Lake Merced | |
---|---|
Spanish: Laguna de Merced | |
Location | San Francisco, California |
Coordinates | 37°43′12″N122°29′42″W / 37.72°N 122.495°W |
Type | Reservoir |
Primary inflows | Spring |
Basin countries | United States |
Surface area | 650 acres (260 ha) |
Surface elevation | 23 ft (7 m) |
References | U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Lake Merced |
Type | Municipal (San Francisco) |
Location | San Francisco |
Area | 614 acres (2.48 km2; 0.96 sq mi) |
Created | 1940s |
Status | Open all year |
Lake Merced (Spanish : Laguna de Merced) is a freshwater lake in the southwest corner of San Francisco, in the U.S. state of California. It is surrounded by three golf courses (the private Olympic Club and San Francisco Golf Club, and the public TPC Harding Park), as well as residential areas, Lowell High School, San Francisco State University, Lakeshore Alternative Elementary School, Stonestown Galleria, Fort Funston and the Pacific Ocean. The San Francisco Police Department shooting range, as well as a now closed skeet shooting club and the city's National Guard armory are also in the area. The lake was also the home of the Lake Merced Sailing Club, now closed, which provided training and racing for local sailors. Currently there is a paddling program operated by San Francisco State University . [1] The lake is home of the Pacific Rowing Club and St. Ignatius College Prep Rowing Team, both competitive rowing programs for San Francisco high school students.
The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) has developed a safe eating advisory for Lake Merced based on levels of mercury found in fish caught from this water body. [2]
Lake Merced was originally christened Laguna de Nuestra Señora de la Merced by Captain Don Bruno de Heceta in 1775. [3] Father Pedro Font, while on the de Anza Expedition to found the Presidio of San Francisco in March, 1776 wrote in his diary, "we saw a grove of live oaks near which is the Laguna de la Merced, where Captain Ribera stopped; and here we saw many bears (California Grizzly Bear)..." [4]
At approximately 11pm of November 22, 1852, a shock was reported to have occurred by those in the areas around the Lake [5] and the following day reports were made that "...a fissure half a mile wide and three hundred yards long was discovered, through which the waters of Lake Merced were flowing to the sea." The most probable cause of the shock was attributed to heavy rains forcing a passage through the sandbank at the north-west. The Lake is reported to have lost 30 feet (9.1 meters) of water. A map from 1881 shows that the Lake still had a passage to sea, 29 years later. [6]
Once owned by Francisco De Haro, first Alcalde of Yerba Buena, as part of the Galindo ranch, the Spring Valley Water Company bought the water rights for the Lake in 1868, and the surrounding watershed in successive years. [7] By purchasing all local supply, the company created a monopoly on San Francisco's water. It was not until 1908, when the city approved construction of O'Shaughnessy Dam creating the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, that the city gained municipal control. Prior to the construction of the dam, Lake Merced was to serve as the city's main reservoir, with plans to expand the lake into land that is now the San Francisco State University campus. Around this time, Spring Valley sold off some of its land on Lake Merced, making way for the golf courses that exist today. In 1940, Metropolitan Life bought the last of Spring Valley's land to build the Parkmerced apartment complex.
The lake is fed by an underground spring, and at one time it did have an outlet to the ocean as shown on an 1869 United States Coast and Geodetic Survey Map. [3] The salt level was always fluctuating, and therefore some species of fish which inhabit the lake are salt and freshwater adapted. [ citation needed ] There is active recreational fishing at the lake. The lake's water level had been shrinking for decades, endangering the historic role of Lake Merced to support a healthy ecosystem. [8] Due to better management of the aquifer and occasional additions of water, lake level has been rising since 1990. [9] The only natural freshwater lakes in San Francisco are Pine Lake, Lake Merced, and Mountain Lake. [10]
On September 13, 1859, Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court David S. Terry killed United States Senator David C. Broderick in a duel at the lake. [11]
Daly City is the second most populous city in San Mateo County, California, United States. Located in the San Francisco Bay Area, and immediately south of San Francisco, it is named for businessman and landowner John Donald Daly.
The Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, or California Delta, is an expansive inland river delta and estuary in Northern California. The Delta is formed at the western edge of the Central Valley by the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and lies just east of where the rivers enter Suisun Bay, which flows into San Francisco Bay, then the Pacific Ocean via San Pablo Bay. The Delta is recognized for protection by the California Bays and Estuaries Policy. Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta was designated a National Heritage Area on March 12, 2019. The city of Stockton is located on the San Joaquin River at the eastern edge of the delta. The total area of the Delta, including both land and water, is about 1,100 square miles (2,800 km2). Its population is around 500,000.
Lake Sonoma is a reservoir west of Cloverdale in northern Sonoma County, California, created by the construction of Warm Springs Dam. The lake provides water for countywide growth and development, and for recreation.
Don Pedro Reservoir, also known as Lake Don Pedro, is a reservoir formed by the construction of the New Don Pedro Dam across the Tuolumne River in Tuolumne County, California, United States.
Mission Bay is an artificial, saltwater bay located south of the Pacific Beach community of San Diego, California, created from approximately 2,000 acres (810 ha) of historical wetland, marsh, and saltwater bay habitat. The bay is part of the recreational Mission Bay Park, the largest man-made aquatic park in the United States, consisting of 4,235 acres (17.14 km2), approximately 46% land and 54% water. The combined area makes Mission Bay Park the ninth largest municipally-owned park in the United States.
