Supervisors advance emergency repairs at Southeast Wastewater plant and send $80M planning contract to the board

The San Francisco Budget & Finance Subcommittee on July 10 heard two linked Public Utilities Commission proposals to stabilize and ultimately replace aging digesters at the Southeast Wastewater Treatment Plant in Bayview‑Hunters Point.

The committee agreed to an amendment, at the PUC and budget analyst’s request, to increase emergency authorization for repairs following a routine inspection that identified corroded, mobile roofs on multiple digesters. Emilio Cruz, assistant general manager for infrastructure at the PUC, told the committee the plant — commissioned in 1952 — handles a large share of the city’s solids processing and that corrosion and proximity to the bay raised the risk of roof collapse and a public‑health event. Cruz said the first digester repair is expected in October and that repairs to the remaining units would be staged over roughly two years (about four months per digester).

Budget analyst Harvey Rose told the committee the resolution before members did not initially include a prior sole‑source emergency contract for Digester 2, completed in February for about $1.3 million, and recommended the resolution be amended upward to cover the consolidated series of emergency repairs. The committee’s motion to accept that amendment was made on the record and the item was continued to the July 17 Budget & Finance meeting to allow the required one‑week posting and final technical adjustments.

Separately, the committee forwarded to the full Board a long‑range contract to fund design and planning for a complete rebuild of the Southeast plant. The PUC requested authorization for an agreement with Brown and Caldwell not to exceed $80 million for planning and engineering services as the first phase of an overall program PUC staff estimated at more than $1 billion, including roughly $800 million in construction. Cruz described the selected team as a multi‑firm group with international expertise and said Brown and Caldwell committed $1,000,000 in community benefits and more than $11,000,000 in LBE (local business enterprise) participation.

Community testimony was strongly supportive: dozens of speakers from Bayview‑Hunters Point described persistent odors, health concerns, and long delays in investment, and urged quick action. Local LBE representatives and members of the Brown and Caldwell team described outreach and local‑hire plans and said the firm exceeded the PUC’s 10% LBE goal.

The committee’s actions kept short‑term emergency repairs moving under the amended authorization and sent the longer planning contract to the full Board for final approval. The item will return for final committee action after the required one‑week posting; the planning contract now proceeds to the Board agenda.