Good afternoon.

Today's meeting of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission will now come to order.

Ms.

Lanier or Ms.

Ram, can we please co-roll?

President Arce?

Here.

Vice President Leverone.

Here.

Commissioner Jamzar.

Here.

Commissioner Stacy.

Here.

Commissioner Thurlow.

Here.

You have a quorum.

Thank you, Ms.

Lanier.

Before calling the first item, I'd like to announce that the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission acknowledges that it owns and are stewards of the unceded lands located within the ethnohistoric territory of the Moekma Alone tribe and other familiar descendants of the historic federally recognized Mission San Jose Verona Band of Alameda County.

The SFPC also recognizes that every citizen residing within the Greater Bay Area has and continues to benefit from the use and occupation of the Moeakmaalone tribe's aboriginal lands since before and after the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission's founding in 1932.

It is vitally important that we not only recognize the history of the tribal lands on which we reside, but also we acknowledge and honor the fact that the Moeq Maloney people have established a working partnership with the SFPC and a productive and flourishing members within the many greater San Francisco Bay Area communities today.

Item three, approval of the minutes of March 24, 2026.

Colleagues, are there any corrections to the minutes of March 24, 2026?

Seeing none, can we have public comment, Ms.

Nier?

Remote callers, please raise your hand if you wish to provide comment on item number three.

Are there any members of the public present who wish to put provide public comment?

Seeing none, moderator, are there any callers who have their hand raised?

Sorry.

No commenters with their hands raised.

Thank you.

Again, Ms.

Ram, can we please get a motion to approve the minutes?

Motion to approve.

Motion from Vice President Leverone.

Is there a second?

Second.

On Commissioner Stacy.

President Arcee?

Aye.

Vice President Leveroni?

Aye.

Commissioner Jamdar.

Aye.

Commissioner Stacy?

Aye.

Commissioner Thurlow?

Aye.

Item three passes.

Item four, general public comment.

All right.

The Commission values civic engagement.

Oh, I'm sorry, Ms.

Ram.

Okay.

Members of the public may address the Commission on matters that are within the Commission's jurisdiction and are not on today's agenda.

Members present who wish to speak are encouraged to complete and submit the Director of Commission Affairs, a speaker's card located on the table to the left of the public gallery seating area.

Please note that each member is called to the podium to speak in the same order cards are received.

As members of the public lineup to speak, I want to share that the Commission values civic engagement and encourages respectful communication at the public meeting.

We ask that all public comment be made in a civil and courteous manner, and that you please refrain from the use of profanity.

Thank you.

Remote callers, please raise your hand if you wish to provide general public comp public comment.

Are there any members of the public present who wish to comment?

We have Mr.

Francisco de Costa.

First and foremost, I would like to remind the Commissioners that we have to have standards.

For all practical purposes, we don't see standards.

So we took this situation of the three innocent people who are fired at us suffering.

We have got no response from the commissioners, but we took this to the Inspector General and gave her a real good presentation.

She knows everything about it.

Now let me tell you, because the Commissioners haven't communicated with us.

And they are shocked at what we know.

Your commissioners do not know that many of your reservoirs have not been maintained, have sludge.

Filthy water pumped to the people as drinking water.

You have no clue.

You will not spend money where money is needed to be spent.

But y'all will come up with your budget, which was once $6 billion.

Now it's heading towards $15 billion.

Soon we'll be heading towards $25 billion, and y'all have no idea about standards.

No idea about leadership.

No idea about being faithful or listening to the community.

My friend Peter Drake Maya will also be speaking at public comment on this issue.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Next up we have Miss Eileen Bulkeny SFGov TV, I'll be using the overhead.

Is the overhead on?

Does it look like it is?

Oh, there it is.

Okay, SFGov TV.

Okay, thank you.

Um, Eileen Boken, Coalition for San Francisco neighborhoods speaking on my own behalf.

On the overhead is an image of Pacific Palisades after last year's catastrophic fires.

The image is of beachfront homes in Pacific Palisades burned to the ground because LA Fire didn't have the infrastructure to fight catastrophic fires using ocean water.

Besides lives lost and homes destroyed, the Palisades fire caused massive environmental damage and massive economic impacts.

One year later, only ten homes have been rebuilt.

Does the PUC and its commission want San Francisco to be the next Pacific Palisades?

Thank you.

Sorry, I didn't know about the notepad.

Good afternoon, Commissioners.

I'm Judy Lee speaking on behalf of the San Francisco Chinese Chamber of Commerce.

We appreciate the outreach from the SFPUC and the detailed presentation provided to our board last month.

We understand the urgent need to modernize aging infrastructure, meet regulatory requirements, and maintain a reliable water system for our city.

However, we must express our strong opposition to the proposed rate increases as currently structured.

The scale and timing of these increases, over 12% annually, beginning as early as July, poses serious challenge for small businesses.

For many of our members, especially restaurants, retail shops, and service providers, water is not optional.

It is essential.

These businesses are already navigating rising costs in rent, labor, insurance, and utilities.

Additional increases of this magnitude will further strain already thin margins and may lead to higher prices, reduce hiring, or even closures.

Small immigrant-owned and legacy businesses are the backbone of San Francisco's neighborhood corridors.

They are still in recovery, and they cannot absorb these increases without consequences.

We respectfully urge the Commission to reconsider and rebalance its proposal by phasing in increases more gradually, expanding financial assistance for small businesses, increasing transparency around project costs, and engaging more deeply with impacted communities before final decisions are made.

We also ask that implementation be delayed to allow for meaningful stakeholder input and exploration of alternatives.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Ms.

Lee.

Moderators, are there any callers who have their hand raised for public comment?

Ms.

Rav, there is one caller with their hands raised.

Thank you.

Caller, your line has been unmuted.

You have two minutes.

Thank you.

This is Peter Dreckmayer, Paul Director for your 70 River the Lion.

Can't say a whole lot in two minutes.

But I want to share that I've spoken with Mr.

DeCoft about the issue, and there's a lot to it.

It's a very serious issue.

He couldn't cover it all.

I encourage you to meet with him and try to get ahead of it.

Okay.

My main comment.

I sent you a letter yesterday about earlier runoff.

We're seeing it this year.

And that's what we can expect with climate change.

And as a result of the way that the uh water rights are set up is actually going to benefit the FFTUC.

I shared our calculations that over the course of the design drought, the FFUC would pick up a year's worth of water.

That's a huge insurance policy.

It never made it into any consideration.

I encourage you to ask that staff to confirm or correct the numbers in my letter.

The staff ignore the positive and exaggerate the negative.

And the goal is to kill the Bay Delta plan.

So inflated demand projections.

I'm sure you're going to hear more about that later.

The design drought, which might happen once 8,000 years or more.

72% more severe than the worst drought on record and 19 times less likely to happen.

That's the drought that other agents need to plan for, not the design drought.

And the manufactured water shortage can create paranoia about running out of water and the cost path or path on the rate here.

The FPC has already invested more than $13 million in alternative supply planning, mostly on projects that are now defunct and full build-out of alternative water supply plan would cost 17 to 25 billion dollars unnecessary.

Law two spent $3 million through the State Waterport.

How much does the FNPUC spend?

We don't know because we are told that's protected by attorney client communication.

Shouldn't taxpayers ratepayers who pay the bill be told how their money is being spent?

Thank you, caller.

Your time has expired.

Yes, sir, there are no more callers with their hands raised.

Thank you.

Item five, report of the general manager.

We have no report this week.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Item six, consent calendar.

All right, colleagues.

We have got six items on the consent calendar.

I see Commissioner Jamdar on the stack.

Thank you, President Darcy.

I just have a question on 6C.

Um, and uh just glad to see that the point of sale EV incentive program is being expanded.

And my question is: does the 4.2 million award amount include the incentive amounts available to customers, or is it just the budget for services provided?

Hi, good afternoon, Commissioners.

Daniel Young, manager of customer programs for power enterprise.

Uh to answer your question, yes.

So the 4.2 million includes 3.3 million approximately of incentives directly paid to customers.

Uh the rest of that is to uh the administration fee for the program.

All right.

Commissioner Stacy.

I I had the same question on 6C as Commissioner Jamdar.

I um just on 6F, not uh 6C, you have answered the question.

Thank you very much.

Um 6F, it it sounds like we're pretty close to contract closures.

Um you're not quite you're still wrapping up that contract.

Is that why we're not closing out the contract today?

I was trying to figure out what's still left.

Uh hi.

Good morning.

Hi, good afternoon.

Aileen Keelow.

Um yes, we are still closing out part of this contract.

Um we are getting close.

Great.

Thank you.

All right.

Other questions or comments from commissioners.

Seeing none, can we take public comment, Ms.

Ram?

Remote callers, please raise your hand if you wish to provide public comment on consent calendar.

Are there any members of the public present who wish to comment?

Seeing none, moderator, are there any callers who have their hand raised for item six?

Mr.

Ram, there are no callers with their hands raised.

Thank you.

Colleagues, can we get a motion to approve the consent calendar?

Motion to approve the consent calendar.

Moved by Commissioner Jamdar.

Second.

Second from Commissioner Stacy.

President Arce.

Aye.

Vice President Leveroni.

Aye.

Commissioner Jamzar.

Aye.

Commissioner Stacy?

Aye.

Mr.

Thurlow?

Aye.

The item passes.

Item seven.

Public hearing to consider and possible action to adopt new rules and regulations restricting potable water use for irrigation of non-functional turf to align the assembly bill 1572.

Good afternoon, Commissioners, General Manager and staff.

My name is Julie Ortiz.

I manage the SFPUC's water conservation section.

And I am seeking your approval today to adopt a new state-required ban on using drinking water to irrigate nonfunctional decorative grass on public and commercial properties.

California Assembly Bill 1572, which was signed into law in 2023, establishes statewide requirements for prohibiting the irrigation of non-functional, purely ornamental turf with potable drinking water on government, institutional, and commercial properties and the common areas of large residential homeowners association complexes.

