Commissioner Hall stated that this was an important meeting regarding the recycled and ground water program in San Francisco. He discussed the declining water levels in Lake Merced and his campaign to increase water levels and reported that water levels are up two feet because of various measures. This issue and many other aspects of the ground water and recycled water program in San Francisco were discussed. The speakers were introduced as follows.
In attendance were: Linda Hunter representing the Neighborhood Parks Council; Kathleen Pilat, a hydrologist, representing the Neighborhood Parks Council who was instrumental in creating a report called "Leaving a Lake Legacy" for the Neighborhood Parks Council; Lori Steere from the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) Water Recycling Project. City and County of San Francisco speakers Michael Carlin, Director of Planning, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC); Josh Milstein, Deputy City Attorney for the SFPUC, an expert on historic water uses, ground and recycled water; and Greg Bartow, a hydrologist with the SFPUC.
Michael Carlin, Director of Planning, SFPUC, made a presentation on recycled and ground water in San Francisco. The PowerPoint presentation is on file at the Clerk of the Board’s Office, Room 244. This is an important issue for the City and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission under whose stewardship recycled and ground water resources within San Francisco will be developed. SFPUC has hired their own in-house expertise, Mr. Greg Bartow, who will allow them to move forward on SFPUC’s ground water program. When the voters passed Proposition A last November within the local projects portion, there were monies for recycled water, and the SFPUC is trying to get that program off the ground. Lori Steere is here representing East Bay MUD who has a successful water recycling program where they have implemented for both industrial and landscape use within their service area. They are unique because their service area is quite large. EBMUD is a retail water supplier, and their presentation will give you a perspective of what they faced and what they are planning on in the future.
Commissioner Hall introduced Mr. John Plummer and Mr. David Dowdee, an independent hydrologist who were helpful in steering the City in the right direction a couple of years ago leading to the eventual cure of Lake Merced.
Linda Hunter, representing the Neighborhood Parks Council stated that the Neighborhood Parks Council is a coalition of park groups in San Francisco. There are 227 park and recreation facilities, and they have friends of groups in about a hundred of those including the Friends of Lake Merced, Friends of Pine Lake, and Friends of Mountain Lake. Kathleen Pilat, a hydrologist, was hired by the Neighborhood Parks Council and completed a study entitled "Leaving a Lake Legacy, San Francisco Lakes in Peril." This report assessed the health and well-being of the city’s three remaining fresh-water lakes in San Francisco, Mountain Lake, Pine Lake, and Lake Merced. Recommendations were made on how San Francisco citizens can preserve their lakes and water and to introduce legislation about recycled water.
Vice-Chairperson McGoldrick asked if our rainwater drainage mixes with our sewer water.
Ms. Hunter stated that it does. The rainwater that falls into the street and the pavement that actually gets dirty because cars are parked on the street all goes into the sewer. But the rainwater that falls on your roof is clean water, goes down into the sewer, and is thrown away.
Vice-Chairperson McGoldrick stated some areas of the world have separate systems for different levels of wastewater such as the gray water and the cleaner kind of runoff water.
Ms. Hunter stated that she believes that in the newer developments such as the Waterfront development, they are separating those systems. You are talking about a pretty big project to reconfigure San Francisco, although allowing homeowners to disconnect their rain spouts and have the water go directly into the ground could address that issue.
Kathleen Pilat, Hydrologist, Neighborhood Parks Council made a presentation on the report she produced for the Neighborhood Parks Council entitled "Leaving a Lake Legacy, San Francisco Lakes in Peril" that is about the preservation of the three San Francisco lakes, Mountain Lake, Pine Lake, and Lake Merced. The Powerpoint presentation is available at the Clerk of the Board’s Office, Room 244. She summarized the report/project and how it connects with the issue of recycled water. A discussion was held about falling lake levels in Pine Lake and Lake Merced, recycled water, ground water, and the importance of public involvement in the water resources management process.
Commissioner Hall asked when Ms. Pilat was commissioned to work on this report.
