Pilot Project: Far Out West Community Garden

Westside Water Resources approached St. Paul’s Presbyterian church with an offer to improve the Church’s grounds in exchange for the opportunity to develop the land into a community garden space and the SFPUC’s first private groundwater recharge pilot project.

The garden makes efficient and accessible use of the roughly 2500 square feet of open space on St. Paul’s grounds, including 15 raised beds, communal planting space, native succulents and trees, a greenhouse, and composting. The entire garden serves as a percolation field for the water catchment system.

The Challenge

San Francisco residents rely on Hetch Hetchy for their water, a valuable and fragile resource. Drought, earthquakes and other disasters can disrupt such a remote and complex system.

By supplementing our water supply with local groundwater sources, we can reduce our dependence upon outside water and increase the resilience of our water system.

Unfortunately, cities like San Francisco are covered in impermeable surfaces like buildings and concrete, preventing rainwater from soaking into the aquifer below.

A Solution

The Far Out West Garden’s Rainwater Harvesting Project shows how ordinary buildings can be part of a sustainable cyclical water system.

The success has exceeded expectations in both community participation as well as the volume of water captured. In an average year, 48,840 gallons of rainwater will fall on the portion of the church’s roof feeding the cistern tank. That means that the tank could be filled and emptied 27 times every year!

Funding for this project was granted through the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.