Presidio Trust Meeting, February 21, 2001

Toby Rosenblatt: Ladies and gentlemen, could we take our seats, please? We'll get started.

Could I ask whether there is anybody here who knows of other people who can use the assistance of signing? We'll ask again in another few minutes.

This is obviously a public board meeting of the Presidio Trust. There will be a transcript and videotape which will be available for review in the library at the Presidio Trust in about two weeks. The transcript itself will be posted on the Presidio Trust web site.

The agenda today will deal most importantly with the Mountain Lake restoration, as you know. At the end of the presentation of that by Michael Boland and our staff, we would invite those of you who might want to address the board and the staff on that project. There'll be an opportunity for public comment on that, and we would like you to sign up with a speaker card. The cards are in the back if you hadn't picked one up on your way in.

Then we will be also having presentations from our staff and discussing the energy conservation programs and a new community center concept and finally, the new "Unseen Treasures" exhibition that will be coming here in the middle of March. Following that there will be an open opportunity for public comment on any subject that you might want to address to the board and the staff.

With that, I'd like to formally call the meeting to order. The first item of business: there were some minutes that were made available with this agenda for November 28th and January 23rd board meetings. Any additions or corrections? If not, a motion to approve, please.

Female voice: [I so move].

Toby Rosenblatt: And a second, please. All those in favor.

Various: Aye.

Toby Rosenblatt: Opposed. It's adopted unanimously.

Now, we would like to turn to the discussion of the Mountain Lake restoration. Jim, do you want to...

Jim Meadows: I'd like to introduce at this time Michael Boland, who's the project manager for the Mountain Lake restoration project and the ongoing analysis and plans that have been put forward for the restoration. As Toby mentioned, at the end of this presentation we will ask for if anyone has specific public comment about Mountain Lake restoration or the plans, and then we'll proceed with the other public comment period after the balance of the business. Michael?

Michael Boland: Thank you, Jim. Good morning. This morning I'd like to briefly review the Mountain Lake project. I'm going to focus on three things in my presentation. First I'd like to briefly discuss the history of the project. Secondly, review for all of us the elements of the preferred alternative. And lastly, I'd like to summarize some of the comments that we received in response to the Mountain Lake project.

The Mountain Lake enhancement plan has been developed as a partnership between three agencies: the Presidio Trust, which is the lead agency for NEPA compliance; the National Park Service; and the Golden Gate National Parks Association, which is overall project manager for the planning and also providing funding via the San Francisco International Airport, to fund the first phase of this project.

Mountain Lake, although it's beautiful, is really a lake in decline. The lake's water is shallow and nutrient-rich, which gives rise to regular algae blooms and fish kills. The shores are covered with exotic trees and weeds, which limits the wildlife habitat available and keeps the area looking pretty shabby.

In addition, visitor amenities are pretty thin, particularly along the east shore. There's an existing trail, which is eroded. There are other erosion problems along the south shore, and overall there's a real lack of visitor amenities and such.

In response to this growing community concern over this decline, the Mountain Lake enhancement plan has been developed. The project has had broad public involvement--in fact, I'm happy to see that several of our long-term project supporters are here from Friends of Mountain Lake Park this morning with us. The project has involved with individual citizens, neighborhood groups, and community organizations from around the city.

So really the impetus for the project or the acceleration of the project came with funding that was provided by the San Francisco International Airport for the first phase. This is mitigation money that came because of the construction of the International terminal at SFO.

The Mountain Lake project has an overall project objective of improving the health of Mountain Lake, and three supporting objectives, which are improving water quality, enhancing habitat, and enhancing the visitor experience. The project area is roughly 14 acres. This is the a map that shows you where it is. It is in the southern portion of the Presidio right on the Presidio boundary. About 7 percent of the site, out in the lower left corner of this drawing, actually falls under the jurisdiction of the city and county of San Francisco. Although this is within the project area, none of the actions that we're proposing will occur in this area.

The project area is surrounded on the southern side by Mountain Lake Park, which is a city park; on the east side by the Presidio golf course; and on the west side by Park Presidio Boulevard.

The preferred alternative developed with the community has six key components. Dredging of the lake bottom and aeration, exotic tree removal and revegetation along the east shore, buffer planting along Park Presidio Boulevard, an improved east shore trail with overlooks, a south shore overlook; and a future phase, which includes the removal of the culvert separating from the east arm from the lake, tree removal on the east arm, bridge construction where the culvert is removed, and re-vegetation in this area.

