Bridge over Crystal Springs Dam may re-open soon
We hesitate to make this call but it seems quite possible that extensive work on a replacement bridge over the Crystal Spring Dam may be completed early next year.
Don’t snicker. It’s not out of the question. Construction on the dam itself (it’s been raised and renovated) is done. So are improvements to related PG&E infrastructure.
All that’s left to finish is some of the bridge/ roadway over the dam. And, according to a spokeswoman for San Mateo County, that work should be wrapped up soon, perhaps (fingers crossed) in January.
Unfortunately, we’ve been down this path before. Predictions of completion have been made before, only to see them fail. It’s been one false call after another. The three-part project is almost in its ninth year, having commenced in earnest in 2011.
Improvements to the 130-year-old dam itself were completed in 2012. That effort was under the purview of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, the agency that governs the water supply and transmission system for the city, San Mateo County and other parts of the Bay Area.
A spokesman for the PUC, Will Reisman, said the cost of that work was budgeted at $35 million.
Once construction on the dam was finished, PG&E began its portion of the project. With that out of the way, San Mateo County authorities began work on a new bridge over the dam. The previous bridge had been torn down.
Michelle Durand, a spokeswoman for the county, said a $13 million budget was approved in 2015 and, finally, the new structure will be finished soon. According to her, the bridge, part of Skyline Boulevard, could be reopened “possibly as early as January.” But, she cautioned, that’s still a tentative timeline. So don’t put the champagne on ice just yet.
The dam, originally created out of huge concrete blocks in 1888, has weathered two major earthquakes, in 1906 and 1989. The dam, which holds back water in the Lower Crystal Springs Reservoir, is located about 100 yards east of the San Andreas Fault.
Pristine watershed
The sprawling Crystal Springs watershed, created when San Mateo Creek was dammed in the late 1800s (inundating the tiny rural town of Crystal Springs in the process), is a San Mateo County gem.
Comprising 23,000 acres of verdant open space, the watershed is a carefully protected entity that has been designated as a fish and wildlife refuge. The public is allowed only limited access to the area. Two lengthy trails provide visitors with some ability to inspect the watershed’s natural beauty but efforts to open it up to more intensive use have been only minimally successful over the decades.
Calls to allow fishing/boating in the system’s two lakes, for example, have borne no fruit. San Francisco authorities, who control the property, have been diligent in keeping this resource free of any sort of contamination or degradation.
Their aim, right from the outset in the 19th century, has been to make sure drinking water, much of it provided via the Hetch Hetchy transmission system, remains as pure as possible.
So far, you would have to give them high marks.