Sunol Water Temple Restoration Celebration, September 27, 1997
Gray Brechin's Remarks

Most of us, when we turn on a faucet or a light switch, never bother to think of what happens at the end of the pipeline. We don't think of the responsibility which the city has for the countryside. I think that Willis Polk and William Bourn did, and I'm glad to say that Dennis Normandy has remembered and honored that responsibility.

Both Polk and Bourn were classically educated, Bourn at Cambridge. He took over the Spring Valley Water Company after the San Francisco earthquake and instituted a policy of public service in a company which had been notorious for its greed. Under his direction, Spring Valley published a literate little magazine called ‘San Francisco Water' that had numerous articles on historic aqueduct systems, especially the great systems that fed Rome.

So it's not surprising that he and Polk would have used the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli as inspiration for the Sunol Temple. Tivoli is where much of the waters that fed Rome came together in the foothills of the Appenines, much as the waters from a 700 square mile watershed come together here at Sunol to provide 15% of SF's water. Tivoli was recognized as a special spot by the Ancients, and you can still feel that sacredness just below the Temple of Vesta where water crashes down into a wooded grove in a series of limestone cascades before it heads off for the city. It's a very unusual place beyond the marketplace, beyond money, just as Sunol is. That's why Polk and Bourn built the Temple here and landscaped it the way they did, and why when Maynard Dixon painted a mural for the old Spring Valley offices on Mason Street, he placed the Temple at the center, between the rain falling on the hills, and the city in the foreground. It reminds us to have respect for the land that makes the city possible; it reminds us that we have responsibilities to that land and its people. We cannot simply take from them, but must give something back.

We need to constantly be reminded of those responsibilities as our delivery systems grow more automatic. Rome forgot as it grew larger, as most cities do. If you visit Tivoli now, you will notice that the hills around the town are rocky and barren. The city repeatedly stripped the hills of their forests so that the soil washed away and the people were impoverished. We can learn from that mistake; just as sacred as the waters that feed the city is the soil which grows our food. Think of that when you look over this valley floor so close to the cities over the hill. How much better it will be to provide food and peace into perpetuity, than gravel and dust for a short-term profit. This is more than just real estate it is life itself.