By Savannah Blackwell

A group of peninsula politicians led by state senator Jackie Speier is quietly warning San Francisco supervisors that if they don't fund the multibillion-dollar overhaul of the city's drinking-water system, the state will try to take over the operation.

On Jan. 11, Speier and about half a dozen representatives from various peninsula agencies came to City Hall to lobby members of the Board of Supervisors on the need to pass a bond for more than $4 billion to pay for the fix-up. The bond would be paid back through water bills, which would affect San Franciscans and residents of the peninsula and Silicon Valley.

Speier's efforts are the latest front in a major push by the Bay Area Water Users Association, which represents some 29 peninsula agencies, to either pin San Francisco down to a timetable for completing long-delayed repair and seismic-upgrade projects or take joint control of the system with the state. The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is considering a long-range plan for the overhaul, but no funding has been provided yet.

Assemblymembers Lou Papan (D-Millbrae) and Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) introduced a bill last week that would require San Francisco to complete nine major repair projects along Hetch Hetchy by certain dates. The hammer in the law: if the current contract between San Francisco and BAWUA was not renewed in 2009, the state would get control of the system.

That could be a disaster for San Francisco, which would lose control of an immensely valuable asset. The Papan-Simitian bill also includes a provision that would require San Francisco to make water sales the priority of the system – potentially limiting the city's ability to generate electricity during a drought. That could damage any effort to build a public power system.

"This would be fouling our own nest. [Speier] is trying to give us a wake-up call, and we should respond," board president Tom Ammiano said. "It's too bad Prop. F didn't pass. A San Francisco Water Agency with an elected board would have improved the situation and provided funding."

"Their pitch was simple," said Sup. Jake McGoldrick, who was one of at least four board members approached by Speier's group. "They said, 'Seventy percent of the users and ratepayers are down the peninsula. Yet [we] don't have much say.' Their big push was to get the board to approve a bond proposal [for placement on the November ballot] in March. I'm not sure we're ready for prime time on that yet."

Sup. Sophie Maxwell told the Bay Guardian that Speier made it clear the peninsula reps had doubts that San Francisco's own public utilities commission could handle the job. "It was kind of like, 'Hey, get it together, and we don't know that you can, and if you don't, this is what we're looking at.' "

Maxwell said she was not supportive of a regional takeover. "Who on earth would give up water rights?" she asked.

Although the move could help Pacific Gas and Electric Co. fight a public power takeover by San Francisco, Simitian denied that PG&E had any input in the bill. "My involvement was a result of folks coming to me from my district saying, 'This is an important issue,' " Simitian said.