Transcripts For SFGTV Public Utilities Commission 20240713 :

[gavel]. Good afternoon. Like to call to order the regular meeting of the San Francisco Public Utilities commission. Todays date is tuesday, february 25, 2020. Roll call, please. [roll call] clerk we have a quorum. Very good. Commissioners, you have before you are the minutes of february 11. Are there any additions or corrections . Ill move approval. Second. Is there any Public Comment on the minutes of february 11 . All those in favor . Opposed . The motion carries. At this time, id like to call for a general Public Comment. Clerk madam president , we need to hear oh, im sorry. Thats okay. Clerk its been a long day. Shake the sand out of your shoes. General Public Comment, item 4. Members of the public may address the commission on items that are within the commissions jurisdiction but not on the agenda. Beiokay. I have six speaker cards. Bill collins. Bill collins for pacifica. First, id like to thank the commissioners for serving and particularly you, president caen, for your years of service. I saw my nextdoor neighbor washing his car in his driveway, and i know that in los angeles and san diego, those athat is not legal. I dont see much encouragement of government encouraging Water Conservation. I know that the last government, i heard him say, okay, the droughts over. I know with all the work i did, i dont save any money. My water bill isnt based on water usage mind you, this is in pacifica, but my water bill is based on this set rate. And i went to the district, and i said why dont you encourage the public for water recycle . And they said we dont want to get into that because it doesnt affect the rates. I can go on vacation for a month and not use any water and come back, and my water bill will be the same. There is a difference between water usage and water need, and i think its good for you commissioners to be skeptical when youre given data, no matter who its from, that youre doing what you need to make sure the rivers have sufficient water because it would be a real shame to lose oceans and salmon so that people can have a clean driveway. Great point, mr. Collins. Next speaker, francisco acosta. Commissioners, you all know that we live in San Francisco, and more and more, we have a grand jury investigating our city departments. The grand jury is visiting the Public Utilities commission, and theyre focusing on Community Benefits, and the Community Benefits that are being doled out are millions of dollars, and it is taxpayers money. And we come here again and again and again, and we tell you that this Community Benefits should benefit the community. Its Community Benefits. It shouldnt benefit individuals who are employees of the San Francisco Public Utilities commission, and it shouldnt benefit the politicians. Its a shame that the f. B. I. Had to come all the way from the east coast to the west coast to shame us. We have the Sunshine Task force, it doesnt work. We have the ethics commission, it doesnt work. We have a City Attorney and the grand jury at the rules Committee Said they dont believe him, they dont trust him because hes not objective. So who do we have left . We only have the controller left, ben rosenfeld, and the Controllers Office. And even there, we see that they drag and drag and kick the can down the street. Now when youre dishonest, when youre a crook, youre going to impact those who cannot defend themselves, so im not calling you commissioners crooks, but im appealing to you to do the right thing. Do the right thing as commissioners. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker is ann clark. Im ann clark, and i will be quick. I have a letter for each of the commissioners and will put the remaining letters on the table right over here. The letters are orange. Its a onepage letter. Secondly, id like to let you know that on march 6 at the clubs annual womens luncheon each year, we are honoring ann caen and commissioner viator for their work. We are proud of all their work and to give us their thoughts about whats happening here in San Francisco. But its really a lunch, and its meant to be a lunch, and the lunch begins at 12 00 p. M. Its easy to get to 100 embarcadero, where the Commonwealth Club is, so we look forward to seeing you at the lunch, having a good lunch, and having a good time. And we invite everyone who wants to come, please come to our womens annual luncheon at the Commonwealth Club. That will be march 6. We look forward to seeing you at the lunch and having a good time. If you want more information, go to thecommonwealthclub. Org on the luncheon, which we are very proud of. Thank you. Thank you, and thank you for honoring my Vice President and myself. Thats very nice of you. The next speaker is ms. Broken. Eileen broken, coalition for San Francisco neighborhoods, here on my own behalf. As the process for the twoyear Capital Improvement program has begun, i have been advocating with supervisor mar to have the project include the south basin in the upcoming s. E. P. South basin poses a Public Safety risk should it rupture in a seismic attempt. The p. U. C. Has attempted to secure fema grants for the seismic retrofit on numerous occasions. These grants applications have all failed. Nows the time for the p. U. C. To step up and just do it. A separate issue is taraval and awas. Taraval is receiving no awas infrastructure. This is even though a new installation is likely more Cost Effective than the upgrade of an