HomeMy WebLinkAbout2002-09-04 Utilities Advisory Commission Summary MinutesUA
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City of Palo Alto
Utilities Advisory Commission
MINUTES
SEPTEMBER 4, 2002
ROLL CALL.......................................................................................................................2
ORAL COMMUNICATIONS............................................................................................ 2
APPROVAL OF MINUTES .............................................................................................. 2
AGENDA REVIEW AND REVISIONS............................................................................ 3
REPORTS FROM COMMISSIONER MEETINGS/EVENTS......................................... 3
DIRECTOR OF UTILITIES REPORT.............................................................................. 4
UNFINISHED BUSINESS................................................................................................. 7
TRINITY............................................................................................................................. 7
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ROLL CALL
Carlson: We’re going to start taking roll from my left here.
(Commissioners Ferguson, Bechtel, Rosenbaum, Council Member Liaison
Beecham and Chairman Carlson are present).
Carlson: So we’re missing Dexter Dawes. We knew that. We’re sorry he can’t
be here.
ORAL COMMUNICATIONS
Carlson: Are there any more tickets for people that want to speak? In that case,
we will hold public comment on the agenda item of the Trinity River, which will be
one of the first items.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
Carlson: We’ll just go ahead to the meeting notes from last time, which I want to
comment were incredibly long. I’m really impressed with the staff’s ability to get
the 99.9% – I don’t know how many percent – that they did. There were a couple
of items that were not gotten and I’m afraid that it’s lost to posterity, but except
for those lost items, does anyone else have any changes for the last meetings
minutes? Go ahead.
Rosenbaum: We did all receive an email with some corrections from a member
of the public. I looked at those and they all looked fine, so I would move approval
with the inclusion of the comments that were received by email. John, did you
get a copy of those?
Ulrich: Yes, I did.
Rosenbaum: All right, so staff has a record of those?
Bechtel: I second the motion by Commissioner Rosenbaum.
Ferguson: The email was from Jeff Hoel.
Ulrich: That’s correct.
Rosenbaum: Yes.
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Carlson: Is everybody prepared to go ahead on that basis? I’m delighted to
have him review our 60 pages of notes. All in favor?
All Commissioners: Aye.
Carlson: Now, there have been some calls for even more publicity. The problem
is that the system we have is very expensive and time consuming, unless
anybody on the Board can think of something easier, something we’d like to give
up. Right now we are one of the few Boards that has a verbatim transcript that is
published both on the website, and it’s put in the libraries. The agenda’s put out
and the website also includes the key documents that are going to be discussed.
This is not exactly a cheap operation. It takes weeks to put together those
transcripts and I really appreciate the staff effort and their ability to spell all the
wondrous acronyms that we all know by heart, and nobody else does. I know
there have been requests for more, but we think we are doing a lot. It would just
be unreasonable to do anymore unless anybody else has any recommendations.
Let’s go ahead.
AGENDA REVIEW AND REVISIONS
Carlson: We’re skipping the notes from the public until we get to the Trinity
decision.
REPORTS FROM COMMISSIONER MEETINGS/EVENTS
Carlson: We’ll start out with the report from the Executive Director. John?
Ulrich: Thank you, but you may have a report from the Commissioners. Do you
want to go back to that or do mine first?
Carlson: Sorry, I forgot that. Any reports of meetings from Commissioners?
Bechtel: I believe there was a meeting at NCPA last week.
Ulrich: 2 weeks ago.
Bechtel: At Murphy’s.
Carlson: Bern, that’s yours.
Beecham: I was indeed at the meeting at Murphy’s for NCPA. It was our annual
meeting up there to give many of us a chance to go and visit some of our
resources. There’s nothing particular to report from that meeting. We had a
good discussion of issues on one of our reservoirs, and a slide issue – where we
have a mountainside that’s tending to slide down into the reservoir. We talked
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about actions that NCPA needs to take. The City of Palo Alto does indeed have
a financial interest in that particular asset. Palo Alto has urged that NCPA take a
very long-term approach to this and see if there’s some way that we can fully
resolve the issue.
Ferguson: I’d just like to add to Bern’s comments. I attended the meeting at
Murphy’s as well. I’d missed the tour of our hydro facilities there when I went 2
years ago. I was particularly struck by the professionalism of the NCPA staff – in
particular, the affirmative environmental concern that they evidenced – all the
different staffers that we spoke with on the tour, and the executives as well.
We’re ahead of the curve. Palo Alto certainly is, with its own staff, and I went
away impressed with the same attitude by the NCPA staff.
Carlson: I’d like to add. I haven’t had any meetings in the past, but I’m getting a
number of invitations and the rest of you may be getting invitations by people
who want to meet with us on major issues like Trinity and Fiber to the Home. I
don’t have an infinite time to do that sort of thing, but I’m certainly willing to meet
on such issues. The only invitation I’ve got out there right now is PacBell. I may
or may not find a time that works, but there may be others, and if anybody wants
to do that, that’s fine. We also would, of course – if somebody has something
major to bring forward – bring them forward to the meetings. So with that, the
Executive Director’s report, John?
DIRECTOR OF UTILITIES REPORT
Ulrich: Thank you. I’ll be rather brief. A couple of accolades though.
Commissioner Ferguson and Council Member Beecham and also our Mayor Vic
Ojakian and Commissioner Dawes attended the last [NCPA] Commission
Meeting and I appreciate the time taken to do that. The hydro facilities are quite
a sight to see. And the interactions with other members of NCPA are important
for our relationship. So I appreciate that time taken away from your other normal
business. My report, on purpose, is going to be rather short.
It’s important that you hear about the Water Legislation update. All 3 major bills
designed to fix the deteriorated Hetch-Hetchy region water system have passed
out of the state Legislature and are on their way to and have arrived at the
Governor’s desk. He has until the end of September to sign those bills. We’re of
course hoping that they get signed as they’ve been submitted to him from the
Legislature. Clearly, if they pass and are signed, it’s a major victory for the Bay
Area Water Users Association and the group of elected officials from a number of
cities, including a lot of work and time put in by Council Member Beecham. All
the various BAWUA agencies spent a lot of time. In particular, it was very helpful
to travel to Sacramento for the key committee hearings. Since all 3 of the piece
of Legislation had different committees and different times, it took multiple trips
and a lot of focus on it.
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The major bill – Assembly Bill 1823 that was introduced by Assemblyman Papan
– requires San Francisco to complete a list of critical capital improvements to the
regional system. It must report to the State on the progress towards that goal.
So it would add some fire to getting this moving along. Senate Bill 1870 –
sponsored by Senator Speier – creates what’s called the San Francisco Bay
Area Regional Water System Financing Authority, a JPA that through authority
allows BAWUA agencies to finance their share of the cost to the upgrading of the
system. Papan’s other Legislation, Assembly Bill 2058, allows BAWUA agencies
to form the Bay Area Water Supply and Conservation Agency, which also allows
the BAWUA agencies to finance capital improvement projects. Through this
vehicle, region wide water planning and investments and conservation and water
recycling can happen more easily.
These are all very important. With their passage, we’re going to see some major
progress towards getting the Hetch-Hetchy system done. That will allow San
Francisco to go out to vote for this $1.6 billion measure rather than a multi-billion
dollar [measure] that they would have had to vote on before this change. That, of
course, would require us in Palo Alto and other BAWUA agencies to go out, and
through this Joint Power Agency, issue bonds for our share of the system. So,
major work.
You’ve probably followed some of the other bills. The one that’s had a lot of
interest on our part is Senate Bill 1078, Byron Sher’s bill. It was passed on
August 31 and awaits signature. It establishes renewable portfolio standards. In
this one, agencies that invest in their own utilities are required to invest in
renewables to the tune of 1% per year until they reach the 20% mark by the year
2017. Now, it’s not that cut-and-dried. There are some stipulations, particular for
investor-owned utilities, where they’re capped how much money they’re able to
collect through their public benefits dollars, so they would not necessarily reach
that 20%. Also in light of local control and local decision making, the bill provides
for final decisions about renewable portfolios to be made by the local agency that
operates the utility. In our case, the City Council would make the final decision
on what that total renewable portfolio would be and over what period of time.
There’s significant flexibility given to local agencies.
Carlson: John, that’s a potentially very large item. Is there a maximum to what
we have to spend? Do we have to spend nothing beyond our public benefit
dollars, or do we have to spend what it takes?
Ulrich: In the case of municipal owned utilities, there’s not an obligation based
on any formula or any funding. It’s up to the local agency to make the decision.
Carlson: Okay.
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Ulrich: Those are the highlights on recent Legislation. I’d also like report, after a
number of months and tremendous amount of work, that we went through the
RFP process and awarded a contract for the 25 megawatt purchase of energy to
fill the hole in the 3rd and 4th quarter of our portfolio, a portion of it after 2004.
This contract provides for this energy after 2004. We got a very favorable, very
competitive price, and we negotiated the contract with a counterparty that we
believe will be a very strong asset for our portfolio.
Bechtel: John, excuse me, what was the duration of the contract period?
Ulrich: I believe it was for 3 years.
Bechtel: 3 years.
Ulrich: Tonight on your desk, I’ve given you a copy of a brand new report that we
were just able to complete. It’s the additional information about the survey data
that we received from our survey that we made of 5000 residents of Palo Alto. A
large percentage responded, giving us feedback information about fiber to their
home and what their interest would be and analysis made on their current status,
their favorability or dissatisfaction with their current provider. I do not have a
prepared report. What you have in front of you is an outline of data that will be
coming out, plus information about the specific results. Members of the public, I
have a few extra copies and if there’s not enough I will get them to them. We’re
also going to attend a meeting, a public meeting, that’s sponsored by a
community group on the 12th of this month. We’ll go through more of the details
with the public that attends that meeting. It will also be part of our report of
information that will come back to you for the October meeting, where we’re
going to have a far more lengthy discussion. We are preparing to complete all
the other documentation that we have from our Consultant, and from our
business case. That will all be presented to you with enough time to go through
it and have the public review it. So the next meeting will be very interesting and
will have a lot of data.
Carlson: John, I missed the exact timing of that public meeting. That’s
September 12?
Ulrich: I think it’s September 12 at 7 o’clock in the Council Chambers. It is not
sponsored by the City, so I don’t have all the agenda details.
I was also corrected about the 25-megawatt contract. It is in Q4 and Q1. So it’s
the last part of the year and the first part of the following year and so it’s the 4th
and 1st quarter of the year and it’s for 5 years, not 3. I’m talking a little fast, but if
you have any questions about some of the things...
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Carlson: Any questions for John? In that case, let’s go ahead. The first item of
business is the Trinity River. There’s a sufficiently modest number of people
here that we can just go ahead with it. Hopefully get through it.
Ulrich: Could I just ask to quickly go through the agenda to see if there are items
that, because we don’t want to give a lot of time to any of these subjects – but I
do have a number of staff that are here for some of the topics. If there are ones
that you don’t need a lot of input on, I’d like to move those to the front and have a
discussion on those, if that’s all right with you.
Carlson: All right. I mentioned that to the Commission. What’s the feeling?
Should we try and jump some of the information items forward.
Ulrich: Don’t feel compelled to do that. I’m just making a suggestion.
Rosenbaum: I would recommend that we not do that, that we get on to the public
hearing.
Carlson: Let’s just go. It doesn’t look like we’re going to have 50 people lined up
here, so let’s just go ahead with Trinity.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
TRINITY
Carlson: Now I understood that there are going to be some NCPA people here.
Ulrich: That’s correct.
Carlson: So there are NCPA people here. We have Spreck Rosekrans from
Environmental Defense. John, do you have any recommended order on how to
do this? Would you like to introduce it? That sure sounds good to me.
Ulrich: What I’m putting up [on screen] here is the request from the City Council
to the Utility Advisory Commission through 2 motions. I just want you to be able
to look at the request from the City Council. There are 2 motions that they made.
They’re asking you, the Utility Advisory Commission, to review the Trinity issues
and to come back to them with your recommendation on what to do about the
Trinity River negotiations. The motions are there verbatim on the top. They are
also part of the packet you received, so you may want to reflect back on those as
you go through the evening.
Since this is a bit of an unusual process tonight, I’ll suggest a methodology for
going through it. I’ll have a few comments about the report. I will introduce Tom
Kabat who will have some additional background information about Trinity. I will
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then also introduce members of the Staff from NCPA who will have additional
information. The information will be complementary to each other and not be
redundant. We’ll just kind of build on background so that you have a good
understanding of our position – why we’re recommending it and why NCPA is
continuing to move ahead with the litigation – and our support for it. Our
recommendation will be to continue on the course that we’re making now,
towards the appropriate conclusion. Following their prepared comments, you
can then ask them or as they talk, ask questions of them for clarification or
whatever you’d like and then I’d recommend members of the public have
comments they’d like to make. Then as you see fit, enter into a dialogue, asking
questions with members of the Staff and the public so you get a thorough
understanding of all the issues, so you feel comfortable about making the
decisions. If that’s acceptable process, I’ll move ahead with it.
Carlson: Sounds fine. Let’s go ahead unless there are any comments.
Bechtel: Mr. Chairman. I’d like to ask a few questions perhaps of Council
Member Beecham about the direction from the City Council. As I’m reading this,
I was not there and I have not had the opportunity to speak with the Council
Members. particularly Council Member Morton who made the original motion.
But it’s not real clear to me that exactly what we’re being asked to do. As I read
it, there was an original motion. There was an amendment to the motion that
perhaps took out the leaning towards the one issue, took out the support. So it
remains that we are to recommend for a possible position on negotiation to
enable us to fully support the Trinity River negotiations. I read the Council’s tone
that they want to support negotiations of some sort. Is that how the end result of
this motion came out?
Beecham: The background of the motion is – as you see up there, the initial
motion by Morton and Mossar – the City Attorney advised that because the way
this had been agendized in that meeting, they could not express actual support of
the Record of Decision making, so the motion was left at requesting the UAC to
review the matter. The Council probably did at that time understand that there
were negotiations. In fact, it is the case that there are not any direct negotiations
between members that I know of.
The Council may have in mind that the City of Palo Alto might make some
recommendation. At this point, I’m not sure to whom that recommendation would
be made.
Also, as you know, there was a hearing on August 20 in court. My understanding
is that the Judge heard arguments from both sides of the issue and has not made
a ruling yet. So at this point also, the UAC does not know where the court may
be going on this, which makes it more difficult to decide what one might
negotiate.
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My suggestion is that the UAC look at the issues and advise Council on what you
believe, in fact, are the important issues and what is relevant from various
aspects of our community.
Bechtel: Thank you, Bern.
Carlson: I was also there at the meeting. There was a very frustrating segment
for some of the Council Members. I’m interpreting the charge very broadly, that
we should make a recommendation to the Council on what should be done about
our participation in the litigation concerning this project. But let’s listen to
everything and then we’ll have to decide exactly what kind of motion we want to
make, if any. John, you want to go ahead with the introductions?
Ulrich: Sure, will be glad to. We provided you with quite a comprehensive
report. You know some of the background and why we are purchasing power
and a portion of it from the Trinity River. We wanted to make sure that everyone
involved – and didn’t assume that everybody knew all the background – saw that
information that’s included in the Appendices and in the document itself. We also
wanted to give you information about what was said in the ROD and in the EIS.
That material is all attached. What would be helpful would be for us not to go
through each of the documents, but to give you a summary of the positions that
we have – why we have them and the role that NCPA and Palo Alto has – so that
you’re comfortable with what that entails.
It would be difficult for me not to recommend that, the course of action that we
have been discussing for some time is that, we do not want to get into a position
of trying this issue at the local level, in the confines of this room or at the City
Council. A tremendous amount of work on both sides and both parties have
taken place over a number of years about the best use of the Trinity River – for
many reasons. There’s a large number of people that have a vested interest and
a stake in the outcome. I don’t think it’s appropriate for us to try to go through
every issue on both sides and reach some sort of conclusion.
What we’re trying to do is to say that we have been on the Trinity River, we have
a contract and agreement with the Western Area Power Administration for close
to 40 years, and we are very much interested in doing what is in the best interest
of the environment. We have a long history of it. Many of the reasons that Palo
Alto went into the Trinity River and into hydro are environmental reasons. The
thought at the time, when you look back through the record, is that we put a
tremendous amount of risk – in a sense, putting all of our eggs in a basket of
hydroelectricity rather than diversification into nuclear power or other generation
– for reasons, many of which were to take energy in a clean way, and bring it to
Palo Alto. The intention has always been and will be that we’re looking for
energy resources that are appropriate.
