Drawing the line for creek protection at Boundary Creek

After 30 years, it's time for Alameda County to honor its commitment to creeks

For 30 years Alameda County has been flouting the requirements of its own General Plan for protecting riparian creek corridors. As a result, we have experienced flooding, sedimentation, loss of wildlife habitat, degradation of air and water, and harm to fish.

Today a band of concerned residents, including the Club's Southern Alameda Group, is making a stand and insisting on creek-corridor protection - for Crow Creek in Castro Valley and for all the county's remaining creeks and the riparian corridors around them.

In 1976 the Board of Supervisors added to its General Plan a "Specific Plan for Areas of Environmental Significance" to protect the ecological systems of riparian wildlife corridors. The plan instructed the county Planning Department to study all creek corridors in the county's unincorporated areas, to designate areas of protection around these corridors, and to preserve these areas from the impacts of harmful development. In the decades since, however, county officials admit to having attempted only one small corridor study.

After decades of urging county officials to comply with the law and protect these areas - and being ignored - we have decided to draw the line at the proposed Boundary Creek development on Crow Creek in Castro Valley. (Crow Creek is the creek that flows through Crow Canyon.) This is the boundary where poor county planning practices must cease.

The developer, Next Bay Properties, keeps modifying the project proposal, but it appears that over a dozen lots of Boundary Creek would extend into the riparian wildlife corridor. The significance of these intrusions is augmented by the cumulative habitat loss from decades of improperly approved projects. This is one of the few areas along lower Crow Creek that have not been significantly degraded by development. The Planning Department approved the developer's initial proposal despite an Environmental Impact Report that did not consider the cumulative habitat loss from past projects nor the cumulative impacts of destruction of hundreds of trees, heritage oaks, and riparian vegetation along the stream. Due to our challenges, the developer has made marginal improvements, but the project would still violate the California Environmental Quality Act, the General Plan, and other county ordinances.

What You Can Do

Write the Alameda County Board of Supervisors at:

Clerk of the Board
1221 Oak St., #536
Oakland, CA 94612

(ask the Clerk to distribute your letters to all the supervisors), or contact individual supervisors at:

Scott Haggerty (District 1)
district1@acgov.org
(510)272-6691
fax: (510)208-3910

Gail Steele (District 2)
dist2@acgov.org
(510)272-6692

Alice Lai-Bitker (District 3)
BOSDist3@acgov.org
(510)272-6693
fax: (510)268-8004

Nate Miley (District 4)
BOSdist4@acgov.org
(510)272-6694
fax: (510)670-5717

Keith Carson (District 5)
dist5@acgov.org
(510)272-6695
fax: (510)271-5151.

Ask them to act to preserve what remains of riparian areas and wildlife corridors, and in particular to deny the Boundary Creek project unless it is reconfigured so as not to harm the riparian corridor. Insist that in the future the county strictly comply with its Specific Plan for Areas of Environmental Significance and its Watercourse Protection Ordinance. Ask the county to compensate for the damage and loss of habitat from years of failure to uphold the legal and moral promise it made to its citizens almost 30 years ago.

We need your help to continue this campaign. Please contact Terry Preston at mtmpreston-at-comcast.net or (510) 582-4179.

Terry Preston, chair, Chapter Wildlife Committee; and member, Executive Committee, Southern Alameda Group