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
Correspondence Log
June 7, 2023 through June 19, 2023
Date Received From Subject
June 7, 2023 Eileen Boken SFGOV TV Video Link
June 15, 2023 Spreck Rosekrans Restore Hetch Hetchy Letter to BAWSCA Nicole Sandkulla BAWSCA Statement on State Board’s
Evaluation of Proposed TRVA
June 19, 2023 Spreck Rosekrans Renewal of Memorandum of Agreement between the NPS and the SFPUC
From: aeboken
To: Hood, Donna
Subject: Please Include This SFGovTV Video Link in the SFPUC Commission Packet for the June 13, 2023 Meeting Date: Wednesday, June 7, 2023 7:06:20 PM
CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.
Greetings Donna,
Below is the SFGovTV video link to the Board of Supervisors Government Audit and Oversight Committee meeting of June 1, 2023 agenda item #3.
Agenda item #3 is a hearing on the Civil Grand Jury report Act Now Before It's Too Late.
This is a hearing on the City's Emergency Firefighting Water System which is currently under the jurisdiction of the SFPUC.
https://sanfrancisco.granicus.com/player/clip/43799?
view_id=192&redirect=true&h=ac32e8a339c8c6445d2b47bdb14e4f41 Many thanks.
Best,
Eileen Boken,
President
Sunset-Parkside Education and Action Committee (SPEAK)
Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone
June 15, 2023
Ms. Nicole Sandkulla Ms. Karen Hardy
General Manager and CEO Chair, Board of Directors
BAWSCA BAWSCA
Re: Groundwater banking
Dear General Manager/CEO Sandkulla and Chair Hardy
It was a pleasure to address the BAWSCA Board yesterday and to encourage BAWSCA to pursue a cooperative groundwater banking program in Stanislaus County. Such a program could produce substantial supplemental water supplies at lower cost than other programs and projects under consideration.
Coincidentally, yesterday, SJVWater published an article (attached) praising a similar program, initiated four decades ago, that has provided benefits to farmers in Kern County’s Arvin Edison Water District as well as a 350,000 acre-foot groundwater bank for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
As author Lois Henry notes “Such a collaboration was unheard of back then.” and it was controversial at the time. But that is no longer the case.
Metropolitan also banks groundwater in Kern-Delta, Mojave, Antelope Valley and Semitropic. Santa Clara Valley WD, Zone 7, and Alameda County WD bank groundwater at Semitropic. These programs total more than 1,500,000 acre-feet.
New institutional agreements are always challenging. The hydrology, geology, depleted groundwater basin and proximity of San Francisco’s conveyance, however, all suggest that a cooperative deal between agricultural interests in Stanislaus County and urban interests in the Bay Area should be vigorously pursued – whether spearheaded by BAWSCA of the SFPUC.
Restore Hetch Hetchy is prepared to help develop a program with benefits for all.
Sincerely,
Spreck Rosekrans
Executive Director
Cc: Dennis Herrera, General Manager, SFPUC
Newsha Ajami, President, SFPUC
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Roger Williams, Chair
Virginia Johannessen, Vice- Chair
Peter Van Kuran, Treasurer
Mark Palley, Secretary
Kathy Bowler
Mark Cederborg
James Fousekis
Ann Hayden
Lance Olson
Craig Reynolds
Lucho Rivera
Mecia Serafino
Melanie Webber
STAFF
Spreck Rosekrans
Executive Director
Julene Freitas
Office Manager
Marissa Leonard
Development and Engagement
Director
3286 Adeline St. Suite 7
Berkeley, California 94703
510.893.3400
Tax ID # 77-0551533
Freeway sign marks
significant chapter in
California water history
JUNE 14, 2023
• by Lois Henry
Northbound Highway 99 traffic passes by a sign announcing the Howard Frick Pump Plant, which marks a significant chapter in California water history. Lois Henry / SJV Water
Travelers along northbound Highway 99 may have noticed a large – very large – sign a little ways past Highway 166 that says “Howard Frick Pump Plant” in massive white letters on a blue background.
Well, who the heck is Howard Frick, some drivers may wonder.
Howard Frick
Frick was one of the main people who ushered in the era of groundwater banking in Kern County, now one of the biggest groundwater banking regions in the state, if not the country.