Putah Creek is a major stream in Northern California, a tributary of the Yolo Bypass, and ultimately, the Sacramento River. The 85-mile-long (137 km) creek has its headwaters in the Mayacamas Mountains, a part of the Coast Range, and flows east through two dams. First, Monticello Dam forms Lake Berryessa, below which Putah Creek forms the border of Yolo and Solano Counties, and then flows to the Putah Diversion Dam and Lake Solano. After several drought years in the late 1980s, the majority of Putah Creek went dry, prompting a landmark lawsuit that resulted in the signing of the Putah Creek Accord in 2000. The Accord established releases from the dams to maintain stream flows in Putah Creek, with natural flow regimes which spike in winter/spring and ebb in summer/fall. The restoration of natural flow regimes has resulted in a doubling of riparian bird species and a return of spawning native steelhead trout and Chinook salmon, as well as protecting the livelihood of farmers on the lower watershed.
Crystal Springs Reservoir is a pair of artificial lakes located in the northern Santa Cruz Mountains of San Mateo County, California, situated in the rift valley created by the San Andreas Fault just to the west of the cities of San Mateo and Hillsborough, and I-280. The lakes are part of the San Mateo Creek watershed. Crystal Springs Regional Trail runs along the reservoir.
Lake Chabot is a man-made lake covering 317 acres (1.3 km2) in Alameda County, California, United States. Part of the lake lies within Oakland city limits, but most of it lies in unincorporated Castro Valley, just east of San Leandro. It was formed by the damming of San Leandro Creek. The lake was completed in 1875 to serve as a primary source of water for the East Bay.
The Russian River is a southward-flowing river that drains 1,485 sq mi (3,850 km2) of Sonoma and Mendocino counties in Northern California. With an annual average discharge of approximately 1,600,000 acre feet (2.0 km3), it is the second-largest river flowing through the nine-county Greater San Francisco Bay Area, with a mainstem 115 mi (185 km) long.
The Laguna de Santa Rosa is a 22-mile-long (35 km) wetland complex that drains a 254-square-mile (660 km2) watershed encompassing most of the Santa Rosa Plain in Sonoma County, California, United States.
San Mateo Creek is a perennial stream whose watershed includes Crystal Springs Reservoir, for which it is the only natural outlet after passing Crystal Springs Dam.
The San Pablo Reservoir is an open cut terminal water storage reservoir owned and operated by the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD). It is located in the valley of San Pablo Creek, north of Orinda, California, United States, and south of El Sobrante and Richmond, east of the Berkeley Hills between San Pablo Ridge and Sobrante Ridge.
Bon Tempe Lake is a reservoir in Marin County, California, managed by the Marin Municipal Water District. It is the widest lake in the Mount Tamalpais watershed, and on Lagunitas Creek. Beneath its dam is Alpine Lake. Lake Lagunitas is immediately to its east.
Merced Manor is a neighborhood in southwestern San Francisco, between Stern Grove and Lake Merced. It is bordered by 19th Avenue to the east, Sloat Boulevard to the north, 26th Avenue to the west and Eucalyptus Drive to the south.
Rancho Laguna de la Merced was a 2,219-acre (8.98 km2) Mexican land grant, in present-day southwestern San Francisco and northwestern San Mateo County, California.
El Camino Viejo a Los Ángeles, also known as El Camino Viejo and the Old Los Angeles Trail, was the oldest north-south trail in the interior of Spanish colonial Las Californias (1769–1822) and Mexican Alta California (1822–1848), present day California. It became a well established inland route, and an alternative to the coastal El Camino Real trail used since the 1770s in the period.
San Andrés Creek, now called San Andreas Creek, is a perennial stream that flows 5.9 miles (9.5 km) southeasterly along the San Andreas Fault from Sweeney Ridge in San Mateo County, California, providing the inflow to and outflow from San Andreas Reservoir, and then entering Lower Crystal Springs Reservoir, where it was a historic tributary to San Mateo Creek. San Mateo Creek then carries its waters over Crystal Springs Dam northeast to San Francisco Bay.
Laguna Creek is a perennial stream that flows northwesterly for 2.6 miles (4.2 km) along the San Andreas Fault from Woodside in San Mateo County, California and, after crossing the Phleger Estate and Filoli, enters Upper Crystal Springs Reservoir, where it is a historic tributary to San Mateo Creek. San Mateo Creek then carries its waters over Crystal Springs Dam northeast to San Francisco Bay.
Pine Lake, previously known as Laguna Puerca or Pig Lake, is a freshwater lake in Pine Lake Park in the southwest corner of San Francisco. The lake is fed from the same aquifer as nearby Lake Merced.
The Laguna Creek watershed consists of 25.1 square miles (100 km2) of land within northern California's Alameda County. The watershed drains the foothills of the Diablo Range south of Niles Canyon. To the southeast, the area of Mission Peak Regional Preserve around Mission Peak is included. Agua Caliente, Canada del Aliso, Mission, Morrison, Sabercat, Vargas, and Washington creeks drain the area of the watershed. They drain into Laguna Creek and eventually Mud Slough.
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