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San Francisco’s tasty tap water about to get a little murkier

Posted by: Maven on May 22, 2009 at 7:56 am

From San Francisco Weekly:

We San Franciscans like to fancy ourselves unique, but most such claims don’t hold water. We had 1960s counterculture movements, yes, but the thick of that action was at faraway events such as the Chicago Seven trial and the Stonewall riots. San Francisco is an unusually beautiful city, sure, but no more so than Truckee, Santa Cruz, or New York. One thing we have had that no other similarly sized city did was unusually pure water. Melted snow and glacial streams feed the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, and the water then piped across the Central Valley and into city faucets and showerheads is so clean and delicious that it’s also sold in bottles.

But that distinction could soon end thanks to a watershed agreement recently approved between San Francisco and the more than two dozen rural and suburban cities, water districts, and utilities that draw water from the Hetch Hetchy system.

The new 25-year deal closes an epoch of seemingly limitless, perfectly pure water for San Franciscans. Thanks to regional growth and environmental concerns about the ecology of the Tuolumne River, the agreement will force San Franciscans, who consume mere drops of water per capita compared to people in other cities, to make do with even less. The new era of scarcity also means San Francisco will have to increase the amount of water the city obtains from local wells, which can contain trace contaminants such as manganese and iron, albeit at levels so low they don’t threaten health.

“San Franciscans think we’re members of the Sierra Club, and take this great water, flush it once, and send it out into the bay,” says Ed Harrington, general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. “Most people in the world don’t get to do that. Now, we’re talking about, one, reuse of water. And, two, bringing some of that water out of the ground.”

Read more from the San Francisco Weekly by clicking here.

Hat tip to the SFist, which weighs in on this story here.

Photo credit:  Picture of Hetch Hetchy reservoir by flickr photographer wanderingnome.

May 22, 2009 · Filed Under Bay Area

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