The pumping plant at the feet of that giant freeway sign, how it connects to the California Aqueduct and the deal behind it all are a significant chapter in California’s water history.
And it as all written right here in Kern County with Howard Frick at the center.
On Wednesday, the Arvin-Edison Water Storage District, where Frick served as board president for many years, honored that legacy with a formal dedication of the plant as the “Howard Frick Pump Plant.”
Frick, who died in 2018, was part of a longtime farming family in the Arvin area.
His father, Forrest, had helped create the Arvin-Edison Water Storage District more than 80 years ago. At that time, south San Joaquin Valley farmers didn’t have any surface water and groundwater tables were in a nose dive from excessive pumping, said Edwin Camp, the current Arvin-Edison board president at Wednesday’s dedication.
“They saw they had a problem and needed to fix it and they did,” he said of the farmers of that era. The fix was convincing the federal government to build the Friant Dam just north of Fresno and the 156-mile-long Friant-Kern Canal to bring San Joaquin River water to farms and towns all the way to Arvin.
“When you think of that system, it’s nothing short of a miracle,” Camp said.
Howard Frick followed in his father’s footsteps, farming in the Arvin area and serving on the Arvin-Edison board for 26 years
Edwin Camp
In 1985, Frick and others conceived an audacious idea to partner with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California to park MWD’s water in Arvin in flush years and send it back in dry years – less a small percentage of water and, of course, fees to pay for the recharge, pumping and conveyance costs.
Arvin-Edison is a federal contractor and MWD contracts for water though the state system on the California Aqueduct. So, while the water molecules are the same, rules for how and where those molecules are handled are very different. And ag-urban partnerships were far from common.
Such a collaboration was unheard of back then.
When the Arvin-Edison team brought it to MWD it was received as an intriguing and “bold proposal,” wrote former Deputy General Manager Tim Quinn in a statement read at the dedication.
“Who could oppose such a brilliant idea?” he asked. “Everyone.” Some of the most stringent opponents were Arvin-Edison’s fellow contractors on the Friant-Kern Canal. An initial vote by Friant Water Authority members rang up a decided 24-1 “no” on the proposal.
Howard Frick was undaunted and after two years of explaining and lobbying, Camp said, another Friant vote came in 24-1 but this time in favor of the proposal. By 1997 Arvin-Edison was sinking MWD state water below its fields.
Over the years, revenue from that deal has brought in $150,000 million that Arvin-Edison has used to build other facilities and make more deals, Camp said.
Frick wasn’t just focused on infrastructure. His mantra: “Connections, connections, connections,” included people as well, Camp said. It was all with an eye to make sure water could flow through the district to wherever growers most needed it. “Howard thought of the problems of the future and how to solve those problems now,” Camp said.
These days, numerous water districts in Kern County and elsewhere have deals with a wide array of urban water purveyors. Arvin-Edison was the model.
“It all started because of Howard Frick,” said Arvin-Edison’s General Manager Jeevan Muhar.
155 Bovet Road, Suite 650 San Mateo, CA 94402 ph 650 349 3000 fx 650 349 8395 www.bawsca.org
Statement by Nicole Sandkulla, BAWSCA Chief Executive Office, Regarding the California State Water Resources Control Board (State Board) Review of a Proposed Voluntary Agreement for the Tuolumne River (TRVA) as an Amendment to the Adopted Bay-Delta Plan
June 15, 2023
Last month in May 2023, the State Board began its public review of the TRVA to protect the fish, residents, businesses, and communities that depend on the Tuolumne River for a reliable supply of high-quality water when and where it is needed.
The State Board for many years has welcomed voluntary agreements. The TRVA, proposed by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) and the Modesto and Turlock Water Districts (Districts), is supported by several California regulatory agencies to protect the threatened fish in the Tuolumne River and the adjacent environment as an alternative to one part of the State Board's recently adopted Bay-Delta Plan.
These regulatory agencies include the California Environmental Protection Agency, the California Natural Resources Agency, and the Department of Water Resources, all of which have responsibilities related to the Tuolumne River.