The legislation came out of concern from drought and climate change's impacts to the state's water supply and belief that non-functional turf irrigation in California wastes millions of gallons of drinking water.

AB 1572 requires water suppliers like the SFPUC to adopt permanent local restrictions that align with state law by January 2027.

You may recall that the PUC had a similar temporary restriction in place during the last drought.

So this new permanent law does not pertain to residential lawns, cemeteries, turf that supports tree health, or any public or commercial grass that has a recreational purpose or community use.

A general assumption is that if that the only time a person accesses the grass is to mow it, or the grass is fenced and permanently blocked from human access, then it's non-functional.

Compliance will be phased by property type starting in 2027 for public properties, then 2028 for commercial properties, and then 2029 for the common areas of large homeowner association complexes.

Staff in our conservation section don't believe there is a lot of nonfunctional public and commercial turf in our retail service area.

For some context, the PUC has about 1,300 retail water service accounts for irrigation of public and commercial properties in and outside of San Francisco, which roughly serve under 5,000 acres.

Many of these are serving public parks, schools, recreational sports fields, and other public use areas where turf is considered functional.

Others serve cemeteries and golf courses irrigated with recycled water.

My team is continuing to analyze aerial imagery and data, so to identify potential sites of non-functional turf and to inform them about the restriction and our many resources.

In addition, the state is providing urban water suppliers with its own aerial imagery of potential areas of nonfunctional turf.

We expect to get the state data for our service area in the next few months, and we'll be using it to supplement our own analysis.

The PUC encourages properties to assess if they have any potentially nonfunctional turf before compliance deadlines.

The law doesn't require the actual removal of turf and compliance can be met through different means.

We also encourage using non-potable water for irrigation where on-site reuse is feasible.

We provide many resources that could help properties.

This includes free landscape and irrigation assessments to help determine if turf is potentially nonfunctional, grants for turf and water saving irrigation and landscape retrofits, grants for installing green infrastructure for stormwater capture, grants for on-site reuse, and rebates for rainwater collection equipment and more.

The PUC also continues through regional partnerships to provide recycled water to several golf courses in our service area, and the new Westside facility will provide recycled water to several more, plus Golden Gate Park and Sunset Boulevard.

This concludes my remarks, and I'm happy to take any questions.

All right, thank you very much.

Questions from the Commission?

Mr.

Thurlow.

Like you know, owned by the city itself, for example, since that's the first wave of implementation.

Well, as I mentioned, we we don't anticipate that we have much truly non-functional turf.

If you take, for example, City Hall, it's got a ring of grass around it, but there's trees on it, and there are people who informally sit, picnic, uh walk their dogs.

So while you know it's not designated as a park, it wouldn't be designated as non-functional.

So we're continuing to analyze that, but uh a strip of grass in a parking lot, for example, that really isn't commonly used by dog walkers and isn't a place where people would picnic or play ball or sit and there's no bench and there's no trees, that would be nonfunctional.

Or if it's completely fenced off and nobody can get on it, it would be non-functional.

Um the center of medians where it's unlikely people would cross multiple lanes of traffic to walk or exercise would be non-functional turf if it's irrigated with potable water.

So it's a fairly it seems like a vanishingly small set of concerns within the city.

Yeah, I I think within our retail service area, we we don't anticipate it being an extensive situation.

I think it has going to have more benefit uh in other parts of the state.

And it's a state, it's a statewide restriction that we have to adopt locally.

So you know, we we do have to go through the effort of a trying to identify an outreach to those properties and letting them know about our extensive resources that uh can help this help them regardless if they have non-functional turf or not, since we do offer quite a few grant programs and rebates and other assistance.

Okay, perfect.

Thank you so much.

Any other questions?

Ms.

Ram, can we please see if we have public comment on this item?

Yes.

Remote callers, please raise your hand if you wish to provide comment on item seven.

Are there any members of the public present who wish to comment?

Mr.

DeCosta.

Yeah, we have a situation.

The State of California is asking us to do something.

Now, have you ever had a meeting of the mines?

Taking climate change as our focus.

And asking ourselves, why in the year 2026 do we flush our toilets with clean drinking water?

And why do we allow people to wash their cars with clean drinking water?

And we can go on and on and on.

This is San Francisco.

For the longest time, our environmentalists were ahead of the game.

But in recent years, the last 20 years, SFPUC and others are working with the millionaires, the big corporations.

While we talk about hatch hatchy and the reservoir over there, a lot of money is made like by doling out contracts to computer firms, and we don't know who is pocketing the money.

They use our clean drinking water for cooling.

And I can go on and on and on.

There are some commissioners here who should participate in some of the conventions where you learn what really needs to be done to address climate change.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr.

DeCosta.

Moderator, are there any callers who have their hand raised for item seven?

Mr.

Ram, there is one caller with their hands raised.

Thank you.

Caller Line has been unmuted.

You have two minutes.

Thank you.

My name is Ann Schneider.

You might remember me from Millbrain.

Actually, I am a former board member of the Oak Tree Commons Town Home Association in Mountain View.

This location, this project is located on California Drive in Mountain View between showers and brainstorm.

And we had to find a leaf actually the original builders to reduce density.

So we drive over a piece of the H pipeline open California Drive.

When I was on the board and the head of the landscape committee, a huge portion of our HRA dues were paying to maintain the grass over that pipeline because FFPUC would not allow us to put anything on it other than grass for fear that roots would damage the pipeline underneath.

So I am happy, and I'm sure my HO, I'm still a homeowner down there, uh, would love to know what we can plant so that we can reduce the water consumption on the strip of you might consider it part of the park, you might not.

I can tell you having lived there for almost 20 years.

Nobody sits on that graph.

They go down into Pine Park.

I would love to hear more about what you're going to do when it's a PUC property that you leap out to other entities throughout the region you've got pipeline.

Thank you.

Thank you, caller, for your comment.

Mr.

App, there are no more callers with their hands raised.

Thank you.

All right, colleagues, this is a possible action item.

Can we get a motion to adopt new rules and regulations in this regard?

So moved.

Motion from Commissioner Stacy.

Second.

Second from Commissioner Jamdar.

President Arce.

Aye.

Vice President Leverode.

Aye.

Commissioner Jabdar.

Aye.

Commissioner Stacey?

Aye.

Commissioner Thurlow.

Aye.

Item 7 passes.

Item eight.

Presentation and discussion only of the draft 2025 Urban Water Management Plan, including the draft 2025 water shortage contingency plan prepared by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission for the City and County of San Francisco pursuant to California Water Code sections 10610 through 10657.

The Commission will hold a second meeting to consider adoption of the final 2025 Urban Water Management Plan following the public review and comment period on draft 2025 Urban Water Management Plan no later than June 30, 2026.

All right.

May I have the slides, please.

Good afternoon, Commissioners.

My name is Jennifer Lee, and I am the project manager for the 2025 Urban Water Management Plan.

And this plan is available in draft form.

And at the end of my presentation, I'll go over ways in which public comments may be submitted for this plan.

So to start with, I think it's important to begin with why the Urban Water Management Plan is a requirement.

About 50 years ago, California was experiencing significant growth where the population was rapidly increasing, yet there was no process in place to make sure that water suppliers had enough water to meet the anticipated growth.

And so the primary catalyst for addressing this issue came during the 1976 to 1977 drought, which was the driest two-year period of California's recorded history at that time.

So state legislators introduced the Urban Water Management Planning Act to help water suppliers ensure that they have enough water to meet the needs of their customers during normal and during dry years.

This plan is required to be updated every five years and is due to the state by July 1st on the year that it is due.

And over the years, this act has been updated multiple times to reflect new statewide priorities.

The components listed here are required by state law to be included in an urban water management plan.

And the consequence for not submitting an urban water management plan are that suppliers become ineligible for many state grants and loans.

So one of the requirements of the urban water management plan is to prepare long-term projections of water demands over the next 20 years.

The SFPUC uses demand projections for a variety of reasons.

And starting in 2015, the SFPEC started working with an economic consulting firm that prepared an econometric model to model project to model water demands by estimating the relationship between water use and demand factors.

And so the reason why the SAPC transitioned to an econometric model is because this model is able to incorporate socioeconomic factors to paint a more complete demand picture.

So socioeconomic factors that the model incorporates are things like household income, housing age, water rates, temperature, precipitation.

I'll also mention that the SFPC finance prepares a different set of projections, and that's for the 10-year financial plan to support conservative financial forecasting, rate setting, and revenue projection.

So as mentioned, the urban water management plan must use housing and employment projections from the local land use authority or the San Francisco Planning Department in our case for the basis of demand projections.

In addition to the plan requirements, the SFPC also conducted a sensitivity analysis to understand the key inputs driving changes in demand, specifically how does demand change if we assume different projections for population and jobs.

As a result, the 2025 Urban Water Management Plan now has two additional demand scenarios to help inform a range of potential demands for future water supply planning.

The urban water management plan that the SFPUC is preparing is for retail customers only.

So retail customers meaning residential account holders, commercial, municipal, irrigation, and so on.

Most retail customers are located within the city and county of San Francisco.

In addition, the SFPUC also serves a patchwork of customers located outside of San Francisco from communities in Daily City to Maucon and to large customers such as San Francisco International Airport, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Town of Snow, to name a few.

These are what we call suburban retail customers and are generally located directly adjacent to our transmission pipelines.

And the population of our suburban retail customers is about 2,000 people, which makes up less than 1% of retail customers.

And these are retail demands, which include customers in San Francisco, suburban retail customers, and also water losses.

The gray bars show years that we were in a drought, and as you can see, demands have decreased during those years and afterwards have slowly rebounded or gone up, but not to pre-drought levels.

And if you look closely, it typically takes about a year or two once a drought has started before demands decrease.

The exception is in 2020, where we were in a global pandemic.

People left the city, businesses closed, people shifted to remote work, and all the while there was a drought that happened between 2021 and 2023.

And so I bring this example up because there are multiple reasons besides the drought that can impact retail demands.