Ms. Pilat stated about a year and a half ago.
Commissioner Hall asked Ms. Pilat if she was aware of the changes that have happened specifically in Lake Merced in the last year and that the water level is up.
Ms. Pilat stated it is up, but it is not finished and fixed.
Commissioner Hall stated it would not be finished and fixed for a number of years. Experts were in attendance to comment on the lake levels and especially the conjunctive use agreements, which Mr. Milstein can advise Ms. Pilat what has been happening in the last year. Lake Merced needs seven to eight feet of water level increase if possible. The water level has been up two feet or a little bit above in the last year or so. He stated that we are ahead of our projections, but would like everyone to hear why, what is happening, what the City is doing, and then dovetail that into recycled water.
Mr. Carlin made a presentation on recycled and ground water discussing issues such as the water supply outlook; water recycling in the Bay Area and San Francisco including goals, history, Proposition A, strategies to optimize water recycling, markets, and public involvement.
Commissioner Hall asked about the reference to the piping that is already in and if it is used at present or laying dormant and ready for a recycled program.
Mr. Carlin stated it is in laying dormant and sitting there ready for recycled water. In some cases, such as Mission Bay, when they have sufficient numbers of the pipes actually in place, we will actually charge it with potable water and then when recycled water becomes available, we will cut off the potable water.
Commissioner Hall asked for an outline of the plants or the facilities, Golden Gate Park, the Zoo, Mission Bay and where that piping exists.
Mr. Carlin stated it is actually at Harding Park. We are actually working now for another facility outside of San Francisco, at Sharpe Park in Pacifica. We are trying to partner with the Sanitation District and the Water District there to get recycled water to Sharpe Park. It is still a San Francisco facility. We are looking at Lincoln Park. There is some other existing infrastructure in place we could utilize to make this work. There are some pipelines that were laid as part of the sewer project that basically we could use.
Commissioner Fellman asked to address the ballpark costs of doing recycled water and how it compares to our current costs of water treatment.
Mr. Carlin stated he will give the costs in acre-feet which one acre-foot is about 325,000 gallons. Today, in San Francisco, an acre-foot of your drinking water delivery costs about $500. We are looking at recycled water costs probably around $1000, maybe $1200 an acre foot. That might sound like a lot but with inflation and over time, drinking water is going to cost more. If the technology works out correctly, if we get more into the project and scope it, we can probably drop the costs so it will merge at some point in time. We are not looking at this just for today. We are looking at what the costs might be two decades from now. We’ve actually projected to the year 2015 what the drinking water costs would be, and it would be around $1000 an acre foot once we implement all the projects in Proposition A.
Commissioner Fellman asked if there are intangible benefits with recycled water such as the Neighborhood Parks Council study and restoration of the natural lakes that is being looked at.
Mr. Carlin stated there are those other indirect benefits that they will try to capture. It is the environmental enhancement benefits, banked water benefits of not using that high-quality water for those purposes. There are a number of benefits that can be quantified as we go through this process.
Lori Steere, Community Affairs Representative, East Bay Municipal District (EBMUD), gave a presentation on EBMUD’s recycled water program. A discussion was held about recycled water: the big picture, safety, uses and benefits; EBMUD’s commitment to recycled water; land use planning and recycled water link; and EBMUD’s existing and proposed recycled water projects.
Commissioner Hall asked Ms. Steere to discuss from her point of view the difference of San Francisco being a retailer and wholesaler as it compares with EBMUD’s operation.
Ms. Steere stated that as a retailer you could certainly go forward with developing a recycled water program to serve the City and County of San Francisco. That should be relatively easy because you control the infrastructure and the source through your treatment plant. As a wholesaler you have less direct control over what the customers in your overall service area do. It seems that Senate Bill 2095 might provide some opportunity for you to raise this issue with your suburban customers should they be enacting dual plumbing ordinances so that the issue of using recycled water is raised on their radar screen. Obviously government does not want to be requiring things to be done if it is not possible to meet those requirements and that is what gives government a bad name among other things. The opportunity to put recycled water to beneficial use in a community ought to be pursued. Cities and counties that do the planning need to take a look at who some of the local recycled water producers are that could help put recycled water into the community. Having a dual plumbing ordinance in place raises the profile, not only with the planning agency, but with the public.
