SPCWC Blog Site

The Stevens & Permanente Creeks Watershed Council is back in business! Formerly a fiscally-sponsored project of Acterra, we have now merged with Acterra to become a fully integrated part of the Acterra Stewardship Program.

Just what does this mean? For our volunteers, it means that life will continue as before with opportunities to participate in creek stewardship activities such as water quality monitoring and our aquatic bug study. And of course we will still be hosting entertaining guest speakers at our council meetings and conducting fieldtrips and themed nature walks for local students and residents.

Some things will be different, though. For starters, I am now an employee of Acterra rather than the watershed council, although the SPCWC programs remain my responsibility. The merger also means that our programs now have the support of the Acterra team who will lend their talents for habitat restoration, fund raising, IT issues and so forth. In turn, I will be assisting them with developing citizen monitoring programs in other watersheds. The merger is a win-win situation for all and I hope to see you soon at one of our SPCWC activities!

As of this morning The Santa Clara Valley Water Disrtict is increasing the releases from Stevens creek to 250cfs and at noon they will increase the flow to 350cfs depending on the inflows from the storm. There is a chance that the reservoir could spill later today or by Friday depending on these inflows. This is huge because normal flows are a mere 3 to 6cfs in the summer and less than 60cfs in the winter in a normal year.

Find out more at www.valleywater.org

You might also want to watch this video from Debi at Stevens Creek Software:

With the advent of current storms the Santa Clara Valley Water District has informed me that they will be opening Stevens creek reservoir to 100% open at noon on Sat. 3/19/11 and the reservoir could spill tonight or early Sun. morning.

Please be very careful out there!

This exciting new guidebook will help landowners and homeowners make the most of the many potential benefits of innovative stormwater management. Once thought of as a nuisance, stormwater is now universally recognized as one our most important natural resources and proper management (simple to complex) is more important than ever.

Here is the web link – http://www.sscrcd.org/rainwater.php
to download the 18mb pdf file

The guidebook is packed full of information including:

Understanding and evaluating stormwater runoff around your home or property
How to protect your property and increase its value
“Do it yourself” techniques
A wide assortment of sample stormwater Best Management Practices
Technical information and advice on rainwater harvesting and infiltration techniques
Guidance on designing and implementing large-scale projects
A broad sampling of local projects implemented right here in Sonoma County
Safety and maintenance requirements
An extensive resource guide to help readers quickly locate key information and get started!

The production and distribution of Slow it. Spread it. Sink it! guidebook is made possible by The Sonoma Valley Groundwater Management Program and its partner organizations including: The Sonoma County Water Agency, The North Bay Watershed Association, Southern Sonoma County Resource Conservation District, City of Petaluma, The Water Institute at the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center and The Resource Conservation District of Santa Cruz County.

Please go to this link http://www.32auctions.com and use username: spcwcwater with password: wine4thewatershed to login and view the auction items.

We hope you will bid and have fun.
We have some great items so please join in.
Please note we may substitute 2002 Zin for the 2001 Zin stated.

With the scarcity of open space lands here in this heavily urbanized valley, the remaining lands along Stevens Creek are under more and more pressure for development. Multi-use trails, picnic areas, ball fields, community farms, BMX dirt jumps and dog parks are all being discussed as possible developments. At the same time, though, the creek and associated riparian and upland habitats are part of a vital, but shriking wildlife resource. Many people are not aware that the human disturbance associated with public access to creek areas affects habitat quality. In particular, impacts from the use of recreational trails are greatly underestimated.

We live in a valley full of bright, productive people who care about the quality of life in their community and are willing to put in many volunteer hours to achieve goals they believe important to community welfare. The differing goals for the limited remaing open lands along Stevens Creek make for a somewhat uncomfortable situation, but also offer opportunities for creative thinking. How can we both meet the needs of the community and protect needed wildlife habitat?

I know there are many folks out there with strong opinions about what we should be doing in and with the Stevens Creek Corridor. I hope you will share your thoughts here – it may be that nothing positive will come of it, but it may also be that something surprising, beautiful and original evolves

Joanne

Along with Blackberry Farm, the bit of Cupertino-owned land known as the Stocklmeir Orchard was studied as part of the Stevens Creek Corridor Project. This land is scheduled as Phase II of the overall project, with plans currently calling for re-alignment and restoration of the creek. Also planned is the installation of an eight-foot wide multi-use trail through the property connecting with other parts of the Stevens Creek Trail.

