On Sept. 27, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors will consider a nonbinding resolution by supervisors John Avalos, Scott Wiener and David Campos that urges the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission to allow unmanaged public access into the remote areas of the 23,000-acre San Francisco Peninsula watershed, generally north of Highway 92 and west of the Crystal Springs Lakes.
The Avalos-Wiener-Campos resolution is in response to recreational advocates who have been pushing to “open up” currently protected areas of the watershed to mountain bikers, hikers and equestrians. Proponents are touting “responsible” access, but, unfortunately, not everyone behaves responsibly.
The SFPUC’s Peninsula Watershed Management Plan, which governs all activities in the watershed, weighed the risks and benefits and concluded that “access to the interior parts of the watershed to unescorted individuals poses an extreme risk of fires as well as a higher risk of degradation of water quality and ecological resources.”
The risk of catastrophic wildfire is real. According to Cal Fire, 95 percent of California’s wildland fires are caused by humans. The devastating Big Sur Soberanes fire, which has become the state’s costliest fire to fight, and the 2013 Yosemite Rim fire, which burned the largest area (257,000 acres) in the Sierra, were both started by illegal campfires in out-of-bounds areas. It would take only one match to turn the Peninsula watershed into a disaster zone.
The Peninsula watershed is not a park; it is our water supply. For more than 150 years, it has been managed to ensure its protection. Customers of Coastside County Water District would be particularly hard hit by a devastating wildfire in the watershed, as 72 percent of CCWD’s water comes from Pilarcitos and Crystal Springs reservoirs.
The watershed also has the highest concentration of rare, threatened and endangered species in the nine-county Bay Area. As a state-designated Fish and Game Refuge, it is home to mountain lions, bald eagles and threatened marbled murrelets.
There are hundreds of miles of trails already accessible to residents of the coast, the north Peninsula and San Francisco in nearby county, state and national parks, as well as in Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District preserves.
Two chapters of Sierra Club, three chapters of Audubon, two chapters of the California Native Plant Society and the Committee for Green Foothills strongly support expanding the upgrading the existing docent program in the watershed to provide additional opportunities for increased, managed access while protecting our water supply and wildlife habitats.
An expanded docent program and new partnerships with local schools, youth groups and other community organizations such as Latino Outdoors and Sierra Club’s Connections Outdoors would provide additional educational opportunities and programs for underserved communities, while still protecting the watershed’s natural habitats, endangered species, and minimizing risks.
Public surveys and polls over the years have overwhelmingly supported protection of our drinking water supply and quality over increased access and recreational uses.
The SFPUC should maintain existing controls over public access in these remote areas and improve the docent program. The increased risks of fire, vandalism, and other possible acts of destruction, are simply too great when you consider what’s at stake.
Lennie Roberts is legislative advocate for Committee for Green Foothills.
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(16) comments
i say open it... i've gone back there a few times. it'd be awesome to actually be able to legally backpack in my backyard (responsibly) and not have to worry about some power-tripping Ranger. The whole harm to the environment thing I don't buy... considering we got farmers to the south of us pumping stuff into the soil which eventually trickles down into the groundwater to grow strawberries . Let the people respectfully enjoy the land they live on already.
Today the "Open The Watershed" Resolution was voted on by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. The tally was 1 vote Yes, 10 votes No.
That's incorrect, Yosemite. Supervisor Avalos made a motion to table the resolution. There was no vote on the resolution, per se. It's good to check facts before you post misinformation.
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Interesting. Lennie writes an opinion piece advocating to keep and expand the current docent system and these guys come unglued as though she's trying to take something away from them.
And since when is the Pilarcitos Quarry part of the Crystal Springs Watershed? Someone is, shall we say, map-challenged.
Maybe someone is reading challenged... Nobody here said that the quarry is part of the watershed... But Roberts' opinion in that instance stands in contrast with the message of the letter above. While it is not National Forest, the peninsula is a land of many uses... from waste disposal, to resource extraction, to conservation... Let's just not forget that the issue at hand is about privileged access versus public access. Open it.
Bafflegab. There's no GGNRA scenic easement over the Pilarcitos Quarry. But I doubt that will affect your need to lash out because you're oh so deprived by the inconvenience of the docent system.
Sheesh... talk about "unglued" or needing to "lash out"... And, by the way, it's not that the tours are inconvenient; I have planned for and taken advantage of them... I just hate to see the opportunity to discuss connecting open space with greater access via permits brushed off based on fear of unlikely scenarios...
What a load of hogwash.
This land was taken away from us, the public, 80 years ago, by faceless, secretive bureaucracy. There is absolutely no justification for it to stay that way. Dozens of parks and hundreds of miles of trails in the area had proven beyond any doubt that the morose scare-mongering exhibited here has nothing to do with reality.
How is that the East Bay watersheds are all open to the public but this is not? Are not the fire dangers more sever in the East Bay? Are people just more careful in the East Bay than are the people of the Pensisula?
I guess we are all way too stupid to be allowed unchaperoned access to the land we own in common. Fortunaly for us, those who are better equiped to protect nature are willing to hold our hands so as to prevent us from destorying that which only Sierra Club can use safely: -- http://www.sierraclub.org/loma-prieta/crystal-springs-watershed-docent-program
Sometimes the arrogance of the envitromental left is just as obnoxious as the that of the evangelical right.