Commissioner Hall stated that Mr. Carlin just went over the west-side basin, the aquifer etc. being a potable source of water. San Francisco uses about eighty million gallons of water per day considered potable. About four million of that eighty million is well drawn, possibly non-potable.
Mr. Carlin stated that is correct. It is non-potable because it is not disinfected and does not go into our drinking water system. We import about eighty million gallons of water into the city from 167-miles away.
Commissioner Hall stated the west-side basin is an emergency source of potable water.
Josh Milstein, Deputy City Attorney, City Attorney’s Office discussed the City historic groundwater use.
Greg Bartow, Hydrologist, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, discussed current groundwater use in San Francisco, future groundwater supply opportunities in San Francisco, and gave an update on Lake Merced water levels.
Commissioner Hall stated you have added a certain amount of water which allows you to monitor the Lake as it is. In addition to adding water, what do you think is the number one reason for the Lake staying up? Can you estimate the remaining high in the last five or six months outside of adding water?
Mr. Bartow stated that this has been a normal water year. Given the normal water year of roughly 20 inches of rain fallout in the Lake Merced area and adding the 400 acre feet of water to Lake Merced are the two water additions.
Commissioner Hall asked is there ample evidence at this point to show that reduced pumping is having an effect?
Mr. Bartow stated right now it does not look like pumping has a direct effect on the Lake Merced lake levels. We’ll be happy to see the Olympic Club move onto recycled water. It stresses the basin and has a muted effect on the Lake levels. At this point, the Daly City pumping does not look like a direct linkage to Lake Merced. Stopping the pumping in Daly City similarly has not been the main cause for the lake levels.
Mr. Carlin stated that part of the exercise is that we have added water to the Lake. We’ve reduced pumping in the west-side basin by Daly City, South San Francisco, and San Bruno. If you look at it from an academic standpoint, we are conducting a giant experiment in trying to come up with the conclusions so we are not speculating but we have science backing up whatever management direction we want to take with the west-side basin aquifer and Lake Merced. Data is still being collected.
Mr. Milstein stated it is clear that the pumping in Daly City has changed the grading out of the Lake. The water levels are way below sea level but it is a slow process for water in the lake to actually get to the deeper ground water. What we’re trying to do is manage the lake and the groundwater independently so we can make use of that storage space.
Commissioner Hall asked if there are existing regulations that require that water to be potable.
Ms. Pilat stated on the last slide on page 23 there is a hydraulic connection between Lake Merced and the underlying aquifers of the greater west-side basin. So, saying that there is not a direct connection between the pumping and the Lake may be misleading. It might be more understandable to say that there is not an immediate connection or a short-term connection. There has been agreement that there is a long-term and real connection between the pumping and the Lake levels.
Mr. Bartow stated then the question is what does long-term mean? We’re talking decades or centuries.
Chairperson Commissioner Gonzalez asked Mr. Carlin, do you agree with the remark by Ms. Pilat?
Mr. Bartow stated we have had debates about this. We called it an indirect effect, a long-term effect. It is hydraulically connected, but it is a time-scale issue. It is not immediate or on a daily basis or a yearly basis, but in the order of decades. When Mr. Milstein stated that Daly City pumping actually changed the hydraulic grading in the west-side basin, it took about forty or fifty years to change that hydraulic gradient. What we’re trying to do is undo it, but it is still going to take decades.
Commissioner Hall stated you are trying to create a situation which you could measure exactly what is going on, and I understand it is going to take time. Is there a City or State requirement that requires the water in the Lake to be potable, not only for emergency purposes but to be potable?