And when I show our demand projections in the later in this presentation, it will be in the absence of a drought, so it assumes normal wet year conditions.

There's also been some statewide conservation requirements over the years.

These are just a few of the major ones, where in 2009 we had the Water Conservation Act or SBX 7-7 that established statewide water use efficiency targets of requiring a 20% reduction in per capita water use.

In San Francisco, we not only met our target, but we exceeded it and achieved a 30% reduction from our baseline.

In the mid-2010s, there were a series of water efficiency requirements for plumbing fixtures, such as toilets, urinals, shower heads, aerators, for example, toilets that were previously using 1.6 gallons per flush can now only be using 1.28 gallons per flush or less.

And most recently, we have the Making Conservation a California way of life, which sets unique efficiency budgets for water suppliers.

In the dark blue bars, you'll see gross per capita water usage, which is calculated by taking all water usage and dividing it by population.

Residential per capita is calculated by taking residential only consumption and dividing it by population.

And the population estimate is shown here in purple.

And these combined water savings have been incorporated into our demand projections.

Which brings me to our demand projections.

As shown in the data lines, we have now three demand scenarios, which are informed by different assumptions for population and jobs.

The top blue line is labeled the UWMP scenario, and this is informed by using projections from the planning department as required by state law.

The middle green line is our historical growth scenario, and that's using historical population and job estimates from the state.

And the bottom purple line is our Department of Finance and Moody scenario, which is using Department of Finance's population projections and Moody's job projections.

And this is also the same Moody's that delivers credit ratings.

A question that we get a lot is where does finance water projections fall within this chart?

And so if we take finances, water projections and combined with water losses, that line would fall right in between the green and purple lines.

So in other words, it would be in between the historical growth scenario and the Department of Finance and Moody scenario.

So taking our projected demands and converting it to a per capita basis, this is what it looks like for the next 25 years, where our gross per capita usage is expected to decrease to 60 gallons per day, which is a 19% decrease from today, and then our residential per capita usage is expected to decrease to 38 gallons per day, which is a 12% decrease from today.

Population is expected to go up, and that's informed by San Francisco Planning Department projections.

And this chart really shows that on a per capita basis, we are expecting to be more efficient, but because we are expecting to see population increase, as a result, our overall demands are expected to increase to about 73.4 million gallons per day.

Jobs are projected to increase by 28%.

Yet retail demands are projected to only increase by 17%, which is a demonstration that's not a one-to-one translation.

Retail customers receive water not only from the regional water system but also from groundwater and recycled water, which are referred to as our local supplies.

Where in 2025, local supplies comprise of about 3.5% of retail demands.

And by 2050, local supplies are expected to be over 6 million gallons per day or 9% of total retail demands.

Retail customers are not the only users of the regional water system.

The SAPC also delivers water to over two dozen wholesale customers across the Bay Area, many of which are more than 60% reliant on the regional water system for their drinking water.

And as you can see on the chart, the darker the blue, the more reliant that customer is on the regional water system.

Most wholesale customers are also required to prepare their own urban water management plans like we are, and they have their own sets of projections for their respective service areas.

Where by 2050, we are expecting our combined demands on the regional water system to be about 215 million gallons per day, which is a 12% increase from today.

However, the SAPC does have a plan on how to address water shortages, whether it's due to a drought, due to an emergency or other reason.

This plan is known as the water shortage contingency plan and outlines actions that the PEC would take in the event of a water shortage emergency.

The demand reduction actions that the PC may implement are listed here.

And voluntary cutbacks would be implemented before mandatory reductions if they're necessary.

To conclude, the draft urban water management plan is now available on our website or a hard copy at the main library.

The public comment period has started and will end on April 20th.

There are multiple ways that the public may submit comments on this plan, including verbal comments at today's public hearing, email comments at this address, or written comments at this mailing address.

Lastly, staff will review all public comments and prepare a revised draft for consideration of adoption at the Commission's June meeting.

And lastly, this plan is required to be submitted to the state by July 1st.

And with that, that concludes my presentation.

I'd be happy to take any questions.

Thank you so much.

Comments from the Commission.

Commissioner Stacy.

Thank you, and thank you for that very detailed report, all 450 pages of it.

I I want to make sure that I understand, maybe I'm accurately understanding, and please correct me or expand on what I say.

The urban water management plan is a state requirement to make sure that the development side, the planning department side, or whatever the development entities are in a city are taking into account that there is enough water for the maximum anticipated development.

So that the development scenario that the planning department provides is informed in part by the obligation that the city has imposed by the state to have a lot of smart growth, to develop a lot of housing, and so the pressure on those numbers is also a little high to land a little high than what might actually occur.

And that's certainly what we've seen historically in the last couple urban water management plans.

But it's important that the development side is hearing from the water utility, the water and and knows about the water availability, but it doesn't dictate to the SFPUC how we plan realistically for what's happening.

Mr.

Ritchie, Ms.

Levin have said it, that you plan for obligations but build for actual demand.

And I I looking at the comment letters, I I ended up feeling that they were seeing the urban water management numbers as more important to the SFPUC planning and alter whether it's alternative water supply, the amount of water that we keep on hand.

But it's really about the two elements of city of any city or county talking to each other.

And so when I look at the report, I I see some incredibly useful parts of the report, the water conservation modeling that was done, the demand modeling that was done, really important pieces of information for the PUC in determining how we anticipate water supply.

But we're not solely relying on the numbers that the planning department has given us and understanding their pressure too from the state to anticipate pretty high development numbers.

And the two additional demand scenarios that our report provides are not required by the state law, that they are something that the PUC has done in addition to what is required under state law for the urban water management plan.

Is that correct?

Yes, that's correct.

And do you do you have any anything to add or any clarification about sort of my sense of how the urban water management plan plays into SFPC water planning?

Yeah, thank you for that, Commissioner Stacey.

I think you summarize it really well.

We do use the planning department's projections as required by state law, but in addition, we also develop two additional demand scenarios where we have more flexibility in using those scenarios for other plans such as the alternative water supply plan.

We don't have to use those the UWP scenario for these additional future plans that we may do.

And so that gives us more uh flexibility to you know look at a range of demand scenarios.

So yes, that can definitely help inform future water supply planning.

And that we need to know that if all that development happens, that we can accommodate it.

Or we have to look at what our drought scenario might be if that if all of that development occurs.

Right, definitely.

And it also goes back to the emphasis or the reason why we have these is because 50 years ago the state was in a situation that they were approving projects or people were moving in, but there was no accountability of making sure that there was enough water for this development.

And so the what I know Steve likes to refer as the urban water management plan represents the outside envelope of what all demands could be.

Right.

Okay.

Uh thank you.

That's it for now.

I'll give someone else a turn.

Mr.

Thurlow.

Thank you, and thanks, Commissioner Stacey.

I think that was really helpful clarification.

Um a question that I have is when you're looking at the combination of retail and wholesale demand projections, it seems like the methodologies that underpin this aggregation of demand could be maybe even REARY different because they're all derived from individual municipalities with their own structure.

Um so I guess my question is what are the implications of that for understanding the the final numbers?

Like what are the implications if the the sort of core strategies for understanding and deriving demand projections are highly different as a function of each person who's who is inputting demand projections.

Yeah, that's a good point.

So we yeah, we don't prepare demand projections for our wholesale customers.

They are responsible for doing their own demand projections as well as their own urban water management plans.

And so one of the things that we get as an input from them are their purchase projections, which they have their own models that they do, they have their own unique um individual um idiosequencies within each service area, right?

Some have larger landscapes, and so they have different assumptions for that, different climate data.

Um, so we don't get involved into their specific demands.

And so ultimately the projections that they provide to us is what we use.

Um we do coordinate with Bosca to make sure that we do try to align with some of the things that we're doing.

So, for example, the sensitivity analysis I brought up, that's something that Bosca has been doing, and so we were aligned in one of our scenarios.

So they also have um different scenarios for the member agencies, um, and ultimately the baseline scenarios, what is used into our plans.

That's really helpful.

One thing that I noticed is that in the purchase projections, even the trends were the magnitude of the changes in in all directions were quite different among the various potential um wholesale customers.

And so as I think about that, basically, we're still in the regime of saying everyone is working toward the same goal of matching their planning or land use organizations.

Projections, those tend to be the outer envelope across the board.

So when we look at that final aggregated demand number, is it accurate to say that that's that's the outer envelope for everyone?

I think it depends on the each agency has their own reason for a direct demand projection.

So I can't say for sure that every agency is going to have a conservative number.

Certainly that's what we've seen in the past.

Um and we do see that with some agencies.

But if we look at some of the demand projections from some agencies, they're also expecting to see you know very little or maybe zero increases in demands too.

So I it wouldn't be fair to characterize that every agency does that.

Okay.

And so basically that piece of it, it's it's it doesn't create any sort of um foundational problems for our broader plan if we have such variability in the inputs.

Yeah, there's definitely variability, and that's something we do see, and that's why these plans are updated every five years, because the further out that we go, there's more uncertainty on how our projections will look like at 2040 or 2045 or even 2050.

And so that's why it's important to update these every five years based off of historical consumption from the past five years since the plan was last updated.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Vice President Leverone, did you want to ask a question, make a comment?

No.

Okay.

Commissioner Stacy.

Uh thank you.

I wanted to ask the President and the Commission if when we take public comment, if we could give the members of the public three minutes to speak rather than the usual two, if if that if you don't mind.

Yeah, and in fact, in response to advocate letters and advocate requests to have dedicated time on the agenda and anticipating and learning from you, Commissioner, when you held this gavel and did the same and giving members of the public more time, confirm the same with the general manager and assistant general manager Richie and Ellen in advance that we would do that.

Great.

Um, great.

Thank you.

I have to And we so informed advocates so they could be ready to not be rushed in their presentation.

If you're here to speak on this item, hopefully you got that message that we were going to grant more time to pro to provide your your comments when we have time for public comment on this informational item.

Thank you.

I I did have a couple more questions just about the report.

