutes on matters that are within the commission's jurisdiction and are not on today's agenda, by dialing
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1-415-655-0001, 146 087 5808, pound, pound. to raise your hand, press star 3. mr. moderator, any callers on general public comment for items not on today's agenda. >> madame secretary, there are several callers in the queue. i will queue the first caller. >> secretary: thank you. >> caller commenting on item number 4, you have two minutes. go ahead, caller. >> hello, can you hear me?
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>> we can hear you? yes. this is barry nelson with the golden state association. you should have received a letter in area packet, that letter came in this morning from a group regarding analysis done by the national treasure service, a pay review of the models used from the toronto river to develop the agreement proposal that the commission submitted to the state board. that review which you recall we requested for quite a few years, brings enormously important questions. there is also a number of new scientific developments on related issues, so the request in the letter is that the commission remove the v.a., stop making claims about the benefits of the v.a. that we now know are
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not supported, but we also request that you agendize this item for discussion in future meeting, so your staff can present their thoughts about the peer review. but also so the ngo community can present our thoughts about the peer review. thank you. >> thank you, caller. next caller? commenting on item number 4, you have two minutes. >> good afternoon, this is peter. i wanted to comment on the same item barry mentioned. we were one of 14 environmental clerks that signed on this letter, which i'm guessing you haven't had a chance to read yet, but i hope you will and take a look at the peer review. it was done by anchor qea, an
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extremely reputable business. i encourage you to check out their website. there is a lot of misinformation out there. the trump administration issued a biological opinion for the delta which was based on bogus science i would hate to see the sfpuc getting into a similar situation of embracing science that is questionable. obviously, when an agency has an interest in a study coming to a certain conclusion, the group that they've hired often will come to that conclusion. and the study finds that there is serious issues with the model for rainbow trout and steelhead and has a lot of problems with the salmon model as well. i want to point out the voluntary requires two things. required discharge would be 38%
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greater than today, but total discharge is just 4%. that's because the main focus is on redirecting spill for better timing. and really that should have been done for the last several decades. the other problem with the voluntary agreement, there is no backup plan based on flow. so if it fail, we're just out of luck and that's problematic. i like the idea of putting this on the agenda in the future. and would encourage you to invite john rosenfield from the bay institute to present because he has done some great work recently and i think it would be quite edifying. thank you very much. >> next caller commenting on item number 4. you have two minutes. >> president and members, my
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pronouns are she and her. i'm going to talk about the basics of sfpuc. i continue my support of a municipal utility district so we, as a public body, and have more control over the delivery cost of electricity. and while we should not be an island grid, storage is essential especially with these fires that are going on that can be problematic for transmission lines that serve our great city. so, seeing we're a densely packed city, we should put batteries in and solar panels to help and be able to ride through difficult times as well as be able to store electricity that you can purchase in the
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overnight when it is inexpensive and send it out to the grid for our customers when market electricity is much more expensive. so continue the acquisition of renewables as we work toward a 100% renewable power, all electric san francisco and keeping the value proposition commercial utility power. thank you. >> thank you, caller. next caller commenting on item number 4, you have two minutes. >> thank you very much. good afternoon, president caen, member of the commission, protection alliance.
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i'll speak further about the peer review that mr. nelson and the other caller discussed. i think they've given you a fair bit of background. i would like to highlight a couple of the points that came up in peer review. first, at the peer review stage that the district salmon model assumes rather than predicts predator control. in other words, the model doesn't demonstrate that predator control will be effective, it simply assumes it from the beginning. the only thing that the salmon model predicts according to the peer review that will be highly effective in increasing salmon abundance is large increases in flow. i'd like to point out that a number of us have raised the assumptions about the models in the past in exchange with the
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irrigation districts and also with senator feinstein. we questioned those assumptions and in return our good faith was questioned. that was really particularly by the irrigation district, that was really in our view an unacceptable response. and we do feel grateful that the service has added the clarification about what was assumed and what is demonstrated in the models. i reiterate my colleague's request that you agendize a meeting to discuss these issues. and that we try to work together to find ways to have the puc successfully managed rather than deny increased flow in the lower river. thank you very much for your consideration. >> thank you, caller. madame secretary, there are no more callers in the queue.
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>> secretary: thank you, mr. moderator. that closes public comment on item 4, general public comment. >> president caen: through the chair, i would like to make a comment on the public comment, if i may? first, i want to thank the public for participating. it's very much appreciated and it's not easy these days doing it technologically, so thank you for that. and for bringing these issues to our attention. i would be interested in hearing the results of the peer review and i know, i'm sorry i haven't had a chance to look at the letters that came in, i guess, today, but i'm just wondering if we can agendize it or get some signed of briefing on the results of the peer review, because i know we've been asking and eager to see what is being said by the scientists and the
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peers in the field. and then i just would also like, you know, i appreciate ms. dupri's participation. she's always bringing us important. i know we're overdue for a conversation around battery storage in particular and would like to request that we somehow get an update on that, on our regular clean power sf tt. i know the city of san francisco does have ambitious goals on climate change and fossil fuel-free future, so it would be great to get an update on that as well. thank you. >> through the chair, i would also like to hear from our staff what they think about the peer review. i'd like to hear their response to it as well. >> very good.
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we could put that on the agenda for future discussion. >> yeah, we can -- we will work with you to put it on the agenda. >> president caen: good. any other comments? >> commissioner paulson: this is commissioner paulson. i agree with what commissioner maxwell says. we'd like to have analysis of this since letters have been coming in. i'm not in favor of agendizing it as an item, but i'm -- i would like to have a staff report to that effect. >> president caen: fine. that can be facilitated. my point was it cannot be discussed at this point because it's not on the agenda. so the information will be agendized in some form. next item, please.
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>> your next item is item 5, communication. >> president caen: commissioners? any comments on communications? seeing none, madame secretary. could you please open this up to public comment? >> secretary: members of the comment who wish to make public comment on item 5, communications, dial 1-415-655-0001, meeting i.d., 146 087 5808, pound, pound. to raise your hand to speak press star 3. mr. moderator, any callers for this item? >> there are no callers in the queue at this time. >> secretary: thank you. public comment on item 5 is
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closed. >> president caen: next item. >> madame president, the next item is item 6, report of the general manager. i need to make an announcement regarding public comment for this item. the general manager is going to give his report covering nine different topics. to ensure we have public comment as we consider the entire g.m. report, we'll pause the report at three separate points after item 6b, 6f and 6i, to allow public comment at each of the previous three topics covered. each time we'll call for public, speakers will be given up to two minutes for each topic for a maximum of six minutes if the speaker speaks on all three topics. the commission can ask questions about any of the nine topics during the g.m. report, or at the end of the report or before and after public comment breaks. we're going to ask the public when calling on specific item,
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grouped item, please, identify which item or items you wish to speak on at that time. the first under the g.m. report is the update on sfpuc operations during covid-19 emergency presented by g.m. kelly. >> good afternoon, commissioners. just wanted to give you an update on the covid emergency operations at the puc. as you know, san francisco begins its path forward toward reopening last week by allowing outdoor activities that are lower risk. the plan includes steps for reassuming additional services, businesses and activities in the coming weeks and months. the gradual reopening of activities will increase traveling, interaction throughout the city, so the city will continue to regularly assess the key public health indicators to ensure san
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francisco has the necessary -- the necessary resources available for those that are infected. the puc continues to follow state and city guidelines across all our work sites and facilities and continues to support the city's overall response effort. the department operations center remains staffed monday through friday and we are continuing to deploy team members on long-term assignments to the city's emergency operation center. our employees remain our number one priority at the puc. continues to provide water, power, sewer services to our customers. based on the city's direction, employees performing non-essential duties will continue working from home as long as it's possible through this fiscal year ending june
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2021 to help reduce the spread of the covid-19 virus. based on this guidance, the business continuity plan committee has focused these past few months on doing as much as we can to ensure that the health and safety of our onsite employees supporting muni employees and determining if there is more we can do to reduce the number of employees coming on site. we also continue to equip our onsite employees with the equipment, tools and resources they need to do their job safely. the lines of communication remains open to understand and meet additional needs. to that end, we're holding focus groups this month with employees, managers, who spend their days in the field, so we
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can understand what challenges they're facing with policies like wearing face masks and social distancing, especially given the hotter temperatures we've been experienced. we're also continuing to support our customers in need with our emergency financial assistance programs. last week we extended our emergency residential community assistance program which is designed to help residential customers struggling to pay their water, sewer and hetch hetchy power bill during the covid-19 pandemic. the program which launched in may was set to expire last week, but will now be expanded through the end of the year as this global pandemic continues to impact san francisco. since the program launched in may, more than 6,000 customers have benefitted from the initiative.
