OUR MISSION: To provide our customers with high-quality, efficient and reliable water, power and sewer services in a manner that values environmental and community interests and sustains the resources entrusted to our care.
525 Golden Gate Avenue, 13th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94102
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San Francisco Public Utilities Commission
Correspondence Log
January 11, 2023 through January 18, 2023
Date Received From Subject
January 11, 2023 David Schrom Public Comment Rules Change January 16, 2023 Cathy Mattison It’s time to put the “Public” back in SFPUC
January 17, 2023 Gabriel Goffman MOU Supporting LAFCo Studies January 18, 2023 Dave Warner Fish Passage
From: Magic
To: Commission
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Public comment rules change
Date: Wednesday, January 11, 2023 9:29:34 PM
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Dear Commissioners,
I felt dismay when I saw that you'd moved public comment to the end of your agenda. As an agency serving so many of us, you benefit by knowing our views and by providing us opportunity to offer them.
Moving public comment to the end of the agenda poses yet one more obstacle to this, and increases that chance that you'll misperceive the views of those paid to attend your meetings to be more representative of those of the public than they are. Few people are free enough of other responsibilities to wait to address you until a time uncertain at the end of the meeting. A surer path to misrepresenting us is hard to imagine.
Thank you for considering these views.
With appreciation,
David Schrom
From: Cathy Mattison
To: Commission
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: It’s time to put the “Public” back in SFPUC!
Date: Monday, January 16, 2023 11:51:39 AM
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The San Francisco PUBLIC Utilities Commission is failing the PUBLIC by moving open public comment from the beginning of its meetings to the end.
Please reverse this unsound decision and put open public comment back where it belongs: at the beginning of your meetings.
As a commission charged with upholding the values of your constituents by prioritizing water conservation and minimizing harm to the watersheds that supply the city with water, the public provides important input on the decisions you make in its name. Moving stakeholders' contributions to the end of the meeting effectively tells us: "We have made up our minds. Any comments you have are not important and we are not listening." Covid and zoom meeting formats have removed citizens from the in-person participation in government meetings and now you want to further minimize the public's involvement by effectively ignoring those of us who want to protect our watersheds.
Sincerely yours,
Cathy Mattison
Albany CA 94706
From: Gabriel Goffman
To: Commission
Cc: Herrera, Dennis J
Subject: MOU supporting LAFCO studies
Date: Tuesday, January 17, 2023 9:50:42 PM
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Dear Chair Ajami and Commissioners,
I support the memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the SF Public Utilities Commission and SF Local Agency Formation Commission, and urge you to agendize and approve the MOU at your next Commission meeting.
As you know, the SF Climate Action Plan (CAP) lays out a pathway for the city to cut sector-based emissions 61% below 1990 levels by 2030. The MOU would deliver $800,000 over 3.5 years for SFLAFCo to study green bank financing, natural gas system decommissioning, battery storage, and electric vehicle charging.
Approving this MOU would ensure our city can meet the ambitious goals set forth in our Climate Action Plan. SFPUC and its enterprise agencies, including CleanPowerSF, play a large part in meeting those goals and this MOU would enable SFLAFCo to support SFPUC to meet that responsibility. CleanPowerSF faces a few challenges this year, including the need to increase renewable energy to meet City and State requirements, while staying competitive with PG&E’s rates.
This MOU will help to increase the oversight of CleanPowerSF and provide an analysis of complex SFPUC projects. From this, LAFCo’s studies will inform legislation and budget priorities to implement the City’s Climate Action Plan.
The MOU would benefit both the Board of Supervisors and SFPUC, as it would provide increased engagement from the Board and facilitate smoother passage of the PUC’s legislation and budget. It also encourages increased engagement from the public and support for PUC activities, both from the public members on the LAFCo commission and from climate and labor advocacy groups. Additional resources from LAFCo staff and consultants will help complete studies in coordination with PUC at a time of staff shortages.
Once again, please agendize and approve this MOU. Our city cannot afford to delay on meeting the goals of the Climate Action Plan.
Sincerely,
Gabe
January 18, 2023
Dear Commissioners, Mr. Herrera and Mr. Ritchie,
Thank you all and Mr. Ritchie for reporting Tuolumne fish passage data. Below is a chart pretty much reflecting salmon counts for the full 2022 season as it looks like the numbers are leveling off. Perhaps the SFPUC could produce its own end of season report? Note that these charts are FishBio numbers and not the official CDFW salmon carcass counts upon which the salmon doubling goal is based. The FishBio numbers average 2.5x greater than the carcass surveys.