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So I’m going to ask now and at the end that you consider very strongly
recommending that we pursue the course that we are doing. This is the avenue
that is given to everyone to pursue towards a conclusion – that allows all parties
to have their say through the courts. That’s where we’d like to keep it.
I’d like to have Tom Kabat give you just a little bit of a picture of what Trinity River
is, in the sense of water, and how Palo Alto benefits, and what’s the impact to us
and the environment.
Kabat: Thank you John. I think it’s working. This diagram I put up here just for
some background just to show two attributes of the Trinity River decision and
maybe give a background for folks to point to and make their cases as the
evening rolls on. These two things are somewhat of a sketchy representation of
a map showing the mainstem of the Trinity River in blue flowing out of Lewiston
Dam right now and flowing along and meeting the Klamath River. And then the
Klamath flows up north and out into the Pacific Ocean. Here’s Eureka as a
geographic reference point.
Also flowing into the Trinity mainstem are a number of un-dammed, uncontrolled
inflows: creeks, tributaries, rivers, the north fork of the Trinity, the south fork of
the Trinity and a number of other creeks, some of them relatively close to the
Lewiston Dam. You’ll hear a lot of statistics about the flow in the Trinity River
and the statistics typically quoted are the releases at that point at Lewiston Dam.
So that’s what’s shown on this map.
Outside the diagram, I’ll flip over and show Lewiston Dam, which is a regulating
reservoir and dam and elevations up to 2500 feet down to sea level of some
aspects of the Central Valley project. Back here is Shasta Dam topping out at
about 1080 feet in the Sacramento River watershed and then there’s a ridge that
defines the watershed. Rain on the west side of the ridge is headed towards the
Trinity. Rain on the east side of the ridge is headed towards the Sacramento.
That ridge is running invisibly across here. Shasta was built in the 40’s, Trinity
Dam was built in the early 60’s and it captures water from the upper-Trinity
watershed, stores it, releases it into Lewiston through the Trinity Power Plant.
Lewiston is where the policy choice takes place – about where that water is going
to flow. There’s that fork in the flow. The diversions we talk about are diversions
from the Trinity River watershed over to the Sacramento River watershed. The
diversions produce quite a bit of power per acre-foot compared to any other
project in the Central Valley Project and you can see from the diagram why. The
head on this power plant, the Trinity Dam Power Plant, varies from 200 to about
450 feet, but the head, the water pressure, as the water comes across and goes
through 3 more power plants, it’s noticeably higher, 700 feet going into the Carr
Power Plant, 620 feet going into the Spring Creek Power Plant and then it flows
through the regulating reservoir as Keswick at an 80 foot head drop out to the
Sacramento River and flows down the Sacramento River to the Bay-Delta.
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I’ve tried to show a plumbing diagram on one side, a map on the other and a
border in between. Hopefully this will give some idea about where the policy
issue is. One way to frame it is, where should the flows go? That’s what the
ROD was apparently looking at. Another way to frame it is what should be done
to restore the fishery of the Trinity River? Is it all about flow, or are there other
aspects? So I thought I’d lay out a little bit of that background, and turn it back to
John.
Carlson: Let me ask a couple questions here while you’ve got that map up there.
My understanding is that the theory of the fishery is the problem; it’s not just how
much water, but that the natural river – to be well adapted to salmon – needs
floods to flush out the fine sediments that clog the bed. So a lot of water
periodically is an important part of the stream regimen to make the salmon
happy, is that right? It’s not just a couple acre-feet a day; it’s the big pulses.
Kabat: I’m not an expert in that area. My specialty is along the plumbing side,
but we do have some experts in the biology aspects and the river morphology
who will be addressing that this evening.
Carlson: Great.
Ulrich: I promised Tom if he’d do that drawing, he wouldn’t have to answer
questions that are outside of his area.
Carlson: That’s a great drawing. That’s a good graphic.
Ulrich: You may want to refer to it. Do you have any questions of Tom on the
plumbing question or would you like to come back to that at a later time?
Carlson: Go ahead.
Ulrich: I thought it would be helpful to put a picture to what is there. I will now
introduce Jane Cirrincione who some of you have met. She’s the Assistant
Director at NCPA and under her leadership, progress is being made on this area.
She will give you a little bit of background and also introduce our next speaker.
Carlson: Jane, welcome. Would you spell your name please to have mercy on
the people trying to do the transcript?
Cirrincione: Yes, you’re having a problem with my first name? Or would that be
my last name? It’s “C-i-r-r-i-n-c-i-o-n-e”. Thank you very much. Good evening.
It’s nice to be here in your fair city this evening. Again, I am Jane Cirrincione.
I’m Assistant General Manager at NCPA of Legislative and Regulatory Affairs
and I drove here from Roseville today and came over the Dumbarton Bridge. I
was very happy to go through the Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge. Prior to coming
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to NCPA, I actually spent many years working on in Washington D.C. and part of
that time was spent working in the office of Congressman Don Edwards from San
Jose, who – a few of you I’m sure will remember and my charge during that time
in his office – was to work toward the goal of expanding that refuge, doubling the
size of that refuge, adding additional 20,000 acres of wetlands and endangered
species habitat to that refuge. Which was quite a challenge because, I don’t
know if you know this, but it’s the nation’s only urban wildlife refuge. So it
presented a many policy dilemmas in terms of balancing future economic
development – believe it or not, there’s even still some farming in that area – and
then our overarching goals of protecting endangered species.
We were successful in finding an outcome and finding a solution that sort of met
all of those needs. We’re still working in that direction, but we came to a result
that was very positive for the environment. The only reason why I have asked
you to indulge me in this background is to say that that’s something we’re hoping
to do with the Trinity River as well. We have many competing demands and
competing needs with regard to the Trinity River. NCPA’s role has been simply
to say, “Look, there are many demands. We need a process that leads us to a
policy that accounts for all of the demands, and not only that, but is tested and
shown to be the right solution to get us the kind of restoration that we need and
that is required on that waterway.”
I’m here tonight in part to assure you, and I know a couple of you are very
familiar with this, that NCPA’s process that led to our position on Trinity was a
very reasoned and sound process and our involvement in this litigation and our
positions on this issue are not new or arbitrary at all.
NCPA has a history on this issue, going back to 1994, where we have been
participating on agency scoping processes, public comment processes,
testifying, meeting regularly with agency officials and working again toward that
goal of a sound environmental solution on the Trinity. Our position ultimately on
the ROD is to get to that very outcome, The resolution that our Commission
passed at the end of 2000 that led to our taking the next step toward this litigation
– the very first clause of that resolution – says that the Northern California Power
Agency supports restoration of fisheries in the Trinity River. That is the first
premise, underlying premise of our position and it was echoed throughout that
resolution, which I believe all of you have seen. Our concern is not so much with
that outcome.
Our concern is the process that’s been used to develop the Record of Decision,
which is the current plan the Department of Interior has for work, for restoration
activities on the Trinity.
Much of our position on this has been misrepresented or overstated.
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We simply support the restoration. We want a process that would get us to a
sound plan. We hope to establish here that we’re not quarreling with the goal of
restoration. We’re simply here to talk about the means by which we can achieve
it. Our view, ultimately – and our position – is that there may be alternatives to
the Record of Decision. The Record of Decision itself presents environmental
problems and environmental dilemmas that have not been fully addressed or
accounted for. And, as well, the science that’s been used so far is highly
incomplete. We have brought experts in the field that have worked both with
NCPA – but also have worked for the Department of Interior in the past – that
can expound on that, explain where some of the fundamental scientific
approaches here have broken down and why we need to go back and take a look
at where those weaknesses are and how we can address those.
Ultimately, what we have proposed is a plan that has 4 parts: incremental action,
science based approach, pilot scale projects and a collaborative approach –
where we can bring in all view points, all levels of expertise and bring this to the
table on behalf of a sound and workable solution. This approach is exactly the
same type of approach that’s been used at CALFED and in the Central Valley
Project Improvement Acts, so this has a great deal of precedent that has not
been brought to bear in the Record of Decision process. Moreover, our concerns
and our approach have been echoed by our Congressional delegation and even,
in part, by Senator Dianne Feinstein. Their concerns about the process that was
used here were not brought to bear and were not addressed as the Record of
Decision moved forward and was finalized.
We have others here that can talk specifically about how these issues have been
treated in the past, and on other waterways, and the kinds of issues you might
want to be thinking about in that regard. I hope you find that our presentation
tonight is helpful and aids you in your efforts to examine this issue a little bit more
carefully. So thank you very much for having us here tonight.
Carlson: Thank you. I’m sure all kinds of questions are popping up in
everybody’s minds. They’re certainly are in mine right now. We’ll go through the
presentations and then we’ll just call you back as necessary. Somebody else?
Who’s next?
Phipps: Yes, thank you. My name is Jeff Phipps. That’s spelled “P-h-i-p-p-s”. I
try not to say that too quickly because there are too many “f”s in there and it gets
slurred. I’m an Independent Consultant working in water resource environmental
issues. I’ve been working with NCPA on Trinity for 9 years, tracking it – so I have
a long history. What I’m going to do is provide a very short history of NCPA’s
participation and how we kind of got to where we are now. just so that you can
perhaps again have some context to it.
Initially, I started following the Trinity in 1993 on behalf of NCPA before the EIS
for the Mainstem Restoration Program got started. At that time, they had a task
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force that was responsible for developing a restoration plan and implementing
the plan for restoration of the Trinity River, the Trinity River Basin, the whole
basin. We started to engage in that discussion. They had a Technical
Coordinating Committee that was open to all individuals to participate. It was a
highly collaborative discussion on what they might be able to do in terms of year-
to-year activities. So we began our involvement in that process. As they got into
establishing some specific actions, then they said well we need to perhaps do
some environmental documentation and they said we also need to address some
flow-study environmental documentation coming out of the study, the flow
evaluation study that was prompted by the 1981 Act.
So they said, let’s roll it up into an EIS. At that time, while we continued to stay
involved with the Technical Coordinating Committee in terms of the action
planning on the river, we also became involved in that separate process, that
was to perform the NEPA and CEQA documentation for the restoration program.
We were active in that process, commenting on the scope, on the purpose and
needs statement, on the various drafts, on the methodologies and we engaged
both during the public meetings as well as separately from that with the agencies
and with other stakeholders.
During those processes, our theme was a consistent “we want full disclosure of
the impacts of what we know and what we don’t know and what possibilities exist
out there.” We also emphasized the need for watershed wide consideration.
There are a lot of interactions between the mainstem and all of the tributaries that
Tom had drawn up there in black, in terms of not just the fishery resources, but
the inputs to the mainstem river. So the watershed wide interaction was
important.
We also emphasized the need to bring in outside people that could bring not only
their knowledge, but also a sense of independence to the discussion so that we
can make sure we have that objective discussion.
That process went on for many years. They had the Draft EIS and they had the
Final EIS. We kind of saw the writing on the wall, saying they don’t seem to be
listening to what we’re saying. Prior to the ROD, NCPA contacted and wrote to
Interior expressing our concerns that we’re worried that if you implement the
ROD in the direction that you’re going now, it will tie our hands and we’ll have to
do things we don’t want to do. We’d like to sit down and talk about this.
At that point or subsequent to that, we continued to get no response to that.
They didn’t even respond to our letter. At that point, we were discussing within
NCPA what we should do. As we were discussing it, Westlands filed suit. At that
point there were a lot of discussions within NCPA, and I’m not the lawyer so I
can’t go into all the details, but it was decided that we would participate in that
even though we might have slightly different objectives – although we don’t really
know where Westland is coming from. But we felt that that was a venue that
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would allow us to open up the forum to, again, get the objectives that Jane talked
about, a collaborative science-based incremental approach.
However, even during the litigation process, when there were discussions going
on, we had relationships with other stakeholders – and it was on our initiative,
because this Technical Coordinating Committee that I’d talked about had been
going on. But it was disbanded in December of 2000, because the ROD was
supposed to pick up for what it had been doing. There was no replacement
group for the Technical Coordinating Committee to implement or develop
restoration actions in the year 2001. So in our initiative we brought the
stakeholders together and said we need to plan for what we can do with funding
for 2002. We had 3 or 4 meetings and discussions to outline. It was a very good
discussion amongst all the stakeholders including agencies. We presented that
to the Trinity Management Council in June of that year and they said well that’s
interesting, we’ll think about it, but we can’t take input from you for reasons that
are probably associated with FACA concerns and elsewhere.
But regardless, that effort to try to participate was rebuffed. They then instituted
an initiative on their part to develop the plan for 2001 which we were able to
participate in through the technical forums. That’s actually when we hired or
brought on another Independent Consultant, Paul Bradovich, who’s here tonight.
We hired him specifically to be able to act as an objective Scientist in the
discussion of the possible restoration actions for that year. There were a couple
of day meetings that Paul went to. Out of that was supposed to be a draft report
by that committee. That group of probably 40 to 50 individuals started on it, but
there were probably about 20 core people that were in involved with it, and Paul
might be able to add a little to that.
That report was never published and never made available and never forwarded
to the TMC. The input from the agency consultants did refer to that group, but
there was never a concurrence from that group as to the recommendations. But
we did try to participate and did try to interject science into the process and we
continued on that vein. There had been some other forums about monitoring,
that again Paul participated in, to try to bring the objective science perspective.
But unfortunately those two didn’t fully come to fruition in the end.
The reason I just wanted to provide that background is: we’ve been engaged,
we’ve been trying to be constructive. But the bottom line is, we never got a
response to our desire for collaborative, objective process. That kind of tied our
hands and put us in a spot. Well, litigation is the only way to reopen this, to bring
back the balance that we sought. Again, I can answer questions later on if you
have any, on the history.
Ferguson: Just a quick timing question on the lack of government response.
The letters went out apparently in January of 2000 plus or minus?
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Phipps: Lots of letters went out.
Ferguson: But the ones where you stopped getting responses? Was that early
2000? Late 2000?
Phipps: We occasionally would get responses in terms of our comments to the
like Purpose and Needs Statement. That was like in 1997. So we’d get
responses like “thank you for your input. We’ll think about it. We’ll consider it.” It
got to be more serious when our draft, when we provided draft, comments to the
Draft EIS, which I think is the one you’re referring to in January and they
responded to those in the supplement to the Final. We felt that the responses
were not sincere. They said, “Thank you. We’ve addressed that in the EIS” and
we didn’t feel as though there was any desire to talk about it. It was just a
response, but they did provide a response to that. The responses that we didn’t
get was from Interior in terms of Secretary Babbitt saying we really want to sit
down and open this up. We did not get a response to that – and that included
some Congressional inquiries and requests of Babbitt as well that they didn’t get
a response.
Ferguson: Thank you.
Phipps: Next I’m going to introduce Mike Harvey. He’s an Independent
Consultant that has been brought on to help address some of the uncertainties
with the science and the risk with the ROD.
Harvey: My name is Mike Harvey. I’m from Colorado. I am an Independent
Consultant. I was initially brought in to the Trinity Project about 3 to 4 years ago
to review some of the science related to the Environment Impact Statement and
then subsequently the ROD decision on the flows. I’ve worked in this field of
river geomorphology for about 30 years. Over about the last 20 years, most of
the work I’ve done have been related to restoration of river systems, primarily
trying to answer the hard questions where there’s a conflict for water use,
especially in the Western United States. What do you get for so many acre feet
of water for environmental purposes? In other words, what’s the link between
flow and habitat and restoration of species?
When I first looked at the EIS and the ROD and the subsequent
recommendations, there are a number of things that came to the fore.
First of all, obviously there had been a lot of science done on the Trinity over a
long period of time. My initial conclusion though was that the science was done
in a very localized area and there was a lot of professional judgment going into
extrapolation of those results. In other words, there was no tool to extrapolate –
other than professional judgment. Now there’s nothing wrong with professional
judgment, but there are standard tools that we use in analyzing rivers. I’m now
working currently for the Interior on restoration of the San Joaquin River, the
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middle of Rio Grande in New Mexico, among others. We use a standard sort of
approach, analytical approach to evaluate the interactions between flows,
sediment and ultimately habitat.
The thing that I noticed was that that model wasn’t there for the Trinity. As a
result all the science that had been done, there was no basis for prediction and
there was no sound basis for extrapolation. As a result of that and following the
ROD, my company Master Engineering was hired by SMUD to actually put a
hydraulic model together of the Trinity River from Lewiston Dam down to the
North Fork trying to address some of the primary issues that relate flow and
sediment to habitat. Fundamentally, this stretch of river that was shown on the
diagram there – the real river part, as opposed to the plumbing part – is very
complex. It can be divided on its physical characteristics into about 9 separate
reaches. There are reaches in there that are truly alluvial; in other words, the
characteristics of the river are purely the result of the interaction of the flows and
the materials of which the flows interact. That’s the definition of an alluvial river.