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those customers have saved a monthly average of $53 on their water and sewer bills, and $15 on their hetch hetchy power bill. by continuing to work with our customers, employee, city partners and others we'll look to move forward from these tough times as a stronger, better and more responsive agency. finally, we are closing out our innovative virtual tour summer series this month that has allowed us to share -- or continue to engage with our customers during this time. it's called the san francisco public utilities commission source virtual exploration. and so we've had them in the past, but it's really -- our resources and in-house experts
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on water, power, sewer programs to interact with our customers, answer their questions and teach them about our system. we only have two tours left. power tour tomorrow and a pollution prevention tour on september 23rd. you can sign up at sf water.org virtual exploration and it's a really great program and i think the tour barbara hill is going to be featured tomorrow. so i hope that you tune in on that. and, again, i want to thank all the commissioners for their support during these times. and that concludes my update on emergency operation during covid-19. any questions?
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>> president caen: commissioners, any questions, comments? seeing none, let's move on to 6b. >> 6b, steve ritchie. >> thank you. can i have the slides, please? this is steve ritchie, assistant general manager for water. i'm going to report on the recent 2020, august 2020 fires that were near our facilities. if i can have the next slide, please. i'm going to be talking about three fires. the mark fire, the scu fire and the czu fire. first, the mock fire. i reported on these on august 25th. these are data as of august 31st. again, the red outline is the
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outline of the extent of the fire that occurred. and the little dots are hot spots that were within the last 48 hours. so this was a map that was developed last monday. as you can see, this fire is basically totally controlled. it did not threaten much of our facilities. it did result in the evacuation of the town of moccasin, which was then repopulated about 45 hours later. if i can have the next slide. i was up there two weeks ago and able to take a photo. this is looking from the east shore of priest reservoir across the west reservoir. this is the one area where it adversely affected our facilities potentially. you can see on that hillside, from the top of the ridge down, about halfway, some burned areas in the watershed. and also along the face of the dam right where the dam meets
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the hillside, what we refer to as the groin of the dam. it burned right to that edge, but since there is no vegetation on the dam, it didn't burn the dam face at all. this was where there was some impact around our facilities as a result of the moc fire. we will probably be doing treatment in the area to help minimize adverse runoff during the coming winter. if i can have the next slide, please? this is the scu complex fires. what you're seeing is the outline again on august 31st. it was at that time 383,000 acres. it actually has grown to 397,000 acres, making it a huge fire. almost twice as large as the rim fire was. it is now 93% contained and you're just looking at a small portion that is of interest to us, which is here in the northern end of the fire.
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it extends many miles to the south. and this was a fire that really came close to our facilities. you can see there, the reservoir on the left. and that there was fire on both sides of that. near the antonio reservoir, there is a small area burned. and around the al creek. and the fire did come close at thomas shaft. up next to the scu, there was a fire under the transmission lines. so this is a very widespread fire that had a lot of risk for us. and most interestingly --nd i know this from talking to the staff last friday who worked in the area, the watershed keepers in particular, the watershed staff, the folks who live in and around this area -- when the fire started with the initial lightning strikes that occurred, they were out there doing a lot of the very initial response
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work. it took a while for cal fire to get on the scene. we talk about how we're supporting cal fire. in this case, we were doing the fire-fighting ourselves in the initial stages to protect our facilities and in some cases some of our watershed cottage. the alony cottage burned all around it and it was stopped due to fire break work by ourselves and some others helping us. we helped guide the cal fire crews into the area and the local fire departments and were part of the initial response which has been going on now for the last two weeks plus. and the staff has worked extremely hard to make this a success for us. we did not have any damage to our facilities, but certainly a lot of damage to our watershed. so if i could have the next slide, please? this is looking from the west
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shore of calaveras reservoir, the hills above calaveras reservoir. you can see the reservoir on the right. in the foreground, you see oak trees along the shoreline of calaveras reservoir. beyond that you see what looks like green forest areas with grasslands around it. that's not green, that's black. that has all burned. and you can see off up that canyon, a little wisp of smoke coming up. we had extensive fire around the watershed. it is around a significant arm of the calaveras reservoir. we had 10,000 acres of our property burned in this fire. and about two-thirds of the whole watershed. we're already talking about how to go in and assess that and see
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what kind of treatment, if any, are necessary that we can provide along with cal fire in terms of fixing damage, the fire-fighting costs and controlling erosion from where the fire occurred. make no mistake, this was a huge fire in our watershed. and we'll be dealing with it a lot. with a little luck, we'll get gentle rain in the beginning of the year get grass growing before we look for more rain. some big gully washes earlier in the year could have significant adverse impacts on our watershed. lastly, the final fire. thinks the czu complex fires. this is down the santa cruz, san matteo area. the mountain area is so rugged there is potential it could have come up in the watershed.