In terms of water quality--the dredging that we're proposing will remove about 11,500 cubic yards of material from the bottom of the lake, which will deepen the lake an average of four feet. In addition, we'll install an aeration system which will keep the lowest levels of water full of oxygen even in the hottest days of summer, thereby addressing one of the primary sources of algae growth and fish deaths.

In terms of habitat enhancements, the preferred alternative has a phased approach to the removal of exotic vegetation along the east shore and along the east arm. In this drawing we see that in the first phase we're removing about 1.36 acres of eucalyptus trees along the east shore. Subsequent phases will remove the few remaining eucalyptus trees along the east shore, as well as about 1.8 acres of eucalyptus trees along the east arm. In addition, buffer planting between the lake and the road will attempt to mitigate some of the visual impacts of tree removal.

Lastly, in terms of visitor amenities, there are several key components. The interpretive trail, which would be roughly 300 feet long. This is built where there is an existing trail that's really substandard. This is an attempt on our part to both improve the quality of that experience, and also to be accessible. The trail will be lined with a series of interpretive overlooks, creating opportunities for individuals and small groups to learn about the ecology of the lake.

In addition, a bridge will replace a portion of the De Anza trail which will be moved when the culvert is removed. It will also open up views of the east arm.

Lastly, a new overlook along the south shore will create an opportunity for people to get down and be near the lake directly opposite Mountain Lake Park.

This alternative, as well as three other alternatives, were presented in a draft plan at the Golden Gate National Recreation Advisory Commission meeting in October last year. The environmental assessment was released on November 1st. We took public comments at the GGNRA Advisory Commission meeting on November 28th, and the 45-day comment period closed in December. In response to the plan we received 19 comment letters. Ten of those were from individuals and nine of those were from organizations or individuals representing organizations. I'd like to review those comments briefly now.

In terms of the overall project, we received broad support for the project. I would say this is the single issue that came up more often than any other. In addition, we received broad support for the idea of implementing this project rapidly. The idea of getting there, getting it fixed up, and getting out as quickly as we can.

Two commenters also expressed a concern that the project struck a balance between design and ecology. They were advocating a much purer restoration approach. However, given that one of our objectives was to enhance visitor experience, our feeling is that the preferred alternative does a very good job of balancing both habitat restoration with several access objectives.

In terms of water quality, we received two concerns. The first was that mechanical aeration is not a natural solution. The second is that dredging is proposed in all of the alternatives--that we didn't develop a no-dredge option of dealing. Working with Alex Horne, professor at UC Berkeley, we crafted these objectives, the water quality solutions, very carefully. Aeration and dredging are both critical to our approach to resolve the water quality problems. And when we looked at both of the options. [Unintelligible].

Tree removal was probably the second most commonly raised issue in the letters that we received. And really, the responses ran the gamut. We received two letters that advocated that we not remove any exotic trees along the east shore on the project site. [Unintelligible]. We received one letter which strongly supported our approach, the spaced-tree removal approach. We received one letter which suggested that we remove most of the trees from the site except for one large tree right near the shore, where kids tend to swim into the water--there's a rope there, for those of you who have been to the site. We received four letters suggesting that we should remove all of the trees in the first phase and not leave any of the trees on the shore.

Similarly, in a kind of related comment, although not specifically addressing the issue of tree removal, two commenters suggested that we do all that we can to restore habitat on the site. The implication is that we should remove as many trees as possible. And I should emphasize, when I'm talking about tree removal I'm talking mostly about eucalyptus and a handful of other exotic, invasive tree species.

Lastly, two respondents suggested that we should plant trees along the edge of the golf course of a similar stature to cypress and pine to create a quick-growing buffer, so that when we remove the trees on the east shore there's another layer of visual barrier.

In terms of visitor experience, we received two comments more than any other. The first was that we build a sound wall on Park Presidio Boulevard. I should point Park Presidio Boulevard is not in the jurisdiction of the Trust, but it's actually something that's within the jurisdiction of Caltrans. So this is really a Caltrans affair.

The other issue that came up in terms of visitor experience is there's a fence that runs along West Pacific Avenue that's currently covered with ivy, and it keeps visitors from looking into the east arm, which is quite beautiful, and will be even more beautiful once the restoration is complete. Several letters advocated that we remove or shorten this fence so that we can provide visual access to the east arm.

In terms of hazardous materials, we received two concerns. First was several respondents were concerned about potential contaminated sediment in the lake bottom. The other concern that was raised was that runoff from Park Presidio Boulevard was directed into Mountain Lake at this time, and that that introduces contaminants into the lake water.

