Golf versus grebes on Newark's Area 4

The Whistling Wings and Pintail duck clubs closed down back in the '70s and sold off their lands, but the names still conjure up visions of ducks and shorebirds wheeling in the air, locking wings, and splashing down in welcoming ponds. Perhaps that is why development-minded city officials prefer the less romantic name "Area 4" for the site where the city of Newark is entertaining plans to develop an 18-hole golf course, 1,200 units of executive housing, and a wetland mitigation area. (Some of the housing would be in the adjacent and less sensitive Area 3, which is already zoned light industrial and is partly developed, including Ohlone College's "green" campus.)

For decades these lands have supported tremendous variety and numbers of shorebirds, waterfowl, and mammals. The endangered salt-marsh harvest mouse is found here, the endangered California clapper rail can be found in the fringes of tidal marsh along Mowry Slough, and one of the Bay's few harbor-seal haul-outs is located downstream on Mowry Slough. Burrowing owls, a species of special concern have been observed on portions of Area 4. The site possesses something else rare along the edges of the Bay - undeveloped uplands. Many species rely on having uplands and wetlands close together. For these reasons the lands were included in the congressionally approved 1990 Refuge Boundary Expansion for the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay Wildlife Refuge, but alas the developers who own them have shown no disposition to give them up.

In 2000 the Baylands Ecosystem Habitat Goals Report listed this segment of the Bay in its section on "Unique Restoration Opportunities" for its "opportunities to restore historic tidal marsh/upland transitional habitat" and recommended "[p]rotect[ing] and enhanc[ing] the tidal marsh/upland transition at the upper end of Mowry Slough and in the area of the Pintail duck club." The report also recommends that tidal influence be restored on this site and that seasonal wetlands be improved.

Development plans

Back in the early '80s Mayor David Smith attached himself to the idea of a championship golf course and executive housing here, and a quarter of a century later, though times have changed, he is still mayor and an active golf-course advocate.

In those days many still thought that wetlands were just wastelands that needed to be filled and made "valuable". Land was more abundant, traffic congestion was not a daily encounter, gasoline cost only $1.40 a gallon, and most of the public had not heard of greenhouse gases and global warming. There wasn't a concern about rising sea levels that are likely to submerge low-lying development near the Bay. Most people did not then realize the quantity of toxic pesticides that are generally used on golf courses (and that in this case would largely run off into the Bay). Back then it may not have seemed totally irrational for a city to build golf courses.

Today most cities have realized that golf courses are not financially viable. Many have been forced to subsidize municipal golf courses, and when the money runs out, the lands end up being paved over.

The current development plans for Area 4 seem like throwbacks to that earlier era. Fortunately, today we have more protections than then. Under the federal Clean Water Act, development is not allowed on the wetland portions of the land, and the Army Corps of Engineers has found that 50% of the site is wetland.

Area 4 must be seen also in the context of other nearby development plans. At Patterson Ranch in Fremont plans call for 800 houses plus acres of non-residential buildings, and another 276 tightly packed houses are currently being constructed on former Patterson lands at the outermost regions of northern Fremont. Add the 3,150 houses being proposed for the A's ballpark village and we could have nearly 5,500 more houses on the Bay fringe of the Tri-Cities, in the areas farthest away from any mass transit. These homes alone, not counting the non-residential portion of the development, would add nearly 60,000 car trips a day to our already congested roadways and freeways.

WhatYouCanDo

Write to the Newark City Council at:

City Administration Building
37101 Newark Blvd.
Newark, CA 94560

Urge the Council not to allow development on Area 4.

To be added to the Sierra Club's list to be notified when it is time for further action to protect Area 4, contact or call (510) 848-0800, ext. 323

Dan Ondrasek