Um I was very interested in the long-term vulnerability assessment that the consultant thought that climate change would have less effect on our uh water availability than the demand and inflow requirements that they would have more effect.

Um I didn't read the consultant's report, but I just wondered if you had any comment on that.

It was do you want to comment on the long-term vulnerability assessment?

Um Steve Richie, Assistant General Manager for Water.

Um that report was basically trying to determine the vulnerabilities of the water system.

It wasn't uh you know, to to establish projections of any kind in particular, uh just assess where the greatest risks were to the uh uh the water uh delivery capability.

Uh so from that point of view it's it's just uh uh a very complex analysis of that.

Um but uh I wouldn't uh you know I wouldn't use it for demand projection, for example.

Right.

Okay.

Thank you.

Uh I'd I'd like to take a look at it.

I will.

And I'm trying to find I had a question about Table 8.5, and I'm having trouble pulling it up on my iPad.

But my question on when we show the dry year scenarios.

How does our how does the water bank or the water bank credits factor into how we look at those dry year scenarios?

I couldn't tell from the table.

And I'm sorry, I'm I'm having trouble finding it in my on my iPad.

Yeah, the table I'm not familiar with the specific table, but in terms of water bank, that is really uh it's just uh uh a piece of operational storage that is functions in a particular way.

Uh so uh you know, for every scenario, we just use the water bank as we would in any particular year.

Uh you know, we always try to fill it, uh, and then we try to uh preferentially use that to meet the downstream irrigation districts demands uh in uh in other times of the yeah.

Yeah, that that's our that is our cushion to protect the hedge edge supply.

Great.

Thank you.

That's it for me.

Thanks.

All right.

Thank you, Commissioners.

Thank you for the presentation also to A.

GM Ritchie and Ms.

Vin for the time you spend with each and every one of us to walk us through the presentation and help us be prepared for today, very appreciative.

I got a comment from uh someone who remarked, uh a friend of mine had seen the presentation and said, wow, the SPC is projecting nearly 400,000 population growth over the years to come, and I had to say, no, that's not our projection.

We are required under state law to follow the planning department and other agencies similarly doing this type of forecasting for different resource type of management and anticipation.

Everyone is working off of the same numbers, so these numbers come from the good folks at the planning department who provided us those projected population growth numbers.

So at this time we can please take public comment, Ms.

Raman, and again, out of respect for a lot of work by a lot of advocates to send us letters to provide feedback to request opportunity to have dedicated time to weigh in.

This is a discussion item only, no action today, but your comments are again formed the the next few uh well, weeks and even a couple months leading up to when we have to have this plan approved and submitted by July 1st.

So we're gonna uh add 50 percent more time, another minute for for folks to kind of sequence the presentations that are here in person and on Zoom.

So, Ms.

Ram, can we please take public comment?

Yes.

Remote callers, please raise your hand if you wish to provide comment on item eight.

Members of the public, you have three minutes to provide comment on item number eight.

And first we have is Mr.

Tom Smeagle.

Thank you, President Arsey and Commissioners.

Tom Smegel from Bosca.

And um maybe following up a little bit um uh Commissioner Thurlow's remarks, um, one of the key things that Bosca did in its demand study that was issued earlier this year uh was work on a set of common assumptions for each of the agencies that they all agreed to before going forward with the demand study.

Now, each of those agencies could take those uh those assumptions and make tweaks to them individually to make their own urban water management plan projections, but at least we had a core set of assumptions that went into that initial analysis.

Um we then took our demand study and asked the agencies to provide the SFPUC purchases, and those have gone into, as as uh Jennifer talked about, have gone into the Urban Water Management Plan uh process here.

Um I just wanted to say for the record that Bosca supports the adoption of SFPUC's uh 2025 Urban Water Management Plan uh based on our view and uh coordination that we have done with them.

It is our understanding that the plan complies with the requirements of the Urban Water Management Planning Act.

And failing, of course, to adopt the Urban Water Management Plan by the appointed deadline would make the SFPUC ineligible for State loans and grants uh of various types.

Uh and of course, from our interest in the financial standing of the water system, we would obviously like the uh the utility to remain eligible for those things.

Um the 1.9 million Bosca customers that rely on the system would uh would appreciate uh you following the law and getting this done on time.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr.

Smeagel.

Mr.

Smagel?

Thank you to you and your board of directors.

We have a question from Commissioner Stacey, if you don't mind, Mr.

Smeagel.

Don't mind?

I don't mind.

Thank you, Mr.

Smegel.

I think what I just understood you to say is that Bosca helps put into place shared assumptions about how to how to predict demand.

But each individual member agency prepares its own land use projections for development.

Right.

But the sort of the oversight or the role that you play as Bosca is to really try to assess in a uniform way the demand.

That's correct.

So assumptions such as the amount of climate change, what model to use for climate change, what uh economic conditions to use as a baseline, those scenario planning efforts that we talked about, the different the different kinds of things that go into that.

That was all as a result of a consensus that was built at at Bosca meetings and at Bosca water management representative meetings.

Yes.

I see.

I I think that one of the comments that we had, maybe from the Sierra Club is that the projections of the wholesale customers seemed high.

But it you, as Bosca, you rely on the individual agencies, you're not rethinking the estimates that they give you.

Is that right?

That's correct.

That's correct.

And what I will say, and I think I presented this to the to the Commission a couple of months ago.

Our demand uh projections are quite a bit down from where they were five years ago.

Um so obviously there's a point of view from the from the Sierra Club, and they're going to speak to that point of view.

Um but uh, you know, based on the assumptions that we've made in the modeling and the standard practices that our modelers used, uh we we think that's uh an appropriate uh demand projection, yes.

Thank you.

And I really knowing how interrelated the wholesale customers and the retail customers are, I think it's really important that the SFPUC look at that as part of even the urban water management plan, and that you also, the wholesale customers also need to understand what what our demands and what our pressures are, and I appreciate Ms.

Lee that you included that information in the report and that Bosca provides that information.

So they are it's hard to it's hard to pull them apart, really, when we're looking at water reliability and water supply.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we have Ms.

Eileen Boken.

Eileen Boken, Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods, speaking on my own behalf, strongly opposing the urban water management plan as currently drafted.

The plan is based on outdated population projections from the State Department of Finance.

The State Department of Finance now projects San Francisco's population to remain flat for the foreseeable future.

Using inflated population projections results in inflated demand projections and inflated design drought projections.

All of these combined affect rates.

Most water agencies plan for a six-year drought, and yet the SFPUC for an 8.5-year drought, which is well beyond the norm.

An 8.5 year drought deprives the Tuolamee River of fresh water flows it needs for sustainability while while causing water hoarding and water dumping by the SFPUC.

And finally, the PUC seems oblivious to its reputational issues.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Eileen.

Next we have Lane Fajou.

Good afternoon, President Arce and honorable commissioners.

My name is Lane Fijo, and I'm here on behalf of Sierra Club California and our over a half a million members statewide, including myself and thousands of others, thousands of others that reside here in San Francisco.

For more than 25 years, the SFPUC has consistently overestimated water demand by as much as 45 to 50 percent over a 15-year horizon.

Even the most recent projections missed the mark, overestimating near-term demand by double digits just a few years out.

This is an egregious pattern that the SFPC needs to take accountabil accountability for and reconcile.

Moreover, it is a pattern that has real consequences.

First, it drives unnecessary capital spending.

When projected demand doesn't materialize, those costs don't disappear.

They get spread over fewer gallons of water sold.

The result is exactly what we're seeing today, rapidly rising rates.

In just the past year, projected wholesale water rate increases jumped from around 1 percent to more than 7 percent annually.

Over the next decade, combined water and sewer rates are on track to become unaffordable for many San Franciscans.

Second, these inflated projections are being used to justify opposition to the Bay Delta plan, a plan that would keep more water in a system that is on the verge of collapse due to overpumping.

The SFPUC is pushing for a regulatory approach that takes water out of the Tuamney River, damaging habitat, harming fish populations, and weakening long-term water quality.

All for water that San Franciscan San Franciscans simply do not need.

Fortunately, today you don't have to choose between affordability and environmental protection.

More than ever, they are aligned.

San Franciscans have already reduced water use by roughly 30% over the past 25 years, and the data shows that droughts drive lasting conservation, not increased demand.

More realistic demand modeling that reflects these trends projects declining water demand over time, not growth.

Continuing to plan around inflated demand doesn't make us safer.

It locks us into a cycle of overbuilding, rising costs, and environmental harm.

I encourage you to carefully review the letters and analysis that Sierra Club has submitted to the SFPC over the past couple of months.

We have identified specific errors in your demand modeling that deserve addressing prior to the finalization of the 2025 W or UWMP.

So as you consider updates to the UWMP and the role of the design drought, we urge you to ground your projections in reality.

Sustained conservation, modest population growth, and the long-term effects of drought on reducing demand.

I really admire the SFPUC's mission and appreciate the commission's and staff's earnest hard work to make utilities work for the people of San Francisco.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Lane.

Thank you.

Next we have Mary Butterwick.

Certain aspects of the draft 2025 urban water management plan directly affect the management of flows in the Tuolumne River.

Tuolummy is an ecological crisis due mainly to inadequate flows.

Central to the lack of in-stream flows is the SFPUC's continued use of an 8.5 year design drought as its primary tool for managing flow releases.

The design drought has not been revisited for 30 years.

Please revise the length of the design drought before the UWMP is due on July 1st.

SFPUC has never done an analysis of the risk of its design drought occurring, yet the SFPUC continues to predict that extreme levels of rationing will be needed with the Bay Delta Plan amendment in place.

As Dave Wagner stated, to provide the threat of such high rationing percentages without providing the probability of such a drought actually occurring is misleading, alarmist, and raises significant transparency issues.

The SFPUC should re-engage Dr.

Casey Brown to specifically help determine the return period for the design drought.

A risk analysis of the 8.5 year design drought compared with lesser drought models is needed.

Using the SFPUC data, the Yosemite Rivers Alliance showed the volume of water left in storage at the end of each year of the eight-year design drought.