Mr. Milstein stated currently on the Regional Board Basin Plan it is designated as a potential emergency water source for San Francisco. In my view it is up to San Francisco to decide what it wants to use the Lake for. We’ve talked about emergency water supply. Realistically, the best choice for the City in terms of emergency water supply for drinking is going to be wells because you can just pull that out of the ground, chlorinate, and drink it. Whereas with Lake Merced if you wanted to put that water into the water system, you would have to issue a boil water order and it would be difficult to do.
Commissioner Hall asked but it is still listed as an emergency source of drinking water?
Mr. Milstein stated yes, potentially.
Chairperson Commissioner Gonzalez asked Mr. Milstein to explain why it is so difficult.
Mr. Milstein stated there are a lot of coliform bacteria in Lake Merced and putting that into the potable water distribution—I am not an operator, but my understanding is that putting that water in you have to totally disinfect everything afterwards. In some sense, it makes more sense to look at Lake Merced as a fire-fighting water supply for example. But these are some of the policy choices that the PUC is going to have to make over the next couple of years as we work through this process.
Commissioner Hall stated that would be important whether we consider it a recreational facility first over potable drinking water supply. So these are the decisions that can be made at a City level.
Mr. Carlin stated that is correct. We say it is a potential emergency water supply because of the way the water system was developed here in San Francisco. Our pump station located at Lake Merced actually has what we call the intake pipes that we can actually draw the water out of and put into the City distribution system. When that was done in the 1930’s, there was no filtration of water. The water quality standards or regulations were very lax. Now we have very stringent regulations that we must meet goals so in order to draw that water out, we would have to put it through a filtration plant which we don’t have at Lake Merced. It would have to meet those standards of less than five turbidity units and less than one coliform unit. What Mr. Milstein mentioned if we were to put water into our distribution system, we would only do it under the dire of circumstances like we were cut off and we had basically nothing and we were fighting fires. What it would mean is that we would have to issue a boil water order. In other words, you would have to boil your water and add common bleach to it before you could actually drink it. It’s that kind of situation where we would say it’s a potential water supply.
Commissioner Hall asked recharging the Lake by the runoff—you have a pilot program—what is the status of the program, the Daly City runoff into the ocean?
Mr. Carlin stated we have actually constructed the units to take the water out of the Vista Grande runoff canal. We have those in place. Unfortunately what has happened is this year’s winter pattern has been off. We’ve tried to activate them a couple of times and we have some very limited data, but mostly it hasn’t been a very good year to do that pilot project so we are going to remobilize next winter.
Commissioner Hall asked so we could have some kind of reading or result on how effective that is. When could we expect a result?
Mr. Carlin stated I don’t know. I will have to get back to you on that. We have very limited data this winter because of the conditions that were experienced out there. We actually had experienced some very heavy storms in January that basically flooded out the area.
Commissioner Hall stated that is unfortunate because that could be another good source of recharging.
Ms. Pilat asked if next winter will still be a testing winter without putting water into the Lake.
Mr. Carlin stated we haven’t reached that decision yet. We are going to look at what the data tells us and what we can actually negotiate with the regulatory agencies. If we don’t have sufficient data, no. If we have sufficient data, then perhaps we can go to the next phase.
Commissioner Hall asked because of the unusual wet season, the apparatus was destroyed or we weren’t able to get the apparatus in place?
Mr. Carlin stated we had the apparatus in place and it overwhelmed the unit. We had another one of those issues with the Vista Grande canal actually overflowing and it actually flooded our test area. Then we had a long sort of dry spell so we demobilized. Basically, we didn’t think we would get any more rain and now we are getting a very unusual winter again. We are getting rain now here in the end of April.
Commissioner Hall asked can we anticipate the water levels continuing to rise in the near distant future?
Mr. Bartow stated right now we have put in a request to the agencies. We needed the Department of Fish and Game approval and Audubon Society approval based on the prior agreements for adding water to the Lake. We needed their approval for any water additions between April 15 and July 1. We put in a request letter and are awaiting their approval on this. We suspect we will be able to get an okay to maintain the Lake at April 15th Lake levels, to not raise the Lake over the summer. What we would like to do is just to maintain those water levels at least through July to allow us to collect more data on the impacts.
