Visitors watch the fish in the Coral Reef Exhibit in Steinhart Aquarium, a model green building. (Photo: Michael Short, The Chronicle)

I often wonder about the impact of the current  drought on Golden Gate Park.  Here’s an uplifting article about the water supply at the aquarium in the California Academy of Sciences.

‘The Steinhart Aquarium at the California Academy of Sciences opened at its new home six years ago with an ambitious overhaul of the way it delivers water to fish – and penguins and octopus and, of course, Claude, the popular albino alligator.Engineers laid some 10 miles of pipes and filters beneath the museum so water would be quickly and thoroughly cleaned for exhibits on coral reefs and rain forests. They also shut off an old supply line that brought dirty seawater 3 miles from Ocean Beach to the Golden Gate Park site. Now they cook up their own saltwater cocktail for the tanks.While the changes were expected to save water – a lot of water – the real payoff is coming now as the state wrestles with its worst drought in decades.”The academy is a crown jewel of how to take a structure that is historically very inefficient and a use thats very inefficient and really lead by example on how to reduce consumption,” said Benjamin Osgood, chair of the San Francisco branch of the U.S. Green Building Council.’

Read more at:   S.F. aquariums unexpected virtue: drought tolerance – SFGate.