As a result of these issues and of further staff analysis, we are proposing a number of modifications to the preferred alternative. The first is we're proposing to plant trees along the golf course in the area where there are currently not cypress trees. Second, we're proposing to shorten the fence along West Pacific Avenue. Third, we're proposing to accelerate tree removal along the east shore. I'll come back to each of these topics in greater detail, I just wanted to summarize them now. Lastly, that we will encourage Caltrans to both build a sound wall and also reroute storm drains along Park Presidio Boulevard. [Unintelligible].

Based on our analysis, we determined that there were a number of advantages to tree removal along the east shore, and to accelerate the tree removal along the shore, I should say. First is that eucalyptus is highly invasive. For those of you familiar with the site, we have roughly a hundred eucalyptus trees along the east shore, and those are the offspring of four. Originally, four trees were planted; we now have a hundred, within a span of about 60 years. Eliminating the eucalyptus trees will eliminate the opportunity for them to spread rapidly to adjacent habitat areas, and also reduce maintenance nearby, which is maintenance intensive. In addition, the shade and the depth that eucalyptus trees grow will hamper our ability to restore the adjacent areas that we are restoring as part of the first phase. Lastly, based on the estimates that we've gotten, it's more cost effective in terms of capital costs for us to remove all of the trees at one time, or in a very short period of time.

The primary concern that we heard from the community about tree removal during the planning process was about the visual impact of removing all of the trees at once. However, we believe that there are a number of mitigating factors. The existing cypress trees, which are shown here in this photograph, that exist along the back shore of the golf course, if you go out there today, as part of the tank removal project you will see we've had to remove a number of eucalyptus trees. And you can begin to see the cypress trees through the eucalyptus trees, and you begin to get a sense that once those eucalyptus trees are removed, you'll have a backdrop of very beautiful, very mature cypress trees to look at.

In addition, there is a small gap in the canopy that I mentioned previously. We believe that early planting of trees--cypresses specifically--along this area--of a significant stature, which cypresses are fairly fast-growing, will also tend to mitigate the visual impact of removing those trees.

Lastly, the palette of plants that we developed for re-vegetating along the east shore includes a number of fast growing species, such as red alder, yellow willow and big leaf maple. All of these attain a height of 40 feet in a very short period of time.

Anyway, striking a balance between these things in terms of tree removal, our recommendation is that after the first phase of removal as described in the preferred alternative, that we work with the community to investigate the opportunity to remove the remaining trees on the east shore more quickly than we had originally proposed, which was within a period of about five years.

And this, just to remind everyone, is a picture of the ultimate destination along the east shore. It shows the foreground restored and the cypress trees peeking up beyond the restored lake area in the foreground. I should point out, this is after a period of 20 years.

In terms of visitor experience, we are advocating that the existing six-foot tall fence along the east arm be replaced with a shorter fence. In this photograph you can see that the ivy-covered fence in the foreground makes it completely impossible to look into the east arm. We believe that a shorter fence will improve visual access into the restored east arm and open up a whole new recreational and scenic resource that currently is closed off to the public.

In addition, as I mentioned before, we're recommending that the Trust encourage Caltrans to build a sound wall or some sort of noise reduction barrier along Park Presidio Boulevard to begin to mitigate the incredible impact of the adjacent Park Presidio Boulevard.

In terms of hazardous materials, in response to community concern the Trust has initiated a sampling regimen. The result of that sampling will be available early in March, and that will help us understand whether or not there are any hazardous materials concerns in the lake. Additionally, we're recommending that the Trust encourage Caltrans to reroute storm drains that currently exist away from there, so that we no longer have any runoff from Park Presidio Boulevard flowing into the lake.

Lastly, I'd like to briefly talk about next steps. We intend to have the new compliance complete by the end of February. We're hoping to spend the spring focusing on design development and developing the contract alternatives for the project. So that come summer, we can begin dredging and tree removal and the rest of the construction project. Our goal is that the first phase will be completely implemented by the beginning of February 2002, and our hope is that we will be able to implement the second phase within three to five years. Thank you.

Jim Meadows: Thank you, Michael. I'd like to point out before we receive public comment on Mountain Lake, to reiterate what Michael has said before the board. That the resolution we're proposing for the board to act upon is adoption of the preferred alternative and a finding of no significant impact, but that the board would recommend that staff evaluate, along with public input, acceleration of phase two after completion of phase one of tree removal. But that the action taken today is an adoption of the preferred alternative and proposal to allow the executive director to sign a document, basically a finding of no significant impact.