BAWSCA supports the State Board's environmental review of the TRVA as an amendment to part of its Bay-Delta Plan, which, in its present form, could require very serious water reductions that would damage the health, safety, and economic well-being of 1.8 million residential water users, Silicon Valley and other businesses, in Alameda, San Mateo, and Santa Clara counties. They rely on the San Francisco Regional Water System which supports millions of jobs, and could make possible building many more-affordable-housing units in the Bay Area if there is enough water for permitting and construction.
BAWSCA and its member agencies, representing these water users, testified at a State Board scoping meeting to support the State Board's environmental review of the proposed TRVA given its potential to protect the fish and the environment and avoid serious water-supply reductions.
Very importantly, Governor Gavin Newsom has been a strong advocate for voluntary agreements to resolve the state's water issues like this one instead of endless and costly litigation.
BAWSCA looks forward to the State Board's thorough and comprehensive environmental review of the TRVA, which could be a very valuable step forward to provide increased water flows and habitat for the fish in the Tuolumne River and continued protection for the water users who depend on the Tuolumne River.
#####
June 19, 2023
Cicely Muldoon, Superintendent Dennis Herrera, General Manager Yosemite National Park San Francisco Public Utilities Commission By U.S. Mail and Email
Re: Renewal of Memorandum of Agreement between the NPS and the SFPUC Dear Superintendent Muldoon and General Manager Herrera:
Restore Hetch Hetchy (“RHH”) is committed to enhancing the visitor experience in the Hetch Hetchy area of Yosemite National Park (“Hetch Hetchy”). It is essential that the arrangements between the National Park Service (“NPS”) and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (“SFPUC”) reflect the commitments made in the Raker Act, 38 Stat. 242, in full, as well as the objectives of the NPS’s Organic Act: “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations” 54 U.S.C. § 100101.
We are aware that the NPS and the SFPUC are updating their management agreement, titled most recently in 2019 “Memorandum of Agreement Between City and County of San Francisco San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and National Park Service Yosemite National Park for Comprehensive Management of Watersheds within Yosemite National Park Supplying the San Francisco Regional Water System” (“MOA”).
RHH is concerned that if the MOA is not modified in specific respects, the SFPUC’s duties under the Raker Act and the NPS’s founding commitments will not be fully met and visitors to Yosemite National Park will be deprived of rightful enjoyment of the bounty of their national park.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Roger Williams, Chair
Virginia Johannessen, Vice- Chair
Peter Van Kuran, Treasurer
Mark Palley, Secretary
Kathy Bowler
Mark Cederborg
James Fousekis
Ann Hayden
Lance Olson
Craig Reynolds
Lucho Rivera
Mecia Serafino
Melanie Webber
STAFF
Spreck Rosekrans
Executive Director
Julene Freitas
Office Manager
Marissa Leonard
Engagement and Development
Director
3286 Adeline St. Suite 7
Berkeley, California 94703
510.893.3400
Tax ID # 77-0551533
Superintendent Cicely Muldoon and General Manager Dennis Herrera Re: Renewal of Memorandum of Agreement between the NPS and the SFPUC June 19, 2023
We ask the SFPUC and the NPS to release a draft MOA for public review and comment, rather than finalizing an agreement behind closed doors. We acknowledge that the NPS has declined to share drafts of the MOA, contending that they are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), perhaps by virtue of the “commercial” exemption to FOIA, 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(4). We have not sought the draft by FOIA, but do not think the exemption applies. The SFPUC’s objectives may be characterized as regional “commercial” ones – to avoid the cost of filtration of the Tuolumne water stored at the reservoir in Hetch Hetchy and to maximize its income from power and water sales and distribution. The NPS’s objectives, however, are to preserve Hetch Hetchy for public enjoyment, as well as its natural and historic resources. While the Raker Act allows the SFPUC’s current use, it does not authorize the SFPUC to further interfere with the public’s enjoyment of its park beyond certain specific provisions. The public has a strong interest in making sure, through notice and comment, that the MOA protects the public’s interest.
Apart from visitor access, RHH has no interest in commenting on the provisions of the MOA that pertain to specific security steps that the NPS and the SFPUC are taking to protect the dam and the reservoir. We therefore repeat our request to allow inspection of and comment on provisions that are of interest to RHH, with appropriate redactions of security-related materials.
