Upper Alameda Creek Filter Gallery Project

The SFPUC is proposing to construct an in-stream infiltration gallery under Alameda Creek in the Sunol Valley to recapture up to 1,200 acre-feet of water released from Calaveras Reservoir for fishery habitat improvement, and pump the recaptured water into San Antonio Reservoir. The SFPUC proposes construction from 2014-2016.

The filter gallery would consist of two well screens buried approximately 15 to 20 feet beneath the streambed of Alameda Creek; a wet well or storage basin; a pump station; a 1,250-foot-long transfer pipeline; and a potential water treatment facility.

The Alameda Creek Alliance has concerns that this project not recapture bypass and release flows intended to benefit anadromous steelhead trout, thereby reducing the benefits of promised mitigations in the Calaveras Dam replacement project.

Although recapture of summer rearing flows released from Calaveras may be achievable in a manner consistent with steelhead recovery, by definition, a recapture facility that diverts natural flow or recaptured spring and winter releases for steelhead in- and out-migration flows would undermine potential benefits of these flows to anadromous species, and have a potentially significant impact on steelhead. The recapture project could create additional impacts to fish passage and downstream habitat that must be addressed.

We will be working with the SFPUC to ensure the project maintains the stream flow benefits for steelhead trout promised in the final Calaveras Dam replacement project.

More information about the project can be found on the SFPUC's web page for the filter gallery project.