Opinion
March 18, 2002

Finally, recycling starts at home

    LAKE Merced has won a reprieve from its death sentence, after 10 years of bickering and 20 years of slow torture. It's about time.

    The counties of San Francisco and San Mateo also will be catching up to the rest of the state, finally building their first water-recycling plant. We were the last holdouts in reusing this scarce resource, and it's high time we started.

    The lake's water levels are 25 percent of what they were in the 1980s, thanks to too much use by three nearby golf courses and others, including the residents of Daly City, still the biggest user of its underground aquifer.

    But a $6 million deal among water users and environmental groups and the cities of San Francisco and Daly City will cut usage about 8 percent, and should lead to better things.

    The state is kicking in its share, too. It is offering $1.5 million in grants, added to The City's $1 million, to help Daly City build a $6 million water recycling plant.

    The plant will take sewage water and refine it so it can be used to water the golf courses at the Olympic Club, the San Francisco Golf and Country Club and the Lake Merced Golf Club. The clubs also will share the cost -- agreeing to pay 2.5 times more for their water, from 21 cents per cubic foot to 50 cents. Daly City's residents also will pay more to cover the cost of a $3.5 million bond.

    THE deal to restore water to the subterranean reservoir at the lake was a non-starter for too many years. The issues were complex, and the adversaries unnecesarrily but fatally contentious.

    The agencies and clubs were at a tense standstill for years, until environmental group California Trout helped kick them in the butt. It filed a lawsuit demanding the groups talk to one another or it would sue them for endangering fish and other wildlife.

    The groups did sit down, and did make some tough concessions. It's hard for a golf course manager to say yes, double my rates. It's tough for city officials to say yes, boost water rates for all my people. This was the more-expensive option, but it is the right one.

    This deal has a few more hurdles, chiefly The City's supervisors, who also must approve it, and the state, which must agree that this is where the grant money should go. Both should quickly agree.

    It should be a no-brainer for the supes, who last year set aside $2 million to save the lake, and for the state, which has been on the counties' case.

    It was hard work, and well done. Let theirs be an example that cooperation can work wonders.