Next Tuesday night, the SFPUC will host an open house meeting about the Westside Recycled Water Project.
More info about the project from their website:
The proposed Westside Recycled Water Project is part of the SFPUC’s Water System Improvement Program. Highly-treated recycled water would be delivered to a variety of customers through a system of pipelines, pump stations, storage tanks and reservoirs. The system would bring recycled water from the recycled water treatment facility in Golden Gate Park to Lincoln Park and Golf Course to be used for irrigation; additionally recycled water would be used for various non-potable uses in Golden Gate Park, including those at the California Academy of Sciences. The estimated construction cost of the proposed project is $109 million, with construction planned for completion in 2015.
Part of the project includes construction of a new recycled water treatment plant in the southwest corner of Golden Gate Park. The new facility would produce and deliver up to 2 million gallons of water per day.
New distribution pipelines will also need to be laid for the system, mostly under city streets and in limited sections of Golden Gate Park.
Officials at Tuesday night’s meeting will share the proposed designs of the project buildings and grounds and answer questions residents have about the project. The meeting will run from 6:30pm until 8pm at the Golden Gate Senior Park Center, 6101 Fulton at 36th Avenue.
For more information on the Westside Recycled Water Project, visit the SFPUC FAQ page or contact Suzanne Gautier, SFPUC Communications and Public Outreach at 554-3204 or at sgautier@sfwater.org.
Sarah B.
Does anyone know which block they are identifying to lay pipe into the Presidio? Seems to me that with the Doyle Drive construction through 2014, this might not be a good time to rip up the streets in that area and cause yet another traffic impediment in the neighborhood.
@Jill –
From the map (bigger version here: http://sfwater.org/publicImages/SFpipelinemap.jpg), it looks like they’re planning to lay it on the west side of Mountain Lake Park. It doesn’t extend any further north than the golf course, so I doubt it will interfere much with the Doyle construction.
Sarah B.
does this mean the South Windmill is gone forever. they tore it down supposedly to rebuild it, but now it looks like water plant is being proposed for the same site
I don’t have issues with the recycled water — but a treatment plant IN GGP? What’s the actual proposed site for that? The south windmill site? Or that tree yard/concrete mess nearby?
A waste treatment plant *IN* Golden Gate Park? Seriously?
@ Cath – I too am very concerned about putting what sounds to be a very large treatment plant in GG Park. The location in question (between the south Murphy Windmill and the soccer fields) currently used as a Rec and Park dump is perfect for future park improvements such as a Speedway Meadow type grass play/picnic area, or other improvement. What we don’t need is a very large (smelly?) concrete structure in that potentially valuable section of the park.
I’ve driven by plenty of water treatment plants in the past and they usually consist of very large open air tanks filled with a very unpleasant mixture of liquids. Guess we’ll find out more on Sept 7th.
Hi all,
I’ve sent an email to Suzanne at the SFPUC (sgautier@sfwater.org), asking her to stop by and address some of your comments. Hopefully she will, but if not, I encourage you to email her (or better yet, come to the meeting!). 🙂
@Jose – it’s not treating WASTE water as far as I know, but rather recycled water that is being used throughout the park and Presidio for non-potable purposes.
Sarah B.
Good lord. Here they go again doing yet more to screw up the park. It is not enough to pave as much as they can, or curb all the roads, or put in stylish but ill-functioning lighting systems, or installing hundreds of signs, or propose mega klieg lights at the beach, and on and on… now this. Man, someone has it in for this park in a big way. What a disgrace. We need a revolt against the development company running this park… Rise.
golden gate park used to have a treatment plant that was replaced by the oceanside plant near the zoo. that plant will continue to treat wastewater. this facility will be bringing water that’s been treated up to recycled water standards so it can be used throughout the park and other green spaces for non-potable irrigation uses. its long past due. SF is the only major county in CA without a recycled water program and for all of the kvetching we do about the southland, they are years ahead of us when it comes to smart water management. the plant is proposed to sit on what is currently a pretty scraggly site south of the windmills, will make a number of public access improvements, and from what i’ve seen looks pretty great.
