October 2003 status report

The PUC continues its effort to restore Lake Merced. As I'm sure you've noticed, the lake level is substantially higher than it has been in recent years thanks to the addition of 'system water' taken from the Tuolumne River and put in Lake Merced. Several of us think of that as what Jerry Cadagan calls "poor public policy," and doubt that provides a sustainable source of water to maintain lake levels.

The PUC, and their friends in the City Attorney's office, have retained a number of consultants to study this issue. On September 25 a number of us attended a review of the report most recently issued by the consulting firm EDAW. You can find a copy of that report on our website at

http://www.lakemerced.org/Plans/EDAW/Task3TechMemo.pdf. Several reprentatives of EDAW attended this review, as well as Joe Scalmanini from the firm of consulting hydrologists, Luhdorff and Scalmanini. For those of you interested in the details you can access notes from that meeting on the web site as well: http://www.lakemerced.org/Plans/EDAW/Comments_on_the_EDAW_Review.html.

In what seemed to several of us to be a typical attempt at divide and conquer, much was made of the disagreements among our group. We were somewhat at a loss to know what they were talking about, as we thought we were pretty much in agreement all along. To underscore this point I have listed six points that I believe we all support, and as you can see in the exchange of e-mails in our notes there is general agreement with all of these:

1) The target level for the lake should be to maintain the lake in the range 25 to 28 feet (8.5 - 10.5 feet City Datum). The burden of scientific proof lies with any who would want to change that target.

2) The lake level should approach that target very slowly, probably not more than 6 inches to a foot each year, in order to permit the environment to adapt smoothly.

3) Water quality is an issue, especially as the RWQCB has placed Lake Merced on its impaired lakes list due to low dissolved oxygen, organic enrichment, and pH.

4) The lake can not be considered in isolation, but needs to be studied within the context of the Westside Basin aquifer. Other programs, e.g., the recycled water plan, groundwater management plan, storm water management plan, etc. need also to be coordinated.

5) In general then, a systems approach is needed that lays out a long-term strategy, with a planning horizon of 10 to 50 years, that will assure both the health of the lake and provision for a sustainable program deriving domestic water from the aquifer. We believe that program will of necessity include management of the aquifer in a way that contributes to restoration of the lake.

6) Finally, until a substantial portion of this long-term strategy has been developed additions of imported water to the lake should be limited to those needed to stabilize the lake at its current level. Until a sustainable, long-term program has been developed, no additional system water should be added to Lake Merced for the specific purpose of raising lake level.

The first of these six points was adopted by the Lake Merced Task Force at their September meeting. I would like your approval to present this full slate to the next Task Force meeting in the form of a resolution sponsored by Friends of Lake Merced, and proposed for their adoption.