At this point, if there are people that have signed up for public comment on the specific plan--do we have any sign-up sheets for that?

Female voice: No cards.

[Inaudible comment from audience.]

Jim Meadows: I think we have two people that haven't signed cards but would like to speak, so I'd like to basically allow them to speak at this time. If you would identify yourself, because we are videotaping the comments. And if you could stand I'd appreciate it.

Michael Alexander: Thank you. I'm Michael Alexander. I'm a member of the GGNRA Advisory Commission. I'm speaking for myself.

I want to commend the Trust and Park Service and the Golden Gate National Parks Association. I think that this process, which I've followed carefully, is about as good as it gets. Issues of concern have been listened to carefully, have been addressed. I think that the proposed modifications to the preferred alternative address perfectly the comments of both neighbors and of the advisory commission and what we heard of the advisory commission meeting.

I would recommend adoption of the preferred alternative. I would make one note about what is being called the sound wall, because I got roundly beat up for asking for consideration of the sound wall. It raises a flag particularly for neighborhood people because they picture a concrete wall. And I misspoke at the advisory commission meeting in asking for consideration of it. What I really intended was a berm, a planted berm that would tend to absorb sound but not act as a reflector of sound, which would tend to bounce sound quite dramatically towards people's houses. With that exception and that modification, I think this is really an excellent plan. Thank you.

Winchell Hayward: My name is Winchell Hayward. I'm a member of the California Heritage Council, but I too am speaking for myself and not for the California Heritage Council.

Three things. First of all, there is a roadway that runs on the east side of Mountain Lake, and I've run it many times. It goes from an underpass under the freeway. A substandard trail was spoken of but I'm not sure whether by this was meant the roadway; to me, that's quite a substantial roadway--no trail at all. But there's no mention made of this road, and I think it might be needed for maintenance or something like that in the future rather than to obliterate it. I'm rather surprised that no mention was made of that existing roadway, which is paved and accessible to vehicles. So I would like to hear some comment on that.

The second thing is, you're going to shorten up this six-foot fence. I think if you shorten it up you're going to invite intrusion over the fence by people who should maybe be using a regular entrance. Because I would suspect that the fence was erected that height in order to prevent unauthorized access. So you should consider the aspect that people may climb that fence if you shorten it up.

The third thing is, I've observed that there's an old substation there and tanks and that kind of stuff. Maybe this is the stuff that's being removed, but I'm wondering if that was intended for water supply for the Presidio years ago. I think that Mountain Lake could be used as water supply for an emergency situation and in case the city's water supply becomes unavailable. So I hope that at least that should be considered--to make use of Mountain Lake as a standby water source for emergency and fire fighting purposes, and maybe also for--well, I don't think drinking water, but for fire fighting.

Those are my three comments. Before you adopt this, I think that you should give some consideration to it. Maybe you already have, but I've not heard mention of it. Thank you.

Jim Meadows: Michael, do you have something?

Michael Boland: Yeah, actually. Thank you for your comments. In terms of the road, I guess I didn't mention it because we're not touching it. The reference to the trail is there's a dirt trail that wraps down along the shore below that road--between the road and the shore. But the road will remain just as it is today. We understand and fully support the idea that that's a significant recreational resource and a significant way for people to get around the Presidio.

In terms of the last comment that you made, the tanks were actually part of the irrigation system used to irrigate the Presidio golf course, and the wells have been capped. They haven't been removed. Though all the tanks and everything have been removed, so that we can assess exactly the possibility or the potentiality that you describe, that those might need to be used in some fashion in an emergency situation sometime in the future. So that's something that we're handling.

Jim Meadows: What I would point out is that what we're working on today is basically a resolution of a finding of no significant impact and moving forward on the plan. As Michael pointed out, the plans will be developed over the spring for construction starting in the summer. We certainly have the ability to take into account comments made today or future comments that might be made to the Trust while we're formulating those final plans. Thank you.

Toby Rosenblatt: Are there any other speakers?

Let me just ask one more time, is there anybody here who's aware of anybody who needs signing? Apparently not. Thank you very much.

The board has before it the draft resolution for the findings as indicated by our executive director. Any questions from the board? If not, could I have a motion, please?

Bill Reilly: So moved.

Toby Rosenblatt: And a second?

Mike Heyman: Second.

Toby Rosenblatt: All those in favor.

Various: Aye.

Toby Rosenblatt: Opposed. Thank you. It's adopted unanimously.

