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The San Francisco Water Department
Water, water everywhere. San Francisco is surrounded by water on three sides but the city's drinking water comes from over 150 miles away in a small mountain valley north of Yosemite named Hetch Hetchy. The water system was completed in 1934 at a cost of $100 million and 89 lives. The financial cost was borne completely by San Francisco without any State or Federal assistance. Today, the San Francisco Water Department services 2.2 million people around the Bay Area and has 15 reservoirs inside the city's limits alone. The city's emergency (read:earthquake) water supply at Lake Merced has a capacity of over two and half billion gallons. You can buy Sierra spring water by the bottle at the store or you can come to San Francisco and drink it from the tap.