Somefolks think you need a priest to commune with Nature's God. Other folks think you need a docent to commune with nature.
Potentially connecting Pacifica to Phleger Estate above Woodside along existing fire roads is an idea whose time has come.
These fireroads are miles away from Crystal Springs Reservoir (a fact conveniently omitted by the this Committee for Green Foothills hit piece)
Please consider:
Potentially connecting the City-County-Stete-and National Parks along the upper ridge lines would possibly lace together Pacifica's Sweeney Ridge , San Pedro Valley Co Park-McNee Ranch SP-Rancho Corral de Tierra-Quarry Park-Burleigh Murray State Park -Purisima Creek Open Space Preserve-Phleger Estate-Huddart Co Park-Wunderlich Co Park-La Honda Creek Open Space Preserve...
Marin Co and many other municipalities allow non motorized public access through watershed lands w/o affecting water quality.
Here is a functioning yearly permit system that showcases how select SFPUC fireroads could be responsibly accessed by the public.
http://landpaths.org/get-to-know-our-places/willow-creek-people-powered-park.aspx
Allowing the proposal to open some existing fireroads connecting Pacifica to points south to move forward by implementing the California Environmental Quality Act(CEQA) is a studied and reasonable expectation .
Please don't be misled by the Committee for Green Foothills-Sierra Club-Native Plant Society's wrong headed stance on this reasonable proposal.
Us coastsiders rely greatly on visitors recreating on our publicly owned open spaces,connecting our beloved parks along upper ridge line fire roads would be a valuable addition to these Parks lands.
Allow the CEQA process to play out!
This conveys my opinion as well as anything.http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/09/21/kremen-open-crystal-springs-watershed-to-the-public/
This States my opinion as well as anything could http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/09/21/kremen-open-crystal-springs-watershed-to-the-public/
This is precisely why I left the Sierra Club. On a international and national scale the Sierra Club does good work. At the California scale and lower it has little to do any scientifically based ecological policy and everything to do with NIMBYism under the guise of local action and preserving environmental action ethos circa 1960 for a handful of aging boomers. The Sierra Club has seriously damaged its reputation by misguided local advocacy, like they are doing here.
The Crystal Springs Reservoir and Pilarcitos Watersheds ARE NOT NATURAL. The indigenous people the Spanish named the Coastanoans and eventually wiped out, used to set fire to the chaparral to aid in seed gathering and hunting. Wild land fires are part of the California’s natural ecosystem. The Crystal Springs Reservoir and Pilarcitos Watersheds are just as ARTIFICIAL as Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Management of these watersheds should include the contingency that they burn ever few decades. If the SF Water Department has not accounted for that contingency and oversubscribed its water system,THAT IS BAD ENVIRONMENTAL PRACTICE WHICH SHOULD NOT BE CONDONED OR MITIGATED. I by no means am advocating for any human to start a wildlands fire or be irresponsible in a wildland area. I’m just saying letting the fuel load grow to artificial levels just exacerbates the problem and is being used by the eco-elites here, to keep other people from visiting these watersheds.
The other thing is competing interests These natural resources don’t exist solely for the elite white Sierra Club members to be lead on docent tours, while being indoctrinated in some 1960’s version of ecological stewardship or how wonderful the SF Water Department is. The world has passed the brink with global warming and it’s time to start thinking of ecological triage rather than saving every local bit of paradise that supposedly can be saved by local action. That involves ENGAGING EVERYONE and dealing with people that may not cut it fully as far as wilderness behavior.
I’m for opening up recreational access and dealing with the fall out. In the long run it is a far more sane ecological approach, rather than trying to keep Crystal Springs and Pilaracitos as some sort of artificial 1960’s diorama, behind glass for the rest of us to admire from Highway 280 and 92 and accessible only to the elite.
It may be with global climate change this nonsense will all be for naught anyway. More low humidity dry days in a row have been occurring and leading to more coastal wildlands fires despite man’s best efforts. That’s the reality and SF Public Works and all the so called local action eco types should deal with it.
This is more of the same, never once has Lennie mentioned or been questioned about the fact that CA CEQA law requires scientific review and solid park management before the gravel road network in our Watershed can ever open.
This is clear media bias. But it is media bias leveraged against the reputation of the voices against access. Who are attempting to stop the scientific process that would analyze the very fears they raise.
And of course Lennie Roberts writing the article that effectively rubber stamped the Pilarcitos Quarry expansion (breaking the scenic easement the GGNRA holds on the property) while fighting against the nature loving public to walk on publicly owned service road reeks just a tiny bit of hypocrisy.
Ms. Roberts stoops once again to simple scare tactics.
MROSD has 1,000s of acres of land just in San Mateo that they "manage" - much of it unwisely. POST as well. They simply let acreage they purchase just sit there for years and years until they come up with a "plan."
You think the fire danger on their property is any less? No chance.
Why did she let the Pilarcitos quarry be expanded in return for a large donation being made? Is that not called extortion in the business world?
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