Protecting a person makes sense, but a lake is not going to sue for its role in the story. These details feel sketchy, and that is sort of the take away from the original piece: when someone is unreliable in one area, they are more suspect in others. To be charitable, the author maybe lost that detail of the story, but they could easily have substituted a generic 'lake in Golden Gate Park'. Or they could just use Google Maps to find Stow, Lloyd, Spreckles lakes (Elk Glenn, and the Chain of Lakes lakes would be unsuitable for boat jousts).