Transcripts For SFGTV SF Public Utilities Commission 2024071

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 were 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 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. Ill speak further about the peer review that mr. Nelson and the other caller discussed. I think theyve 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 doesnt 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. Id like to point out that a number of us have raised the assumptions about the models in the past in exchange with the 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 colleagues 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. 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. Its very much appreciated and its 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, im sorry i havent had a chance to look at the letters that came in, i guess, today, but im just wondering if we can agendize it or get some signed of briefing on the results of the peer review, because i know weve been asking and eager to see what is being said by the scientists and the peers in the field. And then i just would also like, you know, i appreciate ms. Dupris participation. Shes always bringing us important. I know were 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 fuelfree 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. Id like to hear their response to it as well. Very good. 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. Wed like to have analysis of this since letters have been coming in. Im not in favor of agendizing it as an item, but im 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 its not on the agenda. So the information will be agendized in some form. Next item, please. 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 14156550001, 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 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, well 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 well 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. Were going to ask the public when calling on specific item, 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 covid19 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 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 citys overall response effort. The Department Operations Center Remains staffed monday through friday and we are continuing to deploy team members on longterm assignments to the citys 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 citys direction, employees performing nonessential duties will continue working from home as long as its possible through this fiscal year ending june 2021 to help reduce the spread of the covid19 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, were holding focus groups this month with employees, managers, who spend their days in the field, so we can understand what challenges theyre facing with policies like wearing face masks and social distancing, especially given the hotter temperatures weve been experienced. Were 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 covid19 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. 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 well 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. Its called the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Source virtual exploration. And so weve had them in the past, but its really our resources and inhouse experts 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 its 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 covid19. Any questions . President caen commissioners, any questions, comments . Seeing none, lets move on to 6b. 6b, steve ritchie. Thank you. Can i have the slides, please . This is steve ritchie, assistant general manager for water. Im going to report on the recent 2020, august 2020 fires that were near our facilities. If i can have the next slide, please. Im 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 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 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 didnt 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 youre 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 youre just looking at a small portion that is of interest to us, which is here in the northern end of the fire. 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 work. It took a while for cal fire to get on the scene. We talk about how were supporting cal fire. In this case, we were doing the firefighting 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 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. Thats not green, thats 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 twothirds of the whole watershed. Were already talking about how to go in and assess that and see what kind of treatment, if any, are necessary that we can provide along with cal fire in terms of fixing damage, the firefighting costs and controlling erosion from where the fire occurred. Make no mistake, this was a huge fire in our watershed. And well be dealing with it a lot. With a little luck, well 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. 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. Were 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 doesnt mean were 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 twothirds 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 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. Id be happy to answer questions. President caen commissioners, any questions . Just a comment. Its always sobering to see what nature can dish up for us. Its 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 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 wasnt 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 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. Its very evident. Lets move on to 6c, pl