 |
|
 |
| ||
|
Strawberry Creek Forever
Berkeley is no stranger to creek restoration - it was one of the first Bay Area cities to daylight a creek. That was back in the early 1980s, when the city brought a block-long stretch of Strawberry Creek out of the underground darkness and into the sunshine. Since then, it has daylighted sections of two other creeks and become the home of the Urban Creeks Council, as well as of some of the leading practitioners in stream restoration.
But the true test of the city's commitment to creeks lies ahead.
In December, the city held a series of community workshops to unveil Wolfe Mason Associates' year-long study of options for the nine-block downtown stretch of Strawberry Creek, which flows underneath those blocks - and most of the city - in a pipe. The public voiced their opinions on several options ranging from a full flow restoration, which would involve daylighting the creek and allowing it to have a generous floodplain, to a partial-flow daylighting (in which some water would still flow beneath the ground in a pipe), an "aesthetically pleasing canal" or a "symbolic acknowledgement" of the creek's presence beneath the ground.
Most of those attending said they'd like to see a "full flow" restoration, even though such an undertaking - in the middle of downtown Berkeley, crammed full of vehicles, pedestrians, and bicyclists - could be tricky. Truly restoring the creek, says landscape architect Gary Mason, means "restoring its integrity, its habitat and geomorphology," which will require enough room for the creek to move freely from side to side and for its banks to bloom with willows, dogwoods, and alders. Such full restoration would make perfect sense in Civic Center Park just off downtown's main drag, says Mason, but he acknowledges that there may be different options for other areas, especially where space is at a premium. "I don't know about a cascade of willows in the middle of Center Street. Downtown might benefit from a more diverse treatment - maybe having some areas that are very natural and others where the creek is in a canal or channel and is more of a water feature than a completely natural creek." The Urban Creeks Council's Carole Schemmerling suggests cribwalls - logs layered into the banks "Lincoln log style" and planted with willows and other natives - as an alternative to a concrete channel that "works well in tight spaces and at least provides some habitat."
If a full-scale restoration is done downtown, says Mason, the public needs to be educated about what the project will look like during the first few years. The thick, scrubby look many restoration projects have in their youth may not be to everyone's taste. "The real question here is 'what kind of nature are people willing to accept?' They have to recognize that it will take a few years for this to become a mature riparian corridor."
Creek advocates argue that if there's a will, there's a way, and cite Berkeley's previous experience daylighting creeks. Schemmerling points out that downtown San Luis Obispo began to thrive when that city restored its downtown creek, and in the process, repaired its old flood control channel. "Daylighting the creek is the perfect, and less expensive, way for Berkeley to repair its damaged storm drain culverts and infrastructure and show the community that it is commited to undoing some of the environmental wrongs of the past," she says.
Perhaps Berkeley will continue to be the hub of urban stream restoration. In February, the city council decided to move forward with further studies and public meetings, and to begin to identify potential funding sources for restoration.
Contact: Deborah Chernin, Project Manager (510)665-7554, Gary Mason (510)594-8160 or Carole Schemmerling (510)540-6669
[ ABAG HOME | SFEP HOME ]
Copyright © 2002, San Francisco Estuary Project