Lake Merced Update - November 2005

Well, the PGA tournament is over, and the golfers have all gone away.  The event was a great success, with beautiful weather (really!), good attendance, and an exciting  final.  Local favorite John Daly came in a close second -- they say that the longest  yard in sport is a three-foot put!  Now, however, the flowers in the median on Harding  Drive, and in the Grecian urns around the Sunset Circle parking lot, are dead or dying.  The gophers are poking their way through the tar paper and wood chips, leaving  mounds of dirt where chips used to be.  The needles on the little Christmas trees are
browning.  Harding drive is nice and black, to look good for the TV shots, but just as bumpy as ever.  And there are great big rocks scattered around, like droppings from a huge seagull, that don't fit the natural landscape.  It's too bad that all that money couldn't have been spent on improvements with more lasting value.

Thanks to the attention the tournament generated, the web site set a new record for number of visitors in a single month, with 8,160 visiting the site in October.  I expect they were looking for a way to buy tickets; sorry to have disappointed them.

The Boathouse remains a mess, although it was covered up with black plastic coated fencing for the tournament.  I just received from the Recreation and Park Department an assessment of the requirements for restoring that facility; that's available in hard copy if anyone is interested.  There are rumors abounding that the Department is about to issue an RFP for the restoration, and that at least two organizations are looking for ways to finance the return of the Boathouse to the recreation and community center as it was originally designed.  We wish them well, and will do our best to stay posted on progress being made.

The team analyzing the project to divert stormwater from the  Vista Grande Canal into Lake Merced just issued their first report, covering six storms with diversions and three storms without over a two-year period.  The problem is that this water contains significant quantities of coliform bacteria and metals, contaminants that potentially could prove to be a health hazard.  The analysis conducted underestimates the actual risk indicated by these tests.  We are writing the Regional Water Quality Control Board asking that the study design, and the analytic approach taken, be substantially strengthened.  A copy of our exchange is available on the web.The water level in the lake has stayed surprisingly high througout the summer.  Monthly decline has been on the order of 2 inches per month, compared with 4 inches per month during recent summers.  Maybe the effect of the golf courses using recycled water is being felt already, or maybe we had an unusually foggy summer.  Whatever the reason, the result is great.

Finally, Friends of Lake Merced has joined with 34 other environmental groups petitioning the Public Utilities Commission to assure the continued health of the Tuolumne River.  Our letter includes the specific provision that Tuolumne River water not be used to support Lake Merced; we have plenty of local solutions to achieve that goal.

And for another month, that's all folks!

John