PUC Trying to Determine the Future of Land near Laguna Honda Reservoir

By Carol Dimmick

Still smarting from a public relations nightmare when a plan to use goats to control vegetation on the hillside above the Laguna Honda Reservoir ignited a public protest in April, the SF Public Utilities Commission (PUC) is undertaking a comprehensive assessment that could turn the property over to the SF Recreation and Park Department for use as a park.

Patricia Martel, the PUC's general manager, confirmed the PUC is working on a fuel load assessment study that will identify and map vegetation at the Laguna Honda Reservoir.

Martel said the PUC, which owns all of the land around the reservoir, wants to develop a comprehensive fire abatement plan for the area. The study will also reveal the number and location of native plants on the property that environmentalists want protected.

The reservoir, which stretches along Seventh Avenue northbound from Clarendon Avenue, has remained inactive since 1906, when the great earthquake destroyed a pipeline built by the Spring Valley Water Works in 1865. The pipeline carried water to San Francisco from Pilarcitos Canyon, 11 miles south of the City.

"It is just considered a nice little lake, so we have not actively maintained it," Martel explained.

Martel said the fuel load assessment is a direct result of issues that arose from an attempt by the PUC in April to rid the area surrounding the Laguna Honda Reservoir of vegetation it considered a high fire danger by turning a herd of 500 hungry goats loose on the property. The PUC uses goats at other sites as part of its fire abatement strategies.

The idea backfired, however, when neighbors and environmentalists that live near the reservoir noticed the goats and flooded the PUC with angry telephone calls and e-mails. They claimed the goats were destroying acres of native plants that provide a refuge for wildlife.

The PUC responded by pulling the goats from the property five days into a 30-day contract. A spokesperson for the agency acknowledged that studies should have been conducted before the goats were used.

At the same time as the goat incident, a second crisis developed at the reservoir involving the removal of a large, entrenched group of squatters.

For years, a large homeless population of approximately 60 people was allowed to live virtually unmolested on the hillside above the reservoir, many in semi-permanent structures with mud walls and thatched roofs. Some dwellers cultivated vegetable gardens, cooked on butane stoves, built ponds and planted fruit trees. Residents in the neighboring communities complained that the sites were a fire hazard, full of garbage and over-run with feral cats.

When the PUC brought the goats onto the property to strip the vegetation from the hillside, the extent of the homeless encampment could no longer be ignored and the PUC found itself facing a new set of legal and public relations issues.

After meeting with the Mayor's Commission on the Homeless to work out a process for removing the squatters, the PUC asked the SF Police Department and employees of the water department to conduct a series of raids on the encampments during the summer. Heavy equipment, including backhoes, were eventually brought in to clear out the area and to fill in a series of ponds built by a 23-year resident that was threatening to erode the hillside above the reservoir.

Workers also used bulldozers to clear away the remains of a large encampment along Seventh Avenue, where police believe individuals responsible for a series of neighborhood burglaries lived.

Martel acknowledged that thorny issues arising from the use of the goats and removal of the squatters motivated her to determine whether the Laguna Honda Reservoir will play an active part in the PUC's mission to deliver water and power to the City in the future. If not, Martel believes this may be a good time to turn it over to another agency.

"The issue (turning the property over to another agency) arose out of activities of removing the homeless and the goats. "We (PUC) are not in the business of maintaining parks with access to the public - only watershed," she said.

Martel acknowledged initiating a conversation with Elizabeth Goldstein, general manager of the Recreation and Park Department, about the possibility of transferring ownership of the property to the department, but she said no substantive discussions were held.

Critics of Turning Property Over to Rec and Park Point to Agency's Lack of Resources

Selling the public on the idea of turning stewardship of the property over to the Recreation and Park Department may prove to be difficult because environmentalists and park enthusiasts lack confidence in the department's financial capability to manage property.

Jake Sigg, a member of the Native Plant Society, says he may oppose a move to turn the property over to the Recreation and Park Department because the department is not in a financial position to do the job.

"I have a lot of mixed feelings about turning the property over to the Recreation and Park Department. The main thing is that it should remain what it is now, a wildlife preserve. The Recreation and Park Department does not have adequate resources to manage it," Sigg said.

The Recreation and Park Department was hit with a $10 million budget cut in June, which forced it to lay off the equivalent of 100 full-time staff positions. The blow hit just as the department was recovering from years of budget cuts and low morale.

Isabel Wade, president of the National Parks Council, a nonprofit group that works with the Recreation and Park Department to train gardeners and refurbish playgrounds, echoed Sigg's concerns.

"My main objection is financial. They just do not have the resources," Wade said.

The outcome of the fuel abatement assessment and a report on whether the reservoir will play a role in the PUC's mission to provide water and power in the future will be on the PUC's agenda in either October or November.

Editor's note: The public can check the PUC's website at www.sfwater.org for more information and a schedule of PUC meetings.