A lot of the rest of the reach is partially constrained by bedrock, which eliminates
some of the degrees of freedom of adjustment for a river. Other reaches are
purely dominated by bedrock in both the banks and the bed.
Now this is a little bit of detail, but it is important – because the fundamental
assumption in most of the ROD flows, or behind the ROD flows was this concept
known as a “healthy alluvial river.” Now, it’s an intuitively very attractive concept.
What it’s predicated on is: “before we screwed it up, the river used to work. We
had fish. We had flows. So all we really have to do is put that back together
again, and all will be well.” The problem with it – as attractive as the concept is
– it means you can step beyond the question of having to answer the difficult
questions – what really is the interaction between the river and its habitat and the
species? It’s intuitively attractive. It’s seductive in many ways because you don’t
really have to answer the hard questions. But unless a river is truly alluvial, then
you violated one of the basic premises, in other words, that the form of the river
results purely from the interaction of the flows and the boundary of materials,
which are mobile.
So we put a model together and we tested a number of things that weren’t
tested. One of the primary problems is the issue of flushing flows. You brought
this up before, Mr. Chairman. Now what’s the problem? The problem basically
is that you don’t get the big flows on the mainstem anymore and your tributaries
are uncontrolled. Some of the tributaries, especially below the dam, drain an
area of very rotten granite that produces a tremendous amount of sand. The
only way you can eliminate that sand problem is to mobilize the gravels. But
here lies the conundrum: the dam also eliminates the gravel supply from
upstream. If you look at and model the ROD flows, what you see is that critical
discharge. Now with that discharge that mobilizes the gravels what is the basis
of the ROD decision? We’ve determined from a couple of site-specific localities.
Very good experiments that actually released flows to see what would happen
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and measured them. Unfortunately those are singular locations. If you use that
without some basis of extrapolation, you don’t know what the impact is. Our
model shows basically that the discharge is between 5-6 thousand CFS, which
was identified as the critical discharge. Actually it’s detrimental to many of the
reaches. It will transport a lot more gravel than is available. That’s problem
number 1.
All right. The mitigation to running out of gravel or not having it from upstream is
you augment; you add gravel. The ROD has some estimates. Now those
estimates are pretty large. As you’re aware I’m sure the water years were
broken up into 5 classes that went from critically dry to extremely wet and so the
amount of augmented material varies correspondingly, zero in an extremely dry
year and up to about 67 thousand tons or yards, cubic yards, in an extremely wet
year.
Now there are 3 things to ponder here. Let’s just take the extreme. It’s easier to
talk about extremes. 67 thousand cubic yards. That’s about 6,700 ten-yard
dump trucks. That’s about 20 truckloads per day for 365 days a year. That’s a
lot of gravel. There are some issues. Where do you find it? How do you get it
there?
The other problem is, there has been some augmentation tried below Lewiston
Dam. It hasn’t worked very well. Now if there had been a critical analysis done
on it, it would have been pretty easy to see why. On the riffles, a discharge of
about 6 thousand CFS will mobilize the gravels, but it mobilizes them into the
pools. The ROD flows will not, with the current geometry, mobilize those gravels
out of the pools. The only way you will move this material downstream is to allow
the pools to fill in, which destroys habitat. There’s a temporal issue here
because we don’t have the really large flows that used to occur. The upper limit
to the ROD flows will not achieve that goal. That could have been determined
beforehand if somebody had modeled it.
Finally, in terms of what an analysis should have shown and another example of
it, is that it has accepted that flows alone will not recover or restore the Trinity.
There are something in the order of 44 sites that have been identified as sites for
mechanical disturbance, removal of vegetation and development of more
complexity in what has become a very simplified river since the dam went in.
Well, what has happened at some experimental areas is it shows that it won’t
happen. You create a flow expansion zone and what happens? Sediment
deposits out and just reforms the process. So what we really believe is some
good science was done. It was local, but it’s not a prescription for restoration of
this river system. We need to go beyond that. We need to look at it as an
integrated system. I believe this has worked, and is where we’re headed. Thank
you.
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Carlson: Let me try and summarize to make sure I understand what’s going on
here. What you’re saying is that this proposal is not only very expensive, and
nobody’s even mentioned dollars yet, but the problem is that it really won’t work,
and on the Trinity itself – in some significant sections of the river, you believe –
will actually make things worse for the target species. Am I summarizing things
correctly?
Harvey: You have a very accurate summary of what I said.
Carlson: Thank you.
Beecham: May I ask a question also? You used the extreme of the highest flow
and explained in a sense how they may not work as planned. Are the moderate
flows more useful as in terms of mobilizing gravel to appropriate areas, not
necessarily dumping them in pools where it’s not so useful?
Harvey: The problem with gravel transport is that it does require a minimum
amount of flow to actually mobilize. You have a threshold condition and all of the
flows prescriptions in the ROD do actually reach a point where they will mobilize
gravels. The question is – how much gravel? So if you’re in a gravel-limited,
supply-limited situation, it’s just a question of you move a small amount under
lower flow regime and you’ll just move more under a higher flow regime, and you
don’t have the balance. The habitat we’re dealing with is dependent on both
mobilization and the redeposition and storage in the correct areas off the gravels.
Beecham: Would it be possible to add gravel at the head of the alluvial reaches
of the river, to at least put gravel in those locations appropriately?
Harvey: Yes it would, but there’s always a problem with adding gravels. There’s
a temporal issue. Even in a natural river, an individual gravel particle only moves
a very small distance during a flood flow. So yes, you can do it, but you’re going
to have to wait quite a while to get the desired achievement. It’s a nice idea.
You just put gravel into the river and you let the river distribute it. It will do it
eventually, but it won’t do it in the short term.
Ferguson: Is that over months, or over years?
Harvey: Over many years, because you assume they’re only going to get one
flood per year on that system. So if you only have one flood per year, an
individual particle of gravel only goes a relatively short distance.
Ferguson: So what’s a reasonable number of years to conduct a good gravel
experiment? 1? 5?
Harvey: You’re going to have to look at 10 years or beyond.
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Ferguson: Thanks.
Carlson: Commissioner Bechtel?
Bechtel: In the background material we have, there’s also talk about problems
that might arise if there was reduction to the flow to the Sacramento River
watershed. I’m not sure if I heard you talk about that. Did you also consider and
look at currently what’s happening there, and what would happen if in fact we
reduced the flow – or actually increase or return the flow to the Trinity?
Harvey: Nobody has looked at it from the point of view of the physical system. It
has been looked at with respect to the biological system and I would defer that to
Paul Bradovich who’s the next speaker.
Bechtel: Thank you.
Bradovich: Good evening. Thank you for your time tonight. My name’s Paul
Bradovich. I am also an Independent Fisheries Biologist. I’ve been acting as a
Fisheries Biologist for 20 years in California, and over the course of my
experience, I’ve been involved in numerous restoration projects. The restoration
projects have ranged from trout restoration enhancement projects in the High
Sierra to restoration on our coastal streams and rivers that flow directly into the
Pacific to very large rivers in the Central Valley. Most recently I was the Lead
Scientist and Principal Author in the development of a habitat restoration
management and enhancement plan for the Lower American River, one of
largest tributaries to the Sacramento Rivers. That plan is complete and it is
being implemented. I am ongoing as the Lead Scientist and Principal Author for
an implementation plan for the restoration of the Lower Yuba River just upstream
to the American on the Sacramento, additionally one of the largest tributaries to
the Sacramento River. I’ve been retained by NCPA for the past several years as
Jeff mentioned. I reviewed and provided comment on the EIS/EIR. I’ve also filed
declarations associated with the litigation.
I would like to briefly discuss with you and raise to your attention 3 major issues,
from a fisheries perspective, associated with the implementation of the proposed
restoration plan for the Trinity River. Those 3 major issues are: the uncertainty
associated with implementation of the plan as proposed, the current status of the
fishery resources on the Trinity, and the effects to important fish resources
including threatening endangered species on the Sacramento River and the
Delta.
Regarding the uncertainty associated with the restoration plan as proposed on
the Trinity, Dr. Harvey did a very good job describing much of the uncertainty
associated with the physical geomorphology aspects.
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But there’s perhaps even greater uncertainty associated with biological response,
potential response to the implementation of the proposed restoration plan.
As Mike mentioned, there’s been a lot of science done on the Trinity. There’s
been a lot of fishery studies also done on the Trinity River, over 20 years worth of
studies. Those studies have ranged from instream flow incremental methodology
studies, microhabitat suitability studies – in other words, examining what depths,
what velocities, what substrate, what kind of cover the small juvenile rearing fish
use as well as what kind of conditions the adult fish spawn in. But it’s only been
since approximately 1997 that we were able to unearth first reference to this
theoretical construct regarding healthy alluvial river attributes.
The greatest uncertainty of all from a biologic perspective is whether or not fish
will actually respond to what is theoretically construed now as a healthy alluvial
river attribute. Throughout my experience and my lead authorship and principal
scientist in development of restoration plans, there has been one common theme
and that common theme has been a very strong emphasis on monitoring and
evaluation. Restoration projects are a very important element of good
stewardship of our natural resources and they remain a very important element
on the Trinity River. However the responsible approach to restoration on the
Trinity River is to construct a program that provides the incremental science-
based approach towards restoration. In other words, there’s been no evidence to
indicate on the Trinity River that undergoing this restoration process, this
mechanical intervention associated with the flow regime intended to maintain the
natural alluvial attributes, actually will result in any response in the fish
populations.
We believe it is imperative to embark upon a process of a pilot demonstration
projects with a very rigorous experimental design, in order to determine whether
indeed fish actually will utilize these areas, or whether there will be any
observable response whatsoever.
The second major point is the status of the fish populations on the Trinity River.
There are 4 runs of anadromous salmonids on the Trinity River: Fall Run
Chinook Salmons, Spring Run Chinook Salmon, Coho Salmon and Steelhead.
There have been many anecdotal reports about the current status of these fish
populations and that they are potentially in peril of being extirpated and there’s
absolutely no evidence to indicate that either. In fact, since 1977, the Hoopa
Tribe and the California Department of Fish and Game have been conducting
estimates of the annual number of fish returning to the Trinity River. The Trinity
River Flow Evaluation Study, which was an underpinning document for the
EIS/EIR and eventually the ROD, indicates that the best information available
suggests that the Chinook Salmon populations averaged approximately 18, 800
fish per year before Lewiston Dam was constructed. That included both Fall Run
and Spring Run Chinook Salmon populations. The EIS/EIR and the ROD
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terminated their scientific evaluation in approximately in 1995 regarding
spawning stock escapement estimates. We followed the estimation procedure
conducted by the California Department of Fish and Game and the Hoopa Valley
Tribe to go ahead and analyze the last 6 years. Indeed the last 6 years average
return of Fall Run population is over 27,000 fish and for Spring Run it’s over
11,000 fish Together, we have approximately over 39,000 fish – where the pre-
dam estimate was averaging approximately 18,800 fish. Relative to “prior to
construction”, these fish are not depressed on their returns.
In addition, there were no estimates for Coho Salmon or Steelhead below
Lewiston Dam prior to construction of the dam, for one very good reason: Coho
Salmon and Steelhead are small-tributary spawning fish. Historically, they
evolved over the millennia to migrate up stream into the watershed, to spawn in
small-tributary feeder streams where they remain for a year or more, rearing in
cool headwater pools and utilizing the mainstem primarily as an out-migrant
corridor. Nonetheless, estimates were made of the total Coho Salmon and
Steelhead populations Lewiston Dam prior to construction of the dam. Those
estimates were approximately 5,000 Coho and 10,000 Steelhead annually.
That’s the information from the last 6 years. Estimates in the Trinity River below
Lewiston Dam are about 12,000 Coho and over 5,500 Steelhead. I merely want
to impress upon you that anecdotal reports of these fish being in imminent peril
of extermination are not based on quantitative estimates.
It has to be recognized, however, that these estimates are in river-spawning fish.
There is difficulty in segregating fish that originally came from the hatchery or
from hatchery parental stock and ended up spawning in the river versus natural
fish – you’ll hear about “natural fish.” There’s no reliable estimation procedure to
make that differentiation at this time, so it is a very complex and a very uncertain
science, but nonetheless, these fish are not in imminent danger of peril of being
extirpation.
The third major concern – and a very, very serious concern from an
environmental perspective – are the unstated, unaddressed, and inadequately
mitigated potential significant adverse impacts to the Sacramento Rivers and the
Delta fish resources. In fact, we have identified potentially significant impacts to
all 4 of the salmon runs on the Sacramento River: Fall Run Chinook Salmon,
Late Fall Run Chinook Salmon, Spring Run Chinook Salmon and the endangered
Winter Run Chinook Salmon. The approach in the ROD is one simple statement:
it says that these impacts will be avoided – mitigated – by reoperating the entire
Central Valley Project and State Water Project Integrated System operations in
California. No feasibility analysis was done to determine whether that was even
possible to do. In fact one of my specialties is biological interpretation of
hydrologic simulations for CVP operations. It is a much stronger perspective –
and it is the Bureau or Reclamation’s – so the Department of Interior’s major
concern regarding all elements of the Central Valley Project is to maintain
operational flexibility for all beneficial uses.
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The reduced operational flexibility associated with implementation of these flows
and reduced water flows into the Sacramento River associated with the currently
proposed restoration plan is most likely to continue to have significant impacts to
our important anadromous resources – including our endangered and threatened
resources on the Sacramento River.
Moreover, the NEPA/CEQA documents failed to identify potentially significant
impacts to our threatened fishery resources in the Delta. Interestingly, the Fish
and Wildlife Service, in their own biological opinion, did recognize that
implementation of the proposed restoration plan would adversely affect Delta
Smelt and Split Tail - the 2 fish resources addressed by Delta inflows, or in this
instance, reduced Delta inflows due to implementation. And again, the mitigation
proposed to avoid those impacts was simply to reoperate the Central Valley
Project and the Integrated State Water Project of California with no assessment
of whether indeed that was a responsible or even possible mitigation.
So those are the 3 major points. The 3 major issues that we have regarding
biologic aspects associated with this proposed implementation of the restoration
plan as it exists today – and what we ask for on the Trinity – is an incrementally
based science approach, some pilot demonstration projects with rigorous
statistically-oriented experimental designs to determine whether or not this is an
effective approach, and a full assessment as to whether these impacts to our
endangered and threatened resources on the Sacramento River and Delta
indeed can be avoided.
Carlson: Commissioner Ferguson?
Ferguson: I understand – from the text here that came to us – the Delta Smelt
trade-off. But did I hear you correctly, that there was a count of salmon and other
fish on the Sacramento side that are affected by this?
Bradovich: It was, no, not exactly. When I was talking about fish numbers that
was relative to the Trinity. The point being they are not in imminent peril. On the
Sacramento River, it’s primarily due to reduced water availability from the
Integrated Operations in Shasta Reservoir, and part of that is the increased water
temperatures that would be expected to occur in the Sacramento River. I utilized
the Department of Interior which includes Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation and the Fish and Game Developed Water Temperature
Mortality Model, and applied it to the Sacramento River associated with the
hydrologic modeling with implementation of this Trinity decision, and found these
potentially significant impacts.
Carlson: Let me be sure I understand this part because this is pretty important.
What you’re saying is that the Department of Interior says they’re going to
somehow change the operations of the remainder of the Central Valley Project to
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protect the salmon in the Sacramento and fish in the Delta – but they haven’t fully
modeled and said exactly how this will work. and how they’ll maintain the
temperature and the flows and all of that? There’s no detail there, they just say
they’re going to do it?
Bradovich: That’s absolutely correct. The only thing I would add to your
statement – you said they haven’t fully modeled – I think the answer is they have
not modeled. They have not addressed the feasibility of avoiding these impacts.
Ferguson: When in the process did we raise these issues? Did these specific
issues arise in ’94? Did they arise in ’98?
Bradovich: Again, my involvement and identification of these issues was initiated
in the review of the EIS/EIR associated with this, which the ROD was
subsequently was based upon. I want to add one other thing. Not only would
the Sacramento be affected, but when the statement of mitigation is so nebulous
as to not identify what would be done and demonstrating that it would be
effective. It didn’t even begin to address potential indirect effects, for example,
when we have reduced water availability. Or cold water out of Shasta Reservoir.
Or we have Delta water quality demands. There’s a trade-off between utilizing
Folsom Reservoir on the American River and Shasta Reservoir on the
Sacramento River. The potential indirect effects of changing operations on the
American River were not even addressed.