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as i mentioned at the last meeting, we had 12 fires that started by lightning strikes that our staff were able to extinguish before it got anywhere. we're trying to make sure our fire breaks are in order in case it came to the north. fortunately, it did not. this is 76% contained. the risk to our facilities from this fire is virtually nonexistent, but that doesn't mean we're out of the woods yet. the final slide. like to wrap up. the moc fire resulted in evacuation for 45 hours. the scu burned more than two-thirds of the basins, but none of our facilities were damaged. staff from hetch hetchy water and power, natural resources and land management and water supply
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treatment did excellent work. this was a big team effort all the way around for the last three weeks. and, unfortunately, we can expect more fires. fire season is in september and october, so we still have a ways made of us in this -- ahead of us in this fire season. i'd be happy to answer questions. >> president caen: commissioners, any questions? >> just a comment. it's always sobering to see what nature can dish up for us. it's also impressive to see what our crews can do. if you would extend to them our appreciation for that hard work. hard work and a little bit of luck carried the day. thank them for that. >> i agree and thank them for their commitment to all of us
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and to themselves and our environment. >> absolutely. there is total commitment in there. a little luck come in handy, but it comes with a lot of preparation and hard work. >> president caen: there wasn't any fire activity around hetch hetchy, was there? >> not around hetch hetchy itself, no. >> president caen: because i received a message from the chronicle inquiring about the fire around hetch hetchy. they must have meant moccasin. >> yeah, the moccasin fire, they were talking about hetch hetchy facilities. i think some people misinterpreted that as the fire at hetch hetchy itself. >> president caen: i wanted to clarify that. >> and chair caen, also, we had inquiries and you know folks were saying, you know, what do
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we need to do because of moccasin? and as summarized by mr. ritchie, it was very serious and there was evacuations, but there was a very quick turnaround and recovery, both for the town and the workers that went back there. it seemed to be a highlight of all the things that mr. ritchie had talked about. and the moccasin part was like a fast turnaround, which is good. >> president caen: absolutely. we know what to do. it's very evident. let's move on to 6c, please. >> this will be presented by kat katie miller. >> good afternoon. i'm acting director of water capital program. and i'm pleased to have the opportunity to share with you
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progress on the water enterprise capital improvement program during the 4th quarter of fiscal year 19-20 from april through june of 2020. this is a snapshot of where the program currently stands for the 36 water interprize regional and local projects representing $2.2 billion. four projects have not yet started. eight in planning. six in design. seven in construction. four in closeout. and five completed. to date, $841 million has been expended and the program is 37% complete. the major highlights from the fourth quarter include, of course, there were minor delays of 2-6 weeks in construction projects while we waited for contractors to submit their health and safety plans to
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address covid-19. another major highlight was the new urban tunnel number 2 was inspected using a robot and no deficiencies were detected. the draft geotechnical report was completed for the dam. the project to replace the lock bar steel pipe achieved 50% completion. and finally, 12.6 miles of pipe were replaced during the fiscal year. now i'm going to show you the highlights of the different projects in the area. the highlight for the long-term improvement project is the beginning of the construction for the alameda center. thinks in close coordination with the tribes who has representatives on site to
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support the removal of features and burials. and that is going very successfully. these are highlighting some of the construction activities out there. this is an aerial photo showing the sites of the watershed center. in the foreground is the water sample and in the background our native plant nursery where many of the plants are grown for revegetation work within our watersheds. it shows the outline -- outlaying of the whole area. >> at the su not valley water treatment plant, the work is under way. the health and safety plan was submitted and the conceptual engineering report work is under way. the design for the project will continue throughout the next year.
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our two dam projects in the region. the san andreas dam facility project created nine alternatives to be further analyzed for the emergency drawdown outlet structure. these alternatives will be further evaluated under a new scope of work under the report that will be performed under our new engineering services for dams and reservoirs contracts during the next quarter. at this dam, the project team completed review of the draft outlet tunnel discharge facilities inspect report. the consultant incorporated our comments in the next reporting period. further more, test of soil samples was completed. the draft geo tech report will be submitted in the next quarter. not only to us, but the division of safety of dams for their review.
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for the lock bar replacement, these photos show a 54 inch pipeline that is being installed in san bruno. restoration work for a pipe already installed is being completed. and as i previously stated, this project is now 50% complete. next slide, please. moving to san francisco, this slide shows our cbd plumbers helping to install pipe and great highlight of this period is that all four miles of water mains under van ness boulevard were replaced. and our work for the van ness project is complete. the work continues on many other city streets, including geary
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and three locations. lombard, 16th street, between sunset and san francisco zoo, 22nd street, green street, clayton street, peer street, and protection for several sunset system pipelines. a total of 12.6 miles of pipe was installed during the fiscal year. next slide. for our san francisco ground water supply project, phase 2 work is now 97% complete. startup and testing began for the north lake well station and south windmill well stations, both located in golden gate park, and also landscaping communications and various punch list items. this project did incur a slight cost increase and scheduled delay due to the delayed delivery of the well pump. i believe you all approved and
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agenda item for that in july. next slide, please. this photo shows the first floor shoring for the san francisco westside recycle water treatment facility that is located at the oceanside plant. you can see in the background. even with the suspension of work for one month due to covid, substability work was -- substantial work was still completed. the membrane filtration, reverse osmosis and ultraviolet units were delivered to the site. we're getting close. within golden gate park, the powering of concrete walls and columns was completed for the pumps and resume waervoirreserv. bids were opened in may.
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the contract was subsequently awarded in july. next slide. with that, i would be happy to take questions. >> president caen: very nice presentation. >> i have a question. what was the soil samples for? what were you looking for with the soil at the dam? >> that, i believe, it's general geotechnical, standard practice to look at the soil samples to try to determine the characteristics of the soil for stability reasons. if there is anything more to it than that, i can get back to you with more information. >> all right, thank you. >> i was curious about the whole van ness project now that we're done. when is the completion date for everybody else to be completed?
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>> i believe that is still about two years down the road. and i can get back to you with that for sure. the water and wastewater are completed, but there is still quite a bit of work to do on the bus pads and the rest of the street work. and i think that they still have quite a ways to go. i will get back to you for sure with that. >> well, no need to. i was just curious. >> as much as we would like to think we're done, i imagine we'll still be pulled into conversation about contracting issues on that. >> president caen: hmm, okay. >> and madame president, i should just mention that this is a -- my daytime job, offices are right on van ness. and this has been complicated in the sense that this is a huge -- even if you look at it as one street -- it's a huge project and the mta and the public
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utilities and, you know, our agency, the puc, have all had different pieces to work on. and it's van ness is a historical avenue in san francisco. and there were times when people would dig stuff up and despite the greatest reconnaissance, it's like, what the heck is this? you know, some pipe from before -- before you know san francisco even existed they'd find and people would have to figure out what to do to not screw it up. so it's been frustrating, but there is reasons for it. i just had to make that comment as a commissioner and observer. >> president caen: thank you for doing so. so true, isn't it? everybody has a piece of that project. >> right. we all do. it's really going to be great when it is done. >> president caen: again, thank you for the presentation.
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would you please open this up for public comment on items 6a, b and c. >> secretary: members of the public who wish to make public comment on items 6a, 6b, or 6c, dial 1-415-655-0001, i.d. number 146 087 5808, pound, pound. to raise your hand to speak, press star 3. speakers will be given two minutes for each topic for a maximum up to six minutes for speaker. if the speaker wishes to speak on each of the three topics, when calling in specify which items or item you will be discussing. thank you.
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>> good afternoon, commissioners. stephen robison, capital programs. >> excuse me? i was wondering with the presentation, i've looked over the presentation, can we take comments from the commission after each section?
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>> of course. >> president caen: okay. >> yes, of course. so we have these three presentations. i can go through them, but happy to pause after each one for comments and questions from the commissioners. so firstly, the item is for the southeast area major project update. we've been doing that monthly. then we'll follow with the sewer system improvement program quarterly report and lastly, the wastewater enterprise cip quarterly report. happy to pause ever each one. so the southeast area major projects, the slide coming up is the one shown before to highlight these three projects with all the work going on in the community. and the southeast plant. it shows the project over to the top left. the site b. the top right and the southeast community project center at 1550. since all three projects are still working on foundations
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similar to last month, we felt to bring one of the p.m.s with us instead of all three like i did last time, so we have mr. chiu with us to help answer questions. perhaps as we go into future months, we can get with the monitors as needed. i personally visited the site last friday and i can say the landscape is changing as the work progresses. it's great to see these projects are moving forward and people are staying safe. so for the beginning of the three, just as we showed you last month, this slide shows the same forecasted project budget and schedule after the cost reduction effort earlier this year. there is no change. first bullet, to incorporate the cost savings measures are continuing. and construction activities are expected to increase significantly beginning of next
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year, january, because of the excavation, dewatering and foundation work we'll move forward in a big way. there is 280 existing piles that need to be extracted from the former central shop buildings. and there is an additional drill rig has now gone on the site, that will increase the rate of the direction to the six piles per day. again, a production method we can measure. the third bullet is relocation of existing utilities and sewer lines. we have a couple of photos. this is the relocation of sewer -- former central shop area that allows the work to progress f. you stand on the left side of the photo, a look into the trench, you can see the next slide, which shows the 36-inch sewer line and the contractors are taking measurements of this existing concrete sewer before making the
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connection to relocate this to a better area. the next slide just shows some of the welders really working at the bottom of the trench ensuring that facility to make it safe while we work on it. next is the new head works facility at southeast. same forecasted project that we showed last quarter, last month, no change. there was an error in the written report. it slows a slight variance, but that is being corrected and it hasn't changed since the last report. the head works project has made significant progress. scope one is complete. scope two is the pump station. a couple of bullets to say that the performance on functional testing of this asset continues. and the testing is ongoing.
