The Burlingame Voice

San Mateo County: By the Numbers

The 2020 census data dropped this week and with it we get a view of how our County has been growing and changing.  The Comicle lists the numbers for San Mateo County as shown below; with the Change column added by me because that is what any numerate person would be interested in seeing without having to calculate it themselves.

                                        2010                2020            Change

Population                       718,451            764,442        +45,991

% Age 16+                           77.8%             79.8%           +2.0%

Then there is the constant need to highlight Ethnicity

White                                   42.3%            36.1%            -6.2% 

Hispanic                               25.4%            25%               -0.4%

Black                                    2.6%              1.9%             -0.7%

Asian                                    24.5%            29.8%            +5.3%

Other                                    5.2%              7.2%             +2.0%

Now a bit of analysis.  The ten-year growth in population is 6.4% which equates to a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 0.622%.  That is a little more than half the growth rate of Alameda County (11.4%) and a shade below our southern neighbor Santa Clara County at 8.7%.  I'm not sure I trust the SF County number of 8.5% given the exodus accelerated after the start of the census.

Given that we have the exact same water storage capacity as we had ten years ago, I would have to conclude that any "crisis"-driven move to add lots more high-density housing on top of the massive amount that is already approved and/or being built is misguided.  There is more data to come soon on how much more efficient we are getting in our water usage, but taking 6.4% up to 8.7% or 11.4% without a comprehensive plan is crazy.

My Gubernatorial Pipe Dream

Today was the last day to file papers to replace Gavin Newsom as governor of California.  I did not get my paperwork in as planned.  Ever since Arnold bested a field of 135 candidates to replace Gray Davis in 2003, I have regretted not throwing my hat in the ring.  But I was busy back then.  What could be more fun than a "gadfly" run at the governor's mansion?  More importantly, for $4,200 anyone could have their candidate's statement printed in the voter guide and mailed to all 20.9 million registered voters in the state.  That is a bargain!

I didn't get around to filing today, but I did write my candidate's statement.  Here you go:

Day 1:  I will kill the High-speed rail project saving California taxpayers $100+ billion.  Newsom knows it is the right thing to do, but cannot buck Big Labor.

Day 2:  I will redirect all available infrastructure funding to our water systems and new storage.  We cannot address housing until we have sufficient water security for the population and businesses that are already here.  Our best defense against climate change is a lot more trees that need water.

Day 3:  I will quadruple our wildfire firefighting capabilities by redirecting much of our $105 billion budget surplus to personnel and equipment.  There is no excuse for being surprised 5 years in a row and we need those trees, not the pollution from the wildfires.  It's a no-brainer.

Day 4:  I will sign an executive order guaranteeing Californians easy, cost-effective access to all sources of energy including natural gas, gas for cars, propane and nuclear power without limitation.  Existing local restrictions will be invalidated, and the existing solar credits and net metering will continue.

Day 5:  I will clear the way for single-family residential zoning to stay single-family residential zoning.  These neighborhoods are the backbone of our communities and need to be safeguarded.  There is plenty of R2 and R3 zoning to meet our near term housing needs.

Day 6:  I will issue a series of RFPs to upgrade the primitive computer systems at the EDD, the DMV, the court system and the voter registration system while recouping the $30+ billion of EDD fraud that Newsom seems to have forgotten about.

Day 7:  I will issue an executive order that reinforces cities’ and town’s rights to have at-large city council and school board elections when they have less than 100,000 residents.  Postage stamp-sized governance is not good governance.

Then I will have dinner at the French Laundry. I will pay for my own dinner and no lobbyists will be invited.  Breakfast at Alana's the next morning and then back to work.  There is plenty more to be done.  When you read that voter's guide before September 14, you know what to look for!  I appreciate the people who previewed my agenda and offered to host a coffee for me.  That and $30 million would have done the trick :-)

Koonin - Part 1 "Unsettled" is Required Reading

I've just finished reading the most important climate change book available today.  Steven Koonin's Unsettled addresses "what climate science tells us, what it doesn't, and why it matters".  Koonin was a professor at CalTech for 30 years, provost for 10 of those years, chief scientist at BP focused on renewable energy technologies, Undersecretary for Science at the Department of Energy in the Obama Administration and is now a professor at NYU.

