Pulgas Water Temple

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The Pulgas Water Temple is a stone structure in Woodside, California designed by architect William Merchant. It was erected by the San Francisco Water Department as a monument to the 1934 completion of the Hetch Hetchy Aqueduct and is located at the aqueduct's terminus.

Pulgas Water Temple

The water temple is made up of a number of fluted columns arranged in a circle, upon which a large stone masonry ring with the words "I give waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people " [from Isaiah 43:20] are inscribed. There is a large tree-lined reflecting pool to the east.

San Francisco and surrounding communities get water from the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir approximately 160 miles away via the Hetch Hetchy Aqueduct. Water once made the journey to the Pulgas Water Temple and flowed over a small C-shaped waterfall within the water temple itself where it continued approximately 800 feet down a canal to the west into Upper Crystal Springs Reservoir. Starting in 2004, water no longer flows through the temple, but instead is diverted to a nearby treatment plant where chloramine added at the Sunol treatment plant is removed. The retreated water then either enters the drinking water system after being chloriminated yet again at another plant or is stored as surplus in Upper Crystal Springs Reservoir.

"Pulgas" is the Spanish (and Portuguese) word for "fleas", which were encountered by early Spanish explorers of the area.