[Sustain] Report Back: SFPUC Desalination Action Item

[Eric Brooks]

Hi all,

At the June 14th SFPUC hearing, Commissioners Francesca Vietor and Art 
Torres, were very skeptical about the wisdom of the desal appropriation, 
citing both environmental and economic reasons, however they ended up 
compromising a bit. (Commissioner Vince Courtney who moved to postponed 
the item l in May, was not present.)

So the SFPUC commissioners (because they were essentially split on the 
issue) decided to postpone the desalination item for one full month 
(until Tuesday, July 12) with direction to staff which creates both 
positives and negatives for us. (See further below for details.)

The upshot is that, while we gained some ground, we have not yet 
achieved even what we asked for in the joint letter (see text attached).

There is a possible opportunity to even get three of the five 
commissioners to reject the appropriation altogether; and at the very 
least we may be able to get them to stage the expenditures and studies 
on all of this so that they answer basic questions like local water need 
and potential for alternatives before money is spent specifically on 
scoping for desal itself.

Some key points:

- SFPUC staff pretty aggressively defended the appropriation, even in 
light of the letter and some solid commentary via a separate email from 
me, and in public comment from myself and Peter Drekmeier really taking 
to task the fundamental validity of desal, especially using ocean, bay 
and estuary waters. Staff was in fact so insistent that I am guessing 
some contractors which stand to make a good chunk of money on this deal 
are probably working this issue behind the scenes.

- Staff's most successful argument to refute our position, was their 
claim that, in order to answer the questions we posed in the letter, 
they needed to pass the $200,000 appropriation so that the studies can 
be commissioned to specifically answer such questions.

(We have at least two good counter arguments which are: 1) Needs 
assessments and alternatives assessments can be conducted without doing 
a larger appropriation to study desalination itself, and that those 
needs and alternatives assessments should clearly be conducted first, 
before jumping into desal planning. 2) There has already been a San 
Francisco Bay desalination pilot. Existing information from that pilot 
and other desal projects around the world, along with existing data on 
San Francisco Bay habitat, wildlife populations, and endangered species, 
should first be analyzed to answer only the specific question of whether 
it is fundamentally environmentally sensible to engage in desalination 
of the San Francisco Bay waters in the first place. A more preliminary 
initial assessment like this does not require a study of an entire 
proposal for desalination. It will save money and staff resources to do 
these preliminary assessments of need, alternatives, and environmental 
advisability first, before proceeding with a full study for desal 
implementation.)

- Commissioners Art Torres specifically raised the issue that a pilot 
has already been done, and that we should be able to get enough 
information from that pilot. Both he and Commissioner Francesca Vietor  
strongly questioned the advisability of spending so much money on this 
study during such drastic budget times. Both also questioned, as we 
have, whether desalination might in fact be an environmental non-starter 
in the first place.  In addition Commissioner Torres raised the issue 
that ratepayers will be paying for this, and that therefore a robust 
engagement with the public should be engaged before the appropriation is 
approved. He noted that the MOA had no funding in it for public 
outreach, and staff admitted that this was the case. (The MOA mentions 
public outreach, but not with enough specificity, nor with dedicated 
funding.) Unfortunately this line of reasoning, while solid, also sent 
the hearing in the direction of a possible weak compromise next month 
that might allow the appropriation to go forward unless we really gear 
up and push hard for an alternative strategy in the next three weeks. 
(See my last dashed bullet note for a description of this potential 
compromise problem.)

- As noted below in the May hearing, Commissioner Vince Courtney (head 
of the local Laborers trade union) supported the position that enviros 
should get more input before the appropriation is approved. If we do 
some dedicated lobbying with him, and Commissioners Torres and Vietor, 
giving them strong environmental and economic/green-jobs arguments 
against desal, we may very well be able to get them to simply vote down 
the proposal (because the full commission. And by green jobs arguments I 
mean describing for them that, if we focus our water sustainability 
efforts on an -extensive- citywide retrofitting of homes, businesses, 
open space, pavements, capture-storage, and a strongly ramped up 
efficiency of our entire local water delivery system, hundreds of 
ongoing jobs can be created; far, far more than would be created by 
building and running an environmentally harmful desal plant.)

- Commissioners Anne Moller Caen, and Anson Moran (who is the water 
expert on the Commission) both pretty strongly supported staff's 
position that the full money must be appropriated so sufficient study 
can be done. It is conceivable that if we lay out a good argument and 
plan for Commissioner Moran for a more phased approach as our letter 
suggests and as I note above, we may be able to get him on board, but my 
gut tells me it would be tough to get his buy-in on it.

- As noted above, the hearing ended with Torres and Vietor supporting 
our position - Caen and Moran opposing - (with Courtney not present). To 
get past the impasse, they reached a compromise between eachother, and 
staff, that they would postpone their vote on the MOA to July 12, with 
the stipulation that staff would amend the MOA to clearly lay out a 
strong public, and ratepayer, outreach plan so that there can be a 
robust public process engaged as studies move forward. Early in the 
hearing Commissioner Torres seemed pretty adamant that some strong 
public outreach and a public hearing be engaged -before- the $200,000 
appropriation was engaged, however his (and Vietor's) final stand on 
this by the end was a little unclear and we should firm it up.

Final Notes:

Essentially, July 12 will probably -be- our public hearing, so if we 
want to have a strong impact we need to send reps from all of our groups 
to that hearing (along with detailed referenced written public comment 
beforehand) so that we show them a really solid grassroots presence at 
that hearing. It will help a lot if we can also drum up some opposition 
from ratepayer groups. I'll also talk to Joshua Arce of Brightline 
Defense Project to also weigh in on the basis that extensive in-city 
community wide retrofit will be far better for creating a boom in local 
green jobs for water sustainability.

We have a really good shot at winning this if we put up a strong effort.

Eric B
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