Absent opportunity to review such a draft, however, we provide comments below regarding the content of a revised MOA based upon the 2019 version. The revised MOA should include the following elements:
• EXPANDED PUBLIC ACCESS. The SFPUC should provide sufficient funds to allow unimpeded visitor use of the Hetch Hetchy area. Visitors are allowed 24-hour access in other areas of Yosemite National Park and they should have similar access in Hetch Hetchy. The limited hours prevent visitors from enjoying stargazing at night or getting early starts on trails before high summer heat – made all the hotter by lack of access to the reservoir’s waters – hinders their hiking experience. The SFPUC should provide sufficient funds to mitigate any reasonably-expected security risk associated with the O’Shaughnessy Dam or related infrastructure. The MOA should not restrict visitor hours as a security measure or otherwise. If reliable internet is required for security purposes, then the SFPUC should provide sufficient funding. Keeping visitors out of the Hetch Hetchy area is not an acceptable way to provide security, and doing so contravenes both the Raker Act and the Organic Act.
• IMPROVED TRAIL BRIDGES. The SFPUC should provide funds to ensure that hikers can safely travel across the bridges at Wapama Falls, even and especially when the falls are flowing at a high level. The SFPUC is required to maintain this “road or trail” (Raker Act, §§ 9(p) & 9(q)). The existing bridges are out of compliance, as it is Superintendent Cicely Muldoon and General Manager Dennis Herrera Re: Renewal of Memorandum of Agreement between the NPS and the SFPUC June 19, 2023
dangerous to cross them at times of high run-off – when public interest is at its highest.
Visitors have been swept off these bridges to their deaths as recently as 2017 and 2019.
• IMPROVED CAMPGROUND. The Hetch Hetchy campground – limited to brief use by backpackers - has been woefully neglected. The SFPUC should provide potable water at the Hetch Hetchy campground. See Raker Act, § 9(p). Potable water is necessary to improve the adequacy of the bathroom facilities including making them ADA compliant.
In addition to lack of water, the Hetch Hetchy campground is in poor shape. There is very little shade and a lack of the rudimentary improvements that are provided at other campgrounds in Yosemite National Park. As a result, the Hetch Hetchy campground is often vacant while these other campgrounds are at full capacity in the summer. Providing potable water is the first step. Additional warranted improvements could and should be funded by the SFPUC, the YNP or Yosemite’s philanthropic partners.
• IMPROVED BOATING ACCESS. The boat ramp at the reservoir is currently unusable. In past years, the NPS has used its boat for emergency reconnaissance, but is presently unable to put its boat in the water, compromising visitor safety. The SFPUC should repair it in a timely manner.
• IMPROVED INTERPRETATION AND PUBLIC EDUCATION. The MOA should modify references to the Source Water Protection (SWP) Program. The Raker Act does not require the NPS to distribute literature or otherwise provide information promoting the SFPUC’s watershed interests beyond the specific requirements of the Act, and the MOA should not require the NPS to promote preserving the SFPUC’s filtration exemption. Consistent with the Organic Act, the NPS’s literature and other information should promote the public enjoyment of its park and the preservation of historical, social, environmental and wilderness interests. The SFPUC is free to place whatever signage it wishes on the dam itself, and to handout literature to visitors on the dam, but the NPS should distribute only its own materials. The MOA should adhere closely to the specific water-quality-protection conditions listed in the First through Third provision of Section 9(a) of the Raker Act. The MOA should also adhere to the express limitations imposed by the Fifth provision of Section 9(a) of the Act:
“If at any time the sanitary regulations provided for herein shall be deemed by said grantee insufficient to protect the purity of the water supply, then the said grantee shall install a filtration plant or provide other means to guard the purity of the water. No other sanitary rules or restrictions shall be demanded by or granted to the said grantee as to the use of the watershed by campers, tourists, or the occupants of hotels and cottages.”
Superintendent Cicely Muldoon and General Manager Dennis Herrera Re: Renewal of Memorandum of Agreement between the NPS and the SFPUC June 19, 2023
Thank you for your consideration of these comments. I am available to discuss them further at your convenience.
Sincerely,
Spreck Rosekrans
Executive Director
Cc: Newsha Ajami, President, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission London Breed, Mayor of San Francisco
Aaron Peskin, President, San Francisco Board of Supervisors Chuck Sams, Director, National Park Service
Billy Shot, Regional Director, National Park Service
Tom McClintock, Congressman