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scope 3, the main facility itself, this is a largest of the three scopes. efforts continue to reduce costs as we work within the cmgc model. installation of temporary pumps, piping will be starting soon. i got to see that on friday and it's amazing to think this is our open heart surgery we referred to. this is moving it along to the rest of the treatment process. now we have to figure out how to work on these pumps while they're working live. this is a great challenge. and the last bullet is about drills piers. that is what we showed last month. the drill pier operation is very much under way. to date, 131 drill piers have been installed out of 600. and we're continuing through the remaining of 2020. just a couple more recent photos
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to show. this is the production pier operation we showed before. a nice wide angle view of the whole facility. you can see what is left of the existing building in the background with the drill rigs in the front. and to go to the next slide, just as we showed last month, this depicts the preparation of the steel reinforcement cages for those piers. on the last photo, on the next slide, shows this casing being drilled down to allow the reinforcement cages to be lowered into the hole and that forms our pier and there are 600 of these. let's go to southeast committee center at 1550 evans. the same project schedule we showed last month. no change. completed the ward on foundations and underground utility work is complete. the basin, demolition work, has
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been completed and the sign removed. reinforcement steel for the slab base arrived in august and the flooring also started in august. let's go to the next slide. a few photos of that. you can see the contractor is preparing the reinforcement for installation. you can see the trenches behind them. the next slide you can see more placing a time, reinforcement steel is the foundation of the building. the last slide, a beautiful photo taken early in the morning when the construction crews like to do this work for a large pour like this to make sure it works well. on friday, when i saw the site one of the three buildings already had been powered and they were preparing to pour the second. so the work is under way a.nd exciting as we get to ground
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level. we'll start to see the building go up much quicker. there are a couple of broader items we wanted to touch on. firstly, an update on traffic around the southeast area projects. really for construction workers, but primarily for the entire community who use these streets as they live and work here. we previously mentioned that the revenue would be closed through traffic and then we updated our forecast when that work would occur to be january of next year. the teams continued their outreach strategy to develop a flyer that will be posted online, on our media channels and shared door-to-door in the next few weeks. i thought this main graphic would be helpful to explain the plan, the proposed plan to reroute traffic around the site. you can see the red line in the middle, cutting our plans in two. the green lines depict where we hope and propose to move traffic around the facility. our work is ramping up.
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we're leaning forward to engage and get feedback on the proposals and changes on how they're rolled out. one of our previous meetings, we were asked for an update on the lbe and the local hire work. this slide shows the requirements that our projects fall under. we're able to say we're exceeding these numbers. it shows a range of commitments across the three projects. and our intent is to come back to you and provide the results, the performance metrics, snapshot in time, the human stories that go with this, because that's important especially in these covid days. i want to bring the right people to share that data with you. let's go to the last slide. san francisco arts commission, unveiled the first of four
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large-scale temporary murals in hunters point. this is 300-foot artwork and it spans the temporary fence of the edge of evans for the project. it will be there for a year at least as part of the temporary art program. with that, that concludes the three of the first -- the first of the three presentations. >> president caen: commissioners, any questions? those piles are amazing. quite a sight. >> there are lots of them. so we can -- production, because there are so many. it's about pace and making sure we can keep up with the production rate. >> why did the india basin signage issue have its own
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bullet? is that significant? >> i know that maybe other comments in the commissioners, too, but it felt significant because it's almost an iconic symbol, i suppose, for what the former site had been. and there is a line of sight question and access from 3rd street. there was some thought and careful consideration putting into making sure we're doing the right thing with the signs and what the visual perspective is from the street as we look on to what the new facility will be. >> okay. >> president caen: good question. all right. let's move on. >> okay. thank you. the next presentation is the quarterly report for the sewer system improvement program, which some of those projects we looked at are part of. this is april 1 through june 30, 2020. we talked about construction
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continuing on site of the southeast because we just learned about the southeast and the main projects, but work continues across the rest of the city. we thought we'd highlight some of those projects. you can see a traffic-calming method that extends the sidewalk and reduces the distance for pedestrians to cross the street. but also gardens to capture and treat the storm water. in the middle is the southeast site liability and assessment project. this quarter, the contractor completed the seismic work on slab structure and pile installation and the construction of the new stairs you can see here which i hope to see on friday, which looked great. on the right, the mariposa improvements and flow shows the
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construction work under way, contractor lifting and placing the reinforced steel in the forms of wall for the new pump station. progress keeps going for that one. next slide. we'll get into the metrics now. another pie chart shown before from previous reports. program status for the 70 projects and phase one, representing this same number of 2.9, $7.9 billion. currently now it's 46% complete. hard to believe. nearing 50%. at the last quarter we closed at 39.7. we now have on the blue area, the top representing 15 projects. designs and award. green shows 19 projects and construction. and grey to the left, 38 projects. this is table 3.1 from the
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quarterly report. i have that little note at the top for reference, if you have it with you. it shows summary costs for phase one. those columns summarize the expenditures to date, the current approved project, the current forecasted cost and then the cost variance between budget and forecast. you see that at the bottom right and the majority is from bio solids from head works. what has changed is the expenditures to date. but the forecast remains the same. this is table 3.2. very similar. but it shows a summary of those additional projects that were added to the program at the end of 2018. and these were initiated into ssip in phase one, but were approved in the budget cycle as the 10-year capital plan.
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these are for flood resilience. we track them as other so we can inspect them. you see the variance of $108 million, bottom right, again, no change since last quarter. so this report helps us understand the cost variances by using the green, yellow, red dots, the colors to indicate the health of the project. under is a summary. i showed a similar table last quarter. this quarter we're showing 15 projects meeting requirements, getting the green star. five projects need attention. we're being concerned about those. there are 15 that are red, indicating they're over the approved budget by 10% or more. so let's try to understand that better as we move forward. next slide, please. similar to this graphic, it shows the schedule straight from the quarterly report. again, compared to 2016, baseline for the program.
