An Alpine, CA Revitalization Priority – Rehabilitating Alpine Creek has environmental, social, economic benefits.
One of the six “highest leverage ideas” to come from the “Vision of Alpine – Revitalization” event (February 2005) was to “Conduct a range of beautification programs for Alpine including but not limited to a focus on Alpine Creek”.
A team of Alpine volunteers is forming to work on grant funding and community action to begin this most important improvement project for the town center. Please give us your comments about this effort so we can keep the dialogue going. If you are interested in participating contact Joe Forlenza at 619-699-3782.
Restoring creeks like this one recovers more than the beauty and park like aspects of watershed ecology, there are other important side effects. Cleaning up the creek and monitoring it’s banks improves the management and natural treatment of storm-water run-off, which in Alpine’s case leads directly to El Capitan reservoir. By strengthening this natural watershed feature, Alpine planners strengthen the connections between the “blue ribbons and green webs” that are consistent with Alpine’s identity as a rural town closely connected to nature. The phrase “blue ribbons and green webs” comes from the Catalyst Strategies found in the sustainability plan for the City of Vancouver, Canada. This Vancouver sustainability plan was the winner in an international competition conducted in 2003. Though not well publicized, San Diego’s sustainability plan was the second place entry.
Most important for local businesses and general economic development, Alpine Creek can become an important pedestrian feature that keeps residents and visitors in town and out of their cars long enough to spend money at local businesses. By bringing Alpine Creek into focus with a creekside path along Alpine Boulevard and through the town center, the creek becomes a linear park that connects retail, restaurant, and visitor serving addresses from Janet’s Montana Café to the Mercantile and beyond. It is the string in the “string of pearls” pocket parks concept that has been gaining momentum in Alpine since 2004.
There are a number of great examples of the benefits of rehabilitating creeks and streams in urban and suburban settings. Various organizations have formed around this important element of urban and suburban revitalization. Here are a few reference points:
The Santa Barbara Urban Creeks Council was formed to encourage the preservation, protection, and restoration of natural and urban streams. Our goal is to educate decision makers and the general public on the aesthetic, recreational and ecological values of natural streams located near our homes, places of employment, farms, or in commercial and industrial urban areas.
The Rocky Mountain Institute offers a set of tools and cases on water management. RMI supports a watershed-based approach to many water management issues. The watershed perspective is conducive to a holistic view of environmental problems and their solutions. The RMI report “Daylighting: New Life for Buried Streams” reviews the benefits, challenges, and costs of “daylighting”—exposing—formerly culverted or buried streams, and includes case studies of several dozen projects from around the U.S. and internationally (September 2000). Six of the studies are in California.
Creek Restoration Projects in San Diego County include:
San Mateo Creek and Devil Canyon Creek in Camp Pendleton. These two connected streams north of Oceanside, CA are home to the Southern Stealhead, a once plentiful but now endagered game fish related to the trout. According to SanDiegoTrout.org this project attracted funding through the efforts of State Senator Bill Morrow, Senate District 38 (this is the district in which the creeks are located). Morrow persuaded the State Assembly to include in A.B. 18 an appropriation of $800,000 to be allocated to and administered by the California Dept. of Fish and Game for this specific restoration. The use of these funds shall be applied to funding labor, materials, overhead, and personnel, to carry out the plan’s programs, and will be voted on statewide as an inclusion in Proposition 12 on the March 7, 2000 ballot.
You can read SanDiegoTrout.org’s rehabilitation plan for the creek here.
Sycamore Creek in Santee, CA. This is restoration project was proposed in 2002. An excerpt from the grant proposal follows:
“The Sycamore Creek restoration project proposes to restore natural flood protection and enhance wildlife habitat. The project will remove invasive species, remove solid waste and reduce sedimentation by stabilizing stream banks with native vegetation. It will also monitor water quality and the restoration efforts. Restoration will increase public appreciation for the value of riparian areas through interpretive signage and public participation.
The objectives are to reduce growing risk of flood and fire, eliminate Arundo’s negative impacts to valuable riparian and aquatic habitats, enhance water quality and supply, and restore more natural stream geomorphology. The San Diego River and the southern segment of Sycamore Creek are experiencing explosions of Arundo donax (Giant Reed) greatly increasing flood and fire hazards. Approximately 60% of the Santee segment of Sycamore Creek is heavily impacted with Arundo or other exotic species such as Pampassgrass. The State Water Resources Control Board has identified “pollutants of special concern” within Sycamore Creek as “eutrophication, phosphorous, trash and Arundo donax.” Control and eradication of Arundo within Sycamore Creek logically precedes efforts within the San Diego River downstream.”
For Alpine residents interested in adding more gold to the local ecology, social life, and business climate, the prospects are good in restoring Alpine Creek. As part of the Alpine Revitalization Effort this project may even find support at the County of San Diego and among sources of grant funding that encourage watershed restoration and improvement. There are certainly other projects in the area that have attracted funding. Alpine Creek could become a visible centerpiece to the Alpine Town Center.