Pulgas Water Temple honored as landmark 

The award was bestowed by the American Water Works Association, an organization representing water supply professionals across North America. To be eligible for such an honor, a site must be more than 50 years old and play a role in water supply, distribution and the local community.

“This breathtaking temple not only celebrates water, it also has become a part of the daily lives of the community that it serves,” Sue Mosburg, AWWA executive director of the California-Nevada stretch, said. “As an organization whose purpose it is to promote and facilitate the higher purpose of delivering drinking water, it’s only fitting that we honor a monument to the same.” 

The Pulgas Water Temple — which is managed by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission — was originally unveiled in 1934 to celebrate the regional Hetch Hetchy water system delivering water to the San Francisco Peninsula, SFPUC General Manager Dennis Herrera said. 

“A drop of water in the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir crosses nearly the width of the state of California to get here using only the power of gravity,” he said. “It was at that time, and continues to be, an engineering marvel.” 

A model temple constructed of wood and plaster was displayed in 1934 to a crowd of around 20,000 people for the unveiling occasion, Herrera said. The existing temple — which is enshrined with the biblical quote “I give waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people” — was constructed four years later, in 1938. 

In the present day, the SFPUC continues to deliver water to the region through the Hetch Hetchy system, as well as local watersheds, and manages those lands for public use. 

“That system continues to serve 2.7 million people in four Bay Area counties, and has enabled the Bay Area to thrive and become the economic and cultural powerhouse that it is today,” Herrera said. 

The creation of a reliable water system was a boon to the area, which had been rocked by its inability to put out the devastating 1906 San Francisco fires less than 30 years earlier. In 2025, a reliable water delivery system, as well as reducing fire risk around the Pulgas Temple property and other SFPUC-managed lands, remains more important than ever to disaster preparedness, San Mateo County Supervisor Ray Mueller said at the event. 

“I applaud the regional efforts to reduce fuel and fire at risk in this area. This not only safeguards our source of drinking water, it also protects communities directly adjacent to the watershed lands,” he said. “In the time of an earthquake or a natural disaster, we are going to depend on this system. It is vitally important to the resilience of our region.”

Mueller also applauded the various entities involved in water delivery — including the county, SFPUC and the Bay Area Water Supply and Conservation Agency — for working together to safeguard and protect the resource.

For the roughly 20,000 visitors the Pulgas Water Temple sees each year, the space is a way for community members to unwind and connect to the water that serves them, SFPUC assistant manager Steven Ritchie said. 

“We give tours of the water system — and always take people here as a way to get connected with everything,” he said. 

The Pulgas Water Temple is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Trails around the area allow hikers to interact with the Peninsula watershed lands, including a new Skyline trail extension that will open late this year or early next year.