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the top 2018 approved and current forecast schedules for phase one. to the next slide. to unpack a little more, last quarter there was a great question about looking at the -- what i've been calling the themes of why there are cost and schedule variance. so we did. we took a look at the projects in the report and opted to use the same categories we used for the bio solids project earlier in the year where there was extensive analysis. we asked the project teams to identify what we call primary reasons for cost variance, recognizing of course there is likely to be secondary reasons, but we wanted to try to do some exercise to look at the primary reasons why there are cost variances. this is the result. the largest, you can see here, are scope refinement and the bidding and the environment --
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bidding environment conditions. they make up 12. this begins to help us understand what that means. go to the next slide. unpack it further. we look at these projects with the largest variances. you can see biosolids and head works that i just mentioned. and head works shows a slight variation from the last quart e. what you see on screen is correct here. these variances have not changed since the last quarter and that helps us focus in the right place. next slide, please. looking at schedule, in this case, you can see interdepartmental coordination at the bottom. 7 projects. scope refinement modification, 5. this makes up half of the primary reason for scheduled delay. we can see there is a varied
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spread of reasons for the projects across all. and if we go to the next slide. you can see the largest schedule variances shown here. i'm having now undertaken the analysis, we can look harder at the key issues and learn lessons and mitigate it going forward. it was a great question. i'm glad we spent time looking at it. to conclude, just the last slide. willing to highlight a few achievements during this quarter. we did advertise construction for the mission street, 16, the cesar chaves. of course, we have been making steady progress with biosolids and the mariposa station as well. we did achieve final completion for the projects highlighted
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earlier and the contract for head works. that concludes the second of the three presentations. i'm happy to take questions at this point. >> president caen: well, that certainly was a very crystal clear report. nothing left unturned. commissioners, any questions? >> through the chair, could you talk some about the scope refinement part of that that -- of the various categories? can you talk about what made that necessary and how we manage that? >> yes, of course, thank you. yes, it's a large one, so i think we had noted some criteria what we would classify within that category. there was a different category for differing site conditions that we would experience through
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some form of investigation or during construction. but as the scope evolves, the project evolves, i would say planning through design at different stages and then to award construction, or alternative to the remodel where we're doing gnc for example, that would be captured in there. in the head works project, where we did change i suppose the approach to how we're doing that temporary pumping, the site b lift station, at one point was going to be a branding facility and then we helped with the cost reduction efforts. yes, more within our control. but inevitably some things do change and we want to control that as much as we can. does that help answer the question? >> it helps. these are things that are you are dealing with prior to the project going to construction,
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is that right? >> yes -- no, i mean we're capturing this for the project duration, all the way through closeout. so the cost can change. typically in design and bid build, there is going to be less scope changes during construction, but in cmgc, where there is very heavy interplay and collaboration as we move forward because the general contractor is on board while the design is progressing, then there is room to take -- learn those lessons of feedback and how the contractor will actually build the project and that happened during biosolids, we leaned on the contractor to help inform us how to manage the costs and bring it down to more measurable as we presented earlier this year. >> i guess that goes to part of the reason for my question. the cmgc contracting that, part of the reason for that was to take efficiencies by virtue of
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having the construction manager on board. it sounds as though in this case, they got in looked at what we were planning to do and the scope and time costs went up? >> that's true. and by bringing they on board, for biosolids, the contractor, they gave us a much more realistic opinion of what it would take to construct the project from a cost perspective, especially what was in 2019, 2020, with market conditions we see today. that gave us early warning. before we're in the ground doing construction work, we have an opportunity to change and improve it. we would have realized that cost impact later when we received bids from contractors and then that would have forced either a dramatic change in the scope, you know, to withdraw and change direction completely, or acceptance was going to be costing more than we thought.
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it exposed it was a higher cost, but it gave us an opportunity to change it to bring it down to something that was more manageable. >> okay, thank you. >> president caen: very good. let's move on to the last presentation. >> thank you, this last one is very brief. for the wastewater enterprise capital improvement program quarterly report. in this case, it's q3 and q4. i think we skipped over q3 before, so we'll put it together. this summarizes the capital plan made up of various programs. so section 1 in the report that you have shows the sewer system improvement program for which you had a separate presentation today. section 2 is the program. in it, there are no projects to report as the remaining open projects are in the closeout phase. this is the same as recently quarterly reports. that has a approved budget of
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$399 million, 68 projects completed and for 339 and three projects going to closeout, $57 million. section 3 of the report shows wastewater enterprise facility. there are five projects. no change since quarter 2 and the cost schedule stays the same. same red and green dots. but i'd like to share more about that. section 4 of the report shows that the program, collection and treatment programs all show green for the end of the fiscal year. i would like to say more about the infrastructure program because i don't think we talk about it as much. this slide shows these five projects. i'm showing all of them here. the slide shows variants in the quarterly report. for fraser island, this is the new treatment plant and it's
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still in the planning phase. under the time of reporting and the r.f.q. was under development i would like to say that request for qualification, that r.f.q., has been released. and the water control board issued the permit. things are moving ahead, but significant difference in cost as that project has changed over time, the method of delivery has changed over time as we figured out what it looks like going forward. so secondly, the ocean beach project, the next one, there are a number of elements to this, the short-term improvements. the army corpse of engineers work. the long-term improvements. long-term, the climate change adaptation project, high level of coordination with other san francisco agencies, funding and project components. in association with san francisco zoo are under way. 35% design work is expected to be completed later next month in
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2020, october. the cost variance here is about refinement again of developing the conceptual engineering report as we work with other departments and stakeholders to clarify what the scope of the project should be. thirdly, i just mentioned the crossing replacement project designed with the comments received from 95% of that. it's much further along. we're incorporating that into the final -- but we're coordinating again with support from m.t.a., for muni overhead control systems, third street. so again, interdependency on other departments and moving it forward. the costs change due to market conditions. there has been handling and disposal of contaminants and materials. the last slide, just to touch on the program, would be to look at it from a schedule perspective from the project. three are showing variance. the treasure island mentioned,
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there is a variance because of the change of plan about the method of delivery, the procurement model. and the islai creek crossing. emergency buy past was added and some delay for the incorporation of the seismic design, the muni overhead work. the southeast outfall assessment, we have project and coordination with the state local agencies, jurisdiction of the site, accessibility of the project area and proximity to the that may trigger review again. i'd like to give you a flavor of this whole program. projects, some variance to report. but with the last side, say that is the end of all three, thank you for listening and i'm happy
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to take questions on this piece as well. >> i have a question regarding treasure island, through the chair. can you give me the two main reasons why there has been a reason for the change? does it have anything to do with the sea level rise or what was expected or not expected from that? >> thanks for the question. not from the sea rise. i think the city and the developer, the work is good standards for what we're doing to understand what is happening with sea level rise. very visual and well known issue for a flat piece of land like treasure island. the changes fort project have been more about how we want to handle the project. if it is literally on an island, separate from the rest of the work from the city and county of san francisco, 7.7 miles, we invest quite a lot of time keeping an old plant going.
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because we're doing it in an environment with the developer and the island has been looked at for a long time for development, and now we're moving forward, there has been a lot of discussion with tida and other agencies and other stakeholders how to do this project well. we've now landed on design build. allowing us to work collaboratively to take the project and effectively give it to an entity to think it through to meet our own performance objectives, design it, build it. and we accept it as an asset to own and operate. >> >> commissioner maxwell: thank you. >> president caen: any other comments, questions? madame secretary, could you please open the last three items, that is 6d, e and f, for public comment. >> secretary: members of the public who wish to make public
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comment on item 6d, 6e, and 6f, dial 1-415-655-0001, meeting i.d., 146 087 5808, pound, pound. to raise your hand to speak, press 3. speakers will be given two minutes for each topic, with a maximum of six minutes if a speaker wishes to speak on each of the three topics. when you're calling in, provide the item or items you'll be providing public comment on. mr. moderator, any callers. >> madame secretary, we have callers in the queue. >> secretary: thank you. >> caller, please --
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commissioners -- my name is francisco lacosta. and i'm going to be speaking on all the three items. >> all right. >> first and foremost, when the task force was created so that the community would really have input on the sewer system improvement project, it started as a $6 billion project which is now $12 billion and some of you commissioners who are astute know that it may cost us $15-20 billion. so having said that, the tax force and what it kind of
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represented at that time for the community, none of the expiration have been kept. i repeat. none of the aspirations have been kept. if you go along with it, not once have we discussed how much it will cost us when it comes to the energy, the electricity, to run those digesters. and you know that something linked with pg&e, but we don't bring it out. then you talk about the artwork. the artwork is necessary to a certain extent. quality of life issues more for
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infants, children, youth, our young adults, our seniors who are dying. those with compromised health, mentally challenged and physically challenged, some of that money could be used for the community. no, no. [please stand by] [please stand by]
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-- the standards and their morals and the timelines, the goals are adhered to. now we have the f.b.i. gathering all of the information for the last 15 years and all of that will be coming out in the newspapers for all the world to see. while you are doing a presentation as if everything is okay. everything is not okay. the last time that i spoke i spoke about this, and that somebody is talking about the
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spiel about -- i didn't ask about reporting about the spiel, i know that. because the one who reported about the spiel was me. what i asked was that this is adversely impacting the community. why hasn't it been addressed for over six months? and where is the paradox that the day that i was talking about the spill there was a big spill at a plant. a big spill at a treatment plant. i repeat, a very big spill at a treatment plant. we are having all of the people that will be subpoenaed. you have heard about this before, but you better hear about it now.
