As we consider the problems of integrated watershed management, we might also pause to consider the opposite. If our goals are not integrated, are they disintegrated? Segregated? Sole-Use? These are relevant questions to the San Francisco Water Department, owner of more than 63,000 acres around the San Francisco Bay. The historical goal of managing these properties has been protection of water supply, including the watersheds, pipes, tunnels and reservoirs. With these facilities, we are part of a delivery and production system that provides domestic and industrial water for 2.5 million people at an average rate of 280 million gallons per day.
The lands of the system were created by entrepreneurs in the history of the Bay Area's development. The Spring Valley Water Company began acquiring lands on the SF Peninsula in the 1860's, to provide water for the growing urban population. This holding has grown to 23,000 acres, with four reservoirs, public trails, a scenic easement, a golf course and a freeway. While water production and protection of water quality are still prime concerns for these lands, the Crystal Springs area has become a core area for regional biodiversity and receives increasing pressure from fishermen, cyclists, hikers, and open space advocates.
Less known are Alameda Creek watershed holdings. Before Spring Valley was bought out by the City of San Francisco in 1930, it had amassed nearly 40,000 acres in Alameda and Santa Clara Counties. In addition, it had acquired water rights to the productive sunol gravels and the Niles Cone, and was operating wells in Pleasanton. The watershed lands have two reservoirs, and were strategically located to capture surface water from about 200 square miles, with even greater area for the subsurface flow collection. The Water Department leases land out for gravel mining, golf, nurseries, parkland and range. Other uses in the area are urbanization (in Pleasanton), transportation (rail and highway in Sunol Valley) and biodiversity. With these increased uses come the expected pressures of opening more land for recreation, development, and reservoir uses.
The Water Department is most interested in water quantity and quality. The Bay Area properties produce over ten percent of the total system's water. Integrated watershed management is already practiced on our watershed lands, and pressure increases daily to add uses to the current list. Sometimes, the Water Department decreases use; fishing is no longer allowed on reservoirs, picnic access has been severely limited, and previous grazing levels have been reduced. In other cases, use has increased to meet perceived demands: trails have been created with the National Park Service and San Mateo County, and habitat for endangered species is being actively expanded. In these cases, the Water Department found it within the limits of their objectives to expand uses.
In many cases, our outstanding goals cannot be met effectively if we integrate management strategies. Hikers need monitoring and may ignite fires, which would be catastrophic under our present management regime (a Vegetation Management plan is being developed). Golf courses affect both water quantity and quality regimes. Mountain bikes create a liability danger as well as potentially increasing erosion from road and trail surfaces.
Our secondary uses, too, are delicate enough to preclude invitation of other uses. As a biological reserve, extensive use of sensitive areas would lower habitat values. Development would increase traffic and negatively affect forest, brush and range continuity. Commercial developments would change our focus from that of water purveyor to revenue producer, leading to a different set of outcomes.
Ironically, the Water Department seems unique in terms of watershed management. We get the value from our forest and range as delivered water, not from wood or forage. This is possible because of the huge capital investment placed downstream from those systems; we have the infrastructure to make it possible to sell water. The benefit is that some of the most intact wildlands in California have been saved in an undisturbed state because it was cost-effective and considered wise. Our high value water has created high value lands.
The fate of these lands will come under increasing scrutiny from its managers, the Public Utility Commission of San Francisco, and the public. At this time we are creating watershed management plans for the Peninsula and Alameda Creek Watersheds. This three year process will assess our resource base, determine our role in the urban area, share information with the public and, in turn, create a strategy to survive the changes of the coming century.
Is it OK, from a watershed management perspective, to have sole-use land management? Is it OK, from a urban recreation perspective, to have lands closed to the public? We invite your comments in our watershed management planning process. We also encourage consideration of the state of resources beyond our watersheds... if we have gained so much from sole-use management, are other areas losing from multiple-use?
