Public Safety Redlining Redux

SFPUC and a classic bait & switch

When I wrote previously about the Planning Department’s environmental review and their Preliminary Mitigated Negative Declaration as well as the Notice of Public Comment for their Westside Potable Emergency Firefighting Water System (EFWS) proposal — I said the following:

“I understand that I have to do my due diligence and review the combined potable and emergency firefighting water system proposal that they have brought forward this year, and I will.”

Conflagration Redux: Public Safety Redlining, Though the Heavens Fall, John Crabtree

I have done that. I have read and reviewed the proposal and Preliminary Mitigated Negative Declaration (PMND). And I have consulted with my experts and sought their review as well. I have a few things to say about the proposal itself before delving deeper into the environmental review and PMN Declaration.

The initial impressions from my review and consultation process is that the proposal and PMND documents support the contention that I have written previously — that this proposal is designed for the benefit of the SFPUC Water Department, with questionable and, at best, marginal utility for fighting post-earthquake conflagrations.

San Francisco voters believed, in multiple bond measures, that they were supporting and funding an expansion of the AWSS system into western, southern and other neighborhoods where AWSS coverage is lacking. They believed that a significant portion of the bond revenue — money borrowed through sale of municipal bonds — would be used to pay for the expansion of seismically resilient Auxiliary Water Supply System (AWSS) for post-earthquake firefighting into the 15 neighborhoods, including The Sunset and The Richmond, where AWSS was lacking and is still lacking today.

However, as their new Western Potable EFWS proposal clearly demonstrates, SFPUC has no interest in building what the people voted to fund. So SFPUC has laid out a complex proposal that is, at its heart, a classic bait-and-switch confidence scheme.

The Western Potable EFWS enhanced drinking water scheme necessitates a stunning level of system complexity, eschewing the engineering elegance of the AWSS. That system complexity combined with the admission embedded within the proposal that decontamination of the potable water system — if Lake Merced water has to be introduced for the alternate purpose of post-earthquake firefighting — may take weeks or even months to complete, renders the entire system untenable as a post-earthquake emergency firefighting water source.

One of the experts with whom I consulted put it this way:

“When an earthquake of the magnitude on which this system is premised happens, the system has to be as simple, reliable and direct as possible since any failure (and there myriad potential points of failure in this scheme) can render the entire operation a complete and catastrophic failure, with the result that first the underserved neighborhoods will burn, followed by the rest of the City. By this I mean that if, for example, the fires in the Richmond and the Sunset can’t be contained, the areas with traditional AWSS will be overwhelmed as well.”

I have done my due diligence. SPFUC’s proposed Western Potable EFWS system has been found wanting, deeply so.

Now I must turn my full attention to the Planning Department’s environmental review of this project. For their sake, I hope they have done their jobs with greater skill than SFPUC because reviewing the Western Potable EFWS has fouled my mood. Gird your loins my SF Planning friends because we’re going to dissect every page and check every footnote, table and appendix. No shortcuts, no fast-tracks, I’m going to find and challenge everything that is wrong with this environmental review. That’s a promise… john

I have embedded below what I wrote previously about this public notice, comment period and environmental review declaration (PMND) for your easy reference. Read it here or follow the link to the previous post for additional background… JBC

Public Safety Redlining

Preliminary Mitigated Negative Declaration. Whatever that means.

Public Notice went out Wednesday, October 29th. I have embedded that notice below because I want people to know about this, one way or another, and to comment and participate in this process, one way or another.

“Project Description:

A PMND has been prepared by San Francisco Planning in connection with this project as required by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to study the project’s potential physical environmental effects.

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) is proposing construction of the Westside Potable Emergency Firefighting Water System project (project), which would add a dual-purpose, earthquake-resistant high-pressure water transmission pipeline within existing public streets to provide both fire protection and redundancy for potable water conveyance to western San Francisco.

The project would include installation of approximately 16 miles of belowground pipeline and associated appurtenances. In addition, improvements would be installed at existing SFPUC facilities as follows: 1) pump station upgrades at the Lake Merced Pump Station; and 2) two new emergency pump stations at the existing Central Pump Station/Merced Manor Reservoir and at Sunset Reservoir. The project would be designed and constructed in phases as funding becomes available, with construction over approximately 15 years from 2026 through 2040. The project would extend generally from Lake Merced in the south to Lincoln Park and the Presidio in the north, generally bounded by Park Presidio Boulevard and 19th Avenue on the east and the Great Highway on the west. More information from the SFPUC may be found at: www.sfpuc.gov/emergencywater.”

San Francisco Planning, Public Notice, October 29, 2025

The most obvious question that comes to mind is whether or not this is a sufficient seismically resilient firefighting water system to deliver water for fighting fires after a massive earthquake (a.k.a The Big One)?

Sincerely, I do not think so. I have written previously about the glaring absence of Auxiliary Water Supply System (AWSS) in the western and southern neighborhoods of San Francisco — Conflagration! and Follow the Fire Hydrant Money. SFPUC has attempted to foist a combined emergency firefighting and potable water transmission system before.

“As with any good story about bad decisions, there is always someone willing to add insult to injury. In this case, quite a number of someones. Not only have 112 years passed but in the last 15 years the voters of San Francisco have passed three Earthquake Safety and Emergency Response (ESER) capital bonds and yet, nary an AWSS hydrant in any of those 15 aforementioned neighborhoods, certainly none in The Sunset where I live.”

Conflagration! Though The Heavens Fall, John Crabtree

I guess the SFPUC would prefer that I and everyone else just forget about that history. But I don’t think that I will. I understand that I have to do my due diligence and review the combined potable and emergency firefighting water system proposal that they have brought forward this year, and I will.

However, there is no way that any of us should ignore 15 years of mismanagement of at least $312 million in bond revenues. SFPUC has never embraced or even accepted the mission of expanding AWSS coverage to the western and southern neighborhoods where it is lacking. They have squandered the ESER capital bond funds attempting to perpetrate a fraudulent shell-game on San Francisco taxpayers because they would rather spend their time and the resources available to them to on replacing things like aging potable water mains.

That shell-game has gone on ever since 2010 when Governor Gavin Newsom, who was the mayor of San Francisco then, transferred the authority over the city’s AWSS from SFFD to the SFPUC. The city, and SPFUC especially, needs to understand that the residents of the westside will, for as long as it takes, enter processes such as this one with a skepticism born of decades of deception and neglect.

When government draws a line around a district or a community and refuses to provide a public service that is afforded other districts, there is a word for that. When public and private financial institutions have done the same to people seeking home ownership mortgages it is called redlining. Is it really any different when a city does the same thing with doling out public safety? I certainly do not think so — Public Safety Redlining.

Armed with well-deserved skepticism I will set about figuring out if this new SFPUC plan is worth the paper it is written on. I encourage all of my readers to do the same. There is much at stake because “The Big One” is coming, we cannot know when, but it is coming. We should do everything possible to hold SFPUC’s and the city’s feet to the fire on this matter or fire is what we will all see in the end.

As always, your thoughts on this proposed project as well as the Planning Department’s Preliminary Mitigated Negative Declaration are welcome and most appreciated… john