I gave a presentation final week to the native chapter of the Groundwater Sources Affiliation of California, focusing fairly strictly on Oakland’s water. It was an opportunity to go deeper into the subject and convey up issues that didn’t slot in chapters 5 and 8 of Deep Oakland. Although I primarily spoke about groundwater, I discussed our floor water too. I mentioned Oakland ought to worth it for magnificence, recreation and habitat and by no means use it for consuming once more.
Oakland’s authentic (1869) floor water reservoir, Lake Temescal
Oakland’s “groundwater age” lasted from the town’s founding in 1852 till 1930. I will be fairly sure of that latter date as a result of the East Bay Municipal Utility District shut down all of the native groundwater wells, inherited from the earlier personal water corporations, that 12 months.
The groundwater age was largely a fraught time. The primary settlers in Oakland, across the decrease ten blocks of Broadway, all dug wells to produce their water. After some time the water desk started to sink and pollution made their option to the shallow aquifer simply beneath the Merritt Sand. In 1883 Myron Wooden reported, “Wells in thickly settled neighborhoods are regarded upon with mistrust.”
Briefly order, individuals who had been fortunate sufficient to have productive wells began small water corporations serving an area clientele. Town’s first franchised water provider was the Contra Costa Water Firm, based by Anthony Chabot and based mostly on floor water. Chabot dammed Temescal Creek to create the little reservoir now often called Lake Temescal. It got here on line in 1869. The water wasn’t excellent; one early account described it as “clear, however of a deep greenish tint.” Early prospects drank it solely through the wet season, counting on their wells the remainder of the 12 months and utilizing the town water for the yard and backyard. There have been flat charges and no meters. Lake Temescal commonly dried up at first, and Chabot later raised the dam.
Many companies had their very own wells. At present we’d image pure water as a mountain stream, however within the previous days groundwater was a lot most well-liked. Oakland’s wells yielded water that was “arduous, however very clear and pure.” Wells supported producers, canneries — and breweries, which I’ve marked with a “B” on this geologic map.
North to south: Anchor, Oakland Brewing and Malting, Oakland Brewery, Washington Brewery/Golden West Brewing, Becht’s Brewery, Empire Brewery, East Oakland Brewery, Brooklyn Brewery, Palace Brewery and Alameda Brewery
Chabot’s agency subsequent dammed San Leandro Creek to create Lake Chabot, which went into service in 1875, however each different water firm relied on wells. Chabot’s firm quickly joined them, and for the following fifty years the water corporations struggled to develop their provides, establishing wellfields in East Oakland and farther south. On the top of the “water wars” within the Nineties, they had been badmouthing, outpumping and even sabotaging one another whereas the town imposed low charges that happy the residents however drove the businesses, one after the opposite, to chapter and consolidation.
A few of Oakland’s long-gone suppliers: Contra Costa Water Co., Union Water Co., Folks’s Water Co., East Bay Water Co.
Oakland had sufficient groundwater for a small metropolis, however not a big one. Because it and the opposite East Bay cities grew, the water corporations repeatedly hit limits imposed by air pollution, saltwater intrusion, depletion and drought.
No new dams had been constructed till occasions had been determined. East Bay Water Firm, having absorbed practically twenty rivals between 1876 and 1921, constructed San Pablo Reservoir in 1919 and Higher San Leandro Reservoir in 1926. Then East Bay MUD, created by a public vote in 1923, purchased out all its property and shut down the wellfields. The brand new public company introduced the primary Mokelumne River water from the Sierra foothills on 24 June 1929 throughout a extreme drought. It had completed the Pardee Dam and Mokelumne Aqueduct within the very nick of time, only a day or two earlier than the native reservoirs had been right down to their final foot of muddy water. At present the East Bay reservoirs maintain water pumped in from the Sierra foothills.
Like Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and each different nice American metropolis, we simply don’t have sufficient of our personal water to thrive. But it surely’s doable that we might nonetheless develop small native aquifers that had been beforehand out of attain. They might serve for emergency use if a significant earthquake had been to interrupt the availability from the Mokelumne River watershed. These may be discovered beneath the plentiful landfill that has prolonged Oakland far previous its authentic shoreline. Maybe when the harbor and airport are constructed up within the face of sea-level rise, we will organize to discover the untapped groundwater beneath them. It’s a part of pondering 500 years forward.
