June 28, 2007 — Once a sinister home to notorious mobsters and murderers, Alcatraz is in line for an environmental makeover that could see the imposing former prison island become a tree-hugger's paradise.
Under plans by the Golden Gate National Recreation Area which manages the rugged rock in the middle of San Francisco Bay, Alcatraz is poised to be transformed into a beacon for progressive communities.
Although Alcatraz slammed shut its prison doors for the last time in 1963, the island continues to welcome hundreds of visitors on a daily basis, becoming San Francisco's premier tourist attraction.
Those demands place an energy and resources burden on Alcatraz that is impossible to be satisfied locally, with all of the facility's fuel, water and waste laboriously transported back and forth across the bay.
However, the U.S. Parks Service is now studying plans to make Alcatraz self-sufficient in an attempt to lessen the impact on the environment and provide an example to the rest of the United States.
By 2014, authorities expect to have installed a waste reprocessing plant as well as a de-salination plant to provide drinking water.
"Currently, we have to carry all the water requirements we have on the island over to the island," said Brian O'Neill, superintendent of the Golden Gate National Park. "We have to haul off all the sewage."
"We pump it. It comes through the plumbing system, and it's pumped on into a boat, and then it's taken over to the mainland, to San Francisco, and discharged into the city sewer system."
Fuel is shipped over to the island regularly to be pumped into generators to provide power, something that authorities want to phase, looking to wind, solar and even tidal power to provide alternatives.
"What we want is to explore various forms of alternative energies, that would eliminate the need to use fossil fuel," O'Neill said.
"We want to look at photovoltaic cells on various buildings, we want to look at tidal power, because right off of Alcatraz, there's enough power to supply our needs. And we want to look at wind. It would be a combination."
