Sunol Water Temple
Monument
Sunol Water Temple (monument, run by the Public Utilities Commission): $1.8B budgeted for its department in FY2025, 2,679 employees on the payroll, 7 city documents at the Internet Archive, every figure linked to its source. The Sunol Water Temple is a historic monument on the Alameda watershed. A 2005 municipal water history says the Spring Valley Water Company "built the Sunol Water Temple in 1910"; the temple was damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and restored in 2001. Sunol/Niles dam-removal environmental impact reports (2005–2006) find the temple eligible for the National Register and describe the water flows through it as a "character-defining feature." A 1997 ADA transition plan records that the temple "is closed to the public," a 1983 Arts Commission agenda covers art-enrichment funding to restore its murals, and 1996 PUC minutes direct that it be restored. The monument is operated by the Public Utilities Commission, whose FY2025 budget line is about $1.8B. Source: SF Controller open data and the Internet Archive.
Openverse (flickr) · CDay DaytimeStudios w /1.5 Million views · BY-ND 2.0The Sunol Water Temple is a historic monument on the Alameda watershed. A 2005 municipal water history says the Spring Valley Water Company "built the Sunol Water Temple in 1910"; the temple was damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and restored in 2001. Sunol/Niles dam-removal environmental impact reports (2005–2006) find the temple eligible for the National Register and describe the water flows through it as a "character-defining feature." A 1997 ADA transition plan records that the temple "is closed to the public," a 1983 Arts Commission agenda covers art-enrichment funding to restore its murals, and 1996 PUC minutes direct that it be restored. The monument is operated by the Public Utilities Commission, whose FY2025 budget line is about $1.8B.
505 Paloma Way · City-owned · City Facilities registry
No city spending is recorded against this place by name. San Francisco publishes contracts, bond items and vendor payments at project level, and none of them names this site — so there is no figure to show, rather than a figure of zero.
Run by the Public Utilities Commission (water, power, sewer), whose whole-department budget is $1.8B across 2,679 staff (FY2025) — citywide, not this place’s own. The City does not publish a running cost per building.
The response volume for the dam-removal review, which warns that the water flowing through the temple is a character-defining feature — 'inflows are the temple's reason for being' — and that losing them could be read as a loss of integrity.
San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Sunol / environmental impact report : comments and responses · 2006 ↗Internet Archive — San Francisco Public Library partnership scansThe environmental review of removing Sunol and Niles dams, explaining that groundwater recovered by the infiltration galleries discharges through the temple before running on to the Sunol Aqueduct.
San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Sunol/Niles dam removal project : environmental impact report · 2005 ↗Internet Archive — San Francisco Public Library partnership scansThe utility's history records that Spring Valley Water Company built the temple in 1910, to the design of Willis Polk, marking where its three East Bay water sources met.
San Francisco water and power : a history of the Municipal Water Department & Hetch Hetchy system · 2005 ↗Internet Archive — San Francisco Public Library partnership scansThe Water Department's 1997 disability-access transition plan, which schedules the work needed to bring the temple's public areas into compliance alongside the Pulgas temple and the Sunol treatment plants.
Americans with Disabilities Act transition plan · 1997 ↗Internet Archive — San Francisco Public Library partnership scans
See 2 more documents
- Alameda Watershed management plan, Peninsula Watershed management plan : appendix C ↗Internet Archive — San Francisco Public Library partnership scans
An appendix to the Alameda Watershed management plan, weighing gravel extraction and restoration alternatives north of Interstate 680 on the land around the temple.
Alameda Watershed management plan : appendix A ↗Internet Archive — San Francisco Public Library partnership scans
1 procedural record — minutes, agendas, calendars — not listed.