Phipps: Excuse me, let me answer Commissioner Ferguson’s questions the best
I can. In terms of the “when did we raise the issues about the impacts on the
Central Valley?” That was raised to the best of my recollection and it kinds of
blends in all those years, but we raised it as part of the Draft EIS back in 1999,
we raised the questions along with SMUD saying, you’ve got to address that. It
wasn’t at the beginning, because we’re still formulating alternatives. So it’s part
of the Draft EIS.
Carlson: We have a question from Commissioner Rosenbaum.
Rosenbaum: I must have misunderstood something. As I understand the issue,
the main purpose is to ensure there will be more fish in the river, and the tribes
based on decades of observation seemed to feel there are fewer fish. You
stated that there’s data suggesting there’s more fish. How do I explain this
inconsistency?
Bradovich: I can’t comment on what other parties assert. I looked at the data
from 1977 to 2001 and did a statistical analysis. I did a linear regression and a
nonlinear regression analysis on those trends. What I can tell you is that the
data speaks for itself. Now one part of the confusion is this issue of “native fish.”
I did mention that it’s extremely difficult to segregate in-river fish spawning – that
originally were from hatchery – versus “native fish” To the best of my knowledge
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no one has a good idea of how to do that, and there are no reliable estimates on
doing that. One of the issues that you will continue to hear is that “our native fish
are in decline.” To the best of my knowledge, I believe that to be primarily an
emotional statement. I am unaware of data that supports that conclusion at this
time.
Rosenbaum: I assume you can’t tell one fish from the other very conveniently,
and the tribal members will be happy with the hatchery- spawned fish just as well
as the native fish. You’re suggesting that they’re all wrong somehow in what
they say. I assume they must have a set of experts who would corroborate their
views – and you’re saying none of that is valid?
Bradovich: Essentially, that is what I’m saying. What I’m saying is the underlying
quantitative basis to support statements such as that we have been unable to
unearth – and I’ve looked very hard. It is an inexact estimation. Much of the
estimates come from our carcass counts, simple markery capture,
experimentation of carcasses, dead spawned fish, red counts, surveys of the fish
nest, weir trapping, upstream migration trapping, flows influence – the ability with
that, so I don’t wish to overstate my conclusion. But by the same token, I’m
unwilling to accept unsubstantiated anecdotal reports.
Rosenbaum: Thank you.
Carlson: While I have you up here, as I recall, there was a significant
augmentation of the flows several years ago. I’ve forgotten how many years ago,
but quite a while ago. Has there been any measurable impact of that initial flow
augmentation?
Bradovich: That has not been determined. One of the important issues
associated with fish population response is there are potentially numerous
factors that effect populations in returning numbers of fish. Those factors range
from upstream watershed conditions. Mike talked about sediment infusion,
temperatures, predation, habitat availability, hatchery versus in-river spawning
and, not insignificantly, out-of-basin or ocean conditions. So to do a simple
relationship between flow regimes that have occurred –and returning fish
populations 2, 3 and 4 years later – also doesn’t usually take into account the
suite of variables that may indeed be influencing those returns.
Of course, one major element I didn’t mention was harvest; it is widely
recognized that one of the issues of concern is that native populations or
depressed populations in a mixed stock fishery are proportionally harder- hit due
to harvest, because of the proportional distribution of the numbers taken in a
mixed fishery. There would be some concern associated what fish are being
harvested – how many of those are native fish, and are they proportionately more
subject to population depression than the other runs that are in greater numbers
in the returning numbers of fish.
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However, we also did do a comparison of the average run sizes from 1996 to
2001, because – again – the EIS and the subsequent ROD terminated their
evaluation in the ’95 return. In looking at the 1996 to 2001 comparison of the
averages, we found that only the Spring Run Chinook Salmon population showed
a statistically significant difference in the average for the period prior to 1996 and
after 1996. So that may be somewhat associated with your flow issue. For Fall
Run and Coho, we found higher numbers of fish, but not significant than
previously. For Steelhead, we found lower numbers, but not statistically
significantly lower numbers. And for Spring Run, we showed for last 5 years
populations being significantly but weakly higher than previous.
Carlson: Any more questions? Commissioner Bechtel?
Bechtel: Paul, in your judgment – and perhaps some of your colleagues’ – do
you find the current environment (I use that term generally) on the Trinity and the
Sacramento a healthy, thriving environment, fish-wise?
Bradovich: Well, I spoke at some length, so I won’t repeat that. It is unknown
what the true native contribution to the annual returning run sizes are on the
Trinity. I don’t want anybody to misinterpret what I’m saying in that regard. A
similar problem exists through the Central Valley. The Sacramento River, the
American River, the Feather River, the Yuba River and some of the smaller
tributaries. Part of the problem is that management practices over the past
several decades have not included a rigorous evaluation of the hatchery
contribution to the total returning runs of Chinook Salmon. So in order to say our
native unadulterated fish is doing well – no one can answer that. When we look
at total returns, our returns have increased over the past several years – even to
the point that, in the Central Valley, they’ve increased the fishing limit on the
Feather and the American Rivers because of the high anticipated returns, which
have been a trend in the past few years.
So total fish-wise, it’s a pretty good time to be a fish. There’s a lot of positive
environmental things going on throughout the Central Valley, throughout the
Coast and on the Trinity. We’re merely suggesting that there’s an additional
element of monitoring, evaluation, demonstration and rigor – prior to irreversible
commitment of resources.
Carlson: Let me ask a follow up question to that. These experiments you’re
talking about, which are a very interesting and powerful concept. If you really
don’t know what’s going to happen, let’s start small. How many years would
these take? Are we talking about 4-5 years? Are we talking about decades?
What are we talking about?
Bradovich: There are 2 major distinctions. As Mike mentioned, to do a good
evaluation of a physical geomorphologic change, it could take a decade or more.
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To look at total population returns associated with alternative flow regimes also
can take a decade or more. Primarily, most of the fish return is age-3 fish. When
you have an action, it really isn’t until 3 years later that you really have an
opportunity to determine – or hope to determine – whether there’s a response to
that change in in-stream conditions. We also have a highly variable flow regimes
in these rivers, including the Trinity River. Merely because there is a proposal for
certain flows to occur – flows other than those often occur. There are storms.
There are precipitations. There are run-off events. There’s variable hydrologic
and climatologic conditions that results in variable flows. Given the inherent
variability in the conditions that fish are exposed to during their spawning and
early rearing phase, and in the extreme variability in ocean conditions (out-of-
basin) and other watershed conditions that for a river-wide population response-
wide evaluation program, it easily can take over a decade.
Now, however, what I’m referring to on the incremental science-based approach
is this theoretical construct of a healthy, alluvial river or stream. What does that
mean? Jeff mentioned that I was retained for and participated in a couple of the
workshops, the evaluation workshops. Recommendations for near term
implementation as well as more of a long-term monitoring and evaluation
program development – which again as Jeff mentioned – did not come to fruition
in the publication of any report unfortunately, because the discussion at that
workshop focused on the need for both river-wide and site specific monitoring
and evaluation.
Although the river-wide population response could take a decade or more, there
are things that could be done immediately. A pilot demonstration project could
be implemented associated with site specific restoration. For example, the
underlying concept of the healthy alluvial stream has roughly 13 attributes that
were identified, some of the them sort of global in nature. You know, a clean
stream is a good stream, and some other things I don’t mean to denigrate
whatsoever, because they’re fairly accepted considerations. However, the other
premise is that with the regimented flow regimes that occur and the
establishment of repairing vegetation, the act of sediment traps that create these
berms, we have a channelized channel now. Not one that is sinuous and has a
lot of complexity and diversity, but more straight in many sections because of the
invasion of repairing vegetation associated with both the interactions of the
sediment and the flow.
The underlying premise is: what they call alternating point bar sequences are
good, that a healthy alluvial stream is comprised of alternating point bar
sequences, that these point bars provide hydraulic complexity and diversity, and
that, if you build it, they will come. Well, why not include some demonstrations
and pilot projects that include mechanical intervention, that construct some
alternating point bar sequences, that establish controls in like segments of the
stream. As Mike mentioned there are at least 9. You can have a demonstration
project, a control area and you can design a monitoring and evaluation project to
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determine are there more fish in these areas than the unaltered areas or not.
The flows themselves are being proposed to maintain these kinds of areas, not
necessarily construct them. As Mike mentioned, there are at least 44 sites that
will require mechanical intervention – bulldozers, according to this proposed
implementation plan! Why not try to see if alternating point bar sequences result
in higher densities of juvenile salmonids?
Carlson: Bern, go ahead.
Beecham: My understanding was, in the stipulation last year, that it was
generally anticipated that the supplemental EIS would be complete within a year.
Whether that was accurate at that time, I don’t know, but now the Department of
Interior is indicating that it will be another 1 to 2 to 3 years to complete the
supplemental. Is that inconsistent with what you’re talking about, or is their plan
to do these kinds of issues?
Bradovich: My understanding is that the supplemental EIS is required to address
the issues, some of which I pointed out in filing of my declaration is a failure to
identify potentially significant impacts on the Sacramento River and the Delta,
and failure to identify feasible and implementable mitigation. Parts of the other
elements I understand are not proposed necessarily to develop pilot or
demonstration projects; it is to address shortcomings in the environmental
documentation, as it currently exists. So I personally have no knowledge that
there is any intent to do any pilot or demonstration projects and evaluate them.
In fact, I believe it is quite the opposite. I believe they’re merely trying to address
shortcomings in the existing environmental documentation.
Beecham: So the stipulation to which all parties agreed was not providing for
what you suggest tonight?
Bradovich: To my knowledge, no. Jeff, do you have any other additional
comment?
Phipps: That’s my understanding. No.
Carlson: Any more questions? Is that the last of the NCPA presentations? I do
have one question, a procedural one. In terms of the litigation and the court
case, are we doing in 2 hours what you spent weeks doing before the Judge or in
the hundreds of pages that he read? Is that basically what’s happening here?
So there has been very lengthy hearings before this Judge where you people
testified and provided documents?
Phipps: Unfortunately, no one here was party to those discussions although Paul
Bradovich was one of the declarants, but it wasn’t, they didn’t have a give and
take. It was more through declarations of positions, so they didn’t have the kind
of discussion we are having now – although I’m sure the Judge asked questions.
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That was usually more questions-of-the-lawyers kind of thing. Then again, I don’t
know, because I wasn’t part of that proceeding on that.
Carlson: John?
Ulrich: I would recommend we get input from others that are here, and then we
can come back to questions or cover other areas that were not covered so far
this evening.
Carlson: Let’s go ahead. We have one person that wants to make a
presentation and since there’s only one, Spreck Rosekrans, why don’t you come
up and tell us why you disagree – and I’m not worrying about a 3-minute limit.
Rosekrans: You didn’t warn NCPA on their 3-minute limit so I was hoping I might
....
Carlson: No, no. If there were 50 people lined up behind you, I’d have a
problem, but go ahead, please.
Rosekrans: Let me first say that I’ve been tangentially involved in the Trinity for
about 10 years, and only intimately really involved for the past couple of years
since the ROD came out – and especially since the Hoopa Valley Tribe asked
me to assist them with their litigation. I’m a technical person by nature. I got
involved as an expert witness in other cases in the same Judge’s courtroom in
Fresno. I especially followed the water and power operations on the Central
Valley side. I’m not a Biologist, although I sort of follow biology in the Central
Valley a little bit. I’m not capable of commenting on the biology and
geomorphological issues in the Trinity Basin. I would have tried a little harder to
get Tom Stokely or Mike Worcutt or maybe Scott McBain down here, if I’d
understood that to be the breadth of the discussion tonight. I will, however, first
respond a little bit to the things I’ve just heard – especially by Paul Bradovich.
And I will try to wind up by answering Mr. Ulrich’s question – you know, why not
just let this process run its due course?
I appreciate that Paul is concerned about the environment in the Central Valley.
The Winter Run, the Spring Run, Delta Smelt – they’re all endangered. But as
for NCPA, had they shown that they cared about these fisheries in the Central
Valley in other forums? Paul mentioned he was principal author of a restoration
plan on the American River that’s being implemented. A couple months ago, Leo
Winternitz, who is the – I don’t know his exact title – Chair of the American River
Water Forum (voice off microphone) Executive Director, thank you, came to me
and said, “Spreck, we can’t get the water we need for our plan. It’s all being
accounted for under the B2 Ruling” – which is another case I’ll get to in a minute
– “as Westlands has gotten their way, we can’t get the water we need. We do
nothing for fish and they count it as part of the environment’s limited pot of
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water.” So I would disagree that his plan is being implemented on the American
River.
Furthermore, as far as the cold water needs of Winter Run and Spring Run – and
they do need cold water. Their high elevation habitat has been cut off by the
dams. Sure, there will be some impact when the Trinity water goes away. But
Congress dedicated 800,000 acre-feet of water per year for the primary purpose
of restoring anadromous fisheries in the Central Valley and the Bay-Delta.
Westlands is litigating to take THAT water away. Where is NCPA?
If you care so much about the Winter Run and the Spring Run, why don’t you get
involved in that and do something, if that’s your issue? Or is it really power and
the dollars associated with the power that’s the issue?
Finally, the Delta Smelt issue, which I believe the Judge has commented on.
The EIS did not account for changes in X2 that might occur as a result – I’m
sorry, I’m speaking in code here. X2 is basically a measurement of Delta outflow
that’s used in the spring. There are certain requirements. The biological opinion
for the Trinity decision says that their concern – if we put more water down the
Trinity and there’s more salt-water intrusion during spring months – we might
have to re-consult. Now they didn’t say they’d do anything. Said they’d think
about it. Well, in the past, when more Delta Smelt than is allowed for under the
so-called Red Light Limit in the biological opinion for the Central Valley Project,
operations gets killed. Basically nothing happens, or the water users “get made
whole” - water is bought and given to them. So the impacts recently of these
endangered species action on Delta Smelt – at least to the water users – have
been zero. They’ve been made whole. They’ve been bought out. There’s been
no impact. So the impacts on the Bay-Delta on the Central Valley side are
entirely overstated.
Moreover, I note, the letter which I signed along with 13 other representatives of
fishing groups and environmental groups, most of those groups do their work in
the Central Valley in the Bay-Delta. They say we support the Trinity plan. Fish
and Game, Fish and Wildlife and the Natural Marine Fishery Service supports the
Trinity plan even though they’ve got conflicts in the Central Valley in the Bay-
Delta system. I’ll note finally that we’re talking here about moving about 25% of
the Trinity’s flow – and you’re right, it’s at Lewiston, not downstream – but 25% of
the Trinity’s flow at Lewiston under this plan be allowed to go down the river
rather than diverted through those power houses. Looked this up on my
computer the other day and I forget the number, but it’s about 2-3% of Bay-Delta
outflow, but it’s a big piece of the Trinity system, water wise. It’s a small piece of
the Bay-Delta system. And yes, I believe the Central Valley Project and the
State Water Project can re-operate to meet the needs as best they can of
species in the Central Valley and the Bay-Delta.
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Let me get back to the comments that I sort of prepared for tonight, I guess, Mr.
Carlson. I wasn’t able to come to the City Council’s August 5th meeting, but I
watched the videotape twice. You said you thought it was a complex issue and a
close call, and not such a bad way to spend money on environmental concerns,
at least compared to some other things you’ve seen. I don’t want to
mischaracterize what you said, but I wanted to focus on what questions this
Commission might really want to think about in terms of its intention to make a
recommendation to the City Council.
First of all, we did hear some doubt, or maybe more than doubt, cast on the
validity of the Trinity River plan and I wish I could speak to that better. The so-
called SMUD plan would restore the river channel with bulldozers. I don’t think
that’s a viable solution. I would ask other experts, maybe someone who doesn’t
work for NCPA, who’s paycheck doesn’t come from the NCPA, if the SMUD plan
is viable, and ask them also for their comment on the plan that is in place. Is the
science perfect? I’m sure it’s not perfect, but is it really a plan that is likely to be
good for the Trinity River?
Most folks I’ve talked to have said that it is. The only folks that I’ve talked to that
said it isn’t are those who work for the NCPA, for SMUD and for Westlands.
I have a handout that I’ll pass out that includes just a little brochure put together
by McBain and Trust. It sort of describes the plan in some detail. When I was
here at the City Council several months ago, I actually handed a copy of the EIS
for the City Council to preview on CD and that was kind of a joke. But this is sort
of a short, friendly brochure that you might find useful.