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over 40 people will be subpoenaed. and more will be reported in the newspapers. and you will not be able to do anything about it. but none of you, because you're sitting on the commission, people will be pointing their fingers at you. i'm not like that. i served through generals. i know about accountability. i know about transparency. i know how to speak truth to power. >> your time is up, caller. >> do the right thing. if you do not do the right thing, you will not leave a legacy. thank you very much. >> thank you, caller.
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madam secretary, there are no more callers in the queue. >> president caen: that closes public commee. >> president caen: that closes public comment on item 6, e and f. and the next items are item g, the alternative water supply planning quarterly report. >> good afternoon again, commissioners. the assistant general manager for water. if i could have the slides, please. one of the things in your packet, commission, is the 49-page long quarterly report update. so i'm going to just hit the highlights here in the presentation, but i refer you to that report for all of the details. if i could have the next slide, please. i can just do a quick summary. we have a need for alternative water supplies. we have up to 93 million-gallons a day.
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and we have three n.d.g. for the inflows and to make up for water transfer that we did not accomplish during the plus year round needs. and sainta clara making permanent customers of nine n.d.g. as much as another 6.5 billion-gallons a day plus additional customer demands. if i could have the next slide, please. our plan and approach is to deal with our all-year needs and our drought year needs and the all-year needs really focus on san jose and santa clara, regarding the timing availability and the location of water supply options and we're now meeting monthly with bosca, san jose and santa clara to review our progress there. and for drought year needs we need to have technical analyses because these are all fairly complex projects these day and refine the demands to make sure
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that we're giving the right amount of water. any one of these projects that we might do needs to be integrated with the existing regional water system. we could have projects that appear to generate a lot of water but once you try to fit them into the delivery system they may not deliver as much water. so it's a fairly set of analyses that we need to go through. next slide. and this is a new presentation of our schedule that i want to focus on for a moment. each one of those sets of bars across running horizontally is a different project. there are 15 different projects that we are pursuing at this time. the timeline is broken by those little tick marks into two-year increments. so every two years is another tick mark, so it's 2022, 2024, 2026, 2028, 2030, etc., on into the future. because these projects take a long time to develop. the dashed orange line is where we are today and there are two key milestones noted.
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first is july 2023, when we committed to the commission that we would be back with a package of projects that are ready for environmental review. and december 2028, which is the decision for dry air supplies for existing customers and whether or not to make san jose and santa clara permanent customers. so those are the really key dates that we're aiming for in our process. if i could have the next slide, please. again, these all require unique challenges. as i said, integration into the existing system, and partnerships. we find that as you add different partners, the complexities multiply very rapidly. they'll need additional operator training and dealing with new technologies and new governing regulations. in fact, i just saw a photo of the progress on the westside
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recycled water plant showing the installation of reverse osmosis tube there is, which is very exciting. but that's the kind of new technology that we'll be dealing with. and move on to the next slide. so i'm going to quickly review the current project planning and highlights from about five projects. first the recycled water expansion project. we're currently focusing on collaboration and cost-sharing, and we're identifying the valueiated alternatives in coordination with the groundwater storage project. and one is looking at the viability of projects within the broader program objectives. their rate-setting process is governed by the california public utilities commission. so they have to make sure they can package up a project partnership that works through that process. and then, of course, reallocate the costs and benefits among the partners which are ourselves, cal water and the city of daly
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city. and purified water projects we have two that we're working on in the crystal springs area with the city of san mateo and the allaaloeproject. and we're trying to understand the incremental benefit that these could provide to our supplies. we're doing analyses to look at the impacts. we're reviewing the experience of other utilities engaged in purified water collaborations, because they are challenging and difficult but potentially very rewarding. and evaluating the timing and supply and availability with the timing of our needs. our needs are dry air needs but supply availability from a purified water project is year round. so how do you marry those two things up. next slide, please. one of our complex projects is
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truly a misnomer. this is a major collaboration effort among many partners, i don't recall the number but i believe that it's about 10. we're working on a joint powers authority agreement. so our staff, legal counsel and senior management, are all involved in looking closely at that, because we'd have to bring that to this commission for approval to participate in that reservoir, which is currently owned and operated by the costa water district. there's a new cost-share proposal with the district two months ago. we're deliberating on methodology with the partner agencies on how to divide up the costs of a large complex project. this commission just approved an amendment to the first multiparty agreement. these are the study agreements that we're carrying out. it was executed in june of this year. and we're looking at it as a second amendment to provide additional study funding which would be on the order of a
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million dollars per partner. which is now being finalized. and maybe the most critical thing here, which is identifying the feasible conveyance for water that could benefit our system. this is the critical path and one of the key opportunities appears to be working with others to move water through the south bay august w aquiduct froe delta all the way to the santa clara water district. we're simulating the transfer, considering physical and institutional constraints. there's a capacity assessment that is under review now that the south bay contractors put together. the south bay contractors are the alameda water district, and valley water. and evaluating alternatives for how the south bay aquiduct may be used for conveyance. one key thing is that it might be a great project but if we can't move waters to our benefit, then it means nothing
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to us. so that will be the big critical hurdle that we have to get over to decide whether or not to be a partner in this project. next slide, please. one that -- >> sorry to interrupt you. could you go back for one sec. >> back one slide, please. >> what you just said about the feasibility of the conveyance -- what is that going to entail? when -- sorry -- maybe i'll be more direct -- >> the south bay aquiduct -- >> there. when will you be able to determine -- >> i don't know. it is really quite striking how hard it is to get good solid information there. when we first asked this question about a year and a half
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ago, the south bay contractors and the department of water resources kind of shrugged a little bit. and we said, well, a shrug doesn't do us any good, we need real information. this is an older facility, there are questions about its reliability in certain cases. there are also a lot of assumptions about how it get used, how it gets used, particularly in dry years that we want to examine very closely. one of the things that we heard early on was well, there's no capacity available during drought years because we have to move other waters through there. that's counter intuitive to me. what waters do they think that they'll move through there, whereas we may have water that we may move through it if we have the expansion in mind. so as with many things with the state water project it's a little -- um, difficult to get details. and we're just now starting to
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get them. when will we really know an answer? well, we would like to really have a good answer before we commit serious money. and that would be probably within the next year to 18 months is when i think that we'll be confronted with that question. >> president caen: thanks, steve. and one more question on the los vaqueros project. the state measure to help to increase storage capacity. are those funds still available? and is that an opportunity here to access some of those dollars? >> actually you're referring to proposition one -- with it the water storage improvement program. actually the los vaqueros expansion, they have been able to demonstrate a lot of possibilities for this project and are in line to get a substantial amount of money. that's one of the challenges
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here. that money is on a short timeline to be wrapped up and spent. and we're conflicted between everybody wanted to make sure that we don't lose out on that money while at the same time needing to make sure that we get the questions answered about the project. so we don't say, yeah -- and we actually could be confronted with this, saying, yeah, let's take a risk and be a participant in it and find out that it doesn't work for us that well. so we need an off-ramp on these agreements if we go down that path and we don't have all of the answers. so this will be a delicate one to work our way through. but, yes, prop one money is a big piece of it. >> president caen: great, thank you. >> okay, next slide. this is the expansion project and, again, we just completed the dam raze. we're looking very closely at this one. this is very attractive to us because there aren't any other partners. it's san francisco's project. and so we eliminate that challenge of it, but, of course, there are many other challenges.
