Water supply still vulnerable Water supply still vulnerable (February 23, 2005)

** Costs soar for Hetch Hetchy fix.

By Marion Softky

Almanac Staff Writer

Plans to fix the decaying water system that serves 2.4 million people in four counties, including San Mateo County, are falling behind, while costs for the massive program have soared 20 percent.

Two years and several general managers after the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) launched a $3.6 billion program to upgrade the water system, it is reviewing a revised program that raises the cost to $4.3 billion.

New General Manager Susan Leal ordered a top-to-bottom review of the lagging program last October; she presented a revised Water Supply Improvement Program plan to the SFPUC on February 8. The commission has 30 days to receive comments on the plan before it holds a public hearing and adopts a new program in March.

San Francisco's Hetch Hetchy reservoir in Yosemite National Park provides 85 percent of the water to 28 water agencies in San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Alameda counties. It is some of the purest water in the country, water experts say.

The commission also sent the plan to the San Francisco Planning Department, which must conduct an environmental impact report (EIR) on the program to fix the system that carries up to 300 million gallons a day 160 miles from the Sierra, across three earthquake faults, to homes and businesses in the Bay Area. Preparation of the EIR is expected to take a year to 18 months. State legislation adopted in 2002 calls for completion of the repairs by 2015.

Meanwhile, representatives of the 28 suburban water agencies that buy two-thirds of the water provided by Hetch Hetchy are getting nervous about the slow pace of repairing the system, some of whose components date back to the 1800s. They note that failure could leave parts of the Bay Area without water for up to 60 days.
The new plan

The revised water plan proposes changes to many of the 37 regional programs intended to improve seismic reliability, water quality, water supply and delivery.

One major change would be to plans to strengthen the two old pipelines that carry Hetch Hetchy water across the Bay just south of the Dumbarton Bridge. The original plan was to rebuild the pipes, which are more than 70 years old. They lie underwater in the mud on the east side of the Bay, and rise onto trestles to the west.

The new, and $200 million more expensive, plan would put them in a new tunnel under the Bay. A tunnel would be safer and more environmentally responsible, said Tony Winnicker, director of communications for the SFPUC.

Other proposed changes include:

** $230 million for projects to assure that water is available to San Francisco and north San Mateo County within 24 hours after a major earthquake on the San Andreas Fault.

** $39 million for new groundwater storage projects for future drought protection.

People who use water from San Francisco will pay for the improvements in much higher water bills. San Francisco voters passed a $1.6 billion bond issue in 2002 to pay for their third of the cost of the water projects. Suburban users will also pay the cost of revenue bonds through water bills.

Mr. Winnicker said the SFPUC is going to try to meet future increases in demand through conservation, recycling and groundwater, rather than expanding the system.
Concerns

The very size of the project, and whether San Francisco can pull it off, are major concerns of the Bay Area Water Supply and Conservation Agency, representing suburban water agencies. "The numbers keep changing; the costs keep changing, despite the millions of dollars spent so far," Art Jensen, the agency's general manager, complained.

Mr. Jensen and the agency are still reviewing details of the new water plan, but one early concern is the level of protection in an extended drought. The plan calls for 20 percent cutback in the last two years of an eight-year drought. "A 20 percent reduction system-wide is too much," Mr. Jensen said. "Some areas could be forced to cut back 35 to 40 percent."
INFORMATION

For more information, call the SFPUC at 415-554-3155, or visit sfwater.org. Comments on San Francisco's Water System Improvement Program may be submitted online, via e-mail to info@sfwater.org, or by mail to SFPUC, 1155 Market St., 11th floor, San Francisco 94103.

E-mail a friend a link to this story.