I would also like to get back to something I know a little more about, and that’s
power system impacts. We made a presentation in Santa Clara. Santa Clara
came forth with some of the same arguments, but it was all by the Utility guy. He
didn’t have the NCPA up there to help him. He made some of the same
environmental arguments. He didn’t disagree with the impacts that are
associated with EIS in terms of the dollars. I think I saw Mr. Ulrich say something
at the City Council meeting that Palo Alto’s share would be $5.7 million in
hydropower impacts over all the users. Palo Alto’s – my back of the envelope
estimate – would be just a little over 10% of that. It would be interesting to know
where a higher estimate comes from. I actually think that there are reasons to
think that those impacts would be lower.
In the packet, I’ll give you a letter that I wrote to the Bureau of Reclamation that
basically says, you know there’s a mismatch between how flows, how the
seasons are made in the ROD which is based on a 90% hydrology, I think, on
April 1st. So you take a conservative look at how wet it is on April 1st – not an
average look – and you end up allocating less water in real life than you would
when you did the modeling studies that led to the impacts to power and water
supply that are in the EIS. So for that reason and maybe for some others, those
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impacts are maybe a little overestimated. I think they are generally in the
ballpark.
The NCPA folks tonight did not say anything about power system reliability. If
you look at their declarations – and I believe it’s Mr. Dame and maybe a couple
others and I get mixed up between the SMUD guys and the NCPA guys – they
talk about people or they talk about severe power system outages that could
result by not having this power available. I’ll note the EIS estimates the impact is
7 megawatts. That’s a pretty small number. That’s not based on any reduction
in capacity at the Spring Creek and Carr power plant that go from the Trinity
River down to the Sacramento River, but based on a 70 year hydrologic
simulation through wet years and dry years that some of the reservoirs would
have a little bit less hydraulic head. I’ll note the Federal Government has
exception criteria in place that says if there’s an outage, we’ll do whatever we
can at our hydro power plants to make sure or if there’s a threat of an outage,
we’ll do whatever we can at our hydro power plants to make sure that this outage
doesn’t occur. They have violated the environmental rules below Glen Canyon
Dam to do this. The flows go up in a matter of minutes if there’s an outage in the
system, or maybe it’s even seconds, and that’s been in the case and it’s likely to
be the case here. I haven’t heard anybody talk about outages tonight, but that’s
a big piece of the case in the Federal Court that’s been raised again and again.
Of course, with the small number of megawatts, there has been ample time for
power users to go out and figure out how to make up whatever megawatts might
be lost. So we’re not hearing about that tonight. That is a big part of what’s been
said in Court. So I don’t know where the mismatch is. Why NCPA has not
brought that up tonight? Maybe they’ll want to respond.
I did talk about a little bit already about the environmental impacts in the Central
Valley and the Bay-Delta. So, again, just anybody who’s an advocate for
fisheries in the Central Valley and the Bay-Delta supports the Trinity plan. The
only ones who don’t and supposedly care about these fisheries are the ones who
have a financial incentive in that water still coming through those power plants
and into the Central Valley.
Finally, I guess, the fundamental question: Is pursuit of this litigation a reflection
of really going after due process and good science? Or is it an effort just to limit
impact to the CVP power users? I contend that it’s the latter. Thanks.
Carlson: Questions? Mr. Rosenbaum?
Rosenbaum: Yes, you said you were going to tell us why you didn’t think we
should just let the process continue through its normal course.
Rosekrans: Well, June 28, I sent a letter to 100 City Councilmen signed by
everybody saying, “Why don’t you guys withdraw from the litigation?” I note, first
of all, the City Council in Palo Alto and Santa Clara and a lot of other cities didn’t
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even know about this litigation. So part of it was to say, “Gee, this litigation is
going on. Are you sure it’s something you want to support?” I wish I had begun
that process last January.
What happened was that the tribe asked for more water this year. The Judge
heard some arguments, and then heard from the Federal Government that the
EIS is going to take longer than they first promised. The Judge said, “Hey we’ve
got to do something here, so we’re going to move up the hearing schedule.” As
a result of that, I encouraged folks to write to Palo Alto to say, “Are you sure you
want to be part of this?”
Is this a case of, gee let’s just go before an impartial jury of our peers and figure
out whether Colonel Mustard did it with a candlestick in the conservatory? I
contend that it’s not. This is a courtroom in Fresno where Westlands Water
District files, in all these cases, the first day possible. They tried to file this case
before the ROD was signed. The Judge sent them away. But this is their home-
court Judge, their home-court referee. The B2 case I referred to is now going to
the Appeals Court, and we got some good rulings out of there.
But we think we generally were not treated fairly and we’ll see what happens at
the Appeals level.
Again, if the real reason you’re suing is based on good science and you don’t
think the right thing is being done – you don’t think people have been listened to
– then pursuing litigation is the right thing to do.
If the other reason is that you don’t want power bills to go up in Palo Alto; you
don’t want to have to pay more than $19/megawatt-hour for power like everybody
else in the state and you’re really part of an effort to slow down the process to do
anything to keep it from going forward – Westlands admits their strategy over
everything is litigate, litigate, litigate just to slow everything down, if not, to stop it
all together – if that’s your strategy, then I say, you un-pursue it.
You ought to work with government to try to make the best of this plan. It’s
generally a plan – in spite of what you heard tonight – that’s gotten good reviews
from scientists that I’ve heard. I’m sorry I can’t speak more to that myself. But
that’s why you ought to withdraw, because I don’t believe the NCPA is really
concerned about the science. I believe the Biologists that work for them, but at a
political level, they use that as a smokescreen because they’re concerned about
the dollars.
Rosenbaum: Let me try to pursue this a little. Clearly, you spent an enormous
time on this issue. It’s our understanding that whether or not the Palo Alto City
Council were to decide to withdraw or not, this litigation is going to continue
forward. Does Palo Alto withdrawing have only symbolic value? Why are you
doing this?
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Rosekrans: My boss asked me that question. [Laughter]. At the time we wrote
the letter, we had hoped that Santa Clara and Palo Alto would both withdraw.
That looks like maybe half the megawatts at NCPA. I actually don’t know the
answer to that question. When I asked NCPA how they make decisions, I did not
hear. In fact, I made several phone calls over the last winter and spring to NCPA
and never got a call back from anybody. We got a fax of some bylaws and that
was it after 5 or 6 phone calls. Anyway, originally, yes we wanted Palo Alto and
Santa Clara, two progressive cities with lots of megawatts of federal hydropower,
to sway the NCPA into withdrawing. We also have talked to folks in Redding and
Roseville that are a little less enthusiastic about it from what I know. Port of
Oakland has got a small amount also. We talked to folks in Oakland and we also
talked to SMUD and the SMUD Board we think was on the verge of withdrawing.
They decided to stay in it through the August 20th hearing. Right now, we’re
waiting for the Judge to rule. The Judge may make a ruling that essentially
makes any action on the current litigation irrelevant. He may not. We don’t really
know what he’ll do.
But I’m guessing that Palo Alto will have something to say down the line. I hope
it’s not merely symbolic, but if it is, then so be it. But I’m hoping that I can go
back to Santa Clara and say, “This is the way Palo Alto saw it”, because the first
thing they asked was, “Is anybody else withdrawing?”. We’ll be able to get a
positive statement out of Oakland after talking with some of their City Council
Members. Healdsburg is a small piece. You know, there’s only so many hours
in the day and there’s a lot of folks to chase around, but ultimately, no, it’s more
than symbolic – and I certainly wouldn’t be here if it were merely symbolic.
Rosenbaum: Westlands is not going to withdraw, so the litigation will proceed.
Rosekrans: That’s correct. If your view is that courts have impartial hearings – it
doesn’t really matter who’s suing, it’s just the merits of the case – then Westlands
will raise all those issues and you don’t have to waste money on lawyers. On the
other hand, if you viewed that somehow the results of legal proceedings depend
on whether even the so-called progressive cities, like Palo Alto, are involved,
then what you do may make a difference.
Rosenbaum: You’re suggesting that there’s a single Judge who is going to make
the eventual decision.
Rosekrans: At present, it’s all in his court, so to speak.
Rosenbaum: So you’re thinking the Judge might be influenced by whether or not
Palo Alto or some other potential litigants withdraw from the case.
Rosekrans: I absolutely think that. Yes.
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Rosenbaum: All right. That would explain your interest. Maybe you can answer
this question simply since I don’t know the answer. The Judge is going to make
a decision? What is the decision that’s going to be made based on the August
20th hearing and how does that effect what happens thereafter?
Rosekrans: Well, the most obvious decision is he could rule for the Tribe and the
Federal Government and say, “Go do the ROD.”
Rosenbaum: He can say that the objections to the ROD are not valid.
Rosekrans: He could, and I guess, I’ll admit I don’t think he’s going to do that.
He could, on the other hand, say, “You need to redo these parts of the EIS,
which involve the Delta Smelt,” and I believe, some elements of the impacts to
power – because remember when this law suit was filed, lights were going out
all over the state. There was actually an outage in Fresno the day of the hearing
– I don’t know anybody that subscribes to the conspiracy theory so I’m sure it’s
just a coincidence. It’s PG&E down there. So right now, those are the Judge’s
orders – more EIS or no EIS and go forward. But Courts have a way of going
sideways and issuing partial decisions. So we may be back with some sort of
more action on this action. Of course, people can appeal or people cannot
appeal. I don’t think the legal action is over. If it was, maybe the NCPA wouldn’t
even be here tonight.
Rosenbaum: Thank you.
Carlson: Any more questions from the Commissioners? That gets down to a
discussion about “what should we do?” Unless, John, you want to summarize
anything more here?
Ulrich: Well, it may not be appropriate at this point. As I mentioned at the
beginning, I made a recommendation to you, the same one we’ve had all along.
From what I’ve heard this evening, there are very technical and very important
issues that need to be continued to be considered, I don’t think it’s incumbent on
us here to be able to make that kind of decision on how the water should flow. I
believe that the only approach is to continue with the process that we have. We
have to look out for the interest of the environment. There is considerable
evidence – in listening to what’s brought forward here – that the EIS is deficient
and that the ROD’s decision was not appropriate and that we need to continue to
try to have the additional research done, so that truly there is a decision that
benefits the environment as much as possible. That kind of discussion and
decision will be very difficult for us to do here. My simple side says we should
continue with what we’re doing. But you’ve got to obviously feel comfortable
with that or a different outcome. I’d sure like to provide you with more answers to
other questions that you might have.
Carlson: Rick, go ahead.
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Ferguson: Before we start our discussion, I had a couple of miscellaneous
questions. I just wasn’t sure who was going to be the right speaker to direct
them to.
Ulrich: Sure.
Ferguson: Pardon me for breaking the sequence here. I’d like to know about the
latest skinny on CALFED’s role here. We heard a lot about the Trinity story here
and the reallocation from the Central Valley back toward the Trinity. There are
much larger water allocation issues being dealt with in the CALFED process
that’s alluded to in some of this documentation. Is there another larger process
that’s going to determine even larger water allocations in the Central Valley –
among farmers and the environment and so forth – that’s occurring in parallel
with this? Maybe one of each of you.
Ulrich: Excuse me, Jeff, before you talk, could you just identify yourself? And if
Spreck or anyone else gets up, if you’d also say that, it’s going to make it much
easier to record?
Phipps: My name again is Jeff Phipps. The CALFED process is going through a
lot of planning and implementation to address water deliveries and environmental
restoration. What’s going to come out of that? We don’t know. So as it effects
Trinity, there’s going to be an interaction and they’re going to have to be
considered and part of Paul’s concern, as a Biologist, is those total interactions
are going to load up and make the flexibility of the Central Valley Project, reduce
the flexibility and make it much more difficult to give you everything that you think
you’re going to get out of this. And that’s what they need to look at. So CALFED
needs to look at this as it integrates Trinity in. So yes, those questions are being
addressed in the CALFED level.
Carlson: Spreck, go ahead.
Rosekrans: Spreck Rosekrans, Environmental Defense. The Trinity issue has
been under study obviously far longer than the CALFED program. The CALFED
program is centered around the environmental issues in the Central Valley and
the Bay-Delta. That’s part of what’s the so-called “problem area” of CALFED.
The solution area includes everywhere it gets water from, which includes the
Trinity. CALFED is not addressing the biological issues on the Trinity. CALFED
understands that’s been addressed elsewhere. But perhaps most importantly, if
you look at CALFED’s studies and the 70-year hydrologic studies that involve
water deliveries and temperatures for Winter Run and X2 and the primary issues
that people work with, CALFED’s studies from the beginning have included
scenarios on the Trinity River that are very much like what we see in the ROD.
So CALFED has considered these impacts to the Bay-Delta throughout, and
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that’s always been understood. So the characterizations that I’ve heard later that
“gee, this would mess up CALFED” – that’s simply not true.
Ferguson: My question is not so much whether this messes up CALFED. But
my sense is if CALFED ever goes anywhere – and it has been around for well
over a decade in one form or another – a decision on CALFED implemented by
the Feds or implemented in California Legislation, might have the effect of
trumping someone’s expectation or goal in the current Trinity debate. I’m just
trying to get a sense for whether that’s a 1% or 10% chance that it’ll be trumping
it, either way – more water or less water.
Rosekrans: Actually, CALFED is not quite that old. It’ll be 8 years old on
December 15th under that name. Well, the CALFED program began when the
principles of the Bay-Delta (inaudible) was signed on December 15, 1994.
Obviously the issue of the Bay-Delta and the Central Valley environments has
been....
Ferguson: We used to know it as the Peripheral Canal. But the point is, it
involves so much more territory and so many other sources of water, that to the
extent a decision is made there 1 year from now or 8 years from now, my
question is – is that a decision that’s truly big enough and has a risk of trumping
the assumptions on Trinity?
Rosekrans: Well, I don’t anticipate CALFED having any single big master plan
that says water here, dam there, restoration here going forward. CALFED has
already come out with a ROD, which has governance principles and programs
and sort of set things in process. CALFED may expand the Los Vaqueros
Reservoir. It’s got restoration programs. It’s got fish screens. Some of these will
go forward. Some will be funded. Some water conservation will be funded. It’s
a lot of different pieces. I don’t think anybody thinks there’s going to be a master
CALFED decision that’s going to come and would make you think you wish you
hadn’t done something on the Trinity River. I don’t think that’s going to happen.
Ferguson: Thank you.
Carlson: One last question here. From everything I’ve heard, I still haven’t heard
that there is any complete Central Valley operational plan that fits with the Trinity
Record of Decision – where they’ve written down if we go ahead on the Trinity,
this is exactly what we’ll do and this is who loses water and this is who loses
power and this is how we’ll run the river. Am I right?
Rosekrans: Spreck Rosekrans, Environmental Defense again. Certainly, not all
the details have been worked out. But the water modeling using the “PROSIM”
(with an “I”) model is their attempt to model and characterize where the water
would go, how much impact there is to Delta outflow, how much increase flow to
Trinity there is, how much less water Westlands might get and even some of the
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other contractors. That certainly has all been modeled, all been studied. Down
the line, policies may change, but that’s been analyzed. Then the “PROSYM”
(with a “Y”) model took those water values and much of the same thing on the
power side. This is the kind of analysis that you’d normally expect in EIS. The
California Energy Commission has acknowledged that it’s standard and accepted
practice for studies of this kind. So while there are a few more decisions to be
made, it’s largely been analyzed.
Carlson: Discussion time, I guess, if there are no further questions.
Commissioner Bechtel.
Bechtel: I don’t think I have any questions of the people that have spoken to us
and Staff and NCPA and Spreck Rosekrans of the Environmental Defense.
They’ve both elucidated – and almost making me hallucinate – over the decision
of how one deals with a complex issue like this. This is not the kind of science
that I’m familiar with, but I do know that I do support what Spreck and the Hoopa
Tribe want to do. That’s important.
I do know at the same time, as well, is that we do have a problem. But I believe
we’re dealing with that, and that will increase our rates. If you did ask our
residents of Palo Alto, they would consider favorably a rate increase, if we have
to purchase power from other than what we get from the Trinity. We do make
money with our Utilities. We turn a profit. We are better than PG&E rates. All
those things are very favorable, so it’s not necessarily a dollar issue.
But I’m not sure whether we at the UAC or the City Council can have really much
impact on what the Judge will rule. I looked tonight hoping that he might have
made a ruling that would have obviated the need to have a lot of discussion. But
at least as of 5 o’clock tonight, there was nothing on Google, unless someone
saw something. So I’m going to really defer perhaps to my colleague to my right,
Mr. Rosenbaum, who at least as a Commissioner, probably with his experience
on the Council, might be able to frame some course of action for us that would
allow us, that would be effective.
I think we are a green city. Hopefully, we will be moving more towards a greener
city. Byron Sher, our former resident, has already indicated his feelings with us
moving. So replacing this power we’re getting from hydro, is not a real hard task.
