it is my view that desalinization is exactly the wrong strategy to deal with climate change and water problems. it is very similar with dealing with sea level rise and other problems with building levees instead of by doing what is being encouraged, which is a very extensive program of creating wetlands mitigation for water so that we are not battling with the addition, we are working with the ocean, and we are working with the bay, and i would just come back to what commissioner caen were in the pointed out very early in this meeting today in that where we need to be targeting our waters strategies is on storage. but we have not even touched the tip of the iceberg on storage. wedone in places in australia, providing rain barrels to every single location that uses water in the city and massively storing up water. that is how to solve water problems, not by using huge amounts of energy to remove salt and chemicals and other materials from water in a way that will endanger wildlife or directly harm wild wild life. we need to rethink this, and i think it is very premature for the sfpuc t

ritchie. >> let me say out front -- we are not proposing the desalination project. we are seeking to determine whether it makes sense to pursue by any two or more agencies. and some of them have been examined on the technical aspects of desalination, some of them on how do we work together, which is part of the challenge of the project. we are looking to compare this for all our water supply issues for the future. this memorandum will allow us to participate in additional work, which includes the termination of future conditions and the ability to move water through it, including variability based on their projected maps. they are geographically in the spot where the water would have to come into their system to make it work. second, modeling the project impacts on marine life, specifically taking water and from a spot in contra costa county. third, evaluation of the car and footprints, and opportunities for -- evaluation of the carbon footprint, an opportunity aged big and opportunities for mitigation of that. if we go forward with the project, we need to do this i

the reason that we're at this point is because of global warming, essentially and to use desalination as a strategy is very like some of these ideas to put particles up in the atmosphere to block some of the sun out. at the beginning it sounds like maybe a clever idea but when you dell much -- dell have the impact it's going to have on the environments and specific -- specificly, on energy use, you can't leave that out. and specifically to the letter that you received -- and i was able to find outs this morning that not only our city, the group they represent, but also san francisco green party has agreed to sign on to that letter as well. i hope i'm not losing your support, commissioner. so the point here is that we haven't had a lot of new information on this since 2006 and that most enviros are opposed enough to this that that -- what we're seeking is to now engage a real open public process before we decide to spend $200,000 on a study. because a lot of the questions being raised about environmental nps, emergency use, endangered species, grassroots organizations like the ones on

that highlights the main point about all of this, for us to consider things like desalination for the water system, we need the public and environmental groups that have worked on water issues for decades to get full buy-in on the process of deciding even whether we're going to kick some money in to the study. specifically to the items you are covering now, what we need to do with our water system as far as preserving water and making sure that we've got enough is to not adopt aggressive technological strategies after the fact as a systematic approach to dealing with water problems. we need to employ prevention. we need to do permeable pavement. we need to restore watersheds. we need to restore wetlands. we need to open up more open space so water does not drain immediately into the day but soaks into the landscape. we need rain bills. we need a lot of efficiency programs to be rolled out. i was glad to hear you mention jobs because building is going to create jobs for a few years, but if we were to aggressively go after san francisco's water use, pavement, the entire storage system,

just on the desalination component, you have heard me touch base on this before, but this is something that in the last meeting that you have, there was a brief mention of a big possibility of de- stalinization, and now all of a sudden, we have got an action item that we will move forward, and the fact that not very many environmental groups are here is representative of the fact that this is coming as a surprise to us that this is moving today, and a lot of environmental groups, you have heard from clean water action and others,

the third evaluation is the carbon footprint, a concern to all of us, and since desalinization is a high energy user, what are the implications there for this project, and then four, starting to have a public outreach plan. my anticipation would be in about 18 months when this study is complete, that the the time when san francisco and the other party would really have to decide if they see a project here that they really want to pursue as a project. i joke a little bit with the other parties that it has been easy to study because about half of the money comes from the state of california, but we are getting past that we now, where people have to put in real money for a real project that they want. we were interested in 9 million per day for study purposes. we would be looking at a specific number for this project if we choose to pursue it based on information available, so the item before you today is to sign a memorandum of agreement with the other parties in the amount of $200,000 for a series of studies, at which point we will be in a position to decide if we want to invest in this t

they could build desalination plants to bring fresh water. they could give them back order and the things they need. in return, all we want is for his group. we may be able to cut some kind of feel along those lines. while we're working that out, we ought to use b-52's so that they will remember the guns of the b- 52's. guest: there are two things that come out of this call. one is the defection of the general we were talking about earlier. it has been called the defection, but he did not quit the military. he did not quit the government. it is useful to think about him as trying to position the military in yemen as a state institution, which is not. i think they're watching what happened in egypt and trying to do something similar. he is trying to demonstrate the military will act in the interests of the republic of yemen and not the regime. he has not gotten involved and his soldiers have not gone involved. the other point is about desalinization. that is talked about as an answer for the water shortage. unless someone else is going to pay