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Cities, golf courses to clean up water in Lake Merced
Restoring trout primary goal
Eric
Brazil, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, October 26, 2001
©2001 San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco -- After a decade of dithering, San Francisco, Daly City and three golf courses have agreed on a plan for restoring Lake Merced's health and water level.
The plan, a product of several months of closed-door negotiations, was revealed yesterday at San Francisco City Hall.
It envisions a three-phase attack on the problem, which has nagged both cities and the golf courses for the past 20 years.
The hope is to restore the lake's reputation for trout fishing. Once a highly regarded fishery, the trout population fell into severe decline as water levels dropped.
Key elements in the plan are a new water treatment facility, joint water use by San Francisco and Daly City and a pilot project testing the use of storm water to help raise Lake Merced's level.
A treatment plant will be built in Daly City to provide recycled water for the Olympic Club and the San Francisco and Lake Merced golf and country clubs, enabling them to sharply reduce pumping groundwater for their courses.
San Francisco and Daly City will devise a program under which Daly City will receive low-cost Hetch Hetchy water during seasons of surplus and curb pumping commensurately.
A pilot program will determine the feasibility of diverting storm water into Lake Merced without impairing its water quality.
"Positive results for the water level of Lake Merced are on the way," said San Francisco Supervisor Tony Hall, who made restoring the lake a major issue in his election campaign.
A falling water table, generally attributed to excessive groundwater pumping, has shrunk Lake Merced to half its historic size and about 10 feet below the 25-to-27 feet above mean sea level that it held until the mid-1960s.
Despite intermittent discussions among city and golf course officials and prodding of friends of Lake Merced distressed by its decline, it took petitions to several agencies from the conservation group California Trout demanding action last January to spark the negotiations that produced the long- range water use plan.
"It's a very fixable problem," said CalTrout executive director Mark Bergstrom. But he cautioned that "we're on the 10 yard line and we've still got 90 yards to go."
The three-part plan is still a bird in the bush. Nothing in it is legally binding yet, nor will it be until environmental reviews are complete and contracts signed, said Deputy City Attorney Joshua Milstein.
The first deadline to be met falls Dec. 17, when Daly City and the three golf courses are to work out details of water recycling and use. Just who will pay for the treatment plant and in what proportions has not yet been negotiated.
San Francisco and San Mateo are the only major urban counties in the state that do not have any substantial water recycling programs in operation.
The water use agreement between San Francisco and Daly City will require amendments to the existing contract between the cities and some negotiation over items like price.
Storm water that might otherwise wind up in Lake Merced has in the past been disposed of via the Vista Grande Canal to protect the lake's water quality. Under the new framework, San Francisco and Daly City will embark on a two-year, $700,000 pilot project to determine the feasibility of diverting storm water to the lake.
E-mail Eric Brazil at ebrazil@sfchronicle.com.
©2001 San Francisco Chronicle