Ms. Pilat asked Mr. Carlin, in your presentation there were three waste water treatment plants that were potentially being considered for producing recycled water. That seems to be different from what I last heard as three on each side of the City so a total of six package plants.
Mr. Carlin stated we are in the preliminary stages and we are actually looking at strategies. One of them was to utilize the existing infrastructure. So if we utilize the existing infrastructure and go there first and look at what we can do, that is one way to do it. If we can’t utilize the infrastructure, then perhaps we should look at a more decentralized approach and we are actually going to do that as well. It’s a compare and contrast that we want to get to. Not just this is the way we’re going. Again, we’re at the preliminary stages and when you came in and we talked about it, I was just laying out some thoughts about it.
Ms. Pilat asked when you anticipate that public involvement and or public information sessions about recycled water might begin and if you had a response to the neighborhood groups who were interested in a monthly update on recycled water?
Mr. Carlin stated we don’t have a time schedule established yet for public involvement. I am not aware of a monthly request from neighborhood groups. I would be glad to meet with whatever neighborhood groups would like to sit and talk about that. I have met privately with some of those. We’re trying to put together a time schedule as I stated in my presentation. The first thing we were trying to do is to come out as the City to talk about recycled water and not just the PUC. What we don’t want to stumble on is basically if there’s a user out there that happens to be a City department, we would like to have them be part of the team that goes out and discusses recycled water. That is where we spent the past month is just talking to the other City departments. Now we are just trying to put together schedules and such. I showed a preliminary broad schedule. We don’t have specific dates set yet.
Public Comment
Mr. Francisco DaCosta stated that he is looking at this from a different perspective and provided background information.
Mr. John Plummer, Friends of Lake Merced stated that about 25 percent of all recycled water in California today is used for re-aquifer recharge, about half of that directly and half of that through irrigation water that percolates into the aquifer. He recommended that those wells be used for aquifer recharge, both to build a water barrier between the Lake and the pumpers and help augment the support of the Lake. In addition, to look at the possibility of using recycled water to build a water barrier to protect against salt water intrusion. These are two potentially very valuable uses of recycled water that are not on the current list of applications from the PUC and recommended they be added to that list and studied carefully. He would like to participate in that study and in supporting the results.
Mr. Andrew Bozeman stated that the number of water sources, channels etc. that were blocked or covered up by our insatiable need to develop and make money was rather saddening. He encouraged the Commissioners to move forward with whatever needs to be done to educate the public.
Mr. Emeric Kalman stated that he tried to follow up on the issues of ground water and recycled water for quite a few years. Before the City puts more money in the recycled water project, he would like an economic feasibility study done. Did anyone calculate the costs including today’s energy costs?
Mr. Bartow commented on the use of recycled waste-water for injection wells. That is the technology that is used in Southern California and is used very successfully to create a barrier to stop salt water intrusion. Here the preliminary results from the saltwater intrusion monitoring wells that are located at Fort Funston and the Zoo indicate that there is not a serious salt water intrusion problem within the west-side basin. There is not a problem to cure right now. Long term maybe that is something for the City to look at. But in the short term, that probably isn’t necessary. As far as actually injecting highly treated waste water into the aquifers, that’s met huge public opposition that Ms. Pilat brought up also that there is public perception of toilet to tap with injecting treated waste-water into the ground pretty much killed that project out there in the Tri-Valley area.
Commissioner Hall asked to explain how an injection well functions.
Mr. Bartow stated a boring would be drilled down to the permeable aquifer zones. The well would have holes in that so the casing would have holes in that screen, and then water would be pumped down under pressure into the aquifer. That’s the technology used with both potable and recycled water in certain cases.
