San Francisco Water Department

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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.

Pulgas Water Temple
Pulgas Water Temple


[edit] History

The restored ceiling of the Sunol Water Temple. The empty sections were never completed .
The restored ceiling of the Sunol Water Temple. The empty sections were never completed [1].

Since the mid-19th century a private company, the Spring Valley Water Company (SVWC), owned much of the Alameda County watershed and had held a monopoly on water service to San Francisco [2][3].

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) [4][5].

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 SF voters because the price was too high. [6] Other sources claim that as one born into wealth and classically educated, Bourn was partially motivated by a sense of civic responsibility [7].

Prior to the construction to the Hetch Hetchy aqueduct, half of San Francisco's water supply (6 million gallons a day) [8] passed through the Sunol temple. The SVWC, including the temple, was purchased by the City of San Francisco in 1930 for $40 million [4][6][9].

1922 map showing the pipelines of the SVWC and the Sunol Water Temple
1922 map showing the pipelines of the SVWC and the Sunol Water Temple

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Save Our Sunol. Water Temple Restoration Tour. URL accessed on January 14, 2006
  2. ^ Metinko, Chris. "City owns a hearty connection to beer", Contra Costa Times, p. January 2, 2006
  3. ^ Smith, Matt. "Big Dam Mess", SF Weekly, September 22, 2004
  4. ^ a b Warren D. Hanson (1994). San Francisco Water and Power, 3rd edition, San Francisco: San Francisco Public Utilities Commission
  5. ^ Hanson, Warren D. (2005). San Francisco Water and Power, 6th edition, San Francisco: San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.
  6. ^ a b Anonymous. SFPUC History: Creation of the San Francisco Water Department, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. URL accessed on January 14, 2006.
  7. ^ Brechin, Gray A (1999). “Water Mains and Bloodlines”, Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin, 72-73, Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-21568-0
  8. ^ Brown, Teresa. "Welcome to Sunol", Pleasanton Weekly, November 29, 2002.
  9. ^ Anonymous. History of the SFPUC, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. URL accessed on January 14, 2006
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