The San Tomas Aquino Creek: Most Trash Ever.

Hi,

So in my delight of the cleanliness of the creek after the Coastal Cleanup Day, thinking there is solid hope for a well maintained creek, I got blindsided this morning during the year's first rain. I thought maybe there will be some litter that people missed at the stadium and it will make its way into the creek and float on by.

Little did I know that the amount of trash I saw the day after the first official 49ers game, while bad, pales in comparison to an all-at-once entire year's worth of dumping along a creek that now has a chance to all float out into the bay at the same time.

 Without further ado:

 This is right under 101, one of the larger underpasses on the trail. Today, the water level peaked at just level with the lowest point of the path. My first glimpse of flotsam - foam bits and a paint can, thinking it might get bad, but not prepared for how bad.

 Another paint can, more foam bits.

First Aid?

 Now it gets interesting - many paint cans, plastic bottles, bags, foam bits.

 I don't think a pallet got swept from someone's loading dock into a storm drain and into the creek.

 

 A great egret seems to be just as mesmerized as I am at everything floating by. A more dramatic photo would have been a different focal length and framing to combine the egret and the following image. However, one doesn't really need to dramatize this. Besides, this stuff was moving along at a good walking pace.

I count no less than four hoses in this pile alone, sixteen 2x4s, foam, plastic sheeting, motor oil bottle (hopefully empty), multiple paint cans.

 In this pile subset, water bottles, more varieties of foam bits, and construction paint.

 

 A different perspective - how many 2x4s can you count? Honestly, the wood doesn't bother me that much, until later on down the page one gets to what happens when these things get thrown here.

  A kiddie pool? These are awkward to dispose of and pick up in the wind easily, but neither of those are great reasons to dump it.

 Water cooler jug and more foam bits.

Here's the creek in the morning pretty high after a fresh rain - after heavy rains the water level can be five or six feet higher than now.

This is the before picture.

And this is the after picture - the rains stopped midday, and the creek had ample time to drain to this level before the evening, at which point you can see what happens. Traffic cone?

Tire? That's a black-crowned night heron, by the way- a really neat bird and usually pretty shy.

 

 Traffic cones, plural?

 

 Tires, plural?

 

 I agree - Danger, Keep Out. Unless we want to fix this problem and clean it back up.

 

 A ten foot extension ladder? I bet somebody's name might be on it - tomorrow, I'll see if I can pull it out. It looks like it's in good condition, fiberglass and aluminum don't decompose. It's probably 5000 series aluminum, too, which could even handle the salt water bay.

 Here's that kiddie pool.

 Red Solo cup and a Great Blue Heron.

 Those 2x4s floating by in the morning? Here they are, parked under Agnew.

 This is one species of at least half a dozen tires just under Agnew here.

 Here's where those hundreds of paint cans, plastic bottles, sheeting, bouncy balls, hoses, and wood ended up.

 

Now that wood is blocking all of this debris from migrating further down the creek and making it into the bay at normal creek levels. However, another rain will wash all this down closer and closer to the bay until it's there somewhere.

What is sad, is all this debris was in the way of a 5" little fish trying to make its way up stream from the left side above (which goes to the bay), to the right side above. I saw it flop around a little in the shallows, and then it disappeared. My guess is the fish was either a little carp or one of the native hitch. Mind you, under the bridge was pretty rank of volatile organic compounds, otherwise known as leaking spray paint cans. I don't want to know how much of that is going into the water.

Now then, what do we do?

This creek starts primarily as Saratoga Creek, coming from the Santa Cruz Mountains, going through Saratoga, then San Jose, then Santa Clara and joins  the San Tomas Aquino Creek - the San Tomas Aquino Creek flows through Campbell and Santa Clara, and ends up as the Guadalupe Slough going through Sunnyvale (not to be confused with the Guadalupe River which turns into the Alviso Slough).

That means we should contact each of these cities and ask them how we can help and suggest to them how they can prevent this annual nature's trash pickup.

I had great ideas for the 49ers stadium because that is a relatively consolidated and straightforward problem. This looks like debris from storm drains, blowing away, and likely illegal dumping.

If anyone has any grand ideas, please contact me @ levislitterbugs@yahoo.com or contact these city managers:

1.) Debbie Bretschneider, executive assistant to James Lindsay - City of Saratoga
2.) Ed Shikada - City of San Jose
3.) Mark Linder - City of Campbell
4.) Julio Fuentes - City of Santa Clara
5.) Deanna J. Santana - City of Sunnyvale

What would also be great is if the 49ers and Levi's Stadium could participate in this effort to determine how we can prevent this trash from entering the waterways in the first place, and also how one could catch all the debris that makes it into the creek during a big rain.

Also, for other contacts, there are several others listed on my first post, and there are a number of important agencies that I'm following on twitter:
https://twitter.com/levislitterbugs

After doing a little more homework, there is an EPA sponsored pilot program that started in 2011, recognizing Coyote Creek as a "trash-impaired" waterway, meaning it's polluted beyond acceptable limits for supporting fish and wildlife.

Here is the EPA's news release on the program.

Also, the California EPA Water Resources Board has their own program to address trash control in state waterways.

All of these programs are great, but the images above show there's still work to be done. Please spread the word. I think this can be fixed. Just like stadium litter, we just need to be proactive about it.

Again, let's clean this creek back up and keep it that way.