The chart shows that salmon fish passage on the Tuolumne has significantly declined and now so far is holding at a remarkably low count. The average of the annual count over the last three years comes to 774. I doubt we’ve ever seen a 3 year annual average count below 1,000, and certainly not since FishBio’s reports back to 2009. The three year average is starting to look like an unfortunate trend rather than random noise, but at least it means that we still have time to favorably impact salmon and possibly avoid their extirpation on the Tuolumne.
Kind regards,
Dave Warner
3,072
2,123
1,061
579
6,072
-
1,000
2,000
3,000
4,000
5,000
6,000
7,000
1-Sep 1-Oct 1-Nov 1-Dec 1-Jan 1-Feb 1-Mar
Chinook Salmon Fish Passage
Source: FISHBIO
Stanislaus 2021
Tuolumne 2021
Tuolumne 2020
Tuolumne 2019
Tuolumne 2018
Tuolumne 2022
(red solid line)
689 to Jan 3
S
tanislaus 2022
(red dotted line)
3,624 to Jan 12
OUR MISSION: To provide our customers with high-quality, efficient and reliable water, power and sewer services in a manner that values environmental and community interests and sustains the resources entrusted to our care.
525 Golden Gate Avenue, 13th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94102
T 415.554.3155
F 415.554.3161
TTY 415.554.3488
San Francisco Public Utilities Commission
Form Email Correspondence Log
Please Invest in Solutions to Prevent Harmful Algae Blooms & Fish Kills January 12, 2023 through January 15, 2023
Date Received From City
January 12, 2023 Clark Andres San Francisco
January 15, 2023 Emilia Broecker Berkeley
From: [email protected] on behalf of Clark via San Francisco Baykeeper To: Commission
Subject: Please Invest in Solutions to Prevent Harmful Algae Blooms & Fish Kills Date: Thursday, January 12, 2023 1:53:17 PM
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To: Mayor London Breed
CC: SFPUC General Manager Dennis Herrera, SFPUC Commission, and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors
Dear Mayor Breed,
I urge you to direct San Francisco’s Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) to aggressively increase the city’s investment in water recycling today.
This summer, a large harmful algal bloom has spread across the Bay, leaving unimaginable numbers of dead fish in its wake. We’re still learning about this particular bloom, but what we do know is that San Francisco’s sewage effluent contributes to excessive levels of nutrients in San Francisco Bay that make the Bay fertile territory for the spread of harmful algae blooms.
Water recycling and other wastewater management technologies can help by reducing the volume of polluted discharges into the Bay. In addition, by producing potable supplies, water recycling will reduce San Francisco’s reliance on water diverted from the Tuolumne River, increasing the city’s resilience to climate change effects on water supply.
Other cities have learned the lessons of California’s unpredictable climate and are quickly adopting water recycling to reduce their burden on the ecosystem, while increasing the reliability of their supply. Orange County gets more than 75 percent of its water through its water reuse program. Las Vegas recycles nearly all of its water used indoors. And Los Angeles is on the path to reusing 100 percent of its wastewater by 2035.
But, as San Francisco’s draft Urban Water Management Plan recently revealed, the city currently has no plans to make recycled water widely available in the next 25 years. Instead, the city is pursuing multiple expensive and misguided lawsuits so that it can continue to rely, almost exclusively, on the Tuolumne River—one of the state’s most overtapped rivers—for the next several decades. San Francisco and large agribusiness water districts divert four out of every five gallons of water that flow in the Tuolumne River during a typical year.
This overuse has caused the river’s once mighty Chinook Salmon populations to crash. Meanwhile, low freshwater flows contribute to deteriorating water quality—including harmful algae blooms—in the Delta and San Francisco Bay.
I agree with Supervisor Aaron Peskin that “it is time for San Francisco and our sister cities in the nine Bay Area counties to start looking at what kinds of infrastructure investments will need to be made as this becomes, sadly, the new normal.” It’s unacceptable for the city with the nation’s greenest reputation to shirk its responsibilities to conserve California’s precious and unpredictable water supply.
I support increasing river flows to protect San Francisco Bay’s fisheries, water quality, and recreation. The city should do its part to protect the Bay and its rivers—water recycling is a common-sense way to limit the city’s water use, increase the reliability of its supply, and protect the Bay from harmful wastewater treatment plant effluent.
Thank you,
Clark Andres
San Francisco, CA