We’ll have to do it. It’s going to cost money.
But I don’t know how to deal with the science question. I don’t know how to take
one side or the other. That may be more important, certainly, than the power. I
believe that’s why NCPA people spent a lot of time looking at the science and
putting that before us. I think they made it harder for us to deal with, so I’m
prepared to go with whichever ruling comes from the Judge. I’m not sure how I
can frame a particular course of action tonight, so I’m going to defer that any
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course of action from us – any recommendations to City Council – to my
colleagues.
Carlson: Commissioner Ferguson.
Ferguson: Well, I struggled a little to interpret the meaning of the Council’s
motions. My plain-English conclusion is that the Council hit this with relatively
little preparation and briefing, and just asked us to kick it around – a lot more. I
thought, as I prepared for the meeting tonight, that there are a couple of general
topic areas where our discussion of the facts in front of us might be helpful.
One is “just the facts” – to the extent that we can glean facts by looking at the
papers in front of us, or as some of us have participated in earlier NCPA
meetings. I looked at tonight as an opportunity to see whether there was a
gaping hole here somewhere. Or one side trumped up a bunch of stuff with a
bunch of biased consultants – or not. I certainly didn’t see that here tonight.
The second topic has to do with fairness and procedure. Is there some
aggrieved party here? Whatever the facts say, the Palo Alto process is well
known. It costs a lot of time and money all by itself. One of the things we go out
of our way to do in Palo Alto is to make sure that everybody with a dog in the
fight gets to talk about it. And talk about it. And talk about it. In this
circumstance, we have a couple of issues – I’m not sure I’d sign onto all 3 of the
issues that NCPA cited – but we have a couple of issues where I don’t believe
we got our due process. Just as EDF and NRDC and other environmental
interest groups use the process to reopen action, to get their final licks in, I think
we’re entitled to do that as well here. But I don’t see any defect in the process or
procedure here – other than the ones that we identified in the litigation.
Now, it’s Westlands’ litigation, I agree. We’re piggybacking on them. But even if
we’d been upset on our own, independent of the position they’d taken, this is
what you have to do to make sure that your particular factual question gets
heard. We end up with strange bedfellows, yes. But EDF has strange
bedfellows in its agreement with McDonalds Corporation to promote recycling on
the one hand, while McDonalds mows down forests on the other. This strange
bedfellows argument makes for good political theater, but it doesn’t get us very
far. I don’t see, other than a little entertainment value, that there’s any
fundamental unfairness here.
There’s a symbolic question, which Commissioner Rosenbaum raised. I really
think that’s what we end up handing back to the Council. That is, is there some
important symbolic value here – about what Palo Alto does or doesn’t do, or says
– when it makes a decision to do, or not to do? And here’s where I think NCPA
at least had it right in their opening paragraph, and Jane mentioned that. I
certainly believe, and I join with Commissioner Bechtel, that the restoration of the
Trinity watershed and the fisheries are absolutely important. It’s a painful story,
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to read about the 50-year-old Bureau of Reclamation process, and what it took to
get us back from 100,000 to 340,000 acre-feet in the release. That’s just
something that needs to be fixed. I support that. My guess is that we’re going to
end up north of 340,000 acre-feet, as a matter of releases.
The interesting technical question is how you balance that, how you trade that
off, how much time it takes to measure the intermediate results, and so forth. I
hope that’s the kind of thing that the Judge and the supplementary EIS starts to
open up for discussion, because that’s going to be useful. That’s going to be
good for the river. It’s going to be good for the power users. And it’s going to be
good for keeping the peace in the community.
So from the standpoint of symbolic decisions, I would be recommending to
Council that (1) we endorse the goals of the restoration and that (2) we recognize
that we can live with and manage flows that do in fact exceed the 340,000
nominal flow that’s being permitted by the Judge now, but that (3) we push for –
whether it’s in this proceeding or in subsequent proceedings – the kind of
experimentation we talked about, the kind of experimentation that’s part of the
Palo Alto culture, the kind of learning process, the willingness to move from here
and tack in another direction every 2 years, every 3 years, whatever it takes – as
part of a 10-year plan, so we don’t make precipitous decisions.
I am completely sympathetic with Spreck’s comments 2 meetings ago that the
Indians have waited a long time. There’s a factual argument one can make
about just what they waited for. But damage was done, and it’s important that we
undo it. I just don’t think we can undo it in a year or two. A structure that permits
better information to flow from our next step, is the structure we have to push for.
I regret that the opening gambit in getting better information is a lawsuit, but
that’s what’s in front of us now.
The symbolism here that Palo Alto ought to reflect or adopt, is that we support
the Trinity restoration, and we support common-sense acquisition of information
over time – to make sure we don’t do undue damage to any party along the way,
as we all learn more. Thanks.
Carlson: Commissioner Rosenbaum.
Rosenbaum: Commissioner Ferguson placed the issue, put the issue very well.
I trust that the recorder got all his words, because I think those are the words that
the Council would want to hear. But I’d be happy to make a specific motion to
endorse the Staff position, being that we support the NCPA pursuant to due
process litigation. Now I’ll make that as a motion and I’ll say a few words to it if
there’s a second.
Carlson: Is there a second to the motion?
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Bechtel: I’ll second.
Carlson: A motion is made and seconded.
Rosenbaum: I know where my sympathies lie. It’s galling to think that the
Westlands Water District is really worried about endangered species in the
Sacramento Delta. I think Spreck is right when he says, he’s obviously right, that
NCPA would not be involved if we were not concerned about power. We
wouldn’t get involved in an environmental issue if it didn’t have some direct effect
on us. On the other hand, I have confidence in the integrity of the consultants
that we have hired. In a sense, they are hired guns, but I just have to believe
that what they’re saying is based on their best analysis of the applicable science.
So I find myself where I’m not in a position to question proceeding with the
lawsuit, and I don’t think the Council is really in that position either.
Now, I can offer some gratuitous advice to the Council. If as a Council Member, I
felt that the ROD was the correct decision, either based on prior knowledge of
the Trinity River situation or on the current record, I would certainly vote to
withdraw from this suit. What’s the point of being on the City Council if you can’t
express your opinion in just this fashion? But I don’t feel comfortable doing that,
and I trust that the Council will go along with the Staff position.
Carlson: This is a very difficult issue for me. I actually read most of the EIS. I’ve
got enough courses in geology and biology to just love reading the darn thing,
and love listening to the people together tonight on all sides. This is a fascinating
and incredibly complex and rich issue. There’s going to be more like this in this
state in the coming years; this is not the first one. I am not convinced that the
Department of Interior has fully thought out all the implications of this decision.
They just hope they’ll be able to figure out how to run the Central Valley Project
to take account of this, the changes in the Trinity. But it’s a long way from a
detailed plan. That makes me very nervous. If this was purely an economic
trade-off – this community spends a million or two dollars a year, we know that’s
the cost as somewhere in that range, for a certain substantial improvement in the
environment – that’s a no-brainer. Go for it.
But for everything I’ve heard and read and studied, it’s a long way from that. It
has a certain cost, and a significant risk of not working – or even worse, making
things worse in a number of portions of the California environment – the Trinity
itself, the Sacramento River, the Bay-Delta and air pollution emissions. If we
don’t use this hydropower, we’re going to replace it by burning natural gas in this
state or coal somewhere else. Let’s face it, that’s what’s going to happen here,
and that’s a cost. That’s why in this case, I agree, I will recommend supporting
the Staff. And I must admit, a month ago, I didn’t think I’d do that. But these are
some very thoughtful presentations I heard tonight, and I really commend the
NCPA and I commend everybody else.
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Ultimately, this is a gamble. But it’s a pretty big gamble in what NCPA is offering
us before you take this kind of gamble. There are some things you can do pretty
quickly to just try it, get out there, take some small portions of the screen and see
what really honest-to-God works before you gamble not just one river, but
probably more than one.
The other rock that’s rolling towards us as part of all of these water issues in the
state – it’s what I’m all too familiar with – and that’s the Colorado River. We
haven’t even started to figure out how we’re going to handle the loss of the
Colorado River water and how that’s going to cascade back on Bay-Delta,
cascades back into Trinity.
On this one, I am willing to let the process continue, and let the Judge – who has
spent I’m sure even more hours than I have – make a decision, and see what he
does. I thank everybody that came here on this issue very much. Anybody want
to say anything more? In that case, I will call the motion. All in favor of the
motion?
All Commissioners: Aye.
Carlson: Thank you. Can we have a 5-minute break and then quickly go through
the other items?
Ulrich: That would be fine because I would like to take a few minutes to thank
everybody that came tonight. It was a long trip and Mr. Rosekrans and members
from NCPA, did a fine job in explaining their views. I would like to ask – maybe
you want to do this when you come back – would be to articulate your motion so
that we can use that in our communication back to the City Council. Normally I
wouldn’t ask for that, but it would be important to do that so we’re able to
represent and get exactly, specifically what your recommendation is.
Carlson: Do you want to do that right now, Dick – or do you want to?
Rosenbaum: My motion is very simple. It’s your language. I did suggest that
the minutes would certainly be very helpful, particularly Mr. Ferguson’s
comments prior to my making my motion. But specifically, I move that the UAC
support NCPA’s pursuit of due process litigation against of the Department of
Interior to supplement the Trinity River Environmental Impact Statement. Is that
clear?
Ulrich: Very clear to me.
Carlson: Okay. Let’s try our 5-minute break and then come back.
Ulrich: Thank you gentlemen.
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Carlson: And the poor staff. I hope we need them (tape ends).
UTILITIES 4TH QUARTER REPORT
Ulrich: There’s a lot of information in it. You probably have had a chance to look
through some of them. The quarterly report was last month and, due to the long
agenda, we moved it to this evening. Most of the people involved with putting it
together are here this evening. I would, as usual, offer to answer questions and
go through the items that you would like to focus on. Maybe you’d like to go
through it based on water, gas, electric – and then finance.
Carlson: Well, let’s start with water. Does anybody have any questions on the
water material? At least it’s clear that we’re going ahead with the bond vote.
What about the timing of our own bond vote? How does this new water authority
get put together, and how would the procedure for those bonds work? Are we
talking about next March? How would it work?
Ratchye: That’s obviously the top discussion item for the Board of BAWUA for
the next several months. The financing authority – if the Governor signs that bill,
Senate Bill 1870 – that is created right away without anybody having to agree to
join. The other agency, the AB 2058 agency will have to be formed. It’s not
automatically created. So there will be some time to get that agency created and
get that running. Not all BAWUA members may want to join that agency, for one
reason or another. Hopefully, they all will. The 2058 agency will probably be
what BAWUA morphs into.
Carlson: Remind me of what the 2 agencies are. One is the financing agency.
Ratchye: The 1870 is the Financing Authority. It’s narrowly defined, what it can
do. The 2058 agency is much more broadly defined. That agency can invest in
more things than the San Francisco capital improvements to the regional system.
We can do regional water planning; perhaps buy water as a regional agency for
the good of all the members. We can do conservation planning, recycling on a
regional basis. A lot of things like that that go beyond just narrowly financing to
repair the system, although it can do that also. We’ll have to figure out which of
the agency or the authority would be the best vehicle to finance our $2 billion
share of the San Francisco PUC capital improvements that are in their plan. It’s
very unlikely that we would do something like San Francisco – where they’re
asking their voters for the entire wad at one time. We’d probably float the bonds
as needed over the 15-year implementation period of the Capital Improvement
Program.
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Carlson: Are we talking about a mini metropolitan water district here? That’s
what it sounds like BAWUA’s morphing into – under whatever you call it, the
2058 agency.
Ratchye: In some ways. But the reality remains that it is San Francisco alone
who owns and operates the system. In that very fundamental way, it’s quite
different from Metropolitan, and that won’t change. It isn’t contemplated to
change. Now ...
Carlson: MWD has built up around a Los Angeles Department of Water and
Power water project that’s still owned only by them, but shares water throughout
the region.
Ratchye: It could morph into something like that, but it doesn’t have anything of
its own yet. If they want to buy water, then you can view that amount as being
managed by some mini-Metropolitan. But the bulk of the water in the future is
still likely to come from the regional system that’s owned and operated by San
Francisco – who holds all the water rights and has all the ownership rights.
Carlson: Okay.
Ratchye: On the other hand, how ownership is going to go forward – with us
putting up the money – is going to be a very large question: what sorts of rules
we want to write ourselves into when we have these agreements with San
Francisco to give them the money. That’s going to be the key element we’ll be
working on. Are we just going to write blank checks to San Francisco? I’m not
sure we’re real interested in that.
Carlson: Commissioner Ferguson.
Ferguson: A comment, a question on water, then a question that crosses from
water to gas. First the comment on the legislation: congratulations! I’m
delighted. This has been a nice, couple-year campaign. We’ve worked together
to shape this up. It’s looking good. We’re not done – we don’t have the
Governor’s signature yet. But this is just really, really nicely done. Thanks for
the progress and the good news on the three bills.
On your Demand Side Management item – I guess it's Roman 5, page A5 – if
you took all these programs together and they’re all successful, what kind of
reductions will we actually expect to see as a result of these programs? How big
a dent do we put in water consumption?
Ratchye: Water conservation, in terms of, like percentage of our annual load?
Ferguson: You have a chart here of Palo Alto’s historical water consumption. Is
this a fraction of a percent reduction per year, or …?
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Ratchye: I’m not sure that they’ve calculated that at this point in time. They’re
looking to what they feel like they can accomplish in terms of number of
measures. But I’m not the closest to that issue. Randy, do you know? Page A5.
Ferguson: It goes on to list a set of specific programs on A7 and best
management practices on A8. I’m just wondering. If we’re wildly successful at
turning on all the programs and all those practices, how big a dent do we put in
consumption over 2 years? 5 years?
Baldschun: I don’t know specifically. I know they’ve done some estimates for
the work for they’re going to do for the Santa Clara Water District. To put that to
perspective, which is what you’re asking, I don’t have the answer tonight.
Ratchye: In the next agenda item, the Water IRP, obviously one of the elements
of an integrated resource plan is looking at the demand side. Kirk is starting to
look at these measures in more detail to get answers like you’re talking about.
What’s the total potential? What’s the cost? What’s essentially the cost per
acre-foot for a bunch of different water measures – all the BMPs and other
measures – that are being proposed or could be proposed. We’ll have that at
some point. I don’t know that we have enough information at this point to give
you an answer to that question.
Ferguson: I’m just pleased to see, again, that experiments are starting ahead of
time, so that if and when the crunch comes, we’ve rehearsed 15 different ways of
getting some reductions pretty quickly – as we did in electric demand-side
management. So again, good work.
Ulrich: She pointed out that we’re going to the City Council for approval of a little
over $100K for implementation of the partnering of Santa Clara Valley Water
District. I’m not sure specific savings have been calculated, and I think that’s
what you’re kind of asking. We’ve been doing some of these for a number of
years. Most of this is in cooperation, so that there are consistent programs all
over this area. We contract with Santa Clara Valley to do a portion of them for
us. It’s much more cost-effective. It allows us to do other work with the
personnel that we have. If you look at the water usage over the last few years,
you see some very significant long-term conservation. We’ll have to look at more
research about specifically what each of these conservation programs are doing
on saving water.
Ferguson: My third question on water – and I have a parallel question on the gas
report and it doesn’t require an answer tonight – but I swear, after my 3+ years
on the Commission, I used to think these failure-rate curves weren’t really going
anywhere statistically significant. But my guess is that if we look over 3 years –
don’t do new research, just get the old spreadsheets and play the curves over a
3-year time period – my sense is we’re looking at an increased failure rate, the
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leak rates by materials, in both water and gas lines. Again, I don’t want to get
into the details tonight, but I’d like to look at those pictures on a 3-year basis.
Ulrich: You’re talking about gas and water pipe failure?
Ferguson: Yes. Material failures.
Ulrich: Scott may want to speak to this a little more on the details that you’re
asking. Every month I look at this, and we look at it a lot. I’m not sure it’s giving
you information that’s useful in the sense of being able – with this narrow amount
of information – to give us advice on this area. I would look at a different way of
reporting it, get away from reporting actual pipe failures and look at more of the
analysis part of it. I think you’re looking at: are we really spending the money in
the right place to do the right quantity of work? Scott and his planning people
spend a lot of time on that, because this is a very high-ticket item for us. Major
infrastructure replacement is a very large part of our budget. You’re always
going to have to weigh how quickly do you want it replaced versus the cost of
repair. That’s really the analysis part of it, which should be converted into an
appropriate budget for that kind of work. I don’t think what you see here really
gets to that
Ferguson: Well, I’m happy for a little more information. We see this at least
quarterly, but when we get to budget time, one of us always asks, ”Are we
spending the right amount of money on pipe replacement?”
