July 9, 2004

Yomi Agunbiade
Acting General Manager
San Francisco Recreation and Park Dept.
501 Stanyan St.
San Francisco, CA  941117

Dear Mr. Agunbaide:

Thank you for the meeting you presented on the evening of July 8.  I thought it thorough and very well done.  However I believe there should be a place for public comment in the process for ranking deferred capital projects.  

The single project most needed for Lake Merced is the master plan.  The Golden Gate Audubon Society has been asking for a CEQUA compliant master plan for Lake Merced for about 25 years.  The lake, as defined by the perimeter path around it, is among San Francisco’s largest parks.  In the past it has served the needs of children and adults from all neighborhoods of San Francisco and of people from around the Bay Area who fished there.  It serves a similar purpose for walkers and runners.  The picnic area on Harding Road is heavily used.  Crew racing, dragon boat racing and sailing are major water activities.  Harding Golf Course is a major component of this parkland, though it is regarded as a separate operational unit.  

With all the recreational activity at Lake Merced, it remains a unique and significant wildlife habitat.  It was recently recognized by California Audubon as a Significant Habitat Area.  Around it’s shores nest about 50 species of birds.  There is a major Great Blue Heron colony there that produced about 25 young this year.  The Double-crested Cormorant colony grew to over 225 nests this year.  Six species of swallows depend on the lake during the nesting season including the Bank Swallows from adjacent Fort Funston, a state listed species.  In fact that is one of only 3 Bank Swallow colonies known to remain on the entire California Coast.  The lake is a critical link in the Pacific Flyway during spring and fall migration.  Numerous waterfowl, raptors and landbirds stop there on their flight between points as far north as the Arctic Circle and south to Central and South America.   A resident species is the Federally listed Common “saltmarsh” Yellowthroat, a small insectivore that inhabits the lake’s bulrush marsh.

There are a number of reasons we need a master plan for Lake Merced.  Maintaining that critical balance between recreation and nature is certainly one of them.  However there are even more compelling reasons.  The latest is the threat of West Nile Virus.  Mosquitoes that breed in the dense bulrush marsh are said to be a species likely to carry the virus.  Whether we like it or not, it’s time to start looking at that problem.  Another problem, shared between the Recreation and Park Department, the PUC and the DPW is the matter of erosion.  Poor planning and emergency action have led to even more flooding, even more erosion, habitat degradation and a rapidly declining aesthetic experience for park users.  Recent projects, all done under the direction of the Recreation and Park Department have been so poorly planned that flooding and erosion have not even been taken into serious consideration.  There are three cases in point of which you should be aware.  The handicapped access to the fishing beach at the Boathouse Picnic Area was an “emergency project” that was rushed through with little planning.  The access path now ends about 2 feet above the fishing beach.  That’s quite a drop for someone in a wheelchair.  The reconstruction of Harding Golf Course, which looks great, resulted in several major drainage failures.  One would think a qualified soils engineer could have predicted the failure on the 10th fairway as well as the other lesser “blow-outs”.  The new fishing pier at the south end of the lake was too short.  Since there was no public comment, the comments of the Golden Gate Audubon Society were ignored and as we pointed out, the fishing pier is now buried in bulrush.

Mr. Agunbiade, we can avoid problems like this.  First, fund the Master Plan for Lake Merced.  Then hold up other projects that will impact the infrastructure until the plan is done.  Include an environmental assessment that covers several potential projects such as reconstruction of the Boathouse, reconstruction of fishing piers and beaches, reintroduction of a viable trout fishery, erosion control and mosquito control to curtail West Nile Virus.  

It is our understanding that the Boathouse is scheduled for seismic retrofit.  That project should be delayed until there are public hearings to determine the best use for the building.  This matter has been discussed at the Lake Merced Task Force over the past several years.  Thoughts include an expanded aquatic center, a nature center, a smaller restaurant, an adequate meeting room and any number of other things.  I would suggest the one thing we don’t need is another bar.  The Harding Park Clubhouse can easily serve that function.  We don’t need two bars in the same park about a city block apart.  If the Boathouse restoration goes ahead without public input and outside the context of a master plan, it is another case of the Recreation and Park Department piecemealing projects at that park.  It’s the wrong approach.

The Golden Gate Audubon Society urges you to fund the master plan for Lake Merced.  We also urge you to defer other major capital projects at the lake until they can be considered within the framework of a master plan.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Dan Murphy

Conservation Committee
<murphsf@yahoo.com>