Still a Little Messy.

Links:
Twitter- More continuous updates, a few more pictures.
Flickr - More vibrant pictures of trash as well as some highlights of wildlife in the neighborhood and Bay.

So here are Monday's results after Friday Night Lights, presumably a much smaller audience than a full fledged NFL game.

At first glance, the northern end of the stadium looks pretty clean.

However, looking down from the bridge, it looks like the flood debris is slowly working its way to the bay with tide coming in and pulling the debris out.

Still further evidence under the middle bridge. Most of this is probably flood debris, but it's now in Levi's Stadium territory, meaning they could impact the greater community by pulling this out rather than focus solely on what goes inside their stadium and parking lots.

This heron appears to be the new guardian of the creek by the stadium.

Here's a sampling of the debris south of the stadium, not much better than last time, just more dispersed.

In case one wonders the origin of the litter on the banks of the creek, this should leave little doubt.

The animals continue to call this place home even when the floods come and go and make a mess of things.

In positive news, I have received a response from Valley Water as well as interest from several reporters at the SF Chronicle and San Jose Mercury News.

Here's what Valley Water had to say:

"District staff is aware of the issue and have been in contact with the city and with the Stadium  staff. They are also working on the issue and will be doing more immediate clean up after stadium events that will include removal of litter from the channel area." 

- Engineering Manager, Community Projects Review Unit 

That's promising, hopefully things will get back to the cleanliness a week after the first game. That also was when Coastal Cleanup Day happened. It would be nice if staff and not volunteers could manage to cleanup the stadium's mess.

Game 3: Evening and Morning After

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Also, I just added to the mix with a Flickr Homepage, for higher resolution images of some of the choice images of the bay, the stadium, the wildlife, and the trash.

49ers home season game three took place on Sunday, October 5th, against the Kansas City Chiefs.
Curious to see how things went in the evening hours after a game, I headed over to take some pictures.

The facility looked pretty immaculate, but the morning after revealed some trash still made it to the creek. Much better than the first game, but worse than the second game.

 Here are a number of people cleaning up the parking lots around the stadium.

This is the view of the creek sandwiched between the stadium and the parking lots. From this distance, everything looked really clean. All those orange things to the left of the creek are trash bins, many trash bins.

This is viewing east from the north side of the stadium. Tasman was closed still with many street sweepers running up and down the closed off areas.

A handful of people were still chatting and hanging out by the stadium along with a small number of traffic personnel.

The following morning, the northern end of the creek looks pretty clean. I wonder if it's because it's a straight shot, so nothing stays on this stretch of creek with the ebb and flow of the tide.

A great blue heron seems to reside under the SAP Tower bridge. Unfortunately, a beer bottle and Silicon Valley run-off from that one day of rain surrounds him.

 Someone couldn't hold onto their Bag Check Tag during the event.

Here is the litter from the game day, having blown a bit further upstream toward the Hetch-Hetchy pipes. Much of the litter was nice clear plastic bags that I'm guessing were bags containing event material.

Here is some of that Silicon-Valley run-off that hasn't floated into the bay, yet. There are at least a dozen spray paint cans just in this pile alone.

Here is the repair of the hill below the flood control pipes, replacing a hill of concrete sand bags with a hill of solid concrete and large rocks.

Danger: Ducks and Spray Paint Cans.

Here is a malt liquor bottle (King Cobra brand) south of Agnew, but seemingly event related like last weeks malt liquor bottle south of Agnew.

That concludes game three for the San Tomas Aquino Creek.

I'm still doing some homework to figure out specifically how Santa Clara County and City rank with regard to environmental compliance and what tools they have at their disposal to combat this.

Levi's Stadium: the creek looks much better than the first game, but there is still quite a bit of game related trash that could be picked up.

Again, if you have suggestions, please contact me at levislitterbugs@yahoo.com.

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The Day after Game Day

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This is part three of a three post series since there were three adventures back to back: 1.) Game Day 2.) Pretty Sloughs on Game Day 3.) The Day after Game Day.