Even after the fifth year of the design drought, there would still be 606,000 acre feet of water in storage.

That's almost three more years of water supply without any rationing.

This seems it seems to me that SFPUC has plenty of water for the environment and people.

My water sewer rates are going up and likely to triple in the next 15 years, with 8% increases each year.

How can low-income families possibly afford these increases?

Within the next 10 years, debt service will account for more than half the estimated cost of the water and sewer enterprises.

This amount of debt service may severely constrain the Commission's ability to fund future projects.

More recently, I learned the SFPUC identified the need for an additional 10 billion dollars of capital improvement projects over the next 30 years.

This doesn't account for the enormous costs associated with developing alternative water supplies.

Thank you.

Thank you.

George Cattlemel.

Second, I want to encourage you to use your power to protect the Ptolemy watershed.

I have two careers that brought me here.

I taught philosophy at Stanford for 30 years.

And now I teach fourth and fifth graders what a watershed is and why it's important to preserve endangered species.

My other job is owning and operating the San Gregorial General Store on the San Mateo coast.

I moved there from Palo Alto in 1980, and while tending bar, I would listen to the local farmers, quote Rosh Limbeau, and complain about the commie environmentalist.

I played with my kids in the San Gregorio Creek, which flows about a hundred yards from the store.

We often saw fish and frogs, and we caught crawdads.

Then we didn't.

The farmers pumped the creek dry.

The species are very slowly coming back, very slowly, for two reasons.

One, we were able to fashion a local coastal plan, which said that if you want to develop, you needed to have water on that site.

And the second was we now have a water master that actually makes people follow the water law.

I've reviews reviewed the Bay Delta to water quality control plan and the materials submitted by the Yosemite Rivers Alliance and the Sierra Club.

It's clear that in the past, PUC commissioners have inflated population and water demand projections.

In part, I think this is because they want to argue for a foregone conclusion, which is that growth is good and necessary, and that the free market will make it so.

Also, because you agreed in 1999 to support the Modesto and Turlock irrigation districts positions regarding how much water fish will get.

Talk about foxes looking after chickens.

It's time you stood up to the energy and agricultural interest and listened to the science and those who care about the Ptolemy watershed.

While conveniently overestimating future fish pop four population and water demand, you've also underestimated the cost of water.

Until November, the Bay Area Water Suppervation Agency was expecting a price increase of around 1%.

Now they're looking at 7.4%.

BAWSC also has just learned that you're now adding an additional 10.1 billion to the projected cost of your 10-year capital plan.

It's clear there needs to be an independent audit of this commission that will focus on both internal and external costs of their decisions and how these decisions are made.

You have the power to restore the deteriorating watershed that is the Ptolemy.

Listen to the Yosemite Rivers Alliance and the Sierra Club.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we have Christina Bertie.

Thank you.

And I'm pleased to be here talking to you.

I'm Christina Bertia, and I've been working with Great Water Action since 2008.

And I'm also a water cycle restoration practitioner.

And I just want to say that you do UWMPs have historically overprojected demand.

The current design drought that's being mentioned that's used by you guys is statistically likely to occur only once in 8,000 years.

But that's what you're basing this UWMP on.

So please modify the design drought using the drought of record that the other agencies use, which I believe is a six-year drought.

Then the Bay Delta plan flow requirements can be met, and the rivers can flow.

They live a hundred years.

They don't reproduce rapidly, and they're now considered endangered.

So how many more of them just sank to the bottom?

This was really a huge impact on their existence.

So rivers have a right to flow.

Sturgeon have a right to survive.

Another 350 million years.

The forests have a right to receive the ocean minerals.

They evolved with, brought to them by four salmon runs per year.

Our forests are not doing well.

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that we're preventing not allowing salmon to survive and to thrive because we're not giving them the water they need, particularly the cold water they need.

So the SFPUC, on the other hand, does not have a right to obliterate these other rights.

Please allow those rivers to flow and to support this life.

And it's all very nice.

I was very moved by your land acknowledgement.

But what I would ask you is to also acknowledge the values and respect for life that those indigenous cultures have.

They delivered to us California in an incredible state of beauty and abundance.

And we can have to say that it's not in good shape now.

It's burned.

Thank you, Ms.

Martilla.

Your time is up.

Thank you for your comments.

Thank you.

Please acknowledge them.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Martilla.

Next we have Mark Shahinian.

Good afternoon, Commission.

Good afternoon, President Arce.

I'm really excited to speak with you here today.

We at Sierra Club have done a lot of work around this.

I led the team that did the analysis that came out in the two letters you've received from us.

And I'm on the elected board of the local Sierra Club group here in San Francisco, and I'm a SFPUC customer as well.

So what environmentalists, I guess, for years have been scratching their heads, and honestly, it's not just the SFPUC but agencies around the state, but we've been scratching our heads around how for every five years uh you've consistently overprojected water demands and water needs for your agencies.

I think we have an answer.

Um I went through and personally dug through the model that did the demand projection here.

And it's taken the economo and the metric and stripped them out of the econometric model.

Uh it makes a number of mistakes, which I've highlighted in writing, it makes a number of assumptions which we find problematic.

And honestly, even the population assumption, it is not true that according to the guidebook under which uh the agency operates.

It is not true that they have to follow uh local planning guidelines, but even if they did, they would still be way off what we consider proper projections.

So this UMP UWMP continue, as have the previous ones, but continues to be extremely problematic in uh would not pass a legal test if one were posed.

So uh again, it would not pass a legal test if one were posed as currently uh constructed.

Um it's a travesty that the U the SFPC keeps using these planning documents and the outlandish design drought as a basis to oppose the Bay Delta plan.

What you asked good commission uh questions, Commissioner Stacy, and what you were told as far as I heard in the back of the room was that um that this uh UWMP is mostly focused on planning for residential growth.

Maybe it's also really the the backbone that the SFPUC uses to argue against the Bay Delta plan, and that's our really big concern here.

We've seen that over and over again, and we don't think there's a factual basis for the SFPUC's argument against the Bay Delta plan, and we think the problem is rooted in how they do demand projections.

So thank you all very much for your time.

I know we've submitted you a lot of writing, happy answering questions about it, and love to work to reduce this capital spending in the future and increase the water that's available to the ecosystem.

Thank you, Mark.

Thank you.

Moderator, are there any callers who have their hand raised for item number eight?

Oh, sorry.

We actually have one more public comment.

Um, Mr.

Francisco de Costa.

Sorry.

That's okay.

Let me remind you that Hathachi Valley was one of the most beautiful valleys in the world.

And let me remind you that you view commissioners and SFPUC do not respect the indigenous people.

There will be heavy consequences.

The Hatchy Reservoir is now used to make money.

Greed.

This plans that you bring young people here who have no concept chronologically about the history of Hachhachi, about the beats and the pomos and the other tribes that I know very well.

We need to have a fund for the tribes.

So that they tell you before it's too late what will happen to the greedy people.

Water is life.

But for the SFUC, water is greed to make more money.

Shameless people who have no respect for the indigenous people who are here for 20,000 years.

And then these people came, they called them the strangers.

And the elders said, do not trust those who speak with a fog tongue.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr.

DeCosta.

Good afternoon, Commissioners.

My name is Dr.

Jacuzzi.

You've seen me at this podium before representing the uh San Francisco PCA PUC CAC.

I am not here in that capacity this afternoon, so make sure that that's clear.

I'm a resident of San Francisco and I am the executive director of Westside Water Resources.

You've heard a lot of facts and figures and seen a lot of graphs, and I had come prepared to speak a little bit more to that, but people before me have said everything I would have said, so I'm just going to simply say that I'm here to speak for the salmon.

And I urge you to please adjust our address our official design drought down a number of years, one or two.

And that just to bring this to reality that if should we have to in the uh unfortunate case of a of a five-year drought in your four or five, uh, take two minutes less long showers.

That's pretty much what it would take.

Um that would be easy sacrifice compared to the fish that need water every single year.

With that said, um, thank you very much.

I'm happy to add my voice to the to the discussion.

Thank you, Mr.

Jacuzzi.

Moderator, are there any callers who have their hand raised for item eight?

Mr.

M.

There are ten callers who wish to be recognized.

Thank you.

Caller, your line has been unmuted.

You have three minutes.

I am Judith Kirk of Redwood City, California.

I wish I had known about the three minutes ahead of time.

But I am a Delta geek.

I have testified for three years running to the State Water Board and the Delta Stewardship Commission.

What I learned from that is that the water board will listen only to those who advocate for voluntary agreements, which is like inviting the fox into the hangouts.

I am sick to death of hearing many, many water districts and others who absolutely know they must have the water they want.

All in vain, of course, because if any more water is taken from the Delta tunnel included, it will completely fail.

It is already failing and getting saltier.

Salmon season canceled three years in a row.

Species of fish extinct and the poisonous algal bloom that will include San Francisco Bay.

Science is facts, but all the supplicants for water refuse to hear the science.

They say they must have more water.

That's all there is to it.

Magical thinking rules.

And the increased water demands for that growth.

As are others.

The numbers are in.

The science is in.

The facts are in.

They are buried by greed and wishful thinking.

Please listen to the science.

The facts from the people who know.

Stop building cities in the air and then charging all of us more for those.

UWMPs have always overprojected future demand.

And the draft 2025 UWMP is more of the thing.

Please listen to the Sierra Club and those who will be giving you the info you must hear and take in.

The SFPUC has plenty of water for the Bay Delta Water Quality Control Plan.

If you improve your demand projections and the info for the severity of the design drought, please do that.

I also support the request for an independent audit of the Commission and its projections.

Thank you.

Thank you, Coller, for your comments.

Caller, your line has been unmuted.

You have three minutes.

Hi.

Um I'm Alex Barrett, and I used to live in San Francisco.

Now I live over in Alameda.

And I in the Bay Area, you're somewhat disconnected from fish.

But fish are really important.

Our Delta ecosystem is in collapse.