Cupertino Parks and Recreation staffer, Julia Lamy, has organized a task force of local stakeholders to provide input into the planning process. Some residents have concerns about the original plans as well as new ideas as to how the property could be rehabilitated and used. One of the ideas is to establish a community education program centered on the care and cultivation of the legacy orchard. Another idea is to protect and enhance the riparian and upland habitat of this creek-side property. 

The stakeholders have different values and sometimes competing interests, but expect to move forward in the planning process to find consensus.  By no means are all points of view currently represented on the task force and they are seeking to expand participation. The next meeting is scheduled for June 9^th at 2:00 pm in the conference room of the Quinlan Community Center.

Joanne McFarlin

(Cupertino, California) McClellan Ranch has not had a change of habitat. SWAMP is the Surface Water Ambient Monitoring Program that Eric Burres of the California State Water Resources Board discussed with us on Wednesday April 8, 2009 at McClellan Ranch. I was not able to join the daytime field training, but the evening lecture was well attended by the SPCWC bug loving community and students who confessed they “just love bugs”.

Mr. Burres began by relating the importance of the concept of biological integrity. “Clean water is not enough,” he told us. We are required by the Clean Water Act to strive for biological integrity which is defined as “the ability to support and maintain a balanced, integrated, and adaptive community of organisms having a species composition, diversity and functional organization comparable to those of natural habitats within a region” (Karr, J. R. and D. R. Dudley. 1981. Ecological perspectives on water quality goals. Environmental Management 5: 55-68).

With the scarcity of open space lands here in this heavily urbanized valley, the remaining lands along Stevens Creek are under more and more pressure for development. Multi-use trails, picnic areas, ball fields, community farms, BMX dirt jumps and dog parks are all being discussed as possible developments. At the same time, though, the creek and associated riparian and upland habitats are part of a vital, but shriking wildlife resource. Many people are not aware that the human disturbance associated with public access to creek areas affects habitat quality. In particular, impacts from the use of recreational trails are greatly underestimated.

We live in a valley full of bright, productive people who care about the quality of life in their community and are willing to put in many volunteer hours to achieve goals they believe important to community welfare.  

The differing goals for the limited remaing open lands along Stevens Creek make for a somewhat uncomfortable situation, but also offer opportunities for creative thinking. How can we both meet the needs of the community and protect needed wildlife habitat?

I know there are many folks out there with strong opinions about what we should be doing in and with the Stevens Creek Corridor. I hope you will share your thoughts here – it may be that nothing positive will come of it, but it may also be that something surprising, beautiful and original evolves

Joanne

We were then treated to the introduction of Ralph and Lisa Cutter’s BUGS OF THE UNDERWORLD video that features remarkable video of a variety of fish and benthic macroinvertebrates in their natural submerged enivronment. As I watched stoneflies, caddisflies, damsel flies, midges, crawfish and lobster swish and crawl across the screen, I was reminded of the remarkable genius of nature. I came straight home and ordered a copy!

I hope that you will be able to join us at future events and get involved with our Bug Club. I suspect we all have an inner taxonomist just waiting to molt an exoskeleton and fly.

Cheers,
Christine Bush
SPCWC GIS Specialist

Our partnership with De Anza college has lead to the discovery of highly toxic water in Stevens Creek.

Our first test included a site below the outfall at Stevens Creek Blvd.  The current thinking is that the cause is a substance called pyrethroid which is found in insecticides employed for ant control.  Site SCB511 is the toxic site.

Here is a graph of our results, using the method described under Projects, Water Quality Monitoring, Toxicity Testing. The test takes advantage of the sensitivity of a strain of bioluminesent plankton to toxicity they get dimmer as water quality deteriorates.

Members of the Water District, Stormwater Program and Santa Clara County visited the site we reported here and have referred the problem to code enforcement.

We will continue to follow up till we get resolution to the problem.

We still don’t know why the water was flowing a reddish color.