@Administrator
“A new Recycled Water Treatment Plant would be constructed in Golden Gate Park to treat secondary effluent from the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant (WPCP). The recycled water treatment facility would include membrane filtration, reverse osmosis, ultraviolet (UV) light disinfection, and treated water storage and pumping…”
http://www.sfwater.org/msc_main.cfm/MC_ID/13/MSC_ID/377
Call it “secondary effluent” if you like. I’m betting it doesn’t smell good. It sure is going to need a lot of treatment to become suitable for non-potable use. That tells me it’s still got plenty of contamination.
@alex
“this facility will be bringing water that’s been treated up to recycled water standards”. Wrong. The water coming up from WPCP will require further processing to be suitable for non-potable use.
I’d rather have a “scraggly” site than a “facility” that stinks up the place for dozens of blocks. I’d also rather the concrete-and-stumps mess was cleaned up, of course, but not if the only way to do it is to replace it with a waste treatment plant.
@jose – re-reading my comment and seeing i wasn’t clear. the proposed facility will be bringing treated effluent up to recycled water standards. it will not smell – odors from treatment facilities come from open headworks (where raw flow enters the system), open tanks where stuff (euphemism) settles out, digesters where bacteria eat it up, and from the drying facilities.
by scraggly site i mean an unimproved and inaccessible dumping ground for construction materials. in my world an attractive public facility providing an invaluable resource for the park in which it sits is preferable to a rocky dirt strewn lot but hey maybe that’s just me…
@alex
Call it “effluent” if you like. If it needs filtering, it still has “stuff” in it. If it needs UV treatment, it still has bacteria in it. If it has “stuff” and bacteria, it smells. Simple as that.
Waste treatment plants are definitely not “attractive facilities” in my world, so, yeah, it’s just you.
Let’s look forward to incidents like this:
http://www.smdailyjournal.com/article_preview.php?id=139911&title=Redwood%20Shores%27%20sewer%20leak%20estimate%20at%2048,000%20gallons
Sewage + pumping = bad idea. The poor sods in Redwood City have no choice, ’cause they’re mostly under sea level. We do have a choice.
I’d rather that site be turned into an improved PARK and RECREATION use, as befits a PARK. A decent playground would be nice; hey, we love the Boat Park, but bathrooms and updated play equipment that doesn’t need to be repainted every 2 years to contain the arsenic would be dandy! A garden of some sort, etc.
I’m against more building IN THE PARK. I wonder how the Sunset neighbors will like this plan…
i have to say that i’m shocked to find myself saying this but…who’s going to pay for all the wants?
rec park is broke. we’re firing gardener and health care workers (and letting existing parks go to hell), the state’s raiding local gov’t coffers, 1/2 billion dollar local gov’t deficits and no one seems willing to pay another penny in taxes. yet we want to be green and more park facilities, etc.
life is a choice among alternatives. right now the alternatives are a pretty good looking structure ([i’ve had the fortune to see the preliminary designs and it looks pretty darn cool) replacing something that was there 40 years ago (yes, the park did have a treatment plant) and serving the very park in which it would be situated or an abandoned scraggly lot. i know the choice i make.
@ alex How much does it cost to plant a grass field with some irrigation? That was my suggestion. Other amenities could be added over time as budgets and donations permit.
I don’t want to prejudge this because I haven’t seen the plans yet and I will attend the meeting next week,…but if the treatment building is very large and takes up a significant portion of that ‘scraggly site’, …which has GREAT potential for easy improvement,..then I doubt I’ll be supportive of the treatment facility (for what that is worth). However, if the building is not large and obtrusive, and there is no chance of wafting odors, and the plan calls for improvements to the ‘scraggly site’, then I could be convinced to support it.
Recycled water is a good thing…it is just the location I question. GG Park is very special. Perhaps there are technical reasons, but why not do the recycling at the Oceanview site (or near fleishacher) and pump the water back to GG Park? You’ve got to pump the water either way.
“Recycled water is a good thing…it is just the location I question. GG Park is very special. Perhaps there are technical reasons, but why not do the recycling at the Oceanview site (or near fleishacher) and pump the water back to GG Park? You’ve got to pump the water either way.”
What he said! Let’s pump the water *after* it’s treated.
Thanks for everyone’s interest in the SFPUC’s proposed Westside Recycled Water Project. I encourage everyone to come out to our open house on Sept 7th to learn more about the project and see the preliminary designs. We’re really trying to create a facility and area that provides even more open space opportunities in Golden Gate Park than what is currently available at the site, while at the same time balancing our City’s need to develop reliable and sustainable local water supplies.
