San Francisco Water Department

The San Francisco Water Department is an agency in San Francisco that provides water service to residents of the San Francisco Bay Area. The San Francisco Water Department privately holds substantial amounts of undeveloped land in many parts of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Since the mid-19th century much of the Alameda County watershed was owned by a private enterprise, the Spring Valley Water Company (SVWC), which held a monopoly on water service to San Francisco. [cite news | author=Chris Metinko| title=City owns a hearty connection to beer | url= | work=The Contra Costa Times | date=2 January 2006 | accessdate=] [cite news | author=Matt Smith| title=Big Dam Mess | url=http://www.sfweekly.com/2004-09-22/news/big-dam-mess/ | work=SF Weekly | date=22 September 2004 | accessdate=2008-07-19]

In 1906, William Bowers Bourn II, a major stockholder in the SVWC, and owner of the giant Empire gold mine, hired Willis Polk to design a "water temple" atop the spot where three subterranean water mains converge, from the Arroyo de la Laguna and Alameda Creeks, the Sunol infiltration galleries, and a 30 inch pipeline from the artesian well field of Pleasanton.cite book | last=Hanson | first=Warren D. | edition=3rd edition | title=San Francisco Water and Power: A History of the Municipal Water Department and Hetch Hetchy System | location=San Francisco, CA | publisher=City and County of San Francisco | year=1994 | oclc=31224846] [cite book | last=Hanson | first=Warren D. | edition=6th edition | title=San Francisco Water and Power: A History of the Municipal Water Department and Hetch Hetchy System | location=San Francisco, CA | publisher=City and County of San Francisco | year=2005| oclc=60658054]

Municipal efforts to buy out the SVWC had been a source of constant controversy from as early as 1873, when the first attempt to purchase it was turned down by San Francisco voters because the price was too high.cite web | author=Communications and Public Outreach | title=History of the SFPUC| url=http://sfwater.org/main.cfm/MC_ID/5/MSC_ID/37 | archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20050204025641/http://sfwater.org/main.cfm/MC_ID/5/MSC_ID/37 | publisher=SF Public Utilities Commission | date=2002 | archivedate=2005-02-04 | accessdate=2008-07-19] Other sources claim that as one born into wealth and classically educated, Bourn was partially motivated by a sense of civic responsibility. [cite book | last=Brechin | first=Gray A. | chapter=Water Mains and Bloodlines | title=Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin | pages=pp. 72-73| location=Berkeley | publisher=University of California Press | year=1999 | isbn=0520215680]

Prior to construction of the Hetch Hetchy aqueduct, half of San Francisco's water supply, approximately 6 million gallons per day passed through the Sunol temple. [cite news | author=Teresa Brown| title=Welcome to Sunol | url=http://www.pleasantonweekly.com/morgue/2002/2002_11_29.sunol29.html | work=Pleasanton Weekly | date=29 November 2002 | accessdate=2008-07-19] The SVWC, including the temple, was purchased by the City of San Francisco in 1930 for US$40 million.

See also

*Hetch Hetchy Reservoir
*Sunol Water Temple
*Pulgas Water Temple
*Crystal Springs Park, California

References