existing installation. Awas on taraval has received support from the coalition for San Francisco neighborhoods, the greater west portal neighborhood association, and the Taraval Parkside merchants, people of sunset. Thank you. Is there any comment on the upgrade or subset . I can give you information later. Next speaker is dave warner. Donna, can i ask you, if anyones interested, to give them a copy of this presentation . So its an honor to speak to you. My names dave warner. Im a palo alto resident. To quickly verbalize this context, when the design drop policy was developed, not even 100 years of Tuolomne River flow data was available. It was hard then to know what kind of draws were possible. But today, we have 100 years of flow Data Available from tree rings. It is now possible to predict the severity of upcoming droughts. Attached to yesterdays email is a slide deck with such analysis and its the same as donna just handed out. Knowing the possibility of the design drought occurring is vital. Without knowing possibilities probabilities, we are flying blind. If the design drought is a onceina1,000year event, your rate pairs would want such diligence. The investment is likely just as important as the excellent investment that youre making in trying to understand Climate Change impact. To cite one more example, if the sfpucs probability analysis is similar to this one, it appears we have 200 to 300 more years storage than what we thought, and could survive a 100 to500year drought. It this is a key decisionmaking tool. Thank you. Mr. Warner, i did review your email. Found it very interesting. Well, thank you very much. Next speaker, peter druckmeier. Sorry. Good afternoon. Peter druckmeier with the Tuolomne River trust. You probably all know that President Trump was in bakersfield last week to sign orders to allow for more pumping of water to south San Joaquin Valley and Southern California. And thats all part of recent biological opinions on the state of the delta and the species that depend on it, and what diverting more water, how that would impact things. The l. A. Times got hold of the original biological opinion, the draft, which said this would have negative impacts, and the Trump Administration let those scientists go, and they got a new team. And they said voila, we can pump more water, and it wont have an Environmental Impact. So very similar to what we experienced in november 2018 when u. S. Fish and Wildlife Service was forced to rescind its recommendations in the licensing process, and youll remember that led to the board of supervisors resolution that caused some controversies here. So following trumps visit, the next day, the state sued over the biological opinions, and theres a very interesting editorial in the modesto bee yesterday that said farmers dont celebrate trumps visit and the signing because this is going to torpedo the voluntary agreements. It might favor some farmers down in the Water District, but modesto, he did not do them a favor. So the question is are we going to experience more and more delays waiting for the agreements because its never come. Its been 14 years since we signed the appropriations of the san joaquin basin. And i appreciate this Commission Says you want to see things happen sooner rather than later. We dont need to wait to see how this process plays out, and hopefully, well have more discussion in the agenda. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker is barry nelson. Thank you, madam chair and members of the commission. Barry nelson with the golden state salmon association. Ill stick around to speak later in the agenda, but just a couple of big framing comments where we are today. As peter mentioned, the Trump Administration finalized all the necessary steps to begin implementation of the new biological opinions, and i just wanted to start by by making sure that it was clear how astonishingly radical those biological opinions are. Those and ill only mention one example. There are many, many, many examples. As peter mentions, the draft biological opinion was withdrawn. Dozens of federal scientists were reassigned, the Trump Administration having fired the scientists, got the conclusion they wanted. Instead of the conclusion driven by scientists, which is what youre proposing would threaten extinction of multiple species, they got a rubber stamp of what youre proposing is fine. Ill just give you an example of one of the opinions. Salmon depend on the cold water flowing out of shasta dam to keep those fish alive. If it doesnt, those fish are cooked, the eggs are cooked in their nests. This is not a theoretical problem. In 2016, we lost 96 and 97 of the endangered winter run salmon, and this is the only healthy population in the world. Whats and that fish kill was one of the reasons the process of writing new biological opinions began. And the anticipation from the thensecretary of interior who wrote to the thenpresident obama was a statement that we need stronger protections and this is going to mean devoting more water to a more healthy environment. The opposite has happened, and just in this one example, the new biological opinion eliminates temperature protections at shasta. So the only biological opinions said to the bureau, you have maintain x amount of cold water. This eliminates that entirely. It literally gives them the authorization to kill 100 in the salmon in the river for three years running. Thats an extinction plan. This has enormous implications for