PUC report offers frightening picture of Lake Merced
By Melissa T. Miller
July 31, 2001
The water level at Lake Merced is dropping quickly, according to a recently-released San Francisco Public Utilities Commission report.
From the monthly water-level readings taken at the lake - which tracks the lake's depth - the water levels at the lake have dropped approximately six inches between the months of May and June, and almost one foot in the last two months.
"That's more than twice the rate expected from evaporation alone," according to John Plummer of Friends of Lake Merced, a group that tracks statistics related to the lake, and have been advocating for years for the city to restore the lake's water levels back to its PUC-mandated height.
Proponents for restoring the lake's water levels - a group that includes a coalition of anglers, rowing enthusiasts, bird-watchers, walkers, picnickers - claim that hydrological data and studies available about the lake prove that water is being drained through the bottom of the lake by overpumping of the aquifer that resides underneath it.
According to Friends of Lake Merced, the lake is almost too shallow to host a fish population. Lake Merced was often characterized as the "finest urban fishery in America." The State Fish and Game Department stocks only 20 percent of the amount of fish previously stocked in the lake just 10 years ago, because there is not enough oxygen in the lake due to its temperature and depth.
The West Basin Aquifer begins beneath Golden Gate Park in the north and runs diagonally under the peninsula to end near the San Francisco International Airport. Because the aquifer travels under two separate counties, no single governmental entity has the mandate or authority to manage the underground water basin for future use.
"Eight top managers have just met to come up with an integrated recovery plan for the lake," said Beverly Hennessey, SFPUC spokesperson. "The SFPUC is working diligently to implement solutions as quickly as possible. We have appropriated money in the new budget, and are actively applying for grants to help with the cost of solutions we are considering, namely recycled water and storm water diversion."
According to Michael Carlin, the SFPUC's planning director, San Francisco is still about five years away from being able to provide recycled water for irrigation purposes in the city. Golden Gate Park currently pumps water from the aquifer to irrigate its lands, as does the city's public and private golf courses.
The Olympic Club, the San Francisco Golf Club, and the Lake Merced Golf Club are said by hydrologists to have a particularly detrimental effect on water levels at the lake not only because of the volume of water they draw, but also the proximity of their pumps to the lake draw water that would normally flow towards the lake and increase the lake's volume.
San Francisco is the only urban county in California that does not have a wide-scale recycled water program available.
For more information about Friends of Lake Merced, visit www.lakemerced.org. The SFPUC official Web site is www.ci.sf.ca.us/puc.
©San Francisco Independent Newspapers 2001