The next item on our agenda is presentation and discussion of energy conservation programs.

Jim Meadows: I'd like to introduce Bruce Anderson and Amy Vincent, who are going to give a presentation on our energy conservation efforts at the Presidio. I'd like to point out that we have a lot of tough decisions to make in day-to-day business, but basically things like Mountain Lake restoration and becoming a center for sustainability and a center for energy conservation are two of the areas in which the Trust takes most pride and basically also is one of our biggest challenges.

At this point I'd like to have Deputy Director for Facilities Bruce Anderson discuss what we're doing in the areas of energy conservation.

Bruce Anderson: Welcome. Once again, my name is Bruce Anderson. I am the deputy director for facilities of the Presidio Trust. Each day the Presidio Trust is working to improve sustainable practices on the Presidio. From retrofitting and current plumbing to rehabilitating building, we focus on conserving resources, reducing toxics and minimizing waste.

Today we want to highlight some current sustainable activities, and discuss our efforts to share the information that we are learning about parks, communities and the general public. Our goal is to become a sustainable model, and our work is to create the physical reality and share those stories abroad.

I would like to introduce Amy Vincent, my sustainable manager, to talk about sustainability for a few minutes, and I will come back and talk about energy. Thank you.

Amy Vincent: Good morning. I'm going to give a real brief overview of some of the exciting sustainability things that we have going on. If I can figure out how to do this.

The first is just a quick definition for anybody who isn't clear about what we're talking about when we say "sustainability." The way that we use the term sustainability comes from international discussions in the late '80s. It was a term coined by the U.N. and refers to doing the business that we do every day in a way that doesn't compromise the future and the ability of future generations to get their needs met.

Parts of the whole equation that we talk about are balancing both social and environmental issues with economics. We have a really unique opportunity here at the Presidio to make sustainability the foundation that we do all of our planning from. Because we have obviously very, very unique economic and social resources and a mandate to become financially self-sufficient. So we really have an opportunity to take the internationally accepted definition to the highest level and really prove that it can be done to balance these things, and that we can do our business in a sustainable way and we can create a fabulous future.

Just to mention a couple of the successes from the past year, I work in the facility department so we work on the day-to-day basis on the things that Bruce was talking about, really on the ground, in the field, working on changing practices that we have from day to day. So everything from our sign shop and becoming more sustainable environmentally in the choices that we make to our paint shop, using low VOC paints, removing toxics that we used to use in the past. We opened a recycling center this year; that was a big success.

We've been awarded for many of the things that we've done in the past year. We actually received five environmental awards and have been invited pretty broadly across the nation to speak about what we're creating here at the Presidio. The vision here really being an interesting size and location in the community that can be a model for other communities and for other parks as well, to show how we can implement on the ground projects that are sustainable, and how a community can create an infrastructure that makes the community environmentally, socially and economically sustainable over time.

We've implemented many practices throughout the park. I mentioned the recycling center that opened this year, in August. We are also doing comprehensive composting and are now capturing over 2,000 cubic yards of debris that used to go to the landfill that is now composted on-site and used on the soils here to revitalize the soils in the park.

Across the board there's just many, many things that we do each day. The idea is as we learn more, we really create a place of research and technology development, and we grow the Presidio as a place that others can look to and where we can do the trial and error. Where we can go out there and do research in the field; find out how plants respond to the compost that we're creating here; find out how when we go into a building and paint with new, non-toxic paints, how the paints work in the field. We've done a lot of research this year on using certified wood, in our partnership projects and our project afterwards, using wood in a sustainable forest.

So we have a really unique opportunity, I think, to put a lot of things into practices, and to create case studies out of them that we can show to other communities. That's what we work with, that's what we've been doing in the last two years or so.

Something that we're working on now is really developing those ways that we get these messages out. How do we share this information with those other communities, with other parks, with other cities and countries? How do we get this word out to them?

We're working on two parallel tracks. One is an actual physical experience that people have when they come to visit the Presidio. The other is making this experience available to people who can't actually come and visit here. So we're developing resulting demonstration sites. The idea is that if you were a visitor coming to the Presidio, you could actually come and visit our sign shop, meet with the people who work there and find out about the technologies that they're using that are more sustainable. You could come to the recycling center and go for a tour. That's actually becoming a pretty popular destination for the San Francisco School District. We did a pilot with them this year, and we have school groups coming out to the recycling center, visiting that site and learning about recycling. Or as we develop projects like in tank water plant and eventually energy generation here at the Presidio, those would be technologies that visitors could come and actually experience and see how it works in a park and in a community.

