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July 2011

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[Sustain] Report Back: SFPUC Desalination Action Item
by Eric Brooks 01 Jul '11

01 Jul '11

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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