My very first post on this blog was initiated by a bike ride two days after the first official 49ers football game. Needless to say, the creek has had quite the variety of activity. One week after that post, the creek was clean. Unfortunately, I was unable to witness who cleaned it since I was cleaning up a different body of water. Full of optimism, I thought the stadium and the creek were going to have a happy relationship. A few days later, Silicon Valley had a good rain for a few hours, which flooded the creek a few feet as to be expected. What was not to be expected from my six years of biking this trail daily and during rain was what would be floating in the creek. An endless stream of 2x4s, hoses, paint cans, bottles, and tarps floated by, not to mention the kiddie pool and extension ladder.

So without further ado, what was the creek like the day after a big game? It was pretty great, all in all, so kudos to the Levi's Stadium staff. It wasn't perfect, but it far exceeded the previous game.

The creek north of the stadium was once again quite clean - there was some type of ballard sunk in the middle, but extra low tide made it visible, and it has probably been there a while.

Here a great blue heron stands under the stadium bridges next to some water bottles, paint can (top right), and other floating debris that came from the rain, and NOT from the stadium.

One piece of trash visible, a few hidden in the grasses. That's pretty good Levi's.

The same location as my Twitter headlining image from the previous game. A few pieces of trash.

Here, close to the Hetch Hetchy pipes is where it's not perfect. There was a good bit of litter here - this good be leftover from missed trash in the parking lot. A huge parking lot with a low concentration of trash could blow still quite a bit into this creek.

This is litter of another variety that I'm not fond of seeing in the creek. Fortunately, I don't see quite as many cats as I used to, but when I do see them, they tend to be preying on the ducks and their ducklings.

This is the path just south of Agnew, outside of the stadium's domain, but still a foot traffic area during game day. Not to exonerate the individual who left this malt liquor bottle here, but there aren't any prominent trash cans around the trail - CORRECTION: there are in fact trash cans usually where the trail meets the street, I just missed them on this section of trail.

 I haven't seen these in a while, but I know these are regarded as one of the worst offending types of litter. While I didn't have the space to carry the malt liquor, I did put this in my pocket.

So there you have it. Part three of the series. The stadium looks like they have a very well run operation, and may just need the occasional reminder to management to make sure they pick up the litter in a timely fashion. If the progression continues like it did from the first to the second game, this creek will stay in amazing shape even with some large fraction of the 68.5 thousand fans crossing the bridges.

The cities that are part of this watershed and creek system, however, will need to step up and address the issues of dumping, litter along the creek path, and catching a first rains debris several times per year. I quite a bit more homework and reading to do before I put together another action plan, so stay tuned for that.

If you would like to contact me, my email address is levislitterbugs@yahoo.com.

 Thanks, Levi's Stadium.

Pretty Sloughs on Game Day

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This is part two of a three post series since there were three adventures back to back: 1.) Game Day 2.) Sloughs on Game Day 3.)The Day after Game Day.


I took my boat out just before high tide so that I could make it to the Guadalupe Slough right at high tide. My charts said there was a channel in the slough, but it's always a safe bet to be there right at high tide in these sloughs. Many people in these sloughs have been stuck needing to be rescued or have had to wait six to eight hours for high tide to come back at full strength. I was in Alviso when some fire trucks pulled up on a cold December day around 5pm, and they were saying that the boater was just going to have to wait for high tide again to come back. I left to launch the boat shortly after kick-off and came back shortly before the game ended. That time is a great time to go boating if the tide is right - the streets were empty.


In any case, there were quite a number of highlights on this adventure, both scenery and the wildlife.

For those not acquainted, this is the four year old boat launch in Alviso Marina County Park, free to launch, free to park. Everyone from sturgeon anglers to duck hunters to litter-picker-uppers on kayaks seems to enjoy this new launch. If you pay the park service a fee, you can even get a gate key card to launch your boat in the wee hours in the morning when the park is otherwise closed.

This is facing south. The stadium is in the very center of this image if you squint. The waterway at the launch is the Alviso Slough connecting to the SF Bay. In this inland direction, it becomes the Guadalupe River.

I don't know the story behind this boat, but it's a distinct landmark heading back to let you know the launch is just up ahead.

Here's some litter I spotted, learning that litter in the sloughs becomes pretty tough to spot after spending sometime there.

There are pretty nice bike trails in the park around the old salt ponds, currently in process of being restored to natural wetlands.

This tug is native to the Alviso Yacht Club.

