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.

Help is here! Something's Working Right!

Having contacted five city managers,  the SCPD, Santa Clara Valley Water District, in addition to the 49ers, Levi's Stadium, ABM, and Levi's Strauss, I still have not heard who cleaned up the stadium last week, and who now, as of yesterday, cleaned up a good batch of the horrendous trash from the first rain. However, I'm pretty sure the most recent cleanup is the Water District.

 I won't say the creek is now stupendously clean, but this is a pretty awesome start considering it was a total mess just this Thursday. Someone also disposed of the kiddie pool and big trash cans I pulled from the creek and placed in TUV's parking lot off of Mission.

 Look how much better this looks! If this were the first image you saw, one might take note of how much debris is still there. But take a look at Thursday's pile and please recognize how much better this is. That 5" fish I saw and his friends now have a chance to go upstream, plus all those leaking paint cans are gone. FYI, this location is the Agnew bridge over the creek.

 

Check it out! Debris nets. Someone put these up in the last 24 hours and no more than 24 hours after the previous blog posting. This is the first one, close to the bridge over Agnew.

On the far left is a second net downstream from the first. Now, I'm going to have to make a guess that this is the Santa Clara Valley Water District. Thanks, people! I think that the people that cleaned up the debris and put in the nets were probably not intending to do that with their day. My guess is their day job right now is fixing all the flood control gates and pipes, preventing erosion of the hills of those pipes, etc. Probably a machine operator crew, plus some heavy lifters for the sandbags. If I had to guess, these same people were asked nicely to cleanup the horrible mess right near where they were working, and this crew came through. Thank you! Because I still haven't heard from anyone or any city department, this is only a guess.

Snowy Egret just chilling with a tarp that floated by.

A bazillion tiny fish were in all the 6-12" deep semi-still areas. These were hanging out around one of the flood control pipe inlets.

Went by the stadium before tomorrow's game. A bit of leftover debris from Thursday floating still under the Hetch Hetchy pipes: 2x4s, some bottles, and some spray paint cans. Nothing like Thursday, though.

Since after two events of litter the majority of trash comes from everywhere besides the stadium, I figured my suggested wording from my first post could use an update.

We can move the big bold suggestion from Dignity Health Gate C to SAP Tower Gate B.

Thankfully, the north side of the stadium continues to be very clean. I worry if there is a strong rain for two or three days - often flooding the creek to just a few feet below the top of the path - that anything and everything I saw and didn't see will go straight to the bay at a rapid clip.

More subtle suggestions - perhaps rewording the Intel ad on the left could inspire people?

Whoever is doing this, thank you again. I have much hope now after a bit of despair on Thursday. People are being proactive: in just a day's work the stadium litter was cleaned last Saturday, and a big chunk of first rain flooding trash was picked up yesterday or today.

One suggestion to those who put the debris nets out. I think those were probably the best things on hand judging by them being held down by the sandbags used on that hillside. However, when a big rain comes, (for California's sake I hope it does) that water line is going to exceed the net height by several feet.

Doing a little homework this evening, a company called Elastec makes some pretty neat Trash and Debris Exclusion Barriers. I don't know what the pricing is on these, but the company's in Illinois and here is their email address. Elastec's phone is 1 (618) 382-2525.

Getting a few of these and draping them across the length of the creek, anchored near the high water line would allow them to float to whatever water level and catch this stuff. I imagine the people at this company can probably explain exactly how to use these things.

If these were placed in the creek every mile or two or three, not only would it distribute the debris loading, but it might also help locate where a popular dumping site is if there are no other resources to perform that work.

Again, if anyone would like to contact any number of relevant authorities, I have posted two batches of contact info, one from my first blog post and one from my last post.

Whoever is doing this work. Thank you. Many more people than just me appreciate it.

Finding endgame solutions and making proactive efforts are happening, and that is exciting. Let's see what tomorrow's event brings.

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.

The Creek is Clean!

Twitter

Also, new website for easier remembering and sharing (it redirects to this blog):

www.levislitterbugs.com

I was unable to be at this creek during the 2014 Coastal Cleanup Day due to prior scheduling of cleaning up a different set of waters. However, look how great the San Tomas Aquino Creek looks one week after the first official 49ers football game! Many thanks to the someone or many someones who came out to clean the creek this weekend whether they were volunteers or stadium staff - that I don't know yet.

This is what I saw on this morning's bike to work, September 22. It is much better than last week.

 A flower is blooming quite happily a little south from the stadium with basically no litter in sight.

 This black squirrel was the first critter I saw when I got to the creek this morning.

 Low tide today - I'm never quite sure just how far inland the tide gets, but Alviso supposedly gets up to an 11' swing from low to high tide, suggesting the bay waters get pretty far down here. Last time this area was pretty clear of any litter - it's nice to see it's stayed that way.

Look! No trash!

Look how clean this area is - there even isn't a whole lot of "micro-trash" I saw last time.

For those of you who don't remember, here is what it looked like last Wednesday, September 17.

 

Granted, it wasn't perfect - this was near one of the bridges, but this one can't be blamed on a mass influx of stadium traffic.

 

Nor can this Little-Tikes kiddie chair - this looks like it's been there a while and showed itself again at low tide.

 A great blue heron came out to play this morning with the ducks and great egret and snowy egret.

I won't hold my breath quite yet, for another game is this Sunday, and there will be no Coastal Cleanup day the following Saturday. Unless, of course all the marvelous cleanup work was done by the stadium staff - then who knows?

Thanks again, mystery cleanup crew! Your efforts are greatly appreciated.

Check out last week to compare.