And the totally all the voluntary river agreements are poppycot.

Um fish are important, and we should protect them.

And they should be teaming with them.

Instead, we have something like eight endangered species, which is ridiculous.

Our long fin smelled, our smelt, um, our green sturgeon.

Uh so please do the right thing and do proper um agreement, which this is not.

Um thank you.

Thank you, Collers, for your comments.

Caller, your line has been unmuted.

You have three minutes.

Hi, my name is Hillary Hugg.

I've lived in Palo Alto for almost 40 years.

You and your predecessors have played a large role in my life.

I rely upon SFTC water directly for drinking and other household uses.

I also rely on SFTC policies to maintain the ecological integrity of the Tuolamy Ray River water suit and downstream factors that influence it, including the San Joaquin River and the Bay Delta.

I've read the scientific evidence supporting the Bay Delta plan and find it convincing.

I've also read and found convincing the scientific evaluations of proposed alternative actions which concluded that they are entirely inadequate.

Yes, I want drinking water.

Yes, I want to shower and wash my clothing.

Yes, I want to pay a reasonable price for water.

I think I and others to whom you supply water can do these things that the Bay Delta Plan is implemented.

I want you to end your opposition to the implementation implementation of the Bay Delta Plan.

Your staff has given you inflated and unrealistic population growth projections, several multiples of what has occurred in the recent past.

They've conjured up a design drought so severe that its likelihood of occurrence is once in every several thousand years.

On the basis of these distortions, they're projecting severe rationing without apparent consideration of water remaining in storage, proposing billions of dollars of construction to add new supply and opposing the Bay Delta plan.

You and I and your other customers deserve policy grounded in sound science.

I respectively request that you schedule a workshop where critics and proponents of the draft UWMP can provide you information essential to a science-based policy.

Thank you.

Thank you, callers, for your comment.

Caller, your line has been unmuted.

You have three minutes.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Thank you.

I am David Schramm.

I came to Palo Alto in 1970.

Since then I taught and written about value science, a subdiscipline of human ecology.

Beginning in the early 1980s, I've published about ecosystem modeling in peer-reviewed venues, ranging from the Journal of Forestry to Bioscience.

I'm here today because I care about ensuring high quality and affordable water for myself and others.

And because I care about protecting the natural environment on which you, I, and our fellow humans are utterly dependent for our well-being.

I'm here also because I understand that to make sound policy, we need accurate information.

The modeling used to support the UWMP before you now and its predecessors fall short.

At stake are billions of rate payers dollars and the well-being of some of California's most important riparian ecosystems.

Underlying design drought, population and per capita usage figures of the UWMP are all based upon extreme assumptions.

The effect of these is a projection of SFPUC demand inflated beyond anything likely to occur.

I draw your attention to the graph on the first page of the appendix of a letter sent to you by the San Francisco Bay Sierra Club on April 7th.

The graph shows that demand has declined 15% in this century.

Despite this, every UWMP projection for the past 20 years, five in all, has anticipated 10% or greater growth.

The downward trend of actual use has been steadily ignored by two decades of modelers who insist, all evidence to the contrary, that demand will increase.

This is junk science.

Just as honest competent science can be a powerful tool for crafting sound policy and furthering common good.

So can junk science be a path to perdition.

Please direct your staff to return to you with the UWMP that is evidence-based and will serve both the narrow and broader interest of your customers.

Safe, adequate, and affordable water, and a thriving river's Delta Bay ecosystem.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Coller, for your comment.

Caller, your loan has been unmuted.

You have three minutes.

I hope that do you mean Ann Schneider?

Am I unmuted?

Yes, you're muted.

Sorry, my apologies.

Ann Schneider, this time I'm speaking for myself, but I am speaking as someone who has served as a Bosca board member for a little over three years now.

And for three years, I have heard the environmental community come to meetings both as a policy committee member and as a board member talking about the design concept.

To be honest, we at least I don't believe I've ever had a discussion about what that means.

And that means that there is a possibility to the commissioner that you are designing for something that never happened, and that comes back in your capital improvement planning and comes back in the rates.

So for example, the 7% rate increase you're thinking of for the next fiscal year means to my customer here in Millbrae at the retail level a 12, a 10 to 12, 10 to leave 14% increase in water.

What that will do is reduce the amount of water that it is.

But other things does is reduce the amount of money to invest in recycled or alternate water supplies.

But when we have a year like we've just had where the newspaper is coming out saying, hey, everybody, this is still time for your alternative water supply.

We're being extra by very long design window.

And I apologize to the environmental community that I did not put up here as a board member of Bosca to actually dive into this and find out are we overdesigning that you commission for looking at this for this long-term plan and understand the need to make sure that we all have water.

And Robert actually is the fastest community of nice in the key in San Mateo County, the fifth in the region and the tenth in the state.

But not so we're everything we can serve will help with that growing population, but we have plans to do recycled water, but not if the rates keep going so high that we can't ask our own ratepayers to find an alternative water supply.

So I haven't heard you talk about that.

I might have missed it in reading the plan.

Um I just hope you keep it in mind that what you do at the wholesale has an even greater increase at the VTEP level.

And maybe we're designing for something that will never happen.

Thank you.

Thank you, Coller, for your comment.

Caller, your line has been unmuted.

You have three minutes.

Good afternoon, uh, commissioners, and thank you all for your time.

My name is Martin Gothberg, and uh I'm a user of Toolmade River Water, Hedgey Water, and Santa Clara for that matter.

So it's a helpful presentation and great discussion from the board, and I'll keep it try to keep it short since a lot of what you what I have is very similar.

The UMP, UWMP will guide most planning decisions for the next five years.

So we're all counting on you to get it right.

And regarding overprojection, I can't forget a presentation from the SFPUC PR representative at a Silicon Valley leadership group uh meeting approximately 10 years ago.

I found it embarrassing to be honest.

Well, that presentation was more about the danger of adopting the Bay Delta plan.

It had frightening statements about economic decline, water availability that turned out to be completely wrong.

Perhaps the UWMP is a different process.

My intuition though tells me that a lot of play is in the numbers, that there's padding at every step of the planning process to allow for a more conservative and quotes approach to what is again coming up with arbitrary design drought, one with a return period of 8,000 years at a minimum.

We need reasonable demand projections and a more realistic period of drought for use in planning and management of the Tuangle River water.

Otherwise, we will continue the cycle of starving our rivers by hoarding water behind dams, only to have that water be dumped downstream in one good rainy year.

That's just bad management.

So an overly conservative approach drives capex and servicing of debt that will only push rates higher and beyond what people many people can afford.

SFPC has plenty of water for the environment, businesses, and households.

These needs can be met, and there are still significant opportunities for existing homeowners to conserve water.

All one has to do is walk their dogs through the neighborhood to see lush green lawns with active irrigation.

So again, thank you for your time and effort.

Thank you, caller, for your comment.

Caller, your line has been unmuted.

You have three minutes.

Yes, hello.

My name is Les Kishler.

I'm a resident and taxpayer of one of the Bay Area water districts and a retired high school science teacher.

I spent 40 years back acting in the high Sierra, often in the headwaters of the rivers that try to flow towards the San Francisco Bay and Delta.

The health and well-being of the San Francisco Bay and Delta is important to protect.

To say that more and more water needs to be diverted from the already suffering Bay and Delta because of the perceived water shortage in the future is the same kind of ill-logic that Donald Trump uses when he conflates one illegal vote to mean a mythical million illegal votes.

In other words, his action is out of proportion to the actual situation.

In the Bay and Delta's case, diverting more and more water from the Bay and Delta is out of proportion to the actual situation.

Overestimating unnecessary growth and water needs as the unintended or intended consequence of promoting more votes that is not only unnecessary, but is also unsustainable.

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission should allow more water to reach the Bay and Delta, not less.

Thank you.

Thank you, Coller, for your comment.

Caller, your line has been unmuted.

You have three minutes.

Wow, you sure have a lot to think about, don't you?

There's uh regulatory requirements.

There's affordability.

There's this plan that if you approve it, it can be used uh as a justification for an expensive alternative water supply system that uh we don't really need.

And is not even included in the the $12 billion in your capital plan, which by the way is also not including uh uh expansion of the uh emergency firefighting water system.

But that's my my point, my main point.

Um I strongly urge you to consider ecological impact of the PUC once in 8,000 year drought design, an unjustifiable obstruction of the State Water Board's 2018 Bay Delta plan.

Inadequate flows have knowingly caused the extinction of Delta melt.

The past eight surveys for Delta Smelt found none.

And the Bay Delta ecosystem is in full collapse.

Now we should concern ourselves with the Bay Delta distinct population of long thin smelt, which the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service listed as endangered in 2024.

Under the Endangered Species Act, both state and federal permits are required for any activities that would result in significant habitat modification or degradation where it actually kills or injures wildlife by significantly impairing essential behavioral patterns, including breeding, feeding, or sheltering.

San Franciscans care about our environment, which include nature.

Further, the Bay Delta is the wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention.

San Francisco is from people far away.

Have eyes on the PUC.

Do yourselves a favor by removing the PUC from involvement with lawsuits, the voluntary agreement, and it's once an 8,000 year drought design.

Thank you.

Thank you, Caller, for your comment.

Caller, your line has been unmuted.

You have three minutes.

Thank you.

This is Peter Dreckmeyer, policy director for Yosemite Rivers Alliance.

Commissioner Stacy correctly pointed out the urban water management plan isn't supposed to be a planning document, but that's exactly how it's used.

The alternative water supply plan is based on the urban water management plan.

And all communications deferred in the State Water Board are based on the water enterprise projections.

Actually, they're much higher because what the staff does is they normalize numbers.

They say, oh, they're lower right now because of this or that, and so we're boosting them up.

Planning for obligations of building for demand might sound good, but the environment suffers no matter whether projections are right or wrong.

There are no consequences to staff for getting things wrong.

They don't get their paid off, they don't get put on probation.

All the consequences are borne by the environment.

Let's try to get both right.