His book uses available data from many government and academic sources and applies his cross-functional knowledge in physics, computer modelling, statistics, climate science, etc to understand what the data tells us--and more importantly, what it doesn't tell us.  Over 14 chapters, his analysis is devastating to "The Science" that our politicians and climate activists claim is all settled.  By eliminating the cherry picking of data that occurs via selecting narrow windows of time or geography, adding the statistical confidence intervals to measurements that get headlines and noting the counterbalancing effects of some forms of emissions Koonin shows that the media (and some unscrupulous academics and government agencies) are misleading the public.

The book is technical as it must be, but he has written it for the general public so it's very readable if you have some basic knowledge of chemistry, physics and math--mostly statistics.  I've listed this post as Part 1 because I plan to serialize some parts of the book.  Here in B'game we have banned natural gas in new construction, begun worrying about sea level rise, promoted electric cars and issued warnings about all sorts of natural disasters supposedly related to climate change.  Before we get too far into these restrictions and expenses wouldn't it be good to know more about how human activity is really affecting the climate.

Water Security: Ignore the Elephant in the Room

Our new state senator, Josh Becker, hosted a webinar about water issues in the state on May 27th that reiterated some of the points made during the Burlingame study session I covered here.  Gary Kremen, Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the Santa Clara Valley Water District sounded the alarm when he said "we're beyond concerned, we're a little scared".  That was the same day that Santa Clara implemented the latest water restrictions, but Kremen also said "Santa Clara County cannot make it on conservation".  He also noted that recycled water costs 4-5 times as much as water from the usual sources.

There were two speakers from academia, Dr. Newsha Ajami, Director of Urban Water Policy, Stanford's Water in the West Program and Felicia Marcus, Former Chair, State Water Resources Control Board, and fellow at Stanford's Water in the West Program.  Ajami pushed the need for future development to have a "zero water footprint" -- the "net-zero development" that was mentioned during the B'game session.  The idea revolves around recycling on-site (similar to "purple pipe" but on-site) and having developers go find water to buy on long-term contract.  That seems like a stretch to me especially if a developer would need to provide water for 25-40 years or more.  The bureaucratic overhead seems enormous and the costs would be impossible to predict.

Dr. Ajami also made a critical point about reservoir capacity that was news to me.  She said the state "has already built reservoirs where they work best" and that we should be transitioning to groundwater storage going forward.  Couple that with her assertion that desalinization is "not viable now" and you have a recipe for near term turmoil as we go into a serious drought.

The Q&A part of the webinar was the most concerning to me.  Right at the very end of the session, Sen. Becker read a question about adding housing in the face of this scary water scenario.  This is the elephant in the room--a pair of elephants actually--commercial and residential development.  Becker's 10 second "non-answer" was that he was working in Sacramento to get more money.  No mention of what that money would go towards; especially given all of the options mentioned during the session are outrageously expensive, hard to implement and/or so far in the future that they won't remotely help our situation anytime soon.  The little joke about "brown being the new green" referring to lawns did nothing to ease that concern.  When you couple the two sessions together you see we are in for a rough ride and nobody wants to look at the elephant.

B'game Water Security: The "Message is Alarming"

The City Council study session on Monday before the regular council meeting was an eye-opener for some people.  Public Works director Syed Murtuza summed it up by noting that "the message is alarming" and councilman Ricardo Ortiz followed by saying "there is lots to worry about here".  The CEO and General manager of BAWSCA, Nicole Sandkulla, along with consultant Anona Dutton from EKI led the discussion as part of the update to the B'game Urban Water Management Plan (UWMP) that happens every five years.

The update is an attempt to forecast water supply and demand so we can see how secure or "reliable" our water will be.  It is more of a long-term analysis verses the short-term limits like voluntary or prescribed rationing.  One big issue is the fact that SFPUC has expressed serious doubts about the Tuolumne River ecosystem benefits of the State Water Board’s plan to keep rivers flowing enough for the salmon and now feels the need to file a lawsuit about it.  That could take years to resolve.

