Crystal Springs Watershed Docent Program

Expanded Peninsula Watershed docent program will increase public access, protect vital water supply

The Peninsula Watershed in central San Mateo County has the highest concentration of rare, threatened, and endangered species in the nine-county Bay Area — a truly remarkable fact considering the area’s proximity to highly developed urban areas. The 23,000 acres of the watershed lands are protected and managed by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (PUC) with the primary purpose of production, collection, and storage of the highest-quality water for the City and County of San Francisco and its suburban customers. In order to protect this precious water supply in an era of longer and more severe droughts, access to much of the area is restricted to a handful of well-used trails, except under the auspices of a docent program.

Under the docent program, volunteer guides lead hikers, bicyclists, and equestrians into watershed lands three days a week (You can learn more and sign up for a trip here). The docent program has increased public awareness and support for the watershed’s diverse natural habitats and wildlife while at the same time helping to prevent unauthorized off-trail use and trespassing. That in turn reduces the potential for catastrophic wildfires (the area has been designated a “hazardous fire area” by the California Department of Forestry) and degradation of water quality in the four reservoirs.Crystal Springs Reservoir

Mountain bicycle and other advocates are lobbying the PUC to consider opening remote areas of the Peninsula Watershed lands to unrestricted access — not only along the unpaved and unfenced service road on Fifield-Cahill Ridge, but also on numerous other interconnecting service roads and trails. Unfortunately, unrestricted access increases the likelihood of public health impacts, including fire risk and degraded water quality, as well as harm to habitats and wildlife.                                                    Photo by David Hallock, www.flickr.com/oruwu.

Allowing uncontrolled access to the watershed’s remote areas would tremendously increase costs to taxpayers, as people will inevitably trespass into protected, sensitive areas. Fencing to prevent access would interrupt established wildlife migration corridors and would not deter all trespassers.

Rather than opening the area to unrestricted access and the risks associated with it, the Sierra Club and other environmental groups are calling for the successful, existing docent program to be expanded and upgraded. An excellent model for a well-managed and effective docent program is at Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve on Stanford University lands south of Crystal Springs. A similar program could be instituted for the Watershed.

A number of Peninsula Watershed trails are already open every day to unrestricted access. The popular 16-mile Crystal Springs trail east of the reservoirs near Highway 280 serves over 325,000 people each year.

This is not the first time the San Francisco PUC has considered allowing unrestricted access in the watershed lands. In 2002, the PUC considered and ultimately rejected the idea due to serious concerns raised by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, California Fish and Wildlife, California Department of Health Services, and many environmental groups over water quality, fire, and wildlife. The docent program was created at that time to respond to the call for more public access. Now the docent program should be expanded and upgraded.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors should pass a resolution affirming that the primary function of the watershed is protection of our water supply and preservation of natural resources, while allowing increased public access through an expanded docent program rather than uncontrolled access. The Sierra Club, Golden Gate and Sequoia Audubon Societies, California Native Plant Society’s Yerba Buena and Santa Clara County Chapters, and the Committee for Green Foothills all support this approach.

Lennie Roberts, San Mateo County legislative advocate, Committee for Green Foothills; Mike Ferreira, chair, Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter; Arthur Feinstein, Executive Committee member, Sierra Club San Francisco Bay Chapter