Ulrich: Unfortunately, this continues to be reported based on much older
reporting methods. Based on our strategic plan and what we’re trying to
accomplish, I don’t think this is getting to what you need, We can put off that
discussion until later time. Do you have anything Scott you want to add to this?
Bradshaw: I think you’re right on point. I believe that what we need to do is
really take a hard look at the data we have, and see if it’s really telling us
anything. If you look at Chart A10, it looks to me like it runs pretty flat. But that’s
not telling the whole story, because the costs are going up dramatically over time
for what appears to me the same types and the same number of leaks. Again,
that’s probably something we should be looking at and discussing with you –what
type of information and analysis you would like to see from us.
Carlson: Any more questions on water? Move on to gas. Rick you said you had
a gas question.
Ferguson: Just the same observation on the material-failure trend.
Carlson: Any other gas issues? Go ahead.
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Bechtel: John, I have a question on B2. It’s the Gas Supply Procurement
Program Portfolio Customers. Two questions. “Portfolio Customer” – is that me?
The portfolio in a sense is a purchase portfolio? Okay. Question #2 is: I think I
understand this graph that says the actual fixed-price purchases and then the
load, and what we bought say for the next year and so on, But I see numbers
like we bought 37% up in the text for 2003 and 2004, yet I see 48% actual. I’m
not sure I totally understand what this is saying – other than the fact is there is a
gap between what we need and what we already bought for next year versus
what we expect, which is what we plan anyways. And I see another dotted line in
there. There a couple of lines there I don’t quite understand. Maybe if I’d just
read the text, I’d understand it and not have the graph there.
Mukherjee: Portfolio customers are those who have signed up to receive energy
based on the portfolio managed by the City – as opposed to fixed-term contracts
which they enter into specifically, when they tell us at a particular point in time
that they want to lock in for 2 years or so – that’s the non-portfolio customers.
This graph is depicting the portfolio customers. The laddering strategy is
applicable to only the portfolio customers. That’s why you see it’s 50% and
we’ve locked in 48. But overall, it’s a lower number, 37% if you look at the total
load.
Bechtel: When you say total?
Mukherjee: One is a load, which is, the portfolio is about 75% of the load.
Bechtel: I see. So the portfolio is not the total demand in the City.
Mukherjee: Correct.
Bechtel: It’s the portfolio, plus the customers that pay a separate contract.
Mukherjee: Correct.
Bechtel: Okay. I understand. Thank you.
Carlson: Dick, you have a question on gas?
Rosenbaum: No.
Carlson: I just want to make an observation here. Gas prices are so good that
shouldn’t we be erring even more in the direction of going out longer? Boy,
they’re going to turn around one of these days. Why not buy more?
Mukherjee: We’ve been playing around with that. Obviously we have bought the
entire portion for this fiscal year. Compared to what it was a year ago, it’s low,
but it’s a $4 range. There are certain gas demands in California, and the long-
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term is expected to go down with the new power production, more efficient plants
coming online. There are counterbalancing factors, so $4 is a reasonable price,
but I wouldn’t necessarily characterize it as being very cheap.
Ferguson: It’s not $2.25 yet.
Mukherjee: We have these internal discussions, but for the moment we have
kind of deferred in locking more than our laddering strategy.
Ulrich: That’s the job I get – to say, “How come you didn’t lock it all in when it
was cheaper?” There’s always the hindsight portion of it. We’re trying very hard
to stick with the laddering approach, so we’re not trying to rush after the prices.
Obviously, if it gets down to the $2 range or lower, then as we’ve done before, is
attempt to deviate from it. That’s going to be a call we make based on this
judgment, trying to be consistent with our laddering and not rushing after price.
Carlson: You don’t see prices are good enough to go beyond the laddering.
That’s fine, because if you said “it looks like a good deal, let’s go have an extra
year,” we’d say fine.
Mukherjee: We have talked about. It’s not clearly a good thing to lock in. For
rate stability, yes. Whether it’s a good price, we still don’t know. For example, in
the Senate Energy Bill, there is discussion of Federal tax breaks – if prices fall
below $3.50 – for the energy companies, for oil exploration. So there are lots of
uncertainties – that prices can continue to drop, number 1. And the second is
we’re also looking at long-term trends of demand-supply differentials, which is
tending to expand in the outer years. So it’s a call we have to make. At this
point in time, I think we are sticking to the laddering strategy.
Carlson: Great. Just happier looking at it. For water and gas? Electricity? And
Fiber? Any questions on that? Commissioner Rosenbaum?
Rosenbaum: Yes, I have a question on the Fiber report. Once upon a time, and
it hasn’t happened for a couple years, we used to get financial statements of the
Fiber system, which took into account our initial investment in the system. It
would run out for a number of years and there would always be an estimate of
when we were going to break even on our investment on the Fiber Net. Initially,
we were going to get our money back in 2 years. This was back in 1996 and
after that, it was something like 2005. I haven’t seen any of that for a while. Are
we going to get something?
Heitzman: Yes, actually, I’m trying to recall. We’ve changed the format of that
report. The report you were getting was basically a Fiber department staff
projection. We’ve tried to change that to be more based on figures that IFAS,
which is our accounting system, has in it. Around April or so, there was a pro-
forma statement presented – I can go back and find that exactly. It was the first
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time we’ve worked with the accounting staff to get real numbers, so it’s never
been done before, but it showed up through December of this year. It didn’t
show projections forward. Part of the reason was because of the economy. We
didn’t feel very comfortable with making any kind of forward projections. But it
did show the accumulated cash value of the utility being something like $5
million. So you can say we’ve recovered the money, but we’re not in a position
to pay back the Electric Fund yet, because we don’t feel stable enough to go on
our own at this point.
That report – unfortunately the accounting staff will only commit a certain time on
working with us on that. We can make our own adjustments to it on a quarterly
basis, but then we’re getting back to our estimations and projections. We wanted
to get a real number read out from the data that’s in the accounting system and
use that on an annual basis, once a year. The thing I did here was just a quick
snapshot, to show you cash flow for one year. Partly because I felt like we all
knew there’s a depression, a recession in the telecom business, I wanted to
show that – in spite of that – we’re still looking like we’re in the black this year.
Granted, it’s only a snapshot of 1 year. At the time I did this, trying to project into
the future is just a craps shoot, so to speak, because we don’t know what’s going
to happen in the telecom business. But I did want to show that we did have
some growth in business and we are in the black for this year. We could take the
pro-forma that finance dept helped us with several months ago and project that
semi-annually or whatever you want, to kind of show and project it into the future.
But at this time, I don’t know how valuable projecting into the future would be.
Rosenbaum: Maybe I was happier when you were just doing your own
projections, because I understood. There were always comments about when
the system was going to break even, and when we were going to recover our
initial investment. Once you went to IFAS, you get something that looks like
we’re making a profit each year. But it doesn’t take into account the initial
investment, as far as I can tell, so I never found that satisfactory.
Heitzman: I can resurrect that report for the next Quarterly Report. It does show
the initial investment. It does show that whole pattern there, of everything. The
problem we had with doing it ourselves was we felt like people might think we
were “gaming” the numbers. We wanted to get real factual numbers out of the
financial system, so we can say this is solidly based on what the City accounting
system shows. That’s the reason we went to the IFAS thing. I can bring that
back next time. I think it will show essentially that money has been made. It’s
just that we don’t want to give it back to the Electric System at this time, because
we’re not having that much cash flow to go on our own, right now.
Rosenbaum: I wasn’t aware that we had a separate telecommunications utility.
It’s all part of the electrical system.
Heitzman: It’s on paper only.
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Ulrich: I keep the money in my desk. You’re absolutely right. As you recall, I
think it was a meeting that [Blake] was not here, an earlier UAC meeting. His
associate came and reported to us all about why she changed, why we are
changing over to this, from the pro-forma. The big concern was that the report
was done within the Fiber Organization. It did not have the accounting backing
of the rest of the City, whereas, in using IFAS, we know where the money is.
The part that’s missing here is the relationship with the money that was loaned
by the City’s Electric fund. That can be added. I’m really reluctant to go back to
focusing on the pro-forma, unless there were some hard numbers behind it.
Rosenbaum: Well, as long as we get something that’s clear, or maybe that’s
according to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. We’re talking about
maybe making a significant investment in telecommunications, and it would be
good to have an idea on how we keep track of everything. Thank you.
Carlson: George? Commissioner Bechtel?
Bechtel: I have a question for Blake as well. Blake, do you have any feel for the
total revenue earned to date since the turn-on, the lighting up of the Fiber, so to
speak? Since Day One?
Heitzman: Unfortunately, I don’t have that report in front of me, but I’m trying to
recall the numbers. We have, over the years, I believe, subtract the initial
investment, we would be about $2 million, maybe a little over $2 million in the
black right now.
Bechtel: I was just referring to just the total revenue, then that probably puts total
revenue at probably $5 million?
Heitzman: Yes, that’s correct.
Bechtel: So, less expenses and so on, I assume, plus the initial investment is
what Dick was referring to. So far then I’m just wondering whether for example
on the electric utility, I’m looking at attachment D1, would it be possible to break
out, is the telecom part in the electric utility?
Heitzman: Actually, I didn’t compile the electric utility stuff, so I don’t know
whether they included that in there. I don’t think they did.
Bechtel: So there’s some missing revenue somewhere here. We have electric,
water and gas. Where is the Fiber revenue reported, other than in your table?
Heitzman: Well, it is part of the electric utility.
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Ulrich: We thought you were going to think the other way, that we were double
counting it or something.
Hirmina: Actually, the revenue from telecommunication, we included it in “Other
Revenue” in the 10-year financial forecast. So it’s there, it’s in the electric utility.
Bechtel: You say it’s in Other Revenue.
Hirmina: But not in...
Bechtel: It’s not in electric. It’s not in water and not in gas.
Ulrich: I think she said it’s on the 10-year financial forecast. It’s listed as Other
Revenue.
Bechtel: I see. So it’s not, if we look at attachment D, which has all of the
utilities, the telecom portion is not captured in those 3 reports.
Hirmina: No.
Bechtel: Okay.
Carlson: Any more questions on electricity? And Fiber to the Home? I think
that’s it then. Do we have anything else to cover?
Bechtel: Item #5.
WATER INTEGRATED RESOURCE PLAN
Carlson: I thought we already talked about water. Oh, the Integrated Resource
Plan. Okay. I thought we were covering that with Jane. Come on back up Jane.
Ulrich: We have a little bit different presentation this time, Commissioners. This
is another item of Unfinished Business, an update on the Water Integration
Resource Plan.
We have another item after this that is also Water [CIP Review], a separate item.
Kirk will put up a couple slides and we’ll go through that. It will summarize much
of the material that’s in the Water Integration Resource Plan. I don’t think we can
communicate enough about this. This is an information item, but it takes so long.
We started on this a long time ago. It’s important to keep giving you updates.
The primary focus here is to make sure we communicate well on the planned use
of ground water wells. All of the talk and all of the budget items lately have
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focused on the City’s Emergency Preparedness. The item that we’ll talk about
next on the update of the Water Emergency Plan is the CIP and the storage. But
a portion of that is related to “where’s the water going to come from?” The
Council approved the Utility’s Water CIP, which includes refurbishing 5 of the
existing wells and drilling up the 3 new ones. These wells are proposed for
emergency use only – that’s for use when our supplies are cut off. That will be
the catastrophe or problem that Hetch-Hetchy is having, and that can be short- or
long-term. The plan is to turn the wells on and supply water the best we can to
the City. Now that will not be enough to provide for all of the water use. It’s
going to depend on the time of year and the time of day.
But at this point, the wells that we’re talking about in emergency use are not
contemplated for drought time, nor for long-term supply. There’s no plan to use
the wells during drought at this time and there’s no plan to use the wells on a
continuous basis at this time. Now we’ve used the word “at this time” because
it’s an area we need to explore and continue to study, if that’s an alternative or
the best resource during those conditions. Obviously if we make any of these
changes, we will come back in our planning and our budget process for approval
to change. The other area is examining other potential uses of the ground water
wells. It’s good planning to study the possible use of wells for drought supply or
long-term supply. I think it’s important that we do that, but not to headlong move
in and just assume that we can keep pumping. There can be – and we should
examine if there are any – environmental and water quality issues when you use
that water. Comparing the water from the wells with Hetch-Hetchy water, there’s
a significant perceived quality difference.
Staff has hired a Consultant that you’re very familiar with, Carollo Engineers, to
conduct the ground water supply feasibility study. This is also the same
engineering firm that is doing the Emergency Supply CIP and will involved in
helping us site the various components of the Emergency System. They have
been hired to evaluate whether operating one or two of the City’s water wells as
active supplies would cause a significant decrease in ground water levels or
deterioration in ground water quality. Those are important areas that need to be
understood. It would also help to answer questions and inform the Staff, UAC
and Council regarding the impacts of using ground water.
And I emphasize here: any decisions on future non-emergency use of wells
reside with the City Council. This emphasis is to just make sure it’s clear that
when we’re talking of the CIP on emergency use, we’re not progressing off and
doing something else with it. Kirk will follow up on the next slides.
Miller: Good evening. The staff report that you have describes the overall Water
IRP that we are working on. We’re in Phase 2 in that, where we’re developing
candidate portfolios and examining those portfolios. Previously we had looked at
individual resources. But we now want to look at them as packages of resources
– some conservation, different packages together – then present that analysis to
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the Palo Alto public for input and feedback in doing that analysis. On page 3 of
the presentation is an outline of what the different supply alternatives are. There
are a number of checkmarks, which represent where we feel we have good
information, and a number of question marks where we feel we do not have good
information. In the area of wells, for example, questions on water quality,
environmental impacts and acceptability are question marks – and they are
significant question marks. That is why we are doing this ground water supply
feasibility study, to get at those questions. It is within this context that we’re
doing the study with Carollo Engineers.
Bechtel: Excuse me, Kirk, on my chart under Wells, if water quality is checked,
does that mean it’s?
Miller: Availability. We know the water quality of the wells is not as good as
Hetch-Hetchy.
Bechtel: So a check doesn’t mean good. A check just means known.
Miller: We know that information – correct, and the answer is “not good.” So
these are what we’re doing in terms of analyzing the individual supply
alternatives, to put together the packages. What I’ll do now is talk some about
the ground water supply feasibility study, that slice, and then we can answer any
questions you may have.
For the supply feasibility study, what we’re looking at is answering those
questions that we have. First is what’s the capability of the ground water supply?
How much could we pump? What are the potential impacts of pumping? The
risk of land/surface subsidence, salt water intrusion, movement of any ground
water pollution plumes are specific areas that the Consultant will be looking at
providing information to us. This study, Carollo has begun work on that study.
Today I got some very preliminary information back from them, so they are on
the case. We’re looking at December 2002 to get a final report provided to the
UAC and City Council. The study results will be part of the IRP. They will also
be useful for Environmental Impact Report, work related to the well construction
and will assist the Council and UAC in making any decisions.
The scope of work that we’re working through involves the following: estimating
the ground water basin capacity, displaying historical ground water levels
including the levels during the previous drought periods to see what the impact of
the droughts is on the ground water, valuate the potential impacts of pumping, for
example, 1000-2000 acre-feet per year as a supplemental source for Palo Alto.
That equates to approximately 7-15% of our normal year demand. Those are the
amounts of pumping that we are investigating. We will meet with Santa Clara
Valley Water District staff to discuss the potential impacts. We have already sent
the scope of work to them and got their comments back. We met with them the
other day on another well topic and talked with them there as well, so they are
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aware of what we’re doing and interested in the results. Then we will prepare a
report, which details the subsidence risk, the salt-water intrusion risk, and the risk
of movement of ground water pollution are the main concerns that we will be
addressing. Provide that report to Staff, the UAC and City Council. That
concludes my presentation on the supply feasibility study. As you can see, that’s
the context within the overall Water IRP that we’re pursuing. We’re now in the
gathering of data.
The questions that Commissioner Ferguson asked on conservation highlight the
2 question marks that we have under DSM, which are cost and availability. How
much does it cost to do conservation and how much could we get from it? And
the answer to that right now is a definite “we don’t know.” But we are working on
getting the information from our variety of sources, trying to get as reliable as
information as possible from different sources, so that we can have something
reliable and then update that as we move forward. We have an approximate
timeline here for the Water IRP and we seem to be moving fairly well along that
timeline. I’m prepared to answer any questions.
Carlson: Commissioner Ferguson.