Here are some key points from the study session:

Total B'game water demands are projected to increase 35% from 2020 to 2045 even if we can manage to reduce per capita demand from 66 to 59 gallons per person per day.

If supplies were reduced by 45 percent, could the City meet this?  Possibly by elimination of outdoor watering and establishing reduced residential water budgets to approximately 40 gallons/person/day.  Outdoor watering is categorized as "discretionary usage", but councilwoman Emily Beach noted that our trees need watering that is far from "discretionary".  The city e-newsletter is already asking residents to water the street trees, especially the young ones.

The city could consider exploring “water-neutral” growth policies.  A "net-zero" or "water-neutral" policy would mean large-scale developments would have to go find/buy enough new water to supply their project and inject it into the system.

The bottom line (for me anyways) is that we do not have enough water right now to get through any serious run of dry years.  I was able to speak with CEO/GM Nicole Sandkulla after the meeting about overall demand for all 26 agencies in BAWSCA.  The current forecasts call for increases between .5% and 1.5% per year over the next 20 years, but do not include any future changes to land-use regulations.  And there in lies the rub.  Here is a chart from the presentation that highlights the possible shortfalls in Burlingame.

ECR: The Flooding Continues

I feel like a broken record about the flooding in the same exact spots on El Camino every single solitary time it rains.  These last two storms, although pretty modest in precipitation, were no different.  The news is that I happened to be driving by when two B'game Public Works guys were examining the problem so I got the situation straight from the experts.  For the flood zone shown below which looks a lot like the one from last year at this time, BPW has done everything they can to clear the drain, but the partial blockage is too far in from the drain to reach.  It's also not B'game's responsibility--BPW is just trying to do a good deed.

While we wait years for the massive rehab of the whole thoroughfare expected to cost umpteen millions, how about Caltrans gets its act together, bring in some equipment that we don't have--even if that means digging up the street?  It's not like it doesn't need repaving there anyway.  There are at least six other spots on ECR that are about as bad and just as predictable.  Heck they don't take the signs away until the rain stops for the Spring.  I suppose until someone get injured or killed and sues, nothing will happen.  Very sad.

 

Drought 2021: Here We Go Again

I'm still bothered by state Sen. Scott Weiner's naïve response to a water question he got during his visit to B'game almost two years ago.  When asked "where will the water come from to support all the new housing (and people) you are demanding?" his response landed squarely between "I don't know", "We should look at that" and "It's not my concern".  Two years have passed--both drought years -- and we are no closer to a state-wide plan than we were then.  There's always something "more important" getting in the way and yet the development addicts seem able to press on with their demands.

Here in B'game, the every five-year update to our Urban Water Management Plan is behind schedule.  Public works has been swamped (no pun intended) with parklets, paving projects, going green and adding traffic lights and signage.  The next update will be the first to comply with a new state mandate that it examine a five-year drought instead of only a three-year episode.  That should make for interesting reading when the first draft comes out--hopefully soon.

In the meantime, here we go again according to the Comicle

The state’s monthly snow survey on Tuesday will show only about 60% of average snowpack for this point in the year, the latest indication that water supplies are tightening. With the end of the stormy season approaching, forecasters don’t expect much more buildup of snow, a key component of the statewide supply that provides up to a third of California’s water.

Urban water agencies, meanwhile, are asking customers to think twice about long showers and outdoor watering. The calls for austerity will feel familiar to many Californians who less than five years ago faced mandatory water restrictions during the 2012-2016 drought.  More importantly, the northern Sierra’s 8-Station Index, which tracks rain in the region where California gets the bulk of its water, measured only 45% of average precipitation.  While March and April could still bring rain, the heart of the wet season is over. Much of the state is now poised to have a top-10 dry year.

As an avid skier, I can recall several Miracle Marches and even an Amazing April or two, but let's face it, the people who are trying to overbuild the Bay Area just don't care.  It's time some other leaders stepped in and called for a reset, a review, a plan and compliance.