Mr. Carlin stated that he would comment on the waste-water issue. It is an issue we’re starting to grapple with and develop a new clean-water master plan. It is something we don’t have currently. If you recall when we went forward with the capital program in the bond measure, we pulled clean water out of it. There are no capital funds that were actually authorized by the voters for the clean water projects. We are rethinking that. As a gentleman pointed out we need to make it a citywide issue. It’s not just a southeast issue—it is a citywide issue and all communities need to get involved and how we actually address that in the future. The last thing is on the cost of recycled water. A lot of the costs I mentioned in my testimony would depend on what technology we choose, whether we have six or seven plants. We have made a commitment that we are going towards the highest level of public protection in water quality. As part of the process that we go through, we will be developing costs and those costs will be publicly available and will see what it actually costs to produce a unit of recycled water. The EBMUD representative may be able to say what it costs them to produce a unit of recycled water.
Ms. Steere stated that you can’t generalize what it is going to cost. It depends on where that project is, are there elevations involved which will lend to pumping stations and pressure reduction stations and so forth and so on. I would like to take a fly-over view of it in terms of the costs for recycled water projects. You really can’t compare them to the costs of developing a potable water supply. Both San Francisco and EBMUD are in the enviable position in California of having developed these supplies of surface water many years ago. We developed these supplies at a time when the environment wasn’t a word that the public at large had heard of so we developed these projects at a tremendous cost to the environment. We’re beginning to discover as we put money into basically environmental restoration projects and so forth and so on that it is going to take billions of dollars to bring back and restore environments that have been hurt by historic water development in California. But sometimes the public doesn’t stop to think about those things, but I think it is incumbent on those that are on the utility side to give some recognition to that fact. So these are costs you can’t necessarily calculate in terms of what it costs to develop a potable supply versus a recycled water supply because historically, we haven't factored in some of these costs but there are real costs to society to doing these things. In terms of the recycled water costs, most utilities come up with a rule of thumb of what they think for them represents a reasonable range of costs per unit. For EBMUD the cutoff point is if we feel we can develop a supply of recycled water for about $1600 per acre foot, that that for us represents a reasonable cost. There is another factor that people need to look at in terms of the costs to these projects. That is, what is the value of that supply of water. We had a Demand Management Advisory Committee set up to help us take a look at both recycled water and water conservation at East Bay MUD. One of the members is in a job where he deals with very large irrigators, and he said his large irrigators would be willing to pay more to be able to use recycled water for irrigation because it gives them a drought proof supply. It guarantees that their investment will be protected. He was in the minority. Other members thought the recycled water should be priced less than the potable supply. It was a very interesting perspective that he brought.
Commissioner Hall asked if those users were private companies?
Ms. Steere stated they were private golf courses or other major large irrigators although there were probably customers that were on the public side as well.
Commissioner Hall asked Mr. Carlin if we have that degree of private or that level of private users. I know we have private users that they don’t have.
Mr. Carlin stated we don’t have the level of private users. The Daly City project, for example--we brought down the cost of the Daly City project to make it work to deliver water to the Olympic Club, the San Francisco Golf Club, and the Lake Merced Golf Club. In essence, we helped to make that project work for all involved from an economic standpoint. So as Ms. Steere mentioned, you can’t value the public benefit we are getting out of them not pumping and so on.
Ms. Steere stated on the issue of public education and support. I’m not an engineer and one of the messages I keep driving home with one of the engineers is if you don’t have public support for your project, you don’t have a project and that’s been demonstrated not only at EBMUD but outside of the district with other utilities. It is so crucial. I am pleased to see it in Mr. Carlin’s presentation that San Francisco is planning to do an aggressive public education and outreach program because that is absolutely crucial. You need to get that done at the front end and make sure you have the community involved in that whole process of planning and developing.
Commissioner Hall thanked all the speakers for their presentations.
Chairperson Commissioner Gonzalez stated that all of these hearings are available on the web-site through video streaming.
Presentations are available at the Clerk of the Board’s Office, Room 244, City Hall.