OAKLAND -- The future of Oakland's Jack London Aquatic Center, which serves everyone from rowing crews to low-income youths, is in limbo after the nonprofit group that manages the facility announced without warning it would hand over management to Oakland because of a lack of funding.

If the Oakland Parks and Recreation Department decides not to take over the facility at 115 Embarcadero, thousands of Oakland youths and adults could be left without the means to experience Oakland's estuary from a sailboat, canoe or kayak. Club crews could be left without a place to store their boats.

"It's a well-used, well-loved facility," said Noah Hume, head coach of the UC Berkeley Women's Lightweight Crew. His rowers are students who pay all the fees associated with the crew and depend on the proximity to the Lake Merritt BART station. That means the newly opened Tidewater Aquatic Center near High Street would be less of an option for them than for other groups.

The city is still working with the nonprofit group to find a way to keep the doors open. But with even steeper cuts to department budgets on the horizon, the center is likely to become one more among a growing list of nonprofits organizations trying to survive without municipal funding, a list that includes the Oakland Zoo, Peralta Hacienda, Chabot Space and Science Center, and Oakland's iconic Children's Fairyland.

It's painful but that is the reality in these extreme times, Councilmember Pat Kernighan (Grand Lake-Chinatown) said. "There is no money to run an additional facility."