Update:  Yesterday a huge branch fell off a street tree at Vernon and Clarendon hitting the nearby house.  The drought is stressing trees throughout the state, so expect more of this until we prioritize trees over condos and offices.

Update:  March 24.  In today's Comicle:  "It would have to be biblical to adjust a water allocation at this point," (Karla) Nemeth (director CDWR) said, referring to the end of the winter season.

Water Security: An Historical View

Just because I have not written on water issues lately doesn't mean I haven't stopped worrying about our water security.  The drumbeat for development has not diminished even as we hear of the Bay Area exodus continuing.  I have attended a couple of professional seminars on the topic recently and neither have given me any confidence that this long-running problem is being worked on.  How long running?  Here is an historical perspective from the Tahoe Weekly newspaper's local historian Mark McLaughlin:

In 1870s, Southern Pacific Railroad (SPRR) started taking rain (in 1871) and snowfall (in 1879) measurements at its train stations across the Central Sierra. A primary reason for the data collection was to help convince American farmers to buy acreage in the Central Valley that SPRR had acquired in land grants and was now selling. Farmers from the Midwest and East Coast were attracted by California’s long growing season, but skeptical that the 20 inches or less of annual precipitation in the valley was sufficient to nourish crops. The railroad used its weather data to illustrate that portions of the west slopes of the Sierra Range receive up to 80 inches of precipitation, with much of it falling as snow above 6,000 feet in elevation. The prodigious spring and summer snowmelt fed streams and rivers flowing into the valley, thus providing abundant irrigation water for crops and ranching.

The importance of snow runoff storage was apparent even 150 years ago.  In a piece in today's WSJ about the Bay Area exodus, it notes

Between 2005 and 2019 employment in the five counties that make of the bulk of the Bay Area grew by 29% adding 674,000 jobs, according to California's Employment Development Department.  Yet construction permits were issued for just 211,000 units, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.  Planners say the ratio of new jobs to new housing units should be around 1.5 to one.

So you see the problem.  "Just 211,000" units with many, many more in the pipeline and legislative threats to ramp up even further, but no new water storage in the SFPUC-run system.  What could go wrong?  Heckuva way to run a railroad.

The Ups and Downs of Downtown Parking

Just a couple of blocks separate the largest additions to downtown parking we have seen in more than a generation.  The public lot between Lorton and Highland, just south of Howard is rising briskly while the underground parking at the old Hower Auto lot at Bayswater and Myrtle and the one next to the Dairy Boy mural dive deep into subterranean B'game.  With parklets here to stay, the public lot should prove to be popular even if it is further from the Avenue than most people are accustomed to walking.  The two deep digs for new construction have me scratching my head a bit.  I thought the building code called for only going down as far as the water table, but it looks like that restriction has fallen quietly by the wayside.  It's probably a victim of the extreme pressure for more development- residential and commercial.  When this latest drought is over it will be interesting to see how downtown drainage is affected.

Cooling center in Burlingame

We live an an unsettling time where nothing is the way we expect. Yesterday and today we've broken temperature records for this time of year. In year's past however those of us who are not blessed with air conditioning or swimming holes could rely on cooling centers like the public library. ( Why our library could not be open as a cooling center even with today's challenges is a sore point with me, but I don't want to rant and rave today, it's simply too hot.) What I would rather do is remind everyone that there is a reliable cooling center in Burlingame that is always open and can easily accommodate social distancing. It's our extensive bay front. I took my lawn chair and a cooler and went there on both days. The cooling effect was not as great as a dip in a cold pool or not akin to being surrounded by cool air from the AC, but it was a respite of sorts and somehow looking at the water in the bay had the intended cooling effect. At some points along the bay front trail there were, like me, those who just wanted to enjoy the breeze and the view, others could be seen in the water and on the beach, yes a beach in Burlingame--not a particularly pretty one,(the scene reminded me of something from behind the iron curtain,) but yeah it was a beach and it was giving pleasure to a number of people. In short, in these strange times, we can rely on something, small as it is. Consider this a positive public service reminder that we who live in Burlingame can enjoy the bay anytime we want and it's right in our own backyards.