Quench: The Cleaner, Greener, More Affordable Water Cooler for San Francisco

San Francisco Water Quality: Yesterday

When early settlers came to the Bay Area, they discovered a plethora of artesian aquifers, but these were depleted after the Gold Rush. As San Francisco grew, its residents and businesses dumped domestic and industrial waste into the local city creeks and streams forcing the city to import water from outside the city.

In 1860, the newly-chartered Spring Valley Water Company dug wells in the farm districts of East Bay, damned a coastal stream to fill a wooded watershed, and then built a 32-mile flume to deliver water north to San Francisco. However, this above-ground aqueduct system was destroyed during the Great 1906 Earthquake, which destroyed 80% of the city’s structures.

The city engineers charged with rebuilding San Francisco needed to find a more secure way to provide water. City planners wanted to dam the Tuolumne River in the Hetch Hetchy Valley in the northwestern part of the Yosemite National Park. After a decade long battle with the Federal government and an act of Congress, the city of San Francisco gained permission to build the O’Shaughnessy Dam. Upon completion of the dam in 1923, the Hetch Hetchy valley was flooded. The dam and gravity-fed system began delivering virgin snowmelt from the Sierra Mountains to residents of San Francisco 148 miles away.

San Francisco Water Quality: Today

Open surface water reservoirs, like the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir may be open to runoff from urban, suburban, and agricultural areas, which may lead to chemical contaminants, inorganic and organic particles, and bacteria in San Francisco’s drinking water. Along with the extreme drought that California is experiencing, many San Francisco residents may experience more water quality issues, like an increase in total dissolved solids, chlorine, and nitrates in their drinking water.

Quench Water Coolers – A Better Drinking Water System for San Francisco

No need to worry about what your office’s drinking water might have picked up on its journey to your glass. Quench offers a full complement of filtration and purification technologies to remove sediment, reduce chemical contaminants, including lead, and get rid of off-tastes and odors. That’s how we can guarantee that Quench office water coolers produce crisp, clean, great-tasting water – and at a fraction of the price of bottled water delivery services.