 The herons were out today.

 This is one of a pair of electrical towers letting you know you have reached Coyote Creek, the larger creek that feeds into the Bay.

Getting closer to the bay proper, one can see the stadium on the left and the America Center towers on the right.

At high tide, the seals have no option but to bathe since their beach is sunk. In case you are wondering, I keep quite a distance from all the wildlife in the slough, except possibly the seagulls. I was a few hundred feet from the seals here.

A cormorant zips by.

A piece of trash.

A tricycle in the Guadalupe Slough - the San Tomas Aquino Creek turns into this slough, meaning that this tricycle could have been one year's first rain flooding debris. If I decide to brave this slough again, I will have to figure out how I might pull this out, probably a 30-40' extendable hook of sorts would do it.

This heron was just a few hundred feet upstream, looking at the trike.

Some nice people picked up quite a bit of trash on a trail I presume is connected to Sunnyvale's Baylands Park. However, this is quite a ways out from the main park.

Another cleanup pile.

Northern Harriers live around these wetlands - they are fast and few, so getting shots can be tricky.

This is the upstream view of the Guadalupe Slough.

Finally, it's American White Pelican season, and hundreds are landing in the former salt ponds to hang out. These are really neat birds.


So this concludes an adventure from the Alviso Slough to the Guadalupe Slough. I do not recommend trying this unless you have a low-draft boat, know the tides, and have good charts. Most of the South Bay was ~3.5' deep outside of the channels right at high tide then.


Otherwise, I highly recommend taking a trip to Alviso. It is a really neat park for walking, biking, and boating. A lot of people like to use it as a photo-shoot location, too - the sunsets are pretty great.


It does appear that even at highest tide, when everything is covered with water, debris is still visible and leaves bits and pieces all along the way. Having recently seen what other Bay Area creeks look like, this would be regarded as pristine in comparison. Seeing a variety of researchers in the area, like a UC Davis research vessel monitoring fish species and population, people are doing great work to improving this land and restoring to a natural wildlife habitat. However, witnessing the debris from the first rain means something needs to be done upstream of these wetlands to keep them protected and allow the wildlife to migrate upstream as well.

Corrections and Game Day!

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This is part one of a three post series since there were three adventures back to back: 1.) Game Day 2.) Pretty Sloughs on Game Day 3.)The Day after Game Day.

First, it appears that I was mistaken with regards to what the purpose of those nets were. I happened upon a nice gentlemen from Valley Water who explained what was going on and posted some signs to that effect. There are some flood control pipes exiting the hillside of the creek, and the hill has eroded behind the concrete sack bank. This is a two week project to reinforce that portion of the hillside.

 The nets here are for keeping the fish out of the construction area because they are going to pump the area dry and put some temporary gates in to block the water flow. The nets have nothing to with debris - they make much more sense as fish nets.

Here is the posting of the construction activities just north of Agnew.

In either case, I still don't know who cleared up all the debris from under the bridge. The man from Valley Water didn't know either but didn't deny the possibility it could have been his crew. If anyone knows, please let me know. I would like to thank them.

Without further ado, here is game day, with kick-off set for 1:25pm.

Toyota Gate F on Tasman - the local street traffic was pretty good. Also, the staff, officers, and fans were all low key and in good spirits. It was a very well run operation.

This is looking at the same Toyota Gate F from a different perspective, looking east.

 Intel Gate A, same location as my suggestion from last post for an update to their advertisement. The foot traffic was pretty slow and steady.

 Here's looking south at the San Tomas Aquino Creek in the middle.

 Getting an idea of any potential source of litter - it appears that modern stadium security has a benefit of reducing the total quantity of stuff people bring in to the stadium to either a small clear tote or nothing at all. Most people had nothing except an extra layer for warmth.

 The Great America parking lot on game day.

 The municipal golf course course is a current source of quite a bit of fairground style parking, also the future home of Joe Montana's Santana Row-like super-village.

The north side of the creek continues to be pretty clean.

I also thanked the two people who I came across picking up litter - I was eager to check out the main parking lot, but I stayed out of the way of the major foot traffic zones.

All in all, I was quite impressed with the event. And the 49ers won, which made for happy fans coming back through the neighborhood after the game.