S.F. Water Department Pledges Not to Waste So Damn Much Water

Joe Eskenazi

We can change!

​Last week, we wrote some stories about how the city was allowing thousands of gallons of "The best water in the world" to roar down the sewer while it flushed the water mains. Water Department employees, in order to combat built-up silt and any staleness in the water supply, cracked a number of the fire hydrants in Mission Bay and allowed the water to rush out for three hours or more.

City engineers declined to even ballpark how much water was sent straight down the sewer -- though fire fighter union president John Hanley's estimation was somewhere between 50 and 80 gallons a minute. Hanley is not a scientist -- and neither is the author -- but, very unscientifically, the idea of filling a five-gallon bucket in five seconds or fewer seems reasonable based on eyewitness observations.

Due in part to SF Weekly's articles, says Public Utilities Commission spokesman Tyrone Jue, the city will begin attempting not to waste quite so much water. For starters, rather than send all that agua down the drain, Jue said the PUC will now begin filling the city's streetsweeper vehicles or plant-watering trucks with the effluent.

It's a novel idea -- yet, sadly, this is, almost literally, just a drop in the bucket. Even using Hanley's conservative estimation of how much water is gushing out of Mission Bay's fire hydrants -- and, yes, the water department was running them again Monday for three hours at a stretch -- perhaps 3,600 gallons per hour are being flushed away.

When you consider streetsweeper trucks only hold 185 gallons and plant-waterers 500 -- that still means plenty of water will go down the drain. Unless, of course, city vehicles form a mechanical conga line around the block and each take their fill. But that's unlikely.

Still, on the bright side, a streetsweeper only having a 185-gallon tank is a pleasant surprise, right? Right?