What follows is an interesting bit of correspondence regarding water rights to Locks Creek, a 1.9-mile-long stream in San Mateo County, California. It is the largest tributary of Frenchmans Creek, a larger stream. Evidently, in 1922, a plaintiff, one D.B. MacDonald, had brought some form of claim to waters of Locks Creek, or perhaps simply…
Category: Regional
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A Look Back in History: The First Drink of Pulgas Water
In 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes to work on his presidential campaign. After Roosevelt won the Presidency, he appointed Ickes as Secretary of the Department of Interior in 1933. Ickes would hold this post for the next thirteen years. He was greatly involved with the New Deal, heading…
Beyond Hetch Hetchy – Understanding San Francisco’s Water System
Many people may be familiar with Hetch Hetchy, San Francisco’s major water source that lies within Yosemite National Park. The water at Hetch Hetchy contains spring snowmelt flowing down the Tuolumne River. What many people may not know is that this same water is a protected primary source exempt from filtration requirements by the U.S….
A Look Back in History: Gate, Interrupted
1910 was the year that the Water Temple was brought online in Sunol. The Sunol Water Temple was built between 1906 and 1910. But the gate to the property wasn’t built until 1910. In the letter written at mid-year (see proceeding page), S.P. Eastman, Second Vice President and Manager of Spring Valley Water Company, invokes…
A Look Back in History: Health and Recreation at Crystal Springs
By June 1946, World War II had been over for more than six months. But many veterans were still convalescing. Some of those were cared for at the Letterman General Hospital in the Presidio of San Francisco. In 1945 alone, this hospital received more than 73,000 patients from the Pacific Theater. In the following June…
Fish Getting Much Needed Help in the Alameda Creek Watershed
Protecting the quality of San Francisco’s drinking water starts with protecting the ecosystem and native wildlife around the SFPUC’s reservoirs and watersheds. To address that issue, the SFPUC built a state-of-the-art fish ladder in in the Alameda Creek Watershed, that will help monitor and protect the threatened species of steelhead trout. “We’ve been working on…