Report to NAPCAC Regarding Lake Merced

Lake Merced is located on the western edge of the city only 50 yards from the ocean at its closest point.  It is therefore a very windy place and this is a factor that needs to be taken into consideration in evaluating the plan for this park.
 
The park is composed of 4 lakes that have been artificially separated by landfill and the flat portions of the eastern side are composed of landfill resulting from the construction of the golf course, road and adjacent housing.  According to the plan, the steep slopes along the lakeshore are less disturbed and the soils are sandy and susceptible to water and wind erosion when unvegetated (6.1-2).

The park is a total of 603 acres of which 389 acres have been designated as natural areas.  244 acres of the natural areas are open water.  Basically, the park has been designated as a natural area except for the golf course, the landscaped picnic grounds, the Rod & Gun Club and the police firing range.

There are many recreational uses of this park.  The golf course is being renovated at a cost of over $15 million and will reopen in July and host the first PGA tournament in 1996.  The revenues from this tournament are estimated at $1 million per year and the business plan for this venture projects 80,000 rounds of golf per year.  

The most popular activity at Lake Merced is the pleasant walks it provides.  Hundreds of people walk, jog, bicycle, and skate around the park every day.  There is a very popular one-mile loop around the Impound Lake that draws the biggest crowd.  

The boating and fishing activities on this lake represent the only opportunities for these activities in the City’s parks.  There are sailboats, rowboats and dragon boats in the North Lake and frequent crew races in the South Lake.  Fishing has declined in recent years because of water level and quality, but was at one time a very popular activity.   I’ll pass around this photograph of people fishing at the shore of the Impound Lake.  This is one of the few access points to the shore of the lake for fishing because most the shore of the lake is too steep for people to reach the lake.  People also fish from boats that they can bring or rent. 
  
The water level in the lake has been declining steadily for some time for many reasons, the chief one being the depletion of the aquifer underlying the lake.   There is finally a plan to address these issues and as a result of pumping water into the lake from the Hetch Hetchy reservoir, the water level has gone up about 2 feet since last October.  Supervisor Hall was quoted in the Independent recently as saying that the plan is to raise the water level about 7 feet in 5 years.  This is likely to improve the water quality and hence the fishing.  

The management plan designates 7 critical areas within the natural area.  I’ll quickly review the plans for those areas (6.1-33).

Area A is the eastern shore of the South Lake, which is also the western side of the golf course.  The plan is to remove the young pine and cypress from the slopes as well as the iceplant and other non-native species considered invasive.  However, the plan does not propose to revegetate the slopes with native species because of the steepness of the slopes but rather to allow natural recolonization (6.1-12).  

I think there are a couple of issues with this plan.  Here are a couple of pictures of this area.  You can see that the trees on this slope are young, compared to the trees on the golf course, which are very old.  It seems likely that if these young trees are removed, the golf course will be exposed to a great deal of wind which could make the golf course uncomfortable in windy weather and destroy the old trees that are now being sheltered from the wind.  Remember that the wind comes from the west, so these trees are now providing a windbreak.

Secondly, the plan says that the steep slopes of the lake are composed of sand that is susceptible to erosion if not covered in vegetation.  Therefore, if the non-native vegetation is removed and not revegetated, erosion is likely to occur.  Erosion into the lake will contribute to the sedimentation of the lake.

Area B is the southern shore of the East Lake and northern edge of the golf course.  The plans for this area are similar to Area A, with respect to removal of non-native vegetation.  However, there are fewer trees on this shore and they are not on the windward side of the golf course, so their removal may not have the same potential to damage the trees on the course.  However, the removal of the non-native vegetation raises the same issues with respect to erosion.  (6.1-12)

The plan reports the existence of Western Pond Turtles in East Lake and proposes several measures to protect this species of concern.  The plan proposes to block boats from entering the lake by building a barrier between the North and East Lakes.  This barrier would prevent both boating and fishing in the East Lake.  Fishing is not possible from the steep shore.  The plan also proposes to trap and remove non-native turtles from the Lake. (6.1-16)

These plans raise several issues.  We have the inventory of the animals at Lake Merced that was conducted by students at San Francisco State University.  It reports that the Western Pond Turtle was found in North Lake, not East Lake.  This suggests that some confirmation is needed of this sighting before restricting access to the Lake.  Secondly, the plan does not provide any evidence that the non-native turtles are a threat to the native turtles.  It seems reasonable to require such evidence before destroying the non-native turtles.

Area C is known as the Mesa.  It’s bounded by Lake Merced Blvd and the East Lake.
The plans for this area are to remove most of the pine and cypress, thin the eucalyptus, and remove the non-native vegetation. (6.1-12).  The plan reports that the San Francisco wallflower has been planted on the Mesa (6.1-15).  This is a Federal Species of Concern.  Also many brush piles have been constructed on the Mesa, which the plan says provides habitat for ground-dwelling birds.  The plan cites quail as the example of ground dwelling birds served by these brush piles.  There are no quail at Lake Merced and the Mesa wouldn’t be a good location for them to be reintroduced because of the proximity of the road.  A. Starker Leopold reports in California Quail that the seasonal movements of quail have been reported as much as 11 miles from their banding site and considerable movement is observed within a 5 mile radius.  (page 77)

The Mesa is also one of the 17 off-leash areas that was designated by Rec & Park Dept over 25 years ago.  The plan proposes to prohibit off-leash dogs.  In fact, the new Rec & Park dog policy says that dogs will be banned altogether from “sensitive habitat areas”.  The planting of a “sensitive” species suggests that dogs will be prohibited altogether.

Critical area D is the eastern shore of the North Lake.  The plans for this area are similar to Area B and the issues are similar.  There aren’t as many trees as other critical areas, but the potential for erosion needs to be taken into consideration.  There are a couple of areas of severe erosion on the edge of the golf course.

Critical Areas E and F are similar to one another.  They are stands of eucalyptus with an understory of compatible species such as albizia and acacia.  The plant inventory reports no native species in these areas.  They have been designated as critical areas because there are two species of large birds that nest high in the eucalyptus trees one of which has special status.  (6.1-6)  The plans to thin saplings and sprouting trees in these areas predicts an eventual phasing out of this forest.  That would be the end of these particular nesting sites for these birds.  

Critical Area G is the Impound Lake at the southern tip of Lake Merced.  It is the most heavily used area at the Lake, as I mentioned earlier.  In addition to the removal of non-native trees and shrubs that are considered invasive, the plan also proposes to replace ornamentals with the coastal scrub that is native to this area.  Some of this work has already been done and there are also many brush piles in this area.  

The plan for the Impound Lake also proposes to install a permanent barrier between the South and Impound Lakes and quit stocking fish with the intention of phasing out all fishing from this area.  The plan also proposes to remove all bullfrogs from Impound Lake. (61.16)  

The plan says that these actions are needed to protect the threatened Red-Legged Frog.  However, the evidence that the red-legged frog exists here appears anecdotal.  The plan says that this species was not observed during the protocol surveys, but that someone saw one in March 2000.  And no tadpoles of the red-legged frog have been positively identified.  This does not seem adequate evidence to justify extreme measures such as killing bullfrogs or prohibiting fishing from a popular lake.  (Editor's Note: The review of wildlife at Lake Merced recently conducted by the consulting firm EDAW Associates reports that "There is no evidence that a remnant California red-legged frog population has persisted at Lake Merced "  Read a copy of the EDAW report here.)

Submitted May 22, 2003