Hope to see and hear from everyone at the Sept. 7, 6:00 pm meeting at Golden Gate Park Senior Center located at 37th & Fulton
from what i understand the PUC settled on this site to minimize the cost of piping infrastructure since they want it as close to end users as possible. taking a look on the map i’m going to guess that the location away from homes on a site that rec park doesn’t have any money to do do anything with was also part of the thinking. i would hope and expect that rec park gets some lease revenue that it can plow back into tangible improvements right in that specific area near the windmills.
Please come to the meeting and learn more about the PUC’s plans to desecrate GG Park. There’s a lot to be worried about, and the PUC needs to hear from as many people as possible. According to the GG Park Master Plan, this plant is supposed to be buried underground, not housed in a huge, above-ground building.
We must be careful not to let short-term financial considerations decide the future of our premier park. Yes, we do need to plan for our water future, but we should be very concerned about this facility.
It is a common developer approach to leave a site derelict and then make a proposal to “improve” it with development. The current construction yard could be easily cleaned up, and the area would become precious parkland. Golden Gate Park can always use more meadows — come out on Labor Day Weekend and you will see the Park packed with people who can’t even get a picnic table. It could be left as sand dunes with native plants, or preserved for wildlife habitat, or even turned into an experimental tulip garden (there is one in the Netherlands that preserves various endangered species of tulips) to complement the nearby windmills. Wouldn’t that be glorious?
I have seen the artist drawings of the facility. Yes, it has a green roof and berms. But, in the end, it is still a group of buildings that take up parkland, and one building is up to 30 feet tall. The facility will have to be lighted at night for security, to the detriment of any wildlife habitat. The complex adds a new road for access, paving, and parking.
The current project is being presented as a complete, finished plan, and as far as we know, significant alternatives are not being considered. The EIR process,however, is designed to evaluate and compare alternative methods for achieving a desired goal and picking a solution that minimizes adverse impacts to resources. Therefore, it is vital for people to attend the scoping session and demand a full examination of alternative locations and building techniques as part of the EIR process.
In addition, to our knowledge, while the SFPUC has discussed some of these issues, Rec and Park has never brought this project to the majority of park users. No one has come to the neighborhoods and said, “We have some vacant land in Golden Gate Park – what would you like to see done with it?”
This project does not “add” open space. It builds a factory on some of the most valuable and renowned land in the world, Golden Gate Park,and cuts yet another piece out of our shrinking parkland.
@kathy
why don’t you stop feeding the public your opinions and wait until the meeting to see what they present? you seem to think you know everything when in fact you are probably wrong. people like you need to stop bringing such opposition to projects that can improve our city and public spaces. do you have the funds to pay for the improvements to the park? I think not and nor does the city so if PUC can help create a better place i am all for it.
Ack, Ms. Gautier says “6:00 PM” above, but this site and the SFPUC site both say 6:30. I’ll show up at 6:30 and hope for the best.
I just got back from the open house at the Senior Center and I thought the plans looked great! Glad I reserved final judgment until I saw them. 🙂 The landscape architect and Rec & Park representative really seem to understand what that area needs. Importantly, the water facility is pushed to the far northeast corner of the current construction dump site (an area that is currently mostly a ‘cruising’ & overgrown nuisance area). The grass berms in front of the water facility, upslope design, and grass roofs really help the facility blend in as well as can be expected. Most importantly from my standpoint, the plans call for the creation of a large Speadway Meadow/Sharon Meadow type open space/grass field. This type of space if really needed in this section of the park! With PUC funding in play,.. it may actually happen.
I went to the meeting two, and found out some interesting things. There’s an existing well at the site that is going to remain in place and in operation. Groundwater from that well is currently used for irrigation in Golden Gate Park. It’s not added to the drinking water supply. Hetch-Hetchy water is not currently used for irrigation in GGP.
The new facility is going to be just 150 feet away from this existing well.
The SFPUC wants to start adding groundwater from that very well into the drinking water supply.
Therefore any kind of leak at the new facility will guarantee contamination of San Francisco’s drinking water supply.
One question I didn’t ask that I really wish I had asked: Who is responsible for maintenance at the current site? Is it the SFPUC? There is an operational water well on site right now.