BART Dumps Millions Of Gallons Of Underground Water Yearly
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- Millions of gallons of water from one of the underground creeks in San Francisco is being wasted every year because of the creek's proximity to a downtown BART station.
BART has to pump out water from the Hayes Valley Creek because the creek crosses the BART system at Powell Street Station, one of the busiest in the system and one of the deepest underground.
The water diversion has gone on for more than four decades, ever since the station was built in the late 60s – an average of 65 million gallons every year.
"We're constantly having to pump water out of that station, if we didn't then it would flood," said BART spokesman Taylor Huckaby. "The water is currently going straight into San Francisco's sewer."
For the last 20 years, the city has promised to find a use for that water. It's not the only example of water waste in San Francisco.
The United Nations Plaza Fountain on Market Street was also built on top of an underground creek. But the creek water isn't used for the fountain. It also gets dumped into the sewer.
"If it's not pumped out, it's going to end up messing with the machinery that causes the fountain to run," said Steve Ritchie, Assistant General Manager, Water Services of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.
From City Hall to Moscone Center, sump pumps divert thousands of gallons of underground creeks to the sewers. But now Texas-based NRG Energy is considering piping the water from BART's Powell Street Station to its steam plant on Jessie Street a few blocks away. The plant produces steam heat for downtown buildings.
BART would give NRG the water for free, and the city has offered a grant to help pull the water out of the sewers. But there's a hitch: that free water would still have to be treated.
"Even using it in a boiler to create steam, the water quality has to be modified for that to take place," said Ritchie.
Or NRG could continue doing what they've always done - buying water from San Francisco's Hetch Hetchy drinking water reservoir, which is low-cost.
" Drinking water is still a bargain in the U.S.," said Ritchie.
Even if NRG does move forward with the BART water, the company would use only about 100,000 gallons a day, which still leaves hundreds of thousands of gallons to be diverted at Powell St. BART every day into the sewers.