Ferguson: There’s an attachment here, a letter from the Water District to the City
Manager, about cooperating on “Eleanor Park.” It’s not Eleanor Pardee Park?
Miller: Right, Eleanor Pardee Park.
Ferguson: I’m just curious. It’s good to share work and cooperate and deepen
our relationship with the Water District, but is there a downside for us for being
the guinea pig here? Is every city in the district volunteering a couple of well
sites for this kind of analysis?
Ratchye: I think that in a lot of the County, they know a lot about the
groundwater because it’s used regularly. They don’t know that much about the
north County groundwater. That’s why they’re interested in putting this well.
I wouldn’t call ourselves a guinea pig. I think we’re going to get a lot of close-to-
free information. Without that, if we were to drill a well at that site at Eleanor
Pardee Park – it’s one of the best sites for drilling of the new 3 wells that are in
the CIP anyways, and if the district, as I understand it, was not able to or was not
going to drill that monitoring well – we would have had to drill a similar type of
well, a test well, prior to drilling our well anyways. So this is actually going to
provide us information and lower the cost of doing the drilling program that we
had anticipated anyway – if that site turns out to be the site we go forward with in
the CIP. Probably Romel can add a lot more than what I’m saying. But we had a
meeting yesterday with Staff from the District and it just looks like a very good
opportunity to cooperate with them and I see very little downside and a lot of
interesting data that they’ll be able to collect. They’re working with the USGS on
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finding out the age of the water and they can tell us if they’re worried. They sited
it there for another reason, too. There’s been a historic high level of chlorides
there and they want to find out why, and what’s the source. Is it salt-water
intrusion or what? That will help us in a lot of the work we’re doing around
groundwater – just to find out is it feasible at all to pump in any capacity in the
future. So that will help us a lot.
Ulrich: It also turns out the timing is just perfect on it. They’ve done 7 or 8 of
these before and would correspond with the kind of information and will help
information that Carollo is gathering. The only potential downside is potentially in
the actual work. It’s a couple weeks to drill the well. There will be impact on the
community around it for a short period of time, but they appear to have a
mitigation plan and noise reduction plan. They would have to go through all the
permitting process to do it. I think the estimated cost is about $175K to do it. So
it sounds pretty good to us.
Ferguson: I had a second question on the WIRP. For the November 2002
activity, you mentioned developing a questionnaire for the public regarding these
portfolio choices. Just give me a sense of what kinds of questions you’d like to
pose to the public.
Ratchye: We’re basically going to ultimately have to pose to the Council and the
UAC some balancing questions. When we come up with candidate portfolios,
they’re going to differ as to cost, reliability and water quality. We’re going to have
to decide: are we willing to pay a lot more money for (I don’t know if you want to
call it) reliability or availability during a drought. We could have one portfolio, for
example, that consists of as much Hetch-Hetchy water as we can possibly get,
but we don’t anticipate that’s going to be enough, especially during a drought. If
we want super high quality, still it’s either going to be water from the Santa Clara
County Water District that we maybe have to treat even more if we really want
super high quality, or groundwater and treat it to some super high quality. So
we’re going to have a tradeoff between cost and quality there. That question will
be posed. Then you have tradeoffs between quality and availability, and cost
and availability, and all those basic attributes of a particular portfolio. The survey
needs to somehow pose questions like that. How much more would you pay for
a high quality? People like high quality. We have extremely high water quality
now, but a surprisingly high number of people buy bottled water in this town,
which makes you think you might as well use your wells in some ways. We need
to gather some information from the residents and hopefully design a survey well
enough to really get at those questions, then show those results and see how the
Council wants to balance all those attributes.
Ferguson: Part of my reason for asking is that on the one hand – I think in the
case of the Fiber to the Home survey where we had n=5000 or something like
that – we got some interesting and compelling results and it was a reasonably
well-designed survey. Whereas, a couple years ago, you brought us a water
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quality survey, and I think Commissioner Carlson was here and questioned the
construction of the survey. It was a nice opening shot, but I think we could’ve
done better. I’m just wondering here whether this is going to be a substantial
effort, or this is just a kind of a quickie, to gauge reactions?
Ratchye: Well, it’s my personal opinion that you don’t get good public input if you
don’t pose the proper question. If you just ask people, “do you like high quality?”
We already know the answer. If you say, “Do you like it if your rates are
doubled?”, you may get a different answer. You have to construct it so you can
get some real numbers, and you have to have real numbers to show. If it’s only
going to increase the cost 10% to get really high water quality, that’s the question
to pose, not some arbitrary pulled-out-of-the-air number to see how much they’d
be willing to pay, because that’s how much it cost. As we gather all this
information in this phase now, we will have, essentially, portfolios people can
look at and choose.
Ferguson: How big a sample are we shooting for?
Ratchye: We haven’t gotten that far.
Carlson: Any more questions on this groundwater study? I’ve got one quick
question here. This is basically expanding the use of the wells in droughts. This
is just a drought issue, isn’t it? Or is it more than a drought issue?
Ulrich: Excuse me - are you talking about the study? We’re looking at it from
both a drought and from a continuous-use basis. You’ve got to find out the
information. As I pointed out, we’re not using the wells and we don’t plan to use
them until we have more information on the study and then come back and make
a recommendation. Right now, the only use of the well would be in an
emergency.
Carlson: But the study would actually look at the possibility of continuous use
and not just drought use?
Ulrich: Correct.
Carlson: Okay.
Ferguson: Will we ever see in a public document some opinion from the City
Attorney on groundwater rights and our behavior under these various policies?
We’ve talked about this annually. It’s always just around the corner – like the
transfer study.
Ulrich: Any recommendations we make have to take into account whether the
water is something we can use or not.
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Carlson: Isn’t part of the water doctrine the “use it or lose it” to some degree?
Which means we risk losing it if we don’t use it?
Ulrich: We haven’t used it in a long time. I think that’s kind of the question that
Commissioner Ferguson is posing. We turn the well on and start pumping if we
need it. But you’re not asking an operational question and I don’t have the legal
answer for you.
Ferguson: It’s just a category of risk and opportunity. Somewhere along the
way, we ought to get a sense of whether we’re in a safe zone or if we’re in a risky
zone. That’s all.
Ulrich: Well clearly we’re in a safe area now. If it’s used for emergency, then
we’re going to use it. But part of it is, first off, is the water something we want to
use in a drought and can we do all the things that Kirk and Jane pointed out? So
that would have to be part of the analysis if you’re going to say, “well, we’re
coming back and we want to use it on a continuous basis”. I think you have to
answer the question “what’s it going to cost?” Part of that is going to be payment
of taxes to the Water District and also for the legal use of it, and what are the
other requirements that the Water District is going to expect if we do use it on a
continuous basis.
Carlson: Okay. Are we done with this item? I believe we are. John, is there
anything left?
Ulrich: We haven’t gone to new business yet. We’re just cleaning up the stuff
we didn’t do before.
Carlson: Okay. Keep going. Keep going.
NEW BUSINESS
UPDATE ON CIP PHASE 1 PROGRAM
Ulrich: We don’t have more than 2 or 2 ½ hours worth of stuff. Would you like us
to move to the New Business item?
Carlson: Yes, please.
Ulrich: We don’t have a prepared report, but this is a very important area. You
should thoroughly understand and have knowledge of where we’re going with it,
because it’s been a subject that’s been going on for a long period of time. We
want to make sure we communicate very well where we’re at. You’ve approved
or the City Council’s approved the budgets as outlined in the second paragraph
and we expect to spend $15.6 million on this Emergency Water Supply Capital
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Improvement. It’s broken down into 3 phases. We’ll give you a status report on
those phases, particularly phase 1, which we’re in right now on page 3. We have
done the due diligence on siting as much as we can at this point. Now it’s
important to go out and get public communication and input, so there are no
surprises on what we’re doing. There will be a focus group that will be set up in
the middle of September and in October, we’ll have a broader public
communication plan based on what we hear and things we find out during the
focus group. Now that we’re much closer to siting the storage, we have to focus
on where should the wells go, and what is the piping going to look like. Then
Carollo who’s doing the engineering has to get on with doing the design work. At
this point, we’re pretty close to being on schedule. You may want to ask Romel
some more details about specifics. It’s important for you to know the status.
Carlson: Any questions? Commissioner Bechtel.
Bechtel: The public input process and the focus groups I was looking at on page
3 – are the focus groups only going to deal with the location at El Camino Real or
is the public input going to look at all new sites for whatever – whether it’s wells,
reservoirs, storage or so on? It’s not clear from this whether you’re only dealing
with Stanford, with El Camino Park, or the whole city.
Antonio: Commissioner Bechtel, I would just like to clarify that issue. Thanks for
bringing that up. The approach, our stance, in terms of our site selection had
been already delved into in the 1999 Carollo study. We’re presently on course in
pursuing the number 1 site identified, which is the El Camino Park site,
hydrologically and economically for a system. That’s the present course that we
are going to pursue, to present at these public outreach meetings why El Camino
site is the number 1 site, and just basically get and facilitate their “buy off” in the
process.
Bechtel: And I’m assuming that it looks like you anticipate having a go-ahead
from Stanford by the time you hold these meetings. Is that what your desire is?
Antonio: That is a critical path, essentially, before we go ahead and dive into the
public outreach processes – to initially get the go-ahead from Stanford. As far as
I know, we did receive the go-ahead. Perhaps John can add more to it.
Ulrich: We’ve had good discussions about that, and we have tentative approval.
I use the word “tentative” – not that they’re hesitant about the site, but it’s not a
specific location and where the storage would go, and a few other criteria they
have. They would work closely with Carollo and Romel on the actual siting and
requirements. Then we will translate that into appropriate language in a lease.
We’ve also had discussions with them about a lease of a long enough duration
that it would last the life of the facility, as opposed to a lease that has a cut-off
date just based on a number of years, and they’re interested in that plan, too.
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Bechtel: I think that’s good progress compared to where we had some
uncertainties last year. Are there any sites that need to be explored with a group,
for example, for well locations? I can imagine that even though the city has the
property, the existing wells, if they haven’t been used and all of a sudden
someone suddenly says okay we’re going to turn on this well – should we not
also address that issue with these public meetings so that everyone knows about
all the sites that are going to be worked on as part of this $15 million plan?
Antonio: Absolutely, Commissioner Bechtel. Actually in the study itself, we
looked into numerous reservoir and well sites and ranked those sites according
to –- taking the well sites as an example. The production capacity yield of the
aquifer, essentially, is what we’re looking at and that’s the driving force. Eleanor
Pardee, Middlefield, and El Camino Park seem to be the number 1 sites that
we’re pursuing right now. All the other sites were considered. Up to 6 reservoir
sites were initially analyzed and up to 8 sites for the wells in terms of production
capacity. We narrowed them down to 3.
Carlson: Commissioner Ferguson.
Ferguson: I hope we’ll extend a special invitation to former Commissioner Paul
Johnston for the first public meeting. If he can spend time on it, it would be an
instructive counterpoint to our collective history of how we sorted through the
options. I think this is important to him, the process by which we ended up
settling on sites.
Antonio: Sure, absolutely.
Carlson: Anymore questions on this one? What’s next?
NEXT REGULARLY SCHEDULED MEETING –
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2002
Ulrich: Thank you for sticking around for this important item. I would just call
attention to the last item would be just a quick review of our plans for next month.
Wednesday, October 2nd is our scheduled date. At this meeting, we would give
you a Strategic Plan Review update – it’s that time of year – and also a more in
depth analysis of the Fiber to the Home, including the more details on the
specific findings and the numbers behind the formulas in the analysis. We’ll also
of course have more communication with the public by then and be able to report
some of that back to you. So we’ll be on track. We have not of course set a date
to go to the City Council. That would be an item, after you’ve gone through the
Fiber to the Home analysis again with us, we would be to decide the next steps
after that.
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Ferguson: John, once again, two of us on the Commission had a chance to look
at the data in some detail here ahead of time. To some extent we can vouch for
the fact that the data exists, and that many of the important questions have been
posed. But we’ve had months – or in Commissioner Dawes’ case, at least a
couple weeks – to look at it. Is this package going to be out 3 business days
before the meeting, or will you be able to get it to us 10 or 14 days ahead of the
meeting?
Ulrich: I’d like to get it out earlier. I can’t at this point commit to the specific date.
There’s a tremendous amount of information and we’ll have to work on it the best
we can. If you feel that whatever the time is, you still want more time, you can
sure do it. I just need to communicate we are not on a fast track. We were going
to have that meeting this evening, but obviously the Trinity issue was higher
priority. We’re going to take these things as they come. But I also want to
demonstrate that we put a lot of money into this, and a lot of time, and it isn’t
something I want to languish. Obviously the data gets old and we need to make
some decisions. What would be important would be your continued feedback, as
if this was enough information, and what else you’re going to need. If you need
more, the sooner we know about it, the sooner we can go out and start working
on it. If some of you would like to come to the public meeting that’s being
sponsored by the local community, it’s next week. If there’s enough interest, we
can list the meetings so more than 2 of you could attend.
Bechtel: I think that’s a good idea, because I would like to. That’s the 12th?
Ulrich: Yes. I don’t have a copy of the agenda tonight, but I think I have one.
We can get one from the sponsors.
Carlson: I didn’t know about it, so I just committed to another meeting so I can’t
make it, but good luck.
Bechtel: John, I would like to have some recommendation from you for the next
month’s meeting. It’s one thing to go over the report. But one of the things – I
was probably more vocal last meeting – is I’d like to know what the next steps
should be. In other words, I would like to have you and Blake and the others kind
of guide us through the decision making process. I know we’re big boys and
know how to make decisions. But it’s an information item and someone pointed
out tonight that it was listed on the agenda as an action item, but then the
website changed, and so on. I think the public also would be interested in some
kind of a future view of what the process is. I guess we go over the material,
which from the preliminary draft, looks really good, so I’m assuming it’ll be
fleshed out. But after that, we need to be coached a little bit as to what you and
Blake expect, and then we need to go to the City Council. If you could think
about that and let us know – okay, is there another meeting and then a decision,
and so on. That’s what I’m getting at.
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Ulrich: That’s why I suggested that some of that, we do at the meeting. I want
you guys, the Commissioners, to feel comfortable with the information. I’ve go to
see the whites of your eyes before I’m comfortable to keep on moving with this.
It’s part of the process. You all represent some different views, and it’s important
to find that out. But keep in mind that the next part of the decision process, it’s
not to approve building a Fiber Network. It is do we have enough information to
move from the business case or model to the business plan. That’s a
commitment of about $100k in round figures. Do we have enough information
that we can now move and put the business plan together? Then go through that
process and ultimately make the decision.
If you believe we either don’t have enough information or we’re never going to
get it, then it’s going to be decision time to say, no we don’t want to spend the
$100k and it’s time to wrap it up and go home. Those are the interim steps that
are going to have to take place. We’re not coming back in the foreseeable future
– in the next month or two – and say, well it’s now time to raise your right hand
and vote for $50 million expansion. There’s more work that needs to be done on
that. A portion of our meeting next time needs to go through and articulate those
steps. If you’re comfortable at this point to say, all right we’re now ready to go
with the $100k decision, that can be an action item, if you want us to do that.
Ferguson: We’re not talking about a new $100k. We’re talking about the last or
the second-to-last portion of the $400K already allocated.
Ulrich: That’s correct. As a reminder, we have money in the budget. But our
commitment to the Council was we’re not going to go and spend that money; it’s
not a license to go spend it. We’ve kept within the budget and we’ve also kept
within the commitment to the City Council that we’re not going to go out and
spend the money to do the plan, if we’re not comfortable that it’s got potential for
ultimately being successful.
Ferguson: It would be good to keep up the pace on that. It would be good to
agendize an action item. The indication earlier was that we needed an
assurance that we’d learned something new, and that the news would be
incrementally better, before we’re automatically comfortable with completing the
spending of that consulting and evaluation budget. An action item here by the
Commission – saying that the Commission thinks we did or we didn’t learn
something incrementally new or substantially valuable new information – that
would be a good signal, whether it’s one month or four months before a Council
hearing on the decision framework.
Carlson: Okay. Commissioner Rosenbaum.
Rosenbaum: John, in this list of information we’re to get, is one of these items
what we will call a final report from the Consultant, which provides the analysis
and justifies the conclusions of the view foils that we saw last month?
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Ulrich: Yes.
Rosenbaum: That’s item 10, isn’t it?
Ulrich: Correct.
Rosenbaum: Thank you.
ADJOURNMENT
Carlson: Okay. Anything else. Motion to adjourn?
Bechtel: Move to adjourn.
Rosenbaum: Second.
Carlson: All in favor?
All Commissioners: Aye.
Carlson: We’re adjourned.