The Journey of San Francisco Drinking Water: from its source to the faucet

• Where does your water come from? The source!   Track it from the source to your tap.
• What did you discover about your water quality?  
• Do you use a filter for your water?  
• What are you trying to filter out?
• Do you drink bottled water?   How does this square with what you learned when you watched the Story of Bottled Water (see next exercise)?

According to San Francisco Water Power Sewer, 2.6 million residential, commercial and industrial customers are serviced through the Hetch Hetchy watershed, an area located in Yosemite National Park, which provides approximately 85% of San Francisco's total water needs. The water comes from the spring snowmelt, which runs down the Tuolumne River and fills the Hetch Hetchy, the largest reservoir in the Hetch Hetchy water system. The surface water in the reservoir is treated but not filtered.


In addition to the Hetch Hetchy water system, Alameda and Peninsula watershed produce 15% of the total water supply used by San Francisco. The Alameda watershed is stored in two reservoirs: Calaveras and San Antonio. The Peninsula watershed in San Mateo County contributes to the surface water supplies captured and stored in lower and upper Crystal Springs and San Andreas Reservoirs and in two smaller reserviors, Pilarcitos and Stone Dam. These local water sources and ground water from the Sunol filter galleries are treated and filtered before delivery.

San Francisco Water Power Sewer produces an annual report, which is state mandated and contains crucial information about the water that San Francisco residents drink annually.

I discovered that the water coming from the Hetch Hetchy Regional Water System is safe since in 2015, 90,090 tests were conducted to test the water for quality. The water meets the standards set forth for the USEPA and SWRCB-DDW. There is presence of water fluoridation, which is widely accepted practice proven to be safe and effective for preventing  and controlling tooth decay. I also learned that although the water is safe to drink for most of the population except people with special needs which includes immuno-compromised persons, some eldery and some infants, who might be at risk for infection.

I personally do not filter my water here in San Francisco. I drink water right out of the tap. I lived in Southern California my entire life and we always used a filter. Living here in San Francisco these past 2 years, has been the only time in my life that I drank water from the tap. At the same time, I have drank bottled water when I lived in San Diego and Los Angeles but since moving to San Francisco, I only use a reusable water and drink water from the tap. When I watched "The Story of Bottled Water" I realized how useless my use of plastic water bottles has been in my effort to try to have "cleaner water," since bottled water is less regulated and more expensive than tap water. According to the short film, the U.S. consumes "more than half a billion bottles of water every week" and if you want a visual, "that is enough to circle the globe more than 5 times." When watching "The Story of Bottled Water," they said that in the 1970s that the soda companies decided that bottling water would be a way to increase their revenue. They used scar tactics, they seduced the public with fantasies of why people should drink bottled water with pictures of mountain streams and pristine nature and mislead the public. In reality that water that is bottled comes from the tap. Bottles of water take up space in our environment since 80% end up in landfills or they are burn in incinerators where toxic chemicals are released into our air or they will be recycled, but really downcycled in order to make less quality products in India, which could become waste again later. So why do people think tap water is not good? Because the soda companies have made us believe that. The tap water industry is underfunded by $24 billion because people think bottled water is a better investment than trying to fix our water for everyone. We need to buy into our own tap water by putting our money into the water infrastructure and making it accessible not just to the few but all. Go out and buy a reusable water bottle and make a statement that you will no longer play the game of the soda and bottled water industry.