Angry Neighbors Blast City Officials, 500 Hungry Goats Eat Reservoir's Vegetation; Homeless Rousted

By Carol Dimmick

City officials pulled the plug on a plan that called for 500 goats to clear vegetation from the hillside above the Laguna Honda Reservoir. Angry neighbors claim the goats destroyed acres of native plants that provide a refuge for wildlife.

What began as an ordinary April morning for Jake Sigg soon turned into a frantic effort to save the vegetation on the hill above the reservoir. Sigg, a member of the California Native Plant Society, looked out of his kitchen window April 1 and saw hundreds of goats devouring the plants and trees on the northern slope of the reservoir.

Convinced the goats had to be stopped before they stripped much of the vegetation from the hillside, Sigg frantically e-mailed dozens of people, who flooded city officials with calls demanding that the goats be removed.

"These green spaces are very few and very far between in the City," he said.

Cheryl Davis, acting assistant general manager for operations at the Public Utilities Commission (PUC), confirmed the goats were part of the SF Water Department's fire management effort. They were removed on April 5 after the PUC received a flood of complaints from neighbors and environmentalists.

"Before we would go back to using goats again, we will have a meeting with the neighbors. We probably should have done some things before we had those goats out there," she said.

According to Davis, the City entered into a $33,000 contract with Goats-R-Us to clear vegetation from the hillside above the reservoir as a fire prevention measure. The contract was scheduled to run for 30 days, but the goats were only on the job for about a week before they were removed.

Davis said the goats are one of a variety of techniques used by the City as part of an ongoing fuel management program.

"Goats have been used at Hetch Hetchy and at other places in the City. We have been bringing more resources to fuel management recently," Davis said.

But angry neighbors say the PUC has ignored the fire hazard on the hillside for years and should have met with stakeholders before turning 500 hungry goats loose to eat the vegetation. According to neighbors, the goats destroyed acres of native plants and trees that serve as prime habitat for dozens of species of birds and butterflies during their critical reproductive cycles.

"This is the prime season for wildlife renewal. It is an insult and total mismanagement," said Pinky Kushner, a member of the Sierra Club and vice president of the Inner Sunset Park Neighbors Association.

Sigg, whose e-mails ignited the campaign to remove the goats, agrees with Davis that the vegetation is a fire hazard, but he wants the City to develop a plan that will also preserve one of the few patches of green space left in the City.

"There needs to be a plan developed that takes into account fire management and biological preservation," Sigg said. He said the goats' hooves dug up the ground on the hillside and may have created a potential for erosion. Sigg also points out that goats are indiscriminate in their dining habits, which he says could lead to an even greater fire hazard.

"The goats stripped bark off every one of the Toyon trees, so they are going to die. This will only mean more fuel for fires," Sigg said.

Police Raid Large Homeless Encampment
The Laguna Honda Reservoir was the site of second controversy in April when the SF Police Department and employees at the water department conducted a raid on long-term homeless encampments at the reservoir. The raid, which netted about 40 large plastic bags of materials that workers carried down from the hillside, only drove a few squatters from the reservoir because police say their work was made too difficult by the steep terrain.

Workers also used a backhoe to clear away the remains of a large encampment along Seventh Avenue. For years, a large homeless population has been living on the property. At least five semi-permanent structures with mud walls and thatched roofs are standing on the hillside. Some dwellers cultivated vegetable gardens, cooked on butane stoves, built ponds and planted fruit trees. But many sites are full of garbage and over-run with feral cats.

Capt. Daniel Lawson, of the Park Police Station, confirmed that the raid was the result of complaints from neighbors, who expressed concern about a growing homeless population in the area. Police also believe that transients were responsible for a recent rash of car boostings and home burglaries along Seventh Avenue.

Just minutes before the raid began, John Flynn and his wife Lorie left the hillside. The Flynns have lived at the reservoir for almost five years. They both admitted that some of the people that live at the reservoir are creating problems. Lorie, who says she has planted several gardens on the property and rebuilt a staircase, blames most of the problems on the transient homeless.

"It's the new people, the ones who are passing through that cause most of the problems," Lorie said. "We call them the 'trash monsters.'"

Police officials say they will meet with water department representatives in the near future to see if a plan can be worked out to make it more difficult for squatters to return to the reservoir once they are removed.