In the 20th century, water project developers relied on engineering infrastructure to meet the economic aspirations and lifestyles of Californians in a region where rainfall is not regular. Main examples:

• The Los Angeles Aqueduct transports water from the eastern side of the Sierras to Southern California, initially for agriculture and later for urban development.
• The Colorado River Aqueduct and All American Canal serve urban Southern California and agriculture in the Imperial and Coachella valleys.
• The federal Central Valley Project (CVP) system of dams, reservoirs and canals primarily serves agriculture in the Central Valley, but also the Central Coast and urban users in Contra Costa and Santa Clara counties.
• The Hetch Hetchy Project, originating in Yosemite, delivers water from the Tuolumne River through the San Joaquin Valley to the greater San Francisco Bay Area.
• The Mokelumne Aqueduct provides water to urban users in the East Bay Area.
• The State Water Project (SWP) system of dams, reservoirs and canals transports water originally classified as “surplus” in the North to meet varying needs in coastal areas, the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California.

The final four of these projects impact the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and the San Francisco Bay-Delta estuary. In 2008, the State Water Resources Control Board reported that the water rights it managed in the Bay/Delta Watershed exceeded the average annual natural flow: for every acre-foot of water in the Delta Watershed, 8.4 acre-feet of water was promised on paper .

Ongoing water battles between regions and between urban and agricultural users reflect “paper water” or other unrealistic expectations that actual supplies cannot reliably meet. When supplies fell short of expectations, the water agency was pressured to deliver water anyway, even at the expense of endangered species and the health of people and the delta and estuary ecosystem. When surface water is not available, users resort to groundwater and overdraft it to compensate.

Each of the major water projects faces supply, environmental and climate challenges that planners did not anticipate. It is no longer clear that more infrastructure is the answer.

Jane Wagner-Tyack, LWVC Water Committee Co-Chair

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The next part of our series of articles on California water can be posted to your local League Voter at this link.

Next comes: The water-energy nexus – Water movement, heating and treatment, and wastewater treatment collectively represent one of the largest end-uses of electricity and natural gas in California.

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“I say this as a very strong supporter of safe injection sites: [The veto] can’t be used as a reason to not do everything that we possibly can right now,” he said.

“Some of my colleagues have said [safe injection sites are] not going to solve the problem, that we need to stop these drugs, we need to stop the drug dealing, we need to get people into treatment,” he added. “And what I said to them about that is, ‘Yes, yes and yes. So we had a small setback around the safe injection sites, but we need the yes, yes and yes to everything else in the meantime.”

Haney should expect the committee’s GOP lawmakers to push some of those other conversations, said Assemblymember Laurie Davies, a Republican who represents southern Orange County. She successfully pushed legislation this year that will make it easier to distribute fentanyl tests, which allow people to detect the presence of the deadly opioid in other drugs.

“There’s a lot of other things that we need to work on. But I’m just grateful that eyes are opening and they realize this is a crisis and we can do something to stop it,” she said, adding that one part of the conversation needs to be around prosecuting people who sell deadly fentanyl.

“This isn’t just an inner-city problem. It’s affecting every parent, it’s affecting every race and every color,” Davies said. “We’re losing men, women, children, no matter what the races, what their religion is, what their party affiliation is. This is something that affects every single Californian.”

One of those Californians who has been devastated by the impact of opioids is San Francisco resident Amy Cooper. She lost her son, John, to an overdose in 2014 — and then watched the dentist who had prescribed him the drugs without ever meeting him get acquitted at trial.

Cooper said since John’s death, she’s dedicated herself to advocating for solutions and educating people about the fentanyl problem. She said lawmakers need to focus on both education and accountability, including holding both doctors and pharmaceutical companies responsible.

“I can just tell you, 100%, we were uneducated and unaware. We had no idea that this was happening and that it was happening for our son. And then the results are just catastrophic,” she said.

Another aspect of the crisis that some hope to shed light on is the number of young people mistakenly buying drugs — often online — that turn out to be fentanyl. Lee Trope, a pediatric doctor at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, said many of her patients seem to be experimenting with different substances and wind up becoming addicted to fentanyl or overdosing on it.

“They don’t realize what they’re buying, oftentimes on apps like Snapchat,” she said. “They think what they’re buying — they all call it ‘percs’ — they think they’re buying Percocet, which is a … less-potent opioid. And it’s pure fentanyl.”

Jayme Congdon, a pediatrician and researcher at UC San Francisco, said the new select committee will be raising awareness as it does its work — and she also believes shedding light on the issue is the first step toward change.

