Video: Exclusive tour of the upper Pilarcitos Creek watershed

Here is an opportunity to see a large piece of San Mateo County—just over the hill from the Coastside—that the public rarely gets to see.

Monday, the Pilarcitos Creek Restoration Workgroup took a tour of the upper Pilarcitos watershed on San Francisco Public Utilities Commission land. The land was purchased in the late 1800s by the Spring Valley Water Company to provide water for the city of San Francisco. This watershed is now the source for a significant portion of Coastside County Water District’s (CCWD) water.  

To protect the quality of this water, almost all of the watershed is closed to the public.  Only workgroup participants could be accommodated on this tour.  At the end of the tour, the business meeting took place, and is not included in the video although a bit of it is audible as I did a 360° shot of the outdoor meeting location, and then a quick pan of the participants.

The workgroup includes many organizations with an interest in Pilarcitos Creek and the watershed.  According to its memorandum of understanding (MOU) , the purpose of the workgroup is

to work as partners to balance all of the beneficial uses of available water resources in the Pilarcitos Creek watershed and to find solutions that protect the environment, agriculture, public health, domestic water supply, and economic interests.

I was able to take a video camera on the tour, to allow others to see the beauty of this closed watershed.  This video was all shot hand-held, so some of it is a bit jumpy, but I think it’s worth it.  

This was a rare hot sunny day in the watershed—we were lucky, because often when people are escorted up there, they complain that they can’t see anything through the fog.

Google Maps has an excellent satellite photo of Pilarcitos Reservoir. You can zoom in to see some of the structures in the video, and you can zoom out to see where it sits relative to the Coastside.

EDITOR’S NOTE: We’ve taken down the videos at Leonard Woren’s request, because of a request to Leonard from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.