San Francisco’s water customers are blessed with some of the finest drinking water in the nation. Due to strict protections of our Hetch Hetchy System’s watersheds, 2.7 million customers in San Francisco and 26 cities, water districts and private utilities in San Mateo, Santa Clara and Alameda Counties enjoy clean, high quality water. These watersheds also provide crucial habitat for many species of wildlife.

Some recreational advocates have been pushing to open up currently protected areas of the Peninsula watershed to mountain bikers, hikers and equestrians. San Francisco Supervisors John Avalos, Scott Wiener, and David Campos have authored Resolution (File # 160183) to allow unmanaged access on the watershed’s Fifield-Cahill Ridge service road, and to study additional trails that would crisscross through its remote western area. The Fifield-Cahill Ridge road is now available as a successful program of docent-led access 3 days a week for hikers, bikers and equestrians.

The Avalos-Wiener-Campos Resolution, which will be heard by the Board of Supervisors Land Use Committee on Monday, should be rejected. Unmanaged access into protected watershed areas poses unacceptable risks to our precious drinking water and critical wildlife habitats.

The 23,000-acre Peninsula watershed has the highest concentration of rare, threatened, and endangered species in the nine-county Bay Area. As a state-designated Fish and Game Refuge, it is home to mountain lions, Bald Eagles, and threatened Marbled Murrelets.

This biodiversity is extraordinary, considering the watershed is adjacent to 10 North Peninsula cities. Wildlife agencies are concerned about increased risk to these habitats from people who will inevitably be tempted to venture off trail and trespass.

The Peninsula Watershed Management Plan, adopted by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission in 2003, concluded: “access to the interior parts of the watershed to unescorted individuals poses an extreme risk of fires as well as a higher risk of degradation of water quality and ecological resources.”

The risk of catastrophic wildfire is real. According to CALFire, 95 percent of California’s wildland fires are human-caused. The devastating Big Sur Soberanes Fire and Yosemite’s Rim Fire were both caused by illegal campfires in unauthorized areas.

The Peninsula watershed is not a park; it is our water supply. San Francisco has wisely protected these lands for over 150 years. There are hundreds of miles of trails accessible to residents of San Francisco and the North Peninsula in nearby county, state, and national parks, as well as Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District preserves.

Two Chapters of the Sierra Club, three Chapters of Audubon, two Chapters of the California Native Plant Society and the Committee for Green Foothills strongly support expanding and upgrading the existing docent program to provide additional opportunities for increased, managed access while protecting our water quality and wildlife habitats.

We urge Land Use Committee members Malia Cohen, Scott Wiener, and Aaron Peskin, to reject unmanaged access, expand the docent program, and maintain our region’s celebrated water quality and critical wildlife habitats.

Lennie Roberts of Portola Valley is a Legislate Advocate for the Committee for Green Foothills. Arthur Feinstein is affiliated with the Sierra Club’s San Francisco Bay Chapter. They wrote this for The Mercury News.