Let's try to uh protect our water supply and help the environment.

We can do it.

I've been sharing information with you on that for years.

The big two flaws of the urban water management plan are inflated demand projections and the design drought.

The plan project projects 215 million gallons per day.

The excellent Sierra Club model projects 147 baseline.

That's a huge difference.

And it's going to impact rates.

If you're selling a lot less water, the price per unit is going to have to go up.

Why not have a work ship shop on this prior to finalizing the urban water management plan?

Population projection.

Is San Francisco really going to grow five times as fast in the next two and a half decades than it has in the past two?

Highly unlikely.

Is Bosca going to grow from 1.9 million to 2.6 million?

I'd offer 100 to 1 odds that it won't even be close to 2.6 million.

The I think there's an inadequate analysis of how costs will impact demand.

We just learned about another 10 billion in capital projects.

Was the commission aware of this?

Do you know how it's going to impact demand and sales?

Water rates have quadrupled since 2008 in the water system improvement program.

That was 4.8 billion dollars.

What's 10 billion going to do?

The 43% reduction cited by staff in with the Bay Delta plan that's implemented is embarrassing.

Any other water agency employee would laugh at that.

The numbers are all run through the design drought, which is fictional.

It's not just adding two years to the worst route on record.

It drives two years on record.

72% more severe than the drought of record, 19 times less likely to happen.

So please, you have a little window of opportunity here.

Let's have a workshop.

Let's get everything on the table.

Your legacy is on the line here.

People are going to look back who approved these things.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Caller, for your comment.

Caller, your line has been unmuted.

You have three minutes.

Is that me?

Okay.

Oh, sorry.

Thank you.

This is Julianne Frizzell.

I live in Palo Alto and before that, Menlo Park.

I became interested in the workings of the SFPUC one day and other organizations around the bay used food, the State Water Board effectively stopping the implementation of the Bay Delta plan 2018.

At the time, my main reasons for the environment.

I still feel that way.

I still care about the environment, but I am also now concerned about our residential water bill rates.

I am concerned that the UWMP contained some of the same old incorrect data that has been put forth by the SFPC for in some cases decades.

For example, I, as almost everyone else in the Bay Area, have been conserving water for many years.

In fact, water use throughout the Bay Area has either decreased or been flat for at least 20 years.

Yet the SFPUC continues to project our water use incorrectly, and they continue to use an accurately calculated design drought.

No other water district in the state has an eight-year design drought.

The population growth data that the SFPUC uses is also overprunged.

These inflated demand projections cause the SFPEC to propose costly projects.

The SFPUC raises water rates for the Bascada members in order to pay for those projects.

The incorrect data has also been the excuse for reducing flows for our rivers, causing a collapse of the Bay Delta ecosystem and the Toolamy River System environment.

Our rivers and the Bay Delta desperately need more fresh water flows.

I hope that the board will direct staff to correct the inaccuracies of the UWMP.

Thank you.

Thank you, caller, for your comments.

Ms.

Round, there are no more callers who wish to be recognized.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you all.

Thank you to the members of the public who came out today to testify in person and those who joined us remotely.

This is just a reminder.

Once again, this is a discussion item.

We're taking your feedback.

We're taking your comments.

We hope that you will continue to engage with our team and in this process and provide your comments going into the presentation of a formal plan for adoption in order for us to meet our state required July 1st deadline.

But we appreciate so much your your words, your work, the time that you took to be here, whether you're advocates for the environment, for ratepayers, particularly those two-thirds of the ratepayers or non-San Francisco residents represented by Bosca, as well as Sierra Club and Yosemite Rivers Alliance, every advocate uh around the Bay Area who came in both today and in writing.

We hope you'll continue to do so.

It makes the process better.

It's something I know our staff can we we review, we consider, we uh would encourage our staff to continue to review and consider and and where possible to have dialogue and get us to this better uh the best possible plan possible.

We know there's other conversations uh that are also color some of this work that we do with the commission, namely some of the work happening in front of the State Water Resources Board.

We respect that.

We know that's uh a separate track, but uh we again heartfelt, I think certainly for myself and I know from all of us appreciate the time and energy.

Certainly from staff, uh this is a whole lot of work to get to this point, and we appreciate you hearing the feedback from us and from members of the public and other stakeholders and the important work that you do.

So, with that, unless there's any other comments or questions in summary from Commission members, then we can go to our next item.

Thank you all very much for waiting so patiently on the uh final four items here before we go into closed session.

Item nine.

Approve the water supply assessment for the proposed 536 Mission Street project located at 536 Mission Street pursuant to California Water Code Section 10910.

Good afternoon again, Commissioner Steve Richie, Assistant General Manager for Water.

Uh item nine uh is uh a water supply assessment, uh which is uh you know actually related to the urban water management plan in terms of uh you know providing uh an assessment of the water supply uh that is necessary for development.

In this case, it's located at 536 Mission Street.

Um what the action today is is to approve the water supply assessment, which is the document uh technical document prepared by the uh by the developer uh and that shows their water use going forward uh and that it can fit within our future uh projected demands.

This is just an action to pass this on to the planning department for use uh in the CEQA process that this project is going to go through.

So you are not approving the development, you are just approving uh moving the project forward uh so that the complete SQL review can go forward.

And I would be happy to answer any questions.

All right.

Thank you, AGM Ritchie.

Is there questions from Commissioners?

Um, okay.

Um seeing no questions, thank you, Mr.

Ritchie.

Any uh Ms.

Ram, can we call for public comment?

Remote callers, please raise your hand if you wish to provide comment on item nine.

Are there any members of the public present who wish to comment?

Seeing none, moderator, are there any callers who have their hand raised for item nine?

Ms.

Ram, there are no callers with their hands raised.

Thank you.

All right.

Well, uh colleagues, I I do know this is a very important project for the city and for many different goals and objectives.

Appreciate that our agency is able to play a part in assisting with the review process to lead to what we are hopeful will be uh ultimately moving forward with the project.

So with that being the case, an acknowledgement of the work that's been done on this water supply assessment, can we get a motion to approve?

So moved.

Uh motion from Commissioner Jamdar.

Is there a second?

Second.

From Commissioner Stacy, I believe.

All right.

President Arce?

Aye.

Vice President Leveroney.

Aye.

Commissioner Jamdar.

Aye.

Commissioner Stacy?

Aye.

Commissioner Thurlow.

Aye.

Item 9 passes item 10.

Approve the revised water supply assessment for the proposed flower project located at 610 through 640 and 644 through 658 and 660 through 670 and 674 through 698, Brannan Street, 548 Fifth Street, and 149 Moore Street.

Again, Commissioners, uh, this is another water supply assessment.

This one is a little bit different.

First of all, just the scale of the project.

This is a very large project uh south of market.

Um this is actually a revised water supply assessment.

The original water supply assessment was done in 2018, and the Commission approved it at that time.

There were some changes to the project, and so there was a revision to that water supply assessment in 2019.

Uh and then subsequent to that, uh, the pandemic, you know, came and went uh and uh basically the project stalled out for several years.

So it is now back with a new revised water supply assessment uh and some alternative project designs that are going to be going forward through the CEQA process.

Again, just like the others.

This is the analysis of the water supply uh within the context of our water supplies, uh, and it is just for the CEQA process.

It's not approval of the project, it is just approving the assessment to go on to uh the planning department.

Be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, A.

G.M.

Richie.

Is there any questions on this?

Uh another important, very long in the works project.

Questions?

All right, seeing none, can we have public comment, Ms.

Ram?

Remote callers, please raise your hand if you wish to provide comment on item 10.

Are there any members of the public present who wish to comment?

We have Eileen Boken.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Moderator, are there any callers who have their hand raised for item 10?

Mr.

Ram, there are no callers with their hands raised.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

With that in mind, can we get a motion to approve the revised water supply assessment here in item 10?

Move to approve.

Motion from Commissioner Stacy.

Second.

Second.

From Commissioner Jamdar.

President Arce?

Aye.

Vice President Laroni?

Aye.

Commissioner Jamdar.

Aye.

Commissioner Stacy?

Aye.

Commissioner Thurlow.

Aye.

Item 10 passes.

Item 11.

Authorize the issuance of bonds or other forms of indebtedness to refund outstanding 2015 Power Revenue Bonds Series A with 2026 Power Bond Series A.

2026 A power refunding bonds issued in a principal amount up to 30 million.

Good afternoon, Commissioner.

So, Mr.

Crusher R.C.

Having seen how efficiently AGM Ritchie just went through those items.

I'll try to do the same with this item as well.

We have what should be a relatively simple and good news item an opportunity to save money.

If I could have the slides, please.

This is a financing that we had anticipated in our financing plan last year, our capital financing plan that we brought to you last July.

At the time we were going to bring several transactions to you at the same time.

We are going to separate those.

There are several transactions that will also need to go to the Board of Supervisors upon referral from you.

So we're going to simply take today the opportunity to refinance 2015 power bonds.

In 2015, we issued 30-year bonds.

They were our first green bonds of the SFPUC.

I happened to work on the other side of this transaction at the time before I joined the SFPUC.

These bonds were non-callable for 10 years, and now as of late last year, they became callable, and we have the opportunity to refinance them.

These outstanding bonds have coupons of 5 percent and 4 percent, so there is a real opportunity to save money from these.

So that's in excess of uh $400,000 a year of savings on this relatively small uh financing, and that will provide additional cushion for our power enterprise and hopefully allow us to fund more capital projects if there aren't any other disruptions in revenues.

So again, we will go through this process of uh individually pricing each of those uh maturities on this new transaction.

Uh this is by law the um the good faith estimate that our municipal advisors provide us with each uh financing.

Uh as I say with our double A ratings, uh this will price based on the existing ratings.

We don't need to go through the rating process now.

We will deliver a rating to them the next time we go through a rating review.

Uh and so in order to uh facilitate this, uh we would ask for you to approve a bond purchase contract as we do with all of our uh bond sales, the supplemental indenture, and then our continuing disclosure certificate, which simply outlines our continuing responsibility to provide information to investors.