Congdon said 250 teens are dying in California each year from opioids. That’s seven times the number of pediatric COVID-19 deaths the state has witnessed.

“Because substance use and addiction are stigmatized issues, it’s just one of these topics that I think, you know, people think it’s not going to affect them or their families until it does,” she said. “We’re so pleased to see Assemblymember Haney is taking the lead on this issue so this crisis is hopefully going to start getting the attention that is warranted.”

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This week, a bill proposing moving heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems in schools to more energy efficient units and speeding up approvals for electrical and zero-emission vehicle infrastructure will get one of the final votes needed for approval by the legislation 18 months after the initial introduction to the congregation.

A multi-faceted bill based on energy efficiency

Bill 841, drafted by MP Phil Ting (D-San Francisco), would specifically require the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to take final decisions on new zero-emission vehicle infrastructure such as EV chargers for electric cars by March 2021. AB 841 would essentially all charging stations or places where charges are offered have a separate charging meter infrastructure by mid-2021. Charging stations would only be installed by licensed contractors with a person installing such EV infrastructure with certification of the EV infrastructure training program.

The bill also addresses HVAC systems in schools. AB 841 would provide funding to schools, as part of the Schools Energy Efficiency Program, to set up more energy efficient and better ventilated HVAC systems. Inefficient and non-compliant plumbing systems would also be replaced by less wasteful ones.

The PUC would get funding for the School Energy Efficiency Program through 2023 and would also involve energy companies to find the best systems for schools. 25% of all new systems are deployed to schools in underserved communities, with those schools being prioritized for newer systems.

MP Ting originally wrote the bill to promote energy conservation, lower energy bills for schools, reduce pollution and create more green jobs. However, the advent of COVID-19 has shown that schools need to have better air quality and prevent COVID-19. After a year of inactivity, the upcoming shoulder mine revived the bill in June and MP Ting changed the bill to better emphasize the need for COVID-19.

This resulted in AB 841 being passed by the Senate’s Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee earlier this month.

“More green jobs under CA’s stimulus plan!” Exclaimed MP Ting after the committee vote. “A Senate committee passed my Law AB 841Temporary diversion of energy efficient funds to improve HVAC systems in schools, which can help prevent the spread of COVID-19;; The bill also accelerates the approval process for electric vehicles Charger. “

More green jobs under CA’s #EconomicStimulusPlan! A Senate committee passed my Law No. AB841, which temporarily diverted energy efficient funds to improve HVAC systems in schools to prevent the spread of No. COVID19. The bill also expedites approvals for # EV chargers.

– Phil Ting (@PhilTing) August 4, 2020

The opposition to AB 841 is growing

While the bill was originally unanimously and bipartisan backed when it was a water safety bill last year, the bill’s changed priorities have largely split the vote. Many GOP legislators have spoken out against the bill because AB 841 combines two topics in one bill and questions arise about whether or not HVAC systems need to be replaced in many schools. The need for additional temporary expenses and department expansion at such an economically critical time has also been questioned by many in Sacramento.

“The bill almost built in a driver,” remarked attorney Megan Kirsch in a Globe interview. “One part deals with electric cars, the other with air conditioning systems for schools. One part fulfills this exemption for COVID-19 invoices in this session, the other does not.

“When I read this, that was the first thing that came to mind. How much did that pack in one bill with things that had nothing to do with each other. “

“I can see how many senators voted against in committee alone. Nobody votes against child safety, right? Especially during a pandemic? Well, that just adds something, and that’s not right. And this is how many legislators see it. That is not right.”

“We have a few weeks to go before the end of the session, so we’ll see how far this goes. Many lawmakers see this bill for what it is and it is sad because improving air conditioning for schools, especially during such a heatwave, is very beneficial. But it is dumped in other projects. “

Despite the uncertainty about the bill, AB 841 is expected to retain a majority of support in both the Assembly and Senate.

AB 841 is expected to be negotiated by the Senate Appropriations Committee very soon.

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Anne Halsted’s 50 years in San Francisco began in a spectacularly inconspicuous way: They organized an action to rededicate a sewage treatment plant in their neighborhood. It worked.

After that success, she went for a higher goal by creating the Telegraph Hill Historic District to preserve the 19th century housing stock. It wasn’t long before every conservation and citizenship commission in San Francisco, the Bay Area, and all of California was calling.

Her awards included being named first woman on the San Francisco Port Commission and vice chair of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission in planning and running the 2013 America’s Cup, the largest event ever held in the Bay.

