San Francisco Buried Waters summary

Islais Creek 

In 1700 Islais Creek was one of the main resources of water for the city of San Francisco. It covers 20.234 km. It had two main branches: one that run from Twin Peaks to Mission Street, the other started near by Cayuga Avenue and ran along the eastern part of the Mission Street. There were two other streams, that existed in Islais Creek: the first ran along Alemany Boulevard, the second stream passed to Cesar Chavez Avenue Evans. 

Gold Rush 

The Golden Rush was the end of Islais Creek. During the gold rush, the area of islais creek became a center of commerce and stream conditions became worse, it was a sort of dump. 

Earthquake 1906 

After the earthquake, the population voted to fill the river with the debris of the earthquake, it was reduced to its present size. So the people began to build on this debris. During World War II Islais Creek served as a docking ship. Later on it became the largest processing plant for copra coconut in the United States  West Coast (now you can still see the crane). 

November 2001 

While construction crews preparing to drill an electrical for the Third Street Muni Metro light rail line underground, sewer pipes were broken. The waters of seweage invaded the creek (cleaned years earlier). Today there's needed a sum of more than $ 150.000 to repair the damage remained. 

Buried ship 

SF's Watersheds was used as a boat jetty (1849-1850) The ship was the fastest means of transport to get to the gold fields. Most of the ships were abandoned and left to rot, others destroyed by using wood. The result was that the City of San Francisco, has its foundations in ancient wooden ships. Many were discovered by the 1906 earthquake. 

Aral Sea

The Aral Sea is a salt lake of oceanic origin, located at the border between the Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Originally it was 68.00 km wide and up to 2007 has decreased by 80% due to intensive cultivation of cotton desired by the Soviet regime. The use of pesticides and herbicides on cotton plantations, has contaminated the soil, the area has become unlivable, even for strong winds carrying toxic sand.