Um with that uh and those actions, uh I'm happy to ask answer any questions.

And hopefully I did is almost as as well as uh AGM Richie.

All right, thank you, Mr.

Sklarov.

Questions?

Vice President Leveroni has one.

Very uh time.

Very nice, very good savings.

But it it is it is more of a debt service savings is what we are what we are seeing here than a say cash flow savings.

That is allowing us to this will provide it if rates are where they are today when we price the bonds will provide us in excess of $400,000 a year of annual debt service savings.

So we are taking what was a 30-year bond transaction, and 10 years later we are refinancing it with 20-year bonds.

Thank you.

And I remember when we looked at our most recent quarterly financial report that there was uh an area where we had a little bit less than anticipated revenue, but the savings that you and your team created with respect to these constant use of these tools and opportunities to achieve savings offset and put us into the black on that particular report.

I remember we were we were talking about that with Ms.

Bush.

So uh it is great to see the impact of what it does with you and your team constantly looking for these opportunities to provide these savings using these instruments.

And President R.

We will be back in uh May with additional refinancings as alluded to at the beginning, and then further refinancings in the beginning of um uh July.

Okay.

All right.

And Vice President Leverone has another question or comment.

So overall, this is gonna I'm sorry.

Overall, it is going to increase and help our debt service profile in a big picture, which will always help in our bond rating too eventually.

Is that or am I making too many?

If I may use the word decrease instead of increase, uh we will we will end up with less power bonds as a result of this and less debt service, and that that is a positive for our credit, um, but it is also a positive for our operations.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Uh Ms.

Ram, can we take public comment if we have public comment?

Remote callers, please raise your hand if you wish to provide comment on item 11.

Are there any members of the public present who wish to comment?

Seeing none, moderator, are there any callers who have their hand raised for item 11?

Ms.

Ram, there are no callers in the queue.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you, Mr.

Sklarov.

Yes.

Um we need a uh motion to approve.

I it's not simply a report.

This is authorize the issuance of bonds.

So can we get a motion to approve said issuance?

Motion to approve.

Motion from Vice President President Leverone.

Seconded.

Second from Commissioner Jamdar.

President Arce.

Hi.

Vice President Leveroni.

Commissioner Jamdar.

Hi.

Commissioner Stacey.

Aye.

Commissioner Thurlow.

Approve amendment number one to contract number PRO.0163R.

Engineering Services for the Emergency Firefighting Water System and Cities Water Distribution System with Lee plus Row and AGS joint venture.

All right.

Good afternoon.

All right.

Good afternoon.

My name is Tedman Lee.

I am the civil design division manager at the PUC's Engineering Management Bureau.

So I'm here this afternoon to request approval for Amendment 1 to contract Pro 163R engineering services for the emergency firefighting water system and the city's water distribution system.

I've got the slides.

Thank you.

So this is a familiar map of the HH regional water system.

The project region covered by this contract is the seven mile by seven mile square that is the City of San Francisco.

City staff with support from this contract for specialized services are currently planning and designing the different elements of the potable emergency firefighting water system, or PEFs.

The purpose of the PEF system is to provide a high-pressure water supply to fight large fires after a major seismic event by building pipelines, pump stations, and linking them to our existing reservoirs, tanks, cisterns, et cetera.

And all of this is located within the city of San Francisco.

For normal daily operations, this system will provide domestic potable low pressure water supply.

The graphic shows the PEFS pipeline segments that are currently in planning and design, and all of this is on the west side of the city.

Also supported by this contract is our linear assets and management program, or LAMP.

Work includes replacement, rehabilitation, relining of about 10 to 15 miles annually of our water delivery pipelines located throughout the City of San Francisco.

We advertise Pro 163R in mid-2023, and we awarded it in early 2024 to Lee and Roe and AGS joint venture.

It's an $8 million contract over eight years.

This slide shows the projects in Pro 163R in the left column, the current phase of each project, the current contract budget, and our proposed amendment one modifications.

We are seeking an additional $5 million with no additional time to continue engineering design services for PEFs and LAMP projects.

So I'll now uh share some specifics.

For the PEFs for the pipelines, we changed from a 975-year return period seismic event to a 2,0475 year return event.

This was after a recommendations from our subject matter experts.

Also, the yellow ovals are areas where our geotechnical investigations found areas of potential liquefaction.

So this led to needing a finite element analysis or FEA for pipeline design.

So that's some of the changes.

For the pump stations for central pump station, we modified the design criteria for the higher seismic level, so from 975 to 2475.

And this resulted in some changes to the geotechnical in the GIR, just geotechnical interpretive report.

And that led to some soil structure interaction analysis or SSI.

For LAMP projects, we are asking for additional capacity for a geotechnical engineering and curb ramp design for current projects and new projects that are scheduled to start design later in 2026.

But for all new task orders, we will go to public works first to check if they want to if they want the work before engaging in our Pro 163 R consultant.

So again, the um slide showing the pro um proposed amendment one modifications.

Again, we're requesting approval for Amendment 1 with for $5 million, additional capacity with no additional time.

So that concludes my presentation.

Happy to answer any questions.

All right.

Thank you, Mr.

Lee.

Questions from the Commission?

Vice President Leveroni has a question.

More curious.

On seismic-wise, is there uh a number that in designing this that you would use?

And it looked like what did you say about the years?

Is it so we had uh a 975-year return period?

And we which was like a 5 percent chance in 50 years.

That's kind of what it is.

So we um after consultation and recommendations from our subject matter experts, uh then we increase that to 2475, 2,475 year return period, which is now 2 percent in 50.

Okay.

And then just on the um pipes that are now being used.

Uh just curious, are they rigid or are they flexible?

I mean, uh we're talking about having our system be able to work in a seismic, you know.

So will they move or do we have some flexibility?

Yeah.

Uh so this system, this PEFS project, we're going to be using earthquake resistant ductile iron pipe.

So these are joints that can expand, contract, they can bend, and also they have a certain um pull-out resistance, which is a certain strength that or a certain force that needs to be applied before they pop.

So they're they're going to be more robust than our typical distribution pipelines, which you know, should they break, we have you know backup capacity to network around them.

And but this one is is kind of our um skeleton, you know, sort of like the major these can't break.

Okay.

Or they should not break.

We don't want them to break.

And then the same, I guess the the pump stations would be pretty much all retrofitted and any.

The pump stations that provide water.

Um, because we're moving this pro this starts at around Lake Merced, which is on the south side of the city, and we're going to be trying to pumping water up to the north side up towards the Richmond district.

Uh so at some point in time, by moving the water up the hill, we lose the pressure.

So we need pump stations to boost the pressure back up to the firefighter.

Well, the firefighting PSI, they want 350 PSI, and our domestic supply is around 40 PSI.

So in most cases we will be running 40 PSI, but once there is an emergency, we want to be able to boost that pressure up so that our firefighters have water to fight fire.

Thank you very much.

Absolutely.

Other commissioners questions or comments.

Okay.

Seeing none, can we take public comment, Ms.

Ram?

Remote callers, please raise your hand if you wish to provide comment on item 12.

Are there any members of the public present who wish to comment?

Ms.

Eileen Boken.

Thank you.

Eileen Bogan, CSFN, speaking on my own behalf.

In strong opposition to additional funding for the potable EFWS project as it is money down the rabbit hole.

On February 13th, 2024, the original contract approval was on the consent calendar with $8 million for an eight-year contract.

Today, the contract modification is on the regular calendar.

This is an improvement.

This modification from $8 million, adding an additional $5 million would be an increase of 62 percent in cost with the same direction.

When the potable EFWS concept was introduced, the PUC stated that the concept came from Japan.

Although the Kubota pipes do come from Japan, there is no evidence that the concept itself comes from Japan.

This is a novel concept that has yet to be tested.

The PUC has stated that the independent AWAS system can't be extended, expanded to the West side as an ocean water pump station would take 20 uh excuse me, 10 to 20 years to permit through the Coastal Commission.

As someone who actually does attend Coastal Commission meetings, the approval time would likely be three years.

The PUC has stated that the West Side expansion of the independent AWAS system would require five to ten pump stations.

This is beyond questionable as the entire existing system has only two pump stations.

Continuing to pursue a controversial concept causes reputational damage to the PUC on the West side, the same way the PUC's flooding of Stern Grove in 2021 did.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Moderator, are there any callers who have their hand raised for item 12?

Mr.

Arthur are no callers in the queue.

Thank you.

All right.

Colleagues, any questions about the item in front of us?

This is an action item.

Can we get a motion to approve the amendment to this contract?

Motion to approve.

Move by Vice President Leveroni.

We get a second, please.

Second.

Second from Commissioner Stacey.

President Arce.

Aye.

Vice President Leverone.

Aye.

Commissioner Jamzar.

Aye.

Commissioner Stacy?

Aye.

Commissioner Thurlow?

Aye.

Item twelve passes.

Item thirteen.

Communications.

All right.

The commission takes note of the commissions that were received.

Item 14.

Items initiated by commissioners.

Commissioners, are there any items you'd like to initiate for further discussion in the future?

Not today.

Item fifteen.

Remote callers, please raise your hand if you wish to provide comment on item sixteen.

Are there any members of the public present who wish to comment on this item?

Seeing none, moderator, are there any callers who have their hand raised?

Item sixteen.

Move to assert the attorney client privilege.

Motion from Commissioner Stacy.

Second.

Commissioner Thurlow.

Aye.

San Francisco government television.

All right.

We're reconvening an open session following closed session.

We'd have to wait to open up the doors.

Oops.

Sorry.

Apologies.

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

Less than an hour meeting.

Item seventeen, report following close session.

Thank you, Ms.

Lanier.

The commission is recommending that the board approve the item referenced under agenda item sixteen.

Item eighteen.

Motion regarding whether to disclose the discussion during closed session pursuant to San Francisco administrative code section six seven point one two A.

Colleagues may have a motion on whether to disclose the discussion during closed session.