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but the dam was constructed with the notion that you could increase the size of it in the future. so we are identifying the opportunities and constraints for expansion and we're looking at four different dam elevation scenarios and looking at what does it take to move the water there under what conditions. and, again, this is where modeling it into our system is going to be very critical. we may find some additional plumbing such as, you know, san joaquin pipelines or the pump station improvements or so manyo valley popline pipelines that we helpful but they'll add to the cost. but these are very much within our control so it's an attractive project. and the last is needing to understand the water rights and potential for exchanges. so there's the water between valley water that will provide the additional information on that and that's expected to be complete late this year. and utilizing and understanding the constraints on transfers to
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inform planning. when people talk about water transfers they sound very simple and easy on the face of it, but when you actually get into the specifics, particularly if it involves the central valley project or state water project water, it gets very complicated very rapidly. so, again, this one has some good possibilities but it also has some hurdles. so that's a quick summary of some of the projects where we're working on it right now and i'd be happy to answer any questions. again, as i said there's a 49-page report in your package for more details. >> president caen: commissioners, questions? seeing none, madam secretary, i have to go to another meeting for about 15 minutes. so i'm going to turn the gavel over to vice president vietor.
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i hope that you were made aware of that. >> clerk: i was just before the meeting so we'll do our best here and we'll miss you. >> president caen: okay, i'll be back soon. >> clerk: thank you. >> vice-president vietor: madam secretary, read the next item. >> clerk: the next item is the alternative water supply planning quarterly report. we're taking public comment at the conclusion of this item, combined with 6g and 6h. >> vice-president vietor: great, mr. richey. >> if i could have the slides, please. if you will recall at the last meeting i made a presentation basically using just words
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around the supply and demand worksheet and we changed the name a little bit to "supply and demand" to be a little more expressive. today i'm going to use words and then i'm going to show what the worksheet is starting to look like and how it might work that we can use to actually to examine the benefits of the project, some of them from many of the projects that we were looking at as well as other policy considerations that the commission could have before it. so the next slide, please. this is a repeat of one of the slides that i have shown last meeting about the worksheet mechanics to tee it up. again, what are shown in the worksheet are the projections of retail demands and wholesale customer demands on the regional water system over five-year increments from 2020, hopefully through 2050. and these combine into total water system demands. one of the things that we're generating out of this is the assessment of our firm yield. and the firm yield is the amount
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of water that can be delivered over a designed drought utilizing all of the water that is available to us in storage. again, with the additional inflow. so it's a defining number for how much water can be extracted from our system in a design drought. so the regional water system is 219 million gal ons per day. post-wisip, we decrease it by 8 million-gallons per day due to the new instream and flow on alameda creek and san mateo creek that have already taken effect. so the post-wisip firm yield is 219 plus 16 minus 8, equals 227 million-gallons per day. so that's a significant number in the worksheet. next slide. so the impacts on firm yield that we can display in the worksheet include reductions in
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yield due to 12 new river instream flow requirements and early implementation. increases in the yield due to implementing alternative water supply projects coming out of the alternative water supply planning program. and potentially yields -- excuse me -- changes in the yield due to a drought period, whether it's actually an increase in the drought period or a decrease in the drought period, that could go both ways, depending how we choose to view climate change and other things. impacts on total system yield that can be displayed include those impacts on firm yield as described above, but also potential changes in the yield due to a revised rationing policy. as you will recall our rationing policy developed in the wisip was 3.5 years of 20% rationing. we could change that policy, either requiring more rationing by our customers or less rationing by our customers,
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depending on what policies and considerations all build into that. these are things that are within the control of the commission to change. impacts on regional water systems that can be displayed is the addition of a permanent additional wholesale customers, specifically santa clara and the supply to accommodate growth. now before i move to the next slide, just want to say that we've been working with commissioner moran on this a fair amount and this is very much a spreadsheet-based system. and so what we're going to look at are screen shots of two tables that are two parts of a single frea spread sheet. so it's a large spreadsheet and we're looking at how that spreadsheet can be used to easily make some choices and see how changes can occur. and then we'll be looking at a summary spreadsheet that is much
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easier. and i will say, frankly, is more my type of spreadsheet on a level that i can digest. it's hard sometimes to grasp a big spreadsheet. and we are also looking at if we can produce out of any given run of the worksheet a high level summary at the end. so we want to make sure that the results are transparent in how the spreadsheet really works. but also very understandable to a wide array of audiences. so if i could have the next slide. this is the water supply-and demand worksheet comes in two parts. the first is the supply part. and so the upper part of this spreadsheet -- and i apologize if it's not totally lidgeible lt it is a big spreadsheet. the upper part is retail water demands and the various things that affect those over time. and maybe the most important
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thing that you can see there on the yellow line at the end is the net retail regional water system water demand. because we've taken up conservation, groundwater, recycled water and things of that nature. and we have the ability to add in projects that might be done on a local basis. so it has in 2025, 76 million-gallons per day, and 2030, 27, and 2040, 84 million-gallons per day. so that's the retail regional water system demand. the next section is reserved where we will look at the wholesale purchase projections by our wholesale customers. and we don't have any numbers in there except for those looking for the interruptible customer demands and that's because we're waiting for our wholesale customers to give us feedback there. we think that the wholesale
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perfect projections will over the next few years range from, you know, 130 million-gallons per day or 165 million-gallons per day, or something on the orders of that. again, we have the supply assurance for our wholesale customers which is 184 million-gallons per day which is something that they haven't recently projected that they would need, but at the same time, under the water supply agreement it is a supply assurance, so if there is some major problem or change in their other supplies they could look to call on more of our supply, you know, i wouldn't say at the drop of a hat but, certainly, it's something within their purview to ask us for. and so the total regional water demand shows the retail numbers there at the bottom because we haven't filled in the table with the wholesale perfec purchase projections. if i could have the next slide, please. this is the -- the first slide
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is all demand. this is the side that is where the manipulations can come in. so it starts at the top with the firm yield, pre-wisip and we get through that a little bit and it gets down in a few lines to the firm yield post-wisip and taken out of the 227 million-gallons per day. and then you have a section for alternative water supply projects. and then a section for contributions to the instream flow requirements and what those might be. potential policy revisions. and the next one, which is actually a little obscured by the draft mark on it is the effect on firm yield of changing the design drought. and then we have the potential policy decisions with the rationing sequence and policy. so all of those things within the spreadsheet were in the
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process of being set up to be manipulated in a way that could actually make changes in how we look at our supply-and-demand picture. and so, again, you get out of the bottom of that an ultimate surplus or deficit, which here artificially looks very large because it doesn't have any wholesale customer projections in it. so that's a large spreadsheet, about 15 columns across and 130 rows down so it's a very large spreadsheet with a lot of details in it and very complex formulas. this is the one that we want to project because this will generate results that we can show other ways. if we could move to the next slide. this is a roll-up of that. so basically you see in the upper block the regional water system demands that is simplified, and then you see the effects on the regional water system yield, the alternative water supply programs.