your water supply, for my industry, and for the voluntarily processes that well probably talk about later in the agenda. [inaudible] sure. Who does this benefit . Sorry. The most clear fishebeneficiara couple of fisheri fisheries. Their former lobbyist david bernhardt, is now the secretary of the interior. Hes leading the Trump Administrations charge for the process of writing these biological opinions. And these are just they are what you would expect from this administration in terms of the respect for science and the law. Thank you. Any other comment for this item 4 . Thank you, president caen. My comment card may have been lost in the shuffle. My name is noah, and im representing fishing ports from sacramento to crescent city. This commission has the opportunity to engage proactively to limit the fallout associated with the Trump Administrations plans in two key ways. The first is by signaling that this commission opposes the radical actions taken by this administration to destroy californias water ways and its fisheries. The second thing you can do is to signal your support for the action that the administration filed last week, joining National Resources like the National Environmental defense council, defending the businesses that rely on healthy iss fisheries in federal court. It will show that this action needs to be taken seriously and given due consideration by the courts not just on the issues because the issues are complicated and profoundly challenging, but in order to secure a challenge on the implementation of this project. Im going to talk to you about what this means to San Francisco and the Business Owners that i represent. In 2005, a biological opinion similar to the one that the Trump Administration is pushing was administered by the bush administration. Its not exactly like that, but its close. Three years later, the year those juvenile fish became adults, our fishery was shutdown. There was no salmon fishing in california, recreational or commercial. Businesses were wiped out, billions of dollars lost. If we dont take action to right the wrongs that are being conducted right now before our eyes, then i can guarantee you were going to be dealing with that again. Were going to lose all the economic productivity associated with the salmon fishery, the recreational joy they derive from that industry. This biological opinion nukes the biological opinion process. Thank you. Any other speakers . Next item, please. Clerk item 5 is communications. Commissioners, any comments or communications . I know therell be some comments from the public on 5f. Are there any other comments before we start the speakers for that segment . Seeing none, i have an announcement to make. Before the meeting began, i had ten speaker cards. I now have 21. I am faced with a quorum problem starting at 5 00. Commissioners have to leave, and we have a very lengthy meeting. So unfortunately, i have to announce that i have to limit you to two minutes instead of our usual three. Im very sorry, but i i have to run the meeting according to time allocation, so forgive me, but lets start speakers. The river has run backwards sometimes. The river is dry from the point where the Tuolumne River comes into it. The farmers have been promised about four times as much water as we actually have in california for them. And the president is now decided to give them even more water, which is sort of like putting gasoline on a forest fire. So i would hope that you could take the advantage of setting an example for all of us to fix up the Central Valley the way we fixed up San Francisco bay and vote for more water coming out of the tuolumne that will set other people off to do the other rivers, thank you. Im going to call the next five speakers. If you lineup on either side of the room. The first one well chose. So we have stop in elaine and christina p o. P. P. Hello, im tom if i have a background in freshwater biology and i just wanted to bring a few things to your attention that for some of you and review and i originally read an article about contaminants and their effects on biological population and the San Francisco bay delta and things that could also be applied to the Tuolumne River. It looks like almost all the research is going towards molecular biology and so i think it would be good if you already have one on board and the next time you hire a biologist to hire a ecologist or biologist. Some of the examples of what is coming up is i went to a conference in davis just about a month ago about environmental d. N. A. And all the progress thats being made in that field and i think if you get out in front of it it could be something very all able for knowing the condition of the river. Another thing is i looked back on some records and it looks like the california bio Assessment Team has done some work for macro and vertebraes on the Tuolumne River and it might be good to see if they can come back and do that. I dont know if theyre on a cycle for testing the different rivers but thats something you could look into. Finally, i think that you know, as far as increasing the flows, one thing we know that will be beneficial and well get diluted and washed downstream so its free of pollutants as you can keep the Tuolumne River. Good afternoon. My name is mary butterwig im retired botanist and have lived in San Francisco for over 20 years. While i enjoy the highquality Drinking Water that comes to San Francisco from the Tuolumne River i realize the delivery