“You won’t find many people more dedicated to public service than Anne Halsted,” said US Senator Dianne Feinstein. “She’s served on so many nonprofit boards, planning groups, and fundraisers that it’s hard to know where she found the time and energy.”

Halsted continued even after lymphomas and incessant chemotherapy treatments had depleted her tremendous energy. At her home near Coit Tower, so many agendas, reports, and legal documents for government and nonprofit meetings were arriving in packages that she had to add a second mailbox. She planned to attend a Metropolitan Transportation Commission committee meeting despite learning that chemotherapy had stopped working and an experimental drug study had failed. Halsted died on March 13 at her weekend home in Glen Ellen. She was 78 years old.

Everything she did was unpaid and often unnoticed, including her work for and the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR), which she served continuously since 1982, including two terms as president. The San Francisco Redevelopment Agency Commission, People for Open Space, the San Francisco Open Space Advisory Board, the Greenbelt Alliance, Friends of the Urban Forest – the list goes on for 20 organizations, many of which they looked after during their full-time jobs at a leasing agency.

“Anne is an example to all of us of how to live a life dedicated to improving your community and the lives of those around you,” Feinstein said via email.

Anne Watson Halsted was born on November 21, 1942 in Charleston, West Virginia. Her father was in the coal equipment business. She graduated from Duke University in 1964 with a degree in political science and came to San Francisco in 1969, where she accepted a position in the human resources department at United States Leasing International.

Living alone in an apartment in Nob Hill for the first time, Halsted had a revelation that prompted her to separate her legacy from coal mining and dedicate her life to public service for women, minorities, and the environment in San Francisco and the wider Bay Area.

“Anne was wealthy and had the opportunity to pursue any lifestyle she wanted,” said longtime friend Ken Maley.

In 1978 Halsted bought a simple 1870s Italian house on Montgomery Street, just down the hill from old Speedy’s Market on Union Street. Her home office overlooked Coit Tower and Alta Street, one of the original apartment blocks in San Francisco. After witnessing the destruction of several of these charming little Victorians in the name of development, Halsted decided to do whatever he could to prevent it from happening.

“As she moved on, her interest in historical preservation expanded from just Telegraph Hill to the entire city,” said Maley, who lives around the corner. “Anne could be hard love, but love prevailed.”

After 10 years of single life, Halsted Wells met Whitney, a scientist with Raychem Corp. and a trustee of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. He moved into their house where they always stayed.

In 1990 Halsted retired after 20 years with US Leasing to fill her schedule with additional boards and committees. Her home office afterwards was full of reports and agendas being dragged up the hill on foot by Ed, the neighborhood postman.

“I would ask Wells, where is Anne?” Maley said and he said, “She’s on her appointments.” To get there, she took public transit and took the tiny 39-Coit bus to connect to the 30 Stockton or 45 Union overhead lines. If her appointment was in the East Bay, where the MTC is headquartered, she would take BART.

When she wasn’t on dates, she was on the court as a member of the San Francisco Tennis Club South of Market. She would take the bus there too. If she had no other exercise to burn off energy, she would walk up the hill to Pioneer Park, the plaza that surrounds Coit Tower.

On one of her walks she noticed that the stairs to the park on the west side were never completed when the tower was built in the early 1930s. So Halsted formed Friends of Pioneer Park to quit the job. It was completed in 2003 and now the Friends are funding tree maintenance and other improvements for visitors.

After many years of non-stop meetings and meetings, Halsted and Whitney bought modest weekend property in Glen Ellen so she could grow vegetables and roses. She did the hard work herself.

“She would be out there pulling weeds,” said Maley. “She grew cherry tomatoes, pumpkin, zucchini and beets. She hated wasting things so everyone who visited went home with a bag of products. “

In the summer of 2018, Halsted was visited by the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley to tell the story of her volunteer life for the Bancroft Oral History Project. It took her 13 hours to go through it all. The recording will be made available to the public shortly.

“Anne Halsted was a force to be reckoned with,” said Shanna Farrell, who interviewed Halsted in 2019 while undergoing treatment. “To boot, she was especially nice and always made me feel welcome.”

In addition to her husband, a niece, Katy Lonergan from San Francisco, and a nephew, Jeff Lonergan from Seattle, Halsted survive. Services are suspended due to the pandemic.

Donations can be made to Friends of Pioneer Park, San Francisco Parks Alliance, 1074 Folsom St., San Francisco, CA 94103.

Sam Whiting is a contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: swhiting@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @samwhitingsf

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