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and the contribution to the instream flow requirements. and the design drought policy questions. and then the next -- the effect on total yield can be done by, you know, manipulating the rationing policy. and then affecting demand. you know, whether or not we make san jose and santa clara as permanent customers and/or meeting additional demands. so this is a system leer spreadsheet, you know -- simpler spreadsheet that can produce results that basically would be imported into this. so no calculations would be done here. it really would just be importing results from that primary spreadsheet and that's the whole purpose of that. and we're working on a third level of results that can take this even into a higher level, so it can be as simplified as possible, but, again, the workhorse is the large spreadsheet that we would be working from. so last slide.
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so our next steps are some further refinement of the worksheet and working with our wholesale customers and bosca to obtain the projected purchases from them over the next several years. we would move forward to a workshop for stakeholders on how to make use of this spreadsheet with the ultimate then being a future commission workshop to demonstrate the effects of various policies and considerations. and when we talk about the policies and the considerations, i'd like to just add that the projects, of course, will be subject to environmental review and the policy considerations, if not as policy by themselves or certainly linked to projects, will be subject to environmental review. and a lot of work is going to have to go into both of those. so these will not be simple considerations, it could be quickly tossed around and
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decided on. these will be big deal discussions on both projects and policy considerations. i'd be happy to answer any questions. >> vice-president vietor: commissioners, any questions for mr. ritchie? i have a clarifying question. so there's so many moving parts it seems like -- and, first of all, i want to really appreciate and give a shoutout to commissioner moran for initiating this. i'm not a deep numbers and spreadsheet person either, but bringing it back to the 30,000 view and being able to, you know, the abbreviated spreadsheet and to get a better understanding of our supply-and-demand needs moving forward is really helpful. [broken audio] so i just wanted
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to [broken audio] to thank you for the filling in of moving parts. i'd like to understand how they all fit together. for example, i know that the urban water management plan is being revised and redrafted. i also know that you mentioned that there's opportunity for policy revision, whether that is designed drought, you know, whatever that could be. there's also other plans and policies that are out there that might not have either been named or specified. and then there's this kind of looming state, environmental regulation mandate of how much water we're going to need to put down the river. and i appreciate that this worksheet is going to try to combine all of that and put it all in one place. but it's just hard to track all of that. and i don't know if there is some kind of visual or a chart
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or something that uses that worksheet as kind of an input/output document? or if it's just always going to be so complex and messy and still hard for me to get my head around? >> i did -- unabashedly it will be complex and messy. one of the benefits of the large worksheet is that every one of those things has a line. and so there's a place for it. it's the large accounting of all of those different things. the challenge is that they all move at different rates of speed and, you know, for example, the urban water management plan, we will have new demand projection numbers probably by the end of the year and maybe ready to update the retail system demand numbers. the bay delta requirements and the 12 new river, we'll continue
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to be in discussions on a voluntary agreement and the state plan and there's a report on that in the next commission as part of the regular update that we're supposed to give on that. so we're doing these quarterly updates, but i showed all of those alternative water supply projects that will all take time and we'll need to work through what they really deliver for us. so, you know, we'll continue to try to find things that will help visually, but the complexity is a beast, and, again, the marathon nature of this work is also challenging. you know, nothing happens as quickly as you would like, despite the best efforts of everybody involved. >> well, through the chair, i would like to thank commissioner moran and mr. ritchie for their work. i see this also as an organizing tool.
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you can organize around something and you never know what else might happen. you might find that we did not think that we could get this information out of it, but we do. so i think that whatever we can do to organize, wave whatever wn do to see to have a better picture is really worth it. and i think that something else may come of this that we're not even thinking of at this point. so, again, thank you both for your work. >> yeah, and the staff that worked on this as well -- the organizing part i think is really the key. like i said, there's a line item for everything and in every batch there's a line item for "other." >> and through the chair, i am getting an echo somewhere -- first of all, i would also like to thank the staff for the work they have put in on this and it's gone slower than i had hoped. and as you look at that -- the draft spreadsheet that was up there, there were a lot of zeros
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on it. and for that to be a useful document it has to have numbers in it. and i'm hoping that we could populate that. but i think that it is important to note that one of the reasons that there are zeros in some of those areas is that there are discussions going on as to how we should really look at those numbers and how we should measure them properly. and those are discussions that are important to have. i think that one of the benefits of going through this exercise is that it's causing some of those discussions to take place. they need to conclude, but i think that, you know, the commissioner maxwell, it's like those other things that come out when you start to doing the process and you shine a light on those numbers that you have conversations that you might not have had otherwise. so i see that as a real benefit of it. >> vice-president vietor: great, thank you, commissioners. any other commissioner comments
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at this time, hearing none, madam secretary, open up for public comment. >> clerk: confirm with the general manager that there's nothing to report on item 6i? general manager? okay, i understand that there's nothing on 6i. we'll open up public comment. the members of the public who wish to make public comment on items 6g and 6h, dial 1-(415)-655-0001. meeting i.d., 146 087 5808. pound, pound. to raise your hand to speak, press star, 3. speakers will be in two minutes for each topic for a maximum of up to four minutes per speaker if the speakers wish to speak to each of the two topics. again, speakers, please identify which item or items that you are
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speaking on when you call in. do we have any callers? >> madam secretary, there are callers in the queue who wish to speak. >> clerk: thank you. >> caller: (indiscernible). >> please identify which items that you wish to speak to. >> caller: am i up right now? >> please let us know which items you wish to address. >> caller: this is the policy director for the (indiscernible) trust. i have comments on 6g and 6h. briefly on alternative water supply planning update, i was a little skeptical when this item comes up because it's usually
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similar in the information that we heard in the last quarter, but there was some new information today and i appreciated that. what always gets me about these reports is referencing the need for up to 98 million-gallons per day, which i find to be a bit absurd. i sent you a letter on may 11th, and i had some suggestions for how you might plan for future demand. my suggestions were to plan for a 7.5 year design drought, to take a year off of it. and there's two reasons for that. first of all, my colleague dave warner presented to you briefly at one point that he did a probability analysis and looked at the last 1100 years of data and he found that there were just a handful of times that we got into year six of the drought and never got into year seven. so the question is always, how about climate change. and that's the second point, that we took a look at what
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would happen if runoff came three weeks earlier because less rain and snow packs left earlier. that shifts out from mid-april to mid-june when the irrigation districts are entitled to the first 4,000 c.f.f., into the time period when it's 2,400. and we found -- so the six-year drought on record which was 87 to 92, that that were to repeat with three-week earlier runoff, it would generate enough water to last a year. so at the expense of the irrigation districts, but to the benefit of the others. and we looked at the demand of 223 million-gallons per day, which is where it was before the drought and quite a bit higher than it is today. and considering that your financial team is projecting a half a percent decrease in sales over the next 10 years, i think that's pretty generous, 223.
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we looked at 20% rationing starting in year three of the drought and staying at 20%. and we assumed that the bay delta plan, from february to june, was in effect. and what we found under this scenario is what you would need is 19 m.g.d. to survive that planning. that's very, very different from 98 m.d.g. i'm sorry that i wasn't able to attend your last meeting with the first presentation on the water supply worksheet but i'm happy that is happening. and i think that a big question for us is going to be how does the sfpsud look at this, and so i hope that you ask the staff to give a clear description of that. now we have prepared a water supply calculator earlier this year which is much more simple than what your staff has prepared. but basically we just used the