We're also developing our partnerships. We have really amazing opportunities for partnerships here. We work closely with the Park Service and the GGNPA in the plant nursery. We have a lot of connections there for teaching about our composting program and our recycling program. Sharing those messages with the children when they come out to the recycling center, and how they can also learn about plants and learn about composting. The San Francisco Conservation Corps actually does a lot of the hands-on work in our recycling program as well as other sustainability programs.

The physical tour--we're getting started on a few projects this year. One is a resource education area. That's close to here actually--Fort Scott, where the recycling center is, and a plant nursery. The staff of both of these programs has been working real closely to develop education opportunities where they can link together and have the people who come out to their sites really learn the large closed loop of what happens to trees when they come down in the park. How do we keep that resource from going to landfill, and what kinds of things can we do? Can we build things for the park like benches, out of trees that have come down from storm damage, or have come out from the restoration project. Those are the kinds of things where we look to create these loops and these linkages and then to share this message.

Another project that we're looking at this year is to develop an eco house. We have all of these residences that people are interested in leasing and learning about. One of our projects is to renovate one of the houses in a way that we take historic preservation and sustainability, and marry those two, and show how we can achieve the most greening at the same time as the historic preservation project in a home, and make this place available for people to come and visit.

On the day-to-day, as we renovate buildings, whether they're historic or non-historic, we're implementing sustainable practices. So we're using low VOC paints, we're working on introducing the low flow technologies in plumbing fixtures, so we're saving water, saving energy by putting lighting and boilers that are highly efficient, and using re-materials throughout them. This will be an opportunity for one of these houses to be open. So that people could come and learn about what they could do in their own homes, or if they're building a home, what kind of sustainable technologies there are to put into place.

The other is, in shops that we already have, is developing areas where people can visit these shops--I mentioned the sign shop. Developing places where people can come in and learn about what's happening in those shops.

And then in the longer term, as we develop the micro co-generation that Bruce is going to talk about a little bit more, and water reclamation plant. That those kinds of projects that are large projects to have an education component built into them in the planning stages so that we actually have a site that can be visited by people that want to come to the park later.

So those are all the physical kinds of things that we're working on. And that's what we do in the facilities department, is work on making things a reality on the ground. The other part of this is developing a virtual tour. The virtual tour is going to be developed simultaneously with the physical tour, with the idea that somebody can come to the park, take a shuttle around the park, and visit all these sites. Or if you weren't here on the Presidio, if you're in Germany or somewhere else in the world, you could take a virtual tour.

And so we're in the very early stages of developing the web site, which I think will probably be out in another ten months so. But I wanted to show...

I'm just trying to bring up our prototype.

[Pause]

Amy Vincent: Had you seen that, it would have been a really interesting web site.

[Laughter]

But actually, when you click on the web site what it does. It walks you through a virtual tour, which is a map of the Presidio. And it has sites on it, like the recycling center and the plant nursery. When you click on those it sends you to that site. And what we're developing is some short video clips that will show some of the people that you'd meet if you went to those sites, as well as information where you can get deeper and deeper into information, the first part being just real interesting graphics and fun pictures.

Then as you go deeper into information you're really learning about things like the plans that are behind the projects that are going on. The database that we're developing for re-products. So you could actually go in and find out if we used a flooring product in a building that was a sustainable product, you could click into that, find out where we got the material, how much we paid for the material, what are the sustainable attributes of that material. So this is the information we'll be able to share blindly on the Internet we hope.

Sorry we weren't able to show you that today, but the next time we'll be even more developed. I'm going to turn it back over to Bruce Anderson, who will talk a little bit more about the energy program and how we're responding to the energy crisis. Thanks a lot.

Bruce Anderson: Thank you, Amy. In 1998, former President Clinton signed an executive order that mandates all federal agencies to reduce energy by 30 percent based on the square footage BTU--British thermal unit--per square foot. In 1999 and 2000, the Presidio Trust exceeded that; we achieved 50 percent based on BTUs per square footage. That is a very achievable goal, and we're actually going to try to increase that to 60 percent.

One of the ways we do that is that we implement a vary stringent design and review process for sustainability and energy. So we are pushing forward and moving forward on new sustainable and energy conservation goals.

Another one is to reduce energy consumption, and retrofit the buildings with energy efficient technologies, employee conservation practice, educate residents and tenants, and utilize energy management systems to monitor and report the use of energy. Also, we are getting to looking at generating energy.