Water Resources Collections and Archives

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SF PUC) is investigating the feasibility of daylighting historical urban creeks to mitigate flooding and combined sewer overflows in an attractive and multi-functional way in San Francisco. Yosemite Creek in southeastern San Francisco’s McLaren Park has been identified as a potentially feasible site in which to pilot a daylighting project, which could provide insight into other San Francisco projects and/or into a citywide daylighting policy. Drawing upon lessons learned from similar creek daylighting projects in similar cities elsewhere - as enumerated in Part I (Smith 2007) - Part II recommends a demonstration daylighting program in McLaren Park, sized to contain the 100 year storm. Clear goals and incorporation of monitoring and maintenance costs into the initial budget will be critical to the ability of the project to both inform future projects and adapt over time to meet goals over the long term.